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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
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.