Vestiges of the natural history of creation

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NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.

B. CHAIOHEAD'S POWER PRESS,
112 Fulton Street.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

The Bodies of Space — Their arrangements and formation - 1
Constituent Materials of the Earth, and of the other Bodies of

Space 20

The Earth Formed— Era of the Primary Rocks 33

Commencement of Organic Life — Sea Plants, Corals, etc. - 39
Era of the Old Red Sandstone — Fishes abundant - - - - 47
Secondary Rocks — Era of the Carboniferous Formation — Com-
mencement of Land Plants 56

Era of the New Red Sandstone — Terrestrial Zoology commen-
ces with reptiles — First traces of Birds 64

Era of the Oolite — Commencement of Mammalia .... 76

Era of the Cretaceous formation 85

Era of the Tertiary formation — Mammalia abundant - - - 92
Era of the Superficial formation — Commencement of present

species 99

General Observations respecting the origin of the animated

tribes 108

Particular Considerations respecting the origin of the animated

tribes -..-..-......-... 124

VI CONTENTS.

Hypothesis of the development of the vegetable and animal

kingdoms 143

The Hypothesis considered in connexion with the Classifica-
tion and Geographical distribution of organisms - - 180

Early History of Mankind 193

Mental Constitution of Animals 226

Purpose and general condition of the animated creation - - 252

Note conclnsory ----' 258

LIBRAKY

/

INTRODUCT ION.*

THIS book has well been called a scientific romance. It is the
most ingenious and elaborate attempt we have ever seen to turn
Nature into Fiction, and to exclude God utterly by law, from his
own world. It is a cosmogony, or theory of the creation, which,
although in effect it rejects the divine scriptures as a guide, yet
makes us think of many passages of scripture, as for example
that of 2 Peter iii., 5, 6, 7, " For this they willingly are igno-
rant of, that by the WORD OF GOD the heavens were of old, and
the earth standing out of the water and in the water : Whereby

* This work, in the third edition, which is now published, has
been altered by the author in some respects, so as to render its tenor
less objectionable on the score of religion and of morals. Neverthe-
less, as its teachings in two previous editions are abroad in the
world, and as the tendencies of the author's theories remain the
same, it would perhaps be improper to take as the basis of our in-
troductory remarks any other than the speculations and results of
the author's brain, as he first gave them. His system should be fol-
lowed to its end ; and in the first editions he has, himself, so follow-
ed it, perhaps unawares, further than was wise for its reception. It
cannot be fairly judged, but by his own conclusions from it. That
he is desirous now to withdraw some of those conclusions from the
public view, is a testimony as to the power of a correct public opi-
nion, but it cannot alter, in the least degree, the nature and tendency
of the author's speculations.

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished :
But the heavens and the earth which are now, BY THE SAME

WORD ARE KEPT IN STORE, RESERVED UKTO FIRE AGAINST THE
DAY OF JUDGMENT AND PERDITION OF UNGODLY MEN."

The philosophy which delights to grope in the vestiges of the
past, might also find instruction from an examination of the pro-
phetic affirmations of nature in regard to this last declaration of
the inspired Apostle. The crust of the earth tells not with more
certainty how old it is, than its two hundred volcanoes, those
vast safety valves, which prevent the foundations of the great
central deep of fire from breaking up, and the crust from burst-
ing, do tell, with the all surrounding inflammable atmosphere of
our globe, that this planet is one day to be enveloped in a sea and
sheet of fire and flame. Those thirteen stars that have disap-
peared from the visible universe within the last three hundred
years, especially that planet, the brightness of whose conflagration
made it visible at noon-day, and which La Place supposed to have
been burning sixteen months, are a sublime and solemn predic-
tion of nature to the same effect. The Apostle Peter undoubt-
edly addressed his words to those, willing fools of nature, who,
denying the system of judgment and of grace, held that the ex-
istence of this planet for so long a time, without. the promised in-
terposition of Jehovah as its Creator and its Judge, wTas a suffi-
cient assurance that no such interposition would ever take place.
Perhaps they held, with some modern speculators, that the earth
was to pass by a gradual, gentle, imperceptible, and serene
transmigration, into heaven, and that by and by the race which
inhabits it were to leap, by a sudden development of law, from
the condition of men into the nature of angels.

We are reminded also of that striking passage in the Epistle
to the Hebrews xi., 3, "Through faith we understand that the

Worlds WERE FRAMED BY THE WORD OF GOD, SO that thi?lgS which

are seen were not made of tilings which do appear" It might
seem as if the Apostle had some Atheistic theory of the creation
by the laws in matter, in view in this passage ; nor was there,

INTRODUCTION. IX

among the Pagan philosophers, any want of various cosmogo-
nies, made, as it were, to order, some of them exceedingly inge-
nious, and well fitted to the Fool's taste, who saith in his heart,
There is no God.

This book reminds us also by contrast of that beautiful portion
of the scriptures, the 104th Psalm, which would in itself form
the best of all introductions to the pages of this author, though
to pass from it into his speculations, would be like going from a
glorious temple, open to the heavens, into a subterranean excava-
tion, where you have to grope by the touch, and walk on in dark-
ness at noon-day. The 104th Psalm is indeed a magnificent
propylccum to any work on the system of nature. " O Lord, how
manifold are thy works ! In wisdom hast thou made them all :
the earth is full of thy riches. Thy living creatures wait all
upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
That thou givest them, they gather. Thou openest thy hand,
they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are trou-
bled ; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their
dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, and thou
renewest the face of the earth."

The Holy Scriptures interpose no law between nature and na-
ture's God ; they bring us directly to our Father, as the God of Pro-
vidence and Grace ; they throw us and all things upon God him-
self for sustenance, and not upon the operation of law : and they
teach, in the most unequivocal manner, a great truth, which it is
the object of this book to encounter and deny, even the interpos-
ing special providence of God in behalf of the world which he
governs and the creatures he has made. " Are not two sparrows
sold for a farthing ? And not one of them shall fall on the ground
without your father. But the very hairs of your head are all
numbered." It is with such passages of God's word full in view,
that the reader should peruse this book, if he opens it at all ; and
then there is no great danger of his faith being shaken by it.

One of the most palpable impressions received from reading it, is
that of the extreme credulity of science apart from revelation.

X INTRODUCTION.

A man whose mind is not anchored in the word of God will receive
on the most inadequate evidence a theory which, had it been pro-
pounded in the pages of that word, would have been rejected as
unsustained. The author of this book, we venture to say, would
believe to the letter the account of the sun and moon standing
still at the command of Joshua, had it come to his imagination,
as simply an illustration of a new step upwards in the develop-
ment of some far-reaching law, working on the principle of Mr.
Babbage's calculating machine, when, as an interposition of
divine power, put beyond controversy by the testimony of God
himself, he would reject it utterly. Infidelity in regard to the
word of God is the most all-devouring, blindly credulous monster
in regard to all other things in the universe. Infidelity has a
great stomach for wonders, but no appetite for divine miracles or
simple truth ; an enormous digestion for things absolutely indi-
gestible and hurtful, but no power of assimilating the wholesome
plain food prepared for the system. It is like an ostrich, that
might feed on rusty nails, and yet be staggered by a bowl of
custard.

There is very little faith in the world, but a great deal of credu-
lity. Men will run like the woman of Samaria, " Come, see a man
which told me all the things that ever I did," and yet stand un-
moved while truth divine drops from the lips that spake as never
man spake. Comparatively few persons come to Christ himself,
and then say to the woman, " Now we believe, not because of thy
saying, but because we have heard him ourselves, and know that
this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." This is much
the highest faith, but there is a perverse disposition to listen to
human testimony in preference to the testimony of the word of
God ; to men who are always liars, rather than to God, who can-
not lie.

Moreover, there is a perverse disposition to listen to the voice
of matter, rather than the voice of spirit. The material seems
always to have the strongest evidence, for you can touch it, taste
it, handle it. The imprint of a duck's foot in the mud, petrified

INTRODUCTION. XI

some ages, makes a deeper impression on such a mind, than the
divine image itself imprinted in the Scriptures. Scientific infi-
delity is the work of an understanding grovelling with its face
downwards among the rude traces of death, and the wrecks of
matter and time ; an understanding that never looks upward
nor inward, but always downward and outward. Faith in God
and his word is the act of reason, the highest act of spiritual
being, turned towards spiritual wisdom, towards eternal truth.
Faith in the word of God is the act of our whole being ; infi-
delity is the work of a depraved part of it.

The voice of true science, as the handmaiden of faith, is
towards heaven ; Come up hither ; come see the works of the
Lord, how unsearchable is his wisdom ! The voice of the man
of science is too often away from heaven, Come, see these natural
wonders and what grand theories we make with them, and how
sublime a Deity is law ! It is the natural intent of everything
to bring us near to God, and everything would bring us near to
God, if the heart were not distant from him ; but when God is not
in the heart, he is not in the understanding, and then there may
be plenty of law, but nothing of Deity.

A man whose heart is not right with God is no more prepared
to study nature and understand her spiritual lessons, than he is to
see and feel the power and beauty of God's word. He will not
see God in nature, any more than he can see God in revelation.
He will not see God in nature, but he can easily make nature his
God. And it matters very little whether he does this in the
shape of law, or whether he falls down with the early Persian,
and worships the rising sun. The tendency of modern science
is to make of Law a God ; but this constitutes a religion, which
we take to be far more proud, and not a whit more rational, than
the old-fashioned paganism. It is more self-complacent, but not
the less dangerous for that. It is more gloomy, more sterile,
more comfortless, this religion of nature, this divinity of Law,
than the heathenism of Rome, with its thirty thousand deities.

It is a system that not only separates the soul from God, but

Xll INTRODUCTION.

carries it into chance and Atheism. For chance itself has its
law, and who knows what the next combination thrown up by the
great revolving cycles of law in the Universe may be ? It may
be a new and more perfect race of humanity, according to this
author ; it also may be the megatheriums of chaos.

The author of this book seems to have a great admiration of
God as a Creator, but a great dislike of the presence of God.
Perhaps we ought rather to say, an admiration of Law as a Cre-
ator, for this is the aspect of the Deity in this work, and not the
presentation of the idea of a personal being. There is a ten-
dency to reject and throw aside, as incompatible with science,
the scripture representations of the personality of God. The Deity
of Law set up in his stead, is such a creation, that not even the
possibility is admitted from eternity but just once, of an occasion
for the agency of a personal God, and that is the occasion when
the all-comprehending system of Law was started. That done,
the Deity of this book, so far as anything personal is concerned
in its idea, seems to say, as if impatient of the task of absolute
existence, Leave, ah, leave me to repose ! This, then, seems to
be the newest phase of science — a vast system of nature, which
may as well be infinite as finite, under a law of development
which excludes all thought of a personal God, except as the
framer of the law ; and the law itself being as well infinite and
eternal backwards as forwards, may as well be from eternity to
eternity, and may as well be a quality of matter as of mind, and
thus no personal God at all is needed.

In the conceptions of this writer there seems to be an irre-
concilable enmity between the system of law developed in the
vestiges of creation, and the doctrine of a particular Providence.
Now, we think this view of Law, this idea of Law, as excluding
a present, acting, personal God, is as unphilosophical and irra-
tional, as it is unscriptural and irreligious. We can conceive of
intelligent and moral agents as apart from God, as under law
and yet separate from God, as obeying or disobeying law ; but we
cannot so conceive of nature, of the universe of matter. There

INTRODUCTION. Kill

is no intelligence in matter, to keep law and obey it, and nothing
but the ceaseless agency of the lawgiver can carry law into
action. What is the connection between cause and effect, if
the agency of the First Cause be withdrawn or suspended ? At
every movement of creation God must be present, or the move-
ment cannot be conceived as posssible. And what is omni-
presence, apart from omni-agency ? A blade of grass can no
more grow without God's agency, than it can exist without
God's presence. And if it be said that this involves the idea of
a wearisome, never-ending vigilance, it may be so to the creature,
but not to the Creator. Wherever there is law, there is God
present and cognizant ; and is it any more difficult for God to
act, than it is for God to be present and to know ?

In fact the separation of God from his works, whether by law
or by chaos, is the most unphilosophical, unscientific thing that
can be. It is an impossibility. The particular providence of
God is as demonstrable and as necessary, as the being of a God.
We cannot lire aright, but as we live in God, and we can learn
nothing aright, but as we learn it from God. The religion of
nature, rejecting a providential God, is a natural religion only
for fallen beings. For such beings the desire to hide away from
God, whether behind the creation, or its supposed system of law,
is as natural as it was for Adam to hide beneath the trees of the
garden. If it were not for the consciousness of guilt, a particu-
lar providence would be to every being so delightful, that no
reasoning could dispossess it from the mind.

But to the author of this book, this consoling and delightful
truth appears as a gloomy alternative, to which it would be a
disaster to be driven. And the miserable, doubting, fearing, un-
certain, half-despairing state of mind, not doubtfully revealed at
its close, is one of the most instructive pictures that can be given
of the wretched consequences of cutting loose from revelation,
and going to nature instead of the word of God, for instruction.
This book is as a man taking you by the hand and leading you
through interminable vales of skeletons and formless petrifactions.

XIV INTRODUCTION.

always talking to you with a voice that seems at every step
turning your own being into stone, or that reminds you of the
grating scalpel of an anatomical operator — now demonstrating
to you that man is nothing but a perfect tadpole, and now show-
ing you that the mind is made out of electricity, and now telling
you that sin and evil are only the minus or the plus of that
electricity, and absolutely unavoidable under the great neces-
sitarian deity of Law — till he comes to a bottomless gulf, where he
stands still, and advises you to throw yourself over, in the full
faith that wherever Law may bring you up, or though you may
be falling eternally, you cannot be worse off than the develop-
ment of Law has made you in your present existence. It is the
coolest, most comfortless, most irreligious stoicism in the world ;
a blank as cheerless as the grave, without even a hint that there
has been such a thing as life and immortality brought to light
through the gospel.

There is, throughout the volume, an appearance of scientific
profoundness ; but the author's speculations are mere hypotheses
without proof, mere suggestions of what may have been, never
even approximating to demonstrations of what has been. Nei-
ther are the speculations or hypotheses so new as might be ima-
gined, having been broached with some varieties, though not
carried to so full an extent, among nations where the light of
natural philosophy was exceedingly dim and feeble, and no divine
revelation was enjoyed to guide men's imagination, or correct
their mistakes. But this writer does not attempt to add to such
speculations any additional or corrective knowledge of the being
and providence of God, gained from that revelation, but goes on
guessing just like a heathen philosopher.

Now it is very curious to see a mind under the light of the
gospel, thus stepping back into the caves of pagan nations with-
out the gospel, and then, amidst elephantine skeletons, and mud
mummies in their niches, and shelves of doubtful fossils, sitting
down and reasoning precisely as if there were no light anywhere
in existence, but what comes from these collected fragments of

INTRODUCTION. XV

the moulds of past creation ! It is an unsuccessful effort, this
labor under the light of Christianity, to speculate about nature
just as if there were no Christianity. The old pagan philoso-
phers had, in this respect, a great advantage over some modern
men of science ; the inappreciable advantage of never having
known anything better or higher than nature without revela-
tion. This being the case, they experienced often surprising
thoughts, that led them in the direction of revelation, at once
vindicating the necessity of it, and foreshadowing daily the truths
of it. But, a revelation having come, then to reason, or to
endeavor to reason, from nature, just as you would without reve-
lation, is to mistake and pervert both nature and revelation, and
to produce a mongrel philosophy, having the truth of neither,
and unworthy of both ; a philosophy tending at once to unhinge
the convictions of the mind in regard to the word of God, and yet
totally destitute of the heartiness, the fervid earnestness, of those
magnificent old guesses at truth, and those yearnings after it,
which, in men like Plato, do show us at least some shafts of the
rays of reason shooting up towards God, and divining beforehand
the doctrines of providence and immortality.

When we read a book like this, which manifestly puts more
faith in the hieroglyphics of dead matter than the teachings of
the living Spirit, in the mute and doubtful may have been of the
vestiges of creation than in the is and shall be of the great i AM,
in the footprints of death than in the Word of Life, we are re-
minded of the interrogation of Isaiah to those blind fools who
sought knowledge from peeping and muttering wizards, " Will
ye go for the living to the dead ? Should not a people seek
unto their God ?" A man, who thinks himself a man of science,
resolves to be very independent in his researches, theories, and
conclusions, and for this purpose sets himself apart from the word
of God, saying within himself, " Now will I reason in perfect free-
dom from all those prejudices that surround all men from their
birth, in regard to God and man and the creation, and whatever
conclusions I come to, I will report them with a noble indepen-

1*

XVI INTRODUCTION.

dence, no matter what theologians may say of me ; for nature
cannot lie, and I am determined to learn the pure truth from na-
ture." Now this is very much as if a man should say, " I will run
now in the dark, apart from all those prejudices, which men have
acquired by walking only in the light of the sun, and if I strike
my head against a wall, I shall know the nature of things much
more truly than those who, by the light of the sun, avoided it."
For the light of revelation is a light shining on nature, at the
same time that it brings into view the spiritual world ; and to
attempt to study nature without that light, is as if one should
prefer midnight darkness to the light of noon day.

Nevertheless, our man of science, in this noble spirit of inde-
pendence, caring not a fig for what Moses or the theologians
may say, collects his scraps of dead vestiges, his half-obliterated
inscriptions on the tombstones of creation, his circles of petrified
comparative anatomy from the corallines to the corvae, and from
the molluscs to the mastodons, and sets the fossils of death in
order before him, and makes them peep and mutter, and notes
down and connects the sentences, and who so wise and fearless
as he ? " That's against Moses," he says to himself, as he brings
the scull of a monster of one generation into contact with the tail
of another, some twenty hundred thousand years posterior, " but
that's nothing to us; we must leave the theologians to settle with
Moses: we care for nothing but truth." Then as he unrols
another series of his rocky palimpsests, and shows you a cycle
of creation without beginning and without end, " That's against
a particular providence," says he, " and it looks as if matter were
eternal, but what need of providence, when we have law ? Let
nature go on according to law, and what matter in what part of
the circle she produces us, or the more perfect races of humanity
that are yet to come after us ?"

Now we cannot help wondering at that state of mind, which
thinks it hears truth speak more plainly from the jaws of a fossil
animal, than from the word of God, and which, if the jaws of the
fossil seem to contradict the word of God, decides at once that

INTRODUCTION. XV11

the word of God is the doubtful fossil , and the fossil is the word
of God ; that is, if there be any personal God, which the voice of
creation, to some minds, renders very questionable. And the
reader of such a book as this needs to be reminded, that to a being
whose moral vision is not utterly perverted, there is a hundred
thousand fold more of evidence that the Bible is the word of God,
than there is that the conclusions of science, so called, or the
theories of science, are the voice of fact. The probability is a
hundred thousand fold greater that this writer is totally wild and
mistaken in his theory, than that you are mistaken in your reli-
ance on the word of God. Nay, this is a very unfair statement ;
for you are absolutely sure in regard to the word of God, but abso-
lutely uncertain in regard to every hypothesis proposed by this
writer, though absolutely certain, in so far as it contradicts the
word of God that it is absolutely false. You may read this book
as a curious speculation, and be amused with the ingenuity of its
author, wherever you are not pained by his evident want of the
cheering consolations and beliefs of the gospel ; but if you put
your trust in him as a guide in any respect in which he leads
you astray from the path of your precious convictions in the word
of God, then you are leaving the most perfect of all evidence, and
the best of all light, to trust in doubt and darkness. And if you
read this book to let it produce upon you any other impression
than that of wonder at the credulity of those who do not believe
in the word and providence of God, or if you suffer it to put a
spot of cloud in the sky of your spiritual vision, or to diminish
the childlike confidence with which you approach God as your
own Father, who deigns to commune with you as his own child,
it is as if you should suffer the dreams of a blind man under the
influence of opium to make you doubt whether you ever saw the
light, or felt the warmth of the noonday sun.

But this is not all. It is not only true that no man who lives
without God in the world is capable of being a fit guide for the
soul in nature, but it is also true that such an one is sure, at some
point in his investigations, to go wrong. Without the love of

XV111 INTRODUCTION.

God in the heart, and the Spirit of God enlightening and guiding
the understanding through the heart, no man can read for him-
self, and much less can teach to others, the lessons of God in
nature. By the term God we mean the personal God of the
Scriptures, and not the law of nature, and by the term Spirit we
mean the personal Spirit of the Scriptures, and not an emanation
from nature. As in the word of God, so in the works of God, if
the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. " My sheep
hear my voice;" but none others hear it. They may hear a
voice, some sort of voice, but it is not God's voice, not Christ's
voice, not the voice of the author both of nature and grace.
Except they are the sheep of Christ, they know not Iris voice,
either in his word or in his works. And they err and wander
about in the wildest vagaries, even like goats upon the moun-
tains, fonder of scaling precipices and browsing upon wild and
tough aliments, than of following the shepherd with his crook,
and feeding in green pastures beside still waters.

Now we say that no man under the Christian dispensation can
be justified in writing a scientific work so utterly separated and
aloof from Christian sentiments and principles. There is indeed
an attempt in this work at the introduction, in some places, of the
being of a God, but it is introduced as an indefinite, awful, and
almost gloomy idea, concerning which we can know little or
nothing, and with which we have little or no concern. We are
reminded of those in Isaiah's time, " which swore by the name of
the Lord, and made mention of the Gcd of Israel, but not in truth
and in righteousness." From some passages also we are left in
doubt whether the idea of this writer in regard to God be any-
thing more than that of pantheism, or a form of pantheism, in
which God is merely himself an all-comprehensive law. We
should rather say, we are left in very little doubt that such is the
type of his own religious belief. Nowhere in the book is there
any intimation of a Saviour, or of any need of him, or of any
such thing as sin, although there are chapters where the omis-
sion of these things shows clearly that the author does not

INTRODUCTION. XIX

believe in them. Nowhere is there any intimation of man's
accountability to God, though the author does, in one sentence,
speak of " our connexions with something beyond this world."
We gather from the work that he believes matter to be mind, the
distinction between physical and moral to be merely an error in
terms, and all things, whether physical or moral, to be merely one
vast mass of necessary development by law. Into this small
field of necessity the whole of the mysteries of nature ultimately
resolve themselves ; and this necessity is but " the expression of
that unity, which man's wit can scarce separate from Deity
itself."

Under this Deity, the act of creation is no longer an act, an
exercise of will, power, and goodness, but a mere development of
law, necessary and eternal. This creative law is probably elec-
tricity, so that the soul of the world and the Deity of the universe
may be resolved into this agent. Under its influence, in a series
of advances of the principle of development, every successive
species of being has come into existence, and grown to perfection,
and man among the rest. It is not to be imagined, when God is
said to have made man in His image, that God had anything, by
himself, to do with it. The first living creature started into life
by electricity, " by a chemico-electric operation, by which simple
germinal vesicles were produced." These germinal vesicles
grew first into fishes, then, after perhaps some thousands of years
of nature's gestation, into reptiles, then, after thousands more,
into animals of a higher type, and so on, the last and most perfect
development being that of man.

The immediate progenitors of the human species are supposed
by this writer to have been the monkeys ; and to say that the
idea of such an origin is any way degrading to our race, savors
strongly, in his view, of pride in us, and of disrespect to the
orders of creation below us. And it must be confessed that
there never has been in the human species precisely that kind or
degree of veneration towards the respectable race of the monkeys,
which might be expected from children to such ancient and hon-
orable ancestors. This is a difficulty ; but on the other hand,

XX INTRODUCTION.

on the theory of the monkeys as our progenitors, the mischievous
propensities of our race may be satisfactorily accounted for, as
also our disposition to joke at others' expense, and to make " a
cat's paw" of one another for our own convenience. The chat-
ting and gossiping tendency of a large portion of our humanity
does likewise receive in this theory a most satisfactory solution.
So likewise are the mysterious indications accounted for, conceiv-
ed by Lord Monboddo to lie folded up in our caudal anatomy.
Thereby hangs a tail. We are also a nut-loving and nut-crack-
ing race. The strong imitative propensities of mankind are in
the same way accounted for ; the passion for mimicry and pan-
tomime being among the clearest internal evidences of our monkey
origin. But it is very strange that when a man or boy makes him-
self very ridiculous, the proverbial reproach cast upon him
should have taken such a type as this ; Don't act so much like a
monkey. On our author's theory, this is just about equivalent to
saying, Don't behave so much like your great-grandfather.

The author does not determine whether all the monkeys, when
the period for the production of men was fully come in the de-
velopment of the Law, brought forth human babies, or whether
only a few monkeys were chosen as the parents of the human
race ; but he states the question, and inclines to the former sup-
position. Now this presents a great difficulty. Of all creatures
in existence, we well know that a new-born babe is the most
helpless, and sure to die without the care of a tender parent. If
only one or two pairs of monkeys had brought forth a human
baby at first, and the infants had died for want of proper nursing,
other pairs of monkeys still might have taken up the business,
and endeavored to correct those mistakes, by giving to their
babies a different education from that, in which it was so very
natural to train them as monkeys. But if the Law of develop-
ment gave human babies to all the monkey tribes at once, no one
family could have had the benefit of another's experience, and
for aught we see, the whole race of babies must have become
extinct. This is a point highly worthy the author's consideration.

On the supposition that not the order of monkeys, but the

INTRODUCTION. XXI

plantigrada, or the Bear, brought forth the first man, this diffi-
culty would be still greater ; for it is well known that the Bear
licks its cubs very severely into shape ; an operation which we
are quite sure the new-born human infant would not be able to
endure. On the supposition of the Bear as having been our ori-
gin, we should, however, be able to account more satisfactorily
for the savage and carnivorous propensities of man. As to the
difficulty of nursing, perhaps our author means that when, in the
last and most perfect development of law, the human being was
started, and began to grow, the care of his infancy was confided
to wet-nurses suspended and ready to drop like oranges from the
trees, or to spring full-formed from the blossoms of the Magnolia,
so as to take care of the new species of creation. On some
accounts the wolf might claim precedence of the monkey as the
probable progenitor of man, and the question may be worthy of
this author's investigation, whether the story of Romulus and
Remus be not a sacred myth intended to shadow forth the last
great development of law, and the benevolence of nature, in pro-
viding a nurse for the helpless human suckling.

But more than all this, this writer finds that the " zoological
status of the crow " throws great light on the nature and destiny
of man. " The corvidas (crows), our parallels in aves (in the
family of birds), consist of several distinct genera and subgenera."
Shall the human being then be so imperfect as to have but ene
species ? It is startling to think of such an imperfection in the
circle of humanity, when in the circle of crowanity there are so
many species. Therefore, though such a question ought not to
be answered rashly, it is probable that the next development of
creative law in our world will be a more perfect species of the
genus man. Perhaps nature was trying the experiment in the
case of those giants of old, who had six fingers and six toes ;
and if so, David and his warlike companions were very rash in
breaking up the mould before the race got established.

At any rate, we are to have a more perfect specimen of man by
far in the next great leap or development of law. Some of our

XX11 INTRODUCTION.

future mothers are to see wings playing at the shoulders of their
little ones. " The present race," says this author, " rude and im-
perfect 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 realize some of the dreams of the purest
spirits of the present race."

The first thought on reading this strange passage is that the
writer must be a man who, by some fatality, has never heard of
the being of a Divine Saviour, as having taken our nature upon
him to bear our sins. If this writer believes in the existence of
Jesus Christ at all, which we deem very doubtful, it would seem
that he regards him as having assumed but a low, crude, imper-
fect form of our humanity, which is to be altogether set aside and
superseded by " a nobler type." What scientific insanity is this !

We do utterly object to the right of any man to make science
his stalking-horse for the introduction of such monstrosities.
Under a great appearance of scientific depth and largeness, with
novel and grand theories well adapted to impose upon many
minds, and to carry the connected poison of unbelief into the
heart, this book stealthily advances against the Christianity of
the gospel. According to its system, crime is not sin, being
produced by " influences upon the foetus," and by the necessity
of nature. " The original characters of mind are dependent on
the volume of particular parts of the brain, and the general quality
of that viscus." The law of development determines irresistibly
both the particular intellectual powers and the moral dispositions
of every individual. " A Cuvier and a Newton are but expan-
sions 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 one 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.'

INTRODUCTION. XX111

There is, moreover, a great excuse for crime in the compli-
cated nature of the machine of our humanity, as it has happened
to be turned off in the development of law from the hopper of the
great mill of creation. " The indefiniteness of the potentiality of
the human faculties, and the complexity which thus attends their
relations, leads 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 per-
sons, that each is at the same time endowed with a wide discre-
tion as to the force and frequency of its action, and that our
neighbors, the world, and our connexions with something beyond
it, are all exercising an ever-varying influence over us, we can-
not be surprised at the irregularity 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 can never satisfy
his own ideas of what he mio-ht be, for he can imagine a state of

O ' O

moral perfection, tlwugli Ms constitution forbids him to realize it."
Now we cannot well imagine a piece of more barefaced immo-
rality than this. Here is a novel theory of original sin, which
may at once set all the theologians at rest, as the geological
theory of creation dispatches Moses. Crime is simply the penalty
which we have to pay for the superior endowments of our nature.
It is simply irregularity of action among our faculties, nothing
more. Consequently, " criminal jurisprudence addresses itself
less to the direct punishment, than to the reformation and care-
Baking of those liable to its attention. And such a treatment of
criminals is evidently no more than justice, seeing how acciden-
tally all forms of the moral constitution are distributed." The
world will be a jubilee of villains when this writer's system shall
prevail. The adulterer and the murderer are simply unfortunate
men. " whose highest moral feelings are rudimental." The man

XXIV INTRODUCTION.

.who robs you of your thousands, and he who forges your name
to rob others, are merely subject to inequality of action in the
faculties, producing a necessary irregularity of conduct, which
might have happened to you as well as to them. The same law
of necessity, which turned them out villains in this world, will
turn them up righteous men in the next. This must be their
consolation. It is indeed a most unfortunate thing to have proved
villains here ; and then moreover, the state's prison for life, or
perhaps capital punishment, is such an enormous wrong laid
upon them in consequence of that unequal operation of their
faculties which they could not help, and for which they ought
rather to have been compensated ! But let them remember " that
they are in the hands of One, who is both able and willing to do
them entire justice." Nature made them villains here, and they
had to be punished for it, but there is a system of redress for them,
and they shall be angels hereafter !

If any of our readers should suspect that there is aught of
caricature or exaggeration in this description of the writer's sen-
timents, or anything beyond the exact truth, let them peruse the
chapter on the purpose and general condition of the animated
creation, as also on the mental constitution of animals. The
doctrines here developed would lead to the most tremendous,
remorseless, and wide-sweeping licentiousness ; they would lead,
indeed, to the destruction of all virtue and government, human
and divine. They strike utterly out of existence, the Scriptures?
the Saviour, a future Retribution, and the Divine Justice ; and
they are a monstrous libel on the whole character of God. The
following short extract is enough to show this, taken in connec-
tion with the conclusion of the book. " It is clear 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 be-

INTRODUCTION. XXV

falls him, there was at least no partiality against him. The sys-
tem has the fairness of a lottery, in which every one has the like
chance of drawing a prize !"

