An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" Part 3

This forms the author's second questionable hypothesis; it is plausible, but false--repugnant to fact and correct observation. We have no credible evidence that species have changed, or are changeable by the utmost efforts of art or favouring conditions; all we can effect is to improve them within definite limits, but not alter their characteristic types; and we have certain proof that neither man nor the animal nearly next to him in organization, has changed either in habits, disposition, form, or osseus structure during the last 3,000 years. Resemblance is no proof of ident.i.ty; and hence, though species run into each other by almost inappreciable shades of difference, it is no proof that they are derivative, or other than isolated and self-dependent creations. That they are such, and shall continue such, seems a fixed canon of Nature, who, apparently, has prescribed to each its circle of amendment and range, that like shall beget like--that nought organic shall exist without ancestral germ--and that the variety of species which const.i.tutes the beauty and order of nature shall by no chance, contrivance, or mingling of races, be confounded.

Geological facts are in favour of this conclusion. They attest the appearance of new species, not their improvement. In each species a gradation of improvement, approximating from a lower to the next higher organism, is not perceptible; but each seems to have been made perfect at first, and most suited to the co-existent state of the earth. The earliest reptiles were not reptiles of inferior structure; nor the earliest fishes, birds, or beasts. They were adapted, as we now find them, to their precise sphere of existence, without progressive apt.i.tude, preparatory to a higher and translated condition of being.

Geology rather points to the extinction and degeneracy of species than their improvement; and the fossils of the old red sandstone, and of the carboniferous formation, attest a loftier and more magnificent creation of both marine and land products than any now subsisting.

For these and other reasons before adduced, we dismiss the hypothesis of animal trans.m.u.tation as unproved and untenable. It pleases and satisfies superficial views, but confronted with the facts of nature, it vanishes like a baseless vision. Man is _sui generis_, sole and exclusive in organization, without pre-existing type or affinity to other species; and his alleged recent metamorphosis from a monkey, and his first and far more distant one from a snail or a tadpole, are paradoxes only worthy of idle debating clubs.

Having attempted to unfold the progression of species by his law of development, the author next essays to explain the commencement of the vital principle itself. But here, too, he must have a beginning, and his "organic globule" answers a similar purpose, in deducing the mystery of life, as his nuclei in the "nebular hypothesis." In both the perplexity and real difficulty is not solved or mastered, but evaded. But we have already remarked on the point, and shall only observe that when the author can elicit _thought_ from inorganic matter, either by chemistry or galvanism, we shall think he has made a step in creation. Until then he does not advance, only deceives himself and readers by verbal subtleties and baseless suppositions.

Apart from its hypotheses, the _Vestiges_ form a valuable and interesting work. It is the most complete, elaborate, and--with all its faults of detail, logic, and inference--the most scientific expositor of universal nature yet offered to the world. But its hypotheses are unwarranted, not inductively derived, and can have no hold on men of science, supported as they mostly are by fanciful a.n.a.logies, facts misunderstood or misstated, and ill.u.s.trations selected without discrimination or applicability. Theories do sometimes conduce to the discovery of truth, but are often obstructive; occupy the mind, like theological controversy, without advancing science; and are viewed with the same aversion by the philosopher that the political abstractions tendered to the mult.i.tude by the demagogue are viewed by the patriotic legislator.

The work, however, will live, and deserves to live. The temple of nature has been looked into, not profoundly, perhaps, nor always successfully; but in a fearless spirit, and with a highly-accomplished mind. Had the divine COSMOS been more fully dwelt upon and depicted--had the harmony, beauty, and beneficence of creation been more fully and exclusively displayed--we should have been more gratified; but we are thankful, in the main, for what we have received. An impulse has been given to popular inquiry, and a vast field for discussion opened, from which we can prospectively discern neither less love for man, nor reverence for G.o.d.

Who the author is we have no certain knowledge. It is not, we suspect, Lord KING, nor Lord THURLOW, nor Lady BYRON; but it may be the author of the _Essay on the Formation of Opinions_, and of the _Principle of Representation_. Mr. BAILEY, of Sheffield, though little known, possesses the fine reasoning powers, intellectual grasp, independence of research, abstract a.n.a.lysis, and attic style, that would qualify him to produce the _Vestiges of Creation_, though we never heard that he is a great natural philosopher. But, as just hinted, deep science is not evinced by the _Vestiges_, only an able, systematic, and tasteful arrangement of its distant and recent advances.

