THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
1. There is no more worthy or suitable employment of the human mind,
than to trace the evidences of Design and Purpose in the Creator, which
are visible in many parts of the Creation. The conviction thus obtained,
that man was formed by the wisdom, and is governed by the providence, of
an intelligent and benevolent Being, is the basis of Natural Religion,
and thus, of all Religion. We trust that some new lights will be thrown
upon the traces of Design which the Universe offers, even in the work
now before the reader; and as our views, regarding the plan of such
Design, are different, in some respects, and especially as relates to
the Planets and Stars, from those which have of late been generally
entertained, it will be proper to make some general remarks, mainly
tending to show, that the argument remains undisturbed, though the
physical theory is changed.
2. It cannot surprise any one who has attended to the history of
science, to find that the views, even of the most philosophical minds,
with regard to the plan of the universe, alter, as man advances from
falsehood to truth: or rather, from very imperfect truth to truth less
imperfect. But yet such a one will not be disposed to look, with any
other feeling than profound respect, upon the reasonings by which the
wisest men of former times ascended from their erroneous views of nature
to the truth of Natural Religion. It cannot seem strange to us that man
at any point, and perhaps at every point, of his intellectual progress,
should have an imperfect insight into the plan of the Universe; but, in
the most imperfect condition of such knowledge, he has light enough from
it, to see vestiges of the Wisdom and Benevolence of the Creating Deity;
and at the highest point of his scientific progress, he can probably
discover little more, by the light which physical science supplies. We
can hardly hope, therefore, that any new truths with regard to the
material universe, which may now be attainable, will add very much to
the evidence of creative design; but we may be confident, also, that
they will not, when rightly understood, shake or weaken such evidence.
It has indeed happened, in the history of mankind, that new views of the
constitution of the universe, brought to the light by scientific
researches, and established beyond doubt, in the conviction of impartial
persons, have disturbed the thoughts of religious men; because they did
not fall in with the view then entertained, of the mode in which God
effects his purpose in the universe. But in these cases, it soon came to
be seen, after a season of controversy, reproach, and alarm, that the
old argument for design was capable of being translated into the
language of the new theory, with no loss of force; and the minds of men
were gradually tranquillized and pacified. It may be hoped that the
world is now so much wiser than it was two or three centuries ago, that
if any modification of the current arguments for the Divine Attributes,
drawn from the aspect of the universe, become necessary, in consequence
of the rectification of received errors, it will take place without
producing pain, fear, or anger. To promote this purpose, we proceed to
make a few remarks.
3. The proof of Design, as shown in the works of Creation, is seen most
clearly, not in mere physical arrangement, but in the structure of
organized things;--in the constitution of plants and animals. In those
parts of nature, the evidences of intelligent purpose, of wise
adaptation, of skilful selection of means to ends, of provident
contrivance, are, in many instances, of the most striking kind. Such,
for example, are the structure of the human eye, so curiously adapted
for its office of seeing; the muscles, cords, and pullies by which the
limbs of animals are moved, exceeding far the mechanical ingenuity shown
in human inventions; the provisions which exist, before the birth of
offspring, for its sustenance and well-being when it shall have been
born;--these are lucid and convincing proofs of an intelligent Creator,
to which no ordinary mind can refuse its conviction. Nor is the
evidence, which we here recognize, deprived of its force, when we see
that many parts of the structure of animals, though adapted for
particular purposes, are yet framed as a portion of a system which does
not seem, in its general form, to have any bearing on such purposes.[1]
The beautiful contrivances which exist in the skeleton of man, and the
contrivances, possessing the same kind of beauty, in the skeleton of a
sparrow, do not appear to any reasonable person less beautiful, because
the skeleton of a man, and of a sparrow, have an agreement, bone for
bone, for which we see no reason, and which appears to us to answer no
purpose. The way in which the human hand and arm are made capable of
their infinite variety of use, by the play of the radius and ulna, the
bones of the wrist and the fingers, is not the less admirable, because
we can trace the representatives and rudiments of each of these bones,
in cases where they answer no such ends;--in the foreleg of the pig, the
ox, the horse, or the seal. The provision for feeding the young
creature, which is made, with such bounteous liberality, and such
opportune punctuality, by the breasts of the mother, has not any doubt
thrown upon its reality, by the teats of male animals and the paps of
man, which answer no such purpose. That in these cases there is
manifested a wider plan, which does not show any reference to the needs
of particular cases; as well as peculiar contrivances for the particular
cases, does not disturb our impression of design in each case. Why
should so large a portion of the animal kingdom, intended, as it seems,
for such different fields of life and modes of living;--beasts, birds,
fishes;--still have a skeleton of the same plan, and even of the same
parts, bone for bone; though many of the parts, in special cases, appear
to be altogether useless (namely, the vertebrate plan)? We cannot tell.
Our naturalists and comparative anatomists, it would seem, cannot point
out any definite end, which is answered by making so many classes of
animals on this one vertebrate plan. And since they cannot do this, and
since we cannot tell why animals are so made, we must be content to say
that we do not know; and therefore, to leave this feature in the
structure of animals out of our argument for design. Hence we do not say
that the making of beasts, birds, and fishes, on the same vertebrate
plan, proves design in the Creator, in any way in which we can
understand design. That plan is not of itself a proof of design; it is
something in addition to the proofs of design; a general law of the
animal creation, established, it may be, for some other reason. But
this common plan being given, we can discern and admire, in every kind
of animal, the manner in which the common plan is adapted to the
particular purpose which the animal's kind of life involves.[2] The
general law is not all; there is also, in every instance, a special care
for the species. The general law may seem, in many cases, to remove
further from us the proof of providential care; by showing that the
elements of the benevolent contrivance are not provided in the cases
alone where they are needed, but in others also. But yet this seeming,
this obscuration of the evidence of design, by interposing the form of
general law, cannot last long. If the general law supplies the elements,
still a special adaptation is needed to make the elements answer such a
purpose; and what is this adaptation, but design? The radius and ulna,
the carpal and metacarpal bones, are all in the general type of the
vertebrate skeleton. But does this fact make it the less wonderful, that
man's arm and hand and fingers should be constructed so that he can make
and use the spade, the plow, the loom, the pen, the pencil, the chisel,
the lute, the telescope, the microscope, and all other instruments? Is
it not, rather, very wonderful that the bones which are to be found
rudimentally, in the leg-bone of a horse, or the hoof of an ox, should
be capable of such a curious and fertile development and modification?
And is not such development and modification a work, and a proof, of
design and intention in the Creator? And so in other cases. The teats of
male animals, the nipples of man, may arise from this, that the general
plan of the animal frame includes paps, as portions of it; and that the
frame is so far moulded in the embryo, before the sex of the offspring
is determined. Be it so. Yet still this provision of paps in the animal
form in general, has reference to offspring; and the development of
that part of the frame, when the sex is determined, is evidence of
design, as clear as it is possible to conceive in the works of nature.
The general law is moulded to the special purpose, at the proper stage;
and this play of general laws, and special contrivances, into each
other's provinces, though it may make the phenomena a little more
complex, and modify our notion as to the mode of the Creator's working,
will not, in philosophical minds, disturb the conviction that there is
design in the special adaptations: besides which, some other feature of
the operation of the Creative Mind may be suggested by the prevalence of
general laws in the Creation.
