Max Brand - "Harrigan"

Kate Douglas Wiggin - "Marm Lisa"

Various editors - "The New Hacker's Dictionary version 4.2.2"

Charles de Bernard - "Gerfaut, v1"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

J >> John William Draper >> History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science




The following are some peculiarities displayed by the solar
system as enumerated by Laplace. All the planets and their
satellites move in ellipses of such small eccentricity that they
are nearly circles. All the planets move in the same direction
and nearly in the same plane. The movements of the satellites are
in the same direction as those of the planets. The movements of
rotation of the sun, of the planets, and the satellites, are in
the same direction as their orbital motions, and in planes little
different.

It is impossible that so many coincidences could be the result of
chance! Is it not plain that there must have been a common tie
among all these bodies, that they are only parts of what must
once have been a single mass?

But if we admit that the substance of which the solar system
consists once existed in a nebulous condition, and was in
rotation, all the above peculiarities follow as necessary
mechanical consequences. Nay, more, the formation of planets, the
formation of satellites and of asteroids, is accounted for. We
see why the outer planets and satellites are larger than the
interior ones; why the larger planets rotate rapidly, and the
small ones slowly; why of the satellites the outer planets have
more, the inner fewer. We are furnished with indications of the
time of revolution of the planets in their orbits, and of the
satellites in theirs; we perceive the mode of formation of
Saturn's rings. We find an explanation of the physical condition
of the sun, and the transitions of condition through which the
earth and moon have passed, as indicated by their geology.

But two exceptions to the above peculiarities have been noted;
they are in the cases of Uranus and Neptune.

The existence of such a nebulous mass once admitted, all the rest
follows as a matter of necessity. Is there not, however, a most
serious objection in the way? Is not this to exclude Almighty God
from the worlds he has made?

First, we must be satisfied whether there is any solid evidence
for admitting the existence of such a nebulous mass.

The nebular hypothesis rests primarily on the telescopic
discovery made by Herschel I., that there are scattered here and
there in the heavens pale, gleaming patches of light, a few of
which are large enough to be visible to the naked eye. Of these,
many may be resolved by a sufficient telescopic power into a
congeries of stars, but some, such as the great nebula in Orion,
have resisted the best instruments hitherto made.

It was asserted by those who were indisposed to accept the
nebular hypothesis, that the non-resolution was due to
imperfection in the telescopes used. In these instruments two
distinct functions may be observed: their light-gathering power
depends on the diameter of their object mirror or lens, their
defining power depends on the exquisite correctness of their
optical surfaces. Grand instruments may possess the former
quality in perfection by reason of their size, but the latter
very imperfectly, either through want of original configuration,
or distortion arising from flexure through their own weight. But,
unless an instrument be perfect in this respect, as well as
adequate in the other, it may fail to decompose a nebula into
discrete points.

Fortunately, however, other means for the settlement of this
question are available. In 1846, it was discovered by the author
of this book that the spectrum of an ignited solid is
continuous--that is, has neither dark nor bright lines.
Fraunhofer had previously made known that the spectrum of ignited
gases is discontinuous. Here, then, is the means of determining
whether the light emitted by a given nebula comes from an
incandescent gas, or from a congeries of ignited solids, stars,
or suns. If its spectrum be discontinuous, it is a true nebula or
gas; if continuous, a congeries of stars.

In 1864, Mr. Huggins made this examination in the case of a
nebula in the constellation Draco. It proved to be gaseous.

Subsequent observations have shown that, of sixty nebulae
examined, nineteen give discontinuous or gaseous spectra--the
remainder continuous ones.

It may, therefore, be admitted that physical evidence has at
length been obtained, demonstrating the existence of vast masses
of matter in a gaseous condition, and at a temperature of
incandescence. The hypothesis of Laplace has thus a firm basis.
In such a nebular mass, cooling by radiation is a necessary
incident, and condensation and rotation the inevitable results.
There must be a separation of rings all lying in one plane, a
generation of planets and satellites all rotating alike, a
central sun and engirdling globes. From a chaotic mass, through
the operation of natural laws, an organized system has been
produced. An integration of matter into worlds has taken place
through a decline of heat.

