With respect to the organic bodies imbedded in formations now in progress,

the like truth is equally manifest, if not more manifest. Even along the

same coast, within moderate distances, the forms of life differ very

considerably; much more on coasts that are remote from each other. Again,

dissimilar creatures that are living together near the same shore, do not

leave their remains in the same beds of sediment. For instance, at the

bottom of the Adriatic, where the prevailing currents cause the deposits to

be here of mud, and there of calcareous matter, it is proved that different

species of co-existing shells are being buried in these respective

formations. On our own coasts, the marine remains found a few miles from

shore, in banks where fish congregate, are different from those found close

to the shore, where only littoral species flourish. A large proportion of

aquatic creatures have structures that do not admit of fossilization; while

of the rest, the great majority are destroyed, when dead, by the various

kinds of scavengers that creep among the rocks and weeds. So that no one

deposit near our shores can contain anything like a true representation of

the Fauna of the surrounding sea; much less of the co-existing Faunas of

other seas in the same latitude; and still less of the Faunas of seas in

distant latitudes. Were it not that the assertion seems needful, it would

be almost absurd to say, that the organic remains now being buried in the

Dogger Bank, can tell us next to nothing about the fish, crustaceans,

mollusks, and corals that are being buried in the Bay of Bengal.

Still stronger is the argument in the case of terrestrial life. With more

numerous and greater contrasts between the plants and animals of remote

places, there is a far more imperfect registry of them. Schouw marks out on

the Earth more than twenty botanical regions, occupied by groups of forms

so far distinct from each other, that, if fossilized, geologists would

scarcely be disposed to refer them all to the same period. Of Faunas, the

Arctic differs from the Temperate; the Temperate from the Tropical; and the

South Temperate from the North Temperate. Nay, in the South Temperate Zone

itself, the two regions of South Africa and South America are unlike in

their mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, mollusks, insects. The shells and

bones now lying at the bottoms of lakes and estuaries in these several

regions, have certainly not that similarity which is usually looked for in

those of contemporaneous strata; and the recent forms exhumed in any one of

these regions would very untruly represent the present Flora and Fauna of

the Earth. In conformity with the current style of geological reasoning, an

exhaustive examination of deposits in the Arctic circle, might be held to

prove that though at this period there were sundry mammals existing, there

were no reptiles; while the absence of mammals in the deposits of the

Galapagos Archipelago, where there are plenty of reptiles, might be held to

prove the reverse. And at the same time, from the formations extending for

two thousand miles along the great barrier-reef of Australia--formations in

which are imbedded nothing but corals, echinoderms, mollusks, crustaceans,

and fish, along with an occasional turtle, or bird, or cetacean, it might

be inferred that there lived in our epoch neither terrestrial reptiles nor

terrestrial mammals.

The mention of Australia, indeed, suggests an illustration which, even

alone, would amply prove our case. The Fauna of this region differs widely

from any that is found elsewhere. On land all the indigenous mammals,

except bats, belong to the lowest, or implacental division; and the insects

are singularly different from those found elsewhere. The surrounding seas

contain numerous forms that are more or less strange; and among the fish

there exists a species of shark, which is the only living representative of

a genus that flourished in early geologic epochs. If, now, the modern

fossiliferous deposits of Australia were to be examined by one ignorant of

the existing Australian Fauna; and if he were to reason in the usual

manner; he would be very unlikely to class these deposits with those of the

present time. How, then, can we place confidence in the tacit assumption

that certain formations in remote parts of the Earth are referable to the

same period, because the organic remains contained in them display a

certain community of character? or that certain others are referable to

different periods, because the _facies_ of their Faunas are different?

"But," it will be replied, "in past eras the same, or similar, organic

forms were more widely distributed than now." It may be so; but the

evidence adduced by no means proves it. The argument by which this

conclusion is reached, runs a risk of being quoted as an example of

reasoning in a circle. As already pointed out, between formations in remote

regions there is no means of ascertaining equivalence but by fossils. If,

then, the contemporaneity of remote formations is concluded from the

likeness of their fossils; how can it be said that similar plants and

animals were once more widely distributed, because they are found in

contemporaneous strata in remote regions? Is not the fallacy manifest? Even

supposing there were no such fatal objection as this, the evidence commonly

assigned would still be insufficient. For we must bear in mind that the

community of organic remains commonly thought sufficient for inferring

correspondence in time, is a very imperfect community. When the compared

sedimentary beds are far apart, it is scarcely expected that there will be

many species common to the two: it is enough if there be discovered a

considerable number of common genera. Now had it been proved that,

throughout geologic time, each genus lived but for a short period--a period

measured by a single group of strata--something might be inferred. But what

if we learn that many of the same genera continued to exist throughout

enormous epochs, measured by several vast systems of strata? "Among

molluscs, the genera _Avicula_, _Modiola_, _Terebratula_, _Lingula_, and

_Orbicula_, are found from the Silurian rocks upwards to the present day."

If, then, between the lowest fossiliferous formations and the most recent,

there exists this degree of community; must we not infer that there will

probably often exist a degree of community between strata that are far from

contemporaneous?

Thus the reasoning from which it is concluded that similar organic forms

were once more widely spread, is doubly fallacious; and, consequently, the

classifications of foreign strata based on this conclusion are

untrustworthy. Judging from the present distribution of life, we can

scarcely expect to find similar remains in geographically remote strata of

the same age; and where, between the fossils of geographically remote

strata, we do find much similarity, it is probably often due rather to

likeness of conditions than to contemporaneity. If from causes and effects

such as we now witness, we reason back to the causes and effects of past

epochs, we discover inadequate warrant for sundry of the received

doctrines. Seeing, as we do, that in large areas of the Pacific this is a

period characterized by abundance of corals; that in the North Atlantic it

is a period in which a great chalk-deposit is being formed; and that in the

valley of the Mississippi it is a period of new coal-basins--seeing also,

as we do, that in one extensive continent this is peculiarly an era of

implacental mammals, and that in another extensive continent it is

peculiarly an era of placental mammals; we have good reason to hesitate

before accepting these sweeping generalizations which are based on a

cursory examination of strata occupying but a tenth part of the Earth's

surface.

* * * * *

At the outset, this article was to have been a review of the works of Hugh

Miller; but it has grown into something much more general. Nevertheless,

the remaining two doctrines which we propose to criticise, may be

conveniently treated in connection with his name, as that of one who fully

committed himself to them. And first, a few words with regard to his

position.

That he was a man whose life was one of meritorious achievement, every one

knows. That he was a diligent and successful working geologist, scarcely

needs saying. That with indomitable perseverance he struggled up from

obscurity to a place in the world of literature and science, shows him to

have been highly endowed in character and intelligence. And that he had a

remarkable power of presenting his facts and arguments in an attractive

form, a glance at any of his books will quickly prove. By all means, let us

respect him as a man of activity and sagacity, joined with a large amount

of poetry. But while saying this we must add, that his reputation stands by

no means so high in the scientific world as in the world at large. Partly

from the fact that our Scotch neighbours are in the habit of blowing the

trumpet rather loudly before their notabilities--partly because the

charming style in which his books are written has gained him a large circle

of readers--partly, perhaps, through a praiseworthy sympathy with him as a

self-made man; Hugh Miller has met with an amount of applause which, little

as we wish to diminish it, must not be allowed to blind the public to his

defects as a man of science.

The truth is, he was so far committed to a foregone conclusion, that he

could not become a philosophical geologist. He might be aptly described as

a theologian studying geology. The dominant idea with which he wrote, may

be seen in the titles of his books--_Law versus Miracle_,--_Footprints of

the Creator_,--_The Testimony of the Rocks_. Regarding geological facts as

evidence for or against certain religious conclusions, it was scarcely

possible for him to deal with geological facts impartially. His ruling aim

was to disprove the Development Hypothesis, the assumed implications of

which were repugnant to him; and in proportion to the strength of his

feeling, was the one-sidedness of his reasoning. He admitted that "God

might as certainly have _originated_ the species by a law of development,

as he _maintains_ it by a law of development; the existence of a First

Great Cause is as perfectly compatible with the one scheme as with the

other." Nevertheless, he considered the hypothesis at variance with

Christianity; and therefore combated with it. He apparently overlooked the

fact that the doctrines of geology in general, as held by himself, had been

rejected by many on similar grounds; and that he had himself been

repeatedly attacked for his anti-Christian teachings. He seems not to have

perceived that, just as his antagonists were wrong in condemning as

irreligious, theories which he saw were not irreligious; so might he be

wrong in condemning, on like grounds, the Theory of Evolution. In brief, he

fell short of that highest faith, which knows that all truths must

harmonize; and which is, therefore, content trustfully to follow the

evidence whithersoever it leads.

Of course it is impossible to criticize his works without entering on this

great question to which he chiefly devoted himself. The two remaining

doctrines to be here discussed, bear directly on this question; and, as

above said, we propose to treat them in connection with Hugh Miller's name,

because, throughout his reasonings, he assumes their truth. Let it not be

supposed, however, that we shall aim to prove what he has aimed to

disprove. While we purpose showing that his arguments against the

Development Hypothesis are based on invalid assumptions; we do not purpose

showing that the opposing arguments are based on valid assumptions. We hope

to make it apparent that the geological evidence at present obtained, is

insufficient for either side; further, that there seems little probability

of sufficient evidence ever being obtained; and that if the question is

eventually decided, it must be decided on other than geological data.

* * * * *

The first of the current doctrines to which we have just referred, is, that

there occur in the records of former life on our planet, certain great

blanks--that though, generally, the succession of fossil forms is tolerably

continuous, yet that at two places there occur wide gaps in the series

whence it is inferred that, on at least two occasions, the previously

existing inhabitants of the Earth were almost wholly destroyed, and a

different class of inhabitants created. Comparing the general life on the

Earth to a thread, Hugh Miller says:--

"It is continuous from the present time up to the commencement of

the Tertiary period; and then so abrupt a break occurs, that, with

the exception of the microscopic diatomaceae to which I last evening

referred, and of one shell and one coral, not a single species

crossed the gap. On its further or remoter side, however, where the

Secondary division closes, the intermingling of species again begins,

and runs on till the commencement of this great Secondary division;

and then, just where the Palaeozoic division closes, we find another

abrupt break, crossed, if crossed at all,--for there still exists

some doubt on the subject,--by but two species of plant."

