Now, there is one very important point to which the author of this complaint does not seem to have adverted. The astronomer founded his belief in the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, not on a mere dream-like hypothesis, founded on nothing, but on a wide and solid base of pure induction. Galileo was no mere dreamer;—he was a discoverer of great truths, and a profound reasoner regarding them: and on his discoveries and his reasonings, compelled by the inexorable laws of his mental constitution, did he build up certain deductive beliefs, which had no previous existence in his mind. His convictions were consequents, not antecedents. Such, also, is the character of geological discovery and inference, and of the existing belief,—their joint production,—regarding the great antiquity of the globe. No geologist worthy of the name began with the belief, and then set himself to square geological phenomena with its requirements. It is a deduction,—a result;—not the starting assumption, or given sum, in a process of calculation, but its ultimate finding or answer. Clergymen of the orthodox Churches, such as the Sumners, Sedgwicks, Bucklands, Conybeares, and Pye Smiths of England, or the Chalmerses, Duncans, and Flemings of our own country, must have come to the study of this question of the world’s age with at least no bias in favor of the geological estimate. The old, and, as it has proven, erroneous reading of the Mosaic account, was by much too general a one early in the present century, not to have exerted upon them, in their character as ministers of religion, a sensible influence of a directly opposite nature. And the fact of the complete reversal of their original bias, and of the broad unhesitating finding on the subject which they ultimately substituted instead, serves to intimate to the uninitiated the strength of the evidence to which they submitted. There can be nothing more certain than that it is minds of the same calibre and class, engaged in the same inductive track, that yielded in the first instance to the astronomical evidence regarding the earth’s motion, and, in the second, to the geological evidence regarding the earth’s age.[40]
But how very different the nature and history of the development hypothesis, and the character of the intellects with whom it originated, or by whom it has been since adopted! In the first place, it existed as a wild dream ere Geology had any being as a science. It was an antecedent, not a consequent,—a starting assumption, not a result. No one will contend that Maillet was a geologist. Geology has no place among the sciences in the age in which he lived and even no name. And yet there is a translation of his Telliamed now lying before me, bearing date 1750, in which I find very nearly the same account given of the origin of animals and plants as that in the “Vestiges,” and in which the sea is described as that great and fruitful womb of nature in which organization and life first began. Lamarck, at the time when Maillet wrote, was a boy in his sixth year. He became, comparatively early in life, a skilful botanist and conchologist; but not until turned of fifty did he set himself to study general zoology; and his greater work on the invertebrate animals, on which his fame as a naturalist chiefly rests, did not begin to appear—for it was published serially—until the year 1815. But his development hypothesis, identical with that of the “Vestiges,” was given to the world long before,—in 1802; at a time when it had not been ascertained that there existed placoids during the Silurian period, or ganoids during the Old Red Sandstone period, or enaliosaurs during the Oolitic period; and when, though Smith had constructed his “Tabular View of the British Strata,” his map had not yet appeared, and there was little more known regarding the laws of superposition among the stratified rocks than was to be found in the writings of Werner. And if the presumption be strong, in the circumstances, that Lamarck originated his development hypothesis ere he became in any very great degree skilful as a zoologist, it is no mere presumption, but a demonstrable truth, that he originated it ere he became a geologist; for a geologist he never became. In common with Maillet and Buffon, he held by Leibnitz’s theory of a universal ocean; and such, as we have already seen, was his ignorance of fossils, that he erected dermal fragments of the Russian Asterolepis into a new genus of Polyparia,—an error into which the merest tyro in palæontology could not now fall. Such, in relation to these sciences, was the man who perfected the dream of development. Nor has the most distinguished of its continental assertors now living,—Professor Oken,—any higher claim to be regarded as a disciple of the inductive school of Geology than Lamarck. In the preface to the recently published translation of his “Physio-Philosophy,” we find the following curious confession:—“I wrote the first edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration, and on that account it was not so well arranged as a systematic work ought to be. Now, though this may appear to have been amended in the second and third edition, yet still it was not possible for me to completely attain the object held in view. The book has therefore remained essentially the same as regards its fundamental principles. It is only the empirical arrangement into series of plants and animals