"'What hour now?'
'I think it lacks of twelve,'
'No, it is struck--'
'Indeed I heard it not.'"
_Hamlet._
The night had closed in--that night of so vital importance to his father's
destiny--and Gerald sat alone in a small lower room, his heart beating
high with hope, that he should contribute to his father's rescue.
He was lost in thought, when a firm hand laid on his shoulder roused him
from his abstracted state. He turned his head, and saw, to his surprise,
Mark Maywood by his side. The young man wore a calmer, clearer brow,
although his usual cold, stern, almost determined expression still
pervaded it.
"Comrade," said Maywood with much appearance of frankness in his manner,
"I have spoken roughly without cause; I crave your pardon."
Gerald heard this unexpected address with great astonishment; and, before
he answered, paused in much embarrassment.
"Let us be frank," continued Mark. "Had we been so before, much ill will
and evil blood might have been spared. I have only divined your feelings
from my own. You have not seen the pretty daughter of our colonel with
admiration. Nor have I."
Gerald started with again rising wrath, but his rival interrupted him.
"Bear with me for a while," he continued, "and hear me out. You have been
here long. I am but a new-comer. You have the prior claim. Perhaps she
returns your love. Had I known of this before--and as it is I have but
guessed it, on witnessing your anxiety to hold this watch in the court,
beneath her window--I had withdrawn, as is my duty. And now, comrade, I
return to offer you the sacrifice of my newborn admiration, and at the
same time my friendship."
"What you say seems fair and straightforward, Master Maywood," said
Gerald, overcome by the frank manner of the young soldier, "and I thank
you for this generosity and truth. My suspicions, then, did not deceive
me? You love her, and you sought to see her to-night?"
"I did," said Maywood.
"And she, did she return your love? Did she herself accede to this
meeting?"
Mark shook his head with a faint, doubtful smile, but gave no answer.
Gerald's brow again grew gloomy, and he sank his head between his hands.
"Come! come! no more of this," pursued the other young soldier, with a
cordiality of manner which Gerald had never before witnessed in his dark,
stern aspect. "Let all be forgiven and forgotten. Come, pledge me in this
one cup. These drinkings of toasts, as it is called, these pledgings over
liquor are considered unseemly, and even ungodly by many; I know it well,
but you cannot refuse to drink one cup with me, as earnest of our kindly
feeling for the future."
For the first time Gerald now observed that Maywood bore under his arm a
flagon of ale, and held in his left hand two cups of horn.
"I reject not your kindly feeling," answered Gerald; "but I am not wont to
drink,"--and he repelled the cup which Maywood now filled for him.
"Nay! nay!" said Mark, sitting down by the table on which Gerald leant.
"You wrong me by refusing this first offer of reconciliation. Come,
comrade, this one."
Gerald took the cup of ale unwillingly, and only raised it to his lips.
But Maywood shook his head at him--and Gerald, in compliance with his
newly made friend's request, at last swallowed the contents.
"I am not used to these strong drinks," said Gerald, setting down the horn
with evident distaste. "I like them not; but I have done this to show my
willingness to meet you on friendly ground."
Maywood raised, in turn, his cup, but at the same moment calling to a dog
that had followed him into the room, he said, "Down, Roger, down," and
stooped to repulse it; immediately afterwards he raised the horn, and
seemed to drain the ale to the last drop.
"One more, and then I will not urge you again," said Mark to Gerald,
eyeing him with a sharp, enquiring look.
"No, no, not one," replied the young man with disgust. "Already this
unusual drink has confused my head. I am accustomed to water only--such
was my uncle's mode of educating me. It is strange how my brain turns with
this fermented liquor. I have done wrong to drink it," and Gerald rubbed
his heavy forehead, and strained his eyes. His powers of vision became
more and more confused, and it was with difficulty that he could now see
before him the face of Maywood, which to his intellect, disordered by the
liquor, seemed to wear a strange expression of cunning, and triumphant
contempt. He made an effort, however, to shake off this feeling and raise
his sinking head, but in vain. A sensation of overpowering drowsiness
crept over him more and more. The thought of his watch, however, was still
uppermost in his mind, and he had yet power sufficient to reflect that
there was still some time to midnight, and that a little slumber might
restore him; and giving way to the oppressive sleep which came over him,
he laid his head on the table, and was immediately lost to all sense of
what was passing around him.
At first Gerald's sleep was heavy and complete. How long it remained so,
he had no power to tell. At length, however, it became lighter, and grew
more troubled and confused. Wild dreams began to course each other
through his brain--at first of an undefinable and fantastic nature--then
they assumed a more definite shape. He dreamed of his father--that old,
greyheaded cavalier, with his long white beard--and before him stood
Lazarus Seaman, who accused him of absurd and imaginary crimes. And now
they brought him into that open court--a file of soldiers were drawn
up--their muskets were levelled at that old man's heart--Gerald struggled,
and sought to spring between those deadly instruments and his doomed
father, but his feet clove to the ground--he struggled in vain--the
muskets were discharged, and his father fell weltering in his blood. With
the last struggle of a convulsive nightmare, he started up, uttering a
loud scream. It was but a frightful dream. And yet the noise of those
fearful muskets--that discharge of artillery--still rang in his ears. As
he opened his eyes, all was dark around him--the darkness of deep night.
It was long before he could sufficiently recover his senses to remember
what had passed; and when slowly the events of the day forced themselves
upon his mind, his intellects seemed still confused and troubled. How
strangely real now appeared the impression of that dream! It was with
difficulty he could persuade himself that the firing had been imaginary;
and even now there seemed a strange confusion of noise and voices around
him; but that, surely, was the ringing in his head from the unusual
draught he had taken.
Slowly his whole memory returned to him, and he recalled to himself that
it was necessary for him to be ready to answer for Godlamb Gideon when
that worthy's name was to be called over for the midnight watch. He
staggered up unto his feet, and with difficulty found his way into the
open air. As he gazed, with somewhat troubled brain, on the bright starlit
sky, two or three soldiers hurried past them.
"Hark ye, comrade," he said to one, "how long is it yet to midnight?"
"Midnight! where have you been hiding yourself, comrade?" answered the
man. "Midnight is long since past."
"Long since past!" screamed Gerald with frantic violence. "No! no! it is
impossible--my post was at midnight in the tower court."
"Then you have escaped by wonderful interposition, friend, from the
consequences of your absence; for I was there when the names were called,
and 'present' was answered for the sentinel at the tower court."
