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MRS. BARNARD PIERCE
MRS. CARL HAESSLER
MRS. HoWARD LUCE
MISS MARGARET KNIGHT
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VESTIGES
OF
THE NATURAL HISTORY
01'
CREATION
MWTH AN INTRODUC7ION BY HENRY MOR~LEY
LL.D.. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
GLASGOW AND NEW' YORK
1887




MIORLE


RY'S UNIVERSAL LIBRA;RY.


I. '
2.,


3.
4.
5.6.,
7.8.
9.
10. I
II. J
I2..
13.,
14.  4
I5.
I6.
17.
I8.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.


Sheridan's Plays.             25 & 26. Don Quixote.
Plays from  Moliere. By       27. Burlesque Plays and Poems.
English Dramatists.          28. Dante's Divine Comedy.
Marlowe's Faustus and              LONGFELLOW'S Translation.
Goethe's Faust.              29. Goldsmith's Vicar of WakeChronicle of the Cid.             field, Plays, and Poems.
Rabelais'Gargantua and the    30. Fables and Proverbs from
Heroic Deeds of Pantagno el.      the Sanskrit. (Hilopfadesa.)
lachiavelli's Prince.         31. Lamb's Essays of Elia.
Bacon's Essays.               32. The History of Thomas
Defoe's Journal of the             Ellwood.
Plague Year.                 33. Emerson's Essays, &6c.
Locke on Civil Government     34. Southey's Life of Nelson.
and Filmer's "Patriarcha."   35. De   Quincey's   Confessions
Butler'sAnalogyofRelzi ion.        of an Opium-Eater, 6c.
Dryden's Virgil.              36. Stories of Ireland. By Miss
Scott's Demonology and             EDGEWORTH.
Witchcraft...Frere's Aristophanes:
Herrick's Hesperides.              Acharnians, Knights, Birds.
Coleridge's Table- Talk.      38. B'urke's Speeches andLetters.
Boccaccio's Decameron.        39. Thomas     t Kempis.
Sterne's Tristram Shandy.     40. -'opular Songs of Ireland.
Chapman's Homer's Iliad.      41. Poller's AEschylus.
lMedieval Tales.              42. Goethe's Faust: Part     II.
Voltaire's Candide, and             ANSTER'S Translation.
yohnson's Rasselas.          43. Famous Pamphlets.
Jonson's Plays and Poems.     44. Francklin's Sophocles.
Hobbes's Leviathan.           45. 1A. G. Lewis's     Tales  of
Samuiel Butler's Hudibras.          Terror and Wonder.
Ideal Cotmonzwealths.         46. Vestiges   of the Naatural
Cavendish's Life of Wolsey.        History oJ Creaton.
" Marvels of clear type and general neatness."-Daily Telegraph.




INTRODUCTION.
ROBERT ClIAiiBERS published his "Vestiges of the Natural
History of Creation" in the year I844. He did not put his
name to the book, because, as he said afterwards in a volume
of ' Explanations," published in 1846, his "design was not only
to be personally removed from all praise or censure which it
might evoke, but to write no more on the subject." Except
the volume of "Explanations: a Sequel to 'Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation,' by the Author of that Work,"
his subsequent writing upon Science was confined to a book
on "Ancient Sea Margins," published in I848, to which he
signed-his name.
Robert Chambers was a man with keen powers of intellectual
inquiry, and a strong interest in scientific speculation. This
had caused his election in 1840 to the Fellowship of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, upon the nomination of Sir Charles Bell.
He took a particular interest in Geology, and made many
excursions by shores of rivers and lakes, and by sea-coasts, in
search of evidence of changes made on the earth's surface by
lapse of time. He went in 1848 to Switzerland, and in I849
to Norway, to study glacial action. But Robert Chambers had
yet stronger interest in the development of man. This drew
him to a study of literature as the voice of life, and caused him
to pay special attention to the records of earlier forms of civilisation. Such widespreading activity of mind Robert Chambers had
in common with his brother William, though William was more
essentially the man of business, and Robert more essentially
the author. It caused the two brothers to develop their business
relations with literature, from a boardful of second-hand books




6


INTRODUCTIONA


by the wayside to the creation of a great firm, gathering a band
of writers to its aid in producing, printing, and distributing
journals and books by millions through the world, all of them
wholesome and instructive, all aiding in the development of
men by healthy training of their minds.
When a man does only one thing, however stupid he may be,
if he keep on doing it, there are many ready to accept him as a
master in his art. If he have a wide interest in all that touches
him as manl; if he fix his mind with a keen intellectual activity
on whatever is most worth attention in the world about him;
if he be as ready to study the great poet of his country and
write a Life of Burns, as to inquire into the life of Nature and
explore sea margins; if it be at the same time known that he
is shrewd and energetic as a man of business, and head of a
great commercial firm; if he be gifted also with skill as a
writer, which he is proud to use in bringing knowledge of all
kinds within reach of the half-taught-what is the world to
make of him, the world that wants for every man a neat label
devised in about ten words of a simple sentence which shall
represent what is to be said of him by those who wish to appear
well informed?
There are few things in the world, if any-certainly there is
not a man or woman in the world-whose nature can be told
or character described in a few sentences. To understand a
man fully, we must know all that he did and why each thing
was done, all that he wrote and why each piece was written;
how the surroundings of his life affected tone and character of
thought or action; what, in each instance, determined action,
and at every stage of life what was his age; for the wisdom of a
man of thirty-five may be the folly of a man of seventy. And
when all is known that we can know of another human worker
-at most half the truth mixed with a little error-the result is
a body of impressions that no label can express. We may talk
of Robert Chambers's capacity in any way we please; call him
a Popular Writer who might have been a famous Geologist, if
he had not been a Publisher or a Man of Letters; say he might
have been a famous Man of Letters, if he had not been a
Publisher or a Man of Science, and if his desire for the world's
welfare had not led him to address the million instead of the
select critical few. It really does not matter what we say of




INTRODUCTION.


7


him, or of any writer, if we have not actually read his books;
and if we have read them, it still does not matter what we say,
if the opinion be one borrowed from without. A man has no
opinions but those which are naturally formed within him and
his very own.
All manner of opinion from without interfered in 1844, especially in Scotland, with the fair reading of a book like this of
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." It was met by
a storm of prejudice that has now rolled away. It was a book
written by a religious, earnest man who had seen and felt the
harmony of Order in the works of God. He was driven to
explain to those who misunderstood him, "The book is not
primarily designed, as many have intimated in their criticisms,
and as the Title might be thought partly to imply, to establish
a new theory respecting the origin of animated nature; nor are
the chief arguments directed to that point. The object is one
to which the idea of an organic creation in the manner of
natural law is only subordinate and ministrative, as likewise
are the nebular hypothesis and the doctrine of a fixed natural
order in mind and morals. This purpose is to show that the
whole revelation of the works of God, presented to our senses
and reason, is a system based on what we are compelled, for
want of a better term, to call LAW; by which, however, is not
meant a system independent or exclusive of Deity, but one
which only proposes a certain mode of His working."  To this
fact, he said, science had long pointed, though it had hardly
anywhere been broadly and fully contemplated.
Robert Chambers was born in July 1802; Charles Darwin, in
February I809. " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation "
appeared in I844; "The Origin of Species " in I859. Darwin
prefaced his book with a long list of the pointings of science to
the generalisation on which he insisted. But Charles Darwin's
generalisation, worked out by a mind fully trained to science,
and with rare and special power, was for a long time subject to
as grave misunderstanding as the argument of the Vestiges."
Yet, whether theories of development be right or wrong, certain
it is that those who accept them do not touch one vital point of
Christian faith. They can only add strength to our sense of
the infinite Wisdom of the Creator. Do we deny our Maker
because each one of us is developed from the germ to the infant,




8


INTOD UCTION.


and again from the weak infant and its germs of undeveloped
faculties and powers, to the strength and wisdom of the man,
who yet looks forward to the passage into higher life to come?
Do we not rather wonder and adore P And if the great universe
without us was so framed that-to take an extreme viewall we see has, like man, been developed also from one germ, in
sublimest order by fixed processes which we call Laws, have
we not still more reason to wonder and adore? God works in
a mysterious way His wonders to perform, and we cannot by
wisdom search Him out. Our knowledge has its bounds; but
we do know that there can be no law without a lawgiver. We
may speculate idly, and opinion may go far astray. No one
man's ways, whatever light beat on them, are fully comprehended
by his fellow-men; and when we seek to trace the ways of God
in shaping the wide Earth He gives us to till and inhabit, our
powers of comprehension, great as they may seem to us, cannot
reach far. But the earth was given us to till not only with the
plough and spade. All knowledge and wisdom of man is
quarried out of the surrounding world, when we apply the
minds God gave us to the traces of His Wisdom with which we
are surrounded. The Laws of Nature that we seek to find are
parts of the Divine Wisdom, which can be variously applied to
our well-being when they have been discovered and made part of
human knowledge. Bridge, mine, or tower, steam-engine or telescope, every work of applied science has this source. There is a
revelation also in Nature, as Richard Hooker, on behalf of the
Church, wisely told those who decried the use of Reason. The
great harmonies of Nature yield us knowledge fruitful towards
the development of man. Not to inquire is not to obey the will
of the Creator, is to refuse submission to the hand of God, who
also in this way shapes us to His image.
H. 1\.
January 1887.




CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE BODIES OF SPACE-T'IEIR ARRANGEMIENTS AND FORMATION  II
CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTT, AN-D OF THlE OTHER
BODIES OF SPACE.......29
THE EARTH FORMED-ERA OF THE PRIMARtY lt(OCKS,         41
COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE-SEA. PLANTS, CORALS, ETC.. 48
ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE-FISIIES ABUNDANT  5. 56
SECON'DARY ROCKS-ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORIMATIONLAND FORME)-COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS.      64
ERA OF TIlE NEW RED SANI)STONE-TERRESTRIAL ZOOLOGY COMMENCES WITH REPTILES-FIRST TRACES OF BIRDS.. 77
ERA OF THE OOLITE-COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMAL1A.
ERA OF THE CRETACEOUS FORMATION....      93
ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMIATION —MAIALA  ABUNI.AINT. IO
ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS-COMMENCEMENT OF PRESENT SPECIES........ 106
GENERAL CONSIDElRATIONS RESPECTING THE IORIGIN OF0 THE ANIMATED TRIBES..,..... 114
PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING TIlE ORIGIN CF THE
ANIMATED TRIBES..... I28
HYPOTHESIS OF TIE ])EVELOPME'NT OF TIIE VEGETABLE AND
ANIMAL KINGDOMnS...  I. 145




1O                     CONTENTS.
PAGE
M1ACLE'A V >YSTEM ti'F ANIMATED) NArUITE-THIS SYSTEM CONSIDJERED IN CONNEXION WITH THE PROGRIESS OF OR(OANIC
CREATION, AND) AS IPINDICATINCG THE' -NATURZAL STATU'S OF
MrA. N... 178
EARLY HISTORY OF MAINKJI.) 2.-,
MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.S.....239
PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION OF THIE AIM-ATRI) CREATION 265
NOTE CONCLUSORY.... 2S4




VESTIGES
OF THE
NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
THE   BODIES OF SPACE.
THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION.
IT is familiar knowledge that the earth which we inhabit
is a globe of somewhat less than 8000 miles in diameter,
being one of a series of eleven which revolve at different distances around the sun, and some of which have satellites
in like manner revolving around them. The sun, planets,
and the satellites, with the less intelligible orbs termed
comets, are comprehensively called the solar system, and
if we take as the uttermost bounds of this system the
orbit of Uranus (though the comets actually have a wider
range), we shall find that it occupies a portion of space
not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles
in diameter. The mind fails to form an exact notion of
a portion of space so immense; but some faint idea of it
may be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest racehorse ever known had begun to traverse it, at full speed,




VESTIGES OF THE


at the time of the birth of Moses, he would only as yet
have accomplished half his journey.
It has long been concluded amongst astronomers, that
the stars, though they only appear to our eyes as brilliant
points, are all to be considered as suns, representing so
many solar systems, each bearing a general resemblance
to our own. The stars have a brilliancy and apparent
magnitude which we may safely presume to be in proportion to their actual size and the distance at which
they are placed from us. Attempts have been made to
ascertain the distance of some of the stars by calculations
founded on parallax, it being previously understood that
if a parallax of so much as one second, or the 36ooth of
a degree, could be ascertained in any one instance, the
distance might be assumed in that instance as not less
than 19,200,000 millions of miles! In the case of the
most brilliant star, Sirius, even this minute parallax
could not be found; from which, of course, it was to be
inferred that the distance of that star is something beyond the vast distance which has been stated. In some
others, on which the experiment has been tried, no
sensible parallax could be detected; from which the same
inference was to be made in their case. But a sensible
parallax of about one second has been ascertained in the
case of the double star, da, of the constellation of the
Centaur,* and one of the third of that amount for the
double star, 61 Cygni; which gave reason to presume
that the distance of the former might be about nineteen
millions of millions of miles, and the latter of much
greater amount. If we suppose that similar intervals
exist between all the stars, we shall readily see that the
space occupied by even the comparatively small number
* By Mr. Henderson, Professor of Astronomy in the Edinburgh
University, and Lieutenant Meadows.




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.


I3


visible to the naked eye must be vast beyond all powers
of conception.
The number visible to the eye is about three thousand;
but when a telescope of small power is directed to the
heavens, a great number more come into view, and the
number is ever increased in proportion to the increased
power of the instrument.  In one place, where they are
more thickly sown than elsewhere, Sir William Herschel
reckoned that fifty thousand passed over a field of view
two degrees in breadth in a single hour.  It was first
surmised by the ancient philosopher, Democritus, that the
faintly white zone which spans the sky under the name
of the Milky Way, might be only a dense collection of
stars too remote to be distinguished. This conjecture
has been verified by the instruments of modern astronomers, and some speculations of a most remarkable kind
have been formed in connection with it. By the joint
labours of the two Herschels, the sky has been "gauged"
in all directions by the telescope, so as to ascertain the
conditions of different parts with respect to the frequency
of the stars. The result has been a conviction that, as
the planets are parts of solar systems, so are solar systems parts of what may be called astral systems-that is,
systems composed of a multitude of stars, bearing a certain relation to each other. The astral system to which
we belong, is conceived to be of an oblong, flattish form,
with a space wholly or comparatively vacant in the
centre, while the extremity in one direction parts into
two. The stars are most thickly sown in the outer parts
of this vast ring, and these constitute the Milky Way.
Our sun is believed to be placed in the southern portion
of the ring, near its inner edge, so that we are presented
with many more stars, and see the MIilky Way much
more clearly, in that direction, than towards the north,




I4


VESTIGES OF THE


in which line our eye has to traverse the vacant central
space.   Nor is this all.  Sir William Herschel, so early
as 1783, detected a motion in our solar system     with
respect to the stars, and announced that it was tending
towards the star X, in the constellation Hercules.  This
has been generally verified by recent and more exact calculations,' which fix on a point in Hercules, near tle
star 143 of the r 7th hour, according to Piozzi's catalogue,
as that towards which our sun is proceeding.      It is,
therefore, receding from  the inner edge of the ring.
Mootions of this kind, through such vast regions of space,
must be long in producing any change sensible to the inhabitants of our planet, and it is not easy to grasp their
general character; but grounds have nevertheless been
found for supposing that not only our sun, but the other
suns of the system, pursue a wavy course round the ring
fJrom west to east, crossing and recrossing the middle of
the annular circle. " Some stars will depart more, others
less, from either side of the circumference of equilibrium,
according to the places in which they are situated, and
according to the direction and the velocity with which
they are put in motion.    Our sun is probably one of
those which depart furthest from it, and descend furthest
into the empty space within the ring." t  According to
this view, a time may come when we shall be much more
in the thick of the stars of our astral system than we are
now, and have of course much more brilliant nocturnal
skies; but it may be countless ages before the eyes which
are to see this added resplendence shall exist.
The evidence of the existence of other astral systems
* Made by M. Argelandcr, late director of the Ob ervatory at Abo.
t Professor Mossotti, on the Constitution of the Sidereal System,
of which the Sun forms a rart: Londoz, Edinbuirgl,, ct1d 1)ublin
Pjhilosophica' 3lagazine, February 1843.




NA]TURAL HISTORY OF CREATIO.AN


5


besides our own is much more decided than lnight be expected, when we consider that the nearest of them must
needs be placed at a mighty interval beyond our own.
The elder Herschel, directing his wonderful tube towards
the si8des of our system, where stars aIre planted most
rarely, and raising the powers of the instrument to the
required pitch, was enabled with awe-struck mind to see
suspended in the vast empyrean astral systems, or, as he
called them, firmaments, resembling our own. Like light
cloudlets to a certain power of the telescope, they resolved
themselves, under a greater power, into stars, though
these generally seemed no larger than the finest particles
of diamond dust. The general forms of these systems are
various; but one at least has been detected as bearing a
striking resemblance to the supposed form of our own.
The distances are also various, as proved by the different
degrees of telescopic power necessary to bring them into
view.  The farthest observed by the astronomer were
estimated by him  as thirty-five thousand times more
remote than Sirius, supposing its distance to be about
twenty millions of millions of miles. It would thus
appear, that not only does gravitation keep our earth in
its place in the solar system, and the solar system in its
place in our astral system, but it also may be presumed
to have the mightier duty of preselrving a local arrangement between that astral system and an immensity of
others, through which the imagination is left to wander
on and on without limit or stay, save that which is given
by its inability to grasp the unbounded.
The two Herschels have in succession made some other
remarkable observations on the regions of space.  They
have found within the limits of our astral system, and
generally in its outer fields, a great number of objects
which, from their foggy aprearance, are called nebll;'




i6


VESTIGES OF THE


some of vast extent and irregular figure, as that in the
sword of Orion, which is visible to the naked eye; others
of shape more defined; others, again, in which small
bright nuclei appear here and there over the surface.
Between this last form and another class of objects,
which appear as clusters of nuclei with nebulous matter
around each nucleus, there is but a step in what appears
a chain of related things.  Then, again, our astral space
shows what are called nebulous stars-namely, luminous
spherical objects, bright in the centre and dull towards
the extremities.  These appear to be only an advanced
condition of the class of objects above described. Finally,
nebulous stars exist in every stage of concentration, down
to that state in which we see only a common star with a
slight bnur around it. It may be presumed that all these
are but stages in a progress, just as if, seeing a child, a
boy, a youth, a middle-aged, and an old man together, we
might presume that the whole were only variations of one
being. Are we to suppose that we have got a glimpse of
the process through which a sun goes between its original
condition, as a mass of diffused nebulous matter, and its
full-formed state as a compact body? We shall see how
far such an idea is supported by other things known
with regard to the occupants of space, and the laws of
matter.
A superficial view of the astronomy of the solar system
gives us only the idea of a vast luminous body (the sun)
in the centre, and a few smaller, though various sized
bodies, revolving at different distances around it; some
of these, again, having smaller planets (satellites) revolving around them. There are, however, some general
features of the solar system which, when a profounder
attention makes us acquainted with them, strike the
mind very forcibly.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATIONV.                  17
It is, in the first place, remarkable, that the planets
all move nearly in one plane, corresponding with the
centre of the sun's body.  Next, it is not less remarkable,
that the motion of the sun on its axis, those of the
planets around the sun, and the satellites around their
primaries,* and the motions of all on their axes, are in
one direction-namely, from west to east.   Had all these
matters been left to accident, the chances against the
uniformity which we find would have been, though calculable, inconceivably great.   Laplace states them   at
four millions of millions to one. It is thus powerfully
impressed on us that the uniformity of the motions, as
well as their general adjustment to one plane, must have
been a consequence of some cause acting throughout the
whole system.
Some of the other relations of the bodies are not less
remarkable.    The primary planets show a progressive
increase of bulk and diminution of density, from     the
one nearest to the sun to that which is most distant.
With respect to density alone, we find, taking water as a
measure and counting it as one, that Saturn is -2, or less
than half; Jupiter, In-; Mars, 3-; Earth, 4-; Venus,
51-; Mercury,    9; or about the weight of lead. Then
the distances are curiously relative.  It hlas been found
that if we place the following line of numberso     3     6     12     24     48     96     192,
and ladd four to each, we shall have a series denoting the
* The orbitual revolutions of the satellites of Uranus have not as
yet been clearly scanned. It has been thought that their path is
retrograde compared with the rest. Perhaps this may be owing to a
bouleversement of the primary, for the inclination of its equator to the
ecliptic is admitted to be unusually high; but the subject is altogether so obscure, that nothing can be founded on it.




VESTIGES OF THE


respective distances of the planets from the sun. It will
stand thus4    7     IO    I6    28     52    ioo     96
Mere. Venus. Earth.  Mars.   Jupiter.  Saturn. Uranus.
It will be observedl that the first row of figures goes on
from the second on the left hand in a succession of duplications, or multiplications by two.  Surely there is
here a most surprising proof of the unity which I am
claiming for the solar system. It was remarked when
this curious relation was first detected, that there was a
want of a planet corresponding to 28; the difficulty was
afterwards considered as in a great measure overcome by
the discovery of four small planets revolving at nearly
one mean distance from   the sun, between Mars and
Jupiter.  The distances bear an equally interesting
mathematical relation to the times of the revolutions
round the sun. It has been found that, with respect to
any two planets, the squares of the times of revolution
are to each other in the same proportion as the cubes of
their mean distances-a most surprising result, for the
discovery of which the world was indebted to the illustrious Kepler. Sir John Herschel truly observes-" When
we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system
from the point of view which this relation affords us, it
is no longer mere analogy which strikes us, no longer a
general resemblance among them, as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the sun,
each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected
with it by its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now
perceived to be a true family likeness; they are bound
up in one chain-interwoven in one web of mutual
relation and harmonious agreement, subjected to one
pervading influence, which extends from the centre to
the farthest limits of that great system, of which all of




NA TTURAL HISTORY OF CREATIOAN.             19
them, the Earth included, must henceforth be regarded
as members." *
Connecting what has been observed of the series of
nebulous stars with this wonderful relationship seen to
exist among the constituents of our system, and further
taking advantage of the light afforded by the ascertained
laws of matter, modern astronomers have suggested the
following hypothesis of the formation of that system.
Of nebulous matter in its original state we know too
little to enable us to suggest how nuclei should be established in it. But supposing that, from a peculiarity in
its constitution, nuclei are formed, we know very well
how, by virtue of the law of gravitation, the process of
an aggregation of the neighbouring matter to those
nuclei should proceed, until masses more or less solid
should become detached from the rest. It is a wellknown law in physics that, when fluid matter collects
towards or meets in a centre, it establishes a rotatory
motion. See minor results of this law in the whirlwind
and the whirlpool-nay, on so humble a scale as the
water sinking through the aperture of a funnel. It thus
becomes certain that when we arrive at the stage of a
nebulous star, we-have a rotation on an axis commenced.
Now, mechanical philosophy informs us that, the
instant a mass begins to rotate, there is generated a
tendency to fling off its outer portions-in other words,
the law of centrifugal force begins to operate. There
are, then, two forces acting in opposition to each other,
the one attracting to, the other throwing from, the
centre. While these remain exactly counterpoised, the
mass necessarily continues entire; but the least excess
of the centrifugal over the attractive force would be


* "Astronomy ": Lardner's " CyclopFedia."




20


VESTIGES OF THE


attended with the effect of separating the mass and its
outer parts. These outer parts would, then, be left as
a ring round the central body, which ring would coantinue to revolve with the velocity possessed by the central mass at the moment of separation, but not necessarily participating in any changes afterwards undergone
by that body. This is a process which might be repeated
as soon as a new excess arose in the centrifugal over the
attractive forces working in the parent mass. It might,
indeed, continue to be repeated, until the mass attained
the ultimate limits of the condensation which its constitution imposed upon it. From what cause might arise
the periodical occurrence of an excess of the centrifugal
force? If we suppose the agglomeration of a nebulous
mass to be a process attended by refrigeration or cooling,
which many facts render likely, we can easily understand why the outer parts, hardening under this process,
might, by virtue of the greater solidity thence acquired,
begin to present some resistance to the attractive force.
As the solidification proceeded, this resistance would
become greater, though there would still be a tendency
to adhere. Meanwhile, the condensation of the central
mass would be going on, tending to produce a separation
from what may now be termed the solidifjing crust.
During the contention between the attractions of these
two bodies, or parts of one body, there would probably
be a ring of attenuation between the mass and its crust.
At length, whene the central mass had reached a certain
stage in its advance towards solidification, a separation
would take place, and the crust would become a detached
ring. It is clear, of course, that some law presiding
over the refrigeration of heated gaseous bodies would
determine the stages at which rings were thus formed
and detached. We do not know any such law, but what




NA4TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.


2I


we have seen assures us it is one observing and reducible
to mathematical formulao.
If these rings consisted of matter nearly uniform
throughout, they would probably continue each in its
original form; but there are many chances against their
being uniform in constitution. The unavoidable effects
of irregularity in their constitution would be to cause
them to gather towards centres of superior solidity, by
which the annular form would, of course, be destroyed.
The ring would, in short, break into several masses, the
largest of which would be likely to attract the lesser
into itself. The whole mass would then necessarily
settle into a spherical form  by virtue of the law of
gravitation; in short, would then become a planet revolving round the sun. Its rotatory motion would, of
course, continue, and satellites might then be thrown off
in turn from its body in exactly the same way as the
primary planets had been thrown off from the sun. The
rule, if I can be allowed so to call it, receives a striking
support from what appear to be its exceptions. While
there are many chances against the matter of the rings
being sufficiently equable to remain in the annular form
till they were consolidated, it might nevertheless be
otherwise in some instances; that is to say, the equableness might, in those instances, be sufficiently great.
Such was probably the case with the two rings around
the body of Saturn, which remain a living picture of the
arrangement, if not the condition, in which all the
planetary masses at one time stood. It may also be
admitted that, when a ring broke up, it was possible
that the fragments might spherify separately. Such
seems to be the actual history of the ring between
Jupiter and Mars, in whose place we now find four
planets much beneath the smallest of the rest in size,




22


2VESTIGES OF THE


and moving nearly at the same distance from the sun,
though   in  orbits so elliptical, and of such     different
planes, that they keep apart.
It has been seen that there are mnathematical proportions in the relative distances and revolutions of the
planets of our system.    It has also been suggested that
the periods in the condensation of the nebulous mass, at
which rings were disengaged, must have depended on
some particular crises in the condition of that mass, in
connection with the laws of centrifugal force and attraction.  M. Comte, of Paris, has made some approach to
the verification of the hypothesis, by calculating what
ought to have been the rotation of the solar mass at the
successive times when its surface extended to the various
planetary orbits.   He ascertained that that rotation corresponded in every case with the actual sidereal revolution
of the planets, and that the rotation of the primary planets
in like manner correspondled with the orbitual periods of
the secondaries.  The process by which he arrived at this
conclusion is not to be readily     comprehended by the
unlearned; but men of science allow that it is a powerful
support to the present hypothesis of the formation of
the globes of space."
* M. Comte combined Huygens's theorems for the measure of
centrifugal force with the law of gravitation, and thus formed a
simple fundamental equation between thn duration of the rotation of
what he calls the producing sta-, and the distance of the star produced. The constants of this equation were the radius of the central
star, and the intensity of giravity at its surface, which is a direct consequence of its mass.  It leads directly to the third law of Kepler,
which thus becomes susceptible of being conceived a ~priori in a
cosmogonical point of view. M. Comte first applied it to the moon,
and found, to his great delight, that the periodic time of that satellite
agrees within nn hour or two with the duration which the revolution
of the earth oughl to have had at the time when the lunar distance
formed the limit of the earth's atmosphere. He foun the coincidence




iNA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TIONV                    23
The nebular hypothesis, as it has been called, obtains
a remarkable support in what would at first seem          to
militate against it-the existence in our firmament of
several thousands of solar systems, in which there are
more than one sun.     These are called double and triple
stars.  Some double stars, upon which careful observations have been made, are found to         have a regular
revolutionary motion round each other in ellipses.      This
kind of solar system    has also been observed in what
appears to be its rudimental state, for there are examples
of nebulous stars containing two and three nuclei in near
association.  At a certain point in the confluence of the
matter of these nebulous stars, they would all become
involved in a common revolutionary motion, linked inextricably with each other, though it might be at
sufficient distances to allow of each distinct centre having
afterwards its attendant planets.      We have seen that
the law which causes rotation in the single solar masses,
is exactly the same which produces the familiar pheless exact, but still very striking, in every other case. In those of
the planets he obtained for the duration of the corresponding solar
rotations a value always a little less than their actual periodic times.
'It is remarkable," says he, " that this difference, though increasing
as the planet is more distant, preserves very nearly the same relation
to the corresponding periodic time, of which it commonly forms the
forty-fifth part "-showing, we may suppose, that only some small
elements of the question had been overlooked by the calculator. The
defect changes to an excess in the different systems of the satellites,
where it is proportionally greater than in the planets, and unqeual in
the different systems. "From the whole of these comparisons," 'sys
he, "I deduced the following general result: —Supposing the mathematical limit of the solar atmosphere successively extended to the
regions where the different planets are now found, the duration of the
sun's rotation was;, at each of these epochs, sensibly equal to that
of the actual sidereal revolution of the corresponding planet; and
the same is true for each planetary atmosphere in relation to tlle
different satellites."-Cbors de PhilosolJ2;e Positif,




24


YVES TIGES OF THE


nomenon of a small whirlpool or dimple in the surface
of a strelam. Such dimples are not always single.  Upon
the face of a river where there are various contending
currents, it may often be observed that two or more
dimples are formed near each other with more or less
regularity. These fantastic eddies, which the musing
poet will sometimes watch abstractedly for an hour, little
thinking of the law which produces and connects them,.are an illustration of the wonders of binary and ternary
solar systems.
The nebular hypothesis is, indeed, supported by so
many ascertained features of the celestial scenery, and so
many calculations of exact science, that it may be considered as verging upon the region of our ascertained
truths.  Some further support I trust to bring to it;
but in the meantime, assuming its truth, let us see what
idea it gives of the constitution of what we term the
universe, of the development of its various parts, and of
its original condition.
Reverting to a former illustration-if we could suppose a number of persons of various ages presented to
the inspection of an intelligent being newly introduced
into the world, we cannot doubt that he would soon
become convinced that men had once been boys, that
boys had once been infants, and, finally, that all had been
brought into the world in exactly the same circumstances.
Precisely thus, seeing in our astral system many thousands of worlds in all stages of formation, from the most
rudimental to that immediately preceding the present
condition of those we deem perfect, it is unavoidable to
conclude that all the perfect have gone through the
various stages which we see in the rudimental. This
leads us at once to the conclusion that the whole of our
firmament was at one time a diffused mass of nebulous




NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.               5
matter, extending through the space which it still
occupies.  So also, of course, must have been the other
astral systems. Indeed, we must presume the whole to
have been originally in one connected mass, the astral
systems being only the first division into parts, and solar
systems the second.
The first idea which all this impresses upon us is, that
the foirmation of bodies in space is still and at present in
progress. We live at a time when many have been
formed, and many are still forming. Our own solar
system is to be regarded as completed, supposing its perfection to consist in the formation of a series of planets,
for there are mathematical reasons for concluding that
Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, which can, according to the laws of the system, exist.  But there are
other solar systems within our astral system, which are
as yet in a less advanced state, and even some quantities
of nebulous matter which have scarcely begun to advance
towards the stellar form. On the other hand, there are
vast numbers of stars which have all the appearance of
being fully formed systems, if we are to judge from the
complete and definite appearance which they present to
our vision through the telescope. We have no means of
judging of the seniority of systems; but it is reasonable
to suppose that, among the many, some are older than
ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human traditions and the geognostic
appearances of the surface of our planet.  This consists
in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused around the
sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately
spheroidal shape. This matter, which sometimes appears
to our naked eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards in the line of the sun's path, and which




VEStIGES OF THE


bears the name of the Zodiacal Light, has been thought
a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating nmatter
of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the
comparative recentness of the principal events of our
cosmogony.  Supposing the surmise and inference to be
correct, and they may be held as so far supported by
more familiar evidence, we might with the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder born
of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical
and moral, as yet lay undeveloped, while myriads of
others were fully fashioned and in complete arrangement.
Thus, in the sublime chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we first find ourselves called upon
to consider the globe which we inhabit as a child of the
sun, elder than Venus and her younger brother Mercury,
but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
and Uranus; next to regard our whole system     as
probably of recent formation in comparison with many
of the stars of our firmament. We must, however, be
on our guard against supposing the earth as a recent
globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. From evidence afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it
cannot be presumed to be less than many hundreds of
centuries old. How much older Uranus may be no one
can tell, far less how much more aged may be many of
the stars of our firmament, or the stars of other firmaments than ours.
Another and more important consideration arises from
the hypothesis; namely, as to the means by which the
grand process is conducted. The nebulous matter collects
around nuclei by virtue of the law of attraction. The
agglomeration brings into operation another physical
law, by torce of which the separate masses of matter are
either made to rotate singly, or, in addition to that single




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CRE.ATIOV.              27
motion, are set into a coupled revolution in ellipses.
Next, centrifugal force comes into play, flinging of' portions of the rotating masses, which become spheres by
virtue of the same law of attraction, and are held in orbits
of revolution round the central body by means of a composition between the centrifugal and gravitating forces.
All, we see, is done by certain laws of matter, so that it
becomes a question of extreme interest, what are such
laws? All that can yet be said, in answer, is, that we see
certain natural events proceeding in an invariable order
under certain conditions, and thence infer the existence of
some fundamental arrangement which, for the bringing
about of these events, has a force and certainty of action
similar to, but more precise and unerring than those
arrangements which human society makes for its own.
benefit, and calls laws. It is remarkable of physical laws,
that we see them operating on every kind of scale as to
magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance.
The tear that falls from  chiidhood's cheek is globular,
through the efficacy of that same law of mutual attraction
of particles which made the sun and planets round. The
rapidity of Mercury is quicker than that of Saturn, for
the same reason that, when we wheel a ball round by a
string and make the string wind up round our fingers,
the ball always flies quicker and quicker as the string is
shortened. Two eddies in a stream, as has been stated,
fall into a mutual revolution at the distance of a couple
of inches, through the same cause which makes a pair of
suns link in mutual revolution at the distance of millions
of miles. There is, we might say, a sublime simplicity
in this indifference of the grand regulations to the vastness or minuteness of the field of their operation. Their
being uniform, too, throughout space, as far as we can
scan it, and their being so unfailing in their tendency to




38     N   A TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.
operate, so that only the proper conditions are presented,
afford matter for the gravest consideration. Nor should
it escape careful notice that the regulations on which all
the laws of matter proceed, are established on a rigidly
accurate mathematical basis. Proportions of numbers
and geometrical figures rest at the bottom of the whole.
All these considerations, when the mind is thoroughly
prepared for them, tend to raise our ideas with respect
to the character of physical laws, even though we do not
go a single step further in the investigation. But it is
impossible for an intelligent mind to stop there. We
advance from law to the cause of law, and ask, What is
that? Whence have come all these beautiful regulations? Here science leaves us, but only to conclude,
from other grounds, that there is a First Cause to which
all others are secondary and ministrative, a primitive
almighty will, of which these laws are merely the mandates. That great Being, who shall say where is his
dwelling-place, or what his history! Man pauses breathless at the contemplation of a subject so much above his
finite faculties, and only can wonder and adore!




(  29   )


CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH
AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE.
THE nebular hypothesis almost necessarily supposes
matter to have originally formed one mass. We have
seen that the same physical laws preside over the whole.
Are we also to presume that the constitution of the
whole was uniform.-that is to say, that the whole consisted of similar elements. It seems difficult to avoid
coming to this conclusion, at least under the qualification
that, possibly, various bodies, under peculiar circumstances attending their formation, may contain elements
which are wanting, and lack some which are present, in
others, or that some may entirely consist of elements in
which others are entirely deficient.
What are elements? This is a term applied by the
chemist to a certain limited number of substances (fiftyfour or fifty-five are ascertained), which, in their combinations, form all the matters of every kind present
in and about our globe. They are called elements, or
simple substances, because it has hitherto been found
impossible to reduce them into others, wherefore they
are presumed to be the primary bases of all matters. It
has, indeed, been surmised that these so-called elements
are only modifications of a primordial form of matter,
brought about under certain conditions; but if this




30


VESTIGES OF 1THE


should prove to be the case, it would little affect the view
which we are taking of cosmical arrangements.  Analogy
would lead us to conclude that the combinations of the
primordial matter, forming our so-called elements, are
as universal, or as liable to take place everywhere, as are
the laws of gravitation and centrifugal force.  We must
therefore presume that the gases, the metals, the earths,
and other simple substances (besides whatever more of
which we have no acquaintance) exist or are liable to
come into existence under proper conditions, as well in
the astral system, which is thirty-five thousand times
more distant than Sirius, as within the bounds of our
own solar system or our own globe.
Matter, whether it consist of about fifty-five ingredients, or only one, is liable to infinite varieties of
condition under different circumstances, or, to speak
more philosophically, under different laws. As a familiar
illustration, water, when subjected to a temperature
under 320 Fahrenheit, becomes ice; raise the temperature
to 212, and it becomes steam, occupying a vast deal
more space than it formerly did. The gases, when subjected to pressure, become liquids; for example, carbonic
acid gas, when subjected to a weight equal to a column
of water I230 feet high, at a temperature of 32~, takes
this form: the other gases require various amounts of
pressure for this transforailtion, but all appear to be
liable to it when the pressure proper in each case iv
administered.  Heat is a power greatly concerned in
regulating the volume and other conditions of matter.
A chemist can reckon with considerable precision what
additional amount of heat would be required to vaporise
all the water of our globe; how much more to disengage
the oxygen which is diffused in nearly a proportion of
one-half throughout its solids; and, finally, how much




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              3t
more would be required to cause the whole to become
vaporiform, which we may consider as equivalent to its
being restored to its original nebulous state. He can
calculate with equal certainty what would be the effect
of a considerable diminution of the earth's temperaturewhat changes would take place in each of its component
substances, and how much the whole would shrink in
bulk.
The earth and all its various substances have at
present a certain volume in consequence of the temperature which actually exists. When, then, we find that
its matter and that of the associate planets was at one
time diffused throughout the whole space now circumscribed by the orbit of Uranus, we cannot doubt, after
what we know of the power of heat, that the nebulous
form of matter was attended by the condition of a very
high temperature. The nebulous matter of space, previously to the formation of stellar and planetary bodies,
must have been a universal Fire list, an idea which we
can scarcely comprehend, though the reasons for arriving
at it seem irresistible. The formation of systems out of
this matter implies a change of some kind with regard
to the condition of the heat. IIad this power continued
to act with its full original repulsive energy, the process
of agglomeration by attraction could not have gone on.
We do not know enough of the laws of heat to enable
us to surmise how the necessary change in this respect
was brought about, but we can trace some of the steps
and consequences of the process.  Uranus would be
formed at the time when the heat of our system's matter
was at the greatest, Saturn at the next, and so on. Now
this tallies perfectly with the exceeding diffuseness
of the matter of those elder planets, Saturn being not
more dense or heavy than the substance cork. It




32


VESTIGES OF THE


may be that a sufficiency of heat still remains in those
planets to make up for their distance from the sun, and
the consequent smallness of the heat which they derive
from his rays. And it may equally be, since Mercury is
twice the density of the earth, that its matter exists
under a degree of cold for which that planet's large
enjoyment of the sun's rays is no more than a compensation. Thus there may be upon the whole a nearly equal
experience of heat amongst all these children of the sun.
Where, meanwhile, is the heat once diffused through the
system over and above what remains in the planets?
May we not rationally presume it to have gone to constitute that luminous envelope of the sun, in which his
warmth-giving power is now held to reside? It could
not be destroyed-it cannot be supposed to have gone off
into space-it must have simply been reserved to constitute, at the last, a means of sustaining the many
operations of which the planets were destined to be the
theatre.
The tendency of the whole of the preceding considerations is to bring the conviction that our globe is a
specimen of all the similarly placed bodies of space, as
respects its constituent matter and the physical and
chemical laws governing it, with only this qualification,
that there are possibly shades of variation with respect
to the component materials, and undoubtedly with respect
to the conditions under which the laws operate, and
consequently the effects which they produce. Thus,
there may be substances here which are not in some
other bodies, and substances here solid may be elsewhere
liquid or vaporiform. We are the more entitled to draw
such conclusions, seeing that there is nothing at all
singular or special in the astronomical situation of the
earth. It takes its place third in a series of planets,




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.              33
which series is only one of numberless other systems
forming one group. It is strikingly-if I may use such
an expression-a member of a democracy. Hence, we
cannot suppose that there is any peculiarity about it
which does not probably attach to multitudes of other
bodies-in fact, to all that are analogous to it in respect
of cosmical arrangements.
It therefore becomes a point of great interest —what
are the materials of this specimen? What is the constitutional character of this object, which may be said to
be a sample, presented to our immediate observation, of
those crowds of worlds which seem to us as the particles
of the desert sand-cloud in number, and to whose diffusion there are no conceivable local limits I
The solids, liquids, and aeriform fluids of our globe are
all, as has been stated, reducible into fifty-five substances
hitherto called elementary. Six are gases; oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen being the chief. Forty-two are metals,
of which eleven are remarkable as composing, in combination with oxygen, certain earths, as magnesia, lime,
alumina.   The remainder, including   carbon, silicon,
sulphur, have not any general appellation.
The gas oxygen is considered as by far the most
abundant substance in our globe. It constitutes a fifth
part of our atmosphere, eight-ninths of the weight of
water, and a large proportion of every kind of rock in
the crust of the earth. Hydrogen, which forms the
remaining part of water, and enters into some mineral
substances, is perhaps next. Nitrogen, of which the
atmosphere is four-fifths composed, must be considered
as an abundant substance. The metal silicium, which
unites with oxygen in nearly equal parts to form silica,
the basis of nearly a half of the rocks in the earth's crust,
is, of course, an important ingredient. Aluminium, the
B




34


VESTIGES OF THE


metallic basis of alumina, a large material in many rocks,
is another abundant elementary substance. So, also, is
carbon a small ingredient in the atmosphere, but the
chief constituent of animal and vegetable substances,
and of all fossils which ever were in the latter condition,
amongst which coal takes a conspicuous place. The
familiarly known metals, as iron, tin, lead, silver, gold,
are elements of comparatively small magnitude in that
exterior part of the earth's body which we are able to
investigate.
It is remarkable of the simple substances that they
are generally in some compound form. Thus, oxygen
and nitrogen, though in union they form the aerial
envelope of the globe, are never found separate in nature.
Carbon is pure only in the diamond. And the metallic
bases of the earths, though the chemist can disengage
them, may well be supposed unlikely to remain long
uncombined, seeing that contact with moisture makes
them burn. Combination and re-combination are principles largely pervading nature. There are few rocks,
for example, that are not composed of at least two
varieties of matter, each of which is again a compound
of elementary substances. What is still more wonderful
with respect to this principle of combination, all the
elementary substances observe certain mathematical
proportions in their unions. One volume of them unites
with one, two, three, or more volumes of another, any
extra quantity being sure to be left over, if such there
should be. It is hence supposed that matter is composed of infinitely minute particles or atoms, each of
which belonging to any one substance, can only (through
the operation of some as yet hidden law) associate witlh
a certain number of the atoms of any other. There are
also strange predilections amongst substances for each




NA TURAL HIJSTOR Y OF CREA TION.


35


other's company. One will remain combined in solution
with another, till a third is added, when it will abandon
the former and attach itself to the latter. A fourth
being added, the third will perhaps leave the first anld
join the new comer.
Such is an outline of the information which chemistry
gives us regarding the constituent materials of our
globe. How infinitely is the knowledge increased in
interest, when we consider the probability of such being
the materials of the whole of the bodies of space, and the
laws under which these everywhere combine, subject
only to local and accidental variations!
In considering the cosmogonic arrangements of our
globe, our attention is called in a special degree to the
moons.
In the nebular hypothesis, satellites are considered as
masses thrown off from their primaries, exactly as the
primaries had previously been from the sun. The orbit
of any satellite is also to be regarded as marking the
bounds of the mass of the primary at the time when that
satellite was thrown off; its speed likewise denotes the
rapidity of the rotatory motion of the primary at that
particular juncture. For example, the outermost of the
four satellites of Jupiter revolves round his body at the
distance of iI80,582 miles, showing that the planet was
once 3,675,501 miles in circumference, instead of being,
as now, only 89,I70 miles in diameter. This large mass
took rather more than sixteen days six hours and a half
(the present revolutionary period of the outermost satellite) to rotate on its axis. The innermost satellite must
have been formed when the planet was reduced to a circumference of 309,,c75 miles, and rotated in about fortytwo hours and a half.
From similar inferences, we find that the mass of the
B 2




36


VESTIGES OF THE


earth, at a certain point of time after it was thrown off
from the sun, was no less than 482,000 miles in diameter,
being sixty times what it has since shrunk to. At that
time, the mass must have taken rather more than
twenty-nine and a half days to rotate (being the revolutionary period of the moon), instead of as now, rather
less than twenty-four hours.
The time intervening betwen the formation of the
moon and the earth's diminution to its present size, was
probably one of those vast sums in which astronomy
deals so largely, but which the mind altogether fails to
grasp.
The observations made upon the surface of the moon
by telescopes tend strongly to support the hypothesis as
to all the bodies of space being composed of similar
matters, subject to certain variations.  It does not
appear that our satellite is provided with that gaseous
envelope which, on earth, performs so many important
functions. Neither is there any appearance of water
upon the surface; yet that surface is, like that of our
globe, marked by inequalities and the appearance of
volcanic operations. These inequalities and volcanic
operations are upon a scale far greater than any
which now exist upon the earth's surface. Although,
from the greater force of gravitation' upon its exterior,
the mountains, other circumstances being equal, might
have been expected to be much smaller than ours, they
are, in many instances, equal in height to nearly the
highest of our Andes. They are generally of extreme
steepness, and sharp of outline, a peculiarity which
might be looked for in a planet deficient in water and
atmosphere, seeing that these are the agents which wear
down ruggedness on the surface of our earth. The
volcanic operations are on a stupendous scale. They are




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               37
the cause of the bright spots of the moon, while the
want of them is what distinguishes the duller portions,
usually but erroneously called seas. In some parts,
bright volcanic matter, besides covering one large patch,
radiates out in long streams, which appear studded with
subordinate foci of the same kind of energy. Other
objects of a most remarkable character are ring-mountains, mounts like those of the craters of earthly volcanoes, surrounded immediately by vast and profound
circular pits, hollowed under the general surface, these
again being surrounded by a circular wall of mountain,
rising far above the central one, and in the inside of
which are terraces about the same height as the inner
eminence. The well-known bright spot in the south-east
quarter, called by astronomers Tycho, and which can be
readily distinguished by the naked eye, is one of these
ring-mountains. There is one of 200 miles in diameter,
with a pit 22,000 feet deep; that is, twice the height of
~Etna.   It is remarkable, that the maps given by
Humboldt of a volcanic district in South America,
and one illustrative of the formerly volcanic district of
Auvergne, in France, present features strikingly like
many parts of the moon's surface, as seen through a good
glass.
These characteristics of the moon forbid the idea that
it can be at present a theatre of life like the earth, and
almost seem to declare that it never can become so.
But we must not rashly draw any such conclusions.
The moon may be only in an earlier stage of the progress through which the earth has already gone. The
elements which seem wanting may be only in combinations different from those which exist here, and may yet
be developed as we here find them. Seas may yet fill
the profound hollows of the surface; an atmosphere may




38


VESTIGES OF THE


spread over the whole. Should these events take place,
meteorological phenomena, and all the phenomena of
organic life, will commence, and the moon, like the
earth, will become a green and inhabited world.
It is unavoidably held as a strong proof in favour of
any hypothesis, when all the relative phenomena are in
harmony with it. This is eminently the case with the
nebulous hypothesis, for here the associated facts cannot
be explained on any other supposition. We have seen
reason to conclude that the primary condition of matter
was that of a diffused mass, in which the component
molecules were probably kept apart through the efficacy
of heat; that portions of this agglomerated into suns,
which threw off planets; that these planets were at first
very much diffused, but gradually contracted by cooling
to their present dimensions. Now, as to our own globe,
there is a remarkable proof of its having been in a fluid
state at the time when it was finally solidifying, in the
fact of its being bulged at the equator, the very form
which a soft revolving body takes, and must inevitably
take, under the influence of centrifugal force. This
bulging makes the equatorial exceed the polar diameter
as 230 to 229, which has been demonstrated to be precisely the departure from a correct sphere which might
be predicted from a knowledge of the amount of the mass
and the rate of rotation. There is an almost equally
distinct memorial of the original high temperature of
the materials, in the store of heat which still exists in
the interior. The immediate surface of the earth, be it
observed, exhibits only the temperature which might be
expected to be imparted to such materials, by the heat
of the sun. There is a point, a very short way down,
but varying in different climes, where all effect from the




VNATUIAL HISTORY OF CREA TIONV.                39
sun's rays ceases.  Then, however, commences a temperature from  an entirely different cause, one which
evidently has its source in the interior of the earth, and
which regularly increases as we descend to greater and
greater depths, the rate of increment being about one
degree Fahrenheit for every sixty feet; and of this high
temperature there are other evidences, in the phenomena
of volcanoes and thermal springs, as well as in what is
ascertained with regard to the density of the entire mass
of the earth.  This, it will be remembered, is four and a
half times the weight of water; but the actual weight of
the principal solid substances composing the outer crust
is as two and a half times the weight of water; and this,
we know, if the globe were solid and cold, should
increase vastly towards the centre, water acquiring the
density of quicksilver at 362 miles below the surface,
and other things in    proportion, and   these densities
becoming much greater at greater depths; so that the
entire mass of a cool globe should be of a gravity
infinitely exceeding four and a half times the weight of
water. The only alternative supposition is, that the
central materials are greatly expanded or diffused by
some means; and by what means could they be so
expanded but by heat      Indeed, the existence of this
central heat, a residuum of that which kept all matter in
a vaporiform  chaos at first, is amongst the most solid
discoveries of modern science, * and the support which it
gives to Herschel's explanation of the formation of
worlds is highly important.    We shall hereafter see
what appear to be traces of an operation of this heat
* The researches on this subject were conducted chiefly by the late
Baron Fourier, perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences of
Paris. Sec. his T/'orie Analytique de la Chtaleur. 1822.




