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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
        Bethesda, Maryland
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         VESTIGES





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NATURAL HISTORY  OF CREATION. 
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1845 

VESTIGES
THE  NATURAL  HISTORY
CREATION.
        THIRD EDITION,
FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION, GREATLY AMENDED BY THE AUTHOR.
^TO WHICH IS APPENDED AN ARTICLE FROM THE
          NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.
            NEW YORK:
WILEY  AND PUTNAM, 161  BROADWAY
                1845.
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E. CBAiaHBAB'a 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 Red Sandstone—Terrestrial Zoology Commences
      with reptiles—First traces of Birds......69
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.
                                                   PAGE
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   -  -  ISO
Early History of Mankind  - -.........193
Mental Constitution of Animals.........226
Purpose and general condition of the animated creation  -  -  252
Note conclusory..............278
Appendix '................  281
£^aw\oe» $     Roherh 
      THE BODIES  OF SPACE,

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION.
It is familiar knowledge that the earth which we inhabit
is a globe of somewhat less than 8000 miles in diameter,
being one of a series of eleven which revolve at different
distances  around the sun, and some of  which have 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 
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 paral-
lax  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, a a, of the constellation of the Centaur,*
and one of the third of that amount for the double star, 61
Cygni; which gave reason  to presume  that the  distance
of the former might be about nineteen millions of millions
of miles, and the latter of much greater amount.   If we
suppose that similar intervals  exist between all the stars
we shall readily see that the space occupied by even the
comparatively  small  number  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, and1 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 \ 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, 1843. 
        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
 nebulce;  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 1  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 gene-
  ral  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 axis, 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 at four  millions of
  millions to one.   It is thus powerfully impressed on us,
  that the uniformity of the motions, as well as their gene-
  ral adjustment  to one  plane,  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 density, from  the  one
  nearest to the sun to that which  is  most distant.  With
  respect to  density alone, we  find,  taking water as  a
  measure and  counting it  as one, that Saturn is ^|,  or less
  than half;  Jupiter, l^j  ; Mars, 3f ;  Earth, \\\  Venus,

    * The orbitual revolutions of the satellites of Uranus have not as
  yet been clearly scanned.  It has been thought that their path is
  retrograde compared with the rest.  Perhaps this may be owing to a
  bouleversement of the primary, for the inclination of its equator to
  the ecliptic is admitted to be unusually high ; but the subject is al-
  together so obscure, that nothing can be founded on it. 
8
THE BODIES OF  SPACE,
511;  Mercury, 9T9o, 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,—
   0     3    6     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
constituents of the planetary system from the point of view
which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere analogy
which strikes  us, no longer a general resemblance among
them, as individuals independent  of each other,  and cir-
culating about the sun, each according to his own  peculiar 
        THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION.       9

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 loo
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/rom, 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 ae  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 1   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
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  would probably continue  each  in its original
form ; but there are many chances  against  their being
uniform in constitution.   The unavoidable effects of irre-
gularity 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 ,; 
12
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 orbitual 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 Philo-
sophic Positif. 
i4
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-s
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 spheroid-
al 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  fr,om
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 
18
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 a 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-
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  iurther 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 1  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 vaporize 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 restored to its original
nebulous state.  He can  calculate with equal  certainty
what would  be the  effect of a considerable  diminution
of the  earth's temperature—what  changes  would  take
place in each of its component substances, and how much
the  whole would shrink in bulk.
  The earth and all its various substances have at present
a certain  volume in  consequence  of  the  temperature
which actually  exists.   When, then, we find  that its
matter and that of the associate planets was at one  time
diffused throughout the whole space now circumscribed
by the orbit of Uranus, we cannot  doubt, after what we
know of the  power  of heat,  that the nebulous  form of
matter was attended by the condition of a very high  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
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 1  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 EART.H

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 astro-
nomical situation of  the earth.   It takes  its place third in
a series of planets, which series is only one of numberless
of her  systems  forming one  group.   It is strikingly—if I
may use such an expression—a member of a democracy.
Hence, we cannot suppose that there is any  peculiarity
about  it which does not probably attach to multitudes of
other bodies—in fact,  to all  that are analogous to it in
respect to cosmical arrangements.
   It therefore  becomes  a  point of great interest—what
are the materials of this specimen 1  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 whichseem to us as the particles of the
desert  sand-cloud in  number, and to whose diffusion  there
are no conceivable local limits 1
   The solids, liquids, and aeriform fluids of our globe are
all, as  have 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-
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 forni silicia, 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.  Carbon
is  pure only  in the diamond.  And the metallic  bases
of the earths, though  the chemist can disengage  them,
may well be supposed unlikely to  remain  long 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.   WhaJ  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, when
we consider the probability of such being the materials of
the whole of the bodies of space, and the laws under which
these everywhere  combine, subject  only to local and acci-
dental 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, tne outermost  of the four
 satellites of Jupiter revolves round his body at the distance
 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 outermost satellite)
 to rotate on its axis.   The  innermost  satellite must have
 been formed when the planet was  reduced to a circum-
 ference 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 pe-
 riod 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 im-
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
must 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 complttely 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  an
entirely different cause, one which evidently has its source
in the interior of the earth, and which regularly  increases
as we descend to greater and  greater depths,  the rate of
increment being  about one  degree Fahrenheit for  every
sixty feet;  and of  this high temperature there are  other
evidences in the  phenomena of  volcanoes and thermal
springs, as  well as in  what is ascertained with  regard  to
the density of the entire mass of the earth.  This, it will
be remembered, is  four  and a  half times  the weight  of
water ;  but  the actual weight of the principal solid 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 Aveight 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 Thiorie JLnalytique de  la Chaleur, 1822. 
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  THE  PRIMARY  R0CK.S.           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 tossing
   them out of their original levels.  This is an outline of the
   arrangements of the  crust of the earth, as  far as we can
   observe it.   It is, at first sight, a most confused scene ; but
   after some careful observation, we  readily detect in it a
   regularity and order from which much  instruction in the
   history of our globe is to be derived.
      The deposition of the aqueous rocks,  and the projection
   of  the volcanic, have unquestionably taken  place  since
   the settlement of the  earth in its present form.  They are
   indeed of an order  of events which we see going on, under
   the agency of 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 fomid to have made considerable
difference in its texture and appearance:   The great stores
of subterranean heat also served an important  purpose in
the formation of the aqueous rocks.  These rocks might,
according to Sir John  Herschel, become subject to heat in
the following manner:—While the surface of a particular
mass of rock forms the bed of the sea, the heat is kept at
a certain distance from that surface by the  contact of  the
water; philosophically speaking, the mass  radiates away
the heat  into the  sea, and (to resort to common language)
is cooled a good  way down.   But when new  sediment
settles at the bottom of that sea, the heat rises  up to what
was formerly the  surface ; and when a second quantity of
sediment is laid down, it continues to rise through the first
of the  deposits, which then becomes  subjected to those
changes which heat is calculated  to produce.   This pro-
cess is precisely the  same  as that of putting additional
coats upon  our own bodies ; when, of course, the internal
heat rises through each coat in succession, and the third 
ERA  OF THE PRIMARY ROCKS.
37
(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 around 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 ma-
terials, 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 Eng-
land.  We have  evidence  that the earliest strata were
formed in the presence of a  stronger degree of heat than 
38
THE EARTH FORMED.
what operated in subsequent stages of the world, for the
laminae of the gneiss and of the mica and chlorite schists
are contorted in a way which could only be the result of a
very high temperature.  It appears as if the seas in which
these deposits were formed, had been in the troubled state
of a caldron of water nearly at boiling heat.   Such a con-
dition would  probably add not a little to the disintegrating
power of the ocean.
   The earliest stratified rocks  contain no matters which
are not to be found in the primitive granite.   They are the
same in  material, but only changed into new forms  and
combinations ; hence they have  been called by Dr. 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.  1   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 largest  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 ma-
terials must be presumed to have been in  a state  of chemi-
cal solution in the primeval seas.  It  would  be  of course
in conformity with chemical laws, that certain of  these ma-
terials would be precipitated  singly, or in modified combi-
nations, to  the bottom, so  as to form rocks by themselves.
* De la Beche's Geological Researches, 
39
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, crinoides, crustacea,  and conchifera,
found in the Mica Slate and Grauwack6 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  animaculee]"*  have been  detected  in the pri-
mary rocks, and it is very  clear that many other  simple
forms of  being,  such  as the medusee and acalephae, 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
challengeable  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 vegeta-
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, th^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  mollusca.
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  echmodermata (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,  indicating that the  sea  in  which it
lived was a clear medium, as existing seas generally are,
and that light was the  same in character in those  incon-
ceivably remote ages as it is now.
   Ascending  to  the next   group of  rocks, we find  the
traces of  life becomeflfciore 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-
tcena) ;  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 ar^Histinguished with suffi-
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 defective 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 of 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 
FISHES 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 hold 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  cephalaspis 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
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 holoptychius is of  a flat oval form, furnished  with
fins, and ending in a long  tail; the  whole body covered
with strong plates which overlap  each other, and  the head
forming only a slight rounded projection from  the general
figure.   The specimens  in the lower beds are not above
the size of a flounder ; but in  the  higher strata, to judge
by the size of the scales  or plates which have been found,
the creature attained a comparatively monstrous size.*

  * The 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 homocercal 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 given off at a point some distance
 from the extremity."*   Now it  is a remarkable fact, that
 this one-sided tail is a peculiarity in the more perfect fishes
 (as the salmon) at  a certain stage  in their embryonic 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
foetus 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.   AVe 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 Essay. 
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 o^
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 Livy tells  the
history of the Roman republic.  It tells us—to use  the
words  of Professor  Phillips—that at the time when  the
Grampians sent streams and detritus to straits where now
the valleys of the Forth and Clyde meet, the greater part
of Europe was a wide ocean.
   The last three systems—called, in  England, the Cam-
brian,  Silurian, and Devonian, and  collectively the palaeo-
zoic rocks, from their containing the remains of the earliest
inhabitants of the globe—are of vast thickness ; in England,
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 exist-
ence of  land plants  and animals, and it remains to be in-
quired 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 steins
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 (cryptogamia),
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.!   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.
  t 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  calamites) are only represented on the
 present surface by plants of the  same family:  the species
 which flourished at this era  gradually lessen in number as
 we advance upwards in the  series of rocks, and disappear
 before  we arrive at the tertiary formation.
   The club-moss family (lycopodiacece) are  other  plants
 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  equisetaceee,  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 stigrnaria,  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  (Jlabellaria and naeggerathia),  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-
ious subclass.  Besides  some of doubtful affinity (annula-
ria, asterophyllites, &c), 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  coniferae  of  this era form the  dawn of dico-
 tyledonous trees, of which they may be said to be the
 simplest type, and to which, it has already been noticed,
 the  lepidodendra are  a  link from  the  monocotyledons.
 The concentric rings of the Craigleith and other 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
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
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 (ctanoids  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  probabiy 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 being
tumbled about  in agitated water, and laid down in  a mud
paste, afterwards hardened.   Volcanic disturbances  break
up the  rocks ;  the pieces are worn in seas : and  a deposit
of conglomerate is the consequence.   Of porphyry, there
are some such pieces in the conglomerate of  Devonshire,
three or four tons in  weight.  It is to be admitted for strict
truth that, in some parts of Europe,  the carboniferous 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."—Phillips. 
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  plaes :  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 ex-
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 theleptaena,  orproductus,
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 palaeoniscus,catopterus,platysomus, &c,
have  been applied, vanish,  and henceforth appear  no
more.
  The third group, chiefly sandstones, variously colored
according to the  amount nnd 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.
Agassiz, on the contrary, believes this animal to have been
designed for an aquatic life.  Crocodiles abounded, and
some of these were herbivorous.   Such was the iguanodon,
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 additionnl 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-
wards,  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  cheirotherium.  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 grallae, 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
    THE ERA OF THE OOLITE.


COMMENCEMENT   OF  MAMMALIA.
The chronicles of this period consist  of a series of beds,
mostly  calcareous,  taking  their general  name (Oolite
System) from a conspicuous member  of them—the oolite
—a limestone composed of an aggregation of  small  round
grains or spherules, and so called fr,om 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 cycadeae, " 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 equisetaceae,
lilia, and coniferae.  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  algae,  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.
  t  Buckland. 
             COMMENCEMENT  OF MAMMALIA.          79

bottoms of the seas of those ages, while of the swimming
shell-fish, ammonites  and  belemnites,  there  were  also
many scores of varieties.   The belemnite here  calls for
some particular notice.  It  commences in the  oolite, and
terminates in the  next formation.  It is an  elongated,
conical shell, terminating in a point, and  having,  at  the
larger end, a cavity for the  residence of the  animal, with
a series of air-chambers  below.  The  animal, placed in
the upper cavity, could raise or depress itself in the water
at pleasure by a pneumatic operation 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 (placoidean), 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-
 scesaurus, 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
 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 (coprolites) are found in vast
numbers, each  generally enclosed in  a  nodule of ironstone, and
sometimes showing remains of the  fishes which had formed their
food. 
             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 mammifers.  It is
an interesting circumstance that the first mammifers found
should have belonged  to the marsupialia, when the place
of that  order in the scale of creation is considered.  In
the imperfect  structure of  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 exuviae 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  W.ealden almost necessarily  implies a local,

        * De la Beche's Geological Researches, p. 344. 
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, along 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, mummuli, 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 ?
Ehrenberg suggests that it is  composed  of the siliceous
coverings of a portion of the microscopic creatures, whose
shell 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
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 phenomena 1
   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.
89
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 moscesaurus, 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  conferva? are
found enclosed in flints.  Of terrestrial vegetation,  as of
terrestrial animals, the specimens in the European area
are  comparatively rare,  rendering it probable that  there
was no dry land near.   The remains are  chiefly of ferns,
conifers, and cycadeae, but  in the  two former cases we
have only cones and leaves.  There have been discovered
many pieces of wood,  containing holes  drilled by the
teredo, and thus showing  that they had  been long drifted
about in the ocean before being entombed at the bottom.
   The series in America corresponding to this, entitled the
Ferruginous  Sand formation, presents fossils  generally
identical  with  those of  Europe, not  excepting  the  frag-
ments of drilled wood ; showing that, in this, as in earlier
ages, there was a parity of  conditions foranimal 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
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  only  have 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 least 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, 
MAMMALIA ABUNDANT.
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
the 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 'yw,  the  dawn;   ^atvos,  recent);  second
the  miocene  (jieitav,  less) ; third, older pliocene  (trXuuv,
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 pachydermata* of  a  character approximating to  the
South  American  tapir:  the names,  palaeotherium,  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 dinotherium,
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 miocene 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 felinae (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 megalonyxwas 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  felinae, 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 Setlej, and  in Brazil  (both  in  the
tertiary strata)  ; the first being  a large species of semno-
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 appearauce 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 in suspension.   Finally raised from the water, but
with no mouth to the open  air, it  remains unintruded on
for a long series of ages, during which the  clay flooring
receives a new calcareous covering, from the droppings of
the roof.  Dr. Buckland, who examined and described the
Kirkdale cave, was at first of  opinion that  it presented a
physical evidence of the Noachian deluge ; but he 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—
najpely, 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, buftalo, 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
moderate  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
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 tables.  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 were  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  confervas, or land crypto-
gamia  inferior to ferns, preserved  in  rocks ?   Is  their
prganization 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 contem-
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 connections 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 other-
 wise ; 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  crustaceous 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 1   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 affairs,
while the ignorant suppose every act of  the greatest  pub-
lic functionary to  be the result of some special  consider-
ation  and care on his  part alone.   Are  we to  suppose
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 con-
sider  how powerful an argument in favor of the existence
of God  is  lost by rejecting this  doctrine.  When  all is
seen  to be the result of law,  the idea of  an 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 defined  form in stone; many
 kinds  construct many forms.   An allotted instinct  may
 permit each polypus to construct its own  cell, but there is
 no  superintending  one  to direct the pattern, nor can the
 workers unite by consultation for such  an end.   There is
 no recipient for an instinct by which the pattern might be
 constructed. It is  God alone, therefore, who is the 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 almost 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 he 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, Hi., 569. 
           ORIGIN OF  THE  ANIMATED TRIBES.      »121

hundreds of thousands  of  series, the whole of which
again  form 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.
   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 along, a
set of objects  which they had never before seen—namely,
a fleet  of other  ships—would they not have been justified
in supposing that those ships  were  occupied, like their
own, by human beings  possessing hands to row and steer,
eyes to watch the  signs of the  weather, intelligence to
guide them from one place  to  another—in  short, beings
in all  respects  like themselves,  or  only showing such
                           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 Sirius, as it is here.  We, therefore,  are
all but certain that  herbaceous  and ligneous  fibre, that
flesh and blood, are  the constituents of the organic beings
of all those spheres which are as yet seats of  life.   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-
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 Diance.
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 wouM
be any other than that which is found  in the living body."
   It is much to know the elements out  of  which organic
bodies arc 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-
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, the
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 volvex globator, has
 exactly the form of the germ  which, after  passing through
 a long  fcetal progress, becomes a  complete mammifer,  an
 animal of the highest class.  It has even been found that
 both are alike  provided with  those cilia, which, producing
 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.t
 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, 1843.
  f See Dr. Martin  Barry on  Fissiparous Generation ; Jameson's
 Journal, Oct., 1843. 
            ORIGIN OF  THE ANIMATED  TRIBES.        129

are reproduced by the expansion of contained granules ;
they are, in short, distinct organisms multiplied by the same
fssiparous 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  dav
discovered in the laboratory.*

   * 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.  I have
followed the  b€st 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,
                            7* 
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 laminae,
an interval too short for  its formation  (arising,  perhaps,
from the stopping of the work during the day), has elapsed
during the drying or induration  of one lamina  and the
deposition of another."*   From  this  it  has been deduced,
by a patient investigation, that those colors  of mother-of-
pearl, which are incommunicable to wax, arise from iride-
scent films deposited between the  laminae 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 Transactions, 1836. 
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 the 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

   * Dr. Allen Thomson, in the article Generation, in Todd's Cy-
clopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology. 
 131      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,
which 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 of cyanate  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, 1845. 
           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  and  beer,  all of these  being  articles
 manufactured by 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 1   Will  it, to  a
 geologist,  appear irrational  to suppose that,  just  as the
 pterodactyle  was added as a new offshoot from the  animal
 stock, in the  era of  the new  red sandstone, when the earth
 had become  suited for such  a  creature,  so may  these
 creatures have been added  when media suitable for their
 existence ■ arose, and  that such  phenomena  may  take
 place any day, the only cause for their taking place 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.  Weekes, 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 
%
I
           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 proofs 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, in 1S4:2. 
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  Copemican
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
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 OK

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 go-
ing 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 struthionidae (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 belon gs  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.t


  * Lord's Popular Physiology.
  t 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 subse-
quently 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 fcetal 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
of 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. 
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 archerypes, 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 chemico-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 1   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.
  " 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 follow-
ing 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 :
                            1 = 1
                          1+2 = 3
                        1+2+3 = 6
                     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—
1      3       6        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 jjj
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-1"
tile, bird, and mammal, go on together to
C, where the reptile diverges in like man- c
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-
forward 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 con-
ditions operating upon the parturient system.  The nature
of these  conditions we can only conjecture, for their ope-
ration,  which in the geological eras was so powerful, has
in its main strength been long interrupted, and is now per-
haps 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  therh  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 at-
tended 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 male's.
   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-
lions, 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 weak
health or misery, and bearing with force upon  that sub-
stage of  the gestation at which the perfecting of the  heart
to its  right form ought properly to have taken place.  Here
we have apparently a 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
phenomena, 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
tho^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 1   Perhaps those curious facts which have
been  stated with  regard to forests  of  one kind of tr%es,

  * 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  may  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 OF

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
weed 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 condition^, 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 like-
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 pregnancy.   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.     17L

 effects of an Almighty will, which  had  provided  before-
 hand that everything should be very 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/act 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  foetus 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.)