The writer then goes on to say that " it will occur to every
one that the system here unfolded does not imply the most per-
fect conceivable love or regard on the part of the Deity towards
his creatures." It is a dreary view of the divine economy, and
some might feel that it would be better even to believe in a
special providence, and to regard God as a Father who loves us,
and who seeks, even by our sorrows, to accomplish our ultimate
good. But we must not allow ourselves to fall into any such
error. It may be that though nature has made us villains and
unhappy into the bargain, or by chance unhappy without being
villains, yet " it may be that there is a system of mercy and grace
behind the screen of nature, which is to make up for all casual-
ties endured here. The redress is in reserve, 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." We feel that it is almost sacrilege to
have used the terms mercy and grace in such connection. A
system of Mercy and Grace behind the screen of nature, which is
to make up for all casualties endured here ! All that is affirmed,
even in this dark and blind guess, is its possibility, for it is
totally hidden from us. There may be such a scheme, but if
there is, our author believes that we know nothing of it in this
world, but that it is altogether " behind the screen of nature," to
meet us, perhaps, when the next great development of law shall
turn up for us, among " the casualties of nature," a future state
of existence. In a personal God, who exercises Mercy and
Grace, there is here no intimation of any belief whatever, but
merely in a great law of development, which it may be hoped
will produce in the future world a system so much happier than
the present, as to answer to the terms Mercy and Grace in the
Gospel. Of mercy through a Saviour, or of Grace as the par-
don of sinners through him, the author evidently believes no-

XXVI INTRODUCTION.

thing. His system, closely examined and pursued into its re-
sults, is the completest and most perfect piece of materialism,
necessitarianism, scepticism and atheism combined, that has
ever come under our notice.

And yet, there is in it a great deal of interesting information,
accurately classified, and the author evidently wishes to guard it
from the charge of atheistical impiety, by referring to the author of
Nature, and supposing an original Framer of creative law. Whether
this supposition, or the admiration expressed of the wisdom ex-
ercised in making such a law, is sufficient to redeem the system
from such a charge, the readers of the book will judge for them"
selves. If atheism be judged by the Apostle's expression, without
God in tlie world, this book is full of it ; and that gloomy sen-
tence, without God in the world, is in fact the one grand impres-
sion made by this book upon the mind. It goes far beyond the
schemes of the old English Deists, and inasmuch as it is pushed
forward under a form of profound scientific investigation, it is
perhaps more dangerous than would be the same theory on con-
troverted principles of morals. When a false and injurious sys-
tem of morals comes by itself, the conscience and common sense
of mankind reject it. But scientific absurdities are not so easily
detected by the mass ; and a bad morality pushed forward by an
apparent body of science, and to some degree hidden by the
same, may cause the feet of many to stumble unawares.

On the whole, we are reminded by this book of Lord Bacon's
profound observation, that in knowledge without love there is ever
something of malignity : and it makes us also think of Coleridge's
remark, equally striking, that all the products of the mere under-
standing partake of DEATH, and are as the rattling twigs and
sprays in winter, into which a sap is yet to be propelled from some
root, to which evidently the author of this work has not yet pene-
trated, if they are to afford the soul either food or shelter. That
root is Christ. And there is one declaration in the Word of God
in regard to Christ, which is as a thunder-stroke of annihilation
to this writer's speculations upon nature, and that is the sublime

INTRODUCTION. XXV11

opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; " GOD, who at sundry
times and in divers manners, SPAKE in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days SPOKEN unto us by his
Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, BY WHOM ALSO
HE MADE THE WORLDS." Putting this beside Paul's sermon to
the Epicureans and Stoics, in whose " sensual sty" this work on
the vestiges of Creation properly belongs, we have a perfect an-
swer to the whole system. " God, that made the world and all
things therein, giveth to all life and breath and all things, and
hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the
face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed,
and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, though He be not far
from every one of us : For in Him we live and move and have
our being." Instead, therefore, of the living to the dead, let the
people seek unto their God.

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before.
Thine eye shall be instructed, and thy heart,
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight,
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.

Happy the man, who sees a God employed
In all the good and ill that checker life !
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns (since from the least
The greatest oft originate) : could chance
Find place in his dominions, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan ;
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.

This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed

XXV111 INTRODUCTION.

In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ;
And, having found his instrument, forgets,
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an Atheist life ; involves the heaven
In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury : bids the plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrefy the breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips,
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines
And desolates a nation at a blast.
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles ; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects ;
Of action and reaction ; he has found
The source of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart, and banish fear.

Thou fool ! will thy discovery of the cause
Suspend th' effect or heal it ? Has not God
Still wrought by means, since first He made the world ?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it ? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means
Formed for his use, and ready at his will ?

Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught ;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.

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,
beino; one of a series of eleven which revolve at different

o

distances around the sun, and some of which have satel-
lites in like manner revolving around them. The sun,
planets, and satellites, with the less intelligible orbs
termed comets, are comprehensively called the solar sys-
tem, 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 race-horse ever known had begun to traverse it,
at full speed, 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

2

THE BODIES OF SPACE,

to our own. The stars have a brilliancy and apparent
magnitude which we may safely presume to be in propor-
tion to their actual size and the distance at which they
are placed from us. Attempts have been made to ascer-
tain 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
3600th of a degree, could be ascertained in any one in-
stance, 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 in-
ferred 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 par-
allax 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, & u, 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 interval sexist between all the stars
we shall readily see that the space occupied by even the
comparatively small number 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

* By the late Mr. Henderson, Professor of Astronomy in the
Edinburgh University, and Lieutenant Meadows.

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 3

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 sur-
mised 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 astrono-
mers, and some speculations of a most remarkable kind
have been formed in connexion with it. By the joint
labors 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 sys-
tems parts of what may be called astral systems — that is,
systems composed of a multitude of stars, bearing a cer-
tain 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 cen-
tre, 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 Milky Way much more
clearly, in that direction, than towards the north, in
which line our eye has to traverse the vacant central
space. Nor is this all. Sir William Herschel, so early

4 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

as 1783, detected a motion in our solar system with re-
spect to the stars, and announced that it was tending to-
wards the star A, in the constellation Hercules. This has
been generally verified by recent and more exact calcu-
lations,* which fix on a point in Hercules, near the star
143 of the 17th hour, according to Piozzi's catalogue, as
that towards which our sun is proceeding. It is, there-
fore, receding from the inner edge of the ring. Motions
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 from 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."f 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. Argelander, late director of the Observatory at Abo.

f Professor Mossotti, on the Constitution of the Sidereal System,
of which the Sun forms a part. — London, Edinburgh, and Dublin
Philosophical Magazine, February, 18 13.

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 5

besides our own is much more decided than might be ex-
pected, 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 sides of our system, where stars are 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 re-
solved 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 as-
tronomer 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 preserving a local arrange-
ment 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,

6 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

and generally in its outer fields, a great number of ob-
jects which, from their foggy appearance, are 'called
nebula ; 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 spheri-
cal objects, bright in the centre and dull towards the ex-
tremities. These appear to be only an advanced con-
dition 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 bur 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 sys-
tem 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)

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 7

revolving around them. There are, however, some gen-
eral features of the solar system which, when a pro-
founder attention makes us acquainted with them, strike
the mind very forcibly.

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, incon-
ceivably great. Laplace states them a't four millions of
millions to one. It is thus powerfully impressed on us,
that the uniformity of the motions, as well as their gen-
eral adjustment to one planet, must have been a conse-
quence of some cause acting throughout the whole sys-
tem.

Some of the other relations of the bodies are not less
remarkable. The primary planets show a progressive
increase of bulk and diminution of densitv, 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 |~|, or less
than half; Jupiter, IgL- ; Mars, 3f ; Earth, 4 J ; Venus,

'f 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
iouleverscmcnt of the primary, for the inclination of its equator to
the ecliptic is admitted to be unusually high ; but the subject is al-
together so obscure, that nothing can be founded on it.

8 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

5}J ; Mercury, 9T9¥, or about the weight of lead. Then
the distances are curiously relative. It has been found
that if we place the following line of numbers, —

036 12 24 48 96 192,
and add 4 to each, we shall have a series denoting the
respective distances of the planets from the sun. It will
stand thus —

4 7 10 16 28 52 100 196

Merc. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus.

It will be observed that the first row of figures goes on
from the second on the left hand in a succession of 'dupli-
cations, or multiplications by 2. 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 the want of a
planet corresponding to 28 ; the difficulty was afterwards
considered as in a great measure overcome, by the dis-
covery 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 revolutions 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 con-
stituents 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 cir-
culating about the sun, each according to his own peculiar

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION.

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 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 es-
tablished 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 neighboring matter to those nuclei
should proceed, until masses more or less solid should
become detached from the rest. It is a well known law
in physics that, when fluid matter collects towards or
meets in a centre, it establishes a rotary motion. See
minor results of this law in the whirlwind and the whirl-
pool— nay, on so humble a scale as the water sinking
through the aperture of a funnel. It thus becomes cer-
tain 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 in-

Astronomy, Cabinet Cyclopaedia.

2*

10 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

stant 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 attract-
ing to, the other throwing from, the centre. While these
remain exactly counterpoised, the mass necessarily con-
tinues entire ; but the least excess of the centrifugal over
the attractive force would be .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 continue to revolve with the velocity
possessed by the central mass at the moment of separation,
but not necessarily participating in any changes after-
wards 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 pa-
rent mass. It might, indeed, continue to be repeated,
until the mass attained the ultimate limits of the conden-
sation 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 agglomera-
tion of a nebulous mass to be a process attended by refri-
geration 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 solidify-
ing crust. During the contention between the attractions

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 11

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, when 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

. o

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 we have seen assures us it is one observing, and
reducible to, mathematical formulae.

If these rings consisted of matter nearly uniform through-
out, they wrould probably continue each in its original
form ; but there are many chances against their being
uniform in constitution. The unavoidable effects of ir-
regularity 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 become a planet revolving round the sun.
Its rotary motion would, of course, continue, and satel-
lites 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 ;

1'2 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

*

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 possi-
ble 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, 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 mathematical propor-
tions 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 crisis in the condition of that mass, in
connexion with the laws of centrifugal force and attrac-
tion. 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 cor-
responded in every case with the actual sidereal revolution
of the planets, and that the rotation of the primary planets
in like manner corresponded with the orlitual periods of the
secondaries. The process by which he arrived at this
conclusion is not to be readily comprehended by the un-
learned; but men of science allow that it is a powerful

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 13

support to the present hypothesis of the formation of the
globes of space.*

The nebular hypothesis, as it has been called, obtains
a remarkable support in what would at first seem to mili-

* M. Comte combined Huygens's theorems for the measure of cen-
trifugal force with the law of gravitation, and thus formed a simple
fundamental equation between the duration of the rotation of what
he calls the producing star, and the distance of the star produced.
The constants of this equation were the radius of the central star,
and the intensity of gravity at its surface which is a direct conse-
quence 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 satel-
lite agrees within an hour or two with the duration which the revo-
lution of the earth ought to have had at the time when the lunar
distance formed the limit of the earth's atmosphere. He found the
coincidence less exact, but still very striking, in every other case.
In those of the planets he obtained for the duration of the corre-
sponding 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 unequal in the different systems. " From the whole
of these comparisons," says 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 the different satellites." — Cours de Phi/o-
Positif.

14 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

tate 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 rudimen-
tal state, for there are examples of nebulous stars con-
taining 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 com-
mon 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 rota-
tion in the single solar masses, is exactly the same which
produces the familiar phenomenon of a small whirlpool
or dimple in the surface of a stream. Such dimples
are not always single. Upon the face of a river where
there are various contending currents, it may often be ob-
served that two or more dimples are formed near each
other with more or less regularity. These fantastic ed-
dies, which the musing poet will sometimes watch ab-
stractedly 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 con-
sidered 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

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 15

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 sup-
pose 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 be-
come 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 thou-
sands 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 vari-
ous stages which we see in the rudimental. This leads
us at once to the conclusion that the whole of our firma-
ment was at one time a diffused mass of nebulous 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 origi-
nally 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 formation 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 per-
fection 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, ac-

16 THE BODIES OF SPACE,

cording 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 ad-
vance 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 reason-
able to suppose that, among the many, some are older
than ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for
the probability of the comparative youth .of our system,
altogether apart from human traditions and the geognostic
appearances of the surface of our planet. This consists
in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused around the
sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately
spheroidal shape.

This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked
eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards
in the line of the sun's path, and which bears the name
of Zodiacal Light, has been thought a residuum or last
remnant of the concentrating matter of our system, and
thus may be supposed to indicate the comparative recent-
ness of the principal events of our cosmogony. Sup-
posing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they
may be held as so far supported by more familiar evi-
dence, 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

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 17

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 Ura-
nus 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 col-
lects around nuclei by virtue of the law of attraction.
The agglomeration brings into operation another physical
law, by force of which the separate masses of matter are
either made to rotate singly, or, in addition to that single
motion, are set into a coupled revolution in ellipses. Next
centrifugal force comes into play, flinging off portions of
the rotating masses, which become spheres by virtue of
the same law of attraction, and are held in orbits of revo-
lution 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

THE BODIES OF SPACE,

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 arrange-
ments 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 mag-
nitude, with the same regularity and perseverance. The
tear that falls from childhood'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 vast-

o O

ness 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
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

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 19

the character of physical laws, even though we do not go
a single step further in the investigation. But it is im-
possible for an intelligent mind to stop there. We ad-
vance from law to the cause of law, and ask, What is
that ? Whence have come all these beautiful regula-
tions ? 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 man-
dates. That great Being, who shall say where is his
dwelling-place, or what his history ! Man pauses breath-
less at the contemplation of a subject so much above his
finite faculties, and only can wonder and adore !

20

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, pos-
sibly, various bodies, under peculiar circumstances at-
tending 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 (fifty-
four or fifty-five are ascertained), which, in their combi-
nations, 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

CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF' THE EARTH. 21

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 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 primor-
dial matter, forming our so-called elements, are as uni-
versal, 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 consists of about fifty-five ingre-
dients, or only one, is liable to infinite varieties of con-
dition under different circumstances, or, to speak more
philosophically, under different laws. As a familiar
illustration, water, when subjected to a temperature under
32° 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 1230 feet high, at a temperature of 32°, takes this
form : the other gases require various amounts of pressure
for this transformation, but all appear to be liable to it
when the pressure proper in each case is administered.

22 CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH

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 more would
be required to cause the whole to become vaporiform,
which we may consider as equivalent to its being re-
stored to its original nebulous state. He can calculate
with equal certainty what would be the effect of a con-
siderable diminution of the earth's temperature — what
changes would take place in each of its component sub-
stances, 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 tem-
perature. The nebulous matter of space, previously to
the formation of stellar and planetary bodies, must have
been a universal Fire Mist, 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. Had 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

AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE. 23

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

V

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 may be that
a sufficiency of heat still remains in those planets to
make up for their distance from the sun, and the conse-
quent 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 may 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 considera-
tions 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 compo-
nent materials, and undoubtedly with respect to the condi-

24 CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH

tions under which the laws operate, and consequently the
effects which they produce. Thus, there may be sub-
stances here which are not in some other bodies, and sub-
stances 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 as-
tronomical situation of the earth. It takes its place
third in a series of planets, which series is only one of
numberless ot her systemsforming one group. It is strik-
ingly— 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 to cosmical arrangements.

It therefore becomes a point of great interest — what
are the materials of this specimen ? What is the consti-
tutional 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 ?

The solids, liquids, and aeriform fluids of our globe are
all, as has been stated, reducible into fifty-five substances
hitherto called elementary. Of these, forty are well-
characterized metals, twelve non-metallic bodies, and the
remaining three solid substances of intermediate charac-

O

ter, which form a connecting link between the two great*
groups. Among the non-metallic elements, four, viz.,
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and chlorine, are permanently
gaseous; bromine is fluid at common temperatures; and
the remainder (with the exception of fluorine, which
has never been isolated, and whose physical characters
are consequently unknown) are solid.

AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE. 25

The body 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 re-
maining part of water, and enters into some mineral sub-
stances, is perhaps next. Nitrogen, of which the atmo-
sphere 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 metal-
lic 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 mixture they form the aerial envelope
of the globe, are never found separate in nature. Car-
bon 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 uncom-
bined, 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

3

26 CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH

of matter, each of which is again a compound of elemen-
tary substances. What is still more wonderful with
respect to this principle of combination, all the elementary
substances observe certain mathematical proportions in
their unions. When in the gaseous state, 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. Combinations by weight are also
governed by fixed and unchanging laws, of the greatest
beauty and simplicity. It is hence supposed by some
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 with a certain number of the atoms of any
other. There are also strange predilections amongst sub-
stances for each other's company. One will remain com-
bined 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, and 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, wrhen
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
moon.

In the nebular hypothesis, satellites are considered as
masses thrown off from their primaries, exactly as the

AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE. 27

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 rotary motion of the primary at that par-
ticular juncture. For example, the outermost of the four
satellites of Jupiter revolves round his body at the dis-
tance of 1,180,582 miles, showing that the planet was
once about 3,675,501 miles in circumference, instead of
being, as now, only 89,170 miles in diameter. This
large mass took rather more than sixteen days six hours
and a half (the present revolutionary period of the outer-
most satellite) to rotate on its axis. The innermost satel-
lite must have been formed when the planet was reduced
to a circumference of 309,075 miles, and rotated in
about forty-two hours and a half.

From similar inferences, we find that the mass 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 between 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 mat-
ters subject to certain variations. It does not appear that

28 CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH

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 ine-
qualities 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 cir-
cumstances 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 the cause of the bright
spots of the moon, while the want of them is what dis-
tinguishes the duller portions, usually but erroneously
called seas. In some parts, bright volcanic matter, be-
sides 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 re-
markable character are ring-mountains, mounts, like
those of the craters of earthly volcanoes, surrounded ii^-
mediately 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 astrono-

AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE. 29

mers 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 fea-
tures 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 differ-
ent from those which exist here, and may yet be devel-
oped as we here find them. Seas may yet fill the pro-
found hollows of the surface ; an atmosphere may spread
over the whole. Should these events take place, meteoro-
logical phenomena, and all the phenomena of organic
life, will commence, and the moon, like the earth, will be-
come a green and inhabited world.*

* Among the most extraordinary phenomena of natural science
mast be placed those relating to the fall of meteoric stones. The-
fact itself, so long doubted, has now been established by an accumu-
lation of the most positive and unexceptionable evidence. The
stones have been seen to fall, and taken up in a still heated state ; —
there can be no manner of doubt about the fact, although the expla-
nation is extremely difficult. All these stones are found on exami-
nation to resemble each other in their general characters ; they
usually consist of an earthy material, having disseminated through

30 CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH

It is unavoidably held as a strong proof in favor of any
hypothesis, when all the relative phenomena are in har-
mony with it. This is eminently the case with the nebu-
lous 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,

its substance globules and small masses of metallic iron containing
nickel in the state of alloy. The stones are often covered by a thin
vitreous crust, as if partial fusion had commenced. It is well
known, also, that large masses of soft, malleable iron, also contain-
ing nickel, are found in several places far removed from each other,
lying loose upon the earth, as in South America and in Siberia, and
no doubt can exist of the meteoric origin of these masses. It has
been conjectured that these meteoric stones proceed from the moon,
having been shot out from volcanoes with such violence as to be
brought within the reach of the earth's attraction. A view now
more general supposes the existence in space of very numerous
small bodies, moving in more or less regular orbits around the sun
and larger planets, which at certain periods undergo such perturba-
tion that their motion becomes completely deranged, and they at
length fall upon the surface of the earth or other planet, whose
attraction has been the exciting cause of the derangement of their
orbits. Whatever may be their real origin, they are by common
consent looked upon as foreign to the earth ; their physical constitu-
tion is completely different from any known minerals. But what is
exceedingly remarkable, and particularly worthy of notice as
strengthening the argument that all the members of the solar system,
and perhaps of other systems, have a similar constitution, no new
elements are found in these bodies ; they contain the ordinary mate-
rials of the earth, but associated in a manner altogether new, and
unlike anything known in terrestrial mineralogy. — Note by a Cor-
respondent.

AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE. 31

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 pre-
cisely 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 dis-
tinct memorial of the original high temperature of the
materials, in the store of heat which still exists in the in-
terior. 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 sun's
rays ceases. Then commences a temperature from g,n
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

o

water ; but the actual weight of the principal solid sub-
stances composing the outer crust is as two and a half

32 CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH.

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 dis-
coveries 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 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
diminution.

* The researches on this subject were conducted chiefly by the late
Baron Fourier, perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences of
Paris. See his Thcorie JLnalytique de la Chaleur, 1S22.

33

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 moun-
tain dips away under the strata which we see lying
against it. Suppose that we walk away from the moun-
tain across the turned up edges of the stratified rocks, and
that for many miles we continue to pass over other strati-
fied 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 we pass over these
rocks all in reverse order till we come to another exten-
sive 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

3*

34 THE EARTH FORMED.

basin formed by the rock of these two mountains, and by
calculating the thickness right through these strata, could
say to what depth the rock of the mountain extended be-
low. By such means, the kind of rock existing many
miles below the surface can often be inferred with con-
siderable confidence.

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 consti-
tution. 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 de-
posited originally from water. But these last rocks
have nowhere been allowed to rest in their original ar-
rangement. 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 imme-
diately on the fused and expanded matter of the interior :

ERA OF THi: PRIMARY ROCKS. 35

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
tossino; them out of their original levels. This is an out-

O O

line 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 observation, we readily
detect in it a regularity and order from which much in-
struction 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 intelligible causes, down to the present day.
We may therefore consider them generally as compara-
tively 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 crystal-
line kind of rock, with the waters of the present seas and
the present atmosphere around it, though these were pro-
bably in considerably different conditions, both as to tem-
perature 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 the nebulous or
vaporiform state. It is a condition eminently of combi-
nation, for such rock is invariably composed of two or
more of four substances — silica, mica, quartz, and horn-
blende— which associate in it in the form of grains or

36 THE EARTH FORMED.

crystals, and which are themselves each composed of a
group of the simple or elementary substances.

Judging from the results and from still remaining con-
ditions, 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 be-
came the scenes of volcanic operations, and in time mark-
ed 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 circum-
stances 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 pur-
pose 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 con-
tact of the water ; philosophically speaking, the mass
radiates away the heat into the sea, and (to resort to com-
mon language) is cooled a good way clown. 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 clown, 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 sue-

ERA OF THE PRIMARY ROCKS. 37

cession, 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, with air
and water playing round it. There were irregularities
in the surface, — irregularities, trifling, perhaps, compared
with the whole bulk of the globe, but probably larger than
any which now exist upon it. These irregularities might
be occasioned by inequalities in the cooling of the sub-
stance, 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 '
— granitic mountains, interspersed with seas which sunk
to a great depth, 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 probably upon a much more magnificent
scale. The matters worn off, being carried into the
neighboring 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. We have evi-

o

dence that the earliest strata were formed in the presence

38 THE EARTH FORMED.

of a stronger degree of heat than what operated in subse-
quent stages of the world, for the laminse 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 tempera-
ture. 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
artd 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. ? 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.

* DC la Beche's Geological Researches.

COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE— SEA
PLANTS, CORALS, ETC.

FROM the Primary Rocks, we pass into a group called the
Clay Slate and Grauwacke Slate System, which, however,
is found in some places resting immediately on the gran-
ite, the primary bed being there wanting. 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 quarried for domestic pur-
poses. The sub-divisions are in the following order, be-
ginning with the lowest : — 1, hornblende slate ; 2, chias-
tolite slate ; 3, clay slate ; 4, Snowdon rocks (grauwacke
and conglomerates).

Hitherto nothing has been said of the fossils which con-
stitute so important a part of geological science. It is
now to be observed that, from an early portion of the rock
series to its close, the mineral masses are found to enclose
remains of the organic beings (plants and animals) which
flourished upon earth during the time when those were
forming ; and these organisms, or such parts of them as
were of sufficient solidity, have been in many cases pre-

40 COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE.

served with the utmost fidelity, although for the most part
converted into the substance of the enclosing mineral.
The rocks may be said thus to form a kind of history of
the organic departments of nature from perhaps near its
beginning to the present time. This is a piece of know-
ledge entirely new to man, and it may be safely said that
he has never made a merely intellectual acquisition of a
more interesting or remarkable nature. I am to trace
this history as well as existing materials will permit.

Some difficulty exists with regard to the very first
chapter of Fauna's story. It is as yet undecided at what
part of the rock series we have the earliest traces of the
life which exists upon our globe. The primary rocks are
usually said to be non-fossiliferous — that is, possessing no
remains of plants or animals ; and it would appear that
the first undoubted objects of a fossil kind are the solid
parts of polypiaria, crinoidea, Crustacea, and conchifera,
found in the Mica Slate and Grauwacke Slate System.
These cannot, however, be regarded as for certain the
first of earth's tenants, seeing that " fragments appa-
rently organic, and resembling the cases of infusoria
[shelled animalcules]"* have been detected in the pri-
mary rocks, and it is very clear that many other simple
forms of being, such as the medusae and acalephse, which
now swarm in our seas, might have peopled the early
ocean, but left no memorial of their slight gelatinous
forms in the mud constituting its bottom, particularly as
that mud has evidently been afterwards subjected, in its
rocky form, to a great degree of heat. So also might the
fragile plants of the primary sea fail to come down to us.

\
* Ansted's Geology, ii., 60.

SEA PLANTS, CORALS, ETC. 41

We are also called upon to remark the occurrence of a
few limestone strata amongst the primary rocks. Lime-
stone, a carbonate of lime, contains an element (carbon)
which we have no reason to believe to have existed in the
rock from which the primaries were derived. It is a
challengeabie stranger upon the face of the earth, and
extremely important to the present question, in as far as
it is the principal constituent of organic substance of
almost every kind. Plants take in this substance from the

«/

atmosphere, where it is a subordinate ingredient ; there
are classes of animals (marine polypes), which appropri-
ate it in • connexion with lime from the waters of the
ocean, provided it be there in solution : and this sub-
stance do these animals deposit in masses (coral reefs)
equal in extent to many strata. It is 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. It may be asked, then, does not this
series of facts establish a strongly probable connexion
between the time of the primary limestones and the ear-
lier days or ages of organic creations ?

It may not be out of place here to remark, that the
primeval and subsequent history of this element is worthy
of much attention. Sir Henry De la Beche estimates the
quantity of carbonic acid gas locked up in every cubic
yard of limestone, at 10,000 cubic feet. The quantity
locked up in coal, in which its basis, carbon, forms from
64 to 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 the land
animals. Yet, if it has all been derived from the atmo-

42 COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE.

sphere, we must needs suppose that the atmosphere at one
time contained it. Such an atmosphere would, of course,
be incapable of supporting life in land animals. It is im-
portant, however, to observe that such an atmosphere
would not be inconsistent with a luxuriant land veo-eta-

o

tion ; 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 rocks to the
termination of the carboniferous series, for there we see
vast deposits (coal) containing carbon as a large ingre-
dient, while at the same time the leaves of the Stone Book
present no record of the contemporaneous existence of
land animals.

Of the fossils specified as being found in the mica slate
and grauwacke slate system, the two first are examples
of the humblest of Cuvier's four divisions of the animal
kingdom, radiata • while the other two belong respec-
tively to the two next divisions, articulata and mullusca.
In common, though not very precise language, they are
corals and shell-fish. Nothing uncommon or surprising
is to be observed in their forms ; but it is remarkable that,
though they can readily be referred to existing orders, the
species and even genera to which they belonged are no
longer found on earth ; nay, almost the whole had become
extinct before the next group of strata was formed. Such
changes of species we shall find to be of frequent occur-
rence throughout the subsequent ages. To descend to a
few particulars : — The crinoids are an early and simple
form of the large family of echinodermata (star-fishes) ;

SEA PLANTS, CORALS, ETC. 43

the animal, though composed of innumerable minute cal-
careous masses, connected by a gelatinous substance, is
merely a stomach surrounded by tentacula to provide it-
self with food, and mounted upon a many-jointed stalk,
so as to bear a considerable resemblance to a flower grow-
ing on its stem. Of the Crustacea of the system, the most
remarkable forms are trilobites, — animals which continued
to flourish to a great variety of species throughout several
of the subsequent rock-formations, but which are now
only faintly represented in a few obscure species. Some
curious inferences have been made by Dr. Buckland from
the prominent facet-covered eyes with which this crea-
ture was furnished, indicatino- that the sea in which it

f O

lived was a clear medium, as existing seas generally are,
and that lisrht was the same in character in those incon-

JD

ceivably remote ages as it is now.

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 vesti-
ges of fuci, or sea plants, and of fishes. This group of
rocks has been called by English geologists, the Silurian
System, because largely developed at the surface of a
district of western England, formerly occupied by a peo-
ple whom the Roman historians call Silures. It is a
series of sandstones, limestones, and beds of shale (har-
dened mud), which are classed in the following sub-
groups, beginning with the undermost : — 1, 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

44 COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE.

the lowest beds upwards, there are polypiaria, though
most prevalent in the Wenlock limestone ; trilobites ;
brachiopodous mollusks, a vast number of genera (in-
cluding terebratula, pentamerus, spirifer, orthis, lep-
taena) ; gasteropoda, and cephalopoda, of several orders
and many genera (including turritella, orthoceras, nau-
tilus, bellerophon). The cephalopoda are the most highly
organized 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 redun-
dant life of the early seas. I may remark, that it is
sometimes represented as having been co-existent with
the humbler molluscous forms ; and on this point con-
clusions have been drawn against the idea of a progress
of animated being ; but it seems to me, when the pre-
Silurian era and its fossils are distinguished with suffi-

o

cient care, that simpler mollusca, as well as radiata,
preceded it.*

* Professor Phillips (Treatise on Geology, 1839) says expressly
with regard to the clay slate and grauwacke system — " No gas-
teropods or cephalopods are as yet mentioned in these rocks in Bri-
tain, and we do not feel sufficiently acquainted with the geological
age of the limestones of the Harz, to introduce any of the fossils of
that argillaceous range of mountains." Gasteropods are considered
by naturalists as next in organization to the cephalopods. Thus it
will be observed, the Silurian system adds the two highest orders of
the mollusca.

What produces, or at least countenances, mistakes of this kind, is
the taking a number of rock systems together as one, and reckoning
all the fossils of these systems as co-existent, when, in reality, those
peculiar to the upper beds may be unconjectured ages more recent
than those of the lower.

SEA PLANTS, CORALS, ETC. 45

A little above the Llandeilo rocks, there have been
discovered certain convoluted forms, which are now es-
tablished as annelides, or sea-worms, a tribe of creatures
still existing (nereidina and serpulina), and which may
often be found beneath stones on a sea-beach. 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 con-
nexion between the annulosa (white-blooded worms) and
an humble class of the vertebrata.* The Wenlock lime-
stone 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. Brog-

* The inferiorly organized fishes, amphyioxus and myxene.

46 COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE.

niart, 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 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 uni-
formity 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 lime-
stone 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 geo-
graphical 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 Mediterra-
nean. It is the opinion of M. Brogniart, that the uni-
formity 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.

