7. _Phenomenal Glossology._--It is not my purpose in the

present work to borrow my leading illustrations from any

portions of knowledge but those which are concerned with the

study of material nature; and I shall, therefore, not dwell

upon a branch of research, singularly interesting, and

closely connected with the one just mentioned, but dealing

with relations of thought rather than of things;--I mean the

Palætiology of Language;--the theory, so far as the facts

enable us to form a theory, of the causes which have led to

the resemblances and differences of human speech in various

regions and various ages. This, indeed, would be only a

portion of the study of the history and origin of the

diffusion of animals, if we were to include man among the

animals whose dispersion we thus investigate; for language

is one of the most clear and imperishable records of the

early events in the career of the human race. But the

peculiar nature of the faculty of speech, and the ideas

which the use of it involves, make it proper to treat

_Glossology_ as a distinct science. And of this science, the

first part must necessarily be, as in the other sciences of

this order, a {270} classification and comparison of

languages governed in many respects by the same rules, and

presenting the same **difficulties, as other sciences of

classification. Such, accordingly, has been the procedure of

the most philosophical glossologists. They have been led to

throw the languages of the earth into certain large classes

or _Families_, according to various kinds of resemblance; as

the _Semitic_ Family, to which belong Hebrew, Arabic,

Chaldean, Syrian, Phoenician, Ethiopian, and the like; the

_Indo-European_, which includes Sanskrit, Persian, Greek,

Latin, and German; the _Monosyllabic_ languages, Chinese,

Tibetan, Birman, Siamese; the _Polysynthetic_ languages, a

class including most of the North-American Indian dialects;

and others. And this work of classification has been the

result of the labour and study of many very profound

linguists, and has advanced gradually from step to step.

Thus the Indo-European Family was first formed on an

observation of the coincidences between Sanskrit, Greek, and

Latin; but it was soon found to include the Teutonic

languages, and more recently Dr. Prichard[9\10] has shown

beyond doubt that the Celtic must be included in the same

Family. Other general resemblances and differences of

languages have been marked by appropriate terms: thus August

von Schlegel has denominated them _synthetical_ and

_analytical_, according as they form their conjugations and

declensions by auxiliary verbs and prepositions, or by

changes in the word itself: and the _polysynthetic_

languages are so named by M. Duponceau, in consequence of

their still more complex mode of inflexion. Nor are there

wanting, in this science also, general laws of phenomena;

such, for instance, is the curious rule of the interchange

of consonants in the cognate words of Greek, Gothic, and

German, which has been discovered by James Grimm. All these

remarkable portions of knowledge, and the great works which

have appeared on Glossology, such, for example, as the

_Mithridates_ of Adelung and Vater, contain, for their

largest, and {271} hitherto probably their most valuable

part, the phenomenal portion of the science, the comparison

of languages as they now are. And beyond all doubt, until we

have brought this Comparative Philology to a considerable

degree of completeness, all our speculations respecting the

causes which have operated to produce the languages of the

earth must be idle and unsubstantial dreams.

[Note 9\10: Dr Prichard, _On the Eastern Origin of the

Celtic Nations_. 1831.]

Thus in all Palætiological Sciences, in all attempts to

trace back the history and discover the origin of the

present state of things, the portion of the science which

must first be formed is that which classifies the phenomena,

and discovers general laws prevailing among them. When this

work is performed, and not till then, we may begin to

speculate successfully concerning causes, and to make some

progress in our attempts to go back to an origin. We must

have a _Phenomenal_ science preparatory to each

_Ætiological_ one.

8. _The Study of Phenomena leads to Theory._--As we have

just said, we cannot, in any subject, speculate successfully

concerning the causes of the present state of things, till

we have obtained a tolerably complete and systematic view of

the phenomena. Yet in reality men have not in any instance

waited for this completeness and system in their knowledge

of facts before they have begun to form theories. Nor was it

natural, considering the speculative propensities of the

human mind, and how incessantly it is endeavouring to apply

the Idea of Cause, that it should thus restrain itself. I

have already noticed this in the History of Geology. 'While

we have been giving an account,' it is there said, 'of the

objects with which Descriptive Geology is occupied, it must

have been felt how difficult it is, in contemplating such

facts, to confine ourselves to description and

classification. Conjectures and reasonings respecting the

causes of the phenomena force themselves upon us at every

step; and even influence our classification and

nomenclature. Our Descriptive Geology impels us to construct

a Physical Geology.' And the same is the case with regard to

the other subjects which I have mentioned. The mere {272}

consideration of the different degrees of condensation of

different Nebulæ led Herschel and Laplace to contemplate the

hypothesis that our solar system is a condensed Nebula.

Immediately upon the division of the earth's surface into

botanical and zoological provinces, and even at an earlier

period, the opposite hypotheses of the Origin of all the

animals of each kind from a single pair, and of their

original diffusion all over the earth, were under

discussion. And the consideration of the families of

languages irresistibly led to speculations concerning the

Families of the earliest human inhabitants of the earth. In

all cases the contemplation of a very few phenomena, the

discovery of a very few steps in the history, made men wish

for and attempt to form a theory of the history from the

very beginning of things.

9. _No sound Theory without Ætiology._--But though man is

thus impelled by the natural propensities of his intellect

to trace each order of things to its causes, he does not at

first discern the only sure way of obtaining such knowledge:

he does not suspect how much labour and how much method are

requisite for success in this undertaking: he is not aware

that for each order of phenomena he must construct, by the

accumulated results of multiplied observation and distinct

thought, a separate Æiology. Thus, as I have elsewhere

remarked[10\10], when men had for the first time become

acquainted with some of the leading phenomena of Geology,

and had proceeded to speculate concerning the past changes

and revolutions by which such results had been produced,

they forthwith supposed themselves able to judge what would

be the effects of any of the obvious agents of change, as

Water or Volcanic Fire. It did not at first occur to them to

suspect that their common and extemporaneous judgment on

such points was by no means sufficient for sound knowledge.

They did not foresee that, before they could determine what

share these or any other causes had had in producing the

present condition of the earth, they must create {273} a

special science whose object should be to estimate the

general laws and effects of such assumed causes;--that

before they could obtain any sound Geological Theory, they

must carefully cultivate Geological Ætiology.

[Note 10\10: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xviii. c. v. sect. 1.]

The same disposition to proceed immediately from the facts

to the theory, without constructing, as an intermediate

step, a Science of Causes, might be pointed out in the other

sciences of this order. But in all of them this errour has

been corrected by the failures to which it led. It soon

appeared, for instance, that a more careful inquiry into the

effects which climate, food, habit and circumstances can

produce in animals, was requisite in order to determine how

the diversities of animals in different countries have

originated. The Ætiology of Animal Life (if we may be

allowed to give this name to that study of such causes of

change which is at present so zealously cultivated, and

which yet has no distinctive designation, except so far as

it coincides with the _Organic Geological Dynamics_ of our

History) is now perceived to be a necessary portion of all

attempts to construct a history of the earth and its

inhabitants.

10. _Cause, in Palætiology._--We are thus led to contemplate

a class of Sciences which are commenced with the study of

Causes. We have already considered sciences which depended

mainly upon the Idea of Cause, namely, the Mechanical

Sciences. But it is obvious that the Idea of Cause in the

researches now under our consideration must be employed in a

very different way from that in which we applied it

formerly. Force is the _Cause_ of motion, because force at

all times and under all circumstances, if not counteracted,

produces motion; but the Cause of the present condition and

elevation of the Alps, whatever it was, was manifested in a

series of events of which each happened but once, and

occupied its proper place in the series of time. The former

is _mechanical_, the latter _historical_, _cause_. In our

present investigations, we consider the events which we

contemplate, of whatever order they be, as forming a chain

which is extended {274} from the beginning of things down to

the present time; and the causes of which we now speak are

those which connect the successive links of this chain.

Every occurrence which has taken place in the history of the

solar system, or the earth, or its vegetable and animal

creation, or man, has been at the same time effect and

cause;--the effect of what preceded, the cause of what

succeeded. By being effect and cause, it has occupied some

certain portion of time; and the times which have thus been

occupied by effects and causes, summed up and taken

altogether, make up the total of Past Time. The Past has

been a series of events connected by this historical

causation, and the Present is the last term of this series.

The problem in the Palætiological Sciences, with which we

are here concerned, is, to determine the manner in which

each term is derived from the preceding, and thus, if

possible, to calculate backwards to the origin of the series.

11. _Various kinds of Cause._--Those modes by which one term

in the natural series of events is derived from

another,--the forms of historical causation,--the kinds of

connexion between the links of the infinite chain of

time,--are very various; nor need we attempt to enumerate

them. But these kinds of causation being distinguished from

each other, and separately studied, each becomes the subject

of a separate Ætiology. Thus the causes of change in the

earth's surface, residing in the elements, fire and water,

form the main subject of Geological Ætiology. The Ætiology

of the vegetable and animal kingdoms investigates the causes

by which the forms and distribution of species of plants and

animals are affected. The study of causes in Glossology

leads to an Ætiology of Language, which shall distinguish,

analyse, and estimate the causes by which certain changes

are produced in the languages of nations; in like manner we

may expect to have an Ætiology of Art, which shall

scrutinise the influences by which the various forms of art

have each given birth to its successor: by which, for

example, there have been brought into being those various

forms of architecture which we term Egyptian, {275} Doric,

Ionic, Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Italian,

Elizabethan. It is easily seen by this slight survey how

manifold and diverse are the kinds of cause which the

Palætiological Sciences bring under our consideration. But

in each of those sciences we shall obtain solid and complete

systems of knowledge, only so far as we study, with steady

thought and careful observation, that peculiar kind of cause

which is appropriate to the phenomena under our

consideration.

