A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'

by Francis Bowen

We see, then, the process of an "organic creation by law," or by virtue of the inherent qualities of inorganic matter. The ordinary chemical affinities of different substances may draw them together into such compounds as albumen and fibrin, which are the proximate principles of organic tissues. The action of electricity, heat, light, or some other mysterious imponderable agent, on these proximate principles, may produce globules, or germinal vesicles. These germs, multiplying themselves by fissiparous generation, will constitute a stock of animals of a low type, such as a tribe of infusory animalcules. Then "this simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like production is subordinate, gives birth to the type next above it, this again produces the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases very small,—namely, from one species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a simple and modest character." Thus, the first reptile was born from a fish, the first bird was generated by a reptile, and the first mammifer had birds for its parents. The transformations appear rather astounding, as we pass from one class to another; but the difference between the species, even, is often so great, that the transition appears hardly less difficult. In what quadruped, for instance, do we find the first ancestor of the huge and sagacious elephant? What humble lizard gave birth to those monsters of the fossil world, the plesiosaurus and megalosaurus, thirty or forty feet in length? Man, of course, upon this theory, is only a more perfectly developed monkey, or chimpanzee. With a nod of approbation to Lord Monboddo's theory, our author observes, that man has even the rudiments of "a caudal extremity" in the os coccygis.

That the instinct of animals and the mind of man are the results of nothing but material organization is an obvious corollary from this doctrine. "The difference," says this writer, "between mind in the lower animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific difference." Mental phenomena, apparently so various and unstable in the individual, are reduced at once to regularity, and become subject to calculation, if considered in the mass. This shows, that, like the phenomena of the weather, they are under the presidency of natural laws. The phrenologists are the only persons who have followed the order of nature in the study of mind; they have even determined the functions of the different parts of the brain. An experiment is mentioned with a newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion, that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is sufficiently well known. To borrow an illustration from Sidney Smith, it would seem, that, if we only knew to what organs of the brain to direct an electric current, an automaton, or a dead man, might be made to hold an argument, "at least as well as most country parsons."

A person who should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a revival of the old atheistic hypothesis,—the Epicurean doctrine of the formation of the universe by a fortuitous concourse of atoms,—with all the modifications and improvements that were rendered necessary by the discoveries of modern science. We call it an atheistic theory, because, though the writer supposes that primitive matter was first endowed by divine power with its mysterious qualities and capacities, this supposition is gratuitous and arbitrary, and only mars the simplicity of the scheme, and injures the consistency and coherence of the parts with each other. We can more easily believe that these qualities are necessarily inherent in the constitution of matter, forming a part of its very essence, just like the properties of impenetrability and extension, than that they subsequently developed themselves by forming myriads of intricate organizations, without further aid from the divine architect. If we can credit the hypothesis, that bricks and mortar came together of their own accord, and arranged themselves into the first house meet for the habitation of man, we can very readily admit, also, that the bricks first assumed the proper shape, and mortar the proper tenacity and hardness, without the intervention of human labor and skill. If there is no need of a bricklayer, we may discard also the brick-maker.

Putting aside, therefore, this gratuitous addition to the theory, we come to examine the plausibility of the doctrine which assumes, that material atoms, constituted as they now are, are capable, without oversight or direction, of forming a universe like our own, and producing all the animated tribes which tenant it. In all the atheistic reasoning upon this subject, and especially in the work now before us, there is a constant confusion between what may be, for aught we know to the contrary, and what is, so far as we are able positively to determine it from our present means of observation and experiment; between the possibility that is measured only by human ignorance, and the probability that is fairly inferred by the legitimate exercise of the understanding. Effects have unquestionably been produced, such as the formation of a solar system, and the production of new and perfectly distinct orders of being, which we are wholly unable to account for by the present and ordinary operation of what are called secondary causes. If a theorist chooses to assume, that these secondary causes, under certain conditions, which we never have seen, and never can see, realized, might produce very extraordinary results, might even fully account for the wonderful effects in question, we have a right to say, in reply, that he is dealing in pure speculation and hypothesis; that, having had no experience under the conditions or postulates of his theory, he is necessarily speaking from ignorance and appealing to ignorance; that, even if we could not point out a single difficulty, a single false assumption, in his whole scheme and argument, it would still remain a mere hypothesis, alike incapable of proof or disproof; and that, at the best, the arguments brought against it must be of nearly the same wiredrawn, speculative, and far-fetched character with those adduced in its support. On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the entire absence of all considerations against their theory constitutes a positive argument in its support. No such thing; it affords only a fair presumption of the baseless character of the whole fabric.

