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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges
+of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'
+
+Author: Francis Bowen
+
+Release Date: February 19, 2008 [EBook #24648]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEORY OF CREATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Greg Bergquist and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+A THEORY OF CREATION.
+
+
+A
+
+REVIEW
+
+OF
+
+"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
+
+CREATION."
+
+
+FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW FOR APRIL, 1845.
+
+
+BOSTON:
+OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY,
+120 WASHINGTON STREET.
+1845.
+
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+METCALF AND COMPANY,
+PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+THEORY OF CREATION.
+
+     _Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation._ New York: Wiley &
+     Putnam. 1845. 12mo. pp. 291.
+
+
+This is one of the most striking and ingenious scientific romances that
+we have ever read. The writer of it is a bold man; he has undertaken to
+give a hypothetical history of creation, beginning, as the title-pages
+say, at the earliest period, and coming down to the present day. It is
+not quite so authentic as that of Moses, nor is it written with such an
+air of simplicity and confidence as the narrative of the Jewish
+historian; but it is much longer, and goes into a far greater variety of
+interesting particulars. It contradicts the Jewish cosmogony in a few
+particulars, and is at variance with probability and the ordinary laws
+of human reasoning in many others. But the rather liberal rules of
+interpretation, which it is now the fashion to apply to the first
+chapter of Genesis, will relieve the reader from any scruples on the
+former account; and as to the latter, in these days of scientific
+quackery, it would be quite too harsh to make any great complaint about
+such peccadilloes. The writer has taken up almost every questionable
+fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients
+or pretenders in science during the present century, except animal
+magnetism; and for this omission we have reason to be thankful. The
+nebular hypothesis, Laplace's or Compte's theory of planets _shelled
+off_ from the sun, spontaneous generation,--some of these vagaries, we
+admit, are of much older date than the year 1800,--the Macleay system,
+dogs playing dominoes, negroes born of white parents, materialism,
+phrenology,--he adopts them all, and makes them play an important part
+in his own magnificent theory, to the exclusion, in a great degree, of
+the well-accredited facts and established doctrines of science.
+
+We speak lightly of the author's plan, as one can hardly fail to do of a
+scheme so magnificent, and going apparently so far beyond the ordinary
+sources of information and the range of the human intellect. But the
+execution of the work is of so high an order, as fairly to challenge
+attention and respect. The writer, who has not chosen to give his name
+to the world, is evidently a man of great ingenuity and correct taste, a
+master of style, a plausible, though not a profound, reasoner, and
+having quite a general, but superficial, acquaintance with the sciences.
+His materials are arranged with admirable method, the illustrations are
+copious and interesting, the transitions are skilfully managed, and the
+several portions of the theory are so well fitted to each other, and
+form such a round and perfect whole, that it seems a pity to subject it
+to severe analysis and searching criticism. It is a very pleasant
+hypothesis, set forth in a most agreeable manner; and though it contains
+many objectionable features, these are cautiously veiled and kept in the
+background, and the reader is seduced into accepting most of the
+conclusions, before he is aware of their true character and tendency.
+
+Before a just opinion can be formed of the correctness of the writer's
+views, it is necessary to take to pieces this skilful fabric, and to
+bring the parts together in a different connection and with greater
+succinctness, following out each doctrine to its inevitable, but most
+remote, conclusions, so as to obtain a just idea of the position in
+which we should be placed by the acceptance of the theory as a whole.
+For obvious reasons, the author has not chosen to give a general summary
+of his views, or to mention explicitly all the inferences that may be
+drawn from them. He merely puts the reader upon the track, indicating
+its general direction, and leaving it for him to find out what objects
+will be encountered by the way, and where the journey will end. We
+propose to finish the work that is thus left incomplete, and to set
+forth the doctrine in its plainest terms. We would reduce the theory at
+once to its narrowest compass and simplest expression; but at the same
+time, would incorporate into it every doctrine which properly belongs to
+it, and follow out each hypothesis to its remote, though necessary,
+inferences and conclusions. To this end, it is requisite to separate, as
+far as possible, the doctrines themselves from the evidence adduced in
+support of them; and to consider the former as a whole, before
+proceeding, to discuss the cogency of the latter. The following may be
+taken as the most concise abstract that we can form of the history of
+the creation, according to this author.
+
+In the beginning--we use this word in a kind of preter-perfect sense--in
+the _very_ beginning of things, immense portions of infinite space were
+filled with finely diffused nebulous matter, heated to an intensity that
+is altogether inconceivable. The particles of this "fire mist," as it is
+appropriately called, were the true _primordia rerum_,--the elements of
+the universe,--the principles of all the forms of inorganic matter and
+all organic things. At the outset, the Creator endowed these particles
+with certain qualities and capacities, and then stood aside from his
+work, as there was nothing farther for him to do. The subsequent
+progress of creation is only the successive _development_, upon
+mechanical and necessary principles, and as fast as proper occasions
+were offered, of these qualities thus made inherent in the primitive
+constitution of matter. The atoms thus marvellously endowed have gone
+on, without any further aid from Almighty power, to form suns, and
+astral systems, and planets with their satellites, and worlds tenanted
+by successive generations and races of vegetable and animal things. And
+this work of creation, or rather of development, is still in progress
+all around us, and in all its various stages, though in the portion most
+directly exposed to the observation of man it is far advanced towards
+perfection. Upon this earth, the unaided action of these atoms is still
+evolving all the phenomena of generation, progress, and decay, of
+vegetable and animal life, of instinct and of mind. In the abyss of
+space, it is also forming new suns, and solar systems, and worlds that
+are to pass through the same stages and wonderful transformations to
+which our own planet has already been subjected. All that has occurred
+with respect to this earth, and the system of which it forms a part, is
+but a type of what is constantly going on in the countless other systems
+of stars that people the firmament.
+
+The first stage in the history of these fiery particles is the formation
+among them, in some unaccountable way, of nuclei, or centres of
+aggregation, like the bright points that are now visible in some of the
+nebulę of the heavens. As soon as these centres are formed, gravity, one
+of the original principles of matter, begins to act, and the atoms in
+all the neighbouring parts of space are attracted towards the nucleus
+and heaped upon it. In this manner, a central sun of vast dimensions is
+formed, which soon assumes a motion of rotation upon its axis from the
+general law which gives a circular movement to all fluids that are drawn
+towards a common centre. The centrifugal force thus generated tends to
+throw off matter from the equatorial regions of the great orb, but is
+restrained by the attraction of gravitation, which would prevent any
+separation of the parts, if the sun itself did not now begin to cool
+down, and consequently to shrink in size. Under this cooling process, a
+crust is formed upon the surface, too rigid to yield to the force of
+gravity, and the parts within, continuing to shrink, separate from this
+envelope; so that there is now a central orb, revolving more rapidly
+from its greater density and smaller diameter, and surrounded by an
+exterior shell, or band, like Saturn's ring, rotating at its original
+speed. As we cannot suppose that the ring would usually be of uniform
+thickness and strength, it eventually breaks up into fragments, the
+larger of which attracts the smaller into itself, and the whole is
+formed by its revolving motion into an oblate spheroid circling round
+the contracted sun in the centre. In this manner, the planet Uranus was
+shelled off from our sun, which originally filled the whole of the vast
+sphere, of which the distance from Uranus to the centre of the present
+sun is but the radius. The planet itself, by the same process of
+cooling, shrinking, and thus forming exterior rings, threw off
+successively all its six satellites; and the sun, also, continuing to
+contract from the loss of heat, formed another ring, and thus
+constituted the planet Saturn. In this way were formed successively all
+the planets and satellites of the present solar system. The original
+diameter of our earth was equal, of course, to the present diameter of
+the moon's orbit. In the case of Saturn, the two rings formed around it
+happened to be of unusual homogeneity and equal thickness, so that they
+were not broken up, but have preserved their primitive shape. A ring was
+formed from the sun in the space between the present orbits of Mars and
+Jupiter; but when it was broken up, the fragments did not congregate
+into one, but spherified separately, so as to form the four smaller
+planets which now revolve in that opening.
+
+     "We have no means of judging of the seniority of systems; but it is
+     reasonable to suppose, that, among the many, some are older than
+     ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability
+     of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human
+     traditions and the geognostic appearances of the surface of our
+     planet. This consists in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused
+     around the sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately
+     spheroidal shape. This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked
+     eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards in the
+     line of the sun's path, and which bears the name of Zodiacal Light,
+     has been thought a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating
+     matter of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the
+     comparative recentness of the principal events of our cosmogony.
+     Supposing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they may be
+     held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might with
+     the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder
+     born of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical and
+     moral, as yet lay undeveloped, while myriads of others were fully
+     fashioned and in complete arrangement. Thus, in the sublime
+     chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we first find
+     ourselves called upon to consider the globe which we inhabit as a
+     child of the sun, elder than Venus and her younger brother Mercury,
+     but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and
+     Uranus; next, to regard our whole system as probably of recent
+     formation in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. We
+     must, however, be on our guard against supposing the earth as a
+     recent globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. From evidence
+     afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it cannot be
+     presumed to be less than many hundreds of centuries old."--pp. 22,
+     23.
+
+Having thus explained the _genesis_ of the solar system, we come down to
+the history of our own earth, since it shelled off the ring which formed
+our moon. Continuing to cool down and shrink, a thin but rigid crust of
+primary rocks, still bearing marks of the intense heat to which they
+have been subjected, was formed upon its surface; and then the vapors,
+with which the atmosphere had been charged, were condensed, and formed
+seas, which covered the whole, or the greater part, of the earth's
+rind. The continual agitation of these waters, and their high
+temperature, as they were still nearly at the boiling point,
+disintegrated and wore down many of these rocks, and, in the lapse of
+ages, deposited their remains, in thick layers of sand and mud, at the
+bottom of the seas. Baked by the heat from beneath, and pressed by the
+weight of superincumbent waters, these layers slowly hardened into
+stratified rocks. Forms of vegetable and animal life, though only of the
+lowest type, the origin of which is to be explained hereafter, now began
+to appear. Some sea-plants, zoöphytes, infusory animalcules, and a few
+of the molluscous tribe, all low down in the order of being, but
+important from their immense numbers and joint action, commenced their
+work of absorbing the carbonic acid with which the air was overcharged,
+and building up vast piers and mounds of stone from their own remains.
+Meanwhile, the internal fires of the earth occasionally broke through
+the rocky crust that imprisoned them, threw up liquid primitive rock
+through the rents, and distorted and tilted up the strata that had been
+formed above.
+
+We may remark, in passing, that the chronology of the events of which we
+now speak is not very accurately determined; the only thing certain
+about it is, that a series of ages, so protracted that the imagination
+cannot conceive their number, elapsed between the successive epochs in
+the history of the earth's crust. Some of the convulsions caused by the
+fiery mass within threw up rock above the surface of the waters, and
+thus the dry land began to appear. Islands were formed, and immediately
+land-plants made their appearance, of excessive luxuriance, under the
+tropical temperature that still prevailed all over the globe, and began
+their office of absorbing carbon, and storing it up for future use.
+Land-animals as yet were not, for the excess of carbonic acid in the
+atmosphere rendered it incapable of supporting animal life. But the
+richness of this island vegetation gradually purified the air; while the
+decaying plants themselves, being accumulated into vast beds and strata,
+and subjected, through the changes of the earth's surface, to the
+pressure of mighty waters, gradually formed immense deposits of coal,
+for the subsequent service of man. Animals of a higher grade were now
+formed; fishes became abundant, and amphibious monsters, huge lizards
+and other reptiles, with an imperfect apparatus of respiration, began to
+breathe an atmosphere not yet fitted for birds and mammifers.
+
+It is not necessary to trace out the comparatively well known facts and
+theories of geological science, that are incorporated into this history.
+It is enough, for the present purpose, to point out a few of the general
+conclusions of the geologist respecting the several great changes that
+the earth's crust has undergone, and the distinct races of vegetables
+and animals which have successively tenanted the earth's surface. These
+changes and these races have borne a constant relation to each other; as
+the scenes shifted, the inhabitants also changed, the latter being
+always adapted to the circumstances in which they were placed. There has
+been a constant progress, the soil and the atmosphere becoming more and
+more fitted for the support of the higher forms of life; and when all
+things were thus made ready for them, these higher forms have appeared,
+and the lower orders of being, which formerly occupied the scene, have
+entirely died out, so that their remains, entombed in the solid rock,
+are now the only indications of their past existence. In the era of the
+primary rocks, as we have seen, there was no organization or life, as
+there was nothing to support it. In the succeeding period, zoöphytes and
+mollusca appeared; these were followed by fishes, and then land rose
+above the surface of the waters. Land-plants and animals came next,
+though of a low type; continually advancing orders of beings, reptiles,
+birds, and mammifers, suited to the improved condition of things,
+successively appeared, until, at the latest epoch, man entered upon the
+scene, the head of animated nature as at present constituted, with
+powers and capacities well adapted for the full enjoyment of the
+augmented riches of the earth. And the end is not yet. "The present
+race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the
+present state of things in the world; but the external world goes
+through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much
+serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type
+of humanity, which shall complete the zoölogical circle on this planet,
+and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present
+race."
+
+The question now occurs, How are we to account for the origin of
+_life_, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? The answer can
+readily be given, if we follow out resolutely to their remotest
+consequences the principles that have already been established. The
+evolution of natural laws, the necessary action of the qualities with
+which atoms were at first endowed, has sufficed to produce this complex
+system of mutually dependent worlds, and all the successive
+transformations of the earth's rind, which have fitted it for the
+support of successive races of organic beings. May not the same causes
+have produced the beings themselves? The one process would seem to be
+not much more elaborate and intricate than the other. If the inherent
+qualities of matter have built up a solar system, they may have created,
+also, the first animalcule, the first fish, the first quadruped, and the
+first man. There has been a marked progress, in either case, from the
+chaotic, the rude, the imperfectly developed, up to the orderly, the
+complex, the matured forms. The first essays, the rude efforts, of
+nature have gradually been perfected. The chaotic world that was first
+shelled off from the sun differed not less widely from the admirably
+furnished planet we now inhabit, than does the zoöphyte, whose remains
+are not split out of the rock, from man, the present head of the animal
+tribe. At any rate, geology informs us, that the causes, whatever they
+may be, which produce life, have been long and frequently in operation.
+They were not exhausted in the first effort; they are probably still at
+work throughout the universe. Not merely successive generations, but
+successive races, both of plants and animals, widely distinguished from
+each other, have, at different periods, tenanted the earth's surface.
+Those of which we possess the fossil remains belong, almost without
+exception, to extinct species. They were crowded out of existence, as it
+were, by the new forms, more perfectly organized, which came to take
+their places in the improving condition of things. This continuous
+agency of the life-producing causes, effecting still higher results by
+each successive effort, seems to point directly to the gradual expansion
+and development of the qualities with which matter was first endowed.
+
+We actually see natural agents now at work around us, producing results
+which counterfeit life, if they do not constitute it. Many substances
+crystallize into shapes bearing a strong resemblance to vegetable forms,
+as in the well known chemical experiment producing the _arbor Dianę_.
+The passage of the electric fluid leaves marks that are like the
+branches and foliage of a tree, and the same fluid exerts a direct
+influence on the germination of plants. Some of the proximate principles
+of vegetable and animal bodies, such as urea and alantoin, are said to
+have been produced artificially by the chemist; and in the combination
+of the simple elements, such as carbon and oxygen, into these proximate
+principles, it is now acknowledged that there is no violation of the
+ordinary laws of chemical affinity. The origin of all vegetable and
+animal life, so far as it can be traced, is in germinal vesicles, or
+little cells containing granules. Such are the ova of all animals; and
+both vegetable and animal tissues are entirely formed from them. When
+the parent cells come to maturity, they burst and liberate the granules,
+which immediately develope themselves into new cells, thus repeating the
+life of their original. Now, it has been asserted, that globules can be
+produced in albumen by electricity; and _if these globules are true
+germinal vesicles_, the difficult problem of producing life by
+artificial means is entirely solved.
+
+But the burden of this part of the theory rests on the evidence that has
+been produced of late years to favor the doctrine of equivocal
+generation, or the production of living beings without the agency,
+either direct or indirect, of parents of the same species. Can such
+beings, _orphans_ in the strictest sense, now be produced or discovered?
+We have not space to repeat our author's argument on this difficult
+mooted question in science, nor is it necessary; he sums up the evidence
+on his own side, and of course finds it satisfactory, though the weight
+of authority is against him. He adduces the experiments of Mr. Crosse,
+repeated by Mr. Weekes, who claim to have produced animalcules in
+considerable numbers, of a species before unknown, by passing a voltaic
+current through silicate of potash, and through nitrate of copper. The
+existence of _entozoa_, or parasitic animals, found in the interior of
+the bodies of other animals, and found nowhere else, is thought to
+support the same doctrine. The question is, How came they there? Being
+too large, either in their perfect form, or in the egg, to have passed
+through the capillary blood-vessels, how came they within the body of
+another animal,--itself but a few weeks or a few days old, or even in
+the embryo stage,--unless they were created there without parentage of
+their own species?
+
+These facts and reasonings, it is true, only go to prove, that
+animalcules, or beings of very small size, and low in the scale of
+animated existence, can be produced in this way by the inherent
+qualities of matter. No one will pretend, that a dog, a horse, or a man
+can thus be created. How can we account for the existence of these
+larger animals of a higher type, admitted to have been denizens of the
+earth only since the latest geological epochs, and therefore of
+comparatively recent origin? Here we come to another point in our
+author's theory,--the transmutation of species, or the successive
+_development_ of higher and higher orders of being out of the species
+immediately below them, through the accidental or natural fulfilment of
+certain conditions, in the course of a long period of years.
+
+Natural history teaches us, that there is quite a regular gradation
+among the several tribes of vegetables and animals; though we may not be
+able to range all the species, as constantly advancing in a single line,
+there is certainly the general appearance of a scale, beginning with the
+most simple, and going on to the most complex forms. While the external
+characteristics are very different, all are but variations of a single
+plan, which exists as the basis of all, and is varied in each individual
+only so as to accommodate it to the conditions under which the
+individual is to live. The germ of a higher animal--a mammifer, for
+instance--is the representative of a lower animal full-grown, like the
+_volvox globator_; the latter remaining in this initial stage, as an
+animalcule, through its whole existence; while the former is developed
+out of it, by successive stages, into a quadruped, or even into a man.
+Similar functions are performed in different animals by very different
+organs, the gills of fishes performing the same office as the lungs of
+the mammalia; and these different organs sometimes exist, at different
+periods, according to the degree of development, in the same animal.
+Thus, the tadpole, so long as it continues to be a fish, breathes by
+gills, which disappear and give place to lungs when it becomes a frog.
+Similar transformations of the insect tribe are familiar to all.
+Imperfect or rudimentary organs are found in certain animals, as the
+mammę of a man; a particular organ being here developed to a certain
+extent, though it is not needed; but being developed a little further,
+it becomes useful in the next set of animals in the scale. The same
+peculiarity is found among plants; the skilful gardener being able
+actually to develope these rudimentary organs by supplying the requisite
+conditions, and thus, as it were, to raise the plant one step in the
+scale.
+
+     "We have yet to advert to the most interesting class of facts
+     connected with the laws of organic development. It is only in
+     recent times that physiologists have observed that each animal
+     passes, in the course of its germinal history, through a series of
+     changes resembling the _permanent forms_ of the various orders of
+     animals inferior to it in the scale. Thus, for instance, an insect,
+     standing at the head of the articulated animals, is, in the larva
+     state, a true annelid, or worm, the annelida being the lowest in
+     the same class. The embryo of a crab resembles the perfect animal
+     of the inferior order myriapoda, and passes through all the forms
+     of transition which characterize the intermediate tribes of
+     crustacea. The frog, for some time after its birth, is a fish with
+     external gills and other organs, fitting it for an aquatic life,
+     all of which are changed as it advances to maturity, and becomes a
+     land animal. The mammifer only passes through still more stages,
+     according to its higher place in the scale. Nor is man himself
+     exempt from this law. His first form is that which is permanent in
+     the animalcule. His organization gradually passes through
+     conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the
+     lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity. At one of
+     the last stages of his foetal career, he exhibits an
+     intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape;
+     this is suppressed, and he may then be said to take leave of the
+     simial type, and become a true human creature. Even, as we shall
+     see, the varieties of his race are represented in the progressive
+     development of an individual of the highest, before we see the
+     adult Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal
+     scale.
+
+     "To come to particular points of the organization. The brain of
+     man, which exceeds that of all other animals in complexity of
+     organization and fulness of development, is, at one early period,
+     only 'a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty
+     distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like
+     prolongation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the first
+     to appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in
+     this state, it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus
+     assuming _in transitu_ the form that in the fish is permanent. In a
+     short time, however, the structure is become more complex, the
+     parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better marked; it is now
+     the brain of a reptile. The change continues; by a singular motion,
+     certain parts (_corpora quadragemina_), which had hitherto appeared
+     on the upper surface, now pass towards the lower; the former is
+     their permanent situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in
+     birds and mammalia. This is another advance in the scale, but more
+     remains yet to be done. The complication of the organ increases;
+     cavities, termed _ventricles_, are formed, which do not exist in
+     fishes, reptiles, or birds; curiously organized parts, such as the
+     corpora striata, are added; it is now the brain of the mammalia.
+     Its last and final change alone seems wanting,--that which shall
+     render it the brain of man.'"--pp. 150-152.
+
+Usually, it is true, each species produces only its like,--"every
+creeping thing and beast of the earth" bringing forth young "_after his
+kind_." But the development of a single animal, under the ordinary law,
+takes place in a few weeks or days; while the development of distinct
+races and species is the work of a whole creation, and is spread over
+countless ages. It is reasonable to suppose, that the latter is effected
+by means of a higher law, manifesting itself only at long intervals. Its
+infrequent manifestation is no argument against the regularity and
+necessity of its occurrence,--against its being a law at all. The comet
+that visits our system only once in five hundred years is controlled by
+the same inflexible principle which causes the return of another comet
+once in five years. The conditions requisite for a development more
+perfect than usual,--that is, for the production of a new
+species,--instead of a new individual of the same species, may be
+fulfilled only at long intervals; but when they are fulfilled, the
+result--the more perfect development--takes place as necessarily, as
+much by the virtue of law, as the more ordinary phenomenon of the
+propagation of one race. These conditions may be answered in the
+successive stages of improvement, through which the earth and its
+atmosphere pass, during the vast periods of time contemplated in
+geology. In the era of the old red sand-stone, for instance, there were
+no higher animals than fishes, because the atmosphere was highly charged
+with carbonic acid, and could not support respiration by lungs. When the
+air became purer, the gills were changed into the imperfect lungs of the
+amphibious tribes, such as the huge saurians and the frogs. Deprive
+these latter animals, in their lower stage, of all access to the light,
+and they will not advance to their higher stage. Put a tadpole into a
+perforated box, and sink it to the bottom of a river, and the animal
+will never be perfected into a frog; he will grow to an enormous size,
+but he will continue a tadpole.
+
+We see, then, the process of an "organic creation by law," or by virtue
+of the inherent qualities of inorganic matter. The ordinary chemical
+affinities of different substances may draw them together into such
+compounds as albumen and fibrin, which are the proximate principles of
+organic tissues. The action of electricity, heat, light, or some other
+mysterious imponderable agent, on these proximate principles, may
+produce globules, or germinal vesicles. These germs, multiplying
+themselves by fissiparous generation, will constitute a stock of animals
+of a low type, such as a tribe of infusory animalcules. Then "this
+simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like
+production is subordinate, gives birth to the type next above it, this
+again produces the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the
+stages of advance being in all cases very small,--namely, from one
+species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a
+simple and modest character." Thus, the first reptile was born from a
+fish, the first bird was generated by a reptile, and the first mammifer
+had birds for its parents. The transformations appear rather astounding,
+as we pass from one class to another; but the difference between the
+species, even, is often so great, that the transition appears hardly
+less difficult. In what quadruped, for instance, do we find the first
+ancestor of the huge and sagacious elephant? What humble lizard gave
+birth to those monsters of the fossil world, the plesiosaurus and
+megalosaurus, thirty or forty feet in length? Man, of course, upon this
+theory, is only a more perfectly developed monkey, or chimpanzee. With a
+nod of approbation to Lord Monboddo's theory, our author observes, that
+man has even the rudiments of "a caudal extremity" in the _os coccygis_.
+
+That the instinct of animals and the mind of man are the results of
+nothing but material organization is an obvious corollary from this
+doctrine. "The difference," says this writer, "between mind in the lower
+animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific
+difference." Mental phenomena, apparently so various and unstable in
+the individual, are reduced at once to regularity, and become subject to
+calculation, if considered in the mass. This shows, that, like the
+phenomena of the weather, they are under the presidency of natural laws.
+The phrenologists are the only persons who have followed the order of
+nature in the study of mind; they have even determined the functions of
+the different parts of the brain. An experiment is mentioned with a
+newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with
+substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion,
+that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the
+absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment
+of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is
+sufficiently well known. To borrow an illustration from Sidney Smith, it
+would seem, that, if we only knew to what organs of the brain to direct
+an electric current, an automaton, or a dead man, might be made to hold
+an argument, "at least as well as most country parsons."
+
+A person who should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the
+writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too
+extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much
+mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is
+one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a
+revival of the old atheistic hypothesis,--the Epicurean doctrine of the
+formation of the universe by a fortuitous concourse of atoms,--with all
+the modifications and improvements that were rendered necessary by the
+discoveries of modern science. We call it an atheistic theory, because,
+though the writer supposes that primitive matter was first endowed _by
+divine power_ with its mysterious qualities and capacities, this
+supposition is gratuitous and arbitrary, and only mars the simplicity of
+the scheme, and injures the consistency and coherence of the parts with
+each other. We can more easily believe that these qualities are
+necessarily inherent in the constitution of matter, forming a part of
+its very essence, just like the properties of impenetrability and
+extension, than that they subsequently developed themselves by forming
+myriads of intricate organizations, without further aid from the divine
+architect. If we can credit the hypothesis, that bricks and mortar came
+together of their own accord, and arranged themselves into the first
+house meet for the habitation of man, we can very readily admit, also,
+that the bricks first assumed the proper shape, and mortar the proper
+tenacity and hardness, without the intervention of human labor and
+skill. If there is no need of a bricklayer, we may discard also the
+brick-maker.
+
+Putting aside, therefore, this gratuitous addition to the theory, we
+come to examine the plausibility of the doctrine which assumes, that
+material atoms, constituted as they now are, are capable, without
+oversight or direction, of forming a universe like our own, and
+producing all the animated tribes which tenant it. In all the atheistic
+reasoning upon this subject, and especially in the work now before us,
+there is a constant confusion between _what may be_, for aught we know
+to the contrary, and _what is_, so far as we are able positively to
+determine it from our present means of observation and experiment;
+between the _possibility_ that is measured only by human ignorance, and
+the _probability_ that is fairly inferred by the legitimate exercise of
+the understanding. Effects have unquestionably been produced, such as
+the formation of a solar system, and the production of new and perfectly
+distinct orders of being, which we are wholly unable to account for by
+the _present and ordinary_ operation of what are called secondary
+causes. If a theorist chooses to assume, that these secondary causes,
+under certain conditions, which we never have seen, and never can see,
+realized, might produce very extraordinary results, might even fully
+account for the wonderful effects in question, we have a right to say,
+in reply, that he is dealing in pure speculation and hypothesis; that,
+having had no experience under the conditions or postulates of his
+theory, he is necessarily _speaking from_ ignorance and _appealing_ to
+ignorance; that, even if we could not point out a single difficulty, a
+single false assumption, in his whole scheme and argument, it would
+still remain a mere hypothesis, alike incapable of proof or disproof;
+and that, at the best, the arguments brought against it must be of
+nearly the same wiredrawn, speculative, and far-fetched character with
+those adduced in its support. On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with
+arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and
+sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which
+such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the
+entire absence of all considerations against their theory constitutes a
+positive argument in its support. No such thing; it affords only a fair
+presumption of the baseless character of the whole fabric.
+
+This may be made more clear by examples. If a child, who has had little
+experience of the laws of nature, and has learned nothing from books, is
+gravely assured by his instructor, that in a distant region of the ocean
+there is an island where stones fly upward instead of downward, and men
+walk on their heads instead of their feet, the young philosopher,
+however acute and ingenious we may suppose him to be, certainly could
+not offer one valid argument against the alleged fact. He could only
+stare, and wonder, and say that it might be so _for all that he knew to
+the contrary_. Just so, when the atheist tells us, that far off in
+infinite space is a region, of which we can see nothing, even with our
+best telescopes, except a faint glimmer of light, floating like a
+cloudlet in the heavens, where the primitive atoms of matter, directed
+by gravity alone, are slowly congregating together, and forming suns,
+and planets, and secondary satellites, and giving birth to such
+intricate harmonies of mutually dependent and revolving worlds as those
+which have prevailed for ages in our own system; or that, thousands of
+years ago, the same unassisted laws of matter, which we now see
+producing only such comparatively meagre and insufficient results,
+actually caused animalcules to be produced from pure sand, and fishes to
+be created out of oysters, and birds to be generated by slimy and
+grovelling reptiles, and men to be born from monkeys;--if he should tell
+us all this, certainly we could offer no direct confutation of the
+wonderful tale. In regard to alleged facts of this character, the wisest
+of men are, and always must be, mere children. But it would be monstrous
+to say, that this wild assertion derived any support from their admitted
+bewilderment and incapacity. This would be to attempt to found knowledge
+upon ignorance. The dim analogies resting on questionable facts, the
+bold assumptions and slippery arguments on which such daring hypotheses
+must be based, can be refuted, for the most part, only by reasoning in
+kind,--by arguments nearly as uncertain, it may be, as those which they
+are brought to answer. We cannot _prove_ a negative; we can only show
+the insufficiency of the ground on which the opposite assumption is made
+to rest; and enough is done for this end, when it is made to appear,
+that the whole scheme is a _mere_ hypothesis.
+
+We make these general remarks only to relieve some readers of this
+volume from the doubt and perplexity which its perusal may have caused,
+solely because they were unable to detect any one glaring fallacy or
+inconsistency in the writer's theory. It appears plausible enough; for,
+though there is very little in its favor, it seems at first sight as if
+there was little or nothing to say against it. On closer scrutiny, it
+will be found, perhaps, that it is disproved by a multitude of
+considerations, any one of which would be fatal to it; as the hypothesis
+is of such a character, that, when a single breach is made in it, the
+whole edifice must tumble. If the intervention of an extraneous cause be
+absolutely necessary at any one stage or process in the creation, it may
+as well be admitted in all; the principle must be given up, and the
+whole purpose of the theist is answered. We shall endeavour to show that
+this hypothetical history of creation is not only faulty in every point,
+when viewed from the author's own ground, but, when examined in the
+proper direction, is absolutely unintelligible, or is in fact no history
+at all.
+
+Let us look first at the nebular hypothesis. Certain spots and tracts in
+the heavens, of a whitish color, appearing to the naked eye to be
+nebulę, on being examined through a telescope, instantly resolve
+themselves into a multitude of distinct and perfectly formed stars. Such
+is the greatest nebula of all,--the galaxy, or milky way. Other spots of
+a like character, if viewed through glasses of moderate power, still
+appear as nebulę; but when seen through more perfect instruments, they
+immediately seem, like the others, to be a mere crowd of stars. Others,
+again, are not separated or resolved by the best telescopes; but what is
+the natural inference from this fact? Surely, we infer that they are
+merely crowded collections of stars, just like the others, except that
+they are too distant or too small to be seen as distinct bodies, even
+with the most powerful instruments that we possess. If telescopes of a
+greater range should hereafter be constructed, there is every reason to
+believe that these also will be resolved to the eye into their component
+parts as stars; and in fact, if newspaper accounts may be credited, when
+Lord Rosse's new and magnificent telescope was first turned towards some
+of these spots, which had always preserved their nebulous appearance
+when examined by inferior instruments, it was immediately apparent, that
+they were composed of distinct stars. Yet the hypothesis we are now
+considering assumes, that these remote and faintly seen nebulę are not
+crowds of stars, but primitive luminous matter, the particles of which
+are slowly congregating together, and forming one new star, or several.
+Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is
+due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory,
+to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by
+no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a
+hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently
+never can be verified. It must ever remain a _mere_ guess, directly
+opposed by an obvious induction from those nebulę which are resolvable
+into perfect stars.
+
+The fact, that one or two bright points, assumed to be centres of
+aggregation, are seen in some of these nebulę, is of no importance. If a
+bright star be seen from this earth in the same line of vision with the
+nebula, it will be projected on the ground of that nebula, and will
+appear as a part of it, though it may be many millions of miles on this
+side, and have no more connection with it than the planet Jupiter would
+have, if it should happen to be in conjunction with the nebula, and thus
+appear for a short time to be projected upon its disc.
+
+There is one consideration of some weight, though we have never seen it
+adverted to, which tends directly to confute the nebular hypothesis.
+That faint radiance called the zodiacal light, which is seen to stream
+up in the form of a cone from our sun, is assumed by our author to be a
+residuum of the nebulous matter belonging to our system, which has not
+yet been drawn into the sun, though it is on its way thither. Others
+have supposed, with far more probability, that it is the sun's
+atmosphere, and therefore its present shape and size will never
+change,--as they never have changed, during the period in which they
+have been observed by man. But no matter; we are now reasoning upon our
+author's hypothesis. If the zodiacal light be composed of primitive
+nebulous matter, it must now be comparatively thick and dense, since the
+process of aggregation has been going on for countless ages, and, in our
+system, is considered as nearly completed; just as when a sediment is
+forming in a tumbler full of turbid water, after the upper portion of
+the fluid has become entirely clear, there will be a stratum of water
+next to the sediment more turbid than the whole was before the
+deposition began. Yet this light is very faint, when seen only from the
+distance of our earth; and at the boundaries of our system, from the
+orbit of Uranus, for instance, we cannot believe that it is visible at
+all. Is it likely, then, that a portion of this nebulous matter, in
+which the process of deposition has hardly begun, and which is seen from
+a distance so vast, that in comparison with it the whole diameter of our
+solar system is but a point, would be visible from this earth? In the
+case of the other nebulę, a multitude of perfectly formed suns, uniting
+their respective beams, are seen only as a faint, whitish speck on the
+blue arch. And yet we are required to believe, that the luminous matter
+which will ultimately form but one sun, or perhaps two, while still
+thinly diffused over an immense tract of space, the process of
+aggregation having hardly commenced, is yet visible to our eyes at this
+vast distance.
+
+            "Credat Judęus Apella;
+    Non ego."
+
+We pass to the next chapter in the history, which professes to explain
+the gradual formation of a solar system by a process of cooling and
+shrinking, to which the central orb is exposed. And here we are met by a
+difficulty at the outset; for the existence of comets with their very
+eccentric orbits is wholly irreconcilable with the theory. At their
+perihelion, many of these bodies pass within the orbit of Mercury, while
+the aphelion of some lies without the path of Uranus. Where were they,
+when the body of the sun filled up the whole of the vast sphere
+circumscribed by the orbit of the remotest planet? If we suppose that
+they are late comers, after the rest of our system was perfected,--that
+they were generated by themselves in distant regions of space, and,
+having strayed about, orphan-like, for a while, they accidentally
+crossed our track, and were taken as adopted children into our family,
+another question remains to be answered. Why did they not remain in
+their first position, absorb their full share of nebulous matter, beget
+a respectable family of planets, and take rank as chiefs of their own
+clan? These comparatively anomalous bodies are great stumbling-blocks
+for the _soi-disant_ historians of creation.
+
+Again, if an immense orb be formed, the parts of which cohere strongly
+enough for the whole to turn upon its axis as one body, the process of
+cooling can go on only from the surface. A crust may finally be formed
+there; but we see not how the refrigeration and shrinking of the
+interior parts can then go on separately, until the mass in the centre
+finally becomes detached from its envelope, like a shrivelled nut from
+its shell. Our earth is cooling down at this moment, unless the warmth
+which it receives from the sun exactly counterbalances the loss by
+radiation of internal heat. But the exterior and interior do not cool by
+different radiations, nor is there, so far as we know, the least
+tendency in the central mass to shrink separately, so as to detach
+itself from the surrounding crust. As deep as we can penetrate towards
+the centre, we find the heat regularly increase,--just as we might
+expect, if the only absolute loss of heat be from the surface.
+
+If the matter now concentrated in the sun, and that which forms the
+several planets with their secondaries, were all moulded into one mass,
+and then dilated so as to fill the vast sphere of which the orbit of
+Uranus forms a circumference, the substance would evidently be in a
+state of extreme tenuity and diffusion. Immense as the mass of the sun
+now is, it is but a mere nut at the centre of the grand globe which we
+are now considering. Expanded to such vast dimensions, we cannot
+conceive of it as a solid spheroid turning upon its axis, but only as a
+mass of fluid or vapor, in which a circular motion would generate only
+vortices or whirlwinds. In such an aggregation of subtile matter, no
+crust could be solidified on the outer ring, and then detached from the
+mass within; indeed, any separation of the parts under such
+circumstances is inconceivable. Even a rotary motion could not be
+established in it, except by an impulse received from without; for there
+is every reason to believe, that the movement of a homogeneous fluid
+towards its centre, if it could take place without disturbing causes,
+would be in radial lines, and not in a spiral.
+
+Our author brings into view all the mathematical proportions and uniform
+relations which exist between the constituent bodies of the solar
+system, in order to indicate the probability of their formation from the
+constant working of one material cause. Thus he remarks, that the
+primary planets all move nearly in one plane, and "show a progressive
+increase of bulk and diminution of density, from the one nearest to the
+sun to that which is most distant." But he passes over other
+characteristics of these bodies, equally important, which are quite
+irregular, and cannot be traced to the operation of one law. Compare the
+periods of rotation on their respective axes, and we find no
+correspondence, no indication that the revolving motion was imparted to
+all by one inflexible law. The first four planets, counting from the
+sun, perform their rotation in nearly the same time, namely, twenty-four
+hours. But Jupiter's period is a little less, and Saturn's a little
+more, than ten hours. Again, Jupiter's axis of rotation is nearly
+perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, while that of Mars is
+inclined at an angle of fifty-nine degrees forty-two minutes. Another
+irregularity, still more fatal to the theory, is found in the number of
+satellites by which the respective planets are attended. Saturn has
+seven, beside the two rings; Jupiter has four, Mars has none, and the
+earth has but one. On the single hypothesis, that our system was formed
+by rings successively thrown off from a central body by a process of
+refrigeration and contraction, these irregularities are inexplicable.
+Mars, it seems, did not shrink at all, while Jupiter cast off four
+separate rings, and the earth produced its single moon. The distances of
+these bodies from their primaries are also quite irregular; in the case
+of Jupiter, the outermost of the satellites revolves at a distance which
+is only twenty-seven times the radius of the primary, and the innermost
+is distant but six times that radius. This planet, consequently, has
+shrunk to one twenty-seventh part of its original diameter, and in so
+doing, has formed four moons; the earth has shrunk to one sixtieth part
+of its first diameter, and still has produced but one satellite. If the
+same law had prevailed in the two cases, we ought to have nine or ten
+moons.