"Father of mercy!" cried Gerald in despair. "What, then, has happened?"
"Happened!" echoed the soldier; "why, the prisoner has tried to escape!
But didn't you hear the shots? They brought the old reprobate to the
earth, of a surety."
Gerald uttered a loud groan and fell against the wall of the house; but in
another moment he recovered himself by a desperate effort from a feeling
of sickness and death, and repulsing violently the soldier who had come to
his assistance, he rushed round the mansion with whirling brain and
clenched teeth towards the tower court. His father had been killed--killed
by his own folly. Rage, despair, contrition, self-horror, at having been
so weak as to accept Maywood's proposal to drink that fatal drink which
caused his deadly sleep, all tortured his heart, and drove him almost to
madness. He could not doubt that it was that hated Maywood who had
deceived him, drugged his liquour, cheated him into a sleep, in order to
be present undisturbed at his rendezvous with Mildred; and now it was by
his hand, by the hand of that villain, that his father had fallen.
All was commotion in the fortress. Gerald, as he rushed forward, heard the
noise of voices and boats upon the water--the voice of Lazarus Seaman--now
the men calling to each other. Horror-stricken, overwhelmed with despair,
convulsed with rage, he bounded through the vaulted passage. In the
moonlit court stood now but one figure alone--the sentinel, who was
bending over the parapet, and seemed to be watching with interest the
movement of the boats upon the water. With the rage of a tiger Gerald
sprang upon him, and seized him by the collar with frenzied gripe. It
was, indeed, Maywood--pale, agitated, and excited.
"Villain! traitor! assassin!" screamed Gerald madly, frantic with passion
and despair, "you have betrayed that greyheaded old man; you have murdered
him; but I will have revenge! He was my father, and it is you have killed
him."
"_Your_ father!" exclaimed the young sentinel in a voice choked by
emotion. "He was _mine_, and I have saved him."
Gerald released his hold and staggered back.
For a moment the young men stared at each other in bewildered surprise.
Then all at once the truth flashed across them.
"Brother! brother!" burst simultaneously from their lips. "Gerald!
Everard!" they exclaimed again; and Everard Clynton, flinging himself into
his brother's arms, gave way to his suppressed agitation, and burst into a
flood of tears. At this moment a distant sound of a gun came across the
water; Everard sprang up and grasped his brother's arm.
"Hush!" he said, "three shots from the sea are the signal to me that he
has escaped in safety to the vessel that awaits him."
Another boomed faintly across the broad. A pause of fearful interest
followed, and then another. Once more the brothers fell into each others'
arms.
In a few words Everard Clynton explained to his brother, how, after his
father's capture, he had enlisted in the troop quartered in the fortress,
in order to save him. How he had known from their friends without the
means provided to effect his father's escape; how he, too, had sought,
with desperation, the midnight watch upon which depended his father's
delivery; and, finding himself overcome by his supposed rival, he had
administered to him a sleeping draught in order to secure the post; how
his pretended admiration for Mistress Mildred had been assumed in order to
forward his views and colour his designs, by giving a pretext to his
desire to obtain the post of sentry in the court; how Mildred had never
given him any encouragement, Gerald's unreasonable jealousy having
supplied the rest.
He had assisted his father to escape, and only long after his flight had
given the alarm, and fired upon the water, pretending to call for a sudden
pursuit.
Mark Maywood, however, was tried by a court-martial for negligence upon
duty on the night of the prisoner's escape; but the constantly exhibited
violence of the Republican principles which he had affected, as well as
his zeal and exemplary good conduct since he had joined the troop, saved
him in the colonel's eyes. He was acquitted. Shortly afterwards he
disappeared altogether from the fortress, after an affectionate farewell
to Gerald Clynton, who had the good fortune to receive, in due time, the
assurance of his brother's safe escape to join his father in Flanders.
Not long afterwards, the death of Colonel Lazarus Seaman leaving his
daughter an orphan, Gerald Clynton married pretty little Mistress Mildred,
and, quitting the service, retired to Lyle-Court, the estate bequeathed to
him by his uncle.
There is no doubt that pretty little Mistress Mildred's eyes were given to
be coquettish in spite of themselves; but yet, notwithstanding sundry
little symptoms of jealousy exhibited by Gerald, there is every reason to
believe that he was as absurd and misled in his jealousy after as he was
before his marriage, and that she made him a most excellent wife.
During the more peaceful times of the Protectorate, Gerald received news
from time to time of the welfare of his father and his brother; and, upon
the Restoration, he had the happiness of welcoming them to the English
shores once more.
Although Lord Clynton always preserved a predilection for his elder son,
yet he had somehow found out that Gerald bore an extraordinary resemblance
to his deceased mother, and always treated him with the utmost love. He
never forgot, also, the deep affection Gerald had displayed in his efforts
to save him during that never-to-be-forgotten _Midnight Watch_.
VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
We should take but a limited view of science if we supposed, that the laws
of nature of which it is cognizant have for their object the continuance
only and preservation of the several parts of the universe; they provide
also for change, improvement, development, progression. By these laws not
only are the same phenomena, the same things, perpetually reproduced, but
new phenomena, new arrangements, new objects are being successively
developed. In short, we are able to perceive, to a certain extent, that
not only the world is preserved and renewed, but grows and is created
according to great general laws, which are indeed no other than the great
ideas of the Divine Mind.
The modern science of geology has more especially led us to extend our
view of science in this direction. The discovery of those mute records of
past changes which lay buried in the earth, has induced us to investigate
with awakened curiosity those changes which are actually taking place
before us in the broad day, and in our own generation; and the result has
been a conviction, that in the activity of nature there was a provision
made, not only for restoration from decay, and a perpetual renewal of the
individuals of each species, but for successive transformations in the
surface of the globe, fitting it for successive forms of vegetable and
animal life. The plant that lives, and sows its seed, and dies, has not
only provided for its own progeny; under many circumstances it prepares
the soil for successors of a superior rank of vegetation--"Pioneers of
vegetation," as Dr Macculloch calls them, "the lichens, and other
analogous plants, seek their place where no others could exist; demanding
no water, requiring no soil, careless alike of cold and heat, of the sun
and of the storm; rootless, leafless, flowerless; clothing the naked rock,
and forming additional soil for their successors." The whole tribe of
corals, whose lives are sufficiently brief and sufficiently simple, are
yet not permitted to die away from the scene, and leave it, as so many of
us do, just as they found it; they build up such a mausoleum of their
bones--(for what used to be considered as the shell of the animal, is now
pronounced to be a sort of bony nucleus or skeleton)--that large islands
are formed, and a corresponding displacement of the sea is occasioned. The
little creatures heave up the ocean on us. The river that to the poet's
eye flows on for ever in the same channel, "giving a kiss," and kisses
only, to every pebble and every sedge "it overtaketh in its pilgrimage,"
is detected to be secretly scraping, abrading, cutting out the earth like
a knife, and washing it away into the sea. On the other hand, the
earthquake and the volcano, which were looked on as paroxysms and agonies
of nature, are transformed in our imagination into the constant ministers
of beneficent change, and of creative purposes; and the momentary violence
they commit, is to be excused on the plea of the great and permanent good
they effect. For it is they who build the hills and the mountains, whence
flow the streams of abundance upon the earth, and which, instead of being
the gigantic, melancholy ruins Bishop Burnet took them to be, are the
palaces and storehouses of nature, which it is given in charge to these
sons of Vulcan to construct and to repair from the ravages which the soft
rains of heaven incessantly commit upon them.
