A DIFFICULT QUESTION.

During the week, Ansel, Peter, and Samuel were busy reviewing and fixing in memory what they had already learned of the nature and laws of heat. They were not only interested in the new line of study, and desirous of pleasing Mr. Wilton, but they also felt that their scholarship was to be tested, and each one was ambitious of standing equal to the best.

Ansel, of course, was busy and ambitious. The lesson was coming somewhat upon his own ground, and he felt in no wise unwilling to show how well he had mastered the subject. He entered upon it with feelings a little different, however, from his anticipations. The explanation which Mr. Wilton had given of the purpose of the Creator in making such a world seemed to him very reasonable. He could make no objection to it. But that explanation had taken away at one sweep a whole store of objections to God’s goodness which he was waiting to bring out as soon as a good opportunity was presented. A world designed for the dwelling-place of sinners—sinners not already given over and doomed to final wrath, but to be recovered from sin and trained in virtue and holiness, or, if incorrigible, to be held in check and used as helps in the discipline of the righteous—he plainly saw must be as unlike a world fitted up for holy beings as a reform school is different from a home for kind and obedient children. Those arrangements which he had thought the most painful and objectionable might, after all, be the wisest and best. He did not see where to put in a reasonable objection to Mr. Wilton’s unexpected argument, yet he did not feel quite satisfied to confess to himself that he was so soon and so easily defeated.

In this state of mind, on Saturday morning he met Mr. Hume upon the street.

“Good-morning, Ansel,” said Mr. Hume.

“Good-morning,” returned Ansel.

“I hear,” said Mr. Hume, “that you have given up studying the Bible in your Bible class, and have begun the study of natural philosophy. Is that so?”

“Not quite true, Mr. Hume. We are to examine some department of the works of Nature, and see what indications appear of the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.”

“That is a little different from the report which came to me. But what did you learn last Sunday?”

“Mr. Wilton told us that in order to judge of the wisdom and goodness of God in any of the affairs of this world we must consider the object for which that arrangement was designed. He said that if a man examine a cotton-gin, supposing it to be a threshing-machine, he would be likely to pronounce it a foolish and worthless contrivance; and that the fine edge of a razor would be worse than useless upon the cutter of a breaking-up plough. He told us that the earth was not prepared as the dwelling-place of sinless beings, but as a place of discipline for the fallen human race, and that we ought not to look upon it as the choicest specimen of workmanship which the Creator could construct.”

“I have heard that Mr. Wilton believes something of that kind. Ansel, have you studied geology?”

“I have read a little upon that subject and have heard some lectures.”

“Can you tell me, then, whether or not the natural laws which prevailed on the earth ages and ages ago, before the earth was fit for men to live upon it, are the same as those which have been in operation in these later ages, since men have inhabited it?”

“I suppose that the same laws have prevailed from the beginning of the geologic periods. I think that geology makes that very evident.”

“If that were not so,” said Mr. Hume, “the past history of the globe would be a riddle to us; it would be confusion worse confounded. In regard to those early ages we could not reason from cause to effect, for we should know nothing of the forces and principles then in existence. In geologic studies we judge the past from the present, and if that be not a trustworthy method of reasoning, all the conclusions of geologists are as worthless as dreams. Have you any reason to suppose, from what you have read on this subject, that a curse changed the character of the earth as a dwelling-place for man some six thousand years ago? Is it true, as Milton says, that then

‘The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable, and from the north call
Decrepit winter—from the south to bring
Solstitial summer’s heat’?

Did the Creator then

‘Bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun’s axle’?

Or was death then first introduced among the brute creation, as Milton fancies?—

‘But Discord first,
Daughter of sin, among the irrational
Death introduced through fierce antipathy;
Beast now with beast ’gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving,
Devoured each other.’”

“Animals must have died,” said Ansel, “for their remains lie imbedded in rock which certainly existed before man lived on the earth.”

“I wish you would ask Mr. Wilton one question for me.”

“I am willing to ask him any proper question, and I suppose you would not wish me to ask any other.”

“I certainly would not. Will you ask him how it was possible for man not to sin and fall if God created the world for a sinful race myriads of ages before man was brought into existence? It would seem that if man had remained obedient he could not have lived pleasantly in a world prepared for sinners, and at the same time, by man’s obedience, all the Creator’s plans touching this world would have been dislocated and disappointed.”

