ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY
COMPAREDO
BY
LORD ORMATHWAITE.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & COMPANY,
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1872.








AMERICAN PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
THE author of the following work is an
English Statesman who was born in 1798, and
is consequently now seventy-four years of age.
He served a long time in the House of Com
moiis under the title of Sir John Walsh, havy.
ing succeeded his father as Baronet in 1825.
He was M. P. for Sudbury in 1830-'34 and
again in 1838-'40, and was M. P. for Radnorshire from 1840 to 1865, when he retired from
public life. In 1868 he was raised to the
peerage with the title of Lord Ormathwaite.
In politics he is a Liberal Conservative. In a
note prefixed to the English edition of his
book he says: "I must preface these pages
by a few words of explanation. The decay
of my eyesight has within the last year incapacitated me from reading or writing. Cut




4      AMERICAN PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
off by this affliction from my usual mental
employments, I have found relief and occupation to my thoughts in dictating these essays
to a short-hand writer. This mode of writing
will excuse any inaccuracies or mistakes which
I have committed."




CO NTENTS.
PAGE
PART I.-ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED,..   7
II.-REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF ]IR. DARWIN
AND MR. BUCKLE,....   63
III.-PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION,...  119








ASTIRONOMY AND GEOLOGY
COMPARED.
TH:ERE is a certain affinity between these
two sciences: they have this feature in common
-that each in its respective province extends
the intellectual vision of MIan far beyond the
limits of his present mortal existence. They
enable him to comprehend a vast portion of
those two great infinities of time and of space
by which he is surrounded. How wonderful
that a being so ephemeral, whose life is compressed within the bounds of some seventy or
eighty years at the utmost, and is cribbed and
tethered to a narrow spot on this earth's surface, should thus be enabled to traverse in
thought such a boundless area! Our first
sentiment is perhaps one of melancholy and
discouragement. When we contrast our own
nothingness with the immensity of the Uni



A8 STRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
verse, which these sciences disclose to us, how
infinitesimally small we appear in our own
eyes; what mere atoms we are, no more permanent than the flies which buzz. through a
summer and then die; no larger than the
motes which dance in the sunbeam! But our
second thoughts are more inspiring and consolatory. Is not the fact that we are thus
enabled to measure and to comprehend so
large a part of this mighty scheme, a proof
that we are connected with it by ties more
lasting than are at present visible to us? The
acts of the Almighty are never purposeless,
and the circumstance that we are thus permitted a prospect of what is beyond us here,
is one evidence, among the many others which
are afforded to us, of the truth of those hopes
which associate us with a larger future.
Not only do these two sciences afford us
these prospects beyond the boundaries of this
present world, but I think it will be found
that they are the only ones which do so. The
other sciences, which add so largely to our
knowledge of the laws of nature here, and
place in our hands such vastly augmented
powers over the material world, deal almost
exclusively with sublunary matters. Chemistry, Electricity, Anatomy, Botany, and many




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.   9
others, have their relations here. Other sciences borrow, indeed, from Astronomy or Geology, but they are merely dependent on them;
they are secondary and subsidiary in their relations to them.
For example, the two sciences of Navigation and of Geography are largely indebted
to Astronomy, which points out to them the
modes, by the means of celestial observations,
of verifying all the positions on the earth's
surface; but Geography and'Navigation only
borrow from Astronomy the means by which
they make these calculations, they add nothing to them, they only derive aid from them,
they originate nothing.
Although, as I have remarked, there is a
close connection, and, if I may use the expression, a sympathy, between these two great
sciences, yet, on the other hand, there are
several important differences between them
which it may be interesting to observe. Let
us endeavor to enumerate some of the most
striking and remarkable.
First. The dates of their birth differ as
widely as possible. Astronomy is about the
oldest; Geology is nearly the youngest and
last in the whole circle of the sciences. We
must carry our knowledge of the commence



10 ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
ment of Astronomy to the very beginning of
the historic period; we must mount up to the
days of the Assyrian monarchy, and the periods of the glories of Nineveh and Babylon;
we must picture to ourselves the astronomers
of that period watching the celestial firmament in the clear, dark blue skies, and through
the transparent atmosphere, of Southern Asia.
Nor let us too hastily depreciate, or too scornfully despise, the labors of these early pioneers
on the road of Astronomical science. True,
they supposed the earth the great centre of
the universe, and conceived that sun, moon,
and stars made a diurnal revolution round the
earth, for the sole purpose of warming and
enlightening us. True, their conceptions of
the mechanism of the heavens, or of the relative magnitude of the great bodies which
people the void, were utterly erroneous. Still
we must remember that science advances step
by step; they were very accurate observers
of all they saw; they noted with great truth
and precision all the apparent phenomena of
the heavens; they mapped out very distinctly
all the constellations which spangle the vault
of heaven; they noticed very correctly all the
signs of the zodiac; and to this day, although
we know how to interpret all the motions for




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  11
which they wanted the key, yet still we are
contented to adopt their fanciful map of the
constellations, and to use their nomenclature.
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in his interesting
work on the "Astronomy of the Ancients,"
has done justice to their labors. Even, however, if we determine to ignore all these early
periods, if Pythagoras and Ptolemy groped
and blundered amidst confusion and error,
and if we date the birth of true Astronomy
from the days of Copernicus and Galileo,
Kepler and Newton, it still has a priority in
date of wellnigh four- hundred years over its
sister Geology, which cannot be said to have
existed before the very end of the last and the
commencement of the present century.
Another difference between the two sciences arises from the periods to which they refer. Geology is essentially a retrospective
science; it never looks forward, it invites us
to cast our regards behind us, and to endeavor
through the obscurity of the past to trace out'
the former conditions of the earth's surface;
its pages are all written in the praeterpluperfeet tense; just as some wizard or necromancer in the legends of the middle ages evoked
by his potent spells the spirits of departed
mailed knights, beauteous dames, or crowned




12  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
monarchs, so the modern geologist calls out
from their stony tombs the gaunt skeletons
of Ichthyosauri, iPterodactyls, }Mastodons, and
Megatheriums, to astonish us with these relies
of former creations. Geology has its being
only in the past, but Astronomy exists in the
present. The vast orbs which, in companionship with ourselves, roll round the sun; that
mighty luminary itself, the centre and life of
our system, exists now as surely as we do ourselves, and will exist in after-ages. The dominion of Geology is restricted to the past;
Astronomy is with us in the present, and will
with be us in the future.
Another and a very important distinction
between these two sciences is a difference in
the nature of the proofs upon which they rest.
There are three great methods of inquiry by
which we advance to the attainment of scientific -truth, three roads on which the human
mind travels in the acquisition of knowledge.
Thefrjst of these is the study of the Abstract
and Exact Sciences of Arithmetic and of pure
Mathematics, whether in the form of Geometry or of algebraical analysis, and their subsequent application to the solution of all these
problems capable of being submitted to them.
The second is the accumulation, observation,




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 13
comparison, and analysis of the Evidence of
Facts, and the deduction from them of uniform
laws of nature and fixed relations of cause and
effect. The third is the systerl of Experimental Philosophy which is coupled with the
great name of Bacon as its inventor. Some
further consideration of the nature of these
three methods may not be superfluous.
The first of these, viz., the study of abstract science, is distinguished from the other
two by not being dependent upon the evidence
of facts. When its principles have been determined, it is only necessary to ascertain
that the facts are in accordance with the data
required by the conditions of the problem;
the result then follows as a matter of necessity. For example, we are perfectly sure that
2 and 2 make 4; and although we know nothing of the state of matters or of the conditions which exist in Sirius or the Pleiades, or
any other of the constellations, yet we are
perfectly certain that 2 and 2 must make 4
there as they make 4 here. We are sure that
in no quarter of the universe can 2 and 2
make 3, or 5, or 7, or any number but 4; and
it is not necessary to adduce facts in confirmation of this from any experience of the particular state of things in any of these stars.




14 ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
What is true of this first and simplest in the
series of the muLltiplication-table must be true
of all the others, though they may not be
quite so patent to the eyes; it is as certain
that'7 times 7 make 49 as that 2 and 2 make
4, and the whole multiplication-table must be
as correct in the star Arcturus as in any national school in the three kingdoms where it
is painfully drubbed into the heads of puzzled
ploughboys. The multiplication-table is one
of the first stages in arithmetic; logarithms,
are among the most refined and the most
subtle, yet it is as impossible that the logarithm of the tangent of the angle of 440 should
be any thing- less than 9.984837, or that the
logarithm of the number 365 should be any
thing but 2.562293 as that 2 and 2 should not
make 4. Where the principle is true the results must be always the same. Relying upon
the correctness in the principles of logarithms,
mathematicians use them to facilitate their
most abstruse calculations. What is true in
arithmetic is equally true in every description
of pure mathematics. When the young student
has mastered the pons asinoruzm in his Euclid,
he knows absolutely that the two angles at
the base of an isosceles triangle are equal; he
does not require to seek for a confirmation of




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  15
this in the evidence of fact; it is not necessary for him  to measure 100 or 1,000 or
10,000 isosceles triangles in corroboration of
the demonstration of the fifth proposition of
Euclid; it is quite sufficient for him to have
consulted the diagram and to have mastered
the demonstration in order to convince him
that, under all possible circumstances, and in
every quarter of the Universe wherever an
isosceles triangle is found, the angles at its
base are equal.  The demonstrations upon
which rests the truth of Newton's " Principia,"
which may be regarded as the most refined
examples from geometrical proofs, are as certain and as fully demonstrative as Euclid's
fifth proposition can be; they are equally independent of the evidence of fact, and facts
when in accordance with them  in the planetary system must of necessity be bound by
them. The same reasoning applies to all the
methods of Algebraical analysis up to the Integral Calculus, and the great distinguishing
superiority of this mode of reasoning follows
throughout, that it is independent of the evidence of facts, but facts must obey its laws
wherever the conditions are in conformity
with them.
The second method of proof is by estab



16  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
lishing an invariable and continuous connection of Cause and Effect, by showing that
certain events invariably follow from certain
antecedents, thereby establishing a necessary
connection between them. By this method
of reasoning and observation a very, high degree of proof may be obtained, but it is not
quite so overwhelmingly convincing as are
the conclusions drawn from  mathematical
demonstration.  Let us compare two examples of proofs obtained by each of these
two methods. lNothing can be much more
certain upon this earth than that every oak
has sprung originally from an acorn, and that
a sackful of acorns planted at the proper
season and in favorable soil will produce a
whole crop of young oaks; but our only
ground for believing this is founded upon the
past experience of similar facts. We can have
no possible means of knowing, if shown an
acorn for the first time, that it would produce
an oak; no reasoning of the a priori kind
could lead us to such a conclusion; we know
that the consequence will be such merely
fromn universal previous experience. The nature of the proof differs altogether. from that
by which we arrive at the certainty that
the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle




ASTRONOM3Y AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  17
are equal. In the one case the result is certain under all circumstances, and arises from
the nature of things. In the other it is a consequence which we have observed to follow
under existing conditions from certain premises, but we cannot trace the connection ourselves, and only that, so far as our experience
extends, it uniformly follows.
Mr. Babbage, in his'Passages from the
Life of a Philosopher," gives an instance of
the possible error which may lurk under these
arguments, founded on the principle that similar causes will always produce simnilar effects.
He says that he observed that he could set
his calculating-machine to such a point that
a certain combination would be produced a
million of times, but at the million-and-first
the result would be different. Any one, he
said, merely reasoning from- cause and effect
would conclude at the 999,000th time that at
the million-and-first time the same result
would follow which had already preceded so
many similar trials; yet he would be wrong,
and his reasoning would be proved to be fallacious. Still, although the certainty is not
so absolute or the proof so overwhelming
as in cases where the reasoning is founded
on mathematical demonstration, a degree of




18  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
proof almost amounting to certainty may be
attained through the evidence of facts. We
must, however, admit the possibility of error,
and adopt conclusions based upon the relations of cause and effect, with a slight reservation.
The third method of inquiry does not differ
altogether in principle from the second, in the
same manner as they both differ from the
first. The second and third methods are both
founded upon the evidence of fact and the relations traced between cause and effect. They
differ from each other in the manner of attaining this evidence and of tracing these relations
of cause and effect. In the second method the
inquirer merely observes; he watches, and
notes, and chronicles the operations of nature
as he witnesses them; but in the process of
experimental philosophy the enterprising and
inquiring spirit of Man takes a bolder step.
He is not satisfied with the mere passive part
of an observer, he renders himself an active
agent; he not only observes but directs, he
brings into exercise that highest gift accorded
by his Creator to 1Man, the faculty of imitating
in however faint and imperfect a manner the
acts of Omnipotence, and becoming in a remote and secondary degree an Intelligent




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 19
Cause. He is no longer satisfied merely to
observe: he interrogates nature by the means
of experiments, he asks questions of her, he
twists the materials in his hands into new and
artificial combinations, he brings substances
together which would naturally have always
remained apart, he probes the depths hitherto
unrevealed.  Sometimes he flings himself
purely at hazard into the bosom of nature, and
by accident discovers some novel secret; at
another time he pursues some already discovered analogy up to fresh results; he resembles
a skilful counsel cross-examining a reluctant
witness, and he forces some concealed truth
into light by dint of questions, each experiment being a question. By this process most
of the great discoveries in the natural sciences
have been arrived at. Experimental philosophy did not originate with Bacon, although
the name of the system might. Those who
first discovered that tin and copper combined
produced bronze were experimental philosophers; those who discovered that a mass of
grapes left to ferment produced wine were experimental philosophers, and very useful ones
too. This third method of experimental philosophy is, in other words, the intellect and
energy of Man guiding him to become an in



20  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
telligent and active agent, producing those
great discoveries by which he has obtained
such mastery over the material world. It is
the great element of that Progress which we
hear so often spoken-of and so frequently misunderstood; its power seems by no means exhausted, and it is quite possible that the energy
of Man will add many new discoveries to those
which have already rendered him the monarch
of the material world. It is worth remark
also, in days when a certain sect of philosophers seems always intent uponlevelling Man
to the condition of an animal, that this faculty
of originating new effects by new combinations, the offspring of intelligence, is not
shared in the remotest degree by any of the
lower animals-it is the sole prerogative of
Man.
These three methods of inquiry appear to
me to be distinct from each other, but they are
not incompatible; the philosopher may employ
one or two, or all three of them, as he may
find them to be most available for his purpose; in point of fact, in the study of most sciences they are so employed.
In applying these principles to the consideration of the evidence by which Astronomy
and Geology are respectively supported, we




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  21
find that Astronomy rests upon the double
basis of observation and pure mathematical
reasoning. The evidence of fact has accumulated in immense stores. The perfection which
modern telescopes have attained, particularly
since the days of the elder Herschel, multiplies
a hundredfold the powers of the human eye.
Every appearance of the heavens, every
motion of the bodies comprising our solar system, are scanned and noted with extraordinary accuracy. Within the last century two
planets of first-class magnitude and importance
(Uranus and Neptune) have been discovered.
A numerous body of asteroids have been found
occupying a large space in our system between
Mars and Jupiter. The appearance of any
comet within the circumference of our system is immediately perceived, and its course
watched and measured. All the motions of
the planetary bodies and of their satellites are
distinctly visible to us through these great and
powerful telescopes. Their changes of position and their revolutions round the sun can
be traced with the minutest accuracy, and all
this array of facts can thus be marshalled in
confirmation- of the truth of that great solar
system which it is the glory of modern astronomy to have discovered. All this can be es



22 ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
tablished by pursuing the second methodthat of reasoning on the evidence of facts; but
Astronomy can be supported on that still
sounder and more certain basis of pure mathematical demonstration. The " Principia "I of
Newton and the " Analysis " of Laplace draw
their proofs from the sources of pure mathematics. It is this combination of the results
of these two methods which gives to Astronomy, at least so far as it relates to our own solar system, such absolute certainty in calculating the magnitudes, the distances, the velocities, and the motions of the different bodies
composing the planetary system; we cannot
conceive the possibility of error. The novel
and bold theories of Prof. Stokes and others,
founded upon the results of the spectroscope
and calculations of the velocity of light, carry
the speculations of the astronomer beyond the
bounds of our own solar system, in an attempt
to measure the distance of the fixed stars, and
to trace motion in those bodies which hitherto
were deemed stationary.
I will not attempt to follow those daring
speculations through those new fields on which
they invite us to enter. No doubt the enterprising energy of those philosophers will explore these new regions of science, should they




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 23
prove accessible to the powers of Man. I am
contented for the purposes of this essay to restrict myself within the bounds of our own solar system, which has been so thoroughly understood and established. Should it prove
possible to future astronomers to extend our
knowledge, no new discovery lying altogether
beyond the limits of our own system can disturb the calculations we have arrived at, or
shake the truths which have been so firmly; es
tablished. We may attain a yet wider knowledge, we may complete our acquaintance of a
still more comprehensive scheme of Omnipotence, but such additions cannot disturb the
knowledge we have already attained. I will
only remark, that the reasoning of these gentlemen seems in great degree to be founded
upon the third method-that.of experimental
philosophy; the use of the spectroscope seems
to belong to it.
When we turn to Geology, we perceive at
once that it stands on a far narrower basis
than its sister science; it derives no support
from pure mathematics. A state of things
which has passed away, and which we can
only imperfectly conjecture, cannot afford the
data necessary for mathematical demonstration. Perhaps some small exception may be




24  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
made in favor of those calculations as to time,
which are afforded by the accumulation of
deposits at the months of great rivers, by the
rate of the formation of peat morasses, or of
the growth of primeval forests, which may
afford a loose and general ground of arithmetical calculation. With these trifling exceptions, Geology must rest entirely upon
the evidence of facts, and it must be owned
that these facts are neither so numerous nor
so well ascertained as those relating to Astronomy.  As I think I already observed,
they are derived from the relices of former
conditions of our Globe; they cannot be
tested by comparison with what now exists;
they are also very much scattered and unconnected. We cannot refer to any former period of the world's history as indicating a state
of things complete in itself; each of the various strata which geologists trace beneath the
earth's surface seems to refer to a period of
transition between the stratum immediately
below and that above it. Each of these-strata
contains many of the older species of plants
and animals, and each contains many new
animals. At each step many of the older varieties disappear, and many new ones appear;
but all this renders the evidence of facts upon




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  25
which they are founded exceedingly complicated and difficult to trace. We long for the
certainties of mathematical demonstration,
and for the power of examining the present.
Where all the theory is founded upon the
evidence of facts, and of facts so scattered and
so remote, our calculations are liable to be
disturbed at every turn by new facts inconsistent with the results we imagined that we
had realized.
An example of this may be found in the
different theories respecting the age of Man
and his first appearance upon the earth. The
earlier geologists had adopted the conclusion
that the creation of man corresponded in time
very nearly with the chronology of Genesis;
all their calculations have been disturbed by
some later discoveries. There have been discovered under some peat bogs and morasses
in the neighborhood of Amiens a great number of spear-heads rudely chiselled, but which
are apparently the work of human beings. It
is considered certain that a much longer
period would be required for the formation of
the morasses of peat under which these relics
are buried, and this fact alone has shaken all
the conclusions of former geologists. There
have subsequently been discovered also caves




26  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
in which human bones have been found in
proximity with those of some species of quadrupeds which have long become extinct; and
this has thrown still farther doubt upon the
date to be assigned to the first appearance of
man upon the Globe. No question can be
more profoundly interesting to us, whether
upon  physiological, moral, or theological
grounds, than that of the date of man's creation: and yet these latter discoveries appear
to have enveloped it in the greatest uncertainty.  Incomplete and defective as the
evidence of facts in Geology appears to be,
yet much has been established from the mine
of facts, which is still rich in new materials;
and the tendency must be to strengthen and
improve our knowledge as fresh stores come
to light. Many of the principles of Geology
may be considered as established, and future
labors will doubtless confirm them, and correct any existing errors.
The general conditions which geologists
may consider as being established are, first of
all, the immeasurable antiquity of the earth;
secondly, the existence of different and separate periods indicated by various strata containing the fossil remains of animals and plants
proper to them. The series of these strata is




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 27
never found inverted; particular strata may
be found wanting in any locality, but older
strata are never found over more modern
formations.  It may be remarked that one
great defect pervades Geology, as far as it has
yet been explored, which is the entire vagueness and uncertainty of all its chronology.
Whether the various epochs embraced 10,000
or 50,000 or 100,000, or 5,000,000 of years is a
calculation on which Geology has hitherto
failed to affobrd the slightest light, or to make
any estimate.
The extent embraced by Geology is no
doubt a very large one, particularly when considered with reference to the earth and to man.
It includes not only the whole existing surface
of the Globe, but a number of former surfaces
which it would appear have been successively
covered by new formations.  Geology may
thus be regarded as embracing not only the
present surface of the Globe, but several other
former surfaces now buried beneath it. When,
however, we contrast it with the extent of the
whole Solar System, it shrinks into comparatively small proportions. WTe find that the
Earth itself is but a planet of a secondary
magnitude and importance in the system.
The eight principal planets which revolve




