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I PHILOSOPHICAL LISRflRY t
PROFESSOR GEORGE S. MORRIS,
+ 1870-1889. +
J J
+ Preiented to the University of Michigan. ■+-
t t
JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTION
OF
THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE.
VOL. I.
JOURNAL OF
THE TRANSACTIONS
futtfria £uttitvit\,
|biloso(j|jicsl Sorietj of frtat Britain.
EDITED BY THE HONORARY SECRETARY.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
($ubliiftrt fnr tijt 3nstitutf)
ROBERT HABDWICKE, 102, PICCADILLY, W,
1867.
ALL BIOHTB BBBBBTBD
i
OFFICERS & COUNCIL FOR 1866-7.
^resilient.
THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K.G.
Utce-Prorifcente*
CHARLES M. BURNETT, ESQ., M.D.
PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, ESQ., F.R.S.
REV. WALTER MITCHELL, M.A.
Sonorarg tZfteastsm.
CAPTAIN E. GARDINER FISHBOURNE, R.N., C.B.
Aottomg &ecretarg.
JAMES REDDIE, ESQ., Hon. Mem. Dial. Soc, Edin. Univer.
Sonorarg Jtnrrffln Secretary.
EDWARD J. MORSHEAD, ESQ., H.M.C.S.
Council*
REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR, M.A.
ROBERT BAXTER, ESQ. (Trustee).
REV. A. DE LA MARE, M.A.
ROBERT N. FOWLER, ESQ., M.A. (Trustee).
EVAN HOPKINS, ESQ., C.E., F.G.S.
WILLIAM H. INCE, ESQ., F.L.S., F.R.M.S.
JOHN J. LIDGETT, ESQ., B.A.
ALEXANDER M'ARTHUR, ESQ., F.R.G.S., F.A.S.l .
WILLIAM M. ORD, ESQ., M.B.
REV. J. B. OWEN, M.A.
CAPTAIN FRANCIS W. H. PETRIE, F.G.S.
REV. ROBINSON THORNTON, D.D.
GEORGE WARINGTON, ESQ., F.C.S.
ALFRED J. WOODHOUSE, ESQ., M.R.I., F.R.M.S.
Clerk.
MR. CHARLES H. HILTON STEWART.
b
y\
#%tts ai % Victoria Instate.
First.— To investigate fully and impartially the most important questions of
Philosophy and Science, but more especially those that bear upon the
great truths revealed in Holy Scripture, with the view of defending
these truths against the oppositions of Science, falsely so called.^^
Second. — To associate together men of Science and authors who have already
been engaged in such investigations, and all others who may be inte-
rested in them, in order to strengthen their efforts by association ; and
by bringing together the results of such labours, after full discussion, in
the printed Transactions of an Institution, to give greater force and
influence to proofs and arguments which might be regarded as compa-
ratively weak and valueless, or be little known, if put forward merely
by individuals.
Third. — To consider the mutual bearings of the various scientific conclusions
arrived at in the several distinct branches into which Science is no
divided, in order to get rid of contradictions and conflicting hypothe
and thus promote the real advancement of true Science ; and/to exam* '
and discuss all supposed scientific results with reference to4inal o
and the more comprehensive and fundamental principles of Phil f8'
proper, based upon faith in the existence of one Eternal God \? •
His wisdom created all things very good. / > uo in
Fourth. — To publish Papers read before the Society in fu^A
>ove objects, along with verbatim reports of the discussio v°e °^
the form of a Journal, or as the Transactions of the Insiif + ere°D, in
above objects, along with verbatim reports of the discussio 1! ^e
rm of a Journal, or as the Transactions of the Instit + ereon, \
Fifth. — When subjects have been fully discussed, to make th
by means of Lectures of a more popular kind, to ^v , resu^s known
admissible ; and to publish such Lectures. c^ ladies will h
Sixth.— To publish English translations of important f
scientific and philosophical value, especially ^n ei&11 Dorics of
relation between the Scriptures and Science • a j "^rino nr»
other philosophical societies at home and abroad \ ^° Co"*°T>er« + ** ^e
hereafter be formed, in the interest of Script * are U ^
science, and generally in furtherance of thp Mx» ^^ trutk 0r Doav
Jects of tta « an4 of > i
Seventh. — To found a Library and Heading Room f ^0cietv ^
and Associates of the Institute, combining 1 1» °r ^e Use t
Literary Club. - «* P*ncipal £«* If^fc^
auta8es nf „
*^s of
Vli
ferns of llfamfersjrip, #r.
»o>
The Objects of the Victoria Institute being of the highest importance both
to Science and Religion, while they are such as have not been attempted to be
attained by any previously existing scientific society, it is anticipated that
when its establishment is known, it will receive the most liberal support by
gifts and donations from friends, and be joined by large numbers of Members
and Associates.
The annual subscription for Members is now Two Guineas each ; with
One Guinea Entrance Donation.
The annual subscription of 1st and 2nd class Associates (ladies being
eligible) is Two Guineas or One Guinea each, without any Entrance Fee.
Life Members to pay Twenty Guineas ; and Life Associates, first or second
class, to pay Twenty or Ten Guineas, respectively, in lieu of the above
Annual Subscriptions.
Vice-Patrons (ladies or gentlemen) to pay not less than Sixty Guineas
each, as a Donation to the funds of the Institute.
*** All who join the Society as Members must be professedly Christians.
On 31st December, 1866, the Foundation Lists were closed. Members
now admitted will be required to pay an Entrance Donation of One Guinea,
as above stated ; but they will receive the first two numbers of the Journal
of Transactions (published in 1866) gratis. Associates (1st and 2nd class)
will obtain these Journals on payment of 2s. 6d. for each number.
New Members and Associates, however, who are desirous of being upon
the Foundation Lists, although they have not applied for admission till after
31st December, 1866, may be so elected by the Council, upon the under-
standing that they shall pay the annual subscription for the year 1866 as well
as that for 1867.
Further particulars will be furnished upon application to the Honorary Secre-
taries or Clerk at the Office, 9, Conduit Street, Regent Street, London, W.
%# AU Applications for admission and general correspondence (as to papers
proposed to be read, 8fc ) slwuld be addressed to the Honorary Secretaries of the
Institute, and all Remittances of donations or subscriptions to the Honorary
Treasurer, at the Office, 9, Conduit Street, Regent Street, London, W,
Cheques to be crossed to Messrs. Ransom, Bouverie, & Co., Bankers,
1, Pall Mall East, London, S.W.
I
I
ERRATA.
On page 35, fourth line from bottom, for " p. 14," read p. 18.
„ 32, after "Postscript," for "Pp. 10, 11, 12, 14," read Pp l4 ,K
16, 18.
224, line 13, for " plants," read points.
242, line 11, for "Poleynian," read Polynesian.
265, line 4, for " unmoved," read universal.
^^^^^^■■ii^iHHWiHHMHIHHHHHHHI
IX
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
Page
Officers and Council for 1866-67 v
Objects of the Victoria Institute * vi
Terms of Membership, &c vii
Introduction ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... xi
PRELIMINARY AND INAUGURAL PROCEEDINGS.
Scientia Scientiarum ; being some Account of the Origin and
Objects of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of
Great Britain. By a Member (with Preface to Third Edition) ... 1
Circular, 24th May, 1865 30
Postscript to Third Edition of Scientia Scientiarum 32
JOTJKNAL OF TRANSACTIONS.
39
40
45
71
84
First General Meeting, 24th May, 1866 ...
Report of Provisional Committee and Council
Inaugural Address of Vice-President
Inaugural Dinner
First Ordinary Meeting, 4th June, 1866...
A Sketch of the existing Relations between Scripture and
Science. By George Warington, Esq., F.C.S., M.V.I. ... 85
Discussion on Mr. Warington's Paper 102
Ordinary Meeting, 18th June, 1866 115
On the Difference between the Scope of Science and that
of Revelation as Standards of Truth. By Charles
Mountford Burnett, Esq., M.D., Vice-President 115
Discussion on Dr. Burnett's Paper 136
Ordinary Meeting, 2nd July, 1866 147
On Comparative Philology, with Reference to the Theories
of Man's Origin. By the Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D.,
Head Master of Epsom College, Mem. Vict. Inst 148
Discussion on the Rev. Dr. Thornton's Paper 162
279
301
X CONTENTS OF VOL. I. ^
•page ' •
Ordinary Meeting, 16th July, 1866 ... ... 174
On the Various Theories of Man's Past and Present Condi-
tion. By James Reddie, Esq., Honorary Secretary ... 174
Discussion on Mr. Keddie's Paper 198
Ordinary Meeting, 19th November, 1866 221
Introductory Address by Vice-President 222
On the Language of Gesticulation and the Origin of Speech.
By Professor J. R. Young, Mem. Vict. Inst. 231 ^
Discussion on Professor Young's Paper 246 m
Ordinary Meeting, 3rd December, 1866 256 '
On Miracles ; their Compatibility with Philosophical Prin- i
ciples. By the Rev. W. W. English, M.A., Mem. Vict. Inst 256 i
Thoughts on Miracles. By E. B. Penny, Esq., M.V.I 276
Discussion on the above Papers on Mtracles
Reply by the Rev. W. W. English
Ordinary Meeting, 17th December, 1866 ... §^
On the General Character of Geological Formations. By
Evan Hopkins, Esq., C.E., F.G.S., Mem. Vict. Inst.
Discussion on Mr. Hopkins's Paper
• • .
Paper by Mr. Lewis Thompson, M.R.C.S., on the Constitution
of Granite and the Nebular Theory
• • .
Ordinary Meeting, 7th January, 1867
• » .
On the Past and Present Relations of Geological Scie^ck
to the Sacred Scriptures. By the Rev. John Kirk, M v t
Ordinary Meeting, 21st January, 1867 l
On the Lessons Taught us by Geology in regakd tc\ ^J*
xv> the
Nature of God and the Position of Man. By the "R
James Brodie, M. A., Mem. Vict. Inst
On the Mutual Helpfulness of Theology and j^ "* 382
Science. By John Hall Gladstone, Esq., Ph.D. -d^^14
Mem. Vict. Inst * *"•>
Discussion on the above Papers on Geology and Theo * " ^&B
Ordinary Meeting, 4th February, 1867 Gy ... 4^
On Falling Stars and Meteorites. By the J^^ "" ... a%*
Mitchell, M.A., Vice-President ... " ^Teh
Discussion on Mr. Mitchell's Paper
APPENDIX (A and B). ... ^
303
318
320
329
Foundation List of Vice-Patrons, Members Aim
Objects, Constitution and Bye-Laws ... °CiATe<
455
476
XI
INTRODUCTION.
HPHE Council of the Victoria Institute having deemed it
■*• advisable to republish, in the first number of its Journal
of Transactions, the Pamphlet which I ventured to issue in
September, 1865 (in the first instance entirely upon my own
Responsibility), with the title " Scientia Scientiarum : being
some account of the Origin and Objects of the Victoria Insti-
tute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain, by a Member ;"
but which was afterwards circulated by order of the Pro-
visional Committee, and is referred to with commendation
both in the Vice-President's Inaugural Address and in the
President's Speech at the Inaugural Festival, on 24th May,
1866; — it is now here reprinted (with the Preface and Post-
script which were added to it upon the publication of the
third thousand), as being thus connected with the history of
the Society's foundation.
The original Circular of 24th May, 1865, in which I roughly
sketched the first idea of the Victoria Institute, and which is
referred to in Scientia Scientiarum (p. 5), and in the Report
of the Provisional Committee and Council (p. 40), will be
found on p. 33; but the Circular of July, 1865 (No. 4),
also referred to at the same places, has not been here repro-
duced, because it contained the names of some gentlemen who,
though they had at first generally approved of the formation
of the Society, did not afterwards make formal application to
be admitted as Members or Associates, when its objects had
been agreed upon and made public. Circular No. 4 was
originally issued by itself, to make these objects known ; and
it was also appended to the first two editions of the Scientia
Scientiarum ; but it was omitted from the third edition, pub-
lished in February last, after the First List of the Foundation
Xli INTRODUCTION. '/
Members and Associates had been printed — it being considered
that the names of gentlemen who had known of the formation
of the Society for about nine months, and had not in that time
regularly joined it, should no longer appear as if connected
with its foundation, when they had not qualified to be enrolled
in the Foundation List of its Members and Associates.
The Council being also aware that some of the Members
who have joined the Society, even after two hundred names
had been enrolled, had only recently heard of its existence and
understood what its objects were; and, knowing that many
persons, both in the United Kingdom and the Colonies, cannot
probably be made aware of its establishment for several months
to come; they, therefore, recommended to the first general
meeting, that the Foundation Lists should be kept open ttt\
Slst December, 1866, in order that as large a number ^\
possible might have the opportunity of sharing with tteft. ^k
the honour of being Foundation Members and AssociaJe^X .
the Victoria Institute. \
I would here, also, beg leave to call especial attev
the Sixth Kecommendation of the Committee's Eepo^*\j
and to what 1 have said in the Preface to ScUntia #. n fa °
(pp. 8, 4), relating to the Sixth and Seventh Obi ^«afe ''
Society. And I venture confidently to entertaJ ^s q* ,%
that, through Christian munificence and liberality ° ">e i B
Object will not long be left unrealized, when 0 * % S^^v
importance of the work which the Society aima „,°6 *he o^
ing is fully appreciated. ***°Htt!V v
J. REDiift, W*u
PRELIMINARY AND INAUGURAL
PROCEEDINGS.
-»o»--
SGIENTIA SGIENTIABUM: Being some Account of
the Origin and Objects of the VICTORIA INSTI-
TUTE, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain.
By a Member,
" We have all agreed to accept that kind of knowledge which we class as Scientific, without
very much difficulty. If any new proposition comes with the authority of an established pro-
fessor of the Science, we accept it with the confidence with which a Bom an Catholic might
take the decision of the infallible Church."— Saturday Bsviev, Oct. 21«f, 1865.
" Cujusvis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare." — Cicxbo.
" Prevailing studies are of no small consequence to a state, — the religion, manners, and
civil government of a country, ever taking some bias from its philosophy, which affects not
only the minds of its professors and students, but also the opinions of all the better sort
and the practice of the whole people— remotely and consequently indeed— though not
inconsiderably." — Berkeley.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
■ Ot
IN preparing a Third Edition of this Pamphlet, the author
begs leave to say, that, although it has been circulated
by order of the Provisional Committee of the Victoria In-
stitute, he alone is responsible for its contents. In the
€t Objects of the Society/' " Terms of Membership," &c.,
will be found all that is strictly " official/' if I may use the
term ; and as this pamphlet has not touched upon either of
the last four Objects of the Society, I would beg special
attention to them briefly here.
The Fourth Object merely explains that our proceedings are
to be conducted like those of other Scientific Societies, by the
reading of Papers or Memoirs, and discussing them afterwards.
It is, however, intended that our reports of discussions are to
be more than usually full, as is signified by their being
described as "verbatim reports," instead of mere brief ab-
stracts. In some Societies — as, for instance, the Koyal
Society— discussions are not reported at all; and in the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Papers read are never
discussed. The advantages of the course proposed in the
Victoria Institute, as a Society for the study of General
Science and Philosophy, must at once be evident.
The Fifth Object is distinctively peculiar to this Society.
The Royal Institution, indeed, has various courses of Lectures,
some of wlrich are strictly scientific and educational, delivered
by Professors attached to the Institution; but its popular
Lectures on miscellaneous subjects are not the results of
studies or discussions carried on under its auspices, and .
cannot be compared with the kind of Lectures here proposed.
Sixth Object. — The intended publication of translations of
important foreign works, of real scientific and philosophical
value, is similar to what the Anthropological Society of London
is doing, with marked success, for Anthropology. By this
means, it is hoped that subscribers will not only receive a full
return for their subscriptions, but that valuable books will be
placed in their hands which otherwise it might not have been
easy to procure in this country, and not at all in an English
form.
The Seventh Object also goes beyond the scopoof what most
T
I
/
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
■ Ot
IN preparing a Third Edition of this Pamphlet, the author
begs leave .to say, that, although it has been circulated
by order of the Provisional Committee of the Victoria In-
stitute, he alone is responsible for its contents. In the
" Objects of the Society/1 " Terms of Membership," &c.,
Will be found all that is strictly " official/' if I may use the
term ; and as this pamphlet has not touched upon either of
the last four Objects of the Society, I would beg special
attention to them briefly here.
The Fourth Object merely explains that our proceedings are
to be conducted like those of other Scientific Societies, by the
reading of Papers or Memoirs, and discussing them afterwards.
It is, however, intended that our reports of discussions are to
be more thto usually full, as is signified by their being
described as "verbatim reports," instead of mere brief ab-
stracts. In some Societies — as, for instance, the Royal
Society— discussions are not reported at all; and in the
Royal Institution of G reat Britain, the Papers read are never
discussed. The advantages of the course proposed in the
Victoria Institute, as a Society for the study of General
Science and Philosophy, must at once be evident.
The Fifth Object is distinctively peculiar to this Society.
The Royal Institution, indeed, has various courses of Lectures,
some of which are strictly scientific and educational, delivered
by Professors attached to the Institution; but its popular
Lectures on miscellaneous subjects are not the results of
studies or discussions carried on under its auspices, and .
cannot be compared with the kind of Lectures here proposed.
Sixth Object, — The intended publication of translations of
important foreign works, of real scientific and philosophical
value, is similar to what the Anthropological Society of London
is doing, with marked success, for Anthropology. By this
means, it is hoped that subscribers will not only receive a full
return for their subscriptions, but that valuable books will be
placed in their hands which otherwise it might not have been
easy to procure in this country, and not at all in an English
form.
The Seventh Object also goes beyond the scope of what most
4 PREFACE.
Scientific Societies aim at. As this Society will deal with
General Philosophy and Science, and watch their bearing upon
Religion, its objects have a general interest that societies for
the study of specific branches of science cannot possibly have.
Hence it is anticipated that it will become a large society,
with Members and Associates all over the kingdom; and it
was, therefore, deemed advisable that its head-quarters in the
metropolis ought to offer the advantages slightly indicated
under Object 7. To realize fully, however, what is therein
alluded to, depends upon circumstances. It could only be
hoped for after many years, unless more speedily accomplished
by individual munificence and liberality.
In the mean time, the Society has work to do which it will
have to set about at once. After what I have said on p. 9
(note), on pp. 10 and 26, and in the Postscript to this edition,
I trust I need add no more, in order to let it be clearly under-
stood that the Victoria Institute is not intended to discuss
purely religious subjects. It is founded in the interest of
religion, as against atheism and infidelity, but solely for the
discussion of science and philosophy upon inductive and
philosophical principles. What the Book of Nature teaches,
as written in the visible heavens above, the earth beneath, and
in the history and heart of man, — such will form our proper
subjects of inquiry. Believing also that there is another
Book, in which things are revealed which human philosophy
alone could never have discovered, but which throw light upon
what else were, only dark to us (as to the ancient heathen
sages) and inexplicable, we do not think it rational to forga^
such revelation ; and we consider we shall not be found lea^
scientific, because we believe what our reason approves, whf<>
throws light upon the mystery of our life, and gives us hor^
and consolation in death.
February I9th9 1866.
SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM.
THE proposal to form a new Scientific Society in London,
where so many already exist, may naturally be re-
garded as calling for some explanation. Such a proposal
would seem to imply, either that the existing societies are
defective in their aims, or that they fail to carry out their
objects satisfactorily ; or else, at the least, that the new
Society has some other and further end in view than is con-
templated by those previously established. Now, it may
frankly be admitted that there is some degree of truth in
each of these alternative propositions; and they might all be
fairly urged as affording grounds for the establishment of the
Victoria Institute or Pniiosophical Society of Great Britain.
The great object of the Victoria Institute, as originally pro-
pounded in the Circular of 24th May, 1865,* and as set forth in
Circular No. 4 of July, as the primary Object of the Society,
is to defend the revealed truth of Holy Scripture against
oppositions arising, not from real science, but from pseudo-
science ; and this is an object which no previously existing
scientific society has made its aim. But then, it must be
observed, that if existing scientific societies had duly fulfilled
their aims, and guarded scientific truth, pseudo-science
would never have been allowed to pass current as truth
opposed to the Scriptures, and there would then have been no
place for a new scientific society to expose the fallacies of mere
quasi science. But this leads us further to consider whether
this state of things may not be primarily due to some defect
in the aims of the old societies, to which this inroad of pseudo-
science is fairly attributable, rather than to the failure on
the part of Modern scientific men to do justice to the objects
of their investigations. I venture to think that this is the
true explanation of the facts of the case, as I shall now
endeavour to prove. But first let us look at the facts
themselves.
* See p. 30.
6
It may be regarded as simply nc>toriouS, that Science, so
called (whether truly or not), is considered by many persons
to be at issue with what had previously been regarded
(whether truly or not) as truths revealed in Holy Scripture.
This supposed contradiction between science ana the Scrip-
tures was most boldly put forward in the "Essays and
Reviews/' as a ground for rejecting the theory that the
Scriptures are wholly inspired; and Dr. Colenso and others
have followed in the same path, publicly alleging the existence •
I of such contradictions, and, so far with a bold consistency, F
setting aside the Scriptures, in consequence, as false. And
if " science " really means, as it ought, a true knowledge of
nature; and if such science really contradicts the Scrip-
tures, then it certainly follows that the Scriptures must be in
error or misunderstood. As no rational being who thinks
can believe in contradictions, there can be no doubt what-
ever, that when the Scriptures and science are at issue, one ■
of them must be at faul(; ; and, in that case, it must be of the
greatest consequence to mankind at large, to be able to
discover which; The issue involved, indeed, is nothing less
than the truth or falsehood of Revealed Religion — the main-
tenance or abandonment of Christianity.
It \va^ the existence of this state of things that gave rise
to the famous €€ Declaration of Students of the Natural and
Physical Sciences," which was signed by upwards of 700
gentlemen (the greater number being members of the learned
professions and fellows of scientific societies), who expressed
themselves as follows : —
" We, the undersigned Students of the Natural Sciences, desire to express
our sincere regret, that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some
in our own times into occasion for casting doubt upon the Truth and
Authenticity of the. Holy Scriptures. We conceive that it is impossible for
the Word of God, as written in the book of nature, and God's Word written
in Holy Scripture, to contradict one another, however much they may appea^
to differ. We are not forgetful that Physical Science is not complete, but J^
only in a condition of progress, and that at present our finite reason enables
us only to see as through a glass 'darkly ; and we confidently believe that a
time will come when the two records will be seen to agree in every particular.
We cannot but deplore that Natural Science should be looked upon with,
suspicion by many who do not make a study of it, merely on account of the
unadvised manner in which some are placing it in opposition to Holy "Writ
We believe that it is the duty of every Scientific Student to investigate *
nature simply for the purpose of elucidating truth, and that if he finds that
some of his results appear to be in contradiction to the Written "Word
rather to his own interpretations of it, which may be erroneous, he should
not presumptuously affirm that his own conclusions must be right, and th
MM
statements of Scripture wrong ; rather, leave the two side by side till it shall
please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled ;*
and, instead of insisting upon the seeming differences between Science and
the Scriptures, it would be as well to rest in faith upon the points in which
they agree."
In this Declaration we have the "facts" sufficiently ac-
knowledged, although the manner in which they are stated
may be regarded as open to criticism. The language is some-
what indefinite, and therefore not likely quite to satisfy those
who have definite scientific notions, any more than those who
distrust science, and have no doubt as to their theological
traditions. But to say that scientific truth is perverted by
some, in order to cast doubt upon scriptural truth, if that is
what is meant by the words that "researches info scientific
truth " are so perverted, is a declaration that scarcely modifies
censure by its periphrasis. I do not believe the students who
signed this Declaration meant really to imply that researches
into science have been purposely perverted, so as to be made
antagonistic to religion, as it were, intentionally. t Giving
due credit to men of science for having simply pursued their
studies with the view to discover truth, it is surely a simpler
account of the present state of things to say, that men of
science, pursuing their researches in this impartial spirit,
have arrived at certain cosmological and geological deductions,
which they believe to be scientifically true, which are un-
fortunately at issue with what the Holy Scriptures have
hitherto been supposed to reveal as to the Creation and the
Deluge.
But it is perfectly clear — and this is acknowledged quite
plainly in the Declaration — that there cannot really be a con-
tradiction between true science and true revelation. "We
conceive" (the Declaration says) "that it is impossible for the
Word of God, as written in the book of nature, and God's
Word written in Holy Scripture, to contradict one another,
however much they may appear to differ." And on that point,
of course, there can be no difference of opinion ; nor is there
any such difference. If science and Scripture are at issue,
plainly one of them is wrong — untrue. There can be no other
issue. If the so-called " science " is really science, though
contrary to the Scriptures, then the Scriptures must be in error
or misunderstood. Or, if we maintain the integrity of the
Scriptures as truly God's revealed word, then what appears
to be science must be merely pseudo-science, that is, a false
interpretation Of nature.
I repeat there cannot be a doubt as to this issue and its
B
8
inevitable result. It is accepted, or rather it is advanced, in the
plainest manner in the " Essays and Reviews/' — most especially
in Mr. C. W. Goodwin's essay on the Mosaic Cosmogony; and
it is the very ground upon which the Bishop of Natal left his
diocese and came to England, to write his books against the
Pentateuch. In one of the latest of his public enunciations,
before returning to South Africa, he advanced distinctly the
same proposition. I allude to a paper he read before the
Anthropological Society of London, on May 16th, 1865. In
it he says, "The elementary truths of geological science flatly
contradict the accounts of the Creation and the Deluge ;" and
he adds, "At all events, I have done my best to secure that
the simple facts revealed by modern science — some of which,
as Dr. Temple has justly said on a recent occasion, are utterly
irreconcilable with Scripture statements, if these are taken as
announcing literal historical truth, — shall not be kept back
from the heathen with whom my own lot has been cast in the dis-
trict of Natal/' Here Dr. Colenso is simply declaring, that he
holds it to be impossible that the truths of nature can be con-
trary to the truths of revelation ; and he quite consistently
rejects the scriptural statements which are at variance with
what he regards as truths of science.
The difference between him and the students who signed the
Declaration referred to, is this : — He distrusts the Scriptures,
and considers his science unquestionable j they rather question
science, and are not prepared to give up the Holy Scriptures.
They say, " We are not unmindful that Physical Science is not
complete, but is only in a condition of progress, and that at
present our finite reason enables us only to see as through a
glass darkly j" and they afterwards declare, that they " confi-
dently believe that a time will come when the two records will
be seen to agree in every particular."
Now, in this state of things it is perfectly clear that men
must naturally range themselves either upon the side of Scrip-
ture or of science. If, like Dr. Colenso, Dr. Temple and Mr.
Goodwin, they have implicit faith in what they consider to be
scientific truth, then they must distrust the Scriptures;
whereas, on the other hand, if they have faith in the word of
God as revealed in Scripture, they must distrust that '^science"
so called, which contradicts it. They cannot believe equally in
both. They must hold to the one or to the other. Even those
who are puzzled, and scarcely able to realize so definite a
course, must feel that it is most unsatisfactory to have science
and revelation thus at issue; and they must naturally be anxious
that something should be done to get rid of such contradic-
tions. Now this is precisely the end which is proposed
9
to be accomplished by means of the Victoria Institute. Those
who rather distrust the deductions of science than the state-
ments of Scripture are invited to join the new Society and help
" to investigate fully and impartially the most important ques-
tions of philosophy and science, but more especially those that
bear upon the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture, with the
view of defending these truths against "the oppositions of
science, falsely so called," that is, against supposed contradic-
tions of science, which, it is anticipated, will be proved to be,
not the contradictions of true science, but merely the rash
deductions of false or pseudo science.*
To this proposed course, it may obviously be objected, in
limine, that it assumes science to bo at fault, and with this pre-
conceived view it sets about its investigations. But the answer
to this is equally easy, namely, that the assumption truly
represents the state of mind of those who propose to pursue
this course. It is simply a fact that they do distrust science,
and do not distrust the Scriptures ; and, therefore, they are in
a manner bound to see whether their distrust of science can
be fully justified or not. Besides, it can be a matter of little
moment whether they expect to find one result or another, so
* One or two gentlemen, who have otherwise and generally .approved of
the objects of the Victoria Institute, and one at least who has joined it, con-
sider that this " object" is somewhat too* negative in its scope. They would
have preferred that the primary object of the Society should have been, to
show positively how scientific discoveries illustrate and corroborate the truths
of revelation. Of course, it by no means follows that this view may not yet
prevail in the Society. But it should be kept in mind that the Victori
Institute, as a matter of fact, originated as a defence movement The first
work, therefore, it has set its members and associates, is the investigation of
the alleged facts and so called science which Dr. Colenso, Dr. Temple, and
others have publicly declared to be in opposition to Scripture statements.
And this is surely the natural and proper course for those who dispute the
existence of such " facts " or " science." Moreover, for my own part, I would
beg leave to adopt the prudent language employed by the Rev. H. B. Tristram
before the British Association at Bath, in 1864, upon reading his valuable
paper " On the Deposits in the Basin of the Dead Sea." He said he " had
a dread of attempting to corroborate Scripture by natural or physical argu-
ments which may be refuted ; for the objector is apt to think that when he
has refuted the weak argument, he has refuted the Scriptural statement."—
(Rep. of Brit. Assoc, 1864, p. 73.)
I ought to add here that the Scriptural phrase, " oppositions of science
falsely so called," is not used in the sense of the Greek original, as employed
by St Paul, but only as commonly used now in the popular sense the words
imply in English, which is also, perhaps, all they mean as rendered in th«
Vulgate, viz. : — " Oppositions falsi nominis scientiae."
B 2
10
that their investigations are really " full and impartial," as
they profess they shall be. But some might fairly retort — in
fact, the objection has been made — that the admitted precon-
ceptions thus entertained may interfere with the impartiality
of such investigations. The members of the Victoria Institute
cannot, of course, dispute the probable truth of that general
proposition. But they may claim it as an argument equally
applicable to those who differ with them, and on the other side
assume that science is always right, and who are therefore
ready, with the writers of the " Essays and Reviews," or Dr.
Colenso, or with sceptics generally, to set aside Scripture, or
force upon it new " interpretations :" — " interpretations/1 that
is, so-called, not of prophecies or " dark sayings," but tho
" explaining away " of plain language, which requires no in-
terpretation in order to be understood.
But at this point the sceptic as to " science " may claim to
join issue with the sceptic of Scripture, and say that he has good
reason for his distrust of quasi science, such as the sceptic of
scriptural truth has nothing to offer. And this brings us to
the second object of the Victoria Institute. It is —
" To associate together men of science and authors who have already been
engaged in such investigations, and all others who may be interested in them,
in order to strengthen their efforts by association ; and, by bringing together
the results of such labours, after full discussion, in the printed transactions
of an institution, to give greater force and influence to proofs and arguments
which might be regarded as comparatively weak and valueless, or be little
known, if put forward merely by individuals."
What we say is this, that what is called " science," and
boasted of as so " certain " by some, is far from certain, — is
continually changing and altering, — is disputed and denied and
controverted, on scientific grounds, by very competent persons ;
and that if the arguments and disproofs even already put for-
ward by individuals were brought together and well weighed,
the public would be astonished to find how much there was to
be said against the acceptance of what some persons boast of
as scientific truth. And, it may be admitted, they tacitly
allege that opinions and facts and arguments which happen to
be against the predominant opinions of the leading scientific
men, have scarcely a fair chance of a hearing in the existing
scientific societies, and, at least, that they lose all influence as
against theories which happen to have obtained the sanction of
some man, or men, of high scientific reputation.
But, to leave generalities, let us glance at a few actual in-
stances of how " science " so-called, has recently shifted and
changed ; and how the erroneous theories of the eminent have
11
held their ground against the sounder, views of less-reputed
individuals ; though these views have at last tardily been ad-
mitted as most probable* by the highest scientific authorities.
We have, perhaps, two of the best specimens of such changes
in scientific conclusions in Sir Charles Lyell's Address, as
President of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, at Bath, in 1864; inasmuch as he there gives up, as
no longer to be regarded as science, the two grand foundation
1 c facts " (as they previously were regarded) of geological
science, which were boldly put forth but a few years pre-
viously, as well-ascertained scientific truths that completely
upset the scriptural account of the Creation in the first chapter
of Genesis. I allude to what is called the nebulous theory of
astronomy, with what was founded upon it, the plutonic theory
of geology; and to the supposed existence of azoic ages,
during which it was supposed there was no organic life in this
world ; a conclusion founded upon what was supposed to be a
geological "fact/' that the lowest sedimentary strata of the
earth were totally devoid of all organic remains.
Now, it was upon the assumption of the truth of the nebular
theory, and of this proof of the azoic ages of the world, that
Mr. C. W. Goodwin in " Essays and Reviews" made his dis-
tinctive attack upon "the Mosaic Cosmogony." He main-
tained, as against the scriptural account of the creation of the
heaven and the earth, that " the first clear view which we ob-
tain [from science] of the early condition of the earth, presents
to us a ball of matter, fluid with intense heat, spinning on its
own axis, and revolving round the sun." This is Laplace's
nebular theory ; only it is put forward by Mr. Goodwin from
the point when the earth has become "fluid," instead of begin-
ning at the beginning when it was supposed to be in a gaseous
state, or Mr. Goodwin may have used the word "fluid" in a
loose sense, that would comprehend gaseous matter. Here at
any rate is a fuller statement of the nebular theory as it appears
in M. Figuier's " Earth before the Deluge," published in Paris
so recently as 1863. He says : —
"The theory we are about to develop, and which considers the existing earth
as an extinguished sun, as a refrigerated star, as a nebula which has passed
from a gaseous to a solid state, this beautiful conception, which binds together
in so brilliant a manner geology and astronomy, belongs to the mathematician
Laplace . . . We have established, in commencing, that the centre of our
globe is still, in our own day, elevated to 195,000°, a temperature which sur-
passes all the imagination can conceive. We cannot have any difficulty in
admitting that, by a heat so excessive, all the materials which now enter into
the composition of the globe were reduced, at the first, to a gaseous or vaporous
12
condition. It is requisite, therefore, to represent our planet in its primitive
condition as an aggregate of aeriform fluids as a substance entirely gaseous.
. . . Raised to a temperature of white-heat (rouge-blanc), by the excessive
heat which affected it, the gaseous mass, which constituted then the earth,
shone in space as shines the sun at the present time, as shine to our eyes in
the serenity of the night the fixed stars and the planets.
Revolving round the sun, according to the law of universal gravitation, this
burning gaseous mass was necessarily subject to the laws which affect other
material substances. It became cooler, it gradually ceded a portion of its
heat to the icy regions of the interplanetary spaces, in the midst of which it
traced the thread of its blazing orbit. But in the course of this continual
cooling down, and at the end of a period, of which it would be impossible
to fix, even approximately, the duration, the primitively gaseous star
arrived at a liquid condition. .... Mechanics teach us that a liquid body
kept in a state of rotation takes necessarily the spherical form ; it is thus
that the earth took the globular or spheroidal form which is proper to it, as to
the majority of the heavenly bodies.,, •
Here it will be observed that the basis of this cosmological
speculation is the supposed geological " fact/' that it had been
ascertained that the centre of our earth is elevated even yet to
the inconceivably enormous temperature of 195,000°. This
notion or quasi " fact" was again based upon an assumption
that the increase of the earth's temperature, as we descend,
proceeds at a certain ratio, inore and more, till we reach the
centre ; and, further, that the granite rocks were formed by
means of dry heat of this great intensity and a subsequent
crystallization by cooling down.
But let us see how now stand these foundation'' facts " of
this astronomo-geological science, which was put forward so
confidently only a few years ago against the Mosaic Cosmogony.
In Sir Charles Lyell's Bath address, he says : — " The study, of
late years, of the constituent parts of granite has led to the
conclusion that their consolidation has taken place at tempera-
tures far below those formerly supposed to be indispensable."
€€ Various experiments have led to the conclusion that the
minerals which enter most largely into the composition of tho
metamorphic rocks have not been formed by crystallizing from a
state effusion, or in the dry way, but that they have been derived
f Figuier, La Terre avant le Ddluge, Paris, 1863 (p. 27). Since this
was written, I have observed that the publication of an English translation
from the fourth French edition of this interesting work has been announced
by Messrs. Chapman & Hall. In this work, geology is described as " pre-
eminently a French science ! n which may account, perhaps, for no modifi-
cation of the nebular theory being made in this last edition, notwithstanding
Sir Charles LyelTs Bath address.
13
from liquid solutions, or in the wet way — a process requiring a
fcur less intense degree of heat"
Thus vanishes all that had been taught as geological science
for half a century, at least, as to the original formation of
granite !