+
+We need not analyze with any great minuteness the geological facts and
+hypotheses incorporated into this magnificent history of creation. As
+will be seen hereafter, the violent and sweeping transformations and
+convulsions that the earth's crust has undergone directly conflict with
+our author's theory, and afford the strongest presumption, that an
+extraneous cause has frequently interfered, at different periods, to
+repair the desolation produced by the unassisted working of natural
+laws, to bring order out of chaos, and to people the desert earth anew
+with animated tribes. The only general fact of much moment, which our
+author has drawn from the discoveries of geologists, for the
+confirmation of his own hypothesis, is, according to his own account,
+one of the most questionable doctrines in the whole science,--one of a
+negative character, on which we can never rely with full assurance, till
+the researches of man have probed every fold, and examined every thread
+in the texture, of the earth's garment, and thus shown that no evidence
+can possibly be discovered to the contrary. The alleged fact is that, in
+the early formations of rock--the first pages in the history of the
+earth's surface--are found the remains of animals and vegetables only of
+the lowest type and most imperfect development; while, in the later
+strata, forms more and more advanced are discovered; so that there seems
+to have been a constant progress along the line leading to the higher
+forms of organization. The testimony which goes to support this
+assertion is wholly negative. The geologist reasons thus: The more
+perfect organisms have not been discovered in the earlier strata;
+_therefore_, they do not exist in them. When, in a different connection,
+it suits our author's purpose to throw doubt on the very postulate which
+is here admitted, he holds the following language.
+
+     "These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the birds than
+     we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be
+     remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any
+     class of animals from a certain period of the earth's history, can
+     never be considered as more than negative. Animals, of which we
+     find no remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless, have
+     lived at the time, and it may have only been from unfavorable
+     circumstances that their remains have not been preserved for our
+     inspection. The single circumstance of their being little liable to
+     be carried down into seas might be the cause of their
+     non-appearance in our quarries."--p. 95.
+
+In truth, the researches of geologists are every day bringing to light
+new facts, which compel them to modify or abandon many of the positions
+they formerly held; so that a considerable portion of the science is a
+mere quicksand of shifting theories. We need only allude to the various
+suppositions respecting the origin of drift, and to the numerous
+modifications of the glacial theory. Important discoveries have been
+made within a short time, showing that certain animal tribes had their
+origin much farther back than was at first supposed. A few years ago,
+reptiles were believed to be the highest type of life that existed
+during the era of the new red sand-stone. But Professor Hitchcock's
+recent discovery in this stone of the footprints of gigantic birds has
+added a higher class to the zoölogy of the period; and within a few
+months, in the same red sand-stone of the Connecticut valley, tracks of
+two or three species of quadrupeds have been found, some of them being
+probably mammifers of a lower grade. It is true, no fossil remains of
+these animals have been brought to light; but this want only renders the
+discovery more significant for our present purpose. It shows that
+certain animals must have lived at the period in question, though their
+remains have not yet been found; and from the greater age of the rocks
+then formed, and the consequent greater number of convulsions of the
+earth's surface to which they have been subjected, these remains may
+have entirely disappeared. It is a curious fact, also, that the animal
+remains of that period, which have come down to us, belong to genera so
+constituted, that their bodies might well survive, if we may so speak,
+the shocks which would have destroyed every trace of some more delicate,
+or more finely organized, beings. We find remains of the flint-shielded
+animalcules, the hard-shelled mollusca, and the cartilaginous fishes;
+but the bodies of mammalia, birds, and even the higher species of
+fishes, some of which we may suppose to have been more tender and
+corruptible, have utterly perished. Here and there, an individual of
+their number left the print of its foot on the sand, which subsequently
+hardened into rock, and brought down to our times a faint vestige of its
+past existence.
+
+We are not attempting to impugn the credit of geological science in
+general, which would be a wholly futile task. The multitude of facts
+respecting the present constitution of the earth's crust, recently made
+known by laborers in this department, are among the most curious and
+most pregnant discoveries of modern times. But when we come to the
+formation of theories respecting the past history of the earth, in order
+to account for the phenomena at present visible on its surface, we are
+evidently afloat on a sea of conjecture, each hypothesis being valid
+only till a more plausible one is proposed,--which happens very
+frequently,--or till it is effectually disproved by some new discovery
+in the rocky strata. A fertile imagination and a bold face are among the
+most striking traits of our more daring geologists. Grant to one of this
+character a few modest postulates,--give him certain millions of years,
+a sufficient number of earthquakes, a whole battery of volcanoes, a few
+ocean deluges, and the rise and fall of half a dozen continents,--and he
+will frame a theory off-hand, which will account for the most perplexing
+phenomena. Our author is certainly entitled to take his place at the
+very head of this class of speculatists.
+
+In accounting for the work of creation by the natural and unassisted
+development of the inherent qualities of brute matter, the great
+difficulty is found at the first link in the chain of animated being.
+How can we explain the commencement of _life_? We must have a clear idea
+of the whole scope of this problem, before we can make any attempt at
+its solution. Life, then, is _not_ mere organization, though most
+materialists, philosophers, like our author, willingly confound the two
+things; to hear them reason, one would almost suppose that there was no
+difference between a dead man and a living one. Organization is
+subservient to life, ministers to it, manifests it,--supports it, if you
+please,--but does not constitute it. He must be a bolder man than we
+are, who will undertake to say _what it is_; but we can very safely
+declare _what it is not_; and in any particular form or aggregation of
+matter, whether organic or inorganic, we can give a shrewd guess as to
+its presence or absence. It may be said, that we beg the question by
+assuming that organization is not life; it may be so; but it is quite
+too much to allow the materialist quietly to take the opposite doctrine
+for granted. He must know the full extent of his task,--that it is
+necessary for him not only to construct the machine, but actually to set
+it in motion, so that it shall afterwards run on of its own accord. It
+is very easy to frame a partial definition of life, by merely describing
+one or two of its characteristic functions; and then, because some
+action can be detected between the particles of brute matter, which
+resembles the exercise of these functions, boldly to declare that the
+whole mystery is solved. Thus it is said, that life is nothing but the
+accretion of similar substances, or the addition of like unto like; and
+as this occurs in crystallization, which is confessedly a phenomenon of
+inorganic matter, therefore there is no fundamental difference between
+the properties of living and dead substances. We deny the first
+proposition; nutrition is not the only characteristic of life, and the
+nutritive process, whether in vegetables or animals, is not mere
+accretion, but assimilation. It has been said, though the assertion is
+by no means fully proved, that assimilation is only a finer kind of
+chemistry, the constituent principles being brought together only by
+their natural affinities. Even if this were true, if the stomach and the
+digestive apparatus were only a well furnished chemical laboratory, fit
+for conducting the most delicate experiments, the great difficulty would
+still remain. The question might yet be asked, Where is the chemist? And
+this is the fundamental question, which the materialists never attempt
+to answer, but quietly evade.
+
+The difference between an inorganic and an organic body has been
+explained by Coleridge clearly enough for our purpose. In the former,--a
+sheaf of corn, for instance,--the whole is nothing more than a
+collection of the individual parts; in the latter,--an animal,--the
+whole is the effect of, or results from, the parts. In the latter case,
+the whole is every thing, and the parts are comparatively nothing. One
+of the great effects of life is to keep the parts in subjection to the
+whole, making them contribute to its support and growth, and thus
+maintaining the unity of the system. The stomach digests, the lungs
+inhale air, the heart beats, and the blood circulates; and as the joint
+effect, or as the common supporter,--it matters not which,--of these
+operations, _life_ continues, and the animated being is a unit; it has
+not merely virtual, but essential unity. The reciprocal action of the
+respiratory, circulating, and nervous systems is absolutely necessary to
+life. The animal dies, and this unity, this subservience of the parts to
+the whole, immediately ceases. In the functions of the living body, it
+may be that the ordinary laws of chemistry are preserved, and that the
+elements of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen combine and separate according
+to their ordinary affinities, and in no unusual proportions. But after
+death, at any rate, quite a different set of chemical laws come into
+play, and produce a result which is the very opposite of that before
+effected. There is no longer any unanimity or coöperation; instead of
+sustaining or building up the animal tissues, the affinities now in
+operation tear down, destroy, and resolve them into their ultimate
+elements,--each part following out its own law of destruction or
+resolution, irrespectively of the others.
+
+     "There is in living organic matter a principle constantly in
+     action, the operations of which are in accordance with a rational
+     plan, so that the individual parts which it creates in the body are
+     adapted to the design of the whole; and this it is which
+     distinguishes organism. Kant says, 'The cause of the particular
+     mode of existence of each part of a living body resides in the
+     whole, while in dead masses each part contains this cause within
+     itself.' This explains why a mere part separated from an organized
+     whole generally does not continue to live; why, in fact, an
+     organized body appears to be one and indivisible. And since the
+     different parts of an organized body are heterogeneous members of
+     one whole, and essential to its perfect state, the trunk cannot
+     live after the loss of one of these parts."--_Müller's Physiology_,
+     Vol. I., p. 19.
+
+The apparent exceptions to this statement--as in the case of the
+polypes, which multiply by fissiparous generation, or by spontaneous
+division of their bodies into parts, each part becoming a perfect
+animal--are only apparent. These creatures, which are low down in the
+scale of being, exemplify what Mr. Owen calls "the law of vegetative or
+irrelative repetition," as they have many organs performing the same
+function, and not related to each other by combination for the
+performance of a higher function. Thus, a Polygastrian has many
+assimilative sacs, each performing the office of a stomach irrespective
+of the rest. In the insect tribe, the respiratory function, instead of
+being performed by one set of lungs for the whole body, is carried on
+through a series of minute and highly ramified tubes, which traverse
+every part of the body, and open to the air by a great number of
+orifices. In some instances, both respiration and digestion seem to take
+place over the whole surface of the body; for Trembley found at least
+one case, in which the animal digested its food equally well, after it
+had been turned inside out. A number of similar parts being repeated in
+each segment of the individual, the body can be divided, and the several
+portions, each still containing some of all the organs essential to the
+whole, will continue to live separately. The severed parts will even
+continue to grow, and to develope other organs convenient for individual
+existence. But most animals, especially the more perfect, do not
+constitute an aggregate of similar parts united by one trunk, and
+therefore propagation by division is in them impossible. The ovum, when
+separated from the parent, is an entire animal only _potentially_;
+during its development, the essential parts which constitute the
+_actual_ whole are produced. In the case of the polyps, we have only to
+suppose that the ovum remains connected with the parent being, till all,
+or nearly all, its essential parts are produced. It is then shed not as
+a mere ovum, but as an animal nearly or wholly complete.
+
+Now, all the instances adduced by our author, to show similarity of
+action in the organic and the inorganic world, are irrelevant. The
+analogies are not merely imperfect; they are no analogies at all.
+Crystals increase by the aggregation of new particles on the external
+surfaces of the parts already formed; there is no consentaneous
+operation of the parts on the whole. The molecules of crystals are
+homogeneous throughout, and the several aggregates of these molecules
+are independent of each other; while organized bodies are composed of
+parts perfectly dissimilar from each other, but all of which conspire to
+one end. "The growth of organized bodies," says Müller, "takes place in
+all particles of their substance at the same time, while the increase of
+the mass in inorganic bodies is produced by external apposition."
+Frostwork on the windows may resemble vegetable _forms_; but it has no
+resemblance whatever to vegetable _life_. Electricity may counterfeit
+the _action of life_, for a moment, on a particular limb, by causing the
+muscles to twitch; but it does not counterfeit _life itself_, by causing
+all the parts again to contribute to the sustentation of the whole. A
+French chemist, by electric action, may have produced _globules_ in
+albumen; there is nothing very wonderful in that; any one may blow
+bubbles in a viscid fluid. The resemblance between these globules and
+proper germinal vesicles amounts to nothing more than similarity of
+outward shape; there is no more real resemblance between them than
+between the oval lump of chalk which farmers sometimes put into a hen's
+nest, in order to deceive poor Dame Partlet, and the real egg which the
+hen deposits by the side of it. Certainly, the imponderable agents,
+heat, light, and electricity, are in some mysterious way _connected
+with_ life, so as to contribute to its support; there is nothing more in
+this assertion than in the familiar proposition, that a seed will
+germinate only under the proper conditions of soil and climate; but
+that these agents, acting on inorganic matter, ever _create_ or
+_commence_ life is a pure hypothesis, not supported even by the shadow
+of a fact.
+
+Having thus shown how weak are the general considerations in favor of
+the theory, that animated beings may be created out of inorganic matter
+by mere natural laws, we should proceed to consider the direct evidence
+adduced to prove that life has actually been produced in this way. Here
+the whole question is opened respecting the alleged instances of
+equivocal generation, and we have neither space nor ability to discuss
+them at length. Those who are curious respecting the question may find a
+brief summary of the evidence on both sides in a former number of this
+Journal.[1] We can mention only a few facts and arguments, which show
+the extreme improbability of the doctrine supported by our author and a
+few other theorists.
+
+In the first place, it is remarkable, that all the races of animated
+beings, which are entirely within the range of our powers of
+observation,--which have such a size and locality that we can study and
+accurately determine their organization and habits,--are unquestionably
+produced from parents of their own kind. Only the minute microscopic
+animals are now supposed to be generated spontaneously; and this alleged
+fact rests not on direct proof, but only on our inability in certain
+cases to trace the process of their production in the ordinary way. As
+many of these animals, in their perfect state, are not more than the
+twelve thousandth part of an inch in diameter, it is not much to be
+wondered at, that we should not be able in all cases to discover their
+ova, or to follow these ova through all their stages of development into
+the complete being. It is farther remarkable, that these animalcules,
+when once produced, whether by spontaneous or natural generation, are
+all found to be provided with the organs or requisite means for
+continuing their species, and, in fact, for multiplying their number
+from themselves with astonishing rapidity. As they certainly have
+children, it seems reasonable to suppose, according to the analogy of
+all the higher animated tribes, that they also had parents. The ancients
+supposed, that the worms and insects which appear in decaying organic
+matter were generated there by the decomposition of the substance,
+without the previous agency of individuals of the same stock. Every
+schoolboy is acquainted with Virgil's mode of obtaining a new swarm of
+bees from the decaying carcass of a heifer. Subsequent researches, made
+with more care, and perhaps with better instruments of observation, have
+entirely disproved the hypothesis, and show that the maggots were
+produced in every case from eggs deposited by flies or other insects,
+and were afterwards themselves developed into the state of perfect
+insects. Then it seems reasonable to believe, that the improved
+observations of future times will clear up the only remaining
+difficulty, and show how the infusory animalcules also are generated
+from beings of their own kind.
+
+These minute creatures are prolific to a degree that transcends all
+calculation; and they exist, either in the egg or maturely developed, in
+inconceivable numbers. A single wheel-animalcule, _Hydatina senta_,
+which was watched for more than eighteen days, and which lives still
+longer, is capable of a fourfold increase in twenty-four or thirty
+hours; a rate of propagation which would afford in ten days a million of
+beings. From their tenacity of life, extraordinary powers of
+reproduction, and incalculable numbers, their united influence may be
+said to be far more important, in all the great operations of nature,
+than that of the larger and more perfectly developed organisms. They
+swarm in all the seas, and play an important part in choking up harbours
+and forming great deposits at the mouths of rivers. The remains of those
+which have perished form great beds and strata in the crust of the
+earth. The silicious stone, called Tripoli, is entirely composed of such
+remains; at Bilin, in Bohemia, there is one stratum of this substance,
+fourteen feet thick, one cubic inch of which is estimated to contain
+forty-one thousand millions of individuals. Their extreme tenacity of
+life is evinced by the fact, that many of them may be entirely
+desiccated, and preserved in pure sand for several years, after which,
+on the application of a drop of water, they may be restored to life. In
+this dried state, M. Doyčre exposed some of them to a heat equal to that
+of boiling water, and afterwards revived them; though, in an active
+state, if subjected to a much lower temperature, they perish. If, then,
+the fully developed and mature can resist such powerful extraneous
+causes of destruction, how much more must the ova possess the power of
+enduring them without losing their latent life! The following extract
+from Professor Owen's Lectures shows the bearing of these facts upon the
+question of equivocal generation.
+
+     "The act of oviparous generation, that sending forth of countless
+     ova through the fatal laceration or dissolution of the parent's
+     body, is most commonly observed in the well-fed _Polygastria_,
+     which crowd together as their little ocean evaporates; and thus
+     each leaves, by the last act of its life, the means of perpetuating
+     and diffusing its species by thousands of fertile germs. When the
+     once thickly tenanted pool is dried up, and its bottom converted
+     into a layer of dust, these inconceivably minute and light ova will
+     be raised with the dust by the first puff of wind, diffused through
+     the atmosphere, and may there remain long suspended; forming,
+     perhaps, their share of the particles which we see flickering in
+     the sunbeam, ready to fall into any collection of water, beaten
+     down by every summer shower into the streams or pools which receive
+     or may be formed by such showers, and, by virtue of their tenacity
+     of life, ready to develope themselves wherever they may find the
+     requisite conditions for their existence.
+
+     "The possibility, or, rather, the high probability, that such is
+     the design of the oviparous generation of the _Infusoria_, and such
+     the common mode of the diffusion of their ova, renders the
+     hypothesis of equivocal generation, which has been so frequently
+     invoked to explain their origin in new-formed natural or artificial
+     infusions, quite gratuitous. If organs of generation might, at
+     first sight, seem superfluous in creatures propagating their kind
+     by gemmation and spontaneous fission, equivocal generation is
+     surely still less required to explain the origin of beings so
+     richly provided with the ordinary and recognized modes of
+     propagation."--pp. 31, 32.
+
+Recent accounts show, that the dust collected from the atmosphere at
+sea, many miles from land, generally contains some of these dried
+animalcules and their ova. Many of these germs can be developed only in
+particular localities, or under certain conditions which are rarely
+fulfilled. Consequently, if there were but few of them, the species
+might perish, because those few might not find their appropriate home.
+But such an accident is guarded against by the vast multiplication of
+these germs and their wide dispersion; for, unlike all the higher tribes
+of beings except man, the same species is often found in all regions of
+the globe. Very few, in comparison with the whole number, may find a
+proper _nidus_; but these few then propagate with such marvellous
+rapidity, as fully to replenish, if not to increase, the original stock.
+Thus they have been enabled, as species, to survive even those
+destroying causes which exterminated all the higher forms of animals.
+Several species still exist, which were in being at the time of the
+cretaceous formation, though all the other animated races belonging to
+that period have perished. "These animalcules," says Ehrenberg,
+"constitute a chain, which, though in the individual it be microscopic,
+yet in the mass is a mighty one, connecting the organic life of distant
+ages of the earth."
+
+In view of facts like these, we may surely say, that the existence of
+the infusory animalcules, and even of the entozoa, is conceivable,
+supposing they could only have been produced by parents of their own
+kind, and without having recourse to the anomalous and hypothetical
+doctrine of equivocal generation. We may not be able to trace their line
+of parentage, for our imperfect vision cannot follow the motes which
+play in the sunbeam, nor track them from their birth-place to their
+final home. But we know that they must be deposited in every layer of
+dust that falls from the atmosphere, that they must be inhaled with
+every breath which an animal draws, and be swallowed with every morsel
+and drop of its food. The experiments which seem to prove that living
+beings may be produced from pure inorganic matter are all explicable on
+the supposition, that adequate precautions were not taken to exclude
+every animal and germ capable of development from the substances
+experimented upon, and from the air which was admitted into the
+apparatus. On this ground, the experiments of Crosse and Weekes, cited
+by our author, have been quite generally rejected by scientific men, as
+hardly deserving of notice. We learn that the former was "discouraged by
+the reception of his experiments," and "soon discontinued them";--with
+good reason, for it does not appear from our author's account, that he
+adopted any precautions at all. Mr. Weekes seems to have been a little
+more cautious, and the consequence was, that he did not observe any
+appearance of life among the substances experimented upon for "eleven
+months," at the end of which time we may reasonably suppose, that his
+precautions ceased to have perfect effect. The only experiment, in which
+adequate means to guard against causes of error were taken, was that of
+Professor Schulze, of Berlin, which had a contrary result. We extract
+Mr. Owen's account of it.
+
+     "He filled a glass flask half full of distilled water, in which
+     were various animal and vegetable substances: he then closed it
+     with a good cork, through which were passed two glass tubes, bent
+     at right angles, the whole being air-tight: it was next placed in a
+     sand bath, and heated until the water boiled violently. While the
+     watery vapor was escaping by the glass tubes, the Professor
+     fastened at each end an apparatus which chemists employ for
+     collecting carbonic acid: that at the one end was filled with
+     concentrated sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of
+     potash. By means of the boiling heat, it is to be presumed that
+     every thing living, and all germs in the flask or in the tubes were
+     destroyed; whilst all access was cut off by the sulphuric acid on
+     the one side, and by the potash on the other. The apparatus was
+     then exposed to the influence of summer light and heat; at the same
+     time, there was placed near it an open vessel, with the same
+     substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after
+     having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order to renew
+     constantly the air within the flask, the experimenter sucked with
+     his mouth several times a day the open end of the apparatus, filled
+     with the solution of potash, by which process the air entered his
+     mouth from the flask through the caustic liquid, and the
+     atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the
+     sulphuric acid. The air was of course not at all altered in its
+     composition by passing through the sulphuric acid in the flask; but
+     all the portions of living matter, or of matter capable of becoming
+     animated, were taken up by the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From
+     the 28th of May until the beginning of August, Professor Schulze
+     continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the air in the flask,
+     without being able, by the aid of the microscope, to discover any
+     living animal or vegetable substance; although, during the whole of
+     the time, observations were made almost daily on the edge of the
+     liquid; and when, at last, the Professor separated the different
+     parts of the apparatus, he could not find in the whole liquid the
+     slightest trace of _Infusoria_ or _Confervę_, or of mould; but all
+     three presented themselves in great abundance a few days after he
+     had left the flask standing open. The vessel which he placed near
+     the apparatus contained on the following day _Vibriones_ and
+     _Monads_, to which were soon added larger Polygastric _Infusoria_,
+     and afterwards _Rotifera_."--pp. 32, 33.
+
+For readers who are not familiar with these subjects, it may be well to
+mention, that the weight of authority is decidedly against this doctrine
+of spontaneous generation. It is rejected by Müller, who ranks among
+the first physiologists of Germany; by Ehrenberg, one of the most
+distinguished microscopists in the world; and by Owen, who stands at the
+head of the school of comparative anatomy in England, if not in Europe.
+The remark made by Cuvier, more than thirty years ago, is still true at
+the present day, that, "although the impossibility of spontaneous
+generation cannot be absolutely demonstrated, yet all the efforts of
+those physiologists who believe in the possibility of it have not
+succeeded in showing us a single instance."
+
+Passing over, then, our author's theory of the origination of life from
+inorganic matter as utterly untenable, we come to the next point in his
+system,--the most chimerical of all,--the gradual development of the
+higher orders of being out of those next beneath them in the scale. It
+is not pretended, that there is _any known instance_ of the
+transmutation of species, or of the evolution, in the ordinary way, of
+any being specifically different from its parents. The same animal,
+indeed, may pass through different grades of development; but these
+changes affect only the individual, not the race. The progeny of this
+animal must begin at the same point where its parent did, and run
+precisely the same cycle. The tadpole becomes a frog, but the young of
+that frog are tadpoles; the worm becomes a winged insect, but the eggs
+of that insect are hatched into nothing but worms. These changes in the
+life of the individual, like the successive periods of the embryotic
+state, of infancy, and manhood in the human being, are perfectly
+consistent with persistence of type in the race, and do not indicate
+even the possibility that a new species may be developed out of an old
+one. On the contrary, the germ must be considered as _potentially_
+equivalent to the whole future being, for it is invariably developed
+into that being. If there be any one fact unquestionably established by
+observation, it is that each species invariably produces its like. "All
+the phenomena," says Müller, "at present observed in the animal kingdom,
+seem to prove that the species were originally created distinct, and
+independent of each other. There is no remote possibility of one species
+being produced from another."
+
+The doctrine of our author, then, is confessedly a pure hypothesis, and,
+as such, it might be summarily dismissed into the region of cloud-land
+and dreams, where it had its origin. The burden of proof is upon him,
+and as he has failed to produce a single instance in which his theory is
+exemplified, he may be rightfully debarred the privilege of discussion.
+But waiving this point, if we look into the grounds of his conjecture,
+we find bold assumptions more than once substituted for the plain
+statement of facts, which would destroy every shade of credibility in
+his doctrine. True, there is an appearance, both in the animal and
+vegetable kingdoms, of an ascending scale of being, from simply
+organized forms and imperfect developments up to the complex
+arrangements and nice adaptations of the advanced tribes. But the
+progress is not regular, nor are the intervals of constant length. The
+line is often broken and doubled, and, in fact, the individuals are far
+more naturally arranged in a number of parallel lines, beginning
+successively at a somewhat lower point, than in a single series. Man, of
+course, is placed at the head of the animal tribes; but the interval
+which separates him from the chimpanzee cannot easily be cleared at one
+bound. He forms but one genus, and that genus is the only one of its
+order. But even if the line of gradation were single and perfect, the
+fact would be of no service to the hypothesis we are now considering;
+for the interval between two species most nearly allied to each other
+seems to be quite as impassable as the broadest gulf of separation.
+
+The point chiefly relied upon to show the credibility of this doctrine
+is the fact, according to our author, that the higher animals pass
+through a series of changes resembling the permanent forms of the lower
+tribes. The first form of man himself "is that which is permanent in the
+animalcule"; and thence he comes to resemble successively a fish, a
+reptile, a bird, and the lower mammifers, before he attains his specific
+maturity. It is held, then, that a premature birth from an animal of a
+higher kind might have instituted a new race of a lower type; and that a
+birth unusually delayed, permitting an embryo to be still farther
+advanced in the line of organization, might have created a new species
+of a higher order than the parent. Here, every thing depends on the
+_absolute identity_ of the germs of all animals, in the lower stages of
+their growth. General resemblances and analogies are of no weight
+whatever; the essential internal organization of the ova of different
+species must be the same; otherwise, however ripened into a mature
+being, whether the birth be advanced or postponed, the individual must
+still belong to its parents' species, of which it possesses the
+distinctive peculiarity. Now, this point of _the identity of germs is a
+mere assumption_; not only is it destitute of proof,--the whole evidence
+is against it. There is a degree of outward resemblance, but there is no
+sameness. When we trace the origin of life back to the remotest point to
+which our powers of observation extend, when we come to microscopic
+vesicles that can be discerned only by the highest magnifiers, general
+similarity of outward shape is all that can be predicated of them. The
+specific differences lie below this general resemblance of outward form;
+we cannot discern them, but we _know_ that they must exist, and that
+they are _essential_ differences, for each one of these vesicles is
+invariably developed, if at all, into an individual of the species to
+which its parent belongs. The germinal vesicles of a tree and a
+quadruped are somewhat alike, outwardly; so, to the hen's eyes, there is
+no difference between her own eggs and the duck's eggs which the
+farmer's wife has put into her nest. But when she has hatched her brood,
+part of them are found to be web-footed, and these, to her great
+astonishment and distress, immediately take to the water. Our author
+commits the same blunder as the poor hen. This want of consciousness
+that he has got to the end of his tether, this inability to believe that
+any difference can exist where he is not able to see it, though it is
+invariably indicated by future consequent differences of the most
+striking nature, is perfectly characteristic of the rash theorist in
+science.
+
+The assertion, that man's "first form _is_ that which is permanent in
+the animalcule,"--even if we do not look to the potentiality of
+development into a higher being, which experience shows to exist in the
+human germ, but not in the infusorial,--is a positive misstatement. The
+lowest monad has a mouth and means for propagating its kind, which do
+not belong to the primitive ovum of any higher animal. About the
+succeeding stages in the growth of the embryo our author's language is
+more cautious. He only says, that they _resemble_, or _typify_, some of
+the lower orders of being; and this is virtually admitting a specific
+difference, and giving up his own theory for all the conditions
+posterior to that of the germ. The brain and heart of the embryo
+successively _resemble_ the corresponding organs in a fish, a reptile, a
+bird, and a quadruped; but they are not identical, _even in outward
+appearance_, with those organs. Of course, if arrested at any stage of
+its growth, and prematurely born, the embryo would not be one of the
+lower animals, but only something resembling it in outward shape; and
+conversely, if it were possible for the birth of a bird to be delayed
+till it had reached a higher stage of development in the same line in
+which it was proceeding, it would not become a quadruped, but it would
+be an anomalous creature somewhat like one. Consequently, no one species
+now on the earth can have been evolved out of any other existing race;
+because the germs of any two, at a very early stage in their history,
+according to our author's own confession, are specifically unlike.
+
+To avoid this difficulty, he is driven to a further supposition, still
+more gratuitous and improbable; namely, that the germ destined to become
+one of a different race from its parents, having advanced along its
+usual line of development so far as that line coincides with the one
+belonging to the new species, there diverges, and follows a different
+path up to the period of its birth into a new creature; that is, the
+embryo of a reptile, having grown for a certain time as if it were to be
+a reptile, suddenly turns aside, like a young man changing his mind
+about the choice of a profession, and for the rest of its foetal life
+follows the proper line of progress in order to be developed into a
+bird. This is mere dreaming, and reminds one only of the wonderful
+transformations effected by enchantment in an Arabian tale. We might
+just as plausibly suppose, that the reptile, after it became mature, was
+suddenly transformed into a bird, as that it underwent this change
+before it was hatched. All the evidence attainable goes to show, that
+the law of development is as immutable before as after birth, the
+several stages of progress succeeding each other in a constant order,
+and affecting the individual only, not the race. A young monkey is no
+more likely to be transmuted into a man than an old one; nor is such a
+metamorphosis at all more probable in the course of its foetal life.
+
+The view we have now obtained of the specific differences between
+distinct races of being at separate periods of their existence is
+precisely what might have been anticipated from the law of gradual
+development, which holds throughout the organic kingdoms. Between two
+mature animals, these differences are perfectly obvious and well
+marked. As we go a step back in their history, the distinction becomes a
+little more obscure; two worms may resemble each other very closely,
+though the two winged insects subsequently produced from them may be
+very unlike. Receding still farther, some of these specific differences
+may entirely disappear, the organs or parts which should exhibit them
+being not yet developed. And when we come to the primitive germs, so
+minute as to be visible only through the microscope, no outward
+distinction, perhaps, is any longer perceptible, and the radical
+difference of their internal organization is indicated only by the fact,
+to be verified by subsequent observation, that the two are invariably
+developed into perfectly distinct animals, belonging respectively to the
+same races with their parents. A theorist, whose whole system is based
+upon the invariable operation of natural agencies, cannot reasonably
+object to this conclusion.
+
+That our statements in the course of this argument may not appear of the
+same questionable character as those advanced by our author, we will
+fortify them with a few brief citations from a work of such
+unquestionable authority as the Lectures of Professor Owen.
+
+     "No doubt the minute infusoria, which seem to have their
+     development arrested at the first or nearest stage from the
+     primitive cell formation, offer close and striking analogies to the
+     primitive cells out of which the higher animals and all their
+     tissues are developed; but the very [first] step which the
+     infusoria take beyond the primitive cell stage invests them with a
+     specific character as independent and distinct in its nature as
+     that of the highest and most complicated organisms. No mere organic
+     cell, destined for ulterior changes in a living organization, has a
+     mouth armed with teeth, or provided with long tentacula; I will not
+     lay stress on the alimentary canal and appended stomachs, which
+     many still regard as 'sub judice'; but the endowment of distinct
+     organs of generation, for propagating their kind by fertile ova,
+     raises the polygastric infusoria much above the mere organic
+     cell."--pp. 25, 26.
+
+     "In comparing the several stages in the very interesting
+     development of the _cyanęa aurita_ to the infusoria and polypes, it
+     must be understood that such comparisons are warranted only by a
+     similarity of outward form, and of the instruments of locomotion
+     and prehension. The essential internal organization of the
+     persistent lower forms of the _zoöphyta_ is entirely wanting in the
+     transitory states of the higher ones. A progress through the
+     inferior groups is sketched out, but no actual transmutation of
+     species is effected. The young medusa, before it attains its
+     destined condition of maturity, successively resembles, but never
+     becomes, a polygastrian, a rotifer, and a bryozoon."--p. 112.
+
+     "Thus every animal in the course of its development typifies or
+     represents some of the permanent forms of animals inferior to
+     itself; but it does not represent all the inferior forms, nor
+     acquire the organization of any of the forms which it transitorily
+     represents. Had the animal kingdom formed, as was once supposed, a
+     single and continuous chain of being, progressively ascending from
+     the monad to the man, unity of organization might then have been
+     demonstrated to the extent in which the theory has been maintained
+     by the disciples of the Geoffroyan school."--p. 370.
+
+If these similarities of structure in the germ had any bearing on the
+subject, they would indicate the possibility only of retrogression in
+the scale. Of course, the immature ovum, arrested in its development,
+could not form a more perfect being than its parent. There is no
+pretence that the embryo, at any stage of its progress, images an animal
+of a higher grade than its own family. Then what aid do these
+similarities of structure afford to the theory, that all the higher
+organisms have been evolved by successive steps out of the lowest monad?
+At the best, you have only shown, that a _retreat_ is possible; you have
+still to point out any likelihood, even the remotest, of an _advance_ in
+the scale of being. There is no fact whatever to confirm the
+supposition, that birth may possibly be delayed till the animal be
+developed into one of a higher species; and the law of immature births
+seems to be, that, if the offspring escapes at all--for there is great
+risk consequent on such an accident,--it becomes as perfect as its
+progenitors. Nature seems to guard the distinctions between the several
+races with peculiar care; so far as we know, monsters either do not
+survive their birth, or are incapable of continuing their kind, or in
+the course of a single generation are reunited to the original family.
+
+To say that these laws, distinct and invariable as far as the
+observation of man has extended, may possibly have been superseded in
+the lapse of ages by a higher principle, manifesting itself only at
+long intervals, is again to have recourse to a blank hypothesis,
+incapable alike of proof or disproof, and unsupported by the faintest
+intimations from the world of experience. To build up a theory in this
+way is not to account for the work of creation by the natural agencies
+and inherent qualities of matter, _as at present observable_, but to fly
+off to the wild supposition, that matter and life were more richly
+endowed ages ago than they are in our own day. You affirm, that this
+higher principle of development did not override the inferior laws at
+the earlier periods in time's history, because, in the infancy of the
+universe, the conditions were wanting which are requisite for its
+manifestation,--because the earth was not ready, the atmosphere was not
+purified, for the nobler races of being. Very well; but these conditions
+are answered _now_. All things are ready at the present day for the
+innate energies of matter to put forth their utmost strength. Why do not
+fishes generate reptiles, and birds produce mammifers, _now_? Ah! but
+"the earth being now supplied with both kinds of tenants in great
+abundance, we could only expect to find the life-originating power at
+work in some very special and extraordinary circumstances." It seems,
+then, that these inherent qualities of matter, once supposed to be
+blind, absolute, and invariable in their operation, are really very
+judicious and reasonable; they suit the supply to the demand, and
+actually cease working when the market is likely to be overstocked. The
+results of such "_natural_ agencies" as these are very like the effects
+produced by the volitions of a wise and thinking being.
+
+It happens that we are not obliged to grant to our author an indefinite
+lapse of ages for the sake of bringing all his higher principles into
+action. One of the latest events in the geological history of the earth
+was a great submersion of the land, by which "terrestrial animal life
+was extensively, if not universally, destroyed"; so that the creation of
+the species now in being--at least, all the higher species--was "a
+comparatively recent event, and one posterior, generally speaking, to
+all the great natural transactions chronicled by geology." Science does
+not contradict, it rather confirms, that voice of revelation or
+tradition, which assigns about six thousand years as the period of man's
+residence upon the earth. The action of the drama, then, is restricted
+within moderate limits as to time, and the "natural agencies" and
+"higher principles" must work fast in order to accomplish their task
+within the prescribed period. One condition for the creation of a new
+and permanent species, belonging to any of the higher orders, seems to
+have escaped our author's notice; at least two individuals, a male and a
+female, must have been evolved out of the next lower race, before the
+new species could continue its kind. Apply these considerations to the
+creation of man, who, according to our author's Scripture, was born of a
+monkey. To suppose, that, at the first trial, an Adam and an Eve were
+born near each other, so that they might have a chance of meeting in the
+course of their lives, would look too much like the operation of
+intelligence and design. On the theory of an organic creation by law, as
+the monkey race is spread over large regions of the globe, we must
+suppose that many of each sex were produced, and died childless, before
+any Adam was happy enough to find an Eve. Then, at no very distant
+period, within a few thousand years, the birth of a man from an animal
+of a lower type was no very strange event. Probably it occurred so
+often, that the monkeys themselves ceased to be astonished at it. And
+yet, this tribe of animals, with all the benefit of large experience,
+with increased numbers, and with all the requisite conditions fulfilled
+at least as perfectly as they were at the earlier period of their
+history, have not succeeded, in the three or four thousand years during
+which they have been subject to the observation of intelligent beings,
+in producing even a decent semblance of a man.
+
+With the exposure of this crowning absurdity, we must close our direct
+examination of this "History of Creation." We have not room to consider
+some of the appendages to the theory, such as the assertion of the
+essential unity of the human and the brute intellect, the denial of the
+immaterial nature of mind, and the advocacy of the system of phrenology.
+These absurd and degrading doctrines are naturally connected with the
+atheistic hypothesis we have been considering. They are its legitimate
+children. But they have already been refuted so often and so
+conclusively, that any revival of them at the present day is hardly
+deserving of notice. If we should stop here, then, it may fairly be left
+to the judgment of our readers, whether we have not fulfilled the pledge
+given at the outset, by showing that this theory is faulty at every
+point, even when viewed from the author's own ground. The proposal of it
+is no new thing. In one or another form, varying in particulars, but
+agreeing in substance, it has been before the world ever since the days
+of Democritus, and more especially of his follower, Epicurus. Lucretius
+clothed it in sonorous and majestic verse, for it is a theme fitted
+above all others to excite the fancy, and to receive the richest
+embellishments from the imagination. Modern authors have promulgated it
+again and again, with little other change than what was requisite to
+adapt it to recent improvements in science, and to engraft upon it some
+of their own favorite hypotheses and fancies. The version of it by the
+French naturalist Lamarck was the latest and the most in vogue, till the
+appearance of the present volume. So frequently has it been confuted,
+that the revival of it at this late period seems little more than a
+harmless exercise of ingenuity, a poetical and scientific dream, and one
+need hardly take the pains to expose its assumptions and fallacies. The
+violent suppositions which it involves only remind one of the remark
+quoted from Pascal on a former page, that "unbelievers are the most
+credulous persons in the world." If set forth only as a novel and
+pleasing fancy, it may be classed with other ingenious fictions, that
+are published without a thought of deception. But if seriously proposed,
+it can be fitly characterized only by borrowing the homely but energetic
+language of Dr. Bentley.
