Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

by Philip Henry Gosse

Towards one side of the upper surface of the pretty Star-fish, Cribella rosea, (as in many other species of Star-fishes,) there is a curious little mark, known as the madreporic plate, the use of which has greatly puzzled naturalists. Sars, the Norwegian zoologist, has unveiled the mystery.[111] The young larva, before it assumes the stellar form, is furnished with a sort of thick column, divided into four diverging clubbed arms, which are adhering organs, ancillary to locomotion. In the process of development, however, new locomotive organs are formed; and this four-fold column, being no longer needed, sloughs away; and that so completely, that not a trace of its existence remains, except this scar, or "madreporic plate;" which is therefore a permanent record of something that has quite passed away.

But the closest parallel to the relation borne by the skeleton of an extinct species to an extant one, is presented by that of the hilum to a seed, or of the umbilicus to a mammal. Each of these is a legible and undeniable, record of a being, whose individuality was totally distinct from that of the being by which it is presented, and of which all vestiges have disappeared, save this record. Nor is the parallel founded on obscure or rare examples; both the umbilicus and the hilum are generally conspicuous; and both are extensively found in their respective kingdoms, the former pervading the viviparous Vertebrata, the latter characterising the whole of the cotyledonous types of vegetation.

Once more. An objection may arise to the reception of the prochronic principle, on the ground that the examples I have adduced are not to be compared, in point of grandeur, with the mighty revolutions, which are presumed to have written their records in the crust of the globe; and that hence no analogy can be fairly drawn from one to the other. To the philosopher, however, there is no great or small, as there is none in the works of God. We have every reason to believe that He has wrought by the same laws in all portions of his universe: the principle on which an apple falls from the branch to the ground, is the same as that which keeps the planet Neptune in the solar system. I have shown that the principle of prochronic development obtains wherever we are able to test it; that is, wherever another principle, that of cyclicism, exists; whether the cycle be that of a gnat's metamorphosis, or of a planet's orbit. The distinction of great or small, grand or mean, does not apply to it. If it cannot be proved to be universal, it is only because we are not sufficiently acquainted with some of the economies of nature to be able to pronounce with certainty whether they are cyclical or not. I am not aware of any natural process, in which its existence can be absolutely denied.

And this makes all the difference in the world between my position and that of the old simple-minded observers, with which a superficial reader might think it to possess a good deal in common. A century ago, people used to talk of lusus naturæ; of a certain plastic power in nature; of abortive or initiative attempts at making things which were never perfected; of imitations, in one kingdom, of the proper subjects of another, (as plants were supposed to be imitated by the frost on a window-pane, and by the dendritic forms of metals). Still later, many persons have been inclined to take refuge from the conclusions of geology in the absolute sovereignty of God, asking,—"Could not the Omnipotent Creator make the fossils in the strata, just as they now appear?"

It has always been felt to be a sufficient answer to such a demand, that no reason could be adduced for such an exercise of mere power; and that it would be unworthy of the Allwise God.

But this is a totally different thing from that for which I am contending. I am endeavouring to show that a grand law exists, by which, in two great departments of nature at least, the analogues of the fossil skeletons were formed without pre-existence. An arbitrary acting, and an acting on fixed and general laws, have nothing in common with each other.

Finally, the acceptance of the principles presented in this volume, even in their fullest extent, would not, in the least degree, affect the study of scientific geology. The character and order of the strata; their disruptions and displacements and injections; the successive floras and faunas; and all the other phenomena, would be facts still. They would still be, as now, legitimate subjects of examination and inquiry. I do not know that a single conclusion, now accepted, would need to be given up, except that of actual chronology. And even in respect of this, it would be rather a modification than a relinquishment of what is at present held; we might still speak of the inconceivably long duration of the processes in question, provided we understand ideal instead of actual time;—that the duration was projected in the mind of God, and not really existent.