REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

Explanations: a Sequel to “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” By the Author of that Work. Churchill. London, 1845.

So many strong objections had been arrayed against the Vestiges of Creation, that the author was called upon to elucidate and reinforce his argument, or abandon the ground he had taken up. The more candid and equitable of his judges—those who were disposed to try him upon the merits, and independently test the claims of his inquiry, as in fairness it ought to be, as strictly a scientific speculation, regardless of any constructive bearings it might have on current opinions or prejudices—could not arrive at any more favourable conclusion than that he had failed to establish his hypotheses. Indeed this was the only verdict that could be safely delivered in. The impugners of the work were in the same helpless predicament as its author, who had, however, more venturously presumed to unravel unsearchable mysteries, concerning which, in the existing state of science, men can only conjecture, wonder, and adore, utterly unable to affirm or deny aught respecting them. What, for instance, with the remotest semblance of certainty, can be predicated of the stellar orbs? Is it not idle almost to speculate on the impenetrable secret of their origin when their very existence is undefinable—when their end, their glittering discs, and all but immeasurable distances are wholly unapproachable? Nor hardly less beyond our grasp is the commencement of organic existences. We do pride ourselves on recent advances to the sources of entity; we tear up the dead, we torture the living, and sedulously chronicle every beat of the heart and vibration of the brain to slake an insatiable curiosity, yet how unsatisfactory our reach towards the hidden springs of life—how limited our attainments, when the creation of a single blade of grass, the humblest worm, a poor beetle, or gadfly, would baffle the utmost structural skill of the greatest philosopher! Into the fathomless depths of our own globe we have also essayed to penetrate. Poor beings of three score and ten, whose utmost historical span extends only to some thousands of years, have sought to trammel up the terrene vicissitudes of millions of ages anterior to their own existence! Does not this savour of a vain research, or of a laudable thirst for knowledge?

Over all these dark and solemn inscrutabilities, however, the Vestiges undertook to throw a glare of light, to reveal their beginning, progression, order, relations, and law of development. Although daring in aim, the attempt was not to be wholly deprecated. While religious freedom had been secured, philosophy had become timid, official, and timeserving; retentive as Fontenelle of the truths within its grasp, and fearful to give utterance to aught that might disturb the stillness of the temple, the lecture-room, or fashionable auditory. Modern teachers had been used so long to the Baconian go-cart, that they had become as apprehensive of losing the inductive clue as the Palinuruses of old of the sight of the directing shore. But the time had arrived when it seemed expedient to relax the strictness of the investigative rule, and afford scope for a more systematic, if not speculative research. Science had made great acquisitions, and it seemed desirable, if only for experiment sake, to see what kind of Frankenstein would result from the architectural union of her scattered limbs. This formed the scope of the Vestiges of Creation; novelties were not propounded, only a portentous skeleton raised from the truths physical astronomy, geology, chemistry, physiology, and natural history had established. Does the author recoil from his work? No; these Explanations attest that he is steadfast in the worship of the idol of his brain. He retracts nothing, he re-asserts, elucidates, and often dexterously turns the weapons of the most formidable and orthodox of his adversaries against them, by showing from their writings that they had, in detail at least, acquiesced in the truths that they now, in a generalised form, seek to controvert and repudiate. So much adroitness and pertinacity in the author can hardly fail to provoke resistance, if not asperity, despite of the imperturbable temper in which he maintains the combat. The learned have been disturbed in their daily routine, by the discharge from an unknown hand, of a massive pyrites, that has diffused as much consternation among the herd of modish elocutionists, college tutors, and chimpanzee professors, as Jove’s ligneous projectile among the lieges of the standing pool. For this commotion we have, on a former occasion, conceded that there existed valid reasons, and we hasten to see the way in which they have been met in the rejoinder before us; contenting ourselves, as we needs must, by briefly noticing some of the salient points of the controversy.

