BOOK X.
THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
PALÆTIOLOGY.
Τὴν μὲν οὖν τοιαύτην Αἰτιολογίαν ἧττον ἄν τις ἀποδέξαιτο· μᾶλλον δ᾽ ἀπὸ τῶν φανερωτέρων καὶ τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν τρόπον τινὰ ὁρωμένων ἀναπτέον τὸν λόγον. Καὶ γὰρ κατακλυσμοὶ, καὶ σεισμοὶ, καὶ ἀναφυσήματα, καὶ ἀνοιδήσεις τῆς ὑφάλου γῆς, μετεωρίζουσι καὶ τὴν θάλατταν· αἱ δὲ συνιζήσεις ταπεινοῦσιν αὐτήν.
Strabo, Geogr. 1. p. 54.
It is therefore, not so much what these forms of the earth actually are, as what they are continually becoming, that we have to observe; nor is it possible thus to observe them without an instinctive reference to the first state out of which they have been brought.... Yet to such questions continually suggesting themselves, it is never possible to give a complete answer. For a certain distance, the past work of existing forces can be traced; but then gradually the mist gathers, and the footsteps of more gigantic agencies are traceable in the darkness; and still as we endeavour to penetrate further and further into departed time, the thunder of the Almighty power sounds louder and louder, and the clouds gather broader and more fearfully, until at last the Sinai of the world is seen altogether upon a smoke, and the fence of its foot is reached, where none can break through.
Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. iv. p. 143.
BOOK X.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PALÆTIOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
Of Palætiological Sciences in General.
1. I HAVE already stated in the History of the Sciences[1], that the class of Sciences which I designate as Palætiological are those in which the object is to ascend from the present state of things to a more ancient condition, from which the present is derived by intelligible causes. As conspicuous examples of this class we may take Geology, Glossology or Comparative Philology, and Comparative Archæology. These provinces of knowledge might perhaps be intelligibly described as Histories; the History of the Earth,—the History of Languages,—the History of Arts. But these phrases would not fully describe the sciences we have in view; for the object to which we now suppose their investigations to be directed is, not merely to ascertain what the series of events has been, as in the common forms of History, but also how it has been brought about. These sciences are to treat of causes as well as of effects. Such researches might be termed Philosophical History; or, in order to mark more distinctly that the causes of events are the leading object of attention, Ætiological History. But since [258] it will be more convenient to describe this class of sciences by a single appellation, I have taken the liberty of proposing to call them[2] the Palætiological Sciences.
[1] B. xviii. Introd.
[2] A philological writer, in a very interesting work (Mr. Donaldson, in his New Cratylus, p. 12), expresses his dislike of this word, and suggests that I must mean palæ-ætiological. I think the word is more likely to obtain currency in the more compact and euphonious form in which I have used it. It has been adopted by Mr. Winning, in his Manual of Comparative Philology, and more recently, by other writers.
While Palæontology describes the beings which have lived in former ages without investigating their causes, and Ætiology treats of causes without distinguishing historical from mechanical causation; Palætiology is a combination of the two sciences; exploring, by means of the second, the phenomena presented by the first. The portions of knowledge which I include in this term are palæontological ætiological sciences.
2. All these sciences are connected by this bond;—that they all endeavour to ascend to a past state, by considering what is the present state of things, and what are the causes of change. Geology examines the existing appearance of the materials which form the earth, infers from them previous conditions, and speculates concerning the forces by which one condition has been made to succeed another. Another science, cultivated with great zeal and success in modern times, compares the languages of different countries and nations, and by an examination of their materials and structure, endeavours to determine their descent from one another: this science has been termed Comparative Philology, or Ethnography; and by the French, Linguistique, a word which we might imitate in order to have a single name for the science, but the Greek derivative Glossology appears to be more convenient in its form. The progress of the Arts (Architecture and the like);—how one stage of the culture produced another; and how far we can trace their maturest and most complete condition to their earliest form in various nations;—are problems of great interest belonging to another subject, which we may for the present term [259] Comparative Archæology. I have already noticed, in the History[3] how the researches into the origin of natural objects, and those relating to works of art, pass by slight gradations into each other; how the examination of the changes which have affected an ancient temple or fortress, harbour or river, may concern alike the geologist and the antiquary. Cuvier’s assertion that the geologist is an antiquary of a new order, is perfectly correct, for both are palætiologists.
[3] B. xviii. Introd.
3. We are very far from having exhausted, by this enumeration, the class of sciences which are thus connected. We may easily point out many other subjects of speculation of the same kind. As we may look back towards the first condition of our planet, we may in like manner turn our thoughts towards the first condition of the solar system, and try whether we can discern any traces of an order of things antecedent to that which is now established; and if we find, as some great mathematicians have conceived, indications of an earlier state in which the planets were not yet gathered into their present forms, we have, in the pursuit of this train of research, a palætiological portion of Astronomy. Again, as we may inquire how languages, and how man, have been diffused over the earth’s surface from place to place, we may make the like inquiry with regard to the races of plants and animals, founding our inferences upon the existing geographical distribution of the animal and vegetable kingdoms: and thus the Geography of Plants and of Animals also becomes a portion of Palætiology. Again, as we can in some measure trace the progress of Arts from nation to nation and from age to age, we can also pursue a similar investigation with respect to the progress of Mythology, of Poetry, of Government, of Law. Thus the philosophical history of the human race, viewed with reference to these subjects, if it can give rise to knowledge so exact as to be properly called Science, will supply Sciences belonging to the class I am now to consider. [260]
4. It is not an arbitrary and useless proceeding to construct such a Class of Sciences. For wide and various as their subjects are, it will be found that they have all certain principles, maxims, and rules of procedure in common; and thus may reflect light upon each other by being treated of together. Indeed it will, I trust, appear, that we may by such a juxtaposition of different speculations, obtain most salutary lessons. And questions, which, when viewed as they first present themselves under the aspect of a special science, disturb and alarm men’s minds, may perhaps be contemplated more calmly, as well as more clearly, when they are considered as general problems of palætiology.
5. It will at once occur to the reader that, if we include in the circuit of our classification such subjects as have been mentioned,—politics and law, mythology and poetry,—we are travelling very far beyond the material sciences within whose limits we at the outset proposed to confine our discussion of principles. But we shall remain faithful to our original plan; and for that purpose shall confine ourselves, in this work, to those palætiological sciences which deal with material things. It is true, that the general principles and maxims which regulate these sciences apply also to investigations of a parallel kind respecting the products which result from man’s imaginative and social endowments. But although there may be a similarity in the general form of such portions of knowledge, their materials are so different from those with which we have been hitherto dealing, that we cannot hope to take them into our present account with any profit. Language, Government, Law, Poetry, Art, embrace a number of peculiar Fundamental Ideas, hitherto not touched upon in the disquisitions in which we have been engaged; and most of them involved in far greater perplexity and ambiguity, the subject of controversies far more vehement, than the Ideas we have hitherto been examining. We must therefore avoid resting any part of our philosophy upon sciences, or supposed sciences, which treat of such subjects. To attend to this caution, [261] is the only way in which we can secure the advantage we proposed to ourselves at the outset, of taking, as the basis of our speculations, none but systems of undisputed truths, clearly understood and expressed[4]. We have already said that we must, knowingly and voluntarily, resign that livelier and warmer interest which doctrines on subjects of Polity or Art possess, and content ourselves with the cold truths of the material sciences, in order that we may avoid having the very foundations of our philosophy involved in controversy, doubt, and obscurity.
6. We may remark, however, that the necessity of rejecting from our survey a large portion of the researches which the general notion of Palætiology includes, suggests one consideration which adds to the interest of our task. We began our inquiry with the trust that any sound views which we should be able to obtain respecting the nature of Truth in the physical sciences, and the mode of discovering it, must also tend to throw light upon the nature and prospects of knowledge of all other kinds;—must be useful to us in moral, political, and philological researches. We stated this as a confident anticipation; and the evidence of the justice of our belief already begins to appear. We have seen, in the last Book, that biology leads us to psychology, if we choose to follow the path; and thus the passage from the material to the immaterial has already unfolded itself at one point; and we now perceive that there are several large provinces of speculation which concern subjects belonging to man’s immaterial nature, and which are governed by the same laws as sciences altogether physical. It is not our business here to dwell on the prospects which our philosophy thus opens to our contemplation; but we may allow ourselves, in this last stage of our pilgrimage among the foundations of the physical sciences, to be cheered and animated by the ray [262] that thus beams upon us, however dimly, from a higher and brighter region.
But in our reasonings and examples we shall mainly confine ourselves to the physical sciences; and for the most part to Geology, which in the History I have put forwards as the best representative of the Palætiological Sciences.
CHAPTER II.
Of the Three Members of a Palætiological Science.
1. Divisions of such Sciences.—In each of the Sciences of this class we consider some particular order of phenomena now existing:—from our knowledge of the causes of change among such phenomena, we endeavour to infer the causes which have made this order of things what it is:—we ascend in this manner to some previous stage of such phenomena;—and from that, by a similar course of inference, to a still earlier stage, and to its causes. Hence it will be seen that each such science will consist of two parts,—the knowledge of the Phenomena, and the knowledge of their Causes. And such a division is, in fact, generally recognized in such sciences: thus we have History, and the Philosophy of History; we have Comparison of Languages, and the Theories of the Origin and Progress of Language; we have Descriptive Geology, and Theoretical or Physical Geology. In all these cases, the relation between the two parts in these several provinces of knowledge is nearly the same; and it may, on some occasions at least, be useful to express the distinction in a uniform or general manner. The investigation of Causes has been termed Ætiology by philosophical writers, and this term we may use, in contradistinction to the mere Phenomenology of each such department of knowledge. And thus we should have Phenomenal Geology and Ætiological Geology, for the two divisions of the science which we have above termed Descriptive and Theoretical Geology.
2. The Study of Causes.—But our knowledge respecting the causes which actually have produced any [264] order of phenomena must be arrived at by ascertaining what the causes of change in such matters can do. In order to learn, for example, what share earthquakes, and volcanoes, and the beating of the ocean against its shores, ought to have in our Theory of Geology, we must make out what effects these agents of change are able to produce. And this must be done, not hastily, or unsystematically, but in a careful and connected manner; in short, this study of the causes of change in each order of phenomena must become a distinct body of Science, which must include a large amount of knowledge, both comprehensive and precise, before it can be applied to the construction of a theory. We must have an Ætiology corresponding to each order of phenomena.
3. Ætiology.—In the History of Geology, I have spoken of the necessity for such an Ætiology with regard to geological phenomena: this necessity I have compared with that which, at the time of Kepler, required the formation of a separate science of Dynamics (the doctrine of the Causes of Motion), before Physical Astronomy could grow out of Phenomenal Astronomy. In pursuance of this analogy, I have there given the name of Geological Dynamics to the science which treats of the causes of geological change in general. But, as I have there intimated, in a large portion of the subject the changes are so utterly different in their nature from any modification of motion, that the term Dynamics, so applied, sounds harsh and strange. For in this science we have to treat, not only of the subterraneous forces by which parts of the earth’s crust are shaken, elevated, or ruptured, but also of the causes which may change the climate of a portion of the earth’s surface, making a country hotter or colder than in former ages; again, we have to treat of the causes which modify the forms and habits of animals and vegetables, and of the extent to which the effects of such causes can proceed; whether, for instance, they can extinguish old species and produce new. These and other similar investigations would not be naturally included in the notion of Dynamics; and therefore it [265] might perhaps be better to use the term Ætiology when we wish to group together all those researches which have it for their object to determine the laws of such changes. In the same manner the Comparison and History of Languages, if it is to lead to any stable and exact knowledge, must have appended to it an Ætiology, which aims at determining the nature and the amount of the causes which really do produce changes in language; as colonization, conquest, the mixture of races, civilization, literature, and the like. And the same rule applies to all sciences of this class. We shall now make a few remarks on the characteristics of such branches of science as those to which we are led by the above considerations.
