of natural history existed as mere regions of fable and romance; and,
in addressing himself to the _Muscadins_ of Paris, in a popular work as
wild and amusing as a fairy tale, he could safely take the liberty, and
he did take it very freely, of exaggerating the marvellous, and adding
fresh fictions to the untrue. And in preparing them for his theory of
the metamorphoses of a marine into a terrestrial vegetation, he set
himself, in accordance with his general character, to show that really
the transmutation did not amount to much. “I know you have resided a
long time,” his Indian Philosopher is made to say, “at Marseilles. Now,
you can bear me witness, that the fishermen there daily find in their
nets, and among their fish, plants of a hundred kinds, with their fruits
still upon them; and though these fruits are not so large and so well
nourished as those of our earth, yet the species of these plants is in
no other respect dubious. They there find clusters of white and black
grapes, peach-trees, pear-trees, prune-trees, apple-trees, and all sorts
of flowers. When in that city, I saw, in the cabinet of a curious
gentleman, a prodigious number of those sea-productions of different
qualities, especially of rose-trees, which had their roses very red when
they came out of the sea. I was there presented with a cluster of black
sea-grapes. It was at the time of the vintage, and there were two grapes
perfectly ripe.”
Now, all this, and much more of the same nature, addressed to the
Parisians of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, passed, I doubt not,
wonderfully well; but it will not do now, when almost every young girl,
whether in town or country, is a botanist, and works on the algæ have
become popular. Since Maillet wrote, Hume promulgated his argument on
Miracles, and La Place his doctrine of Probabilities. There can be no
doubt that these have exerted a wholesome influence on the laws of
evidence; and by these laws, as restricted and amended,—laws to which,
both in science and religion, we ourselves conform,—we insist on trying
the Lamarckian hypothesis, and in condemning it,—should it be found to
have neither standing in experience nor support from testimony,—as a
mere feverish dream, incoherent in its parts and baseless in its fabric.
Give, we ask, but one well-attested instance of transmutation from the
algæ to even the lower forms of terrestrial vegetation common on our
sea-coasts, and we will keep the question open, in expectation of more.
It will not do to tell us—as Cuvier was told, when he appealed to the
fact, determined by the mummy birds and reptiles of Egypt, of the fixity
of species in all, even the slightest particulars, for at least three
thousand years—that immensely extended periods of time are necessary to
effect specific changes, and that human observation has not been spread
over a period sufficiently ample to furnish the required data regarding
them. The apology is simply a confession that, in these ages of the
severe inductive philosophy, you have been dreaming your dream, cut off,
as if by the state of sleep, from all the tangibilities of the real
waking-day world, and that you have not a vestige of testimony with which
to support your ingenious vagaries.
But on another account do we refuse to sustain the excuse. It is
_not true_ that human observation has not been spread over a period
sufficiently extended to furnish the necessary data for testing the
development hypothesis. In one special walk,—that which bears on the
supposed transmutation of algæ into terrestrial plants,—human observation
_has_ been spread over what is strictly analogous to _millions_ of years.
For extent of space in this matter is exactly correspondent with duration
of time. No man, in this late period of the world’s history, attains to
the age of five hundred years; and as some of our larger English oaks
have been known to increase in bulk of trunk and extent of bough for five
centuries together, no man can possibly have seen the same huge oak pass,
according to Cowper, through its various stages of “treeship,”—
“First a seedling hid in grass;
Then twig; then sapling; and, as century rolls
Slow after century, a giant bulk,
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root
Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossed
With prominent wens globose.”