28  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
round the Sun may be divided into two classes:
the four nearest the Sun, consisting of Mercury, Yenus, the Earth, and Mars; and the four
most remote, composed of Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, and Neptune. The difference in magnitude of the four nearest and the four most
remote is very considerable, Jupiter being 590
and the Sun 602,000 times larger than the four
Terrestrial planets combined. The division
as to space also is great, since the first four planets revolve within an area the radius of which
is not one-third of the distance between the
Sun and Jupiter and one-twentieth of the distance to Neptune, the most remote of the
known planets. The subjoined table of the diameters, volume or cubic contents, and the
distances from the Sun of the eight principal
planets, and of the Sun's diameter and volume,
will render the comparison more obvious.
It will be observed, by the comparative
estimate in this table (column 5), how small
and insignificant is the Earth when compared with the larger planets, and, still more
strikingly, with the Sun, itself. There is one
remark which suggests itself in this comparison, and that is, notwithstanding the immense
disproportion in size between the Earth and
the Sun, how much more close anc intimate




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 29
is their connection than that between the
Earth and any of the other planets.  If Jupi1       2         3             4             5
Name of   Mean Diameter. Mean Distance   Volume or ubic Contents.
Planet.                    from Sun.
Miles. Earth's= l    - Miles.   Millions of Mileso. Earth's= 1
Mercury        3,058   0.387   35,392,000         14,973.0.057s
Venus.       7,510    0.949   66,134,000       221, 778       0.855
Earth. *   7,912    1.000   91,430,000          259,333        1.000
Mars    J    4,363    0.551  139,311,000          43,486        0.168
Jupiter.1   84,846   10.724  475,692,000    319,811,264    1,233.205
Saturn.    70,136    8.865  872,137,000    180,643,616      696.685
Uranus. t 33,247   4.202 1,753,869,000       19,242,302       74.199
Neptune. J   37,276    4.711 2,745,998,000    27,119,866      104.575
Sun.. 852,908 107.799    -        324,867,451,701 1,252,691.000
* The four nearer or terrestrial planets.
t The four farther or major planets.
C The cubic contents are calculated as if the planets were
spheres, and no account is taken of their trifling spheriodicity.
ter should leave his place in our system, and
set out on the grand tour through all the
constellations of the firmament, or if Venus
should elope with a comet, such events would
occasion great amazement and consternation
throughout all the observatories of Europe,
scientific societies would be holding meetings
in all the principal cities, and the gravest professors would be in a state of almost frenzied
excitement. But all this while, if there were
no newspapers or journals to tell the tale, it




30 ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
may be doubted whether the great bulk of the
people would ever find out any thing about
the matter. Neither Jupiter nor Venus would
be missed from their accustomed places by ordinary mortals, nor is there any proof that
their disappearance would sensibly affect the
remaining members of the system; but we
are all aware that light and warmth and existence itself depend entirely upon the presence
of the Sun: were his rays withdrawn from us
for even the briefest space of time, utter extinction would be the inevitable consequence.
Ilere I propose to limit my comparison to
the Solar System. I will not venture to enter upon those larger speculations which have
been lately opened by Prof. Stokes and others
in the field of Sidereal Astronomy. I think
it is sufficient for my purpose to point out the
vast disproportion in size between the Earth
and the other members of our own system, and
show that our world itself is but a very small
fraction of that great whole. When we endeavor to pass beyond the limits of our own
system, we leave behind us our two great
props and' aids-the powers of the telescope
and the resources afforded by pure mathematics. Before these speculations had been
started, we possessed certain negative testi



ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 31
monies with regard to the sidereal system
lying beyond our own. We knew that the
range of our own telescopes extended to the
utmost limits of our own system; as therefore
they were powerless when applied to the fixed
stars, it followed, as a natural consequence,
that the latter were greatly more remote even
than the most distant of our own planets.
We might also -infer that, as the light of the
Sun can but feebly illuminate our own remoter planets, it would produce no effect
upon those still vaster distances, and therefore that the fixed stars shine, like the San
itself, by their own light, and are, in fact,
also suns. Should the calculations of Prof.
Stokes be confirmed, and the distances of the
fixed stars ascertained, these discoveries would
only confirm  what we possess a negative
knowledge of already-that these stars are
infinitely remote.  The same observation,
however, would not apply to the fact, if established, that the stars are not fixed, but
moved. Such a result would induce the belief, either that they wandered about in space
without any guiding law, or that they were
governed by some more comprehensive systezm of which we only could reach a part.
We now approach the consideration of an




32  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
essential difference of vast importance between these two sciences.  The magnitude
of the consequences involved in this difference it is impossible to estimate. The distinction upon which I am about to remark
is no less than that of an absolute and entire
difference between the main principles of astronomical and geological science. The Solar
System is governed by a law of fixity; by
which I mean, of course, not that the bodies
which compose it are stationary, but that all
their motions and the revolutions which they
make round the Sun as a common centre are
periodical, but are always the same. The Solar System may be compared to a vast clock,
all the wheels and mechanism of which are
perfect, and which keeps time with unvarying correctness. In illustration of this proposition, we may select at hazard any one of the
parts of this great system, and the' result will
be the same.
For example, let us take the Earth's annual revolution in its orbit round the Sun.
The distance traversed is about 5U4,310,000
miles, and the velocity at which the Earth
moves in accomplishing this revolution is 65,518 miles an hour, or 18.2 miles per second.
Yet this prodigious space is traversed by the




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  33
Earth every year to a second of time. The
difference in the mode of computing the year,
whether the sidereal or solar day is adopted,
does not in the least affect this argument.
The exactness of the Earth's revolution is, in
point of time, the same in each. The consequences resulting from this are invariably the
same, as is the motion of the Earth itself.
For example, the lengthening and the shortening of the days in any given latitude are
the same in each succeeding year. The motion of the Earth through its orbit is not less
wonderfully exact when considered with reference to space than it is to time; it niot only
occupies the same time to a second, but it traverses exactly the same orbit. This may be
verified by observations of the position of the
Earth with reference to the constellations,
and in passing through the different signs of
the zodiac at different periods of the year.
We find that its relative bearing to the fixed
stars, which determines its place in the heavens, is always the same at the same period of
the year.
Another proof of the absolute precision and
uniformity by which all the motions of the
heavenly bodies are regulated may be drawn
from the methods to ascertain the longitude.




34  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
The general principle upon which the observations for this purpose are founded is of
course familiar to all educated persons. The
daily revolution of the Earth round its axis
from west to east takes place in twenty-four
hours. The 3600, therefore, into which every
one of the parallels of latitude is divided, are
traversed at the rate of 15~ per hour, or 1~ in
four minutes. If, therefore, any particular
meridian is adopted, say the meridian of
Greenwich, as the line from which the distances in longitude are calculated, the difference in time between. that meridian and any
point on the Earth's surface will correspond
with the distance in degrees and miles east or
west of that meridian.  Say, for instance,
that when it is twelve o'clock at Greenwich,
it is eleven o'clock at some point to the west
of Greenwich, we then know that the distance
is 15i; or if, on the contrary, it is one o'clock
at the place of observation and it is twelve
o'clock at Greenwich, we know that we must
be 15~ to the east of Greenwich.  But, in
order to institute this comparison, it is necessary to possess the means of ascertaining the
exact time at Greenwich and at the place of
observation simultaneously. The time at the
place of observation is obtained by certain




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 35
astronomical observations, which- it is not
necessary now to particularize. The time at
Greenwich is calculated by two methods.
The first and easiest is by a chronometer set
to Greenwich time, and therefore indicating
the hour at that place, wherever the chronometer is taken. The great improvements
which have been made-in the construction of
chronometers has rendered this simple method
one of considerable accuracy. It is exceedingly valuable to navigators in conjunction
with that more scientific process, by lunar
observation, as verifying a correction of any
error in the reckoning, and also as filling up
the blank occasioned by any interruption in
the state of the weather. Pocket  chronometers are also of the greatest use to travellers
by land in the remote and unknown quarters
of the globe, as in the interior of Africa or
Australia, or in Central Asia, where a ready
and portable means of determining the longitude,of places is an invaluable aid to.geography.  Nevertheless, as the best chronometers are liable to irregularities' and cannot
always wholly be relied gupon; the means of
ascertaining the longitude by astronomical
observation had long been a great desideratum
to the navigator. The motion of a ship at sea




36  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
threw considerable difficulties in the accomplishment of this object, where such great accuracy in the observation is requisite. A reward of ~30,000 was long offered in the last
century for the attainment of this object; but
although a large portion of this reward was
given to Mr. Harrison for his chronometer in
1767, yet, as perfect accuracy has never yet
been obtained either by chronometers or, in
consequence of the motion of the ship, by
lunar observation, the whole ~30,000 has
never been adjudged.  Still, however, the
tables constructed by the Board of Longitude,
and inserted in the Nautical Almanac, do give
the means of determining the longitude with
perfect accuracy, subject only to the error
which may arise from the motion of the ship.
It is evident from the foregoing that, as the
determination of the longitude is arrived at
by ascertaining the time at two places simultaneously, the astronomical means of effecting
this is by converting the heavens into one
great clock, from which the observer can read
the hour as from a dial-plate; -and in order to
accomplish this, three things are necessary.
First, to ascertain the exact time at the place
of observation; secondly, to know, by the
position of the Sun, Moon, and stars, the cor



ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 31
responding time at Greenwich; and, thirdly,
that the motions of these bodies should be so
uniform and regular as to enable the astronomer to calculate beforehand what will be their
exact apparent distances from each other at
every hour of the twenty-four. Now it is this
last calculation which is made in the Nautical
Almanac for every year, and which is in constant use in navigation, and which furnishes
a convincing proof of two astronomical facts.
First, the wonderful accuracy and regularity
of the movements of the Earth and its attendant _Moon throughout the whole of its annual revolution.  Secondly, the thorough
mastery which  astronomical science must
have obtained over the knowledge requisite
for these calculations, so as to enable astronomers to calculate them beforehand with such
perfect correctness. Let us see what are the
elements upon which they are founded. The
Sun and the stars may be considered as stationary, and the Earth as describing its annual revolution in its orbit through the void
between the Sun and the stars; while this is
being accomplished, the Moon is describing
her monthly revolution round the Earth and
accompanying it in its progress. Now it is
evident that, although the positions of the




38  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
Sun and the stars are in fact stationary, yet
they appear to alter to an observer upon the
Earth as it proceeds on its course; but as the
Earth p ursues exactly the same track in each
succeeding year, her relative apparent position to each of the stars will be the same as it
was in the same day and hour in the preceding year; and also with regard to the Moon,
which revolves round the Earth in the same
manner, her apparent distances from the Sun
and from the several stars will be the same;
but the whole certainty of these results will
depend upon the perfect accuracy of this complicated calculation, viz., the exact coincidence
in time and place of the Earth's track round
the Sun, and also of the Moon's revolution
round the Earth. These data being given,
and the position of the Sun and stars being
assumed as fixed, the apparent distance of the
Moon from different stars will be calculated
with certainty. The calculations, however,
are necessarily very complicated, as they involve the two motions of the Earth round the
Sun, and of the Moon round the Earth, and
when we see in the. Nautical Almanac that
these calculations- are made to decimals. of: a
second, we may form a conception both of the
labor required and of the thorough knowledge




ASTRONOM3Y AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  39
of both these motions to calculate them beforehand with such minuteness.
A similar illustration of the unifbrmity in
all the motions of the heavenly bodies comnposing our planetary system, and of the correctness with whicht astronomers are enabled
to calculate them, may be furnished by the
observations of the satellites of Jupiter. This
planet, as may be seen in the foregoing table,
has a mean distance from the-centre of the
Sun of 475,692,000 miles; its distance from
the Earth varies in proportion to the position
of each planet in their respective orbits.
When the Sun is exactly between Jupiter and
the Earth, their distance then is the- whole
distance of the Earth from the Sun, added to
the whole distance between the Sun and Jupiter, viz., 56X,122,000 miles; when the Earth
is directly between the Sun and Jupiter, the
distance is diminished by the distance of the
Earth from the Sun, viz., 384,262,000 miles,
and the distances vary within these limits, in
proportion to the position of the planets in
their respective orbits. Now at these immense
distances, the moment of the eclipse of the
satellites is calculated to seconds reduced to
Greenwich time, and another means is thus
given of ascertaining the longitude. Thus we




40  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
find that the revolutions of the satellites of
Jupiter round that planet are known to us
with as much accuracy as the revolutions of
our Moon round the Earth, and that they are
equally regular and constant.
A still more convincing proof of the uniformity and regularity of the motions of the
planets is to be found in the periodical transits of Venus over the Sun's disk. As Venus
is 25,296,000 miles nearer to the Sun than the
Earth is, the orbit in which she describes her
revolution is contained entirely within ours;
if, therefore, the orbits were in the same
plane, or to use a more popular form of expression, upon the same level, Venus would
be continually passing and repassing between
the Sun and the Earth; but this does not
occur, because the orbit of Venus is not in the
same plane with that of the Earth, but is, as
it were, tilted up on one side and down on
the other, to use a very unscientific mode of
expression; or, as astronomers would say, the
orbit of Venus is inclined at a certain angle
to the orbit of the Earth. When, therefore,
Venus, in her revolution, passes between the
Earth and the Sun, she does so, to use the
same popular and unscientific mode of expression, either at a height above, or at a depth




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 41
below, the exact line between the centres of
the Sun and of the Earth; Venus only passes
directly between the Earth and the Sun on
those rare occasions when the planes of the
two orbits intersect each other, so that a line
drawn from the centre of the Earth to the
centre of the Sun would pass through the centre of Venus. Now, in consequence of the
angle of inclination of these orbits to each
other, such a result happens but rarely; it
only takes place at intervals of 105 and of 8
years, two transits following each other at the
short interval, and then the long period of
105 years elapsing before another takes place.
Now the proof of the great exactness and uniformity in the motion of both these planets is
found in the fact that these transits can be foretold with the same precision as that with which
we calculate the eclipses of our own Moon.
This shows that in 105 years not the slightest
change takes place in the revolutions of
either.
Many other illustrations might be afforded
in proof of the foregoing facts, establishing
the perfect uniformity and exact periodical
recurrence of all the motions of the bodies
composing the Solar System, governed as they
are by the universal law of gravitation. In



42  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
deed, there is no part of that system which
does not corroborate the truth of these principles. Wherever slight disturbances have been
discovered, they have been found to result
from the effects of the law of gravitation acting by the different planets upon each other,
and therefore slightly modifying the force of
gravitation exercised by the Sun itself. These
were first traced by Laplace, but they always
furnished, upon examination, a corroboration
of the proof of the great principles upon
which the Solar System rests. The last instance of this kind is to be found in the simultaneous discovery of the planet Neptune by
our own countryman Mr. Adams, and by M.
Le Verrier, deduced from the observation of
slight irregularities in the motion of the planet Uranus. But the calculations of astronomers prove that none of these irregularities
permanently derange the system; they are
compensated for in the whole action, and the
stability of the system is never permanently
affected by them.
The researches of astronomers have never
found in any part of this glorious scheme the
principle of decay; those who entertain a firm
belief in the existence of the Great First Cause,
acknowledge indeed with reverence and awe




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 43
that He who created this great work of His omnipotence could, if He so pleased, destroy it;
but there is no indication whatever to be found
of such a purpose; as far as human knowledge
and foresight extend, our Solar System bears
the evidence of being eternal. We may remark
that, as there is no perceptible symptom of the
germ of decay, so, on the other hand, we can
never discern any mark of progress; no fifth
satellite is in process of formation to add to the
light of Jupiter, nor is IMars furnished with a
moon, although, his being more remote from
the Sun than the Earth, he may consider himself as somewhat unfairly treated; the numerous asteroids, or small fragmentary planets,
which float in the large vacant space between
Mars and Jupiter, show no symptom of congregating together, although they might form
a planet of respectable dimensions. Progress
and decay are equally imperceptible in our
Solar System.
Some theologists and divines may be startled at this view, which they may consider at
variance with the prophecies of Scripture,
which so frequently refer to the end of the
world; but I think that no such discrepancy
will, on consideration, be found to exist.
Both the Old and New Testament relate ex



44  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
elusively to the destinies of Man. Now whenever the Almighty should, in His wisdom, deterinine to end the mortal existence of man,
such an exercise of His power would not be
difficult to conceive. Lif'e is so frail a possession that it would seem as if the exercise of
the Divine power were far more needed to
preserve than to extinguish it; it would but
need the temporary abstraction of the oxygen
from the atmosphere, or the escape of some
mephitic vapor from the bowels of the Earth,
to destroy, in an incredibly short space of
time, all Life, whether human, animal, or
vegetable; leaving the earth a tabuclt rasa, to
be reoccupied by new forms, according to the
will of the Creator. We may also remark
that Geology shows us that various races of
animals existed at remote periods upon the
Earth, and have become extinct from different causes: it is quite possible to conceive
that analogous causes might extirpate man;
but all these changes need not affect the
course of the planets, or the position of the
Earth as a member of the Solar System. Uninfluenced by these changes, the great mass of
our Globe might continue to fill its accustomed
place in the system of which it is a member.
The whole of the beautiful scheme of our




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 45
Solar System, so complicated and yet so perfect in its workings, gives the most convincing
proof of design. Its vast mechanism is to be
traced to the combined agency of two forces
in nature directly opposed to each other, and
therefore modifying the effects produced by
each. The frst of these is the universal law
of gravity, by which all bodies are attracted
to each other; the vast mass of the Sun would
under this influence absorb the whole planetary system within itself, were not its action
controlled by the centrifugal force imparted
to all these bodies, and which gives them a
tendency to fly off in a straight line, as a stone
does when escaping from a sling. What that
force is may be conceived, when we remember, as stated above, that the whole mass of
our own Globe rushes through space with a
velocity exceeding eighteen miles a second;
and we may estimate the exquisite nicety
of adjustment between these two opposing
forces, when we consider that they are so accurately balanced as to produce, as I have
stated above, the annual revolution of the
Earth round the Sun to the fraction of a second of time. The same effects result from
the same causes throughout the whole Solar
Syste-m; everywhere we see the law of gravi



46 ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
ty controlling the centrifugal force, and compelling the planet to describe the elliptical
curve marked out for it in space.
What are these two forces? whence do
they spring? how are they governed? how
modified so that their combined operation
produces so harmonious an effect? We cannot tell; human reason only enables.us to
trace secondary causes to their origin in the
First Great Cause. These secondary causes
we call laws, but that term cannot explain
their origin. The force of gravity is a law of
nature which, as far as we know, is universally operative, but so is the law of centrifugal
force, which is directly opposed to the other.
What is the power which is superior to both
these laws? which directs and moulds them
and counteracts one by the other, and uses
the two to accomplish a mighty design?
There can be but one answer; the earliest
instincts of the rudest nations prompt it; the
loftiest flights of human reason can only
enable us to repeat it.
Geology exhibits a strong contrast in principle to the Solar System, which I have
endeavored to illustrate. It would be impossible indeed to conceive two principles more
completely opposed to each other; throughout




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 47
the whole Solar System fixity and uniformity
of law is everywhere found, the vast mechanism works in obedience to a common principle,
each part is consistent with every other, and
no symptom  of variation from the mighty
plan can there be detected now, or anticipated in the future. The Earth, considered as
one of the planets, and as far as it is associated in this common design, strictly obeys all
its laws; indeed, I have drawn from the
motion of the Earth and its relation to the
Sun and the other planets some of the most
striking illustrations of the principles I have
sougit to explain. Geology, however, does
not contemplate the Earth in its relation to
the other part of the system; its province is
to consider the Earth in what may be termed
its individual character, and to trace as far as
is practicable the past history of the planet
from the vestiges which are accessible to the
researches of man. Viewed under this aspect,
the leading principle of the Astronomical
system is reversed; fixity seems to govern the
one, change appears to guide the other. When
we follow the Geologist in his explorations,
and penetrate those strata from  which he
extracts his evidence of former conditions of
the surface, one truth appears to be evident



48  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
that the Earth. has undergone a series of transformations. Whatever uncertainty may prevail as to the date and manner or the cause of
these changes, the fact seems to be indisputable. Primitive strata are found at the
bottom of the series in which no trace either
of animal or vegetable life can be discovered;
over them are found more recent formations,
mounting in an ascending scale to the animal
and vegetable productions, which are preserved in them in a fossil state, indicating a
closer resemblance to our condition.
Different Geologists have assigned these
changes to different causes. Some, particularly the earlier ones, have adopted what is
termed the theory of catastrophes, and have
supposed the crust of the Earth broken by
violent internal convulsions, lofty ranges of
mountains thrown up, volcanic action modifying the whole surface of the Globe, earthquakes and deluges transforming the face of
nature. Others have attributed more powerful
effects to quiet and imperceptible agencies
constantly operating, such as the detritus of
the higher mountains carried down by torrents
or by rain, the alteration in the level of the
sea occasioned by deposits at the mouths of
large rivers or by currents operating through



ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 49
out its extent. Some have adopted the igneous
theory, and have supposed that the Earth was
originally launched- forth in an incandescent
state, and has gradually cooled in the lapse of
ages. Others have taken up the glacial hypothesis, and have found traces of a period when
the Earth was much colder than at present
and covered with snow and ice.
All these theories, which it is difficult
indeed to prove, may have some foundation.
If we assign to the World a vast duration in
point of time, it may have passed through
successive periods containing all these diversities, and each leaving its mnark. Traces of all
these agents may still be found, and some are
still actually at work. Earthquakes and volcanoes are not extinct, and the sea is constantly
receiving the deposits brought by rivers into
its beds.
In following the footsteps of IBuckland
and Murchison, Owen, Cuvier, or Lyell, and
the  many other distinguished  Geologists
whose names will occur to us, we reverence
the intellect and sagacity which in the course
of less than a century has opened a new field
of science to our inquiries. Yet in pursuing
the tracks left by these enlightened minds we
are often tempted to regret the loss of those
3




50  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
two great aids to Astronomy-pure Mathematics and the assistance of the Telescope, and the
observation of bodies actually existing before
our eyes. The Geologist gropes comparatively in the dark; and the greatest caution is
necessary before we adopt conclusions founded
upon the evidence of facts alone, and of facts
so buried in the depths of time. How much
has perished! how small a residuum has escaped the ravages of the Great IDestroyer
upon which to rear our geological structure!
Yet how careful ought the true philosopher
to be in substituting hypothesis, however
plausible, for the sole proof he can adducethe evidence of facts —or in supplying by the
same means the hiatus so often left in the
chain. Where our resources and means of
proof are so slender and limited, where the
facts are so few and so scattered, how easy it
is to adopt some erroneous conclusions and to
follow some false lead.  The bases upon
which Geologists seem to be agreed are: 1.
The great, though unknown and incalculable,
antiquity of the Earth.  2. The series of
changes which its surface has undergone. 3.
The long period of time which must have
elapsed while the Earth was passing through
these stages; the record which they have suc



ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  51
cessfully left in the strata which they have
accumulated, and in' the various deposits
which have been preserved- embedded in each
of these strata; the regularity of the succession in which the strata occur, showing that
the periods were the same throughout the
Globe.
This portion of Geological study has reference only to inanimate nature; but by far
the most interesting and important branch of
it relates to those vestiges and relies of Life
which are sealed up in these strata, the great
repositories of the past. Here it may be observed the great interest in Geology centres,
and in this branch of inquiry it has an undoubted superiority over its sister science.
Mf/ighty as are the prospects revealed to our
wondering eyes by Astronomy, there is a solitude in the spectacle offered to us: one great
Living Spirit indeed breathes through the
whole the divine intelligence of the Great
Creator of the Universe; His infinite power,
wisdom, and goodness, are displayed lppon
their largest scale. But Astronomy reveals
to us no secondary or subordinate intelligences, animating with the breath of Life
those vast material organizations. It is indeed highly probable that such exist, and that




52  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
Life in some shape or other pervades those
vast habitations so well calculated for its reception.  We see that light and heat are
everywhere diffused; the planets have their
atmosphere of air around them; the alternations of day and night, and of spring, sninmer, autumn, and winter, are found in them.
All these analogies lead us to believe that
Life, which is evidently so important a feature here, and which is so bound up in the
existence of our own planet, cannot be absent
from the other members of the system. Nor
is it probable that the great Sun itself, the
centre of all, the source of life here, and so
far exceeding all the planets in magnitude,
should be destitute of that vitality which he
diffuses around.  Certainly it would be as
easy for Omnipotence to create living beings
in the very bosom of fire as to enable fishes
to exist in the element of water which is incompatible with the life of terrestrial animals,
and to adapt their organs in turn to an existence on land which is cut short by a brief
immersion in the other element. The author
of the "Plurality of Worlds," a work attributed to the late Dr. Whewell, controverts
this view, and labors to demonstrate that all
the other planets are untenanted, and that




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED. 53
life only exists with us. I have always considered his reasons as quite unsatisfactory,,
and, although nothing upon the subject can be
proved, yet that all the presumptions are in
favor of a contrary hypothesis; still, however,
we must admit that nothing on this subject
can[ be known with certainty; the condition
of the planets must from their remoteness be
utterly unknown to us; no telescope can do
more than reflect the general form to our
eyes, and even our own Moon, comparatively
so near us, only exhibits a variety of lights
and shadows upon her surface.
That portion of Geological research which
is dedicated to the study of the remains of
vegetable and animal Life is by far the most
interesting and important branch of that
science. This will appear very distinct'to us
if we picture to ourselves Geology deprived
of this part of its investigations and reduced
to a mere examination of the different strata
of rocks and soil which have been successively
accumulated. What interest should we feel
in knowing that the lowest stratum consisted
of primitive granite, or that others were composed of old and new sandstone a Take away
the remains of those living creatures which
have once animated the Earth, in these its




54  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
stages, and Geology would then became a dull
and profitless study indeed. The difference
between granite and trap, or trap and sandstone, would become very unimportant in our
eyes, if these formations did not tell us a tale
of the former living inhabitants of the Globe.
These investigations also lead us to a conclusion of the most momentous character: we
find, in tracing the Zoology of the Globe, that
a certain chain of succession is established,
and that the principle of Progress appears
to have pervaded it. Here is a broad distinction between Astronomy and Geology. As I
have already observed. the stupendous mechanism of Astronomy evinces no germ of decay
and no symptom of progress. In every stage
Geology exhibits both. Without those traces
and remains of former life Geology would resemble a theatre without actors or dramati,8
personac. It is by this chain of events that
the past is linked to us. There is another
feature which distinguishes Geology from Astronomy under this aspect. - There is not one
tittle of evidence in Geological science to
show that the changes it exhibits have any
thing of a cyclical or periodically recurrent
character. Ichthyosauri or Plesiosauri, IMastodons and Megatheriums, have disappeared




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  55
from  the Earth forever; there is not the
slightest probability that we shall ever revert
to the state of things in which they had their
being. Not only does one organization gradually supplant and efface a preceding one, but
viewed as a whole there is a constant advance
in the structure of the animal life, the links
of which are thus handed down to Us. Some
of the earlier formations are composed of
conglomerations of shell-fish, the very lowest
forms of life of which we have cognizance.
What an immense advance is indicated in the
fossil remains of the animals of a later date,
showing that they like ourselves were furnished with the organs of sightand of hearing,
which continue to be after so many ages the
great avenues of perception.  These senses
mark a vast increase in the faculties of the
beings who possess them. In order to make
use of these senses these animals must have
been endowed with instinct, that mysterious
faculty, approaching so nearly to reason, and
yet so plainly distinguishable from it.
Change does not necessarily include Progress, but in this case both change and progress are manifested. The word "progress"
may be coupled with others giving it a signification of deterioration, as the progress of




56  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
decay, the progress of ruin, the progress of
destruction; but when the word progress is
used by itself I think that it is popularly
coupled with the idea of advance. We mean
progress in good, progress from a comparatively
worse state of things to a better; at any rate,
it is in this sense alone that it is applicable to
Geology. As far as we can trace the history
of the past this idea is impressed upon us; it
is a regular series of advancing steps. In
order to measure progress, it is requisite that
we should adopt some point of departure or
comparison. A ship may be proceeding rapidly on its voyage, but a passenger in the
cabin has no means of testing the motion.
We are empowered in some degree to measure
the progress which Geology enables us to realize, because we can estimate the point from
which it departed, and we know that which it
has reached. If there be truth in the discoveries which have been made, the earliest state of
the Earth was entirely barren both of vegetable or animal life.  The present condition
of the Earth in this respect is known to us;
every portion of land, every depth of the ocean
is tenanted by swarms of living beings, each
jostling its neighbor, and the amount of life
is only limited by the quantity of aliment




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  57
necessary for its subsistence. Above all these
creations of different epochs towers Man himself, so incontestably the monarch of the visible
World.
Now mere change may be the offspring of
chance. The change accomplishing ends and
directed through ages to purposes, dark perhaps in their origin, but which are now revealed to us as having been accomplished,
such change and such progress prove intelligence and design.  Under this aspect the
Will of the Great First Cause is as apparent
through all the mutations which the Earth
has undergone as it is in the fixity which
reigns in the Solar System; only it may be
inferred that, as the modes of action are so dissimilar, the objects to be attained are different.
Geology displays the history and course of
Life, from its earliest birth to its present stage
of development.  If we ask, what is Life?
what its principle? or what is its essence? we
shall soon discover that we have approached
one of those boundaries, which the human
faculties in their present state are unable to
overstep. There are certain primary elements
into which all our inquiries resolve themselves,
and by which our most subtile reasonings must
be limited. There are some exceedingly just




58 ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
observations on this subject in Mr. Buckle's
"IHistory of Civilization," in which he renounces the attempt to explain or to understand the nature of the Soul, and he shows
very clearly that we do not possess the data
upon which to found any practical result.
After two centuries he indorses the truth of
the couplet that those who pursue those vain
and fruitless studies are destined
"on metaphysic ground to prance,
To show their paces, not one step advance."
Life is another of those great mysteries
very much akin to this, but it is curious that
we have the most perfect idea of the meaning
of the word, although we cannot explain the
nature of the essence. When we speak of
animal, vegetable, or human life, we know
perfectly well what we mean by it. The
same remark applies to others of these simple
and primary ideas; the difference between instinct and reasoning, for example, is perfectly
intelligible to us in their effects; we have no
difficulty in distinguishing their operations
from  each other, although we cannot trace or
explain the nature of this difference from its
sources.
I will not attempt to trace in detail the




ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  59
different stages in Geology through which
progress is marked. It is far from my purpose, as it certainly would be beyond my
ability, to write a work on the principles of
the science, or even to attempt a manual or elementary treatise upon it. I will content myself with referring -to the admirable works
which have been produced during the present
century. Geological discoveries have required
immense labor and research, and vast knowledge in their authors, but they principally
rest upon unwearied diligence and mastery of
detail in the incessant comparison upon which
they are founded. They are not based in the
same degree as Astronomy is upon abstruse
Mathematics, requiring long study of abstract
principles.'It is not so Idifficult for us to follow and in a general degree to comprehend
the outlines of the Science when they have
been traced for us by the sagacity and intellect
of these great originators.
Geology may be divided, therefore, into
these two parts, the frst relating to the material structure of the Earth itself and the various revolutions which it has undergone, and
secondly the different phases of animal and
vegetable life which seem to have accompanied or followed these physical and material




60  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
changes. As I observed above, it is one of
the imperfections of this Science that its chronology is utterly vague: we do not seem to
have the slightest means of calculating the
duration of time in the successive epochs of
the Earth's surface. All that the Geologist
hopes to demonstrate is that these changes
take place in a certain regular succession,
which he has been enabled to classify, and
that the animal and vegetable creations correspond in a considerable degree with these
epochs. They do not, however, appear to do
so strictly: the animal and vegetable productions of which the relics are found in the different strata are not separated from each other
by a sharp line of demarcation coincident with
the strata. It would appear that the animal
and vegetable productions of an earlier age
gradually fade and melt away and are replaced by a gradual and diversified process by
those of a later, the older ones rarely becoming abruptly extinct, but some variety of them
being long retained, generally in modified
forms. Particular periods, however, seem to
be marlked by new changes, the full value of
which we are enabled to estimate by the light
of our later anatomical knowledge: thus the
formation of the eye and ear must have creat



ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.  61.
ed a new revolution in animal life, and the
creations of vertebrated animals with their
apparatus for communicating sensation from
the head to every part of the bodily frame
must have constituted another great step in
the progress of animal life.
The spectacle which Geology presents to
us when we survey this general retrospect is
a very sublime one; it widens to a degree almost equal to that of Astronomy our conception of the vastness of the scheme of Omnipotence. During lapses of time which we are
utterly unable to measure, and under alterations of circumstances and conditions putting
an entirely new face upon nature, we still
trace one' great design never lost, gradually
making its way onward and working to the
surface in each succeeding transformation.
If we venture to draw a conclusion from this
view, it is that Life is the principal object of
a Creator's care, and that the material framework in which it is set is subordinate to the
purpose of its gradual development and ultimate perfection. From the earliest and faintest traces of lichen upon the rock to the actual
state of the World there is a continuity which
includes all the links in one vast whole. We
are, however, constantly reminded that this is
a very new science: it indefinitely extends




62  ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED.
the area of our conception, but it rarely traces
bounds or limits. If we take, for instance,
Sir Charles Lyell's able work on the " Antiquity of Man,"  he has succeeded in unsettling
all our previous ideas, but he has not substituted any others of a fixed character; he does
not the least inform us whether Man has existed 10,000 or 1009,000 years upon the face of
the Globe. Perhaps this imperfection will be
owing to the recent birth of this branch of
knowledge, and the labors of future Geologists
nuay give us additional clews through the labyrinth of the past.
In pursuing that comparison between Astronomy and Geology which it has been the
object of this treatise to institute, we must
conclude that the advantage in point of certainty largely preponderates in favor of Astronomy. The retrospect to which Geology
invites us is indeed a noble one in suggesting
the grandest speculations upon the birth and
youth of the Creation. But Astronomy, still
grander in its proportions, inasmuch as it
deals not only with this World, but with the
Universe, is, as far as our own mighty Solar
System extends, perfectly clear and definite.
There is no vagueness in the magnitude of the
Sun or of the distance of Neptune; all is thus
far as precise and accurate as it is elevating.




REMIARKS ON THE THEORIES
OF MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.
I CANNOT take leave of this branch of the
subject, more particularly that portion of it
which relates to the fossil remains of animals,
and the progress of organized life indicated by
Geology, without some reference to the theories of ]Mr. Darwin, which have attracted so
large a portion of the attention of men of
science. If I were to omit all mention of
works which tread the same ground which I
have been traversing, I should appear to evade
all the questions which he has raised, and
which have engaged the attention of Natural
Philosophers for several years past. The doctrines which he has given to the World are in
many respects irreconcilable with those views
whichl I have ventured to embody in the preceding pages. Should I leave them altogether
unanswered, I might as well abandon entirely
my own opinions -as having been proved un



64     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
tenable. I feel very reluctant in a treatise so
slight as this to engage in any controversy
with so eminent an authority, particularly
when I feel that a cause so momentous as that
which I wish to advocate may sustain injury
by my inability to render it adequate justice.
No one can fail to recognize the scientific and
literary merits of Mr. Darwin, no one can be
blind to the extent of his knowledge or to his
intimate acquaintance with the whole subject
of Zoology. It would be the highest presumption in me to endeavor for a moment to question his authority upon any of those subjects
falling within the range of the studies upon
which he is an oracle, yet, while I am glad to
receive instruction from him where he pours
forth the ample stores of his information on
all the subjects of Natural History, I may be
permitted to examine the reasoning which he
founds upon them, and to remark upon those
points in which, as it appears to me, he fails
to establish his principles from his facts. Mr.
Darwin has all the zeal which naturally belongs
to the inventor of a novel doctrine, and it is
just to him at the same time to observe that
it is quite free from any mixture of dogmatism
or intolerance of opposite views; he has a profound conviction of the soundness of his own




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.     65
theories, and invites all adverse criticism with
philosophical calmness and with a strong confidence in the justice of his own system. It is
due both to his high authority and to the tone
in which he places his doctrines before us to
consider them in the same spirit of impartiality and moderation. lie invokes the judgment of our reason, and even should that judgment be adverse to all our preconceived opinions he has a right to claim it.
The march of true Science is irresistible;
wherever her foot is once planted it can never
be withdrawn-she is the mightiest of conquerors. Every thing must give way before
her; however unwilling or reluctant mankind
may be, they have no choice but to follow
wherever she has once taken an authoritative
lead. Just as bows and arrows have given
place to muskets, and brown bess to breechloaders, the old sailing vessels to screw-steamers, and the screw-steamers to iron-clads, so in
every other path, whenever it is once clearly
and fully illumined by the torch of Science,
the human race have no choice but to follow.
If fifty years ago- any speculative chemist had
foretold the possibility that by a combination
of Chemistry and Optics it would become possible to fix the fleeting imiages and shadows




66    1RE MARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
that flit before our eyes and transfer them to
paper in shape of durable pictures, he would
have been regarded as a dreamer. Yet the art
of Photography has within that period been
diffused over the whole of the civilized world,
and in the future has become as imperishable
as civilization itself, with which it is entwined.
A still more recent and far grander and more
important step in Science has been made by
the Electric Telegraph. In the commencenent of the present century the wonders it
accomplishes would have been considered on
a par with the inventions in the "Arabian
Nights' Entertainments;" we should have regarded as the most incredible of fictions an Assembly in London transmitting a message to
Calcutta, and receiving an answer in the course
of the same evening before it separated, or the
speech of the President of the United States
being circulated in London the day after it
was delivered. Such apparent miracles would
have been ranked with the feat of the African
magician removing Aladdin's palace in one
night from  the centre of Asia to that of
Africa. Yet the discovery of the almost instantaneous transmission of the electric fluid
once made, and the means devised of utilizing
it having become At permanent addition to hu



MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    67
man knowledge, it will be preserved and extended by its own utility. -No conceivable
revolution in society can ever again wrest it
from us; it must remain a permanent addition
to the powers of MIan.
The strongest example, however, which
can be adduced of the permanent nature of
every solid advance in Science may be drawn
from the establishment of that Solar System
from which I have already drawn several illustrations. It would be impossible ever to revert to the erroneous systems of Pythagoras
or Ptolemy. The Earth can never again be
enthroned as the centre of the Universe, but
must be contented through all time to occupy
her assigned place whirling about the vast orb
of the Sun, to which we bear about the same
proportion as a cricket-ball to the dome of St.
Paul's.
The same observation applies to every discovery which human invention has made in
the domain of Science; each, when once proved
to rest upon truth, is in its nature indestructible. It is fortunate that these victories of
Science have always proved to be blessings,
and it is one presumption in favor of the truth
of any new discovery that it is beneficial in its
consequences. Our experience does not yet




68     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
afford us one instance of any fresh stride fully
made and established in the whole circle of
human knowledge which has not tended to the
improvement and to the moral and intellectual
elevation of Man: whenever any novel theory
may be broached which leads to narrow our
prospects or to lower our position, the strong
presumption is created that it is founded in
error.
Where, however, the principles enunciated
are so novel and startling and their consequences would give such a shock to all our
most cherished convictions, as in the case of Mr.
Darwin, it is natural that we should scan them
strictly, and examine them in a spirit of doubt,
and almost hostility. We must be aware of
the tendency of minds, even of the most powerful and original caste, to become the dupes of
their own inventive genius, and to construct
from very slender materials the most plausible
systems. Descartes was one of the greatest
intellects of modern times, yet his whirlpools
were among the most notable instances of those
false lights which lure men of science into the
path of error.
I will not venture to follow MIr. Darwin
through the vast field of Natural History which
-le treads with such a wonderful variety of




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.      69
knowledge.  Independently, indeed, of the
conclusions to which he would lead us, his
works afford an interesting  study to the
general reader. Dr. Johnson remarked of
Oliver Goldsmith that he was writing a work
-upon Natural History, and that he could make
it as interesting as a Persian tale. A similar
remark may be applied to Mr. Darwin with
still greater force, while handling his subject
with far greater ability than Goldsmith could
ever attain to.  There are, however, certain
leading principles embodied in his writings,
which are, as it were, the pivots upon which
his system is founded, and upon these I shall
offer some remarks. They are the parts of his
reasoning upon which he has failed to carry
conviction to my mind. Throughout his works
it appears to me that he ignores, or, perhaps
we may be justified in saying, denies, all evidence of the operation of the First Cause: his
whole argument is founded upon the endeavor
to trace the entire scheme of Nature to the
operation of secondary causes only, which
seems to be set in motion, according to his
views, by some self-acting process. It would
seem that Mr. Darwin rejects altogether the
belief in any direct influence of a higher power
-to use his expression, " analogous to though




70     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
superior to that of human reason."  Now I do
not wish to apply to Mr. Darwin hard names,
or to carry his principles beyond any limits
within which he himself desires to confine
them.  I cannot, however, affix any other
term to these doctrines than that they contain
a profession of pure atheism: the words " atheism"  or'"atheist" do not occur in Mr. Darwin's works, but the idea seems to me to be
clearly presented to the mind. In the passage
which I have just quoted, he seems to reject
altogether all belief in the agency of a higher
power, " superior but analogous to" our own
faculties of human reason and will; yet it is
precisely this conception which can alone enable the human mind to attain any idea of the
nature of God.
Man's faculties are limited, and, however
wide and comprehensive may be their range,
he cannot form notions of which the materials
are quite beyond his knowledge or experience.
It is- only by looking inward, and forming an
ideal conception of a Being possessing those
qualities in their highest perfection, which
man only possesses in a very incomplete and
defective degree, that we are at all enabled to
realize to ourselves the nature of the Almighty.
It is perfectly true that the Deity may possess




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    71
other attributes than those with which we can
invest I]im, and which are as utterly incomprehensible to us as the idea of color might be
to one born blind; but these qualities we cannot possibly know or comprehend. Let us
take the idea of Wisdom, for instance: the
quality does not exist in any one of the brute
creation. When we speak of the wisdom ot
an elephant, we only do so in a figurative
sense; it is in Man alone that such a faculty
can be said to exist. In order to form a clear
conception of the meaning of Wisdom, we
must embody it in some human form before
we can reach it in its abstract signification;
we must think of the wisdom of Bacon or of
Newton. -In the same manner the idea of
Power (I mean moral and material power
combined) can only be embodied in the case
of some human being, as the prophet Mohammed or the first Napoleon; and in like manner Goodness or Virtue can only be personified in Alan: no animal can possess moral excellence. It is only by forming'a conception
of a Being combining these three attributes
in their highest perfection, that the human
mind is enabled to attain any comprehension
of. the nature of God. Such an idea may be
very imperfect and incomplete, far below the




'72    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
majesty and goodness of the Supreme Being,
but the utmost stretch of our faculties can
only enable us to reach so far. It is only by
looking into ourselves, limited and finite as
the prospect must be, that we can find any
material wherewith to enable us to realize,
even in the faintest degree, the idea of the
Deity. This is exemplified in the fact that
when we describe the action of the Deity, we
can only do so by availing ourselves of terms
borrowed from our own senses or faculties.
We speak of the all-seeing eye of Providence,
or we say that the ear of Heaven is ever
open to the prayers of Man. We do not mean
by these expressions to convey a belief that
the Almighty really makes use of such organs;
we cannot possibly conjecture what are His
means of communication with us; we only
use those words which convey to our own
minds the nearest approximation to the idea
of His Omniscience.
When, therefore,  Mr. Darwin peremptorily rejects, in his scheme for the production
of Life, all agency of a higher power, analogous however superior to that of Man, he
does, in fact, deny the agency of God, for he
denies it in the sole form in which Man could
be able to recognize it. Now how awful!