4. There is, however, one caution suggested by this view. Since,
besides, and mixed with the examples of Design which the creation
offers, there are also results of General Laws, in which we cannot trace
the purpose and object of the law; we may fall into error, if we fasten
upon something which is a result of such mere general laws, and imagine
that we can discern its object and purpose. Thus, for instance, we might
possibly persuade ourselves that we had discovered the use and purpose
of the teats of male animals; or of the trace of separation into parts
which the leg-bone of a horse offers; or of the false toes of a pig: all
which are, as we have seen, the rudiments of a plan more general than is
developed in the particular case. And if, when we had made such a
fancied discovery, it were found that the uses and purposes which we had
imagined to belong to these parts or features, were not really served by
them; at first, perhaps, we might be somewhat disturbed, as having lost
one of the evidences of the design of the Creator, all which are,
precious to a reverent mind. But it is not likely that any disturbance
of a reverent mind on such grounds as this, would continue long, or go
far. We should soon come to recollect, how light and precarious,
perhaps how arbitrary and ill-supported by our real knowledge, were the
grounds on which we had assigned such uses to such parts. We should turn
back from them to the more solid and certain evidences, not shaken, nor
likely to be shaken, by any change in prevalent zoological or anatomical
doctrines, which those who love to contemplate such subjects habitually
dwell upon; and, holding ourselves ready to entertain any speculations
by which the bearing of those general Laws upon Natural Religion could
be shown, in such a way as to convince our reason, we should rest in the
confident and tranquil persuasion that no success or failure in such
speculations could vitally affect our belief in a wise and benevolent
Deity:--that though additional illustrations of his attributes might be
interesting and welcome, no change of our scientific point of view could
make his being or action doubtful.
5. This is, it would seem, the manner in which a reasonable and reverent
man would regard the proof of a Supreme Creator and Governor, which is
derived from Design, as seen in the organic creation; and the mode in
which such proof would be affected by changes in the knowledge which we
may acquire of the general laws by which the organic creation is
constituted and governed. And hence, if it should be found to be
established by the researches of the most comprehensive and exact
philosophy, that there are, in any province of the universe,
resemblances, gradations, general laws, indications of the mode in which
one form approaches to another, and seems to pass into and generate
another, which tend to obliterate distinctions which at first appeared
broad and conspicuous; still the argument, from the design which appears
in the parts of which we most clearly see the purpose, would not lose
its force. If, for instance, it should be made apparent, by geological
investigations of the extinct fossil creation, that the animal forms
which have inhabited the earth, have gradually approached to that type
in which the human form is included, passing from the rudest and most
imperfect animal organizations, mollusks, or even organic monads, to
vertebrate animals, to warm-blooded animals, to monkeys, and to men;
still, the evidences of design in the anatomy of man are not less
striking than they were, when no such gradation was thought of. And what
is more to the purpose of our argument, the evidences of the peculiar
nature and destination of man, as shown in other characters than his
anatomy,--his moral and intellectual nature, his history and
capacities,--stand where they stood before; nor is the vast chasm which
separates man, as a being with such characters as these latter, from all
other animals, at all filled up or bridged over.
6. The evidence of design in the inorganic world,--in the relation of
earth, air, water, heat and light,--is, to most persons, less striking
and impressive, than it is in the organic creation. But even among these
mere physical elements of the world, when we consider them with
reference to living things, we find many arrangements which, on a
reflective view, excite our admiration, by the beneficial effect, and
seemingly beneficent purpose. Our condition is furnished with the solid
earth, on which we stand, and in which we find the materials of man's
handiworks; stone and metal, clay and sand;--with the atmosphere which
we breathe, and which is the vehicle of oral intercourse between man and
man;--with revolutions of the sun, by which are brought round the
successions of day and night, through all their varying lengths, and of
summer and winter;--with the clouds above us, which pour upon the earth
their fertilizing showers. All this furniture of the earth, so
marvellously adapting it for the abode of living creatures, and
especially of man, may well be regarded as a collection of provisions
for his benefit:--as _intended_ to do him the good, which they do. Nor
would this impression be removed, or even weakened, if we were to
discover that some of these arrangements, instead of being produced by a
machinery confined to that single purpose, were only partial results of
a more general plan. For instance; we learn that the varying lengths of
days and nights through the year, and the varying declination of the
sun, are produced, not, as was at first supposed, by the sun moving
round the earth, in a complex diurnal and annual path, but by the earth
revolving in an annual orbit round the sun; while at the same time she
has a diurnal rotation about her own axis, which axis, by the laws of
mechanics, remains always parallel to itself. When we learn that this is
so, we see that the effect is produced by a mechanical arrangement far
more simple than any which the imagination of man had devised; but in
this case, the effect is plainly rather an increased admiration at the
simplicity of the mechanism, than a wavering belief in the reality of
the purpose. In like manner when, instead of supposing water to exist in
a continuous reservoir in a firmament above the earth, and to fall in
the earlier and in the latter rain, by some special agency for that
purpose; men learnt to see that the water in the upper regions of the
air must exist in clouds and in vapors only, and must fall in showers by
the condensing influence of cold currents of air; they needed not to
cease to admire the kindness of the Creator, in providing the rain to
water the earth, and the wind to dry it; although the mechanism by which
the effect was produced was of a larger kind than they had before
imagined. And even if this mechanism extend through the solar system: if
the arrangement by which the Earth's atmosphere is the special region in
which there are winds hot and cold, clouds compact or dissolving,--be
an arrangement which extends its influence to other planets, as well as
to ours;--if this mixed atmosphere be placed, not only at the meeting
point of clear aqueous vapor above, and warmer airs below, but also at
the meeting point of a hot central region surrounding the Sun, and a
cold exterior zone in which water and vapor can exist in immense
collected masses, such as are Jupiter and Saturn;--still it would not
appear, to a reasonable view, that this larger expansion of the
machinery by which the effect is produced, makes the machinery less
remarkable; or can at all tend to diminish the belief that it was
_intended_ to produce the effect which it does produce. Hot and cold,
moist and dry, are constantly mixed together for the support of
vegetable and animal life; and not the less so, if we believe that,
though elements of this kind pervade the whole solar system, it is only
at the Earth that they are combined so as to foster and nourish living
things.