12. _Hypothetical Order of Palætiological Causes._--The

various kinds of historical cause are not only connected

with each other by their common bearing upon the historical

sciences, but they form a kind of progression which we may

represent to ourselves as having acted in succession in the

hypothetical history of the earth and its inhabitants. Thus

assuming, merely as a momentary hypothesis, the origin of

the Solar System by the condensation of a Nebula, we have to

contemplate, first, the causes by which the luminous

incandescent diffused mass of which a nebula is supposed to

be constituted, is gradually condensed, cooled, collected

into definite masses, solidified, and each portion made to

revolve about its axis, and the whole to travel about

another body. We have no difficulty in ascribing the

globular form of each mass to the mutual attraction of its

particles: but when this form was once assumed, and covered

with a solid crust, are there, we may ask, in the

constitution of such a body, any causes at work by which the

crust might be again broken up and portions of it displaced,

and covered with other matter? Again, if we can thus explain

the origin of the Earth, can we with like success account

for the presence of the Atmosphere and the Waters of earth

and ocean? Supposing this done, we have then to consider by

what causes such a body could become stocked with vegetable

and animal Life; for there have not been wanting persons,

extravagant speculators, no doubt, who have conceived that

even this event in the history of the world might be the

work of natural causes. Supposing an origin given to life

{276} upon our earth, we have then, brought before us by

geological observations, a series of different forms of

vegetable and animal existence; occurring in different

strata, and, as the phenomena appear irresistibly to prove,

existing at successive periods: and we are compelled to

inquire what can have been the causes by which the forms of

each period have passed into those of the next. We find,

too, that strata, which must have been at first horizontal

and continuous, have undergone enormous dislocations and

ruptures, and we have to consider the possible effect of

aqueous and volcanic causes to produce such changes in the

earth's crust. We are thus led to the causes which have

produced the present state of things on the earth; and these

are causes to which we may hypothetically ascribe, not only

the form and position of the inert materials of the earth,

but also the nature and distribution of its animal and

vegetable population. Man too, no less than other animals,

is affected by the operation of such causes as we have

referred to, and must, therefore, be included in such

speculations. But man's history only begins, where that of

other animals ends, with his mere existence. They are

stationary, he is progressive. Other species of animals,

once brought into being, continue the same through all ages;

man is changing, from age to age, his language, his

thoughts, his works. Yet even these changes are bound

together by laws of causation; and these causes too may

become objects of scientific study. And such causes, though

not to be dwelt upon now, since we permit ourselves to found

our philosophy upon the material sciences only, must still,

when treated scientifically, fall within the principles of

our philosophy, and must be governed by the same general

rules to which all science is subject. And thus we are led

by a close and natural connexion, through a series of

causes, extending from those which regulate the

imperceptible changes of the remotest nebulæ in the heavens,

to those which determine the diversities of language, the

mutations of art, and even the progress of civilization,

polity, and literature. {277}

While I have been speaking of this supposed series of

events, including in its course the formation of the earth,

the introduction of animal and vegetable life, and the

revolutions by which one collection of species has succeeded

another, it must not be forgotten, that though I have thus

hypothetically spoken of these events as occurring by force

of natural causes, this has been done only that the true

efficacy of such causes might be brought under our

consideration and made the subject of scientific

examination. It may be found, that such occurrences as these

are quite inexplicable by the aid of any natural causes with

which we are acquainted; and thus, the result of our

investigations, conducted with strict regard to scientific

principles, may be, that we must either contemplate

supernatural influences as part of the past series of

events, or declare ourselves altogether unable to form this

series into a connected chain.

13. _Mode of Cultivating Ætiology:--In Geology._--In what

manner, it may be asked, is Ætiology, with regard to each

subject such as we have enumerated, to be cultivated? In

order to answer this question, we must, according to our

method of proceeding, take the most successful and complete

examples which we possess of such portions of science. But

in truth, we can as yet refer to few examples of this kind.

In Geology, it is only very recently, and principally

through the example and influence of Sir Charles Lyell, that

the Ætiology has been detached from the descriptive portion

of the science; and cultivated with direct attention: in

other sciences the separation has hardly yet been made. But

if we examine what has already been done in Geological

Ætiology, or as in the History it is termed, _Geological

Dynamics_, we shall find a number of different kinds of

investigation which, by the aid of our general principles

respecting the formation of sciences, may suffice to supply

very useful suggestions for Ætiology in general.

In Geological Ætiology, causes have been studied, in many

instances, by attending to their action in the phenomena of

the present state of things, and by inferring {278} from

this the nature and extent of the action which they may have

exercised in former times. This has been done, for example,

by Von Hoff, Sir Charles Lyell, and others, with regard to

the operations of rivers, seas, springs, glaciers, and other

aqueous causes of change, Again, the same course has been

followed by the same philosophers with respect to volcanoes,

earthquakes, and other violent agents. Sir Charles Lyell has

attempted to show, too, that there take place, in our own

time, not only violent agitations, but slow motions of parts

of the earth's crust, of the same kind and order with those

which have assisted in producing all anterior changes.

But while we thus seek instruction in the phenomena of the

present state of things, we are led to the question, What

are the limits of this 'present' period? For instance, among

the currents of lava which we trace as part of the shores of

Italy and Sicily, _which_ shall we select as belonging to

the existing order of things? In going backwards in time,

where shall we draw the line? and why at such particular

point? These questions are important, for our estimate of

the efficacy of known causes will vary with the extent of

the effects which we ascribe to them. Hence the mode in

which we group together rocks is not only a step in

geological classification, but is also important to

Ætiology. Thus, when the vast masses of trap rocks in the

Western Isles of Scotland and in other countries, which had

been maintained by the Wernerians to be of aqueous origin,

were, principally by the sagacity and industry of

Macculloch, identified as to their nature with the products

of recent volcanoes, the amount of effect which might

justifiably be ascribed to volcanic agency was materially

extended.

In other cases, instead of observing the current effects of

our geological causes, we have to estimate the results from

what we know of the causes themselves; as when, with

Herschel, we calculate the alterations in the temperature of

the earth which astronomical changes may possibly produce;

or when, with Fourier, we try to calculate the rate of

cooling of the earth's {279} surface, on the hypothesis of

an incandescent central mass. In other cases, again, we are

not able to calculate the effects of our causes rigorously,

but estimate them as well as we can; partly by physical

reasonings, and partly by comparison with such analogous

cases as we can find in the present state of things. Thus

Sir Charles Lyell infers the change of climate which would

result if land were transferred from the neighbourhood of

the poles to that of the equator, by reasonings on the power

of land and water to contain and communicate heat, supported

by a reference to the different actual climates of places,

lying under the same latitude, but under different

conditions as to the distribution of land and water.

Thus our Ætiology is constructed partly from calculation and

reasoning, partly from phenomena. But we may observe that

when we reason from phenomena to causes, we usually do so by

various steps; often ascending from phenomena to mere laws

of phenomena, before we can venture to connect the

phenomenon confidently with its cause. Thus the law of

subterranean heat, that it increases in descending below the

surface, is now well established, although the doctrine

which ascribes this effect to a central heat is not

universally assented to.

14. _In the Geography of Plants and Animals._--We may find

in other subjects also, considerable contributions towards

Ætiology, though not as yet a complete System of Science.

The Ætiology of Vegetables and Animals, indeed, has been

studied with great zeal in modern times, as an essential

preparative to geological theory; for how can we decide

whether any assumed causes have produced the succession of

species which we find in the earth's strata, except we know

what effect of this kind given causes can produce?

Accordingly, we find in Sir Charles Lyell's _Treatise on

Geology_ the most complete discussion of such questions as

belong to these subjects:--for example, the question whether

species can be transmuted into other species by the

long-continued influence of external causes, as climate,

food, domestication, combined with internal {280} causes, as

habits, appetencies, progressive tendencies. We may observe,

too, that as we have brought before us, the inquiry what

change difference of climate can produce in any species, we

have also the inverse problem, how far a different

development of the species, or a different collection of

species, proves a difference of climate. In the same way,

the geologist of the present day considers the question,

whether, in virtue of causes now in action, species are from

time to time extinguished; and in like manner, the

geologists of an earlier period discussed the question, now

long completely decided, whether fossil species in general

are really extinct species.

15. _In Languages._--Even with reference to the Ætiology of

Language, although this branch of science has hardly been

considered separately from the glossological investigations

in which it is employed or assumed to be employed, it might

perhaps be possible to point out causes or conditions of

change which, being general in their nature, must operate

upon all languages alike. Changes made for the sake of

euphony when words are modified and combined, occur in all

dialects. Who can doubt that such changes of consonants as

those by which the Greek roots become Gothic, and the

Gothic, German, have for their cause some general principle

in the pronunciation of each language? Again, we might

attempt to decide other questions of no small interest. Have

the terminations of verbs arisen from the accretion of

pronouns; or, on the other hand, does the modification of a

verb imply a simpler mental process than the insulation of a

pronoun, as Adam Smith has maintained? Again, when the

language of a nation is changed by the invasion and

permanent mixture of an enemy of different speech, is it

generally true that it is changed from a synthetic to an

analytical structure? I will mention only one more of these

wide and general glossological inquiries. Is it true, as Dr.

Prichard has suggested[11\10], that languages have become

more permanent as we come down {281} towards later times?

May we justifiably suppose, with him, that in the very

earliest times, nations, when they had separated from one

stock, might lose all traces of this common origin out of

their languages, though retaining strong evidences of it in

their mythology, social forms, and arts, as appears to be

the case with the ancient Egyptians and the Indians[12\10].

[Note 11\10: _Researches_, ii. 221.]

[Note 12\10: _Researches_, ii. 192.]

Large questions of this nature cannot be treated profitably

in any other way than by an assiduous study of the most

varied forms of living and dead languages. But on the other

hand, the study of languages should be prosecuted not only

by a direct comparison of one with another, but also with a

view to the formation of a science of causes and general

principles, embracing such discussions as I have pointed

out. It is only when such a science has been formed, that we

can hope to obtain any solid and certain results in the

Palætiology of Language;--to determine, with any degree of

substantial proof, what is the real evidence which the

wonderful faculty of speech, under its present developments

and forms, bears to the events which have taken place in its

own history, and in the history of man since his first origin.

16. _Construction of Theories._--When we have thus obtained,

with reference to any such subject as those we have here

spoken of, these two portions of science, a Systematic

Description of the Facts, and a rigorous Analysis of the

Causes,--the _Phenomenology_ and the _Ætiology_ of the

subject,--we are prepared for the third member which

completes the science, the _Theory_ of the actual facts. We

can then take a view of the events which really have

happened, discerning their connexion, interpreting their

evidence, supplying from the context the parts which are

unapparent. We can account for known facts by intelligible

causes; we can infer latent facts from manifest effects, so

as to obtain a distinct insight into the whole history of

events up to the present time, and to see the last result of

the whole in the present condition of things. {282} The term

_Theory_, when rigorously employed in such sciences as those

which we here consider, bears nearly the sense which I have

adopted: it implies a consistent and systematic view of the

actual facts, combined with a true apprehension of their

connexion and causes. Thus if we speak of 'a Theory of Mount

Etna,' or 'a Theory of the Paris Basin,' we mean a connected

and intelligible view of the events by which the rocks in

these localities have come into their present condition.

Undoubtedly the term _Theory_ has often been used in a

looser sense; and men have put forth '_Theories of the

Earth_,' which, instead of including the whole mass of

actual geological facts and their causes, only assigned, in

a vague manner, some causes by which some few phenomena

might, it was conceived, be accounted for. Perhaps the

portion of our Palætiological Sciences which we now wish to

designate, would be more generally understood if we were to

describe it as _Theoretical_ or _Philosophical History_; as

when we talk of 'the Theoretical History of Architecture,'

or 'the Philosophical History of Language.' And in the same

manner we might speak of the Theoretical History of the

Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms; meaning, a distinct account

of the events which have produced the present distribution

of species and families. But by whatever phrase we describe

this portion of science, it is plain that such a Theory,

such a Theoretical History, must result from the application

of causes well understood to facts well ascertained. And if

the term _Theory_ be here employed, we must recollect that

it is to be understood, not in its narrower sense as opposed

to facts, but in its wider signification, as including all

known facts and differing from them only in introducing

among them principles of intelligible connexion. The

Theories of which we now speak are true _Theories_,

precisely because they are identical with the total system

of the _Facts_.