Sir Charles Lyell also says, with reference to a co-relative
part of the same theory, with its inconceivable high tempera-
ture of 195,000° in the earth's dentre, and its matter thus
reduced to a gaseous or fluid condition : — " The exact nature
of the chemical changes which hydrothermal action may effect
in the earth's interior will long remain obscure to us, because
the regions where they take place are inaccessible to man ;*
but the manner in which volcanoes have shifted their position
throughout a vast series of geological epochs — becoming
extinct in one region, and breaking out in another — may,
perhaps, explain the increase of heat as we descend towards the
interior } without the necessity of our appealing to an original
central lieat, or the igneous fluidity of the earth's nucleus"
And so away .goes the foundation " fact" of geology upon
which was based the nebular theory of the earth's formation
out of a gyrating globe of gas, consisting of intensely hot
fused granite ! It is at once amusing and melancholy, now, to
read over the Words in which this rival and scientific view of
the cosmos was so confidently put forth by Mr. 0. W. Goodwin
against the old " Mosaic Cosmogony." I repeat' his words,
pregnant as they now are with warning, as regards science
falsely so-called, in its opposition to revealed truth ! — " The
first clear view which we obtain (says Mr. Goodwin) of the
early condition of the earth presents to us a ball of matter,
fluid with intense heat, spinning on its own axis, and revolving
round the sun !"
So much for the primary or foundation " facts " of geology,
which had been taught as " science" in this country ever since
the publication of Dr.* Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise ; and
which are yet graphically exhibited, in all the geological charts
of sections of the crust of the earth, in all our still current
geological works of science.
But leaving the earth's centre and its now abandoned
igneous fluidity, let us come to the oldest strata, heretofore
taught to have been "Azoic," or formed before any organic
beings had been created. The ".fact " upon which this geolo-
gical theory was based, was simply this, that what were
* This is a very different and much more rational tone than the absurd and
confident enunciation of a definite temperature of 195,000°, admitted, at the
same time, to be inconceivable !
14
supposed to be the oldest rocks, were found to be, so far as
they had been examined in Europe, without any fossil traces of
organic remains. Geology, in fact, unfortunately undertook
to prove a negative, and affirmed it had succeeded in a some-
what positive manner.
But Sir Charles Lyell tells us, in his Bath address, that "late
discoveries in Canada have at last demonstrated that certain
theories founded in Europe on mere negative evidence were
altogether delusive."
" It has been shown, he says, that northward of the river St Lawrence,
there is a vast series of stratified and crystalline rocks of gneiss, mica-
schist, quartzite, and limestone, about 40,000 feet in thickness, which are more
ancient than the oldest fossiliferous strata of Europe, to which the term primor-
dial had been rashly assigned ;" and " in this lowest and most ancient system
of crystalline strata, a limestone, about 1,000 feet thick, has been observed,
containing organic remains." He adds, " We have every reason to suppose that
the rocks in which these animal remains are included are of as old a date as
any of the formations named Azoic in Europe, if not older, so that they pre-
ceded in date rocks once supposed to have been formed before any organized being*
had been created."
Now, notwithstanding these frank admissions by Sir Charles
Lyell, which were publicly made by him as President of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science at Bath,
in 1864 ; and although Bishop Colenso was present and heard
that address delivered, the Bishop did not hesitate on the 16th
of May, 1865, to use the language I have already quoted, in
which he makes it a boast that he had done his best while in
his diocese — that is, upwards of three years previously — to
secure that the simple facts revealed by modern science should
not be kept back from the heathen with whom his lot had been
cast in the district of Natal ! Nay, he quotes a recent utter-
ance of Dr. Temple (I believe while preaching in Whitehall
Chapel) as agreeing with himself, that these facts are utterly
irreconcilable with Scripture statements! Can it be that these
" educators of the world " do not read, or hear, or understand,
or know what they are saying ? Why, when Bishop Colenso
taught what he calls " the simple facts revealed by modern
science," to the Zulus, — or what he more specifically describes
as " the elementary truths of geological science," which "flatly
contradict the accounts of the creation and the deluge " in
Holy Scripture, — he must have taught the nebulous theory, and
that there were azoic ages of enormous duration before living
creatures were created, as Mr. Goodwin did in his Essay ! He
must have then taught as " simple facts " or " elementary
truths of geological science," what he has himself heard Sir
Charles describe as theories altogether delusive, and what — if
15
he would speak as plainly about science as about the Scriptures
— he must now know never to have been " facts " at all," but
" rash deductions/' founded, at best, " upon mere negative
evidence ;" and he might well be asked, Whether, in his zeal
for the truths he thinks are €€ revealed by science," he will be
- as anxious to make the Zulus, on going back to his late diocese,
acquainted with these now acknowledged blunders in geology
as he has been to let them know of the alleged blunders
he thinks may be discovered in the Pentateuch as to the
creation ?*
I venture to say that neither Dr. Colenso, nor any sceptical
geologist on his behalf, can point to a single geological fact,
or even to any respectable theory entertained and taught in
any geological work now extant, which any great number of
geologists would say they accept, that can in the least be con-
sidered as contradictory to the Mosaic account of the creation.
There is not a geological text-book at the present time in
existence that gives any other foundation for the science than
the igneous theory of the earth's nucleus which Sir Charles Lyell
considers "may now be dispensed with,"— a very gentle
euphemism for a frank admission that the theory has no
foundation at all to which it can appeal in the facts of
geology, since the constitution of granite has been better
understood. That we may have another theory, and another
which may, like the last, contradict Scripture, is very possible,
perhaps only too probable ; but what I say is, there is no such
theory yet invented. The theories that did contradict the
Scriptures, as regards the original formation of the earth and
its azoic rocks and ages, are pronounced ex cathedra scientite,
to be " altogether delusive." That is the present state of the
case. As regards the Creation, that is the only revelation
of science which Dr. Colenso can honestly teach at present to
his t€ Zulu philosopher ! "
But no doubt Dr. Colenso might jet retort, in modern style,
"What about the Deluge?" He might still appeal to the
" volcanic cones of loose ashes in the valleys of Auvergne,"
and maintain that Sir Charles Lyell has not given up his
former scientific teaching about these. He may still with
Sir Charles believe that they " must have been formed
ages before the Noachian deluge," and that had the deluge
been universal, the light and loose substances that cover these
cones u must have been -swept away."
My object not being to refute the geological views of Sir
Charles Lyell or Bishop Colenso, I may content myself with
* See Postscript, pp. 32, et seq.
/
16
observing, as regards this point, that I have no roason for sup-
posing that Sir Charles Lyell has as yet changed his opinions,
and that till he does so, Dr. Colenso will probably be content to
believe as he does. It is no part of my object to endeavour
to prove that there are now no scientific views opposed to the
Scriptures. Were that the case — had every gua#t-fact and
every " scientific " theory already shared the fate of the
azoic ages and the " original igneous fluidity of the earth's
nucleus/' why then, of course, the Victoria Institute had been
founded late in the day ! It would have had really no occupa-
tion. I for one would never have thought of its establishment.
But at the same time, I may be permitted to observe, that
surely these confident appeals made by Bishop Colenso and
Dr. Temple to €€ simple facts revealed by modern science "
that contradict the statements of Holy Scripture, are put for-
ward with an unwise effrontery so soon after such large con-
fessions by our most eminent, geologist (from whom they take
their science second-hand), of science contradicting itself, and
of the utterly delusive character of its former ts revelations "
respecting the very foundation u facts " of geology. Surely
when the scientific have been all out as regards the Creation of
the world, — after all the bold sneers in' " Essays and Reviews "
as to the blunders of "the Hebrew Descartes/' — a little modesty
and somewhat less confidence might well become our once
" deluded " teachers, when they come to speak now of the
Deluge. There are, doubtless, men of science an<^ authors,
who have already been engaged in investigating this question
of the evidence of the universality of the deluge from a
scientific point of view ; and who have arrived at other con-
clusions than those of Sir Charles Lyell.* Some of them are
already members of the Victoria Institute ; and it is one of
the professed objects of that Society to bring such men
together, to give them a fair hearing, to discuss their arguments,
and further to investigate what may be regarded as the facts
under discussion, and thus to get at truth. In Sir Charles
Ly ell's "Antiquity of Man " he informs us, that for the greater
part of his scientific lifetime, he had resisted evidences he now
* I may here draw attention to an able pamphlet by Mr. S. R. Pattison,
F.G.S., The Antiquity of Man: An Examination of Sir (7. LyelVs recent
work (Lond. : Lovell Reeve, 1863), and to the well-reasoned and larger work,
Remarks on the Antiquity and Nature of Man, by the Rev. James Brodie,
A.M. (Lond. : Hamilton,. Adams & Co., 1864). In the latter work, Sir. C.
LyelTs arguments, adopted by Bishop Colenso, against the Mosaic account
of the Deluge, are fairly met ; %but my present object is not to bring forward
anything that has not been acknowledged by the recognized " authorities "
in science.
17
admits of man's contemporaneous existence with certain long
extinct animals. Those who are interested in the statements
of the Bible, may well be anxious that no similar overwhelming
influence may be successfully brought to bear against any
evidences there may be in nature of the universality of the
flood.
I therefore revert to the nebular theory, to show that there
were not wanting men — and men, as it turns out, better
entitled to the name of " men of science," than others more
eminent in reputation — who contended strongly against that
theory, but whose arguments were disregarded, or not allowed
even a hearing before some of our existing scientific societies,
which thus acted as hindrances instead of as helps to the
advancement of science.
In 1844, when the British Association for the Advancement
of Science met at York, the late Dean of York, Dr. Cockburn,
a practical geologist, made a straightforward attack upon
the nebular theory, "laid down by Dr. Buckland, in his
Bridgewater Treatise, as to the original formation of the earth,"
upon this very sufficient ground, namely, t€ because that theory
will not account for the many facts made known to us by geolo-
gists ;" and he put forward another theory in some detail,
which he maintained did account for these facts, and of which
he challenged criticism. He concluded his remarks in these
words : —
" You will, of course, perceive that my theory accords perfectly with the
account given by Moses. I do not, however, press it upon you in conr
sequence of that accordance, but because I contend that every modern dis-
covery may be accounted for by this theory, and cannot be accounted for by
the theory of Dr. Buckland." *
Professor Sedgwick, who was President of the Geological
Section that year, replied to Dr. Cockburn, but as he " con-
fined himself almost exclusively to remarks upon the Dean's
supposed ignorance," the learned Dean printed his speech, and
requested the Professor to answer it in print ; observing that
" it appeared to him, and to many wiser men, that the theories,
of the Geological Society were incompatible with Christianity/'
. although Professor Sedgwick had said that " these theories,
if rightly understood, wpuld confirm the truths of revelation."
For, if so, added the Dean, my answer is, " these theories
are not rightly understood by me and by thousands of others."
• That Dean Cockburn formed the truer estimate of the cha-
racter of the nebular theory, when he described it ,as con-
* The Bible Defended against the British Association. Fourth Edition
(p. 16).
18
tradictory to the Mosaic Costnogony, has since been abundantly
proved. Yet many persons at one time professed to agree with
Professor Sedgwick, and freely €s interpreted " the Scriptures to
make out a kind of agreement between them and the then cur-
rent geological theories. But the thing did not last. After the
publication of " The Vestiges of Creation," any such pretence of
agreement was really absurd ; and Mr. Goodwin's Essay and
lastly Dr. Colenso's writings have since cleared this quite
away.
Dean Cockburn asked for a second discussion, as he got
no answer from Professor Sedgwick. Professor Ansted
replied, that he was directed by the Committee of the section
to say, " that, as there is no precedent for re-opening the dis-
cussions of the section, they consider it would not be proper
for them to comply with the request." What an answer for
an " Association for the Advancement of Science " to give. No
precedent, and therefore tf not proper ! " " No precedent," in
1844, given as a reason by an Association then only in its
14th year ! Well might the learned Dean be excused for
observing : " Whether this refusal arose from a lofty or an
humble opinion of their cause, it left the question of their Chris-
tianity where it was." He also asked that the Geological
Society should "put forth ex cathedra a printed statement oi
their opinions respecting the Creation ; " and at last Professor
Sedgwick sent him a reply. In it, the Professor however " de-
clined to support the nebulous theory ! " He said, " that it was
first put forth by astronomers and adopted by the geologists, as
a matter of indifference to them whether true or false." Surely
nothing could be very much stranger than such an account
of the acceptance of any scientific hypothesis whatever.
" Adopted by geologists, as a matter of indifference to them
whether true or false ! " But nevertheless adopted j and, as
already said, to this day exhibited as a foundation of " the
geology of the earth " in every current text-book of geological •
science.
Further correspondence took place between the Professor
and the Dean. But the former would not consent that his
letters should be published. Of the last of these the learned
Dean writes : " I wish you would allow me to publish it. It
has no appearance of hasty composition, but is evidently the
work of an able writer perfectly conversant with his subject.
It would, I doubt not, give complete satisfaction to the
members of the Geological Society. But, unfortunately, there
are thousands who think with me, that that society have had
too much respect for the argumentum ad verecundiam, and
have never allowed their own unbiassed judgment to investi-
19
gate theories introduced by former great names." The Dean
afterwards addressed the President of the Geological Society,
sending copies of his letters to Professor Sedgwick. He wrote
as follows : —
" The members of the British Association have always been accustomed to
act in strict unison. They discountenance all difference of opinion, and seem
bound jurare in verba magistri. Professor Sedgwick could not, therefore,
with propriety appear publicly in opposition to the nebulous theory ; and at
the same time considerations for his own character would not allow him to
stand up in support of what he knew to be an absurdity."
The Dean, after challenging objections to his own theory
and arguments, agreeing with the Mosaic Cosmogony, goes
on: —
"You say that there are geological facts which prove the long existence of the
world through many ages. I say there are no suck fads. Here we are completely
and plainly at issue. Produce, then, some one or more of these facts ; and if I
cannot fairly account for them without supposing the very long duration of
. the earth, I am beaten ! I am silenced ! But if you do not produce such
facts, and retreatj like Professor Sedgwick, from the challenge) confess, or let
your silence confess, that the whole doctrine of a pre-Adamite world has been
a mistake, too hastily adopted by men of talent and learning, and too apt,
like all other persons, to draw general conclusions from a few particular facts."
In a subsequent passage, which need not be quoted, the Dean
refers to the Geological Society as a " valuable body," adding,
in a foot note, " Most valuable, as having furnished us with un- .
expected and unanswerable proofs of the waters having once
covered the existing earth." So that it would appear, that at
that time, the ' ' orthodox " geologists taught that the facts of
geology proved the universality of the deluge, which Bishop
Colenso, on May 16th, 1865, — drawing his inspiration, no
doubt, from what he now regards as geological science — de-
clared to be " an impossibility " in such absolute terms, as
even to draw forth a disclaimer from the president of the
Anthropological Society of London.
But it may be said that the nebular theory has now been
given up by Sir Charles Lyell, not on account of arguments
such as those adduced by Dean Cockburn, but because it has
been found, from the constitution of granite, that its formation
must have proceeded from a watery crystallization, and not
from the fiery, dry heat, which the nebulous theory ignorantly
ascribed to it. That is very true. Even in the absence of
a knowledge of the constitution of granite, and for various
other and more obvious reasons, Dean Cockburn was enabled
to declare "the nebulous theory is really nonsense." But
if, nevertheless, it was really believed in, merely or chiefly
20
because of a blunder as to the formation of granite, surely,
then, earlier attention ought to have been paid to the matter
of which granite is composed, before " adopting " such a
physical theory as the very basis of the geology of the earth.
But even this plea will not serve as a justification for such an
inveterate adherence to this now abandoned theory. Even be-
fore the Dean of York attacked it, namely, in 1843, a fellow
of the Geological Society, Mr. Evan Hopkins — also now a
member of the Victoria Institute — put forth a theory of the
earth adyerse to the nebular and plutonic hypotheses ; and one
of the main ' ' facts " to which he appealed was, that granite
was a water formation, or a true crystallization, and could
never have been formed by dry heat as the nebular theory re-
quired. But his voice was not regarded, and not his facts, as
against the great name and gratuitous assertions of Laplace,
unfortunately accepted by Dr. Buckland. In giving up the
theory, Sir Charles Lyell does not even notice him, although
two years before the then President of the Geological Society,
Professor Ramsay, had distinctly done so. At that time, also,
I may observe, i.e. in 1862, Professor Eamsay said " that he
believed that the science of geology was on the eve of a great
revolution " — the " science " that Bishop Colenso but a short
time before had been preaching to his Zulus as the certain
" revelations " of truth ! anc^ to which, even since then, he
dares once more to appeal as unquestionable truth, and as
upsetting the statements of Scripture I
But if any doubt whether all that Dean Cockburn said, under
somewhat provoking circumstances, was quite deserved, as to
the disposition of the Geological Society to yield too much to
the argumentum ad verecundiam, or as to the unwillingness of the
British Association to listen to contradictions to theories put
forward by great names ; I can cite another witness, a Professor
at Cambridge, with reference even to a mathematical discovery
of his own, which will place in a still stronger light the fact
that, in his opinion, the present organizations among the
scientific rather serve to retard the advancement of science,
and to foster the maintenance of established dogmas in science
than to admit new truths; while, at the same time, we know
that all that may appear opposed to Scripture may be very freely
put forward in scientific societies, and by some men even in
thet pulpit! Professor Challis thus expresses himself: — "I
know enough of the history of physical science to be aware
that an advance of this kind in an abstruse department of
science can be expected to make its way only by slow de-
grees." This was said but a few years ago, and notwithstand-
ing the existence of the British Association !
21
But not to multiply instances of this kind in further detail ;
it is surely a fair argument, for those who are anxious not to see
science put unfairly or unwarrantably forward as at issue with
Holy Scripture, to say that, after all this recent experience of
theories rashly adopted and authoritatively upheld, while facts
and arguments, adduced by numerous assailants, have been
disregarded, refused a hearing, and despised, — they are anxious
to see a freer discussion of scientific dogmas in a new arena,
and especially anxious to invite an immediate and rigid inves-
tigation and discussion of such scientific fects and. theories
that are yet said to be adverse to scriptural statements, which,
they regard to be the revealed truth of God.
What they may well say is this : that just as Dean
Cockburn and others opposed the nebular theory twenty
years ago, but were not heard; so that now "other Com-
petent persons dispute other quasi " facts " in geology and
other theories in science which now pass for true ; and they
are anxious to give these investigators a hearing, which they
cannot expect to secure in existing scientific societies. They
say that this must be for the real interest, and that it will tend
to the real advancement, of true science; and that it has
become a necessity in the interest of revealed truth, which it is
so important should not be allowed to remain liable to be ever
rashly impugned by crude theories in the name of science, with-
out any independent organization of a scientific kind composed
of men able and willing to watch, as it were, over the outworks
of religion in this respect.
Let us revert, moreover, to the remark of Professor Sedgwick,
that the nebular theory was adopted by the geologists from
the astronomers, while indifferent whether it was true or false J
And only consider what must be the effect, of thus carelessly
adopting a hypothesis in science, without raising the question
whether it is probably true or utterly absurd, and then going
on for years, collating and arranging in the mind all newly
discovered facts, with sole reference to such a groundlessly
assumed hypothesis.. In what other way could a mere unrea-
soning prejudice be better instilled and made to grow inveterate
in the human mind ? Adopted thus at first, as we are told,
with indifference, in time the nebular theory became, what
Mr. Goodwin called " the first clear conception " of the origin
of the world ; and even now, when the intensely scarlet tint
of the earth's imagined central fire and of the welling up
molten granite must be obliterated in all the future graphic
representations of the earth's sections, the cosmographists, so
long accustomed to this false basis, will indeed be puzzled what
22
if
else to substitute in its room ! We really have no " science
of the world's origin at present !
Consider, too, how much valuable time has been lost for
science, and how much talent has been wasted, while this
untenable theory has thus been blindly entertained; and while
men have generally thus been discouraged and even debarred
from seeking after a true interpretation of the numerous and
most important newly discovered facts made known by goo-
logical research. ' * *
But we must be content with these few brief instances of
how the progress of true science has been hampered and
retarded, through the mischievous influence of imperative
theories and the authority of great names, to attend to some
still more important considerations, which I apprehend in
themselves alone constitute a sufficient ground for the esta-
blishment of the Victoria Institute ; and which will further
and at the same time account, in great measure, for inductive
sciencQ having already acquired some of the worst vices of the
false system of philosophising, which it was Bacon's great
object to root out for ever from scientific inquiry.
While we have been obliged to appeal to the fact, that there
is an openly alleged opposition in our day between the so-called
discoveries of modern science and the statements of Scripture,
especially as to the creation and deluge, I think we may also
find evidence, that this is not solely if at all to be accounted
for, by any desire on the part of scientific men generally, at
least in this country, to establish any such opposition, or any
disposition to pervert scientific research, so as to make it
antagonistic to religion. If Halley was infidel in his opinions,
still we know that Newton was devout. If Laplace was
atheistic in his views, and applying Sir W. Herschel's specula-
tions as to the nebulas to the first formation of this world, was
thus furnished with an hypothesis which enabled him, as he
supposed, "to dispense with God throughout. ; " — still we must
remember that that hypothesis was first put forth in England,
as an interpretation of geological appearances, in one of the
Bridgewater Treatises, by Dr. Buckland, some thirty years ago,
intentionally to exhibit God's power in His works of creation.
Professor Sedgwick, also, no doubt expressed an opinion
entertained by many other men of science besides himself,
when he declared that the theories now admitted to
be " altogether delusive " by Sir Charles Lyell, — but which
some may then have believed to be true theories founded upon
sufficient facts ascertained by geological science, — were confir-
matory of revelation. It is very true that in sayiug this, it was
with the understanding that considerable modification might
23
fairly be made as to the meaning usually gathered from the
scriptural statements. But what I wish to point out is, that
while many infidels and atheists have from time to time made
a handle of scientific theories to cast discredit upon revelation,
there have also been many earnest men of science who have
adopted the same scientific theories, but have not considered
them incompatible with the revelations of Scripture. Very
numerous attempts were made by Hugh Miller and other
eminent writers, to reconcile the Scriptural statements with
every fresh scientific discovery or supposed discovery in
geology.
But, unfortunately, in all these efforts, "the science" of the
day was always apparently adopted with too much readiness,
as if it required no probable essential correction, while Scrip-
ture alone was constantly tampered with, in order to get it to
mean something different from what its plain language had
previously seemed to imply/ " Science/' it may be said, was
allowed to pass uncriticised ; while Scripture was ever being
subjected to fresh and far-fetched interpretations. But this
could not, of course, go on. Professor Baden Powell, in
Kitto's Cyclopaedia, in his article on " Creation," rejected the
1st chapter of Genesis as "not being history;" and Mr. C. W.
Goodwin ridiculed all such " attempts to reconcile the Scrip-
tures with science " as " failures ;" and he, not without some
good reason, pointed to " the trenchant way in which these
theological geologists overthrow one another's theories." The
mischief, however, it will thus be seen, had been done. Science
had been taken on trust, the Scriptures had been sceptically
handled ; all, it may be, with the best intention on the part of
many, but not the less with fatal results— results not less fatal
to true science than to religious faith. And we have to account
for these results. The scientific, no less than the religious,
are interested in the inquiry. For what do we now find is the
case ? We find that it is science that ought to have been more
narrowly watched and criticised; and that it would really have
been to the credit of scientific men if they had applied to
" science." somewhat of that vigilance to detect its possible
errors, its contradictions, and fallacies, which has been freely
enough and too exclusively exercised in our day upon the
statements of the Scriptures, by those who have accepted
without the least examination and with an almost absolute cre-
dulity, often at 'second hand, all that has been passing for
science upon the authority of a few names of great scientific
repute. Now, I venture to say, the explanation is not far to
seek why science has thus "drifted" into contradictions and
delusive theories and fallacies, which have become a scandal
c
24
and discredit to science on its own account, — leaving the ques-
tion of revelation altogether out of consideration.
I have alluded to Halley, Laplace, and other atheists, infidels
or unbelievers, who, as individuals, have no doubt been glad
to find what they considered to be scientific contradictions of
God's Revealed Word. But that is not all. Not merely have
some pursued science in that spirit; but others have been
found who have boldly put forth the opinion that the inductive
philosophy of Bacon is necessarily atheistic in its principle and
foundation; and they have even claimed Bacon himself as an
atheist, and accused him of being a mere hypocrite in his reli-
gious professions ! Not only have the atheists themselves put
this forth as a boast, but the same accusations have been
strangely re-echoed by others in their over zeal for faith and
religion ! Thus has Bacon been libelled and his philosophy
misrepresented, by ungrateful and unfaithful followers on the
one hand, and by the avowed enemies of all scientific inves-
tigation on the other.
But the real truth is, that science has become, in our day,
materialistic and wildly speculative, entirely through a disre-
gard of Lord Bacon's principles, and in spite of his actual
warnings. Moreover, certain branches only of human know-
ledge have been cultivated by too many professed followers of
Bacon, and the higher and connecting links of general philo-
sophy have been too much neglected. " Hitherto (he says)
the industry of man has been great and curious in noting the
variety of things, and in explaining the accurate differences
of animals, vegetables, and minerals, many of which are
rather the sport of nature than of any real utility to science.
Things of this sort are amusing, and, sometimes, not without
practical use, but they contribute little or nothing towards the
investigation of nature." (Nov. Org., ii., 27.) And elsewhere :
" By means of these we have a minute knowledge of things,
but scanty and often unprofitable information with respect to
science. Yet these are the things of which common natural
history makes a boast." (Descrip. Globi Intellect., c. iii.) — In
reading these passages, one almost might imagine he had been
describing by anticipation the so-called natural science of the
present day. True, we have speculations enough, and theories
in addition, but they are rash and ill-considered, because the
sciences have been too much separated, and the great majority
have devoted their minds to the details of some narrow
speciality. But what says Bacon ? —
"Let no one expect great progress in the sciences (especially their operative
part) unless natural philosophy be applied to particular sciences, and they
L
25
again be referred back to natural philosophy. Hence it arises that astronomy,
optics, music, many mechanical arts, medicine itself, and what seems more
wonderful, moral and political philosophy, have no depth, but only glide over
the surface and variety of things ; because (mark this reason) these sciences,
having once been partitioned out and, established, are no longer nourished by
natural philosophy. Then there is little cause for wonder that the sciences
do not grow, when they are separated from their roots." (Nov. Org., L, 80.)
Again :—
"Generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges [sciences] be
accepted rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations ; and
that the continuity and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the con-
trary hereof hoik made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and
erroneous, while they have not been nourished or maintained from the common
fountain." — (Adv. of Learn., B. ii.)
It is very true that Bacon deprecated, as a ''philoso-
phical calamity," the excursions of final causes into the
limits of physical causes. But he did not, therefore, as
some have rashly concluded, banish final causes from his
scheme of true philosophy altogether. On the contrary,
he contemplates the sciences, generally, as all comprehended
in one pyramid of the Truth of things or Philosophy
proper, founded, indeed, upon the basis of a knowledge of the
varied facts of nature, but having an apex in the intelligence
of Deity. Far from participating, in the least, in any atheistic
notions, he thus expresses himself: — "It is easier to bejieve
the most absurd fables of the Koran, the Talmud, and the
Legends, than to believe that the world was made without
understanding. Hence, God has wrought no miracles for the
refutation of Atheism, because, to this end, His regular works
in nature are sufficient." (Ess. on Atheism.) And thus it
was, also, that he regarded " Natural Philosophy as properly
the Handmaid of Religion/' and not, as some regard it in our
day, as its antagonist.
. But nothing could be less Baconian than to endeavour to
establish any philosophical position by an appeal to any
authority, even though it were an appeal to his own great
name. In thus vindicating his memory from misrepresentation,
I have had no wish to employ the cvrgumentum ad verevmctiam.
On the Contrary, I would appeal to Bacon, mainly because he
taught us to cast off all mere authority in science, and to trust
to the mind itself, with all the independent aids to reason with
which we are amply furnished by nature. Let me cite, how-
ever, one other witness as to the present unsatisfactory condi-
tion of science, attributable to its over-subdivision into
branches, and the undue influence of scientific coteries in the
c 2
26
present day; too much like what it was when unreformed in
Bacon's own time. I cite from the " Introduction to Anthro-
pology," by the late Dr. Theodore Waitz, Professor of Philo-
sophy in Marburg University : —
" In Germany (writes the learned Professor) it is at present a common case
that in the fields of the various sciences, and even within the limits of a single
science, opposite theories grow up, without their respective propounders taking
any notice of one another's views, or making any attempt to reconcile their
contradictory dogmas. The strength of party comes in place of strength
of reasoning ; and the labour of giving scientific proofs seems superfluous,
where deference is merely yielded to the authority of those who, agreeing in
some general principles, appear to support one another with the instinctive
interest of an esprit de corps. With the same kind of tact, all that has grown
upon a foreign stock is silently passed over or eliminated, while only what
seems homogeneous is assimilated. Thus scientific life moves in individual
narrow spheres, and the more comprehensive and fundamental principles are
no longer discussed."
It is in order to provide a remedy for this state of things
that the founders of the Victoria Institute agreed that its third
object shall be :—
" To consider the mutual bearings of the various scientific conclusions
arrived at in the several distinct branches into which Science is now divided,,
in order to get rid of contradictions and conflicting hypotheses, and thus pro-
mote the real advancement of true Science ; and to examine and discuss all
supposed scientific results with reference to final causes and the more com-
prehensive and fundamental principles of Philosophy proper, based upon
faith in the existence of one Eternal God, who, in His wisdom, created all
things very good."
This object is surely one, at least, which requires no
apology as yet in England. It assumes, no doubt, a funda-
mental principle — the existence of the all- wise God. It there-
fore precludes the advocacy of atheistic theories in the
Society. It need scarcely be said it does so, simply because
its members and associates, as indeed the great mass
of the scientific and unscientific, of the literate and illi-
terate alike, in this country, have no manner of doubt
whatever of the truth so assumed. And this being the
case, it is in fact to be only straightforwardly honest, to say
that that constitutes a major proposition, which must neces-
sarily override and ipso facto overthrow all opposite and con-
flicting hypotheses. To teach that truth and to establish it,
pertains to the ministers of religion, and, therefore, it is ex-
cluded, as a question to be investigated, from the objects of the
Victoria Institute. So are all purely religious or theological
propositions. Science, in all its branches and ramifications, is
27
what the Society will be properly occupied with. And, con-
vinced that no real science will be found to be contradictory to
the revealed Truth of God as set forth in the Holy Scriptures,
all questions of science about which there may be doubts in
this respect, or which some may have alleged to be thus at
issue with the Bible, will especially claim the attention of the
members. One great means of carrying out this object and
pursuing such investigations, will be the co-relating, when that
is possible, the conclusions arrived at in one branch of science
with those arrived at in another; so also discovering their dis-
cordance, when the supposed scientific conclusions are at
issue.
It would be easy to give instances in detail of such con-
flicting theories and conclusions put forward in the present
day. It is almost unnecessary. Everybody must see and
admit that contradictory theories cannot both be true ; both
cannot be regarded as science. Nay, it must further be mani-
fest, that our " science " of the Cosmos, must be discredited and
not believed in as " science " at all, even among the reputedly
scientific, if they themselves are looking out for still further
explanations, or are entertaining, putting forward or quietly
listening to, ever new theories in existing scientific societies.
I may with propriety give one single instance of this kind
of thing, respecting what has long been regarded as the highest
science in this country, and indeed in Christendom, for upwards
of a hundred years at least. I allude to the Copernican
Astronomy as modified by Kepler, and interpreted by Sir
Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. I leave out
of consideration a subsequent modification of the system
arising from the first Herschel's notion of Solar Motion
in Space, which after being received by Astronomers as
" science," confirmed by all their caJculatiQns since 1 783, was
recently assailed as untenable, and shortly afterwards admitted
by the Astronomer Eoyal to be now in " doubt and abeyance ! "
I leave this out, therefore, of consideration — though it too is a
notable instance of what was long regarded as a " scientific
fact " turning out to be a " mere delusion/' — and wish to speak
only of conclusions supposed to be established by mathematical
proof in Newton's " Principia." Not only are all Newton's
demonstrations based upon the assumption that the heavenly
bodies are moving in what is called " free space," or " spaces
void of resistance ; " but this was the notorious difference in
the Cosmos, between the rival theories of Newton and Des-
cartes. When Voltaire came to visit Newton in England, he
wrote to a friend, that "he had left the world fall at Paris-
deferring to the "plenum" of Descartes and Aristotle) but
28
" found it was empty in London ! " And yet bur own Astro-
nomer Royal made the announcement at the first meeting of
the British Association, in 1831, "that the existence of
a resisting medium has once more been established in this
century by Encke." {Rep. on Astr., in he.) No indi-
vidual astronomer I believe, nor any existing1 scientific
society, has made it its business to see what effect wis restora-
tion of "the plenum" must have upon all Newton's and
Laplace's demonstrations in the " Principia" and " M^canique
Celeste/'inbothofwhichthenon-existenceofaresistingmedium
is taken for granted. Not only so ; but recent theories, put for-
ward by Professor Thomson before the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh and elsewhere, and also by others in England, assuming
an intense heat in the sun, are utterly irreconcilable with the
Newtonian hypothesis that, as the centre of the solar system,
it must have a mass 350,000 times greater than the earth,
while about 1,400,000 times greater in bulk.* If as hot as has
been recently speculated, as its bulk remains the same (namely,
about 850,000 miles in diameter), then its mass will not be
1,000 times greater than that of the earth ; and, on Newtonian
principles, this would render its being the centre of the
solar system impossible. Any child can understand, that
if the calculation which required the sun's mass to be
350,000 times greater than that of the earth, was science,
it cannot \>e also "science" that its mass should be so
reduced that it can only be about 1,000 times greater. Nor
is this all. These speculations, as to the sun's intense heat,
have required the co-relative theory of some means of sup-
plying the immense wadte.of matter by heat and radiation.
So, it has further been speculated that this was accom-
plished by meteoric matter which was supposed to be falling
constantly into the sun to supply it with fuel. This theory
was noticed approvingly by the President of the British Asso-
ciation in 1863, and the fullest account of it is to be found
in two papers by Mr. E. W. Brayley, F.R.S., in the " Com-
panion to the British Almanack." But scarcely had this theory
been completed, as it were, in detail, and recognized as " a
reasonable supposition" by the President of the British Asso-
ciation, than all of a sudden Mr. Brayley, who formerly ap-
peared to be one of its staunohest advocates, put forward, in the
Royal Society, another theory as diametrically opposed to it as
* Vide Letter of "Nauticas," in the Agronomical Register for February,
1866, p. 49. (London : Adams & Francis, Fleet Street.) Also, Essay on
" The Scriptures and Science," in Freeh Springe of Truth. (London : Griffin
&Oo.)
29
any two cosmical theories could possibly be. He suggested a
totally different theory, in which the sun is not only the centre
of the solar system, but the source whence all the planets were
drawn ! Instead of the sun being fed with meteors to keep it
from burning out, Mr. Brayley's theory makes the sun, in
rotating rapidly on its axis, throw off meteoric bodies ; and
thus he argues the earth and other planets were most probably
created ! I have no intention of going further into this specu-
lation here. I mention the fact of its having been brought
forward, and that in the Royal Society, in the presence of Pro-
fessor Tyndall, and of Newton's successor in the Lucasian
chair, without a word being uttered against it. This forces us,
I say, naturally, to ask this question, What is now our know-
ledge, our " science," of the sun or Cosmos ? Mr. Brayley's
views, of course, are entirely opposed to every part of the
€ ' Principia " and all that was dreamt of in Newton's philosophy.
Professor Thomson's theory destroyed the possibility of the
sun being the theoretical centre of the solar system, if universal
gravitation had anything like a plausible foundation. But
apart from that argument, which some people may not trust
themselves to admit, any boy can see that Professor Thomson's
and Mr. Brayley's theories are flat contradictions of one
another, even as speculations ; and then we are bound to ask,
Upon what extraordinary data of facts or principles can such
conflicting theories be bLed ?
That existing societies do not trouble themselves to compare
and contrast, and so to reject as unscientific such contradictory
hypotheses, or one or other of them, is simply true. The
transactions of the Royal Society — and no other need be
named — bear witness to the truth of this averment. And
that to do so — as proposed in the third object of the Victoria
Institute — would tend to the advantage and real advancement
of true science, I think will scarcely be disputed. The
Science of Sciences, in fact, is the proper co-relation of all the
various sciences into one grand and consistent Philosophy,
which will be the interpretation of the nature of things as or-
dained by the one true God; and it does not require to be
argued that each science should at least be consistent with
itself. True lovers of Science, and all lovers of Truth, must
surely unite in one desire to harmonize the conflicting elements
of human speculations ; and the members of the Victoria Insti-
tute may reasonably hope, that when this is done it will be
found, that the highest human wisdom will be in accordance
with the Wisdom of the One God, Who has created all things
very good.
I
\
SO
CIKCULAK, MAY 24, 1865.
PROPOSED VICTORIA INSTITUTE, OR PHILO-
SOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
London, 24ih May, 1865.
It is proposed to found a new Philosophical Society for Great Britain, to
be composed of Members or Fellows and Associates who are professedly
Christians, and the great object of which will be to defend revealed truth
from " the oppositions of science, falsely so called."