“I will ask him, sir,” said Ansel, “at the first good opportunity.”

This good opportunity occurred sooner than Ansel expected, for, before entering upon the proposed lesson the next Lord’s Day, Mr. Wilton said to the class:

“I wish in these lessons to advance carefully and safely, and, as far as possible, have everything well understood. For that reason I invite you to speak freely of any difficulties or objections which may suggest themselves to your own minds or which you may hear presented by others. At the close of the last lesson the views which I had presented to you seemed very reasonable, but it is possible that, as you have thought upon the subject during the week, objections may have arisen in your minds. If so, I should be glad to hear them now.”

“There are many things,” said Peter, “of which I cannot see the use, even if we suppose that the earth was designed as the dwelling-place of sinners.”

“It would be very surprising indeed if you could unravel all the mysteries of creation in a week’s time. Wiser men than any of us have spent a lifetime in searching out the meaning of God’s works, and died still in the dark upon many points. We need not expect to unravel and understand all the deep, complex, and delicately-interwoven contrivances in a world so vast and curious as this. The world is a great mystery—mysterious as a whole, and mysterious in all its parts—upon any supposition. But the explanation which I gave of its design furnishes a sufficient reason for the great outline of creation. This gives a reason for the pains and miseries which dog man at every step. This gives a reason for the earth’s being left rugged and sluggish, bringing forth thorns and thistles, and requiring to be subdued by patient industry. It shows a ground for the necessity of exhausting toil under a frowning sky and mid miasmatic airs—for the liability to diseases and accidents, and the hard necessity of death. These great elements of divine providence are not stripped of their halo of mystery, but with this explanation they are seen to form a harmonious whole for the accomplishment of a great and glorious purpose.”

Mr. Wilton paused. Then Ansel said, “Mr. Hume wished me to ask you a question.”

“Very well, I should be glad to hear it. I hope, indeed, that he sends his question from interest in the subject, and not with the design of perplexing us. I wish also that he were here to ask the question and hear the answer for himself. But what is the question?”

“He wished me to ask how it was possible for man not to sin and fall if God placed him in a world prepared for a race of sinners and unfitted for a sinless race. He said that in such a case, if man had remained obedient, the plans of God would have been disarranged.”

“What answer did you try to give him, Ansel?”

“I did not try to make any explanation. It seemed to me a very great objection. I did not see how such a course was consistent with God’s righteousness.”

“And you are not the first person who has objected to this as a great inconsistency. I am afraid the discussion will take more time than we ought to spare, but now that the question has been asked and the objection presented, I must take time to answer it, even if it consume the whole half hour.

“In considering this subject, as well as many others, we need to remember that the existence of difficulties is no objection to a principle or a fact. Difficulties wholly inexplicable by man attend facts and principles which must be true. A fact may be incomprehensible, though undeniable. The great Doctor Johnson said, ‘There are insuperable objections against a plenum, and insuperable objections against a vacuum, yet one of these must be true.’ What did he mean by that, Samuel?”

“He meant, I suppose, that we could not explain the possibility that any space should be wholly empty of matter, and could no more explain the possibility that any space should be filled with matter, but that all space must be filled, or else there must be empty space. Whether we can explain the possibility or not, one of them must be true.”

“That is right. The same is true of many other facts besides a plenum and a vacuum. We cannot conceive of infinite space; we cannot conceive that space should not be infinite, but bounded. We cannot conceive of the creation of the world from nothing, and no more can we conceive of its eternal existence. The truth is that the mind of man cannot grasp such subjects so as to reason upon them correctly. No sooner do we attempt to reason about the infinite things of God than we run into absurdities and reach the most contradictory conclusions. And in this respect it makes no difference with what principle or proposition we start if it only contain some infinite element. Let me give you a simple illustration from geometry—an illustration which, very likely, is familiar to you: the larger a circle, the less is the curvature of the line which bounds it; that is, the more nearly does that line approach a straight line. An infinite circle must be bounded by a straight line, because with any degree of curvature the circle would be less than infinite. But a straight line cannot bound a circle. The attempt to reason about an infinite circle brings us at once to the most palpable absurdities and contradictions. Or take this illustration: the whole of a thing is greater than any of its parts. But divide a line of infinite length in the middle, and each part is infinite. We reach the conclusion either that the half is equal to the whole or that other wholly incomprehensible proposition, that one infinity is twice as great as another infinity. I have made these statements to show you that the existence of difficulties does not indicate, much less prove, that a fact is not real and true.