RadiaTa (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)      -  -  -  -
Mollusca (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
ORDER OF ANIMALS IN
f Infusoria   -
\ Polypiaria -
I Crinoidea
 (Crustacea)
 {Conchifera
 Cephalopeda
Articu  [■*»*«*» d9'13.")  -  "   [Annelida  -  -   -
Articu- I Crustacea (i5_20) -  -  -   J
  lata.  |           v      '          I Crustaceous Fishes
         I Arachnida 8? Insecta (21—31) I
          Pisces (32, 33, 34, 35, 36) -     True Fishes  -   -
Verte-
brata.
Reptilia (37, 38, 39, 40)
Aves (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46
             47 Cetacea -
Mammalia  <
               ' Piscine Saurians (ichthyosaurus, &c.)
                Pterodactyles --------
                Crocodiles ---------
                Tortoises  ---------
               1^ Batrachians  --......
                Birds..........
                -  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
58 Quadrumana  -  Quadrumana.......
59 Bimana      -  Bimana (man)....... 
THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS.
173
ASCENDING SERIES  OF ROCKS.    FCETAL HUMAN BRAIN.
                                           RESEMBLES, IN

  I  Gneiss and Mica Slate System
• 2  Clay Slate and Grauwacke system



 3  Silurian system


 4  Old Red Sandstone


 5  Carboniferous formation
1st month,  that of an avertebrated
            animal;
2nd month, that of a fish ;
 }■ 6  New Red Sandstone

 i


 L 7  Oolite

  8  Cretaceous formation



 . 9  Lower Eocene




 ■ 10 Miocene



 ► 11 Pliocene



21 Superficial deposits
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;
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 etfen 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'.  rThgfj$pjpteus,
   an animal  of the  frog kind, which  liv£s in subterranean
   waters where there is no light, and wljtfch n£ver changes
   the branchiae for lungs, looks as if the  devjglopmei^of that
   part of its  organization had been  arrestetyfffcifo^imilar
   cause.   When, in  connexion with  thefse facts, we learn
   that human mothers living in dark  and close  cells under
   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-
f  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-  x
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 meansrand 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  for a 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 utterly 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 thai 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 GEO-       •
      GRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION OF  ORGANISMS.
The vegetable and animal kingdoms are 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 glace  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 grallatores.
Finally, the scansores resemble the rasores in their supe-
rior  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 - - \    c , -,,     ,,                 > Conirostres.
            (   of bill small..........)
Raptores  - -   Notch of bill like a tooth.....  Dentirostres.
            ( Slightly  developed  feet;   strong )
Natatores - - \   fl-  , ,                         > Fissirostres.
Grallatores -   Small mouths ; long soft bills- - - -  Tenuirostres.
            ( Strong  feet,  short wings;  docile )
Rasores  --- j   and domestic........\ _\ 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  mam-
malia, 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 tvhich 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 an-
other point of view, it is a fact highly worthy of notice.
  If,  as  alleged, representation goes down into every sec-
tion 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 pre-
sent concerned to show.
  Let us now consider  the  facts known  regarding  the
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

forms of geographical surface, climate, and other condi-
tions, 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 an-
swer is—that in such regions the vegetation bears a gene-
ral resemblance, but the species  are nearly all  different,
and  there is  even, in a considerable  measure, a  diversity
of families.
   The general facts have been thus  stated:  In the arctic
and  antarctic regions, and in those parts of lower latitudes,
which, from  their elevation, possess the same cold climate,
there is always a  similar or analogous vegetation, but few
species are  common  to  the various situations.   In like
manner,  the  intertropical vegetation  of Asia, Africa, and
America, are specifically different, though generally 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   bota*ical
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 simise (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  PhysicalHistory 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 zoolo-
gy 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 thpse included in the
genera already known are  of  new  species.   The natural
families which prevail are those  of the heaths, the proteae,
composita?, leguminosae,  and  myrtaceae; 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  tiEOGRAPHICAL
  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,  (I.)  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,  cebidae,  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
DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANISMS.
   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
bv certain general features of so marked a kind, as to sug-
                          10 
194
EARLY HISTORY OF  MANKIND.
gest 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,* that  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 nntion.*
  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
likewise 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 these 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 
IiAKLY  HISTORY  OF MANKIND.          199
kinds,—identity of words,  and  identity of grammatical
forms ; the latter  being now generally considered as  the
most important towards the argument.   When  we inquire
into  the  first kind of affinity among the languages of  the
Indo-European family, we are surprised at the great 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 pader,  mader,  sunu,  dokhter, brader, mand,  vidhava;
likewise aslhi, a  bone (Greek,  ostoun);  denta,  a tooth
(Latin,  dens, dentis);  eyeumen, the eye; brouwa, the eye-
brow (German, braue); nasa, the nose ; karu, the hand
(Gr.  cheir); genu, the knee (Lat. genu,); ped, the  foot
(Lat. pes, pedis); hrti,  the  heart; jecur, the liver (Lat.
jccur) ; stara, a star ; gela,  cold  (Lat. gelu, ice) ; aghni,
fire  (Lat.  ignis); dhara,  the earth  (hat.  terra, Gaelic,
tir); arrivi,  a  river; nau,  a ship (Gr. naus, Lat. navis);
ghau, a cow ; sarpam, 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 foundation 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
 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,  behter, with  exactly  the  same signification,
 regularly formed from its positive beh, 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 0?igi?i of the  Celtic JVations.  " 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 in 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-
Phcenicia/i, 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,
in 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, vn,  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-suh.  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 condition
 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 ;  uli,  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
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
* Schoolcraft. 
204          EARLY  H1STOR*  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
View; of tl e 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
to show a connexion between the ancient Egyptian  and
the Biscayan :—

                      Biscayan.        Egyptian.
     New.....Beria  -  -   -  -  Beri.
     A dog.....Ora   ...  -  Whor.
     Little.....Gutchi -  -   -  -  Kudchi.
     Bread.....Ognia -  -   -  -  Oik.
     A wolf.....Otgsa   -  -   -  -  Ounsh.
      Seven.....Shashpi -  -   -  -  Shashf.

Now, as there are, according  to Humboldt, one  hundred
and seventy words in common between  the languages of
the new and old  continents,  and many of these  are  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 simiae.
  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,
was 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 
LARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.
209
ihein 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 Palenquc 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 atttained 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
KAiiLY 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 
              EAIiLY  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
Stales 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 m  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  HISTORV 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 {ew 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,
 arc 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 1   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  scull,  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, oj 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 ;t
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.
   t Conformably to this view,  the beard, that peculiar attribute of
maturity, is scanty  in the Mongolian, and scarcely exists  in the
Americans and Negroes. 
              EAill.Y  HISTORY  OF MANKIND.         215

next in the Mongolian, the very order in which the degrees
of development are ranged.   May not color, then, depend
upon development also 1   We do  not,  indeed, see that  a
Caucasian fcetus 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
fcetus, 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  eari.li 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 n ature, 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 res pect 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
only  rudimental in the lower animals.  Another difficulty
                          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  what we  see
in children, most of whom have, by three  years of  age,
while their information and judgment  are still as nothing,
mastered and 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 1
   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-
trary, we have a scattered and barbarous people, we  have
great diversities, and  comparatively  rapid alterations of
language.   Insomuch that,  while  English,  French,  and
German  are  each  spoken with little variation by  many
millions, there are islands  in the Indian archipelago, 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  mothers, and all who can bear a burden, often
set out for  weeks  at  a  time, and leave their children  to
the  care  of two or three  infirm old people.   The infant
progeny, some of whom are beginning to lisp, while 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 as 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 
LARLY 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 1  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 circnmstances
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-
cords 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."
11* 
220
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 world—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 clear ideas have hitherto been entertained on the
mental constitution  of animals.  The very nature  of this
constitution is not as yet generally known or held as 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, whilev
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
flod—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  fir,mly established aj?d 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 develope 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 as 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 ihto 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 ftfr 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 5001.,  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 1
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 re-
flective 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 variously
developed in different classes  and species, and also  in
different  individuals, the volume or mass  bearing a gene-
ral  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
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,! 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.*
   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  miy 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 ;
lt 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  themselvee  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
though the  fact  were  otherwise, it could not affect the
postulate, that demonstrations such as have been enume-
rated are mainly intellectual demonstrations, not  to be dis-
tinguished as such from those of  human beings.
   More than  this, the  lower animals manifested mental
phenomena  long before man existed.   While  as  yet there
was no  brain  capable of working  out  a mathematical
problem, the economy of  the six-sided figure was 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  mock- 
 238      MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF  ANIMALS.

ing-bird;  and the  whole  tribe of monkeys  must  have
walked  about the  pre-human  world,  playing off those
tricks in which we  see the comicality and mischief-mak-
ing 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 maybe said, that
each species has certain superior developments, according
to its needs, while others are in a  rudimental or repressed
state.   This will more clearly appear after some inquiry
has  been made  into the  various powers comprehended
under the term mind.
   One  of the first and simplest  functions of mind  is  to
 give consciousness—consciousness of  our identity and  of
our existence.  This, apparently, is  independent of the
senses,  which are  simply media,  and,  as  Locke has
shown,  the  only media, through  which ideas respecting
the external world reach the brain.  The access of such
ideas to the brain is the act to which  the metaphysicians
have given the name of perception.   Gall,  however, has
shown,  by induction from a vast number  of actual cases,
that there is a part of the brain devoted to perception, and
that even this is  subdivided into  portions which are 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.  Through these, man  stands  in relation  to
himself, his fellow men, the external world, and  his God;
and through these comes most of the happiness of man's
life, as  well  as that which he derives  from  the  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 ef 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-
* Phrenological 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 tiling. 
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 r>un.
   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 ; they are only less strongly marked  in many of 
24G       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 which  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 
218      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-
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 earlier 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
unavoidab1  , even in a  civilized  country, become  male-
factors.  Does God, it may  be asked, make criminals ?
Does .ie fashion certain beings with a predestination to
ev;! ?   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,  ho w- 
          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 fcetus 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 
 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 we 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 the in 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 we 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 we see all sentient beings, ourselves
included, occasionally  enduring.    How,  the sage  has
asked in  every age, should  a Being so  transcendently
kind, have  allowed  of so large an admixture of evil in
the condition of his  creatures ?  Do we not at length find
an  answer  to  a  certain extent satisfactory, in  the  view
which has now been given of the  constitution of nature ?
We there see the  Deity operating in the most august of
his works by  fixed  laws,  an arrangement which, it is
clear, only admits of the  main and primary results being
good, but disregards exceptions.   Now the  mechanical
laws  are so definite  in their purposes, that no exceptions
ever take place in that department; if there is  a certain
quantity of nebulous matter to be agglomerated and  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        PURPOSE  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 gene-
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 ; 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 for a benevolent  purpose.  He has only not
laid down any absolute obstruction to our misuse of them.
That were an arrangement of a kind which 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
snbstances into the earth, where they are calculated to be
so useful.   Now  man  has reason to enable him  to see 
~60       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.
261
(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
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 of the moral
laws.
   Thus it is that the innocence of the  party suffering for
the faults of a parent, or of any other person or set  of
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 melee 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 suf-
fering 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  wc 
             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
way 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 reaction  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 re-
doubled 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 com-
fortable 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 race will ever advance far beyond 
OF THE ANIMATED CREATION.         2G9
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 individ-
ual 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 Lemuridae,
the  Vespertilionidae, 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-
stances. 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 CREATION.         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 1   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 1  1 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 recommen-
dation 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 hum-
ble  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
                          13* 
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 ;  but its  validity is now pretty  generally acknow-
ledged by the men of highest intelligence.  It is seen that
the ohilosopher 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 evanescent
feeling, are assuredly worthy of being taken  into account
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
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  or0  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.   I would  say, in conclusion, that, even where the
two  above arguments may fail of effect, there may yet be
a faith derived from this view of nature sufficient to 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 willing to do
us the most entire justice.   And in this faith we may well
rest  at ease,  even  though life should have been to us but
a protracted disease,  or though  every hope  we had  built
on the  secular materials within  our reach were felt to be
melting  from  our grasp.  Thinking of all the 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  my mind 
NOTE 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 point 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
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  conciliation 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 out 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
NOTE 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 1 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 1
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. 
APPENDIX.
          REVIEW  OF  THE