17. _No sound Palætiological Theory yet extant._--It is not

to disparage unjustly the present state of science, to say

that as yet no such theory exists on any subject. 'Theories

of the Earth' have been {283} repeatedly published; but when

we consider that even the facts of geology have been

observed only on a small portion of the earth's surface, and

even within those narrow bounds very imperfectly studied, we

shall be able to judge how impossible it is that geologists

should have yet obtained a well-established Theoretical

History of the changes which have taken place in the crust

of the terrestrial globe from its first origin. Accordingly,

I have ventured in my History to designate the most

prominent of the Theories which have hitherto prevailed as

_premature_ geological theories[13\10]: and we shall soon

see that geological theory has not advanced beyond a few

conjectures, and that its cultivators are at present mainly

occupied with a controversy in which the two extreme

hypotheses which first offer themselves to men's minds are

opposed to each other. And if we have no theoretical History

of the Earth which merits any confidence, still less have we

any theoretical History of Language, or of the Arts, which

we can consider as satisfactory. The Theoretical History of

the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms is closely connected with

that of the Earth on which they subsist, and must follow the

fortunes of Geology. And thus we may venture to say that no

Palætiological Science, as yet, possesses all its three

members. Indeed most of them are very far from having

completed and systematized their Phenomenology: in all, the

cultivation of Ætiology is but just begun, or is not begun;

in all, the Theory must reward the exertions of future,

probably of distant, generations.

[Note 13\10: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xviii. c. vii. sect. 3.]

But in the mean time we may derive some instruction from the

comparison of the two antagonist hypotheses of which I have spoken.

{{284}}

CHAPTER III.

OF THE DOCTRINE OF CATASTROPHES AND THE DOCTRINE OF

UNIFORMITY.

1. _Doctrine of Catastrophes._--I HAVE already shown, in the

History of Geology, that the attempts to frame a theory of

the earth have brought into view two completely opposite

opinions:--one, which represents the course of nature as

_uniform_ through all ages, the causes which produce change

having had the same intensity in former times which they

have at the present day;--the other opinion, which sees, in

the present condition of things, evidences of

_catastrophes_;--changes of a more sweeping kind, and

produced by more powerful agencies than those which occur in

recent times. Geologists who held the latter opinion,

maintained that the forces which have elevated the Alps or

the Andes to their present height could not have been any

forces which are now in action: they pointed to vast masses

of strata hundreds of miles long, thousands of feet thick,

thrown into highly-inclined positions, fractured,

dislocated, crushed: they remarked that upon the shattered

edges of such strata they found enormous accumulations of

fragments and rubbish, rounded by the action of water, so as

to denote ages of violent aqueous action: they conceived

that they saw instances in which whole mountains of rock in

a state of igneous fusion, must have burst the earth's crust

from below: they found that in the course of the revolutions

by which one stratum of rock was placed upon another, the

whole collection of animal species which tenanted the earth

and the seas had been removed, and a new set of living

things introduced in its place: finally, they found, above

all the strata, {285} vast masses of sand and gravel

containing bones of animals, and apparently the work of a

mighty deluge. With all these proofs before their eyes, they

thought it impossible not to judge that the agents of change

by which the world was urged from one condition to another

till it reached its present state must have been more

violent, more powerful, than any which we see at work around

us. They conceived that the evidence of 'catastrophes' was

irresistible.

2. _Doctrine of Uniformity._--I need not here repeat the

narrative (given in the History[14\10]) of the process by

which this formidable array of proofs was, in the minds of

some eminent geologists, weakened, and at last overcome.

This was done by showing that the sudden breaks in the

succession of strata were apparent only, the discontinuity

of the series which occurred in one country being removed by

terms interposed in another locality:--by urging that the

total effect produced by existing causes, taking into

account the accumulated result of long periods, is far

greater than a casual speculator would think possible:--by

making it appear that there are in many parts of the world

evidences of a slow and imperceptible rising of the land

since it was the habitation of now existing species:--by

proving that it is not universally true that the strata

separated in time by supposed catastrophes contain distinct

species of animals:--by pointing out the limited fields of

the supposed diluvial action:--and finally, by remarking

that though the _creation_ of species is a mystery, the

_extinction_ of species is going on in our own day.

Hypotheses were suggested, too, by which it was conceived

that the change of climate might be explained, which, as the

consideration of the fossil remains seemed to show, must

have taken place between the ancient and the modern times.

In this manner the whole evidence of catastrophes was

explained away: the notion of a series of paroxysms of

violence in the causes of change was represented as a

delusion arising from our {286} contemplating short periods

only, in the action of present causes: length of time was

called in to take the place of intensity of force: and it

was declared that Geology need not despair of accounting for

the revolutions of the earth, as Astronomy accounts for the

revolutions of the heavens, by the universal action of

causes which are close at hand to us, operating through time

and space without variation or decay.

[Note 14\10: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xviii. c. viii. sect. 2.]

An antagonism of opinions, somewhat of the same kind as

this, will be found to manifest itself in the other

Palætiological Sciences as well as in Geology; and it will

be instructive to endeavour to balance these opposite

doctrines. I will mention some of the considerations which

bear upon the subject in its general form.

3. _Is Uniformity probable à priori?_--The doctrine of

Uniformity in the course of nature has sometimes been

represented by its adherents as possessing a great degree of

_à priori_ probability. It is highly unphilosophical, it has

been urged, to assume that the causes of the geological

events of former times were of a different kind from causes

now in action, if causes of this latter kind can in any way

be made to explain the facts. The analogy of all other

sciences compels us, it was said, to explain phenomena by

known, not by unknown, causes. And on these grounds the

geological teacher recommended[15\10] 'an earnest and

patient endeavour to reconcile the indications of former

change with the evidence of gradual mutations now in

progress.'

[Note 15\10: Lyell, 4th ed. b. iv. c. i. p. 328.]

But on this we may remark, that if by _known_ causes we mean

causes acting with the same intensity which they have had

during historical times, the restriction is altogether

arbitrary and groundless. Let it be granted, for instance,

that many parts of the earth's surface are now undergoing an

imperceptible rise. It is not pretended that the rate of

this elevation is rigorously uniform; what, then, are the

limits of its velocity? Why may it not increase so as to

assume that character of violence which we may term a {287}

_catastrophe_ with reference to all changes hitherto

recorded? Why may not the rate of elevation be such that we

may conceive the strata to assume _suddenly_ a position

nearly vertical? And is it, in fact, easy to conceive a

position of strata nearly vertical, a position which occurs

so frequently, to be _gradually_ assumed? In cases where the

strata are nearly vertical, as in the Isle of Wight, and

hundreds of other places, or where they are actually

inverted, as sometimes occurs, are not the causes which have

produced the effect as truly known causes, as those which

have raised the coasts where we trace the former beach in an

elevated terrace? If the latter case proves _slow_

elevation, does not the former case prove _rapid_ elevation?

In neither case have we any measure of the time employed in

the change; but does not the very nature of the results

enable us to discern, that if one was gradual, the other was

comparatively sudden?

The causes which are now elevating a portion of Scandinavia

can be called known _causes_, only because we know the

_effect_. Are not the causes which have elevated the Alps

and the Andes known causes in the same sense? We know

nothing in either case which confines the intensity of the

force within any limit, or prescribes to it any law of

uniformity. Why, then, should we make a merit of cramping

our speculations by such assumptions? Whether the causes of

change do act uniformly;--whether they oscillate only within

narrow limits;--whether their intensity in former times was

nearly the same as it now is;--these are precisely the

questions which we wish Science to answer to us impartially

and truly: where is then the wisdom of 'an earnest and

patient endeavour' to secure an _affirmative_ reply?

Thus I conceive that the assertion of an _à priori_ claim to

probability and philosophical spirit in favour of the

doctrine of uniformity, is quite untenable. We must learn

from an examination of all the facts, and not from any

assumption of our own, whether the course of nature be

uniform. The limit of intensity being really unknown,

catastrophes are just as probable {288} as uniformity. If a

volcano may repose for a thousand years, and then break out

and destroy a city; why may not another volcano repose for

ten thousand years, and then destroy a continent; or if a

continent, why not the whole habitable surface of the earth?

4. _Cycle of Uniformity indefinite._--But this argument may

be put in another form. When it is said that the course of

nature is uniform, the assertion is not intended to exclude

certain smaller variations of violence and rest, such as we

have just spoken of;--alternations of activity and repose in

volcanoes; or earthquakes, deluges, and storms, interposed

in a more tranquil state of things. With regard to such

occurrences, terrible as they appear at the time, they may

not much affect the average rate of change; there may be a

_cycle_, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change;

and if such cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still

call the order of nature uniform, notwithstanding the

periods of violence which it involves. The maximum and

minimum intensities of the forces of mutation alternate with

one another; and we may estimate the average course of

nature as that which corresponds to something between the

two extremes.

But if we thus attempt to maintain the uniformity of nature

by representing it as a series of _cycles_, we find that we

cannot discover, in this conception, any solid ground for

excluding catastrophes. What is the length of that cycle,

the repetition of which constitutes uniformity? What

interval from the maximum to the minimum does it admit of?

We may take for our cycle a hundred or a thousand years, but

evidently such a proceeding is altogether arbitrary. We may

mark our cycles by the greatest known paroxysms of volcanic

and terremotive agency, but this procedure is no less

indefinite and inconclusive than the other.

But further; since the cycle in which violence and repose

alternate is thus indefinite in its length and in its range

of activity, what ground have we for assuming more than one

such cycle, extending from the origin of things to the

present time? Why may we not suppose the maximum force of

the causes of change {289} to have taken place at the

earliest period, and the tendency towards the minimum to

have gone on ever since? Or instead of only one cycle, there

may have been several, but of such length that our

historical period forms a portion only of the last;--the

feeblest portion of the latest cycle. And thus violence and

repose may alternate upon a scale of time and intensity so

large, that man's experience supplies no evidence enabling

him to estimate the amount. The course of things is

_uniform_, to an Intelligence which can embrace the

succession of several cycles, but it is _catastrophic_ to

the contemplation of man, whose survey can grasp a part only

of one cycle. And thus the hypothesis of uniformity, since

it cannot exclude degrees of change, nor limit the range of

these degrees, nor define the interval of their recurrence,

cannot possess any essential simplicity which, previous to

inquiry, gives it a claim upon our assent superior to that

of the opposite catastrophic hypothesis.

5. _Uniformitarian Arguments are Negative only._--There is

an opposite tendency in the mode of maintaining the

catastrophist and the uniformitarian opinions, which depends

upon their fundamental principles, and shows itself in all

the controversies between them. The Catastrophist is

affirmative, the Uniformitarian is negative in his

assertions: the former is constantly attempting to construct

a theory; the latter delights in demolishing all theories.

The one is constantly bringing fresh evidence of some great

past event, or series of events, of a striking and definite

kind; his antagonist is at every step explaining away the

evidence, and showing that it proves nothing. One geologist

adduces his proofs of a vast universal deluge; but another

endeavours to show that the proofs do not establish either

the universality or the vastness of such an event. The

inclined broken edges of a certain formation, covered with

their own fragments, beneath superjacent horizontal

deposits, are at one time supposed to prove a catastrophic

breaking up of the earlier strata; but this opinion is

controverted by showing that the same formations, when

pursued into other countries, {290} exhibit a uniform

gradation from the lower to the upper, with no trace of

violence. Extensive and lofty elevations of the coast,

continents of igneous rock, at first appear to indicate

operations far more gigantic than those which now occur; but

attempts are soon made to show that time only is wanting to

enable the present age to rival the past in the production

of such changes. Each new fact adduced by the catastrophist

is at first striking and apparently convincing; but as it

becomes familiar, it strikes the imagination less

powerfully; and the uniformitarian, constantly labouring to

produce some imitation of it by the machinery which he has

so well studied, at last in every case seems to himself to

succeed, so far as to destroy the effect of his opponent's

evidence.