First of the Nebular Hypothesis. The chief objection to this theory is, that the existence of nebulous matter in the heavens is disproved by the discoveries made by the telescope of the Earl of Rosse. By the reach of this wondrous tube, masses of light, rendered apparently nebulous by their vast distance, have been resolved into clusters of stars, and thence the assumption seemed unwarrantable that any luminous matter, different from the solid bodies composing planetary systems existed in the heavenly spaces. But to this the author replies, that there are two classes of nebulae—one resolvable into constellations—another comparatively near, that remains unaffected by telescopic power, and that until this last description can be separated, the nebular hypothesis is not disproved. It is thus brought to an issue of facts, both as to the existence of nebulae of this latter kind, and the optical power to resolve them into distinct stars.

But the author can hardly claim this negative success in grappling with a second objection—namely, his assumed origin of rotatory motion. According to him, a confluence of atoms round a spherical centre of attraction, would cause the agglomerated mass to revolve upon its axis in the manner of our earth. This was denied by everybody the least acquainted with the laws of motion; and thus did one of his imaginary solutions of a great phenomenon of the universe fall dead to the ground. This he now seems to concede, but in a sentence unintelligible to us, in which an undoubted physical law is spoken of as only an abstract truth (p. 20). He obviously still clings to his first mistaken inference, and calls to his aid Professor Nichol, whom he has also pressed into his service to help him over the last-mentioned difficulty by the Professor’s affirmation of a diversity of nebulous clusters. But the Professor does not commit himself to the extent of the author; his aqueous whirlpool is cited from Herschel, only in illustration, and correctly said to be produced by the unequal force of convergence of a fluid to a common centre. But the author’s nuclei, disposed in his notable “fire-mist,” did not act with unequal force on the ambient vapour, and whose central convergence in consequence, would not produce rotation or motion of any kind. This was the real matter in question, the author was taken up on his own premises, and the results he assumed to follow from them proved to be inconsistent with the unquestionable laws of gravitating matter.

He has gone over the geological portion of his subject with much care, but if competent, it would be impossible within our narrow limits to accompany him; nor could the discussion be made either interesting or intelligible except to the scientific, who have devoted attention to an extremely curious, but still obscure and unsettled field of investigation. He has elaborately cleared up many points, and successfully, we think, answered some weighty objections, but we are not yet converts to his theory of organic development. One passage we shall extract; after adverting to the facts established by powerful evidence, that during the long term of the earth’s existence, strata of various thickness were deposited in seas composed of matter worn away from the previous rocks; that these strata by volcanic agency were raised into continents, or projected into mountain chains, and that sea and land have been constantly interchanging conditions. He continues:—

“The remains and traces of plants and animals found in the succession of strata show that, while these operations were going on, the earth gradually became the theatre of organic being, simple forms appearing first, and more complicated afterwards. A time when there was no life is first seen. We then see life begin, and go on; but whole ages elapsed before man came to crown the work of nature. This is a wonderful revelation to have come upon the men of our time, and one which the philosophers of the days of Newton could never have expected to be vouchsafed. The great fact established by it is, that the organic creation, as we now see it, was not placed upon the earth at once; it observed a progress. Now we can imagine the Deity calling a young plant or animal into existence instantaneously; but we see that he does not usually do so. The young plant and also the young animal go through a series of conditions, advancing them from a mere germ to the fully developed repetition of the respective parental forms. So, also, we can imagine Divine power evoking a whole creation into being by one word; but we find that such had not been his mode of working in that instance, for geology fully proves that organic creation passed through a series of stages before the highest vegetable and animal forms appeared. Here we have the first hint of organic creation having arisen in the manner of natural order. The analogy does not prove identity of causes, but it surely points very broadly to natural order or law having been the mode of procedure in both instances.”