MIRP. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    T3
how  tremendous a doctrine is this!  The
mind recoils from  the conseluences which
would result from its adoption.
There is a method of reasoning not unfrequent in ]Mathemnatics whereby any proposition is proved to be false by assuming hypothetically that it is true, and then showing
that the conclusions it leads to are absurd.
Such a mode of reasoning may be applied to
Mr. Darwin's system, which repudiates, if not
by name, yet in fact, all the operation of an
Intelligent First Cause, and traces all advance
to what he calls the Evolution or spontaneous
action in the bodies themselves.  I do not
know how otherwise to interpret his theories;
for if he does assign any place to the influence of an external power, or the promptings
of an invisible Intelligence, then he does exactly that which he refuses to admit when he
rejects the action of a force superior but analogous to the intelligent will of Man. I therefore believe that I am not misconceiving or
misrepresenting Mr. Darwin when I assume
that in his theory of Life he regards it as affecting all the transformations it presents, and
generating all the varieties it exhilbits, by the
working of certain occult principles which it
generates by an insensible and involuntary ac



'4:     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
tion, as I translate his two main agencies —
Natural Selection and Sexual Selection.
In his summary to the work on the " Origin of Species" Mr. Darwin seems to admit
that all Creation springs from four or five primordial forms, but he observes that a more
correct deduction from his principles would
lead to the conclusion that every thing originated from one prototype. Mr. Darwin does
not very clearly explain how le understands
that this first step was made. I-Ie quotes the
opinion of a " celebrated author and divine"
who, he says, has written to him that —
" he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble
a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a
few original forms capable of self-development into
other and needful forms, as to believe that He required
a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by
the action of His laws."
Does Mr. Darwin adopt this theory of his
correspondent?  If he does so, then he admits the existence of an Intelligent and Omnipotent First Cause, only that the mode of
action is not direct but derived through a
chain of successive causes and effects. If, according to the correspondent's idea, he conceives that the Deity created these four or
five primordial forms of animal and vegetable




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    75
life, and that the successive stages of development by which all animated nature has attained its present varied shape necessarily followed, then his correspondent or Mr. Darwin
himself must believe one of two things: either
that the Deity created these four or five primordial forms, ignorant of the consequences
which would result from them, or that He did
so cognizant of the germs that they enclosed
and foreseeing or predestining their ultimate
results. But if the latter conclusion is adopted, then all the works of Creation follow from
an Almighty and Omniscient First Cause just
as much and as completely as if they had
emanated more directly and immediately from
HIis hand.
A clock or watch maker who makes a watch
is doubtless an ingenious meclhanician, but one
who could contrive a machine which by turning
a handle would produce watches as complete
as those made by hand, would doubtless be a
far more skilful mechanist than the first; but
the watches made by the machine would be
quite as much the work of the inventor as
those made by his hand alone; they would
equally be the products of his inventive faculties, and the only difference would be that it
would require a higher order of inventive fac



76     REMIARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
ulty and more elaborate execution in the case
of the watches produced by the action of the
machine.
It would be satisfactory if we knew with
greater precision to which hypothesis Mr.
Darwin himself adheres: whether that of his
correspondent, or the one which appears to
follow from his own explanations. The difference is very wide: in the one case he admits
the whole scheme of life to be the creation of
an All-wise and Omnipotent First Cause, although he places that First Cause at a distance infinitely remote; in the latter case he
ignores the existence of a First Cause altogether. Supposing that Mr. Darwin admits
the first hypothesis, viz., that of his correspondent, what is gained by remitting the action of the Great First Cause to so infinitely remote a period? If He purposed and designed
this long series of causes and effects from the
very beginning -IHe is in fact just as much the
author of the whole as if He had resorted
continually to a more immediate and direct
exercise of His Power and Will. Why conclude that He never has exercisedcl and never
does exercise that Power and Will directly
througlh all those countless ages   We pay a
ready tribul.te of admiration to the vaist amount




MIR. DARWIN AND MR, BUCKLE.
of Mr. Darwin's knowledge, ranging through
the.whole circle of the Natural Sciences; the
amount of his materials is overwhelming;
still I cannot, for one, accord my conviction
to the truth of the complex system into which
he has fashioned them.
As I mentioned in a previous part of this
Essay, all Science is founded either upon abstract mathematical reasoning, upon the evidence of collected facts, or upon facts elicited
by experiment. fMr. Darwin's theory is founded chiefly upon the two first: his hypothesis
of Natural Selection rests in the first place
upon the mathematical and arithmetical truth
that as all forms of Life are preserved or
maintained by some sort of aliment, and that
as the food, if not a finite quantity, at any
rate increases at a much slower rate than Life
would, if supplied with food to an unlimited
extent, therefore the amount of Iife is necessarily confined to the amount of food. This,
as Iir. Darwin observes, is the doctrine of nMr.
Afalthus (which he regarded solely with relation to the h-uman race) extended to all living
beings.  Mr. Darwin draws this conclusion,
that the struggle for food, which is in other
words the Struggle for Existence, to which
food is necessary, pervades all animated na



7T8    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
ture; to this extent we must admit the soundness of Mr. Darwin's principles; organized
life is everywhere dependent upon food, and
the chief business of existence is to satisfy the
want of it. But Mr. Darwin's next step in
his chain of reasoning appears to be far more
doubtful; he traces the creation of all the
diversified forms of Life to the results of
the competition for food universally going on
throughout the World. This competition he
conceives crushes the weaker, gives advantage
to the stronger, and as he supposes that small
varieties begin in the production of different
forms of Life, that these small varieties where
they tend to the advantage of the being are
gradually developed by hereditary succession,
by sexual selection, or by the favoring conditions of climate and other causes, into permanently different species. Now does this theory
rest upon the evidence of facts sufficient to
prove it, or are his facts eked out by a vast
number of hypotheses which he cannot prove a
It is very remarkable how often, in almost
every page of his work, he makles use of the
verb "to suppose."  He is always aslking us
to suppose something which explains or supports his reasoning, but we are not disposed
to admit these hypotheses (as facts) built




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.     79
upon suppositions-in so very intricate a labyrinth as he calls upon us to enter. He
finds it impossible to construct his system
upon the materials afforded by the actually
existing World: he must press into the
service all the antecedent Geological periods
which that Science has enumerated, for he
requires countless ages in order to give him
time enough to work out the slow results of
Natural Selection. He speaks of millions of
years, and in his diagram he represents 10,000
or 14,000 generations; but the existing World,
of which either from history or tradition we
have any knowledge, is comprised within at
most 4,000 years. A generation is perhaps
rather an indefinite term: we may easily conceive a father having a son at 75 years of age
who may live to be 75, and these two generations would amount to 150 years; but if we
take the average duration of human life and
the succession of one generation to another,
100 years might be calculated as numbering
three generations; therefore the whole number of existing generations of Man, of whom
we can have the faintest knowledge have existed, is 120. It is quite evident, therefore,
that Mr. Darwin assumes as the basis of his
argument periods of time purely imaginary;




80     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
he canll have no shadow of proof that the
World has existed for 14,000 generations, or
410,000 years. If we were to admit for the
sake of argument that the solid sphere of the
Earth might then have been in existence, how
can we feel sure that that succession of Life
necessary to his theory can have been preserved through such an incalculable period of
time? Geologists tell us that the earliest formation is of primitive rock, without any sign
of animal or vegetable Life; in the course of
470,000 years three or four of these periods
may have existed, and every vestige of Life
may have been swept from the Globe, and
creations have begun again three or four times
in the interval. Mr. Darwin requires for the
development of his theory enormous periods
of time, far exceeding any of which we have
the slightest knowledge; this alone places his
whole system beyond the domain of fact and
in the regions of mere reverie and imagination.
It is also necessary that there should be a continuity preserved during the whole period;
the same series must be preserved during the
whole 470,000 years, for if at any period a
total destruction of Lifei had occurred, it is
quite evident that this process of Natural
Selection would have to be begun de novo. It




iMR. DARWIN AND MfR. BUCKLE.    81
is a weak point in Geological Science that its
chronology is absolutely vague. No one can
assign any limit of years -to the duration of
ally one of those periods into which Geologists
have divided it, and all argument therefore
based upon any assumptions with regard to
time must be absolutely worthless. I cannot
feel at all convinced of the fact that, even on
Mir. Darwin's own hypothesis, and granting
to him  all that he asks us to admit, all the
operations of nature can be effected by this
admittedly tedious process of Natural Selection.  We must remember that this term
Natural Selection does not really express any
exercise of the will or of the understanding;
it is a purely involuntary course upon which
the living being, whether animal or vegetable,
is forced by the pressure of circumstances.
There is no g uiding direction from above; an
accidental variation is supposed to confer some
advantage in the struggle for existence, and
the advantage thus obtained secures for itself
a certain stability in the future, which gradually ripens the accidental variation into a
permanent one, and the permanent variation
into a species. In all this there is no exercise
of choice or of will, no -intelligence exerted
either by the being himself or on the part of




82     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
any Higher Power. Results which we have
always supposed to display an Intelligent
Will either proceeding from the individual
being himself or from a Higher Power, or
from both, are under Mr. Darwin's theory the
consequences of these different directions into
which these bodies are hurried by the forces
to which in this struggle for existence they
become exposed. Now it appears inconceivable that many of the operations in nature
can have been effected, or many parts of that
great scheme which we see in action can have
been framed, by this process of Natural Selection alone. We must recollect that on Mr.
Darwin's: principles foresight is excluded.
Foresight is an attribute of Intelligence; if
any being was supposed to exist gifted with
the power of previously knowing and causing
these results, then they would cease to be due
to Natural Selection alone. - Now even allowing any amount of time for the operation,
there are very many of the works of nature
which I cannot conceive could possibly be accomplished without the agency of Intelligence.
For instance, one of the principal means
through which Mr. Darwin supposes that
changes are wrought is the agency of Sexual
Selection; but in order that this power should




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.      83
be exercised, it is necessary that these living
beings should be divided into two sexes; Mr.
Darwin tells us that in fact a vast proportion
both of the animal, insect, and vegetable kingdoms, are so divided.
The propagation of the species is the consequence of sexual connection, which requires
an elaborate adaptation of the male and female
organs to each other. Now how, in the first
instancecould this division into the two sexes
have been effected by Natural Selection? Did
it occur in the parent stock, and was it handed
down through the successive varieties, or was
Natural Selection to effect it again in each
particular case? Supposing that the first was
a single being, how was the division into the
two sexes effected?  Could Natural Selection
do this? for in order that the male and female
should be fitted for their respective parts, a
very elaborate adaptation of their bodily organs would become necessary; but they must
be furnished with these at once in order to
fulfil the purposes for which they were made,
and nature could not afford to stand still for
several generations while Natural Selection
was perfecting them, even if it could possibly
perfect them at all.
The instinct which by the process of sexual




84     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
connection sets in motion the whole machinery
by which Life in its different forms is renewed
and perpetuated, is among the strongest in the
economy of nature. HIow it could spring from
Natural Selection alone is beyond my comprehension; but it is also to be noted that it is
not only implanted in the vast majority of
living beings, comprising all those raised above
the very lowest types, but that it is regulated
by certain laws. This instinct operates through
a desire attracting the two sexes to each other.
HIow is it that this appetite is always confined
within its proper limits, and is never found in
animals (in a savage state at least) to lead them
to deviate from them?  If the sexual instinct
were to be widely diffused, a sort of chaos in
animal life would be created. How wonderful
is it that the male and female of each species
are only drawn toward each other! In a state
of nature this law is absolute, but in animals
domesticated by man it would appear that it
admits of some irregularity.  Now  here it
would seem that Intelligence must be apparent: as I have before observed, foresight is a
convincing proof of the presence of Intelligence. In the machinery for the production
of Life through sexual connection, which is
one of the most mysterious of all nature's




MR. DARWIN AND 3MR. BUCKLE.      85
secrets, two laws are traceable: the one, general, almost universal, that which restricts the
sexual instinct to the male and female of each
particular species. In a state of nature this
law is absolute; in a state of domestication
some irregularity appears, chiefly caused by
the subagency of man interrupting to a certain
extcnt the course of nature.  But here another law  steps in protecting the different
races of living beings from  that confusion
which would result if such power had been
left unrestricted.  Some of the domestic animals, of different though very similar organizations, are found, under the direction of man,
to be capable of sexual intercourse and of
bringing forth an offspring; but here steps in
another law of nature, a sort of second safeguard or barrier erected against the indefinite
multitude of species: the issue of these connections is always barren. Does not this argue
foresight in the Great Law Giver? How could
Natural Selection alone create such prospective
limitation. But if a future defect in the machinery for the renewal of Life is thus foreseen
and guarded against, then there must have
been a Being able to foresee and competent to
provide the remedy. Natural Selection can



86     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
not foresee; the very hypothesis itself denies it
such a power.
How different do these philosophers argue
in the case of Providence and of Man. The
attention of Geologists has of late been directed to the discovery of a large number of
stone spear-heads at a very great depth in the
marshes near Amiens. These have occasioned
quite a revolution in the previously received
Chronology as to the date of 1Man's birth. It
is calculated that, at the depth at which they
were found, some thousands of years must
have elapsed since they were placed there,
and it is at once pronounced that these rough
spear-heads were fashioned by the hand of
Man. I have seen a considerable number of
them, and I think that they bear out this
opinion. They are uniformly made, of exactly the same size and pattern, and very well
adapted for the purposes of that description
of weapon. If they were copied in iron and
fixed to a staff they would be formidable in
hand-to-hand encounters; they appear to have
been chiselled out of flint or some hard dark
stone with considerable neatness of execution,
and bear the marks of the chisel over their
whole surface. Now these rude weapons were
not found in proximity to any relics of man;




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    87
there was nothing beyond their own construction to show that they were his work. They
were immeasurably inferior in beauty of design
or workmanship to a honeycomb or a thousand
other natural productions, and yet Geologists
at once came to the conclusion that they were
of human production. There is a character
of design stamped upon them, and the workmanship is of such a nature as at once to lead
us irresistibly to such a belief; and, yet while
we are surrounded by works exhibiting in a
thousand times a greater degree proofs of wisdorn and power in their formation, we refuse
to acknowledge the hand of a Higher Power,
and take refuge in this incomprehensible theory of Natural Selection.
The stamp of intelligence and design appears to ine to be as unmistakably imprinted
in a thousand instances upon the whole economy of animal and vegetable Life as it could
have been upon the stone spear-heads; intelligence is recognized in its effects. I cannot
conceive it possible that works bearing the
indelible character of design can possibly have
been created by the mere fortuitous operation
of unconscious or material influences. Mr.
Darwin should prefix to his volumes as a motto




8&     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
the parody in the " Rejected Addresses " from
Dr. Busby's "Lucretius:"
"I sing how casual bricks in airy climb
Encounter casual horse-hair, casual lime."
I cannot conceive that any lapse of time, without any Intelligent guidance, could possibly
have produced all these fruits of the highest
combination of wisdom and power which constitute the phenomena of Life. I should as
soon imagine the possibility of a ship building itself, rigging itself, and navigating itself
from the Thames to Melbourne, without shipwrights, captain, or crew.
We must also remember that Life in its
various forms is not the whole, but only a part
of the works of Creation. These are certainly
not all to be accounted for by Natural Selection; but if Intelligence is to be traced in any
one of them, then the existence of Intelligence
as a governing and creating power is established, and it is allmost self-evident that the
mighty power which is proved in any one
operation of Creation must pervade the whole.
It is not Natural Selection which guides the
Electric fluid-it is not Natural Selection which
dispenses Light and IHeat-it is not Natural
Selection which has created and upholds the




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.       89
Solar System. If the existence of the Great
First Cause be shown anywhere else, we may
surely credit it with having also originated the
phenomena of Life.
I know not how far Mr. Darwin may carry
his views, or by what process of reasoning he
may reconcile his own theories with any recognition of a Divine authorship; he seems
faintly and obscurely to intimate the possibility of such an agreement, and he quotes his
correspondent before referred to as entertaining such an opinion. It appears to me, however, that the very essence of his doctrine consists in its sufficiency to account for the existence of all the diversified forms of Life by the
independent operation of secondary causes. I
have no wish to invoke in opposition to him
any spirit of intolerance or hostility. I have
remarked, in a previous passage, that true
Science; is irresistible, and that it must be
accepted, with all its consequences, wherever
fully established. But where these consequences are so momentous (not to say awful) to
all those principles-upon which mankind have
reposed, we must be permitted to scrutinize
them in no very friendly spirit. There is no
use in disguising the matter, or in shrinking
from those conclusions which unavoidably fol



90     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
low from Mr. Darwin's writings. They are
totally subversive of religion-a pious Darwinian would be a contradiction in terms-all
those hopes which are identified with that
sacred sentiment, all those restraints which our
feeling of accountability to Heaven enjoins,
would be swept away: a moral revolution
would be effected, and that revolution would
be subversive, not constructive.
Has Mr. Darwin succeeded in establishing
his theory upon a basis of proof which must
colnvince the understanding? To me it does
not appear that he has succeeded in forming
even a plausible one. In order to carry out
his system, and to give time for the operation
of those agents of Natural Selection and Sexual
Selection, he finds it necessary to press into
the service the whole series of Geological
periods about which we know so little; at the
same time he constantly admits what he calls
the "Imperfection of the Geological Record,"
as an apology for the inconclusiveness of his
arguments. Our existing world, with its short
experience of some 4,000 years, affords him
no foundation. Here we everywhere see what
appears to our benighted reason irrefragable
proofs of design; here we everywhere see
forms of Life the most varied yet everywhere




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.     91
the most adapted to their several purposes;
but nowhere do we see thoseagents of Natural
Selection or Sexual Selection effecting any
considerable results. The Earth does not exhibit at this epoch any instance of a new creation. Varieties may be produced by the skill
of Man, which is itself a sort of Intellectual
First Cause, but a new creation of the animal
kingdom can nowhere be produced. All those
products of the most wonderful and elaborate
contrivance must have been gradually evolved
out of nothing, by a process of Natural Selection which Mr. Darwin says may have taken
millions of years to accomplish, and 120 generations is all that we can possibly look back
upon. IHow does Mr. Darwin prove the connection between all these periods? —upon the
sole evidence of fossil remains which come
down to us, by his own showing, in a broken
and disjointed condition. When we confine
our observations to the existing Geological
period, where can we trace the action of these
agents?  Mr. Darwin dwells upon the variation effected by breeders in domestic animals;
all those varieties (which exist after all to a
very small extent) are only found among animals of the same kind, and which breed and
multiply with most perfect facility. Wherever




