To prove the original igneous fluidity of the globe, we might have adopted another course of argument. All will admit that the present temperature of the interior of the earth is far more elevated than that of the surrounding planetary spaces. The inevitable result is, from the known laws of heat, that its radiation into the celestial spaces is constantly going on, and consequently the earth's temperature is being constantly lowered. Who can tell us now when this process of refrigeration commenced? If no one, then there must have been a time when the heat was great enough to fuse the whole globe. And the facts already stated confirm such an inference. For all the efforts hitherto made to show that the earth may be passing through regions of various temperatures, in its march around the centre of centres, amount to nothing more than dreamy conjecture.
In order to feel the force of the argument, sustained by so many facts in geology, just picture to yourselves this vast globe as a mass of liquid fire. From such a world every thing organic must have been excluded, and every thing combustible consumed, and only such combinations of matter have existed as incandescent heat could not decompose. Compare such a world with that now teeming with life, and beauty, and glory, which we inhabit; and say, must not the transition to its present condition have demanded the exercise of infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite benevolence? You can, indeed, conceive how a solid crust might have formed over the vast fiery ocean, by the simple radiation of heat; and then, too, by natural laws, might the vapors have been condensed into oceans and clouds, while volcanic force within might have lifted up our continents and mountains above the flood. But what a picture of desolation and ruin would such a world present, while unadorned with vegetation, and with no voice of life to break the stillness of universal death! Here is, then, the precise point where we need the interference of a Deity. Admit, if you please, that atheism, with its eternal matter and the laws of nature at command, might form a world without inhabitants. Who does not see, that to bestow organization, and life, and instinct, to say nothing of intellect, upon brute matter, is the loftiest prerogative of Jehovah? especially to fill so vast a world as ours with its teeming millions, exhibiting ten thousand diversities of size, form, and structure.