7. But it will perhaps be said, that to suppose the whole Solar System
to be a machine merely operating for the benefit of the Earth and its
population, is to give to the Earth and its population an importance in
the scheme of creation which is quite extravagant and improbable:--it is
to make the greater orbs, Jupiter and Saturn, minister to the less;
instead of having their own purpose, and their own population, which
their size naturally leads us to expect. To this we reply, that, in the
first place, we have shown good reason for believing that the Earth is
really the largest dense solid globe which exists in the solar system,
and that the size of Jupiter and Saturn arises from their being composed
mainly of water and vapor. And with regard to the difficulty of the
greater ministering to the less;--if by _greater_, mere size and extent
be understood, it appears to be the universal law of creation, that the
greater, in that sense, _should_ minister to the less, when the less
includes living things. Even if the planets be all inhabited, the sun,
which is greater far than all of them together, ministers light and heat
to all of them. Even on this supposition, the vast spaces by which the
planets are separated have no use, that we can discern, except to place
them at suitable distances from the sun. Even on this supposition, their
solid globes within, their atmospheres without are all merely
subservient to the benefit of a thin and scattered population on the
surface. The space occupied by men and animals on the earth's surface,
even taking into account the highest buildings and the deepest seas, is
only a few hundreds, or a thousand feet. The benefit of this minute
shell, interrupted in many places for vast distances, everywhere loosely
and sparsely filled, is ministered to by the solidity and attraction of
a mass below it 20 millions of feet deep; by the influence of an
atmosphere above it 200 thousand feet high at least, and it may be, much
more. And this being so, if we increase the depth of the centre 20
thousand times; if we carry the extreme verge of air and vapor to thirty
times the radius of the earth's orbit from us, how does the construction
of the machine become more improbable, or the disproportion of its size
to its purpose more incongruous? Is mere size,--extent of brute matter
or blank space,--so majestic a thing? Is not infinite space large enough
to admit of machines of any size without grudging? But if we thus move
the centre of the Earth's peopled surface 20 thousand times further off,
we reach the Sun. If we carry the limit of air and vapor to the distance
of 30 times the radius of the Earth's orbit we arrive at Neptune. Are
these new numbers monstrous, while the old ones were accepted without
scruple? Is number such an alarming feature in the description of the
Universe? Does not the description of every part and every aspect of it,
present us with numbers so large, that wonder and repugnance, on that
ground are long ago exhausted? Surely this is so: and if the evidence
really tend to prove to us that all the solar system ministers to the
earth's population; the mere size of the system, compared with the space
occupied by the population, will not long stand in the way of the
reception of such a doctrine.
8. But the objection will perhaps be urged in another form. It will be
said that the other Planets have so many points of resemblance with the
Earth, that we must suppose their nature and purpose the same. They,
like the Earth, revolve in circles round the sun, rotate on their own
axes, have, several of them, satellites, are opaque bodies, deriving
light and probably heat from the sun. To an external spectator of the
Solar System, they would not be distinguishable from the Earth. Such a
spectator would never be tempted to guess that the Earth alone, of all
these, neither the greatest nor the least, neither the one with the most
satellites, nor the fewest, neither the innermost nor the outermost of
the planets, is the only one inhabited; or at any rate the only one
inhabited by an intelligent population. And to this we reply; that the
largest of the other planets, if we judge rightly, are _not_ like the
Earth in one most essential respect, their density; and none of them, in
having a surface consisting of land and water; except perhaps Mars: that
if the supposed external spectator could see that this was so, he might
see that the earth was different from the rest; and he might be able to
see the vaporous nature of the outer planets, so that he would no more
think of peopling them, than we do, of peopling the grand Alpine ridges
and vallies which we see in the clouds of a summer-sky.
9. But even if the supposed spectator attended only to the obvious and
superficial resemblances between one of the planets and another, he
might still, if he were acquainted with the general economy of the
Universe, have great hesitation in inferring that, if one of them were
inhabited, the others also must be inhabited. For, as we have said, in
the plan of creation, we have a profusion of examples, where similar
visible structures do not answer a similar purpose; where, so far as we
can see, the structure answers no purpose in many cases; but exists, as
we may say, for the sake of similarity: the similarity being a general
Law, the result, it would seem, of a creative energy, which is wider in
its operation than the particular purpose. Such examples are, as we have
said, the finger-bones which are packed into the hoofs of a horse, or
the paps and nipples of a male animal. Now the spectator, recollecting
such cases might say: I know that the earth is inhabited; no doubt Mars
and Jupiter are a good deal like the Earth; but are they inhabited? They
look like the terrestrial breast of Nature: but are they really nursing
breasts? Do they, like that, give food to living offspring? Or are they
mere images of such breasts? male teats, dry of all nutritive power?
sports, or rather overworks of nature; marks of a wider law than the
needs of Mother Earth require? many sketches of a design, of which only
one was to be executed? many specimens of the preparatory process of
making a Planet, of which only one was to be carried out into the making
of a World? Such questions might naturally occur to a person acquainted
with the course of creation in general; even before he remarked the
features which tend to show that Jupiter and Saturn, that Venus and
Mercury, have not been developed into peopled worlds, like our Earth.
10. Perhaps it may be said, that to hold this, is to make Nature work in
vain; to waste her powers; to suppose her to produce the frame work, and
not to build; to make the skeleton, and not to clothe it with living
flesh; to delude us with appearances of analogy and promises of
fertility, which are fallacious. What can we reply to this?
11. We reply, that to work in vain, in the sense of producing means of
life which are not used, embryos which are never vivified, germs which
are not developed; is so far from being contrary to the usual
proceedings of nature, that it is an operation which is constantly going
on, in every part of nature. Of the vegetable seeds which are produced,
what an infinitely small proportion ever grow into plants! Of animal
ova, how exceedingly few become animals, in proportion to those that do
not; and that are wasted, if this be waste! It is an old calculation,
which used to be repeated as a wonderful thing, that a single female
fish contains in its body 200 millions of ova, and thus, might, of
itself alone, replenish the seas, if all these were fostered into life.
But in truth, this, though it may excite wonder, cannot excite wonder as
anything uncommon. It is only one example of what occurs everywhere.
Every tree, every plant, produces innumerable flowers, the flowers
innumerable seeds, which drop to the earth, or are carried abroad by the
winds, and perish, without having their powers unfolded. When we see a
field of thistles shed its downy seeds upon the wind, so that they roll
away like a cloud, what a vast host of possible thistles are there! Yet
very probably none of them become actual thistles. Few are able to take
hold of the ground at all; and those that do, die for lack of congenial
nutriment, or are crushed by external causes before they are grown. The
like is the case with every tribe of plants.[3] The like with every
tribe of animals. The possible fertility of some kinds of insects is as
portentous as anything of this kind can be. If allowed to proceed
unchecked, if the possible life were not perpetually extinguished, the
multiplying energies perpetually frustrated, they would gain dominion
over the largest animals, and occupy the earth. And the same is the
case, in different degrees, in the larger animals. The female is stocked
with innumerable ovules, capable of becoming living things: of which
incomparably the greatest number end as they began, mere ovules;--marks
of mere possibility, of vitality frustrated. The universe is so full of
such rudiments of things, that they far outnumber the things which
outgrow their rudiments. The marks of possibility are much more numerous
than the tale of actuality. The vitality which is frustrated is far more
copious than the vitality which is consummated. So far, then, as this
analogy goes, if the earth alone, of all the planetary harvest, has been
a fertile seed of creation;--if the terrestrial embryo have alone been
evolved into life, while all the other masses have remained barren and
dead:--we have, in this, nothing which we need regard as an
unprecedented waste, an improbable prodigality, an unusual failure in
the operations of nature: but on the contrary, such a single case of
success among many of failure, is exactly the order of nature in the
production of life. It is quite agreeable to analogy, that the Solar
System, of which the _flowers_ are not many, should have borne but one
_fertile_ flower. One in eight, or in twice eight, reared into such
wondrous fertility as belongs to the Earth, is an abundant produce,
compared with the result in the most fertile provinces of Nature. And
even if any number of the Fixed Stars were also found to be barren
flowers of the sky; objects, however beautiful, yet not sources of life
or development, we need not think the powers of creation wasted or
frustrated, thrown away or perverted. One such fertile result as the
Earth, with all its hosts of plants and animals, and especially with
Man, an intelligent being, to stand at the head of those hosts, is a
worthy and sufficient produce, so far as we can judge of the Creator's
ways by analogy, of all the Universal Scheme.