These breaks are considered to imply actual new creations on the surface of

our planet; not only by Hugh Miller, but by the majority of geologists. And

the terms Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic, are used to indicate these

three successive systems of life. It is true that some accept this belief

with caution: knowing how geologic research has been all along tending to

fill up what were once thought wide breaks. Sir Charles Lyell points out

that "the hiatus which exists in Great Britain between the fossils of the

Lias and those of the Magnesian Limestone, is supplied in Germany by the

rich fauna and flora of the Muschelkalk, Keuper, and Bunter Sandstein,

which we know to be of a date precisely intermediate." Again he remarks

that "until lately the fossils of the coal-measures were separated from

those of the antecedent Silurian group by a very abrupt and decided line of

demarcation; but recent discoveries have brought to light in Devonshire,

Belgium, the Eifel, and Westphalia, the remains of a fauna of an

intervening period." And once more, "we have also in like manner had some

success of late years in diminishing the hiatus which still separates the

Cretaceous and Eocene periods in Europe." To which let us add that since

Hugh Miller penned the passage above quoted, the second of the great gaps

he refers to has been very considerably narrowed by the discovery of strata

containing Palaeozoic genera and Mesozoic genera intermingled. Nevertheless,

the occurrence of two great revolutions in the Earth's Flora and Fauna

appears still to be held by many; and geologic nomenclature habitually

assumes it.

Before seeking a solution of these phenomena, let us glance at the several

minor causes that produce breaks in the geological succession of organic

forms: taking first, the more general ones which modify climate, and,

therefore, the distribution of life. Among these may be noted one which has

not, we believe, been named by writers on the subject. We mean that

resulting from a certain slow astronomic rhythm, by which the northern and

southern hemispheres are alternately subject to greater extremes of

temperature. In consequence of the slight ellipticity of its orbit, the

Earth's distance from the sun varies to the extent of some 3,000,000 of

miles. At present, the aphelion occurs at the time of our northern summer;

and the perihelion during the summer of the southern hemisphere. In

consequence, however, of that slow movement of the Earth's axis which

produces the precession of the equinoxes, this state of things will in time

be reversed: the Earth will be nearest to the sun during the summer of the

northern hemisphere, and furthest from it during the southern summer or

northern winter. The period required to complete the slow movement

producing these changes, is nearly 26,000 years; and were there no

modifying process, the two hemispheres would alternately experience this

coincidence of summer with the least distance from the sun, during a period

of 13,000 years. But there is also a still slower change in the direction

of the axis major of the Earth's orbit; from which it results that the

alternation we have described is completed in about 21,000 years. That is

to say, if at a given time the Earth is nearest to the sun at our

mid-summer, and furthest from the sun at our mid-winter: then, in 10,500

years afterwards, it will be furthest from the sun at our mid-summer, and

nearest at our mid-winter.

Now the difference between the distances from the sun at the two extremes

of this alternation, amounts to one-thirtieth; and hence, the difference

between the quantities of heat received from the sun on a summer's day

under these opposite conditions amounts to one-fifteenth. Estimating this,

not with reference to the zero of our thermometers, but with reference to

the temperature of the celestial spaces, Sir John Herschel calculates "23 deg.

Fahrenheit as the least variation of temperature under such circumstances

which can reasonably be attributed to the actual variation of the sun's

distance." Thus, then, each hemisphere has at a certain epoch, a short

summer of extreme heat, followed by a long and very cold winter. Through

the slow change in the direction of the Earth's axis, these extremes are

gradually mitigated. And at the end of 10,500 years, there is reached the

opposite state--a long and moderate summer, with a short and mild winter.

At present, in consequence of the predominance of sea in the southern

hemisphere, the extremes to which its astronomical conditions subject it,

are much ameliorated; while the great proportion of land in the northern

hemisphere, tends to exaggerate such contrast as now exists in it between

winter and summer: whence it results that the climates of the two

hemispheres are not widely unlike. But 10,000 years hence, the northern

hemisphere will undergo annual variations of temperature far more marked

than now.

In the last edition of his _Outlines of Astronomy_, Sir John Herschel

recognizes this as an element in geological processes: regarding it as

possibly a part-cause of those climatic changes indicated by the records of

the Earth's past. That it has had much to do with the larger changes of

climate of which we have evidence, seems unlikely, since there is reason to

think that these have been far slower and more lasting; but that it must

have entailed a rhythmical exaggeration and mitigation of the climates

otherwise produced, seems beyond question. And it seems also beyond

question that there must have been a consequent rhythmical change in the

distribution of organisms--a rhythmical change to which we here wish to

draw attention, as one cause of minor breaks in the succession of fossil

remains. Each species of plant and animal, has certain limits of heat and

cold within which only it can exist; and these limits in a great degree

determine its geographical position. It will not spread north of a certain

latitude, because it cannot bear a more northern winter, nor south of a

certain latitude, because the summer heat is too great; or else it is

indirectly restrained from spreading further by the effect of temperature

on the humidity of the air, or on the distribution of the organisms it

lives upon.

But now, what will result from a slow alteration of climate, produced as

above described? Supposing the period we set out from is that in which the

contrast of seasons is least marked, it is manifest that during the

progress towards the period of the most violent contrast, each species of

plant and animal will gradually change its limits of distribution--will be

driven back, here by the winter's increasing cold, and there by the

summer's increasing heat--will retire into those localities that are still

fit for it. Thus during 10,000 years, each species will ebb away from

certain regions it was inhabiting; and during the succeeding 10,000 years

will flow back into those regions. From the strata there forming, its

remains will disappear; they will be absent from some of the supposed

strata; and will be found in strata higher up. But in what shapes will they

re-appear? Exposed during the 21,000 years of their slow recession and

their slow return, to changing conditions of life, they are likely to have

undergone modifications; and will probably re-appear with slight

differences of constitution and perhaps of form--will be new varieties or

perhaps new sub-species.

To this cause of minor breaks in the succession of organic forms--a cause

on which we have dwelt because it has not been taken into account--we must

add sundry others. Besides these periodically-recurring alterations of

climate, there are the irregular ones produced by re-distributions of land

and sea; and these, sometimes less, sometimes greater, in degree, than the

rhythmical changes, must, like them, cause in each region the ebb and flow

of species; and consequent breaks, small or large as the case may be, in

the palaeontological series. Other and more special geological changes must

produce other and more local blanks in the succession of fossils. By some

inland elevation the natural drainage of a continent is modified; and

instead of the sediment it previously brought down to the sea, a great

river begins to bring down sediment unfavourable to various plants and

animals living in its delta: wherefore these disappear from the locality,

perhaps to re-appear in a changed form after a long epoch. Upheavals or

subsidences of shores or sea-bottoms, involving deviations of marine

currents, must remove the habitats of many species to which such currents

are salutary or injurious; and further, this re-distribution of currents

must alter the places of sedimentary deposits, and so stop the burying of

organic remains in some localities, and commence it in others. Had we

space, many more such causes of blanks in our palaeontological records might

be added. But it is needless here to enumerate them. They are admirably

explained and illustrated in Sir Charles Lyell's _Principles of Geology_.

Now, if these minor revolutions of the Earth's surface produce minor breaks

in the series of fossilized remains; must not great revolutions produce

great breaks? If a local upheaval or subsidence causes throughout its small

area the absence of some links in the chain of fossil forms; does it not

follow that an upheaval or subsidence extending over a large part of the

Earth's surface, must cause the absence of a great number of such links

throughout a very wide area?

When during a long epoch a continent, slowly subsiding, gives place to a

far-spreading ocean some miles in depth, at the bottom of which no deposits

from rivers or abraded shores can be thrown down; and when, after some

enormous period, this ocean-bottom is gradually elevated and becomes the

site of new strata; it is clear that the fossils contained in these new

strata are likely to have but little in common with the fossils of the

strata below them. Take, in illustration, the case of the North Atlantic.

We have already named the fact that between this country and the United

States, the ocean-bottom is being covered with a deposit of chalk--a

deposit that has been forming, probably, ever since there occurred that

great depression of the Earth's crust from which the Atlantic resulted in

remote geologic times. This chalk consists of the minute shells of

Foraminifera, sprinkled with remains of small Entomostraca, and probably a

few Pteropod-shells: though the sounding lines have not yet brought up any

of these last. Thus, in so far as all high forms of life are concerned,

this new chalk-formation must be a blank. At rare intervals, perhaps, a

polar bear drifted on an iceberg, may have its bones scattered over the

bed; or a dead, decaying whale may similarly leave traces. But such remains

must be so rare, that this new chalk-formation, if visible, might be

examined for a century before any of them were disclosed. If now, some

millions of years hence, the Atlantic-bed should be raised, and estuary or

shore deposits laid upon it, these deposits would contain remains of a

Flora and Fauna so distinct from everything below them, as to appear like a

new creation.

Thus, along with continuity of life on the Earth's surface, there not only

_may_ be, but there _must_ be, great gaps, in the series of fossils; and

hence these gaps are no evidence against the doctrine of Evolution.

* * * * *

One other current assumption remains to be criticized; and it is the one on

which, more than on any other, depends the view taken respecting the

question of development.

From the beginning of the controversy, the arguments for and against have

turned upon the evidence of progression in organic forms, found in the

ascending series of our sedimentary formations. On the one hand, those who

contend that higher organisms have been evolved out of lower, joined with

those who contend that successively higher organisms have been created at

successively later periods, appeal for proof to the facts of Palaeontology;

which, they say, countenance their views. On the other hand, the

Uniformitarians, who not only reject the hypothesis of development, but

deny that the modern forms of life are higher than the ancient ones, reply

that the Palaeontological evidence is at present very incomplete; that

though we have not yet found remains of highly-organized creatures in

strata of the greatest antiquity, we must not assume that no such creatures

existed when those strata were deposited; and that, probably, geological

research will eventually disclose them.