+
+     "And now that I have finished all the parts which I proposed to
+     discourse of, I will conclude all with a short application to the
+     atheists. And I would advise them, as a friend, to leave off this
+     dabbling and smattering in philosophy, this shuffling and cutting
+     with atoms. It never succeeded well with them, and they always come
+     off with the loss. Their old master, Epicurus, seems to have had
+     his brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever
+     kept in the right way; though the main maxim of his philosophy was
+     to trust to his senses, and follow his nose. I will not take notice
+     of his doting conceit, that the sun and moon are no bigger than
+     they appear to the eye, a foot or half a yard over; and that the
+     stars are no larger than so many glow-worms. But let us see how he
+     manages his atoms, those almighty tools that do every thing of
+     themselves, without the help of a workman. When the atoms, says he,
+     _descend_ in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make high
+     and low in infinity), they do not fall plumb down, but decline a
+     little from the perpendicular, either obliquely or in a curve; and
+     this declination, says he, from the direct line is the cause of our
+     liberty of will. But, I say, this declination of atoms in their
+     descent was itself either necessary or voluntary. If it was
+     necessary, how then could that necessity ever beget liberty? If it
+     was voluntary, then atoms had that power of volition before; and
+     what becomes then of the Epicurean doctrine of the fortuitous
+     productions of worlds? The whole business is contradiction and
+     ridiculous nonsense."--_Bentley's Works_, Vol. III., pp. 47, 48.
+
+Custom and convenience lead us to speak of the "laws" of nature, and of
+the "powers and forces" of brute matter; and few persons, in adopting
+these phrases, are aware that they are using a figure of speech. Yet
+nothing is more certain than that all the researches of science have not
+been able to point out with certainty a single active cause apart from
+the operation of mind. We discern nothing but regularity and similarity
+of sequences; and the attribution of these effects to some occult
+qualities in the atoms or molecules in which they are manifested is
+wholly hypothetical, and even, when closely examined, is inconceivable.
+For this reason we affirm, that the theory of our author, professing to
+account for the whole work of creation "by the operation of law," is not
+only unsound and baseless in its particulars, but, when scrutinized as a
+whole, is absolutely unintelligible. _He attempts to account for a
+string of hypothetical effects, such as spontaneous generation and the
+transmutation of species, by a series of hypothetical and inconceivable
+causes, such as the energies of lifeless matter._ Let any one conceive,
+if he can, of any _power_, _energy_, or _force_ inherent in a lump of
+matter,--a stone, for instance,--except this merely negative one, that
+it always and necessarily remains in its present state, whether this be
+of rest or motion. Let him point out, if he can, the _nexus_ between
+what are usually denominated cause and effect in matter,--as when two
+bodies are drawn towards each other, if they are in opposite states of
+electricity. When he says that it is the _nature_, or _law_, of bodies
+thus electrified to attract each other, he offers no explanation of the
+phenomenon; he only refers it to a class of other results, of a similar
+character, previously observed. It is not pretended, that all or any of
+these results, formerly known, are more intelligible or explicable than
+the one in question. But the latter is classed with them, because, from
+their general similarity, from their taking place under the same
+outward circumstances, it is reasonably supposed that _one_ cause,
+whatever it may be, is common to them all. And this is the whole
+business of the student of nature, to place together results which are
+so similar, that we may attribute them to a common cause, without
+assuming to know what that cause is. The sole office of science is the
+theory, not of causation, but of classification. It is all reducible to
+natural history, the essence of which consists in arrangement.
+
+We are not attempting to perplex a plain matter of science by
+introducing into its discussion a metaphysical subtilty. The principle
+here contended for is one of the first dictates of the inductive
+philosophy, and as such it has been frankly acknowledged and acted upon
+by all the great improvers of science in modern days. When Newton
+discovered that the planets circle round the sun in the same manner in
+which a stone thrown by the hand describes a curve before reaching the
+earth, he may be said to have _explained_ the former phenomenon by
+bringing it into the same class with certain results which have long
+been familiar to us. But the explanation was only relative, not
+absolute. The latter phenomenon is, in reality, no more explicable than
+the former; he did not pretend to know the _cause_ of the stone's
+falling to the ground, any more than of the revolution of the planets.
+It was something to be able to arrange these apparently heterogeneous
+results in the same class, and gravity was a convenient name to apply to
+the whole. But the supposition, that gravity was an occult cause,
+inherent in matter, he earnestly repelled, and declared that it was
+"inconceivable."[2] Franklin showed, that a thunder-cloud and the
+charged conductor of an electrical machine manifested the same
+phenomena, and might therefore be classed together; sparks were obtained
+from both, Leyden jars were charged from them, other bodies were
+attracted and repelled in a similar way, so that it was reasonable to
+believe that the same agency was acting in both cases. What this agency
+was he did not even guess. The _cause_ of electric action, whether in
+the excited cloud, or the excited tube, was just as obscure as ever.
+Chemists observed, that different substances, when brought into close
+contact, sometimes remained distinct, and sometimes united with each
+other in various but regular proportions; and these capacities of
+coalescing with one class of bodies, and of remaining unaffected by
+another, are called chemical "affinities." This is a convenient
+generalization, and has properly received a specific name; though the
+common appellation throws no light on the _cause_ of the phenomena,
+which remains an impenetrable secret. To say that certain action is
+_caused_ by the operation of chemical affinities is only to arrange it
+with a large class of other observed appearances, equally obscure as to
+their origin and essential character.
+
+Let us go a step further, and suppose that the progress of discovery has
+made known certain facts lying behind the phenomena in question, to
+which they may all be referred. Let us suppose, that all bodies which
+gravitate towards each other are found to be embosomed in a subtile,
+ambient fluid, which connects them, as it were, into one system; that
+the positive and negative states of electricity are resolvable into the
+presence of two fluids standing in certain relations to each other; and
+that substances show chemical affinity for each other only when they are
+in opposite electrical conditions. Still, we have only advanced a step
+in the generalization, and the real, efficient _cause_ of the
+appearances is still hidden from us by an impenetrable veil. Gravitation
+is now referred to the communication of motion by impulse; electricity,
+to the combination and separation of different fluids; affinity, to the
+attraction or repulsion of these fluids. The latter classes of phenomena
+are more general, but not a whit more explicable, than the former. We
+have now fewer causes to seek for, but not one of these few has been
+discovered. When we have resolved electricity or gravitation into the
+presence of an elastic medium, it is a mere figure of speech to say,
+that we have discovered the _cause_ of the electric phenomena or of
+gravity. That is just as far off as ever; for we have yet to discover
+the principle whence flow _necessarily_ all the phenomena observable in
+fluids. It is the sole end and the highest ambition of science to
+discover as many as possible of the relationships which bind facts
+together, and thus to carry the generalization to the farthest point.
+Its office is not to discover causes, but to generalize effects. The
+investigation of real causes is quite given up, as a hopeless
+undertaking.
+
+Observe, now, how all the phraseology employed in speaking of these
+successive generalizations of science is borrowed from the action of
+mind. The word _action_ itself has no real significance, except when
+applied to the _doings_ of an intelligent agent; we cannot speak of the
+doings of matter, as we could if the word _action_ were applicable to it
+in any other than a figurative sense. Again, in speaking of the
+similarity of facts and the regularity of sequences, we refer them to a
+_law_ of nature, just as if they were sentient beings acting under the
+will of a sovereign. Parts of pure matter--the chemical elements, for
+instance--do not _act_ at all; being brute and inert, it is only by a
+strong metaphor that they are said to be subject to law. Again, we
+attribute _force_, _power_, &c., to the primitive particles of matter,
+and speak of their natural _agencies_. Just so, we talk of _tone_ in
+coloring, and of a _heavy_ or _light_ sound; though, of course, in their
+proper significance, tone belongs only to sound, and heaviness to
+gravitating bodies. These modes of speech are proper enough, if their
+figurative character be kept in view; but it is a little too bad, when a
+whole scientific theory is made to rest upon a metaphor as its sole
+support. _Agency_ is the employment of one intelligent being to act for
+another; _force_ and _power_ are applicable only to will; they are
+characteristic of volition. It is a violent trope to apply either of
+these words to senseless matter. Chemical _affinities_ are spoken of, as
+if material elements were united by family ties, and manifested choice,
+and affection or aversion.
+
+An obvious corollary from these remarks is, that all _causation_ is an
+exertion of mind, and is only figuratively applied to matter. It
+necessarily implies power, will, and action. An efficient cause--we are
+not speaking now of a mere antecedent--is that which is necessarily
+followed by the effect, so that, if it were known, the effect might be
+predicted antecedently to all experience. Cicero describes it with
+philosophical accuracy. "_Causa ea est, quę id efficit, cujus est
+causa._ _Non sic causa intelligi debet, ut quod cuique antecedat, id ei
+causa sit; sed quod cuique_ EFFICIENTER _antecedat. Causis enim
+efficientibus quamque rem cognitis, posse denique sciri quid futurum
+esset._" Now, in the world of matter, we discover nothing but
+antecedents and consequents; the former are the mere signs, not the
+causes, of the latter; no necessary connection--no connection at all,
+except sequence in time--can be discerned between them. Consequently,
+from an examination of the former, we could not determine _a priori_,
+that they must be followed by the latter, or by any other result
+whatever. Our knowledge here, if knowledge it can be called, is wholly
+empirical, or founded on experience. As we have seen, it is absurd to
+say, that one atom of matter literally _acts_ on another. On the other
+hand, in the world of mind, we are directly conscious of action, and
+even of causation. All mental exertion is true action; every
+determination of the will implies _effort_, or the direction and use of
+power. The result to be accomplished is preconsidered, or meditated, and
+therefore is known _a priori_, or before experience; the volition
+succeeds, which is a true effort, or a power in action; and this, _if
+the power be sufficient_, is _necessarily_ followed by the effect.
+Volition is a true cause; but in a finite mind it is not always an
+_adequate_ cause. If I will to shut my eyes, the effect immediately
+follows as a necessary consequence. But if I will to stop the beating of
+my heart, or to move a paralyzed limb, the effect does not follow,
+because the power exerted is inadequate to the end proposed. The action
+of the will is still _causative_, but it is _insufficient_.
+
+It was from overlooking the distinction here made, that Hume, Kant, and
+other metaphysicians were led to deny all knowledge of causation even in
+the action of mind. They confounded sufficiency with efficiency, and
+supposed, because the power did not always accomplish the end proposed,
+that it did not tend towards it, or exert any effect upon it. As the
+sufficiency of the volition can only be known _a posteriori_, or after
+experience, they imagined that there could be no cause but that which is
+infinite, or one which is invariably followed by the whole effect
+contemplated. They overlooked the fact, that, in the consciousness of
+_effort_,--as in the attempt to control the action of mind, to command
+the attention, &c.,--we have direct and full evidence of _power in
+action_, which is necessarily causal in its nature. The mental _nisus_
+is true force, exerted with a foreknowledge of the effect to be
+produced, and necessarily followed by a result,--a partial one it may
+be,--but one which is a true effect, whether it answers the whole
+intention, or not. Here, then, we discern that necessary connection
+between two events, that absolute efficient agency, which was vainly
+sought in the world of matter.
+
+If these considerations are well founded, the whole framework of what
+are called "secondary causes" falls to pieces. The laws of nature are
+only a figure of speech; the powers and active inherent properties of
+material atoms are mere fictions. Mind alone is active; matter is wholly
+passive and inert. There is no such thing as what we usually call the
+course of nature; it is nothing but the will of God producing certain
+effects in a constant and uniform manner; which mode of action, however,
+being perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be
+preserved. All events, all changes, in the external world, from the
+least even unto the greatest, are attributable to his will and power,
+which, being infinite, is always and necessarily adequate to the end
+proposed. The laws of motion, gravitation, affinity, and the like, are
+only expressions of the regularity and continuity of one infinite cause.
+The order of nature is the effect of divine wisdom, its stability is the
+result of divine beneficence.
+
+    "Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer,
+    Et coelum, et virtus? Superos quid quęrimus ultra?
+    Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris."
+
+It may be asked, if divine power, instead of operating immediately
+throughout the universe, might not have endowed material atoms at the
+outset with certain properties and energies, the gradual evolution of
+which in after ages would produce all the phenomena of nature, without
+the necessity of his incessant presence, agency, and control. Certainly,
+we may not put bounds to omnipotence; though we may assert of a given
+hypothesis respecting its exercise, that it is inconceivable, or
+involves wholly incongruous ideas. The necessary attributes of matter,
+according to our conception of it, are extension, figure,
+impenetrability, and inertness; the properties of mind are thought,
+sensation, activity, and will. These attributes are essential, not
+arbitrary or contingent; for they make up our whole idea of the
+substances in which they inhere. We can no more suppose them to be
+interchangeable, than we can literally attribute dimensions to an odor,
+or capacity to a sound. To speak of an extended thought, an impenetrable
+sensation, an inert activity, is to talk nonsense; it is equally absurd
+to attribute thought to extension, sensation to figure, activity to
+inertness,[3] or causal agency to matter. True, mind may be superadded
+to matter, without being confounded with it, and without any exchange of
+properties. And in fact, this is the only conceivable form of the
+hypothesis now before us; namely, the theory of the ancient
+metaphysicians, that every particle of matter and every aggregate of it
+is accompanied, or animated, by a distinct mind. "_Ea quoque [sidera]
+rectissime et animantia esse, et sentire atque intelligere, dicantur._"
+If this be a more intelligible and plausible supposition than that of
+one infinite mind, pervading the universe, and producing all physical
+changes by its irresistible power, the materialist is welcome to the
+benefit of it.
+
+As respects the manner in which all physical effects are produced by the
+direct action of the Deity, we are not bound to offer any explanation,
+as the subject confessedly transcends the limit of the human faculties.
+It is enough for us, that the supposition is the only conceivable one,
+the only mode of accounting for the phenomena of the material world. But
+as man is made in the image of his Creator, in the union for a time of
+his spirit with his corporeal frame we may find at least an intelligible
+illustration of the connection of God with the universe. Discarding the
+word _mind_, as the fruitful source of vague speculation and error, let
+us look for a moment at that of which it is a mere synonyme,--at the man
+himself. The sentient, thinking being, which I call _self_, is an
+absolute unit. Duality or complexity cannot be predicated of it in any
+intelligible sense. Personality is indivisible; _I_ am _one_. This being
+is capable of acting in different ways; and for convenience of speech
+and classification, these modes of action have been arranged as the
+results of different faculties; though, in truth, it is no more proper
+to attribute to the person distinct powers and organs for comparison,
+memory, and judgment, than to give to the body separately a walking
+faculty, a lifting faculty, a jumping faculty, and so on. In the one
+case, these faculties are but different aspects of mental power; in the
+other, but different applications of muscular strength. Of course, the
+complex material frame, with its numberless adaptations and
+arrangements, in which this being is lodged, is truly foreign from the
+man himself, having a kind of connection with him, in reality, but one
+degree more intimate than that of his clothes. The body is the curiously
+contrived machine through which the man communicates with the material
+world. The eye is but his instrument to see with, the ear is his trumpet
+for communicating sound to him, the leg is his steed, and the arm his
+soldier. Many of these instruments and parts may be removed, or become
+unfit for use, without impairing, in the slightest degree, his distinct
+personality and intelligence. The particles of all of them are in a
+state of constant flux and renovation, so that man changes his body only
+a little more frequently than he does his coat. His whole corporeal
+frame is connected with him but for a while, and is then thrown aside,
+like an old garment, for which he has no farther use.
+
+But during the period of its existence, how close and intimate in
+appearance is this union with the body! Sensation extends to every part
+of it, every fibre is instinct with life, and the direction of the will
+is absolute and immediate over every muscle and joint, as if the whole
+fabric and its tenant were one homogeneous system. The will tires not of
+its supremacy, and is not wearied with the number of volitions required
+of it to keep every joint in action, and every organ performing its
+proper function. It would not delegate the control of the fingers to an
+inferior power, nor contrive mechanical or automatic means for moving
+the extremities. Within its sphere, it is sole sovereign, and is not
+perplexed with the variety and constant succession of its duties,
+extending to every part of the complex structure of which it is the
+animating and directing spirit. Sensation is not cumbered with the
+multitude of impressions it receives, nor is the fineness of perception
+dulled by repeated exercise. The sharpness of its edge rather improves
+by use, and we become more heedful of its lightest intimations. Is it
+irreverent, then, to suppose that this union of body and soul shadows
+forth the connection between the material universe and the Infinite One?
+How else, indeed, can we attach any meaning to the attributes of
+omnipresence and omnipotence? The unity of action, the regularity of
+antecedence and consequence in outward events, which we commonly
+designate by the lame metaphor of _law_, then become the fitting
+expression of the consistent doings of an all-wise Being, in whom there
+is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. The Creator, then, is no
+longer banished from his creation, nor is the latter an orphan, or a
+deserted child. It is not a great machine, that was wound up at the
+beginning, and has continued to run on ever since, without aid or
+direction from its artificer. As well might we conceive of the body of a
+man moving about, and performing all its appropriate functions, without
+the principle of life, or the indwelling of an immortal soul. The
+universe is not lifeless or soulless. It is informed by God's spirit,
+pervaded by his power, moved by his wisdom, directed by his beneficence,
+controlled by his justice.
+
+    "Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
+    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
+
+The harmony of physical and moral laws is not a mere fancy, nor a forced
+analogy; they are both expressions of the same will, manifestations of
+the same spirit.
+
+The objection, that it is beneath the dignity of the Almighty--[Greek:
+autourgein hapanta]--to put his hand to every thing--is founded on a
+false analogy, as is seen by the form in which Aristotle states it. "If
+it befit not the state and majesty of Xerxes, the great king of Persia,
+that he should stoop to do all the meanest offices himself, much less
+can this be thought suitable for God." The two cases do not correspond
+in the very feature essential to the argument. An earthly potentate,
+unable to execute with his own hand all the affairs of which he has
+control, is obliged to delegate the larger portion of them to his
+servants; selecting the lightest part for himself, he gratifies his
+pride by calling it also the noblest, though the distinction is
+factitious, there being no real difference, in point of honor or
+dignity, between them. Omnipotence needs no minister, and is not
+exhausted or wearied by the cares of a universe. Power in action is more
+truly sublime than power in repose; and surely it is not derogatory to
+divine energy to sustain and continue that which it was certainly not
+beneath divine wisdom to create and appoint. Rightly considered, to
+guide the falling of a leaf from a tree is an office as worthy of
+omnipotence, as the creation of a world. "Are not two sparrows sold for
+a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
+Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."
+
+Equally lame is the oft-repeated comparison of the universe to a machine
+of man's device, which is considered the more perfect the less mending
+or interposition it requires. A machine is a labor-saving contrivance,
+fitted to supply the weakness and deficiencies of him who uses it. Where
+the want does not exist, it is absurd to suppose the creation of the
+remedy. Human conceptions of the Deity are for ever at fault in imputing
+to him the errors and deficiencies which belong to our own limited
+faculties and dependent condition. Hence the idea of the Epicureans,
+that sublime indifference and unbroken repose are the only states of
+being worthy of the gods. Viewed in the light of true philosophy, no
+less than of Christianity, how base and grovelling does this conception
+appear! The sublime description of the pagan poet becomes the fitting
+expression and defence of the very theory it was designed to
+controvert:--
+
+    "Nam (proh sancta Deūm tranquillā pectora pace,
+    Quę placidum degunt ęvum, vitamque serenam!)
+    Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi
+    Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas?
+    Quis pariter coelos omneis convertere? et omneis
+    Ignibus ętheriis terras suffire feraceis?
+    Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore presto?
+    Nubibus ut tenebras faciat, coelique serena
+    Concutiat sonitu? tum fulmina mittat, et ędeis
+    Sępe suas disturbet?"
+
+Returning to the theory of our author, may we not now characterize it as
+at once unfounded in its details, inconceivable in its operation, and
+vulgar and mechanical in its design? Considered in their proper aspect,
+and by the light of a sound philosophy, whatever well accredited facts
+or legitimate deductions he has gleaned from the whole field of modern
+science afford the most striking evidence and illustration of that view
+of creation which is directly at variance with his own hypothesis. He
+has, in fact, exposed the insufficiency of what are called organic or
+mechanical laws to supply the losses, and bridge over the interruptions,
+that have occurred in the world's history. Geology has rendered at
+least one signal service to the cause of natural religion, by
+effectually doing away with the old atheistic objection, that, for aught
+we know, the present constitution of things never had a beginning, but
+has gone on for ever renewing itself in an endless series of
+generations. Science now tells us distinctly, that time was when "the
+earth was without form and void," no animated thing appearing "upon the
+face of the deep"; that afterwards, "the waters were gathered together
+unto one place, and the dry land appeared." Then "the earth brought
+forth grass, and herb yielding seed _after his kind_, and the tree
+yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." Next was
+fulfilled the command, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
+creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
+open firmament of heaven." Then appeared "the beast of the earth after
+his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth
+upon the earth after his kind." Last of all, "God created man in his own
+image, male and female created he them." We are not merely quoting
+Scripture; we are repeating the facts positively affirmed by the
+geologists, and incorporated by our author into his "history"--as
+authentic leaves taken from the "stone book"--_in the same order_ in
+which they are narrated in the first chapter of Genesis. The coincidence
+in the order of succession is certainly remarkable.
+
+Geology farther informs us, that, at different times, all the animated
+tribes which had peopled the earth's surface passed away, or became
+extinct, and were replaced by new species of different organization and
+characteristics; and probably at many other periods, as well as on
+occasions of some great catastrophe in the earth's crust, races wholly
+unlike any that had preceded them were introduced, from time to time, as
+new inhabitants of the globe. Here, then, was an absolute necessity for
+the continuous operation of an intelligent creative power, apart from
+the blind mechanical laws, which, at the utmost, could only allow each
+species, once introduced, to continue its kind. The marvellous
+adaptations of these new races to the altered conditions of the earth's
+surface when they appeared, then, become additional proofs of the wisdom
+and constant oversight of a designing Creator. They came not till all
+things were ready; they appeared when the extinction of former tribes
+had left a gap for them in the scale of being. The gradual development
+of what are called the powers of nature,--or, to speak more
+intelligibly, the successive improvements in the habitations intended
+for higher and higher races of animated life,--and the similarity of
+plan on which these races were organized, the scheme being preserved in
+all its essential features through countless generations, show unity of
+design, and prove that the works of creation, however separated in time,
+must be attributed to _one_ intelligent author. The same conclusion
+follows almost irresistibly from the gradations at present observable
+both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, so that all the races may be
+arranged, not indeed in a linear series, but in families or groups,
+bearing analogous relations to each other, and showing a general
+progress from the more simple to the more complex forms. Surely, these
+facts, so clearly explained by our author, instead of sustaining the
+corpuscular philosophy, directly militate with it, and afford the most
+satisfactory proof of the doctrine of the theist, and the theory of
+continuous divine agency. We have hardly ever met with a book that
+furnished more complete materials for its own refutation.
+
+After all, the question is a very simple one. We have only to decide
+whether it is more likely, that the complex system of things in the
+midst of which we live,--the beautiful harmonies between the organic and
+inorganic world, the nice arrangements and curious adaptations that
+obtain in each, the simplicity and uniformity of the general plan to
+which the vast multitude of details may be reduced,--was built up, and
+is now sustained, by one all-wise and all-powerful Being, or by
+particles of brute matter, acting of themselves, without direction,
+interference, or control. We cannot now say, that possibly the system
+never had a beginning, but has always existed under the form in which it
+now appears to us; geology has disproved _that_ supposition most
+effectually. Choose ye, then, between mind and matter, between an
+intelligent being and a stone, for the parentage and support of this
+wonderful system. For our own part, we will adopt the conclusion of one
+of the most eloquent of those old pagan philosophers, on whose eyes the
+light of immediate revelation never dawned:--"_Hic ego non mirer esse
+quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat, corpora quędam solida atque individua vi
+et gravitate ferri, mundumque effici ornatissimum et pulcherrimum ex
+corum corporum concursione fortuitā? Quņd si mundum efficere potest
+concursus atomorum, cur porticum, cur templum, cur domum, cur urbem non
+potest, quę sunt minus operosa, et multņ quidem faciliora? Certč ita
+temerč de mundo effutiunt, ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem
+coeli ornatum, qui locus est proximus, suspexisse videantur._"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: _N. A. Review_, Vol. LVI., pp. 339-351.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should,
+without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate
+upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must, if
+gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it.
+And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate
+gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to
+matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a
+_vacuum_, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which
+their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so
+great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical
+matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity
+must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain
+laws."--_Newton's letter in Bentley's Works_, Vol. III., pp. 211, 212.]
+
+[Footnote 3: And yet, so strong is the propensity to metaphor, that
+scientific men talk of the _vis inertię_ as a true force, though the
+ideas expressed by the two Latin words are certainly incongruous. The
+mistake here arises from confounding inertness, or resistance to
+force,--a merely negative idea,--with the true force which is necessary
+to overcome it; or rather, since force can only be measured by its
+results, and must always be adequate to the effect produced, inquirers
+have adopted the convenient hypothesis of two antagonistic forces, not
+always recollecting that one of them is merely passive.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of
+'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Theory Of Creation: A Review of
+'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges
+of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'
+
+Author: Francis Bowen
+
+Release Date: February 19, 2008 [EBook #24648]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEORY OF CREATION ***
+
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+
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+
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3>A THEORY OF CREATION.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<h5>A</h5>
+
+<h2>REVIEW</h2>
+
+<h6>OF</h6>
+
+<h3>"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF</h3>
+
+<h2>CREATION."</h2>
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<h5>FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW FOR APRIL, 1845.</h5>
+<p class="smallgap">&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<p class="smallgap">&nbsp;</p><h4>BOSTON:</h4>
+<h5>OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY,</h5>
+<h6>120 WASHINGTON STREET.</h6>
+<h4>1845.</h4>
+<p class="gap">&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="biggap">&nbsp;</p>
+<h6>CAMBRIDGE:</h6>
+<h6>METCALF AND COMPANY,</h6>
+<h6>PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.</h6>
+<p class="biggap">&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h4>A</h4>
+
+<h2>THEORY OF CREATION.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.</i> New York:
+Wiley &amp; Putnam. 1845. 12mo. pp. 291.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>This is one of the most striking and ingenious scientific romances that
+we have ever read. The writer of it is a bold man; he has undertaken to
+give a hypothetical history of creation, beginning, as the title-pages
+say, at the earliest period, and coming down to the present day. It is
+not quite so authentic as that of Moses, nor is it written with such an
+air of simplicity and confidence as the narrative of the Jewish
+historian; but it is much longer, and goes into a far greater variety of
+interesting particulars. It contradicts the Jewish cosmogony in a few
+particulars, and is at variance with probability and the ordinary laws
+of human reasoning in many others. But the rather liberal rules of
+interpretation, which it is now the fashion to apply to the first
+chapter of Genesis, will relieve the reader from any scruples on the
+former account; and as to the latter, in these days of scientific
+quackery, it would be quite too harsh to make any great complaint about
+such peccadilloes. The writer has taken up almost every questionable
+fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients
+or pretenders in science during the present century, except animal
+magnetism; and for this omission we have reason to be thankful. The
+nebular hypothesis, Laplace's or Compte's theory of planets <i>shelled
+off</i> from the sun, spontaneous generation,&mdash;some of these vagaries, we
+admit, are of much older date than the year 1800,&mdash;the Macleay system,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>dogs playing dominoes, negroes born of white parents, materialism,
+phrenology,&mdash;he adopts them all, and makes them play an important part
+in his own magnificent theory, to the exclusion, in a great degree, of
+the well-accredited facts and established doctrines of science.</p>
+
+<p>We speak lightly of the author's plan, as one can hardly fail to do of a
+scheme so magnificent, and going apparently so far beyond the ordinary
+sources of information and the range of the human intellect. But the
+execution of the work is of so high an order, as fairly to challenge
+attention and respect. The writer, who has not chosen to give his name
+to the world, is evidently a man of great ingenuity and correct taste, a
+master of style, a plausible, though not a profound, reasoner, and
+having quite a general, but superficial, acquaintance with the sciences.
+His materials are arranged with admirable method, the illustrations are
+copious and interesting, the transitions are skilfully managed, and the
+several portions of the theory are so well fitted to each other, and
+form such a round and perfect whole, that it seems a pity to subject it
+to severe analysis and searching criticism. It is a very pleasant
+hypothesis, set forth in a most agreeable manner; and though it contains
+many objectionable features, these are cautiously veiled and kept in the
+background, and the reader is seduced into accepting most of the
+conclusions, before he is aware of their true character and tendency.</p>
+
+<p>Before a just opinion can be formed of the correctness of the writer's
+views, it is necessary to take to pieces this skilful fabric, and to
+bring the parts together in a different connection and with greater
+succinctness, following out each doctrine to its inevitable, but most
+remote, conclusions, so as to obtain a just idea of the position in
+which we should be placed by the acceptance of the theory as a whole.
+For obvious reasons, the author has not chosen to give a general summary
+of his views, or to mention explicitly all the inferences that may be
+drawn from them. He merely puts the reader upon the track, indicating
+its general direction, and leaving it for him to find out what objects
+will be encountered by the way, and where the journey will end. We
+propose to finish the work that is thus left incomplete, and to set
+forth the doctrine in its plainest terms. We would reduce the theory at
+once to its narrowest compass and simplest expression; but at the same
+time, would incorporate into it every doctrine which properly belongs to
+it, and follow out each hypothesis to its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> remote, though necessary,
+inferences and conclusions. To this end, it is requisite to separate, as
+far as possible, the doctrines themselves from the evidence adduced in
+support of them; and to consider the former as a whole, before
+proceeding, to discuss the cogency of the latter. The following may be
+taken as the most concise abstract that we can form of the history of
+the creation, according to this author.</p>
+
+<p>In the beginning&mdash;we use this word in a kind of preter-perfect sense&mdash;in
+the <i>very</i> beginning of things, immense portions of infinite space were
+filled with finely diffused nebulous matter, heated to an intensity that
+is altogether inconceivable. The particles of this "fire mist," as it is
+appropriately called, were the true <i>primordia rerum</i>,&mdash;the elements of
+the universe,&mdash;the principles of all the forms of inorganic matter and
+all organic things. At the outset, the Creator endowed these particles
+with certain qualities and capacities, and then stood aside from his
+work, as there was nothing farther for him to do. The subsequent
+progress of creation is only the successive <i>development</i>, upon
+mechanical and necessary principles, and as fast as proper occasions
+were offered, of these qualities thus made inherent in the primitive
+constitution of matter. The atoms thus marvellously endowed have gone
+on, without any further aid from Almighty power, to form suns, and
+astral systems, and planets with their satellites, and worlds tenanted
+by successive generations and races of vegetable and animal things. And
+this work of creation, or rather of development, is still in progress
+all around us, and in all its various stages, though in the portion most
+directly exposed to the observation of man it is far advanced towards
+perfection. Upon this earth, the unaided action of these atoms is still
+evolving all the phenomena of generation, progress, and decay, of
+vegetable and animal life, of instinct and of mind. In the abyss of
+space, it is also forming new suns, and solar systems, and worlds that
+are to pass through the same stages and wonderful transformations to
+which our own planet has already been subjected. All that has occurred
+with respect to this earth, and the system of which it forms a part, is
+but a type of what is constantly going on in the countless other systems
+of stars that people the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>The first stage in the history of these fiery particles is the formation
+among them, in some unaccountable way, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> nuclei, or centres of
+aggregation, like the bright points that are now visible in some of the
+nebul&aelig; of the heavens. As soon as these centres are formed, gravity, one
+of the original principles of matter, begins to act, and the atoms in
+all the neighbouring parts of space are attracted towards the nucleus
+and heaped upon it. In this manner, a central sun of vast dimensions is
+formed, which soon assumes a motion of rotation upon its axis from the
+general law which gives a circular movement to all fluids that are drawn
+towards a common centre. The centrifugal force thus generated tends to
+throw off matter from the equatorial regions of the great orb, but is
+restrained by the attraction of gravitation, which would prevent any
+separation of the parts, if the sun itself did not now begin to cool
+down, and consequently to shrink in size. Under this cooling process, a
+crust is formed upon the surface, too rigid to yield to the force of
+gravity, and the parts within, continuing to shrink, separate from this
+envelope; so that there is now a central orb, revolving more rapidly
+from its greater density and smaller diameter, and surrounded by an
+exterior shell, or band, like Saturn's ring, rotating at its original
+speed. As we cannot suppose that the ring would usually be of uniform
+thickness and strength, it eventually breaks up into fragments, the
+larger of which attracts the smaller into itself, and the whole is
+formed by its revolving motion into an oblate spheroid circling round
+the contracted sun in the centre. In this manner, the planet Uranus was
+shelled off from our sun, which originally filled the whole of the vast
+sphere, of which the distance from Uranus to the centre of the present
+sun is but the radius. The planet itself, by the same process of
+cooling, shrinking, and thus forming exterior rings, threw off
+successively all its six satellites; and the sun, also, continuing to
+contract from the loss of heat, formed another ring, and thus
+constituted the planet Saturn. In this way were formed successively all
+the planets and satellites of the present solar system. The original
+diameter of our earth was equal, of course, to the present diameter of
+the moon's orbit. In the case of Saturn, the two rings formed around it
+happened to be of unusual homogeneity and equal thickness, so that they
+were not broken up, but have preserved their primitive shape. A ring was
+formed from the sun in the space between the present orbits of Mars and
+Jupiter; but when it was broken up, the fragments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> did not congregate
+into one, but spherified separately, so as to form the four smaller
+planets which now revolve in that opening.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We have no means of judging of the seniority of systems; but it is
+reasonable to suppose, that, among the many, some are older than
+ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability
+of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human
+traditions and the geognostic appearances of the surface of our
+planet. This consists in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused
+around the sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately
+spheroidal shape. This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked
+eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards in the
+line of the sun's path, and which bears the name of Zodiacal Light,
+has been thought a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating
+matter of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the
+comparative recentness of the principal events of our cosmogony.
+Supposing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they may be
+held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might with
+the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder
+born of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical and
+moral, as yet lay undeveloped, while myriads of others were fully
+fashioned and in complete arrangement. Thus, in the sublime
+chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we first find
+ourselves called upon to consider the globe which we inhabit as a
+child of the sun, elder than Venus and her younger brother Mercury,
+but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and
+Uranus; next, to regard our whole system as probably of recent
+formation in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. We
+must, however, be on our guard against supposing the earth as a
+recent globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. From evidence
+afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it cannot be
+presumed to be less than many hundreds of centuries old."&mdash;pp. 22,
+23.</p></div>
+
+<p>Having thus explained the <i>genesis</i> of the solar system, we come down to
+the history of our own earth, since it shelled off the ring which formed
+our moon. Continuing to cool down and shrink, a thin but rigid crust of
+primary rocks, still bearing marks of the intense heat to which they
+have been subjected, was formed upon its surface; and then the vapors,
+with which the atmosphere had been charged, were condensed, and formed
+seas, which covered the whole, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> greater part, of the earth's
+rind. The continual agitation of these waters, and their high
+temperature, as they were still nearly at the boiling point,
+disintegrated and wore down many of these rocks, and, in the lapse of
+ages, deposited their remains, in thick layers of sand and mud, at the
+bottom of the seas. Baked by the heat from beneath, and pressed by the
+weight of superincumbent waters, these layers slowly hardened into
+stratified rocks. Forms of vegetable and animal life, though only of the
+lowest type, the origin of which is to be explained hereafter, now began
+to appear. Some sea-plants, zo&ouml;phytes, infusory animalcules, and a few
+of the molluscous tribe, all low down in the order of being, but
+important from their immense numbers and joint action, commenced their
+work of absorbing the carbonic acid with which the air was overcharged,
+and building up vast piers and mounds of stone from their own remains.
+Meanwhile, the internal fires of the earth occasionally broke through
+the rocky crust that imprisoned them, threw up liquid primitive rock
+through the rents, and distorted and tilted up the strata that had been
+formed above.</p>
+
+<p>We may remark, in passing, that the chronology of the events of which we
+now speak is not very accurately determined; the only thing certain
+about it is, that a series of ages, so protracted that the imagination
+cannot conceive their number, elapsed between the successive epochs in
+the history of the earth's crust. Some of the convulsions caused by the
+fiery mass within threw up rock above the surface of the waters, and
+thus the dry land began to appear. Islands were formed, and immediately
+land-plants made their appearance, of excessive luxuriance, under the
+tropical temperature that still prevailed all over the globe, and began
+their office of absorbing carbon, and storing it up for future use.
+Land-animals as yet were not, for the excess of carbonic acid in the
+atmosphere rendered it incapable of supporting animal life. But the
+richness of this island vegetation gradually purified the air; while the
+decaying plants themselves, being accumulated into vast beds and strata,
+and subjected, through the changes of the earth's surface, to the
+pressure of mighty waters, gradually formed immense deposits of coal,
+for the subsequent service of man. Animals of a higher grade were now
+formed; fishes became abundant, and amphibious monsters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> huge lizards
+and other reptiles, with an imperfect apparatus of respiration, began to
+breathe an atmosphere not yet fitted for birds and mammifers.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to trace out the comparatively well known facts and
+theories of geological science, that are incorporated into this history.
+It is enough, for the present purpose, to point out a few of the general
+conclusions of the geologist respecting the several great changes that
+the earth's crust has undergone, and the distinct races of vegetables
+and animals which have successively tenanted the earth's surface. These
+changes and these races have borne a constant relation to each other; as
+the scenes shifted, the inhabitants also changed, the latter being
+always adapted to the circumstances in which they were placed. There has
+been a constant progress, the soil and the atmosphere becoming more and
+more fitted for the support of the higher forms of life; and when all
+things were thus made ready for them, these higher forms have appeared,
+and the lower orders of being, which formerly occupied the scene, have
+entirely died out, so that their remains, entombed in the solid rock,
+are now the only indications of their past existence. In the era of the
+primary rocks, as we have seen, there was no organization or life, as
+there was nothing to support it. In the succeeding period, zo&ouml;phytes and
+mollusca appeared; these were followed by fishes, and then land rose
+above the surface of the waters. Land-plants and animals came next,
+though of a low type; continually advancing orders of beings, reptiles,
+birds, and mammifers, suited to the improved condition of things,
+successively appeared, until, at the latest epoch, man entered upon the
+scene, the head of animated nature as at present constituted, with
+powers and capacities well adapted for the full enjoyment of the
+augmented riches of the earth. And the end is not yet. "The present
+race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the
+present state of things in the world; but the external world goes
+through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much
+serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type
+of humanity, which shall complete the zo&ouml;logical circle on this planet,
+and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present
+race."</p>
+
+<p>The question now occurs, How are we to account for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> origin of
+<i>life</i>, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? The answer can
+readily be given, if we follow out resolutely to their remotest
+consequences the principles that have already been established. The
+evolution of natural laws, the necessary action of the qualities with
+which atoms were at first endowed, has sufficed to produce this complex
+system of mutually dependent worlds, and all the successive
+transformations of the earth's rind, which have fitted it for the
+support of successive races of organic beings. May not the same causes
+have produced the beings themselves? The one process would seem to be
+not much more elaborate and intricate than the other. If the inherent
+qualities of matter have built up a solar system, they may have created,
+also, the first animalcule, the first fish, the first quadruped, and the
+first man. There has been a marked progress, in either case, from the
+chaotic, the rude, the imperfectly developed, up to the orderly, the
+complex, the matured forms. The first essays, the rude efforts, of
+nature have gradually been perfected. The chaotic world that was first
+shelled off from the sun differed not less widely from the admirably
+furnished planet we now inhabit, than does the zo&ouml;phyte, whose remains
+are not split out of the rock, from man, the present head of the animal
+tribe. At any rate, geology informs us, that the causes, whatever they
+may be, which produce life, have been long and frequently in operation.
