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.30

EXPLANATIONS.

o^j^^^M

EXPLANATIONS:
gC

"

^tquel

to

VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

OF CREATION."

BY THE AUTHOR OF THAT WORK.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
JOHN CHURCHILL, PRLNCES STREET, SOHO.
MDCCCXLVI.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
^'

Design of the Vestiges explained

J Proper Position of the Nebular Hypothesis in the Argument

Imputed Failure of the Hypothesis from the Earl of Rosse's

8

discoveries, denied

Experiments illustrating and confirming the Hypothesis by Pro-

14

fessor Plateau

Objection from the retrogression of Uranus's Satellites consi-

18

dered
Objection respebting the convergence of atoms to a central

19

nucleus, answered

\JHhe Nebular Hypothesis not a supersession

of Deity, but only

a description of his mode of working

Quetelet's inquiries, establishing law in mental operations

Limits of the system being under law, the whole

is

25

probably so

26

^ Question of the Origin of Organic nature

'

'^

Geology proves

it

to

have observed a progress in time

Objections respecting this progress

Lower

>
24

27-

...

31
32

Silurian Fossils

33

Upper Silurian Fossils

47

Old Red Sandstone

49

CONTENTS.
FAOB

59

Carboniferous System

63

Fermian System

Outline of the Genetic Plan of the Animal

Kingdom

Bearing of this Plan on the Arguments of Objectors

Beptiles of the Muschelkalk, Lias,

Objections as to

first

....
....

69
76

&c

83
85

Footmarks of Birds

Objections as to Earliest

Mammalia

87

90

Tertiary Formation
!

Opinions of Cuvier and Agassiz

99

-Apology of Mr. Sedgwick for Over-Ardent Generalizations

Physiological Objections of Dr. Clark, of Cambridge

Views of others respecting Embryotic Development

Germs not

^'

....
....

103

106
109

alleged to be identical

Transmutation of Plants

Ill

Species a Term, not a Fact

Instances of Transmutation

115

Transmutation does not imply extinction of Elder Species

The Broomfield Experiment

121

characterized

.125

Views of Dr. Whewell, and objections to them

Views of the Edinburgh Eeviewer

^these

Views of Professor Agassiz

analyzed

127

....
.

Views of Sir John Herschel

Support to Theory of

Law from

117

to the

Law

theory of Organic Creation by

The Opposite Theory

13

119

Proof of Aboriginal Life in the present era not essential

135
189
141

Eev. Dr. Pye Smith and Black-

wood's Magazine

Mr. Stuart Mill on Universal Causation

-'

101

143

145

Present State of Opinion on the Origin of Organic Nature

examined

149

Animals have not come immediately on the occurrence of proper

conditions

151

TU

CONTENTS.

PAGK
Great number of distiaet Floras

Supposed Formation of

Owen,

New

152

Species, as upheld by Professor

Sic^ inadmissible

16-t

Opinions of Professor Pictet on Peculiarity of Species in each

155

formation

Time the

true key to

manency

difficulties

arising from apparent per-

158

of species

Vast spaces of time involved in the geological record

Zoology of Galapagos Islands, an instance of comparatively

.159
re-

161

cent development
Author's theory supported by facts connected with the distri-

165

bution of plants

Whence
\/

The

the

first

impulse to

vitality ?

168

its^jjjyectpurdyscieniific defended

Vestiges

ground

on

this

169

Ungenerous policy of Geological Objectors

170

Opposition of the Scientific Class

174
175

Estimate of this Opposition

Utility of

(/'

Bearing of the new doctrine on

Its

Hypotheses

s)

179

Human

Interests

Moral Results

Consolations and Encouragements offered by

182

184
it

187

Letters of Mr. Weekes on Aboriginal Production of

Appehdix

Insects

189

EXPLANATIONS.

When

the work to which this

may be

as a supplement was published,

my

not only to be personally removed from

or censure which
ipore upon the

it

regarded

design was

might evoke, but

all

to

write

I said to myself,

subject.

book go forth to be received as

truth, or to

others to a controversy which

may

blishing or overthrowing

ended.
written

it

argument than

provoke

even though

more

can pretend to be,

no
this

my task now

but be

better informed or

Let

result in esta-

I did not then reflect that,

by one

praise

it

skilled in

might leave

the subject in such a condition that the author

should have to regret seeing

misapprehended in

its

it

in a great

measure

general scope, and al so so

much^excepted to^ jus^y. and jiaiua^, on parb

EXPLANATIONS.
ticular

ready to suppose

Had

ordinary^^readers^xaightHjg'

points, 4liat

whole indications

its

me

bethought

dispjoofed.

of such possible results, I

my

might have announced, from the beginning,

readiness to enter upon such explanations of points

objected

to,

and such reinforcements of the general

argument, as might promise to be

And

this

would have seemed the more necessary,

in as far as

many

it

j)oints in

may be expected that there are

a new and startling hypothesis

which no one can be so well qualified

and strengthen as
at the

serviceable.

its

author.

to clear

might have

same time, that a new adventure,

up

felt,

for what-

ever purpose, in the same field, was hazardous,

with regard to any favourable

viously produced
again, have

yet such an objection would,

been

impression pre-

at

once overruled, seeing that

public favour and disfavour were alike beyond the

regard of an author

who bore no

bodily shape in

the eyes of his fellow-countrymen, and was likely

to remain for ever

now

unknown.

Such

reflections

occur to me, and 1 5iQConse^[uently_iiidjiced_-

to

takeup^e^n for the

to

make good what is deficient, and reasserting and

purgo(B_Qf.ndfiavoring

confirming whatever has been unjustly challenged

EXPLANATIONS.
in jny

boo k.

In doing

3
study to direct

so, I shall

attention solely to fact

and argument, or what

appear as such, oyerlooking the uncivil expressions

which the work has drawn forth in various quarters,

and which, of course, can only be a

discredit to

their authors.
I

must

start

with a nQoreexplicit^tatenaent_of

the general argument of the Vestiges, for this has

The book is
many have intimated

been exte nsi vely misunde rstood.

not primarily designed, as
in their criticisms,

and as the

title

partly to imply, to establish a

might be thought

new theory

ing the origin of animated nature

respect-

nor are the chief

arguments directed to that point.

The

object

is

one to which the idea of an organic creation in the

manner

of natural law is only subordinate

and

ministrative, as likewise are the nebular hypothesis

and the doctrine of a fixed natural order

and morals.

This purpose

is to^

whole revelation of the works of

our_ senses and reason,

show

in

mind

that the

God presentedl:o

is -A systeiiL_basejd_jn

what we aje_compelled, for waut-of-aJbetter term^

jQ^ call

LAW; by which, howeyer^js^not, meant

a system independent or exclusive of Deity, but

on e which only prop oses a

certain

mode^of

his

EXPLANATIONS.

The

working.
trine will

nature and bearing of this doc-

be afterwards adverted

while, observe, that

by

let

me, mean-

has long been pointed to

though hardly anywhere broadly and

science,

fully

it

to

contemplated.

be wondered

at,

And

was scarcely

this

since, while the

to

whole physical

arrangements of the universe were placed under

law by the discoveries of Kepler and Newi,on,

there

was

still

such a mysterious conception of

the origin of organic nature, and of the character

of our

own

forced to

fitful

make

men were

being, that

the case

from any

at least large exceptions

proposed plan of universal order.

now somewhat

different

almost

What makes
is,

that of late

years we have attained much additional knowledge

of nature, pointing in the

same direction as the

The

physical arrangements of the world.

seems to have come when

into a re-examination of

is

it

proper to enter

the whole

order to ascertain whether, in what

know, there

is

most evidence in

time

subject, in

we

favoiu- of

actually

an

entire

or a partial system of fixed order.

When

make

soon became

this

inquirj^

for

myself, I

convinced that the idea of

the

pian^TTaw stood_upon

led to

any exception
a,

to

narr owband con-

;;

EXPLANATIONS.
naxrowing

stantly

depending,

foundation,

in-

deed, on a few difficulties or obs curiti es, j^ather

than objections, which were certain

s oon to

be

swept away by the advancing^ tide_ofknosiedge.

It

appeared, at the same time, that there was a

want

ia the state of philosophy

amongst

an

us, of

impulse in the direction of the consideration of

theor}', so as

this

to

bring

its

sooner to a bearing in the one

and hence

it

was that

difficulties

way

or the other

presumed

the

to enter the

field.

My

starting point

was a statement of the

ar-

rangements of the bodies of space, with a hypothesis respecting the

ments had been

suppose

this

mode

in wliich those arrange-

effected.

(nebular)

It

is

a mistake to

hypothesis essential, as

the basis of the entire system of nature developed

in

my

book.

That basis hes

in the material laws

found to prevail throughout the universe, which

explain

why

the masses of space are globular;

why planets revolve round suns in elliptical

how

their rates of

their nearness to the centre of attraction

forth.

orbits

speed are high in proportion to

In these laws arise the

first

and so

powerful pre-

smnption that the formation and arrangements of

EXPLANATIONS.

the celestial bodies were brought about by the

Divine

will, acting in the

law, instead of

more

any mode which we conceive of as

arbitrary.

enlightened mind

when

it

manner qfajixed order or

It is
is

a presumption which an

altogether unable to resist,

sees that precisely similar

eflfects

are

every day produced by law on a small scale, as

when a drop

of water spherifies,

when

ing hoop bulges out in the plane of

and the

sling,

swung round

the revolv-

its

equator,

in the hand, increases

The

in speed as the string is shortened.

philo-

sopher, on observing these phenomena, and find-

ing incontestable proof that they are precisely of

the same nature as those attending the formation

and arrangement of worlds, learns

lesson

that

the

natural

laws

his first great

work on the

minutest and the grandest scale indifferently

that, in fact, there is

no such thing as great and

small in nature, but world spaces are as a hairbreadth,

and a thousand

Having thus

all

but

years

as

one day.

demonstration that

the

spheres were formed and arranged by natural law,

the nebular hypothesis

becomes important, as

shadowing forth the process by which matter was

so transformed firom a previous condition, but

it is


NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
nothing more

and, though

were utterly

it

dis-

which we previously pos-

proved, the evidence

sessed that physical creation, so to speak, was

effected

by means

of,

would remain exactly as

be

manner

or in the
it

We

was.

of law,

should only

the dark with regard to the previous

left in

condition of matter, and the steps of the process

by which
It

it

acquired

its

present forms.

would nevertheless strengthen the presump-

tion, and, indeed, place

truths, if

we were

near to ascertained

it

to obtain strong evidence for

what has hitherto been called the nebular hypothesis.

The

sketched in the

it is

it is

exhibited with greater clearness,

in elegant

and impressive language, in Pro-

Vestiges:

and

evidence for

fessor Nichol's

Heavens.

The

Vkws of

Architecture of the

the

by

position held

in the philosophical

this h\'pothesis

my book was

world when

written, is shown, with tolerable distinctness, in

the

Edinburgh

spoken of in

Review
the

following

" These views of the origin

of novelty,

and

upon

the

is

it

general terms

and destiny of the

various systems of worlds which

of space, break

where

1838,

for

fill

mind with

all the brightness

the immensity

all

the interest

of truth.

Appeal-

EXPLANATIONS.

ing to our imagination by their grandeur, and to

our reason by the severe principles on which they

rest,

mind

the

vouchsafed to
the universe."

as

feels

if

a revelation had been

and

of the past

it

It

may

also be

future history of

remarked that

this

writer considered the hypothesis as " confirming,

.

than opposing the

rather

whether

With

or

allegorically

this testimony to the

tions of

MM. La

Mosaic cosmogony,

literally

interpreted."

mathematical exposi-

Place and Comte, I rest content,

as the expositions themselves would be unsuitable

But the hypothesis has

in a popular treatise.

been favourably entertained in many authoritative

quarters, during the last few years,

would have continued

to

be

been made

by

it

to enforce

so, if

and probably

no attempt had

a system, of nature on

the principle of universal order.

The

chief objection taken to the theory

is,

that

the existence of nebulous matter in the heavens

disproved by the discoveries

Rosse's telescope.
are told,

it is

shown

By
to

this

made by

is

the Earl of

wondrous tube, we

be " an unwarrantable as-

sumption that there are in the heavenly spaces

any masses of matter

different

from solid bodies

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
composing planetary systems."*
short, are said to
stars,

now

be

The

nebulae, in

sho\yn as clusters of

rendered apparently nebulous only by the

There

yast distance at which they are placed.

objecting to, than in presenting h^-potheses

to

yehemence and rashness in

often seen a greater

we appear

is

and

have here an instance of such hasty

counter-generalization.

The

fact

is,

that the nebulae ">

were always understood to be of two kinds

1,

and

nebulae which were only distant clusters,

which yielded, one

after another, to the resolving

powers of telescopes, as these powers were

in-

creased ; 2, nebulae comparatively near, which no

V,

Two classes

^,g^

of objects wholly different were, from their partial

^z^

resemblance, recognised by one name, and hence

h'

increase of telescopic

power

affected.

the confusion which has arisen

The

upon the

resolution of a great quantity of the

of nebulae

'""

subject.

first

kind

by Lord Rosse's telescope was of course

expected, and

it is

fact,

though in

itself interest-

ing, of

no consequence to the nebular hypothesis.

It will

only be in the event of the second class

being also resolved, and

its

being thus shown

* North British Review, ilL 477.

bS

''

10

EXPLANATIONS.

that there is only one class of nebulae, that the

hypothesis will

Such, at

suffer.

to be the sense of a passage

transfer, in

conclude

least, I

which

I take leave to

an abridged form, from a recent edition

of Professor Nichol's work.

"

I.

spots,

By far

number of the milky

the greater

streaks, or

whose places have hitherto been recorded,

at the

lie

outermost, or nearly at the outermost boundary of the sphere

previously reached by our telescopes
is

and in

this case there

no certain principle on the ground upon which a pure

nebula can be distinguished from a cluster so remote that

only the general or fused light of
orbs can be seen.

form or other

Sometimes,

characteristic,

guess that such an object

I was bold enough to do

is

in

its

myriads of constituent

resting

on a peculiarity of

the astronomer may venture

probably a firmament

former editions of

this

regard to several which have since been resolved

main, he can
belief,

tell

little

as,

indeed,

work with
but, in the

concerning them, or have any other

than that, as with similar masses near him, a great,

probably the greater number, are true clusters, grand arrange-

ments of stars, incredibly remote, but resembling

in all things

own home galaxy. Now, the application to such objects

of a new and enlarged power of vision, could be attended only

our

by one
is

result

magnificent, but

here that the six-feet

triumphs.

Under

its

far

from unexpected

mirror has

achieved

and

its

it

earliest

piercing glance, great numliers of the

milky specks have unfulded

their starry constituents

some

of these, which previously were almost unresolved, shining

with a lustre equivalent to that of our brightest orbs to the

naked eye.

How

far

it

will

go with

its

resolving power has

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
not yet been ascertained

South has given

11

but I perceive that Sir James

his authority that

some

spots

examined by

it

continue intractable.
"

n. The

influence of the

discoveries either to impair

new

or strengthen the foundations of the nebular hypothesis, must

clearly be looked for

and ambiguous

objects.

among their bearings on less remote

Now, the new aspects of these may

lead us to question our former opinions as to the existence of

the supposed filmy self-luminous masses,

or they may throw

we

doubt on the reality of those forms according to which

have arranged them, and which seem to indicate the steps of

a stupendous progress.
"1. Astronomers have never rested their belief in the
reality

and wide

objects referred to in the first

much within the range of our

we have hitherto understood
telescopic

power required

higher than that which

But

there are

paragraph; but on others,

previous vision.

In so far as

the nature of

clusters, the

to resolve

them

is

descries

them

as

first

many most

essential feature-, are

text, is visible to the

Andromeda;

never very

remarkable objects which, in this

clusters.

For

I have fully shown in the

naked eye, as

while

much

dim milky spots.

wholly contrasted with

instance, the nebula in Orion, as

in

matter, on the

diffusion of the nebulous

also is the

the largest

gorgeous one

instrument

heretofore

turned to them has given no intimation that their light

stellar,

but rather the contrary; although small

found buried amidst their mass.

telescope resolves these,

Xow,

if

Lord Eosse's

and others with similar

such as some of the streaks among the following

shall thereby be

informed that

we have

being

exist, infinitely

attributes,
plates,

we

generalised too hastily

from the character of known firmaments,

stellar

is

stars are

that

schemes of

more strange and varied than

EXPLANATIONS.

12

we had ventured

to

suppose,

and

certainly

we

shall then

hesitate in averring further, concerning the existence or at

purely nebulous modification of

of the

least the diffusion

matter.

" 2.

Lord Rosse's

telescope

may

I have

also, as

said, dis-

prove the reality of our arrangement of the forms of the

And

nebulae as steps of a progression.

question, there

" First,
called,

seem two

in regard of this

classes of objects meriting attention.

I shall refer to the nebulous stars properly so

or to that form in which the diffused matter has

reached the condition of almost pure fixed

these objects there are

the telescope very

two

much

of which our knowledge

Now,

stars.

of

distinct sets, presenting at first to

the same appearance, but in regard

It will readily be

very different.

is

conceived that a distant cluster, with strong concentration

about the centre of

descries

first

it,

its figure,

a higher power

is

appear as a

and

disc,

be revealed.

must, to the telescope which

look like a star with a halo around

applied,
to a

still

higher power the cluster will

and we have hitherto had

no means of accurately ascertaining the

largest telescopes

were required

are multitudes of others

different description.
stars
'

bur

When

A very great number of what are called nebulous

are doubtless of this class

stars,

it.

that central star, however, will

the true

Many

'

because our

fact, just

to descry

them

photospheres'

but there

quite of a

of these are easily seen as fixed

with haloes of different sizes diminishing to the mere

;'

and under the greatest power

as yet applied, the

apparent central star never expands into a disc, or departs

from the
the

stellar character.

new instrument

It is

by

will at all bear

its effect

on

on these that

this portion

of the

nebular hypothesis.
" Secondly,

The foregoing being our grounds

the existence of nebulae

first,

of belief in

in a diffused or chaotic state,

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
and again

13

proximate to pure stars

in a condition

the only

remaining point has reference to nebulae in an intermediate

state,

when the

roundish masses seem to have begun a pro-

cess of organization or concentration,

through several stages

state to

and carried

onwards

it

which we have every

variety of analogon in the various forms and densities of

Sir William

cometic nuclei.

Herschel certainly was not

ignorant that round or spherical clusters abound in the skies,

which,

when

nebulae

nay,

first seen,

present

all

the appearances of such

he grrounded on the fact of their approximate

sphericity and varying degrees of concentration,

and most engrossing of

boldest

his conjectures

some of the
;

nor would

he have doubted that multitudes which, even to his instruments, seemed only general lights, would, in after times, be
resolved

but here, as before, the gist of the question

can you resolve round nebulae never resolved before

you

is

not,

but can

resolve such as, quite within the range of former vision,

have continued intractable under the scrutiny of powers

which, judging from the average of our experience, must
surpass what ought to have resolved

"

Such

are

my

portant question

them ?

views as to the present condition of this im;

and

if

they are correct,

it

will appear that,

notwithstanding the resolutions achieved by the

ments, they are, as yet, quite as likely

new

by

new

objects belonging to the three foregoing classes,

more surely and

features

to

instru-

accumulating

and by

distinctly establishing their characteristic

strengthen, as to invalidate the grounds of the

Eagerly, but patiently, let us watch the

nebular hypothesis.

approaching revelations."

Various minor objections have been presented

to the nebular hypothesis

to

any of them,

may

but, before adverting

give a brief abstract of cer-

EXPLANATIONS.

14

experiments, by which

tain recent

remarkably

Here

illustrated.

nature are,
scale

may

if I

peculiarly im-

it is

portant to bear in mind, that the

phenomena

on which they

we

The dew-drop

act.

are prepared, in

is,

some measure,

arrangement of a solar

some of its most

essential particulars,

of a lecture-room

to hear of
for-

system, in

on the table

The experiments were

in

Remembering

a Belgian professor imitating the supposed

mation and

of

so speak, indifferent to the

physics, the picture of a world.

this,

has been

it

first

conducted by Professor Plateau of Ghent, and

afterwards repeated

The

following abstract of Professcrr Plateau's

experiments

is

of the Vestiges.
it

by our own Dr. Faraday.

may meet

also presented in the fifth edition

Its

being repeated here

the eyes of

many who

see any edition of that

to

from which

it is

that

is,

are not likely

work besides those

absent

Placing a mixture of water and alcohol in a

glass box,
oil,

and therein a small quantity of

olive

of density precisely equal to the mixture,

have in the

latter a liquid

operation of gravity,

and

mass

relieved

from

we
the

free to take the exterior

form given by the forces

which

may

act

upon

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
In point of

it.

the

fact,

15

instantly

oil

takes a

globular form by virtue of molecular attraction.

being introduced

axis

vertical

box, with a small disc upon

its

coincident with

centre is

globe of

oil,

thus set the

it,

we

oil

tiu-n

the centre of the

the axis at a slow rate,

"

sphere into rotation.

equator,

its

the

so arranged that

presently see the sphere flatten at

swell out at

through

and we thus

small scale, an effect which

is

taken place in the planets."

We

then

poles

its

and

and
on a

realize,

admitted to have

The

spherifjing

forces are of different natures, that of molecular

attraction in the case of the

oil,

and of universal

attraction in that of the planet, but the results are

" analogous,
rotation

When

not identical."

if

makes the

it

comes

figure

to

Quickening the

more oblately

spheroidal.

be so quick as two or

turns in a second, " the liquid sphere

rapidly

its

maximum

first

thi*ee

takes

of flattening, then becomes

hollow above and below, around the axis of rotation,

stretching out continually in a horizontal

direction,

and

finally,

abandoning the

transformed into a perfectly rerjular ring^

this

disc, is

At

first

remains connected with the disc by a thin

pellicle of oil

but on the disc being stopped this

16

EXPLANATIONS.

breaks and disappears, and the ring becomes

The only

completely disengaged.

observable

dif-

ference between the latter and the ring of Saturn

that

is,

but this

rounded instead of being flattened;

it

is

is

accounted for in a satisfactory way.

A little

after the

stoppage of the rotatory motion

of the disc, the ring of

gathers once

more

oil,

losing

into a sphere.

smaller disc be used, and

its

its

own motion,

If,

however, a

rotation continued

after the separation of the ring, rotatory motion

and

centrifugal force will be

alcoholic fluid,

and the

generated in the

oil ring,

thus prevented

from returning into the globular form, divides

itself into

" several isolated masses, each of which

immediately takes the globular

form.''''

These are

" almost always seen to assume, at the instant of

their formation, a movemeiit of rotation upon them-

selves

in the

Sb

movement which constantly takes place

same

direction as that

of the

as the ring, at the instant of

its

ring.

Moreover,

rupture,

had

still

a remainder of velocity, the spheres to which

has given birth tend to

as,

on the other

fly off" at

side, the

a tangent ; but

disc, turning in

alcoholic liquor, has impressed on this a

ment of rotation, the spheres

it

the

move-

are especially caiTied

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.

17

along by this last movement, and revolve for some

Those which revolve

time round the disc.

at the

same time upon themselves, consequently, then

present the cruious spectacle of planets revolving
at the

same time on themselves and

in their orbits.

Finally, another very curious effect is also manifested in these circumstances

besides three or four

large spheres into which the ring resolves

itself,

there are almost always produced one or two very

small ones, which

may

compaied

thus be

The experiment which we have

satellites.

described presents, as

we

see,

to

thus

an image in minia-

ture of the formation of the planets, according to

the hypothesis of Laplace,

by the rupture of the

cosmical rings attributable to the condensation of

the solar atmosphere."*

Such

illustrations certainly

the nebular

did vision," which one of

to

it.

tend to take from

cosmogony the character of a " splen-

may

my

critics

has applied

here also remind the reader that

there are other groimds for this hypothesis, besides

observations

on the nebulae.

Pr. Plateau on the

Overlooking the

Phenomena presented by

Mass -withdrawn from the action of gravity.

Memoirs.

November, 1844.

a free Liqaid

Taylor's Scientific

EXPLANATIONS.

18

zodiacal light, which has been thought a residuum

of the nebulous fluid of our system,

we

find geo-

logy taking us back towards a state of our globe

which cannot otherwise be explained.

It

was

clearly at one time in a state of igneous fluidity,

the state in which

its

oblately spheroidal form

assumed under the law of

then

We

centrifugal force.

has cooled, at least in the exterior

it

thus have

it

was

Since
crust.

passing through a chemical pro-

Whence

cess attended

by diminishing

heat at

not from the causes indicated in the

first, if

nebular hypothesis

But

heat.

this is

not

all.

the

In

looking back along the steps of such a process,

we have no
call for

There

limit imposed.

our stopping

till

is

nothing to

we reach one

of those

extreme temperatures which would vaporize the

solid materials

dition of things

and this gives us exactly that conwhich

is

implied by the nebular

cosmogony.

Of particular
say much.

is

not necessary to

That there should be

difllculties attend-

objections

ing such an hypothesis

is

but where general evidence

it

only to be expected
is

so strong,

we should

certainly be scrupulous about allowing

them too

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.

much

weight.

It

is

19

represented, for instance,

that the matter of the solar system could not, in

any conceivable gaseous form,

fill

the space com-

prehended by the orbit of Uranus.

case, let

it

be allowed as a

If this

difficulty.

It is

be the

pointed

out that the planets do not increase regularly in

density from the

outermost to the innermost.

Their sizes are also not in a regular progression,

though the

largest, generally speaking, are

the exterior of the system.

to

It

was

towards

not, perhaps,

be expected, that such gradations should be

observed; but, grant there was some reason to

look for them, their absence constitutes only another and a slight difficulty.

law

to

rings

Then we know no

determine the particular " stages at which

are

formed and detached."

Be

it

so

although something of the kind there doubtless

is,

as the distances of the planets, according to

Bode's law, observe a geometrical series of which

the ratio of increase

is 2.

From these

which cannot now be answered,

some which
It

let

objections,

us pass to

can.

has been said that a confluence of atoms to-

wards a central point, as presumed by the nebular

20

EXPLANATIONS.

hypothesis, would result, not in a rotation, but in

state of rest.*

According to the North British

Review

atoms

to agglomerate

space

left

".

.Supposing the uniformly distributed

blank

round

their ringleader, the

by the slow advance of the atoms

in radial lines converging to the nucleus, must be

a ring bounded by concentric

most

circle

circles, the outer-

being the limit of the nebulous matter

Now,

not drawn to the centre of the nascent sun.

as all the forces which act
particles,

upon the agglomerating

whether they proceed from the circum-

ference of the undisturbed nebulous matter, or

from the gradually increasing nucleus, must have

men-

their resultants in the radial lines above

tioned,

there can

be no cause whatever capable

of giving a rotatory motion to the mass.

remain at

Now,

It

must

rest,"

there can be

no doubt that a confluence

proceeding precisely to a centre, has this result

but this

is

only an abstract truth, not an exact

and absolute description of any actual confluence

of the kind.

The explanation was

afforded

by

Professor Nichol, long before the objection was

started,

and

it

could not be given

* North British Review, No.

6.

in

better

Atlas Newspaper, Aug. 30, 1845.

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
language on the present occasion

densing,

it

appears that the act consists in a

or rush

sides

we

" TVTien

on the solar nebula in the act of con-

reflect

flow

21

nebulous matter from

of the

towards a

central

region

which

all

vir-

is

tually equivalent, in a mechanical point of view,

to

what we witness so frequently, both on a

small and large scale

the

meeting and

inter-

mingling of opposite gentle currents of water.

Now, what do we
ing

find

on occasion of such a meet-

Herschel's keen glance lighted at once on

this simple phenomenon, and drew from

of one

secret

Nature

of the

most

fertile

processes

termingle, icithout occasioning,

where they intermingle,

a dimple or whirlpool ; and, in fact,

it is

barely pos-

such a flow of matter frofm opposite sides

coidd be so nicely balanced in any case,

opposite
other,

of

In almost no case do streams meet and in-

sible that

the

it

momenta or floods would

and produce a

that the

neutralize

condition of central rest.

each

In

in the whirlpool to be exthe

nebulous floods meet

this circumstance, then

pected where the

is

obscure and simple germ of rotatory movement.

The very
matter as

act of the condensation of the gaseous

it

flows towards a central district, al-

22

EXPLANATIONS.

most necessitates the commencement of a process,

which, though slow and vague at

first,

has,

it

will

be found, the inherent power of reaching a perfect

and

definite condition

."*

The exception presented by

Uranus

to the otherwise

as a startling difliculty.f
trifling objection,

seeing that so
rule,

brought forward

many

only a

other move-

and that we may any day be

upon a cause

harmony with

for this exception, per-

the associated facts.

all

There was once a similar

strata

is

It is, in reality,

ments follow one

fectly in

satellites of

uniform orbitual move-

ments of the planetary bodies,

able to fix

the

difficulty in

geology

uppermost where they ought to have been

lowermost ; but

it

was

in time cleared. Geologists

found that there had been a folding over of the

strata, so as to reverse their

positions.

May we

exception in astronomy
tion

proper and original

not rest in hope, that a similar

may

find a similar solu-

have thrown out the hint of a possible

bouleversement of the whole of that planet's system

it

has been scoffed at ; but

it

is

only the sup-

* Views of the Architecture of the Heavens.

1837.

t Edinburgh Review, No. 165,

p. 24.

First edition,

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS,

23

position of a greater degree of obliquity in the

inclination of the axis of the planet to the plane of
its

orbit than

what we

find in several others.

The

same causes which made the inclination of the axis

of

Venus towards her

orbit

turned that of Uranus a

75 degrees,

little

may have

further along,

and

The

ad-

so reversed the position of his poles.

mitted inclination of the axis of Uranus towards

the plane of his orbit
greatest found in

is

79 degrees, being the

any of the planets.

plies only the necessity for

This im-

an increase of inclina-

tion to the extent of 22 degrees, or about one-

fourth of the quadrant, in order to account for the

surmised reverse arrangement. Nor are causes for

such a

phenomenon

tion of the

far to seek.

In the revolu-

presumed nebular mass, there would

be great undulations, as I venture

to say there

woidd be found in any similar body which we might

set into a similar rotatory motion.

Such

esteem

as the causes of the departure of the planetary

axes from the

vertical.

curve in the outermost

portion, amounting to a fold

high wave

would

like the curl of

cause the bouleversement of

Uranus, and the consequent (apparent) retrogression of his satellites.

24

EXPLANATIONS.
It appears, then, that,

unexplained

overlooking a few minor

difficulties,

the

objections

nebular hypothesis are not formidable to

to
it.

the
It

approaches the region of ascertained truths, and

may

reasonably be held as a strong corroboration

of what

appears from the material laws of

first

the universe, that the whole Uranographical ar-

rangements were effected in the manner of natural

law.

It is,

however, altogether a mistake to regard

this conclusion, as far as

it is

one, as equivalent

to a superseding of Deity in the history of creation.

mode
to

proposes nothing beyond a view of the

It

in

act,

works.

which the Divine Will has been pleased

in

this first

and most important of

The formation

of worlds

and

its

their ar-

rangement now appear but as steps in an Historical Progress, for

sumed

to

matter

is

necessarily pre-

have existed before in a different form.

By what means and

under what circumstances

creation, in the true sense of the word, took place,

that

is,

how

existence was given to the matter

which we suppose
evolutions
sure, if

to

have been capable of such

no one can as

any

minds, that

trust
it

yet tell;

we only

are

can be placed in the laws of our

had a Cause, or an Author. Leaving.

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.