47

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 Here-
fordshire, 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 conglo-
merates. There is also a schist showing the presence of
bitumen ; a remarkable new ingredient, since it is a vege-
table 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 evi-
dence of the seas of that period having been subjected to

48 ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.

a violent and long-continued agitation, probably from vol-
canic causes. The upper members of the series bear the
appearance of having been deposited in comparatively
tranquil seas. The English specimens of this system
show a remarkable freedom from those disturbances which
result in the interjection of trap ; and they are thus de-
fective in mineral ores. In some parts of England the
old red sandstone system has been stated as 10,000 feet in
thickness.

In this era, the forms of life which existed in the Silu-
rian 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 investiga-
tion 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 through-
out all the subsequent systems or geological eras ; appar-
ently 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

FISHFS ABUNDANT. 49

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
to their external covering, which that naturalist holds to
be, in fishes, a reflection of the internal organization.
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 organization. The two orders of
early fish are covered with integuments considerably dif-
ferent in character ; the one (placoids} with irregular
enamelled plates, the other (ganoids} with regular enam-
elled 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 by 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 ceplialaspis 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 sad-
dler's cutting-knife. The body is covered with strong

4

50 ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.

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, 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

o

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 verti-
cally, 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 re-
markable 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 Iwloptycliius 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 head fountain of information on the early fishes is M".
Agassiz's Fossil Ichthyology, a splendid but not readily accessible

FISHES ABUNDANT. 51

The placoids are now slenderly represented by the shark,
cestraceon, &c., of modern seas ; the ganoids are all but
unrepresented in our time. Of both classes, one invaria-
ble 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 termi-
nates 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 Jiomocercal tail. In all those, without
exception, which have been found in strata of the Palaeo-
zoic period [placoids and ganoids], the caudal fin is hete-
rocercal, being formed of two unequal branches, the upper
one expanded immediately from the vertebral column,
while the lower one is give^i 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 his-
tory ; 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 organization of the
early 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

book. For more popular descriptions, reference may be made to
" New Walks in an Old Field, by Hugh Miller," Edin., 1842, and
to Jameson's Journal, July and October, 1844.
* Ansted's Geology, i., 185.

52 ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.

»

of general creation, and the progress of an individual
fo3tus of one of the more perfect animals.*

It is equally ascertained of the types of being preva-
lent in the old red, as of those of the preceding system,
that they are uniform in the corresponding strata of dis-
tant parts of the earth ; for instance, Russia 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 favorable to
vegetation. It has also been surmised by M. Agassiz,
from an examination of the fishes of the ancient seas,
that the ocean did not at first contain much salt, but
gradually acquired its present infusion of that material ;
a theory, it may be remarked, which derives support from

* It is remarkable that, while the non-osseous fishes reach lower
down in these points of organization than other orders, they rise
higher in some points of development, and some of them even
make an advance to the viviparous mode of reproduction. But it is
well known that no family of animals is equally high in all points
of structure and endowment, and that many forms generally humble
have characteristics of a comparatively elevated kind. There are
features of even the human organization that would place our race
below some of the inferior animals, if these were to be made an
exclusive criterion. In using as a standard the series of peculiari-
ties presented in the embryotic progress of an individual of a dif-
ferent order, and thus assigning the non-osseous fishes a low place,
M. Agassiz seems to me to be acting upon principles to which every
day is adding strength and authority.

FISHES ABUNDANT. 53

a recent suggestion, that the salt of the sea has been
mainly brought thither, in the course of time, by rivers,
these washing it in particles out of the land in common
with other detritus, while it is obvious that rain does not
restore it.* It is easy to suppose a comparative absence
of salt in the early ocean affecting animal and vegetable
marine life in different ways and degrees.

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 the 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 prin-
cipal mountain ranges, have been protruded from below,
or, at least, thrust much further up, since the deposition
of the primary 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 re-
markable 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 incli-
nation, or none at all, showing that these strata were laid

* See Fownes's Actonian Prize Essav.

54 ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.

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 be-
ginning 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, that volcanic
disturbances and protrusions of trap took place through-
out 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 moun-
tain ranges were thrown up, carrying up with them
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 per-
vading 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 civilisa-
tion had visited Italy, and had enabled her to subdue the
world, while Scotland was the residence of " roving barba-
rians." The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other ranges of
continental Europe, are all younger than the Grampians,

FISHES ABUNDANT.

55

or even the insignificant Mendip Hills of southern England.
Stratification tells this tale as plainly as Livv tells the

1 €/ •/

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 Cam-
brian, Silurian, and Devonian, and collectively the palseo-
zoic rocks, from their containing the remains of the earliest
inhabitants of the globe — are of vast thickness ; in Eng-
land, not much less than 30.000 feet, or nearly six miles.

56

SECONDARY ROCKS.

ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

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 ex-
istence 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 unconformably, against flanks of the
upturned primary rocks, sometimes themselves consider-
ably 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

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 57

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 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 de-
rived, 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 com-
mences 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 sand-
stone), 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 sili-
ceous 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

4*

58 ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

addition of power to the causes formerly suggested as hav-
ing 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 with sandstones, shales, beds of lime-
stone, and ironstone. Coal is altogether composed of the
matter of a terrestrial vegetation, transmuted by putrefac-
tion of a peculiar kind, beneath the surface of water and
in the absence of air. 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 moun-
tain 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 impor-
tant 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 anthra-
cite 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

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 59

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
favorable to the so abundant production of limestone, and
the large population of marine acrita, decline, and 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 sur-
face. 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 in-
cluded 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, geolo-
gists 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 circum-
stances to be adverted to, it is held likely by some that the
vegetable matter, the rubbish of decayed forests, was car-
ried by rivers into estuaries, and there accumulated in vast
natural rafts, until it sunk to the bottom, where an over-

60 ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

layer 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 a
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 alter-
nate layers of coal, sandstone, and shale, constituting the
carboniferous group, were formed. It is favorable 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 pre-
sent 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- Experi-
ments show that some great classes of plants become de-
composed 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

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 61

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 ascer-
tained 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 com-
paratively 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 (cryptogamiaY
as lichens, mosses, fungi, ferns, sea-weeds. 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 pre-
dominance of these forms in succession marked the succes-
sive epochs developed by fossil geology ; the simple abound-
ing 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 higher-class

62 ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

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 compo-
sition of coal.* The ferns are plants which thrive best in
warm, shaded, and moist situations. In tropical countries,
where these conditions abound, there are many more spe-
cies than in temperate climes, and some of these are arbor-
escent, or of a tree-like size and luxuriance, f 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, show-
ing clearly that, in that era, the present tropical tempera-
ture, 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 (equisetacea) but, like
the fern, reaching the magnitudes of trees. While exist-
ing 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

* The principal genera are named sphenopteris, neuropteris, and
pecopteris.

f A specimen from Bengal, in the staircase of the British Museum,
is forty-five feet high.

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 63

inches to a foot in thickness. It is to be remarked that
plants of this kind (forming two genera, the most abundant
of which is the catamites} 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 (lycopodiacecB) are other plants
of the present surface, usually seen in a lowly and creep-
ing form in temperate latitudes, but presenting species
which rise to a greater magnitude within the tropics.
Many specimens of this kind 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 equisetaceae, 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 in 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 favors
the idea that, in vegetable as well as animal creation,
a progress has been observed, in conformity with advanc-
ing 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 charac-

64 ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

ters 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 siigmaria, a
plant 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 were some
palms (flabellaria and nceggerathia), 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 nume-
rous subclass. Besides some of doubtful affinity (annula-
ria, asterophyllites, dec.), there were a few of the pine family,
which seem to have been the highest class of trees at this
era, and are only as yet found in isolated cases, and in
sandstone beds. The first discovered lay in the Craig-
leith quarry, near Edinburgh, and consisted of a stem
about two feet thick, and forty-seven 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 some naturalists residing in the northern
capital.* Taking thin polished cross slices of the stem,
and subjecting them to the microscope, they detected the
structure of the wood to be that of a cone-bearing tree,
by the presence of certain " reticulations " which distin-
guish that family, in addition to the usual radiating and
concentric lines. That particular tree was concluded to

* See Withan, on the Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables, 1834.

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 65

be an araucaria, a species now found in Norfolk Island,
in the South Sea, and in a few other remote situa-
tions. The coniferse of this era form the dawn of dico-
tyledonous trees, of which they may be said to be the
simplest type, and to wm'ch, it has already been noticed,
the lepidodendra are a link from the monocotyledons.
The concentric rings of the Craigleith and other coniferse
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 they are more slightly marked than is the
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 favored 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 coloring, its sward probably unenli-
vened by any of the smaller flowering herbs, its shades
uncheered by the hum of insects, or the music of birds,
it must have been 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 nox-
ious to animal life, and storing up mineral masses which
were in long subsequent ages to prove of the greatest ser-

66 ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

vice to the human race, even to the extent of favoring the

' o

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 polypi-
aria and crinoidea ; but when we ascend to the coal-beds
themselves, the case is altered, and these marine remains
altogether disappear. We have then only a limited vari-
ety of 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

' o

time, the sauroids, a family of the ganoid fishes, are con-
sidered as at their apogee, or point of greatest abundance ;
a fact of some importance, seeing that, in teeth, bones,
and scales, they make an advance to the lizard charac-
ter, a type of a higher order of animals which we are
soon to see entering upon the stage.* Of this link family
is the Megalichthys Hibbertii, found by Dr. Hibbert
Ware, in a limestone bed of fresh-water origin, under-
neath 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 sauroid fishes are often adduced as a proof that animals do
not make their appearance in the series of rocks in the order of their
comparative organization. But this allegation is of the same charac-
ter with that respecting the cephalopoda (see p. 44). The sauroids
are marked in the instructive chart of M. Agassiz (copied in Jame-
son's Journal, Oct., 1844), as commencing after the large family of
Lepidoids, and as attaining their apogee considerably later. The
subsequent rise of orders of fishes (ctenoids and cycloids) which do
not so nearly approach the reptilian type, seems to me indifferent,
as far as the present question is concerned.

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS. 67

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 condi-
tions which allowed of so abundant a terrestrial vegeta-
tion, had ceased about the time when this formation was
closed. The high temperature was not one of the condi-
tions which terminated, for there are evidences of it after-
wards ; 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 superabun-
dance of carbonic acid gas, the coal formation would cease,
and the earth might 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 sys-
tem 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

68 ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.

neighboring fragments. These are held to be results of
volcanic movements below, the operation of which is further
seen in numerous upbursts and intrusions of fire-born 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 undis-
turbed. 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 beinor

O J O

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 for-
mation is followed by superior deposits, without the appear-
ance of such disturbances between their respective periods ;
but apparently this case belongs to the class of exceptions
already noticed.* That disturbance was general, is sup-
ported 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 de-
position 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." — Phi/lips.

69

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 dis-
tinguished by an event of no less importance than the com-
mencement of land animals. The New Red Sandstone
System is subdivided into groups, some of which are want-
ing in some places : they are pretty fully developed in the
north of England, in the following ascending order: — 1,
Lower red sandstone ; 2, Magnesian limestone ; 3, Red
and white sandstones and conglomerate ; 4, Variegated
marls. Between the third and the fourth there is, in Ger-
many, another group, called the Muschelkalk, a word 4ex-
pressing 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 car-
bonigenous era. This new era is distinguished by a pau-

70 ERA OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE.

city of organic remains, as might partly be expected from
the appearance of disturbance, and the red tint of the rocks,
the latter being communicated by a solution of oxide of
iron, a substance unfavorable 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 Germany. Its
place, above the red sandstone, shows the recurrence of
circumstances favorable 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, analogous to the now existing family called
monitors. Remains of this creature are found in cuprife-
rous (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 leptrena, or productus,
a conchifer of numerous species which makes a con-
spicuous appearance in all previous seas. It is likewise
to be observed, that the fishes of this age, to the genera of
which the names palseoniscus, catopterus, platysomus, &c.,
have been applied, vanish, and henceforth appear no
more.

The third group, chiefly sandstones, variously colored
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 de-

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND ANIMALS. 71

composed shells is obvious ; and in Germany, though not
in England, here occurs the muschelkalk, containing nu-
merous 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 con-
siderable abundance to our notice.

These animals are of the vertebrate sub-kingdom, but of
its lowest class next after fishes, — namely, reptiles — a por-
tion of the terrestrial tribes whose imperfect respiratory
system perhaps fitted them for enduring an atmosphere
not yet quite suitable for birds or mammifers.* The speci-
mens found in the muschelkalk are allied to the crocodile
and lizard tribes of the present day, but in the latter in-
stance 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 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 than .what
now obtains.

72 ERA OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE.

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 of the
finny tribes. It was at first thought that no creatures ap-
proaching 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 megalosaurus was an enormous lizard — a land
creature, also carnivorous. The pterodactylus was another
lizard, varying in size between a cormorant and a snipe,
and furnished with unusually prolonged anterior extremi-
ties, supposed to have served, like those of the bat tribe, as
wings, wherewith to pursue its prey in the air, though M.
A<mssiz, on the contrary, believes this animal to have been

o •/ '

designed for an aquatic life. Crocodiles abounded, and
some of these were herbivorous. Such was the ia;uanodon,

O '

a creature of the character of the iguana, but probably
sixty feet in length, or twelve times that of its modern re-
presentative.

There were also numerous tortoises, some of them reach-
ing a great size ; and Professor Owen has found in War-
wickshire 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

* The order to which frogs and toads belong.

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND ANIMALS. 73

Cuvier's four orders of reptilia (sauria, chelonia, and ba-
trachia) are represented in this formation, the serpent order
(ophidia) being alone wanting.

The variegated marl beds which constitute the upper-
most group of the formation, present two additional genera
of huge saurians, — the phytosaurus and mastodonsaurus.

The plants of this era are few and unobtrusive. Equi-
seta, 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 respect-
ing 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 corruga-
tion 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 appear 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 than one place in England, they
further bear impressions of rain drops which have fallen
upon them — the rain, of course, of the inconceivably re-
mote age in which the sandstones were formed. In the

5

74 ERA OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE.

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 impor-
tant in the inferences to which they tend, have been ob-
served,— namely the footmarks of various animals. In a
quarry of this formation, at Corncockle Muir, in Dum-
friesshire, 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 after-
ivards, 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 footsteps having a resemblance
to an impression of a swelled human hand, has caused it
to be named the clieirotherium. The footsteps of the
cheirotherium have been found also in the Stourton quar-
ries. Professor Owen, who stands at the head of com-

COMMENCEMENT OF LAND ANIMALS. 75

parative anatomists of 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 pro-
bably 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, appa-
rently produced by birds 'of the order grallee, or waders.
" The footsteps appear in regular succession on the con-
tinuous track of an animal, in the act of walking or run-
ning, with the right and left foot always in their relative
places. The distance of the intervals between each foot-
step on the same track is occasionally varied, but to no
greater amount than may be explained by the bird hav-
ing altered its pace. Many tracks of different indivi-
duals 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 re-
sort."* 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.

* Dr. Buckland, quoting an article by Professor Hitchcock, in the
American Journal of Science and Arts, 1836.

76

ERA OF THE OOLITE.

COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMALIA

THE chronicles of this period c<3nsist 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 resem-
blance 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 neighborhood of Bath, is
(beginning with the lowest) as follows: — 1. Lias, a set
of strata variously composed of limestone, clay, marl,
and shale, clay being predominant ; 2. Lower oolitic

COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMALIA. 77

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 formation, including what are called Kim-
meridge 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
(moorlands) 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 Wealden has been given,
from its topographical 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 begin-
ning 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 pro-
portion 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

78 ERA OF THE OOLITE.

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 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 cycadese, " a beau-

tiful class of plants between the palms and conifers,

having a tall, straight trunk, terminating in a magnificent

crown of foliage, "f There were tree ferns, but in

smaller proportion than in former ages ; also equisetacese,

lilia, and coniferse. The vegetation was generally analo-

gous 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 algoe, of which, how-

ever, 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

* Murchison's Silurian System, p. 583,
Buckland.

COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMALIA. 79

bottoms of the seas of those ages, while of the swimmino-

o ' O

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 upon the 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
pigment, wherewith to delineate the belemnite itself.

The Crustacea discovered in this formation are less
numerous. There are many fishes, some of which
(acrodus, psammodus, &c.) are presumed from remains of
their palatal bones, to have been of the gigantic cartila-
ginous class (pZacoideari), now represented by such as the
cestraceon. It has been considered by Professor Owen
as worthy of notice, that, the cestraceon being an inhabit-
ant of the Australian seas, we have, in both the botany
and ichthyology of this period, an analogy to that con-
tinent. 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.

80 ERA OF THE OOLITE.

plied, in increased numbers, their destructive vocation.*
To them were added new genera, the cetiosaurus, mo-
soesaurus, and some others, all of similar character and
habits.

Land reptiles abounded, including species of the ptero-
dactyle of the preceding age — tortoises, trionyces, croco-
dilians — and the pliosaurus, a creature which appears to
have formed a link between the plesiosaurus and the
crocodile. We know of at least six species of the ptero-
dactyle 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

O

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 they are presumed to
have served as prey.

The first glimpse of the highest class of the vertebrate
sub-kingdom — mammalia — is obtained from the Stonesfield
slate, where there have been found several specimens of

* In some instances, these fossils are found with the contents of
the stomach faithfully preserved, and even with pieces of the exter-
nal skin. The pellets ejected by them (coprohtes) are found in vast
numbers, each generally enclosed in a nodule of ironstone, and
sometimes showing remains of the fishes which had formed their
ood.

COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMALIA. 81

the lower jaw-bone of a quadruped evidently insectivo-
rous, 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 proba-
bility is that heretofore there were no mamnaifers. 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 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 develop-
ment of two canals passing from near the anus to the ex-
ternal 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.

* Fragments attributed to a cetaceous animal, another humble
form of the mammal class, have likewise been found in the great
oolite, near Oxford.

5*

82 ERA OF THE OOLITE.

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 Wey-
mouth, and other situations, there is a thin stratum, usually
called by workmen the dirt-bed, which appears, from incon-
testable 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 exuviae of tropical trees, accumulated through
time, as the forest shed its honors 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.

Above this bed lie those which have been called the
Wealden, from their full development in the Weald of Sus-
sex ; 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 chelo-
nia. The area of this estuary comprehends the whole
south-east province of England. A geologist thus confi-
dently narrates the subsequent events : " 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

COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMALIA. 83

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 inter-
mixture of pebbles of the special appearance of those worn
in rivers, it is also inferred that the estuary which 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. 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,

*De la Beche's Geological Researches, p. 341.

84 ERA OF THE OOLITE.

not a general condition ; yet it has been thought that simi-
lar 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 river-receiving estuaries
along the border of some such great ocean as the Atlantic,
of which that of modern Sussex is only an example.

85

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 forma-
tion. 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 tracts occu-
pied by it, while some of its organic remains prove that, in
the neighborhood 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

86 ERA OF THE

true chalk is wholly, or all but wholly absent. In the
south of England, the lower beds are (reckoning from the
lowest upwards), 1. Shankland or greensand, "a 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 with flints; these two last being generally white,
but in some districts red, and in others yellow. The whole
are, in England, about 1200 feet thick, showing the con-
siderable depths of the ocean in which the deposits were
made.

Chalk is a carbonate of lime, and the manner of its pro-
duction in such vast quantities was long a subject of specu-
lation 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 ordi-
nary 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 inqui-
ries 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 Pro-
fessor Ehrenberg. That master of microscopic investiga-
tion announces, that chalk is composed partly of " inor-
ganic particles of irregular elliptical structure and granu-
lar slaty disposition," and partly of shells of inconceivable
minuteness, " varying from the one-twelfth to the two hun-
dred and eighty-eighth part of a line" — a cubic inch of

CRETACEOUS FORMATION. 87

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 proportion of the organic matter, being in some in-
stances 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. Ehren-
berg 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 gene-
rally 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 1
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 want-
ing, and in the southern present in great quantities. The
conclusion seems hardly avoidable, that in the one case the
siliceous exuviae have been left in their original form ; in
the other dissolved chemically, and aggregated on the com-
mon 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

•/ O O

nodules of ironstone in the earlier rocks, and the spherules
of the oolite.

88 ERA OF THE

What is more remarkable, M. Ehrenberg has ascer-
tained that at least fifty-seven species of the microscopic
animals of the chalk, being infusoria and calcareous-
shelled polythalamia, are still found living in various parts
of the earth. These species are the most abundant in the
rock. Singly they are the most unimportant of all ani-
mals, 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. Spe-
cies 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 poly-
thalamia kept their place on earth through all its revolu-
tions 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 in-
habitants 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 organization, the orders which
predominate in the present creation. These are osseous
in internal structure, with corneous scales, the latter being

CRETACEOUS FORMATION. b9

circular in the one case, and pectinated or indented at one
side in the other ; hence the two orders are called re-
spectively cycloid and ctenoid by M. Agassiz, who, as has
been remarked, asserts that the outer covering of fishes is
a sufficient indication of their whole structure. In Europe,
no remains of the marine saurians have been found ; they
may be presumed to have become extinct in that part of
the globe before this time.

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 too much diminished in numbers.
One of the most remarkable was the mosoesaurus, which
seems to have held an intermediate place between the
monitor and iguana, and to have been about twenty-five
feet long, with a tail calculated to assist it powerfully in

swimming.

Fuci abounded in the seas of this era, and 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 cycadeee, 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 frag-
ments of drilled wood ; showing that, in this, as in earlier
ages, there was a parity of conditions for animal life over

90 ERA OF THE

a vast tract of the earth's surface. To European reptiles,
the American formation adds a gigantic one, styled the
saurodon, from the lizard-like character of its teeth.

We have seen that footsteps of birds are discovered in
America, in the new red sandstone. Some similar isolated
phenomena occur in the subsequent formations. Dr. Man-
tell found some bones of birds, apparently waders, in the
Wealden. The immediate connexion of that set of beds
with land, may account, of course, for their containing
a terrestrial organic relic, which the marine beds above

O '

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 long-winged 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, is only negative.
Animals, of which we find no remains in a particular
formation, may, nevertheless, have lived at the time, and
it may have only been from unfavorable circumstances
that their remains have not been preserved for our inspec-
tion. The single circumstance of their being little lia-
ble to be carried down into seas, might be the cause of
their non-appearance in 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, a
clear progress throughout, from humble to superior types
of being. Hence we derive a light as to what animals

CRETACEOUS FORMATION. 91

may have 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.

92

ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION— MAM-

MALIA ABUNDANT.

THE chalk-beds are the highest which extend over a con-
siderable space ; but in hollows of these beds, compara-
tively 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 strip 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 for-
mations still in progress. Though comparatively a local
formation, it is not of the less importance as a record of
the earth during a certain period. As in other forma-
tions, it is marked, in the most distant localities, by iden-
tity 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,

ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION. 93

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 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 limy beds ; and finally, a
third series of fresh- water strata. Such alternations
occur in other examples of the tertiary formation like-
wise.

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
tLe whole term into four sub-periods, to which he has
given names with reference to the proportions which
they respectively present of surviving species — first, the
eocene (from 'rjwg, the dawn ; %uivo?, recent) ; second,
he miocene (tteiwv, less) ; third, older pliocene (nheivtv,
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

94 ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION.

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 considerable number
are pacliydermata* of a character approximating to the
South American tapir : the names, palseotherium, an-
thracotherium, anoplotherium, lophiodon, &c., have been
applied to them with a consideration of more or less con-
spicuous 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. The animals
were all herbivorous. Amongst an immense number of
others are found many new reptiles, some of them adapted
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,

* Thick-skinned animals. This term has been given by Cuvier
to an order in which the hog, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros are
included.

MAMMALIA ABUNDANT. 95

but yet considerable. The predominating forms are still
pachydermatous, and the tapir type continues to be con-
spicuous. One animal of this kind, called the dinothcrium,
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 turn-
ing down from the lower jaw, 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 rniocene animals, as adapted for a
semi-aquatic life, in a region where lakes abounded. Be-
sides the tapirs, we have in this era animals allied to the
glutton, the bear, the dog, the horse, the hog, and lastly,
several felinse (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, dol-
phins, 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 pre-
ceding era now disappear, and are replaced by others
belonging to still existing families — elephant, hippopota-
mus, rhinoceros — though now extinct as species. Some
of these are startling, from their enormous magnitude.
The great mastodon, whose remains are found in abun-
dance 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

96 ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION.

mammoth was another elephant, but supposed to have
survived till comparatively recent times, as a specimen,
in all respects entire, was found in 1801, preserved in ice,
in Siberia. We are more surprised by finding such gi-
gantic proportions in an animal called the megatherium,
which ranks in an order now assuming much humbler
forms — the edentata — to which the sloth, ant-eater, and
armadillo belong. The megatherium had a skeleton of
enormous solidity, with an armor-clad body, and five
toes, terminating in huge claws, wherewith to grasp the
branches, from which, like its existing congener, the sloth,
it derived its food. The megalonyx was a similar animal,
only somewhat less than the preceding. Finally, the plio-
cene gives us for the first time, oxen, deer, camels, and
other specimens of the ruminantia.

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 felinee, 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 1839. Another jaw-bone, containing sev-
eral teeth, supposed to have belonged to a species of

MAMMALIA ABUNDANT. 97

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 than 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 have been found in at
least two other parts of the earth, — namely, the sub-Him-
alayan hills, near the Sutlej, and in Brazil (both in the
tertiary strata) ; the first being a large species of sernno-
pithecus, 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 ter-
tiary formation remains to be noticed, — 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 volca-
noes, 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 Lon-
don 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 subter-
ranean disturbing force had waved forward in that direc-
tion. The Pyrenees, too, and Alps, have both undergone

6

98 ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION.

elevation since the deposition of the tertiaries ; and in
Sicily there are mountains which have risen three thou-
sand 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 recep-
tion of higher classes of animals.

99

ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.

COMMENCEMENT OF PRESENT SPECIES,

WE have now completed our survey of the series of strati-
fied 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, me-
morials of still another era or space of time which it is
all but certain did also precede that event.

The first that calls for notice is the phenomenon to which
geologists have applied the term denudation. Great hitches
and slips are detected in superficial strata, — such as, if
left in their original state, must have caused considerable
inequalities on the face of the country ; yet all is found
as smooth — the joinings are all as much reduced to a com-
mon level — as if some gigantic artificial force had been
used for the purpose. Again, a great valley has been
scooped out in the midst of sedimentary strata, leaving the
edges of these facing each other from the opposite sides,
with perhaps here and there an isolated mass starting up to
the height of the two sides, being composed of matter which
has resisted the agency by which the adjoining matter

100 ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.

was removed. There, it is thought, we see incontestable
traces of the operation of moving water. The second fact
we are called to notice is that, over the rock formations of
all eras, in various parts of the globe, but confined in gene-
ral to situations not very elevated, there is a layer of stiff
clay, mostly of a blue color, mingled with fragments of
rock of all sizes, travel-worn, and otherwise, and to which
geologists give the name of diluvium, 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 sup-
ported by other evidence. The included masses of rock
have been carefully inspected in many places, and traced
to particular parent beds at considerable distances. Con-
nected 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 pro-
duced by a quantity of loose blocks hurried along over
them by 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 remarka-
ble that the direction from which the diluvial blocks have

COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT SPECIES. 101

generally come, the lines of the grooved rock surfaces,
the direction of the crag and tail eminences, and that of the
clay and gravel ridges — phenomena, be it observed, ex-
tending over the northern parts of both Europe and Amer-
ica— are all from the north and north-west towards the
south-east. We thus acquire the idea of a powerful cur-
rent 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 ques-
tion of much interest, by what means, and under what
circumstances, was such a current produced. One
hypothesis is not without some plausibility. From an
investigation of the nature of glaciers, and some observa-
tions which seem to indicate that these have at one time
extended to the lower levels, and existed in regions (the
Scottish Highlands an example) where there is now no
perennial snow, it has been 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 com-
pound of south-easterly direction which the phenomena
require. All of these speculations are as yet far too de-
ficient in facts to be of much value ; and I must freely

102 ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.

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 un-
der 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 Kirkdale in
Yorkshire, Gailenreuth in Franconia, and other places.
They occur in the calcareous strata, as the great caverns
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, hip-
popotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, weasel, fox, wolf, deer
(three species), ox, horse, 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 for-
mation. 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, sub.
merged in the current which has been spoken of, it re-
ceives a clay flooring from the waters containing that mat-

COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT SPECIES. 103

ter ill 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 after-
wards 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 Sol way 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, supposed to have
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.

104 ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.

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 plat-
forms, 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 gene-
rally a slight inclination towards the sea, the sandy com-
position 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 ef-
fected in them by water-courses. The irresistible infer-
ence 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 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 plat-
form nearest to the present sea-beach. Phenomena of
this kind become comparatively familiar to us, 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

COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT SPECIES. 105

time at the rate of about forty-five inches in a century, and
that a thousand miles of Chilian coast rose four feet in
one night, under the influence of a powerful earthquake,
so lately as 1822. 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 be-
comes 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 con-
siderable 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 ele-
vating 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, evapora-
tion, and the influx of large rivers into narrow-mouthed
estuaries. The differences of level in the ancient beaches
might be occasioned by some such causes. But, what-
ever 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 wide-spread and possibly universal

6*

106 ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.

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 occa-
sion, extensively, if not universally destroyed. Nor does
the idea of its universal destruction seem the less plausi-
ble, when we remark, that none of the species of land
animals heretofore discovered can be detected at a subse-
quent 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
is eminently 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 determina-
tion.

There are some other superficial deposits, of less con-
sequence on the present occasion than the diluvium —
namely, 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 re-
mains 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 a
lacustrine deposit at Market-Weighton, in the Vale of
York, there have been found bones of the elephant, rhi-
noceros, 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

COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT SPECIES. 107

with types now living in the vicinity." In similar de-
posits 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 unex-
pressive phrase) obtained, but yet so far remote in chro-
nology 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 which have been here described.

108

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 extra-
ordinary a character, and the powerful nature of the evi-
dence 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 indus-
try and his reason.