12. But when we follow this analogy, so far as to speak of the mere
material mass of a planet as an _embryo world_;--a barren flower;--a
seed which has never been developed into a plant;--we are in danger of
allowing the analogy to mislead us. For a planet, as to its brute mass,
has really nothing in common with a seed or an embryo. It has no
organization, or tendency to organization; no principle of life, however
obscure. So far as we can judge, no progress of time, or operation of
mere natural influence, would clothe a brute mass with vegetables, or
stock it with animals. No species of living thing would have its place
upon the surface; by the mere order of unintelligent nature. So much is
this so, according to all that our best knowledge teaches, that those
geologists who must most have desired, for the sake of giving
completeness and consistency to their systems, to make the production of
vegetable and animal species from brute matter, a part of the order of
nature, (inasmuch as they have explained everything else by the order of
nature,) have not ventured to do so. They allow, generally at least,
each separate species to require a special act of creative power, to
bring it into being. They make the peopling of the earth, with its
successive races of inhabitants, a series of events altogether different
from the operation of physical laws in the sustentation of existing
species. The creation of life is, they allow, something out of the
range of the ordinary laws of nature. And therefore, when we speak of
uninhabited planets, as cases in which vital tendencies have been
defeated; in which their apparent destiny, as worlds of life, has been
frustrated; we really do injustice to our argument. The planets had no
vital tendencies: they could have had such given, only by an additional
act, or a series of additional acts, of Creative power. As mere inert
globes, they had no settled destiny to be seats of life: they could have
such a destiny, only by the appointment of Him who creates living
things, and puts them in the places which he chooses for them. If, when
a planetary mass had come into being, (in virtue of the same general
physical law, suppose, which produced the earth,) the Creator placed a
host of living things upon the earth, and none upon the other planet;
there was still no violation of analogy, no seeming change of purpose,
no unfinished plan. In the solar system, we can see what seem to be good
reasons why he did this; but if we could not see such reasons, still we
should be yet further from being able to see reasons why he necessarily
must place inhabitants upon the other planet.
13. It is sometimes said, that it is agreeable to the goodness of God,
that all parts of the creation should swarm with life; that life is
enjoyment; and that the benevolence of the Supreme Being is shown in the
diffusion of such enjoyment into every quarter of the universe. To leave
a planet without inhabitants, would, it is thought, be to throw away an
opportunity of producing happiness. Now we shall not here dwell upon the
consideration, that the enjoyment thus spoken of, is, in a great degree,
the enjoyment which the mere life of the lower tribes of animals
implies;--the enjoyment of madrepores and oysters, cuttle-fish and
sharks, tortoises and serpents; but we reply more broadly, that it is
not the rule followed by the Creator, to fill all places with living
things. To say nothing of the vast intervals between planet and planet,
which, it is presumed, no one supposes to be occupied by living things;
how large a portion of the surface of the earth is uninhabited, or
inhabited only in the scantiest manner. Vast desert tracts exist in
Africa and in Asia, where the barren sand nourishes neither animal nor
vegetable life. The highest regions of mountain-ranges, clothed with
perpetual snow, and with far-reaching sheets of glacier ice, are
untenanted, except by the chamois at their outskirts. There are many
uninhabited islands; and were formerly many more. The ocean, covering
nearly three-fourths of the globe, is no seat of habitation for land
animals or for man; and though it has a large population of the fishy
tribes, is probably peopled in smaller numbers than if it were land, as
well as by inferior orders. We see, in the Earth then, which is the only
seat of life of which we really know anything, nothing to support the
belief that every field in the material universe is tenanted by living
inhabitants.
14. That vegetables and animals, being once placed upon the earth, have
multiplied or are multiplying, so as to occupy every part of the land
and water which is suited for their habitation, we can see much reason
to believe. Philosophical natural-historians have been generally led to
the conviction that each species has had an original centre of
dispersion, where it was first native, and that from this centre it has
been diffused in all directions, as far as the circumstances of climate
and soil were favorable to its production. But we can see also much
reason to believe that this general diffusion of vegetable and animal
life from centres, is a part of the order of nature which may often be
made to give way to other and higher purposes;--to the diffusion, over
the whole surface of the earth, of a race of intelligent, moral agents.
This process may often interfere with the general law of diffusion: as
for instance, when man exterminates noxious animals. And whatever may be
the laws which tend to replenish the earth, on which such centres of the
diffusion of life exist for animals and plants; according to all
analogy, these laws can have no force on any other planet, till such
origins and centres of life are established on their surfaces. And even
if any of the species which have ever tenanted the earth were so
established on any other planet, we have the strongest reason to believe
that they could not survive to a second generation.
15. Perhaps it may be said that we unjustifiably limit the power and
skill of the Supreme Creator, if we deny that he could frame creatures
fitted to live on any of the other planets, as well as in the
Earth:--that the wonderful variety, and unexpected resource, of the ways
in which animals are adapted for all kinds of climates, habitations, and
conditions, upon the earth, may give us confidence that, under
conditions still more extended, in habitations still further removed, in
climates going beyond the terrestrial extremes, still the same wisdom
and skill may well be supposed to have devised possible modes of animal
life.
16. To this we reply, that we are so far from saying that the Creator
could not place inhabitants in the other planets, that we have attempted
to show what kind of inhabitants would be most likely to be placed
there, by considering the way in which animals are accommodated to
special conditions in their habitation. In judging of such modes of
accommodating animals to an abode on other planets, as well as the
earth, we have reasoned from what we know, of the mode in which animals
are accommodated to their different habitations on the earth. We believe
this to be the only safe and philosophical way of treating the question.
If we are to reason at all about the possibility of animal life, we
must suppose that heat and light, gravity and buoyancy, materials and
affinities, air and moisture, produce the same effect, require the same
adaptations, in Jupiter or in Venus, as they do on the Earth. If we do
not suppose this, we run into the error which so long prevented many
from accepting the Newtonian system:--the error of thinking that matter
in the heavens is governed by quite different laws from matter on the
earth. We must adopt that belief, if we hold that animals may live under
relations of heat and moisture, materials and affinities, in Jupiter or
Venus, under which they could not live on our planet. And that belief,
as we have said, appears to us contrary to all the teaching which the
history of science offers us.
