The Foot-prints of the Creator

by Hugh Miller

From nature’s chain whatever link we strike,

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.”

The poet could scarce have anticipated that there was a science then sleeping in its cradle, and dreaming the dreams of Whiston, Leibnitz, and Burnet, which was one day to rise and demonstrate that both the tenth and the ten thousandth link in the chain had been already broken and laid by, with all the thousands of links between; and that man might laudably “press on superior powers,” and attain to a “new nature,” without in the least affecting the symmetry of creation by the void which his elevation would necessarily create; that, in fine, voids and blanks in the scale are exceedingly common things; and that, if men could, by rising into angels, make one blank more, they might do so with perfect impunity. Further, even were the graduated chain of Bolingbroke a reality, and not what Johnson well designates it, an “absurd hypothesis,” and were what I have termed the interpolation of links necessary to its completion, the mere filling up of the original blanks and chasms would not necessarily involve the fact of degradation, seeing that each blank could be filled up, if I may go express myself, from its lower end. Each could be as certainly occupied to the full by an elevation of lower forms, as by a humiliation of the higher. We might receive the hypothesis of Bolingbroke, and yet find the mysterious fact of degradation remain an unsolved riddle in our hands.

But though I can assign neither reason nor cause for the fact, I cannot avoid the conclusion, that it is associated with certain other great facts in the moral government of the universe, by those threads of analogical connection which run through the entire tissue of Creation and Providence, and impart to it that character of unity which speaks of the single producing Mind. The first idea of every religion on earth which has arisen out of what may be termed the spiritual instincts of man’s nature, is that of a Future State; the second idea is, that in this state men shall exist in two separate classes,—the one in advance of their present condition, the other far in the rear of it. It is on these two great beliefs that conscience every where finds the fulcrum from which it acts upon the conduct; and it is, we find, wholly inoperative as a force without them. And in that one religion among men that, instead of retiring, like the pale ghosts of the others, before the light of civilization, brightens and expands in its beams, and in favor of whose claim as a revelation from God the highest philosophy has declared, we find these two master ideas occupying a still more prominent place than in any of those merely indigenous religions that spring up in the human mind of themselves. The special lesson which the Adorable Saviour, during his ministry on earth, oftenest enforced, and to which all the others bore reference, was the lesson of a final separation of mankind into two great divisions,—a division of God-like men, of whose high Standing and full-orbed happiness man, in the present scene of things, can form no adequate conception; and a division of men finally lost, and doomed to unutterable misery and hopeless degradation. There is not in all Revelation a single doctrine which we find oftener or more clearly enforced than that there shall continue to exist, throughout the endless cycles of the future, a race of degraded men and of degraded angels.

Now, it is truly wonderful how thoroughly, in its general scope, the revealed pieces on to the geologic record. We know, as geologists, that the dynasty of the fish was succeeded by that of the reptile,—that the dynasty of the reptile was succeeded by that of the mammiferous quadruped,—and that the dynasty of the mammiferous quadruped was succeeded by that of man as man now exists,—a creature of mixed character, and subject, in all conditions, to wide alternations of enjoyment and suffering. We know, further—so far at least as we have yet succeeded in deciphering the record,—that the several dynasties were introduced, not in their lower, but in their higher forms;—that, in short, in the imposing programme of creation it was arranged, as a general rule, that in each of the great divisions of the procession the magnates should walk first. We recognize yet further the fact of degradation specially exemplified in the fish and the reptile. And then, passing on to the revealed record, we learn that the dynasty of man in the mixed state and character is not the final one, but that there is to be yet another creation, or, more properly, re-creation, known theologically as the Resurrection, which shall be connected in its physical components, by bonds of mysterious paternity, with the dynasty which now reigns, and be bound to it mentally by the chain of identity, conscious and actual; but which, in all that constitutes superiority, shall be as vastly its superior as the dynasty of responsible man is superior to even the lowest of the preliminary dynasties. We are further taught, that at the commencement of this last of the dynasties, there will be a re-creation of not only elevated, but also of degraded beings,—a re-creation of the lost. We are taught yet further, that though the present dynasty be that of a lapsed race, which at their first introduction were placed on higher ground than that on which they now stand, and sank by their own act, it was yet part of the original design, from the beginning of all things, that they should occupy the existing platform; and that Redemption is thus no after-thought, rendered necessary by the fall, but, on the contrary, part of a general scheme, for which provision had been made from the beginning; so that the Divine Man, through whom the work of restoration has been effected, was in reality, in reference to the purposes of the Eternal, what he is designated in the remarkable text, “the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world.” Slain from the foundations of the world! Could the assertors of the stony science ask for language more express? By piecing the two records together,—that revealed in Scripture and that revealed in the rocks,—records which, however widely geologists may mistake the one, or commentators misunderstand the other, have emanated from the same great Author—we learn that in slow and solemn majesty has period succeeded period, each in succession ushering in a higher end yet higher scene of existence,—that fish, reptiles, mammiferous quadrupeds, have reigned in turn,—that responsible man, “made in the image of God,” and with dominion over all creatures, ultimately entered into a world ripened for his reception; but, further, that this passing scene, in which he forms the prominent figure, is not the final one in the long series, but merely the last of the preliminary scenes; and that that period to which the bygone ages, incalculable in amount, with all their well-proportioned gradations of being, form the imposing vestibule, shall have perfection for its occupant, and eternity for its duration. I know not how it may appear to others; but for my own part, I cannot avoid thinking that there would be a lack of proportion in the series of being, were the period of perfect and glorified humanity abruptly connected, without the introduction of an intermediate creation of responsible imperfection, with that of the dying irresponsible brute. That scene of things in which God became Man, and suffered, seems, as it no doubt is, a necessary link in the chain.