If there is anything more than another impressed on
our minds by the course of the geological history, it is,

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 109

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 conspi-
cuous than in the early ages, from some of the conditions
having come to a settlement and a close. That seas have

o

flowed and ebbed, and winds disturbed their surfaces, in
the time of the secondary rocks, we have proof on the yet
preserved surface 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 proceeded on a greater scale in earlier
epochs. The volcanic subterranean force, which we see
belching forth lavas on the sides of mountains, and throw-
ing up new elevations by land and sea, was only more
powerfully operative in distant ages. To turn to organic
nature, vegetation proceeded then exactly as now. The
very alternation of the seasons has been read in unmis-
takable 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 pre-human period ;
and the adaptation of all plants and animals to their re-
spective 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 ani-
mals, and which had to go through some changes before

110 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

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 exemp-
tion from such paroxysms of the former, as for certain pre-
vailed at the close of the coal formation in England and
throughout the tertiary era. The surface has also under-
gone a gradual progress by which it has become always
more and more variegated, and thereby fitted for the resi-
dence 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 ad-
vance in both cases, from simple to higher forms of organi-
zation. Amongst plants, we have first sea-weeds, after-
wards land plants ; and amongst these the simpler (cellu-
lar and cryptogamic) before the more complex. In the
department of zoology, we see, first, traces all but certain
of infusoria; then polypiaria, crinoidea, and some humble
forms of the articulata and mollusca ; afterwards higher
forms of the mollusca ; and it appears that these existed
for ages before there \vere any higher types of being.
The first step forward gives fishes, the humblest class of
the vertebrata ; and, moreover, the earliest fishes partake
of the character of the lower sub-kingdom, the articulata.
Afterwards come land animals, of which the first are rep-
tiles, 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.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. Ill

That there is thus a progress of some kind, the most super-
ficial glance at the geological history is sufficient to con-
vince us. Indeed the doctrine of the gradation of animal
forms has received a remarkable support from the dis-
coveries of this science, as several types formerly want-
ing to a completion of the series have been found in a
fossil state.*

Fossil history has no doubt still some obscure passages ;
and these have been partially adverted to in the preceding
pages. Sea-weeds, it has been remarked, are not the
lowest forms of aquatic vegetation ;" neither are the
plants of the coal-measures the very lowest, though they
are a low form, of land vegetation. But, it may be
asked, could we expect to see confervse, or land crypto-
gamia inferior to ferns, preserved in rocks ? Is their
organization such as to afford the least chance of their
having been preserved ? These blanks in the series are
no more than blanks ; and when a candid mind reflects on
the nature of the missing forms, and further considers
that those present are all in the order of their organic
development, the whole phenomena appear exactly what
might have been anticipated. It is also remarked, in
objection, that|the mollusca and articulata appear in the
same group of rocks (the slate system) with polypiaria,
crinoidea, and other specimens of the humblest sub-
kingdom ; some of the mollusca, moreover, being cepha-
lopods, which are the highest of their division in point of
organization. In strict fact, as has been shown, the

* 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.

112 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

cephalopoda do not appear till the next epoch, that of the
Silurian rocks. A nicer discrimination of the groups of
these early strata has shown their posteriority in time to
the gasteropods and other lower mollusks. A similar
discrimination a few years earlier put an end to the idea
that fishes appeared in the first fossiliferous rocks ; they
are now placed at the top of the Silurian, — ages, proba-
bly, after the origination of invertebrate animals. See-
ing what discrimination of rock chronologies has done in
these instances, is it unreasonable to ask that the cotem-
poraneousness of 'Crustacea and mollusks with radiata be
held at least in suspense, until we shall have had the
slate system more rigidly examined, particularly as there
are appearances of infusoria in the Primaries ? If this
be denied, then I would say that I know to which side the
charge of rash conclusions is most justly attributable.
With regard to the so-called early occurrence of fishes
partaking of the reptile character, I have in like manner
to remark, that their occurring a full formation after the
earliest and simplest fishes, is, considering how little we
know of the space of time represented by a formation,
not early. The subsequent rise of classes of fishes in
which the saurian character does not appear, is a more
startling objection ; yet when we remember how curi-
ously sub-kingdoms and classes overlap each other, and
that the genetic connexions are still generally so obscure,
it is not insuperable. In short, all the objections which
have been made to the great fact of a general progress of
organic development throughout the geological ages, are
merely frivolous, and, reading in the actual condemna-
tion of some, the destiny of the rest, hardly worthy of the
notice here taken of them.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 113

It is scarcely less evident, from the geological record,
that the progress of organic life has observed some cor-
respondence 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 inconceiva-
ble. 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, imper-
fectly 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 ne-
cessary 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 sur-
plus 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 im-
mediately 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 ad-
vance of the conditions required by the higher class of
plants. In short, we see everywhere throughout the

114 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

geological history, strong traces of a parallel advance of
the physical conditions of the organic forms.

In examining the fossils of the lower marine creation,
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 cal-
careous 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 any regard to the
origination of new species, but more probably it was oth-
erwise ; or why, for instance, should the polypiferous
zoophyta be found almost exclusively in the limestones ?
There are, indeed, abundant appearances as if, through-
out 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 spe-
cies existed during the earlier formations, was extirpated
before the secondary had commenced, and appeared no
more. The ammonite is not found above the chalk.

* See paper by Professor Edward Forbes, read to the British As-
sociation, 1839.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 115

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 ter-
tiary (Ehrenberg's infusoria excepted) now exists ; and
of the mammalia which arose during that series, many
forms are altogether gone, while of others we have now
only kindred species. Thus to find not only frequent
additions to the previously existing forms, but frequent
withdrawals of forms which had apparently become inap-
propriate— a constant shifting as well as advance — is 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 re-
ceived, 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
described as this, — that the Almighty Author produced
the progenitors of all existing species by some sort of per-
sonal 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 crus-
tacea, again to produce cr ustaceous fishes, again perfect
fishes, and so on to the end? This would surely be to

116 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

take a very mean view of the Creative Power — to, in
short, anthropomorphize 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 over-
turn or gainsay. Some other idea must then be come to
with regard to the mode in which the Divine Author pro-
ceeded 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 the result of natural laws, which are in like man-
ner 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 shell-fish 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 may 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 ; to which
I would respectfully answer, that the Mosaic record ap-
pears, when perused with an awakened mind, much more

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 117

in conformity with the present view than with that which
has been so long entertained. All the procedure is repre-
sented primarily and pre-eminently as flowing from com-
mands 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 crea-
tion, 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 mis-
taken inference from the text, formed at the time when man's
ignorance prevented him from drawing therefrom a just
conclusion.

To a reasonable mind the Divine attributes must ap-
pear, not diminished or reduced in any way, by supposing
a creation by law, but infinitely exalted. It is the nar-
rowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of an
humble class of intellects, to suppose him constantly
acting in particular ways for particular occasions. It,
for one thing, greatly detracts from his foresight, the

118 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

most undeniable of all the attributes of Omnipotence.
It lowers him towards the level of our own humble intel-
lects. 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 enlight-
ened readily form for themselves, and conceive as being
adopted by all who have to attend to a multitude of af-
fairs, while the ignorant suppose every act of the greatest
public functionary to be the result of some special con-
sideration and care on his part alone. Are we to sup-
pose the Deity adopting plans which harmonize 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 favor of the exist-
ence of God is lost by rejecting this doctrine. When all
is seen to be the result of law, the idea of an Almighty
Author becomes irresistible, for the creation of a law for
an endless series of phenomena — an act of intelligence
above 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 : " If the pro-
perties adopted by the elements at the moment of their
creation adapted them beforehand to the infinity of com-

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 119

plicated useful purposes which they have already an-
swered and may have still further 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 imme-
diate 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 denned 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 archi-
tect ; 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 pat-
tern, 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 him-
self must execute what he planned, in each case equally.
He uses these little and senseless animals as hands ; but

120 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

they are hands which himself must direct. He must
direct each one everywhere, and therefore he is ever
acting."* This is a 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 envelopes them ; con-
sequently, there is nothing more wonderful in their de-
terminate 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 re-
marked, wherever there is room and encouragement for
it, the forms being always such as suit the circumstances,
and in a certain relation to them, as, for example, where
the limestone-forming seas produce an abundance of
corals, crinoidea, and shell-fish. How well the extensive
changes of species which are evidenced by geology, com-
port with our view of the details of law-creation, will be
seen when these come to be explained. The more soli-
tary commencements of species, which would have been
the most inconceivably paltry exercise for an immedi-
ately 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

*Macculloch on the Attributes of the Deity, iii., 569.

ORIGJN 01' THE AMMATED TRIBES. 121

hundreds of thousands of series, the whole of which
again farm but one portion of an apparently infinite
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 addi-
tion to our knowledge makes only the more irresistible.
Is it conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise for crea-
tive 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 par-
ticular 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.

O

Unprepared as most men may be for such an announce-
ment, 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 alon^. 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

7

122 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

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 diffused in one mass,
of which the spheres are portions. Consequently, inor-
ganic matter must be presumed to be everywhere the
same, although probably with differences in the propor-
tions of ingredients in different globes, and also some dif-
ference 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 Sinus, 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. Gra-
vitation 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 rela-
tion, 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, as science strongly suggests,
life and mental action must everywhere be of one general
character. We come to comparatively 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

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 123

earth, they may be presumed to do so in other spheres
also. The considerations as to light are particularly in-
teresting, for, on our globe, the structure of one important
organ, almost universally distributed in the animal king-
dom, is in direct and precise relation to it. Where there
is light 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 a 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 con-
formable 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 mo-
tions and geognostic arrangements, so one set of laws
overspread them all with life. The whole productive
or creative arrangements are therefore in perfect unity.

124

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 quar-

*n~&

ter.

Crystallization is confessedly a phenomenon of inor-
ganic 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 crys-
tallizations the mimicry is beautiful and complete ; for
example, in the well-known one called the Arbor Diana.
An amalgam of four parts of silver and two of mercury

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 125

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 crystallization precisely resembling a
shrub. Vegetable figures are also presented in some of
the most ordinary appearances 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
recal 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 inti-
mately connected with vegetable life is indubitable, for
germination will not proceed in water charged with
negative electricity, while water charged positively
greatly favors 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, particu-
larly its lower strata, is generally charged positively,
while the earth is always charged negatively. The cor-
respondence here is curious. A plant thus appears as a
thing formed on the basis of a natural electrical opera-
tion— the brush realized. 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 constitu-

126 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

ents. 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
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, &c., out of which the
structure of the animal body is composed. Now it is
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 crea-
tion : 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 com-
bined precisely according to the same plan as the ele-
ments of mineral bodies are known to be."* A particu-
lar 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 rup-
ture of the starch vesicles, and the change of their con-
tained gum into sugar. This diastase may be separately
obtained by the chemist, and it acts as effectually in his

* Supplement to the Atomic Theory.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 127

laboratory as in the vegetable organization. He can also
imitate its effects by other chemical agents."* The wri-
ter 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

O

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 inves-
tigation of the minutiae of organic structure by the micro-
scope 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 ani-

o

mal substances consists of nucleated cells ; that is, cells
having 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 re-
sources, and entirely dependent for their nutrition on the
surrounding elements, develope themselves into new cells,

* Carpenter on Life ; Todd's Cyclopaedia of Physiology.

128 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

which repeat the life of their original. Amongst the
higher tribes 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 the little cell becomes directly a plant, ihc
full-formed living being. It is also worthy of remark
that, in the sponges (an animal form), a gemmule de-
tached from the body of the parent, and trusting for sus-
tentation 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 per-
fect 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 glolator, has
exactly the form of the germ which, after passing through
a long foetal 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
an appearance of revolving motion, 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.f
It has likewise been noted that the globules of the blood

* Carpenter's Report on the results obtained by the Microscope
in the study of Anatomy and Physiology, 1S43.

t See Dr. Martin Barry on Fissiparous Generation; Jameson's
Journal, Oct., 18-13.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 129

are reproduced by the expansion of contained granules ;
they are, in short, distinct organisms multiplied by the same
fissiparous generation. So that all animated nature may
be said to be based on this mode of origin ; the funda-
mental form of organic being is a globule, having a new
globule forming within itself, by which it is in time dis-
charged, 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 the French physiolo-
gists Prevost and Dumas, that globules could be produced
in albumen by electricity. If, therefore, these globules be
identical with the cells which are now held to be repro-
ductive, 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.*

tf

The reader will please to understand that the above paragraph
is only an humble attempt to bring illustration from a department of
science on which at present much doubt and obscurity rest. .1 have
followed the best lights I could find, but cannot be assured that
better will not yet be evolved from the researches of the many able
physiologists now engaged in the investigation of ultimate structure
and of embryology. I am bound to admit, in the meantime, that
the identity of the globules produced in albumen by electricity
with living cells, and the fact of the reproduction of living globules,

130 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

In such an investigation as the present, it is not un-
worthy 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 incrusta-
tion has all the characters of shell, displaying a 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 forma-
tion of natural shell. " The plates into which the sub-
stance is divisible have been formed in succession, and
certain intervals of time have elapsed between their for-
mation; 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 pro-
ducing all the various colors of thin plates which corres-
pond to intermediate thicknesses : between some of the
laminae no such film exists, probably in consequence of the
interval of time between their formation being too short ; and

are both doubted by physiologists of high character. In this, as in
other instances, I believe that particular illustrations may be held in
doubt, or may altogether fail, without necessary injury to my gene-
ral argument.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 131

between others the film has been formed of an 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 laminse,
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 colors of mother-of-
pearl, which are incommunicable to wax, arise from iride-
scent films deposited between the laminse of its structure,
and it is hence inferred that the animal, like the wheel,
rests periodically from its labors in forming the natural
substance.

These, it will be owned, are curious and not irrelevant
facts ; but it will be asked what actual experience says
respecting origination of life. Are there, it will be said,
any authentic instances of either plants or animals, of how-
ever humble and simple a kind, having come into existence
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 neces-
sary 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 organiza-
tion of life, otherwise than by generation, since the com-
mencement of the human species, and nevertheless the

* Mr. Leonard Horner and Sir David Brewster, on a substance
resembling shell. — Philosophical Transaction's, 1S3G.

132 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

doctrine in question may be shown upon grounds alto-
gether 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 un-
reasonable to expect that we should still see some rem-
nants, 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 favor
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 ap-
proved reputation in science, nine out of the number
would answer in the negative. This is because, in a
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 ex-
haustive 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,

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 133

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 ex-
planations 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 dor-
mant 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 th6 winds ?

There are several persons eminent in science who pro-
fess at least to find great difficulty in accepting the doc-
trine of invariable generation. One of these* has stated
several considerations arising from analogical reasoning,
which appear to him to throw the balance of evidence in
favor of the primitive production of infusoria, the vegeta-
tion 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 af-
terwards found increasing their numbers, not by that
mode at all, but by division of their bodies. If it be the

N

* Dr. Allen Thomson, in the article Generation, in Tcdd's Cy-
clopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology.

134 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

nature of these creatures to propagate in this splitting or
fissiparous manner, how could they be communicated to
a vegetable infusion ? It has been shown by the oppo-
nents 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 ani-
malcules are produced ; but it has been said, on the other
hand, that the exclusion of the air may prevent some sim-
ple condition necessary for the aboriginal development of
life — and nothing is more likely. Perhaps the prevailing
doctrine 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
other living 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 be reasonably supposed that the ova ever pass
through the medium of the air, or through the blood-ves-
sels, for they are too heavy for the one transit, and too
large for the other. Of the former, it cannot be con-
ceived 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 cha-
racter 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

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 135

body, and the common doctrine that all created beings
proceed from their likes, or a primordial egg, is so diffi-
cult, 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 organized, or has been thrown
from organized surfaces. Their origin in this

manner is not more wonderful or more inexplicable than
that of many of the inferior animals from sections of
themselves. Particles of matter fitted by diges-

tion, and their transmission through a living body, for
immediate assimilation with it, or flakes of lymph de-
tached from surfaces already organized, seem neither to
exceed nor fall below that simplicity of structure which
favors this wonderful development ; and the supposition
that, like morsels of a planaria, they may also, when re-
tained in contact with living parts, and in other favorable
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 Meta-
morphoses of Ovid. We think the hypothesis is
also supported in some degree by the fact, that the origin
of the entozoa is favored by all causes which tend to dis-
turb the equality between the secerning and absorbent
system."* Here particles of organized matter are sug-
gested as the germinal original of distinct and fully or-
ganized animals, many of which have a highly developed

* Article "Zoophytes," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7th edition.

136 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

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 favorable to the general doc-
trine of an organic creation by law.*

There is another series of facts, akin to the above, and

* A more general, but more arresting argument in favor of primi-
tive production, though not conclusively so, has been presented in
the following terms : —

" We see a simple germ — the nucleus of a cell — develope itself
into a feeling, moving, thinking man, by drawing into itself, and
combining into new forms, the particles of what we are accustomed
to call inorganic matter. These new forms are caused, by the very
act of combination, to manifest properties of a new and peculiar
kind ; and their actions constitute the life of the being. Hence we
must attribute to all those substances, which are thus drawn from
the inorganic mode of existence, a latent capacity for the latter ; —
just as we say that the oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
wh>ch make up the organic substance termed muscular fibre, and
which, in that state or mode of combination, possess certain vital
properties, possess also a latent capacity for combining in that
mode of aggregation termed crystalline, and for exhibiting the solu-
bility, translucency, and other qualities of a salt (all. of which are
totally opposed to its vital properties, and cannot coexist with them),
when united into the form ofcyanate of ammonia. If we were only
acquainted with those elements as they exist in organic compounds,
their transposition into a crystalline salt would be almost as mar-
vellous to us as the opposite change is now. If this latent organi-
zability or vitality be admitted (as we conceive logical proof to have
been given that it must), as a property of a large proportion of what
we call inorganic matter, is there any such wonderful difficulty in
imagining that it may be brought into play in some other manner
than by the agency of a pre-existing germ ? We think not. But
let further investigation and more extended experience decide." —
British and Foreign Medical Review, January, 1815.

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 137

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, compara-
tively speaking, a recent event. Whence, then, the first
progenitor of this hydatid 1 So also there 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 no-
where but in wine arid beer, all of these being articles
manufactured bv man. There is likewise a creature

•/

called the pymelodes cyclopum which is only found in sub-
terranean 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 ? Will it, to a
geologist, appear irrational to suppose that, just as the
pterodactyle wras 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 sel-
dom being the rarity of the rise of new physical condi-
tions 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 throw-
ing off* of one copy from an engraved plate is exactly the

138 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

same process as that by which a thousand are thrown off.
To Creative Providence, we may well conceive, the num-
bers of such phenomena, the time when, and the circum-
stances under which they take place, are indifferent mat-
ters. The Eternal One has arranged for everything be-
forehand, 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 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 occur-
red 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 can-
did 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 crystallization, 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. Weckes, of Sandwich, with
precisely the same results. This gentleman, besides
trying the first of the above substances, employed ferro-
cyanuret of potassium on account of its containing a

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 139

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. 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
which is very striking, when we remember that gelatin
is one of the proximate principles, or first compounds, out
of which animal bodies are formed, though, of course, we
should require further proof to satisfy us that the matter
here concerned was actually gelatin. From the matter,
whatever was its nature, 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.*

* See a Pamphlet circulated by Mr. Weekes, ia IS 42

140 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

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 favorable 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 develope any striking new fact which only
could harmonize with the as yet unknown Copernican
solar system, we cannot 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 ap-
paratus devised by human skill. The more likely ac- '
count 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 crea-
tures, except by the most unreasoning ignorance. The
utmost that can be claimed for, or imputed to him, is, that

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 141

he arranged the natural conditions under which the true
creative energy — that flowing from the primordial ap-
pointment 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 realized 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 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 fumes constantly rising from the liquid,
for the emission of which there was an aperture so ar-
ranged 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 circum-
stances, 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

142 ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES.

arise from concealed ova, and these of a species heretofore
unknown.*

* The writer of the critique upon this work in the British and
Foreign Medical Review, after saying that "none of the easy
solutions which have been offered of the difficult problem presented
by the appearance of this acarus can be admitted," proceeds to
make a few remarks much to the above purpose ; and adds — " Not
the least curious part of its (the acarus's) history is the series of
metamorphoses which it undergoes before quitting the solution ;
these being entirely different from the very slight changes which
other acari undergo after their emersion from the egg. Further,
we believe it may be positively asserted, that, in whatever mode
these acari are first generated, it is not from eggs ; since, after
they have escaped from the solution, they live in the neighborhood,
and readily breed ; and their eggs, which we have ourselves seen,
are quite large enough to have been readily visible in the solution,
had they existed there."

The metamorphoses here adverted to will perhaps go some way
to satisfy those who have objected that the acarus, belonging as it
does to the articulata, is too high an animal to have been produced
otherwise than from ova.

I would, nevertheless, remark that the Acarus Crossii is only
brought forward as one illustration, and in order that a hypothesis
which I think has strong probabilities on its side may have the
benefit of any doubts that can be instituted with regard to the pro-
duction of this creature. The decision of the question against the
conclusion here leant to, would still leave much sound illustration,
and not in the least affect the general argument.

143

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 mammalia. Confining
our attention, on this occasion, to the animal kingdom — it

* ' o

is to be observed that the gradation is much less simple
and direct than is generally supposed. It certainly does
not proceed, at all parts of its course at least, upon one
line ; for the two sub-kingdoms of middle rank, mollusca
and articulata, form unquestionably two distinct approaches
to the highest, the vertebrata. It may even be admitted
that there are appearances of more than two lines at va-
rious parts of the animal scale. Another circumstance
of a perplexing nature, which has already been touched
upon, may be thus instanced : — the vertebrate division.

144 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

though generally possessing the highest organization, sinks
down in its lower forms (the cyclostomous fishes) into such
a humility — the vertebrate structure being highly recog-
nizable— that these animals must be held as, generally
speaking, far inferior to the upper forms of both the
articulata and mollusca (crustacea and cephalopoda), and
rather approaching to the. lower families, at least of the
articulata. There is, in short, an appearance, either of
an overlapping of parts of the animal scale, or of a loop-
like divergence at various parts of it, the line of the loop
going on into highly organized forms, but becoming hum-
ble again at the further extremity, where it returns to the
general scale. Still, notwithstanding all difficulties, there
is no room to doubt of a general advance of organization
from the radiate, into both the molluscous and articulate
forms, and from these again into the vertebrate ; as also
along the classes of (for example) the vertebrata, in this
sequence — 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 be-
ing 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 or-
der 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,

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 145

as it is called, becomes the more 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 dis-
tinct organs. In mammifers, the gills exist and act at an
early stage of the foetal state, but afterwards go back and
appear no more ; while the lungs are developed. In
fishes, again, the gills only are fully developed ; while
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 in-
stead. The land animals, we may also be sure, have the
rudiments of baleen in their organization. In many in-
stances, 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 ani-
mals in the scale. In other instances, a portion of organi-
zation necessary in one sex is also presented in the other,
where it is not necessary. For example, the mammae of
the human female, by whom these organs are obviously
required, also exist in the male, who has no occasion for
them. It might be supposed that in this case there was a

•

8

146 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

regard to uniformity for mere appearance sake ; but that
no such principle is concerned, appears from a much more
remarkable instance connected with the marsupial ani-
mals. The female of that tribe has a process of bone
advancing from the pubes for the support of her pouch ;
and this also appears in the male marsupial, who has no
pouch, and requires none. The rudimentary organs, as
those not fully developed for use are called, appear most
conspicuously in animals which form links between va-
rious classes.

As formerly stated, the marsupials, standing at the bot-
tom 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 liz-
ards represented in the mammalia in certain white cartila-
ginous lines traceable among their abdominal muscles.
The struthionidse (birds of the ostrich tribe) form a link
between birds and mammalia, and in them we find the
wings imperfectly or not at all developed, a diaphragm
and urinary sac (organs wanting in other birds), and
feathers approaching the nature of hair. Again, the or-
nithorhynchus 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

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 147

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 between
the fifth and seventh week of the embryo a tail does
exist, and in the mature subject the bones of this caudal
appendage are found in an undeveloped state in the os
coccygis. The limbs of all the vertebrate animals are,
in like manner, on one plan, however various they may
appear. In the hind-leg of a horse, for example, the
angle called the hock is the same part which in us forms
the heel : and the horse and other quadrupeds, with cer-
tain exceptions, 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 up
in 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 ptero-dactyle, had the
same membrane extended upon the fore-finger only,
which in that animal was prolonged to an extraordinary
extent. 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.

* D' Aubenton established the rule, that all the viviparous quad-
rupeds have seven vertebrae in the neck.

148 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

The same law of development presides over the ve-
getable 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 provided
for it, not by a new organ, but by a modification of a
common one, which she has effected in 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 pitcher, 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 funda-
mental unity pervades and embraces them all, collecting
them, from the humblest lichen up to the highest mam-
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 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 irreconcileable with that idea of Almighty Perfec-
tion which a general view of nature so irresistibly con-

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 149

veys. 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 our subject. First surmised by the
illustrious Harvey, afterwards illustrated by Hunter in
his wondrous collection at the Royal College of Surgeons,
finally advanced to mature conclusions by Tiedemann,
St. Hilaire, and Serres, embryotic development is now a
science. Its primary positions are — 1. that the embryos
of all animals are not distinguishably different from each
other ; and, 2. that those of all animals pass through a
series of phases of development, each of which is the
type or analogue of the permanent configuration of tribes
inferior to it in the scale. With regard to the latter
proposition, it is to be remarked that, while it is generally
true of the whole forms of animal being, it is more par-
ticularly true of departments of the organization, as the
nutritive system, the vascular system, the nervous sys-
tem, &c., each of which is destined for a peculiar degree
of development in different groups of animals, according
to their needs ; and this, I may observe, is so far an ex-
planation of such phenomena as the superiority of the
highest mollusks to the lowest vertebrates. Even in man
there are some particulars of organization less developed
than in certain animals which generally are far inferior.
Speaking, however, roundly, it is undoubted that all ani-
mals pass in embryo through phases resembling the gen-
eral as well as the particular characters of those of lower
grade. For example, the comatula, a free-swimming

150 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

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 suc-
ceeded in the oolitic age by animals of the form of the
mature comatula. Thus, too, the insect, standing near
the head of the articulated animals, is, in the larva state,
an annelid or worm, the annelida being the lowest in the
same class. Of the worm, again, it has been observed
that it passes through the forms of the polype, helianthois,
and arenicola, before attaining its permanent character
as an annelid. The higher Crustacea, as the crab or
lobster, at their escape from the ovum, resemble the per-
fect animal of the inferior order entomostraca, and pass
through all the forms of transition which characterize the
intermediate tribes of Crustacea. The salmon, a highly
organized 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 ad-
vances 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 organization gradually
passes through conditions generally resembling a fish, a

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 151

reptile, a bird, and the lower mammalia, before it attains
its specific maturity. At one of the last stages of his
foetal career, he exhibits an intermaxillary bone, which is
characteristic of the perfect ape ; this is suppressed, and
he may then be said to take leave of the simial type, and
become a true human creature. Even, as we shall see,
the varieties of his race are represented in the progressive
development of an individual of the highest, before we
see the adult Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in
the animal scale.

To come to particular points of the organization. The
brain of man, which exceeds that of all other animals in
complexity of organization and fulness of development,
is, at one early period, only "a simple fold of nervous
matter, with difficulty distinguishable into three parts,
while a little tail-like prolongation towards the hinder
parts, and which had been the first to appear, is the only
representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in this state it
perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus assum-
ing in transitu the form that in the fish is permanent. In
a short time, however, the structure is become more com-
plex, the parts more distinct, and the spinal marrow bet-
ter 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 complica-
tion of the organ increases; cavities termed ventricles are
formed, which do not exist in fishes, reptiles, or birds ;
curiously organized parts, such as the corpora striata,

152 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

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
foetus, 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 con-
traction 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
heart of the reptile tribes; lastly, the ventricle being also
subdivided, it becomes a full mammal heart. f

* Lord's Popular Physiology.

f M. Serres has shown that there is a similar gradation in the
tissues. The elementary tissue in the lower infusoria is mere
cellular substance, with functions limited to exhalation and absorp-
tion. To this, in the echinodermata, is added a peripheral system
of blood-vessels. In the rotifera a muscular system is added ; and
these are united in the helianthoidea. Nervous apparatus becomes
distinct in the muscular system in the annelida and mollusca.
Compare this with the progress of the embryo. A mere vesicle of
cellular membrane before impregnation, it becomes after that pro-
cess a double membrane. Between the two membranes appears in
a short time a vascular tissue, and to this a nervous tissue is sub-
sequently added.

Our physiologist obtained a curious confirmation of his views on
this subject by some experiments on the common earth-worm.
This animal, in its foetal evolution, passes through stages represent-

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 153

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
mammifers, 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 extend-
ing 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
ot what may prove to be its proper solution ! It is an
idea by no means calculated to impress 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

ing the permanent forms of the polype, taenia, helianthois, and
arenicola. A piece of its skin having been destroyed, the regene-
rated part was found to be the same in structure as that of the
arenicola. A second reproduction of the same part gave the struc-
ture of the helianthois. A third brought it down to the merely
cellular membrane of the polype.

8*

154 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

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 appro-
priate. I contemplate the whole phenomena as having
been in the first place arranged in the counsels of Divine
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 favor of the creative will or energy.*
The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form of all organi-
zation, 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 a general paral-
lelism and analogy. We have already seen that this
nucleated vesicle is itself a type of mature and inde-
pendent being in the infusory animalcules, as well as the
starting-point of the foetal progress of every higher in-
dividual 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 produce — though not per-
haps usher into full life — in albumen, one of those com-
ponent materials of animal bodies, in whose combinations
it is believed there is no chemical peculiarity forbidding

* When I formed this idea, I was not aware of one which seems
faintly to foreshadow it — namely, Socrates's 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."

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 155

their being any day realized in the laboratory. Remem-
bering these things, we are drawn on to the supposition,
that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet
was a cliemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal
vesicles were produced. This is so much, but what were
the next steps 1 I suggest, as an hypothesis countenan-
ced 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 under favor of peculiar condi-
tions^ from 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 cal-
culated 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 Bridgewa-
ter 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, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
&c., of natural numbers, each of which exceeds its imme-
diate 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 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,

156 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

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 thou-
sand and one ; and the same regular succession will con-
tinue ; 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.

11 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 thousand and two. The whole series
from the commencement being thus, —

1

2

3

4

5

99,999,999

100,000,000

regularly as far as 100,000,001

100,010,002 the law changes.

100,030,003

100,060,004

100,100,005

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 157

100,150,006
100,210,007
100,280,008

" 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 10,000. 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 : —

10,000

30,000

60,000

100,000

150,000

being, in fact, the series of triangular numbers* each
multiplied by 10,000.

* The numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, &c., are formed by adding
the successive terms of the series of natural numbers thus :

I = 1

1+2+3 = G
1+2+3+4=10, &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 instance —

10

158 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

" 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 2762d 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 law that each number
presented by the engine is greater by unity than the preced-
ing number, which law the observer had deduced from
an induction of a hundred million instances, was not the
true law that regulated its action., and that the occurrence
of the number 100,010,002 at the 100,000,002d term
was as necessary a consequence of the original adjustment,
and might have been as fully foreknown at the commence-
ment, as was the regular succession of any one of the in-
termediate 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 me-
chanical structure of the engine, our knowledge of analy-
sis 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

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 159

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 in-
volving enormous spaces of time. Suppose that an ephe-
meron, 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 branchiae 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 gene-
ration 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 en-
tire age of our globe. We do not know what may have
happened during the ages which preceded its commence-
ment, 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. Bab-
bage'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 evi-
dence for this very conclusion.