In the words of a recent author, " those who believe the Christian religion
to be true and to rest upon rational grounds, and who consider that the only
proper mode of propagating the truth is by proving it to be true, and of
opposing error by disproving it, cannot help the burden this places upon
them." — " We are suffering from the consequences of a culpable stagnation of
thought, or from having failed to investigate fully and fairly, but rigidly, all
the facts and arguments from time to time put forth as truths newly dis-
covered by science and as being contradictory to the Scriptures.,,
It is in order that this may now be done thoroughly, that the institution of
a new Society for this express purpose is proposed. It will be of great
advantage to real Science, and has become a necessity for the Christian
religion.
It will therefore be the duty of this Society to enter upon controversies of
the day, and to give a hearing and encouragement to all who are willing to
battle with the " oppositions of science," in order to reduce its pretensions to
their real value.
There is no existing scientific body that fulfils these ends. At the present
time, the only thing almost that is considered a fair subject for question and
free opposition from every quarter, in all such societies, is Revealed Truth.
There is by no means an equal freedom allowed in questioning what is
called " Established Science."
At the Anthropological Society of London, on May 16th, Bishop Colenso
spoke of " the facts of Geology " as disproving the Scriptures ; as if he had
really not been aware, that at the last meeting of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science (at which he was present), all these lately
assumed foundation " facts " of Geology were publicly given up as untenable
and disproved by Sir Charles Lyell in his Address, which Bishop Colenso
actually heard delivered. Along with this now abandoned Geology, all the
cosmologies! notions which Mr. C. W. Goodwin, in " Essays and Reviews,"
boasted of as being " certainly established science," contrary to " the Mosaic
Cosmogony," have vanished like a dream.
It will be the business of the new Philosophical Institution to recognize
no human science as " established," but to examine philosophically and freely,
all that has passed as science, or is put forward as science, by individuals or
31
in other societies ; whilst its members, having accepted Christianity as the
, revealed truth of God, will defend that truth against all mere human theories
by subjecting them to the most rigid tests and criticisms. In fact, the '
Society will be organized for the purpose of applying to " science " somewhat •
of that vigilance to detect its errors, contradictions, and fallacies which has /
been freely enough exercised in our day upon the statements of the Scriptures /
and of Christian doctrine, by those who accept, without the least examination (
and with an almost absolute credulity, all that passes for science.
Such a Society will doubtless succeed. Its head-quarters will be in
London, but it will soon boast of corresponding branches throughout the
whole country. Similar societies will be established on the Continent and
throughout the world, thus affording facilities for individual and combined
co-operation, and also for reproducing each other's most important publi-
cations.
The battle between the Scriptures and Science will then be fairly fought,
— not any longer with all the organization on one side. Truth is great, and
it will prevail ! Papers will be read before the Society, discussing the most
important questions of philosophy and science, without limit as to the
subjects, except that those will be especially considered and have a preference
that appear to touch adversely the bases of the Christian faith. Free dis-
cussion will be allowed. The discussions will be reported verbatim, and
published in the Society's journal, probably in combination with a new
review, to be called The Christian -Philosophy Beview, in which a fair
account will be given of all important new publications, especially those
bearing upon general philosophy, morals, and religion. A Library and
Reading-room will also hereafter be established in connection with the
Society.
It is proposed1 that the Society shall be incorporated, and hereafter obtain
a Royal Charter ; that Her Majesty shall be requested to become its first
Patron, and that it be called The Victoria Institute, to commemorate its
inauguration in her most gracious Majesty's reign. That it shall confer a
medal annually upon some writer who has distinguished himself in refuting
false philosophy, or exposing the fallacies of so-called science — this medal to
be called, with her Majesty's permission, the Victoria Medal. Also that the
Prince of Wales be requested to become its first Vice-Patron and Honorary
President.
*** Be good enough to circulate this paper among your friends who are
likely to take an interest in what is proposed. What nooler pursuit can man
engage in, than in trying to discover truth by the philosophic study of Ood!s
works of creation; and in what respect can Christians better employ them-
selves than in discovering ever fresh woofs and confirmation of the revelations
contained in the Holy Scriptures? Those who may not be able to take a
prominent party as Fellows or Members of the Victoria Institute, may join as
Associates (ladies being eligible), and thus aid the good work as subscribers*
receiving in return the Society's Journal, and other privileges.
32
POSTSOEIPT.
(Pp. 10, 11, 12, 14)
1. Since this pamphlet was originally written and published, Dr. Oolenso
has returned to Natal, and he has there repeated the same statements he
made in England " as to the science of geology flatly contradicting Scripture."
In doing so (if the newspaper reports are to be relied on), he referred to Dr.
Temple as haying publicly declared the same thing while preaching in St.
Paul's cathedral I am almost certain that I am correct in saying (p. 10) that
he also said this when preaching in Whitehall Chapel ; so that it would
appear to be his habit to go about preaching what is only calculated to dis-
credit the Scriptures among the ill-informed and those who, apparently like
himself, have learnt nothing as to the changes that have taken place in the
conclusions of the most eminent geologists since the Essays and Review*
were published.
2. In addition, therefore, to the citations already given in the text, from
Sir Charles Lyell's Address as President of the British Association at Bath
in 1864, 1 now cite the following passages from the Anniversary Address of
Mr. Hamilton, the President of the Geological Society of London, delivered
in February, 1865, which ought, as a matter of common literary decency, to
stop this constant "preaching" that anything worthy of the name of
geological " scienoe " has contradicted or upset the Scriptures. He said : —
" Reoent investigations have upset the ancient theories, that all the highest
points consisted of crystalline rooks, and that no sedimentary rocks formed
high mountains. Again k was formerly supposed " [and relied on as " certain
science" in the " Essays and Reviews "] "that the orystalline rocks, particularly
granite, owed their origin to igneous action. Now it is well known that these
granites are chiefly arranged in layers. The granite passes into gneiss, and .
the gneiss into mica-schist and talc-schist ; and this is again closely connected
with the green and grey slates ,• and it is well known that many of these rocks,
formerly considered as plutonic, are really metamorphosed rocks/'
■ ^^
3. Now, in making this citation, I am not saying whether Mr. Hamilton's
views are right or wrong, or whether I agree with him or not. I quote him
as an " authority,11 like Sir Charles Lyell, speaking ex cathedra* sctentics to a
scientific body, and declaring that what was called geological science as to
granite, for instance, when the " Essays and Eeviews " were written, is no longer
regarded as science in the Geological Society of London, whatever it may pe
in the pulpits where Dr. Temple preaches, or among the Zulus at Natal ; but,
on the contrary, is itself now "upset? If Mr. Hamilton is wrong in his
views as to the granites being " chiefly arrranged in layers," and stratified — if
S3
f
that is meant, then that will only still further show how very uncertain,
after all, even the quasi "facts" of science sometimes are, as well as the
scientific "theories" that thus get upset by fresh investigations. Mr. Evan
Hopkins, in reference to these words of Mr. Hamilton, says : — " The primary
crystalline rocks are formed in parallel vertical bands, not stratified, but
divided in plates like crystals. . • • The distinction that exists between
the semi-crystalline vertical bands of the primary series, and the stratified
sedimentary rocks,' is not yet fully recognized,"*
4. As Mr. Hopkins was one of the first, if not, rather, the very first
geologist who disputed the " plutonic," or dry-heat origin of the granites, in
the first edition of his valuable and interesting work, which was written in
South America so far back as 1837-38, and published in London in 1843, he
is entitled to a deferential hearing upon this cognate point. But my object
_ throughout this pamphlet, and with reference to all the questions of science
alluded to in it, is- not to show that this or that has been "established" in
any case, but to show how scientific opinions have changed, and that further
investigations are necessary before we can boast we have got hold of any real
science at alL I find it necessary to say this much, as one or two gentlemen
have managed to persuade themselves that I have necessarily adopted the
opinions expressed in some of the citations and references in the text (which
might or might not be true, and yet be of no consequence), but which is not
really warranted by the language I have used, and not at all necessary for my
argument. I have quoted recognized authorities in science against Bishop
Oolenso, Dr. Temple, and Mr. Goodwin; and. I have quoted men whose
views in science were despised, and who were refused a hearing at one time,
but whose views are now accepted, as so far correct, by such authorities.
5. I go on, therefore,. to make one more citation from Mr. Hamilton's
Address, with reference to other changes in geological views :—
" We are daily becoming more convinced that no real natural breaks exist
between the Faunas and the Floras of what we are accustomed to call geological
periods. . • • We learn now that those forms oL animal life which roamed
over the surface of the earth before man came to exercise dominion over them,
were not, as was at one time supposed, destroyed before his arrival, but
continued to coexist with him, until the time came when they were to make
way for other forms, more suited to the new conditions of life and to his
requirements."
This, it will be observed, bears upon the remarks in the text (p. 12), made
in allusion to Sir Charles Lyell's "Antiquity of Man." But, again, I beg leave
to say I am not, adopting Mr. Hamilton's opinions any more than Sir Charles
LyelTs upon this point. Were I to express my own opinion, I would venture
to say that, though I hold it to be clearly proved (as now acknowledged by
these eminent geologists) that man was contemporaneous with animals at one
time supposed to have been destroyed ages before his " arrival" on the scene
* Geology and Terrestrial Magnetism. By Evan Hopkins, O.B., F.G.S., 3rd
Ed., with a new Introduction and Appendix, &c., p. vii. (London i Taylor &
Franois, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1865.)
34
of this world, I do not, therefore, admit the great antiquity of man. 1 think
it remains to be proved that the extinct animals are of the great antiquity that
has been assigned to them,* Bearing in mind that Mr. Hamilton says, " We
are daily becoming more convinced that no real natural breaks exist
between the Faunas and Floras of what we are accustomed to call geological
periods," I think the following remarks are worthy of consideration.
" The first step in the false inductions geology made, arose from the rash
deduction that the order in which the fossil remains of organic being were
found deposited in the various strata, necessarily determined the order of
their creation ; and the next error arose from blindly rushing to rash conclu-
sions and hasty generalizations, from a very limited number of facts and the
most imperfect investigations. There were also (and indeed are still) some
wild dogmatisms as to the time necessary to produce certain geologic forma-
tions ; "f but the absurdities of the science culminated when it adopted from
Laplace the irrational and unintelligible theory of a natural origin of the world
from a nebula of gaseous granite, intensely hot, and supposed to be gradually
cooled while gyrating senselessly in space. This necessitated the further
supposition of a long lapse of ages before this gas-world cooled down ; when
again it was supposed that a hard granite crust would be the result, with the
still hot liquid granite-matter inside ! Then it was supposed (whence or
how not explained) that rain would fall upon the hardened granite, and that
it would break up into soil, gravel, &c, &c, in the course of another lapse of
ages or millions of years ; and so on and on, always supposing some fresh
occurrence, without the most remote attempt at explaining how any one of
them could have naturally occurred, and always allowing ages upon ages to
intervene, as if to give time enough for totally inadequate causes to "produce
the continued series of improbable effects, which, without a Deity and without
a design, were to result in this glorious world !
But, although we have now got rid of the "Azoic" strata, and the Azoic
ages of this world of ours, it is nevertheless worth while to suggest that,
even had they existed, and even had all the fossils ever discovered been em-
bedded exclusively as was long supposed to be the case, this would not
have afforded any proof of the sole existence of the lower orders found in the
lowest strata at any particular time j but only that such animals as naturally
* Jn a Paper read in the Royal Institution of Great Britain by the eminent
geologist Mr. Prestwich, on the Flint Implements found at Amiens, he said, —
" That the evidence as it then stood, seemed to him as much to necessitate the
bringing forward the extinct animals towards our own time, as the carrying
back of man to the geological times." (Quoted from Cosmogony, by Evan
Hopkins, Esq., C.E., F.G.S. Second Edition, 1865 : Longmans.)
t In an able review of Sir William Logan's Geological Survey of Canada,
which appeared in The Times of 21st of October, 1864, the following remark
occurs, with reference to arguments based upon these " immense geological
periods " :— " In order to expose the fallacy of such an argument, it would be
only necessary to; appeal to a few of these Canadian geological monuments,
the true interpretation of which, we beUeve', will establish the fact that the
element of time has very little share in the alteration and crystallization of the
sedimentary rocks,*'
85
occupied the bottom of the oceans were tho first to be embedded/ when the
first deposits of sediments were thrown down into the waters.
Were tho world even now overwhelmed with a flood, and great masses of
earths of various kinds carried violently into the sea, it must be evident that
sponges and sea-anemones, and other lower orders of living organisms in the
sea, which inhabit or are fixed at its bottom, would immediately be embedded
in the sediment, while only an occasional fish might be poisoned or otherwise
accidentally covered over. In time, however, the waters might become unfit
even for the fish to live in, and many of those dying would be embedded in
other sediments [superimposed]. As the waters rose, the reptiles and
amphibire would next be drowned and embedded ; while land animals would
mostly for a time escape to the higher grounds. But were the waters still to
rise, even they, and also man at last, would be swept away, though, probably, in
most oases their carcases would not be embedded in sediments, but floated and
dashed about, to be left [in caves, or] on the surface of the earth, and to waste
away on the subsequent subsidence of the waters. Moreover, at the time of
Noah's flood, it must be remembered, that many parts of the world may have
then had no human inhabitants, and that strata formed in suoh regions would
therefore necessarily be wanting in the remains even of human workmanship,
though man might have lived contemporaneously in other regions of the globe,
and his remains might be embedded there.
But no traces of man having been found by geologists in what was then
supposed to be the oldest strata, it was concluded that man did not exist on the
earth at all when these strata were formed ; and long periods and intervals
were- therefore assigned between the time of the various formations.11
This was published before Mr. Hamilton's Address was delivered. And
now (the author goes on to ask), when the evidence of man's co- existence with
certain extinct species of animals is admitted by the authorities, what is the
consequence ?
" Not a modest consideration of the whole series of geologic theories, which
had rashly proclaimed Holy Scripture untrue, but which have been found to be
really untrue themselves ; but only further rash and extravagant generaliza-
tions, with a fresh atheistic theory tacked on 'to the others, to render the whole
again somewhat more plausible ! The long times and intervals between the
various formations and the " geologic periods " are not given up j but only the
abrupt divisions between each are abandoned, and man is now pushed further
back into 'antiquity,' and is supposed to have been originally a savage,
developed by some unexplained process, in the course of millions of ages, out
of a gorilla or chimpanzee !" *
7. These observations by an anonymous author are, of course, not quoted
as of any " authority," but only as a view of the whole state of the case that
may fairly be entertained. Having alluded to Professor Ansted (on p. 14)
as sending the official answer to Dean Cockburn, refusing to re-open the
discussion of the nebular theory in the Geological Section of the British
Association in 1844^ I have the satisfaction of being now able to quote from
* Fresh Springs of Truth (chapter on " The Scriptures and Science "),
pp. 104, 105, 113-115. (London : Grifiin & Co., 1865.)
36
what that learned Professor has more recently written in his Geological
Gossip ; and which will be found an ample justification of the very strongest
things I have said throughout this pamphlet I commend Professor Ansted's
candid remarks to the special consideration of Dr. Colenso, Dr. Temple, and
the two or three gentlemen who have favoured me with somewhat hypercritical
strictures upon some sentences in the Circular of 24th May and the Scientia
Scientiarum.
"An account (says the distinguished Professor) of the oorreotion of the
mistakes in geology might furnish matter for many amusing and instructive
chapters in a work like the present. Few of the younger geologists of the
day, and fewer still among general readers, have any idea of the extent to
which opinions have become imperceptibly modified in many important depart-
ments of geological science within the last quarter of a century, while there
have not been wanting several absolute and formal recantations enforced from
time to time by direct discovery. The great cause of this is to be found in
the inveterate habit that almost all of us have of over-estimating the value of
negative evidence.
Geologists examine a certain district, and remark the absence of some
objects or group concerning which there seems no good reason why it should
not have been handed down as perfectly as some others that have been pre-
served. At once the theorist jumps to the conclusion that the tribe of animals
not represented had not been created. A theory is soon built up on the
strength of it; for no one can oppose it without having the onus probandi1
thrown upon him. But some fine day the required fact is discovered, often to
the disgust of the theorists, to the equal vexation of the student, and it would
almost seem to the annoyance of everybody.
The first impulse of human nature is to put the unlucky discovery on one
side — say nothing about it : — most likely it will bear investigation, and there-
fore don't let us have the trouble of investigating it ! It is so painful to be
stopped in a pleasant career of progress, and to be obliged to examine carefully,
and weigh fairly, the evidence in regard to a matter we thought settled when
we began work some twenty years ago.*
A troublesome Frenchman — M. Boucher de Perthes — took it into his head
that some remains of men ought to be found in gravel. M. Perthes, although
he found plenty of specimens, and published an octavo volume about them,
and even offered his specimens to the sowants of Paris, could not obtain a
hearing. Few readers, either in France or England, seem even to have been
aware of his book. The subject was tabooed, because people's minds were
quite made up on the subject, confiding in the strength of the negative
evidence, which really meant little more than a total absence of inquiry."
* One of my critics recently boasted in print that he continued now to teaoh
the same geology he had done for fifty years !
JOURNAL OF TRANSACTIONS.
JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
VICTORIA INSTITUTE,
OR
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
First General Meeting of the Members and Associates of
the Institute, held on 24sth May, 1866 — Her Majesty's,
Birthday and the Anniversary of the Society's Found-
ation,— at 82, SacJcville Street, London, W.
The Right Honourable the Earl op Shaftesbury, K.G.,
President, in the Chair.
The Noble Chairman stated, that this being the First Meeting of the
Members and Associates who had united to form the Victoria Institute, there
were no previous Minutes to be read. He had much pleasure in taking the
Chair on the present occasion, and in seeing so large a meeting assembled for
the purpose of formally inaugurating a Society, the importance of which, he
thought, could scarcely be over-estimated, the founding of which was only pro-
posed a year ago, and agreed upon at a meeting held in that room, on
16th June, 1865, consisting of scarcely more than twelve of the present members
of the Society, which now numbered nearly two hundred. It would be un-
necessary for him to make any observations with respect to the objects for
which it was established, as they would be fully explained in the inaugural
address, which would be read that evening by the Rev. Mr. Mitchell. (Hear,
hear.) He rejoiqed to learn, from the number of members who had already
joined, that the Society promised to be attended with the greatest success,
and without any further preface he would call upon the honorary secretary to
read the report of the Provisional Committee and Council
Mr. Reddie (Hon. Secretary), then read the following Report of the Pro-
visional Council :— •
40
REPORT of the PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE and
COUNCIL of the VICTORIA INSTITUTE, or
Philosophical Society of Great Britam.
Founding of the Society.
1. Your Committee beg leave to advert very briefly to the
origin of the Victoria Institute. On May 24th, 1865, a printed
Circular, which has now been in every member's hands, was
sent to the newspapers and distributed to various individuals,
proposing to found a new Philosophical Society, for the pur-
pose of defending Eevealed Truth from unwarranted attacks
made upon it in the name of Science* The response to this
appeal was so hearty and immediate, that the author of the
circular and the friends with whom he had previously con-
sulted were induced, so early as the 10th of June, to issue a
second circular, addressed to those who had signified their
approval of the founding of the proposed Society, or their desire
to co-operate in its formation, requesting them to attend a pre-
liminary meeting on June 16th, to consult together as to the basis
upon which the new Society should be founded. At this meeting
the Earl of Shaftesbury presided; and certain resolutions
having been agreed to respecting the objects of the new
Society, they were referred to a sub-committee, consisting of
the Rev. Dr. Robinson Thornton, "the Rev. A. De La Mare,
Captain Fishbourne, R.N., C.B., Captain Francis W. H. Petrie,
and Mr. Reddie (with power to add to their number) ; who
were desired to report thereon, and on other matters, to a
subsequent meeting, which was held on Thursday, June 22nd.
At this meeting the Objects of the Society, terms of member-
ship, &c, as recommended by the Committee, were agreed
upon, ana the result was made known in a printed Circular
(No. 4) dated July, 1865, inviting Vice-Patrons, Members, and
Associates to. join the Society for the purposes and upon the
terms therein set forth.
2. The Committee above referred to added other members
to their number from time to time, and was the% nucleus of your
present Committee, as now organized into the Provisional
41
Council, whose names are printed in the First List of Founda-
tion Members and Associates, corrected to May 1st, which
was sent to all the Members and Associates of the Society upon
calling this present meeting.
Members and Associates,
0
3. Your Committee have to express their regret that various
circumstances prevented them from completing the organiza-
tion of the Society sooner, and obliged them to postpone till to-
day the First General Meeting of its Members and Associates.
At the same time they would desire to recognize the kind
forbearance of the earliest enrolled members of the Society, in
making every allowance for this delay, arising from difficulties
which are probably always attendant upon new undertakings.
There has been a gratifying evidence among the members of
a calm confidence in a good cause that would only gather
strength by time, and which, therefore, need make no undue
haste. • If, however, our meetings commence some few months
later than was originally expected, your Committee have the
satisfaction of being able to Congratulate the Society, that its
proceedings now commence with, they believe, an unpre-
cedented number of Members and Associates.
4. On the 1st of this month 158 Members had joined, and
21 Associates, making 179 in all, including one Vice-Patron,
five Life Members, and one Second-Class Life Associate.
Since that date 10 new Members and 3 Associates have
joined, making a total of 192 Members and Associates.
Finance.
5. Taking the Members and Associates as in the printed
list corrected to the 1st of May, which has been generally
circulated, the Income of the Society will stand thus, when
all the subscriptions shall have been paid :-—
•
For 5 Life Members £105 0 0
„ 1 Ditto and Vice-Patron , 63 0 0
„ 152 Members, at Two Guineas each 319 4 0
„ 1 Life Associate, 2nd Class ,*, 10 10 0
„ 9 1st Class Associates, at Two
Guineas each . . * 18 18 0
,,11 2nd Class Ditto, at One Guinea 11 11 0
Over £528 3 0
d 2
42
Brought over £528 3 0
The Expenditure already incurred,
chiefly for printing, postage, stationery,
and the salary of the paid Secretary for
six months, is as follows, viz. : —
Mr. Warrington, for printing, &c £12 11 8
Mr. Hardwicke, two thousand copies of
Scientia Scientiarum, &c 26 2 8
Due for 1,000 ditto 6 6 0
Messrs. Ortner & Houle, for engraving
crest, stationery, &c, &c 4 13 5
Contingencies, chiefly postage, of >
the first Interim Secretary
Contingencies, chiefly postage, °f \ ia a a
the Honorary Secretary '
Contingencies of Dr. Evans, the
present Interim Secretary
Salary of Do. 6 months, to 30th June
next 50 0 0
Advertising 10 0 0
Due for printing, &c, &c, probably... 10 0 0
135 13 9
Balance in favour of the Society £392 9 3
5. The donation of Henry W. Peek, Esq., as ViceTPatron,
and the life subscriptions paid up to the 5th of April last,
have been invested in Government Stock, in the name of the
Trustees. And this course your Committee propose should be
followed with all other donations or life subscriptions.
Objects, Constitution, and Bye-laws of the Society.
6. Your Committee have had prepared the draft of a code
of Eegulations relating to the Objects, Constitution, and
Bye-laws of the Society. They do not, however, propose
to submit these rules for adoption to the present meeting.
They request that they may be allowed to give further con-
sideration to this important matter, after their formal election
and confirmation by this meeting as the regularly-constituted
Council of the Society. The Objects of the Society having
been settled, as well as the general terms upon which the
Members and Associates already enrolled have joined the
Institute, your Committee are of opinion that on the present
43
occasion it will be sufficient if they indicate the modifications
and additions which they now recommend should be made as
regards the contributions and privileges of Members and
Associates who may be enrolled in future.
7. They beg leave to recommend : —
I. That the Foundation List of Members and Associates be
kept open till 31st December, 1866, and then closed.
II. That all Members whose applications for admission are
dated on or after 1st January, 1867, be required to pay an
Entrance Donation of not less than One Guinea eacn (the
precise amount to be hereafter determined), in addition to
their annual subscription of Two Guineas, or their Life com-
position of Twenty Guineas.
III. That no Entrance Donation be required from Members
applying to be enrolled before 31st December, 1866; and that
no Entrance Donation be required from Associates, either of
the First or Second Class, whether enrolled before or after
that date.
IV. That Associates as well as Members shall be entitled
to be present at all the General and Ordinary Meetings of the
Society, also to state their opinions thereat, and to vote by
show of hands ; but that when recourse is had to voting by
ballot, in order to determine any question, Members only
shall be entitled to vote.
V. That Associates of the First Class shall be entitled to all
the publications of the Society, the same as Members, in-
cluding the publications contemplated under Object 6. But
that Associates of the Second Class shall only be entitled to
the publications referred to in Objects 4 and 5.
VI. That nevertheless the Committee shall have power,
when the funds of the Society will admit of it, to issue the
other publications of the Society to Associates of the Second
Class being ministers of religion, either gratuitously or at as
small a charge as the Council may deem proper.
VII. That the first annual contributions of Members and
Associates already enrolled, or applying to be enrolled before
31st December next, shall be considered as extending to that
date ; and that the future annual contributions shall be con-
sidered as due in advance on January 1st in every year, or
in the case of new Members and Associates upon their
election.
VIII. That should Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen,
H.E.H. the Prince of Wales, or other Personage of Eoyal
blood hereafter become Patron, Vice-Patron, or a Member
of the Society, none of the regulations relating to donations,
44
contributions, or subscriptions shall be considered as applicable
to such Eoyal Personages, nor shall they be liable to serve in
any office of the Society.
8. Tour Committee submit these recommendations for
the approval of this General Meeting, in order to serve
for their guidance in framing the Regulations and Bye-
laws of the Society ; which they propose shall be laid before
a Special General Meeting of the Members and Associates,
for adoption or otherwise, early in the next session, to com-
mence in November.
Conclusion.
9. In conclusion, your Committee beg leave to state that
they have considered it undesirable to cumber this Report with
the details of their various proceedings, or of the efforts they
have made for the proper organization of the Institute, or the
advancement of its interests. The present meeting will doubt-
less be anxious to listen to the Inaugural Address about to be
delivered, which will form the red commencement of our
public acts as an organized body. The First List of Foundation
Members and Associates, enrolled within a year from the
first proposal to found this Society, and before it has really
done anything, may be taken as a fair augury of future pro-
gress, and as a proof that the labours of your Committee
have been crowned with some measure of success.
10. Should this Report be adopted, — as your Committee
venture to hope : — should their past acts be thereby approved,
and their present status confirmed, as the authorized and
regularly constituted Council of the Victoria Institute or Philo-
sophical Society of Great Britain, with power to do all they may
consider proper for advancing the interests of the Society, and
for completing their own constitution as its Council, by adding
to their numbers, choosing other or additional Vice-Presidents
and Honorary Secretaries, or other officers of the Society;
and generally by being authorized to manage its affairs by
engaging the services of paid officers or servants, hiring apart-
ments, and making any other arrangements they may deem
advisable to promote the objects of the Society; your Com-
mittee, as the Council of the Society, will proceed with renewed
zeal in this important work, and in enrolling new Vice-Patrons,
Members, and Associates, on the terms already set forth.
11. For the short remainder of the present Session, your
Committee only propose that a few General Papers shall be read,
45
as introductory to subjects which come within the province of
the Society. Due notice of the titles of these papers, and of
the dates upon which they are proposed to be read, will bo
given. The first will be " A Sketch of the Existing Relations
between Science and Scripture/9 by George Warington, Esq..
Member of Council, and will be read on the evening of the
4th of June. Ladies will be admissible at the reading of
these General Papers, which will be analogous in character
to the Lectures referred to in the 5th Object of the Society.
12. Finally, your Committee most earnestly trust, that all
the labours of the important Society which is this day publicly
inaugurated, may not only tend to promote the real advance-
ment of a true Science of Nature among mankind ; but that,
in the words of the motto which your Committee have adopted
for the Institute, they may always also be undertaken and
prosecuted ad majorem Dei gloriam.
By order,
J. KEDDIE,
Jlon. Sec.
*
i
The Rev. Henry Hare then moved the following Resolution: —
That the Report of the Committee be adopted, printed and circulated ; and
that the Committee be now constituted as the Council of the Institute, with
full power to do all that they may think proper for its management, for the
ensuing year.
Thornton Hunt, Esq., seconded the Resolution, which was carried unani-
mously.
The Noble President then called upon the Rev. Walter Mitchell,
M.A. (Vice-President), who read the following Inaugural Address: —
My Lord Shaftesbury and Gentlemen,
It is in deference to your expressed wishes, but with a
profound sense of my inability to do justice to the subject on
which I am called upon to address you, that I venture to
inaugurate the proceedings of the Victoria Institute. I
feel emboldened, however, by the belief that the objects of
this Society are too noble and great in themselves to suffer
in any degree from the weakness of their exponent.
No one who watches the expression of thought by the culti-
vated intellectual classes of this country, through its literature,
can deny that the opinion that science and revelation are directly
opposed to each other has been spreading with fearful rapidity.
46
Those who cultivate the dry details of science are a small
minority compared with those who pursue the more alluring
and pleasing paths of general literature. The majority of those
who constitute the reading and thinking class of England
agree to accept without much difficulty any opinion or hypo-
thesis dignified by the name of science. They neither feel
capable, nor do they care to investigate the pretension of the
scientific dogma to be accepted as truth. They regard only
the popular reputation of the promulgator as a man of science,
" If any new proposition/' says the Saturday Review, " comes
with the authority of an established professor of the science,
we accept it with the confidence with which a Roman Catholic
might take the decision of the infallible Church." This con-
fession of the Saturday Review may be taken as a fair expression
of the practice of most of the non-scientific class of English-
men, and also of those who are mere dilettanti cultivators of
science.
If men, therefore, who have attained a certain position of
rank in the scientific world enter the arena of popular literature
or address the thinking world in popular lectures, and boldly
maintain that science and Scripture are irreconcilable, their
dicta are at once received as if they were founded upon abso-
lute and incontestable demonstration. The foundation of the
Victoria Institute is in itself a caution to the unscientific
world to pause in the acceptance of such propositions without
careful investigation. A body of men who have cultivated,
some or other of them, nearly every branch of human know-
ledge which goes under the vague term of science, have here
united themselves in the assertion that, so far as they have in-
vestigated the questions of philosophy and science, they have
not found the principles of philosophy, or the laws and facts of
science, presenting any real discordance with the great truths
revealed in Holy Scripture. They go, however, a step further.
They are students, both of the book of Nature as displayed in
the works of the Creator, and also of that book which they
believe to be a revelation of the highest truths by that same
Creator to His creature, man. Their faith that these books are
by the same Author has been unshaken by their pursuit of
knowledge. They hold this faith upon higher principles than
those of mere scientific demonstration or mere philosophical
induction. They are not afraid that any discord or discrepancy
can really be found between true philosophy or sound science
and revelation ; and therefore they are willing, nay, anxious, to
investigate, with care and with that love of truth which lies at
the root of their religious principles, all the objections that are
urged, either as philosophical or scientific, against the Bible.
47
Here, however, our opponents may meet us with the
objection that we are not free to enter into an unprejudiced
discussion of these questions; that we are already pledged to
the issue; that we approach the questions debated as advo-
cates rather than calm and dispassionate judges; and, to a
certain extent, I am willing to accept this issue. We are not
prepared to abandon our faith as Christians ; we do not believe
that it is necessary to assume the position of Deists, or, as the
most advanced advocates of freedom of thought would have us,
assume the position of Atheists, in order to discuss calmly and
dispassionately the problems of philosophy or the laws and
phenomena of the world of sense. As Christians, as honest
believers in the Bible as a record of revealed truth, we know
that, in the history both of modern philosophy and modern
science, avowed Christians have taken no mean or insignificant
place. I will go further, and say, that Christians haVe held
the highest place as discoverers of the laws of nature, inter-
preters of the phenomena of nature, and careful and honest
observers of those facts upon which science is based.
We have derived our faith in revealed religion neither from
cold philosophical thought nor from the feeble inductions of
science, but from the highest source of all truth — the
revelation of God to mankind. We regard this faith as
His gift, the gift of the Spirit of Truth ; and, when we know
how distinguished Christians, who have held and do hold this
faith, have been in the paths of philosophy and science, we
ask why we should not investigate the pretensions of modern
philosophers and modern professors of science when they call
upon us, as lovers of truth, to abandon our faith. We believe
that our honest investigations of these objections will tend to
strengthen the faith of those who have not the time or do not
possess the necessary scientific education to investigate such
questions for themselves.
If asked why the Victoria Institute should be founded for
such investigations, I think I could give a very sufficient
answer from my own experience. I know no other society or
institution where such subjects could be discussed.
A purely theological society would not feel competent to
entertain the scientific side of the discussion. A purely
scientific society would repudiate the theological aspect. Not
long ago I had to address a theological meeting, composed
entirely of clergymen, on the very subject of the supposed
opposition between science and revelation. As a cultivator of
some branches of science, I pointed out that the supposed
facts on which the opposition was founded were no facts at all ;
that they were crude hypotheses, raised without proof and
48
without demonstration to the rank of natural laws; that a
host of facts, many of which I mentioned, were directly opposed
to them; that some alleged facts I could demonstrate by
plain arithmetic, to go no higher in mathematics, to be false.
And how tf as I met by my rationalistic opponents ? That they
were incompetent, from their ignorance of science, to enter at
all into the scientific view of the question. They regarded
authority rather than discussion from abstract principles or the
facts and phenomena of nature. That some whom they
esteemed as scientific authorities differed from me, and there-
fore I was told that I must discuss the science of the question,
even where science and revelation were supposed to come into
collision with each other, before a purely scientific body. These
men were in a minority ; but, if such a minority could be found
among a small body of theologians, I think I could adduce no
stronger evidence of the want of such an institution as that
we are now inaugurating.
The supposed opposition between science and revelation
may be divided into two great divisions,~an opposition of
principles ; an opposition of facts. This controversy is an old
one, and has already been well fought out in the literature of
this country. In its old phase this opposition was so com-
pletely answered by the advocates of revelation that the contro-
versy for the time ceased with all but the avowed sceptic and
infidel. "With the progress of science, and metaphysical rather
than physical discussion, the old controversy has been revived
under a somewhat different aspect ; though in reality its true
character is scarcely, if at all, altered.
Philosophical principles and assumed facts of new sciences
are now once more set in formidable array against the claims
of revelation to the acceptance of a well-educated or rational
man. The principle of modern rationalism which has been
thought by some so destructive to the claims of revelation in the
written Word of God, has been imported, as an accepted prin-
ciple and law of truth, into the realms of purely physical
science. A false principle, borrowed as if an accepted truth from
science by the purely literary man, after doing its utmost
work of destruction in the theological world, has been imported
back as if unquestionable into the realms of science.
If I am asked what I mean by this principle of so-
called rationalism, I will adopt a definition, of one of its advo-
cates. "It is the supremely important fact that the gradual
reduction of all phenomena within the sphere of established
law carries with it as a consequence the rejection of the mira-
culous." Now, here we have an old objection in a new dress.
We have here an assumption that the progress of modern science
49
has been such a gradual reduction of all phenomena of nature
within the sphere of established law that this principle must
be received as a truth. It is, however, but the revival of Hume's
celebrated objection to miracles. t€ A miracle/' says Hume,
"is a violation of the laws of nature, and a firm and unalter-
able experience has established these laws : the proof against a
miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any
argument from experience can possibly be imagined." I will
not stop here to show that this assumption of Hume's has been
proved again and again to involve the very facts which are in
dispute. That, if even one miracle has happened, which is the
point in discussion, then Hume's proposition must fall to the
ground, for it cannot be contrary to experience. Nor need I
remark for those so much inclined to bow to the authority of
great names, that the progress of the reduction of the phe-
nomena of nature within thf sphere of established law between
the time whenNewton wrote his "Principia'' and his "Optics,"
and that when Hume wrote his famous treatise on Miracles, was
not so great as to have any material influence on the important
question of the credibility of miracles. Yet Newton, who more
than any other man had the most profound conviction of the
existence of natural laws, was not compelled on that account
to reject his belief in miracles, or that greatest of all miracles
the creation of the physical world by an omnipotent Creator,
and His support of all things by His ever- watchful domination
and providence. Those who try to divorce the conception of a
Creator and Euler of the Universe from our views of the physi-
cal world, the world of matter, and would restrict the recep-
tion of the marvellous entirely to the spiritual world, evade
the example of Newton by the assertion, that he, who made
the greatest step ever made by the inductive philosophy, was
destitute of its true spirit.
The advance of the inductive philosophy since the days of
Newton may have opened up a wider region of 'law in the
physical universe. We know of other forces than those of
gravitation and light. But what progress have we made in
bringing these within the domain of law expressed in mathe-
matical terms enabling us to anticipate by these laws un-
known phenojnena and facts of nature ? If, therefore, the man
who more than any other, by his clear and vigorous intellect,
has reduced the widest range of phenomena within the sphere
of established law, did not, on that account, feel compelled as
a consequence to reject the miraculous, we may well ask why
we, as students of Nature's laws, must as a matter of rational
necessity be required to do so.
It will be instructive, however, to trace the effect of this
50
assumed axiom, rejected by Newton, that the reduction of the
phenomena of nature to established laws compels the rejection
of the miraculous.