Astronomy, too, notwithstanding the severe discipline she has undergone,
has in these later times resumed all the boldness of her youth, and
brought her stores of science to the construction of the most splendid
cosmogony that ever attracted the faith of the learned. She has girt her
long robe around her, and entered the lists with, and far outstripped,
whatever is boldest in the speculations of the youngest of the sciences.
The nebular hypothesis, though not yet entitled, as we think, to be
considered other than an hypothesis, has assumed a shape and consistency
which forbids an entire rejection of it, which enforces our respect, and
which, at all events, habituates the imagination to regard our planetary
system as having probably been evolved, under the will of Providence, by
the long operation of the established laws of matter.
It is quite a legitimate object of science, therefore, to view the laws of
the physical world--whether they regard its mechanic movement, its
chemistry, or its zoology--in their creative as well as reproductive
functions; and it is the purpose of a work lately published, entitled
"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," and which has drawn to
itself considerable attention, to collect and arrange whatever hints or
fragments of knowledge science affords, enabling us to bring the
successive phenomena of creation under the formula of general laws. In
this purpose it is impossible to find a shadow of blame, and the work will
probably answer one good end, that of directing the studies of scientific
men into paths but little or timidly explored. But unfortunately, what the
author has collected as the results of science, are, in some instances,
little else than the wild guess-work of speculation. He has no scruple
whatever in imitating those early geographers, who, disliking the blank
spaces of undiscovered regions, were in the habit in their charts
"Of placing elephants instead of towns."
Indeed, his book is an assemblage of all that is most venturous and most
fanciful in modern speculation, in which the most conspicuous place is
allotted to a modification of Lamarck's theory on the development of
animal life.
The charge of an atheistic tendency, as it is the heaviest which can be
made against a work, so it is the last which ought to be hazarded without
sufficient cause. In general, owing to the very sacredness of the subject,
we feel disposed, in all suspicious cases, to pass over in silence both
accusation and defence; and if in the present instance we depart, for a
moment, from this line of conduct, it is only to give expression to a
conviction--which we share, we believe, with all who have both the
interest of science and the interest of theology at heart--that the fair
efforts of the scientific enquirer should never be impeded by needless
objections of a theological character. What we mean is this: though a
suspicion may cross the mind, that a writer does not hold the religious
tenets which we should desire to see every where advocated; yet if we are
persuaded, at the same time, that this laxity of faith has no real logical
connexion with the scientific results with which he is occupied, we ought
not to inflict on _them_ any portion of our suspicion or distrust. We
shall always protest against confounding the legitimate attempts of
science with the erroneous principles of certain schools of metaphysics,
which may or may not be connected with them. If there is atheism in the
world, we know whence it comes; we know well it is in a very different
laboratory than that of the chemist that it has been distilled.
The unknown author before us, repeatedly protests against being numbered
amongst atheistic philosophers; on our own part, we are thoroughly
convinced that no formula of physical science could possibly interfere
with a rational belief in the power and wisdom of God; what remains, then,
but to treat his book purely in a scientific point of view?
To reduce to a system the acts of creation, or the development of the
several forms of animal life, no more impeaches the authorship of
creation, than to trace the laws by which the world is upheld and its
phenomena perpetually renewed. The presumption naturally rises in the
mind, that the same Great Being would adopt the same mode of action in
both cases. If, for instance, the nebular hypothesis, to which we have
already alluded, should be received as a scientific account of the
proximate origin of our planetary system, this, as Mr Whewell has shown in
his "Bridgewater Treatise," would serve only to enlighten and elevate our
conception of the power of God. And indeed to a mind accustomed--as is
every educated mind--to regard the operations of Deity as essentially
differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent,
it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself the power of God as
put forth in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal
laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in; it pains the
imagination to be obliged to assimilate those operations, for a moment, to
the brief energy of a human will, or the manipulations of a human hand.
Does not the language even of a Christian poet, when he speaks of God as
_launching_ from his ample palm the rolling planets into space, in some
measure offend us? Do we not avoid as much as possible all such
similitudes, as being derogatory to our notions of the Supreme?
There are still, indeed, some men of narrow prejudices who look upon every
fresh attempt to reduce the phenomena of nature to general laws, and to
limit those occasions on which it is necessary to conceive of a direct and
separate interposition of divine power, as a fresh encroachment on the
prerogatives of the Deity, or a concealed attack upon his very existence.
And yet these very same men are daily appealing to such laws of the
creation as have already been established, for their great proofs of the
existence and the wisdom of God! Their imagination has remained utterly
untutored by the little knowledge which they have rather learned to repeat
than to apprehend. Whatever words they may utter, of subtle and
high-sounding import, concerning the purely spiritual nature of the Divine
Being, it is, in fact, a _Jupiter Tonans_ clad in human lineaments, and
invested with human passions, that their heart is yearning after. Such
objectors as these can only be beaten back, and chained down, by what some
one has called the brute force of public opinion.
Some little time ago men of this class deemed it irreligious to speak of
the _laws_ of the human mind; it savoured of necessity, of fatalism; they
now applaud a Dr Chalmers when he writes his Bridgewater Treatise, to
illustrate the attributes of God in the laws of the mental as well as the
physical world.
No, there is nothing atheistic, nothing irreligious, in the attempt to
conceive creation, as well as reproduction, carried on by universal laws.
