CHAPTER IV.

CREATION.--THE GENESIS OR BEGINNING.

"The laws of nature can not account for their own origin."--J. S. MILL.

Creation was the absolutely free act of God, unconditioned by any pre-existing thing. Matter with its properties and forms, its temporal, spatial, and numerical relations; Spirit with its life and feeling, its ideas and laws--these had all their origin in the creative Word of God. Whatever is, and is not God, is the creature of God. This is the Biblical conception of Creation.

Origination and formation are so immediately and inseparably united in the Biblical notion of Creation that the revelation of the one is the revelation of the other, and we can not deny the former without logically involving ourselves in the denial of the latter. He who gave to matter its forms must have given it its essential properties, upon which many of its forms depend; and He who gave to matter its essential properties must have given it _origination_, for how can we conceive of substance devoid of all attributes? Whether, therefore, the account in Genesis "be found to have in view, mainly or solely, a universal or a partial creation; whether the _principium_ there mentioned be the particular beginning of the special work there described, or the _principium principiorum_,--the beginning of all beginnings--the Bible is in either case a protest against the dogma of the eternity of the world, or of the eternity of matter."[130]

This notion of Creation as a pure supernatural origination is the only one which reason can accept as adequate, satisfactory, and complete. Formation without origination is a conception of creation which is logically incomplete. It fails to meet the demand of reason for an Absolute First Principle adequate to the production and explanation of all existence. There are outlying elements of the problem which it can not grasp in the unity of a Fundamental Idea. Matter with its properties, Number, Time, and Space, with their relations, are still lying outside of its field, and setting themselves up as self-existent and independent realities, which by their apparent or conceded independence must necessarily impose _conditions_ upon the Divine activity, and perpetually embarrass the human mind in its effort to think of God as the free and unconditioned Cause. Reason demands that absolute unity shall stand at the fountain-head of being, and every system of philosophy which allows of more than one self-existent and independent and underived reality bewilders and staggers the understanding, and vitiates all its processes of thought. After this concession every argument for the being of God seems to us a _petitio principii_.

Reason and Revelation, then, are agreed in the affirmation that the Universe, both as to its matter and form, had its origin in the creative Word and Will of God. How far this affirmation is sustained by the _à posteriori_ inductions of physical science is a question of the deepest interest, and to this we now invite attention.

This question naturally divides itself into two subordinate inquiries, one relating to the _form_, the other to the _matter_ of the universe, which may be thus presented:

1. Had the existing _Order_ of the universe a beginning? Had the forms, relations, laws, and harmonies of the universe a beginning?

2. Had that which is the ground of all forms, the subject of all changes and relations, a beginning? Had the _Matter_ of the universe a beginning?

In regard to the first question, we remark in general: _The common conviction of our race in all ages has been that the existing order of the universe had a beginning, and will have an end._

It has been affirmed by some mental philosophers that mankind has an intuitive and natural belief in the uniformity of nature, and the consequent stability and permanence of the universe. Reid, the father of the Scottish school of philosophy, says, "God has implanted in the human mind an original principle by which he believes in and expects the continuance of the course of nature." It is a matter of surprise that so acute a thinker should have fallen into so flagrant an error. He has evidently confounded our natural belief in causation with our acquired experiences of uniformity. That "like causes will always produce like effects" is a native intuition; but that "the same causes will always continue in operation, and always operate with the same intensity," is a mere presumption. Our faith in the uniformity and permanent stability of nature is an induction from experience, and not a natural and necessary intuition of the mind.[131]

Far from entertaining a belief in the permanence and stability of the present order of nature, the great mass of mankind in earlier times regarded the system of things as liable to constant interference on the part of supernatural powers. In all ages of the world the existing order of nature has been regarded as temporal, and the flow of terrestrial and even of cosmical events has been conceived as liable to be broken up by universal revolutions. The historical evidence of this universal belief in "geological catastrophes" has been fully brought forward by Dr. Winchell in his "Sketches of Creation."[132] Traditions of a primal chaos and of periodic cataclysms are found among the Greeks, Egyptians, Phœnicians, Chaldæans, Hebrews, Persians, Arabians, Hindoos, South Sea Islanders, and the Aztecs. And among those nations in which the physical sciences have been cultivated the same conceptions are still entertained. As science has extended our acquaintance with natural phenomena in all parts of the earth, and beyond the earth into the celestial spaces, men have gradually attained a belief in the uniformity of nature. But the doctrine of periodical catastrophes has not been abandoned by scientific men. When men now speak of the uniformity of nature, they use that term in a very large sense, and even loose sense, as including catastrophes and convulsions of an intense and extensive kind;[133] and, as we shall presently see, the most advanced and exact modern science teaches us to contemplate a grand final catastrophe in which all life will be extinguished on the earth, and the globe itself shall be "ensepulchred in an extinguished sun." The attempt, therefore, to represent the belief in the uniformity of nature as a universal and necessary truth is vain. We have no _à priori_ ground for believing in the permanence of the universe.

