The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences Part 17

"Every thing in the world is endowed with life; the world itself is alive, and continues only, maintains itself by virtue of its life.

"Man is G.o.d wholly manifested. G.o.d has become man, zero has become + --.

Man is the whole of arithmetic, compacted, however, out of all numbers; he can, therefore, produce numbers out of himself.

"Animals are men who never imagine. They are beings who never attain to consciousness concerning themselves. They are single accounts; man is the whole of mathematics.

"Arithmetic is the truly absolute or divine science. Theology is arithmetic personified.

"For G.o.d to become real, he must appear under the form of the sphere.

There is no other form for G.o.d. G.o.d manifesting is an infinite sphere.

"G.o.d is a rotating globe; the world is G.o.d rotating.

"The whole universe is material, is nothing but matter; for it is the primary act repeating itself eternally in the centre. The universe is a rotating globe of matter.

"There is no dead matter; it is alive through its being, through the Eternal that is in it. Matter has no existence in itself, but it is the Eternal only that exists in it. Every thing is G.o.d that is there, and without G.o.d there is absolutely nothing.

"Every thing that is is material. Now, however, there is nothing that is not; consequently there is every where nothing immaterial.

"Fire is the totality of ether, is G.o.d manifested in his totality.

"Every thing that is has originated out of fire; every thing is only cooled, rigidified fire.

"G.o.d being in himself is gravity; acting, self-emergent light; both together, or returning into himself, heat.

"G.o.d only is monocentral. The world is the bicentral G.o.d, G.o.d the monocentral world, which is the same with the monas and dyas.

Self-consciousness is a living ellipse.

"G.o.d is a threefold trinity; at first the eternal, then the ethereal, and finally the terrestrial, where it is completely divided.

"The symbolical doctrine of the colors is correct according to the philosophy of nature. Red is fire, love--Father. Blue is air, truth, and belief--Son. Green is water, formation, hope--Ghost. These are the three cardinal virtues. Yellow is earth, the immovable, inexorable falsity, the only vice--Satan. There are three virtues, but only one vice. A result obtained by physio-philosophy, whereof pneumato-philosophy as yet augurs nothing.

"The primary mucus, out of which every thing organic has been created, is the sea mucus.

"The whole sea is alive. It is a fluctuating, ever self-elevating, and ever self-depressing organism.

"If the organic fundamental substance consist of infusoria, so must the whole organic world originate from infusoria. Plants and animals can be only metamorphoses of infusoria. No organism has consequently been created of larger size than an infusorial point; whatever is larger has not been created, but developed.

"The mind, just as the body, must be developed out of these animals, (infusoria.) The human body has been formed by an extreme separation of the neuro-protoplasmic or mucous ma.s.s; so must the human mind be a separation, a memberment of infusorial sensation. The highest mind is an anatomized or dismembered mesmerism, each member whereof has been const.i.tuted independent in itself.

"The liver is the soul in a state of sleep, the brain is the soul active and awakening.

"Circ.u.mspection and forethought appear to be the thoughts of the bivalve mollusca, and snails.

"Gazing upon a snail, one believes that he finds the prophesying G.o.ddess sitting upon the tripod. What majesty is in a creeping snail, what reflection, what earnestness, what timidity, and yet at the same time what firm confidence! Surely a snail is an exalted symbol of mind slumbering deeply within itself."

It is difficult for an Anglo-Saxon mind to believe that a man who could write thus was not out of his senses. Yet Oken is an eminent physiologist, and has made, it is said, important discoveries in respect to the cranial h.o.m.ologies, which have been developed in Professor Owen's work on the h.o.m.ologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton. Nay, Oken declares himself to have written his Physio-philosophy "in a kind of inspiration"--from what world the religious man might be in doubt.

These extravagant notions show what is the natural tendency of the law hypothesis. Yet it does not necessarily convert a man into an atheist. And if any of its advocates declare themselves Theists, and even Christians, we need not regard them as hypocrites, though we may consider them as in an eminently dangerous position; and that, when they shall act consistently, they will swing off into utter irreligion. But my arguments against the hypothesis will be based on the position that _it is not sustained by facts_; and this is the second position of my lecture.