25

such an inquiry as one, in which we have not, at

present, ground for a single step,

great gratification that

we can

is

it

surely a

at least trace the

operations of the Great First Cause, from a condition of matter anterior to its present forms,

and

learn with certainty that these operations were in

no way

arbitrary or capricious, that they

were

not single and detached phenomena, but the result

of principles flowing from the Eternal and Im-

mutable, and which prevailed over

all

the realms

of Infinity at once.

We have

fixed mechanical laws at one end of

the system of nature.

If

we

turn to the

mind and

morals of man, we find that we have equally fixed

laws at the other.

considered as an

The human
indi^-idual,

being, a mystery

becomes a simple

phenomenon when taken

natural

in the mass,

for a regularity is observed in every peculiarity of

our constitution and every form of thought and

deed of which we are capable, when we only extend our view over a sufficiently wide range.
is to

M.

Quetelet, of Brussels, that

we

It

are indebted

for the first satisfactory explication of this great

truth

it is

presented in his well-known and very

26

EXPLANATIONS.

able treatise

JJHomme,

Sitr

de ses Facultes.

He

first

et le

Developpemejit

shows the regularity

which presides over the births and deaths of a

community,

be affected in some degree

liable to

by accidental circumstances, but

He

these are uniform.

fixed again

then makes

it

when

clear that

the stature, weight, strength, and other physical

peculiarities of men are likewise regulated

by fixed

Afterwards, the moral qua-

principles in nature.

the impulses of our various sentiments

even the tendency to yield to those
temptations which give birth to crime, are proved
all

lities,

and passions,

to

be of no less determinate character, however

impossible

any

it

may be

single person.

to predict the conduct of

These are doctrines not

be resisted by inconsiderate prejudices.

rest

on the most powerful of

numbers.

If they

all

to

They

evidence, that of

appear to take from the per-

sonal responsibility of individuals,

it is

merely an

appearance, for the doctrine immediately steps

forward to show that laws, education, and moral

influences of every kind exercise an equally deter-

minate control over men; so that the need for

their being called into use

becomes even more

We

are not, however, re-

palpable than before.

quired at this

moment

to argue

respecting the

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.

may have upon human

bearing which this doctrine

WTiat we are at present concerned

interests.

with

is

27

the simple fact, that Morals

that

part of

the system of things which seemed least under

natural regulation or law

is

as thoroughly as-

certained to be wholly so, as the arrangements of

the heavenly bodies.

Now we

have here two most remarkable truths.

the Mighty

The wondrous masses which people

Void are under the control of natural law.

workings of the

little

world of the

human mind

the opposite extreme of the system

law likewise.
limits of the

system

solid ground.

mena

We

The

are under

have thus the character of the

So

fixed.

Now

precisely the

it

far

we proceed upon

has been seen that pheno-

same as the formation and

arrangement of worlds take place daily before our

eyes,

under the influence of the laws of matter,

showing that the whole cosmogony might have

been

effected

by

the

proving, indeed, that

Having attained

this point,

remember the many

to

nature

was effected

we

how, when we take a

how a noble and

are called

upon

appearances of unity in

view, there is nothing discrepant

it

it

Divine will acting in that manner.

sufficiently

wide

and exceptive in

affecting simplicity breathes

c

EXPLANATIONS.

28
from
"

it

Can

it

be

So

every part.

in

that, as the first

and the

the system are under law, and the

also the greatest)

manner, so the whole

is

under

who can pretend

The

sceptic of science steps in,

by

to penetrate the mysteries of

}

and who can say that

had other than a miraculous

tone in which this objection

seems to

and

here breaks down, for

it,

and organization

species have

moment

the idea of an entire system under

law, and produced

vitality

and has been

It is at the

arrived at this question, that the

The

importance.

No

being

in that

organic world becomes a point of

origin of the

says, "

first (this

laAv,

ask,

last parts of

was manifestly created

produced in that manner ?"

when we have

we

reflecting,

me

is

origin ?"

usually

made

inappropriate, considering that the

objectors stand on a

mere fragment of nature

and one which the discoveries of science are every

day lessening.
has not yet

It is

fiilly

but in a nook, to which light

penetrated, that the opponenti

of the theory of universal order take refuge.

coming

to the consideration of the question, I

at the very first struck

On
am

by the great a priori un-

likelihood that there can have been two

Divine working in the history of nature

modes

of

namely,

a system of fixed order or law in the formation of

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
globes,

and a system

animals.

different in

globes with plants and

the peopling of these

to

any degree

in

29

Laws govern both

we

are left

no room

doubt that laws were the immediate means of

making the

first

is it to

be readily admitted that

laws did not preside at the creation of the second

when we find that laws equally

moment govern and sustain both ? Most

also, particularly

at this

undoubtedly,

it

woidd require very powerful

dence to justify such an admission.

other hand,

evi-

And, on the

would require very decisive counter-

it

evidence to forbid the conclusion that the organic

How

creation originated in law.

the evidence

on either side

actually stands

Simply thus

that

no actual evidence has ever yet been offered to

prove that the Divine will acted otherwise than
in the usual natural order in the organic creation

while,

on the other hand,

geolog}'

and physiology

exhibit lively vestiges or traces of that mode having

actually been followed.

appears,

is

On

this

narrow ground,

the great question to be debated.

it

If

the opponents of the h^-pothesis of an organic

creation

by law can

sciences, facts
to

bring, from these or

which appear as powerful objections

any such conclusion, then

least,

any other

be held in suspense.

it

If,

must, at the very

again, the other

EXPLANATIONS.

30

party can show these sciences as presenting far

more argument
than against
to

it,

for a law-creation of

the hypothesis

have the advantage.

organisms

must be admitted

have so presented these

sciences; the evidence has been disputed, and

some obscure points have been

upon

in objection.

It is

largely insisted

now my duty

to enter

into the consideration of these objections,

if

and see

they are really of the importance which has

been attributed
Fifty

years

to them.

ago, science

possessed no facts

regarding the origin of organic creaturss upon

earth

as far as knowledge acquired through the

ordinary means was concerned,

antecedent to the
ancient history.
in

first

chapters

all

was a blank

of what

we

call

Within that time, by researches

the crust of the earth,

we have obtained a

bold outline of the history of the globe, during

what appears

to

have been a vast chronology in-

tervening between

ance of the

its

human

formation and the appear-

race

upon

shown, on powerful evidence,

its

surface.

that,

It is

during this

time, strata of various thickness were deposited

in seas, each in succession being

composed of

matters worn away from the previous rocks

canic agency broke

up these

strata,

and

vol-

projectecT

GEOLOGY.
chains of mountains

changed conditions

31

sea and land repeatedly

in short, the

whole of the

arrangements which we see prevailing in the

earth's crust took place,

and that most undoubtedly

under the influence of natural laws which we

yet see continually operating.
traces of plants

sion of strata,

The remains and

and animals found

show

in the succes-

that, while these operations

~^

were going on, the earth gradually became the

theatre of organic being, simple forms appearing
first,

token there

was no

see life begin,

before

This
the

A time
We then

and more complicated aftenNards.

man came

is

life

is

and go on

first

seen.

but whole ages elapsed

crown the work of nature.

to

upon

a wonderful revelation to have come

men

of our time,

and one which the philoso-

phers of the days of Newton could never have

expected to be vouchsafed.
blished

by

it is,

see

observed a progress.

it

great fact esta-

that the organic creation, as

now

it,

The

was not placed upon the earth

the Deity calling a

so.

we

once

can imagine

young plant or animal

existence instantaneously;

does not usually do

Now we

at

into

but we see that he

The young

plant and

also the

young animal go through a

ditions,

advancing them from a mere germ to the

series of con-

~
'^

EXPLANATIONS.

32
fully

developed repetition of the respective paren-

tal forms.

we can

So, also,

imagine Divine power

evoking a whole creation into being by one word

but we find that such had not been his mode of

working in that instance,

for

geology fully proves

that organic creation passed through a series of

and animal

stages before the highest vegetable

forms appeared.

Here we have

the

first

hint of

organic creation having arisen in the manner of

!^ natural order.

tity

The analogy does not prove

of causes, but

it

iden-

surely points very broadly to

natural order or law having been the

mode

of pro-

cedure in both instances.

But

the question

is.

Does geology

such a progress of being

in

some

quarters,

rate criticism

and particularly

upon the

Vestiges,

in the Edinburgh Revieio*

really

show

This has been denied

in the elabo-

which appeared

In reality the whole

of the geologists admit that

we have

first

the

remains of invertebrated animals ; then with these,

^sh, being the lowest of the vertebrated; next,
reptiles

and

birds,

which occupy higher grades

and, finally, along with the rest, mammifers, the

highest of all; and yet controversialists will be

found gravely telling their readers, "

* July, 1845.

It is

not

LOWER SILURIAN

33

FOSSILS.

true that only the lowest forms of animal life are

found in the lowest

more complicated

bands, and that the

fossil

gradually de-

structures are

veloped among the higher bands, in what we

might

call

a natural ascending scale

;"

* the pre-

text for giving this unqualified contradiction to

the above grand fact being, that

when we

take

the special groups of animalsy as the invertebrata,

the fishes, the reptiles, &c., there are some real or

apparent grounds for denying that the low forms

of these groups came before the

consists in sinking the great

liigher.

The fallacy ^

broad palpable facts of

the case, about which not the least doubt anywhere

exists,

and giving prominence

far inferior

magnitude, and comparatively obscure,

but in whose obscurity there

that,

is

a possibility of

I trust to be able to

creating a kind of diversion.

show

to certain facts of

even in the special groups of

fossils,

there is no real obstacle to the theory of a gradual

natural development of

The view

wliich the

life

the earliest stratified rocks

my own

upon our

Edinburgh

account of them.

is

much

There

planet.

critic gives

is

the

of

same as

a Hypozoic

formation, or series, devoid of remains of plants

and animals

then a formation {Lower Silurian),

* " Edinburgh Review."

c3

EXPLANATIONS.

34

my

called in

The

early editions,

Grawacke system,

in

and

Clay-slate

find " no animals

which we

of the higher classes, with a regular skeleton and

a backbone

;"

only corals, encrinites, crustaceans,

and mollusks. " Vegetable appearances," he

" do not appear

among

these British rocks

there must have been a mass of vegetable

says,
;

but

life

in

the ancient sea, as no fauna can appear without

2k,

Jlora to uphold

that

This

it."

last inference is of

immediate consequence

little

it

but I

may

remark,

coincides with one which 1 ventured to

make, prompted thereto by some of the recent

We

papers of Mr. Murchison.

tioned by a writer

who

is

here see

it

sanc-

understood to be a

dis-

tinguished investigator of the lowest fossiliferous

beds.

It is

from no wish to amuse the reader,

but merely as a pleading in behalf of several of

the alleged geological mis-statements in
that I bring forward another

my book,

distinguished re-

viewer of the Vestiges of Creation^ {North British

Review, No. 6,) taxing
to

make

difficulty

reviewer

me with

this very surmise as

!

More than

is at

in bringing

this

having been driven

an escape from

the North British

odds with his Edinburgh brother,

bones and teeth of

fossiliferous formation

fish into the first

grounding the statement

LOWER SILURIAN
upon
with

35

FOSSILS.

authorities long antiquated,

and contrasting

my remark,

" Neither fishes

it,

in a foot-note,

nor any higher vertebrata as yet roamed through

the marine wilds."
critic

The

fact

that this last

is,

understood to

be a very eminent philo-

was

not aware, that of late the

sopliical writer

lower fossiliferous rocks have been divided into

several distinct formations, in the lowest of which,
it is fiilly

than this

admitted, there are no vertebrata.

a body called the Literary- and

still:

Philosopliical Society of Liverpool

them (January, 1845) a

before

which one of
reference to

their

my

had brought
of letters

set

members had drawn, with

book, from several of the chief

We

geologists of the day.

stating

More

upon hearsay,

there find ^Mr. Lyell

that I represented fish be-

ginning in the coal, and Mr. Miurchison speaking

of

me

alone
the

as beginning with zoophytes

;

and poh^piaria

statements, I need hardly say,

convepng

most erroneous impressions regarding the

book.

This, however,

is

not the immediate point.

The two gentlemen here named

to stand in the very first

are able

will

be allowed

rank as geologists. They

men, of marvellous industry, and unim-

peached zeal

for science.

theless, in the

These men, never-

correspondence to which I

am

36

EXPLANATIONS.

pointing, give entirely opposite views of the

fossiliferous formation.

first

Mr. Murchison says, "

No

trace of a vertebrated animal has been found in

Mr. Lyell says, " The

the lower Silurian rocks."

fact that, with the earliest type of organization,

we meet with

vertebrated animals, true

from being explained away since

my

book,

is

made

so far

I affirmed it in

confirmed and extended by fresh evi-

The

dence."

very latest affirmation

from Mr. Murchison

this point

fish,

we have on

an

affirmation

examining Silurian rocks in Russia,

after

where they are presented

these words

"

in vast extent

The absence

contains

of even the lowest of

the vertebrata in the inferior Silurian rocks,

absence which

is

total,

from the researches of geologists in

the world,

racter."*

These extracts speak

The only

gives

an

so far as can be inferred

them a

true

all

parts of

Protozoic chafor themselves.

thing calling for further remark,

surprising circumstance

of this

is

the

coiTcspondence

having been brought before a learned society, as

wholly and nothing else but a condemnation of
the Vestiges I \
* Abstract of paper

by Mr. Murchison, Report of British

Association of 1844, page 54.

f See

Examination of the theory contained in Vestiges of

LOWER SILURIAN

leading objection, with regard to the

fossilil'erous
it

37

FOSSILS.

formation (Lower Silurian)

first

that

is,

does not solely present animals of the lowest

^ub-kingdom, as corals and encrinites, but also

examples

the

of

two

next

higher

sub-king-

doms, the articulata and moUusca, some of the

latter

being of the highest order, the cephalo-

jjods.

The

what

latter particular is

is

chiefly

insisted upon.

At the time when

that the

was understood

I wrote, it

highest orders

of

moUusca were not

fijund in the first fossiliferous rocks.

Phillips,

in

1839,

{Treatise

expressly, with regard to

the

Clay-slate

gasteropods or

and

on

sufficiently

Geology,)

said,

what was then called

Grawacke

cephalopods

"

system,

are

tioned in these rocks in Britain

feel

Professor

as

No

yet men-

and we do not

acquainted with the geological

age of the limestones of the Ilartz, to introduce

any of the
mountains."

fossils of that

argillaceous range of

So much as a

justification of the

view given of the Clay-slate fossils in

edition.

in
the

Since then, this formation, as

first

exists

England, has been found to contain gasteroNatural History

of Creation.

Liverpoo!, Whitby, 1845.

my
it

By

the

Rev. A. Hume.

38

EXPLANATIONS.

pods and cephalopods, though not of such high

forms as afterwards appeared.

might here

repeat what was remarked in the later editions

of the

Vestigesy

"

Even though

could be shown as pervading

siliferous strata,

than

any kind of animal

can

it,

tell

all

the lowest fos-

what more would the

that, in the first seas

vanced

the cephalopoda

life,

the creative energy ad-

in the space of

how long

fact denote

capable of containing

one formation, (no one

a time this might be,) to the

highest forms possible in that element, excepting

such as were of vertebrate structure."

might

add, that this was no great advance in comparison

with the whole line of the animal kingdom,

may

take, as a criterion

on

if

we

this point, the analo-

gous progress of an embryo of the highest animals,

as the portion of that progress representing the

organization of the invertebrated animals

the first month.

book

for

to the space

According to

plan of animated nature, to which

made approaches

only

might here also revert to the

some views with respect

required for such a development.

the

is

in the later editions,

have

we have

not to account for the development of one long

line,

but

of

many comparatively

short

ones.

LOWER SILURIAN
Aud, as

39

FOSSILS.

have also remarked, there

a rapidity

is

amongst the lower animals which

of generation

well suggest something like that " rush of

may

which,

life,"

strata alone,

we were

if

judge from British

to

would seem to have taken place in

But

the early seas.

no need

there is

any of these speculative answers

for putting

to the objection

into requisition, while there is a preliminary ques-

tion to be answered.

English

the

Does

the lowest

band of

lower Silurians indicate, beyond

all question, the point of time at which animal

life

commenced upon our planet ?

sure that cephalopoda were

earth's

living

creatures?

among

Are we quite
the

Far from

first

of all

It

it.

has

only been ascertained that certain comparatively

small cephalopods are found as far

down

as

any

other animals of inferior organization at certain

spots in

member

Wales and Cumberland.

that, in

modem

seas,

^Tien we

re-

certain kinds of

such animals haunt special places suitable for

their

subsistence

that

we may have

Crustacea

and mollusks exclusively at one place, and radiata

IS

corals

haps
or

and zoophytes)

far distant,

at

some

other, not per-

but different with respect to depth

some other circumstance

we

can conceive

EXPLANATIONS.

40

may

that cephalopods

bands

in the places

occur in the

first

fossil

which have been examined

England, and yet remains of

inferior

animals

in

may

be found by themselves on the same or a lower

level in

some

as yet unexplored place not far off;

so that a time-interval
for a progressive

may

there appear to allow

by

Such seems but

development.

a reasonably cautious surmise,

when we

are told

a high authority, that there are " detached

Silurian districts in England, presenting particular

changes and modifications, arising from difference

of depth, and the variety of currents,

combinations in the

formed;"

and

seas

ing diversity in the traces of organic

doubt

What, however, places

is,

that in

they were

"in consequence of

that,

variety of physical condition, there

tion.''''

and chemical

in which

is

this

a correspond-

life in

each situa-

the matter

beyond

North America, where the

early stratified rocks are even

more amply de-

veloped than with us, the highest invertebrated

forms do not appear at

the first.

ascertained fossiliferous strata, the

In the earliest

Potsdam Sand-

stone, the only fossils are lingula (a brachiopodous

mollusk) and fucoids.

In the next, the Calci-

ferous Sandrock, are fucoidal layers, encrinital

* Professor Phillips, British Association, 1845.

Report

Athenaeum's

LOWER SILURIAN
beds,

and the bracMopods,

41

FOSSILS.
orthis, lingiila,

and

l^ellerophon, together with orthocerata, these being

the first

tliese cases,

the fossils are few

comprise no Crustacea.
;i

And

examples of the cephalopoda.

It is

and obscure

not

in all
;

they

we ascend

till

to

fourth fossiliferous series, Trenton Limestone,

become abundant, or

that fossils

Perhaps even

iippear.

cisively adverse

the

American

that trilobites

this is not the

most de-

view which could be derived from

fossils, for lately

there have been

lound, in the Green Mountains of Vermont, strata

which, from their metamorphic character, are believed

by some native geologists

and of course anterior

to

to the Siliurians,

be inferior

and these

contain traces of fucoids and of vermiform bodies

called Xereites, the last being a
If this

articulata.

be

true,

it

humble form of

would

at least

add

materially to the grounds for hesitation before

pronoiuicing definitely, as the Edinburgh reviewer

has done, on the commencement of fossiliferous

strata

and the nature of the

we must

also

first

fossils.

Here

remember, that in rocks of the elder

continent anterior to the Silurians, there are limestones, held

ganic
the

life

by many

to be

at the places

chemical

an indication of

or-

where they are found:

experiments of Braconnot upon

42

EXPLANATIONS.

masses of these

earlier rocks gave

ammoniacal

and combustible products, likewise indicative of

the presence of organic matter

in the

same sub-

silurian region, " fragments, apparently organic,

and resembling cases of

Even dubious

silurian rocks

been subjected
not
that

fail to
it

traces of

must be admitted

when we

have been

Bohemia actual fossils have been

detected,* and in

announced.

ance,

infusoria,"

to

life

in sub-

be of import-

consider that they have mostly

to such a degree of heat as could

obliterate organic memorials, seeing

has even changed the texture of the rocks

themselves.

From what Mr.

Lyell

saw of the

Silurian rocks in America, he finds himself called

upon, in the most emphatic manner, to warn geologists against " the hasty assumption, that in

of

these sections

loicest

we haiw

positively

any

arrived at the

stratum containing organic remains in the crust

of the earth, or have discovered the first

living beings

tvhich were imbedded in sediment.''^

"

geologist,"

he

had been confined

says, "

whose observations

to Switzerland,

might imagine

that the coal measures were the most ancient of

the fossiliferous series.

When

he extended his

investigations to Scotland, he might modify his

* Ansted's Geology,

ii.

60.

'

LOWER SILURIAN

FOSSILS.

43

views so far as to suppose that the Old

Red Sand-

stone

marked the beginning of the rocks charged

He

with organic remains.

many

might, indeed, after a

years, admit that here

and there

some few and

faint traces of fossils

had been

found in

older states, in Scotland

.-^eareh

of

still

might natm-ally conclude, that

fossiliferous formations

since

but he

pre-existing

all

must be very insignificant,

no pebbles containing organic remains have

yet been detected in the conglomerates of the Old

Red

Sandstone.

such a theorist,

Great would be the surprise of

when he

of Europe, and

still

learnt that in other parts

more

particularly in

North

America, a great succession of antecedent strata

had been discovered, capable, according to some

of the ablest palaeontologists, of constituting no
less than three

as important

independent groups, each of them

as

the

'

Old Red

or

'

Devonian

system, and as distinguishable from each other

by

Yet

their organic remains.

sistent

it

would be con-

with methods of generalizing

common on

such subjects,

if

he

granted that in the lowest of these

or Silurian rocks, he

had

still
'

not

rni-

took for

Transition

at length arrived at the

much-wished-for termination of the fossiliferous

series,

and that nature had begun her work pre-

44

EXPLANATIONS.

cisely at the point

where his retrospect happened

then to terminate."*

such theorizers as the Edinburgh

It is exactly to

reviewer that this rebuke

is

asserts the contemporaneousness

of the highest

mollusks with the origin of organic

" We

are describing

We

seen.

say longing

phenomena

life,

he says

that

we have

have spent years of active

looking

these ancient strata

fossils

When he

applicable.

for)

some arrangement of the ancient

which might

with our preconceived

fall in

But we

notions of a natural ascending scale.

looked in vain,

bow

to

and we were weak enough

The weakness

nature."

looking only in one

and believing
rest.

that

among

life

(and we might

for

it

to

little

to

consisted in

portion of the earth,

be a criterion for

all

the

This writer seems yet to have to leani

knowledge

munication

is

as well

be

to

by

acquired

examination.

as

com-

Were

philosopher (supposing there could be such a

being) to limit his view of
schools,

mankind

to juvenile

he might with equal rationality deny

that there

is

any such thing in the world as

infants in arms.

"We

speak of what we have

seen," he might say, " and, finding no specimens

* Travels in North

Americ,

ii.

131.

LOWER SILURIAN

we

of humanity, under three feet high,

enough
are a

to

bow

weak

and believe that babes

to nature

the English

Lower

and others would have them

Silurians as he

taken,

it still

that these rocks denote, generally, a

the animal kingdom.

low

appears
state of

It is customarv' for those

take opposite ^iews, to speak of the crea-

tures of this period as high

are

mere fancy.

Even taking

who

45

FOSSILS.

i-ustacea

and mollusea"

" highly-orgaaized

is

the

usual

phrase.

Some, including the Upper Silurians in

\iew, tell

us that the

first

formation presents

examples of the whole of the great

fish

Of

their

divisions, the

being held as representing the vertebrata.

course, this

is

only done through ignorance

or for the purpose of deceiNdng.

lars are overlooked,

it is still

Where

particu-

customarj- to speak

of the earliest fauna as one of an elevated kind.

When

rigidly

In the

first

examined,

place

seas supporting

it

not found to be
fish.

class

of tenants

so.

There were

crustacean and molluscan

but utterly devoid of a

to live in every

it is

contains no

who seem

life,

able

example of that element which supports

meaner creatures. This single fact that only invertebrated animals

now

lived, is surely, in itself,

strong proof that, in the course of nature, time

was

46

EXPLANATIONS.

necessary for the creation of the superior creatures.

And,

if so, it

undoubtedly

a powerful evidence

is

of such a theory of development as that which I

have presented. If not

so, let

plausible reason for the great

me hear any equally

and amazing

fact

that seas were for numberless ages destitute of

fish.

I fix

my

opponents down to the considera-

tion of this fact, so that

no diversion respecting

high mollusks shall avail them. But this

The

ones, of only marine animals.

testable,

not

all.

It is

now

incon-

from a few land-plants found in the Silu-

and a fern

rians of America,

there

is

Silurian is an age, as were several subsequent

leaf in our own, that

was dry land yet no trace of a land animal

;

appears for ages afterwards.

we have now a

Moreover, though

pretty full development of the

first

sub-kingdom, Radiata, we have but an imperfect

one of the two next

Mollusca.

Not

to

namely, the

Articulata

and

speak of the utter absence of

fresh-water and land mollusks, and of such land

articulata as insects

and

any decapodous Crustacea

spiders,

we do not

find

(crabs, &c.),thoughthese

could have lived wherever other mollusks and

Crustacea could.

In

fact, it is

defective development of

Mr. Lyell

calls

it,

life

a scanty and most

so

much

so,

that

par excellence, the Age of

LOWER SILURIAN

47

FOSSILS.

Brachiopods, with reference to the by no means

exalted bivalve shell-fish which forms

minant

class.

case, I

must

Such being the actual

its

predo-

state of the

persist in describing even the fauna

of this age, which

as, generally

we now know was not

the

first,

speaking, such a humble exhibition

of the animal

kingdom

we might

as

the development theory, to find at

expect,

upon

an early stage

of the history of organization.*

We
new

now come

Upper

to the

Silurians,

where

species of invertebrated animals appear, be-

sides a few obscure fishes.

ance, according to

the

There

is

no appear-

Edinburgh reviewer, of

a transition from the former species to the present

* Objectors to the development theory have, in the eagerness

of coanter-theorizing, committed themselves on the subject of

way which thev will yet feel to be exThe \orth British Review we have seen

the Silurian fossils, in a

tremely awkward.

placing even fishes in the

first fossiliferons

rocks, grounding this

statement upon an authority which has been antiquated for fully

eight years

a vast period

Quarterly

Review

is

The British
The Author's

in the history of geology.

equally

unfortunate.

"

theory," says this writer, " requires that these animals should

be the lowest in the animal

vert a fish, with its

scale.

But no argument can con-

back -bone, and highly -developed nervous

and muscular systems, into an animal of low organization."

The dogmatic

allegations of the

Edinburgh reviewer on

point are sufficiently exposed in the text

(!)

this

have only further

48

EXPLANATIONS.

but

does he

He

fined

says the

that

be, without

theory

as

is,

by which such a

the signs

could be detected

transition

none.

know

new

strongly distinct

any prejudice
far, at least,

am

and so they may

to the transmutation

as I understand

here he remarks that there are the

the

culties in

way

aware of

species are sharply de-

And

it.

same

diffi-

of his theory, " both in the

grouping of each separate system, and

passage from one system to another

in the

and that

is

whatever part of the ascending geological

true,

we choose

series

to

take between the lowest

formations and the highest."

As he does not

state the nature of the difficulties, I

cannot under-

take to say what argument or what reconstruction

of

to express

my

system

may be

surprise at finding

Dr.

necessaiy to meet
Whewell

participating

in

the mere

ignorance of the

journals.

In the preface to a volume which he has recenflv

first

two of the above-mentioned

published under the

my

title of Indications of the Creator, he meets

arguments with a crude and incorrect view of the fossil

history,

do exist

commencing with

this sentence

in the Silurian rocks,

non-pisciferous

quarters, rest

animals

asst-rted

law

The existence of a
formation had been unknown to him. Many of
made to the development theory, in obscurer

[that of development]

the objections

" Vertebrate

from which the

excludes them."

on errors of a similar kind.

FOSSILS OF OLD RED SANDSTONE.

P

them.

ing the

i)

Till

we

actual

are

more

affinities

clear,

of

however, regard-

animals,

suppose that any judgment as to

in different formations,

in

would

difficulties

in

grouping in geological fonnations, or succes-

their
"

49

might well be given

iiiewhat less dogmatically than they are

by

this

^^riter.

The few

may be

fish-remains of the

system.

next {Devonian or Old Red Sand-

They belong

orders of placoids

Upper

Silurians

associated with the ample development of

this class in the

stone)

Upper

Silurians)

(these

and

to

Agassiz's two

by themselves

in the

ganoids, the former of

which are represented by our sharks and rays,

the latter

by the bony pite of x^merica and the

Such are the only

polypterus of the Nile.

found

till

when

the

fishes

we come up to the chalk formation,

now predominant orders of cycloids

and ctenoids begin.*

The Edinburgh

reviewer

The North British Review presents, as a strong objection,

" several new ctenoids, which had been found only in the
carboniferous system, have been discovered among the fishes
brought by Mr. Murchison from the Old Red Sandstone of
Russia. Resolved to make out his position, the author asserts," &c.
This is an anlucky venture in opposition. The critic evidently
that,

meant

it

to

have a very damaging efifect, in consideration that the

ctenoids are osseous fishes.

The

fact

is,

that the fishes brought

EXPLANATIONS.

50

makes a strong point

of the placoid

and ganoid

orders, as unfavoiu'able to the progressive theory.

" Taking into account," he says, " the brain, and

the whole nervous,

circulating,

and generative

system, the placoids stand at the highest point of

a natural ascending scale, and the ganoids are

also very highly organized."

the

first

order, found in the

Of

certain families of

Old Red Sandstone of

Russia, he says, " Let the reader bear in mind

among the very highest types

and that we can reason upon them

that these fishes are

of their class,

with certainty, because some of them belong to

families

now

cestraceon

living in our seas."

He

instances a

high kind of placoid

recently

found in the Wenlock limestone, a low portion of

the

Upper

ginning of
the Old

Silurians,
fish.

and therefore near the be-

Some

of the ganoids, also, of

Red Sandstone make an approach

higher class
fish-teeth,

reptilia.

to u

Besides the usual row of

they have an inner range, in which

home by Mr. Murchison

^^(

are not of the ctenoid order, but belong

to a placoidean family called Ctenodus.

The mistakes made by

this writer, in the geological part of his paper, are of

a very

many men of scientific eminence

make when they venture out of their own

grave kind, yet only such as

may

be expected to

peculiar department, and rashly under-estimate the strength of

the arguments to which they are opposed.

RED SANDSTONE.

FOSSILS OF OLD

among

see the form of those organs

It

the sauria.

appears, in short, according to this writer, that

the fiirther

back we go among the

fishes,

them possessed of the higher characters.

al

character of

and of

chalk, are for the

all

The

by

is

The

cartilaginous.

Chondropterigii of Cuvier

being, however, he says, " in

)me measure parallel

different fi-om their
fish class,

How

to the first."

far this

being the highest types of

need not be largely

Linnaeus, again,
characters of

fishes of this

that naturalist as a second series in

his descending scale

tlie

I shall

other ages previous to the

most part

irtilaginous fishes

are placed

we find
Of the

hardy assertion

all this

uable the reader to judge.

early age,

51

insisted on.

was so impressed by the low

many

of this order, that he actually

ranked them with the worms.*

Some

of the car-

tilaginous fishes,nevertheless,have certain peculiar

featiu-es of organization,

chiefly

connected with

reproduction, in which they excel other fish

such

featiures are partly

inferior

but

partaken of by families in

sub-kingdoms, showing that they cannot

* Dr. Fletcher places the Chondropterigii lowest in a scale

which takes as

its

criterion " an increase in the

number and ex-

tent of the manifestations of life, or of the relations

organized being bears to the external "world."

d2

which an

EXPLANATIONS.

52

truly be regarded as

When we

class.

marks of grade

in their

own

look to the great fundamental

characters, particularly to the

framework

for the

attachment of the muscles, what do we find

why, that of these placoids

their class

!"

it is

barely possible to establish their

being vertebrata at
rally

been too

" the highest types of

all,

the back-bone having gene-

slight for preservation, although the

vertebral columns of later fossil-fishes are as entire

as those of any other animals.