"EXPLANATIONS:"

A SEQUEL TO THE

"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION."

(_From the_ ATLAS _of December 20, 1845._)

So many strong objections had been arrayed against the _Vestiges of Creation_, that the author was called upon to elucidate and reinforce his argument, or abandon the ground he had taken up. The more candid and equitable of his judges--those who were disposed to try him upon the merits, and independently test the claims of his inquiry, as in fairness it ought to be, as strictly a scientific speculation, regardless of any constructive bearings it might have on current opinions or prejudices--could not arrive at any more favourable conclusion than that he had failed to establish his hypotheses. Indeed this was the only verdict that could be safely delivered in. The impugners of the work were in the same helpless predicament as its author, who had, however, more venturously presumed to unravel unsearchable mysteries, concerning which, in the existing state of science, men can only conjecture, wonder, and adore, utterly unable to affirm or deny aught respecting them. What, for instance, with the remotest semblance of certainty, can be predicated of the stellar orbs? Is it not idle almost to speculate on the impenetrable secret of their origin when their very existence is undefinable--when their end, their glittering discs, and all but immeasurable distances are wholly unapproachable? Nor hardly less beyond our grasp is the commencement of organic existences. We do pride ourselves on recent advances to the sources of ent.i.ty; we tear up the dead, we torture the living, and sedulously chronicle every beat of the heart and vibration of the brain to slake an insatiable curiosity, yet how unsatisfactory our reach towards the hidden springs of life--how limited our attainments, when the creation of a single blade of gra.s.s, the humblest worm, a poor beetle, or gadfly, would baffle the utmost structural skill of the greatest philosopher! Into the fathomless depths of our own globe we have also essayed to penetrate. Poor beings! of three score and ten, whose utmost historical span extends only to some thousands of years, have sought to trammel up the terrene vicissitudes of millions of ages anterior to their own existence! Does not this savour of a vain research, or of a laudable thirst for knowledge?

Over all these dark and solemn inscrutabilities, however, the _Vestiges_ undertook to throw a glare of light, to reveal their beginning, progression, order, relations, and law of development. Although daring in aim, the attempt was not to be wholly deprecated. While religious freedom had been secured, philosophy had become timid, official, and timeserving; retentive as FONTENELLE of the truths within its grasp, and fearful to give utterance to aught that might disturb the stillness of the temple, the lecture-room, or fashionable auditory. Modern teachers had been used so long to the Baconian go-cart, that they had become as apprehensive of losing the inductive clue as the PALINURUSES of old of the sight of the directing sh.o.r.e. But the time had arrived when it seemed expedient to relax the strictness of the investigative rule, and afford scope for a more systematic, if not speculative research. Science had made great acquisitions, and it seemed desirable, if only for experiment sake, to see what kind of FRANKENSTEIN would result from the architectural union of her scattered limbs. This formed the scope of the _Vestiges of Creation_; novelties were not propounded, only a portentous skeleton raised from the truths physical astronomy, geology, chemistry, physiology, and natural history had established. Does the author recoil from his work? No; these _Explanations_ attest that he is steadfast in the worship of the idol of his brain. He retracts nothing, he re-a.s.serts, elucidates, and often dexterously turns the weapons of the most formidable and orthodox of his adversaries against them, by showing from their writings that they had, in detail at least, acquiesced in the truths that they now, in a generalised form, seek to controvert and repudiate. So much adroitness and pertinacity in the author can hardly fail to provoke resistance, if not asperity, despite of the imperturbable temper in which he maintains the combat. The learned have been disturbed in their daily routine, by the discharge from an unknown hand, of a ma.s.sive pyrites, that has diffused as much consternation among the herd of modish elocutionists, college tutors, and chimpanzee professors, as Jove's ligneous projectile among the lieges of the standing pool. For this commotion we have, on a former occasion, conceded that there existed valid reasons, and we hasten to see the way in which they have been met in the rejoinder before us; contenting ourselves, as we needs must, by briefly noticing some of the salient points of the controversy.

