they worship before the mercy-seat of Jehovah. Then coming forth to exercise their office, they consecrate every school of thought, every lecture room, as temples in which are expounded the will, the design, the work of Him in whom they live, and move, and have their being. "Bless'd are they Who in this fleshy world, the elect of Heaven, S. T. Coleridge, Religious Musings. STUDY IIÍ. THE THRESHOLD OF CREATION. "Thou from primeval nothingness didst call First chaos, then existence ;-Lord, on Thee Spring forth from Thee; of light, joy, harmony, SIR J. BOWRING. "The Universe is too vast for our comprehension." SOME of us limit, and lightly toy with the Creator's attributes; profess to scale the awful heights of infinity, and build a godless world by means of mechanism devised by human intellect. It is vain-we cannot so build, nor thus ascend ; the genesis of an atom is not less mysterious than the birth of a planet. No doubt a particle of matter is less complex than the universe, but that particle, all in all, is infinite. This particle and that universe are not known as they exist in themselves, but as our senses represent them; consequently, it is impossible to know what matter is, whether it really has any action of its own, or prove that "it is the origin of all that exists." It is simply preposterous to imagine that we shall ever scientifically trace the continuity of molecular processes into the phenomena of consciousness, and materially explain how our consciousness, by means of imagination, makes itself at home in other and far-distant worlds. Thinking thereby to honour the Almighty, some men speak of the universe as created by the breath, fashioned by the touch, and launched from the hand of God: likening Him to a mechanic, and His work to a machine. Whereas, the phenomena of the world, and the vast synthesis of energies within us, in manifold contact with vaster energies E without us, can only be known as affecting our consciousness; therefore, to say that Divine energy produced the world by methods analogous to human methods, is to err with materialists who pretend to measure and explain the whole of Nature's operation by their own physical conception. Scripture so describes that portion of the Divine dominions with which we are connected, that for a long time most men thought it was brought suddenly into existence, and has remained substantially unaltered. The error arose from a peculiar form of the narrative. Past, present, future, are spoken of as the now-the present. Things to come are often regarded as already existing. The slow operation of ages is not unfrequently represented as of immediate and quick performance. In prophecy, in poetry, in mystical passages, in parables, the same style prevails. It represents, we conceive, the aspect in which things appear to the Eternal; but we are also informed that the Father worketh till now; of creative processes proceeding in many other planets, suns, systems; and we lay aside our childlike conceptions; acknowledge that the works of the Almighty are continuous, progressive, infinite. Infinity and Eternity are seen in creation. Think of time hasting away, preceded and followed evermore and evermore by other time; which, however retraced as to the past, attains no beginning; or, extended into the future, finds no end. Represent space enveloping smaller space, itself enclosed by greater and ever greater; yet, wherever the boundary is set, infinity lies beyond, containing all, itself by none contained. Contemplate existences manifold in number, form, degree, vast movements of worlds innumerable. Adding billions of cycles to the past, we are still far off from that beginning when worlds had birth (John i. 1–3). Chastened by these conceptions, enter the Threshold of Creation. Time is measured by the world's changes, and all duration is comprised in two series-the past and the future. Add these together, they form time-not eternity. As to space, we conceive of it as involving (we know not why) the essential element of three dimensions; but mathematicians are undecided as to whether it has precisely the same properties throughout the universe. An inhabitant in space Space and Time. 51 of two dimensions would be incapable of appreciating the third dimension, but might feel a difference in passing from his space to portions more curved. "So it is possible that in the rapid march of the solar system through space, we may be gradually passing to regions in which space has not precisely the same properties as we find here-where it may have something in three dimensions analogous to curvature in two dimensions—something, in fact, which will necessarily imply a fourth-dimension change of form in portions of matter, in order that they may adapt themselves to their new locality." 1 Now, with God, the universe is not dual nor fragmentary, but an infinite whole. As to space and time, they correspond relatively with the Infinity and Eternity of God: "an infinite sphere of which the centre is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere." Hence, we conclude that God is for ever, and infinitely all that He is. Creator, He creates eternally. The world is not by caprice, by chance, by hazard, but of reason and purpose Divine. 1 "2 It is miraculous, but we are told-" Science has no room for miracles, for by miracles we understand an interference of supernatural forces in the natural course of development of matter." Again" As far as the eye of science has hitherto ranged through Nature, no intrusion of purely creative power into any series of phenomena has ever been observed." What a fib! Science knows not a millionth part of nature, and of what she does know it is certain that every moment nature is afresh maintained in every part by forces from the eternal Power. The assertion stands selfconvicted of inadequacy. It has no explanation about the origin of things. It does not and cannot formulate the whole series of changes passed through by matter in progress from the imperceptible to the perceptible, nor in return from the perceptible to the imperceptible. It begins explanations with existences which already have concrete forms, and leaves off while they retain those forms. Manifestly such existences had preceding, and will have succeeding histories. The assertion" There is no interference of supernatural forces in the course of Nature"-is based on ignorance of the 1 "Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 5: P. G. Tait, M.A. 2 Pascal: "Pensées." "The History of Creation," vol. i. p. 60: Prof. Haeckel. "Apology for the Belfast Address," p. 548. origin, the continuance, the end of things. It assumes that everything is known, when, in reality, not one thing in the world is fully known, but escapes from every research into the unknown. It forgets that "information, however extensive it may become, can never satisfy inquiry; positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region of possible thought." The protestors against miracles protest too much. Nature, as a whole, is one splendid miracle; and presents innumerable marvels, essentially mysterious. " 1 The blending of mind and matter, influence and emotion, in the bodily structure of sentient and rational creatures is a mystery. Will any one state whether Body is the necessary means of bringing Mind into relationship with space and extension, or of giving it connection with place and time? or whether Matter is essential for Emotion? Will not the explanation require explanation? What is the link joining the stupendous machinery which traverses the fields of space wherein worlds are massed into spheres, revolving with double, treble, or manifold measurement of time in diurnal and annual rotation? Have we sufficient knowledge of the cycles of seasons, of the changing eccentricity of orbits, either to take them out of, or fit them in, the purposes of universal government? Can we say whether or not the vast horology of Nature is a register to spiritual creatures? Can our knowledge occupy all this sphere? Nay, yet the mind will project itself beyond them all. Take the mechanical view: "Nature does not allow us for a moment to doubt that we have to do with a rigid chain of cause and effect, admitting of no exceptions." The theory of gravitation demonstrates that the hosts of Heaven are parts of a vast mechanism, and that the phenomena of Nature are expressible in terms of matter and motion, resolvable into the attractions and repulsions of material particles. On these principles of materialism, our mind, if sufficiently expanded, would be able to follow natural processes from beginning to end; see the molecules taking their position, by mutual specific attractions and repulsions, the whole process being the play and result of molecular force. Given a grain of wheat, an acorn, an infant, and their environment, expanded human intellect could trace out, à priori, every step of the process of growth; and, matter being given, we First Principles: " Herbert Spencer. 1 66 |