Omphalos

by Philip Henry Gosse

Gosse argued that the world had indeed been created by God in six days, but had made the earth to appear as though it was already ancient, complete with factitious "evidences" of prehistoric life. Gosse's work was popular with neither Christians nor evolutionists.

Nook

First published January 1, 1857

About the author

Philip Henry Gosse FRS (/ɡɒs/; 6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888), known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology. Gosse created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, and coined the term "aquarium" when he published the first manual, The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea, in 1854. His work was the catalyst for an aquarium craze in early Victorian England.

Gosse was also the author of Omphalos, an attempt to reconcile the geological ages presupposed by Charles Lyell with the biblical account of creation. After his death, Gosse was portrayed as an overbearing father of uncompromising religious views in Father and Son (1907), a memoir written by his son, Edmund Gosse, a poet and critic, though the son's description of Gosse has since been described as having included "error, distortion...unwarranted claims, misrepresentation" and "abuse of the written record".

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A WORK OFTEN RIDICULED, YET STILL OF INTEREST

Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888) was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science. (After his death, he was portrayed in unflattering terms by his poet son in the book, 'Father and Son.')

Gosse states in the Preface, "I venture to suggest in the following pages an element, hitherto overlooked, which disturbs the conclusions of geologists respecting the antiquity of the earth. Their calculations are sound on the recognized premises; but they have not allowed for the Law of Prochronism in Creation." (He later defines "prochronic" as "unreal developments whose apparent results are seen in the organism at the moment of its creation," as opposed to "diachronic," which is "occurring during time.") He adds, "I do not claim originality for the thought which I have here endeavored to work out. It was suggested to me by a Tract, which I met with some dozen years ago, or more; the title of which I have forgotten; I am pretty sure it was anonymous."

He fairly and accurately states the evidence for the antiquity of the earth. "Looking only at nature, or looking at it only with the lights of experience and reason, I see not how it is possible to avoid one of these two theories, the development of all organic existence out of gaseous elements, or the eternity of matter in its present forms. Creation, however, solves the dilemma.... The life-history of every organism commenced at some point or other of its circular course. It was created, called into being, in some definite stage."

Thus, Gosse proposed what modern creationists would call "creation with an appearance of age": he states, "no example can be selected from the vast vegetable kingdom, which did not at the instant of its creation present indubitable evidences of a previous history. This is not put forth as a hypothesis, but as a necessity ... it could not have been otherwise."

Concerning man, "If it were legitimate to suppose that the first individual of the species Man was created in the condition answering to that of a new-born infant, there would still be the need of maternal milk for its sustenance, and maternal care for its protection, for a considerable period ... the navel cord or its cicatrix remains, to testify to something anterior to both." He adds, "Just as the newly-created Man was, at the first moment of his existence, a man of twenty, or five-and-twenty, or thirty years old; physically, palpably, visibly, so old, though not really, not diachronically. He appeared precisely what he would have appeared had he lived so many years."

Of course, Gosse is most ridiculed for his suggestion that fossils were not "really" the remains of extinct animals. He writes, "the readings of the `stone book' will be found not less worthy of man who deciphers them, if we consider them as prochronically, than if we judge them diachronically, produced."

It should be noted that none other than Stephen Jay Gould [in 'The Flamingo's Smile'] called Gosse "the finest descriptive naturalist of his day."

[Fred Kohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned of this strange little book via Ronald L. Numbers' *The Creationists*, where Numbers called it quaint. Since it was a free download on Amazon, I thought it couldn’t hurt to acquire it. The book is also available on the Internet Archive. That version includes the 56 illustrations on wood from the original version that the Kindle version does not have.

The Omphalos hypothesis is simple. If God created the earth he must have done so with the appearance of age. The term Omphalos hypothesis comes from the idea that Adam must have had a navel (in Greek, omphalos) even though he was never born. Gosse makes the startling claim that a human without a navel is not really human. Does he not know that not everyone is born with a navel?

Gosse simply begs the question of whether God created living beings. "The law of creation supersedes the law of nature; so far, at least, as the organic world is concerned." So the mere fact that a creature exists is proof that it was created: "The Pelopœus was indubitably created; for it exists."

The bulk of Gosse's book is taken up with considering various species of the plant and animal kingdoms and considering what they would look like moments after they were created. So he has a long chapter on plants, noting for example that a plant that was several feet tall would be declared to be several years old by a naturalist (sometimes hundreds years old) but may in fact have been created just a moment ago. "For the question at issue is, not, How long it has lived, but, Whether it has lived at all, before the present moment." Similarly he has a chapter on invertebrates and a chapter on vertebrates, with many examples given.

Gosse admits at the outset that "I am not assuming here that the Inspired Word has been rightly read; I merely say that the plain straightforward meaning, the meaning that lies manifestly on the face of the passages in question, is in opposition with the conclusions which geologists have formed, as to the antiquity and the genesis of the globe on which we live," and then goes on to say, in all fairness: "It is unfair and dishonest to class our men of science with the infidel and atheist. They did not rejoice in the dilemma; they saw it at first dimly, and hoped to avoid it." Gosse's solution to the dilemma of the apparent antiquity of the earth was quite radical. He simply assumed that most of the fossil animals found in the geologic strata never existed, except in the mind of God; that is, in ideal time rather than actual time.

To the objection that this is a deception on the part of God, Gosse has a ready answer: "The reply is obvious. Were the concentric timber-rings of a created tree formed merely to deceive? Were the growth lines of a created shell intended to deceive? Was the navel of the created Man intended to deceive him into the persuasion that he had had a parent?"

Though I found the explanation and examples of the Omphalos hypothesis rather tedious, there were some old theories put forth in the prefatory remarks that I found fascinating. For example the hypothesis of Rev. Sir W. Cockburn, Dean of York, who seeks to explain why there are so many extinct species compared to the number of species today: "That the animals which entered the ark, were not selected till after many species had already perished in the earlier convulsions, and hence the number of extinct species now exhumed." This idea is rejected by present day creationists who believe representatives of every present day species (allowing for micro-evolution) was present on the ark, including dinosaurs!

Another fascinating idea was that of E. C. C. Baillie, who explains the presence of numerous animal fossils by animal sin: "Inclining to the belief that both the animal fell and the animal curse were considerably antecedent to the sin of Adam, I see no difficulty in the admission, that animal death may also have prevailed prior to that event." The Protoplast: A Series of Papers, E. C. C. Baillie

Although *Omphalos* is historically important, I think it can be safely skipped except by those who. Like Ronald L. Numbers, have a special interest in the history of creationist ideas.

[Maksym Shcherban · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book by a mentally deficient creationist degenerate, written for mentally deficient creationist degenerates. Although 165 years have passed since its publishing, the "arguments" that creationists use today remain exactly the same: ignoring any evidence in favor of a fairy tale.