To the allusion in the last sentence there can be no demur; that there is “natural order or law” in creation who will contest? But it is the author’s law and the author’s order that are in dispute—his transmutation of species, the higher classes emerging from and partly annihilating the lower, under meliorated conditions of being. That the simpler form of organic life should first appear; that remains of invertebrated animals should be first found; then, with these, fish, being the lowest of the vertebrated; next, reptiles and birds, which occupy higher grades; and finally, along with the rest, mammifers, the highest of all—all this appears natural enough. How could it be otherwise? When the earth was a slimy bed, what but the lowest forms of life—the mollusca, and other soft animals, without bony structure—could possibly live in or occupy it? During the carboniferous era, when the earth was enveloped in an atmosphere of hydrogen, vegetation might thrive; but man, and animals like him, dependent on vital air, could not exist; nor are remains of them found in this epoch of the globe’s vicissitudes. All this is comprehensible. But the perplexing inquiry is, whence did the successive grades of animals emerge? That they could not contemporaneously exist when the whole earth was a shoreless sea, and that animals could not live is certain; but were they created in succession by the Divine fiat, or did they emerge, as our author supposes and elaborately tries to prove, from the humblest primitive forms, by an inscrutable law of progression—evidenced, he contends, by geological facts—though by some his facts are disputed—and certainly not confirmed by any animal changes observable within the limits of human experience? There is another alternative offers, which would dispense both with the author’s hypothesis and the need of successive organic creations by a special Providence. Is it a geological fact, since life began, that the earth has simultaneously undergone throughout its entire surface the revolutions assigned to it? May it not always, from that period, have consisted, as it now does, of water and dry land, alternately changing their sites, but always apart, and allowing of the contemporary existence on some portion of its surface of all the varieties of tribes ever found upon it? The fossiliferous rocks that formed the primeval sea beds could only be deposited by the abrasion from the anterior and higher rocks. It has always appeared to us that this conjecture is worthy of consideration, and, if found tenable, would reconcile many perplexities.

Upon subjects so obscure, and to which the human intellect has been only recently directed, it is not surprising that men of science have not arrived at uniformity of conclusion. Unable to reconcile phenomena with positive knowledge, there are names of no mean repute who would reserve certain domains of creation as the fields of special interventions. To this class Dr. Whewell appears to belong, who assumes that “events not included in the course of nature have formerly taken place.” In the same way Professor Sedgwick, to account for the appearance of certain animals, says, “They were not called into being by any law of nature, but by a power above nature.” He adds, “they were created by the hand of God, and adapted to the conditions of the period.” To this the author of the Vestiges assents, with the explanation (p. 134) that their existence was not the result of a “special exertion of power to meet special conditions,” but of an antecedent and primitive law of development suited to the new exigencies, and emanating from the Creator. This, he contends, does not lower our estimate of the Divine character; and, in proof, cites Dr. Doddridge, who cannot be suspected of irreverence. “When we assert,” says the pious and amiable author, “a perpetual Divine agency, we readily acknowledge that matters are so contrived as not to need a Divine interposition in a different manner from that in which it had been constantly exerted. And it must be evident that an unremitting energy, displayed in such circumstances, greatly exalts our idea of God, instead of depressing it; and, therefore, by the way, is so much more likely to be true.” Against constructive inferences it is urged, in the Explanations—

“As to results which may flow from any particular view which reason may show as the best supported, I must firmly protest against any assumed title in an opponent to pronounce what these are. The first object is to ascertain truth. No truth can be derogatory to the presumed fountain of all truth. The derogation must lie in the erroneous construction which a weak human creature puts upon the truth. And practically it is the true infidel state of mind which prompts apprehension regarding any fact of nature, or any conclusion of sound argument.”

The writer then quotes Sir John Herschel as having some years ago announced views strictly conformable to those subsequently taken of organic creation in the Vestiges:—

“‘For my part,’ says Sir John, ‘I cannot but think it an inadequate conception of the Creator, to assume it as granted that his combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise, though, in this, as in all his other works, we are led, by all analogy, to suppose that he operates through a series of intermediate causes, and that, in consequence, the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural, in contradistinction to a miraculous process,—although we perceive no indications of any process actually in progress which is likely to issue in such a result.’ In his address to the British Association at Cambridge, (1845), he said with respect to the author’s hypothesis of the first step of organic creation—‘The transition from an inanimate crystal to a globule capable of such endless organic and intellectual development, is as great a step—as unexplained a one—as unintelligible to us—and in any sense of the word as miraculous, as the immediate creation and introduction upon earth, of every species and every individual would be!’”

The Rev. Dr. Pye Smith is next adduced:—

“‘Our most deeply investigated views of the Divine Government,’ says he, ‘lead to the conviction that it is exercised in the way of order, or what we usually call law. God reigns according to immutable principles, that is by law, in every part of his kingdom—the mechanical, the intellectual, and the moral; and it appears to be most clearly a position arising out of that fact, that a comprehensive germ which shall necessarily evolve all future developments, down to the minutest atomic movements, is a more suitable attribution to the Deity, than the idea of a necessity for irregular interferences.’”