4. Phenomenology requires Classification. Phenomenal Geology.—The Phenomenal portions of each science imply Classification, for no description of a large and varied mass of phenomena can be useful or intelligible without classification. A representation of phenomena, in order to answer the purposes of science, must be systematic. Accordingly, in giving the History of Descriptive or Phenomenal Geology, I have called it Systematic Geology, just as Classificatory Botany is termed Systematic Botany. Moreover, as we have already seen, Classification can never be an arbitrary process, but always implies some natural connexion among the objects of the same Class; for if this connexion did not exist, the Classes could not be made the subjects of any true assertion. Yet though the classes of phenomena which our system acknowledges must be such as already exist in nature, the discovery of these classes is, for the most part, very far from obvious or easy. To detect the true principles of Natural Classes, and to select marks by which these may be recognized, are steps which require genius and good fortune, and which fall to the lot only of the most eminent persons in each science. In the History, I have pointed out Werner, William Smith, and Cuvier, as the three great authors of Systematic Geology of Europe. The mode of classifying the materials of the earth’s surface which was found, by these philosophers, fitted to [266] enunciate such general facts as came under their notice, was to consider the rocks and other materials as divided into successive layers or strata, superimposed one on another, and variously inclined and broken. The German geologist distinguished his strata for the most part by their mineralogical character; the other two, by the remains of animals and plants which the rocks contained. After a beginning had thus been made in giving a genuine scientific form to phenomenal geology, other steps followed in rapid succession, as has already been related in the History[5]. The Classification of the Strata was fixed by a suitable Nomenclature. Attempts were made to apply to other countries the order of strata which had been found to prevail in that first studied: and in this manner it was ascertained what rocks in distant regions are the synonyms, or Equivalents[6],—of each other. The knowledge thus collected and systematized was exhibited in the form of Geological Maps.
[5] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviii. c. iii.
[6] Ib. sect. 4.
Moreover, among the phenomena of geology we have Laws of Nature as well as Classes. The general form of mountain-chains; the relations of the direction and inclination of different chains to each other; the general features of mineral veins, faults, and fissures; the prevalent characters of slaty cleavage;—were the subjects of laws established, or supposed to be established, by extensive observation of facts. In like manner the organic fossils discovered in the strata were found to follow certain laws with reference to the climate which they appeared to have lived in; and the evidence which they gave of a regular zoological development. And thus, by the assiduous labours of many accomplished and active philosophers, Descriptive or Phenomenal Geology was carried towards a state of completeness.
5. Phenomenal Uranography.—In like manner in other palætiological researches, as soon as they approach to an exact and scientific form, we find the necessity of constructing in the first place a science of [267] classification and exact description, by means of which the phenomena may be correctly represented and compared; and of obtaining by this step a solid basis for an inquiry into the causes which have produced them. Thus the Palætiology of the Solar System has, in recent times, drawn the attention of speculators; and a hypothesis has been started, that our sun and his attendant planets have been produced by the condensation of a mass of diffused matter, such as that which constitutes the nebulous patches which we observe in the starry heavens. But the sagest and most enlightened astronomers have not failed to acknowledge, that to verify or to disprove this conjecture, must be the work of many ages of observation and thought. They have perceived also that the first step of the labour requisite for the advancement of this portion of science must be to obtain and to record the most exact knowledge at present within our reach, respecting the phenomena of these nebulæ, with which we thus compare our own system; and, as a necessary element of such knowledge, they have seen the importance of a classification of these objects, and of others, such as Double Stars, of the same kind. Sir William Herschel, who first perceived the bearing of the phenomena of nebulæ upon the history of the solar system, made the observation of such objects his business, with truly admirable zeal and skill; and in the account of the results of his labours, gave a classification of Nebulæ; separating them into, first, Clusters of Stars; second, Resolvable Nebulæ; third, Proper Nebulæ; fourth, Planetary Nebulæ; fifth, Stellar Nebulæ; sixth, Nebulous Stars[7]. And since, in order to obtain from these remote appearances, any probable knowledge respecting our own system, we must discover whether they undergo any changes in the course of ages, he devoted himself to the task of forming a record of their number and appearance in his own time, that thus the astronomers of succeeding generations might have a [268] definite and exact standard with which to compare their observations. Still, this task would have been executed only for that part of the heavens which is visible in this country, if this Hipparchus of the Nebulæ and Double Stars had not left behind him a son who inherited all his father’s zeal and more than his father’s knowledge. Sir John Herschel in 1833 went to the Cape of Good Hope to complete what Sir William Herschel left wanting; and in the course of five years observed with care all the nebulæ and double stars of the Southern hemisphere. This great Herschelian Survey of the Heavens, the completion of which is the noblest monument ever erected by a son to a father, must necessarily be, to all ages, the basis of all speculations concerning the history and origin of the solar system; and has completed, so far as at present it can be completed, the phenomenal portion of Astronomical Palætiology.
[7] Phil. Trans. 1786 and 1789, and Sir J. Herschel’s Astronomy, Art. 616.
6. Phenomenal Geography of Plants and Animals.—Again, there is another Palætiological Science, closely connected with the speculations forced upon the geologist by the organic fossils which he discovers imbedded in the strata of the earth;—namely, the Science which has for its object the Causes of the Diffusion and Distribution of the various kinds of Plants and Animals. And the science also has for its first portion and indispensable foundation a description and classification of the existing phenomena. Such portions of science have recently been cultivated with great zeal and success, under the titles of the Geography of Plants, and the Geography of Animals. And the results of the inquiries thus undertaken have assumed a definite and scientific form by leading to a division of the earth’s surface into a certain number of botanical and zoological Provinces, each province occupied by its own peculiar vegetable and animal population. We find, too, in the course of these investigations, various general laws of the phenomena offered to our notice; such, for instance, as this:—that the difference of the animals originally occupying each province, which is clear and entire for the higher orders of [269] animals and plants, becomes more doubtful and indistinct when we descend to the lower kinds of organizations; as Infusoria and Zoophytes[8] in the animal kingdom, Grasses and Mosses among vegetables. Again, other laws discovered by those who have studied the geography of plants are these:—that countries separated from each other by wide tracts of sea, as the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, have usually much that is common in their vegetation:—and again, that in parallel climates, analogous tribes replace each other. It would be easy to adduce other laws, but those already stated may serve to show the great extent of the portions of knowledge which have just been mentioned, even considered as merely Sciences of Phenomena.
[8] Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, i. 55, 28.
7. Phenomenal Glossology.—It is not my purpose in the present work to borrow my leading illustrations from any portions of knowledge but those which are concerned with the study of material nature; and I shall, therefore, not dwell upon a branch of research, singularly interesting, and closely connected with the one just mentioned, but dealing with relations of thought rather than of things;—I mean the Palætiology of Language;—the theory, so far as the facts enable us to form a theory, of the causes which have led to the resemblances and differences of human speech in various regions and various ages. This, indeed, would be only a portion of the study of the history and origin of the diffusion of animals, if we were to include man among the animals whose dispersion we thus investigate; for language is one of the most clear and imperishable records of the early events in the career of the human race. But the peculiar nature of the faculty of speech, and the ideas which the use of it involves, make it proper to treat Glossology as a distinct science. And of this science, the first part must necessarily be, as in the other sciences of this order, a [270] classification and comparison of languages governed in many respects by the same rules, and presenting the same difficulties, as other sciences of classification. Such, accordingly, has been the procedure of the most philosophical glossologists. They have been led to throw the languages of the earth into certain large classes or Families, according to various kinds of resemblance; as the Semitic Family, to which belong Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean, Syrian, Phoenician, Ethiopian, and the like; the Indo-European, which includes Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German; the Monosyllabic languages, Chinese, Tibetan, Birman, Siamese; the Polysynthetic languages, a class including most of the North-American Indian dialects; and others. And this work of classification has been the result of the labour and study of many very profound linguists, and has advanced gradually from step to step. Thus the Indo-European Family was first formed on an observation of the coincidences between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin; but it was soon found to include the Teutonic languages, and more recently Dr. Prichard[9] has shown beyond doubt that the Celtic must be included in the same Family. Other general resemblances and differences of languages have been marked by appropriate terms: thus August von Schlegel has denominated them synthetical and analytical, according as they form their conjugations and declensions by auxiliary verbs and prepositions, or by changes in the word itself: and the polysynthetic languages are so named by M. Duponceau, in consequence of their still more complex mode of inflexion. Nor are there wanting, in this science also, general laws of phenomena; such, for instance, is the curious rule of the interchange of consonants in the cognate words of Greek, Gothic, and German, which has been discovered by James Grimm. All these remarkable portions of knowledge, and the great works which have appeared on Glossology, such, for example, as the Mithridates of Adelung and Vater, contain, for their largest, and [271] hitherto probably their most valuable part, the phenomenal portion of the science, the comparison of languages as they now are. And beyond all doubt, until we have brought this Comparative Philology to a considerable degree of completeness, all our speculations respecting the causes which have operated to produce the languages of the earth must be idle and unsubstantial dreams.
[9] Dr Prichard, On the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. 1831.
Thus in all Palætiological Sciences, in all attempts to trace back the history and discover the origin of the present state of things, the portion of the science which must first be formed is that which classifies the phenomena, and discovers general laws prevailing among them. When this work is performed, and not till then, we may begin to speculate successfully concerning causes, and to make some progress in our attempts to go back to an origin. We must have a Phenomenal science preparatory to each Ætiological one.
8. The Study of Phenomena leads to Theory.—As we have just said, we cannot, in any subject, speculate successfully concerning the causes of the present state of things, till we have obtained a tolerably complete and systematic view of the phenomena. Yet in reality men have not in any instance waited for this completeness and system in their knowledge of facts before they have begun to form theories. Nor was it natural, considering the speculative propensities of the human mind, and how incessantly it is endeavouring to apply the Idea of Cause, that it should thus restrain itself. I have already noticed this in the History of Geology. ‘While we have been giving an account,’ it is there said, ‘of the objects with which Descriptive Geology is occupied, it must have been felt how difficult it is, in contemplating such facts, to confine ourselves to description and classification. Conjectures and reasonings respecting the causes of the phenomena force themselves upon us at every step; and even influence our classification and nomenclature. Our Descriptive Geology impels us to construct a Physical Geology.’ And the same is the case with regard to the other subjects which I have mentioned. The mere [272] consideration of the different degrees of condensation of different Nebulæ led Herschel and Laplace to contemplate the hypothesis that our solar system is a condensed Nebula. Immediately upon the division of the earth’s surface into botanical and zoological provinces, and even at an earlier period, the opposite hypotheses of the Origin of all the animals of each kind from a single pair, and of their original diffusion all over the earth, were under discussion. And the consideration of the families of languages irresistibly led to speculations concerning the Families of the earliest human inhabitants of the earth. In all cases the contemplation of a very few phenomena, the discovery of a very few steps in the history, made men wish for and attempt to form a theory of the history from the very beginning of things.
9. No sound Theory without Ætiology.—But though man is thus impelled by the natural propensities of his intellect to trace each order of things to its causes, he does not at first discern the only sure way of obtaining such knowledge: he does not suspect how much labour and how much method are requisite for success in this undertaking: he is not aware that for each order of phenomena he must construct, by the accumulated results of multiplied observation and distinct thought, a separate Æiology. Thus, as I have elsewhere remarked[10], when men had for the first time become acquainted with some of the leading phenomena of Geology, and had proceeded to speculate concerning the past changes and revolutions by which such results had been produced, they forthwith supposed themselves able to judge what would be the effects of any of the obvious agents of change, as Water or Volcanic Fire. It did not at first occur to them to suspect that their common and extemporaneous judgment on such points was by no means sufficient for sound knowledge. They did not foresee that, before they could determine what share these or any other causes had had in producing the present condition of the earth, they must create [273] a special science whose object should be to estimate the general laws and effects of such assumed causes;—that before they could obtain any sound Geological Theory, they must carefully cultivate Geological Ætiology.
[10] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviii. c. v. sect. 1.
The same disposition to proceed immediately from the facts to the theory, without constructing, as an intermediate step, a Science of Causes, might be pointed out in the other sciences of this order. But in all of them this errour has been corrected by the failures to which it led. It soon appeared, for instance, that a more careful inquiry into the effects which climate, food, habit and circumstances can produce in animals, was requisite in order to determine how the diversities of animals in different countries have originated. The Ætiology of Animal Life (if we may be allowed to give this name to that study of such causes of change which is at present so zealously cultivated, and which yet has no distinctive designation, except so far as it coincides with the Organic Geological Dynamics of our History) is now perceived to be a necessary portion of all attempts to construct a history of the earth and its inhabitants.
10. Cause, in Palætiology.—We are thus led to contemplate a class of Sciences which are commenced with the study of Causes. We have already considered sciences which depended mainly upon the Idea of Cause, namely, the Mechanical Sciences. But it is obvious that the Idea of Cause in the researches now under our consideration must be employed in a very different way from that in which we applied it formerly. Force is the Cause of motion, because force at all times and under all circumstances, if not counteracted, produces motion; but the Cause of the present condition and elevation of the Alps, whatever it was, was manifested in a series of events of which each happened but once, and occupied its proper place in the series of time. The former is mechanical, the latter historical, cause. In our present investigations, we consider the events which we contemplate, of whatever order they be, as forming a chain which is extended [274] from the beginning of things down to the present time; and the causes of which we now speak are those which connect the successive links of this chain. Every occurrence which has taken place in the history of the solar system, or the earth, or its vegetable and animal creation, or man, has been at the same time effect and cause;—the effect of what preceded, the cause of what succeeded. By being effect and cause, it has occupied some certain portion of time; and the times which have thus been occupied by effects and causes, summed up and taken altogether, make up the total of Past Time. The Past has been a series of events connected by this historical causation, and the Present is the last term of this series. The problem in the Palætiological Sciences, with which we are here concerned, is, to determine the manner in which each term is derived from the preceding, and thus, if possible, to calculate backwards to the origin of the series.
