Part 21 (1/2)
”In the present state of things, these eccentricities and these inclinations are totally incompatible with Olbers' hypothesis, which supposed that the small planets--some of which were discovered even in his day--were produced from the wreck of a larger star, which had exploded. The forces necessary to launch the fragments of a given body in such different routes (whose existence we should be obliged to suppose) would be of such an improbable intensity, that the most limited mathematical knowledge could not but see its absurdity.” He concludes the memoir by advancing four propositions, ”which forever annihilate Olbers' hypothesis.”[198]
3. _The progress of astronomical discovery has utterly refuted the notion of creation by natural law, known as the Development Theory, or the Nebular Hypothesis._
Scientific Infidels knew that there was too much order and regularity in the motions of the planets to allow any rational mind to ascribe these motions to accident, according to Buffon's notion. They saw that these movements must be regulated by law. La Place, an eminent mathematician, saw that there are at least five great regularities pervading the system, for which Buffon's theory gave no reason:
1. The planets all move in elliptical orbits, nearly circular. They might, on the contrary, have been as elongated as those of comets.
2. They revolve in orbits nearly in the plane of the sun's equator. They might have revolved in orbits inclined to it at any angle, or even in the plane of his poles.
3. They revolve around the sun all in the same direction, which is the direction of his rotation on his axis.
4. They rotate on their axes, also, so far as known, in the same direction.
5. The satellites (with the exception of those of Ura.n.u.s) revolve around their primary planets, and also rotate on their axes, in the same normal direction.
It was evident, even to the believers in chance, that so many regularities were not produced by accident. La Place found, by computing the chances by the formula of probabilities, that the chances were two millions to one against these regularities happening by chance, _and four millions to one in favor of these motions having a common origin_.
The grand phenomenon being a motion of rotation in the whole system, of which the rotation of the sun is the central part, he thought if he could account for this, he could explain all the rest.
He set out by supposing, that the sun and planets originally existed as a vast cloud of gaseous matter, intensely heated--a vast fire-mist--placed in a region of s.p.a.ce much cooler, and that this cloud, by gradual cooling, and the pressure of its parts, settled down into solid forms. It was supposed that some portions of this cloud would begin to cool sooner than others, and so become solid sooner, and that the hot gas, rus.h.i.+ng to the solid part, would form a vortex, which would set the cloud in motion around its center. As the speed of its rotation would increase, and the outside condense and grow solid before the inside, the cloud would whirl off the rings of solid matter, which would keep revolving in the same orbits in which they were cast off, and would revolve faster and faster as they grew cooler and more solid, till they broke up, by the force of their velocity, into smaller pieces; which fragments, in their turn, repeated the process, until the present number of planets and their satellites was produced.[199]
This theory differs from Buffon's much as a low pressure engine, deriving most of its power from the condenser, differs from one of high pressure. La Place does not explode the boiler to make his planets, but merely runs his train so fast as to break an axle every now and then, when the wheel runs off with the velocity it has got, and keeps its track as well as if it had an engineer to guide it, grows into a little locomotive by dint of running, and after a while breaks an axle too--breaking is a hereditary failing of these suns and planets that had no G.o.d to make them--and the wheels thus thrown off supply it with moons and rings, like Saturn's. The ill.u.s.tration is not nearly so absurd as the theory, inasmuch as a locomotive is an incomparably less complicated contrivance than a planet. However the nonsense was cradled in the halls of philosophy by means of antiquity, and distance.
As no fiction was too marvelous for the credence of the Greek, if it were only a hundred years old, or located beyond the Euxine, so to our development philosopher any impossibility may be accepted, if it can only be dissolved into gas, and located a good many millions of miles away; and to make it an article of faith on which he will risk his soul, it is only necessary to give it a remote antiquity. No Papist ever insisted more on antiquity as the solvent of all absurdity. Antiquity, distance, and expansion are his trinity, with which all absurdities become scientific facts.
Herschel had discovered numbers of nebulae, or luminous clouds, in the distant heavens s.h.i.+ning with a distinct light, but which, with the highest magnifying power he could apply, presented no trace of stars.