What we call a law of nature is nothing more than a general
formula enabling us to class together under one head a certain
number of observed phenomena. We must not let this term
"law" lead us into metaphysical or illogical conclusions. Because
we class together a certain number of facts under what we
term a law, we have no certainty that that law is a necessary,
unalterable, unchangeable power, controlling the observed
phenomena. That because the law of gravitation enables us
to account for certain motions of the planetary bodies, their
satellites and the comets of our system, the proved existence
of this law must compel us to believe that it, as well as the
bodies it controls, existed through the infinite ages of the
past without a creator : a law without a lawgiver, controlling
matter without a creator ; gravitation being a self-sustaining,
self-evolving power of self-existent, uncreated matter. I put
this proposition in this startling point of view, because it is
precisely the point of view in which it has been imported from
the disputes of rationalistic theologians into the domain of
science.
Strauss asserts that a miracle is an impossibility, because
the " chain of endless causation can never be broken." Now,
nothing but infinite experience or infinite observation of all the
laws of nature, through an infinite period of time, could prove
the assertion that the chain of endless causation can never be
broken.
What we call a law of nature is but the observation of a
.certain number of facts which we class under a certain formula ;
a certain number of facts, for instance, under the law of gravita-
tion. But gravitation is not, for anything we know, a necessary
law, a necessary and invariable property of what we call gra-
vitating matter. Phenomena might present themselves which
might refuse to be classed under this law, and we should have
to amend it. This has not only been conceded; but the
calculating machine, as described by Babbage, gives us a
mechanical demonstration that no sequence of phenomena,
however great or long observed, can assure us that at any
instant the chain of the law may not be broken/
The acceptance of such a position as a " chain of endless
causation " must not only destroy the *idea of a living and
ruling God ; but also the existence of man's will, which cannot
be exerted without a breach of this chain of endless causation.
This "chain of endless causation" was popularized for
the purpose of spreading the results of rationalism in this
51
country by the late Mr. Baden Powell, in his " Christianity
without Judaism/' "The Order of Nature/' and his essay
" On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity/' in " Essays
and Reviews."
Admitting that the allowance of one miracle is as efficient
a demolition of the axiom of the " chain of endless causation "
as a thousand ; that the creation of the universe, or the
creation of man, or the creation of any living being must most
undoubtedly be regarded as a miracle ; that where there is a
commencement of the chain of causation, which creation must
be, the chain cannot be endless : he therefore strove with all
his might to deny a creation. " In Christianity without Ju-
daism," he tells us that the facts of geology compel us "unin-
terruptedly to extend the domain of natural order through the
infinity of past time." " That everything has gone on from
one age to another, through the countless periods of past dura-
tion to the depths of primeval time, in the same unbroken
chain of regular changes/' and, again, that the Biblical account
of creation is a parable or fiction designedly untrue. These
assertions with respect to creation he repeats again and again
in his " Order of Nature;" indeed, it is the dominant thought
throughout most of the volume. In " Essays and Reviews,"
he tells us, " that the simple but grand truth of the law of con-
servation, and the stability of the ieavenly motions, now well
understood by all sound cosmical philosophers, is but the type
of the universal self-sustaining and self-evolving powers which
pervade all nature /' and when we ask whether living beings
were created, or whether they have existed in an unbroken end-
less chain of causation through the infinite ages of the past,
he satisfies our curiosity by telling us that " it is now acknow-
ledged, under the high sanction of the name of Owen, that
€ creation ' is only another name for our ignorance of the mode
of production ; and it has been the unanswered and unanswer-
able argument of another reasoner that new species must have
originated either out of their inorganic elements, or out of pre-
viously organized forms; either development or spontaneous
generation must be true ; while a work has now appeared by
a naturalist of the most acknowledged authority, Mr. Darwin's
masterly volume on the Origin of Species by the law of 'natural
selection,' which now substantiates on undeniable grounds
the very principle so long denounced by the first naturalists, —
the origination of new species by natural causes ; a work which
.must soon bring about an entire revolution of opinion in favour
of the self-evolving powers of nature,"
Instead, therefore, of creation, Mr. Baden Powell gives us
the self-evolving powers of nature acting on uncreated matter.
52
"When we ask for proof, we are referred to Mr. Darwin's
" Origin of Species by the Law of Natural Selection/' Nowl will
venture to assert that no one can say, after a careful study of
Mr. Darwin's work, that he has even claimed to have incontro-
vertibly proved the existence of his law. At the best it is but
an hypothesis, not an established law. Confessedly the majority
of known facts in nature are irreconcilable with it. When
Mr. Darwin is asked for the proofs of the first steps of his
process of animal improvement and transmutation, he refers
us to the undiscovered strata of unknown geological periods.
Even then he carries his improved law only up to some three
or four forms of animal and vegetable life as the points from
whence animated nature has sprung, not in an endless, but
a finite chain of causation. He gives no law for the appear-
ance of vitality amid inorganic life, and shirks, the origin of
this as foreign to the question.
Mr. Darwin was an admirer of Mr. Powell, and, doubtless,
would willingly follow him as far as he could in his theory of
no creation. In the historical sketch prefixed to the third
edition of his " Origin of Species," he asserts that " the phi-
losophy of creation has been treated in a masterly manner by
the Eev. Baden Powell," and attributes to Mr. Powell the
anticipation of much of his own theories. " Nothing/' he
says, "can be more striking than the manner in which he
shows that the introduction of new species is a regular, not a
casual, phenomenon; or, as Sir John Herschel expresses it, a
natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process." The law
of endless causation, which, in Mr. Baden Powell's opinion, is
to bring about such an entire revolution of opinion, — the
law which is to substitute the self-evolving powers of nature
for the power of an omnipotent Creator, — is no other than the
"law of the origination of new species by natural causes;"
those natural causes being the destruction of weaker races
by the stronger in the battle of life. Now this proposition
has only to be stated in naked terms to carry with it its own
manifest contradiction. The destruction of life in the battle
of life necessarily takes for granted the previous existence of
life. Therefore this law, — even granting it proved, which it has
not been,—- does not carry us back to the self-evolving powers of
nature for the first production of life. Mr. Darwin himself
would seem to repudiate any such deduction from his own
law. "A celebrated author and divine," he states, "has
written to me that he has gradually learnt to see that it is
just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He
created a few original forms capable of self-development into
other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh
53
act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His
laws." But this subject is so important, and such a use has
been made of Mr. Darwin's theory in the endeavour to evade
the idea that the commencement of life, animal or vegetable,
must be an act of the Creator, that I may be permitted to
examine what Mr. Darwin himself puts forth as the limits of
his own theory. " These authors," he says, " seem no more
startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary
birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods
in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been com-
manded" into living tissues ? Do they believe that at each
supposed act of creation one individual or many were pro-
duced? "Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals
and plants created as eggs, or se^d, or » full grown T And in
the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks
of nourishment from the mother's womb ? Undoubtedly these
same- questions cannot be answered by those who, under tho
present state of science, believe in the creation of a few abo-
riginal forms, or of some one form of life. It has been
asserted by several authors that it is as easy to believe
in the creation of a hundred million beings as of one : but
Maupertius's philosophical axiom ( of least action ' leads
the mind more willingly to admit the smaller number; and
certainly we ought not to believe that innumerable beings
within each great class have been created with plain, but
deceptive, marks of descent from a single parent. It may be
asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of
species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more
distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the
arguments fall away in force. But some arguments of the
greatest weight extend very far. All the members of whole
classes can be connected together by chains of affinities, and
all can be classified on the same principle in groups subordi-
nate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes tend to fill up very
wide intervals between existing orders. Organs in a rudimen-
tary condition plainly shoiv that an early progenitor had the
organ in a fully developed state ; and this in some instances
necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in
.the descendants. Throughout whole classes various struc-
tures are formed on the same pattern, and at an embryonic
age the species closely resemble each other. Therefore I
cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification
embraces all the members of the same class. I believe
that animals have descended from at most only four or five
progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.
" Analogy would lead me one step farther, namely, to the
54
belief that all animals and plants have descended from one
prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Neverthe-
less, all living things have much in common — in their chemical
composition, their cellular structure, their laws of growth, and
their liability to injurious influences. We see this even in so
trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly
affects plants and animals ; or that the poison secreted by the
gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak
tree. In all organic beings the union of a male and female
elemental cell seems occasionally to be necessary for the pro-
duction of a new being. In all, as far as is at present known,
the germinal vesicle is the same. So that every individual
organic being starts from a common origin. If we look even
to the two main divisions, namely, to the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, certain low forms are so far intermediate in cha-
racter that naturalists have disputed to which kingdom they
should be referred; and, as Professor Asa Gray has remarked,
"The spores and other reproductive bodies of many of the
lower algae may claim to have first a characteristically animal,
and then an unequivocally vegetable existence/ Therefore on
the principle of natural selection with divergence of character,
it does not seem incredible that, from some such low and inter-
mediate form, both animals and plants may have been de-
veloped ; and if we admit this, we must admit that all the
organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may have
descended from some one primordial form. But this inference
is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether
or not it be accepted. The case is different with the members
of each great class, as the vertebrata, the articulata, &c. ; for
here, as has just been remarked, we have in the laws of homo-
logy and embryology, &c, distinct evidence that all have
descended from a single parent."
Mr. Darwin, therefore, with every concession that we might
make that he had established his law of the origin of species by
the law of natural selection, is obliged to lead us back toan origin,
to a creation, of animal and vegetable life for which his law sup-
plies no substitute. Mr. Baden Powell's assumption of Darwin's
law as a proof of the self- evolving uncreated powers of nature, is
but a type of the loose, inaccurate mode of reasoning by which
our faith in a Creator is sought to be unsettled. Professor Huxley
follows in the same manner in his paper " On the Methods and
Eesults of Ethnology," in the Fortnightly Review. He treats the
belief that God created Adam and Eve, and that all mankind are
descended from them, with lofty philosophical scorn. He calls
the theory of Adam's creation, Adamitic monogenism. He
says, "Five-sixths of the public are taught this Adamitic
55
t
monogenism, as if it were an established truth, and believe it.
I do not ; and I am not acquainted with any man of science
or duly instructed person who does/' Now, why does Professor
Huxley reject this doctrine ? Is it because the sciences of physi-
ology and comparative anatomy, which he has cultivated with
such success, and with such deserved distinction, compel him to
reject the theory of the descent of the human race from a single
pair ? No. He admits that science presents him with no diffi-
culty in accepting this doctrine. What is it, then, he rejects ?
Man's creation. And why ? Because he considers it unphilo-
sophical to admit the idea of creation; and he thinks Mr.
Darwin's law of the origin of species enables him to evade
this unphilosophical idea. €t The whole tendency," he asserts,
" of modern science is to thrust the origination of things
further and further into the background ; and the chief philo-
sophical objection to Adam being, not his oneness, but the
hypothesis of his special creation; the multiplication of that
objection tenfold is, whatever it may look, an increase, instead
of a diminution, of the difficulties of the case. And as to the
second alternative, it may safely be affirmed that, even if the
differences between men are specific, they are so small that
the assumption of more than one primitive stock for all is
altogether superfluous. Surely no one can now be found to
assert that any two stocks of mankind differ as much as a
chimpanzee and an orang do ; still less that they are as unlike
as either of these is to any New World Simian ? Lastly, the
granting of the polygenist premises does not, in the slightest
degree, necessitate the polygenist conclusion. Admit that
Negroes and Australians, Negritos and Mongols are distinct
species, or distinct genera, if you will, and you may yet, with
perfect consistency, be the strictest of monogenists, and even
believe in Adam and Eve as the primeval parents of mankind.
It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery ; it is he who,
coming forward in the guise of an eclectic philosopher, presents
his doctrine as the key to ethnology, and as reconciling and
combining all that is good in the Monogenistic and Polygenistic
schools. It is true that Mr. Darwin has not, in so many words,
applied his views to ethnology ; but even he who ( runs and
reads ' the s Origin of Species ' can hardly fail to do so."
It is by such loose, illogical, unphilosophical reasoning, such
acceptation of crude hypotheses as demonstrated laws, that we
are to accept the " chain of endless causation " as eliminating
even the idea of creation and a Creator from the universe. But
this will appear more strongly still if we pass from the origin
of vitality on the earth to the origin of the world itself by the
self-evolving powers of nature. This leads us up at once to
E
56
the Nebular hypothesis. Of unformed star-dust ; of a fire
mist, revolving fiercely on its axis, slowly cooling and throwing
off planets and comets from the refrigerating mass of a sun.
But whence this mist, this great heat ? Professor Tyndall, in his
" Constitution of the Universe," leads us back to " ages ago,
when the elementary constituents of our rocks clashed together
and produced the motion of heat." But whence, ages ago, the
atoms constituting the elementary particles of these rocks ?
Whence the force that caused them to clash together ? He is
silent. The chain of endless causation snaps asunder : he con-
fesses that he knows no more of the origin of force than he
does of the origin of matter. But where our modern English
professors hesitate, Mr. Collingwood has put forth Dr. Louis
Buchner's views on " Force and Matter " in an English dress to
enable us boldy to elicit truth and to overthrow prejudice.
Here, without any shrinking, shall we find the " chain of endless
causation " carried to its legitimate conclusions.
Dr. Buchner sets forth in the strongest terms the immor-
tality, indestructibility, infinity, and imperishability of matter
and its twin attendant force. He teaches us that matter is
not inferior to, but the peer of, spirit. He laughs to scorn
not only the idea of a Creator, but a God. " Nature," he tells
us, " knows neither a supernatural beginning nor a super-
natural continuance. Nature, the all-engendering and all-
devouring, is its own beginning and end, birth and death.
She produced man by her own power, and takes him again."
Nature, not God. He knows no Grod but man's self-idealization.
Verily Dr: Buchner would have *us eat of the fruit of the tree
of knowledge, that we might be as gods. He quotes, with
approbation, the saying of Ludwig Peuerbach, " An extraneous
and superhuman god is nothing but an extraneous and super-
natural self, a subjective being, placed, by transgressing its
limits, above the objective nature of man." And how, getting
rid of a creator, does he give us the origin of man or vitality
on the earth ? " There was a time," he asserts, " when the
earth — a fiery globe — was not merely incapable of producing
living beings, but was hostile to the existence of vegetable
and animal organisms. It was only after having cooled down,
and after the precipitation of the watery vapours which sur-
rounded it, that the crust of the earth assumed a form which,
in its further development, rendered the existence of various
organic beings possible."
"The facts of science prove, with considerable certainty,
that the organic beings which people the earth owe their
origin and propagation solely to the conjoined action of natural
forces, and that the gradual change and development of the
57
surface of the earth are the sole, or at least the chief, cause of
the gradual increase of the living world." Here, then, we come
to the plain expression that all the beauty, order, and wisdom
displayed in God's universe is its own creator, own sustainer ;
nothing but law, no wisdom, no design. Such empty notions
and innocent studies Dr. Buchner leaves to those who delight
to contemplate nature rather with the eyes of the feelings than
with those of the intellect. Where, then, does the vain en-
deavour to evade mystery in nature, — for that, and that alone,
leads to the denial of the miraculous in nature, — lead us ? To
the acceptance of something far more unsatisfactory— to the
proud reason of man. Well might Dr. Arnold say, " Here is
the moral fault of unbelief — that a man can bear to make so
great a moral sacrifice as is implied in renouncing God. He
makes the greatest moral sacrifice to obtain partial satis-
faction to his intellect. A believer ensures the greatest moral
perfection, with partial satisfaction to his intellect also ; en-
tire satisfaction to the intellect is and can be obtained by
neither."
And why, I ask, cannot the believer obtain entire satisfaction
for his intellect ? Because the finite cannot comprehend the
infinite.
We see, therefore, that the rationalistic principle of law
without a lawgiver, invented for the purpose of explaining
away all that is miraculous, if carried out must lead us to the
conclusion, that there is not an intelligent author of nature,
and natural governor of the world. This is the position in
which modern science is asserted to oppose revelation. We
are called upon to reject that which Bishop Butler, in his
Analogy," deemed unnecessary of proof. For he takes it as
proved, that there is an intelligent author of nature, and
natural governor of the world. For as there is no presump-
tion against this prior to the proof of it, so it has been often
proved with accumulated evidence — from this argument of
analogy and final causes ; from abstract reasonings ; from the
most ancient tradition and testimony; and from the general
consent of mankind."
The more intimately the laws of nature have been investigated,
the more clearly has it been demonstrated that they are not
founded on chance. They manifest that they are the arbitrary
enactments of a supreme will, and founded on a wisdom which,
so far as we can comprehend it, manifests its perfectness. Surely
Newton may reasonably be a guide in natural philosophy? We
need not fear to follow him lest we be considered unscientific.
" Later philosophers," says he, in those remarkable queries
he appends to his Optics, " banish the consideration of such a
e 2
58
cause out of natural philosophy, feigning hypotheses for ex-
plaining all things mechanically, and referring other causes to
metaphysics. Whereas, the main business of natural philo-
sophy is to argue from phenomena without feigning hypotheses, .
and to deduce causes from ' effects, till we come to the very
first cause, which certainly is not mechanical ; and not, only to
unfold the mechanism of the world, but chiefly to resolve these
and suchlike questions. What is there in places almost empty
of matter, and whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate
towards one another without dense matter between them?
Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain ; and whence
arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world ?
To what end are comets ? and whence is it that planets move
ail one and the same way in orbs concentric, while comets
move all manner of ways in orbs very eccentric ? and what
hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another ? How
came the bodies of animals to be contrived with so much art,
and for what ends were their several parts ? Was the eye
contrived without skill in optics, and the ear without know-
ledge of sounds? How do the motions of the body follow
from the will ? and whence is the instinct in animals ? Is not
the sensory of animals that place to which the sensitive sub-
stance is present, and into which the sensible species of things
are carried through the nerves and brain, that there they may
be perceived by their immediate presence to that substance ?
And these things being rightly despatched, does it not appear
from phenomena that there is a being incorporeal, living, in-
telligent, omnipresent, who in infinite space, as it were in his
sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly
perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their imme-
diate presence to himself? Of which things the images only
carried through the organs of sense into our little sensoriums,
are there seen and beheld by that which in us perceives and
thinks. And though every true step made in this philosophy
brings us not immediately to the knowledge of the First Cause,
yet it brings us nearer to it, and on that account is to be
highly valued." ,
. Now, Newton here insists on an axiom as impossible to
be evaded as any axiom of mathematical - or mechanical
science. That, there is such an overwhelming evidence of
design manifested wherever we can trace the laws of nature ;
that this design compels us to admit beyond all these laws
as their originator and ruler, an all- wise, omnipotent Law-
giver, and ever-present Kuler. And this he carries out most
fully in his " Principia/' where, showing that " the planets
and comets will indeed persevere in their orbs bv the laws
59
of gravity, but they could by no means obtain the regular
situation of these orbs by those laws at first/' he argues
that the design manifested in our solar system "could not
have its origin from anything else than from the wise con-
duct and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being ;" that
this being is the supreme Lord God ; that he must have
dominion or he could not be the supreme Lord God; "The
supreme God is an eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect being,
but a being, how perfect soever, without dominion, is not Lord
God."
The admission of design in the universe thus compelling the
admission of a wise designer, we need not be surprised to find
those who would eliminate the idea of a Creator, doing
all they can to eliminate also the evidence of design. Newton
asks, " Was the eye contrived without skill in optics ?" Mr.
Darwin asserts that his law of " natural selection " shows how
the eye was contrived without skill in optics. He makes
this the crucial instance by which he tests the soundness of his
hypothesis. He admits that if the eye required a contriver
skilled in the laws of optics, his theory must fall to the
ground ; and therefore he uses all his dialectic skill in urging
a proposition which seems, he admits on the very face or
it, to " be absurd in the highest possible degree," and that
€t the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could
be formed by natural selection " is insuperable even by our
imagination.
Dr. Biichner, who denies the existence of any design through-
out the whole domain of nature, hails this answer of Darwin to
Newton's query with delight. Now, let us listen patiently to
him whom his followers hail as the Newton of the organic
world, and see how his law of natural selection is to construct
an eye without skill in optics !
" To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contriv-
ances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admit-
ting different amounts of light, and for the correction of
spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed
by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the
highest possible degree. When it was first said that the sun
stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of
mankind declared the doctrine false ; but the old saying of
Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, can never be
trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous grada-
tions from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect
and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be
shown to exist ; if, further, the eye does vary ever so slightly,
and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case ;
60
and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful
to an animal under changing conditions of fife, then the diffi-
culty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be
formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our ima-
gination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes
to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life
itself first originated ; but I may remark that several facts
make me suspect that nerves sensitive to touch may be made
sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of
the air which produce sound. In looking for the gradations
by which an organ in any species has been perfected, we ought
to look exclusively to its lineal ancestor^; but this is scarcely
ever possible, and we are forced in each case to look to species
of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from
the same original parent form, in order to see what gradations
are possible, and for the chance of some gradations having
been transmitted from the earlier stages of descent, in an un-
altered or little altered condition. Amongst existent verte-
brata, we find but a small amount of gradation in the structure
of the eye; though in the fish amphioxus the eye is an ex-
tremely simple condition without a lens ; and from fossit
species we can learn nothing on this head. In this great
class we should probably have to descend far beneath the
lowest known fossiliferous stratum to discover the earlier
stages by which the eye has been perfected.
" In the great kingdom of the articulata we can start from
an optic nerve, simply coated with pigment, which sometimes
forms a sort of pupil, but is destitute of a lens or any other
optical mechanism. From this rudimentary eye, which can
distinguish light from darkness, but nothing else, there is an
advance towards perfection along two lines of structure, which
Miiller thought were fundamentally different ; namely, — firstly,
stemmata, or the so-called € simple eyes/ which have a lens
and cornea ; and secondly, ' compound eyes/ which seem to
act mainly by excluding all the rays from each point of the
object viewed ; except the pencil that comes in a line per-
pendicular to the convex retina. In compound eyes besides
endless differences in the form, proportion, number, and posi-
tion of the transparent cones coated by pigment, and which
act by exclusion, we have additions of a more or less perfect
concentrating apparatus. Thus in the eye of the meloe the
facets of the cornea are ' slightly convex, both externally and
internally, that is, lens-shaped/ In many crustaceans there
are two cornea, — the external smooth, and the internal divided
into facets — within the substance of which, as Milne Edwards
says, 'renflemens lenticulaires paraissent s'6tre de'veloppe's /
61
and sometimes these lenses can be detached in a layer distinct
from the cornea. The transparent cones coated with pigment,
which were supposed by Muller to act solely by excluding
divergent pencils of light, usually adhere to the cornea, but
not rarely they are separate from it, and have their free ends
convex ; and in this case they must act as converging lenses.
Altogether so diversified is the structure of the compound
eyes, that Muller makes three main classes, with no less than
seven subdivisions of structure ; he makes a fourth main class,
namely, ' aggregates ' of stemmata ; and he adds that ' this is
the transition-form between the mosaic-like compound eyes
unprovided with a concentrating apparatus, and the organs of
vision with such an apparatus.' .
€t With these facts, here too briefly and imperfectly given,
which show how much graduated diversity there is in the eyes
of our existing crustaceans, and bearing in mind how small
the number of living animals is in proportion to those which
have become extinct, I can see no very great difliculty (not
more than in the case of many other structures) in believing
that natural selection has converted the simple apparatus of
an optic nerve merely coated with pigment and invested by
transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect
as is possessed by any member of the great articulate class.
"He who will go thus far, if he find on finishing this
treatise that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can
be explained by the theory of descent, ought not to hesitate
to go further, and to admit that a structure even as perfect as
the eye of an eagle might be formed by natural selection,
although in his case he does not know any of the transitional
r*ades. His reason ought to conquer his imagination ; though
have felt the difliculty far too keenly to be surprised at any
degree of hesitation in extending the principle of natural selec-
tion to such startling lengths.
" It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a
telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected
by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects ;
and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a
somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be
presumptuous ? Have we any right to assume that the Creator
works by intellectual powers like those of man ? If we must
compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagi-
nation to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces
filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and
then suppose every part of this layer to be continually chang-
ing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different
densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from
62
each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing
in form. Further, we must suppose that there is a power
(natural selection) always intently watching each slight acci-
dental alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully
selecting each alteration which, under varied circumstances,
may in any way or in any degree tend to produce a distincter
image. We must suppose each new state of the instru-
ment to be multiplied by the million, and each to be preserved
till a better be produced, and then the old ones to be destroyed.
In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alteration,
generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural
selection .will pick out with unerring skill each improvement.
Let this process go on for millions on millions of years, and
during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds ;
and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might
thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the
Creator are to those of man ?
- " If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ ex-
isted which could not possibly have been formed by numerous
successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down. But I can find no such case. No doubt, many
organs exist of which we do not know the transitional grades,
more especially if we look to much-isolated species, round which,
according to my theory, there has been much extinction ; or,
again, if we look to an organ common to all the members of a
large class, — for in this latter case the organ must have been
first formed at an extremely remote period, since which all the
many members of the class have been developed, — and in order
to discover the early transitional grades through which the
organ has passed, we should have to look to very ancient an-
cestral forms, long since become extinct."
Now, after carefully studying Mr. Darwin's own arguments
for the formation of the eye without skill in optics, I must
confess that they fail to convince me in the slightest degree.
They are founded on monstrous assumptions utterly unsup-
ported by fact. They assume that any variation, however
slight, of any animal organ'can be transmitted by inheritance.
That there are no natural limits whatever to this transmission ;
while all experience and all our knowledge go to prove that
there are limits that cannot be passed. That the tendency,
even of those deviations produced by man's art in the animal
and vegetable world, as admitted by Darwin himself, is ever
to revert to the type from whence they proceeded rather than
to diverge ad infinitum. That this law of natural selection
does by no means account for myriads of facts in nature
directly opposed to it. "Take," says Sir John Herschel,
63
"for an instance, the formative nisus, which determines the
production of a supernumerary finger in the human hand.
Here is no gradual change from generation to generation ; no
first development of a rudimentary joint followed in slow
succession after centuries of hereditary improvement, by the
others, up to the perfect member : it starts at once into com-
pleteness. The change in the working-plan of the whole
hand has been carried out at' once, by a systematic en-
graftment of blood-vessels and nerves into effective con-
nections with the centres of nutritive, mechanical, and sensitive
action in the frame, as if by some preconceived arrangement."
Again : Mr. Darwin's millions of millions of imperfect micro-
scopes and telescopes, ascending by slow and imperceptible
stages from the accidentally exposed nerve of some primeval
animal, exist nowhere in fact, but only in his own fertile
imagination. He points out eyes among the radiata he calls
imperfect. Are they really so ? We judge the perfection of
an organ not so much by its mechanical structure as its adapta-
tion to the wants of its possessor. For some creatures the
simplest form of an organ may be better adapted than the
most complicated. Again : if I regard the law of natural
selection of accidental varieties propagated by inheritance
from ah individual as a mathematician ; if I regard that law
as the producer of so complicated an organ as the eye, with its
innumerable contrivances to effect its object, the laws of pro-
bability'compel me at once to reject such a proposition as
monstrous, from its inherent improbability. And this, too,
assuming as proved that which so many facts contradict, that
any accidental variety can be propagated by inheritance with-
out any limitation.
How is it, we may ask again, that this law of natural
selection has been so bountiful as to supply some individuals
with almost countless myriads of eyes, and so great a number
with only two ? How are we to account for this without the
intervention of some other law, regulated and fixed by design ?
But let us view the formation of the eye by this law of natural
selection from another aspects How does it account for the
formation of any single existing eye we may select as an
example. I know, for instance, that each of my eyes has
been elaborated from one fluid — from blood. There was a time
when my eyes had no existence. Have they passed through
millions of millions of imperfect instruments, correcting their
imperfections by the stern law of natural selection upon penalty
of loss of existence ? No. The marvellous lenses, constructed
so as to defy their imitation by human skill, have been formed,
without trial and error, on the strictest principles of mathematical
64
accuracy. They have taken forms which no geometer, no ana-
lytical integrates, could divine, — forms which, even arrived at
approximately by our imperfect mathematical analysis, we could
not imitate mechanically. Possessing, too, just those refractive
indices which are adapted, in combination with those forms, to
secure a minimum, indeed, for aught I know, a perfect degree
of absence of spherical and chromatio aberration. Possessed,
again, with an inexplicable power of adapting their form to
the perfect vision of a star in infinite space, and to an object
removed but a few inches from them. Supplied, again, with a
self-acting diaphragm sensitive to light — not for vision, but
for contracting and expanding — so as to adapt the rays of
light admitted into the marvellous camera obscura in such
quantities only as are adapted to secure the proper impression
on the retina. Need I refer to the black pigment for absorbing
superfluous light; to all the accessories of the wondrous
camera obscura ; to the muscles which move it with mechanical .
design and contrivance ; to the lids which veil it from light
too injurious to be admitted into the dark chamber; to the
contrivances for preserving the transparency of the external
surface of the transparent cornea with a never-failing supply of
moisture ?
Where am I to seek for the architects of this wondrous ex-
hibition of skill and contrivance ? Is it in the blood corpuscles
or in the fluid in which they swim ? TheN blood certainly was
the agent by which all this structure was built up, with fault-
less, unerring accuracy, by no law of natural selection by the
destruction of less perfect instruments. If I ask modern
physiologists as to the structure of my eye, I am told it is like
a fountain, which preserves its general form amid the unceas-
ing motion of the particles which form it. The atoms which
form my eye are constantly being laid down and taken up
again. Constantly deposited from the vital stream of blood
flowing through my body ; as constantly taken up again into
the general stream. Let this stream stop, and the marvellous
structure from that instant commences to fall into irretrievable
ruin. Where, I may ask, is the formative nisus which erected
this skilful structure ? Where dwells the constant formative
nisus which preserves this structure when once it is built up ?
What architect endows the atoms which constitute the structure
with such* marvellous powers ? Why do the same corpuscles
which form the ear, with its marvellous auditory purposes,
when they reach another part of the body, become such skilled
artists in optical wisdom ? Why in one part of the organ form
lenses possessed with one refractive index, in another part of
another, and then a third, every one mutually adapted amid a
65
thousand, nay, myriads, of possible different refractive indices ?
What chemistry could combine the atoms constituting the
blood into the differing structures of the eye? If formed,
what mechanism could combine these structures with all their
marvellous adaptation to the purposes of the eye ? Can natural
selection, ruled only by the stern necessity of destruction to
the imperfect, answer these queries ? No. Nor yet will the
laws of vitality alone, superadded to the laws of chemical com-
bination of the atoms of matter, answer my questions. My
proud intellect can find no rest, till it learns the humility
necessary for all true knowledge. I must admit that the eye
was not formed without skill in optics ; that the ear was not
formed without knowledge of sounds. Can atoms of matter
do all this ? What are these atoms ? How do they act and
react on one another? What are their mutual relations?
" These same relations," says Sir J. Herschel, " in which
they stand to one another are anything but simple ones. They
involve all the € ologies ' and all the e ometries/ and in these
days we know something of what that implies. Their move-
ments, their interchanges, their € hates and loves/ their ' at-
tractions and repulsions/ their ' correlations/ their what not,
are all determined on the very instant. There is no hesita-
tion, no blundering, no trial and error. A problem of dy-
namics, which would drive Lagrange mad, is solved instanter,
€ Solvitur ambulando.' A differential equation which, alge-
braically written out, would belt, the earth, is integrated in an
eye -twinkle, and all the numerical calculation worked out in a
way to frighten Zerah Colborn, George Bidder, or Jedediah
Buxton." What can solve such wonders as these? what
account for such relations ? " The presence of mind is what
solves the whole difficulty, so far, at least, as it brings it
within the sphere of our own consciousness, and into con-
formity of our own experience of what actwn is"
The most profound investigations into the laws and phe-
nomena of nature, aided by all the powers of the human mind,
assisted by all we know of human experience, bring us back, not
to law, but the mind of the Lawgiver, as the only starting-point,
the only-stand point, from which our reason can exercise itself.
He that made the eye was skilled in optics. He said, €€ Let
there be light, and there was light." He alone can say, " I
form the light and create darkness." " I am the Lord, and
there is none else, there is no God beside me. I girded
thee, though thou hast not known me." Shall not we say
with Job, " Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled
me like cheese ? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh,
and hast fenced me with bones and sinews *" ? Shall we not
66
confess with David, " Such knowledge is too wonderful for
me ; it is high, I cannot attain unto it " ? " The darkness hideth
not from Thee ; but the night shineth as the day : the darkness
and the light are both alike to Thee. For Thou hast possessed
my reins : Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I
will praise Thee ; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made :
marvellous are thy works ; and that my soul knoweth right
well. My substance was not hid from Thee when I was
made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of
the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being im-
perfect ; and in Thy book all my members were written, which
in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
them " ?
The assertion " that the gradual reduction of all phenomena
within the sphere of established law carries with it as a con-
sequence the rejection of the miraculous," upon which asser-
tion modern rationalism has invaded the domain of theology
and natural philosophy, has only to be* brought face to face
with the highest inductions of modern science to meet its own
refutation. We are not required to banish God, to banish a
Creator from the physical world, to cultivate with freedom the
revelations of modern science. The assumed laws which re-
place design by rigid fate, crumble before a calm, dispassionate
investigation. As men of science, we can say that we believe
not only that God created us and all things ; we can confess
even with heathen poets of old, " that in Him we live and move
and have our being." That no disbelief in the miraculous, no
knowledge of correlation of forces, no conservation of vis
vitce compels us to deny that " He left not Himself without
witness in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven,
filling our hearts with food and gladness." Our philosophy
still allows us with simple hearts to pray, " Give us this day
our daily bread/' We can still believe that no sparrow can
fall from heaven without our Heavenly Father's knowledge
and will. Nay, the more we know, the more deeply we in-
vestigate the phenomena of nature, the more are we compelled
to admit our own ignorance. " Hardly do we guess aright at
things that are upon earth, and with labour do we find the
things that are before us/' Laws of nature we confess, with
Hooker, have in them " more than men have as yet attained
to know, or perhaps ever shall attain, seeing the travail of
wading herein is given of God to the sons of men, that per-
ceiving how much the least thing in the world hath in it more
than the wisest are able to reach unto, they might by this
means learn with humility." Humbly we confess, with Bishop
Butler, u other orders of creatures may perhaps be let into the
67
secret counsels of Heaven, and have the designs and methods
of Providence in the creation and government of the world
communicated to them, but this does not belong to our rank
and condition."
Of one thing I feel the deepest conviction, that nothing
man has yet discovered, no length to which science has been
pursued, has at all educed any principle diametrically opposed
to the truths of religion ; any principle like law destroying
the idea of creation and design which should lead us to regard
Moses in no higher light than a Hebrew Descartes or a
Newton. >
It isalleged, however, that modern science has produced a great
number of facts utterly irreconcileable with revelation. These
so-called facts are derived, for the most part, from the sciences of
geology, ethnology, anthropology, and philology. Now, I need
not detain you by any lengthened argument in opposition to
these statements. The able pamphlet entitled <€ Scientia Seien-
tiarum," giving an account of the origin and objects of the
Victoria Institute, has so fully entered into this branch of the
subject, and is so well known to you, that I need not waste
your time by repeating the long array of supposed contradic-
tions between the facts of science and the records of revealed
truth which have fallen before a dispassionate review of the
progress of science. Kevelation has oftentimes suffered
much by the over-zeal — laudable though it be in itself — of its
defenders accepting crude scientific theories as demonstrated
facts. I have watched the progress of modern science with
much satisfaction, as I have seen one supposed contradiction of
science to revelation after another fall away. The infant sciences
in their imperfect stage have presented difficulties to revelatiori
which their advanced progress has of itself removed. The
pursuit of this inquiry ; the investigation of facts alleged to
be in opposition to revelation ; the examination of the contra-
dictory and conflicting hypotheses of all the principal "ologies"
of the day, is the work to which this Institute proposes to
devote itself. I feel no doubt as to the result. I believe the
more intimately we study the book of nature, hard as it is to
read aright, difficult as its hieroglyphics are to decipher, yet,
if we do so in a humble spirit, I doubt not its records will con-
firm the records of the Bible ; in that faith I will venture to
conclude my address, in the words of Bishop Butler : —
" Let us adore that infinite wisdom, and power, and good-
ness, which is above our comprehension. € To whom hath the
root of wisdom been revealed ? or who hath known her wise
counsels ? There is one wise and greatly to be feared ; the
Lord sitting upon His throne. He created her, and saw her,
68
and numbered her, and poured her out upon all his works/ If
it be thought a considerable thing to be acquainted with a
few, a- very few, of the effects of infinite power and wisdom,
the situation, bigness, and revolution of some of the heavenly
bodies, what sentiments should our minds be filled with con-
cerning Him whp appointed to each its place, and measure, and
sphere of motion, all which are kept with the most uniform
constancy ? Who ' stretched out the heavens, and telleth th&
number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names ?