11. Various kinds of Cause.—Those modes by which one term in the natural series of events is derived from another,—the forms of historical causation,—the kinds of connexion between the links of the infinite chain of time,—are very various; nor need we attempt to enumerate them. But these kinds of causation being distinguished from each other, and separately studied, each becomes the subject of a separate Ætiology. Thus the causes of change in the earth’s surface, residing in the elements, fire and water, form the main subject of Geological Ætiology. The Ætiology of the vegetable and animal kingdoms investigates the causes by which the forms and distribution of species of plants and animals are affected. The study of causes in Glossology leads to an Ætiology of Language, which shall distinguish, analyse, and estimate the causes by which certain changes are produced in the languages of nations; in like manner we may expect to have an Ætiology of Art, which shall scrutinise the influences by which the various forms of art have each given birth to its successor: by which, for example, there have been brought into being those various forms of architecture which we term Egyptian, [275] Doric, Ionic, Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Italian, Elizabethan. It is easily seen by this slight survey how manifold and diverse are the kinds of cause which the Palætiological Sciences bring under our consideration. But in each of those sciences we shall obtain solid and complete systems of knowledge, only so far as we study, with steady thought and careful observation, that peculiar kind of cause which is appropriate to the phenomena under our consideration.
12. Hypothetical Order of Palætiological Causes.—The various kinds of historical cause are not only connected with each other by their common bearing upon the historical sciences, but they form a kind of progression which we may represent to ourselves as having acted in succession in the hypothetical history of the earth and its inhabitants. Thus assuming, merely as a momentary hypothesis, the origin of the Solar System by the condensation of a Nebula, we have to contemplate, first, the causes by which the luminous incandescent diffused mass of which a nebula is supposed to be constituted, is gradually condensed, cooled, collected into definite masses, solidified, and each portion made to revolve about its axis, and the whole to travel about another body. We have no difficulty in ascribing the globular form of each mass to the mutual attraction of its particles: but when this form was once assumed, and covered with a solid crust, are there, we may ask, in the constitution of such a body, any causes at work by which the crust might be again broken up and portions of it displaced, and covered with other matter? Again, if we can thus explain the origin of the Earth, can we with like success account for the presence of the Atmosphere and the Waters of earth and ocean? Supposing this done, we have then to consider by what causes such a body could become stocked with vegetable and animal Life; for there have not been wanting persons, extravagant speculators, no doubt, who have conceived that even this event in the history of the world might be the work of natural causes. Supposing an origin given to life [276] upon our earth, we have then, brought before us by geological observations, a series of different forms of vegetable and animal existence; occurring in different strata, and, as the phenomena appear irresistibly to prove, existing at successive periods: and we are compelled to inquire what can have been the causes by which the forms of each period have passed into those of the next. We find, too, that strata, which must have been at first horizontal and continuous, have undergone enormous dislocations and ruptures, and we have to consider the possible effect of aqueous and volcanic causes to produce such changes in the earth’s crust. We are thus led to the causes which have produced the present state of things on the earth; and these are causes to which we may hypothetically ascribe, not only the form and position of the inert materials of the earth, but also the nature and distribution of its animal and vegetable population. Man too, no less than other animals, is affected by the operation of such causes as we have referred to, and must, therefore, be included in such speculations. But man’s history only begins, where that of other animals ends, with his mere existence. They are stationary, he is progressive. Other species of animals, once brought into being, continue the same through all ages; man is changing, from age to age, his language, his thoughts, his works. Yet even these changes are bound together by laws of causation; and these causes too may become objects of scientific study. And such causes, though not to be dwelt upon now, since we permit ourselves to found our philosophy upon the material sciences only, must still, when treated scientifically, fall within the principles of our philosophy, and must be governed by the same general rules to which all science is subject. And thus we are led by a close and natural connexion, through a series of causes, extending from those which regulate the imperceptible changes of the remotest nebulæ in the heavens, to those which determine the diversities of language, the mutations of art, and even the progress of civilization, polity, and literature. [277]
While I have been speaking of this supposed series of events, including in its course the formation of the earth, the introduction of animal and vegetable life, and the revolutions by which one collection of species has succeeded another, it must not be forgotten, that though I have thus hypothetically spoken of these events as occurring by force of natural causes, this has been done only that the true efficacy of such causes might be brought under our consideration and made the subject of scientific examination. It may be found, that such occurrences as these are quite inexplicable by the aid of any natural causes with which we are acquainted; and thus, the result of our investigations, conducted with strict regard to scientific principles, may be, that we must either contemplate supernatural influences as part of the past series of events, or declare ourselves altogether unable to form this series into a connected chain.
13. Mode of Cultivating Ætiology:—In Geology.—In what manner, it may be asked, is Ætiology, with regard to each subject such as we have enumerated, to be cultivated? In order to answer this question, we must, according to our method of proceeding, take the most successful and complete examples which we possess of such portions of science. But in truth, we can as yet refer to few examples of this kind. In Geology, it is only very recently, and principally through the example and influence of Sir Charles Lyell, that the Ætiology has been detached from the descriptive portion of the science; and cultivated with direct attention: in other sciences the separation has hardly yet been made. But if we examine what has already been done in Geological Ætiology, or as in the History it is termed, Geological Dynamics, we shall find a number of different kinds of investigation which, by the aid of our general principles respecting the formation of sciences, may suffice to supply very useful suggestions for Ætiology in general.
In Geological Ætiology, causes have been studied, in many instances, by attending to their action in the phenomena of the present state of things, and by inferring [278] from this the nature and extent of the action which they may have exercised in former times. This has been done, for example, by Von Hoff, Sir Charles Lyell, and others, with regard to the operations of rivers, seas, springs, glaciers, and other aqueous causes of change, Again, the same course has been followed by the same philosophers with respect to volcanoes, earthquakes, and other violent agents. Sir Charles Lyell has attempted to show, too, that there take place, in our own time, not only violent agitations, but slow motions of parts of the earth’s crust, of the same kind and order with those which have assisted in producing all anterior changes.
But while we thus seek instruction in the phenomena of the present state of things, we are led to the question, What are the limits of this ‘present’ period? For instance, among the currents of lava which we trace as part of the shores of Italy and Sicily, which shall we select as belonging to the existing order of things? In going backwards in time, where shall we draw the line? and why at such particular point? These questions are important, for our estimate of the efficacy of known causes will vary with the extent of the effects which we ascribe to them. Hence the mode in which we group together rocks is not only a step in geological classification, but is also important to Ætiology. Thus, when the vast masses of trap rocks in the Western Isles of Scotland and in other countries, which had been maintained by the Wernerians to be of aqueous origin, were, principally by the sagacity and industry of Macculloch, identified as to their nature with the products of recent volcanoes, the amount of effect which might justifiably be ascribed to volcanic agency was materially extended.
In other cases, instead of observing the current effects of our geological causes, we have to estimate the results from what we know of the causes themselves; as when, with Herschel, we calculate the alterations in the temperature of the earth which astronomical changes may possibly produce; or when, with Fourier, we try to calculate the rate of cooling of the earth’s [279] surface, on the hypothesis of an incandescent central mass. In other cases, again, we are not able to calculate the effects of our causes rigorously, but estimate them as well as we can; partly by physical reasonings, and partly by comparison with such analogous cases as we can find in the present state of things. Thus Sir Charles Lyell infers the change of climate which would result if land were transferred from the neighbourhood of the poles to that of the equator, by reasonings on the power of land and water to contain and communicate heat, supported by a reference to the different actual climates of places, lying under the same latitude, but under different conditions as to the distribution of land and water.
Thus our Ætiology is constructed partly from calculation and reasoning, partly from phenomena. But we may observe that when we reason from phenomena to causes, we usually do so by various steps; often ascending from phenomena to mere laws of phenomena, before we can venture to connect the phenomenon confidently with its cause. Thus the law of subterranean heat, that it increases in descending below the surface, is now well established, although the doctrine which ascribes this effect to a central heat is not universally assented to.
14. In the Geography of Plants and Animals.—We may find in other subjects also, considerable contributions towards Ætiology, though not as yet a complete System of Science. The Ætiology of Vegetables and Animals, indeed, has been studied with great zeal in modern times, as an essential preparative to geological theory; for how can we decide whether any assumed causes have produced the succession of species which we find in the earth’s strata, except we know what effect of this kind given causes can produce? Accordingly, we find in Sir Charles Lyell’s Treatise on Geology the most complete discussion of such questions as belong to these subjects:—for example, the question whether species can be transmuted into other species by the long-continued influence of external causes, as climate, food, domestication, combined with internal [280] causes, as habits, appetencies, progressive tendencies. We may observe, too, that as we have brought before us, the inquiry what change difference of climate can produce in any species, we have also the inverse problem, how far a different development of the species, or a different collection of species, proves a difference of climate. In the same way, the geologist of the present day considers the question, whether, in virtue of causes now in action, species are from time to time extinguished; and in like manner, the geologists of an earlier period discussed the question, now long completely decided, whether fossil species in general are really extinct species.
15. In Languages.—Even with reference to the Ætiology of Language, although this branch of science has hardly been considered separately from the glossological investigations in which it is employed or assumed to be employed, it might perhaps be possible to point out causes or conditions of change which, being general in their nature, must operate upon all languages alike. Changes made for the sake of euphony when words are modified and combined, occur in all dialects. Who can doubt that such changes of consonants as those by which the Greek roots become Gothic, and the Gothic, German, have for their cause some general principle in the pronunciation of each language? Again, we might attempt to decide other questions of no small interest. Have the terminations of verbs arisen from the accretion of pronouns; or, on the other hand, does the modification of a verb imply a simpler mental process than the insulation of a pronoun, as Adam Smith has maintained? Again, when the language of a nation is changed by the invasion and permanent mixture of an enemy of different speech, is it generally true that it is changed from a synthetic to an analytical structure? I will mention only one more of these wide and general glossological inquiries. Is it true, as Dr. Prichard has suggested[11], that languages have become more permanent as we come down [281] towards later times? May we justifiably suppose, with him, that in the very earliest times, nations, when they had separated from one stock, might lose all traces of this common origin out of their languages, though retaining strong evidences of it in their mythology, social forms, and arts, as appears to be the case with the ancient Egyptians and the Indians[12].
[11] Researches, ii. 221.
[12] Researches, ii. 192.
Large questions of this nature cannot be treated profitably in any other way than by an assiduous study of the most varied forms of living and dead languages. But on the other hand, the study of languages should be prosecuted not only by a direct comparison of one with another, but also with a view to the formation of a science of causes and general principles, embracing such discussions as I have pointed out. It is only when such a science has been formed, that we can hope to obtain any solid and certain results in the Palætiology of Language;—to determine, with any degree of substantial proof, what is the real evidence which the wonderful faculty of speech, under its present developments and forms, bears to the events which have taken place in its own history, and in the history of man since his first origin.
16. Construction of Theories.—When we have thus obtained, with reference to any such subject as those we have here spoken of, these two portions of science, a Systematic Description of the Facts, and a rigorous Analysis of the Causes,—the Phenomenology and the Ætiology of the subject,—we are prepared for the third member which completes the science, the Theory of the actual facts. We can then take a view of the events which really have happened, discerning their connexion, interpreting their evidence, supplying from the context the parts which are unapparent. We can account for known facts by intelligible causes; we can infer latent facts from manifest effects, so as to obtain a distinct insight into the whole history of events up to the present time, and to see the last result of the whole in the present condition of things. [282] The term Theory, when rigorously employed in such sciences as those which we here consider, bears nearly the sense which I have adopted: it implies a consistent and systematic view of the actual facts, combined with a true apprehension of their connexion and causes. Thus if we speak of ‘a Theory of Mount Etna,’ or ‘a Theory of the Paris Basin,’ we mean a connected and intelligible view of the events by which the rocks in these localities have come into their present condition. Undoubtedly the term Theory has often been used in a looser sense; and men have put forth ‘Theories of the Earth,’ which, instead of including the whole mass of actual geological facts and their causes, only assigned, in a vague manner, some causes by which some few phenomena might, it was conceived, be accounted for. Perhaps the portion of our Palætiological Sciences which we now wish to designate, would be more generally understood if we were to describe it as Theoretical or Philosophical History; as when we talk of ‘the Theoretical History of Architecture,’ or ‘the Philosophical History of Language.’ And in the same manner we might speak of the Theoretical History of the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms; meaning, a distinct account of the events which have produced the present distribution of species and families. But by whatever phrase we describe this portion of science, it is plain that such a Theory, such a Theoretical History, must result from the application of causes well understood to facts well ascertained. And if the term Theory be here employed, we must recollect that it is to be understood, not in its narrower sense as opposed to facts, but in its wider signification, as including all known facts and differing from them only in introducing among them principles of intelligible connexion. The Theories of which we now speak are true Theories, precisely because they are identical with the total system of the Facts.