For what is the difference between individual isolated acts, and acts
capable of being expressed in a general formula? This only, that in the
second case the same act is repeated in constant sequence with other acts,
and probably repeated in many places at the same time. The divine work is
only multiplied. If the creation of a world should be proved to be as
orderly and systematic as that of a plant, this may make worlds more
common to the imagination, but it cannot make the power that creates them
less marvellous.
But while we would reprove the narrowness of spirit that finds, in any of
the discoveries of science, a source of disquietude for the interests of
religion, we have here an observation to make of an opposite character,
which we think of some importance, and which we shall again, in reviewing
the theories of our author, have occasion to insist upon. It is
undoubtedly true that there rises in the minds of every person at all
tinctured with science, a presumption that every phenomenon we witness
might be, if our knowledge enabled us, reduced under the expression of
some general law; and that whatever changes are, or have been, produced in
the world, might be traced to the interwoven operations of such laws. But
however prevalent and justifiable such a presumption may be, we hold it no
sound philosophy to give it so complete a preponderance as to debar the
mind from contemplating the possibility of quite other and independent
acts of divine power, the possibility of the abrupt introduction into our
system of new facts, or series of facts, with their appropriate laws. The
author before us, in his anxiety to explain, after a scientific manner,
the introduction of life, and the various species of animals, into the
globe, seems to have thought himself entitled to have recourse to the
wildest hypothesis rather than to the immediate intervention of creative
power; as if it were something altogether unphilosophical to suppose that
there could be such a thing as a quite new development of that plastic
energy. It is not even necessary that we should urge, that if a Creator
exist, it is a most unwarrantable supposition to imagine that all his
creative power has been exhausted. We say, even to an atheistic
philosophy, that it is an unauthorized limitation that would forbid the
mind to contemplate the possibility of the uprise, in time, of entirely
new phenomena. Can any philosopher, of any school whatever, be justified
in saying, that there shall be no new fact introduced into the
universe?--that its laws cannot be added to? Why should he recoil from the
introduction of any thing new? If he is one whose last formula stands
thus, _whatever is, is_--this new fact will also fall, with others, into
his formula. Of this, also, he can say, _whatever is, is_. There is, we
repeat, a strong presumption in favour of a scientific sequence, of an
unbroken order of events; but this presumption is not to authorize any
hypothesis whatever in order to escape from the other alternative, an
immediate intervention of creative power. This, also, is a probability
which philosophy recognises, and in which a rational mind may choose to
rest till science brings to him some definite result.
We are very far from intending to follow the author of the _Vestiges of
the Natural History of the Creation_ through all the sciences along which
his track has led him. We shall limit ourselves to what forms the most
peculiar and startling portion of his work--to his theory of the origin
and development of animal life.
But for the discoveries of geology a certain philosophy might have been
content to say of the animal creation, that it was the law of nature that
life should beget life--that reproduction, like nutrition, to which it has
been assimilated, is a part of the definition of life--and that, as to a
commencement of the various tribes of animals, we are no more bound to
look for this than for the commencement of any other of the phenomena of
nature. From the researches, however, of geology, it is evident that there
was a time when this earth revolved around the sun a barren and untenanted
globe--that there was a time when life did make its first appearance, and
that in different epochs of the world's existence there have flourished
very different species of animals than those which now inhabit it. Here,
at all events, the imagination cannot gain that imperfect repose which it
finds in the contemplation of an eternal series. It is a plain historical
fact, that life had a beginning on this earth, and that from time to time
new forms of life, new species of vegetables and animals, have been
introduced upon the scene. Here are two great facts to be accounted for,
or to be left standing out, unconnected in their origin with that
interlinked series of events which creation elsewhere displays. Life
reproduces life, the plant its seed, the animal its young, each after its
kind, such is the law; but this law itself, when was it promulgated, or
when and how did it come into force and operation?
For ourselves, in the present imperfect condition of our knowledge, we are
satisfied with referring life, in all its countless forms, at once to the
interposing will of the Creator. We listen, however, with curiosity and
attention to any theory which the naturalist or physiologist may have to
propose, so he proceed in the fair road of induction. There is nothing in
the laws of life which forbids, but much, on the contrary, which invites,
to the same pains-taking examination which has been bestowed, with more or
less success, on other phenomena of nature.
But what is the resolution of this problem which the author of the
_Vestiges_ proposes? Assuredly not one which indicates the boldness of
advancing science, but one of those hardy conjectures which are permitted
to arise only in the infancy of a science, and which show how clear the
field is, hitherto, of certain knowledge--how open to the very wantonness
of speculation. Very little has been done towards determining the laws of
life, and therefore the space is still free to those busy dreamers, who
are to science what constructors of Utopias are to history and politics.
His solution is simple enough, and with good reason may it be simple,
since it depends on nothing but the will of its framer. The germ of
life--that primary cell with its granule, in which some physiologists have
detected the first elementary form of life--he finds to be a product of
chemistry. From this germ, cell, or animalcule, or whatever it may be
called, has been developed, in succession, all the various forms of
existence--each form having, at some propitious moment, given birth to
the form just above it, which again has not only propagated itself, but
produced an offspring of a still higher grade in the scale of creation.
Thus the introduction of life, and the various species of animals, is
easily accounted for. "It has pleased Providence to arrange, that one
species should give birth to another, till the second highest gave birth
to man, who is the very highest."--(P. 234.) Under favourable skies, some
remarkable baboon had, we presume, a family of Hottentots, whose facial
angle, we believe, ranks them, with physiologists, next to the brute
creation; these grew, and multiplied, and separated from the tribes of the
_Simiae_; under a system of improved diet, and perhaps by change of
climate, they became first tawny, and then white, and at last rose into
that Caucasian family of which we here, in England, boast ourselves to be
distinguished members.
Such a solution as this most people will at once regard as utterly
unworthy of serious consideration. This _progressive development_ is
nowhere seen, and contradicts all that we do see; for no progeny, even
amongst hybrids, was ever known to be of a superior order, in the animal
creation, to both its parents. Such a proposed origin of the human race
would be sufficient, with most of us, for its condemnation. "Give us at
least," we exclaim, "a man to begin with--some savage and his squaw--some
Iceland dwarf if you will, wrapt in his nutritious oils--something in the
shape of humanity!" In short, it is a thing to be scoffed away, and
deserving only of a niche in some future _Hudibras_. But although the
theory is thus rash and absurd, and requires only to be stated to be
scouted, the author, in his exposition of it, advances some propositions
which are deserving of attention, and for this reason it is we propose to
give to his arguments a brief examination.