VESTIGES  OF  CREATION.
                 FROM THE

     NORTH  BRITISH  REVIEW,

                For July, 1845.
At no  period in the annals of religion and science have
these spring tides of civilisation advanced with a more
irresistible energy, and a less mutual  disturbance than in
the present day.  Freighted with the moral and physical
interests of our species, they have rolled onward in  one
parallel course, disclosing to man new  sources  of happi-
ness, and providing him with new instruments of power,
and  new  elements of intellectual and  animal enjoyment.
In other times,  and these not  very distant from  our own,
the wisdom of this world stood in painful conflict with the
revelations of the next.   The sage and the Christian were
names but seldom conjoined; and when human genius  had
unlocked the crypts of  the primeval world, and partially
lifted the veil which concealed their treasures, Faith stood 
282
APPENDIX.
aghast amid the monuments of Death, repudiating their les-
sons as still charged with error, and striving by a Spurious
ingenuity or an unworthy compromise, to reconcile truths
partially demonstrated with truths fully revealed.  Geology
was thus arrayed against the Mosaic  record, and with  so
powerful an ally infidelity took up a commanding position,
wielding weapons of a more lethal edge than she had ever
before wrested from the  quiver of the blasphemer, or the
armory of the metaphysician.
   Hutton and his  disciples had the  courage to announce
the startling truths that there were, at least,  three distinct
periods of animal  existence previous to the creation  of
man ; and  that the natural history  of the earth exhibited
" no vestige  of a beginning, and  no  prospect of an end."
Though denounced as atheistical, and hostile to revealed
religion, these views  of creation  were  widely dissemi-
nated, and warmly received. To refute or to confirm them,
the depths of the earth were ransacked,  its bonded vaults
unbarred, and its caverns and its abysses explored.   The
cemeteries of primeval times gave up  their dead ; the crum-
bling pavement of the globe surrendered  its forms of orga-
nic life ;  and though the  dumb creation had no historian to
write it's annals, and record its  fate, it yet addressed us in
articulate language from  its hieroglyphics of stone, and ex-
hibited on  its marble sarcophagi the impressive handwrit-
ing of buried generations.
   While  the inspired volume describes the creation of
man—the zoological denizens of his paradise, and the pre-
paration  of the earth for their  reception, and details also
the early history of our race during the cycle to which we
belong—the  pages  of the subterranean  record,  though
gathered like sibyl's leaves from  widely distant localities, 
APPENDIX.
283
contain the history of successive generations of living be-
ings, which occupied the earth in its primeval rudeness—
which  perished in some  great  catastrophes—and  which
were  again replaced by new and more perfect creations
from the immediate hand of their Maker.  Thus did  Sci-
ence  plant her standard  on a  domain which man never
trod ; and  thus did she investigate the history of extinct
animals over which he never exercised dominion.   The
book of Nature was thus kept  distinct Trom the book  of
Revelation, and divine truth preserved from the leaven  of
secular knowledge, and the  contamination  of speculative
error.  The light of science fell  upon the sacred page, and
that page threw back in return its softer and more hallowed
radiance.
   In  our own day, at least, we did not expect that this
holy alliance would be disturbed either by the philosopher or
the divine.  Discoveries in geology, or in physics, imper-
fectly developed, and portions of Scripture imperfectly in-
terpreted, might be expected to place themselves in tempo-
rary collision ;  but who could have anticipated any general
speculations  on the natural  history  of creation,  which
would  startle the pious student,  or for a moment disturb
the  serenity of the Christian  world ?   Such ah event,
however, has  occurred, and on the  author  of the work
before us  rests its responsibility.  Prophetic of  infidel
times, and indicating' the unsoundness of our general edu-
cation,  " The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"
has started into public favor with a fair chance of poison-
ing the fountains of science, and sapping the foundations
of religion. Popular in its subject, as  well  as in  its expo-
sitions, this volume has obtained a wide circulation among
the influential classes  of  society.  It has been read and 
284                   APPENDIX.
applauded  by those  who can  neither weigh its facts, nor
appreciate  its argument, nor detect its tendencies ;  while
those who  can—the philosopher, the naturalist, and the
divine—have concurred in branding  it with their severest
censure.   Although the author's name is concealed, and a
factitious interest thus excited in the public mind, it is not
difficult to  delineate  his intellectual character.  That he is
not  a philosopher  every  page of his work proves;—and
among the extravagances of conjecture he has never been
supposed  a  divine.   He  is  an avowed phrenologist, and
therefore we have no fear of being foiled by his dialectics.
He  is  an  ill-disguised materialist,  and  therefore  he is
not  likely to over-estimate the dignity of man, or to cele-
brate the glory of his Maker.  A naturalist from books and
not  from observation, he has  gathered the data  of his
speculations from the records  of science, without separat-
ing what is true from what is false ; and, laden  with this
motley  collection  of facts and  conjectures, he  marches,
torchless, through the richest domains of knowledge, blind
to the beacons by  which  others have been  warned, and
stumbling over barriers by which others have been stayed.
A work thus composed, is in its materials but the detritus
of natural history and physics, where the ingredients occur
in no definite proportions,  and where the  affinities of na-
ture  have  had  no part to play;—or it is at best an intel-
lectual breccia of amorphous  fragments,  which equally
defy the anatomy of the crystallographer, and the analysis
of the chemist.  Nor has the author been more happy in
the combination of his materials.  Trained in less  severe
schools than those of geometry and physics, his reasonings
are in general loose  and inconclusive ;  his generalizations
seem to have been  reached before he  had  obtained  the 
APPENDIX.
285
materials on which they are made to rest; his facts are often
conjectures, and sometimes fancies; and the grand pheno-
mena of the material world, which other minds have woven
into noble and elevating truths, have become  in his hands
the basis of dangerous and degrading speculations.
   We are unwilling to charge our author with a systematic
attempt to undermine the foundations of natural and re-
vealed  religion,—but we  should ill discharge the duties of
our calling, were we to conceal the opinion that every in-
dividual speculation  which his  work contains, and the en-
tire hypothesis which it is written to support, have a direct
tendency to expel the  Almighty from the universe which
he has  made—to degrade the godlike race to whom he has
intrusted the development and appreciation of his power—
to render the revelation of his  will an incredible  supersti-
tion—and to  extinguish  those glorious aspirations,  and
"longings after immortality," in which  regenerated  man
yearns  after the perfection of his  nature, pants for the  con-
summation of his affections, and anticipates  with rapture
the perennial exercise of his powers in serving and glori-
fying his Maker.
   That Great Name, indeed, which true philosophy has
never failed to respect, and which religion loves to cherish,
has not been wholly  omitted in the speculations which we
condemn;—but the Divinity which they recognize is little
more than the electric spark which disappears for  ever,
when it has lighted the  train of causes  and effects by
which the planetary  systems are to be framed, and all the
orders of living beings fiishioned and perpetuated.   That
tender parent, who longs to gather his children " as a hen
gathereth her chickens under  her wing;"—who opens
when they knock;—who  gives good  things to them  that 
286
APPENDIX.
ask him, and without whose knowledge not a hair of their
head falls to the ground, takes no charge  of the family of
orphans  who  people the  gloomy universe  of our author.
The volcano may blaze—the earthquake engulf—the light-
ning rend—the floods desolate—and the last enemy strike
his blow, without, any eye to pity or any hand to help the
victim of the elements, or any voice to console him  in the
last agony of his nature.
   In such a state as this, however, our author  professes
himself unwilling to leave us.  His " sincere desire  in the
composition of his book, is to give the true view of nature
with as little vexatious collision as possible with existing be-
liefs,  whether philosophical or religious," and "though  his
system may at first appear at issue  with other doctrines in
esteem among mankind,       *      *      *       *
there  may yet be a faith derived from this  view  of nature,
sufficient to sustain us  under the calamities and  woes and
pains of this  sphere of  being."  The grand " system of
causation," therefore, from  which  we  are to  derive this
new and sustaining  faith, well deserves our most anxious
study; but before we proceed to analyze and expose it, we
must try to obtain the assent of our readers to some  gene-
ral principles, which ought flo be kept in view by those who
are ambitious, like  the author  of the  work before us, to
establish a general Theory of Creation, or to give a  parti-
cular explanation of any of its departments.
   When an astronomer  or a  naturalist  enters  upon  the
study of the celestial or the  sublunary world, the discovery
of truth—the only sure road to fame—is his single object.
Wherever reason leads he must follow—whatever myste-
ries confound him he must strive to unveil—and whether
his inductions run counter to vulgar prejudice,  or to cher- 
APPENDIX.
287
ished truths, he must maintain them fearlessly, because he
believes them firmly.   Should the phenomena  and laws
of nature, when accurately observed and irrefragably estab-
lished, invalidate, or even contradict, the truths  of revela-
tion, the Reason  of faith must grapple with the  Reason of
philosophy, till truth has been elicited in the conflict.  The
voice of God is uttered as articulately, and may be heard
as distinctly, in his Works as in his Word; and he is  the
greatest enemy of religion who would throw  a  rein  over
genius,  or limit science in the freedom of her range.  It is
otherwise,  however,  with those  revellers in speculation
who practise their orgies in the  temple of science,  ran-
sacking its storehouse for the materials of hypothesis,  and
not unfrequently  adulterating them for  popular taste, or
fashioning  them  for  vulgar  apprehension,  or  perchance
suppressing or denouncing the testimony which they bear.
Writers of this  class have neither learned, nor wish to
learn, the real meaning and  sterling value  of a fact in
science—that eternal and immutable  truth,  which every
man must believe, and which all  men may possess—that
indestructible  element of knowledge,  which  time  cannot
alter, nor power crush, nor fire subdue—that self-luminous
atom, which shines brightest in the dark, and whose vestal
fire an intellectual priesthood will ever struggle to main-
tain.
   In forming a theory of creation for the study and recep-
tion of a community,  either really or professedly religious,
the theorist is not entitled to the privilege which we  con-
cede to the original inquirer.  If his theory involves moral
as well  as physical results,  and takes cognizance of those
lofty questions which relate to the First  Cause, and  the
responsibility  and destiny of man, he  is bound to  weigh 
288
APPENDIX.
and discuss  all the  facts and  opinions  which oppose or
confirm his views.   If it has been revealed to man that the
Almighty  made him out of  the  dust  of the earth,  and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it is in vain to
tell a Christian that man was originally  a speck of albu-
men, and passed through the stages of monads and mon-
keys, before he attained his present  intellectual pre-emi-
nence.  If it  be a received truth that the Creator has re-
peatedly interposed in the government of the universe, and
displayed  his immediate  agency in miraculous interposi-
tions, it is an insult to any reader to tell him that that Be-
ing slumbers on his throne, and rules under a " primal ar-
rangement in his counsels," and " by a code of laws of un-
bending operation."  Let the author examine and disprove,
if he can,  the  evidences of our common faith, and he may
then find a safer bed on which to sow his tares, and a bet-
ter market for their disposal, should they " grow up  until
the harvest."
   The new theory of creation, to which we must now
direct our attention, rests its foundation on the " arrange-
ments  and formation of the bodies of space."  In the same
manner " as men have once been boys, and boys infants ;"
so have we, our author thinks, in the starry system " many
thousands of worlds, in all stages  of formation, from the
most rudimental state to that  immediately preceding the
present condition of those we deem perfect;" and  he adds,
the " unavoidable conclusion " that all the perfect (worlds)
have gone through the various stages which we see in the
rudimental.   Hence  he is " led at once " to the more gene-
ral " conclusion that the whole  of our  firmament  was at
one time a diffused mass of nebulous matter," which once
filled the whole of space in one connected mass, and under 
APPENDIX.                   289
the influence of  heat  constituted an universal  fire-mist,
ready  for the formation of  all the systems of the uni-
verse.
   By some cause or other, which  neither is  nor  can be
explained—and,  in  some particular point in the  infinite
plenum of matter, where, and why there, we do not learn
—an atom of the fire-mist, becomes the centre of an infant
sun, destined in a given period to generate  and bring to
manhood a numerous  family of  planets,  each of which,
some hapless eunuch excepted, has the power of present-
ing grandchildren in the form of  moons, to the founder of
the family.  The power of reproduction here terminates,
unless some badly annealed world bursts its  inclosures,
and projects a family of asteroids to perplex  the genealo-
gist, and destroy the symmetry of the system.  The theory
of  creation takes no notice  of the illegitimate  family  of
comets,  those  eccentric and  lawless vagabonds,  who,
though they may claim a highland cousinship with differ-
ent systems, have no legal domicile in any.  While  the
central sun is  thus  forming, "the agglomeration brings
into operation another  physical law, by force of which  the
separate masses of matter (the suns)  are either made to
rotate singly (as bachelors), or, in  addition to that single
motion, are (like man and wife) set into a complete  revo-
lution in ellipses."   The centrifugal force which  accom-
panies that of rotation,  " flings off portions of the rotating
masses,  which become spheres  by virtue of the  same
law of attraction, and are maintained in orbits of revolution
round  the   central body."   The  process  by  which  the
planets—these " children of the sun"—are thus formed, is
the following :   While the centrifugal force of the rotating
mass is in " exact counterpoise "  with  that of gravitation,
                           14 
290                   APPENDIX.
" the mass necessarily continues  entire."   " The least
excess, however,  of  the centrifugal over  the  attractive
force," would " separate the mass  and its outward parts."
The outer parts would thus revolve as a ring round  the
central body, and with the same velocity.   At  the recur-
rence  of  every  new  excess of the  centrifugal  force,  a
similar ring would be formed.  If the agglomerating mass
is now supposed to cool, it will become  more dense,  and
shrink in size; and at a certain stage of solidification  the
crust will become  a detached ring.  Like that of Saturn.
this  ring might preserve its form,  if its constitution were
uniform; but as there are many chances against this  uni-
formity, the matter will gather towards qentres of superior
solidity—the ring will break into masses—and the largest
of these will attract the lesser, and  thus  become  a planet
of a spherical (spheroidal) form, revolving round  the  sun.
The planet thus made might in like manner project similar
rings,  which would by the same  process  become satel-
lites.
   In applying this hypothesis to our solar system, we must
suppose that a speck, corresponding with the centre of the
sun, attracted towards  itself  so  much of the nebulous
plenum, as to fill the orbit of the outermost planet  Uranus.
A ring formed and projected in the manner already de-
scribed, produced this first-born of  the planets, and eldest
child of the sun.   Uranus again  threw off six satellites,
revolving  in like  manner  round their primary.   After  a
long period of gestation, during which  the parental  sun,
still nebular, shrinks in place of enlarging, till it is reduced
to the  orbit of Saturn,  an excess  of centrifugal force
now supervenes, and the planet is formed.   It then throws
off seven satellites from rings of matter, not uniform ;  but 
APPENDIX.
291
having got a little  experience in ring-making,  it succeeds
in its two last throes to cast off two rings of such uniform
consistency, that there are no attractive centres  to break
them, and  they now form the double ring of Saturn.  In
like  manner, Jupiter and his four moons  were issued into
the system ; but when the solar mass was again pregnant,
the ring broke into fragments, and spherified separately into
the four asteroids,  Ceres, Pallas,  Juno, and  Vesta.   Next
came Mars, moonless  and  sad,—doomed  to  spend his
nights in darkness ;  but old mother Earth  succeeded in
obtaining a satellite,—a matter doubtless of some difficulty,
as the shrunk  and partially indurated sun had attained such
a consistency, that  though capable of sending Venus and
Mercury into  the system, yet such was  the inferiority of
their constitution, that they could neither produce rings nor
satellites.
   With  the hypothesis now described we must not con-
found what has been  called the cosmogony of Laplace,
which M.  Comte has so well illustrated in his Course of
Positive  Philosophy.   The object of Laplace  was merely
to explain the general  circumstances which characterize
the constitution of our solar system,—namely, the small ec-
centricity of the planetary orbits—the slight  deviation of
their planes from that of the sun's equator—and the identity
in the direction  of all their  motions :  and  though M.
Comte regards it as the most plausible of all such hypothe-
ses,  when restricted to our own planetary system, and has
attempted to discover  an aspect in which it may admit of
some numerical verification, yet he views it merely as an
attempt  to decide  the question, whether or not the pre-
sent state of our system presented any appreciable indica-
tions of a  more  simple anterior  state, whose general 
292
APPENDIX.
character was susceptible of being determined. " We may
conceive  it possible,"  says he,  " with some hope of suc-
cess, to form a conjecture respecting the formation of the
solar system  to which we  belong ;  but what natural basis
could we  have for conjectures respecting the formation of
suns themselves 1  How could we  confirm  or refute any
cosmogonical hypothesis, when we possess no phenomena
of the kind that  have been  explored, or that are even ex-
plorable ?  Whatever philosophical  interest  there may be
in Herschel's curious series of observations on the progres-
sive condensation of nebulae, from which he has  inferred
their necessary transformation into  stars, such facts will
obviously not  authorize  a  similar conclusion. * * * In  a
word, our world being in the whole universe the only one
known, its formation is at the most the only one which we
can reasonably investigate.  The  other celestial  motions
enter necessarily, at least,  till  the  present time,  into the
vague domain of pure imagination, disengaged from  every
scientific  condition."   But if these are M. Comte's views,
upon the supposition that the existence of nebulous matter
different  from stars is  a fact, what will  be his opinion of
such speculations when that fact is disproved, and the very
foundation of this class of hypotheses taken away 1
  It was certainly a rash generalization to maintain that
nebulas differed essentially from clusters of  stars,  because
existing telescopes could not resolve them.  The very first
application of Lord Rosse's telescope to the heavens over-
turned the hypothesis ; and with such unequivocal  facts as
that instrument has brought to light, we regard it as a most
unwarrantable assumption to suppose that there are  in the
heavenly spaces anymasses of matter different from solid
bodies composing planetary systems.   Nebulae which  ap- 
APPENDIX.
293
 peared perfectly round in former telescopes, and supposed
 to be in the state of condensation into stars, are found by
 Lord Rosse to have long irregular patches, or to be fringed
 with appendages branching out into the surrounding space.
 In some the supposed nebulous matter is irregularly distri-
 buted, having several  stripes or wisps in  it, and in others
 there are prolongations  of different brightness.   But there
 is one nebula of a most extraordinary  kind, to which Lord
 Rosse has recently applied his  gigantic telescope, and a
 drawing of which on a large scale we have had an oppor-
 tunity of  seeing in  his Lordship's  possession.  In  Sir
 John Herschel's  figure,  it appears as  two nebulae entirely
 separate,  the  one  being larger than the other ; but when
 analyzed  with the great reflector, it  is found  to  contain
 many stars, with something like spiral  coils issuing from
 the  principal nebula, and throwing  off  luminous radia-
 tions, the  stars appearing  principally in  the spiral lines.
 The small attendant nebula, too, in place of being separate
 from  the principal one, is connected with it by resolved and
 unresolved stars, forming a luminous band like a portion of
 an irregular spiral.  A drawing of this remarkable nebula,
 which we trust Lord Rosse  will  soon publish, can alone
 convey to the reader an  idea of its singular structure,  and
 will,  we are sure, discountenance those idle and unfounded
 speculations which we have been considering.
  The importance of Lord Rosse's  observations, and  the
folly of speculating on  the  form and  appearance of such
 bodies, will appear in a very striking point of view from a
 history of the nebula of  whiclvwe have been speaking.
 According to Messier, this  nebula  (No. 51 of his cata-
 logue) is a nebula without stars.  It consists, he  adds, of
 two, having each a brilliant centre 4/ 35" distant from each 
294
APPENDIX.
other, and the two atmospheres touch !  Sir William  Her-
schel describes it as a " bright round nebula surrounded by
a halo or glory at a distance from it, and accompanied with
a companion."  Sir John Herschel, who  has represented
it in Fig. 25  of his  paper of 1833, noticed that the distant
halo discovered by his father was partially subdivided into
two  branches, and  he observes that  this " is one  of its
most remarkable  and interesting features."   " Supposing
it," he continues, " to  consist  of  stars, the appearance it
would present to a spectator placed on  a  planet attendant
on one of them eccentrically situated towards  the  north
preceding quarter of  the central mass, would be  exactly
similar to that of our Milky Way,  traversing in a  manner
precisely analogous,  the  firmament of large stars, with
which the centre  cluster  would  be seen  projected, and
(owing to its greater distance)  appearing, like it, to con-
sist of stars much smaller than those in other parts of  the
heavens.   Can  it, then, be that we have here a brother
system  bearing  a  real  physical  resemblance and strong
analogy of structure to our own ?   Were it not for  the sub-
division of the ring, the most obvious  analogy would be
that of  the  system of Saturn, and the  ideas of Laplace
respecting the formation of that system would be powerfully
recalled by this object.  But it is  evident that all idea of
symmetry caused by rotation  on an  axis  must be relin-
quished when we consider that the elliptic form of the inner
subdivided portion indicates, with  extreme  probability, an
elevation of  that portion  above the plane  of the rest, so
that the real  form must be  that of  a ring split through half
its circumference, and having the split portions set asunder
at an angle of about 45° each  to  the plane of the other."
Now, had the ring in this nebula been  single, as observed 
APPENDIX.
295
by Sir W. Herschel, the phenomenon  would have been
regarded as a striking illustration of Laplace's cosmogony,
and of the theory of the formation of the ring of  Saturn.
Sir John Herschel, however, put  an end to such a specu-
lation by discovering the split in the ring, and Lord Rosse's
observations in their turn discountenance Sir John's  idea
of the nebula being a brother system to the nebula of the
Milky Way, in which astronomers suppose that our own
lot is cast.   Sir John  Herschel makes  no observation on
the companion nebula referred  to both by Messier and Sir
William, but he has drawn it as a planetary nebula entire-
ly distinct from  the  other.  Lord Rosse, on  the  other
hand,  connects it by a  luminous branch with the larger
nebula, consisting of spiral branches and stars,  and  thus
takes away all its resemblance to a planetary nebula agglo-
merating under the influence of gravitation.*
  The theory  of planetary  creations being thus left with-
out any support from the nebular hypothesis,  it is scarcely
worth while  to make any farther  exposure of it; but the