17. And not only is it contrary to the teaching of the history of
science, to suppose the laws, which connect elemental and organic
nature, to be different in the other planets from what they are on ours;
but moreover the supposition would not at all answer the purpose, of
making it probable that the planets are inhabited. For if we begin to
imagine new and unknown laws of nature for those abodes, what is there
to limit or determine our assumptions in any degree? What extravagant
mixtures of the attributes and properties of mind and matter may we not
then accept as probable truths? We know how difficult the poets have
found it to describe, with any degree of consistency, the actions and
events of a world of angels, or of evil spirits, souls or shades,
embodied in forms so as to admit of description, and yet not subject to
the laws of human bodies. Virgil, Tasso, Milton, Klopstock, and many
others, have struggled with this difficulty:--no one of them, it will be
probably agreed, with any great success; at least, regarding his
representation as a hypothesis of a possible form of life, different
from all the forms which we know. Yet if we are to reject the laws
which govern the known forms of life, in order that we may be able to
maintain the possibility of some unknown form in a different planet, we
must accept some of these hypotheses, or find a better. We must suppose
that weight and cohesion, wounds and mutilations, wings and plumage,
would have, either the effect which the poets represent them as having,
or some different effect: and in either case it will be impossible to
give any sufficient reason why we should confine the population to the
surface of a planet. If gravity have not, upon any set of beings, the
effect which it has upon us, such beings may live upon the surface of
Saturn, though it be mere vapor: but then, on that supposition, they may
equally well live in the vast space between Saturn and Jupiter, without
needing any planet for their mansion. If we are ready to suppose that
there are, in the solar system, conscious beings, not subject to the
ordinary laws of life, we may go on to imagine creatures constituted of
vaporous elements, floating in the fiery haze of a nebula, or close to
the body of a sun; and cloudy forms which soar as vapors in the region
of vapor. But such imaginations, besides being rather fitted for the
employment of poets than of philosophers, will not, as we have said,
find a population for the planets; since such forms may just as easily
be conceived swimming round the sun in empty space, or darting from star
to star, as confining themselves to the neighborhood of any of the solid
globes which revolve about the central sun.
18. We should not, then add anything to the probability of inhabitants
on the other planets of our system, even if we were arbitrarily to
assume unlimited changes in the laws of nature, when we pass from our
region to theirs. But probably, all readers will be of opinion that such
assumptions are contrary to the whole scheme and spirit of such
speculations as we are here presuming:--that if we speculate on such
subjects at all, it must be done by supposing that the same laws of
nature operate in the same manner, in planetary, as in terrestrial
spaces;--and that as we suppose, and prove, gravity and attraction,
inertia and momentum, to follow the same rules, and produce the same
effects, on brute matter there, which they do here; so, both these
forces, and others, as light and heat, moisture and air, if, in the
planets, they go beyond the extremes which limit them here, yet must
imply, in any organized beings which exist in the planets, changes,
though greater in amount, of the same kind as those which occur in
approaching the terrestrial extremes of those elementary agents. And
what kind of a population that would lead us to suppose in Jupiter or
Saturn, Mars or Venus, the reader has already seen our attempt to
determine; and may thence judge whether, when we go so far beyond the
terrestrial extremes of heat and cold, light and dimness, vapor and
water, air and airlessness, any population at all is probable.
19. Perhaps some persons, even if they cannot resist the force of these
reasons, may still yield to them with regret; and may feel as if, having
hitherto believed that the planets were inhabited, and having now to
give up that belief, their view of the solar system, as one of the
provinces of God's creation, were made narrower and poorer than it was
before. And this feeling may be still further increased, if they are led
to believe also that many of the fixed stars are not the centres of
inhabited systems; or that very few, or none are. It may seem to them,
as if, by such a change of belief, the field of God's greatness,
benevolence, and government, were narrowed and impoverished, to an
extent painful and shocking;--as if, instead of being the Maker and
Governor of innumerable worlds, of the most varied constitution, we were
called upon to regard him as merely the Master of the single world in
which we live:--as if, instead of being the object of reverence and
adoration to the intelligent population of these thousand spheres, he
was recognized and worshipped on one only, and on that, how scantily and
imperfectly!
20. It is not to be denied that there may be such a regret and
disturbance naturally felt at having to give up our belief that the
planets and the stars probably contain servants and worshippers of God.
It must always be a matter of pain and trouble, to be urged with
tenderness, and to be performed in time, to untwine our reverential
religious sentiments from erroneous views of the constitution of the
universe with which they have been involved. But the change once made,
it is found that religion is uninjured, and reverence undiminished. And
therefore we trust that the reader will receive with candor and patience
the argument which we have to offer with reference to this view, or
rather, this sentiment.
21. We remark, in the first place, that however repugnant it may be to
us to believe a state of any part of the universe in which there are not
creatures who can know, obey and worship God; we are compelled, by
geological evidence, to admit that such a state of things has existed
upon the earth, during a far longer period than the whole duration of
man's race. If we suppose that the human race, if not by their actual
knowledge, obedience, and worship of God, yet at least by their
faculties for knowing, obeying, and worshipping, are a sufficient reason
why there should be such a province in God's empire; still in fact, this
race has existed only for a few thousand years, out of the, perhaps,
millions of years of the earth's existence; and during all the previous
period, the earth, if tenanted, was tenanted by brute creatures, fishes
and lizards, beasts and birds, of which none had any faculty,
intellectual, moral, or religious. By the same analogy, therefore, on
which we have already insisted, we may argue that there is reason to
believe, that if other planets, and other stars, are the seats of
habitation, it is rather of such habitation as has prevailed upon the
earth during the millions, than during the six thousand years; and that
if we have, in consequence of physical reasons, to give up the belief of
a population in the other planets, or in the stars; we are giving up,
not anything with which we might dwell with religious pleasure--hosts of
fellow-servants and fellow-worshippers of the Divine Author of all:--but
the mere brute tribes, of the land and of the water, things that creep
and crawl, prowl and spring;--none that can lift its visage to the sky,
with a feeling that it is looking for its Maker and Master. There have
not existed upon the Earth, during the immense ages of its praehuman
existence, beings who could recognize and think of the Creator of the
world: and if astronomy introduces us, as geology has done, to a new
order of material structures, thus barren of an intelligent and
religious population, we must learn to accept the prospect, in the one
case, as in the other. Nor need we fear that on a further contemplation
of the universe, we shall find every part of it ministering, though
perhaps not in the way our first thoughts had guessed, to sentiments of
reverence and adoration towards the Maker of the universe.
22. The truth is, as the slightest recollection of the course of opinion
about the stars may satisfy us, that men have had repeatedly to give up
the notions which they had adopted, of the manner in which the material
heavens, the stars and the skies, are to minister to man's feeling of
reverence for the Creator. It was long ago said, that the heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork: that
day and night, sun and moon, clouds and stars, unite in impressing upon
us this sentiment. And this language still finds a sympathetic echo, in
the breasts of all religious persons. Nor will it ever cease to do so,
however our opinions of the structure and nature of the heavenly bodies
may alter. When the new aspects of things become familiar, they will
show us the handiwork of God, and declare his glory, as plainly as the
old ones. But in the progress of opinions, man has often had to resign
what seemed to him, at the time, visions so beautiful, sublime, and
glorious, that they could not be dismissed without regret. The Universal
Lord was at one time conceived as directing the motions of all the
spheres by means of Ruling Angels, appointed to preside over each. The
prevalence of proportion and number, in the dimensions of these spheres,
was assumed to point to the existence of harmonious sounds, accompanying
their movements, though unheard by man; as proportion and number had
been found to be the accompaniments and conditions of harmony upon
earth. The time came, when these opinions were no longer consistent with
man's knowledge of the heavenly motions, and of the wide-spreading
causes by which they are produced. Then "Ruling Angels from their
spheres were hurled," as a matter of belief; though still the poets
loved to refer to imagery in which so many lofty and reverent thoughts
had so long been clothed. The aspect of the stars was most naturally
turned to a lesson of cheerful and thoughtful piety, by the adoption of
such a view of their nature and office; and thus, the midnight
contemplator of an Italian sky teaches his companion concerning the
starry host;
Sit, Jessica; look how the floor of heav'n
Is thick inlaid with patterns of bright gold.