that has been modified from time to time, in accordance with the scientific elevation of their several departments, or just as discoveries and anatomical investigations have increased, and rendered some other position of the objects a matter of necessity.” An interesting piece of evidence this; but certainly rather simple as a confession. It will be found that while whatever gives value to the “Physio-Philosophy” of the German Professor (a work which, if divested of all the inspired bits, would be really a good one) was acquired either before or since its first appearance in the ordinary way, its development hypothesis came direct from the god. Further, as I have already had occasion to state, Oken holds, like Lamarck and Maillet, by the universal ocean of Leibnitz; he holds, also, that the globe is a vast crystal, just a little flawed in the facets: and that the three granitic components—quartz, feldspar, and mica—are simply the hail-drops of heavy stone showers that shot athwart the original ocean, and accumulated into rock at the bottom, as snow or hail shoots athwart the upper atmosphere, and accumulates, in the form of ice, on the summits of high hills, or in the arctic or antarctic regions. Such, in the present day, are the geological notions of Oken! They were doubtless all promulgated in what is modestly enough termed “a kind of inspiration;” and there are few now so ignorant of Geology as not to know that the possessing agent in the case—for inspiration is not quite the proper word—must have been at least of kin to that ingenious personage who volunteered of old to be a lying spirit in the mouths of the four hundred prophets. And the well-known fact, that the most popular contemporary expounder of Oken’s hypothesis—the author of the “Vestiges”—has in every edition of his work been correcting, modifying, or altogether withdrawing his statements regarding both geological and zoological phenomena, and that his gradual development as a geologist and zoologist, from the sufficiently low type of acquirement to which his first edition bore witness, may be traced, in consequence, with a distinctness and certainty which we in vain seek in the cases of presumed development which he would so fain establish,—has in its bearing exactly the same effect. His development hypothesis was complete at a time when his geology and zoology were rudimental and imperfect. Give me your facts, said the Frenchman, that I may accommodate them to my theory. And no one can look at the progress of the Lamarckian hypothesis, with reference to the dates when, and the men by whom, it was promulgated, without recognizing in it one of perhaps the most striking embodiments of the Frenchman’s principle which the world ever saw. It is not the illiberal religionist that rejects and casts it off,—it is the inductive philosopher. Science addresses its assertors in the language of the possessed to the sons of Sceva the Jew;—“The astronomer I know, and the geologist I know; but who are ye?”
One of the strangest passages in the “Sequel to the Vestiges,” is that in which its author carries his appeal from the tribunal of science to “another tribunal,” indicated but not named, before which “this new philosophy” [remarkable chiefly for being neither philosophy nor new] “is to be truly and righteously judged.” The principle is obvious, on which, were his opponents mere theologians, wholly unable, though they saw the mischievous character and tendency of his conclusions, to disprove them scientifically, he might appeal from theology to science: “it is with scientific truth,” he might urge, “not with moral consequences, that I have aught to do.” But on what allowable principle, professing, as he does, to found his theory on scientific fact, can he appeal from science to the want of it? “After discussing,” he says, “the whole arguments on both sides in so ample a manner, it may be hardly necessary to advert to the objection arising from the mere fact, that nearly all the scientific men are opposed to the theory of the ‘Vestiges.’ As this objection, however, is likely to be of some avail with many minds, it ought not to be entirely passed over. If I did not think there were reasons, independent of judgment, for the scientific class coming so generally to this conclusion, I might feel the more embarrassed in presenting myself in direct opposition to so many men possessing talents and information. As the case really stands, the ability of this class to give at the present a true response upon such a subject appears extremely challengeable. It is no discredit to them that they are, almost without exception, engaged each in his own little department of science, and able to give little or no attention to other parts of that vast field. From year to year, and from age to age, we see them at work, adding, no doubt, much to the known, and advancing many important interests, but at the same time doing little for the establishment of comprehensive views of nature Experiments in however narrow a walk, facts of whatever minuteness, make reputations in scientific societies; all beyond is regarded with suspicion and distrust. The consequence is, that philosophy, as it exists amongst us, does nothing to raise its votaries above the common ideas of their time. There can therefore be nothing more conclusive against our hypothesis in the disfavor of the scientific class, than in that of any other section of educated men.”
