The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-12-11
THE NEW SCIENTIFIC THEORY.

THE NEW SCIENTIFIC THEORY.
Rev. Edgar Leavitt, of Oshkosh,
Wis, in THE UNIvERsALIsT of Nov.
27, seems to desire information as to
the grounds upon which one Prof.
Woodman, from Chico, CAL, recently
lecturing in Wisconsin, bases his as
sumption that the origin of the earth is
aqueous and not igneous, and that on
this ground there is a perfect agree
ment between the Bible and true sci.
ence. Of course one cannot pass an in
fallible Judgment on the merits of this
professor as lecturer, or as a scientist,
without knowing more of him and his
work than can be known through the
brief report Of a listener; but if our
brothers report does the subject full
justice, the suspicion arises that said
professor may belong to that class of
scientists" of which A. MILFORD Hall,
of Problem of Life" and 'sMicrocosm"
notoriety, is type.
The wonder is, that the ideas of such
a lecturer, in the advocacy of such a
theory, should attract any very serious
attention; for however entertaining the
Professor" may be, he certainly can
have no following, not only among those
who are 'way up in SCIENCE" but not
even among those who are but moder-
ately 'up." As''to the scientific teach
ing Of the Holy Scriptures" which this
professor and divine ''holds, in agree
ment with several noted scientists"
there is none of it; for beyond the in
culcation of moral and religious truths,
the Holy Scriptures afford no instruc-
ton whatever in science. AS well
might the writings of other great poets
of the world, of every nation and time,
be taken for scientific teaching as those
of the grand old Hebrew bards alone,
who spoke Of the foundations of the
eartb;" who said, HE hath founded
the earth upon the seas, and established
it upon the floods" who declared that
''the foundations of the earth were
caused to sink in the sea while form
ing"
When men, in their attempts to in
struct and entertain, mistake metaphor
for the statement of scientific facts,
and allegory for history, they always
"darken counsel by Words" and of
course their teaching" tends to be-
wilderment and delusion, instead of
knowledge and edification. No matter
how 'many suppose the Azoic rocks,
or lowermOst strata, to be igneous in
their origin, there are no well informed
scientists who suppose anything of the
kind; for, as even every beginner in
geology knows, if he has given due at
tention to his first lessons, all the STRAIT
flied rocks, with the bare exception of
those lavas that have been deposited,
one over another, by successive erup-
lions, have been deposited by water
the lowest as we'll as the uppermost.
No matter how much these strata may
have become changed or modified by
internal heat and chemical action since
they were laid down by the water that
first ate and tore away their constitu-
ents from the primitive ragged incrus-
tation, and carried them along into all
the lower places, filling them up with
deposit to be itself thus worked over
and over again and re-deposited, with
every change of level, through all sue
ceeding ages to the present. No mat
ter how many nor how great the changes
that heat and chemical action may have
effected in these strata, the proofs that
they are aqueous deposits is so clear to
the geological student that no scientist
of any creditable attainment, at this
day, ever thinks of doubling it; and yet
the fact remains that the original crust,
out of which and upon which the orig
inal strata were formed, was the cooled
surface of globe once as fiery as the
sun itself.
AS to the argument from the assumed
of granite, lime and slate
rocks, there is absolutely nothing in it;
for granite will melt, and has been
melted by degree of heat that even
man can raise; and the elements of
every rock on earth can be even con-
verted to vapor by degree of heat suf-
intense, as we'll as water by
q moderate degree of heat. Therefore,
1t is easy to see that the mass of matter
now constituting the earth may have
been once, as the most reasonable pre-
is that it actually was once,
In vaporous condition; afterward in a
nebulous condition within, while still
vaporous without; and later yet, in a
partly fluid, partly nebulous.
and partly vaporous, from within out
wardly; as through the continual con-
by the attraction of all the