If such be the cosmogony of the solar system, such the genesis of
the planetary worlds, we are constrained to extend our views of
the dominion of law, and to recognize its agency in the creation
as well as in the conservation of the innumerable orbs that
throng the universe.

But, again, it may be asked: "Is there not something profoundly
impious in this? Are we not excluding Almighty God from the world
he has made?

We have often witnessed the formation of a cloud in a serene sky.
A hazy point, barely perceptible--a little wreath of
mist--increases in volume, and becomes darker and denser, until
it obscures a large portion of the heavens. It throws itself into
fantastic shapes, it gathers a glory from the sun, is borne
onward by the wind, and, perhaps, as it gradually came, so it
gradually disappears, melting away in the untroubled air.

Now, we say that the little vesicles of which this cloud was
composed arose from the condensation of water-vapor preexisting
in the atmosphere, through reduction of temperature; we show how
they assumed the form they present. We assign optical reasons for
the brightness or blackness of the cloud; we explain, on
mechanical principles, its drifting before the wind; for its
disappearance we account on the principles of chemistry. It never
occurs to us to invoke the interposition of the Almighty in the
production and fashioning of this fugitive form. We explain all
the facts connected with it by physical laws, and perhaps should
reverentially hesitate to call into operation the finger of God.

But the universe is nothing more than such a cloud--a cloud of
suns and worlds. Supremely grand though it may seem to us, to the
Infinite and Eternal Intellect it is no more than a fleeting
mist. If there be a multiplicity of worlds in infinite space,
there is also a succession of worlds in infinite time. As one
after another cloud replaces cloud in the skies, so this starry
system, the universe, is the successor of countless others that
have preceded it--the predecessor of countless others that will
follow. There is an unceasing metamorphosis, a sequence of
events, without beginning or end.

If, on physical principles, we account for minor meteorological
incidents, mists and clouds, is it not permissible for us to
appeal to the same principle in the origin of world-systems and
universes, which are only clouds on a space-scale somewhat
larger, mists on a time-scale somewhat less transient? Can any
man place the line which bounds the physical on one side, the
supernatural on the other? Do not our estimates of the extent and
the duration of things depend altogether on our point of view?
Were we set in the midst of the great nebula of Orion, how
transcendently magnificent the scene! The vast transformations,
the condensations of a fiery mist into worlds, might seem worthy
of the immediate presence, the supervision of God; here, at our
distant station, where millions of miles are inappreciable to our
eyes, and suns seem no bigger than motes in the air, that nebula
is more insignificant than the faintest cloud. Galileo, in his
description of the constellation of Orion, did not think it worth
while so much as to mention it. The most rigorous theologian of
those days would have seen nothing to blame in imputing its
origin to secondary causes, nothing irreligious in failing to
invoke the arbitrary interference of God in its metamorphoses. If
such be the conclusion to which we come respecting it, what would
be the conclusion to which an Intelligence seated in it might
come respecting us? It occupies an extent of space millions of
times greater than that of our solar system; we are invisible
from it, and therefore absolutely insignificant. Would such an
Intelligence think it necessary to require for our origin and
maintenance the immediate intervention of God?


From the solar system let us descend to what is still more
insignificant--a little portion of it; let us descend to our own
earth. In the lapse of time it has experienced great changes.
Have these been due to incessant divine interventions, or to the
continuous operation of unfailing law? The aspect of Nature
perpetually varies under our eyes, still more grandly and
strikingly has it altered in geological times. But the laws
guiding those changes never exhibit the slightest variation. In
the midst of immense vicissitudes they are immutable. The present
order of things is only a link in a vast connected chain reaching
back to an incalculable past, and forward to an infinite future.

There is evidence, geological and astronomical, that the
temperature of the earth and her satellite was in the remote past
very much higher than it is now. A decline so slow as to be
imperceptible at short intervals, but manifest enough in the
course of many ages, has occurred. The heat has been lost by
radiation into space.