This is surely a very strange statement. Waiving altogether the general fact, that great original discoverers in any department of knowledge are never men of one science or one faculty, but possess, on the contrary, breadth of mind and multiplicity of acquirement;—waiving, too, the particular fact, that the more distinguished original discoverers of the present day rank among at once its most philosophic, most elegant, and most extensively informed writers;—granting, for the argument’s sake, that our scientific men are men of narrow acquirement, and “exclusively engaged, each in his own little department of science;”—it is surely rational to hold, notwithstanding, that in at least these little departments they have a better right to be heard than any other class of persons whatever. We must surely not refuse to the man of science what we at once grant to the common mechanic. A cotton-weaver or calico-printer may be a very narrow man, “exclusively engaged in his own little department;” and yet certain it is that, in a question of cotton-weaving or calico-printing, his evidence is justly deemed more conclusive in courts of law than that of any other man, however much his superior in general breadth and intelligence. And had the author of the “Vestiges” founded his hypothesis on certain facts pertaining to the arts of cotton-weaving and calico-printing, the cotton-weaver and calico-printer would have an indisputable right to be heard on the question of their general correctness. Are we to regard the case as different because it is on facts pertaining to science, not to cotton-weaving or calico-printing, that he professes to found? His hypothesis, unless supported by scientific evidence, is a mere dream,—a fiction as baseless and wild as any in the “Fairy Tales” or the “Arabian Nights.” And, fully sensible of the fact, he calls in as witnesses the physical sciences, and professes to take down their evidence. He calls into court Astronomy, Geology, Phytology, and Zoology. “Hold!” exclaims the astronomer, as the examination goes on; “you are taking the evidence of my special science most unfairly; I challenge a right of cross-examining the witness.” “Hold!” cries the geologist; “you are putting my science to the question, and extorting from it, in its agony, a whole series of fictions: I claim the right of examining it fairly and softly, and getting from it just the sober truth, and nothing more.” And the phytologist and zoologist urge exactly similar claims. “No, gentlemen,” replies the author of the “Vestiges,” “you are narrow men, confined each of you to his own little department, and so I will not permit you to cross-examine the witnesses.” “What!” rejoin the men of science, “not permit us to examine our own witnesses!—refuse to us what you would at once concede to the cotton-weaver or the calico-printer, were the question one of cotton-weaving or of calico-printing! We are surely not much narrower men than the man of cotton or the man of calico. It is but in our own little departments that we ask to be heard.” “But you shall not be heard, gentlemen,” says the author of the “Vestiges;” “at all events, I shall not care one farthing for anything you say. For observe, gentlemen, my hypothesis is nothing without the evidence of your sciences; and you all unite, I see, in taking that evidence from me; and so I confidently raise my appeal in this matter to people who know nothing about either you or your sciences. It must be before another tribunal that the new philosophy is to be truly and righteously judged.” Alas! what can this mean? or where are we to seek for that tribunal of last resort to which this ingenious man refers with such confidence the consideration of his case? Can it mean, that he appeals from the only class of persons qualified to judge of his facts, to a class ignorant of these, but disposed by habits of previous scepticism to acquiesce in his conclusions, and take his premises for granted;—that he appeals from astronomers and geologists to low-minded materialists and shallow phrenologers,—from phytologists and zoologists to mesmerists and phreno-mesmerists?