40    NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
upon the surface of the earth in very remote times; an
effect, however, which has long passed entirely away.
The central heat has, for ages, reached a fixed point, at
which it will probably remain for ever, as the non-conducting quality of the cool crust absolutely prevents it
from suffering any dir linution.




( 41 )


THE EARTH FORMED.
ERA OF THE PRIMARY ROCKS.
ALTHOUGH the earth has not been actually penetrated to
a greater depth than three thousand feet, the nature of
its substance can, in many instances, be inferred for the
depth of many miles by other means of observation.
We see a mountain composed of a particular substance,
with strata, or beds of other rock, lying against its
sloped sides; we, of course, infer that the substance of
the mountain dips away under the strata which we see
lying against it. Suppose that we walk away from the
mountain across the turned up edges of the stratified
rocks, and that for many miles we continue to pass over
other stratified rocks, all disposed in the same way, till
by-and-by we come to a place where we begin to cross
the opposite edges of the same beds; after which wve
pass over these rocks all in reverse order till we come to
another extensive mountain composed of similar material
to the first, and shelving away under the strata in the
same way. We should then infer that the stratified
rocks occupied a basin formed by the rocks of these
two mountains, and by calculating the thickness right
through these strata, could say to what depth the rock
of the mountain extended below. By such means, the
kind of rock existing many miles below the surface can
often be inferred with considerable confidence.




42


42  VESTIGES OF THE


The interior of the globe has now been inspected in
this way in many places, and a tolerably distinct notion
of its general arrangements has consequently been
arrived at. It appears that the basis rock of the earth,
as it may be called, is of hard texture, and crystalline in
its constitution. Of this rock, granite may be said to be
the type, though it runs into many varieties. Over this,
except in the comparatively few places where it projects
above the general level in mountains, other rocks are
disposed in sheets or strata, with the appearance of
having been deposited originally from water. But these
last rpocks have nowhere been allowed to rest in their
original arrangement. Uneasy movements from below
have broken them up in great inclined masses, while in
many cases there has been projected through the rents
rocky matter more or less resembling the great inferior
crystalline mass. This rocky matter must have been in
a state of fusion from heat at the time of its projection,
for it is often found to have run into and filled up lateral
chinks in these rents. There are even instances where
it has been rent again, and a newer melted matter of the
same character sent through the opening. Finally, in
the crust as thus arranged, there are, in many places,
chinks containing veins of metal. Thus, there is first
a great inferior mass, composed of crystalline rock, and
probably resting immediately on the fused and expanded
matter of the interior; next, layers or strata of aqueous
origin; next, irregular masses of melted inferior rock
that have been sent up volcanically and confusedly at
various times amongst the aqueous rocks, breaking up
these into masses, and tossing them out of their original
levels. This is an outline of the arrangements of the
crust of the earth, as far as we can observe it. It is, at
first sight, a most confused scene; but after some careful




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 43
observation, we readily detect in it a regularity and
order from which much instruction in the history of our
globe is to be derived.
The deposition of the aqueous rocks, and the projection of the volcanic, have unquestionably taken place
since the settlement of the earth in its present form.
They are indeed of an order of events which we see
going on, under the agency of more or less intelligible
causes, even down to the present day. We may therefore consider them  generally as comparatively recent
transactions. Abstracting them from the investigations
before us, we arrive at the idea of the earth in its first
condition as a globe of its present size-namely, as a
mass, externally at least, consisting of the crystalline
kind of rock, with the waters of the present seas and the
present atmosphere around it, though these were probably in considerably different conditions, both as to
temperature and their constituent materials, from what
they now are. We are thus to presume that that
crystalline texture of rock which we see exemplified in
granite is the condition into which the great bulk of the
solids of our earth were agglomerated directly from tlhe
nebulous or vaporiform state. It is a condition eminently of combination, for such rock is invariably composed of two or more of four substances-silica, mica,
quartz, and hornblende-which associate in it in the
form of grains or crystals, and which are themselves
each composed of a group of the simple or elementary
substances.
Judging from the results and from still remaining
conditions, we must suppose that the heat retained in
the interior of the globe was more intense, or had
greater freedom to act, in some places than in others.
These became the scenes of volcanic operations, and in




44


VESTIGES OF THE


time marked their situations by the extrusion of traps
and basalts from below-namely, rocks composed of the
crystalline matter fused by intense heat, and developed
on the surface in various conditions, according to the
particular circumstances under which it was sent up;
some, for example, being thrown up under water, and
some in the open air, which contingencies are found to
have made considerable difference in its texture and
appearance. The great stores of subterranean heat also
served an important purpose in the formation of the
aqueous rocks. These rocks might, according to Sir
John Herschel, become subject to heat in the following
manner:-While the surface of a particular mass of rock
forms the bed of the sea, the heat is kept at a certain
distance from that surface by the contact of the water;
philosophically speaking, the mass radiates away the
heat into the sea, and (to resort to common language)
is cooled a good way down. But when new sediment
settles at the bottom of that sea, the heat rises up to
what was formerly the surface; and when a second
quantity of sediment is laid down, it continues to rise
through the first of the deposits, which then becomes
subjected to those changes which heat is calculated to
produce. This process is precisely the same as that of
putting additional coats upon our own bodies; when,
of course, the internal heat rises through each coat in
succession, and the third (supposing there is a fourth
above it) becomes as warm as perhaps the first originally
was.
In speaking of sedimentary rocks, we may be said to
be anticipating. It is necessary, first, to show how such
rocks were formed, or how stratification commenced.
Geology tells us as plainly as possible, that the
original crystalline mass was not a perfectly smooth ball,




ATA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.           45
with air and water playing round it. There were vast
irregularities in the surface-irregularities trifling, perhaps, compared with the whole bulk of the globe, but
assuredly vast in comparison with any which now exist
upon it. These irregularities might be occasioned by
inequalities in the cooling of the substance, or by accidental and local sluggishness of the materials, or by local
effects of the concentrated internal heat. From whatever cause they arose, there they were-enormous
granitic mountains, interspersed with seas which sunk
to a depth equally profound, and by which, perhaps, the
mountains were wholly or partially covered. Now, it is
a fact, of which the very first principles of geology assure
us, that the solids of the globe cannot for a moment be
exposed to water, or to the atmosphere, without becoming liable to change. They instantly begin to wear
down. This operation, we may be assured, proceeded
with as much certainty in the earliest ages of our earth's
history, as it does now, but upon a much more magnificent scale. There is tolerably good evidence that the
seas of those days were not in some instances less than a
hundred miles in depth, however much more. The subaqueous mountains must have been of at least equal
magnitude. The system of disintegration consequent upon
such conditions would be enormous. The matters worn
off, being carried into the neighbouring depths, and there
deposited, became the components of the earliest stratified
rocks, the first series of which is the Gneiss and Mica
Slate System, or series, examples of which are exposed
to view in the Highlands of Scotland and in the West
of England. The vast thickness of these beds, in some
instances, is what suggests the profoundness of the
primeval oceans in which they were formed; the Pennsylvanian grauwacke, a1% member of the next highest




46


VESTIGES OF THE


series, is not less than a hundred miles in direct thickness. We have also evidence that the earliest strata
were formed in the presence of a stronger degree of heat
than what operated in subsequent stages of the world,
for the lamina of the gneiss and of the mica and chlorite
schists are contorted in a way which could only be the
result of a very high temperature. It appears as if the
seas in which these deposits were formed, had been in
the troubled state of a caldron of water nearly at boiling
heat. Such a condition would probably add not a little
to the disintegrating power of the ocean.
The earliest stratified rocks contain no matters which
are not to be found in the primitive granite. They are
the same in material, but only changed into new forms
and combinations; hence they have been called by Mr.
Lyell, metamorphic rocks. But how comes it that some
of them are composed almost exclusively of one of the
materials of granite; the mica schists, for example, of
mica-the quartz rocks, of quartz, &c. I For this there
are both chemical and mechanical causes. Suppose that
a river has a certain quantity of material to carry down,
it is evident that it will soonest drop the larger particles,
and carry the lightest farthest on. To such a cause is it
owing that some of the materials of the worn-down
granite have settled in one place and some in another.*
Again, some of these materials must be presumed to
have been in a state of chemical solution in the primeval
seas. It would be, of course, in conformity with chemical laws, that certain of these materials would be precipitated singly, or in modified combinations, to the
bottom, so as to form rocks by themselves.
The rocks hitherto spoken of contain none of those
remains of vegetables and animals which abound so
* De 1a Beche's " Geological Researches."




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 47
much in subsequently formed rocks, and tell so wondrous
a tale of the past history of our globe. They simply
contain, as has been said, mineral materials derived fromnt
the primitive mass, and which appear to have been
formed into strata in seas of vast depth. The absence
from these rocks of all traces of vegetable and animal
life, joined to a consideration of the excessive temperature which seems to have prevailed in their epoch, has
led to the inference that no plants or animals of any
kind then existed. A few geologists have indeed endeavoured to show that the absence of organic remains
is no proof of the globe having been then unfruitful
or uninhabited, as the heat to which these rocks have
been subjected at the time of their solidification, might
have obliterated any remains of either plants or animals
which were included in them. But this is only an
hypothesis of negation; and it certainly seems very unlikely that a degree of heat sufficient to obliterate the
remains of plants or animals when dead, would ever
allow of their coming into or continuing in existence.




( 48 )


COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE.
SEA PLANTS, CORALS, ETC.
WE can scarcely be said to have passed out of these
rocks, when we begin to find new conditions in the earth.
It is here to be observed that the subsequent rocks are
formed, in a great measure, of matters derived from the
substance of those which went before, but contain also
beds of limestone, which is to no small extent composed
of an ingredient which has not hitherto appeared. Limestone is a carbonate of lime, a secondary compound, of
which one of the ingredients, carbonic acid gas, presents
the element carbon, a perfect novelty in our progress.
Whence this substance?   The question is the more
interesting, from our knowing that carbon is the main
ingredient in organic things. There is reason to believe
that its primeval condition was mainly that of a gas
diffused in the atmosphere, although portions of it are
also found occasionally issuing from the interior of the
earth.  The atmosphere still contains about a twothousandth part of carbonic acid gas, forming the grand
store from which the substance of each year's crop of
herbage and grain is derived, passing from herbage and
grain into animal substance, and from animals again
rendered back to the atmosphere in their expired breath,
so that its amount is never impaired. Knowing this,




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               49
when we hear of carbon beginning to appear in the
ascending series of rocks, we are unavoidably led to
consider it as marking a time of some importance in the
earth's history, a new era of natural conditions, one in
which organic life has probably played a part.
It is not easy to suppose that, at this period, carbon
was adopted directly in its gaseous form into rocks; for,
if so, why should it not have been taken into earlier ones
also? But we know that plants take it in and transform
it into substance, and we also know that there are classes
of animals (marine polypes) which are capable of appropriating it. in connexion with lime (carbonate of lime),
from the waters of the ocean, provided it be there in
solution; and this substance do these animals deposit in
masses (coral reefs) equal in extent to many strata. It
is also fully ascertained of many strata of limestone
higher in the series, that they are simply reefs of that
kind changed by subjection to heat and pressure.
The appearance, then, of limestone beds in the early
part of the stratified series, strongly suggests the fact of
the commencement of organic life upon our planet, though
we cannot say that any of its special forms are made clear
to our eyes.
It may not be out of place here to remark, that carbon
is presumed to exist largely in the interior of the earth,
from the fact of such considerable quantities of it issuing
at this day, in the form of carbonic acid gas, from fissures
and springs. The primeval and subsequent history of
this element is worthy of much attention, and we shall
have to revert to it as a matter greatly concerning our
subject. Sir Henry De la Beche estimates the quantity
of carbonic acid gas locked up in every cubic yard of
limestone at i6,ooo cubic feet. The quantity locked up
in coal, in which its basis, carbon, forms from 64 to




50


VESTIGES OF THE


75 per cent., must also be enormous. If all this were
disengaged in a gaseous form, the constitution of the
atmosphere would undergo a change, of which the first
effect would be the extinction of life in all land animals.
But a large proportion of it must have at one time been
in the atmosphere. The atmosphere would then, of
course, be incapable of supporting life in land animals.
It is important, however, to observe that such an atmosphere would not be inconsistent with a luxuriant land
vegetation; for experiment has proved that plants will
flourish in air containing one-twelfth of this gas, or 166
times more than the present charge of our atmosphere.
The results which we observe are perfectly consistent
with, and may be said to presuppose, an atmosphere
highly charged with this gas, from about the close of the
primary non-fossiliferous rocks to the termination of the
carboniferous series, for there we see vast deposits (coal)
containing carbon as a large ingredient, while, at the
same time, the leaves of the Stone Book present no
record of the contemporaneous existence of land animals.
The hypothesis of the connexion of the first limestone
beds with the commencement of organic life upon our
planet is supported by the fact, that we soon after, in
ascending through the series of rocks, find the first distinct remains of the bodies of animated creatures.
And what were those creatures? It might well be
with a kind of awe that the uninstructed inquirer would
wait for an answer to this question. But Nature is
simpler than man's wit would make her, and behold, the
interrogation only brings before us the unpretending
forms of various zoophytes and polypes, together with a
few single and double-valved shell-fish (mollusks), all of
them creatures of the sea. It might have been expected
that vegetables would first make their appearance, as




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               51
they form a necessary first link in the chain of nutrition;
but their not being found first, is no proof that animals
of any kind existed before them, seeing that, however
abundantly they might be developed, their forms and
substance were too slight to have a chance of being preserved with any distinctness amidst rocks which appear
to have undergone a considerable degree of heat. And
the same cause, it is obvious, would prevent our having
any memorial of the very lowest forms of animal life.
The exact point in the ascending stratified series at
which the first traces of organic life are to be found is
not clearly determined. Dr. M'Culloch states that he
found fossil orthocerata (a kind of shell-fish) so early as
the gneiss tract of Loch Eribol, in Sutherland; but
Messrs. Sedgwick   and  Murchison, on a subsequent
search, could not verify the discovery. It has also been
stated, that the gneiss and mica tract of Bohemia contains some seams of grauwack6, in which are organic remains; but British geologists have not as yet attached
much importance to this statement. We have to look
a little higher in the series for indubitable traces of
organic life.
Above the gneiss and mica slate system, or group of
strata, is the Clay Slate and Grauwacke Slate Systevm;
that is to say, it is higher in the order of suzracosition,
though very often it rests immediately on the primitive
granite. The sub-groups of this system are in the following succession upwards:-I, hornblende slate; 2, chiastolite slate; 3, clay slate; 4, Snowdon rocks (grauwacke
and conglomerates); 5, Bala limestone; 6, Plynlymmon
rocks (grauwacke and grauwacke slates, with beds of conglomerates). This system is largely developed in the west
and north of England, and it has been well examined,
partly because some of the slate beds are extensively




52


VESTIGES OF THE


quarried for domestic purposes.     If we overlook the
dubious statements respecting Sutherland and Bohemia,
we have in this "system " the first appearances of life
upon our planet. The animal remains are chiefly confined to the slate'beds, those named from Bala, in Wales,
being the most prolific.  Zoophyta, polypiaria, crinoidea,
conchifera, and crustacea,* are the orders of the animal
kingdom thus found in the earliest of earth's sepulchres.
The orders are distinguished, without difficulty, from the
general characters of the creatures whose remains are
found; but it is only in this general character that they
bear a resemblance to any creatures now existing. When
we come to consider specific characters, we see that a
difference exists-that, in short, the species and even
genera are no longer represented upon earth. More than
this, it will be found that the earliest species comparatively soon gave place to others, and that they are not
represented even in the next higher group of rocks.
One important remark has been made, that a comparatively small variety of species is found in the older rocks,
although of some particular ones the remains are very
abundant; as, for instance, of a species of asaphus, which
is found between the laminae of some of the slate rocks of
Wales, and the corresponding rocks of Normandy and
Germany, in enormous quantities.
Ascending to the next group of rocks, we find the
traces of life become more abundant, the number of
species extended, and important additions made in certain
* In the Cumbrian limestone occur "calamoporse, lithodendra,
cyathophylla, and orbicula."-PHILLIPS. The asaphus and trinucleus
(crustacea) have been found respectively in the slate rocks of Wales,
and the limestone beds of the grauwacke group in Bohemia. That
fragments of crinoidea, though of no determinate species, occur in this
system, we have the authority of Mr. Murchison.-Silurian System,
p. 710.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.              53
vestiges of fuci, or sea-plants, and of fishes. This group
of rocks has been called by English geologists, the
Siluri an System, because largely developed at the surface
of a district of western England, formerly occupied by a
people whom the Roman historians call Silures. It is
a series of sandstones, limestones, and beds of shale
(hardened mud), which are classed in the following subgroups, beginning with the undermost:-I, Llandeilo
rocks (darkish calcareous flagstones); 2 and 3, two
groups called Caradoc rocks; 4, Wenlock shale; 5,
Wenlock limestone; 6, Lower Ludlow rocks (shales and
limestones); 7, Aymestry limestone; 8, Upper Ludlow
rocks (shales and limestone, chiefly micaceous). From
the lowest beds upwards, there are polypiaria, though
most prevalent in the Wenlock limestone; brachiopodous mollusks, a vast number of genera (including
terebratula, pentamerus, spirifer, orthis, leptsena);
cephalopoda, of several orders and many genera (including turritella, orthoceras, nautilus, bellerophon); crustacea, all of them trilobites (including trinucleus,
asaphus, calymene).   The cephalopoda are the most
highly organised of the mollusca, possessing in some
families an internal osseous skeleton, together with a
heart, and a head having some resemblance in form and
armature to that of the parrot tribes. This order was
carnivorous, and acted the part of a police in keeping
down the redundant life of the early seas. The trilobites
have attracted much attention in consequence of the great
variety of species, and the peculiar structure of the eye,
which unequivocally tells that the sea was a clear medium
at that time as at the present, and that light was then,
in its general nature and relation to the vision of animals,
the same as it now is. A little above the Llandeilo rocks,
there have been discovered certain convoluted forms,




54


VESTIGES OF THE


which are now established as annelides, or sea-worms,
a tribe of creatures still existing (nereidina and serpulina),
and which may often be found beneath stones on a seabeach. One of these, figured by Mr. Murchison, is
furnished with feet in vast numbers all along its body,
like a centipede.  The occurrence of annelides is important, on account of their character and status in the
animal kingdom. They are red-blooded and hermaphrodite, and form a link of connexion between the annulosa
(white-blooded worms) and a humble class of the vertebrata.* The Wenlock limestone is most remarkable,
amongst all the rocks of the Silurian system, for organic
remains. Many slabs of it are wholly composed of corals,
shells, and trilobites, held together by shale. It contains
many genera of crinoidea and polypiaria, and there is
little reason to doubt that some beds of it are wholly the
production of the latter creatures, or are, in other words,
coral reefs transformed by heat and pressure into rocks.
Remains of fishes, of a very minute size, have been
detected by Mr. Phillips in the Aymestry limestone, being
apparently the first examples of vertebrated animals
which breathed upon our planet. In the upper Ludlow
rocks, remains of six genera of obscure character have
been for a longer period known.
The traces of fuci in this system are all but sufficient to
allow of a distinction of genera. In some parts of North
America, extensive though thin beds of them have been
found. A distinguished French geologist, M. Brogniart,
has shown that all existing marine plants are classifiable
with regard to the zones of climate; some being fitted
for the torrid zone, some for the temperate, some for the
frigid. And he establishes that the fuci of these early
rocks speak of a torrid climate, although they may be
* Such as amphioxus and myxenc (lampreys).




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TO1N.               5
found in what are now temperate regions; he also states
that those of the higher rocks betoken, as we ascend, a
gradually diminishing temperature.
We thus early begin to find proofs of the general
uniformity of organic life over the surface of the earth,
at the time when each particular system of rocks was
formed.   Species identical with the remains in the
Wenlock limestone occur in the corresponding class of
rocks in the Eifel, and partially in the Harz, Norway,
Russia, and Brittany. The situations of the remains in
Russia are fifteen hundred miles from the Wenlock beds;
but at the distance of between six and seven thousand
from those-namely, in the vale of Mississippi-the
same species are discovered. Uniformity in animal life
over large geographical areas argues uniformity in the
conditions of animal life; and hence arise some curious
inferences. Species, in the same low class of animals,
are now much more limited; for instance, the Red Sea
gives different polypiaria, zoophytes, and shell-fish, from
the Mediterranean. It is the opinion of M. Brogniart,
that the uniformity which existed in the primeval times
can only be attributed to the temperature arising from
the internal heat, which had yet, as he supposes, been
sufficiently great to overpower the ordinary meteorological influences, and spread a tropical clime all over the
globe.




( 56 )
ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.
FISHES ABUNDANT.
WE advance to a new chapter in this marvellous history
-the era of the Old Red Sandstone System.  This term
has been recently applied to a series of strata, of enormous thickness in the whole mass, largely developed in
Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and South
Wales; also in the counties of Fife, Forfar, Moray,
Cromarty, and Caithness; and in Russia and North
America, if not in many other parts of the world.  The
particular strata forming the system are somewhat different in different countries; but there is a general character to the extent of these being a mixture of flagstones, marly rocks, and sandstones, usually of a laminous
structure, with conglomerates.  There is also a schist
showing the presence of bitumen; a remarkable new
ingredient, since it is a vegetable production.  In the
conglomerates, of great extent and thickness, which form,
in at least one district, the basis or leading feature of the
system, inclosing water-worn fragments of quartz and
other rocks, we have evidence of the seas of that period
having been subjected to a violent and long-continued
agitation, probably from volcanic causes. The upper
members of the series bear the appearance of having been
deposited in comparatively tranquil seas.  The English




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                57
specimens of this system show a remarkable freedom
from those disturbances which result in the interjection
of trap; and they are thus defective in mineral ores. In
some parts of England the old red sandstone system has
been stated as io,ooo feet in thickness.
In this era, the forms of life which existed in the
Silurian are continued: we have the same orders of
marine creatures, zoophyta, polypiaria, conchifera, crustacea; but to these are added numerous fishes, some of
which are of most extraordinary and surprising forms.
Several of the strata are crowded with remains of fish,
showing that the seas in which those beds were deposited
had swarmed with that class of inhabitants. The investigation of this system is recent; but already* M. Agassiz
has ascertained about twenty genera, and thrice the
number of species.   And it is remarkable that the
Silurian fishes are here only represented in genera; the
whole of the species of that era had already passed away.
Even throughout the sub-groups of the system itself, the
species are changed; and these are phenomena observed
throughout all the subsequent systems or geological eras;
apparently arguing that, during the deposition of all
the rocks, a gradual change of physical conditions was
constantly going on. A varying temperature, or even a
varying depth of sea, would at present be attended with
similar changes in marine life; and by analogy we are
entitled to assume that such variations in the ancient
seas might be amongst the causes of that constant change
of genera and species in the inhabitants of those seas to
which the organic contents of the rocks bear witness.
The predominating fishes of this system, and the only
ones which (as far as fossils show) existed for some ages,
are arranged by M. Agassiz in two orders, with a regard
e June 1842.




58


VESTIGES OF THE


to their external covering, which that philosopher holds
to be, in fishes, a reflection of.the internal organisation.
Both, it is to be remarked at the very first, are manifestly of an inferior character to the two other orders
which afterwards came into existence, and still are the
principal fishes of our seas, these being covered by true
scales, and respectively named ctenoid and cycloid, from
the forms of that part of their organisation.  The two
orders of early fish are covered with integuments considerably different in character; the one (placoids) with
irregular enamelled plates, the other (ganoids) with
regular enamelled scales, the first being not placed over
each other, as scales are, but laid edge to edge, in the
manner of a pavement. These characters, according to
M. Agassiz, were accompanied gy a rudimentary or cartilaginous skeleton, while the ctenoids and cycloids possess an osseous structure.
Of certain of the ganoids, it is remarked by every
geologist, how much they approximate to the form and
armature of the crustaceans, an order of the next lower
department of the animal kingdom.
The cephatcaspis may be considered as making the
smallest advance from the crustacean character; it very
much resembles in form the asaphus of lower formations,
having a longish tail-like body inserted within the cusp
of a large crescent-shaped head, somewhat like a saddler's
cutting-knife. The body is covered with strong plates of
bone, enamelled, and the head was protected on the upper
side with one large plate as with a buckler-hence the
name, implying buckler-head. A range of small fins conveys the idea of its having been as weak in motion as it
is strong in structure. The coccosteus may be said to
mark the next advance to the perfect fish type. The
outline of its body is of the form of a short thick coffin,




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              59
rounded, covered with strong bony plates, and terminating in a long tail, which seems to have been the sole
organ of motion. While the tail establishes this creature
among the vertebrata and the fishes, its teeth, chiselled,
as it were, out of the solid bone of the jaw, like the
nippers of a lobster, and its mouth opening vertically,
contrary to the usual mode of the vertebrata, enforce our
placing it near the crustaceans. The pterichthys has also
strong bony plates over its body, arranged much like
those of a tortoise, and has a long tail; but its most
remarkable feature, and that which has suggested its
name, is a pair of long and narrow wing-like appendages
attached to the shoulders, which the creature is supposed
to have erected for its defence when attacked by an
enemy.
The holoptychius is of a flat oval form, furnished with
fins, and ending in a long tail; the whole body covered
with strong plates which overlap each other, and the
head forming only a slight rounded projection from the
general figure..The specimens in the lower beds are
not above the size of a flounder; but in the higher strata,
to judge by the size. of the scales or plates which have
been found, the creature attained a comparatively monstrous size.
The placoids are now represented by the shark, sturgeon, &c., of modern seas; the ganoids are all but unrepresented in our time. Of both classes, one invariable
peculiarity has attracted much attention.  "In all
recent fish, with the exception of the shark family, the
sturgeon, and the long pike, the vertebral column terminates at the point where the caudal fin is given off,
and this fin is expanded above and below the body,
forming what is called a homocercal tail. In all those,
without exception, which have been found in strata of




60


VESTIGES OF THE


the Palaeozoic period [placoids and ganoids], the caudal
fin is heterocercal, being formed of two unequal branches,
the upper one expanded immediately from the vertebral
column, while the lower one is given off at a point some
distance from the extremity." * Now it is a remarkable
fact, that this one-sided tail is a peculiarity in the more
perfect fishes (as the salmon) at a certain stage in their
embryonic history; as is also the inferior position of the
mouth, peculiar to the early fishes. More than this-in
the earlier periods of embryonic life, there is no vertebral
column. This organ is represented in embryos by a
gelatinous cord, called the dorsal cord, which in maturity disappears as the vertebrae are formed upon it.
M. Agassiz has satisfied himself that this was the nature
of the organisation of the placoid and ganoid fishes, as it
is that of the sturgeon of the present seas. It is not
premature to remark how broadly these facts seem to
hint at a parity of law affecting the progress of general
creation, and the progress of an individual foetus of one
of the more perfect animals.
It is equally ascertained of the types of being prevalent in the old red, as of those of the preceding system,
that they are uniform in the corresponding strata of
distant parts of the earth; for instance, lRussia and
North America.
In the old red sandstone, the marine plants, of which
faint traces are observable in the Silurians, continue to
appear. It would seem as if less change took place in
the vegetation than in the animals of those early seas;
and for this, as Mr. Miller has remarked, it is easy to
imagine reasons. For example, an infusion of lime into
the sea would destroy animal life, but be favourable to
vegetation.
* Ansted's Geology, i. 185.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                6r
As yet there were no land animals or plants, and for
this the presumable reason is, that no dry land as yet
existed. We are not left to make this inference solely
from the absence of land animals and plants; in the
arrangement of the primary (stratified) rocks, we have
further evidence of it. That these rocks were formed in
a generally horizontal position, we are as well assured as
that they were formed at the bottom of seas. But they
are always found greatly inclined in position, tilted up
against the slopes of the granitic masses which are
beneath them in geological order, though often shooting
up to a higher point in the atmosphere. No doubt can
be entertained that these granitic masses, forming our
principal mountain ranges, have been protruded from
below, or, at least, thrust much further up, since the
deposition of the primany rocks. The protrusion was
what tilted up the primary rocks; and the inference is,
of course, unavoidable, that these mountains have risen
chiefly, at least, since the primary rocks were laid down.
It is remarkable that, while the primary rocks thus
incline towards granitic nuclei or axes, the strata higher
in the series rest against these again, generally at a less
inclination, or none at all, showing that these strata
were laid down after the swelling mountain eminences
had, by their protrusion, tilted up the primary strata.
And thus it may be said an era of local upthrowing of
the primitive and (perhaps) central matter of our planet,
is established as happening about the close of the primary
strata, and beginning of the next ensuing system. It
may be called the Era of the Oldest Mountains, or, more
boldly, of the formation of the detached portions of dry
land over the hitherto watery surface of the globe-an
important part of the designs of Providence, for which
the time was now apparently come. It may be remarked




62


VESTIGES OF THE


that volcanic disturbances and protrusions of trap took
place throughout the whole period of the deposition of
the primary rocks; but they were upon a comparatively
limited scale, and probably all took place under water.
It was only now that the central granitic masses of the
great mountain ranges were thrown up, carrying up
with them broken edges of the primary strata; a process
which seems to have had this difference from the other,
that it was the effect of a more tremendous force exerted
at a lower depth in the earth, and generally acting in
lines pervading a considerable portion of the earth's
surface. We shall by-and-by see that the protrusion of
some of the mountain ranges was not completed, or did
not stop at that period. There is no part of geological
science more clear than that which refers to the ages of
mountains. It is as certain that the Grampian mountains of Scotland are older than the Alps and Apennines,
as it is that civilisation had visited Italy, and had enabled
her to subdue the world, while Scotland was the residence of "roving barbarians." The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other ranges of continental Europe, are all
younger than the Grampians, or even the insignificant
Mendip Hills of Southern England. Stratification tells
this tale as plainly as Livy tells the history of the
Roman Republic. It tells us-to use the words of
Professor Phillips-that at the time when the Grampians sent streams and detritus to straits where now
the valleys of the Forth and Clyde meet, the greater
part of Europe was a wide ocean.
The last three systems-called in England, the Cumbrian, Silurian, and Devonian, and collectively the
paleozoic rocks, from their containing the remains of
the earliest inhabitants of the globe-are of vast thick



NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATIOAN              63
ness; in England, not much less than 30,000 feet, or
nearly six miles. In other parts of the world, as we
have seen, the earliest of these systems alone is of much
greater depth-arguing an enormous profundity in the
ocean in which they were formed.




( 64 )


SECONDARY ROCKS.
ERA   OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.
LAND FORMED: COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS.
WE now enter upon a new great epoch in the history of
our globe. There was now dry land. As a consequence
of this fact, there was fresh water; for rain, instead
of immediately returning to the sea, as formerly, was
now gathered in channels of the earth, and became
springs, rivers, and lakes.  There was now a theatre
for the existence of land plants and animals, and it
remains to be inquired if these accordingly were produced.
The Secondary Rocks, in which our further researches
are to be prosecuted, consist of a great and varied series,
resting, generally uncomformably, against flanks of the
upturned primary rocks, sometimes themselves considerably inclined, at others, forming extensive basin-like
beds, nearly horizontal; in many places much broken
up and shifted by disturbances from below. They have
all been formed out of the materials of the older rocks,
by virtue of the wearing power of air and water, which
is still every day carrying down vast quantities of
the elevated matter of the globe into the sea. But the
separate strata are each much more distinct in the matter




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               65
of its composition than might be expected. Some are
siliceous or arenaceous (sandstones), composed mainly of
fine grains from the quartz rocks-the most abundant
of the primary strata.  Others are argillaceous-clays,
shales, &c., chiefly derived, probably, from the slate beds
of the primary series. Others are calcareous, derived
from the early limestone. As a general feature, they
are softer and less crystalline than the primary rocks, as
if they had endured less of both heat and pressure than
the senior formation.   There are beds (coal) formed
solely of vegetable matter, and some others in which
the main ingredient is particles of iron (the iron black
band). The secondary rocks are quite as communicative
with regard to their portion of the earth's history as
the primitive were.
The first, or lowest, group of the secondary rocks is
called the Carboniferous Formation, from the remarkable
feature of its numerous interspersed beds of coal. It
commences with the beds of the mountain limestone,
which, in some situations, as in Derbyshire and Ireland,
are of great thickness, being alternated with chert (a
siliceous sandstone), sandstones, shales, and beds of coal,
generally of the harder and less bituminous kind (anthracite), the whole being covered in some places by the millstone grit, a siliceous conglomerate composed of the
detritus of the primary rocks. The mountain limestone,
attaining in England to a depth of eight hundred yards,
greatly exceeds in volume any of the primary limestone
beds, and shows an enormous addition of power to the
causes formerly suggested as having produced this substance. In fact, distinct remains of corals, crinoidea, and
shells are so abundant in it, as to compose three-fourths of
the mass in some parts. Above the mountain limestone
commence the more conspicuous coal beds, alternating
c




66


VESTIGES OF THE


with sandstones, shales, beds of limestone, and ironstone.
Coal is altogether composed of the matter of a terrestrial
vegetation, transmuted by pressure.  Some fresh-water
shells have been found in it, but few of marine origin, and
no remains of those zoophytes and crinoidea so abundant
in the mountain limestone and other rocks.  Coal beds
exist in Europe, Asia, and America, and have hitherto
been esteemed as the most valuable of mineral productions, from the important services which the substance
renders in manufactures and in domestic economy. It is
to be remarked, that there are some local variations in the
arrangement of coal beds. In France, they rest immediately on the granite and other primary rocks, the
intermediate strata not having been found at those places.
In America, the kind called anthracite occurs among the
slate beds, and this species also abounds more in the
mountain limestone than with us. These last circumstances only show that different parts of the earth's surface did not all witness the same events of a certain fixed
series exactly at the same time. There had been an
exhibition of dry land about the site of America, a little
earlier than in Europe.
Some features of the condition of the earth during the
deposition of the carboniferous group, are made out with
a clearness which must satisfy most minds. First we are
told of a time when carbonate of lime was formed in vast
abundance at the bottoms of profound seas, accompanied
by an unusually large population of corals and encrinites;
while in some parts of the earth there were patches of
dry land, covered with a luxuriant vegetation. Next we
have a comparatively brief period of volcanic disturbance
(when the conglomerate was formed). Then the causes
favourable to the so abundant production of limestone,
and the large population of -marine acrita, decline, and




AtTURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               67
we find the masses of dry land increase in number and
extent, and begin to bear an amount of forest vegetation,
far exceeding that of the most sheltered tropical spots of
the present surface. The climate, even in the latitude
of Baffin's Bay, was torrid, and perhaps the atmosphere
contained a larger charge of carbonic acid gas (the
material of vegetation) than it now does. The forests
or thickets of the period included no species of plants now
known upon earth. They mainly consisted of gigantic
shrubs, many of which are not represented by any existing types, while others are akin to kinds which, in temperate climes at least, are now only found in small and
lowly forms. That these forests grew upon a Polynesia,
or multitude of small islands, is considered probable,
from similar vegetation being now found in such situations within the tropics. With regard to the circumstances under which the masses of vegetable matter were
transformed into successive coal strata, geologists are
divided. From examples seen at the present day, at the
mouths of such rivers as the Mississippi, which traverse
extensive sylvan regions, and from other circumstances
to be adverted to, it is held likely by some that the vegetable matter, the iubbish of decayed forests, was carried
by rivers into estuaries, and there accumulated in vast
natural rafts, until it sunk to the bottom, where an overlayer of sand or mud would prepare it for becoming a
stratum of coal. Others conceive that the vegetation
first went into the condition of a peat moss, that a sink
in the level then exposed it to be overrun by the sea, and
covered with a layer of sand or mud; that a subsequent
uprise made the mud dry land, and fitted it to bear a new
forest, which afterwards, like its predecessor, became a
bed of peat; that, in short, by repetitions of this process,
the alternate layers of coal, sandstone, and shale, constiC 2




68


VESTIGES OF THE


tuting the carboniferous group, were formed. It is favourable to this last view that marine fossils are scarcely found
in the body of the coal itself, though abundant in the shale
layers above and below it; also that in several places
erect stems of trees are found with their roots still fixed
in the shale beds, and crossing the sandstone beds at
almost right angles, showing that these, at least, had not
been drifted from their original situations. On the other
hand, it is not easy to admit such repeated risings and
sinkings of surface as would be required, on this hypothesis, to form a series of coal strata. Perhaps we may
most safely rest at present with the supposition that coal
has been formed under both classes of circumstances,
though in the latter only as an exception to the former.
Upwards of three hundred species of plants have been
ascertained to exist in the coal formation; but it is not
necessary to suppose that the whole contained in that
system are now, or ever will be, distinguished. Experiments show that some great classes of plants become
decomposed in water in a much less space of time than
others, and it is remarkable that those which decompose
soonest are of the classes found most rarely, or not at all,
in the coal strata. It is consequently to be inferred that
there may have been grasses and mosses at this era, and
many species of trees, the remains of which had lost
all trace of organic form before their substance sunk into
the mass of which coal was formed. In speaking, therefore, of the vegetation of this period, we must bear in
mind that it may have comprehended forms of which we
have no memorial.
Supposing, nevertheless, that, in the main, the ascertained vegetation of the coal system is that which grew
at the time of its formation, it is interesting to find that
the terrestrial botany of our globe begins with classes of




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                  69
comparatively simple forms and structure. In the ranks
of the vegetable kingdom, the lowest place is taken by
plants of cellular tissue, and which have no flowers (cryptogamia), as lichens, mosses, fungi, ferns, seaweeds.
Above these stand plants of vascular tissue, and bearing
flowers, in which again there are two great subdivisions;
first, plants having one seed-lobe (monocotyledons), and
in which the new matter is added within (endogenous),
of which the cane and palm are examples; second, plants
having two seed-lobes (dicotyledons), and in which the
new matter is added on the outside under the bark
(exogenous), of which the pine, elm, oak, and most of the
British forest-trees are examples; these subdivisions also
ranking in the order in which they are here stated.
Now it is clear that a predominance of these forms in
succession marked the successive epochs developed by
fossil geology; the simple abounding first, and the complex afterwards.
Two-thirds of the plants of the carboniferous era are
of the cellular or cryptogamic kind, a proportion which
would probably be much increased if we knew the whole
Flora of that era. The ascertained dicotyledons, or higherclass plants, are comparatively few in this formation;
but it will be found that they constantly increased as
the globe grew older.
The master-form or type of the era was the fern, or
breckan, of which about one hundred and thirty species
have already been ascertained as entering into the composition of coal.* The fern is a plant which thrives
best in warm, shaded, and moist situations. In tropical
countries, where these conditions abound, there are many
more species than in temperate climes, and some of these
* The principal families are named sphenopteris, neuropteris, and
pecopteris.




7o


VESSTIGES, OF THE


are arborescent, or of a tree-like size and luxuriance.*'
The ferns of the coal strata have been of this magnitude,
and that without regard to the parts of the earth where
they are found.   In the coal of Baffin's Bay, of Newcastle, and of the torrid zone alike, are the fossil ferns
arborescent, showing clearly that, in that era, the present
tropical temperature, or one even higher, existed in very
high latitudes.
In the swamps and ditches of England there grows a
plant called the horse-tail (equisetum), having a succulent,
erect, jointed stem, with slender leaves and a scaly catkin
at the top. A second large section of the plants of the
carboniferous era were of this kind (eqcisetacece), but,
like the fern, reaching the magnitude of trees.   While
existing equiseta rarely exceed three feet in height, and
the stems are generally under half an inch in diameter,
their kindred, entombed in the coal beds, seem to have been
generally fourteen or fifteen feet high, with stems from
six inches to a foot in thickness. Arborescent plants of
this family, like the arborescent ferns, now grow only
in tropical countries, and their being found in the coal
beds in all latitudes is consequently held as an additional
proof that at this era a warm     climate was extended
much farther to the north than at present. It is to be
remarked that plants of this kind (forming two genera,
the most abundant of which is the calc7tites) are only
represented on the present surface by plants of the same
family: the species which flourished at this era gradually
lessen in number as we advance upwards in the series of
rocks, and disappear before we arrive at the tertiary
formation.
The club-moss family (lycopodiacece) are other plants
' A specimen from Bengal, in the staircase of the British Museum,
is forty-five feet high.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               71
of the present surface, usually seen in a lowly and
creeping form in temperate latitudes, but presenting
species which rise to a greater magnitude within the
tropics.  Malny specimens of this family are found in
the coal beds; it is thought they have contributed more
to the substance of the coal than any other family.
But, like the ferns and equisetacese, they rise to a prodigious magnitude.   The lepidodendra (so the fossil
genus is called) have probably been from sixty-five to
eighty feet in height, having at their base a diameter of
about three feet, while their leaves measured twenty
inches in length. In the forests of the coal era, the
lepidodendra would enjoy the rank of firs iLn our forests,
affording shade to the only less stately ferns and calamites. The internal structure of the stem, and the
character of the seed-vessels, show them to have been a
link between single-lobed and double-lobed plants, a fact
worthy of note, as it favours the idea that, in vegetable,
as well as animal creation, a progress has been observed,
in conformity with advancing conditions. It is also
curious to find a missing link of so much importance in
a genus of plants which has long ceased to have a living
place upon earth.
The other leading plants of the coal era are without
representatives on the. present surface, and their characters are in general less clearly ascertained. Amongst
the most remarkable are-the sigillaria, of which large
stems are very abundant, showing that the interior has
been soft, and the exterior fluted with separate leaves
inserted in vertical rows along the flutings-and the
stigmaria, plants apparently calculated to flourish in
marshes or pools, having a short, thick, fleshy stem, with
a dome-shaped top, from which sprung branches of from
twenty to thirty feet long. Amongst monocotyledons




72


VESTIGES OF THE


were some palms (flahellaria and noeggerathia), besides
a few not distinctly assignable to any class.
The dicotyledons of the coal are comparatively few,
though on the present surface they are the most
numerous sub-class. Besides some of doubtful affinity
(cannularia, asterophyllites, &c.), there were a few of
the pine family, which seem to have been the highest
class of trees of this era, and are only as yet found in
isolated cases, and in sandstone beds.   The first discovered lay in the Craigleith quarry, near Edinburgh,
and consisted of a stem about two feet thick, and fortyseven feet in length. Others have since been found,
both in the same situation, and at Newcastle. Leaves
and fruit being wanting, an ingenious mode of detecting the nature of these trees was hit upon by Mr.
Witham, of Lartington.     Taking thin polished cross
slices of the stem, and subjecting them to the microscope, he detected the structure of the wood to be that
of a cone-bearing tree, by the presence of certain " reticulations" which distinguish that family, in addition to
the usual radiating and concentric lines. That particular
tree was concluded to be an araucaria, a species now
found in Norfolk Island, in the South Sea, and in a few
other remote situations. The conifere of this era form
the dawn of dicotyledonous trees, of which they may be
said to be the simplest type, and to which, it has already
been noticed, the lepidodendra are a link from the
monocotyledons.   The concentric rings of the Craigleith and other conifere of this era have been mentioned. It is interesting to find in these a record of
the changing seasons of those early ages, when as yet
there were no human beings to observe time or tide.
The rings are clearly traced; but it is observed that




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               73
they are more slightly marked than is tie case with
their family at the present day, as if the changes of
temperature had been within a narrower range.
( Such was the vegetation of the carbonigenous era,
composed of forms at the bottom of the botanical scale,
flowerless, fruitless, but luxuriant and abundant beyond
what the most favoured spots on earth can now show.
The rigidity of the leaves of its plants, and the absence
of fleshy fruits and farinaceous seeds, unfitted it to afford
nutriment to animals; and, monotonous in its forms, and
destitute of brilliant colouring, its sward probably unenlivened by any of the smaller flowering herbs, its
shades uncheered by the hum of insects, or the music of
birds, it must have been but a sombre scene to a human
visitant.  But neither man nor any other animals were
then in existence to look for such uses or such beauties in
this vegetation. It was serving other and equally important ends, clearing (probably) the atmosphere of matter
noxious to animal life, and storing up mineral masses
which were in long subsequent ages to prove of the
greatest service to the human race, even to the extent of
favouring the progress of its civilisation.
The animal remains of this era are not numerous, in
comparison with those which go before, or those which
come after. The mountain limestone, indeed, deposited
at the commencement of it, abounds unusually in polypiaria and crinoidea; but when we ascend to the coalbeds themselves, the case is altered, and these marine
remains altogether disappear.  We have then only a
limited variety of conchifers and shell mollusks, with
fragments of a few species of fishes, and these are rarely
or never found in the coal seams, but in the shales alternating with them.  At this time, the sauroids, a family




74


VESTIGES OF THE


of the ganoid fishes, are considered as at their apogee, or
point of greatest abundance; a fact of some importance,
seeing that they partake of the lizard character, a genus
of a higher order of animals which we are soon to see
entering upon the stage. Of this link family is the
AIegalichthys Hibbertii, found by Dr. Hibbert Ware, in
a limestone bed of fresh-water origin, underneath the
coal at Burdiehouse, near Edinburgh. Others of the
same kind have been found in the coal measures in Yorkshire, and in the low coal shales at Manchester. The
chief other fishes of the coal era are named palkeothrissum,
palkeoniscus, diperdus.
Coal strata are nearly confined to the group termed
the carboniferous formation. Thin beds are not unknown afterwards, but they occur only as a rare exception. It is therefore thought that the most important
of the conditions which allowed of so abundant a terrestrial vegetation had ceased about the time when this
formation was closed. The high temperature was not
one of the conditions which terminated, for there are
evidences of it afterwards; but probably the superabundance of carbonic acid gas supposed to have existed
during this era was expended before its close. There can
be little doubt that the infusion of a large dose of this
gas into the atmosphere at the present day would be
attended by precisely the same circumstances as in the
time of the carboniferous formation. Land animal life
would not have a place on earth; vegetation would be
enormous; and coal strata would be formed from    the
vast accumulations of woody matter, which would gather
in every sea, near the mouths of great rivers. On the
exhaustion of the superabundance of carbonic acid gas,
the coal formation would cease, and the earth might




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               75
again  become a suitable theatre of being for land
animals.
The termination of the carboniferous formation is
marked by symptoms of volcanic violence, which some
geologists have considered to denote the close of one
system of things and the beginning of another. Coal
beds generally lie in basins, as if following the curve of
the bottom of seas. But there is no such basin which is
not broken up into pieces, some of which have been
tossed up on edge, others allowed to sink, causing the
ends of strata to be in some instances many yards, and
in a few several hundred feet, removed from the corresponding ends of neighbouring fragments. These are
held to be results of volcanic movements below, the
operation of which is further seen in numerous upbursts
and intrusions of volcanic rock (trap). That these disturbances took place about the close of the formation,
and not later, is shown in the fact of the next higher
group of strata being comparatively undisturbed. Other
symptoms of this time of violence are seen in the beds
of conglomerate which occur amongst the first strata
above the coal. These, as usual, consist of fragments of
the elder rocks, more or less worn from being tumbled
about in agitated water, and laid down in a mud paste,
afterwards hardened. Volcanic disturbances break up
the rocks; the pieces are worn in seas; and a deposit of
conglomerate is the consequence. Of porphyry, there
are some such pieces in the conglomerate of Devonshire,
three or four tons in weight. It is to be admitted for
strict truth that, in some parts of Europe, the carboniferous formation is followed by superior deposits, without the appearance of such disturbances between their
respective periods; but apparently this case belongs to




76    rNATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
the class of exceptions already      noticedl.   That    disturbance was general, is supported by the further and
important fact of the destruction of many forms of
organic being previously flourishing, particularly of the
vegetable kingdom.
* " Some of the most considerable dislocations of the border of the
coal fields of Coalbrookdale and Dudley happened after the deposition
of a part of the new red sandstone; but it is certain that those of
Somersetshire and Gloucestershire were completed before the date of
that rock. "-PHILLIrS.




