A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' Part 1

A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'

by Francis Bowen.

A

THEORY OF CREATION.

_Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation._ New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1845. 12mo. pp. 291.

This is one of the most striking and ingenious scientific romances that we have ever read. The writer of it is a bold man; he has undertaken to give a hypothetical history of creation, beginning, as the t.i.tle-pages say, at the earliest period, and coming down to the present day. It is not quite so authentic as that of Moses, nor is it written with such an air of simplicity and confidence as the narrative of the Jewish historian; but it is much longer, and goes into a far greater variety of interesting particulars. It contradicts the Jewish cosmogony in a few particulars, and is at variance with probability and the ordinary laws of human reasoning in many others. But the rather liberal rules of interpretation, which it is now the fas.h.i.+on to apply to the first chapter of Genesis, will relieve the reader from any scruples on the former account; and as to the latter, in these days of scientific quackery, it would be quite too harsh to make any great complaint about such peccadilloes. The writer has taken up almost every questionable fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients or pretenders in science during the present century, except animal magnetism; and for this omission we have reason to be thankful. The nebular hypothesis, Laplace's or Compte's theory of planets _sh.e.l.led off_ from the sun, spontaneous generation,--some of these vagaries, we admit, are of much older date than the year 1800,--the Macleay system, dogs playing dominoes, negroes born of white parents, materialism, phrenology,--he adopts them all, and makes them play an important part in his own magnificent theory, to the exclusion, in a great degree, of the well-accredited facts and established doctrines of science.

We speak lightly of the author's plan, as one can hardly fail to do of a scheme so magnificent, and going apparently so far beyond the ordinary sources of information and the range of the human intellect. But the execution of the work is of so high an order, as fairly to challenge attention and respect. The writer, who has not chosen to give his name to the world, is evidently a man of great ingenuity and correct taste, a master of style, a plausible, though not a profound, reasoner, and having quite a general, but superficial, acquaintance with the sciences.

His materials are arranged with admirable method, the ill.u.s.trations are copious and interesting, the transitions are skilfully managed, and the several portions of the theory are so well fitted to each other, and form such a round and perfect whole, that it seems a pity to subject it to severe a.n.a.lysis and searching criticism. It is a very pleasant hypothesis, set forth in a most agreeable manner; and though it contains many objectionable features, these are cautiously veiled and kept in the background, and the reader is seduced into accepting most of the conclusions, before he is aware of their true character and tendency.

Before a just opinion can be formed of the correctness of the writer's views, it is necessary to take to pieces this skilful fabric, and to bring the parts together in a different connection and with greater succinctness, following out each doctrine to its inevitable, but most remote, conclusions, so as to obtain a just idea of the position in which we should be placed by the acceptance of the theory as a whole.

For obvious reasons, the author has not chosen to give a general summary of his views, or to mention explicitly all the inferences that may be drawn from them. He merely puts the reader upon the track, indicating its general direction, and leaving it for him to find out what objects will be encountered by the way, and where the journey will end. We propose to finish the work that is thus left incomplete, and to set forth the doctrine in its plainest terms. We would reduce the theory at once to its narrowest compa.s.s and simplest expression; but at the same time, would incorporate into it every doctrine which properly belongs to it, and follow out each hypothesis to its remote, though necessary, inferences and conclusions. To this end, it is requisite to separate, as far as possible, the doctrines themselves from the evidence adduced in support of them; and to consider the former as a whole, before proceeding, to discuss the cogency of the latter. The following may be taken as the most concise abstract that we can form of the history of the creation, according to this author.

In the beginning--we use this word in a kind of preter-perfect sense--in the _very_ beginning of things, immense portions of infinite s.p.a.ce were filled with finely diffused nebulous matter, heated to an intensity that is altogether inconceivable. The particles of this "fire mist," as it is appropriately called, were the true _primordia rerum_,--the elements of the universe,--the principles of all the forms of inorganic matter and all organic things. At the outset, the Creator endowed these particles with certain qualities and capacities, and then stood aside from his work, as there was nothing farther for him to do. The subsequent progress of creation is only the successive _development_, upon mechanical and necessary principles, and as fast as proper occasions were offered, of these qualities thus made inherent in the primitive const.i.tution of matter. The atoms thus marvellously endowed have gone on, without any further aid from Almighty power, to form suns, and astral systems, and planets with their satellites, and worlds tenanted by successive generations and races of vegetable and animal things. And this work of creation, or rather of development, is still in progress all around us, and in all its various stages, though in the portion most directly exposed to the observation of man it is far advanced towards perfection. Upon this earth, the unaided action of these atoms is still evolving all the phenomena of generation, progress, and decay, of vegetable and animal life, of instinct and of mind. In the abyss of s.p.a.ce, it is also forming new suns, and solar systems, and worlds that are to pa.s.s through the same stages and wonderful transformations to which our own planet has already been subjected. All that has occurred with respect to this earth, and the system of which it forms a part, is but a type of what is constantly going on in the countless other systems of stars that people the firmament.