I am aware that I stand on the confines of a mystery which man, since the first introduction of sin into the world till now, has “vainly aspired to comprehend.” But I have no new reading of the enigma to offer. I know not why it is that moral evil exists in the universe of the All-Wise and the All-Powerful; nor through what occult law of Deity it is that “perfection should come through suffering.” The question, like that satellite, ever attendant upon our planet, which presents both its sides to the sun, but invariably the same side to the earth, hides one of its faces from man, and turns it to but the Eye from which all light emanates. And it is in that God-ward phase of the question that the mystery dwells. We can map and measure every protuberance and hollow which roughens the nether disk of the moon, as, during the shades of night, it looks down upon our path to cheer and enlighten; but what can we know of the other? It would, however, seem, that even in this field of mystery the extent of the inexplicable and the unknown is capable of reduction, and that the human understanding is vested in an ability of progressing towards the central point of that dark field throughout all time, mayhap all eternity, as the asymptote progresses upon its curve. Even though the essence of the question should forever remain a mystery, it may yet in its reduced and defined state, serve as a key for the laying of other mysteries open. The philosophers are still as ignorant as ever respecting the intrinsic nature of gravitation; but regarded simply as a force, how many enigmas has it not served to unlock! And that moral gravitation towards evil, manifested by the only two classes of responsible beings of which there is aught known to man, and of which a degradation linked by mysterious analogy with a class of facts singularly prominent in geologic history is the result, occupies apparently a similar place, as a force, in the moral dynamics of the universe, and seems suited to perform a similar part. Inexplicable itself, it is yet a key to the solution of all the minor inexplicabilities in the scheme of Providence.

In a matter of such extreme niceness and difficulty, shall I dare venture on an illustrative example?

So far as both the geologic and the Scriptural evidence extends, no species or family of existences seems to have been introduced by creation into the present scene of being since the appearance of man. In Scripture the formation of the human race is described as the terminal act of a series, “good” in all its previous stages, but which became “very good” then; and geologists, judging from the modicum of evidence which they have hitherto succeeded in collecting on the subject,—evidence still meagre, but, so far as it goes, independent and distinct,—pronounce “post-Adamic creations” at least “improbable.” The naturalist finds certain animal and vegetable species restricted to certain circles, and that in certain foci in these circles they attain to their fullest development and their maximum number. And these foci he regards as the original centres of creation, whence, in each instance in the process of increase and multiplication, the plant or creature propagated itself outwards in circular wavelets of life, that sank at each stage as they widened till at length, at the circumference of the area, they wholly ceased. Now we find it argued by Professor Edward Forbes that “since man’s appearance, certain geological areas, both of land and water, have been formed, presenting such physical conditions as to entitle us to expect within their bounds one, or in some instances more than one, centre of creation, or point of maximum of a zoological or botanical province. But a critical examination renders evident,” the Professor adds, “that instead of showing distinct foci of creation, they have been in all instances peopled by colonization, i. e. by migration of species from pre-existing, and in every case pre-Adamic, provinces. Among the terrestrial areas the British isles may serve as an example; among marine, the Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black Seas. The British islands have been colonized from various centres of creation in (now) continental Europe; the Baltic Sea from the Celtic region, although it runs itself into the conditions of the Boreal one; and the Mediterranean, as it now appears, from the fauna and flora of the more ancient Lusitanian province.” Professor Forbes, it is stated further, in the report of his paper to which I owe these details,—a paper read at the Royal Institution in March last,—“exhibited, in support of the same view, a map, showing the relation which the centres of creation of the air-breathing molluscs in Europe bear to the geological history of the respective areas, and proving that the whole snail population of its northern and central extent (the portion of the Continent of newest and probably post-Adamic origin) had been derived from foci of creation seated in pre-Adamic lands. And these remarkable facts have induced the Professor,” it was added, “to maintain the improbability of post-Adamic creations.”

With the introduction of man into the scene of existence, creation, I repeat, seems to have ceased. What is it that now takes its place, and performs its work? During the previous dynasties, all elevation in the scale was an effect simply of creation. Nature lay dead in a waste theatre of rock, vapor, and sea, in which the insensate laws, chemical; mechanical, and electric, carried on their blind, unintelligent processes: the creative fiat went forth; and, amid waters that straightway teemed with life in its lower forms, vegetable and animal, the dynasty of the fish was introduced. Many ages passed, during which there took place no further elevation: on the contrary, in not a few of the newly introduced species of the reigning class there occurred for the first time examples of an asymmetrical misplacement of parts, and, in at least one family of fishes, instances of defect of parts: there was the manifestation of a downward tendency towards the degradation of monstrosity, when the elevatory fiat again went forth, and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of the reptile began. Again many ages passed by, marked, apparently, by the introduction of a warm-blooded oviparous animal, the bird, and of a few marsupial quadrupeds, but in which the prevailing class reigned undeposed, though at least unelevated. Yet again, however, the elevatory fiat went forth, and through an act of creation the dynasty of the mammiferous quadruped began. And after the further lapse of ages, the elevatory fiat went forth yet once more in an act of creation; and with the human, heaven-aspiring dynasty, the moral government of God, in its connection with at least the world which we inhabit, “took beginning.” And then creation ceased. Why? Simply because God’s moral government had begun,—because in necessary conformity with the institution of that government, there was to be a thorough identity maintained between the glorified and immortal beings of the terminal dynasty, and the dying magnates of the dynasty which now is; and because, in consequence of the maintenance of this identity as an essential condition of this moral government, mere acts of creation could no longer carry on the elevatory process. The work analogous in its end and object to those acts of creation which gave to our planet its successive dynasties of higher and yet higher existences, is the work of Redemption. It is the elevatory process of the present time,—the only possible provision for that final act of re-creation “to everlasting life,” which shall usher in the terminal dynasty.