The nebular hypothesis is a part of the foundation on which the doctrine of creation by law rests. And the high scientific reputation of its author, as well as its apparent coincidence with some of the deductions of geology respecting the earliest condition of the earth, have made philosophers look upon it with considerable favor. Yet very few have been ready to give it implicit credence. And of late the most plausible evidence in its favor seems to be fast vanishing away. The ablest mechanicians are unable to see how a rotary motion should be produced in nebulous matter by refrigeration; or, if this be a.s.sumed, how the successive portions, detached by superior centrifugal force, should form spherical ma.s.ses. But a still more formidable objection lies in the fact that, as improvements are made in telescopes, one and another of the nebul, on which the hypothesis rests, have been resolved into stars; and the presumption hence arising is very strong that all are resolvable. In the present aspect of the subject, no sagacious philosopher would dare to rest even an hypothesis upon the unresolved nebul. If, however, the nebular hypothesis were shown to be true, it would prove nothing in regard to the production of animals and plants by mere law, without the special agency of the Deity.

The essential and inherent vitality of some kinds of matter is another doctrine on which this hypothesis rests. "In vain," says Bory St. Vincent, "has matter been considered as eminently brute. Many observations prove that, if it is not all active, by its very nature, a part of it is essentially so; and the presence of this, operating according to certain laws, is able to produce life in an agglomeration of the molecules; and since these laws will always be imperfectly known, it will at least be rash to maintain that an infinite intelligence did not impose them; since they are manifested by their results."--_Dictionnaire Cla.s.sique d'Histoire Naturelle_, art. _Materie_.

The "observations" to which this writer refers to sustain his hypothesis are those which had been made upon certain vegetable infusions, which, in certain circ.u.mstances, exhibited minute particles in motion, apparently by vital forces. These were called _monads_, and were not supposed to be distinct animals, but only atoms, ready to be organized. The more modern and accurate researches of Ehrenberg and others, however, have shown, beyond all doubt, that these monads are true animals, the minutest of all living beings. .h.i.therto discovered. Not less than twenty-six species of them have been described and figured by microscopists, the smallest of which never exceeds the twelve thousandth of an inch in diameter.

The vegetable physiologists have described certain peculiar motions in the minute vessels of plants, that might readily be regarded as matter essentially vital. I refer to what they call _rotation_ and _cyclosis_.

But these are never seen save in the living plant; and, therefore, seem dependent on the general life of the vegetable.

There is, however, danger of mistaking certain motions of the particles of matter, by chemical agency, for the effect of vitality. A curious example is thus described by Ehrenberg, which was discovered by Professor Bornsdorff. "If a solution of the chloride of aluminum be dropped into a solution of pota.s.sa, by the alternate precipitation and solution of the aluminum, in the excess of the alkali, an appearance will be given to the drop of aluminate matter, by the chemical changes and reactions which take place, as if the _Amoeba diffluens_ were actually present, both as to its form and evolutions, and will seem to be alive. Such appearance is considered by its able discoverer as bearing the same relationship to the real animalcule as a doll, or a figure moved by mechanism, does to a living child."

We see, then, that the supports on which rests the doctrine of the essential vitality of matter, give way before better instruments and more careful research. Another statement, however, of much higher pretensions, has lately been made, and on no mean authority. Able electricians declare that, by pa.s.sing currents of galvanism through solutions of silicate or ferrocyanate of pota.s.sa, or some a.n.a.logous substance, after a time, sometimes several years, numerous small insects have been developed, belonging to the _acari_ family.

These experiments appear to have been conducted with fairness and skill; and that the insects showed themselves at the pole of the battery, around which the gelatinous silex collected, cannot be doubted. It is true, however, that, when the solution was exposed to the atmosphere, the insects appeared much sooner and more numerous than when care was taken to exclude every thing but oxygen enough to sustain life. This fact leads to the suspicion that the ova of the insect might have been communicated through the air, and that, even when an attempt was made to exclude the atmosphere, some ova were still present. This conclusion is rendered still more probable by some experiments made by Professor Schulz, of Berlin, on the production of infusoria. Having first boiled the vegetable and animal infusions, so as to destroy all germs of organic life, and expelled all the atmosphere, he attached an apparatus in such a manner that, whatever air entered afterwards, must pa.s.s through sulphuric acid, or a solution of potash. The result was, that no infusoria or vegetable forms appeared during two months; but in the same infusion, placed in the open air, and exposed to the same light and heat as that enclosed in the gla.s.s vessel, numerous animalcula and fungi appeared in a day or two. It will need, therefore, very long and patient experiments to establish the a.s.sertion that galvanism alone can produce living animals without the presence of germs.