First of the Nebular Hypothesis. The chief objection to this theory is, that the existence of nebulous matter in the heavens is disproved by the discoveries made by the telescope of the Earl of ROSSE. By the reach of this wondrous tube, ma.s.ses of light, rendered apparently nebulous by their vast distance, have been resolved into cl.u.s.ters of stars, and thence the a.s.sumption seemed unwarrantable that any luminous matter, different from the solid bodies composing planetary systems existed in the heavenly s.p.a.ces. But to this the author replies, that there are two cla.s.ses of nebulae--one resolvable into constellations--another comparatively near, that remains unaffected by telescopic power, and that until this last description can be separated, the nebular hypothesis is not disproved. It is thus brought to an issue of facts, both as to the existence of nebulae of this latter kind, and the optical power to resolve them into distinct stars.

But the author can hardly claim this negative success in grappling with a second objection--namely, his a.s.sumed origin of _rotatory motion_.

According to him, a confluence of atoms round a spherical centre of attraction, would cause the agglomerated ma.s.s to revolve upon its axis in the manner of our earth. This was denied by everybody the least acquainted with the laws of motion; and thus did one of his imaginary solutions of a great phenomenon of the universe fall dead to the ground.

This he now seems to concede, but in a sentence unintelligible to us, in which an undoubted physical law is spoken of as only an _abstract truth_ (p. 20). He obviously still clings to his first mistaken inference, and calls to his aid Professor NICHOL, whom he has also pressed into his service to help him over the last-mentioned difficulty by the Professor's affirmation of a diversity of nebulous cl.u.s.ters. But the Professor does not commit himself to the extent of the author; his aqueous whirlpool is cited from HERSCHEL, only in ill.u.s.tration, and correctly said to be produced by the unequal force of convergence of a fluid to a common centre. But the author's nuclei, disposed in his notable "fire-mist," did not act with unequal force on the ambient vapour, and whose central convergence in consequence, would not produce rotation or motion of any kind. This was the real matter in question, the author was taken up on his own premises, and the results he a.s.sumed to follow from them proved to be inconsistent with the unquestionable laws of gravitating matter.

He has gone over the geological portion of his subject with much care, but if competent, it would be impossible within our narrow limits to accompany him; nor could the discussion be made either interesting or intelligible except to the scientific, who have devoted attention to an extremely curious, but still obscure and unsettled field of investigation. He has elaborately cleared up many points, and successfully, we think, answered some weighty objections, but we are not yet converts to his theory of organic development. One pa.s.sage we shall extract; after adverting to the facts established by powerful evidence, that during the long term of the earth's existence, strata of various thickness were deposited in seas composed of matter worn away from the previous rocks; that these strata by volcanic agency were raised into continents, or projected into mountain chains, and that sea and land have been constantly interchanging conditions. He continues:--

"The remains and traces of plants and animals found in the succession of strata show that, while these operations were going on, the earth gradually became the theatre of organic being, simple forms appearing first, and more complicated afterwards. _A time when there was no life_ is first seen. We then _see life begin, and go on_; but whole ages elapsed before man came to crown the work of nature. This is a wonderful revelation to have come upon the men of our time, and one which the philosophers of the days of Newton could never have expected to be vouchsafed. The great fact established by it is, that the organic creation, as we now see it, was not placed upon the earth at once; it observed a PROGRESS. Now we can _imagine_ the Deity calling a young plant or animal into existence instantaneously; but we see that he does not usually do so. The young plant and also the young animal go through a series of conditions, advancing them from a mere germ to the fully developed repet.i.tion of the respective parental forms. So, also, we can _imagine_ Divine power evoking a whole creation into being by one word; but we find that such had not been his mode of working in that instance, for geology fully proves that organic creation pa.s.sed through a series of stages before the highest vegetable and animal forms appeared. Here we have the first hint of organic creation having arisen in the manner of natural order. The a.n.a.logy does not prove ident.i.ty of causes, but it surely points very broadly to natural order or law having been the mode of procedure in both instances."

To the allusion in the last sentence there can be no demur; that there is "natural order or law" in creation who will contest? But it is the author's law and the author's order that are in dispute--his trans.m.u.tation of species, the higher cla.s.ses emerging from and partly annihilating the lower, under meliorated conditions of being.