But though no man lives throughout five hundred years of time, he can
trace, by passing in some of the English forests through five hundred
yards of space, the history of the oak in all its stages of growth, as
correctly as if he _did_ live throughout the five hundred years. Oaks, in
the space of a few hundred yards, may be seen in every stage of growth,
from the newly burst acorn, that presents to the light its two fleshy
lobes, with the first tender rudiments of a leaflet between, up to the
giant of the forest, in the hollow of whose trunk the red deer may
shelter, and find ample room for the broad spread of his antlers. The
fact of the development of the oak, from the minute two-lobed seedling of
a week’s growth up to the gigantic tree of five centuries, is as capable
of being demonstrated by observation spread over five hundred yards of
space, as by observation spread over five hundred years of time. And
be it remembered, that the sea-coasts of the world are several hundred
thousand miles in extent. Europe is by far the smallest of the earth’s
four large divisions, and it is bounded, in proportion to its size, by a
greater extent of land than any of the others. And yet the sea-coasts of
Europe alone, including those of its islands, exceed twenty-five thousand
miles. We have results before us, in this extent of space, identical
with those of many hundred thousand years of time; and if terrestrial
plants were as certainly developments of the low plants of the sea as
the huge oak is a development of the immature seedling, just sprung from
the acorn, so vast a stretch of sea-coast could not fail to present us
with the intermediate vegetation in all its stages. But the sea-coasts
fail to exhibit even a vestige of the intermediate vegetation. Experience
spread over an extent of space analogous to millions of years of time,
does not furnish, in this department, a single fact corroborative of the
development theory, but, on the contrary, many hundreds of facts that
bear directly against it.
The author of the “Vestiges” is evidently a practised and tasteful
writer, and his work abounds in ingenious combinations of thought; but
those powers of abstract reflection on whose vigorous exercise the
origination of argument depends, nature seems to have denied him. There
are two things in especial which his work wants,—_original observation_
and _abstract thought_,—the power of _seeing_ for himself and of
_reasoning_ for himself; and what we find instead is simply a vivid
appreciation of the _images_ of things, as these images exist in other
minds, and a vigorous perception of the various shades of resemblance
which obtain among them. There is a large amount of analogical power
exhibited; but that basis of truth which correct observation can alone
furnish, and that ability of nicely distinguishing differences by
which the faculty of discerning similarity must be forever regulated
and governed, are wanting, in what, in a mind of fine general texture
and quality, must be regarded as an extraordinary degree. And hence an
ingenious but very unsolid work,—full of images transferred, not from the
scientific field, but from the field of _scientific mind_, and charged
with glittering but vague resemblances, stamped in the mint of fancy;
which, were they to be used as mere counters in some light literary game
of story-telling or character-sketching, would be in no respect out of
place, but which, when passed current as the proper coin of philosophic
argument, are really frauds on the popular understanding. There are,
however, not a few instances in the “Vestiges” and its “Sequel,” in which
that defect of reflective power to which I refer rather enhances than
diminishes the difficulty of reply, by presenting to the controversialist
mere intangible clouds with which to grapple; that yet, through the
existence of a certain superstition in the popular mind, as predisposed
to accept as true whatever takes the form of science, as its predecessor
the old superstition was inclined a century ago to reject science itself,
are at least suited to blind and bewilder. Of this kind of difficulty,
the following passage, in which the author of the work cashiers the
Creator as such, and substitutes, instead, a mere animal-manufacturing
piece of clock-work, which bears the name of natural law,[38] furnishes
us with a remarkable instance.
“Admitting,” he remarks, “that we see not now any such fact as the
production of new species, we at least know, that while such facts were
occurring upon earth, there were associated phenomena in progress of
a character perfectly ordinary. For example, when the earth received
its first fishes, sandstone and limestone were forming in the manner
exemplified a few years ago in the ingenious experiments of Sir James
Hall; basaltic columns rose for the future wonder of man, according to
the principle which Dr. Gregory Watt showed in operation before the
eyes of our fathers; and hollows in the igneous rocks were filled with
crystals, precisely as they could now be by virtue of electric action,
as shown within the last few years by Crosse and Becquerel. The seas
obeyed the impulse of gentle breezes, and rippled their sandy bottoms,
as seas of the present day are doing; the trees grew as now, by favor
of sun and wind, thriving in good seasons and pining in bad: this
while the animals above fishes were yet to be created. The movements
of the sea, the meteorological agencies, the disposition which we see
in the generality of plants to thrive when heat and moisture were most
abundant, were kept up in silent serenity, as matters of simply natural
order, throughout the whole of the ages which saw reptiles enter in
their various forms upon the sea and land. It was about the time of the
first mammals that the forest of the Dirt-Bed was sinking in natural
ruin amidst the sea sludge, as forests of the Plantagenets have been
doing for several centuries upon the coast of England. In short _all the
common operations of the physical world were going on in their usual
simplicity, obeying that order which we still see governing them_; while
the supposed extraordinary causes were in requisition for the development
of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. There surely hence arises a strong
presumption against any such causes. It becomes much more likely that
the latter phenomena were evolved in the manner of law also, and that we
only dream of extraordinary causes here, as men once dreamt of a special
action of Deity in every change of wind and the results of each season,
merely because they did not know the laws by which the events in question
were evolved.”