Not many years since, the equivocal or casual production of animalcula, without any other parentage than law, was thought to be made out by a mult.i.tude of facts. For these minute creatures appeared almost every where, and in places where it seemed impossible that their ova should be found. But the researches of Ehrenberg have cleared up the difficulties of their origination in the ordinary modes of reproduction, in nearly every instance, and the advocates of the law hypothesis have been fairly driven from this stronghold of their argument. In describing the various modes of reproduction with which nature has provided the infusoria, Professor Owen says, "Thus each leaves, by the last act of its life, the means of perpetuating and diffusing its species by thousands of fertile germs. When once the thickly tenanted pool is dried up, and its bottom converted into a layer of dust, these inconceivably minute and light ova will be raised with the dust by the first puff of wind, diffused through the atmosphere, and may there remain long suspended; forming, perhaps, their share of the particles which we see flickering in the sunbeam, ready to fall into any collection of water, beaten down by every summer shower into the streams or pools which receive or may be formed by such showers, and, by virtue of their tenacity of life, ready to develop themselves whenever they may find the requisite conditions of their existence. The possibility, or, rather, the high probability, that such is the design of the oviparous generation of the infusoria, and such the common mode of the diffusion of their ova, renders the hypothesis of equivocal generation, which has been so frequently invoked to explain their origin in new-formed natural or artificial infusions, quite gratuitous."--_Lectures on Comp. Anat._ vol.

ii. p. 31.

No longer able to maintain a foothold among the animalcula, the defenders of this hypothesis have of late attempted to take a stand among animals of a somewhat higher grade, viz., the entozoa, or animals inhabiting other animals. These being considerably larger than the infusoria, their ova could not float in the atmosphere; but they possess a wonderful tenacity of life; some of them exhibiting signs of life after having been in boiling water for an hour; others have revived after having been packed for a long time in ice, and frozen; others have revived after lying in a dried state for six or seven years. Their power of reproduction, in the ordinary modes, is also prodigious, exceeding even that of the infusoria.

It will, then, demand very strong evidence to prove that such animals possess also the power of spontaneous production, without parentage, or that their existence within other animals cannot be explained without such a supposition. For, if capable of being produced without parentage, why should such extraordinary care have been taken for their multiplication, in almost all the ordinary modes in which animals are reproduced?

The extraordinary facts that have been discovered by Professors Steenstrup, Owen, and others, within a few years, respecting what they call _alternate generation_, or _parthenogenesis_, have been thought favorable to the hypothesis of development. Among the mollusca, the polyparia, the entozoa, and infusoria, it is found that, in some species, the result of s.e.xual union is the production of a larva without s.e.x, and, therefore, incapable of propagating in the usual way. Yet that larva can of itself produce another larva quite different from itself, and this larva another, and so on, sometimes for eight or ten generations, when the spermatic force seems to be exhausted, and a progeny exactly like the original parents that started the series is produced, capable of giving rise to another and a similar series. Here, then, we find a succession of progeny for several generations, and all quite unlike one another, yet without any immediate parental agency. Why is it not an example of spontaneous generation? and why may not new species be produced in this manner?

There are two facts prominent on this subject which afford a full answer to such questions. One is, that these generations of larv always begin with the spermatozoon and the ovum of parents; the other is, that the series always closes, if allowed to run its natural course, in individuals with s.e.x, exactly identical with those that started it; so that the species always remains entire. The whole process is simply one of the infinitely varied modes which nature employs to preserve and perfect the species. The process never stops with any of the larv intervening between the fertile parents at the beginning, and the fertile individuals at the end of the series. Professor Owen supposes--certainly with much plausibility--that some of the original germ-cells, not wanted for the production of the first larva, pa.s.s on to form the successive generations, till the series is complete; so that, after all, the case is not an exception to the general law of reproduction by parental agency; and instead of sustaining, it certainly goes against, the notion of spontaneous generation and of trans.m.u.tation of species; because it shows how far parental influence may reach, and how tenacious nature is of specific distinctions. For the same reasons, the case affords a presumption against other alleged cases of equivocal generation and metamorphoses of species.[18]

Appeal has also been made to the vegetable kingdom for examples of the production of organic beings, viz., plants without seeds. Who has not observed, for instance, how the clearing up and burning over of a piece of land will often cause an entirely new tribe of plants to spring up and flourish? Whence came the seeds? We have seen, for instance, (in Richmond, Virginia,) a thick growth of pines upon a spot where from six to ten feet of soil had been removed a few years previously.