  * Since this portion of the Article was printed, we have had an
opportunity of seeing, at the meeting of the British  Association at
Cambridge, a more perfect drawing  of this very remarkable Nebula
than the one to which we have already referred.  Sir David Brew-
ster, into whose hands it was put by the Earl of Rosse, exhibited
and explained it to the Physical Section, pointing out the differences
between this  accurate representation of the nebula,  and the de-
scriptions given of it by preceding astronomers.  The Earl of Rosse,
who was present, explained the  manner in which he executed the
drawings of this and other nebulae  which  he had  observed;
and  Sir John  Herschel  expressed his  admiration   of  the re-
markable phenomena which the drawing exhibited, referring  par-
ticularly to the numerous stars which it contained, and to the spiral
lines, and the branch which connected the small  Nebula with the
large one. 
296
APPENDIX.
 magnitude of the heresy, and the use which has been made
 of it as a basis for other errors, renders  necessary a more
 popular illustration~of its absurdities.  When a single atom
 in the universe of matter becomes the nucleus of a sun, it
 must derive this pre-eminence from some cause extrinsic
 to itself.  The will of the Creator being excluded by our
 author, there can be no cause influencing one atom which
 does not influence  millions.  But passing over this diffi-
 culty, and supposing the uniformly distributed atoms to ag-
 glomerate" round their ringleader, the space  left blank by
 the slow advance of the atoms in radial lines converging to
 the nucleus,  must be a ring bounded by concentric circles,
 the outermost circle being the limit of the nebulous matter
 not drawn to the centre of the nascent sun.   Now, as all
 the forces which  act upon the agglomerating particles,
 whether they proceed from the  circumference of the un-
 disturbed nebulous matter, or from the gradually increasing
 nucleus, must have their resultants in the radial lines above
 mentioned,—there can be  no cause whatever capable of
 giving a rotatory motion to the mass.   It must remain at
 rest.   In  Laplace's Cosmogony he assumes a sun with its
 atmosphere in a state of rotation, the Creator being sup-
 posed necessary to give this primitive  impulse to a process
 which is completed by secondary causes.  The motion of
 the satellites is of  course derived  from the previous mo-
 tions  of their primaries.
   But even if these difficulties are  surmounted, we  are
beset with others equally formidable.  What cause is there
to determine  the  particular "stages  at  which rings  are
formed and detached."   The excess of the centrifugal force
which presides at this operation, is supposed to occur under
the influence of  some law which regulates the cooling of 
                      APPENDIX.                   297

the heated gaseous bodies employed  in the process.  But
we have still to ask what is the cause of the cooling, and
what is its law—a law capable of regulating the distance,
magnitude, densities, rings and satellites of all the bodies of
our planetary system.  Under  such  processes  we  might
expect that satellites might not only have satellites but also
rings, and that the sun himself might have had a huge ring
revolving round him in the plane of his equator.  Leaving
these difficulties for our author's consideration, we come to
the cardinal  absurdity of his cosmogony.  In the specula-
tion of Laplace, he assumed the existence of a  revolving
sun, a source of light and heat capable not only of con-
trolling by its power the huge mass of atmosphere with
which it  was charged, but of  illuminating by  its beams,
and nursing by its heat, the various planets which it was
destined to form.  In his  cosmogony, like that  of Moses,
it  was  God that said "Let there be light, and there was
light;" but in the crude sun-making  under our  review, no
contrivance exists for providing light and heat as the ema-
nations from the central mass.  By  what process can an
agglomeration of nebulous matter give birth to a perennial
flame, emitting those luminous, chemical,  and heat-giving
rays which perform such functions in the  economy of na-
ture 1  If these properties necessarily reside in the cen-
tral mass, then  every planet and every satellite ought to be
suns of various magnitudes, self-luminous, and self-heated,
as if they were portions of the sun itself.  But supposing
that the central mass were  capable of retaining what was
sun, and  discharging what was planet, by what process was
the luminiferous  aether,  the medium  of light,  diffused
through universal space 1  and from what collection of nebu-
lous  matter, and by what law of aggregation, and with what
                           14* 
298
APPENDIX.
projectile force were the various comets, moving in all di-
rections, and in planes of every possible inclination, launched
across systems  in which no material fcr their production
can be found 1   The difficulty cannot be removed by as-
signing to some other portion of space the manufacture of
those  wandering  stars ;  for we have now  comets whose
orbits are included within our own solar system, and which
cannot be produced by any of the processes which are sup-
posed  to have  given  birth to the planets.   The last diffi-
culty which demands  our notice is presented in the motion
of the whole  of  our system round a point in the constella-
tion  Hercules.   By what eddies  of nebulous  matter this
grand movement is effected, our author has  not ventured to
conjecture, and  were he to make, the attempt, he might
learn, better than by any other process,  the true character
of his own speculations.
   A hypothesis like that under consideration, so improba-
ble in its very nature,  and so gratuitous in all  its  assump-
tions, might be expected  to  possess some  feature which,
when detected and examined, would reduce it to  an ab-
surdity.  That feature presents itself in the very basis upon
which it rests.   The whole orbit of Uranus, three thousand
and six hundred million of miles in diameter, is assumed to
have been filled with nebulous matter  similar to that of the
celestial nebulae, and  all  this matter has  been condensed,
by the action of gravity, into a sun, seven planets, four as-
teroids, and eighteen satellites.   Let us  now  assume the
average density of the sun, and all his attendants, at three,
four, or five times that of water.   Let us  also compute the
diameter of a sphere equal in bulk to  all these bodies, and
having found how many times that sphere  is  contained in a
sphere whose radius is the distance of Uranus  from the 
APPENDIX.
299
 sun, we shall have a rough estimate of the density of the
 nebulous matter when it occupied its  largest volume.  We
 should be ashamed to make such a calculation, but if any
 person undertake the  task, he will find  that the nebulous
 matter in question must be  many millions of times rarer
 than the rarest of our gaseous bodies !  How could a sphere
 of such matter, held together by forces so infinitely feeble,
 revolve as a  connected mass ?  How could it indurate in
 rings—how perform the other juggleries of world-making?
 But the absurdity does not here end.  This sphere of im-
 palpable matter must, like the other nebulae, be self-lumi-
 nous.   It might,  therefore,  if it can do anything at all,
 make suns self-luminous like  itself; but how could it part
 with its native brightness  to form  the  dark  and  opaque
 masses of primary and secondary planets 1
   The consideration of the self-lifstre of nebulae furnishes
 us with a palpable argument against the nebular hypothe-
 sis as suggested, for it was  never maintained, by astrono-
 mers.  A globular nebula, shining with its own light, must,
 in any of its stages, previous to induration, have its  bright-
 ness  a maximum in its centre, and gradually shading off
 into  darkness  at its circumference.   But it is only  a very
 small number  of such  nebulae  that have been found, and
 we have no doubt whatever that, as in the case of the com-
 panion of Messier's No. 51, a high power will not only re-
 solve them into stars, but prove that they are wholly desti-
 tute of that  symmetry of form and of illumination  which
 countenance the idea  of an  agglomerating  and rotating
 mass.   Many nebulae  are  uniformly luminous, as if  they
 were flat discs; others  have their  light unequally  distri-
buted, while vast numbers have the most irregular shapes,
indicating no appearance of rotation, and no  appearance of 
300
APPENDIX.
 a central accumulation.  Independently, therefore, of the
 discoveries of Lord Rosse, there was every reason to' be-
 lieve,  from analogy  as  well  as from observation, that
 nebulae are mere collections of stars, deriving their gene-
 ral lustre, or the lustre of their individual parts, from the
 brightness and the number of the stars of which they are
 composed, and  often  exhibiting the appearance of globes
 or discs, from the inability of our telescopes to detect their
 ramifications and appendages.
   From the lofty epic on the construction of an universe,
 our author descends to the sublunary theme of the forma-
 tion of our  own globe.   When our earth was thrown off
 from the  sun, it  was  482,000 miles  in  diameter  (the
 diameter of the moon's orbit), at which time it revolved in
 twenty-nine and a half  days,  the  period of the moon's
 revolution.  After the earth  had  cooled  and shrunk  to a
 globe of its present  size, its external  crust consisted of
 primary rocks, of which granite is  the  type, " agglomer-
 ated  directly  from the  nebulous or vaporiferous  state."
 Washed by the seas which the condensed vapors  had
 formed, these  rocks were worn down, and their detritus
 deposited  in strata of  sand and mud at the bottom of the
 ocean.  Under  the influence of heat and pressure, these
 sedimentary formations, the gneiss and mica-slate system,
 were gradually indurated.  The imprisoned fires, the resi-
 due of the original temperature of the mass, broke up and
 rent the sedimentary strata, and the rocky matter in a state
 of fusion burst  through the rents, tossing up the broken
masses from their original levels.  Thus were formed the
primary strata of our  globe—the hypozoic  system of  Mr.
 Phillips—and  they lie  beneath all the rooks which contain
animal and vegetable remains. 
                       APPENDIX.                   301

   Our author now proceeds, in successive chapters, to de-
scribe the commencement and  continuance of organic life
in the clay slate and grauwacke slate system—the old red
sandstone—the carboniferous formation—the new red sand-
stone—the oolite—the cretaceous formation—the  tertiary
formation—and in the superficial and recent formations of
our globe.   He traces,  in the  fossil remains of these dif-
ferent eras,  the  progress of organic  life,  corresponding
"with the progress  of physical  conditions on the surface."
He finds plants  and animals  advancing  from simple to
higher forms of organization.   Sea plants precede those of
the land, and  amongst  these,   " the  simpler (cellular and
cryptogamic) before the more complex."  Among the ani-
mal remains, he finds  " traces  all but certain of infusoria,
then  polypiaria,  crinoidea, some humble  forms  of the
articulata and mollusca, and afterwards higher forms of the
mollusca.   Ages  passed away  before there were  any
nobler types of being.   Fishes, the humblest class of  ver-
tebrata, then  appeared,  the earliest fishes  resembling the
lower articulata.  Land animals, beginning  with  reptiles,
"universally allowed to be the  type next in advance from
fishes," form the next link in the chain of life.   From rep-
tiles  we advance  to  birds,  and thence through  the  low
forms of marsupialia to the higher mammalia ; and when
the land and sea had " come into  their  present relations,"
and the principal continents had acquired the irregularity
of surface necessary for man—Man appeared.
   Having thus discovered,  as  he  believes,  " everywhere
throughout the geological history, strong traces of a paral-
lel advance of the physical conditions and the organic
forms," our author  ventures to declare "a somewhat dif-
ferent idea of organic creation from what has hitherto been 
>
 302                    APPENDIX.

 generally entertained."   He regards it as characteristic of
 an humble class of intellects, to suppose that God constant-
 ly acts in  particular ways for particular occasions, thus
 detracting from his foresight,  lowering Him to the level of
 our own intellects, and thus anthropomorphizing his creative
 power, or reducing it to the character  borne by  the  ordi-
 nary proceedings of mankind.  Hence he arrives at the
 conclusion, that  as the  cosmical  arrangements of the uni-
 verse, or the  construction of our  earth and its associates,
 and,  inferentially, all the other globes of space, are not
 the result of any  immediate, or personal  exertion on the
 part of the Deity, but of natural  laws, which are the ex-
 pressions of his will, the  organic arrangements must be so
 likewise.
   Thus,  according to  our author,  did the great  Creator
 issue his Almighty Fiat—the  expression  of his sovereign
 will—and establish natural laws,  including " that endless
 series of phenomena," physical and moral, which consti-
 tute the past history of nature, and which will  continue
 through all future  ages.   At this his First and last com-
 mand was the universe  and universal  nature  irrevocably
 constituted.   Boundless space was instantly occupied  with
 nebulous matter.   Suns  sprung from its heated atoms, and
 motion,  the life  of matter,  supervened.    From  the  first
 agglomerated  mass, planets were thrown  off into their re-
 spective orbs, and satellites in  due order started from  their
 parent sphere.  Under the influence of heat and moisture
 —the one collected into  volcanoes, and the other  accumu-
 lated into seas—each globe  of space was  fitted  for the
reception of organic life.   The electric spark, escaping
from the wild elements around  it,  struck  life into an  ele-
mentary and  reproductive germ,  and sea plants, the  food 
APPENDIX.                   303
of animals, first decked the rude  pavement  of  the  ocean.
The lichen and the moss reared their tiny fronds on the
first rocks that emerged from the deep, land plants evolving
the various forms of fruit and flower next arose—the upas
and the bread-fruit tree—the  gnarled oak and the lofty
cedar.  Animal life appeared  when the granary of nature
was ready  with its supplies.  A  globule,  having a new
globule forming within itself which is the fundamental form
of organic being, may be produced in albumen by electricity;
and as such globules may be identical with living and re-
productive cells, we have the earliest germ  of organic  life
—the  first cause of all the  species of animated  nature
which people the earth, the ocean, and the air.   Born of
electricity and albumen, the simple monad is  the first liv-
ing  atom—the  microscopic  animalcules—the  snail—the
worm—the reptile—the fish—the bird—and  the quadruped,
—all spring from its invisible loins.   The  human  simili-
tude at last  appears in the character of the monkey—the
monkey rises into the  baboon—the  baboon is exalted  to
the  ourang-outang—and  the chimpanzee,  with a  more
human toe and shorter arms, gives birth to man—the tem-
porary autocrat of the animal world, but destined  to give
place to higher orders  of being, in the never-ending series
of metamorphoses with which futurity is pregnant.
  Such is a condensed view  of the  poetical theory  of
creation which we  are called upon to admire and believe.
Had it been propounded in ancient  times,  when we had
neither revealed nor demonstrated  truth for our guides, it
might have been accepted as a vision of philosophy, which
future discoveries might realize or dispel; but its appear-
ance and reception in modern times,  amid the sober con-
victions of faith, and the impregnable results of science, is 
304
APPENDIX.
a phenomenon bordering  on the marvellous.*  We need
scarcely inform our readers that a  theory of creation,  in
which God never  acts  personally and  specially in the
works of creation and providence, stands in direct opposi-
tion to that revelation  of his will, in which he is represent-
ed as  creating and  destroying his works—as rewarding
and punishing his creatures—and  as  controlling and sub-
verting the laws of organic and inorganic nature.  But this
opposition we must at present overlook, and in  examining
speculations of such a kind,  which profess to lay their
foundations in scientific truth, we must make an appeal  to
Reason and not to Faith.
   The theory under our  review  rests  itself on a  triple
foundation—on  the  supposed  fact that  the cosmical ar-
rangements of the universe are clearly the  effects of natu-
ral 4aw ;—on the progressive  development of plants and
animals, as exhibited in the geological history of our globe ;
—and on various scientific results  which are supposed to
indicate the transformation of one species into another.
Did  the numerous details which form the ground-work of
any  speculation  involve  only  admitted truths,  or  sound
inferences from unquestioned  phenomena,  an  intelligent
reader would experience little difficulty in  estimating the
value of the generalization which  they  were brought  to
support.  Partial coincidences  and seeming resemblances
might in some cases mislead, and  in  others  deceive ; but

  * " Happily," says Sir Henry de la Beche, " facts have become so
multiplied, that geology is daily emerging from that state when an
hypothesis, provided it were brilliant and  ingenious, was sure of
advocates and temporary success,  even when it sinned against the
laws of physics and facts themselves."—Geological Manual, Pref.,
p. vii. 
APPENDIX.                    305
the contrast of stern and undisputed facts with  assertions
however plausible,  and views  however ingenious, will
never fail to expel error from her most impregnable strong-
holds.   If the theory  relates to a particular branch  of
science, and its  students are a jury of philosophers, every
fact will be weighed—every testimony sifted, and a ver-
dict on the side of truth  will be ultimately  pronounced.
But if  the subject of  inquiry is general  and  extensive,
moral as well  as physical, reaching back to primeval times,
and scanning  the most distant future ;—if it embraces in-
finity  of space as well as eternity  in time, involving the
responsibilities and destinies of our species,  appealing to
the reason of  every race of being, and to minds male and
female, of every degree of power, and every shade of cul-
ture,—then may we expect from such a subject, and with
such a jury, an inquest of philosophy in which truth is not
likely  to triumph.  Each  individual mind will discover
some insulated  link to which  it will instinctively  cling.
In the poetry  of life  and  death, of renovation and decay,
the youthful mind will find a chord resonant  to  its ardent
nature.   The  infidel will swear a  cheerful  allegiance to
natural in place  of divine law.   The shallow philosopher
will find food  of easy  assimilation,  and every possessor of
an infinitesimal  of knowledge will find a  corresponding
atom in the new philosophy of nature.   Such, we  believe,
is not an exaggerated  picture of this new theory of crea-
tion, nor an unjust description of its individual supporters.
In the  scrutiny of its facts, however, we shall best decide
the fate of its  doctrines.
  We have already seen in our examination of  the cos-
mical hypothesis of our author, that it  has no foundation
in nature, and stands directly opposed to mechanical laws 
306
APPENDIX.
 as well as to  astronomical facts.  It. is a romance without
 a hero—a drama without a plot—a dream without  an in-
 terpreter.   To believe in it would be treason against the
 sovereignty of intellect, and to express that  belief  would
 be to run the  risk of a commission of lunacy.   Let us pro-
 ceed then to examine the geological details  in which the
 theory of development by natural law is supposed to have
 its  surest foundation.  If these details  are  incorrect—if
 complex  organizations often  precede, in  the  geological
 sand-glass, those which are simpler, and have as little re-
 lation to them in structural resemblances as in their order
 of succession, then does the theory fail in its most promi-
 nent  application.  But even if its geological facts are true,
 it can derive  no support from their  truth.  An order of
 creation advancing from  what is simple to what is com-
 pound, can  never  establish a  creation by natural law, and
 would indicate only the order of procedure which the Al-
 mighty chose  to pursue.
  In determining the  succession of organic structures, as
 exhibited in the various eras  of geology, a theorist  is not
 entitled to collect his  details under the influence of precon-
 ceived  opinions, and  with  that imperfect knowledge of
 geology  which  falls  to the  lot  of the general student.
 Geologists alone are  entitled to  adjudicate upon  such a
 question, and it is to them we  must appeal for that array of
 facts  by which alone it can be decided.
  The total absence of organic remains from the primary
rocks, which  have  hence  received  the  name  of A zoic
(without life),  places  it beyond a doubt that there  was a
time when neither  plants nor  animals  existed upon the
earth.   In the group of the grauwacke slate which follows
the primary rocks, we  find the first traces of vegetable and 
APPENDIX.
307
animal  remains,  and hence the name  of Protozoic (first
life), has  been given to  them.  Algae  and  fuci,  marine
vegetables, though  absent from the  British, appear in the
Scandinavian rocks.  Corals and encrinites occur in abun-
dance.  The cuttle-fish and other  molluscous  animals are
plentiful, and there  are  numerous  Crustacea, particularly
trilobitcs of the genera calymene and asaphus.  The re-
mains of the bones and teeth of fish* have been found both
in England  and Ireland, and the abundance of  Ichthyodo-
rulites, or defensive fish  bones in the grauwacke  series,
" shows," as Sir H. de la Beche remarks, " that  the class
of animals to which they belong was among  the earliest
inhabitants of the globe."   Here then we have in the first
era of organic  life animals of high organization, trilobites
with the most perfect organs of sensation, and the cuttle-
fish  with  an eyeball scarcely surpassed in beauty by the
human organ.  The theory of  development is thus utterly
at fault in its  very earliest  application, and its  author is
driven to assert that " it is impossible to believe that these
were the first sole examples of life which existed upon the
earth," and  that " the molluscs and radiates  necessarily
imply the previous, or  at least contemporary  existence of
certain humbler forms of life, vegetable as well as animal!"
   In the next group of rocks which compose the Silurian
system of Mr. Murchison, we find almost the same fossils
which  existed  in the  grauwacke  system, and  even  the
author of " The Vestiges" allows that the latter is zoologi-
cally a continuation of the former.  He contrives, how-
ever, to obtain a step in his ascending scale, from  the re-