+They were not exhausted in the first effort; they are probably still at
+work throughout the universe. Not merely successive generations, but
+successive races, both of plants and animals, widely distinguished from
+each other, have, at different periods, tenanted the earth's surface.
+Those of which we possess the fossil remains belong, almost without
+exception, to extinct species. They were crowded out of existence, as it
+were, by the new forms, more perfectly organized, which came to take
+their places in the improving condition of things. This continuous
+agency of the life-producing causes, effecting still higher results by
+each successive effort, seems to point directly to the gradual expansion
+and development of the qualities with which matter was first endowed.</p>
+
+<p>We actually see natural agents now at work around us, producing results
+which counterfeit life, if they do not constitute it. Many substances
+crystallize into shapes bearing a strong resemblance to vegetable forms,
+as in the well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> known chemical experiment producing the <i>arbor Dian&aelig;</i>.
+The passage of the electric fluid leaves marks that are like the
+branches and foliage of a tree, and the same fluid exerts a direct
+influence on the germination of plants. Some of the proximate principles
+of vegetable and animal bodies, such as urea and alantoin, are said to
+have been produced artificially by the chemist; and in the combination
+of the simple elements, such as carbon and oxygen, into these proximate
+principles, it is now acknowledged that there is no violation of the
+ordinary laws of chemical affinity. The origin of all vegetable and
+animal life, so far as it can be traced, is in germinal vesicles, or
+little cells containing granules. Such are the ova of all animals; and
+both vegetable and animal tissues are entirely formed from them. When
+the parent cells come to maturity, they burst and liberate the granules,
+which immediately develope themselves into new cells, thus repeating the
+life of their original. Now, it has been asserted, that globules can be
+produced in albumen by electricity; and <i>if these globules are true
+germinal vesicles</i>, the difficult problem of producing life by
+artificial means is entirely solved.</p>
+
+<p>But the burden of this part of the theory rests on the evidence that has
+been produced of late years to favor the doctrine of equivocal
+generation, or the production of living beings without the agency,
+either direct or indirect, of parents of the same species. Can such
+beings, <i>orphans</i> in the strictest sense, now be produced or discovered?
+We have not space to repeat our author's argument on this difficult
+mooted question in science, nor is it necessary; he sums up the evidence
+on his own side, and of course finds it satisfactory, though the weight
+of authority is against him. He adduces the experiments of Mr. Crosse,
+repeated by Mr. Weekes, who claim to have produced animalcules in
+considerable numbers, of a species before unknown, by passing a voltaic
+current through silicate of potash, and through nitrate of copper. The
+existence of <i>entozoa</i>, or parasitic animals, found in the interior of
+the bodies of other animals, and found nowhere else, is thought to
+support the same doctrine. The question is, How came they there? Being
+too large, either in their perfect form, or in the egg, to have passed
+through the capillary blood-vessels, how came they within the body of
+another animal,&mdash;itself but a few weeks or a few days old,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> or even in
+the embryo stage,&mdash;unless they were created there without parentage of
+their own species?</p>
+
+<p>These facts and reasonings, it is true, only go to prove, that
+animalcules, or beings of very small size, and low in the scale of
+animated existence, can be produced in this way by the inherent
+qualities of matter. No one will pretend, that a dog, a horse, or a man
+can thus be created. How can we account for the existence of these
+larger animals of a higher type, admitted to have been denizens of the
+earth only since the latest geological epochs, and therefore of
+comparatively recent origin? Here we come to another point in our
+author's theory,&mdash;the transmutation of species, or the successive
+<i>development</i> of higher and higher orders of being out of the species
+immediately below them, through the accidental or natural fulfilment of
+certain conditions, in the course of a long period of years.</p>
+
+<p>Natural history teaches us, that there is quite a regular gradation
+among the several tribes of vegetables and animals; though we may not be
+able to range all the species, as constantly advancing in a single line,
+there is certainly the general appearance of a scale, beginning with the
+most simple, and going on to the most complex forms. While the external
+characteristics are very different, all are but variations of a single
+plan, which exists as the basis of all, and is varied in each individual
+only so as to accommodate it to the conditions under which the
+individual is to live. The germ of a higher animal&mdash;a mammifer, for
+instance&mdash;is the representative of a lower animal full-grown, like the
+<i>volvox globator</i>; the latter remaining in this initial stage, as an
+animalcule, through its whole existence; while the former is developed
+out of it, by successive stages, into a quadruped, or even into a man.
+Similar functions are performed in different animals by very different
+organs, the gills of fishes performing the same office as the lungs of
+the mammalia; and these different organs sometimes exist, at different
+periods, according to the degree of development, in the same animal.
+Thus, the tadpole, so long as it continues to be a fish, breathes by
+gills, which disappear and give place to lungs when it becomes a frog.
+Similar transformations of the insect tribe are familiar to all.
+Imperfect or rudimentary organs are found in certain animals, as the
+mamm&aelig; of a man; a particular organ being here developed to a certain
+extent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> though it is not needed; but being developed a little further,
+it becomes useful in the next set of animals in the scale. The same
+peculiarity is found among plants; the skilful gardener being able
+actually to develope these rudimentary organs by supplying the requisite
+conditions, and thus, as it were, to raise the plant one step in the
+scale.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We have yet to advert to the most interesting class of facts
+connected with the laws of organic development. It is only in
+recent times that physiologists have observed that each animal
+passes, in the course of its germinal history, through a series of
+changes resembling the <i>permanent forms</i> of the various orders of
+animals inferior to it in the scale. Thus, for instance, an insect,
+standing at the head of the articulated animals, is, in the larva
+state, a true annelid, or worm, the annelida being the lowest in
+the same class. The embryo of a crab resembles the perfect animal
+of the inferior order myriapoda, and passes through all the forms
+of transition which characterize the intermediate tribes of
+crustacea. The frog, for some time after its birth, is a fish with
+external gills and other organs, fitting it for an aquatic life,
+all of which are changed as it advances to maturity, and becomes a
+land animal. The mammifer only passes through still more stages,
+according to its higher place in the scale. Nor is man himself
+exempt from this law. His first form is that which is permanent in
+the animalcule. His organization gradually passes through
+conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the
+lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity. At one of
+the last stages of his f&#339;tal career, he exhibits an
+intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape;
+this is suppressed, and he may then be said to take leave of the
+simial type, and become a true human creature. Even, as we shall
+see, the varieties of his race are represented in the progressive
+development of an individual of the highest, before we see the
+adult Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal
+scale.</p>
+
+<p>"To come to particular points of the organization. The brain of
+man, which exceeds that of all other animals in complexity of
+organization and fulness of development, is, at one early period,
+only 'a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty
+distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like
+prolongation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the first
+to appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in
+this state, it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus
+assuming <i>in transitu</i> the form that in the fish is permanent. In a
+short time, however, the structure is become more complex, the
+parts more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> distinct, the spinal marrow better marked; it is now
+the brain of a reptile. The change continues; by a singular motion,
+certain parts (<i>corpora quadragemina</i>), which had hitherto appeared
+on the upper surface, now pass towards the lower; the former is
+their permanent situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in
+birds and mammalia. This is another advance in the scale, but more
+remains yet to be done. The complication of the organ increases;
+cavities, termed <i>ventricles</i>, are formed, which do not exist in
+fishes, reptiles, or birds; curiously organized parts, such as the
+corpora striata, are added; it is now the brain of the mammalia.
+Its last and final change alone seems wanting,&mdash;that which shall
+render it the brain of man.'"&mdash;pp. 150&ndash;152.</p></div>
+
+<p>Usually, it is true, each species produces only its like,&mdash;"every
+creeping thing and beast of the earth" bringing forth young "<i>after his
+kind</i>." But the development of a single animal, under the ordinary law,
+takes place in a few weeks or days; while the development of distinct
+races and species is the work of a whole creation, and is spread over
+countless ages. It is reasonable to suppose, that the latter is effected
+by means of a higher law, manifesting itself only at long intervals. Its
+infrequent manifestation is no argument against the regularity and
+necessity of its occurrence,&mdash;against its being a law at all. The comet
+that visits our system only once in five hundred years is controlled by
+the same inflexible principle which causes the return of another comet
+once in five years. The conditions requisite for a development more
+perfect than usual,&mdash;that is, for the production of a new
+species,&mdash;instead of a new individual of the same species, may be
+fulfilled only at long intervals; but when they are fulfilled, the
+result&mdash;the more perfect development&mdash;takes place as necessarily, as
+much by the virtue of law, as the more ordinary phenomenon of the
+propagation of one race. These conditions may be answered in the
+successive stages of improvement, through which the earth and its
+atmosphere pass, during the vast periods of time contemplated in
+geology. In the era of the old red sand-stone, for instance, there were
+no higher animals than fishes, because the atmosphere was highly charged
+with carbonic acid, and could not support respiration by lungs. When the
+air became purer, the gills were changed into the imperfect lungs of the
+amphibious tribes, such as the huge saurians and the frogs. Deprive
+these latter animals, in their lower stage, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> all access to the light,
+and they will not advance to their higher stage. Put a tadpole into a
+perforated box, and sink it to the bottom of a river, and the animal
+will never be perfected into a frog; he will grow to an enormous size,
+but he will continue a tadpole.</p>
+
+<p>We see, then, the process of an "organic creation by law," or by virtue
+of the inherent qualities of inorganic matter. The ordinary chemical
+affinities of different substances may draw them together into such
+compounds as albumen and fibrin, which are the proximate principles of
+organic tissues. The action of electricity, heat, light, or some other
+mysterious imponderable agent, on these proximate principles, may
+produce globules, or germinal vesicles. These germs, multiplying
+themselves by fissiparous generation, will constitute a stock of animals
+of a low type, such as a tribe of infusory animalcules. Then "this
+simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like
+production is subordinate, gives birth to the type next above it, this
+again produces the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the
+stages of advance being in all cases very small,&mdash;namely, from one
+species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a
+simple and modest character." Thus, the first reptile was born from a
+fish, the first bird was generated by a reptile, and the first mammifer
+had birds for its parents. The transformations appear rather astounding,
+as we pass from one class to another; but the difference between the
+species, even, is often so great, that the transition appears hardly
+less difficult. In what quadruped, for instance, do we find the first
+ancestor of the huge and sagacious elephant? What humble lizard gave
+birth to those monsters of the fossil world, the plesiosaurus and
+megalosaurus, thirty or forty feet in length? Man, of course, upon this
+theory, is only a more perfectly developed monkey, or chimpanzee. With a
+nod of approbation to Lord Monboddo's theory, our author observes, that
+man has even the rudiments of "a caudal extremity" in the <i>os coccygis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That the instinct of animals and the mind of man are the results of
+nothing but material organization is an obvious corollary from this
+doctrine. "The difference," says this writer, "between mind in the lower
+animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific
+difference." Mental phenomena, apparently so various and unstable in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+the individual, are reduced at once to regularity, and become subject to
+calculation, if considered in the mass. This shows, that, like the
+phenomena of the weather, they are under the presidency of natural laws.
+The phrenologists are the only persons who have followed the order of
+nature in the study of mind; they have even determined the functions of
+the different parts of the brain. An experiment is mentioned with a
+newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with
+substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion,
+that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the
+absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment
+of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is
+sufficiently well known. To borrow an illustration from Sidney Smith, it
+would seem, that, if we only knew to what organs of the brain to direct
+an electric current, an automaton, or a dead man, might be made to hold
+an argument, "at least as well as most country parsons."</p>
+
+<p>A person who should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the
+writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too
+extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much
+mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is
+one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a
+revival of the old atheistic hypothesis,&mdash;the Epicurean doctrine of the
+formation of the universe by a fortuitous concourse of atoms,&mdash;with all
+the modifications and improvements that were rendered necessary by the
+discoveries of modern science. We call it an atheistic theory, because,
+though the writer supposes that primitive matter was first endowed <i>by
+divine power</i> with its mysterious qualities and capacities, this
+supposition is gratuitous and arbitrary, and only mars the simplicity of
+the scheme, and injures the consistency and coherence of the parts with
+each other. We can more easily believe that these qualities are
+necessarily inherent in the constitution of matter, forming a part of
+its very essence, just like the properties of impenetrability and
+extension, than that they subsequently developed themselves by forming
+myriads of intricate organizations, without further aid from the divine
+architect. If we can credit the hypothesis, that bricks and mortar came
+together of their own accord, and arranged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> themselves into the first
+house meet for the habitation of man, we can very readily admit, also,
+that the bricks first assumed the proper shape, and mortar the proper
+tenacity and hardness, without the intervention of human labor and
+skill. If there is no need of a bricklayer, we may discard also the
+brick-maker.</p>
+
+<p>Putting aside, therefore, this gratuitous addition to the theory, we
+come to examine the plausibility of the doctrine which assumes, that
+material atoms, constituted as they now are, are capable, without
+oversight or direction, of forming a universe like our own, and
+producing all the animated tribes which tenant it. In all the atheistic
+reasoning upon this subject, and especially in the work now before us,
+there is a constant confusion between <i>what may be</i>, for aught we know
+to the contrary, and <i>what is</i>, so far as we are able positively to
+determine it from our present means of observation and experiment;
+between the <i>possibility</i> that is measured only by human ignorance, and
+the <i>probability</i> that is fairly inferred by the legitimate exercise of
+the understanding. Effects have unquestionably been produced, such as
+the formation of a solar system, and the production of new and perfectly
+distinct orders of being, which we are wholly unable to account for by
+the <i>present and ordinary</i> operation of what are called secondary
+causes. If a theorist chooses to assume, that these secondary causes,
+under certain conditions, which we never have seen, and never can see,
+realized, might produce very extraordinary results, might even fully
+account for the wonderful effects in question, we have a right to say,
+in reply, that he is dealing in pure speculation and hypothesis; that,
+having had no experience under the conditions or postulates of his
+theory, he is necessarily <i>speaking from</i> ignorance and <i>appealing</i> to
+ignorance; that, even if we could not point out a single difficulty, a
+single false assumption, in his whole scheme and argument, it would
+still remain a mere hypothesis, alike incapable of proof or disproof;
+and that, at the best, the arguments brought against it must be of
+nearly the same wiredrawn, speculative, and far-fetched character with
+those adduced in its support. On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with
+arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and
+sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which
+such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the
+entire absence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> of all considerations against their theory constitutes a
+positive argument in its support. No such thing; it affords only a fair
+presumption of the baseless character of the whole fabric.</p>
+
+<p>This may be made more clear by examples. If a child, who has had little
+experience of the laws of nature, and has learned nothing from books, is
+gravely assured by his instructor, that in a distant region of the ocean
+there is an island where stones fly upward instead of downward, and men
+walk on their heads instead of their feet, the young philosopher,
+however acute and ingenious we may suppose him to be, certainly could
+not offer one valid argument against the alleged fact. He could only
+stare, and wonder, and say that it might be so <i>for all that he knew to
+the contrary</i>. Just so, when the atheist tells us, that far off in
+infinite space is a region, of which we can see nothing, even with our
+best telescopes, except a faint glimmer of light, floating like a
+cloudlet in the heavens, where the primitive atoms of matter, directed
+by gravity alone, are slowly congregating together, and forming suns,
+and planets, and secondary satellites, and giving birth to such
+intricate harmonies of mutually dependent and revolving worlds as those
+which have prevailed for ages in our own system; or that, thousands of
+years ago, the same unassisted laws of matter, which we now see
+producing only such comparatively meagre and insufficient results,
+actually caused animalcules to be produced from pure sand, and fishes to
+be created out of oysters, and birds to be generated by slimy and
+grovelling reptiles, and men to be born from monkeys;&mdash;if he should tell
+us all this, certainly we could offer no direct confutation of the
+wonderful tale. In regard to alleged facts of this character, the wisest
+of men are, and always must be, mere children. But it would be monstrous
+to say, that this wild assertion derived any support from their admitted
+bewilderment and incapacity. This would be to attempt to found knowledge
+upon ignorance. The dim analogies resting on questionable facts, the
+bold assumptions and slippery arguments on which such daring hypotheses
+must be based, can be refuted, for the most part, only by reasoning in
+kind,&mdash;by arguments nearly as uncertain, it may be, as those which they
+are brought to answer. We cannot <i>prove</i> a negative; we can only show
+the insufficiency of the ground on which the opposite assumption is made
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> rest; and enough is done for this end, when it is made to appear,
+that the whole scheme is a <i>mere</i> hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p>We make these general remarks only to relieve some readers of this
+volume from the doubt and perplexity which its perusal may have caused,
+solely because they were unable to detect any one glaring fallacy or
+inconsistency in the writer's theory. It appears plausible enough; for,
+though there is very little in its favor, it seems at first sight as if
+there was little or nothing to say against it. On closer scrutiny, it
+will be found, perhaps, that it is disproved by a multitude of
+considerations, any one of which would be fatal to it; as the hypothesis
+is of such a character, that, when a single breach is made in it, the
+whole edifice must tumble. If the intervention of an extraneous cause be
+absolutely necessary at any one stage or process in the creation, it may
+as well be admitted in all; the principle must be given up, and the
+whole purpose of the theist is answered. We shall endeavour to show that
+this hypothetical history of creation is not only faulty in every point,
+when viewed from the author's own ground, but, when examined in the
+proper direction, is absolutely unintelligible, or is in fact no history
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>Let us look first at the nebular hypothesis. Certain spots and tracts in
+the heavens, of a whitish color, appearing to the naked eye to be
+nebul&aelig;, on being examined through a telescope, instantly resolve
+themselves into a multitude of distinct and perfectly formed stars. Such
+is the greatest nebula of all,&mdash;the galaxy, or milky way. Other spots of
+a like character, if viewed through glasses of moderate power, still
+appear as nebul&aelig;; but when seen through more perfect instruments, they
+immediately seem, like the others, to be a mere crowd of stars. Others,
+again, are not separated or resolved by the best telescopes; but what is
+the natural inference from this fact? Surely, we infer that they are
+merely crowded collections of stars, just like the others, except that
+they are too distant or too small to be seen as distinct bodies, even
+with the most powerful instruments that we possess. If telescopes of a
+greater range should hereafter be constructed, there is every reason to
+believe that these also will be resolved to the eye into their component
+parts as stars; and in fact, if newspaper accounts may be credited, when
+Lord Rosse's new and magnificent telescope was first turned towards some
+of these spots, which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> always preserved their nebulous appearance
+when examined by inferior instruments, it was immediately apparent, that
+they were composed of distinct stars. Yet the hypothesis we are now
+considering assumes, that these remote and faintly seen nebul&aelig; are not
+crowds of stars, but primitive luminous matter, the particles of which
+are slowly congregating together, and forming one new star, or several.
+Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is
+due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory,
+to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by
+no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a
+hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently
+never can be verified. It must ever remain a <i>mere</i> guess, directly
+opposed by an obvious induction from those nebul&aelig; which are resolvable
+into perfect stars.</p>
+
+<p>The fact, that one or two bright points, assumed to be centres of
+aggregation, are seen in some of these nebul&aelig;, is of no importance. If a
+bright star be seen from this earth in the same line of vision with the
+nebula, it will be projected on the ground of that nebula, and will
+appear as a part of it, though it may be many millions of miles on this
+side, and have no more connection with it than the planet Jupiter would
+have, if it should happen to be in conjunction with the nebula, and thus
+appear for a short time to be projected upon its disc.</p>
+
+<p>There is one consideration of some weight, though we have never seen it
+adverted to, which tends directly to confute the nebular hypothesis.
+That faint radiance called the zodiacal light, which is seen to stream
+up in the form of a cone from our sun, is assumed by our author to be a
+residuum of the nebulous matter belonging to our system, which has not
+yet been drawn into the sun, though it is on its way thither. Others
+have supposed, with far more probability, that it is the sun's
+atmosphere, and therefore its present shape and size will never
+change,&mdash;as they never have changed, during the period in which they
+have been observed by man. But no matter; we are now reasoning upon our
+author's hypothesis. If the zodiacal light be composed of primitive
+nebulous matter, it must now be comparatively thick and dense, since the
+process of aggregation has been going on for countless ages, and, in our
+system, is considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> as nearly completed; just as when a sediment is
+forming in a tumbler full of turbid water, after the upper portion of
+the fluid has become entirely clear, there will be a stratum of water
+next to the sediment more turbid than the whole was before the
+deposition began. Yet this light is very faint, when seen only from the
+distance of our earth; and at the boundaries of our system, from the
+orbit of Uranus, for instance, we cannot believe that it is visible at
+all. Is it likely, then, that a portion of this nebulous matter, in
+which the process of deposition has hardly begun, and which is seen from
+a distance so vast, that in comparison with it the whole diameter of our
+solar system is but a point, would be visible from this earth? In the
+case of the other nebul&aelig;, a multitude of perfectly formed suns, uniting
+their respective beams, are seen only as a faint, whitish speck on the
+blue arch. And yet we are required to believe, that the luminous matter
+which will ultimately form but one sun, or perhaps two, while still
+thinly diffused over an immense tract of space, the process of
+aggregation having hardly commenced, is yet visible to our eyes at this
+vast distance.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Credat Jud&aelig;us Apella;<br /></span>
+<span>Non ego."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We pass to the next chapter in the history, which professes to explain
+the gradual formation of a solar system by a process of cooling and
+shrinking, to which the central orb is exposed. And here we are met by a
+difficulty at the outset; for the existence of comets with their very
+eccentric orbits is wholly irreconcilable with the theory. At their
+perihelion, many of these bodies pass within the orbit of Mercury, while
+the aphelion of some lies without the path of Uranus. Where were they,
+when the body of the sun filled up the whole of the vast sphere
+circumscribed by the orbit of the remotest planet? If we suppose that
+they are late comers, after the rest of our system was perfected,&mdash;that
+they were generated by themselves in distant regions of space, and,
+having strayed about, orphan-like, for a while, they accidentally
+crossed our track, and were taken as adopted children into our family,
+another question remains to be answered. Why did they not remain in
+their first position, absorb their full share of nebulous matter, beget
+a respectable family of planets, and take rank as chiefs of their own
+clan? These comparatively anomalous bodies are great stumbling-blocks
+for the <i>soi-disant</i> historians of creation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p><p>Again, if an immense orb be formed, the parts of which cohere strongly
+enough for the whole to turn upon its axis as one body, the process of
+cooling can go on only from the surface. A crust may finally be formed
+there; but we see not how the refrigeration and shrinking of the
+interior parts can then go on separately, until the mass in the centre
+finally becomes detached from its envelope, like a shrivelled nut from
+its shell. Our earth is cooling down at this moment, unless the warmth
+which it receives from the sun exactly counterbalances the loss by
+radiation of internal heat. But the exterior and interior do not cool by
+different radiations, nor is there, so far as we know, the least
+tendency in the central mass to shrink separately, so as to detach
+itself from the surrounding crust. As deep as we can penetrate towards
+the centre, we find the heat regularly increase,&mdash;just as we might
+expect, if the only absolute loss of heat be from the surface.</p>
+
+<p>If the matter now concentrated in the sun, and that which forms the
+several planets with their secondaries, were all moulded into one mass,
+and then dilated so as to fill the vast sphere of which the orbit of
+Uranus forms a circumference, the substance would evidently be in a
+state of extreme tenuity and diffusion. Immense as the mass of the sun
+now is, it is but a mere nut at the centre of the grand globe which we
+are now considering. Expanded to such vast dimensions, we cannot
+conceive of it as a solid spheroid turning upon its axis, but only as a
+mass of fluid or vapor, in which a circular motion would generate only
+vortices or whirlwinds. In such an aggregation of subtile matter, no
+crust could be solidified on the outer ring, and then detached from the
+mass within; indeed, any separation of the parts under such
+circumstances is inconceivable. Even a rotary motion could not be
+established in it, except by an impulse received from without; for there
+is every reason to believe, that the movement of a homogeneous fluid
+towards its centre, if it could take place without disturbing causes,
+would be in radial lines, and not in a spiral.</p>
+
+<p>Our author brings into view all the mathematical proportions and uniform
+relations which exist between the constituent bodies of the solar
+system, in order to indicate the probability of their formation from the
+constant working of one material cause. Thus he remarks, that the
+primary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> planets all move nearly in one plane, and "show a progressive
+increase of bulk and diminution of density, from the one nearest to the
+sun to that which is most distant." But he passes over other
+characteristics of these bodies, equally important, which are quite
+irregular, and cannot be traced to the operation of one law. Compare the
+periods of rotation on their respective axes, and we find no
+correspondence, no indication that the revolving motion was imparted to
+all by one inflexible law. The first four planets, counting from the
+sun, perform their rotation in nearly the same time, namely, twenty-four
+hours. But Jupiter's period is a little less, and Saturn's a little
+more, than ten hours. Again, Jupiter's axis of rotation is nearly
+perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, while that of Mars is
+inclined at an angle of fifty-nine degrees forty-two minutes. Another
+irregularity, still more fatal to the theory, is found in the number of
+satellites by which the respective planets are attended. Saturn has
+seven, beside the two rings; Jupiter has four, Mars has none, and the
+earth has but one. On the single hypothesis, that our system was formed
+by rings successively thrown off from a central body by a process of
+refrigeration and contraction, these irregularities are inexplicable.
+Mars, it seems, did not shrink at all, while Jupiter cast off four
+separate rings, and the earth produced its single moon. The distances of
+these bodies from their primaries are also quite irregular; in the case
+of Jupiter, the outermost of the satellites revolves at a distance which
+is only twenty-seven times the radius of the primary, and the innermost
+is distant but six times that radius. This planet, consequently, has
+shrunk to one twenty-seventh part of its original diameter, and in so
+doing, has formed four moons; the earth has shrunk to one sixtieth part
+of its first diameter, and still has produced but one satellite. If the
+same law had prevailed in the two cases, we ought to have nine or ten
+moons.</p>
+
+<p>We need not analyze with any great minuteness the geological facts and
+hypotheses incorporated into this magnificent history of creation. As
+will be seen hereafter, the violent and sweeping transformations and
+convulsions that the earth's crust has undergone directly conflict with
+our author's theory, and afford the strongest presumption, that an
+extraneous cause has frequently interfered, at different periods, to
+repair the desolation produced by the unassisted working of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> natural
+laws, to bring order out of chaos, and to people the desert earth anew
+with animated tribes. The only general fact of much moment, which our
+author has drawn from the discoveries of geologists, for the
+confirmation of his own hypothesis, is, according to his own account,
+one of the most questionable doctrines in the whole science,&mdash;one of a
+negative character, on which we can never rely with full assurance, till
+the researches of man have probed every fold, and examined every thread
+in the texture, of the earth's garment, and thus shown that no evidence
+can possibly be discovered to the contrary. The alleged fact is that, in
+the early formations of rock&mdash;the first pages in the history of the
+earth's surface&mdash;are found the remains of animals and vegetables only of
+the lowest type and most imperfect development; while, in the later
+strata, forms more and more advanced are discovered; so that there seems
+to have been a constant progress along the line leading to the higher
+forms of organization. The testimony which goes to support this
+assertion is wholly negative. The geologist reasons thus: The more
+perfect organisms have not been discovered in the earlier strata;
+<i>therefore</i>, they do not exist in them. When, in a different connection,
+it suits our author's purpose to throw doubt on the very postulate which
+is here admitted, he holds the following language.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the birds than
+we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be
+remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any
+class of animals from a certain period of the earth's history, can
+never be considered as more than negative. Animals, of which we
+find no remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless, have
+lived at the time, and it may have only been from unfavorable
+circumstances that their remains have not been preserved for our
+inspection. The single circumstance of their being little liable to
+be carried down into seas might be the cause of their
+non-appearance in our quarries."&mdash;p. 95.</p></div>
+
+<p>In truth, the researches of geologists are every day bringing to light
+new facts, which compel them to modify or abandon many of the positions
+they formerly held; so that a considerable portion of the science is a
+mere quicksand of shifting theories. We need only allude to the various
+suppositions respecting the origin of drift, and to the numerous
+modifications of the glacial theory. Important discoveries have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+made within a short time, showing that certain animal tribes had their
+origin much farther back than was at first supposed. A few years ago,
+reptiles were believed to be the highest type of life that existed
+during the era of the new red sand-stone. But Professor Hitchcock's
+recent discovery in this stone of the footprints of gigantic birds has
+added a higher class to the zo&ouml;logy of the period; and within a few
+months, in the same red sand-stone of the Connecticut valley, tracks of
+two or three species of quadrupeds have been found, some of them being
+probably mammifers of a lower grade. It is true, no fossil remains of
+these animals have been brought to light; but this want only renders the
+discovery more significant for our present purpose. It shows that
+certain animals must have lived at the period in question, though their
+remains have not yet been found; and from the greater age of the rocks
+then formed, and the consequent greater number of convulsions of the
+earth's surface to which they have been subjected, these remains may
+have entirely disappeared. It is a curious fact, also, that the animal
+remains of that period, which have come down to us, belong to genera so
+constituted, that their bodies might well survive, if we may so speak,
+the shocks which would have destroyed every trace of some more delicate,
+or more finely organized, beings. We find remains of the flint-shielded
+animalcules, the hard-shelled mollusca, and the cartilaginous fishes;
+but the bodies of mammalia, birds, and even the higher species of
+fishes, some of which we may suppose to have been more tender and
+corruptible, have utterly perished. Here and there, an individual of
+their number left the print of its foot on the sand, which subsequently
+hardened into rock, and brought down to our times a faint vestige of its
+past existence.</p>
+
+<p>We are not attempting to impugn the credit of geological science in
+general, which would be a wholly futile task. The multitude of facts
+respecting the present constitution of the earth's crust, recently made
+known by laborers in this department, are among the most curious and
+most pregnant discoveries of modern times. But when we come to the
+formation of theories respecting the past history of the earth, in order
+to account for the phenomena at present visible on its surface, we are
+evidently afloat on a sea of conjecture, each hypothesis being valid
+only till a more plausible one is proposed,&mdash;which happens very
+frequently,&mdash;or till it is effectually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> disproved by some new discovery
+in the rocky strata. A fertile imagination and a bold face are among the
+most striking traits of our more daring geologists. Grant to one of this
+character a few modest postulates,&mdash;give him certain millions of years,
+a sufficient number of earthquakes, a whole battery of volcanoes, a few
+ocean deluges, and the rise and fall of half a dozen continents,&mdash;and he
+will frame a theory off-hand, which will account for the most perplexing
+phenomena. Our author is certainly entitled to take his place at the
+very head of this class of speculatists.</p>
+
+<p>In accounting for the work of creation by the natural and unassisted
+development of the inherent qualities of brute matter, the great
+difficulty is found at the first link in the chain of animated being.
+How can we explain the commencement of <i>life</i>? We must have a clear idea
+of the whole scope of this problem, before we can make any attempt at
+its solution. Life, then, is <i>not</i> mere organization, though most
+materialists, philosophers, like our author, willingly confound the two
+things; to hear them reason, one would almost suppose that there was no
+difference between a dead man and a living one. Organization is
+subservient to life, ministers to it, manifests it,&mdash;supports it, if you
+please,&mdash;but does not constitute it. He must be a bolder man than we
+are, who will undertake to say <i>what it is</i>; but we can very safely
+declare <i>what it is not</i>; and in any particular form or aggregation of
+matter, whether organic or inorganic, we can give a shrewd guess as to
+its presence or absence. It may be said, that we beg the question by
+assuming that organization is not life; it may be so; but it is quite
+too much to allow the materialist quietly to take the opposite doctrine
+for granted. He must know the full extent of his task,&mdash;that it is
+necessary for him not only to construct the machine, but actually to set
+it in motion, so that it shall afterwards run on of its own accord. It
+is very easy to frame a partial definition of life, by merely describing
+one or two of its characteristic functions; and then, because some
+action can be detected between the particles of brute matter, which
+resembles the exercise of these functions, boldly to declare that the
+whole mystery is solved. Thus it is said, that life is nothing but the
+accretion of similar substances, or the addition of like unto like; and
+as this occurs in crystallization, which is confessedly a phenomenon of
+inorganic matter, therefore there is no fundamental difference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> between
+the properties of living and dead substances. We deny the first
+proposition; nutrition is not the only characteristic of life, and the
+nutritive process, whether in vegetables or animals, is not mere
+accretion, but assimilation. It has been said, though the assertion is
+by no means fully proved, that assimilation is only a finer kind of
+chemistry, the constituent principles being brought together only by
+their natural affinities. Even if this were true, if the stomach and the
+digestive apparatus were only a well furnished chemical laboratory, fit
+for conducting the most delicate experiments, the great difficulty would
+still remain. The question might yet be asked, Where is the chemist? And
+this is the fundamental question, which the materialists never attempt
+to answer, but quietly evade.</p>
+
+<p>The difference between an inorganic and an organic body has been
+explained by Coleridge clearly enough for our purpose. In the former,&mdash;a
+sheaf of corn, for instance,&mdash;the whole is nothing more than a
+collection of the individual parts; in the latter,&mdash;an animal,&mdash;the
+whole is the effect of, or results from, the parts. In the latter case,
+the whole is every thing, and the parts are comparatively nothing. One
+of the great effects of life is to keep the parts in subjection to the
+whole, making them contribute to its support and growth, and thus
+maintaining the unity of the system. The stomach digests, the lungs
+inhale air, the heart beats, and the blood circulates; and as the joint
+effect, or as the common supporter,&mdash;it matters not which,&mdash;of these
+operations, <i>life</i> continues, and the animated being is a unit; it has
+not merely virtual, but essential unity. The reciprocal action of the
+respiratory, circulating, and nervous systems is absolutely necessary to
+life. The animal dies, and this unity, this subservience of the parts to
+the whole, immediately ceases. In the functions of the living body, it
+may be that the ordinary laws of chemistry are preserved, and that the
+elements of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen combine and separate according
+to their ordinary affinities, and in no unusual proportions. But after
+death, at any rate, quite a different set of chemical laws come into
+play, and produce a result which is the very opposite of that before
+effected. There is no longer any unanimity or co&ouml;peration; instead of
+sustaining or building up the animal tissues, the affinities now in
+operation tear down, destroy, and resolve them into their ultimate
+elements,&mdash;each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> part following out its own law of destruction or
+resolution, irrespectively of the others.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There is in living organic matter a principle constantly in
+action, the operations of which are in accordance with a rational
+plan, so that the individual parts which it creates in the body are
+adapted to the design of the whole; and this it is which
+distinguishes organism. Kant says, 'The cause of the particular
+mode of existence of each part of a living body resides in the
+whole, while in dead masses each part contains this cause within
+itself.' This explains why a mere part separated from an organized
+whole generally does not continue to live; why, in fact, an
+organized body appears to be one and indivisible. And since the
+different parts of an organized body are heterogeneous members of
+one whole, and essential to its perfect state, the trunk cannot
+live after the loss of one of these parts."&mdash;<i>M&uuml;ller's Physiology</i>,
+Vol. I., p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<p>The apparent exceptions to this statement&mdash;as in the case of the
+polypes, which multiply by fissiparous generation, or by spontaneous
+division of their bodies into parts, each part becoming a perfect
+animal&mdash;are only apparent. These creatures, which are low down in the
+scale of being, exemplify what Mr. Owen calls "the law of vegetative or
+irrelative repetition," as they have many organs performing the same
+function, and not related to each other by combination for the
+performance of a higher function. Thus, a Polygastrian has many
+assimilative sacs, each performing the office of a stomach irrespective
+of the rest. In the insect tribe, the respiratory function, instead of
+being performed by one set of lungs for the whole body, is carried on
+through a series of minute and highly ramified tubes, which traverse
+every part of the body, and open to the air by a great number of
+orifices. In some instances, both respiration and digestion seem to take
+place over the whole surface of the body; for Trembley found at least
+one case, in which the animal digested its food equally well, after it
+had been turned inside out. A number of similar parts being repeated in
+each segment of the individual, the body can be divided, and the several
+portions, each still containing some of all the organs essential to the
+whole, will continue to live separately. The severed parts will even
+continue to grow, and to develope other organs convenient for individual
+existence. But most animals, especially the more perfect, do not
+constitute an aggregate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> of similar parts united by one trunk, and
+therefore propagation by division is in them impossible. The ovum, when
+separated from the parent, is an entire animal only <i>potentially</i>;
+during its development, the essential parts which constitute the
+<i>actual</i> whole are produced. In the case of the polyps, we have only to
+suppose that the ovum remains connected with the parent being, till all,
+or nearly all, its essential parts are produced. It is then shed not as
+a mere ovum, but as an animal nearly or wholly complete.</p>
+
+<p>Now, all the instances adduced by our author, to show similarity of
+action in the organic and the inorganic world, are irrelevant. The
+analogies are not merely imperfect; they are no analogies at all.
+Crystals increase by the aggregation of new particles on the external
+surfaces of the parts already formed; there is no consentaneous
+operation of the parts on the whole. The molecules of crystals are
+homogeneous throughout, and the several aggregates of these molecules
+are independent of each other; while organized bodies are composed of
+parts perfectly dissimilar from each other, but all of which conspire to
+one end. "The growth of organized bodies," says M&uuml;ller, "takes place in
+all particles of their substance at the same time, while the increase of
+the mass in inorganic bodies is produced by external apposition."
