Part 38

And in all known worlds, these chemical changes are at work unceasingly. We know not whether those worlds are all inhabited, but we have evidence that all are undergoing the transmutations of chemistry; not on their surface merely, but in their deep interior. The consequence is, universal change; change often upon a vast scale; change extending through thousands and millions of years, and through the entire mass of immense worlds. We have glanced, in these lectures, at the most important of those changes which this world has undergone, and we have seen it to be almost universal. We have found that the entire crust of the globe, many miles in thickness, and probably to its centre, has been dissolved by heat, and much of it also by water; that a large part of it, at least, has, by the same chemistry, been made to constitute portions of the animal frame; that, even now, much of its interior is held in igneous solution, and that probably the time was when its entire mass was a molten, self-luminous world. Indeed, the conjecture is not without some foundation, which carries back this chemical action one step farther, and makes the world originally a diffused mass of nebula.

At this point of the argument, geology appeals to astronomy, to show how widely this principle of chemical change has operated, and still operates, in the universe. We look first at the nebulae; for here we probably find matter in its most chaotic and attenuated form, constituting self-luminous, diffused masses of vapor. In some of them, however, that matter has begun to condense, doubtless by the radiation of its heat. In the comets, we find probably similar matter, some of it still farther advanced in the process of condensation, so that perhaps a nearly solid nucleus may exist. In the sun and fixed stars, the condensation has gone on so far that cohesive attraction begins to operate, the latent heat of the vapor is extricated, and melted luminous worlds are the result. Around them, however, there probably still floats a wide atmosphere of the more elastic materials, which the heat dissipates, of which the zodiacal light, perhaps, furnishes us with an example. The nebulosity which surrounds the asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, and Astrea, renders it probable that, though they have advanced so far in the process of refrigeration as to become opaque, they may still retain heat enough to dissipate much of their substance. Still farther advanced towards the condition of a habitable world is the moon; and yet volcanic desolation covers its surface. Not improbably Jupiter is nearly surrounded with a fluid like water, and Saturn by a fluid lighter than water--being still farther advanced towards the condition of the earth.

I acknowledge that these are but slight glimpses of the geology and chemistry of other worlds. And yet, taken in connection with the geological history of our own globe, do they not furnish us with some extremely probable examples of those changes to which our earth has been subject? They show us that worlds may exist in the form of vapor, and that some are actually at this time in the various conditions through which geology supposes this world to have passed. Do we not, in these examples, gather strong intimations of a great law of chemical change in the universe? Gaseous matter, so far as we know, appears to have been the earliest state of the universe; and then, by the agency of heat, it passes through the successive changes of liquid and solid, which have been described.

The chemical changes that take place on the earth, under our immediate cognizance, through the agency of water, usually proceed, under favorable circumstances, in a cycle; that is, the substance, after passing through a series of changes, returns at length into the same condition from which it started. Thus aqueous vapor, by the loss of heat, is first converted into water, next into ice, and then, by the access of heat, into water again, and at last into vapor. The question naturally arises, whether those mutations, through which worlds are passing, may not form a similar cycle. We are able to trace them through several steps, from gaseous to liquid, and from the liquid to the solid; and we are assured, on the testimony of Scripture, that the next change of the earth will be from solid to liquid. And in those stars which in past ages have suddenly broken forth with remarkable splendor, and then disappeared, may we not have examples of other worlds burnt up,--not annihilated,--but deluged by fire, and either dissipated or again cooled? What changes, if any, will succeed the final conflagration of the globe, neither science nor revelation informs us.

Yet, if the laws of nature respecting heat are not entirely altered, other changes must follow; and we have seen, in a former lecture, that those changes are perfectly consistent with our ideas of heaven, and that they may, in fact, enhance the happiness of heaven. They may go on forever; in which case, we can hardly doubt but they would form a cycle, though how wide the circuit we cannot conjecture; or they may, at least, reach an unchanging state. I confess, however, that the idea of perpetual change corresponds best with the analogies of the existing universe; and in eternity, as well as in time, it may form an essential element of happiness.