In

many

of them,

traces can be observed of the muscles having been

attached to the external plates, strikingly indicat-

The

ing their low grade as vertebrate animals.

Edinburgh reviewer's "highest types of their class"

are, in reality, a separate series of that class,
.

generally inferior, taking the leading features of

organization of structure as a criterion,

details of organization

further both
series

as

but, when

are regarded, stretching

downward and upward than

so that, looking at one extremity,

much

entitled to call

them the

the highest of their class.

inferiority, there

cartilaginous

Of

is to

is,

in

are

the

call

the general

can be no room for doubt.

structure

we

lowest, as the

reviewer, looking at another extremity,

them

the other

first

Their
place,

analogous to the embryotic state of vertebrated

FOSSILS OF OLD

RED SANDSTONE.

53

The maxillary and

animals in general.*

inter-

maxillary bones are in them rudimental.

tails

are finned on the under side only, an admitted

feature of the
tlie

Their

mouth

also a

salmon in an embryotic stage

and

placed on the under side of the head,

is

mean and embryotic

feature of structure.

These characters are essential and important,

Edinburgh reviewer may say

^vhatever the
the

contrary

above

all, I

they

am

are

chiefly

the

to

characters, which,

concerned in looking

to, for

they are features of embryotic progress, and embryotic progress

development.

is

the grand key to the theory of

I therefore

throw back to

my

re-

viewer the charge that I have " clung to feeble

analogies,"

and " kept out of view the broad and

speaking facts of nature."

With regard

to the alleged falsity of the crus-

tacean character of some of these fishes, and the

discredit of repeating the blunders

made by

the

and guesses

observers, before

first

any good

evidence was before them, I can only say, that

at the time

when my book was

and inquirers into

* Cartilage, " in
in

fossil

many

written, geologists

ichthyology of the highest

animals, forms the entire structure,

the early state of the

human emhryo

Carpenter's General Physiology, p. 37.

it

and

does the same."

54

EXPLANATIONS.

character were writing, publicly and privately, of

the cephalaspis and coccosteus, as apparently links

between the Crustacea and

fish,

the vertical

mouth

of the latter animal being particularly cited, as a

feature indicating the intermediate character.

In

what the reviewer calls " the excellent work of our

meritorious

countryman," Mr.

self-taught

Hugh

Miller, published in 1841, the apparently crusta-

cean character of these fishes

Not having access

to.*

Agassiz, I

is

repeatedly referred

at the time to the

deemed myself

work of

safe in trusting to the

report of this industrious inquirer and ingenious

writer,

whose volume was then newly published.

The above argument

of the

first fishes

sary, also, to

Mr. MilU'r

relates to the general fact

being placoidean.

It is neces-

meet the inquiry why there should

calls

upon

liis

readers to

"mark

the form of the

cephalaspis, or buckler-head, a fish of the formation over that in

which the remains of the trilobite most abound. He will

he says, " the fish and crustacean are wonderfully alike
fish is

more elongated, but both

find,"
:

the

possess the crescent-shaped head,

They illushow two distinct orders may meet. They exhibit

the joints, if I may so speak, at which the plated fish is linked to
the shelled crustacean. Now, the coccosteus is a stage further on
and both the angular and apparently jointed body.
trate

it

is

admirably

more unequivocally

covered

tail

a fish

it is

a cephalaspis, with a rcale-

attached to the angular body, and the horns of the

crescent-shaped head cut

off."

Old Red Sandstone,

p. 54.

FOSSILS OF OLD

RED SANDSTONE.

55

be no fossil remains indicating a transition from

The

the lower animals to fish.

reviewer speaks

discovered cestraceon below any

of a recently

other fish-beds in England. " Such," he exclaims,

'

are

nature's

first

abortive

"

efforts."

We

en-

treat," he adds, " any good naturalist well to con-

sider such facts as these,

and

tell

us whether they

do not utterly demolish every attempt to derive

such organic structures from any inferior class of

found in the older strata

animal

life

cannot

tell

what good

answer to this appeal

so

may say in
I feel, for my own part,

naturalists

but

that the facts in question

admitted to be

Now,

?"

as

have

no

far as they

such

can be

destructive

effect.

In the

place, the cestraceon is only one

first

of those cartilagines, the real character of

had just been explained.

order, but neither is

it

It is

which

not the lowest of

the highest.

So

its

far fi-om this

being the case, the respiration of the whole family

(Selacii, Cuv.

Plagiostomi, Desm.) to which

it

belongs, and which also includes sharks, is per-

formed in a manner wliich approximates these

fishes to

numerous

the

worms and

insects

namely,

vesicles called internal

trance to which

is

from their

gills,

" by

the en-

gullet, while the exit

EXPLANATIONS.

56
is

in general

by corresponding apertures on

other fishes having free

of their neck ;*

sides

The

marking a higher organization.

gills,

divided form of the stomach

concentration, which

phatic

mark

is,

of animal

the

sub-

absence of that

perhaps, the most em-

advancement

amongst

this family alone

the

fishes, as

belongs

it

to

does to the

lowest families of several of the higher orders of

Thus, the cestraceon

the vertebrata.

is,

on many

considerations, a low fish, though certainly possess-

some

ing

traits of

the lowest of

and not

superior character,

In the second place,

order.

its

would protest against any inference unfavourable

to the hypothesis of

development being drawn

fi*om

a discovery so new, so isolated, and in a branch

At no time

of inquiry so extremely unsettled.

during the last ten years, have

we had

for

twelvemonth at once, stable views respecting the

initiation of fishes.

my

Lately

book was written

were understood

to

at

so lately that part of

the time

the

be some of a minute

lowest

size,

im-

mediately over the Aymestry limestone, in the

Upper

Silurians. t
*

"

Now, we have a cestraceon an-

Fletcher's Pliysiology.

The minut" and

Ludlow rock, are the

Parti,

p. 20.

curious fishes in the uppermost bed of the

eaiUest precursors of

many

singular ichthy-

RED SANDSTONE.

FOSSILS OF OLD

nounced

to

But how

far

us at a lower point in that formation.

it is

likely that our information is to

rest at this point the

may judge, when he

reader

M. Agassiz announcing, within

hears of

57

the last

few months, that, though acquainted with seventeen hundred species of fossil fishes he regards
the history of the class as so far firom complete,
that the

number

of species successively

without any chance of approach-

thirty thousand,

ing the truth !*

entombed

might be estimated at

in the crust of the globe

If such

be the case, we

may

surely

expect to hear of other fishes prior to or contemporax}- with the cestraceon,

as that animal was,

initial

elites

of

its

which succeed

in

humble

But even although simpler

that

enormoas formation, the Old Red

MuTchisotCs Address

Sandstone."

that,

not to be regarded as the

it is

class.t

showing

the Geological Society,

to

Fe-

bruary, 1842.
*

Review of Professor

tologie, translated in

Pictet's Traite

Elementaire de Palajon-

Jameson's Journal from the Bibliotbeqae

Universelle de Geneve, No. 112, 1845.

t Such shifts are of frequent occurrence in geology.

formerly found

first

in the oolitic formation are

to the carboniferous.

the

New Red

oolite.

ago,

We

have mammifers

were believed not

shifts,

Birds are

Sandstone, their

however,

now
first

in

inferred from foot-tracks in

place formerly being in the

the oolite, which a few years

to occur before the tertiarj-.

in the least interfere

None of these

with the general fact of the

advance from the lower to the higher classes of animals.

Insects,

now taken back

EXPLANATIONS.

58
fishes be not
this

may

found in lower or contemporary strata J

only be owing, like the non-discovery

on

vegetation in the early rocks, to the unsuitable-

Suppos-

ness of these fishes for being preserved.

ing the inferior tribes, petromyzonidae (lampreys)

to have

been then

in existence,

we should have

no trace of them preserved, because of

logical structure being slight,

and

their osteo-

their

wanting

those teeth and spines which form, after

all,

the

chief memorials of the higher families of their

own order.
One word more
says

as to these fishes.

shown

(p. 38), it is

to

The

critic

demonstration in the

Poissons Fossiles of Agassiz, that " the sauroids,

in their general osseous structure,

and

in the de-

velopment of their nobler organs, run close upon

There

the class of reptiles."

is

no doubt that

the sauroid fishes partake of reptilian characters,

though, perhaps, in a more external and less important

way than such

reviewer suppose

writers as the

but be

it

sauroids are not the

first

one of them in the

Silurian

fishes.

placoideans appear to begin.

this reason,

placoideans.

Edinburgh

remembered,

There

formation,

Yet

do

is

the

not

where
not, for

suppose that the sauroids arose from

More probably, they

are part of a

FOSSILS OF CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

distinct line of development,

forms in

its first stages,

which had

59

inferior

also of too slight a struc-

ture to be preserved.

Following this reviewer into his discussion of

the Carboniferous System,

we

find liim

commen-

now

traces of

cing with a taunt, that there are

land vegetation in earlier formations.

in realitj', a point of

velopment theory.

no importance

The

question

is,

This

is,

for the de-

with what

kind of plants did land vegetation begin

The

anxiety of the reviewer to force a verdict in his

favour

is

here strongly shown.

" are these

first fruits

" What," he says,

of nature's vegetable germs

?

Far otherwise.

among them palms and

tree-ferns, &c."

Are they rude, Ol-fasliioned forms

We

find

In this passage, which substantially conveys the

same information as

my

book, there

is

an evident

design of inducing the belief, that the

vegetation was of a high character.
truth

is,

that though this

first

The

was a " grand"

sense of a luxuriant vegetation,

it

land
rigid

in the

was composed,

as far as positive evidence goes, almost wholly of

plants which stand low in the scale of organization.

The

ascertained dicotyledons (plants ha\ing

double-lobed seeds and an exterior growth) are

extremely rare.

On

this point, I

cannot do better

60

EXPLANATIONS.

than quote the laborious young

Bang's College

Professor

of

" The plants which have hitherto

been described
belong either
ferns, or to the

[in the carboniferous formation],

to the

acotyledonous class, as the

monocotyledons and, mi

the whole,

they constitute the simplest forms of vegetation ; but

there have also been

met with among coal

plants,

unquestionable evidences of dicotyledonous structure,

and a genus has been formed under the

name

of Pinites, to include a

mens

of fossil wood, &c."*

evidence of Mr. Ansted,

number

To

of speci-

the undoubted

may be added

that of his

more eminent contemporary, Mr. Lyell, whose

sense of the botanical character of this age

such that he emphatically

Ferns.]

It

is

to

then,

evident,

plants of this era as the

calls

first,

it

the

taking the

that

it is

land-

of a nature

harmonize with the development theory,

chief forms are humble,

is

Age of

for its

and only a few are of

higher grade, most of these, too, being of an intermediate character between the low and the
high.

am

reminded, however, in other quarters,

of certain experiments

of Dr.

Lindley, show-

ing that the plants chiefly found in the coal are

* Ansted's Geology.

1844.

t Travels in North America,

ii.

52.

FOSSILS OF CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

61

of the kinds which best resist decomposition in

water; whence

a high class

it

is

inferred that

may have

many

trees of

existed at that time, but

perished in the sea, while weaker vegetation sur-

This evidence would be negative

vived.

and

best;

it

says as

much

for the non-preserva-

humble plants as

tion of mosses and other

dicotyledons.

It

at the

for

has also been remarked that,

considering such facts as the disappearance of

equisetum hyemale in water, a plant containing

an unusual quantity of

silex,

" the proportion of

each formation must depend on

fossil plants in

other circumstances besides their

ing decomposition."*

"

power of

resist-

Too much importance

has," in the opinion of the author of this observa-

" been attached to Dr. Lindley's experi-

tion,

ments."

The
tlior

admits there were dicotvledons

plants,

may

" The au-

British Quarterly Review says

be,

and does not see

it

that,

these

however few they

entirely upsets the theory of progres-

sive advance,

especially in the

proof as to whether they were

last."

among

This proceeds, as do

* Mr. C. J. Bunbury,

Athenaam's Report.

at

the

absence of any
created

many

British

first

or

similar objec-

Association,

1845

62

EXPLANATIONS.

upon the idea

tions,

A formation, in

one point in time.

sents

many

that a formation represents

years, or rather ages.

sions as that simple and

reality, repre-

Such expres-

complex plants occur

together in the carboniferous formation, or even

we

(shall

say) in its

expressions
tially false.

first fossil

bands, are vague

perhaps, conveying an idea substan-

There

is

no such precision in the

as-

certained relations of fossils to particular strata

as to entitle any one to say that the simple

complex plants of

this formation are rigidly con-

They may have

temporaneous.

and

followed

each

other within the space of half a century in a particular

region,

stratum, or

little

and yet

been

preserved in but one

group of strata. The actual appear-

ances of the carboniferous formation thus, perhaps,

allow

full

time for a progressive advance in parti-

cular regions, from the fleshy luxuriant plants of

the

marsh and low sea-margin,

of the

more elevated regions.

to the robust tree

We

must remember,

too, that the vegetation of the carbonigenous era,

even if we take

it

back to include the conifer said

to

have lately been found in the Old Red of Cromarty,

or the fern leaf of the Silurians,

was preceded by

unequivocally simple plants in the fucoids.

Start-

THE PERMIAN SYSTEM.

FOSSILS OF
ing with these,

and finding the

first

63

great burst of

land vegetation composed mainly of low crypto-

gamie and monocotyledonous plants,

finding,

moreover, the exceptions chiefly of the intermediate character,

and that the dicotyledons increase

afterwards while the others decline,

well resist the conclusion, that

we

we

see the traces

of a progress in the history of this

nature.

It

may be

but such light

less clear

cannot

kingdom of

than we could wish

as we have certainly favours the

development theory.

We

now come

to the

posit, latterly called the

place, the

Magnesian Limestone de-

Penman

System.

At

this

Edinbuigh reviewer introduces some

general observations, which I hope he will yet

acknowledge to be unjust, as I
of his substantive charges are,

he says, " that sea-weeds

we have no

proof."

am

came

How

sure the whole

" It

may be

first,

true,"

but of this

a good geologist can

have allowed himself to speak in this manner,

even in eagerness to theorise against theory, I

am

quite at a loss to understand, for the positive facts

of the occurrence of fucoids in the

and of the very

first

Lower

Silurians,

traces of land vegetation in

subsequent formations, are as palpable and un-

64

EXPLANATIONS.

doubted as he himself acknowledges the precedence of

by invertebrata

fish

to

be

nor has any

one ever pretended to expect that land vegetation

would be found

eajlier

than the marine.

here ventured no conjecture of

spoken as

all

my

have

own, but only

" Of

the geological books teach.

land plants," he continues, " we have not the

shadow of proof that the simpler forms came

being before the more complex."

reader has

been told upon undoubted authority

just

the

The

first

great

show of land

positive evidence as

vastly

that, in

vegetation, taking such

have, the simple forms are

more numerous than the complex. Finding

we have

that

we

into

first

ample marine vegetation, then a

land vegetation in which the plants, with only a

small exception, are

and cryptogamic,

cellular

while of the exception a very small

number

are

dicotyledonous, and a conspicuous group (the conifers)

intermediate

1 feel that I am entitled to say

that positive evidence speaks for a precedence of

high by simple forms ; which

" It

is true,"

is

what

have done.

thus proceeds the reviewer, " that

we

see polypiaria, crinoidea, articulata, and moUusca;

but

it is

not true that

we meet with them

order stated by our author."

It is

in the

humiliating to

FOSSILS OF

65

THE PERMIAN SYSTEM.

have to answer an objection so mean.

There

no statement that the animals came in

this order.

is

have only put the words into this arrangement,

accordance with the custom

in

now commonly

followed of observing the ascending grades of the

With

animal kingdom.
follows

" The

ment contains three

dream,"

He

I believe I

which party

is

may

all

safely leave the reader

the falsifier

goes on in the same

and

and no better than a

and the dreamer.

strain "

the next step gives us fishes

that the earliest fishes link
is

we here com-

distinct propositions,

three are false to nature,

to say

what

respect, then, to

sentence on which

on

but

It is true that
it

not true

is

to the radiata

this

a grand and at the present day an unpardonable

blunder."

This

for certainly

is

such an

any edition of the

the

first

notice,

another dream of the reviewer,

affinity

was not suggested

Vestiges hitherto published.

four editions, which alone were under his

no passage except from the

even hinted
^iewer's

in

In

at.

So much

articulata

as a proof of the re-

recklessness in making charges

no need, however, to

affirm,

was

there is

with him, that a con-

nexion between certain high radiates and some

of the lowest fishes does not exist.

I venture to

66
predict

EXPLANATIONS.
that

made

nature will yet be

Meanwhile,

enough

it is

an equally

of

affinities

fident critic has raised

startling

familiar to naturalists.
to

show

that this con-

an accusation

for

which

he has not a shadow of ground.

Taking up the special

system, he says, "

The

fossils of the

Permian

earliest reptiles are not of

such a structure as to link themselves, on a natural

noble sauroids of the preceding car-

scale, to the

boniferous

epoch."

They

not the

are

saurians, or fish lizards (ichthyosauri)

marine

which occur

in a higher formation, but lacertilians, or animals

of lizard-like character.

me here is

Now

what

first strikes

the extraordinary narrowness of a mind

which sees nothing indicative of natural procedure,

no hint towards

great

generalizations,

simple fact of reptiles following upon

grand march of
the world.

life

in

through the morning time of

He knows that, in

every classification of

the animal kingdom, reptiles rank next above

that in

some

the

fish in this

fish,

living families there is such a con-

vention and intermixture of both characters, that

naturalists cannot agree to

be assigned.

He

which

class they should

actually sees, in a general view

of the earlier reptiliferous

formations, animals

EARLIEST REPTILES.
combining the
vocal manner.

fish

and reptile

67

in the

most unequi-

Despising, however, the great fact

which shines through these obscurities,

son,

and

am

this per-

sorry to add, geologists generally,

may be

can only fasten upon such particulars as

made

way

out to be difficulties in the

zation.

of generali-

Passing to the particulars, a few land

lacertilians

come

first,

whereas the

first,

according

my hypothesis, ought to be marine forms, and

He says of this difficulty, that I
linked to fish.
to

have stated

it

well for his

own

what

Perhaps

feebly.

credit that

less confidently

it

would have been

he had stated it some-

seen the hght, a prospect had arisen of his

mations on this point being thoroughly

In

had

for before his sheets

Sillimari's Journal, for

April 1845,

of sandstone surfaces pretty far

an account

is

down

affir-

falsified.

in the Car-

boniferous formation of Pensylvania,

marked with

the vestiges of terrestrial animals.

Setting aside

in

the

meantime one

class

of these markings,

which are said to indicate wading birds, we have

a variety of others plainly denoting reptiles.

one group, the foot consists of a

toes radiating fi^om

it

impression resembles

in

fi-ont.

that

ball,

with

In
five

In another, the

made by a

coarse

68

EXPLANATIONS.

human hand,

with the rudiment of a sixth toe at]

the outside.

The

reptilian families indicated

by

these foot-marks have not yet been pronounced

upon, as far as

am

aware

but fi'om the extreme

resemblance of some of them to the vestiges of the

labyrinthidon, there can hardly be a doubt that

some of the order batrachia

are

amongst them.

they prove wholly batrachian, as

for

is

If

not unlikely,

we have living families with feet resembling the

first

group of vestiges, or even

them be

if

only a portion of

certified as of this order,

the lacertilians,
of

assertions

where

will

be

and where the confident counter-

The

Edinburgh reviewer?

the

batrachia he has himself allowed to be a low order

They

of reptiles (p. 51.)

naturalists.

upon the

Might

are so considered

not here, then, take

my

by

stand

fact of animals, the lowest apparently

of the reptile

now found

being

order,

earliest point of time

at

It

would

the

might unquestionably

do so with a decided immediate advantage to

hypothesis.
lise the

all

my

in a great measiu"e neutra-

whole of the objections of the reviewer

with regard to the chronology of the reptiles. But

I

am, whatever he

the

one

book of nature
liable

any day

may think
aright.

of me, willing to read

receive the fact as

to receive a

new aspect from

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

In as far as

fresh discoveries.

teaches that

we

it

so,

is

it

69
only

are not to be too confident in

drawing inferences either for or against the theory

of development from the particidar succession in

which the orders of the

reptilia occur in those early

strata where their remains aiid vestiges are few.

as far as

it

may be

taken as a positive

fact, I

In
only

claim a modified benefit from

it,

which

and connexions of

I take of the affinities

because the view

the animal kingdom (and by analogy of the vegetable

kingdom

makes

also)

a matter of less

it

consequence than would be generally supposed,

which order of any class appears

record, though

still

first

in the stone

perhaps a matter of some con-

sequence.

This view suggests that development has not

proceeded, as
line

to

of

is

usually assumed,

which would require

be placed one
lines in

divisions,

single

the orders of animals

after another,

but

in a plurality

which the orders, and even minuter sub-

of each

class,

also suggests that the

lines

all

upon a

are ranged side hy

side.

It

development of these various

has proceeded independently in various

regions of the

eartli,

so as to lead to forms not

ever}-where so like as to
specific character,

fall

within our ideas of

but generally, or in some more

EXPLANATIONS.

70
vague degree,

becomes

The progress of
when we advance into

alike.

clearest

brate sub-kingdom.
of

them with

We

the lines
the verte-

can there trace several

tolerable distinctness, as they singly

pass through the four classes of Fishes, Reptiles,

Birds,

and Mammals

the Birds, however,

being a branch in some part derived

equally

with the reptiles from fishes, and thus leaving

some of the mammal order

nexion with the
have

of

all

in immediate con-

The

reptiles.

lines or stirpes

them peculiar characters which

persist

throughout the various grades of being passed

one

through,
gentle

presenting

carnivorous,

and innocent animals, and so

another
on.

We

have, therefore, in the animal kingdom, not one

long range of
series, in
is

affinities,

but a number of short

each of which a certain general character

observable, though not always to the exclusion

of the organic peculiarities of families in neigh-

bouring

lines, especially in the class of reptiles.

According to
life

is,

this view, the

matrix of organic

speaking generally, the sea.

quired for

all

embryotic conditions,

is

Fluid, realso neces-

sary to the origination of the various stirpes of

both kingdoms.

The whole

sub-kingdom (Radiata)

is

of the lowest animal

aquatic

so are nearly

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

all

the

MoUusca and a very

wholly aquatic.

appears to be this
series of

large proportion of

In the Vertebrata, the lowest

the Artieiilata.
class also is

71

^the

marine forms

The arrangement

basis of each line

is

the remainder consists of

a series designed to breathe the atmosphere and

live upon laud, these being all of improved organiza-

The classification which this system implies

may be said to be transverse to all ordinary classifications. The invertebrate, ichthpc, reptilian, or-

tion.

nithic,

and mammalian characters are horizontal

grades, through

they send

pendent

ofi"

which the

branches

divisions.

lines pass,

and where

not separate and inde-

In any of these branches

where we have a clear knowledge of the various

forms,

it is

possible to trace the affinities, in con-

junction with an improved organization, through

genera which are adapted to a partially marine

to a residence in the

life,

mouths of rivers, or on shores

and muddy shallows, then through genera which

are, in succession,

appropriate to marshes, jungles,

dry elevated plains, and mountains.

this series of external conditions

And

it is

and adaptations

which has caused that system of analogies between

various families of animals which has of late attracted attention.

But the immediate cause of the

72

EXPLANATIONS.

development

of each line

general grades of being

is

through
to

internal impulse, the nature of

to us, but

its

be sought in an

which

unknown

is

which resembles the equally mysterious

impulse by which an individual embryo

through

various

its

is

passed

succession of grades until ushered into

mature existence.

Geology shows us each

line

taking a long series of ages to advance from

humble invertebrate
malian forms

and

effluents to its highest

this I

its

mam-

have ventured to

call

" the universal gestation of Nature."

The

traces of this order of the animal

have been seen in

all

ages of science.

zoologist acknowledges the gradations

ties

kingdom

which appear amongst animals.

by what so palpably meets observation,

and

Every
affini-

Prompted

many have

tried to range the various orders or families in

line,

being
to be

or (to use the favourite phrase) chain

;

but they have always

wondered

have not up

failed,

which

One cause why

at.

to this time

different arrangement,

is

is

one
of

not

zoologists

thought of trying any

the confusion arising

from the prevalence amongst many families of

parallelisms of structure, which have been regarded
as affinities,

characters

when in

reality they are only identical

demanded by common

conditions, or

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

resulting from

True

affinities

genealog)'

equality of grade in

are

and these are the

the

73

scale.

affinities

of

not to be looked for horizontally

amongst orders, but

vertically,

from an order in

one class to the corresponding order in the class

next higher.

Generally, the

first

and lowest

forms of the orders in a class are marine, and

often these are of comparatively large size.

usually see in

them a

We

vestige of the essential cha-

racters of the class next below.

Thus, the peren-

nibranchiate batrachia in their order, and the

ichthyosauri in the series of crocodilia, exhibit

an

affinity

which

to

fish.

I regard

The

cetacea and phocidae,

as the immediate basis of the

paehydermata, camivora, and other orders of

restrial

to

mammals, ought, according

show an

alliance to the reptiles

ter-

to this view,
;

and such a

connexion does exist between the cetacea and

certain

marine sauria

tinction of the

mammals

marine

but from the general exreptiles, the linking of the

to that lower class is less clearly seen

than might

be wished.

It

must be kept

in

view that only an outline of the progress of the

animal kingdom
to the course

to be

is

here designed.

Exceptions as

which development has taken appear

by no means few

leading to the idea that

EXPLANATIONS.

74

the grades of organization are not determinate in

this respect, but

may be

Thus,

equal length.

for

reached by steps of un-

example, the marsupials

appear very clearly a development from certain

birds

probably the rodent, edentate, and insec-

tivorous orders are derived through the

nel.

same chan-

In short, the progress of animality in the

different stirpes

has been attended by peculiarities

which evidently

affix peculiar characters to each,

and make the idea of a

difference in time not only

probable, but unavoidable.

Regarding the animal kingdom simply as a

combination of independent

stirpes,

each with

its

distinct affinities, the theory of transmutation puts

on a

totally

new

aspect

that transmutation

is

so truly is this the case,

hardly any longer a term

appropriate to the idea.

The

difficulty of

suppos-

ing such changes as that from the rodent to the

ruminant, or the carnivorous animal to the quadru-

mane, vanishes, leaving only

form

to

transitions

from

another of a series generally similar

ove

from

the otary, for instance, to the otter, fi-om certain

phocae to the bear, and so on.

There

is

a unity

in all instances in the moral as well as physical

characters of the various

we only see

it

members

advancing from low

of one stirps
to high charac-

EAELY REPTILIAN

we

ters, just as

75

FOSSILS.

see the foetus of a higb animal

passing through various inferior stages before

reach

its

The

proper mature character.

it

lines,

moreover, being independent of each other, and

not quite uniform as to the stages of animalit}*

through which they pass,

knew

of

follows that, unless

some law governing

tive periods,

we

we

their different gesta-

are not entitled to look for the

occurrence of their various ichthyic, reptilian,

first

and mammalian

sections, in

each other, even though

we

it

are not) that

we

region where they

any order as regards

we could be

sure (which

are surveying a geographical

all

started fair in the race of

progressive organization.

Hence it is that, though

by zoologists at

the batrachia are usually placed

the bottom of the
little

list

importance to their vestiges being

All that I think

so low.

in a particular area

lieve that the lines

all

of reptilian orders, I attach

now found

we can expect

where we have reason

is,

that,

to be-

have started abreast, they should

reach their various grades nearly about one

tame, or

what may be considered as one time com-

pared with the whole extent of geological chronology.

And

such appears to be pretty

much

the

case in those regions which geologists have explored.

EXPLANATIONS.

76

The Edinburgh

reviewer will observe that this

view of the animal kingdom leaves much of his

He

opposition in a very awkward predicament.

has everywhere assumed that the genealogy of

the orders of each class was supposed to be en

which

suite,

it

certainly never

was

in

my

book.

In the early editions, the course of the supposed

development was
because

spoken

of

with diffidence,*

had not then seen or conceived any

arrangement of the animal kingdom which answered to that hypothesis, although

thought

proper to attempt to show that the quinarian

and

circular

classification,

then or recently in

vogue, did not necessarily militate against

it.

the third edition, the present view was

hinted

at

and

in the fourth

it

with liability to correction

first

was sketched, though

;

thus anticipating by

some months the publication of the

now under

notice.

remark, that in
criticized

* "

there

it

is

else

the actual subject

for

comment,

otherwise the commentaries

does not appear that this gradation passes along one

on which every animal form can be, as

may

criticism

hardly necessary to

all criticism,

must be brought forward

and nothing

line,

It

In

it

were, strung

be branching or doable lines at some places," &c.

Vestiges, \st ed. p. 191.

EARLY REPTILIAN

become of no imaginable use but

Now

judgment.

77

FOSSILS.

to obscure true

Edinburgh reviewer has pre-

the

sented his subject, in this instance, in lineaments

entirely of his

own

imagining, and directly in con-

tradiction to those

no

title

to

which belong to

assume any plan of development, and

to represent his victory over that as a

over the hj^othesis of his author.

duct,

triumph

In such con-

he has thoroughly vitiated the whole fabric

of his criticism,

and

sion to remain for a

left it, in reality,

moment

mediate object, however,

tions,

He had

it.

but to show

how

is

no preten-

in court.

My

im-

not to take such excep-

the ascertained facts of a

limited portion of the field of nature

may be

re-

conciled with that conception to which a view of

what appears over the whole

field

may

lead an

honest inquirer.
If the hypothesis of a plurality of genetic lines

be admitted,

we

are not of course to ask

order of reptiles, or of

any other

which

class, first existed,

(such being the language of the old classification

but, having first settled the

animal kingdom on the

inquire

if

whole

new

affinities

plan,

we

;)

of the
are

to

the geological presentment of thefamilies

was accordant with the scheme, allowing

negative nature of

much

for the

of the geological evidence

78

EXPLANATIONS.

Now,

of this kind.
of the animal

in the first place, the affinities

kingdom

are only in part

made out

in the second, geological evidence is only partial.

We

are clearly, therefore, not to expect in nature's

museum a full exhibition of any one entire stirps,;

as it may be supposed to have passed through its
successive stages

expect

is

tions of

up

to our time.

All that

we can

a succession of fossils marking out

w hat we may suppose

likely yet to

tablished as lines of animal descent.

large ones too,

must be allowed

errors as to the animal pedigrees

templated.

But,

if

jjor-

be es-

Blanks, and
for; possible

must be con-

we have any ground

for gene-

ralising in a particular direction, as I think there

is in this

case,

we may be held

as called

upon

not to conclude hastily and rashly on the unfavourable side, but to look and consider patiently,

and

to

suspend judgment wherever the adverse

may appear to be of a nature likely to

be reversed. Let us now see how all this applies
evidence

to the conduct of the

Edinburgh reviewer, with

regard to the early reptilian

tions

fossils.

The forma-

where these occur have only been examined

in such a degree, that they are almost every year

giving forth

new responses

istence of birds at this era

for

example, the ex-

was not dreamt of ten

EARLY REPTILIAN
years ago

the existence of tortoises in the time

New Red

of the

79

FOSSILS.

Sandstone was equally unknown

only two or three years

earlier.