92     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
a cross takes place between animals of a different although very similar species, as in the
case of the horse and the ass, it is always a
result of the contrivances of man, and never
occurs in wild animals. Many varieties of the
cat kind appear more nearly allied to each
other than is the horse to the ass, but sexual
intercourse never takes place between them.
A tiger and- a lioness differ very little-perhaps in the case of the lion he might alarm the
tigress by his magnificent mane - but the
lioness, who has no such distinguished appendage, does not differ very much from the tigress
except in the color of the hide, far less certainly than the horse differs from the ass; yet
neither between these animals nor any other
species, in a wild state, does any sexual intercourse ever take place, or is any offspring ever
born. So far as our experience extends, the
barriers between the races are never passed.
We must persist, although 2Mr. Darwin
objects to it, in pursuing an analogy between
the works of Man and those of the Deity.
Immeasurably inferior as are the productions
of human invention, yet we know beyond dispute that these are the productions of Intelligence. If the word "Intelligence" -has a
meaning at all, a ship or a railway engine, -or




MIR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    93
a watch or an Electric Telegraph, are productions of Intelligence; yet although the highest efforts of the human mind are immeasurably inferior to the works of Providence, still
are they not the same in nature, and do they
not only differ in degree? Can we say that a
telescope is the work of design, while the eye
has been evolved by Natural Selection and
produced without an Intelligent Cause? Is
there nothing to be accorded to that universal
instinct of humanity which- turns to a Higher
and unseen Power?- Is it not much easier,
mIuch more credible, to believe in an Intelligent First Cause as the Great and Invisible
Power directing all things, than to construct
by so elaborate a process works bearing the
stamp of the Highest Intelligence and Power
out of mere brute matter? In his recent
work on the'"Descent of lIan," he applies
the same process of evolution by Natural Selection and Sexual Selection to Man, and
traces his existence in his present state to
some species of ape or monkey from whom he
has originated. I do not know if we have
any ground for taxing }Mr. Darwin with inconsistency in pushing his system to this
length: it seems -quite as inconceivable that
the ape should have originated in a mass of




94     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
lichen on a rock, as that Man should have
sprung from the ape. The fallacy appears to
me to exist in the assumption of a power of
self-creation, or of self-development anywhere,
which we are utterly unable to discover in
nature. If we ask, what is Life itself? we
shall find that it is a question quite beyond
the faculties of man to answer; Life, like
spirit, like matter, like the nature of the
Deity, like the difference between reason and
instinct, like the nature of the union of the
soul and the body, is among those primary
ideas which it is only given to Man to know
and recognize by their effects, but the essence
of which it is quite beyond the power of his
faculties to conceive. We know that a stone
does not possess life, and we know that the
moss which covers it does; but we cannot explain in what lies the difference: all that we
know is, that this difference could not have
been imparted to the moss by itself-some external influence must have created it. By no
conceivable process of reason or imagination
can we arrive at the conclusion that Life is
inherent in some bodies and not in others, or
that it can exist without having been created.
But if we come to this conclusion, it appears
to me it disproves all Mr. Darwin's theory,




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.      95
because if we admit Creation as a necessary
first step, and that such Creation is the act of
a Power separate from or superior to the
thing created, then it would follow that the
thing created would be derived in all its subsequent stages from that Power. It is as
great an act of Omnipotence to create Life as
to form and fashion it after creation.
lM[r. Darwin's first step in his theory of
Natural Selection is what he terms the Struggle for Existence arising from the ever-pressing necessity for food acting upon all animated nature. We grantto him the truth of this
first proposition. Life, as it exists upon this
earth, is dependent upon air, water, and food;
and as the supply of the two first requirements
is practically unlimited, the amount of Life
cannot exceed the quantity of the third. But
Life is reproduced in much more rapid ratio
than food can be augmented. If the countless forms under which it exists were suffered
to increase, unrestricted by any check, they
would soon overtake the supply of food, which
they could not however pass, and the progress
of reproduction would thereby be violently
and suddenly arrested.  But Nature interposes various checks regulating and controlling the operation of this principle, and pre



96     PExIAREKS ON THE THEORIES OF
serving its system  from  the rude shock of
such a collision. One great means for effecting this is, that so large a number of the animals and insects prey upon each other, and
any excess in one portion of the Zoology of
the Globe is immediately arrested by the action
of those others to which it supplies the necessary aliment. Diseases, severities of climate,
and other causes, contribute to diminish this
redundancy wherever it exists.  The necessity for food may be compared to the mainspring of a watch or other complicated machine: it sets the whole in motion, and regulates the movement, which would otherwise
fall into confusion. We see its influence most
distinctly in the case of manr whom it obliges
to labor: it is at the root of all the movenments and operations of that complicated machine which we call Civilization. It is not,
therefore, upon this first term in his proposition that I am disposed to take issue with Mr.
Darwin. He reproduces the theory of Mr.
Malthus, which has always appeared to me
quite incontrovertible, and through the agency
of which so much of the economy of Life appears to be carried on. Mr. Darwin affords us
some strong instances of the working of this
principle. ITe states that the elephant lives




AIR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    97
for ninety years, and during that long period
only gives birth to young three times, producing a pair at each birth. This animal is supposed to be the slowest of all breeders, and
yet Mr. Darwin states that at this rate there
would be fifteen millions of elephants at the
end of the fifth century. If such be the wonderful increase of this slow-breeding elephant,
what would be that of the herring, producing
millions of spawn every year?  We do not
therefore dispute Mr. Darwin's first proposition, that all Life tends:to a far more rapid
increase than the resources of food would be
long adequate to support, and that this struggle to maintain it has a great motive power in
the World. It is the second step in Mr. Darwin's theory, the proof of which it seems to
me he fails to establish-that this struggle for
food is the cause of all those countless varieties of organized beings which people the
earth. We do not dispute that the progeny
of a pair of elephants in five hundred years
might amount to fifteen millions, or that the
spawn of a single herring might in the same
period produce a number of descendants which
it would tax the ocean to contain or the powers of arithmetic to enumerate. What we do
dispute is, that by any chain of descent, of
5




98     REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
which we have knowledge, the elephants can
have been the progenitors of the herrings, or
the herrings of the elephants. This I conceive to be Mr. Darwin's theory, for although
he may not undertake to affirm in what degree of consanguinity the herrings and the elephants stand to each other, yet he does assert
that all organized and animated Life flows
from one source, and is, in fact, related together. He also conceives that this relation follows from no action of a Superior Will, but
from an involuntary and unavoidable sequence
of cause and effect. Now the first part is
proved with figures; it is arithmetically true,
indeed, and proves itself; but his second proposition does not follow the least from the
first; it is a question of fact, and are his conclusions supported by the evidence of facts 2
It is here that, it appears to me, Mir. IDarwin's
long chain of hypothesis and supposition commences which he substitutes for facts. I revert
to a proposition which I have laid down previonsly, that we can only proceed by the light
of our own faculties and powers, and by the
knowledge that we possess; we cannot step
beyond that circle. Now all the innumerable
forms of Life, all the beings adapted to their
several conditions, all the means and appli



MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    09
ances by which they breathe, move, and have
their being, appear to me to be stamped with
the unmistakable character of design. There
must be the mind to conceive and the power
to execute, in order to produce the results before us. I do not see how it is possible to
deny this; if we examine any one of the works
of Creation, whether animate or inanimate,
and if we analyze the meaning of the word
invention, I cannot understand how it can be
denied that all those vast and multifarious arrangements of parts to a whole, and of means
to an end, as exhibited in all the provinces,
whether of animate or inanimate existence,
can fail to bear out this truth. Mr. Darwin
may say that all these appearances are illusory
and deceptive, that the whole of that wonderful machinery by which living beings, from
their lowest to their highest forms, have been
produced in all their marvellous combinations
follow from his motive power of Natural Selection and Sexual Selection alone. But it is
for him to prove his system. The first and
obvious character imprinted upon the whole
is that of invention, emanating from a superior Power, a superior Intelligence, and a superior Will.
I have remarked in a previous part of this




100    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
Essay that all our progress in knowledge and
in Science is attained by three methods: the
first by the application of the exact sciences
to the determination of all those questions to
which they can be applied; the second, the
evidence of fact; and the third, experiment
employed to elicit fact. Now the first step
in Mr. Darwin's theory may be regarded as
founded upon the first of these methods; the
ratio of increase in living beings is an arithmetical problem  which follows from  the
premises. But his second proposition-that
all the countless varieties of organized Life
upon this globe are derived from the action of
two principles, that of Natural Selection and
of Sexual Selection, is a proposition which
cannot be mathematically demonstrated, and
which must be established, if established at
all, by the evidence of facts. Do Mr. Darwin's facts prove his theory? Let us recollect
for a moment the immense and complicated
variety of the conditions of Life upon this
Globe, and the wonderful adaptation of Life
in its different forms to such varying conditions: for instance, aquatic and terrestrial
life, where the conditions are so dissimilar as
to be absolutely incompatible with each other,
and yet the organs of the living inhabitants




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    101
are so constituted as to be exactly suited to
each state. Let us look at the birds of the
air; the genius of man is fertile ill mechanical
inventions, but he has never been able to construct a machine by which he could fly; yet
the wings and feathers of birds are mechanical
contrivances, which no human skill has ever
enabled us to imitate. It would be superfluous to multiply examples of all the marvels
of the animate and inanimate world which
surround us; no one can better appreciate
them than Mr. Darwin, whose peculiar studies
have constantly led him to examine them.
He must therefore have at any rate satisfied
his own mind of the adequacy of his two
principles of Natural Selection and Sexual
Selection to account for all the phenomena
which he of all men might be supposed least
likely to undervalue.
Nevertheless, is his reasoning of the second
step satisfactory? and does he establish the
connection between his two principles and the
facts which he ascribes to their operation?
In the first place, his actual experience must
be a very confined one in Comparison with the
extent of the field which his theory embraces;
it comprehends all time, but the living world
alone and the scattered fossil remains of




102    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
extinct geological periods can. be brought
within the sphere of his actual observation.
But if I understand his work, the living world
alone only exhibits the ultimate and latest
effects of these principles; they have worked
in order to* produce them during countless
ages, quite beyond his view. All the confirrmation which actual observation can afford
must be sought in these latest and most recent
periods, whereas the working of his system
has been carried on in the most remote. But
he does not appear to cite instances of the
results of Natural Selection as falling within
later experience; indeed, he seems to require
such vast periods of time for their operation
that they quite pass the bounds of any human
observation; we cannot see more than the
very faintest indication; while, on the other
hand, we everywhere encounter what appear
to be fixed laws of nature, which are opposed
to them.  To begin with his first motive
power —the Struggle for Existence —there
seems to be no evidence to show that this
struggle for existence leads to any transmutation or fundamental alteration of species; the
primary effect of an insufficiency of food is
to cause the diminution or extinction of the
race, but it is not obvious how it can supply




3MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.   103
the place of invention, and transform the
animal into one better adapted to new conditions. All the existing world of animated
nature seems to be divided by hard and fast
lines into different groups, which admit of no
amalgamation; everywhere carnivorous and
herbaceous animals-birds and quadrupeds,
inhabitants of the land and of the ocean, all
the countless varieties, races, and speciesseem to be divided by- impassable lines of
demarcation. Mr. Darwin himself quotes
numerous instances; he speaks of the humblebee and other bees so nearly allied in structure
and yet never mingling together or losing
their distinctive characteristics. The great
law of sexual connection seems to be that like
seeks like, and the whole of Mr. Darwin's
theory of Sexual Selection seems to be founded
upon the hypothesis that this law is frequently
broken or transgressed. But we cannot find
any well recorded or defined instance in which
this law has been violated, and a new race
sprung up in consequence.  It does not
appear, in fact, that he ever traces any of
these new formations to their commencement.
The origin of all those different races, species,
and varieties in the zoology of the earth seems
to be quite beyond the reach of our mental




104    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
vision; experience cannot be said to have
brought any confirmation of Mr. Darwin's
theory, and most of the known laws of nature
contradict it. There is no proof that the
struggle for existence has ever occasioned or
does tend to create any modification in existing species, or that there are any irregularities
or deviations from the laws of sexual intercourse sufficient to account for the vast variety
of the races and species on the globe. The
natural history of the earth worked out upon
Mr. Darwin's two principles, and excluding
the direction of Intelligent Design, is to me
perfectly incomprehensible and incredible.
Now, admit the agency of an overruling and
Intelligent First Cause, and all appears to be
simple and easy.
Mr. Darwin objects to any analogy drawn
from the powers or faculties of Man; but I
contend that it is only from this comparison
that we can gain any conception of those
higher powers which regulate the Universe.
Let us contemplate soume of the mighty efforts
of his faculties recently displayed —the Electric Telegraph, for instance. By this invention man can communicate his thoughts with
the speed of light to the most distant quarters
of the globe; but it is not the electric fluid




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.   105
passing along the wire, nor the signs denoting
the letters of the alphabet, nor the letters of
the alphabet, which of themselves express no
ideas, but it is the Intelligence of Man, combining all these different agents for a purpose,
which Intelligence alone could plan, and an
Intelligent recipient could alone benefit by.
Although we cannot trace the subtile agency
by which the government of the world is carried on, yet it is quite within our power to
conceive; just as the intellect of man and his
power over the material world effects such
wonders as the Electric Telegraph, so a Higher Power and a Brighter Intelligence may
effect all those operations of nature which
we see around us.  There is nothing very
difficult to understand in its operation-; we
cannot trace its subtile agency, but there is
nothing at all difficult to reconcile to our reason the supposition that such agencies exist.
If we grant the existence of the overruling
Power directed by Intelligence, the whole
scheme of Nature, and the forces which move,
guide, and control it, are perfectly conceivable. But this- theory of accounting for every
thing by the operation of secondary causes,
by whatever name they may be distinguished,
whether Natural Selection, Sexual Selection,




106    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
or any other, is to me perfectly incomprehensible. I can neither trace their operation in
the actual world, nor can I imagine it by any
exercise either of reason or of fancy.
There is one consideration with reference
to this subject which appears to me entitled
to considerable weight. It is this: if the operation of the Divine Will is supposed (as
Mr. Darwin in parts of his work appears to
suppose It) to have any influence in the economy of nature, It must have the whole -power;
we cannot conceive It to be partial, indirect,
or divided: if he admits It in any degree, he
must allow It to be universal, direct, and supreme. A partnership in the exercise of Omnipotence is the most irrational of all suppositions.
In conclusion, it appears to my comprehension that Mr. Darwin's theory for accounting for all the innumerable varieties of animal
and vegetable Life in this globe is not proved.
It must depend upon the evidence of facts;
and facts are so far from bearing it out, that
they seem in many necessary particulars to
be altogether wanting, and in others to contradict his premises. They are quite in'sufficient and inadequate to accomplish the results
ascribed to them.




MR.- DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    107
First, he assumes that these various forms
were transmuted or evolved one from the other
in an endless succession; that each variety
springs somehow from  another variety; in
animal life particularly that each variety of
animal form is produced or evolved from some
other different animal form, and that these
new varieties have arisen from some changes
in cognate or nearly similar species. For example, he supposes that Man has sprung from
some variety produced either by Natural or
Sexual Selection in those apes that physically bear the most resemblance to the human
frame. But this theory is totally unsupported
by any positive fact. No naturalist ever knew
of any such variety, thus produced, nor of any
variety whatever produced by any analogous
process in any other animals.  Mr. Darwin
seems to consider that he has proved his case
when he has shown that all animal and indeed
vegetable Life is divided into classes, genera,
and species which do more or less resemble each
other.  Such would: in all probability be the
case, if every one.were a distinct creation. Creation would probably be carried on in groups
which, though independent'of each other,
might be classified under distinct heads. But
Mr. Darwin is totally unable to supply the next




108    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
link in his chain, by showing that in any one
case these species have become intermingled.
The laws of nature appear to be quite fixed
and absolute in this respect, and no change
can ever be traced by which any one species
is merged in another. In order to prove this
theory, Mr. Darwin should have been able to
cite cases in which new forms of life have been
thus evolved; but he fails to do so, and cannot cite a single case confirmatory of the process by which he supposes the whole zoology
of the globe to have been metamorphosed. In
the next place, were we for the sake of argument to concede that this process of Evolution
by Natural Selection and Sexual Selection
had produced all the innumerable varieties of
life which exist, they would bear the unmistakable evidence of design, and therefore that
they would be the manifestations of a Great
First Cause. These secondary agencies, to
which he refers, would in that case be the
mere instruments of Iis Will. We might
as well suppose that the Transfiguration by
Raphael or the Communion of St. Jerome by
Domenichino were the works of the paint and
the brushes which delineated them, or even
of the hand which used these instruments, and
not of the minds of Raphael and Domenichino.




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.   109
The works of Nature all imply design; and
the secondary agencies evoked by [MIr. Darwin
can have no design, and must therefore be
subordinate to some Higher Power that has.
The belief in the agency of a Great Intelligent Omnipotent First Cause fully satisfies
the understanding, and alone enables the
mind to repose in the certainty of conviction.
Faith in the existence of a direct though invisible communication is an essential part of
our moral nature; it is interwoven with all
our best hopes and highest aspirations, and is
necessary at once to happiness and-to virtue.
To sum up my objections to Mr. Darwin's
theory: 1. He either does or he does not refer
to the agency of an Intelligent and Omnipotent First Cause. If he does so assign it, then
all the complications of his machinery, his
Natural Selection, his Sexual Selection and
Evolution, by which he accounts for all the
endless variety in the forms of organic Life,
are only so many additional difficulties in the
work accomplished by the Deity. It becomes
the more necessary than ever to believe in design; because a, governing power directing
the whole becomes more imperative in pro
portion to its- complication. If he excludes
all reference to the Intelligent First Cause,




110    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
then this chain of totally distinct organizations issuing one out of another becomes quite
incomprehensible. Unless we suppose design
and a presiding direction, nothing but chaos
could result.
2. I do not understand how Mr. Darwin
can, support his system by the evidence of
fact. He supposes that in an incalculable
nunmber of ages one organism gradually melts
into another, but he nowhere can point out
any one case in which such a transformation
has taken place. Slight variations in some of
the domestic animals, which he adduces as
proofs, seem wholly insufficient, since they are
only to be found among those slight varieties
who freely cohabit and breed together. Where
these slight varieties assume a more fixed character it is always in obedience to the subordinate but still Intelligent Will of Man. Mr.
Darwin's whole arguments seem to be confined to showing that different species resemble each other very nearly-and are separated
only by apparently slight lines of demarcation;
and then he assumes that these lines are in the
course of ages overstepped and new species
thus fashioned, but he never does show that
these slight lines are so overstepped. With
all his wonderful knowledge of Natural His



MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    11
tory, he cannot prove this from fact. On the
contrary, his work teems with instances in
which the very slightest different characteristics are always permanent, and no intermingling takes place. For example, in two or
three different species of bees, so resembling
each other in every particular, nourished by
the same food, living in the same fields, constructing almost similar hives, and yet separated from each other by a few marked differences, and remaining always distinct. This,
I think, is a fatal objection to 1Mr. Darwin's
theory, that he always supposes that at some
remote period such causes have separated different organisms, but he never adduces a fact
to support this theory, and all the known laws
of nature seem to contradict it.
Another modern- author has bequeathed to
English literature an interesting work on the
" History of Civilization."  It must be a matter of regret to the world of letters that Mr.
Buckle was so soon removed from among us
in the midst.of those labors which bear the
stamp of so much talent and originality of
thought. But while all must admire his early
promise, and regret his loss, such a tribute
does not involve any assent to his opinions, or
conversion to the doctrines which he so boldly




112    REMEARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
enunciated. Mr. Buckle's genius was essentially speculative; he delighted in inventing
new theories, and was more ambitious of
originality than careful of soundness. He did
not, like Mr. Darwin, push his inquiries beyond the very existence of Man; he was satisfied with carrying them into the darkness of
the prehistoric times. Still to a certain degree
these two philosophers treated of the same
subjects; and I cannot leave Mr. Darwin without a few remarks on Mr. Buckle's system.
In one material respect they contradict
each other, and Mr. Darwin's positions and
Mr. Darwin's conclusions are totally subversive of one of Mr. Buckle's main principles.
The latter declares, without stopping altogether to prove it, that the primitive state of
Man was one of absolute equality; that every
member of the human family came into the
world the equal of every other; and that all the
differences, whether of nation or of race, are
the results of external circumstances influencing their subsequent condition. Now  Mr.
Darwin maintains a totally different doctrine.
In his chapter on the " Races of MIan'? he distinctly states that they present varieties so
strongly marked, as to have almost justified
some naturalists in regarding them as differ



MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    113
ent species; and he has applied to them the
term " sub-species," indicating that although
the distinctions are not so broad and absolute
as to justify their being ranked as distinct
species, yet that they are too widely apart to
be classed merely as varieties, and he has
therefore invented a sort of middle term of
" sub-species " by which to characterize them.
Now this is totally irreconcilable not only
with 1Mr. Buckle's premises, but with all his
subsequent deductions, which proceed to explain by some very ingenious but far-fetched
hypotheses the causes of these differences
which, according to him, were not innate, but
have been subsequently grafted upon Man's
original nature. Mr. Buckle lays down that
all the diversities found in Mankind spring
from differences in " Climate, Food, and Soil,
and in the impressions made upon the mind
by the different Aspects of Nature."  With
regard to the first three, there can be no doubt
that they have a considerable influence upon
the character and condition of nations; but
Mr. Buckle is inclined, as most inventors of
systems are, to bring every thing within their
operation. If Mr. Darwin is correct in supposing that there are natural differences in
different races of Man, which are either coeval




114:   REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
with their birth or spring from some very remote and antecedent state, then these natural
differences would inevitably act upon' the future progress'of the different races, and would
be a cause of difference quite independent of
either of the four to which Mr. Buckle would
alone confine them. Mr. Buckle is very fond
of laying down some absolute rule to which
he conceives the whole history of MIan conforms. As an instance, we will take his position-the fertility of the soil in an early
state of society always leads to a small wealthy
class who are absolutely despotic, and who
crush and oppress the bulk of the population.
He instances Egypt, but Egypt is not singular
in being despotic, or in sharing that principle
of government with fertile countries alone.
The whole of Asia, from the earliest records,
seems to have been governed by despotic
rulers, yet many parts of Asia are rigorous in
climate and sterile in soil-a proof that there
is no exclusive connection between fertility
and despotism, since despotism is quite as absolute and quite as cruel in the less-favored
-regions of the north. Were Zengis Khan,
Tamerlane, or Attila, one whit less arbitrary
and tyrannical than the Pharaohs?  Were
the ancient Czars of Russia very humane and




MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.   115
liberal rulers? As I have noticed elsewhere,
quoting from Montesquieu, all Asia has been
immemorially governed by despotisms, and
the principle of fear has been the sole and
universal engine by which authority has been
maintained.
Some of the most fertile regions in the
World are the banks of the Mississippi and
the great rivers of the North-American Continent. Mr. Buckle broaches a theory, that to
produce fertility it is necessary that heat and
humidity should coexist in the same country,
that heat is confined to the Western coasts of
America beyond the Rocky Mountains, that
humidity, without heat, is found in the Eastern
portion of that Continent. Nothing can be
more erroneous. It is possible that there may
be greater aridity in some parts beyond the
Rocky Mountains, but so far from there being
any insufficiency of heat in all the Southern
Provinces of the North-American Continent,
the Floridas, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas,
Georgia, and Virginia, are very hot countries,
and there is quite sufficient sun, combined
with their moisture, to produce the most luxuriant vegetation. The banks of the Mississippi are quite as favorable to human life, and
quite as capable of supporting an enormous




116    REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF
population, as the lofty table-lands of Mexico;
and other causes must be found than those
alleged by Mr. Buckle why they did not become the seat of a population as numerous
and as civilized as either the Mexicans or Peruvians.
Mr. Buckle's theories respecting the Aspects of Nature are still more unsound and
visionary. He supposes that the terror inspired by the repulsive aspect of tropical countries, and by the alarming convulsions by
which nature is visited, press upon the mind
and imagination of Man, and induce him to
be wealdy, superstitious, and selfish, while
more engaging and cheerful aspects brighten
his faculties and elevate his moral nature. He
compares Greece with India, but Greece is by
no means so deficient in the terrible: her
mountains are high, often rugged, and in earlier times her forests must have frowned over
the blue seas of the Mediterranean. India is
indeed a tropical country, but it by no means
presents those terrible features with which Mr.
Buckle invests it; there is no part of the
world in which there are fewer earthquakes,
its soil is not volcanic, and the general character of the Peninsula is more beautiful than
savage; the lower valleys of the Himalayas




]MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE.    117
are among the loveliest spots on the globe;
and there is no conceivable ground to a man
with ordinary observation for supposing that
Vishnu and Siva should have been conceived
by the imagination of Man, contemplating
these beautiful and picturesque localities, while
Parnassus should have given birth to the
"Iliad."
Mr. Buckle appears to have had a great facility of adapting his theories to circumstances.
In the Old World a fertile soil leads to redundant population, cruelty and oppression in the
upper orders, and slavery among the mass of
the people; but in the Eastern portion of the
South-American Continent vegetation becomes
too luxuriant, it overpowers man, and stifles
him beneath the very redundance of its productions.  He is engaged in a war with Nature, in which he is crushed and subdued by
the very vigor of her productive powers. All
this, however, is a mere dream; Brazil is one
of the most flourishing States of the New
World, and its population is rapidly increasing.
There is one feature common to the writings both of Mr. Darwin and 1Mr. Buckle which
is to be regretted-they both of them seem to
ignore, if they do not altogether deny, the




118  THEORIES OF DARWIN AND BUCKLE.
existence of a First Cause. Secondary causes
are always with them the only springs of motion. This gives a repulsive chillness to all
their theories, which the mind instinctively
rejects.




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
THERE is no one idea which so universally
pervades the public mind of Europe as that of
Progress. The Progress of the Nation, the
Progress of the Age, the Progress of Civilization, the Progress of Society, the Progress of
Mankind, are phrases which meet us everywhere. We find them  in the columns of
every newspaper, in the articles of every Review, in the philosophic pages of Buckle and
Macaulay, in Social Science Congresses, in
private circles, in Parliamentary Debates, and
even in the Pulpit. Nor is there any thing
the least surprising in the general prevalence
of such ideas. We whose lot has been cast
in this nineteenth century have had the high
privilege of living during a most eventful
epoch in the history of civilized man. We
are often referred to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the period when Europe




120    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
was aroused from the lethargy of the Mliddle
Ages, and when various discoveries and inventions imparted a new impulse to civilization. We read of the inventions of printing
and of gunpowder, of the discovery of the
properties of the Magnetic needle, and the
consequent improvement of Navigation. The
progress thus made in this art led to the discovery of the New World and of the passage
by the Cape of Good Hope, while from the
great astronomical discoveries of Copernicus
and Galileo in the same period may be dated
the birth of modern Science. There cannot
be a doubt either that these great events did
give an extraordinary stimulus and momentum
to the advancing movement of that age, or
that these powerful agents are still at work
after the lapse of between three and four centuries. They have lost none of their original
force, they are not spent or exhausted; but,
on the contrary, are going through a process
of development, which is adding to their
strength, and extending the sphere of their
operation. We are now better able to appreciate their vast importance, and to measure
the immense results which have flowed from
them, than when they originally burst upon
the World., We have inherited all these




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    121
means and resources in their full force and
activity; but we have added to them new
ones, not less potent, not less wonderful, not
less signal triumphs of the intellect and genius
of MAan.
In the foremost rank of these new achievements of the inventive genius of Man, the first
place will be assigned to the application of
the motive power of Steam to every description of manufacturing industry, and to the
three great purposes of river and ocean navigation and railway communication, and immediately after these follows the still newer
invention of the Electric Telegraph. We
advance so rapidly, and these great inventions
of our age have now become so thoroughly
established as part of our daily existence, that
we recall with a sort of surprise that they
were all unknown during the first twenty
years of the present century. Those still only
on the threshold of old age can perfectly remember the days when Sailing-packets, Mailcoaches, and Post-horses were our means of
locomotion. Steamboats were not established
between England and France or Ireland until
after the year 1820, and the first great Railway line for Passenger-traffic, the Manchester
and Liverpool, was opened in 1830, acquiring
6




122    PROGRESS ANTD CIVILIZATION.
a melancholy celebrity by the tragical death
of Mr. IHuskisson. The new invention did not
make any rapid progress at first, and it was
not till the ten years from 1840 to 1850 that
our principal lines were completed. Since
that time these mighty works of human skill
and power have been extended with wonderful rapidity. Railways traverse, more or less
completely, every country in Europe. The
great Continent of North America is intersected by them. IIn India they are in course
of construction. We may safely assume, however the process may be delayed by the immense amount of Capital they require in their
formation, that another half century will see
them everywhere coextensive with European
civilization,  and bringing new regions and
semi-barbarous peoples nnder their beneficial
and humanizing influences. The progress of
Steam Navigation,- as it was earlier in date,
and is created with less amount of Capital,
has been still more generally diffused. Ships
navigated by Steam, either wholly or in combination with sails, traverse every sea and
ascend every river. They are to be found in
the Chinese waters, the Eastern Archipelago,
the Caspian Sea, and the River Volga.
No one whose attention is alive to the




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.     123
present temper of the times can fail to remark
that this idea of Progress has acquired a predominance over the public mind which it
never before exercised. It has become in
itself a moving force in human affairs. I
mean that the universal impression that great
changes are taking place, and that Progress is
a law of Nature, has in itself an active influence. -There is, however, something vague
and indefinite in the current impressions
which are so widely scattered throughout all
classes of the community.  Men echo the
phrases, " The Progress of Society," " The
Advance of Civilization," "This is an Age
of Progress." They use these general expressions without any very distinct or accurate sense of their purport, or any attempt to
explore the depths of the vast subject comprehended in these expressions. A civilized State
is generally understood to describe a society
which has attained a certain point of refinement and cultivation, in which the Arts and
Sciences are studied and understood, where a
regular Government is established, and where,a system of laws administered with tolerable
justice, and securing the fundamental rights
of property, is established.
A rough, but not very incorrect classifica



124     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
tion is adopted in familiar conversation. The
European Nations, and their descendants established in America and Australia, are alone
admitted to the rank of civilized nations; the
Asiatic Races, partly extending over the North
of Africa, are semi-barbarous, or half-civilized,
and the rest of the World is regarded as more
or less in a savage state. These popular ideas
seem of a superficial character. They do not
answer the questions: What is Civilization?
What is Progress?  When and where did it
commence?. What are its causes, its laws, its
duration, and its limits? No subject of human
incluiry can be -more extensive, more important, more profound, or better warthy of Philosophical Analysis.
What is Civilization 2.  When, and where
did it originate?  These are questions which
the popular and current acceptation does not
satisfy. Civilization is used in a comparative
sense. We are civilized in relation to some
other States which are half-civilized, or not
civilized at all. We are civilized now, in contrast with some former period, when we were
ourselves uncivilized, and out of which we
have emerged. What date shall we assign to
that epoch? Shall it be the revival of learning, and the birth of Science at the close of




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    125
the Middle Ages  Shall it be the Christian
era?  Shall it be the foundation of the Roman
Empire, or the Babylonian Monarchy?  All
these are no doubt important stages in the
History of Man; but when we have reached
the remotest, we find that we have not yet
attained the Zero of Civilization.  Let us
adopt another test, and try to discover that
period in which what we at present call the
arts of civilized life had their origin, antecedent to which Man was utterly rude and uncultivated, and from which we have derived nothing, and nothing has descended to us. But such
an inquiry will lead us into still darker obscnrity. We shall find that not only in Science, but that in all our Arts, in all the contrivances of human ingenuity with which our
modern life is surrounded, whether the most
familiar or the most elaborate, what is recent
is constantly interwoven with the remote and
unknown Past. All that we can trace is one
continued and connected movement, the beginning of which extends far beyond the limits
of History, or of Tradition, or of any known
Record. We can only arrive at an approximate guess by examining ourselves, and by
endeavoring to discover in what faculties of




126     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
our nature this great distinguishing characteristic of Alan is situated.
In illustration of this view, let us tale one
of the latest, and one of the noblest creations
of an advanced civilization; let us select the
"Warrior " man-of-war. How much of human
skill, contrivance, invention, and Science, have
been combined to produce that work; how
many hands have labored, how many brains
have toiled, how much of Art and Science, of
mechanical ingenuity and skilled labor, have
been put in requisition to launch that mighty
construction upon the ocean    A legion of
miners, iron-founders, ship-builders, carpenters, sail-makers, cordwainers, and artificers
of almost every description, have united to
frame her. Astronomy has given us the means
of ascertaining her place in the trackless ocean.
The great discovery of the fifteenth century —
the Mariner's Compass-has enabled us to
direct her course; the foremost invention of
our own times-the motive power of Steamhas empowered us to impart resistless velocity
to the mighty mass. Armstrong guns, conical
shot, all the most recent improvements in
Artillery, have been enlisted to augment her
force as an Engine of War. Nothing more
modern, no better type of Progress, could be




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    127
chosen. But among all these modern inventions, among all these achievements of the
fifteenth and succeeding centuries down to
our own nineteenth, do we owe nothing to a
much earlier epoch, to a date altogether too
remote for us to trace its origin?
It would be useless for the Compass to
point the right direction, or for Steam to propel her with untiring speed, if the rudder did
not enable the steersman to govern her every
movement, and to render all this mighty machine subordinate to his will. The rudder is
a tolerably simple contrivance, but it is not
altogether an obvious one. Rudders do not
come by nature, or grow spontaneously out of
the sterns of ships.  The first rudder was
probably hailed as a great invention, and
might have immortalized its author, had there
been any means of chronicling inventions.
When did he live a What nation did he belong to? How long have vessels been steered
by rudders?a  None of these questiops can we
answer. All that we know is that the rudder
has descended to us from -remote ages, and
that it is now as necessary to the "Warrior"
as either the Compass or the Steam-Engine.
If we push our inquiries farther we shall
be able to discover the inventions of a yet




128     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
higher antiquity, forming a necessary part of
the basis on which this wonderful structure
has been reared. Of what material are the
sides, and the armament, of the "Warrior"
composed?  Of iron. And how is that iron
ore extracted from  the stone in which it is
lodged? By the action of Fire. HIow is the
Steam  generated, which is her moving force?
By the action of Fire upon Water. The element of Fire is one of the primitive constituent parts of the material world; but the power of kindling, managing, directing, and extinguishing fire, is an effort of human reason
and invention. No animal we ever heard of
ever lighted a fire or cooked its own dinner.
The use of Fire was essential to the construction of the ";Warrior," and when was Fire
first employed by Man?  W5e cannot answer
that question.
In all that vast floating mass there is scarcely the smallest portion in the state Nature has
produced. The raw material she has furnished
has been so changed, moulded, and combined
with other substances, by the various arts of
Man's ingenuity, as scarcely to be recognized
in its original condition. Human heads have
planned, human hands have executed, all the
parts of tlhat great machine. The latest in



PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    129
ventions of mechanical sciences-the SteamEngine and the Screw-Propeller-contribute
their aid to give her velocity. When she is
launched, how much of Science is comprised
in that art of Navigation, which has been
slowly reaching its present advanced stage
through centuries of Progress  The groundwork of Navigation is the Science of Astronomy; the spheroidal form of the Earth, its
annual and diurnal motions, the declination of
the Sun, the relative position of the Moon, the
apparent angles with tile fixed Stars, all are
essential component parts of that Science of
Navigation so necessary to the direction of the
Vessel.
I have selected the " Warrior " as a convenient example of the truth of my assertion
that Civilization cannot be dated from  any
known epoch, but that it is the gradual development of the faculties originally implanted
in our nature by its Divine Author. There is
an advantage in choosing this example, because a vessel like the "Warrior" stands
singly. It is a creation in itself. The elements in its formation are thus more easily
traced, and more distinctly marked than in
more comp]icated results of the intellectual
powers of Man. But every department of




130     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
Knowledge, or Science, every work of human
hands, would afford, if subjected to scrutiny
and analysis, similar results. In all it would
be manifest that there is no branch of our
acquirements or acquisitions which has not
sprung from  beginnings evidently stamped
with the unmistakable character of human invention, but of which all record is lost.
Civilization, in its highest and most comprehensive sense, is the united accumulation
of all Science, of all Art, of all the mechanical inventions, of all useful trades, of every
part of knowledge which have been handed
down to us. It is the sum total of that vast
inheritance of acquirements of every description which has been bequeathed to us by all
past generations of men.
This illustration, drawn from  the " Warrior," leads us to the conclusion, that the
whole history of Man forms one scheme, and
that it is one of the designs of the Creator.
Each part is linked to every other, and the
whole forms one consistent and continued
plan. Under this aspect, Man may be considered as a unity, dfs an individual, as a single
chain, consisting of innumerable links. It is
unfortunate that the present state of Geological Science does not afford us the means of




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    131
arriving, even approximately, at the commencement of that period when Man first
appeared upon the globe. The earlier Geologists seem to have fixed this at a comparatively recent period; but Sir Charles Lyell, and
other later ones, have thrown great doubt
upon their calculations, and assign a much remoter period to his origin. Whatever may be
the date of it, we may assume that he was endowed then, as he is now, with the two gifts
of Instinct and Reason; his Instinct appertaining to the merely animal part of his nature, his Reason constantly tending to elevate
him above it. HIis instincts, we may conclude,
were inseparably connected with his corporeal
frame, or formed a part of him, and were identified with it and him, from his very birth.
The higher faculty of Reason must have been
developed far more gradually, and must have
been some time in acquiring the government
of his actions. The instincts of the lower animals serve for their preservation: were the instincts of Man at the very earliest commencement of his earthly course sufficient for his
preservation?  Did Reason, even from  the
beginning, lend its aid? or did the Power
which created him aid the first steps of his infancy?  Whichever- may be the case, there




132     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
must have been a period, and that a very brief
period, after his birth, when his higher nature
must have asserted itself, when his instincts
became subordinate to his reason, and when
the latter became the governing principle of
his nature.  Whenever that first step was
made, the seed of Civilization was planted.
It is a distinguishing characteristic of MIan
that the child can receive new impressions
from the parent; ideas not originally innate
are formed in one generation; inventions are
made, human ingenuity finds means to add to
Man's command over some portion of the material world, and the power which Reason
gives the parent of transmitting to his offspring any such new acquirements constitutes
the first step in the Progress of Civilization.
It is worthy of remark, that no animal possesses in the remotest degree this power of
grafting by an intellectual process any improved methods of dealing with the material
world which did not form a part of its original nature, and which were not prompted by
an unvarying instinct.
There is a sect of philosophers always desirous of assimilating Man to the brute creation, and of identifying him with it by dwelling upon all those parts of his nature which




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.     133
he has in common with it. But this facultv
of change, this gift of appropriating to himself new powers, and of extending his command over inanimate nature by fresh contrivances, and of subsequently transmitting them
to his descendants, is possessed by him alone:
no animal has the slightest shade of it, the
most intellectual species of the brute creation
can never make the slightest permanent advance, for they are entirely without this power of grafting a new habit upon their offspring.  It is, I think, almost self-evident
that the Progress of Civilization must entirely
follow from this power of transmitting the
acquirements of one generation to the succeeding one, which in turn passes it to another, enriched and augmented by its own.
It must also be remarked that this process is
a purely intellectual one, and is distinct from
the -transmission of qualities by hereditary
succession. No one doubts that corporeal,
and to a certain degree mental, qualities are
transmitted by hereditary succession; every
one is aware that family likenesses are long
preserved, and peculiarities of constitution
and even mental and moral characteristics
are often reproduced by lineal descent. What
is traceable in individuals is indisputable in




134     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
nations and in races. It would be little short
of a miracle if a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired,
fresh-colored child were to be born on the
coast of Guinea of negro parents: or if a
little woolly- haired, thick -lipped, ebonyskinned negro were to be the offspring of a
couple of Chinese parents at Pekin. Even in
nations most nearly allied differences of race
are distinguishable. Within our own Islands,
English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh, are marked
by sufficiently obvious differences, both mental and physical. But all these differences
spring from another source altogether; they
are traceable to that mysterious process of nature, by which Life is renewed, through the
intercourse of the sexes. But the process by
which inventions, arts, and knowledge are
transmitted from one generation to another is
a purely intellectual one, and has nothing
whatever to do with the laws of generation.
There may no doubt be natures more or less
adapted to receive these ideas, but the ideas
themselves must pass from one individual to
the other through a purely intellectual medium.  Some children may learn to read
more easily than others, but among the most:
cultivated nations children are never born
able to read.




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    135
The principal means by which this advance
must have been' originally made, and the acquirements of the parents imparted to the
children, must have been through the medium
of the gift of Speech, another of the qualities
possessed by Man alone. This power of communication between the different members of
the human race is absolutely essential to Progress; without it the mind could never have
expanded beyond the limits of the lower animals. Some small advance in mechanical skill
or workmanship may be transmitted from an
older to a younger generation by manual instruction: a carpenter may show his apprentice
how to use a plane, a hammer, or a saw, without the use of words, or a sailor may teach a
cabin-boy the art of knotting and splicing in
perfect silence. But there is no real difference
in principle. A certain mental process directs
the saw or teaches a sailor to knot; it is equally an art transmitted by an operation of the
understanding, though the means of communication are not quite the same. This mode,
however, of transmitting arts from one generation to another is far more restricted, and is,
indeed, of a very limited operation; it may be
considered as merely supplementary and auxiliary to the mode of communication by Speech.