That the simpler form of organic life should first appear; that remains of invertebrated animals should be first found; then, with these, fish, being the lowest of the vertebrated; next, reptiles and birds, which occupy higher grades; and finally, along with the rest, mammifers, the highest of all--all this appears natural enough. _How could it be otherwise?_ When the earth was a slimy bed, what but the lowest forms of life--the mollusca, and other soft animals, without bony structure--could possibly live in or occupy it? During the carboniferous era, when the earth was enveloped in an atmosphere of hydrogen, vegetation might thrive; but man, and animals like him, dependent on vital air, could not exist; nor are remains of them found in this epoch of the globe's vicissitudes. All this is comprehensible. But the perplexing inquiry is, whence did the successive grades of animals emerge? That they could not contemporaneously exist; when the whole earth was a sh.o.r.eless sea, and that animals could not live is certain; but were they created in succession by the Divine fiat, or did they emerge, as our author supposes and elaborately tries to prove, from the humblest primitive forms, by an inscrutable law of progression--evidenced, he contends, by geological facts--though by some his facts are disputed--and certainly not confirmed by any animal changes observable within the limits of human experience?

There is another alternative offers, which would dispense both with the author's hypothesis and the need of successive organic creations by a special Providence. Is it a geological fact, since life began, that the earth has _simultaneously_ undergone throughout its entire surface the revolutions a.s.signed to it? May it not always, from that period, have consisted, as it now does, of water and dry land, alternately changing their sites, but always apart, and allowing of the contemporary existence on some portion of its surface of all the varieties of tribes ever found upon it? The fossiliferous rocks that formed the primeval sea-beds could only be deposited by the abrasion from the anterior and higher rocks. It has always appeared to us that this conjecture is worthy of consideration, and, if found tenable, would reconcile many perplexities.

Upon subjects so obscure, and to which the human intellect has been only recently directed, it is not surprising that men of science have not arrived at uniformity of conclusion. Unable to reconcile phenomena with positive knowledge, there are names of no mean repute who would reserve certain domains of creation as the fields of special interventions. To this cla.s.s Dr. WHEWELL appears to belong, who a.s.sumes that "events not included in the _course of nature_ have formerly taken place." In the same way Professor SEDGWICK, to account for the appearance of certain animals, says, "They were not called into being by any law of nature, but by a power above nature." He adds, "they were created by the hand of G.o.d, and adapted to the conditions of the period." To this the author of the _Vestiges_ a.s.sents, with the explanation (p. 134) that their existence was not the result of a "special exertion of power to meet special conditions," but of an antecedent and primitive law of development suited to the new exigencies, and emanating from the Creator. This, he contends, does not lower our estimate of the Divine character; and, in proof, cites Dr. DODDRIDGE, who cannot be suspected of irreverence. "When we a.s.sert," says the pious and amiable author, "a perpetual Divine agency, we readily acknowledge that matters are so contrived as not to need a Divine interposition in a different manner from that in which it had been constantly exerted. And it must be evident that an unremitting energy, displayed in such circ.u.mstances, _greatly exalts our idea of G.o.d, instead of depressing it_; and, therefore, by the way, is so much more likely to be true." Against constructive inferences it is urged, in the _Explanations_--

"As to results which may flow from any particular view which reason may show as the best supported, I must firmly protest against any a.s.sumed t.i.tle in an opponent to p.r.o.nounce what these are. The first object is to ascertain truth. No truth can be derogatory to the presumed fountain of all truth. The derogation must lie in the erroneous construction which a weak human creature puts upon the truth. And practically it is the true infidel state of mind which prompts apprehension regarding any fact of nature, or any conclusion of sound argument."

The writer then quotes Sir JOHN HERSCh.e.l.l as having some years ago announced views strictly conformable to those subsequently taken of organic creation in the _Vestiges_:--

"'For my part,' says Sir John, 'I cannot but think it an inadequate conception of the Creator, to a.s.sume it as granted that his combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise, though, in this, as in all his other works, we are led, by _all a.n.a.logy_, to suppose that he operates through a series of intermediate causes, and that, in consequence, _the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural, in contradistinction to a miraculous process_,--although we perceive no indications of any process actually in progress which is likely to issue in such a result. In his address to the British a.s.sociation at Cambridge, (1845), he said with respect to the author's hypothesis of the first step of organic creation--'The transition from an inanimate crystal to a globule capable of such endless organic and intellectual development, is as great a step--as unexplained a one--as unintelligible to us--and in any sense of the word as _miraculous_, as the immediate creation and introduction upon earth, of every species and every individual would be!'"