The common conviction of our race that the universe had a beginning, that it has been the subject of great catastrophal changes, and that it will finally come to an end, is not to be regarded as an insignificant fact. As Herbert Spencer justly remarks, "We must presume that beliefs that have long existed and have been widely diffused ... beliefs that are perennial and universal ... have some foundation, and some amount of verity."[134] Universal beliefs must rest on some common ground. That common ground can not be experience. A belief which was as clearly and confidently held four thousand years ago as it is held to-day can not have been gradually attained by successive generalizations. It is grounded on the fundamental antithesis between Becoming and Being, phenomena and reality, the changeful and the permanent, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, which has been a necessary form of thought to all minds in all ages. The human mind has never been able to conceive these contradictory opposites as predicable of the same subject. The universe as presented to sense is a perpetual genesis, a ceaseless change; therefore it can not be permanent. It is a time-march of phenomena; therefore it can not be eternal. It is limited by quantity and quantitative relations; therefore it can not be infinite. Thus reason has always conceived the universe as having a _beginning_, and has confidently predicted that it will come to an _end_. All systems of philosophy, and, indeed, many systems of religion, have been attempts to explain "the beginning or origin of things"--that is, they have been "_à priori_ theories of the universe."[135] Even Atheism itself comes under this definition: it is an attempt to explain the origin of the universe and of man on the _à priori_ assumption of the self-existence of Matter, Space, and Motion. Thus all systems of thought, ancient and modern, have had their birth in the innate conviction that there is something to be explained, and that human reason is adequate to the task of furnishing an explanation. They all assume that the universe had a beginning, and their one, central problem is, "How are we to conceive aright the origin of things?"

In what does this differ from the problem of modern science? It is true that Comte would limit positive science to "the study of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, resemblance, and succession," an idea which the word "positive" by no means conveys. And Tyndall asserts that "the man of science, if he confine himself within his own limits, will give no answer to the question" as to the origin of things. At the same time he admits that "he can clearly show that the present state of things _may_ be derivative."[136] The great masters of science, however, refuse to acknowledge any such arbitrary limitations. "The essence of science," says Sir William Thomson, "consists in inferring antecedent conditions, and anticipating future evolutions from phenomena which have actually come under observation."[137] If this be the _essence_ of science, then we presume that it is competent to throw some light on the primitive condition of the universe, and give some prevision of its future destiny. Did not Comte himself teach that the solar system was once all nebula, and that it will yet collapse into an exhausted and extinguished sun?[138] Is it true, then, that physical science by its inductive inference of "antecedent conditions," does really furnish a solid confirmation of the _à priori_ and native conviction of our race that the universe had a beginning? Then most assuredly even physical science is carrying us forward toward the ultimate unity of all truth--a unity which can be realized perfectly only by the constant mutual determination of _à priori_ and empirical knowledge, a synthesis and equipoise of physical and metaphysical truths.

This is the most obvious tendency of modern science in its relation to the question under consideration. Nothing is more remarkable in the present aspect of physical research than what has been aptly called "the transcendental character of its results." As George Henry Lewes observes, "the fundamental ideas of modern science are as transcendental as any of the axioms of ancient philosophy."[139] Palætiological science in general has advanced by sure and steady steps, through careful observation and experiment, inductive inference, and the application of exact mathematical calculus to the recognition of the truth long ago announced by Paul: "The things which are seen are _temporal_, the things which are not seen are _eternal_." Dynamical Geology, Astronomical Palætiology, Cosmogony, Molecular Physics, Abstract Dynamics, have all landed in the same inevitable conclusion that "the existing order of things had a beginning." Sir William Thomson's doctrine of the "Dissipation of Energy" leads us, by sure steps of deductive reasoning, to the necessary future of the universe--necessary, that is, if physical laws remain unchanged--"so it enables us distinctly to say that the present order of things has not been evolved through infinite past time by the agency of laws now at work, but must have had a _distinctive beginning_, a state beyond which we are totally unable to penetrate--a state which must have been produced by _other than the now acting causes_."[140]