In this world, too, this unceasing change, though it presents at first view a strong tendency to ruin, is, in fact, the grand conservative principle of material things. In a world of life and motion like ours, it is impossible that bodies, especially organic bodies, should not be sometimes subject to violent disarrangements and destruction from the mechanical agencies which exist; and were no chemical changes possible, ultimate and irremediable ruin must be the result. But the chemical powers, inherent in matter, soon bring forth new forms of beauty from the ruins; and, in fact, throughout all nature, the process of renovation usually counterbalances that of destruction; and thus far, indeed, the former has done more than this; for every time nature has changed her dress in past ages, she has put on more lovely robes, and a fresher countenance. Can we doubt that this same principle of change, operating, as it does, on a stupendous scale through the universe, is one of the great means of its preservation? It seems, indeed, paradoxical to say that instability is the basis of stability. But I see not why it is not literally true; and I can hardly doubt but this principle is superior to the laws of gravity--superior to every other law, in fact, for giving permanence and security to the universe.

It is true that, in the case of man, connected as diminution and decay are with the curse denounced on sin, they assume, in his view, a melancholy aspect; and the perishable nature of all created things has ever been viewed by the sentimentalist with sad emotions.

"What does not fade? The tower that long had stood The crush of thunder, and the warring winds, Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time, Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base; And flinty pyramids and walls of brass Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk; Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down. Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones; And tottering empires rush by their own weight. This huge rotundity we tread grows old, And all those worlds that roll around the sun. The sun himself shall die, and ancient night Again involve the desolate abyss."--_Akenside._

If we turn now our thoughts away from man's dissolution, and think how speedily chemical power will raise nature out of her grave, in renovated and increased beauty, this universal tendency to decay puts on the aspect of a glorious transformation. We connect the changes around us with those which have taken place in the great bodies of the universe; we see them all to be but parts of a far-reaching plan of the Deity, by which the stability of the world is maintained, and its progressive improvement secured. When we look forward, fancy kindles at the developments of divine power, wisdom, and benevolence which will in this manner be made in the round of eternal ages. We see that what our ignorance had mistaken for a defect in nature is, in fact, a great conservative principle of the universe, which Newton did not discover because geology had not yet unfolded her record.

Such are the developments of the divine character and plans unfolded to us by geology. Compare them now with the views which have hitherto prevailed. The common opinion has been, and still, indeed, is, that about six thousand years ago this earth, and, in fact, the whole material universe, were spoken into existence in a moment of time; and that, in a few thousand more, they will, by a similar fiat, be swept from existence, and be no more. On the other hand, geology places the time when the matter of the universe was created out of nothing at an epoch indefinitely but immensely remote. Since that epoch, this matter has passed through a multitude of changes, and been the seat of numerous systems of organic life, unlike one another, yet all linked together into one great system by a most perfect unity; each minor system being most beautifully adapted to its place in the great chain, and yet each successive link becoming more and more perfect. Nor does geology admit that any evidence exists of the future annihilation of the material universe; but rather of other changes, by which new and brighter displays of divine wisdom and benevolence shall be brought out, it may be in endless succession. Geology is not, indeed, insensible to the displays of the divine character which are exhibited on the present theatre of the world. Indeed, she distinctly recognizes the act which is now passing as the most perfect of all. Yet this scene of the great drama she regards as only one of the units of a similar series of changes that have gone by or will hereafter come; the chain stretching so far into the eternity that is past and the eternity that is to come, that the extremities are lost to mortal vision.

Do any shrink back from these immense conclusions, because they so much surpass the views they have been accustomed to entertain respecting the beginning and the end of the material universe? But why should they be unwilling to have geology liberalize their minds as much in respect to duration as astronomy has done in respect to space? Perhaps it is a lingering fear that the geological views conflict with revelation. Such fears formerly kept back many from giving up their souls to the noble truths of astronomy. But they learnt, at length, that astronomy merely illustrates, and does not oppose, revelation. It showed men how to understand certain passages of sacred writ respecting the earth and heavenly bodies which they had before misinterpreted. Just so is it with geology. There is no collision between its statements and revelation. It only enables us more correctly to interpret some portions of the Bible; and then, when we have admitted the new interpretation, it brings a flood of light upon the plans and attributes of Jehovah. Geology, therefore, should be viewed, as it really is, the auxiliary both of natural and revealed religion. And when its religious relations are fully understood, theology, I doubt not, will be as anxious to cultivate its alliance as she has been fearful of it in days past.