( 77 )


ERA OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE.
TERRESTRIAL ZOOLOGY COMMENCES WITH REPTILES.
FIRST TRACES OF BIRDS.
THE next volume of the rock series refers to an era distinguished by an event of no less importance than the
commencement of land animals. The New Red Sandstone System is subdivided into groups, some of which are
wanting in some places; they are pretty fully developed
in the north of England, in the following ascending
order:-I, Lower red sandstone; 2, Magnesian limestone; 3, Red and white sandstones and conglomerate;
4, Variegated marls. Between the third and fourth
there is, in Germany, another group, called the Muschelkalk, a word expressing a limestone full of shells.
The first group, containing the conglomerates already
adverted to, seems to have been produced during the time
of disturbance which occurred so generally after the
carbonigenous era. This new era is distinguished by a
paucity of organic remains, as might partly be expected
from the appearances of disturbance, and the red tint of
the rocks, the latter being communicated by a solution of
oxide of iron, a substance unfavourable to animal life.
The second group is a limestone with an infusion of
magnesia. It is developed less generally than some
others, but occurs conspicuously in England and




7S


VESTIGES OF THE


Germany.   Its place, above the red sandstone, shows
the recurrence of circumstances favourable to animal
life, and we accordingly find in it not only zoophytes,
conchifera, and a few tribes of fish, but some faint traces
of land plants, and a new and startling appearance-a
reptile of saurian (lizard) character, analagous to the now
existing family called monitors. Remains of this creature are found in cupriferous (copper-bearing) slate connected with the mountain limestone, at Mansfield and
Glucksbrunn, which may be taken as evidence that dry
land existed in that age near those places. The magnesian limestone is also remarkable as the last rock in
which appears the leptsena, or producta, a conchifer of
numerous species which makes a conspicuous appearance
in all previous seas. It is likewise to be observed, that
the fishes of this age, to the genera of which the names
paleoniscus, catopterus, platysomus, &c., have been
applied, vanish, and henceforth appear no more.
The third group, chiefly sandstones, variously coloured
according to the amount and nature of the metallic
oxide infused into them, shows a recurrence of agitation, and a consequent diminution of the amount of
animal life. In the upper part, however, of this group,
there are abundant symptoms of a revival of proper
conditions for such life.  There are marl beds, the
origin of which substance in decomposed shells is obvious; and in Germany, though not in England, here
occurs the muschelkalk, containing numerous organic
remains (generally different from  those of the magnesian limestone), and noted for the specimens of land
animals, which it is the first to present in any considerable abundance to our notice.
These animals are of the vertebrate sub-kingdom,
but of its lowest class next after fishes-namely, rep



NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.                79
tiles-a portion of the terrestrial tribes whose imperfect respiratory system perhaps fitted them for enduring
an atmosphere not yet quite suitable for birds or rmammifers.* The specimens found in the muschelkalk are
allied to the crocodile and lizard tribes of the present
day, but in the latter instance are upon a scale of magnitude as much superior to present forms as the lepidodendron of the coal era was superior to the dwarf
club-mosses of our time. These saurians also combine
some peculiarities of structure of a most extraordinary
character.
The animal to which the name ichthyosaurus has been
given, was as long as a young whale, and it was fitted
for living in the water, though breathing the atmosphere. It had the vertebral column and general bodily
form of a fish, but to that were added the head and
breast-bone of a lizard, and the paddles of the whale
tribes. The beak, moreover, was that of a porpoise,
and the teeth were those of a crocodile. It must have
been a most destructive creature to the fish of those
early seas.
The plesiosaurus was of similar bulk, with a turtle-like
body and paddles, showing that the sea was its element,
but with a long serpent-like neck, terminating in a saurian
head, calculated to reach prey at a considerable distance.
These two animals, of which many varieties have been
discovered, constituting distinct species, are supposed to
have lived in the shallow borders of the seas of this and
subsequent formations, devouring immense quantities
* The immediate effects of the slow respiration of the reptilia are,
a low temperature in their bodies, and a slow consumption of food.
Requiring little oxygen, they could have existed in an atmosphere
containing a less proportion of that gas to carbonic acid gas than
what now obtains.




80


VESTIGES OF THE


of the finny tribes. It was at first thought that no
creatures approaching them in character now inhabit the
earth; but latterly Mr. Darwin has discovered, in the
reptile-peopled Galapagos Islands, in the South Sea, a
marine saurian from three to four feet long.
The negalosaurus was an enormous lizard - a land
creature, also carnivorous. The pterodactylus was another
lizard, but furnished with bat-like wings to pursue its
prey in the air, and varying in size between a cormorant
and a snipe. Crocodiles abounded, and some of these
were herbiverous. Such was the iguanodon, a creature
of the character of the iguana of the Ganges, but reaching
a hundred feet in length, or twenty times that of its
modern representative.
There are also numerous tortoises, some of them reaching a great size; and Professor Owen has found in Warwickshire some remains of an animal of the batrachian
order,* to which, from the peculiar form of the teeth, he
has given the name of labyrinthodon. Thus, three of
Cuvier's four orders of reptilia (sauria, chelonia, and
batrachia) are represented in this formation, the serpent
order (ophidia) being alone wanting.
The variegated marl beds which constitute the uppermost group of the formation, present two additional
genera of huge saurians-the phytosaurus and mastodonsaurus.
It is in the upper beds of the red sandstone that beds
of salt first occur. These are sometimes of such thickness, that the mine from which the material has been
excavated looks like a lofty church.  We see in the
present world no circumstances calculated to produce the
formation of a bed of rock salt; yet it is not difficult to
* The order to which frogs and toads belong.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             S
understand how such strata were formed in an age
marked by ultra-tropical heat and frequent volcanic disturbances. An estuary, cut off by an upthrow of trap,
or a change of level, and left to dry up under the heat
of the sun, would quickly become the bed of a dense
layer of rock salt. A second shift of level, or some other
volcanic disturbance, connecting it again with the sea,
would expose this stratum to being covered over with
a layer of sand or mud, destined in time to form the
next stratum of rock above it.
The plants of this era are few and unobtrusive.
Equiseta, calamites, ferns, Voltzia, and a few of the
other families found so abundantly in the preceding
formation, here present themselves, but in diminished
size and quantity.
This seems to be the proper place to advert to certain
memorials of a peculiar and unexpected character respecting these early ages in the sandstones. So low as
the bottom of the carboniferous system, slabs are found
marked over a great extent of surface with that peculiar
corrugation or wrinkling which the receding tide leaves
upon a sandy beach when the sea is but slightly agitated;
and not only are these ripple-marks, as they are called,
found on the surfaces, but casts of them are found on
the under sides of slabs lying above. The phenomena
suggest the time when the sand ultimately formed into
these stone slabs, was part of the beach of a sea of the
carbonigenous era; when, left wavy by one tide, it was
covered over with a thin layer of fresh sand by the next,
and so on, precisely as such circumstances might be
expected to take place at the present day. Sandstone
surfaces, ripple-marked, are found throughout the subsequent formations: in those of the new red, at more




82


VESTIGES OF THE


than one place in England, they further bear impressions
of rain drops which have fallen upon them —the rain, of
course, of the inconceivably remote age in which the
sandstones were formed. In the Greensill sandstone,
near Shrewsbury, it has even been possible to tell from
what direction the shower came which impressed the
sandy surface, the rims of the marks being somewhat
raised on one side, exactly as might be expected from a
slanting shower falling at this day upon one of our
beaches. These facts have the same sort of interest as
the season rings of the Craigleith conifers, as speaking
of a parity between some of the familiar processes of
Nature in those early ages and our own.
In the new red sandstone, impressions still more
important in the inferences to which they tend, have
been observed-namely, the footmarks of various
animals. In a quarry of this formation, at Corncockle
Muir, in Dumfriesshire, where the slabs incline at an
angle of thirty-eight degrees, the vestiges of an animal
supposed to have been a tortoise are distinctly traced
up and down the slope, as if the creature had had occasion to pass backwards and forwards in that direction
only, possibly in its daily visits to the sea. Some slabs
similarly impressed, in the Stourton quarries in Cheshire,
are further marked with a shower of rain which we
know must have fallen cafterwarcls, for its little hollows
are impressed in the footmarks also, though more slightly
than on the rest of the surface, the comparative hardness
of a trodden place having apparently prevented so deep
an impression being made. At Hessberg, in Saxony,
the vestiges of four distinct animals have been traced,
one of them a web-footed animal of small size, considered as a congener of the crocodile; another, whose




NAATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              83
footsteps having a resemblance to an impression of a
swelled human hand, has caused it to be named the
cheirotherimzn. The footsteps of the cheirotherium have
been found also in the Stourton quarries above mentioned. Professor Owen, who stands at the head of
comparative anatomy in the present day, has expressed
his belief that this last animal was the same batrachian
of which he has found fragments in the new red sandstone of Warwickshire. At Runcorn, near Manchester,
and elsewhere, have been discovered the tracks of an
animal which Mr. Owen calls the rhynchosaurus, uniting
with the body of a reptile, the beak and feet of a bird,
and which clearly had been a link between these two
classes.
If geologists shall ultimately give their approbation to
the inferences made from a recent discovery in America,
we shall have the addition of perfect birds, though
probably of a low type, to the animal forms of this era.
It is stated to be in quarries of this rock, in the valley of
Connecticut, that footprints have been found, apparently
produced by birds of the order gralle, or waders. " The
footsteps appear in regular succession on the continuous
track of an animal, in the act of walking or running, with
the right and left foot always in their relative places. Tile
distance of the intervals between each footstep on the
same track is occasionally varied, but to no greater
amount than may be explained by the bird having
altered its pace. lMany tracks of different individuals
and different species are often found crossing each other,
and crowded, like impressions of feet upon the shores
of a muddy stream, where ducks and geese resort."*
* Dr. Buckland, quoting an article by Professor Hitchcock, in the
American Journal of Science and Arts, I836.




84    NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
Some of these prints indicate small animals, but others
denote birds of what would now be an unusually large
size. One animal, having a foot fifteen inches in length
(one-half more than that of the ostrich), and a stride of
from four to six feet, has been appropriately entitled,
ornithichnites giganteus.




( 85 )


ERA OF THE OOLITE.
COMMENCEMENT        OF MAMMALIA.
THE chronicles of this period consist of a series of beds,
mostly calcareous, taking their general name (Oolite
System) from a conspicuous member of them-the oolite
- a limestone composed of an aggregation of small round
grains or spherules, and so called from its fancied
resemblance to a cluster of eggs, or the roe of a fish.
This texture of stone is novel and striking. It is supposed
to be of chemical origin, each spherule being an aggregation of particles round a central nucleus. The oolite
system is largely developed in England, France, Westphalia, and Northern Italy; it appears in Northern India
and Africa, and patches of it exist in Scotland, and in the
vale of the Mississippi. It may of course be yet discovered in many other parts of the world.
The series, as shown in the neighbourhood of Bath, is
(beginning with the lowest) as follows:-i, Lias, a set of
strata variously composed of limestone, clay, marl, and
shale, clay being predominant; 2, Lower oolitic formation, including, besides the great oolite bed of central
England, fullers' earth beds, forest marble, and cornbrash;
3, Middle oolitic formation, composed of two sub-groups,
the Oxford clay and coral rag, the latter being a mere
layer of the works of the coral polype; 4, Upper oolitic




86


8VESTIGES OF THE


formation, including what are called Kimmeridge clay
and Portland oolite. In Yorkshire there is an additional
group above the lias, and in Sutherlandshire there is
another group above that again.  In the wealds (moor]ands) of Kent and Sussex, there is, in like manner
above the fourth of the Bath series, another additional
group, to which the name of the W:Tealden has been given,
from its situation, and which, composed of sandstones
and clays, is subdivided into Purbeck beds, Hastings
sand, and Weald clay.
There are no particular appearances of disturbance
between the close of the new red sandstone and the
beginning of the oolite system, as far as has been
observed in England. Yet there is a great change in the
materials of the rocks of the two formations, showing
that while the bottoms of the seas of the one period had
been chiefly arenaceous, those of the other were chiefly
clayey and limy.   And there is an equal difference
between the two periods in respect of both botany and
zoology. While the new red sandstone shows comparatively scanty traces of organic creation, those in the oolite
are extremely abundant, particularly in the department
of animals, and more particularly still of sea mollusca,
which, it has been observed, are always the more conspicuous in proportion to the predominance of calcareous
rocks. It is also remarkable that the animals of the
oolitic system are entirely different in species from those
of the preceding age, and that these species cease before
the next. In this system we likewise find that uniformity
over great space which has been remarked of the Faunas
of earlier formations.  " In the equivalent deposits in
the Himalaya Mountains, at Fernando Po, in the region
north of the Cape of Good Hope, and in the Run of
Cutch, and other parts of Hindostan, fossils have been




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.               87
discovered, which, as far as English naturalists who have
seen them  can determine, are undistinguishable from
certain oolite and lias fossils of Europe." '
The dry land of this age presented cycademe, "a
beautiful class of plants between the palms and conifers,
having a tall, straight trunk, terminating in a magnificent crown of foliage." t There were tree ferns, but in
smaller proportion than in former ages; also equisetacee,
lilia, and coniferse. The vegetation was generally analogous to that of the Cape of Good Hope and Australia,
which seems to argue a climate (we must remember, a
universal climate) between the tropical and temperate.
It was, however, sufficiently luxuriant in some instances
to produce thin seams of coal, for such are found in the
oolite formation of both Yorkshire and Sutherland.
The sea, as for ages before, contained algme, of which,
however, only a few species have been preserved to our
day. The lower classes of the inhabitants of the ocean
were unprecedentedly abundant.    The polypiaria were
in such abundance as to form whole strata of themselves.
The   crinoidea and   echinites  were  also extremely
numerous. Shell mollusks, in hundreds of new species,
occupied the bottoms of the seas of those ages, while of
the swimming    shell-fish, ammonites and  belemnites,
there were also many scores of varieties. The belemnite
here calls for some particular notice. It commences in
the oolite, and terminates in the next formation. It is
an elongated, conical shell, terminating in a point, and
having, at the larger end, a cavity for the residence of
the animal, with a series of air-chambers below. The
animal, placed in the upper cavity, could raise or depress
itself in the water at pleasure by a pneumatic operation
3lurchison's " Silurian System, p. 583.
t Buckland.




88


VESTIGES OF THE


upon the entral air     tube pervading    its shell.   Its
tentacula, sent abroad over the summit of the shell,
searched the sea for prey. The creature had an ink-bag,
with which it could muddle the water around it, to
protect itself from more powerful animals, and, strange
to say, this has been found so well preserved that an
artist has used it in one instance as a paint, wherewith
to delineate the belemnite itself.
The crustacea discovered in this formation are less
numerous.    There   are many fishes, some      of  which
(acrodlus, pscammodus, &c.) are presumed, from   remains
of their palatal bones, to have been of the gigantic
cartilaginous class, now represented by such as the
cestraceon.  It has been considered by Professor Owen
as worthy of notice, that the cestraceon being an inhabitant of the Australian seas, we have, in both the
botany and ichthyology of this period, an analogy to
that continent.   The pycnodontes (thick-toothed) and
lepidoides (having thick scales) are other families
described by M. Agassiz as extensively prevalent. In
the shallow waters of the oolitic formation, the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and other huge saurian carnivora of
the preceding age, plied, in increased numbers, their
destructive vocation.* To them were added new genera,
the cetiosaurus, mososaurus, and some others, all of
similar character and habits.
Land reptiles abounded, including species of the
pterodactyle of the preceding age-tortoises, trionyces,
crocodilians-and the pliosaurus, a creature which appears
* In some instances, these fossils are found with the contents of the
stomach faithfully preserved, and even with pieces of the external
skin. The pellets ejected by them (coprolites) are found in vast
numbers, each generally enclosed in a nodule of ironstone, and sometimes showing remains of the fishes which had formed their food.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 89
to have formed a link between the plesiosaurus and the
crocodile. We know of at least six species of the flying
saurian, the pterodactyle, in this formation.
Now, for the first time, we find remains of insects, an
order of animals not well calculated for fossil preservation,
and which are therefore amongst the rarest of the animal
tribes found in rocks, though they are the most numerous
of all living families. A single libellula (dragon-fly) was
found in the Stonesfield slate, a member of the lower
oolitic group quarried near Oxford; and this was for
several years the only specimen known to exist so early;
but now many species have been found in a corresponding
rock at Solenhofen in Germany.  It is remarkable that
the remains of insects are found most plentifully near
the remains of pterodactyles, to which undoubtedly they
served as prey.
The first glimpse of the highest class of the vertebrate
sub-kingdom-nzcamalia —is obtained from the Stonesfield slate, where there have been found several specimens
of the lower jaw-bone of a quadruped evidently insectivorous, and inferred, from peculiarities of structure,
to have belonged to the marsupial family (pouched
animals).* It may be observed, although no specimens
of so high a class of animals as mammalia are found
earlier, such may nevertheless have existed: the defect
may be in our not having found them; but other things
considered, the probability is that heretofore there were
no mammifers. It is an interesting circumstance that
the first mammifers found should have belonged to the
marsupialia, when the place of that order in the scale of
creation is considered. In the imperfect structure of
* Fragments attributed to a cetaceous animal, another humble
form of the mammal class, have likewise been found in the great oolite,
near Oxford.
*




90


VESTIGES OF THE


their brain, deficient in the organs connecting the two
hemispheres-and in the mode of gestation, which is only
in small part uterine-this family is clearly a link
between the oviparous vertebrata (birds, reptiles, and
fishes) and the higher mammifers.      This is further
established by their possessing a faint development of
two canals passing from near the anus to the external
surface of the viscera, which are fully possessed in
reptiles and fishes, for the purpose of supplying aerated
water to the blood circulating in particular vessels, but
which are unneeded by mammifers.     Such rudiments of
organs in certain species which do not require them in
any degree, are common in both the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, but are always most conspicuous in families
approaching in character to those classes to which the
full organs are proper. This subject will be more particularly adverted to in the sequel.
The highest part of the oolitic formation presents some
phenomena of an unusual and interesting character,
which demand special notice. Immediately above the
upper oolitic group in Buckinghamshire, in the vicinity
of Weymouth, and other situations, there is a thin
stratum, usually called by workmen the dirt-bed, which
appears, from incontestable evidence, to have been a soil,
formed, like soils of the present day, in the course of
time, upon a surface which had previously been the
bottom of the sea. The dirt-bed contains exuvise of
tropical trees, accumulated through time, as the forest
shed its honours on the spot where it grew, and became
itself decayed. Near Weymouth there is a piece of this
stratum, in which stumps of trees remain rooted, mostly
erect or slightly inclined, and from one to three feet
high; while trunks of the same forest, also silicified, lie
imbedded on the surface of the soil in which they grew.




NAl TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.


9I


Above this bed lie those which have been called the
Wealden, from their full development in the AVeald of
Sussex; and these as incontestably argue that the dry
land forming the dirt-bed had next afterwards become
the area of brackish estuaries, or lakes partially connected with the sea; for the Wealden strata contain
exuvise of fresh-water tribes, besides those of the great
saurians and chelonia. The area of this estuary comprehends the whole south-east province of England. A
geologist thus confidently  narrates the  subsequent
events: "i Much calcareous matter was first deposited
[in this estuary], and in it were entombed myriads of
shells, apparently analogous to those of the vivipara.
Then came a thick envelope of sand, sometimes interstratified with mud; and, finally, muddy matter prevailed. The solid surface beneath the waters would
appear to have suffered a long-continued and gradual
depression, which was as gradually filled, or nearly so,
with transported matter; in the end, however, after a
depression of several hundred feet, the sea again entered
upon the area, not suddenly or violently-for the
Wealden rocks pass gradually into the superincumbent
cretaceous series-but so quietly, that the mud containing the remains of terrestrial and fresh-water creatures
was tranquilly covered up by sands replete with marine
exuviae."  A subsequent depression of the same area, to
the depth of at least three hundred fathoms, is believed
to have taken place, to admit of the deposition of the
cretaceous beds lying above.
From the scattered way in which remains of the larger
terrestrial animals occur in the Wealden, and the intermixture of pebbles of the special appearance of those
worn in rivers, it is also inferred that the estuary which
* De la Beche's " Geological Researches," p. 344.




92    NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
once covered the south-east part of England was the
mouth of a river of that far-descending class of which
the Mississippi and Amazon are examples. What part
of the earth's surface presented the dry land through
which that and other similar rivers flowed, no one can
tell for certain. It has been surmised that the particular one here spoken of may have flowed from a
point not nearer than the site of the present Newfoundland. Professor Phillips has suggested, from the analogy
of the mineral composition, that anciently elevated coal
strata may have composed the dry land from which the
sandy matters of these strata were washed. Such a
deposit as the Wealden almost necessarily implies a
local, not a general condition; yet it has been thought
that similar strata and remains exist in the Pays de
Bray, near Beauvais. This leads to the supposition that
there may have been, in that age, a series of riverreceiving estuaries along the border of some such great
ocean as the Atlantic, of which that of modern Sussex is
only an example.




( 93 )


ERA OF THE CRETACEOUS FORMATION.
THE record of this period consists of a series of strata, in
which chalk beds make a conspicuous appearance, and
which is therefore called the cretaceous system or formation. In England, a long stripe, extending from
Yorkshire to Kent, presents the cretaceous beds upon
the surface, generally lying conformably upon the oolite,
and in many instances rising into bold escarpments towards the west. The celebrated cliffs of Dover are of
this formation. It extends into northern France, and
thence north-westward into Germany, whence it is traced
into Scandinavia and Russia. The same system exists in
North America, and probably in other parts of the earth
not yet geologically investigated. Being a marine deposit, it establishes that seas existed at the time of its
formation on the tracks occupied by it, while some of its
organic remains prove that, in the neighbourhood of
those seas, there were tracts of dry land.
The cretaceous formation in England presents beds
chiefly sandy in the lowest part, chiefly clayey in the
middle, and chiefly of chalk in the upper part, the chalk
beds being never absent, which some of the lower are in
several places. In the vale of the Mississippi, again, the
true chalk is wholly, or all but wholly absent. In the
south of England, the lower beds are (reckoning from
the lowest upwards): i, Shankland or greensand, "a




94


VESTIGES OF THE


triple alternation of sands and sandstones with clay;"
2, Gait, "a stiff blue or black clay, abounding in shells,
which frequently possess a pearly lustre;" 3, Hard chalk;
4, Chalk witl flints; these two last being generally
white, but in sone districts red, and in others yellow.
The whole are, in England, about I200 feet thick, showing the considerable depths of the ocean in which the
deposits were made.
Chalk is a carbonate of lime, and the manner of its
production in such vast quantities was long a subject of
speculation among geologists. Some light seemed to be
thrown upon the subject a few years ago, when it was
observed that the detritus of coral reefs in the present
tropical seas gave a powder, undistinguishable, when
dried, from ordinary chalk. It then appeared likely that
the chalk beds were the detritus of the corals which were
in the oceans of that era. Mr. Darwin, who made some
curious inquiries on this point, further suggested that
the matter might have intermediately passed through
the bodies of worms and fish, such as feed on the corals
of the present day, and in whose stomachs he has found
impure chalk. This, however, cannot be a full explanation of the production of chalk, if we admit some more
recent discoveries of Professor Ehrenberg. That master
of microscopic investigation announces that chalk is
composed partly of "inorganic particles of irregular
elliptical structure and granular slaty disposition," and
partly of shells of inconceivable minuteness, "varying
from the one-twelfth to the two hundred and eightyeighth part of a line"-a cubic inch of the substance
containing above ten millions of them! The chalk of
the north of Europe contains, he says, a larger proportion of the inorganic matter; that of the south, a larger




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               95
proportion of the organic matter, being in some instances
almost entirely composed of it. He has been able to
classify many of these creatures, some of them being
allied to the nautili, nummuli, cyprides, &c. The shells
of some are calcareous, of others siliceous. M. Ehrenberg
has likewise detected microscopic sea-plants in the chalk.
The distinctive feature of the uppermost chalk beds
in England is the presence of flint nodules. These are
generally disposed in layers parallel to each other. It
was readily presumed by geologists that these masses were
formed by a chemical aggregation of particles of silica,
originally held in solution in the mass of the chalk. But
whence the silica in a substance so different from it?
Ehrenberg suggests that it is composed of the siliceous
coverings of a portion of the microscopic creatures, whose
shells he has in other instances detected in their original
condition. It is remarkable that the chalk with flint
abounds in the north of Europe; that without flints in
the south; while in the northern chalk siliceous animalcules are wanting, and in the southern present in great
quantities. The conclusion seems but natural, that in
the one case the siliceous exuviae have been left in their
original form; in the other dissolved chemically, and
aggregated on the common principle of chemical affinity
into nodules of flint, probably concentrating, in every
instance, upon a piece of decaying organic matter, as has
been the case with the nodules of ironstone in the earlier
rocks, and the spherules of the oolite.
What is more remarkable, M. Ehrenberg has ascertained that at least fifty-seven species of the microscopic
animals of the chalk, being infusoria and calcareousshelled polythalamia, are still found living in various
parts of the earth. These species are the most abundant




96


VESTIGES OF THE


in the rock. Singly they are the most unimportant of
all animals, but in the mass, forming as they do such
enormous strata over a large part of the earth's surface,
they have an importance greatly exceeding that of the
largest and noblest of the beasts of the field. Moreover,
these species have a peculiar interest, as the only specific
types of that early age which are reproduced in the
present day. Species of sea mollusks, of reptiles, and of
mammifers, have been changed again and again, since the
cretaceous era; and it is not till a long subsequent age
that we find the first traces of any other of even the
humblest species which now exist; but here have these
humble infusoria and polythalamia kept their place on
earth through all its revolutions since that time-are
we to say, safe in their very humility, which might adapt
them to a greater variety of circumstances than most
other animals, or are we required to look for some other
explanation of the phenomenon?
All the ordinary and more observable orders of the
inhabitants of the sea, except the cetacea, have been
found in the cretaceous formation-zoophytes, radiaria,
mollusks, crustacea (in great variety of species), and
fishes in smaller variety. Down to this period, the
placoid and ganoid fishes had, as far as we have evidence,
flourished alone; now they decline, and we begin to find
in their place fishes of two orders of superior organisation, the orders which predominate in the present creation.
These are osseous in internal structure, with corneous
scales, the latter being circular in the one case, and
pectinated or indented at one side in the other; hence
the two orders are called respectively cycloid and ctenoid
by MI. Agassiz, who, as has been remarked, asserts that
the outer covering of fishes is a sufficient indication of




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 97
their whole structure. In Europe, remains of the marine
saurians have been found; they miay be presumed to
have become extinct in that part of the globe before this
time, their place and destructive office being perhaps
supplied by cartilaginous fishes, of which the teeth are
found in great quantities. In America, however, remains
of the plesiosaurus have been discovered in this part of
the stratified series. The reptiles, too, so numerous in
the two preceding periods, appear to have now much
diminished in numbers. One, entitled the mossesaurus,
seems to have held an intermediate place between the
monitor and iguana, and to have been about twentyfive feet long, with a tail calculated to assist it powerfully in swimming. Crocodiles and turtles existed, and
amongst the fishes were some of a saurian character.
Fuci abounded in the seas of this era. Confervse are
found enclosed in flints. Of terrestrial vegetation, as
of terrestrial animals, the specimens in the European
area are comparatively rare, rendering it probable that
there was no dry land near. The remains are chiefly
of ferns, conifers, and cycadeae, but in the two former
cases we have only cones and leaves. There have been
discovered many pieces of wood, containing holes drilled
by the teredo, and thus showing that they had been
long drifted about in the ocean before being entombed
at the bottom.
The series in America corresponding to this, entitled
the ferruginous sand formation, presents fossils generally
identical with those of Europe, not excepting the fragments of drilled wood; showing that, in this, as in earlier
ages, there was a parity of conditions for animal life
over a vast tract of the earth's surface.  To European
reptiles, the American formation adds a gigantic one,
D




98


VESTIGES OF THE


styled the saurodon, from the lizard-like character of
its teeth.
We have seen that footsteps of birds are considered to
have been discovered in America, in the new red sandstone. Some similar isolated phenomena occur in the
subsequent formations.  Dr. Mantell discovered some
bones of birds, apparently w.eders, in the Wealden. The(
immediate connexion of that set of birds with land, may
account, of course, for their containing a terrestrial organic
relic, which the marine beds above and below did not
possess. In the slate of Glaris, in Switzerland, corresponding to the English gait, in the chalk formation,
the remains of a bird have been found. From a chalk
bed near Maidstone, have likewise been extracted some
remains of a bird, supposed to have been of the longwinged swimmer family, and equal in size to the albatross.
These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the
birds than we possess of the reptiles and other tribes;
but it must be remembered that the evidence of fossils,
as to the absence of any class of animals from a certain
period of the earth's history, can never be considered as
more than negative. Animals, of which we find no
remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless,
have lived at the time, and it may have only been from
unfavourable circumstances that their remains have not
been preserved for our inspection. The single circumstance of their being little liable to be carried down
into seas, might be the cause of their non-appearance ill
our quarries. There is at the same time a limit to
uncertainty on this point. We see, from what remains
have been found in the whole series, 1, clear progress
throughout, from humble to superior types of being.
Hence we derive a light as to what animals may have




NA TURAL JHISTOR Y OF CREA TION.           99
existed at particular times, which is in some measure
independent of the specialties of fossilology. The birds
are below the mammalia in the animal scale; and
therefore they may be supposed to have existed about
the time of the new red sandstone and oolite, although
we find but slight traces of them in those formations,
and, it may be said, till a considerably later period.




( I00 )


ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION.
MAMMALIA ABUNDANT.
THE chalk-beds are the highest which extend over a
considerable space; but in hollows of these beds, comparatively limited in extent, there have been formed
series of strata-clays, limestones, marls, alternating-to
which the name of the Tertiary Formation has been
applied. London and Paris alike rest on basins of this
formation, and another such basin extends from near
Winchester, under Southampton, and re-appears in the
Isle of Wight. A stripe of it extends along the east coast
of North America, from Massachusetts to Florida. It is
also found in Sicily and Italy, insensibly blended with
formations still in progress. Though comparatively a
local formation, it is not of the less importance as a record
of the condition of the earth during a certain period. As
in other formations, it is marked, in the most distant.
localities, by identity of organic remains.
The hollows filled by the tertiary formation must be
considered as the beds of estuaries left at the conclusion
of the cretaceous period. We have seen that an estuary,
either by the drifting up of its mouth, or a change of
level in that quarter, may be supposed to have become
an inland sheet of water, and that, by another change,
of the reverse kind, it may be supposed to have become




NATURAL HIISTORY OF CREATION.               icI
an  estuary  again.  Such changes the Paris basin
appears to have undergone oftener than once, for, first.
we have there a fresh-water formation of clay and limestone beds; then, a marine limestone formation; next,
a second fresh-water formation, in which the material of
the celebrated plaster of Paris (gypsum) is included;
then, a second marine formation of sandy and liniy
beds; and finally, a third series of fresh-water strata.
Such alternations occur in other examples of the tertiary
formation likewise.
The tertiary beds present all but an entirely new set
of animals, and as we ascend in the series, we find more
and more of these identical with species still existing
upon earth, as if we had now reached the dawn of the
present state of the zoology of our planet. By the
study of the shells alone, Mr. Lyell has been enabled to
divide the whole term into four sub-periods, to which he
lhas given names with reference to the proportions which
they respectively present of surviving species-first, the
eocene (from  cor, the dawn; xamos- recent); second, the
miocene (juetcw, less); third, older pliocene (TrXELCOv, more);
fourth, newer pliocene.
EOCENE SUB-PERIOD.
The eocene period presents, in three continental groups,
1238 species of shells, of which forty-two, or 3'5 per
cent., yet flourish.  Some of these are remarkable
enough; but they all sink into insignificance beside the
mammalian remains which the lower eocene deposits of
the Paris basin present to us, showing that the land
had now become the theatre of an extensive creation of
the highest class of animals. Cuvier ascertained about
fifty species of these, all of them long since extinct. A




102


0VESTIGES OF THE


considerable number are pachydermata,* of a character
approximating to the South American tapir: the names,
palheotherium, anthracotherium, anoplotherium, lophiodon, &c., have been applied to them with a consideration of more or less conspicuous peculiarities; but a
description of the first may give some general idea of
the whole. It was about the size of a horse, but more
squat and clumsy, and with a heavier head, and a lower
jaw shorter than the upper; the feet, also, instead of
hooves, presented three large toes, rounded, and unprovided with claws. These animals were all herbivorous.
Amongst an immense number of others are found many
new reptiles, some of them   adapte'd for fresh water;
species of birds allied to the sea lark, curlew, quail,
buzzard, owl, and pelican; species allied to the dormouse
and squirrel; also the opossum and racoon; and species
allied to the genette, fox, and wolf.
MIOCENE SUB-PERIOD.
In the miocene sub-period, the shells give eighteen per
cent. of existing species, showing a considerable advance
from the preceding era, with respect to the inhabitants
of the sea.   The advance in the land animals is less
marked, but yet considerable. The predominating forms
are still pachydermatous, and the tapir type continues
to be conspicuous. One animal of this kind, called the
dinotheriumn, is supposed to have been not less than
eighteen feet long: it had a mole-like form of the
shoulder-blade, conferring the power of digging for food,
and a couple of tusks turning down from the lower jaw,
* Thick-skinned animals. This term has been given by Cuvier
to an order in which the hog, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros are
included,




NAATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.            Io3
by which it could have attached itself, like the walrus,
to a shore or bank, while its body floated in the water.
Dr. Buckland considers this and some similar miocene
animals, as adapted for a semi-aquatic life, in a region
where lakes abounded. Besides the tapirs, we have in
this era animals allied to the glutton, the bear, the dog,
the horse, the hog, and lastly, several feline (creatures
of which the lion is the type); all of which are new
forms, as far as we know. There was also an abundance
of marine mammalia, seals, dolphins, lamantins, walruses,
and whales, none of which had previously appeared.
PLIOCENE SUB-PERIOD.
The shells of the older pliocene give from thirty-five
to fifty; those of the newer, from ninety to ninety-five
per cent. of existing species. The pachydermata of the
preceding era now disappear and are replaced by others
belonging to still existing families-elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros-though now extinct as species. Some of
these are startling, from their enormous magnitude. The
great mastodon, whose remains are found in abundance
in America, was a species of elephant, judged, from peculiarities of its teeth, to have lived on aquatic plants, and
reaching the height of twelve feet. The mammoth was
another elephant, but supposed to have survived till
comparatively recent times, as a specimen, in all respects
entire, was found in i80o, preserved in ice, in Siberia.
We' are more surprised by finding such gigantic proportions in aanimal called the megatherium, whicl rllksi
in an order now assuming much humbler forms —the
edentata-to which the sloth, ant-eater, and armadillo
belong. The megatheriuml had a skeleton of enormous
solidity, with an armour-clad body, and five toes, termina



Io4


VESTIGES OF THE


ting in huge claws, wherewith to grasp the branches, from
which, like its existing congener, the sloth, it derived its
food. The mnegalonyx was a similar animal, only somewhat less than the preceding. Finally, the pliocene gives
us for the first time, oxen, deer, camels, and other specimens of the rurminantica.
Such is an outline of the fauna of the tertiary era,
as ascertained by the illustrious naturalists who first
devoted their attention to it. It will be observed that
it brings us up to the felinse, or carnivora, a considerably
elevated point in the animal scale, but still leaving a
blank for the quadrumana (monkeys) and for man, who
collectively form, as will be afterwards seen, the first
group in that scale. It sometimes happens, however, as
we have seen, that a few rare traces of a particular class
of animals are in time found in formations originally
thought to be destitute of them, displaying as it were a
dawn of that department of creation. Such seems to be
the case with at least the quadrumana. A jaw-bone and
tooth of an animal of this order, and belonging to the
genus macacus, were found in the London clay (eocene),
at Kyson, near Woodbridge, in I839. Another jaw-bone,
containing several teeth, supposed to have belonged to a
species of monkey about three feet high, was discovered
about the same time in a stratum of marl surmounted
by compact limestone, in the department of Gers, at the
foot of the Pyrenees. Associated with this last were
remains of not less that thirty mammiferous quadrupeds,
including three species of rhinoceros, a large anoplotherium, three species of deer, two antelopes, a true dog, a
large cat, an animal like a weazel, a small hare, and a
huge species of the edentata. Both of these places are
considerably to the north of any region now inhabited by
the monkey tribes. Fossil remains of quadrumana lhave




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              10I
been found in at least two other parts of the earth —
namely, the sub-Himalayan hills, near the Sutlej, and in
Brazil (both in the tertiary strata); the first being a
large species of semnopithecus, and the second a still
larger animal belonging to the American group of
monkeys, but a new genus, and denominated by its
discoverer, Dr. Lund, protopithecus.  The latter would
be four feet in height.
One. remarkable circumstance connected with the tertiary formation remains to be noticed-namely, the prevalence of volcanic action at that era. In Auvergne, in
Catalonia, near Venice, and in the vicinity of Rome and
Naples, lavas exactly resembling the produce of existing
volcanoes, are associated and intermixed with the lacustrine as well as marine tertiaries. The superficies of
tertiaries in England is disturbed by two great swells,
forming what are called anticlinal axes, one of which
divides the London from the Hampshire basin, while the
other passes through the Isle of Wight, both throwing
the strata down at a violent inclination towards the
north, as if the subterranean disturbing force had wzoarsv
forward in that direction. The Pyrenees, too, and Alps,
have both undergone elevation since the deposition of tile
tertiaries; and in Sicily there are mountains which have
risen three thousand feet since the deposition of some of
the most recent of these rocks. The general effect of
these operations was of course to extend the land surface,
and to increase the variety of its features, thus improving
the natural drainage, and generally adapting the earth
for the reception of higher classes of animals.




( Io6 )
EPA    OF THE    SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.
COMMENCEMENT OF PRESENT SPECIES.
WE have now completed our survey of the series of stratified rocks, and traced in their fossils the progress of
organic creation down to a time which seems not long
antecedent to the appearance of man. There are, nevertheless, monuments of still another era or space of time
which it is all but certain did also precede that event.
Over the rock formations of all eras, in various parts
of the globe, but confined in general to situations not
very elevated, there is a layer of stiff clay, mostly of a
blue colour, mingled with fragments of rock of all sizes,
travel-worn, and otherwise, and to which geologists give
the name of diluviunm, as being apparently the produce of
some vast flood, or of the sea thrown into an unusual
agitation. It seems to indicate that, at the time when it
was laid down, much of the present dry land was under
the ocean, a supposition which we shall see supported by
other evidence. The included masses of rock have been
carefully inspected in many places, and traced to particular parent beds at considerable distances. Connected
with these phenomena are certain rock surfaces on the
slopes of hills and elsewhere, which exhibit groovings and
scratchings, such as we might suppose would be produced
by a quantity of loose blocks hurried along over them by




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              107
a flood. Another associated phenomenon is that called
crag and tail, which exists in many places —namely, a
rocky mountain, or lesser elevation, presenting on one
side the naked rock in a more or less abrupt form, and
on the other a gentle slope; the sites of Windsor, Edinburgh, and Stirling, with their respective castles, are
specimens of crag and tail.  Finally, we may advert to
certain long ridges of clay and gravel which arrest the
attention of travellers on the surface of Sweden and
Finland, and which are also found in the United States,
where, indeed, the whole of these phenomena have been
observed over a large surface, as well as in Europe. It
is very remarkable that the direction from which the
diluvial blocks have generally come, the lines of the
grooved rock surfaces, the direction of the crag and tail
eminences, and that of the clay and gravel ridgesphenomena, be it observed, extending over the northern
parts of both Europe and America-are all from the
north and north-west towards the south-east.  We thus
acquire the idea of a powerful current moving in a
direction from north-west to south-east, carrying, besides
mud, masses of rock which furrowed the solid surfaces
as they passed along, abrading the north-west faces of
many hills, but leaving the slopes in the opposite direction uninjured, and in some instances forming long
ridges of detritus along the surface. These are curious
considerations, and it has become a question of much
interest, by what means, and under what circumstances,
was such a current produced. One hypothetical answer
has some plausibility about it. From an investigation of
the nature of glaciers, and some observations which seem
to indicate that these have at one time extended to lower
levels, and existed in regions (the Scottish Highlands an
example) where there is now no perennial snow, it has




108


VESTIGES OF THE


b1een surmised that there was a time, subsequent to the
tertiary era, when the circumpolar ice extended far into
the temperate zone, and formed a lofty, as well as extensive accumulation. A change to a higher temperature,
producing a sudden thaw of this mass, might set free
such a quantity of water as would form a large flood,
and the southward flow of this deluge, joined to the
direction which it would obtain from the rotatory motion of the globe, would of course produce that compound or south-easterly direction which the phenomena
require. All of these speculations are as yet far too
deficient in facts to be of much value; and I must freely
own that, for one, I attach little importance to them.
All that we can legitimately infer from the diluvium is,
that the northern parts of Europe and America were
then under the sea, and that a strong current set over
them.
Connected with the diluvium is the history of ossiferous caverns, of which specimens singly exist at Kirkd(ale in Yorkshire, Gailenreuth in Franconia, and other
places. They occur in the calcareous strata, as the great
(averns generally do, but have in all instances been
naturally closed up till the recent period of their discovery. The floors are covered with what appears to be
a bed of the diluvial clay, over which rests a crust of
stalagmite, the result of the droppings from the roof
since the time when the clay-bed was laid down. In the
instances above specified, and several others, there have
been found, under the clay bed, assemblages of the
bones of animals, of many various kinds. At Kirkdale,
for example, the remains of twenty-four species were
ascertained-namely, pigeon, lark, raven, duck, and partridge; mouse, water-rat, rabbit, hare, deer (three
species), ox, horse, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant,




1A T URiAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.         109
weazel, fox, wolf, bear, tiger, hyena. From many of
the bones of the gentler of these animals being found in
a broken state, it is supposed that the cave was a haunt
of hyenas and other predaceous animals, by which the
smaller ones were here consumed. This must have been
at a time antecedent to the submersion which produced
the diluvium, since the bones are covered by a bed of
that formation. It is impossible not to see here a very
natural series of incidents. First, the cave is frequented
by wild beasts, who make it a kind of charnel-house.
Then, submerged in the current which has been spoken
of, it receives a clay flooring from the waters containing
that matter in suspension. Finally, raised from the
water, but with no mouth to the open air, it remains
unintruded on for a long series of ages, during which
the clay flooring receives a new calcareous covering from
the droppings of the roof. Dr. Buckland, who examined
and described the Kirkdale cave, was at first of opinion
that it presented a physical evidence of the Noachian
deluge; but he afterwards saw reason to consider its
phenomena as of a time far apart from that event, which
rests on evidence of an entirely different kind.
Our attention is next drawn to the erratic blocks or
boulders, which in many parts of the earth are thickly
strewn over the surface, particularly in the north of
Europe. Some of these blocks are many tons in weight,
yet are clearly ascertained to have belonged originally to
situations at a great distance. Fragments, for example,
of the granite of Shap Fell are found in every direction
around to the distance of fifty miles, one piece being
placed high upon Criffel Mountain, on the opposite side
of the Solway estuary; so also are fragments of the Alps
found far up the slopes of the Jura. There are even
blocks on the east coast of England, supposel to have




II0


VESTIGES OF THE


travelled from Norway. The only rational conjecture
which can be formed as to the transport of such masses
from so great a distance, is one which presumes them
to have been carried and dropped by icebergs, while the
space between their original and final sites was under
ocean. Icebergs do even now carry off such masses
from the polar coasts, which, falling when the retaining
ice melts, must take up situations at the bottom of the
sea analogous to those in which we find the erratic
blocks of the present day.
As the diluvium and erratic blocks clearly suppose one
last long submersion of the surface (last, geologically
speaking), there is another set of appearances which as
manifestly show the steps by which the land was made
afterwards to reappear. These consist of terraces, which
have been detected near, and at some distance inland
from, the coast lines of Scandinavia, Britain, America,
and other regions, being evidently ancient beaches, or
platforms, on which the margin of the sea at one time
rested. They have been observed at different heights
above the present sea-level, from twenty to above twelve
hundred feet; and in many places they are seen rising
above each other in succession, to the number of three,
four, and even more. The smooth flatness of these terraces, with generally a slight inclination towards the sea,
the sandy composition of many of them, and. in some
instances the preservation of marine shells in the ground,
identify them perfectly with existing sea-beaches, notwithstanding the cuts and scoopings which have at
frequent intervals been effected in them by water-courses.
The irresistible inference from the phenomena is, that the
highest was first the coast line; then an elevation took
place, and the second highest became so, the first being
now raised into the air and thrown inland. Then, upon




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.               f i r
another elevation, the sea began to form, at its new point
of contact with the land, the third highest beach, and so
on down to the platform nearest to the present sea-beach.
Phenomena of this kind become comparatively familiar
to as, when we hear of evidence that the last sixty feet
of the elevation of Sweden, and the last eighty-five of
that of Chili, have taken place since man first dwelt in
those countries; nay, that the elevation of the former
country goes on at this time at the rate of about fortyfive inches in a century, and that a thousand miles of the
Chilian coast rose four feet in one night, under the
influence of a powerful earthquake, so lately as i 822.
Subterranean forces, of the kind then exemplified in
Chili, supply a ready explanation of the whole phenomena, though some other operating causes have been
suggested. In an inquiry on this point, it becomes of
consequence to learn some particulars respecting the
levels. Taking a particular beach, it is generally observed that the level continues the same along a considerable number of miles, and nothing like breaks or
hitches has as yet been detected in any case. A second
and a third beach are also observed to be exactly parallel
to the first. These facts would seem to indicate quiet
elevating movements, uniform over a large tract. It
must, however, be remarked that the raised beaches at
one part of a coast rarely coincide with those at another
part forty or fifty miles off. We might suppose this to
indicate a limit in that extent of the uniformity of the
elevating cause, but it would be rash to conclude positively
that such is the case. In the present sea, as is well
known, there are different levels at different places,
owing to the operation of peculiar local causes, as
currents, evaporation, and the influx of large rivers into
narrow-mouthed estuaries. The differences of level in




II2


VESTIGES OF THE


the ancient beaches might be occasioned by some such
causes. But, whatever doubt may rest on this minor
point, enough has been ascertained to settle the main
one, that we have in these platforms indubitable monuments of the last rise of the land from the sea, and the
concluding great event of the geological history.
The idea of such a widespread and possibly universal
submersion unavoidably suggests some considerations as
to the effect which it might have upon terrestrial animal
life. It seems likely that this would be, on such an
occasion, extensively, if not universally destroyed. Nor
does the idea of its universal destruction seem the less
plausible, when we remark, that none of the species of
land animals heretofore discovered can be detected at a
subsequent period. The whole seem to have been now
changed. Some geologists incline to think that there
was at this time a new development of terrestrial animal
life upon the globe, and M. Agassiz, whose opinion on
such a subject must always be worthy of attention,
speaks all but decidedly for such a conclusion. It must,
however, be owned, that proofs for it are still scanty,
beyond the bare fact of a submersion which appears to
have had a very wide range. I must therefore be content to leave this point, as far as geological evidence is
concerned, for future affirmation.
There are some other superficial deposits, of less consequence on the present occasion than the diluviumnamely, lacustrine deposits, or filled-up lakes; alluvium,
or the deposits of rivers beside their margins; deltas, the
deposits made by great ones at their efflux into the sea;
peat mosses; and the vegetable soil. The animal remains found in these generally testify to a zoology on
the verge of that which still exists, or melting into it,
there being included many species which still exist. In




NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.           II3
a lacustrine deposit at Market-Weighton, in the Vfale of
York, there have been found bones of the elephant,
rhinoceros, bison, wolf, horse, felis, deer, birds, all or
nearly all belonging to extinct species; associated with
thirteen species of land and fresh-water shells, "exactly
identical with types now living in the vicinity." In
similar deposits in North America, are remains of the
mammoth, mastodon, buffalo, and other animals of
extinct and living types. In short, these superficial
deposits show precisely such remains as might be expected from a time at which the present system of
things (to use a vague but not unexpressive phrase)
obtained, but yet so far remote in chronology as to allow
of the dropping of many species, through familiar
causes, in the interval. Still, however, there is no
authentic or satisfactory instance of human remains
being found, except in deposits obviously of very modern
date; a tolerably strong proof that the creation of our
own species is a comparatively recent event, and one
posterior (generally speaking) to all the great natural
transactions chronicled by geology.