136    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
Language is at the root of all improvement;
it is not only that we cannot speak without
words, that we are altogether cut off from
interchanging our ideas with each other, but
without words we cannot, think; let any one
examine the operation of his own thoughts,
and he will find that beyond the simplest ideas
of form and color, sound or taste, which are
the direct impressions made upon the senses,
all ideas of a more complex character must be
embodied either mentally or orally in words
in order to enable the individual to conceive
them.  This consideration will assist us in
estimating the immeasurable importance of
that greatest of human inventions-the Alphabet. How curious that this great step in
human acquirement is now synonymous with
the very lowest rudiments of learning? The
youngest child is expected to know its letters
as soon as or often before it can speak, and
yet it is the mightiest single stride that the
human mind ever made in its progress toward
a higher state of knowledge. Let us suppose
the first inventor of the Alphabet, whoever he
might have been, coming forward in some
assembly of elders or sages, and exhibiting a
handful of black marks traced upon any substance, and saying, " With these figures I can




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    137
express all my wants, all my wishes, all my
ideas; I can make themn convey the most delicate shades of thought, and embody them in a
durable shape; I can describe scenes and
events with such accuracy that my auditors
may almost fancy that they have themselves
witnessed them; I can transmit to the most
remote quarters of the globe and to the most
distant periods of time narratives of the events
which are passing around me."  How difficult
would the sages have found it to believe that so
apparently simple a contrivance should be capable of such results. Probably no single individual ever did invent letters or establish such
a claim to the gratitude of mankind. The process was probably a gradual one; hieroglyphics or cuneiform  characters would probably
among all nations be the more obvious method
of recording events; a rude representation of
the thing to be recorded, a battle or the erection of a building, would be roughly sculptured
in some durable material; then perhaps some
conventional signs might connect different
events; but the idea of representing them by
characters, not resembling or bearing any reference in form to the objects to be described,
would be a much later process. Then would
come the idea of connecting these characters




138     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
with sounds, and gradually by successive stages
arriving at a written language. But the superiority of this mode of expression would not
at first be recognized, and probably it was
long before hieroglyphics were insensibly and
gradually supplanted by written words; it
seems, indeed, that the two coexisted during
the early ages of history; to this day the
Chinese character appears to be a sort of combination of the two, yet it seems to be a form
capable of expressing ideas with considerable
facility; the Chinese are great readers, and
their books are generally in the hands of the
natives as they sit at their stalls and their
shops.  It is curious that not only are we
ignorant of the name of any individual inventor of the Alphabet, but we do not know with
any certaintyamong what nation the art of
writing was first practised. This mighty invention, through which all the fruits of human
thought, past and present, are transmitted to
us; this invention by means of which we of
these later times become acquainted with the
Poems of Homer, the Histories of Thucydides,
the Philosophy of Plato, and the Inspirations
of Isaiah, seems to have stolen among the
human race with so gradual and noiseless a
step as to leave no trace of its first appearance.




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    139
Yet it has gradually developed into the great
engine of human progress, connecting the
whole human race together past and present,
and conferring lupon Man, considered collectively, a species of earthly immortality.
"Non omnis moriar, multaque, pars mei
Vitabit Libitinam."
The thought so beautifully expressed by
the greatest of elegiac poets, has acquired an
expansion, possibly far beyond his own conception. He most likely limited his aspirations of future fame to the Roman Empire,
which he might have conceived eternal, but
the Roman Empire has passed away; yet,
through the medium of printing, the Odes of
Horace have obtained a wider celebrity than
Rome could ever have given them, and will
probably be the delight of the scholar, in all
countries, for ages to come.
The invention of written language is in
many respects a far more accurate and comprehensive medium of thought than'speech
itself. It is generally more the offspring of
deliberation and reflection; it is more completely an intellectual process. Speech is often the almost unconscious utterance of some
passing impression, but it is the mind and the




140     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
will which dictate writing, and leave a permanent record of thought. It has exercised
a wonderful influence in extending and perfecting the gift of speech itself; it has gradually imparted to it regularity, grammatical
correctness, and copiousness. The perpetual
recurrence to a fixed standard must have a
constant influence in correcting errors, and
giving to language greater precision as a vehicle of thought, while at the same time it
must afford constant facilities for new modes
of expression; by the perpetual extension it
will be giving to the intellectual powers, it
will be constantly stimulating the mind to
satisfy its wants by coining new words and
framing new forms of expression. It is impossible to estimate to what extent all the intellectual faculties of man have been enlarged
by this great invention; but we cannot avoid
perceiving that all the higher achievements
of the human race are directly or indirectly
attributable to it. It seems so necessary to
us, so interwoven with our very being, that
we can scarcely contemplate it in the light
of an art or an invention; it seems to have
become a part of our very nature. All accurate knowledge of mankind is coextensive
-with this art; every other means by which




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    141
we try to read the Past is vague, speculative,
and shadowy; they resemble at best the faint
recollections of our earliest childhood, which
we are scarcely able to distinguish from
dreams. All those Sciences which treat of
the structure of Man, or of his origin, or of
the conditions through which he has passed,
can only afford us external views of him. We
study with more or less accuracy and success,
just as we would study any other being distinct from  ourselves, but written language
enables us to identify ourselves with his inner
nature, and to know him in some sort as we
know ourselves.
Modern Science has been making efforts
in different directions to penetrate through
the mists which overshadow 1Man's origin;
but it may be doubted if these inquiries have
led to any certainty, or, even if these results
were attained, would have any particular
bearing upon our present condition, or our
future prospects. Sir Charles Lyell has involved the chronology of primeval man in yet
profounder darkness and obscurity; and the
philological researches of Prof: MIax  iffiller
have given us but a shadowy glimpse of the
races who are either altogether extinct, or
who have become so blended together as to




142     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
have lost all separate identity. But these inquiries must always possess a philosophic interest: the materials which enable us to study
Man as he at present exists can only be furnished with an approach to accuracy since
the dawn of the historical period. We may
be told of the Aryans as our progenitors; but
we know so little of them, that we derive little more than a name from these studies. But
when we come down to the historical period,
our knowledge of races and of nations acquires
distinctness; we recognize them through successive periods, as retaining the same features,
and it is wonderful how accurately their characteristies are reproduced during long ages.
The origin of Man is involved, and probably will always continue to remain, in impenetrable obscurity; but were even the most
correct knowledge of it obtained, we should
probably add little more to our stock of information. It would most likely be the history of
savage and migratory tribes in the earliest
stages of civilization. It might be compared
to the biography of an individual in infancy,
which would contain few or no indications of
his future character. We possess perhaps all
the materials necessary to the knowledge of
Man from as early a period as there was any




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    143
thing to be known; it is certain at least that
the histories are abundant and increasing
which may enable us to estimate his nature.
One great subject of controversy meets us at
the very threshold of our inquiries. It is the
question, Whether the human race spring
from one common origin, or whether the
varieties of the great family of Man arise from
distinct sources?  On this subject physiologists are much divided. Some dwell upon the
marked differences, others rest upon those
features which are common to the whole race,
and the dispute in the present state of our information is not easily settled. Without venturing to come to any decision upon it, we
may safely assume that in either case the practical result at the present stage is the same;
whether the various races who people the
globe, the Europeans, the Mongol tribes, the
Red Indians of North America, or the Negroes
of Africa, sprung all originally from the same
parents, and their differences arise from the
operation of climate, modes of life, and other
causes, through a succession of ages, or whether they. were originally separate families, in
either case the results at the present period are
identical. These different races of men are as
distinct from each other as different varieties




144[    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
of the same species among the lower animals.
There is as much difference between an Englishman and a Negro, both physically and
morally, as between a greyhound and a bulldog. Their physical frames, their moral qualities, and their intellectnal powers differ widely,
and the difference is not lessened whichever of
the two theories is adopted.  N'othing would
seem to be more clearly demonstrated by the
evidence of facts, than the existence of wide
differences of character between races and between nations. It is just as certain and as indisputable to an unprejudiced mind as the diversity of individual character in private life.
It would be as easy to contend that all men
were equally tall or equally short, equally fair
or equally dark, equally wise or equally silly,
equally brave or equally timid, as that the
characteristics of nation and of race were always the same. Of all the fallacies which have
misled mankind in modern times, the greatest
and most apparent, and perhaps the most mischievous, has been that of the natural inherent
equality of mankind. The word Character,
like most abstract terms, is not easy of definition, and yet is perfectly intelligible. We
know very well what we mean when we speak
of the character of an individual, the character




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    145
of a nation, or the character of a race; but the
exact signification of the word; which combines
a certain union of mental, moral, and physical qualities, stamped with the impress of
individuality, is not very easy to analyze with
accuracy. We must assume, therefore, that
they are intelligible when we say that, from
the earliest ages of which we have any trustworthy'record, distinct and marked features
of character are traceable in the different
nations of the globe.
One of the most remarkable of these is the
Oriental or Asiatic type. This is the largest
of the four quarters into which geographers
have divided the World. It is probably the
most anciently inhabited, and it is to this
day by far the most populous in the globe.
Throughout the whole extent of this region,
from  the beginning of time, certain defined
characteristics are and have been always apparent. MNontesquieu remarks that, while
honor is the principle of European monarchies,
and virtue the principle'which ought to govern
republics, whether ancient or modern, fear is
the universal principle in despotic Asia. Of
the truth of this last statement I think there
can be little doubt. Whether in the most
eastern portions of China, Siam, or Burmah,
7




146     PROGRESS-AND CIVILIZATION.
or in all the countries under the Mussulman
sway, extending to Persia, Turkey, and the
shores of the Mediterranean, there is an
unvarying' uniformity of despotism. Everywhere fear is paramount, everywhere fear is
the ruling principle. Asiatic nations never
seemn to have been inspired by any of the
loftier motives which animate Europeans.
We cannot recognize among them patriotism,
or honor, or moral principle. Their attachment to their religion, whether Buddhist, Hindoo, or Mohammedan, is very tenacious, and
would be an ennobling, sentiment but that
the religions themselves are so inherently false
and corrupt. Their treatment of their women
appears to be another strong distinguishing
trait; everywhere the females are more or
less secluded, and have been so from  the
earliest times. I was -reading lately narratives of two English ladies who resided for
a considerable period in the capacity of governesses in the harems of two Asiatic Princes
at the opposite extremities of that Continent.
One lady was engaged to instruct the numerous offspring of the Sultan of Siam, the other
the children of the Viceroy of Egypt. Perhaps hypercritics may object that Egypt is
not Asia, but Africa. No doubt it is so, but




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    14T
the race belong, by habits, customs, religion,
and I believe origin, to the Asiatic family.
It is singular to find how closely these two
narratives resemble each other.
Another feature of the Asiatic character is
its immobility, which pervades all the nations
which compose it, whatever their religion.
Chinese, Japanese, Persians, Turks, and Hindoos, all adhere pertinaciously to the customs
and habits of their ancestors, all resist doggedly the introduction of any change. Their
sense of morality is lower than that of the
European nations; they are treacherous, dissimulating, and cruel; they evince a great
disregard for human life and human suffering;
they are not deficient in animal courage, and
when trained and disciplined make good soldiers. One of the most remarkable of their
characteristics is that they attained, at a very
early period, a very considerable proficiency
in all the arts of civilization, and have remnained stationary ever since.  Our recent
Exhibitions of Industry in Paris and in London have rendered us familiar with a great
variety of Oriental fabrics, and most of us
have observed the beauty of the designs and
colors, and the excellence of the workmanship
of all the manufactures exhibited, particularly




148     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
of those woven by the hand. Carpets, brocades, and silk stuffs, equal ours in beauty,
and surpass them  in durability.  But the
range of these industrial products is very
much limited; they are chiefly confined to
those produced by manual labor, in which all
the Eastern nations appear to possess much
delicacy of touch and dexterity of the hand.
They have also a considerable talent for imitation, and can copy most of our productions
with great fidelity. They seem never to attain to inventive genius, or even in practice
or in theory to be gifted with'a capacity for
Science. They are wonderfully stationary;
what they are now they appear to have been,
as far as we have any records, two thousand
years ago. Arrian's "History of Alexander "
describes the natives of India much as they
exist at the present day. The History of
Asia, too, reproduces at successive epochs the
same series of events.  The natives of the
southern and more fertile and genial regions
seem to become relaxed and effeminate; the
tribes of Central Asia swell in numbers, and
under the command of some great conqueror,
Genghis Khan or Tamerlane, fall like an
avalanche upon the effeminate natives of the
southern regions and extirpate or reduce them




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    149
to slavery, settle in their country, and are by
the operation of the same causes corrupted
and rendered effeminate, to be in their turn
subjugated by new eruptions from the North.
Asia is certainly the earliest seat of civilization, and, if mankind were all equal in natural powers, would have had the advantage of
a start of at least two thousand years. But
the Asiatic races, having attained a certain
imperfect stage of culture, seem never to have
made any further advance. They have been
especially unable to realize the fruits which
grow from the exercise of the higher mental
faculties. It is remarkable that although they
have been in constant intercourse with the
more advanced European nations, and although they have a natural facility, yet they
never have been able to imitate any of our
higher productions of Science. For example,
English ships have found their way to China
ever since the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope, and for the last two hundred years our
commercial intercourse with that country has
been frequent and increasing.  Chinese are
active sailors and have long navigated their
own waters; it is even said that the Mariner's
Comnpass was known to, them before it was
introduced into Europe; and yet, though they




150    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
have our superior ships before their eyes, they
have never improved upon the model of their
heavy, cumbrous junks.  They have never
had sufficient enterprise to construct a ship
on the European model, or to return to us in
Europe the visits we: make to them. If Chinese were at all made of the same stuff with
English or Americans, we should have had
long since Chinese merchantmen visiting the
western coasts of the American Continent,
from San Francisco to Panama, Callao, and
Valparaiso, and perhaps anchoring in the
harbor of New York, or in the Thames.
Having the European examples constantly before their eyes, they never seem to have made
the slightest advance in this or in any other
European art.  The only exception to this
rule of Eastern immobility seems to be found
among the Japanese, who of late years have
both built and navigated steam-vessels entirely by their own native artificers and engineers. The Japanese are supposed, however,
to belong to the Polynesian family.
If we pass in review the long catalogue of
inventions, discoveries, and additions to the
knowledge and power of Man during the last
five hundred years, and which may be said to
have exalted his position and to have given




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    151
him such immense command in the material
world, we shall find that not one of them can
be traced to an Asiatic origin. They are all the
offspring of the higher intellect and genius of
the European nations. I know no more convincing proof of the inferiority of the Asiatic
mind than this fact. Even with all the example of Europe before them, they have never
been able to tread in our footsteps or to follow in the paths which have led us to so high
an eminence.
As a general rule, the features of character
which I have noticed as pervading the Asiatic
races are universal throughout that Continent,
and have existed there from the beginning of
history. They constitute a type clearly distinguishing them by unmistakable characteristics from the other quarters of the World.
If we turn our eyes to Africa, and examine
the Negro race, we shall find them sunk to a
much lower level than the Asiatic nations.
This vast Continent has been peopled from
the earliest times chiefly by the Negro race,
and all history represents them as very much
in the same low state of civilization which
they occupy at present. The Egyptian hieroglyphics represent them in the character of
slaves performing the rudest tasks. Travel



152     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
lers have never discovered in any part of Africa buildings, public works, or monuments of
any antiquity or durability. In the long series of ages during which they have peopled
that Continent, they have left scarcely a trace
of their existence. They have no literature,
no arts, except of the simplest kind; in size,
stature, and muscular strength, they surpass
most other races, and their peculiar physical
constitution enables them to labor without injury in the hottest regions of the torrid zone.
But they are naturally indolent, and do not
voluntarily support any toil. Their moral nature appears to be far milder than that of
the Asiatic, and though occasionally liable to
bursts of ferocity, they seem capable of strong
attachment, and not destitute of the gentler
affections.  Still, whether we contemplate
them in their native Continent, or as naturalized in America, they occupy a very low place
in the scale of Intelligence.
If we pass in brief review the remaining
members of the human family, the savage
tribes scattered over different portions of the
globe, we shall nowhere discover indications
of any great power of improvement. The late
Archbishop Whately was of opinion that savage and uncivilized man could nowhere attain




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION    153
to civilization except under the tutelage of a
more advanced race, and that generally even
with such guidance they were incapable of
reaching it.
The history of the North-American Red
Indians confirms this view. In a state of nature they are represented as among the noblest
of savages, but they have never during three
hundred years been reclaimed from their wild
lives, or induced to acquire the rudiments
even of civilized life. They have never been
incorporated in the society of the white man,
but have uniformly been driven, as he advanced, farther and farther into the wilderness,
and been reduced in numbers, and will probably become shortly extinct. Unlike the Negro they cannot exist in a state of servitude;
they must live like the wild animal of the forest or must perish.
Wherever we direct our eyes we are unable
to discover either in Asia, Africa, or in any
savage life, any equality with the European,
or germs of a nature capable of attaining to
the same height. It is bootless to try to trace
how it is composed or from whence it came.
We may have originally been Aryans, or Caucasians, or derived from any other stock, or
combination of different stocks, but it is quite




154:    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
clear that we are at this moment the dominant
race in the World. Our superiority was visible
from the earliest appearance of the race in the
records of history. When the Greeks first enicountered Darius at M/arathon, and Xerxes at
Thermopyle and Salamis, the same superiority of nature was as apparent as when Olive,
with his handful of Europeans and Sepoys,
defeated the hosts of Surajah Dowlah, and
founded our Indian Empire. When Alexander the Great led his victorious bands from
the shores of the Mediterranean to the centre
of Hindostan the same inherent superiority
of race was exhibited.
We recognize the same character of superiority in their Literature. While all Eastern
writings are characterized by a certain mystic
and obscure mode of expression, the pages of
Xenophon and Thucydides are the perfection
of style, and speak to us the language of truth.
It is marvellous, indeed, to throw a retrospective glance upon the whole body of Grecian
literature, and to recall the fact that in an age
so remote it constitutes one of the noblest in
the World. It attained at once the utmost
perfection of style. In the words of Johnson,
" the Poems of Homer were only known to
pass the common limits of human intelligence,




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    155
when it was found that age after age and nation after nation could, do little more than
copy his incidents, new name his characters,
and paraphrase his sentiments."  It contrasts
in this particular with all the nations of the
Asiatic Continent. They never appeared to
have possessed any body of works worthy to
be termed a Literature.
It is not, however, in Poetry alone that
Greek writers have attained the highest excellence. [Poetry may be supposed to be the
first and natural expression to which the
efforts of a young nation whose imagination
is fresh are directed. But it is not in poetry
alone that the Greeks excelled. The works
of Plato and Aristotle breathe the profoundest philosophy, and are' inspired by deep
thought. The Orations of Demosthenes continue to rank as the most finished specimens of
eloquence that the World has ever witnessed.
In all these departments of literature the Greeks
appear to have attained at once perfection.
From what source they imbibed their thoughts,
or in what school they acquired their inimitable grace and beauty of language, must remain a mystery to us. Of this we may be
quite certain —that it was from  no Asiatic
fountain. The same sudden and immediate




156    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
attainment of the highest standard  of excellence is noticed in Sculpture. If, according
to Johnson, succeeding poets have never been
able to surpass Homer, the sculptors who
have followed his footsteps for 3,000 years
have never been able to equal Phidias. Nothing can be more marked than the distinction
between the Greek type,' and the character
of any Eastern nation we have ever known.
No progress of civilization, no cultivation of
the taste or of the understanding, has ever
enabled succeeding nations to surpass these
exquisite models.
In Politics, in Laws, and in Government,
the European element was equally discernible.
The vices inherent in all Democracies soon
destroyed indeed these brilliant little Communities; but they exhibited varieties and
energies during their brief existence' quite
foreign to every Oriental nation of which
we have any knowledge. The love of liberty
or the sentiment of patriotism is utterly unknown to the Asiatic. When Greece was
absorbed into the Roman Empire, and that
great and glorious nation gradually raised
itself to supreme power through ages of sustained effort, the same thoroughly European
character was reproduced; indeed, of the two




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    157
nations the Roman was perhaps the more intensely European. If less brilliant, if less
deeply imbued with the sentiment of beauty,
his was the more robust and firmer nature.
During the long series of ages in which he
was gradually arising to supreme power he
enjoyed the advantage, which I believe the
Englishman alone has ever shared with him,
of a political constitution in which the aristocratic' and the democratic elements were combined; and it is probably to the durability
which resulted from this union that he owes
his twelve hundred years of national existence.
But all the features of his national character,
all the records of his glorious history, bear
the unmistakable impress of the European
type. We can trace in the Roman qualities
akin to our own. We can thoroughly sympathize with his lofty patriotism, and his indomitable constancy of purpose. We feel that
he is made of the same materials as ourselves.
But we are sensible that we have nothing in
common with the Chinese or the Persians at
any period of their history. From the earliest
origin of the European Nations, at least from
the earliest time when any knowledge of their
existence has been handed down to us, we find
them exhibiting a marked difference from,