It must be admitted that thus far, the evidence has gone in favour of the

latter party. Geological discovery has year after year shown the small

value of negative facts. The conviction that there are no traces of higher

organisms in earlier strata, has resulted not from the absence of such

remains, but from incomplete examination. At p. 460 of his _Manual of

Elementary Geology_, Sir Charles Lyell gives a list in illustration of

this. It appears that in 1709, fishes were not known lower than the Permian

system. In 1793 they were found in the subjacent Carboniferous system; in

1828 in the Devonian; in 1840 in the Upper Silurian. Of reptiles, we read

that in 1710 the lowest known were in the Permian; in 1844 they were

detected in the Carboniferous; and in 1852 in the Upper Devonian. While of

the Mammalia the list shows that in 1798 none had been discovered below the

middle Eocene; but that in 1818 they were discovered in the Lower Oolite;

and in 1847 in the Upper Trias.

The fact is, however, that both parties set out with an inadmissible

postulate. Of the Uniformitarians, not only such writers as Hugh Miller,

but also such as Sir Charles Lyell,[T] reason as though we had found the

earliest, or something like the earliest, strata. Their antagonists,

whether defenders of the Development Hypothesis or simply Progressionists,

almost uniformly do the like. Sir R. Murchison, who is a Progressionist,

calls the lowest fossiliferous strata, "Protozoic." Prof. Ansted uses the

same term. Whether avowedly or not, all the disputants stand on this

assumption as their common ground.

[T] Sir Charles Lyell is no longer to be classed among

Uniformitarians. With rare and admirable candour he has, since

this was written, yielded to the arguments of Mr. Darwin.

Yet is this assumption indefensible, as some who make it very well know.

Facts may be cited against it which show that it is a more than

questionable one--that it is a highly improbable one; while the evidence

assigned in its favour will not bear criticism.

Because in Bohemia, Great Britain, and portions of North America, the

lowest unmetamorphosed strata yet discovered, contain but slight traces of

life, Sir R. Murchison conceives that they were formed while yet few, if

any, plants or animals had been created; and, therefore, classes them as

"Azoic." His own pages, however, show the illegitimacy of the conclusion

that there existed at that period no considerable amount of life. Such

traces of life as have been found in the Longmynd rocks, for many years

considered unfossiliferous, have been found in some of the lowest beds; and

the twenty thousand feet of superposed beds, still yield no organic

remains. If now these superposed strata throughout a depth of four miles,

are without fossils, though the strata over which they lie prove that life

had commenced; what becomes of Sir R. Murchison's inference? At page 189 of

_Siluria_, a still more conclusive fact will be found. The "Glengariff

grits," and other accompanying strata there described as 13,500 feet thick,

contain no signs of contemporaneous life. Yet Sir R. Murchison refers them

to the Devonian period--a period that had a large and varied marine Fauna.

How then, from the absence of fossils in the Longmynd beds and their

equivalents, can we conclude that the Earth was "azoic" when they were

formed?

"But," it may be asked, "if living creatures then existed, why do we not

find fossiliferous strata of that age, or an earlier age?" One reply is,

that the non-existence of such strata is but a negative fact--we have not

found them. And considering how little we know even of the two-fifths of

the Earth's surface now above the sea, and how absolutely ignorant we are

of the three-fifths below the sea, it is rash to say that no such strata

exist. But the chief reply is, that these records of the Earth's earlier

history have been in great part destroyed, by agencies that are ever

tending to destroy such records.

It is an established geological doctrine, that sedimentary strata are

liable to be changed, more or less completely, by igneous action. The rocks

originally classed as "transition," because they were intermediate in

character between the igneous rocks found below them, and the sedimentary

strata found above them, are now known to be nothing else than sedimentary

strata altered in texture and appearance by the intense heat of adjacent

molten matter; and hence are renamed "metamorphic rocks." Modern researches

have shown, too, that these metamorphic rocks are not, as was once

supposed, all of the same age. Besides primary and secondary strata that

have been transformed by igneous action, there are similarly-changed

deposits of tertiary origin; and that, even for a quarter of a mile from

the point of contact with neighbouring granite. By this process fossils are

of course destroyed. "In some cases," says Sir Charles Lyell, "dark

limestones, replete with shells and corals, have been turned into white

statuary marble, and hard clays, containing vegetable or other remains,

into slates called mica-schist or hornblende-schist; every vestige of the

organic bodies having been obliterated."

Again, it is fast becoming an acknowledged truth, that igneous rock, of

whatever kind, is the product of sedimentary strata that have been

completely melted. Granite and gneiss, which are of like chemical

composition, have been shown, in various cases, to pass one into the other:

as at Valorsine, near Mont Blanc, where the two, in contact, are observed

to "both undergo a modification of mineral character. The granite still

remaining unstratified, becomes charged with green particles; and the

talcose gneiss assumes a granitiform structure without losing its

stratification." In the Aberdeen-granite, lumps of unmelted gneiss are

frequently found; and we can ourselves bear witness that on the banks of

Loch Sunart, there is ample proof that the granite of that region, when it

was molten, contained incompletely-fused clots of sedimentary strata. Nor

is this all. Fifty years ago, it was thought that all granitic rocks were

primitive, or existed before any sedimentary strata; but it is now "no easy

task to point out a single mass of granite demonstrably more ancient than

all the known fossiliferous deposits."

In brief, accumulated evidence clearly shows, that by contact with, or

proximity to, the molten matter of the Earth's nucleus, all beds of

sediment are liable to be actually melted, or partially fused, or so heated

as to agglutinate their particles; and that according to the temperature

they have been raised to, and the circumstances under which they cool, they

assume the forms of granite, porphyry, trap, gneiss, or rock otherwise

altered. Further, it is manifest that though strata of various ages have

been thus changed, yet that the most ancient strata have been so changed to

the greatest extent: both because they have habitually lain nearer to the

centre of igneous agency; and because they have been for a longer period

liable to the effects of this agency. Whence it follows, that sedimentary

strata passing a certain antiquity, are unlikely to be found in an

unmetamorphosed state; and that strata much earlier than those are certain

to have been melted up. Thus if, throughout a past of indefinite duration,

there had been at work those aqueous and igneous agencies which we see

still at work, the state of the Earth's crust might be just what we find

it. We have no evidence which puts a limit to the period throughout which

this formation and destruction of strata has been going on. For aught the

facts prove, it may have been going on for ten times the period measured by

our whole series of sedimentary deposits.

Besides having, in the present appearances of the Earth's crust, no data

for fixing a commencement to these processes--besides finding that the

evidence permits us to assume such commencement to have been inconceivably

remote, as compared even with the vast eras of geology; we are not without

positive grounds for inferring the inconceivable remoteness of such

commencement. Modern geology has established truths which are

irreconcilable with the belief that the formation and destruction of strata

began when the Cambrian rocks were formed; or at anything like so recent a

time. One fact from _Siluria_ will suffice. Sir R. Murchison estimates the

vertical thickness of Silurian strata in Wales, at from 26,000 to 27,000

feet, or about five miles; and if to this we add the vertical depth of the

Cambrian strata, on which the Silurians lie conformably, there results, on

the lowest computation, a total depth of seven miles.

Now it is held by geologists, that this vast accumulation of strata must

have been deposited in an area of gradual subsidence. These strata could

not have been thus laid on each other in regular order, unless the Earth's

crust had been at that place sinking, either continuously or by very small

steps. Such an immense subsidence, however, must have been impossible

without a crust of great thickness. The Earth's molten nucleus tends ever,

with enormous force, to assume the form of a regular oblate spheroid. Any

depression of its crust below the surface of equilibrium, and any elevation

of its crust above that surface, have to withstand immense resistance. It

follows inevitably that, with a thin crust, nothing but small elevations

and subsidences would be possible; and that, conversely, a subsidence of

seven miles implies a crust of comparatively great strength, or, in other

words, of great thickness. Indeed, if we compare this inferred subsidence

in the Silurian period, with such elevations and depressions as our

existing continents and oceans display, we see no evidence that the Earth's

crust was appreciably thinner then than now. What are the implications? If,

as geologists generally admit, the Earth's crust has resulted from that

slow cooling which is even still going on--if we see no sign that at the

time when the earliest Cambrian strata were formed, this crust was

appreciably thinner than now; we are forced to conclude that the era during

which it acquired that great thickness possessed in the Cambrian period,

was enormous as compared with the interval between the Cambrian period and

our own. But during the incalculable series of epochs thus inferred, there

existed an ocean, tides, winds, waves, rain, rivers. The agencies by which

the denudation of continents and filling up of seas have all along been

carried on, were as active then as now. Endless successions of strata must

have been formed. And when we ask--Where are they? Nature's obvious reply

is--They have been destroyed by that igneous action to which so great a

part of our oldest-known strata owe their fusion or metamorphosis.

Only the last chapter of the Earth's history has come down to us. The many

previous chapters, stretching back to a time immeasurably remote, have been

burnt; and with them all the records of life we may presume they contained.

The greater part of the evidence which might have served to settle the

Development-controversy, is for ever lost; and on neither side can the

arguments derived from Geology be conclusive.

"But how happen there to be such evidences of progression as exist?" it may

be asked. "How happens it that, in ascending from the most ancient strata

to the most recent strata, we do find a succession of organic forms, which,

however irregularly, carries us from lower to higher?" This question seems

difficult to answer. Nevertheless, there is reason for thinking that

nothing can be safely inferred from the apparent progression here cited.

And the illustration which shows as much, will, we believe, also show how

little trust is to be placed in certain geological generalizations that

appear to be well established. With this somewhat elaborate illustration,

to which we now pass, our criticisms may fitly conclude.

Let us suppose that in a region now covered by wide ocean, there begins one

of those great and gradual upheavals by which new continents are formed. To

be precise, let us say that in the South Pacific, midway between New

Zealand and Patagonia, the sea-bottom has been little by little thrust up

towards the surface, and is about to emerge. What will be the successive

phenomena, geological and biological, which are likely to occur before this

emerging sea-bottom has become another Europe or Asia?

In the first place, such portions of the incipient land as are raised to

the level of the waves, will be rapidly denuded by them: their soft

substance will be torn up by the breakers, carried away by the local

currents, and deposited in neighbouring deeper water. Successive small

upheavals will bring new and larger areas within reach of the waves; fresh

portions will each time be removed from the surfaces previously denuded;

and further, some of the newly-formed strata, being elevated nearly to the

level of the water, will be washed away and re-deposited. In course of

time, the harder formations of the upraised sea-bottom will be uncovered.