The Rev. Dr. PYE SMITH is next adduced:--

"'Our most deeply investigated views of the Divine Government,'

says he, 'lead to the conviction that it is exercised in the way of _order_, or what we usually call _law_. G.o.d reigns according to immutable principles, that is _by law_, in _every part of his kingdom--the mechanical, the intellectual, and the moral_; and it appears to be most clearly a position arising out of that fact, that _a comprehensive germ which shall necessarily evolve all future developments_, down to the minutest atomic movements, is a more suitable attribution to the Deity, than the idea of a necessity for irregular interferences.'"

Lastly, the reviewer of the _Vestiges_ in _Blackwood's Magazine_, who is understood to be a naturalist of distinguished ability, expresses himself in an equally decided manner:--

"To reduce to a system the acts of creation, or the development of the several forms of animal life, no more impeaches the authorship of creation, than to trace the laws by which the world is upheld, and its phenomena perpetually renewed. The presumption naturally rises in the mind, that the same Great Being would adopt the same mode of action in both cases.... To a mind accustomed, as is every educated mind, to regard the operations of Deity as essentially differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself, the power of G.o.d as put forth _in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in;_ it pains the imagination to be obliged to a.s.similate those operations, for a moment, to the brief energy of a human will, or the manipulations of a human hand.... No, there is nothing atheistic, nothing irreligious, in the attempt to conceive creation, as well as reproduction, carried on by universal laws."

We have dwelt so much upon this matter because it is one in which popular feelings are likely to be most deeply interested. We shall give the author, too, the benefit of his _Explanations_ on another point, elucidating his former statement of the trans.m.u.tation of a crop of oats into a crop of rye:--

"'At the request,' says Dr. Lindley, 'of the Marquis of Bristol, the Reverend Lord Arthur Hervey, in the year 1843, sowed a handful of oats, treated them in the manner recommended, by continually stopping the flowering stems, and the produce, in 1844, has been for the most part ears of a very slender barley, having much the appearance of rye, with a little wheat, and some oats; samples of which are, by the favour of Lord Bristol, now before us.' The learned writer then adverts to the 'extraordinary, but certain fact, that in orchidaceous plants, forms just as different as wheat, barley, rye, and oats, have been proved by the most rigorous evidence, to be accidental variations of one common form, brought about no one knows how, but before our eyes, and rendered permanent by equally mysterious agency. Then says Reason, if they occur in orchidaceous plants, why should they not also occur in corn plants? for it is not likely that such vagaries will be confined to one little group in the vegetable kingdom; it is more rational to believe them to be a part of the _general system_ of creation.... How can we be _sure_, that wheat, rye, oats, and barley, are not all accidental off-sets from some unsuspected species?'"

It may be so; but this would only prove that the "unsuspected species"

included greater varieties, not that a really defined species was trans.m.u.table into another. But it is a point upon which no satisfactory result can be arrived at, since naturalists are not agreed in the cla.s.sification of species, nor what attributes const.i.tute one.

The Broomfield experiment is again brought forward, as decisive of the power to originate new life from inorganic elements. It will be remembered that Mr. WEEKES, of Sandwich, continued during three years to subject solutions to electric action, and invariably found insects produced in these instances, while they as invariably failed to appear where the electric action was not employed, but every other condition fulfilled. In a letter to the author of the _Vestiges_--two are inserted, one on the independent generation of fungi--Mr. WEEKES says--

"One hundred and sixty-six days from the commencement of the experiment--the first acari seen in connexion therewith, six in number and nearly full-grown, were discovered on the outside of the open gla.s.s vessel. On removing two pieces of card which had been laid over the mouth of this vessel, several fine specimens were found inhabiting the under surfaces, and others completely developed and in active motion here and there within the gla.s.s.

Making my visit at an hour when a more favourable light entered the room, swarms of acari were found on the cards, about the gla.s.s tumbler, both within and without, and also on the platform of the apparatus. At this identical hour Dr. J. Black favoured me with a call, inspected the arrangements, and received six living specimens of the acarus produced from solution in the open vessel."

Specimens of the insect were sent to Paris, when they set a whole conclave of philosophers a-laughing, because they were found to contain ova. Other specimens were sent to London, but there their fate was sealed by their being found to be, not a new species, but one then abundant in the country. For ourselves we think the experiment not conclusive. We adopt HUME'S principle. All but universal experience having established that life is _ex ovo_ only, we must have a proportionate body of counter evidence to establish a different mode of generation. At all events, Mr. WEEKES'S protracted gestation of 166 days by his galvanic battery is not likely, in the existing rage for despatch, to supersede the existing routine of reproduction.

LONDON: PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.

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