17. No sound Palætiological Theory yet extant.—It is not to disparage unjustly the present state of science, to say that as yet no such theory exists on any subject. ‘Theories of the Earth’ have been [283] repeatedly published; but when we consider that even the facts of geology have been observed only on a small portion of the earth’s surface, and even within those narrow bounds very imperfectly studied, we shall be able to judge how impossible it is that geologists should have yet obtained a well-established Theoretical History of the changes which have taken place in the crust of the terrestrial globe from its first origin. Accordingly, I have ventured in my History to designate the most prominent of the Theories which have hitherto prevailed as premature geological theories[13]: and we shall soon see that geological theory has not advanced beyond a few conjectures, and that its cultivators are at present mainly occupied with a controversy in which the two extreme hypotheses which first offer themselves to men’s minds are opposed to each other. And if we have no theoretical History of the Earth which merits any confidence, still less have we any theoretical History of Language, or of the Arts, which we can consider as satisfactory. The Theoretical History of the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms is closely connected with that of the Earth on which they subsist, and must follow the fortunes of Geology. And thus we may venture to say that no Palætiological Science, as yet, possesses all its three members. Indeed most of them are very far from having completed and systematized their Phenomenology: in all, the cultivation of Ætiology is but just begun, or is not begun; in all, the Theory must reward the exertions of future, probably of distant, generations.
[13] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviii. c. vii. sect. 3.
But in the mean time we may derive some instruction from the comparison of the two antagonist hypotheses of which I have spoken.
CHAPTER III.
Of the Doctrine of Catastrophes and the Doctrine of Uniformity.
1. Doctrine of Catastrophes.—I have already shown, in the History of Geology, that the attempts to frame a theory of the earth have brought into view two completely opposite opinions:—one, which represents the course of nature as uniform through all ages, the causes which produce change having had the same intensity in former times which they have at the present day;—the other opinion, which sees, in the present condition of things, evidences of catastrophes;—changes of a more sweeping kind, and produced by more powerful agencies than those which occur in recent times. Geologists who held the latter opinion, maintained that the forces which have elevated the Alps or the Andes to their present height could not have been any forces which are now in action: they pointed to vast masses of strata hundreds of miles long, thousands of feet thick, thrown into highly-inclined positions, fractured, dislocated, crushed: they remarked that upon the shattered edges of such strata they found enormous accumulations of fragments and rubbish, rounded by the action of water, so as to denote ages of violent aqueous action: they conceived that they saw instances in which whole mountains of rock in a state of igneous fusion, must have burst the earth’s crust from below: they found that in the course of the revolutions by which one stratum of rock was placed upon another, the whole collection of animal species which tenanted the earth and the seas had been removed, and a new set of living things introduced in its place: finally, they found, above all the strata, [285] vast masses of sand and gravel containing bones of animals, and apparently the work of a mighty deluge. With all these proofs before their eyes, they thought it impossible not to judge that the agents of change by which the world was urged from one condition to another till it reached its present state must have been more violent, more powerful, than any which we see at work around us. They conceived that the evidence of ‘catastrophes’ was irresistible.
2. Doctrine of Uniformity.—I need not here repeat the narrative (given in the History[14]) of the process by which this formidable array of proofs was, in the minds of some eminent geologists, weakened, and at last overcome. This was done by showing that the sudden breaks in the succession of strata were apparent only, the discontinuity of the series which occurred in one country being removed by terms interposed in another locality:—by urging that the total effect produced by existing causes, taking into account the accumulated result of long periods, is far greater than a casual speculator would think possible:—by making it appear that there are in many parts of the world evidences of a slow and imperceptible rising of the land since it was the habitation of now existing species:—by proving that it is not universally true that the strata separated in time by supposed catastrophes contain distinct species of animals:—by pointing out the limited fields of the supposed diluvial action:—and finally, by remarking that though the creation of species is a mystery, the extinction of species is going on in our own day. Hypotheses were suggested, too, by which it was conceived that the change of climate might be explained, which, as the consideration of the fossil remains seemed to show, must have taken place between the ancient and the modern times. In this manner the whole evidence of catastrophes was explained away: the notion of a series of paroxysms of violence in the causes of change was represented as a delusion arising from our [286] contemplating short periods only, in the action of present causes: length of time was called in to take the place of intensity of force: and it was declared that Geology need not despair of accounting for the revolutions of the earth, as Astronomy accounts for the revolutions of the heavens, by the universal action of causes which are close at hand to us, operating through time and space without variation or decay.
[14] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviii. c. viii. sect. 2.
An antagonism of opinions, somewhat of the same kind as this, will be found to manifest itself in the other Palætiological Sciences as well as in Geology; and it will be instructive to endeavour to balance these opposite doctrines. I will mention some of the considerations which bear upon the subject in its general form.
3. Is Uniformity probable à priori?—The doctrine of Uniformity in the course of nature has sometimes been represented by its adherents as possessing a great degree of à priori probability. It is highly unphilosophical, it has been urged, to assume that the causes of the geological events of former times were of a different kind from causes now in action, if causes of this latter kind can in any way be made to explain the facts. The analogy of all other sciences compels us, it was said, to explain phenomena by known, not by unknown, causes. And on these grounds the geological teacher recommended[15] ‘an earnest and patient endeavour to reconcile the indications of former change with the evidence of gradual mutations now in progress.’
[15] Lyell, 4th ed. b. iv. c. i. p. 328.
But on this we may remark, that if by known causes we mean causes acting with the same intensity which they have had during historical times, the restriction is altogether arbitrary and groundless. Let it be granted, for instance, that many parts of the earth’s surface are now undergoing an imperceptible rise. It is not pretended that the rate of this elevation is rigorously uniform; what, then, are the limits of its velocity? Why may it not increase so as to assume that character of violence which we may term a [287] catastrophe with reference to all changes hitherto recorded? Why may not the rate of elevation be such that we may conceive the strata to assume suddenly a position nearly vertical? And is it, in fact, easy to conceive a position of strata nearly vertical, a position which occurs so frequently, to be gradually assumed? In cases where the strata are nearly vertical, as in the Isle of Wight, and hundreds of other places, or where they are actually inverted, as sometimes occurs, are not the causes which have produced the effect as truly known causes, as those which have raised the coasts where we trace the former beach in an elevated terrace? If the latter case proves slow elevation, does not the former case prove rapid elevation? In neither case have we any measure of the time employed in the change; but does not the very nature of the results enable us to discern, that if one was gradual, the other was comparatively sudden?
The causes which are now elevating a portion of Scandinavia can be called known causes, only because we know the effect. Are not the causes which have elevated the Alps and the Andes known causes in the same sense? We know nothing in either case which confines the intensity of the force within any limit, or prescribes to it any law of uniformity. Why, then, should we make a merit of cramping our speculations by such assumptions? Whether the causes of change do act uniformly;—whether they oscillate only within narrow limits;—whether their intensity in former times was nearly the same as it now is;—these are precisely the questions which we wish Science to answer to us impartially and truly: where is then the wisdom of ‘an earnest and patient endeavour’ to secure an affirmative reply?
Thus I conceive that the assertion of an à priori claim to probability and philosophical spirit in favour of the doctrine of uniformity, is quite untenable. We must learn from an examination of all the facts, and not from any assumption of our own, whether the course of nature be uniform. The limit of intensity being really unknown, catastrophes are just as probable [288] as uniformity. If a volcano may repose for a thousand years, and then break out and destroy a city; why may not another volcano repose for ten thousand years, and then destroy a continent; or if a continent, why not the whole habitable surface of the earth?
4. Cycle of Uniformity indefinite.—But this argument may be put in another form. When it is said that the course of nature is uniform, the assertion is not intended to exclude certain smaller variations of violence and rest, such as we have just spoken of;—alternations of activity and repose in volcanoes; or earthquakes, deluges, and storms, interposed in a more tranquil state of things. With regard to such occurrences, terrible as they appear at the time, they may not much affect the average rate of change; there may be a cycle, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change; and if such cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still call the order of nature uniform, notwithstanding the periods of violence which it involves. The maximum and minimum intensities of the forces of mutation alternate with one another; and we may estimate the average course of nature as that which corresponds to something between the two extremes.
But if we thus attempt to maintain the uniformity of nature by representing it as a series of cycles, we find that we cannot discover, in this conception, any solid ground for excluding catastrophes. What is the length of that cycle, the repetition of which constitutes uniformity? What interval from the maximum to the minimum does it admit of? We may take for our cycle a hundred or a thousand years, but evidently such a proceeding is altogether arbitrary. We may mark our cycles by the greatest known paroxysms of volcanic and terremotive agency, but this procedure is no less indefinite and inconclusive than the other.
But further; since the cycle in which violence and repose alternate is thus indefinite in its length and in its range of activity, what ground have we for assuming more than one such cycle, extending from the origin of things to the present time? Why may we not suppose the maximum force of the causes of change [289] to have taken place at the earliest period, and the tendency towards the minimum to have gone on ever since? Or instead of only one cycle, there may have been several, but of such length that our historical period forms a portion only of the last;—the feeblest portion of the latest cycle. And thus violence and repose may alternate upon a scale of time and intensity so large, that man’s experience supplies no evidence enabling him to estimate the amount. The course of things is uniform, to an Intelligence which can embrace the succession of several cycles, but it is catastrophic to the contemplation of man, whose survey can grasp a part only of one cycle. And thus the hypothesis of uniformity, since it cannot exclude degrees of change, nor limit the range of these degrees, nor define the interval of their recurrence, cannot possess any essential simplicity which, previous to inquiry, gives it a claim upon our assent superior to that of the opposite catastrophic hypothesis.
5. Uniformitarian Arguments are Negative only.—There is an opposite tendency in the mode of maintaining the catastrophist and the uniformitarian opinions, which depends upon their fundamental principles, and shows itself in all the controversies between them. The Catastrophist is affirmative, the Uniformitarian is negative in his assertions: the former is constantly attempting to construct a theory; the latter delights in demolishing all theories. The one is constantly bringing fresh evidence of some great past event, or series of events, of a striking and definite kind; his antagonist is at every step explaining away the evidence, and showing that it proves nothing. One geologist adduces his proofs of a vast universal deluge; but another endeavours to show that the proofs do not establish either the universality or the vastness of such an event. The inclined broken edges of a certain formation, covered with their own fragments, beneath superjacent horizontal deposits, are at one time supposed to prove a catastrophic breaking up of the earlier strata; but this opinion is controverted by showing that the same formations, when pursued into other countries, [290] exhibit a uniform gradation from the lower to the upper, with no trace of violence. Extensive and lofty elevations of the coast, continents of igneous rock, at first appear to indicate operations far more gigantic than those which now occur; but attempts are soon made to show that time only is wanting to enable the present age to rival the past in the production of such changes. Each new fact adduced by the catastrophist is at first striking and apparently convincing; but as it becomes familiar, it strikes the imagination less powerfully; and the uniformitarian, constantly labouring to produce some imitation of it by the machinery which he has so well studied, at last in every case seems to himself to succeed, so far as to destroy the effect of his opponent’s evidence.
This is so with regard to more remote, as well as with regard to immediate evidences of change. When it is ascertained that in every part of the earth’s crust the temperature increases as we descend below the surface, at first this fact seems to indicate a central heat: and a central heat naturally suggests an earlier state of the mass, in which it was incandescent, and from which it is now cooling. But this original incandescence of the globe of the earth is manifestly an entire violation of the present course of things; it belongs to the catastrophist view, and the advocates of uniformity have to explain it away. Accordingly, one of them holds that this increase of heat in descending below the surface may very possibly not go on all the way to the center. The heat which increases at first as we descend, may, he conceives, afterwards decrease; and he suggests causes which may have produced such a succession of hotter and colder shells within the mass of the earth. I have mentioned this suggestion in the History of Geology; and have given my reasons for believing it altogether untenable[16]. Other persons also, desirous of reconciling this subterraneous heat with the tenet of uniformity, have [291] offered another suggestion:—that the warmth or incandescence of the interior parts of the earth does not arise out of an originally hot condition from which it is gradually cooling, but results from chemical action constantly going on among the materials of the earth’s substance. And thus new attempts are perpetually making, to escape from the cogency of the reasonings which send us towards an original state of things different from the present. Those who theorize concerning an origin go on building up the fabric of their speculations, while those who think such theories unphilosophical, ever and anon dig away the foundation of this structure. As we have already said, the uniformitarian’s doctrines are a collection of negatives.
