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(Continued from p. 313.)
By
Rabbi Isidore Kalisch, of Cleveland
No. III.
[Note.—The learned author of these essays requests
us to correct an error in page 312, line 6 from top,
where he wishes it to read, instead of “the heat
of the atmosphere ceases,” “the vapour.” The ten
geographical miles referred to are the German, or
forty-nine English statute, or forty nautical miles.
The heat of the atmosphere ceases, even under the
equator, at about 15,000 feet above the sea, where
the perpetual snow-line commences; the height,
therefore, of the atmosphere indicated, is where the
region of vapours is supposed to terminate.—In a
note to page 311, we stated that “infinite extent”
is almost a contradiction in itself, as extent
means something defined by limits; but language
cannot always express what we feel and think. Mr. K.
thanks that the term is not a contradictio in eo
ipso, as it represents the space occupied by the
world, which commences nowhere, and cannot be said
to terminate anywhere, as the point of commencement
or termination is unknown, and we cannot assign any
reason why it is to commence or terminate anywhere.
It is an idea which strikes us as correct, without
which we cannot conceive anything in nature. We
indeed assume parts in space; but space itself is
permanent or fixed. A limited space or extent is a
geometrical or mathematical body. But
<<474>> the
world’s space is an unlimited extent; and this is,
moreover, the only distinctive mark by which we know
of it. It is also not a product of our reason, but
the result or phenomenon of our poser of conception.
It is not an idea which we derive from
circumstances, and is therefore
not to be comprehended. And just as all infinity is
shrouded in a species of obscurity, the idea of
space, which we have to define in this way, and
which has this distinctive character, must also be
obscure. The Talmud, therefore, well designates God
as המקום, “the
space,” because He alone fills up the infinite
space, which is then at last nothing but a shorter
expression for רכב ערבות
(see p. 312). We would merely add, that the author
sends us his pieces in German, which we render into
English; and we confess that we find it extremely
difficult to transfer all the words he employs,
together with other German philosophical writers,
into proper synonymous ones of the English language.
For instance, “Anschauungovermögen,” literally the
faculty of viewing or contemplating, which we gave
with “power of conception,” without conveying
exactly the shade of meaning which the Germans have
thereby. They understand by it the faculty we have
of understanding a subject by taking a spiritual or
physical look at it; still they divide “Anschauung”
from “Begriff,” an idea derived from outward
circumstances. These terms certainly border close on
each other; yet the Germans contrive to distinguish
them as essentially different, though to us and most
others “conception,” “notion,” and “idea” of a thing
are very closely allied, if not identical. To our
view, we can no more have an intuitive conception,
than a derived idea of infinite space, any
more than of eternity, because we ourselves are
hemmed in by limits and circumscribed in duration.
All we can conceive of both ideas is something
vast, undetermined, hence not understood; and this
is all we intended conveying in our note in
question—not to contradict the author, but to
express our inability to find words to convey the
dim notion which we have of unlimited extent, &c.—Ed.
Oc.]
Gen. i. 9. “And God said, Let the waters under the
heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let
the dry land be visible; and it was so.” The truth
of this assertion, that the earth, from the
commencement of the primeval original creation,
existed in a perfectly fluid state, has been
confirmed by the most recent geological
discoveries.
It
has been proved, by the actual measurement of
several degrees of <<475>> the earth’s meridians, at
various distances from the equator, that the earth
is flattened at the poles. This discovery of the
elliptical form of our earth clearly demonstrates,
without any room for doubt, that the atoms of matter
which compose our earth were at one epoch endowed
with such a state of mobility that they could pass
freely over one another, and could yield, which they
actually did, to the impulse of the centrifugal
force produced by the diurnal rotation of our
planet.
Ibid. 10. “And God called the dry land Earth, and
the gathering together of the waters he called Seas;
and God saw that it was good.”
All commentators, indeed, ask the question, Why is
it that the entire mass of water in its great
collectiveness should be termed
ימים seas, in
plural, and not ים
sea, in the singular, as has been done in Gen. i.
26, and Psal. xcv. 5, and in other places? And no
one has yet offered a satisfactory explanation on
this point.