The theory divides itself into two parts--the production of organic life
from the inorganic world; and the progressive development of the several
species from the first simple elementary forms of life.
Spontaneous, or, as our author calls it, aboriginal generation, is a
doctrine neither new, nor without its supporters. But unfortunately for
his purposes, the class of cases of spontaneous generation which appear to
be at all trustworthy, are those in which the animalcule, or other
creatures, have been produced either within living bodies, (entozoa,) or
from the putrefaction of vegetable or animal life, the decay and
dissolution of some previous organization. Here _life_ still produces
_life_, though _like_ does not produce _like_. It is well known that,
amongst some of the lower class of animals, as amongst certain of the
polypi, reproduction is nothing more than a species of growth; a _bud_
sprouts out of the body, which, separating itself, becomes a new animal.
With such an analogy before us, there appears nothing very improbable in
the supposition that _entozoa_, and other descriptions of living
creatures, should be produced from the tissues of the higher animals,
either on a separation of their component parts when they decay, or on a
partial separation when the animal is inflicted with disease. We make no
profession of faith on this subject; we content ourselves with observing,
that this class of cases, where the evidence is strongest, and approaches
nearest to conviction, lends no support whatever to our author's
hypothesis, and provides him with no commencement of vital phenomena. Of
cases where life has been produced by the operation of purely chemical
laws on inorganic matter, there are certainly none which will satisfy a
cautious enquirer.
If Mr Crosse or Mr Weekes produce a species of worm by the agency of
electricity, it is impossible to say that the germ of life was not
previously existing in the fluid through which the electricity passed.
When lime is thrown upon a field, and clover springs up, it is the far
more probable supposition that the seed was there, but owing to ungenial
circumstances had not germinated; for no one who has mentioned this fact
has ventured to say that the experiment would always succeed, and that
lime thrown upon a certain description of soil would in all parts of the
world produce clover. Not to add, that it would be strange indeed if such
an instance were solitary, and that other vegetation should not be
produced by similar means.[3]
Vegetable and animal life, we ought here to mention, are considered by our
author as both derived from the same elementary germ which branches out
into the two great kingdoms of nature; so that it is of equal importance
to him to find a case of spontaneous generation amongst the plants as
amongst the animals. We must, therefore, extend the observation we made on
a certain class of cases amongst animals, to an analagous class of
supposed cases of spontaneous generation amongst vegetables. If that downy
mould, for instance, which the good housewife finds upon her pots of jam,
be considered as a vegetable, and be supposed to have grown without seed,
it would be somewhat analagous to the entozoa amongst animals; it would be
a vegetation produced by the decay of a previous vegetation.
It is only necessary to recall to mind the instances which naturalists
record of the minuteness of the seeds of life, and the manner in which
they may lie for a long time concealed, in order to induce us to presume,
in the majority of examples that are alleged of spontaneous generation,
the previous existence of the seed or the germ. Take the following from Dr
Carpenter's work on _Comparative Physiology_:--"Another very curious
example of fungous vegetation, in a situation where its existence was not
until recently suspected, is presented in the process of fermentation. It
appears from microscopic examination of a mass of yeast, that it consists
of a number of minute disconnected vesicles, which closely resemble those
of the Red Snow, and appear to constitute one of the simplest forms of
vegetation. These, like seeds, nay remain for almost any length of time in
an inactive condition without losing their vitality; but when placed in a
fluid in which any kind of sugary matter is contained, they commence
vegetating actively, provided the temperature is sufficiently high; and
they assist in producing that change in the composition of the fluid which
is known under the name of fermentation."--P. 74. With such instances
before us, the experiments of Messieurs Crosse and Weekes must be
conducted with singular care and judgment, in order to lead to any
satisfactory result.
Let us be allowed to say, that the experiments of those gentlemen excite
in us no horror or alarm. A Frankenstein who produces nothing worse than a
harmless worm, may surely be suffered to go blameless. Let these
electricians pursue their experiments, and make all the worms they can.
They will incur no very grave responsibility for such additions as they
can make to that stream of life which is pouring from every crack and
crevice of the earth. Some persons have a vague idea, that there is
something derogatory to the lowest form of animal life to have its origin
in merely inorganic elements; an idea which results perhaps not so much
from any subtle and elevated conceptions of life, as from an imagination
unawakened to the dignity and the marvel of the inorganic world. What is
motion but a sort of life? a life of activity if not of feeling.
Suppose--what indeed nowhere exists--an inert matter, and let it be
suddenly endowed with motion, so that two particles should fly towards
each other from the utmost bounds of the universe; were not this almost as
strange a property as that which endows an irritable tissue or an organ of
secretion? Is not the world _one_--the creature of one God--dividing
itself, with constant interchange of parts, into the sentient and the
non-sentient, in order, so to speak, to become conscious of itself? Are we
to place a great chasm between the sentient and the non-sentient, so that
it shall be derogation to a poor worm to have no higher genealogy than
the element which is the lightning of heaven, and too much honour to the
subtle chemistry of the earth to be the father of a crawling subject, of
some bag, or sack, or imperceptible globule of animal life? No; we have no
recoil against this generation of an animalcule by the wonderful chemistry
of God; our objection to this doctrine is, that it is not proved.
But, proved or not, our author has still the most difficult part of his
task to accomplish. From his animated globule he has to develop the whole
creation of vegetable and animal life. We shall be contented with watching
its development through one branch, that of the animal kingdom.
The idea of the development of the animal creation from certain primary
rudiments or simple forms of life, is due, we believe, to Lamarck; and
although his peculiar theory has met, and deservedly, with ridicule, we do
not hesitate to say that it is far more plausible, and substantially far
more rational, than that which our author has substituted. Geology reveals
to us a gradual extinction of species, accompanied by a successive
appearance of new species;[4] it reveals to us also that the surface of
the earth has undergone great mutations; that land and sea have frequently
changed places; and that the climate of the several regions of the world,
owing to many causes, has greatly varied. Natural history is replete with
striking accounts of the modifications produced in a race of animals by
the change of climate, diet, and the enforcement of new habits; and
linking all these facts together, it does not appear a very violent
supposition, nor one that departs from the frequent analogies of nature,
to say, that the causes which have brought about the extinction of certain
species may have also operated to the development of new species. The
manifest error of Lamarck was an egregious exaggeration of certain
well-known truths. Because external circumstances may do much in directing
the inherent power of development possessed by a given organization, he
resolved that it should do every thing. The camelopard was to get his long
neck by stretching for his food; and the duck her web-foot by paddling in
the water. But the author before us breaks loose entirely from the region
of facts; or rather he announces to us, on his own responsibility, an
entirely new fact--that it is the law of animal life that each species
should, from time to time, produce a brood of the species next in order of
perfection or complexity of organization. With him, this development is
the result merely of a law of generation which he himself has devised to
meet the emergency.