There's not the meanest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls.
meaning, apparently, the harmony between the immortal spirits that
govern each star, and the cherubims that sing before the throne of God.
But however beautiful and sublime may be this representation, the
philosopher has had to abandon it in its literal sense. He may have
adopted, instead, the opinion that each of the stars is the seat, or the
centre of a group of seats, of choirs of worshippers; but this again, is
still to suppose the nature of those orbs to be entirely different from
that of this earth; though in many respects, we know that they are
governed by the same laws. And if he will be content to know no more
than he has the means of knowing, or even to know only according to his
best means of knowing, he must be prepared, if the force of proof so
requires, to give up this belief also; at least for the present.
23. Indeed, those who have not been content with this, and have sought
to combine with the visible splendor of the skies, some scheme, founded
upon astronomical views, which shall people them with intelligent beings
and worshippers, have drawn upon their fancy quite as much as Lorenzo in
his lesson to Jessica; or rather, they have done what he and those from
whom his love was derived, had done before. They have taken the truths
which astronomers have discovered and taught, and made the objects and
regions so revealed, the scenes and occasions of such sentiments of
piety as they themselves have, or feel that they ought to have. Even in
Shakspeare, the stars are already _orbs_, each orb has his _motion_, and
in his motion produces the music of the spheres. More recent preachers,
following sounder views of the nature of these orbs and motions, have
been equally poetical when they come to their religious reflection. When
the poet of the _Night Thoughts_ says,
"Each of these stars is a religious house;
I saw their altars smoke, their incense rise,
And heard hosannas ring through every sphere."
he is no less imaginative than the poet of that _Midsummer Night's
Dream_, which we have in the _Merchant of Venice_. And we are compelled,
by all the evidence which we can discern, to say the same of the
preacher who speaks, from the pulpit, of these orbs of worlds, and tells
us of the stars which "give animation to other systems[4];" when he
says[5] "worlds roll in these distant regions; and these worlds must be
the centres of life and intelligence;" when he speaks of the earth[6] as
"the humblest of the provinces of God's empire." But then we must
recollect that these thoughts still prove the religious nature of man;
they show how he is impelled to endeavor to elevate his mind to God by
every part of the universe; and it is not too much to say, that through
the faculties of man, thus regarding the starry heavens, every star does
really testify to the greatness of God, and minister to His worship.
24. We may trust that this mere material magnificence does not require
inhabitants, to make it lift man's heart towards the Universal Creator,
and to make him accept it as a sublime evidence of His greatness. The
grandest objects in nature are blank and void of life;--the
mountain-peaks that stand, ridge beyond ridge, serene in the region of
perpetual snow;--the summer-clouds, images of such mountain tracts, even
upon a grander scale, and tinted with more gorgeous colors;--the
thunder-cloud with its dazzling bolt;--the stormy ocean with its
mountainous waves;--the Aurora Borealis, with its mysterious pillars of
fire;--all these are sublime; all these elevate the soul, and make it
acknowledge a mighty Worker in the elements, in spite of any teaching of
a material philosophy. And if we have to regard the planets as merely
parts of the same great spectacle of nature, we shall not the less
regard them with an admiration which ministers to pious awe. Even merely
as a spectacle, Saturn made visible in his real shape, only by a vast
exertion of human skill, yet shining like a star, in form so curiously
complex, symmetrical and seemingly artificial, will never cease to be an
object of the ardent and contemplative gaze of all who catch a sight of
him. And however much the philosopher may teach that he is merely a mass
of water and vapor, ice and snow, he must be far more interesting to the
eye than the Alps, or the clouds that crown them, or the ocean with its
icebergs; where the same elements occur in forms comparatively shapeless
and lawless, irregular and chaotic.
25. But perhaps there is in the minds of many persons, a sentiment
connected with this regular and symmetrical form of the heavenly bodies;
that being thus beautifully formed and finished they must have been the
objects of especial care to the Creator. These regular globes, these
nearly circular orbits, these families of satellites, they too so
regular in their movements; this ring of Saturn; all the adjustments by
which the planetary motions are secured from going wrong, as the
profoundest researches into the mechanics of the universe show;--all
these things seem to indicate a peculiar attention bestowed by the Maker
on each part of the machine. So much of law and order, of symmetry and
beauty in every part, implies, it may be thought, that every part has
been framed with a view to some use;--that its symmetry and its beauty
are the marks of some noble purpose.
26. To reply to this argument, so far as it is requisite for us to do
so, we must recur to what we have already said; that though we see in
many parts of the universe, inorganic as well as organic, marks which we
cannot mistake, of design and purpose; yet that this design and purpose
are often effected by laws which are of a much wider sweep than the
design, so far as we can trace its bearing. These laws, besides
answering the purpose, produce many other effects, in which we can see
no purpose. We have now to observe further that these laws, thus ranging
widely through the universe, and working everywhere, as if the Creator
delighted in the generality of the law, independently of its special
application, do often produce innumerable results of beauty and
symmetry, as if the Creator delighted in beauty and symmetry,
independently of the purpose answered.
27. Thus, to exemplify this reflection: the powers of aggregation and
cohesion, which hold together the parts of solid bodies, as metals and
stones, salts and ice,--which solidify matter, in short,--we can easily
see, to be necessary, in order to the formation and preservation of
solid terrestrial bodies. They are requisite, in order that man may have
the firm earth to stand upon, and firm materials to use. But let us
observe, what a wonderful and beautiful variety of phenomena grows out
of this law, with no apparent bearing upon that which seems to us its
main purpose. The power of aggregation of solid bodies is, in fact, the
force of crystallization. It binds together the particles of bodies by
molecular forces, which not only hold the particles together, but are
exerted in special directions, which form triangles, squares, hexagons,
and the like. And hence we have all the variety of crystalline forms
which sparkle in gems, ores, earths, pyrites, blendes; and which, when
examined by the crystallographers, are found to be an inexhaustible
field of the play of symmetrical complexity. The diamond, the emerald,
the topaz, have got each its peculiar kind of symmetry. Gold and other
metals have, for the basis of their forms, the cube, but run from this
into a vastly greater variety of regular solids than ever geometer
dreamt of. Some single species of minerals, as calc-spar, present
hundreds of forms, all rigorously regular, and have been alone the
subject of volumes. Ice crystallizes by the same laws as other solid
bodies; and our Arctic voyagers have sometimes relieved the weariness of
their sojourn in those regions, by collecting some of the innumerable
forms, resembling an endless collection of hexagonal flowers, sporting
into different shapes, which are assumed by flakes of snow[7]. In these
and many other ways, the power of crystallization produces an
inexhaustible supply of examples of symmetrical beauty. And what are we
to conceive to be the object and purpose of this? As we have said, that
part of the purpose which is intelligible to us is, that we have here a
force holding together the particles of bodies, so as to make them
solid. But all these pretty shapes add nothing to this intelligible use.
