These have as thoroughly undermined the
old theologic substitution of phrases for facts. When Galileo
dropped the differing weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he
began the end of Aristotelian authority in physics. When
Torricelli balanced a column of mercury against a column of
water and each of these against a column of air, he ended the
theologic phrase that "nature abhors a vacuum." When Newton
approximately determined the velocity of sound, he ended the
theologic argument that we see the flash before we hear the roar
because "sight is nobler than hearing." When Franklin showed
that lightning is caused by electricity, and Ohm and Faraday
proved that electricity obeys ascertained laws, they ended the
theological idea of a divinity seated above the clouds and
casting thunderbolts.
Resulting from the labour of both these branches of physical
science, we have the establishment of the great laws of the
indestructibility of matter, the correlation of forces, and
chemical affinity. Thereby is ended, with various other sacred
traditions, the theological theory of a visible universe created
out of nothing, so firmly imbedded in the theological thought of
the Middle Ages and in the Westminster Catechism.
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