These being less easily destroyed, will remain permanently above the

surface; and at their margins will arise the usual breaking down of rocks

into beach-sand and pebbles. While in the slow process of this elevation,

going on at the rate of perhaps two or three feet in a century, most of the

sedimentary deposits produced will be again and again destroyed and

reformed; there will, in those adjacent areas of subsidence which accompany

areas of elevation, be more or less continuous successions of sedimentary

deposits.

And now what will be the character of these new strata? They will

necessarily contain scarcely any traces of life. The deposits that had

previously been slowly formed at the bottom of this wide ocean, would be

sprinkled with fossils of but few species. The oceanic Fauna is not a rich

one; its hydrozoa do not admit of preservation; and the hard parts of its

few kinds of molluscs and crustaceans and insects are mostly fragile.

Hence, when the ocean-bed was here and there raised to the surface--when

its strata of sediment with their contained organic fragments were torn up

and long washed about by the breakers before being re-deposited--when the

re-deposits were again and again subject to this violent abrading action by

subsequent small elevations, as they would mostly be; what few fragile

organic remains they contained, would be in nearly all cases destroyed.

Thus such of the first-formed strata as survived the repeated changes of

level, would be practically "azoic;" like the Cambrian of our geologists.

When by the washing away of the soft deposits, the hard sub-strata had been

exposed in the shape of rocky islets, and a footing had thus been

furnished, the pioneers of a new life might be expected to make their

appearance. What would they be? Not any of the surrounding oceanic species,

for these are not fitted for a littoral life; but species flourishing on

some of the far-distant shores of the Pacific. Of such the first to

establish themselves would be sea-weeds and zoophytes; both because their

swarming spores and gemmules would be the most readily conveyed with

safety, and because when conveyed they would find fit food. It is true that

Cirrhipeds and Lamellibranchs, subsisting on the minute creatures which

everywhere people the sea, would also find fit food.

But passing over the fact that the germs of such higher forms are neither

so abundant nor so well fitted to bear long voyages, there is the more

important fact that the individuals arising from these germs can reproduce

only sexually, and that this vastly increases the obstacles to the

establishment of their races. The chances of early colonization are

immensely in favour of species which, multiplying by agamogenesis, can

people a whole shore from a single germ; and immensely against species

which, multiplying only by gamogenesis, must be introduced in considerable

numbers that some may survive, meet, and propagate. Thus we infer that the

earliest traces of life left in the sedimentary deposits near these new

shores, will be traces of life as humble as that indicated in the most

ancient rocks of Great Britain and Ireland. Imagine now that the processes

we have briefly indicated, continue--that the emerging lands become wider

in extent, and fringed by higher and more varied shores; and that there

still go on those ocean-currents which, at long intervals, convey from far

distant shores immigrant forms of life. What will result? Lapse of time

will of course favour the introduction of such new forms: admitting, as it

must, of those combinations of fit conditions, which, under the law of

probabilities, can occur only at very distant intervals. Moreover, the

increasing area of the islands, individually and as a group, implies

increasing length of coast; from which there follows a longer line of

contact with the streams and waves that bring drifting masses; and,

therefore, a greater chance that germs of fresh life will be stranded.

And once more, the comparatively-varied shores, presenting physical

conditions that change from mile to mile, will furnish suitable habitats

for more numerous species. So that as the elevation proceeds, three causes

conspire to introduce additional marine plants and animals. To what classes

will the increasing Fauna be for a long period confined? Of course, to

classes of which individuals, or their germs, are most liable to be carried

far away from their native shores by floating sea-weed or drift-wood; to

classes which are also least likely to perish in transit, or from change of

climate; and to those which can best subsist around coasts comparatively

bare of life. Evidently, then, corals, annelids, inferior molluscs, and

crustaceans of low grade, will chiefly constitute the early Fauna. The

large predatory members of these classes, will be later in establishing

themselves; both because the new shores must first become well peopled by

the creatures they prey on, and because, being more complex, they or their

ova must be less likely to survive the journey, and the change of

conditions.

We may infer, then, that the strata deposited next after the almost "azoic"

strata, would contain the remains of invertebrata, allied to those found

near the shores of Australia and South America. Of such invertebrate

remains, the lower beds would furnish comparatively few genera, and those

of relatively low types; while in the upper beds the number of genera would

be greater, and the types higher: just as among the fossils of our Silurian

system. As this great geologic change slowly progressed through its long

history of earthquakes, volcanic disturbances, minor upheavals and

subsidences--as the extent of the archipelago became greater and its

smaller islands coalesced into larger ones, while its coast line grew still

longer and more varied, and the neighbouring sea more thickly inhabited by

inferior forms of life; the lowest division of the vertebrata would begin

to be represented. In order of time, fish would naturally come after the

lower invertebrata: both as being less likely to have their ova transported

across the waste of waters, and as requiring for their subsistence a

pre-existing Fauna of some development. They might be expected to make

their appearance along with the predaceous crustaceans; as they do in the

uppermost Silurian rocks.

And here, too, let us remark, that as, during this long epoch we have been

describing, the sea would have made great inroads on some of the newly

raised lands that had remained stationary; and would probably in some

places have reached masses of igneous or metamorphic rocks; there might, in

course of time, arise by the decomposition and denudation of such rocks,

local deposits coloured with oxide of iron, like our Old Red Sandstone. And

in these deposits might be buried the remains of the fish then peopling the

neighbouring sea.

Meanwhile, how would the surfaces of the upheaved masses be occupied? At

first their deserts of naked rocks and pebbles would bear only the humblest

forms of vegetal life, such as we find in grey and orange patches on our

own rugged mountain sides; for these alone could flourish on such surfaces,

and their spores would be the most readily transported. When, by the decay

of such protophytes, and that decomposition of rock effected by them, there

had resulted a fit habitat for mosses; these, of which the germs might be

conveyed in drifted trees, would begin to spread. A soil having been

eventually thus produced, it would become possible for plants of higher

organization to find roothold; and as in the way we have described the

archipelago and its constituent islands grew larger, and had more

multiplied relations with winds and waters, such higher plants might be

expected ultimately to have their seeds transferred from the nearest lands.

After something like a Flora had thus colonized the surface, it would

become possible for insects to exist; and of air-breathing creatures,

insects would manifestly be among the first to find their way from

elsewhere.

As, however, terrestrial organisms, both vegetal and animal, are much less

likely than marine organisms to survive the accidents of transport from

distant shores; it is clear that long after the sea surrounding these new

lands had acquired a varied Flora and Fauna, the lands themselves would

still be comparatively bare; and thus that the early strata, like our

Silurians, would afford no traces of terrestrial life. By the time that

large areas had been raised above the ocean, we may fairly suppose a

luxuriant vegetation to have been acquired. Under what circumstances are we

likely to find this vegetation fossilized? Large surfaces of land imply

large rivers with their accompanying deltas; and are liable to have lakes

and swamps. These, as we know from extant cases, are favourable to rank

vegetation; and afford the conditions needful for preserving it in the

shape of coal-beds. Observe, then, that while in the early history of such

a continent a carboniferous period could not occur, the occurrence of a

carboniferous period would become probable after long-continued upheavals

had uncovered large areas. As in our own sedimentary series, coal-beds

would make their appearance only after there had been enormous

accumulations of earlier strata charged with marine fossils.

Let us ask next, in what order the higher forms of animal life would make

their appearance. We have seen how, in the succession of marine forms,

there would be something like a progress from the lower to the higher:

bringing us in the end to predaceous molluscs, crustaceans, and fish. What

are likely to succeed fish? After marine creatures, those which would have

the greatest chance of surviving the voyage would be amphibious reptiles:

both because they are more tenacious of life than higher animals, and

because they would be less completely out of their element. Such reptiles

as can live in both fresh and salt water, like alligators; and such as are

drifted out of the mouths of great rivers on floating trees, as Humboldt

says the Orinoco alligators are; might be early colonists.

It is manifest, too, that reptiles of other kinds would be among the first

vertebrata to people the new continent. If we consider what will occur on

one of those natural rafts of trees, soil, and matted vegetable matter,

sometimes swept out to sea by such currents as the Mississippi, with a

miscellaneous living cargo; we shall see that while the active,

hot-blooded, highly-organized creatures will soon die of starvation and

exposure, the inert, cold-blooded ones, which can go long without food,

will live perhaps for weeks; and so, out of the chances from time to time

occurring during long periods, reptiles will be the first to get safely

landed on foreign shores: as indeed they are even now known sometimes to

be. The transport of mammalia being comparatively precarious, must, in the

order of probability, be longer postponed; and would, indeed, be unlikely

to occur until by the enlargement of the new continent, the distances of

its shores from adjacent lands had been greatly diminished, or the

formation of intervening islands had increased the chances of survival.

Assuming, however, that the facilities of immigration had become adequate;

which would be the first mammals to arrive and live? Not large herbivores;

for they would be soon drowned if by any accident carried out to sea. Not

the carnivora; for these would lack appropriate food, even if they outlived

the voyage. Small quadrupeds frequenting trees, and feeding on insects,

would be those most likely both to be drifted away from their native lands

and to find fit food in a new one. Insectivorous mammals, like in size to

those found in the Trias and the Stonesfield slate, might naturally be

looked for as the pioneers of the higher vertebrata. And if we suppose the

facilities of communication to be again increased, either by a further

shallowing of the intervening sea and a consequent multiplication of

islands, or by an actual junction of the new continent with an old one,

through continued upheavals; we should finally have an influx of the larger

and more perfect mammals.

Now rude as is this sketch of a process that would be extremely elaborate

and involved, and open as some of its propositions are to criticisms which

there is no space here to meet; no one will deny that it represents

something like the biologic history of the supposed new continent. Details

apart, it is manifest that simple organisms, able to flourish under simple

conditions of life, would be the first successful immigrants; and that more

complex organisms, needing for their existence the fulfilment of more

complex conditions, would afterwards establish themselves in something like

an ascending succession. At the one extreme we see every facility. The new

individuals can be conveyed in the shape of minute germs; these are

infinite in their numbers; they are diffused in the sea; they are

perpetually being carried in all directions to great distances by

ocean-currents; they can survive such long journeys unharmed; they can find

nutriment wherever they arrive; and the resulting organisms can multiply

asexually with great rapidity.