It is

still

less

tame since the lab}Tinthidonts of the Keuper of

Germany were

discovered
unqualified

seen diat

the

Edinburgh

re>-iewer,

as

and we have just

of

affirmations

to

the

oldest reptiles,

tlie

were overturned by intelligence from America,

before his sheets

had seen the

things are considered,

WTien these

light.

we must

see the objections

of the reviewer to be extremely rash.

be

allowed that the

known

earliest

It

might

lacertilia

axe not of strictly marine forms or allied to fish

it

might equally be admitted of the

ehians, that "their near affinities

fishes," as this writer takes

it

first

are

batra-

not with

upon him

to say.

Yet we should

still

see the absurdity of affirming

that either these batrachia or lacertilia were the first

created of their resjrective orders, seeing that their

relics

were so few and the discovery of these so

accidental, that

we might look

seding facts every

* It

is

for

new and

super-

day.*

necessary to guard against a supposition that I under-

value such isolated relics, as inferring the positive fact of the

existence of particular orders of animals at particular times.
this purpose, the smallest

organization

is

For

fragment betraying the character of the

often sufficient.

What

is

really

meant

is,

that.

EXPLANATIONS.

80

But, as the case actually stands,

is this line

defence more than hypothetically necessary

lacertilia of the

of

The

magnesian limestone, and these

labyrinthidonts of the Trias, (perhaps also of the

carboniferous formation,) are they so far removed

from

fish characters as the

them

reviewer would

make

Let any naturalist who has ever studied the

transmutation of the individual batrachian, passing in a few weeks from the branchiated fish to the

lunged and limbed frog or newt,

and alimentary system

the labyrinthidon

may

its

circulatory

entirely changed,

not be the very

say

first

if

step

What though the proportions of the head remind Mr. Owen of the sauria,

from some ichthyic form.

and remove the animal, as he

present batrachian type

ences

we have

thinks, above the

Against any such infer-

the positive fact, in the organiza-

tion of this batrachian, of a biconcave form of the

vertebrae, the form peculiar

toJishes,ar^mg, by

Mr. Owen's own acknowledgment, aquatic

marine habits,

if

not

also a decidedly piscine character

in the arrangement and even microscopic structure

wlien

we

doi s not

find a

appear

few outlying
in

any force

that

we have acquired

time

of the origin of that

relics
till

belonging to a class which

afterwards,

we cannot be sure

the nieans of forming a distinct idea of the

class,

started, as further discoveries

or the orders with which the class

on these points may be looked

for.

EARLY REPTILIAN

81

FOSSILS.

of the teeth, together with that position of the

breathing apertures near the end of the snout

which we see in crocodiles,

for the

purpose of

allowing them to drag their prey under water

With regard

without ceasing to respire.

we have

lacertilia,

same

this

to the

biconcave

fish-like

form of the vertebra, and the same

fish-like

arrangement of the teeth, equally arguing that

which

alliance to the lower vertebrate class

the pleasure of this hardy critic to deny,

it is

the

biconcave structure of the reptiles, showing, as Mr.

Owen

himself owns, that these animals, which the

Edinburgh reviewer deems so

from

fish,

utterly

had probably " a more

separated

aquatic^ if not

marine theatre of Ufe,^''* than was assigned to their

In subsequent and present

successors.
this

form

is

superseded by the ball and socket, or

concavo-convex form
the

embryo

reptiles,

but

it is

state, the frog

remarkable that, in

and crocodile

double hollow form

others) exhibit the

(if

not

still

re-

sembling in this respect the matui*e animal of the

secondary rocks.
of reptiles

he
*

which our

has, after this,

On

Such

is

critic

actual

would

set

up

character
as high

oidy to speak of the annelid as

the Reptilian Fossils of Soath Africa.

actions, Feb. 1845.

03

the

Geological Trans-

82

EXPLANATIONS.

above the butterfly, or the proteus as superior to

the land salamander, to establish his character as

Need

a naturalist.
tiles are, in

reality,

say that these Permian rep-

by these

place in proximity with fishes

much

So

for

When we come

the

degraded to a

facts
?

and

batrachia

lacertilia.

to the great saurian line in the

Muschelkalk, Lias, Oolite, and Wealden, we have

a case which cannot be disputed, for here the marine character of the earliest of the series,
their intermcdiateness

between

fish

codiles

by

The

are admitted

from the

all.

fish is the ichthyosaur, its

and true
first

name

With

piscine

body and

advanced into a paddle form,

dilian head.

appearing,
sauria,

it

tail,

remove

it

and

is

fins

has a true croco-

In the pliosaur, which

we have a

cro-

declaring

the convention of class characters for which

remarkable.

and

is

later in

stage of advance to the true

which come forward in the

oolite, in the

forms of teleosaurus, steneosaurus, &c. Afterwards,

chiefly in the

Wealden, we have the dinosauria,

which betray an approach to the mammalian type.

Another

oolite saurian, the cetiosaur, exhibits in

the form of the vertebrae a verging towards the

cetaceous mammalia.
perfect

and even

Here there

striking

is

the most

harmony with the theory

EARLY REPTILIAN

Below these

of a progressive development.

mations, fish
saurian s
rians

above them, true and complete sau-

higher

still,

saurians

grade of

elevated

advancing

animalitA'

next

passing

formation,

over

hardly represents any but deep-sea

life.

the strata so remarkable for the saurians.

tology,

when read by

tliis

In

one which

cetaceous relics have been found before

appears that the whole of

and

where do these more elevated types occur

the

for-

then, lovr in these formations, fish

finally,

a more

to

83

FOSSILS.

we

Nay,
leave

Thus,

it

chapter of palaeon-

a light fi'om nature, and not

from man's capricious humour, so far from being

opposed to the natural genesis of animals, ^ves

Men, however, and of

support.

it

lively parts too,

might go on for an age misreading such palpable

facts, if

they be determined against putting them

into the collocation in

of them, just as

which a sense can be made

we might puzzle

Latin or Greek sentence,

against

if

for ever over

obstinately resolved

making English out of

it

except in

its

original construction.

After presenting the case of the reptilian fossils

of the secondary formation in this way, I feel

it

hardly necessarj' to track the Edinbiu-gh ^e^iewer

through

all his

particular objections.

They

are

84

EXPLANATIONS.

a mass

of confusion, resulting from erroneous

assumptions on his own part respecting the de-

velopment theory, as that the orders of animals are

all to

rental

be

each other, and every pa-

affiliated to

form held as extinguished by the

fact of

transmutation (the latter being a peculiarly gra-

see

tuitous supposition

50 of the Review)

p.

together with equally rash and unjustified conclusions

regarding

reptilian

orders,

promised to
his

own

the

all

mixed up

most

tell

forms

earliest

in the

effectually in

of the

way

that

favour of

opinion, and with a disregard of every

thing that pointed in the opposite direction.

The

great unquestioned facts of a succession of birds

and mammals

to the

fishes

and

reptiles, these

being also the next higher classes in the scale of

the naturalist,

nothing to this writer, as the

tell

of

succession

the

reptiles

From

nothing before.

to

the

the

slight

which he passes over these

facts,

fishes

told

remarks with

an unlearned

reader would hardly suppose that they were of

the least significance, while, in reality, they are of
the greatest.

were to
dynasties,

ment

It is

sink

and

much

all

the

same as if an historian

such events

fix attention

of under-secretaries

as

changes of

upon the

of state.

displace-

And what

85

EARLY BIRD FOOTSTEPS.

makes

conduct the more marked

this

is,

that the

minor facts upon which he fastens for the purpose

f

supporting his

own theory, axe mostly presented

to us in circumstances

tainty

which show

their uncer-

and the likelihood of their being superseded.

For example, the

earliest traces of birds

do not

indicate marine forms, which, according to

general

views, ought, he says, to be the

Instead of natatorial birds, they are

objection,

when he

learns the real cir-

The

cumstances of the case.

here

case.

waders and

Let the reader judge of the character

runners.
of this

my

traces

of birds

spoken of are merely a few foot-prints

found upon certain rock surfaces in America,

Not a bone of these animals has been foimd

in this early
ferred,

period.

either that

favoura:ble for the

It

the

must therefore be

in-

circumstances were not

entombment of the bodies of

these birds, or that our researches in the strata

formed at the time when they lived have been

insufficient to discover them.

with birds

where, as

we

which lived

If such

upon

be the case

shores,

places

learn from the nature of the strata,

accumulations of sand and

taking place,

it is

mud

were constantly

of course not to be expected

Hiat any remains of natatorial birds should be

86

EXPLANATIONS.

To

found, animals mostly living far out at sea.

put the case in

strongest form

its

foot-prints on

shores being the record of the birds of this era,

we

are not to expect

any trace of such birds

generally speaking, are not in the

foot-prints

on shores.

and point out that

this,

way

as,

making

of

might go further than

certain natatorial genera

have feet not to be distinguished from those of

waders, so that certain of these foot-prints
those of natatorial species after
to

we

be

my

all

but

may be
I feel it

best duty in the case, only to deny that

are in circumstances to say that waders

runners were the

who

first

created birds.

and

Mr. Lyell,

stands as high as this or any other writer on

geology, says, with regard to these very ornithichnites, as

they are called

much

higher

which

fossil

" This

antiquity than

sandstone

birds have been

any fonnation in

detected in Europe.

the feathered tribe

made

its

first

common a fallacy

to

Still

we

facts, that

appearance in

the western hemisphere at this period.

tribe

of

bones or any other indications of

have no ground for inferring from such

of each

is

It

is too

fix the era of the first creation

of plants or animals, and even of

animated beings

in

general, at

the

precise point

where our present retrospective knoioledge happens

to

EARLY CETACEOUS

What now

stop.^^*

gives force to this observation

new

the recent discovery of a

87

FOSSILS.

said to be of waders only

is,

set of biid foot-prints

in the carboniferous

The emergence

formation of Pensylvania.

of

such a fact in the midst of the reviewer's speculations

on the

stone, forms a

foot-prints of the

New Red

Sand-

most emphatic commentar}' on

where the

decisive inferences

all

facts are obviously

casual and isolated.

Of a somewhat
viewer's remarks

different character are the re-

on the

first relics

of

mammalia

the few bones of cetacea from the Lower Oolite

and of marsupials from the Stonesfield

Here the very

first

marine

if it

and,

mammal

family

is

Slate.

undoubtedly

were to receive equal consi-

deration with the grallatorial foot-prints, he ought

certainly to admit that

But he escapes from

theory.

mode

favours the development

it

of his own.

The American

He

foot-prints

without being seen

this

claim by a

has not seen these relics

were good evidence,

but a fact

which makes

against his theory requires personal inspection,

even though
of

rity

it

may come

Baron Cuvier.f

* Travels in North America,

t

"

There

is in

the Oxford

forward with the autho-

He
I.

is

more

at ease with

255.

Museum an

uhia from the Great

88

EXPLANATIONS.

the marsuioials, which are of course unequivocally

land animals.

fourth edition of

my book, published two months

have only here to refer to the

before the appearance of the review, and while I

w^as

unrecking

of

any

gi-ounded on this point

great

being

objection

where

it

is

suggested

that the peculiar organization of the marsupials

points to their having

medium from

different
critic,

been derived through a

other mammals.

eager to let nothing escape,

there are other land

The

us that

tells

mammals lower in
One answer

organic

type than the marsupials.

to this

objection might be found in an explanation of

my

views respecting the ornithic descent of these

animals

but

am

unwilling to pause

upon such

an inferior matter, and will therefore meet him

with the question,

if

any other mammals show

marked

that lowly grade of organization which is

by the absence of a placenta

" There are

no

other organic types," he says, " to which they [the

marsupials] offer the shadow of a near

They

affinity.

are therefore in direct antagonism with the

scheme of regular development."

Oolite of Enstone, near Woodstock,

by Cuvier and pronounced

very large

rib,

to

To

this

it

may

Oxon, which was examined

be cetaceous

and also a portion of a

apparently of a whale, from the same locality."

Buckland's Bridgtwater Treatise,

I.

115, note.

89

AFFINITIES OF MARSUPIALIA.
l)e

replied, that the affinity of the marsupials to

the oviparous
naturalist,
Ijrain

vertebrata

is

admitted by every

being shown in the small size of the

and consequent exposure of the cerebellum,

the absence of the

septum lucidum and corpus

eallosum in the brain, and various other

Professor Agardh says

" The

traits.

marsupials are

mammalia which approach very nearly

to birds;

the monotremata, in particular, almost coincide

with them."*
College,

Professor

Rymer

Jones, of King's

whose testimony on such a point

will

be

admitted by the reviewer, speaks of the marsupials

as " connecting links between the oviparous

and

Striking traits of their

affi-

placental vertebrata."
nity- to

birds are shown, he says, in the structure

of the ear

and of the reproductive organs.f

In

reality, the

whole figure of the cursorial bird, the

small head

upon

the long neck, the extreme length

of the hinder limbs, and the imperfect development

of the fore extremities, as well as the tendency of

the feathers to a hair-like character, sp^ak irresistibly for its

approach to certain marsupials. The

omithorhynchus

is

as clearly an advance from the

natatorial bird towards the rodent form, the latter

*

Allman Wext Biologi

apxtd Charlesworth's Magazine, July,

1839.

t General

View of the Stractore of the Animal KiDgdom.

90

EXPLANATIONS.

being an order whose osteological structure

allowed by every naturalist to be bird-like.

and curious

is

New

of the connexion be-

illustrations

tween the birds and the implacental mammalia

We

are constantly appearing.

bird which has a pouch for

lately

its

heard of a

young

like the

Mayer has discovered in the

emeu a purse form of certain organs, indi-

kangaroo,* and
female

cating an approach to the marsupial in that part

of structure which
case.f

It

is

the most distinctive in the

would appear that the reviewer

is

simply ignorant of this department of natural

history,

attends

and, with the

self-esteem which often

upon ignorance, he has somewhat un-

luckily ventured to give a positive contradiction

to that

which

is

inconte stably true.

The reviewer at
phenomena of the

length comes to the organic

Tertiary system.

"

On

the

theory of development," says he, " the stages of

'

advance are in
to

species,'

all

cases very small

from species

and the phenomena,

'

as

shown

in

the pages of geology, are always of a simple and

modest

character.'

by one

single step, from the chalk to the

Let us

test these

* Magazine of Natural History,

f Reports of

Ray

Society,

I.

assumptions

London

TERTIARY FOSSILS.
clay,

91

Among

or any other tertiary deposit

millions

from corals

of organic forms,

mammals, we

find hardly so

secondary species."

The

much

the

up

to

as one single

exceptions in reality

are, the inlusoria of the chalk,

and " two or three

secondary species," which are said to " straggle

into the tertiary system."
says, "

is

" Organic nature," he

once more on a new pattern

well as animals are changed.

if

we had been transported

neither in

to

It

plants

a new planet ; for

the arrangement of the genera

and

species, nor in their affinities with the types of

older world,

is

there the

as

might seem as

an

shadow of any approach

to a regular plan of organic development."

Now

the almost total break in the organic creation here

insisted upon, occurs in the interval

extensive

deposits of the

between the

secondary formation,

and the comparatively isolated deposits of the

tertiary-.

It is

an interval which the lithological

arrangements clearly indicate to have been longer

than any of those between the other formations,
during which minor changes of organic creation

had taken place.

not represented by strata or by fossils

elapsed,

the

a period

It is simply, then,

continual advance

while

it

of the organic

world proceeded to a point at w^hich nearly

all

92

EXPLANATIONS.

the old species

had died out

in the " step" of our re-

There was nothing more

viewer than

this.

Such

or been changed.

the geological doctrine.

is

" Is the present creation of

life,"

says Professor

Phillips, " a continuation of the previous ones

term of the same long series of communicated

"There

being? I answer, yes."*

says, " in the vast chain of organic

we reach

is

no break," he

development

the existing order of things."

will further

be able

to

The

till

reader

judge of the candour of the

reviewer respecting the zoology of the tertiary,

when he

new

is

reminded that

it

shows exactly those

kingdom which might

portions of the animal

have been expected, according to the theory of

development.

Heretofore,

we have only few and

faint traces of

mammalia but now they

in abundance,

mammalia being the crowning

of the vertebrated form.

is

concerned,

it is

As

added
class

far as class, therefore,

incontestably a " regular plan

of organic development"

We

are

But

this is

not

all.

have seen the reptile forms of the secondary

approaching the cetacean character;

there

is

and now

an abundance of the aquatic mammalia,

as well as of those land pachyderms which arc

*

He

parent."

adds

" But not as the offspring

is

a continuation of the

TERTIARY FOSSILS.
universally classed with
order, these

which

my

93

some of the forms of that

being the only suite of creatures

ideas of development would lead

expect at this place.

Here

me

must meet the

He

viewer on a special ground.

to
re-

admits the

dinosaurs to have been the nearest approach to

mammals
we

but " they died away," he says, (" if

end of
These mammals have, therefore, " no

are to trust to geology,) ages before the

the chalk."

That

zoological base to rest upon."

there is

is,

no connexion between them and any such animals as the dinosaurs, because there is an interval
in the cretaceous formation which gives neither

Now,

these forms nor any intermediate.

is

the fact

admitted by Professor Ansted, that the cre-

taceous system appears to have been " formed,

for the

most

part,

by deposits

a considerable portion of

animal life."" ^

it

in deep water,

not far

from

and

the zero

of

And this he states with a particular re-

ference to the results of Professor

researches in the

Egean

sea.

Edward

Forbes's

We therefore have a

satisfactory explanation of the non-appearance of

forms intermediate to the reptiles and

in the

chalk, without being driven to

mammals
suppose,

with our reviewer, that the latter were a creation

* Ansted's Geology,

I.

502.

94

EXPLANATIONS.

de novo of animal

did

it

But no such

life.

our reviewer to

suit

fact as this

state.

" Carnivora," he proceeds to say, " are as old

As

as pachyderms.

far, at least,

evidence bearing on the

(monkeys) are found in

and

tradicting

mind.

no

stultification

It

my

was not

but Dr. Fletcher's

we have

thus

con-

upper end of our

There

except in the
scale

an\-

and bimana

this division

stultifying the

author's grand creative scale."

reality,

as

question,

my

here, in

critic's

which he

adopted into

is

own

refers to,

book, not as

a plan of the actual process of development, but

as a general indication of the comparative organi-

zation of the animal orders.

do not consider

assumed contemporaneousness of the carnivora and monkeys (which the reviewer erroneous] v
the

calls

bimana) as

at

development theory,
distinct lines

all

contradictory of a true

for I

regard them

of development,

all

as

which might well

advance to a certain stage, (namely, that of the

terrestrial

mammal) about

not, however, entitled to

same time.

the

this objection, as the idea of a

plurality of lines

" As

we

blame the reviewer

must be new

am
for

development in a

to him.

ascend," he says, " towards the middle

divisions of the [tertiary] series, there is a devc-

TERTIARY FOSSILS.

95

lopment of nature's kingdom, nearer and nearer

But

it is

not a development after

our author's scheme.

It

follows the law of the

to living types.

rise,

progress,

and decline of the families of the

We

older world, already pointed out.

have no

confusion of genera and species, and no shades of

structure to
is

make dim

Now there

their outlines."

here an acknowledgment, in which

all geologist*

accord, of a constant gradual approach to living

types. Is not
for

tliis,

in itself, a fact speaking strongly

some simply natural procedure

of the present tribes

set of

in the origin

change goes on from one

forms to another, in the same

human

way

generation is changed for another

as one

namely,

by the withdrawal of some and the addition of

others, until at length the

age

whole personnel of one

superseded by that of another.

is

moval of old species

is

own showing,

of law

the result,

and laws

of species are in operation

Can we

phenomenon

character
I say,

by our

no

re-

critic's

for the extinction

at the present day.

well suppose the rise of the

to be a

The

new

species

of an essentially different

for here is the

whole question

at issue.

any ideas I have ever acquired of philo-

sophy, as an expression of our ascertainment of

the order of nature or providence, forbid

me

to

EXPLANATIONS.

96

form such a conclusion.

or species"

need

" confusion of genera

not to be presumed

is

there

is

no

shading of structure to make dim theii

for a

outlines.

suggest, that a line of organization

analogous to the progress of the embryo of

aij

elevated species, had passed in the course of time

through

appointed stages of development, each

its

of w^hich

is

a small advance upon the preceding

and the type of a form thenceforth to continue per?

Each

manent.

stands apart.

line

It

shadings in a vertical direction, as

reptilian
ties

and

its

mammal

may show

between

forms, but no true

its

affini-

connecting horizontally with the members of

other lines.

Our

pletely at fault.
special grounds.

critic

is

here, therefore, com-

meet him again, however, on

Many

of the animals of the ter-

tiary period are of large bulk.

We

huge examples of the pachyderm

there are

still

existing

have not only

order, in which

many bulky

species, but

we

have creatures equally vast in proportion belonging to the rodent, the edentate, and other orders.

These huge mammals

are, indeed, the signal

forms

of this period, the forms by which the whole tertiary

system

is

the living

most distinguished.

pachyderm

largest species

order,

we

Now,

if

we

take

shall find that the

are of the lowest

organization

TERTIARY FOSSILS.
For example, the elephant, with
tarsus, is a

is

its

short meta-

low form compared with the horse, in

which the heel

This

97

raised so

is

much above the ground.

a progress of characters which could be

many other families. It is a progress

which may be generally described as passing from
shown

in

the phocal form of the hind extremities, through

the plantigrade, and ascending to

Now

in the digitigrade.

its

this progress

ultimatum
is

coinci-

dent with the distribution of the various lines of

animals in physical geography, for while the

first

are marine, the second are generally found in con-

nexion with shores,

rivers,

the last (always the

and low grounds, and

of the interior.

varied surface

more

smallest) with the

When we

find,

then, animals of the second kind most conspicuous

in this period,

we have

actual

phenomena

re-

markably in accordance with the scheme of de-

We

velopment.

look

in, as it

were, upon the

woi'ld, or at least, its chief zoological province, at

the time
trial
life,

when

mammal

the lines

forms

had attained to the

fitted for fluviatile

terres-

and jungle

and ere from these had yet sprung the whole

of the smaller but

more highly organized deni-

zens of nature's common.

Our

critic,

having

now run

over the whole series

EXPLANATIONS.

98
of fossils,

summons

Owen

Cuvier, Agassiz, and

to

express their opinions against the theory of de-

velopment.

The

first

" again and again affirms

that the extinct fossil species were not produced

by any continued

natural organic law from other

His French opponents

species."

tried,

according

to the reviewer, to overturn his conclusion

by ex-

periments in cross breeding and the ransacking of

ancient tombs.
of la cloture du

And
siecle

they talked contemptuously

de Cuvier ; for which they

fall

under a reference to the fable of the ass and the

dead

lion.

Now,

I disclaim all responsibility for

the experiments and language of the French theorisers

on

this subject. But, while I respect Cuvier,

must not concede too much even

He

was, after

all,

to his opinion.

common

but a man, with the

liability to prejudices.

would, with

all

due

verence for the illustrious Baron, remind

my

re-

re-

viewer of an opinion which the former expressed

in 1826,

that a deluge

had occurred about

six

thousand years ago, which broke down and made

to disappear the countries which

had before been

inhabited by men, and the species of animals

which we are best acquainted. Ten years

belief

was expressed by Cuvier,

witli

after this

I find Dr.

land quietly withdrawing his adherence to

Buckit

in

OPINIONS OF CUVIER AND AGASSIZ.

At

the Bridgewater Treatise.

this

99

moment

it

is

not supported by a single geologist of the least

repute.

wrong

May

not,

then, the

Baron Curier be

also in his opinion regarding the develop-

ment of species

So much,

may be

I trust,

said

without any disparagement to the author of the

Regne Animal. The

imperfect ideas

faot is, that the erroneous

men

of great

often

and

become an

annoyance, from no fault on their part, but only

because the weak and nsirrow-minded are so apt,
afterwards, to seize

them

upon such

ideas,

and brandish

in the faces of advancing truths.

For M.

Agassiz I likewise entertain great respect; but

happens that his

established.

liability"

The

it

to error is equally well

doctiines which he persisted for

years in maintaining with respect to the constitution

and movement of

glaciers,

are

now

all

but

deserted for the more accurate and philosophical

deductions of Professor James Forbes.

therefore, receive the intelligence

chatel philosopher brings

fish,

me

may,

which the Neuf-

regarding the fossil

but be cautious in accepting as an infallible

dictum what he
tively

is

pleased to say on the compara-

profoimd doctrine of organic development.

Professor Owen, whose modest}' keeps pace with

his fame, will hardly pretend to

/2

an

infallibility

EXPLANATIONS.

100

which

fails in

two such noted instances.

the difficulties

Besides,

which this great anatomist and

others have found in sanctioning the development

theory, chiefly rest in mistaken assumptions with

regard to the constitution of the animal kingdom.

It is impossible, as

they say, to

logy in a line of orders ; but

let

make out

a genea-

a fresh naturalist,

of equal standing, judge of the theory, after he has

considered the animal kingdom in the arrange-

ment now suggested, and I feel assured that its

feasibility will receive a more favourable verdict.

The

reviewer, however,

would not abate one jot

of his opinion, although Cuvier, Agassiz, and

against

him

If such

be the

Owen

state of his

were

all

mind

regarding Cuvier, with what face can he con-

demn

St. Hilaire,

who only does

dead lion which our

critic

that towards the

would also do, sup-

posing the dead lion were equally opposed to his

opinion

The grounds

are in personal

"

We

for this strong assiu-ance

and immediate observation of facts.

have examined," says he, " the old records

... in the spots where nature placed them, and

we know their true historical meaning
We
.

have

visited in succession the

tombs and charnel-

houses of these old times, and we took with us the

clew spun in the fabric of development j but we

RETRACTATION OF MR. SEDGWICK.

101

found this clew no guide through these ancient

labyrinths, and, sorely against our will,

compelled to snap

its

thread

We

we were
now dare

affirm that geology, not seen through the mist of

any theory, but taken as a plain succession of

monuments and

one firm cumulative

facts, offers

argument against the hjrpothesis of development."

What

first

tone

in

strikes us in

this

declaration

which the writer speaks of

convictions.

Cuvier, Agassiz,

wrong; but

this

what he speaks

own

own

all

be

has seen

Against " a dogmatical dicta-

tion contrary to the sober

sophy," (his

He

cannot.

writer

of.

his

Owen, may

the

is

ndes of soimd philo-

words,) there might have surely

been some protection in the necessity of retractation to

which the best geologists are occasionally

For example, we have Professor Sedg-

reduced.

wick, in 1831, undoing a theorj- he

had formerly

embraced
"

We

now connect

the gravel of the plains with

the elevation of the newest system of mountains.

....

That these statements

militate

against

opinions but a few years since held almost universally

among us, cannot be

of diluvial gravel,
of an advancing

like all

science,

denied.

But

theories

other ardent generalizations

must ever be regarded but as

102

EXPLANATIONS.
new fact,

shifting hypotheses to be modified by every

till

at length they become accordant vnth all the phe-

nomena of

In retreating, where we have

nature.

advanced too

there is neither compromise of

far,

dignity nor loss of strength

for in doing this

partake but of the

common

who

field of investigation like

enters

on a

we

fortune of every one

our

own."

The

I
contrast between the philosophic

of this passage,

and the above extract from the

EdinbiKgh reviewer, must be very

reader,

modesty

The
so many of

striking.

who has seen the lioUowness

of

this writer's particular objections to the develop-

ment

theory, can be

little

form an

at a loss to

estimate of the personal investigations of which he

speaks.

He

seems to have yet to learn that the

necessarily partial investigations which any single

geologist

may be

able personally to make, can give

no such amount of the requisite knowledge as may

be acquired in another mode of study
intellectual

powers and preparations of the personal

inquirer ought also to be known, before

set

much

that the

store even

by that

attained by his examinations.

we can

may be
It is not uncommon

light

which

for ordinary mariners to boast of their

knowledge

of a country from having sailed several

times

PHYSIOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS OF DR. CLARK. 103

one of

to

its

ports,

and

for private sentinels

to

pretend to a superior knowledge of a great battle,

one detachment of which they happened to

in

Of such boastings and pretensions

be engaged.
I

must confess that

am

strongly reminded

by

this writer.

The

geological objections to the development

theorv'

have now been discussed, and to the public

must be

it

decide the question, whether

left to

palaeontology

is

favourable or unfavourable to that

must now advert

scheme.

which the

theory* derives

objections which have

to the illustrations

from physiology, and the

been made

to them.

Edinburgh reviewer occupies several of

The

his pages

with such objections, but, fortunately, they need

not detain us long, as they come to

little

more

than this, that he

puts trust in Dr. Clark,

Cambridge, while

have resorted for the support

of

my

general

theory to

by other physiologists.*
* Dr.

Whewell

the ^iews
I

may

of

advocated

say that these

(preface to Indications, Sfc.) joins the reviewer

and others in reprobating the suggestions which have been made

in the Vestiges,

with regard to a similarity between certain

crystallizations, as the figures

and the Arbor Diance,

the reviewer's

produced by

to vegetable forms.

mind are here

frost

The

fully indicated, for

upon windows

logical merits of

what does he

set

104

EXPLANATIONS.

views are presented in

was possible

me

for

my

book

as coiTcetly as

who am nothing

to give them,

but a general student

in

lu

one instance

ployed the language of a popular

have em-

treatise,

(Dr.

ridiculed by our reviewer as a book of no

authoritymerely because the ideas were there

Lord's)

presented in a peculiarly intelligible form.

down

as a disproof of these as " traces of secondary

which the Almighty deviser might

ter,

apposition of

and not from germs, as actual vegetables do

at issue being merelj*,

crystallization

whether the

electricity

might not have some similar

new mat-

the question

concerned in the

effect in

determining

may here remark that I am

some common root for these phenomena.

the forms of the vegetables.

alone in surmising

means by

establish" the forms of plants

grow by simple

that such crystallizations

The

not
In

Leithead's Electricity, (1837,) the following passage occurs:

"

The form

of the route of free electricity

dium through which

it

passes,

modified by the

is

and also by the

me-

electric state

of

such medium, or of that of the relative electrical condition of two

bodies between which

which

it

it

is

transmitted.

If the

medium through

passes possesses a very inferior conducting power,

obvious that a certain

fluid to force its

momentum must

passage to a given distance, and there will be a

point at which the

momentum

of the fluid and the resistance of

the body will exactly counterbalance each other

the electricity has

overcome the
direction, until

resistance,
it

but so soon as

again accumulated to a sufiicient degree to

it

will again force its

way

in imparting regular forms to bodies

its

in another

arrives at another point of equilibrium.

way, we may readily see the modus operandi of the

that

it is

be requisite to enable the

action in this respect extends

and

to the

it is

In this

electric fluid

highly probable

vegetable kingdom,

and

perhaps operates even on animals, from the time in which they

PHYSIOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS OF DR. CLARK.

105

general aim was, I can honestly declare, to convey

M.

the doctrine of the epigenesis of animals, as

Serres calls

it,

as an illustration of

my

subject,

considering myself entitled to do so by the position

which

it

has attained in the world.

unfortimate for this, as

it is

It is, of course,

many

for

other doc-

trines, that it

should have an opponent

circumstance

is

fortunately,

but this

on the other hand, no

adequate ground of condemnation in the judgment

exist in the

embryo

state

Another &ct in support of the

opinion, that the distinctive forms of bodies are produced

trical action

is,

tables, all terminate in points or

action can proceed

by

elec-

and the twigs and leaves of vege-

that crystals,

sharp edges, so that the electrical

no further in increasing the growth,

or, in

other words, in propelling fresh portions of matter for the extension of the plant, or the crystal,

termination."

beyond the pointed or edged

In a letter of Mr. Crosse to Mr. Leithead,

it

is

stated that, in one of his experiments, there grew, in the inside of

an

electrified jar filled

with hydro-sulphuret of potash, a mineral

fungus, three-fourths of an inch in length

and one-fourth of an

inch in diameter, " in the shape of a common trumpet-moutlied

fungus, which is found on trees." " In one experiment," says Mr,

Weekes,

in a recent letter to myself,

electro-vegetation
aid of a

good

and continued

"a

was produced, a forest

lens,

presented

to interest

me

many

during

singularly beautiful

in minature,

which, by

extraordinary appearances,

many months."