The science of Geology reduces all terrestrial phenomena to the great law of finite duration. If there be one scientific induction which may be fairly pronounced legitimate and irrefragable, it is this one--that the existing terrestrial economy had a beginning. "All organic existence, recent or extinct, vegetable or animal, had a beginning; there was a time when they were not. The geologist can indicate that time, if not by years, at least by periods, and show what were its relations to the periods that went before and that came after." He can carry us back to the time when man did not exist upon the earth, when no mammals existed; to the time when no birds, no reptiles, no fishes existed--when even Huxley's protoplasm had no being; "when all creation, from its centre to its circumference, was a creation of dead inorganic matter,"[141] and when there was not one spore or monad or atom of life throughout its dark domain. The form of the earth itself clearly reveals its history, and points us to that beginning. Its bulging equator and flattened poles, its pavement of congealed lava, which in some cases we name granite; nay, the oldest water-worn pavement composed of the detritus of the igneous rocks--all attest the emergence of our planet from a molten condition, and a temperature[142] in which no life could exist; so that even Tyndall admits "there are the strongest grounds for believing that during a certain period of its history the earth was not, nor was it fit to be, the theatre of life."[143]

The earth was once a molten mass heated to incandescence--a self-luminous globe. On this point there is scarcely any difference of opinion among scientific men. Furthermore, a large majority of modern scientists regard themselves as justified in the affirmation of a still anterior nebulous condition. If the nebular hypothesis is accepted, then we are required to contemplate a period when the earth did not exist, and when even the matter which now enters into its constitution was an undistinguished part of the nebula from which the whole solar system was evolved.

Many exact observations and mathematical computations as to the secular cooling of the earth give results which are in strict accordance with this theory of its primitive igneous condition. The observed facts clearly indicate that the earth is becoming, on the whole, cooler from age to age, and that the natural current of events is carrying it inevitably to a state of total refrigeration.[144] The fossil remains now found within the arctic circle indicate that at a period, not extremely remote, tropical vegetation flourished, and forms of animal life subsisted there which are now confined to the torrid zone. Mammoths lived in the now uninhabited polar regions, and tree-ferns and the tropical shell-fish found there a home.[145] The surface of the earth was then warmed by internal heat which since that period has waned; that heat has been gradually dissipated in the surrounding space, as a red-hot ball suspended even in the warm air of a room must, according to the well-known laws of radiation and absorption, necessarily part with its heat.

Many experiments carefully conducted in our time show that the temperature of the earth increases with the depth to which we penetrate: "In boring for the artesian well at Grenelle, which is 546 metres deep, it was observed that the temperature augmented at the rate of 1° Centigrade for every 30 metres. The same result was obtained by observations in the artesian well at Mondorf, in Luxemburg; this well is 671 metres in depth, and its waters 34° warm." As the result of many investigations in mines and borings, Sir William Thomson concludes that the average inference may be thus stated--there is on the whole about 1° Fahr. of elevation of temperature per 50 British feet of descent.[146] If this increase is uniform--and we have no reason to suppose the contrary--then at the depth of 50 miles there exists, says Helmholtz, a heat sufficient to fuse all our minerals.

The fact that the temperature of the earth increases with the depth necessarily involves a continual loss of heat from its interior by conduction outward into and through the upper crust, according to a well-known law of equilibrium of temperatures. "Hence, since the upper crust does not become hotter from year to year, there must be a secular loss of heat from the earth."[147] Thus it appears that from the surface of the earth and the ocean, from thermal springs, and from three hundred active volcanoes, the internal heat of the globe is incessantly radiated into space and is practically lost.

Now this average loss of heat may be at least approximately measured, and data are thereby furnished for determining the probable _age_ of the earth, or, perhaps more correctly, its phase of life. If a man were to find a hot ball of iron suspended in a room, and if he were carefully to observe the distribution of heat in the ball, he would be able easily to determine whether the ball were becoming hotter or cooler. If he found that the inside were hotter than the outside, he would conclude that the ball was cooling, and had therefore been hotter than when he found it. So far common-sense would be his guide; but with the aid of mathematics, and some knowledge of the physical properties of iron and air, he could go much further, and be able to calculate how hot the ball must have been at any given moment, if it had not been interfered with. Thus he would be able to say, the ball must have been hung up less than, say, five hours ago, for at that time the heat of the metal would have been such that it would have been in a state of fusion, and hence not capable of hanging as a solid mass. Precisely analogous reasoning holds with regard to the earth: it is such a ball; it is hotter inside than outside. The distribution of the heat near its surface is approximately known--1° Fahr. of elevation in temperature for 50 British feet of descent.[148] The properties of the matter of which it is composed are approximately known. The temperature at which granite rocks are fusible has been found to be about 7000° Fahr. This must therefore have been the temperature of the earth in its primitive igneous condition. From these data, Sir William Thomson has, by rigid mathematical calculations, reached the conclusion that the consolidation of the earth's crust commenced 98,000,000 years ago.[149] The rates of increase of temperature _inward_ in a great amount of average rock at various periods after the commencement of cooling, from the primitive heat of 7000° Fahr., are estimated by Sir William Thomson as follows:

