Moreover, among the phenomena of geology we have Laws of Nature as well as Classes. The general form of mountain-chains; the relations of the direction and inclination of different chains to each other; the general features of mineral veins, faults, and fissures; the prevalent characters of slaty cleavage;—were the subjects of laws established, or supposed to be established, by extensive observation of facts. In like manner the organic fossils discovered in the strata were found to follow certain laws with reference to the climate which they appeared to have lived in; and the evidence which they gave of a regular zoological development. And thus, by the assiduous labours of many accomplished and active philosophers, Descriptive or Phenomenal Geology was carried towards a state of completeness.
5. Phenomenal Uranography.—In like manner in other palætiological researches, as soon as they approach to an exact and scientific form, we find the necessity of constructing in the first place a science of [267] classification and exact description, by means of which the phenomena may be correctly represented and compared; and of obtaining by this step a solid basis for an inquiry into the causes which have produced them. Thus the Palætiology of the Solar System has, in recent times, drawn the attention of speculators; and a hypothesis has been started, that our sun and his attendant planets have been produced by the condensation of a mass of diffused matter, such as that which constitutes the nebulous patches which we observe in the starry heavens. But the sagest and most enlightened astronomers have not failed to acknowledge, that to verify or to disprove this conjecture, must be the work of many ages of observation and thought. They have perceived also that the first step of the labour requisite for the advancement of this portion of science must be to obtain and to record the most exact knowledge at present within our reach, respecting the phenomena of these nebulæ, with which we thus compare our own system; and, as a necessary element of such knowledge, they have seen the importance of a classification of these objects, and of others, such as Double Stars, of the same kind. Sir William Herschel, who first perceived the bearing of the phenomena of nebulæ upon the history of the solar system, made the observation of such objects his business, with truly admirable zeal and skill; and in the account of the results of his labours, gave a classification of Nebulæ; separating them into, first, Clusters of Stars; second, Resolvable Nebulæ; third, Proper Nebulæ; fourth, Planetary Nebulæ; fifth, Stellar Nebulæ; sixth, Nebulous Stars[7]. And since, in order to obtain from these remote appearances, any probable knowledge respecting our own system, we must discover whether they undergo any changes in the course of ages, he devoted himself to the task of forming a record of their number and appearance in his own time, that thus the astronomers of succeeding generations might have a [268] definite and exact standard with which to compare their observations. Still, this task would have been executed only for that part of the heavens which is visible in this country, if this Hipparchus of the Nebulæ and Double Stars had not left behind him a son who inherited all his father’s zeal and more than his father’s knowledge. Sir John Herschel in 1833 went to the Cape of Good Hope to complete what Sir William Herschel left wanting; and in the course of five years observed with care all the nebulæ and double stars of the Southern hemisphere. This great Herschelian Survey of the Heavens, the completion of which is the noblest monument ever erected by a son to a father, must necessarily be, to all ages, the basis of all speculations concerning the history and origin of the solar system; and has completed, so far as at present it can be completed, the phenomenal portion of Astronomical Palætiology.
[7] Phil. Trans. 1786 and 1789, and Sir J. Herschel’s Astronomy, Art. 616.
6. Phenomenal Geography of Plants and Animals.—Again, there is another Palætiological Science, closely connected with the speculations forced upon the geologist by the organic fossils which he discovers imbedded in the strata of the earth;—namely, the Science which has for its object the Causes of the Diffusion and Distribution of the various kinds of Plants and Animals. And the science also has for its first portion and indispensable foundation a description and classification of the existing phenomena. Such portions of science have recently been cultivated with great zeal and success, under the titles of the Geography of Plants, and the Geography of Animals. And the results of the inquiries thus undertaken have assumed a definite and scientific form by leading to a division of the earth’s surface into a certain number of botanical and zoological Provinces, each province occupied by its own peculiar vegetable and animal population. We find, too, in the course of these investigations, various general laws of the phenomena offered to our notice; such, for instance, as this:—that the difference of the animals originally occupying each province, which is clear and entire for the higher orders of [269] animals and plants, becomes more doubtful and indistinct when we descend to the lower kinds of organizations; as Infusoria and Zoophytes[8] in the animal kingdom, Grasses and Mosses among vegetables. Again, other laws discovered by those who have studied the geography of plants are these:—that countries separated from each other by wide tracts of sea, as the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, have usually much that is common in their vegetation:—and again, that in parallel climates, analogous tribes replace each other. It would be easy to adduce other laws, but those already stated may serve to show the great extent of the portions of knowledge which have just been mentioned, even considered as merely Sciences of Phenomena.
[8] Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, i. 55, 28.