This is so with regard to more remote, as well as with

regard to immediate evidences of change. When it is

ascertained that in every part of the earth's crust the

temperature increases as we descend below the surface, at

first this fact seems to indicate a central heat: and a

central heat naturally suggests an earlier state of the

mass, in which it was incandescent, and from which it is now

cooling. But this original incandescence of the globe of the

earth is manifestly an entire violation of the present

course of things; it belongs to the catastrophist view, and

the advocates of uniformity have to explain it away.

Accordingly, one of them holds that this increase of heat in

descending below the surface may very possibly not go on all

the way to the center. The heat which increases at first as

we descend, may, he conceives, afterwards decrease; and he

suggests causes which may have produced such a succession of

hotter and colder shells within the mass of the earth. I

have mentioned this suggestion in the History of Geology;

and have given my reasons for believing it altogether

untenable[16\10]. Other persons also, desirous of

reconciling this subterraneous heat with the tenet of

uniformity, have {291} offered another suggestion:--that the

warmth or incandescence of the interior parts of the earth

does not arise out of an originally hot condition from which

it is gradually cooling, but results from chemical action

constantly going on among the materials of the earth's

substance. And thus new attempts are perpetually making, to

escape from the cogency of the reasonings which send us

towards an original state of things different from the

present. Those who theorize concerning an origin go on

building up the fabric of their speculations, while those

who think such theories unphilosophical, ever and anon dig

away the foundation of this structure. As we have already

said, the uniformitarian's doctrines are a collection of

negatives.

[Note 16\10: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xviii. c. v. sect. 5, and note.]

This is so entirely the case, that the uniformitarian would

for the most part shrink from maintaining as positive tenets

the explanations which he so willingly uses as instruments

of controversy. He puts forward his suggestions as

difficulties, but he will not stand by them as doctrines.

And this is in accordance with his general tendency; for any

of his hypotheses, if insisted upon as positive theories,

would be found inconsistent with the assertion of

uniformity. For example, the nebular hypothesis appears to

give to the history of the heavens an aspect which

obliterates all special acts of creation, for, according to

that hypothesis, new planetary systems are constantly

forming; but when asserted as the origin of our own solar

system, it brings with it an original incandescence, and an

origin of the organic world. And if, instead of using the

chemical theory of subterraneous heat to neutralize the

evidence of original incandescence, we assert it as a

positive tenet, we can no longer maintain the infinite past

duration of the earth; for chemical forces, as well as

mechanical, tend to equilibrium; and that condition once

attained, their efficacy ceases. Chemical affinities tend to

form new compounds; and though, when many and various

elements are mingled together, the play of synthesis and

analysis may go on for a long time, it must at last end. If,

for instance, a large portion of the earth's mass were

originally pure potassium, we {292} can imagine violent

igneous action to go on so long as any part remained

unoxidized; but when the oxidation of the whole has once

taken place, this action must be at an end; for there is in

the hypothesis no agency which can reproduce the deoxidized

metal. Thus a perpetual motion is impossible in chemistry,

as it is in mechanics; and a theory of constant change

continued through infinite time, is untenable when asserted

upon chemical, no less than upon mechanical principles. And

thus the Skepticism of the uniformitarian is of force only

so long as it is employed against the Dogmatism of the

catastrophist. When the Doubts are erected into Dogmas, they

are no longer consistent with the tenet of Uniformity. When

the Negations become Affirmations, the Negation of an Origin

vanishes also.

6. _Uniformity in the Organic World._--In speaking of the

violent and sudden changes which constitute catastrophes,

our thoughts naturally turn at first to great _mechanical_

and _physical_ effects;--ruptures and displacements of

strata; extensive submersions and emersions of land; rapid

changes of temperature. But the catastrophes which we have

to consider in geology affect the _organic_ as well as the

inorganic world. The sudden extinction of one collection of

species, and the introduction of another in their place, is

a Catastrophe, even if unaccompanied by mechanical violence.

Accordingly, the antagonism of the catastrophist and

uniformitarian schools has shown itself in this department

of the subject, as well as in the other. When geologists had

first discovered that the successive strata are each

distinguished by appropriate organic fossils, they assumed

at once that each of these collections of living things

belonged to a separate creation. But this conclusion, as I

have already said, Sir C. Lyell has attempted to invalidate,

by proving that in the existing order of things, some

species become extinct; and by suggesting it as possible,

that in the same order, it may be true that new species are

from time to time produced, even in the present course of

nature. And in this, as in the other part of the subject, he

calls in {293} the aid of vast periods of time, in order

that the violence of the changes may be softened down: and

he appears disposed to believe that the actual extinction

and creation of species may be so slow as to excite no more

notice than it has hitherto obtained; and yet may be rapid

enough, considering the immensity of geological periods, to

produce such a succession of different collections of

species as we find in the strata of the earth's surface.

7. _Origin of the present Organic World._--The last great

event in the history of the vegetable and animal kingdoms

was that by which their various tribes were placed in their

present seats. And we may form various hypotheses with

regard to the sudden or gradual manner in which we may

suppose this distribution to have taken place. We may assume

that at the beginning of the present order of things, a

stock of each species was placed in the vegetable or animal

_province_ to which it belongs, by some cause out of the

common order of nature; or we may take a uniformitarian view

of the subject, and suppose that the provinces of the

organic world derived their population from some anterior

state of things by the operation of natural causes.

Nothing has been pointed out in the existing order of things

which has any analogy or resemblance, of any valid kind, to

that creative energy which must be exerted in the production

of a new species. And to assume the introduction of new

species as 'a part of the order of nature,' without pointing

out any natural fact with which such an event can be

classed, would be to reject creation by an arbitrary act.

Hence, even on natural grounds, the most intelligible view

of the history of the animal and vegetable kingdoms seems to

be, that each period which is marked by a distinct

collection of species forms a cycle; and that at the

beginning of each such cycle a creative power was exerted,

of a kind to which there was nothing at all analogous in the

succeeding part of the same cycle. If it be urged that in

some cases the same species, or the same genus, runs through

two geological formations, {294} which must, on other

grounds, be referred to different cycles of creative energy,

we may reply that the creation of many new species does not

imply the extinction of all the old ones.

Thus we are led by our reasonings to this view, that the

present order of things was commenced by an act of creative

power entirely different to any agency which has been

exerted since. None of the influences which have modified

the present races of animals and plants since they were

placed in their habitations on the earth's surface can have

had any efficacy in producing them at first. We are

necessarily driven to assume, as the beginning of the

present cycle of organic nature, an event not included in

the course of nature. And we may remark that this necessity

is the more cogent, precisely because other cycles have

preceded the present.

8. _Nebular Origin of the Solar System._--If we attempt to

apply the same antithesis of opinion (the doctrines of

Catastrophe and Uniformity) to the other subjects of

palætiological sciences, we shall be led to similar

conclusions. Thus, if we turn our attention to Astronomical

Palætiology, we perceive that the Nebular Hypothesis has a

uniformitarian tendency. According to this hypothesis the

formation of this our system of sun, planets, and

satellites, was a process of the same kind as those which

are still going on in the heavens. One after another, nebulæ

condense into separate masses, which begin to revolve about

each other by mechanical necessity, and form systems of

which our solar system is a finished example. But we may

remark, that the uniformitarian doctrine on this subject

rests on most unstable foundations. We have as yet only very

vague and imperfect reasonings to show that by such

condensation a _material_ system such as ours could result;

and the introduction of _organized_ beings into such a

material system is utterly out of the reach of our

philosophy. Here again, therefore, we are led to regard the

present order of the world as pointing towards an origin

altogether of a different kind from anything which our

material science can grasp. {295}

9. _Origin of Languages._--We may venture to say that we

should be led to the same conclusion once more, if we were

to take into our consideration those palætiological sciences

which are beyond the domain of matter; for instance, the

History of Languages. We may explain many of the differences

and changes which we become acquainted with, by referring to

the action of causes of change which still operate. But what

glossologist will venture to declare that the efficacy of

such causes has been uniform;--that the influences which

mould a language, or make one language differ from others of

the same stock, operated formerly with no more efficacy than

they exercise now. 'Where,' as has elsewhere been asked, 'do

we now find a language in the process of formation,

unfolding itself in inflexions, terminations, changes of

vowels by grammatical relations, such as characterise the

oldest known languages?' Again, as another proof how little

the history of languages suggests to the philosophical

glossologist the persuasion of a uniform action of the

causes of change, I may refer to the conjecture of Dr.

Prichard, that the varieties of language produced by the

separation of one stock into several, have been greater and

greater as we go backwards in history:--that[17\10] the

formation of sister dialects from a common language (as the

Scandinavian, German, and Saxon dialects from the Teutonic,

or the Gaelic, Erse and Welsh from the Celtic) belongs to

the first millennium before the Christian era; while the

formation of cognate languages of the same family, as the

Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and Gothic, must be placed at least

two thousand years before that era; and at a still earlier

period took place the separation of the great families

themselves, the Indo-European, Semitic, and others, in which

it is now difficult to trace the features of a common

origin. No hypothesis except one of this kind will explain

the existence of the families, groups, and dialects of

languages, which we find in existence. Yet this is an

entirely different view from that which {296} the hypothesis

of the uniform progress of change would give. And thus, in

the earliest stages of man's career, the revolutions of

language must have been, even by the evidence of the

theoretical history of language itself, of an order

altogether different from any which have taken place within

the recent history of man. And we may add, that as the early

stages of the progress of language must have been widely

different from those later ones of which we can in some

measure trace the natural causes, we cannot place the origin

of language in any point of view in which it comes under the

jurisdiction of natural causation at all.

[Note 17\10: _Researches_, ii. 224.]

10. _No Natural Origin discoverable._--We are thus led by a

survey of several of the palætiological sciences to a

confirmation of the principle formerly asserted[18\10], That

in no palætiological science has man been able to arrive at

a beginning which is homogeneous with the known course of

events. We can in such sciences often go very far

back;--determine many of the remote circumstances of the

past series of events;--ascend to a point which seems to be

near the origin;--and limit the hypotheses respecting the

origin itself: but philosophers never have demonstrated,

and, so far as we can judge, probably never will be able to

demonstrate, what was that primitive state of things from

which the progressive course of the world took its first

departure. In all these paths of research, when we travel

far backwards, the aspect of the earlier portions becomes

very different from that of the advanced part on which we

now stand; but in all cases the path is lost in obscurity as

it is traced backwards towards its starting-point: it

becomes not only invisible, but unimaginable; it is not only

an interruption, but an abyss, which interposes itself

between us and any intelligible beginning of things.

[Note 18\10: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xviii. c. vi. sect 5.]

{{297}}

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE RELATION OF TRADITION TO PALÆTIOLOGY.

1. _Importance of Tradition._--SINCE the Palætiological

Sciences have it for their business to study the train of

past events produced by natural causes down to the present

time, the knowledge concerning such events which is supplied

by the remembrance and records of man, in whatever form,

must have an important bearing upon these sciences. All

changes in the condition and extent of land and sea, which

have taken place within man's observation, all effects of

deluges, sea-waves, rivers, springs, volcanoes, earthquakes,

and the like, which come within the reach of human history,

have a strong interest for the palætiologist. Nor is he less

concerned in all recorded instances of the modification of

the forms and habits of plants and animals, by the

operations of man, or by transfer from one land to another.

