Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER I ON RELIGIOUS NIHILISM
- CHAPTER II ON RELIGIOUS NIHILISM (continued)
- CHAPTER III THE ALLEGED LAW OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS
- CHAPTER IV THE BEGINNING
- CHAPTER V THE CREATION OF MATTER
- CHAPTER VI ON INFINITE SPACE
- CHAPTER VII ON FORCE, LAW, AND NECESSITY
- CHAPTER VIII ON CREATION AND LIFE
- CHAPTER IX ON CREATION AND EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER X EVOLUTION AS AN INDUCTIVE THEORY
- CHAPTER XI ON CREATION BY LAW
- CONCLUSION
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER I ON RELIGIOUS NIHILISM
- CHAPTER II ON RELIGIOUS NIHILISM (continued)
- CHAPTER III THE ALLEGED LAW OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS
- CHAPTER IV THE BEGINNING
- CHAPTER V THE CREATION OF MATTER
- CHAPTER VI ON INFINITE SPACE
- CHAPTER VII ON FORCE, LAW, AND NECESSITY
- CHAPTER VIII ON CREATION AND LIFE
- CHAPTER IX ON CREATION AND EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER X EVOLUTION AS AN INDUCTIVE THEORY
- CHAPTER XI ON CREATION BY LAW
- CONCLUSION
Summary
The doctrine of creation, revealed in the opening words of Scripture, agrees at once with the most certain conclusions of sound reason, that time and the universe had a beginning, and with the widest results of induction with regard to all the successive generations of plants and animals during the ages of known history. The progress forward, in every case, is not from like to unlike, but from the few to the many; and the only progress backward, which can claim really scientific evidence, is not from like to unlike, from the definite to the undefined, but from the many to the few.
The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, in its momentary acceptance by so many hewers of wood and drawers of water for the building of the temple of science, and its wholesale substitution of ingenious guesswork for the evidence of facts, seems to hold exactly the same place in Physiology which the hypothesis of vortices held two centuries ago in Physical Astronomy. Each lays hold of a captivating analogy, and rears on it an immense superstructure, without submitting it to the test either of known facts, or of clear and intelligible reasoning. It was known that floating matter was carried round and round in a whirlpool. It was assumed that such a whirlpool of loose revolving matter did exist in the planetary spaces, and that the planets might in this way be carried in their orbits round the sun.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Scripture Doctrine of CreationWith Reference to Religious Nihilism and Modern Theories of Development, pp. 252 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1872