The cooling of a mass of any kind, no matter whether large or
small, is not discontinuous; it does not go on by fits and
starts; it takes place under the operation of a mathematical law,
though for such mighty changes as are here contemplated neither
the formula of Newton, nor that of Dulong and Petit, may apply.
It signifies nothing that periods of partial decline, glacial
periods, or others of temporary elevation, have been
intercalated; it signifies nothing whether these variations may
have arisen from topographical variations, as those of level, or
from periodicities in the radiation of the sun. A periodical sun
would act as a mere perturbation in the gradual decline of heat.
The perturbations of the planetary motions are a confirmation,
not a disproof, of gravity.

Now, such a decline of temperature must have been attended by
innumerable changes of a physical character in our globe. Her
dimensions must have diminished through contraction, the length
of her day must have lessened, her surface must have collapsed,
and fractures taken place along the lines of least resistance;
the density of the sea must have increased, its volume must have
become less; the constitution of the atmosphere must have varied,
especially in the amount of water-vapor and carbonic acid that it
contained; the barometric pressure must have declined.

These changes, and very many more that might be mentioned, must
have taken place not in a discontinuous but in an orderly manner,
since the master-fact, the decline of heat, that was causing
them, was itself following a mathematical law.

But not alone did lifeless Nature submit to these inevitable
mutations; living Nature was also simultaneously affected.

An organic form of any kind, vegetable or animal, will remain
unchanged only so long as the environment in which it is placed
remains unchanged. Should an alteration in the environment occur,
the organism will either be modified or destroyed.

Destruction is more likely to happen as the change in the
environment is more sudden; modification or transformation is
more possible as that change is more gradual.

Since it is demonstrably certain that lifeless Nature has in the
lapse of ages undergone vast modifications; since the crust of
the earth, and the sea, and the atmosphere, are no longer such as
they once were; since the distribution of the land and the ocean
and all manner of physical conditions have varied; since there
have been such grand changes in the environment of living things
on the surface of our planet--it necessarily follows that organic
Nature must have passed through destructions and transformations
in correspondence thereto.

That such extinctions, such modifications, have taken place, how
copious, how convincing, is the evidence!

Here, again, we must observe that, since the disturbing agency
was itself following a mathematical law, these its results must
be considered as following that law too.

Such considerations, then, plainly force upon us the conclusion
that the organic progress of the world has been guided by the
operation of immutable law--not determined by discontinuous,
disconnected, arbitrary interventions of God. They incline us to
view favorably the idea of transmutations of one form into
another, rather than that of sudden creations.

Creation implies an abrupt appearance, transformation a gradual
change.

In this manner is presented to our contemplation the great theory
of Evolution. Every organic being has a place in a chain of
events. It is not an isolated, a capricious fact, but an
unavoidable phenomenon. It has its place in that vast, orderly
concourse which has successively risen in the past, has
introduced the present, and is preparing the way for a
predestined future. From point to point in this vast progression
there has been a gradual, a definite, a continuous unfolding, a
resistless order of evolution. But in the midst of these mighty
changes stand forth immutable the laws that are dominating over
all.

If we examine the introduction of any type of life in the animal
series, we find that it is in accordance with transformation, not
with creation. Its beginning is under an imperfect form in the
midst of other forms, of which the time is nearly complete, and
which are passing into extinction. By degrees, one species after
another in succession more and more perfect arises, until, after
many ages, a culmination is reached. From that there is, in like
manner, a long, a gradual decline.

Thus, though the mammal type of life is the characteristic of the
Tertiary and post-Tertiary periods, it does not suddenly make its
appearance without premonition in those periods. Far back, in the
Secondary, we find it under imperfect forms, struggling, as it
were, to make good a foothold. At length it gains a predominance
under higher and better models.

So, too, of reptiles, the characteristic type of life of the
Secondary period. As we see in a dissolving view, out of the
fading outlines of a scene that is passing away, the dim form of
a new one emerging, which gradually gains strength, reaches its
culmination, and then melts away in some other that is displacing
it, so reptile-life doubtfully, appears, reaches its culmination,
and gradually declines. In all this there is nothing abrupt; the
changes shade into each other by insensible degrees.

