verse is commonly taken as indicating a creation of light for the
first time in the entire cosmos or universe. And if it be so, there is
no objection, on any scientific ground, to the assertion that there was
once a time when as yet the vibrations and waves which we connect with
the idea of Light, had not yet begun. It is true that nebular matter, as
now observed, is believed to be, partially at any rate, self-luminous.
But this fact, supposing it to be such, is not inconsistent with a still
earlier time when light had not yet begun. From the "wave-theory" of
light, which is one of those working hypotheses which are indispensable,
and which, in a sense, may be said to be demonstrated by their
indispensability, it can clearly be seen that if light is caused by
rapid vibrational movement, there must have been--or at any rate there
is nothing against an authoritative declaration that there was--a moment
of time when the first vibrational impulse was given, when, in fact, God
said "Let there be light, and there was light," _before_ which also
there was "darkness upon the face of the deep.[1]"

[Footnote 1: It also needs only to be remarked, in passing, that we are
really in complete ignorance as to the light-medium, the
"luminiferous-ether" outside the comparatively thin stratum of our own
terrestrial atmosphere. We do not know whether there might not have been
a condition of the medium in which, up to the moment of a creative
_fiat_, it was incapable of transmitting light-waves.]

There is no necessary connection between the creation of light _per se_,
and the existence of any particular source (or sources) of light to our
planet or to other planets.

No justification is now needed for such a remark, and the almost
forgotten cavils of one of the "Essays and Reviews" may still survive as
a "scientific" curiosity, to warn us against too hastily concluding that
(in subjects where so little is really _known_) the Bible must be wrong,
and the favourite hypothesis of the day right.

But as a matter of fact, the text, especially when read in connection
with Job xxxviii., need not be taken to refer to any original creation
of light in the universe generally, but merely to the letting in of
light on the hitherto dark and "waste" earth. The command "Let there be
light" was followed on the next day by the formation of a firmament or
expanse. So that all the verse _necessarily_ implies is, that the thick
clouds and vapours which