It has been seen that, in the reproduction of the higher

160

HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

animals, the new being passes through stages in which it
is successively fish-like and reptile-like. But the resem-
blance is not to the adult fish or the adult reptile, but to
the fish and reptile at a certain point in their foetal pro-
gress; this holds true with regard to the vascular, ner-
vous, and other systems alike. It seems as if gestation
consisted of two distinct and independent stages — one de-
voted 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 matu-
rity, on the basis of the point of development reached.
This may be illustrated by a simple diagram. The foetus
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 rep-
tile, bird, and mammal, go on together to
C, where the reptile diverges in like man- '
ner, 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 organ-
ization at M. This diagram shows only the main ramifi-
cations ; but the reader must suppose minor ones, repre-
senting the subordinate differences of orders, tribes, fami-
lies, 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 required for an advance
from one type to another in the generative process is that,

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 161

for example, the fish embryo should not diverge at A, but
go on to C before it diverges, in which case the progeny
will be, not a fish, but a reptile. To protract the straight-
fonvard 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 these 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 depart-
ments of the organic world, or under extraordinary casu-
alties in some of the higher, and to these points the atten-
tion 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 sat-
isfactorily shown that there must be some such influence
within the range of natural things.

To this conclusion it is greatly conducive that the law
of organic development is still daily seen at work to cer-
tain effects, short, indeed, of a transition from species to
species, but evidently of the same character. Sex is
fully ascertained to be a matter of development. All
beings are, at one stage of the embryotic progress,
female ; a certain number of them are afterwards
advanced to be male. From this it will be understood
that no absolute distinction exists ; all such are merely
apparent. The ingenious Huber first made us aware of
an instance, in an humble department of the animal world,
of arrangements being made by the animals themselves
for adjusting the law of development to the production of

162 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT 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
intermediate between the female and male, 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 larva, which otherwise would result in a
worker, that, when the perfect insect 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 larvae 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 pro-
duced. Some of the organs possessed by the worker are
here 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 labor," instead
of one " zealous for the good of the community, a defender
of the public rights, enjoying an immunity from the stimu-
lus of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition ; labori-
ous, industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful ; incessantly en-
gaged in the nurture of the young, in collecting honey and
pollen, in elaborating wax, in constructing cells and the
like ! — 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

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 163

it had destroyed them !"* All these changes may be pro-
duced 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 dif-
ferent 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 image 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 may 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 mat-
ter 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 genera-
tion of bees may be very different from those concerned in

* Kirby and Spence.

164 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

the reproduction of the higher animals. There is a
unity throughout nature which makes the one case an in-
structive 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 genera-
tions, 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 cir-
cumstances 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 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 devel-
opment in the generative system. Give good conditions,
it advances ; bad ones, it recedes. Now, perhaps, it is

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 165

only because there is no longer a possibility, in the higher
types of being, of giving sufficiently favorable conditions to
carry on species to species, that we see the operation of the
law so far limited.

Let us trace this law also in the production of certain
classes 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 develop-
ment in the system of the mother, occasioned by wreak
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 realization of the converse of those
conditions which carry on species to species, so far, at
least, as one organ is concerned. Seeing a complete spe-
cific retrogression in this one point, how easy it is to suppose
an access of favorable conditions sufficient to reverse the
phenomenon, and make a fish mother develope a reptile
heart, or a reptile mother develope 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

166 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

still take place in some of the obscurer fields of creation,
or under extraordinary casualties, though science pro-
fesses 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 is,
however, one direct case of a translation of species, which
has been presented with a respectable amount of authori-
ty.* 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 sum-
mer. This experiment has been tried repeatedly, with but
one result ; invariably the secale cereale is the crop reaped
where the avena sativa, a recognized different species, 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,

* See an article by Dr. Weissenborn, in the New Series of" Maga-
zine of Natural History," vol i., p. 574. See also the Gardener's
Chronicle, August and November, 1844.

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 167

when burnt down, being succeeded (without planting) by
other kinds, may yet be found most explicable, as this is,
upon the hypothesis of a transmutation of species which
takes place under certain favoring conditions, now appa-
rently of comparatively rare occurrence. The case of
the oats is the more valuable, as bearing upon the sug-
gestion 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.

It may here be said that perhaps the oats and rye are
not of different species, as heretofore supposed, but only
varieties of one, liable to return to, or melt into, each
other in proper circumstances. And for this some argu-
ments can be adduced. It is, in the first place, to be
remarked, that the distinction called species, is applied by
naturalists to any group of organized beings, which do not
show any variation beyond what can be proved to have
been the result of external conditions. Thus, the various
families of dogs, although so different in external form
and even in psychical character, are all held as of one
species, because, under certain changed conditions, the
peculiarities of form and of instinct will all disappear,
and a tendency will be shown to go back to a common
and apparently original type. So, also, it has been shown
that the primrose, cowslip, oxslip, and polyanthus, are
varieties of one species, produced by peculiar conditions.
When we descend into the lower fields of animal and
vegetable existence, we find even more curious evidence
as to this lubricity of specific distinctions. It is fully
admitted that many lichens, mosses, and other humble

168 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OP

families of plants, present a considerable number of forms,
hitherto supposed to be independent species, yet proceed-
ing, in each instance, from a germ of one kind, the varia-
tion being in each case simply accordant with the cir-
cumstances of the infant organism. The infusory ani-
malcules are liable to appear in the same multiplicity of
forms, so that it is hardly possible to determine species
in that department of nature, and many thought at one
time to be distinct, are now regarded as only variations of
one. Now, if we except the infusory animalcules, all the
varieties thus produced are liable to become permanent
when the affecting conditions are persevered in ; and it
requires a subsequent alteration of circumstances to effect
a new change of forms in the course of reproduction.
A variability so great undoubtedly says something for the
possibility of the cerealia being of one species. It may be
observed, indeed, that the circumstances leading to a
change from oats to rye are of a peculiar character.
They do not consist merely of such elements as heat,
soil, manure, or climate, but apparently resemble that
process by which the bees work a modification of embry-
otic development in their larvae. There is, as has been
remarked, a prolongation of the ordinary term of gesta-
tion. The new organism may be supposed to be ef-
fected at a stage where fundamental, not superficial,
changes take place. The change certainly looks much
more, both in its causes and its effects, like a change
from species to species than any of the other cases men-
tioned ; for, if I mistake not, the difference between the
two plants is so great as to have caused their being ranked
by botanists, not only as different species, but even as be-
longing to different genera. Notwithstanding all this, sup-

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 169

posing the change to be one of variety only, it would
surely speak powerfully regarding this phenomenon called
variability. We surely see, in this and other instances,
at the very least, striking proofs of the effect of conditions
upon organic development. Who is to say where this
power of conditions has its limit ? Or, admitting that it
has a limit short of species-transition in the present state
of the physical world, who is to say that it had not a lit-
tle more power in the geological ages, and did then move
the animated families on from one specific type to ano-
ther ? It will be said, no one pretends to deny the possi-
bility of such power ; we only require proof. See proof,
then, in the facts of geology, for species did in those ages
follow each other in an order at once of development and
of time. This, indeed, is not a demonstration; but take
it for what it is — ground of a strong probability ; and say,
if, when we see that conditions will advance a sea-side
woed into some of our best pot-herbs, they might not
advance a sauroid fish into an ichthyosaur, and if there
be more rationality in assuming supernatural interference
in the one case than the other, especially when we have •
so many other facts telling us that the age of the coal
and oolite was an age of natural conditions in other res-
pects, exactly as is the present. The change of external
conditions between these two periods, in proportion to the
advance from the megalichthys to the ichthyosaur, was
not less, to all appearance, than is the change from the con-
ditions which produced the sea-side weeds to those which
produced the pot-herbs, in proportion to the distance between
the characters of those plants. The lengthening of the
legs of our common pig, when left to breed in the wilder-
ness ; the change from the lean, bare dog of Turkey, to

9

170 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

the short, thick, well-furred dog of Siberia ; the metamor-
phosis of the round, plump form of the Englishman in a
second generation, into the raw, wiry New Englander,
are all transitions not less wonderful, in our age of com-
paratively (time-) uniform conditions, than was one of the
passages between the cetacean and the pachyderm, at a
time when, probably, the part of the globe where the
phenomenon took place was for the first time the scene of
a physical fact of no less importance than the formation
of rivers ! These phenomena are of one character in
their effects, the difference being only in degree. The
causes must be one in character also ; that is, simply-
natural. We only do not now ordinarily see these causes
in sufficient force to transmute family into family.

The idea, then, which I form of the progress of organic
life upon our earth — 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 li^e-
production 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. 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 lit-
tle by any circumstances of a wonderful or startling kind,
as the silent advance of an ordinary mother from one
week to another of her pregnacy. Yet, be it remem-
bered, the whole phenomena are, in another point of view,
wonders of the highest kind, in as far as they are direct

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 171

effects of an Almighty will, which had provided before-
hand that everything should be v5ry good.

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
following table 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.* Dr. Fletcher's scale, it
may be remarked, was not made up with a view to sup-
port such an hypothesis as the present, nor with any ap-

' " It is a fact of the highest interest and moment that, as the
brain of every tribe of animals appears to pass, during its develop-
ment, 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 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 qua-
drumana; till at length, at the ninth, it compasses the brain of
Man ! It is hardly necessary to say, that all this is only an ap-
proximation 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 fetus at any time precisely re-
semble, 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." — Fletcher's Rudiments of Physiology.

172

HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

SCALE OF ANIMAL KINGDOM.
(The numbers indicate orders :Xi-

RADIATA (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) - - - -

ORDER OF ANIMALS IN

MOJLLUSCA (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) -

(Annelida (12, 13, 14)
ARTICTJ- '

f Infusoria -
i Polypiaria
Crinoidea
(Crustacea)

I Conchifera
1 Cephalopeda

! Annelida

Crustacea (15—20) - - ,

LATA. oil Crustaceous Fishes

I Jlrachnida Sf Insect a (21 — 3L !

' Pisces (32, 33, 34, 35, 36) - True Fishes - -

VERTE-
BRATA.

f Piscine Saurians (ichthyosaurus, &c.-
I Pterodactyles -----..)

Reptilia (37, 38, 39, 40) - <J Crocodiles

I Tortoises ---------

(^ Batrachians --

Jives (41,42, 43, 44, 45, 40) -Birds

47 Cetacea - - - Bones of a cetaceous animal

Bones of a marsupial - - - - -

48 Ruminantia
49 Pachydermata - Pachydermata (tapirs, &c.) - - -

50 Edentata

51 Rodentia - - Rodentia (dormouse, squirrel, &c.)

52 Marsupialia - Marsupialia (raccoon, opossum, &c.)

53 Amphibia

54 Digitigrada - Digitigrada (genette, fox, wolf, &c/

55 Plantigrada - Plantigrada (bear)

56 Insectivora

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

57 Cheiroptera

55 Quadrumana - Quadrumana

59 Bimana - Bimana (man)

Mammalia <

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS.

173

ASCENDING SERIES OF ROCKS. FCETAL HUMAN BRAIN

RESEMBLES, IN

-^

1 Gneiss and Mica Slate System

2 Clay Slate and Grauwacke system

3 Silurian system

4 Old Red Sandstone

5 Carboniferous formation

i

6 New Red Sandstone

7 Oolite

8 Cretaceous formation

. 9 Lower Eocene

10 Miocene

1st month, that of an avertebrated
animal ;

2nd month, that of a fish ;

3rd month, that of a turtle ;

4th month, that of a bird ;

5th month, that of a rodent ;
6th month, that of a ruminant ;

7th month, that of a digitigrade
animal ;

- 11 Pliocene

21 Superficial deposits

8th month, that of the quadrumana ;
9th month, attains full human cha-
racter.

174 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

parent regard to the history of fossils, but merely to ex-
press the appearance of advancement in the orders of the
Cuvierian system, assuming, as the criterion of that ad-
vancement, " an increase in the number and extent of the
manifestations of life, or of the relations which an or-
ganized being bears to the external world." Excepting
in the relative situation of the annelida and a few of the
mammal orders, the parity 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 favor 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 harmonize
so well with the view given by modern physiologists of
the embryotic progress of one of the organs of the highest
order of animals.

The reader has seen physical conditions referred to, as
to be presumed to have in some way governed the progress
of the development of the zoological series. This lan-
guage 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 possibly amongst the principal agencies
of this kind which operated in educing the various forms
of being. Light is found to be essential to the develop-
ment of the individual embryo. When tadpoles were
placed by Dr. Milne Edwards 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

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 175

brings them to their mature state as frogs. Tiie protcus,
an animal of the frog kind, which lives in subterranean
waters where there is no light, and which never changes
the branchiog for lungs, looks as if the development of that
part of its organization had been arrested from a similar
cause. When, in connexion with these facts, we learn
that human mothers living in dark and close cells under

o

ground, — that is to say, with an inadequate provision of air
and light. — are found to produce an unusual proportion of
defective children,* we can appreciate the important effects
of both these physical conditions in ordinary reproduc-
tion. 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 con-
trary, we have seen reason for supposing that the propor-
tion 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 astrono-
mers 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,

* 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.

176 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

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 complexion 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.

Early in this century, M. Lamarck, a naturalist of the
highest character, suggested a hypothesis of organic pro-
gress which has incurred much ridicule, and scarcely
ever had a single defender. He surmised, and endeavor-
ed, with a great deal of ingenuity, to prove, that one being
advanced in the course of generation to another, in con-
sequence 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 exer-
cise of faculties have entered in some manner into the pro-
duction of the phenomena which we have been consider-
ing ; but certainly not in the way suggested by Lamarck,
whose whole notion is obviously inadequate to account for
the rise of the organic kingdoms. Had the laws of or-
ganic development been known in his time, his theory
might have been of a more imposing kind. It is upon

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 177

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 instru-
ments in working out and realizing. And what a precon-
ception or forethought have we here ! For let us only
for a moment consider how various are the external phy-
sical conditions in which animals live — climate, soil, tem-
perature, 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 organization and men-
tal 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 develope
a bony net- work instead ; there to arrange fora branchial
apparatus, to last only for a certain brief time : let us, I
say, only consider these things, and we shall see that the
decreeing of laws to bring the whole about was an act
involving such a degree of wisdom and device as we only
can attribute, adoringly, to the one Eternal and Un-
changeable. 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

9*

178 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

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 acquisi-
tion 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 pre-
judices 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 ad-
mitted truths of nature. Knowing this fact familiarly and
beyond contradiction, a healthy and natural mind finds no
difficulty in regarding it complacently. Creative Provi-
dence has been pleased to order that it should be so, and
it must therefore be submitted to. The present hypothesis
as to the progress of organic creation, if we become satis-
fied that it is in the main the reflection of a great truth,
ought to be received precisely in this spirit. Say 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 there being
anything ridiculous or degrading in the theory — how ab-
surd does it appear when we remember that every indi-
vidual 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

THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 179

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 utterty out of place. These creatures are all of
them part products of the Divine 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 ? It is much
to be feared that with this proud prejudice is connected
much of that inhumanity which is shown to the inferior
animals, and which tends to degrade man himself below
them. Let us regard them in a right spirit, as parts of a
grand plan which only approaches its perfection in our-
selves, and we shall see no degradation in the idea of our
genetic connexion with them, but, on the contrary, reason
incontestable for treating them in the manner which we
already feel that a high morality demands.

180

THE HYPOTHESIS CONSIDERED

IN CONNEXION WITH THE CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHI-
CAL DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS.

THE vegetable and animal kingdoms a-re arranged upon a
scale, starting from simply organized 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 king-
doms 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 dif-
ferent 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 a unity in the
laws which brought them both into existence.

It is as yet but a few years since a system of subordi-

DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS. 181

nate analogies not less remarkable began to be speculated
upon as within the range of the animal kingdom. Pro-
bably 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.

The Macleay system, as it may be called in honor 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 affini-
ties, 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.
Mr. Macleay and his associates have advanced from this
doctrine, which has much evidence in its favor, to another
which certainly is^not and cannot be proved, and which
has given a fanciful air to their other views ; namely, that
of each group, the component circles are invariably five
in number.

Overlooking the quinarian part of the theory, we may
take a passing glance at the system of analogies, or
adopting their own term, of representation, which these

182 CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL

naturalists claim to have discovered in the animal king-
dom. It is founded upon the characters of the five orders
into which they divided the class Aves ; namely, insessores
(perching birds), raptores (birds of prey), natatores (swim-
ming birds), grallatores (waders), rasores (scrapers). In
these orders our naturalists believed they found 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 representa-
tive 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 nox-
ious and destructive animals of the circle to which it be-
longs. The other three groups were called aberrant, as
exhibiting a much wider departure from the typical stand-
ard, although the last of the three makes a certain recov-
ery, and joins 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 exist-
ence, and the birds composing it are in general of com-
paratively large bulk. The second (grallatores) are long-
limbed 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.
According to our naturalists, these organic characters,
habits, and moral properties are traceable more or less
distinctly in the corresponding portions of every other

DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS. 183

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, they 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 tooth-like (hence the name of the tribe), as-
similating them to the raptores ; the fissirostres come 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 gralla-
tores. Finally, the scansores resemble the rasores in their
superior intelligence and docility, and in their 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. Tribes of Insessores.

( Most perfect of their circle : notch ) ,

Insessores - - < ,,,.,, > Conirostres.

( of bill small -- $

Raptores - - Notch of bill like a tooth Dentirostres.

5 Slightly developed feet ; strong )
INatatores - - \ fljo-ht t Fissirostres.

Grallatores - Small mouths ; long soft bills - - - Tenuirostres.
{ Strong feet, short wings; docile )
\ and domestic J Scansores.

Such is the doctrine of representation ; it presumes that
every group or circle of beings, being in five parts, exhibits
in these various parts more or less strong traces of those
physical and mental characters. This is certainly claiming
too much ; but undoubtedly there are repetitions of some

184 CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL

such characters in certain parts of the animal kingdom.
When we consult geology and zoology in union, we dis-
cover that the first animals of every broadly marked type
are aquatic, and that these are less perfectly organized
than their successors. The radiate sub-kingdom, which
Mr. Swainson considers natatorial in its circle, is entirely
aquatic. The mollusca and articulata respectively send
off land or air-breathing families, which are (I speak with
certainty only of the latter case) more highly organized
than their predecessors. The first reptiles (ichthyosauri)
were natatorial, and of comparatively mean organization. In
reptiles, in the lower sub- kingdoms, in birds, in mammalia,
there are alike appearances of lines of development, giving,
first, aquatic animals ; next, creatures which could live
partly in water and partly on land, frequenting shores or
shallows. To this second type belong the plesiosaur, the
wading birds, the cetacean amphibia. It is an order
following the sequence of conditions which geology shows us
in the history of our globe. Purely land animals follow,
as, for instance, where we see the pachyderms come in
immediate descent from the amphibia. And there is much
to make us believe that types, not greatly different from
those described by the Macleay school, do form a suc-
cession in the terrestrial tribes, each bearing a reference,
in respect of general habits and character, to appropriate
circumstances in the external world. For example, the
rasorial birds and ruminant quadrupeds seem respectively
to have arisen from the preceding type, as creatures quali-
fied to subsist by immediate connection with the ground ;
and it is curious to find that many such birds have a re-
gurgitating power like the ruminant quadrupeds, as if
common circumstances had led to common organization.

DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS. 185

There is equally good reason to regard the obviously
analogous raptores and felinse as a further development of
their respective classes, necessary for the regulation of the
numbers of those animals which previously existed. To
me, however, these representations appear, primarily at
least, as a result of physical conditions for animal existence
operating in various departments of the kingdom alike. To
illustrate this, let us take another instance. It is clear that
woods, when these came to exist, gave occasion at once to
certain families of both birds and mammalia ; and such
families must have been all alike adapted, by some peculiar
modifications of type formation, to the nature of a sylvan
life, or they could not have existed. Hence it is not sur-
prising to find the perching birds and squirrels have claws,
and the quadrumana hands and feet, suitable for grasping
branches and climbing along them, and presenting in these
features certain analogies apt to strike an observant mind.
But this does not imply such a representation as the qui-
narian school have endeavored to establish, though, in
another point of view, it is a fact highly worthy of notice.

If, as alleged, representation goes down into every
section of the animal kingdom ; if, as has been pointed out,
the acrita are a prophecy of the four other types, and the
fishes have a family prefiguring the scraping birds, it
would imply a curious artificiality of arrangement in the
creative design ; but it would present no objection to our
hypothesis of organic development ; and this is all that I
am at present concerned to show.

Let us now consider the facts known regardino1 the

o O

geographical distribution of plants and animals in con-
nexion with the same hypothesis.

Plants, as is well known, require various kinds of soil,

186 CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL

v

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 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 dif-
ferent, 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 arc common to the various situations. In like
manner, the intertropical vegetation of Asia, Africa, and
America, are specifically different, though generally simi-

DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS. 187

lar. The southern region of America is equally diverse
from that of Africa, a country similar in clime, but sepa-
rated by a vast extent of ocean. The vegetation of Aus-
tralia, another region similarly placed in respect of clime,
is even more peculiar. These facts are the more remark-
able when 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 condi-
tions 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 vege-
tation 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

188 CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL

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 corre-
sponding races indigenous in the opposite hemisphere.

" 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 tem-
perate climates of the southern hemisphere.

" Thus, the tribes of simiee (monkeys), of the dog and
cat kinds, of pachyderms, including elephants, tapirs,
rhinoceroses, hogs, of bats, of saurian and ophidian rep-
tiles, as well as of birds and other terrene animals, are all
different in the three great continents. In the lower de-
partments of the mammiferous family, we find that the
bruta, or edentata (sloths, armadillos, &c.), of Africa, are
differently organized 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 indi-
genous tribes of America would no doubt flourish in cor-
responding climates in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has,
however, been remarked that the larger and more power-
ful animals of their respective orders belong to the elder

* Researches in the Physical History of Man, 4th edition, i., 95.

DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS. 189

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 most useful 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 organization, are American. The zoology
of America may be said, 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 re-
cession is, however, observed in both the botany and zoology
of Australia.

There, "we do not find, in the great masses of vegeta-
tion, either the majesty of the virgin forests of America,
or the variety and elegance of those of Asia, or the deli-
cacy, and freshness of the woods of our temperate coun-
tries 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 gene-
rally 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 proteas,
composite, leguminosse, and myrtacese ; the larger trees
all belong to the last family."*

The prevalent animals of Australia are not less peculiar.
It is well known that none above the marsupialia, or
pouched animals, are native to it.

* Prichard.

190 CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL

The most conspicuous are these marsupials, which exist
in great varieties here, though unknown in the elder con-
tinent, 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 ani-
mals at the bottom of the mammiferous class, adjoining to
that of birds, of whose character and organization the
monotremata largely partake, the ornithorhynchus present-
ing the bill and feet of a duck, 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 conti-
nent 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 cir-
cumstance, it is a fact of some importance, that the geog-
nostic 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 sur-
face, 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. Aus-
tralia thus appears as a portion of the earth which has,
from some unknown causes, been belated in its physical
and organic development.

The general conclusions regarding the geography of
organic nature may be thus stated. (1.) There are nu-

DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS. 191

merous distinct foci of organic production throughout the
earth. (2.) These have everywhere advanced in accord-
ance with the local conditions of climate, &c., as far as
at least the class and order are concerned, a 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 inap-
preciable causes giving the law of organic development a
particular direction in the lower sub-divisions 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 also be evident that the line of organic develop-
ment can have 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, cebidse, and
simiadse, are a noted instance, the one being exclusively
American, while the other belongs entirely to the old
world. It rather appears that the entire system has been
produced in lines geographically detached, and accord-
ingly in separate genealogies, the general types being
everywhere regular in succession, by virtue, we may sup-
pose, of conditions so far uniform, but afterwards branch-
ing out in ramifications of a diverse character, under the
influence of circumstances the nature of which we can
imagine, but of which we might vainly endeavor to as-
certain the particulars.

192 CLASSIFICATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL

We must now call to mind that the geographical distri-
bution 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, pro-
duced 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. How-
ever 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 com-
mon centre. It may be asked, — Considering that, in the
geological epoch, species are not limited to particular re-
gions, and that since the close of that epoch, they are very
peculiarly limited, are we to presume the present organ-
isms of the world to have been created ab initio after that
time ? 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, pretty early
in the tertiary formation. 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 exten-
sive variety.

193

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

THE human race is known to consist of numerous nations,
displaying considerable differences of external form and
color, and speaking in general different languages. This
has been the case since the commencement of written
record. It is also ascertained that the external peculiar-
ities of particular nations do not rapidly change. While
a people remain upon one geographical area, and under
the influence of one set of conditions, they always exhibit

*• •/

a tendency to persistency of type, insomuch that a subor-
dinate 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 : —
1. The Caucasian, or Indo-European, which extends from
India into Europe and Northern Africa; 2. The Mongo-
lian, which occupies Northern and Eastern Asia ; 3. The
Malayan, which extends from the Ultra-Gangetic Penin-
sula 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 tosug-

10

194 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

gcst to many inquirers, that they have had distinct or inde-
pendent origins. Of these peculiarities, color 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 necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late
years, however, the whole of this question has been sub-
jected to a rigorous investigation by a British philosopher,
who has 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,* th at color and other physi-
ological characters are of a more superficial and acci-
dental nature than was at onetime supposed. One fact is
at the very first extremely startling, that there are nations.,
such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, apparently one in
descent, which nevertheless contain groups of people of
almost all shades of color, 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 an-
cient settlement in Northern Africa, who have become as
black as the other inhabitants. There are also facts

* See Dr. Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Man

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 195

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 fami-
lies. 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 valley of the Jordan, where it is re-
markable 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 particu-
larly 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

* 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.

196 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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 peo-
ple are richer and better fed than in others, the men are
like wise. more handsome, and have better countenances."
He might have added, that elegant and commodious dwel-
lings, cleanly habits, comfortable clothing, and being ex-
posed 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 to these modifying agencies, and perhaps to
some others of a less appreciable nature, connected with
physical geography, there is, as has been said, a remark-
able 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. Such permanency may, like
that of species, be the rule, but the exceptive variations,
which result from causes obvious or obscure, are also of
a prominent character. They seem to tend most to occur
among the humbler families of plants and animals, but
also frequently take place in the very highest. A nota-
ble instance of variety-production in an animal family by
no means low, is often referred to, as having occurred
under the observation of persons still alive to attest it.
On a New England farm there originated, in the latter
part of the last century, 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

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 197

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 characterized, and that the
conditions under which it has been produced should be
persisted in, 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, thick-
ly growing all over his body. The peculiarity was trans-
mitted 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 tradition 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 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. We have but obscure notions of the laws
which regulate this variability within specific limits ; but
we see them continually operating, and they are obviously
favorable 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 is thrown upon the history of mankind is
of a most remarkable nature.

Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown
the earth's language into a kind of classification : a num-

198 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

ber 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 geo-
graphical limits with those .which have been assigned to
that variety of mankind which generally shows a fair com-
plexion, 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 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 (1) the
Scandinavian tongues, the Norske, Swedish, and Danish ;
and (2) the Teutonic, to which belong the modern Ger-
man, 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, in-
cluding 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 lan-
guages.

The resemblances amongst languages are of two

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 190

kinds, — identity of words, raid 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 num-
ber 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 com-
mon 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 padcr, mader, sunu, dokhtcr, brader, mand, vidhava ;
likewise asthi, a bone (Greek, ostoun) ; dcnta, a tcoth
(Latin, dens, dentis} ; eycumen. the eye ; brouwa, the eye-
brow (German, braue) ; nasa, the nose ; karu, the hand
(Gr. clieir) ; genii, the knee (Lat. genii} ; ped, the foot
(Lat. pes, pedis} ; hrti, 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 ; sarpcun. a serpent.

The inferences from these verbal coincidences were
confirmed in a striking manner when Bopp and others in-
vestigated the grammatical structure of this family of lan-
guages. Dr. Wiseman pronounces that the great philolo-
gist 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 per-
sons are expressed throughout the verbs of nearly the

200 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

whole of these languages, have their foundations in pro-
nouns ; the pronoun was simply placed at the end, and
thus became an inflection. " By an analysis of the Sans-
krit pronouns, the elements of those existing in all the
other languages were cleared of their anomalies ; the verb

o O '

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 com-
plicated machinery of middle voice, augments and redu-
plications, were here found and illustrated in a variety of
ways, which a few years ago would have appeared chime-
rical. 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 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, lehter, with exactly the same signification,
regularly formed from its positive leh, good."

* 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

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 201

The second great family of languages is the Syro-
Phoenician, comprising the Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic, Ara-
bic, and Gheez or Abyssinian, being localized principally
in the countries to the west and south of the Mediterra-
nean. 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 grammati-
cal. The fourth is the Polynesian family, extending from
Madagascar on the west, through the Indian Archi-
pelago, besides taking in the Malayan dialect from the
continent of India, and comprehending 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 des-
titute of all grammatical forms, except certain arrange-
ments and accentuations, which vary the sense of par-
ticular words. It is also deficient in some of the con-
sonants most conspicuous in other languages, b, d, r, v,

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 Sanscrit,
ends in nt, nd, VTI, VTO, 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"

10*

202 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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-suli. The Chinese,
strange to say, though they early attained to a remarka-
ble degree of civilisation, and have preceded the Euro-
peans 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, uncon-
nected words, in which an infant amongst us attempts to
express some of its wants and its ideas — the equally bro-
ken 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 and earth equality," &c. — these are like the
discourse of the refined people of the so-called Celestial
Empire. An attempt was made by the Abbe 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 con-
dition of the Chinese language.

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 consti-
tute 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 Polysyn-

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 203

thetic 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 ; uU, part of the word
wulet, pretty ; gat, part of the word wiehgat, signifying a
leg or paw ; schis, conveying the idea of littleness. In
this same tongue, a youth is called pilape. a word com-
pounded from the first part of pilsit, innocent, and the lat-
ter 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 be-
fore the mind, than to introduce new words."* Yet it
has also been shown very distinctly, that these languages
are based in words of one syllable, like those of the

J

Chinese and Polynesian families ; all the primary ideas
are thus expressed : the elaborate system of inflection and
agglutination is shown to be simply a further develop-
ment of the language-forming principle, as it may be
called — or the Chinese system may be described as an

* Schoolcrail,

~04 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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 imita-
tive harmony, or on that conformity of organs which pro-
duces almost a perfect identity in the first sounds articu-
lated by children. Of these one hundred and seventy
words which have this connexion, three-fifths resemble
the Manchou, the Tongouse, the Mongol, and the Samoy-
ed ; 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 lan-
guages 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 com-
mon 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 mathema-
tical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect,

* Views of the Cordilleras.

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 205

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 man-
ner. "Six words would give more," he says, "than
seventeen hundred to one, and eight near 100,000, so
that in these cases the evidence would be little short of
absolute certainty." He instances the following words

tf

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.

Jl 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 ex-
pressive 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 evi-
dence, that which physiology and philology present seems
to me decidedly favorable to the idea of one local origin.

Supposing the human race to be one, we are next called

206 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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 ap-
pear to have migrated, and to see if these converge nearly
to a point. It is very remarkable that the lines do con-
verge, and are concentrated about the region of Hindos-
tan. 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 further 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 north-west 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 unac-
counted for ; and of that race it may fairly be said, that
it is the one most likely to have had an independent origin,
seeing that it is a type so peculiar in an inveterate black

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 207

color, and so humble in development. The ancient tra-
ditions of the human race exhibit an agreement with this
view of its origin. 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.
The development hypothesis would demand, of course,
that the original seat of the human race should be in a
region where the quadrumana are rife. Now these are
most abundant, both in species and individuals, in the
Indian archipelago, although it now appears, from the in-
vestigations of Professor Owen, that the chimpanzee of
Western Africa approaches nearer to man than any
known species of Indian simise.