And when we come to the Palætiology of Language, of Art, of

Civilization, we find our subject still more closely

connected with history; for in truth these are historical,

no less than palætiological investigations. But, confining

ourselves at present to the material sciences, we may

observe that though the importance of the information which

tradition gives us, in the sciences now under our

consideration, as, for instance, geology, has long been

tacitly recognised; yet it is only recently that geologists

have employed themselves in collecting their historical

facts upon such a scale and with such comprehensive views as

are required by the interest and use of collections of this

kind. The Essay of Von {298} Hoff[19\10], _On the Natural

Alterations in the Surface of the Earth which are proved by

Tradition_, was the work which first opened the eyes of

geologists to the extent and importance of this kind of

investigation. Since that time the same path of research has

been pursued with great perseverance by others, especially

by Sir C. Lyell; and is now justly considered as an

essential portion of Geology.

[Note 19\10: Vol. i. 1822; vol. ii. 1824.]

2. _Connexion of Tradition and Science._--Events which we

might naturally expect to have some bearing on geology, are

narrated in the historical writings which, even on mere

human grounds, have the strongest claim to our respect as

records of the early history of the world, and are confirmed

by the traditions of various nations all over the globe;

namely, the formation of the earth and of its population,

and a subsequent deluge. It has been made a matter of

controversy how the narrative of these events is to be

understood, so as to make it agree with the facts which an

examination of the earth's surface and of its vegetable and

animal population discloses to us. Such controversies, when

they are considered as merely archæological, may occur in

any of the palætiological sciences. We may have to compare

and to reconcile the evidence of existing phenomena with

that of historical tradition. But under some circumstances

this process of conciliation may assume an interest of

another kind, on which we will make a few remarks.

3. _Natural and Providential History of the World._--We may

contemplate the existence of man upon the earth, his origin

and his progress, in the same manner as we contemplate the

existence of any other race of animals; namely, in a purely

palætiological view. We may consider how far our knowledge

of laws of causation enables us to explain his diffusion and

migration, his differences and resemblances, his actions and

works. And this is the view of man as a member of the

_Natural_ Course of Things. {299}

But man, at the same time the contemplator and the subject

of his own contemplation, endowed with faculties and powers

which make him a being of a different nature from other

animals, cannot help regarding his own actions and

enjoyments, his recollections and his hopes, under an aspect

quite different from any that we have yet had presented to

us. We have been endeavouring to place in a clear light the

Fundamental Ideas, such as that of Cause, on which depends

our knowledge of the natural course of things. But there are

other Ideas to which man necessarily refers his actions; he

is led by his nature, not only to consider his own actions,

and those of his fellow-men, as springing out of this or

that cause, leading to this or that material result; but

also as _good_ or _bad_, as what they _ought_ or _ought not_

to be. He has Ideas of moral relations as well as those

Ideas of material relations with which we have hitherto been

occupied. He is a moral as well as a natural agent.

Contemplating himself and the world around him by the light

of his Moral Ideas, man is led to the conviction that his

moral faculties were bestowed upon him by design and for a

purpose; that he is the subject of a Moral Government; that

the course of the world is directed by the Power which

governs it, to the unfolding and perfecting of man's moral

nature; that this guidance may be traced in the career of

individuals and of the world; that there is a _Providential_

as well as a Natural Course of Things.

Yet this view is beset by no small difficulties. The full

development of man's moral faculties;--the perfection of his

nature up to the measure of his own ideas;--the adaptation

of his moral being to an ultimate destination, by its

transit through a world full of moral evil, in which evil

each person has his share;--are effects for which the

economy of the world appears to contain no adequate

provision. Man, though aware of his moral nature, and ready

to believe in an ultimate destination of purity and

blessedness, is too feeble to resist the temptation of evil,

and too helpless to restore his purity when once lost. He

cannot but look for {300} some confirmation of that

providential order which he has begun to believe; some

provision for those deficiencies in his moral condition

which he has begun to feel.

He looks at the history of the world, and he finds that at a

certain period it offers to him the promise of what he

seeks. When the natural powers of man had been developed to

their full extent, and were beginning to exhibit symptoms of

decay;--when the intellectual progress of the world appeared

to have reached its limit, without supplying man's moral

needs;--we find the great Epoch in the Providential History

of the world. We find the announcement of a Dispensation by

which man's deficiencies shall be supplied and his

aspirations fulfilled: we find a provision for the

purification, the support, and the ultimate beatification of

those who use the provided means. And thus the providential

course of the world becomes consistent and intelligible.

4. _The Sacred Narrative._--But with the new Dispensation,

we receive, not only an account of its own scheme and

history, but also a written narrative of the providential

course of the world from the earliest times, and even from

its first creation. This narrative is recognized and

authorized by the new dispensation, and accredited by some

of the same evidences as the dispensation itself. That the

existence of such a sacred narrative should be a part of the

providential order of things, cannot but appear natural;

but, naturally also, the study of it leads to some

difficulties.

The Sacred Narrative in some of its earliest portions speaks

of natural objects and occurrences respecting them. In the

very beginning of the course of the world, we may readily

believe (indeed, as we have seen in the last chapter, our

scientific researches lead us to believe) that such

occurrences were very different from anything which now

takes place;--different to an extent and in a manner which

we cannot estimate. Now the narrative must speak of objects

and occurrences in the words and phrases which have derived

their meaning from their application to the existing natural

state of things. When applied to an initial {301}

supernatural state therefore, these words and phrases cannot

help being to us obscure and mysterious, perhaps ambiguous

and seemingly contradictory.

5. _Difficulties in interpreting the Sacred Narrative._--The

moral and providential relations of man's condition are so

much more important to him than mere natural relations, that

at first we may well suppose he will accept the Sacred

Narrative, as not only unquestionable in its true import,

but also as a guide in his views even of mere natural

things. He will try to modify the conceptions which he

entertains of objects and their properties, so that the

Sacred Narrative of the supernatural condition shall retain

the first meaning which he had put upon it in virtue of his

own habits in the usage of language.

But man is so constituted that he cannot persist in this

procedure. The powers and tendencies of his intellect are

such that he cannot help trying to attain true conceptions

of objects and their properties by the study of things

themselves. For instance, when he at first read of a

firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below,

he perhaps conceived a transparent floor in the skies, on

which the superior waters rested, which descend in rain; but

as his observations and his reasonings satisfied him that

such a floor could not exist, he became willing to allow (as

St. Augustine allowed) that the waters above the firmament

are in a state of vapour. And in like manner in other

subjects, men, as their views of nature became more distinct

and precise, modified, so far as it was necessary for

consistency's sake, their first rude interpretations of the

Sacred Narrative; so that, without in any degree losing its

import as a view of the providential course of the world, it

should be so conceived as not to contradict what they knew

of the natural order of things.

But this accommodation was not always made without painful

struggles and angry controversies. When men had conceived

the occurrences of the Sacred Narrative in a particular

manner, they could not readily and willingly adopt a new

mode of conception; and all attempts to recommend to them

such novelties, they {302} resisted as attacks upon the

sacredness of the Narrative. They had clothed their belief

of the workings of Providence in certain images; and they

clung to those images with the persuasion that, without

them, their belief could not subsist. Thus they imagined to

themselves that the earth was a flat floor, solidly and

broadly laid for the convenience of man; and they felt as if

the kindness of Providence was disparaged, when it was

maintained that the earth was a globe held together only by

the mutual attraction of its parts.

The most memorable instance of a struggle of this kind is to

be found in the circumstances which attended the

introduction of the Heliocentric Theory of Copernicus to

general acceptance. On this controversy I have already made

some remarks in the _History of Science_[20\10], and have

attempted to draw from it some lessons which may be useful

to us when any similar conflict of opinions may occur. I

will here add a few reflections with a similar view.

[Note 20\10: B. v. c. iii. sect. 4.]

6. _Such difficulties inevitable._--In the first place, I

remark that such modifications of the current interpretation

of the words of Scripture appear to be an inevitable

consequence of the progressive character of Natural Science.

Science is constantly teaching us to describe known facts in

new language; but the language of Scripture is always the

same. And not only so, but the language of Scripture is

necessarily adapted to the common state of man's

intellectual development, in which he is supposed not to be

possessed of science. Hence the phrases used by Scripture

are precisely those which science soon teaches man to

consider as inaccurate. Yet they are not, on that account,

the less fitted for their proper purpose: for if any terms

had been used, adapted to a more advanced state of

knowledge, they must have been unintelligible among those to

whom the Scripture was first addressed. If the Jews had been

told that water existed in the clouds in small drops, they

would have marvelled that it did {303} not constantly

descend; and to have explained the reason of this, would

have been to teach Atmology in the sacred writings. If they

had read in their Scripture that the earth was a sphere,

when it appeared to be a plain, they would only have been

disturbed in their thoughts or driven to some wild and

baseless imaginations, by a declaration to them so strange.

If the Divine Speaker, instead of saying that he would set

his bow in the clouds, had been made to declare that he

would give to water the property of refracting different

colours at different angles, how utterly unmeaning to the

hearers would the words have been! And in these cases, the

expressions, being unintelligible, startling, and

bewildering, would have been such as tended to unfit the

Sacred Narrative for its place in the providential

dispensation of the world.

Accordingly, in the great controversy which took place in

Galileo's time between the defenders of the then customary

interpretations of Scripture, and the assertors of the

Copernican system of the universe, when the innovators were

upbraided with maintaining opinions contrary to Scripture,

they replied that Scripture was not intended to teach men

astronomy, and that it expressed the acts of divine power in

images which were suited to the ideas of unscientific men.

To speak of the rising and setting and travelling of the

sun, of the fixity and of the foundations of the earth, was

to use the only language which would have made the Sacred

Narrative intelligible. To extract from these and the like

expressions doctrines of science, was, they declared, in the

highest degree unjustifiable; and such a course could lead,

they held, to no result but a weakening of the authority of

Scripture in proportion as its credit was identified with

that of these modes of applying it. And this judgment has

since been generally assented to by those who most reverence

and value the study of the designs of Providence as well as

that of the works of nature.

7. _Science tells us nothing concerning Creation._--Other

apparent difficulties arise from the accounts given in the

Scripture of the first origin of the world {304} in which we

live: for example, Light is represented as created before

the Sun. With regard to difficulties of this kind, it

appears that we may derive some instruction from the result

to which we were led in the last chapter;--namely, that in

the sciences which trace the progress of natural

occurrences, we can in no case go back to an origin, but in

every instance appear to find ourselves separated from it by

a state of things, and an order of events, of a kind

altogether different from those which come under our

experience. The thread of induction respecting the natural

course of the world snaps in our fingers, when we try to

ascertain where its beginning is. Since, then, science can

teach us nothing positive respecting the beginning of

things, she can neither contradict nor confirm what is

taught by Scripture on that subject; and thus, as it is

unworthy timidity in the lover of Scripture to fear

contradiction, so is it ungrounded presumption to look for

confirmation, in such cases. The providential history of the

world has its own beginning, and its own evidence; and we

can only render the system insecure, by making it lean on

our material sciences. If any one were to suggest that the

nebular hypothesis countenances the Scripture history of the

formation of this system, by showing how the luminous matter

of the sun might exist previous to the sun itself, we should

act wisely in rejecting such an attempt to weave together

these two heterogeneous threads;--the one a part of a

providential scheme, the other a fragment of a physical

speculation.