It is very possible, in some cases of this kind, that the soil, having been produced by aqueous agencies, may contain seeds to a considerable depth, and that their vitality may have been preserved for centuries; for we know that seeds three thousand years old, taken from Egyptian catacombs, have germinated, in favorable circ.u.mstances. In most cases of this sort, however, the winds have probably supplied the seed, it may be, long before. We were one day wandering over Mount Holyoke, where a spot recently cleared was covered with the fire-weed, a species of senecio; and as we were musing upon its origin, a strong blast of wind swept over the plants, just ready to throw off their seeds. Sustained by their light egrets, they floated away on the air in numbers sufficient to cover half the mountain with the plant, when it should be cleared and burnt over. Yet their existence would never be suspected till those circ.u.mstances should be developed. At least, until we can prove that the soil contains no seeds by the most careful examination, it will be premature to infer the equivocal production of the plants growing upon it.

Vegetable physiology furnishes another fact, which seems to me to look still more favorable to this law hypothesis than the preceding, although it has not been noticed, so far as I know, by the advocates of that hypothesis. Speaking of the matter of which certain flowerless plants are composed, Dr. Lindlay says, "It is even uncertain whether this matter will produce its like, and whether it is not a mere representation of the vital principle of vegetation, capable of being called into action, either as a fungus, or alg, or lichen, according to the particular conditions of heat, light, and moisture, and the medium in which it is placed; producing fungi upon dead or putrid organic beings, lichens upon living vegetables, earth, or stones, and alg where water is the medium in which it is developed." Again, in speaking of that green slime which often covers the soil, rocks, walls, and gla.s.s in damp places, he says, "The slime resembles a layer of alb.u.men, spread with a brush; it exfoliates in drying, and finally becomes visible by the manner in which it colors green or deep brown. One might call it a provisional creation, waiting to be organized, and then a.s.suming different forms according to the nature of the corpuscles which penetrate it, or develop among it. It may further be said to be the origin of two very distinct existences, the one certainly animal, the other purely vegetable."--_Natural System_, pp. 326, 328, 334.

Now, admitting all the facts that have been detailed respecting the production of infusoria, entozoa, acari, and cryptogamian plants to be true, although most of them are far from being proved, it seems to me that they do not show us how vitality is produced by mere law, without the special agency of the Deity. Writers on the subject seem to overlook the distinction between organization and life. The first may be present in its highest perfection without the latter, as it is in animals and plants recently killed. The organization is merely a preparation to receive the mysterious principles which we call _life_ and _intellect_. Light, heat, and electricity may be the essential agents in producing the organization, but they do not explain the nature, or account for the presence, of life.

That must, so far as we know, come from some other and a higher source.

Galvanism may bring gelatinous matter into the form of an insect, or infusoria, or entozoa; but there is no evidence that it can impart life, however exquisite the organization. It may be, and we have reason to suppose it is, the divine will to bestow life whenever a certain organization exists; but this does not show that his special agency is not concerned in it. He may will that the peculiar life of a lichen shall be given to the same elementary matter which, in another situation, he const.i.tutes an alga, or a fungus, or even an animal. But this would not prove that natural law alone could produce life. There is nowhere any evidence that sensibility, contractility, and especially intellect and volition, are the result of any natural operations. In their properties they are so entirely diverse from all known physical effects, that we must impute them to some other than a natural cause. We must call in the power of a supreme intelligent Being. The laws of affinity, light, heat, and electricity, of endosmose and exosmose, may prepare the organization, but their power ends there; and hence true philosophy requires us to impute the phenomena of life and intellect to an extraneous and infinitely higher cause.

The case, then, stands thus: In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, we are certain that organization requires the previous existence and agency of a being similarly organized, which we call the parent. But suppose that, in a very few cases, the laws of nature can produce the organization. It still demands another and a higher power--not a blind impulse, but an intelligent cause--to bestow life and intellect. To prove the existence of a natural cause for the arrangement of the atoms into an organic structure, does by no means prove the same for those higher and mysterious principles that make that structure a living, thinking being.

Such, however, are the strongest arguments by which the advocates of the law hypothesis sustain their views of the origin of organism, life, and intellect. The next step in their reasoning is to show how animals and plants may be trans.m.u.ted from one species, or genus, or family, to another; so that the existing vast variety can be traced to a few original germs. They maintain that these developments of the more from the less perfect have proceeded along certain parallel lines; one series of developments, for instance, taking the line of the fishes, another of the reptiles, another of the birds, another of quadrupeds, and so on.