But, according to my view, the plural form,
ימים
seas, has been used quite properly, both on
grammatical and geological grounds. The grammatical
one is that fixed magnitudes are frequently
designated by plural terminations; e. g.
שמים heavens;
במות high places,
&c. So also we read in Ezekiel xxviii. 2,
בלב ימים
“in the heart of the seas,” instead
of בלב ים, “in the
heart of the sea.”
The geological ground is as follows:—
The various processes of boring, instituted for the
purpose of making Artesian wells, have caused the
discovery of streams and an immense mass of water in
the depths of the earth. It is now probable that by
the term ימים seas,
used in the third period of the creation, the
subterranean waters are likewise comprehended.
These waters are also called in the Scriptures
תהומות the abyss,
the deep, depths, and
תהום רבה the great deep (Gen. vii. 11).
Ibid. 11. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth
grass, herbs yielding seed, fruit frees yielding
fruit after their kind, in which its seed is upon
the earth, and it was so.”
The attentive reader will not be able, at perusing
this verse, to refrain from putting the question,
“How is this, that the plants should be able to
germinate, when the quickening beams of the sun were
not created till the fourth period?” We might indeed
assume that the matter of light which was created in
the first period, and around which our earth
revolved in its rotation, promoted the growth of
plants; but how could they ripen in light without
heat? But for this, also, we shall find the
necessary solution in the latest discoveries in the
realms of geology.
Observation teaches us that the influence of the
seasons on the in<<476>>terior of the earth is
perceptible only at a very moderate depth, after
reaching which point, the heat gradually increases
in the same proportion that we descend farther
downward; and it has been demonstrated by
experiments that the heat increases one degree (of
Reaumur) with every thirty-three metres of depth.
The warmth of the earth, or central heat, which had
kept the earth from the first period of the creation
in a perfect fluid state, as is still the case at
the present day in the centre of the earth, of which
we have a proof in volcanic eruptions, and the
existence of warm and hot springs, caused, before
the surface of the earth had cooled down to the
present degree of temperature,—a peculiar
temperature at a time when there were no climates,
but when a vapour-atmosphere, in which vegetation
could progress, surrounded our earth. There have
been found in the island of Portland, in England,
vegetable remains of various tropical plants, rooted
fast in their original positions. The same is
witnessed in most of the collieries of Europe, even
in the districts which are at present the coldest.
All this affords a convincing proof that, at a
certain time, the temperature of the earth must have
been everywhere alike; and this was evidently the
third period of creation, as it is indicated in the
Bible, when the vegetable productions were sustained
alive, as now plants are kept in forcing-houses.
We
have also to make a grammatical observation on this
verse, in regard to the expression
למינו (after his or
its kind). Moses Mendelssohn, in his commentary, is
of opinion that, if it were to refer both to
עץ פרי and
עשב it ought to
have a greater disjunctive accent than
זרע, wherefore it
must refer only to עץ פרי.
This opinion would be correct if we could assume
that in this verse there is a
מאמר מוסגר a
parenthesis; but I do not think that this is the
case. On the contrary, this verse constitutes a
period of several members, of which the first, “Let
the earth bring forth all sorts* of vegetables,”
contains the general direction (כלל),
which is farther explained in the subsequent members
with the particulars,
פרטים. Whoever is acquainted with the laws of
Hebrew accentuation, must know that
טעם מפסיק הבא כפול הראשון
יותר מפסיק, when a disjunctive accent is
repeated, the first always denotes a
greater disjunction than the following one.
Consequently the first†
זקף קטן which,
according to ancient carefully-edited Bibles, should
mark דשא as the
general direction, denotes a greater disjunction
than <<477>> the others on
זרע and למינו.
על הארץ, however,
has an אתנה, which
is, except the סלוק,
the greatest disjunctive in the period, because it
refers also to עשב מזריע
זרע, and therefore requires to be
particularly distinguished. It is therefore
evident, that the accentuation of this verse permits
us to refer למינו
as well to עשב as
to עץ פרי. The
correctness of this construction is farther
exhibited, from the fact that the next verse
expressly says עשב מזריע
זרע למינהו, “herb bearing seed after its
kind.”
(To be continued.) |
