SECTION IX.

CONCENTRATION OF THE LIGHT AROUND THE SUN; AND THE COMPLETION OF THE WORK OF CREATION.

CHAPTER XLI.

The subject, of a change in the direction of the primary light, continued. Applied to the truths previously elucidated, and deductions drawn in favour of a by-gone period of non-rotation. Confirmatory conclusion deduced from the fact, that the illumination of the sun was the remaining cause of the commencement of "signs, seasons, days, and years." Astronomical explanation of the vicissitudes of season. Application of the uranographical phenomena to the point under discussion. Concluding testimony: that which is borne to the correctness of our hypothesis by the creation, at this particular juncture, of the several races of animated beings which are dependant alike for motion and existence on atmospheric air. Termination of the evidences in favour of the Dynamical Theory.

We shall commence this chapter by considering a resultant consequence of what has been so clearly made out, and has occupied our attention so much in the former divisions: the perfect parallelism in which the influences of attraction and expansion, or of darkness and light, proceed from a centre and towards a centre; and shall blend this with some of those facts which have been previously established, namely, that the direction of the force of gravity has ever been invariable; that light proceeds in straight lines; and that it did not occupy its present centre, around the sun, during the first three days of the Mosaic week.

By the blending of the former truth, the parallelism of light and darkness, with the three latter ones, we shall be constrained to conclude, that as the direction of gravitation in our system has ever been from the periphery towards and through the

sun, as a centre; and as the rays of light, in coming from their present centre, travel in a parallel direction to the others,* this could not have been the case when the light was not situated where it is at present; because that which "travels in straight lines" could not have proceeded from any two distinct points to the circumference by the same path; and, therefore, as they now run parallel to each other, and one of them has been invariable, they must formerly have crossed each other with an obliquity commensurate to the obliquity of their respective centres of convergency and divergency; and as dissimilar causes cannot produce similar effects, and it has been laid down, as a fundamental principle of this Theory, that the words of the first chapter of Genesis form the constitutional code of all materialism, we should expect to find, as a necessary consequence of these premises, that on the light having been concentrated around the sun, on the fourth day of the Mosaic week, it must have undergone a very important change of character, corresponding to the change of relative position from obliquity to parallelism; and by admitting this change of character, which cannot be denied, we perceive the necessity for the command which re-endowed it with powers, which it could not have had, in consequence of the change which took place in itself, unless we permit our minds to conceive that two distinct causes are capable of producing the same effect. should we pass on from the contemplation of this great truth, without sufficiently bringing to mind, the all-important difference in the effects which would flow from this relative difference in the direction of these two potent and almost omnipresent forces. This subject is well deserving of every consideration, and of being wrought out with much more care and attention than the limits and plan of our work will permit us to bestow upon it. Nevertheless, what we have said has brought out, into clear and beautiful manifestation the propriety, nay, the necessity, for the command, that the lights which were placed in the firmament of the heaven,

Nor

See 43rd Theorem. By this we merely mean to express the conception that the general course of the undulations of a ray of light will be a straight line from the luminary causing it.—AUTHOR.

should be ordained to "rule over the day and over the night, and divide the day from the night, the light from the darkness;" which command, as an approximative repetition, threatened to embarrass, and even to destroy one of the great principles on which this theory is based. Indeed, every step we take in scrutinizing the more secret laws which govern the material world, only shows, more convincingly, that the sacred historian precedes us; and, that directed by the same unerring wisdom which framed them all at first, he has revealed to us, thousands of years ago, in the plainest and most concise terms, those very truths which appear to be but now unveiling themselves, as the rewards of the industry and assiduous research of modern philosophy!

But there is another and a very important inference which is to be drawn from the divergency of directions here alluded to; for LIGHT, which did not run parallel to DARKNESS, could not produce the same effects as that which does. This conception will strongly corroborate the assumption we have so frequently adopted and applied, namely, that the primary light, though perfect in itself, was not in every respect identical with that which now proceeds from the sun. It was light, but it was light in a different state, coming from a different point, and evidently running obliquely to the direction of

attraction.