( "4 )


GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
RESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES.
THUS concludes the wondrous chapter of the earth's
history which is told by geology. It takes up our globe
at the period when its original incandescent state had
nearly ceased; conducts it through what we have every
reason to believe were vast, or at least very considerable,
spaces of time, in the course of which many superficial
changes took place, and vegetable and animal life was
gradually developed; and drops it just at the point when
man was apparently about to enter on the scene. The
compilation of such a history, from materials of so
extraordinary a character, and the powerful nature of
the evidence which these materials afford, are calculated
to excite our admiration, and the result must be allowed
to exalt the dignity of science, as a product of man's
industry and his reason.
If there is anything more than another impressed on
our minds by the course of the geological history, it is,
that the same laws and conditions of Nature now apparent to us have existed throughout the whole time,
though the operation of some of these laws may now be
less conspicuous than in the early ages, from some of
the conditions having come to a settlement and a cloze.
That seas have flowed and ebbed, and winds disturbed




'A TVRAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TIOAN.            1 5
their surfaces, in the time of the secondary rocks, we
have proof on the yet preserved surfaces of the sands
which constituted margins of the seas in those days.
Even the fall of wind-slanted rain is evidenced on the
same tablets. The washing down of detached matter
from elevated grounds, which we see rivers constantly
engaged in at the present time, and which is daily shallowing the seas adjacent to their mouths, only appears to
have proceeded on a greater scale in earlier epochs. The
volcanic subterranean force, which we see belching forth
lavas on the sides of mountains, and throwing up new
elevations by land and sea, was only more powerfully
operative in distant ages. To turn to organic nature,
vegetation seems to have proceeded then exactly as now.
The very alternation of the seasons has been read in
unmistakable characters in sections of the trees of those
days, precisely as it might be read in a section of a tree
cut down yesterday.    The system   of prey amongst
animals flourished throughout the whole of the prehuman period; and the adaptation of all plants and
animals to their respective spheres of existence was as
perfect in those early ages as it is still.
But, as has been observed, the operation of the laws
may be modified by conditions. At one early age, if
there was any dry land at all, it was perhaps enveloped
in an atmosphere unfit for the existence of terrestrial
animals, and which had to go through some changes
before that condition was altered. In the carbonigenous
era, dry land seems to have consisted only of clusters of
islands, and the temperature was much above what now
obtains at the same places. Volcanic forces, and perhaps
also the disintegrating power, seem to have been on the
decrease since the first, or we have at least long enjoyed
an exemption from such paroxysms of the former, as




VESTIGES OF THE


appear to have prevailed at the close of the coal formation
in England and throughout the tertiary era. The surface
has also undergone a gradual progress by which it has
become always more and more variegated and thereby
fitted for the residence of a higher class of animals.
In pursuing the progress of the development of both
plants and animals upon the globe, we have seen an
advance  in   both cases, along the line-or, it may
be, lines-leading to the higher forms of organisation.
Amongst plants, we have first sea-weeds, afterwards land
plants; and amongst these the simpler (cellular and
cryptogamic) before the more complex.    In the department of zoology, we see zoophytes, radiata, nollusca,
articulata, existing for ages before there were any higher
forms. The first step forward gives fishes, the humblest
class of the vertebrata; and, moreover, the earliest fishes
partake of the character of the next lowest sub-kingdom,
the articulata. Afterwards come land animals, of which
the first are reptiles, universally allowed to be the type
next in advance from fishes, and to be connected with
these by the links of an insensible gradation. From
reptiles we advance to birds, and thence to mammalia,
which are commenced by marsupialia, acknowledgedly
low forms in their class. That there is thus a progress
of some kind, the most superficial glance at the geological
history is sufficient to convince us. Indeed the doctrine
of the gradation of animal forms has received a remarkable support from the discoveries of this science, as
several types formerly wanting to a completion of the
series have been found in a fossil state.+
( It is scarcely less evident, from the geological record,
* Intervals in the series were numerous in the department of the
pachydermata; many of these gaps are now filled up from the extinct
genera found in the tertiary formation.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              it7
that the progress of organic life has observed some correspondence with the progress of physical conditions on
the surface. )We do not know for certain that the sea, at
the time when it supported radiated, molluscous, and articulated families, was incapable of supporting fishes; but
causes for such a limitation are far from inconceivable.
The huge saurians appear to have been precisely adapted
to the low muddy coasts and sea margins of the time
when they flourished. Marsupials appear at the time
when the surface was generally in that flat, imperfectly
variegated state in which we find Australia, the region
where they now live in the greatest abundance, and one
which has no higher native mammalian type. Finally, it
was not till the land and sea had come into their present
relations, and the former, in its principal continents, had
acquired the irregularity of surface necessary for man,
that man appeared. We have likewise seen reason for
supposing that land animals could not have lived before
the carbonigenous era, owing to the great charge of carbonic acid gas presumed to have been contained in the
atmosphere down to that time. The surplus of this
having gone, as M. Brogniart suggests, to form the vegetation whose ruins became coal, and the air being thus
brought to its present state, land animals immediately
appeared. So also, sea-plants were at first the only
specimens of vegetation, because there appears to have
been no place where other plants could be produced
or supported. Land vegetation followed, at first simple,
afterwards complex, probably in conformity with an
advance of the conditions required by the higher class
of plants. In short, we see everywhere throughout the
geological history, strong traces of a parallel advance of
the physical conditions and the organic forms.
In examining the fossils of the lower marine creation,




ii8


/rVESTIGES OF THE


with a reference to the kind of rock in connexion with
which they are found, it is observed that some strata are
attended by a much greater abundance of both species
and individuals than others.  They abound most in
calcareous rocks, which is precisely what might be expected, since lime is necessary for the formation of the
shells of the mollusks and articulata, and the hard substance of the crinoidea and corals; next in the carboniferous series; next in the tertiary; next in the new red
sandstone; next in slates; and lastly, least of all, in the
primary rocks.* This may have been the case without
regard to the origination of new species, but more
probably it was otherwise; or why, for instance, should
the polypiferous zoophyta be found almost exclusively in
the limestones? There are, indeed, abundant appearances as if, throughout all the changes of the surface,
the various kinds of organic life invariably pressed 'in,
immediately on the specially suitable conditions arising,
so that no place which could support any form of organic
being might be left for any length of time unoccupied.
Nor is it less remarkable how various species are withdrawn from the earth, when the proper conditions for
their particular existence are changed. The trilobite, of
which fifty species existed during the earlier formations,
was extirpated before the secondary had commenced,
and appeared no more. The ammonite does not appear
above the chalk. The species, and even genera of all
the early radiata and, mollusks were exchanged for
others long ago. Not one species of any creature which
flourished before the tertiary  (Ehrenberg's infusoria
excepted) now exists; and of the mammalia which arose
luring that series, many forms are altogether gone,
*      S   vee ic'Cr ly Professor Edward Forbes, read to the British
Association, 1839.




~NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.            i 9
while of others we have now only kindred species. Thus
we find not only frequent additions to the previously
existing forms, but frequent withdrawals of forms which
had apparently become inappropriate-a constant shifting as well as advance-a fact calculated very forcibly
to arrest attention.
A candid consideration of all these circumstances can
scarcely fail to introduce into our minds a somewhat
different idea of organic creation from what has hitherto
been generally entertained. That God created animated
beings, as well as the terraqueous theatre of their being,
is a fact so powerfully evidenced, and so universally received, that I at once take it for granted. But in the
particulars of this so highly supported idea, we surely
here see cause for some re-consideration. It may now
be inquired-In what way was the creation of animated
beings effected? The ordinary notion may, I think, be
not unjustly described as this-that the Almighty Author
produced the progenitors of all existing species by some
sort of personal or immediate exertion. But how does
this notion comport with what we have seen of the
gradual advance of species, from the humblest to the
highest?  How can we suppose an immediate exertion
of this creative power at one time to produce zoophytes,
another time to add a few marine mollusks, another to
bring in one or two crustacea, again to produce crustaceous fishes, again perfect fishes, and so on to the end?
This would surely be to take a very mean view of the
Creative Power-to, in short, anthropomorphise it, or
reduce it to some such character as that borne by the
ordinary proceedings of mankind. And yet this would
be unavoidable; for that the organic creation was thus
progressive through a long space of time, rests on evidence which nothing can overturn or gainsay. Some




120


VESTIGES OF THE


other idea must then be come to with regard to the m ode
in which the Divine Author proceeded in the organic
creation. Let us seek in the history of the earth's formation for a new suggestion on this point. We have
seen powerful evidence that the construction of this
globe and its associates, and inferentially that of all the
other globes of space, was the result, not of any immediate or personal exertion on the part of the Deity,
but of natural laws, which are expressions of his will.
What is to hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also a result of natural laws, which are in like
manner an expression of his will? More than this, the
fact of the cosmical arrangements being an effect of
natural law, is a powerful argument for the organic
arrangements being so likewise, for how can we suppose
that the august Being who brought all these countless
worlds into form by the simple establishment of a natural
principle flowing from his mind, was to interfere personally and specially on every occasion when a new shellfish or reptile was to be ushered into existence on one of
these worlds? Surely this idea is too ridiculous to be for
a moment entertained.
It will be objected that the ordinary conceptions of
Christian nations on this subject are directly derived
from Scripture, or, at least, are in conformity with it.
If they were clearly and unequivocally supported by
Scripture, it may readily be allowed that there would be
a strong objection to the reception of any opposite hypothesis. But the fact is, however startling the present
announcement of it may be, that the first chapter of the
Mosaic record is not only not in harmony with the
ordinary ideas of mankind    respecting cosmical and
organic creation, but is opposed to them, and only in
accordance with the views here taken. When we care



0'^     ^  -   ^  ~   - in,:*:a* rvs- fEI


NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              121
fully peruse it with awakened minds, we find that all
the procedure is represented primarily and preeminently
as flowing from commands and expressions of will, not
from  direct acts.  Let there be light-let there be a
firmament-let the dry land appear-let the earth bring
forth grass, the herb, the tree-let the waters bring forth
the moving creature that hath life-let the earth bring
forth the living creature after his kind-these are the
terms in which the principal acts are described. The
additional expressions-God made the firmament-God
made the beast of the earth, &c., occur subordinately,
and only in a few instances; they do not necessarily
convey a different idea of the mode of creation, and,
indeed, only appear as alternative phrases, in the usual
duplicative manner of Eastern narrative. Keeping this
in view, the words used in a subsequent place, " God
formed man in his own image," cannot well be understood as implying any more than what was implied
before-namely, that man was produced in consequence
of an expression of the Divine will to that effect. Thus,
the scriptural objection quickly vanishes, and the prevalent ideas about the organic creation appear only as a
mistaken inference from the text, formed at a time when
man's ignorance prevented him from drawing therefrom
a just conclusion. At the same time, I freely own that
I do not think it right to adduce the Mosaic record,
either in objection to, or support of, any natural hypothesis, and this for many reasons, but particularly for
this, that there is not the least appearance of an intention in that book to give philosophically exact views
of nature.
To a reasonable mind the Divine attributes must
appear, not diminished, or reduced in any way, by
supposing a creation by law, but infinitely exalted. It




' 22


VESTIGES OF THE


is the narrowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of a humble class of intellects, to suppose him
acting constantly in particular ways for particular
occasions. It, for one thing, greatly detracts from his
foresight, the most undeniable of all the attributes of
Omnipotence. It lowers him towards the level of our
own humble intellects. Much more worthy of him it
surely is, to suppose that all things have been commissioned by him from the first, though neither is he
absent from a particle of the current of natural affairs in
one sense, seeing that the whole system is continually
supported by his providence. Even in human affairs, if
I may be allowed to adopt a familiar illustration, there
is a constant progress from specific action for particular
occasions, to arrangements which, once established, shall
continue to answer for a great multitude of occasions.
Such plans the enlightened readily form for themselves,
and conceive as being adopted by all who have to attend
to a multitude of affairs, while the ignorant suppose every
act of the greatest public functionary to be the result of
some special consideration and care on his part alone. Are
we to suppose the Deity adopting plans which harmonise
only with the modes of procedure of the less enlightened
of our race? Those who would object to the hypothesis
of a creation by the intervention of law, do not perhaps
consider how powerful an argument in favour of the
existence of God is lost by rejecting this doctrine. When
all is seen to be the result of law, the idea of an
Almllighty Author becomes irresistible, for the creation
of a law for an endless series of phenomena-an;act of
intelligence tabove all else that we can conceive-could
have no other imaginable source, and tells, moreover, as
strongly for a sustaining as for an originating power.
On this point a remark of Dr. Buckland seems applicable:




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATIONV.              23
"If the properties adopted by the elements at the moment
of their creation adapted them beforehand to the infinity
of complicated useful purposes which they have already
answered and may have still farther to answer, under
many dispensations of the material world, such an
aboriginal constitution, so far from superseding an intelligent agent, would only exalt our conceptions of the
consummate skill and power that could comprehend such
an infinity of future uses under future systems, in the
original groundwork of his creation."
A late writer, in a work embracing a vast amount of
miscellaneous knowledge, but written in a dogmatic style,
argues at great length for the doctrine of more immediate
exertions on the part of the Deity in the works of his
creation. One of the most striking of his illustrations
is as follows:-" The coral polypi, united by a common
animal bond, construct a defined form in stone; many
kinds construct many forms. An allotted instinct may
permit each polypus to construct its own cell, but there is
no superintending one to direct the pattern, nor can the
workers unite by consultation for such an end. There is
no recipient for an instinct by which the pattern might
be constructed. It is God alone, therefore, who is the
architect; and for this end, consequently, he must dispose
of every new polypus required to continue the pattern,
in a new and peculiar position, which the animal could
not have discovered by itself. Yet more, millions of
these blind workers unite their works to form an island,
which is also wrought out according to a constant general
pattern, and of a very peculiar nature, though the
separate coral works are numerously diverse. Still less,
then, here is an instinct possible. The Great Architect
himself must execute what he planned, in each case
equally. He uses these little and senseless animals as




124


VESTIGES OF THE


hands; but they are hands which himself must direct.
He must direct each one everywhere, and therefore he is
ever acting."*  This is a most notable example of a
dangerous kind of reasoning. It is now believed that
corals have a general life and sensation throughout the
whole mass, residing in the nervous tissue which envelops
them; consequently, there is nothing more wonderful in
their determinate general forms than in those of other
animals.
It may here be remarked that there is in our doctrine
that harmony in all the associated phenomena which
generally marks great truths.  First, it -agrees, as we
have seen, with the idea of planet-creation by natural
law. Secondly, upon this supposition, all that geology
tells us of the succession of species appears natural and
intelligible. Organic life presses in, as has been remarked, wherever there is room and encouragement for
it, the forms being always such as suited the circumstances, and in a certain relation to them, as, for example,
where the limestone-forming seas produced an abundance
of corals, crinoidea, and shell-fish. How well the extensive changes of species which are evidenced by geology,
comport with our view of the details of law-creation,
will be seen when these come to be explained. The more
solitary commencements of species, which would have
been the most inconceivably paltry exercise for an immediately creative power, are sufficiently worthy of one
operating by laws.
It is also to be observed, that the thing to be accounted for is not merely the origination of organic
being upon this little planet, third of a series which is
but one of hundreds of thousands of series, the whole of
which again form but one portion of an apparently infinite
* Macculloch on the Attributes of the Deity, iii. 569.




NA"A TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.        I 25
globe-peopled space, where all seems analogous. We
have to suppose that every one of these numberless
globes is either a theatre of organic being, or in the way
of becoming so. This is a conclusion which every addition to our knowledge makes only the more irresistible.
Is it conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise for creative
intelligence, that it should be constantly moving from
one sphere to another, to form and plant the various
species which may be required in each situation at particular times? Is such an idea accordant with our
general conception of the dignity, not to speak of the
power, of the Great Author? Yet such is the notion
which we must form, if we adhere to the doctrine of
special exercise. Let us see, on the other hand, how the,
doctrine of a creation by law agrees with this expanded
view of the organic world.
Unprepared as most men may be for such an announcement, there can be no doubt that we are able, in this
limited sphere, to form some satisfactory conclusions as
to the plants and animals of those other spheres which
move at such immense distances from   us.  Suppose
that the first persons of an early nation who made a
ship and ventured to sea in it, observed, as they sailed
along, a set of objects which they had never before seen
-namely, a fleet of other ships-would they not have
been justified in supposing that those ships were occupied,
like their own, by human beings possessing hands to row
and steer, eyes to watch the signs of the weather, intelligence to guide them from one place to another-in
short, beings in all respects like themselves, or only
showing such differences as they knew to be producible
by difference of climate and habits of life? Precisely
in this manner we can speculate on the inhabitants of
remote spheres. We see that matter has originally been




i26


2VESTIGES OF THE


diffused in one mass, of which the spheres are portions.
Consequently, inorganic matter must be presumed to be
everywhere the same, although probably with differences
in the proportions of ingredients in different globes, and
also some difference of conditions. Out of a certain
number of the elements of inorganic matter are composed
organic bodies, both vegetable and animal; such must be
the rule in Jupiter and in Sirius, as it is here. We,
therefore, are all but certain that herbaceous and ligneous
fibre, that flesh and blood, are the constituents of the
organic beings of all those spheres which are as yet seats
of life. Gravitation we see to be an all-pervading principle: therefore there must be a relation between the
spheres and their respective organic occupants, by virtue
of which they are fixed, as far as necessary, on the
surface. Such a relation, of course, involves details as
to the density and elasticity of structure, as well as size,
of the organic tenants, in proportion to the gravity of the
respective planets-peculiarities, however, which may
quite well consist with the idea of a universality of
general types, to which we are about to come. Electricity we also see to be universal; if, therefore, it be a
principle concerned in life and in mental action, a.s
science strongly suggests, life and mental action must
everywhere be of one general character. We come to
comparatively a matter of detail, when we advert to heat
and light; yet it is important to consider that these are
universal agents, and that, as they bear marked relations
to organic life and structure on earth, they may be
presumed to do so in other spheres also. The considerations as to light are particularly interesting, for, on our
globe, the structure of one important organ, almost
universally distributed in the animal kingdom, is in
direct and precise relation to it. Where there is light




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TlON.               127
there will be eyes, and these, in other spheres, will be
the same in all respects as the eyes of tellurian animals,
with only such differences as may be necessary to accord
with minor peculiarities of condition and of situation.
It is but a small stretch of the argument to suppose that,
one conspicuous organ of ai large portion of our animal
kingdom being thus universal, a parity in all the other
organs-species for species, class for class, kingdom for
kingdom-is highly likely, and that thus the inhabitants
of all the other globes of space bear not only a general,
but a particular resemblance to those of our own.
Assuming that organic beings are thus spread over all
space, the idea of their having all come into existence by
the operation of laws everywhere applicable, is only conformable to that principle, acknowledged to be so generally
visible in the affairs of Providence, to have all done by
the employment of the smallest possible amount of means.
Thus, as one set of laws produced all orbs and their
motions and geognostic arrangements, so one set of laws
overspread them all with life. The whole productive or
creative arrangements are therefore in perfect unity.




( 128 )


PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS
RESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES.
THE general likelihood of an organic creation by law
having been shown, we are next to inquire if science has
any facts tending to bring the assumption more nearly
home to nature. Such facts there certainly are; but it
cannot be surprising that they are comparatively few and
scattered, when we consider that the inquiry is into one
of nature's profoundest mysteries, and one which has
hitherto engaged no direct attention in almost any
quarter.
Crystallisation is confessedly a phenomenon of inorganic matter; yet the simplest rustic observer is struck
by the resemblance which the examples of it left upon
a window by frost bear to vegetable forms. In some
crystallizations the mimicry is beautiful and complete;
for example, in the well-known one called the Arbor
Diancw. An amalgam of four parts of silver and two of
mercury being dissolved in nitric acid, and water equal
to thirty weights of the metals being added, a small piece
of soft amalgam of silver suspended in the solution,
quickly gathers to itself the particles of the silver of
the amalgam, which form upon it a crystallisation precisely reseaiblihng a shru,. Vegetable figures are also
presented in some of the most ordinary aplpearanc:es




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             x29
of the electric fluid. In the marks caused by positive
electricity, or which it leaves in its passage, we see the
ramifications of a tree, as well as of its individual leaves;
those of the negative, recall the bulbous or the spreading root, according as they are clumped or divergent.
These phenomena seem to say that the electric energies
have had something to do in determining the forms of
plants.  That they   are intimately connected with
vegetable life is indubitable, for germination will not
proceed in water charged with negative electricity, while
water charged positively greatly favours it; and a
garden sensibly increases in luxuriance when a number
of conducting rods are made to terminate in branches
over its beds. With regard to the resemblance of the
ramifications of the branches and leaves of plants to the
traces of the positive electricity, and that of the roots to
the negative, it is a circumstance calling for especial
remark, that the atmosphere, particularly its lower
strata, is generally charged positively, while the earth is
always charged negatively. The correspondence here is
curious. A plant thus appears as a thing formed on the
basis of a natural electrical operation-the brush realised.
We can thus suppose the various forms of plants as,
immediately, the result of a law in electricity variously
affecting them according to their organic character, or
respective germinal constituents.  In the poplar, the
brush is unusually vertical, and little divergent; the
reverse in the beech: in the palm, a pencil has proceeded
straight up for a certain distance, radiates there, and
turns outwards and downwards; and so on. We can
here see at least traces of secondary means by which the
Almighty Deviser might establish all the vegetable forms
with which the earth is overspread.
Vegetable and animal bodies are mainly composed of
E




130


VESTIGES OF THE


the same four simple substances or elements-carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The first combinations
of these in animals are into what are called proximate
principles, as albumen, fibrin, urea, allantoin, &c., out of
which the structure of the animal body is composed.
Now the chemist, by the association of two parts oxygen,
four hydrogen, two carbon, and two nitrogen, can make
urea.   Allantoin  has also been produced artificially.
Two of the proximate principles being realisable by
human care, the possibility of realising or forming all
is established. Thus the chemist may be said to have it
in his power to perform the first step in organisation.*
Indeed, it is fully acknowledged by Dr. Daubeny, that
in the combinations forming the proximate principles
there is no chemical peculiarity.  "It is now certain,"
he says, " that the same simple laws of composition pervade the whole creation; and that, if the organic chemist
only takes the requisite precautions to avoid resolving
into their ultimate elements the proximate principles
upon which he operates, the result of his analysis will
show that they are combined precisely according to the
same plan as the elements of mineral bodies are known
to be." t A particular fact is here worthy of attention.
"The conversion of fecula into sugar, as one of the
ordinary processes of vegetable economy, is effected by
the production of a secretion termed diastase, which
occasions both the rupture of the starch vesicles, and
the change of their contained gum into sugar. This
diastase may be separately obtained by the chemist, and
* Fatty matter has also been formed in the laboratory. The process consisted in passing a mixture of carbonic acid, pure hydrogen,
and carburetted hydrogen, in the proportion of one measure of the
first, twenty of the second, and ten of the third, through a red-hot
tube.
+ " Supplement to the Atomic Theory."




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 131
it acts as effectually in his laboratory as in the vegetable
organisation. He can also imitate its effects by other
chemical agents." * The writer quoted below adds, " No
reasonable ground has yet been adduced for supposing
that, if we had the power of bringing together the
elements of any organic compound, in their requisite
states and proportions, the result would be any other
than that which is found in the living body."
It is much to know the elements out of which organic
bodies are composed. It is something more to know
their first combinations, and   that these are simply
chemical. How    these combinations are associated in
the structure of living bodies is the next inquiry, but
it is one to which as yet no satisfactory answer can be
given. The investigation of the minutie of organic
structure by the microscope is of such recent origin, that
its results cannot be expected to be very clear. Some
facts, however, are worthy of attention with regard to
the present inquiry. It is ascertained that the basis of
all vegetable and animal substances consists of nucleated
cells; that is, cells lhaving granules within them. Nutriment is converted into these before being assimilated by
the system. The tissues are formed from them. The
ovum destined to become a new creature, is originally
only a cell with a contained granule. We see it acting
this reproductive part in the simplest manner in the
cryptogamic plants.  "The parent cell, arrived at maturity by the exercise of its organic functions, bursts,
and liberates its contained granules. These, at once
thrown upon their own resources, and entirely dependent for their nutrition on the surrounding elements,
develop themselves into new cells, whiclh repeat the life
of their original. Amongst the higher tribes of the
* Carpenter on Life: Todd's " Cyclopedia of Physiology.".  2




132             VESTIGES OF THE
cryptogamia, the reproductive cell does not burst, but
the first cells of the new structure are developed within
it, and these gradually extend, by a similar process of
multiplication, into that primary leaf-like expansion
which is the first formed structure in all plants." *
Here tle little cell becomes directly a plant, the fullformed
living being.  It is also worthy of remark that, in the
sponges (an animal form), a gemmule detached from
the body of the parent, and trusting for sustentation
only to the fluid into which it has been cast, becomes,
without further process, the new creature. Further, it
has been recently discovered by means of the microscope,
that there is, as far as can be judged, a perfect resemblance between the ovum of the mammal tribes, during
that early stage when it is passing through the oviduct,
and the young of the infusory animalcules. One of the
most remarkable of these, the volvox globator, has exactly
the form of the germ   which, after passing through a
long fcetal progress, becomes a complete mammifer, an.animal of the highest class. It has even been found
that both are alike provided with those cilia, which, producing a revolving motion, or its appearance, is partly
the cause of the name given to this animalcule. These
resemblances are the more entitled to notice, that they
were made by various observers, distant from each other
at the time.t It has likewise been noted that the globules of the blood are reproduced by the expansion of
contained granules; they are, in short, distinct organismos
multiplied by the same fissiparous generation.  So that
all animated nature may be said to be based on this
mode of origin; the fundamental form of organic being is
* Carpenter's " epoit on the Results obtained by the Microscope
in the Study of Anatomy and Physiology," I843.
t See Dr. Martin Barry on "Fissiparous Generation: " Jameson's
Jour'al7, Oct. 1843.




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.              133
a globule, having a new globule for ming within itself, by
which it is in time discharged, and which is again followed by another and another, in endless succession. It
is of course obvious that, if these globules could be produced by any process from inorganic elements, we should
be entitled to say that the fact of a transit from the
inorganic into the organic had been witnessed in that
instance; the possibility of the commencement of animated creation by the ordinary laws of nature might
be considered as established. Now it was announced
some years ago by a French physiologist, that globules
could be produced in albumen by electricity. If, therefore,
these globules be identical with the cells which are now
held to be reproductive, it might be said that the production of albumen by artificial means is the only step
in the process wanting. This has not yet been effected;
but it is known to be only a chemical process, the mode
of which may be any day discovered in the laboratory,
and two compounds perfectly co-ordinate, urea and allantoin, have actually been produced.
In such an investigation as tihe present, it is not unworthy of notice that the production of shell is a natural
operation which can be precisely imitated artificially.
Such an incrustation takes place on both the outside and
inside of the wheel in a bleaching establishment, in which
cotton cloth is rinsed free of the lime employed in its
purification. From the dressing employed by the weaver,
the cloth obtains the animal matter, gelatin; this and
the lime form the constituents of the incrustation, exactly
as in natural shell. In the wheel employed at Catrine,
in Ayrshire, where the phenomenon was first observed
by the eye of science, it had required ten years to produce
a coating the tenth of an inch in thickness. This incrustration has all the characters of shell, displaying a




134


VESTIGES OF THE


highly polished surface, beautifully iridescent, and, when
broken, a foliated texture. The examination of it has
even thrown some light on the character and mode of
formation of natural shell.  "The plates into which the
substance is divisible have been formed in succession, and
certain intervals of time have elapsed between their formation; in general, every two contiguous laminae are separated by a thin iridescent film, varying from the three to
the fifty millionth part of an inch in thickness, and producing all the various colours of thin plates which correspond
to intermediate thicknesses: between some of the lamine
no such film exists, probably in consequence of the
interval of time between their formation being too short;
and between others the film has been formed of unequal
thickness. There can be no doubt that these iridescent
films are formed when the dash-wheel is at rest during
the night, and that when no film exists between two
laminae, an interval too short for its formation (arising,
perhaps, from the stopping of the work during the day),
has elapsed during the drying or induration of one
lamina and the deposition of another."*  From this it
has been deduced, by a patient investigation, that those
colours of mother-of-pearl, which are incommunicable to
wBax, arise from iridescent films deposited between the
laminae of its structure, and it is hence inferred th at the
animal, like the wheel, rests periodically rJ'om its labours
inoform)ing the natural substance.
These, it will ble owned, are curious and not irrelevant
facts; but it will be asked what actual experience says respecting the origination of life. Are there, it will be said,
any authentic instances of either plants or animals, of however humble and simple a kind, having come into existence
* Mr. Leonard Horner and Sir David Brewrster, on a substance
resembling shell.-Ph/ilosophical Transactions, 1836.




NATURAL HISTORY1' OF CREATION.            135
otherwise than in the ordinary way of generation, since
the time of which geology forms the record? To this it
may be answered, in the first place, that the negative of
the question could not be by any means formidable to the
doctrine of law-creation, seeing that the conditions necessary for the operation of the supposed life-creating laws
may not have existed within record to any great extent.
There may have never been an instance of the origination
of life, otherwise than by generation, since the commencej ment of the human species, and nevertheless the doctrine
in question may be shown upon grounds altogether apart
to have strong probability on its side. On the other
hand, as we see the physical laws of early times still
acting with more or less force, it might not be unreasonable to expect that we should still see somre remnants, or
partial and occasional workings of the life-creating energy
amidst a system of things generally stable and at rest.
Are there, then, any such remnants to be traced in our
own day, or during man's existence upon earth? If
there be, it clearly would form a strong evidence in
favour of the doctrine, as what now takes place upon a
confined scale, and in a comparatively casual manner,
may have formerly taken place on a great scale, and as
the proper and eternity-destined means of supplying a
vacant globe with suitable tenants. It will at the same
time be observed that, the earth being now supplied with
both kinds of tenants in great abundance, we only could
expect to find the life-originating power at work in some
very special and extraordinary circumstances, and probably only in the inferior and obscurer departments of
the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
Perhaps, if the question were asked of ten men of
approved reputation in science, nine out of the number
would answer in the negative. This is because, in a




I36


VESTIGES OF THE


great number of instances where the superficial observers
of former times assumed a non-generative origin for
life (as in the celebrated case in Virgil's fourth Georgic),
either the direct contrary has been ascertained, or
exhaustive experiments have left no alternative from the
conclusion that ordinary generation did take place, albeit
in a manner which escapes observation. Finding that an
erroneous assumption has been formed in many cases,
modern inquirers have not hesitated to assume that there
can be no case in which generation is not concerned.
Now their conclusion may be right, but it clearly is not
one beyond question; and it is equally true that the
explanations suggested in difficult cases are often far
from being satisfactory. When, for instance, lime is laid
down upon a piece of waste moss ground, and a crop of
white clover for which no seeds were sown is the consequence, the common explanation is, that the seeds have
been dormant there for an unknown time, and were
stimulated into germination when the lime produced the
appropriate circumstances.  How is it possible to be
satisfied with this hypothesis, when we know (as in an
authentic case under my notice) that the spot is many
miles from where clover is cultivated, and that there is
nothing for six feet below but pure peat moss, clover
seeds being, moreover, known to be too heavy to be
transported, as many other seeds are, by the winds?
There are several persons eminent in science who profess
at least to find great difficulties in accepting the doctrine
of invariable generation. One of these, in the work
noted below,* has stated several considerations arising
from analogical reasoning, which appear to him to throw
the balance of evidence in favour of the aboriginal produc* Dr. Allen Thomson, in the article: Generation," in Todd's " CyclopFedia of Anatomy and Physiology."




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATIOV.                I37
tion of infusoria,* the vegetation called mould, and the
like.  One seems to be of great force: namely, that the
animalcules, which are supposed (altogether hypothetically) to be produced by ova, are afterwards found increasing their numbers, not by that mode at all, but by
division of their bodies. If it be the nature of these
creatures to propagate in this splitting or fissiparous
manner, how could they be communicated to a vegetable
infusion? Another fact of very high importance is presented in the following terms:-" The nature of the
animalcule, or vegetable production, bears a constant
relation to the state of the infusion, so that, in similar
circumstances, the same are always produced without
this being influenced by the atmosphere. There seems to
be a certain progressive advance in the productive powers
of the infusion, for at the first the animalcules are only of
the smaller kinds, or monades, and afterwards they
become gradually larger and more complicated in their
structure; after a time, the production ceases, although the
materials are by no means exhausted. When the quantity
of water is very small, and the organic matter abundant,
the production is usually of a vegetable nature: when
there is much water, animalcules are more frequently
produced." It has been shown by the opponents of this
theory, that when a vegetable infusion is debarred from
the contact of the atmosphere, by being closely sealed up
or covered with a layer of oil, no animalcules are produced; but it has been said, on the other hand, that the
exclusion of the air may prevent some simple condition
necessary for the aboriginal development of life-and
nothing is more likely. Perhaps the prevailing doctrine
e The term aboriginal is here suggested, as more correct than
spontaneous, the one hitherto generally used.




I138


3VESTIGES OF THE


is in nothing placed in greater difficulties than it is with
regard to the entozoa, or creatures which live within the
bodies of others.  These creatures do, and apparently
can, live nowhere else than in the interior of otherliving
bodies, where they generally take up their abode in the
viscera, but also sometimes in the chambers of the eye?
the interior of the brain, the serous sacs and other places
having no communication from without. Some are viviparous, others oviparous. Of the latter it cannot reasonably be supposed that the ova ever pass through the
medium of the air, or through the blood-vessels, for they
are too heavy for the one transit, and too large for the
other.  Of the former, it cannot be conceived how they
pass into young animals-certainly not by communication from the parent, for it has often been found that
entozoa do not appear in certain generations of a human
family, and some of peculiar and noted character have
only appeared at rare intervals, and in very extraordinary
circumstances. A candid view of the less popular doctrine, as to the origin of this humble form of life, is taken
by a distinguished living naturalist. "To explain the
beginning of these worms within the human body, on
the common doctrine that all created beings proceed from
their likes, or a primordial egg, is so difficult, that the
moderns have been driven to speculate, as our fathers did,
on their spontaneous birth; but they have received the
hypothesis with some modification. Thus it is not from
putrefaction or fermentation that the entozoa are born,
for both of these processes are rather fatal to their existence, but from the aggregation and fit apposition of
matter which is already organised, or has been thrown
from  organised surfaces....... Their origin in this
manner is not more wonderful or more inexplicable
than that of many of the inferior animals from sections




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              139
of themselves...... Particles of matter fitted  by
digestion, and their transmission through a living body,
for immediate assimilation with it, or flakes of lymph
detached from surfaces already organised, seem neither
to exceed nor fall below that simplicity of structure
which favours this wonderful development; and the supposition that, like morsels of a planaria, they may also,
when retained in contact with living parts, and in other
favourable circumstances, continue to live and be gradually changed into creatures of analogous conformation,
is surely not so absurd as to be brought into comparison
with the "'Metamorphoses " of Ovid..... We think
the hypothesis is also supported in some degree by the
fact, that the origin of the entozoa is favoured by all
causes which tend to disturb the equality between the
secerning and absorbent systems." * Here particles of
organised matter are suggested as the germinal original
of distinct and fully organised animals, many of which
have a highly developed reproductive system. How near
such particles must be to the inorganic form of matter
may be judged from what has been said within the last
few pages.  If, then, this view of the production of
entozoa be received, it must be held as in no small degree
favourable to the general doctrine of an organic creation
by law.
There is another series of facts, akin to the above, and
which deserve not less attention. The pig, in its domestic state, is subject to the attacks of a hydatid, from
which the wild animal is free; hence the disease called
measles in pork. The domestication of the pig is, of
course, an event subsequent to the origin of man; indeed, comparatively speaking, a recent event. Whence,
then, the first progenitor of this hydatid? So also there
* Article "Zoofhytes," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7th edition.




140


4VESTIGES OF THE


is a tinea which attacks dressed wool, but never touches
it in its unwashed state. A particular insect disdains all
food but chocolate, and the larva of the oinopota cellaris
lives nowhere but in wine and beer, all of these being
articles manufactured by man. There is likewise a
creature called the pymelodes cyclopumn,, which is only
found in subterranean cavities connected with certain
specimens of the volcanic formation in South America,
dating from a time posterior to the arrangements of the
earth for our species.  Whence the first pymelodes
cyclopum I Will it, to a geologist, appear irrational to
suppose that, just as the pterodactyle was added as a
new offshoot from the animal stock, in the era of the
new red sandstone, when the earth had become suited
for such a creature, so may these creatures have been
added when media suitable for their existence arose, and
that such phenomena may take place any day, the only
cause for their taking place seldom being the rarity of
the rise of new physical conditions on a globe which
seems to have already undergone the principal part of its
destined mutations?
Between such isolated facts and the greater changes
which attended various geological eras, it is not easy to
see any difference, besides simply that of the scale on
which the respective phenomena took place, as the
throwing off of one copy from an engraved plate is
exactly the same process as that by which a thousand
are thrown off. To Creative Providence, we may well
conceive, the numbers of such phenomena, the time when,
and the circumstances under which they take place, are
indifferent matters. The Eternal One has arranged for
everything beforehand, and trusted all to the operation
of the laws of his appointment, himself being ever present in all things. We can even conceive that man, in




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TIONY.          141
his many doings upon the surface of the earth, may occasionally, without his being aware of it, or otherwise,
act as an instrument in preparing the association of conditions under which the creative laws work; and perhaps
some instances of his having acted as such an instrument
have actually occurred in our own time.
I allude, of course, to the experiments conducted a
few years ago by Mr. Crosse, which seemed to result in
the production of a heretofore unknown species of insect
in considerable numbers. Various causes have prevented
these experiments and their results from receiving candid
treatment, but they may perhaps be yet found to have
opened up a new and most interesting chapter of nature's
mysteries. Mr. Crosse was pursuing some experiments
in crystallisation, causing a powerful voltaic battery to
operate upon a saturated solution of silicate of potash,
when the insects unexpectedly made their appearance.
He afterwards tried nitrate of copper, which is a deadly
poison, and from that fluid also did live insects emerge.
Discouraged by the reception of his experiments, Mr.
Crosse soon discontinued them; but they were some
years after pursued by Mr. Weekes, of Sandwich, with
precisely the same results.  This gentleman, besides
trying the first of the above substances, employed ferrocyanet of potash, on account of its containing a larger
proportion of carbon, the principal element of organic
bodies; and from this substance the insects were produced in increased numbers.  A few weeks sufficed for
this experiment, with the powerful battery of Mr.
Crosse; but the first attempts of Mr. Weekes required
about eleven months, a ground of presumption in itself
that the electricity was chiefly concerned in the phenomenon. The changes undergone by the fluid operated
upon, were in both cases remarkable, and nearly alike.




142             VESTIGES OF THE
In Mr. Weekes's apparatus, the silicate of potash became
first turbid, then of a milky appearance; round the
negative wire of the battery, dipped into the fluid, there
gathered a quantity of gelatinous matter, a part of
the process of considerable importance, considering that
gelatin is one of the proximate principles, or first coimpounds, of which animal bodies are formed. From this
matter Mr. Weekes observed one of the insects in
the very act of emerging, immediately after which, it
ascended to the surface of the fluid, and sought concealment in an obscure corner of the apparatus. The insects
produced by both experimentalists seem to have been
the same, a species of acarus, minute and semi-transparent, and furnished with long bristles, which can only
be seen by the aid of the microscope. It is worthy of
remark, that some of these insects, soon after their
existence had commenced, were found to be likely to
extend their species. They were sometimes observed to
go back to the fluid to feed, and occasionally they
devoured each other.*
The reception of novelties in science must ever be
regulated very much by the amount of kindred or
relative phenomena which the public mind already
possesses and acknowledges, to which the new can be
assimilated. A novelty, however true, if there be no
received truths with which it can be shown in harmonious relation, has little chance of a favourable hearing. In fact, as has been often observed, there is a
measure of incredulity from our ignorance as well as
from our knowledge, and if the most distinguished philosopher three hundred years ago had ventured to develop
any striking new fact which only could harmonise with
the as yet unknown Copernican solar system, we cannot
* See a Pamphlet circulated by Mr. Weekes, in 1842.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              I43
doubt that it would have been universally scoffed at in
the scientific world, such as it then was, or, at the best,
interpreted in a thousand wrong ways in conformity with
ideas already familiar. The experiments above described,
finding a public mind which had never discovered a fact
or conceived an idea at all analogous, were of course
ungraciously received. It was held to be impious, even
to surmise that animals could have been formed through
any instrumentality of an apparatus devised by human
skill. The more likely account of the phenomena was
said to be, that the insects were only developed from ova,
resting either in the fluid, or in the wooden frame on
which the experiments took place. On these objections
the following remarks may be made. The supposition
of impiety arises from an entire misconception of what is
implied by an aboriginal creation of insects. The experimentalist could never be considered as the author of
the existence of these creatures, except by the most unreasoning ignorance. The utmost that can be claimed
for, or imputed to him is that he arranged the natural
conditions under which the true creative energy-that
flowing from the primordial appointment of the Divine
Author of all things-was pleased to work in that instance. On the hypothesis here brought forward, the
acarus Crossii was a type of being ordained from the
beginning, and destined to be realised under certain
physical conditions. When a human hand brought these
conditions into the proper arrangement, it did an act
akin to hundreds of familiar ones which we execute every
day, and which are followed by natural results; but it
did nothing more. The production of the insect, if it
did take place as assumed, was as clearly an act of the
Almighty himself, as if he had fashioned it with hands.
For the presumption that an act of aboriginal creation




144   NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.
did take place, there is this to be said, that in Mr. Weekes's
experiment, every care that ingenuity could devise was
taken to exclude the possibility of a development of the
insects from ova. The wood of the frame was baked in a
powerful heat; a bell-shaped glass covered the apparatus,
and from this the atmosphere was excluded by the constantly rising fumes from the liquid, for the emission of
which there was an aperture so arranged at the top of
the glass, that only these fumes could pass. The water
was distilled, and the substance of the silicate had been
subjected to white heat. Thus every source of fallacy
seemed to be shut up. In such circumstances, a candid
mind, which sees nothing either impious or unphilosophical in the idea of a new creation, will be disposed to
think that there is less difficulty in believing in such a
creation having actually taken place, than in believing
that, in two instances, separated in place and time,
exactly the same insects should have chanced to arise
from concealed ova, and these a species heretofore unknown.