Who laid the foundations of the earth, who comprehendeth
the dust of it in a measure, and weigheth the mountains in
scales and the hills in a balance ?' And when we have recounted
all the appearances which come within our view, we must add,
' Lo, these are parts of His ways ; but how little a portion is
heard of Him ? Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? It is high as
Heaven ; what canst thou do ? Deeper than Hell ; what canst
thou know V The conclusion is, that in all lowliness of mind we
set lightly by ourselves ; that we form our temper to an im-
plicit submission to the Divine Majesty ; beget within ourselves
an absolute resignation to all the methods of His providence,
in His dealings with the children of men ; that in the deepest
humility of our souls, we prostrate ourselves before Him, and
join in that celestial song, —
* Great and marvellous are Thy works,
Lord God Almighty ! Just and true
Are Thy ways, thou King of saints !
Who shall not fear thee, 0 Lord, and
Glorify thy name.' "
Major-General Crawford said, that in rising to move a vote of thanks
to the Kev. Mr. Mitchell for his very able and admirable paper, he was fully
aware that he was speaking in the presence of a number of gentlemen of
high literary attainments and deep scientific knowledge. It was because he
could lay claim to no such acquirements that he undertook the duty of
moving a vote of thanks to the rev. gentleman who had just sat down. He
felt that any person who possessed the power of grappling with such subjects
of thought and magnitude, and clearly arranging the interesting facts which
were recorded in the paper then read, so as to reduce them to his (General
Crawford's) intelligent appreciation, was entitled to his gratitude. He had
ever felt convinced that a thorough grasp and mastery of a subject was neces-
sary to simplification. When, then, he looked upon the millions in this
country who were upon the same platform as himself as to mental power,
and at the thousands who were now busy distilling the poison of doubt and
69
scepticism amongst them, he could not help rising to express how grateful he
felt to the Eev. Mr. Mitchell for the simple and transparent, as well as deep
reasoning, which had characterized his opening address. (Applause.) He had
thus given a prestige to the Society, and developed powers which were
essential to dealing with the thinking middle classes. When he thought of
the numbers, lay and clerical, who were using the influence which some ac-
quaintance with the theories of science gave them, to create a disbelief in the
truths of Christianity, he rejoiced to find that a society had been established
whose special object was carefully to examine how far the supposed truths
of science had been ascertained. He was convinced that the more light was
poured upon the pages, both of nature and of revelation, the more they
would be found to be harmoniously at one. (Hear, hear.) It was lamentable
to see men vieing with one another who should be first to use the very intel-
lects God had given them, to revive old infidel grounds of objection and
undermine the credibility of His Holy Word ! A wide sphere of usefulness
was before the Society ; and he was satisfied that their labours in the cause
which they advocated would be productive of the most beneficial results.
He hoped they would steadily apply themselves to the work which they had
undertaken ; but, for the success of their efforts, look to the blessing of Him,
in whom, the more his works were studied, the more clearly it became mani-
fest they were ."by Him. and for Him," in whom we also ourselves "lived,
moved, and had our being." He begged to move that the thanks of the
meeting be given to the Rev. Mr. Mitchell for his very eloquent and
instructive address. (Cheers.)
The Eev. Robinson Thornton, D.D., Head Master of Epsom College,
seconded the motion, and said the satisfaction which he felt in doing so was
considerably enhanced by the fact of his knowing that the gentleman who
read the address was a member of his own profession. He thought the lively
gratitude, as well as the formal thanks, of the members of the Society was
due to the rev. gentleman. (IJear, hear.) A work which is well begun is half
done* (Hear, hear.) And seeing that the- work which was undertaken by
the Society was so successfully inaugurated, he thought th<*y might consider
it was half done already. (Hear, hear.) The great books of nature and reve-
lation had, as it were, been spread out before mankind, and some persons had
been scribbling on them. Leaving theological critics to clear away the stains
which had been made on the Book of Revelation, it would be the duty of
their Society to wipe off the marks from the Book of Nature. He trusted
they would be enabled to accomplish the task they had undertaken, and to
prove to the world that nothing which was found in that Book was incon-
sistent with the truth revealed in the other. (Hear, hear.) He had much
pleasure in seconding the vote of thanks to the rev. gentleman for the able
address which he had delivered, and the courteous but ruthless logic with
which he had demolished the arguments of those who were opposed to his
views. (Hear, hear.)
The motion was put from the chair, and was carried with applause.
The Rev. Mr. Mitchell having briefly acknowledged the compliment,
w
70
Captain Fishbourne rose, and said he had much pleasure in moving
that the thanks of the meeting be given to the Earl of Shaftesbury, not only
for his kindness in presiding on that occasion, but for the encouragement and
support which he had given* to the Society from its beginning. A great re-
luctance was manifested by some persons to take the initiative in matters of
that kind, for he who first stepped out became a marked man, and assumed
a very great responsibility. Whatever that risk was, the noble Earl incurred
it, and thus far put in peril some of his well-earned fame. He thought,
therefore, that their best thanks were due to the noble chairman for coming
forward as he had done in support of the Society. (Hear, hear.)
The Rev. A. db la Mare, in seconding the proposition, said he fully
endorsed the observations made by Captain Fishbourne with regard to the
debt of gratitude which they owed to the noble Earl for the readiness and
earnestness with which he had eome forward to assist in the formation of the
Society. (Hear, hear.) The extent of that debt could only be rightly esti-
mated by those who had all along co-operated in, and anxiously watched over
its rise ; and, as one of those, he bore willing testimony to the value of his
Lordship's early and continuous services. All knew that the noble EarPs
name was connected with very many great and good works ; but, amongst
them all, he believed that in no greater or better work than that proposed to
be effected by the Victoria Institute had his Lordship been engaged, or one
which would hereafter more ennoble his name. In his own estimation, this
was one of the noblest and holiest works undertaken in this country for a
long time. (Hear, hear.) The Society would doutbless have to encounter
much opposition and to contend with difficulties of no ordinary character. It
was, however, very satisfactory to know that it numbered already amongst its
members men fully competent to take part in the work in which the Society
was engaged, of which they had had ample proof in the admirable paper to
which they had just listened. (Hear, hear.) He would have wished to have
offered one or two remarks on the absolute necessity for the formation of the
Society they had now inaugurated under such promising circumstances, and
the position which they might justifiably expect it hereafter to hold ; but the
time had arrived when the programme for the day required that they should
adjourn to another place, and he would therefore content himself with merely
seconding, and he did so with all his heart, the vote of thanks to the noble
lord who presided. (Hear, hear.)
The motion was carried by acclamation.
The Earl of Shaftesbury, in reply, said that no thanks were due to
him for the little services which he had rendered. He had been more than
compensated for his attendance at the meeting by the eloquent address which
had been delivered. He had been instructed and delighted, and his heart
had been cheered, by what he had heard. He had felt very deeply the pro-
gress of opinions, against which the arguments of the rev. gentleman were
directed, and he had seen how fatally blasting had been their effects upon the
mind of the better educated class of society as wall as upon the great mass
71
of the people. And, as the great mass of the people must eventually rule
this country, it was for those who desired the happiness and prosperity of
these realms, to endeavour to resist the growth of opinions, which, if allowed
to be general, would be attended with the most ruinous consequences to
society. It had given him great joy of heart to hear the eloquent, noble, and
excellent Inaugural Address read by the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, because, as had
been observed by a previous speaker, a work well begun was half done.
(Hear.) It was a very good beginning, and promised well for the future of
the Society. (Hear.) He spoke of the address, not only with regard to the
agglomeration of facts* which it contained, and the powerful reasoning by
which its arguments were enforced, but for its daring boldness. (Hear, hear.)
It contained no nonsense nor diplomatic language of any kind, but it went
straight forward to the points in dispute, and combated them one after
another with a force of logic which* was really invincible. (Hear, hear.) It
should not be supposed that this Society wished to curb the efforts of science.
(Hear, hear.) On the contrary, they desire to give it every encouragement.
He wished it to be clearly understood that, the more science was examined,
and the deeper men plunged into its depths, and the more facts they elicited
on the subject, the more their Society would be gratified. (Hear, hear.) They
were quite confident that the Word of God was quite consistent with the
truths of science, — that, in fact, the one would be strengthened by a know-
ledge of the other. He was delighted that the Society had been formed, and
he would be very happy to give all the assistance in his power to enable them
to carry out the good work which they had undertaken. (Hear, hear.)
This concluded the business of the meeting.
INAUGURAL DINNER.
The Members and Associates, with their friends (numbering sixty-four,
besides Ladies), afterwards dined together at Willis's Rooms, to celebrate
the inauguration of the Society; the Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., President,
in the Chair, and Robert Nicholas Fowler, Esq., Vice-Chairman.
Grace was said by the Rev. Dr. Thornton ; and after dinner a thanksgiving
was chanted.
The Chairman then rose and proposed the toast of " The Queen," and in
doing so expressed a hope that her Majesty would some day become the
patron of the Society. (Cheers.)
The toast was loyally drunk.
Air. — " God Save the Queen," rendered by a choir of vocalists, with piano-
forte accompaniment by Mr Maxwell Miiller.
The Chairman next gave " The Health of the Prince and Princess of
Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family." He was sure they were all ex-
ceedingly gratified at seeing that his Royal Highness was following in the
footsteps of his lamented father, and the encouragement which he extended
to literature, science, and art. (Cheers.)
The toast was duly honoured.
Air.—" Hail, Prince of Wales."
The Chairman again rose, and proposed the toast of " The Army and
Kavy and the Volunteer8,,, with which he coupled the names of General
Lawrence and Admiral Halsted.
The toast was drunk with the usual honours.
General Lawrence briefly responded on behalf of the Army.
Admiral Halsted acknowledged the toast on behalf of the Navy, and said
he was glad to see a member of the profession to which he belonged (Captain
Fishbourne) taking an active part in promoting so useful a society as the
Victoria Institute. The officers of the navy would always be found ready to
do their duty to their country. (Cheers.)
Mr. William M'Arthur proposed the next toast, which he said was one
that he was sure would receive at the hands of the company the most hearty
and cordial sympathy. It was " The progress of Christianity at home and
abroad." (Hear, hear.) He felt that this was a very inviting theme upon
which to speak, but as the toast would be responded to by three distinguished
clergymen whose names were well known to the assembly, he thought he
would be overstepping his duty if he were to occupy the meeting with any
lengthened observations. He might, however, say that the progress of
Christianity, whether at home or abroad, was associated with their dearest
interests. (Hear, hear.) If England owed to anything her greatness, and her
power, and her influence amongst the nations of the world, it was to the
progress of Christianity. (Hear, hear.) It was the source of her happiness,
and the fountain from which flowed all the prosperity enjoyed by her people.
(Hear, hear.) He believed that at the present time there existed in this
country more activity, more devotedness, more earnestness, and more zeal in
promoting the great cause of Christianity, than at any other period of her
history ; and while they had to deplore the necessity which existed for their
labours, they had to rejoice at the various agencies which were at work in
this country for the promotion of the best interests of society at large, by the
diffusion of the blessings of our common Christianity. (Hear, hear.) They
had also to rejoice at the triumphs of the Gospel in every part of the world,
and the great success with which God has been pleased to crown the efforts
of the missionaries sent forth from this country. (Hear, hear.) One great
feet had been brought out in bold relief by the labours of those who went to
preach Christianity, and that was that God had made of one blood all nations
of men who dwell on the face of the earth. In every part of the world,
whether they went to the polished European or the uncultivated African ;
whether they went to Asia or America, to the Fejee or the Friendly Islands, it
did not matter where, they found Christianity produced the same effect on
all. (Hear, hear.) How beneficial, then, was the result of the efforts made to
extend it to all parts of the globe ! He did not doubt that a cause so noble
would always meet with support in this country. (Hear, hear.) He had much
pleasure in proposing the toast, with which he would associate the names of
the Rev. Dr. Irons, the Rev. Mr. Boyce, and the Rev. Mr. Trestrail.
73
The toast met with a hearty reception.
The Rev. Dr. Irons responded ^He said it was usual at meetings of this
public kind to propose a toast in connection with the Established Church, .
and call on some clergyman present to respond to it. There had been on
this occasion an intentional departure from that order ; and he thought it a
wise departure ; for they were not met together in the sectional interest of
any one portion of the great Christian community. (Hear, hear.) If he had
had to return thanks only as a minister of the Church of England, it would
have been his duty to imitate the example of preceding speakers, and limit
himself to the briefest acknowledgment of their kindness. He should not,
however, be fulfilling the purpose for which he had been asked to rise, if he
took such a course. The object which they had in iriew was sacred to all
Christians — they desired the " progress of our religion at home and abroad,'1
and he would be unworthy of the honour they conferred on him, if he treated
it lightly. If, indeed, he occupied more of their time than those who had
addressed them, he must ask them to attribute it to the nature of the task
they had imposed on him. The progress of Christianity was identified with
the progress of the well-being of human nature ; and although the term
u progress " was frequently used in a sense" which he should repudiate, he
was glad they had adopted the phrase On this occasion, because it had a true
meaning of its own, which he would wish, if permitted, to urge on their
notice. There were those who ventured to imply that Christianity was even
an obstacle to progress. He would not shrink from meeting their charge
against our religion. They apparently wished Christianity to undergo some
organic change, and regarded all adherence t» existing forms as obstructive.
In their sense of the word no doubt, then, our Christianity was opposed to
progress. We have no idea of our religion so progressing as to be changed
into something new ; but we believe that its advancement in influence will
be a blessing to the world, and wish that its truths may be more fully received,
and its precepts more widely practised. And there is a still further sense in
which we assert that our religion is essential to all true progress, both
intellectual and moral. The modifications of thought which are going on in
all subjects may explain my meaning. This is called an age of progress. Thus
in politics, we are so changing that it is difficult now to recognize the parties
familiar to our fathers fifty years ago. A man calls himself a Conservative —
but you really cannot now tell what it is he wishes to conserve. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Or he calls himself a Radical, and you just perceive that he
wishes to root up something, but what, it is impossible to tell. (Laughter.)
He calls himself a Liberal, and you are wholly at a loss to understand him —
for I suppose we are all in a sense " liberals." The truth is, that the natural
progress of events is unsettling all things. And something analogous to this
is going on in religion. Christianity of the kind which prevailed in many
quarters half a century since, scarcely is to be found in our days. Then
there has been brought to bear on the public mind, both at home and abroad, a
disintegrating criticism which tends to destroy the very foundations of our
faith. We watch this course of events with anxiety — not for the sake of
f2
74
the Revelation itself, but for the sake of the untaught multitudes who are
injured by the processes of change which they are not competent to deal with.
. The generality of persons are not educated up to the point where they can
satisfactorily grapple with error ; and till tbey are educated, they will be at the
mercy of charlatans in religion, and criticism, and science. As Christians,
then, it is our business to promote education, and so promote religious pro-
gress in the truest and highest sense. (Hear, hear.) Great changes, too, are
constantly going on in science, and the public at large are unable to test
those changes, and will be so, until education is far more widely extended.
In the mean time it is most necessary that there should be some means of
watching the progress of knowledge, and protecting the many from the hasty
theories of the. few — theories changing every month. The Philosophical
Institute to which they belonged would aim constantly at this, in the interest
of truth. The Christian knows that his religion has been the fountain of civiliza-
tion in time past, and doubts not the future. While their principles are in-
deed immutable, — for " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever," — their religion has formed the life of nations and generations most
wonderfully and variously for 1800 years. The very founding of Christianity
was the dawning of a new light on civilization. There never was a period in
the world's progress in which there was so widely spread a scepticism in
faith and morals as in the days of Augustus Caesar. If nothing had been
divinely done to arrest the moral decay of the Empire, the ruin must have
been total for human nature. If by a stretch of imagination we could con-
ceive what the world would have become, say by the time of Constantine, if
Christianity had not been at *vork, we might have some idea of what our
religion has done for human progress. It would be surely a frightful con-
templation : — a world possessing all the arts of civilization, without principle: —
it would be a scene well-nigh diabolical ! If some of our men of genius
would give us a book delineating " the possible fourth century of our era without
Christianity," tbey would be better employed than in writing fancy " lives of
Christ." (Hear.) It was a very wide subject, he would remind them, which he
thus glanced at, when he asked them to mark the connection of our religion
with all civilization, for some 1,800 years since it began. He could not enlarge
on it. He would only recall to them, that in the monastic system of the middle
ages — in the practice of the Councils or representative assemblies of the Church
— in the preservation of all past literature, Greek and Roman — in the forming
of all the educational institutes of the world, Christianity had led, or
preserved, the civilization and progress of modern Europe. Then, what
were the great missionary efforts of the Church ? Did they not lead the way
to the truest progress of the nations — even though we may not attribute to
the saintly missionaries all the miracles their historians tell of? Now, was
it not amazing to hear it said, in opposition to all history and fact, that the
clergy were natural enemies of progress 1 He had spoken of government and
law, and literature, but he would say more: he would claim a place for
Christianity in the promotion both of science and art also. The great art and
science (he would call it) of our own nation— the cotton manufacture of
75
England—had received its first great impulse fr6m a clergyman, Thomas
Cartwright, the inventor of the spinning-jenny. So also of the first applica-
tions of steam. Copernicus, too, the glory of our modern astronomy, was a
country clergyman ; Berkeley, the great teacher of the foundations of our
modern optics, was a bishop. But he must not occupy them at greater length,
or he might mention that Sir Charles Eastlake attributed to the clergy the
best implements of his art. He would, then, in conclusion, assert for Chris-
tianity its entire fearlessness of the fullest use of reason, and the honest
investigations of science. He was glad to hear that same fearlessness avowed
by their noble President, at their late meeting in another place. Let the clergy
occupy, as hitherto, and with increasing zeal, the field of literature, and they
would be able to defend the truth more effectually than by any of the
methods of coercion or repression. Even the discipline of the Church had
utterly passed away, and could not bo relied on for the strife with false teaching
or false science. The weapons ready for our use in the world still, are those
of Literature : weapons of reason, and faith, and research. Let them be — as
they assuredly will be — earnestly used, and he had no fear as to the " progress
of Christianity at home and abroad." — He begged to thank them for the
honour they had done him in associating his name with this toast, and the
attention and kindness with which they had received what he had said.
(Cheers.)
The Rev. Mr. Boycb also responded to the toast. He said that, as the
secretary of one of the largest missionary societies established in this country
-^-the Wesleyan — he could not allow the toast to pass without a few brief
observations on the subject to which it referred. About twenty years ago, a
Scotch divine characterized the period in which we lived as an age of " little
men and little measures." He was of opinion that the sarcasm was hardly
deserved, and that Dr. Chalmers forgot at the time the work which had been
doing in extending Christianity. (Hear, hear.) He would call attention for
a few moments to what had been done by the Universities, mission in Central
Africa. He was himself a returned missionary from that country, where he
had spent fourteen years, and — though a sectarian in a certain sense, but not
in his own sense of the term (hear, hear) — he had taken the greatest interest
in the Universities' mission. Though those who were connected with it might
differ with him on some ritualistic questions, he felt that they were entitled to
his warmest sympathy and respect. (Hear.) He had known Bishop Mackenzie,
who was at the head of the mission, to walk some thirty or forty miles a day
under the scorching sun of Africa, to preach the Gospel to the poor Africans ;
and he felt that he was a saint. (Hear, hear.) Let them, therefore, put him
down in their calendar as " St. Mackenzie," and he would be very glad to com-
memorate the festival. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He believed the labours
of the mission had been attended with the best results ; and the example
which had been set had a very good effect on other missions in the country,
and the best results were produced. (Hear, hear.) There were several
missions which had been blessed with very great success, as the Baptist
Mission in India, though the dangers to which the missionaries were exposed
76
were very great. He might also mention the Wesleyan Mission in the Fejee
Islands, which was very successful. He thought the instances of self-devotion
to which he alluded were sufficient in themselves to vindicate the character
of the age from the charge of " littleness " in its men or in their measures.
(Hear, hear.) One of the greatest benefits conferred by Christianity was the
influence which it exercised on the conduct of the worst savages. It raised
them from the most barbarous state to the dignity of manhood, and rendered
them susceptible of all the influences of civilization. (Hear, hear.) He had
formed the acquaintance of a Kaffir while in Africa, with whom he still kept
up a correspondence, and he was one of the noblest specimens of a Christian
man which he had ever met with in his life. (Hear, hear.) He concluded by
thanking the company for the manner in which they had received the toast.
(The Rev. Mr. Trestrail, whose name was also associated with the toast,
was unexpectedly absent.) 0
The Chairman then rose and said, the next toast which he had to give was
the toast of the evening — " Prosperity to the Victoria Institute." He thought
that, with God's blessing, there could be very little doubt of its prosperity,
if they were enabled to have a series of papers such as that which they had
heard that evening. (Hear.) They would then be provided with such an
armoury, in which every weapon both for attack and defence would be found,
as would leave them and the great truths of Christianity unharmed in any day
of trouble, rebuke, or blasphemy. (Hear, hear.) He gave them the toast,
which he thought it unnecessary to recommend to their favourable notice,
and, associated with it, he would give them the health of Mr. Alexander
M'Arthur and Captain Fishbourne. (Cheers.)
The toast was enthusiastically drunk.
Mr. Alexander M'Arthur, in responding, said it was growing late, and
as the meeting would be addressed by a number of other gentlemen who
could occupy their time more profitably than he could do, he would not
detain them with any long remarks. Amongst those who were to speak
after him were Mr. Reddie and Captain Fishbourne, who were the originators
of the Society. (Hear, hear.) He would not, therefore, trespass on the pro-
vince of those gentlemen, who could point out the objects of the Society, and
explain its usefulness, with much more ability than he was able to bring to
bear on the subject. He begged to thank the noble lord who presided for the
manner in which he had proposed the toast, and the com|>any for the manner
in which it had been received. Speaking for himself personally — and he be-
lieved he was also expressing the opinion of every member of the Council— he
might state that their inability to commence the regular business of the
Society at an earlier period than they had done, had been a source of much
regret and disappointment. A variety of circumstances combined to cause
the delay. He need not enter into any explanation upon that occasion,
further than to say, that many of the circumstances were entirely beyond
their controul. He was glad that the operations of the Society had been com-
menced, and he thought he might congratulate the members and friends of
the Institute upon having so good a beginning. He thought he might also
77
congratulate them upon the statement in the Report with respect to the large
number of members who had already joined, and which was almost unpre-
cedented in a new society. He believed, now that the Institute was estab-
lished, the number of members would go on increasing. (Hear, hear.) No
society could have had a more satisfactory " Inaugural Address." He thought
the commencement which they had made was excellent— that failure was now
next to impossible. A wide field was open to them, and the necessity which
existed for some such society as theirs had long been felt. It filled up a gap
which had been open between scientific societies, which ignored religion
altogether, and theological societies, which did not profess to discuss scientific
subjects. He was aware that a number of literary and scientific societies
existed in London, all doing good service in their own spheres ; but it some-
times happened that questions bearing upon the truths of revelation were
under discussion, and many unnecessary accusations were made against it by
some who were regarded as scientific men. But gentlemen who attempted to
defend revelation were placed at a great disadvantage, because they were
obliged to conform to the rules of such societies, and to confine their remarks
on the subject under debate to the scientific view of the question. He was
not going to say that was wrong — perhaps it was right — but many gentlemen
had experienced the difficulty to which he referred. Not long since, during
a discussion which took place at the Anthropological Society, an instance of
this kind occurred. A paper was read in which most unfounded statements
were made with reference to Christian missions and the truths of revelation ;
but when a gentleman stood up to defend the cause of Christianity, he was
told he must confine his .observations to such questions as came within the
scope of an anthropological debate. It was to meet difficulties of this kind
that the Victoria Institute was established. Its chief feature was that it did
not confine its discussions to any particular branch of science (hear, hear) ;
and when any fact was brought forward likely to affect the truth of reve-
lation, the members would be at liberty to discuss it in all its bearings. (Hear,
hear.) He trusted that no one regarded the Society as being established in
opposition to any other scientific institution of the day. (Hear.) They had
just drunk prosperity to the Society ; but unquestionably a great deal of its
prosperity depended upon the support which it received from the gentlemen
present, and he trusted that they would all exert themselves to promote its
success. (Hear, hear.) It had been admirably begun, and he hoped it would
be enabled to carry out its work. One of the objects of the Society was to
translate foreign books of a kind which might be beneficially read by Christian
readers. This would involve considerable expense, but he did not doubt that
the support which would be given to the Society would enable it to effect
that object. He trusted they would all endeavour to get as many members
as they could, and that at the next annual meeting of the Society it would
number a thousand members. (Cheers.)
Captain Fishbournb said, he did not know why he should have been
selected to respond to the toast of success to the Victoria Institute, as its for-
mation was no more due to him than to other members present. They
78
were all entitled to credit, mora especially so the noble lord in the chair, for
coming to the front while so many were hanging back. He must take the
liberty of congratulating all upon the success which had attended their in-
augural meeting, and to compliment their distinguished Vice-President upon
his able paper. As a sailor, he was thankful for the formation of such an insti-
tution ; not, indeed, that he had met many infidels at sea. They that go down
to the sea in ships, they see the wonders of the Lord in the great deep.
They have too many hair-breadth escapes not to know that every hair of their
head is numbered. Though he had met many infidels on land, he was
thankful to say, he had met; very few in his travels by sea : a sailor's life did
not seem to suit such people — they collapsed in the face of danger, showing
themselves to be mere drums. Sailors were a religious people in their way ;
their superstition, the result of their ignorance, is an acknowledgment of
their belief in a God, — indeed, he believed every man's conscience testified to
the existence of the Deity; and he could only conceive of those who attacked
the truths of revelation, as men who wanted to get rid of the findings of the
conscience, by endeavouring to persuade themselves that neither it nor Scrip-
ture was correct. It was most natural that such men should ask Christians
to give up their Christianity before they entered upon the discussion of
science, otherwise they could not reasonably deny miracles ; since every
Christian was a miracle, and Christianity itself was a standing miracle. It was
simply absurd to assert that the teachings of revelation were inconsistent
with those of science. For besides the names of Christian men mentioned
by our learned Vice-President, who had taken the first rank in the walks of
science, I may add Captain Maury ; and, as science knows no country, we
may claim him as a compatriot, and he, with the modesty of genius, at once
acknowledges that the idea of his complete theory of the wind's " circuits "
was derived from Holy "Writ. Apart from some such intimation, it is not
easy to conceive the possibility of his obtaining the necessary amount of
facts out of which to have originated the idea, seeing that the facts must
more or less have covered the earth from pole to pole and girded the globe.
As for the endless ages contended for by geologists, and based upon the slow
formation of deltas in rivers, they are the merest theories. If such men had
seen the rapid changes that take place in a short time that he had seen, they
would not be disposed to place much confidence in such myths. He had seen
trees being carried down the rivers, caught, and forming an impediment
to the rapidity of the stream, upon which a deposit immediately took
place, and islands were formed in a few hours. A change in the direction of the
current, or sometimes an increase of its volume, has eaten away these islands,
and the deposit takes place at the next obstruction, by which an island is
formed with the. stratification of the former island inverted. Place one of
these geologists to examine one of them, without informing him of their
recent origin, and he would, consistently with the basis of these endless ages,
pronounce that they had existed for hundreds or thousands of years, as may
be. He recollected on one occasion getting aground up a river in a ship he
commanded, when the ship was imbedded in a mud dock in a few hours, out
79
of which sho literally had to be dug. Had they had only flint implements,
himself and crew might have been exhumed by some future Lyell as pre-
Adamite men, though born in the nineteenth century of grace ! In the same
way he had seen extensive lines of sea-beach altered by changes in the direc-
tion of winds and currents ; showing bow unreliable are the estimates of time
founded on sea-beaches. t All such conclusions must be fallacious, as they are
based upon the assumption that all the conditions under which deposits have
been formed are the same now that they were thousands of years since, which,
as a matter of fact, is not so, nor could be so. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. R. N. Fowler then rose, and said he had the honour to propose a
toast which needed no words of his to insure it an enthusiastic reception by
the company. It was the health of the noble lord who presided. (Cheers.)
In every assembly of Englishmen, in every part of the world where patriotism,
philanthropy, or Christianity was honoured, the name of the Earl of Shaftes-
bury would be received with enthusiasm. (Hear, hear.) They all knew the
way. in which the noble earl had devoted himself to the good of mankind.
(Cheers.) Foregoing the highest honours in the gift of the Crown, he had
applied himself with an earnest and heroic self-devotion to the promotion of
the welfare of the community amongst which he lived, and his labours were
chiefly directed to the benefit of the poorest classes of his countrymen. (Hear,
hear.) He was identified with every great work of charity or philanthropy
in this country, and the best energies of his life were devoted to the cause of
ragged schools. (Hear, hear.) The toast of his health would therefore be
received with enthusiasm, under whatever circumstances it was proposed to an
assembly of Englishmen ; but they were met there that evening under peculiar
obligations to his lordship. They were assembled to inaugurate one of the
most important movements that could be undertaken by any society — a
movement to resist the encroachments of scepticism and infidelity on the faith
of Christians. (Hear, hear.) The noble earl had kindly given his assistance
in the formation of a Society which had for its object a work of so much
importance. He had placed himself in the van of the movement, and he
was, therefore, entitled to their gratitude. (Hear, hear.) Younger men
might have deemed it an honour to take up such a cause and lead it on to
success. The noble earl did not look forward to any reward such as that. He
had already left the impress of his name on the history of the age (hear,
hear) ; and though the cause which the Society advocated was one in every
way worthy of the support of men of rank and intellect, it was from no such
motive^ that the noble lord had come forward to assist it. It was because he
felt the permanent importance of the work which the Society was established
to promote. (Hear, hear.) Under these circumstances, he felt that when he
asked them to drink the health of their noble chairman, they would do so
with the heartiest wishes for his happiness and prosperity. (Cheers.)
The toast was drunk amid the most enthusiastic plaudits.
The Noble Earl, in rising to respond, was greeted with renewed cheering.
He said he was very much obliged for the kind manner in which they had
received the toast. Upon any other occasion it would amount to presump-
4
80
tion on his part, to address any observations to a large company of scientific
men, such as he saw around him. Had it not been for the peculiar circum-
stances under which they met that evening, he would have contented him-
• self with acknowledging the toast. He remembered hearing a story at one
time of a lady who married her groom, and the poor fellow was so confused
that he did not know how to conduct himself. He went to a friend to ask *
what he should do, and the advice which he received was given in these words
— "My dear fellow, dress in black and hold your tongue." (Laughter.)
That was precisely the course which he had intended to take that evening.
(Laughter.) He had dressed in black, and he should have held his tongue,
but that he felt it necessary to say a word or two with regard to their objects,
and the light in which he looked upott the foundation of the Institute. The
purposes for which it was established were of signal value to all who, like him-
self, were engaged in numerous important avocations, and had no time to
apply themselves to scientific pursuits. (Hear, hear.) The Institute would
be of the utmost importance to those who had no means of access to the
answers given to the deleterious nonsense published under the name of
Science, and who were unable to test for themselves the value of the argu-
ments put forward. It was the object of the founders of the Institute that it
should fill up a gap for men of science, and men of principle, and men of
intelligence, and men of research, who would watch the various publications
as they came out, — some conceived in malignity, some in ignorance, and some
in mistaken notions that they were adding to the general science of mankind
— and point out whera mistakes arose, and put facts in their true light, or at
any rate induce people to p uise before they pronounced an opinion upon the
discovery of anything which seemed to be opposed to the truths of revelation.
He recollected, when he was a young man, that points of this kind
occasionally arose. A heretical opinion was now and then advanced; but
nothing came of it, and it was forgotten. But a very different state of things
now existed. The mental activity of the age was now so great, that it gave
them no rest ; so many new discoveries were now made, that it left them no
time to breathe or to look around them ; so great was the impatience for
novelty which prevailed, that wheu men fancied they discovered something,
nothing satisfied them until they converted it into an Armstrong Or a Whit-
worth gun, and aimed it at revealed truth. It would be the duty of the In-
stitute to ascertain what were facts, or whether there were any facts at all,
and to tell the public what ought to be at once rejected, and what ought to
be put in quarantine for a time, until it was thoroughly sifted. Above all,
the Society must endeavour to watch the dishonest use of statements appear-
ing in scientific works, calculated to raise doubts as to the truth of the Bible ;
and let the world know when theories, that had been brought to bear with
tremendous force upon the teachings of revealed religion, were exploded
by more minute inquiry. They had seen great mischief result from the drop-
ping of a word which implied doubt, when no refutation was given by those
who heard it ; but what were they to think of the evil produced by a work
such as Essays and Reviews, which had been read by hundreds who still
81
believe in the statements which it contained, and never heard of their refuta-
tion ? It would be the business of this Society to lay bare the fallacies of publi-
cations of that character, in the manner that had been so ably done in that
admirable pamphlet, the Scieniia Scientiarum. As the author of it .said, they
must criticise science as they had criticised the Bible. (Hear, hear.) Science
was in a perpetual state of development. That which was a " fact " to-day was
not a fact to-morrow, and it was as much open to criticism as anything else.
What they wanted was a free trade in science. (Hear.) They wanted those
who were engaged in science to carry their inquiries to the utmost extent, and
to acquaint the public with the results. Let their Society be a refuge for all
the Cassandras of false science, — for those who were never believed, although
they always spoke the truth, — an institute for those who come forward to
defend the cause of truth from the attacks made upon it. It would thus be the
means of enabling many who were now in comparatively obscure positions to
resist scientific dictators, and to take a place amongst the greatest and best in
the land. (Hear, hear.) He could not help thinking, however, that revealed
religion had suffered quite as much from its defenders as from its foes. It
oftentimes happened, when they heard of a bone, or a flint, or the tail of a
jackdaw (laughter) being picked up on the sea-shore, that many Christian men
became so nervously sensitive upon the subject that they tried to distort
revelation in order to adapt it to the supposed discovery. But in a short
time it turned out that the bone was not a bone, that the flint was not a flint,
and the matter was forgotten. But the consciousness remained that revelation
could be twisted and turned about to suit every current of scientific opinion,
and that science was the great thing to which revelation should be subordi-
nate. But he hoped that nothing would be done to induce the members of
this Institute to depart from their belief in the plain, simple, and dignified
truths of Holy Writ. He would say, let science have its own way — it was
" a chartered libertine " ; but to scientific men he would address this one
word of exhortation: — Let them say what they liked upon what they supposed
to be the difference between the teachings of science and revelation ; let
them weigh what was weighable, see what was seeable, and try what was
triable, but let them not try to put down those who were opposed to them
by main force. Let there be an open field, and free use of fair weapons, and
he had no doubt as to victory. (Hear, hear.) It was true of Science as it was
true of the Gospel, that the more it was discussed the more it would redound
to the honour and glory of God. (Hear, hear.)
The Noble Chairman then resigned the Chair to Mr. Fowler — the Vice-
Chair being filled by Captain Fishbourne.
Dr. Habbrshon then proposed " The health of the Vice- Patron, Vice-
Presidents, and Council of the Society," He said that many had supposed
that the Society was opposed to the cultivation of science j but that was a
mistake. On the contrary, it desired the advancement of science, and it
would be the object of the Society to promote true science in every possible
way. But it was opposed to what was merely superficial. Nothing was more
patent at the present day, than the way in which pseudo-science was brought
82
to bear upon the truths of revelation. It endeavoured to destroy the founda-
tion of all Christian belief. But Christianity was founded upon a basis that
would endure as long as time and eternity last ; and however it may suffer
from attacks made upon it in the name of science, they were well assured
that truth must prevail. (Hear, hear.) He fully concurred in the observa-
tions of previous speakers, that the more science was investigated the more it
would be found to harmonize with the great doctrines of Christianity ; and
it would be the mission of their Society to show that no difference existed
between them, but that science and revelation were not opposed. He begged
to give them the toast, and with it to associate the names of the Rev. Mr.
Mitchell, Dr. Burnett, and Mr. Beddie. (Hear, hear.)
The toast was most cordially received.
The Bev. Mr. Mitchell, in responding, said that having already occupied
more of the time of the members than he was entitled to, he would not
trouble them again with any observations with respect to the objects of the
Society. It would be found that those who were most skilled in science had,
in nearly all cases, the most profound sense of the truth of revelation. (Hear,
hear.) Amongst others he would mention the name of the late Dr. Whewell,
who was one of the most distinguished professors of science in the present
age. He begged to thank the company for the manner in which they had
received the toast.
Dr. Burnett also responded to the toast. He said the object of this Society
met with his warmest approval, and he regretted that he had not been able
from illness to give it that amount of active support to which he felt
it was entitled. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Beddie, in briefly responding, said the duty devolved upon him of pro-
posing the next toast. The lateness of the hour obliged him to forego the
pleasure, if, indeed, it could be called a pleasure, of making a speech.