"At 10,000 y'rs after commencement of cooling should have 2° per ft. At 40,000 " " " " 1° " At 160,000 " " " " 1/2° " At 4,000,000 " " " " 1/10° " At 100,000,000 " " " " 1/50° "

It is therefore probable that for the last 96,000,000 years the rate of increase of temperature under ground has gradually diminished from 1/10 to about 1/50 of a degree Fahrenheit per foot, and that the thickness of the crust through which any stated degree of cooling has been experienced has gradually increased during that period from 1/5 of its present thickness to what it now really is."[150]

We freely admit our inability to sit in judgment on the validity of Sir William Thomson's conclusions. There are eminent geologists who entertain the opinion that the secular cooling of the earth has proceeded with much greater rapidity. It is, however, sufficient for our purpose that the most distinguished physicists of the day are agreed in teaching that _the existing terrestrial economy had a beginning_.

There are other terrestrial changes which engage the attention of the geologist, and which force upon him the conclusion that the existing terrestrial order had a beginning and must have an end. The surface of the earth has at intervals undergone great changes in the disposition of its land and water. That which is now dry land was once the ocean-bed, and the ocean waves now roll and murmur over what was once dry land. Sudden, or comparatively sudden, catastrophes have extinguished the then existing creations, and the earth has been repeopled by new orders of life. Changes are now in progress which are gradually reducing the populous regions of the earth to the condition of the Sahara of Africa and the Desert of Arabia. Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, the seat of the ancient monarchies of Chaldæa, Assyria, and Babylonia, now present "vast tracts of arid plain--yellow, parched, and sapless--which have now become a bare and uninhabited desert." That ancient continent drained by the Colorado, once as fertile as the Valley of the Mississippi, is now the Great American Desert. "Every freshet burdens the streams with a load of sediment; and the Mississippi bears daily to the Gulf material sufficient for a cotton plantation. From the slopes of the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, from the broad acres over which the Mississippi and the Ohio reach their silver fingers to filch from the land, the sediments are stolen and carried away to the sea. The Western States are slowly traveling toward the Gulf. The hills are melting, and even the mountain cliffs are lowering under the ceaseless conflict with storm and frost. The summits of the Alleghanies have come down 3000 feet from their original altitudes. Give time enough, and the inequalities of the land will disappear. The ocean will be filled, and again assert a triumph over the continents which in the beginning were wrested from his dominion." Thus by the storms of heaven, the erosion of the atmosphere, the blasting power of frost, the gnawing of the tidal wave, the mountains are being leveled, and the rocks and soils carried onward by the rivers to fill up the basin of the sea. The headlong rush of the avalanche, the murmuring of the brook, the roaring of the sea, the voice of the storm--all proclaim, "The things which are seen are temporal!"--"The existing order of things had a beginning and must come to an end!"[151]

Astronomical Palætiology reduces all celestial phenomena to the same great law of finite duration. It teaches that planets, stars, systems, have their birth, their process of formation, their maturity, and their slow, protracted decay. The ephemeron perishes in an hour, man endures his three-score years and ten; continents and islands have their ages and æons; the stars of heaven are not exempt from this universal law of change and decay. According to the Nebular Hypothesis, the formation of this our system of sun, planets, and satellites was a process of the same kind as that which is still going forward in the heavens. One after another, nebulæ condense into separate masses, which begin to revolve about each other in obedience to dynamical laws, and form systems of which our system is a matured example. The present aspect of this planetary system is, however, but a passing phase in the history of its fleeting life. Our planet was once a self-luminous orb; it has now become opaque, and shines only with a borrowed light. The moon is probably in a state of total refrigeration; its lunar air and lunar seas have been changed by intensity of cold into the solid form.[152] The sun itself is radiating heat into space in quantities incomparably greater than it receives, and, as Helmholtz affirms, "the inexorable laws of mechanics show that its store of heat must be finally exhausted."[153] The planets in their motions encounter resistance from the interstellar ether; they must, therefore, necessarily move in shorter and shorter orbits, and at last fall into the sun. Thus the Nebular Hypothesis, combined with the doctrine of a resisting medium, teaches us that the solar system is wending its way, through successive changes, from a past of vaporous unity to a future of consolidated reunion. "It was once all nebula; it will, if left to physical agencies alone, collapse into an extinguished and exhausted sun."