Some nebulae, it is true, his largest telescope resolved, like our own Milky Way, into beds of distinct stars; but there were others--for instance, one in the belt of Orion--visible to the naked eye as a cloud, but which his forty feet telescope only displayed as a larger cloud, without any shape of stars. Now, reasoning upon the matter, he found that if these nebulae were composed of stars as large as those distinctly visible, they must be immensely distant to be indistinguishable by his telescope, and exceedingly numerous and close together to give a cloud of light visible to the naked eye. In fact, the suns of those firmaments must be so close to each other as to present a blaze of glory, and complexities of revolution inconceivable to the dwellers on earth. But as this daring idea seemed incredible, even to his giant mind, he thought the appearance of these nebulae might be more rationally accounted for by supposing that they were not stars at all, but simply clouds of gaseous matter, like the matter of comets, from which he supposed that stars were formed by a long process of condensation and solidification. He thought this theory was favored by the fact, that nebulae are generally seen in those portions of the heavens that are not thickly strewn with stars; and also by the various forms of these clouds. Some were merely loose clouds, without any definite form; others seemed gathering toward the center. In some, of a roundish, or oval form, the central ma.s.s seemed well defined. In a few, the process seemed nearly complete, a bright star s.h.i.+ning in the midst of a faint nebulous halo. Here, then, it was said, we see the whole progress of the growth of stars; their development from the gaseous nebulous fluid into solid, brilliant suns. La Place accepted Herschel's discoveries as conclusive proof of the truth of his theory, and it was generally accepted by the scientific world. Oddly enough, Infidels seem not to have noticed that those appearances of _condensation toward the center_, which seemed to Herschel so strongly in favor of his theory of the nebulous fluid, were diametrically opposed to La Place's requirements of _condensation at the circ.u.mference_; and these two contradictory notions were supposed to support each other, and to furnish a solid basis for the development hypothesis.
This theory, as stated by Herschel, and expounded by Nichol, d.i.c.k, and other Christian writers, _is not necessarily Atheistical_. On the contrary, they allege that it furnishes us with greater evidences of the power of G.o.d, and gives us higher ideas of his wisdom, to suppose a system of creation by development, under natural law, than by a direct exercise of his will. Undoubtedly, had G.o.d so pleased he could have made suns from fire-mists, according to some plan which his infinite wisdom could devise, and his omnipotent power could execute; but it is beyond the possibilities even of omniscience and omnipotence to make worlds, or to make anything but nonsense, according to La Place's plan. Had G.o.d so pleased, to make firmaments grow as forests do, and if he should please to enable us to discover such celestial growth in some distant part of heaven, we should have the same kind of evidence of his being, power, wisdom, and goodness in this creation by natural law which we now have from his providence by natural law, in the growth of the fruits of the earth, and as much greater an amount of it as the heavens are greater than the earth. The first beginning of primeval elements demands a Creator. The contrivance of the law of development proclaims a Contriver. The force by which it operates--whether that of gravity or chemical reaction--must be the force of an Agent.
_The development theory, then, fails to account for the origin of the universe, or even of our own world._ Herbert Spencer, its most eloquent expounder, admits this. He says: ”It remains only to point out that while the genesis of the solar system, and of countless other systems like it, is thus rendered comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues as great as ever. The problem of existence is not solved; it is simply removed farther back. The Nebular Hypothesis throws no light on the origin of diffused matter; and diffused matter as much needs accounting for as concrete matter. The genesis of an atom is not easier to conceive than the genesis of a planet. Nay, indeed, so far from making the universe a less mystery than before, it makes it a greater mystery.
Creation by manufacture is a much lower thing than creation by evolution. A man can put together a machine, but he can not make a machine develop itself. The ingenious artisan, able as some have been, so far to imitate vitality as to produce a mechanical piano-forte player, may in some sort conceive how, by greater skill, a complete man might be artificially produced; but he is unable to conceive how such a complex organism gradually arises out of a minute, structureless germ.
