Here, too, I may remark that the idea of creation, which it has been one of my chief objects to develop, is illustrated.  This remark holds good, whether an original creation of light is intended, or only an arrangement whereby light was for the first time introduced to the earth’s surface.  The idea of creating light not only involves the Divine Conception of the thing, and the marvellous method of its production,[1] but doubtless, also, all those wonderful laws of reflection, refraction, polarization, and a thousand others, which the science of Physical Optics investigates.

[Footnote 1:  And this is still a mystery to us. What light is we do not know—­we can only speak of our own sensation of it.  Nor do we know what vibrates to produce light.  Hypothetical terms, such as “ether,” “luminiferous-medium,” and so forth, only conceal our ignorance.]

Naturally enough, in this case, the double idea involved in creation—­the Divine concept and its realization—­will, in the nature of things, fall into one.  No process of evolution is required; none is indicated by science.  Directly the Divine hand gave the impulse concurrently with the Divine thought—­light would be.  In the nature of things there is no place for a line between the Divine fiat and its realization, as there is in the production of life-forms on the earth.  Or, on the other view, directly the Divine command went forth, the vapours would clear and allow the transmission of light.

(2) “AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE A FIRMAMENT (EXPANSE) IN THE MIDST OF THE WATERS, AND LET IT DIVIDE THE WATERS FROM THE WATERS....AND GOD CALLED THE FIRMAMENT HEAVEN.”

There has been gathered round this verse what I may call rather an ill-natured controversy, because there is no real ground for it; and the objections taken seem rather of a desire to find out something against the narrative at any price, than to make the best of it.  The verse, when duly translated, implies that an “expanse”—­the setting of a clear space of atmosphere around the globe—­formed one of the special design-thoughts of the Creator, followed by its immediate (or gradual) accomplishment.  I think we should have hardly had so much cavilling over this word “expanse” if it had not been for the term subsequently used by the Seventy in their Greek version ([Greek:  stereoma]).  The ancients, it is said, believed the space above the earth to be “solid.”

Now I would contend that even if the Hebrew writer had any mistaken or confused notions in his own mind, that would not afford any just ground against revelation itself.  But I would point out that many of the expressions which may be quoted to show the idea of solidity, are clearly poetical.  And if we go to the poetic or semi-poetic aspect of things, may I not ask whether there is not a certain sense in which the earth-envelope may be said to be solid?  The air has a considerable density, its uniform and inexorable pressure on every square inch of the earth’s surface is very great.  Such a word as [Greek:  stereoma] (firmamentum) does not imply solidity in the sense in which gold is solid—­as if the heavens were a mass of metal, and the stars set in it like jewels; it implies, rather, something fixed and offering resistance.