The "day" having thus been created formally (so to speak), the Divine
Author proceeds to mark, by His own Procedure, the use of the "days"
which He had provided for the earth.
On this view, of course, the origin of light as a "force"--the first
beginning of its pulsations--is not detailed, any more than the origin
of electric force, or heat, or gravitation.
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.
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