+Frostwork on the windows may resemble vegetable <i>forms</i>; but it has no
+resemblance whatever to vegetable <i>life</i>. Electricity may counterfeit
+the <i>action of life</i>, for a moment, on a particular limb, by causing the
+muscles to twitch; but it does not counterfeit <i>life itself</i>, by causing
+all the parts again to contribute to the sustentation of the whole. A
+French chemist, by electric action, may have produced <i>globules</i> in
+albumen; there is nothing very wonderful in that; any one may blow
+bubbles in a viscid fluid. The resemblance between these globules and
+proper germinal vesicles amounts to nothing more than similarity of
+outward shape; there is no more real resemblance between them than
+between the oval lump of chalk which farmers sometimes put into a hen's
+nest, in order to deceive poor Dame Partlet, and the real egg which the
+hen deposits by the side of it. Certainly, the imponderable agents,
+heat, light, and electricity, are in some mysterious way <i>connected
+with</i> life, so as to contribute to its support; there is nothing more in
+this assertion than in the familiar proposition, that a seed will
+germinate only under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> proper conditions of soil and climate; but
+that these agents, acting on inorganic matter, ever <i>create</i> or
+<i>commence</i> life is a pure hypothesis, not supported even by the shadow
+of a fact.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus shown how weak are the general considerations in favor of
+the theory, that animated beings may be created out of inorganic matter
+by mere natural laws, we should proceed to consider the direct evidence
+adduced to prove that life has actually been produced in this way. Here
+the whole question is opened respecting the alleged instances of
+equivocal generation, and we have neither space nor ability to discuss
+them at length. Those who are curious respecting the question may find a
+brief summary of the evidence on both sides in a former number of this
+Journal.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> We can mention only a few facts and arguments, which show
+the extreme improbability of the doctrine supported by our author and a
+few other theorists.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it is remarkable, that all the races of animated
+beings, which are entirely within the range of our powers of
+observation,&mdash;which have such a size and locality that we can study and
+accurately determine their organization and habits,&mdash;are unquestionably
+produced from parents of their own kind. Only the minute microscopic
+animals are now supposed to be generated spontaneously; and this alleged
+fact rests not on direct proof, but only on our inability in certain
+cases to trace the process of their production in the ordinary way. As
+many of these animals, in their perfect state, are not more than the
+twelve thousandth part of an inch in diameter, it is not much to be
+wondered at, that we should not be able in all cases to discover their
+ova, or to follow these ova through all their stages of development into
+the complete being. It is farther remarkable, that these animalcules,
+when once produced, whether by spontaneous or natural generation, are
+all found to be provided with the organs or requisite means for
+continuing their species, and, in fact, for multiplying their number
+from themselves with astonishing rapidity. As they certainly have
+children, it seems reasonable to suppose, according to the analogy of
+all the higher animated tribes, that they also had parents. The ancients
+supposed, that the worms and insects which appear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> in decaying organic
+matter were generated there by the decomposition of the substance,
+without the previous agency of individuals of the same stock. Every
+schoolboy is acquainted with Virgil's mode of obtaining a new swarm of
+bees from the decaying carcass of a heifer. Subsequent researches, made
+with more care, and perhaps with better instruments of observation, have
+entirely disproved the hypothesis, and show that the maggots were
+produced in every case from eggs deposited by flies or other insects,
+and were afterwards themselves developed into the state of perfect
+insects. Then it seems reasonable to believe, that the improved
+observations of future times will clear up the only remaining
+difficulty, and show how the infusory animalcules also are generated
+from beings of their own kind.</p>
+
+<p>These minute creatures are prolific to a degree that transcends all
+calculation; and they exist, either in the egg or maturely developed, in
+inconceivable numbers. A single wheel-animalcule, <i>Hydatina senta</i>,
+which was watched for more than eighteen days, and which lives still
+longer, is capable of a fourfold increase in twenty-four or thirty
+hours; a rate of propagation which would afford in ten days a million of
+beings. From their tenacity of life, extraordinary powers of
+reproduction, and incalculable numbers, their united influence may be
+said to be far more important, in all the great operations of nature,
+than that of the larger and more perfectly developed organisms. They
+swarm in all the seas, and play an important part in choking up harbours
+and forming great deposits at the mouths of rivers. The remains of those
+which have perished form great beds and strata in the crust of the
+earth. The silicious stone, called Tripoli, is entirely composed of such
+remains; at Bilin, in Bohemia, there is one stratum of this substance,
+fourteen feet thick, one cubic inch of which is estimated to contain
+forty-one thousand millions of individuals. Their extreme tenacity of
+life is evinced by the fact, that many of them may be entirely
+desiccated, and preserved in pure sand for several years, after which,
+on the application of a drop of water, they may be restored to life. In
+this dried state, M. Doy&egrave;re exposed some of them to a heat equal to that
+of boiling water, and afterwards revived them; though, in an active
+state, if subjected to a much lower temperature, they perish. If, then,
+the fully developed and mature can resist such powerful extraneous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+causes of destruction, how much more must the ova possess the power of
+enduring them without losing their latent life! The following extract
+from Professor Owen's Lectures shows the bearing of these facts upon the
+question of equivocal generation.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The act of oviparous generation, that sending forth of countless
+ova through the fatal laceration or dissolution of the parent's
+body, is most commonly observed in the well-fed <i>Polygastria</i>,
+which crowd together as their little ocean evaporates; and thus
+each leaves, by the last act of its life, the means of perpetuating
+and diffusing its species by thousands of fertile germs. When the
+once thickly tenanted pool is dried up, and its bottom converted
+into a layer of dust, these inconceivably minute and light ova will
+be raised with the dust by the first puff of wind, diffused through
+the atmosphere, and may there remain long suspended; forming,
+perhaps, their share of the particles which we see flickering in
+the sunbeam, ready to fall into any collection of water, beaten
+down by every summer shower into the streams or pools which receive
+or may be formed by such showers, and, by virtue of their tenacity
+of life, ready to develope themselves wherever they may find the
+requisite conditions for their existence.</p>
+
+<p>"The possibility, or, rather, the high probability, that such is
+the design of the oviparous generation of the <i>Infusoria</i>, and such
+the common mode of the diffusion of their ova, renders the
+hypothesis of equivocal generation, which has been so frequently
+invoked to explain their origin in new-formed natural or artificial
+infusions, quite gratuitous. If organs of generation might, at
+first sight, seem superfluous in creatures propagating their kind
+by gemmation and spontaneous fission, equivocal generation is
+surely still less required to explain the origin of beings so
+richly provided with the ordinary and recognized modes of
+propagation."&mdash;pp. 31, 32.</p></div>
+
+<p>Recent accounts show, that the dust collected from the atmosphere at
+sea, many miles from land, generally contains some of these dried
+animalcules and their ova. Many of these germs can be developed only in
+particular localities, or under certain conditions which are rarely
+fulfilled. Consequently, if there were but few of them, the species
+might perish, because those few might not find their appropriate home.
+But such an accident is guarded against by the vast multiplication of
+these germs and their wide dispersion; for, unlike all the higher tribes
+of beings except man, the same species is often found in all regions of
+the globe. Very few, in comparison with the whole number, may find a
+proper <i>nidus</i>; but these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> few then propagate with such marvellous
+rapidity, as fully to replenish, if not to increase, the original stock.
+Thus they have been enabled, as species, to survive even those
+destroying causes which exterminated all the higher forms of animals.
+Several species still exist, which were in being at the time of the
+cretaceous formation, though all the other animated races belonging to
+that period have perished. "These animalcules," says Ehrenberg,
+"constitute a chain, which, though in the individual it be microscopic,
+yet in the mass is a mighty one, connecting the organic life of distant
+ages of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>In view of facts like these, we may surely say, that the existence of
+the infusory animalcules, and even of the entozoa, is conceivable,
+supposing they could only have been produced by parents of their own
+kind, and without having recourse to the anomalous and hypothetical
+doctrine of equivocal generation. We may not be able to trace their line
+of parentage, for our imperfect vision cannot follow the motes which
+play in the sunbeam, nor track them from their birth-place to their
+final home. But we know that they must be deposited in every layer of
+dust that falls from the atmosphere, that they must be inhaled with
+every breath which an animal draws, and be swallowed with every morsel
+and drop of its food. The experiments which seem to prove that living
+beings may be produced from pure inorganic matter are all explicable on
+the supposition, that adequate precautions were not taken to exclude
+every animal and germ capable of development from the substances
+experimented upon, and from the air which was admitted into the
+apparatus. On this ground, the experiments of Crosse and Weekes, cited
+by our author, have been quite generally rejected by scientific men, as
+hardly deserving of notice. We learn that the former was "discouraged by
+the reception of his experiments," and "soon discontinued them";&mdash;with
+good reason, for it does not appear from our author's account, that he
+adopted any precautions at all. Mr. Weekes seems to have been a little
+more cautious, and the consequence was, that he did not observe any
+appearance of life among the substances experimented upon for "eleven
+months," at the end of which time we may reasonably suppose, that his
+precautions ceased to have perfect effect. The only experiment, in which
+adequate means to guard against causes of error were taken, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> that of
+Professor Schulze, of Berlin, which had a contrary result. We extract
+Mr. Owen's account of it.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He filled a glass flask half full of distilled water, in which
+were various animal and vegetable substances: he then closed it
+with a good cork, through which were passed two glass tubes, bent
+at right angles, the whole being air-tight: it was next placed in a
+sand bath, and heated until the water boiled violently. While the
+watery vapor was escaping by the glass tubes, the Professor
+fastened at each end an apparatus which chemists employ for
+collecting carbonic acid: that at the one end was filled with
+concentrated sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of
+potash. By means of the boiling heat, it is to be presumed that
+every thing living, and all germs in the flask or in the tubes were
+destroyed; whilst all access was cut off by the sulphuric acid on
+the one side, and by the potash on the other. The apparatus was
+then exposed to the influence of summer light and heat; at the same
+time, there was placed near it an open vessel, with the same
+substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after
+having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order to renew
+constantly the air within the flask, the experimenter sucked with
+his mouth several times a day the open end of the apparatus, filled
+with the solution of potash, by which process the air entered his
+mouth from the flask through the caustic liquid, and the
+atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the
+sulphuric acid. The air was of course not at all altered in its
+composition by passing through the sulphuric acid in the flask; but
+all the portions of living matter, or of matter capable of becoming
+animated, were taken up by the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From
+the 28th of May until the beginning of August, Professor Schulze
+continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the air in the flask,
+without being able, by the aid of the microscope, to discover any
+living animal or vegetable substance; although, during the whole of
+the time, observations were made almost daily on the edge of the
+liquid; and when, at last, the Professor separated the different
+parts of the apparatus, he could not find in the whole liquid the
+slightest trace of <i>Infusoria</i> or <i>Conferv&aelig;</i>, or of mould; but all
+three presented themselves in great abundance a few days after he
+had left the flask standing open. The vessel which he placed near
+the apparatus contained on the following day <i>Vibriones</i> and
+<i>Monads</i>, to which were soon added larger Polygastric <i>Infusoria</i>,
+and afterwards <i>Rotifera</i>."&mdash;pp. 32, 33.</p></div>
+
+<p>For readers who are not familiar with these subjects, it may be well to
+mention, that the weight of authority is decidedly against this doctrine
+of spontaneous generation. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> rejected by M&uuml;ller, who ranks among
+the first physiologists of Germany; by Ehrenberg, one of the most
+distinguished microscopists in the world; and by Owen, who stands at the
+head of the school of comparative anatomy in England, if not in Europe.
+The remark made by Cuvier, more than thirty years ago, is still true at
+the present day, that, "although the impossibility of spontaneous
+generation cannot be absolutely demonstrated, yet all the efforts of
+those physiologists who believe in the possibility of it have not
+succeeded in showing us a single instance."</p>
+
+<p>Passing over, then, our author's theory of the origination of life from
+inorganic matter as utterly untenable, we come to the next point in his
+system,&mdash;the most chimerical of all,&mdash;the gradual development of the
+higher orders of being out of those next beneath them in the scale. It
+is not pretended, that there is <i>any known instance</i> of the
+transmutation of species, or of the evolution, in the ordinary way, of
+any being specifically different from its parents. The same animal,
+indeed, may pass through different grades of development; but these
+changes affect only the individual, not the race. The progeny of this
+animal must begin at the same point where its parent did, and run
+precisely the same cycle. The tadpole becomes a frog, but the young of
+that frog are tadpoles; the worm becomes a winged insect, but the eggs
+of that insect are hatched into nothing but worms. These changes in the
+life of the individual, like the successive periods of the embryotic
+state, of infancy, and manhood in the human being, are perfectly
+consistent with persistence of type in the race, and do not indicate
+even the possibility that a new species may be developed out of an old
+one. On the contrary, the germ must be considered as <i>potentially</i>
+equivalent to the whole future being, for it is invariably developed
+into that being. If there be any one fact unquestionably established by
+observation, it is that each species invariably produces its like. "All
+the phenomena," says M&uuml;ller, "at present observed in the animal kingdom,
+seem to prove that the species were originally created distinct, and
+independent of each other. There is no remote possibility of one species
+being produced from another."</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of our author, then, is confessedly a pure hypothesis, and,
+as such, it might be summarily dismissed into the region of cloud-land
+and dreams, where it had its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> origin. The burden of proof is upon him,
+and as he has failed to produce a single instance in which his theory is
+exemplified, he may be rightfully debarred the privilege of discussion.
+But waiving this point, if we look into the grounds of his conjecture,
+we find bold assumptions more than once substituted for the plain
+statement of facts, which would destroy every shade of credibility in
+his doctrine. True, there is an appearance, both in the animal and
+vegetable kingdoms, of an ascending scale of being, from simply
+organized forms and imperfect developments up to the complex
+arrangements and nice adaptations of the advanced tribes. But the
+progress is not regular, nor are the intervals of constant length. The
+line is often broken and doubled, and, in fact, the individuals are far
+more naturally arranged in a number of parallel lines, beginning
+successively at a somewhat lower point, than in a single series. Man, of
+course, is placed at the head of the animal tribes; but the interval
+which separates him from the chimpanzee cannot easily be cleared at one
+bound. He forms but one genus, and that genus is the only one of its
+order. But even if the line of gradation were single and perfect, the
+fact would be of no service to the hypothesis we are now considering;
+for the interval between two species most nearly allied to each other
+seems to be quite as impassable as the broadest gulf of separation.</p>
+
+<p>The point chiefly relied upon to show the credibility of this doctrine
+is the fact, according to our author, that the higher animals pass
+through a series of changes resembling the permanent forms of the lower
+tribes. The first form of man himself "is that which is permanent in the
+animalcule"; and thence he comes to resemble successively a fish, a
+reptile, a bird, and the lower mammifers, before he attains his specific
+maturity. It is held, then, that a premature birth from an animal of a
+higher kind might have instituted a new race of a lower type; and that a
+birth unusually delayed, permitting an embryo to be still farther
+advanced in the line of organization, might have created a new species
+of a higher order than the parent. Here, every thing depends on the
+<i>absolute identity</i> of the germs of all animals, in the lower stages of
+their growth. General resemblances and analogies are of no weight
+whatever; the essential internal organization of the ova of different
+species must be the same; otherwise, however ripened into a mature
+being, whether the birth be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> advanced or postponed, the individual must
+still belong to its parents' species, of which it possesses the
+distinctive peculiarity. Now, this point of <i>the identity of germs is a
+mere assumption</i>; not only is it destitute of proof,&mdash;the whole evidence
+is against it. There is a degree of outward resemblance, but there is no
+sameness. When we trace the origin of life back to the remotest point to
+which our powers of observation extend, when we come to microscopic
+vesicles that can be discerned only by the highest magnifiers, general
+similarity of outward shape is all that can be predicated of them. The
+specific differences lie below this general resemblance of outward form;
+we cannot discern them, but we <i>know</i> that they must exist, and that
+they are <i>essential</i> differences, for each one of these vesicles is
+invariably developed, if at all, into an individual of the species to
+which its parent belongs. The germinal vesicles of a tree and a
+quadruped are somewhat alike, outwardly; so, to the hen's eyes, there is
+no difference between her own eggs and the duck's eggs which the
+farmer's wife has put into her nest. But when she has hatched her brood,
+part of them are found to be web-footed, and these, to her great
+astonishment and distress, immediately take to the water. Our author
+commits the same blunder as the poor hen. This want of consciousness
+that he has got to the end of his tether, this inability to believe that
+any difference can exist where he is not able to see it, though it is
+invariably indicated by future consequent differences of the most
+striking nature, is perfectly characteristic of the rash theorist in
+science.</p>
+
+<p>The assertion, that man's "first form <i>is</i> that which is permanent in
+the animalcule,"&mdash;even if we do not look to the potentiality of
+development into a higher being, which experience shows to exist in the
+human germ, but not in the infusorial,&mdash;is a positive misstatement. The
+lowest monad has a mouth and means for propagating its kind, which do
+not belong to the primitive ovum of any higher animal. About the
+succeeding stages in the growth of the embryo our author's language is
+more cautious. He only says, that they <i>resemble</i>, or <i>typify</i>, some of
+the lower orders of being; and this is virtually admitting a specific
+difference, and giving up his own theory for all the conditions
+posterior to that of the germ. The brain and heart of the embryo
+successively <i>resemble</i> the corresponding organs in a fish, a reptile, a
+bird,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and a quadruped; but they are not identical, <i>even in outward
+appearance</i>, with those organs. Of course, if arrested at any stage of
+its growth, and prematurely born, the embryo would not be one of the
+lower animals, but only something resembling it in outward shape; and
+conversely, if it were possible for the birth of a bird to be delayed
+till it had reached a higher stage of development in the same line in
+which it was proceeding, it would not become a quadruped, but it would
+be an anomalous creature somewhat like one. Consequently, no one species
+now on the earth can have been evolved out of any other existing race;
+because the germs of any two, at a very early stage in their history,
+according to our author's own confession, are specifically unlike.</p>
+
+<p>To avoid this difficulty, he is driven to a further supposition, still
+more gratuitous and improbable; namely, that the germ destined to become
+one of a different race from its parents, having advanced along its
+usual line of development so far as that line coincides with the one
+belonging to the new species, there diverges, and follows a different
+path up to the period of its birth into a new creature; that is, the
+embryo of a reptile, having grown for a certain time as if it were to be
+a reptile, suddenly turns aside, like a young man changing his mind
+about the choice of a profession, and for the rest of its f&#339;tal life
+follows the proper line of progress in order to be developed into a
+bird. This is mere dreaming, and reminds one only of the wonderful
+transformations effected by enchantment in an Arabian tale. We might
+just as plausibly suppose, that the reptile, after it became mature, was
+suddenly transformed into a bird, as that it underwent this change
+before it was hatched. All the evidence attainable goes to show, that
+the law of development is as immutable before as after birth, the
+several stages of progress succeeding each other in a constant order,
+and affecting the individual only, not the race. A young monkey is no
+more likely to be transmuted into a man than an old one; nor is such a
+metamorphosis at all more probable in the course of its f&#339;tal life.</p>
+
+<p>The view we have now obtained of the specific differences between
+distinct races of being at separate periods of their existence is
+precisely what might have been anticipated from the law of gradual
+development, which holds throughout the organic kingdoms. Between two
+mature animals, these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> differences are perfectly obvious and well
+marked. As we go a step back in their history, the distinction becomes a
+little more obscure; two worms may resemble each other very closely,
+though the two winged insects subsequently produced from them may be
+very unlike. Receding still farther, some of these specific differences
+may entirely disappear, the organs or parts which should exhibit them
+being not yet developed. And when we come to the primitive germs, so
+minute as to be visible only through the microscope, no outward
+distinction, perhaps, is any longer perceptible, and the radical
+difference of their internal organization is indicated only by the fact,
+to be verified by subsequent observation, that the two are invariably
+developed into perfectly distinct animals, belonging respectively to the
+same races with their parents. A theorist, whose whole system is based
+upon the invariable operation of natural agencies, cannot reasonably
+object to this conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>That our statements in the course of this argument may not appear of the
+same questionable character as those advanced by our author, we will
+fortify them with a few brief citations from a work of such
+unquestionable authority as the Lectures of Professor Owen.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"No doubt the minute infusoria, which seem to have their
+development arrested at the first or nearest stage from the
+primitive cell formation, offer close and striking analogies to the
+primitive cells out of which the higher animals and all their
+tissues are developed; but the very [first] step which the
+infusoria take beyond the primitive cell stage invests them with a
+specific character as independent and distinct in its nature as
+that of the highest and most complicated organisms. No mere organic
+cell, destined for ulterior changes in a living organization, has a
+mouth armed with teeth, or provided with long tentacula; I will not
+lay stress on the alimentary canal and appended stomachs, which
+many still regard as 'sub judice'; but the endowment of distinct
+organs of generation, for propagating their kind by fertile ova,
+raises the polygastric infusoria much above the mere organic
+cell."&mdash;pp. 25, 26.</p>
+
+<p>"In comparing the several stages in the very interesting
+development of the <i>cyan&aelig;a aurita</i> to the infusoria and polypes, it
+must be understood that such comparisons are warranted only by a
+similarity of outward form, and of the instruments of locomotion
+and prehension. The essential internal organization of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+persistent lower forms of the <i>zo&ouml;phyta</i> is entirely wanting in the
+transitory states of the higher ones. A progress through the
+inferior groups is sketched out, but no actual transmutation of
+species is effected. The young medusa, before it attains its
+destined condition of maturity, successively resembles, but never
+becomes, a polygastrian, a rotifer, and a bryozoon."&mdash;p. 112.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus every animal in the course of its development typifies or
+represents some of the permanent forms of animals inferior to
+itself; but it does not represent all the inferior forms, nor
+acquire the organization of any of the forms which it transitorily
+represents. Had the animal kingdom formed, as was once supposed, a
+single and continuous chain of being, progressively ascending from
+the monad to the man, unity of organization might then have been
+demonstrated to the extent in which the theory has been maintained
+by the disciples of the Geoffroyan school."&mdash;p. 370.</p></div>
+
+<p>If these similarities of structure in the germ had any bearing on the
+subject, they would indicate the possibility only of retrogression in
+the scale. Of course, the immature ovum, arrested in its development,
+could not form a more perfect being than its parent. There is no
+pretence that the embryo, at any stage of its progress, images an animal
+of a higher grade than its own family. Then what aid do these
+similarities of structure afford to the theory, that all the higher
+organisms have been evolved by successive steps out of the lowest monad?
+At the best, you have only shown, that a <i>retreat</i> is possible; you have
+still to point out any likelihood, even the remotest, of an <i>advance</i> in
+the scale of being. There is no fact whatever to confirm the
+supposition, that birth may possibly be delayed till the animal be
+developed into one of a higher species; and the law of immature births
+seems to be, that, if the offspring escapes at all&mdash;for there is great
+risk consequent on such an accident,&mdash;it becomes as perfect as its
+progenitors. Nature seems to guard the distinctions between the several
+races with peculiar care; so far as we know, monsters either do not
+survive their birth, or are incapable of continuing their kind, or in
+the course of a single generation are reunited to the original family.</p>
+
+<p>To say that these laws, distinct and invariable as far as the
+observation of man has extended, may possibly have been superseded in
+the lapse of ages by a higher principle, manifesting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> itself only at
+long intervals, is again to have recourse to a blank hypothesis,
+incapable alike of proof or disproof, and unsupported by the faintest
+intimations from the world of experience. To build up a theory in this
+way is not to account for the work of creation by the natural agencies
+and inherent qualities of matter, <i>as at present observable</i>, but to fly
+off to the wild supposition, that matter and life were more richly
+endowed ages ago than they are in our own day. You affirm, that this
+higher principle of development did not override the inferior laws at
+the earlier periods in time's history, because, in the infancy of the
+universe, the conditions were wanting which are requisite for its
+manifestation,&mdash;because the earth was not ready, the atmosphere was not
+purified, for the nobler races of being. Very well; but these conditions
+are answered <i>now</i>. All things are ready at the present day for the
+innate energies of matter to put forth their utmost strength. Why do not
+fishes generate reptiles, and birds produce mammifers, <i>now</i>? Ah! but
+"the earth being now supplied with both kinds of tenants in great
+abundance, we could only expect to find the life-originating power at
+work in some very special and extraordinary circumstances." It seems,
+then, that these inherent qualities of matter, once supposed to be
+blind, absolute, and invariable in their operation, are really very
+judicious and reasonable; they suit the supply to the demand, and
+actually cease working when the market is likely to be overstocked. The
+results of such "<i>natural</i> agencies" as these are very like the effects
+produced by the volitions of a wise and thinking being.</p>
+
+<p>It happens that we are not obliged to grant to our author an indefinite
+lapse of ages for the sake of bringing all his higher principles into
+action. One of the latest events in the geological history of the earth
+was a great submersion of the land, by which "terrestrial animal life
+was extensively, if not universally, destroyed"; so that the creation of
+the species now in being&mdash;at least, all the higher species&mdash;was "a
+comparatively recent event, and one posterior, generally speaking, to
+all the great natural transactions chronicled by geology." Science does
+not contradict, it rather confirms, that voice of revelation or
+tradition, which assigns about six thousand years as the period of man's
+residence upon the earth. The action of the drama, then, is restricted
+within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> moderate limits as to time, and the "natural agencies" and
+"higher principles" must work fast in order to accomplish their task
+within the prescribed period. One condition for the creation of a new
+and permanent species, belonging to any of the higher orders, seems to
+have escaped our author's notice; at least two individuals, a male and a
+female, must have been evolved out of the next lower race, before the
+new species could continue its kind. Apply these considerations to the
+creation of man, who, according to our author's Scripture, was born of a
+monkey. To suppose, that, at the first trial, an Adam and an Eve were
+born near each other, so that they might have a chance of meeting in the
+course of their lives, would look too much like the operation of
+intelligence and design. On the theory of an organic creation by law, as
+the monkey race is spread over large regions of the globe, we must
+suppose that many of each sex were produced, and died childless, before
+any Adam was happy enough to find an Eve. Then, at no very distant
+period, within a few thousand years, the birth of a man from an animal
+of a lower type was no very strange event. Probably it occurred so
+often, that the monkeys themselves ceased to be astonished at it. And
+yet, this tribe of animals, with all the benefit of large experience,
+with increased numbers, and with all the requisite conditions fulfilled
+at least as perfectly as they were at the earlier period of their
+history, have not succeeded, in the three or four thousand years during
+which they have been subject to the observation of intelligent beings,
+in producing even a decent semblance of a man.</p>
+
+<p>With the exposure of this crowning absurdity, we must close our direct
+examination of this "History of Creation." We have not room to consider
+some of the appendages to the theory, such as the assertion of the
+essential unity of the human and the brute intellect, the denial of the
+immaterial nature of mind, and the advocacy of the system of phrenology.
+These absurd and degrading doctrines are naturally connected with the
+atheistic hypothesis we have been considering. They are its legitimate
+children. But they have already been refuted so often and so
+conclusively, that any revival of them at the present day is hardly
+deserving of notice. If we should stop here, then, it may fairly be left
+to the judgment of our readers, whether we have not fulfilled the pledge
+given at the outset, by showing that this theory is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> faulty at every
+point, even when viewed from the author's own ground. The proposal of it
+is no new thing. In one or another form, varying in particulars, but
+agreeing in substance, it has been before the world ever since the days
+of Democritus, and more especially of his follower, Epicurus. Lucretius
+clothed it in sonorous and majestic verse, for it is a theme fitted
+above all others to excite the fancy, and to receive the richest
+embellishments from the imagination. Modern authors have promulgated it
+again and again, with little other change than what was requisite to
+adapt it to recent improvements in science, and to engraft upon it some
+of their own favorite hypotheses and fancies. The version of it by the
+French naturalist Lamarck was the latest and the most in vogue, till the
+appearance of the present volume. So frequently has it been confuted,
+that the revival of it at this late period seems little more than a
+harmless exercise of ingenuity, a poetical and scientific dream, and one
+need hardly take the pains to expose its assumptions and fallacies. The
+violent suppositions which it involves only remind one of the remark
+quoted from Pascal on a former page, that "unbelievers are the most
+credulous persons in the world." If set forth only as a novel and
+pleasing fancy, it may be classed with other ingenious fictions, that
+are published without a thought of deception. But if seriously proposed,
+it can be fitly characterized only by borrowing the homely but energetic
+language of Dr. Bentley.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And now that I have finished all the parts which I proposed to
+discourse of, I will conclude all with a short application to the
+atheists. And I would advise them, as a friend, to leave off this
+dabbling and smattering in philosophy, this shuffling and cutting
+with atoms. It never succeeded well with them, and they always come
+off with the loss. Their old master, Epicurus, seems to have had
+his brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever
+kept in the right way; though the main maxim of his philosophy was
+to trust to his senses, and follow his nose. I will not take notice
+of his doting conceit, that the sun and moon are no bigger than
+they appear to the eye, a foot or half a yard over; and that the
+stars are no larger than so many glow-worms. But let us see how he
+manages his atoms, those almighty tools that do every thing of
+themselves, without the help of a workman. When the atoms, says he,
+<i>descend</i> in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make high
+and low in infinity), they do not fall plumb down, but decline a
+little from the perpendicular, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>either obliquely or in a curve; and
+this declination, says he, from the direct line is the cause of our
+liberty of will. But, I say, this declination of atoms in their
+descent was itself either necessary or voluntary. If it was
+necessary, how then could that necessity ever beget liberty? If it
+was voluntary, then atoms had that power of volition before; and
+what becomes then of the Epicurean doctrine of the fortuitous
+productions of worlds? The whole business is contradiction and
+ridiculous nonsense."&mdash;<i>Bentley's Works</i>, Vol. III., pp. 47, 48.</p></div>
+
+<p>Custom and convenience lead us to speak of the "laws" of nature, and of
+the "powers and forces" of brute matter; and few persons, in adopting
+these phrases, are aware that they are using a figure of speech. Yet
+nothing is more certain than that all the researches of science have not
+been able to point out with certainty a single active cause apart from
+the operation of mind. We discern nothing but regularity and similarity
+of sequences; and the attribution of these effects to some occult
+qualities in the atoms or molecules in which they are manifested is
+wholly hypothetical, and even, when closely examined, is inconceivable.
+For this reason we affirm, that the theory of our author, professing to
+account for the whole work of creation "by the operation of law," is not
+only unsound and baseless in its particulars, but, when scrutinized as a
+whole, is absolutely unintelligible. <i>He attempts to account for a
+string of hypothetical effects, such as spontaneous generation and the
+transmutation of species, by a series of hypothetical and inconceivable
+causes, such as the energies of lifeless matter.</i> Let any one conceive,
+if he can, of any <i>power</i>, <i>energy</i>, or <i>force</i> inherent in a lump of
+matter,&mdash;a stone, for instance,&mdash;except this merely negative one, that
+it always and necessarily remains in its present state, whether this be
+of rest or motion. Let him point out, if he can, the <i>nexus</i> between
+what are usually denominated cause and effect in matter,&mdash;as when two
+bodies are drawn towards each other, if they are in opposite states of
+electricity. When he says that it is the <i>nature</i>, or <i>law</i>, of bodies
+thus electrified to attract each other, he offers no explanation of the
+phenomenon; he only refers it to a class of other results, of a similar
+character, previously observed. It is not pretended, that all or any of
+these results, formerly known, are more intelligible or explicable than
+the one in question. But the latter is classed with them, because, from
+their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> general similarity, from their taking place under the same
+outward circumstances, it is reasonably supposed that <i>one</i> cause,
+whatever it may be, is common to them all. And this is the whole
+business of the student of nature, to place together results which are
+so similar, that we may attribute them to a common cause, without
+assuming to know what that cause is. The sole office of science is the
+theory, not of causation, but of classification. It is all reducible to
+natural history, the essence of which consists in arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>We are not attempting to perplex a plain matter of science by
+introducing into its discussion a metaphysical subtilty. The principle
+here contended for is one of the first dictates of the inductive
+philosophy, and as such it has been frankly acknowledged and acted upon
+by all the great improvers of science in modern days. When Newton
+discovered that the planets circle round the sun in the same manner in
+which a stone thrown by the hand describes a curve before reaching the
+earth, he may be said to have <i>explained</i> the former phenomenon by
+bringing it into the same class with certain results which have long
+been familiar to us. But the explanation was only relative, not
+absolute. The latter phenomenon is, in reality, no more explicable than
+the former; he did not pretend to know the <i>cause</i> of the stone's
+falling to the ground, any more than of the revolution of the planets.
+It was something to be able to arrange these apparently heterogeneous
+results in the same class, and gravity was a convenient name to apply to
+the whole. But the supposition, that gravity was an occult cause,
+inherent in matter, he earnestly repelled, and declared that it was
+"inconceivable."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Franklin showed, that a thunder-cloud and the
+charged conductor of an electrical machine manifested the same
+phenomena, and might therefore be classed together; sparks were obtained
+from both,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> Leyden jars were charged from them, other bodies were
+attracted and repelled in a similar way, so that it was reasonable to
+believe that the same agency was acting in both cases. What this agency
+was he did not even guess. The <i>cause</i> of electric action, whether in
+the excited cloud, or the excited tube, was just as obscure as ever.
+Chemists observed, that different substances, when brought into close
+contact, sometimes remained distinct, and sometimes united with each
+other in various but regular proportions; and these capacities of
+coalescing with one class of bodies, and of remaining unaffected by
+another, are called chemical "affinities." This is a convenient
+generalization, and has properly received a specific name; though the
+common appellation throws no light on the <i>cause</i> of the phenomena,
+which remains an impenetrable secret. To say that certain action is
+<i>caused</i> by the operation of chemical affinities is only to arrange it
+with a large class of other observed appearances, equally obscure as to
+their origin and essential character.</p>
+
+<p>Let us go a step further, and suppose that the progress of discovery has
+made known certain facts lying behind the phenomena in question, to
+which they may all be referred. Let us suppose, that all bodies which
+gravitate towards each other are found to be embosomed in a subtile,
+ambient fluid, which connects them, as it were, into one system; that
+the positive and negative states of electricity are resolvable into the
+presence of two fluids standing in certain relations to each other; and
+that substances show chemical affinity for each other only when they are
+in opposite electrical conditions. Still, we have only advanced a step
+in the generalization, and the real, efficient <i>cause</i> of the
+appearances is still hidden from us by an impenetrable veil. Gravitation
+is now referred to the communication of motion by impulse; electricity,
+to the combination and separation of different fluids; affinity, to the
+attraction or repulsion of these fluids. The latter classes of phenomena
+are more general, but not a whit more explicable, than the former. We
+have now fewer causes to seek for, but not one of these few has been
+discovered. When we have resolved electricity or gravitation into the
+presence of an elastic medium, it is a mere figure of speech to say,
+that we have discovered the <i>cause</i> of the electric phenomena or of
+gravity. That is just as far off as ever; for we have yet to discover
+the principle whence flow <i>necessarily</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> all the phenomena observable in
+fluids. It is the sole end and the highest ambition of science to
+discover as many as possible of the relationships which bind facts
+together, and thus to carry the generalization to the farthest point.
+Its office is not to discover causes, but to generalize effects. The
+investigation of real causes is quite given up, as a hopeless
+undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>Observe, now, how all the phraseology employed in speaking of these
+successive generalizations of science is borrowed from the action of
+mind. The word <i>action</i> itself has no real significance, except when
+applied to the <i>doings</i> of an intelligent agent; we cannot speak of the
+doings of matter, as we could if the word <i>action</i> were applicable to it
+in any other than a figurative sense. Again, in speaking of the
+similarity of facts and the regularity of sequences, we refer them to a
+<i>law</i> of nature, just as if they were sentient beings acting under the
+will of a sovereign. Parts of pure matter&mdash;the chemical elements, for
+instance&mdash;do not <i>act</i> at all; being brute and inert, it is only by a
+strong metaphor that they are said to be subject to law. Again, we
+attribute <i>force</i>, <i>power</i>, &amp;c., to the primitive particles of matter,
+and speak of their natural <i>agencies</i>. Just so, we talk of <i>tone</i> in
+coloring, and of a <i>heavy</i> or <i>light</i> sound; though, of course, in their
+proper significance, tone belongs only to sound, and heaviness to
+gravitating bodies. These modes of speech are proper enough, if their
+figurative character be kept in view; but it is a little too bad, when a
+whole scientific theory is made to rest upon a metaphor as its sole
+support. <i>Agency</i> is the employment of one intelligent being to act for
+another; <i>force</i> and <i>power</i> are applicable only to will; they are
+characteristic of volition. It is a violent trope to apply either of
+these words to senseless matter. Chemical <i>affinities</i> are spoken of, as
+if material elements were united by family ties, and manifested choice,
+and affection or aversion.</p>
+
+<p>An obvious corollary from these remarks is, that all <i>causation</i> is an
+exertion of mind, and is only figuratively applied to matter. It
+necessarily implies power, will, and action. An efficient cause&mdash;we are
+not speaking now of a mere antecedent&mdash;is that which is necessarily
+followed by the effect, so that, if it were known, the effect might be
+predicted antecedently to all experience. Cicero describes it with
+philosophical accuracy. "<i>Causa ea est, qu&aelig; id efficit, cujus est
+causa.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> <i>Non sic causa intelligi debet, ut quod cuique antecedat, id ei
+causa sit; sed quod cuique</i> <span class="smcap">EFFICIENTER</span> <i>antecedat. Causis enim
+efficientibus quamque rem cognitis, posse denique sciri quid futurum
+esset.</i>" Now, in the world of matter, we discover nothing but
+antecedents and consequents; the former are the mere signs, not the
+causes, of the latter; no necessary connection&mdash;no connection at all,
+except sequence in time&mdash;can be discerned between them. Consequently,
+from an examination of the former, we could not determine <i>a priori</i>,
+that they must be followed by the latter, or by any other result
+whatever. Our knowledge here, if knowledge it can be called, is wholly
+empirical, or founded on experience. As we have seen, it is absurd to
+say, that one atom of matter literally <i>acts</i> on another. On the other
+hand, in the world of mind, we are directly conscious of action, and
+even of causation. All mental exertion is true action; every
+determination of the will implies <i>effort</i>, or the direction and use of
+power. The result to be accomplished is preconsidered, or meditated, and
+therefore is known <i>a priori</i>, or before experience; the volition
+succeeds, which is a true effort, or a power in action; and this, <i>if
+the power be sufficient</i>, is <i>necessarily</i> followed by the effect.
+Volition is a true cause; but in a finite mind it is not always an
+<i>adequate</i> cause. If I will to shut my eyes, the effect immediately
+follows as a necessary consequence. But if I will to stop the beating of
+my heart, or to move a paralyzed limb, the effect does not follow,
+because the power exerted is inadequate to the end proposed. The action
+of the will is still <i>causative</i>, but it is <i>insufficient</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was from overlooking the distinction here made, that Hume, Kant, and
+other metaphysicians were led to deny all knowledge of causation even in
+the action of mind. They confounded sufficiency with efficiency, and
+supposed, because the power did not always accomplish the end proposed,
+that it did not tend towards it, or exert any effect upon it. As the
+sufficiency of the volition can only be known <i>a posteriori</i>, or after
+experience, they imagined that there could be no cause but that which is
+infinite, or one which is invariably followed by the whole effect
+contemplated. They overlooked the fact, that, in the consciousness of
+<i>effort</i>,&mdash;as in the attempt to control the action of mind, to command
+the attention, &amp;c.,&mdash;we have direct and full evidence of <i>power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> in
+action</i>, which is necessarily causal in its nature. The mental <i>nisus</i>
+is true force, exerted with a foreknowledge of the effect to be
+produced, and necessarily followed by a result,&mdash;a partial one it may
+be,&mdash;but one which is a true effect, whether it answers the whole
+intention, or not. Here, then, we discern that necessary connection
+between two events, that absolute efficient agency, which was vainly
+sought in the world of matter.</p>
+
+<p>If these considerations are well founded, the whole framework of what
+are called "secondary causes" falls to pieces. The laws of nature are
+only a figure of speech; the powers and active inherent properties of
+material atoms are mere fictions. Mind alone is active; matter is wholly
+passive and inert. There is no such thing as what we usually call the
+course of nature; it is nothing but the will of God producing certain
+effects in a constant and uniform manner; which mode of action, however,
+being perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be
+preserved. All events, all changes, in the external world, from the
+least even unto the greatest, are attributable to his will and power,
+which, being infinite, is always and necessarily adequate to the end
+proposed. The laws of motion, gravitation, affinity, and the like, are
+only expressions of the regularity and continuity of one infinite cause.