158     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
and evincing an incontestable moral and intellectual superiority over, the older civilizations of Asia. It is not merely that they have
surpassed them, but that the whole of their
national character is essentially different.
This is shown in their writings, in their political institutions, and in their history.
Another great event-the greatest in. the
life of mankind-served at once to exhibit and
to complete the essential difference between
them. Christianity had its birth on Asiatic
ground, but the seed never germinated there.
Any considerable sect of Jewish disciples does
not appear to have survived the age of the
Apostles. Hulnanly speaking, we should be
led to suppose that had it been confined to
the limits of Judea, it would have been crushed
by the persecuting influence of the Pharisees.
But this precious seed was transplanted to a
more genial clime. Blighted in the land of
its birth, it sprang up with vigor and luxuriance in the soil of Europe. Asia rejected,
Europe claimed it. From the moment that,
under the authority of St. Paul, the converts
to the new Faith were absolved from obedience to the Levitical Law, the purely Jewish
portion were speedily absorbed into the universal character of the new Faith. The diffi



PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    159
culties and obstacles which it met with at
home were no longer encountered in the new
and larger theatre to which it was transferred.
The Romans and the Greeks had little intolerance either in their nature or their policy.
The fanciful and poetical Mythology which
they had moulded into a religion, did not
sink deeply enough into their minds to inspire
either zeal or enthusiasm, and in the eyes
of the philosophic and educated classes was
regarded only as a graceful superstition. The
readers of Cicero, the disciples of Plato, and
above all of Socrates, were not contented with
this shadowy and unsubstantial worship. The
upper and more educated classes were immersed in the speculations of the Greek
philosopher. Far fromn- repulsing with intolerance any form of religion which addressed
itself to the understanding, they were quite
ready to accept or at least to examine it. The
fables of their pagan deities were utterly
insufficient to content that craving after religion which is a necessity of our nature. When,
therefore, the earnest teachings of St. Paul
were addressed to them they met with no
unwilling listeners. The temper in which
the governor Festus replied to him, " Almost
thou persuadest me to be a Christian," is




160    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
descriptive of the attitude in which the more
educated portion of the Greeks and Romans
were disposed to meet him. ~ It is, I think, a
mistake to suppose that the writings or the
influence of the Greek philosophers were hostile to the introduction of Christianity. On
the contrary, they prepared the way for it,
and there is much in the teachings of Socrates
not far removed from the spirit of the Gospel.
When, therefore, the new  doctrines were
preached to theme there were many who were
ready to embrace a belief which at once satisfied their understandings and warmed their
hearts.
Thus the purifying and ennobling Faith
of Christ advanced, until it triumphed in its
final adoption by that great Empire which,
although verging to decay, was still the Mistress of the World. Its reception by the
Northern warriors ulnder whose prowess Rome
fell, is, perhaps, more difficult of explanation.
In. one respect they may have resembled the
Romans; they do not appear to have entertained any strong attachment to the gloomy
superstitions of their ancestors, or to have
numbered among their population any powerful priestly class. Thor and Odin seem not
to have been regarded with muchl deeper




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    161
respect than were Jupiter and Saturn. They
might naturally also have been attracted
toward the opinions and faith of a polished
people, and might, even while they conquered,
still have looked up to them as their guides.
Perhaps, also, a more direct, though invisible,
influence by the agency of Providence, might
have guarded the religion through this period
of danger and transition.  Whatever may
have been the causes, the fact is indisputable,
that Christianity, far from sharing the overthrow of the Roman Empire, was embraced
by its conquerors, whose power gave it a
wider circulation and a new impetus.
While such was the victorious course of
Christianity in the Western World, its fortunes inAsia were very different. Although
it seems to have become established in the
maritime cities of Antioch and Alexandria,
which were more Greek than Asiatic in their
composition, it never appears to have penetrated far into the interior. It certainly never
reached either Persia or India, and whatever
footing it may have gained in Syria or Asia
Minor was utterly destroyed by the sweeping
tide of MIohammedanism.  Nor has Christianity, during succeeding centuries, ever accomplished any settlement on the whole of




162     PROGRESS AND -CIVILIZATION.
that vast Continent. Buddhist, Bramin, and
Mohammedan,.have equally adhered with obstinate tenacity to the traditions of their fathers, and utterly rejected all the efforts which
the zeal of missionaries has prompted for their
conversion. Among all those Religions the
only one which assumed an aggressive attitude
was the Mohammedan; and it is worthy of
remark, that the burst of fanatical zeal, with
which the followers of the Prophet were inspired at its commencement, is the only strong
impulse which ever appears to have raised the
Oriental mind from its passive and inert state.
They poured like an avalanche upon Western
Asia, wrested all Northern Africa (the land of
Tertullian andy St. Augustine) from the faith
of Christianity, and turned the flank of Europe by their subjugation of Spain. For a
moment the fate of the Civilized World seemed
doubtful. The Battle of Tours decided the
question, and assured the ascendency of Christianity and of Europe.  The Moslem  tide
ebbed as rapidly as it had risen; and it is not
without a feeling of surprise that we recall to
memory, that, for several hundred years afterward, the Moorish Caliphs retained possession
of the fairest Provinces of Spain, and that
even to -the present day, with the single ex



PROGRESS. AND CIVILIZATION.    163
ception of the recent French conquest of
Algiers, the MIussulman continues to rule in
the whole extent of Northern Africa, from
Morocco to Cairo. The European character
appears to have received a new and importantelement through the bands of hostile warriors
who overthrew the Roman Empire. It was
the spirit of Chivalry, at the foundation of
which lay a high principle of honor, and an
intense sense of personal dignity and selfrespect. Mr. Burke remarks, that the Euro-.
pean nature was composed of two elements,
"the spirit of Religion, and the spirit of a
gentleman." These seem to have been blended
in the composition of these fierce warriors, and
to have infused a moral elevation into their
otherwise rude and savage character. The
Feudal System, assailed by the modern philosophy of the French school, is the source of all
the evils which they conceive press upon- society. I believe that we owe to it much that
is great and-generous in our nature, and that
to it may be traced much of that spirit of
freedom which pervades our modern institutions. "The generous loyalty to rank and
sex," in Mr. Burke's immortal passage, embodied two great and fundamental ideas associated with the institutions of chivalry. In a




164     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
rude age the deference, and almost worship,
paid to women, and the customs which placed
their weakness under thesafeguard of knightly
honor, raised at once the tone of sentiment
and morals. WVhile all the Eastern nations
withdrew their women from all contact with
society, secluded them in harems, and sometimes treated them as slaves, the gallant chivalry of Western Europe placed them  at the
head of society, in the foremost rank of honor,
and protected them with the rampart of their
swords. Thus from the bosom of these nations, accounted as barbarous by the more polished Greeks and Romans, sprang a purifying
and ennobling influence to which they had
been strangers. It is in great part through
these influences that the germs of -a higher
civilization were preserved during the long
eclipse which preceded the revival of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The great
movement of that period was imparted to a
society which these influences had rendered
worthy to receive and extend it. Four centuries have passed since that great epochfour centuries which, by their achievements in
art, in science, and in learning, have completely changed the position of Man upon this
globe. It is needless to enumerate themn; they




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    165
must be present to the minds of all persons
of ordinary education. Half the World was
then unknown to us: every portion of it has
now been explored, surveyed, and mapped.
Millions of colonists have planted new empires in what were unknown wildernesses.
The Arts and Sciences have explored the
secrets of nature, and extended our knowledge
to worlds beyond our own. All this vast
movement which originated in these centuries
is continuing in our own time with unabated
force. It seems startling to reflect that, in the
latter half of the last century, just a hundred
years ago, New Zealand was unknown, and
the bare existence, but not the size or extent,
of Australia, recognized. It is curious to refer
to the charts published previous to the voyages
of Captain Cook, and to observe how many
blanks on the surface of the globe exist in
them  at this comparatively recent period,
within the recollection of the grandfathers,
and even of some of the fathers, of living
men. Within the last forty years, as I had
occasion to notice in a previous passage, steamboats, and railways, and electric telegraphs,
have quite changed the position of man. Our
last inventions seem to be of weapons and engines, which have revolutionized the art of




166    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
war. One effect of these inventions is to
place the superiority of Europeans over all
the less civilized nations of the globe upon an
unassailable height. The suppression of the
Indian Mutiny was much to be ascribed to the
perfection of our Enfield rifles and improved
artillery. The same auxiliaries gave us an
easy triumph over the Chinese in the march
to Pekin, and the Abyssinians were destroyed
by the fire of our troops, without being able
to take a single life in our ranks.
Now there is an important deduction to
be drawn from this brief retrospect. When
we speak of the Progress of Mankind, of the
advance of Civilization, we in fact mean the
progress of the European portion of the human race, and the advance of Civilization
among their populations. All this astonishing advance can be clearly traced to the commencement of the European nations: to the
Greeks, to the Romans, and to the European
States. No one can suppose that since the
imperfect rudiments of civilized society which
existed at a remote period among the Asiatic
people any substantial progress whatever has
been made by any other race, except the European. Of all the great discoveries, of all
the inventions which have illustrated this long




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    167
period of three thousand years, not one can
be traced to an Asiatic or still less to any other origin. The Progress of Mankind means
the progress of the European branch of the
human family.
The most considerable advance in this
whole period may certainly be dated from
the revival of learning in the fourteenth century; and this is so great that the European
nations of the present epoch may almost be
ranked as beings of a higher order to those
of the preceding periods. This rate of progress seems to be going on in an accelerating
ratio, and there is no ground whatever to suppose that it will be arrested. The very increase of power which each new discovery or
invention gives to Man is a fresh lever by
which he can force his way to another stage
of development. There is no ground for supposing that either the resources of Nature or
the invention of [Man are exhausted. There
are probably many secrets within her bosom
quite as valuable and available for Man's use
as the Magnetic needle or the: passage of the
Electric fluid along an: iron wire. It is quite
possible that we may discover or invent a
motive power as strong as that of steam, but
more portable, cheaper, and more easily adapt



168    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
ed to manual use; vapors affording a more
brilliant light than gas or lime light may be
found out; agents as valuable as chloroform
in relieving pain or in curing disease may be
discovered. Mechanical inventions are every
day produced, abridging labor and extending
the empire of Man over the material world.
We see that there is still a vast area on the
globe unoccupied, or only partly inhabited by
Man, and the rapidly increasing population
will there find space to expand.
The progress of Man has-not been altogether confined to the material world, although
I heartily concur in Mr. Buckle's view that
abstract Mietaphysics have been absolutely stationary, and that we know no more about the
nature of the Soul, the principle of Life, or
any other question of abstruse Metaphysics
than the Greeks did in the time of Plato.
There are, however,- some branches of moral
and political science in which great and important progress has been made. Of these
the principal one is the science of Political
Economy, which has only existed about a
hundred years, as it may be fairly dated to
have commenced with Adam Smith.  This
science has thrown the strongest light upon
many questions of politics and of government,,




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    169
and is the right hand of the political statesman. Whether considered in that branch of
it which deals with the increase and distribution of wealth, or with that still more important part which relates to the laws regulating
population, it affords the clearest insight into
the internal mechanism of society. It not only
indicates the principles of a sound policy, but it
furnishes the correction to a number of those
plausible fallacies which are always misleading Mankind. It is unfortunate that while
those among its principles which appear to
favor popular theories are greedily adopted,
the sound Conservative truths of which it is
the depository are passed over altogether.
The repeal of the Corn Laws was eagerly
embraced, and Mr. Bright and ~Mr. Cobden
almost deified; but when the doctrines of
Political Economy were applied to demonstrate the fallacies of Communism or the deterioration caused by indiscriminate relief, it
met with no such willing converts.
The justice of this view is strongly illustrated, at the present moment in the controversies which are raging between Capital and
Labor, and in the attempts which are made
to alter the natural balance between them by
artificial limitations. The leading principle
8




170     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
in Political Economy is perhaps contained
in the celebrated answer of the French merchants to the Minister Colbert, in the reign
of Louis XIV., " Iaisez-nous fazire.'"  The
cardinal article in the creed of theo political
economist is that all the constituents in the
production of wealth find their own level and
adjust- themselves, and that any attempt to
interrupt their natural course is either vain or
mischievous. Many of these errors are to be
traced to that thoroughly erroneous principle
of the natural equality of Mankind, a principle which strongly exemplifies the pernicious
effect of a fundamental error in vitiating a
whole train of deductions and in rendering
a theory thoroughly unsound in all its consequences because of the rottenness which is
seated at its core. That we shall find proofs
of this in the latest achievements of human
progress is as clear and abundant as in the
earliest steps of Man.
Let us take that great invention of our
own day- the construction of Railways.
When the single mind of George Stephenson
elaborated the plan of the Manchester and
Liverpool Railway, or of the other lines which
his prolific and calculating brain perfected, he
worked alone. The conception was the pro



PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION,   171
duce of his powerful intellect; and if to him
we add the names of Brunel and two or three
others of the greatest and most eminent engineers, we shall find that the whole Railway
system of England was put in motion" by a
very few master-minds. Yet what a prodigious amount of labor was required to execute
them! How many navvies have toiled in
tunnels or in cuttings and embankments!
We have most of us probably watched the
progress of some of these works; there is a
set of powerful men in their shirts with their
bare muscular arms - engaged in filling wheelbarrows with soil, trundling them  along a
narrow plank, tilting them  over at the end
of it, and returning with their barrows to repeat the same operation.  It is difficult to
conceive any work of man requiring less the
use of his mental powers. The operation is
merely mechanical, and I am not sure if a
well-trained orang-outang might not be competent to perform it. Nothing is required but
bodily strength; a navvy need not write or
read or know his multiplication table; education, as far as the performance of his task is
concerned, is useless and superfluous. In the
construction of one of the great lines of railway thousands of men are so employed for




172    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
months and even years. Without their aid
the Railway could never have been made,
and the mental creations of Stephenson or
Brunel would have remained as unsubstantial
as the baseless fabric of a vision, and yet all
this amount of manual labor has been set in
action by the mind of one man. I think we
may venture to extend the application of this
example, and to lay it down as a principle
that the progress of Science in its application
to human wants augments the demand and
necessity for manual labor in a far more
rapid ratio than it does the demand for intellectual qualifications. The ingenuity of Walton and Arkwright, and the high mental
power engaged in the construction of their
machines, abridged the cost of production and
gave room for the employment of millions of
hands in the manufacturing industry. Yet
what can be more thoroughly unintellectual
than the occupation of a weaver sitting at his
loom and passing years in sending his shuttle
to and fro? Those modern disciples of progress who conceive that they have in Education a panacea for raising all Mankind to the
same level, forget that acquirements when
not used are lost. A weaver can move his
shuttle, a navvy can fill and empty his bar



PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.     173
row, without the slightest occasion for, or in
deed the possibility of using the arts of reading  and writing.  WVhat is never used is
speedily forgotten, and although good fortune
or superior natural ability may enable an individual here and there to profit by those acquirements, yet the probability is that a very
small residuum  will remain to the masses
after a few years of toil in the performance
of these mere manual tasks. Yet it is imperative that they should be performed or the
civilized world would perish, and the truth
becomes apparent, that the amount of mere
manual labor, requiring the smallest amount
of mental capacity, increases in a far more
rapid ratio than do those offices which demand even a very moderate exercise of the
intellectual faculties.  The tendency of the
advance of Civilization is rather to widen
than to lessen the lines of demarcation, which.
divide the possessors of intelligence and capital from the mere laboring class, and all attempts to efface these distinctions by the operation of compulsory laws and artificial restrictions may retard the march of Progress,
but will inevitably fail of their object. The
political economist is no friend to a crowded
statute book, he has little belief in the efficacy




174    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
of compulsory enactments or arbitrary interferences with the natural course of events.
He appeals to the experience of the last four
hundred years, and points out that while
Governments have been occupying themselves with little effect, or with an injurious
effect, in legislating on measures which have
chiefly for their object the possession or the
transfer of political power, those great social
movements, that mighty spread of scientific
knowledge combined with its practical application, which have changed the face of the
world and the position of Man on it, have
gone on quietly in effecting their wonderful
changes unperceived or disregarded by the
rulers of nations.
The historian who should hereafter narrate
the events of the present century would, if he
followed the example of his predecessors, dwell
with minute accuracy upon the historical
events which have been crowded into this
remarkable period.  He would describe the
whirlwind of the first French Revolution, he
would delight to dwell upon the astonishing
career of the First Napoleon, he would narrate
the successive Revolutions which have convulsed France, and would analyze the provisions and endeavor to trace the effect of our




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.     175
own two Reform Bills, but he would probably
pass over with a cursory notice the invention
and application of Steam, the Electric Telegraph, and all the other marvels of Science,
which have transformed the whole state and
condition of Man, and effected a change as
complete as if a new living being had been
created. These changes steal upon us im
perceptibly, they are heralded by no fierce
contests for power, they involve no sudden
destruction of whole classes, no violent convulsions of society; at their commencement
they scarcely attract notice, they steal on
gradually, and it is not till their operation has
become felt in its extended effects that the
immense influence it is exerting upon the
destinies of Mankind become slowly apparent.
There is another happy characteristic in this
march of scientific progress-that in its results
it is always beneficial. It is perpetually adding to the aggregate of human power, wealth,
and enjoyment, and it never reaches its end
through human suffering. It uses no guillotine, it establishes no conscription, it plunges
into no wars, it prosecutes its peaceful contests
by the universal assent of all populations.
We are not aware of the benefits it is confer
ring upon us till we suddenly awake and find




1T6     PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
ourselves richer, wiser, happier and better than
we were.
The discoveries and the progress of the last
four hundred years have raised the human race
(or at least the European branch of it) to an
elevation so infinitely superior to that of any
other known living being that it is not presumption to infer that he is the main object
of God's providence on earth. Nowhere do
we see any rival to him, and the whole scheme
of creation, as far as this planet is concerned,
appears to have him for its end and object.
There is a tendency which is much to be
deprecated in modern Religion and in modern
Science to diverge somewhat from each other.
Religion perhaps inclines to become narrow,
exclusive, dogmatic and polemical; while in
Science there is a disposition to refer every
thing to secondary causes and to reduce Religion into a cold abstraction in the place of a
warm and living sentiment. Each of these
tendencies is to be deplored.
The discoveries of modern Science by their
comprehensiveness afford a Key to enable us
better to conceive the mighty scheme of Providence; the coherence of the different parts,
the harmony of the whole, the adaptation of
means to an end-afford additional proofs of




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    117
the unity of the design and of the Wisdom,
Power, and Goodness of its Great Author.
Let us suppose one of the Sages of antiquity,
or one of the early Fathers —Socrates or St.
Chrysostom'-tracing out or trying to draw the
plans of Omnipotence. How scanty and imperfect would have been their materials, how
unconscious they would have been of all the
manifestations of the Deity displayed in the
Solar System; how ignorant of the wonders of
chemical and mechanical Science, and of their
applicability to the wants of Man; how ignorant of the Geography and of the various conditions of this globe itself; how totally unacquainted with all the secrets of antecedent states
of the Earth which Geology dimly and imperfectly reveals to us-how difficult for them to
have proved the vast capabilities of Man, or his
steady progress to a higher grade in the scale
of the Creation, which his acquirements during
between two and three thousand years have
proved. Even Paley, writing so near our own
times that he is almost a contemporary, wanted
the proofs in favor of his principles of Natural
Theology which these later times would have
afforded. It is as if some great and glorious
landscape (we will say the first view of Switzerland and the Alps from the descent of the




178    PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.
Jura above Jex) was gradually revealed to the
traveller by the dispersion of the morning
mists.  First, he would catch the rich and
varied landscape at his feet, then gradually
the bright, crystal reflection of the Lake of
Geneva; slowly and imperceptibly would lie
discern the grand and picturesque forms of the
lower ranges of the mountains of Savoy;' and,
lastly, scarce believing his eyes, scarcely crediting that the giant glittering masses piercing
the skies belonged really to this earth, he
would gaze upon the sublime spectacle of
Mont Blanc and the highest range of the Alps.
Thus we of the nineteenth century have unveiled before us much of that mighty scheme
which earlier generations could never have
suspected. We are enabled in some degree to
measure its grandeur, its immensity, and,
above all, its Unity. We must feel convinced
that to Astronomy, Geology, and the whole
circle of the'Sciences from those which can
by Microscopic power scrutinize the minutest
object in terrestrial economy to those laws
which embrace the Universe-the same stamp
of Omnipotence is affixed.  We may gain
additional ground for the belief that the Ifuman Mind, which has been so cherished and
favored by its Divine Creator, may find addi




PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION.    179
tional confirmation of those hopes which He
has given us, that our living participation in
this great scheme does not end here, but that
we shall be sharers in the destinies of that
Immortal Creation of which it is given to us
at this advanced stage of our progress to know
so large a portion.
THE END.