( I45 )


HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS.
IT has been already intimated, as a general fact, that
there is an obvious gradation amongst the families of
both the vegetable and animal kingdoms, from the simple
lichen and animalcule respectively, up to the highest
order of dicotyledonous trees and the mammalia. Confining our attention, in the meantime, to the animal
kingdom-it does not appear that this gradation passes
along one line, on which every form of animal life can
be, as it were, strung. There seems to be a plurality of
lines; how many there are it is not necessary at present
to decide. There may be two or more lines; or the lines
may be branching; or the whole may be in a circle composed of minor circles, as has been recently suggested.
But still it is incontestable that there are general appearances of a scale beginning with the simple and advancing
to the complicated. The animal kingdom was divided by
Cuvier into four sub-kingdoms, or divisions, and these
exhibit an unequivocal gradation in the order in which
they are here enumerated:
RADIATA (polypes, &c.).
MOLLUSCA (pulpy animals). ARTICULATA (jointed animals).
VERTEBR.TA (animals with internal skeleton);




146


VESTIGES OF THE


the mollusca and articulata being, as it were, two distinct
parallel lines by which we pass from the radiata to the
vertebrate. The gradation can, in like manner, be clearly
traced in the classes into which the sub-kingdoms are
subdivided, as, for instance, when we take those of the
vertebrate in this order-fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals.
While the external forms of all these various animals
are so different, it is very remarkable that the whole are,
after all, variations of a fundamental plan, which can be
traced as a basis throughout the whole, the variations
being merely modifications of that plan to suit the particular conditions in which each particular animal has
been designed to live. Starting from the primeval germ
which, as we have seen, is the representative of a particular order of full-grown animals, we find all others to
be merely advances from that type, with the extension of
endowments and modification of forms which are required
in each particular case; each form, also, retaining a
strong affinity to that which precedes it, and tending to
impress its own features on that which succeeds. This
unity of structure, as it is called, becomes the morse
remarkable when we observe that the organs, while
preserving a resemblance, are often put to different uses.
For example: the ribs become, in the serpent, organs of
locomotion, and the snout is extended, in the elephant,
into a prehensile instrument.
It is equally remarkable that analogous purposes are
served in different animals by organs essentially different.
Thus, the mammalia breathe by lungs; the fishes, by
gills. These are not modifications of one organ, but
distinct organs. In mammifers. the gills exist and act
at an early stage of the feetal state, but afterwards go
back and appear no more; while the lungs are developed.
In fishes, again, the gills only are fully developed; while




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATIONAr.            147
the lung structure either makes no advance at all, or
only appears in the rudimentary form of an air-bladder.
So, also, the baleen of the whale and the teeth of the
land mammalia are different organs. The whale, in
embryo, shows the rudiments of teeth; but these, not
being wanted, are not developed, and the baleen is
brought forward instead. The land animals, we may
also be sure, have the rudiments of baleen in their
organisation. In many instances, a particular structure
is found advanced to a certain point in a particular set
of animals (for instance, feet in the serpent tribe), although it is not there required in any degree; but the
peculiarity, being carried a little farther forward, is
perhaps useful in the next set of animals in the scale.
Such. are called rudimentary organs. With this class of
phenomena are to be ranked the useless mammae of the
male human being, and the unrequired process of bone
in the male opossum, which is needed in the female for
supporting her pouch. Such curious features are most
conspicuous in animals which form links between various
classes.
As formerly stated, the marsupials, standing at the
bottom  of the mammalia, show   their affinity to the
oviparous vertebrata, by the rudiments of two canals
passing from near the anus to the external surfaces of
the viscera, which are fully developed in fishes, being
required by them for the respiration of aerated waters,
but which are not needed by the atmosphere-breathing
marsupials. We have also the peculiar form of the
sternum and rib-bones of the lizards represented in the
mammalia in certain white cartilaginous lines traceable
among their abdominal muscles. The struthionidse
(birds of the ostrich type) form a link between birds and
mammalia, and in them we find the wings imperfectly or




I48


VESTIGES OF THE


not at all developed, a diaphragm  and urinary sac
(organs wanting in other birds), and feathers approaching the nature of hair. Again, the ornithorhynchus
belongs to a class at the bottom of the mammalia, and
approximating to birds, and in it behold the bill and
web-feet of that order!
For further illustration, it is obvious that, various as
may be the lengths of the upper part of the vertebral
column in the mammalia, it always consists of the same
parts. The giraffe has in its tall neck the same number
of bones with the pig, which scarcely appears to have a
neck at all. * Man, again, has no tail; but the notion of
a much-ridiculed philosopher of the last century is not
altogether, as it happens, without foundation, for the
bones of a caudal extremity exist in an undeveloped
state in the os coccygis of the human subject. The limbs
of all the vertebrate animals are, in like manner, on one
plan, however various they may appear. In the hindleg of a horse, for example, the angle called the hock is
the same part which in us forms the heel; and the horse,
and all other quadrupeds, with the almost solitary exception of the bear, walk, in reality, upon what answers
to the toes of a human being. In this and many other
quadrupeds the fore-part of the extremities is shrunk upin a hoof, as the tail of the human being is shrunk up in
the bony mass at the bottom of the back. The bat, on
the other hand, has these parts largely developed. The
membrane, commonly called its wing, is framed chiefly
upon bones answering precisely to those of the human
hand; its extinct congener, the pterodactyle, had the same
membrane extended upon the fore-finger only, which in
that animal was prolonged to an extraordinary extent.
* D'Aubenton established the rule, that all the viviparous quadrupeds have seven vertebra in the neck.




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATIOA.            I49
In the paddles of the whale and other animals of its
order, we see the same bones as in the more highly
developed extremities of the land mammifers; and even
the serpent tribes, which present no external appearance
of such extremities, possess them in reality, but in an
undeveloped or rudimental state.
The same law   of development presides over the
vegetable kingdom. Amongst phanerogamous plants, a
certain number of organs appear to be always present,
either in a developed or rudimentary state; and those
which are rudimentary can be developed by cultivation.
The flowers which bear stamens on one stalk and
pistils on another, can be caused to produce both, or
to become perfect flowers, by having a sufficiency of
nourishment supplied to them. So, also, where a special
function is required for particular circumstances, nature
has provided for it, not by a new organ, but by a modification of a common one, which she has effected il
development. Thus, for instance, some plants destined to
live in arid situations, require to have a store of water
which they may slowly absorb. The need is arranged
for by a cup-like expansion round the stalk, in which
water remains after a shower. Now the pitche', as this
is called, is not a new organ, but simply the metamorphosis of a leaf.
These facts clearly show how all the various organic
forms of our world are bound up in one-how a fundamental unity pervades and embraces them all, collecting
them, from the humblest lichen up to the highest umanm
mifer, in one system, the whole creation of which must
have depended upon one law or decree of the Almighty,
though it did not all come forth at one time. After
what we have seen the idea of a separate exertion for
each must appear totally inadmissible. The single fact




150


VESTIGES OF THE


of abortive or rudimentary organs condemns it; for these,
on such a supposition, could be regarded in no other light
than as blemishes or blunders-the thing of all others
most irreconcilable with that idea of Almighty Perfection
which a general view of nature so irresistibly conveys. On
the other hand, when the organic creation is admitted to
have been effected by a general law, we see nothing in
these abortive parts but harmless peculiarities of development, and interesting evidences of the manner in which
the Divine Author has been pleased to work.
We have yet to advert to the most interesting class of
facts connected with organic development. It is only
in recent times that physiologists have observed that
each animal passes, in the course of its germinal history,
through a series of changes resembling the permanent
forms, first of the various orders inferior to it in the
entire scale, and then of its own order. This is a department of natural history in which only a few facts have
been collected; but these are of such a nature, that we
cannot doubt of their being the indications of some
great general law. Thus, for instance, the comatula, a
free-swimming star-fish, is, at one stage of its early
progress, a crinoid-that is, a star-fish fixed upon a stalk
to the bottom of the sea. It advances from the form of
one of the lower to that of one of the higher echinodermata. The animals of its first form were, as we have
seen, among the most abundant in the earliest fossiliferous rocks: they began to decline in the new red sandstone era, and they were succeeded in the oolitic age by
animals of the form of the mature comatulac. Thus, too,
the insect, standing at the head of the articulated
animals, is, in the larva state, an annelid or worm, the
annelida being the lowest in the same class. The higher
crustacea, as the crab or lobster, at their escape from the




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               I5f
ovum, resemble the perfect animal of the inferior order
entomostraca, and pass through all the forms of transition which characterise the intermediate tribes of crustacea. The salmon, a highly organised fish, exhibits, in
its early stages, as has been remarked, the gelatinous
dorsal cord, the heterocercal tail, and inferior position of
the mouth, which mark the mature example of the lower
tribes of fishes, the placoids and ganoids. The frog,
again, for some time after its birth, is a fish with external gills, and other organs fitting it for an aquatic life,
all of which are changed as it advances to maturity, and
becomes a land animal.    The mammifer only passes
through still more stages, according to its higher place in
the scale. Nor is man himself exempt from this law.
His first form is that which is permanent in the animalcule.' His organisation gradually passes through conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and
the lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity.
At one of the last stages of his fcetal career, he exhibits
an intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the
perfect ape; this is suppressed, and he may then be said
to take leave of the simial type, and become a true human
creature. Even, as we shall see, the varieties of his race
are represented in the progressive development of an
individual of the highest, before we see the adult
Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal
scale.
To come to particular points of the organisation.
The brain of man, which exceeds that of all other
animals in complexity of organisation and fulness of
development, is, at one early period, only " a simple fold
of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable into
three parts, while a little tail-like prolongation towards
the hinder parts, and which had been the first to appear,




I52


VESTIGES OF THE


is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now in
this state it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish,
thus assuming in transitu the form   that in the fish is
permanent. In a short time, however, the structure is
become more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal
marrow better marked; it is now the brain of a reptile.
The change continues; by a singular motion, certain
parts (corpora quadrigemina) which had hitherto appeared on the upper surface, now pass towards the
lower; the former is their permanent situation in fishes
and reptiles, the latter in birds and mammalia. This is
another advance in the scale, but more remains yet to be
done. The complication of the organ increases; cavities
termed ventricles are formed, which do not exist in fishes,
reptiles, or birds; curiously organised parts, such as the
corpora striata, are added; it is now the brain of the
mammalia. Its last and final change alone seems
wanting, that which shall render it the brain of MAN." *
And this change in time takes place.
So also with the heart. This organ, in the mammalia,
consists of four cavities, but in the reptiles of only three,
and in fishes of two only, while in the articulated
animals it is merely a prolonged tube.     Now in the
mammal feetus, at a certain early stage, the organ has
the form of a prolonged tube; and a human being may
be said to have then the heart of an insect. Subsequently
it is shortened and widened, and becomes divided by a
contraction into two parts, a ventricle and an auricle; it
is now the heart of a fish. A subdivision of the auricle
afterwards makes a triple-chambered form, as in the
* Lord's " Popular Physiology." It is to Tiedeniann that we chiefly
owe these curious observations; but ground was first broken in this
branch of physiological science by John Hunter.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              153
heart of the reptiles tribes; lastly, the ventricle being
also subdivided, it becomes a full mammal heart.
It is certainly very remarkable that, corresponding
generally to these progressive forms in the development
of individuals, has been the succession of animal forms in
the course of time. Our earth, as we have seen, bore
crinoidea before it bore the higher echinodermata. It
presented crustacea before it bore fishes, and when fishes
came, the first forms were those ganoidal and placoidal
types which correspond with the early foetal condition
of higher orders. Afterwards there were reptiles, then
marmmifers, and finally, as we know, came man. The
tendency of all these illustrations is to make us look to
development as the principle which has been immediately
concerned in the peopling of this globe, a process extending over a vast space of time, but which is nevertheless
connected in character with the briefer process by which
an individual being is evoked from a simple germ. What
mystery is there here-and how shall I proceed to
enunciate the conception which I have ventured to form
of what may prove to be its proper solution! It is an
idea by ho means calculated to irmpress by its greatness,
or to puzzle by its profoundness. It is an idea more
marked by simplicity than perhaps any other of those
which have explained the great secrets of nature. But in
this lies, perhaps, one of its strongest claims to our faith.
The whole train of animated beings, from the simplest
and oldest, up to the highest and most recent, are, then,
to be regarded as a series of advances of the principle of
development, which have depended upon external physical
circumstances, to which the resulting animals are appropriate. I contemplate the whole phenomena as having
been in the first place arranged in the counsels of Divine




I54


VESTIGES OF THE


Wisdom, to take place, not only upon this sphere, but
upon all the others in space under necessary modifications, and as being carried on, from first to last, here and
elsewhere, under immediate favour of the creative will or
energy.* The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form
of all organisation, we must regard as the meeting-point
between the inorganic and the organic-the end of the
mineral and beginning of the vegetable and animal
kingdoms, which thence start in different directions, but
in perfect parallelism and analogy. We have already
seen that this nucleated vesicle is itself a type of mature
and independent being in the infusory animalcules, as
well as the starting-point of the fcetal progress of every
higher individual in creation, both animal and vegetable.
We have seen that it is a form of being which there is
some reason to believe electric agency will producethough not perhaps usher into full life-in albumen, one
of those compound elements of animal bodies, of which
another (urea) has been made by artificial means. Remembering these things, we are drawn on to the supposition that the first step in the creation of life upon this
planet was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple
germzinal vesicles were produced.  This is so much, but
what were the next steps? Let a common vegetable
infusion help us to an answer. There, as we have seen,
simple forms are produced at first, but afterwards they
become more complicated, until at length the life-producing powers of the infusion are exhausted.  Are we to
* When I formed this idea, I was not aware of one which seems
faintly to foreshadow it-namely, Socrates' doctrine, afterwards
dilated on by Plato, that "previous to the existence of the world, and
beyond its present limits, there existed certain archetypes, the
embodiment (if we may use such a word) of general ideas; and that
these archetypes were models, in imitation of which all particular
beings were created."




NATTURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             155
presume that, in this case, the simple engender the
complicated l Undoubtedly, this would not be more
wonderful as a natural process than one which we never
think of wondering at, because familiar to us-namely,
that in the gestation of the mammals, the animalcule-like
ovum of a few days is the parent, in a sense, of the chicklike form of a few weeks, and that in all the subsequent
stages-fish, reptile, &c.-the one may, with scarcely a
metaphor, be said to be the progenitor of the other.
I suggest, then, as an hypothesis already countenanced
by much that is ascertained, and likely to be further
sanctioned by much that remains to be known, that the
first step was an advance underfavour of peculiar conditions, fron the simplest forms of being, to the next more
complicated, and this through the medium of the ordinary
process of generation.
Unquestionably, what we ordinarily see of nature is
calculated to impress a conviction that each species
invariably produces its like. But I would here call
attention to a remarkable illustration of natural law
which has been brought forward by Mr. Babbage, in his
"Ninth Bridgewater Treatise."  The reader is requested
to suppose himself seated before the calculating machine,
and observing it.  It is moved by a weight, and there is
a wheel which revolves through a small angle round its
axis, at short intervals, presenting to his eye successively,
a series of numbers engraved on its divided circumference.
Let the figures thus seen be the series, I, 2, 3, 4, 5,
&c., of natural numbers, each of which exceeds its immediate antecedent by unity.
"Now, reader," says Mr. Babbage, "let me ask you
how long you will have counted before you are firmly
convinced that the engine has been so adjusted, that it




156            VESTIGES OF THE
will continue, while its motion is maintained, to produce
the same series of natural numbers? Some minds are
so constituted, that after passing the first hundred terms,
they will be satisfied that they are acquainted with the
law. After seeing five hundred terms few will doubt,
and after the fifty thousandth term the propensity to
believe that the succeeding term will be fifty thousand
and one will be almost irresistible. That term will be
fifty thousand and one; and the same regular succession
will continue; the five millionth and the fifty millionth
term will still appear in their expected order, and one
unbroken chain of natural numbers will pass before your
eyes, from one up to one hundred million.
" True to the vast induction which has been made, the
next succeeding term will be one hundred million and
one; but the next number presented by the rim of the
wheel, instead of being one hundred million and two,
is one hundred million ten tltosantclt and two. The
whole series from the commencement being thus



NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 157


3
4
5


regularly as far as


99,999,999
I00,000,000
I00,00000 I
100,010,002
100,030,003
I00,060,004
100,100,005
100,150,006
100,2 10,007
100,280,008


th, law changes.


"The law which seemed at first to govern this series
failed at the hundred million and second term. This
term is larger than we expected by o0,000. The next
term is larger than was anticipated by 30,000, and the
excess of each term above what we had expected forms
the following table:I0,000
30,000
6o,ooo
100,000
150,000
I so ~,,




I58


FESTIGES OF THE


being, in fact, the series of triangular numbers,* each
multiplied by io,ooo.
" If we now continue to observe the numbers presented
by the wheel, we shall find, that for a hundred, or even
for a thousand terms, they continue to follow the new
law relating to the triangular numbers; but after watching them   for 2761 terms we find that this law fails in
the case of the 2762nd term.
" If we continue to observe, we shall discover another
law then coming into action, which also is dependent,
but in a different manner, on triangular numbers.
This will continue through about 1430 terms, when a
new law is again introduced which extends over about
950 terms, and this, too, like all its predecessors, fails,
and gives place to other laws, which appear at different
intervals.
"Now   it must be observed that the lawo that each
number )presented by the engine isegreater by unity than the
preceding number, which law the observer had deduced
from. an induction of a hundred million instances, was not
th/e true law that regulated its action, and that the occurrence of the number Ioo,oI1,002 at the ioo,000,oo2nd
term was as necessary a consequence of the original ad* The numbers, I, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, &c. are formed by adding
the successive terms of the series of natural numbers thus:
I = I
1+2    3
1+2+3 - 6
1+2+3+4 =IO, &c.
They are called triangular numbers, because a number of points corresponding to any term can always be placed in the form of a
triangle; for instanceI         3         6         10




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              i59
justment, and might have been as fully foreknown at the
commencement, as was the regular succession of any one
of the intermediate numbers to its immediate antecedent.
The same remark applies to the next apparent deviation
from the new law, which was founded on an induction of
2761 terms and also to the succeeding law, with this
limitation only-that, whilst their consecutive introduction at various definite intervals, is a necessary consequence of the mechanical structure of the engine, our
knowledge of analysis does not enable us to predict the
periods themselves at which the more distant laws will
be introduced."
It is not difficult to apply the philosophy of this passage to the question under consideration. It must be
borne in mind that the gestation of a single organism is
the work of but a few days, weeks, or months; but the
gestation (so to speak) of a whole creation is a matter
probably involving enormous spaces of time. Suppose
that an ephemeron, hovering over a pool for its one
April day of life, were capable of observing the fry of
the frog in the water below. In its aged afternoon,
having seen no change upon them for such a long time,
it would be little qualified to conceive that the external
branchipe of these creatures were to decay, and be replaced
by internal lungs, that feet were to be developed, the
tail erased, and the animal then to become a denizen of
the land. Precisely such may be our difficulty in conceiving that any of the species which people our earth
is capable of advancing by generation to a higher type
of being. During the whole time which we call the
historical era, the limits of species have been, to ordinary
observation, rigidly adhered to. But the historical era
is, we know, only a small portion of the entire age of
our globe. We do not know what may have happened




r6o            VESTIGES OF THE
during the ages which.preceded its commencement, as
we do not know what may happen in ages yet in the
distant future. All, therefore, that we can properly
infer from the apparently invariable production of like
by like is, that such is the ordinary procedure of nature
in the time immediately passing before our eyes. Mr.
Babbage's illustration powerfully suggests that this
ordinary procedure may be subordinate to a higher law
which only permits it for a time, and in proper season
interrupts and changes it. We shall soon see some
philosophical evidence for this very conclusion.
It has been seen that, in the reproduction of the
higher animals, the new being passes through stages in
which it is successively fish-like and reptile-like. But
the resemblance is not to the adult fish or the adult
reptile, but to the fish and reptile at a certain point in
their fcetal progress; this holds true with regard to the
vascular, nervous, and other systems alike. It seems as
if gestation consisted of two distinct and independent
stages-one devoted to the development of the new
being through the conditions of the inferior types, or,
rather, through the corresponding first stages of their
development; another perfecting and bringing the new
being to a healthy maturity, on the basis of the point of
development reached. This may be illustrated by a
simple diagram. The ftetus of all the four classes may
be supposed to advance in an identical condition to the
point A. The fish there diverges and passes along a
line apart, and peculiar to itself, to its mature state at
F. The reptile, bird, and mammal, go on together to
C, where the reptile diverges in like manner, and
advances by itself to R. The bird diverges at D, and
goes on to B. The mammal then goes forward in a
straight line to the highest point of organisation at M,




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATIONA. i6i
This diagram shows only the main ramifications; but the
reader must suppose minor ones, representing the subordinate differences of orders, tribes, families, genera, &c.,
if he wishes to extend his views to the
whole varieties of being in the animal
kingdom. Limiting ourselves at present
to the outline afforded by this diagram,
it is apparent that the only thing re- D
quired for an advance from one type            B
to another in the generative process is
that, for example, the fish embryo C           F
should not diverge at A, but go on to A
C before it diverges, in which case the
progeny will be, not a fish, but a rep  -
tile. To protract the straightforward
part of the gestation over a small space-and from species
to species the space would be small indeed-is all that
is necessary.
This might be done by the force of certain external
conditions operating upon the parturient system. The
nature of the conditions we can only conjecture, for
their operation, which in the geological eras was so
powerful, has in its main strength been long interrupted,
and is now perhaps only allowed to work in some of the
lowest departments of the organic world, or under extraordinary casualties in some of the higher, and to these
points the attention of science has as yet been little
directed. But though this knowledge were never to be
clearly attained, it need not much affect the present
argument, provided it be satisfactorily shown that there
must be some such influence within the range of natural
things.
To this conclusion it must be greatly conducive that
the law of organic development is still daily seen at work
F




i62


VESTIGES OF THE


to certain effects, only somewhat short of a transition
from species to species. Sex we have seen to be a matter
of development. There is an instance, in a humble department of the animal world, of arrangements being
made by the animals themselves for adjusting this law
to the production of a particular sex. Amongst bees, as
amongst several other insect tribes, there is in each community but one true female, the queen bee, the workers
being false females or neuters; that is to say, sex is
carried on in them to a point where it is attended by
sterility. The preparatory states of the queen bee occupy
sixteen days; those of the neuters, twenty; and those of
males, twenty-four. Now it is a fact, settled by innumerable observations and experiments, that the bees can
so modify a worker in the larva state, that when it
emerges from the pupa, it is found to be a queen or true
female. For this purpose they enlarge its cell, make a
pyramidal hollow to allow of its assuming a vertical instead of a horizontal position, keep it warmer than other
larva are kept, and feed it with a peculiar kind of food.
From these simple circumstances, leading to a shortening
of the embryotic condition, results a creature different in
form, and also in dispositions, from what would have
otherwise been produced. Some of the organs possessed
by the worker are here altogether wanting. We have a
creature " destined to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy
and anger, to be incited to vengeance, and to pass her
time without labour," instead of one "zealous for the
good of the community, a defender of the public rights,
enjoying an immunity from the stimulus of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition; laborious, industrious,
patient, ingenious, skilful; incessantly engaged in the
nurture of the young, in collecting honey and pollen, in
elaborating wax, in constructing cells and the like!



IAVU 'RAL H_ fISTORIY OF CREA.TIO'N.     163
paying the most respectful and assiduous attention to
objects which, had its ovaries been developed, it would
have hated and pursued with the most vindictive fury till
it had destroyed them!" * All these changes may be produced by a mere modification of the embryotic progress,
which it is within the power of the adult animals to effect.
But it is important to observe that this modification is
different from working a direct change upon the embryo.
It is not the different food which effects a metamorphosis. All that is done is merely to accelerate the period
of the insect's perfection. By the arrangements made
and the food given, the embryo becomes sooner fit
for being ushered forth in its imago or perfect state.
Development may be said to be thus arrested at a particular stage-that early one at which the female sex is
complete. In the other circumstances it is allowed to go
on four days longer, and a stage is then reached between
the two sexes, which in this species is designed to be the
perfect condition of a large portion of the community.
Four days more make it a perfect male. It is at the
same time to be observed that there is, from the period
of oviposition, a destined distinction between the sexes of
the young bees. The queen lays the whole of the eggs
which are designed to become workers, before she begins
to lay those which become males.  But probably the
condition of her reproductive system governs the matter
of sex, for it is remarked that when her impregnation is
delayed beyond the twenty-eighth day of her entire
existence, she lays only eggs which become males.
We have here, it will be admitted, a most remarkable
illustration of the principle of development, although in
an operation limited'to the production of sex only. Let
it not be said that the phenomena concerned in the
X:i Kirby and Spence.
F 2




I64


VESTIGES OF THE


generation of bees may be very different from  those
concerned in the reproduction of the higher animals.
There is a unity throughout nature which makes the one
case an instructive reflection of the other.
We shall now see an instance of development operating
within the production of what approaches to the character of variety of species. It is fully established that a
human family, tribe, or nation is liable, in the course of
generations, to be either advanced from a mean form to
a higher one, or degraded from a higher to a lower, by
the influence of the physical conditions in which it lives.
The coarse features, and other structural peculiarities of
the negro race only continue while these people live
amidst the circumstances usually associated with barbarism. In a more temperate clime, and higher social
state, the face and figure become greatly refined. The
few African nations which possess any civilisation also
exhibit forms approaching the European; and when the
same people in the United States of America have enjoyed a within-door life for several generations, they
assimilate to the whites amongst whom they live. On
the other hand, there are authentic instances of a people
originally well-formed and good-looking, being brought,
by imperfect diet and a variety of physical hardships, to
a meaner form. It is remarkable that prominence of
the jaws, a recession and diminution of the cranium, and
an elongation and attenuation of the limbs, are peculiarities always produced by these miserable conditions,
for they indicate an unequivocal retrogression towards
the type of the lower animals. Thus we see nature
alike willing to go back and to go forward. Both effects
are simply the result of the operation of the law of
development in the generative system. Give good
conditions, it advances; bad ones, it recedes. Now,


I




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                165
perhaps, it is only because there is no longer a possibility, in the higher types of being, of giving sufficiently
favourable conditions to carry on species to species, that
Ke see the operation of the law so far limited.
Let us trace this law also in the production of certain
lasses of monstrosities. A human foetus is often left
with one of the most important parts of its frame
imperfectly developed: the heart, for instance, goes no
farther than the three-chambered form, so that it is the
heart of a reptile. There are even instances of this
organ being left in the two-chambered or fish-form.
Such defects are the result of nothing more than a
failure of the power of development in the system of the
mother, occasioned by weak health or misery, and bearing
with force upon that sub-stage of the gestation at which
the perfecting of the heart to its right form ought
properly to have taken place. Here we have apparently
a realisation of the converse of those conditions which
carry on species to species, so far, at least, as one organ
is concerned. Seeing a complete specific retrogression in
this one point, how easy it is to suppose an access of
favourable conditions sufficient to reverse the phenomenon, and make a fish mother develop a reptile heart, or a
reptile mother develop a mammal one. It is no great
boldness to surmise that a super-adequacy in the measure
of this under-adequacy (and the one thing seems as
natural an occurrence as the other) would suffice in a
goose to give its progeny the body of a rat, and produce
the ornithorhynchus, or might give the progeny of an
ornithorhynchus the mouth and feet of a true rodent,
and thus complete at two stages the passage from the
aves to the mammalia. >
Perhaps even the transition from species to species
does still take place in some of the obscurer fields of




I66


VESTIGES OF THE


creation, or under extraordinary casualties, though
science professes to have no such facts on record. It is
here to be remarked, that such facts might often happen
and yet no record be taken of them, for so strong is the
prepossession for the doctrine of invariable like-production, that such circumstances, on occurring, would be
almost sure to be explained away on some other supposition, or, if presented, would be disbelieved and neglected.
Science, therefore, has no such facts, for the very same
reason that some small sects are said to have no discreditable members-namely, that they do not receive
such persons, and extrude all who begin to verge upon
the character. There are, nevertheless, some facts which
have chanced to be reported without any reference to
this hypothesis, and which it seems extremely difficult to
explain satisfactorily upon any other. One of these has
already been mentioned-a progression in the forms of
the animalcules in a vegetable infusion from the simpler
to the more complicated, a sort of microcosm, representing the whole history of the progress of animal creation
as displayed by geology. Another is given in the history
of the Acarus Crossii, which may be only the ultimate
stage of a series of similar transformations effected by
electric agency in the solution subjected to it. There is,
however, one direct case of a translation of species,
which has been presented with a respectable amount of
authority.*  It appears that, whenever oats sown at the
usual time are kept cropped down during summer and
autumn, and allowed to remain over the winter, a thin
crop of rye is the harvest presented at the close of the
ensuing summer. This experiment has been tried
repeatedly, with but one result; invariably the secale
* See an article by Dr. Weissenborn, in the New Series of
"Magazine of Natural History," vol. i. p. 574.




NATLWAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               167
cereale is the crop reaped where the avena satica, I
recognised different genus, was sown. Now it will not
satisfy a strict inquirer to be told that the seeds of the
rye were latent in the ground, and only superseded the
dead product of the oats; for if any such fact were in the
case, why should the usurping grain be always rye?
Perhaps those curious facts which have been stated with
regard to forests of one kind of trees, when burnt down,
being succeeded (without planting) by other kinds, may
yet be found most explicable, as this is, upon the
hypothesis of a progression of species which takes place
under certain favouring conditions, now apparently of
comparatively rare occurrence. The case of the oats is
the more valuable, as bearing upon the suggestion as to
a protraction of the gestation at a particular part of its
course. Here, the generative process is, by the simple
mode of cropping down, kept up for a whole year beyond
its usual term. The type is thus allowed to advance,
and what was oats becomes rye.
The idea, then, which I form of the progress of organic
life upon the globe-and the hypothesis is applicable to
all similar theatres of vital being-is, that the simplest and
most primitive type, under a law to which that of likeproduction is subordinate, gave birth to the type next above
it, that this again produced the next higher, and so on to
the very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases
very small-namely, from one species only to another;
so that the phenomenon has always been of a simple and
modest character. Whether the whole of any species
was at once translated forward, or only a few parents
were employed to give birth to the new type, must remain
undetermined; but, supposing that the former was the
case, we must presume that the moves along the line or
lines were simultaneous, so that the place vacated by one




i68


VESTIGES OF THE


species was immediately taken by the next in succession,
and so on back to the first, for the supply of which the
formation of a new germinal vesicle out of inorganic
matter was alone necessary. Thus, the production of new
forms, as shown in the pages of the geological record, has
never been anything more than a new stage of progress
in gestation, an event as simply natural, and attended
as little by any circumstances of a wonderful or startling
kind, as the silent advance of an ordinary mother from
one week to another of her pregnancy. Yet, be it remembered, the whole phenomena are in another point of
view, wonders of the highest kind, for in each of them
we have to trace the effect of an Almighty Will which
had arranged the whole in such harmony with external
physical circumstances, that both were developed in
parallel steps-and probably this development upon our
planet is but a sample of what has taken place, through
the same cause, in all the other countless theatres of
being which are suspended in space.
This may be the proper place at which to introduce the
preceding illustrations in a form calculated to bring
them more forcibly before the mind of the reader. The
table on pages I70, I7I, was suggested.to me, in consequence of seeing the scale of animated nature presented
in Dr. Fletcher's "Rudiments of Physiology." Taking that
scale as its basis, it shows the wonderful parity observed
in the progress of creation, as presented to our observation in the succession of fossils, and also in the foetal
progress of one of the principal human organs.*
* "It is a fact of the highest interest and moment that as the brain
of every tribe of animals appears to pass, during its development, in
succession through the types of all those below it, so the brain of
man passes through the types of those of every tribe in the creation.
It represents, accordingly, before the second month of utero-gestation,
that of an avertebrated animal; at the second month, that of an




NATURAL HtISTORY OF CREATION.                      _69
Dr. Fletcher's scale, it may be remarked, was not made
up with a view     to support such an hypothesis as the
present, nor with any apparent regard to the history of
fossils, but merely to express the appearance of advancement in the orders of the Cuvierian system, assuming, as
the criterion of that advancement,       an increase in the
number and extent of the manifestations of life, or of
the relations which an organised being bears to the
external world." Excepting in the relative situation of
the annelida and a few of the mammal orders, the parity
osseous fish; at the third, that of a turtle; at the fourth, that of a
bird; at the fifth, that of one of the rodentia; at the sixth, that
of one of the ruminantia; at the seventh, that of one of the digitigrada;
at, the eighth, that of one of the quadrumana; till at length, at the
ninth, it compasses the brain of Man! It is hardly necessary to say,
that all this is only an approximation to the truth; since neither is
the brain of all osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all the
species of any one of the above order of mammals, by any means
precisely the same, nor does the brain of the human fcetus at any
time precisely resemble, perhaps, that of any individual whatever
among the lower animals. Nevertheless, it may be said to represent,
at each of the above-mentioned periods, the aggregate, as it were,
of the brains of each of the tribes stated; consisting as it does about
the second month, chiefly of the mesial parts of the cerebellum, the
corpora quadrigemina, thalami optici, rudiments of the hemispheres
of the cerebrum and corpora striata; and receiving in succession, at
the third, the rudiments of the lobes of the cerebrum; at the fourth,
those of the fornix, corpus callosum, and septum lucidum; at the
fifth, the tuber annulare, and so forth; the posterior lobes of the
cerebrum increasing from before to behind, so as to cover the thalami
optici about the fourth month, the corpora quadrigemina about the
sixth, and the cerebellum about the seventh. This, then, is another
example of an increase in the complexity of an organ succeeding its
centralisation; as if Nature, having first piled up her materials in
one spot, delighted afterwards to employ her abundance, riot so much
in enlarging old parts as in forming new ones upon the old foundations,
and thus adding to the complexity of a fabric, the rudimental structure
of which is in all animals equally simple. "-Fletcher's " Rudiments of
Physiology."




1110
i


170     VE'STIGES OF THE


SCALE OF ANIMAL KINGDOM.
(The numbers indicate orders:)
BRADIATA (r, 2, 3, 4, 5)
MOLLUSCA (6, 7, 8, 9, 1 0, II)


ORDER OF ANIMALS IN
f$Zoophyta.
*(Polypiaria
(Conchifera.
k Double-shelled Mollusks


ARTICU- ( Annelida (12, 13, 14).  1Crustacea
LATA C~ rustacea(i 5, I 6, I17, i 8, I19, 20) -~ Annelida
Arachnida &Insecta (21-31) Crustaceous Fishes
(IPisces (32, 33, 34, 35,' 36).  True Fishes




]?eptdlia (37, 38, 39, 40)


(Piscine Saurians (ich thyosaurus,&c.)
Pterodactyles.
Crocodiles
Tortoises
Batrachians.........


Aves (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46). Birds.........
47Cetacea.. Bones of a cetadeous animal
Bones of a marsupial


VERTEBRATA


48 Ruminantia
49 Pachydermata. Pachydermata (tapirs, &c.)
50 Edentata
5 I Rodeatia. Rodentia (dormouse, squirrel, &c.)
52 Marsupialia.Marsupialia (racoon, opossum, &C.)
5. Amphibia
54 Digitigrada.Digitigrada (genette, fox,wolg, &c.)
5-5 Plantigrada.Plantigrada (hear)
56 Insectivora


M3aimnalia


Edentata (sloths, &c.)
Ruminantia (oxen, deer, &c.)


L   7Chirptr
58 Quadrumana. Quadrumana,
\59 Bimana *. Bimana (man)




NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CIREA TION.  17I


ASCENDING SERIES OF ROCKS,
I Gneiss and Mica Slate system
}2 Clay Slate and Grauwackc system
3 Silurian system
4 Old Red Sandstone
5 Carboniferous formation


FCETAL IHUMAN BRAIN
RESEMBLES, IN
Ist mlonth, that of an avertebrated
animal
2nd month, that of a fish;


J 6 New Red Sandstone
7 Oolite
8 Cretaceous formation
}9 Lower Eocene
iio Miocene
J
I Pliocene
12 Superficial deposits


3rd month, that of a turtle;
4th mouth, that of a bird;


5th month, that of a rodent;
6th month, that of a ruminant;
7th month, that of a digitigrade
animal;
8th month, that of the quadrumana;
9th month, attains full human character.




I 72


VESTIGES OF THE


is perfect; nor may even these small discrepancies appear
when the order of fossils shall have been further investigated, or a more correct scale shall have been formed.
Meanwhile, it is a wonderful evidence in favour of our
hypothesis, that a scale formed so arbitrarily should
coincide to such a nearness with our present knowledge
of the succession of animal forms upon earth, and also
that both of these series should harmnonise so well with
the view given by modern physiologists of thle embryotic
progress of one of the organs of the highest order of
animals.
The reader has seen physical conditions several times
referred to, as to be presumed to have in some way
governed the progress of the development of the zoological circle. This language may seem vague, and, it
may be asked-can any particular physical condition be
adduced as likely to have affected development? To this
(        it may be answered, that air and light are probably
amongst the principal agencies of this kind which
operated in educing the various forms of being. Light
is found to be essential to the development of the
individual embryo. When tadpoles were placed in a
perforated box, and that box sunk in the Seine, light
being the only condition thus abstracted, they grew to
a great size in their original form, but did not pass
through the usual metamorphose which brings them to
their mature state as frogs. The proteus, an animal of
the frog kind, which never acquires perfect lungs so as
to become a land animal, is presumed to be an example
of arrested development, from the same cause. When,
in connexion with these facts, we learn that human
mothers living in dark and close cells under groundthat is to say, with an inadequate provision of air and
light-are found to produce an unusual proportion of




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 173
{ defective children,* we can appreciate the important
effects of both these physical conditions in ordinary re\ roduction.  Now there is nothing to forbid the supposition that the earth has been at different stages of
its career under different conditions, as to both air and
light. On the contrary, we have seen reason for supposing that the proportion of carbonic acid gas (the
element fatal to animal life) was larger at the time of
the carboniferous formation than it afterwards became.
We have also seen that astronomers regard the zodiacal
light as a residuum of matter enveloping the sun, and
which was probably at one time denser than it is now.
Here we have the indications of causes for a progress in
the purification of the atmosphere and in the diffusion
of light during the earlier ages of the earth's history,
with which the progress of organic life may have been
conformable. An accession to the proportion of oxygen,
and the effulgence of the central luminary, may have
been the immediate prompting cause of all those advances
from species to species which we have seen, upon other
grounds, to be necessarily supposed as having taken place.
And causes of the like nature may well be supposed to
operate on other spheres of being, as well as on this. I
do not indeed present these ideas as furnishing the true
explanation of the progress of organic creation; they are
merely thrown out as hints towards the formation of a
just hypothesis, the completion of which is only to be
looked for when some considerable advances shall have
been made in the amount and character of our stock of
knowledge.
* Some poor people having taken up their abode in the cells under
the fortifications of Lisle, the proportion of defective infants produced
by them became so great, that it was deemed necessary to issue an
order commanding these cells to be shut up.




I74


VEtSTIGES OF THE


Early in this century, M. Lamarck, a naturalist of
the highest character, suggested an hypothesis of organic
progress which deservedly incurred much ridicule, although it contained a glimmer of the truth. He surmised, and endeavoured, with a great deal of ingenuity,
to prove, that one being advanced in the course of
generations to another, in consequence merely of its
experience of wants calling for the exercise of its faculties in a particular direction, by which exercise new
developments of organs took place, ending in variations
sufficient to constitute a new species. Thus he thought
that a bird would be driven by necessity to seek its food
in the water, and that, in its efforts to swim, the outstretching of its claws would lead to the expansion of
the intermediate membranes, and it would thus become
web-footed. Now it is possible that wants and the exercise of faculties have entered in some manner into
the production of the phenomena which we have been
considering; but certainly not in the way suggested by
Lamarck, whose whole notion is obviously so inadequate
to account for the rise of the organic kingdoms, that we
only can place it with pity among the follies of the wise.
Had the laws of organic development been known in his
time, his theory might have been of a more imposing
kind. It is upon these that the present hypothesis is
mainly founded....^I take existing natural means, and
show them to have been capable of producing all the
existing organisms, with the simple and easily conceivable aid of a higher generative law, which we perhaps
still see operating upon a limited scale. I also go beyond
the French philosopher to a very important point, the
original Divine conception of all the forms of being
which these natural laws were only instruments in
working out and realising. The actuality of such a




NATURAL 1fIS 'OR Y OF CREA TION.            7 5
conception receives a remarkable support from the
glimpses which we obtain, through the medium of the
discoveries of Mr. Mlacleay, with regard to the affinities
and analogies of animal (and by implication vegetable)
organisms.*  Such a regularity in the structure, as we
may call it, of the classification of animals, as is there
beginning to be revealed to us, is totally irreconcilable
with the idea of form going on to form merely as needs
and wishes in the animals themselves dictated. Had
such been the case, all would have been irregular, as
things arbitrary necessarily are. But, lo, the whole
plan of being appears to be as symmetrical as the plan
of a house, or the laying out of an old-fashioned garden!
This must needs have been devised and arranged for
beforehand. And what a preconception or forethought
have we here! For let us only for a moment consider
how various are the external physical conditions in
which animals live-climate, soil, temperature, land,
water, air; the peculiarities of food, and the various
ways in which it is to be sought; the peculiar circumstances in which the business of reproduction and the
care-taking of the young are to be attended to: all these
requiring to be taken into account, and thousands of
animals to be formed suitable in organisation and mental
character for the concerns they were to have with these
various conditions and circumstances-here a tooth fitted
for crushing nuts; there a claw fitted to serve as a hook
for suspension; here to repress teeth and develop a bony
network instead; there to arrange for a bronchial apparatus, to last only for a certain brief time; and all
these animals were to be schemed out, each as a part of
a great range, which was on the whole to be rigidly
regular: let us, I say, only consider these things, and
* These affinities and analogies are explained in the next clhapter.




il6


VESTIGES OF THE


wAe shall see that the decreeing of laws to bring tlhe
whole about was an act involving such a degree of
wisdom and device as we only can attribute, adoringly,
to the one Eternal and UTnchangeable. It may be asked,
how does this reflection comport with that timid philosophy which would have us to draw back from the investigation of God's works, lest the knowledge of them
should make us undervalue his greatness and forget his
paternal character? Does it not rather appear that our
ideas of the Deity can only be worthy of him in the
ratio in which we advance in a knowledge of his works
and ways; and that the acquisition of this knowledge is
consequently an available means of our growing in a
genuine reverence for him!
But the idea that any of the lower animals have been
concerned in any way with the origin of man-is not this
degrading? Degrading is a term, expressive of a notion of
the human mind, and the human mind is liable to prejudices which prevent its notions from being invariably
correct. Were we acquainted for the first time with the circumstances attending the production of an individual of
our race, we might equally think them degrading, and be
eager to deny them, and exclude them from the admitted
truths of nature. Knowing this fact familiarly and beyond
contradiction, a healthy and natural mind finds no difficulty in regarding it complacently. Creative Providence
has been pleased to order that it should be so, and it
must therefore be submitted to. Now the idea as to the
progress of organic creation, if we become satisfied of its
truth, ought to be received precisely in this spirit. If it
has pleased Providence to arrange that one species should
give birth to another, until the second highest gave birth
to man, who is the very highest; be it so, it is our part
to admire and to submit. The very faintest notion of




NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREATION.            17 7
there being anything ridiculous or degrading in the
theory-how absurd does it appear when we remember
that every individual amongst us actually passes through
the characters of the insect, the fish, and reptile (to
speak nothing of others), before he is permitted to
breathe the breath of life! But such notions are mere
emanations of false pride and ignorant prejudice. He
who conceives them little reflects that they, in reality,
involve a contempt for the works and ways of God. For
it may be asked, if he, as appears, has chosen to employ
inferior organisms as a generative medium for the production of higher ones, even including ourselves, what
right have we, his humble creatures, to find fault? There
is, also, in this prejudice, an element of unkindliness
towards the lower animals, which is utterly out of place.
These creatures are all of them part products of the
Almighty Conception, as well as ourselves. All of them
display wondrous evidences of his wisdom and benevolence.
All of them have had assigned to them by their Great
Father a part in the drama of the organic world, as well
as ourselves. Why should they be held in such contempt?
Let us regard them in a proper spirit, as parts of the
grand plan, instead of contemplating them in the light
of frivolous prejudices, and we shall be altogether at a
loss to see how there should be any degradation in the
idea of our race having been genealogically connected
with them.




( I178 )
MACLEAY SYSTEM OF ANIMATED
NATURE.
THIS SYSTEM CONSIDERED IN CONNEXION WITH THE
PROGRESS OF ORGANIC CREATION, AND AS INDICATING THE NATURAL STATUS OF MAN.
IT is now time to advert to the system formed by the
animated tribes, both with a view to the possible illustration of the preceding argument, and for the light
which it throws upon that general system of nature
which it is the more comprehensive object of this book
to ascertain.
The vegetable and animal kingdoms are arranged
upon a scale, starting from simply organised forms, and
going on to the more complex, each of these forms being
but slightly different from those next to it on both sides.
The lowest and most slightly developed forms in the two
kingdoms are so closely connected, that it is impossible
to say where vegetable ends and animal begins. United
at what may be called their bases, they start away in
different directions, but not altogether to lose sight of
each other. On the contrary, they maintain a strict
analogy throughout the whole of their subsequent
courses, sub-kingdom for sub-kingdom, class for class;
showing a beautiful, though as yet obscure relation
between the two grand forms of being, and consequently




NA TU&AL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 179
a unity in the laws which brought them both into
existence.
It is as yet but a few years since a system of subordinate analogies, not less remarkable, began to be
speculated upon as within the range of the animal
kingdom.    Probably it also exists in the vegetable
kingdom; but to this point no direct attention has been
given; so we are left to infer that such is the case from
theoretical considerations only. We are indebted for
what we know of these beautiful analogies to three
naturalists-Macleay, Vigors, and    Swainson, whose
labours have certainly involved much ingenious observation and reasoning, whatever we may think of some
of their conclusions.
The Macleay system, as it may be called in honour of
its principal author, announces that, whether we take
the whole animal kingdom, or any definite division of it,
we shall find that we are examining a group of beings
which is capable of being arranged along a series of close
affinities, in a circular form —that is to say, starting
from any one portion of the group, when it is properly
arranged, we can proceed from one to another by
minute gradations, till at length, having run through
the whole, we return to the point whence we set out.
All natural groups of animals are, therefore, in the
language of Mr. Macleay, circular; and the possibility
of throwing any supposed group into a circular arrangement is held as a decisive test of its being a real or
natural one. It is, of course, to be understood that each
circle is composed of a set of inferior circles: for
example, a set of tribe circles composes an order; a set
of order circles, again, forms a class; and so on. Of
each group, the component circles are invariably five in
number: thus, in the animal kingdom, there are five




ISO


VESTIGES OF THE


sub-kingdoms ---the   vertebrata,   annulosa,*  radiata,
acrita,t mollusca.  Take, again, one of these sub-kingdoms, the vertebrata, and we find it composed of five
classes-the mammalia, reptilia, pisces, amphibia, and
aves, each of the other sub-kingdoms being similarly
divisible. Take the mammalia, and it is in like manner
found to be composed of five orders-the cheirotheria,+
ferve, cetacea, glires, ungulata.  Even in this numerical
uniformity, which goes down to the lowest ramifications of the system, there would be something very
remarkable, as arguing    a definite  and preconceived
arrangement; but this is only the least curious part of
the Macleay theory.
We shall best understand the wonderfully complex
system of analogies developed by that theory, if we start
from the part of the kingdom in which they were first
traced-namely, the class aves, or birds. This gives for
its five  orders-insessores (perching   birds), raptores
(birds of prey), natatores (swimming birds), grallatores
(waders), rasores (scrapers).  In these orders our naturalists discerned distinct organic characters, of different
degrees of perfectness, the first being the most perfect
with regard to the general character of the class, and
therefore the best representative of that class; whence
it was called the typical order. The second was found
to be inferior, or rather to have a less perfect balance of
qualities; hence it was designated the sub-typical. In
this are comprehended the chief noxious and destructive
animals of the circle to which it belongs.   The other
three groups were called aberrant, as exhibiting a much
* Corresponding to the articulata of Cuvier.
t A new sub-kingdom, made out of part of the radiata of Cuvier.
+ This is a newly applied term, the reasons for which will be
explained in the sequel.