+The order of nature is the effect of divine wisdom, its stability is the
+result of divine beneficence.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer<br />,</span>
+<span class="i0">Et c&#339;lum, et virtus? Superos quid qu&aelig;rimus ultra?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It may be asked, if divine power, instead of operating immediately
+throughout the universe, might not have endowed material atoms at the
+outset with certain properties and energies, the gradual evolution of
+which in after ages would produce all the phenomena of nature, without
+the necessity of his incessant presence, agency, and control. Certainly,
+we may not put bounds to omnipotence; though we may assert of a given
+hypothesis respecting its exercise, that it is inconceivable, or
+involves wholly incongruous ideas. The necessary attributes of matter,
+according to our conception of it, are extension, figure,
+impenetrability, and inertness; the properties of mind are thought,
+sensation, activity, and will. These attributes are essential, not
+arbitrary or contingent; for they make up our whole idea of the
+substances in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> they inhere. We can no more suppose them to be
+interchangeable, than we can literally attribute dimensions to an odor,
+or capacity to a sound. To speak of an extended thought, an impenetrable
+sensation, an inert activity, is to talk nonsense; it is equally absurd
+to attribute thought to extension, sensation to figure, activity to
+inertness,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> or causal agency to matter. True, mind may be superadded
+to matter, without being confounded with it, and without any exchange of
+properties. And in fact, this is the only conceivable form of the
+hypothesis now before us; namely, the theory of the ancient
+metaphysicians, that every particle of matter and every aggregate of it
+is accompanied, or animated, by a distinct mind. "<i>Ea quoque [sidera]
+rectissime et animantia esse, et sentire atque intelligere, dicantur.</i>"
+If this be a more intelligible and plausible supposition than that of
+one infinite mind, pervading the universe, and producing all physical
+changes by its irresistible power, the materialist is welcome to the
+benefit of it.</p>
+
+<p>As respects the manner in which all physical effects are produced by the
+direct action of the Deity, we are not bound to offer any explanation,
+as the subject confessedly transcends the limit of the human faculties.
+It is enough for us, that the supposition is the only conceivable one,
+the only mode of accounting for the phenomena of the material world. But
+as man is made in the image of his Creator, in the union for a time of
+his spirit with his corporeal frame we may find at least an intelligible
+illustration of the connection of God with the universe. Discarding the
+word <i>mind</i>, as the fruitful source of vague speculation and error, let
+us look for a moment at that of which it is a mere synonyme,&mdash;at the man
+himself. The sentient, thinking being, which I call <i>self</i>, is an
+absolute unit. Duality or complexity cannot be predicated of it in any
+intelligible sense. Personality is indivisible; <i>I</i> am <i>one</i>. This being
+is capable of acting in different ways; and for convenience of speech
+and classification, these modes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of action have been arranged as the
+results of different faculties; though, in truth, it is no more proper
+to attribute to the person distinct powers and organs for comparison,
+memory, and judgment, than to give to the body separately a walking
+faculty, a lifting faculty, a jumping faculty, and so on. In the one
+case, these faculties are but different aspects of mental power; in the
+other, but different applications of muscular strength. Of course, the
+complex material frame, with its numberless adaptations and
+arrangements, in which this being is lodged, is truly foreign from the
+man himself, having a kind of connection with him, in reality, but one
+degree more intimate than that of his clothes. The body is the curiously
+contrived machine through which the man communicates with the material
+world. The eye is but his instrument to see with, the ear is his trumpet
+for communicating sound to him, the leg is his steed, and the arm his
+soldier. Many of these instruments and parts may be removed, or become
+unfit for use, without impairing, in the slightest degree, his distinct
+personality and intelligence. The particles of all of them are in a
+state of constant flux and renovation, so that man changes his body only
+a little more frequently than he does his coat. His whole corporeal
+frame is connected with him but for a while, and is then thrown aside,
+like an old garment, for which he has no farther use.</p>
+
+<p>But during the period of its existence, how close and intimate in
+appearance is this union with the body! Sensation extends to every part
+of it, every fibre is instinct with life, and the direction of the will
+is absolute and immediate over every muscle and joint, as if the whole
+fabric and its tenant were one homogeneous system. The will tires not of
+its supremacy, and is not wearied with the number of volitions required
+of it to keep every joint in action, and every organ performing its
+proper function. It would not delegate the control of the fingers to an
+inferior power, nor contrive mechanical or automatic means for moving
+the extremities. Within its sphere, it is sole sovereign, and is not
+perplexed with the variety and constant succession of its duties,
+extending to every part of the complex structure of which it is the
+animating and directing spirit. Sensation is not cumbered with the
+multitude of impressions it receives, nor is the fineness of perception
+dulled by repeated exercise. The sharpness of its edge rather improves
+by use, and we become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> more heedful of its lightest intimations. Is it
+irreverent, then, to suppose that this union of body and soul shadows
+forth the connection between the material universe and the Infinite One?
+How else, indeed, can we attach any meaning to the attributes of
+omnipresence and omnipotence? The unity of action, the regularity of
+antecedence and consequence in outward events, which we commonly
+designate by the lame metaphor of <i>law</i>, then become the fitting
+expression of the consistent doings of an all-wise Being, in whom there
+is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. The Creator, then, is no
+longer banished from his creation, nor is the latter an orphan, or a
+deserted child. It is not a great machine, that was wound up at the
+beginning, and has continued to run on ever since, without aid or
+direction from its artificer. As well might we conceive of the body of a
+man moving about, and performing all its appropriate functions, without
+the principle of life, or the indwelling of an immortal soul. The
+universe is not lifeless or soulless. It is informed by God's spirit,
+pervaded by his power, moved by his wisdom, directed by his beneficence,
+controlled by his justice.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The harmony of physical and moral laws is not a mere fancy, nor a forced
+analogy; they are both expressions of the same will, manifestations of
+the same spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The objection, that it is beneath the dignity of the
+Almighty&mdash;<ins class="TN" title="Greek: autourgein hapanta">&#945;&#8016;&#964;&#959;&#965;&#961;&#947;&#949;&#8150;&#957;
+&#7941;&#960;&#945;&#957;&#964;&#945;</ins>&mdash;to put his hand to every thing&mdash;is founded on a
+false analogy, as is seen by the form in which Aristotle states it. "If
+it befit not the state and majesty of Xerxes, the great king of Persia,
+that he should stoop to do all the meanest offices himself, much less
+can this be thought suitable for God." The two cases do not correspond
+in the very feature essential to the argument. An earthly potentate,
+unable to execute with his own hand all the affairs of which he has
+control, is obliged to delegate the larger portion of them to his
+servants; selecting the lightest part for himself, he gratifies his
+pride by calling it also the noblest, though the distinction is
+factitious, there being no real difference, in point of honor or
+dignity, between them. Omnipotence needs no minister, and is not
+exhausted or wearied by the cares of a universe. Power in action is more
+truly sublime than power in repose; and surely it is not derogatory to
+divine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> energy to sustain and continue that which it was certainly not
+beneath divine wisdom to create and appoint. Rightly considered, to
+guide the falling of a leaf from a tree is an office as worthy of
+omnipotence, as the creation of a world. "Are not two sparrows sold for
+a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
+Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."</p>
+
+<p>Equally lame is the oft-repeated comparison of the universe to a machine
+of man's device, which is considered the more perfect the less mending
+or interposition it requires. A machine is a labor-saving contrivance,
+fitted to supply the weakness and deficiencies of him who uses it. Where
+the want does not exist, it is absurd to suppose the creation of the
+remedy. Human conceptions of the Deity are for ever at fault in imputing
+to him the errors and deficiencies which belong to our own limited
+faculties and dependent condition. Hence the idea of the Epicureans,
+that sublime indifference and unbroken repose are the only states of
+being worthy of the gods. Viewed in the light of true philosophy, no
+less than of Christianity, how base and grovelling does this conception
+appear! The sublime description of the pagan poet becomes the fitting
+expression and defence of the very theory it was designed to
+controvert:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nam (proh sancta De&ucirc;m tranquill&acirc; pectora pace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qu&aelig; placidum degunt &aelig;vum, vitamque serenam!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quis pariter c&#339;los omneis convertere? et omneis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ignibus &aelig;theriis terras suffire feraceis?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore presto?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nubibus ut tenebras faciat, c&#339;lique serena<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Concutiat sonitu? tum fulmina mittat, et &aelig;deis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">S&aelig;pe suas disturbet?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Returning to the theory of our author, may we not now characterize it as
+at once unfounded in its details, inconceivable in its operation, and
+vulgar and mechanical in its design? Considered in their proper aspect,
+and by the light of a sound philosophy, whatever well accredited facts
+or legitimate deductions he has gleaned from the whole field of modern
+science afford the most striking evidence and illustration of that view
+of creation which is directly at variance with his own hypothesis. He
+has, in fact, exposed the insufficiency of what are called organic or
+mechanical laws to supply the losses, and bridge over the interruptions,
+that have occurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> in the world's history. Geology has rendered at
+least one signal service to the cause of natural religion, by
+effectually doing away with the old atheistic objection, that, for aught
+we know, the present constitution of things never had a beginning, but
+has gone on for ever renewing itself in an endless series of
+generations. Science now tells us distinctly, that time was when "the
+earth was without form and void," no animated thing appearing "upon the
+face of the deep"; that afterwards, "the waters were gathered together
+unto one place, and the dry land appeared." Then "the earth brought
+forth grass, and herb yielding seed <i>after his kind</i>, and the tree
+yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." Next was
+fulfilled the command, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
+creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
+open firmament of heaven." Then appeared "the beast of the earth after
+his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth
+upon the earth after his kind." Last of all, "God created man in his own
+image, male and female created he them." We are not merely quoting
+Scripture; we are repeating the facts positively affirmed by the
+geologists, and incorporated by our author into his "history"&mdash;as
+authentic leaves taken from the "stone book"&mdash;<i>in the same order</i> in
+which they are narrated in the first chapter of Genesis. The coincidence
+in the order of succession is certainly remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>Geology farther informs us, that, at different times, all the animated
+tribes which had peopled the earth's surface passed away, or became
+extinct, and were replaced by new species of different organization and
+characteristics; and probably at many other periods, as well as on
+occasions of some great catastrophe in the earth's crust, races wholly
+unlike any that had preceded them were introduced, from time to time, as
+new inhabitants of the globe. Here, then, was an absolute necessity for
+the continuous operation of an intelligent creative power, apart from
+the blind mechanical laws, which, at the utmost, could only allow each
+species, once introduced, to continue its kind. The marvellous
+adaptations of these new races to the altered conditions of the earth's
+surface when they appeared, then, become additional proofs of the wisdom
+and constant oversight of a designing Creator. They came not till all
+things were ready; they appeared when the extinction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> of former tribes
+had left a gap for them in the scale of being. The gradual development
+of what are called the powers of nature,&mdash;or, to speak more
+intelligibly, the successive improvements in the habitations intended
+for higher and higher races of animated life,&mdash;and the similarity of
+plan on which these races were organized, the scheme being preserved in
+all its essential features through countless generations, show unity of
+design, and prove that the works of creation, however separated in time,
+must be attributed to <i>one</i> intelligent author. The same conclusion
+follows almost irresistibly from the gradations at present observable
+both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, so that all the races may be
+arranged, not indeed in a linear series, but in families or groups,
+bearing analogous relations to each other, and showing a general
+progress from the more simple to the more complex forms. Surely, these
+facts, so clearly explained by our author, instead of sustaining the
+corpuscular philosophy, directly militate with it, and afford the most
+satisfactory proof of the doctrine of the theist, and the theory of
+continuous divine agency. We have hardly ever met with a book that
+furnished more complete materials for its own refutation.</p>
+
+<p>After all, the question is a very simple one. We have only to decide
+whether it is more likely, that the complex system of things in the
+midst of which we live,&mdash;the beautiful harmonies between the organic and
+inorganic world, the nice arrangements and curious adaptations that
+obtain in each, the simplicity and uniformity of the general plan to
+which the vast multitude of details may be reduced,&mdash;was built up, and
+is now sustained, by one all-wise and all-powerful Being, or by
+particles of brute matter, acting of themselves, without direction,
+interference, or control. We cannot now say, that possibly the system
+never had a beginning, but has always existed under the form in which it
+now appears to us; geology has disproved <i>that</i> supposition most
+effectually. Choose ye, then, between mind and matter, between an
+intelligent being and a stone, for the parentage and support of this
+wonderful system. For our own part, we will adopt the conclusion of one
+of the most eloquent of those old pagan philosophers, on whose eyes the
+light of immediate revelation never dawned:&mdash;"<i>Hic ego non mirer esse
+quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat, corpora qu&aelig;dam solida atque individua vi
+et gravitate ferri, mundumque effici ornatissimum et pulcherrimum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> ex
+corum corporum concursione fortuit&acirc;? Qu&ograve;d si mundum efficere potest
+concursus atomorum, cur porticum, cur templum, cur domum, cur urbem non
+potest, qu&aelig; sunt minus operosa, et mult&ograve; quidem faciliora? Cert&egrave; ita
+temer&egrave; de mundo effutiunt, ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem
+c&#339;li ornatum, qui locus est proximus, suspexisse videantur.</i>"</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>N. A. Review</i>, Vol. LVI., pp. 339&ndash;351.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should,
+without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate
+upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must, if
+gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it.
+And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate
+gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to
+matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a
+<i>vacuum</i>, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which
+their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so
+great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical
+matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity
+must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain
+laws."&mdash;<i>Newton's letter in Bentley's Works</i>, Vol. <span class="smcap">III.</span>, pp. 211, 212.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> And yet, so strong is the propensity to metaphor, that
+scientific men talk of the <i>vis inerti&aelig;</i> as a true force, though the
+ideas expressed by the two Latin words are certainly incongruous. The
+mistake here arises from confounding inertness, or resistance to
+force,&mdash;a merely negative idea,&mdash;with the true force which is necessary
+to overcome it; or rather, since force can only be measured by its
+results, and must always be adequate to the effect produced, inquirers
+have adopted the convenient hypothesis of two antagonistic forces, not
+always recollecting that one of them is merely passive.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of
+'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges
+of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'
+
+Author: Francis Bowen
+
+Release Date: February 19, 2008 [EBook #24648]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEORY OF CREATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Greg Bergquist and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A THEORY OF CREATION.
+
+
+A
+
+REVIEW
+
+OF
+
+"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
+
+CREATION."
+
+
+FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW FOR APRIL, 1845.
+
+
+BOSTON:
+OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY,
+120 WASHINGTON STREET.
+1845.
+
+
+CAMBRIDGE:
+METCALF AND COMPANY,
+PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+THEORY OF CREATION.
+
+     _Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation._ New York: Wiley &
+     Putnam. 1845. 12mo. pp. 291.
+
+
+This is one of the most striking and ingenious scientific romances that
+we have ever read. The writer of it is a bold man; he has undertaken to
+give a hypothetical history of creation, beginning, as the title-pages
+say, at the earliest period, and coming down to the present day. It is
+not quite so authentic as that of Moses, nor is it written with such an
+air of simplicity and confidence as the narrative of the Jewish
+historian; but it is much longer, and goes into a far greater variety of
+interesting particulars. It contradicts the Jewish cosmogony in a few
+particulars, and is at variance with probability and the ordinary laws
+of human reasoning in many others. But the rather liberal rules of
+interpretation, which it is now the fashion to apply to the first
+chapter of Genesis, will relieve the reader from any scruples on the
+former account; and as to the latter, in these days of scientific
+quackery, it would be quite too harsh to make any great complaint about
+such peccadilloes. The writer has taken up almost every questionable
+fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients
+or pretenders in science during the present century, except animal
+magnetism; and for this omission we have reason to be thankful. The
+nebular hypothesis, Laplace's or Compte's theory of planets _shelled
+off_ from the sun, spontaneous generation,--some of these vagaries, we
+admit, are of much older date than the year 1800,--the Macleay system,
+dogs playing dominoes, negroes born of white parents, materialism,
+phrenology,--he adopts them all, and makes them play an important part
+in his own magnificent theory, to the exclusion, in a great degree, of
+the well-accredited facts and established doctrines of science.
+
+We speak lightly of the author's plan, as one can hardly fail to do of a
+scheme so magnificent, and going apparently so far beyond the ordinary
+sources of information and the range of the human intellect. But the
+execution of the work is of so high an order, as fairly to challenge
+attention and respect. The writer, who has not chosen to give his name
+to the world, is evidently a man of great ingenuity and correct taste, a
+master of style, a plausible, though not a profound, reasoner, and
+having quite a general, but superficial, acquaintance with the sciences.
+His materials are arranged with admirable method, the illustrations are
+copious and interesting, the transitions are skilfully managed, and the
+several portions of the theory are so well fitted to each other, and
+form such a round and perfect whole, that it seems a pity to subject it
+to severe analysis and searching criticism. It is a very pleasant
+hypothesis, set forth in a most agreeable manner; and though it contains
+many objectionable features, these are cautiously veiled and kept in the
+background, and the reader is seduced into accepting most of the
+conclusions, before he is aware of their true character and tendency.
+
+Before a just opinion can be formed of the correctness of the writer's
+views, it is necessary to take to pieces this skilful fabric, and to
+bring the parts together in a different connection and with greater
+succinctness, following out each doctrine to its inevitable, but most
+remote, conclusions, so as to obtain a just idea of the position in
+which we should be placed by the acceptance of the theory as a whole.
+For obvious reasons, the author has not chosen to give a general summary
+of his views, or to mention explicitly all the inferences that may be
+drawn from them. He merely puts the reader upon the track, indicating
+its general direction, and leaving it for him to find out what objects
+will be encountered by the way, and where the journey will end. We
+propose to finish the work that is thus left incomplete, and to set
+forth the doctrine in its plainest terms. We would reduce the theory at
+once to its narrowest compass and simplest expression; but at the same
+time, would incorporate into it every doctrine which properly belongs to
+it, and follow out each hypothesis to its remote, though necessary,
+inferences and conclusions. To this end, it is requisite to separate, as
+far as possible, the doctrines themselves from the evidence adduced in
+support of them; and to consider the former as a whole, before
+proceeding, to discuss the cogency of the latter. The following may be
+taken as the most concise abstract that we can form of the history of
+the creation, according to this author.
+
+In the beginning--we use this word in a kind of preter-perfect sense--in
+the _very_ beginning of things, immense portions of infinite space were
+filled with finely diffused nebulous matter, heated to an intensity that
+is altogether inconceivable. The particles of this "fire mist," as it is
+appropriately called, were the true _primordia rerum_,--the elements of
+the universe,--the principles of all the forms of inorganic matter and
+all organic things. At the outset, the Creator endowed these particles
+with certain qualities and capacities, and then stood aside from his
+work, as there was nothing farther for him to do. The subsequent
+progress of creation is only the successive _development_, upon
+mechanical and necessary principles, and as fast as proper occasions
+were offered, of these qualities thus made inherent in the primitive
+constitution of matter. The atoms thus marvellously endowed have gone
+on, without any further aid from Almighty power, to form suns, and
+astral systems, and planets with their satellites, and worlds tenanted
+by successive generations and races of vegetable and animal things. And
+this work of creation, or rather of development, is still in progress
+all around us, and in all its various stages, though in the portion most
+directly exposed to the observation of man it is far advanced towards
+perfection. Upon this earth, the unaided action of these atoms is still
+evolving all the phenomena of generation, progress, and decay, of
+vegetable and animal life, of instinct and of mind. In the abyss of
+space, it is also forming new suns, and solar systems, and worlds that
+are to pass through the same stages and wonderful transformations to
+which our own planet has already been subjected. All that has occurred
+with respect to this earth, and the system of which it forms a part, is
+but a type of what is constantly going on in the countless other systems
+of stars that people the firmament.
+
+The first stage in the history of these fiery particles is the formation
+among them, in some unaccountable way, of nuclei, or centres of
+aggregation, like the bright points that are now visible in some of the
+nebulae of the heavens. As soon as these centres are formed, gravity, one
+of the original principles of matter, begins to act, and the atoms in
+all the neighbouring parts of space are attracted towards the nucleus
+and heaped upon it. In this manner, a central sun of vast dimensions is
+formed, which soon assumes a motion of rotation upon its axis from the
+general law which gives a circular movement to all fluids that are drawn
+towards a common centre. The centrifugal force thus generated tends to
+throw off matter from the equatorial regions of the great orb, but is
+restrained by the attraction of gravitation, which would prevent any
+separation of the parts, if the sun itself did not now begin to cool
+down, and consequently to shrink in size. Under this cooling process, a
+crust is formed upon the surface, too rigid to yield to the force of
+gravity, and the parts within, continuing to shrink, separate from this
+envelope; so that there is now a central orb, revolving more rapidly
+from its greater density and smaller diameter, and surrounded by an
+exterior shell, or band, like Saturn's ring, rotating at its original
+speed. As we cannot suppose that the ring would usually be of uniform
+thickness and strength, it eventually breaks up into fragments, the
+larger of which attracts the smaller into itself, and the whole is
+formed by its revolving motion into an oblate spheroid circling round
+the contracted sun in the centre. In this manner, the planet Uranus was
+shelled off from our sun, which originally filled the whole of the vast
+sphere, of which the distance from Uranus to the centre of the present
+sun is but the radius. The planet itself, by the same process of
+cooling, shrinking, and thus forming exterior rings, threw off
+successively all its six satellites; and the sun, also, continuing to
+contract from the loss of heat, formed another ring, and thus
+constituted the planet Saturn. In this way were formed successively all
+the planets and satellites of the present solar system. The original
+diameter of our earth was equal, of course, to the present diameter of
+the moon's orbit. In the case of Saturn, the two rings formed around it
+happened to be of unusual homogeneity and equal thickness, so that they
+were not broken up, but have preserved their primitive shape. A ring was
+formed from the sun in the space between the present orbits of Mars and
+Jupiter; but when it was broken up, the fragments did not congregate
+into one, but spherified separately, so as to form the four smaller
+planets which now revolve in that opening.
+
+     "We have no means of judging of the seniority of systems; but it is
+     reasonable to suppose, that, among the many, some are older than
+     ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability
+     of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human
+     traditions and the geognostic appearances of the surface of our
+     planet. This consists in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused
+     around the sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately
+     spheroidal shape. This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked
+     eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards in the
+     line of the sun's path, and which bears the name of Zodiacal Light,
+     has been thought a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating
+     matter of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the
+     comparative recentness of the principal events of our cosmogony.
+     Supposing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they may be
+     held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might with
+     the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder
+     born of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical and
+     moral, as yet lay undeveloped, while myriads of others were fully
+     fashioned and in complete arrangement. Thus, in the sublime
+     chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we first find
+     ourselves called upon to consider the globe which we inhabit as a
+     child of the sun, elder than Venus and her younger brother Mercury,
+     but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and
+     Uranus; next, to regard our whole system as probably of recent
+     formation in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. We
+     must, however, be on our guard against supposing the earth as a
+     recent globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. From evidence
+     afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it cannot be
+     presumed to be less than many hundreds of centuries old."--pp. 22,
+     23.
+
+Having thus explained the _genesis_ of the solar system, we come down to
+the history of our own earth, since it shelled off the ring which formed
+our moon. Continuing to cool down and shrink, a thin but rigid crust of
+primary rocks, still bearing marks of the intense heat to which they
+have been subjected, was formed upon its surface; and then the vapors,
+with which the atmosphere had been charged, were condensed, and formed
+seas, which covered the whole, or the greater part, of the earth's
+rind. The continual agitation of these waters, and their high
+temperature, as they were still nearly at the boiling point,
+disintegrated and wore down many of these rocks, and, in the lapse of
+ages, deposited their remains, in thick layers of sand and mud, at the
+bottom of the seas. Baked by the heat from beneath, and pressed by the
+weight of superincumbent waters, these layers slowly hardened into
+stratified rocks. Forms of vegetable and animal life, though only of the
+lowest type, the origin of which is to be explained hereafter, now began
+to appear. Some sea-plants, zooephytes, infusory animalcules, and a few
+of the molluscous tribe, all low down in the order of being, but
+important from their immense numbers and joint action, commenced their
+work of absorbing the carbonic acid with which the air was overcharged,
+and building up vast piers and mounds of stone from their own remains.
+Meanwhile, the internal fires of the earth occasionally broke through
+the rocky crust that imprisoned them, threw up liquid primitive rock
+through the rents, and distorted and tilted up the strata that had been
+formed above.
+
+We may remark, in passing, that the chronology of the events of which we
+now speak is not very accurately determined; the only thing certain
+about it is, that a series of ages, so protracted that the imagination
+cannot conceive their number, elapsed between the successive epochs in
+the history of the earth's crust. Some of the convulsions caused by the
+fiery mass within threw up rock above the surface of the waters, and
+thus the dry land began to appear. Islands were formed, and immediately
+land-plants made their appearance, of excessive luxuriance, under the
+tropical temperature that still prevailed all over the globe, and began
+their office of absorbing carbon, and storing it up for future use.
+Land-animals as yet were not, for the excess of carbonic acid in the
+atmosphere rendered it incapable of supporting animal life. But the
+richness of this island vegetation gradually purified the air; while the
+decaying plants themselves, being accumulated into vast beds and strata,
+and subjected, through the changes of the earth's surface, to the
+pressure of mighty waters, gradually formed immense deposits of coal,
+for the subsequent service of man. Animals of a higher grade were now
+formed; fishes became abundant, and amphibious monsters, huge lizards
+and other reptiles, with an imperfect apparatus of respiration, began to
+breathe an atmosphere not yet fitted for birds and mammifers.
+
+It is not necessary to trace out the comparatively well known facts and
+theories of geological science, that are incorporated into this history.
+It is enough, for the present purpose, to point out a few of the general
+conclusions of the geologist respecting the several great changes that
+the earth's crust has undergone, and the distinct races of vegetables
+and animals which have successively tenanted the earth's surface. These
+changes and these races have borne a constant relation to each other; as
+the scenes shifted, the inhabitants also changed, the latter being
+always adapted to the circumstances in which they were placed. There has
+been a constant progress, the soil and the atmosphere becoming more and
+more fitted for the support of the higher forms of life; and when all
+things were thus made ready for them, these higher forms have appeared,
+and the lower orders of being, which formerly occupied the scene, have
+entirely died out, so that their remains, entombed in the solid rock,
+are now the only indications of their past existence. In the era of the
+primary rocks, as we have seen, there was no organization or life, as
+there was nothing to support it. In the succeeding period, zooephytes and
+mollusca appeared; these were followed by fishes, and then land rose
+above the surface of the waters. Land-plants and animals came next,
+though of a low type; continually advancing orders of beings, reptiles,
+birds, and mammifers, suited to the improved condition of things,
+successively appeared, until, at the latest epoch, man entered upon the
+scene, the head of animated nature as at present constituted, with
+powers and capacities well adapted for the full enjoyment of the
+augmented riches of the earth. And the end is not yet. "The present
+race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the
+present state of things in the world; but the external world goes
+through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much
+serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type
+of humanity, which shall complete the zooelogical circle on this planet,
+and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present
+race."
+
+The question now occurs, How are we to account for the origin of
+_life_, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? The answer can
+readily be given, if we follow out resolutely to their remotest
+consequences the principles that have already been established. The
+evolution of natural laws, the necessary action of the qualities with
+which atoms were at first endowed, has sufficed to produce this complex
+system of mutually dependent worlds, and all the successive
+transformations of the earth's rind, which have fitted it for the
+support of successive races of organic beings. May not the same causes
+have produced the beings themselves? The one process would seem to be
+not much more elaborate and intricate than the other. If the inherent
+qualities of matter have built up a solar system, they may have created,
+also, the first animalcule, the first fish, the first quadruped, and the
+first man. There has been a marked progress, in either case, from the
+chaotic, the rude, the imperfectly developed, up to the orderly, the
+complex, the matured forms. The first essays, the rude efforts, of
+nature have gradually been perfected. The chaotic world that was first
+shelled off from the sun differed not less widely from the admirably
+furnished planet we now inhabit, than does the zooephyte, whose remains
+are not split out of the rock, from man, the present head of the animal
+tribe. At any rate, geology informs us, that the causes, whatever they
+may be, which produce life, have been long and frequently in operation.
+They were not exhausted in the first effort; they are probably still at
+work throughout the universe. Not merely successive generations, but
+successive races, both of plants and animals, widely distinguished from
+each other, have, at different periods, tenanted the earth's surface.
+Those of which we possess the fossil remains belong, almost without
+exception, to extinct species. They were crowded out of existence, as it
+were, by the new forms, more perfectly organized, which came to take
+their places in the improving condition of things. This continuous
+agency of the life-producing causes, effecting still higher results by
+each successive effort, seems to point directly to the gradual expansion
+and development of the qualities with which matter was first endowed.
+
+We actually see natural agents now at work around us, producing results
+which counterfeit life, if they do not constitute it. Many substances
+crystallize into shapes bearing a strong resemblance to vegetable forms,
+as in the well known chemical experiment producing the _arbor Dianae_.
+The passage of the electric fluid leaves marks that are like the
+branches and foliage of a tree, and the same fluid exerts a direct
+influence on the germination of plants. Some of the proximate principles
+of vegetable and animal bodies, such as urea and alantoin, are said to
+have been produced artificially by the chemist; and in the combination
+of the simple elements, such as carbon and oxygen, into these proximate
+principles, it is now acknowledged that there is no violation of the
+ordinary laws of chemical affinity. The origin of all vegetable and
+animal life, so far as it can be traced, is in germinal vesicles, or
+little cells containing granules. Such are the ova of all animals; and
+both vegetable and animal tissues are entirely formed from them. When
+the parent cells come to maturity, they burst and liberate the granules,
+which immediately develope themselves into new cells, thus repeating the
+life of their original. Now, it has been asserted, that globules can be
+produced in albumen by electricity; and _if these globules are true
+germinal vesicles_, the difficult problem of producing life by
+artificial means is entirely solved.
+
+But the burden of this part of the theory rests on the evidence that has
+been produced of late years to favor the doctrine of equivocal
+generation, or the production of living beings without the agency,
+either direct or indirect, of parents of the same species. Can such
+beings, _orphans_ in the strictest sense, now be produced or discovered?
+We have not space to repeat our author's argument on this difficult
+mooted question in science, nor is it necessary; he sums up the evidence
+on his own side, and of course finds it satisfactory, though the weight
+of authority is against him. He adduces the experiments of Mr. Crosse,
+repeated by Mr. Weekes, who claim to have produced animalcules in
+considerable numbers, of a species before unknown, by passing a voltaic
+current through silicate of potash, and through nitrate of copper. The
+existence of _entozoa_, or parasitic animals, found in the interior of
+the bodies of other animals, and found nowhere else, is thought to
+support the same doctrine. The question is, How came they there? Being
+too large, either in their perfect form, or in the egg, to have passed
+through the capillary blood-vessels, how came they within the body of
+another animal,--itself but a few weeks or a few days old, or even in
+the embryo stage,--unless they were created there without parentage of
+their own species?
+
+These facts and reasonings, it is true, only go to prove, that
+animalcules, or beings of very small size, and low in the scale of
+animated existence, can be produced in this way by the inherent
+qualities of matter. No one will pretend, that a dog, a horse, or a man
+can thus be created. How can we account for the existence of these
+larger animals of a higher type, admitted to have been denizens of the
+earth only since the latest geological epochs, and therefore of
+comparatively recent origin? Here we come to another point in our
+author's theory,--the transmutation of species, or the successive
+_development_ of higher and higher orders of being out of the species
+immediately below them, through the accidental or natural fulfilment of
+certain conditions, in the course of a long period of years.
+
+Natural history teaches us, that there is quite a regular gradation
+among the several tribes of vegetables and animals; though we may not be
+able to range all the species, as constantly advancing in a single line,
+there is certainly the general appearance of a scale, beginning with the
+most simple, and going on to the most complex forms. While the external
+characteristics are very different, all are but variations of a single
+plan, which exists as the basis of all, and is varied in each individual
+only so as to accommodate it to the conditions under which the
+individual is to live. The germ of a higher animal--a mammifer, for
+instance--is the representative of a lower animal full-grown, like the
+_volvox globator_; the latter remaining in this initial stage, as an
+animalcule, through its whole existence; while the former is developed
+out of it, by successive stages, into a quadruped, or even into a man.
+Similar functions are performed in different animals by very different
+organs, the gills of fishes performing the same office as the lungs of
+the mammalia; and these different organs sometimes exist, at different
+periods, according to the degree of development, in the same animal.
+Thus, the tadpole, so long as it continues to be a fish, breathes by
+gills, which disappear and give place to lungs when it becomes a frog.
+Similar transformations of the insect tribe are familiar to all.
+Imperfect or rudimentary organs are found in certain animals, as the
+mammae of a man; a particular organ being here developed to a certain
+extent, though it is not needed; but being developed a little further,
+it becomes useful in the next set of animals in the scale. The same
+peculiarity is found among plants; the skilful gardener being able
+actually to develope these rudimentary organs by supplying the requisite
+conditions, and thus, as it were, to raise the plant one step in the
+scale.
+
+     "We have yet to advert to the most interesting class of facts
+     connected with the laws of organic development. It is only in
+     recent times that physiologists have observed that each animal
+     passes, in the course of its germinal history, through a series of
+     changes resembling the _permanent forms_ of the various orders of
+     animals inferior to it in the scale. Thus, for instance, an insect,
+     standing at the head of the articulated animals, is, in the larva
+     state, a true annelid, or worm, the annelida being the lowest in
+     the same class. The embryo of a crab resembles the perfect animal
+     of the inferior order myriapoda, and passes through all the forms
+     of transition which characterize the intermediate tribes of
+     crustacea. The frog, for some time after its birth, is a fish with
+     external gills and other organs, fitting it for an aquatic life,
+     all of which are changed as it advances to maturity, and becomes a
+     land animal. The mammifer only passes through still more stages,
+     according to its higher place in the scale. Nor is man himself
+     exempt from this law. His first form is that which is permanent in
+     the animalcule. His organization gradually passes through
+     conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the
+     lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity. At one of
+     the last stages of his foetal career, he exhibits an
+     intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape;
+     this is suppressed, and he may then be said to take leave of the
+     simial type, and become a true human creature. Even, as we shall
+     see, the varieties of his race are represented in the progressive
+     development of an individual of the highest, before we see the
+     adult Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal
+     scale.
+
+     "To come to particular points of the organization. The brain of
+     man, which exceeds that of all other animals in complexity of
+     organization and fulness of development, is, at one early period,
+     only 'a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty
+     distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like
+     prolongation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the first
+     to appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in
+     this state, it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus
+     assuming _in transitu_ the form that in the fish is permanent. In a
+     short time, however, the structure is become more complex, the
+     parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better marked; it is now
+     the brain of a reptile. The change continues; by a singular motion,
+     certain parts (_corpora quadragemina_), which had hitherto appeared
+     on the upper surface, now pass towards the lower; the former is
+     their permanent situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in
+     birds and mammalia. This is another advance in the scale, but more
+     remains yet to be done. The complication of the organ increases;
+     cavities, termed _ventricles_, are formed, which do not exist in
+     fishes, reptiles, or birds; curiously organized parts, such as the
+     corpora striata, are added; it is now the brain of the mammalia.
+     Its last and final change alone seems wanting,--that which shall
+     render it the brain of man.'"--pp. 150-152.
+
+Usually, it is true, each species produces only its like,--"every
+creeping thing and beast of the earth" bringing forth young "_after his
+kind_." But the development of a single animal, under the ordinary law,
+takes place in a few weeks or days; while the development of distinct
+races and species is the work of a whole creation, and is spread over
+countless ages. It is reasonable to suppose, that the latter is effected
+by means of a higher law, manifesting itself only at long intervals. Its
+infrequent manifestation is no argument against the regularity and
+necessity of its occurrence,--against its being a law at all. The comet
+that visits our system only once in five hundred years is controlled by
+the same inflexible principle which causes the return of another comet
+once in five years. The conditions requisite for a development more
+perfect than usual,--that is, for the production of a new
+species,--instead of a new individual of the same species, may be
+fulfilled only at long intervals; but when they are fulfilled, the
+result--the more perfect development--takes place as necessarily, as
+much by the virtue of law, as the more ordinary phenomenon of the
+propagation of one race. These conditions may be answered in the
+successive stages of improvement, through which the earth and its
+atmosphere pass, during the vast periods of time contemplated in
+geology. In the era of the old red sand-stone, for instance, there were
+no higher animals than fishes, because the atmosphere was highly charged
+with carbonic acid, and could not support respiration by lungs. When the
+air became purer, the gills were changed into the imperfect lungs of the
+amphibious tribes, such as the huge saurians and the frogs. Deprive
+these latter animals, in their lower stage, of all access to the light,
+and they will not advance to their higher stage. Put a tadpole into a
+perforated box, and sink it to the bottom of a river, and the animal
+will never be perfected into a frog; he will grow to an enormous size,
+but he will continue a tadpole.
+
+We see, then, the process of an "organic creation by law," or by virtue
+of the inherent qualities of inorganic matter. The ordinary chemical
+affinities of different substances may draw them together into such
+compounds as albumen and fibrin, which are the proximate principles of
+organic tissues. The action of electricity, heat, light, or some other
+mysterious imponderable agent, on these proximate principles, may
+produce globules, or germinal vesicles. These germs, multiplying
+themselves by fissiparous generation, will constitute a stock of animals
+of a low type, such as a tribe of infusory animalcules. Then "this
+simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like
+production is subordinate, gives birth to the type next above it, this
+again produces the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the
+stages of advance being in all cases very small,--namely, from one
+species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a
+simple and modest character." Thus, the first reptile was born from a
+fish, the first bird was generated by a reptile, and the first mammifer
+had birds for its parents. The transformations appear rather astounding,
+as we pass from one class to another; but the difference between the
+species, even, is often so great, that the transition appears hardly
+less difficult. In what quadruped, for instance, do we find the first
+ancestor of the huge and sagacious elephant? What humble lizard gave
+birth to those monsters of the fossil world, the plesiosaurus and
+megalosaurus, thirty or forty feet in length? Man, of course, upon this
+theory, is only a more perfectly developed monkey, or chimpanzee. With a
+nod of approbation to Lord Monboddo's theory, our author observes, that
+man has even the rudiments of "a caudal extremity" in the _os coccygis_.
+
+That the instinct of animals and the mind of man are the results of
+nothing but material organization is an obvious corollary from this
+doctrine. "The difference," says this writer, "between mind in the lower
+animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific
+difference." Mental phenomena, apparently so various and unstable in
+the individual, are reduced at once to regularity, and become subject to
+calculation, if considered in the mass. This shows, that, like the
+phenomena of the weather, they are under the presidency of natural laws.
+The phrenologists are the only persons who have followed the order of
+nature in the study of mind; they have even determined the functions of
+the different parts of the brain. An experiment is mentioned with a
+newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with
+substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion,
+that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the
+absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment
+of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is
+sufficiently well known. To borrow an illustration from Sidney Smith, it
+would seem, that, if we only knew to what organs of the brain to direct
+an electric current, an automaton, or a dead man, might be made to hold
+an argument, "at least as well as most country parsons."