  * " Neither fishes nor any higher vertebrata as yet roamed  through
the marine wilds."—Vestiges. 
308                   APPENDIX.
mains of minuter fishes, discovered by Mr. Phillips, in
rocks immediately over  the Aymestry limestone.   These
fishes he considers as " the first examples of vertebrated
animals which breathed  upon our planet;" but in beds be-
low  the  Aymestry limestone the remains of a  fish have
been found which belong to the  highest type of that divi-
sion of vertebrate animals, and hence the oldest fossil fish
with which geologists are acquainted, is actually one with
the  highest  organization!  In  order to  make  the  small
fishes of Mr. Phillips  available for  his  argument, our
author keeps in the shade the  fishes of  the Upper Ludlow
rocks, which he designates as the " remains of six genera
of obscure character ;" but Agassiz has formed out of them
seven new species, all with a high degree of  organization,
and  two of them of the very highest type.  Here, then, the
hypothesis of an ascending scale  is positively contradicted.
   We come now to the era of the Old Red Sandstone, or
the Devonian  system of  rocks as it has been called, from
its prevalence in Devonshire.   The  same marine organic
remains  which marked the Silurian reappear in the  same
form  in  the  Devonian  system—zoophytes, molluscs, and
Crustacea ; but the distinguishing features of this formation
are the  fishes with which it abounds—fishes remarkable
for their high and  singular  organization.*    We  need
scarcely  tell the  general reader that Agassiz has divided
fishes into four orders, namely, the Placoids, or those, which
are covered with scaly plates, like the sharks of our own
day—the Ganoids, or those which like the pike have hard

  * The first discovery of fishes in the old red sandstone was made
by Dr. Fleming.—A gassiz, Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles,
torn, v., p. 132. 
APPENDIX.
309
scales like enamel—the  Cycloids, or those which have
scales like the salmon—and the Ctenoids, or those which
have jagged scales like the perch.  Now, the fishes which
occur  in the Devonian system belong to all these orders,
except that of the Cycloids, and  there  can be no mistake
about the character of their organization, as several of them
belong to existing families.   Some of these are bony and
some cartilaginous, though the latter character prevails in
the two first orders ; but all of them belong to the most ex-
alted types of organization.   Notwithstanding these facts,
our author endeavors to draw a support for his theory from
the fishes we have mentioned.  He insists that the Placoids
and Ganoids are manifestly of an inferior character to the
 Cycloids and Ctenoids, which afterwards came into existence;
and in support of these groundless statements, he alleges,
on the authority of Agassiz, that  the two first orders have
only a rudimentary or cartilaginous skeleton, while the
Cycloids and  Ctenoids have an osseous structure.  Now
this is not true ;  for as we have already stated, cartilagi-
nous and osseous  fishes exist in  each of the four orders ;
and  what is still  more striking, several new  species  of
Ctenoids, which had been found only in the carboniferous
system, have been discovered among the fishes brought by
Mr. Murchison from the old red sandstone of Russia.  Re-
solved to make out  his position, our author next asserts
that certain of the  Ganoids approximate, in form and arma-
ture, to the lower order of the  Crustacea, the Cephalaspis
making the smallest advances from the crustacean cha-
racter, and greatly resembling the asaphus, a trilobite of the
lower formation.   The Coccosteus—a genus discovered  in
Caithness by Messrs. Murchison and Sedgwick—he con-
siders  as the  next step in advance to the perfect fish type; 
310
APPENDIX.
 and he places it near the crustaceans, because its teeth are
 chiselled, as it were, out of the solid bone of the jaw, like
 the nippers  of a lobster, and because its mouth opens ver-
 tically, contrary to  the  usual mode  of  the vertebrata.   A
 third step in advance of the Crustacea, our author finds  in
 the  Pterichthys, that  remarkable fossil which  was  dis-
 covered by our distinguished countryman,  Mr. Hugh Mil-
 ler,  and of which he has given so interesting a description
 in his  elegant and instructive  volume On the  Old  Red
 Sandstone*   Now it is  averred by  modern geologists,
 that these statements are  incorrect, and that the Ganoid
 fishes rather approach to the higher class of reptiles, than
 to the lower  crustacea.f   But  even if they were correct,
 they are not  calculated  even to give  probability to the
 opinions which they  are brought to support;  and if such
 questions  are to be settled by the authority of any name,

  * " Never shall I forget," says Agassiz, "  the impression which
 the sight of the Pterichthys, provided with appendages resembling
 wings, produced upon me, when I assured myself that it belonged
 to the class of fishes.   It was an entirely new type, which was about
 to figure, for the first time since it had ceased  to exist, in the series of
 beings—again  to form a link, which nothing of all that had been re-
 vealed up to the time, with regard to extinct creations, would have
 led us ever to  suspect the existence of—showing  forcibly that ob-
 servation alone can lead us to the recognition of the laws of develop-
 ment of organized beings, and how much  we should guard against
 all those systems of transformations of spicies, which the imagina-
 tion invents with as much facility as reason refutes them."—Re-
port on the  Fossil Fish  of the Devonian System.  Brit. Assoc,
 1842, p. 81.
  f Professor  Agassiz has  explained why the Cephalaspides, the
 Coccosteus, and the Pterichthys were supposed to approximate to
 the Trilobites  of a particular genus.— Report on the Fossil Fish of
 the Devonian  System.  Brit. Assoc, 1842, pp. 85, 6. 
APPENDIX.
311
 we  would oppose to the incognito reputation of  our author,
 the  following  decision  of  Agassiz :*—" This primitive
 diversity  of the Ichthyoid types, of a formation  so  ancient
 as the old red sandstone, is, in my opinion, one of the facts
 the most  contradictory  to the theory of the successive trans-
formation of species, and of the descent of organized beings
 now living, from  a small number of primitive forms."f

   * Report on the  Fossil Fish  of  the  Devonian  System.—Brit.
 Assoc, 1842, p. 87.
   t  It will not be regarded, we trust, as an unsuitable digression in
 a Scottish  journal,  to  notice the labors  of an  accomplished and
 distinguished lady in extending our knowledge of the fossil fishes of
 the old red sandstone in her native  land; nor will that notice be
 less appropriate on the  part of one who occasionally saw, amid the
 gaieties of  her early life, and in the pursuits of her maturer age, in-
 dications of that fine and ardent mind which unfolded itself in her
 later days.   Professor Agassiz has placed Lady Cumming Gordon of
 Altyre " in the very first rank" of recent contributors to our know-
 ledge of the fossil fishes of the Devonian system.  "Notsatisfied,"
 says he,  "  with  collecting and distributing among geologists, with
 unequalled liberality,  the numerous specimens of those  remains
 which she  had collected in a quarry worked on purpose, she studied
 them with  care—placed  aside the most  perfect specimens—and
 painted them  with a  precision of detail and an artistic  talent to
 which  very few naturalists have  been able to attain.  These draw-
 ings, indeed, and those of  her  daughter (Lady Seymour), who con-
 stantly assisted her  in  her studies, will form one of the principal
 ornaments  of my * monograph.'  On the point  of  presenting this
 selection to the  public, it is painful to me to think that this noble
 lady will no more  be able herself to  receive from geologists the
 tribute of gratitude which  she so justly deserved.  May this record,
 planted upon her grave, remind her estimable  companion, that the
 willingness with which she assisted  her parent has contributed to
raise for her a lasting monument in the scientific world."—Report
 on the  Fossil Fish of the  Devonian System.  Brit.  Assoc. Rep.,
 IS 12, p. 81, and his Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles, torn, v., 
312
APPENDIX.
  In the era of the Carboniferous Formations, when  land
plants  show themselves abundantly in the strata, our au-
thor finds, as usual, new proofs of his theory.   The car-
boniferous group comprehends  the coal  measures and the
mountain limestone.   The  coal measures  consist of beds
of  sandstone,  shale,  and coal.   They abound  in  vege-
table   remains;  and   all  geologists  agree  in  regarding
the coal itself as an indurated  mass of plants, though they
differ as to the circumstances under which the change was
effected.   Many hundred species of plants have been dis-
covered in the coal formation;  and in this first and  most
ancient Flora, the author of  the work before  us strives to
discover an ascending scale.   He asserts, that the terres-
trial botany of our  globe begins  with classes of compara-

pp. 131, 2.  To this well-merited compliment Professor Agassiz has
added a more permanent memorial of his admiration, by giving the
name of Cheirolepis Cummingim to a species of the first group of
the Ganoid  family  which Lady Cumming Gordon had discovered.
Inheriting a name sacred in the  history of our Church, and asso-
ciated with the brightest deeds of the  martyr, Lady Cumming Gor-
don has thrown round it the softer  radiance of intellectual accom-
plishments, not limited to the study of fossils, but embracing nobler
themes, and bearing upon higher interests.  May we  not express
the .hope that such an example will not be lost  upon that exalted
class, whom Providence has placed in a position to influence those
of a higher as well as of a lower station than  themselves.  Ephe-
meral and unprofitable as are the pursuits which too  generally con-
stitute  the  amusements, as well  as  the occupations of the female
mind, we feel it incumbent upon us, when bearing witness to a noble
exception, to record the  sentiment, that a portion of the leisure of
our sister pilgrims could not have a more elegant appropriation, than
in learning  to distinguish the gems which adorn their  persons—in
studying the minerals which may be'gathered round their home—
and in wandering over the embalmed relics of organic  life, which
are buried under the pathways upon  which they daily tread. 
APPENDIX.
313
lively simple forms  and structure, the lowest place being
taken by plants of cellular tissue, without flowers, such as
the lichens, mosses, fungi, ferns, and sea-weeds;  and that
above these are found plants with vascular tissue, bearing
flowers, first, the Monocotyledons, with one  seed lobe, such
as the cane  and palm;  and  next, the  Dicotyledons, with
two seed  lobes,  such as the  pine, elm,  oak,  and other
British forest trees, " these  subdivisions also ranking in
the order  in which they are here stated."   " Now, it is
clear,"  adds our author, " that  a predominance of these
forms  in  succession marked  the successive epochs de-
veloped by fossil geology, the simple abounding first, and
the complex afterwards.  Two-thirds of the plants of the
carboniferous era, are of the cellular or cryptogamic kind.
  .....  The ascertained  Dicotyledons, or higher class
plants, are comparatively few in this formation ; but it will
be found, that they constantly increased as the globe grew
older."   In the Lepidodendra of'the Lycopodiaceous family,
our author finds additional proofs of his hypothesis.  From
the internal structure of the stem, and the character of the
seed vessels, he maintains, that they have  been a link be-
tween Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, "  a fact," he adds,
" worthy of note, as it favors the idea, that  in vegetable, as
well as in animal creation, a  progress has been observed
in conformity with advancing  conditions."
   Positive as these  statements are, and  bold  as are the
conclusions which are drawn from them, yet geologists of
all classes repudiate them as incorrect and unfounded.  Dr.
Fleming has actually found Dicotyledonous  plants in the
Grauwacke slates of Cork ;*  and the splendid Flora of the

    * See U'ernerian .Memoirs, vol. iii., p. S'.'.  Kdin., IS21.
                          15 
314
APPENDIX.
coal measures, which our author finds it convenient to
characterize as exhibiting comparatively simple forms and
structures, displays, on the contrary, the most magnificent
specimens of creative power, resembling the noblest pines
of the South Sea Islands, rivalling existing species in the
complexity of their organization, and surpassing them in
the scale of development.
  In the animal remains of this period, our author does
not find  much support  to  his  theory.   Polypiaria  and
Crinoidea abound  in the mountain  limestone ;  but  they
disappear in  the  superincumbent coal  beds.  "At  this
time,"  he adds,  " the Sauroids are considered as at  their
point of greatest abundance,—a fact  of some  importance,
seeing that in teeth, bones, and scales, they make an ad-
vance to the  lizard character, a type  of a higher  order of
animals, which we are soon to see entering upon the stage."
Now, this attempt to assimilate the  Sauroid  fishes to the
lizards  deserves  the  severest censure,  for  Agassiz has
shown that their general structure is so peculiar, that they
cannot be united with the reptiles, or the one class in any
way descend from  the other.
  In describing  the monotony in the forms and  colors of
nature, which he supposes to mark the carboniferous  era,
our author  states, what  he doubtless  considers as favora-
ble to  his theory, that neither the hum of insects, nor the
music of birds, cheered the solitudes of the earth ; but, in
making these  assertions, he is greatly  mistaken.  Insects
have been found in this era ;  and it is strange that the au-
thor should not have known this, as an account of them,
with engravings, was published  eight years ago in Dr.
Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise.   Two Coleopterous in-
sects, of the family Curculionidae. were discovered in the 
APPENDIX.
315
      nodules of ironstone from the coal formation of Coalbrook-
      dale, by Mr. William Anstice, of Madely Wood.   Another
      insect,  of which  Mr. Anstice has several specimens, and
      to which Dr. Buckland  has given  the name of Limulus
      trilobitoides, formed the nucleus of a nodule of iron ore from
      the same locality.*   Nor is it less hostile to the theory of
      development,  that  we  have evidence much stronger than
      that which generally satisfies our author, that such highly
      organized animals as reptiles and birds existed in the car-
      boniferous  age.   Mr. Lyell informs us that, in the coal
      formation of  Nova Scotia, " Mr. Logan discovered foot-
      steps which  appear to Mr.  Owen to belong to some un-
      known  species of reptiles, constituting the first indications
      of the reptilian class known in the carboniferous rocks ;"f
      and  Dr. Alfred King has discovered, in the carboniferous
      series  of Westmoreland,  South Pennsylvania,  the  foot
•     marks of at least seven species " of birds, or other highly-
      organized  animals.  To  these  species, the footmarks  of
      which  he has represented  in  reduced drawings,  he has
      given the names of Ornithichnites gallinuloides, O. culbert-
      sonii, Spheropezium leptodactylum, S. pachydactylum, S.
      therodactylum, S. ovoidactylum,—the last of which is sup-
      posed to have an alliance with the Batrachians.|
        The  new  red  sandstone, and magnesian limestone forma-
      tion,  to  which the name of Permian has been given by Mr.
      Murchison, from the greater development of these strata in
      the  ancient kingdom  of  Permia,  is  next  called upon  to

       * See  Buckland's  Geology and Mineralogy,  &c,  vol. i., p.
      408-9 ; vol. ii., p. 75, 78 ; and Plate 46, figs. 1, 2, 3.
       f American Journal of Science, Oct., 1813, vol. xlv., p. 358.
       f Ibid , April, 18 15, vol. xlviii., p. 348. 
316
APPENDIX.
bear testimony to the theory of development.  The plants
of this era, which were so abundant in the carboniferous
series, appear now in diminished size  and quantity—but
are,  generally speaking,  specifically the  same  in  type.
Among the animals of this era, reptiles  appear for the first
time—a class capable of breathing in our atmosphere.  Our
author regards them as a group of a higher character,  and
next to fishes in the zoological scale—so near to them, in-
deed, " that  certain species stand doubtfully between the
two  classes, having extremities which  can hardly be dis-
tinguished from  fins."   Among the other  " reptilian  ves-
tiges " of the  age,  our author  adduces Nothosaurus and
Rynchosaurus as " of lizard-like character ; the former in-
dicating, in the fine sculpture of the cranium, and the large
comparative size of the extremities, an approach to the cro-
codilian form, while  the latter show some points of affinity
to the birds."  The  footprints of various animals,* par-
ticularly of tortoises  and birds, are among the  interesting
memorials of the new red sandstone.  We have  thus  the
addition of perfect birds to the Fauna of the period, though
our author unscrupulously asserts that they were " probably
of a low type"—an  opinion which their recent discovery
in America, in  the pre-existing formation, so completely
refutes.   Our author  has made  reference to the genus
which Professor Owen has named Labyrinthodon, in allu-
sion to the peculiar  and  characteristic structure  of  the
teeth.  The specimens are referable to five species; and
Professor Owen distinctly states, that, had these species
now existed, they would have  formed batrachian repre-
sentatives of the highest order of reptiles,—viz., the Cro-
* See this Journal, vol. i., p. 30, 31. 
APPENDIX.
317
codileans.   " Here, therefore," he remarks, " we find the
batrachian  making its first appearance under  its highest,
instead  of  its lowest, or simplest, conditions of structure.
To use the language of the transmutation theory, the laby-
rinthodonts are  degraded crocodiles, not elevated fishes !"
But the hypothetical derivation of reptiles from metamor-
phosed fishes, is more directly negatived by the fact, that
the batrachian type is not that under which reptiles make
their first appearance in the strata which succeed the coal
measures.   The Monitors  of the Thuringian  Zechstein
(magnesian limestone)  are older than the labyrinthodonts
of the Keuper (variegated marls) ; and, among British rep-
tiles,  the Thecodont lizards of the  magnesian conglome-
rates have equal claims to a more ancient  origin.*
   We have thus run over  the six Palaeozoic systems  of
rocks, and  have, we trust,  satisfied the intelligent reader,
that the forms of organic life which they successively dis-
play,  have not been the result of progressive development
from one simple type.   Our author pursues, in the four
succeeding sections,  his history  of organic life  in  the
secondary, tertiary,  and  superficial formations ; but,  in
these interesting eras, in which we  should have  expected
accumulated proofs of an ascending  scale of creation, if it
did exist, he seems incapable of finding even the pretence
of an  argument for it.  We shall, however, do him the jus-
tice of bringing forward what he does say on the subject.
   The  important  era of the Oolitic formation, in which
one species  of  the Mammalia first appears,  is  distin-
guished  by the vast number of its organic remains, the

   * Report on British Fossil Reptiles.  Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1841, pp.
183, 197-8. 
3ly
APPENDIX.
simple enumeration of which occupies above forty closely
printed pages, in Sir H. de la Beche's Geological  Manual.
Now, in this extended list of animal and vegetable bodies,
our author finds no proof of his theory of development, ex-
cept in one case, and he even  admits it as " remarkable
that the animals of the oolitic system are entirely  different
in species from those of the preceding  age, and that these
species cease before the next."*  Where then is the link in
the chain of transmutation, and how could the new species
of the following age have come into existence 1  In the
case of the Didelphis Bucklandi, found in the Stonesfield
slate, a mammal, now referred to the order Insectivora and
genus  Amphitherium, our  author regards it as interesting
that the first mammal should have belonged to the Marsu-
pialia, or  class  of pouched animals,  an  order low in the
scale of creation, and ranking,  as he thinks, between the
oviparous vertebrata (birds, reptiles, and fishes), and the
higher mammalia.  This,  however,  is  a  mere assertion
without proof;  and  the very  existence  of this  species,
which has been the subject of  so much controversy,  over-
turns the supposition  of  its having  been derived from any
pre-existing species.f
   In the era of the Cretaceous system, composed of chalk,
marl, and green sand, our author is equally  at fault in find-
ing proofs of his theory, though the  fossil remains  which it
embodies are extremely  numerous.    Here, as  in  the  pre-


