An Atheist Is A Fool.
He can't believe that two letters can be adjusted to each other without design, and yet he can believe all the foregoing incredibilities.
I might swell the list to a vast extent. I might bring into view the verdure of the earth as being the most agreeable of all colors to the eye; the general diffusion of the indispensibles and necessaries of life, such as air, light, water, food, clothing, fuel, while less necessary things, such as spices, gold, silver, tin, lead, zinc, are less diffused; also, the infinite variety in things—in men, for instance—by which we can distinguish one from another. But I forbear. Is it reasonable to conclude that, where there are possible appearances of design, still no design is there? or even that it is probable there is none?
I have said that there is as much evidence of purpose in the works of nature as in those of art. I now say that there is more, infinitely more. Should the wheels of nature stop their revolutions, and her energies be palsied, and life and motion cease, even then would she exhibit incomparably greater evidence of design, in her mere construction and adaptation, than do the works of art. Shall we then be told that when she is in full operation, and daily producing millions upon millions of useful, of intelligent, of marvelous effects, she still manifests no marks of intelligence! In nature we not only see all the works of art infinitely exceeded, but we see, as it were, those works self-moved and performing their operations without external agency. To use a faint comparison, we see a factory in motion without water, wind or steam, its cotton placing itself within the reach of the picker, the cards, the spinning-frame and the loom, and turning out in rolls or cloth. Such virtually, nay, far more wonderful, is [pg 138] the universe. Not a thousandth part so unreasonable would it be to believe a real factory of this description, were one to exist, to be a chance existence, as to believe this universe so. Sooner could I suppose nature herself possessed of intelligence than admit the idea that there is no intelligence concerned in her organization and operations. There must be a mind within or without her, or else we have no data by which to distinguish mind. There must be a mind, or all the results of mind are produced without any. There must be a mind, or chaos produces order, blind power perfects effects, and non-intelligence the most admirable correspondence and harmony imaginable. Skeptics pride themselves much on their reason. They can't believe, they say, because it is unreasonable. What is unreasonable? To believe in a mind where there is every appearance thereof that can be? Is it more reasonable to believe, then, that every appearance of mind is produced without any mind at all? Skeptics are the last men in all this wide world to pretend reason. They doubt against infinite odds; they believe without evidence against evidence, against demonstration, and then talk of reason!—Origin Bachelor's Correspondence with R. D. Owen.
Blunder On And Blunder On—It Is Human To Blunder.
Are all the mammoths one or two hundred thousand years old, as Sir Charles Lyell conjectured? It was stated, in the bygone, that the “diluvium” was very old, on account of the absence of human remains, but since man's remains have been found there, it is inferred that man is very ancient; whereas, the truth is, the mammoth is very recent. In many instances their bones are so fresh that they contain twenty-seven per cent. of animal substance; in some instances the flesh is still upon their bones, with their last meal in their stomachs.
Mr. Boyd Dawkins has furnished us with a thrilling narrative of the discovery of a mammoth in 1846, by Mr. Benkendorf, close to the mouth of the Indigirka. This mammoth [pg 139] was disentombed during the great thaw of the summer. The description is given in the following language: “In 1846 there was unusually warm weather in the north of Siberia. Already in May unusual rains poured over the moors and bogs; storms shook the earth, and the streams carried not only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land. We steamed on the first day up the Indigirka, but there were no thoughts of land; we saw around us only a sea of dirty brown water, and knew the river only by the rushing and roaring of the stream. The river rolled against us trees, moss, and large masses of peat, so that it was only with great trouble and danger that we could proceed. At the end of the second day we were only a short distance up the stream; some one had to stand with the sounding-rod in hand continually, and the boat received so many shocks that it shuddered to the keel. A wooden vessel would have been smashed. Around us we saw nothing but the flooded land.... The Indigirka, here, had torn up the land and worn itself a fresh channel, and when the waters sank we saw, to our astonishment, that the old river-bed had become merely that of an insignificant stream.... The stream rolled over and tore up the soft, wet ground like chaff, so that it was dangerous to go near the brink. While we were all quiet, we heard under our feet a sudden gurgling and stirring, which betrayed the working of the disturbed water. Suddenly our jagger, ever on the look-out, called loudly, and pointed to a singular and unshapely object, which rose and sank.... Now we all hastened to the spot on shore, had the boat drawn near, and waited until the mysterious thing should again show itself. Our patience was tried, but at last a black, horrible giant-like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a colossal elephant's head, armed with mighty tusks, with its long trunk moving in the water in an unearthly manner, as though seeking for something lost therein.... I beheld the monster hardly twelve feet from me, with his half-open eyes yet showing the whites. It was still in good preservation....
“Picture to yourself an elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen feet in height and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet long, thick, and curving outward at their ends, a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and a half feet in thickness, and a tail naked up to the end, which was covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat and well grown; death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers. His parchment-like, large, naked ears lay turned up over the head; about the shoulders and on the back he had stiff hair, about a foot in length, like a mane. The long outer hair was deep brown and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild and so penetrated with pitch that it resembled the rind of an old oak tree. On the sides it was cleaner, and under the outer hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm and thick, and of a fallow-brown color. The giant was well protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal was fearfully strange and wild. It had not the shape of our present elephants. As compared with our Indian elephants, its head was rough, the brain-case low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful. Our elephant is an awkward animal, but compared with this mammoth, it is an Arabian steed to a coarse, ugly dray horse. I had the stomach separated and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine; a quantity of young fir cones, also in a chewed state, were mixed with the moss.”
Mammoth bones are found in great abundance in the islands off the northern coast of Siberia. The remains of the rhinoceros are also found. Pallas, in 1772, obtained from Wiljuiskoi, in latitude 64°, a rhinoceros taken from the sand in which it had been frozen. This carcass emitted an odor like putrid flesh, part of the skin being covered with short, crisp wool and with black and gray hairs. Professor Brandt, in 1846, extracted from the cavities in the molar teeth of this skeleton a small quantity of half-chewed pine leaves and coniferous wood. And the blood-vessels in the interior of the [pg 141] head appeared filled, even to the capillary vessels, with coagulated blood, which in many places still retained its original red color.