At the other extreme, we see every difficulty. The new individuals must be

conveyed in their adult forms; their numbers are, in comparison, utterly

insignificant; they live on land, and are very unlikely to be carried out

to sea; when so carried, the chances are immense against their escape from

drowning, starvation, or death by cold; if they survive the transit, they

must have a pre-existing Flora or Fauna to supply their special food; they

require, also, the fulfilment of various other physical conditions; and

unless at least two individuals of different sexes are safely landed, the

race cannot be established. Manifestly, then, the immigration of each

successively higher order of organisms, having, from one or other

additional condition to be fulfilled, an enormously-increased probability

against it, would naturally be separated from the immigration of a lower

order by some period like a geologic epoch.

And thus the successive sedimentary deposits formed while this new

continent was undergoing gradual elevation, would seem to furnish clear

evidence of a general progress in the forms of life. That lands thus raised

up in the midst of a wide ocean, would first give origin to unfossiliferous

strata; next, to strata containing only the lowest marine forms; next, to

strata containing higher marine forms, ascending finally to fish; and that

the strata above these would contain reptiles, then small mammals, then

great mammals; seems to us to be demonstrable from the known laws of

organic life.

And if the succession of fossils presented by the strata of this supposed

new continent, would thus simulate the succession presented by our own

sedimentary series; must we not say that our own sedimentary series very

possibly records nothing more than the phenomena accompanying one of these

great upheavals? We think this must be considered not only possible, but

highly probable: harmonizing as it does with the unavoidable conclusion

before pointed out, that geological changes must have been going on for a

period immeasurably greater than that of which we have records. And if the

probability of this conclusion be admitted, it must be admitted that the

facts of Palaeontology can never suffice either to prove or disprove the

Development Hypothesis; but that the most they can do is, to show whether

the last few pages of the Earth's biologic history are or are not in

harmony with this hypothesis--whether the existing Flora and Fauna can or

can not be affiliated upon the Flora and Fauna of the most recent geologic

times.

IX. THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS.

In a debate upon the development hypothesis, lately narrated to me by a

friend, one of the disputants was described as arguing, that as, in all our

experience, we know no such phenomenon as transmutation of species, it is

unphilosophical to assume that transmutation of species ever takes place.

Had I been present, I think that, passing over his assertion, which is open

to criticism, I should have replied that, as in all our experience we have

never known a species _created_, it was, by his own showing,

unphilosophical to assume that any species ever had been created.

Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately

supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported

by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given

belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but

assume that their own needs none. Here we find, scattered over the globe,

vegetable and animal organisms numbering, of the one kind (according to

Humboldt), some 320,000 species, and of the other, some 2,000,000 species

(see Carpenter); and if to these we add the numbers of animal and vegetable

species that have become extinct, we may safely estimate the number of

species that have existed, and are existing, on the Earth, at not less than

_ten millions_. Well, which is the most rational theory about these ten

millions of species? Is it most likely that there have been ten millions of

special creations? or is it most likely that by continual modifications,

due to change of circumstances, ten millions of varieties have been

produced, as varieties are being produced still?

Doubtless many will reply that they can more easily conceive ten millions

of special creations to have taken place, than they can conceive that ten

millions of varieties have arisen by successive modifications. All such,

however, will find, on inquiry, that they are under an illusion. This is

one of the many cases in which men do not really believe, but rather

_believe they believe_. It is not that they can truly conceive ten millions

of special creations to have taken place, but that they _think they can do

so_. Careful introspection will show them that they have never yet realized

to themselves the creation of even _one_ species. If they have formed a

definite conception of the process, let them tell us how a new species is

constructed, and how it makes its appearance. Is it thrown down from the

clouds? or must we hold to the notion that it struggles up out of the

ground? Do its limbs and viscera rush together from all the points of the

compass? or must we receive the old Hebrew idea, that God takes clay and

moulds a new creature? If they say that a new creature is produced in none

of these modes, which are too absurd to be believed; then they are required

to describe the mode in which a new creature _may_ be produced--a mode

which does _not_ seem absurd: and such a mode they will find that they

neither have conceived nor can conceive.

Should the believers in special creations consider it unfair thus to call

upon them to describe how special creations take place, I reply, that this

is far less than they demand from the supporters of the Development

Hypothesis. They are merely asked to point out a _conceivable_ mode. On the

other hand, they ask, not simply for a _conceivable_ mode, but for the

_actual_ mode. They do not say--Show us how this _may_ take place; but they

say--Show us how this _does_ take place. So far from its being unreasonable

to put the above question, it would be reasonable to ask not only for a

_possible_ mode of special creation, but for an _ascertained_ mode; seeing

that this is no greater a demand than they make upon their opponents.

And here we may perceive how much more defensible the new doctrine is than

the old one. Even could the supporters of the Development Hypothesis merely

show that the origination of species by the process of modification is

conceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents. But

they can do much more than this. They can show that the process of

modification has effected, and is effecting, decided changes in all

organisms subject to modifying influences. Though, from the impossibility

of getting at a sufficiency of facts, they are unable to trace the many

phases through which any existing species has passed in arriving at its

present form, or to identify the influences which caused the successive

modifications; yet, they can show that any existing species--animal or

vegetable--when placed under conditions different from its previous ones,

_immediately begins to undergo certain changes of structure fitting it for

the new conditions_. They can show that in successive generations these

changes continue, until ultimately the new conditions become the natural

ones. They can show that in cultivated plants, in domesticated animals, and

in the several races of men, such alterations have taken place. They can

show that the degrees of difference so produced are often, as in dogs,

greater than those on which distinctions of species are in other cases

founded. They can show that it is a matter of dispute whether some of these

modified forms _are_ varieties or separate species. They can show, too,

that the changes daily taking place in ourselves--the facility that attends

long practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice

ceases--the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the

weakening of those habitually curbed--the development of every faculty,

bodily, moral, or intellectual, according to the use made of it--are all

explicable on this same principle. And thus they can show that throughout

all organic nature there _is_ at work a modifying influence of the kind

they assign as the cause of these specific differences: an influence which,

though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circumstances demand it,

produce marked changes--an influence which, to all appearance, would

produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of

condition which geological records imply, any amount of change.

Which, then, is the most rational hypothesis?--that of special creations

which has neither a fact to support it nor is even definitely conceivable;

or that of modification, which is not only definitely conceivable, but is

countenanced by the habitudes of every existing organism?

That by any series of changes a protozoon should ever become a mammal,

seems to those who are not familiar with zoology, and who have not seen how

clear becomes the relationship between the simplest and the most complex

forms when intermediate forms are examined, a very grotesque notion.

Habitually looking at things rather in their statical than in their

dynamical aspect, they never realize the fact that, by small increments of

modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated. That

surprise which they feel on finding one whom they last saw as a boy, grown

into a man, becomes incredulity when the degree of change is greater.

Nevertheless, abundant instances are at hand of the mode in which we may

pass to the most diverse forms, by insensible gradations. Arguing the

matter some time since with a learned professor, I illustrated my position

thus:--You admit that there is no apparent relationship between a circle

and an hyperbola. The one is a finite curve; the other is an infinite one.

All parts of the one are alike; of the other no two parts are alike. The

one incloses a space; the other will not inclose a space though produced

for ever. Yet opposite as are these curves in all their properties, they

may be connected together by a series of intermediate curves, no one of

which differs from the adjacent ones in any appreciable degree. Thus, if a

cone be cut by a plane at right angles to its axis we get a circle. If,

instead of being perfectly at right angles, the plane subtends with the

axis an angle of 89 deg. 59', we have an ellipse, which no human eye, even when

aided by an accurate pair of compasses, can distinguish from a circle.

Decreasing the angle minute by minute, the ellipse becomes first

perceptibly eccentric, then manifestly so, and by and by acquires so

immensely elongated a form, as to bear no recognisable resemblance to a

circle. By continuing this process, the ellipse passes insensibly into a

parabola; and ultimately, by still further diminishing the angle, into an

hyperbola. Now here we have four different species of curve--circle,

ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola--each having its peculiar properties and

its separate equation, and the first and last of which are quite opposite

in nature, connected together as members of one series, all producible by a

single process of insensible modification.

But the blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex

organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple

ones, becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are

daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably in every

respect--in bulk, in structure, in colour, in form, in specific gravity, in

chemical composition: differs so greatly that no visible resemblance of any

kind can be pointed out between them. Yet is the one changed in the course

of a few years into the other: changed so gradually, that at no moment can

it be said--Now the seed ceases to be, and the tree exists. What can be

more widely contrasted than a newly-born child and the small,

semi-transparent, gelatinous spherule constituting the human ovum? The

infant is so complex in structure that a cyclopaedia is needed to describe

its constituent parts. The germinal vesicle is so simple that it may be

defined in a line. Nevertheless, a few months suffice to develop the one

out of the other; and that, too, by a series of modifications so small,

that were the embryo examined at successive minutes, even a microscope

would with difficulty disclose any sensible changes. That the uneducated

and the ill-educated should think the hypothesis that all races of beings,

man inclusive, may in process of time have been evolved from the simplest

monad, a ludicrous one, is not to be wondered at. But for the physiologist,

who knows that every individual being is so evolved--who knows further,

that in their earliest condition the germs of all plants and animals

whatever are so similar, "that there is no appreciable distinction amongst

them which would enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule

is the germ of a conferva or of an oak, of a zoophyte or of a man;"[U]--for

him to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcusable. Surely if a single

cell may, when subjected to certain influences, become a man in the space

of twenty years; there is nothing absurd in the hypothesis that under

certain other influences, a cell may in the course of millions of years

give origin to the human race. The two processes are generically the same;

and differ only in length and complexity.

[U] Carpenter.

We have, indeed, in the part taken by many scientific men in this

controversy of "Law _versus_ Miracle," a good illustration of the tenacious

vitality of superstitions. Ask one of our leading geologists or

physiologists whether he believes in the Mosaic account of the creation,

and he will take the question as next to an insult. Either he rejects the

narrative entirely, or understands it in some vague non-natural sense. Yet

one part of it he unconsciously adopts; and that, too, literally. For

whence has he got this notion of "special creations," which he thinks so

reasonable, and fights for so vigorously? Evidently he can trace it back to

no other source than this myth which he repudiates. He has not a single

fact in nature to quote in proof of it; nor is he prepared with any chain

of abstract reasoning by which it may be established. Catechise him, and he

will be forced to confess that the notion was put into his mind in

childhood as part of a story which he now thinks absurd. And why, after

rejecting all the rest of this story, he should strenuously defend this

last remnant of it as though he had received it on valid authority, he

would be puzzled to say.