The toast which he had to propose was, however, one which required no
advocacy on his part to secure it a cordial reception. It was " The Learned
Societies of the kingdom, and the advancement of science, art, and pure
literature." He desired to say that this Society was not only not adverse to
any of the scientific Societies already established ; but was, in fact, rather
dependent upon them. And having obtained from other Societies a number
of facts or theories, it would be the duty of the members of the Institute
inaugurated that evening to philosophize upon them. (Hear, hear.) No
Society of this kind was previously in existence in the metropolis ; and it
was one express feature of this Society to discuss those theories which were
propounded by men who, in the name of science, questioned the great truths
of the Bible. (Hear, hear.) AUasion had been made by Mr. M' Arthur to
the difficulty experienced by those who attempted to defend revelation at the
meetings of the Anthropological Society ; but it is only fair to say, that the
members of that Society may not be to blame on that account. The subject
is, in fact, beyond their range, although Anthropology is one of the most com-
prehensive of studies. Well, it would be a great thing that, in one Society
at all events, those questions could be discussed, and full opportunity allowed
83
to answer the arguments • advanced against Scriptural truth. He would
allude, for instance, to the nebulous theory advanced in the Essays and Reviews
against the Mosaic Cosmogony. It was stated by those who upheld that
theory, that this universe was originally one great mass of fire. Now, fire, as
was very well known, was the great destroyer of life : and, in the face of that
fact, it was argued that everything in this world was brought out of that mass
of fire, without the aid of a Creator, whose existence was altogether ignored
by some of those gentlemen ! He did not think a more stupid notion could
be entertained. It was much the same in other matters. They were told by
Dr. Colenso last May, in the Anthropological Society, that a universal deluge
was an impossibility, while another set of philosophers came forward with a
theory that universal floods were a necessity ! (Hear.) Here were most
extraordinary liberties taken with two of the four elements of the ancients.
Fire, the destroyer of all life, was made out to be the source from which life
originally started (laughter) ; and floods, which a learned bishop assured
them were an impossibility, were, according to other savants, a necessity.
(Hear, hear.) Again : there was a uniformitarian theory entertained which
was equally absurd, being contrary to such phenomena in nature as the recent
sudden eruption of Santorino, and the blazing forth and sudden diminution
of a star in Corona Borealis, which had occurred within the last few weeks.
But there was no Society to take up these general questions. The Victoria
Institute would now undertake the task, and he believed it had a very wide
field of usefulness before it. (Cheers.) To pass from science to art, he begged
to refer to the motto on the title-page of this year's Catalogue of the Koyal
Academy, in which it is argued that the very existence of beauty in art
raises the mind to something beyond the visible. Of course, every rational
being must know, that a fine picture or statue could only be produced by
intellect and intelligent skill Well, let us turn from art to nature, to these
flowers upon the table,— to say nothing of the magnificent display of floral
beauty to be seen at the South Kensington International Exhibition, — and
who could doubt that Divine Intelligence was the author of such transcendent
beauty 1 This is an inviting theme ; but time is short, and art must now be
left, to pass on to literature. In a word, then, he would observe that all our
philosophizing, whether in science or art, would be all but useless, but for
literature, by which knowledge was diffused. He observed that Dr. Gladstone,
F.R.S., had gone, whose name he would have wished to couple with
Science and the Learned Societies ; Mr. Walton, whose name he would
have associated with Art, had also departed ; and even Mr. John Lidgett,
who had the toast of the Press assigned to him, had been unable to remain
to propose it. He would therefore beg that the toast should be received as
including the press, which is a most powerful organ of literature in our day.
(Cheers.)
The Chairman then gave the toast of <% The Ladies," which, being duly
honoured, was responded to by Mr. F. Merriott.
The proceedings then terminated.
FIEST ORDINAET MEETING, JraB i, 1866.
85
A SKETCH OF THE EXISTING RELATIONS BE-
TWEEN SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE. By George
Waringtoijf, Esq., F.O.S., Author of tlie Actonian Prize
Essay ^ 1865; The Historic Cliaracter of the Pentateuch
Vindicated, By a Layman, &c.
THE purpose of the present paper is purely historical. To
analyze in detail the various points at issue, or supposed
to be at issue, between Scripture and Science ; to examine
fully, and weigh carefully, the evidence adduced on either side,
and so pass judgment fairly and impartially between them,
would require both more time than can possibly be allowed to
a single paper, and especially for more learning and far
deeper research than the writer has at his command. It has
been thought, however, that a brief historical outline of the
present state of the case, the relations, hostile or otherwise,
permanent or passing, which actually exist between Scripture
and Science, would form a useful and fitting introduction to
that fuller and more particular investigation of the several
Jioints in detail, which it is one of the objects of the Victoria
nstitute to promote. To furnish some such general outline
of actual facts, then, without in any way discussing their
character or pronouncing upon their worth, is the aim of the
present paper.
And to this end it will be convenient to divide the subject
into four groups : —
1st. The objections brought against Scripture on the
ground of incorrect and misleading descriptions of natural
objects and phenomena.
2nd. The objections brought against the Scripture record
of certain historical events, on the ground of further informa-
tion touching these same events, or inconsistent with them,
which Science has elucidated.
3rd. The objections brought against a particular class of
occurrences narrated in Scripture, Miracles, on the ground of
their incongruity with scientific principles.
4th. The objections brought against the dogmatic teaching
of Scripture on the ground of its inconsistency with the facts
of Nature.
The charges thus urged against Scripture in the name of
Science may be briefly summed up, then, as follows : — 1st. It
is scientifically inaccurate. 2nd. It is historically untrue.
86
3rd. It is philosophically incredible. 4th. It is theologically
erroneous. These it is proposed to review in order; noticing
under each head, first, the various forms under which the
charge is made, and second, the different lines of defence
which the advocates of Scripture are accustomed to adopt, in
order to repel the charge or mitigate its force. The kind and
amount of agreement, or disagreement, thought on various
hands to exist between Scripture and Science, will thus
become apparent, and some useful information, it is hoped,
be derived as to the extent and nature of the investigations
required to set the question at rest.
I. First, then, of the charge of scientific inaccuracy in the
Scriptural descriptions of natural objects and phenomena.
This is founded chiefly upon the language of Scripture in
matters of Astronomy, Meteorology? and Natural History.
Scripture, it is said, plainly speaks of this earth as the centre
of the universe, for whose benefit sun, moon, and stars were
created, whose concerns are of paramount or sole importance.
It describes the earth as firmly and immoveably fixed, estab-
lished on foundations, and built up with pillars, while about it
all the celestial bodies move in their courses. It speaks of
heaven as a solid crystal ceiling, having above it vast ac-
cumulations of water, to which exit is given now and then by
the opening of its windows. It encourages and confirms the
notion that the moon has a hurtful influence when shining
brightly by night. In one and all of which particulars Science
has demonstrated that Scripture is inaccurate, untrue, mis-
leading. Or, to take another set of examples, Scripture
represents the ant as storing up food in summer, and sets it
before us as an example of wisdom and providence on this
very account. It speaks of the ostrich as cruel, and carelessly
forsaking its eggs. It distinctly includes the hare and the
coney among animals which chew the cud. In every one of
which statements, again, careful observation and scientific re-
search have proved beyond a doubt that Scripture is incor-
rect. Surely, then, if this bo so, it must be conceded that the
charge in question is well-founded, and Scripture is scientifi-
cally inaccurate.
Now, to this charge, thus supported, three several replies
have been given. In the first place, inasmuch as every one
of these alleged scientific errors was at one time or other
actually held by expositors of Scripture, and strenuously sup-
ported by them on Scriptural grounds, it was but natural
that the first impulse should be to deny the facts, and so
retort the charge of inaccuracy upon Science. The views
attacked were admitted by this school to be fair representa-
87
tionsof Scriptural teaching. The point contested was tho
right or power of Science to say aught against them. This
mode of answer may be regarded as now, however, in several
of the instances named entirely obsolete, at least among those
who know anything of Science. The advocates of Scripture
have been obliged, in dealing with these, to take up other
ground.
In the second place, then, not a few of them have passed
unhesitatingly to the opposite extreme. These doctrines and
observations of Science are, no doubt, they say, most true ;
but then they are not really inconsistent with Scripture;
Scripture properly interpreted teaches precisely the same
thing. Make due allowances for poetical and metaphorical
expressions, and the employment of simple, every-day phrases
descriptive of natural appearances, which are used unhesi-
tatingly by the most scientific still, and the two are found to
be, in truth, perfectly at one. Then, enamoured with the
prospect thus opened, the upholders of this view have launched
forth boldly into general interpretation, and shown, or endea-
voured to show, how every allusion to Nature in Scripture is
not only harmonious with Science, but, in fact, anticipative of
it ; how the profoundest truths, which Science has, only just
revealed, lie there embedded in all their purity and force,
needing nothing but impartial and keen-sighted exposition to
bring them to light. According to this school, then, Scripture,
though not, perhaps, intended primarily to teach Science, is
yet scientifically accurate in essence everywhere ; the discord
between them is only apparent, not real.
But at this a third class gravely shake their heads in
ominous doubt. Granted, say they, that, when fairly viewed,
many of the objections of Science on this head are unfounded,
and that Scripture is not really committed to some of these
views which were formerly connected with it, and which -
Science has overthrown; yet surely there are other of the
objections, and especially those referring to Natural History,
which cannot be thus answered, at least without a strain upon
the plain words of Scripture for which we have no sufficient
warrant. Is it not safer, then, to concede that in these, at all
events, the allegation is well founded ; and rest on our defence
rather on this : that such trivial errors have nothing whatever
to do with the real worth of Scripture; that scientific accuracy
being in no way necessary to the end designed to tie attained
by Scripture, so on these matters its human writers were left
to speak in their ordinary language, and in accordance with
the prevalent ideas of their time ?
Such are the three lines of reply adopted by advocates of
o
88
Scripture in answer to the charge of scientific inaccuracy ; the
first, as will be seen, admitting the foundation of the charge
to the full, but retorting the inference upon the assailant; the
second denying the foundation, by modifying the interpreta-
tion of Scripture so as to make it harmonize with Science ; the
third admitting in part both foundation and inference, but
regarding the latter as trivial and unimportant.
II. We pass now to the second and far more important
group, of objections levelled against certain historical events
recorded in Scripture, on the ground of further information
touching these events, or inconsistent with them, which
Science is said to have elucidated. This charge is founded,
with very slight exception, upon the contradiction asserted to
exist between the statements of the first eleven chapters of the
book of Genesis and the conclusions of scientific research,
more especially in the departments of Geology, Anthropology,
Ethnology, and Natural History. It will be convenient,
therefore, to review the objections under this head in the
order which their connection with these chapters of Genesis
naturally suggests.
The Cosmogony, or history of creation contained in Gen. i-
ii. 4, furnishes the scientific objector, then, with the following
charges : — 1st, and chiefly, a stupendous discrepance in regard
to time ; Genesis teaching that the whole work of creation,
in respect both to heaven and earth, was performed in the
short space of six days ; Geology proving incontestibly that it
must have occupied a succession of ages altogether surpassing
human powers to measure or conceive. 2nd. It is urged, that
not only is there this fundamental and insuperable discord
between them in regard to time, but there are also certain
notable errors in Genesis as to the order of creation; in
particular, the late position assigned to the creation of the
sun, moon, and stars, as subsequent to that of the earth, of
light, of the dry land, and of vegetation ; also the precedence
of plants before fishes and reptiles ; both which, it is asserted,
are contrary to the plain teaching of Science. Then, 3rd, it is
objected, that Genesis is wrong in regard to manner, since it
speaks of the creation of living things as taking place in
single defined groups, consisting (we must suppose) of all the
species ever existing belonging to that group; whereas
Geology shows us that living things have made their appear-
ance on the earth very gradually, one kind dying out and
being superseded by others, and this many times over through
enormous periods utterly unlike one another, those living
beings which now inhabit the earth being no more than the
last group of a long, nay, almost infinite, series. Lastly, some
89
scientific objectors further add that Genesis is erroneous also
in principle, inasmuch as it clearly describes the creation of
distinct species, and especially asserts most strongly the
radical dissimilarity of man from other animals ; while Science
is ever more and more tending to the conclusion that species
are the result, not of creation, but of natural development,
variation, and selection ; that man is no exception to tins, but
is, after all, no more than a developed, educated, or selected
ape.
To these objections against the Scripture cosmogony, the
most diverse replies have been given, according to the taste,
prejudice, or predilection of the replicant. They may be
classified, however, roughly into the same three groups as
those noticed under the first head.
First, we have those who deny the contradictory assertions
of Science as untrue. The time, order, manner, and principle
of creation, according to these, were, in fact, exactly as Genesis
represents ; the objections of Science* are false and unfounded.
The fossil remains on which geologists lay stress are either
pure illusions, or the results of the Deluge ; the formation of
rocks was carried on in a manner and at a speed wholly unlike
anything observable at the present day, if, indeed, they were
not at once created just as they are, without any process of
formation at all ; the inferenc.es deduced from the position and
order of strata are hazardous and presumptuous ; the supposed
natural origin of species little, if at all, short of atheistic blas-
phemy. As in the former case, it is to be noted that this line
of answer, at first the most prevalent and popular, is now in
regard to the most important objections in question, those,
viz., of time and manner, pretty well given up ; the intrinsic
weakness and uncertainty of the other two (those of order
and principle) allowing it there, however, fall action still. But
with respect to the time and manner of creation, the advocated
of Scripture now generally adopt the second line of answer
before indicated, — that, namely, of denying the contradiction
by modifying the interpretation of Scripture.
This group of replicants is a very large one, and may con-
veniently be again subdivided into three. The first of these
subdivisions consists of those who hold that the narrative of
Gen. i. is a full, proper, and scientifically accurate account of
the creation of the earth, the days spoken of being, not literal
days of twenty-four hours each, but vast periods of indefinite
duration, corresponding, and meant to correspond, to the
periods disclosed by Geology. Some maintain this view by a
larger and more comprehensive, but still simple scheme of in-
terpretation, by which the narrative becomes a kind of pictorial
g2
1
90
or symbolical representation of the reality, couched in the lan-
guage of appearances, and so in some respects partial and
inadequate, but still, so far as it goes, in perfect accordance
with Science. Others, unsatisfied with this, seek by new ren-
derings of the Hebrew text to make the- narrative do still
more, and not only agree with Science, but anticipate Science,
speak in scientific terms, and reveal their own peculiar cos-
moronic theories without flaw or difference. Others, pro-
ceeding on the same track, but still more daring, reject
altogether the received manner of even reading' Hebrew,
regard the sacred language as a sealed casket of which the key
has long been lost, discover the key in their own knowledge
of the analogies of language, and of course unlock a hidden
treasure of cosmogonic lore which had hitherto lain concealed
within. The second subdivision of this group consists of
those who hold that the days of Genesis are literal days, and
assign the ages of Geology to a period between the original
creation of the heavens and the earth spoken of in the first
verse, and the state of darkness and desolation described in
the second. Even these, however, are not by any means
agreed among themselves, some regarding the chaos, and
subsequent development of order and life, as referring to
one particular part only of the earth's surface, a part, as it
happens, of which geologists at present know very little;
others regarding them as coextensive with the entire globe.
Then, as the third subdivision, there are yet others who adopt
a sort of middle course, agreeing with the first in regarding
the six-days' work as descriptive of the whole history of
creation, yet refusing with the second to view these days as
intended to be looked upon as representatives of six gigantic
periods. According to these, the cosmogony of Genesis is a
poetical sketch of the order and method of creation, cast into
the parabolic form of a week's work for the religious instruction
of the unscientific people for whom it was primarily intended ;
accordant, therefore, with Science in its essential principles and
broader outlines, but involving of necessity more or less dis-
crepance in detail and outward form, and in particular being
altogether inadequate to convey a scientific view in regard to
time, which was regarded as of little importance for the par-
ticular purposes in view.
The third main group of replicants — those who concede the
contradiction alleged to exist between Scripture and Science
but deny its importance — adopt a line not altogether unlike
that last described, differing, however, in this : that they ignore
or deny the fundamental scientific accuracy which the former
lay special stress upon, and ascribe the peculiarities of the nar-
91
rative ratHer to the influence of tradition, or the fancy of the
writer, than to any real knowledge of the true state of the
case. According to these, also, religious instruction was the
great object of the cosmogony ; and this remaining true, even
when the form in which it was conveyed has been proved to
be false, the surrender of the latter is a matter of little con-
sequence.
The next section of Genesis to be considered is that con-
taining the history of the Fall. This is said to involve the
following contradictions : — 1st, in respect to the entrance of
suffering and death ; Genesis regarding these as the result of
the fall of man ; Geology teaching plainly that they had existed
ages before, and had, in fact, been the rule of creation throughout
all time. 2nd, in respect to the curse on the serpent ; Genesis
describing its crawling habit as the punishment awarded for
its crime in tempting Eve ; Anatomy and Physiology proving
that, on the contrary, it is the inevitable result of its organiza-
tion ; and Geology showing that serpents always had crawled
about as at present, hundreds of thousands of years before
Adam could have lived upon the earth. 3rd, in respect to
the curse on the ground; Genesis regarding the productions
of thorns, thistles, &c, as the penalty of Adam's transgression ;
Science teaching that they are but the normal growth of the
ground existing in full vigour for ages previous. . •
To these objections we have, as before, three several groups
of answerers : —
First, those who deny the allegations of Science, who believe
that physical suffering and death did come into the world
through the Fall, and had not existed there previously ; that
serpents did then for the first time begin to crawl upon the
ground ; that thorns and thistles did then for the first time
spring up.
Then, second, there are those who admit the allegations,
but deny the contradiction. Some seek to explain the diffi-
culties by limiting the suffering and death spoken of to man ;
by regarding the curse upon the serpent as metaphorical,
purporting disgrace and defeat to the spiritual tempter, not
physical degradation to the agent ; and viewing the production
of thorns, ccc, either as a greater and more abundant produc-
tion than heretofore,- or as a new thing merely by contrast
with the previous experience of Adam in the garden of Eden.
Some prefer to get over the second objection by a new ren-
dering of the Hebrew, regarding the tempter as an ourang-
outang, or some other species of ape, rather than a serpent ;
while others, again, interpret the whole narrative as an allegory,
written to explain in pictorial and sjrmbolic&l form the origin
92
and consequences of human sin, whose expressions must not,
therefore, be taken literally.
Thirdly, there are those who admit the contradictions
alleged, at least in part, but deny their importance. These
also adopt a kind of allegorical interpretation; not, how-
ever, like the last mentioned, as the method intended by the
writer to be employed, but merely as our method of extracting
the kernel of truth from that which the writer, guided either
by tradition or his own fancy, regarded as true throughout.
The history of the Deluge recorded in Gen. vi.-viii. fur-
nishes the next ground of objection ; the Scripture narrative,
it is urged, plainly describing a strictly universal flood, which
Science as distinctly disproves; 1st, by the phenomena ob-
servable in regard to certain volcanic hills in the south of
France ; 2nd, by the impossibility of the collection and redis-
tribution of all existing species of animals from all parts of the
earth ; 3rd, by the utter insufficiency of the ark described to
accommodate all these, and various difficulties connected with
their preservation. Other minor objections of similar cha-
racter are also urged, which need not be detailed at length.
The answers to these alleged contradictions fall into the
same three groups as before :—
First of all, we have those which maintain the view of a
universal -deluge, by denying the force of the objections;
which speak of the evidence derived from the volcanic hills of
France as delusive and unsound, and get over the other diffi-
culties by a plentiful assumption of miracles, either in the
way of a supernatural gathering and preservation of the ani-
mals in question, or of a new creation of large numbers of
fresh species in various places after the Deluge. Many new
and original scientific theories as to the causes and manner of
operation of the flood, harmonizing with its universality, also
find ready currency among the controversialists of this school.
Then, Second, we have those answers which concede the
justice of the scientific objections, but elude their force by
modifying the interpretation of Scripture. These maintain
the view that the deluge was only partial, being caused by the
depression of the land in one particular portion of the earth's
surface ; a part, again, as it happens, of which geologists as
yet know very little. The majority of these answers still
uphold the universality as regards man ; a few concede its
partiality in this respect also.
While, Thirdly, there are yet other answers which admit
the objections altogether, but deny their importance. Accord-
ing to these, the actual deluge was no doubt partial, as respects
both animals and man, but was regarded by the writer of the
93
narrative as universal ; whosd account is hence fairly open
to the scientific objections raised against it, which -cannot,
however, touch the fundamental spiritual truths which lie
within it.
The next class of objections are those concerning Scriptural
Ethnology, suggested by the account of the descendants of
Noah in Gen. x., and that of the confusion of tongues in the
former part of Gen. xi. Here it is urged, — 1st, that Scripture
is wrong in certain details, as especially the assignment of the
Canaanites and Chaldeans to a Hamite origin, whom Philo-
logy teaches were Semites ; and other similar instances. 2nd,
that Scripture is wrong also in its fundamental view, repre-
senting the existing diversity of languages as brought about
by supernatural interference, instead of as the inevitable result
of natural causes. To which, 3rd, some also add a still graver
charge, involved, indeed, in previous seotions, but most con-
veniently considered here, that Scripture errs in speaking
of all tribes and nations as descended from a common
parentage.
The first and third of these objections are at present too
much disputed among scientific men themselves for theological
opponents to trouble themselves much concerning them, and
they are hence generally met in the spirit of the first general
group of answers : — your Science is incorrect. In respect to
the second objection, however, there are some who prefer to
concede the apparently natural origin of languages by altering
their interpretation of the Biblical history of Babel. While
there are yet others who on all three points are prepared, if
necessary, to admit the objections as valid, but deny their
importance.
Lastly, the genealogical lists of Gen. v. and xi., defining
the interval of time between Adam and Abraham, afford the
objector one more weighty charge yet. The Hebrew Scrip-
tures, it is said, by these lists require us to place the creation of
man as somewhat less than 6,000 years ago, whereas the
evidence derived from the geological position of his imple-
ments and bones, and his demonstrated contemporaneousness
with animals long extinct, confirmed by the length of time
which ethnologists and philologists assert to be necessary for
the development of races and languages, goes to prove
that he must have existed on the earth for a vastly longer
period.
The majority of theological advocates adopt here the first
mode of answer, and deny the validity of the scientific
argument j some by representing the implements in question
as purely natural productions, the human bones as merely
94
accidentally mingled with those of extinct animals; others
preferring to regard both implements and bones as belonging
to a race of extinct apes, not men; others regarding both
indeed as human, but intentionally buried in the places where
they are found, in much later times ; others admitting the con-
temporaneousness of the implements and bones with the
formations and other remains in connection with which they
are found, but contesting the antiquity assigned to these by
geologists. The confirmatory arguments from Ethnology and
Philology are commonly met by this class of replicants by re-
ference to miraculous agency, or occasionally by the elaboration
of counter-evidence.
Under the second head three modes of answer have been
adopted. First, it is urged that the Scriptural chronology
refers only to the descendants from Adam, while at the ^ame
time hints are dropped, and indications given, of another class
of men, inferior in character, and stretching back into much
earlier times, to whom, no doubt, these implements and bones
are to be ascribed. Secondly, stress is laid upon the diverg-
ences in these genealogies between the Hebrew text and the
Samaritan, the Septuagint version, and the statements of Jose-
phus ; some adopting the longer chronology deducible^from the
last two, some regarding the whole question as in consequence
hopelessly uncertain. Thirdly, it is pointed out that each of
these genealogies contains exactly ten generations, — a number
which may perhaps have been regarded as having a mystical
significance, to obtain which some of the actual links in the
chain were omitted, and so the chronology shortened un-
naturally.
Lastly, there are yet other defenders of Scripture who give
up the genealogies altogether, regarding them as mere tradi-
tions, having no bearing upon spiritual truth, or, at all events,
none which is in any way affected by supposing them to be
corrupt and defective in their chronological aspect.
III. We pass on now to the third group of objections ; those,
namely, which are brought against Scripture miracles, on the
ground of their inconsistency with scientific principles. Parti-
cular facts bearing on the miraculous events recorded in Scrip-
ture the objector does not here in general produce, or need to
Eroduce ; his charge refers to the whole class as a class, and is
ased upon the widest of all the inductive conclusions which
Science has elucidated — the absolute and unalterable uniformity
of the laws of Nature. Here, therefore, we have no longer to
deal with detailed interpretations, as in the two former groups,
but with general views and principles. The objection in
question presents itself in two forms, so different in character
95
and complexion that it will bo advisable to consider them, with
their respective answers, quite apart.
The first form of the objection, then, avowedly ignores
all considerations of Theology whatever, and deals with the
matter on purely naturalistic and physical grounds. Scientific
investigation, it is said, plainly shows that every department of
Nature is under the control of laws the most exact and inex-
orable, and, so far as our knowledge can reach, has ever been
and must ever be so. The whole course of Nature is a chain
of antecedents and consequents bound together by a necessary
and absolutely certain connection, entirely beyond the reach of
interruption or alteration ; every event that happens in Nature
is the inevitable result of the laws and properties of matter and
force, which can neither be violated, modified, or suspended ;
and beyond these laws and properties Nature knows no other
rule; they are alone and supreme. To assert, therefore, that an
event, or series of events, occurred which are contrary to this
uniformity, which are not the result of these laws and pro-
perties, but opposed to them and incompatible with them, is
to assert the occurrence of an impossibility, and is simply
absurd.
The answer to this- form of the objection is commonly a
redtictio ad absurdum. Plainly and on the surface it denies the
existence of God ; that is, of a personal Being ruling Nature,
possessed of a proper spiritual existence, unlimited supremacy,
and wiIaL. It involves, therefore, either atheism or, which is
the same thing in other words, materialistic pantheism. Aiid
its consequent absurdity may thus be easily demonstrated. But
further; it is said, push the argument home, and it involves
also the denial of all spiritual existence whatever. It is certain
that man has the power of modifying at his will the course of
external Nature, causing things to happen which would not
have happened but for his influence and interference. If, then,
the principle be sound that every event in Nature is the result
solely and absolutely of physical laws and pauses, it follows
manifestly that this will of man is itself also but a physical
cause ; that its apparent freedom is purely delusive, it being in
reality as rigidly and passively the subject of law as any other
cause ; that, in fact, he has no more real intelligence or inde-
pendence than a calculating machine or an automaton. From
this barren and repulsive materialistic fatalism most objectors
may be expected to shrink instinctively ; and, of course, the
admission once made, that there are spiritual existences inde-
pendent of physical law, yet capable of influencing Nature, and
the argument for the impossibility of miracles from their in-
volving such non-physical agency falls to the ground.
96
The commoner form of objection, however, evades this
answer by adopting a different ground of attack. Granted, it
is said, that there is a true personal God, having full and
supreme power over Nature, and therefore able to suspend,
modify, or act independently of, its laws j yet is it credible
that He should do so ? Are not these laws the proper expres-
sions of His Will, ordained and created by Himself with a full
knowledge beforehand of the results that must arise from their
action ; so created as exactly to accomplish the ends which He
had in mind and no others, so created also as to be sufficient
to accomplish these ends without further extraneous aid or
interference? Is not the uniformity of Nature, in fact, the
inevitable consequence of the unchangeableness of God, to
suppose an alteration in which is hence to suppose a change
of mind in God, which is incredible ? Man, indeed, may be
constantly interfering with Nature j but is not this because
Nature is independent of him, and so does not always fit in
of itself with his designs, because also his knowledge of it
is limited, and his will concerning it variable ? Does not, then,
the ascription of such interference to God also really imply
that he is subject to the like imperfections, that Nature is in-
dependent of Him, that His knowledge is limited, and His
will variable ? While, yet further, have we not in the observed
fact of the undeviatitig uniformity of Nature, and the absolute
supremacy of physical laws, even in cases where we should
have thought a slight alteration would have been productive of
immense good, a proof that human reason is altogether incom-
petent to comprehend the purpose of this iron rule of law,
but must be content to receive it simply as a fact, which, how-
ever apparently fraught with evils here and there, is certainly
in accordance with God's Will, and not, therefore, lightly to
be set aside on any grounds of fancied expediency ?
To this objection, thus set forth, there are,f as before, three
distinct lines of reply : —
First, there are those who deny the scientific premiss of
the objection, that Nature is thus inexorably uniform and sub-
ject to law. According to some, this premiss is unsound, be-
cause, after all, the idea of uniformity is merely the impression
which a more or less extended experience of past uniformity
has made upon the imagination, whereby we instinctively con-
clude that it will continue for the future, and, in fact, always ;
which kind of instinctive conclusion has been proved, however,
over and over again, to be in particular cases fallacious and
misleading, and therefore may be so in the present case also.
This answer, pushed to its extremest limit, puts the improba-
bility of a miracle on exactly the same footing as the impro-
97
bability of any other non-habitual event, — the mere number of
chances a priori against its occurrence. — an improbability
which entirely vanishes on the production of any ordinarily
credible testimony. Stated more cautiously, the miracle is
ranked with events new and strange, wonders inexplicable and
improbable, alike after their occurrence as before, and there-
fore requiring more than ordinary evidence on its behalf, but
still involving, nothing intrinsically incredible. Others, again,
attack the scientific premiss on the ground that the laws and
causes referred to are purely hypothetical, mere possible ex-
planations which Science has devised, which may, however,
just as likely be erroneous, and on which it is illogical, there-
fore, to build any argument of moment. How do we know that
there may not be other and truer explanations, equally accordant
with natural phenomena, and not inconsistent with miracles ?
Then, Secondly, there are those who admit the scientific
premiss, but deny the inference ; who admit that Nature is
uniform and subject to law, but deny that miracles are there-
fore incredible ; for, say they, miracles have to do with some-
thing which is beyond and above physical nature, — the soul of
man. Man, it is argued, has put himself out of harmony with
Nature ; his free-will, acting in opposition to the will of God,
has produced discord and rebellion where was meant to be
concord and subjection ; and the course of Nature being thus
disturbed in its relation to man, it is plainly by no means im-
probable, but rather probable, that in God's dealings with
man He should find it necessary to modify that course in
other respects also. In particular, it is urged, man has by
this evil action of his free-will put himself out of communion
with God, to a great extent silenced the revelation of God
existing in his own conscience, and blinded his eyes to that
discoverable in Nature. For his recovery and reformation
there is needed, therefore, other and clearer revelation than
these two, to which his attention shall be attracted, and his
submission secured, by evidence of God's action and presence
other than that existent in Nature or himself; in a word, by
miracles. However incredible, then, a miracle may be, viewed
merely in itself, as a part of the course of Nature; it is per-
fectly credible, nay, probable, when viewed in connection with
its purpose,- as having respect to one who is out of harmony
with Nature, and whom the uniformity of Nature has ceased to
affect as an evidence of God's existence. So far the advocates
who adopt this line of answer are pretty well agreed, differing
only in form or mode of statement; but here two notable
differences between them come into view. In the first place,
there is a difference as to the character of miracles. Some, who
98
look chiefly at the impression produced by miracles on man, and
regard the order of Nature as created by God indeed, but now
practically independent of Him, speaking of miracles as higher
manifestations of His presence, because proofs of His supremacy
over Nature. Others, on the contrary, who look rather at the
Divine attribute of unchangeableness, and regard the order
of Nature as the true and proper expression of His living
presence, speaking of them as lower nianifestations, condes-
censions, in which God has stooped to act for awhile after the
imperfect manner of man, as elsewhere to adopt man's
language and man's form, that man might learn to recognize
Him the easier and better. Then, in the second place, there is
a difference as to the agency involved in miracles. Some re-
garding ttem as wrought by God directly, without the inter-
vention of natural forces or laws. Others regarding them as
wrought through the instrumentality of these, merely specially
controlled and adjusted for the particular end in view.
But, Thirdly, there are yet others who admit both the
premiss and inference of the objection, but deny their im-
portance. According to these, it is quite true that no miracles
properly so called ever happened or could happen ; but still
events happened which were thought to be miraculous, im-
pressions were created on the mind which were believed to b*e
produced by miracles, and by these certain spiritual ends were
attained. What matter, then, if we reject the means, so long
as we preserve the end ? What matter if that which men of
old regarded as a miraculous act of God, we regard as purely
natural, so long as we both recognize God's hand there?
What matter if we reject the miraculous evidence of doctrines,
on account of which men of old believed in them, so long as
we hold the doctrines themselves ? Why trouble about the
particular channel through which truth comes, so long as
both are drinking of the same fountain-heai ?
IV. We now pass to consider the fourth and last group
of objections; those, namely, which are brought against
the dogmatic teaching of Scripture on the ground of its
inconsistency with the facts of Nature. Some of these, as, for
example, the pre-eminence which Scripture assigns to man in
the history of the world, and the assertion that all things were
•created and are still actively superintended by a personal God,
who has the power of dispensing with, and controuling, natural
laws, have been already touched upon. Of the rest, two only
need here receive especial mention, as the most notorious and
oftenest urged. In the first place, then, it is objected that
Scripture represents the whole of creation as "very good," the
product of unmixed beneficence ; whereas, in fact, Nature is full
99
of things which are not good in any proper sense of the word,
as, for instance, the preying of one set of creatures upon
another; the ferocity and malignant cruelty of certain animals ;
the occurrence of earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, &c. ; the
existence of deserts, inhospitable climes, and such-like. In
the second place, it is objected that, on the contrary, the whole
of Nature, man included, are so perfectly in accordance with
law and goodness properly conceived, that the Scriptural
notions of the fall of man, and the present subjection of
creation to vanity (i.e., apparent imperfection and purposeless-
ness), are incredible and untrue.
Of course these two objections are mutually contradictory,
and might safely be left to settle the matter under dispute
between themselves, without theological interference. The
importance of the questions raised has caused, however, the
adoption of a more active course, with again the usual diversity
of opinion and method. Thus, some deny the first objection
in toto, and maintain that Nature is still in all respects " very
good," the only exception being fallen man. Others admit this
objection, but deny that it applies to Scripture, arguing that
the expressions in question refer to the world before the Fall, and
regarding all evils existing in Nature now as the results of the
Fall. Others, taking a middle course, allow a certain element of
truth in both objections, but deny their extremes. According
to these, the world is indeed, in one aspect, full of imperfec-
tion, albeit in another full of tokens of perfection; and this
just because it is in a transition state, is slowly growing
into completeness and beauty, and, like all God's works
of this kind, does so through much apparent, and for the
time being real, imperfection and evil. It is only when looked
back upon in its entirety from the stand-point of its accom-
plished end, say these, that it can be expected to appear
reasonable and good in every item. Meanwhile, sufficient
evidence of present goodness is given to furnish a firm
foundation, both for confidence as to the present, and hope as
to the future.
In drawing this sketch of the existing relations between
Scripture and Science to a close, two notes of explanation must
be added to prevent misunderstanding concerning it. 1st. It
is by no means to be regarded as complete, either as concerns
the objections or the answers ; several of the less notorious
and important of the former having been omitted for the sake
of brevity, while in respect to the latter an immense number
of minute diversities and shades of difference have been passed
over without notice, to avoid having to enter too much into
details. 2nd. In gathering up the answers under the first three
100
heads into corresponding and symmetrical groups, it is in no
way intended to imply that the answerers themselves may be
arranged in the same way, it frequently happening that, even
in the case of a single objection, part of the answer actually
rendered belongs to one group and part to another. The
grouping has respect solely to the matter and spirit of the
answers, not at all to the method of the answerers. It is partly
on this account, and partly for other reasons sufficiently
apparent, that in no case have the names of the parties holding
them been attached to either objections or answers.
But now, these being the facts of the case, what are we to
learn from them ? The first impression which a review like
that just completed makes upon the mind is probably in most
cases a pleasing one/ It is pleasant to know that so many and
seemingly insuperable objections have called forth so varied
and powerful a list of answers ; and the conclusion may, and
no doubt will, be drawn by many that, with such a host of
defenders, the assault of Science upon Scripture cannot but be
triumphantly repelled. A deeper view, however, raises
feelings of a very different kind. True, the defenders of Scrip-
ture are numerous and zealous, but they are a motley and
discordant set, at war among themselves as fiercely as with
the enemy, — to a great extent mutually destructive ; a large
proportion of them, therefore, certainly in the wrong in the
defence they make, and so a source of weakness rather than
strength. It behoves the advocates of Scripture to consider
this well. We hear much now-a-days of the contradictory
hypotheses of Science, of the constant flux of opinions in the
scientific world, of the evil of hasty assumptions and biased
interpretations of phenomena, and the consequent futility of
objections founded upon such a basis ; and no doubt there is
much truth and justice in all this. But it were well for all
such critioizers of Science , first of all to look at home. Are
there no contradictory hypotheses among the defenders of
Scripture ? Is there no flux of opinion in orthodox views ? Are
there no hasty assumptions, no biased interpretations, which
theological advocates are guilty of? Ay, truly, and that to a
far greater degree, and of a kind far more inexcusable. Does
the gradual unfolding of new facts cause scientific theories to
be perpetually changing, and allow for the time being of the
existence of many conflicting hypotheses ? Well, be it remem-
bered that every one of these theories and hypotheses has its
advocates and representatives also among the defenders of
Scripture ; while over and above theBe there are a large number
of fresh theories held by such, founded on fancies and not facts.
It may be said, however, that to expect scientific unity among
v1- *-.
101
theologians is unreasonable ; it is not their proper subject, nor
can they give to it the amount of study which it needs. If
this be so, surely it were better if they left it alone ; but,
passing this by, at least then we may ask, and reasonably,
for theological unity.