[16] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviii. c. v. sect. 5, and note.
This is so entirely the case, that the uniformitarian would for the most part shrink from maintaining as positive tenets the explanations which he so willingly uses as instruments of controversy. He puts forward his suggestions as difficulties, but he will not stand by them as doctrines. And this is in accordance with his general tendency; for any of his hypotheses, if insisted upon as positive theories, would be found inconsistent with the assertion of uniformity. For example, the nebular hypothesis appears to give to the history of the heavens an aspect which obliterates all special acts of creation, for, according to that hypothesis, new planetary systems are constantly forming; but when asserted as the origin of our own solar system, it brings with it an original incandescence, and an origin of the organic world. And if, instead of using the chemical theory of subterraneous heat to neutralize the evidence of original incandescence, we assert it as a positive tenet, we can no longer maintain the infinite past duration of the earth; for chemical forces, as well as mechanical, tend to equilibrium; and that condition once attained, their efficacy ceases. Chemical affinities tend to form new compounds; and though, when many and various elements are mingled together, the play of synthesis and analysis may go on for a long time, it must at last end. If, for instance, a large portion of the earth’s mass were originally pure potassium, we [292] can imagine violent igneous action to go on so long as any part remained unoxidized; but when the oxidation of the whole has once taken place, this action must be at an end; for there is in the hypothesis no agency which can reproduce the deoxidized metal. Thus a perpetual motion is impossible in chemistry, as it is in mechanics; and a theory of constant change continued through infinite time, is untenable when asserted upon chemical, no less than upon mechanical principles. And thus the Skepticism of the uniformitarian is of force only so long as it is employed against the Dogmatism of the catastrophist. When the Doubts are erected into Dogmas, they are no longer consistent with the tenet of Uniformity. When the Negations become Affirmations, the Negation of an Origin vanishes also.
6. Uniformity in the Organic World.—In speaking of the violent and sudden changes which constitute catastrophes, our thoughts naturally turn at first to great mechanical and physical effects;—ruptures and displacements of strata; extensive submersions and emersions of land; rapid changes of temperature. But the catastrophes which we have to consider in geology affect the organic as well as the inorganic world. The sudden extinction of one collection of species, and the introduction of another in their place, is a Catastrophe, even if unaccompanied by mechanical violence. Accordingly, the antagonism of the catastrophist and uniformitarian schools has shown itself in this department of the subject, as well as in the other. When geologists had first discovered that the successive strata are each distinguished by appropriate organic fossils, they assumed at once that each of these collections of living things belonged to a separate creation. But this conclusion, as I have already said, Sir C. Lyell has attempted to invalidate, by proving that in the existing order of things, some species become extinct; and by suggesting it as possible, that in the same order, it may be true that new species are from time to time produced, even in the present course of nature. And in this, as in the other part of the subject, he calls in [293] the aid of vast periods of time, in order that the violence of the changes may be softened down: and he appears disposed to believe that the actual extinction and creation of species may be so slow as to excite no more notice than it has hitherto obtained; and yet may be rapid enough, considering the immensity of geological periods, to produce such a succession of different collections of species as we find in the strata of the earth’s surface.
7. Origin of the present Organic World.—The last great event in the history of the vegetable and animal kingdoms was that by which their various tribes were placed in their present seats. And we may form various hypotheses with regard to the sudden or gradual manner in which we may suppose this distribution to have taken place. We may assume that at the beginning of the present order of things, a stock of each species was placed in the vegetable or animal province to which it belongs, by some cause out of the common order of nature; or we may take a uniformitarian view of the subject, and suppose that the provinces of the organic world derived their population from some anterior state of things by the operation of natural causes.
Nothing has been pointed out in the existing order of things which has any analogy or resemblance, of any valid kind, to that creative energy which must be exerted in the production of a new species. And to assume the introduction of new species as ‘a part of the order of nature,’ without pointing out any natural fact with which such an event can be classed, would be to reject creation by an arbitrary act. Hence, even on natural grounds, the most intelligible view of the history of the animal and vegetable kingdoms seems to be, that each period which is marked by a distinct collection of species forms a cycle; and that at the beginning of each such cycle a creative power was exerted, of a kind to which there was nothing at all analogous in the succeeding part of the same cycle. If it be urged that in some cases the same species, or the same genus, runs through two geological formations, [294] which must, on other grounds, be referred to different cycles of creative energy, we may reply that the creation of many new species does not imply the extinction of all the old ones.
Thus we are led by our reasonings to this view, that the present order of things was commenced by an act of creative power entirely different to any agency which has been exerted since. None of the influences which have modified the present races of animals and plants since they were placed in their habitations on the earth’s surface can have had any efficacy in producing them at first. We are necessarily driven to assume, as the beginning of the present cycle of organic nature, an event not included in the course of nature. And we may remark that this necessity is the more cogent, precisely because other cycles have preceded the present.
8. Nebular Origin of the Solar System.—If we attempt to apply the same antithesis of opinion (the doctrines of Catastrophe and Uniformity) to the other subjects of palætiological sciences, we shall be led to similar conclusions. Thus, if we turn our attention to Astronomical Palætiology, we perceive that the Nebular Hypothesis has a uniformitarian tendency. According to this hypothesis the formation of this our system of sun, planets, and satellites, was a process of the same kind as those which are still going on in the heavens. One after another, nebulæ condense into separate masses, which begin to revolve about each other by mechanical necessity, and form systems of which our solar system is a finished example. But we may remark, that the uniformitarian doctrine on this subject rests on most unstable foundations. We have as yet only very vague and imperfect reasonings to show that by such condensation a material system such as ours could result; and the introduction of organized beings into such a material system is utterly out of the reach of our philosophy. Here again, therefore, we are led to regard the present order of the world as pointing towards an origin altogether of a different kind from anything which our material science can grasp. [295]
9. Origin of Languages.—We may venture to say that we should be led to the same conclusion once more, if we were to take into our consideration those palætiological sciences which are beyond the domain of matter; for instance, the History of Languages. We may explain many of the differences and changes which we become acquainted with, by referring to the action of causes of change which still operate. But what glossologist will venture to declare that the efficacy of such causes has been uniform;—that the influences which mould a language, or make one language differ from others of the same stock, operated formerly with no more efficacy than they exercise now. ‘Where,’ as has elsewhere been asked, ‘do we now find a language in the process of formation, unfolding itself in inflexions, terminations, changes of vowels by grammatical relations, such as characterise the oldest known languages?’ Again, as another proof how little the history of languages suggests to the philosophical glossologist the persuasion of a uniform action of the causes of change, I may refer to the conjecture of Dr. Prichard, that the varieties of language produced by the separation of one stock into several, have been greater and greater as we go backwards in history:—that[17] the formation of sister dialects from a common language (as the Scandinavian, German, and Saxon dialects from the Teutonic, or the Gaelic, Erse and Welsh from the Celtic) belongs to the first millennium before the Christian era; while the formation of cognate languages of the same family, as the Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and Gothic, must be placed at least two thousand years before that era; and at a still earlier period took place the separation of the great families themselves, the Indo-European, Semitic, and others, in which it is now difficult to trace the features of a common origin. No hypothesis except one of this kind will explain the existence of the families, groups, and dialects of languages, which we find in existence. Yet this is an entirely different view from that which [296] the hypothesis of the uniform progress of change would give. And thus, in the earliest stages of man’s career, the revolutions of language must have been, even by the evidence of the theoretical history of language itself, of an order altogether different from any which have taken place within the recent history of man. And we may add, that as the early stages of the progress of language must have been widely different from those later ones of which we can in some measure trace the natural causes, we cannot place the origin of language in any point of view in which it comes under the jurisdiction of natural causation at all.
[17] Researches, ii. 224.
10. No Natural Origin discoverable.—We are thus led by a survey of several of the palætiological sciences to a confirmation of the principle formerly asserted[18], That in no palætiological science has man been able to arrive at a beginning which is homogeneous with the known course of events. We can in such sciences often go very far back;—determine many of the remote circumstances of the past series of events;—ascend to a point which seems to be near the origin;—and limit the hypotheses respecting the origin itself: but philosophers never have demonstrated, and, so far as we can judge, probably never will be able to demonstrate, what was that primitive state of things from which the progressive course of the world took its first departure. In all these paths of research, when we travel far backwards, the aspect of the earlier portions becomes very different from that of the advanced part on which we now stand; but in all cases the path is lost in obscurity as it is traced backwards towards its starting-point: it becomes not only invisible, but unimaginable; it is not only an interruption, but an abyss, which interposes itself between us and any intelligible beginning of things.
[18] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviii. c. vi. sect 5.
CHAPTER IV.
Of the Relation of Tradition to Palætiology.
1. Importance of Tradition.—Since the Palætiological Sciences have it for their business to study the train of past events produced by natural causes down to the present time, the knowledge concerning such events which is supplied by the remembrance and records of man, in whatever form, must have an important bearing upon these sciences. All changes in the condition and extent of land and sea, which have taken place within man’s observation, all effects of deluges, sea-waves, rivers, springs, volcanoes, earthquakes, and the like, which come within the reach of human history, have a strong interest for the palætiologist. Nor is he less concerned in all recorded instances of the modification of the forms and habits of plants and animals, by the operations of man, or by transfer from one land to another. And when we come to the Palætiology of Language, of Art, of Civilization, we find our subject still more closely connected with history; for in truth these are historical, no less than palætiological investigations. But, confining ourselves at present to the material sciences, we may observe that though the importance of the information which tradition gives us, in the sciences now under our consideration, as, for instance, geology, has long been tacitly recognised; yet it is only recently that geologists have employed themselves in collecting their historical facts upon such a scale and with such comprehensive views as are required by the interest and use of collections of this kind. The Essay of Von [298] Hoff[19], On the Natural Alterations in the Surface of the Earth which are proved by Tradition, was the work which first opened the eyes of geologists to the extent and importance of this kind of investigation. Since that time the same path of research has been pursued with great perseverance by others, especially by Sir C. Lyell; and is now justly considered as an essential portion of Geology.
[19] Vol. i. 1822; vol. ii. 1824.
2. Connexion of Tradition and Science.—Events which we might naturally expect to have some bearing on geology, are narrated in the historical writings which, even on mere human grounds, have the strongest claim to our respect as records of the early history of the world, and are confirmed by the traditions of various nations all over the globe; namely, the formation of the earth and of its population, and a subsequent deluge. It has been made a matter of controversy how the narrative of these events is to be understood, so as to make it agree with the facts which an examination of the earth’s surface and of its vegetable and animal population discloses to us. Such controversies, when they are considered as merely archæological, may occur in any of the palætiological sciences. We may have to compare and to reconcile the evidence of existing phenomena with that of historical tradition. But under some circumstances this process of conciliation may assume an interest of another kind, on which we will make a few remarks.
3. Natural and Providential History of the World.—We may contemplate the existence of man upon the earth, his origin and his progress, in the same manner as we contemplate the existence of any other race of animals; namely, in a purely palætiological view. We may consider how far our knowledge of laws of causation enables us to explain his diffusion and migration, his differences and resemblances, his actions and works. And this is the view of man as a member of the Natural Course of Things. [299]
But man, at the same time the contemplator and the subject of his own contemplation, endowed with faculties and powers which make him a being of a different nature from other animals, cannot help regarding his own actions and enjoyments, his recollections and his hopes, under an aspect quite different from any that we have yet had presented to us. We have been endeavouring to place in a clear light the Fundamental Ideas, such as that of Cause, on which depends our knowledge of the natural course of things. But there are other Ideas to which man necessarily refers his actions; he is led by his nature, not only to consider his own actions, and those of his fellow-men, as springing out of this or that cause, leading to this or that material result; but also as good or bad, as what they ought or ought not to be. He has Ideas of moral relations as well as those Ideas of material relations with which we have hitherto been occupied. He is a moral as well as a natural agent.
Contemplating himself and the world around him by the light of his Moral Ideas, man is led to the conviction that his moral faculties were bestowed upon him by design and for a purpose; that he is the subject of a Moral Government; that the course of the world is directed by the Power which governs it, to the unfolding and perfecting of man’s moral nature; that this guidance may be traced in the career of individuals and of the world; that there is a Providential as well as a Natural Course of Things.
