THE TEN SCEPTICS IN COUNCIL N.

BY P.T. RUSSELL.

Christian. Gentlemen; I am happy to meet you again. Be seated. Have you weighed the matter I gave you in our last interview? If you have, I would like to hear your objections, if you have any.

Reason. We think we have some valid objections. First, we are satisfied that your position is unscientific, although it is ingeniously taken. Among scientific men it is conceded that nature reveals her own birth, and declares her creation. Now, if it is true that Nature herself tells the history of her origin, then your idea that God the creator told this, is to us unreasonable, for there is no need of the same story being told to the same auditors by two different parties; so we must regard your position as untrue.

Christian. Are you sure that Nature ever gave the history of her origin, of her birth? do you read it in the book of Nature, or does she tell it vocally?

Reason. Tell it vocally? No! Nature has no power of speech! She wrote the history of her origin upon the pages of her own book, and the eye of the Scientist reads it there.

Christian. Are you certain of this? how was she qualified to do so? Could you write the history of your origin, of your birth, without the aid of some one older than yourself? Did you have the powers of observation in active exercise, watching every movement among the causes that brought you into being? Now, if man could not be an eye-witness to his own origin, upon this planet of ours, was there anything else in nature that could be, and so gave that history, which you know you could not? Is it not possible that you have obtained your intelligence from another source from what I call the revelation of the Creator? May it not be true that you have thus borrowed your information, and falsely credited it to Nature? If you found it in the book of Nature and read it there, you can tell me on what page it is written? will you do this so that I may read it too?

Reason. Read it there, and on some certain or well-known page! Really, you are very captious. This great truth is on every page; the whole face of Nature declares it; I can not tell you anything about the page.

Christian. There is a German maxim which, translated into English, reads, “The clear is the true.” The natural converse of this German proposition is this: The truth of the ambiguous is very doubtful. This leaves your claim in a very suspicious condition, if it does not brand it with falsehood. Again, you say it was written in the book of Nature. By whom was it written? A book can not write itself. Nature, or the material universe, neither did nor could write it, for she has no power of action, inertia being her property. She might be acted upon. I can write upon this sheet, but it can not write upon itself. If it is written upon it is self-evident that a foreign power has done it. So Nature, being the aggregate of everything, can not move without the hand of a foreign power moving her. I suppose you are now ready to ask, “Is it not a scientific truth that matter is eternal?”

Reason. Yes, we are satisfied that matter is uncreated, and hence eternal. The idea that something was made of nothing might do for the dark ages, but it will not stand the test now. The penetrating eye of the scientist has exploded that dream.

Christian. I am glad to hear you speak thus with confidence, and yet the sequel may show that you are the dreamer. Science, falsely so called, has declared matter eternal. True science contradicts this. None of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules, or the identity of their properties, to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. The quality of each molecule gives it the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Prof. Clark Maxwell, lectures delivered before the British Association, at Bradford, in Nature.

Prof. Maxwell is a star of first magnitude among British scientists; he has made a specialty of molecular organizations. No real scholar would dare to risk his standing by disputing the conclusion of Prof. Maxwell. An idea that is shut out by matter of fact discoveries will not be made the basis of an argument by any scholar who has not been taking a “Rip Van Winkle sleep” while the rest of the world has been advancing. The great improvements resulting in the astonishing increase of power has enabled us to closely examine the smallest known particles of matter, molecules. And under the best glasses, these give every possible indication of being a created, or manufactured article.

Thus, the latest and most grand discoveries in this field of science do unequivocally confirm the declaration of Moses in Ge: 3, where, according to the Hebrew in which he wrote, speaking of the creation of all things, he gives us this idea, “Which God created to make.” See marginal reading, Ge: 3. Hebrew scholars tell me this is the correct reading. The word, rendered, “and made,” is in the infinitive mood, and hence should read, “to make;” also, that the word rendered, “created” is the proper term by which to indicate the producing cause. This, then, is the thought presented by both of our witnesses, i.e., by Moses and science. Moses says God created the material to make globes, or worlds. The material was molecular, and science declares that every molecule gives every possible indication of being manufactured or created. So, true scientific discoveries have so completely vindicated the Mosaic cosmogony that it leaves no chance for any, outside of three classes, to object. For two of these classes I am not writing, viz., the cowardly and the dishonest. To do this would be “casting pearls before swine.” But for the ignorant I send this on its mission. Read and digest. In my next I will demonstrate the divine origin of language and religion. Till then, farewell.