The first stage in the history of these fiery particles is the formation among them, in some unaccountable way, of nuclei, or centres of aggregation, like the bright points that are now visible in some of the nebulae of the heavens. As soon as these centres are formed, gravity, one of the original principles of matter, begins to act, and the atoms in all the neighbouring parts of s.p.a.ce are attracted towards the nucleus and heaped upon it. In this manner, a central sun of vast dimensions is formed, which soon a.s.sumes a motion of rotation upon its axis from the general law which gives a circular movement to all fluids that are drawn towards a common centre. The centrifugal force thus generated tends to throw off matter from the equatorial regions of the great orb, but is restrained by the attraction of gravitation, which would prevent any separation of the parts, if the sun itself did not now begin to cool down, and consequently to shrink in size. Under this cooling process, a crust is formed upon the surface, too rigid to yield to the force of gravity, and the parts within, continuing to shrink, separate from this envelope; so that there is now a central orb, revolving more rapidly from its greater density and smaller diameter, and surrounded by an exterior sh.e.l.l, or band, like Saturn's ring, rotating at its original speed. As we cannot suppose that the ring would usually be of uniform thickness and strength, it eventually breaks up into fragments, the larger of which attracts the smaller into itself, and the whole is formed by its revolving motion into an oblate spheroid circling round the contracted sun in the centre. In this manner, the planet Ura.n.u.s was sh.e.l.led off from our sun, which originally filled the whole of the vast sphere, of which the distance from Ura.n.u.s to the centre of the present sun is but the radius. The planet itself, by the same process of cooling, shrinking, and thus forming exterior rings, threw off successively all its six satellites; and the sun, also, continuing to contract from the loss of heat, formed another ring, and thus const.i.tuted the planet Saturn. In this way were formed successively all the planets and satellites of the present solar system. The original diameter of our earth was equal, of course, to the present diameter of the moon's...o...b..t. In the case of Saturn, the two rings formed around it happened to be of unusual h.o.m.ogeneity and equal thickness, so that they were not broken up, but have preserved their primitive shape. A ring was formed from the sun in the s.p.a.ce between the present orbits of Mars and Jupiter; but when it was broken up, the fragments did not congregate into one, but spherified separately, so as to form the four smaller planets which now revolve in that opening.

"We have no means of judging of the seniority of systems; but it is reasonable to suppose, that, among the many, some are older than ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human traditions and the geognostic appearances of the surface of our planet. This consists in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused around the sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately spheroidal shape. This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards in the line of the sun's path, and which bears the name of Zodiacal Light, has been thought a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating matter of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the comparative recentness of the princ.i.p.al events of our cosmogony.

Supposing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they may be held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might with the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder born of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical and moral, as yet lay undeveloped, while myriads of others were fully fas.h.i.+oned and in complete arrangement. Thus, in the sublime chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we first find ourselves called upon to consider the globe which we inhabit as a child of the sun, elder than Venus and her younger brother Mercury, but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Ura.n.u.s; next, to regard our whole system as probably of recent formation in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. We must, however, be on our guard against supposing the earth as a recent globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. From evidence afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it cannot be presumed to be less than many hundreds of centuries old."--pp. 22, 23.

Having thus explained the _genesis_ of the solar system, we come down to the history of our own earth, since it sh.e.l.led off the ring which formed our moon. Continuing to cool down and shrink, a thin but rigid crust of primary rocks, still bearing marks of the intense heat to which they have been subjected, was formed upon its surface; and then the vapors, with which the atmosphere had been charged, were condensed, and formed seas, which covered the whole, or the greater part, of the earth's rind. The continual agitation of these waters, and their high temperature, as they were still nearly at the boiling point, disintegrated and wore down many of these rocks, and, in the lapse of ages, deposited their remains, in thick layers of sand and mud, at the bottom of the seas. Baked by the heat from beneath, and pressed by the weight of superinc.u.mbent waters, these layers slowly hardened into stratified rocks. Forms of vegetable and animal life, though only of the lowest type, the origin of which is to be explained hereafter, now began to appear. Some sea-plants, zoophytes, infusory animalcules, and a few of the molluscous tribe, all low down in the order of being, but important from their immense numbers and joint action, commenced their work of absorbing the carbonic acid with which the air was overcharged, and building up vast piers and mounds of stone from their own remains.

Meanwhile, the internal fires of the earth occasionally broke through the rocky crust that imprisoned them, threw up liquid primitive rock through the rents, and distorted and tilted up the strata that had been formed above.

We may remark, in pa.s.sing, that the chronology of the events of which we now speak is not very accurately determined; the only thing certain about it is, that a series of ages, so protracted that the imagination cannot conceive their number, elapsed between the successive epochs in the history of the earth's crust. Some of the convulsions caused by the fiery ma.s.s within threw up rock above the surface of the waters, and thus the dry land began to appear. Islands were formed, and immediately land-plants made their appearance, of excessive luxuriance, under the tropical temperature that still prevailed all over the globe, and began their office of absorbing carbon, and storing it up for future use.

Land-animals as yet were not, for the excess of carbonic acid in the atmosphere rendered it incapable of supporting animal life. But the richness of this island vegetation gradually purified the air; while the decaying plants themselves, being acc.u.mulated into vast beds and strata, and subjected, through the changes of the earth's surface, to the pressure of mighty waters, gradually formed immense deposits of coal, for the subsequent service of man. Animals of a higher grade were now formed; fishes became abundant, and amphibious monsters, huge lizards and other reptiles, with an imperfect apparatus of respiration, began to breathe an atmosphere not yet fitted for birds and mammifers.

