Such views of development and progress are not unknown to many ancient cosmogonies and philosophical systems, but they had no stable foundation in observed fact until the rise of modern geology and physical astronomy; which enable us to affirm that, in addition to those changeless physical laws which cause the bodies of the universe to wheel in unvarying cycles, and all natural powers to reproduce themselves, and, in addition to those organic laws which produce unceasing successions of living individuals, there is a higher law of progress. We can now trace back man, the animals and plants his contemporaries, and others which preceded them, our continents and mountain ranges, and the solid rocks of which they are composed--nay, the very fabric of the solar system itself--to their several origins at distinct points of time; and can maintain that since the earth began to wheel around the sun, no succeeding year has seen it precisely as it was in the year before. The old Hebrew record affirms, and I presume scarcely any sane man really doubts, that this law of progress emanates from the mind and power of one creative Being. When men see in natural law only recurring cycles, they may be pardoned for falling even into the absurdity of believing in eternal succession; but when they see change and progress, and this in a uniform direction, overmastering recurring cycles, and introducing new objects and powers not accounted for by previous objects or powers, they are brought very near to the presence of the Spiritual Creator. And hence, although no science can reach back to the act of creation, this doctrine is much more strongly held in our day by geologists than by physicists. It is quite true that the idea of creative acts has been superseded to a great extent by that of "creation by law," or by that of "evolution." Still behind all there lies a primary creative power; and the validity of these ideas and their bearing on theism and creation we shall have to discuss in the sequel. In one thing only does the Bible here part company with natural science. The Bible goes on into the future, and predicts a final condition of our planet, of which science can from its investigations learn nothing.