How could it be otherwise? The hot-blooded animals could not
exist in an atmosphere so laden with carbonic acid as was that of
the primitive times. But the removal of that noxious ingredient
from the air by the leaves of plants under the influence of
sunlight, the enveloping of its carbon in the earth under the
form of coal, the disengagement of its oxygen, permitted their
life. As the atmosphere was thus modified, the sea was involved
in the change; it surrendered a large part of its carbonic acid,
and the limestone hitherto held in solution by it was deposited
in the solid form. For every equivalent of carbon buried in the
earth, there was an equivalent of carbonate of lime separated
from the sea --not necessarily in an amorphous condition, most
frequently under an organic form. The sunshine kept up its work
day by day, but there were demanded myriads of days for the work
to be completed. It was a slow passage from a noxious to a
purified atmosphere, and an equally slow passage from a
cold-blooded to a hot- blooded type of life. But the physical
changes were taking place under the control of law, and the
organic transformations were not sudden or arbitrary providential
acts. They were the immediate, the inevitable consequences of the
physical changes, and therefore, like them, the necessary issue
of law.

For a more detailed consideration of this subject, I may refer
the reader to Chapters I, II., VII, of the second book of my
"Treatise on Human Physiology," published in 1856.


Is the world, then, governed by law or by providential
interventions, abruptly breaking the proper sequence of events?

To complete our view of this question, we turn finally to what,
in one sense, is the most insignificant, in another the most
important, case that can be considered. Do human societies, in
their historic career, exhibit the marks of a predetermined
progress in an unavoidable track? Is there any evidence that the
life of nations is under the control of immutable law?

May we conclude that, in society, as in the individual man, parts
never spring from nothing, but are evolved or developed from
parts that are already in existence?

If any one should object to or deride the doctrine of the
evolution or successive development of the animated forms which
constitute that unbroken organic chain reaching from the
beginning of life on the globe to the present times, let him
reflect that he has himself passed through modifications the
counterpart of those he disputes. For nine months his type of
life was aquatic, and during that time he assumed, in succession,
many distinct but correlated forms. At birth his type of life
became aerial; he began respiring the atmospheric air; new
elements of food were supplied to him; the mode of his nutrition
changed; but as yet he could see nothing, hear nothing, notice
nothing. By degrees conscious existence was assumed; he became
aware that there is an external world. In due time organs adapted
to another change of food, the teeth, appeared, and a change of
food ensued. He then passed through the stages of childhood and
youth, his bodily form developing, and with it his intellectual
powers. At about fifteen years, in consequence of the evolution
which special parts of his system had attained, his moral
character changed. New ideas, new passions, influenced him. And
that that was the cause, and this the effect, is demonstrated
when, by the skill of the surgeon, those parts have been
interfered with. Nor does the development, the metamorphosis, end
here; it requires many years for the body to reach its full
perfection, many years for the mind. A culmination is at length
reached, and then there is a decline. I need not picture its
mournful incidents-- the corporeal, the intellectual
enfeeblement. Perhaps there is little exaggeration in saying that
in less than a century every human being on the face of the
globe, if not cut off in an untimely manner, has passed through
all these changes.

Is there for each of us a providential intervention as we thus
pass from stage to stage of life? or shall we not rather believe
that the countless myriads of human beings who have peopled the
earth have been under the guidance of an unchanging, a universal
law?

But individuals are the elementary constituents of
communities--nations. They maintain therein a relation like that
which the particles of the body maintain to the body itself.
These, introduced into it, commence and complete their function;
they die, and are dismissed.

Like the individual, the nation comes into existence without its
own knowledge, and dies without its own consent, often against
its own will. National life differs in no particular from
individual, except in this, that it is spread over a longer span,
but no nation can escape its inevitable term. Each, if its
history be well considered, shows its time of infancy, its time
of youth, its time of maturity, its time of decline, if its
phases of life be completed.