How, let us suppose, would David Hume—the greatest thinker of which
infidelity can boast—have greeted the auxiliary who could have brought
him such an _argument_ as a contribution to the cause? “Your objection,
so far as you have stated it,” the philosopher might have said, “amounts
simply to this:—Creation by direct act is a miracle; whereas all that
exists is _propagated_ and _maintained_ by natural law. Natural laws—to
vary the illustration—were in full operation at the period when the
Author of the Christian religion was, it is said, engaged in working
his miracles. When, according to our opponents, he walked upon the
surface of the sea, Peter, through the operation of the natural law of
gravitation, was sinking into it; when he withered, by a word, the barren
fig-tree, there were other trees on the Mount thriving in conformity
with the vegetative laws, under the influence of sun and shower; when
he raised the dead Lazarus, there were corpses in the neighboring tombs
passing, through the natural putrefactive fermentation, into a state
of utter decomposition. In fine, at the time when he was engaged, as
Reid and Campbell believe, in working miracles in violation of law, the
laws of which these were a violation actually existed, and were every
where actively operative; or, to employ your own words, when the New
Testament miracles were, it is alleged, in the act of being wrought,
‘all the common operations of the physical world were going on in their
usual simplicity, obeying that order which we still see governing them.’
Such is the portion of your statement already made; what next?” “It is
surely very unlikely,” replies the auxiliary, “that in such a complex
mass of phenomena there should have been two totally distinct modes
of the exercise of the Divine power,—the mode by miracle and the mode
by law.” “Unlikely!” rejoins the philosopher; “on what grounds?” “O,
just _unlikely_,” says the auxiliary;—“unlikely that God should be at
once operating on matter through the agency of natural laws, of which
_man knows much_, and through the agency of miraculous acts, of the
nature of which _man knows nothing_. But I have not thought out the
subject any further: you have, in the statement already made, my entire
_argument_.” “Ay, I see,” the author of the “Essay on Miracles” would
probably have remarked; “you deem it unlikely that Deity should not only
work in part, as he has always done, by means of which _men_,—clever
fellows like you and me—think they know a great deal but that he should
also work in part, _as he has always done_, by means of which they know
nothing at all. Admirably reasoned out! You are, I make no doubt, a
sound, zealous unbeliever in your private capacity, and your argument
may have great weight with your own mind, and be, in consequence, worthy
of encouragement in a small way; but allow me to suggest that, for
the sake of the general cause, it should be kept out of reach of the
enemy. There are in the Churches Militant on both sides of the Tweed
shrewd combatants, who have nearly as much wit as ourselves.” I think I
understand the reference of the author of the “Vestiges” to the _dream_
“of a special action of Deity in every change of wind and the results of
each season.” Taken with what immediately goes before, it means something
considerably different from those fancies of the “untutored Indian,” who,
according to the poet,
“Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.”