Lastly, the reviewer of the Vestiges in Blackwood’s Magazine, who is understood to be a naturalist of distinguished ability, expresses himself in an equally decided manner:—

“To reduce to a system the acts of creation, or the development of the several forms of animal life, no more impeaches the authorship of creation, than to trace the laws by which the world is upheld, and its phenomena perpetually renewed. The presumption naturally rises in the mind, that the same Great Being would adopt the same mode of action in both cases…. To a mind accustomed, as is every educated mind, to regard the operations of Deity as essentially differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself, the power of God as put forth in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in; it pains the imagination to be obliged to assimilate those operations, for a moment, to the brief energy of a human will, or the manipulations of a human hand…….. No, there is nothing atheistic, nothing irreligious, in the attempt to conceive creation, as well as reproduction, carried on by universal laws.”

We have dwelt so much upon this matter because it is one in which popular feelings are likely to be most deeply interested. We shall give the author, too, the benefit of his Explanations on another point, elucidating his former statement of the transmutation of a crop of oats into a crop of rye:—

“‘At the request,’ says Dr. Lindley, ‘of the Marquis of Bristol, the Reverend Lord Arthur Hervey, in the year 1843, sowed a handful of oats, treated them in the manner recommended, by continually stopping the flowering stems, and the produce, in 1844, has been for the most part ears of a very slender barley, having much the appearance of rye, with a little wheat, and some oats; samples of which are, by the favour of Lord Bristol, now before us.’ The learned writer then adverts to the ‘extraordinary, but certain fact, that in orchidaceous plants, forms just as different as wheat, barley, rye, and oats, have been proved by the most rigorous evidence, to be accidental variations of one common form, brought about no one knows how, but before our eyes, and rendered permanent by equally mysterious agency. Then says Reason, if they occur in orchidaceous plants, why should they not also occur in corn plants? for it is not likely that such vagaries will be confined to one little group in the vegetable kingdom; it is more rational to believe them to be a part of the general system of creation. …. How can we be sure, that wheat, rye, oats, and barley, are not all accidental off-sets from some unsuspected species?’”

It may be so; but this would only prove that the “unsuspected species” included greater varieties, not that a really defined species was transmutable into another. But it is a point upon which no satisfactory result can be arrived at, since naturalists are not agreed in the classification of species, nor what attributes constitute one.

The Broomfield experiment is again brought forward, as decisive of the power to originate new life from inorganic elements. It will be remembered that Mr. Weekes, of Sandwich, continued during three years to subject solutions to electric action, and invariably found insects produced in these instances, while they as invariably failed to appear where the electric action was not employed, but every other condition fulfilled. In a letter to the author of the Vestiges—two are inserted, one on the independent generation of fungi—Mr. Weekes says—

“One hundred and sixty-six days from the commencement of the experiment—the first acari seen in connexion therewith, six in number and nearly full-grown, were discovered on the outside of the open glass vessel. On removing two pieces of card which had been laid over the mouth of this vessel, several fine specimens were found inhabiting the under surfaces, and others completely developed and in active motion here and there within the glass. Making my visit at an hour when a more favourable light entered the room, swarms of acari were found on the cards, about the glass tumbler, both within and without, and also on the platform of the apparatus. At this identical hour Dr. J. Black favoured me with a call, inspected the arrangements, and received six living specimens of the acarus produced from solution in the open vessel.”

Specimens of the insect were sent to Paris, when they set a whole conclave of philosophers a-laughing, because they were found to contain ova. Other specimens were sent to London, but there their fate was sealed by their being found to be, not a new species, but one then abundant in the country. For ourselves we think the experiment not conclusive. We adopt Hume’s principle. All but universal experience having established that life is ex ovo only, we must have a proportionate body of counter evidence to establish a different mode of generation. At all events, Mr. Weekes’s protracted gestation of 166 days by his galvanic battery is not likely, in the existing rage for despatch, to supersede the existing routine of reproduction.