In the phases of existence of all, so far as those phases are
completed, there are common characteristics, and, as like
accordances in individuals point out that all are living under a
reign of law, we are justified in inferring that the course of
nations, and indeed the progress of humanity, does not take place
in a chance or random way, that supernatural interventions never
break the chain of historic acts, that every historic event has
its warrant in some preceding event, and gives warrant to others
that are to follow..

But this conclusion is the essential principle of Stoicism--that
Grecian philosophical system which, as I have already said,
offered a support in their hour of trial and an unwavering guide
in the vicissitudes of life, not only to many illustrious Greeks,
but also to some of the great philosophers, statesmen, generals,
and emperors of Rome; a system which excluded chance from every
thing, and asserted the direction of all events by irresistible
necessity, to the promotion of perfect good; a system of
earnestness, sternness, austerity, virtue--a protest in favor of
the common-sense of mankind. And perhaps we shall not dissent
from the remark of Montesquieu, who affirms that the destruction
of the Stoics was a great calamity to the human race; for they
alone made great citizens, great men.

To the principle of government by law, Latin Christianity, in its
papal form, is in absolute contradiction. The history of this
branch of the Christian Church is almost a diary of miracles and
supernatural interventions. These show that the supplications of
holy men have often arrested the course of Nature--if, indeed,
there be any such course; that images and pictures have worked
wonders; that bones, hairs, and other sacred relics, have wrought
miracles. The criterion or proof of the authenticity of many of
these objects is, not an unchallengeable record of their origin
and history, but an exhibition of their miracle-working powers.

Is not that a strange logic which finds proof of an asserted fact
in an inexplicable illustration of something else?

Even in the darkest ages intelligent Christian men must have had
misgivings as to these alleged providential or miraculous
interventions. There is a solemn grandeur in the orderly progress
of Nature which profoundly impresses us; and such is the
character of continuity in the events of our individual life that
we instinctively doubt the occurrence of the supernatural in that
of our neighbor. The intelligent man knows well that, for his
personal behoof, the course of Nature has never been checked; for
him no miracle has ever been worked; he attributes justly every
event of his life to some antecedent event; this he looks upon as
the cause, that as the consequence. When it is affirmed that, in
his neighbor's behalf, such grand interventions have been
vouchsafed, he cannot do otherwise than believe that his neighbor
is either deceived, or practising deception.

As might, then, have been anticipated, the Catholic doctrine of
miraculous intervention received a rude shock at the time of the
Reformation, when predestination and election were upheld by some
of the greatest theologians, and accepted by some of the greatest
Protestant Churches. With stoical austerity Calvin declares: "We
were elected from eternity, before the foundation of the world,
from no merit of our own, but according to the purpose of the
divine pleasure." In affirming this, Calvin was resting on the
belief that God has from all eternity decreed whatever comes to
pass. Thus, after the lapse of many ages, were again emerging
into prominence the ideas of the Basilidians wad Valentinians,
Christian sects of the second century, whose Gnostical views led
to the engraftment of the great doctrine of the Trinity upon
Christianity. They asserted that all the actions of men are
necessary, that even faith is a natural gift, to which men are
forcibly determined, and must therefore be saved, though their
lives be ever so irregular. From the Supreme God all things
proceeded. Thus, also, came into prominence the views which were
developed by Augustine in his work, "De dono perseverantiae."
These were: that God, by his arbitrary will, has selected certain
persons without respect to foreseen faith or good works, and has
infallibly ordained to bestow upon them eternal happiness; other
persons, in like manner, he has condemned to eternal reprobation.
The Sublapsarians believed that "God permitted the fall of Adam;"
the Supralapsarians that "he predestinated it, with all its
pernicious consequences, from all eternity, and that our first
parents had no liberty from the beginning." In this, these
sectarians disregarded the remark of St. Augustine: "Nefas est
dicere Deum aliquid nisi bonum predestinare."

Is it true, then, that "predestination to eternal happiness is
the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations
of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed by his
council, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those
whom he hath chosen out of mankind?" Is it true that of the human
family there are some who, in view of no fault of their own,
Almighty God has condemned to unending torture, eternal misery?