“Mr. Hume thinks the fact that the earth existed in its present condition before men sinned an insuperable objection to the view that this world was prepared as a place for the discipline of a fallen race. But let us look at the other side, and see if equal objections do not exist. The Creator foresaw the fall of man; is there no objection to the supposition that, knowing that man would sin, God made no provision for it? On the one supposition he foresees the evil and makes no provision; on the other, he foresees it and provides for the catastrophe. The former supposition certainly involves the greater difficulties.

“The objector may reply that the plan of God, by embracing the fall of man and including it as one of its essential elements, made that fall necessary. But why should not God embrace in his plan that great event, the fall of man, which he foresaw in the future? Would it have been wiser and better to leave out of account that most stupendous fact in the history of the human race? This same objection, which Mr. Hume and many others have brought forward, lies with equal force against the great central fact of the gospel, the death of Christ. God’s plan touching this world included the incarnation and death of his Son. Jesus, the ‘Lamb of God,’ is spoken of as ‘slain from the foundation of the world.’ Rev. xiii. 8. But the incarnation and death of Christ presuppose the apostasy of the human race. Did this plan touching Christ make the apostasy of man a necessity? If preparing a world—fallen, so to speak, beforehand—for a race which God foresaw would fall, be inconsistent with his righteousness, it must be equally inconsistent to prepare a Saviour beforehand for that same race.“Again, the divine plan touching the death of his Son included his betrayal by Judas and his crucifixion by the Jews. If Judas had known that God had poised the salvation of man upon the pivot of his treachery, he would doubtless have argued as Mr. Hume and others are accustomed to do. But did God’s plan excuse his treason against his Lord? His own conscience, piercing and rending his soul with remorse, drove him to self-destruction, and Christ confirmed the sentence of his conscience and called him the ‘son of perdition.’ The fact that God weaves the foreseen crimes of men into his plans is no palliation of their guilt.

“Would it be wise and well to take no account of foreseen events? Jesus has gone to prepare mansions for those who will, as he foresees, believe in him: why not make provision for foreseen evils also? Our civil government, knowing the liability to crime among men—a liability which the experience of man has shown to be a practical certainty—makes provision for those crimes by maintaining a police, reform schools, prisons, and armies. The Governor of the universe, knowing the liability of man to sin and fall—a liability which by his foreknowledge was to him a certainty—made provision for that foreseen apostasy. He made provision, both by the creation of a world suited to a sinful race kept under a probation of mercy, and by appointing a Redeemer, the ‘Lamb of God,’ slain, in the eternal purpose, before the foundation of the world. If Mr. Hume’s objection has force at all, it has force against every wise provision of God to meet the consequences of man’s foreseen wickedness. It is wise, forsooth, on man’s part, to foresee coming evil and prepare for it; but if God do this, men count it worse than folly: they declare it to be an endorsement of the evil! So foolishly do men reason about the high things of God! My answer to Mr. Hume, then, has four parts:

“1. The existence of unexplainable difficulties does not disprove the truth and reality of any fact or principle.

“2. The supposition that God made provision for the present apostasy of the human race is burdened with fewer and smaller difficulties than its denial.

“3. The word of God declares that he did make provision for the fall of man by the pre-appointment of a Redeemer.“4. That style of reasoning which seeks to justify or palliate man’s first sin because God prepared this world for a fallen race would palliate and justify all wickedness, because the sins of men are woven into every figure of the web of divine providence. Not the treason of Judas alone, but the whole sum of man’s evil-doing, is embraced in the far-reaching plan of God. How this magnifies the wisdom of God! He binds together in one bundle his own righteousness and the sins of men, in a most intricate interlacing, yet without blending the two and without staining the glory of his holiness.

