Some Salient Points in the Science of the EarthDawson, John William, Sir
Science
Some Salient Points in the Science of the Earth
Dawson, John William, Sir
Geology; Paleontology
Fourthly, these hypotheses are partial, inasmuch as they fail to
account for the vastly varied and correlated interdependencies of
natural things and forces, and for the unity of plan which pervades the
whole. These can be explained only by taking into the account another
element from without. 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. So much has this been the case, that when
recently a few physicists and naturalists have referred to the "Unseen
Universe," they have seemed to be teaching new and startling truths,
though only reviving some of the oldest and most permanent ideas of
our race. From the dawn of human thought it has been the conclusion
alike of philosophers, theologians, and the common sense of mankind,
that the seen can be explained only by reference to the unseen, and
that any merely physical theory of the world is necessarily partial.
This, too, is the position of our sacred Scriptures, and is broadly
stated in their opening verse, and indeed it lies alike at the basis
of all true religion and all sound philosophy, for it must necessarily
be that "the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are
unseen, eternal." With reference to the primal aggregation of energy in
the visible universe, with reference to the introduction of life, with
reference to the soul of man, with reference to the heavenly gifts of
genius and prophecy, with reference to the introduction of the Saviour
Himself into the world, and with reference to the spiritual gifts and
graces of God's people, all these spring, not from sporadic acts of
intervention, but from the continuous action of God and the unseen
world; and this, we must never forget, is the true ideal of creation in
Scripture and in sound theology. Only in such exceptional and little
influential philosophies as that of Democritus, and in the speculations
of a few men carried off their balance by the brilliant physical
discoveries of our age, has this necessarily partial and imperfect view
been adopted. Never, indeed, was its imperfection more clear than in
the light of modern science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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