Hartmann, the German philosopher, goes back to the original elements of the universe, and then says that science stands petrified before the question of their origin, as before a Medusa’s head. But in the presence of problems, says Dorner, the duty of science is not petrifaction, but solution. This is peculiarly true, if science is, as Hartmann thinks, a complete explanation of the universe. Since science, by her own acknowledgment, furnishes no such explanation of the origin of things, the Scripture revelation with regard to creation meets a demand of human reason, by adding the one fact without which science must forever be devoid of the highest unity and rationality. For advocacy of the eternity of matter, see Martineau, Essays, 1:157-169. E. H. Johnson, in Andover Review, Nov. 1891:505 sq., and Dec. 1891:592 sq., remarks that evolution can be traced backward to more and more simple elements, to matter without motion and with no quality but being. Now make it still more simple by divesting it of existence, and you get back to the necessity of a Creator. An infinite number of past stages is impossible. There is no infinite number. Somewhere there must be a beginning. We grant to Dr. Johnson that the only alternative to creation is a materialistic dualism, or an eternal matter which is the product of the divine mind and will. The theories of dualism and of creation from eternity we shall discuss hereafter. 1. Direct Scripture Statements. A. Genesis 1:1—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” To this it has been objected that the verb ברא does not necessarily denote production without the use of preexisting materials (see Gen. 1:27 “God created man in his own image”; _cf._ 2:7—“the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground”; also Ps. 51:10—“Create in me a clean heart”). “In the first two chapters of Genesis ברא is used (1) of the creation of the universe (_1:1_); (2) of the creation of the great sea monsters (_1:21_); (3) of the creation of man (_1:27_). Everywhere else we read of God’s _making_, as from an already created substance, the firmament (_1:7_), the sun, moon and stars (_1:16_), the brute creation (_1:25_); or of his _forming_ the beasts of the field out of the ground (_2:19_); or, lastly, of his _building up_ into a woman the rib he had taken from man (_2:22_, margin)”—quoted from Bible Com., 1:31. Guyot, Creation, 30—“_Bara_ is thus reserved for marking the first introduction of each of the three great spheres of existence—the world of matter, the world of life, and the spiritual world represented by man.”