Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

by Philip Henry Gosse

To the physiologist this is obvious; but some unscientific reader may say, Could not God have created plants and animals without these retrospective marks? I distinctly reply, No! not so as to preserve their specific identity with those with which we are familiar. A Tree-fern without scars on the trunk! A Palm without leaf-bases! A Bean without a hilum! A Tortoise without laminæ on its plates! A Carp without concentric lines on its scales! A Bird without feathers! A Mammal without hairs, or claws, or teeth, or bones, or blood! A Fœtus without a placenta! I have indeed written the preceding pages in vain, if I have not demonstrated, in a multitude of examples, the absolute necessity of retrospective phenomena in newly-created organisms. But if it can be undeniably shown in one single example, our failure to perceive it in ninety-nine other instances would in nowise invalidate the deduction from that one. Granted that you can triumphantly convict me of a non-sequitur, in ninety-nine out of every hundred of the cases in which I have attempted to show this connexion; still, if I have conclusively proved that in one solitary instance an animal or a plant was created with but one solitary evidence of pre-development, the principle for which I contend is established.

I trust, however, it does not rest on one example, nor on twenty, nor on a hundred. It may be thought that I have multiplied my illustrations needlessly: ten times as many might have been given. I wished to show that the proof is of a cumulative character: a single good example would, indeed, have established the principle; but I wished to show how widely applicable it is; that it is, indeed, of universal application in the organic kingdoms.

If, then, the existence of retrospective marks, visible and tangible proofs of processes which were prochronic, was so necessary to organic essences, that they could not have been created without them,—is it absurd to suggest the possibility (I do no more) that the world itself was created under the influence of the same law, with visible tangible proofs of developments and processes, which yet were only prochronic?

Admit for a moment, as a hypothesis, that the Creator had before his mind a projection of the whole life-history of the globe, commencing with any point which the geologist may imagine to have been a fit commencing point, and ending with some unimaginable acme in the indefinitely distant future. He determines to call this idea into actual existence, not at the supposed commencing point, but at some stage or other of its course.[103] It is clear, then, that at the selected stage it appears, exactly as it would have appeared at that moment of its history, if all the preceding eras of its history had been real. Just as the new-created Man was, at the first moment of his existence, a man of twenty, or five-and-twenty, or thirty years old; physically, palpably, visibly, so old, though not really, not diachronically. He appeared precisely what he would have appeared had he lived so many years.

Let us suppose that this present year 1857 had been the particular epoch in the projected life-history of the world, which the Creator selected as the era of its actual beginning. At his fiat it appears; but in what condition? Its actual condition at this moment:—whatever is now existent would appear, precisely as it does appear. There would be cities filled with swarms of men; there would be houses half-built; castles fallen into ruins; pictures on artists' easels just sketched in; wardrobes filled with half-worn garments; ships sailing over the sea; marks of birds' footsteps on the mud; skeletons whitening the desert sands; human bodies in every stage of decay in the burial-grounds. These and millions of other traces of the past would be found, because they are found in the world now; they belong to the present age of the world; and if it had pleased God to call into existence this globe at this epoch of its life-history, the whole of which lay like a map before his infinite mind, it would certainly have presented all these phenomena; not to puzzle the philosopher, but because they are inseparable from the condition of the world at the selected moment of irruption into its history; because they constitute its condition; they make it what it is.

Hence the minuteness and undeniableness of the proofs of life which geologists rely on so confidently, and present with such justifiable triumph, do not in the least militate against my principle. The marks of Hyænas' teeth on the bones of Kirkdale cave; the infant skeletons associated with adult skeletons of the same species; the abundance of coprolites; the foot-tracks of Birds and Reptiles; the glacier-scratches on rocks; and hundreds of other beautiful and most irresistible evidences of pre-existence, I do not wish to undervalue, nor to explain away. On the hypothesis that the actual commencing point of the world's history was subsequent to the occurrence of such things in the perfect ideal whole, these phenomena would appear precisely as if the facts themselves had been diachronic, instead of prochronic, as was really the case.[104]

Perhaps some one will say, "All this might be tenable, supposing the world were an organism. Your argument goes to show that organic essences in every stage of their existence present proofs of pre-existence; but what analogy is there between the lifeless inorganic globe (in which evidences of past processes are apparent, independent of the fossil organisms), and a living organic being,—plant or animal?"

I answer, The point in the economy of the organic creatures, on which their prochronism rests, is not the organic, but the circular condition of their being. The problem, then, to be solved, before we can certainly determine the question of analogy between the globe and the organism, is this:—Is the life-history of the globe a cycle? If it is (and there are many reasons why this is probable), then I am sure prochronism must have been evident at its creation, since there is no point in a circle which does not imply previous points. At all events, geologists cannot prove that it is not.

Wherever we can discern a cyclical condition, there the law of which I am treating must hold good; and it certainly obtains in other things beside organisms. When the inorganic crust of the globe was first cleft to contain rivers, whence came the water that flowed through the fissures? A river is the produce of rivulets, which issue from mountain springs; these originate in the water that percolates through the soil; and this is derived from the rains, and snows, and dews, that are deposited from the atmosphere. But there would be no deposition from the atmosphere if the water had not first been carried up by evaporation; and the vaporable fluid is obtained from the moistened soil; from the lakes and rivers; and from the seas and oceans, whose loss is perpetually recruited from the flowing rivers. Here, then, we get a circle closely analogous to that of organic being. Was a given drop of water created as a component particle of a running stream? Its position and condition looked back to the mountain spring whence it must naturally have issued. Was it called into being in the spring? It looked up to the surface, whence it must have oozed. Was it formed on the surface? It looked to the clouds, whence it must have dropped. Was it created in the cloud? It looked down to the surface of the lake or sea, whence it must have been raised. Was it created in the lake? It looked to the river, whence it must have flowed.