Sir John William Dawson

“ This is the real meaning of creation by law, as distinguished from mere chance on the one hand, and arbitrary and capricious intervention on the other. Both of these extremes are equally illogical; and it can not be too frequently repeated that divine revelation avoids both by maintaining with equal firmness the agency of the Creator, and that agency not capricious, but according to plan and purpose; embracing not merely the action of the divine mind itself, but under it of all the forces and material things created. ”

“ But revelation, which affirms unity, law, and a Father's hand in nature, is the deadly foe of superstition, and no people who have been readers of the Bible and imbued with its spirit have ever been found ready to molest or persecute science. Work of this sort has been done only by the ignorant, superstitious, and priest-ridden votaries of systems which withhold the Bible from the people, and detest it as much as they dislike science. Perhaps the most troublesome opposition to science, or rather to the progress of science, has sprung from the tenacity with which men hold to old ideas. ”

“ I say for a time, because life is, in the visible universe, as at present constituted, but a temporary exception, introduced from that unseen world where it is no longer the exception, but the eternal rule. In a still higher sense, then, than that in which matter and force testify to a Creator, organization and life, whether in the plant, the animal, or man, bear the same testimony, and exist as outposts put forth in the succession of ages from that higher heaven that surrounds the visible universe. ”

“ On the other hand, this sublime dogma of creation leaves us perfectly free to interrogate nature for ourselves, as to all that it can reveal of the duration and progress of the creative work. But the positive gain which comes from this ancient formula goes far beyond these negative qualities. If received, this one word of the Old Testament is sufficient to deliver us forever from the superstitious dread of nature, and to present it to us as neither self-existent nor omnipotent, but as the mere handiwork of a spiritual Creator to whom we are kin ”

“ At the close of this day the Creator again reviews his work, and pronounces it good. Step by step the world had been evolved from a primeval chaos, through many successive physical changes and long series of organized beings. It had now reached its acme of perfection, and had received its most illustrious tenant, possessing an organism excelling all others in majesty and beauty, and an immaterial soul the shadow of the glorious Creator himself. ”

“ On the other hand, the student of nature must not content himself with "writing Latin names on white paper," wherewith to label nature's productions, but must rise to the contemplation of the order and beauty of the Cosmos as a revelation of Divinity. Both will thus rise to that highest taste which will enable them to appreciate not only the elegance of individual forms, but their structure, their harmonies, their grouping and their relations, their special adaptation, and their places as parts of a great system. ”

“ Why was the earth thus occupied for countless ages by an animal population whose highest members were reptiles and birds? The fact can not be doubted, since geology and Scripture, the research of man and the Word of God, concur in affirming it. We know that the lowest of these creatures was, in its own place, no less worthy of the Creator than those which we regard as the highest in the scale of organization, and that the animals of the ancient, equally with those of the modern world, abounded in proofs of the wisdom, power, and goodness of their Maker. ”

“ Even when it professes to admit the existence of a God, the evolutionist reasoning of our day contents itself altogether with the physical or visible universe, and leaves entirely out of sight the power of the unseen and spiritual, as if this were something with which science has nothing to do, but which belongs only to imagination or sentiment. ”

“ And the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set in their angle and alignment, and its boundaries fixed toward the four winds by the Creator and Former, and Mother and Father of life and existence—he by whom all move and breathe, the Father and Cherisher of the peace of nations and of the civilization of his people—he whose wisdom has projected the excellence of all that is on the earth or in the lakes or in the sea. ”

“ Geology, by tracing back all present things to their origin, was the first science to establish on a basis of observed facts the necessity of a beginning and end of the world. But even physical science now teaches us that the visible world is a vast machine for the dissipation of energy; that the processes going on in it must have had a beginning in time, and that all things tend to a final and helpless equilibrium. This necessity [Pg 369] implies an unseen power, an invisible universe, in which the visible universe must have originated, and to which its energy is ever returning. ”

“ It may be well, however, to think for a moment of the importance of the facts suggested by the writer of Genesis in mentioning the use of the heavenly bodies as signs of time. To what extent civilization or even the continued existence of man as an intelligent being would have been possible without the marks of subdivision of time given by the great astronomical clock of the universe, it is almost impossible for us to imagine. Without such marks of time, in any case, the whole fabric of human culture must have been different from what it is. ”

“ Its wondrous revelation of all that man most desires to know, in the past, in the present, and in his future destinies, has gone home to the hearts of men in all ranks of society and in all countries. In many great nations it is the only rule of religious faith. In every civilized country it is the basis of all that is most valuable in religion. Where it has been withheld from the people, civilization in its highest aspects has languished, and superstition, priestcraft, and tyranny have held their ground or have perished under the assaults of a heartless and inhuman infidelity. ”