Yet this view is beset by no small difficulties. The full development of man’s moral faculties;—the perfection of his nature up to the measure of his own ideas;—the adaptation of his moral being to an ultimate destination, by its transit through a world full of moral evil, in which evil each person has his share;—are effects for which the economy of the world appears to contain no adequate provision. Man, though aware of his moral nature, and ready to believe in an ultimate destination of purity and blessedness, is too feeble to resist the temptation of evil, and too helpless to restore his purity when once lost. He cannot but look for [300] some confirmation of that providential order which he has begun to believe; some provision for those deficiencies in his moral condition which he has begun to feel.
He looks at the history of the world, and he finds that at a certain period it offers to him the promise of what he seeks. When the natural powers of man had been developed to their full extent, and were beginning to exhibit symptoms of decay;—when the intellectual progress of the world appeared to have reached its limit, without supplying man’s moral needs;—we find the great Epoch in the Providential History of the world. We find the announcement of a Dispensation by which man’s deficiencies shall be supplied and his aspirations fulfilled: we find a provision for the purification, the support, and the ultimate beatification of those who use the provided means. And thus the providential course of the world becomes consistent and intelligible.
4. The Sacred Narrative.—But with the new Dispensation, we receive, not only an account of its own scheme and history, but also a written narrative of the providential course of the world from the earliest times, and even from its first creation. This narrative is recognized and authorized by the new dispensation, and accredited by some of the same evidences as the dispensation itself. That the existence of such a sacred narrative should be a part of the providential order of things, cannot but appear natural; but, naturally also, the study of it leads to some difficulties.
The Sacred Narrative in some of its earliest portions speaks of natural objects and occurrences respecting them. In the very beginning of the course of the world, we may readily believe (indeed, as we have seen in the last chapter, our scientific researches lead us to believe) that such occurrences were very different from anything which now takes place;—different to an extent and in a manner which we cannot estimate. Now the narrative must speak of objects and occurrences in the words and phrases which have derived their meaning from their application to the existing natural state of things. When applied to an initial [301] supernatural state therefore, these words and phrases cannot help being to us obscure and mysterious, perhaps ambiguous and seemingly contradictory.
5. Difficulties in interpreting the Sacred Narrative.—The moral and providential relations of man’s condition are so much more important to him than mere natural relations, that at first we may well suppose he will accept the Sacred Narrative, as not only unquestionable in its true import, but also as a guide in his views even of mere natural things. He will try to modify the conceptions which he entertains of objects and their properties, so that the Sacred Narrative of the supernatural condition shall retain the first meaning which he had put upon it in virtue of his own habits in the usage of language.
But man is so constituted that he cannot persist in this procedure. The powers and tendencies of his intellect are such that he cannot help trying to attain true conceptions of objects and their properties by the study of things themselves. For instance, when he at first read of a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below, he perhaps conceived a transparent floor in the skies, on which the superior waters rested, which descend in rain; but as his observations and his reasonings satisfied him that such a floor could not exist, he became willing to allow (as St. Augustine allowed) that the waters above the firmament are in a state of vapour. And in like manner in other subjects, men, as their views of nature became more distinct and precise, modified, so far as it was necessary for consistency’s sake, their first rude interpretations of the Sacred Narrative; so that, without in any degree losing its import as a view of the providential course of the world, it should be so conceived as not to contradict what they knew of the natural order of things.
But this accommodation was not always made without painful struggles and angry controversies. When men had conceived the occurrences of the Sacred Narrative in a particular manner, they could not readily and willingly adopt a new mode of conception; and all attempts to recommend to them such novelties, they [302] resisted as attacks upon the sacredness of the Narrative. They had clothed their belief of the workings of Providence in certain images; and they clung to those images with the persuasion that, without them, their belief could not subsist. Thus they imagined to themselves that the earth was a flat floor, solidly and broadly laid for the convenience of man; and they felt as if the kindness of Providence was disparaged, when it was maintained that the earth was a globe held together only by the mutual attraction of its parts.
The most memorable instance of a struggle of this kind is to be found in the circumstances which attended the introduction of the Heliocentric Theory of Copernicus to general acceptance. On this controversy I have already made some remarks in the History of Science[20], and have attempted to draw from it some lessons which may be useful to us when any similar conflict of opinions may occur. I will here add a few reflections with a similar view.
[20] B. v. c. iii. sect. 4.
6. Such difficulties inevitable.—In the first place, I remark that such modifications of the current interpretation of the words of Scripture appear to be an inevitable consequence of the progressive character of Natural Science. Science is constantly teaching us to describe known facts in new language; but the language of Scripture is always the same. And not only so, but the language of Scripture is necessarily adapted to the common state of man’s intellectual development, in which he is supposed not to be possessed of science. Hence the phrases used by Scripture are precisely those which science soon teaches man to consider as inaccurate. Yet they are not, on that account, the less fitted for their proper purpose: for if any terms had been used, adapted to a more advanced state of knowledge, they must have been unintelligible among those to whom the Scripture was first addressed. If the Jews had been told that water existed in the clouds in small drops, they would have marvelled that it did [303] not constantly descend; and to have explained the reason of this, would have been to teach Atmology in the sacred writings. If they had read in their Scripture that the earth was a sphere, when it appeared to be a plain, they would only have been disturbed in their thoughts or driven to some wild and baseless imaginations, by a declaration to them so strange. If the Divine Speaker, instead of saying that he would set his bow in the clouds, had been made to declare that he would give to water the property of refracting different colours at different angles, how utterly unmeaning to the hearers would the words have been! And in these cases, the expressions, being unintelligible, startling, and bewildering, would have been such as tended to unfit the Sacred Narrative for its place in the providential dispensation of the world.
Accordingly, in the great controversy which took place in Galileo’s time between the defenders of the then customary interpretations of Scripture, and the assertors of the Copernican system of the universe, when the innovators were upbraided with maintaining opinions contrary to Scripture, they replied that Scripture was not intended to teach men astronomy, and that it expressed the acts of divine power in images which were suited to the ideas of unscientific men. To speak of the rising and setting and travelling of the sun, of the fixity and of the foundations of the earth, was to use the only language which would have made the Sacred Narrative intelligible. To extract from these and the like expressions doctrines of science, was, they declared, in the highest degree unjustifiable; and such a course could lead, they held, to no result but a weakening of the authority of Scripture in proportion as its credit was identified with that of these modes of applying it. And this judgment has since been generally assented to by those who most reverence and value the study of the designs of Providence as well as that of the works of nature.
7. Science tells us nothing concerning Creation.—Other apparent difficulties arise from the accounts given in the Scripture of the first origin of the world [304] in which we live: for example, Light is represented as created before the Sun. With regard to difficulties of this kind, it appears that we may derive some instruction from the result to which we were led in the last chapter;—namely, that in the sciences which trace the progress of natural occurrences, we can in no case go back to an origin, but in every instance appear to find ourselves separated from it by a state of things, and an order of events, of a kind altogether different from those which come under our experience. The thread of induction respecting the natural course of the world snaps in our fingers, when we try to ascertain where its beginning is. Since, then, science can teach us nothing positive respecting the beginning of things, she can neither contradict nor confirm what is taught by Scripture on that subject; and thus, as it is unworthy timidity in the lover of Scripture to fear contradiction, so is it ungrounded presumption to look for confirmation, in such cases. The providential history of the world has its own beginning, and its own evidence; and we can only render the system insecure, by making it lean on our material sciences. If any one were to suggest that the nebular hypothesis countenances the Scripture history of the formation of this system, by showing how the luminous matter of the sun might exist previous to the sun itself, we should act wisely in rejecting such an attempt to weave together these two heterogeneous threads;—the one a part of a providential scheme, the other a fragment of a physical speculation.
We shall best learn those lessons of the true philosophy of science which it is our object to collect, by attending to portions of science which have gone through such crises as we are now considering; nor is it requisite, for this purpose, to bring forwards any subjects which are still under discussion. It may, however, be mentioned that such maxims as we are now endeavouring to establish, and the one before us in particular, bear with a peculiar force upon those Palætiological Sciences of which we have been treating in the present Book. [305]
8. Scientific views, when familiar, do not disturb the authority of Scripture.—There is another reflection which may serve to console and encourage us in the painful struggles which thus take place, between those who maintain interpretations of Scripture already prevalent and those who contend for such new ones as the new discoveries of science require. It is this;—that though the new opinion is resisted by one party as something destructive of the credit of Scripture and the reverence which is its due, yet, in fact, when the new interpretation has been generally established and incorporated with men’s current thoughts, it ceases to disturb their views of the authority of the Scripture or of the truth of its teaching. When the language of Scripture, invested with its new meaning, has become familiar to men, it is found that the ideas which it calls up are quite as reconcileable as the former ones were, with the most entire acceptance of the providential dispensation. And when this has been found to be the case, all cultivated persons look back with surprise at the mistake of those who thought that the essence of the revelation was involved in their own arbitrary version of some collateral circumstance in the revealed narrative. At the present day, we can hardly conceive how reasonable men could ever have imagined that religious reflections on the stability of the earth, and the beauty and use of the luminaries which revolve round it, would be interfered with by an acknowledgment that this rest and motion are apparent only[21]. And thus the authority of revelation is not shaken by any changes introduced by the progress of science in the mode of interpreting expressions which describe physical objects and occurrences; provided the new interpretation is admitted at a proper season, and in a proper spirit; so as to soften, as much as possible, both the public controversies and the private scruples which almost inevitably accompany such an alteration.
[21] I have here borrowed a sentence or two from my own History.
9. When should old Interpretations be given up?—But the question then occurs, What is the proper [306] season for a religious and enlightened commentator to make such a change in the current interpretation of sacred Scripture? At what period ought the established exposition of a passage to be given up, and a new mode of understanding the passage, such as is, or seems to be, required by new discoveries respecting the laws of nature, accepted in its place? It is plain, that to introduce such an alteration lightly and hastily would be a procedure fraught with inconvenience; for if the change were made in such a manner, it might be afterwards discovered that it had been adopted without sufficient reason, and that it was necessary to reinstate the old exposition. And the minds of the readers of Scripture, always to a certain extent and for a time disturbed by the subversion of their long-established notions, would be distressed without any need, and might be seriously unsettled. While, on the other hand, a too protracted and obstinate resistance to the innovation, on the part of the scriptural expositors, would tend to identify, at least in the minds of many, the authority of the Scripture with the truth of the exposition; and therefore would bring discredit upon the revealed word, when the established interpretation was finally proved to be untenable.
A rule on this subject, propounded by some of the most enlightened dignitaries of the Roman Catholic church, on the occasion of the great Copernican controversy begun by Galileo, seems well worthy of our attention. The following was the opinion given by Cardinal Bellarmine at the time:—‘When a demonstration shall be found to establish the earth’s motion, it will be proper to interpret the sacred Scriptures otherwise than they have hitherto been interpreted in those passages where mention is made of the stability of the earth and movement of the heavens.’ This appears to be a judicious and reasonable maxim for such cases in general. So long as the supposed scientific discovery is doubtful, the exposition of the meaning of Scripture given by commentators of established credit is not wantonly to be disturbed: but when a scientific theory, irreconcileable with this ancient [307] interpretation, is clearly proved, we must give up the interpretation, and seek some new mode of understanding the passage in question, by means of which it may be consistent with what we know; for if it be not, our conception of the things so described is no longer consistent with itself.
It may be said that this rule is indefinite, for who shall decide when a new theory is completely demonstrated, and the old interpretation become untenable? But to this we may reply, that if the rule be assented to, its application will not be very difficult. For when men have admitted as a general rule, that the current interpretations of scriptural expressions respecting natural objects and events may possibly require, and in some cases certainly will require, to be abandoned, and new ones admitted, they will hardly allow themselves to contend for such interpretations as if they were essential parts of revelation; and will look upon the change of exposition, whether it come sooner or later, without alarm or anger. And when men lend themselves to the progress of truth in this spirit, it is not of any material importance at what period a new and satisfactory interpretation of the scriptural difficulty is found; since a scientific exactness in our apprehension of the meaning of such passages as are now referred to is very far from being essential to our full acceptance of revelation.
10. In what Spirit should the Change be accepted?—Still these revolutions in scriptural interpretation must always have in them something which distresses and disturbs religious communities. And such uneasy feelings will take a different shape, according as the community acknowledges or rejects a paramount interpretative authority in its religious leaders. In the case in which the interpretation of the Church is binding upon all its members, the more placid minds rest in peace upon the ancient exposition, till the spiritual authorities announce that the time for the adoption of a new view has arrived; but in these circumstances, the more stirring and inquisitive minds, which cannot refrain from the pursuit of new truths [308] and exact conceptions, are led to opinions which, being contrary to those of the Church, are held to be sinful. On the other hand, if the religious constitution of the community allow and encourage each man to study and interpret for himself the Sacred Writings, we are met by evils of another kind. In this case, although, by the unforced influence of admired commentators, there may prevail a general agreement in the usual interpretation of difficult passages, yet as each reader of the Scripture looks upon the sense which he has adopted as being his own interpretation, he maintains it, not with the tranquil acquiescence of one who has deposited his judgment in the hands of his Church, but with the keenness and strenuousness of self-love. In such a state of things, though no judicial severities can be employed against the innovators, there may arise more angry controversies than in the other case.