It

may

the reviewer and others to scoff at such " resemblances

scoffing will not annul, in
is

my

;"

suit

but

mind, the apprehension that there

here some relation of a very interesting kiud, the investigation

of which

may

yet give us a deeper insight than

into the mysteries of organic being

/3

we now

enjoy

106

EXPLANATIONS.

of third parties.

I leave, then, the general tenor

of this portion of

my reviewer's objections, with the

remark, that for the one authority which he has

called into court,

many

it

would be easy

as good on the other side

to

for instance,

Harvey, Grew, Lister, and Meckel.

own

favourite authority

good evidence

summon

Our

critic's

Mr. Owenwould

give

see his Lectures on the Invertebrated

Animals, where he says that man's embryotic me-

tamorphoses would not be less striking than those

of the butterfly,

if

subjected like

them

to observa-

and then adds, that the human embryo

tion

is first

vermiform, next stamped with the characters of

the apodal fish, afterwards indicative of the enaliosaur,

and so

forth.

There

another most res-

is

Dr. Rogetwho,

pectable English physiologist

in his Bridgewater Treatise, explicitly says, " that

the animals which occupy the highest stations in

each

series

possess,

at

the

commencement

their existence, forms exhibiting a

blance to those presented in the

permanent con-

dition of the lowest animals of the

and

that,

of

marked resem-

same

series

during the progress of their development,

they assume in succession the characters of each

tribe,

corresponding to their consecutive order in

the ascending chain."

It is to

what has been thus

EMBRYOTIC REPRESENTATIONS.

men

spoken of by such excellent

believe, first

shadowed

hinted at by

forth

107

what

was, I

Haney, and

afterwards

that

this writer

by John Hunter

applies the appellation of " a monstrous scheme,

from

nothing but a pile of wildly gra-

first to last

tuitous hypotheses."

This reviewer and others have been eager to

point out that " no anatomist has observed the

shadow of any change assimilating the nascent

embrj'o to any of the radiata, mollusca, or articu-

Thus

lata.

are three whole classes [divisions] of

any

cor-

in defiance of the

law

the animal kingdom, passed over without

responding

foetal t\*pe,

of development."
is

not true,

of the

first

if

any

and

The

writer here states

faith

is

be placed in one

authorities of the age,

which he himself depends

Mr.

to

Owen on

human embrjo

for

and one upon

have we not seen

the last page afiirming that the

is first

the form of the

vermiform

this meaning

worms, a portion of the class

That

Annelides, in one of these lower divisions.

all

what

these divisions or sub-kingdoms are not repre-

sented in the

human embryo

fectly visionary, for it is

is

an objection per-

not necessary that

all

should be involved in the ancestry, and therefore

analogies to all are not to be looked

for.

It

may

EXPLANATIONS.

108

be said, then, there

is

no true

difficulty in this

quarter.

Perhaps no part of the arguments

for the de-

velopment theory has been more misapprehended,

or misrepresented, than this.

It is continually

said, that the embryo, at any of

its

particular

stages, is not in reality the animal represented

that stage.

The Edinburgh reviewer remarks, with

regard to the fish stage, "

mammal thrown
own

The

moment."
is

Were

it

an

is,

embryo of a

could not support

life for

brain of a child in the seventh

any of

also said to be not the brain of

the inferior animals, but a true

truth

the

off at that time into water (of its

temperature,)

month

by

human brain.

The

no one ever pretended that there was such

identity.

It is

only said that there

is

a re-

semblance in general character between the particular embryotic stage of being,

condition

and form of the appropriate

The

animal.

particular adaptations,

racter of vital maturity,

fore

it is

inferior

that the

ai'e all

may be

is

if

inferior

and the cha-

wanting, and there-

embryo could not

animal represented,

parent, and really

It

and the mature

live,

as the

separated from the

not that inferior animal.

well, before leaving this part of the

subject, to advert to a special charge

which

this

GERMS NOT IDENTICAL.

writer,

ward

and
it is,

germs of

at least

one other,* have brought

creatures are alike, but that they are

The Edinburgh

Re^iew brings a con-

tradiction to this proposition from Dr. Clark.

is

for-

that I assume, not only that the organic

all

identical.

109

It

wholly unnecessary, for no such assumption was

ever

The phrase used

made by me.

in the

book

was, " Its primary positions [meaning the doctrines

of embrA'onic development] are that the

embryos

of all animals are not distinguishably

different

from each other ;" which

a very different pro-

is

In several other instances, propositions

position.

are thus misrepresented to afford the glory of a

\-isionary refutation.

For example

the idea that

there being light in the planets,

any inhabitants

may be presumed

to have eyes, as

of these orbs

eyes bear a relation to light,

gravely with the fact,

left for

is

met by him very

him

to discover, that

animals have eyes before they are

I

have

now reviewed

bom

the vestiges of creation,

presented in both the geological and physiological

records, the former presenting memorials of the
actual progression of species, in nearly such a con-

formity with the

general

organic kingdoms as

arrangements of the

we might expect

in the pre-

North American Review, April 1845.

I*


EXPLANATIONS.

110

sent state of the science, and the latter affording us

proofs

proofs,

at least, satisfactory to

best anatomists of our age

development, which

many of the

of a plan of individual

may be

called the living pic-

ture of the advance of species, during the vast ages

chronicled by the sedimentary rocks.

series of vestiges

now remains for

third

consideration

namely, those which hint at originations and modifications of organic beings in the current era.

The

objections to the occasional production of

organic beings, otherwise than ex ovo, do not ap-

pear to have been softened by the publication of

my

former volume.

exception of the

All reviewers, with the single

British

and Foreign Medical

Review, have intimated their continued scepticism

on

this

The experiment

point.

of Professor

Schulze, of Berlin, with decaying organic matter

floating in a flask to

which common

air

was ad-

mitted, after passing through sulphuric acid, thereby

being deprived of

all

animal admixtures

an ex-

periment which ended in the non-production of

any animalcules or mould

clusive.

also

is

pointed to as con-

Explanations more or less plausible have

been offered

for the origin of the

of civilization,

clopum,

I should fear to

etc.

entozoa,

the pimelodes cy-

the parasites

weary the reader


TRANSMUTATION OF PLANTS.

new

with a

Ill

discussion of all these particulars:

me meet

for the sake of brevity, let

the call which

the opponents of the development theory usually

make,

to give

afforded

it

the direct proof which

by showing one

would be

instance, either of the

origin of life or the transmutation of species.

The

objection of the Edinburgh reviewer, to

the alleged transmutation of oats into rye, is that

he believes
person,

support

it

This

a fable.

advanced without
it.

Let us

greater authority

see,

is

the opinion of one

fact or

argiunent to

on the other hand, what a

on botanical subjects than he

namely, Dr. Lindley

has stated on the same sub-

" At the request," says this learned person,

ject.

" of the Marquis of Bristol, the Reverend

Lord

Arthur Hervey, in the year 1843, sowed a handful

of oats, treated

them

in the

manner reconunended,

by continually stopping the flowering stems, and

the produce, in 1844, has been for the most part
ears of a very slender barley, having

appearance of rye, with a

oats

samples of which

Bristol,

now

little

are,

before us."

much

the

wheat, and some

by the favour of Lord

The learned writer then

adverts to the " extraordinary, but certain fact,

that in orchidaceous plants, forms just as different

as wheat, barley, rye,

and

oats,

have been proved

112

EXPLANATIONS.

by the most rigorous evidence,

variations of one

common

to

be accidental

form, brought about no

one knows how, but before our eyes, and rendered

permanent by equally mysterious agency.

says Reason,

why
for

more

little

sure, that

them
.

be a part of

to

How

can we

wheat, rye, oats, and barley, are not

accidental

oflf-sets

The

species ?"*
to

plants

group in the vegetable kingdom

rational to believe

the general system of creation

all

com

not likely that such vagaries will be con-

fined to one

be

Then,

they occur in orchidaceous plants,

should they not also occur in

it is

it is

if

from

reader will

some unsuspected

now be

partly able

judge of the value of the unsupported dictum of

the reviewer.

There are many other

light

So

from there being any decisive proof against

moment amongst
species.

no

settled conclusion at this

naturalists, as to

" There

is,"

of variation

torily assigned,

covered,

to

and

what

constitutes

says Professor Henslow,

" no law whatever hitherto

limits

throw a strong

on transmutation, both of plants and animals.

far

this theory, there is

facts that

established,

by which the

a given species can be satisfacuntil

we cannot expect

some such law be

dis-

precision in the details

Gardeners' Chronicle, August, 1844.

SPECIES A TERM, XOT A FACT.

of systematic botany."*

"

We

113

have agreed," says

Bicheno, " that a species shall be that distinct

form, orginally so created, and producing,

by

inconvenience attending the use of

is this

naturalists, that
in the
fit

it

assumes as a

present state of science,

subject of inquiry

cording to
nature.

oiu"

it

by

fact, that

which,

many

cases a

in

namely, that species, ac-

definition,

It is too

is

cer-

There

tain laws of generation, others like itself.

do exist throughout

convenient a term to be dis-

pensed with, even as an assmnption

should be taken that

ice

only care

do not accept the abstract

Mr. Westwood, speaking of

term for the fact.^^f

insects, says, " In very extensive genera, the dis-

tinctions of species are so minute, that

most practised eye

there are

to separate

them

it

requires the

and, indeed,

some groups, the species of which are so

intricately

blended together, that no two entomo-

logists are agreed as to their distinctness."

Ac-

cording to Mr. Haldeman, author of a learned work

on the fresh-water mollusks of America, " There

are

distinct

species in that

class

among

Unionidae, for example, [and this

applicable
*

to other

is

the

a remark

departments of the animal

Magazine of Zoology and Botany,

i.

f Linnsean Transactions, xv. 482.

116.

114

EXPLANATIONS.

kingdom,] actually differing less Jfrom each other

known

than the
species,

varieties of

variable

certain

which a Lamarkian might suppose to be

of so recent an origin, as not to have yet

become

settled in the possession of then' proper diagnostic

Indeed, notwithstanding the assump-

characters.

tion to the contrary,

by authors who have

little

practical acquaintance with the details of natural

history, the proper discrimination

and

variety,

is

which the naturalist has

who

is

between species

one of the greatest

difficulties

encounter; and he

to

successful in this department

is

entitled to

a rank which comparatively few can attain."*

Of

may be
conditions, I may

the extent to which modifications

carried

by palpable external

now supply a few

that fungi

illustrations.

and lichens

attain

It is well

known

to very different

appearances in different situations, in conformity

with different conditions.

Fries,

we

are

told,

" asserts that out of the different states of one

species

(telephora sulphurea,)

distinct genera

authors.

number

It

more than eight

had been constructed by

different

would seem, then, that the absolute

of species

among

the fungi

is

so great as has been usually supposed

* Boston Journal of Natural History.

not nearly
;

and

that

TRANSMUTATION OF PLANTS.
the kind produced

by a decomposing

115

infusion, or

a bed of decaying solid matter, will depend as muck

upon the influence of the material employed, as upon

the

germ

itself

Among

which

is

the subject

of it"*

the questions proposed

of Sciences at Haarlem, in 1839,

following subject

bj the Academy

was one upon the

" According to some botanists,

Algae of a very simple structure, placed under

favourable

develop and change

circumstances,

much

into different plants, belonging to genera

more elevated

in the scale of organic being

though these same

absence of such

algae, in the

favourable circumstances, would be

produce their primitive form."t

and

fertile,

cabbage

is

well

known

trailing sea- side plant, entirely different

choke are

now admitted to be

was assured by an

to

if

The
be a

from the

The cardoon and

cabbage in appearance.

re-

would ask

this is a point as yet settled in the negative.

original of our

al-

one, and Mr.

arti-

Darwin

intelligent farmer that

he has

seen, in a deserted garden, the latter plant re-

lapsing into the former.

It is

well known, that

lusks are exposed for a

when

little

fresh- water

mol-

time to an influx

* Carpenter's Physiology, p. 62.

t Charlesworth's Magazioe of Natural History,

ii.

448.

116

EXPLANATIONS.

of the sea, those which can survive the change

assume considerably

different

In a

characters.

fresh-water tertiary formation of the island of Cos,

Edward Forbes and Lieutenant

foimd various fresh-water moUuscan shells
Professor

Spratt

palu-

dina, neretina, melanopsis, etc.

which had passed

thi-ough surprising modifications in the coiu-se of

three successive groups of deposits, supposed to

have been marked by increasing influxes of seawater.

"

The lowermost

species of each genus

were smooth, those of the centre partially plicated,

and those of the upper part strongly and regularly

This was apparently a retrogression

ribbed."*

The

marine types.

to

differences in the three cases

were greater than those which naturalists usually

consider as grounds of specific distinction.

Surely there are here ample evidences of species, or

variable

what are usually regarded as such, being

under changed conditions.

said, these
cific

changes are

all

It will

forms, and the facts do nothing but

that that has

variety.

been called species which

But where

be

mere variations of spe-

is this to

have

show
only

is

its limits

If

now regarded
we have to go

the cabbage and sea-plant are to be

as one species,

it

seems to

me

that

* Report of Proceedings of the British Association, 1845.

rary Gazette.

Lite-

SIVATHERIUM AND GIRAFFE.

very
sive

little

come

to the lines of succes-

which

my hypothesis suggests.

further, to

forms or

stirpes,

117

This view becomes the more striking when we re-

member

any variations which we now

that

see,

take place within a space of time extremely small

in comparison with those

man, " we may not be

a change

which geologj- allows

" Although,"

phenomena,

its

beyond a

for

JNIr.

Halde-

able, artificially, to

produce

says

definite point,

it

would be a

hasty inference to suppose that a physical agent

acting gradually for ages, could not carry the varia
tion a step or two further."
I

may

here advert to a fallacy which has been

way

of the

supposition of every kind of transmutation.

It is

one of the principal

difficidties in the

always taken for granted that the parental animal

must be extinguished

Thus we

change.

Hilaire that the

find

modem

consequence

of

the

a suggestion by

M.

St.

in

giraffe

may be

a modifi-

cation of the sivatherium of the Indian tertiaries,

met very complacently by a reference

to the dis-

covery of Dr. Falconer, that, in these tertiaries,

the

giraflfe

is

associated with the

sivatherium.

So, also, the suggestion that the hare of Siberia,

with

its

curtailed ears, shorter hind legs,

sence of

tail,

may be

and ab-

a modification of the ordinary

118

EXPLANATIONS.
has been answered by Professor Owen,

hare,

with a reference to the

(Lagomys Spelaeus)

the tailless hare

found as early in the

ter-

any species of the true genus, Le-

tiaries

as

pus.*

Now

it is

an assumption on the part of

who oppose

those

fact, that

is

the

transmutation

that the

original animal

new one

is

produced

shall perish

theory,

when

the

and therefore the

diffi-

own making.

pro-

culty is entirely of their

The

bability is that the modification takes place in

an offshoot of the original

moved

tribe,

which has

circumstances being the cause of the

thus there

is

no need

to

tribe is at all affected

The

We

re-

into a different set of circumstances, these

case

is

see, for

change

presume that the

by any such

original

modification.

precisely analogous to that of a colony.

example, the

New Englanders change

from the original English type, without any necessary effect

upon the parent

stock.

Just so might

the giraffe be a changed sivatherium, and yet the

sivatherium continue to exist.

fact,

their

there are

it

in point of

many animals now living along with

supposed modified

therefore,

And

descendants.

Unless,

could be proved that the supposed

descendant actually preceded in date the animal

* British Fossil

Mammalia and

Birds, p. 215.

THE ACAEUS
from Tvhich

it

was said

to

119

CROSSII.

have sprung, objections

of this nature can be of no force.

The

reader will

understand that I onlv adduce the instances of the

sivatherium and hare for the sake of illustration,

and

without undertaking to show that those animals

have actually had such modified descendants as

may have been attributed

to them. I

would

intreat

the candid opponent of the transmutation theory

to review the

subject in the

improved

light in

which it appears, with this most gratuitous assumption set aside.

With regard

the

to

origination of

new

life

from inorganic elements, the Broomfield experi-

ment would be

quite

decisive,

could be admitted for what

believe.

men

The Edinbiu-gh

if

any evidence

are unwilling to

reviewer writes two

pages which appear to put the alleged fact

out of countenance

and yet

it is

much

true that ridicule,

which always proceeds upon assumption, forms

their entire composition.

He

states that

specimens

of the insect were sent to Paris, where they set a

whole conclave of philosophers a-laughing, because they were found to contain ova.

It did

occur to him that independent generation

is

not

what

the development theory presmnes of every animal

family which

may have

ever had an origin other-

EXPLANATIONS.

120
wise than ex

Other specimens were sent to

ovo.

London, but there

their fate

was sealed by

their

being found to be not a new species, but one

These circum-

then abundant in the country.

stances, with a few

that there
case.

empty

jests, satisfy the

was no independent generation

critic

in the

Against such a conckision, proceeding upon

mere supposition,
During the

adduce careful experiment.

Mr. Weekes, of Sand-

last three years,

wich, has continued to subject solutions to electiic

and invariably found

action,

insects

produced

in

these instances, while they as invariably failed to

appear where the

electric action

but every other condition

was not employed,

fulfilled.

The

rigid care

taken in these experiments to exclude vitiating circumstances, gives them a high claim to notice,

and I therefore present, as an appendix, two

from Mr. Weekes upon the subject.
fail to

be read with

they exhibit a

man

fact

raging circiunstances.

excuse

arises;

my

as

under the most discou-

If this

of the Acarus Crossii shall

ridicule

so,

pursuing the investigation of

an important natural

can only regret the

They cannot

and the more

interest,

letters

mood

but

the

still

of

new presentment
excite ridicule, I

mind from which

opposite

that

party must

attaching no importance to anything

THE ACARUS

CROSSII.

These alleged phe-

besides fact and argument.

nomena

121

are open, like all others, to the test of

counter-expiriment. Let them be subjected to

the most rigid manner,

But

of failure.

and jests, or

to

and

it

in

set aside in the case

meet them merely with

at the most, certain

scoffs

wholly gratuitous

assumptions as to a possibly various cause,

is

not

and therefore deserves no conside-

philosophical,
ration.

Ha^-ing thus presented vestiges of laws for the

and modification of organic being,

origination

must protest against proof of the existence of such

laws being held indispensable to the development

The

theor}'.

ages

before

earth,

we

see,

man began

has been peopled for

observe nature or

to

chronicle his observations.

The

organic world

attained what, appears to us completeness, in re-

mote ages.

It

is

reproduction

is

done

creature.

We

a thing done, as individual

at the

birth

of the

new

are not, therefore, to expect con-

spicuous examples of either a

new

origin of

life

or a modification of species at the present dav.

Though,

therefore, not

one unequivocal instance

and such modification could be prewould say nothing positive against the

of such origin
sented,

it

hypothesis that species originated, and

made a

EXPLANATIONS.

122
series of

advances in general organization, by the

efficacy of law, in times long antecedent to our

We

historical period.

should

that the evidence of such

looked for elsewhere,

have to say

still

phenomena was

be

to

namely, in the history of the

progress of organic being as chronicled for us by

geology,

and

history which physiology

the

in

affords us of the progress of the individual embryo.

Seeing, then, that plants and animals

came

into

existence gradually, in the course of a vast period

of time, and in a succession confonning generally
to their grades

in organization,

and the stages

through which the embryo of one of the highest

has to pass before

say that

attains matiirity,

it

we had seen

all

that

we might

could well be

expected in the case, and enough to establish

strong probability for the development theory.

Nevertheless,

it

may be

admitted that any evidence

of the continued existence of the

modifying laws,
corroboration.

is still desirable, for

And

such

regard the facts which

tions of type,

creative

is

and

the sake of

the light in which

we possess regarding varia-

and the production of some of the

lower plants and anunals by means independent

of generation.

As

in the progress of

being, even after birth,

we

an individual

see the laws which pre-

VESTIGES OF CREATIVE LAWS.

over reproduction operating

side

degi'ee in the defective nutrition

still

which

the favoiuing conditions which advance

the state of infancy
that the laws
table
still,

123
in a faint

stimts,

and

and

glorify,

and youth, so might we expect

which originally spread the vege-

and animal kingdoms over the

earth,

would

perhaps, be traceable as faintly at work, espe-

cially in those

lower families where

life

and the

modifiable quality are most abundantly imparted.

The evidence

for the existence of such laws is

patent to the exact observation which will give

it

philosophical certainty', and to such observation I

trust

it will,

claim

its

in time, be subjected.

Meanwhile,

being received as a provisional aid to the

theory of development.

Thus

closes

my

review of the objections which

have been made to the evidences for an organic

creation

by law.

Such a mode of that creation

was, I said at the

first,

rendered likely by the

manifestation of a presidency of law both in the

physical an'angements of the universe and in the
constitution of our
that,

own minds.

It

seemed to me

with evidences of law in these things, we had

a strong probability established that law had been

the

mode

of the

divine working in the whole

^2

\k

EXPLANATIONS.

124

system revealed to our senses and reason, throughout

all

ages of

its

And

existence.

I believed that

called upon, not to grasp at every objec-

we were

tion to this idea which could be conjured out of

the darkness of our imperfect knowledge, as

if to

save us from a disrelished conclusion, but rather

to look with candid

minds

vour to discover in what

we do know

the traces of

might harmonize

origin of organization as

such an

and endea-

into nature,

with the conceptions forced upon us from other

quarters

trusting that there never could be any

disadvantage from embracing that view which the

balance of reason might show to be the nearest to

truth.

balance

The

question

now

incline

is,

to

which view does the

Whether

that the Deity produced being

theatre in the
different

manner

mode

of a

its

more

arbitrary

we

likely

many-staged

of order or law, or

whether, consequently, are

ruling the affairs

most

is it

and

by any

character;

to regard

him as

of the world in the manner of

an invariable order or otherwise

because we are not to

.?

say likely

expect on any such ques-

tions the absolute demonstration

which attends a

mathematical problem or an unchallengeable writing.

We must be content if we only can see a pre-

ponderance of reasons for regarding the universe

VIEWS OF OPPONENTS,
and

its

125

Author in one or other of these

lights.

To

be prepared for a decision upon this question, it

is

proper that the reader should be presented with

a sketch of the theory

opposed to that of universal

order.

WTien we
are struck

set

about describing this system, we

by finding

it

vague and unsteady,

ing with every degree of intelligence in

and

ever}- addition

cated

man

diate

varj--

votaries

The unedu-

to science.

regards the whole system of the world

as resulting from,

who

made

its

and depending upon, the imme-

working and guidance of an almighty being

acts in each case as

meet, exactly as

human

may seem

to

creatures do.

intelligence, again, usually

him most
Persons of

admit a system of

general laws, but for the most part entertain

it

under great reservations, or in connexion with views

totally inconsistent with

it.

We

find Dr.

Samuel

Clark, for instance, admitting a coiu"se of nature as

the " will of

God producing

certain effects in a

regular and uniform manner," but, this will, " be-

ing arbitrar}% [an assumption, as far as natural

means of knowledge are concerned,]

is,

he says, as

easy to be altered at any time as to be preserved."

Others cut off particular provinces of nature

as exceptions from the plan of

constant order.

126

EXPLANATIONS.

Whatever part

is

dubious or obscure, to mankind

generally or to themselves in particular, there they

rear the torn standard of the arbitrary system of

Human

divine rule.

many who know

to

form such a region

volitions

not that Quetelet has reduced

these to mathematical formulae, and that one of

our

own most popular divines has written a Bridgeshow the

water Treatise, to

predominance of

natural law over mind, as a proof of the existence

and wisdom of God.

main

Some who

give

to law, find footing in other

up

this do-

departments of

nature upon which science has not as yet poured

any clear

We

light.

shall presently see

weak arguments such exceptions

Meanwhile,

it

are maintained.

must be noted as important, that

uncertainty on this

is

by what

side

of the question

all

strong presumption, were there no other, against

One

of the most remarkable reservations

it.

made

of late years from the system of invariable order

is

the

that presented
Inductive

in Dr.

Sciences.

as revealed to our senses,

this writer halts

Admitting that nature,

is

a system of causation,

when he comes

origin of language

species

Whewell's History of

and of

to

arts,

and fonnation of globes.

consider the
the

origin

These he

of

calls

palaetiological sciences, because, in his opinion,

we

DR.

whewell's pal>etiological sciences.

have to seek for an ancient and

causes^ as affecting

ning which

is

man heen

of

now

able to arrive at a begin-

homogeneous with the known

We

of events.

class

them, from any which are

" In no palaetiological science,"

seen operating.
says he, " has

different

1-27

coiu"se

can, in such sciences, often go very

fax back, determine

many

of the remote circum-

ascend to a

stances of the past series of events,

point which seems to be near their origin, and

limit the hypothesis respecting the origin itself;

but j)hilosophers have never demonstrated, and,

so far as

we can

judge, probably never will be

able to demonstrate,

what was the primitive

state

of tilings from which the progressive course of the

world took

first

its

paths of research,

In

departure.

when we

travel far

the aspect of the earlier portions

different

obscurit}' as
:

ginable

these

becomes very

from that of the advanced part on which

we now stand

point

all

backwards,

it
;

but in

it is

all

cases the path

traeed backwards to

becomes not only

it

is

itself

in

starting

but unima-

between us and any

beginning of things."*

* Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,

the Creator.

is lost

not only an interruption, but an

abyss which interposes

intelligible

invisible,

its

apiid Indications of

128

EXPLANATIONS.

Here, we have the view of exceptions which

by one of the

entertained

is

chief writers of the day,

and the superior of one of our greatest academical

The

institutions.

professional

of Dr.

position

Whewell may be held

to

imply that we should

ceive from

him a view

at

once leaning to the phi-

losophical,

and accommodated as

re-

far as possible

to the prepossessions expected in a large class of

persons.

It

how weak is

is

remarkable, but not surprising,

the barrier which he has raised to stop

our course towards a theory of universal arrange-

ment by ordinary

The

natural law.

necessity alleged

by Dr. Whewell

different set of causes in the early times

globe,

and with regard

globe,

is,

cion, as

for a

of our

to the formation of that

at the very first, liable to

strong suspi-

reminding us much of that well-known

propensity of nations to

fill

up the

first

of their history with mythic heroes

The subjects of
common research

chapters

and

giants.

investigation are remote from

;

they are not, and never could

have been, chronicled in the manner of modern

we
unknown

facts

are in the regions of the comparatively

hence, something more magnificent or

impressive

Such

is

the

than

ordinary

reasoning, or

must be supposed.
rather

no-reasoning.

DR.

The

WHEWELL's views CONSIDERED.

129

point at which extraordinan- causes have to

be supposed

is

CNidently quite

arbitraint-,

resting

exactly on the limits of the knowledge existing at

any time, and always

flying further

and

further

back, in proportion as our knowledge increases.

Had

Dr. ^A^lewell been writing

would of course

fifty

years ago, he

have included among

his palaetio-

logical sciences, the formation of strata,

intrusions of the granitic

and the

and trappean among the

aqueous rocks, which ingenuity has since explained

by existing causes

ment

for there is not a single argu-

for his considering the formation of globes

and origin of species as

palaetiological,

which

would not have applied with equal force to these

phenomena before

the days of Pallas and Hutton.

Against a theory of mere assumption

from ignorance to ignorance

form serious objections. But

argument.

a reasoning

such considerations
let

us come to closer

Let us inquire how the idea of a

ferent set of causes for the

dif-

more important of these

phenomena, agrees with such exact knowledge as

we have

attained respecting them.

" According to the nebular hypothesis," says

Dr. AMiewell, " the formation of this our system of
sun, planets,

and

satellites,

was a process of the

same kind as those which are

y3

still

going on in the

130

EXPLANATIONS.

heavens.

But

the uniformitarian

doctrine on this subject rests on most unstable

foundations.

We

have as yet only very vague

and imperfect reasonings

to

show

by such

that

condensation a material system such as ours could

result

and the introduction of organized beings

into such a material system is utterly out of the

reach of our philosophy.

Vie

Here

therefore,

regard the present order of the

are led to

world as pointing towards an origin altogether of

a different kind fi'om anything which om* material

Because the nebular hypoon unstable foundations, and " nothing

science can gi'asp."

thesis rests

has been pointed out in the existing order of

things which has any resemblance or analogy, of

any valid kind,

to that creative

energy which must

be exerted in the production of

therefore,

according

to

Dr.

new

species,"

Whewell,

we

are

" driven to assume events not included in the course

of nature^'' as having formerly taken place.

is his

reasoning.

Now

let

Such

us call to mind a few

of the laws ascertained to have been concerned in

the cosmical arrangements, leaving for the mean-

time

all

that

is

doubtful in the nebular hypothesis

entirely out of view.

torial to the polar

The proportion

diameter of the

of the equa-

eaitli is exactly

DR.

what a

WHEWELL's views CONSIDERED.

fluid

mass rotating

at

such a rate of speed

would assiune any day we might

The

ment.

131

try the experi-

relative distances of the planets

have

been determined by the relation of two laws of

matter, so tlioroughly patent in theu* working to

modem

obsenation, that a mathematician could

ascertain this their result

and announce

his closet, although he never

tarj'
is,

system in which

it

had heard of a planeThere

was exemplified.

it

from

surely, here anything but a likelihood that dif-

ferent causes from those

now

existing

and

acting,

were the immediate means of producing the cosmical arrangements.

whatever

May we not

may have been

tion of globes,

rather say that,

the details of the forma-

we possess ample proof that

a phenomenon evolved by

virtue

same system. of order which we see

upon earth ?

As

it

was

of exacdy the
still

operating

to the origin of organic beings,

our knowledge of geology comes to precisely a

similar effect.

Admitting that we see not now any

such fact as the production of

least

upon

know

that, while

earth, there

new

species,

at

were associated phenomena in

progress, of a character perfectly ordinary.

example, when the earth received

sandstone

we

such facts were occurring

For

its first fishes,

and limestone were forming in the

132

EXPLANATIONS,

manner exemplified a few years ago in the ingenious

experiments of Sir James Hall
rose for the future

basaltic

columns

wonder of man, according

to

Watt showed

in

the principle which Dr. Gregory

and

filled

with

operation before the eyes of our fathers

hollows in the igneous rocks

crystals, precisely as they could

of electric action, as

were

now be by

shown within the

years by Crosse and Becquerel.

The

virtue

last

few

seas obeyed

the impulse of gentle breezes, and rippled their

sandy bottoms as seas of the present day are

doing

the trees grew as

and wind, thriving

bad
to

this,

in

now by

favour of sun

good seasons and pining in

while the animals above fishes were yet

be created.

The movements

of the sea, the

meteorological agencies, the disposition which

see in the generality of plants to

thrive

we

when

heat and moisture were most abundant, were

kept up in silent serenity, as matters of simply

natural order, throughout the whole of the ages

which saw

reptiles enter in their various

upon the sea and

the

first

land.

mammals,

was sinking

It

forms

was about the time of

that the forest of the Dirt

Bed

in natural ruin amidst the sea sludge,

as forests of the Plantagenets have been doing for

several centuries

upon the coast

of England.

In

DR.

WHEWELL's views CONSIDERED.

133

short, all the commoyi operations of the physical world

were going on in their usual simplicity, obeying that

order which ice

still

see

governing theniy while the

supposed extraordinary' causes were in requisition

development of the animal and vegetable

for the

kingdoms.

