The Story of the Earth and ManDawson, John William, Sir
Science
The Story of the Earth and Man
Dawson, John William, Sir
Human beings -- Origin; Paleontology
Why, then, are so many men of science disposed to ignore altogether
this view of the matter? Mainly, I believe, because, from the training
of many of them, they are absolutely ignorant of the subject, and from
their habits of thought have come to regard physical force and the
laws regulating it as the one power in nature, and to relegate all
spiritual powers or forces, or, as they have been taught to regard
them, "supernatural" things, to the domain of the "unknowable."
Perhaps some portion of the difficulty may be got over by abandoning
altogether the word "supernatural," which has been much misused, and
by holding nature to represent the whole cosmos, and to include both
the _physical_ and the _spiritual_, both of them in the fullest sense
subject to law, but each to the law of its own special nature. I have
read somewhere a story of some ignorant orientals who were induced to
keep a steam-engine supplied with water by the fiction that it
contained a terrible _djin_, or demon, who, if allowed to become
thirsty, would break out and destroy them all. Had they been enabled
to discard this superstition, and to understand the force of steam, we
can readily imagine that they would now suppose they knew the whole
truth, and might believe that any one who taught them that the engine
was a product of intelligent design, was only taking them back to the
old doctrine of the thirsty demon of the boiler. This is, I think, at
present, the mental condition of many scientists with reference to
creation.
Here we come to the first demand which the doctrine of creation makes
on us by way of premises. In order that there may be creation there
must be a primary Self-existent Spirit, whose will is supreme. The
evolutionist cannot refuse to admit this on as good ground as that on
which we hesitate to receive the postulates of his faith. It is no
real objection to say that a God can be known to us only partially,
and, with reference to His real essence, not at all; since, even if
we admit this, it is no more then can be said of matter and force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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