"Shall it any longer be said," remarks Dr. Buckland, "that a science which unfolds such abundant evidence of the being and attributes of God, can reasonably be viewed in any other light than as the efficient auxiliary and handmaid of religion? Some few there still may be whom timidity, or prejudice, or want of opportunity, allow not to examine its evidence; who are alarmed by the novelty, or surprised by the magnitude and extent, of the views which geology forces on their attention; and who would rather have kept closed the volume of witness which has been sealed up for ages beneath the surface of the earth than to impose on the student in natural theology the duty of studying its contents--a duty in which, for lack of experience, they may anticipate a hazardous or laborious task, but which, by those engaged in it, is found to be a rational, and righteous, and delightful exercise of the highest faculties in multiplying the evidence of the existence, and attributes, and providence of God. The alarm, however, which was excited by the novelty of its first discoveries, has well nigh passed away; and those to whom it has been permitted to be the humble instruments of their promulgation, and who have steadily persevered, under the firm conviction that 'truth can never be opposed to truth,' and that the works of God, when rightly understood, and viewed in their true relations, and from a right position, would at length be found to be in perfect accordance with his word, are now receiving their high reward in finding difficulties vanish, objections gradually withdrawn, and in seeing the evidences of geology admitted into the list of witnesses to the truth of the great fundamental doctrines of theology."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, vol. i. p. 593.

Such, then, in conclusion of the subject, is the religion of geology. It has been described as a region divided between the barren mountains of scepticism and the putrid fens and quagmires of infidelity and atheism; producing only a gloomy and a poisonous vegetation; covered with fogs, and swept over by pestilential blasts. But this report was made by those who saw it at a distance. We have found it to be a land abounding in rich landscapes, warmed by a bright sun, blest with a balmy atmosphere, covered by noble forests and sweet flowers, with fruits savory and healthful. We have ascended its lofty mountains, and there have we been greeted with prospects of surpassing loveliness and overwhelming sublimity. In short, nowhere in the whole world of science do we find regions where more of the Deity is seen in his works. To him whose heart is warmed by true piety, and whose mind has broken the narrow shell of prejudice, and can grasp noble thoughts, these are delightful fields through which to wander. More and more they must become the favorite haunts of such hearts and such minds. For there do views open upon the soul, respecting the character and plans of the Deity, as large and refreshing as those which astronomy presents. Nay, in their practical bearing, these views are far more important. Mechanical philosophy introduces an unbending and unvarying law between the Creator and his works; but geology unveils his providential hand, cutting asunder that law at intervals, and planting the seeds of a new economy upon a renovated world. We thus seem to be brought into near communion with the infinite mind. We are prepared to listen to his voice when it speaks in revelation. We recognize his guiding and sustaining agency at every step of our pilgrimage. And we await in confident hope and joyful anticipation those sublime manifestations of his character and plans, and those higher enjoyments which will greet the pure soul in the round of eternal ages.

LECTURE XIV.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH, RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD, IS RELIGIOUS TRUTH.

The connection between science and religion has ever been a subject of deep interest to enlightened and reflecting minds. Too often, however, up to the present time, has the theologian, on the one hand, looked with jealousy upon science, fearful that its influence was hurtful to the cause of true religion; while, on the other hand, the philosopher, in the pride of a sceptical spirit, has scorned an alliance between science and theology, and even fancied many a discrepancy. Both these opinions are erroneous; and disastrously have they operated, as well upon science as upon religion. The position which I take, and which I shall endeavor to maintain, is, that _scientific truth, rightly understood, is religious truth_.

The proposition may be misunderstood at its first announcement, but I hope, ere its examination be finished, to satisfy you that it is true; and if so, that it ought to reconcile religion to science, and science to religion.

In arriving at correct conclusions concerning this statement, much will depend on the meaning which we attach to the phrase _religious truth_. Religion is properly defined to be piety towards God. This piety implies two things: first, a correct knowledge of God; and secondly, the exercise of proper affections in view of that knowledge. The former constitutes the theoretic part of religion, and is investigated solely by the understanding. The latter constitutes the practical part of religion, and depends much upon the will, the heart, or the moral powers of man. All truth, therefore, which illustrates the divine character or government, or which tends to produce right affections towards God, is properly denominated religious truth. If, then, I can show that all scientific truth, rightly understood, has one or both of these effects, it will follow that it is strictly religious truth.

Scientific truth is but another name for the laws of nature. And a law of nature is merely the uniform mode in which the Deity operates in the created universe. It follows, then, that science is only a history of the divine operations in matter and mind.