NA1   URAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.             1 81
wider departure from the typical standard, although the
last of the three is observed to make a certain recovery,
and join on to the typical group, so as to complete the
circle. The first of the aberrant groups (natatores) is
remarkable for making the water the theatre of its existence, and the birds composing it are in general of comparatively large bulk. The second (grallatores) are longlimbed and long-billed, that they may wade and pick up
their subsistence in the shallows and marshes in which
they chiefly live. The third (rasores) are distinguished
by strong feet, for walking or running on the ground,
and for scraping in it for their food; also by wings
designed to scarcely raise them   off the earth; and,
further, by a general domesticity of character, and usefulness to man.
Now the most remarkable circumstance is, that these
organic characters, habits, and moral properties were
found to be traceable more or less distinctly in the
corresponding portions of every other group, even of
those belonging to distant subdivisions of the animal
kingdom, as, for instance, the insects. The insessores
(typical order of aves) being reduced to its constituent
circles or tribes, it was found that these strictly represented the five orders.  In the conirostres are the perfections which belong to the insessores as an order, with
the conspicuous external feature of a comparatively
small notch in their bills; in the dentirostres, the notch
is strong and toothlike (hence the name of the tribe),
assimilating them to the raptores; the fissirostres came
into analogy with the natatores in the slight development
of their feet and their great powers of flight; the tenuirostres have the small mouths and long soft bills of the
grallatores.  Finally, the scansores resemble the rasores
in their superior intelligence and docility, and in their




1 S2


VI VESTIGES OF 7THE


having strong limbs and a bill entire at the tip. This
parity of qualities becomes clearer when placed in a
tabular form:Orders of Birds.        Characters.     lTribes of Lnsessores.
Insessores    (Most perfect of their circle; notch ) Conrostres
(    of bill small.....   j.
Raptores.. Notch of bill like a tooth... Dentirostres.
Natatores.. f Slightly developed feet; strong  Fissirostres.
flight...
Grallatores. Small mouths; long soft bills. Tenuirostres.
(Strong feet, short wings; docile ) cansores
/asores....                 Scansores.
( and domestic......)
Some comprehensive      terms   are  much    wanted   to
describe these five characters, so curiously repeated (if
we are to put faith in the theory) throughout the whole
of the animal, and probably also the vegetable kingdom.
Meanwhile, Mr. Swainson calls them typical, sub-typical,
natatorial, suctorial,* and rasorial.  Some of his illustrations of the principle are exceedingly interesting. He
shows that the leading animal of a typical circle usually
has a combination of properties concentrated in itself,
without any of these preponderating remarkably over
others. The sub-typical circles, he says, " do not comprise the largest individuals in bulk, but always those
which are the most powerfully armed, either for inflicting injury on their own class, for exciting terror, producing injury, or creating annoyance to man. Their
dispositions are often sanguinary, since the forms most
conspicuous among them live by rapine, and subsist on
the blood of other animals.   They are, in short, symbolically types of evil." This symbolical character is most
* This is preferred to grallatorial, as more comprehensively
descriptive. There is the same need for a substitute for rasorial,
which is only applicable to birds.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TIOA.            183
conspicuous about the centre of the series of gradations:
Kingdom.......     Annulosa.
Sub-kingdom......   Peptilia.
Class (Mammalia).... Ferc.
(Aves).....Raptores.
In the annulosa it is not distinct, although we must also
remember that insects do produce enormous ravages and
annoyance in many parts of the earth. In the reptilia
it is more distinct, since to this class belong the ophidia
(serpents), an order peculiarly noxious. It comes to a
kind of climax in the ferme and raptores, which fulfil the
function of butchers among land animals. As we
descend through tribes, families, genera, species, it
becomes fainter and fainter, but never altogether vanishes. In the dentirostres, for instance, we have in a
subdued form the hooked bill and predaceous character
of the raptores; to this tribe belongs the family of the
shrikes, so deadly to all the lesser field birds. In the
genus bos, we have in the sub-typical group, the bison,
"'wild, revengeful, and showing an innate detestation
of man." In equus, we have, in the same situation, the
zebra, which actually shows the stripes of the tiger, and
is as remarkable for its wildness as its congeners-the
horse and ass-are for their docility and usefulness. To
quote again from Mr. Swainson, "the singular threatening aspect which the caterpillars of the sphinx moth
assume on being disturbed is a remarkable modification
of the terrific or evil nature which is impressed in one
form or another, palpable or remote, upon all sub-typical
groups; for this division of the lepidopterous order is
precisely of this denomination. In the pre-eminent type
of this order of insects, the butterflies (papilionides), our




T84


VESTIGES OF THE


associations little prepare us for expecting any trace of
the evil principle; but here, too, there is a sub-typical
division. These," says our naturalist, " are distinguished
by their caterpillars being armed with formidable spines
or prickles, which in general are possessed of some highly
acrimonious or poisonous quality, capable of injuring
those who touch them. It is only," continues Mr.
Swainson, " when extensive researches bring to light
a uniformity of results, that we can venture to believe
they are so universal as to deserve being ranked as
primary laws. Thus, when a celebrated entomologist
denounced as impure the black and lurid beetles forming
the saprophagous petalocera of Mr. Macleay, a tribe
living only upon putrid vegetable matter, and hiding
themselves in their disgusting food, or in dark hollows
of the earth, neither of these celebrated men suspected
the absolute fact, elicited from our analogies of this
group, that this very tribe constituted the sub-typical
group of one of the primary divisions of coleopterous
insects: nor had they any suspicion that, by the filthy
habits and repulsive forms of these beetles, nature had
intended that they should be types or emblems of
hundreds of other groups distinguished by peculiarities
equally indicative of evil. On the other hand, the
thalerophagous petalocera, forming the typical group of
the same division, present us with all the perfections and
habits belonging to their kind. These families of beetles
live only upon fresh vegetables; they are diurnal, and
sport in the glare of day, pure in their food, elegant in
their shapes, and beautiful in their colours."*
The third type (first of the three aberrant), called by
Mr. Swainson the natatorial, or aquatic, are chiefly
remarkable for their bulk, the disproportionate size of
* "Distribution and Classification of Animals," p. 248.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             185
the head, and the absence, or slight development of the
feet. They partake of the predaceous and destructive
character of the adjoining sub-typical group, and the
means of their predacity are generally found in the
mouth alone. In the primary division of the animal
kingdom, we find the type in the radiata, not one of
which lives out of water. In the vertebrata, it is in
the fishes. In both of these, feet are totally wanting.
Descending to the class mammalia, we have this type
in the cetacea, which present a comparatively slight
development of limbs. In the aves, as we have seen,
the type is presented in the natatores, whose name has
been adopted as an appropriate term for all the corresponding groups. An enumeration of some other
examples of the natatorial type, as the cephalopoda
(instanced in the cuttle-fish) in the mollusca; the
crustacea (crabs, &c.) in the annulosa; the owl (which
often duck for fish) in the raptores; the enaliosauria
(ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, &c.), among reptilia, will
serve to bring the general character, and its pervasion
of the whole animal world, forcibly before the mind of
the reader.
The next type is that of meanest and most imperfect
organisation, the lower termination of all groups, as the
typical is the upper. It is called by Mr. Swainson the
suctorial, from a very generally prevalent peculiarity,
that of drawing sustenance by suction. The acrita, or
polypes, among the sub-kingdoms; the intestina, among
the annulosa; the tortoises, among the reptilia; the
armadillo and scaly ant-eater, pig, mouse, jerboa, and
kangaroo, among quadrupeds; the waders and tenuirostres, among birds; the coleoptera (bug, louse, flea,
&c.) among insects; the gastrobranchus, among fishes;
are examples which will illustrate the special characters




IS6


I  VES TIGES OF THE


of this type. These are smallness, particularly in the
head and mouth, feebleness, and want of offensive
protection, defect of organs of mastication, considerable
powers of swift movement, and (often) a parasitic mode
of living; while of negative qualities, there are, besides,
indisposition to domestication, and an unsuitableness to
serve as human food.
The rasorial type comprehends most of the animals
which become domesticated and useful to man, as first,
the fowls which give a name to the type, the ungulata,
and more particularly the ruminantia among quadrupeds,
and the dog among the ferve. Gentleness, familiarity
with man, and a peculiar approach to human intelligence, are the leading mental characteristics of animals
of this type., Amongst external characters, we generally
find power of limbs and feet for locomotion on land (to
which the rasorial type is confined), abundant tail and
ornaments for the head, whether in the form of tufts,
crests, horns, or bony excrescences. In the animal kingdom, the mollusca are the rasorial type, which, however,
only shows itself there in their soft and sluggish
character, and their being very generally edible. In the
ptilota, or winged insects, the hymenopterous are the
rasorial type, and it is not therefore surprising to find
amongst them   the ants and bees, " the most social,
intelligent, and in the latter case, most useful to man, of
all the annulose animals."
As yet the speculations on representation are imperfect,
in consequence of the novelty of the doctrine, and the
defective state of our knowledge of animated nature. It
has, however, been so fully proved in the aves, and
traced so clearly in some other parts of the animal
kingdom, and as a general feature of that part of nature,
that hardly a doubt can exist of some such rule being




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.               I87
applicable. Even in the lowly forms of the acrita
(polypes), the suctorial type of the animal kingdom,
representation  has been  discerned, and  with  some
remarkable results, as to the history of our world. The
acrita were the first forms of animal life upon earth, the
starting-point of that great branch of organisation.
Now, this sub-kingdom consists, like the rest, of five
groups (classes), and these are respectively representations of the acrita itself, and the other four sub-kingdoms,
which had not come into existence when the acrita were
formed. The polypi vaginati, in the crustaceous covering of the living mass, and their more or less articulated
structure, represent the annulosa. In the radiated
forms of the rotifera, and the simple structure of the
polypi rudes, we are reminded of the radiata. The
mollusca are typified in the soft, mucous, sluggish
intestina. And, finally, in the fleshy living mass which
surrounds the bony and hollow axis of the polypi
natantes, we have a sketch of the vertebrata. The acrita
thus appear as a prophecy of the higher events of aninal
developnment. They show  that the nobler orders of
being, including man himself, were contemplated from
the first, and came into existence by virtue of a law, the
operation of which had commenced ages before their
forms were, upon this globe at least, realised.
The system of representation, taking it as one so far
proved, must be regarded as a powerful additional proof
of the hypothesis of organic progress by virtue.of f^ew.  It
establishes the unity of animated nature and the definite
character of its entire constitution. It enables us to see
how, under the flowing robes of nature, where all looks
arbitrary and accidental, there is an artificiality of the
most rigid kind. The natural, we now perceive, sinks
into and merges in a Higher Artificial. To adopt a com



i88


VESTIGES OF THE


parison more apt than dignified, we may be said to be
placed here as we can conceive a sect of insects to be in a
garden of the old style. Our first unassisted view is
limited, and we perceive only the irregularities of the
minute surface, and single shrubs which appear capriciously scattered. But, our view at length extending and
becoming more comprehensive, we begin to see parterres
balancing each other, trees, statues, and arbours placed
symmetrically, and that the whole is an assemblage of
parts mutually reflective. v It can scarcely be necessary
to point to the inference hence arising with regard to the
origination of nature in some Power, of which man's
mind is a faint and humble representation. The insects
of the garden, supposing them to be invested with
reasoning power, and aware how artificial are their own
works, might of course very reasonably conclude that
being in its totality an artificial object, the garden was
the work of some maker or artificer. And so also must
we conclude, when we attain a knowledge of the artificiality which is at the basis of nature, that nature is
wholly the production of a Being resembling, but
infinitely greater, than ourselves.
Organic beings are, then, bound together in development, and in a system of both affinities and analogies.
Now, it will be asked, does this agree with what we
know of the geographical distribution of organic beings,
and of the history of organic progress as delineated by
geology? Let us first advert to the geographical
question.
Plants, as is well known, require various kinds of soil,
forms of geographical surface, climate, and other conditions, for their existence. And it is everywhere found
that, however isolated a particular spot may be with
regard to these conditions-as a mountain-top in a torrid




NATURAL 1ISTORY OF CREATION.               189
country, the marsh round a salt spring far inland, or an
island placed far apart in the ocean-appropriate plants
have there taken up their abode. But the torrid zone
divides the two temperate regions from each other by the
space of more than forty-six degrees, and the torrid and
temperate zones together form a much broader line of
division between the two Arctic regions. The Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans, and the Persian Gulf, also divide the
various portions of continent in the torrid and temperate
zones from each other. Australia is also divided by a
broad sea from the continent of Asia. Thus there are
various portions of the earth separated from each other
in such a way as to preclude anything like a general
communication of the seeds of their respective plants
towards each other. Hence arises an interesting question-Are the plants of the various isolated regions
which enjoy a parity of climate and other conditions,
identical or the reverse? The answer is-that in such
regions the vegetation bears a general resemblance, but
the species are nearly all different, and there is even, in
a considerable measure, a diversity of families.
The general facts have been thus stated: in the Arctic
and Antarctic regions, and in those parts of lower latitudes, which, from their elevation, possess the same cold
climate, there is always a similar or analogous vegetation, but few species are common to the various situations. In like manner, the intertropical vegetation of
Asia, Africa, and America, are specifically different,
though generally similar.  The southern region of
America is equally diverse from   that of Africa, a
country similar in clime, but separated by a vast extent
of ocean. The vegetation of Australia, another region
similarly placed in respect of clime, is even more
peculiar. These facts are the more remarkable when




190


VESTIGES OF THE


we discover that, in most instances, the plants of one
region have thriven when transplanted to another,of
parallel clime. This would show that parity of conditions does not lead to a parity of productions so exact
as to include identity of species, or even genera. Besides the various isolated regions here enumerated, there
are some others indicated by naturalists as exhibiting
a vegetation  equally peculiar.  Some of these are
isolated by mountains, or the interposition of sandy
wastes. For example, the temperate region of the elder
continent is divided about the centre of Asia, and the
east of that line is different from the west. So also is
the same region divided in North America by the Rocky
Mountains. Abyssinia and Nubia constitute another
distinct botanical region. De Candolle enumerates in
all twenty well-marked portions of the earth's surface
which are peculiar with respect to vegetation; a number
which would be greatly increased if remote islands and
isolated mountain ranges were to be included.
When we come to the zoology, we find precisely
similar results, excepting that man (with, perhaps, some
of the less conspicuous forms of being) is universal, and
that several tribes, as the bear and dog, appear to have
passed by the land connexion from the Arctic regions of
the eastern to those of the western hemisphere. " With
these exceptions," says Dr. Prichard, " and without any
others, as far as zoological researches have yet gone, it
may be asserted that no individual species are common
to distant regions.   In  parallel climates, analogous
species replace each other; sometimes, but not frequently, the same genus is found in two separate
continents; but the species which are natives of one
region are not identical with corresponding races indigenous in the opposite hemisphere.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.               191
"A similar result arises when we compare the three
great intertropical regions, as well as the extreme spaces
of the three great continents, which advance into the
temperate climates of the southern hemisphere.
" Thus, the tribes of simiam (monkeys), of the dog and
cat kinds, of pachyderms, including elephants, tapirs,
rhinoceroses, hogs, of bats, of saurian and ophidian
reptiles, as well of birds and other terrene animals, are
all different in the three great continents.  In the
lower departments of the mammiferous family, we find
that the bruta, or edentata (sloths, armadillos, &c.), of
Africa, are differently organised from those of America,
and these again from the tribes found in the Malayan
archipelago and Terra Australis." *
It does not appear that the diversity between the
similar regions of Africa, Asia, and America, is occasioned in all instances by any disqualification of these
countries to support precisely the same genera or species.
The ox, horse, goat, &c., of the elder continent have
thriven and extended themselves in the new, and many
of the indigenous tribes of America would no doubt
flourish in corresponding climates in Europe, Asia, and
Africa. It has, however, been remarked by naturalists
unacquainted with the Macleay system, that the larger
and more powerful animals of their respective orders
belong to the elder continent, and that thus the animals
of America, unlike the features of inanimate nature,
appear to be upon a small scale. The swiftest and most
agile animals, and a large proportion of those mostuseful to man, are also natives of the elder continent.
On the other hand, the bulk of the edentata, a group
remarkable for defects and meanness of organisation,
are American. The zoology of America may be said,
* "Researches," 4th edition, i. 95.




192


VESTIGES OF THE


upon the whole, to recede from   that of Asia, " and
perhaps in a greater degree," adds Dr. Prichard, " from
that of Africa." A much greater recession is, however,
observed in both the botany and zoology of Australia.
There, "we do not find, in the great masses of vegetation, either the majesty of the virgin forests of America,
or the variety and elegance of those of Asia, or the
delicacy and freshness of the woods of our temperate
countries of Europe.    The vegetation is generally
gloomy and sad; it has the aspect of our evergreens or
heaths; the plants are for the most part woody; the
leaves of nearly all the plants are linear, lanceolated,
small, coriaceous, and spinescent. The grasses, which
elsewhere are generally soft and flexible, participate in
the stiffness of the other vegetables. The greater part
of the plants of New Holland belong to new genera;
and those included in the genera already known are of
new species. The natural families which prevail are
those of the heaths, the protege, compositae, leguminosae,
and myrtacese; the larger trees all belong to the last
family." *
The prevalent animals of Australia are not leas
peculiar. It is well known that none above the marsupialia, or pouched animals, are native to it.  The
most conspicuous are these marsupials, which exist in
great varieties here, though unknown in the elder
continent, and only found in a few mean forms in
America. Next to them are the monotremata, which
are entirely peculiar to this portion of the earth. Now
these are animals at the bottom of the mammiferous
class, adjoining to that of birds, of whose character and
organisation the monotremata largely partake, the
ornithorhynchus presenting the bill and feet of a duck,
* Prichard.




A'ATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             I93
producing its young in eggs, and having, like birds, a
clavicle between the two shoulders.   The birds of
Australia vary in structure and plumage, but all have
some singularity about them-the swan, for instance,
is black. The country abounds in reptiles, and the
prevalent fishes are of the early kinds, having a cartilaginous structure.
Altogether, the plants and animals of this minor
continent convey the impression of an early system of
things, such as might be displayed in other parts of the
earth about the time of the oolite. In connexion with
this circumstance, it is a fact of some importance, that
the geognostic character of Australia, its vast arid
plains, its little diversified surface and consequent
paucity of streams, and the very slight development
of volcanic rock on its surface, seem to indicate a system
of physical conditions, such as we may suppose to have
existed elsewhere in the oolitic era: perhaps we see the
chalk formation preparing there in the vast coral beds
frontiering the coast.  Australia thus appears as a
portion of the earth which has, from some unknown
causes, been belated in its physical and organic development. And certainly the greater part of its surface
is not fitted to be an advantageous place of residence
for beings above the marsupialia, and judging from
analogy, it may yet be subjected to a series of changes
in the highest degree inconvenient to any human beings
who may have settled upon it.
The general conclusions regarding the geography of
organic nature may be thus stated.    (i) There are
numerous distinct foci of organic production throughout
the earth.  (2) These have everywhere advanced in
accordance with the local conditions of climate, &c.,
as far as at least the class and order are concerned, a
G




I94


VESTIGES OF THE


diversity taking place in the lower gradations. No
physical or geographical reason appearing for this
diversity, we are led to infer that (3) it is the result
of minute and inappreciable causes giving the law of
organic development a particular direction in the lower
subdivisions of the two kingdoms. (4) Development
has not gone on to equal results in the various continents, being most advanced in the eastern continent,
next in the western, and least in Australia, this inequality
being perhaps the result of the comparative antiquity of
the various regions, geologically and geographically.
It must at the same time be admitted that the line
of organic development has nowhere required for its
advance the whole of the families comprehended in the
two kingdoms, seeing that some of these are confined to
one continent, and some to another, without a conceivable possibility of one having been connected with the
other in the way of ancestry. The two great families of
quadrumana, cebida3 and simiade, are a noted instance,
the one being exclusively American, while the other
belongs entirely to the Old World. There are many
other cases in which the full circular group can only be
completed by taking suBrisions from    various continents. This would seem to imply that, while the entire
system is so remarkable for its unity, it has nevertheless
been produced in lines geographically detached, these
lines perhaps consisting of particular typical groups
placed in an independent succession, or of two or more
of these groups. And for this idea there is, even in the
present imperfect-state of our knowledge of animated
nature, some countenance in ascertained facts, the birds
of Australia, for example, being chiefly of the suctorial
type, while it may be presumed that the observation as
to the predominance of the useful animals in the Old




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              I95
World, is not much different from   saying thab tle
rasorial type is there peculiarly abundant. It should
not escape notice that, if it shall be proved that there
are detached lines of progress, that these were iso'a;ed in
different regions of the earth, and yet the succe sion of
beings was the same in each, as far, at least, as classes
and orders are concerned, we shall be furnished with one
of the most powerful proofs of design or pre-arrangement
that could be imagined. It does not appear that the
idea of independent lines, consisting of particular types,
or sets of types, is necessarily inconsistent with the
general hypothesis, as nothing yet ascertained of the
Macleay system forbids their having an independent set
of affinities. On this subject, however, there is as yet
much obscurity, and it must be left to future inquirers
to clear it up.
We must now call to mind that the geographical distribution of plants and animals was very different in the
geological ages from what it is now. Down to a time
not long antecedent to man, the same vegetation overspread every clime, and a similar uniformity marked the
zoology. This is conceived by M. Brogniart, with great
plausibility, to have been the result of a uniformity of
climate, produced by the as yet unexhausted effect of the
internal heat of the earth upon its surface; whereas
climate has since depended chiefly on external sources of
heat, as modified by the various meteorological influences.
However the early uniform    climate was produced,
certain it is that, from about the close of the geological
epoch, plants and animals have been dispersed over the
globe with a regard to their particular characters, and
specimens of both are found so isolated in particular
situations, as utterly to exclude the idea that they came
thither from any common centre. It may be askedG 2




/- -t^:'l-1 '


196              VESTIGES OF THE
Considering that, in the geological epoch, species are not
limited to particular regions, and that since the close of
that epoch, they are very peculiarly limited, are we to
presume the present organisms of the world to have been
created ab initio after that time? I To this it may be
answered-Not necessarily, as it so happens that animals
begin to be much varied, or to appear in a considerable
variety of species, towards the close of the geological
history. It may have been that the multitudes of
locally peculiar species only came into being after the
uniform climate had passed away. It may have only
been when a varied climate arose, that the originally few
species branched off into the present extensive variety.
A question of a very interesting kind will now probably arise in the reader's mind-What place or status is
assigned to man in the new natural system?        Before
going into this inquiry, it is necessary to advert to
several particulars of the natural system not yet
noticed.
It is necessary, in particular, to ascertain the grades
which exist in the classification of animals. In the line
of the aves, Mr. Swainson finds these to be nine, the
species pica, for example, being thus indicated:Kingdom....    Animalia
Sub-Kingdom....    Vertebrata.
Class.....    Aves.
Order.....    Insessores.
Tribe.....    Conirostres.
Family.....    Corvidm
Sub-Family....    Corvinae.
Genus.....   Corvus.
Sub-Genus, or species..  Pica.
This brings us down to species, the subdivision where
intermarriage or breeding is usually considered as
natural to animals, and where a resemblance of offspring




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                197
to parents is generally persevered in.  The dog, for
instance, is a species, because all dogs can breed together,
and the progeny partakes of the appearances of the
parents. The human race is held as a species, primarily
for the same reasons.   Species, however, is liable to
another subdivision, which naturalists call variety; and
variety appears to be subject to exactly the same system
of representation which has been traced in species and
higher denominations. In canis, for instance, the bulldog and mastiff represent the ferocious sub-typical
group; the water-dog is natatorial; we see the speed
and length of muzzle of the suctorial group in the
greyhound; and the bushy tail and gentle and serviceable character of the rasorial in the shepherd's dog and
spaniel. Even the striped skin of the tiger and panther
is reproduced in the more ferocious kind of dogs-an
indication of a fundamental connexion between physical
and mental qualities which we have also seen in the
zebra, and which is likewise displayed in the predominance of a yellow colour in the vultures and owls in
common with the lion and his congeners.
It is by no means clearly made out that this system
of nine gradations over and above that of variety applies
in all departments of nature. On the contrary, even
Mr. Swainson gives series in which several of them are
omitted. It may be that, in some departments of
nature, variation from the class or order has gone down
into fewer shades than in others; or it may be, that
many of the variations have not survived till our era, or
have not been as yet detected by naturalists; in either
of which cases there may be a necessity for shortening
the series by the omission of one or two grades, as for
instance tribe or sub-family. This, however, is much to
be regretted, as it introduces an irregularity into the




I98


VESTIGES OF THE


natural system, and consequently throws a difficulty and
doubt in the way of our investigating it.    With these
preliminary remarks, I shall proceed to inquire what is
the natural status of man.
That man's place is to be looked for in the class mammalia and sub-kingdom vertebrata admits of no doubt,
from his possessing both the characters on which these
divisions are founded. When we descend, however,
below the class, we find no settled views on the subject
amongst naturalists. Mr. Swainson, who alone has
given a review of the animal kingdom     on the Macleay
system, unfortunately writes on this subject in a manner
which excites a suspicion as to his judgment.        His
arrangement of the first or typical order of the manmmalia is therefore to be received with great hesitation.
It is as follows:
Typical. Quadrumana. Pre-eminently organised for grasping.
Sub-typical Fere..Claws retractile; carnivorous.
Natatorial Cetacea.. Pre-eminently aquatic; feet very short.
Suctorial. Glires.. Muzzle lengthened and pointed.
Rasorial. Ungulata. Crests and other processes on the head.
He then takes the quadrumana, and places it in the
following arrangement:Typical. Simiade.. (Monkeys of Old World).
Sub-typical. Cebidae.    (Monkeys of New World).
Natatorial. Unknown.
Suctorial. Vespertilionidee. (Bats).
Rasorial. Lemuride..    (Lemurs).
He considers the simiadse as a complete circle, and
argues thence that there is no room in the range of the
animal kingdom for man. Man, he says, is not a constituent part of any circle, for, if he were, there ought
to be other animals on each hand having affinity to him,
whereas there are none, the resemblance of the ourangs




NA4TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. i99
being one of mere analogy.      Mr. Swainson therefore
considers our race as standing apart, and forming a
link between the unintelligent order of beings and the
angels! And this in spite of the glaring fact, that in
our teeth, hands, and other features grounded on by
naturalists as characteristic, we do not differ more from
the simiadve than the bats do from the lemurs —in spite
also of that resemblance of analogy to the ourangs which
he himself admits, and which, at the least, must be held
to imply a certain relation.    He also overlooks that,
though there may be no room for man in the circle of
the simiadie-this, indeed, is quite true-there may be
in the order, where he actually leaves a place entirely
blank, or only to be filled up, as he suggests, by mermen! * Another argument against his arrangement is,
that it leaves the grades of classification very much
abridged, there being at the most seven instead of nine.
But serious argument on a theory so preposterous may
be considered as nearly thrown away. I shall therefore
at once proceed to suggest a new arrangement of this
portion of the animal kingdom, in which man is allowed
the place to which he is zoologically entitled.
I propose that the typical order of the mammalia
should be designated cheirotheria, from the sole character which is universal amongst them, their possessing
hands, and with a regard to that pre-eminent qualification for grasping which has been ascribed to theman analogy to the perching habit of the typical order
of birds, which is worthy of particular notice. The
tribes of the cheirotheria I arrange as follows:
* Mr. Swainson's arguments about the entireness of the circle
simiadwe are only too rigid, for fossil geology has since added new
genera to this group and the cebide, and there may~be still farther
additions.




200


VESTIGES OF THE


Typical.    Bimana.
Sub-typical.               Simiadm.
Natatorial...      Vespertilioniclc.
Suctorial... Lemuridae.
Pasorial....   Cebidae.
Here man is put into the typical place, as the genuine
head, not only of this order, but of the whole animal
world. The double affinity which is requisite is obtained, for here he has the simiadse on one hand, and
the cebidm on the other.    The five tribes of the order
are completed, the vespertilionidoe being shifted (provisionally) into the natatorial place, for which their appropriateness is so far evidenced by the aquatic habits of
several of the tribe,* and the lemuridse into the suctorial,
to which their length of muzzle and remarkable saltatory power are highly suitable. At the same time, the
simiadce are degraded from the typical place, to which
they have no sort of pretension, and placed where their
mean character seems to require; the cebidse again
being assigned that situation which their comparatively
inoffensive dispositions, their arboreal habits, and their
extraordinary development of the tail (which with them
is like a fifth hand), render so proper.
The zoological status thus assigned to the human race
is precisely what might be expected. In order to understand its full value, it is necessary to observe how the
various type peculiarities operate in fixing the character
of the animals ranked in them. It is easy to conceive
* " It is probable that the pterodactyle had the power of swimming,
which is so common in reptiles, and which is now possessed by the
pteropus pselaphon, or vampire bat, of the island of Benin."-Buckland's " Bridgewater Treatise." This is the more valuable as a testimony to the natatorial character of the vespertilionidm, that Dr.
Buckland wrote without the least regard to, or perhaps knowledge of,
the Macleay system.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                201
that they must ble, in some instances, much mixed up
with each other, and consequently obscured.    If an
animal, for example, is the suctorial member of a circle
of species, forming the natatorial type of genera, forming
a family or sub-family which in its turn is rasorial, its
qualities must evidently be greatly mingled and ill to
define. But, on the other hand, if we take the rapacious or sub-typical group of birds, and look in it for the
tribe which is again the rapacious or sub-typical group
of its order, we may expect to find the qualities of that
group exalted or intensified, and accordingly made the
more conspicuous. Such is really the case with the
vultures, in the rapacious birds, a family remarkable
above all of their order for their carnivorous and foul
habits. So, also, if we take the typical group of the
birds, the insessores or perchers, and look in it for its
typical group, the conirostres, and seek there again for
the typical family of that group, the corvidse, we may
expect to find a very marked superiority in organisation
and character. Such is really the case. " The crow,"
says Mr. Swainson, "unites in itself a greater number
of properties than are to be found individually in any
other genus of birds; as if in fact it had taken from
all the other orders a portion of their peculiar qualities,
for the purpose of exhibiting in what manner they could
be combined. From the rapacious birds this 'type of
types,' as the crow has been justly called, takes the
power of soaring in the air, and of seizing upon living
birds, like the hawks, whilst its habit of devouring
putrid substances, and picking out the eyes of young
animals, is borrowed from   the vultures.  From   the
scansorial or climbing order it takes the faculty of
picking the ground, and discovering its food when
hidden from the eye, while the parrot family gives it




202


VESTIGES OF THE


the taste for vegetable food, and furnishes it with
great cunning, sagacity, and powers of imitation, even
to counterfeiting the human voice. Next come the
order of waders, who impart their quota to the perfection of the crow by giving it great powers of flight,
and perfect facility in walking, such being among the
chief attributes of the suctorial order.  Lastly, the
aquatic birds contribute their portion, by giving this
terrestrial bird the power of feeding not only on fish,
which are their peculiar food, but actually of occasionally catching it.* In this wonderful manner do we find
the crow partially invested with the united properties of
all other birds, while in its own order, that of the insessores or perchers, it stands the pre-eminent type,
We cannot also fail to regard it as a remarkable proof
of the superior organisation and character of the corvidse,
that they are adapted for all climates, and accordingly
found all over the world."
Mr. Swainson's description of the zoological status of
the crow, written without the least design of throwing
any light upon that of man, evidently does so in a
remarkable degree. It prepares us to expect in the
place among the mammalia, corresponding to that of, the
corvidse in the aves, a being or set of beings possessing a
remarkable concentration of qualities from all the other
groups of their order, but in general character as far
above the corvidwe as a typical group is above an aberrant
one, the mammalia above the aves. Can any of the
simiadse pretend to such a place, narrowly and imperfectly endowed as these creatures are-a humble reflection apparently of something higher? Assuredly not;
and in this consideration alone Mr. Swainson's arrangement must fall to the ground. To fill worthily so lofty
* See Wilson's "American Ornithology:" article, "Fishing Crow.




NATUR AL HISTORY OF CREA TION.          203
a station in the animated families, man alone is competent. In him only is to be found that concentration
of qualities from all the other groups of his order which
has been described as marking the corvida. That grasping power, which has been selected as the leading
physical quality of his order, is nowhere so beautifully or
so powerfully developed as in his hand. The intelligence
and teachableness of the simiadae rise to a climax in his
pre-eminent mental nature. His sub-analogy to the
ferte is marked by his canine teeth, and the universality
of his rapacity; for where is the department of animated
nature which he does not without scruple ravage for his
gratification? With sanguinary, he has also gentle and
domesticable dispositions, thus reflecting the characters
of the ungulata (the rasorial type of the class), to which
we perhaps see a further analogy in the use which he
makes of the surface of the earth as a source of food.
To the aquatic type his love of maritime adventure very
readily assimilates him; and how far the suctorial is
represented in his nature it is hardly necessary to say.
As the corvide, too, are found in every part of the earth
-almost the only one of the inferior animals which has
been acknowledged as universal-so do we find man.
He thrives in all climates, and with regard to style of
living, can adapt himself to an infinitely greater diversity
of circumstances than any other animated creature.
Man, then, considered zoologically, and without regard
to the distinct character assigned to him by theology,
simply takes his place as the type of all types of the
animal kingdom, the true and unmistakable head of
animated nature upon this earth. It will readily occur
that some more particular investigations into the ranks
of types might throw additional light on man's status,
and perhaps his nature; and such light we may hope to




204


VESTIGES OF THE


obtain when the philosophy of zoology shall have been
studied as it deserves. Perhaps some such diagram as
the one given on the next page will be found to be an
approximation to the expression of the merely natural
or secular grade of man in comparison with other
animals.
Here the upright lines, I, 2, 3, 4, 5, may represent
the comparative height and grade of organisation of
both the five sub-kingdoms, and the five classes of
each of these; 5 being the vertebrata in the one case
and the mammalia in the other. The difference between
the height of the line i and the line 5 gives an idea
of the difference of being the head type of the aves
(corvidse), and the head type of the mammalia (bimana);
a, b, c, d, 5, again, represent the five groups of the first
order of the mammalia; d, being the organic structure
of the highest simia, and 5, that of man. A set of
tangent lines of this kind may yet prove one of the most
satisfactory means of ascertaining the height and breadth
of the psychology of our species.
It may be asked-Is the existing human race the
only species designed to occupy the grade to which it is
here referred?  Such a question evidently ought not to
be answered rashly; and I shall therefore confine myself
to the admission that, judging by analogy, we might
expect to see several varieties of the being, homo.
There is no other family approaching to this in importance, which presents but one species. The corvidse, our
parallel in aves, consist of several distinct genera and
sub-genera. It is startling to find such an appearance of
imperfection in the circle to which man belongs, and the
ideas which rise in consequence are not less startling.
Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type?
Are there yet to be species superior to us in organisation,




NATURAIL HISTORY OF CREATION. 205


1.   2.    3.        4.




206   NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
purer in feeling, more powerful in device and act,
and who shall take a rule over us! There is in this
iothing improbable on other grounds.    The present
race, iude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best
adapted to the present state of things in the world;
but the external world goes through slow and gradual
changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field
of existence.( There may then be occasion for a nobler
type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological
circle on this planet, and realise some of the dreams
of the purest spirits of the present race.




( 207


EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.
THE human race is known to consist of numerous
nations, displaying considerable differences of external
form and colour, and speaking in general different languages. This has been the case since the commencement
of written record. It is also ascertained that the external
peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change.
There is rather a tendency to a persistency of type in all
lines of descent, insomuch that a subordinate admixture
of various type is usually obliterated in a few generations.
Numerous as the varieties are, they have all been found
classifiable under five leading ones:-i. The Caucasian,
or Indo-European, which extends from India into Europe
and Northern Africa; 2. The Mongolian, which occupies
Northern and Eastern Asia; 3. The Malayan, which
extends from the Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula into the
numerous islands of the South Seas and Pacific; 4. The
Negro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5. The aboriginal
American. Each of these is distinguished by certain
general features of so marked a kind, as to give rise to a
supposition that they have had distinct or independent
origins. Of these peculiarities, colour is the most conspicuous: the Caucasians are generally white, the Mongolians yellow, the Negroes black, and the Americans red.
The opposition of two of these in particular, white and
black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems almost




208


VESTIGES OF THE


necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late years,
however, the whole of this question has been subjected
to a rigorous investigation, and it has been successfully
shown that the human race might have had one origin,
for anything that can be inferred from external peculiarities.
It appears from this inquiry,* that colour and other
physiological characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is
at the very first extremely startling, that there are nations,
such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, known to be one in
descent, which nevertheless contain groups of people of
almost all shades of colour, and likewise discrepant in
other of those important features on which much stress
has been laid. Some other facts, which I may state in
brief terms, are scarcely less remarkable. In Africa,
there are Negro nations-that is, nations of intensely
black complexion, as the Jolofs, Mandingoes, and Kafirs,
whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the
best European nations. While we have no proof of Negro
races becoming white in the course of generations, the
converse may be held as established, for there are Arab
and Jewish families of ancient settlement in Northern
Africa, who have become as black as the other inhabitants. There are also facts which seem to show the
possibility of a natural transition by generation from the
black to the white complexion, and from the white to the
black. True whites (apart from Albinoes) are not unfrequently born among the Negroes, and the tendency to
this singularity is transmitted in families. There is, at
least, one authentic instance of a set of perfectly black
children being born to an Arab couple, in whose ancestry
no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in the
* See Dr. Prichard's " Researches into the Physical Hlistory of Man."




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TI0ON.             209
valley of the Jordan, where it is remarkable that the
Arab population in general have flatter features, darker
skins, and coarser hair, than any other tribes of the same
nation.*
The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful
effect in modifying the human figure in the course of
generations, and this even in its osseous structure.
About two hundred years ago, a number of people were
driven by a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim
and Down, in Ireland, towards the sea-coast, where they
have ever since been settled, but in unusually miserable
circumstances, even for Ireland; and the consequence is,
that they exhibit peculiar features of the most repulsive
kind, projecting jaws with large open mouths, depressed
noses, high cheek-bones, and bow legs, together with an
extremely diminutive stature. These, with an abnormal
slenderness of the limbs, are the outward marks of a low
and barbarous condition all over the world; it is particularly seen in the Australian aborigines. On the other
hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England is very
remarkable, being, in the main, as clearly a result of
good external conditions. " Coarse, unwholesome, and
ill-prepared food," says Buffon, " makes the human race
degenerate. All those people who live miserably are
ugly and ill-made. Even in France, the country people
are not so beautiful as those who live in towns; and I
have often remarked that in those villages where the
people are richer and better fed than in others, the men
are likewise more handsome, and have better countenances." He might have added, that elegant and
commodious dwellings, cleanly habits, comfortable cloth* Buckingham's " Travels among the Arabs."' This fact is the more
valuable to the argument, as having been set down with no regard to
any kind of hypothesis.




210


VESTiGES OF 7THE


ing, and being exposed to the open air only as much as
health requires, co-operate with food in increasing the
elegance of a race of human beings.
Subject only to these modifying agencies, there is, as
has been said, a remarkable persistency in national features and forms, insomuch that a single individual thrown
into a family different from himself is absorbed in it, and
all trace of him lost after a few generations. But while
there is such a persistency to ordinary observation, it
would also appear that nature has a power of producing
new varieties, though this is only done rarely. Such
novelties of type abound in the vegetable world, are seen
more rarely in the animal circle, and perhaps are least
frequent of occurrence in our own race. There is a noted
instance in the production, on a New England farm, of a
variety of sheep with unusually short legs, which was
kept up by breeding, on account of the convenience in
that country of having sheep which are unable to jump
over low fences. The starting and maintaining a breed
of cattle, that is, a variety marked by some desirable
peculiarity, are familiar to a large class of persons. It
appears only necessary, when a variety has been thus
produced, that a union should take place between individuals similarly characterised, in order to establish it.
Early in the last century, a man named Lambert was
born in Suffolk, with semi-horny excrescences of about
half an inch long, thickly growing all over his body.
The peculiarity was transmitted to his children, and was
last heard of in a third generation. The peculiarity of
>~..... \ six fingers on the hand and six toes on the feet, appears,     \ in like manner in families which have no record or tradi- -  -  tion of such a peculiarity having affected them at any
former period, and it is then sometimes seen to descend
through several generations. It was Mr. Lawrence's




NA TUlRAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.          211
opinion, that a pair, in which both parties were so distinguished, might be the progenitors of a new variety of the
race who would be thus marked in all future time. It is
not easy to surmise the causes which operate in producing
such varieties. Perhaps they are simply types in nature,
possible to be realised under certain appropriate conditions,
but which conditions are such as altogether to elude
notice. I might cite as examples of such possible types, the
rise of whites amongst the Negroes, the occurrence of the
family of black children in the valley of the Jordan, and
the comparatively frequent birth of red-haired children
amongst not only the Mongolian and Malayan families,
but amongst the Negroes. We are ignorant of the laws
of variety-production; but we see it going on as a principle in nature, and if is obviously-faivoiurable to the supposition that all the great families of men are of one stock.
The tendency of the modern study of the languages of
nations is to the same point. The last fifty years have
seen this study elevated to the character of a science, and
the light which it throws upon the history of mankind is
of a most remarkable nature.
Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown
the earth's languages into a kind of classification: a
number bearing a considerable resemblance to each other,
and in general geographically near, are styled a group or
sub-family; several groups, again, are associated as a
family, with regard to more general features of resemblance. Six families are spoken of.
The Indo-European family nearly coincides in geographical limits with those which have been assigned to
that variety of mankind which generally shows a fair
complexion, called the Caucasian variety. It may be
said to commence in India, and thence to stretch
through Persia into Europe, the whole of which it




212


VESTIGES OF THE


occupies, excepting Hungary, the Basque provinces of
Spain, and Finland. Its sub-families are the Sanskrit,
or ancient language of India, the Persian, the Slavonic,
Celtic, Gothic, and Pelasgian. The Slavonic includes the
modern languages of Russia and Poland.   Under the
Gothic, are (i) the Scandinavian tongues, the Norske,
Swedish, and Danish; and (2) the Teutonic, to which
belong the modern German, the Dutch, and our own
Anglo-Saxon. I give the name of Pelasgian to the group
scattered along the north shores of the Mediterranean,
the Greek and Latin, including the modifications of the
latter under the names of Italian, Spanish, &c. The
Celtic was, from two to three thousand years ago, the
speech of a considerable tribe dwelling in Western
Europe; but these have since been driven before superior
nations into a few corners, and are now only to be found
in the highlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall,
and certain parts of France. The Gaelic of Scotland,
Erse of Ireland, and the Welsh, are the only living
branches of this sub-family of languages.
The resemblances amongst languages are of two kinds
-identity of words, and identity of grammatical forms;
the latter being now generally considered as the most
important towards the argument. When we inquire
into the first kind of affinity among the languages of the
Indo-European family, we are surprised at the great
number of common terms which exist amongst them,
and these referring to such primary ideas, as to leave no
doubt of their having all been derived from a common
source. Colonel Vans Kennedy presents nine hundred
words common to the Sanskrit and other languages of
the same family. In the Sanskrit and Persian, we find
several which require no sort of translation to an English
reader, as pader, mader, sunu, dokhlter, brader, manp,




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                213
vidbava; likewise asthi, a bone, (Greek, ostoun;) denta,
a tooth, (Latin, dens, dentis;) eyeumen, the eye; brouwa,
the eyebrow, (German, brane;,) nasa, the nose; karm,
the hand, (Gr. cheir;) gen,, the knee, (Lat. genu;) ped,
the foot, (Lat. pes, pedis;) lirti, the heart; jecur, the
liver, (Lat. jecur;) stara, a star; gela, cold, (Lat. gelu,
ice;) aghni, fire, (Lat. ignis;) dhara, the earth, (Lat.
terra, Gaelic, tir;) arrivi, a river; nau, a ship, (Gr. naus,
Lat. navis;) ghau, a cow; sarparn, a serpent.
The inferences from these verbal coincidences were
confirmed in a striking manner when Bopp and others
investigated the grammatical structure of this family of
languages. Dr. Wiseman pronounces that the great
philologist just named, "by a minute and sagacious
analysis of the Sanskrit verb, compared with the conjugational system of the other members of this family,
left no doubt of their intimate and positive affinity." It
was now discovered that the peculiar terminations or
inflections by which persons are expressed throughout
the verbs of nearly the whole of these languages, have
their foundations in pronouns; the pronoun was simply
placed at the end, and thus became an inflection. " By
an analysis of the Sanskrit pronouns, the elements of
those existing in all the other languages were cleared of
their anomalies; the verb substantive, which in Latin
is composed of fragments referable to two distinct roots,
here found both existing in regular form; the Greek
conjugations, with all their complicated machinery of
middle voice, augments, and reduplications, were here
found and illustrated in a variety of ways, which a few
years ago would have appeared chimerical. Even our
own language may sometimes receive light from the
study of distant members of our family. Where, for
instance, are we to seek for the root of our comparative




2T4


VESTIGES OF THE


better?  Certainly not in its positive, good, nor in the
Teutonic dialects in    which   the same anomaly exists.
But in the Persian we have precisely the same comparative, behter, with    exactly  the same signification,
regularly formed from its positive beh, good." *
The second great family of languages is the SyroPhonician,    comprising    the   Hebrew,    Syro-Chaldaic,
Arabic, and Gheez or Abyssinian, being localised principally in the countries to the west and south of the
Mediterranean.     Beyond them, again, is the African
family, which, as far as research has gone, seems to be
in like manner marked by common features, both verbal
and grammatical.     The fourth is the Polynesian family,
extending from Madagascar on the west, through all the
Indian   Archipelago, besides    taking   in  the Malayan
dialect from the continent of India, and comprehending
* Wiseman's "Lectures on the Connexion between Science and
Revealed Religion," i. 44. The Celtic has been established as a
member or group of the Indo-European family, by the work of Dr.
Prichard, "On the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations."  "First,"
says Dr. Wiseman, "he has examined the lexicon resemblances, and
shown that the primary and most simple words are the same in both
as well as the numerals and elementary verbal roots. Then follows
a minute analysis of the verb, directed to show its analogies with
other languages, and they are such as manifest no casual coincidence,
but an internal structure radically the same. The verb substantive,
which is minutely analysed, presents more striking analogies to the
Persian verb than perhaps any other language of the family. But
Celtic is not thus become a mere member of this confederacy, but
has brought to it most important aid; for, from it alone can be satisfactorily explained some of the conjugational endings in the other
languages. For instance, the third person plural of the Latin,
Persian, Greek, and Sanskrit ends in nt, nd, VTL, VrO, nti, or nt.
Now, supposing, with most grammarians, that the inflections arose
from the pronouns of the respective persons, it is only in Celtic that
we. find a pronoun that can explain this termination; for there, too,
the same person ends in nt, and thus corresponds exactly, as do the
others, with its pronoun, hwynt or ynt."




VNATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.            215
Australia and the islands of the western portion of the
Pacific. This family, however, bears such an affinity to
that next to be described, that Dr. Leyden and some others
do not give it a distinct place as a family of languages.
The fifth family is the Chinese, embracing a large
part of China, and most of the regions of Central and
Northern Asia. The leading features of the Chinese
language are, its consisting altogether of monosyllables,
and being destitute of all grammatical forms, except
certain arrangements and accentuations, which vary the
sense of particular words. It is also deficient in some of
the consonants most conspicuous in other languages, b, d,
r, v, and z; so that this people can scarcely pronounce
our speech in such a way as to be intelligible: for
example, the word Christus they call Kuliss-ut-oo-suIh.
The Chinese, strange to say, though they early attained
to a remarkable degree of civilisation, and have preceded
the Europeans in many of the most important inventions,
have a language which resembles that of children, or
deaf and dumb people. The sentence of short, simple,
unconnected words, in which an infant amongst us
attempts to express some of its wants and its ideas-the
equally broken and difficult terms which the deaf and
dumb express by signs, as the following passage of the
Lord's Prayer:-" Our Father, heaven in, wish your
name respect, wish your soul's kingdom providence
arrive, wish your will do heaven earth equality," &c.
-these are like the discourse of the refined people of
the so-called Celestial Empire. An attempt was made
by the Abb6 Sicard to teach the deaf and dumb grammatical signs; but they persisted in restricting themselves
to the simple signs of ideas, leaving the structure undetermined by any but the natural order of connexion.
Such is exactly the condition of the Chinese language.




216            VESTIGES OF THE
Crossing the Pacific, we come to the last great family
in the languages of the aboriginal Americans, which have
all of them features in common, proving them to constitute a group by themselves, without any regard to the
very different degrees of civilisation which these nations
had attained at the time of the discovery. The common
resemblance is in the grammatical structure as well as in
words, and the grammatical structure of this family is
of a very peculiar and complicated kind. The general
character in this respect has caused the term Polysynthetic to be applied to the American languages. A
long many-syllabled word is used by the rude Algonquins
and Delawares to express a whole sentence: for example,
a woman of the latter nation, playing with a little dog
or cat, would perhaps be heard saying, " kuligatschis,"
meaning, " give me your pretty little paw;" the word,
on examination, is found to be made up in this manner:
k, the second personal pronoun; uli, part of the word
wulet, pretty; gat, part of the word wichgat, signifying a
leg or paw; schis, conveying the idea of littleness. In the
same tongue, a youth is called pilape, a word compounded
from the first part of pilsit, innocent, and the latter part
of lenape, a man. Thus, it will be observed, a number
of parts of words are taken and thrown together, by a
process which has been happily termed agglutination, so
as to form one word, conveying a complicated idea.
There is also an elaborate system of inflection; in nouns,
for instance, there is one kind of inflection to express
the presence or absence of vitality, and another to express
number. The genius of the language has been described
as accumulative: it "tends rather to add syllables or
letters, making farther distinctions in objects already
before the mind than to introduce new words." *  Yet it
* Schoolcraft.




