Year: 1868

IHE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.


Commodore M. F. Maury, in the course
of his address On the occasion of his re-
cent installation as Professor of Physics in
the Virginia Institute, in addressing the
young gentlemen of the institute, alluded
as follows to the Bible and Science:
| Strive in all things and at all times to be
along those beautiful walks in the fields of
physical research, which modern investiga-
tlon has made SO lovely and instructive,
guard against the seductive arguments of
those authors who delight to point out
what they call contradictions to the Bible.


My dear young friends, always remem-
ber the author of that book is natures
God-that the revelations of science and
the statements of that Bible are both true,
and that truth cannot contradict itself


Now. when you fancy you discover, as
many say they do, discrepancies between
science and the Bible, be not fast, as Co.
lenso and others have been, to pronounce
the Bible wrong Keep from presumptu-
Gus sins, and believe that the Bible is true
that science is true, and that if there be
discrepancies between these two records it
is not the fault of either, but of yourself,
their interpreter. The records are right,
| but the Interpretation has on many occa-
sions been wrong.


| Science is progressive, and for its health
full advancements speculation is often neces-
| sary. The boldness of such speculation,
uttered in the shape of hypotheses, has
sometimes startled the world, and need
lessly disturbed the minds of Christian
people. Sometimes the reading of the
Bible has been wrong, and sometimes of
the volume of nature, but in the end the
dark sayings of each have been found to
throw light upon the other. Gallileo, in
advance of his time, maintained that the
earth turns on its axis and ' Mother
Church in those days was offended. She
pronounced the doctrine damnable here
sy, and required him to renounce it. AS be
signed the recantation and turned away,
he muttered: "Yea, remember, but it
turns for all that" So, too, with the Ne
bule hypothesis, about which you are yet
to learn, but which some good men have
been disposed to regard as q modern
heresy, because of it's author. Recent dis
covery and scientific investigation are now
presenting it in new light, without in the
least disturbing any religious belief what
ever.


First, hypothesis, then theory, then de-
monstration-thes9 are the steps by which
the science of astronomy has reached it's
present advanced state. Al first, the hy
pothesis was that the earth was the centre
of the universe that it stood still, and
that the heavens rolled round it from East
to West. But discovery and research soon
convinced astronomers that this theory
was not consistent with the results of OBJ
servation. Then, the theory was that the
heavens stood still, and that the earth
turned around daily on it's axis from West
to East, and annually, in orbitual revolu-
tion, round the sun. Observation and re-
search furnished data by which the truth
of this theory, as far as it goes, was de-
monstrated. Finally, it was discovered
that the sun is moving through space with
the velocity of cannon balls, carrying in its
train the earth and the whole retinue of
planets, asteroids and satellites, and so
hyp othesis was brought to the dignity of
theory, which reconeiles all the known
facts of the case.


Though we may not Claim that the Ne
bulp hypothesis has, as yet, attained to
the dignity OF u theory, nevertheless its
it within the range OF probability, and,
therefore, it may or may not have truth for
it's cornerstone.


The Nebul@ hypothesis is the concep
ton of a great French geometer named
Laplace. This hypothesis is more pro-
found in its reach than Newtons laws, for
the Englishman with his beautiful theory
of gravitation only dealt with the heavenly
bodies as he found them. The French
man, soaring beyond that, attempted to
deal with them from "the BEGINNING" to
comprehend chaos and to show how, when
the earth was without form and void, the
various physical processes took place by
which the inorganic matter of the universe
was condensed into suns, aggregated into
planets, thrown off and converted into
satellites, sent wheeling on their orbits
about the sun, and then turning on their
axis. In comparing these two philoso-
pliers, T speak of their intellects, not of
their characters.


You know all the planets revolve in the
same direction, how they go round the sun
| in direction opposite to the hands Of a
watch, and have their orbits nearly in the
plane of the suns equator; that they also
rotate Oh their axes in the same direction,
and that with the single exception, per-
| haps, of the two outside, and most distant
planets, all their moons do the same
| They could not move as they do by any
chance, for there is no chance in nature,
neither in the heavens nor in the earth;
moreover, according to the doctrine of
chances, the odds are millions and millions
to one against such an arrangement as that
which we actually behold among the plan
cts as they move in their orbits.


It is assumed, as our point of departure,
that this arrang cement in the planetary
world must be according to design, and in
obedience to law. Upon other assump-
tions equally plausible, its author founded
his hypothesis, and then proceeded by
analogy and illustration to develop it, and
that with a degree of probability, which,
if it do not carry conviction to our minds,
must at least challenge our respect and ad
miration. It assumes that "in the begin
ming" the earth, sun and moon, with all
the planets, were in gaseous state ; that
when this was the case the planetary spa
ces were filed with this rare and attenua-
ted matter.


What are the reasons for these assump-
tions Chemistry tells us that all the mat
ter of which this earth consists-the rocks,
the metals and the mountains-is made
from sixty-one or sixty two simple substan
ces; that the greater part of all the solid
matter in the world is gaseous; that one
half of the earth's crust consists OF oxygen
alone, and that ali the water in the sea is
composed of but two gases, and nothing
else, and that all the other substances
known upon the earth may, by heat, be