The astronomer who has been accustomed to regard every question relating to his favorite science as almost exclusively a problem in mathematics, will pronounce the above "a crude and adventurous" attempt on the part of the physicist to solve a problem which belongs to "the calculus of variations." Is the universe a Conservative or a Dissipative system? Under its present laws will it run on forever, or will these very laws in the end lead to its subversion? Will the mechanism of the heavens finally run down as surely as the weights of a clock run down to their lowest position, or are we authorized on scientific grounds to assert the permanent stability of the solar system? This question has been earnestly discussed by the most distinguished astronomers since the days of Newton. Until recently, the general conclusion--reached mainly on mathematical grounds--seems to have been that the universe is a thoroughly conservative system, and that the celestial machinery by a species of perpetual motion will run on forever. But must not all applied mathematical reasoning obtain its data from the exact observation of material facts? The mathematician must also be a good natural philosopher; he must lay his account with all the facts of the universe, otherwise his symbols have no contents, and his reasoning, however faultless in its processes, will be fallacious in its results. The discoveries of the present century respecting the correlation of the various forms of energy, the nature of the solar light and heat, the motions of comets, and especially the new doctrine of the "Dissipation of Energy," have introduced new elements into the great problem, which seem to indicate that gravitation is by no means the only force by which the motions of the heavenly bodies are influenced, and that causes are now in operation which are slowly but surely undermining the system. We now find, therefore, such high authorities as Whewell, Sir John Herschel, Sir William Thomson, Balfour Stewart, Prof. Maxwell, Dr. J. R. Mayer, Helmholtz, Tyndall, Littrow, Comte, Adolph Fick, asserting that the solar system is not a self-winding clock which may run forever, but that it is a dissipative system which must ultimately lose all motion, unless some power capable of controlling the laws of material nature interfere to preserve it. We have no more valid reason for concluding that the Deity intended the system should be eternal than that He intended the earthly life of man should be eternal.[154] A few general statements may assist the reader in appreciating the merits of the discussion.

It has been observed since the dawn of science that changes are taking place in the motions of the heavenly bodies. The eccentricity of the earth's orbit has been gradually diminishing from the earliest observations to the present time. The moon, also, has been moving faster and faster from the time of the first recorded eclipses, and is now in advance by about four times her own breadth of what her place would have been had she not been affected by these accelerations.[155] In a few thousand years she will be half a month ahead of the place she would be in if her month were to remain constant. The moon is, therefore, approaching closer and closer to the earth; and if these changes go on uninterruptedly, without any reaction or adjustment, sooner or later the final catastrophe must come, and the moon be precipitated on the body of the earth.

Toward the close of the last century, Laplace, in his great work, the "Méchanique Céleste," attempted by certain mathematical computations to show that, nevertheless, the solar system is stable and permanent. The planets, by their mutual attractions, produce perpetual perturbations in one another's movements. Laplace believed he could prove that these were periodic; they reach a maximum value and then diminish, oscillating between very narrow extremes. He therefore taught that the machine would go on by a kind of perpetual motion, without any winding up or adjustment from without; and, consequently, the eternal continuance of the solar system is insured.

All the investigations of Laplace, and the computations of Lagrange, proceeded on two assumptions: first, that the planets are moving _in vacuo_; and, secondly, that they are solid throughout their entire mass. The latter assumption is certainly in conflict with well-determined geological facts; and there is no _à priori_ ground for assuming that the planetary spaces are void and empty. On the contrary, the general analogies of nature would lead us to the very opposite conclusion, and all attempts at producing a perfect vacuum have hitherto failed. Furthermore, the great body of modern physicists, and nearly all modern astronomers, hold that the celestial spaces are filled with a "material ether," which must by its very nature offer some resistance to planetary motion.

"Scientific men," says Mayer, "do not doubt the existence of such an ether." The presence of such "material ether--dense, elastic, and capable of motion--subject to and determined by mechanical laws,"[156] is demanded for the explanation of radiant heat, light, and actinism. No other theory ever proposed has so beautifully and completely accounted for all the facts. Its reality must be admitted, until the positions established by Huyghens, Young, Fresnel, Foucault, and Fiziau are shown to be untenable. All the prominent experimental physicists of the present day agree in teaching that light and heat are transmitted by vibrations or wave-like motions in a material medium universally diffused through space, and permeating all material bodies. Light and heat are the ceaseless thrill which the distant orbs collectively create in the ether, and which constitute what has been called the _temperature of space_. If the existence of such material medium as the assumed ether be denied, we can not account in any conceivable or rational manner for the transmission of light and heat from the sun. And now, if the space between the celestial bodies contain no other matter than that necessary for the transmission of light, "that alone," says Littrow, "is sufficient, in the course of time, to alter the motion of the planets, and the arrangements of the solar system itself; the fall of all the planets and comets into the sun, and the destruction of the present state of the solar system, must be the final result of this action."[157]