X. THE SOCIAL ORGANISM.

Sir James Macintosh got great credit for the saying, that "constitutions

are not made, but grow." In our day, the most significant thing about this

saying is, that it was ever thought so significant. As from the surprise

displayed by a man at some familiar fact, you may judge of his general

culture; so from the admiration which an age accords to a new thought, its

average degree of enlightenment may be inferred. That this apophthegm of

Macintosh should have been quoted and re-quoted as it has, shows how

profound has been the ignorance of social science. A small ray of truth has

seemed brilliant, as a distant rushlight looks like a star in the

surrounding darkness.

Such a conception could not, indeed, fail to be startling when let fall in

the midst of a system of thought to which it was utterly alien. Universally

in Macintosh's day, things were explained on the hypothesis of manufacture,

rather than that of growth: as indeed they are, by the majority, in our own

day. It was held that the planets were severally projected round the sun

from the Creator's hand; with exactly the velocity required to balance the

sun's attraction. The formation of the Earth, the separation of sea from

land, the production of animals, were mechanical works from which God

rested as a labourer rests. Man was supposed to be moulded after a manner

somewhat akin to that in which a modeller makes a clay-figure. And of

course, in harmony with such ideas, societies were tacitly assumed to be

arranged thus or thus by direct interposition of Providence; or by the

regulations of law-makers; or by both.

Yet that societies are not artificially put together, is a truth so

manifest, that it seems wonderful men should have ever overlooked it.

Perhaps nothing more clearly shows the small value of historical studies,

as they have been commonly pursued. You need but to look at the changes

going on around, or observe social organization in its leading

peculiarities, to see that these are neither supernatural, nor are

determined by the wills of individual men, as by implication historians

commonly teach; but are consequent on general natural causes. The one case

of the division of labour suffices to show this. It has not been by command

of any ruler that some men have become manufacturers, while others have

remained cultivators of the soil. In Lancashire, millions have devoted

themselves to the making of cotton-fabrics; in Yorkshire, another million

lives by producing woollens; and the pottery of Staffordshire, the cutlery

of Sheffield, the hardware of Birmingham, severally occupy their hundreds

of thousands. These are large facts in the structure of English society;

but we can ascribe them neither to miracle, nor to legislation. It is not

by "the hero as king," any more than by "collective wisdom," that men have

been segregated into producers, wholesale distributors, and retail

distributors.

The whole of our industrial organization, from its main outlines down to

its minutest details, has become what it is, not simply without legislative

guidance, but, to a considerable extent, in spite of legislative

hindrances. It has arisen under the pressure of human wants and activities.

While each citizen has been pursuing his individual welfare, and none

taking thought about division of labour, or, indeed, conscious of the need

for it, division of labour has yet been ever becoming more complete. It has

been doing this slowly and silently: scarcely any having observed it until

quite modern times. By steps so small, that year after year the industrial

arrangements have seemed to men just what they were before--by changes as

insensible as those through which a seed passes into a tree; society has

become the complex body of mutually-dependent workers which we now see. And

this economic organization, mark, is the all-essential organization.

Through the combination thus spontaneously evolved, every citizen is

supplied with daily necessaries; while he yields some product or aid to

others. That we are severally alive to-day, we owe to the regular working

of this combination during the past week; and could it be suddenly

abolished, a great proportion of us would be dead before another week

ended. If these most conspicuous and vital arrangements of our social

structure, have arisen without the devising of any one, but through the

individual efforts of citizens to satisfy their own wants; we may be

tolerably certain that the less important arrangements have similarly

arisen.

"But surely," it will be said, "the social changes directly produced by

law, cannot be classed as spontaneous growths. When parliaments or kings

order this or that thing to be done, and appoint officials to do it, the

process is clearly artificial; and society to this extent becomes a

manufacture rather than a growth." No, not even these changes are

exceptions, if they be real and permanent changes. The true sources of such

changes lie deeper than the acts of legislators. To take first the simplest

instance. We all know that the enactments of representative governments

ultimately depend on the national will: they may for a time be out of

harmony with it, but eventually they must conform to it. And to say that

the national will finally determines them, is to say that they result from

the average of individual desires; or, in other words--from the average of

individual natures. A law so initiated, therefore, really grows out of the

popular character.

In the case of a Government representing a dominant class, the same things

holds, though not so manifestly. For the very existence of a class

monopolizing all power, is due to certain sentiments in the commonalty. But

for the feeling of loyalty on the part of retainers, a feudal system could

not exist. We see in the protest of the Highlanders against the abolition

of heritable jurisdictions, that they preferred that kind of local rule.

And if to the popular nature, must thus be ascribed the growth of an

irresponsible ruling class; then to the popular nature must be ascribed the

social arrangements which that class creates in the pursuit of its own

ends. Even where the Government is despotic, the doctrine still holds. The

character of the people is, as before, the original source of this

political form; and, as we have abundant proof, other forms suddenly

created will not act, but rapidly retrograde to the old form. Moreover,

such regulations as a despot makes, if really operative, are so because of

their fitness to the social state. His acts being very much swayed by

general opinion--by precedent, by the feeling of his nobles, his

priesthood, his army--are in part immediate results of the national

character; and when they are out of harmony with the national character,

they are soon practically abrogated.

The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new social condition,

and the rapid revival of suppressed institutions and practices after his

death, show how powerless is a monarch to change the type of the society he

governs. He may disturb, he may retard, or he may aid the natural process

of organization; but the general course of this process is beyond his

control. Nay, more than this is true. Those who regard the histories of

societies as the histories of their great men, and think that these great

men shape the fates of their societies, overlook the truth that such great

men are the products of their societies. Without certain

antecedents--without a certain average national character, they could

neither have been generated nor could have had the culture which formed

them. If their society is to some extent re-moulded by them, they were,

both before and after birth, moulded by their society--were the results of

all those influences which fostered the ancestral character they inherited,

and gave their own early bias, their creed, morals, knowledge, aspirations.

So that such social changes as are immediately traceable to individuals of

unusual power, are still remotely traceable to the social causes which

produced these individuals, and hence, from the highest point of view, such

social changes also, are parts of the general developmental process.

Thus that which is so obviously true of the industrial structure of

society, is true of its whole structure. The fact that "constitutions are

not made, but grow," is simply a fragment of the much larger fact, that

under all its aspects and through all its ramifications, society is a

growth and not a manufacture.

* * * * *

A perception that there exists some analogy between the body politic and a

living individual body, was early reached; and from time to time

re-appeared in literature. But this perception was necessarily vague and

more or less fanciful. In the absence of physiological science, and

especially of those comprehensive generalizations which it has but recently

reached, it was impossible to discern the real parallelisms.

The central idea of Plato's model Republic, is the correspondence between

the parts of a society and the faculties of the human mind. Classifying

these faculties under the heads of Reason, Will, and Passion, he classifies

the members of his ideal society under what he regards as three analogous

heads:--councillors, who are to exercise government; military or executive,

who are to fulfil their behests; and the commonalty, bent on gain and

selfish gratification. In other words, the ruler, the warrior, and the

craftsman, are, according to him, the analogues of our reflective,

volitional, and emotional powers. Now even were there truth in the implied

assumption of a parallelism between the structure of a society and that of

a man, this classification would be indefensible. It might more truly be

contended that, as the military power obeys the commands of the Government,

it is the Government which answers to the Will; while the military power is

simply an agency set in motion by it. Or, again, it might be contended that

whereas the Will is a product of predominant desires, to which the Reason

serves merely as an eye, it is the craftsmen, who, according to the alleged

analogy, ought to be the moving power of the warriors.

Hobbes sought to establish a still more definite parallelism: not, however

between a society and the human mind, but between a society and the human

body. In the introduction to the work in which he developes this

conception, he says--

"For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH,

or STATE, in Latin CIVITAS, which is but an artificial man; though of

greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection

and defence it was intended, and in which the _sovereignty_ is an

artificial _soul_, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the

_magistrates_ and other _officers_ of judicature and execution,

artificial _joints_; _reward_ and _punishment_, by which, fastened to

the seat of the sovereignty, every joint and member is moved to

perform his duty, are the _nerves_, that do the same in the body

natural; the _wealth_ and _riches_ of all the particular members are

the _strength_; _salus populi_, the _people's safety_, its

_business_; _counsellors_, by whom all things needful for it to know

are suggested unto it, are the _memory_; _equity_ and _laws_ an

artificial _reason_ and _will_; _concord_, _health_; _sedition_,

_sickness_; _civil war_, _death_,"

And Hobbes carries this comparison so far as actually to give a drawing of

the Leviathan--a vast human-shaped figure, whose body and limbs are made up

of multitudes of men. Just noting that these different analogies asserted

by Plato and Hobbes, serve to cancel each other (being, as they are, so

completely at variance), we may say that on the whole those of Hobbes are

the more plausible. But they are full of inconsistencies. If the

sovereignty is the _soul_ of the body politic, how can it be that

magistrates, who are a kind of deputy-sovereigns, should be comparable to

_joints_? Or, again, how can the three mental functions, memory, reason,

and will, be severally analogous, the first to counsellors, who are a class

of public officers, and the other two to equity and laws, which are not

classes of officers, but abstractions? Or, once more, if magistrates are

the artificial joints of society, how can reward and punishment be its

nerves? Its nerves must surely be some class of persons. Reward and

punishment must in societies, as in individuals, be _conditions_ of the

nerves, and not the nerves themselves.

But the chief errors of these comparisons made by Plato and Hobbes, lie

much deeper. Both thinkers assume that the organization of a society is

comparable, not simply to the organization of a living body in general, but

to the organization of the human body in particular. There is no warrant

whatever for assuming this. It is in no way implied by the evidence; and is

simply one of those fancies which we commonly find mixed up with the truths

of early speculation. Still more erroneous are the two conceptions in this,

that they construe a society as an artificial structure. Plato's model

republic--his ideal of a healthful body politic--is to be consciously put

together by men; just as a watch might be: and Plato manifestly thinks of

societies in general as thus originated. Quite specifically does Hobbes

express this view. "For by _art_," he says, "is created that great

LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH." And he even goes so far as to compare the

supposed social contract, from which a society suddenly originates, to the

creation of a man by the divine fiat. Thus they both fall into the extreme

inconsistency of considering a community as similar in structure to a human

being, and yet as produced in the same way as an artificial mechanism--in

in nature, an organism; in history, a machine.