Why then are they there? They are there, it would seem, for their own
sake;--because they are pretty;--symmetry and beauty are there on their
own account; or because they are universal adjuncts of the general laws
by which the creator works. Or rather we may say, combining different
branches of our knowledge, that crystallization is the mark and
accompaniment of chemical composition: and that as chemical composition
takes place according to definite numbers, so crystalline aggregation
takes place according to definite forms. The symmetrical relations of
space in crystals correspond to the simple relations of number in
synthesis; and thus, because there is rule, there is regularity, and
regularity assumes the form of beauty.
28. This, which thus shows itself throughout the mineral kingdom, or,
speaking more widely and truly, throughout the whole range of chemical
composition, is still more manifest in the vegetable domain. All the
vast array of flowers, so infinitely various, and so beautiful in their
variety, are the results of a few general laws; and show, in the degree
of their symmetry, the alternate operation of one law and another. The
rose, the lily, the cowslip, the violet, differ in something of the same
way, in which the crystalline forms of the several gems differ. Their
parts are arranged in fives or in threes, in pentagons or in hexagons,
and in these regular forms, one part or another is expanded or
contracted, rendered conspicuous by color or by shape, so as to produce
all the multiplicity of beauty which the florist admires. Or rather, in
the eye of the philosophical botanist, the whole of the structure of
plants, with all their array of stems and leaves, blossoms and fruits,
is but the manifestation of one Law; and all these members of the
vegetable form, are, in their natures, the same, developed more or less
in this way or in that. The daisy consists of a close cluster of flowers
of which each has, in its form, the rudiments of the valerian. The
peablossom is a rose, with some of its petals expanded into
butterfly-like wings. Even without changing the species, this general
law leads to endless changes. The garden-rose is the common hedge-rose
with innumerable filaments changed into glowing petals. By the addition
of whorl to whorl, of vegetable coronet over coronet, green and colored,
broad and narrow, filmy and rigid, every plant is generated, and the
glory of the field and of the garden, of the jungle and of the forest,
is brought forth in all its magnificence. Here, then, we have an
immeasurable wealth of beauty and regularity, brought to view by the
operation of a single law. And to what use? What purpose do these
beauties answer? What is the object for which the lilies of the field
are clothed so gaily and gorgeously? Some plants, indeed, are
subservient to the use of animals and of man: but how small is the
number in which we can trace this, as an intelligent purpose of their
existence! And does it not, in fact, better express the impression which
the survey of this province of nature suggests to us, to say, that they
grow because the Creator willed that they should grow? Their vegetable
life was an object of His care and contrivance, as well as animal and
human life. And they are beautiful, also because He willed that they
should be so:--because He delights in producing beauty;--and, as we have
further tried to make it appear, because He acts by general law, and law
produces beauty. Is not such a tendency here apparent, as a part of the
general scheme of Creation?
29. We have already attempted to show, that in the structure of animals,
especially that large class best known to us, vertebrate animals, there
is also a general plan which, so far as we can see, goes beyond the
circuit of the special adaptation of each animal to its mode of living:
and is a rule of creative action, in addition to the rule that the parts
shall be subservient to an intelligible purpose of animal life. We have
noticed several phenomena in the animal kingdom, where parts and
features appear, rudimentary and inert, discharging no office in their
economy, and speaking to us, not of purpose, but of law:--consistent
with an end which is visible, but seemingly the results of a rule whose
end is in itself.
30. And do we not, in innumerable cases, see beauties of color and form,
texture and lustre, which suggests to us irresistibly the belief that
beauty and regular form are rules of the Creative agency, even when they
seem to us, looking at the creation for uses only, idle and wanton
expenditure of beauty and regularity. To what purpose are the host of
splendid circles which decorate the tail of the peacock, more beautiful,
each of them, than Saturn with his rings? To what purpose the exquisite
textures of microscopic objects, more curiously regular than anything
which the telescope discloses? To what purpose the gorgeous colors of
tropical birds and insects, that live and die where human eye never
approaches to admire them? To what purpose the thousands of species of
butterflies with the gay and varied embroidery of their microscopic
plumage, of which one in millions, if seen at all, only draws the
admiration of the wandering schoolboy? To what purpose the delicate and
brilliant markings of shells, which live, generation after generation,
in the sunless and sightless depths of the ocean? Do not all these
examples, to which we might add countless others, (for the world, so far
as human eye has scanned it, is full of them,) prove that beauty and
regularity are universal features of the work of Creation, in all its
parts, small and great: and that we judge in a way contrary to a vast
range of analogy, which runs through the whole of the Universe, when we
infer that, because the objects which are presented to our contemplation
are beautiful in aspect and regular in form, they must, in each case, be
means for some special end, of those which we commonly fix upon, as the
main ends of the Creation, the support and advantage of animals or of
man?
31. If this be so, then the beautiful and regular objects which the
telescope reveals to us; Jupiter and his Moons, Saturn and his Rings,
the most regular of the Double Stars, Clusters and Nebulae; cannot
reasonably be inferred, because they are beautiful and regular, to be
also fields of life, or scenes of thought. They may be, as to the poet's
eye they often appear, the gems of the robe of Night, the flowers of the
celestial fields. Like gems and like flowers, they are beautiful and
regular, because they are brought into being by vast and general laws.
These laws, although, in the mind of the Creator, they have their
sufficient reason, as far as they extend, may have, in no other region
than that which we inhabit, the reason which we seek to discover
everywhere, the sustentation of a life like ours. That we should connect
with the existence of such laws, the existence of Mind like our own
mind, is most natural; and, as we might easily show, is justifiable,
reasonable, even necessary. But that we should suppose the result of
such laws are so connected with Mind, that wherever the laws gather
matter into globes, and whirl it round the central body, _there_ is also
a local seat of minds like ours; is an assumption altogether
unwarranted; and is, without strong evidence, of which we have as yet no
particle, quite visionary.
32. But finally, it may be said that by this our view of the universe,
we diminish the greatness of the work of creation, and the majesty of
the Creator. Such a view appears to represent the other planets as mere
fragments, which have flown off in the fabrication of this our earth,
and of the mechanism by which it answers its purpose. Instead of a vast
array of completed worlds, we have one world, surrounded by abortive
worlds and inert masses. Instead of perfection everywhere, we have
imperfection everywhere, except at one spot; if even there the
workmanship be perfect.
33. To this, the reply is contained in what we have already said: but we
may add, that it cannot be wise or right, to prop up our notions of
God's greatness, by physical doctrines which will not bear discussion.
God's greatness has no need of man's inventions for its support. The
very conviction that the Creation must be such as to confirm our belief
in the greatness of God, shows that such a belief is more deeply seated
than any special views of the structure of the universe, and will
triumphantly survive the removal of error in such views. We may add,
that till within a few thousand years, this earth, compared with what it
now is, having upon it no intelligent beings, might be regarded as an
abortive world; that all the parts of the solar system which we can best
scrutinize, the moon, and meteoric stones, are inert masses; and
further, that there is everywhere the perfection which results from the
operation of law, and that _that_ seems to be the perfection with which
the Creator is contented.