It is not necessary to trace out the comparatively well known facts and theories of geological science, that are incorporated into this history.

It is enough, for the present purpose, to point out a few of the general conclusions of the geologist respecting the several great changes that the earth's crust has undergone, and the distinct races of vegetables and animals which have successively tenanted the earth's surface. These changes and these races have borne a constant relation to each other; as the scenes s.h.i.+fted, the inhabitants also changed, the latter being always adapted to the circ.u.mstances in which they were placed. There has been a constant progress, the soil and the atmosphere becoming more and more fitted for the support of the higher forms of life; and when all things were thus made ready for them, these higher forms have appeared, and the lower orders of being, which formerly occupied the scene, have entirely died out, so that their remains, entombed in the solid rock, are now the only indications of their past existence. In the era of the primary rocks, as we have seen, there was no organization or life, as there was nothing to support it. In the succeeding period, zoophytes and mollusca appeared; these were followed by fishes, and then land rose above the surface of the waters. Land-plants and animals came next, though of a low type; continually advancing orders of beings, reptiles, birds, and mammifers, suited to the improved condition of things, successively appeared, until, at the latest epoch, man entered upon the scene, the head of animated nature as at present const.i.tuted, with powers and capacities well adapted for the full enjoyment of the augmented riches of the earth. And the end is not yet. "The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a n.o.bler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race."

The question now occurs, How are we to account for the origin of _life_, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? The answer can readily be given, if we follow out resolutely to their remotest consequences the principles that have already been established. The evolution of natural laws, the necessary action of the qualities with which atoms were at first endowed, has sufficed to produce this complex system of mutually dependent worlds, and all the successive transformations of the earth's rind, which have fitted it for the support of successive races of organic beings. May not the same causes have produced the beings themselves? The one process would seem to be not much more elaborate and intricate than the other. If the inherent qualities of matter have built up a solar system, they may have created, also, the first animalcule, the first fish, the first quadruped, and the first man. There has been a marked progress, in either case, from the chaotic, the rude, the imperfectly developed, up to the orderly, the complex, the matured forms. The first essays, the rude efforts, of nature have gradually been perfected. The chaotic world that was first sh.e.l.led off from the sun differed not less widely from the admirably furnished planet we now inhabit, than does the zoophyte, whose remains are not split out of the rock, from man, the present head of the animal tribe. At any rate, geology informs us, that the causes, whatever they may be, which produce life, have been long and frequently in operation.

They were not exhausted in the first effort; they are probably still at work throughout the universe. Not merely successive generations, but successive races, both of plants and animals, widely distinguished from each other, have, at different periods, tenanted the earth's surface.

Those of which we possess the fossil remains belong, almost without exception, to extinct species. They were crowded out of existence, as it were, by the new forms, more perfectly organized, which came to take their places in the improving condition of things. This continuous agency of the life-producing causes, effecting still higher results by each successive effort, seems to point directly to the gradual expansion and development of the qualities with which matter was first endowed.

We actually see natural agents now at work around us, producing results which counterfeit life, if they do not const.i.tute it. Many substances crystallize into shapes bearing a strong resemblance to vegetable forms, as in the well known chemical experiment producing the _arbor Dianae_.

The pa.s.sage of the electric fluid leaves marks that are like the branches and foliage of a tree, and the same fluid exerts a direct influence on the germination of plants. Some of the proximate principles of vegetable and animal bodies, such as urea and alantoin, are said to have been produced artificially by the chemist; and in the combination of the simple elements, such as carbon and oxygen, into these proximate principles, it is now acknowledged that there is no violation of the ordinary laws of chemical affinity. The origin of all vegetable and animal life, so far as it can be traced, is in germinal vesicles, or little cells containing granules. Such are the ova of all animals; and both vegetable and animal tissues are entirely formed from them. When the parent cells come to maturity, they burst and liberate the granules, which immediately develope themselves into new cells, thus repeating the life of their original. Now, it has been a.s.serted, that globules can be produced in alb.u.men by electricity; and _if these globules are true germinal vesicles_, the difficult problem of producing life by artificial means is entirely solved.

But the burden of this part of the theory rests on the evidence that has been produced of late years to favor the doctrine of equivocal generation, or the production of living beings without the agency, either direct or indirect, of parents of the same species. Can such beings, _orphans_ in the strictest sense, now be produced or discovered?

We have not s.p.a.ce to repeat our author's argument on this difficult mooted question in science, nor is it necessary; he sums up the evidence on his own side, and of course finds it satisfactory, though the weight of authority is against him. He adduces the experiments of Mr. Crosse, repeated by Mr. Weekes, who claim to have produced animalcules in considerable numbers, of a species before unknown, by pa.s.sing a voltaic current through silicate of potash, and through nitrate of copper. The existence of _entozoa_, or parasitic animals, found in the interior of the bodies of other animals, and found nowhere else, is thought to support the same doctrine. The question is, How came they there? Being too large, either in their perfect form, or in the egg, to have pa.s.sed through the capillary blood-vessels, how came they within the body of another animal,--itself but a few weeks or a few days old, or even in the embryo stage,--unless they were created there without parentage of their own species?