There is a school of infidelity, tolerably well known in the capital
of Scotland as by far the most superficial which our country has yet
seen, that measures mind with a tape-line and the callipers, and, albeit
not Christian, laudably exemplifies, in a loudly expressed regard for
science, the Christian grace of loving its enemy. And the belief in a
special Providence, who watches over and orders all things, and without
whose permission there falleth not even a “sparrow to the ground,” the
apostles of this school set wholly aside, substituting, instead, a belief
in the indiscriminating operation of natural laws; as if, with the broad
fact before them that even man can work out his will merely by knowing
and directing these laws, the God by whom they were instituted should
lack either the power or the wisdom to make them the pliant ministers
of _his_. It is, I fear, to the distinctive tenet in the creed of this
hapless school that the author of the “Vestiges” refers. Nor is it in the
least surprising, that a writer who labors through two carefully written
volumes,[39] to destroy the existing belief in “God’s works of Creation,”
should affect to hold that the belief in his “works of Providence” had
been destroyed already. But faith in a special superintendence of Deity
is not yet dead: nay, more, He who created the human mind took especial
care, in its construction, that, save in a few defective specimens of the
race, the belief should never die.
The author of the “Vestiges” complains of the illiberality with which
he has been treated. “It has appeared to various critics,” we find
him saying, “that very sacred principles are threatened by a doctrine
of universal law. A natural origin of life, and a natural basis in
organization for the operations of the human mind, speak to them of
fatalism and materialism. And, strange to say, those who every day give
views of _physical cosmogony_ altogether discrepant in appearance with
that of Moses, apply hard names to my book for suggesting an _organic
cosmogony_ in the same way, liable to inconsiderate odium. I must firmly
protest against this mode of meeting speculations regarding nature.
The object of my book, whatever may be said of the manner in which
it is treated, is purely scientific. The views which I give of the
history of organization stand exactly on the same ground upon which the
geological doctrines stood fifty years ago. I am merely endeavoring to
read aright another chapter of the mystic book which God has placed
under the attention of his creatures.... The absence of all liberality
in my reviewers is striking, and especially so in those whose geological
doctrines have exposed them to similar misconstruction. If the men newly
emerged from the odium which was thrown upon Newton’s theory of the
planetary motions had rushed forward to turn that odium upon the patrons
of the dawning science of Geology, they would have been prefiguring the
conduct of several of my critics, themselves hardly escaped from the
rude hands of the narrow-minded, yet eager to join that rabble against
a new and equally unfriended stranger, as if such were the best means
of purchasing impunity for themselves. _I trust that a little time will
enable the public to penetrate this policy._”
Now, there is one very important point to which the author of this
complaint does not seem to have adverted. The astronomer founded his
belief in the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, not on
a mere dream-like hypothesis, founded on nothing, but on a wide and solid
base of pure induction. Galileo was no mere dreamer;—he was a discoverer
of great truths, and a profound reasoner regarding them: and on his
discoveries and his reasonings, compelled by the inexorable laws of his
mental constitution, did he build up certain deductive beliefs, which had
no previous existence in his mind. His convictions were consequents, not
antecedents. Such, also, is the character of geological discovery and
inference, and of the existing belief,—their joint production,—regarding
the great antiquity of the globe. No geologist worthy of the name _began_
with the belief, and then set himself to square geological phenomena
with its requirements. It is a deduction,—a result;—not the starting
assumption, or given sum, in a process of calculation, but its ultimate
finding or answer. Clergymen of the orthodox Churches, such as the
Sumners, Sedgwicks, Bucklands, Conybeares, and Pye Smiths of England,
or the Chalmerses, Duncans, and Flemings of our own country, must have
come to the study of this question of the world’s age with at least no
bias in favor of the geological estimate. The old, and, as it has proven,
erroneous reading of the Mosaic account, was by much too general a one
early in the present century, not to have exerted upon them, in their
character as ministers of religion, a sensible influence of a directly
opposite nature. And the fact of the complete reversal of their original
bias, and of the broad unhesitating finding on the subject which they
ultimately substituted instead, serves to intimate to the uninitiated the
strength of the evidence to which they submitted. There can be nothing
more certain than that it is minds of the same calibre and class, engaged
in the same inductive track, that yielded in the first instance to the
astronomical evidence regarding the earth’s motion, and, in the second,
to the geological evidence regarding the earth’s age.[40]