Amongst the laws of life, the most conspicuous and undoubted is this--that
each species reproduces itself, that like begets like. This law our author
cannot of course gainsay; but he appends to it another overruling law,
that from time to time, at long intervals, the like does not beget the
like, but the different and superior form of organization. In other words,
the old law changes from time to time. Of this novel description of law he
borrows the following illustration of Mr Babbage:--
Unquestionably, what we ordinarily see of nature is calculated to
impress a conviction that each species invariably produces its like.
But I would here call attention to a remarkable illustration of
natural law, which has been brought forward by Mr Babbage in his
_Ninth Bridgewater Treatise_. The reader is requested to suppose
himself seated before the calculating machine and observing it. It is
moved by a weight, and there is a wheel which revolves through a
small angle round its axis, at short intervals, presenting to the eye
successively a series of numbers engraved on its divided
circumference.
"Let the figures thus seen, be the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. &c., of
natural numbers, each of which exceeds its immediate antecedent by
unity.
"Now, reader," says Mr Babbage, "let me ask you how long you will
have counted before you are firmly convinced that the engine has been
so adjusted that it will continue, whilst its motion is maintained,
to produce the same series of natural numbers. Some minds are so
constituted, that after passing the first hundred terms they will be
satisfied that they are acquainted with the law. After seeing five
hundred terms, few will doubt; and after the fifty thousandth term,
the propensity to believe that the succeeding term will be fifty
thousand and one, will be almost irresistible. That term _will_ be
fifty thousand and one, and the same regular succession will
continue; the five millionth, and the fifty millionth term will still
appear in their expected order, and one unbroken chain of natural
numbers will pass before your eyes from _one_ up to _one hundred
million_.
"True to the vast induction which has been made the next succeeding
term will be one hundred million and one; but the next number
presented by the rim of the wheel, instead of being, one hundred
million and two, is one hundred million _ten thousand_ and two. The
law changes."
The illustration is carried through a page or two more, but we have quoted
all that is essential.
Mr Babbage makes a very useless parade here of his calculating machine. A
common household clock that strikes the hours, would illustrate all that
his machine can possibly illustrate. If the reader seat himself before
that homely piece of mechanism, he will hear it _tick_ for sixty minutes,
when the _law of the machine_ will change, and it will _strike_.
In a scientific point of view it is absurd to talk about the _law of his
machine_. His machine partakes only of the laws of mechanics, which, we
presume, are as constant there as elsewhere. Our only definition of law
is, a sequence that is constant; deny its constancy, and you deny it to be
law; it is a mere contradiction in terms to speak of a law that changes.
If, therefore, our author, guided by this illustration of Mr Babbage's,
proclaims a law of animal life which _changes of itself_ from time to
time, he is departing from the fundamental principle of all science--he
who is so zealous to reduce all phenomenon to the formula of science!
Anxious to escape from an abrupt interposition of creative power, he
introduces a sudden mutability in the laws themselves of nature! If it be
said that he does not (although his words imply it) insist upon a single
law of nature that varies at intervals, but contends for a variable
result, produced by the law of reproduction acting under varied
circumstances, and in co-operation with different laws--then was Mr
Babbage's machine of no use whatever to him, nor did he stand in need of
any peculiar illustration. There is not a class of phenomena which does
not exhibit this variety of result by the diversified co-operation of laws
constant in themselves. The frozen river becomes motionless; it ceases to
flow; yet no one attributes any inconstancy to the laws of heat, or the
laws of hydrostatics.
Quitting these abstractions, in which the writer before has shown himself
no very great adept, let us enquire by what arguments he attempts to
support his peculiar _principles of development_. That on which he appears
chiefly to rely is the fact, that the embryo of one of the higher animals
passes through the foetal stages of the lower animals--the fish, the
reptile, the bird--before it assumes its last definite shape. From this he
would infer, that the germ of life is alike in all, and that it depends
only on peculiarities of gestation whether it shall become a fish, a fowl,
or a mammal. He lays particular stress on the circumstance, that the brain
of the human embryo passes through these several stages.
But, 1. In order to derive any thing like an argument here, surely the
whole human embryo, and not the brain only, ought to undergo these
changes. But not only in man, in the other mammalia to which allusion is
made, it is never the _entire animal_ which passes through these
transformations.
2. If the embryo of one of the mammalia pass through the foetal stages
of the fish and the bird, the embryo fish bears the same transitory
resemblance to the foetal condition of the bird or the mammal. So that
the order here is reversed, and nothing appears proved but that some
deviations of form are in all cases assumed before the final shape is
adopted. And,
3. The physiologists who have made this branch of their science an
especial study, tell us, as the result of their microscopic observations,
that the embryo of the higher animals pursues a different course of
development, _from the very earliest stages_, to that of the lower
animals. It cannot be, therefore, according to the diagram that the author
presents to us, that the same germ which is nourished up to a certain
point to be fish, would, if transferred to other care and a better system
of nutrition, be nourished into a bird or a mammal. If it is to be a
mammal, it must be fashioned accordingly from the very beginning.
We will content ourselves with quoting, as our authority for these
assertions, a passage from Dr Carpenter's work on _Comparative
Physiology_; and we cite this author the more willingly, because he is
certainly not one who is himself disposed to damp the ardour of
speculation, and because the very similarity of some of his views, or
expressions, renders him, at all events, an unexceptionable witness on
this occasion.
