Transition to Birds. 235 with the new and great reptiles of the Mesozoic age. This age was their special time. Some were gigantic, others small; there were browsers on plants, and terrible renders of living flesh; some had a resemblance or prophecy of birds, and not a few pre-figured future mammals. There were the Iguanodon, or his relative Hadrosaurus, with small head and teeth for munching leaves and fruit of trees; and the terrible Megalosaurus, a vast lizard, with some bird-like foreshadowings. The short deep jaws and heads of some others made them like the carnivorous mammals of later times. The Cetiosaurus, huge monster, was not less than ten feet in height and fifty in length. There were sea-serpents with heads eight feet long, and conical teeth a foot in length; but, perhaps, no creatures set before us so fully the stretched-out reptiles of the fifth day creation, as the Mosasaurus and Elasmosaurus in their enormous length and terrible powers of assertion in the world. Animals of the water are cold, stiff, mute, in contrast with birds, which are warm, free, and full of melody; yet they are spoken of as created on the same day; and accurate knowledge finds that they are closely allied. The advance to birds was through the lizard: "God created every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind." The contrast is between the water and the air; fish in the one, birds flying in the other. Birds are subdivided into: Struthious, such as the ostrich, cassowary, emeu, dinornis, etc.; Carinate, including all other forms. These have a striking resemblance to Pterodactyles; the former appear to have for ancestors large reptilian forms akin to the Dinosauria. The way in which the interval between fish and fowl is spanned, may not be apparent to the unlearned in such mysteries; but to the student, who has studied their inner structure, no insurmountable difficulty presents itself. Let any one notice that the form of the fish glides easily into that of the lizard, then let him compare the lizard with the bird. The long snout of the crocodile is not unlike the beak of a bird. The Plesiosaurus is not very unlike a swan, and yet it is in reality a gigantic Eft. Raise the crocodile on his hind legs, extract the claws from the fore feet, by lengthening the bones you have wings, and the whole forms a bird—a veritable flying dragon. Almost startling is the ease with which, by modifying or developing certain parts, a lizard may be turned into a bird. Hence that which puzzled one in childhood, becomes clear when we inquire into the reason of things. We behold the transformation in those reptile-bats, Pterodactyles, of the Mesozoic ages, which were lizards of a high order. One species had twenty feet of expanse in its wings, the skulls show a good capacity of brain, the skeletons were light yet strong, the hollow bones having pores for the introduction of air. "Imagine such a creature, a flying dragon, with vast skinny wings, its body perhaps covered with scales, both wings and feet armed with strong claws, and withlong jaws furnished with sharp teeth. Nothing can be conceived more strange and frightful. Some of them had the hind legs long, like wading birds. Some had short legs, adapted perhaps for perching. They could probably fold up their wings and walk on all fours." In this old world time, lizards had wings; and birds had tails and hands like lizards. In the same Mesozoic ages, birds existed resembling those of our own day; and almost at the same time some weak small mammals, forerunners of those higher types which were to possess the world. Most probably the earliest birds were sea-fowls soon were waders, equal in size to the ostrich, stalking through the shallows; while tortoises, larger than the rhinoceros, crawled over the mud. The following is the latest scientific classification of Birds:I. Natatores Swimmers. 2. Grallatores Waders. A natural and laudable curiosity leads to the enquirywhat did the wisest of the ancients think concerning the 1 "The Story of the Earth and Man." J. W. Dawson, LL.D. Comparison of Statements. 237 world's origin? A brief summary of the Bible statement may well be compared with one by a man whose genius is of universal renown. The Bible Statement (1) The origin and existence of many worlds were from the beginning. (2) Light was called into existence to be, what it is now known to be, the great conditioner of all things. (3) There was a separation by which mingled elements acquired what may be called individuality; for, at first, as Plato says-" all things were without reason and measure, .. this, I say, being their nature, God fashioned them by form and number, . . . and out of them He constructed the universe:"1 the elements being grouped in gases, liquids, solids; or, as Scripture calls them, air, water, earth. (4) In the water, on the land, and in the air, manifold forms of life appeared; first in the water, thence extending to the land, afterwards rising into the air, until the world was replenished. Now, take from Plato, who represents Socrates, the following statements" God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad as far as this could be accomplished. Wherefore also finding the whole sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly manner, out of disorder He brought order, considering that this was far better than the other.... Now the creation took up each of the four elements; for the Creator compounded the world out of all the fire, and all the water, and all the air, and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them nor any power of them outside.3 ... The Creator of the universe spoke as follows:-Gods and sons of Gods, who are my works, and of whom I am the Artificer and Father, my creations are indissoluble, if so I will. . . . Three tribes of mortal beings remain to be created, -without them the universe will be incomplete, for it will not have in it every kind of animal which a perfect world ought to have. On the other hand, if they were created and received life from Me, they would be on an equality with the gods. In order then that there may be mortals, and that this universe 1 "Timæus," translation by Dr Jowett. "Timæus," p. 525, sec. 30. 3" Timæus," p. 527, sec. 32. may be truly universal, do ye, according to your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of animals, imitating the power which I showed in creating you. . . . They, imitating Him, received from Him the immortal principle of the soul; and around this they fashioned a mortal body, and made the whole body to be a vehicle of the soul, and constructed within a soul of another nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible affections.2 . . . A brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, but there is no need to dwell upon them at length. them at length. . . Of the men who came into the world, those who are cowards or have led unjust lives, may be fairly supposed to change into the nature of women in the second generation. . . . Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded men, who, although their thoughts were directed towards heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight; these were turned into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair. The race of wild pedestrian animals again came from those who had no philosophy in all their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens. In consequence of these habits of theirs they had their forelegs and heads trailing upon the earth to which they were akin; and they had also the crown of their heads oblong, and in all sorts of curious shapes, in which the courses of the soul were compressed by reason of disuse. And this was the reason why quadrupeds and polypods were created. .. And the most foolish of them who trailed their bodies entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, He made without feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the inhabitants of the water: these were made out of the most entirely ignorant and senseless of beings, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made. impure by all sorts of transgression, . . . hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have ... 1 "Timæus," pp. 534, 535, sec. 42. Revelation and Science. 239 received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their extreme ignorance.' We have not taken that which Dr Jowett rightly calls "obscure and repulsive," but the simplest and best. If any man can find in Plato or Aristotle, amongst Greeks or Romans, in old Egyptian or Sanscrit literature, any account of creation worthy to be compared with the Scriptural narrative; brief, yet comprehensive; accurate, yet general; simple, yet growing in meaning and power with the development of science; there may be a show of argument that Moses was wholly taught of other men: but, until that is done, Christians rightly maintain that Moses wrote the Sacred Narrative of creation by Inspiration of God. In any case, a true science existed, which could not have been acquired by any of the modern accurate experimental processes; the existence of this science renders possible the knowledge of many other things, the source of which we cannot trace. Faith not merely begins where science ends, but must accompany science every day in the conduct of life. The death-watch may say of the clock he lives in, "Tick, tick, tick, it is all tick: that is its final cause and purpose;" but we are not content with beetle philosophy; nor do we count the screws, levers, and pulleys of the world, equivalents of existence. There is a "line between that which is physical and that which is utterly beyond physics. . . . Man has been left to the resources of his intellect for the discovery not merely of physical laws, but of how far he is capable of comprehending them. . . . A revelation of anything which we can discover for ourselves, by studying the ordinary course of nature, would be an absurdity."" Truly so, but a revelation of that which, otherwise, would remain for ever unknown, is a benefit indeed; and when we find that the philosophical systems of Germany, apart from Scripture, though wonderful efforts of human reason, have not added one tittle to our positive religious knowledge; no, not even by saying, "There is a God; " we thank God for the Bible. Men who purpose henceforth to do without God tell us― Timæus," pp. 584, 585, sec. 90, 91, 92, Jowett's translation. "Recent Advances in Physical Science,” p. 25: P. G. Tait, M.A, 1.46 |