We shall best learn those lessons of the true philosophy of

science which it is our object to collect, by attending to

portions of science which have gone through such crises as

we are now considering; nor is it requisite, for this

purpose, to bring forwards any subjects which are still

under discussion. It may, however, be mentioned that such

maxims as we are now endeavouring to establish, and the one

before us in particular, bear with a peculiar force upon

those Palætiological Sciences of which we have been treating

in the present Book. {305}

8. _Scientific views, when familiar, do not disturb the

authority of Scripture._--There is another reflection which

may serve to console and encourage us in the painful

struggles which thus take place, between those who maintain

interpretations of Scripture already prevalent and those who

contend for such new ones as the new discoveries of science

require. It is this;--that though the new opinion is

resisted by one party as something destructive of the credit

of Scripture and the reverence which is its due, yet, in

fact, when the new interpretation has been generally

established and incorporated with men's current thoughts, it

ceases to disturb their views of the authority of the

Scripture or of the truth of its teaching. When the language

of Scripture, invested with its new meaning, has become

familiar to men, it is found that the ideas which it calls

up are quite as reconcileable as the former ones were, with

the most entire acceptance of the providential dispensation.

And when this has been found to be the case, all cultivated

persons look back with surprise at the mistake of those who

thought that the essence of the revelation was involved in

their own arbitrary version of some collateral circumstance

in the revealed narrative. At the present day, we can hardly

conceive how reasonable men could ever have imagined that

religious reflections on the stability of the earth, and the

beauty and use of the luminaries which revolve round it,

would be interfered with by an acknowledgment that this rest

and motion are apparent only[21\10]. And thus the authority

of revelation is not shaken by any changes introduced by the

progress of science in the mode of interpreting expressions

which describe physical objects and occurrences; provided

the new interpretation is admitted at a proper season, and

in a proper spirit; so as to soften, as much as possible,

both the public controversies and the private scruples which

almost inevitably accompany such an alteration.

[Note 21\10: I have here borrowed a sentence or two from my

own _History_.]

9. _When should old Interpretations be given up?_--But the

question then occurs, What is the proper {306} season for a

religious and enlightened commentator to make such a change

in the current interpretation of sacred Scripture? At what

period ought the established exposition of a passage to be

given up, and a new mode of understanding the passage, such

as is, or seems to be, required by new discoveries

respecting the laws of nature, accepted in its place? It is

plain, that to introduce such an alteration lightly and

hastily would be a procedure fraught with inconvenience; for

if the change were made in such a manner, it might be

afterwards discovered that it had been adopted without

sufficient reason, and that it was necessary to reinstate

the old exposition. And the minds of the readers of

Scripture, always to a certain extent and for a time

disturbed by the subversion of their long-established

notions, would be distressed without any need, and might be

seriously unsettled. While, on the other hand, a too

protracted and obstinate resistance to the innovation, on

the part of the scriptural expositors, would tend to

identify, at least in the minds of many, the authority of

the Scripture with the truth of the exposition; and

therefore would bring discredit upon the revealed word, when

the established interpretation was finally proved to be

untenable.

A rule on this subject, propounded by some of the most

enlightened dignitaries of the Roman Catholic church, on the

occasion of the great Copernican controversy begun by

Galileo, seems well worthy of our attention. The following

was the opinion given by Cardinal Bellarmine at the

time:--'When a _demonstration_ shall be found to establish the

earth's motion, it will be proper to interpret the sacred

Scriptures otherwise than they have hitherto been

interpreted in those passages where mention is made of the

stability of the earth and movement of the heavens.' This

appears to be a judicious and reasonable maxim for such

cases in general. So long as the supposed scientific

discovery is doubtful, the exposition of the meaning of

Scripture given by commentators of established credit is not

wantonly to be disturbed: but when a scientific theory,

irreconcileable with this ancient {307} interpretation, is

clearly proved, we must give up the interpretation, and seek

some new mode of understanding the passage in question, by

means of which it may be consistent with what we know; for

if it be not, our conception of the things so described is

no longer consistent with itself.

It may be said that this rule is indefinite, for who shall

decide when a new theory is completely demonstrated, and the

old interpretation become untenable? But to this we may

reply, that if the rule be assented to, its application will

not be very difficult. For when men have admitted as a

general rule, that the current interpretations of scriptural

expressions respecting natural objects and events may

possibly require, and in some cases certainly will require,

to be abandoned, and new ones admitted, they will hardly

allow themselves to contend for such interpretations as if

they were essential parts of revelation; and will look upon

the change of exposition, whether it come sooner or later,

without alarm or anger. And when men lend themselves to the

progress of truth in this spirit, it is not of any material

importance at what period a new and satisfactory

interpretation of the scriptural difficulty is found; since

a scientific exactness in our apprehension of the meaning of

such passages as are now referred to is very far from being

essential to our full acceptance of revelation.

10. _In what Spirit should the Change be accepted?_--Still

these revolutions in scriptural interpretation must always

have in them something which distresses and disturbs

religious communities. And such uneasy feelings will take a

different shape, according as the community acknowledges or

rejects a paramount interpretative authority in its

religious leaders. In the case in which the interpretation

of the Church is binding upon all its members, the more

placid minds rest in peace upon the ancient exposition, till

the spiritual authorities announce that the time for the

adoption of a new view has arrived; but in these

circumstances, the more stirring and inquisitive minds,

which cannot refrain from the pursuit of new truths {308}

and exact conceptions, are led to opinions which, being

contrary to those of the Church, are held to be sinful. On

the other hand, if the religious constitution of the

community allow and encourage each man to study and

interpret for himself the Sacred Writings, we are met by

evils of another kind. In this case, although, by the

unforced influence of admired commentators, there may

prevail a general agreement in the usual interpretation of

difficult passages, yet as each reader of the Scripture

looks upon the sense which he has adopted as being his own

interpretation, he maintains it, not with the tranquil

acquiescence of one who has deposited his judgment in the

hands of his Church, but with the keenness and strenuousness

of self-love. In such a state of things, though no judicial

severities can be employed against the innovators, there may

arise more angry controversies than in the other case.

It is impossible to overlook the lesson which here offers

itself, that it is in the highest degree unwise in the

friends of religion, whether individuals or communities,

unnecessarily to embark their credit in expositions of

Scripture on matters which appertain to natural Science. By

delivering physical doctrines as the teaching of revelation,

religion may lose much, but cannot gain anything. This maxim

of practical wisdom has often been urged by Christian

writers. Thus St. Augustine says[22\10]: 'In obscure matters

and things far removed from our senses, if we read anything,

even in the divine Scripture, which may produce diverse

opinions without damaging the faith which we cherish, let us

not rush headlong by positive assertion to either the one

opinion or the other; lest, when a more thorough discussion

has shown the opinion which we had adopted to be false, our

faith may fall with it: and we should be found contending,

not for the doctrine of the sacred Scriptures, but for our

own; endeavouring to make our doctrine to be that of the

Scriptures, instead of taking the doctrine of the Scriptures

to be ours.' And in nearly the same spirit, at the {309}

time of the Copernican controversy, it was thought proper to

append to the work of Copernicus a postil, to say that the

work was written to account for the phenomena, and that

people must not run on blindly and condemn either of the

opposite opinions. Even when the Inquisition, in 1616,

thought itself compelled to pronounce a decision upon this

subject, the verdict was delivered in very moderate

language;--that 'the doctrine of the earth's motion appeared

to be contrary to Scripture:' and yet, moderate as this

expression is, it has been blamed by judicious members of

the Roman church as deciding a point such as religious

authorities ought not to pretend to decide; and has brought

upon that church no ordinary weight of general condemnation.

Kepler pointed out, in his lively manner, the imprudence of

employing the force of religious authorities on such

subjects: _Acies dolabræ in ferrum illisa, postea nec in

lignum valet amplius. Capiat hoc cujus interest_. 'If you

_will_ try to chop iron, the axe becomes unable to cut even

wood. I warn those whom it concerns.'

[Note 22\10: Lib. i. _de Genesi_, cap. xviii.]

11. _In what Spirit should the Change be urged?_--But while

we thus endeavour to show in what manner the interpreters of

Scripture may most safely and most properly accept the

discoveries of science, we must not forget that there may be

errours committed on the other side also; and that men of

science, in bringing forward views which may for a time

disturb the minds of lovers of Scripture, should consider

themselves as bound by strict rules of candour, moderation,

and prudence. Intentionally to make their supposed

discoveries a means of discrediting, contradicting, or

slighting the sacred Scriptures, or the authority of

religion, is in them unpardonable. As men who make the

science of Truth the business of their lives, and are

persuaded of her genuine superiority, and certain of her

ultimate triumph, they are peculiarly bound to urge her

claims in a calm and temperate spirit; not forgetting that

there are other kinds of truth besides that which they

peculiarly study. They may properly reject authority in

matters of science; but they are to leave {310} it its

proper office in matters of religion. I may here again quote

Kepler's expressions: 'In Theology we balance authorities,

in Philosophy we weigh reasons. A holy man was Lactantius

who denied that the earth was round; a holy man was

Augustine, who granted the rotundity, but denied the

antipodes; a holy thing to me is the Inquisition, which

allows the smallness of the earth, but denies its motion;

but more holy to me is Truth; and hence I prove, from

philosophy, that the earth is round, and inhabited on every

side, of small size, and in motion among the stars,--and

this I do with no disrespect to the Doctors.' I the more

willingly quote such a passage from Kepler, because the

entire ingenuousness and sincere piety of his character does

not allow us to suspect him in anything of hypocrisy or

latent irony. That similar professions of respect may be

made ironically, we have a noted example in the celebrated

Introduction to _Galileo's Dialogue on the Copernican

System_; probably the part which was most offensive to the

authorities. 'Some years ago,' he begins, 'a wholesome edict

was promulgated at Rome, which, in order to check the

perilous scandals of the present age, imposed silence upon

the Pythagorean opinion of the mobility of the earth. There

were not wanting,' he proceeds, 'persons who rashly asserted

that this decree was the result, not of a judicious inquiry,

but of passion ill-informed; and complaints were heard that

councillors, utterly unacquainted with astronomical

observation, ought not to be allowed, with their sudden

prohibitions, to clip the wings of speculative intellects.

