Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of CreationPrice, George McCready
Religion
Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation
Price, George McCready
Creation; Evolution
The famous "barnacle-geese" ought not to be omitted from any sketch of
the vicissitudes of this doctrine of Biogenesis. An elaborate
illustrated account covering their alleged natural history was printed
in one of the early volumes of the Royal Society of London. Buds of a
particular tree growing near the sea were described as producing
barnacles, and these falling into the water were alleged to be
transmuted into geese. Nor should we omit mention of Huxley's _Bathybius
Haeckelii_, a slimy substance supposed to exist in great masses in the
depths of the ocean and to consist of undifferentiated protoplasm, the
exhaustless fountain from which all other forms of life had been
derived. Not long after Huxley had given it a formal scientific name in
1868, it was discovered to be merely a precipitate of gypsum thrown down
from sea water by alcohol, and thus a product of clumsy manipulation in
the laboratory, instead of a natural product of the deep sea. The
disappointment of those opposing biogenesis was severe; but the lesson
is still of value to the world to-day.
The masterly work of Tyndall and Louis Pasteur in doing for the bacteria
and protozoa what Redi had done for the larger organisms, is too much a
matter of modern contemporary history to need recital here. Upon this
great truth of life only from life is based all the recent advances in
the treatment and prevention of germ diseases and all the triumphs of
modern surgery. The housewife puts up canned fruit with the utmost
confidence because she believes in this great Law of Biogenesis. It is
because we all believe in it that we use antiseptics and fumigators and
fly screens.
III
But what are the lessons to be learned from this great fact, and what
bearing has this fact on the old Bible doctrine of a literal Creation?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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