These facts and reasonings, it is true, only go to prove, that animalcules, or beings of very small size, and low in the scale of animated existence, can be produced in this way by the inherent qualities of matter. No one will pretend, that a dog, a horse, or a man can thus be created. How can we account for the existence of these larger animals of a higher type, admitted to have been denizens of the earth only since the latest geological epochs, and therefore of comparatively recent origin? Here we come to another point in our author's theory,--the trans.m.u.tation of species, or the successive _development_ of higher and higher orders of being out of the species immediately below them, through the accidental or natural fulfilment of certain conditions, in the course of a long period of years.

Natural history teaches us, that there is quite a regular gradation among the several tribes of vegetables and animals; though we may not be able to range all the species, as constantly advancing in a single line, there is certainly the general appearance of a scale, beginning with the most simple, and going on to the most complex forms. While the external characteristics are very different, all are but variations of a single plan, which exists as the basis of all, and is varied in each individual only so as to accommodate it to the conditions under which the individual is to live. The germ of a higher animal--a mammifer, for instance--is the representative of a lower animal full-grown, like the _volvox globator_; the latter remaining in this initial stage, as an animalcule, through its whole existence; while the former is developed out of it, by successive stages, into a quadruped, or even into a man.

Similar functions are performed in different animals by very different organs, the gills of fishes performing the same office as the lungs of the mammalia; and these different organs sometimes exist, at different periods, according to the degree of development, in the same animal.

Thus, the tadpole, so long as it continues to be a fish, breathes by gills, which disappear and give place to lungs when it becomes a frog.

Similar transformations of the insect tribe are familiar to all.

Imperfect or rudimentary organs are found in certain animals, as the mammae of a man; a particular organ being here developed to a certain extent, though it is not needed; but being developed a little further, it becomes useful in the next set of animals in the scale. The same peculiarity is found among plants; the skilful gardener being able actually to develope these rudimentary organs by supplying the requisite conditions, and thus, as it were, to raise the plant one step in the scale.

"We have yet to advert to the most interesting cla.s.s of facts connected with the laws of organic development. It is only in recent times that physiologists have observed that each animal pa.s.ses, in the course of its germinal history, through a series of changes resembling the _permanent forms_ of the various orders of animals inferior to it in the scale. Thus, for instance, an insect, standing at the head of the articulated animals, is, in the larva state, a true annelid, or worm, the annelida being the lowest in the same cla.s.s. The embryo of a crab resembles the perfect animal of the inferior order myriapoda, and pa.s.ses through all the forms of transition which characterize the intermediate tribes of crustacea. The frog, for some time after its birth, is a fish with external gills and other organs, fitting it for an aquatic life, all of which are changed as it advances to maturity, and becomes a land animal. The mammifer only pa.s.ses through still more stages, according to its higher place in the scale. Nor is man himself exempt from this law. His first form is that which is permanent in the animalcule. His organization gradually pa.s.ses through conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity. At one of the last stages of his foetal career, he exhibits an intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape; this is suppressed, and he may then be said to take leave of the simial type, and become a true human creature. Even, as we shall see, the varieties of his race are represented in the progressive development of an individual of the highest, before we see the adult Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal scale.

"To come to particular points of the organization. The brain of man, which exceeds that of all other animals in complexity of organization and fulness of development, is, at one early period, only 'a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like prolongation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the first to appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in this state, it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus a.s.suming _in transitu_ the form that in the fish is permanent. In a short time, however, the structure is become more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better marked; it is now the brain of a reptile. The change continues; by a singular motion, certain parts (_corpora quadragemina_), which had hitherto appeared on the upper surface, now pa.s.s towards the lower; the former is their permanent situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in birds and mammalia. This is another advance in the scale, but more remains yet to be done. The complication of the organ increases; cavities, termed _ventricles_, are formed, which do not exist in fishes, reptiles, or birds; curiously organized parts, such as the corpora striata, are added; it is now the brain of the mammalia.

Its last and final change alone seems wanting,--that which shall render it the brain of man.'"--pp. 150-152.

Usually, it is true, each species produces only its like,--"every creeping thing and beast of the earth" bringing forth young "_after his kind_." But the development of a single animal, under the ordinary law, takes place in a few weeks or days; while the development of distinct races and species is the work of a whole creation, and is spread over countless ages. It is reasonable to suppose, that the latter is effected by means of a higher law, manifesting itself only at long intervals. Its infrequent manifestation is no argument against the regularity and necessity of its occurrence,--against its being a law at all. The comet that visits our system only once in five hundred years is controlled by the same inflexible principle which causes the return of another comet once in five years. The conditions requisite for a development more perfect than usual,--that is, for the production of a new species,--instead of a new individual of the same species, may be fulfilled only at long intervals; but when they are fulfilled, the result--the more perfect development--takes place as necessarily, as much by the virtue of law, as the more ordinary phenomenon of the propagation of one race. These conditions may be answered in the successive stages of improvement, through which the earth and its atmosphere pa.s.s, during the vast periods of time contemplated in geology. In the era of the old red sand-stone, for instance, there were no higher animals than fishes, because the atmosphere was highly charged with carbonic acid, and could not support respiration by lungs. When the air became purer, the gills were changed into the imperfect lungs of the amphibious tribes, such as the huge saurians and the frogs. Deprive these latter animals, in their lower stage, of all access to the light, and they will not advance to their higher stage. Put a tadpole into a perforated box, and sink it to the bottom of a river, and the animal will never be perfected into a frog; he will grow to an enormous size, but he will continue a tadpole.