But it is further claimed by Helmholtz, Mayer, and Sir William Thomson that the phenomena presented by Encke's comet furnish "direct proof" of the existence of such resisting medium. The observations on this comet made during the past thirty or forty years show that the periods of its revolution are continually diminishing at the rate of 0.11° per revolution of nearly 3-1/3 years. In other words, the comet's mean distance from the sun is diminishing by slow and regular degrees. The solution which Encke himself proposed, and which Herschel informs us "is generally received,"[158] is that resistance is experienced from the medium in which the comet moves; such resistance diminishing its actual velocity and also its centrifugal force, thus giving the sun greater power to draw it nearer. It will, therefore, fall into the sun. A similar fate, says Helmholtz, threatens all the planets. "The analogies of nature, and the ascertained facts of physical science, forbid us to doubt that _every star_, and, indeed, _every body of every kind_ moving in any part of space, has its relative motion impeded by the air, gas, vapor, medium, or whatever we call the substance occupying space immediately around them, just as the motion of a rifle-bullet is impeded by the resistance of the air."[159]

There are also indirect resistances, the effects of tidal friction, on all bodies which, like the earth, have portions of their free surfaces covered by liquids, which, so long as these bodies move relatively to neighboring bodies, must keep drawing off energy from their relative motions. "Thus, if we consider the action of the moon on the earth, with its oceans, lakes, and rivers, we perceive that it must tend to equalize the period of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the revolution of the two bodies about their centre of inertia; because, so long as these periods differ, the tidal action of the earth's surface must keep subtracting energy from their motions."[160] As the tidal wave sweeps over the oceans and rushes into the numerous bays and estuaries, the motions which it produces in the waters necessarily involve an expenditure of power or _vis viva_ in overcoming the resistance from friction. The energy of motion thus expended must be drawn from the set of machinery which produces the motions--that is, from the motion of revolution of the moon, and the motion of rotation of the earth. It can not be returned to the machinery, because all that is not spent in triturating the sand and other materials composing the ocean-bed, is transformed into heat and radiated into space.

It is true that in the present state of science we have not exact data for estimating the relative importance of tidal friction, and of the resistance of the interstellar medium; but, whatever it may be, there can be, says Thomson, "but one ultimate result for such a system as that of sun and planets if continuing long enough under existing laws.... That result is _the falling together into one mass, which, although rotating for a time, must in the end come to rest relatively to the surrounding medium_."[161]

Another evidence that the solar system is temporal, and that the present cosmical order must come to an end, is found in the fact that the sun is radiating heat into space in quantities incomparably greater than it receives. If it were not so, we should receive, on the average, as much heat from every other quarter of the heavens as from the sun, and no vicissitudes of temperature would ever occur on the earth. Now, from what we know of the nature of heat, it is impossible that the supply contained in the sun should be inexhaustible. There is no apparent reason why the sun should form an exception to the fate of all fires, its only difference being one of size and time. It is larger and hotter than ordinary lamps, but is nevertheless a lamp in which invisible molecular energy is consumed, and consumed, too, at a rate which baffles all conception. From every square foot of its surface the sun gives out energy equal in amount to seven thousand horse-power. The total amount of heat sent off from the sun in _one minute_ is "five thousand millions of millions of units": a unit of heat being the quantity of heat required to raise one kilogramme--or about one quart--of water one Centigrade degree.[162] This enormous consumption of energy must finally exhaust the original stock. Were the sun a solid block of coal, and were it allowed a sufficient quantity of oxygen to enable it to burn at the rate necessary to produce the observed emission of heat, it would be utterly consumed in five thousand years. Or if we suppose, with Thomson, that the initial form of the energy of the universe is the potential energy of gravitation in matter diffused through space, and if this potential energy (energy of position) is transformed into heat (molecular kinetic energy) by condensation or contraction of the sun, and this energy of molecular motion (heat) is again transformed into radiant energy and diffused through infinite space, it is obvious that this condensation can not be continued forever, and Thomson has shown in his article on the "Age of the Sun's Heat" that its power of radiation must come to an end. Various theories have been suggested for replenishing the solar heat, one of the most plausible of which is the falling of meteoric and cometary bodies into the sun. Prof. Thomson, who was one of the first to adopt this view, has now abandoned it, or at least has denied its adequacy to account for the maintenance of solar heat. Even were the hypothesis accepted as valid, the supply of fuel is still finite. Time will drain the entire space inclosed by the orbit of the planet Neptune of all the meteors and comets. Even the planets must at length be ensepulchred in the sun. "As surely," writes Sir William Thomson, "as the weights of the clock run down to the lowest position, from which they can never rise again unless fresh energy is communicated to them from some source not yet exhausted, so surely must every planet creep in, age after age, toward the sun." Not one can escape its fiery end. And, finally, the heat of the sun itself--that is, its molecular energy--must be transformed into radiant energy, and diffused and lost as a working force in infinite space. "Thus do the inexorable laws of mechanics indicate that the sun's store of heat, which can only suffer loss and not gain, must _be finally exhausted_."[163]

