evidence as can be had.
Even when the upholders of the former and more popular system mix up
revelation with scientific discussion--which we decline to do--they by no
means thereby render their view other than hypothetical. Agreeing that
plants and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the
idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes. The record of the
fiat--"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed," etc., "and
it was so;" "let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was
so"--seems even to imply them. Agreeing that they were formed of "the dust
of the ground," and of thin air, only leads to the conclusion that the
pristine individuals were corporeally constituted like existing
individuals, produced through natural agencies. To agree that they were
created "after their kinds" determines nothing as to what were the original
kinds, nor in what mode, during what time, and in what connections it
pleased the Almighty to introduce the first individuals of each sort upon
the earth. Scientifically considered, the two opposing doctrines are
equally hypothetical.
The two views very unequally divide the scientific world; so that believers
in "the divine right of majorities" need not hesitate which side to take,
at least for the present. Up to a time quite within the memory of a
generation still on the stage, two hypotheses about the nature of light
very unequally divided the scientific world. But the small minority has
already prevailed: the emission theory has gone out; the undulatory or wave
theory, after some fluctuation, has reached high tide, and is now the
pervading, the fully-established system. There was an intervening time
during which most physicists held their opinions in suspense.
The adoption of the undulatory theory of light called for the extension of
the same theory to heat, and this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a
correlation, material connection, and transmutability of heat, light,
electricity, magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in
absolute suspense until very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not
already established as a system, it promises soon to become so. At least,
it is generally received as a tenable and probably true hypothesis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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