The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-11-28
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.
The Wonderful Declarations OF
Moses Not Inconsistent With
Modern Research.
Some Views on Evolution After
Fifty Five Years of Pa
tient Study.
Dr. Swallow Presents Further Arguments
In support of His Views ON the
Great Book.

Moses makes many most wonderful dec
larations about the creation OF tho uni
We se, plants and animals; but that the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the
EARTH" must have appeared the atrangest
and most improbable OF all. Strange as 1T
appeag cd, Moses repeats the declaration
more in detail when Adam was banished
from Eden. But this surprising statement
does not rest upon the authority of Moses
alone. At least six of the best known Bib
lical writer's, extending through the 1.b0O
years from Job to Paul. reiterate the same
origin of mans body as an established
fact; and many Others allude to 1t in Illus.
{ alton of mans perishable physic Il nature.
While W. might quote Job, David. Isaiah
and others. one passage from Solomon and
one from Paul must suffice: "All are of the
dust. and all turn to dust again." (Ec.
3,20.) Paul taught the Corinthians; 1.-The
fl st man is of the earth. earthly; the second
man is of heaven" Here, then. we have
Il positive assertion, often repeated. that
the human body with all its beauty
of form. great va, iety of organs and tis-
sues, and life-giving fluids. WAS made from
1.-THE dust of the earth" Ia this true? If
so, il was recorded and repeated many hun
bred years before any human being could
know it WAS true-hefore chemical science
had given us the means of determining
whether it be true or false. But within the
last few centuries a hundred hemist have
subjected every organ, tissue and fluid of
the human body to the most rigid tests, and
have determined TINT the following elemen-
tary substances enter into their compost
k;o.. n-,nop hy1rnrar norhnn nifrnran
sodium potassium, calcium. magnesium,
sulphur, phospherous, chlorine. iron and
iodine. Whatever else is found in man is
foreign to his nature. and is merely acct
dental.
Many thousand analyses of the soils in
various parts of the world have shown the
presence of these same substances. Now
these soils, dust of the EARTH" made up
from the decomposition of the numerous
surface rocks and decayed plants and ami
mails. are the only mineral deposits which
do contain all the chemical elem ents of
mans body. And besides, it is an organic
necessity that good soils should contain all
these elements, in order that they may
nourish the plants and supply them with
the chemicals needed to give man and
other animals their necessary food. For
the people and animals now living have
JULIUS llho Uudb " allo NV iiiuUOI ltA
composing them are abstracted from the
soil by the plants and deposited in their
tissues and fruits. thus man and other
animals get the same chemical elements for
their bodies that the Creator used in max
ing Adam.
After a careful study of this record of the
creation of many years, it has appeared to
be the most improbable explanation of
mans existence that Moses could have
made to command the belief of his con-
temporaries. With what scorn would
Pharaoh's daughter and the queen of
Sheba have received the assertion, Your
bodies are dirt" And yet, it appears to
have commanded the, universal belief of
the Jews, and was repeated by their best
writer's all down the ages, till science
proved it true. Now. if anyone will Gale l.
late the chances that Moses would have
chosen the dust rather Than one of the
hundred clean rocks. he might have Sc
lected, to make man out of, he will find
those chances are as millions to one, that
Moses would not have not have selected the
soil, the only material in the earth which
contained the necessary composition for
mans BODY.
When classic story selected u material to
form the body of u Venus, not dirt, but the
foam of the sea seemed the most appro-
pirate material. After the race WAS de-
stroyed by the flood, Ducalion and Pyrrha
threw stones over their shoulders, which
ia Ii oLiS WIN
the earth. plato tells us that the ancient
egyptians taught that the earth and heav.
ems we're made out of a sort of pulp, and
that men sprang from the slime of the Nile.
How is it then that Moses, Learned in all
the wisdom of the Egg ptians," did not
MANI Epicurus taught that the universe
happened to come into existence by a for
tuitous concourse of atopa."
Not Il few ancient philosophers believed
in the spontaneous generation of plants
and animals by processes differing but lit
tie from what is taught by some modern
scientists. But nc one vet III ancient OF
modern times has been able to show the
production of animals except from germs
of pre-existing animals Some fifty yea G
ago one Mr.. Cross. of London announced
to the world that he had succeeded in pro.
ducing small insects by the action of cleo
tricity on certain vegetable infusions. He
appointed a time to prove his creative
power. The electric current was passed
through the infusion. and 10! the little
creatures came trooping up the wire, and
Mr.. Cross awaited his Gown az creator.
But an entymoloRist had no sooner fixed
his glass on the newcomers, than he ex-
claimed, ooh, Cross! This is an old ac-
quaintance, a we'll known little spiderr'
Alas! what a fall! from the throne of Il
creator to the humble seat of a hatcher OF
spiders eggs! Some yeats since Mr.. Sc
Dh6VlHu, albo VI IoAuous puolNhhou q JUN
to prove his success in Great
ing animals by passing electric
currents through certain infusions.
But Tvndall took up the matter and soon
proved that Sebastian, like Cross, had only
succeeded in Matching Eggs. In fact the in
vestigations of our best scientific men dur-
ing the last half century fully justify the
strong assertions made by Sir William
THOMPSON in his address on taking the
presidents chair of the British association
at the Edinburgh meeting: Dead matter
cannot become living without coming under
the influence of matter previously alive
This seems to me as sure a teaching of sci
ence as the law of gravitation." If there.
fore the animal is not a creatute of sponta.
neous generation, he 10 doubtless the off
spring of creative lower. And since tie
creations of animals az stated by Moses
corresponds more perfectly with the teach
ings of modern science than my other the
DRY of origin, it must be accepted by scien-
lists till something better ID y esented. In
deed, during the last half century, a Ions
line of distinguished scientists hnye de.
clared their convictions that the Mosni,
record 10 in satisfactory harmony with til,
teachings of science.
But what of 'evolutionp" Well, / hav,
been thinking and studinR about evolution
for more than fifty years; l have known
and compa red notes with many of the hes
scientists of America aud Europe; hav'
carefully studied what the great masters o
evolution have wiitten; nm above all ! huv,
carefully examined tho rock ecord of ami
mails from the Cocoon of the Laurentini
rocks to the oldest human skull of TIL
" - H. a A. eha 4