IV. The Significance of Biblical Criticism. By PROF. GEO. V.-The Influence of the Natural Sciences on the Intellectual VI.-The Significance of the Family for the Propagation of Re- II. Inspiration. By REV. A. E. TRUXAL, D.D. V.—Is Baptism a Creative Act or Merely a Declaratory Recog- TILDEN FOUNDATIONS. THE REFORMED CHURCH REVIEW NO. 1.—JANUARY, 1901. I. NATURE, AN ORGANIZED SYSTEM. BY REV. DR. JACOB COOPER. FIRST VIEW OF NATURE A CONFUSED PICTURE. The first impression which is made upon us as we look out into the world is the unbounded variety and richness of the material existences. The forms of life which swarm in the sea, that flit in the air, which creep on the earth, are truly innumerable. So when we descend the scale of being and come to vegetable life the number of living plants, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop growing out of the wall, from the redwood trees of the Yosemite valley to the microscopic growth in fermentation-the mind feels its inability to count them even by millions. And when we get still lower in the order of Nature and contemplate the grains of sand, the dust of the desert, the molecules of the mountain or the crust of the globe, the impression grows upon us that the world is made up of a countless number and infinite variety, each having its several place and separate function in the cosmic economy. They seem to us at first view like the world does to a mature man whose eyes have been opened by the surgeon's knife. All looks blurred; a confused mass without form, a chaotic panorama. CLOSER INSPECTION REVEALS ORDER. But a closer inspection reveals a wholly different category of existence. Like to the man with his sight restored, there gradually appear order and regularity among the objects of vision. But to see this more perfectly we must look at a portion of the scene isolated from the rest of the mass. For if the attention is not limited the power we possess will be spread over too much space to integrate any part, or segregate one individual object from the others. The picture presented to childhood is a mass of light and shade mingled together so as to form a crowded field; attractive by the richness of its coloring and the vastness of its extent yet bewildering by its conglomerate variety. In this respect the childhood of each person is like the childhood of the world. There is a beautiful combination of the outlines, but no distinct picture of the several parts. POETRY DEALS WITH OUTLINES: SCIENCE WITH EXACT FIGURE. Poetry deals with the general effects: science with the individual parts in their relations to specific functions and separate acts. The Greeks had the most exquisite idea of the general proportions of the human body, and hence their statuary and paintings, as the ideal representation of the beauty of form, have scarcely been equaled-certainly never surpassed. Yet they were not anatomists. In truth the dissection of the human body was deemed sacrilegious. The botanical analysis of a flower, the breaking up of a jewel to measure the crystals of which it is composed, destroy their beauty as apprehended by the senses, apart from the scientific value which a knowledge of the internal structure discloses. But the advance of knowledge brings with it the discovery that each minute part, when fitted to its place, effects the same for small areas and individual existences which the tout ensemble did for a larger picture. Thus the minute subdivisions when examined closely are found to be a reproduction on a smaller scale of what was conspicuous in a larger field and a completely organized life. For the connection of parts is quite as complete, and their dependence one part upon another as necessary in the minutest insect, plant, or grain of dust, as in the king of beasts, the sequoia of Yosemite, or the granite peak of Mt. Everest. UNITY AMID DIVERSITY. We contend that in the application of the general laws of the physical world we find a perfect unity of action. The attraction which brought Newton's apple to the ground draws the moon to the earth, the earth to the sun, the sun to the great center of the universe of suns. There is not a grain of dust which floats in the sunshine, a drop of water thrown up by the spray of a bore on the coast of Bengal, a crystal of the glacier on the sides of Mt. Elias that is not perfectly obedient to the laws of gravitation which holds all things together. For this makes the materials of the whole visible earth and heavens members, organs, so to speak, of the universe; the many turned into the one. The problem which tested the logical sagacity of a Parmenides was how the many could become the one, and vice versa. This is the great question which riveted the attention of the Greek philosophy, that highest exponent of human speculation. For this philosophy admitted the diversity because this was patent to the senses and a fact of deduction; and quite as certainly the unity of nature. These are parts of the same necessary result, deduced from the laws of thought; the coördinates of being involving each other. THE ONE IN THE MANY AN "ANTICIPATION OF NATURE.” But with all early speculation this unity in diversity is rather a presentiment, an "anticipation of nature"; a doctrine of faith rather than of scientific knowledge. For they knew little of the grand forces which control the material universe or the laws according to which these act. They grasped the combination which the senses gain from a general impression, rather than the more perfect synthesis which follows a scientific analysis. But modern science is synthetic, and all philosophy is tending toward monism. Hence there can be only one universe; and every organized being must be a monad, and the exemplar of every other. No matter how complicated the structure, how large the extent, how varied the work to be effected, there is unity of organization. There is no being of which we have knowledge whose anatomical structure is so complicated as that of man, or of such diversified action. He can make any kind of movement; adapt himself to every condition of locality, climate, or manner of life. He can turn his hand to any work however strange, wide of extent, or subtle in its applications. What he cannot do by his own strength he can effect by harnessing the powers of nature to do his bidding. And yet he is the most intensely individual, the most completely unitary in his thought and volition of any organ that is conceivable. It is moreover, worthy of notice that unity of organ and function appears to increase pari passu with complication of structure from the lowest forms of animal life-such as molluscs and jelly fish-up to the most intricate in structure and action. There is everywhere diversity in unity, the many in the one; but especially in man, which is most emphatically the microcosm of nature. ALL PARTS OF THE UNIVERSE HELD TOGETHER BY THE SAME FORCES. This same unity or organized system may be seen in the passive effects as completely as in active striving or purposes. As all matter is mutually attractive, so if any part be affected by an external influence this conveys the force received, in due part to all with which it is connected. If a ball be struck, whatever force is given to one part of it is transmitted in the proper proportion to all its parts, and from these in turn to those with which it unites in an organ or system. If the force be not sufficient to neutralize its inertia this force is distributed equally throughout its structure, provided this be uniform; and the members in their turn by the force of inertia absorb the force of impact which is not lost, but becomes latent like the major part of nature's forces at all times. But if the blow be sufficiently powerful to become kinetic then it is conveyed to those bodies with which the receiver |