I remember being much struck, several years ago, by a remark dropped in conversation by the late Rev. Mr. Stewart of Cromarty, one of the most original-minded men I ever knew. “In reading in my Greek New Testament this morning,” he said, “I was curiously impressed by a thought which, simple as it may seem, never occurred to me before. The portion which I perused was in the First Epistle of Peter; and as I passed from the thinking of the passage to the language in which it is expressed,—‘This Greek of the untaught Galilean fisherman,’—I said, ‘so admired by scholars and critics for its unaffected dignity and force, was not acquired, as that of Paul may have been, in the ordinary way, but formed a portion of the Pentecostal gift! Here, then, immediately under my eye, on these pages, are there embodied, not, as in many other parts of the Scriptures, the mere details of a miracle, but the direct results of a miracle. How strange! Had the old tables of stone been placed before me, with what an awe-struck feeling would I have looked on the characters traced upon them by God’s own finger! How is it that I have failed to remember that, in the language of these Epistles, miraculously impressed by the Divine power upon the mind, I possessed as significant and suggestive a relic as that which the inscription miraculously impressed by the Divine power upon the stone could possibly have furnished?” It was a striking thought; and in the course of our walk, which led us over richly fossiliferous beds of the Old Red Sandstone, to a deposit of the Eathie Lias, largely charged with the characteristic remains of that formation, I ventured to connect it with another. “In either case,” I remarked, as we seated ourselves beside a sea-cliff, sculptured over with the impressions of extinct plants and shells, “your relics, whether of the Pentecostal Greek or of the characters inscribed on the old tables of stone, could address themselves to but previously existing belief. The sceptic would see in the Sinaitic characters, were they placed before him, merely the work of an ordinary tool; and in the Greek of Peter and John, a well-known language, acquired, he would hold, in the common way. But what say you to the relics that stand out in such bold relief from the rocks beside us, in their character as the results of miracle? The perished tribes and races which they represent all began to exist. There is no truth which science can more conclusively demonstrate than that they had all a beginning. The infidel who, in this late age of the world, would attempt falling back on the fiction of an ‘infinite series,’ would be laughed to scorn. They all began to be. But how? No true geologist holds by the development hypothesis;—it has been resigned to sciolists and smatterers;—and there is but one other alternative. They began to be, through the miracle of creation. From the evidence furnished by these rocks we are shut down either to the belief in miracle, or to the belief in something else infinitely harder of reception, and as thoroughly unsupported by testimony as it is contrary to experience. Hume is at length answered by the severe truths of the stony science. He was not, according to Job, ‘in league with the stones of the field,’ and they have risen in irresistible warfare against him in the Creator’s behalf.”
FINAL CAUSES.—THEIR BEARING ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY.
CONCLUSION.
“Natural History has a principle on which to reason,” says Cuvier, “which is peculiar to it, and which it employs advantageously on many occasions: it is that of the conditions of existence, commonly termed final causes.”
In Geology, which is Natural History extended over all ages, this principle has a still wider scope,—embracing not merely the characteristics and conditions of the beings which now exist, but of all, so far as we can learn regarding them, which have ever existed, and involving the consideration of not merely their peculiarities as races placed before us without relation to time, but also of the history of their rise, increase, decline, and extinction. In studying the biography, if I may so express myself, of an individual animal, we have to acquaint ourselves with the circumstances in which nature has placed it,—its adaptation to these, both in structure and instinct,—the points of resemblance which it presents to the individuals of other races and families, and the laws which determine its terms of development, vigorous existence, and decay. And all Natural History, when restricted to the passing now of the world’s annals, is simply a congeries of biographies. It is when we extend our view into the geological field that it passes from biography into history proper, and that we have to rise from the consideration of the birth and death of individuals, which, in all mere biographies, form the great terminal events that constitute beginning and end, to a survey of the birth and death of races, and the elevation or degradation of dynasties and sub-kingdoms.