This may be made more clear by examples. If a child, who has had little experience of the laws of nature, and has learned nothing from books, is gravely assured by his instructor, that in a distant region of the ocean there is an island where stones fly upward instead of downward, and men walk on their heads instead of their feet, the young philosopher, however acute and ingenious we may suppose him to be, certainly could not offer one valid argument against the alleged fact. He could only stare, and wonder, and say that it might be so for all that he knew to the contrary. Just so, when the atheist tells us, that far off in infinite space is a region, of which we can see nothing, even with our best telescopes, except a faint glimmer of light, floating like a cloudlet in the heavens, where the primitive atoms of matter, directed by gravity alone, are slowly congregating together, and forming suns, and planets, and secondary satellites, and giving birth to such intricate harmonies of mutually dependent and revolving worlds as those which have prevailed for ages in our own system; or that, thousands of years ago, the same unassisted laws of matter, which we now see producing only such comparatively meagre and insufficient results, actually caused animalcules to be produced from pure sand, and fishes to be created out of oysters, and birds to be generated by slimy and grovelling reptiles, and men to be born from monkeys;—if he should tell us all this, certainly we could offer no direct confutation of the wonderful tale. In regard to alleged facts of this character, the wisest of men are, and always must be, mere children. But it would be monstrous to say, that this wild assertion derived any support from their admitted bewilderment and incapacity. This would be to attempt to found knowledge upon ignorance. The dim analogies resting on questionable facts, the bold assumptions and slippery arguments on which such daring hypotheses must be based, can be refuted, for the most part, only by reasoning in kind,—by arguments nearly as uncertain, it may be, as those which they are brought to answer. We cannot prove a negative; we can only show the insufficiency of the ground on which the opposite assumption is made to rest; and enough is done for this end, when it is made to appear, that the whole scheme is a mere hypothesis.

We make these general remarks only to relieve some readers of this volume from the doubt and perplexity which its perusal may have caused, solely because they were unable to detect any one glaring fallacy or inconsistency in the writer's theory. It appears plausible enough; for, though there is very little in its favor, it seems at first sight as if there was little or nothing to say against it. On closer scrutiny, it will be found, perhaps, that it is disproved by a multitude of considerations, any one of which would be fatal to it; as the hypothesis is of such a character, that, when a single breach is made in it, the whole edifice must tumble. If the intervention of an extraneous cause be absolutely necessary at any one stage or process in the creation, it may as well be admitted in all; the principle must be given up, and the whole purpose of the theist is answered. We shall endeavour to show that this hypothetical history of creation is not only faulty in every point, when viewed from the author's own ground, but, when examined in the proper direction, is absolutely unintelligible, or is in fact no history at all.

Let us look first at the nebular hypothesis. Certain spots and tracts in the heavens, of a whitish color, appearing to the naked eye to be nebulæ, on being examined through a telescope, instantly resolve themselves into a multitude of distinct and perfectly formed stars. Such is the greatest nebula of all,—the galaxy, or milky way. Other spots of a like character, if viewed through glasses of moderate power, still appear as nebulæ; but when seen through more perfect instruments, they immediately seem, like the others, to be a mere crowd of stars. Others, again, are not separated or resolved by the best telescopes; but what is the natural inference from this fact? Surely, we infer that they are merely crowded collections of stars, just like the others, except that they are too distant or too small to be seen as distinct bodies, even with the most powerful instruments that we possess. If telescopes of a greater range should hereafter be constructed, there is every reason to believe that these also will be resolved to the eye into their component parts as stars; and in fact, if newspaper accounts may be credited, when Lord Rosse's new and magnificent telescope was first turned towards some of these spots, which had always preserved their nebulous appearance when examined by inferior instruments, it was immediately apparent, that they were composed of distinct stars. Yet the hypothesis we are now considering assumes, that these remote and faintly seen nebulæ are not crowds of stars, but primitive luminous matter, the particles of which are slowly congregating together, and forming one new star, or several. Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory, to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently never can be verified. It must ever remain a mere guess, directly opposed by an obvious induction from those nebulæ which are resolvable into perfect stars.

The fact, that one or two bright points, assumed to be centres of aggregation, are seen in some of these nebulæ, is of no importance. If a bright star be seen from this earth in the same line of vision with the nebula, it will be projected on the ground of that nebula, and will appear as a part of it, though it may be many millions of miles on this side, and have no more connection with it than the planet Jupiter would have, if it should happen to be in conjunction with the nebula, and thus appear for a short time to be projected upon its disc.

There is one consideration of some weight, though we have never seen it adverted to, which tends directly to confute the nebular hypothesis. That faint radiance called the zodiacal light, which is seen to stream up in the form of a cone from our sun, is assumed by our author to be a residuum of the nebulous matter belonging to our system, which has not yet been drawn into the sun, though it is on its way thither. Others have supposed, with far more probability, that it is the sun's atmosphere, and therefore its present shape and size will never change,—as they never have changed, during the period in which they have been observed by man. But no matter; we are now reasoning upon our author's hypothesis. If the zodiacal light be composed of primitive nebulous matter, it must now be comparatively thick and dense, since the process of aggregation has been going on for countless ages, and, in our system, is considered as nearly completed; just as when a sediment is forming in a tumbler full of turbid water, after the upper portion of the fluid has become entirely clear, there will be a stratum of water next to the sediment more turbid than the whole was before the deposition began. Yet this light is very faint, when seen only from the distance of our earth; and at the boundaries of our system, from the orbit of Uranus, for instance, we cannot believe that it is visible at all. Is it likely, then, that a portion of this nebulous matter, in which the process of deposition has hardly begun, and which is seen from a distance so vast, that in comparison with it the whole diameter of our solar system is but a point, would be visible from this earth? In the case of the other nebulæ, a multitude of perfectly formed suns, uniting their respective beams, are seen only as a faint, whitish speck on the blue arch. And yet we are required to believe, that the luminous matter which will ultimately form but one sun, or perhaps two, while still thinly diffused over an immense tract of space, the process of aggregation having hardly commenced, is yet visible to our eyes at this vast distance.

"Credat Judæus Apella;
Non ego."