There surely hence

arises a strong

presumption against any such causes.

much more

likely

that the

latter

becomes

It

phenomena

were evolved in the manner of law also, and

that

as

we only dream

men

of extraordinary causes here,

once dreamt of a special action of deity in

every change of wind and the results of each season, merely because they did not

by which the events

in question

know

the laws

were evolved.

The writer of the critique in the Edinburgh Review

is

another representative of opinion on this subject

whose ideas are worthy of

not very clear, but

I shall

notice.

These ideas are

endeavour to gather them

from the various parts of his paper where they are

expressed.

"

He

says of certain animals

They were not

nature, but

called into being

(p.

by any law of

by a power above nature."

means by a law

60)

If

he

of nature something independent

of the Deity, I entirely concur witli him.

Most

unquestionably, the animals resulted from a power,

which

is

above nature, in the sense of

its

being the

134

EXPLANATIONS.

He

Author of nature.

adds

" They were created

by the hand of God, and adapted

of the period."
ertion of the
to

he here means a special ex-

If

powers of the Deity, having a regard

special conditions,

object

is

to

to the conditions

show

we part company,

my

for

that animals were indebted for

then- gradations of

advance to a law generally im-

pressed by the Deity upon matter, and that their

external peculiarities are owing immediately to
the agency of those very conditions to which they
are supposed to have

that there

was no more need

ertion to produce

there

is

been adapted.

for

contend

for a special ex-

(for instance)

mammalia, than

one to carry a human

foetus

on

from the sixth to the seventh, or from the eighth

to the ninth

verent

spirit,

position

month.

had remarked

but the contrary, that

in

no

the

irre-

sup-

of frequent special exertion anthropo-

morphises the Deity

pressed by one

who

I find a similar idea exwill

not be suspected of

irreverence on such a subject, the pious and amiable

Doddridge

" When we

petual divine agency,

we

assert," says he, "

a per-

readily acknowledge that

matters are so contrived as not to need a divine

interposition in a different

which

it

manner from

had been constantly exerted.

that in

And

it is

GENERAL VIEWS OF EDINBURGH REVIEWER. 135

most evident that an unremitting energj-, displayed
in such eirciunstances, greatly exalts our idea of

God, instead of depressing

way,

is

so

much

the

it ;

and

more hkely

by the

therefore,

be true."

to

Edinburgh reWewer denies that there

is

The

any lower-

ing of the divine character in supposing a system

"

of special exertion.
says, " is the
else besides.

The law

law of the Divine

.

The

sufficient at all times,

of the universe, material

" It

may

fiat

and

of creation," he
will,

and nothing

of the Almighty was

for all the

phenomena

and moral."

be true," he continues, " that in the

conception of the Divine mind there

no

dif-

ference between the creation of dead matter

and

is

unbencUng laws, and the creation of organic

its

Ntrucnu-es subservient to all the functions of indi-

vidual

life.

above

oiu-

structure

is

But such views

comprehension.

is

a microcosm related to

ken of sense

very conditions of
tlie

God

all

Each

be,

organic

and each

its

itself,

structure

other worlds within

yet governed

volving cycles within

of

and must

a miracle as incomprehensible as the

creation of a planetary system

the

are,

by laws and

re-

and implied in the

existence.

\\Tiat

know we

of natiure (we speak only of natural

means), except through the faculties he has given

EXPLANATIONS.

136
US, rightly

In

this

we

employed on the materials around us

rise to a

ganic laws, in beautiful

and they suggest

conception of material inor-

harmony and adjustment

to us the conception of infinite

power and wisdom.

In like manner we

conception of organic laws

rise to a

of means (often almost

purely mechanical, as they seem to us, and their

organic functions well comprehended) adapted to

an end,

and that end only

the well-being of a

creature

endowed with sensation and

Thus we

rise to

volition.

a conception both of Divine power

and Divine goodness

and we are constrained

to believe, not merely that all material

law

is

sub-

ordinate to His will, but that he has also (in the

way he

allows us to see His works) so exhibited

the attributes of His will, as to

the

mind of man

God,

as a personal

concentrating his will

universe."

show himself

and superintending

on every atom of the

The reviewer then censures

guage used in

my book

special creative efforts.

to

the lan-

with respect to the idea of

"

Does not our

author,"

says he, " see that he binds the divinity (on his

dismal material scheme) in chains of fatalism as

firmly as the

Homeric gods were bound

imagination of the blind old poet

material system

may end

in

in the

.''

The

downright atheism

GENERAL VIEWS OF EDINBURGH REVIEWER. 137

or, if not, it

stops short in the undeviating sequence

of second causes.
sees,

Our view, on

the contrary,

from one end of the scale to the other, the

manifestation of a great principle of creation external to matter

of

final cause,

proved by organic

structures created in successive times,

to

and adapted

changing conditions of the earth.

gives us a personal

It therefore

and superintending God who

careth for his creatures."

If

such be the best view of the opposite theorj^

which a clever scholar and

man

of science of the

present day can give, that theory must certainly be

regarded as in a very unpromising condition.

is,

we

see, for fiats or efforts

conditions.

These may

tion, identical

order; but

adapted

He

to special

be, in the divine concep-

with natural laws or the system of

we cannot comprehend

It is

it.

not

given to our faculties to understand a matter so

Immediately

profound.

we have only these

tion

on

this very subject;

that the world

is

after,

and they

a system of law

subordinate to the Divine

faculties

decisively

tell
!

will.

cannot comprehend

stated, they

he informs us that

faculties to look to for informa-

the

must be equally unable

upon points

us

what

law, however,

Surely,

point
to

if

our

above

pronounce

so abstruse as law being

138

EXPLANATIONS.

subordinate to

will,

and the

attributes of that will

showing us the Deity as a personal and super-

Were

intending God.

thus to assume that the

controversialists entitled

human

nounce upon one subject in

are

faculties

their

can pro-

own way, but

powerless on approaching another,

struck

tending to an opposite conclusion, there would,

of course, be an end of all argument.

But even

that exercise of the faculties which the reviewer

admits of for his

own purpose, by no means goes

to the conclusion at

which he

He

arrives.

refers

but to a small portion of the divine works, when

he speaks of " organic structures created in suc-

and adapted

cessive times

He

tions of the earth."

to the

changing condi-

cannot be permitted to

assume that he has proved these

produced by special
special

exertion,

conditions
proved, for

:"

new

suitable beings

that such

to

have been

or any other

mode

in

many instances

make

of conditions

their appearance,

was not the principle

to

showing

which we are

even though he were more successful on

still

is dis-

beings, countless ages before the

solely to look for the genesis of animals.

he would

of

"in conformity with changed

on the contrary, his proposition

we hear

suitable for

fiats

But,

this point,

be required to show his theory of

VIEWS OF M. AGASSIZ.
in harmonv with a system, the

fiats,

which appear, on the

facts of

139

most important

contrar}-, to

have

taken their present forms and arrangements under

immediate

the

As

Energy."

agency

of

results

to

" Unremitting

the

which may flow from

any particular view which reason

the best supported, I

any assumed
what these

No

truth.

title

in the

lie

weak human
practically

first

object is to ascertain

truth can be derogatory- to the pre-

sumed fountain of
must

as

in an opponent to pronounce

The

are.

may show

must firmly protest against

all

creatiure

it is

truth.

The derogation

erroneous construction which a

puts upon the truth.

the true infidel state of

And

mind which

prompts apprehension regaiding any fact of nature,

or

any conclusion of sound argument.

The

ingenious Agassiz

is

equally disposed with

Dr. ^Miewell and the Edinburgh Reviewer to

except some part of natiu-e as a domain for special

intervention;

domain

to

but he wishes the limits of that

be rigidly examined, and reprobates

the idea that such inquiries are

%'ince.

"

If,"

says he, "

it is

beyond our proan obligation on

science to proclaim the intervention of a di^ine

power

and

in

tlie

if it is

development of the whole of natvu-e,

to that

power alone that we must ascribe

EXPLANATIONS.

140
all things, it is

not the less incumbent on science

what

to ascertain

the influence which physical

is

forces, left to themselves, exercise in all natural

phenomena, and what

which we must

the part of direct action

attribute to the

the revolutions to
jected.

is

supreme being,

It is

now

time for naturalists to

in their domain, in

occupy themselves likewise,

inquiring within what limits

we can recognise

phenomena take place

of a state of things

it is

not given to

consequence

in

immutably established from

Let

the beginning of the creation.

that

the

and within what

traces of a divine interposition,

limits the

in

which nature has been sub-

man

to

it

not be said

sound these depths

the knowledge he has acquired of so

many hidden

mysteries in past ages, promises more extended

revelations.

It

is

an error

to

which the mind,

from a natural inclination to indolence, allows

itself too easily to incline, to believe

what

We

it

would take some trouble

impossible

to investigate.

generally would impose limits to our faculties,

rather than increase their range by their exercise

tell

and the history of the sciences

is

present to

us, that there are few of the great truths

now

recognised, which have not been treated as chi-

VIEWS OF SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.

141

merical and blasphemous before they were de-

monstrated."*

Where men

are so

much perplexed between

two opposite principles, led by science in the

one direction and drawn by intellectual indolence
or timiditj' in the other,

it is

not surprising to

them expressing opinions wholly contradic-

find

Sir

tor)\

John Herschel some years ago an-

nounced views

strictly

conformable to those sub-

sequently taken of organic creation in

"

For

my

my

book.

part," said he, " I cannot but think

an

it

inadequate conception of the Creator, to assume

it

as granted that his combinations are exhausted

upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise,

though, in

are led,

by

this, as in all his

all analogy, to

other works,

we

suppose that he operates

through a series of intermediate causes, and that,

in

consequence, the origination of fresh

could

found

it

ever

to be

a natural, in contradistinrtion

culous process,

tions of

species,

come under our cognizance, tcould be

although

we

any process actually

a mira-

perceive no indicain progress

likely to issue in such a result."

to the British Association at

to

which

is

In his address

Cambridge, (1845,)

* Jameson's Joomal, 1842.

EXPLANATIONS.

142

he

said, with respect to

my

hypothesis of the

step of organic creation" The

transition

first

from an

inanimate crystal to a globule capable of such

endless organic and intellectual development,
great a step
ligible to

and

as unexplained a one

us

upon

as unintel-

and introduc-

earth of every species and every indi-

vidual would be

The

as

any sense of the word as

in

miraculous, as the immediate creation

tion

is

!"

reader will

now be

able to judge of the

views opposed to the theory of universal order.

He

observes that they are of no distinct unique

character, but for the

most part follow the measure

of ignorance, and are maintained at the expense

of consistency.

It is

not surprising that the idea

of an organic creation

by

special exertion or fiat

should be maintained by the advocates of these

views, for
scientific

it is

one of the

obscure pieces of

last

ground on which they can show

face.

One after another, the phenomena of nature, like

so many revolted principalities, have fallen under
the dominion of order or law
little

province

ment; and as

still

it is

faithful to the

nearly the

vigorously defended.

however,

men do

last,

but here

is

one

Boeotian govern-

no wonder it

is

so

As, in the political world,

not trust in the endurance of a

143

VIEWS OF DR. PYE SMITH.

djTiasty which is reduced to a single city or

of

its

may we

dominions, so

tinction to a doctrine

nook

expect a speedy ex-

which has been driven from

every portion of natm^e but one or two limited

fields.

Several eminent authors of our age have

even pronoimced upon the question as already

" Oiu- most deeply investigated views of

settled.

Pye

the Divine Government," says the Rev. Dr.

Smith, " lead to the conviction that

in the

way

of order, or what

we

God reigns according to immutable

is

and

the

exercised

principles, that

by law, in every part of his kingdom

nical, the intellectual,

to

it is

usually call law.

moral ; and

the

mecha-

appears

it

be most clearly a position arising out of that

fact, that

a comprehensive germ which shall Jiecessarily

evolve all future developments,

atomic movements,
to the Deity,

is

down

to the minutest

a more suitable attribution

than the idea of a necessity for

irre-

gular interferences."*

In Blackwood's Magazine, a writer, understood

to

be a naturahst of distinguished

liimself in

ability, expresses

an equally decided manner

"

To

reduce to a system the acts of creation, or the

development of the several forms of animal

life,

no more impeaches the authorship of creation,

* Letter to Dr. Carpenter, appendix to Phil. Mag.xvi. (1840).

EXPLANATIONS.

144

than to trace the laws by which the world

and its phenomena

The presumption naturally

held,

perpetually renewed.
rises in the

mind, that

the same Great Being would adopt the same

of action in both cases
as

is

up-

is

mode

To a mind accustomed,

every educated mind, to regard the opera-

tions of Deity as essentially differing from the

limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a

agent,

it is

human

distressing to be compelled to picture

forth in any other

to itself, the

power of god as put

manner than

in those slow, mysterious, universal laws,

tchich have so plainly

an

eternity to tcork in

; it

pains

the imagination to be obliged to assimilate those

operations, for a

moment,

to the brief energy of a

human will, or the manipulations of a human

hand .... There are still, indeed, some men of
narrow prejudices, who look upon every fresh
attempt to reduce the phenomena of nature to
general laws,

which

it is

and

to

limit those occasions

on

necessary to conceive of a direct and

separate interposition of divine power, as a fresh

encroachment on the prerogatives of the Deity, or

a concealed attack upon his very existence.
yet these very same

men

And

are daily appealing to

such laws of the creation as have been already

established, for their great proofs of the existence

OPINIONS OF MR. STCART MILL.

and vrisdom of God

."

He

145

adds, " Xo, there

nothing atheistic, nothing irreligious, in the

is

attempt to conceive creation, as well

duction, carried

There

is,

a.s

repro-

on by universal laws."*

however, no more interesting or valu-

able testimony to universal causation tlian that

presented in the system of Logic of Mr. Stuart

]Mill.

substitute the creation of

vohtions,
state

would apply remarkably well

it

to the

of the argument presented in the present

volume
"

we were to
organisms for human

in the following extract,

If,

The

conviction that

able laws,

phenomena have

and follow with

invari-

regularity certain ante-

cedent phenomena, was only acquired gradually,

and extended

as knowledge advanced, from

itself,

one order of phenomena to another, beginning

^-ith
I

those whose laws were most accessible to

bservation.

its

This progress has not yet attained

ultimate point

there being

phenomena [hiunan

which to invariable laws

gnised.

still

one class of

volitions], the subjection of

is

not yet universally re-

So long as any doubt hung over

this

iimdamental principle, the various methods of induction which took that principle for granted could
* Review of Vestiges, Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1845.

EXPLANATIONS.

146

only afford results which were admissible conditionally

what law the phenomenon

as showing

under investigation must follow

fixed law at

As, however,

all.

correct induction

subsequent experience

had

the rules of

had been conformed

to,

the re-

be verified by

sult obtained never failed to

ration

followed any

if it

when

all

every such inductive ope-

of extending the acknow-

the effect

ledged dominion of general laws, and bringing an

additional portion of the experience of

mankind

to

strengthen the evidence of the universality of the

law of causation: until

warranted

now

at length

phenomena within
tion, to stand on

the range of

an equalfooting in

loe

are fully

applied to

in considering that law, as

human

all

observa-

respect to evidence

with the axioms of geometry itself

" I apprehend that the

considerations which

proof of the law of

give, at the present day, to the

uniformity of succession as true of

all

phenomena

without exception, this character of completeness

and conclusiveness, are the following

we now know it directly
number of phenomena

we know

it

to he true

First

that

of by far the greatest

that there are none of which

not to be true, the

said being, that of

utmost that can be

some we cannot

from direct evidence, affirm

its

truth

positively,

while pheno-

OPINIONS OF MR. STUART MILL.

menon

147

after phenomenon, as they become better

known

to us, are constantly/ passint^ from the latter class into

the former ;

and

in all cases in

which that

transi-

tion has not yet taken place, the absence of direct

proof

is

accounted for by the rarity or the obscurity

of the phenomena, our deficient

means

of observ-

ing them, or the logical difficulties arising from the

complication of the circumstances in which they

occur

insomuch

notwithstanding as rigid a

that,

dependence upon given conditions as exists in the

case of any other phenomenon,
that

we should be

conditions than

we

it

was not

likely

better acquainted with those

Besides this

are.

considerations, there

is

first class

a second, which

still

of

fui-

ther corroborates the conclusion, and from the

recognition of which the complete establishment

of the universal law

may

reasonably be dated.

Although there are phenomena, the production

and changes of which elude

all

our attempts to

reduce them universally to any ascertained law

yet in every such case, the phenomenon, or the
concerned in
^

known

laios

it,

of nature.

the type of uncertainty

in

objects

are found in some instances to obey the

The wind,
and

for

example,

caprice, yet

we

find

is
it

some cases obeying with as much constancy as

any phenomena in nature the law of the tendency

A2

EXPLANATIONS.

148

of fluids to distribute themselves so as to equalize

the pressure on every side of each of their particles

as in the case of the trade winds,

monsoons.

posed

to

and the

Lightning might once have been sup-

obey no laws

but since

it

has been as-

certained to be identical with electricity,

that the very

same phenomenon,

manifestations,

is implicitly

/ do

of fixed causes.

we know

some of

in

its

obedient to the action

not believe that there

is

now

one object or event in all our experience of nature,

within the hounds of the solar system at least, which

has not either been ascertained by direct observation

follow laws of

its

own, or been proved

and

similar to objects

manifestations, or on a

events, ivhich, in

to

to be exactly

more familiar

more limited scale, follow

strict

laws : our inability to trace the same laws on the

larger scale,

and

in the

more recondite instances

being accounted for by the number and complication of the modifying causes, or by their in"*
accessibility to observation

The whole

question, then, stands thus.

that

the theory of universal order

is,

For

order as

presiding in both the origin and administration of

the world

we have the testimony of a vast nuni

ber of facts in
*

natiu"e,

and

this

System of Logic,

ii.

one in addition,
116.

PREDOMINANT THEORY EXAMINED.

that whatever is reft from the

domam

and made undoubted matter of

new support

to the

same

ages into lesser space,

and

of ignorance

science, forms a

The

doctrine.

view, once predominant, has

149

opposite

been shrinking

now

for

maintains a

footing only in a few departments of nature which

happen

to

be less liable than others

The

investigation.

So long as

if

a clear

not almost

is

the origin of the organic kingdoms.

this

remains obscure, the supernatural

the only one,

will

chief of these,

to

have a certain hold upon enlightened persons.

Should

it

ever be cleared

up

in a

way

that leaves

no doubt of a natural origin of plants and animals,

must be a complete revolution

there

which

is

in the view

generally taken of our relation to the

Father of our being.

This prepares the way for a few remarks on the

present state of opinion with regard to the origin
of organic nature.

The

great difficidty here

the apparent determinateness of species.

fonns of
least

life

is

These

being apparently unchangeable, or at

always showing a tendency to return to the

may have

character from which they

diverged, the

idea arises that there can have been no progression from one to another
its

each must have taken

special form, independently of other forms,

EXPLANATIONS.

150
directly

from the appointment of the Creator.

The Edinbm'gh
by the hand

reviewer says, " they were created

of

God and

adapted to the con-

Now,

ditions of the period."

it

is,

in the first

place, not certain that species constantly maintain

a fixed character, for

we have seen

that

what were long considered as determinate species

Passing,

have been transmuted into others.

however, from this

received

some great

as

fact,

among men

of

difficulties in

of special creation.

startling diversity of

is

not generally
there remain

connexion with the idea

First,

pose, as pointed out in

it

science,

my

we should have

to sup-

former volume, a most

plan in the divine workings,

SI

a great general plan or system of law in the lead-

ing events of world-making, and a plan of minute

'.

nice operation,

and special attention in some of

The discrepancy

the mere details of the process.

between the two conceptions

ing,

when we

surely overpower-

is

allow ourselves to see the whole

matter in a steady and rational

also, the striking fact of

light.

an ascertained

There

is,

historical

progress of plants and animals in the order of

their organization

invertebrated

marine and cellular plants and

animals

first,

afterwards

higher

examples of both. In an arbitrary system, we had

PREDOMINANT THEORY EXAMINED.

151

mammals after reptiles

came. The Edinburgh re-

surely no reason to expect

yet in this order they

^iewer

speaks of the animals as coming in adap-

tation to conditions

The

Umited sense.

but this
groves

only true in a

is

which formed the

coal beds might have been a fitting habitation for

reptiles, birds,

and mammals, as such groves

at the present

day

yet

we

none of the

see

these classes, and hardly any trace of the two

in that period of the earth.

Lower

at that time.

Silurian era

to

or in

The

but there
sea of the

was capable of supporting

but no fish existed-

It

hence forcibly ap-

life

must have lain unservice-

the possession

of a tenantry inferior

pears that theatres of

able,

first

the iguanodon

elephant might have lived

lived, the

was no elephant

fish,

Where

are

last of

what might have enjoyed them for many ages;

there

would have been no such waste

siu-ely

allowed, in a

system where

Omnipotence was

working upon the plan of minute attention to

The

specialties.

fact

seems to denote that the

actual procedure of the peopling of the earth

one of a

natural

of time for

its

was

kind requiring a long space

evolution.

In this supposition

the long existence of land without land animals,

and more

particularly, without the noblest classes

152

EXPLANATIONS.

and

orders,

only analogous to the

is

not

fact,

nearly enough present to the minds of a civilized

people, that to this day the bulk of the earth

waste as far as

Another

man

is

is

concerned.

startling objection is in the infinite local

variation of organic fonns.

Did

the vegetable

and

animal kingdoms consist of a definite number of

species adapted to peculiarities of soil

and climate,

and universally

would be

harmony with
the truth

is,

altogether

distributed, the fact

in

But

the idea of special exertion.

that various regions exhibit variations

without

apparent

end or purpose.

Professor Henslow enumerates forty-five distinct

floras,

or sets of plants

upon the

surface of the

be equally suitable

many of these would

elsewhere.
The animals of

different continents

are equally various, few spe-

earth, notwithstanding that

cies being the

ral

character

same

in

may

confonn.

any two, though the gene-

present drawn from this fact

The
is,

inference

that there

at

must

have been, to use the language of the Rev. Dr.

Pye Smith,
haps
It

" separate and original creations,

at different

j)er-

and respectively distant epochs."

seems hardly conceivable that rational men

should give an adherence to such a doctrine, when

we

think of what

it

involves.

In the single

fact

PREDOMINANT THEORY EXAMINED.

that

it

153

necessitates a special fiat of the inconceiv-

able Author of this sand-cloud of worlds to pro-

duce the flora of St. Helena,

condemnation.

sufficient

far better

pose

we read
It

more than

its

surelv harmonizes

with our general ideas of nature, to sup-

that, just as all else in this far-spread

was formed by the laws impressed on

by

its

Author, so also was

this.

An

it

scene

at first

exception

presented to us in such a light appears admissible

when we succeed

minds

to

follow out those reasoning processes, to which,

by

only

in forbidding our

another law of the Almightj^ they tend, and for

which they are adapted.

I feel that I

have dwelt long enough on

part of the question,

logical facts

and

am

which here

loath to

this

and yet there are a few geocall for special

overlook them.

comment,

As

is

well

known, most of the large carnivores and pachyderms of the

late tertiary formations very closely

resemble existing species

less, determined to

sor

Owen and

but they are, neverthe-

be distinct species by Profes-

other eminent authorities, in con-

sideration of certain peculiarities.

rities, are,

The

peculia-

in general, trifling, such as differences in

the tubercles or groovings of the surface of teeth,

or greater or less length of

A3

body or extremities

EXPLANATIONS.

154

but no matter of what the differences consist.

Enough

for the present that they axe held

Owen and his friends

by Mr.

be of that character which

to

are never j)assed in generation, but necessarily

imply a new creation, a separate

Now

power.

it

happens that

so

effort of divine
all

species, or so-called species,have not

or extirpated.

There

is

the tertiary

been changed

a Badger of the Miocene,

which cannot be distinguished from the badger of

the present day.
therefore,

oldest

Our

existing Meles Taxus

acknowledged by Mr. Owen

known

the earth."

species of

It is in like

mammal on

to

is,

be " the

the face of

manner impossible

to dis-

cover any difference between the present

Wild

Cat and that which lived in the bone caves with

the hyaena, rhinoceros, and tiger of the ante-drift
era,

So

all

of which are said to be extinct species.

also the otter has survived since

riod in the pliocene, while so

were

shifted.

from these

many

an early pe-

larger animals

The learned anatomist takes

facts to

occasion

speak of a survival by small

and weak species of geological changes, which

have been accompanied by the extirpation of
larger
species.

and more formidable animals of

The

interference from the facts

trines of this school

is,

that Divine

allied

and doc-

Power has

PROFESSOR PICTET's OPINIONS.

seen

fit

to

change the species of elephants, rhino-

and bears, using

ceroses, tigers,

introduce

to

155

new

ones,

one

special miracles

with perhaps an

additional tooth, another with a

new

tubercle or

cusp on the third molar, and so forth, while he

has seen no occasion for a similar interference

with the otter, wild cat, and badger, which ac-

have been

cordingly

left

undisturbed in their

Such may be the

obscurity.

belief of

science, anxious to support a theory

it

will

fair

who may be

for

even a child's

reviewer, a

member

faith.

men

of

able to read and

comprehend the works of Mr. Owen.

much

of

but assuredly

never be received by any ordinary

understandings

men

It

were too

Yet the Edinburgh

of this school, talks of " cre-

dulity!"

Perhaps

it is

but justice to Professor Pictet to

notice his partial dissent from the reigning doctrine

on

this point.

This learned person, finding

that the elder alluvion of the Swiss valleys presents

live

mammals
there,

identical with those

which now

though accompanied by remains of

elephants, and considering further that " the bats,

shrews, moles, badgers, hares, &c., of the caverns

appear to be identical with our own," concludes

that the following

was the order of events as they

EXPLANATIONS,

156

occurred in Europe

and some

others,

ment of the

"

The

species

now

living

were created at the commencePartial inundations

diluvial epoch.

and changes of temperature caused some of them

mammoth,

to perish, such as the

the species of

bear having an arched forehead, the hyaenas, the

stag with gigantic horns, the rhinoceros, hippopo-

tamus, &c,

but the greater number of the species

escaped these causes of destruction, and

still live.

Besides those which I have mentioned, and others

which

have noticed in the body of

my

work,

possible, for example, that the Ursus Priscus

be the original of recent
said,"

he adds, " that

hears, etc.

this idea is

it is

may

may be

It

opposed

to the

theory of the peculiarity of species in each formation,

and

to that of successive creations

cannot, on that account, refuse

tion

offacts which seems to

to

but

adopt an explana-

me evident. The

theoretical palaeontology is

still

state of

too uncertain to

allow of our attaching ourselves too strongly to

this or that hypothesis.

which

is essential,

It is the study of facts

and we must engage

in that

study unbiassed by preconceived ideas or particular systems."* I

would commend this opinion

* Traite Elementaire de Paleontologie

Jameson's Journal, Oct. 1845.

i.

359,1844.

of

Apud

PROFESSOR PICTET's OPINIONS.

one of the

first

British savans

men

of science in

who regard a

157

Europe

to those

greater plication of

the enamel in a horse's tooth, or a ridge on a tur-

binated

shell, or

a spot on a butterfly's wing, as

the proof of a special interference of that Deity

who wheeled

by a

the orbs into space

expression of his

will.

self revise his opinions.

But M.

He must quickly perceive

that the rule which he lays

down

for there being

no new creation since the diluvial epoch

conclusive against
time.

There

is

new

tranquil

must him-

Pictet

is

equally

any anterior

creations at

a persistency of certain shells

since the beginning of the tertiaries

ii^

then, the

moles and badgers be, in any degree, a proof that

the present bear

is

a modification of the Ursus

JPHscus, so also are these shells a proof that all

the present

mammals

are modifications of those of

the eocene. Several shells, again, of the secondary

formation straggling into tertiaries, are not less

conclusive, in rigid reasoning, that all the tertiary

species

were

descended

from

the

secondary,

although the wide, unrepresented interval at that

point, allowed of a greater transition of forms.

In

short, the

geologists

whole of the divisions constructed by

upon the supposition

ductions of totally

new

of extensive intro-

vehicles of

life,

must give

EXPLANATIONS.

158

way

before the application of this rule, and

must be seen that what they

but variations upon the old.

main

new

call

it

species are

What, then,

will re-

be done, before the theory of progressive

to

development be adopted?

Only, as the candid

reader will readily surmise, that the cultivators of

science should allow themselves to follow the dictates of reason, against the behests of prejudices

unworthy of them and of their age.

Time

is

the true key to difficulties regarding

appearances of determinateness in species.

Few

of us, not even geologists, have ever realized in

our minds the extent of time which has elapsed

since the beginning of

life

upon

this.globe.

Mr.

Lyell, without intending to favour the develop-

ment
point.

theory, lends us powerful testimony on this

After showing reason to believe, that about

thirty-five

thousand years have passed since the

Niagara began
it

to cut

flows, during

down the rock through which

which time the

whether marine or

terrestrial, are

living mollusks,

proved to have

undergone no change, he thus proceeds

" If such

events can take place, while the zoology of the

earth remains almost stationary and unaltered,

what ages may not be comprehended

in those sue-

TIME NECESSARY.

159

which the Flora

cessive tertiary periods, during

and Fauna of the globe have been almost entirely

changed

Yet how subordinate a place

in the long

calendar of geological chronology do the successive

occupy

tertiary periods themselves

How

much more enormous a duration must we assign

to many antecedent revolutions of the earth and
its

inhabitants

No

astronomer.

scale of these divi-

we contemplate

unless

sions of past time,

celestial spaces,

analogy can be found in the

immense

natural world to the

the

which have been measured by the

Some

of the nearest of these within

the limits of the solar system, as, for example, the

orbits of the planets, are

reckoned by hundreds

of millions of miles, which the imagination in vain

endeavours to grasp.

Yet one of these spaces,

such as the diameter of the earth's

garded as a mere

unit, a

mere

orbit, is re-

infinitesimal fraction

of the distance which separates our sun from the

nearest

star.

investigations,

By
we

pursuing

still

further the

same

learn that there are luminous

clouds, scarcely distinguishable

by

the

naked eye,

but resolvable by the telescope into clusters of

stars,

which are so much more remote, that the

interval

between our sun and Sirius may be but a

fraction of this larger

distance.

To

regions

of

EXPLANATIONS.

160

space of this higher order in point of magnitude,

ice

mag, prohablg, compare such an interval of time as

that ichich divides the

human

the coralline limestone, over

cipitated at the Falls.

epochfrom the origin of

which the Niagara

Many

life,

The

was formed.

and many the

geography of the globe,

and often has sea been converted

that rock

pre-

have been the suc-

cessive revolutions in organic

vicissitudes in the physical

is

into land, since

Alps, the Pyrenees,

the Himalaya, have not only begun to exist as

lofty

mountain chains, but the

w^hich they are

solid materials of

composed have been slowly

ela-

borated beneath the sea, within the stupendous

interval of ages here alluded to."*
If time, to anything like the

sisted on,

amount here

in-

have really elapsed between the com-

mencement

of

life

and

its

attaining

its

highest

forms,

we must

the

of an individual, or even that longer portion

life

see that the space comprised

by

during which mankind have been watching the

wonders of nature,

is

not sufficient to allow more

than a chance of any transition of species being

or having been observed, except perhaps in the

humble

fields

reproduction

is

where, as was formerly remarked,

most active and types

* Travels in North America,

i.

least defined.

52.

ZOOLOGY OF GALAPAGOS ISLANDS.