That our harmonious universe once existed potentially as formless, diffused matter, and has slowly grown into its present organized state, is a far more astonis.h.i.+ng fact than would have been its formation after the artificial method vulgarly supposed. Those who hold it legitimate to argue from phenomena to noumena, may rightly contend that the Nebular Hypothesis implies a First Cause as much transcending 'the mechanical G.o.d of Paley,' as this does the fetish of a savage.”[200]
The Nebular Hypothesis, then, can not exist without G.o.d. However, as it seems to remove him to a great distance from this present world, both in s.p.a.ce and time, it has become popular with Atheists.
The Nebular Hypothesis, as presented by Atheists, _imagines a state of primeval matter as simple, or h.o.m.ogeneous, of which science presents no example, in heaven or on earth_.
This h.o.m.ogeneous condition of matter is the very foundation of the theory. Spencer reasons at great length, that all progress is from the simple to the differentiated. And it is indispensable for the Atheists to prove that the primeval world was composed of matter perfectly simple and h.o.m.ogeneous. If they alleged that it was composed of several ingredients, n.o.body would believe them that this compound was eternal.
There is no conviction of common sense stronger than that every compound has been put together by some compounder.
They could not persuade a child that a plum pudding made itself, or that a steams.h.i.+p filled with pa.s.sengers existed so from eternity, much less a planet with a much larger crew and company. They therefore alleged that the first matter of the universe was perfectly h.o.m.ogeneous and simple.
When common people objected that no such thing was to be seen in this world nowadays, since all things here--stones, water, air, earth, plants, animals--are compounded and built up out of a great variety of matters, they claimed that this is the result of the growth of our planet; but that the nebulae, which astronomers see far away in the sky, are young suns and planets, just beginning to condense, and that the gas they consist of is the genuine, simple, h.o.m.ogeneous matter out of which this world, and all worlds, originally made themselves. They thought the nebulae were so very far away that n.o.body would ever go there to see and come back to contradict them; and so they were quite safe in pointing to them as examples of h.o.m.ogeneous matter.
Now one does not see, if the nebula had been exactly what the development men a.s.sert--_simple, h.o.m.ogeneous matter_--_how they could ever have made such a composite world as this out of it_, or indeed how they could make anything but itself out of it. No chemical actions or reactions can begin in a simple substance; there must always be at least two simple substances to make a compound. Heating or cooling a simple substance will never make it a compound. You may heat water in a boiler and cool it again as often as you please, but your heating and cooling will never make coffee out of it, unless you put coffee into it. So you may heat and cool your simple nebula to all eternity, but you will never get coffee out of it, much less coffee and coffee-pot, china and company, with the biscuits and b.u.t.ter; all which, and a great deal more, our philosophers contrive to churn out of the primeval h.o.m.ogeneous nebula.
But the progress of science has enabled us to show that the nebulae, far from being simple, h.o.m.ogeneous matter, are compounded of as many ingredients as the flame of your lamp or gas light, which is combined of half a score of different substances. By the discovery of Spectrum a.n.a.lysis we are able to a.n.a.lyze the chemical composition of the most distant flames, to tell whether they proceed from solids or gases in a state of combustion, and what are the gases and minerals consumed in them. As s.p.a.ce forbids the details of this discovery here, I can only state the results, namely that some of the nebulae consist of clouds of small solid stars, of which the nebula in Orion is an instance; but others consist of flames of gases, in all cases compound, and showing, besides the oxygenated flame, the lines which declare the presence of hydrogen, and of several metals. Thus it is proved, that no such eternal, h.o.m.ogeneous nebulae are to be found in heaven, and consequently n.o.body could ever make worlds out of a substance which had no existence.
This theory of development was always _a mere notion, a castle in the air_, and never could be anything more. To say that it was mere moons.h.i.+ne would be to give it far too respectable a standing; for moons.h.i.+ne has a real existence, and may be seen and felt. But n.o.body ever saw or felt a h.o.m.ogeneous nebula. Indeed, its inventor never pretended that he, or anybody else, ever saw one; or saw it sailing off into moons, and planets, and suns, or ever would see any such thing. No scientific man has ever pretended that it was an established fact, or anything more than a theory, a notion. Young people, who are invited to hazard their souls on the strength of this miscalled scientific theory, should remember that it is not science, which means something a man knows, but merely a theory, which is some notion which he imagines.