NA TURAL tIlSTOR Y OF CREA TION.         217
has also been shown very distinctly, that these languages
are based in words of one syllable, like those of the
Chinese and Polynesian families; all the primary ideas
are thus expressed: the elaborate system of inflection
and agglutination is shown to be simply a farther
development of the language-forming principle, as it may
be called-or the Chinese system may be described as an
arrestment of this principle at a particular early point.
It has been fully shown, that between the structure of
the American and other families, sufficient affinities exist
to make a common origin or early connexion extremely
likely. The verbal affinities are also very considerable.
Humboldt says, " In eighty-three American languages
examined by Messrs. Barton and Vater, one hundred
and seventy words have been found, the roots of which
appear to be the same; and it is easy to perceive that
this analogy is not accidental, since it does not rest
merely upon imitative harmony, or on that conformity of
organs which produces almost a perfect identity in the
first sounds articulated by children.  Of these one
hundred and seventy words which have this connexion,
three-fifths resemble the Manchou, the Tongouse, the
Mongal, and the Samoyed; and two-fifths, the Celtic
and Tchoud, the Biscayan, the Coptic, and Congo languages. These words have been found by comparing
the whole of the American languages with the whole
of those of the Old World; for hitherto we are
acquainted with no American idiom which seems to
have an exclusive correspondence with any of the
Asiatic, African, or European tongues." * Humboldt
and others considered these words as brought into
America by recent immigrants; an idea resting on no
proof, and which seems at once refuted by the common
* " Views of the Cordilleras."




2T8


VESTIGES OF THE


words being chiefly those which represent primary ideas;
besides, we now know, what was not formerly perceived
or admitted, that there are great affinities of structure
also. I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three
words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one
they must be derived in both cases from some parent
language, or introduced in some other manner. " Six
words would give more," he says, "than seventeen
hundred to one, and eight near ioo,ooo, so that in these
cases the evidence would be little short of absolute certainty."  He instances the following words to show
a connexion between the ancient Egyptian and the
Biscayan:BISCAYAN.         EGYPTIAN.
New.           Beria..      Beri.
A dog.           Ora.          Whor.
Little            Gutchi.          Kudchi.
Bread..    Ognia..    Oik.
A wolf.          Otgsa.      Ounsh.
Seven...  Shashpi..  Shashf.
Now, as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred
and seventy words in common between the languages
of the new and old continents, and many of these are
expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by
Dr. Young's calculation, overpowering proof of the
original connexion of the American and other human
families.
This completes the slight outline which I have been
able to give, of the evidence for the various races of men
being descended from one stock. It cannot be considered
as conclusive, and there are many eminent persons who
deem the opposite idea the more probable; but I must
say that, without the least regard to any other kind of
evidence, that which physiology and philology present




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             219
seems to me decidedly favourable to the idea of a single
origin.
Assuming that the human race is one, we are next
called upon to inquire in what part of the earth it may
most probably be supposed to have originated. One
obvious mode of approximating to a solution of this question is to trace backward the lines in which the principal
tribes appear to have migrated, and to see if these
converge nearly to a point. It is very remarkable that
the lines do converge, and are concentrated about the
region of Hindostan. The language, religion, modes of
reckoning time, and some other peculiar ideas of the
Americans, are now believed to refer their origin to
North-Eastern Asia. Trace them farther back in the
same direction, and we come to the north of India.
The history of the Celts and Teutones represents them as
coming from the east, the one after the other, successive
waves of a tide of population flowing towards the northwest of Europe: this line being also traced back, rests
finally at the same place. So does the line of Iranian
population, which has peopled the east and south shores
of the Mediterranean, Syria, Arabia and Egypt. The
Malay variety, again, rests its limit in one direction on
the borders of India. Standing on that point, it is easy
to see how the human family, originating there, might
spread out in different directions, passing into varieties of
aspect and of language as they spread, the Malay variety
proceeding towards the Oceanic region, the Mongolians
to the east and north, and sending off the red men as a
sub-variety, the European population going off to the
north-westward, and the Syrian, Arabian, and Egyptian,
towards the countries which they are known to have so
long occupied. The Negro alone is here unaccounted
for; and of that race it may fairly be said, that it is the




220


VESTIGES OF THE


one most likely to have had an independent origin, seeing
that it is a type so peculiar in an inveterate black colour,
and so mean in development. But it is irot necessary to
pr-esume such an origin for it, as much good argument
might be employed to show that it is only a deteriorated
offshoot of the general stock. Our view of the probable
original seat of man agrees with the ancient traditions of
the race. There is one among the Hindoos which places
the cradle of the human family in Thibet; another
makes Ceylon the residence of the first man. Our view
is also in harmony with the hypothesis detailed in the
chapter before the last. According to that theory, we
should expect man to have originated where the highest species of the quadrumana are to be found. Now
these are unquestionably found in the Indian Archipelago.
After all, it may be regarded as still an open question,
whether mankind is of one or many origins. The first
human generation may have consisted of many pairs,
though situated at one place, and these may have been
considerably different from each other in external characters. And we are equally bound to admit, though
this does not as yet seem to have occurred to any other
speculator, that there may have been different lines and
sources of origination, geographically apart, but which all
resulted uniformly in the production of a being, one in
species, although variously marked.
It has of late years been a favourite notion with several
writers, that the human race was at first in a highly civilised state, and that barbarism was a second condition.
The principal argument for it is, that we see many
examples of nations falling away from civilisation into
barbarism, while, in some regions of the earth, the
history of which we do not clearly know, there are




NAI'TURAL HISTORY OF CREA4TION.         22I
remains of works of art far superior to any which the
present unenlightened inhabitants could have produced.
It is to be readily admitted that such decadences are
common; but do they necessarily prove that there has
been anything like a regular and constant decline into
the present state, from a state more generally refined?
May not these be only instances of local failures and suppressions of the principle of civilisation, where it had
begun to take root amongst a people generally barbarous?
This, at least, were as legitimate an inference from the
facts which are known. But it is also alleged that we
know of no such thing as civilisation being ever selforiginated. It is always seen to be imparted from one
people to another. Hence, of course, we must infer that
civilisation at the first could only have been of supernatural origDin. This argument appears to be founded on
false premises, for civilisation does sometimes rise in a
manner clearly independent amongst a horde of people
generally barbarous. A striking instance is described in
the laborious work of Mr. Catlin on the North American
tribes.  Far placed among those which inhabit the vast
region of the north-west, and quite beyond the reach of
any influence from the whites, he found a small tribe
living in a fortified village, where they cultivated the
arts of manufacture, realised comforts and luxuries, and
had attained to a remarkable refinement of manners,
insomuch as to be generally called the polite and friendly
Mandans. They were also more than usually elegant in
their persons, and of every variety of complexion between
that of their compatriots and a pure white. Up to the
time of Mr. Catlin's visit, these people had been able to
defend themselves and their possessions against the
roving bands which surrounded them on all sides; but,
soon after, they were attacked by small-pox, which cut




222


V'ESTIGES OF THE


them all off except a small party, whom their enemies
rushed in upon and destroyed to a man. What is this
but a repetition on a small scale of phenomena with which
ancient history familiarises us-a nation rising in arts
and elegances amidst barbarous neighbours, but at length
overpowered by the rude majority, leaving only a Tadmor
or a Luxor as a monument of itself to beautify the
waste?   What can we suppose the nation which built
Palenque and Copan to have been but only a kind of
Mandan tribe, which chanced to have made its way
farther along the path of civilisation and the arts, before
the barbarians broke in upon it?  The flame essayed to
rise in many parts of the earth; but there were considerable agencies working against it, and down it accordingly went, times without number; yet there was always
a vitality in it, nevertheless, and a tendency to progress,
and at length it seems to have attained a strength against
which the powers of barbarism can never more prevail.
The state of our knowledge of uncivilised nations is very
apt to make us fall into error on this subject. They are
generally supposed to be all at one point in barbarism,
which is far from being the case, for in the midst of
every great region of uncivilised men, such as North
America, there are nations partially refined. The Jolofs,
Mandingoes, and Kafirs, are African examples, where a
natural and independent origin for the improvement
which exists is as unavoidably to be presumed as in the
case of the Mandans.
The most conclusive argument against the original
civilisation of mankind is to be found in the fact that
we do not now see civilisation existing anywhere except
in certain conditions altogether different from any we
can suppose to have existed at the commencement of our
race. To have civilisation, it is necessary that a people




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                223
should be numerous and closely placed; that they should
be fixed in their habitations, and safe from violent external and internal disturbance; that a considerable
number of them should be exempt from the necessity of
drudging for immediate subsistence. Feeling themselves
at ease about the first necessities of their nature, including self-preservation, and daily subjected to that intellectual excitement which society produces, men begin
to manifest what is called civilisation; but never in rude
and shelterless circumstances, or when widely scattered.
Even men who have been civilised, when transferred to
a wide wilderness, where each has to work hard and
isolatedly for the first requisites of life, soon show a
retrogression to barbarism: witness the plains of
Australia, as well as the backwoods of Canada and the
prairies of Texas. Fixity of residence and thickening of
population are perhaps the prime requisites for civilisation, and hence it will be found that all civilisations as
yet known have taken place in regions physically limited.
That of Egypt arose in a narrow valley hemmed in by
deserts on both sides. That of Greece took its rise in a
small peninsula bounded on the only land side by mountains. Etruria and Rome were naturally limited regions.
Civilisations have taken place at both the eastern and
western extremities of the elder continent-China and
Japan, on the one hand; Germany, Holland, Britain,
France, on the other-while the great unmarked tract
between contains nations decidedly less advanced. Why
is this, but because the sea, in both cases, has imposed
limits to farther migration, and caused the population to
settle and condense-the conditions most necessary for
social improvement.* Even the simple case of the
* The problem of Chinese civilization, such as it is-so puzzling
when we consider that they are only, as will he presently seen, the




2 24


VESTIGES OF THE


Mlandans affords an illustration of this principle, for
Mr. Catlin expressly, though without the least regard to
theory, attributes their improvement to the fact of their
being a small tribe, obliged, by fear of their more
numerous enemies, to settle in a permanent village, so
fortified as to ensure their preservation.   "By    this
means," says he, "they have advanced farther in the
arts of manufacture, and have supplied their lodges more
abundantly with the comforts and even luxuries of life
than any Indian nation I know of. The consequence of
this," he adds, "is, that the tribe have taken many steps
ahead of other tribes in manners and refinements."
These conditions can only be regarded as natural laws
affecting civilisation, and it might not be difficult, taking
them into account, to predict of any newly settled
country its social destiny. An island like Van Dieman's
land might fairly be expected to go on more rapidly to
good manners and sound institutions than a wide region
like Australia. The United States might be expected to
make no great way in civilisation till they be fully
peopled to the Pacific; and it might not be unreasonable
to expect that, when that even has occurred, the greatest
civilisations of that vast territory will be found in the
peninsula of California and the narrow stripe of country
beyond the Rocky Mountains. This, however, is a
digression. To return: it is also necessary for a civilisation that at least a portion of the community should
be placed above mean and engrossing toils. Man's mind
is subdued like the dyer's hand, to that it works in.  In
rude and difficult circumstances, we unavoidably become
rude, because then only the inferior and harsher faculties
of our nature are called into exercise. When, on the
child race of mankind-is solved when we look to geographical position
producing fixity of residence and density of population.




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              225
contrary, there is leisure and abundance, the self-seeking
and self-preserving instincts are allowed to rest, the
gentler and more generous sentiments are evoked, and
man becomes that courteous and chivalric being which
he is found to be amongst the upper classes of almost all
civilised countries. These, then, may be said to be the
chief natural laws concerned in the moral phenomenon
of civilisation. If I am right in so considering them, it
will of course be readily admitted that the earliest
families of the human race, although they might be
simple and innocent, could not have been in anything
like a civilised state, seeing that the conditions necessary
for that state could not have then existed. Let us only
for a moment consider some of the things requisite for
their being civilised-namely, a set of elegant homes
ready furnished for their reception, fields ready cultivated
to yield them food without labour, stores of luxurious
appliances of all kinds, a complete social enginery for the
securing of life and property-and we shall turn from
the whole conceit as one worthy only of the philosophers
of Utopia.
Yet, as has been remarked, the earliest families might
be simple and innocent, while at the same time unskilled
and ignorant, and obliged to live merely upon such substances as they could readily procure. The traditions of
all nations refer to such a state as that in which mankind
were at first: perhaps it is not so much a tradition as an
idea which the human mind naturally inclines to form
respecting the fathers of the race; but nothing that we
see of mankind absolutely forbids our entertaining this
idea, while there are some considerations rather favourable to it. A few families, in a state of nature, living
near each other, in a country supplying the means of
livelihood abundantly, are generally simple and innocent:
H




226


VE ESTIGES OF THE


their instinctive and perceptive faculties are also apt to
be very active, although the higher intellect may be dormant. If we therefore presume India to have been the
cradle of our race, they might at first exemplify a sort of
golden age; but it could not be of long continuance.
The very first movements from the primal seat would be
attended with degradation, nor could there be any tendency to true civilisation till groups had settled and
thickened in particular seats physically limited.
The probability may now be assumed that the human
race sprung from one stock, which was at first in a state
of simplicity, if not barbarism. As yet we have not seen
very distinctly how the various branches of the family,
as they parted off, and took up separate ground, became
marked by external features so peculiar. Why are the
Africans black, and generally marked by coarse features
and ungainly forms? Why are the Mongolians generally
yellow, the Americans red, the Caucasians white? Why
the flat features of the Chinese, the small stature of the
Laps, the soft round forms of the English, the lank
features of their descendants, the Americans? All of
these phenomena appear, in a word, to be explicable on
the ground of development. We have already seen that
various leading animal forms represent stages in the
embryotic progress of the highest-the human being.
Our brain goes through the various stages of a fish's, a
reptile's, and a mammifer's brain, and finally becomes
human. There is more than this, for, after completing the
animal transformations, it passes through the characters
in which it appears in the Negro, Malay, American, and
Mongolian nations, and finally is Caucasian. The face
partakes of these alterations.  "One of the earliest
points in which ossification commences is the lower jaw.
This bone is consequently sooner completed than the




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 227
other bones of the head, and acquires a predominances
which, as is well known, it never loses in the Negro.
During the soft pliant state of the bones of the skull,
the oblong form which they naturally assume, approaches
nearly the permanent shape of the Americans. At birth,
the flattened face, and broad smooth forehead of the
infant, the position of the eyes rather towards the side
of the head, and the widened space between, represent the Mongolian form; while it is only as the child
advances to maturity, that the oval face, the arched forehead, and the marked features of the true Caucasian,
become perfectly developed." *  The leading characters,
in short, of the various races of mankind, are simrply
representations of particular stages in the developmwent of
the highest or Caucasian type. The Negro exhibits permanently the imperfect brain, projecting lower jaw, and
slender bent limbs, of a Caucasian child, some considerable time before the period of its birth. The aboriginal
American represents the same child nearer birth. The
Mongolian is an arrested infant newly born. And so
forth. All this is as respects form; t but whence colour.
This might be supposed to have depended on climatal
agencies only; but it has been shown by overpowering
evidence to be independent of these. In further considering the matter, we are met by the very remarkable
fact that colour is deepest in the least perfectly developed
type, next in the Malay, next in the American, next in
the Mongolian, the very order in which the degrees of
development are ranged. May not coloar, then, depend
upon development also? We do not, indeed, see that a
* Lord's "Popular Physiology," explaining observations by M.
Serres.
t Conformably to this view, the beard, that peculiar attribute of
maturity, is scanty in the Mongolian, and scarcely exists in the
Americans and Negroes.
M 2




228


VESTIGES OF THE


Caucasian foetus at the stage which the African represents is anything like black; neither is a Caucasian child
yellow, like the Mongolian. There may, nevertheless,
be a character of skin at a certain stage of development
which is predisposed to a particular colour when it is
presented as the envelope of a mature being. Development being arrested at so immature a stage in the case
of the Negro, the skin may take on the colour as an unavoidable consequence of its imperfect organisation. It
is favourable to this view, that Negro infants are not
deeply'black at first, but only acquire the full colour tint
after exposure for some time to the atmosphere; also
that the parts of the body concealed by clothing are never
of so deep a hue as the face and hands.    Perhaps the
phenomenon is identical in character with the photographic process; a result of the action of light, not (as has
been so long blunderingly supposed) of heat. If this view
be admitted, there can be no difficulty in accounting for
all the varieties of mankind. They are simply the result
of so many advances and retrogressions in the developing
power of the human mothers, these advances and retrogressions being, as we have formerly seen, the immediate
effect of external conditions in nutrition, hardship, &c.,*
and also, perhaps, to some extent, of the suitableness and
unsuitableness of marriages, for it is found that parents
too nearly related tend to produce offspring of the Mon* Of this we have perhaps an illustration in the peculiarities which
distinguish the Arabs residing in the valley of the Jordan. They
have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair than other tribes
of their nation; and we have seen one instance of a thorough Negro
family being born to an ordinary couple. It may be presumed that
the conditions of the life of these people tend to arrest development.
We thus see how an offshoot of the human family migrating at an
early period into Africa, might in time, from subjection to similar
influences, become Negroes.




VNATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.          229
golian type-that is, persons who in maturity still are a
kind of children. According to this view, the greater
part of the human race must be considered as having
lapsed or declined from the original type. In the Caucasian or Indo-European family alone has the primitive
organisation been improved upon. The Mongolian,
Malay, American, and Negro, comprehending perhaps
five-sixths of mankind, are degenerate. Strange that the
great plan should admit of failures and aberrations of
such portentous magnitude! But pause and reflect;
take time into consideration: the past history of mankind may be, to what is to come, but as a day. Look at
the progress even now making over the barbaric parts of
the earth by the best examples of the Caucasian type,
promising not only to fill up the waste places, but to
supersede the imperfect nations already existing. Who
can tell what progress may be made, even in a single
century, towards reversing the proportions of the perfect
and imperfect types? and who can tell but that the time
during which the mean types have lasted, long as it
appears, may yet be thrown entirely into the shade by
the time during which the best types will remain predominant
We have seen that the traces of a common origin in
all languages afford a ground of presumption for the
unity of the human race. They establish a still stronger
probability that mankind had not yet begun to disperse
before they were possessed of a means of communicating
their ideas by conventional sounds-in short, speech.
This is a gift so peculiar to man, and in itself so remarkable, that there is a great inclination to surmise a miraculous origin for it, although there is no proper ground,
or even support, for such an idea in Scripture, while it
is clearly opposed to everything else that we know with




2,30


20VESTIGES OF THE


regard to the providential arrangements for the creation
of our race. Here, as in many other cases, a little
observation of nature might have saved much vainW discussion. The real character of language itself has not
been thoroughly understood. Language, in its most
comprehensive sense, is the communication of ideas by
whatever means. Ideas can be communicated by looks,
gestures, and signs of various other kinds, as well as by
speech. The inferior animals possess some of those
means of communicating ideas, and they have likewise
a silent and unobservable mode of their own, the nature
of which is a complete mystery to us, though we are
assured of its reality by its effects. Now, as the inferior
animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. The only additional fact in the history of language, which was produced by our creation, was the rise
of a new mode of expression-namely, that by soundsigns produced by the vocal organs. In other words,
speech was the only novelty in this respect attending
the creation of the human race. No doubt it was an
addition of great importance, for, in comparison with it,
the other natural modes of communicating ideas are
insignificant. Still, the main and fundamental phenomenon, language, as the communication of ideas, was
no new gift of the Creator to man; and in speech itself,
when we judge of it as a natural fact, we see only a
result of some of those superior endowments of which so
many others have fallen to our lot through the medium
of a superior organisation.
The first and most obvious natural endowment concerned in speech is that peculiar organisation of the
larynx, trachea, and mouth, which enables us to produce
the various sounds required. Man started at first with




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             231
this organisation ready for use, a constitution of the
atmosphere adapted for the sounds which that organisation was calculated to produce, and lastly, but not leastly,
as will afterwards be more particularly shown, a mental
power within, prompting to, and giving directions for,
the expression of ideas. Such an arrangement of mutually adapted things was as likely to produce sounds as
an Eolian harp placed in a draught is to produce tones.
It was unavoidable that human beings so organised,
and in such a relation to external nature, should utter
sounds, and also come to attach to these conventional
meanings, thus forming the elements of spoken language.
The great difficulty which has been felt was to account
for man going in this respect beyond the inferior animals.
There could have been no such difficulty if speculators in
this class of subjects had looked into physiology for an
account of the superior vocal organisation of man, and
had they possessed a true science of mind to show man
possessing a faculty for the expression of ideas which is
only rudimental in the lower animals. Another difficulty
has been in the consideration that, if men were at first
utterly untutored and barbarous, they could scarcely be
in a condition to form or employ language-an instrument which it requires the fullest powers of thought to
analyse and speculate upon. But this difficulty also
vanishes upon reflection-for, in the first place, we are
not bound to suppose the fathers of our race early
attaining to great proficiency in language, and, in the
second, language itself seems to be amongst the things
least difficult to be acquired, if we can form any judgment from what we see in children, most of whom have,
by three years of age, while their information and judgment are still as nothing, mastered and familiarised
themselves with a quantity of words, infinitely exceeding




232            VESTIGES OF THE
in proportion what they acquire in the course of any
subsequent similar portion of time.
Discussions as to which parts of speech were first
formed, and the processes by which grammatical structure and inflections took their rise, appear in a great
measure needless, after the matter has been placed in
this light. The mental powers could readily connect
particular arbitrary sounds with particular ideas, whether
those ideas were nouns, verbs, or interjections. As the
words of all languages can be traced back into roots which
are monosyllables, we may presume these sounds to have
all been monosyllabic accordingly. The clustering of
two or more together to express a compound idea, and
the formation of inflections by additional syllables expressive of pronouns and such prepositions as of, by, and to,
are processes which would or might occur as matters of
course, being simple results of a mental power called into
action, and partly directed, by external necessities. This
power, however, as we find it in very different degrees of
endowment in individuals, so would it be in different
degrees of endowment in nations, or branches of the
human family. Hence we find the formation of words
and the process of their composition and grammatical
arrangement, in very different stages of development in
different races. The Chinese have a language composed
of a limited number of monosyllables, which they multiply in use by mere variations of accent, and which they
have never yet attained the power of clustering or
inflecting; the language of this immense nation-the
third part of'the human race-may be said to be in the
condition of infancy.  The aboriginal Americans, so
inferior in civilisation, have, on the other hand, a language of the most elaborately composite kind, perhaps
even exceeding, in this respect, the languages of the




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             233
most refined European nations. These are but a few
out of many facts tending to show that language is in a
great measure independent of civilisation, as far as its
advance and development are concerned. Do they not
also help to prove that cultivated intellect is not necessary
for the origination of language?
Facts daily presented to our observation afford equally
simple reasons for the almost infinite diversification of
language. It is invariably found that, wherever society
is at once dense and refined, language tends to be uniform throughout the whole population, and to undergo
few changes in the course of time. Wherever, on the
contrary, we have a scattered and barbarous people, we
have great diversities, and comparatively rapid alterations of language. Insomuch that, while English, French
and German are each spoken with little variation by
many millions, there are islands in the Indian Archipelago, probably not inhabited by one million, but in
which there are hundreds of languages, as diverse as are
English, French, and German. It is easy to see how
this should be.  There are peculiarites in the vocal
organisation of every person, tending to produce peculiarities of pronunciation; for example, it has been stated
that each child in a family of six gave the monosyllable,
fly, in a different manner (eye, fy, ly, &c.), until, when
the organs were more advanced, correct example induced
the proper pronunciation of this and similar words.
Such departures from orthoepy are only to be checked
by the power of such example; but this is a power not
always present, or not always of sufficient strength.
The able and self-devoted Robert Moffat, in his work on
South Africa, states, without the least regard to hypothesis, that amongst the people of the towns of that great
region, "the purity and harmony of language is kept up




"P3 4


"RES7TGES OF THE


by their pitchos or public meetings, by their festivals
and ceremonies, as well as by their songs and their
constant intercourse. With the isolated villages of the
desert, it is far otherwise. They have no such meetings;
they are compelled to traverse the wilds, often to a great
distance from their native village. On such occasions,
fathers and mothers, and all who can bear a burden,
often set out for weeks at a time, and leave their children to the care of two or three infirm old people. The
infant progeny, some of whom are beginning to lisp,
while others can just master a whole sentence, and
those still farther advanced, romping and playing
together, the children of nature through the livelong
day, become habituated to a language of their own. The
more voluble condescend to the less precocious, and thus,
from this infant Babel, proceeds a dialect composed of a
host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together without rule, and in the course of a generation the entire
character of the language is changed."*   I have been
told, that in like manner the children of the Manchester
factory workers, left for a great part of the day, in
large assemblages, under the care of perhaps a single
elderly person, and spending the time in amusements,
are found to make a great deal of new language. I have
seen children in other circumstances amuse themselves
by concocting and throwing into the family circulation
entirely new words; and I believe I am running little
risk of contradiction when I say that there is scarcely a
family, even amongst the middle classes of this country,
who have not some peculiarities of pronunciation and
syntax, which have originated amongst themselves, it is
hardly possible to say how. All these things being considered, it is easy to understand how mankind have
"* Missionary Scenes and Labours in South Africa."




XNATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             235
come at length to possess between three and four thousand languages, all different at least as much as French,
German, and English, though, as has been shown, the
traces of a common origin are observable in them all.
What has been said on the question whether mankind
were originally barbarous or civilised, will have prepared
the reader for understanding how the arts and sciences,
and the rudiments of civilisation itself, took their rise
amongst men. The only source of fallacious views on
this subject is the so frequent observation of arts,
sciences, and social modes, forms, and ideas, being not
indigenous where we see them now flourishing, but
known to have been derived elsewhere: thus Rome
borrowed from Greeee, Greece from Egypt, and Egypt
itself, lost in the mists of historic antiquity, is now supposed to have obtained the light of knowledge from some
still earlier scene of intellectual culture. This has caused
to many a great difficulty in supposing a natural or
spontaneous origin for civilisation and the attendant
arts. But, in the first place, several stages of derivation
are no conclusive argument against there having been
an originality at some earlier stage. In the second, such
observers have not looked far enough, for, if they had,
they could have seen various instances of civilisations
which it is impossible, with any plausibility, to trace
back to a common origin with others; such are those of
China and America. They would also have seen civilisation springing up, as it were, like oases amongst the
arid plains of barbarism, as in the case of the Mandans.
A still more attentive study of the subject would have
shown, amongst living men, the, very psychological procedure on which the origination of civilisation and the
arts and sciences depended.
These things, like language, are simply the effects of




236


VESTIGES OF THE


the spontaneous working of certain mental faculties, each
in relation to the things of the external world on which
it was intended by creative Providence to be exercised.
The monkeys themselves, without instruction from any
quarter, learn to use sticks in fighting, and some build
houses-an act which cannot in their case be considered
as one of instinct, but of intelligence. Such being the
case, there is no necessary difficulty in supposing how
man, with his superior mental organisation (a brain five
times heavier), was able, in his primitive state, without
instruction, to turn many things in nature to his use,
and commence, in short, the circle of the domestic arts.
He appears, in the most unfavourable circumstances, to
be able to provide himself with some sort of dwelling, to
make weapons and to practise some simple kind of
cookery. But, granting, it will be said, that he can go
thus far, how does he ever proceed farther unprompted,
seeing that many nations remain fixed for ever at this
point, and seem unable to take one step in advance? It
is perfectly true that there is such a fixation in many
nations; but, on the other hand, all nations are not alike
in mental organisation, and another point has been
established, that only when some favourable circumstances have settled a people in one place, do arts and
social arrangements get leave to flourish. If we were
to limit our view to humbly endowed nations, or the
common class of minds in those called civilised, we should
see absolutely no conceivable power for the origination
of new ideas and devices. But let us look at the inventive class of minds which stand out amongst their
fellows-the men who, with little prompting or none,
conceive new ideas in science, arts" morals-and
we can be at no loss to understand how and whence
have arisen the elements of that civilisation which history




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.            237
traces from country to country throughout the course of
centuries. See a Pascal, reproducing the Alexandrian's
problems at fifteen; a Ferguson, making clocks from the
suggestions of his own brain, while tending cattle on a
Morayshire heath; a boy Lawrence, in an inn on the
Bath road, producing, without a master, drawings which
the educated could not but admire; or look at Solon and
Confucius, devising sage laws, and breathing the accents
of all but divine wisdom, for their barbarous fellowcountrymen, three thousand years ago-and the whole
mystery is solved at once. Amongst the arrangements
of Providence is one for the production of original, inventive, and aspiring minds, which, when circumstances
are not decidedly unfavourable, strike out new ideas for
the benefit of their fellow-creatures, or put upon them
a lasting impress of their own superior sentiments.
Nations, improved by these means, become in turnfoci
for the diffusion of light over the adjacent regions of
barbarism-their very passions helping to this end, for
nothing can be more clear than that ambitious aggression
has led to the civilisation of many countries. Such is
the process which seems to form the destined means for
bringing mankind from the darkness of barbarism to the
day of knowledge and mechanical and social improvement. Even the noble art of letters is but, as Dr. Adam
Fergusson has remarked, "a natural produce of the
human mind, which will rise spontaneously, wherever
men are happily placed;" original alike amongst the
ancient Egyptians and the dimly monumented Toltecans
of Yucatan. "Banish," says Dr. Gall, "music, poetry,
painting, sculpture, architecture, all the arts and sciences,
and let your Homers, Raphaels, Michael Angelos, Glucks,
and Canovas, be forgotten, yet let men of genius of every
description spring up, and poetry, music, painting, archi



238   NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATIOA.
tecture, sculpture, and all the arts and sciences, will again
shine out in all their glory. Twice within the records of
history has the human race traversed the great circle of
its entire destiny, and twice has the rudeness of barbarism been followed by a higher degree of refinement.
It is a great mistake to suppose one people to have proceeded from another on account of their conformity of
manners, customs, and arts. The swallow of Paris builds
its nest like the swallow of Vienna, but does it thence
follow that the former sprung from the latter? With
the same causes we have the same effects; with the same
organisation we have the manifestation of the same
powers."




(      39       )


MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.
IT has been one of the most agreeable tasks of modern
science to trace the wonderfully exact adaptations of the
organisation of animals to the physical circumstances
amidst which they are destined to live. From the mandibles of insects to the hand of man, all is seen to be in
the most harmonious relation to the things of the outward world, thus clearly proving that design presided
in the creation of the whole-design again implying a
designer, another word for a CREATOR.
It would be tiresome to present in this place even a
selection of the proofs which have been adduced on this
point.  The "Natural Theology" of Paley, and the
"Bridgewater Treatises," place the subject in so clear
a light, that the general postulate may be taken for
granted. The physical constitution of animals is, then,
to be regarded as in the nicest congruity and adaptation
to the external world.
Less clear ideas have hitherto been entertained on the
mental constitution of animals. The very nature of this
constitution is not as yet generally known or held as
ascertained. There is, indeed, a notion of old standing,
that the mind is in some way connected with the brain.
but the metaphysicians insist that it is, in reality, known
only by its acts or effects, and they accordingly present
the subject in a form which is unlike any other kind of




240


VESTIGES OF THE


science, for it does not so much as pretend to have nature
for its basis. There is a general disinclination to regard
mind in connexion with organisation, from a fear that this
must needs interfere with the cherished religious doctrine
of the spirit of man, and lower him to the level of the
brutes. A distinction is therefore drawn between our
mental manifestations and those of the lower animals,
the latter being comprehended under the term instinct,
while ours are collectively described as mind, mind being
again a received synonyme with soul, the immortal part
of man. There is here a strange system of confusion and
error, which it is most imprudent to regard as essential
to religion, since candid investigations of nature tend
to show its untenableness.    There is, in reality, nothing
to prevent our regarding man as specially endowed with
an immortal spirit, at the same time that his ordinary
mental manifestations are looked upon as simple phenomena resulting from organisation, those of the lower
animals being phenomena absolutely the same in character, though developed within narrower limits.*
* " Is not God the first cause of matter as well as of mind? Do
not the first attributes of matter lie as inscrutable in the bosom of
God-of its first author-as those of mind? Has not even matter
confessedly received from God the power of experiencing, in consequence of impressions from the earlier modifications of matter, certain
consciousnesses called sensations of the same? Is not, therefore, the
wonder of matter also receiving the consciousnesses of other matter
called ideas of the mind, a wonder more flowing out of and in analogy
with all former wonders, than would be, on the contrary, the wonder
of this faculty of the mind not flowing out of any faculties of matter?
Is it not a wonder which, so far from destroying our hopes of immortality, can establish that doctrine on a train of inferences and
inductions more firmly established and more connected with each
other than the former belief can be, as soon as we have proved that
matter is not perishable, but is only liable to successive combinations
and decombinations?
" Can we look farther back one way into the first origin of matter




NATURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TON. 241
What has chiefly tended to take mind, in the eyes of
learned and unlearned, out of the range of nature, is
its apparently irregular and wayward character. How
different the manifestations in different beings! how
unstable in all!-at one time so calm, at another so wild
than we can look forward the other way into the last developments of
mind? Can we say that God has not in matter itself laid the seeds
of every faculty of mind, rather than that he has made the first principle of mind entirely distinct from that of matter? Cannot the first
cause of all we see and know have fraught matter itself, from its
very beginning, with all the attributes necessary to develop into mind,
as well as he can have from the first made the attributes of mind
wholly different from those of matter, only in order afterwards, by an
imperceptible and incomprehensible link, to join the two together?
" * * [The decombination of the matter on which mind rests]
is this a reason why mind must be annihilated? Is the temporary
reverting of the mind, and of the sense out of which that mind
develops, to their original component elements, a reason for thinking
that they cannot again at another later period and in another higher
globe, be again recombined, and with more splendour than before?
* * The New Testament does not after death here promise us a
soul hereafter unconnected with matter, and which has no connexion
with our present mind-a soul independent of time and space. That
is a fanciful idea, not founded on its expressions, when taken in their
just and real meaning. On the contrary, it promises us a mind like
the present, founded on time and space; since it is, like the present,
to hold a certain situation in time, and a certain locality in space:
but it promises a mind situated in portions of time and of space
different from the present; a mind composed of elements of matter
more extended, more perfect, and more glorious: a mind whi.ch,
formed of materials supplied by different globes, is consequently able
to see farther into the past, and to think farther into the future, than
any mind here existing: a mind which, freed from the partial and
uneven combination incidental to it on this globe, will be exempt
from the changes for evil to which, on the present globe, mind as
well as matter is liable, and will only thenceforth experience the
changes for the better which matter, more justly poised, will alone
continue to experience: a mind which, no longer fearing the death,
the total decomposition, to which it is subject on this globe, will
thenceforth continue last and immortal.".-HOPE, On the Origin and
Prospects of Man, 183I,




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YVESTIGES OF THE


and impulsive! It seemed impossible that anything so
subtle and aberrant could be part of a system, the main
features of which are regularity and precision. But the
irregularity of mental phenomena is only in appearance.
When we give up the individual, and take the mass, we
find as much uniformity of result as in any other class of
natural phenomena. The irregularity is exactly of the
same kind as that of the weather. No man can say what
may be the weather of to-morrow; but the quantity of
rain which falls in any particular place in any five years,
is precisely the same as the quantity which falls in
any other five years at the same place. Thus, while it
is absolutely impossible to predict of any one Frenchman that during next year he will commit a crime, it is
quite certain that about one in every six hundred and
fifty of the French people will do so, because in past
years the proportion has generally been about that
amount, the tendencies to crime in relation to the temptations being everywhere invariable over a sufficiently wide
range of time. So also, the number of persons taken in
charge by the police in London for being drunk and disorderly in the streets is, week by week, a nearly uniform
quantity, showing that the inclination to drink to excess
is always in the mass about the same, regard being had
to the existing temptations or. stimulations to this vice.
Even mistakes and oversights are of regular recurrence,
for it is found in the post-offices of large cities, that the
number of letters put in without addresses is year by
year the same. Statistics has made out an equally distinct regularity in a wide range, with regard to many
other things concerning the mind, and the doctrine
founded upon it has lately produced a scheme which may
well strike the ignorant with surprise. It was proposed
to establish in London a society for ensuring the integrity




-,:~i ~,  i,,
NATURAL HISTORYOF CREATION.              243
of clerks, secretaries, collectors, and all such functionaries
as are usually obliged to find security for money passing
through their hands in the course of business. A gentleman of the highest character as an actuary spoke of the
plan in the following terms:-" If a thousand bankers'
clerks were to club together to indemnify their securities,
by the payment of one pound a year each, and if each
had given security for /500, it is obvious that two in
each year might become defaulters to that amount, four.
to half the amount, and so on, without rendering the
guarantee fund insolvent. If it be tolerably well ascertained that the instances of dishonesty (yearly) among
such persons amount to one in five hundred, this club
would continue to exist, subject to being in debt in a bad
year, to an amount which it would be able to discharge
in good ones. The only question necessary to be asked
previous to the formation of such a club would be-may
it not be feared that the motive to resist dishonesty would
be lessened by the existence of the club, or that readymade rogues, by belonging to it, might find the means of
obtaining situations which they would otherwise have
been kept out of by the impossibility of obtaining security
among those who know them      Suppose this be sufficiently answered by saying, that none but those who
could bring satisfactory testimony to their previous good
character should be allowed to join the club.; that persons who may now hope that a deficiency on their parts
will be made up and hushed up by the relative or friend
who is security, will know very well that the club will
have no motive to decline a prosecution, or to keep the
secret, and so on. It then only remains to ask, whether
the sum demanded for the guarantee is sufficient?" 3
* Dublin Review, Aug. I840. The Guarantee Society has since been
established, and is likely to become a useful and prosperous institution.




244


VESTIGES OF THE


The philosophical principle on which the scheme proceeds
seems to be simply this, that amongst a given (large)
number of persons of good character, there will be, within
a year or other considerable space of time, a determinate
number of instances in which moral principle and the
terror of the consequences of guilt will be overcome by
temptations of a determinate kind and amount, and thus
occasion a certain periodical amount of loss which the
association must make up.
This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is
now seen to be an enigma only as an individual; in the
mass he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly necessary to say, much less to argue, that mental action, being
proved to be under law, passes at once into the category
of natural things. Its old metaphysical character vanishes
in a moment, and the distinction usually taken between
physical and moral is annulled. This view agrees with
what all observation teaches, that mental phenomena
flow directly from the brain. They are seen to be dependent on naturally constituted and naturally conditioned
organs, and thus obedient, like all other organic phenomena, to law. And how wondrous must the constitution of this apparatus be, which gives us conciousness of
thought and of affection, which makes us familiar with
the numberless things of earth, and enables us to rise in
conception and communion to the councils of God himself!
It is matter which forms the medium or instrument-a
little mass which, decomposed, is but so much common
dust; yet in its living constitution, designed, formed and
sustained by Almighty Wisdom, how admirable its character! how reflective of the unutterable depths of that
Power by which it was so formed, and is so sustained!
In the mundane economy, mental action takes its place




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 245
as a means of providing for the independent existence
and the various relations of animals, each species being
furnished according to its special necessities, and the
demands of its various relations. The nervous systemthe more comprehensive term for its organic apparatusis variously developed in different classes and species,
and also in different individuals, the volume or mass
bearing a general relation to the amount of power.
Passing over the humblest orders, where nervous apparatus is so obscure as hardly to be traceable, we see it in
the nematoneura of Owen * in filaments and nuclei, the
mere rudiments of the system.    In the articulata, it is
advanced to a double nervous cord, with ganglia or little
masses of nervous matter at frequent intervals, and filaments branching out towards each side; the ganglia near
the head being apparently those which send out nerves
to the organs of the senses; and this arrangement is only
less symmetrical in the mollusca. Ascending to the vertebrata, we find a spinal cord, with a brain at the upper
extremity, and numerous branching lines of nervous
tissue,t an organisation strikingly superior; yet here,
as in the general structure of animals, the great principle
of unity is observed. The brain of the vertebrata is
merely an expansion of the anterior pair of the ganglia
of the articulata, or these ganglia may be regarded as the
rudiment of a brain, the superior organ thus appearing
as only a farther development of the inferior. There are
many facts which tend to prove that the action of this
apparatus is of an electric nature, a modification of that
* Including rotifera, entozoa, echinodermata, &c.
+ The ray, which is considered the lowest in the scale of fishes, or
next to the crustaceans, gives the first faint representation of a brain
in certain scanty and medullary masses, which appear as merely
composed of enlarged origins of the nerves.




246


VESTIGES OF THE


surprising agent, which takes magnetism, heat, and light,
as other subordinate forms, and of whose general scope
in this great system of things we are only beginning to
have a right conception. It has been found that simple
electricity, artificially produced, and sent along the nerves
of a dead body, excites muscular action. The brain of a
newly killed animal being taken out, and replaced by a
substance which produces electric action, the operation
of digestion, which had been interrupted by the death of
the animal, was resumed, showing the absolute identity
of the brain with a galvanic battery.     Nor is this a
very startling idea, when we reflect that electricity is
almost as metaphysical as ever mind was supposed to be.
It is a thing perfectly intangible, weightless.  MXetal
may be magnetised, or heated to seven hundred of Fahrenheit, without becoming the hundredth part of a grain
heavier. And yet electricity is a real thing, an actual
existence in nature, as witness the effects of heat and
light in vegetation-the power of the galvanic current
to re-assemble the particles of copper from a solution,
and make them    again into a solid plate-the rending
force of the thunderbolt as it strikes the oak. See also
how both heat and light observe the angle of incidence
in reflection, as exactly as does the grossest stone thrown
obliquely against a wall. So mental action may be imponderable, intangible, and yet a real existence, and
ruled by the Eternal through his laws.*
* If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of thought
-that is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and willmay be presumed to have been brought to an exact measurement.
The speed of light has long been known to be about 192,000 miles
per second, and the experiments of Wheatstone have shown that the
electric agent travels (if I may so speak) at the same rate, thus
showing a likelihood that one law rules the movements of all the
" imponderable bodies."  Mental action may accordingly be pre



NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 247
Common observation shows a great general superiority
of the human mind over that of the inferior animals.
Man's mind is almost infinite in device; it ranges over
all the world; it forms the most wonderful combinations;
it seeks back into the past, and stretches forward into
the future; while the. animals generally appear to have
a narrow range of thought and action. But so also has
an infant but a limited range, and yet it is mind which
works there, as well as in the most accomplished adults.
The difference beiween mind in the lower animals and in
man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific
difference.  All who have studied animals by actual
observation, and even those who have given a candid
attention to the subject in books, must attain more or
less clear convictions of this truth, notwithstanding all
the obscurity which prejudice may have engendered.
We see animals capable of affection, jealousy, envy; we
see them quarrel, and conduct quarrels in the very
manner pursued by the ruder and less educated of our
own race. We see them liable to flattery, inflated with
pride, and dejected by shame. We see them as tender
to their young as human parents are, and as faithful to
a trust as the most conscientious of human servants.
The horse is startled by marvellous objects, as a man is.
The dog and many others show tenacious memory. The
dog also proves himself possessed of imagination, by the
act of dreaming. Horses, finding themselves in want of
a shoe, have of their own accord gone to a farrier's shop
where they were shod before. Cats, closed up in rooms,
sumed to have a rapidity equal to one hundred and ninety-two
thousand miles in the second-a rate evidently far beyond what is
necessary to make the design and execution of any of our ordinary
muscular movements apparently identical in point of time, which
they are.




