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.