+
+A person who should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the
+writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too
+extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much
+mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is
+one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a
+revival of the old atheistic hypothesis,--the Epicurean doctrine of the
+formation of the universe by a fortuitous concourse of atoms,--with all
+the modifications and improvements that were rendered necessary by the
+discoveries of modern science. We call it an atheistic theory, because,
+though the writer supposes that primitive matter was first endowed _by
+divine power_ with its mysterious qualities and capacities, this
+supposition is gratuitous and arbitrary, and only mars the simplicity of
+the scheme, and injures the consistency and coherence of the parts with
+each other. We can more easily believe that these qualities are
+necessarily inherent in the constitution of matter, forming a part of
+its very essence, just like the properties of impenetrability and
+extension, than that they subsequently developed themselves by forming
+myriads of intricate organizations, without further aid from the divine
+architect. If we can credit the hypothesis, that bricks and mortar came
+together of their own accord, and arranged themselves into the first
+house meet for the habitation of man, we can very readily admit, also,
+that the bricks first assumed the proper shape, and mortar the proper
+tenacity and hardness, without the intervention of human labor and
+skill. If there is no need of a bricklayer, we may discard also the
+brick-maker.
+
+Putting aside, therefore, this gratuitous addition to the theory, we
+come to examine the plausibility of the doctrine which assumes, that
+material atoms, constituted as they now are, are capable, without
+oversight or direction, of forming a universe like our own, and
+producing all the animated tribes which tenant it. In all the atheistic
+reasoning upon this subject, and especially in the work now before us,
+there is a constant confusion between _what may be_, for aught we know
+to the contrary, and _what is_, so far as we are able positively to
+determine it from our present means of observation and experiment;
+between the _possibility_ that is measured only by human ignorance, and
+the _probability_ that is fairly inferred by the legitimate exercise of
+the understanding. Effects have unquestionably been produced, such as
+the formation of a solar system, and the production of new and perfectly
+distinct orders of being, which we are wholly unable to account for by
+the _present and ordinary_ operation of what are called secondary
+causes. If a theorist chooses to assume, that these secondary causes,
+under certain conditions, which we never have seen, and never can see,
+realized, might produce very extraordinary results, might even fully
+account for the wonderful effects in question, we have a right to say,
+in reply, that he is dealing in pure speculation and hypothesis; that,
+having had no experience under the conditions or postulates of his
+theory, he is necessarily _speaking from_ ignorance and _appealing_ to
+ignorance; that, even if we could not point out a single difficulty, a
+single false assumption, in his whole scheme and argument, it would
+still remain a mere hypothesis, alike incapable of proof or disproof;
+and that, at the best, the arguments brought against it must be of
+nearly the same wiredrawn, speculative, and far-fetched character with
+those adduced in its support. On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with
+arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and
+sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which
+such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the
+entire absence of all considerations against their theory constitutes a
+positive argument in its support. No such thing; it affords only a fair
+presumption of the baseless character of the whole fabric.
+
+This may be made more clear by examples. If a child, who has had little
+experience of the laws of nature, and has learned nothing from books, is
+gravely assured by his instructor, that in a distant region of the ocean
+there is an island where stones fly upward instead of downward, and men
+walk on their heads instead of their feet, the young philosopher,
+however acute and ingenious we may suppose him to be, certainly could
+not offer one valid argument against the alleged fact. He could only
+stare, and wonder, and say that it might be so _for all that he knew to
+the contrary_. Just so, when the atheist tells us, that far off in
+infinite space is a region, of which we can see nothing, even with our
+best telescopes, except a faint glimmer of light, floating like a
+cloudlet in the heavens, where the primitive atoms of matter, directed
+by gravity alone, are slowly congregating together, and forming suns,
+and planets, and secondary satellites, and giving birth to such
+intricate harmonies of mutually dependent and revolving worlds as those
+which have prevailed for ages in our own system; or that, thousands of
+years ago, the same unassisted laws of matter, which we now see
+producing only such comparatively meagre and insufficient results,
+actually caused animalcules to be produced from pure sand, and fishes to
+be created out of oysters, and birds to be generated by slimy and
+grovelling reptiles, and men to be born from monkeys;--if he should tell
+us all this, certainly we could offer no direct confutation of the
+wonderful tale. In regard to alleged facts of this character, the wisest
+of men are, and always must be, mere children. But it would be monstrous
+to say, that this wild assertion derived any support from their admitted
+bewilderment and incapacity. This would be to attempt to found knowledge
+upon ignorance. The dim analogies resting on questionable facts, the
+bold assumptions and slippery arguments on which such daring hypotheses
+must be based, can be refuted, for the most part, only by reasoning in
+kind,--by arguments nearly as uncertain, it may be, as those which they
+are brought to answer. We cannot _prove_ a negative; we can only show
+the insufficiency of the ground on which the opposite assumption is made
+to rest; and enough is done for this end, when it is made to appear,
+that the whole scheme is a _mere_ hypothesis.
+
+We make these general remarks only to relieve some readers of this
+volume from the doubt and perplexity which its perusal may have caused,
+solely because they were unable to detect any one glaring fallacy or
+inconsistency in the writer's theory. It appears plausible enough; for,
+though there is very little in its favor, it seems at first sight as if
+there was little or nothing to say against it. On closer scrutiny, it
+will be found, perhaps, that it is disproved by a multitude of
+considerations, any one of which would be fatal to it; as the hypothesis
+is of such a character, that, when a single breach is made in it, the
+whole edifice must tumble. If the intervention of an extraneous cause be
+absolutely necessary at any one stage or process in the creation, it may
+as well be admitted in all; the principle must be given up, and the
+whole purpose of the theist is answered. We shall endeavour to show that
+this hypothetical history of creation is not only faulty in every point,
+when viewed from the author's own ground, but, when examined in the
+proper direction, is absolutely unintelligible, or is in fact no history
+at all.
+
+Let us look first at the nebular hypothesis. Certain spots and tracts in
+the heavens, of a whitish color, appearing to the naked eye to be
+nebulae, on being examined through a telescope, instantly resolve
+themselves into a multitude of distinct and perfectly formed stars. Such
+is the greatest nebula of all,--the galaxy, or milky way. Other spots of
+a like character, if viewed through glasses of moderate power, still
+appear as nebulae; but when seen through more perfect instruments, they
+immediately seem, like the others, to be a mere crowd of stars. Others,
+again, are not separated or resolved by the best telescopes; but what is
+the natural inference from this fact? Surely, we infer that they are
+merely crowded collections of stars, just like the others, except that
+they are too distant or too small to be seen as distinct bodies, even
+with the most powerful instruments that we possess. If telescopes of a
+greater range should hereafter be constructed, there is every reason to
+believe that these also will be resolved to the eye into their component
+parts as stars; and in fact, if newspaper accounts may be credited, when
+Lord Rosse's new and magnificent telescope was first turned towards some
+of these spots, which had always preserved their nebulous appearance
+when examined by inferior instruments, it was immediately apparent, that
+they were composed of distinct stars. Yet the hypothesis we are now
+considering assumes, that these remote and faintly seen nebulae are not
+crowds of stars, but primitive luminous matter, the particles of which
+are slowly congregating together, and forming one new star, or several.
+Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is
+due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory,
+to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by
+no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a
+hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently
+never can be verified. It must ever remain a _mere_ guess, directly
+opposed by an obvious induction from those nebulae which are resolvable
+into perfect stars.
+
+The fact, that one or two bright points, assumed to be centres of
+aggregation, are seen in some of these nebulae, is of no importance. If a
+bright star be seen from this earth in the same line of vision with the
+nebula, it will be projected on the ground of that nebula, and will
+appear as a part of it, though it may be many millions of miles on this
+side, and have no more connection with it than the planet Jupiter would
+have, if it should happen to be in conjunction with the nebula, and thus
+appear for a short time to be projected upon its disc.
+
+There is one consideration of some weight, though we have never seen it
+adverted to, which tends directly to confute the nebular hypothesis.
+That faint radiance called the zodiacal light, which is seen to stream
+up in the form of a cone from our sun, is assumed by our author to be a
+residuum of the nebulous matter belonging to our system, which has not
+yet been drawn into the sun, though it is on its way thither. Others
+have supposed, with far more probability, that it is the sun's
+atmosphere, and therefore its present shape and size will never
+change,--as they never have changed, during the period in which they
+have been observed by man. But no matter; we are now reasoning upon our
+author's hypothesis. If the zodiacal light be composed of primitive
+nebulous matter, it must now be comparatively thick and dense, since the
+process of aggregation has been going on for countless ages, and, in our
+system, is considered as nearly completed; just as when a sediment is
+forming in a tumbler full of turbid water, after the upper portion of
+the fluid has become entirely clear, there will be a stratum of water
+next to the sediment more turbid than the whole was before the
+deposition began. Yet this light is very faint, when seen only from the
+distance of our earth; and at the boundaries of our system, from the
+orbit of Uranus, for instance, we cannot believe that it is visible at
+all. Is it likely, then, that a portion of this nebulous matter, in
+which the process of deposition has hardly begun, and which is seen from
+a distance so vast, that in comparison with it the whole diameter of our
+solar system is but a point, would be visible from this earth? In the
+case of the other nebulae, a multitude of perfectly formed suns, uniting
+their respective beams, are seen only as a faint, whitish speck on the
+blue arch. And yet we are required to believe, that the luminous matter
+which will ultimately form but one sun, or perhaps two, while still
+thinly diffused over an immense tract of space, the process of
+aggregation having hardly commenced, is yet visible to our eyes at this
+vast distance.
+
+            "Credat Judaeus Apella;
+    Non ego."
+
+We pass to the next chapter in the history, which professes to explain
+the gradual formation of a solar system by a process of cooling and
+shrinking, to which the central orb is exposed. And here we are met by a
+difficulty at the outset; for the existence of comets with their very
+eccentric orbits is wholly irreconcilable with the theory. At their
+perihelion, many of these bodies pass within the orbit of Mercury, while
+the aphelion of some lies without the path of Uranus. Where were they,
+when the body of the sun filled up the whole of the vast sphere
+circumscribed by the orbit of the remotest planet? If we suppose that
+they are late comers, after the rest of our system was perfected,--that
+they were generated by themselves in distant regions of space, and,
+having strayed about, orphan-like, for a while, they accidentally
+crossed our track, and were taken as adopted children into our family,
+another question remains to be answered. Why did they not remain in
+their first position, absorb their full share of nebulous matter, beget
+a respectable family of planets, and take rank as chiefs of their own
+clan? These comparatively anomalous bodies are great stumbling-blocks
+for the _soi-disant_ historians of creation.
+
+Again, if an immense orb be formed, the parts of which cohere strongly
+enough for the whole to turn upon its axis as one body, the process of
+cooling can go on only from the surface. A crust may finally be formed
+there; but we see not how the refrigeration and shrinking of the
+interior parts can then go on separately, until the mass in the centre
+finally becomes detached from its envelope, like a shrivelled nut from
+its shell. Our earth is cooling down at this moment, unless the warmth
+which it receives from the sun exactly counterbalances the loss by
+radiation of internal heat. But the exterior and interior do not cool by
+different radiations, nor is there, so far as we know, the least
+tendency in the central mass to shrink separately, so as to detach
+itself from the surrounding crust. As deep as we can penetrate towards
+the centre, we find the heat regularly increase,--just as we might
+expect, if the only absolute loss of heat be from the surface.
+
+If the matter now concentrated in the sun, and that which forms the
+several planets with their secondaries, were all moulded into one mass,
+and then dilated so as to fill the vast sphere of which the orbit of
+Uranus forms a circumference, the substance would evidently be in a
+state of extreme tenuity and diffusion. Immense as the mass of the sun
+now is, it is but a mere nut at the centre of the grand globe which we
+are now considering. Expanded to such vast dimensions, we cannot
+conceive of it as a solid spheroid turning upon its axis, but only as a
+mass of fluid or vapor, in which a circular motion would generate only
+vortices or whirlwinds. In such an aggregation of subtile matter, no
+crust could be solidified on the outer ring, and then detached from the
+mass within; indeed, any separation of the parts under such
+circumstances is inconceivable. Even a rotary motion could not be
+established in it, except by an impulse received from without; for there
+is every reason to believe, that the movement of a homogeneous fluid
+towards its centre, if it could take place without disturbing causes,
+would be in radial lines, and not in a spiral.
+
+Our author brings into view all the mathematical proportions and uniform
+relations which exist between the constituent bodies of the solar
+system, in order to indicate the probability of their formation from the
+constant working of one material cause. Thus he remarks, that the
+primary planets all move nearly in one plane, and "show a progressive
+increase of bulk and diminution of density, from the one nearest to the
+sun to that which is most distant." But he passes over other
+characteristics of these bodies, equally important, which are quite
+irregular, and cannot be traced to the operation of one law. Compare the
+periods of rotation on their respective axes, and we find no
+correspondence, no indication that the revolving motion was imparted to
+all by one inflexible law. The first four planets, counting from the
+sun, perform their rotation in nearly the same time, namely, twenty-four
+hours. But Jupiter's period is a little less, and Saturn's a little
+more, than ten hours. Again, Jupiter's axis of rotation is nearly
+perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, while that of Mars is
+inclined at an angle of fifty-nine degrees forty-two minutes. Another
+irregularity, still more fatal to the theory, is found in the number of
+satellites by which the respective planets are attended. Saturn has
+seven, beside the two rings; Jupiter has four, Mars has none, and the
+earth has but one. On the single hypothesis, that our system was formed
+by rings successively thrown off from a central body by a process of
+refrigeration and contraction, these irregularities are inexplicable.
+Mars, it seems, did not shrink at all, while Jupiter cast off four
+separate rings, and the earth produced its single moon. The distances of
+these bodies from their primaries are also quite irregular; in the case
+of Jupiter, the outermost of the satellites revolves at a distance which
+is only twenty-seven times the radius of the primary, and the innermost
+is distant but six times that radius. This planet, consequently, has
+shrunk to one twenty-seventh part of its original diameter, and in so
+doing, has formed four moons; the earth has shrunk to one sixtieth part
+of its first diameter, and still has produced but one satellite. If the
+same law had prevailed in the two cases, we ought to have nine or ten
+moons.
+
+We need not analyze with any great minuteness the geological facts and
+hypotheses incorporated into this magnificent history of creation. As
+will be seen hereafter, the violent and sweeping transformations and
+convulsions that the earth's crust has undergone directly conflict with
+our author's theory, and afford the strongest presumption, that an
+extraneous cause has frequently interfered, at different periods, to
+repair the desolation produced by the unassisted working of natural
+laws, to bring order out of chaos, and to people the desert earth anew
+with animated tribes. The only general fact of much moment, which our
+author has drawn from the discoveries of geologists, for the
+confirmation of his own hypothesis, is, according to his own account,
+one of the most questionable doctrines in the whole science,--one of a
+negative character, on which we can never rely with full assurance, till
+the researches of man have probed every fold, and examined every thread
+in the texture, of the earth's garment, and thus shown that no evidence
+can possibly be discovered to the contrary. The alleged fact is that, in
+the early formations of rock--the first pages in the history of the
+earth's surface--are found the remains of animals and vegetables only of
+the lowest type and most imperfect development; while, in the later
+strata, forms more and more advanced are discovered; so that there seems
+to have been a constant progress along the line leading to the higher
+forms of organization. The testimony which goes to support this
+assertion is wholly negative. The geologist reasons thus: The more
+perfect organisms have not been discovered in the earlier strata;
+_therefore_, they do not exist in them. When, in a different connection,
+it suits our author's purpose to throw doubt on the very postulate which
+is here admitted, he holds the following language.
+
+     "These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the birds than
+     we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be
+     remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any
+     class of animals from a certain period of the earth's history, can
+     never be considered as more than negative. Animals, of which we
+     find no remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless, have
+     lived at the time, and it may have only been from unfavorable
+     circumstances that their remains have not been preserved for our
+     inspection. The single circumstance of their being little liable to
+     be carried down into seas might be the cause of their
+     non-appearance in our quarries."--p. 95.
+
+In truth, the researches of geologists are every day bringing to light
+new facts, which compel them to modify or abandon many of the positions
+they formerly held; so that a considerable portion of the science is a
+mere quicksand of shifting theories. We need only allude to the various
+suppositions respecting the origin of drift, and to the numerous
+modifications of the glacial theory. Important discoveries have been
+made within a short time, showing that certain animal tribes had their
+origin much farther back than was at first supposed. A few years ago,
+reptiles were believed to be the highest type of life that existed
+during the era of the new red sand-stone. But Professor Hitchcock's
+recent discovery in this stone of the footprints of gigantic birds has
+added a higher class to the zooelogy of the period; and within a few
+months, in the same red sand-stone of the Connecticut valley, tracks of
+two or three species of quadrupeds have been found, some of them being
+probably mammifers of a lower grade. It is true, no fossil remains of
+these animals have been brought to light; but this want only renders the
+discovery more significant for our present purpose. It shows that
+certain animals must have lived at the period in question, though their
+remains have not yet been found; and from the greater age of the rocks
+then formed, and the consequent greater number of convulsions of the
+earth's surface to which they have been subjected, these remains may
+have entirely disappeared. It is a curious fact, also, that the animal
+remains of that period, which have come down to us, belong to genera so
+constituted, that their bodies might well survive, if we may so speak,
+the shocks which would have destroyed every trace of some more delicate,
+or more finely organized, beings. We find remains of the flint-shielded
+animalcules, the hard-shelled mollusca, and the cartilaginous fishes;
+but the bodies of mammalia, birds, and even the higher species of
+fishes, some of which we may suppose to have been more tender and
+corruptible, have utterly perished. Here and there, an individual of
+their number left the print of its foot on the sand, which subsequently
+hardened into rock, and brought down to our times a faint vestige of its
+past existence.
+
+We are not attempting to impugn the credit of geological science in
+general, which would be a wholly futile task. The multitude of facts
+respecting the present constitution of the earth's crust, recently made
+known by laborers in this department, are among the most curious and
+most pregnant discoveries of modern times. But when we come to the
+formation of theories respecting the past history of the earth, in order
+to account for the phenomena at present visible on its surface, we are
+evidently afloat on a sea of conjecture, each hypothesis being valid
+only till a more plausible one is proposed,--which happens very
+frequently,--or till it is effectually disproved by some new discovery
+in the rocky strata. A fertile imagination and a bold face are among the
+most striking traits of our more daring geologists. Grant to one of this
+character a few modest postulates,--give him certain millions of years,
+a sufficient number of earthquakes, a whole battery of volcanoes, a few
+ocean deluges, and the rise and fall of half a dozen continents,--and he
+will frame a theory off-hand, which will account for the most perplexing
+phenomena. Our author is certainly entitled to take his place at the
+very head of this class of speculatists.
+
+In accounting for the work of creation by the natural and unassisted
+development of the inherent qualities of brute matter, the great
+difficulty is found at the first link in the chain of animated being.
+How can we explain the commencement of _life_? We must have a clear idea
+of the whole scope of this problem, before we can make any attempt at
+its solution. Life, then, is _not_ mere organization, though most
+materialists, philosophers, like our author, willingly confound the two
+things; to hear them reason, one would almost suppose that there was no
+difference between a dead man and a living one. Organization is
+subservient to life, ministers to it, manifests it,--supports it, if you
+please,--but does not constitute it. He must be a bolder man than we
+are, who will undertake to say _what it is_; but we can very safely
+declare _what it is not_; and in any particular form or aggregation of
+matter, whether organic or inorganic, we can give a shrewd guess as to
+its presence or absence. It may be said, that we beg the question by
+assuming that organization is not life; it may be so; but it is quite
+too much to allow the materialist quietly to take the opposite doctrine
+for granted. He must know the full extent of his task,--that it is
+necessary for him not only to construct the machine, but actually to set
+it in motion, so that it shall afterwards run on of its own accord. It
+is very easy to frame a partial definition of life, by merely describing
+one or two of its characteristic functions; and then, because some
+action can be detected between the particles of brute matter, which
+resembles the exercise of these functions, boldly to declare that the
+whole mystery is solved. Thus it is said, that life is nothing but the
+accretion of similar substances, or the addition of like unto like; and
+as this occurs in crystallization, which is confessedly a phenomenon of
+inorganic matter, therefore there is no fundamental difference between
+the properties of living and dead substances. We deny the first
+proposition; nutrition is not the only characteristic of life, and the
+nutritive process, whether in vegetables or animals, is not mere
+accretion, but assimilation. It has been said, though the assertion is
+by no means fully proved, that assimilation is only a finer kind of
+chemistry, the constituent principles being brought together only by
+their natural affinities. Even if this were true, if the stomach and the
+digestive apparatus were only a well furnished chemical laboratory, fit
+for conducting the most delicate experiments, the great difficulty would
+still remain. The question might yet be asked, Where is the chemist? And
+this is the fundamental question, which the materialists never attempt
+to answer, but quietly evade.
+
+The difference between an inorganic and an organic body has been
+explained by Coleridge clearly enough for our purpose. In the former,--a
+sheaf of corn, for instance,--the whole is nothing more than a
+collection of the individual parts; in the latter,--an animal,--the
+whole is the effect of, or results from, the parts. In the latter case,
+the whole is every thing, and the parts are comparatively nothing. One
+of the great effects of life is to keep the parts in subjection to the
+whole, making them contribute to its support and growth, and thus
+maintaining the unity of the system. The stomach digests, the lungs
+inhale air, the heart beats, and the blood circulates; and as the joint
+effect, or as the common supporter,--it matters not which,--of these
+operations, _life_ continues, and the animated being is a unit; it has
+not merely virtual, but essential unity. The reciprocal action of the
+respiratory, circulating, and nervous systems is absolutely necessary to
+life. The animal dies, and this unity, this subservience of the parts to
+the whole, immediately ceases. In the functions of the living body, it
+may be that the ordinary laws of chemistry are preserved, and that the
+elements of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen combine and separate according
+to their ordinary affinities, and in no unusual proportions. But after
+death, at any rate, quite a different set of chemical laws come into
+play, and produce a result which is the very opposite of that before
+effected. There is no longer any unanimity or cooeperation; instead of
+sustaining or building up the animal tissues, the affinities now in
+operation tear down, destroy, and resolve them into their ultimate
+elements,--each part following out its own law of destruction or
+resolution, irrespectively of the others.
+
+     "There is in living organic matter a principle constantly in
+     action, the operations of which are in accordance with a rational
+     plan, so that the individual parts which it creates in the body are
+     adapted to the design of the whole; and this it is which
+     distinguishes organism. Kant says, 'The cause of the particular
+     mode of existence of each part of a living body resides in the
+     whole, while in dead masses each part contains this cause within
+     itself.' This explains why a mere part separated from an organized
+     whole generally does not continue to live; why, in fact, an
+     organized body appears to be one and indivisible. And since the
+     different parts of an organized body are heterogeneous members of
+     one whole, and essential to its perfect state, the trunk cannot
+     live after the loss of one of these parts."--_Mueller's Physiology_,
+     Vol. I., p. 19.
+
+The apparent exceptions to this statement--as in the case of the
+polypes, which multiply by fissiparous generation, or by spontaneous
+division of their bodies into parts, each part becoming a perfect
+animal--are only apparent. These creatures, which are low down in the
+scale of being, exemplify what Mr. Owen calls "the law of vegetative or
+irrelative repetition," as they have many organs performing the same
+function, and not related to each other by combination for the
+performance of a higher function. Thus, a Polygastrian has many
+assimilative sacs, each performing the office of a stomach irrespective
+of the rest. In the insect tribe, the respiratory function, instead of
+being performed by one set of lungs for the whole body, is carried on
+through a series of minute and highly ramified tubes, which traverse
+every part of the body, and open to the air by a great number of
+orifices. In some instances, both respiration and digestion seem to take
+place over the whole surface of the body; for Trembley found at least
+one case, in which the animal digested its food equally well, after it
+had been turned inside out. A number of similar parts being repeated in
+each segment of the individual, the body can be divided, and the several
+portions, each still containing some of all the organs essential to the
+whole, will continue to live separately. The severed parts will even
+continue to grow, and to develope other organs convenient for individual
+existence. But most animals, especially the more perfect, do not
+constitute an aggregate of similar parts united by one trunk, and
+therefore propagation by division is in them impossible. The ovum, when
+separated from the parent, is an entire animal only _potentially_;
+during its development, the essential parts which constitute the
+_actual_ whole are produced. In the case of the polyps, we have only to
+suppose that the ovum remains connected with the parent being, till all,
+or nearly all, its essential parts are produced. It is then shed not as
+a mere ovum, but as an animal nearly or wholly complete.
+
+Now, all the instances adduced by our author, to show similarity of
+action in the organic and the inorganic world, are irrelevant. The
+analogies are not merely imperfect; they are no analogies at all.
+Crystals increase by the aggregation of new particles on the external
+surfaces of the parts already formed; there is no consentaneous
+operation of the parts on the whole. The molecules of crystals are
+homogeneous throughout, and the several aggregates of these molecules
+are independent of each other; while organized bodies are composed of
+parts perfectly dissimilar from each other, but all of which conspire to
+one end. "The growth of organized bodies," says Mueller, "takes place in
+all particles of their substance at the same time, while the increase of
+the mass in inorganic bodies is produced by external apposition."
+Frostwork on the windows may resemble vegetable _forms_; but it has no
+resemblance whatever to vegetable _life_. Electricity may counterfeit
+the _action of life_, for a moment, on a particular limb, by causing the
+muscles to twitch; but it does not counterfeit _life itself_, by causing
+all the parts again to contribute to the sustentation of the whole. A
+French chemist, by electric action, may have produced _globules_ in
+albumen; there is nothing very wonderful in that; any one may blow
+bubbles in a viscid fluid. The resemblance between these globules and
+proper germinal vesicles amounts to nothing more than similarity of
+outward shape; there is no more real resemblance between them than
+between the oval lump of chalk which farmers sometimes put into a hen's
+nest, in order to deceive poor Dame Partlet, and the real egg which the
+hen deposits by the side of it. Certainly, the imponderable agents,
+heat, light, and electricity, are in some mysterious way _connected
+with_ life, so as to contribute to its support; there is nothing more in
+this assertion than in the familiar proposition, that a seed will
+germinate only under the proper conditions of soil and climate; but
+that these agents, acting on inorganic matter, ever _create_ or
+_commence_ life is a pure hypothesis, not supported even by the shadow
+of a fact.
+
+Having thus shown how weak are the general considerations in favor of
+the theory, that animated beings may be created out of inorganic matter
+by mere natural laws, we should proceed to consider the direct evidence
+adduced to prove that life has actually been produced in this way. Here
+the whole question is opened respecting the alleged instances of
+equivocal generation, and we have neither space nor ability to discuss
+them at length. Those who are curious respecting the question may find a
+brief summary of the evidence on both sides in a former number of this
+Journal.[1] We can mention only a few facts and arguments, which show
+the extreme improbability of the doctrine supported by our author and a
+few other theorists.
+
+In the first place, it is remarkable, that all the races of animated
+beings, which are entirely within the range of our powers of
+observation,--which have such a size and locality that we can study and
+accurately determine their organization and habits,--are unquestionably
+produced from parents of their own kind. Only the minute microscopic
+animals are now supposed to be generated spontaneously; and this alleged
+fact rests not on direct proof, but only on our inability in certain
+cases to trace the process of their production in the ordinary way. As
+many of these animals, in their perfect state, are not more than the
+twelve thousandth part of an inch in diameter, it is not much to be
+wondered at, that we should not be able in all cases to discover their
+ova, or to follow these ova through all their stages of development into
+the complete being. It is farther remarkable, that these animalcules,
+when once produced, whether by spontaneous or natural generation, are
+all found to be provided with the organs or requisite means for
+continuing their species, and, in fact, for multiplying their number
+from themselves with astonishing rapidity. As they certainly have
+children, it seems reasonable to suppose, according to the analogy of
+all the higher animated tribes, that they also had parents. The ancients
+supposed, that the worms and insects which appear in decaying organic
+matter were generated there by the decomposition of the substance,
+without the previous agency of individuals of the same stock. Every
+schoolboy is acquainted with Virgil's mode of obtaining a new swarm of
+bees from the decaying carcass of a heifer. Subsequent researches, made
+with more care, and perhaps with better instruments of observation, have
+entirely disproved the hypothesis, and show that the maggots were
+produced in every case from eggs deposited by flies or other insects,
+and were afterwards themselves developed into the state of perfect
+insects. Then it seems reasonable to believe, that the improved
+observations of future times will clear up the only remaining
+difficulty, and show how the infusory animalcules also are generated
+from beings of their own kind.
+
+These minute creatures are prolific to a degree that transcends all
+calculation; and they exist, either in the egg or maturely developed, in
+inconceivable numbers. A single wheel-animalcule, _Hydatina senta_,
+which was watched for more than eighteen days, and which lives still
+longer, is capable of a fourfold increase in twenty-four or thirty
+hours; a rate of propagation which would afford in ten days a million of
+beings. From their tenacity of life, extraordinary powers of
+reproduction, and incalculable numbers, their united influence may be
+said to be far more important, in all the great operations of nature,
+than that of the larger and more perfectly developed organisms. They
+swarm in all the seas, and play an important part in choking up harbours
+and forming great deposits at the mouths of rivers. The remains of those
+which have perished form great beds and strata in the crust of the
+earth. The silicious stone, called Tripoli, is entirely composed of such
+remains; at Bilin, in Bohemia, there is one stratum of this substance,
+fourteen feet thick, one cubic inch of which is estimated to contain
+forty-one thousand millions of individuals. Their extreme tenacity of
+life is evinced by the fact, that many of them may be entirely
+desiccated, and preserved in pure sand for several years, after which,
+on the application of a drop of water, they may be restored to life. In
+this dried state, M. Doyere exposed some of them to a heat equal to that
+of boiling water, and afterwards revived them; though, in an active
+state, if subjected to a much lower temperature, they perish. If, then,
+the fully developed and mature can resist such powerful extraneous
+causes of destruction, how much more must the ova possess the power of
+enduring them without losing their latent life! The following extract
+from Professor Owen's Lectures shows the bearing of these facts upon the
+question of equivocal generation.
+
+     "The act of oviparous generation, that sending forth of countless
+     ova through the fatal laceration or dissolution of the parent's
+     body, is most commonly observed in the well-fed _Polygastria_,
+     which crowd together as their little ocean evaporates; and thus
+     each leaves, by the last act of its life, the means of perpetuating
+     and diffusing its species by thousands of fertile germs. When the
+     once thickly tenanted pool is dried up, and its bottom converted
+     into a layer of dust, these inconceivably minute and light ova will
+     be raised with the dust by the first puff of wind, diffused through
+     the atmosphere, and may there remain long suspended; forming,
+     perhaps, their share of the particles which we see flickering in
+     the sunbeam, ready to fall into any collection of water, beaten
+     down by every summer shower into the streams or pools which receive
+     or may be formed by such showers, and, by virtue of their tenacity
+     of life, ready to develope themselves wherever they may find the
+     requisite conditions for their existence.
+
+     "The possibility, or, rather, the high probability, that such is
+     the design of the oviparous generation of the _Infusoria_, and such
+     the common mode of the diffusion of their ova, renders the
+     hypothesis of equivocal generation, which has been so frequently
+     invoked to explain their origin in new-formed natural or artificial
+     infusions, quite gratuitous. If organs of generation might, at
+     first sight, seem superfluous in creatures propagating their kind
+     by gemmation and spontaneous fission, equivocal generation is
+     surely still less required to explain the origin of beings so
+     richly provided with the ordinary and recognized modes of
+     propagation."--pp. 31, 32.
+
+Recent accounts show, that the dust collected from the atmosphere at
+sea, many miles from land, generally contains some of these dried
+animalcules and their ova. Many of these germs can be developed only in
+particular localities, or under certain conditions which are rarely
+fulfilled. Consequently, if there were but few of them, the species
+might perish, because those few might not find their appropriate home.
+But such an accident is guarded against by the vast multiplication of
+these germs and their wide dispersion; for, unlike all the higher tribes
+of beings except man, the same species is often found in all regions of
+the globe. Very few, in comparison with the whole number, may find a
+proper _nidus_; but these few then propagate with such marvellous
+rapidity, as fully to replenish, if not to increase, the original stock.
+Thus they have been enabled, as species, to survive even those
+destroying causes which exterminated all the higher forms of animals.
+Several species still exist, which were in being at the time of the
+cretaceous formation, though all the other animated races belonging to
+that period have perished. "These animalcules," says Ehrenberg,
+"constitute a chain, which, though in the individual it be microscopic,
+yet in the mass is a mighty one, connecting the organic life of distant
+ages of the earth."
+
+In view of facts like these, we may surely say, that the existence of
+the infusory animalcules, and even of the entozoa, is conceivable,
+supposing they could only have been produced by parents of their own
+kind, and without having recourse to the anomalous and hypothetical
+doctrine of equivocal generation. We may not be able to trace their line
+of parentage, for our imperfect vision cannot follow the motes which
+play in the sunbeam, nor track them from their birth-place to their
+final home. But we know that they must be deposited in every layer of
+dust that falls from the atmosphere, that they must be inhaled with
+every breath which an animal draws, and be swallowed with every morsel
+and drop of its food. The experiments which seem to prove that living
+beings may be produced from pure inorganic matter are all explicable on
+the supposition, that adequate precautions were not taken to exclude
+every animal and germ capable of development from the substances
+experimented upon, and from the air which was admitted into the
+apparatus. On this ground, the experiments of Crosse and Weekes, cited
+by our author, have been quite generally rejected by scientific men, as
+hardly deserving of notice. We learn that the former was "discouraged by
+the reception of his experiments," and "soon discontinued them";--with
+good reason, for it does not appear from our author's account, that he
+adopted any precautions at all. Mr. Weekes seems to have been a little
+more cautious, and the consequence was, that he did not observe any
+appearance of life among the substances experimented upon for "eleven
+months," at the end of which time we may reasonably suppose, that his
+precautions ceased to have perfect effect. The only experiment, in which
+adequate means to guard against causes of error were taken, was that of
+Professor Schulze, of Berlin, which had a contrary result. We extract
+Mr. Owen's account of it.
+
+     "He filled a glass flask half full of distilled water, in which
+     were various animal and vegetable substances: he then closed it
+     with a good cork, through which were passed two glass tubes, bent
+     at right angles, the whole being air-tight: it was next placed in a
+     sand bath, and heated until the water boiled violently. While the
+     watery vapor was escaping by the glass tubes, the Professor
+     fastened at each end an apparatus which chemists employ for
+     collecting carbonic acid: that at the one end was filled with
+     concentrated sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of
+     potash. By means of the boiling heat, it is to be presumed that
+     every thing living, and all germs in the flask or in the tubes were
+     destroyed; whilst all access was cut off by the sulphuric acid on
+     the one side, and by the potash on the other. The apparatus was
+     then exposed to the influence of summer light and heat; at the same
+     time, there was placed near it an open vessel, with the same
+     substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after
+     having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order to renew
+     constantly the air within the flask, the experimenter sucked with
+     his mouth several times a day the open end of the apparatus, filled
+     with the solution of potash, by which process the air entered his
+     mouth from the flask through the caustic liquid, and the
+     atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the
+     sulphuric acid. The air was of course not at all altered in its
+     composition by passing through the sulphuric acid in the flask; but
+     all the portions of living matter, or of matter capable of becoming
+     animated, were taken up by the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From
+     the 28th of May until the beginning of August, Professor Schulze
+     continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the air in the flask,
+     without being able, by the aid of the microscope, to discover any
+     living animal or vegetable substance; although, during the whole of
+     the time, observations were made almost daily on the edge of the
+     liquid; and when, at last, the Professor separated the different
+     parts of the apparatus, he could not find in the whole liquid the
+     slightest trace of _Infusoria_ or _Confervae_, or of mould; but all
+     three presented themselves in great abundance a few days after he
+     had left the flask standing open. The vessel which he placed near
+     the apparatus contained on the following day _Vibriones_ and
+     _Monads_, to which were soon added larger Polygastric _Infusoria_,
+     and afterwards _Rotifera_."--pp. 32, 33.
+
+For readers who are not familiar with these subjects, it may be well to
+mention, that the weight of authority is decidedly against this doctrine
+of spontaneous generation. It is rejected by Mueller, who ranks among
+the first physiologists of Germany; by Ehrenberg, one of the most
+distinguished microscopists in the world; and by Owen, who stands at the
+head of the school of comparative anatomy in England, if not in Europe.
+The remark made by Cuvier, more than thirty years ago, is still true at
+the present day, that, "although the impossibility of spontaneous
+generation cannot be absolutely demonstrated, yet all the efforts of
+those physiologists who believe in the possibility of it have not
+succeeded in showing us a single instance."
+
+Passing over, then, our author's theory of the origination of life from
+inorganic matter as utterly untenable, we come to the next point in his
+system,--the most chimerical of all,--the gradual development of the
+higher orders of being out of those next beneath them in the scale. It
+is not pretended, that there is _any known instance_ of the
+transmutation of species, or of the evolution, in the ordinary way, of
+any being specifically different from its parents. The same animal,
+indeed, may pass through different grades of development; but these
+changes affect only the individual, not the race. The progeny of this
+animal must begin at the same point where its parent did, and run
+precisely the same cycle. The tadpole becomes a frog, but the young of
+that frog are tadpoles; the worm becomes a winged insect, but the eggs
+of that insect are hatched into nothing but worms. These changes in the
+life of the individual, like the successive periods of the embryotic
+state, of infancy, and manhood in the human being, are perfectly
+consistent with persistence of type in the race, and do not indicate
+even the possibility that a new species may be developed out of an old
+one. On the contrary, the germ must be considered as _potentially_
+equivalent to the whole future being, for it is invariably developed
+into that being. If there be any one fact unquestionably established by
+observation, it is that each species invariably produces its like. "All
+the phenomena," says Mueller, "at present observed in the animal kingdom,
+seem to prove that the species were originally created distinct, and
+independent of each other. There is no remote possibility of one species
+being produced from another."
+
+The doctrine of our author, then, is confessedly a pure hypothesis, and,
+as such, it might be summarily dismissed into the region of cloud-land
+and dreams, where it had its origin. The burden of proof is upon him,
+and as he has failed to produce a single instance in which his theory is
+exemplified, he may be rightfully debarred the privilege of discussion.
+But waiving this point, if we look into the grounds of his conjecture,
+we find bold assumptions more than once substituted for the plain
+statement of facts, which would destroy every shade of credibility in
+his doctrine. True, there is an appearance, both in the animal and
+vegetable kingdoms, of an ascending scale of being, from simply
+organized forms and imperfect developments up to the complex
+arrangements and nice adaptations of the advanced tribes. But the
+progress is not regular, nor are the intervals of constant length. The
+line is often broken and doubled, and, in fact, the individuals are far
+more naturally arranged in a number of parallel lines, beginning
+successively at a somewhat lower point, than in a single series. Man, of
+course, is placed at the head of the animal tribes; but the interval
+which separates him from the chimpanzee cannot easily be cleared at one
+bound. He forms but one genus, and that genus is the only one of its
+order. But even if the line of gradation were single and perfect, the
+fact would be of no service to the hypothesis we are now considering;
+for the interval between two species most nearly allied to each other
+seems to be quite as impassable as the broadest gulf of separation.
