The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science

John William Dawson

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• Publié par: thoon
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 36
• Langue: English

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Revelation and Science, by John William Dawson
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Title: The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science
Author: John William Dawson
Release Date: July 2, 2010 [EBook #33049]
Language: English
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THE
ORIGIN OF THE WORLD,
ACCORDING TO
REVELATION AND SCIENCE.
BY J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.,
PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF M'GILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL; AUTHOR OF
"ACADIAN GEOLOGY," "THE STORY OF THE EARTH AND MAN," "LIFE'S DAWN ON
EARTH," ETC."Speak to the Earth, and it shall teach thee."
—Job.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1877.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY
THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DUFFERIN,
K.P., K.C.B., ETC.,
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA,
This Work is Respectfully Dedicated,
AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM TO ONE WHO GRACES THE
HIGHEST POSITION IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY HIS
EMINENT PERSONAL QUALITIES, HIS REPUTATION AS
A STATESMAN AND AN AUTHOR, AND HIS KIND
AND ENLIGHTENED PATRONAGE OF EDUCATION,
LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE.
[Pg i]PREFACE.
The scope of this work is in the main identical with that of "Archaia," published
in 1860; but in attempting to prepare a new edition brought up to the present
condition of the subject, it was found that so much required to be rewritten as to
make it essentially a new book, and it was therefore decided to give it a new
name, more clearly indicating its character and purpose.
The intention of this new publication is to throw as much light as possible on
the present condition of the much-agitated questions respecting the origin of the
world and its inhabitants. To students of the Bible it will afford the means of
determining the precise import of the biblical references to creation, and of their
relation to what is known from other sources. To geologists and biologists it is
intended to give some intelligible explanation of the connection of the doctrinesof revealed religion with the results of their respective sciences.
A still higher end to which the author would gladly contribute is that of aiding
thoughtful men perplexed with the apparent antagonisms of science and
religion, and of indicating how they may best harmonize our great and growing
knowledge of nature with our old and cherished beliefs as to the origin and
destiny of man.
[Pg ii]In aiming at these results, it has not been thought necessary to assume a
controversial attitude or to stand on the defensive, either with regard to religion
or science, but rather to attempt to arrive at broad and comprehensive views
which may exhibit those higher harmonies of the spiritual and the natural which
they derive from their common Author, and which reach beyond the petty
difficulties arising from narrow or imperfect views of either or both. Such an aim
is too high to be fully attained, but in so far as it can be reached we may hope to
rescue science from a dry and barren infidelity, and religion from mere fruitless
sentiment or enfeebling superstition.
Since the publication of "Archaia," the subject of which it treats has passed
through several phases, but the author has seen no reason to abandon in the
least degree the principles of interpretation on which he then insisted, and he
takes a hopeful view as to their ultimate prevalence. It is true that the wide
acceptance of hypotheses of "evolution" has led to a more decided antagonism
than heretofore between some of the utterances of scientific men and the
religious ideas of mankind, and to a contemptuous disregard of revealed
religion in the more shallow literature of the time; but, on the other hand, a
barrier of scientific fact and induction has been slowly rising to stem this current
of crude and rash hypothesis. Of this nature are the great discoveries as to the
physical constitution and probable origin of the universe, the doctrine of the
correlation and conservation of forces, the new estimates of the age of the
earth, the overthrow of the doctrine of spontaneous generation, the high bodily
and mental type of the earliest known men, the light which philology has thrown
[Pg iii]on the unity of language, our growing knowledge of the uniformity of the
constructive and other habits of primitive men, and of the condition of man in
the earlier historic time, the greater completeness of our conceptions as to the
phenomena of life and their relation to organizable matters—all these and
many other aspects of the later progress of science must tend to bring it back
into greater harmony with revealed religion.
On the other side, there has been a growing disposition on the part of
theologians to inquire as to the actual views of nature presented in the Bible,
and to separate these from those accretions of obsolete philosophy which have
been too often confounded with them. With respect to the first chapter of
Genesis more especially, there has been a decided growth in the acceptance
of those principles for which I contended in 1860. In illustration of this I may
refer to the fact that in 1862 it was precisely on these principles that Dr. McCaul
conducted his able defence of the Mosaic record of creation in the "Aids to
Faith," which may almost be regarded as an authoritative expression of the
views of orthodox Christians in opposition to those of the once notorious
"Essays and Reviews." Equally significant is the adoption of this method of
interpretation by Dr. Tayler Lewis in his masterly "Special Introduction" to the
first chapter of Genesis, in the American edition of Lange's Commentary, edited
by Dr. Philip Schaff; and the manifest approval with which the lucid statement of
the relations of Geology and the Bible by Dr. Arnold Guyot, was received by the
great gathering of divines at the Convention of the Evangelical Alliance in New
York, in 1873, bears testimony to the same fact. The author has also had the
[Pg iv]honor of being invited to illustrate this mode of reconciliation to the students of
two of the most important theological colleges in America, in lecturesafterwards published and widely circulated.
The time is perhaps nearer than we anticipate when Natural Science and
Theology will unite in the conviction that the first chapter of Genesis "stands
alone among the traditions of mankind in the wonderful simplicity and grandeur
of its words," and that "the meaning of these words is always a meaning ahead
of science—not because it anticipates the results of science, but because it is
independent of them, and runs as it were round the outer margin of all possible
[1]discovery."
In the Appendix the reader will find several short essays on special points
collateral to the general subject, and important in the solution of some of its
difficulties, but which could not be conveniently included in the text. More
especially I would refer to the summaries given in the Appendix of the present
state of our knowledge as to the origin of life, of species, and of man—topics
not discussed in much detail in the body of the work, both because of the wide
fields of controversy to which they lead, and because I have treated of them
somewhat fully in a previous work, "The Story of the Earth and Man," in which
the detailed history of life as disclosed by science was the main subject in
hand.
J. W. D.
May, 1877.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE MYSTERY OF ORIGINS AND ITS
SOLUTIONS.
Reality of the Unseen.—Personality of God.—
Possibility of a Revelation of Origins.—Turanian, Page
Aryan, and Semitic Solutions of the Mystery.— The 9
Abrahamic Genesis.—The Mosaic Genesis
CHAPTER II.
OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A
REVELATION OF ORIGINS.
Objects to be Attained by a Revelation of Origins.—
Its Method and Structure.—Vision of Creation.— 35
Translation of the First Chapter of Genesis
CHAPTER III.
OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A
REVELATION OF ORIGINS (continued).
Character of the Revelation and its Views of Nature.
—Natural Law.— Progress and Development.— 70
Purpose and Use.—Type or PatternCHAPTER IV.
THE BEGINNING.
The Universe not eternal.—Its Creation.—The
Heavens.—The Earth.— The Creator, Elohim.— 87
The Beginning very Remote in Time
CHAPTER V.
THE DESOLATE VOID.
Characteristics of Biblical Chaos.—The Primitive
Deep.—The Divine Spirit.—The Breath of God.—
100
Chaos in other Cosmogonies.—Chemical and
Physical