  * This formation derives its name from a number of little spheres
like eggs, which mark the limestone, the most conspicuous member
of the series.
  t See Professor Owen's Report  on British  Fossil Mammalia,
Brit. Assoc, 1842, pp. 57-62. 
APPENDIX.
319
ceding system, there is not a single species which existed
in the Palaeozoic system, and where a resemblance occurs
between the fossils of  these systems, no links connecting
them  are to be  found.   Until  the  cretaceous  era,  the
Placoid and Ganoid fishes had flourished alone, and for the
first time the two orders of Cycloids and Ctenoids, embrac-
ing eighteen  families,  appear, which  are the very fishes,
generally  speaking, which  exist in  the present seas.
Whence, then,  came all on a sudden this mass of new
species 1  Our  author  says, that in  place of the Placoid
and  Ganoid  fishes,  we  find the fishes of two orders
(Cycloids and Ctenoids)  of superior  organization.  Now,
this is a misstatement of the case, for the  Placoids, to
which the first fossil fish belonged, is of a higher order ef
organization than the Cycloids and Ctenoids, and several
Ctenoids have, as has been previously stated, been brought
by Mr. Murchison from the  old  red  sandstone  of Russia.
Our author is puzzled  with the fact that there  are so few
bones of birds in this era.  He mentions some  remains of
a bird from a chalk bed near Maidstone, supposed to have
been of the long-winged  swimmer family ; but he is sen-
sible that this alleged occurrence is not consistent with
his theory; that birds must precede mammalia, and he gets
out of the difficulty by saying that they may nevertheless
have lived, though no  remains  are found in a particular
formation.   He  adds, too, that there is  a limit  to this un-
certainty, because " we see from what remains have been
found in the whole series, a clear progress throughout from
humbler to superior types of being"   And this unsupported
assertion  he considers so irrefragable, that he actually
uses it as  a ground for predicting what animals have ex-
isted  in particular formations.   " Hence," says  he, " we 
320
APPENDIX.
derive a light as to what animals may have existed at par-
ticular times, which is in some measure independent of the
specialities of fossil  geology!  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 sand-
stone and oolite, although we find but slight traces of them
in these formations, and it may be said till a considerably
later period."  If our readers desire a specimen of reason-
ing in a circle,  they have it here in perfection.
   The  Tertiary period, in which the mammalia are abun-
dant, and  the era  of  the  Superficial Formations,  at which
many of our existing species commence, present our author
with no facts in support of his theory ;  and as it is not our
object to  give  even a superficial notice of the interesting
phenomena of  animal life which these  periods  disclose,
we must quit this branch of our subject by a mere reference
to the opinion,  that there was a wide-spread and universal
submersion,  destructive  of animal life, in the  era before
our own, and that a  new creation  of 'animals  afterwards
took place.  Our author admits the simple fact of a sub-
mersion of a wide range, extensively if not universally de-
structive of living species, but  he does not venture to ex-
plain how the new creation could have arisen without the
immediate interposition of the Deity.
   We  cannot  conclude  this  part of our subject without
directing  our readers to an engraved  Table,* in which
Agassiz has  represented  graphically the true history and
development  of fossil fishes, from their earliest appearance
in the Palaeozoic series down to the present time.   A sin-
gle glance at this Table, which we regret we cannot trans-

   * Re"cherches sur les Poissons Fossilcs, torn, i., pp. 170, 171. 
APPENDIX.
321
 fer to our pages, will put the reader in  possession of the
 ichthyological chronicle of the ancient world.  We have
 already seen  that all  fishes are distributed into the four
 orders of Placoids, Ganoids, Cycloids, and Ctenoids.  Now,
 in  all the families up to the commencement  of the Creta-
 ceous, there were almost no fossil fishes but  Placoids and
 Ganoids.  The Cestraciontes of the Placoid order  begins
 with only one species, and that species of the highest type.
 It reaches its  maximum  in the  Triassic and Jurassic for-
 mations, and is now reduced to a few genera and species,
 without  having lost  its high type  of organization.  The
 Ganoid order commences with  the Lepidoides, under the
 Palaeozoic  system, and these wholly disappear at the be-
 ginning of the tertiary formation.  The  Cephalaspides and
 the Dipterions appear, and become extinct in the Palaeozoic
 period.  The  Celacanthes  and the Hybodontes  appear—
 the one in  the middle and  the  other at the close  of the
 Palaeozoic period; and become extinct,  the  first in the
 middle and the second at the beginning of the Cretaceous
 era.   The Petalodus appears and disappears  in the coal
 formations, and so does the Dictoea  in the Zechstein era.
 The Pycnodonts  begin at the base of the Zechstein, and
 become extinct towards  the  end of the  Tertiary period.
 The Squalides have  increased from the  middle  of  the
 Zechstein till the present day, and the Rays from the be-
 ginning of the Jurassic system till now.  The new families
 of the  Sclerodermes,  the  Gymnodontes, the Lophobranches,
 and the Accipenseres, spring into existence almost at the
 same time, to replace the extinct families.  The simulta-
neous  occurrence of five of the  families  of the  Ctenoids
and Cycloids at the very commencement of the Cretaceous
formation, and of  almost  all the  other families at the end
                         15* 
322
APPENDIX.
 of it, are singular facts, which, when connected with those
 already mentioned, stand in direct antagonism to the  theory
 of development,  and establish the  great truth, which all
 our geological knowledge confirms,  that the  Almighty was
 present  in his creative majesty, renewing, by his mighty
 arm, the races of being which time  and the  elements had
 destroyed.
   The rise and decline of reptiles is entirely analogous to
 that of fishes, and equally hostile to  the development prin-
 ciple.  " If the present species of animals," says Professor
 O wen," had resulted from progressive development and trans-
 mutation of former species, each class ought now to present
 its typical characters under their highest recognized  condi-
 tions of organization.  But our review of the characters of
 fossil reptiles proves that this is not the  case."*  Professor
 Owen likewise informs us, that the period of reptiles with
 the highest organization is past, and that the change in their
 species, genera, and families, has  been, upon the whole,
from  the complicated to  the simple.  He conceives,  that
 reptiles  were suddenly introduced  on the earth's  surface,
 and that the  modifications of structure which characterize
 the extinct species were originally impressed upon them at
 their creation, and have been neither derived from improve-
 ment of  a lower, nor lost  by  a progressive development
 into a higher type.  Although the opinion of so  able  and
 competent a  judge does not require confirmation, yet, in a
 case where anonymous assertion has succeeded in  giving
 currency to error, we are called upon to oppose it by  au-
 thority as well a sargument.   The following striking pas-

  * Report on British Fossil Reptiles, in the Rep. Brit. Assoc, l^H,
 pp. 201,202 
APPENDIX.
323
 sage, bearing the impress of Professor Agassiz's name, will
 give assurance to every well-regulated mind, that the doc-
 trines which we have been condemning have no foundation
 in nature.
   " It  is  now," says he,  "a truth which I  consider as
 proved, that the ensemble of organized beings was  renew-
 ed, not only in the interval of each of the great geological
 formations, but also at the time of the deposition of each
 particular member of all the formations.  For example, I
 think I  can prove that in the Oolitic formation, at  least
 within the limits of the Swiss Jura, the organic contents
 of the Lias, those of the Oolitic group properly so called)
 those of the Oxfo rdian group, and those of the Portlandian
 group, as they o ccur in  Switzerland,  are as different from
 each other as the fossils  of the  Lias from those  of the
 Keuper (variegated marl), or those of the Portlandian beds
 from those of the Neocomian (green sand  system) forma-
 tion.  I also  believe  very little  in the genetic descent of
 living species from  those of the various tertiary layers
 which have been regarded as identical, but which, in my
 opinion, are specifically distinct.   / cannot admit the trans-
 formation of species from one formation to another.  In ad-
 vancing these  general notions, I do not wish to offer them
 as inductions  drawn from the study of any particular class
 of animals (of the fishes, for instance), and applied to other
 classes,  but as the  results of direct observation of very con-
 siderable  collections of fossils of different formations, and
 belonging to different classes of animals, in the investigation
 of which I have been specifically engaged for many years, to
 assure myself whether the conclusions which I have drawn
from the tribe of  fishes were  applicable to this class only, 
324
APPENDIX.
or whether the same relations existed in the other remains
of the animal kingdom."*
   From his survey of the organic remains in the different
geological eras of the globe, our author calls our attention
in two  chapters,  to general, and particular considerations
respecting the origin of the animated  tribes.   In the first he
strives  to establish  the general likelihood of  an organic
creation by law ;  and in the second he inquires, " if sci-
ence has  any facts  tending to bring the assumption  more
nearly home to nature."  To the first of these chapters we
have  already made  sufficient  reference.   We must now
deal with the scientific facts, which  he says there certainly
are in  support of  his theory.   In the  arborescent crystal-
lizations which are seen on  the inside of a window in
frosty weather,  and in  the Arbor Diana, produced by the
action of a piece of suspended silver on an amalgam of sil-
ver and mercury, dissolved in diluted nitric acid, our author
sees the  forms of vegetable life, and a crystallization pre-
cisely resembling a shrub.  He finds also vegetable figures,
the ramifications of  a tree, and its individual leaves, in the
marks produced by positive electricity, while the marks of
negative electricity recall the bulbous or the spreading root.
Hence  he concludes it  to be indubitable that the  electric

  * Report on the Fossil Fish of the Devonian System.  Brit. Assoc.
Rep., IS 12, pp. 83, 84.  The  following  opinion of the celebrated
German  physiologist, M. Miiller, deserves to be quoted :—" All the
phenomena hitherto observed in the animal  kingdom seem to prove
that the species were originally created distinct, and independent of
one another.   There is not  a remote possibility that one species has
been produced from another."  Cuvier also denounces " the chi-
merical project of ranging beings in. a single  series,—a project," he
adds, " now renounced by philosophy." 
APPENDIX.
325
 energies are intimately connected with vegetable life, " for
 germination will not  proceed in water  charged with nega-
 tive 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 !"   A plant,  he says, is the electrical  brush
 realized !  He maintains that the fundamental form of or-
 ganic being is a globule having a new globule forming within
 itself, and  that globules can be produced in albumen by elec-
 tricity !  He is, therefore, of opinion  that electricity is the
 cause of life ;  and he then inquires  if plants and animals
 have at anytime been produced otherwise than  in the ordi-
 nary way of generation.   This, of course, he finds to be
 the case.   A hydatid gives the  measles to a domestic pig,
 while wild  pigs are  free  from them.   One moth attacks
 dressed and not undressed wool.   One insect will sip only
 chocolate,  and another chooses only  wine and beer ; and
 creatures called pimelodes cyclopum frequent only volcanic
 cavities, so that they  must all have had their origin in mo-
 dern times ?   But the most potent of all our author's facts,
 on which he rests as  the mainstay of  his argument, are the
 insects which Mr. Crosse and Mr. Weekes are supposed
 to have brought into  existence  by galvanism.  We need
not tell our scientific readers that the celebrated Acarus
 Crossii was  not the  offspring  of  galvanism.  Professor
 Schulze of Berlin has set this question to rest by carefully
conducted  experiments ;  and our  author ought  to  have
 been acquainted with the account given of them in Profes-
sor Owen's Lectures.
  From this indigesta moles, this collection of statements,
which no man but our author believes, he proceeds to ex-
plain in the subsequent section, the  hypothesis of the de- 
320
APPENDIX.
 velopment of the vegetable and animal kingdoms ;  and, with
 his usual boldness of assertion, and recklessness of scien-
 tific truth, he  summons to his aid the doctrines of embry-
 ology.   He avers it to be an undoubted fact, " that all animals
 pass in embryo through phases  resembling the general, as
 well as the particular characters of  those of lower grade.
 .....Nor is Man himself exempt  from this law.
 His first form is that which is permanent in the animalcule.
 This  organization  gradually  passes through  conditions
 generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the lower
 mammalia, before it attains its  specific  maturity.  At one
 of the last stages of his foetal career he  exhibits an  inter-
 maxillary 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.'"
 Sex, too, our author maintains, " is fully ascertained to be
 a matter of development.  All  beings are, at one stage of
 the  embryotic process, female, and a  certain number of
 these are afterwards advanced to be of the more powerful
 sex !"  From doctrines like  these, our author rises to the
 sublime  in his philosophy, and leaves his readers benight-
 ed  and bewildered at the perilous elevation.  He  tells us,
 " that  the first  step  in the creation of life upon this planet
 was a  chemico-electric  operation, by which simple germinal
 vesicles  were produced;" that  the next step was  "an ad-
 vance under favor  oj peculiar conditions, from the simplest
forms  of being  to  the next more  complicated,  and this
 through the medium  of the ordinary process of generation ;
 and finally, that the  simplest and most primitive type, under
 a law to  which  that  of like 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." 
APPENDIX.
327
   Conscious that these presumptuous opinions cannot even
be rendered  probable  by any authentic  instance  of  either
plants or animals having been thus formed or transmuted,
the author admits,  that if the doctrine were  true, "there
may never have been an instance of the origination of life
otherwise than by generation, since the commencement of
the human species ;" and  he illustrates  this opinion by
means of the  beautiful chapter in Mr. Babbage's Ninth
Bridgewater   Treatise*  entitled Argument  in  favor  of
Design, in which Mr. Babbage  shows, that the deviation
from  a law may be the fulfilment ofxa much  more exten-
sive law than that which is  supposed to exist.  Hence our
author infers, that during the historical era,  which  is but
a small portion of the entire age  of our globe,  the limits of
species may have been rigidly adhered to ; but still, that
this rule  may have been interrupted in  the past,  and may
be so in the  future.f   Now, this reasoning is quite fair,
and clearly  establishes the conclusion, that though the
production of like by like during the era since man's crea-
tion may have  been  invariable, this is no  proof that  a
change may not have taken place before that  era, and may
not take  place in future.   We cannot, it is true,  tell what
changes of law are to  appear in the future ; but our author
has surely committed  a radical  mistake,  and surrendered
his argument at discretion, when he says,  " We do not

  * This remarkable work, distinguished by its  profound thought,
as well as by its  eloquence and beauty of composition, is well
worthy of the attention of our readers.  The second edition, publish-
ed in 1838, has been greatly enlarged.
  f This illustration from Mr. Babbage's calculating engine has not
been fairly dealt with by those who have criticized the work under
our notice, 
328
APPENDIX.
 know what may have  happened  during the ages which
 preceded its  commencement,"—namely, of the  historical
 era.  The object of a great part of our author's volume has
 been to draw  proofs from geological history, that a gradual
 change of species took place, and that an unlike was pro-
 duced from unlike.  We  have endeavored to show, that
 he has not established  this proposition, and we venture to
 go still farther and to assert, that the chronicle of geologi-
 cal events is now  so complete, that  we do know what has
 happened  in  preceding ages ; and  that if the doctrine of
 deviation from  a  single  species was correct, we should
 have found in the  bowels of the earth numerous and ample
 proofs of its  truth.  To maintain,  therefore,  an opinion
 which has not one  single fact in its favor,—which stands
 in direct opposition to all the analogies of nature,—which
 is repugnant to the best feelings of  mankind, and subver-
 sive of all their most cherished convictions,—is a fraud
 committed upon the reason, and an insult  cast  upon the
 dignity of our species.
   Our limits will not allow us to  follow our author  con-
 tinuously through  the remaining sections of his  work, in
 which he  considers his Hypothesis  in connexion with the
 Affinities and  Geographical  Distribution of Animals, and
 treats of the  Early History  of Mankind, and  the Mental
 Constitution of Animals ; but we feel ourselves compelled
to take special notice of the chapter in  his first edition,
entitled   The  Macleay  System of Animated Nature*  in
which he gave a full notice of that wild hypothesis, and
expressed  his  highest  approbation  of it, as furnishing a
 owerful  additional proof of the hypothesis of organic pro-
*  See Macleay's Horse Entomologicae. 
APPENDIX.
329
gress by  virtue of law.   W7hen  Mr. Macleay, an accom-
plished naturalist, found that he could not arrange animals
in a linear series of progressive development, he conceived
the idea of placing them  in  circular groups.   Each circle
was composed of five  circular groups, and these again of
other five inferior groups, till the species were exhausted.
Hence  it  was called the  Quinary system.   Thus the ani-
mal kingdom is divided into  five divisions—vertebrata,
animalcula, radiata, acrita, and mollusca; the mammalia
into cheirotheria, ferce, cetacea, glires, and ungulata; and
so on.  In following out this system, our author finds, that
the crow is partially invested with the united properties of
all other birds, while it is the pre-eminent type of its own
order; and that Man  holds  the  same  place among the
mammalia that the crow does among  the birds!  And  as
" the corvidae, our parallel in Aves, consist of several dis-
tinct genera and subgenera,  we may expect to see several
varieties of the being Homo !  Is our race,  then, we ask,
but an initial of the grand crowning type ?"
   It would be an  unprofitable task to  enter into any ex-
amination of the quinary  system.  The author of  The
Vestiges, repenting, we hope, of his adhesion to  it, and of
the wild notions of which he has made  it the foundation,
has himself condemned it.  He has actually omitted from
his 4th edition the whole section on the Macleay system ;
and though he persists in saying that it " possesses a basis
in truth," he yet acknowledges that it " has been latterly
abandoned by many who at  one time embraced it, in con-
sequence of its being found to involve so many difficulties."*