161

K, however, even in our limited comuiand of this

grand element, we can detect such transitions as

those amongst the cerealia, or in a
fusion,

may we not well suppose

that

common inmuch greater

have taken place in the course of the vast series

of ages here described

Absolute proof on such

may be impossible but nearly the same

may be reached, if we see vestiges of the

a point
eflfect

supposed

facts in living

phenomena, just as we

conclude upon the formation of

stiatified

and

igneous rocks from seeing similar phenomena,

generally on a smaller scale, taking place before

our eyes.

There

is

another

mode

of attaining the

means

of a tolerably definite conclusion, where perfect

proof

is

unattainable.

This

is to

show a portion

or fraction of the entire phenomenon, in conformity

Now this can

with the hypothesis as to the whole.

be done in the case under consideration.

axe isolated parts of the earth, which

There

we know

to

have become dry land more recently than others.

Such

is

the Galapagos group of islands, situated

in the Pacific, between five

from the American

I*

coast.

and

six

They

volcanic origin, and are considered

hundred miles
are wholly

of

by Mr. Darwin

as having been raised out of the sea, " within a

EXPLANATIONS.

162
late

Here, then,

geological period."

a piece

is

of the world undoubtedly younger, so to speak,

than most other portions are in their

that

to

is

much

say,

it

has been

less space of time,

What

siderable.

totality,

dry land for a

though one

still

con-

are the organic productions of

this curious archipelago

In the

first

place, they

are " mostly aboriginal creations, found nowhere

else,"

though with an

Many

of

affinity to those of America.

them are even peculiar

islands in the

group.

to particular

But the remarkable

bearing on the present inquiry

is,

that,

fact

excepting

a rat and a mouse on two of the islands, supposed

to have
110

been imported by foreign vessels,

mammals

trial

there are

The leading

teiTCs-

animals are reptiles, and these exist in great

variety,
size.

in the Galapagos.

and

in

some instances of extraordinary

Lizards and tortoises particularly abound.

There are also

birds, eleven kinds of

and waders, and twenty-six purely

swimmers
terrestrial.

All this harmonizes with our ideas of the world in

general at the time of the oolites.

time being necessary for the

speaks of

completion of the

animal series in any scene of

The Galapagos have not had

It

its

development.

the full time required

for the completion of the series,

and

it

is

incom-

ZOOLOGY OF GALAPAGOS ISLANDS.

The

plete accordingly.*

must

fact does, I

Had

harmony of

entire

this

my mind forcibly.

confess, strike

mammals and no reptiles, it would

there been

have been quite

We

different.

one decided

said, that

163

should then have

fact against the develop-

ment theory had been ascertained.

minor

cir-

cumstance in the zoolog\' of these islands

is

worthy of note. The swimming and wading birds

are less diverse from those of the rest of the world

than the

terrestrial species, all of

which, but one,

* In the Vestiges, Australia is spoken of, for the

as apparently a

new countrj, one which has been

physical and organic development.

what

is

called

besides a few

We

same reason,
belated in

its

have there an order, or

an order, of mammals, namely, the marsapialia,

monotremata

all

of which

may

be regarded as

The placental
One might suppose that the

only mammalian apices of certain bird families.

mammala

are wholly wanting.

reasoning on whioh the comparative recentness of this continent

was inferred would have been readily

intelligible,

and that not

even the most ingenious perverseness of opposition could have

hung a remark upon

it.

Yet the Edinburgh reviewer presents

a note (p. 58), stating that, on

my own

scheme of nature.

Holland ought to have been considered as one of the

countries.

"

He might have

ceonts, its trigonise,

oolites

and

old, I

land.
it

argued (from

marsupials) that

its flora, its

it

cestra-

was as old as our

but this would not have served the good ends of the

scheme of development.

By

its

New
oldest

presume,

is

An amusing

example of inconsistency."

here meant duration in the condition of dry

thoroughly agree with the Westminster Review,

says of this passage, "

when

more complete miscomprehension of

1^4

EXPLANATIONS.

The same

are decidedly peculiar.

holds good

regarding the shells and the insects.

have the

terrestrial

numerous
variety,

Here we

animals spreading out into

according to the

variations,

and the more peculiar

greater

character, of the cir-

cumstances determining their organization.*

Darwin has

Mr.

likewise observed such facts in the

natural history of solitary islands, as induce

him

to express his belief, that " the leaders, after the

innumerable iceb-footed species, are generally the first

of small islands."

colonists

It is his supposition,

that the birds in those instances are immigrants

reasoning

we have never met

held up, as that Review holds

ex parte criticism." The

fact

is,

Assuredly

with."
it,

it

may

well be

" as a warning to believers iu

since, as Professor Phillips admits,

there has been no break in the chain of

life

from the beginning,

our other continents, whatever minor changes they

may have

undergone, have continued without any entire submergence since

at least the
fore, older

commencement of

They

terrestrial life.

the principle hinted at by the Edinburgh reviewer.

that principle utterly absurd, implying as

stood

still

are, there-

than Australia could be presumed to be, even upon

iu Australia at

one point, while

highest forms in other countries?

it

it

But

does that

is

not

life

had

was advancing

to the

Nay, that the agencies em-

ployed in the formation of rocks had been stopped there, for

perhaps a third of the time of the earth's existence?

would not be worthy of

of the writer

is

this analysis, but that the

so apt to impose

The

note

self-complacency

upon readers who do not inquire

for themselves.

* See Darwin's Journal of a

Voyage Round the World,

c. xvii.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 165

'

ut I

mony

must advert
with

my

to the fact, as strikingly in har-

hypothesis of development, which

was certainly formed without any knowledge of

this illustration.

Another mode of proof in the

stances with which

we

the hypothesis will account,

for certain facts

to

circum-

show tliat

on a principle of law,

which we must otherwise suppose

be wholly capricious

hypothesis

diflSeult

are dealing, is to

and

accidental.

The

that, as a general fact, the progress

is,

of being in both kinds has been from the sea to-

wards the land.

Marine species of plants and

animals are supposed to be, in the main, the progenitors of terrestrial

species.

were, crept out of the sea

Life

upon the

course leads us to consider the

has,

land.

as

it

This of

distribution

of

vegetable and animal forms in the sea, and the

effect

which these may have had in determining

Faima of

the Flora or
vinces.

We

particular detached pro-

would necessarily suppose that any

Fauna occupving a

particular Flora or

certain

geographical area in the ocean, would be apt to

become the common

of

soiurce of the

Flora or Faima

any masses of land adjoining to

shall see

how

it.

Now we

the facts harmonize with this view.

Wherever there

is

a group

of islands standing

much

EXPLANATIONS.

166

apart, its plants

and animals are never found

any remote region of the

allied to those of

but invariably show an

nearest larger masses of land.

earth,

those of the

affinity to

Thus,

for

example,

the Galapagos exhibit general characters in com-

mon

with South America;

happy phrase,

the

They

islands, with Africa.

satellites

are

Mr. Darwin's

Again, when masses

is

usually a community of

The European and

African shores of the

Mediterranean present an example.

Our own

islands afford another, of far higher value.

appears that the

Britain

flora

of

Ireland and

various, or rather, that

is

floras, or distinct sets of plants,

these

is

in

only divided from each other by

narrow seas, there

forms.

are, in

to those continents

respect of natural history.

of land

Cape de Verd

It

Great

we have

five

and that each of

partaken of by a portion of the opposite

There

continent.

are, 1st,

a flora confined to the

west of Ireland, and imparted likewise to the

north-west of Spain

2nd, a flora in the south-

west promontory of England, and of Ireland, extending across the Channel to the north-west coast
of France

3rd,

one

common

to the south-east of

England, and north of France;

flora

4th,

an Alpine

developed in the Scottish and Welsh High-

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS.

lands,

and intimately related

wegian Alps

large part of

with the

5th, a flora

slightly, as

" mingling

Ireland,

and diminishing, though

we proceed westward ;"

this bears in-

timate relations with the flora of Germany.

so remarkable

would

Facts

force the merest fact-collector

or species-denominator into generalization.

really ingenious

Nor-

which prevails over a

England and

other floras,

to that of the

167

man who

under notice,* could only

nation, that the spaces

lately

The

brought them

smnaiise, as their expla-

now occupied by

the inter-

mediate seas must have been dry land at the time

when

these floras were created.

In that case,

either the original arrangement of the floras, or

the selection of land for submergence,

must have

been apposite to the case in a degree far from

usual.

The

obvious, and

necessity for a
it

is

simpler cause

is

found in the hypothesis of a

spread of terrestrial vegetation from the sea into

the lands adjacent.

The community

of forms in

the various regions opposed to each other, merely

indicates a distinct marine creation in each of the

oceanic areas respectively interposed, and which

would naturally advance into the lands nearest

* See a paper, read by Professor

to

Edward Forbes, at Cambridge,

Jane, 1845, in Literary Gazette, No. 1484.

168
it

EXPLANATIONS.

as far as circumstances of soil

and climate were

found agreeable.*

There

the difficulty of accounting for the

is still

origination of the first forms of

pursued

lines afterwards

How

to a high development.

was the inorganic converted

rudiments of the organic

nature,

and

in the various

life

was the impulse

intelligence

upon

on these subjects

first

AVhence, and of what

that

first

kindled sensation

this sphere

hazarded in

is

into the

A suggestion
my

book; but

though we were to consider the matter as an

entire mystery,

same

most familiar of
marvel we

natiu-al

is,

that

commence-

germ
it is

is

a mys-

one of the

events.

This

last

know to be under natural law, though we

cannot otherwise explain

* It

little

we know

all

as the

effect,

ment of a new being from a

tery to us, although

only so in the same

after all,

it is,

degree, and to the

it.

If

we can regard the

perhaps, hardly necessary here to advert to any expla-

nation which might be brought from the diffusion of seeds by

ocean currents, because the directness of the opposition of the

fields

of these floras to each other across the Channel

inconsistent with that idea.

is

obviously

In such a case, the constituents of

the various floras would have been confused amongst each other

by the

diversity

of currents in

Forbes plainly confesses

the present case
in

any other.

the intermediate

this explanation to

and, of course,

it is

seas.

Mr.

be inadmissible in

not the right explanation

TENDENCY OF THE NEW DOCTRINE.

169

and development of life upon our planet as

origin

having been equally under natural law, the whole

point

gained

is

for

we

much

are not so

quiring in order to say how ? as was

or

heyond the

as I

We

natural ?

in-

within

seen then,

conceive, that all the associated truths of

The whole concur

science go to this point.

say, that to believe

an exception in

of the history of nature, is

ties there

some

have

it

may be

this particular
Difficul-

absiu-dity.

in treating the case positively

facts of inferior

point to an

an

to

may seem

importance
conclusion

opposite

to

but in the

balance of the two sets of evidences, those for a

universality of natural law

beyond

downweigh the other

calculation.

I have
different

now

to allude to a class of objections

from those made on

scientific

fortunately not less easily replied to.

peared to various
in the

grounds, but
It

critics, particidarly to

has ap-

the writer

Edinburgh Review, that very sacred prin-

ciples are threatened

by a doctrine of universal law.

life,

natural origin of

organization for the

and a natural basis

operations

of

the

in

hiunan

mind, speak to them of fatalism and materialism.

And, strange

to

say, those,
i

who

every day give

EXPLANATIONS.

170

views of physical cosmogony altogether discrepant

in appearance with that of Moses, apply hard
to

my book

for suggesting a theory of organic

same way

creation in the

odium.

liable to inconsiderate

must firmly protest against

this

meeting speculations regarding nature.

ject of

my

it is

maybe

mode of
The ob-

said of the

man-

treated, is purely scientific.

The

book, whatever

ner in which

names

views which I give of this history of organization,

stand exactly on the same ground upon which
the geological doctrines stood

am

fifty

years ago.

merely endeavouring to read aright another

chapter

of

book which God

mystic

the

has

placed under the attention of his creatures.

little liberality

opponent of

of judgment

my

would enable even an

particular hypothesis, to see that

questions as to reverence and irreverence, piety

and impiety, are

practically determined very

by

special impressions

He

would

see, for

upon

much

particular minds.

example, that the idea of

at-

taching irreverence to a doctrine of natural law

is

only likely to arise in a mind which has been

trained

more
the

by

habit, to regard the divine

special in its nature

working as

precisely as, finding

Edinburgh reviewer speaking of the whole

works of the Deity as "vulgar nature"

I feel

that

the

impiety which

such

(p.

an

53),

idea

TENDENCY OF THE NEW DOCTRINE.

my

expresses to

sense,

171

only impiety to me,

is

God

cannot separate nature from

himself, but

who
it is

not necessarily so to him, whose education has

given him peculiar, and as I think erroneous con-

The

ceptions on this subject.

on these points

of all liberality
is

and

striking,

especially

absence, however,
in

so in

geological doctrines have exposed

lar misconstructions.

my

reviewers,

whose

those

them

to simi-

men newly emerged

If the

from the odium which was thrown upon Newton's

theory of the planetiirj- motions, had rushed for-

ward

to turn that

odium upon the patrons of the

dawning science of geology, they woidd have been

prefiguring the conduct of several of

my

critics,

themselves hardly escaped from the rude hands of

the narrow-minded, yet eager to join that rabble
against a new. and equally unfriended stranger, as
if

such were the best means of purchasing impu-

nity for themselves.

I trust that a little

time will

enable the public to penetrate this policy, and

also

the

bearing of

real

They must soon

of scripture

is

see that,

an

if

all

insufficient

such

objections.

literal interpretation

argmnent against the

true geognostic history of our earth, so also

it

be against

all

must

associated phenomena, supposing

they are presented on good e\idence.

EXPLANATIONS.

172
"

Some

persons," says one

" have a vague idea, that there

my

of

something dero-

is

gatory to the lowest form of animal

its

reviewers,

origin in merely inorganic elements

which
subtle

results,

to

life

have

an idea

perhaps, not so much from any

and elevated conceptions of life, as from an

imagination unawakened to the dignity and the

What

marvel of the inorganic world.

but a sort of

life

Suppose

ing.

of activity,

life

if

not of

feel-

what, indeed, nowhere exists an

and

inert matter,

motion

is

let it

be suddenly endowed with

motion, so that two particles should

fly

towards

each other from the utmost bounds of the universe

were

not this

which endows an
secretion

one

God

.''

almost as strange a property as that

an organ of

irritable tissue, or

Is not the world one

dividing

itself,

the creature of

with constant interchange

of parts, into the sentient

and the non-sentient,

in order, so to speak, to

become conscious of

itself?

Are we

shall

the

be derogation to

non-sentient,

a poor

so

worm

that
to

it

have

the

element which

the lightning of heaven, and too

much honour to

no higher
is

chasm between

to place a great

the sentient and

genealogy than

the subtle chemistry of the earth, to be the father

of a crawling subject, of

some bag, or

perceptible globule of animal

life.

sack, or im-

No we
j

have

QUICKNESS OF THOUGHT.
no

an animalcule

recoil against this generation of

by the wonderful chemistry of God

to this doctrine

that

is,

As one example
tion presented

also

aimed

our objection

not proved."*

it is

of the weakness of the opposi-

by the Edinburgh reviewer on

may

groiuid, I

173

this

quote a passage in which he has

at convicting

me

of being

and allowing

of resemblances,

my

enamoured

senses to be

" Everj' one," says he,

cheated by empty sounds.

" has heard of the quickness of thought,

and who

has not heard of the velocity of the galvanic fluid

Therefore, the speed of thought
to

numbers, and a

man may

192,000 miles a second

author

may

own words, and

tell

think at the rate of

We well

shelter himself

may be reduced
know

that the

under the juggle of his

us that he speaks only of the

transmission of our will through the organs of the

body.

Let him, then, write in more becoming

language."

Now

man

surely entitled to be

is

judged by his own words, or

as well cease.

After

battery produces at least

brain,

all

judgment might

showing that a galvanic

some

and endeavouring

to

of the effects of the

reconcile

ordinary

thinkers to the idea of their partial identity

sisting

by

in-

on the almost metaphysical character of

the imponderable agents, I said, in a foot-note,

* Blackwood's Magazize, April, 1845.

174

EXPLANATIONS,

" If mental action

is electric,

ness of thought, that

sion

is,

of sensation and will

been brought

to

may be presumed to have

if

and

this

employed.
critic

of the transmis-

an exact meastirement," &c.

leave the reader to judge

less

illusive

the proverbial quick

the quickness

than

With regard

language more direct

have

could

been

to the idea conveyed, the

has perhaps forgot, or never known, that the

merit of suggesting the identity of the electricity-

driven clockwork of Deluc with that operation of

the brain which produces the pulsations of the
heart, is claimed

caution," Sir

by

his

" model of philosophic

John Herschel.*

The expression

used by that philosopher on the occasion, " If the

brain be an electric pile," &c., ought, doubtless, to

condemn him

in the eyes of our critic as a

man

enamoured of resemblances, and a user of unbecoming phraseology

partiality.

if

But he must

om:
(if

critic

be a

critics

man of im-

be capable of

such weakness) revise his opinion on the subject

of resemblances.

confident

mind

their utility as

It

might surprise even his

to find

in

self-

what decisive terms

one of the means of advancing in

scientific observation is insisted

on by

" model of philosophic caution."

He

this very

will find the

passage at page 94 of the celebrated Discourse.

* Discourse on Natural Philosophy, p. 343.

OPPOSITION OF THE SCIENTIFIC CLASS.

175

After discussing the whole arguments on both

sides in so

ample a manner,

may be

it

hardly

necessary to advert to the objection arising from

the

mere

are

opposed

fact,

that nearly all the scientific

to the theory of the Vestiges.

objection, however,
avail with

many

passed over. If

is

minds,

one
it

likely to

be of some

not think there were reasons

I did

coming so generally

As this

ought not to be entirely

independent of judgment for the

feel the

men

scientific class

to this conclusion, I

j i^

might

more embarrassed in presenting myself

in direct opposition to so

many men

and information. As the case

t^

possessing

really stands,

t^j

the ability of this class to give at the present time,

'^^

talents

response upon

a true

such a subject, appears

extremely challengeable.

It is

no

discredit to

them, that they are, almost without exception, engaged,

each in

science,

and able

his

own

to give little or

other parts of that vast

field.

department

of

no attention

to

little

From year

and from age to age, we see them

to year, ")

at work,

adding

no doubt much to the known, and advancing

many important
doing

little

sive views

interests, but, at the

same time,

for the establishment of comprehen-

of nature.

narrow a walk,

facts of

Experiments

in

however

whatever minuteness, make

reputations in scientific societies;

all

beyond

is

176

EXPLANATIONS.

regarded with suspicion and

quence
us,

is,

does nothing to raise

common

distrust.

that philosophy, as
its

ideas of their time.

it

The

exists

conse-

amongst

votaries above the

There can, therefore,

be nothing more conclusive against our hypothesis in

the disfavour of the scientific class, than in

that of
is

any other section of educated men. There

even less; for the position of

regard to the rest of the public

scientific
is

men with

such, that they

are rather eager to repudiate, than to embrace

how unpopular these usually

The reader may here be reminded, that
there is such a thing in human nature as coming to
general views, seeing

are.

venerate the prejudices which

to treat tenderly, because

be consistent at the

we

it is felt

sacrifice of

are compelled
to

be better to

even judgment and

conscience than to have a war always going on

between the cherished and the avowed.

Accord-

ingly, in the case of a particular doctrine, which,

however unjustly,

is

noxious tendency, it

men
mon

herd.

their

own

view

it

regarded as having an ob-

is

not surprising that scientific

with not less hostility than the com-

For the very purpose of maintaining

respect in the concessions they have to

make, they naturally wish

jections to

to find all possible ob-

any such theory as that of progressive

development, exaggerating every difficulty in

its

ALLEGED USES OF NATURAL SCIENCE.

177

way, rejecting, wherever they can, the evidence in

favour,
in

and extenuating what they cannot

taking

short,

all

the well recognised

its

reject

means

which have been so often employed in keeping back

advancing truths.

can only

ing, I

call

K this looks like

special plead-

upon the reader

to bring to his

remembrance the impressions which have been

usually

made upon him by

the

transactions

of

learned societies and the pursuits of individual

men

of science.

Did he not always

feel

mat,

while there were laudable industry and zeal, there

was also an

intellectual timidity rendering all the

results philosophically barren

Perhaps a more

lively illustration of their deficiency in the

life

and

soul of Nature-seeking, could not be presented

than in the view which Sir John Herschel gives of

the uses of science, in a treatise reputed as one
of the

most philosophical ever produced

countrj-.

These

knight, are strictly material

it

said, sordid

namely, " to

attempting

impossibilities to

might even be

show us how

to avoid

secure us from

important mistakes, in attempting what

itself,

possible,

in our

uses, according to the learned

by means

is,

in

either inadequate, or

actually opposed to the end in view

to

to enable us

accomplish our ends La the easiest, shortest,

<3

4
178

EXPLANATIONS.

most economical, and most

effectual

manner

^to

induce us to attempt, and enable us to accomplish,

knowledge, we should

objects, which, but for such

Such

re-

occasionally be

of

never have thought of undertaking."*

sults,

^J

it

will

be

may

felt,

importance in saving a country gentleman from

a hopeless mining speculation, or in adding to the

powers and
mill

twee,

jrc/L,

A-

11^*3

When

mind asks what

.^\in explaining the great

'./^c

In

an iron-foundry or a cotton-

but nothing more.

anft craving

-^^

profits of

and our

^^d

awakened

ends of the Author of na-

relations to

to eternity, the

the

science can do for us

Him,

man

to

good and evil,

to

of science turns to his

collection of shells or butterflies, to his electric

machine or

and

his retort,

sporting on the beach,

is

is

yond the great ocean which

The

natural sense of

mute as a child who,

asked what lands

be-

lie

stretches before him.

men who do

not happen to

have taken a taste for the coleoptera or the laws

of fluids, revolts at the sterility of such pursuits,

and, though fearful of some error on

its

own

can hardly help condemning the whole to

Can we wonder
is their fate

part,

ridicule.

that such, to so great an extent,

in public opinion,

when we read

the

appeal presented in their behalf by the very prince

of

modern philosophers

Or can we say

* Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy,

that

p. 44.

179

UTILITY OF HYPOTHESES.

where such views of " the uses of divine philo-

sophy

" are entertained, there could

preparation of

mind

be any right

to receive with candour, or

plan of nature like that pre-

treat with justice, a

sented in the Vestiges of Creation

Xo,

sophy

is

It is

must

it

new

be before another tribunal, that this

philo-

be truly and righteously judged.

to

important that these sentences be not mis-

There

understood.

is

both a necessity for

certainment of detached facts, that

to the elimination of principles,

tlie

we may

as-

attain

and a danger

in

premature generalization, as tending to mislead

men from

the other hand, scientific

their time in

the tracings

rection

But, on

the true road to that residt.

wrong

men

are seen spending

pursuits, merely for

which are often supplied

by happy hypotheses.

repression of

all

want of

for their di-

It is to the chilling

saliency in investigation, which

characterizes the scientific

men of our

coimtry and

age, that I object, not to a due caution in select-

The function

ing proper paths in which to venture.

of hypothesis in suggesting observations and ex-

periments

is

admitted by one of the most vigo-

rous thinkers of our time. " Without such assumptions, science could

sent state

never have attained

its

pre-

they are necessary steps in the pro-

gress to something

more

certain.

The

pro-

180

EXPLANATIONS.

cess of tracing regularity in any complicated and

at first sight confused set of appearances, is ne-

cessarily tentative
position, even

we begin by making any sup-

a false

one, to

quences will follow from

how

these

tion.

Some

see

fact,'

make

says

in our assump-

M. Comte,

understood, or some law

little

what conse-

and by observing

from the real phenomena, we

diiFer

learn what corrections to

'

it

'

is

as yet

unknown

is

we

frame on the subject an hypothesis as accordant

as possible with the whole

possessed
to

and the

of the data already

science, being thus enabled

move forward freely, always ends by leading

new consequences capable

to

of observation, which

either confirm or refute, unequivocally, the first

supposition.'
in

Let any one watch the manner

which he himself unravels any complicated

mass of evidence

let

him observe, how,

instance, he elicits the true history of

any

for

occiu*-

rence from the involved statements of one or of

many
take

witnesses

all

human

he

will find that

he does not

the items of CNddence into his

once, and

taking

faculties are not equal to such

;

mind

attempt to weave them together

rude theory of the

at

the

an under-

he extemporizes, from a few of the

culars, a first

mode

in

parti-

which

the facts took place, and then looks at the other

UTILITY OF HYPOTHESES.

181

Statements one by one, to try whether they can be

or what

reconciled with that provisional theory,

additions or corrections

means of hypotheses,
tical."*

It

make

requires to

it

it

In this way .... we arrive, by

square with them.

at conclusions not

hypothe-

was with the design of thus giving a

direction to inquiry,

and leading

ture previously

thought

little

of,

to views of na-

but unspeakably

grander than those commonly entertained, that,

too eager for truth to regard
I ventured

my

upon

ordinar}" reader judges of

that the question lies, not

phical

all

it,

him remember

let

between two philoso-

evidence and in conformity

scientific

besides of nature which has been ascer-

^which may therefore be

phical theory^between
I
tained

this,

sition

A\Tien an

but between a theory resting

theories,

on much
with

my own imperfections,

late speculation.

called a philuso-

say,

and a suppo-

tchich does not even pretend to have

scientific

slights

fact for
science

its basis,

and

sets

miracle instead of cause,

cluding itself from

tribunals

it

sinjle

aside,

seeking for

thus, in a manner, pre-

all title to

of philosophy,

appear before the

mere

prejudice,

short, of the unenlightened intellect,

nothing but priority in

which on the contrary

its

in

which has

favour, in which respect

* Mill's System of Logic.

182
it

EXPLANATIONS.

has no advantage over the notion of the cen-

trality of the earth,

any other of the

or

pressions of mankind

As a system, moreover, which

mena.

first

im-

respecting natural pheno-

none

finds

of the previous labours of science shaped or directed

in favour of

its

elucidation, but all in the contrary

way, our theory obviously

allowance being

made

every reasonable

calls for

It may

for its defects.

prove

a true system, though one half of the illustrations

presented by

its first

explicator should be wrong.

For any mind competent

facts

to

judge of

and arguments on which

there can be

little

need

it

to insist

periority of the conclusions to

is

by the

it

founded,

upon the

which

it

su-

points,

over the results which arise from more limited

views of ordinary science.

Existing philosophy,

halting between the notions of the enlightened

and the

unenlightened

We

puzzled.

nomena
them.

know not how

us

only

to regard the

phe-

leaves

and our own

of the world,

Many

man,

relation to

sink into a kind of fatalism which

paralyzes the faculties; others ascend into fantastic

dreams which exercise a not

ence.

Some

sufficiently

less baleful influ-

of the disastrous consequences arc

conspicuous

and expend themselves

but

many more blaze

known only in

in privacy,

the cu'cles where they have been so fatally

felt.

USES OF THE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL LAW. 183

The

entire conduct of a large portion of society,

and more or

less that of nearly all the rest, is re-

j^^ated, or rather cast loose from regulation,

the want of definite ideas

by

regarding that fixed

plan of the divine working, on the study and observance of which

it is

evident that our secular hap-

Even

piness nearly altogether depends.

of the world are daily seen acting to their

acute

men

own mani-

fest injury, in consequence of their utter ignorance

of anv system of law pressing aroimd them.

the great bulk of society",

is

life

With

merely a follow-

ing of a few inferior instincts, with a perfect blind-

ness to consequences.

communities

By

alike, physical

individuals

and moral

and by
evils are

patiently endured, which a true knowledge of the

svstem of Providence woidd cause to be instantly

redressed.

Daily health and comfort,

are sacrificed through the

It is

life

itself,

want of this knowledge.

not in the heyday of cheerful, active, and

prosperous existence, or when we look only to the

tilings

which constitute the greatness of nations,

that

we become

must

seek for convictions

the death-beds

sensible

of

truth.

this

on the

destroyed

of amiable children,

through ignorance of the rules of health,

over by parents

them when

who

feel

that

life

We

subject, beside

is

these dear beings are no

and hung

nothing to

more ;

in the

EXPLANATIONS.

184

despairing comfortlessness of the

selfish,

who have

acted through long years on the supposition that

the social affections could be starved hurtlessly
in the pestilences ravaging the haunts of poverty,

and revenging,
glect

by

the

in a spreading contagion, the ne-

rich

haplessness of

of the

penury and disease- stricken neighbours

their

in the

canker of discontent and crime, which eats into the

vitals of

a nation in consequence of an unlimited

indulgence of acquisitiveness by those possessing

the most ready natural resources and standing in

the most fortunate positions

in the national de-

gradation and misery which follow wars entered

upon

in the wantonness of pride, greed,

and

vanity.

Doubtless, were the idea vitally present in the

minds of

all

men, that from laws of unswerving

every

regularity

act,

thought, and

own

theirs helps to determine their

by

its

direct effects

on

their fate,

emotion
future,

and its

of

both

reflection

from the future of their fellow-creatures, and

this

without any possibility of reprieve or extenuation,

we should

see society presenting a different as-

pect from what

it

vastly diminished,

ness as
I

am

much

does, the

sum

of

human misery

and that of the general happi-

increased.

not to attempt a particular defence of the

new view

of nature from various odiums tluown

185

MORAL RESULTS.
upon

only be rightly done

for this can

it,

time has abated prejudice, and shown more

when

clearly

the relation of this philosophy to all other views

But

cherished by civilized nations.

while remark
principle

its

harmony with

universal brotherhood

man.

And

not only

and

this,

ciple of

humanity

Life

everwhere oxe.

;ire

is

to the

of

extends the prin-

it

meaner creatures

The

also.

inferior animals

only less advanced types of that form of being

perfected in ourselves.

Constituted as

its

head

a peculiar psychical character and destiny by

^vith

position

virtue of that

we

axe yet essentially

connected with the humbler vehicles of

and

the

communion

social

but

may mean-

establishing

in

Christianity,

of

the great practical

intelligence,

and placed

in

vitalit}^

moral relations

to-

We are bound to respect the rights of

animals as of our human associates. We are bound

wards them.

to respect even their feelings.

these moral laws,

we

And from obeying

shall reap as certain a har-

vest of benefit to ourselves, as

by obeying any

code of law that ever was penned.

force

and of

The

rule of

cruelty has hitherto prevailed in this

department of the world's economy as between

man and man

but the day of true knowledge will

bring a better rule here also,

good

qualities of these patient

and the many

and unresisting mi-

186

EXPLANATIONS.

nisters of our convenience will

ledged and dwelt on by

all

yet be acknow-

with admiration and

love.

Is our

own

position affected injuriously

by

this

view, or can our relation to the universe and

Author be presumed to be so

Our character

is

a system which

now

seen to be a definite part of

The Deity

definite.

is

its

Assuredly not.

himself

becomes a

defined, instead of a capricious being.

Power

make and

to

to

uphold remains his as

before, but is invested with a character of tranquillity altogether

the

new

highest attribute

can conceive in connexion with power.

him

as the author of this vast

mere

sably present sustainer of

is

scheme by the

and yet as the indispen-

force of his will,

whole

we

Viewing

all

seeing that the

upon a plan of benevolence

we expand to loftier, more generous

constructed

and justice

and holy emotions, as we

feel that

we are essential
The place

parts of a system so great and good.

we hold

in

comparison

statement of a degree
intelligible

place.

and have some sense

place.

The years

We
of

space in that mighty

is

yet

humble beyond
it

is

all

a certain and

know where we

stand,

also of oiu- chronological

our existence occupy a

series,

during some earlier

portion of which this globe, since the theatre of

glories

and of sorrows numberless, was moulded

MORAL RESULTS.