Alas for the cause, here is, if possible, even greater dis-
cordance than in matters of Science. Take the case of Biblical
exegesis. Here is a book, written in plain and simple style,
which has been in the hands of theologians complete for nigh
1800 years, and on which they have bestowed the most unre-
mitting study j where no new facts can ever be rising up to
disconcert past conclusions; where, therefore, if anywhere,
unanimity would seem to be inevitable, and diversity of
opinion be most inexplicable and criminal, and yet in so
simple a matter as whether, in this book, the word "day"
always means a period of twenty-four hours, or whether
certain phrases in a straightforward narrative necessarily
denote universality or not, — in such simple matters as these
the world of theologians is at open war with itself. Verily, if
they dwell in such extremely friable residences themselves,
they should beware how they throw stones at their neighbours.
But even this is not the worst. One would have thought that,
however much interpretations might differ, at least when it
came to questions of principle and fundamental doctrine,
theologians would be at one. But no ; much as they have read
and studied their Bible, much as they have written about it,
they have not been able even to settle the prime question in
the entire controversy : — what is the real issue at stake ?
Some tell us that, if the objections of Science are carried
home, the Divine authority of Scripture is at an end, some
that it is merely rendered a little more doubtful, some that it is
not touched in the least. Certainly there is no discord among
men of Science that can be compared to this.
What, then, is to be done ? It is said, that, to get rid of the
changeableness and unsoundness of Science, we must cast
theories and prejudices on one side, and give ourselves to a
closer and more impartial investigation of facts. Very good ;
and precisely so must we do, only to a far greater extent, to
get rid of the changeableness and unsoundness of our theo-
logical defence. It is not enough for the advocate of Scripture
to scrutinize severely the facts and conclusions of Science ; he
has need to do so indeed, but much more has he need to
scrutinize the* assertions and arguments of current theology
and exegesis. It will not do for him in these matters, even
so much as in those, to trust to his own notions, or the notions
of this writer or that writer; he must set himself earnestly to
102
search for facts, resolutely resolve to base his interpretation pf
Scripture on facts, and nothing else, — facts weighed with
rigour, and reasoned on with strict impartiality. So in like
manner with his view of the authority and character of
Scripture, to base this, not on his ideas of what it ought to be,
but. on what facts warrant him in believing that it is. Of
course such investigation requires the expenditure of much
laborious study, the possession of a calm and carefully-sus-
pended judgment, the submission to much misunderstanding,
obloquy, and reproach ; but there is no royal road to truth,
and the lovers of truth must not begrudge the toil and pain
involved in its acquirement. To such investigation, then,
such discarding of theories, such laying aside of prejudices,
such keen and unbiased search for truth, whatever it may be,
and wherever found, let the members of the Victoria Institute *
devote themselves, heart and soul, and assuredly some steps
will be taken to the final peaceful settlement of this unhappy
controversy.
The Chairman. — The pleasing duty of proposing a vote of thanks to Mr.
Warington, for his very able and comprehensive paper, devolves upon me. I
think it a most suitable inauguration of the regular proceedings of the
Society, as it reviews the whole question of the existing relations between
Scripture and Science. Some may consider the mode of treatment is
somewhat indefinite, as the author has set forth no views of his own, but has
contented himself with a rdsurrU of both sides of the controversy. He has
set forth very clearly the objections urged against Scripture, and the answers
to' them hitherto published, without himself drawing any conclusions.
Such a mode of treating the subject most convincingly illustrates the value
of such a Society as the Victoria Institute. If the supposed discrepancies
between Science arid Scripture are to be removed, we must not look so
much to individual answerers, as to the agency of a society which seeks to
unite men distinguished for an acquaintance with the various branches of
science and those skilled in theology. Such men meeting together from time
to time, freely to discuss the controverted questions,- will be most likely to
indicate the proper answers to be made to the objectors. To the mere scholar
unacquainted with science, as well as the great mass of people who have
neither the time nor the ability to investigate these important questions for
themselves, the work undertaken by the Victoria Institute will be of the
greatest importance ; and I have no doubt it will be well performed. It has
been suggested that the paper just read to a certain extent invites discussion ;
I shall therefore be glad to hear any observations which any gentleman may
be disposed to make upon it.
Mr. Eobert Baxter. — I think the paper just read is evidently one upon
which Mr. Warington has bestowed great pains, and shown in its production
very great ability. (Hear, hear.) He has dealt with his subject in a very
103
comprehensive manner ; and his classification of the objections raised against
the truth of the Scriptures and the answers which they had received, was
calculated to bring the whole matter clearly before the mind. But at the
same time I think the discussion opened by Mr. Warington is not by any
means satisfactory, unless it is further pursued. In the shape in which it
comes before us on this occasion, it seems to be merely the beginning of a
discussion upon the questions under consideration, and is a paper which
ought not to appear in its present shape in the publications of this Society
and not until the arguments have been sufficiently pursued. I am sure we
are all deeply indebted to Mr. Warington (hear, hear) ; but at the same time I
think the value of the paper would be greatly enhanced if the author would
pursue the subject further, so as to enable those who read it to know to what
conclusions his inquiries tended. (Hear, hear.) I would respectfully suggest
that the paper should for the present be withheld ; and would say in conclusion
that it affords me very great pleasure to second the vote of thanks which
has been proposed by the Chairman. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Reddie. — I agree in many respects with Mr. Baxter's remarks ; but
I must observe that Mr. Warington could scarcely have argued out the
numerous questions he had necessarily touched upon, in giving a sketch of
the various alleged contradictions between Scripture and Science. Thoroughly
to discuss these questions would in fact be our work probably for years to
come ; and it would require a whole series of papers, to enable us to settle
even a tithe of the points to which Mr. Warington had referred. In my
opinion, however, it might be advantageous if he would add, by way of notes,
some indication of who are the authors of the various opinions, whether
scientific or theoretical, which he had quoted, that we might know more
definitely what they had advanced, and the grounds upon which they held
their views. It had been a matter of much anxiety to those who originated
this Society, to have it clearly defined what we were going to do, and what we
were not going to do ; and it may be considered as settled, that we ought not
to enter upon what are strictly questions of scriptural exegesis. Such were .
rather matters for theologians, and not subjects for discussion at these
meetings. There is one remark near the conclusion of Mr. Warington's
paper which I must notice. He observes that such a review as he had given
us was calculated to produce a pleasing impression on the mind ! Now I
venture to think it must rather have an opposite effect. Mr. Warington had,
no doubt, carved out our work for us, and had shown that the task we had
undertaken was no light one. But it appears to me that it is very unsatis-
factory, either that there should be so many contradictions in " Science," or
so many contradictory " interpretations " of Scripture.* I would wish, however,
to call the attention of the author of the paper to the fact, that differences in
the interpretation of Scripture existed long before any attacks were made upon
it in the name of Science ; and I cannot agree with Mr. Warington in thinking
either that the Bible is so very easy a book to understand, or that a different
understanding of obscure passages is so very inexcusable or blameworthy.
We must remember that, besides not having the origines of Scripture at all,
H
104
there may be errors in translation or transcription, and modes of expression
unusual to us as moderns reading the oldest book in the world What we
wish to do, by means of the Victoria Institute, is to reduce to some extent
the causes of such differences. We wish to get rid of, or at least to lessen,
those arising from what we believe to be unwarranted attacks made upon the
Bible on scientific grounds ; but it is no part of our programme to go into
minute questions of Scriptural exegesis, as to the precise meaning of passages
about which theologians themselves did not agree. At present I can attempt
no more than to allude to a few of the alleged scientific objections to
Scripture. Now, although a good dealhad been heard from Dr. Colenso and
the authors of the Essays and Reviews, besides others, of such objections,
I am not aware that any one among these authors had committed himself to
the extraordinary statement Mr. Warington gives, that the earth, according
to the Scriptures, is " built up with pillars." I should therefore like to know
who has ever really said so. I am aware there is a verse in the 75th Psalm
to this effect : " The earth is weak and all the inhabiters thereof ; I bear up
the pillars of it ; " but I never heard that any Jew or Christian had deduced
from this, either that Scripture taught that the earth was literally supported
upon pillars, or that the Psalmist held them up ! The text, in fact (as a
mere glance at the context would show), relates entirely to the moral
government of the world. We all know, of course, of the heathen fable of
the earth being borne by Atlas on his back, but Scripture is totally innocent
of all such nonsense ; while in it we find the expression, that " God hangs
the earth upon nothing." Mr. C. W. Goodwin, indeed, in his notorious
Essay on the Mosaic Cosmogony, had referred to a verse of Scripture in
which he fancied the world was alluded to as fixed, because of the words
" the world cannot or shall not be moved." That is found both in the 93rd
and 96th Psalms ; but it must be remembered that in the 99th Psalm, the
words " let the earth be moved " also occur, which passage in the Prayer-book
version is translated " be the earth never so unquiet ; " and the Hebrew word
translated "world" in all these places is tevel (not arets), and "obviously refers
to the world of people, and not to the earth or the physical world at alL* If
rightly interpreted, according to the context and their obvious sense even in
English, it would be readily seen that they were allusions to the fixedness or
disturbance of the moral laws of the world; and had nothing to do with any
physical theories of the earth or cosmos. But there is really no question of
interpretation, properly speaking, involved in such simple passages, otherwise
* By reference merely to the English Bible it will be seen, from the heading,
that when it was translated, long before these scientific difficulties were
invented, the 93rd Psalm was considered as relating to " The majesty, power,
and holiness of Christ's kingdom ," and not to the physical world. In the 96th
Psalm, also, the context is so plain, that no schoolboy ought to mistake its
meaning : —
" O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness : fear before Him all tho
earth.
" Say among the heathen, that the Lord reigneth ; the world also shall be
established that it shall not be moved : He shall judge the people righteously."
105
they would not come properly within our consideration. When we have
criticised and carefully examined the supposed teachings of science, and have
shown that the objections to Scripture resting upon them are without
foundation, it will be time enough to discuss, if then necessary, the exegetical
question. Besides, the statement as to the earth being built up literally
with pillars is one which I cannot conceive any man would gravely adopt ;
and, if not, there is really nothing for us, as a scientific society, to examine
with reference to that notion. It is also well known that Mr. Goodwin had
committed a great blunder in alluding to the Bible as teaching that the
firmament is something fixed and solid. He had overlooked even the
marginal reading in our English , Bibles, where the word (translated
" firmament " in the text) is rendered " expansion." It may also be considered
as an interesting fact that §ir Matthew Hale, in his work on The Origin of
Mankind (written about 200 years ago), had specially noticed this rendering
of the Hebrew word rakia, or rakah, as properly meaning " expansion."
Moreover, leaving out everything like critical exegesis or interpretation, we
must remember that in another verse of Genesis we have the " open
firmament of Heaven " spoken of, in which the birds were to fly ; and this
precludes all idea of anything solid having been intended by ,the use of the
word "firmament.,, Only the sense of an open expanse (expansionem^ as in the
Vulgate), is consistent with the plain and obvious meaning of the Scripture
narrative. ' The idea of the crystalline spheres was purely heathen, and
among them it was a gwost-scientific notion .; but it is an idea for which no
sanction whatever could be found in the Bible. It is, however, somewhat
"remarkable that modern science has actually revived this notion. In the
latest Blue Book published under the auspices of the late Admiral Fitzroy,
there is a quotation from the late Sir John Lubbock, F.R.S., which I beg leave
to read. Admiral Fitzroy says : — " Poisson, in his ' Treatise on Heat,' assumed
the excessive cold of space has a condensing effect on air, causing it to become
viscous ; and a very eminent mathematician [Sir John Lubbock] lately wrote
to me, saying that he inclined to a similar view, if not to a belief in its actual
congelation I * " Frozen air around our atmosphere ! " exclaims Admiral
Fitzroy ; so we find here the old and exploded scientific notion of crystalline
solid spheres again revived in our day, and not repudiated even by such an
authority as the lamented Admiral Fitzroy. There are a series of other
questions alluded to in the paper which I do not think could ever come
within the investigations of this Society. For instance, the allusion to the
serpent and the temptation' in Eden. There is really no question as to the
present adaptability of the serpent to crawling ; and I never heard of any
one who held, that for a long period before the fall of Adam, there was a race
of serpents who naturally walked and talked. (Laughter.) It was out of
the question to think of testing the record of the supernatural state of things
in Eden — when God himself is spoken of as " walking in the garden," and
talking with man — by any scientific investigation of the things in nature now.
But it must be remembered that in the Scriptural story, taking it as it is,
there is no warrant for the imagined long periods before man's fall, which have
106
been mixed up in the paper with this question about the serpent. Besides;
the words "upon thy belly shalt thou go " might perhaps be as truly rendered
"as upon thy belly thou goest, so dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy, life,"
meaning (like the cognate scriptural phrase, " thine enemies shall lick the
dust,") that the serpent would ever after be abhorred of mankind, as we.
know is the fact. But this is rather again matter of exegesis than a question
for us to deal with. Then with respect to the hare and the coney : it is not
at all certain that these are the animals alluded to in the original Hebrew.
Neither is it quite certain that the hare does not chew the cud, though now
it would not be classed with the " ruminant animals," according to modern
definition, having four stomachs. These nice modern definitions, now
recognized, were, of course, not invented when Moses wrote. I remember an
analogous circumstance, also, which will illustrate what I mean. In a paper
read before the Royal Society a year or two ago, Mr. Flower accused
Professor Owen of being ignorant of some nice distinction as to the parts of
a monkey's brain, and founded his accusation upon a quotation from a work
of the learned Professor upon Zoological classification, where certainly the
distinction in question was not noticed. But Professor Owen gave an un-
answerable reply to that accusation, by explaining that in a work on Zoology
he had not thought it necessary to allude to so minute a particular, and by
referring to another work of his, published thirty-seven years before (and
from which Mr. Flower had himself quoted), in which the distinction in
question was plainly recognized. Now, we could not look for nice distinc-
tions of a technical or scientific kind — and still less for modern distinctions —
in the "brief allusions to such things in Scripture. There could be no
question that the hare would not by us be classed among the " ruminant
animals," as now defined. But I am not at all sure that, nevertheless, the hare
may not chew the cud. At all events, we are not certain that it is the hare
which is alluded to ; and this is really a question of exegesis. It had been
stated by Mr. Warington that many of the objections, whether scientific or
otherwise against Scripture, had been given up
Mr. Warington. — I never stated that any objections of science had been
given up ; but that particular lines of defence are now no longer adopted.
Mr. Reddie. — That answers my argument just as welL I wish to call
attention to the fact that, although the paper purports to deal with "the
existing relations between Scripture and Science," it also notices objections,
or answers, now given up. But there is one scientific objection, so-called,
to which Mr. Warington makes no allusion in his paper,, although, only a
few years ago, it was, I may say, put forward as the grand and principal
scientific objection to the Mosaic Cosmpgony. I allude to the nebular theory
of Laplace. It is one of those scientific hypotheses with which Mr. Warington
is very well acquainted ; for, though he may not have adopted it as actually
true, he has made full use of it in his well-known Actonian Prize Essay, as
at least a probable hypothesis. Its omission from his paper now, is, therefore,
the best proof of its having been quite "given up," in his opinion, as a scientific
objection to Scripture. Now, according to that theory, the world originally
107
started from out of a blazing fire-mist. Yet, what could be more absurd
than that an intense heat, with which life was totally incompatible, should
be made the hypothetical beginning of all life ! Some had, no doubt,
adopted the nebular hypothesis who were not atheists ; and they might have
no difficulty in afterwards supposing that life might be, notwithstanding,
produced by the Deity. But Laplace himself and others, who excluded God
from their, thoughts, put this forth as a " natural " origin of the world. Let us,
then, contrast this theory with the analogous belief of Christians, that the
world would be hereafter destroyed by fire. The one theory begins the
world, the other ends it, with fire. But the Christians don't profess to
prove this as science. With us it is a matter of faith. We find it revealed
in Scripture ; and with us it is a perfectly rational belief, as it is based upon
faith in the power of God to re-create the world so destroyed. Not so, with
the atheistical theory of the origin of t!he world from fire, and without super-
natural power. There is* no sense in which that could be adopted by any
reasonable being. I think, if we were told who were the authors of some of
the extraordinary views brought out in Mr. Warington's paper, it would be
of great service for our future discussions. Adverting to the notion derived
from Scripture as to the earth being " the centre of the universe, for whose
benefit sun, moon and stars were created," I may observe that the late
Dr. Whewell, in his essay On the Plurality of Worlds, has argued that, if
the earth be not the literal centre of our system on the Copernican hypothesis,
it is, at all events, the centre of life and of interest on the Christian
theory. But there have been a great many changes in astronomical science
since Copernicus wrote. New facts are being every day discovered ; and it
would be our duty to investigate and see whether our old theories were
consistent with this increased knowledge of the facts of Nature. The world
offers to us the same wide field for inquiry as it did to Copernicus or
Kepler ; and the only ooject we ought to have in view is to arrive at the
truth, whether it accords with current theories or not. (Hear, hear.)
Dr. Gladstone. — As discussion has been invited by the Chairman, I would
ask permission to say a few words, not so much upon the paper which has
- been read as upon the speeches which followed it. As to the paper itself, I
may say I agreed with every word of it. I think it is exactly the kind of
paper with which the proceedings of the Society should be opened. What
we require at the outset is an outline of the present state of the relations
between Scripture and Science, which would enable us to Understand the
nature of the work which was before us, rather than a paper which would
attempt to settle the questions upon which issue is taken, and upon which, if
we were to discuss them, we should be likely very soon to get at loggerheads.
(Hear, hear.) One thing with regard to the paper with which I have been
struck is its comprehensiveness ; and yet the subject is more comprehensive
still. When Mr. Warington was speaking of the various objections ad-
vanced against the Scriptures, and the replies which had been given, a great
many occurred to me which are not mentioned in the paper. But, of course,
Mr.- Warington, in grouping together the various objections and answers, was
108
obliged to omit much. Thus he had touched very lightly on the question of the
uniformity of God's mode of action in this world, and the efficacy of prayer.
With reference to the suggestion of Mr. Baxter that, on the publication of the
paper, Mr. Warington should enter more minutely into the subject, and
argue out the various questions to which he referred, it appears to me that it
is objectionable, principally* on the ground that it is clearly impossible.
What did Mr. Baxter want? Was it the answers which the essayist
considered satisfactory ? If so, I think Mr. Warington would decline to
point them out. Was it, then, the answers*which the Council might con-
sider satisfactory, or the members 1 I think that, among the Council, Mr.
Baxter would find the representatives of the three great classes of replicants
to which Mr. Warington referred ; and that, if they undertook to point
out the answers which ought to be given to the scientific objections urged
against the Scriptures, it would result in an internecine war. My friend,
Mr. Reddie, has also expressed a wish that the authors of the several
objections and replies should be named. I confess that I rather admired
Mr. Warington for having omitted all names. I am afraid we are all too apt
in this world to be led by public opinion and the weight of great names ; and
I think, therefore, that, with respect to the objections to Scripture, and
the replies which they had received, it is far better in this Institute to
have as little to do with names as possible. I think it is sufficient for
us that the objections have been raised ; and it will be our duty, without in-
quiring the names of the authors, to show that they have no solid foundation.
Allusion has been made by Mr. Reddie to the Serpent. I am inclined to
believe I could convince him that there is a little more written about the
Serpent than he seemed to think. While Mr. Reddie was speaking upon
the subject there was recalled to my mind a picture which I have at home of a
great dragon which walked the earth at first on four feet ; a second view of
it showed that it had dropped its two front legs ; and in a third view it
appeared as crawling on its belly along the ground. (Laughter.)
Mr. Reddie. — I should be inclined to ' ask who was the author of that
strange picture. (Hear.)
Dr. Gladstone. — He was a man very eminent in science in his time, and
he lived about one hundred and fifty years ago. (Hear, hear.) It is not, how-
ever, my intention to occupy the meeting with any lengthened remarks. I
think it is most important that we should consider all those questions which
have been raised by Mr. Warington. I hope to see a still larger scientific
element introduced into the Society, and that it may also include within its
ranks a large number of men distinguished in theology and literature, who
would especially attend to the exegetical part of the work, and to the inter-
pretation of the various passages of Scripture which were supposed to come
into collision with the discoveries of Science. I do not look with any doubt
as to the result ; for I am convinced that the Word of God will continue to
show itself impregnable, by withstanding every attack that may be made
upon it. (Hear, hear.)
Rev. Dunbar Heath. — As I am not a member of the Institute, I feel
109
some delicacy in rising to address the meeting, but it has been intimated to
me that I should be at liberty to make a few remarks upon the paper, and I
shall do so with the permission of the Chairman. Speaking as an outsider, I
would merely state what my opinion is with regard to the objects of the
Society. I do not know how you will get on with the task which
you have undertaken ; but I may be allowed to say that, in my
opinion, the question of the interpretation to be put upon the
Scriptures should not be excluded from your discussions. From what was
stated by the essayist it appears that a great deal of latitude is allowed to
orthodox Christians with regard to this question. Few of them are found to
agree as to the interpretation which ought to be put upon different parts of
the Scripture, and many of them rejected altogether a great deal of its
obvious meaning. It strikes me, however, that the real difficulty connected
with the question of interpretation is not so much the apparent contra-
dictions between Scripture and Science, as the contradictions in the
Scriptural narrative itself
Mr. Reddie rose to order. — That question does not come within the scope
of the objects of the Victoria Institute. And now we are not assembled to
discuss the principles of the Society, but to discuss the paper which has
been read..
Mr. Heath. — I was merely expressing my views upon the subject, but I
will not enter into any discussion which does not come properly before the
meeting. I will not, therefore, occupy you with any further remarks.
Mr. Percy Bunting. — I cannot pretend to any special scientific knowledge ;
but I am, nevertheless, very glad to be able to join in the vote of thanks
which has been proposed to the author of the paper. I think that in laying
before the members a plain statement of the various questions which would
come under their consideration, .without leading them to any fixed con-
clusions, or bringing before them the conclusions which he may have
arrived at himself, Mr. Warington has done all he undertook to do,
and has contributed a really valuable paper to the publications of the
Society. I only wish that, in the future papers which may be read, those
questions which have been touched upon by Mr. Warington could be taken
up systematically and discussed in the order in which he has arranged them.
I do not know whether the Council have at hand a sufficient number of men
ready to undertake that duty ; but, if they have, it would be very
desirable if this . suggestion were carried out. Our best thanks are
due to Mr. Warington for the way in which he has brought the whole
subject before us, and has grouped together the various^ objections against
the Scripture, and the answers which they have drawn forth. I confess,
however, that several of the topics discussed in the paper appear to me to
involve questions of exegesis. I do not exactly see how we can get out
of the difficulties in which we are placed if we exclude the exegetical
question. Whether the animal mentioned in Leviticus is the hare or not, or
whether the Hebrew word does not mean some other animal, appear to me to
be distinctly questions of exegesis. It appears to me that the Society
110
should not be confined merely to particular departments of Science, but that
it must allow discussions upon every question which affects the truth of
revelation, and be prepared to take up all questions of that character
exactly at the point where they have been left off by other societies, and
determine, if it can, how far the conclusions to which they are supposed to
tend conflict with Scripture. All the other learned societies decline to
entertain the question of interpretation. It must be taken up by some one,
and I think it is especially the work of this Society. It will be our duty
when an apparent contradiction is pointed out in Scripture to deal with it.
We have plenty of theologians amongst us, and must not shrink from the
difficulty of the task.
The Chairman. — I am sure the vote of thanks to Mr. Warington will be
readily concurred in by the meeting. It would be quite impossible to
discuss such an extensive subject in detail. There is one point, however, in
which I would differ from our Honorary Secretary, and that is with respect
to the question of exegesis. I do not see how we can exclude it from our
discussions. We have not only to determine whether an objection is really
scientific ; but, if so, whether it is contrary to a fair interpretation of the
Word of God. I have used the phrase really scientific advisedly, because
nothing can be more vague than the application of the word scientific. We
shall have to determine what is and what is not scientific. By real science I
mean that which is established by perfect demonstration, not that based
merely upon hypothesis. When we arrive at the real science, we shall then
have to determine whether it is contrary to the Word of God. This can
only be done by a fair appeal to the original language of the Scriptures. As
an illustration of what I mean, I would only refer to the ant laying up a
store of food in summer, and the hare chewing the cud, brought forward by
Mr. Warington. He adduced these as two instances in which the Scriptures
were objected to as scientifically inaccurate, and stated that the defenders of
the Scriptures had been obliged to take other ground than that of maintaining
their accuracy. Now here I am prepared to join issue. First with respect to the
Ant. Scientific naturalists, with great boldness, have declared that Solomon
was mistaken as to the habits of the ant ; — that it does not lay up a winter
store like the bee ; that he mistook the pupa of the ant for grains of wheat (a
pardonable error), and that on this account he stated what was not scientifi-
cally accurate. Now, I might be disposed to question whether the matter
could be determined by the negative kind of evidence used by our naturalists.
The various tribes of ants differ as much in their instincts as do the various
tribes of the bee. And he must be a bold man who would predicate, from
what he knew of one tribe, what might be the strange instincts of another.
I might venture to ask .the naturalist, what he knew of the instincts of the
ant in Palestine ? But I need not confine myself to mere conjecture that
Solomon was scientifically correct ; for what was lately considered highly
improbable by the naturalist, becomes by the advance of the study of
Natural History probable in the highest degree. I can appeal on this
subject to the high authority of Mr. Darwin as a naturalist. That gentleman
Ill
read an abstract before the Linnsean Society, in 1861, of a paper by
Dr. Lincecum, describing what he calls the " Agricultural Ant." This ant is
a native of Texas. Not only does it lay up a store of seed, but it cultivates
it It plants a crop of peculiar grass in a circular space round its mound. It
prepares the ground, sows the seed, weeds the crop, harvests it when ripe,
carefully winnowing the grain, and then stores it up for use. The grain is a
kind of miniature rice. In wet weather the stores get damp, and the grain
becomes liable to sprout, but the ants take advantage of the first fine day to
bring out the damp and damaged grain, expose it to the sun till it is dry,
then they carry it back and pack away all the sound seeds, leaving those
that had sprouted to waste. I quote the abstract of this paper from Wood's
Hemes without Hands. Now, I would venture to remind you that we
have here 'the observations of a scientific naturalist founded upon twelve
years9 careful watching of the habits of this species of ant Ignorant as we
confessedly are of the Natural History of Palestine, I think no naturalist
will be forced by his science now to maintain that Solomon was necessarily
ignorant of the habits of the animal he described. So much for the ant
The case of the hare chewing the cud gives me a still better illustration of
the method of dealing with these controversies. Dr. Colenso has lately given
great prominence to this subject, asserting that, if Moses as a lawgiver made
a scientific blunder with respect to the hare, he could not be inspired. Now,
this is one of those questions in which I think we may invoke the aid of
exegesis. Does Moses assert that the hare chews the cud? Is it certain
that our translators have correctly interpreted the word used by Moses as the
hare ? Now, to go no farther back than the Septuagint translation of the
Old Testament, made some two or three centuries before Christ by Alexan-
drine Jews, I think we may there discover a proof that at that period there
was considerable doubt as to the identity of the animal spoken of by Moses.
The Hebrew word Arnebeth, which our translators interpret the hare, occurs
but twice in the Old Testament : Lev. xi. 6, and Deut xiv. 7. In both
these texts the Arnebeih is associated with two other animals as forbidden
food, the camel, and one called in Hebrew the Shaphan, because, though
they chew the cud, they divide not the hoof. Now, the Shaphan our
translators have construed as the coney, or rabbit, while many of the copies
of the Septuagint read the xo*P°yp^toc, or hedgehog. Beside these two
passages of Scripture, we find the Shaphan mentioned in two other places,
in Psalm civ. 18, and in Proverbs xxx. 26. Now, that there was great
uncertainty with regard to the Septuagint translation of the word Shaphan,
we find proof in the fact of the various readings of that translation. While
many copies of the Septuagint give us xoipoyp^XXtoc, others render the word
Shaphan by \ay<o6v, a hare. Still further, to show the uncertainty as to the
translation of the words Arnebeth and Shaphan, the Greek renderings of
these words are interchanged in the various readings of the Septuagint.
While the Septuagint, therefore, throws considerable doubt on its own
renderings of the words Arnebeth and Shaphan, comparative philology gives
little or no aid to our researches. From exegetical considerations alone,
112
therefore, we might protest against any charge of scientific inaccuracy being
brought against the Old Testament Scriptures, where the rendering of the
Hebrew name of the animal* in question was evidently doubtful, long before
Natural History was cultivated as a science. Supposing, however, we admit,
for the sake of argument, that the Arnebeth is the hare, can we still maintain
that the hare does not chew the cud 1 Since the hare makes a motion like
chewing the cud, it has been supposed that Moses made the mistake that the
hare did chew the cud, while in reality it does not. Has this been demon-
strated? Naturalists have found it convenient, in forming an artificial
arrangement of animals, to constitute a class called the Buminantia. All
these animals have four stomachs, and all chew the cud. This is one of the
best marked divisions of animals naturalists have devised. The camel,
though presenting some anomalies when compared with the other Rumi-
nantia, belongs to this class. But does it follow that all animals which have
. not four stomachs do not chew the cud ; do not, in other words, regurgitate
their food habitually, for the purpose of completing its mastication ? I think
not. Indeed, I am prepared to bring proof to the contrary. I have already
referred to the word Shaphan, translated in our version of the Bible coney. If
I refer to the article Coney in " Smith's Dictionary of the Bible," I find the
writer of the article showing that, in all probability, the animal corre-
sponding to the Hebrew word is the Hyrax Syriacus, an animal abundant
in Syria, and corresponding in all its habits to the Scriptural descrip-
tion of the Shaphan, except chewing the cud. Now I can addduce
undesigned testimony to the fact thaf the Hyrax does chew the cud,
though it does not belong to the order rvminantia. The Hyrax is a
most puzzling creature to the scientific naturalist ; he hardly knows where to
class it. Resembling the rabbit so closely as to be popularly called the rock
rabbit,* the naturalist classes it with the rhinoceros tribe. Mr. Hennah, as
stated in the transactions of the Zoological Society of London, shot many of
the Cape Hyrax in the Cape of Good Hope. He found that the stomachs of
those he shot were always much distended with food scarcely masticated.
Moreover, he tamed a couple of these little creatures, and he makes this
assertion : " I have also heard it chewing its food by night, when everything
has been quiet, and after going into its sleeping apartment." We have also
the authority of Cuvier for maintaining that the Cape Hyrax is of the same
species as the Hyrax Syriacus. Surely, then, we have undesigned testimony
to the fact, that an animal not belonging to the order ruminantia regurgitates
imperfectly-masticated food for the purpose of completely masticating it.
But we can refer to human ruminants. If you take up most works on physiology
you will find an article on human rumination. The cases of individuals posses-
* This popular name for the Hyrax is most important, in connection with
the two passages of Scripture in which the " coney " is partially described.
For instance, in the Psalms (civ. 18), we have, "The high hills are a refuge for
the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies ; " and in Proverbs (xxx. 26), "The
conies are bnt a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." The conies
referred to in these passages are evidently " rock rabbits ; " and, if so, this
almost settles the question.
113
sing and habitually exercising this power are by no means rare. It is
attested by some of the greatest physiologists. We cannot ask the ox or the
sheep whether rumination is a voluntary or involuntary action, but we may the
human ruminant. This, therefore, is a question on which we may appeal from
the mere systematic naturalist — who tries to discover anatomical considerations
for the convenient and systematic classification of animals — to the physiologist
and the careful observer of nature. The physiologist admits that animals not
, of the order ruminantia do chew the cud. A careful observer who tamed the
Hyrax found that it did chew the cud. Cowper, the poet, kept tamed hares,
and he, no incompetent observer, asserted that his hares did chew the cud.
Surely we need not, therefore, feel ourselves obliged to condemn the writings
of Moses as scientifically inaccurate, even though we should admit that arnebeth
is rightly translated the hare. The question of exegesis I think will also
come forcibly before us on geological questions. Theologians have been
taunted for adapting their exegesis of Scripture to suit the hypotheses of
geological science, I think most unfairly. The meaning of the term translated
"day" in the first chapter of Genesis was a matter of discussion among
the ancient fathers of the Church on philological grounds, long before such a
, science as geology was thought of. An interpretation of the word " day "
was taken from these theologians by some of our most eminent geological
authorities, because they thought it favoured their hypotheses. Now that
these hypotheses seem to be untenable, the scientific objector turns upon the
defender of Scripture and asks him, why he uses an interpretation lately so
strongly insisted upon by the scientific geologist. Upon this question I
cannot now enter. I think now the theologian has a right, before he attempts
to answer the objections urged from geology, to require the geologist to give
a demonstrative proof for his assertions. * I know no science more remote
from an exact science than that of geology — no science the hypotheses of
which are so fluctuating. Hardly a geological hypothesis now maintained is
much more than ten years old. I have investigated most of the proofs
formerly urged for the great antiquity of the fossiliferous strata of the earth.
I have found scarcely one which has not been contradicted by more recent
observations. Whatever we may say in favour of theological dogmas, we cannot
permit dogmatism in the world of science. " There everything must stand or
fall by the test of rigid proof and demonstration. Without further trespassing
on your time, I am sure you will all cordially unite with me in a vote of
thanks to Mr. Warington for his interesting paper, and for the vigorous
manner in which he has dealt with the question to which he has applied
himself.
The vote of thanks having been carried by acclamation,
Mr. Warington, in acknowledging the compliment, said — If I had closely
adhered to the rules of the Society, as laid down in print, I believe the
question of exegesis, would not have come within the scope of the discussion ;
but I felt that it would be absolutely impossible to deal with the subject
without some reference to exegesis. I have quoted no objection whatever
against the Scriptures which I have not found in print, but I did not give
whom I quoted found their objections upon a careful observation, not only
of the habits of the ants in England, but in Palestine. With respect to the
translation of the Septuagint, it was plain that the transcribers were aware
that the hare and the coney did not chew the cud, for the; insetted the word
" not " in the passage, though it clearly did not belong to it, and destroyed the
sense in toto
The Chairman.— 1 confess I was not aware of that fact before.
Mr. Warihgton. — If the chairman will examine the text* he will find that
the word " not " has been inserted. With these observations, I will only thank
you for the kind attention which you have given to the' paper, and I
hope that it may prove in some respects beneficial to the cause which we
have all at heart. (Applause.)
The Chairmah then adjourned the meeting to the 16th of June.
• Vatican MS.
115
ORDINARY MEETING, June 18, 1866.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed.
The following Paper was then read by Montagu Burnett, Esq., M.A.,
in the absence of his father : —
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SCOPE OF
SCIENCE AND THAT OF REVELATION AS
STANDARDS OF TRUTH. By Charles Mountford
Burnett, Esq., M.D., Vice-President.
NOTHING- would appear to be more reasonable or more
just than that the natural mind of man, that mind which
was made to contemplate every visible object we behold around
us, should be adapted and fitted for that purpose with the
highest degree of accuracy ; so that precision and perfection
should be in its ultimate sense the end to be obtained.
We have, accordingly, provided for this purpose, both ex-
ternal and internal organs of sense, which, when applied to
the objects around, cannot fail to convince us, that they have
been furnished with a view to ascertaining the more intricate
nature, or the more obscure characters of those objects; by
which we have put into our possession an instrument that
conveys to us with assurance doubly sure, that we cannot be
mistaken when they undertake to inform us on such matters.
So that while our outward senses are engaged to put before
us within a prescribed range all that really comprises the
outward world, we are enabled with our inward faculties to
compare, to reason upon, and to bring to bear the order and
the regularity, as well as the beauty and perfection of that
work which is set in our midst, apparently for the express
purpose of our guidance and contemplation.
The more we ponder upon this magnificent work, the more
we become impressed with the sublimity and grandeur of its
design ; so that before we ascend to those surer and higher
E
116
tests which are to convince us still more assuredly that a
profound design, an unvarying precision, marks the movements
with which this globe performs its daily evolutions ; the more
certain are we, that one great Artificer made it what it is,
and stamped it with laws which cause every part to be de-
pendent on the rest ; and thus we have a proof that one Mind
and one Will gave it a real existence.
But could this Being have determined that any other result
but truth should issue from the contemplation of such a work ?
Could any uncertainty be made to proceed out of a work which,
on every side, bespeaks not merely magnificence and beauty,
but regularity and order.
Surely we could not decide, with the reasoning powers we
possess, that this fair and beauteous work was made to mislead
and misinform man, that one of all the denizens of the earth
who alone is able to be convinced that a perfect God made the
heavens and the earth, and all things therein, with a mar-
vellous wisdom.
Can we then be surprised that man should believe that he
beholds in this work the finger of an unerring and perfect
God, and that it should be set for his natural belief in the
greatness and unchangeableness of that God ?
Can we be surprised that with such faculties as enable him
to do it, man should have power to link together the worlds
that float in the heavens around him, or to discover the laws
by which those worlds are moved, or to note the revolutions
which they were made to observe?