It is impossible to overlook the lesson which here offers itself, that it is in the highest degree unwise in the friends of religion, whether individuals or communities, unnecessarily to embark their credit in expositions of Scripture on matters which appertain to natural Science. By delivering physical doctrines as the teaching of revelation, religion may lose much, but cannot gain anything. This maxim of practical wisdom has often been urged by Christian writers. Thus St. Augustine says[22]: ‘In obscure matters and things far removed from our senses, if we read anything, even in the divine Scripture, which may produce diverse opinions without damaging the faith which we cherish, let us not rush headlong by positive assertion to either the one opinion or the other; lest, when a more thorough discussion has shown the opinion which we had adopted to be false, our faith may fall with it: and we should be found contending, not for the doctrine of the sacred Scriptures, but for our own; endeavouring to make our doctrine to be that of the Scriptures, instead of taking the doctrine of the Scriptures to be ours.’ And in nearly the same spirit, at the [309] time of the Copernican controversy, it was thought proper to append to the work of Copernicus a postil, to say that the work was written to account for the phenomena, and that people must not run on blindly and condemn either of the opposite opinions. Even when the Inquisition, in 1616, thought itself compelled to pronounce a decision upon this subject, the verdict was delivered in very moderate language;—that ‘the doctrine of the earth’s motion appeared to be contrary to Scripture:’ and yet, moderate as this expression is, it has been blamed by judicious members of the Roman church as deciding a point such as religious authorities ought not to pretend to decide; and has brought upon that church no ordinary weight of general condemnation. Kepler pointed out, in his lively manner, the imprudence of employing the force of religious authorities on such subjects: Acies dolabræ in ferrum illisa, postea nec in lignum valet amplius. Capiat hoc cujus interest. ‘If you will try to chop iron, the axe becomes unable to cut even wood. I warn those whom it concerns.’
[22] Lib. i. de Genesi, cap. xviii.
11. In what Spirit should the Change be urged?—But while we thus endeavour to show in what manner the interpreters of Scripture may most safely and most properly accept the discoveries of science, we must not forget that there may be errours committed on the other side also; and that men of science, in bringing forward views which may for a time disturb the minds of lovers of Scripture, should consider themselves as bound by strict rules of candour, moderation, and prudence. Intentionally to make their supposed discoveries a means of discrediting, contradicting, or slighting the sacred Scriptures, or the authority of religion, is in them unpardonable. As men who make the science of Truth the business of their lives, and are persuaded of her genuine superiority, and certain of her ultimate triumph, they are peculiarly bound to urge her claims in a calm and temperate spirit; not forgetting that there are other kinds of truth besides that which they peculiarly study. They may properly reject authority in matters of science; but they are to leave [310] it its proper office in matters of religion. I may here again quote Kepler’s expressions: ‘In Theology we balance authorities, in Philosophy we weigh reasons. A holy man was Lactantius who denied that the earth was round; a holy man was Augustine, who granted the rotundity, but denied the antipodes; a holy thing to me is the Inquisition, which allows the smallness of the earth, but denies its motion; but more holy to me is Truth; and hence I prove, from philosophy, that the earth is round, and inhabited on every side, of small size, and in motion among the stars,—and this I do with no disrespect to the Doctors.’ I the more willingly quote such a passage from Kepler, because the entire ingenuousness and sincere piety of his character does not allow us to suspect him in anything of hypocrisy or latent irony. That similar professions of respect may be made ironically, we have a noted example in the celebrated Introduction to Galileo’s Dialogue on the Copernican System; probably the part which was most offensive to the authorities. ‘Some years ago,’ he begins, ‘a wholesome edict was promulgated at Rome, which, in order to check the perilous scandals of the present age, imposed silence upon the Pythagorean opinion of the mobility of the earth. There were not wanting,’ he proceeds, ‘persons who rashly asserted that this decree was the result, not of a judicious inquiry, but of passion ill-informed; and complaints were heard that councillors, utterly unacquainted with astronomical observation, ought not to be allowed, with their sudden prohibitions, to clip the wings of speculative intellects. At the hearing of rash lamentations like these, my zeal could not keep silence.’ And he then goes on to say, that he wishes, in his Dialogue, to show that the subject had been fully examined at Rome. Here the irony is quite transparent, and the sarcasm glaringly obvious. I think we may venture to say that this is not the temper in which scientific questions should be treated; although by some, perhaps, the prohibition of public discussion may be considered as justifying any evasion which is likely to pass unpunished. [311]
12. Duty of Mutual Forbearance.—We may add, as a further reason for mutual forbearance in such cases, that the true interests of both parties are the same. The man of science is concerned, no less than any other person, in the truth and import of the divine dispensation; the religious man, no less than the man of science, is, by the nature of his intellect, incapable of believing two contradictory declarations. Hence they have both alike a need for understanding the Scripture in some way in which it shall be consistent with their understanding of nature. It is for their common advantage to conciliate, as Kepler says, the finger and the tongue of God, his works and his word. And they may find abundant reason to bear with each other, even if they should adopt for this purpose different interpretations, each finding one satisfactory to himself; or if any one should decline employing his thoughts on such subjects at all. I have elsewhere[23] quoted a passage from Kepler[24] which appears to me written in a most suitable spirit: ‘I beseech my reader that, not unmindful of the divine goodness bestowed upon man, he do with me praise and celebrate the wisdom of the Creator, which I open to him from a more inward explication of the form of the world, from a searching of causes, from a detection of the errours of vision; and that thus not only in the firmness and stability of the earth may we perceive with gratitude the preservation of all living things in nature as the gift of God: but also that in its motion, so recondite, so admirable, we may acknowledge the wisdom of the Creator. But whoever is too dull to receive this science, or too weak to believe the Copernican system without harm to his piety, him, I say, I advise that, leaving the school of astronomy, and condemning, if so he please, any doctrines of the philosophers, he follow his own path, and desist from this wandering through the universe; and that, lifting up his natural eyes, with which alone he can see, [312] he pour himself out from his own heart in worship of God the Creator, being certain that he gives no less worship to God than the astronomer, to whom God has given to see more clearly with his inward eyes, and who, from what he has himself discovered, both can and will glorify God.’
[23] Bridgewater Tr. p. 314.
[24] Com. Stell. Mart. Introd.
13. Case of Galileo.—I may perhaps venture here to make a remark or two upon this subject with reference to a charge brought against a certain portion of the History of the Inductive Sciences. Complaint has been made[25] that the character of the Roman church, as shown in its behaviour towards Galileo, is misrepresented in the account given of it in the History of Astronomy. It is asserted that Galileo provoked the condemnation he incurred; first, by pertinaciously demanding the assent of the ecclesiastical authorities to his opinion of the consistency of the Copernican doctrine with Scripture; and afterwards by contumaciously, and, as we have seen, contumeliously violating the silence which the Church had enjoined upon him. It is further declared that the statement which represents it as the habit of the Roman church to dogmatize on points of natural science is unfounded; as well as the opinion that in consequence of this habit, new scientific truths were promulgated less boldly in Italy than in other countries. I shall reply very briefly on these subjects; for the decision of them is by no means requisite in order to establish the doctrines to which I have been led in the present chapter, nor, I hope, to satisfy my reader that my views have been collected from an impartial consideration of scientific history.
[25] Dublin Review, No. ix. July, 1838, p. 72.
With regard to Galileo, I do not think it can be denied that he obtruded his opinions upon the ecclesiastical authorities in an unnecessary and imprudent manner. He was of an ardent character, strongly convinced himself, and urged on still more by the conviction which he produced among his disciples, and [313] thus he became impatient for the triumph of truth. This judgment of him has recently been delivered by various independent authorities, and has undoubtedly considerable foundation[26]. As to the question whether authority in matters of natural science were habitually claimed by the authorities of the Church of Rome, I have to allow that I cannot produce instances which establish such a habit. We, who have been accustomed to have daily before our eyes the Monition which the Romish editors of Newton thought it necessary to prefix—Cæterum latis a summo Pontifice contra telluris motum Decretis, nos obsequi profitemur—were not likely to conjecture that this was a solitary instance of the interposition of the Papal authority on such subjects. But although it would be easy to find declarations of heresy delivered by Romish Universities, and writers of great authority, against tenets belonging to the natural sciences, I am not aware that any other case can be adduced in which the Church or the Pope can be shown to have pronounced such a sentence. I am well contented to acknowledge this; for I should be far more gratified by finding myself compelled to hold up the seventeenth century as a model for the nineteenth in this respect, than by having to sow enmity between the admirers of the past and the present through any disparaging contrast[27].
[26] Besides the Dublin Review, I may quote the Edinburgh Review, which I suppose will not be thought likely to have a bias in favour of the exercise of ecclesiastical authority in matters of science; though certainly there is a puerility in the critic’s phraseology which does not add to the weight of his judgment. ‘Galileo contrived to surround the truth with every variety of obstruction. The tide of knowledge, which had hitherto advanced in peace, he crested with angry breakers, and he involved in its surf both his friends and his foes.’—Ed. Rev. No. cxxiii. p. 126.
[27] I may add that the most candid of the adherents of the Church of Rome condemn the assumption of authority in matters of science, made, in this one instance at least, by the ecclesiastical tribunals. The author of the Ages of Faith (book viii. p. 248), says, ‘A Congregation, it is to be lamented, declared the new system to be opposed to Scripture, and therefore heretical.’
[314] With respect to the attempt made in my History to characterize the intellectual habits of Italy as produced by her religious condition,—certainly it would ill become any student of the history of science to speak slightingly of that country, always the mother of sciences, always ready to catch the dawn and hail the rising of any new light of knowledge. But I think our admiration of this activity and acuteness of mind is by no means inconsistent with the opinion, that new truths were promulgated more boldly beyond the Alps, and that the subtilty of the Italian intellect loved to insinuate what the rough German bluntly asserted. Of the decent duplicity with which forbidden opinions were handled, the reviewer himself gives us instances, when he boasts of the liberality with which Copernican professors were placed in important stations by the ecclesiastical authorities, soon after the doctrine of the motion of the earth had been declared by the same authorities to be contrary to Scripture. And in the same spirit is the process of demanding from Galileo a public and official recantation of opinions which he had repeatedly been told by his ecclesiastical superiors he might hold as much as he pleased. I think it is easy to believe that among persons so little careful to reconcile public profession with private conviction, official decorum was all that was demanded. When Galileo had made his renunciation of the earth’s motion on his knees, he rose and said, as we are told, E pur si muove—‘and yet it does move.’ This is sometimes represented as the heroic soliloquy of a mind cherishing its conviction of the truth, in spite of persecution; I think we may more naturally conceive it uttered as a playful epigram in the ear of a cardinal’s secretary, with a full knowledge that it would be immediately repeated to his master[28].
[28] I have somewhat further discussed the case of Galileo in the later editions of the History, book v. chap. iii. sect. 4.
Besides the Ideas involved in the material sciences, [315] of which we have already examined the principal ones, there is one Idea or Conception which our Sciences do not indeed include, but to which they not obscurely point; and the importance of this Idea will make it proper to speak of it, though this must be done very briefly.
CHAPTER V.
Of the Conception of a First Cause.
1. AT the end of the last chapter but one, we were led to this result,—that we cannot, in any of the Palætiological Sciences, ascend to a beginning which is of the same nature as the existing cause of events, and which depends upon causes that are still in operation. Philosophers never have demonstrated, and probably never will be able to demonstrate, what was the original condition of the solar system, of the earth, of the vegetable and animal worlds, of languages, of arts. On all these subjects the course of investigation, followed backwards as far as our materials allow us to pursue it, ends at last in an impenetrable gloom. We strain our eyes in vain when we try, by our natural faculties, to discern an origin.
