DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE

BY JAMES GRASSIE, HOTSPUR. 

"Those who write on evanescent subjects need not expect a lasting celebrity, for every change their text undergoes will help to throw their effusions in darkness, no matter how brilliant those effusions may have been. Sir C. Lyell's works on geology are already nearly obsolete; Dr. Buckland is known chiefly by the pertinacity with which he clung to erroneous data; and Hugh Miller's "Testimony of the Rocks" is now called the testimony of equivocation. But there is an excuse for Miller, who was under the censorship of the Scotch Free Church, and it was very exacting in its supervision. In fact, it was said to have been the Rev. Mr. Stewart, of Cromarty, who suggested to him the idea of the Mosaic days having been epochs or indefinite periods of time, and latterly he went the length of urging that a Scriptural day in all instances means a period; but the command of " Six days shalt thou labor," &c., controverts that opinion. Dr. Buckland, in his " Bridge- water Treatise," had also taken up the subject, but he did not advocate it so vigorously as Hugh Miller did, although  Mr. Miller saw as clearly as Dr. Buckland that it was surrounded by difficulties. But if it was difficult then, it is ten times more perplexing now, when fossils of animals that existed during the Palæoxoic period—that is countless ages anterior to the Adamite epoch—have been exhumed, and many of these have eyes of the same construction as those of the animals of the present time, showing clearly that the earth was then in much the same condition it is in now; and that light and the warmth diffused by the solar rays must have coexisted with these creatures. 

But the discoveries of science do not tend to ignore theology, they rather incline to strengthen and establish it on a firm and indisputable basis. They show, for instance, that the minute obliquity of the ecliptic, and the slight divergence of the earth from a perpendicular position, must have been calculated with a most profound mathematical precision to produce the changes and seasons indispensable to beings constructed as we are. They show a clear and unmistakable design, not only in the universe, but also in the construction of all animals; and they place far beyond the reach of doubt that the Being, Author, or Influence who "planned the heavens and the earth," must possess foreknowledge and ubiquity, But science cannot unfold mysteries that are purposely concealed from us, and it cannot tell what was in the beginning, for all record of the beginning is lost to us. It cannot tell, nor even conjecture, the duration of the dreary geological periods, nor whether Adam came into existence by a special creation or by evolution, which is by progressing slowly from a humble origin to his complete state; but it can prove that a super human and astounding familiarity with abstract geometry and high mathematical science is displayed in the architecture of the heavens and a manifest design in the structure even of a beetle.

The day of the Mosaic writer was evidently the time intervening between one evening and the next following sunset, which was the way the Hebrews computed their days; but he evidently judged from appearances more than from facts, for the geological record was a sealed book to him; and when he spoke of the sun, the moon, and the stars, he apparently did not know that many of these stars are suns controlling other systems, and are superior in magnitude and glory to our sun; or that one of these pretty little twinkling planets is a mighty world nine hundred times larger than this one, He did not know that since is illimitable, without beginning or end, or that eternity past is no more incomprehensible than eternity to come; but he knew that there is a God, the Bara or Creator of all things, although the mode of his proceeding is a mystery to us, and to the Hebrew a speculative vision.

It is finite possible that there may be a chemical process in the laboratory of Nature which can evolve a material body from nothing. Although it seems paradoxical to us; for we know very little. about what chemistry is capable of doing, but what we do know would have startled the Hebrew as much as we would be startled by combining the elements of Nature into a substance. Fire is evolved from nothing; and if we were to ask a man what he was two years before his birth he would find it difficult to answer. His frame displays various substances bone, sinew, muscle, &c,—all different and distinct from each other—and what, were they evolved from ?

The descent of mankind from Adam may be a form of narrative into which tradition in early ages would easily throw itself, and may at the same time be the indirect expression of a great moral truth; for men have evidently sprung from the same or a similar origin, and have the same frailties, hopes, and fears, and may share the same immortality ; and consequently there ought to be much more brotherhood amongst them than there is. Some marked distinctions in the development of men incline etiologists to a belief that there were five pairs of first parents, but it has not been decided whether the influence of climate or other causes could have induced these distinctions; and there can be nothing more humiliating than to see men quarrelling over their creeds, cosmogonies, or beliefs; for every man has a clear and tangible right to worship God in the manner he deems best, and only the ignorant or turbulent will disturb his devotions. The fire worshipper, in his adoration of the sun, may be as fervent as the Christian, and Sol is a grand symbol of the Life Giver. Any person who views the starry heavens through a telescope will see worlds upon worlds stretching into illimitable space, all ruled, directed, and governed by the most exquisite and unerring laws, and all placed and apportioned with a geometrical precision which is perfectly astounding; and no such person could believe for one moment that these laws are the result of chance. Some, like Voltaire, may pretend to doubt, but a firm belief underlies their scepticism. We cannot, however, expel doubts and fears by human laws, or make believers by compulsion.

The trembling Hindoo, formerly wedded to his faith by a dread of losing caste, is now beginning to be regardless whether he loses caste or not; and the Mahometan is not nearly so intolerant as he was once. The Catholic and the Orangeman are getting a glimpse of common sense, and are beginning to notice that God makes the sun to shine equally on both of them; and the clergy of all denominations would do well to study the words of a great philosopher, who said:—
" It is a palpable absurdity to put reasons before a man, and yet wish to compel him to adopt them, or to anathematize him if he find them unconvincing; to repudiate him as an unbeliever, because he is careful to find satisfactory grounds for his belief; or to denounce him as a sceptic, because he is scrupulous to discriminate the truth; to assert that his honest doubts evince a moral obliquity; in a word, that he is no judge of his own mind; while it is obviously implied that his instructor is so."

Border Watch 13 August 1881,