“I hope I have made this plain. Do you think, Ansel, that you can repeat the substance of this answer to Mr. Hume?”

“I will try, sir, if he asks.”

“You will all notice,” added Mr. Wilton, “that I have not denied that there is a deep mystery in this preparation for the sins of men not yet created, and that I have not attempted to explain this mystery. I have only tried to show that the admission of the view I have given you is more satisfactory to reason than its denial, and that the mysteries of this view are not unreasonable and self-contradictory, for the greatest mysteries are often the most reasonable things in the world.

“My introduction has become much longer than I designed, but now let us turn our attention to the subject of the lesson.

“To aid us in understanding God’s wise arrangements in the management of heat, we need, first, to consider what heat is and to review the laws of its action. Without this, we could look on and wonder at God’s working in nature, but could not explain that which we saw.

“Ansel, will you state the theories which have been held touching the nature of heat?”

“I will do it as well as I can. The ancient philosophers supposed fire to be one of the four elements of which all bodies were composed. The three other elements were earth, air, and water. These four elements were mingled in various proportions. Of these, fire was esteemed the purest and most ethereal; this constantly tended upward to the empyrean, the highest heaven, where the element of fire and light was supposed to exist unmingled and pure. In the seventeenth century, Beccher and Stahl, two German chemists, brought forward what is known as the phlogistic hypothesis. They supposed that every combustible body held in composition a pure, ethereal substance which they called phlogiston, a Greek word which signifies burned, and that in combustion this phlogiston escaped. Flame was supposed to be this escaping phlogiston. These were the notions held about fire and combustion, but they are hardly worthy to be called theories of heat. The discovery of oxygen by Dr. Priestley of England, in 1774, and the introduction of the balance by Lavoisier of France, joined with the ever-enlarging circle of facts to be explained, rendered the phlogistic hypothesis untenable, and it was thrown aside.

“Until a few years since the caloric theory was generally received. According to this theory, heat is a substance, a subtle ether, diffused through all bodies and surrounding their atoms. This ether has been supposed to have a strong attraction for the atoms of every other substance, while between its own atoms a strong repulsion exists. In solid bodies each atom of matter, or in compound bodies each cluster of atoms, has been supposed to be surrounded by a little atmosphere, so to speak, of caloric, which prevented the atoms from coming into absolute contact. According to this theory, heat expands bodies by increasing and deepening these minute atmospheres, thus pressing the atoms farther from each other.”

“You need not explain this theory farther,” said Mr. Wilton; “we have hardly time to go into the history of theories. Tell us the latest received theory.”

“The theory now commonly believed is called the mechanical or dynamic theory. According to this theory, the essence of heat is motion. A hot body is one whose atoms are in a state of rapid and intense motion or vibration; and the sensation of heat on touching a hot body arises from the impact, or rapid blows, of the agitated atoms, communicating the same atomic vibration to the flesh and nerves of the hand.”

“Very well stated, Ansel. This is the theory now more commonly received. The caloric theory, like the crude notions of the old Greek philosophers about fire, and like the phlogistic hypothesis, has been rejected because it failed to explain the phenomena of heat. Whether the dynamic theory is destined to share the same fate remains to be seen. It seems, however, to have a better foundation than its predecessors. The dynamic theory, though recently made popular, is by no means a recent conception. It was advocated by such men as Bacon, Newton, Rumford, Davy, Locke, and others. Locke, the distinguished intellectual philosopher who lived in the latter half of the seventeenth century (born 1632, died 1704), said, ‘Heat is a very brisk agitation of the insensible parts of an object, which produces in us that sensation from which we denominate the object hot, so that what in our sensations is heat in the object is nothing but motion.’ Benjamin Thompson, an American gentleman who went to Europe in the time of our revolution, and for his scientific fame was made Count Rumford, and became the founder of the Royal Institution of England, declared that he could form no conception of the nature of heat generated by friction unless it were motion.