_At the hearing of rash lamentations like these, my zeal

could not keep silence._' And he then goes on to say, that

he wishes, in his _Dialogue_, to show that the subject had

been fully examined at Rome. Here the irony is quite

transparent, and the sarcasm glaringly obvious. I think we

may venture to say that this is not the temper in which

scientific questions should be treated; although by some,

perhaps, the prohibition of public discussion may be

considered as justifying any evasion which is likely to pass

unpunished. {311}

12. _Duty of Mutual Forbearance._--We may add, as a further

reason for mutual forbearance in such cases, that the true

interests of both parties are the same. The man of science

is concerned, no less than any other person, in the truth

and import of the divine dispensation; the religious man, no

less than the man of science, is, by the nature of his

intellect, incapable of believing two contradictory

declarations. Hence they have both alike a need for

understanding the Scripture in some way in which it shall be

consistent with their understanding of nature. It is for

their common advantage to conciliate, as Kepler says, the

finger and the tongue of God, his works and his word. And

they may find abundant reason to bear with each other, even

if they should adopt for this purpose different

interpretations, each finding one satisfactory to himself;

or if any one should decline employing his thoughts on such

subjects at all. I have elsewhere[23\10] quoted a passage

from Kepler[24\10] which appears to me written in a most

suitable spirit: 'I beseech my reader that, not unmindful of

the divine goodness bestowed upon man, he do with me praise

and celebrate the wisdom of the Creator, which I open to him

from a more inward explication of the form of the world,

from a searching of causes, from a detection of the errours

of vision; and that thus not only in the firmness and

stability of the earth may we perceive with gratitude the

preservation of all living things in nature as the gift of

God: but also that in its motion, so recondite, so

admirable, we may acknowledge the wisdom of the Creator. But

whoever is too dull to receive this science, or too weak to

believe the Copernican system without harm to his piety,

him, I say, I advise that, leaving the school of astronomy,

and condemning, if so he please, any doctrines of the

philosophers, he follow his own path, and desist from this

wandering through the universe; and that, lifting up his

natural eyes, with which alone he can see, {312} he pour

himself out from his own heart in worship of God the

Creator, being certain that he gives no less worship to God

than the astronomer, to whom God has given to see more

clearly with his inward eyes, and who, from what he has

himself discovered, both can and will glorify God.'

[Note 23\10: _Bridgewater Tr._ p. 314.]

[Note 24\10: _Com. Stell. Mart._ Introd.]

13. _Case of Galileo._--I may perhaps venture here to make a

remark or two upon this subject with reference to a charge

brought against a certain portion of the _History of the

Inductive Sciences_. Complaint has been made[25\10] that the

character of the Roman church, as shown in its behaviour

towards Galileo, is misrepresented in the account given of

it in the History of Astronomy. It is asserted that Galileo

provoked the condemnation he incurred; first, by

pertinaciously demanding the assent of the ecclesiastical

authorities to his opinion of the consistency of the

Copernican doctrine with Scripture; and afterwards by

contumaciously, and, as we have seen, contumeliously

violating the silence which the Church had enjoined upon

him. It is further declared that the statement which

represents it as the habit of the Roman church to dogmatize

on points of natural science is unfounded; as well as the

opinion that in consequence of this habit, new scientific

truths were promulgated less boldly in Italy than in other

countries. I shall reply very briefly on these subjects; for

the decision of them is by no means requisite in order to

establish the doctrines to which I have been led in the

present chapter, nor, I hope, to satisfy my reader that my

views have been collected from an impartial consideration of

scientific history.

[Note 25\10: _Dublin Review_, No. ix. July, 1838, p. 72.]

With regard to Galileo, I do not think it can be denied that

he obtruded his opinions upon the ecclesiastical authorities

in an unnecessary and imprudent manner. He was of an ardent

character, strongly convinced himself, and urged on still

more by the conviction which he produced among his

disciples, and {313} thus he became impatient for the

triumph of truth. This judgment of him has recently been

delivered by various independent authorities, and has

undoubtedly considerable foundation[26\10]. As to the

question whether authority in matters of natural science

were habitually claimed by the authorities of the Church of

Rome, I have to allow that I cannot produce instances which

establish such a habit. We, who have been accustomed to have

daily before our eyes the Monition which the Romish editors

of Newton thought it necessary to prefix--_Cæterum latis a

summo Pontifice contra telluris motum Decretis, nos obsequi

profitemur_--were not likely to conjecture that this was a

solitary instance of the interposition of the Papal

authority on such subjects. But although it would be easy to

find declarations of heresy delivered by Romish

Universities, and writers of great authority, against tenets

belonging to the natural sciences, I am not aware that any

other case can be adduced in which the Church or the Pope

can be shown to have pronounced such a sentence. I am well

contented to acknowledge this; for I should be far more

gratified by finding myself compelled to hold up the

seventeenth century as a model for the nineteenth in this

respect, than by having to sow enmity between the admirers

of the past and the present through any disparaging

contrast[27\10].

[Note 26\10: Besides the _Dublin Review_, I may quote the

_Edinburgh Review_, which I suppose will not be thought

likely to have a bias in favour of the exercise of

ecclesiastical authority in matters of science; though

certainly there is a puerility in the critic's phraseology

which does not add to the weight of his judgment. 'Galileo

contrived to surround the truth with every variety of

obstruction. The tide of knowledge, which had hitherto

advanced in peace, he crested with angry breakers, and he

involved in its surf both his friends and his foes.'--_Ed.

Rev._ No. cxxiii. p. 126.]

[Note 27\10: I may add that the most candid of the adherents

of the Church of Rome condemn the assumption of authority in

matters of science, made, in this one instance at least, by

the ecclesiastical tribunals. The author of the _Ages of

Faith_ (book viii. p. 248), says, 'A Congregation, it is to

be lamented, declared the new system to be opposed to

Scripture, and therefore heretical.']

{314} With respect to the attempt made in my History to

characterize the intellectual habits of Italy as produced by

her religious condition,--certainly it would ill become any

student of the history of science to speak slightingly of

that country, always the mother of sciences, always ready to

catch the dawn and hail the rising of any new light of

knowledge. But I think our admiration of this activity and

acuteness of mind is by no means inconsistent with the

opinion, that new truths were promulgated more boldly beyond

the Alps, and that the subtilty of the Italian intellect

loved to insinuate what the rough German bluntly asserted.

Of the decent duplicity with which forbidden opinions were

handled, the reviewer himself gives us instances, when he

boasts of the liberality with which Copernican professors

were placed in important stations by the ecclesiastical

authorities, soon after the doctrine of the motion of the

earth had been declared by the same authorities to be

contrary to Scripture. And in the same spirit is the process

of demanding from Galileo a public and official recantation

of opinions which he had repeatedly been told by his

ecclesiastical superiors he might hold as much as he

pleased. I think it is easy to believe that among persons so

little careful to reconcile public profession with private

conviction, official decorum was all that was demanded. When

Galileo had made his renunciation of the earth's motion on

his knees, he rose and said, as we are told, _E pur si

muove_--'and yet it _does_ move.' This is sometimes

represented as the heroic soliloquy of a mind cherishing its

conviction of the truth, in spite of persecution; I think we

may more naturally conceive it uttered as a playful epigram

in the ear of a cardinal's secretary, with a full knowledge

that it would be immediately repeated to his master[28\10].

[Note 28\10: I have somewhat further discussed the case of

Galileo in the later editions of the _History_, book v.

chap. iii. sect. 4.]

Besides the Ideas involved in the material sciences, {315}

of which we have already examined the principal ones, there

is one Idea or Conception which our Sciences do not indeed

include, but to which they not obscurely point; and the

importance of this Idea will make it proper to speak of it,

though this must be done very briefly.

{{316}}

CHAPTER V.

OF THE CONCEPTION OF A FIRST CAUSE.

1. AT the end of the last chapter but one, we were led to

this result,--that we cannot, in any of the Palætiological

Sciences, ascend to a beginning which is of the same nature

as the existing cause of events, and which depends upon

causes that are still in operation. Philosophers never have

demonstrated, and probably never will be able to

demonstrate, what was the original condition of the solar

system, of the earth, of the vegetable and animal worlds, of

languages, of arts. On all these subjects the course of

investigation, followed backwards as far as our materials

allow us to pursue it, ends at last in an impenetrable

gloom. We strain our eyes in vain when we try, by our

natural faculties, to discern an origin.

2. Yet speculative men have been constantly employed in

attempts to arrive at that which thus seems to be placed out

of their reach. The Origin of Languages, the Origin of the

present Distribution of Plants and Animals, the Origin of

the Earth, have been common subjects of diligent and

persevering inquiry. Indeed inquiries respecting such

subjects have been, at least till lately, the usual form

which Palætiological researches have assumed. _Cosmogony_,

the Origin of the World, of which, in such speculations, the

earth was considered as a principal part, has been a

favourite study both of ancient and of modern times: and

most of the attempts at Geology previous to the present

period have been _Cosmogonies_ or _Geogonies_, rather than

that more genuine science which we have endeavoured to

delineate. Again: Glossology, though now an extensive body

of solid knowledge, was {317} mainly brought into being by

inquiries concerning the Original Language spoken by men;

and the nature of the first separation and diffusion of

languages, the first peopling of the earth by man and by

animals, were long sought after with ardent curiosity,

although of course with reference to the authority of the

Scriptures, as well as the evidence of natural phenomena.

Indeed the interest of such inquiries even yet is far from

being extinguished. The disposition to explore the past in

the hope of finding, by the light of natural reasoning as

well as by the aid of revelation, the origin of the present

course of things, appears to be unconquerable. 'What was the

beginning?' is a question which the human race cannot desist

from perpetually asking. And no failure in obtaining a

satisfactory answer can prevent inquisitive spirits from

again and again repeating the inquiry, although the blank

abyss into which it is uttered does not even return an echo.

3. What, then, is the reason of an attempt so pertinacious

yet so fruitless? By what motive are we impelled thus

constantly to seek what we can never find? Why are the

errour of our conjectures, the futility of our reasonings,

the precariousness of our interpretations, over and over

again proved to us in vain? Why is it impossible for us to

acquiesce in our ignorance and to relinquish the inquiry?

Why cannot we content ourselves with examining those links

of the chain of causes which are nearest to us,--those in

which the connexion is intelligible and clear; instead of

fixing our attention upon those remote portions where we can

no longer estimate its coherence? In short, why did not men

from the first take for the subject of their speculations

the Course of Nature rather than the Origin of Things?

To this we reply, that in doing what they have thus done, in

seeking what they have sought, men are impelled by an

intellectual necessity. They cannot conceive a Series of

connected occurrences without a Commencement; they cannot

help supposing a cause for the Whole, as well as a cause for

each part; they cannot be satisfied with a succession of

causes without {318} assuming a First Cause. Such an

assumption is necessarily impressed upon our minds by our

contemplation of a series of causes and effects; that _there

must be a First Cause_, is accepted by all intelligent

reasoners as an Axiom: and like other Axioms, its truth is

necessarily implied in the Idea which it involves.

4. The evidence of this axiom may be illustrated in several

ways. In the first place, the axiom is assumed in the

argument usually offered to prove the existence of the

Deity. Since, it is said, the world now exists, and since

nothing cannot produce something, something must have

existed from eternity. This Something is the First Cause: it

is God.

Now what I have to remark here is this:--the conclusiveness

of this argument, as a proof of the existence of one

independent, immutable Deity, depends entirely upon the

assumption of the axiom above stated. The World, a **series

of causes and effects, exists: therefore there must be, not

only this series of causes and effects, but also a First

Cause. It will be easily seen, that without the axiom, that

in every series of causes and effects there must be a First

Cause, the reasoning is altogether inconclusive.

5. Or to put the matter otherwise: The argument for the

existence of the Deity was stated thus: Something exists,

therefore something must have existed from eternity.