  * An admirable exposition of the absurdities of the Quinary
System, from the pen, we believe, of Dr.  Fleming, will be found
in the  Quarterly Review, Vol. xli., p. 318, &c  1S20. 
330                   APPENDIX.
This little incident points out in a striking manner the con-
stitution of our author's mind—a mind without fixed prin-
ciples, and as ready to abandon an old  position as it is
willing to assume a new one.
  We should not do justice  to  our readers were we to
withhold all reference to the system of progressive develop-
ment of Lamarck,* which, though substantially the same as
that of our author, yet greatly surpasses  it, in so far as it
assigns  intelligible causes for those successive changes of
species which he endeavors to establish.  Like our  au-
thor, he grants us a Deity, who  communicated to Nature
the power of forming all bodies from dead matter, by heat,
electricity, and  other  agents.   Small  gelatinous bodies
were produced in water.  Cavities  were  formed.  Subtle
fluids were  absorbed.   Internal  motion  supervened, and
organization  and life followed.   Concretions incapable of
irritability went to form vegetables, and those capable of it
—to form animals.  These rudimentary plants and animals
increased, multiplied by gemmation, and  by the force of
circumstances, assumed  various forms, and evolved various
systems  of organs.   The progressive development now
took place.   The snail, desirous of touching  an object,
made the  effort, and thus  were its feelers formed.  Birds
desirous of perching upon  trees, made the effort, and claws
were generated.  The  author of this system,  which still
lingers on the  Continent, was not only an able naturalist,
but a zealous and highly esteemed  professor in the Great
Museum of Natural History in Paris.  We have seen  and
admired this  handsome  descendant  of the Monads; digni-
fied among his highly organized  compeers, at the very
* Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans vertebres, 1M5, torn, i., p. 384. 
APPENDIX.
331
time when he was elaborating in his latter days the inge-
nious speculation which we have been considering.
   In  his  section  on  the purposes  and general condition
of tJie animated creation,  our author resumes his favorite
topic  of the development of higher types of  humanity
than man—of nobler guests, more exalted in intellect and
morals—who are  to  take  their  place  at  the  perennial
banquet of  their MakerT   If it  be true that intellectual
and immortal man has passed through all the lowest types
of animal life, our author can scarcely doubt the possibility
of his apotheosis.   If " Cuvier and Newton are,"  as he
states it, " the expansion of a clown," and that clown the
expansion of a reptile,  why may we not creep upwards
to the type of the angel ?   The  experience of  the  past,
however,   does   not,  we  fear,  encourage  us to  an-
ticipate  so glorious a  destiny.    Advancing rapidly in
our physical  condition,  and acquiring new powers over
matter,  our  intellectual nature has already reached a type
almost superhuman : But no such amelioration has shown
itself in our moral being ; and it is a problem  yet  to be
solved,  what will be the  social condition  of our globe
when man's  mental  powers have been fully developed,
and all the varieties of his race brought  into that perilous
proximity which will give free scope to  the  action and re-
action of their interests  and passions.   Looking at man
bound under the  restraints  of  law, and professing  to be
bound by  those of  religion ;—studying  him in  the dark
phases of  his avarice and his cruelty, and surveying  him
in the death field,  lifting his murderous arm  against his
fellow, or  marshalled in fierce array against a brother race,
what can we  hope from him when more powerful elements
of his nature are brought into play—when more numerous 
332
APPENDIX.
enemies are drawn within his reach, and more deadly in-
struments  placed  in his hand?   His  descent from the
serpent and the tiger—if that be his genealogy ; and his
participation in all the  animal natures through which he
has passed—if that be his constitution;  will  not justify
high expectations of his future  development; and  though
we repudiate this pedigree  and  that  organization, we ac-
knowledge the bitter  truth,  that'under the highest type
of his civilisation, he  bears the guilt  of deeds of more
savage  cruelty and more ferocious revenge than those of
a carnivorous  age, when the elephant and the  rhinoceros
contended  for  some verdant oasis, and hyaenas  and wolves
for some disputed  prey.
   We confess, however, that we do not anticipate  any
such  deterioration of our  species.   Knowledge may ad-
vance,  and piety may decline ;  religious convulsions  and
bloody revolutions may afflict ourselves or our children ;
but ancient seers,  whose oracles never lied, have told us
that these are but the tornados that are to purify our moral
atmosphere—^the thunder-clouds  that will leave us  under
a  brighter  and a  bluer sky.   That Divine Being  who
moulds matter to his will,  will not leave unrenewed that
portion of his own immaterial nature which he has  given
us ; and in the humble  step of the  schoolmaster, and  the
firmer tread of the missionary,  we  may recognize  those
secondary means by which man  is to recover  the  image
which he has lost.
  If we have been compelled to animadvert with severity
on our author's doctrine of transmutation and development,
we fear that we must sound a still louder note  of censure
in  reviewing his section on the Mental  Constitution of
Animals.   The tendency, if not the purpose of this essay, 
APPENDIX.
333
is to teach the doctrines  of materialism;  and the argu-
ment is so mixed up  with  religious  sentiment,  and  so
overlaid with orthodox  phraseology,  that it is  eminently
calculated  to mislead an  unwary reader.   After charac-
terizing the ordinary opinions respecting the difference be-
tween mind and instinct, as " a strange system of confusion
and error,  which it is imprudent to regard  as essential to
religion, since  candid  investigations of nature  tend  to
show its  untenableness,"  he tells  us,  that  there  is "in
reality nothing to prevent our regarding man as  specially
endowed with an immortal spirit, at the same time that
his ordinary mental manifestations are looked upon as sim-
ple phenomena  resulting from organization, those of the
lower animals being absolutely the  same  in  character."
He maintains that  "the grades  of mind, like the forms of
being, are mere  stages of  development!"—that "mental
action being proved to be under law,  passes at once into
the category of natural things"—that " its old  metaphysi-
cal character vanishes  in  a moment," and  that " the dis-
tinction between  physical  and  moral is annulled."   He
teaches that " the brain is an   electric  apparatus," that
" electricity is almost as  metaphysical as ever mind was sup-
posed to be"—that "  mental action may be  imponderable
and intangible,*' and  that,  if it is electric, it may move at
the rate of  192,000 miles in a second!   He tells  us that
the acts of memory are like images resuscitated on sensi-
tive  paper by  the fumes of mercury,—that " conception
and imagination are only intensities of the state  of brain
in which memory is produced," and that " free will in man
is nothing more than a vicissitude in  the supremacy of the
faculties over  each  other."    These  various positions,
strongly redolent of materialism, and leading to a godless 
334
APPENDIX.
fatalism, will, we trust, find no response  in  the  minds  of
any of our readers.  They form an  appropriate introduc-
tion to the praise of phrenology, which our author desig-
nates  as the " system of mind invented by Gall," and sup-
ported " by induction from a vast number of actual cases."
  We are very unwilling to  meddle with Phrenology, a
subject almost tabooed, and fenced with so many sensibil-
ities,  male and female,  as  to enjoy  a sort of charmed exist-
ence,  which,   like the  polypus,  survives in its individual
parts  after it has been cut to pieces as a whole ; but its ac-
ceptance by  the author of The  Vestiges, and its alliance
with materialism and other heresies,  exhibits it in  its real
character and tendencies, and compels  us to devote a few
sentences to  its discussion.   There is a condition of mind,
the result of education and natural temperament, peculiarly
open  to the reception of novel  and  easily  comprehended
doctrines.   Its  leading feature  is its  impatience  of that
slow  inductive process by which great truths are establish-
ed by one mind, and through which they are demonstrated
to other minds of similar character, though unequal  power ;
and we need  hardly  tell our  readers, that  truths thus es-
tablished, and thus capable of being communicated with
the evidence  of  demonstration, are the only realities  of
science.   The mould in which  Providence has cast the
female mind, does not present to us those rough phases  of
masculine strength which can sound depths, and grasp syl-
logisms, and  cross-examine nature.  With such a confor-
mation, we should have lacked its  softandgentle tempera-
ment—its quick appreciation of character—and that yield-
ing submission to a stronger nature, with which  it  is des-
tined  to blend.  A jury of the Muses could not have ad-
ministered the  impartial justice  of Rhadamanthus; nor 
APPENDIX.'
335
could a quorum of the  Graces have extricated Daedalus
from  his labyrinth.   Hence it is that  doctrines such as
those of Phrenology and Mesmerism, have collected their
followers chiefly from one sex;  and if we have rightly
gathered the rumors  of the  day, the most numerous and
ardent admirers of The Vestiges of Creation, have perused
it in the boudoir and  the  drawing-room.  It would augur
ill for the  rising generation, if the  mothers  of England
were infected with the errors  of Phrenology:  it would
augur worse were they tainted with Materialism.
  Every branch of study that deserves the name of science,'
has its system  of facts and its code of laws; but Phreno-
logy has never yet been  able to  adduce a single indisputa-
ble  fact in favor of its doctrines.  Its object is to discover
a relation  between  certain  intellectual  and moral truths
and certain physical magnitudes  ; and yet it does not direct-
ly compare those truths with these magnitudes, but with
certain other magnitudes, supposed to be similar, and with
which the  truths  in  question  have no  connexion.   In
making such a comparison, we must be sure of the correct-
ness of what we assume to be truths.  The mental or moral
phase must be so prominent and unambiguous, that every
man can recognize its existence;  and  the corresponding
magnitude must be so distinctly marked, that all men can
see  it.  The feature in the brain must not be inferred from
the  feature  in the external cranium, covered, it may  be,
with hair, and flesh, and skin, and possibly exaggerated or
diminished by some external cause.  It must be directly
observed in the healthy brain itself; and if the cerebral de-
velopment corresponds in magnitude with the mental fea-
ture, we become possessed of a single fact, half moral and
half physical.   If this correspondence is invariable  in  all 
336
APPENDIX.
other cases, we then have one phrenological fact  in refer-
ence to one portion of the brain, which, if, as we assume, it
rests on accurate observation, we can compel every sound
mind to believe.   But if there be one distinct and unam-
biguous exception, for which no  reasonable cause can be
assigned, the whole doctrine  must  be at once abandoned.
Were  there a single  satellite in the solar system whose
motion did not  correspond with  the inverse  law of at-
traction,  even the doctrine of  gravity must  be  rejected.
How difficult, then, must it be to determine  phrenological
facts, and in what storehouse can we expect to find them ?
Who could venture to record it  as a scientific truth, that
Voltaire had not, and that Sir Walter Scott  had,  piety  as
an element of his mind; and that the brain  of  the  one
wanted, while that of the other possessed, the correspond-
ing elevation ?   Who  can testify to us, as a  fact, that a
murderer possesses a  truly  murderous  disposition, or a
thief a truly thievish one?  It is only insulated  acts, and
these generally not the  result of habit, but of momentary
impulse, of which man ever  takes cognizance.  It is God
alone  that can pronounce upon the real  condition of the
heart and soul, out of which are the issues of life.  A true
phrenological fact, therefore, which we can force a sound
mind to believe, must involve, in one of its aspects, a spe-
cies of knowledge which it  is not in the power of man,
and still less  within his province, to attain;  and in the
other,  a physical fact, which can be seen only in  the brain
itself, and which cannot be inferred from any external sign.
For such facts, anxious as we have been to find them, we
have long sought in vain.  We have been compelled, there-
fore, to regard  Phrenology as  the twin-sister of Animal 
APPENDIX.
337
 Magnetism ;  and hanging Phreno-mesmerism as a  mill-
 stone round their necks, we willingly cast them into the sea.
   Entertaining the views which we have  now  expressed
 respecting the nature and tendency of the work before us,
 we regard its publication not only as calculated to sap the
 foundations of religion and morality, but as eminently inju-
 rious to the progress of science.  Although, in Scotland,
 there is not a single  clergyman either in the  establish-
 ment, or the Free Church, or any of the Dissenting bodies,
 who cherishes the slightest hostility to any branch of sci-
 ence, or would  in any way obstruct its  cultivation, yet
 England has recently exhibited in one of its Universities,
 and in several of its clergy, a decided aversion to geologi-
 cal truth, and a  pious horror at its dissemination.   The
 work before us  cannot fail to strengthen such prejudices
 wherever they had previously existed, and to create them
 in minds to which they would never otherwise have found
 admission.  When we find astronomical truths  made the
 basis of dangerous speculations, and every branch of natu-
 ral history  and  physiology summoned  to  the  support  of
 materialism, it is scarcely  a  matter of  surprise, that our
 most liberal and best informed divines should question the
 value of knowledge that admits of such ingenious, and, we
 fear, successful  misapplication.  The popularity  of The
 Vestiges of Creation,  and its wide circulation among the
 highest  classes of society in  England, cannot be overlook-
 ed by the  religious community.  Its reception indicates
the prevalence of an unhealthy  system  of education, and
 more than justifies the fears of those who regard education
 without religion as one of  the greatest evils  which can be
inflicted upon society.   It  becomes the duty, therefore, of
 all cultivators of science, but especially of geologists and
                          16 
338
APPENDIX.
 naturalists, to denounce and expose that system of scienti-
 fic error which is now maintained by the enemies of their
 faith.  Nor is it less the duty of the Church and the State
 to guard our educational institutions—our schools, as well
 as our universities—against the admission of teachers who,
 in connexion with the grand  truths of science—the lan-
 guage in which God addresses himself to the reason of his
 creatures—may instil those fatal lessons  of materialism
 and  natural law, which expel the Almighty from  the  uni-
 verse he has made, and silence the articulate eloquence of
 his works.
   The connexion which exists between the great truths
 of geology and natural history, and the evidences of reveal-
 ed religion,  and the  prevalence  of unsound opinions on
 these subjects, have pointed out  the necessity of  giving
 such an education to ministers of the Gospel, as will ena-
 ble them to understand and expose such  errors.  We ob-
 serve in the proceedings of the General  Assembly  of the
 Free Church of Scotland, that it is in their contemplation
 to establish a chair in connexion  with their Theological
 College, the object of which is to give such  a complete
 course of geology and natural history, that the student will
 find  himself armed at all points not only in combating the
new and infidel arguments which modern science has been
 arraying against religion, but in expounding those  nume-
rous portions of Scripture which are peculiarly associated
 with natural phenomena, and with the climatology and na-
tural  history of the Holy Land.   A  clergyman thus fur-
nished with the stores of natural science, in its practical as
 well as its theoretical bearings, will become an useful auxi-
liary to the various classes of his flock with whom he daily
 converses,  and the country gentleman, as well as the far- 
APPENDIX.
339
 mer, the miner, and  the  fisherman,  may draw  new sup-
 plies  of secular  and even  professional  knowledge,  from
 him whom God has made their spiritual instructor.  Nor
 will such an education  be less useful to the  missionary,
 whether his lot is to be cast among a barbarous or a civil-
 ized  people.  His  arguments,  drawn  from science, will
 command respect  amid  an instructed though irreligious
 community;  while  his  knowledge of the useful arts,  as
 well  as of natural  phenomena, will  open  in  the savage
 mind  an easier  path for  the  entrance of revealed truth.
 Nor will his own countrymen  be without an interest in the
 career of such an intelligent instructor.   His increased re-
 spectability and success among his people will communi-
 cate a new zeal to the pious body which he  represents ;
 while  his general scientific  researches, and his investiga-
 tions of the minerals, mines, and products of  the country
 which he visits, will secure the favorable co-operation  of
 classes not religious, and  may eventually draw their atten-
 tion to the higher objects of missionary enterprise.*
   At no preceding period of our history was it more ne-
 cessary  than it is at present to maintain the connexion  of
 religious  with scientific  truth.  Between such  elements
 there  can be no antagonism.   That truth ceases to be re-
 ligious which stands opposed to a truth in nature, whether
  * We understand that, at the  request of several clergymen and
 other persons  in Aberdeen, our most distinguished  philosophical
 naturalist, the Rev. Dr. Fleming, of the University there, who has
so often stood forward as the champion of  Revelation against per-
 verted Science, has been preparing a short course  of Lectures  on
 the subjects above referred to, which we trust he will afterwards
publish.  We  earnestly hope that the Free Church will lose  no
time in  establishing a Chair for the  same  purpose,  in connexion
with their Theological College in Edinburgh. 
340
APPENDIX.
it be a phenomenon which we observe, or a result which
we prove.   Religious truth, thus insulated and  pure,  will
yet be, as it ever ought  to have been, the controlling prin-
ciple of the political, as well as  of the moral world—the
central sun to which reason and conscience must neces-
sarily gravitate.  The star of science  can shine but in its
reflected light.   The noblest lyre is struck in vain unless
it  vibrates to immortal  strains.   Even  social life,  in its
brightest phases, demands the balm and the stimulus of
things eternal.   Aiming  at still higher  ends,  religious
truth  has  begun to irradiate the judicial and the legisla-
tive mind—traversing,  with electric  life, the wire-wove
institutions of man—rousing in its transit the northern  serf
and the southern slave—guarding the poor man's- heritage,
and staying the strong  man's arm—clinging to the great
social questions now agitating the world—and destined to
keep  its hold till our common  nature shall achieve  and
enjoy its common rights.
   While reflecting on the opinions so openly avowed,  and
so  insidiously taught in the work before us, and recollect-
ing the  perplexities  which beset the young inquirer when
questions associated with  omnipotence of power, infinity
of space, and eternity of time, are submitted to the scrutiny
of his reason, we hav^ felt anxious to discover that pecu-
liar character of mind, and that train of thought,  under the
influence of which one  man has been left in skepticism,
and another conducted to truth.   When the idea of an un-
created  and underived spirit first fixes itself in  the mind,
and becomes the origin of speculations respecting our re-
sponsibilities and destiny, the attributes of omnipotence
and omniscience, the necessary postulates in our reason-
ing, lead us forward  to the axiomatic truths of fore-know- 
APPENDIX.         .          341
ledge and  predestination,  which so  generally  entrench
themselves in the ardent mind.   Thus drawn into a track
which it cannot quit, and  spell-bound amid great truths
which it cannot fathom, the mind shrinks from a  pursuit
in which no resting-place can  be found.   On one  side  it
descries  Nature and Chance  seated on their sackcloth
throne—on  the  other,  the  grisly spectre  of Fatalism
moulding man's lot,  and  measuring the thread of his exist-
ence.  From this dilemma, the  inquirer can only escape
by retracing his steps,  and acknowledging  the humbling
fact, that he has been  occupied with ideas beyond his
grasp, and  seeking  in vain  that  spiritual  thread, more to
be coveted than that of Ariadne,  which could alone extri-
cate him from his labyrinth.  The  cardinal error which
this mode of inquiry involves, is that of viewing the Crea-
tor  chiefly in reference  to the universe of  matter, and dis-
sociated, as it were, from the  living beings he has made.
The author of The  Vestiges, as we have  seen, regards it
as lowering God, and detracting from his foresight, to assi-
milate his  mode of acting to  " that of the ordinary pro-
ceedings of mankind."  But the very  opposite opinion ap-
pears to us to be true.   The only sure mode of  acquiring
sound ideas of our relation  to the Creator  is to begin with
the study of ourselves,  and to view God  as a Father and
Friend, dealing with us in precisely the  same  way as
we  would deal with  others  over whom  we  exercise
authority.  Conscience, that infallible Mentor " that stick-
eth closer than a brother," tells us that we are responsible
beings ; and in the domestic, as well as the social circle,
we speedily feel the discipline and learn the lesson of re-
wards and punishments. The law written  in man's heart
points to the past  as  pregnant with  events which  may 
342
APPENDIX.
affect the future ; and in the earnestness of his aspirations,
and the activity of  his  search, he  is  gradually led to the
mysterious history of his race.   He learns, that on tables
of stone have  been engraven the same law  to which his
heart responded ;—that when all were dead, one  died for
all; and in the contemplation of the great sacrifice, he ob-
tains a solution of the interesting problem of his individual
destiny.   The  Sacred  Record which  is now his guide,
speaks to him of fore-knowledge and predestination, while,
in perfect consistency, it records the  ministration of de-
scending spirits, and the holier communings of God  with
man.   The Divine decrees no longer perplex him.  They
transcend, indeed,  his Reason—but that Reason, the faith-
ful interpreter of Conscience, does not falter  in proclaim-
ing the Freedom of his  Will, and the Responsibility of his
Actions.