We see, then, the process of an "organic creation by law," or by virtue of the inherent qualities of inorganic matter. The ordinary chemical affinities of different substances may draw them together into such compounds as alb.u.men and fibrin, which are the proximate principles of organic tissues. The action of electricity, heat, light, or some other mysterious imponderable agent, on these proximate principles, may produce globules, or germinal vesicles. These germs, multiplying themselves by fissiparous generation, will const.i.tute a stock of animals of a low type, such as a tribe of infusory animalcules. Then "this simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like production is subordinate, gives birth to the type next above it, this again produces the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases very small,--namely, from one species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a simple and modest character." Thus, the first reptile was born from a fish, the first bird was generated by a reptile, and the first mammifer had birds for its parents. The transformations appear rather astounding, as we pa.s.s from one cla.s.s to another; but the difference between the species, even, is often so great, that the transition appears hardly less difficult. In what quadruped, for instance, do we find the first ancestor of the huge and sagacious elephant? What humble lizard gave birth to those monsters of the fossil world, the plesiosaurus and megalosaurus, thirty or forty feet in length? Man, of course, upon this theory, is only a more perfectly developed monkey, or chimpanzee. With a nod of approbation to Lord Monboddo's theory, our author observes, that man has even the rudiments of "a caudal extremity" in the _os coccygis_.

That the instinct of animals and the mind of man are the results of nothing but material organization is an obvious corollary from this doctrine. "The difference," says this writer, "between mind in the lower animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific difference." Mental phenomena, apparently so various and unstable in the individual, are reduced at once to regularity, and become subject to calculation, if considered in the ma.s.s. This shows, that, like the phenomena of the weather, they are under the presidency of natural laws.

The phrenologists are the only persons who have followed the order of nature in the study of mind; they have even determined the functions of the different parts of the brain. An experiment is mentioned with a newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion, that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the absolute ident.i.ty of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is sufficiently well known. To borrow an ill.u.s.tration from Sidney Smith, it would seem, that, if we only knew to what organs of the brain to direct an electric current, an automaton, or a dead man, might be made to hold an argument, "at least as well as most country parsons."

A person who should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a revival of the old atheistic hypothesis,--the Epicurean doctrine of the formation of the universe by a fortuitous concourse of atoms,--with all the modifications and improvements that were rendered necessary by the discoveries of modern science. We call it an atheistic theory, because, though the writer supposes that primitive matter was first endowed _by divine power_ with its mysterious qualities and capacities, this supposition is gratuitous and arbitrary, and only mars the simplicity of the scheme, and injures the consistency and coherence of the parts with each other. We can more easily believe that these qualities are necessarily inherent in the const.i.tution of matter, forming a part of its very essence, just like the properties of impenetrability and extension, than that they subsequently developed themselves by forming myriads of intricate organizations, without further aid from the divine architect. If we can credit the hypothesis, that bricks and mortar came together of their own accord, and arranged themselves into the first house meet for the habitation of man, we can very readily admit, also, that the bricks first a.s.sumed the proper shape, and mortar the proper tenacity and hardness, without the intervention of human labor and skill. If there is no need of a bricklayer, we may discard also the brick-maker.

Putting aside, therefore, this gratuitous addition to the theory, we come to examine the plausibility of the doctrine which a.s.sumes, that material atoms, const.i.tuted as they now are, are capable, without oversight or direction, of forming a universe like our own, and producing all the animated tribes which tenant it. In all the atheistic reasoning upon this subject, and especially in the work now before us, there is a constant confusion between _what may be_, for aught we know to the contrary, and _what is_, so far as we are able positively to determine it from our present means of observation and experiment; between the _possibility_ that is measured only by human ignorance, and the _probability_ that is fairly inferred by the legitimate exercise of the understanding. Effects have unquestionably been produced, such as the formation of a solar system, and the production of new and perfectly distinct orders of being, which we are wholly unable to account for by the _present and ordinary_ operation of what are called secondary causes. If a theorist chooses to a.s.sume, that these secondary causes, under certain conditions, which we never have seen, and never can see, realized, might produce very extraordinary results, might even fully account for the wonderful effects in question, we have a right to say, in reply, that he is dealing in pure speculation and hypothesis; that, having had no experience under the conditions or postulates of his theory, he is necessarily _speaking from_ ignorance and _appealing_ to ignorance; that, even if we could not point out a single difficulty, a single false a.s.sumption, in his whole scheme and argument, it would still remain a mere hypothesis, alike incapable of proof or disproof; and that, at the best, the arguments brought against it must be of nearly the same wiredrawn, speculative, and far-fetched character with those adduced in its support. On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the entire absence of all considerations against their theory const.i.tutes a positive argument in its support. No such thing; it affords only a fair presumption of the baseless character of the whole fabric.