'Granted,' the opponent might say; 'but this something which

has existed from eternity, why may it not be this very

series of causes and effects which is now going on, and

which appears to contain in itself no indication of

beginning or end?' And thus, without the assumption of the

necessity of a First Cause, the force of the argument may be

resisted.

6. But, it may be asked, how do those who have written to

prove the existence of the Deity reply to such an objection

as the one just stated? It is natural to suppose that, on a

subject so interesting and so long discussed, all the

obvious arguments with their replies, have been fully

brought into view. What is the result in this case? {319}

The principal modes of replying to the above objection, that

the series of causes and effects which now exists, may have

existed from eternity, appear to be these.

In the first place, our minds cannot be satisfied with a

series of successive, dependent, causes and effects, without

something first and independent. We pass from effect to

cause, and from that to a higher cause, in search of

something on which the mind can rest; but if we can do

nothing but repeat this process, there is no use in it. We

move our limbs, but make no advance. Our question is not

answered, but evaded. The mind cannot acquiesce in the

destiny thus presented to it, of being referred from event

to event, from object to object, along an interminable vista

of causation and time. Now this mode of stating the

reply,--to say that the mind _cannot thus be satisfied_,

appears to be equivalent to saying that the mind is

conscious of a Principle, in virtue of which such a view as

this must be rejected;--the mind takes refuge in the

assumption of a First Cause, from an employment inconsistent

with its own nature.

7. Or again, we may avoid the objection, by putting the

argument for the existence of a Deity in this form: The

series of causes and effects which we call the _world_, or

the _course of nature_, may be considered as a _whole_, and

this whole must have a cause of its existence. The whole

collection of objects and events may be comprehended as a

single effect, and of this effect there must be a cause.

This Cause of the Universe must be superior to, and

independent of the special events, which, happening in time,

make up the universe of which He is the cause. He must exist

and exercise causation, before these events can begin: He

must be the First Cause.

Although the argument is here somewhat modified in form, the

substance is the same as before. For the assumption that we

may consider the whole series of causes and effects as a

_single effect_, is equivalent to the assumption that

besides partial causes we must have a First Cause. And thus

the Idea of a First Cause, and {320} the axiom which asserts

its necessity, are recognized in the usual argumentation on

this subject.

8. This Idea of a First Cause, and the principle involved in

the Idea, have been the subject of discussion in another

manner. As we have already said, we assume as an axiom that

a First Cause must exist; and we assert that God, the First

Cause, exists eternal and immutable, by the necessity which

the axiom implies. Hence God is said to exist

necessarily;--to be a necessarily existing being. And when

this _necessary existence_ of God had been spoken of, it

soon began to be contemplated as a sufficient reason, and as

an absolute demonstration of His existence; without any need

of referring to the world as an effect, in order to arrive

at God as the cause. And thus men conceived that they had

obtained a proof of the existence of the Deity, _à priori_,

from Ideas, as well as _à posteriori_, from Effects.

9. Thus, Thomas Aquinas employs this reasoning to prove the

_eternity_ of God[29\10]: 'Oportet ponere aliquod primum

necessarium quod est per se ipsum necessarium; et hoc est

Deus, cum sit prima causa ut dictum est: igitur Deus æternus

est, cum omne necessarium per se sit æternum.' It is true

that the schoolmen never professed to be able to prove the

_existence_ of the Deity _à priori_: but they made use of

this conception of necessary existence in a manner which

approached very near to such an attempt. Thus Suarez[30\10]

discusses the question, 'Utrum aliquo modo possit _à priori_

demonstrari Deum esse.' And resolves the question in this

manner: 'Ad hunc ergo modum dicendum est: Demonstrato _à

posteriori_ Deum esse ens necessarium et a se, ex hoc

attributo posse _à priori_ demonstrari præter illud non

posse esse aliud ens necessarium et a se, et consequenter

demonstrari Deum esse.'

[Note 29\10: Aquin. _Cont. Gentil._ lib. i. c. xiv. p. 21.]

[Note 30\10: _Metaphys._ tom. ii. disp. xxix. sect. 3, p. 28.]

But in modern times attempts were made by Descartes and

Samuel Clarke, to prove the Divine {321} existence at once

_à priori_, from the conception of necessary existence;

which, it was argued, could not subsist without actual

existence. This argumentation was acutely and severely

criticised by Dr. Waterland.

10. Without dwelling upon a subject, the discussion of which

does not enter into the design of the present work, I may

remark that the question whether an _à priori_ proof of the

existence of a First Cause be possible, is a question

concerning the nature of our Ideas, and the evidence of the

axioms which they involve, of the same kind as many

questions which we have already had to discuss. Is our

Conception or Idea of a First Cause gathered from the

effects we see around us? It is plain that we must answer,

here as in other cases, that the Idea is not extracted from

the phenomena, but assumed in order that the phenomena may

become intelligible to the mind;--that the Idea is a

necessary one, inasmuch as it does not depend upon

observation for its evidence; but that it depends upon

observation for its development, since without some

observation, we cannot conceive the mind to be cognizant of

the relation of causation at all. In this respect, however,

the Idea of a First Cause is no less necessary than the

ideas of Space, or Time, or Cause in general. And whether we

call the reasoning derived from such a necessity an argument

_à priori_ or _à posteriori_, in either case it possesses

the genuine character of demonstration, being founded upon

axioms which command universal assent.

11. I have, however, spoken of our _Conception_ rather than

of our _Idea_ of a First Cause; for the notion of a First

Cause appears to be rather a modification of the Fundamental

Idea of Cause, which was formerly discussed, than a separate

and peculiar Idea. And the Axiom, _that there must be a

First Cause_, is recognised by most persons as an

application of the general Axiom of Causation, _that every

effect must have a Cause_; this latter Axiom being applied

to the World, considered in its totality, as a single

Effect. This distinction, however, between an Idea and a

Conception, is of no material consequence to our argument;

provided we {322} allow the maxim, that there must be a

First Cause, to be necessarily and evidently true; whether

it be thought better to speak of it as an independent Axiom,

or to consider it as derived from the general Axiom of Causation.

12. Thus we necessarily infer a First Cause, although the

Palætiological Sciences only point _towards_ it, and do not

lead us _to_ it. But I must observe further; that in each of

the series of events which form the subject of

Palætiological research, the First Cause is the _same_.

Without here resting upon reasoning founded upon our

Conception of a First Cause, I may remark that this identity

is proved by the close connexion of all the branches of

natural science, and the way in which the causes and the

events of each are interwoven with those which belong to the

others. We must needs believe that the First Cause which

produced the earth and its atmosphere is also the Cause of

the plants which clothe its surface; that the First Cause of

the vegetable and of the animal world are the same; that the

First Cause which produced light produced also eyes; that

the First Cause which produced air and organs of

articulation produced also language and the faculties by

which language is rendered possible: and if _those_

faculties, then also all man's other faculties;--the powers

by which, as we have said, he discerns right and wrong, and

recognises a providential as well as a natural course of

things. Nor can we think otherwise than that the Being who

gave these faculties, bestowed them for some

purpose;--bestowed them for that purpose which alone is

compatible with their nature:--the purpose, namely, of

guiding and elevating man in his present career, and of

preparing him for another state of being to which they

irresistibly direct his hopes. And thus, although, as we

have said, no one of the Palætiological Sciences can be

traced continuously to an Origin, yet they not only each

point to an Origin, but all to the same Origin. Their lines

are broken indeed, as they run backwards into the early

periods of the world, but yet they all appear to converge to

the same invisible point. And {323} this point, thus

indicated by the natural course of things, can be no other

than that which is disclosed to us as the starting-point of

the providential course of the world; for we are persuaded

by such reasons as have just been hinted, that the Creator

of the natural world can be no other than the Author and

Governor and Judge of the moral and spiritual world.

13. Thus we are led, by our material Sciences, and

especially by the Palætiological class of them, to the

borders of a higher region, and to a point of view from

which we have a prospect of other provinces of

knowledge;--to contemplations in which other faculties of

man are concerned besides his intellectual, other interests

involved besides those of speculation. On these it does not

belong to our present plan to dwell: but even such a brief

glance as we have taken of the connexion of material with

moral speculations may not be useless, since it may serve to

show that the principles of truth which we are now

laboriously collecting among the results of the physical

sciences, may possibly find some application in those parts

of knowledge towards which men most naturally look with

deeper interest and more serious reverence.

We have been employed hitherto in examining the materials of

knowledge, Facts and Ideas;--Facts in our former History,

and Ideas in the present History. We have dwelt at length on

this latter element; inasmuch as the consideration of it is,

on various accounts, and especially at the present time, by

far the most important, having hitherto been least

distinctly attended to as a special element of scientific

knowledge.

There still remains an important task, with a view to which

we have undertaken this survey of the past course of human

thought and discovery:--namely, the task of determining the

processes by which these materials may actually be made to

constitute knowledge. {324} We have surveyed the stones

which lie before us, partly built and partly ready for

building: we have found them exactly squared, and often

curiously covered with significant imagery and important

inscriptions. We have now to discover how they may best be

fitted into their places, and cemented together, so that

rising stage above stage, they may grow at last into that

fair and lofty temple of Truth, for which we cannot doubt

that they were intended by the Great Architect.

This task, the description of the processes by which

Scientific Truth is discovered and established, we shall, as

has already been said, entitle, in reference to previous

attempts of the same kind, _Novum Organum Renovatum_.

END OF VOL. II.

_Cambridge: Printed at the University Press._

Transcriber's Note

Whewell published the first edition of the _Philosophy of the

Inductive Sciences_ in 1840, as a companion to the 1837

_History of the Inductive Sciences_. Revised second editions

of both works appeared in 1847. The third editions saw a

major reshaping of the _Philosophy_: a two volume _History

of Scientific Ideas_ (1858 - the present text, relying upon

resources kindly provided by the Internet Archive), _Novum

Organon Renovatum_ (1858), and _ On the Philosophy of

Discovery: chapters historical and critical_ (1860 - already

in Project Gutenberg's collection: #5155).

The present text has combined the two volumes into one continuous

text. Footnotes are numbered by Book and marked [m\n] where m =

the number of the note within the Book, and n = the number of the

Book. In the original, notes were numbered by chapter. Page numbers

appear in { }, or {{ }} where there is no printed number; where a

word was hyphenated across pages the number has been placed before

the word.

Superscripts are marked with ^.

There is one significant problem to report. For Book IX chapter VI,

the Table of Contents lists 20 articles, but the actual text has

only 19 numbered paragraphs. The text version leaves this

inconsistency untouched; in the htm version, a correction has been

made by numbering the paragraph beginning on p. 244 as #9, and

renumbering those that follow, thereby matching the descriptions in

the Table of Contents.

Other corrections to the text are marked with ** and are listed

below.

Location Text of printed edition Emendation

Vol. 1

p. 71 conlcusion conclusion

p. 87 vi. vii.

p. 157 sciences science

note 1\3 Book 1. chap. xii. Book 3. chap. ii.

p. 231 Marriotte Mariotte

p. 377 Winter's Winterl's

Vol. 2

p. 22 ingedient ingredient

p. 124 wich which

p. 159 attemps attempts

p. 172 knowlege knowledge

note 60\9 Their. Theor.

p. 270 dfficulties difficulties

p. 318 serious series