248


VESTIGES OF THE


will endeavour to obtain their liberation by pulling a
latch or ringing a bell. It has several times been observed
that in a field of cattle, when one or two were mischievous,
and persisted long in annoying or tyrannizing over the
rest, the herd, to all appearance, consulted, and then,
making a united effort drove the troublers off the ground.
The members of a rookery have also been observed to
take turns in supplying the needs of a family reduced to
orphanhood.  All of these are acts of reason, in no
respect different from similar acts of men. Moreover,
although there is no heritage of accumulated knowledge
amongst the lower animals, as there is amongst us, they
are in some degree susceptible of those modifications of
natural character, and capable of those accomplishments,
which we call education. The taming and domestication
of animals, and the changes thus produced upon their
nature in the course of generations, are results identical
with civilisation amongst ourselves; and the quiet, servile
steer is probably as unlike the original wild cattle of this
country, as the English gentleman of the present day is
unlike the rude baron of the age of King John. Between
a young, unbroken horse, and a trained one, there is,
again, all the difference which exists between a wild
youth reared at his own discretion in the country, and
the same person when he has been toned down by long
exposure to the influences of refined society. On the
accomplishments acquired by animals it were superfluous
to enter at any length; but I may advert to the dogs of
M. Leonard, as remarkable examples of what the animal
intellect may be trained to. When four pieces of card
are laid down before them, each having a number pronounced once in connexion with it, they will, after a
re-arrangement of the pieces, select any one named by
its number. They also play at dominoes, and with so




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             249
much skill as to triumph over biped opponents, whining
if the adversary plays a wrong piece, or if they themselves be deficient in a right one.  Of extensive coinbinations of thought we have no reason to believe that
any animal is capable-and yet most of us must feel the
force of Walter Scott's remark, that there was scarcely
anything which lie would not believe of a dog. There
is a curious result of education in certain animalsnamely, that habits to which they have been trained in
some instances become hereditary.  For example, the
accomplishment of pointing at game, although a pure
result of education, appears in the young pups brought
up apart from their parents and kind. The peculiar leap
of the Irish horse, acquired in the course of traversing
a boggy country, is continued in the progeny brought up
in England. This hereditariness of specific habits suggests a relation to that form of psychological demonstration usually called instinct; but instinct is only another
term for mind, or is mind in a peculiar stage of development; and though the fact were otherwise, it could not
affect the postulate, that demonstrations such as have
been enumerated are mainly intellectual demonstrations,
not to be distinguished as such from those of human
beings.
More than this, the lower animals manifested mental
phenomena long before man existed. While as yet there
was no brain capable of working out a mathematical
problem, the economy of the six-sided figure was
exemplified by the instinct of the bee. Ere human
musician had whistled or piped, the owl hooted in B flat,
the cuckoo had her song of a falling third, and the chirp
of the cricket was in B. The dog and the elephant
pre-figured the sagacity of the human mind. The love of
a human mother for her babe was anticipated by nearly




25'0


VESTIGES OF THE


every humbler mammal, the carnaria not excepted. The
peacock strutted, the turkey blustered, and the cock
fought for victory, just as human beings afterwards did,
and still do. Our faculty of imitation, on which so much
of our amusement depends, was exercised by the mockingbird; and the whole tribe of monkeys must have walked
about the pre-human world, playing off those tricks in
which we see the comicality and mischief-making of our
character so curiously exaggerated.
The unity and simplicity which characterise nature
give great antecedent probability to what observation
seems about to establish, that, as the brain of the
vetebrata generally is just an advanced condition of a
particular ganglion in the mollusca and crustacea, so are
the brains of the higher and more intelligent mammalia,
only farther developments of the brains of the inferior
orders of the same class. Or, to the same purpose, it
may be said, that each species has certain superior
developments, according to its needs, while others are
in a rudimental or repressed state. This will more
clearly appear after some inquiry has been made into the
various powers comprehended under the term mind.
One of the first and simplest functions of mind is to
give consciousness-consciousness of our identity and of
our existence.  This, apparently, is independent of the
senses, which are simply media, and, as Locke has shown,
the only media, through which ideas respecting the external world reach the brain.  The access of such ideas
to the brain is the act to which the metaphysicians
have given the name of perception. Gall, however, has
shown, by induction from a vast number of actual cases,
that there is a part of the brain devoted to perception,
and that even this is subdivided into portions which are
respectively dedicated to the reception of different sets of




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.                 251
ideas, as those of form, size, colour, weight, objects in
their totality, events in their progress or occurrence,
time, musical sounds, &c. The system of mind invented
by this philosopher-the only one founded upon nature,
or which even pretends to or admits of that necessary
basis-shows a portion of the brain acting as a faculty of
comic ideas, another of imitation, another of wonder, one
for discriminating or observing differences, and another
in which resides the power of tracing effects to causes.
There are also parts of the brain for the sentimental part
of our nature, or the affections, at the head of which
stand the moral feelings of benevolence, conscientiousness, and veneration. Through these, man stands in
relation to himself, his fellow-men, the external world,
and his God; and through these comes most of the happiness of man's life, as well as that which he derives from
the contemplation of the world to come, and the cultivation of his relation to it (pure religion). The other sentiments may be briefly enumerated, their names being
sufficient in general to denote their functions-firmness, hope, cautiousness, self-esteem, love of approbation,
secretiveness, marvellousness, constructiveness, imitation,
combativeness, destructiveness, concentrativeness, adhesiveness, love of the opposite sex, love of offspring,
alimentiveness, and love of life. Through these faculties, man is connected with the external world, and
supplied with active impulses to maintain his place in it
as an individual and as a species. There is also a faculty
(language) for expressing, by whatever means (signs,
gestures, looks, conventional terms in speech), the ideas
which arise in the mind. There is a particular state of
each of these faculties, when the ideas of objects once
formed by it are revived or reproduced, a process which
seems to be intimately allied with some of the pheno



2 52


VESTIGES OF THE


mena of the new science of photography, when images
impressed by reflection of the sun's rays upon sensitive
paper are, after a temporary obliteration, resuscitated on
the sheet being exposed to the fumes of mercury. Such
are the phenomena of memory, that handmaid of intellect, without which there could be no accumulation of
mental capital, but an universal and continual infancy.
Conception and imagination appear to be only intensities,
so to speak, of the state of brain in which memory isproduced. On their promptness and power depend most
of the exertions which distinguish the man of arts and
letters, and even in no small measure the cultivator of
science.
The faculties above described- the actual elements of
the mental constitution-are seen in mature man in an
indefinite potentiality and range of action. It is different
with the lower animals. They are there comparatively
definite in their power and restricted in their application.
The reader is familiar with what are called instincts in
some of the humbler species, that is, an uniform and unprompted tendency towards certain particular acts, as
the building of cells by the bee, the storing of provisions
by that insect and several others, and the construction
of nests for a coming progeny by birds. This quality is
nothing more than a mode of operation peculiar to the
faculties in a humble state of endowment, or early stage of
development. The cell formation of the bee, the housebuilding of ants and beavers, the web-spinning of spiders,
are but primitive exercises of constructiveness, the faculty
which, indefinite with us, leads to the arts of the weaver,
upholsterer, architect, and mechanist, and makes us often
work delightedly where our labours are in -vain, or nearly
so. The storing of provisions by the ants is an exercise




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.             253
of acquisitiveness-the faculty which with us makes rich
men and misers. A vast number of curious devices, by
which insects provide for the protection and subsistence
of their young, whom they are perhaps never to see, are
most probably a peculiar restricted effort of philoprogenitiveness. The common source of this class of acts,
and of common mental operations, is shown very convincingly by the melting of the one set into the other.
Thus, for example, the bee and bird will make modifications in the ordinary form of their cells and nests when
necessity compels them. Thus, the alimentiveness of
such animals as the dog, usually definite with regard to
quantity and quality, can be pampered or educated up to
a kind of epicurism, that is, an indefiniteness of object
and action. The same faculty acts limitedly in ourselves
at first, dictating the special act of sucking; afterwards
it acquires indefiniteness. Such is the real nature of the
distinction between what are called instincts and reason,
upon which so many volumes have been written without
profit to the world. All faculties are instinctive, that is,
dependent on internal and inherent impulses.    This
term is therefore not specially applicable to either of the
recognised modes of the operation of the faculties. We
only, in the one case, see the faculty in an immature
and slightly developed state; in the other, in its most
advanced condition. In the one case it is definite, in the
other indefinite, in its range of action. These terms
would perhaps be the most suitable for expressing the
distinction.
In the humblest forms of being we can trace scarcely
anything besides a definite action in a few of the faculties. Generally speaking, as we ascend in the scale, we
see more and more of the faculties in exercise, and these




254


VESTIGES OF THE


tending more to the indefinite mode of manifestation.
And for this there is the obvious reason in providence,
that the lowest animals have all of them a very limited
sphere of existence, born only to perform a few functions,
and enjoy a brief term of life, and then give way to
another generation, so that they do not need much
-mental guidance. At higher points in the scale, the
sphere of existence is considerably extended, and the
mental operations are less definite accordingly. The
horse, dog, and a few other rasorial types, noted for
their serviceableness to our race, have the indefinite
powers in no small endowment. Man, again, shows
very little of the definite mode of operation, and that
little chiefly in childhood, or in barbarism or idiocy.
Destined for a wide field of action, and to be applicable
to infinitely varied contingencies, he has all the faculties
developed to a high pitch of indefiniteness, that he may
be ready to act well in all imaginable cases. His commission, it may be said, gives large discretionary powers,
while that of the inferior animals is limited to a few
precise directions. But when the human brain is congenitally imperfect or diseased, or when it is in the state
of infancy, we see in it an approach towards the character of the brains of some of the inferior animals.  Dr.
J. G. Davey states that he has frequently witnessed,
among his patients at the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum,
indications of a particular abnormal cerebration which
forcibly reminded him of the specific healthy characteristics of animals lower in the scale of organisation; * and
every one must have observed how often the actions of
children, especially in their moments of play, and where
their selfish feelings are concerned, bear a resemblance
* Phrenological Journal, xv. 338.




NA TURA L HIS TORY OF CREA TJON.           255
to those of certain familiar animals.* Behold, then, the
wonderful unity of the whole system. The grades of
mind, like the forms of being, are mere stages of development. In the humbler forms, but a few of the mental
faculties are traceable, just as we see in them but a few
of the lineaments of universal structure. In man the
system has arrived at its highest condition. The few
gleams of reason, then, which we see in the lower animals,
are precisely analogous to such a development of the forearm as we find in the paddle of the whale. Causality,
comparison, and other of the nobler faculties, are in them
rudimrental.
Bound up as we thus are by an identity in the character
of our mental organisation with the lower animals, we
are yet, it will be observed, strikingly distinguished from
them by this great advance in development. We have
faculties in full force and activity which the animals
either possess not at all, or in so low and obscure a form
as to be equivalent to non-existence. Now these parts
of mind are those which connect us with the things that
are not of this world. We have veneration, prompting
us to the worship of the Deity, which the animals lack.
We have hope, to carry us on in thought beyond the
bounds of time. We have reason, to enable us to inquire
into the character of the Great Father, and the relation
of us, his humble creatures, towards him. We have
conscientiousness and benevolence, by which we can in a
faint and humble measure imitate, in our conduct, that
which he exemplifies in the whole of his wondrous doings.
* A pampered lap-dog, living where there is another of its own
species, will hidQ any nice morsel which it cannot eat, under a rug,
or in some other by-place, designing to enjoy it afterwards. I have
seen children do the same thing.




256


VESTIGES OF THE


Beyond this, mental science does not carry us in support
of religion: the rest depends on evidence of a different
kind. But it is surely much that we thus discover in
nature a provision for things so important. The existence
of faculties having a regard to such things is a good
evidence that such things exist. The face of God is reflected in the organisation of man, as a little pool reflects
the glorious sun.
The affective or sentimental faculties are all of them
liable to operate whenever appropriate objects or stimuli
are presented, and this they do as irresistibly and unerringly as the tree sucks up moisture which it requires,
with only this exception, that one faculty often interferes
with the action of another, and operates instead by force
of superior inherent strength or temporary activity. For
example, alimentiveness may be in powerful operation
with regard to its appropriate object, producing a keen
appetite, and yet it may not act, in consequence of the
more powerful operation of cautiousness, warning against
evil consequences likely to ensue from the desired indulgence. This liability to flit from under the control of
one feeling to the control of another, constitutes what is
recognised as free-will in man, being nothing more than
a vicissitude in the supremacy of the faculties over each
other.
It is a common mistake to suppose that the individuals
of our own species are all of them formed with similar
faculties-similar in power and tendency-and that
education and the influence of circumstances produce all
the differences which we observe. There is not, in the
old systems of mental philosophy, any doctrine more
opposite to the truth than this. It is refuted at once by
the great differences of intellectual tendency and moral
disposition to be observed amongst a group of young




NATURAI HISTOR Y OF CREATION.             257
children who have been all brought up in circumstances
perfectly identical-even in twins, who have never been
but in one place, under the charge of one nurse, attended
to alike in all respects. The mental characters of individuals are inherently various, as the forms of their persons and the features of their faces are; and education
and circumstances, though their influence is not to be
despised, are incapable of entirely altering these characters, where they are strongly developed. That the
original characters of mind are dependent on the volume
of particular parts of the brain and the general quality of
that viscus, is proved by induction from an extensive
range of observations, the force of which must have been
long since universally acknowledged but for the unpreparedness of mankind to admit a functional connexion
between mind and body. The different mental characters of individuals may be presumed from analogy to
depend on the same law of development which we have
seen determining forms of being and the mental characters of particular species. This we may conceive as
carrying forward the intellectual powers and moral
dispositions of some to a high pitch, repressing those of
others at a moderate amount, and thus producing all the
varieties which we see in our fellow-creatures. Thus a
Cuvier and a Newton are but expansions of a clown, and
the person emphatically called the wicked man, is one
whose highest moral feelings are rudimental. Such
differences are not confined to our species; they are only
less strongly marked in many of the inferior animals.
There are clever dogs and wicked horses, as well as
clever men and wicked men; and education sharpens the
talents, and in some degree regulates the dispositions of
animals, as it does our own. Here I may advert to a
very interesting analogy between the mental characters
I




258


VESTIGES OF THIF


of the types in the quinary system of zoology and the
characters of individual men. We have seen that the
pre-eminent type is usually endowed with a harmonious
assemblage of the mental qualities belonging to the whole
group, while the sub-typical inclines to ferocity, the
rasorial to gentleness, and so on. Now, amongst individuals, some appear to be almost exclusively of the subtypical, and others of the rasorial character, while to a
limited number is given the finely assorted assemblage
of qualities which places them on a parallel with the
typical. To this may be attributed the universality
which marks all the very highest brains, such as those of
Shakespeare and Scott, men of whom it has been remarked that they must have possessed within themselves
not only the poet, but the warrior, the statesman, and
the philosopher; and who, moreover, appear to have had
the mild and manly, the moral and the forcible parts of
our nature, in the most perfect balance.
There is, nevertheless, a general adaptation of the
mental constitution of man to the circumstances in which
he lives, as there is between all the parts of nature to
each other. The goods of the physical world are only to
be realised by ingenuity and industrious exertion; behold, accordingly, an intellect full of device, and a fabric
of the faculties which would go to pieces or destroy itself
if it were not kept in constant occupation. Nature presents to us much that is sublime and beautiful: behold
faculties which delight in contemplating these properties
of hers, and in rising upon them, as upon wings, to the
presence of the Eternal. It is also a world of difficulties
and perils, and see how a large portion of our species are
endowed with vigorous powers which take a pleasure in
meeting and overcoming difficulty and danger. Even
that principle on which our faculties are constituted-a




NA TURA L HIS TORIY OF CREA TION.        259
wide range of freedom in which to act for all various
occasions-necessitates a resentful faculty, by which individuals may protect themselves from the undue and
capricious exercise of each other's faculties, and thus
preserve their individual rights. So also there is cautiousness, to give us a tendency to provide against the
evils by which we may be assailed; and secretiveness, to
enable us to conceal whatever, being divulged, would
be offensive to others or injurious to ourselves-a
function which obviously has a certain legitimate
range of action, however liable to be abused. The constitution of the mind generally points to a state of intimate relation of individuals towards society, towards
the external world, and towards things above this world.
No individual being is integral or independent; he
is only part of an extensive piece of social mechanism.
The inferior mind, full of rude energy and unregulated
impulse, does not more require a superior nature to act
as its master and its mentor, than does the superior
nature require to be surrounded by such rough elements
on which to exercise its high endowments as a ruling and
tutelary power. This relation of each to each produces
a vast portion of the active business of life. It is easy
to see that, if we were all alike in our moral tendencies,
and all placed on a medium of perfect moderation in this
respect, the world would be a scene of everlasting dulness
and apathy. It requires the variety of individual collstitution to give moral life to the scene.
The indefiniteness of the potentiality of the human
faculties, and the complexity which thus attends their
relations, lead unavoidably to occasional error. If we
consider for a moment that there are not less than thirty
such faculties, that they are each given in different proportions to different persons, that each is at the samie
1 2




260


VESTIGES OF THE


time endowed with a wide discretion as to the force and
frequency of its action, and that our neighbours, the
world, and our connexions with something beyond it, are
all exercising an ever-varying influence over us, we
cannot be surprised at the irregularities attending human
conduct. It is simply the penalty paid for the superior
endowment.   It is here that the imperfection of our
nature resides. Causality and conscientiousness are, it is
true, guides over all; but even these are only faculties
of the same indeterminate constitution as the rest, and
partake accordingly of the same inequality of action.
Man is therefore a piece of mechanism, which never can
act so as to satisfy his own ideas of what he might befor he can imagine a state of moral perfection (as he
can imagine a globe formed of diamonds, pearls, and
rubies), though his constitution forbids him to realise it.
There ever will, in the best disposed and most disciplined
minds, be occasional discrepancies between the amount
of temptation and the power summoned for regulation or
resistance, or between the stimulus and the mobility of
the faculty; and hence those errors, and shortcomings,
and excesses, without end, with which the good are constantly finding cause to charge themselves. There is at
the same time even here a possibility of improvement.
In infancy, the impulses are all of them irregular; a
child is cruel, cunning, and false, under the slightest
temptation, but in time learns to control these inclinations, and to be habitually humane, frank, and truthful.
So is human society, in its earliest stages, sanguinary,
aggressive, and deceitful, but in time becomes just, faithful, and benevolent. To such improvements there is a
natural tendency which will operate in all fair circumstances, though it is not to be expected that irregular and




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              261
undue impulses will ever be altogether banished from the
system.
It may still be a puzzle to many, how beings should
be born into the world whose organisation is such that
they unavoidably, even in a civilised country, become
malefactors. Does God, it may be asked, make criminals? Does hle fashion certain beings with a predestination to evil? He does not do so; and yet the criminal
type of brain, as it is called, comes into existence in
accordance with laws which the Deity has established.
It is not, however, as the result of the first or general
intention of those laws, but as an exception from their
ordinary and proper action. The production of those
evilly disposed beings is in this manner. The moral
character of the progeny depends in a general way (as
does the physical character also) upon conditions of the
parents-both general conditions, and conditions at the
particular time of the commencement of the existence of
the new being, and likewise external conditions affecting
the foetus through the mother. Now the amount of
these conditions is indefinite.  The faculties of the
parents, as far as these are concerned, may have oscillated for the time towards the extreme of tensibility in
one direction. The influences upon the foetus may have
also been of an extreme and unusual kind. Let us suppose that the conditions upon the whole have been favourable for the development, not of the higher, but of the
lower sentiments, and of the propensities of the new
being, the result will necessarily be a mean type of
brain. Here, it will be observed, God no more decreed
an immoral being, than he decreed an immoral paroxysm
of the sentiments. Our perplexity is in considering the
ill-disposed being by himself. He is only a part of a




.62


VESTIGES OF THE


series of phenomena, traceable to a principle good in the
main, but which admits of evil as an exception. We
have seen that it is for wise ends that God leaves our
moral faculties to an indefinite range of action; the
general good results of this arrangement are obvious;
but exceptions of evil ar-inseparable from such a system,
and this is one of them. To come to particular illustration-when a people are oppressed, or kept in a state of
slavery, they invariably contract habits of lying, for the
purpose of deceiving and outwitting their superiors,
falsehood being a refuge of the weak under difficulties.
What is a habit in parents becomes an inherent quality
in children. We are not, therefore, to be surprised when
a traveller tells us that black children in the West Indies
appear to lie by instinct, and never answer a white
person truly, even in the simplest matter. Here we
have secretiveness roused in a people to a state of constant and exalted exercise; an over-tendency of the
nervous energy in that direction is the consequence, and
a new organic condition is established. This tells upon
the progeny, which comes into the world with secretiveness excessive in strength and activity. All other evil
characteristics may be readily conceived as being implanted in a new generation in the same way. And
sometimes not one, but several generations, may be concerned in bringing up the result to a pitch which produces crime. It is, however, to be observed, that the
general tendency of things is to a limitation, not the
extension of such abnormally constituted beings. The
criminal brain finds itself in a social scene where all is
against it. It may struggle on for a time, but the medium
and superior natures are never long at a loss in getting
the better of it. The disposal of such beings will always
depend much on the moral state of a community, the degree




NA T URAL HISTORY OF CREATION.           263
in which just views prevail with regard to human nature.
and the feelings which accident may have caused to
predominate at a particular time. Where the mass was
little enlightened or refined, and terrors for life or
property were highly excited, malefactors have ever
been treated severely. But when order is generally
triumphant, and reason allowed sway, men begin to
see the true case of criminals-namely, that while one
large department are victiis of erroneous social conditions, another are brought to error by tendencies which
they are only unfortunate in having inherited from
nature. Criminal jurisprudence, then, addresses itself
less to the direct punishment than to the reformation
and care-taking of those liable to its attention. And
such a treatment of criminals, it may be farther remarked, so that it stop short of affording any encouragement to crime (a point which experience will determine),
is evidently no more than justice, seeing how accidentally
all forms of the moral constitution are distributed, and
how thoroughly mutual obligation shines throughout the
whole frame of society-the strong to help the weak, the
good to redeem and restrain the bad.
The sum of all we have seen of the psychical constitution of man is, that its Almighty Author has destined
it, like everything else, to be developed from inherent
qualities, and to have a mode of action depending solely
on its own organisation. Thus the whole is complete on
one principle. The masses of space are formed by law;
law makes them in due time theatres of existence for
plants and animals; sensation, disposition, intellect, are
all in like manner developed and sustained in action by
law. It is most interesting to observe into how small a
field the whole of the mysteries of nature thus ultimately
resolve themselves. The inorganic has one final compre



264   NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
hensive law, GRAVITATION. The organic, the other great
department of mundane things, rests in like manner on
one law, and that iS-DEVELOPMENT. Nor may even
these be after all twain, but only branches of one still
more comprehensive law, the expression of that unity
which man's wit can scarcely separate from Deity
itself.




( 265 )


PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION OF
THE ANIMATED CREATION.
WE have now to inquire how this view of the constitution and origin of nature bears upon the condition of
man upon the earth, and his relation to supra-mundane
things.
That enjoyment is the proper attendant of animal
existence is pressed upon us by all that we see and all we
experience. Everywhere we perceive in the lower creatures, in their ordinary condition, symptoms of enjoyment.
Their whole being is a system of needs, the supplying of
which is gratification, and of faculties, the exercise of
which is pleasurable. When we consult our own sensations, we find that, even in a sense of a healthy performance of all the functions of the animal economy, God has
furnished us with an innocent and very high enjoyment.
The mere quiet consciousness of a healthy play of the
mental functions-a mind at ease with itself and all
around it-is in like manner extremely agreeable. This
negative class of enjoyments, it may be remarked, is
likely to be even more extensively experienced by the
lower animals than by man, at least in the proportion of
their absolute endowments, as their mental and bodily
functions are much less liable to 'derangement than ours.
To find the world constituted on this principle is only




266


VESTIGES OF THE


what in reason we would expect. We cannot conceive
that so vast a system could have been created for a
contrary purpose.  No averagely constituted human
being would, in his own limited sphere of action, think
of producing a similar system upon an opposite principle.
But to form so vast a range of being, and to make being
everywhere a source of gratification, is conformable to
our ideas of a Creator in whom we are constantly
discovering traits of a nature, of which our own is but
a faint and far-cast shadow at the best.
It appears at first difficult to reconcile with this idea
the many miseries which we see all sentient beings,
ourselves included, occasionally enduring.  How, the
sage has asked in every age, should a Being so transcendently kind, have allowed of so large an admixture of
evil in the condition of his creatures? Do we not at
length find an answer to a certain extent satisfactory,
in the view which has now been given of the constitution
of nature W We there see the Deity operating in the
most august of his works by fixed laws, an arrangement
which, it is clear, only admits of the main and primary
results being good, but disregards exceptions. Now the
mechanical laws are so definite in their purposes, that no
exceptions ever take place in that department; if there
is a certain quantity of nebulous matter to be agglomerated and divided and set in motion as a planetary
system, it will be so with hair's-breadth accuracy, and
cannot be otherwise.  But the laws presiding over
meteorology, life, and mind, are necessarily less definite,
as they have to produce a great variety of mutually
related results. Left to act independently of each other,
each according to its separate commission, and each with
a wide range of potentiality to be modified by associated




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             267
conditions, they can only have effects generally beneficial.
Often there must be an interference of one law with
another; often a law will chance to operate in excess,
or upon a wrong object, and thus evil will be produced.
Thus, winds are generally useful in many ways, and the
sea is useful as a means of communication between one
country and another; but the natural laws which
produce winds are of indefinite range of action, and
sometimes are unusually concentrated in space or in
time, so as to produce storms and hurricanes, by which
much damage is done; the sea may be by these causes
violently agitated, so that many barks and many lives
perish. Here, it is evident, the evil is only exceptive.
Suppose, again, that a boy, in the course of the lively
sports proper to his age, suffers a fall which injures his
spine, and renders him a cripple for life. Two things
have been' concerned in the case: first, the love of
violent exercise, and second, the law of gravitation.
Both of these things are good in the main. In the rash
enterprises and rough sports in which boys engage, they
are only making the first delightful trials of a bodily and
mental energy which has been bestowed upon them as
necessary for their figuring properly in a scene where
many energies are called for, but where the exertion
of these powers is ever a source of happiness. By
gravitation, all movable things, our own bodies included,
are kept stable on the surface of the earth. But when
it chances that the playful boy loses his hold (we shall
say) of the branch of a tree, and has no solid support
immediately below, the law of gravitation unrelentingly
pulls him to the ground and thus he is hurt. Now it
was not a primary object of gravitation to injure boys;
but gravitation could not but operate in the circum



268


VESTIGES OF THE


stances, its nature being to be universal and invariable.
The evil is, therefore, only a casual exception from something in the main good.
The same explanation applies to even the most conspicuous of the evils which afflict society, War, it may
be said, and said truly, is a tremendous example of evil,
in the misery, hardship, waste of human life, and misspending of human energies, which it occasions. But
what is it that produces war? Certain tendencies of
human nature, as keen assertion of a supposed right,
resentment of supposed injury, acquisitiveness, desire of
admiration, combativeness, or mere love of excitement.
All of these are tendencies which are every day, in a
legitimate extent of action, producing great and indispensable benefits to us. Man would be a tame, indolent,
unserviceable being without them, and his fate would be
starvation. War, then, huge evil though it be, is, after
all, but the exceptive case, a casual misdirection of properties and powers essentially good. God has given us
the tendencies for a benevolent purpose. He has only
not laid down any absolute obstruction to our misuse of
them. That were an arrangement of a kind which be
has nowhere made. But he has established many laws
in our nature which tend to lessen the frequency and
destructiveness of these abuses. Our reason comes to
see that war is purely an evil, even to the conqueror.
Benevolence interposes to make its ravages less mischievous to human comfort, and less destructive to
human life. Men begin to find that their more active
powers can be exercised with equal gratification on
legitimate objects; for example, in overcoming the
natural difficulties of their path through life, or in a
generous spirit of emulation in a line of duty beneficial
to themselves and their fellow-creatures. Thus, war at




NAA TURAL HISTORY OF CREA TION.             269
length shrinks into a comparatively narrow compass,
though there certainly is no reason to suppose that it
will be at any early period, if ever, altogether dispensed
with, while man's constitution remains as it is. In considering an evil of this kind, we must not limit our view
to our own or any past time. Placed upon the earth
with faculties prepared to act, but inexperienced, and
with the more active propensities necessarily in great
force to suit the condition of the globe, man was apt to
misuse his powers much in this way at first, compared
with what he is likely to do when he advances into a
condition of civilisation. In the scheme of providence,
thousands of years of frequent warfare, all the so.called
glories which fill history, may be but a subordinate consideration. The chronology of God is not as our chronology. See the patience of waiting evinced in the slow
development of the animated kingdoms, throughout the
long series of geological ages. Nothing is it to him that
an entire goodly planet should, for an inconceivable
period, have no inhabiting organisms superior to reptiles.
Nothing is it to him that whole astral systems should be
for infinitely longer spaces of time in the nebular embryo, unfit for the reception of one breathing or sentient
being out of the myriad multitudes who are yet to manifest his goodness and his greatness. Progressive, not
instant effect is his sublime rule. What, then, can it be
to him that the human race goes through a career of
impulsive acting for a few thousand years? The cruelties
of ungoverned anger, the tyrannies of the rude and
proud over the humble and good, the martyr's pains,
and the patriot's despair, what are all these but incidents
of an evolution of superior being which has been prearranged and set forward in independent action, free
within a certain limit, but in the main constrained,




2 70


VESTIGES OF THE


through primordial law, to go on ever brightening and
perfecting, yet never, while the present dispensation of
nature shall last, to be quite perfect!
-The sex passion in like manner leads to great evils;
but the evils are only an exception from the vast mass of
good connected with this affection. Providence has seen
it necessary to make very ample provision for the preservation and utmost possible extension of all species.
The aim seems to be to diffuse existence as widely as
possible, to fill up every vacant piece of space with some
sentient being to be a vehicle of enjoyment. Hence this
passion is conferred in great force. But the relation
between the number of beings, and the means of supporting them, is only on the footing of general law. There
may be occasional discrepancies between the laws operating for the multiplication of individuals, and the laws
operating to supply them with the means of subsistence,
and evils will be endured in consequence, even in our
own highly favoured species. But against all these evils,
and against those numberless vexations which have arisen
in all ages from the attachment of the sexes, place the
vast amount of happiness which is derived from this
source-the basis of the whole circle of the domestic
affections, the sweetening principle of life, the prompter
of all our most generous feelings, and even of our most
virtuous resolves and exertions-and every ill that can
be traced to it is but as dust in the balance. And here,
also, we must be on our guard against judging from what
we see in the world at a particular era. As reason and
the higher sentiments of man's nature increase in force,
this passion is put under better regulation, so as to
-lessen many of the evils connected with it. The civilised man is more able to give it due control; his attachments are less the result of impulset; he studies more the




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.              2 71
weal of his partner and offspring. There are even some
of the resentful feelings connected in early society with
love, such as hatred of successful rivalry, and jealousy,
which almost disappear in an advanced state of civilisation. The evils springing, in our own species at least,
from this passion, may therefore be an exception mainly
peculiar to a particular term of the world's progress, and
which may be expected to decrease greatly in amount.
With respect, again, to disease, so prolific a cause of
suffering to man, the human constitution is merely a
complicated but regular process in electro-chemistry,
which goes on well, and is a source of continual gratification, so long as nothing occurs to interfere with it
injuriously, but which is liable every moment to be
deranged by various external agencies, when it becomes
a source of pain, and, if the injury be severe, ceases to be
capable of retaining life. It may be readily admitted
that the evils experienced in this way are very great;
but, after all, such experiences are no more than occasional, and not necessarily frequent-exceptions from a
general rule of which the direct action is to confer
happiness. The human constitution might have been
made of a more hardy character; but we always see
hardiness and insensibility go together, and it may be of
course presumed that we only could have purchased this
immunity from suffering at the expense of a large portion of that delicacy in which lie some of our most
agreeable sensations. Or man's faculties might have
been restricted to definiteness of action, as is greatly the
case with those of the lower animals, and thus we should
have been equally safe from the aberrations which lead
to disease; but in that event we should have been incapable of acting to so many different purposes as we are,
and of the many high enjoyments which the varied




272


VESTIGES OF THE


action of our faculties places in our power: we should
not, in short, have been human beings, but merely on a
level with the inferior animals. Thus, it appears, that
the very fineness of man's constitution, that which places
him in such a high relation to the mundane economy,
and makes him the vehicle of so many exquisitely
delightful sensations-it is this which makes him liable
to the sufferings of disease. It might be said, on the
other hand, that the noxiousness of the agencies producing disease might have been diminished or extinguished;
but the probability is, that this could not have been done
without such a derangement of the whole economy of
nature as would have been attended with more serious
evils. For example -a large class of diseases are the
result of effluvia from decaying organic matter. This
kind of matter is known to be extremely useful, when
mixed with earth, in favouring the process of vegetation.
Supposing the noxiousness to the human constitution
done away with, might we not also lose that important
quality which tends so largely to increase the food raised
from the ground? Perhaps (as has been suggested) the
noxiousness is even a matter of special design, to induce
us to put away decaying organic substances into the
earth, where they are calculated to be so useful. Now
man has reason to enable him to see that such substances
are beneficial under one arrangement, and noxious in the
other. He is, as it were, commanded to take the right
method in dealing with them. In point of fact, men do
not always take this method, but allow accumulations of
noxious matter to gather close about their dwellings,
where they generate fevers and agues. But their doing so
may be regarded as only a temporary exception from the
operation of mental laws, the general tendency of which
is to make men adopt the proper measures. And these




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATIONV.             273
measures will probably be in time universally adopted, so
that one extensive class of diseases will be altogether or
nearly abolished.
Another large class of diseases spring front mismanagement of our personal economy.       Eating to
excess, eating and drinking what is noxious, disregard
t) that cleanliness which is necessary for the right
a tion of the functions of the skin, want of fresh air
for the supply of the lungs, undue, excessive, and
irregular indulgence of the mental affections, are all
of themn recognised modes of creating that derangement
of the system in which disease consists. Here also it
may be said that a limitation of the mental faculties
to definite manifestations (vulgo, instincts) might have
enabled us to avoid many of these errors; but here
again we are met by the consideration that, if we had
been so endowed, we should have been only as the lower
animals are, wanting that transcendently higher character of sensation and power, by which our enjoyments
are made so much greater. In making the desire of
food, for example, with us an indefinite mental manifestation, instead of the definite one, which it mainly is
amongst the lower animals, the Creator has given us
a means of deriving far greater gratifications from food
(consistently with health) than the lower animals
generally appear to be capable of. He has also given us
reason to act as a guiding and controlling power over
this and other propensities, so that they may be prevented from becoming causes of malady. We can see
that excess is injurious, and are thus prompted to
moderation. We can see that all the things which we
feel inclined to take are not healthful, and are thus
exhorted to avoid what are pernicious. We can also
see that a cleanly skin and a constant supply of pure




174


VESTIGES OF THE


air are necessary to the proper performance of some
of the most important of the organic functions, and thus
are stimulated to frequent ablution, and to a right
ventilation of our parlours and sleeping apartments.
And so on with the other causes of disease. Reason
may not operate very powerfully to these purposes in an
early state of society, and prodigious evils may therefore
have been endured from diseases in past ages; but these
are not necessarily to be endured always. As civilisation advances, reason acquires a greater ascendency; the
causes of the evils are seen and avoided; and disease
shrinks into a comparatively narrow  compass.  The
experience of our own country places this in a striking
light. In the middle ages, when large towns had no
police regulations, society was at frequent intervals
scourged by pestilence. The third of the people of
Europe are said to have been carried off by one epidemic.  Even in London the annual mortality has
greatly sunk within a century. The improvement in
human life, which has taken place since the construction of the Northampton tables by Dr. Price, is equally
remarkable.  Modern tables still show a prodigious
mortality among the young in all civilised countriesevidently a result of some prevalent error in the usual
modes of rearing them. But to remedy this evil there
is the sagacity of the human mind, and the sense to
adopt any reformed plans which may be shown to be
necessary. By a change in the management of an
orphan institution in London, during the last fifty years,
an immense reduction in the mortality took place. We
may of course hope to see measures devised and adopted
for producing a similar improvement of infant life
throughout the world at large.
In this part of our subject, the most difficult point




NA TURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.            275
certainly lies in those occurrences of disease where the
afflicted individual has been in no degree concerned in
bringing the visitation upon himself. Daily experience
shows us infectious disease arising in a place where the
natural laws in respect of cleanliness are neglected, and
then spreading into regions where there is no blame of
this kind. We then see the innocent suffering equally
with those who may be called the guilty. Nay, the
benevolent physician who comes to succour the miserable
beings whose error may have caused the mischief, is
sometimes seen to fall a victim to it, while many of his
patients recover. We are also only too familiar with the
transmission of diseases from erring parents to innocent
children, who accordingly suffer, and perhaps die prematurely, as it were for the sins of others. After all,
however painful such cases may be in contemplation,
they cannot be regarded in any other light than as
exceptions from arrangements, the general working of
which is beneficial.
With regard to the innocence of the suffering parties,
there is one important consideration which is pressed
upon us from many quarters-namely, that moral conditions have not the least concern in the working of
these simply physical laws. These laws proceed with an
entire independence of all such conditions, and desirably
so, for otherwise there could be no certain dependence
placed upon them.   Thus it may happen that two
persons ascending a piece of scaffolding, the one a
virtuous the other a vicious man, the former, being the
less cautious of the two, ventures upon an insecure place,
falls, and is killed, while the other, choosing a better
footing, remains uninjured. It is not in what we can
conceive of the nature of things, that there should be a
special exemption from the ordinary laws of matter, to




276


I7 VESTIGES OF THE


save this virtuous m1an.  So it might be that, of two
physicians, attending fever cases, in a mean part of a
large city, the one an excellent citizen, may stand in
such a position with respect to the beds of the patients
as to catch the infection, of which he dies in a few days,
while the other, a bad husband and father, and who,
unlike the other, only attends such cases with selfish
ends, takes care to be as much as possible out of the
stream of infection, and accordingly escapes. In both of
these cases man's sense of good and evil-his faculty of
conscientiousness-would incline him to destine the
vicious man to destruction and save the virtuous. But
the Great Ruler of Nature does not act on such
principles. He has established laws for the operation of
inanimate matter, which are quite unswerving, so that,
when we know them, we have only to act in a certain
way with respect to them, in order to obtain all the
benefits and avoid all the evils connected with them.
He has likewise established moral laws in our nature,
which are equally unswerving (allowing for their wider
range of action), and from obedience to which unfailing
good is to be derived. But the two sets of laws are
independent of each other. Obedience to each gives
only its own proper advantage, not the advantage proper
to the other. Hence it is that virtue forms no protection against the evils connected with the physical laws,
while, on the other hand, a man skilled in, and attentive
to these, but unrighteous and disregardful of his neighbour, is in like manner not protected by his attention to
physical circumstances from the proper consequences
of neglect or breach of the moral laws.
Thus it is that the innocence of the party suffering for
the faults of a parent, or of any other person or set of




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREA TIO.                77
persons, is evidently a consideration quite apart f roia
that suffering.
It is clear, moreover, from the whole scope of the
natural laws, that the individual, as far as the present
sphere of being is concerned, is to the Author of Nature
a consideration of inferior moment. Everywhere we see
the arrangements for the species perfect; the individual
is left, as it were, to take his chance amidst the melee of
the various laws affecting him. If he be found inferiorly
endowed, or ill befalls him, there was at least no partiality against him. The system has the fairness of a
lottery, in which every one has the like chance of drawing the prize.
Yet it is also to be observed that few evils are altogether unmixed. God, contemplating apparently the unbending action of his great laws, has established others
which appear to be designed to have a compensating,
a repairing, and a consoling effect. Suppose, for instance, that, from a defect in the power of development
in a mother, her offspring is ushered into the world
destitute of some of the most useful members, or blind,
or deaf, or of imperfect intellect, there is ever to be
found in the parents and other relatives, and in the
surrounding public, a sympathy with the sufferer, which
tends to make up for the deficiency, so that he is in the
long run not much a loser. Indeed, the benevolence
implanted in our nature seems to be an arrangement
having for one of its principal objects to cause us, by
sympathy and active aid, to remedy the evils unavoidably
suffered by our fellow-creatures in the course of the
operation of the other natural laws. And even in the
sufferer himself, it is often found that a defect in one
point is made up for by an extra power in another. The




278


'ESTIGES OF THE


blind come to have a sense of touch much more acute
than those who see. Persons born without hands have
been known to acquire a power of using their feet for a
number of the principal offices usually served by that
member. I need hardly say how remarkably fatuity is
compensated by the more than usual regard paid to the
children born with it by their parents, and the zeal
which others usually feel to protect and succour such
persons. In short, we never see evil of any kind take
place where there is not some remedy or compensating
principle ready to interfere for its alleviation.  And
there can be no doubt that in this manner suffering
of all kinds is very much relieved.
We may, then, regard the globes of space as theatres
designed for the residence of animated sentient beings,
placed there with this as their first and most obvious
purpose-namely, to be sensible of enjoyments from the
exercise of their faculties in relation to external things.
The faculties of the various species are very different,
but the happiness of each depends on the harmony there
may be between its particular faculties and its particular
circumstances. For instance, place the small-brained sheep
or ox in a good pasture, and it fully enjoys this harmony of relation; but man, having many more faculties,
cannot be thus contented. Besides having a sufficiency
of food and bodily comfort, he must have entertainment
for his intellect, whatever be its grade, objects for the
domestic and social affections, objects for the sentiments.
He is also a progressive being, and what pleases him today may not please him to-morrow; but, in each case he
demands a sphere of appropriate conditions in order to
be happy. By virtue of his superior organisation, his
enjoyments are much higher and more varied than those
of any of the lower animals; but the very complexity




NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.             279
of circumstances affecting him renders it at the same
time unavoidable that his nature should be often inharmoniously placed and disagreeably affected, and that he
should therefore be unhappy. Still, unhappiness amongst
mankind is the exception from the rule of their condition, and an exception which is capable of almost infinite
diminution, by virtue of the improving reason of man,
and the experience which he acquires in working out the
problems of society.
To secure the immediate means of happiness, it would
seem to be necessary for men first to study with all care
the constitution of nature; and, secondly, to accommodate
themselves to that constitution, so as to obtain all the
realisable advantages from acting conformably to it, and
to avoid all likely evils from disregarding it. It will be
of no use to sit down and expect that-things are to
operate of their own accord, or through the direction of
a partial deity, for our benefit; equally so were it to
expose ourselves to palpable dangers, under the notion
that we shall, for some reason, have a dispensation or
exemption from them: we must endeavour so to place
ourselves, and so to act, that the arrangements which
Providence has made impartially for all may be in our
favour, and not against us; such are the only means by
which we can obtain good and avoid evil here below.
And, in doing this, it is especially necessary that care be
taken to avoid interfering with the like efforts of other
men, beyond what may have been agreed upon by the
mass as necessary for the general good. Such interferences, tending in any way to injure the body, property,
or peace of a neighbour, or to the injury of society in
general, tend very much to reflect evil upon ourselves,
through the reaction which they produce in the feelings
of our neighbour and of society, and also the offence




280


VESTIGES OF THE


which they give to our own conscientiousness and benevolence. On the other hand, when we endeavour to promote the efforts of our fellow-creatures to attain happiness, we produce a reaction of the contrary kind, the
tendency of which is towards our own benefit. The one
course of action tends to the injury, the other to the
benefit of ourselves and others. By the one course, the
general design of the Creator towards his creatures is
thwarted; by the other it is favoured. And thus we can
readily see the most substantial grounds for regarding all
moral emotions and doings as divine in their nature, and
as a means of rising to and communing with God.
Obedience is not selfishness, which it would otherwise be
-it is worship. The merest barbarians have a glimmering sense of this philosophy, and it continually shines out
more and more clearly in the public mind, as a nation
advances in intelligence. Nor are individuals alone concerned here. The same rule applies as between one
great body or class of men and another, and also between
nations. Thus, if one set of men keep others in the condition of slaves-this being a gross injustice to the
subjected party, the mental manifestions of that party to
the masters will be such as to mar the comfort of their
lives; the minds of the masters themselves will be
degraded by the association with beings so degraded;
and thus, with some immediate or apparent benefit from
keeping slaves, there will be in a far greater degree an
experience of evil. So also, if one portion of a nation,
engaged in a particular department of industry, grasp at
some advantages injurious to the other sections of the
people, the first effect will be an injury to those other
portions of the nation, and the second a reactive injury
to the injurers, making their guilt their punishment.
And so when one nation commits an aggression upon




NA TURAL - HISTOR Y OF CREA TIONY.       281
the property or rights of another, or even pursues
towards it a sordid or ungracious policy, the effects are
sure to be redoubled evil from the offended party. All
of these things are under laws which make the effects, on
a large range, absolutely certain; and an individual, a
party, a people, can no more act unjustly with safety,
than I could with safety place my leg in the track of a
coming wain, or attempt to fast thirty days. We have
been constituted on the principle of only being able to
realise happiness for ourselves when our fellow-creatures
are also happy; we must therefore both do to others only
as we would have others to do to us, and endeavour to
promote their happiness as well as our own, in order to
find ourselves truly comfortable in this field of existence.
These are words which God speaks to us as truly through
his works, as if we heard them uttered in his own voice
from heaven.
It will occur to every one, that the system here unfolded does not imply the most perfect conceivable love
or regard on the part of the Deity towards his creatures.
Constituted as we are, feeling how vain our efforts often
are to attain happiness or avoid calamity, and knowing
that much evil does unavoidably befall us from no fault
of ours, we are apt to think this a dreary view of the
Divine economy; and before we have looked farther, we
might be tempted to say, Far rather let us cling to the
idea, so long received, that the Deity acts continually
for special occasions, and gives such directions to the
fate of each individual as he thinks meet; so that,
when sorrow comes to us, we shall have at least the
consolation of believing that it is imposed by a Father
who loves us, and who seeks by these means to accomplish our ultimate good. Now, in the first place, if this
be an untrue notion of the Deity and his ways, and that




282


22VESTIGES OF THE


it is so has been amply shown, it can be of no real benefit
to us; and, in the second, it is proper to inquire if there
be necessarily in the doctrine of universal causation any
peculiarity calculated materially to affect our hitherto
supposed relation to the Deity. It may be that, while
we are committed to take our chance in a natural system
of undeviating operation, and are left with apparent
ruthlessness to endure the consequences of every collision
into which we knowingly or unknowingly come with
each law of the system, there is a system of Mercy and
Grace behind the screen of nature, which is to make up
for all casualties endured here, and the very largeness of
which is what makes these casualties a matter of indifference to God. JFor the existence of such a system, the
actual constitution of nature is itself an argument. The
reasoning may proceed thus: The system of nature
assures us that benevolence is a leading principle in the
divine mind. But that system is at the same time deficient in a means of making this benevolence of invariable
operation. To reconcile this to the recognised character
of the Deity, it is necessary to suppose that the present
system  is but a part of a whole, a stage in a Great
Progress, and that the Redress is in reserve. Another
argument here occurs-the economy of nature, beautifully arranged and vast in its extent as it is, does not
satisfy even man's idea of what might be; he feels that,
if this multiplicity of theatres for the exemplification of
such phenomena as we see on earth were to go on
for ever unchanged, it would not be worthy of the
Being capable of creating it. An endless monotony
of human generations, with their humble thinkings
and doings, even though liable to a certain improvement, seems an object beneath that august Being.
But the mundane economy might be very well as




NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREA TION.          283
a portion of some greater phenomenon, the rest of
which was yet to be evolved. It therefore appears
that our system, though it may at first appear
at issue with other doctrines in esteem amongst mankind, tends to come into harmony with them, and even
to give them support. I would say, in conclusion, that,
even where the two above arguments may fail of effect,
there may yet be a faith derived from this view of nature
sufficient to sustain us under all sense of the imperfect
happiness, the calamities, the woes, and pains of this
sphere of being. For let us but fully and truly consider
what a system is here laid open to view, and we cannot
well doubt that we are in the hands of One who is both
able and willing to do us the most entire justice. And
in this faith we may well rest at ease, even though life
should have been to us but a protracted disease, or
though every hope we had built on the secular materials
within our reach were felt to be melting from our grasp.
Thinking of all the contingencies of this world as to be
in time melted into or lost in the greater system, to
which the present is only subsidiary, let us wait the end
with patience, and be of good cheer.




( 284 )


NOTE    CONCLUSORY.
THUS ends a book, composed in solitude, and almost
without the cognisance of a single human being, for the
sole purpose (or as nearly so as may be) of improving
the knowledge of mankind, and through that medium
their happiness. For reasons which need not be specified,
the author's name is retained in its original obscurity,
and, in all probability, will never be generally known. I
do not expect that any word of praise which the work
may elicit shall ever be responded to by me; or that
any word of censure shall ever be parried or deprecated.
It goes forth to take its chance of instant oblivion, or
of a long and active course of usefulness in the world.
Neither contingency can be of any importance to me,
beyond the regret or the satisfaction which may be
imparted by my sense of a lost or a realised benefit to
my fellow-creatures. The book, as far as I am aware, is
the first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a
history of creation. As such, it must necessarily be in
some measure crude and unsatisfactory, even overlooking
errors of detail justly attributable to my own defective
knowledge. Yet I have thought that the time was come
for attempting to weave a great generalisation out of
established natural truths-not that these were to be
held sufficient for such a purpose, but that it is neces



NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION'.             285
sary at certain times to make advances into the field of
speculation, in order that a direction may be given for
the acquisition of new facts.  If my doctrines shall
appear to have general probability in their favour, I
anticipate that attention will be drawn to the dubious
points in question; observations will be made, and
discussions will take place; and, in the long run, we
shall find we have made a movement, and that towards
a, settlement of some of the greatest questions affecting
humanity.
My sincere desire in the composition of the book was
to give the true view of the history of nature, with as
little vexatious collision as possible with existing beliefs,
whether philosophical or religious. I have made little
reference to any doctrines of the latter kind which may
be thought inconsistent with mine, because to do so
would have been to enter upon questions for the
settlement of which our knowledge is not yet ripe.
Let the reconciliation of whatever is true in my views
with whatever is true in other systems come about
in the fulness of calm and careful inquiry. I cannot but here remind the reader of what Dr. Wiseman
has shown so strikingly in his lectures, how different
new philosophic doctrines are apt to appear after we
have become somewhat familiar with them. Geology at
first seems inconsistent with the authority of the Mosaic
record-. A storm of unreasoning indignation rises against
its teachers. In time, its truths, being found quite
irresistible, are admitted, and mankind continue to
regard the Scriptures with the same respect as before.
So also with several other sciences. Now the only
objection that can be made on such ground to this book
is, that it brings forward some new hypotheses, at first
sight, like geology, not in perfect harmony with that




286     NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF CREATION.
record, and arranges all the rest into a system which
partakes of the same character. But may not the sacred
text, on a liberal interpretation, or with the benefit of
new light reflected from nature, or derived from learning, be shown to be as much in harmony with the
novelties of this volume as it has been with geology and
natural philosophy? What is there in the laws of
organic creation more startling to the candid theologian
than in the Copernican system or the natural formation
of strata? And if the whole series of facts is true, why
should we shrink from inferences legitimately flowing
from it? Is it not a wiser course, since reconciliation
has come in so many instances, still to hope for it, still
to go on with our new truths, trusting that they also
will in time be found harmonious with all others X Thus
we avoid the damage which the very appearance of an
opposition to natural truth is calculated to inflict on any
system presumed to require such support. Thus we give,
as is meet, a respectful reception to what is revealed
through the medium of nature, at the same time that
we fully reserve our reverence for all we have been
accustomed to hold sacred, not one tittle of which it
may ultimately be found necessary to alter.
tRIttNTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
LONDON AND EDINBURGH




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