34. And perhaps, when the view of the universe which we here present has
become familiar, we may be led to think that the aspect which it gives
to the mode of working of the Creator, is sufficiently grand and
majestic. Instead of manufacturing a multitude of worlds on patterns
more or less similar, He has been employed in one great work, which we
cannot call imperfect, since it includes and suggests all that we can
conceive of perfection. It may be that all the other bodies, which we
can discover in the universe, show the greatness of this work, and are
rolled into forms of symmetry and order, into masses of light and
splendor, by the vast whirl which the original creative energy imparted
to the luminous element. The planets and the stars are the lumps which
have flown from the potter's wheel of the Great Worker;--the shred-coils
which, in the working, sprang from His mighty lathe:--the sparks which
darted from His awful anvil when the solar system lay incandescent
thereon;--the curls of vapor which rose from the great cauldron of
creation when its elements were separated. If even these superfluous
portions of the material are marked with universal traces of regularity
and order, this shows that universal rules are his implements, and that
Order is the first and universal Law of the heavenly work.
35. And, that we may see the full dignity of this work, we must always
recollect that Man is a part of it, and the crowning part. The
workmanship which is employed on mere matter is, after all, of small
account, in the eyes of intellectual and moral creatures, when compared
with the creation and government of intellectual and moral creatures.
The majesty of God does not reside in planets and stars, in orbs and
systems; which are, after all, only stone and vapor, materials and
means. If, as we believe, God has not only made the material world, but
has made and governs man, we need not regret to have to depress any
portion of the material world below the place which we had previously
assigned to it; for, when all is done, the material world _must_ be put
in an inferior place, compared with the world of mind. If there be a
World of Mind, _that_, according to all that we can conceive, must have
been better worth creating, must be more worthy to exist, as an object
of care in the eyes of the Creator, than thousands and millions of stars
and planets, even if they were occupied by a myriad times as many
species of brute animals as have lived upon the earth since its
vivification. In saying this, we are only echoing the common voice of
mankind, uttered, as so often it is, by the tongues of poets. One such
speaks thus of stellar systems:
Behold this midnight splendor, worlds on worlds;
Ten thousand add and twice ten thousand more,
Then weigh the whole: one soul outweighs them all,
And calls the seeming vast magnificence
Of unintelligent creation, poor.
And as this is true of intelligence, with the suggestion which that
faculty so naturally offers, of the inextinguishable nature of mind, so
is it true of the moral nature of man. No accumulation of material
grandeur, even if it fill the universe, has any dignity in our eyes,
compared with moral grandeur: as poetry has also expressed:
Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense,
And speak, O man! Can this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty exalt
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate
Amid the band of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove
When guilt calls down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the Father of his Country, Hail!
For lo! the tyrant prostrate in the dust,
And Rome again is free.
This action being taken, as it is here meant to be conceived, for one of
the highest examples of moral greatness. And however we may judge of
this action, we must allow that the characters which are implied in this
praise of it,--the loftiest kinds of moral excellence,--are more
suitable to the highest idea of the object and purpose of a Deity
creating worlds, than would be any mere material structure of planets
and suns, whether kept in their places by adamantine spheres, wheeling
unshaken through the void immense, or themselves wheeling unshaken by
the power of a universal law. The thoughts of Rights and Obligations,
Duty and Virtue, of Law and Liberty, of Country and Constitution, of the
Glory of our Ancestors, the Elevation of our Fellow-Citizens, the
Freedom and Happiness and Dignity of Posterity,--are thoughts which
belong to a world, a race, a body of beings, of which any one
individual, with the capacities which such thoughts imply, is more
worthy of account, than millions of millions of mollusks and belemnites,
lizards and fishes, sloths and pachyderms, diffused through myriads of
worlds.
36. We might illustrate this argument further, by taking actions of the
moral character of which there will be less doubt. If we look at the
great acts which render Greece illustrious and interesting in our
eyes,--such as the death of Socrates, for instance, the triumph of a
reverence for Law and a love of country;--can we think it any real
diminution of the glory of the universe, if we are reduced to the
necessity of rejecting the belief in a multitude of worlds, which
though, it may be, peopled with lower animals, contain none endowed with
any higher principle than hunger and thirst?
37. That the human race possesses a worth in the eyes of Reason beyond
that which any material structure, or any brute population can possess,
might be maintained on still higher and stronger grounds; namely, on
religious grounds: but we do not intend here to dwell on that part of
the subject. If man be, not merely (and he alone of all animals) capable
of Virtue and Duty, of Universal Love and Self-Devotion, but be also
immortal; if his being be of infinite duration, his soul created never
to die; then, indeed, we may well say that one soul outweighs the whole
unintelligent creation. And if the Earth have been the scene of an
action of Love and Self-Devotion for the incalculable benefit of the
whole human race, in comparison with which the death of Socrates fades
into a mere act of cheerful resignation to the common lot of humanity;
and if this action, and its consequences to the whole race of man, in
his temporal and eternal destiny, and in his history on earth before and
after it, were the main object for which man was created, the cardinal
point round which the capacities and the fortunes of the race were to
turn; then indeed we see that the Earth has a pre-eminence in the scheme
of creation, which may well reconcile us to regard all the material
splendor which surrounds it, all the array of mere visible luminaries
and masses which accompany it, as no unfitting appendages to such a
drama. The elevation of millions of intellectual, moral, religious,
spiritual creatures, to a destiny so prepared, consummated, and
developed, is no unworthy occupation of all the capacities of space,
time, and matter. And, so far as any one has yet shown, to regard this
great scheme as other than the central point of the divine plan; to
consider it as one part among other parts, similar, co-ordinate, or
superior; involves those who so speculate, in difficulties, even with
regard to the plan itself, which they strive in vain to reconcile; while
the assumption of the subjects of such a plan, in other regions of the
universe, is at variance with all which we, looking at the analogies of
space and time, of earth and stars, of life in brutes and in man, have
found reason to deem in any degree probable.
38. And thus that conjecture of the Plurality of Worlds, to which a wide
and careful examination of the physical constitution of the Universe
supplied no confirmation, derives also little support from a
contemplation of the Design which the Creator may be supposed to have
had in the work of the Creation; when such Design is regarded in a
comprehensive manner, and in all its bearings. Such a survey seems to
speak rather in favor of the Unity of the World, than of a Plurality of
Worlds. A further consideration of the intellectual, moral, and
religious nature of man may still further illustrate this view; and with
that object, we shall make a few additional remarks.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The greatest anatomists, and especially Mr. Owen, have recently
expressed their conviction, that researches on the structure of animals
must be guided by the principle of _unity of composition_ as well as the
principle of _final causes_. See Owen _On the Nature of Limbs_.
[2] This has been termed by physiologists _The Law of the Development
from the General to the Special_.
[3] Every reader of physiological works knows how easy it would be to
multiply examples of this kind to any extent. Thus it is held by
physiologists, that the sporules of fungi are universally diffused
through the atmosphere, ready to vegetate whenever an opportunity
presents itself: and that a single individual produces not less than ten
millions of germs. It is held also that innumerable seeds of plants
still capable of vegetation, lie in strata far below the earth's
surface, finding the occasion to vegetate only by the rarest and most
exceptional occurrences.--Carpenter, _Manual of Physiology_. 1851, Art.
44.
[4] Chalmers, p. 35.
[5] Ibid. p. 21
[6] Ibid. p. 119.
[7] Dr. Scoresby, in his _Account of the Arctic Regions_ (1820) Vol. II.
has given figures of 96 such forms, selected for their eminent
regularity from many more.