Notwithstanding errors, however, these speculations have considerable

significance. That such analogies, crudely as they are thought out, should

have been alleged by Plato and Hobbes and many others, is a reason for

suspecting that _some_ analogy exists. The untenableness of the particular

comparisons above instanced, is no ground for denying an essential

parallelism; for early ideas are usually but vague adumbrations of the

truth. Lacking the great generalizations of biology, it was, as we have

said, impossible to trace out the real relations of social organizations to

organizations of another order. We propose here to show what are the

analogies which modern science discloses to us.

Let us set out by succinctly stating the points of similarity and the

points of difference. Societies agree with individual organisms in four

conspicuous peculiarities:--

1. That commencing as small aggregations, they insensibly augment in

mass: some of them eventually reaching ten thousand times what

they originally were.

2. That while at first so simple in structure as to be considered

structureless, they assume, in the course of their growth, a

continually-increasing complexity of structure.

3. That though in their early, undeveloped states, there exists in

them scarcely any mutual dependence of parts, their parts

gradually acquire a mutual dependence; which becomes at last so

great, that the activity and life of each part is made possible

only by the activity and life of the rest.

4. That the life and development of a society is independent of, and

far more prolonged than, the life and development of any of its

component units; who are severally born, grow, work, reproduce,

and die, while the body politic composed of them survives

generation after generation, increasing in mass, completeness of

structure, and functional activity.

These four parallelisms will appear the more significant the more we

contemplate them. While the points specified, are points in which societies

agree with individual organisms, they are points in which individual

organisms agree with each other, and disagree with all things else. In the

course of its existence, every plant and animal increases in mass, in a way

not parallelled by inorganic objects: even such inorganic objects as

crystals, which arise by growth, show us no such definite relation between

growth and existence as organisms do. The orderly progress from simplicity

to complexity, displayed by bodies politic in common with all living

bodies, is a characteristic which distinguishes living bodies from the

inanimate bodies amid which they move. That functional dependence of parts,

which is scarcely more manifest in animals or plants than nations, has no

counterpart elsewhere. And in no aggregate except an organic, or a social

one, is there a perpetual removal and replacement of parts, joined with a

continued integrity of the whole.

Moreover, societies and organisms are not only alike in these

peculiarities, in which they are unlike all other things; but the highest

societies, like the highest organisms, exhibit them in the greatest degree.

We see that the lowest animals do not increase to anything like the sizes

of the higher ones; and, similarly, we see that aboriginal societies are

comparatively limited in their growths. In complexity, our large civilized

nations as much exceed primitive savage tribes, as a vertebrate animal does

a zoophyte. Simple communities, like simple creatures, have so little

mutual dependence of parts, that subdivision or mutilation causes but

little inconvenience; but from complex communities, as from complex

creatures, you cannot remove any considerable organ without producing great

disturbance or death of the rest. And in societies of low type, as in

inferior animals, the life of the aggregate, often cut short by division or

dissolution, exceeds in length the lives of the component units, very far

less than in civilized communities and superior animals; which outlive many

generations of their component units.

On the other hand, the leading differences between societies and individual

organisms are these:--

1. That societies have no specific external forms. This, however, is a

point of contrast which loses much of its importance, when we remember that

throughout the vegetal kingdom, as well as in some lower divisions of the

animal kingdom, the forms are often very indefinite--definiteness being

rather the exception than the rule; and that they are manifestly in part

determined by surrounding physical circumstances, as the forms of societies

are. If, too, it should eventually be shown, as we believe it will, that

the form of every species of organism has resulted from the average play of

the external forces to which it has been subject during its evolution as a

species; then, that the external forms of societies should depend, as they

do, on surrounding conditions, will be a further point of community.

2. That though the living tissue whereof an individual organism consists,

forms a continuous mass, the living elements of a society do not form a

continuous mass; but are more or less widely dispersed over some portion of

the Earth's surface. This, which at first sight appears to be a fundamental

distinction, is one which yet to a great extent disappears when we

contemplate all the facts. For, in the lower divisions of the animal and

vegetal kingdoms, there are types of organization much more nearly allied,

in this respect, to the organization of a society, than might be

supposed--types in which the living units essentially composing the mass,

are dispersed through an inert substance, that can scarcely be called

living in the full sense of the word. It is thus with some of the

_Protococci_ and with the _Nostoceae_, which exist as cells imbedded in a

viscid matter. It is so, too, with the _Thalassicollae_--bodies that are

made up of differentiated parts, dispersed through an undifferentiated

jelly. And throughout considerable portions of their bodies, some of the

_Acalephae_ exhibit more or less distinctly this type of structure.

Indeed, it may be contended that this is the primitive form of all

organization; seeing that, even in the highest creatures, as in ourselves,

every tissue developes out of what physiologists call a blastema--an

unorganized though organizable substance, through which organic points are

distributed. Now this is very much the case with a society. For we must

remember that though the men who make up a society, are physically separate

and even scattered; yet that the surface over which they are scattered is

not one devoid of life, but is covered by life of a lower order which

ministers to their life. The vegetation which clothes a country, makes

possible the animal life in that country; and only through its animal and

vegetal products can such a country support a human society. Hence the

members of the body politic are not to be regarded as separated by

intervals of dead space; but as diffused through a space occupied by life

of a lower order. In our conception of a social organism, we must include

all that lower organic existence on which human existence, and therefore

social existence, depends. And when we do this, we see that the citizens

who make up a community, may be considered as highly vitalized units

surrounded by substances of lower vitality, from which they draw their

nutriment: much as in the cases above instanced. Thus, when examined, this

apparent distinction in great part disappears.

3. That while the ultimate living elements of an individual organism, are

mostly fixed in their relative positions, those of the social organism are

capable of moving from place to place, seems a marked disagreement. But

here, too, the disagreement is much less than would be supposed. For while

citizens are locomotive in their private capacities, they are fixed in

their public capacities. As farmers, manufacturers, or traders, men carry

on their business at the same spots, often throughout their whole lives;

and if they go away occasionally, they leave behind others to discharge

their functions in their absence. Each great centre of production, each

manufacturing town or district, continues always in the same place; and

many of the firms in such town or district, are for generations carried on

either by the descendants or successors of those who founded them. Just as

in a living body, the cells that make up some important organ, severally

perform their functions for a time and then disappear, leaving others to

supply their places; so, in each part of a society, the organ remains,

though the persons who compose it change. Thus, in social life, as in the

life of an animal, the units as well as the larger agencies formed of them,

are in the main stationary as respects the places where they discharge

their duties and obtain their sustenance. And hence the power of individual

locomotion does not practically affect the analogy.

4. The last and perhaps the most important distinction, is, that while in

the body of an animal, only a special tissue is endowed with feeling; in a

society, all the members are endowed with feeling. Even this distinction,

however, is by no means a complete one. For in some of the lowest animals,

characterized by the absence of a nervous system, such sensitiveness as

exists is possessed by all parts. It is only in the more organized forms

that feeling is monopolized by one class of the vital elements. Moreover,

we must remember that societies, too, are not without a certain

differentiation of this kind. Though the units of a community are all

sensitive, yet they are so in unequal degrees. The classes engaged in

agriculture and laborious occupations in general, are much less

susceptible, intellectually and emotionally, than the rest; and especially

less so than the classes of highest mental culture. Still, we have here a

tolerably decided contrast between bodies politic and individual bodies.

And it is one which we should keep constantly in view. For it reminds us

that while in individual bodies, the welfare of all other parts is rightly

subservient to the welfare of the nervous system, whose pleasurable or

painful activities make up the good or evil of life; in bodies politic, the

same thing does not hold, or holds to but a very slight extent. It is well

that the lives of all parts of an animal should be merged in the life of

the whole; because the whole has a corporate consciousness capable of

happiness or misery. But it is not so with a society; since its living

units do not and cannot lose individual consciousness; and since the

community as a whole has no corporate consciousness. And this is an

everlasting reason why the welfare of citizens cannot rightly be sacrificed

to some supposed benefit of the State; but why, on the other hand, the

State is to be maintained solely for the benefit of citizens. The corporate

life must here be subservient to the lives of the parts; instead of the

lives of the parts being subservient to the corporate life.

Such, then, are the points of analogy and the points of difference. May we

not say that the points of difference serve but to bring into clearer light

the points of analogy. While comparison makes definite the obvious

contrasts between organisms commonly so called, and the social organism; it

shows that even these contrasts are not so decided as was to be expected.

The indefiniteness of form, the discontinuity of the parts, the mobility of

the parts, and the universal sensitiveness, are not only peculiarities of

the social organism which have to be stated with considerable

qualifications; but they are peculiarities to which the inferior classes of

animals present approximations. Thus we find but little to conflict with

the all-important analogies. That societies slowly augment in mass; that

they progress in complexity of structure; that at the same time their parts

become more mutually dependent; that their living units are removed and

replaced without destroying their integrity; and further, that the extents

to which they display these peculiarities are proportionate to their vital

activities; are traits that societies have in common with organic bodies.

And these traits in which they agree with organic bodies and disagree with

all other things--these traits which in truth specially characterize

organic bodies, entirely subordinate the minor distinctions: such

distinctions being scarcely greater than those which separate one half of

the organic kingdom from the other. The _principles_ of organization are

the same; and the differences are simply differences of application.

Here ending this general survey of the facts which justify the comparison

of a society to a living body; let us look at them in detail. We shall find

that the parallelism becomes the more marked the more closely it is traced.

* * * * *

The lowest animal and vegetal forms--_Protozoa_ and _Protophyta_--are

chiefly inhabitants of the water. They are minute bodies, most of which are

made individually visible only by the microscope. All of them are extremely

simple in structure; and some of them, as the _Rhizopods_, almost

structureless. Multiplying, as they ordinarily do, by the spontaneous

division of their bodies, they produce halves, which may either become

quite separate and move away in different directions, or may continue

attached. By the repetition of this process of fission, aggregations of

various sizes and kinds are formed. Among the _Protophyta_ we have some

classes, as the _Diatomaceae_ and the Yeast-plant, in which the individuals

may be either separate, or attached in groups of two, three, four, or more;

other classes in which a considerable number of individual cells are united

into a thread (_Conferva_, _Monilia_); others in which they form a net work

(_Hydrodictyon_); others in which they form plates (_Ulva_); and others in

which they form masses (_Laminaria_, _Agaricus_): all which vegetal forms,

having no distinction of root, stem, or leaf, are called _Thallogens_.