We must next, in prosecution of our general argument, proceed to a brief consideration of the indirect but peculiar bearing of the remarkable announcement; that the sun, by being illuminated on the fourth day of the Mosaic week, became, to the earth, the cause of "signs, seasons, days, and years;" in doing which we shall become convinced, that the mere putting of this command on record upwards of three thousand three hundred years ago, affords the most undeniable evidence, that the recorder was an inspired amanuensis of the Deity. While we take occasion to observe, that as we are now dealing with a class of facts which occurred after the earth had rotation impressed upon it, and the source of whose influence is altogether exterior to it, they can only confirm our theory incidentally, or as far as they necessarily involve, in themselves, an undoubted foreknowledge of events proved by the dynamic system to

have taken place previously, but which were wholly unknown to the world's inhabitants at the time when these announcements were put on record; whereby proving their heavenly origin, and consequently the source of all other assertions in the same portion of Scripture, they shed back, by reflection, a convincing stream of evidence on what we may have assumed in reliance on these announcements, and on the validity of scientific discoveries and deductions. The present instance is one peculiarly in point. The evidence consists in the knowledge which the ultimate writer of that article must, at that time, have possessed of the true motions of the heavenly bodies of our system. To the act of directly illuminating the sun and the moon indirectly, are ascribed results which, of necessity, involve one of the two following consequences: that the writer was aware that the earth was impressed with a double movement in space, one around the sun, and the other around its own axis; and also, that the moon circulated in its orbital course around the earth; and, with this knowledge, he ascribed to the lighting up of the central orb, and to the reflection of its rays from the moon, the causing of signs, seasons, days, and years, as these actually do; besides, he must have been aware of a still more recondite truth, which we trust presently to establish, namely, that the lighting up of the sun and the movements of the heavenly bodies, could not have caused the vicissitudes of the seasons, unless the primeval light had once occupied a distinct centre, and put forth energies of a peculiar description. This is one view of his position; the other is, he was entirely ignorant of these truths, and merely lent himself as an implicit but unconscious instrument to register what he did not himself comprehend. But whether we consider the writer to have stood in one or other of these positions, when all these considerations are duly weighed, it must appear evident to every candid and impartial mind, that even after awarding to eastern astronomy the utmost advance it can in justice lay claim to, the Jewish historian could not have been instructed in what he has recorded by any mere human intelligence; and, therefore, if, on the one hand, he was aware of their full import, and understood what he wrote, he must have received that knowledge from a divine source; while, on the other hand,

if he registered these sublime and recondite truths unconsciously, without understanding their meaning, he must likewise have done so at the dictation of a spirit more than human; and, as that which he has recorded is truth, that spirit must have been of God-must have been the Spirit of Truth."

To make more palpably manifest the gross ignorance which long prevailed respecting the two orbital motions of the heavenly bodies, and the reluctant incredulity evinced to believe in the true, the Copernican system, we give the following extracts, while we make no apology for doing so, as nothing could be better expressed or more appropriate :

"It is seldom easy," observes Mr. Nichol, "to ascertain why or how a new truth is revealed, that majestic event usually occurring when old systems seemed to have reached their climax and achieved perfection. When, however, the still small voice comes it is one of dread. The accomplished part of the world feels as in an earthquake, although the deserts may rejoice at the rising light. The obscurity of the times in which Copernicus lived rests over his early character. We know not how far favourable circumstances contributed to the development of his genius; or whether, without peculiar advantages, he owes all to an inborn energy. But, whatever his mental culture, the greatness of his mind could be borrowed from no one; inasmuch as he was the earliest to accomplish a task most difficult for man. He threw from him the weight of ages, and quietly asked whether that fundamental tenet, which asserts that the earth is motionless, might not be false.* The mental effort required, even to hesitate on a point which all mankind had up to that moment undoubtingly believed, and which had now interwoven itself with every mode of thought, was an achievement for the loftiest order of genius; the question once put, it required only superior but not uncommon talent, to follow it to its conclusions. .. Modesty,

a characteristic of the finest minds, induced Copernicus, after he had obtained sight of this great idea, to search through the ancient philosophies, lest there might be precious relics buried there, to confirm

* "I have seen it stated," he adds in a foot note, "that Copernicus was a great man by accident-that he owes his name to a happy conjecture! Let the authors of this opinion review the whole history of mankind, and reckon the number of such happy conjectures!