After all it may be regarded as still an open question,
whether mankind is of one or more 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 charac-
ters. And we are equally bound to admit, though this does
not as yet seem to have occurred to any other speculator,
that, barring any objection of a philological nature, there
may have been at least one other line or source of origina-
tion— shall we say in Africa, which resulted in the pro-
duction of a being identical in species, although variously
marked.

It has of late years been a favorite notion with several
writers, that the human race was at first in a highly civi-
lized state, and that barbarism was a second condition.
The principal argument for it is, that we see many ex-
amples of nations falling away from civilisation into bar-
barism, while, in some regions of the earth, the history
of which we do not clearly know, there are remains of

208 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

works of art far superior to any which the present unen-
lightened 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 self-originated. It is
also 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 origin. This
argument appears to be founded on false premises, for
civilisation does sometimes rise in a manner clearly inde-
pendent 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 vil-
lage, where they cultivated the arts of manufacture,
realized comforts and luxuries, and had attained to a
remarkable refinement of manners, insomuch as to be
generally called " polite and friendly Mandans." They
were also more than usually elegant in their persons, and
of every variety of complexion between that of their com-
patriots 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

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 209

them on all sides ; but, soon after, they were attacked by
small-pox, which cut 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 familiarizes us — a
nation rising in arts and elegances amidst barbarous
neighbors, 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 further 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 uncivilized
nations is very apt to make us fall into error on this sub-
ject. 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 uncivilized 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 improve-
ment which exists is as unavoidably to be presumed as in
the case of the Mandans.

The most conclusive argument against the original civi-
lisation of mankind is to be found in the fact that we do
not now see civilisation existing anywhere except in cer-

210 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

tain conditions altogether different from any we can sup-
pose to have existed at the commencement of our race.
To have civilisation, it is necessary that a people 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-preser-
vation, and daily subjected to that intellectual excitement
which society produces, men begin to manifest what is
called civilisation ; but never in rude and shelterless cir-
cumstances, or when widely scattered. Even men who

•/

have been civilized, when transferred to a wide wilder-
ness, where each has to work hard and isolatedly for the
first requisites of life, soon show a retrogression to barba-
rism ; witness the plains of Australia, as well as the back-
woods 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 ; Ger-
many, 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 further migration, and caused

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 211

the population to settle and condense — the conditions most
necessary for social improvement.* Even the simple case
of the Mandans 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 nume-
rous enemies, to settle in a permanent village, so fortified as
to ensure their preservation. " By this means," says he,
" they have advanced further 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 has 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 institu-
tions than a wide region like Australia. The United
States might be expected to make no great way in civili-
sation till they be fully peopled to the Pacific- and it
might not be unreasonable to expect that, when that event
has occurred, the greatest civilisations of that vast terri-
tory 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 ne-

: The problem of Chinese civilisation, such as it is — so puzzling
when we consider that they are only, as will be presently seen, the
child race of mankind — is solved when we look to geographical
position producing fixity of residence and density of population.

212 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

cessary for a civilisation that at least a portion of the com-
munity 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 una-
voidably become rude, because then only the inferior and
harsher faculties of our nature are called into exercise.
When, on the 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 civilized 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 consid-
ering 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 civilized 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 civilized,- — namely, a set of elegant homes
ready furnished for their reception, fields ready cultivated
to yield them food without labor, stores of luxurious ap-
pliances 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 sub-
stances as they could readily procure. The traditions of
all nations refer to such a state as that in which mankind

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 213

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 favorable
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 ; 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
deterioration, nor could there be any tendency to true civi-
lisation till groups had settled and thickened in particular
seats physically limited.

The causes of the various external peculiarities of
mankind now require some attention. Why, it is asked,
are the Africans black, and generally marked by un-
gainly forms ; why the flat features of the Chinese, and
the comparatively well-formed figures of the Caucasians ?
Why the Mongolians generally yellow, the Americans
red, and the Caucasians white ? These questions were
complete puzzles to all early writers ; but physiology has
lately thrown a great light upon them. It is now shown
that the brain, after completing the series of animal trans-
formations, passes through the characters in which it
appears in the Negro, Malay, American, and Mongolian
nations, and finally becomes Caucasian. The face partakes
of these alterations. " One of the earliest points in which
ossification commences is the lower jaw. This bone is

214 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

consequently sooner completed than the other bones of the
head, and acquires a predominance, 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 per-
manent 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 simply representations of particular stages in
the development of the highest or Caucasian type. The
Negro exhibits permanently the imperfect brain, pro-
jecting 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 ; j*
but whence color ? This might be supposed to have de-
pended 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 color is deepest in the least perfectly
developed type, next in the Malay, next in the American,

* Lord's Popular Physiology, explaining observations by M.
Serres.

f Conformably to this view, the beard, that peculiar attribute of
maturity, is scanty in the Mongolian, and scarcely exists in the

Americans and Negroes.

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 215

next ill the Mongolian, the very order in which the degrees
of development are ranged. May not color, then, depend
upon development also ? We do not, indeed, see that a
Caucasian foetus at the stage which the African represents
is anything like black ; neither is a Caucasian child
yellow, like the Mongolian. But the case of a Caucasian
fetus, or child, at any of its stages of development, is
different from that of a being whose mature form only
comes up to the same point. When a being is presented,
who at full time has only attained a point of formation
such as the Caucasian passed at a comparatively early
stage of his embryotic history, there may be a character
of skin liable to a certain tinting on being exposed. De-
velopment being arrested at so immature a stage in the
case of the Negro, the skin may take on the color as an
unavoidable consequence of its imperfect organization. It
is favorable to this view, that Negro infants are not deeply
black, at first, but only acquire the full color tint after
exposure for some time to the atmosphere ; also that the
parts of the body concealed by clothing are not generally
of so deep a hue as the face and hands. The phenomenon,
in short, appears identical in character with the pho-
tographic process ; not a result of the action of heat, as
has been so long blunderingly supposed, but of light ! It
takes its place under the infant science of actino-
chemistry, to which, perhaps, many other remarkable
phenomena connected with the natural history of our race
will yet be referred. This view, it must be admitted, is
favorable to the doctrine of one origin for the human
family. It seems to account for all the varieties as only
the result of so many advances and retrogressions, or the
one or the other exclusively, in the developing power of
the human mothers.

216 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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 pro-
bability that mankind had not yet begun to disperse be-
fore 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 remark-
able, that there is a great inclination to surmise a miracu-
lous 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 we know with 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 vain 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 sound-signs produced by the vocal organs.
In other words, speech was the only novelty in this re-
spect attending the creation of the human race. No doubt
it was an addition of great importance, for, in comparison

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 217

with it, the other natural modes of communicating ideas
are insignificant. Still, the main and fundamental phe-
nomenon, 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 re-
sult of some of those superior endowments of which so
many others have fallen to our lot through the medium of
a superior organization.

The first and most obvious natural endowment con-
cerned in speech is that peculiar organization of the
larynx, trachea, and mouth, which enables us to produce
the various sounds required. Man started at first with
this organization ready for use, a constitution of the at-
mosphere adapted for the sounds which that organization
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 organized, 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 organization of man, and
had they possessed a true science of mind to show man
possessing a faculty for the expression of ideas which is
onlv rudimental in the lower animals. Another difficulty

v «

11

218 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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 analyze
and speculate upon. But this difficulty also vanishes upon
reflection — for, in the first place, we are not bound to sup-
pose the fathers of our race early attaining to great pro-
ficiency in language, and, in the second, language itself
seems to be amongst the things least difficult to be ac-
quired, if we can form any judgment from wThat we see
in children, most of whom have, by three years of age,
while their information and judgment are still as nothing,
mastered and familiarized themselves with a quantity of
words, infinitely exceeding in proportion what they ac-
quire 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 need-
less, 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 lan-
guages can be traced back into roots which are monosyl-
lables, 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 for-
mation of inflections by additional syllables expressive of
pronouns and such prepositions as of, by, and to, are pro-
cesses 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,

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 219

however, as we find it in very different degrees of endow-
ment 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 at-
tained 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 elabo-
rately composite kind, perhaps even exceeding, in this
respect, the languages of the most refined European na-
tions. 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 lan-
guage. 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 con-

o

trary, we have a scattered and barbarous people, wre 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, pro-

220 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

bably 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 peculiarities in the vocal organization 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 ad-
vanced, 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 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 by their pitchos or public meetings, by their festivals
and ceremonies, as well as by their songs and their con-
stant 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 dis-
tance from their native village. On such occasions,
fathers and mother, 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 oth-
ers can just master a whole sentence, and those still fur-
ther 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

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 221

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 circum-
stances 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 pecu-
liarities of pronunciation and syntax, which have origi-
nated amongst themselves, it is hardly possible to say
how. All these things being considered, it is easy to
understand how mankind have 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 civilized, 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 Greece,

* Missionary Scenes and Labors in South Africa.

222 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

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 intel-
lectual culture. This has caused to many a great diffi-
culty 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 psycho-
logical procedure on which the origination of civilisation
and the arts and sciences depended.

These things, like language, are simply the effects of
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 quar-
ter, 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 organization (a brain five times
heavier), was able, in his primitive state, without instruc-
tion, to turn many things in nature to his use, and com-
mence, in short, the circle of the domestic arts. He

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 223

appears, in the most unfavorable circumstances, to be
able to provide himself with some sort of dwelling, to
make weapons, and to practise some simple kind of cook-
ery. But, granting, it will be said, that he can go thus
far, how does he ever proceed further 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 or-
ganization, and another point has been established, that
only when some favorable 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 civilized, 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 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 tend-
ing cattle on a Morayshire heath ; a boy Lawrence, in an
inn on the Bath road, producing, without a master, draw-
ings 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
fellow-countrymen, three thousand years ago — and the

224 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

whole mystery is solved at once. Amongst the arrange-
ments of Providence is one for the production of original,
inventive, and aspiring minds, which, when circumstances
are not decidedly unfavorable, strike out new ideas for
the benefit of their fellow-creatures, or put upon them a
lasting impress of their own superior sentiments. Na-
tions, improved by these means, become in turn foci for
the diffusion of light over the adjacent regions of bar-
barism— their very passions helping to this end, for no-
thing 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 improve-
ment. Even the noble art of letters is but, as Dr. Adam
Fergusson has remarked, " a natural produce of the hu-
man mind, which will rise spontaneously, wherever men
are happily placed;" original alike amongst the ancient
Egyptians and the dimly monumented Toltecans of Yu-
catan. " Banish," says Dr. Gall, " music, poetry, paint-
ing, 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-
tecture, sculpture, and all the arts and sciences, will
again shine out in all their glory. Twice within the re-
Cora's 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 refine-
ment. It is a great mistake to suppose one people to have
proceeded from another on account of their conformity of

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 225

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
organization we have the manifestation of the same
powers."

ir

226

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

IT has been one of the most agreeable tasks of modern
science to trace the wonderfully exact adaptations of the
organization of animals to the physical circumstances
amidst which they are destined to live. From the mandi-
bles 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 Bridge-
water 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 dtear 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 ascer-

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 227

tained. 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
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 organization, 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 reli-
gion, since candid investigations of nature tend to show
its untenableness. There is, in reality, nothing to pre-
vent 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 organization, 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 inscrutably 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 conse-
quence of impressions from the earlier modifications of matter, cer-
tain consciousnesses called sensations of the same ? Is not, therefore,
the wonder of matter also receiving the consciousnesses of other mat-

228 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

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 dif-
ferent the manifestations in different beings ! how unsta-
ble in all ! — at one time so calm, at another so wild and
impulsive ! It seemed impossible that anything so subtle
and aberrant could be part of a system, the main features

ter 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 facul-
ties 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 con-
nected 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 suc-
cessive combinations and decombinations ?

" Can we look further back one way into the first origin of mat-
ter than we can look forward the other way into the last develop-
ments 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 ? Can-
not the first cause of all we see and know have fraught matter
itself, from its very beginning, with all the attributes necessary
to develops 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
developes, to their original component elements, a reason for think-
ing that they cannot again at another later period and in another
higher globe, be again recombined, and with more splendor than
before ? * The New Testament does not after death here

promise us a soul hereafter unconnected with matter, and which has

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 229

of which are regularity and precision. But the irregu-
larity 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

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 por-
tions of time and of space different from the present: a mind com-
posed of elements of matter more extended, more perfect, and more
glorious : a mind which, formed of materials supplied by different
globes, is consequently able to see further into the past, and to think
further 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 thence-
forth 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, 1831.

230 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

in relation to the temptations being everywhere invariable
over a sufficiently wide range of time. So also, the num-
ber 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 incli-
nation to drink to excess is always in the mass about the
same, regard being had to the existing temptations or sti-
mulations 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 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 indem-
nify their securities, by the payment of one pound a year
each, and if each had given security for 500/., it is ob-
vious 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 tolera-
bly well ascertained that the instances of dishonesty
(yearly) among such persons amount to one in five hun-
dred, 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 ne-

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 231

cessary 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 ready-made rogues, by belonging to it,
might find the means of obtaining situations which they
would otherwise have been kept out of by the impossi-
bility 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 suffi-
cient ?"* 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 over-
come 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 estab-
lishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is
now seen to be an enigma only as an individual ; in the

* Dublin Review, Aug., 1840. The Guarantee Society has since
..been established, and is likely to become a useful and prosperous
institution.

232 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

mass he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly neces-
sary 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 consciousness 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
as a means of providing for the independent existence and
the various relations of animals, each species being fur-
nished according to its special necessities and the demands
of its various relations. The nervous system — the more
comprehensive term for its organic apparatus — is vari-
ously 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 ob-
scure as hardly to be traceable, we see it in the nemato-

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 233

neura of Owen* in filaments and nuclei, the mere rudi-
ments of the system. In the articulata, it is advanced to

J

a double nervous cord, with ganglia or little masses of
nervous matter at frequent intervals, and filaments branch-
ing 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 verte-
brata, we find a spinal cord, with a brain at the upper
extremity, and numerous branching lines of nervous
tissue, f an organization 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 rudi-
ment of a brain, the superior organ thus appearing as
only a further 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
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

* Including rotifera, entozoa, echinodermata, &c.

f The ray, which is considered as low in the scale of fishes, and
near 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.

234 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

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 start-
ling idea, when we reflect that electricity is almost as
metaphysical as ever mind was supposed to be. It is a
thing perfectly intangible, weightless. A mass of metal
may be magnetized, or heated to seven hundred of Fahren-
heit, 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 reflec-
tion, 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.*

o

Common observation shows a great general superiority

* If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of thought
— that is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and will —
may 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-
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.

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 235

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 between 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 sub-
ject in books, must attain more or less clear convictions of
this truth, notwithstanding all the obscurity which preju-
dice may have engendered. We see animals capable of
affection, jealousy, envy ; we see them quarrel, and con-
duct 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 pos-
sessed 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 be-
fore. Cats, closed up in rooms, will endeavor 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 ap-

236 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

pearance, 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 supply-
ing 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 civilisa-
tion 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 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

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 237

combinations 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 he would not believe of a dog. There
is a curious result of education in certain animals, namely,
that habits to which they have been trained in some in-
stances become hereditary. For example, the accom-
plishment 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 Eng-
land. 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 thouo-h the fact were otherwise, it could not affect the

o

postulate, that demonstrations such as have been enume-
rated are mainly intellectual demonstrations, not to be
distinguished as such from those of human beings.

o o

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 exem-
plified by the instinct of the bee. The dog and the
elephant prefigured the sagacity of the human mind. The
love of a human mother for her babe was anticipated by
nearly 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

238 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

mocking-bird ; and the whole tribe of monkeys must
have walked about the pre-human world, playing offthose
tricks in which we see the comicality and mischief-
making of our character so curiously exaggerated.

The unity and simplicity which characterize nature
give great antecedent probability to what observation
seems about to establish, that, as the brain of the vertebrata
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 further
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, ac-
cording 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 re-
spectively dedicated to the reception of different sets of
ideas, as those of form, size, color, weight, objects in their
totality, events in their progress or occurrence, time,
musical sounds, &c. The system of mind invented by this

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 239

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 discrimi-
nating 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. Throuo-h these, man stands in relation to

o *

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 con-
templation 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, secretive-
ness, marvellousness, constructiveness, imitation, combat-
iveness, 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 phenomena of the new science of
photography, when images impressed by reflection of the

240 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

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 is produced. 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 un-
prompted 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 an humble state of endowment, or early stage
of development. The cell formation of the bee, the house-
building of ants and beavers, the web-spinning of spiders,
are but primitive exercises of constructiveness, the facul-
ty which, indefinite with us, leads to the arts of the
weaver, upholsterer, architect, and mechanist, and makes
us often work delightedly where our labors are in vain,
or nearly so. The storing of provision by the bees is an
exercise of acquisitiveness, — a faculty which with us

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. . 241

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 modifica-
tions 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 our-
selves at first, dictating the special act of sucking ; after-
wards 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 recognized 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 facul-
ties. Generally speaking, as we ascend in the scale, we
see more and more of the faculties in exercise, and these

12

242 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

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 guid-
ance. At higher points in the scale, the sphere of exist-
ence is considerably extended, and the mental operations
are less definite accordingly. The horse, dog, and a few
other animals, 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 ap-
plicable 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, indi-
cations of a particular abnormal cerebration which forci-
bly reminded him of the specific healthy characteristics
of animals lower in the scale of organization ;* and every
one must have observed how often the actions of children,
especially in their moments of play, and where their sel-

* Phrenoloo-icul Journal, xv., 338.

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 243

fish feelings are concerned, bear a resemblance 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 linea-
ments of universal structure. In man the system has
arrived at its highest condition. The few gleams of rea-
son, then, which we see in the lower animals, are pre-
cisely analogous to such a development of the fore-arm as
we find in the paddle of the whale. Causality, compari-
son, and other of the nobler faculties, are in them rudi-
mental.

Bound up as we thus are by an identity in the charac-
ter of our mental organization 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 conscien-
tiousness and benevolence, by which we can in a faint

* A pampered lap-dog, living where there is another of its own
species, will hide 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.

244 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

and humble measure imitate, in our conduct, that which
he exemplifies in the whole of his wondrous doings. Be-
yond 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 facul-
ties having a regard to such things is a good evidence
that such things exist. The face of God is reflected in
the organization of man, as a little pool reflects the glori-
ous 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 uner-
ringly 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 indul-
gence. This liability to flit from under the control of one
feeling to the control of another, constitutes what is re-
cognized 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 educa-
tion and the influence of circumstances produce all the differ-
ences which we observe. There is not, in the old systems

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 245

of mental philosophy, any doctrine more opposite to the
truth than this. It is refuted at once by the great differ-
ences of intellectual tendency and moral disposition to be
observed amongst a group of young 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 in-
herently various, as the forms of their persons and the
features of their faces are ; and education and circum-
stances, though their influence is not to be despised, are
incapable of entirely altering these characters, where
they are strongly developed. That the original charac-
ters 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 obser-
vations, 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 intellec-
tual 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 ex-
pansions 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 j they are only less strongly marked in many of

246 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

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 regu-
lates the dispositions of animals, as it does our own.

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 realized by ingenuity and industrious exertion ; be-
hold, 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 pre-
sents 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
wide range of freedom in which to act for all various oc-
casions— necessitates a resentful faculty, by which indi-
viduals may protect themselves from the undue and ca-
pricious exercise of each other's faculties, and thus pre-
serve their individual rights. So also there is cautious-
ness, 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

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 247

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 sur-
rounded 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 constitution to give
moral life to the scene.

The indefiniteness of the potentiality of the human fa
culties, and the complexity w7hich thus attends their rela-
tions, lead unavoidably to occasional error. If we con-
sider 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 same time endowed
with a wide discretion as to the force and frequency of its
action, and that our neighbors, the world, and our connex-
ions 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 consti-
tution as the rest, and partake accordingly of the same

248 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

inequality of action. Man is therefore a piece of mecha-
nism, which never can act so as to satisfy his own ideas
of what he might be — for he can imagine a state of moral
perfection (as he can imagine a globe formed of dia-
monds, pearls, and rubies), though his constitution forbids
him to realize it. There ever will, in the best disposed
and most disciplined minds, be occasional discrepancies
between the amount of temptation and the power sum-
moned for regulation or resistance, or between the stimu-

o '

lus 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 pos-
sibility 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 con-
trol 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 irregu-
lar and 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 organization is such that they
unavoidably, even in a civilized country, become male-
factors. Does God, it may be asked, make criminals?
Does he 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, how-

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 249

ever, 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 de-
pends in a general way (as does the physical character
also), upon conditions of the parents, — both general con-
ditions, and conditions at the particular time of the com-
mencement of the existence of the new being, and like-
wise 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 con-
cerned, may have oscillated for the time towards the ex-
treme 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 favorable 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
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 gene-
ral good results of this arrangement are obvious ; but ex-
ceptions of evil are 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

1 O*

J. <w

250 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

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 establish-
ed. 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 pro-
duces crime. It is, however, to be observed, that the gene-
ral 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 supe-
rior 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 in
which just views prevail with regard to human nature,
and the feelings which accident may have caused to pre-
dominate 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
victims of erroneous social conditions, another are brought

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 251

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
further 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 dis-
tributed, 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 wTe have seen of the psychical constitu-
tion of man is, that its Almighty Author has destined it,
like everything else, to be developed from inherent quali-
ties, and to have a mode of action depending solely on its
own organization. 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 been thought to have one
final comprehensive 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 a
unity, flowing immediately from the One who is First and
Last.

252

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 exist-
ence is pressed upon us by all that we see and all we ex-
perience. Everywhere we perceive in the lower crea-
tures, 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 sensa-
tions, we find that, even in a sense of a healthy perform-
ance 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 nega-
tive class of enjoyments, it may be remarked, is likely to
be even more extensively experienced by the lower ani-
mals than by man, at least in the proportion of their ab-

THE ANIMATED CREATION. 253

solute 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 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 wre are constantly discovering traits of a
nature, of which our own is but a faint and far- cast sha-
dow at the best.

It appears at first difficult to reconcile with this idea the
many miseries which wre 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 ?
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 pla'ce in that department ; if there is a certain
quantity of nebulous matter to be agglomerated and divid-
ed 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

254 PURPOSES AND GENERAL CONDITION

great variety of mutually related results. Left to act
independently of each other, each according to its sepa-
rate commission, and each with a wide range of poten-
tiality to be modified by associated 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 gefte-
rally useful in many ways, and the sea is useful as a
means of communication between one country and an-
other ; 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 gravi-
tation. Both of these things are good in the main. Boys,
in the rash enterprises and rough sports in which they
engage, 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 exer-
tion of these powers is ever a source of happiness. By
gravitation, all moveable things, our 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 imme-

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 255

diately 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 j but gravi-
tation could not but operate in the circumstances, its na-
ture 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 con-
spicuous 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 mis-
spending 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, re-
sentment 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^ indis-
pensable 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 pro-
perties and powers essentially good. God has given us
the tendencies fora benevolent purpose. He has only not
laid down any absolute obstruction to our misuse of them.
That were an arrangement of a kind which he has no-
where made. But he has established many laws in our
nature which tend to lessen the frequency and destruc-
tiveness of these abuses. Our reason comes to see that
war is purely an evil, even to the conqueror. Benevo-
lence interposes to make its ravages less mischievous to
human comfort, and less destructive to human life. Men

256 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

begin to find that their more active powers can be exer-
cised 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 length shrinks into a compara-
tively narrow compass, though there certainly is no reason
to suppose that it will be at any early period, if ever, alto-
gether 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 inexperi-
enced, 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, com-
pared 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 con-
sideration. The chronology of God is not as our chro-
nology. 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

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 257

acting for a few thousand years ? The cruelties of un-
governed 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 pre-arranged and set
forward in independent action, free within a certain limit,
but in the main constrained, 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.
Providence has seen it necessary to make very ample pro-
vision 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 subsist-
ence, and evils will be endured in consequence, even in
our own highly favored 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 it, the prompter of
all our most generous feelings, and even of our most vir-
tuous resolves and exertions — and every ill that can be
traced to it is but as dust in the balance. And here, also,

258 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

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 civilized man
is more able to give it due control ; his attachments are
less the result of impulse ; he studies more the 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 com-
plicated 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 ac-
tion is to confer happiness. The human constitution
might have been 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

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. '259

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
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 suffer-
ings 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 de-
rangement 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 favor-
ing the process of vegetation. Supposing the noxious-
ness 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

260 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

that such substances are beneficial under one arrange-
ment, and noxious in the other. He is, as it were, com-
manded 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 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 from mismanage-
ment of our personal economy. Eating to excess, eating
and drinking what is noxious, disregard to that cleanli-
ness which is necessary for the right action of the func-
tions 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 them recognized 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 enjoy-
ments are made so much greater. In making the desire
of food, for example, with us an indefinite mental mani-
festation, 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

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION".

(consistently with health) than the lower animals gene-
rally 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 per-
nicious. We can also see that a cleanly skin and a con-
stant supply of pure 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 parlors 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 ascen-
dency ; the causes of the evils are seen and avoided : and

J j *

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 Lon-
don the annual mortality has greatly sunk within a cen-
tury. 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 civi-
lized countries — evidently a result of some prevalent error

262 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

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 through-
out the world at large.

In this part of our subject, the most difficult point cer-
tainly 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 be-
nevolent physician who comes to succor 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 prema-
turely, as it were for the sins of others. After all, how-
ever 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 bene-
ficial.

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

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 263

have not the least concern in the working of these simply
physical laws. These laws proceed with an entire inde-
pendence 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 as-
cending 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 unin-
jured. 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 save this virtuous man.
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 prin-
ciples. He has established laws for the operation of ina-
nimate 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 like-
wise 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

264 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

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 con-
nected with the physical laws, while on the other hand, a
man skilled in, and attentive to these, but unrighteous and
disregardful of his neighbor, is in like manner not pro-
tected by his attention to physical circumstances from
the proper consequences of neglect or breach ot 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
persons, is evidently a consideration quite apart from that
suffering.

It is clear, moreover, from the whole scope of the natu
ral laws, that the individual, as far as the present sphere
of being is concerned, is to the Author of nature a con-
sideration 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 miUe of the va-
rious laws affecting him. If he be found inferiorly en-
dowed, 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 alto-
gether unmixed. God, contemplating apparently the un-
bending 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 THE ANIMATED CREATION. 265

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 princi-
pal objects to cause us, by sympathy and active aid, to
remedy the evils unavoidably suffered by our fellow-crea-
tures 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 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 succor 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 allevia-
tion. 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 — 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

13

266 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

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 to-day 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 organization, his enjoyments are much
higher and more varied than those of any of the lower
animals ; but the very complexity 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
realizable 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

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 267

shall, for some reason, have a dispensation or exemption
from them : we must endeavor so to place ourselves, and
so to act, that the arrangements which Providence has
made impartially for all may be in our favor, 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
\vay to injure the body, property, or peace of a neighbor,
or to the injury of society in general, tend very much to
reflect evil upon ourselves through the re-action which
they produce in the feelings of our neighbor and of society,
and also the offence which they give to our own conscien-
tiousness and benevolence. On the other hand, when we
endeavor to promote the efforts of our fellow creatures to
attain happiness, we produce a re-action 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 favored. 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. Obe-
dience 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 as men advance in intelligence. Nor
are individuals alone concerned here. The same rule
applies as between one great body or class of men and

268 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

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 mani-
festations 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 re-active
injury to the injurers, making their guilt their punishment.
And so when one nation commits an aggression upon 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 realize 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 endeavor 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.
Whether the human raco will ever advance far bevond

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 269

its present position in intellect and morals, is the last ques-
tion belonging to the scientific part of our subject. It is
one which has engaged much attention, but never ap-
peared likely to approach a settlement, perhaps from the
elements for its discussion being hitherto so defective.
When judged by the general light arising from the hypo-
thesis of development, we may safely pronounce that the
human type is likely yet to experience considerable im-
provements, though it may be many centuries before a
decided change will take place. A progression resem-
bling development may be traced in human nature, both in
the individual and in large groups of men. The indivi-
dual is in childhood under the influence of the propensi-
ties and instinctive aptitudes ; in youth, he is swayed by
marvellousness, the love of the beautiful, the imaginative ;
in full maturity, he passes under (comparatively) the
domination of reason. In perfect analogy, a nation is at
first impulsive and unreasoning • afterwards it is conduct-
ed by the second class of sentiments (the age of mytho-
logies, hierocracies, man and idea worships) ; finally, its
institutions begin to approximate to an accurate regard
for what is convenient and profitable, under the control of
justice and humanity. The advance of knowledge favors
the progress of the moral conditions, and in improved
moral conditions knowledge becomes more sound. In
tolerably favorable circumstances, this tendency onward
never fails to make itself visible ; and it is evident that,
though many nations seem nearly stationary and others
appear to retrograde, there is always a progress in some
place, so that no long space of time ever elapses without
showing, upon the whole, a certain advance. Now all
this is quite in conformity with what we have seen of the

270 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

progress of organic creation. It seems but the minute
hand of a watch, of which the hour hand is the transition
from species to species. Knowing what we do of that lat-
ter transition, the possibility of a decided and general
retrogression of the highest species towards a meaner
type is scarce admissible, but a forward movement seems
anything but unlikely. This view is favored even by
zoological science. We there see order after order of
animals, from the bottom of the scale upwards, consisting
of many genera, each of these again presenting various
species, until we come to the highest order of all — BIMANA ;
and behold of this order but one genus — nay, but one
species to represent that genus, namely, Man ! Take
any of the highest orders next to man — the Lemuridse,
the Vespertilionidse, the Quadrumana, and into what
multitudes of species do we find them varying ! The
Bimana alone is of one species. For this no shadow of a
zoological reason can be presented. It is supported by
none of the analogies of nature, but, on the contrary, is in
decided contradiction to them, that there should be but
one species of the highest type of animated being. If
species are determined by circumstances in external
nature, we should rather expect to see man bourgeoning
into great variation ; for man is the being of all beings
most various in his destiny with respect to such circum-
s tances. Yet so the fact is — man is of but one species. The
zoological series appears here, as it were, broken short,
or interrupted in its progress towards a general symmetry.
Is not this a strong indication of further progress in de-
velopment being designed ? Is not the right explanation
simply this — that the animated creation is seen by us at a
particular point in its progress ? — a progress yet to be con-

OF THE ANIMATED CREATIOX. 271

tinued. To this conclusion, all our knowledge of the past
external conditions of the earth conduces. We there see
ages marked by rock formations, and a succession of new
animals in shadowy conformity with these ; but the rock
formations and all the associated conditions make no stop-
page or marked change at the time of man's appearance.
He comes in the course of them, and goes — is still going
along, in accordance with them. He is only a new guest,
who has entered and sat down at a feast where other
guests were before him, and which goes on and on con-
tinually : may there not be other guests to come and take
their places at this perennial banquet of the High and
Bountiful Master ? Meaning by other guests, beings, not
descending (as common genealogical language would
have it), but ascending, from the now living Mankind, —
possessing a superior development of the human charac-
ter in accordance with the better external conditions
which shall then have come into play, — favored latter
children of Nature, who have not lived till the throes and
troubles of her maternal state were past. But is the im-
provement of these conditions to be left to the advance of
physical nature, as that was seen before the existence of
man ? I suspect not. When man came upon the scene,
a new agency was evidently added to those formerly
operating to this effect. Men, by the work of their
thoughtful brains and busy hands, modify external nature
in a way never known before. Under the operations of
tillage, of mechanism, of building, making, and invent-
ing ; of those applications of natural powers and forces
which human wit turns to account in so many ways ; of
all the results of social experience, of knowledge, and of
arrangement ; the earth tends to become a much serener

272 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

field of existence than it was in the earlier ages of man's
history. Its progress in this respect may not be clearly
seen at a particular time, through the obscuring effect of
temporary and accidental causes ; but that the tendency
of the physical improvements wrought by man upon the
surface, and of the mechanic movements which he sets
agoing for the saving of his own labor, is to improve the
daily comforts, and allow room for the intellectual and
moral advancement of earth's children, cannot be denied
without something like flying in the face of Providence
itself. These improvements, then, thus partly wrought
out by the exertions of the present race, I conceive as at
once preparations for, and causes of, the possible develop-
ment of higher types of humanity, — beings less strong in
the impulsive parts of our nature, physical nature giving
less matter for that nature to contend with and subdue to
its needs, — more strong in the reasoning and the moral,
because there will be less of the opposite to keep these in
check, — more fitted for the delights of social life, because
society will then present less to fear and more to love.
This is but a speculation — some will call it a dream ; but
I certainly would not have brought it forward here, if
there were not some countenance for it in what we know
of nature and her history. As a mere speculation resting
on that knowledge, and possessing the further recom-
mendation of being agreeable to our best feelings, I leave
it to the judgment of the reader.

