378 
Mr. Warington. — Because it was given before tlie dispersion. 
Mr. Reddie. — When, I might say, the human race was actually concentrated 
in one place ! Then Mr. Warington gives us a new scientific theory as to the 
space above the firmament. No doubt it is very ingenious, but he does not 
explain how, according to our present knowledge of meteorology, water could 
be maintained in a liquid state as a sort of sphere above the firmament — 
Mr. Warington. — I did not say a sphere. 
Mr. Reddie. — I understood you to say something of a watery sphere — 
Mr. Warington. — Nothing of the kind. 
Mr. Reddie. — Well, I will put the notion in a form still better for Mr. 
Warington. I do not propound the theory myself — it comes to me on the 
authority of the late Admiral Fitzroy and the late Sir John Lubbock. They 
had a theory that the atmosphere of the world or universe is surrounded by 
viscous or frozen air.* There you would have something solid, though of 
a watery nature, surrounding us — something like a crystalline sphere, or like 
a “ molten looking-glass,” as the sky is described in Job ; and if the air 
became so rarefied as to be viscous, perhaps you might thus have a surface 
which would reflect the light, if light is reflected rather than diffused in 
the atmosphere. 
Rev. M. Davison.— Permit me to say here, with regard to the theory 
that the globe was once entirely covered with water, we have no geological 
phenomena on which we can base such a theory. There is nothing to show 
that there was not both sea and dry land at the same time. 
Mr. Brooke. — It always gives me the most exalted idea of the unity and 
comprehensiveness of the Almighty power to suppose that that Almighty 
power, having impressed on matter certain properties, did produce a suc- 
cession of changes, solely in obedience to the action of those properties, 
extending over periods of time which I will not pretend to define, and so 
created the earth fitted for the habitation of that being who was created 
in God’s own image — man. It is true that it would be presumptuous to 
limit the power of Omnipotence ; but I would ask any one, Can he doubt 
that the creation had an object, — that it did not come of itself, — that the 
inorganic elements did not happen to fall together in this particular form ? 
No one doubts that it had an object. We cannot fail to trace beneficent 
design in every stage and portion of creation, and I cannot resist the cob- 
elusion that the earth was gradually fitted for the habitation of man. I 
would, however, protest against that being considered science which is, in 
fact, mere hypothesis. Mr. Warington says : — 
“ The Creator is resting. Nor does science stop here, but boldly comes 
forward with a reason for this inactivity. There is no need for creative 
power, for all things in the universe are so constituted, so governed by law, 
so fitted into one another, that by mutual action and reaction the whole 
machinery of the world is kept in unceasing motion, self-guided, self-adjusted, 
self-energized.” 
* Vide Journ. of Trans., vol. i. p. 105. 