"Allusion has been made to the correspondence which is discernible
between the transitory forms exhibited by the embryos of the higher
beings, and the permanent conditions of the lower. When this was
first observed, it was stated as a general law, that all the higher
animals, in the progress of their development, pass through a series
of forms analogous to those encountered in ascending the animal
scale. But this is not correct, for the _entire animal_ never does
exhibit such resemblance, except in a few particular cases to which
allusion has already been made, (the case of the frog, and others,
who undergo what is commonly called a metamorphosis.) And the
resemblance, or analogy, which exists between individual organs, has
no reference to their _forms_, but to their _condition_ or _grade of
development_. Thus we find the heart of the mammalia, which finally
possesses four distinct cavities, at first in the condition of a
prolonged tube, being a dilatation of the principal arterial trunk,
and resembling the dorsal vessel of the articulated classes;
subsequently it becomes shortened in relation to the rest of the
structure, and presents a greater diameter, whilst a division of its
cavity into two parts--a ventricle and an auricle--is evident, as in
fishes; a third cavity, like that possessed by reptiles, is next
formed by the subdivision of the auricle previously existing; and
lastly, a fourth chamber is produced by the growth of a partition
across the ventricle; and in perfect harmony with these changes are
the metamorphoses presented by the system of vessels immediately
proceeding from the heart. In like manner, the evolution of the brain
in man is found to present conditions which may be successively
compared with those of the fish, reptile bird, lower mammalia, and
higher mammalia; but in no instance is there an exact identity
between any of these. It is to be remembered, that every animal must
pass through _some_ change in the progress of its development, from
its embryonic to its adult condition; and the correspondence is much
closer between the embryonic fish and the foetal bird, or mammal,
than between these and the adult fish."--(P. 196.)
And take, also, the following short passage from the preface of the same
work, where the author has been speaking of the latest discoveries of
physiologists on the development of the embryo.
"Thus, when we ascend the scale of being, in either of the two
organized kingdoms, we observe the principle of specialisation
remarkably illustrated in the development of the germ into the
perfect structure. In the lowest of each kind, the first-formed
membranous expansion has the same character throughout, and _the
whole enters into the fully-developed structure_. In higher grades
the whole remains, but the organs evolved from the centre have
evidently the most elevated character. _In the highest none but the
most central portion is persistent_; the remainder forming organs of
a temporary and subservient nature."
The fact that the animal kingdom exhibits a gradual progression from forms
the most simple to forms the most complex, is, of course, appropriated by
our author as a proof of his theory of successive development. It is well
known, that whilst this scale of being is an idea which occurs to every
observer, the naturalist finds insuperable difficulties in arranging the
several species of animals according to such a scale. To relieve himself
from these, the author has taken under his patronage what, in honour of
its founder, he calls the _Macleay System_, in which the animal kingdom is
"arranged along a series of close affinities, _in a circular form_;" into
which circles we will excuse ourselves from entering. It is a system as
confused as it is fantastic; and our author, who writes in general in a
clear and lucid manner, in vain attempts to present us with an
intelligible exposition of it. Arrange the animal creation how you will,
in a line or in circles, there is one fact open to every observer, that
however fine may be the gradations amongst the lower animals, the
difference between the higher animals is very distinctly marked. It is a
difference which does not at all accord with the hypothesis of our author,
"that the simplest and most primitive type gave birth to the type next
above it, and this again produced the next higher, and so on to the very
highest, the stages of advance being in all cases very small--namely, from
one species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of
simple and modest character." Whilst he confines himself to _mollusks_,
and suchlike obscure creatures, the phenomenon he supposes may not be very
startling; but when he ascends to the higher and larger animals, whose
forms and habits are well known to us--when he has to find a father for
the horse, the lion, the rhinoceros, the elephant--his phenomenon, we are
sure, will no longer retain its "simple and modest character."
Naturalists have observed, that there is a striking _uniformity of plan_
even amongst animals of very different habits, and which, perhaps, inhabit
different elements; they have remarked, that this uniformity is adhered to
even when it appears to answer no specific purpose, as when in the fin of
a whale the unbending bone bears the semblance of the jointed hand. This,
too, is pressed into the service of our author's hypothesis. It is a
curious fact. But if we say of it, that it appears to hint the existence
of _some law_, and to tempt the investigation of the physiologist, we
assign to it all the scientific importance that it can possibly deserve.
Some physiologists, we must be permitted to observe, have rather amused
themselves by a display of ingenuity, than profited science by their
discoveries of a _unity of structure_ in animals of the most opposite
description. It is easy to surprise the imagination by pointing out
unexpected resemblances, if all cases of diversity are at the same time
kept out of view. These writers will mention, for instance, that all
quadrupeds have uniformly _seven_ bones in the neck. The giraffe has no
more than the pig. But they refuse to mention at the same time, that in
_birds_ the number varies from nine to twenty-three, and in _reptiles_
from three to eight. Sometimes the merest fancy is indulged. We are told
that in the pulpy substance of a certain mollusk there are lines drawn
presenting a sketch of a vertebrated animal, and it is gravely intimated
that nature seems to have made a rough design of the next work of art she
was about to produce.
When Dr Carpenter tells us, in exemplifying this law of unity of
composition, that "the skull is but an expansion of the three highest
vertebrae, modified to afford space for the development of the contained
brain and of the organs of sense," p. 191--is he much wiser than those
entomologists whom he had been previously criticising for "maintaining
that the wing of an insect is a modification of its leg?" Verily we
suspect that if Martinus Scriblerus had had his attention drawn to this
manner of viewing things, it would have greatly excited his learned
ingenuity; he would probably have begun to apply this scientific method to
a variety of things, and found a unity of composition never before dreamt
of. What should have prevented him from casting a philosophic glance upon
the furniture of his room? With less ingenuity than certain physiologists,
he would easily detect a marvellous unity of plan. He would have probably
taken the table with its four legs, and the disk they support, as his
great type of joinery, and would have traced a modification of this type
in all the articles around him. The chair is manifestly nothing else than
the table, with a development of the hinder legs commonly called the back.
From the chair to the sofa the transition would be ridiculously easy;
indeed the sofa can only be considered as a variety of the chair, produced
by a high state of cultivation. In the footstool, or ottoman, the disk of
the table has become thick and pulpy, while its legs have dwindled into
small globular supports. This exaggeration of the upper portion at the
expense of the lower, is carried a step further in the chest of drawers,
where the small globular supports bear a singular disproportion to the
corpulent figure they sustain. In some varieties even these knob-like legs
are wanting; but precisely in these cases, he would observe, the knobs
invariably re-appear in the shape of handles, which are still a sort of
paw. What is the fire-screen, he would say, but a table with the disk in a
vertical position? What the four-post bedstead but a reduplication of the
original type, a table placed on a table, the upper one being laid open?
