“World beyond world in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered o’er the blue expanse,”
and orbs so remote as to reduce to a mere span the distance between us
and the Georgium Sidus; and revel in all the gorgeous splendour of
rings, and moons, and nebulæ, the poetry of heaven.
Is there not an exquisite romance in the closing of the barometrical
blossoms; of the white convolvulus, and the _anagallis_ or scarlet
pimpernel; of the sun-flower, and the leaves of the _Dionæa_ and
_mimosa_?
Is there not poetry in the delicate nautilus, with its arms dropped for
oars; in the _velella_ and purple _physalia_ expanding their membranous
sails; and the beautiful fish-lizard, the _Proteus_ of transparent
alabaster, found in the wondrous cavern of Maddalena, among the Styrian
mountains; and even in the _Stalactytes_ of Antiparos, as glittering as
the gems and crystal pillars of Aladdin’s palace? Are not these more
beautiful because they are _true_, and better to be read than all the
impersonations of mythology, or that voluptuous romance which would
endow a flower with the fervour of sense and passion?
IDA. I have ever wondered that a scholar, like Darwin, should have so
wasted time with his “Loves of the Plants.” For the study of nature and
the discoveries of science are ever vain, if they lift not the heart in
adoration. The insect, that fans the sunbeam with its golden wing, or
even the flower that opes its dewy eyes to the light, are unconscious
worshippers of the Divine Being.
The Epicurean, who weeps for a decaying body, but mourns not for a lost
soul, will enjoy these beauties of nature with a heart faithful to his
creed, that pleasure is the only good; but the Christian feels that,
when he chips a stone, or culls a flower, he touches that which comes
fresh from the hand of its Creator.
How full is nature, too, of mute instruction! the simplest incident is a
lesson, if we will but learn it. You see that fading blossom floating on
the surface of the stream. That inanimate type of decaying beauty shows,
to the reflective mind, that even in the summer of life the flower of
existence will lose its youthful lustre, and float down the stream of
time into the depths of eternity.
But tell me, Evelyn, may not the influence of that science that
magnifies the lights of heaven (created to _rule day and night_) into
habitable worlds, weaken the influence of faith in holy writ?
May we not fear that, like the Promethean Preadamites of Shelley, the
Cain of Byron, the fabled beings of Ovid, and the mythology of Milton,
will be the vaunted discoveries of the geologist, in controversion of
the Mosaic records, of the creation and the deluge; proving the wisdom
of Bacon, that to associate natural philosophy with sacred cosmogony,
will lead to heretical opinions? Indeed, I remember in the _Zendavesta_
of Zoroaster, the chronicle of the Magian religion (supposed to be a
piracy from the book of Genesis), the sun IS created _before light_.
EV. Fear not this, fair Ida. Rather believe with Bouget, that philosophy
and _natural_ theology mutually _confirm_ each other. The latter teaches
us that which it is our duty to believe; the former to believe more
firmly. And Lord Bacon himself, in his “Cogitata et Visa,” deems natural
philosophy “the surest antidote of superstition, and the food of
religious faith.”
The belief in existence of a preadamite world, presumes not to
controvert the Mosaic record of the development of the globe, the
creation of Adam, or the fall of man. Modern geology has peopled this
preadamite world with _saurians_, or lizards, a race of beings _not
concerned in the punishment of that delinquency_. Of the existence of
these creatures there is no doubt; the discovery of their fossil
remains, without a vestige of the human skeleton, marks the period of
their destruction, and that the crust of the globe enveloping these
relics, might have been reduced to that chaos when “the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;” and
from which our beautiful world was fashioned by a fiat.
The truth of holy Scripture is too clear even to be disturbed by a
sophist. You may recollect that Julian, the apostate, contemplated the
reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, in order to confute the
prophecies; but Julian failed, and misfortune was the lot of all who
were leagued in the impiety.
As to natural laws, think me not so profane as to cite such as the
superstitious alchemyst, Paracelsus, in proof of their use in the
working of a miracle; who says that “devils and witches raise storms by
throwing up alum and saltpetre into the air, which comes down as
rain-drops!”
And it were reversing this solemn argument were I to confess the
doctrines of the Illuminaten, who, taught by Jacob Boehmen, and the
mysticisms of his “Theosophia Revelata,” explained all nature’s laws by
warping texts of Scripture to their purpose. Yet it is clear that even
the miracles of the prophets may have been sometimes influenced by
established laws. Elisha raised the Shunamite’s son by placing mouth to
mouth, as if by inhalation.
Believe not then, fair Ida, that philosophy is set in array against
religion, when the student of nature endeavours to explain her phenomena
by physical laws, _for those laws the great Creator himself hath made_.