7. Phenomenal Glossology.—It is not my purpose in the present work to borrow my leading illustrations from any portions of knowledge but those which are concerned with the study of material nature; and I shall, therefore, not dwell upon a branch of research, singularly interesting, and closely connected with the one just mentioned, but dealing with relations of thought rather than of things;—I mean the Palætiology of Language;—the theory, so far as the facts enable us to form a theory, of the causes which have led to the resemblances and differences of human speech in various regions and various ages. This, indeed, would be only a portion of the study of the history and origin of the diffusion of animals, if we were to include man among the animals whose dispersion we thus investigate; for language is one of the most clear and imperishable records of the early events in the career of the human race. But the peculiar nature of the faculty of speech, and the ideas which the use of it involves, make it proper to treat Glossology as a distinct science. And of this science, the first part must necessarily be, as in the other sciences of this order, a [270] classification and comparison of languages governed in many respects by the same rules, and presenting the same difficulties, as other sciences of classification. Such, accordingly, has been the procedure of the most philosophical glossologists. They have been led to throw the languages of the earth into certain large classes or Families, according to various kinds of resemblance; as the Semitic Family, to which belong Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean, Syrian, Phoenician, Ethiopian, and the like; the Indo-European, which includes Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German; the Monosyllabic languages, Chinese, Tibetan, Birman, Siamese; the Polysynthetic languages, a class including most of the North-American Indian dialects; and others. And this work of classification has been the result of the labour and study of many very profound linguists, and has advanced gradually from step to step. Thus the Indo-European Family was first formed on an observation of the coincidences between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin; but it was soon found to include the Teutonic languages, and more recently Dr. Prichard[9] has shown beyond doubt that the Celtic must be included in the same Family. Other general resemblances and differences of languages have been marked by appropriate terms: thus August von Schlegel has denominated them synthetical and analytical, according as they form their conjugations and declensions by auxiliary verbs and prepositions, or by changes in the word itself: and the polysynthetic languages are so named by M. Duponceau, in consequence of their still more complex mode of inflexion. Nor are there wanting, in this science also, general laws of phenomena; such, for instance, is the curious rule of the interchange of consonants in the cognate words of Greek, Gothic, and German, which has been discovered by James Grimm. All these remarkable portions of knowledge, and the great works which have appeared on Glossology, such, for example, as the Mithridates of Adelung and Vater, contain, for their largest, and [271] hitherto probably their most valuable part, the phenomenal portion of the science, the comparison of languages as they now are. And beyond all doubt, until we have brought this Comparative Philology to a considerable degree of completeness, all our speculations respecting the causes which have operated to produce the languages of the earth must be idle and unsubstantial dreams.
[9] Dr Prichard, On the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. 1831.
Thus in all Palætiological Sciences, in all attempts to trace back the history and discover the origin of the present state of things, the portion of the science which must first be formed is that which classifies the phenomena, and discovers general laws prevailing among them. When this work is performed, and not till then, we may begin to speculate successfully concerning causes, and to make some progress in our attempts to go back to an origin. We must have a Phenomenal science preparatory to each Ætiological one.
8. The Study of Phenomena leads to Theory.—As we have just said, we cannot, in any subject, speculate successfully concerning the causes of the present state of things, till we have obtained a tolerably complete and systematic view of the phenomena. Yet in reality men have not in any instance waited for this completeness and system in their knowledge of facts before they have begun to form theories. Nor was it natural, considering the speculative propensities of the human mind, and how incessantly it is endeavouring to apply the Idea of Cause, that it should thus restrain itself. I have already noticed this in the History of Geology. ‘While we have been giving an account,’ it is there said, ‘of the objects with which Descriptive Geology is occupied, it must have been felt how difficult it is, in contemplating such facts, to confine ourselves to description and classification. Conjectures and reasonings respecting the causes of the phenomena force themselves upon us at every step; and even influence our classification and nomenclature. Our Descriptive Geology impels us to construct a Physical Geology.’ And the same is the case with regard to the other subjects which I have mentioned. The mere [272] consideration of the different degrees of condensation of different Nebulæ led Herschel and Laplace to contemplate the hypothesis that our solar system is a condensed Nebula. Immediately upon the division of the earth’s surface into botanical and zoological provinces, and even at an earlier period, the opposite hypotheses of the Origin of all the animals of each kind from a single pair, and of their original diffusion all over the earth, were under discussion. And the consideration of the families of languages irresistibly led to speculations concerning the Families of the earliest human inhabitants of the earth. In all cases the contemplation of a very few phenomena, the discovery of a very few steps in the history, made men wish for and attempt to form a theory of the history from the very beginning of things.
9. No sound Theory without Ætiology.—But though man is thus impelled by the natural propensities of his intellect to trace each order of things to its causes, he does not at first discern the only sure way of obtaining such knowledge: he does not suspect how much labour and how much method are requisite for success in this undertaking: he is not aware that for each order of phenomena he must construct, by the accumulated results of multiplied observation and distinct thought, a separate Æiology. Thus, as I have elsewhere remarked[10], when men had for the first time become acquainted with some of the leading phenomena of Geology, and had proceeded to speculate concerning the past changes and revolutions by which such results had been produced, they forthwith supposed themselves able to judge what would be the effects of any of the obvious agents of change, as Water or Volcanic Fire. It did not at first occur to them to suspect that their common and extemporaneous judgment on such points was by no means sufficient for sound knowledge. They did not foresee that, before they could determine what share these or any other causes had had in producing the present condition of the earth, they must create [273] a special science whose object should be to estimate the general laws and effects of such assumed causes;—that before they could obtain any sound Geological Theory, they must carefully cultivate Geological Ætiology.