2. Yet speculative men have been constantly employed in attempts to arrive at that which thus seems to be placed out of their reach. The Origin of Languages, the Origin of the present Distribution of Plants and Animals, the Origin of the Earth, have been common subjects of diligent and persevering inquiry. Indeed inquiries respecting such subjects have been, at least till lately, the usual form which Palætiological researches have assumed. Cosmogony, the Origin of the World, of which, in such speculations, the earth was considered as a principal part, has been a favourite study both of ancient and of modern times: and most of the attempts at Geology previous to the present period have been Cosmogonies or Geogonies, rather than that more genuine science which we have endeavoured to delineate. Again: Glossology, though now an extensive body of solid knowledge, was [317] mainly brought into being by inquiries concerning the Original Language spoken by men; and the nature of the first separation and diffusion of languages, the first peopling of the earth by man and by animals, were long sought after with ardent curiosity, although of course with reference to the authority of the Scriptures, as well as the evidence of natural phenomena. Indeed the interest of such inquiries even yet is far from being extinguished. The disposition to explore the past in the hope of finding, by the light of natural reasoning as well as by the aid of revelation, the origin of the present course of things, appears to be unconquerable. ‘What was the beginning?’ is a question which the human race cannot desist from perpetually asking. And no failure in obtaining a satisfactory answer can prevent inquisitive spirits from again and again repeating the inquiry, although the blank abyss into which it is uttered does not even return an echo.
3. What, then, is the reason of an attempt so pertinacious yet so fruitless? By what motive are we impelled thus constantly to seek what we can never find? Why are the errour of our conjectures, the futility of our reasonings, the precariousness of our interpretations, over and over again proved to us in vain? Why is it impossible for us to acquiesce in our ignorance and to relinquish the inquiry? Why cannot we content ourselves with examining those links of the chain of causes which are nearest to us,—those in which the connexion is intelligible and clear; instead of fixing our attention upon those remote portions where we can no longer estimate its coherence? In short, why did not men from the first take for the subject of their speculations the Course of Nature rather than the Origin of Things?
To this we reply, that in doing what they have thus done, in seeking what they have sought, men are impelled by an intellectual necessity. They cannot conceive a Series of connected occurrences without a Commencement; they cannot help supposing a cause for the Whole, as well as a cause for each part; they cannot be satisfied with a succession of causes without [318] assuming a First Cause. Such an assumption is necessarily impressed upon our minds by our contemplation of a series of causes and effects; that there must be a First Cause, is accepted by all intelligent reasoners as an Axiom: and like other Axioms, its truth is necessarily implied in the Idea which it involves.
4. The evidence of this axiom may be illustrated in several ways. In the first place, the axiom is assumed in the argument usually offered to prove the existence of the Deity. Since, it is said, the world now exists, and since nothing cannot produce something, something must have existed from eternity. This Something is the First Cause: it is God.
Now what I have to remark here is this:—the conclusiveness of this argument, as a proof of the existence of one independent, immutable Deity, depends entirely upon the assumption of the axiom above stated. The World, a series of causes and effects, exists: therefore there must be, not only this series of causes and effects, but also a First Cause. It will be easily seen, that without the axiom, that in every series of causes and effects there must be a First Cause, the reasoning is altogether inconclusive.
5. Or to put the matter otherwise: The argument for the existence of the Deity was stated thus: Something exists, therefore something must have existed from eternity. ‘Granted,’ the opponent might say; ‘but this something which has existed from eternity, why may it not be this very series of causes and effects which is now going on, and which appears to contain in itself no indication of beginning or end?’ And thus, without the assumption of the necessity of a First Cause, the force of the argument may be resisted.
6. But, it may be asked, how do those who have written to prove the existence of the Deity reply to such an objection as the one just stated? It is natural to suppose that, on a subject so interesting and so long discussed, all the obvious arguments with their replies, have been fully brought into view. What is the result in this case? [319]
The principal modes of replying to the above objection, that the series of causes and effects which now exists, may have existed from eternity, appear to be these.
In the first place, our minds cannot be satisfied with a series of successive, dependent, causes and effects, without something first and independent. We pass from effect to cause, and from that to a higher cause, in search of something on which the mind can rest; but if we can do nothing but repeat this process, there is no use in it. We move our limbs, but make no advance. Our question is not answered, but evaded. The mind cannot acquiesce in the destiny thus presented to it, of being referred from event to event, from object to object, along an interminable vista of causation and time. Now this mode of stating the reply,—to say that the mind cannot thus be satisfied, appears to be equivalent to saying that the mind is conscious of a Principle, in virtue of which such a view as this must be rejected;—the mind takes refuge in the assumption of a First Cause, from an employment inconsistent with its own nature.
7. Or again, we may avoid the objection, by putting the argument for the existence of a Deity in this form: The series of causes and effects which we call the world, or the course of nature, may be considered as a whole, and this whole must have a cause of its existence. The whole collection of objects and events may be comprehended as a single effect, and of this effect there must be a cause. This Cause of the Universe must be superior to, and independent of the special events, which, happening in time, make up the universe of which He is the cause. He must exist and exercise causation, before these events can begin: He must be the First Cause.
Although the argument is here somewhat modified in form, the substance is the same as before. For the assumption that we may consider the whole series of causes and effects as a single effect, is equivalent to the assumption that besides partial causes we must have a First Cause. And thus the Idea of a First Cause, and [320] the axiom which asserts its necessity, are recognized in the usual argumentation on this subject.
8. This Idea of a First Cause, and the principle involved in the Idea, have been the subject of discussion in another manner. As we have already said, we assume as an axiom that a First Cause must exist; and we assert that God, the First Cause, exists eternal and immutable, by the necessity which the axiom implies. Hence God is said to exist necessarily;—to be a necessarily existing being. And when this necessary existence of God had been spoken of, it soon began to be contemplated as a sufficient reason, and as an absolute demonstration of His existence; without any need of referring to the world as an effect, in order to arrive at God as the cause. And thus men conceived that they had obtained a proof of the existence of the Deity, à priori, from Ideas, as well as à posteriori, from Effects.
9. Thus, Thomas Aquinas employs this reasoning to prove the eternity of God[29]: ‘Oportet ponere aliquod primum necessarium quod est per se ipsum necessarium; et hoc est Deus, cum sit prima causa ut dictum est: igitur Deus æternus est, cum omne necessarium per se sit æternum.’ It is true that the schoolmen never professed to be able to prove the existence of the Deity à priori: but they made use of this conception of necessary existence in a manner which approached very near to such an attempt. Thus Suarez[30] discusses the question, ‘Utrum aliquo modo possit à priori demonstrari Deum esse.’ And resolves the question in this manner: ‘Ad hunc ergo modum dicendum est: Demonstrato à posteriori Deum esse ens necessarium et a se, ex hoc attributo posse à priori demonstrari præter illud non posse esse aliud ens necessarium et a se, et consequenter demonstrari Deum esse.’
[29] Aquin. Cont. Gentil. lib. i. c. xiv. p. 21.
[30] Metaphys. tom. ii. disp. xxix. sect. 3, p. 28.
But in modern times attempts were made by Descartes and Samuel Clarke, to prove the Divine [321] existence at once à priori, from the conception of necessary existence; which, it was argued, could not subsist without actual existence. This argumentation was acutely and severely criticised by Dr. Waterland.
10. Without dwelling upon a subject, the discussion of which does not enter into the design of the present work, I may remark that the question whether an à priori proof of the existence of a First Cause be possible, is a question concerning the nature of our Ideas, and the evidence of the axioms which they involve, of the same kind as many questions which we have already had to discuss. Is our Conception or Idea of a First Cause gathered from the effects we see around us? It is plain that we must answer, here as in other cases, that the Idea is not extracted from the phenomena, but assumed in order that the phenomena may become intelligible to the mind;—that the Idea is a necessary one, inasmuch as it does not depend upon observation for its evidence; but that it depends upon observation for its development, since without some observation, we cannot conceive the mind to be cognizant of the relation of causation at all. In this respect, however, the Idea of a First Cause is no less necessary than the ideas of Space, or Time, or Cause in general. And whether we call the reasoning derived from such a necessity an argument à priori or à posteriori, in either case it possesses the genuine character of demonstration, being founded upon axioms which command universal assent.
11. I have, however, spoken of our Conception rather than of our Idea of a First Cause; for the notion of a First Cause appears to be rather a modification of the Fundamental Idea of Cause, which was formerly discussed, than a separate and peculiar Idea. And the Axiom, that there must be a First Cause, is recognised by most persons as an application of the general Axiom of Causation, that every effect must have a Cause; this latter Axiom being applied to the World, considered in its totality, as a single Effect. This distinction, however, between an Idea and a Conception, is of no material consequence to our argument; provided we [322] allow the maxim, that there must be a First Cause, to be necessarily and evidently true; whether it be thought better to speak of it as an independent Axiom, or to consider it as derived from the general Axiom of Causation.
12. Thus we necessarily infer a First Cause, although the Palætiological Sciences only point towards it, and do not lead us to it. But I must observe further; that in each of the series of events which form the subject of Palætiological research, the First Cause is the same. Without here resting upon reasoning founded upon our Conception of a First Cause, I may remark that this identity is proved by the close connexion of all the branches of natural science, and the way in which the causes and the events of each are interwoven with those which belong to the others. We must needs believe that the First Cause which produced the earth and its atmosphere is also the Cause of the plants which clothe its surface; that the First Cause of the vegetable and of the animal world are the same; that the First Cause which produced light produced also eyes; that the First Cause which produced air and organs of articulation produced also language and the faculties by which language is rendered possible: and if those faculties, then also all man’s other faculties;—the powers by which, as we have said, he discerns right and wrong, and recognises a providential as well as a natural course of things. Nor can we think otherwise than that the Being who gave these faculties, bestowed them for some purpose;—bestowed them for that purpose which alone is compatible with their nature:—the purpose, namely, of guiding and elevating man in his present career, and of preparing him for another state of being to which they irresistibly direct his hopes. And thus, although, as we have said, no one of the Palætiological Sciences can be traced continuously to an Origin, yet they not only each point to an Origin, but all to the same Origin. Their lines are broken indeed, as they run backwards into the early periods of the world, but yet they all appear to converge to the same invisible point. And [323] this point, thus indicated by the natural course of things, can be no other than that which is disclosed to us as the starting-point of the providential course of the world; for we are persuaded by such reasons as have just been hinted, that the Creator of the natural world can be no other than the Author and Governor and Judge of the moral and spiritual world.
13. Thus we are led, by our material Sciences, and especially by the Palætiological class of them, to the borders of a higher region, and to a point of view from which we have a prospect of other provinces of knowledge;—to contemplations in which other faculties of man are concerned besides his intellectual, other interests involved besides those of speculation. On these it does not belong to our present plan to dwell: but even such a brief glance as we have taken of the connexion of material with moral speculations may not be useless, since it may serve to show that the principles of truth which we are now laboriously collecting among the results of the physical sciences, may possibly find some application in those parts of knowledge towards which men most naturally look with deeper interest and more serious reverence.
We have been employed hitherto in examining the materials of knowledge, Facts and Ideas;—Facts in our former History, and Ideas in the present History. We have dwelt at length on this latter element; inasmuch as the consideration of it is, on various accounts, and especially at the present time, by far the most important, having hitherto been least distinctly attended to as a special element of scientific knowledge.
There still remains an important task, with a view to which we have undertaken this survey of the past course of human thought and discovery:—namely, the task of determining the processes by which these materials may actually be made to constitute knowledge. [324] We have surveyed the stones which lie before us, partly built and partly ready for building: we have found them exactly squared, and often curiously covered with significant imagery and important inscriptions. We have now to discover how they may best be fitted into their places, and cemented together, so that rising stage above stage, they may grow at last into that fair and lofty temple of Truth, for which we cannot doubt that they were intended by the Great Architect.
This task, the description of the processes by which Scientific Truth is discovered and established, we shall, as has already been said, entitle, in reference to previous attempts of the same kind, Novum Organum Renovatum.
end of vol. ii.
Cambridge: Printed at the University Press.
Transcriber’s Notes
Whewell published the first edition of the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences in 1840, as a companion to the 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences. Revised second editions of both works appeared in 1847. The third editions saw a major reshaping of the Philosophy: a two volume History of Scientific Ideas (1858 - the present text, relying upon resources kindly provided by the Internet Archive), Novum Organon Renovatum (1858), and On the Philosophy of Discovery: chapters historical and critical (1860 - already in Project Gutenberg’s collection: #5155).
The present text has combined the two volumes into one continuous text, and has moved the Table of Contents of volume 2 to follow the first volume’s Contents. Footnotes are numbered by Book; in the original, notes were numbered by chapter. Page numbers appear in colour; where a word was hyphenated across pages the number has been placed before the word.
There is one significant emendation to report. For Book IX chapter VI, the Table of Contents lists 20 articles, but the actual text has only 19 numbered paragraphs. The text version leaves this inconsistency untouched; in the htm version, a correction has been made by numbering the paragraph beginning on p. 244 as #9, and renumbering those that follow, thereby matching the descriptions in the Table of Contents. A few other emendations are indicated by dotted red underline, the change appearing on mouse-over.