  In the brief analysis  we have given of Geological  His-
tory, it was our chief object to controvert the  theory of de-
velopment as deduced  from the order of succession in
which animal and vegetable remains are found in strata of
different ages; and in  the performance of such a task it
was impossible to  give  our readers any satisfactory view
of the actual  progress of creation.  Without such  a view,
however,  our duty  would be ill  discharged;  and  though
the task, if rightly performed, would require a volume, we
may yet within our limited space trace with  a rapid  pen
that mysterious chronicle which records the physical his-
tory of the earth.
  It is not within our province to  inquire by what process,
and in what  condition  the Almighty brought  matter  into
existence—what the space was which it occupied, or what 
APPENDIX.
343
 the forms were which it assumed.  Of such things we
 know nothing.  In the depths of primeval time, the globe
 we inhabit may have enjoyed a planetary existence, wheel-
 ing along its ethereal  railway without a breathing passen-
 ger to count its periods, and without a living  plant  to
 measure the day by its opening  and closing blossoms, or
 to  mark the rolling seasons by the yearly increments of its
 stem.   Or it may  have been the theatre  on which vast
 cycles of animal and vegetable  life  have been run—now
 its  birth-place, and now its grave.   But we have no data to
 guide us in our conjectures, and  even imagination fails us
 if we call  it to our aid.  Whatever may have been, had
 ceased  to be at the commencement of our history, when
 the  primary rocks, forming  the molten nucleus of the
 globe, were  first exposed to the action of the  elements.
 In these primary rocks, consisting of granite, basalt, green
 stone  and  porphyry, not a trace of animal or vegetable re-
 mains is to be found, and hence we learn that there was a
 time when neither plants nor animals existed on our globe.
 That these primary rocks have  been melted by heat, and
 have in many places been elevated into hills, and ejected
 in various ways by internal forces, are facts now admitted
 by  every geologist.   When the rugged surface of the earth,
 thus formed, was exposed to the action of the elements,
now broken into fragments, by mechanical forces, now abrad-
ed by the descent of these fragments, the detritus would be
washed down into the bottom of the sea, and the strata thus
deposited, when indurated  by the internal heat of the earth,
would form the derivative or metamorphic strata of geolo-'
gists,  consisting of beds  of gneiss,  and various kinds of
crystalline  slates, containing hornblende, mica, and clay.
These strata are many  miles thick, and their accumulation 
344
APPENDIX.
must have been the work of many ages.  In certain beds
of gneiss, and in many of the slate strata, we find the first
traces of vegetable life.   Algae and fuci,  probably the ear-
liest food of animals, were found prepared  for their use.
In the strata nearest to these we find a  few shells  of the
genus producta, though it is highly probable that medusae
and other animals of a  fleshy nature may have existed  at
the same time.                                >.
  In the grauwacke or transition series, consisting of con-
glomerate rocks and slaty sandstones and limestones, nu-
merous  remains of plants and animals occur.  The conglo-
merate rocks exhibited in their rounded pebbles the action
of water in rapid motion, and the slates and shales were ob-
viously  deposited in the state of mud or sand at the bottom
of the sea.   Fishes are the only vertebrated animals which
these rocks contain.   Many genera of  the molluscs, some
of which are extinct, and others  still exist, also occur.   In
the division of articulata,  we have numerous species  of
trilobites, most of which are extinct, and among the Radi-
ata,  the Crinoidea,  or  lily-shaped animals of the  fossil
corallines, are the most interesting.   The plants in the in-
ferior rocks of this  series are chiefly  marine  ; but in the
superincumbent  beds of coal, we find the most  splendid
assemblage of plants with forms and  characters now un-
known, and along with these, beds of rich iron ore, with
lime in  its neighborhood, to give its aid  in separating the
metal from its ore.
  In the next  cycle of this strange history, we find  nume-
rous beds of rock-salt,  and numerous  salt springs,  occur-
ring for the  first  time.   Fossils  belonging  to  the four
great divisions of the animal kingdom present themselves
during  this period  ; but  those  of the  terrestrial  mam- 
APPENDIX.                   345
malia  are  few and  insignificant, being limited  to two or
three marsupial animals allied to the opossums.  The aris-
tocrats of the land, as well as the sea, were now  the gigan-
tic  Saurian reptiles, some restricted  to the ocean, others
swarming  on  the  margin  of  lakes  and rivers ;—some
enjoying  the rank luxuriance of tropical jungles,  while
others mounted also into the air like the fiend of the poet—

      " That swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

  In this age of reptile ascendency, the species were  pe-
culiarly fitted for the occupancy of  a globe, while prepar-
ing, by the tumult of the elements, for a higher order of
beings.  Their right of possession was not disputed either
by the carnivorous or the lacustrine mammalia.  The Sau-
rians  reigned alone  in lizard majesty, the types  of new
forms of being, to which there had been no approximation,
and which were destined to disappear  amid the  future
revolutions of our globe.   Of  these  reptiles, one  of the
most remarkable is the Ichthyosaurus, or fish lizard.  Ac-
cording to Professor Owen, it must have  presented  the
general external figure of a huge predatory abdominal fish,
with a larger tail  and smaller  caudal fin  than usual, and
covered with a smooth or  finely wrinkled  skin.  It had
four broad feet or paddles, the posterior pair being of  the
same size as  the  anterior pair ; and Professor  Owen  is
of opinion that the anterior paddles might be subservient to
locomotion, not only in the  water  but on land, and that
when applied to the  resisting soil, they might re-act with
due force upon the trunk.  Supposing the animal to have
been oviparous, he conceives that, like  the crocodile, it
might have come on shore to sleep, or to deposit its eggs.
                           17 
346
APPENDIX.
 In the Ichthyosaurus platyodon, whose length must have ex-
 ceeded thirty feet, the cavity for the eyeball is no less than
fourteen inches in its larger diameter, and on the front of
 this  cavity  there   are  seventeen  sclerotic  plates  ranged
 round a certain aperture, like  the scales of an artichoke.*
   One of the most singular facts in the  history of these
 reptiles, is the existence  of the half-digested remains of
 the fishes  and  reptiles which  they had  devoured;  and
 throughout the strata in which their skeletons are  entombed,
 Dr. Buckland has discovered their petrified faeces, often in
 such a perfect state as  to indicate, not merely the  food of
 the animal, but even the dimensions, form and structure of
 its stomach, and  intestinal canal.   These  faecal remains
 resemble  oblong  pebbles,  about 3  inches long and 1^ in

   * Professor Owen, in his report on British Fossil Reptiles, divides
 the whole class of reptiles into nine orders,—1. Enaliosauria, in-
 cluding the genera Plesiosaurus, with 16 British species ; Ichthyo-
 saurus, with 10 species; and Pliosaurus, with 2 species  2. Cro-
 codilia, including the genera Teleosaurus, 3  species; the Cetio-
 saurus, 4 species ; the Steneosaurus, 1 species ; the Streptosplon-
 dylus, 2  species ; and the  Suchosaurus, Crocodilus, Gcniopholis,
 Poikilopleuron,  each  1  species.  3.  Diivosauria,  with 3 genera.
 Megalosaurus, Thylceosaurus, and Iguanodon, each 1 species. 4,
 LacertiliA, including 8 genera, Palceosaurus and Lacerta, each 2
 species ; Mosasaurus, Leiodon,  Raphiosaurus,  Rhynchosaurus,
 Thecodontosaurus, and Cladiodon, each  1  species.   5. Pteso-
 sauria, with one genus, the  Pterodaclylus, 2 species.  6. Saurxa
 incert^e sedis, including 2 genera, Polyptichodon and Rysosteus,
 each with 1 species.   7.  Chelonia, including  G  genera, Testudo,
 Tretosternon,  Trianyx, each 1 species ; Emys  and  Platemys,
 each 3 species ; and Chelone, 10 species.  8. Ophidia, with 1 ge-
 nus, Pulceophis, 1 species.   9. Batrachia,  with 1 genus, Laby-
 rinthodon, 5 species.  See Brit.  Assoc. Rep., 1837, p. 126 ; and
 1841, p. 189, &c. 
APPENDIX.
347
 average diameter.  Some of them exhibit the- gigantic
 calibre of the thirty feet reptile, while others are flat and
 amorphous, either from their  original  fluid state or  from
 superincumbent  pressure.  They  have commonly  three
 coils, and contain the scales and undecomposed teeth, and
 bones of the fishes which had been devoured.
   Not less  wonderful in its character and  structure is the
 Plesiosaurus, another  genus  of the Enaliosaurian order,
 discovered in 1823, and established by Sir Henry de  la
 Beche and Mr.  Conybeare.   Cuvier has pronounced it to
 be the most monstrous of all  the inhabitants of a former
 world, uniting the teeth of a crocodile  to the  head of the
 lizard, having a  neck of enormous length, equal to the
 body and tail together, with  thirty-five vertebrae, resem-
 bling the body of a serpent; and combining with the trunk
 and tail of an ordinary quadruped the ribs of a chameleon
 and the body of  a whale.  It  has  four paddles,  like the
 Ichthyosaurus, and seems to have lived  in shoal water,
 occasionally visiting the  shore.   Cuvier   supposes  it  to
 have had  the power of  changing the  color  of its skin ;
 and hence it may have been a sort of submarine chameleon.
   The great animal of Maestricht, as it  was called, the
 gigantic Mosasaurus, was discovered  near  that city  in
 1780.   It was a  marine reptile, allied to the Monitors  or
 lizards, and  yet it vastly exceeds,  in its dimensions,  that
 race of beings, of which there  is not existing, at this  pre-
 sent moment, a single species that could live in  the  sea.
 It has 133 vertebrae, and instead of legs, four paddles like
 the whale.
   But of all the fossil animals the  Pterosaurians, or flying
lizards, are the most extraordinary.  Externally, they are
like  our  bats and vampires, with the head and neck  of a 
348
APPENDIX.
bird, the  wings of the bat, and a body and tail approximat-
ing to those of quadrupeds.   Their  eyes were of  enor-
mous size, probably  to enable  them  to fly  in  the dark;
their  wings  had  projecting claws  by which they might
creep or climb, andthey seem also  to have had the power
of swimming like the vampire bat of Benin.
   In  the train of these  extraordinary beings  follow the
Megalosaurus and the  Iguanodon—the first  an enormous
gigantic reptile about 40 or 50 feet  long,  and uniting the
structures of the crocodile and monitor, and  the second a
still more gigantic lizard, whose length has been computed
to be  70 feet, the  length of its  body 52£ feet, and  the cir-
cumference of its body 14£ feet! although the living iguana,
to which it is allied, is never found  of a  greater size than
five feet.
   Such were the denizens of the earth in that  early age
which preceded  the formation of  the  secondary strata.
Without natural descent,  they came  fresh from the hand of
their  Maker, adapted by his infinite  wisdom to inhabit the
muddy lakes and  estuaries of  a  globe  not  yet fitted for
other  forms of life ; and when the earth was ready for the
reception of quadrupeds,  the gigantic  lizards disappeared,
and the  Almighty again  displayed his creative  power in
races  of living beings  not  less extraordinary than those
which had perished.  The most interesting examples of
this new creation are the gigantic  mammalia called the
Dinotherium  and  the  Megatherium.  The first of these
animals was the largest of the terrestrial mammalia.  The
length of the largest  species has been  computed to be 18
feet.  The form of its shoulder-blade, resembling that of a
mole, indicates a peculiar adaptation of the foreleg to the
operation of digging, and  this indication is corroborated by 
APPENDIX.
349
 the structure of the lower jaw, which is four feet long, and
 carries at its  extremity two enormous tusks,  which, com-
 bining the functions of the pickaxe and the saw, Dr. Buck-
 land regards as instruments for  raking  and grubbing up
 the roots of large aquatic vegetables.
   In its  character  of a huge,  herbivorous,  and aquatic
 quadruped, Dr.  Buckland  recognizes adaptations to the
 lacustrine condition of the earth during the tertiary periods
 to which the existence of such animals has been confined.
 No less interesting is the Megatherium—a gigantic animal,
 surpassing in bulk the largest rhinoceros, and  approximat-
 ing to the modern sloth, armadillo or chlamyphorus ; the
 first residing  upon trees, and the two last burrowing for
 food  and shelter in the  sand.   It  is cased in a coat of
 armor.  Its haunches  are about  five feet  wide, its body
 twelve feet long and  eight  high, its feet a yard long, and
 its  huge  tail is clad in  armor.   " His entire  frame," as
 Dr. Buckland states, " was  an apparatus of colossal me-
 chanism ; strong, and ponderous in proportion  as his work
 was heavy, and calculated to be the  vehicle of life and en-
joyment  to a  gigantic race  of quadrupeds."   Both these
 extraordinary animals, the dinotherium and the megatherium,
 along with many others of the same periods, exist only in
 their fossil remains, exhibiting the infinite skill and variety
 of contrivance which distinguish all the works of creation.
 Did our limits permit it, we  should willingly pursue  these
 enticing details, and  describe the various other remains of
 carnivorous animals which swarmed in the  temperate and
tropical regions of the globe in the cycle which immediate-
ly preceded our own.   These animals gradually approach-
ed to a resemblance with those  which  at  present  exist,
though several of them, like  more ancient  races, are now 
350
APPENDIX.
extinct.  The lion,  the tiger,  and  the  hyaena,  ranged
through our woods and jungles ;  gigantic birds of " fearful
magnitude," and wingless, stalked over our plains, and still
more  gigantic  tortoises, equalling the elephant in  size,
crawled  upon our shores.   The Dinornis*  a bird  one-
third larger than the African ostrich, has been  resuscitated,
by Professor Owen, from bones collected by the Rev. Mr.
Williams from the  alluvial  mud in  Poverty Bay,  New
Zealand; and there  is some  reason to believe that it may
have  existed  in  our own day,  though the footprints  of
wingless birds, of the same size  and  character, have  been
found upon the  new  red sandstone of Connecticut and
Massachusetts.   No less remarkable  is the colossal fossil
Tortoise\ of the Sivalick Hills, recently discovered by Dr.
Falconer and Captain Cautley, in strata supposed to be of
the newer tertiary period.   This enormous animal  must
have been  eighteen  feet long, and  upwards of  seven feet
high—a fit representative  of the mythological  tortoise
which,  according to the Indian  cosmogony, supported the
globe.
  In the formations  which immediately precede the era of
man,  various  animals,  similar to those of our own  age,
have been  discovered.   Huge waves seem to have swept
over the earth, moulding and grooving its  surface, trans-
porting huge masses of gravel and clay, and carrying along
with them the enormous  boulders which stood in  their
way.   Gigantic blocks  of granite, carried either by floods,
or icebergs, or glaciers,  were  swept from their native beds ;

  * From Scivos, fearfully great, and opvis, a bird.  A leg bone of
this bird is 2 feet 4J inches, and a thigh bone 4 inches long, and 7J
in circumference.
  t The Colossochelis Atlas of Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley. 
APPENDIX.                   351
and there is reason to believe that it was at this period that
sea-beaches were  raised, or lakes emptied, by those  sub-
terranean forces which have produced such powerful effects
in different parts of the earth.
   In the diluvian matter thus scattered over the globe, the
bones of extinct and living species are found in fragments,
along with portions of fresh-water  shells  and vegetable
remains ; but  neither in these, nor  in  the more  ancient
cemeteries of primeval times, is the least vestige of man to
be found.  No  tablets  of bronze, nor obelisks of granite,
record his deeds—no work of  human skill proves that he
Jived—no fragment  of his bones indicates that  he died.
The earth was  trodden by more gigantic footsteps than his,
and mightier carcases strewed the battle-field  of the  car-
nivorous age.   The chronicles  of the primeval world  pre-
sent us with no other spoils but the skeletons of its irra-
tional denizens, and the  plants and forests which  fed and
sheltered them.  Governed by a ferocious population, its
political  economy  must have presented singular   phases.
When  instinct  drew  up  the statute-book, and law  and
equity  were its oracular responses, justice must have been
quickly,  and impartially and cheaply administered.  When
there was no gold  to bribe, and no conscience to give in
exchange for office, a four-footed Premier must have been
tolerably just, if his nature prevented him from being wise ;
and when the amount of killed  and  wounded in battle de-
pended  on what an enemy could swallow and carry off,
a Commander-in-chief on all-fours could not have won his
baton  by unnecessary  bloodshed.   The   government of
brutes must have been stable before  man disturbed it—its
police active, and its executioners merciful.  Dumb nature
was never stretched on the rack nor broken on the wheel. 
352
APPENDIX.
 It was never burnt by  faggots—nor tortured by poison—
 nor  immured in dungeons—nor suffocated  in caverns.
 Reason had  not then  ennobled  animal life—and  animal
 life was not then degraded by cruelty.
   After the reign of Instinct had terminated, that of Rea-
 son  began.  When Inorganic Nature  was  prepared for
 its reception, Organic life was  ready  to possess it.   No
 sooner had  the sea and the dry  land taken their allotted
 place, than God created the  green herb for the support of
 animals, and in due time all nature moved with the various
 forms of living things.   Man was created in God's image,
 and woman  was given  as his helpmate.  The dust of the
 earth was his substance, and  his  living  soul was the breath
of the Almighty.  Tempted to disobey,  he sinned and fell.
 His  progeny became  more  wicked than  himself, and  a
mighty deluge was  sent to destroy it.   The waters  rose
above the highest mountains, cutting off man and beast;  and
when their commission of death was executed, they returned
in quiet to their native  fountains.  The solid  pavement of
the globe was neither upheaved nor  rent by their receding
tide, nor  were the cemeteries  of the primeval dead broken
up by their reflux.   The myriads of living beings, the cat-
tle, and the beast, and the  fowl, and every creeping thing
that perished in the flood, were entombed in the bottom of
the ocean, along with the thousands  of  human beings that
suffered the  penalty of their crimes.  Since that catastro-
phe, 4000 years have passed away ; earthquakes and volca-
noes, floods  and tempests have changed the face of nature,
and plants and animals  of every  age have been deposited
at the bottom of the sea.   The  superincumbent pressure
of its waters, and the central  heat beneath,  may have al-
ready prepared these submarine deposits for the surface of 
APPENDIX.                   353
 new continents ;  and in our own, or in some future cycle,
 they may yet give up their dead, and exhibit to some inquir-
 ing pilgrim the history of his race written on stone.   How
 interesting would be the  disinterment of the antediluvian
 victims !   How instructive to study the ethnology of the
globe in races buried and embalmed!  If the siliceous cas-
 kets of imprisoned animalcules have mocked the  destruc-
tive agency of time, the warrior may yet be  found in his
 shroud of mail; and if the tender leaves and twigs of plants
have left their impress on the solid slab, the Hierarch may
yet be resuscitated with his surplice and his crosier, and
the Monarch may reappear with his sceptre and his crown. 
 
 
 
 
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