“ The Hebrew idea of the golden age of Eden is pure and exalted. It consists in the enjoyment of the favor of God, and of all that is beautiful and excellent in his works. God and nature are the whole. Nor is it merely a rude, unintelligent, sensuous enjoyment. Man primeval is not a lazy savage gathering acorns. He is made in the image of the Creator; he is to keep and dress his garden, and it is furnished with every plant good for food and pleasant to the sight. ”

“ It may be humbling to our pride of knowledge, but it is not on any scientific ground improbable, that the oldest animal remains known to geology belong to the middle period of the earth's history, and were preceded by an enormous lapse of ages in which the earth was being prepared for animal existence, but of which no records remain, except those contained in the inspired history.
It would be quite unphilosophical for geology to affirm either that animal life must always have existed, or that its earliest animals are necessarily the earliest organic beings. ”

“ We may imagine the seer—perhaps some aboriginal patriarch, long before the time of Moses—perhaps the first man himself—wrapt in ecstatic vision, having his senses closed to all the impressions of the present time, and looking as at a moving procession of the events of the earth's past history, presented to him in a series of apparent days and nights. ”

“ The Bible, therefore, and science agree in the truth that existing causes have been in full force since the creation of animals; and that since that period the exercise of creative power has been limited to the organic world. This has a curious bearing, not often thought of, on modern theories of evolution as compared with the teaching of the Bible. In one important sense, absolute creation, in so far as the inorganic universe is concerned, is in our Mosaic narrative limited to the production of matter and force at first. All else is called making, forming, or appointing. ”

“ It is here that natural science meets with theology, not as an antagonist, but as a friend and ally in its time of greatest need; and I must here record my belief that neither men of science nor theologians have a right to separate what God in Holy Scripture has joined together, or to build up a wall between nature and religion, and write upon it 'no thoroughfare.' The science that does this must be impotent to explain nature, and without hold on the higher sentiments of man. ”

“ Even in the present world we may as well ask why the uninhabited islands of the ocean are found to be replete with luxuriant vegetable life, why God causes it to rain in the desert where human foot never treads, or why he clothes with a marvellous exuberance of beautiful animal and plant forms the depths of the sea. We can but say that these things seemed and seem good to the Creator, and may serve uses unknown to us; and this is precisely what we must be content to say respecting the plant-creation of the Eozoic period. ”

“ No thinking man is content to live merely in a transitory present, ever emerging out of darkness and ever returning thither again, without knowing any thing of the origin and issue of the world and its inhabitants. Yet it would seem that to-day men are as much in uncertainty on these subjects as at any previous time. It even appears as if all our added knowledge would only, for a time at least, deprive us of the solutions to which we trusted, and give no others in their room. Christians have been accustomed to rest on the cosmogony and prophecy of the Bible ”

“ He wisely contents himself with a few well-chosen words, which boldly sketch the crude materials of a world hopeless and chaotic but for the animating breath of the Almighty, who has created even that old chaos out of which is to be worked in the course of the six creative days all the variety and beauty of a finished world. ”

“ We are taught by this statement that plants were created each kind by itself; and that creation was not a sort of slump-work to be perfected by the operation of a law of development, as fancied by some modern speculators. In this assertion of the distinctness of species, and the production of each as a distinct part of the creative plan, revelation tallies perfectly with the conclusions of natural science, which lead us to believe that each species, as observed by us, is permanently reproductive, variable within narrow limits, and incapable of permanent intermixture with other species ”

“ Are we, then, to fall back on the real or imagined revelations and traditions of the past, and to endeavor to find in them some foothold of assurance; or are we to wait till further progress in science may have cleared up some of the present mysteries? Whatever may be said of the former alternative, all honest students of science will unite with me in the admission that the latter is hopeless. We need not seek to belittle the magnificent triumphs of modern science. ”

“ There is also in the Bible the farther promise that, if we are truly the children of God, regulating our conduct by his will and enlightened by his spirit, we shall know how to pray for what is in accordance with his divine purpose, and how to receive with gladness whatever he sees fit to give. While, therefore, the Biblical doctrine as to natural law emancipates us from fears of angry storm-demons, it draws us near to a heavenly Father, whose power is above all the tempests of earth, and who, while ruling by law, has regulated all things in conformity with the higher law of love. ”

“ Such is the great spiritual drama of man's fate to be acted out on the theatre of the world. Every human being must play his part in it, and the present must decide what that part shall be. The Bible bases these great foreshadowings of the future on its own peculiar evidence; yet I may venture humbly to maintain that its harmony with natural science, as far as the latter can ascend, gives to the Word of God a pre-eminent claim on the attention of the naturalist. The Bible, unlike every other system of religious doctrine, fears no investigation or discussion. ”