or
the working of a single purpose, in all its lines of details, — as much
so as in the opening flower. Yet this is so because God is infinite in
power and wisdom, needs not to revise his plan or institute new
principles ; but, at the inception, saw the end and all the steps
leading thereto, as a series or succession throughout perfect in law
and harmony. In such a plan we have no right to say that God stands by
to see Nature go alone ; but that, unceasingly, he sustains and
directs the glorious work by his power. We have not to conclude, in
order to avoid materialism, that there are " some things" which Nature
could never have done; for, in this view, there is nothing which, of
itself, or in any sense as a self-existent activity, it can do.
This
view, which shines forth from every page of the Bible, is as correctly
a growth or Genesis, as that of Prof. Lewis ; and all his argument,
based on the progress of creation by periods, or on the meaning of the
word Genesis, or of φύσις in Greek, or nalura in
Latin, or the alleged irrationality of any other view, does not go one
step towards sustaining his peculiar notion of a huge self-acting
something, now and then aroused to progress by God.
Although Prof. Lewis may not regard the fact, we observe that science does not suggest such a view of Nature.
The
whole essence of physical Nature is expressed in a molecule; for
molecular laws are the laws of physical Nature. The mere aggregation of
molecules into stones or earth, however large the amount, does not give
powers that are not contained in the minutest particles. Or, if many
balls of such stones and earth are set afloat in space, they still do
not make " Nature" with higher qualities than the molecular forces; and
however great the effort of laboring Nature, we have no right to assume
that those forces could make a living germ. The dirt of a laboratory
had the misfortune to set afloat the idea of the creation of Acari, by Mr. Crosse. But science has yet no reason to deny that physical forces are physical forces.
In fact, life and physical or inorganic force are directly opposite in their tendencies. There are, in compounds, two