This may be made more clear by examples. If a child, who has had little experience of the laws of nature, and has learned nothing from books, is gravely a.s.sured by his instructor, that in a distant region of the ocean there is an island where stones fly upward instead of downward, and men walk on their heads instead of their feet, the young philosopher, however acute and ingenious we may suppose him to be, certainly could not offer one valid argument against the alleged fact. He could only stare, and wonder, and say that it might be so _for all that he knew to the contrary_. Just so, when the atheist tells us, that far off in infinite s.p.a.ce is a region, of which we can see nothing, even with our best telescopes, except a faint glimmer of light, floating like a cloudlet in the heavens, where the primitive atoms of matter, directed by gravity alone, are slowly congregating together, and forming suns, and planets, and secondary satellites, and giving birth to such intricate harmonies of mutually dependent and revolving worlds as those which have prevailed for ages in our own system; or that, thousands of years ago, the same una.s.sisted laws of matter, which we now see producing only such comparatively meagre and insufficient results, actually caused animalcules to be produced from pure sand, and fishes to be created out of oysters, and birds to be generated by slimy and grovelling reptiles, and men to be born from monkeys;--if he should tell us all this, certainly we could offer no direct confutation of the wonderful tale. In regard to alleged facts of this character, the wisest of men are, and always must be, mere children. But it would be monstrous to say, that this wild a.s.sertion derived any support from their admitted bewilderment and incapacity. This would be to attempt to found knowledge upon ignorance. The dim a.n.a.logies resting on questionable facts, the bold a.s.sumptions and slippery arguments on which such daring hypotheses must be based, can be refuted, for the most part, only by reasoning in kind,--by arguments nearly as uncertain, it may be, as those which they are brought to answer. We cannot _prove_ a negative; we can only show the insufficiency of the ground on which the opposite a.s.sumption is made to rest; and enough is done for this end, when it is made to appear, that the whole scheme is a _mere_ hypothesis.

We make these general remarks only to relieve some readers of this volume from the doubt and perplexity which its perusal may have caused, solely because they were unable to detect any one glaring fallacy or inconsistency in the writer's theory. It appears plausible enough; for, though there is very little in its favor, it seems at first sight as if there was little or nothing to say against it. On closer scrutiny, it will be found, perhaps, that it is disproved by a mult.i.tude of considerations, any one of which would be fatal to it; as the hypothesis is of such a character, that, when a single breach is made in it, the whole edifice must tumble. If the intervention of an extraneous cause be absolutely necessary at any one stage or process in the creation, it may as well be admitted in all; the principle must be given up, and the whole purpose of the theist is answered. We shall endeavour to show that this hypothetical history of creation is not only faulty in every point, when viewed from the author's own ground, but, when examined in the proper direction, is absolutely unintelligible, or is in fact no history at all.

Let us look first at the nebular hypothesis. Certain spots and tracts in the heavens, of a whitish color, appearing to the naked eye to be nebulae, on being examined through a telescope, instantly resolve themselves into a mult.i.tude of distinct and perfectly formed stars. Such is the greatest nebula of all,--the galaxy, or milky way. Other spots of a like character, if viewed through gla.s.ses of moderate power, still appear as nebulae; but when seen through more perfect instruments, they immediately seem, like the others, to be a mere crowd of stars. Others, again, are not separated or resolved by the best telescopes; but what is the natural inference from this fact? Surely, we infer that they are merely crowded collections of stars, just like the others, except that they are too distant or too small to be seen as distinct bodies, even with the most powerful instruments that we possess. If telescopes of a greater range should hereafter be constructed, there is every reason to believe that these also will be resolved to the eye into their component parts as stars; and in fact, if newspaper accounts may be credited, when Lord Rosse's new and magnificent telescope was first turned towards some of these spots, which had always preserved their nebulous appearance when examined by inferior instruments, it was immediately apparent, that they were composed of distinct stars. Yet the hypothesis we are now considering a.s.sumes, that these remote and faintly seen nebulae are not crowds of stars, but primitive luminous matter, the particles of which are slowly congregating together, and forming one new star, or several.

Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory, to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently never can be verified. It must ever remain a _mere_ guess, directly opposed by an obvious induction from those nebulae which are resolvable into perfect stars.

The fact, that one or two bright points, a.s.sumed to be centres of aggregation, are seen in some of these nebulae, is of no importance. If a bright star be seen from this earth in the same line of vision with the nebula, it will be projected on the ground of that nebula, and will appear as a part of it, though it may be many millions of miles on this side, and have no more connection with it than the planet Jupiter would have, if it should happen to be in conjunction with the nebula, and thus appear for a short time to be projected upon its disc.

There is one consideration of some weight, though we have never seen it adverted to, which tends directly to confute the nebular hypothesis.