To prove these developments or trans.m.u.tations, they appeal first to the physiological history of the mammalian embryo. In its earliest stages, it can hardly be distinguished, except in size, from the unborn polygastric infusoria. The brain of a human embryo appears at first like that of an invertebrate animal; next like that of a fish; then successively like that of a reptile, a bird, a rodent mammal, a ruminant, and a monkey. So the heart, at an early stage, looks like that of an insect; then it has two chambers, like that of a fish; then it becomes three chambered, like that of a reptile; and finally, four chambered, as in the mammalia. The inference which these theorists would draw from such facts is, that man actually begins his existence as an animalcule, and pa.s.ses successively through the mould or condition of other animals, before he reaches the highest. And the reasons why he does become a man, rather than an echinoderm, or a fish, or a monkey, is only some slightly modifying circ.u.mstance, as, for instance, a longer gestation. It appears to me, however, that the inferences sound philosophy should derive from such facts are, first, that, while there is a seeming resemblance between the human embryo and that of lower animals, there is, in fact, a real and a wide diversity; so that the one infallibly becomes an inferior animal, and the other a man. Could a single example be produced in which a human embryo stopped at and became an insect, or a fish, or a monkey, there might be some plausibility in the supposition. But it is as certain to become a man as the sun is to rise and set; and, therefore, the human condition results from laws as fixed as those that regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies. That is a very superficial philosophy which infers ident.i.ty of nature from mere external resemblance.

The phenomena of hybridity furnish another ground of argument in favor of the trans.m.u.tation of species, and of course in favor of the law hypothesis; for that hybrids are sometimes the result of the union of different species will not be denied. There is, however, a natural repugnance to union between different species; and in a state of nature this can very rarely be overcome. But domestication changes and almost obliterates many natural instincts, and hence hybridity is far more common among domesticated animals and plants. As a general fact, also, the hybrid offspring is incapable of propagating its own race, without union with one of the original species by which it was produced; and this inability to continue this mixed race has been generally regarded among naturalists as the best characteristic of species. Some, however, attempt to show that some hybrid races do continue from generation to generation to propagate their kind. But in most cases the hybrid race ere long runs out, and there is always a strong tendency to revert to the original stock; and were it not for the influence of man, probably such a thing as hybridity would scarcely ever have been heard of. Nature seems to have established strong barriers around species, so that an ident.i.ty should be preserved; and even if we admit the possibility of their coalescence in some cases, yet we have evidence that almost always they are preserved distinct from century to century; and the same is true even of the more prominent varieties, for we find not only the same species, but the same varieties of animals and plants, preserved some three thousand years in the Egyptian catacombs, that are now alive in the same country. How idle, then, to suppose that the laws of hybridity will account for such radical and entire trans.m.u.tations as this hypothesis supposes! To accomplish this, it would need as strong a tendency in nature to a union of species, genera, and families, as now exists against it.

But a special appeal has been made on this subject to geology. The history of organic remains, it is thought, corresponds to what we might expect, if the hypothesis of development is true. In the oldest rocks we find chiefly the more simple invertebrate animals, and the vertebrated tribes appear at first in the form of fish, then of reptiles, then of birds, then of mammals, and last of all of man. What better confirmation could we wish than this gradually expanding series? True, all the great cla.s.ses of organic beings, vegetable and animal, are found nearly at the earliest epoch, and continue through the entire series of rocks. But we have only to suppose a distinct stirps for each of the cla.s.ses, and that the developments took place along parallel lines, in order to harmonize the facts with the hypothesis.

Such a general view of the subject of organic remains seems to give plausibility to the hypothesis of organic development. But the tables are turned when we descend to particulars. The idea of a distinct stirps or germ for each great cla.s.s of animals and plants seems to me to destroy an essential feature of the hypothesis. It supposes that law produces at once a vertebral animal and a flowering plant; for the first, certainly, we find in the very lowest of the fossiliferous rocks. "The lower silurian,"

says Sir Roderick Murchison, in 1847, "is no longer to be viewed as an invertebrate period, for the onchus (a genus of fish) has been found in the Llandeilo Flags, and in the lower silurian rocks of Bala."

It is also a most important fact, that this fish of the oldest rock was not, as the development scheme would require, of a low organization, but quite high on the scale of fishes. The same is true of all the earliest species of this cla.s.s. "All our most ancient fossil fishes," says Professor Sedgwick, "belong to a high organic type; and the very oldest species that are well determined fall naturally into an order of fishes which Owen and Mller place, not at the bottom, but at the top of the whole cla.s.s."--_Discourse on the Studies of the University_, &c. 5th edit.