FIRST ORIGINATION (Gen. i. 1): "_In the beginning God created_ [אה = _the substance or essence of_] _the heavens and the earth._" This is the reading of Parkhurst's Hebrew Grammar (1813), which has since that time been approved by able lexicographers and commentators. Some of these authorities have been already presented to the reader.[202] But even aside from philological considerations, the context forbids us to regard _bara_ here as denoting "formation," for the product of that creative act was "_formless_ and _matter-less_;"[203] that is, it was homogeneous, non-differentiated, structureless, and destitute of all sensible quality--an abyss of darkness and death, exhibiting that sole condition of matter, "perhaps its only true indication, namely, _inertia_."[204] The first created element was the single omnipresent fluid _Ether_, out of which all gross matter was built by the action of force. As we advance in this discussion we shall find that this is an opinion which is entertained by the first physicists of the age, as, for example, Thomson, Tait, Maxwell, Challis, in England, and Norton and Hinrich in America. SECOND ORIGINATION (Gen. i. 21): "_And God created the great monsters, and every living soul_ [נֶפֶשׁ הַיָּה = _soul of life_] _that moveth._" The first created animals are here most carefully denoted as "living souls," evidently to distinguish the life now first manifested in nature from the molecular, "bioplasmic" life which organizes the vegetable cell, and builds up the tissues of the animal body. The life here indicated has an _individuality_ which separates it from the universal life of nature. There is now an immaterial entity--a soul, which is an individualized and indivisible centre of force, a soul which has sensation, feeling, perception, and memory, none of which are properties of matter or products of organization. The animal soul is not material, neither is it a function or phenomenon of organized matter; it is a creation, and therefore _bara_ is here significantly employed to denote the origination of something new; a new power or principle is here inserted into the sphere of existing nature. The second created entity is animal life--_Soul_--somatic life as distinct and distinguishable from vegetable, molecular, bioplasmic life. THIRD ORIGINATION (Gen. i. 27): "_And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him._"