In order to avoid mistake, we must make a distinction between the principles of science, and the application of those principles to the useful arts of life. The principles themselves are an illustration of the divine wisdom and benevolence, but their application to the arts illustrates the ingenuity and wisdom of man. At the most, therefore, the latter only indirectly and remotely exhibits the character of the Deity, while the former directly shows forth his perfections.

I now proceed to establish my general proposition, by showing, in the first place, that _all scientific truth is adapted to prove the existence or to illustrate the perfections of the Deity_.

After all that has been written on the subject of natural theology, by such men as Newintyt, Ray, Derham, Wollaston, Clarke, Butler, Tucker, Paley, Chalmers, Crombie, Brown, Brougham, Harris, M'Cosh, and the authors of the Bridgewater Treatises, I need not surely go into details to prove that science in general is a great storehouse of facts to illustrate the divine perfections and government. It is, indeed, a vast repository, from which materials have been drawn on which to build the argument for the divine existence and character. Efforts have been made, it is true, in modern times, to show that the whole argument from design is inconclusive. It is said, that though the operations of nature seem to show design and contrivance, they need no higher powers than those that exist in nature itself. They do not prove the existence of an independent personal agent, separate from the material world. Animals, and even plants, possess an inherent power of adapting themselves to circumstances; and may not a higher exercise of this same power explain all the operations of nature without any other Deity?

This argument appears to me to be utterly set aside by the following considerations: In the first place, there is no power inherent in vegetable or animal natures which can properly be called the power of contrivance and design, except so far as it exists in their minds. All other examples show merely the operation of impulse, or instinct, and will not at all explain that wide-reaching contrivance and design which cause all the operations of nature to conspire to certain great results, and to constitute one, and only one, great system. In the second place, the operations of intellect furnish us with the only examples in nature of that kind of contrivance and design which must have arranged and adapted the parts of the universe. But in the third place, no intellect, within our knowledge, is capacious enough to have contrived and arranged the universe. Indeed, to the capacity of that mind which could have done this we can assign no limits, and, therefore, infer it to be infinite. In other words, we infer the existence of the Deity. In the fourth place, the whole force of this argument rests upon the supposed uniformity of nature. For no one imagines that there exists at present, in nature, any power of contrivance and design sufficient to work a miracle; in other words, to introduce new races of animals and plants. "Could this uniformity once be broken up," says an ingenious expositor of this atheistic argument, "could this rigid order be once infringed for a good and manifest reason, it would change the whole face of the argument. Could we see the sun stand still in heaven, that the wicked might be overthrown, then should we be assured of a personal power with a distinct will, whose agents and ministers these laws were. Such an event would be a miracle. But if such events have happened, they are not a part of nature; it is not nature that tells us of them, and it is only with her that we are at present concerned."--_President Hopkins, Quarterly Observer_, Oct. 1833, p. 309.

Geology, however, does reveal to us miracles of stupendous, import, miracles of creation, which infinite power and wisdom alone could have produced. Hence, if the testimony of that science be admitted, this reasoning can no longer stand the test of examination, and it must be acknowledged that the argument for God's existence from design, which has ever been so satisfactory to every mind not clouded by metaphysics, is left standing on an immovable foundation.

To return to the point from which we started: it is not necessary, I say, to go into a detailed examination of each particular science, and show how its principles prove and illustrate the being and attributes of the Deity, for the work has already been done more ably and thoroughly than I can do it, and admitted by all, save the few who reject the argument from design altogether. There are a few sciences, however, which have been hitherto chiefly passed by, because they were not supposed capable of throwing any light of consequence upon theology. Let us see whether these sciences are as barren of religious interest as has been supposed.

Geology is a branch of knowledge, which, a few years ago, would have been at once selected as not only destitute of any important religious applications, but as of a positively injurious tendency; and even now, such is the feeling probably of a majority of the religious world. True, it touches religion, natural and revealed, at many points; but so novel and startling are its conclusions, that they are thought to unsettle more minds than they confirm. They fall in with many of the views of scepticism, and especially confirm its doubts concerning the age of the world, and compel the religious man to give up long-cherished opinions upon this point, and on other collateral subjects. But we have gone into a careful examination of the religious applications of this science, and have we not found it most fertile in its illustrations both of natural and revealed religion? Let us just recapitulate the conclusions at which we have arrived.