“A beautiful generalization has been made to show how well this idea of heat harmonizes with the entire plan of the universe. In the whole boundless universe each system of worlds, like our solar system, may be regarded as a molecule, or complex atom. These cosmical molecules, or complex atoms of the universe, are in motion through unmeasured space. In these systems of worlds the planets, with their satellites, are the molecules, and they are in motion—indeed, they commonly have several motions. Our earth, for example, rotates upon its axis once each day; it revolves in its orbit around the sun once each year, and the axis of the earth has a slow wabbling motion which produces the precession of the equinoxes, requiring 25,868 years for a complete revolution. The earth also is made up of parts, and all these are in ceaseless motion. As said the old Greek philosopher, ‘All things flow’—that is, everything is in a state of change. Solomon has well described this perpetual movement and change: ‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place whence he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north. It whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither do they return again. All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.’ Eccles. i. 4-9. It is certainly in harmony with this universal movement that the atoms of matter, though they seem so closely packed, should in their inconceivable smallness through inconceivably minute spaces vibrate, or rotate, or revolve through an orbit, never at rest. Intensity of heat we may think of as intensity of this atomic motion—a wider swing, so to speak, in their vibration or revolution. This, of course, requires a wider separation of the atoms and a consequent expansion of bodies. A feebler atomic motion permits the atoms to approach each other. In this manner we explain the enlargement of bodies by heat and their contraction by decrease of temperature. ‘The ideas of the best-informed philosophers are as yet uncertain regarding the exact nature of the motion of heat, but the great point at present is to regard it as a motion of some kind, leaving its more precise character to be dealt with in future investigation.’ This is the most we can do at present.”“What is the evidence,” asked Samuel, “that the dynamic theory of heat is true?”

“The evidence that any theory is true is its ability to explain the facts or phenomena with which it has to do. If it explains all the facts and contradicts no known principles, it is regarded as true, or at least no objection can be made to it. Let me illustrate. Astronomers had long inquired what force or law controlled the movements of the heavenly bodies. At length Newton answered, A force of attraction between bodies which decreases in proportion as the square of the distance between them increases. This explanation has been found sufficient to explain all the known facts in the working of the heavenly bodies. Upon the basis of this theory astronomers calculate the positions of planets and comets for years and centuries to come.

“This theory led to the discovery of the planet Neptune, the last discovered of the primary planets. For thirty years irregularities in the motion of Uranus had been noticed. These variations were so slight that if another planet had revolved in the proper orbit of Uranus they would have seemed to the naked eye, throughout their course, one and the same star. This slight irregularity of motion was so nicely measured that the place of the unseen planet which caused it was almost exactly calculated from the estimated force and direction of its attraction. This theory of a universal attraction of gravitation so well explains all the facts in the case, and has become so universally received, that we are liable to forget that, after all, it is nothing but a theory.

“Our idea of the structure of the solar system was at first only a theory. The astronomer does not see the planets revolving in regular circles through the heavens and moving around the sun. He only sees the shining points moving back and forth upon the concave vault, doubling and crossing their tracks apparently in the greatest disorder. How shall their motions be explained? Astronomers have found that the motions of planets revolving around a central sun, when seen from one of the planets, must present just these apparent irregularities. This explanation is so full and complete that it is now counted not a theory, but an established fact. The same may be said of the shape of the earth.

“The dynamic theory of heat explains the phenomena of heat better than any other explanation that has been proposed. It explains the radiation of heat from the sun or from any other hot body: vibrations or impulses are propagated through that ether which is supposed to fill all space. It explains the conduction of heat through solid bodies in the same manner. It explains the expansion of bodies: the atomic motion forces the atoms of bodies farther apart. It explains the production of heat by friction or collision, which no other theory is able to do: the shock of the collision generates this atomic vibration. It explains the production of heat by combustion: the atoms of oxygen and carbon or hydrogen dash against each other and generate heat by the collision. This theory explains the transmutation of motion, or living force, and electricity, into heat, and the transmutation of heat into electric or mechanical force. These points will come up again, and I now only refer to them in answering Samuel’s question. The dynamic theory explains the phenomena of heat and its relations to force, light, and electricity exceedingly well, and for this reason men look upon it with favor and count it as probably true. If in the progress of scientific investigation it shall be found to explain all the new facts discovered and meet well all the demands made upon it, it will at length be received as an admitted principle in physical science. The wave theory of light and the vibratory theory of sound may be looked upon as thus established.

“At our next lesson we shall take a rapid review of the effects and laws of heat.”