That faint radiance called the zodiacal light, which is seen to stream up in the form of a cone from our sun, is a.s.sumed by our author to be a residuum of the nebulous matter belonging to our system, which has not yet been drawn into the sun, though it is on its way thither. Others have supposed, with far more probability, that it is the sun's atmosphere, and therefore its present shape and size will never change,--as they never have changed, during the period in which they have been observed by man. But no matter; we are now reasoning upon our author's hypothesis. If the zodiacal light be composed of primitive nebulous matter, it must now be comparatively thick and dense, since the process of aggregation has been going on for countless ages, and, in our system, is considered as nearly completed; just as when a sediment is forming in a tumbler full of turbid water, after the upper portion of the fluid has become entirely clear, there will be a stratum of water next to the sediment more turbid than the whole was before the deposition began. Yet this light is very faint, when seen only from the distance of our earth; and at the boundaries of our system, from the orbit of Ura.n.u.s, for instance, we cannot believe that it is visible at all. Is it likely, then, that a portion of this nebulous matter, in which the process of deposition has hardly begun, and which is seen from a distance so vast, that in comparison with it the whole diameter of our solar system is but a point, would be visible from this earth? In the case of the other nebulae, a mult.i.tude of perfectly formed suns, uniting their respective beams, are seen only as a faint, whitish speck on the blue arch. And yet we are required to believe, that the luminous matter which will ultimately form but one sun, or perhaps two, while still thinly diffused over an immense tract of s.p.a.ce, the process of aggregation having hardly commenced, is yet visible to our eyes at this vast distance.

"Credat Judaeus Apella; Non ego."

We pa.s.s to the next chapter in the history, which professes to explain the gradual formation of a solar system by a process of cooling and shrinking, to which the central orb is exposed. And here we are met by a difficulty at the outset; for the existence of comets with their very eccentric orbits is wholly irreconcilable with the theory. At their perihelion, many of these bodies pa.s.s within the orbit of Mercury, while the aphelion of some lies without the path of Ura.n.u.s. Where were they, when the body of the sun filled up the whole of the vast sphere circ.u.mscribed by the orbit of the remotest planet? If we suppose that they are late comers, after the rest of our system was perfected,--that they were generated by themselves in distant regions of s.p.a.ce, and, having strayed about, orphan-like, for a while, they accidentally crossed our track, and were taken as adopted children into our family, another question remains to be answered. Why did they not remain in their first position, absorb their full share of nebulous matter, beget a respectable family of planets, and take rank as chiefs of their own clan? These comparatively anomalous bodies are great stumbling-blocks for the _soi-disant_ historians of creation.

Again, if an immense orb be formed, the parts of which cohere strongly enough for the whole to turn upon its axis as one body, the process of cooling can go on only from the surface. A crust may finally be formed there; but we see not how the refrigeration and shrinking of the interior parts can then go on separately, until the ma.s.s in the centre finally becomes detached from its envelope, like a shrivelled nut from its sh.e.l.l. Our earth is cooling down at this moment, unless the warmth which it receives from the sun exactly counterbalances the loss by radiation of internal heat. But the exterior and interior do not cool by different radiations, nor is there, so far as we know, the least tendency in the central ma.s.s to shrink separately, so as to detach itself from the surrounding crust. As deep as we can penetrate towards the centre, we find the heat regularly increase,--just as we might expect, if the only absolute loss of heat be from the surface.

If the matter now concentrated in the sun, and that which forms the several planets with their secondaries, were all moulded into one ma.s.s, and then dilated so as to fill the vast sphere of which the orbit of Ura.n.u.s forms a circ.u.mference, the substance would evidently be in a state of extreme tenuity and diffusion. Immense as the ma.s.s of the sun now is, it is but a mere nut at the centre of the grand globe which we are now considering. Expanded to such vast dimensions, we cannot conceive of it as a solid spheroid turning upon its axis, but only as a ma.s.s of fluid or vapor, in which a circular motion would generate only vortices or whirlwinds. In such an aggregation of subtile matter, no crust could be solidified on the outer ring, and then detached from the ma.s.s within; indeed, any separation of the parts under such circ.u.mstances is inconceivable. Even a rotary motion could not be established in it, except by an impulse received from without; for there is every reason to believe, that the movement of a h.o.m.ogeneous fluid towards its centre, if it could take place without disturbing causes, would be in radial lines, and not in a spiral.

Our author brings into view all the mathematical proportions and uniform relations which exist between the const.i.tuent bodies of the solar system, in order to indicate the probability of their formation from the constant working of one material cause. Thus he remarks, that the primary planets all move nearly in one plane, and "show a progressive increase of bulk and diminution of density, from the one nearest to the sun to that which is most distant." But he pa.s.ses over other characteristics of these bodies, equally important, which are quite irregular, and cannot be traced to the operation of one law. Compare the periods of rotation on their respective axes, and we find no correspondence, no indication that the revolving motion was imparted to all by one inflexible law. The first four planets, counting from the sun, perform their rotation in nearly the same time, namely, twenty-four hours. But Jupiter's period is a little less, and Saturn's a little more, than ten hours. Again, Jupiter's axis of rotation is nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, while that of Mars is inclined at an angle of fifty-nine degrees forty-two minutes. Another irregularity, still more fatal to the theory, is found in the number of satellites by which the respective planets are attended. Saturn has seven, beside the two rings; Jupiter has four, Mars has none, and the earth has but one. On the single hypothesis, that our system was formed by rings successively thrown off from a central body by a process of refrigeration and contraction, these irregularities are inexplicable.