The history and constitution of the world have now
been explained according to the best lights which an humble
individual has found within the reach of his perceptive
and reasoning faculties. We have seen a system in

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 273

which all is regularity and order, and all flows from and
is obedient to a divine code of laws of unbending opera-
tion. We are to understand from what has been laid
before us, that man, with his varied mental powers and
impulses, is a natural problem, of which the elements can
be taken cognizance of by science, and that all the secu-
lar destinies of our race, from generation to generation,
are but evolutions from a primeval arrangement in the
counsels of Deity. It does not, according to this view,
appear necessary that God should exercise an immediately
superintending power over the mundane economy ; he
might be pronounced to repose in silent contemplation of
his works, unoffended by evil, pitiless of suffering, satis-
fied with one eternal round of such doings as we see ex-
emplified upon earth, liable as these presumably are to a
progress in an improving direction. But this view, how-
ever supported, being attended with these sequences, is
certainly one which no large portion of mankind will ever
embrace. It may be a view of truth, but there is a moni-
tor within which denies that it is the whole truth. We
intuitively shrink from it in its isolated sternness, and de-
mand to know if there are not other truths which require
to be associated with it before it can be received even in
its most limited application.

To such requirements of our nature, so that we are sat-
isfied of their being purely intuitive, and so I consider the
present to be — it is necessary that the philosopher give
full attention, for they are as truly facts as any other
which he ever has occasion to consider. Such instinctive
apprehensions cannot be there for nothing, for no such
thing is made in vain. Reasonings may appear to be
against them, and for ages they may be destitute of that

274 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

kind of proof which rigid seekers for truth demand.
But how often has it happened that they have after all
been shown and admitted as true ! Forty years ago — to
take an example — it was advanced by one philosopher,
and approved by many, that population tends to advance
more rapidly than the productive powers of the soil, so
that many human beings must come into the world, only
by an irreversible doom of nature to sink out of it again.
The notion was repelled by mankind generally, as disre-
spectful to Providence, and suggesting a painful idea of
the constitution of human nature. For years the objec-
tion was thought by the disciples of Mr. Malthus to be
futile j but its validity is now pretty generally acknow-
ledged by the men of highest intelligence. It is seen that
the philosopher erred in his calculations, and was there-
fore wrong in his conclusions. The lowly and unpretend-
ing minds are allowed to have been, albeit on no ratioci-
native grounds, in the right. It was in considering such
triumphs of unenlightened judgment, that Pascal gave
forth his beautiful saying, that the heart has its aphorisms
as well as the understanding. Such impulses appear to
be the fore-cast shadows of great truths, and, when they
are clearly seen to spring from no superficial or evanes-
cent feeling, are assuredly worthy of being taken into ac-
count in all questions to which they relate.

So thinking, I would seek to add to the truths which
have already been eliminated from facts ascertained in
science, some others which claim a place on the strength
of their being dictated by the universal feelings of man.
Something in our nature — as it appears to me — tells us
that the Author of the universe is nearer to us, is in a
more familiar and paternal relation to us, than would

OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 275

seem to be implied by a theory which represents him as
only an author of laws. We cling to the idea that he
has been the immediate breather of our life, that he con-
tinually watches over us, that we can come by rightly
directed thought into communion with him, and that, when
life's changeful scene is over, we shall, if found worthy,
be received in a new form of being into his fatherly
bosom. We feel, in our dependent state here below, a
need for some ultra-mundane being, on whom to rest, as
we would do upon the breast of a friend, and to whom to
look as an ultimate refuge from the trying vicissitudes of
life. We also feel how far short our best doings and de-
signings are of that perfect goodness which our imagina-
tion can suppose — how deeply injurious and offensive
must our ordinary life be to one so purely good. Some-
thing seems necessary to reconcile us to him, or to fit us

O ^

for being restored to his society. Hence the idea of peni-
tence and its wondrous potency — hence, in short, religion.
Now these emotions are all so natural to man, they rise
so readily in the civilized bosom, and meet so ready a re-
ception in all neophytes who have not been perverted by
baser feelings or grossly corrupt systems, that, if the
principle which has been explained be a right one, they
must point to truths. Admit that our reason cannot at
present entirely justify them, we may expect that it will
yet do so. They may be regarded (putting all other evi-
dence aside) as truths in the dawning stage — suggested
by the feelings — waiting only the final approbatory stamp
of the understanding, and sure in time to receive it.

But how to reconcile the two sets of truths ? As to do
this effectually, in the present imperfect state of our know-
ledge, would be one of the highest possible feats of human

276 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION

genius, so I cannot but feel that to fail somewhat in an
effort to do it, cannot justly be reckoned a discredit. It
occurs to me, at the very first, that there is nothing to
prevent our regarding God as revealed to us in two capa-
cities ; first, as the author and sustainer of nature by fixed
laws, and second, as our spiritual father, ever present in
all that we do and think, and to be yet more clearly
revealed to us. It may be that we are left by him to all
the contingencies arising in the course of the fixed proce-
dure of mundane affairs, and yet are capable of commun-
ing with him, may be affected in the strain of our life by
results flowing from that communion, and are in the end
received into his presence. There may be, behind the
screen of nature, a system of mercy and grace which is
to make up for all casualties endured here, and the very
largeness of which is what makes these casualties a mat-
ter of indifference to God. For the existence of such a
system, the actual constitution of nature is indeed a pow-
erful 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 charac-
ter of the Deity, it is necessary to suppose that the present
system is but a part of a whole, a stage in a Great Pro-
gress, and that the Redress is in reserve. Another argu-
ment 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 THE ANIMATED CREATION. 277

of creating it. An endless monotony of human genera-
tions, 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 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. 1 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 sus-
tain 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 willino- to do

o

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 contingen-
cies 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.

278

NOTE CONCLUSORY.

THUS ends a book, composed in solitude, and almost with-
out the cognizance of a single, fellow-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 best to be appreciated by the
author, his 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 realized benefit to my fellow-creatures.
The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to con-
nect 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

* In the present edition a few alterations and omissions have
been made, either because of doubts which had entered mv mind

VOTE CONCLUSORY. 279

have thought that the time was come for attempting to
weave a great generalization out of the truths already
established, or likely soon to be so — not that these were to
be held as absolutely sufficient for the perfect completion
of such an object, but that it is well 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 favor, 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 what upon mature reflection I conceive to be the true
view of the history of nature, with as little vexatious col-
lision as possible with existing beliefs, whether philosophi-
cal or religious. I have made little reference to any doc-
trines of the latter kind which may be thought inconsistent

* o

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 can-
not but here remind the reader of what Dr. Wiseman has
shown so strikingly in his lectures, how different new philo-
sophic doctrines are apt to appear after we have become

with regard to the passages concerned, or merely because it ap-
peared advisable to remove cut of the way illustrations or argu-
ments which had been made the grounds of sweeping objections,
while in reality they were all but indifferent to the general
question.

280 XOTE CONCLUSORY.

somewhat familiar with them. Geology at first seems in-
consistent 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 per-
fect harmony with that record, and arranges some asso-
ciated facts 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 legiti-
mately 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 ?
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 accus-
tomed to hold sacred, not one tittle of which it may ulti-
mately be found necessary to alter.

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"The water-treatment finds many disciples in Europe and this country. \
This work of Dr. Shew's is very lucidly drawn up, and is by far the most '>,
complete view of the practice under this method that has been given." — )
JV. Y. Post. 5

" This system will cure most curable complaints, and Dr. Shew's valuable ;
work claims for the water-cure great inherent efficacy. The book gives sound >
general views of health and of the treatment of disease, and we can safely
recommend it to our numerous circle of readers." — Fveninff .Mirror.

LIEBIG'S ANIMAL CHEMISTRY.

Animal Chemistry ; or Organic Chemistry in its Applications
to Physiology and Pathology. By Justus Liebig, M. D.,
Ph. D., &c. Edited from the author's manuscript by
W. Gregory, M. D. I vol. 12mo., printed in fine large
type, and with a complete index. $1 00.

" While we have given but a very imperfect sketch of this original and pro-
found work, we have endeavored to convey to the reader some notion of the
rich store of interesting matter which it contains. The chemist, the physiolo-
gist, the medical man, and the agriculturist, will all find in this volume many
new ideas and many useful practical remarks. It is the first specimen of what
modern Organic Chemistry is capable of doing for Physiology ; and we have
no doubt that from its appearance physiology will date a new era in her ad-
vance."— Quarterly Review.

COURSE OF ENGLISH READING.

1

! A Course of English Reading, adapted to every Taste and

Capacity, with Anecdotes of Men of Genius. By Rev. J.
Pycroft. With corrections and additions, by J. G. Cogs-
well, Esq. 1 vol. 12ruo. Price 75 cents.

"It is rare to meet with a work so well fitted to aid in the acquisition of
knowledge as this ; indeed, we have never seen any similar directory to an
English reader, that seemed to us to compare with it, either in respect to its
fortunate arrangement or general felicity of execution. We would recommend
to every young person who intends to give any attention to the culture of his
mind, to keep this book by him as a constant guide ; and persons of any age or
any profession, will find it as a book of reference quite invaluable." — Albany
Religious Spectator.

" This book is eminently fitted to be both popular and useful. For want of
some such guide as this, a large part of the reading, particularly of young per-
sons, is to little purpose ; and many who deservedly acquire the character of
great readers, really acquire very little as the fruit of their reading. The pres-
ent work will not only relieve the mind that is doubtful what course of reading
to adopt, or that has been unable to find any satisfactory course marked out,
but it will contribute to arrange and systematize the mind's acquisitions, so
that they shall be at command whenever they are needed. It will be found
an admirable work of reference, not only for students in the course of their
education, but for professional men, and for all who wish to know what the

^ greatest and best minds have thought on the most important subjects." —

^ Albany Jlrgus.

"This work is designed to enable the student to select such works as will
\ most rapidly advance his knowledge of any particular branch or subject of
} literature, the arts, &c. It may be profitably consulted by all who desire to
j have their studies directed by mature judgment and experience." — Baltimore
*> American.

I " There is a vast deal of time spent to little purpose by almost every person
> who is given much to reading, from an inability to make a suitable selection of
'i books. The present work is designed and admirably adapted to remedy this
] evil, and the course of reading which it marks out, seems to us altogether the
' most judicious that we have ever met with. It not only gives the names of the
most distinguished authors in the various departments of learning, but fur-
nishes hints by which the reader may judge of their comparative merits. To
the professional man, as well as to the student, the work will be invaluable."
— Daily Amer. Citizen.

" A volume which we can conscientiously recommend as marking out an
accurate course of historical and general reading, from which a vast acquisi-
tion of sound knowledge must result. The arrangements and system are no
less admirable than the selection of authors pointed out for study." — Literary
Gazette.

" We do not know of a better index than this well-considered little book to
a general course of. reading. It might, as such, be safely and advantageously
put into the hands of all young persons who have finished theiredncation, and
are about to take their place in society, or to begin the world." — Atlas.

"This course is admirably adapted to promote a really intellectual study of
history, philosophy, and the belles-lettres, as distinguished from that mere ac-
cumulation of words and dates in the memory, which passes for education." —
Critic.

"A most admirable and simply-arranged work, fit to be placed in the hands
of every young man about to enter on a course of English Reading. Jt may bo
profitable, in truth, to every one ; while the lively anecdotes intermixed with
, the subject-matter, render it full of interest and amusement." — Aristide-an.

•N

ROME IN 1843-4.

Rome ; as seen by a New-Yorker in 1843-4. One vol. 12mo.
with map, and very handsomely printed. Price 75 cents.

CONTENTS. — Saint Peter's — the Forum and Coliseum — the Capi-
tol— Churches, images, reliques, and miracles — A day among the
tombs of Rome — The Vatican — Christmas at Rome — The palaces
of Rome — Ancient baths and modern fountains — A Roman dining-
house and cafe" — The Velabrum, Ghetto, and Trastevere — Car-
dinals, monks, beggars, and robbers — A promenade on the Pincian
I Hill — Sculptors and painters — The modern Romans — Appendix
— How to see Rome — The Duomo of Milan.

" This is one of the most admirable books of the kind we have ever read.
Its most marked characteristic is perfect taste, and this is conspicuous in every
part of it, preface and contents, style and typography. The descriptions of the
various objects of interest are clear, accurate, and in the highest degree pic-
turesque and pleasing. The book must commend itself to every cultivated
mind ; less, perhaps, by any strikingly new information which it contains, than
by the chaste and refined spirit which pervades it." — JV. Y. Courier and En-
quirer,

" The present work is so unlike any of its predecessors that we have met
with, that no one need hesitate to purchase it, on the ground of its being a
repetition of what is already familiar. Its style is simple and graceful; its
descriptions exceedingly graphic and striking ; and every thing is brought out
with such life and freshness, that the reader, by a slight effort of imagination,
becomes the author's companion, during his sojourn amidst the desolations and
glories of Rome. It is altogether a delightful book." — .Albany JJrgus.

" This elegantly-printed volume cannot fail to be read by thousands, and

read with delight. Our authoi has vividly and succinctly portrayed whatever

people usually go to Rome to see, or read travels thither to learn. His letters

may be read with pleasure by the thorough scholar, as well as by the eager

\ devourer of all that is new." — JV. Y. Tribune.

" Whoever wishes to obtain a close and familiar view of Rome, will get it
\ nowhere better than in this work. Mr. Gillespie has looked upon the city
with the eye and heart of a scholar. He enjoys Rome, and this very enjoy-
ment of his communicates itself to his writings, and he involuntarily puts his
readers in a state of feeling to enjoy it with him." — Democratic Review.

" We know so well the mental qualities by which the book is guided — the
elegance of taste, purity, and good judgment — that we are scarce prepared to
criticise it as a new book. Mr. Gillespie has gone to work like a tranquil
scholar and lover of art, and has toned his book from the second stage of his
impressions rather than the first. His views, of course, are more reliable, and,
without further comment on the quality of the book, which is in all respects
admirable, we extract," &.c. — JV. Y. Evening Mirror.

'' This is a very agreeable book, written with an ease and fluency that make
it quite delightful. The author states what came under his observation and
his impressions with an earnest freedom, which assures the reader that what
he is perusing is characterized by truth. Every subject, apparently, of interest
has been touched upon, in a manner sufficiently full ; and yet the description is
marked by a conciseness which gives the work an advantage over many others
of a similar nature." — JV. Y. Albion.

"We are exceedingly pleased with this book, because the author is above
the conventional mode of thinking and describing. He thinks for himself, and
he speaks frankly ; moreover, he is a close observer, and is evidently possessed
of taste and discrimination." — JV. Y. Anglo-American.

" The writer describes and relates with a vivacity which gives his subject,
trite though it be, an aspect of novelty." — JV. Y. Evening Post.

mp

VESTIGES OF THE CREATION.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. By Sir Richard
Vyvyan, Bart., M. P., F. R. S., &c. One vol. 12mo. well
printed. Price 75 cents.

CONTENTS. — 1. The bodies of space, their arrangements and
formation — 2. Constituent materials of the earth and other bodies {
of space — 3. The earth formed ; era of the primary rocks — 4. Com- /
mencement of organic life ; sea plants, corals, &c. — 5. Era of the )-
old red sand-stone ; terrestrial zoology commences with reptiles ; |
first traces of birds — 5. Era of the oolite ; commencement of mam- >
malia — 6. Era of the cretaceous formations — 7. Era of the ter- \
tiary formation ; mammalia abundant — 8. Era of the superficial i
formations ; commencement of the present species — 9. General >
considerations respecting the origin of the animated tribes — 10.
Particular considerations respecting the origin of the animated
tribes — 11. Hypothesis of the development of the vegetable and
animal kingdom — 12. Maclay system of animated nature ; this
system considered in connexion with the progress of organic crea-
tion, and as indicating the natural status of man — 13. Early his-
tory of mankind — 14. Mental constitution of animals — 15. Pur-
pose and general condition of the animated creation — 16. Note
conclusory.

"This is a remarkable volume— small in compass— but embracing a wide
range of inquiry, from worlds beyond the visible starry firmament, to the
minutest structures of man and animals. The work is written with peculiar

and cla-ssical terseness, reminding us very much of the style of Celsus

We have dedicated a large space to this remarkable work, that may induce
many of our readers to peruse the original. The author is, decidedly, a man
of great information and reflection." — Medico-Chirurgical Review.

" This is a very beautiful and a very interesting book. Its theme is one of
the grandest that can occupy human thought — no less than the creation of the
universe. It is full of interest and grandeur, and must claim our readers'
special notice, as possessing, in an eminent degree, matter for their contempla-
tion, which cannot fail at once to elevate, to gratify, and enrick their minds."
— Forbes' Review.

"A neat little volume of much interest. Judging from a brief glance at the
contents of the volume, the author has produced a work of great interest, and
one which, while it affords the reader useful instruction, cannot fail to turn
his mind to a very profitable channel of reflection." — Commer. Mv.

" A small but remarkable work. It is a bold attempt to connect the natural
sciences into a history of creation. It contains much to interest and instruct,
and the book is ingenious, logical, and learned." — Newark Jldv.

"This work discovers great ingenuity and great research into the mysteries
of nature. It is a noble work, and one which no intelligent person can read
without finding a fresh impulse communicated to his thoughts, and gaining
sorr.e higher impressions of the Creator's power, wisdom, and goodness."—
J Miany Argus.

\ "A novel and remarkable work, which will speedily attract the attention of
all inquisitive readers. There is much that is new and ingenious in the book.
The author, whoever he is, is a man of varied philosophical and literary at-
tainments, and master of a style in conveying his thoughts, so pure, simple,
and modest, that his treatise will be everywhere widely read."— JV. Y. Morn-
ing News.

vn~*^j-j~.-^

LIFE AND ELOQUENCE OF LARNED.

Lite and Eloquence of the Rev. Sylvester Lamed, First Pas-
tor of the First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans. By
R. R. Gurley. 1 thick vol. 12mo,, with a fine portrait.
Si 25.

CONTENTS. — Preface, Life of Lamed, Prayer, Sermons, Christ
as Man, Paul before Felix, Saving Faith, Obligations for Spirit- '
•ual Mercies, On Objections against Christianity — the same, part ',
2 — Practical Admonitions, On the Inspiration of the Scriptures, \
On Searching the Scriptures, Religious Education, Duty of Re- >
conciliation to God, Causes of Distaste for Religion, Sin Incon- ;
sistent with Piety, On Hie Advent, Walking in Wisdom, Enmity :
of the Carnal Mind, Duty to Orphans, Excuses of the Impenitent, ;
Christian Self-Examination, The Character of Herod, Character \
of Peter — the same, part 2 — Character of Paul, On the Resurrec- I
tion, Against Profane Swearing, Love of Darkness rather than ]
Light, Cause of Love to God, Divine Law inexorable, Report of '*.
the Watchman, Hope of the Righteou-3, Moral Insanit}/ of Man.

i:No minister of the same age lias ever, at least in this country, left behind i

him deeper impressions of his eloquence. This volume is worthy of critical J

examinaiion and study; and those who would combine in their sermons ease ?

and elevation, simplicity and energy; who would leave to their hearers no time >

to sleep, and no wish to he absent, but regret only at the brevity of the service, <

and delight at the return of the Sabbath, will find the perusal and re-perusal of i,
Mr. Larned's discourses greatly to their advantage." — Knickerbocker.

" A beautiful and eloquent tribute to sanctified genius. The uniiy, force, ima- <
gination, harmony, and feeling apparent in these discourses, will commend the $
volume to all." — Christian Observer.

" A valuable treasure to all who -cherish the memory of one of the most pure-
minded a?ul eloquent clergymen of our country; or who know how to appre- \
date the finest specimens of pulpit composition." — Tribune.

" He was one of the most eloquent orators in the United State?. Mr. Gurley £
has made a most interesting volume, which will prove an acceptable present to ">
the religious public." — Evening Post.

"A most delightful volume. We t.eartily coauaend it to the religious com- '-
munity." — .Veio York American.

" It is much to be wondered at, that no permanent memorial of this distin- <
puished divine has ever before been given to the world. The volume cannot fail i
to bt sought for with great avidity." — Daily American Citizen,

" These discourses evidently bear the impress of a great mind — not only of an (
exuberant fancy, but of gigantic powers of comprehension. We indeed rejoice 5
that the work has nt length appeared.

"Lamed was beyond all question the brightest star of the American pulpit, <
during the brief period in which he lived. We are gratified to see a memoir
of him bo worthily constructed, and so rich in interesting material. The sermons
are pervaded by the living, breathing spirit of true genius, as well as of evan-
grfieal truth and fervent devotion." — Albany Argus.

LETTERS AND DESPATCHES OF CORTES.

The Despatches of Fernando Cortes, the Conqueror of Mexi-
co, addressed to the Emperor Charles V. ; written during
the Conquest, and containing a narrative of its events.
Translated by George Folsom, Secretary of the N. Y.
Historical Society. In 1 vol. Med. 8vo. $1 25. Large
Paper copies, $2 00.

" We venture to pronounce this one of the most curious and most interesting
books that have made their appearance for some time. These despatches have-
never before been seen in the English language, and one of them at least has
never been printed even in Spain. The very title is enough to arouse a deep
interest. The Conquest of Mexico, written by the Conqueror himself, on tht-

£ very field of battle ! We can scarcely think of a rarer desideratum." — .Y. Y.

\ Courier.

"These very interesting records of a National Military Romance, which
; created a new world, and produced most marvellous changes by its influence oil
• the old. The translation is ably performed." — Literary Gazette.

"This is a volume which ought to find a niche in every well-furnished libra-
\ ry. It presents a most extraordinary autograph picture by one of the most extra-
: ordinary characters of our modern history." — Globe.

" This book is a credit to the American press. The Despatches of Cortes are
;, among the most interesting and singular documents ever penned. They give a
•'. minute and vivid account of his conquest, and of the wonderful scenes presented
;' to his view on his first entry into the Kingdom of Mexico." — Britannia.

"This book has all the interest of a novel, and all the value of a history.
What higher praise can we bestow upon such a work ? This marvellous, this
'. unparclieled story." — Tablet.

" He preserves an interest in his narrative read even at this distance, when
the mysterious novelties of the country, the importance of the facts, and the
> ancertainty of the result, have long ceased to impart an interest." — Spectator.

"This is one of the most curious publications of the day. A valuable histori-
< cat document, containing an exact and picturesque representation of the habits
; and manners of a people long since extinct." — Bell's Weekly Messenger.

THE YOUNG AMERICAN'S LIBRARY, No. 1.

THE PRIMER:

With over 200 neat engravings, most beautifully printed, in

quite a new and novel style. Price 25 cents.

<

" As pretty a Httle book for little people as we ever saw. It is full of beauti-

[ fill pictures, which convey some useful lessons to the child while he is thinking

; of nothing but pleasure. It strikes the great secret of education. The getting

; up of this book is unusually fine, and we learn it is the first number of a series

corresponding to the name." — JV. Y. Tribune.

HAND-BOOK OF HYDROPATHY.

Hand-Book of Hydropathy ; or a Popular Account of the
Treatment and Prevention of Diseases, by means of Wa-

•

ter. Chiefly selected from the most eminent and recent
European authors, by Joel Shew, M. D. 1 vol. 12mo.

Second edition. Price 50 cents ; or in paper binding, 38 cts.

"This excellent little work of Dr. Shew has been compiled from the best au-
thors, and contains as complete a view of the practice under the mode as can be
given."— .V. Y. Post.

" It is eminently calculated to benefit all who read and study it, whether sick
or well." — Regenerator.

" This book is well printed, its contents have been judiciously selected from
a variety of sources, and it gives a complete compend of the Treatment by Water
in its present state of improvement. It is universally calculated to do good in
the all-important matter of preventing, as well as curing disease."— JV. Y.
Tribune.

LOCKHART'S SPANISH BALLADS.

Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic, translated,
with notes, by J. G. Lockhart, Esq. To which are added,
an Essay on the Origin, Antiquity, Character, and Influ-
ence of the Ancient Ballads of Spain ; and an Analytical
Account, with Specimens, of the Romance of the Cid. 1
very neat vol. 8vo., beautifully printed. $1 50.

"These ' Spanish Ballads' are known to our public, but generally with incon-
ceivable advantage, by the very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lock-
hart."— HaUam.

" This delightful volume needs no commendation of ours; every one will buy
it, and keep it among their literary treasures." — Edinburgh Review.

" We are quite at a loss to speak in adequate terms of this delightful and in-
teresting volume, the perusal and reperusal of which have afforded us so much
real gratification, — but we advise every one to get it." — JV. Y. Tribune.

NEW TABLES OF INTEREST.

Tables of Interest, determining, by means of the Differences
of Logistic Squares, the interest of every whole sum up to
10,000 dollars, for any length of time not exceeding 400

•**

days, at the rates of 6 and 7 per cent. 1 vol. royal 8vo.,
beautifully printed. $1 50.

"The application of the tables appears to be so direct and plain, and the
method of using them so concise, that we can safely recommend the book as
worthy of adoption among merchants, bankers, and others." — JV. Y. Commercial
Advertiser.

"The very slight amount of numerical calculation required in using these
tables and the uniformity of the process appear to give the work a claim on the
attention of those whose business requires the frequent computation of interest."
— JV. Y. Post.

"This work seems to answer fully the purpose for which it waa prepared,
in furnishing to the business community a concise and easy method of finding
the interest of money." — JV*. Y. American.

SHORT AND SIMPLE PRAYERS

WITH

HYMNS FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN.

By the Author of " Mamma's Bible Stories." 1 vol., with
neat engravings. Price 37 cents.

"Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try." — Montgomery.

» We do not pretend to remember the many little books similar in design to
this which we may have received, but none that we can recall seems so well
adapted to its purpose. The prayers and hymns are peculiarly simple and
touching. The heart of a child could hardly fail to be moved by them. The
volume is a neat one, very well printed, with two or three pretty illustrations." —
JVortA American.

HAPPY HOURS,

OR, THE HOME STORY-BOOK.

By Mary Cherwell. 1 vol. with neat engravings, handsomely
printed in large bold type. Second edition. Price 50 cts.

" A sweet little book of home stories, which all young people will be delighted
with."— JV. Y. Tribune.

"We can scarcely commend this little book enough; the enterprising pub-
lishers are entitled to great praise for the handsome style in which it is pub-
lished."— True Sun.

I "A delightful book for children: it is very pleasantly written, and cannot fail
\ to engage the young reader's attention. The designs are pretty, and neatly ex-
* ecuted. We strongly recommend it to all our young friends."— JV. Y. Express.

j GARDENING FOR LADIES.

\ Gardening for Ladies ; and Companion to the Flower-Garden.
Being an Alphabetical arrangement of all the ornamental
Plants usually grown in gardens and shrubberies ; with
full directions for their culture. By Mrs. Loudon. First
American, from the second London edition. Revised and
edited by A. J. Downing. 1 thick vol. 12mo., with en-
gravings representing the processes of grafting, budding,
layering, &c., &c. $1 50.

"A truly charming work, written with simplicity and clearness. It is deci-
dedly the best work on the subject, and we strongly recommend it to all our
fair countrywomen, as a work they ought not to be without." — JV. Y. Courier.

"Mr. Downing is entitled to the thanks of the fair florists of our country for
introducing to their acquaintance this comprehensive and excellent manual,
which must become very popular. Besides an instructive treatment on the best
modes of culture, transplanting, bedding, training, destroying insects, &c., and
the management of plants in |>ots and green-houses, illustrated with numerous
plates ; the work comprises a Dictionary of the English and Botanic names of
the most popular flowers, with directions for their culture. Altogether we
should judge it to be the most valuable work in the department to which it
belongs." — Newark Jldvertiser.

"This is a full and complete manual of instruction upon the subject of which
it treats. Being intended for those who have little or no previous knowledge of
gardening, it presents, in a very precise and detailed manner, all that is neces-
sary to be known upon it, and cannot fail to awaken a more general taste for
these healthful and pleasant pursuits among the ladies of our country." — JV*. Y.
Tribune.

" This truly delightful work cannot be too highly commended to our fair coun-
trywomen."— JV". Y. Journal of Commerce.

" We cordially welcome, and heartily commend to all our fair friends, whether
living in town or country, this very excellent work."— JV. Y. Tribune.

THE BIRDS OF LONG ISLAND-

Containing a description of the habits, plumage, &c., of all
the species now known to visit that section, comprising the
larger number of birds found throughout the State of New
York, and the neighboring States. By T. P. Giraud, jr.
1 vol. 8vo. Price $2 00.

This work, though designed chiefly for the use of the gunners and sportsmen
residing on Long Island, will still serve as a book of reference for amateurs and
others collecting ornithological specimens in various sections of the United
States, particularly for those persons residing on the sea-coasts of New Jersey
and the Eastern States.

GRAY'S BOTANICAL TEXT BOOK.

The Botanical Text Book for Colleges, Schools, and private
Students. Comprising not only the outlines of Structural
and Physiological Botany, but also a popular account of the
principal Natural Orders, their geographical distribution,
properties, and uses, with an enumeration of those plants
which furnish products employed in medicine and the arts.
1 very thick vol. with numerous fine engravings. $1 50.

CONTENTS. — Preliminary Considerations. Part I. Structural
and Physiological Botany. Part II. Systematic Botany. Ap-
pendix, Index, Glossary of Botanical Terms. Index of the Na-
tural Orders, Useful Plants, and Products, &c.