There are thus special geological and astronomical facts which have long been regarded as indicative of the principle that the existing order of the material universe is _temporal_--it had a beginning, and must have an end. But the modern Theory of Energy,[164] with its three great laws of Conservation, Transformation, and Dissipation, must be regarded as a comprehensive, complete, and final settlement of the question. It has been shown, first, that no system of machinery can _create_ force any more than it can create matter; and that the amount of energy in the universe, or in any limited system which does not receive energy from without, or part with it to external matter, is a constant or invariable quantity. This is the _Law of the Conservation of Energy_. It has been proved, secondly, as an experimental fact that, in general, one form of energy may, by suitable processes, be transformed wholly or in part to an equivalent amount of another form; and the sole and only function of all possible machines is the conversion or _transformation_ of energy. This is the _Law of the Transformation of Energy_. This law of Transformation is, however, subject to the limitations which are imposed by the _Law of the Dissipation of Energy_, the discovery of which is mainly due to Sir William Thomson. He has shown that every machine does its work against friction. "A material system can never be brought through any returning cycle of motions without spending more work against the mutual forces of its parts than it gained from these parts, because no relative motions can take place without meeting with frictional or other forms of resistance." No known process of transformation is exactly reversible. Whenever an attempt is made to transform and retransform energy by an imperfect process, part of the energy is converted into heat, and the heat is _dissipated_, so as to become useless because incapable of further transformation. It therefore follows that, as energy is constantly in a state of transformation, there is a constant degradation of energy to that final unavailable form of uniformly diffused heat; and this will go on as long as transformations occur, until the whole energy of the universe has taken this form.[165] The reader will find an extended discussion of this great question in Thomson and Tait's "Natural Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 188-304, in which it is shown that the present material system is not a _dynamically conservative_ but a _dissipative_ system, and therefore that in such a system "perpetual motion" is an impossibility.

Indeed, the Law of the Dissipation of Energy is an intelligent and well-supported denial of the chimera of perpetual motion. There is a loose idea that perpetual motion is impossible to us, because we can not avoid friction with its consequent loss of energy, but that nature works without friction, or that, in general, friction entails no loss, and so here perpetual motion is possible; but nature no more works without friction than we do, and friction entails a loss of available power. The supply of invisible molecular energy in the sun is no more infinite than the quantity of matter in the sun is infinite. The sun is daily lifting huge masses of water from the sea to the skies, yearly lifting endless vegetation from the earth, setting breezes and hurricanes in motion, dragging the huge tidal wave round and round the earth; performing, in short, the great bulk of the endless labor of this world and other worlds, so that the energy of the sun is continually being given away without any corresponding restoration. The loss of force in the shape of radiant light and heat can never be weaned back to any other mode of available energy. Carnot, Clausius, Thomson, and Rankine have all from different points of view been led to the same conclusion. We can make no use whatever of the energy represented by equally diffused heat. If one body is hotter than another, as the boiler of a steam-engine is hotter than the condenser, then we can make use of the difference of temperature to convert some of the heat into work; but if two substances are equally hot, even though their particles contain an enormous amount of molecular energy, they will not yield us a single unit of work. Energy is thus of different qualities, mechanical energy being the _best_, and universal heat the _worst_; in fact, this latter description of energy may be compared to the waste heap of the universe, in which the _effete_ forms of energy are suffered to accumulate without any further conversion.[166] If, then, when mechanical force passes into heat, _some_ of the heat can never be brought back to be mechanical force, and if the change from mechanical force to heat be ever going on, all the force in the universe must at last take the form of radiant heat. But if that be so, then at last all differences of temperature must disappear, and every thing end in a universal death.

"We are come," says Adolph Fick, "to this alternative: either in our highest, most general, most fundamental abstractions, some great point has been overlooked, or the universe will have an END, and must have had a BEGINNING; it could not have existed from Eternity, but must at some date, not infinitely distant, have arisen from something not forming a part of the natural chain of causes--that is, IT MUST HAVE BEEN CREATED."[167]

So far, then, the deductions of science are found to be in striking harmony with the teaching of revelation--the existing order of the universe had a beginning; the forms, relations, laws, harmonies of the Cosmos had a commencement in time. We may now proceed to the consideration of the second question: Had that which is the _ground_ of all form, the _subject_ of all changes and relations, a beginning? Had the _matter_ of the universe a beginning?