Among the _Protozoa_ we find parallel facts. Immense numbers of

_Am[oe]ba_-like creatures, massed together in a framework of horny fibres,

constitute Sponge. In the _Foraminifera_, we see smaller groups of such

creatures arranged into more definite shapes. Not only do these almost

structureless _Protozoa_ unite into regular or irregular aggregations of

various sizes; but among some of the more organized ones, as the

_Vorticellae_, there are also produced clusters of individuals, proceeding

from a common stock. But these little societies of monads, or cells, or

whatever else we may call them, are societies only in the lowest sense:

there is no subordination of parts among them--no organization. Each of the

component units lives by and for itself; neither giving nor receiving aid.

There is no mutual dependence, save that consequent on mere mechanical

union.

Now do we not here discern analogies to the first stages of human

societies? Among the lowest races, as the Bushmen, we find but incipient

aggregation: sometimes single families; sometimes two or three families

wandering about together. The number of associated units is small and

variable; and their union inconstant. No division of labour exists except

between the sexes; and the only kind of mutual aid is that of joint attack

or defence. We see nothing beyond an undifferentiated group of individuals,

forming the germ of a society; just as in the homogeneous groups of cells

above described, we see only the initial stage of animal and vegetal

organization.

The comparison may now be carried a step higher. In the vegetal kingdom we

pass from the _Thallogens_, consisting of mere masses of similar cells, to

the _Acrogens_, in which the cells are not similar throughout the whole

mass; but are here aggregated into a structure serving as leaf, and there

into a structure serving as root: thus forming a whole in which there is a

certain subdivision of functions among the units; and therefore a certain

mutual dependence. In the animal kingdom we find analogous progress. From

mere unorganized groups of cells, or cell-like bodies, we ascend to groups

of such cells arranged into parts that have different duties. The common

Polype, from whose substance may be separated individual cells which

exhibit, when detached, appearances and movements like those of the

solitary _Am[oe]ba_, illustrates this stage. The component units, though

still showing great community of character, assume somewhat diverse

functions in the skin, in the internal surface, and in the tentacles. There

is a certain amount of "physiological division of labour."

Turning to societies, we find these stages paralleled in the majority of

aboriginal tribes. When, instead of such small variable groups as are

formed by Bushmen, we come to the larger and more permanent groups formed

by savages not quite so low, we begin to find traces of social structure.

Though industrial organization scarcely shows itself, except in the

different occupations of the sexes; yet there is always more or less of

governmental organization. While all the men are warriors and hunters, only

a part of them are included in the council of chiefs; and in this council

of chiefs some one has commonly supreme authority. There is thus a certain

distinction of classes and powers; and through this slight specialization

of functions, is effected a rude co-operation among the increasing mass of

individuals, whenever the society has to act in its corporate capacity.

Beyond this analogy in the slight extent to which organization is carried,

there is analogy in the indefiniteness of the organization. In the _Hydra_,

the respective parts of the creature's substance have many functions in

common. They are all contractile; omitting the tentacles, the whole of the

external surface can give origin to young _hydrae_; and when turned inside

out, stomach performs the duties of skin, and skin the duties of stomach.

In aboriginal societies such differentiations as exist are similarly

imperfect. Notwithstanding distinctions of rank, all persons maintain

themselves by their own exertions. Not only do the head men of the tribe,

in common with the rest, build their own huts, make their own weapons, kill

their own food; but the chief does the like. Moreover, in the rudest of

these tribes, such governmental organization as exists is very inconstant.

It is frequently changed by violence or treachery, and the function of

ruling assumed by other members of the community. Thus between the rudest

societies and some of the lowest forms of animal life there is analogy

alike in the slight extent to which organization is carried, in the

indefiniteness of this organization, and in its want of fixity.

A further complication of the analogy is at hand. From the aggregation of

units into organized groups, we pass to the multiplication of such groups,

and their coalescence into compound groups. The _Hydra_, when it has

reached a certain bulk, puts forth from its surface a bud, which, growing

and gradually assuming the form of the parent, finally becomes detached;

and by this process of gemmation, the creature peoples the adjacent water

with others like itself. A parallel process is seen in the multiplication

of those lowly-organized tribes above described. One of them having

increased to a size that is either too great for co-ordination under so

rude a structure, or else that is greater than the surrounding country can

supply with game and other wild food, there arises a tendency to divide;

and as in such communities there are ever occurring quarrels, jealousies,

and other causes of division, there soon comes an occasion on which a part

of the tribe separates under the leadership of some subordinate chief, and

migrates. This process being from time to time repeated, an extensive

region is at length occupied with numerous separate tribes descended from a

common ancestry. The analogy by no means ends here. Though in the common

_Hydra_, the young ones that bud out from the parent soon become detached

and independent; yet throughout the rest of the class _Hydrozoa_, to which

this creature belongs, the like does not generally happen. The successive

individuals thus developed continue attached; give origin to other such

individuals which also continue attached; and so there results a compound

animal. As in the _Hydra_ itself, we find an aggregation of units which,

considered separately, are akin to the lowest _Protozoa_; so here, in a

_Zoophyte_, we find an aggregation of such aggregations. The like is also

seen throughout the extensive family of _Polyzoa_ or _Molluscoida_. The

Ascidian Mollusks, too, in their many varied forms, show us the same thing:

exhibiting, at the same time, various degrees of union subsisting among the

component individuals. For while in the _Salpae_ the component individuals

adhere so slightly that a blow on the vessel of water in which they are

floating will separate them; in the _Botryllidae_ there exists a vascular

connexion between them, and a common circulation.

Now in these various forms and degrees of aggregation, may we not see

paralleled the union of groups of connate tribes into nations? Though in

regions where circumstances permit, the separate tribes descended from some

original tribe, migrate in all directions, and become far removed and quite

separate; yet, in other cases, where the territory presents barriers to

distant migration, this does not happen: the small kindred communities are

held in closer contact, and eventually become more or less united into a

nation. The contrast between the tribes of American Indians and the

Scottish clans, illustrates this. And a glance at our own early history, or

the early histories of continental nations, shows this fusion of small

simple communities taking place in various ways and to various extents. As

says M. Guizot, in his history of "The Origin of Representative

Government,"--

"By degrees, in the midst of the chaos of the rising society, small

aggregations are formed which feel the want of alliance and union

with each other.... Soon inequality of strength is displayed among

neighbouring aggregations. The strong tend to subjugate the weak, and

usurp at first the rights of taxation and military service. Thus

political authority leaves the aggregations which first instituted

it, to take a wider range."

That is to say, the small tribes, clans, or feudal unions, sprung mostly

from a common stock, and long held in contact as occupants of adjacent

lands, gradually get united in other ways than by mere adhesion of race and

proximity.

A further series of changes begins now to take place; to which, as before,

we shall find analogies in individual organisms. Returning again to the

_Hydrozoa_, we observe that in the simplest of the compound forms, the

connected individuals developed from a common stock, are alike in

structure, and perform like functions: with the exception, indeed, that

here and there a bud, instead of developing into a stomach, mouth, and

tentacles, becomes an egg-sac. But with the oceanic _Hydrozoa_, this is by

no means the case. In the _Calycophoridae_, some of the polypes growing from

the common germ, become developed and modified into large, long, sack-like

bodies, which by their rhythmical contractions move through the water,

dragging the community of polypes after them. In the _Physophoridae_, a

variety of organs similarly arise by transformation of the budding polypes;

so that in creatures like the _Physalia_, commonly known as the "Portuguese

Man-of-war," instead of that tree-like group of similar individuals forming

the original type of the class, we have a complex mass of unlike parts

fulfilling unlike duties. As an individual _Hydra_ may be regarded as a

group of _Protozoa_, which have become partially metamorphosed into

different organs; so a _Physalia_ is, morphologically considered, a group

of _Hydrae_ of which the individuals have been variously transformed to fit

them for various functions.

This differentiation upon differentiation, is just what takes place in the

evolution of a civilized society. We observed how, in the small communities

first formed, there arises a certain simple political organization--there

is a partial separation of classes having different duties. And now we have

to observe how, in a nation formed by the fusion of such small communities,

the several sections, at first alike in structures and modes of activity,

gradually become unlike in both--gradually become mutually-dependent parts,

diverse in their natures and functions.

The doctrine of the progressive division of labour, to which we are here

introduced, is familiar to all readers. And further, the analogy between

the economical division of labour and the "physiological division of

labour," is so striking, as long since to have drawn the attention of

scientific naturalists: so striking, indeed, that the expression

"physiological division of labour," has been suggested by it. It is not

needful, therefore, that we should treat this part of our subject in great

detail. We shall content ourselves with noting a few general and

significant facts, not manifest on a first inspection.

Throughout the whole animal kingdom, from the _C[oe]lenterata_ upwards, the

first stage of evolution is the same. Equally in the germ of a polype and

in the human ovum, the aggregated mass of cells out of which the creature

is to arise, gives origin to a peripheral layer of cells, slightly

differing from the rest which they include; and this layer subsequently

divides into two--the inner, lying in contact with the included yelk, being

called the mucous layer, and the outer, exposed to surrounding agencies,

being called the serous layer: or, in the terms used by Prof. Huxley, in

describing the development of the _Hydrozoa_--the endoderm and ectoderm.

This primary division marks out a fundamental contrast of parts in the

future organism. From the mucous layer, or endoderm, is developed the

apparatus of nutrition; while from the serous layer, or ectoderm, is

developed the apparatus of external action. Out of the one arise the organs

by which food is prepared and absorbed, oxygen imbibed, and blood purified;

while out of the other arise the nervous, muscular, and osseous systems, by

whose combined actions the movements of the body as a whole are effected.

Though this is not a rigorously-correct distinction, seeing that some

organs involve both of these primitive membranes, yet high authorities

agree in stating it as a broad general distinction.