+
+The point chiefly relied upon to show the credibility of this doctrine
+is the fact, according to our author, that the higher animals pass
+through a series of changes resembling the permanent forms of the lower
+tribes. The first form of man himself "is that which is permanent in the
+animalcule"; and thence he comes to resemble successively a fish, a
+reptile, a bird, and the lower mammifers, before he attains his specific
+maturity. It is held, then, that a premature birth from an animal of a
+higher kind might have instituted a new race of a lower type; and that a
+birth unusually delayed, permitting an embryo to be still farther
+advanced in the line of organization, might have created a new species
+of a higher order than the parent. Here, every thing depends on the
+_absolute identity_ of the germs of all animals, in the lower stages of
+their growth. General resemblances and analogies are of no weight
+whatever; the essential internal organization of the ova of different
+species must be the same; otherwise, however ripened into a mature
+being, whether the birth be advanced or postponed, the individual must
+still belong to its parents' species, of which it possesses the
+distinctive peculiarity. Now, this point of _the identity of germs is a
+mere assumption_; not only is it destitute of proof,--the whole evidence
+is against it. There is a degree of outward resemblance, but there is no
+sameness. When we trace the origin of life back to the remotest point to
+which our powers of observation extend, when we come to microscopic
+vesicles that can be discerned only by the highest magnifiers, general
+similarity of outward shape is all that can be predicated of them. The
+specific differences lie below this general resemblance of outward form;
+we cannot discern them, but we _know_ that they must exist, and that
+they are _essential_ differences, for each one of these vesicles is
+invariably developed, if at all, into an individual of the species to
+which its parent belongs. The germinal vesicles of a tree and a
+quadruped are somewhat alike, outwardly; so, to the hen's eyes, there is
+no difference between her own eggs and the duck's eggs which the
+farmer's wife has put into her nest. But when she has hatched her brood,
+part of them are found to be web-footed, and these, to her great
+astonishment and distress, immediately take to the water. Our author
+commits the same blunder as the poor hen. This want of consciousness
+that he has got to the end of his tether, this inability to believe that
+any difference can exist where he is not able to see it, though it is
+invariably indicated by future consequent differences of the most
+striking nature, is perfectly characteristic of the rash theorist in
+science.
+
+The assertion, that man's "first form _is_ that which is permanent in
+the animalcule,"--even if we do not look to the potentiality of
+development into a higher being, which experience shows to exist in the
+human germ, but not in the infusorial,--is a positive misstatement. The
+lowest monad has a mouth and means for propagating its kind, which do
+not belong to the primitive ovum of any higher animal. About the
+succeeding stages in the growth of the embryo our author's language is
+more cautious. He only says, that they _resemble_, or _typify_, some of
+the lower orders of being; and this is virtually admitting a specific
+difference, and giving up his own theory for all the conditions
+posterior to that of the germ. The brain and heart of the embryo
+successively _resemble_ the corresponding organs in a fish, a reptile, a
+bird, and a quadruped; but they are not identical, _even in outward
+appearance_, with those organs. Of course, if arrested at any stage of
+its growth, and prematurely born, the embryo would not be one of the
+lower animals, but only something resembling it in outward shape; and
+conversely, if it were possible for the birth of a bird to be delayed
+till it had reached a higher stage of development in the same line in
+which it was proceeding, it would not become a quadruped, but it would
+be an anomalous creature somewhat like one. Consequently, no one species
+now on the earth can have been evolved out of any other existing race;
+because the germs of any two, at a very early stage in their history,
+according to our author's own confession, are specifically unlike.
+
+To avoid this difficulty, he is driven to a further supposition, still
+more gratuitous and improbable; namely, that the germ destined to become
+one of a different race from its parents, having advanced along its
+usual line of development so far as that line coincides with the one
+belonging to the new species, there diverges, and follows a different
+path up to the period of its birth into a new creature; that is, the
+embryo of a reptile, having grown for a certain time as if it were to be
+a reptile, suddenly turns aside, like a young man changing his mind
+about the choice of a profession, and for the rest of its foetal life
+follows the proper line of progress in order to be developed into a
+bird. This is mere dreaming, and reminds one only of the wonderful
+transformations effected by enchantment in an Arabian tale. We might
+just as plausibly suppose, that the reptile, after it became mature, was
+suddenly transformed into a bird, as that it underwent this change
+before it was hatched. All the evidence attainable goes to show, that
+the law of development is as immutable before as after birth, the
+several stages of progress succeeding each other in a constant order,
+and affecting the individual only, not the race. A young monkey is no
+more likely to be transmuted into a man than an old one; nor is such a
+metamorphosis at all more probable in the course of its foetal life.
+
+The view we have now obtained of the specific differences between
+distinct races of being at separate periods of their existence is
+precisely what might have been anticipated from the law of gradual
+development, which holds throughout the organic kingdoms. Between two
+mature animals, these differences are perfectly obvious and well
+marked. As we go a step back in their history, the distinction becomes a
+little more obscure; two worms may resemble each other very closely,
+though the two winged insects subsequently produced from them may be
+very unlike. Receding still farther, some of these specific differences
+may entirely disappear, the organs or parts which should exhibit them
+being not yet developed. And when we come to the primitive germs, so
+minute as to be visible only through the microscope, no outward
+distinction, perhaps, is any longer perceptible, and the radical
+difference of their internal organization is indicated only by the fact,
+to be verified by subsequent observation, that the two are invariably
+developed into perfectly distinct animals, belonging respectively to the
+same races with their parents. A theorist, whose whole system is based
+upon the invariable operation of natural agencies, cannot reasonably
+object to this conclusion.
+
+That our statements in the course of this argument may not appear of the
+same questionable character as those advanced by our author, we will
+fortify them with a few brief citations from a work of such
+unquestionable authority as the Lectures of Professor Owen.
+
+     "No doubt the minute infusoria, which seem to have their
+     development arrested at the first or nearest stage from the
+     primitive cell formation, offer close and striking analogies to the
+     primitive cells out of which the higher animals and all their
+     tissues are developed; but the very [first] step which the
+     infusoria take beyond the primitive cell stage invests them with a
+     specific character as independent and distinct in its nature as
+     that of the highest and most complicated organisms. No mere organic
+     cell, destined for ulterior changes in a living organization, has a
+     mouth armed with teeth, or provided with long tentacula; I will not
+     lay stress on the alimentary canal and appended stomachs, which
+     many still regard as 'sub judice'; but the endowment of distinct
+     organs of generation, for propagating their kind by fertile ova,
+     raises the polygastric infusoria much above the mere organic
+     cell."--pp. 25, 26.
+
+     "In comparing the several stages in the very interesting
+     development of the _cyanaea aurita_ to the infusoria and polypes, it
+     must be understood that such comparisons are warranted only by a
+     similarity of outward form, and of the instruments of locomotion
+     and prehension. The essential internal organization of the
+     persistent lower forms of the _zooephyta_ is entirely wanting in the
+     transitory states of the higher ones. A progress through the
+     inferior groups is sketched out, but no actual transmutation of
+     species is effected. The young medusa, before it attains its
+     destined condition of maturity, successively resembles, but never
+     becomes, a polygastrian, a rotifer, and a bryozoon."--p. 112.
+
+     "Thus every animal in the course of its development typifies or
+     represents some of the permanent forms of animals inferior to
+     itself; but it does not represent all the inferior forms, nor
+     acquire the organization of any of the forms which it transitorily
+     represents. Had the animal kingdom formed, as was once supposed, a
+     single and continuous chain of being, progressively ascending from
+     the monad to the man, unity of organization might then have been
+     demonstrated to the extent in which the theory has been maintained
+     by the disciples of the Geoffroyan school."--p. 370.
+
+If these similarities of structure in the germ had any bearing on the
+subject, they would indicate the possibility only of retrogression in
+the scale. Of course, the immature ovum, arrested in its development,
+could not form a more perfect being than its parent. There is no
+pretence that the embryo, at any stage of its progress, images an animal
+of a higher grade than its own family. Then what aid do these
+similarities of structure afford to the theory, that all the higher
+organisms have been evolved by successive steps out of the lowest monad?
+At the best, you have only shown, that a _retreat_ is possible; you have
+still to point out any likelihood, even the remotest, of an _advance_ in
+the scale of being. There is no fact whatever to confirm the
+supposition, that birth may possibly be delayed till the animal be
+developed into one of a higher species; and the law of immature births
+seems to be, that, if the offspring escapes at all--for there is great
+risk consequent on such an accident,--it becomes as perfect as its
+progenitors. Nature seems to guard the distinctions between the several
+races with peculiar care; so far as we know, monsters either do not
+survive their birth, or are incapable of continuing their kind, or in
+the course of a single generation are reunited to the original family.
+
+To say that these laws, distinct and invariable as far as the
+observation of man has extended, may possibly have been superseded in
+the lapse of ages by a higher principle, manifesting itself only at
+long intervals, is again to have recourse to a blank hypothesis,
+incapable alike of proof or disproof, and unsupported by the faintest
+intimations from the world of experience. To build up a theory in this
+way is not to account for the work of creation by the natural agencies
+and inherent qualities of matter, _as at present observable_, but to fly
+off to the wild supposition, that matter and life were more richly
+endowed ages ago than they are in our own day. You affirm, that this
+higher principle of development did not override the inferior laws at
+the earlier periods in time's history, because, in the infancy of the
+universe, the conditions were wanting which are requisite for its
+manifestation,--because the earth was not ready, the atmosphere was not
+purified, for the nobler races of being. Very well; but these conditions
+are answered _now_. All things are ready at the present day for the
+innate energies of matter to put forth their utmost strength. Why do not
+fishes generate reptiles, and birds produce mammifers, _now_? Ah! but
+"the earth being now supplied with both kinds of tenants in great
+abundance, we could only expect to find the life-originating power at
+work in some very special and extraordinary circumstances." It seems,
+then, that these inherent qualities of matter, once supposed to be
+blind, absolute, and invariable in their operation, are really very
+judicious and reasonable; they suit the supply to the demand, and
+actually cease working when the market is likely to be overstocked. The
+results of such "_natural_ agencies" as these are very like the effects
+produced by the volitions of a wise and thinking being.
+
+It happens that we are not obliged to grant to our author an indefinite
+lapse of ages for the sake of bringing all his higher principles into
+action. One of the latest events in the geological history of the earth
+was a great submersion of the land, by which "terrestrial animal life
+was extensively, if not universally, destroyed"; so that the creation of
+the species now in being--at least, all the higher species--was "a
+comparatively recent event, and one posterior, generally speaking, to
+all the great natural transactions chronicled by geology." Science does
+not contradict, it rather confirms, that voice of revelation or
+tradition, which assigns about six thousand years as the period of man's
+residence upon the earth. The action of the drama, then, is restricted
+within moderate limits as to time, and the "natural agencies" and
+"higher principles" must work fast in order to accomplish their task
+within the prescribed period. One condition for the creation of a new
+and permanent species, belonging to any of the higher orders, seems to
+have escaped our author's notice; at least two individuals, a male and a
+female, must have been evolved out of the next lower race, before the
+new species could continue its kind. Apply these considerations to the
+creation of man, who, according to our author's Scripture, was born of a
+monkey. To suppose, that, at the first trial, an Adam and an Eve were
+born near each other, so that they might have a chance of meeting in the
+course of their lives, would look too much like the operation of
+intelligence and design. On the theory of an organic creation by law, as
+the monkey race is spread over large regions of the globe, we must
+suppose that many of each sex were produced, and died childless, before
+any Adam was happy enough to find an Eve. Then, at no very distant
+period, within a few thousand years, the birth of a man from an animal
+of a lower type was no very strange event. Probably it occurred so
+often, that the monkeys themselves ceased to be astonished at it. And
+yet, this tribe of animals, with all the benefit of large experience,
+with increased numbers, and with all the requisite conditions fulfilled
+at least as perfectly as they were at the earlier period of their
+history, have not succeeded, in the three or four thousand years during
+which they have been subject to the observation of intelligent beings,
+in producing even a decent semblance of a man.
+
+With the exposure of this crowning absurdity, we must close our direct
+examination of this "History of Creation." We have not room to consider
+some of the appendages to the theory, such as the assertion of the
+essential unity of the human and the brute intellect, the denial of the
+immaterial nature of mind, and the advocacy of the system of phrenology.
+These absurd and degrading doctrines are naturally connected with the
+atheistic hypothesis we have been considering. They are its legitimate
+children. But they have already been refuted so often and so
+conclusively, that any revival of them at the present day is hardly
+deserving of notice. If we should stop here, then, it may fairly be left
+to the judgment of our readers, whether we have not fulfilled the pledge
+given at the outset, by showing that this theory is faulty at every
+point, even when viewed from the author's own ground. The proposal of it
+is no new thing. In one or another form, varying in particulars, but
+agreeing in substance, it has been before the world ever since the days
+of Democritus, and more especially of his follower, Epicurus. Lucretius
+clothed it in sonorous and majestic verse, for it is a theme fitted
+above all others to excite the fancy, and to receive the richest
+embellishments from the imagination. Modern authors have promulgated it
+again and again, with little other change than what was requisite to
+adapt it to recent improvements in science, and to engraft upon it some
+of their own favorite hypotheses and fancies. The version of it by the
+French naturalist Lamarck was the latest and the most in vogue, till the
+appearance of the present volume. So frequently has it been confuted,
+that the revival of it at this late period seems little more than a
+harmless exercise of ingenuity, a poetical and scientific dream, and one
+need hardly take the pains to expose its assumptions and fallacies. The
+violent suppositions which it involves only remind one of the remark
+quoted from Pascal on a former page, that "unbelievers are the most
+credulous persons in the world." If set forth only as a novel and
+pleasing fancy, it may be classed with other ingenious fictions, that
+are published without a thought of deception. But if seriously proposed,
+it can be fitly characterized only by borrowing the homely but energetic
+language of Dr. Bentley.
+
+     "And now that I have finished all the parts which I proposed to
+     discourse of, I will conclude all with a short application to the
+     atheists. And I would advise them, as a friend, to leave off this
+     dabbling and smattering in philosophy, this shuffling and cutting
+     with atoms. It never succeeded well with them, and they always come
+     off with the loss. Their old master, Epicurus, seems to have had
+     his brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever
+     kept in the right way; though the main maxim of his philosophy was
+     to trust to his senses, and follow his nose. I will not take notice
+     of his doting conceit, that the sun and moon are no bigger than
+     they appear to the eye, a foot or half a yard over; and that the
+     stars are no larger than so many glow-worms. But let us see how he
+     manages his atoms, those almighty tools that do every thing of
+     themselves, without the help of a workman. When the atoms, says he,
+     _descend_ in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make high
+     and low in infinity), they do not fall plumb down, but decline a
+     little from the perpendicular, either obliquely or in a curve; and
+     this declination, says he, from the direct line is the cause of our
+     liberty of will. But, I say, this declination of atoms in their
+     descent was itself either necessary or voluntary. If it was
+     necessary, how then could that necessity ever beget liberty? If it
+     was voluntary, then atoms had that power of volition before; and
+     what becomes then of the Epicurean doctrine of the fortuitous
+     productions of worlds? The whole business is contradiction and
+     ridiculous nonsense."--_Bentley's Works_, Vol. III., pp. 47, 48.
+
+Custom and convenience lead us to speak of the "laws" of nature, and of
+the "powers and forces" of brute matter; and few persons, in adopting
+these phrases, are aware that they are using a figure of speech. Yet
+nothing is more certain than that all the researches of science have not
+been able to point out with certainty a single active cause apart from
+the operation of mind. We discern nothing but regularity and similarity
+of sequences; and the attribution of these effects to some occult
+qualities in the atoms or molecules in which they are manifested is
+wholly hypothetical, and even, when closely examined, is inconceivable.
+For this reason we affirm, that the theory of our author, professing to
+account for the whole work of creation "by the operation of law," is not
+only unsound and baseless in its particulars, but, when scrutinized as a
+whole, is absolutely unintelligible. _He attempts to account for a
+string of hypothetical effects, such as spontaneous generation and the
+transmutation of species, by a series of hypothetical and inconceivable
+causes, such as the energies of lifeless matter._ Let any one conceive,
+if he can, of any _power_, _energy_, or _force_ inherent in a lump of
+matter,--a stone, for instance,--except this merely negative one, that
+it always and necessarily remains in its present state, whether this be
+of rest or motion. Let him point out, if he can, the _nexus_ between
+what are usually denominated cause and effect in matter,--as when two
+bodies are drawn towards each other, if they are in opposite states of
+electricity. When he says that it is the _nature_, or _law_, of bodies
+thus electrified to attract each other, he offers no explanation of the
+phenomenon; he only refers it to a class of other results, of a similar
+character, previously observed. It is not pretended, that all or any of
+these results, formerly known, are more intelligible or explicable than
+the one in question. But the latter is classed with them, because, from
+their general similarity, from their taking place under the same
+outward circumstances, it is reasonably supposed that _one_ cause,
+whatever it may be, is common to them all. And this is the whole
+business of the student of nature, to place together results which are
+so similar, that we may attribute them to a common cause, without
+assuming to know what that cause is. The sole office of science is the
+theory, not of causation, but of classification. It is all reducible to
+natural history, the essence of which consists in arrangement.
+
+We are not attempting to perplex a plain matter of science by
+introducing into its discussion a metaphysical subtilty. The principle
+here contended for is one of the first dictates of the inductive
+philosophy, and as such it has been frankly acknowledged and acted upon
+by all the great improvers of science in modern days. When Newton
+discovered that the planets circle round the sun in the same manner in
+which a stone thrown by the hand describes a curve before reaching the
+earth, he may be said to have _explained_ the former phenomenon by
+bringing it into the same class with certain results which have long
+been familiar to us. But the explanation was only relative, not
+absolute. The latter phenomenon is, in reality, no more explicable than
+the former; he did not pretend to know the _cause_ of the stone's
+falling to the ground, any more than of the revolution of the planets.
+It was something to be able to arrange these apparently heterogeneous
+results in the same class, and gravity was a convenient name to apply to
+the whole. But the supposition, that gravity was an occult cause,
+inherent in matter, he earnestly repelled, and declared that it was
+"inconceivable."[2] Franklin showed, that a thunder-cloud and the
+charged conductor of an electrical machine manifested the same
+phenomena, and might therefore be classed together; sparks were obtained
+from both, Leyden jars were charged from them, other bodies were
+attracted and repelled in a similar way, so that it was reasonable to
+believe that the same agency was acting in both cases. What this agency
+was he did not even guess. The _cause_ of electric action, whether in
+the excited cloud, or the excited tube, was just as obscure as ever.
+Chemists observed, that different substances, when brought into close
+contact, sometimes remained distinct, and sometimes united with each
+other in various but regular proportions; and these capacities of
+coalescing with one class of bodies, and of remaining unaffected by
+another, are called chemical "affinities." This is a convenient
+generalization, and has properly received a specific name; though the
+common appellation throws no light on the _cause_ of the phenomena,
+which remains an impenetrable secret. To say that certain action is
+_caused_ by the operation of chemical affinities is only to arrange it
+with a large class of other observed appearances, equally obscure as to
+their origin and essential character.
+
+Let us go a step further, and suppose that the progress of discovery has
+made known certain facts lying behind the phenomena in question, to
+which they may all be referred. Let us suppose, that all bodies which
+gravitate towards each other are found to be embosomed in a subtile,
+ambient fluid, which connects them, as it were, into one system; that
+the positive and negative states of electricity are resolvable into the
+presence of two fluids standing in certain relations to each other; and
+that substances show chemical affinity for each other only when they are
+in opposite electrical conditions. Still, we have only advanced a step
+in the generalization, and the real, efficient _cause_ of the
+appearances is still hidden from us by an impenetrable veil. Gravitation
+is now referred to the communication of motion by impulse; electricity,
+to the combination and separation of different fluids; affinity, to the
+attraction or repulsion of these fluids. The latter classes of phenomena
+are more general, but not a whit more explicable, than the former. We
+have now fewer causes to seek for, but not one of these few has been
+discovered. When we have resolved electricity or gravitation into the
+presence of an elastic medium, it is a mere figure of speech to say,
+that we have discovered the _cause_ of the electric phenomena or of
+gravity. That is just as far off as ever; for we have yet to discover
+the principle whence flow _necessarily_ all the phenomena observable in
+fluids. It is the sole end and the highest ambition of science to
+discover as many as possible of the relationships which bind facts
+together, and thus to carry the generalization to the farthest point.
+Its office is not to discover causes, but to generalize effects. The
+investigation of real causes is quite given up, as a hopeless
+undertaking.
+
+Observe, now, how all the phraseology employed in speaking of these
+successive generalizations of science is borrowed from the action of
+mind. The word _action_ itself has no real significance, except when
+applied to the _doings_ of an intelligent agent; we cannot speak of the
+doings of matter, as we could if the word _action_ were applicable to it
+in any other than a figurative sense. Again, in speaking of the
+similarity of facts and the regularity of sequences, we refer them to a
+_law_ of nature, just as if they were sentient beings acting under the
+will of a sovereign. Parts of pure matter--the chemical elements, for
+instance--do not _act_ at all; being brute and inert, it is only by a
+strong metaphor that they are said to be subject to law. Again, we
+attribute _force_, _power_, &c., to the primitive particles of matter,
+and speak of their natural _agencies_. Just so, we talk of _tone_ in
+coloring, and of a _heavy_ or _light_ sound; though, of course, in their
+proper significance, tone belongs only to sound, and heaviness to
+gravitating bodies. These modes of speech are proper enough, if their
+figurative character be kept in view; but it is a little too bad, when a
+whole scientific theory is made to rest upon a metaphor as its sole
+support. _Agency_ is the employment of one intelligent being to act for
+another; _force_ and _power_ are applicable only to will; they are
+characteristic of volition. It is a violent trope to apply either of
+these words to senseless matter. Chemical _affinities_ are spoken of, as
+if material elements were united by family ties, and manifested choice,
+and affection or aversion.
+
+An obvious corollary from these remarks is, that all _causation_ is an
+exertion of mind, and is only figuratively applied to matter. It
+necessarily implies power, will, and action. An efficient cause--we are
+not speaking now of a mere antecedent--is that which is necessarily
+followed by the effect, so that, if it were known, the effect might be
+predicted antecedently to all experience. Cicero describes it with
+philosophical accuracy. "_Causa ea est, quae id efficit, cujus est
+causa._ _Non sic causa intelligi debet, ut quod cuique antecedat, id ei
+causa sit; sed quod cuique_ EFFICIENTER _antecedat. Causis enim
+efficientibus quamque rem cognitis, posse denique sciri quid futurum
+esset._" Now, in the world of matter, we discover nothing but
+antecedents and consequents; the former are the mere signs, not the
+causes, of the latter; no necessary connection--no connection at all,
+except sequence in time--can be discerned between them. Consequently,
+from an examination of the former, we could not determine _a priori_,
+that they must be followed by the latter, or by any other result
+whatever. Our knowledge here, if knowledge it can be called, is wholly
+empirical, or founded on experience. As we have seen, it is absurd to
+say, that one atom of matter literally _acts_ on another. On the other
+hand, in the world of mind, we are directly conscious of action, and
+even of causation. All mental exertion is true action; every
+determination of the will implies _effort_, or the direction and use of
+power. The result to be accomplished is preconsidered, or meditated, and
+therefore is known _a priori_, or before experience; the volition
+succeeds, which is a true effort, or a power in action; and this, _if
+the power be sufficient_, is _necessarily_ followed by the effect.
+Volition is a true cause; but in a finite mind it is not always an
+_adequate_ cause. If I will to shut my eyes, the effect immediately
+follows as a necessary consequence. But if I will to stop the beating of
+my heart, or to move a paralyzed limb, the effect does not follow,
+because the power exerted is inadequate to the end proposed. The action
+of the will is still _causative_, but it is _insufficient_.
+
+It was from overlooking the distinction here made, that Hume, Kant, and
+other metaphysicians were led to deny all knowledge of causation even in
+the action of mind. They confounded sufficiency with efficiency, and
+supposed, because the power did not always accomplish the end proposed,
+that it did not tend towards it, or exert any effect upon it. As the
+sufficiency of the volition can only be known _a posteriori_, or after
+experience, they imagined that there could be no cause but that which is
+infinite, or one which is invariably followed by the whole effect
+contemplated. They overlooked the fact, that, in the consciousness of
+_effort_,--as in the attempt to control the action of mind, to command
+the attention, &c.,--we have direct and full evidence of _power in
+action_, which is necessarily causal in its nature. The mental _nisus_
+is true force, exerted with a foreknowledge of the effect to be
+produced, and necessarily followed by a result,--a partial one it may
+be,--but one which is a true effect, whether it answers the whole
+intention, or not. Here, then, we discern that necessary connection
+between two events, that absolute efficient agency, which was vainly
+sought in the world of matter.
+
+If these considerations are well founded, the whole framework of what
+are called "secondary causes" falls to pieces. The laws of nature are
+only a figure of speech; the powers and active inherent properties of
+material atoms are mere fictions. Mind alone is active; matter is wholly
+passive and inert. There is no such thing as what we usually call the
+course of nature; it is nothing but the will of God producing certain
+effects in a constant and uniform manner; which mode of action, however,
+being perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be
+preserved. All events, all changes, in the external world, from the
+least even unto the greatest, are attributable to his will and power,
+which, being infinite, is always and necessarily adequate to the end
+proposed. The laws of motion, gravitation, affinity, and the like, are
+only expressions of the regularity and continuity of one infinite cause.
+The order of nature is the effect of divine wisdom, its stability is the
+result of divine beneficence.
+
+    "Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer,
+    Et coelum, et virtus? Superos quid quaerimus ultra?
+    Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris."
+
+It may be asked, if divine power, instead of operating immediately
+throughout the universe, might not have endowed material atoms at the
+outset with certain properties and energies, the gradual evolution of
+which in after ages would produce all the phenomena of nature, without
+the necessity of his incessant presence, agency, and control. Certainly,
+we may not put bounds to omnipotence; though we may assert of a given
+hypothesis respecting its exercise, that it is inconceivable, or
+involves wholly incongruous ideas. The necessary attributes of matter,
+according to our conception of it, are extension, figure,
+impenetrability, and inertness; the properties of mind are thought,
+sensation, activity, and will. These attributes are essential, not
+arbitrary or contingent; for they make up our whole idea of the
+substances in which they inhere. We can no more suppose them to be
+interchangeable, than we can literally attribute dimensions to an odor,
+or capacity to a sound. To speak of an extended thought, an impenetrable
+sensation, an inert activity, is to talk nonsense; it is equally absurd
+to attribute thought to extension, sensation to figure, activity to
+inertness,[3] or causal agency to matter. True, mind may be superadded
+to matter, without being confounded with it, and without any exchange of
+properties. And in fact, this is the only conceivable form of the
+hypothesis now before us; namely, the theory of the ancient
+metaphysicians, that every particle of matter and every aggregate of it
+is accompanied, or animated, by a distinct mind. "_Ea quoque [sidera]
+rectissime et animantia esse, et sentire atque intelligere, dicantur._"
+If this be a more intelligible and plausible supposition than that of
+one infinite mind, pervading the universe, and producing all physical
+changes by its irresistible power, the materialist is welcome to the
+benefit of it.
+
+As respects the manner in which all physical effects are produced by the
+direct action of the Deity, we are not bound to offer any explanation,
+as the subject confessedly transcends the limit of the human faculties.
+It is enough for us, that the supposition is the only conceivable one,
+the only mode of accounting for the phenomena of the material world. But
+as man is made in the image of his Creator, in the union for a time of
+his spirit with his corporeal frame we may find at least an intelligible
+illustration of the connection of God with the universe. Discarding the
+word _mind_, as the fruitful source of vague speculation and error, let
+us look for a moment at that of which it is a mere synonyme,--at the man
+himself. The sentient, thinking being, which I call _self_, is an
+absolute unit. Duality or complexity cannot be predicated of it in any
+intelligible sense. Personality is indivisible; _I_ am _one_. This being
+is capable of acting in different ways; and for convenience of speech
+and classification, these modes of action have been arranged as the
+results of different faculties; though, in truth, it is no more proper
+to attribute to the person distinct powers and organs for comparison,
+memory, and judgment, than to give to the body separately a walking
+faculty, a lifting faculty, a jumping faculty, and so on. In the one
+case, these faculties are but different aspects of mental power; in the
+other, but different applications of muscular strength. Of course, the
+complex material frame, with its numberless adaptations and
+arrangements, in which this being is lodged, is truly foreign from the
+man himself, having a kind of connection with him, in reality, but one
+degree more intimate than that of his clothes. The body is the curiously
+contrived machine through which the man communicates with the material
+world. The eye is but his instrument to see with, the ear is his trumpet
+for communicating sound to him, the leg is his steed, and the arm his
+soldier. Many of these instruments and parts may be removed, or become
+unfit for use, without impairing, in the slightest degree, his distinct
+personality and intelligence. The particles of all of them are in a
+state of constant flux and renovation, so that man changes his body only
+a little more frequently than he does his coat. His whole corporeal
+frame is connected with him but for a while, and is then thrown aside,
+like an old garment, for which he has no farther use.
+
+But during the period of its existence, how close and intimate in
+appearance is this union with the body! Sensation extends to every part
+of it, every fibre is instinct with life, and the direction of the will
+is absolute and immediate over every muscle and joint, as if the whole
+fabric and its tenant were one homogeneous system. The will tires not of
+its supremacy, and is not wearied with the number of volitions required
+of it to keep every joint in action, and every organ performing its
+proper function. It would not delegate the control of the fingers to an
+inferior power, nor contrive mechanical or automatic means for moving
+the extremities. Within its sphere, it is sole sovereign, and is not
+perplexed with the variety and constant succession of its duties,
+extending to every part of the complex structure of which it is the
+animating and directing spirit. Sensation is not cumbered with the
+multitude of impressions it receives, nor is the fineness of perception
+dulled by repeated exercise. The sharpness of its edge rather improves
+by use, and we become more heedful of its lightest intimations. Is it
+irreverent, then, to suppose that this union of body and soul shadows
+forth the connection between the material universe and the Infinite One?
+How else, indeed, can we attach any meaning to the attributes of
+omnipresence and omnipotence? The unity of action, the regularity of
+antecedence and consequence in outward events, which we commonly
+designate by the lame metaphor of _law_, then become the fitting
+expression of the consistent doings of an all-wise Being, in whom there
+is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. The Creator, then, is no
+longer banished from his creation, nor is the latter an orphan, or a
+deserted child. It is not a great machine, that was wound up at the
+beginning, and has continued to run on ever since, without aid or
+direction from its artificer. As well might we conceive of the body of a
+man moving about, and performing all its appropriate functions, without
+the principle of life, or the indwelling of an immortal soul. The
+universe is not lifeless or soulless. It is informed by God's spirit,
+pervaded by his power, moved by his wisdom, directed by his beneficence,
+controlled by his justice.
+
+    "Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
+    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
+
+The harmony of physical and moral laws is not a mere fancy, nor a forced
+analogy; they are both expressions of the same will, manifestations of
+the same spirit.
+
+The objection, that it is beneath the dignity of the Almighty--[Greek:
+autourgein hapanta]--to put his hand to every thing--is founded on a
+false analogy, as is seen by the form in which Aristotle states it. "If
+it befit not the state and majesty of Xerxes, the great king of Persia,
+that he should stoop to do all the meanest offices himself, much less
+can this be thought suitable for God." The two cases do not correspond
+in the very feature essential to the argument. An earthly potentate,
+unable to execute with his own hand all the affairs of which he has
+control, is obliged to delegate the larger portion of them to his
+servants; selecting the lightest part for himself, he gratifies his
+pride by calling it also the noblest, though the distinction is
+factitious, there being no real difference, in point of honor or
+dignity, between them. Omnipotence needs no minister, and is not
+exhausted or wearied by the cares of a universe. Power in action is more
+truly sublime than power in repose; and surely it is not derogatory to
+divine energy to sustain and continue that which it was certainly not
+beneath divine wisdom to create and appoint. Rightly considered, to
+guide the falling of a leaf from a tree is an office as worthy of
+omnipotence, as the creation of a world. "Are not two sparrows sold for
+a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
+Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."
+
+Equally lame is the oft-repeated comparison of the universe to a machine
+of man's device, which is considered the more perfect the less mending
+or interposition it requires. A machine is a labor-saving contrivance,
+fitted to supply the weakness and deficiencies of him who uses it. Where
+the want does not exist, it is absurd to suppose the creation of the
+remedy. Human conceptions of the Deity are for ever at fault in imputing
+to him the errors and deficiencies which belong to our own limited
+faculties and dependent condition. Hence the idea of the Epicureans,
+that sublime indifference and unbroken repose are the only states of
+being worthy of the gods. Viewed in the light of true philosophy, no
+less than of Christianity, how base and grovelling does this conception
+appear! The sublime description of the pagan poet becomes the fitting
+expression and defence of the very theory it was designed to
+controvert:--
+
+    "Nam (proh sancta Deum tranquilla pectora pace,
+    Quae placidum degunt aevum, vitamque serenam!)
+    Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi
+    Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas?
+    Quis pariter coelos omneis convertere? et omneis
+    Ignibus aetheriis terras suffire feraceis?
+    Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore presto?
+    Nubibus ut tenebras faciat, coelique serena
+    Concutiat sonitu? tum fulmina mittat, et aedeis
+    Saepe suas disturbet?"
+
+Returning to the theory of our author, may we not now characterize it as
+at once unfounded in its details, inconceivable in its operation, and
+vulgar and mechanical in its design? Considered in their proper aspect,
+and by the light of a sound philosophy, whatever well accredited facts
+or legitimate deductions he has gleaned from the whole field of modern
+science afford the most striking evidence and illustration of that view
+of creation which is directly at variance with his own hypothesis. He
+has, in fact, exposed the insufficiency of what are called organic or
+mechanical laws to supply the losses, and bridge over the interruptions,
+that have occurred in the world's history. Geology has rendered at
+least one signal service to the cause of natural religion, by
+effectually doing away with the old atheistic objection, that, for aught
+we know, the present constitution of things never had a beginning, but
+has gone on for ever renewing itself in an endless series of
+generations. Science now tells us distinctly, that time was when "the
+earth was without form and void," no animated thing appearing "upon the
+face of the deep"; that afterwards, "the waters were gathered together
+unto one place, and the dry land appeared." Then "the earth brought
+forth grass, and herb yielding seed _after his kind_, and the tree
+yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." Next was
+fulfilled the command, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
+creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
+open firmament of heaven." Then appeared "the beast of the earth after
+his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth
+upon the earth after his kind." Last of all, "God created man in his own
+image, male and female created he them." We are not merely quoting
+Scripture; we are repeating the facts positively affirmed by the
+geologists, and incorporated by our author into his "history"--as
+authentic leaves taken from the "stone book"--_in the same order_ in
+which they are narrated in the first chapter of Genesis. The coincidence
+in the order of succession is certainly remarkable.
+
+Geology farther informs us, that, at different times, all the animated
+tribes which had peopled the earth's surface passed away, or became
+extinct, and were replaced by new species of different organization and
+characteristics; and probably at many other periods, as well as on
+occasions of some great catastrophe in the earth's crust, races wholly
+unlike any that had preceded them were introduced, from time to time, as
+new inhabitants of the globe. Here, then, was an absolute necessity for
+the continuous operation of an intelligent creative power, apart from
+the blind mechanical laws, which, at the utmost, could only allow each
+species, once introduced, to continue its kind. The marvellous
+adaptations of these new races to the altered conditions of the earth's
+surface when they appeared, then, become additional proofs of the wisdom
+and constant oversight of a designing Creator. They came not till all
+things were ready; they appeared when the extinction of former tribes
+had left a gap for them in the scale of being. The gradual development
+of what are called the powers of nature,--or, to speak more
+intelligibly, the successive improvements in the habitations intended
+for higher and higher races of animated life,--and the similarity of
+plan on which these races were organized, the scheme being preserved in
+all its essential features through countless generations, show unity of
+design, and prove that the works of creation, however separated in time,
+must be attributed to _one_ intelligent author. The same conclusion
+follows almost irresistibly from the gradations at present observable
+both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, so that all the races may be
+arranged, not indeed in a linear series, but in families or groups,
+bearing analogous relations to each other, and showing a general
+progress from the more simple to the more complex forms. Surely, these
+facts, so clearly explained by our author, instead of sustaining the
+corpuscular philosophy, directly militate with it, and afford the most
+satisfactory proof of the doctrine of the theist, and the theory of
+continuous divine agency. We have hardly ever met with a book that
+furnished more complete materials for its own refutation.
+
+After all, the question is a very simple one. We have only to decide
+whether it is more likely, that the complex system of things in the
+midst of which we live,--the beautiful harmonies between the organic and
+inorganic world, the nice arrangements and curious adaptations that
+obtain in each, the simplicity and uniformity of the general plan to
+which the vast multitude of details may be reduced,--was built up, and
+is now sustained, by one all-wise and all-powerful Being, or by
+particles of brute matter, acting of themselves, without direction,
+interference, or control. We cannot now say, that possibly the system
+never had a beginning, but has always existed under the form in which it
+now appears to us; geology has disproved _that_ supposition most
+effectually. Choose ye, then, between mind and matter, between an
+intelligent being and a stone, for the parentage and support of this
+wonderful system. For our own part, we will adopt the conclusion of one
+of the most eloquent of those old pagan philosophers, on whose eyes the
+light of immediate revelation never dawned:--"_Hic ego non mirer esse
+quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat, corpora quaedam solida atque individua vi
+et gravitate ferri, mundumque effici ornatissimum et pulcherrimum ex
+corum corporum concursione fortuita? Quod si mundum efficere potest
+concursus atomorum, cur porticum, cur templum, cur domum, cur urbem non
+potest, quae sunt minus operosa, et multo quidem faciliora? Certe ita
+temere de mundo effutiunt, ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem
+coeli ornatum, qui locus est proximus, suspexisse videantur._"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: _N. A. Review_, Vol. LVI., pp. 339-351.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should,
+without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate
+upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must, if
+gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it.
+And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate
+gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to
+matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a
+_vacuum_, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which
+their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so
+great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical
+matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity
+must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain
+laws."--_Newton's letter in Bentley's Works_, Vol. III., pp. 211, 212.]
+
+[Footnote 3: And yet, so strong is the propensity to metaphor, that
+scientific men talk of the _vis inertiae_ as a true force, though the
+ideas expressed by the two Latin words are certainly incongruous. The
+mistake here arises from confounding inertness, or resistance to
+force,--a merely negative idea,--with the true force which is necessary
+to overcome it; or rather, since force can only be measured by its
+results, and must always be adequate to the effect produced, inquirers
+have adopted the convenient hypothesis of two antagonistic forces, not
+always recollecting that one of them is merely passive.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of
+'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen
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