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As we have said, in order to arrive even hypothetically at this
result, it is necessary to assume besides a mere capacity for
change, other positive and active principles, some of which we may
notice. Thus, we must have as the direct productions of nature on
this hypothesis, certain monads or rough draughts, the primary
rudiments of plants and animals. We must have, in these, a constant
tendency to progressive improvement, to the attainment of higher
powers and faculties than they possess; which tendency is again
perpetually modified and controlled by the force of external
circumstances. And in order to account for the simultaneous
existence of animals in every stage of this imaginary progress, we
must suppose that nature is compelled to be constantly producing
those elementary beings, from which all animals are successively
developed. 567
I need not stay to point out how extremely arbitrary every part of
this scheme is; and how complex its machinery would be, even if it
did account for the facts. It may be sufficient to observe, as others
have done, 84 that the capacity of change, and of being influenced by
external circumstances, such as we really find it in nature, and
therefore such as in science we must represent it, is a tendency, not
to improve, but to deteriorate. When species are modified by
external causes, they usually degenerate, and do not advance. And
there is no instance of a species acquiring an entirely new sense,
faculty, or organ, in addition to, or in the place of, what it had before.
84 Lyell, B. iii. c. iv.
It may be urged, that all truths must be consistent with all other
truths, and that therefore the results of true geology or astronomy
cannot be irreconcileable with the statements of true theology. And
this universal consistency of truth with itself must be assented to; but
it by no means follows that we must be able to obtain a full insight
into the nature and manner of such a consistency. Such an insight
would only be possible if we could obtain a clear view of that central
body of truth, the source of the principles which appear in the
separate lines of speculation. To expect that we should see clearly
how the providential government of the world is consistent with the
unvarying laws 572 by which its motions and developements are
regulated, is to expect to understand thoroughly the laws of motion,
of developement, and of providence; it is to expect that we may
ascend from geology and astronomy to the creative and legislative
centre, from which proceeded earth and stars; and then descend
again into the moral and spiritual world, because its source and
centre are the same as those of the material creation. It is to say that
reason, whether finite or infinite, must be consistent with itself; and
that, therefore, the finite must be able to comprehend the infinite, to
travel from any one province of the moral and material universe to
any other, to trace their bearing, and to connect their boundaries.
One of the advantages of the study of the history and nature of
science in which we are now engaged is, that it warns us of the
hopeless and presumptuous character of such attempts to
understand the government of the world by the aid of science,
without throwing any discredit upon the reality of our knowledge;—
that while it shows how solid and certain each science is, so long as
it refers its own facts to its own ideas, it confines each science within
its own limits, and condemns it as empty and helpless, when it
pronounces upon those subjects which are extraneous to it. The
error of persons who should seek a geological narrative in
theological records, would be rather in the search itself than in their
interpretation of what they might find; and in like manner the error of
those who would conclude against a supernatural beginning, or a
providential direction of the world, upon geological or physiological
reasonings, would be, that they had expected those sciences alone
to place the origin or the government of the world in its proper light.
From what has been said, it follows that geology and astronomy
are, of themselves, incapable of giving us any distinct and
satisfactory account of the origin of the universe, or of its parts. We
need not wonder, then, at any particular instance of this incapacity;
as, for example, that of which we have been speaking, the
impossibility of accounting by any natural means for the production
of all the successive tribes of plants and animals which have peopled
the world in the 573 various stages of its progress, as geology
teaches us. That they were, like our own animal and vegetable
contemporaries, profoundly adapted to the condition in which they
were placed, we have ample reason to believe; but when we inquire
whence they came into this our world, geology is silent. The mystery
of creation is not within the range of her legitimate territory; she says
nothing, but she points upwards.
. . . . . . . Perfect forms
Limbed and full-grown: out of the ground up rose
As from his lair, the wild beast where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; . . .
The grassy clods now calved; now half appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts; then springs as broke from bounds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; &c. &c.
Paradise Lost, B. vii.
[2nd Ed.] [Mr. Lyell has explained his theory 90 by supposing man
to people a great desert, introducing into it living plants and animals:
and he has traced, in a very interesting manner, the results of such a
hypothesis on the distribution of vegetable and animal species. But
he supposes the agents who do this, before they import species into
particular localities, to study attentively the climate and other
physical conditions of each spot, and to use various precautions. It is
on account of the notion of design thus introduced that I have,
above, described this opinion as rather a tenet of Natural Theology
than of Physical Philosophy.
90 B. iii. c. viii. p. 166.
Geological theories have been abundant and various; but yet our
history of them must be brief. For our object is, as must be borne in
mind, to exhibit these, only so far as they are steps discoverably
tending to the true theory of the earth: and in most of them we do not
trace this character. Or rather, the portions of the labors of geologists
which do merit this praise, belong to the two preceding divisions of
the subject, and have been treated of there.