If he had had the advantage of reading Mr Dickens, he would have
mentioned, in confirmation of this view, that young Mr Weller, when
sleeping under a table, congratulates himself upon enjoying the luxury of
a four-post bedstead. The coal-scuttle might perhaps present some
difficulties; but if he might be allowed to approach it through the
loo-table, he would doubtless succeed in tracing here also the unity of
composition. In the loo-table the four legs have collapsed into a central
column! The coal-scuttle is only a _loo-table_ with the edges of the disk
curled up--assuming a bonnet-like shape, the result, perhaps, of its long
domesticity. In short, we believe the only insuperable difficulty Martin
would encounter, would be, when, after having completed his survey, he
would run off to the joiner to convince him of the unity of plan on which
he had been so unconsciously working.
It was a bold step of our author's to adduce the geographical distribution
of the several species of animals as a proof of his law of development. To
most minds it would have immediately occurred as an objection. Each region
of the earth has its own peculiar _fauna_, and this difference is not
accountable on any known influence of soil or climate. What can explain
the peculiar fauna of New Holland? If all the varieties of animal life
spring from one and the same germ under the uniform laws of nature, how is
it that in some regions, fitted in every respect for the support of
animal life, no animals whatever of the higher order are found? "New
Zealand, which may be compared in dimensions to Ireland united with
Scotland, which extends over more than 700 miles in latitude, and is in
its many parts 90 miles broad, with varied stations, a fine climate, and
land of all heights, from 14,000 feet downwards, does not possess one
indigenous quadruped, with the exception of a small rat."--_Lyell's
Principles of Geology_, Vol. i. p. 102. Other instances equally striking
might be mentioned. How are we to explain them upon our author's
hypothesis? Are we to make supposition upon supposition, and presume that
the land of New Zealand had not been long enough emerged from the sea to
allow of the ample development of the original germ of life; and that, if
the rat had been left to himself, he would in process of time have peopled
the whole region with dogs, and horses, and oxen, or some other analogous
quadrupeds?
But our readers have perhaps heard sufficient of an hypothesis which is
built only on a series of conjectures, and we ourselves are wearied with a
too easy victory. There are many other topics in the book which would far
better reward discussion than the one we have chosen--as, for instance,
the geological views here put forward, the claims of phrenology, and the
difference between instinct and intelligence; but if disposed to treat
these subjects, we could have found other and more suitable opportunities;
we thought it fit to select that which forms the peculiarity of the
present work.
But absurd as the matter is, we must complete the account which the author
gives of the development of that race in which we are chiefly
interested--man. We have seen, that according to his law of progressive
generation, and as an instance of what he denominates "a modest and simple
phenomenon," man was one day born of the monkey or the ape. But this
discovered law has not only thus happily introduced the human being upon
the earth, it also throws light upon the diversities which exist in the
family of man.
"The causes of the various external peculiarities of mankind, now
require some attention. Why, it is asked, are the Africans black, and
generally marked by ungainly forms? Why the flat features of the
Chinese, and the comparatively well-formed figures of the Caucasians?
Why the Mongolians generally yellow, the Americans red, and the
Canadians white? These questions were complete puzzles to all early
writers; but physiology has lately thrown a great light upon them. It
is now shown that the brain, after completing the series of animal
transformations, passes through the characters in which it appears in
the Negro, Malay American, and Mongolian nations, and finally becomes
Caucasian. The face partakes of these alterations. The leading
characters, in short, of the various races of mankind, are simply
representations of particular states in the development of the
highest or Caucasian type. The Negro exhibits permanently the
imperfect brain, projecting lower jaw,[5] and slender bent limbs of a
Caucasian child some considerable time before the period of its
birth. The aboriginal American represents the same child nearer
birth. The Mongolian is an arrested infant newly born. And so forth."
So that we Caucasians are, at least, the only full grown children: all
others are more or less abortions. Indeed we might be described, in the
language of this theory, as the only animals on the face of the earth who
pass through the full period of gestation. And yet even this honour may be
disputed; perhaps we ourselves are but imperfect developments of that germ
of life which is the progenitor of us all. The author darkly intimates
that we may be supplanted from our high place in this world, that another
and more powerful and sagacious race may be born of us, who may treat us
no better than we have treated the monkeys and other species of the brute
creation. This is the severest blow of all. After having humbled our
pride according to this philosopher's bidding, and taught ourselves to
look upon the ape with due feelings of filial respect--after having
acknowledged some sturdy baboon for our only Adam, and some malicious
monkey for our sweet mother Eve--after having brought ourselves to see in
the lower animals the same mental and moral faculties which we boast of,
and to confess that the same psychology applies to both, with a slight
modification in our theory of the origin of ideas--after having practised
all this condescension, to be threatened with complete dethronement from
our high place in the world!--to be told that we, too, shall have to obey
a master who may govern us as man governs the horse! What a millennium to
look forward to!
"Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type? Are there
yet to be species superior to us in organization, purer in feeling,
more powerful in device and art, and _who shall take a rule over us_?
There is in this nothing improbable on other grounds. The present
race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the
present state of things in the world; but the external world goes
through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much
serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler
type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this
planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the
present race."--P. 276.
Melancholy prospect for man! When the earth becomes a serener field of
existence, then will a race appear to take rule over him. Might not he
become serener too? Is it thus that are to be solved all our social
problems, all our discussions upon the perfectibility of man, all our
vague but obstinate prophecies of some more rational and happier scheme of
existence? This _homo_ is to survive, it seems, only to make railroads for
the future _angelus_.
On the authorship of this production we have no communication or
conjecture to make. The writer has been successful, as far as we know, in
preserving his incognito; and as the rumours that have reached our ear
have all been again contradicted, we think it wisest to abstain from
circulating any of then. We heard it pleasantly said that the author had
been followed down as far as Lancashire, and that then all further trace
of him had been lost. We think he might be traced further north than
Lancashire. The style in one or two places bears symptoms of a Scottish
origin. Occupied with the wild theory it promulgates, we have not said
much of the literary merits of the work. Nor is there much to say. It is
written in a clear, unpretending style, but somewhat careless and inexact.
The exposition in the first portions of the work, the astronomical and
geological, appeared to us particularly good. The author's knowledge of
science is such as is gleaned by that sort of student who is denominated,
in prefaces, the general reader; he is not, we should apprehend, a
labourer in any one of its departments, but thankfully receives whatever
is brought to his door of the results of science. With this
chance-gathered stock he has ventured to frame, or rather to defend, his
speculations. The sudden success of the work is not, we think, what any
one could have prognosticated. It is a success which its singularity has
gained for it, and which its superficiality will soon again forfeit.
We may mention that this notice was written after a perusal of the first
edition. In the third edition, we observe that some passages have been
slightly modified or omitted; but the hypothesis put forward is
substantially the same.
MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.