187

Arithmetic could state,

into form.

if

we knew

it,

the connexion between the birth of a babe which

saw the

light

an hour ago, and the time when the

elements of our astral system began to resolve

themselves into those coimtless orbs, one of which
is

Man's, the stage of his long descended history,

and the

bounds within which

all

jihenomena must ever be confined.

each individuality,

or

great

his

secular

The

unit of

humble

in

social

march of

regard, takes a fixed place in that

life

which rose unreckoned ages ago, and now goes

to a " weird,"

on
to

We feel that,

know.

trouble

which no wizard has pretended

and of

trespass,

amidst

all

we

still

are

the disgrace of

the

first

form

of active being after the Greatest, and therefore

may

well be assured that, immeasurable as

distance firom God,

we

are

much

to soothe

and

Surely there

to encourage.

be that the individual often

our

immediately re-

still

garded and cared for by him.

here

is

It

is

may

sufiers innocently to

appearance in our present sphere

but then he

is

part of a systsm of assiu'ed benevolence and justice

as

having faith in

this,

he

some one has suggested,

a term of

and

that

life

list

when
of

It

may

be,

that there is not only

to the individual, but to the species,

the proper time comes, the prolific

energ\- being exhausted,

the

is safe.

extinct

man

forms.

is

transferred to

Strange

thought,

1^8

EXPLANATIONS.

that the beauteous

the thrill of the lover,

istence

phenomena

of personal ex-

the mother's smile

on cherub infancy, the brightness of loving

sides, the aspirations of

up and beyond the

sophers, the thought cast

earthly, that petard

the

which breaks down every door

of penitence,

tear

meekness of the

the

suffering humble, the ardour of the strong in

causes,

have

all

on, in his
these

that the great

felt, all

and beneficent of

that each of us

home,

his

now

sees,

whole " equinoxes" into the past, as

particular

men

are concerned,

all

still

ages

that

we

as

far

all

away

fleeting

good

and muses

people, his age,

be thus resolved

should

fire-

generous poets and philo-

passing further

back as respects the larger personalities called

nations,

and

still

further in inconceivable multipli-

cation with regard to the

hushed

species

has hitherto been thought of

may

gone,

lost,

in the stillness of a mightier death than

!

But yet the

faith

not be shaken, that that which has been

endowed with

the

power of godlike thought, and

allowed to come into communion with

Author, cannot be truly

lost.

which proceeded from him

in our perfected fonn at

good and lovely

things,

The

its

Eternal

vital

flame

at first returns to

last,

bearing with

and making of

all

him

it

all

the far-

extending Past but one intense Present, glorious

and

everlasting.

189

COMMUNICATIONS BY W.
Referred

Dear

Sir,

Since

to

H.

WEEKES, ESQ.

at page 120.

my

the details of

first

experiments on the

production of acari in close atmospheres were given to the world,

through the medium of the " Proceedings of the London Electrical Society," session

circulated

among my

above-named
first edition

my

of 1842, &c., and, ahout the same time,

scientific friends, in

-work, as stated

a reprint from the

by you in a foot note

to

page 187,

of the Vestiges, the subject has continued to occupy

attention, while the nature of

my

researches has been fre-

quently modified by variations in regard to the form of the

experiments, and their correlative arrangements.
Incident to the peHod included

by the

last three years,

experiments on the subject have been completed

yet in progress

many

others are even

and, however rigid were the conditions in any

case adopted, thus

appeared in

much

is

certain, that the acari have invariably

the several solutions

under

electrical influence, while their

absence has been as invariably remarked, in spite of the nicest

Krutiny, in all negative

tests

provided

to

accompany

the respective

primary experiments.

The

following

may be taken

conducted
yields

is

and although,

as an

example of the stringent

my latter experiments
in my own estimation, the

circumstances under which

have been
evidence

it

not one whit more conclusive than the results formerly

COMMUNICATIONS BY

190
made known,
against the

is

it

first

clearly free

experiments, and

that, if these conditions fail

from certain objections urged

is

selected under an impression

show that the

to

electric current is

the agent by which the laws of organization have been promoted,

have maugre the Baconian philosophy already trusted

much to experimental facts, with a view to the establishment

then we
too

of truth.

by no means

It is

easy, even if practicable, independent of

sketches, to convey a precise idea of the apparatus employed in

am

the experiment I

attempt to describe
possible.

In the

about to communicate.
it

with as

first place, I

much

I will, nevertheless,

brevity and plainness as

must mention that the arrange-

ments were originally of a threefold character:

vessel containing a saline solution,

atmosphere; 2nd,

An

and above

it

1st,

an

close

artificial

open vessel containing the same solution,

both acted upon by the same current passing through them from

a voltaic battery

3rd,

Two

glass jars standing on the

tive

same

table,

way corresponding with the respec-

as negative tests, and in every

primary vessels, excepting that they had no wire appendages,

and were

The

unelectrified.

close vessel consists of a

wide-mouthed glass

containing a pint and a half of liquid, and

is

jar,

capable of

manufactured from

the purest and most transparent material.

From

the top, or

shoulder of this jar, ascends, to the height of an inch from the

surrounding surface, a remarkably stout and strong neck, which

presents an opening of two inches diameter.

Into this opening

a thick metallic plug or stopper, cast from "fusible alloy,"

fitted perfectly air-tight,

ing.

by a process of long and

is

careful grind-

Perpendicularly through the metallic stopper, and at the

distance of an inch from each other, so as to occupy the extremes

of an equilateral triangle, are drilled three holes, each rather

more than two-tenths of an inch diameter, and

is

into each of these

soldered, air-tight, a corresponding glass tube.

The two

prin-

cipal of this series of tubes serve the purpose of insulating a pair

of stout copper wires, which pass longitudinally through them,

W. H. WEEKES, ESQ.
and are united

at each

Two other wires

metaL

191

end by a joint fosion of the glass and

of platina proceed from the lower ends

of the copper wires to nearly the bottom of the

where they

jar,

terminate in closely-wound spirals, rather more than an inch

part, while the ends of the copper wires, projecting

from the

upper ends of their respective tubes, have conical cavities drilled

out for the reception of a globule of mercury, by means of which
established.

The

communication with the

voltaic

third tube, passing

the depth of an inch below the metallic

plug,

first to

battery

is

bent above the latter into a syphon form, and contains in

is

curvature a globule of mercury weighing about three drachms,

its

acts as a valve for the occasional escape of gaseous matter

vbich

generated within the close vessel, and

at the

is,

same time, a

guarantee against the ingress of any species of insect

mercury emplojed

to

form

this valve

life.

was cautiously

The

distilled

from the red sulphcret of that metal.

By
the

the side of the close vessel above described was placed, in

instance, a glass tumbler, capable of holding half a pint

first

Through two

of liquidrite

pieces of mahogany, cemented to oppo-

inner surfaces of this second vessel, were

made

to pass

two

stout copper wires, terminating, like those adapted to the close

jar, in platina spirals a little

bottom of the tumbler.

more than an inch apart near the

The upper ends

of these wires were

similarly provided with longitudinal cavities also, drilled out for

the reception of small globules of mercury, to complete contact

and

facilitate

On

the

tion has

manner

inter-communication.

and of May, 1842, the apparatus, of which a descripbeen attempted, was

set to

work

after the following

A solution of ferrocyanate of potass, prepared by care-

fully boiling

two ounces of the

salt in sixteen

ounces of

distilled

water, being in readiness for the occasion, ten ounces of the

liquid
elastic

were transferred

to the glass jar,

and immediately

after

an

metal pipe, in communication with an iron bottle in a

state of

white heat, and from which a stream of pure oxygen

rapidly proceeded,

was dipped

into the solution in the jar.

In

192
this

COMMUNICATIONS BY
way, the gas, without passing through water, or heing

brought

in

contact with any external agent, continued to be

supplied to the jar, until the entire atmosphere above the solu-

oxygen

tion consisted of

when

alone,

the

metallic plug was

deposited instantly in the neck of the jar, so as to cut off

communication with the external

tumbler being

now

placed

by the

The open

air.

vessel

all

or

side of the close apparatus,

and four ounces of the solution before mentioned having been

poured into
vessels

was

it,

the necessary communication between the two

effected

by means of

suitable wires,

and contact

at

the same time similarly established with the respective poles of a

By means

constant battery of ten pairs.

the current entered the open vessel

of this arrangement,

first,

and then proceeded,

through the solution in the close apparatus, in

its

way

to the

negative side.
I

must here remark that the

its first

application,

such energy, that

electric current,

was observed

deemed

it

advisable to suspend the operation

until the activity of the battery should be

and

it

was not

date the

until the

immediately on

decompose the solution with

to

somewhat modified,

May

evening of the 6th of

that I could

commencement of my experiment.

A circumstantial

record of

all

important changes connected

with this experiment has been preserved, up to the present day,

embracing a period of three years and three months, but

not conclude that any extracts from

enhance the interest of the present

prefer a brief

summary of

my memoranda

notice.

the results

first

I can-

would

shall therefore

premising that two

excellent constant batteries have been successively

worn out

in

the undertaking, and that the requisite changes were

made with-

now

transmitted

out interruption to the electric current, which

by a water-battery of twenty
teristic

pairs,

is

working with the charac-

uniformity of this excellent species of voltaic contrivance.

would further remark

that, from the

commencement of the experi-

ment, the battery and the respective vessels containing the solutions

have been

strictly

excluded from the

light,

by means of a screen

W. H. WEEKES, ESQ.

193

constructed for the occasion, and the entire proceeding has been

room kept constantly

confined to a retired

access unless accompanied

been to

visit the

by myself.

arrangement once

in

locked,

My

no one having

general habit has

two days, for the purpose

of noting the progress, supplying the battery with crystals of

making good

sulphate of copper,

the loss of fluids caused by the

evaporation, &c,
1.

the

October 19th, 1S43

commencement

one hundred and sixty-six days from

the
acari seen in

of the experiment

first

connexion therewith, six in nnmber and nearly fhll-grown, were

discovered on the outside of the open glass vesseL

two

which had been

pieces of card

vessel, several fine

surfaces,

laid

On

removing

over the mouth of this

specimens were found inhabiting the under

and others completely developed and in active motion

here and there within the

October 20th.

glass.

Making

my

visit at

an hour when a more

favourable light entered the room, swarms of acari were found on

the cards, about the glass tumbler, both within and without, and
also

on the platform of the apparatus.

Dr. J. Black favoured

and received

me with a

At

this identical

time be discovered

No

trace of insect

in the close vessel

solution in the open vessel

hour

inspected the arrangements,

six living specimens of the acarus produced

solution in the open vessel.

The

call,

life

from

could at this

with an oxygen atmosphere.

had undergone very slight change

of colour, but exhibited a multitude of minute and beautifully

coloured crystals with a prevailing tinge of crimson.
tion beneath the
voltaic current

oxygen atmosphere, about

began to traverse

it,

The

solu-

ten days after the

had assumed a reddish-brown

appearance, which gradually darkened in colour until scarcely

any

light could

be transmitted through

it,

or the ascent of gas

from either of the electrodes perceived.

2.

Myriads of acari continued

tion in the

open vessel

was found expedient

to

until the

to

be developed from the solu-

20th of August, 1S43,

determine

and confine the operation of the

when

it

this division of the

experiment,

electric current

solely to the

194

COMMUNICATIONS BY

close arrangement, in

been detected.

which no appearance of insect

Before removing the open vessel

life

had yet

had, however,

the satisfaction to supply therefrom abundance of living specimens

to

my

who had

scientific friends

kindly interested themselves on

the subject, in various parts of England, Scotland, France, and

America.
3.

In the beginning of the month of June, 1844, rather more

than two years from the commencement of these operations, the

solution in the close vessel began to manifest signs of a most

remarkable change, the results of constant, slow, and almost in-

The

visible decomposition.

found, as at

apparatus was carefully tested, and

perfectly air-tight, and the confined liquid

first,

was

evidently returning to a paler red colour, as well as a partially

These

translucent condition.

latter

appearances rapidly in-

creased, and about the beginning of September in the

same year,

the solution had acquired a light amber colour and perfect trans-

parency, with abundant flakes and

forms of irregular

scroll- like

oxide of iron of a deep orange colour, nearly covering the bottom

Most of these had,

of the jar.

doubtless, been detached in suc-

cession from the negative platina spiral, and were conspicuous

through the altered solution.

It

was while engaged

in

examin-

ing this singular accumulation of oxide, by means of an excellent

lens, that

saw for the

existence of insect

life

first

time an unequivocal proof of the

within the close vessel.

Several spinous

processes of the acari and other remains were detected floating on

the surface of the soluticm, and others attached to the inside of

the glass a few lines above the liquid, while, under circumstances

somewhat more obscure, several

entire dead insects

were per-

An

ceived amidst the flakes resting on the bottom of the jar.

omission
first

of secondary

importance,

time apparent in the apparatus

it is

this

shelf or resting-place for the insects

Andrew

kind

friend,

visit

a few weeks

before he

knew

Crosse, Esq.,

after,

true

was now for

was the want of a fitting

a circumstance that

my

when he favoured me with a

remarked almost immediately, and

that acari

the

said,

had already appeared, " that they

W. H. WEEKES, ESQ.
would

Ml

duced."

have

in

and be drowned almost

Mr, Crosse was right in

latterly

195

as fast as they

were pro-

his conjecture, for although I

watched the proceeding with diurnal care,

have

never identified the presence of more than two living insects at

the same time within the close apparatus, and these have as
speedily as invariably shared the fate of their predecessors.

withstanding the omission alluded

satisfaction in the

knowledge that

ments any substance which by

to,

I enjoy

Not-

an increase of

have kept from

my

arrange-

introduction might have been

its

suspected of vitiating the results, while the main object of the

undertaking has in no wise suffered in

have only to add

my

and much observation,

division of

my

its

accomplishment

belief founded on considerable experience

that insect

life

was

first

developed in this

experiment, sometime in the month of July, 1844,

about two years and two months from the commencement.

I am, dear

sir,

yours

faithfully,

W. H. Wekkbs.
Sandwich, 2nd Sept 1845.
T

tike

Author of " Vestige* of Ike Katmral History of Creation."

ELECTRO-VEGETATION.

On the

3rd of October, 1842, 1 commenced an electro-chemical

experiment, which has constantly, since that period, been in progress,

and

will probably continue for

sometime longer.

It is

not

necessary to the present notice that I should detail the objects of

this undertaking, as the indications of a successful result induce

me

to suppose that particulars

may

nicating to the scientific public.

eventually be worth

I shall therefore

commu-

merely

state

that a cylindrical glass vessel, capable of containing about ten

fluid ounces, with

a bottom of porous baked

k2

earth,

and open

at the

COMMUKICATIONS BY

196
top, is
filled

suspended in a convenient frame,

with a solution of refined sugar in

occasional supplies,

is

about three-fourths

distilled water, receiving

and that the poles of a water-battery of

twenty -five pairs terminate within an inch of each other

solution before mentioned, about an inch also

Through

the cylindrical vessel.

in the

from the bottom of

the porous bottom alluded to, the

saccharine liquid gradually percolated, during several months

until its

minute viaducts became completely obstructed.

that

is,

The

solution thus filtered fell into a convenient glazed earthen

jar placed under the apparatus, and was occasionally returned to

the inside of the glass cylinder.

About the beginning of September, 1843, a small patch

fungus, of a peculiar character, was observed to have

forming on the outside of the

glass,

near

its

lower rim, but yet

not in contact with the line of junction between the glass and

At

earthen bottom.

this period the solution

of

commenced

had ceased

to

its

drop

through the earthen diaphragm, and the incipient fungus occupied a spot on the outside of the glass directly opposite the negative
electrode vf'iXhm.

This substance having, when firstseen, a gelatinous

appearanccf of a d;irk -brown colour, by slow degrees extended itself

round the lower rim of the

glass,

forming an irregular band or

zone, half an inch in breadth, and throwing out numerous protu-

berances as

On

it

approached the positive side of the arrangement

the 29th of November, in the same year, the following note

relative to this singular production occurs

and

I shall

"

among my memoranda

as I cannot otherwise better describe its

mature appearance,

subjoin the extract:

The

substance of this fungus varies in colour from a light

chocolate to that of a dark sanguineous red, and though formerly

of a soft texture,

it

now

offers

considerable resistance.

viewed with an excellent pocket-lens

the

scope that can be brought to bear upon

beautiful species of vegetation

is

it

When

only sort of micro-

a most singularly-

seen to occupy

its

entire surface,

presenting various shades of crimson, green, olive, and green

inclining to yellow.

In

its

general appearance

it

at

once suggests

WEEKES, ESQ.

H.

\V.

197

the idea of a magnificent forest, consisting of trees and flowering

In particular spots,

shrubs in miniature.

like spires occur in vast multitudes,

fine,

downy, needle-

and these otherwise naked

processes rising from the body of the fungus, are surmounted by

what appear

to be seed-vessels in
feathery tufts in others." *

some

instances,

and irregular

This experiment was not designed with any reference

researches on the development of the electrical acari, but

of these creatures appeared incidental to

time the above note was made,

many

to

my

swarms

progress, and, at the

its

of them were seen inhabit-

ing the miniature forest on th fungus, where they seemed to

thrive amazingly,

and

any

to attain a larger size than

have

hitherto seen.

About the autumn of the year 1844, the fungus had extended
to the positive side of the arrangement, thus

circular

band

and

it

is

forming a continuous

not the least remarkable feature of

its

brief history, that immediately on the completion of this event,

the luxuriance and beauty of

to decline.
glass, but

it is

To what

its

vegetation were observed rapidly

portion of the fungous mass

no longer an object of special

still

adheres to the

interest.

extent this singular and beautiful production

is

indebted to the action of an electric current constantly, and for a

long time, traversing the saccharine liquid, in connexion with

which

it

appeared, I

am

not prepared,

by the

assistance of facts,

at present to say, but the following suggestions occur to

as strong analogical reasons in support of

nature,
1st.

my mind

its electrical

origin

and progress.
I

am

tolerably conversant with most of the

of this country, but

which the one

am

known

fungi

not acquainted with any species with

in question

can be

identified,

or even be said to

resemble.

* Shortly after the Sbove note was entered in my memoranda, a small

portion of the fungus, with its incvimbent Tegetation, was submitted to a
powerfiil microscope, and a sketch made in accordance, which for obvious

reaaoos cannot be here introdnced.

COMMUNICATIONS BY MR. WEEKES.

198
2nd.

The

glazed earthen jar placed under the porous bottom

of the cylinder to catch the filtered liquid, had, at the time the

fungus originated, a considerable quantity of dark saccharine

matter resembling concrete molasses therein

remain as a negative

to

this

was suffered

test to the electrical character of the

fungus, presuming the latter to have had

its

beginning

in

a por-

tion of sugary deposit derived from the solution through the

porous diaphragm

yet,

though the surface of the residuum

in

the earthen jar presented the usual indications of mouldiness, no

appearance of a fungoid kind, or that of minute vegetation, could

any time be detected within the

at

3rd.

The commencement

unelectrified jar.

of the fungus at a point precisely cor-

responding with the negative pole of the arrangement,

its

luxuriance

and maturity in the intermediate space on the glass cylinder, and

its

decay on

finally

reaching the positive

side, are in

themselves

fects pleading strongly in favour of electrical influence over the

organization of this remarkable species of vegetation.

W. H. Weekes.
Sandwich, 5th Sept. 1845.

To the Author of" Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation."

T. C.

Savill, Printer, 4,

Chandos

Street,

Covent Garden.

POSTSCRIPT.

Since the present edition was put through the

announced that Lord Rosse has discovered the

press,

it

is

resolvability of

the nebula in the sword of Orion, one of those on whose persistency

in the cloud-like character

under every power of the

telescope, the speculations of Sir William Herschel as to the cos-

mogony were understood

Of course,

to rest.

discovery be

if this

confirmed, the Herschel speculations must be abandoned.

becomes important

It

such a change will

to specify the precise extent to

affect the general

voured to lay before the public.

views which

Let the reader

which

have endea-

first

peruse with

volume between pp. 5 and 25, and

the fifth edition of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,
at pp. 25 and 29, and he will find that the possibility of an abanattention the portion of this

donment of Herschel's

speculations

with no serious damage

manner of natural

law.

was contemplated,

to the theory of

as fraught

an entire creation in the

In the latter volume, published in Jan-

uary of the present year, the following sentence occurs

print

and

" We

stUl in the relations of the planets,

to their oblate spheroidality,

we

and

in the calculations as

should have overpowering proof

that the cosmical arrangements were produced in the

natural law"

in Italic

might, then, entirely dismiss the nebular theory,

the

conclusion that

God

acted in

this,

way

of

and no

other more arbitrary manner, in his authorship of nature, being

the true and sole point which I aimed at establishing.

The

fact

is,

that Herschel

and Laplace performed

their several

200

POSTSCRIPT.

parts in our cosmogony independently of each other, and the giving

up of the British astronomer's ideas about nebulous matter does not

in the slightest degree affect the results attained

These

geometer.

What

gainsaid.

rest

by the French

on rigid calculations, which can never be

he did, was to prove there being more than four

millions of milhons of chances against one, that the uniform direction of the forty-three motions then ascertained

amongst the plane-

tary bodies, was the result of one primitive cause, and to show the

" dynamical possibility" of the solar system being evolved in

its

existing forms and arrangements by the ascertained laws of the

He

universe.

afterwards took hold of Herschel's speculations on

nebulous matter, to point out the probable manner of this evolu-

though provisionally adju-

tion; but the Herschelian hypothesis,

vant,

was not absolutely necessary

The

to that of Laplace.

Laplacian cosmogony takes us, independently, to a previous form

of matter, different from the present

abstraction of Herschel's views

is,

that

all

that

we

see

sky any presumable specimens of this former

Perhaps

When we

this is to state the case

its

by the

lose

in the

state of matter.

very lowest grounds.

consider the indications afforded by the original crys-

and the heat and expansion of

talline floor of the earth,

ternal materials

and what are

that

on

we

no longer

we are

called the

left

we

November Meteors, we can hardly

by the Parsontown

previous form of matter.

ficient that

its in-

when we look to the comets, the Zodiacal Light,

Still,

for all the purposes in view,

see the matter, whatever

form and arrangements

in the

unquestionably have seen

it

was, put into

its

it is

suf-

present

manner of natural law and

first

it,

say

telescope in darkness, as to the

so

we

with our geometrical eyes, in

the pages of I^aplace, and secondly with our actual vision on the

experimental table of Plateau.

I

may

So, for the

meantime,

let it rest.

take this opportunity of adverting to a preface to the

second edition of Dr. Whewell's Indications of

which the present volume

is

largely

commented

the Creator,

on.

It

in

appears

that the etymology of the term palcetiology, va conneidon with

the opinions

avowed by Dr. Whewell, has

from what he assigns,

different definition,

led

me

to present a

to those sciences to

201

POSTSCRIPT.

namely, the sciences referring

which he applies the term

to the

origin of language and arts, the origin of species, and the formation of globes.

He

does not call these sciences palaetiological,

because, "in his opinion, we have to seek for an ancient and different
class

of causes, as affecting them, from any which are now seen

Dr. Whewell's actual definition of palaetiological

operating."
sciences was

"those

in

sent state of things to a

sent

is

which the object

to ascend

The actual extent of this

when the reader learns that

Whewell considers the

origin of globes, of species, &c., as

events out of the course of nature," which

\rhich

from the pre-

derived by intelligible causes."

mistake must appear very small,

Dr.

is

more ancient condition, from which the pre-

my

arguments were addressed.

ever, that our opposite views

the following manner:

He

may

It

is

the point to

would appear, how-

be more correctly stated in

alleges that science fails to explain

to us the events involved in the palaitiological sciences.

say

that science, read aright, gives us vestiges or traces of the causes

of those events, tending to a conviction that they were of the

same order as those which

over nature.

at present preside

am

sorry that I cannot compliment the learned Master of Trinity on

his generosity, or

even fairness,

that the essence of the system in

in attributing to

which we

live,

me

the belief

" consists in

life

growing out of dead matter, the higher animals out of the lower,
and man out of brutes,"

(p. 19.)

of the natural world on

all

To

which we speak of as natural law,

show grounds

establish the independence

but that form of the divine working

it

was doubtless necessary

for believing that species originated in the

to

manner

explained in the Vestiges; but this belief could never be considered as the essence of the system of order

the world.

If

by which God

he had not been more eager

to

rules

use ridicule, or

take advantage of popular odium, than to appeal to rigid argu-

ment, he might have been checked by a pointed declaration in the

present volume, that

my

object

an organic creation by law

in

common
It is fully

is

is

one " to which the idea of

only subordinate and miniatrative,"

with various other doctrines.

admitted by Dr. Whewell, that the Deity operates

202

POSTSCRIPT.

by general laws. He is not blind to " the wonderful order and

harmony, the gradations and connexions, which run through
the forms of animal life." He admits that the organic world has
been created according to laws in the Creator's mind, though we
not, he thinks, know those laws.
With such beliefs, he at the

do

same time condemns the theory of a natural production of

the

world,

organic

" excluding

as

Now,

vention of creative power."

supernatural

all

if

inter-

science be obscure, as

he says, as to the laws which were in the creative mind, and

as to causation generally, one might suppose it to be unable
to pronounce, in this decisive

manner, either for or against super-

Dr. Whewell, however, sees, in the adap-

natural interferences.

tations of organic beings to external circumstances, clear proofs

of such supernatural procedure

that, indeed,

while the Deity

acted according to a plan and fixed laws, the creation of each

animal was, nevertheless, a special act on his part.

Here

it

appears to

a Creator in a really unfavourable

light in

is,

we have indications of the Creator.

Now
me, that Dr. Whewell has here placed the doctrine

therefore, that

which

have placed

rests his scientific

it is

means of

light,

while the favourable

He

misapprehended by him.

upon our not

belief, negatively,

knowing the mode of the organic

it

of

and speaks

creation,

ascertainment of natural procedure were to be fatal to

as if the
it.

Sup-

pose this doctrine were to be received, the discovery of laws

establishing natural procedure
in

an

atheistic state,

Positively, his

which

would tend so

far to leave science

have never thought to be necessary.

means of such

belief

depend on our seeing a

supernatural event in each of the " adaptations" of organic beings.

But what

if

science should

upon natural grounds

come

Here, too,

to explain these adaptations

it

would

upon the doctrine which Dr. Whewell seeks

inflict

a severe blow

to uphold.

Let

us,

on the other hand, consider the theory of a natural origin of

species with all their peculiarities in regard to

the doctrine of a deity.

which
is

lives

found

to

upon

There

is

its

bearing on

a bird called the pique-bceuf,

larva; picked out the hides of living cattle,

and

be enabled to live in this manner by a beak resembling

203

POSTSCRIPT.

a pair of forceps, and a set of claws allowed to be the most carved

of

all

apart from those of the raptorial birds.

Whewell's ideas of design, we must regard

of

bill

and claws

to a clambering

life

According to Dr.

this

accommodation

on the body of another

animal, as only to be accounted for by supposing the Deity

first

to contemplate the existence of cattle with larvae deposited in

their hides, and then to perform the individual act of creating the

pique-bceuf, with

peculiar claws and beak.

its

The

theory sees in the pique-bceuf only a kind of starling

allied

that

to

genus

which

modified by natural forces in

life to

it

is

has in the course of time been

its

constitution, to suit a

mode of

just

such in-

which the temptation was placed before

herent forces as enable one

opposite

for

human being

to

it

become expert

in

music, another in reasoning, and so on, though coming to more

tangible results.

Now

tive merits of the

two

dignity to the Deity

latter

I will not

here pause upon the compara-

theories, in regard of their attribution of

it

is

only necessary to remark that the

view does not necessarily exclude either design, or the

Deity, which design

held to imply, for the inherent forces em-

is

ployed in the latter case

may have been

part of a design, thoagh

one of general application, and the wisdom of

as clearly in the fashion of the pique-bceuf
as the other.

that

of Deity at
to

To such

we should come,

whom

all,

for

a view of design

if

we

it

God may

be seen

upon the one theory

seems

to

me unavoidable

are to look in that direction for proofs

how can we

see rudimentary organs in animals

they are useless, and yet maintain that each animal was

specially designed

and framed

Yet Dr. Whewell has been

able to read both the Vestiges and the Explanations without

seeing

this.

Dr. Whewell afterwards indulges in the following analogy

" Let us suppose," says he, " some great sovereign to found a city

upon a noble

laying

scale,

squares and gardens

it

out in streets and markets, and

designing and building halls of justice and

temples, palaces and manufactories, shops and private dwellings.

Let

it

be supposed,

too, that the

founder has in his mind some

special style of architecture, so deeply imprinted, that all the

204

POSTSCRIPT.

ediiSces

which he designs, great and

bear traces of this

style,

small, pablic

and private,

and have resemblances

in their ele-

We know

ments, construction, and decoration.

tectural styles

so deep

is

that this

may be

connexion and consistency in some archi-

so: that the spirit of

and pervasive, that

breaks out in

it

every part.

Thus, in a city so built, it is probable that every

part would be recognisable by an architectural eye and after
any interval of ages, the skilful antiquary would be able to point
;

out the marks of the all-pervading style, and to show

features in the

workshop and the palace

between the cottage and the court.

common

a connexion in masonry

But

if

we suppose a

spectator

thus able to discover resemblance and connexion in the parts of

the city,

what should we think of

his

wisdom,

if,

of such resemblances, he were to maintain that

kinds of building had, in the history of the

some

city,

form of mansion by gradual steps

original

hold that the

site

was

first

on the strength
the different

all

grown out of
if

he were to

occupied by a few cottages, and that

masonry

these multiplied, extended, coalesced, retaining in their

and structure the traces of their

and

well-built city

were

to teach that

Still

?
it

origin,

and thus became the great

more, what should

we think him

was rejecting a ' system of order'

if

he

in archae-

ology, to believe that the tribunals, and markets, and public

walks, and religious edifices, had been originally constructed with

a view to their special uses? It appears to
in archscology
siology,

would correspond

to that

'

me that such

which makes the higher forms of animal

of the lower.

We who

reject that

a doctrine

system of order'
life

in

phy-

grow out

system are not blind

to the

traces of connexion in the various parts of his work, which the

great Architect has

left;

but

we

cannot, on that account, give up

the belief that the foundation of this, our city, was a special act.

We can the less abandon

it

this belief,

inasmuch as we connect with

the belief that the founder of the city has also given us laws for

our conduct, and has not

how

the city

grew up of

left

us to guide ourselves by considering

itself,

if,

indeed, there be any

means of

guidance supplied by such a consideration."

So

it

appears to this learned person that there

is

the same

205

POSTSCRIPT.

reason to suppose, of two buildings of different sizes and grades

of use, but similar architecture, that the larger has grown out of
the smaller, as there

is

to suppose, of certain animals of different

grades of organization, but connected in general plan of structure,

that the higher have

grown out

this as a perfect analogy,

He must

of the lower.

regard

and very decisive of the argument, or

he would not have given

Bat what

at such length.

it

the

is

we

difference between the two things? no less than this, that

never see one building grow out of another, or grow

natural sense, while

we do

see animals

come

at

in a

all,

by

into existence

natural growing, and, in their embryotic progress, pass through

the forms of those beneath

known

them

in the scale;

conformable to their grades in organization.

lectics

it

being further

that the animals appeared on earth in a succession broadly

brought to the discussion of

my

Such are the

conspicuous general students of science in England.

the powers which he has

hension to those views.

shown

dia-

views by one of the most

to give the

Such are

most simple appre-

After such an exposition, can

reasonably maintained that the scientific mind of England

it

be

how-

ever creditably industrious, however accurate in particulars

is

prepared to give

fair

judgment upon any great generaliza-

tions?

May, 1846.

T. C.

Savill. Printer, 4,

Chandos

Street,

CoTent Garden.

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