"The most compendious and satisfactory view of the Vegetable Kingdom
which has yet been offered in an elementary treatise. Remarkable for its cor-
rectness and perspicuity." — Silliman's Journal.

See also Loudon, Hooker, and other English Botanical Journals, &c.

NEW SERIES OF THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA,

AND

THEOLOGICAL REVIEW.

Conducted by B. B. Edwards and E. A. Park, Professors at
Andover. With the special co-operation of Dr. Robinson
and Professor Stuart. Price $4 00 a year.

"A noble contribution to Religious Literature, and fitly printed." — Tribune.
" Confessedly one of the ablest and most important Theological Reviews pub-
lished in this country." — Courier and Enquirer.

" As an aid to the Biblical Student, this is doubtless the moat valuable peri-
odical in the English language. The other religious publications in this coun-
try, admitting a wider range of subjects, cannot concentrate so much strength
on the department of Biblical learning. None of them therefore can adequately
supply its place ; but the principal recommendation of this work, after all, is its
elevated and manly tone." — JVe«? York Observer.

"This is, perhaps, the most ambitious journal in the United States. We use
the word in a good sense, as meaning that there is no journal among us which
seems more laudably desirous to take the lead in literary and theological science.
Its handsome type and paper give it a pleasing exterior; its typographical errors,
are so comparatively few, as to show that it has the advantage of the best
American proof-reading ; while for thoroughness of execution in the depart-
ments of history and criticism, it aims to be pre-eminent." — Churchman.

LINDLEY ON HORTICULTURE.

The Theory of Horticulture ; or an attempt to explain the
principal operations of gardening upon physiological prin-
ciples. By John Lindley, Ph. D., F. R. S., with notes
and additions by A. J. Downing, and Dr. A. Gray. 1
thick vol. 12mo., with engravings. $1 25.

CONTENTS. — Of Germination, Of growth by the root, Growth
by the Stem, Action of Leaves, Action of Flowers, Of the matu-
ration of the Fruit, Of Temperature, Of Bottom-heat, Moisture of
the Soil, Watering, Atmospherical Moisture and Temperature,
Ventilation, Seed-sowing, Seed. saving, Seed-packing, Propagation
by Eyes and Knaws, By Leaves, By Cuttings, By Layers and
Suckers, By Budding and Grafting, Of Pruning, Training, Pot-
ting, Transplanting, Of the preservation of races by Seed, Of the
improvement of Races, Of Resting, Of Soil and Manure, Index.

"A vast fund of horticultural learning, and embraces, it is hardly too much to
say, nearly all that an intelligent gardener need know." — London's Magazine of
Gardening.

" We are constrained to believe that it will provide the intelligent gardener
and the scientific amateur with correct means of learning the more important
operations of horticulture." — Farmer's Magazine.

"The American edition of this valuable work is, in all respects, creditable to
the editors; whose joint labors, it may be remarked, furnish in the present in-
stance another illustration of the happy combination of scientific theory with
practical experience. To the American reader, the notes of the co-editors,
which are both scientifical and practical, add much to the value and interest of
the work ; being, for the most part, the results of successful experience, with
such additions and adaptations as the climate and circumstances of our country
render necessary." — American Journal of Science.

THE CROTON AQUEDUCT.

Illustrations of the Croton Aqueduct. By F. B. Tower, of
the Engineer Department. 1 handsome vol. 4to., with 25
fine engravings. $3 50.

"This volume is very elegant, and must be extremely popular as a permanent
and beautiful record of one of the greatest works of modern times." — JV". Y.
Tribune.

" Here is a book which every New Yorker ought to buy who has means to
have a library, and can afford to pay the price of it, without actually depriving
himself of necessities, and out of New York everybody ought to buy it who is
able to indulge a taste for elegant and valuable books."— JV". Y. Commercial.

Iff

THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

Manners and Customs of the North American Indians. In
Letters and Notes written during eight years travel among
the wildest tribes of Indians in North America, with 400
spirited illustrations, carefully engraved from his Original
Paintings. By George Catlin. A new edition in 2 vols.

royal 8vo. Price $6 00, bound in cloth.

*Jfc* Four editions of this very interesting work have been printed in London.
Among the subscribers were the Queen, the Queen Dowager, the King of Bel-
gium, and many of the most distinguished persons in Europe. It contains char-
acteristic and faithful records of a race of people who are rapidly becoming ex-
tinct: and it is not probable that another similar work can ever be written.
One of the most remarkable tribes, the Mandans, are already entirely destroyed.
This work has been more extensively, copiously, and favorably reviewed in
Europe, than any other published during the last five years.

BULL'S HINTS TO MOTHERS.

Hints to Mothers, for the Management of Health during the
period of pregnancy, and in the lying-in room ; with an
exposure of popular errors in connection with these subjects.
By Thomas Bull, M. D. 1 neat vol. Fourth Edition.

Price 38 cents ; or in cloth binding, 50 cents.

"We recommend it to our readers; and they will confer a benefit on their
new married patients by recommending it to them." — Forbes'1 Review.

"There is no mother that will not be heartily thankful that this book ever
fell into her hands ; and no husband who should not present it to his wife. We
cannot urge its value too strongly on all whom it concerns." — Med. Times.

i

FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA.

Flora of North America, comprising an account of all the in-
digenous and naturalized plants growing north of Mexico.
By John Torrey and Asa Gray. Vol. 1, (pp. 771,) price

$6 00. Vol. 2, parts 1, 2, 3. $4 00.

This is the only authentic and complete American Flora. The object of the
work is to give a scientific account of all the indigenous and naturalized plants
of North America at present known. It is the most extensive local Flora that
has ever been undertaken. The latest Flora of this country, that of Pursh, was
published twenty-eight years ago, at which period extensive regions, even within
the United States proper, had never been visited by the Botanist. Since that
time, the number of known plants has vastly increased ; and the science itself
has made such rapid advancement, that this work will present the Botany of
this country in an entirely new aspect.

JOHNSTON'S AGRICULTURE.

Lectures on the Application of Chemistry and Geology to
Agriculture. By J. F. W. Johnston. Complete in one
thick vol. $1 25; or in 2 vols. $1 50.

CONTENTS : —

PART 1. — On the Organic Constituents of Plants.
" 2. — On the Inorganic Constituents of Plants.
" 3. — On the Improvement of the Soil by Mechanical

and Chemical means.
" 4. — On the Products of the Soil and their use in the

Feeding of Animals.

APPENDIX. — Of Suggestions and Results of Experiments in
Practical Agriculture.

"It is unquestionably the most important contribution to agricultural science,
and destined to exert a most beneficial influence in this country." — Professor
Silliman.

"A work of great value to the agriculturist who would avail himself of the
aid of science in the cultivation of his land." — Am. Agriculturist.

"This truly valuable work forms the only complete treatise on the whole
subject to be found in any language." — BlackwoocTs Magazine.

"The most complete account of Agricultural Chemistry we possess." — Royal
Agricultural Journal.

"We only wish it were in the hands of every farmer's son in the country." —
Durham Advertiser.

" Nothing hitherto published has at all equalled it, both as regards true science
and sound common sense." — Quar. Journal of Agriculture.

" A valuable and interesting Course of Lectures." — London Quar. Review.

WATER CURE, FOR LADIES.

A popular work on the Health, Diet, and Regimen of Fe-
males and Children, and prevention and cure of diseases ;
with a full account of the process of Water Cure, illustrated
with various cases, by Mrs. M. L. Shew, revised by Joel
Shew, M. D. 1 vol. Price 50 cents.

" A valuable and instructive work on that most interesting branch of modem
medical science, the medical virtues of water." — JV*. Y. Express.

"The authoress has reduced the system to practice, and found it every way
equal in its curative influences to the representations of its many advocates." —
True Sun.

TAPPAN'S ELEMENTS OF LOGIC.

Elements of Logic, together with an introductory view of
Philosophy in general, and a Preliminary View of the
Reason. One thick vol. 12mo. $1 00.

CONTENTS : —

PART 1. — Introductory View of Philosophy in General.
" 2. — Preliminary View of the Reason.
" 3. — Logic Proper — Book I. Primordial Logic. II. In-
ductive Logic. III. Deductive Logic. IV.
Doctrine of Evidence.

"This is nn able and learned — the most able and learned work which has
ever appeared on the subject in this country. It is written in a simple, lucid
style, and with a great precision of definition and distinction. We doubt not it
will be appreciated by learned men and teachers, and become the standard work
in its line." — New York Evangelist.

"The subject is presented, on the whole, in a far more original and attractive
form than any treatise with which we are acquainted. The writer's style is
characterized by a peculiar freshness and vivacity, which, together with his
admirable arrangement, relieves the subject of that proverbial tedium under the
imputation of which it has always labored. This work is finely adapted as a
Manual for schools and colleges, supplying a desideratum which has long been
felt to exist. The book we decidedly regard as an honor to the author, and an
honor to the country." — New World.

"We have not been able to examine this excellent treatise with the attention
it merits ; but we think we are safe in saying that it is not only the most original,
but the best work on Logic, which has ever appear&d in this country." — Journal

of Commerce.

'; On the whole we think this is the best work on Logic which we have seen
from the American press." — Evening Post.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Tappan on The Will. 3 vols. $3 00 ; or separately.
Vol. 1. — Review of Edwards.
" 2. — Appeal to Consciousness.
" 3. — Moral Agency.

BRADFORD'S AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

American Antiquities, and Researches into the Origin and
History of the Red Race. By Alexander W. Bradford.
1 vol. 8vo. $1 00.

*** A philosophical and elaborate investigation of a subject which lias excited
much attention. This able work is a very desirable companion to those of Ste-
phens and others on the Ruins of Central America.

ACTONIAN PRIZE ESSAY.

Chemistry, as exemplifying the Wisdom and Beneficence of
God. By George Fownes, Ph. D., F. R. S., Etc. In 1
vol. small 8vo. Price 50 cents.

CONTENTS. — The Chemical History of the Earth and the At-
< mosphere ; The Peculiar.'ies which characteiize Organic Sub-
\ stances generally ; The Composition and Sustenance of Plants ;
\ On Animal Chemistry ; The Relation existing between Plants
I and Animals ; Appendix — (with various Tables.)

5 "The object of the work is to gather up the proofs and indications of design
and goodness in the- structure and relations of things disclosed by Chemistry —
and it is very ably done." — JV. Y. Post.

"It is richly worth general perusal." — JV. Y. Tribune.

"The manner of treating the subject is both ingenious and recondite, and we
commend it accordingly to general attention." — JV". Y. American.

" A highly interesting and valuable work. It is a most valuable addendum to
other works on this subject; to those who are studying Natural Theology, it
will be highly serviceable." — JV. Y. Express.

"This is a meritorious work. The materials are fairly and skilfully selected
out of the vast and ever-growing mass of phenomena and truths which consti-
tute the modern science of Chemistry ; and are pin together will) considerable
dexterity, imparting an air of novelty and freshness even to the truths with
which we have been long familiar." — Christian Remembrancer.

HOLY BIBLE, WITH COMMENTARY.

Now ready — Yols. 1 and 2, $4 00 each ; or, numbers 1 to 28,
of the Holy Bible, with a Critical Commentary and Para-
phrase, by Patrick, Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman.
A new edition, with the text printed at large. To be com-
pleted in sixty numbers, at 25 cents each, the whole to form
four imperial octavo volumes, containing upwards of 4,300
pages. The value of this edition consists in the fact that
the Text accompanies the Commentaries — thus adapting it
to general use.

Students, Clergymen, and others cl-ibbing tosether, and remitting the
Publishers the amount of five copies, will be entitled to the sixth gratis, or
twelve copies for ten, and in the same proportion for a larger number.

%* The whole cost of the publication is not required in advance, as the work
s can be forwarded in either numbers or volumes, as the party may desire.

DR. CHEEVER'S LECTURES ON BUNYAN.

Lectures on the Pilgrim's Progress, and on the Life and \
Times of John Bunyan. By the Rev. George B. Cheever, \
D. D. 1 thick vol. 8vo., printed in large type, with fine ',
steel-plate engravings. $3 50 ; or in 15 numbers at 25 ]
cents each.

CONTENTS. — 1. Bunyan and his Times ; 2. Bunyan's Tempta-
tions ; 3. Bunyan's Examination ; 4. Bunyan in Prison ; 5. Provi-
dence, Grace, and Genius of Bunyan ; 6. City of Destruction and
Slough of Despond ; 7. Christian in the house of the Interpreter ;
8. Christian on the Hill of Difficulty ; 9. Christian's fight with
Apollyon ; 10. Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death ;
11. Christian and Faithful in Vanity Fair ; 12. Doubting Castle
and Giant Despair; 13. The Delectable Mountains and En-
chanted Ground ; 14. Land Beulah and the River of Death ; 15.
Christiana, Mercy, and the Children.

"We know of nothing in American literature more likely to be interesting
and useful than these lectures. The beauty and force of their imagery, the
poetic brilliancy of their descriptions, the correctness of their sentiments, and
the excellent spirit which pervades them, must make their perusal a feast to all
of the religious community." — Tribune.

DOWNING'S COTTAGE RESIDENCES.

Designs for Cottage Residences, adapted to North America,
including Elevations and Plans of the Buildings, and De-
signs for Laying out Grounds. By A. J. Downing, Esq.
1 vol. 8vo. with very neat illustrations. Second edition,
revised. $2 00.

A second edition of the "Cottage Residences" is just published, as Part I. ;
and it is announced by the Author that Part II., which is in preparation, will
contain hints and designs for the interiors and furniture of cottages, as well as
\ additional designs for farm buildings.

) One of the leading reviews remarked that "the publication of these works
( may be considered an era in the literature ot' thi$ country." It is certainly true,
that no works were ever issued from the American press which at once exerted
a more distinct and extended influence on any subject than have these upon the
taste of our country. Since the publication of the first edition of the "Land-
scape Gardening," the taste for rural embellishments has increased to a snrpris-
! ing extent, and in almost every instance this volume is the text-book of the
\ i m pi over, and the exponent of the more refined style of arrangement and keeping
introduced into our country residences.

The '* Cottage Residences" seems to have been equally well-timed and bap-
pily done. Country gentlemen, no longer limited to the meager designs of un-
educated carpenters, are erecting agreeable collages in a variety of styles suited
to the location or scenery. Even in the West and South there are. already
many striking cottages and villas built wholly, or in part, from Mr. Downing
designs ; and in the suburbs of some ofthe cities, most of the new re>ideiices are ;•
modified or moulded after the hints thrown out in this work.

•*

DOWNING'S FRUITS OF AMERICA.

The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America ; or, the culture, pro-
pagation, and management, in the garden and orchard, of
fruit trees generally ; with descriptions of all the finest
varieties of fruit, native or foreign, cultivated in the gardens
of this country. Illustrated with numerous engravings and
outlines of fruit. By A. J. Downing. 1 vol. 12mo., (and
also 8vo.

*.jc* This will be the most complete work on the subject ever published, and
will, it is hoped, supply a desideratum long felt by amateurs and cultivators.

DOWNING, ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

A Treatise on Landscape Gardening ; adapted to North
America, with a view to the improvement of Country Re-
sidences. Comprising historical notices, and general prin-
ciples of the art ; directions for laying out grounds, and
arranging plantations ; description and cultivation of hardy
trees ; decorative accompaniments to the house and grounds ;
formation of pieces of artificial water, flower-gardens, etc. ;
with remarks on Rural Architecture. New edition, with
large additions and improvements, and many new and
beautiful illustrations. By A. J. Downing. 1 large vol.
8vo. $3 50.

"This volume, the first American treatise on this subject, will at once take
the rank of the standard work.1' — Silliman's Journal.

" Downing's Landscape Gardening is a masterly work of its kind, — more \
especially considering that the art is yet in its infancy in America." — London's \
Gardener's Magazine. ^

>.

" Nothing has heen omitted that can in the least contribute to a full and ana-
lytical development of the subject ; and he treats of all in the most lucid order,
and with much perspicuity and grace of diction." — Democratic Review.

" We dismiss this work with much respect for the taste and judgment of the
author, and with full confidence that it will exert a commanding influence.
They are valuable and instructive, and every man of taste, though he may not
need, will do well to possess it." — JVurtfi American Review.

sr

DANA'S MINERALOGY.

A System of Mineralogy ; Comprising the most recent dis- >
coveries, with numerous engravings. Second edition, \
enlarged and improved. By James D. Dana, A. M. <
Very thick vol. 8vo., pp. 633. $3 50.

CONTENTS. — Introduction. Part I. Crystallogony, or th(J \
Science of the Structure of Minerals. II. Physical Properties ;>
of Minerals. III. Chemical Properties of Minerals. IV. Taxo- >
nomy. V. Determinative Mineralogy. VI. Descriptive Minera- |
logy. VII. Chemical Classification. VIII. Rocks on Mineral
Aggregates. IX. Mineralogical Bibliography. X. Copious Index.

" It gives me great pleasure to state that it requires but few works like the
present, to give American Science a name which will merit, if it does not re-
ceive, the respect of the scientific world." — Vilhman's Journal fur ,/lpril.

"This work does great honor to America, and should make us blush for the
neglect in England of an important and interesting science. It is a thick octavo,
of about 700 pages, on Mineralogy, treated in a highly scientific and perspicuous
manner. It is no compilation, such as all works on this subject have been in
this country since the writings of Jameson and Phillips, but an original survey
of the mineral kingdom executed with the greatest care. This, too, is the second
edition, greatly enlarged, showing that Mr. Dana's labors are appreciated in
America." — London JlthencEum.

"This work bears marks on every page of great industry and determination
in collecting the most recent facts. In completeness, systematic arrangement,
and accuracy, it is believed to be exceeded by no other work extant." — JV. Y.
American.

"This is a new edition of the best treatise ever published in this country on
the interesting and important subject of Mineralogy. It first appeared seven
years ago, since which time many new discoveries have been made in the
science, arid sources have thus been opened for a vast amount of new and im-
portant matter. All the investigations, both Foreign and American, that have
been made, have been carefully consulted in the preparation of this new edition,
and a chapter on crystallography has been added. The work is a most welcome
addition to the series of American standard treatises on scientific subjects." — JV.
Y. Courier and Enquirer.

"This is a truly valuable and learned work, and it is surprising, considering
the correctness of this treatise on its first appearance, to find how numerous and
important are the changes which have been made in the present edition. We
are sure the work must command success." — Tribune.

HAND-BOOK OF NEEDLEWORK.

The Hand-Book of Needle Work. By Miss Lambert. 1
vol. 8vo., beautifully printed, with numerous illustrations.
Price $1 50 ; or in extra binding, neat fancy style, $3 00

This very elegant and useful volume proves to be the most attractive work
of the kind ever published in this country. It contains practical instructions in
the various kinds of Ornamental Needlework and Embroidery, with a historical
account of these accomplishments in all ages and nations. To use a common
phrase, it certainly deserves a place on every lady's work table, besides being an
ornament to the drawing-room.

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

The Chemistry of Vegetable and Animal Physiology. By
Dr. G. T. Mulder, Professor of Chemistry in the Univer-
sity of Utrecht. Translated from the Dutch, by P. F. H. <
Fromberg ; with an Introduction, by Prof. J. F. W. John- \
ston. First authorized American Edition ; with notes and ;
corrections, by B. Silliman, Jr. Part I., very neatly j
printed. Price 25 cents.

" In the trxic study of nature the principal aim ought to be, not only to make
ourselves acquainted with the phenomena and laws which distinguish and
regulate living and dead matter, but also to arrange those phenomena and
laws, and exhibit them in their several relations. The more our knowledge
of these two departments is extended, and the nearer the several parts of the
great science of nature seem to approximate, the more firmly must we embrace
the idea, as necessarily conformable to truth, that the same forces govern alike
the animate and inanimate kingdoms." — Author.

"The celebrity of the author of this long-expected work, has raised a high
degree of expectation among the readers in ihis department of scientific litcra- i;
tare. For depth of argument and originality of views, he has surpassed all >
who have gone before him. The work is a profound one, and merits the care- <
ful study of all. We look forward with interest to the future numbers of the <
work." — Tribune.

" For extent and value of research, in the calm spirit of philosophic deduc-
tion which marks its peculiar character, and the absence of wild theory — it
stands pre-eminent among the numerous profound and brilliant works of a
kindred character, which the last two or three years have produced." — Amcr.
Jour, of Science.

WASHINGTON'S REVOLUTIONARY ORDERS.

\

Revolutionary Orders of General V* ashington, issued during ^

the years 1778, '80, '81, and '82 ; selected from the Manu- i
scripts of John Whiting, Lieutenant and Adjutant of the 2d $
Regiment of the Massachusetts Line, and edited by his son, ^
Henry Whiting, Lieut. Col. U. S. Army. 1 vol. 8vo.,
well printed. $1 50.

This is a valuable publication — valuable as well from the historic interests
of the orders, as from the source whence they emanated. The collection was
made from manuscripts that had suffered from inattention, and the series may
therefore be incomplete. Yet the papers, now for the first time published to
the world, are of an exceedingly interesting character, particularly those dated
from the camp at Valley Forge, during a most trying period of the Revolution.
To the military man they are invaluable as specimens of clear and concise
writing, and for the information they contain touching many questions of du-
bious interpretation under the code of war. To all they bring before the mind
many of the scenes that made the name of Washington immortal, while they
contributed to establish the liberty of this great Republic.

THE AMERICAN HOUSE CARPENTER.

A Treatise upon Architecture, Cornices, and Mouldings ;
Framing, Doors, Windows, and Stairs ; together with the
most important Principles of Practical Geometry. By R.
G. Hatfield, Architect. Illustrated by more than 300 en-
gravings. 1 vol. 8vo. $2 00.

"We make no pretensions even to the most superficial acquaintance with <
the subject of which this book treats. It has never come within our vocation >
to be hewers of wood, any more than drawers of water. And yet, with all our £
ignorance, we can see that this must be a book of great value to all scientific ^
and practical mechanics. And, fortunately, we are not obliged to trust our <
own judgment in the case ; for we are assured, on testimony that is worthy of
all acceptation, that it is really a work of tne highest merit, and adapted to
accomplish most important practical improvements in the department of which
it treats. It is evidently a book to be studied rather than read cursorily, in
order to secure the benefit which it is designed to impart." — Bait. Jlmer.

" We should like to call the attention of carpenters to this work, because we <
know that every one who may be induced to purchase a copy upon our rec- \
ommendation, will thank us for it. If we take into consideration the great
advantage that a book of this kind is likely to be to a workman, in advancing
him to proficiency in his trade, the price (§2) must be acknowledged to be but
trifling." — Daily Jlmer. Citizen.

" We live at a period when there is no art or science that can complain of
being neglected by the makers of books ; and here we have one that is de-
signed to enlarge the views, and improve the ta.ste, and lighten the labor of the
makers of houses. We can see, from turning over the leaves, that it is a
thoroughly scientific production ; and more than that, we are assured by one
who knows about these things, and whose judgment may be taken without
any abatement, that it is a work of no common ability, and ought to be owned
and studied by every carpenter in the land. Books of this kind hitherto are
understood to have been too expensive to gain a very wide circulation ; but
this, though very neatly executed, is sold at a moderate price, and can be
bought by everybody who has an interest in reading it." — Albany Jltias.

"The clearest and most thoroughly practical work on the subject. It is very
neatly 'got up,' and the price is extremely moderate." — .V. Y. True Sun.

"We have been singularly struck with the clear, easy, we had almost snid
the elegant style in which it is written — affording a free demonstration, that
he who thoroughly understands his subject, writes well, though authorship is
not his trade. It is indeed a good practical work, and therefore of great value."
— New World.

" This is a really valuable work, and its astonishingly cheap price brings it
in the reach of all. We heartily commend it." — Democratic Review.

"This work is a most excellent one ; very comprehensive, and lucidly ar-
ranged."— JV. American.

" Every hou-.e carpenter ought to possess one of these books ; it is indisputa-
bly the be.5t compendium of information on this subject that has hitherto been
published." — Journal of Commerce.

" This work commends itself by its practical excellence. It needs no other >
recommendation." — U. S. Gazette. <,

"Few works of a practical kind from an American pen, will be found of a \
more intrinsic value than this admirable volume ; and we feel more confidence s
in this opinion, from the fact of the press universally concurring in our ver- \
diet."— JV. Y. Morning News. \

j

*•

THE POETICAL FORTUNE-TELLER.

A curiously charming book.

Oracles from the Poets ; a fanciful Diversion for the Draw-
ing Room. By Caroline Gilman. 1 neat volume, beauti- j
fully printed, and elegantly bound in extra cloth, gilt. 1
$1 50.

" A most engaging and admirable work, compiled after a very singular idea, j
by the tasteful and talented Mrs. Gilman of South Carolina. It is a playfully- >
contrived series of chance answers to questions, suitable for amusement round >
an evening table. We close our long extracts with a renewed expression of j
our admiration at the taste of the compiler, and the ingenuity with which it >
was originally contrived. The getting up of the book should not be forgotten. \
It is in the shape of an annual, and the best of gift books." — Willis's Evening ';
Mirror.

"The gifted Mrs. Gilman has hit upon an ingenious amusement, which she i>
!: conveys in this volume with characteristic taste. It is mnde up of selections from
5 English and American poets, descriptive of person or character, and classified,
;> so as to form answers to a leading question at the head of each division. As

< 'diversion for the drawing room,' the plan cannot fail to please the young, or

< tho^e who would feel young. The book is handsomely printed and bound, J
) and is a suitable ornament for a centre-table." — JCortli American.

( ,

;j '-This is a beautiful volume, elegantly printed, bound, and embellished, and >
J has been compiled by Mrs. Caroline Gilnian. It was intended originally for >
'^ the family circle of the author, being destined as well to amuse as to instruct. \
; It consists in a series of chance answers to questions, suitable for amusement ]
' round an evening table. We predict for the work an unexampled success, i
j which its pleasing merits eminently entitle it to." — JV. I'. Post.

'• This very pretty and pleasant volume is designed to be used as a fortune- }
toller, or a round game lor forfeit ;, or examined as a treasurc-hou-^e for the >
thoughts of poets on particular subjects, from Chaucer down to the minor poets >
of our own time and country. Questions are propounded ; as, • What is the
character of him who loves you T 'What is your destiny?' and a hundred
others, and answers given from the poets, which are numbered. The literature >
of the volume is of the highest order, and the most exquisite descriptions and >
sentiments are contained in the answers. It is, altogether, an ele<_':u;t book, *
suitable for a Christinas or New- Year's present to one's • lady-love.' " — Hunt's (
Magazine.

"This book, though partaking in no wise of a religious character, may be >
regarded as an agreeable contribution, not only to the literature of the d.iy, but
to the cause of human improvement. Some amusement is absolutely neces-
\ sary ; and he who contrives one that is at once unexceptionable in \i< moral
*) tendency, and at the same time fitted to quicken the intellect or refine the

< taste, is to be regarded as a public benefactor. Such we consider to be the
character of this book. It consists of various exquisite selections from the
most populn.r of the poets, arranged irs answers to cert tin questions, such as
a youthful fancy might naturally enough suggest. The plan is new and inge-
nious, and both the literary and mechanical execution beautiful." — Albany

;, Religious Spectator.

"Here are various questions supposed to be asked by an individual conc.°rn-
\ ing his own fortune, and all the gifted poets, not only on the earth, but in the
'( e:«rth, including those who inhabit the 'Poets' Corner' in Westminster Abbey, {
5 are put in requisition to answer them. While the book offers a pleasant ?
; •-.mu-enient to the young, it is full of bright and beautiful things, arranged with j
(f exquisite skill, which render it a welcome offering to a cultivated taste. It is >
; with'il decorated with every grace and charm that mechanical skill and labor £
; could bestow upon it." — Daily American.

DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION.

Anastasis : or the Doctrine of the Resurrection ; in which it
is shown that the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body
is not sanctioned by Reagen or Revelation. By George
Bush, Professor of Hebrew, N. Y. University, SECOND
EDITION. 1 thick vol. 12mo., well printed. $1 00.

CONTENTS. — Introduction. — The knowledge of revelation pro-
gressive.— Part 1. The rational argument — Objections to the com- ':
, mon view — Distinction of personal and bodily identity — The true \
• body of the Resurrection, as inferred by reason. — Part 2. The \
i Scriptural argument — Preliminary remarks — The Old Testament I
<! doctrine of the Resurrection — Onomatology ; definition of terms — \
1; Examination of particular passages — New-Testament doctrine of <
: the Resurrection — Origin and import of the word " Resurrection," -
' as used in the New Testament — The Resurrection of Christ — Ex- \
am ination of particular passages — The Resurrection viewed in \
connection with the Judgment — The First Resurrection and the \

> Judgment of the Dead — " The Times of the Restitution of all :
^ things'' — Christ's " delivering up the kingdom" — The conclusion. <

^ " The author occupies an important station in the University of New York. '-.

> and is advantageously known as a learned commentator on some books of the '>.
\ Old Testament. It would be wrong to depreciate either his attainments or his <
;> general orthodoxy ; and all that the most earnest and careful exertion of his <
i powers could enable him to do, he has evidently done, to recommend the ;

> sentiments unfolded in this volume. Much patient labor and uncommon in- '
j genuity have been brought to bear upon it. There is also a spirit that cannot '
? fail to be attractive — a spirit of candor and modesty, combined with indepen- [
i dence. Educated young men, fond of novel and critical disquisitions, and stu- ;
;> dents of divinity who are anxious to prove all things, will wish to make £

> themselves acquainted with its contents." — London Baptist Magazine.

\ " The deep and universal interest excited by the appearance of this most able \
\ work, has already demanded the issue of a second edition. The promulgation \
\ of the theory maintained so learnedly and cogently by the author, has given >
( birth to a sharp and somewhat bitter controversy among theologians; and we ^
} are sorry to see that the ill-will engendered has, in some instances, led to the >
'; impeachment of the motives of the writer. This can never be justifiable, and :,
ij is, in this case, most unfounded and unjust. No one who knows Professor >
Bush, will doubt for an instant the perfect conscientiousness of all that he '.
has written or said : and the very strong and well-considered argument by I
which he supports his position, will require something more, by way of <
answer, than the aspersions to which we have alluded." — J\T. Y. Courier. \

"Prof. Bush deserves the highest commendation, for giving publicity to his <
views of this important Scriptural truth. These views differ widely from those {
•; commonly received by the religious world ; and it is rare, indeed, to meet with ;

< the boldness which has been exhibited on this occasion. We believe the au- ',
s thor must possess, in no common degree, that rare and precious quality— -fidcl- '
; -ity to one's own cojivictions of truth, and we heartily commend the work to the ;

< philosophical and the pious." — JV. Y. Mirror. \

" What we have read convinces us that Prof. Bush is a deeply-serious be- ',

< liever in the Scriptures, in the soul's immortality, and in future eternal rewards <

< and punishments, and his theories, if adopted, are not calculated to endanger <

< any one's spiritual interests." — Boston Recorder.

"An able and learned work." — Christian Observer.

7

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