Mars, it seems, did not shrink at all, while Jupiter cast off four separate rings, and the earth produced its single moon. The distances of these bodies from their primaries are also quite irregular; in the case of Jupiter, the outermost of the satellites revolves at a distance which is only twenty-seven times the radius of the primary, and the innermost is distant but six times that radius. This planet, consequently, has shrunk to one twenty-seventh part of its original diameter, and in so doing, has formed four moons; the earth has shrunk to one sixtieth part of its first diameter, and still has produced but one satellite. If the same law had prevailed in the two cases, we ought to have nine or ten moons.

We need not a.n.a.lyze with any great minuteness the geological facts and hypotheses incorporated into this magnificent history of creation. As will be seen hereafter, the violent and sweeping transformations and convulsions that the earth's crust has undergone directly conflict with our author's theory, and afford the strongest presumption, that an extraneous cause has frequently interfered, at different periods, to repair the desolation produced by the una.s.sisted working of natural laws, to bring order out of chaos, and to people the desert earth anew with animated tribes. The only general fact of much moment, which our author has drawn from the discoveries of geologists, for the confirmation of his own hypothesis, is, according to his own account, one of the most questionable doctrines in the whole science,--one of a negative character, on which we can never rely with full a.s.surance, till the researches of man have probed every fold, and examined every thread in the texture, of the earth's garment, and thus shown that no evidence can possibly be discovered to the contrary. The alleged fact is that, in the early formations of rock--the first pages in the history of the earth's surface--are found the remains of animals and vegetables only of the lowest type and most imperfect development; while, in the later strata, forms more and more advanced are discovered; so that there seems to have been a constant progress along the line leading to the higher forms of organization. The testimony which goes to support this a.s.sertion is wholly negative. The geologist reasons thus: The more perfect organisms have not been discovered in the earlier strata; _therefore_, they do not exist in them. When, in a different connection, it suits our author's purpose to throw doubt on the very postulate which is here admitted, he holds the following language.

"These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the birds than we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any cla.s.s of animals from a certain period of the earth's history, can never be considered as more than negative. Animals, of which we find no remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless, have lived at the time, and it may have only been from unfavorable circ.u.mstances that their remains have not been preserved for our inspection. The single circ.u.mstance of their being little liable to be carried down into seas might be the cause of their non-appearance in our quarries."--p. 95.

In truth, the researches of geologists are every day bringing to light new facts, which compel them to modify or abandon many of the positions they formerly held; so that a considerable portion of the science is a mere quicksand of s.h.i.+fting theories. We need only allude to the various suppositions respecting the origin of drift, and to the numerous modifications of the glacial theory. Important discoveries have been made within a short time, showing that certain animal tribes had their origin much farther back than was at first supposed. A few years ago, reptiles were believed to be the highest type of life that existed during the era of the new red sand-stone. But Professor Hitchc.o.c.k's recent discovery in this stone of the footprints of gigantic birds has added a higher cla.s.s to the zoology of the period; and within a few months, in the same red sand-stone of the Connecticut valley, tracks of two or three species of quadrupeds have been found, some of them being probably mammifers of a lower grade. It is true, no fossil remains of these animals have been brought to light; but this want only renders the discovery more significant for our present purpose. It shows that certain animals must have lived at the period in question, though their remains have not yet been found; and from the greater age of the rocks then formed, and the consequent greater number of convulsions of the earth's surface to which they have been subjected, these remains may have entirely disappeared. It is a curious fact, also, that the animal remains of that period, which have come down to us, belong to genera so const.i.tuted, that their bodies might well survive, if we may so speak, the shocks which would have destroyed every trace of some more delicate, or more finely organized, beings. We find remains of the flint-s.h.i.+elded animalcules, the hard-sh.e.l.led mollusca, and the cartilaginous fishes; but the bodies of mammalia, birds, and even the higher species of fishes, some of which we may suppose to have been more tender and corruptible, have utterly perished. Here and there, an individual of their number left the print of its foot on the sand, which subsequently hardened into rock, and brought down to our times a faint vestige of its past existence.

We are not attempting to impugn the credit of geological science in general, which would be a wholly futile task. The mult.i.tude of facts respecting the present const.i.tution of the earth's crust, recently made known by laborers in this department, are among the most curious and most pregnant discoveries of modern times. But when we come to the formation of theories respecting the past history of the earth, in order to account for the phenomena at present visible on its surface, we are evidently afloat on a sea of conjecture, each hypothesis being valid only till a more plausible one is proposed,--which happens very frequently,--or till it is effectually disproved by some new discovery in the rocky strata. A fertile imagination and a bold face are among the most striking traits of our more daring geologists. Grant to one of this character a few modest postulates,--give him certain millions of years, a sufficient number of earthquakes, a whole battery of volcanoes, a few ocean deluges, and the rise and fall of half a dozen continents,--and he will frame a theory off-hand, which will account for the most perplexing phenomena. Our author is certainly ent.i.tled to take his place at the very head of this cla.s.s of speculatists.