That we may fairly present the answer which modern science offers to this question, we must premise, in general, that it confesses its inability, in the present stage of physical knowledge, to determine what is the ultimate or internal constitution of matter. Many scientists of to-day are of the opinion expressed by Grove[168] that "probably man will never know the ultimate structure of matter." Others, as, for example, Thomson, Bayma, McVicar, and Challis, entertain the opinion that physical science is competent to discover all the minutiæ of molecular actions, and when this has been achieved, the question as to the ultimate constitution of matter can be finally determined. There is one guiding principle, recognized alike by the physicist and the metaphysician, namely, that substances, ultimate entities, are known, and can only be known in and through their respective phenomena. An exact enumeration and careful colligation of all the phenomena are therefore indispensable prerequisites to the solution of the problem.

Meantime nothing is more remarkable, even in the present state of physical science, than the fact that, under the subtile analysis of modern physics, much that we have been accustomed to regard as phenomena of matter dissolves and disappears, surviving only as phenomena of _Force_. The phenomena of heat, light, color, sound, electricity, and magnetism are now "modes of motion"--manifestations of one and the same omnipresent energy, which is transferred from one portion of matter to another, and modified or transformed simply by the mechanical arrangements and collocations of matter. The opinion is rapidly gaining ground that even chemical action is a mode of motion, and Professor Norton does not hesitate in affirming that "_all the phenomena of material nature result from the action of force upon matter_."[169] All that we mean by a Material Force "is a force which acts _upon_ matter, and produces in matter its own appropriate effects."[170] It is not an attribute of matter, not a quality inherent in matter, but a mode or state superimposed upon matter.

There is a large, influential, and daily increasing class of scientists, among whom may be named Faraday, Prof. Owen, Dr. Laycock, Wallace, Dr. Winslow, Prof. Huxley, who do not regard matter as an ultimate entity, and who believe that all the phenomena of matter (so called), even extension, resistance, and ultimate incompressibility, may be resolved into phenomena of force. In other words, matter is only _phenomenal_, and, like all phenomena, demands a _cause_.[171] These men are perplexed with no difficulties as to the _origin_ of matter. As a phenomenon it must be a product of Creative Efficiency, and therefore had a beginning.

It is obviously unnecessary that we should here discuss the merits of this hypothesis which resolves matter into force. We shall encounter it at a subsequent stage of our inquiry, and may then attempt to gauge its merits. It is enough for our present purpose that Heat, Light, Color, Sound, Electricity, Magnetism, are recognized as forms of molecular Energy--phenomena of Force; that these forms of invisible molecular energy, together with all the energy of visible motions and positions, are regarded as flowing from one great central force, or fountain-head of power; and that there is a remarkable unanimity among the first scientific men of our age in acknowledging this power as the Creative Efficiency of God. These forces uniformly work in obedience to Law; and Law, whether viewed in the orderly movement of a planet or an atom, in the symmetrical arrangement of a crystal of the definite proportions of chemical combination, in the organization of a worm or of an elephant, is intellect, is _reason_. This is the ultimate principle upon which every condition of matter and form depends.

This conception of force will materially aid us in the conception of matter. It is simply "the recipient of impulses or energy"[172]--the mere passive condition for the exercise of power. "It does not generate the phenomena which it manifests. It is only the substratum--it does absolutely nothing but give to the phenomena their conditions of manifestation."[173] Every molecule of matter, every aggregation of molecules, every organism must be regarded as a machine upon which the forces of nature play, and by which they are transformed and rendered available for the performance of work. Thus matter, by its very conception, must have been _created_, and fitted for the fulfillment of a predetermined function. Before the mechanism of the universe was set in motion, there was a preparation and collocation of its materials, and an adjustment of its minutest parts. As Sir John Herschel justly remarks, "Chemical analysis most certainly points to an origin, and effectually destroys the idea of an external self-existent matter, by giving to each of its atoms the essential character, at once, of a _manufactured article_ and a _subordinate agent_."[174] The numerical relations between chemical elements are the expression of creative ideas. The maxim of the Pythagorean philosophers is daily receiving new illustration from science, "The world is a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose." There can be no arithmetic without an Arithmetician, no geometry without a Geometrician. Thus in the very elements out of which the universe is built, the blocks of nature's temple, we see the indications not only of a fashioning but of an _originating_ intelligence--a Creating God. Design as truly appears in the primitive nature of matter as in its secondary formations. The primitive purpose is stamped on the primitive article.

"Every molecule throughout the universe bears impressed on it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the double royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.

"No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction.

"None of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call _natural_.

"On the other hand, the exact quality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it the essential character of a manufactured article, and _precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent_."[175]