Can we be surprised that as man's knowledge of one law
was succeeded by that of another, and that as his appre-
hension of those laws became more certain, more cumulative in
character, that he became less disposed to give them up as a
standard of truth, as a foundation on which to erect a chronicle
of time and of events, to which he could look backwards or
forwards with security and confidence ? And before we take
upon ourselves the authority of answering these questions, we
must state at once, that with regard to the work in question,
there cannot be any doubt abstractedly of the correctness and
invariableness of this standard. It is not, therefore, on the
side of the standard of Truth itself, that there is any short-
coming in its ability to furnish it, but the imperfection is on
the side of man. Fallen from his original perfection, he fails
to bear morally that relation to the natural creation which he
did before the fall, and therefore his impaired faculties have
failed to justify his reliance upon them as a standard of
Truth.
We have not only the experience of ages to prove thisA but
117
it is confirmed by Revelation, another standard of Truth
given to man after his fall, by the same Being who established
the first standard, after man was in a state which shut out
from him the possibility of his reaching all the knowledge
necessary for his eternal salvation.
Every believer knows that " the world by nature knew not
God/' and that we cannot by this means find Him out to
perfection.
" Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find
out the Almighty to perfection ? It is high as heaven, what
canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know?"
Yet that man in his natural state had every inducement to
believe that by the light of natiire, when unassisted by any
other standard of truth, by which he was to arrive at a higher
fuller meaning of the word, I must deny.
If in this belief he was otherwise to be instructed, if he
was to learn that up to a certain point only his conclusions
might be right, and that wisdom, order, and unchangeableness
were in this direction to be the only evidences which natural
philosophy would afford him in finding out the ways of God;
it is no discredit to him that he had overrated this standard as
an evidence of truth, and had given it a power* of unfolding
more definite and important truths which it really had no
means of accomplishing. This fact has never been placed
before the mind of the natural philosopher in its true light,
but too often opprobrium and contempt have taken the place
of that reasoning which it was in the powec of their opponents
to use with so much success. If the natural philosopher were
ever to be convinced that he had at this point taken a devious
path, it would have to be accomplished only through a well-
considered and well-conducted argument, too sound to be
refuted, and too unmistakeable to need any mixture of ridicule
or abuse. For if we know our adversary is in error, this calls
the more strongly on our part for forbearance and patience,
but above all for circumspection, lest in our zeal to correct
others, upon so difficult a question, where faith plays so im-
portant a part, we display a mind and a temper which badly
recommend the truth, and are totally at variance with that far
higher knowledge which we profess to believe in, but which,
by our want of charity, we have failed to recommend to others.
But now, for the sake of argument, I will ask you hypotheti-
cally to believe, that no other knowledge but that which we
derive from nature, has been placed within our reach ; and
that man has been provided with no other source whence to
discover the truth of his real destiny. Let us, for the sake of
preserving the hypothesis, suppose him to .proceed to investi-
k2
118
gate all that he can see around him in the earth and in the
heavens. Feeling sure that truth can only be arrived at
through this one channel, he spares no research, and is
neglectful of no means likely to make his conclusions certain,
and his inferences not to be disputed. He weighs these things
in the balance of induction, and he tests them there, by their
conformity to those laws which he has now discovered to be
unchangeable. He penetrates the crust of the earth, and the
very first object that presents itself to his mind, is one that,
while it confirms the conjectures which he has already arrived
at, by seeing that both man and animals are subject to death,
presents also a difficulty which he is unable to explain by any
law within his reach ; for the difficulty is opposed to the care-
ful and regular computation of time. He finds, for example,
that not only whole genera and species of the living creation
have been entombed in the earth, but that genera and species,
not now forming any part of the living creation, have also been
buried there. And from the space and order and other
characteristics which these remains exhibit there, he gathers
that the living creation was not the first creation, but only one
of a series which have followed each other in succession during
countless ages of the world. He discovers, further, that these
acts of creative power were manifested by slow and varied
degrees, so that they took many thousands of years for their
completion. Further, he discovers that man was created at a
comparatively recent period of the earth, only parallel with
those animals we now see alive upon its surface. And the
truth of all these deductions rests alone upon the position of
these remains in a certain relation to others, and in such order,
that the inference cannot otherwise be drawn, than that they
occupied in time a regular and independent place in the order
and sequence of creation. That is, he recognizes several
distinct creations, which had no more connection with the one
that went before, than what was to be implied in the supposed
fitness of each for a condition of things then existing on the
earth, which had not previously existed.
That these difficulties, unfolded by the investigation of the
earth, as the natural philosopher explored her interior for the
discovery of truth, ought to have led him to conclusions so
vast and so important, with greater caution, can only fairly be
admitted. They should have led him to examine the grounds
on which he sought to establish so wide and so high a standard
of truth, upon a basis so limited and unsustained. Whereas,
a fair amount of reasoning should have satisfied the natural
philosopher, who joined in this hyphothesis, that no such
inference could justly be drawn ; that because a large portion
/
119
of the animal creation, found buried in the earth had become
extinct, therefore that portion had preceded the present
creation, as a separate and consecutive act of the Creator.
The legitimate inference to be drawn from these facts by-
natural philosophy alone, as an unquestionable evidence of truth,
was simply this ; Viz., that from some cause not capable of
being found out by this channel, death had at some time been
introduced into the world.
But the knowledge of natural philosophy had previously
carried human investigation further than this, in the examina-
tion of the laws that govern the heavenly bodies, though no
attempt was made to show natural philosophers, by this means,
that they were able to satisfy their minds of more than of the
existence of a God, and of the wisdom and power He had
displayed.
So much, therefore, of the truth they had attained, and
so far their views were opposed to none who call themselves
true philosophers. So far, we presume, no one desires to
subtract from Natural Philosophy, that which she has so
patiently and triumphantly earned, by the most painstaking
and diligent perseverance. For she has rolled away a great
stone from that aperture whence light came to us in the
darker ages of the world ; and if she could have increased that
light by means within her reach, she would have done so
heartily and earnestly. It should ever then be remembered
that it was not her wilful fault that she could not do more, bub
her very pardonable error, that she attempted to do too much.
But after Newton's death, naturalists began to claim for
natural science in general more than she was able to tell us.
As a great naturalist said, " We admire the power by which
the human mind has measured the motions of the celestial
bodies, which nature seemed for ever to have concealed from
our view. Genius and science have burst the limits of space,
and observations explained by just reasoning have unveiled
the mechanism of the world."* Here the wise philosopher
should have stopped ; and even in this position greater humility
would have become him better. Truly it was a great achieve-
ment to be able, thus far, to advance in the confirmation of
truth, though a more perfect knowledge even in this direction
has proved, that the unveiling of the mechanism of the heavens
to man in his present state was not incompatible with calcula-
tions which assure us, that though there was no doubt of the
invariableness of that Being who made them, yet there was a
doubt of those who reduced that invariableness to figures.
* Cinder's Theory of ike Earth, translated by Professor Jamieson.
€€
120
When, therefore, this great philosopher went on to say,
Would it not also be glorious for man to burst the limits of
time, and, by means of observations, to ascertain the history
of this world, and the succession of events which preceded
the birth of the human race ? " then I could no longer follow
him, though he were a great philosopher ; being assured that
while the fact of many events in the history of the earth
may be proved by the investigation of its structure, and
many of the laws by which its movements are governed,
though not explained with the most undeviating accuracy,
may nevertheless prove sufficiently correct to convince us that
they are in themselves invariable; yet when past or future
time came to be judged of by this method of induction, and
we proceed to dogmatize upon our power to compute it, through
the agency of rocks or bones, or other things unfolded to us
by exploring the interior of the earth, we can then no longer
trace any connection between the things stated and the sup-
posed proofs which were adduced to show that the right con-
clusion was in this way to be inferred.
We can judge of time imperfectly by the laws of induction.
Time stands in relation to geological events very much in the
same position as death. When it is used to explain causes
that are not reducible to those laws, it is simply impossible.
Even when we judge of time nearer to us, there is a difficulty
in computing it, if it do not come within the range of those
laws ; if, for instance, we judge of the operation of time, as we
judge of it surrounded by light and air, or by things not
surrounded by these elements. Some time ago, the cities
Herculaneum and Pompeii were discovered. They had been
more than 2,000 years, as it were, hermetically sealed from
these agencies. What was the consequence ? The oil was
found still in the lamp, the wine still in the bottle, the colours
were preserved on the walls, and no change had passed over
the most delicate substances, though all this time had elapsed
since they took up that position in which they were to be pre-
served unchanged through so long a lapse of time. To use
the language of a classical writer, we may say here, " Time
has had its wings petrified in the midst of its flight."
But to take an instance from some geological example.
Take a common rounded flint from the sea-shore. We behold
it, even and water- worn ; we observe it so hard, almost inca-
pable of being scratched by the sharpest instrument, that an
immense period of time must have elapsed to produce any
effect upon so hard a surface, by the common friction it is
exposed to at the present time. Probably it would take
many thousand years to produce such an effect as that before
121
u£, yet who can say it was not produced in five minutes of our
time without a miracle. If the stone was worn before it was
hardened, it certainly could be done in five minutes, and
what is there to show that the hardness preceded or followed
the friction?
So that when we seek to deduce conclusions which we think
are borne out in the same direction, without calculating the
changed differences of the two cases, we not only exceed the
limits of truth, to which inductive philosophy is entitled to
bear them, but we place ourselves at once in a formidable
attitude with respect to an entirely different source of truth,
from which was to be drawn, nothing that natural philosophy
had not advanced up to a certain point. For each source had
equally affirmed the existence of one God, and that that God
was infinite in power, and unchangeable in purpose. But here, it
would have been well if Natural Philosophy had paused. The
standard of truth to which we now appeal, confirmed, as we
have said before, all that Natural Philosophy had asserted up
to a given point, beyond which she was unable to give any
right inferences or deductions. This higher and more detailed
standard of truth was Revelation.
But, as some would say,* what is Revelation that we should
believe her statements before the evidence of our senses?
Here we must answer, that Revelation is a message expressly
sent from God to man for his direction and instruction in
those things which closely concern his eternal destiny, and
which he could not have known in any other way. This
is a very vital point, requiring to be kept steadily in the
mind, especially in these times ; for if there were any way
besides Revelation that could have informed us that death
had been brought into the world by sin, then we should
have had more reason to believe that Revelation was un-
necessary. But Revelation was no other than the Spirit of
God speaking through men of every rank of life, and its
claims to our belief rested on many infallible proofs. Thus, it
was quoted on many occasions by the Saviour of the world
whom it first made known to man. It made assertions which
most accurately came to pass as it had said; and, moreover,
it challenged the whole world to disprove a single state*
ment that it made. But besides this, it made another claim
upon our belief still more remarkable; for it made state*
ments which were contrary to our natural belief, so asto-
nishing, that if some of the most remarkable had not already
come to pass, we might have disbelieved them altogether.
But, in order that we might not do so, we should notice with
attention the course she has pursued. She had at this point
122
to take up a chain which natural philosophy was nnable to
link together or to find ; in other words, to make statements
which could not even be guessed at, or carried out by natural
philosophy alone ; as there was no necessary induction that
could certainly follow the announcement of the facts which
natural philosophy thought she was able to make. Let me
make this clearer by example : the fact that death was to be
announced from the earliest period to which geology really
could point, showed this truth; viz., that while Revelation
would not contradict natural philosophy as far as the certainty
of this fact went, that death had come into the world; at this
point she takes it upon herself, if we may so say she takes it
out of the hands of induction, i. e. out of the hands of geology,
and at once proceeds to give the reason why death came into
the world, — viz., as the consequence of sin; and when it came
into the world, — viz., as the consequence of Adam's sin.
Natural philosophers here, very unwisely, advanced beyond
the confines of that science which they undertook to unfold.
They told us that it was in order that other creatures might
take the place of those that had died, that death was brought
into the world.
But if this was the truth, then it must be seen by all,
that Revelation and Natural Science are not agreed upon this
point; and which of the two standards of truth has most
claim on our belief, no one, I think, can doubt, after what
has been said. It must be clear to any one, that the con-
nection between the fact of death and its true cause was not
likely to be found buried in the strata of the earth; and
though it is not necessary to enter here into all the important
circumstances that render it essential to his eternal safety
that man should know that the sin of Adam was the cause of
death ; yet we may say here, that it was the peculiar feature
of the truths conveyed through Revelation that they were
not written in the Book of Nature. The Book of Nature
confirmed the fact, and there stopped ; the Book of Revelation
went on to explain the cause of that fact.
The position, therefore, that Revelation took up was, to say
the least, a very remarkable one, for it not only confirmed
what natural philosophy had discovered, as far as the simple
facts were concerned, but it proceeded to unfold in detail
the particulars of a wide scheme of divine purpose, which
was to influence arid regulate the future history of the world,
though all that it stated on this point was before unknown.
The veracity of what was advanced, claimed our highest
attention, and commanded at once our respect and belief.
And here I must mention a circumstance which, to me, is
123
as unaccountable as any of the difficulties which natural
philosophy has to contend with, in undertaking to unfold a
system of truth which is to apply accurately to the most
minute events, past, present, and future, connected with the
destiny of this world. If this Revelation had been the mere
invention of man, if its natural evidence were dead against
the probability of its truth, how do we get over this difficulty,
that it holds to this day higher grounds than any other
evidence we can advance ; and in this position, what folly is
it to suppose that it does so by putting forth a reasoning
that is not even parallel with, but below, the reasoning of
man ? And what makes the position of this reasoning so
conflicting is, when we ask where was the necessity of God's
revealing to man that which was already to be found in the
evidences of the natural world? We oblige ourselves to
believe, when we take up such a position, that He who offers
himself as our Divine instructor, is capable of committing an
act of supererogation, that at once places Him below His
reasoning creatures. If there were nothing more to tell us
than we might naturally discern with the aid of those facul-
ties we already possess, for the investigation of the physical
world around us, where was the need of a higher and super-
natural method of conveying those truths to our minds, which
Revelation alone undertook to make known to us ?
This argument forces us to respect the authority of Revela-
tion without cavil. But I said that it staked its veracity
upon grounds which one falsehood would have been sufficient
to overthrow. It had asserted that not one statement should
fail of all that it had advanced. This was, indeed, a bold
assertion, if it was not to come from a standard of truth
higher than natural philosophy. But the marvel still increases.
It proceeded at once to break new ground, to ride over, as
it were, the prejudices and assertions of all who pioneered
in the path of truth. For it at once showed that geology
had not the most distant conception of the cause of death,
and without foundation had stated what was not the truth.
If we are attentive to compare the statement of Revelation,
as to the case of the six days' creation offered there for our
belief, we shall at once be struck with the unique and
wonderful explanation which is there given of it without reserve.
And if we place this alongside of the statement offered by
geologists, we must indeed be astonished at the inexplicable
difficulty, the irreconcileable assertions which we here meet
with. Thus, while the one makes no hesitation, no explana-
tion, in affirming, what perhaps was the least likely thing
ever to enter the mind, viz., that in six natural days of
124
twenty-four hours, the Lord made this earth, anc} all that
in it is ; the natural philosopher asserts that the world was
not made for many thousand years.
So that, while both authorities are able to confirm one
another in the great fact that all things were created with the
knowledge and power of an infinite God, both were not capable
of giving a minute explanation of the mcmner and the time in
which this event was completed.
And there was ample reason to show why inductive philo-
sophy was unable to furnish this more detailed explanation,
and why nothing less than divine inspiration could do so.
The creation having at first been made perfect, it was,
after a certain period, to become so far interrupted, as that a
large portion of the then living part should be destroyed
by water. This was a catastrophe not reasonably to be
inferred or expected. There was nothing in the chain of
perfect creation to lead to or to link this event with anything
that had gone before, without the aid of Revelation to guide us.
It formed no part, it was not in fulfilment, of any of those
laws which had been attached to creation at the time it was
originally formed. It was even brought about by means that
were not only independent of those laws, but that actually
defied them. As if to show us that, as creation was first
brought into existence before those laws were made which
were destined to regulate it, so here, by the same Power, the
earth could be destroyed without making any appeal to those
laws which were given to it for its continuance.
As, in the first instance, all things were made by miraculous
and supernatural power, before those laws were brought into
action which were to guide them, so, when the time came
that the creatures were to be destroyed which were upon its
surface, their destruction was effected by supernatural means ;
and, as such, they could furnish no more evidence as found
in the earth, how or when the Deluge occurred, than they
could tell us how the earth was formed in six days.
There was nothing in the bowels of the earth to satisfy
man of the reason of this catastrophe, and without Revelation
we should be ignorant of its causes at this time, though we
might see and adduce abundant evidences of the fact having
taken place.
It was not necessary to show that that act of creative power,
which marked the operations of the Divine hand in the six days'
creation, was an operation so strictly limited that man could
not contemplate God in the capacity of a natural Creator
subsequent to those six days.
But, as we limit these higher truths to the light of Revela-
125
fclon alone, it becomes us to be very careful how we make thai;
Revelation say what, perhaps, it did not say. This is a difficulty
with which the Biblical student will often have to deal, and
if he is just, he will give to the natural philosopher all the
advantage to which he is entitled, when we oblige him to
receive authority so high, and so unique, injured and misin-
terpreted as it is, or at any rate not rendered clear, and
'without doubt, in many passages that are now even obscure
in the present day. A great responsibility rests on, those
that have made the word of God say what it does not say.
For instance, it is all-important, if we want to conduct this
argument with due justice to both sides, that we decide, more
correctly than has hitherto been done, what was really com-
prehended in the six days of the living creation mentioned in *
Genesis ; and that obliges us to say, that neither the original
Hebrew in Genesis, nor natural philosophy compels us to
understand that every creature we now find on the earth had
its exact counterpart in that six days' creation.
But I have made an assertion which I can hardly expect
those who have not been able yet to believe it, will receive
without some further proof. Indeed there would be no
necessity that I should occupy your time in this place and
upon this occasion, if my arguments were exclusively to be
drawn from the proofs of the supernatural source from which
Revelation derives her authority. It would be unreasonable
to expect this ; and charity alone, which makes allowance for
all those who differ from ourselves, obliges me to give a
reason for what I state, in language which is nearer to the
arguments taken up by those who differ from myself. It is
only fair, therefore, that I draw my argument from geological
sources. Thus, geologists are very confident in their asser-
tion that more than one independent creation has passed out
of the hands of the Creator. They are persuadea that they
see marks in the fossils that have been entombed in the earth,
distinct enough in their character to justify them in drawing
the inference that they were separate and independent acts of
creation — separate as regards time and general external appear-
ance ; and I wish it to be noticed that it is not a consequence
that, because great stress is thrown upon the expression " very
good/' as applied by God himself to that creation in Genesis
mentioned in the six days, therefore all the animals that we
see now alive necessarily constituted part of that creation.
The term "very good" cannot be a term taken in the
abstract, but must necessarily form a proper relation to the
time and circumstances of that creation to which it applied.
In this sense, that creation which was so described by its
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Creator (by one who is Himself perfect), could have no fault,
or disjointed appearance, palpable to fallen man. But it is
not therefore a consequence that God might not have created
animals at a subsequent period, such, e. g., as after the Deluge,
which then would form a better and closer relationship to the
changed circumstances that had just taken place. The point
here most to be attended to is, that no living creation preceded
the one in question. The error of geologists has been the
mixing up of the cause of the destruction of the present
creation, mentioned in Revelation, with other causes which
they suppose preceded it. Th^y erroneously assume that
death preceded the creation in Genesis ; and therefore they
deny that all the ravages caused by death could have pro-
ceeded from the one deluge mentioned in Genesis. But
there is more difficulty here in believing that all the evidences
of destruction of life which we discover buried in the earth
proceeded from different and successive causes, than there is
in believing and proving that death proceeded from one cause,
as stated in Genesis.
If we proceed to investigate and to compare the remains of
fossil animals of all kinds that have ever been exhumed from
the earth, we shall find that there is no exception to this rule :
that independently of the marks of design which identify
them as the work of the same God, there are other marks
upon them which show that they filled up places that must
otherwise have been vacant in that creation which was pro-
nounced by God to be " very good."
And as we know that many parts of that creation have
become extinct, that some hundreds of its higher species,
and four-fifths of its lower species have disappeared (for
though these may not be all extinct, yet we have never
seen them alive, and only some of them in a fossil state), we
are sure there must be found in the earth many animals, the
representatives of which are not now seen amongst the living
parts ; yet amongst none of them could it be said from their
appearance that they had no connection, and were totally
isolated from the living creations supposed to precede the one
mentioned in Genesis. Everything that has been discovered
in the earth, only serves to make more perfect that living
creation which, as far as we know of its disjointed character,
occupies the earth at the present time.
It is in this way that we are indebted to geology for in-
structing us more minutely as to what the creation must have
been at the time when it received the title of " very good/'
when it came forth from the hands of the Creator. And but
for the discoveries of geology, we should have had a less
127
detailed idea of the extent of the disruption which has taken
place in that creation which we now behold. For the
most delicate and perishable organizations — particularly in
the lower species — have been preserved so beautifully and
wonderfully, that we could not have known of their existence
at all, but for the care which has been taken of them in the
bowels of the earth.
Yet with all that the earth can disclose, and calculating
every known species or individual that has ever been dis-
covered, there are still many difficulties to be explained and
many links to be repaired, from those animals that have been
entombed, before we can presume to say that we have in our
possession, before our eyes, that one creation which drew
forth from its Creator those memorable words, " And God saw
everything that He had made, and behold it was very good."
If we go into the most extensive collection of recent and fossil
remains of animals, if we study the national museums in this
department of history, we must see directly that all our power
to reach anything like perfection in this direction has failed ;
that often the chain, or the circle, has been lost, and we cannot
trace it.
The very infirmity of our mode of grouping the animal
creation together, shows the failure which must attend the
effort of any finite being to study to perfection the work of
an Infinite God. But the great difficulty we have of arriving
at the truth of what constitutes the living creation, is not
confined to the impossibility of determining all the genera and
species which have become extinct. Another difficulty arises
from our inability to form a true classification, even of what
is before us. If we attempt to make a chain, we cannot do so
without losing the most correct idea we can possibly have of
the living creation. That Being who made that creation is
Eternal. He has neither beginning nor end. This idea much
better expresses the living natural creation by a circle, having
neither beginning nor end, in which you can take no part or
individual of that circle, and say one part was higher than the
other.
This is just the course which the Eternal Being has pursued
in the living creation; He has made that creation up of an
infinite variety of circles, some larger, some smaller. In this
way we see animals linked together, not as it were by a long
pendent chain, but by a circle ; so that in many particulars
which characterize the individual, the more prominent parts
of an animal are linked by a resemblance, more or less close,
to some others. But nomenclators have, in many instances,
strung animals together by a single link, which of course gives
128
but one character by which they may be distinguished, and -con-
sequently we must see how impossible it will be to complete
the circle of which such animals formed a part.
We have said that there is the greatest reason to infer and
to believe, that no creation, in which was the breath of life, took
place before the six days mentioned in Genesis. And we
ground this belief on the assertion of Revelation that by man
sin, and consequently death, came into the world. Inductive
science says, No — death was in the world before man sinned,
because death was in the world before man was created.
Which of these assertions is true ? and which is most to be
believed ?
The assertion of inductive science claims to be believed
on the ground of proof by natural investigation; whereas
Revelation does not even attempt to show that there is any
inductive proof that man's sin was the cause of death. Her
assertion upon this point, is without explanation of any cause
of this kind whatever. We are therefore driven to inquire,
whether the inductive method will bear out the natural philo-
sopher ; viz., whether there is any connection between the event
of the Deluge, which they admit, and the cause, which they state
as capable of proof from induction.
This is the point mainly at issue; and as it is entirely
different from Revelation, it becomes natural philosophy, in
the first place, to prove that she can, by induction, show that
death was in the world before man sinned.
Bearing this in mind, that if natural philosophy could show
by ocular and inductive proof, that death was an event which
took place before the six days of Genesis, we should still doubt
it ; not merely because it was not true, but because Revelation
had said differently, and that upon grounds that I have shown
cannot possibly be disproved, but which bear, nevertheless,
no relation by induction.
Now, therefore, it is my place to show that it is impossible
by the inductive method to prove the cause why death came
into the world. I must prove this before I can expect those
who say that they can adduce such evidence, to alter their
mind, and admit it is possible they were wrong. Let us, first,
suppose that the sin of A dam, which brought death into the
world, was the first and only cause of that occurrence. This
will show that by the inductive method we cannot find the
cause of death by examining the earth. We should expect to
see some proofs by which all the genera and species which are
entombed in the earth, might be identified in some unmistake-
able manner with those now living. This it is important to
show, because, if only an individual is found now in our seas,
129
or in any other position on the earth, and that individual may
be identified with living species, and we find in the supposed
oldest formation which geology has assigned, a similar indivi-
dual, or species, or family to which it it undoubtedly allied
with the living creation, this at once shows that when this
oldest formation took place, its animal contents were deposited
at the same time, and in those animal contents one being
found that is identical with the living creation by such a con-
nection as I have just named, the conclusion follows, that they
were both created at the same time, or, in other words, that
creation which was at first formed, is the same in type as that
which now exists.
The difficulty to prove this is not so great as it would appear.
The circumstance of finding many species in the supposed
older formations of the earth which we do not find now alive,
only proves that some of that creation, of which man formed
part, has become extinct, and this is very naturally to be
inferred from the altered condition of the earth (which marked
it) before and after the great deluge. A very large portion we
know has passed away in that catastrophe, which extinguished
so many. There is reason to suppose the extinction of species
to have occurred to the greatest extent in marine animals ; we
are not surprised to find in the strata of the earth many
genera and species strictly confined to the ocean are now found
buried in the earth within our reach. As a matter of course,
when the Deluge came, many of the animals that were de-
stroyed took a position more or less attractive than others,
from their having increased so much more between the time
of their creation and extinction ; for, as a rule, we may deter-
mine that the higher the position the animal took in the living
creation, the more scarce it was, and the less the number of
that animal likely to be found ; so that for one higher and
warm-blooded animal we should expect, as the natural evidence
of such a catastrophe, countless thousands in the earth of the
lower animals, such as the Mollusca. On this account we
shall take our example from those that are found fossil in
greatest abundance.
It cannot, therefore, be a surprise to any one that such a
species as Terebratula, among these last, should be represented
by mountain-masses. Nor would it be at all unaccountable,
if not one of these Terebratulce should be found alive at the
present time ; for we have evidence enough to show that when
the Deluge came, many parts of the earth were so much dis-
turbed as to engulf mountain-masses of those creatures that
were then living in the seas, so effectually, as that not one
living individual may have been preserved ; yet this is not to
130
Bay that the whole earth was alike so engulfed. The evidence
of some districts helps to show that much less fearfully dis-
turbing causes might have occurred there than elsewhere.
I, however, for a long time, thought that that species,
the Terebratula, as a distinct species (varieties of which,
amounting to more than two hundred, occupy a place in
almost every stratum which geology has successively marked),
was really extinct, till I had four individuals by accident
brought to me by an old friend, whose brother, the late
Captain J. M. R. Ince, R.N., had dredged them up in the
harbour of Port Jackson. It is difficult, at the present
time, to bring this fact so clearly before the mind of the
general public as that they can understand its merits, as
a proof of what is here brought forward. It needs some
knowledge of the particular subject to enter into the value of
this proof. Thus, Terebratula may be asserted to have been
long known to exist, not by this term, because there was a
slight difference in the hinge which justified its being recog-
nized by a different name, but, nevertheless, so closely related
to it that it really becomes a wider argument to show that
species and varieties of many shells in a fossil state are closely
identified with the living specimens. This convinced me of
this fact ; viz., that regardless of the small number, I could
not avoid coming to this conclusion, that the Terebratula as a
species was that which formed part of the present creation,
and, therefore, the present living creation was in type the
same when that destruction came and placed them where they
are in the earth, as we find them now. I have chosen this
species, because it is found in so many strata of the earth, in
some of the supposed oldest. The circumstance, then, of
finding a variety of this species of shell now living, proves
that the type of the first creation is the same as that now in
existence, modified only by causes which led to an alteration in
the earth9 8 surface, and the changes incident to those alterations
which took 'place on its surface. But this kind of evidence that
the same living creation existed, altered and modified to suit
the changes effected upon the surface of the earth since that
creation was formed, can be afforded by other species.
Thus the Trigonia, which, particularly on account of its
antiquated appearance, was thought to be extinct as a species,
till some years ago they fished up one valve of a variety of
this species, called Trigonia pectinata. So unexpected a friend
received more than ordinary attention; immediately it sold
for £20 ; but, as time passed on, more of this variety were
found ; and of course, as they became less rare, their value was
reduced, a fate that sometimes awaits the very highest genus.
131
It is sufficient for our purpose, though, to know that, old
as the species appeared to be, there was enough of it left to
show that the same genus marked the present creation with
some of the oldest in the earth; for geologists show that this
species, in many varieties, is found in the lower oolite. Now,
it is impossible that any one can mistake the hinge of the
-Trigonia pectin ata (the part from which the shell is named) for
any other ; it is unique in appearance ; and we have nothing
that approaches it nearer than the Castalia ambigua, which is
a different genus.
The .same mysterious circumstance appears to mark the
chambered shells, better known to some of us by the title
of Ammonite, which is the name which distinguishes some
of the varieties. For a long time this was considered to be
an extinct species, till the Spirula Peronii made its appear-
ance, and then the whole of that large species of animals —
of which from nearly the oldest formation, geologically speak-
ing, vast numbers of fossil varieties are taken — was united to
the present species, whose characters could not be mistaken.
These examples, though only three in number, are as good as
a thousand for our purpose.
But I will bring forward another kind of proof to show, that
other unmistakable signs still exist in the present living
creation, to mark them as the same creation as geologists
suppose came into existence before the six days mentioned in
Genesis. There are three or four species which belong to the
Mollusca, such as the Voluta, . Ftisus, Pyrula, and Eulimus,
where we have a departure from the usual course of construc-
tion in the shell, which, I believe, cannot be explained^ and,
what is singular to notice, it is confined to these varieties.
This alteration is no other than a complete perversion of thd
natural aperture of the shell, so that, while thousands of
species of univalve shells have the aperture invariably to the
right, these four varieties have it turned to the left.
Remarkable as this circumstance is in itself, it is of singular
importance that it should be noticed here, for the very same
peculiarity is to be observed in the fossil varieties of the same
species, with the exception of Bidimus, which is not found in
a fossil state. When we find peculiarities whioh mark the
living and extinct parts of the creation with such a very close
identity as this, I think we inay say there is no higher proof
that the time which marked tne commencement of one part
of creation still existing, was the time that marked the com-
mencement of that part that has become extinct.
Haying thus proved that the identity of the living and
extinct animals have too close an analogy to admit of their
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132
forming two distinct acts of creation, let us now try to
prove, in the second place, the impossibility of making two
creations out of what we possess ; for if death must have
attacked both, we must either suppose that there were two
different causes for death, or else we must suppose that the
same cause affected both. Now, if we analyze this, we find
that we shall get no nearer to the point at issue, by multiply-
ing creations. By the inductive method, it will be at once
seen that we cannot prove what was the cause of death any
better by multiplying or separating the six days' creation, and
so trying to show that they were separate acts.
If we look into the earth, we shall at once see we have no
connecting point to lead us to suppose that death proceeded
from the sin of Adam, any more because we suppose that
there were more creations than one. It was not making the
arguments of geologists stronger, or nearer the inductive
proof (which is the only proof they have any right to handle),
to say there were successive creations.
When we know that natural philosophers have not hesitated
to place somewhere in the present classification of animals,
as far as our present knowledge goes, a variety or an indivi-
dual, which we find in a fossil state, and which has not been k
found alive, we have a sufficient proof that naturalists do not
discover in those animals that are extinct, such signs of
separation as to justify the idea that therefore they are a
different creation ; although we cannot, with all the additions
which geology makes to the creation now in existence, put
together any other than a disjointed and imperfect creation.
Why we should be required under such circumstances to
make two or three separate creations, when we cannot perfect
the one that has been broken, seems to me, not only to be a
gratuitous, but a marvellous act. For though we have so
many animals in a fossil state, yet we could not possibly affirm
that they give us any good reason for believing that they
formed a different creation. As far as they go, they all
lock into the creation now in existence. And we say this
very advisedly, for most of us know how very little beyond
the mere outside of the creation now in existence we are
able to reach. Even those who make investigations pf
comparative anatomy their daily study, know little, compara-
tively speaking, of by far the larger part of the inhabitants of
the ocean. Until Professor Owen showed up the anatomy
of the Nautilus Pompilius, no one seems to have had an
opportunity of examining this animal since the time of
Aristotle.
To show that there were more creations than one, geologists
133
tried to prove that when the first animals died, man was not
upon the earth. But this supposed fact, often attempted to
be proved, J) as never advanced so far as to give satisfaction
to geologists alone, and if tried by the light of Revelation, it
is entirely subverted. We have the bones of man that have
been found in the caves of the oldest formations in which
geologists find the remains of creatures that must have had
life, mixed up with the bones of extinct animals, carnivora
of so devouring a character, that it would be impossible he
could have long continued a denizen of the earth, had he
not been destroyed in the Deluge, and certainly it is
impossible that man could have spread over the earth at the
same time that they existed.
But one perfect creation is announced in Scripture. This,
I think, geology cannot disprove, however men may differ in
the questions without the aid of Revelation, how or when those
parts of that creation became extinct, or how, or when, it
became necessary to develop by some laws inherent in the
particular animal, other parts of the same creation adapted to
a later period. For this creation, which was pronounced so
perfect, very soon came partly to destruction, and that from a
cause which no one could have discovered simply by exploring
the interior of the earth.
Revelation was, therefore, at once needed to tell us that
that cause was man's sin and fall, and that death was
denounced upon every living creature then in existence, on
account of his sin. So that, after this statement in the sacred
narrative, we are prepared for the still more awful and direful
description of the universal destruction of every living thing by
water, wherein was the breath of life, except tnose which were
appointed to be preserved. And this catastrophe took place,
as you all know, at the Deluge. At this event, a large portion
of those animals which, in their original formation, whqn blended
with the rest, formed one perfect and unbroken chain or
circle, was entirely swept away from the face of the earth.
They therefore became extinct. The varied forms and habits
of these now extinct races, having been adapted to the state
of the earth before the Deluge, rendered it necessary that at
that catastrophe some of the animals should be exterminated.
The food having been changed on which animals were to sub-
sist, made it indispensable that several of the larger flesh-
eating animals should be extinguished as well as those species
they fed on. This appears to be very naturally accounted for,
if, as we find was the case, man was to occupy a wider surface
upon the earth after this event.
I wish here to allude to a circumstance which has doubtless
l 2
134
puzzled many a. ..mind that may not have been disposed to
regard the truths of Revelation with any disposition to doubt.
vWe have been told unmistakably there that the cause of
death was man's sin; and it is clear that an indispensable
condition, as well as the justice, of this belief was, that no
interruption should have completely severed the race of Adam
from the living man that occupied the earth after the Deluge.
Accordingly, we find in the Mosaic account of the diluvial
destruction, there is a means furnished, which at once insepa-
rably connects the whole race of man, from the time of the fall
to the present day.
I want here to correct an error which many believers
have fallen into in company with geologists, and which calls
for some of that charity which, I have before said, is especially
required in all those who attempt to combat a vexed question
like that before u$.
This difficulty appears to have arisen out of a circumstance
which believers may not have suspected to exist. It is con-
nected with the construction and position of the words in the
original Hebrew, which first announce the Deluge. It is there
first expressed in these words : " Of every living thing of all
flesh, pairs of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep
them alive with thee." Now it is to be observed that this
command, " every living thing/' seems to be an universal
expression. Accordingly, without any knowledge of this fact,
that in the Hebrew, as well as in other languages, it is not at
all uncommon to announce the fact of a subject in general or
universal terms, but that afterwards, in continuing the subject,
as it becomes more special, those terms are qualified by the
context. This is the case in the instance before us ; for in the
next chapter we find, as the particulars become more minutely
stated, that the clean and the unclean animals are now dis-
tinguished; so that we find seven, and not two, formed thG
numbers of some of the animals that were taken into the ark.
The clean and the unclean beasts, being all that were named.
This is important to be noticed, because, by correcting it,
we shall remove the doubts of many over the popular
idea, that the Scripture warrants the inference that two of
every sort of all living flesh was commanded to be brought
into the ark. And it is so important that we should be correct
upon this point, that I shall not apologize for adding in this
place the Scripture authority, which makes it certain that the
word " all " is not used in an universal sense in many parts
of Scripture, and that it is customary there to use universal
terms with limited significations, This fact is well known to
135
many divines. Thus, we find the word used in 1 Cor. xiii.
cannot be used but in a limited sense.
Our Lord himself said: "All things which I have heard of
my Father, I have made known unto you." Here it is
evident that the term is not to be understood universally, but
restrictively. So, in the vision of St. Peter, he beheld " a
certain vessel wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts
of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things, and fowls
of the air." It is not necessary to suppose that the animals
here were, zoologically and numerically, all the living creation,
but only a variety sufficiently great for the selection that Peter
was called upon to make. Besides, Peter afterwards qualifies
it in chap. xi. 6, in which the word "all" is left out
altogether. "1 considered," he says, "and saw fourfooted
beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and
fowls of the air/' We have another example where an universal
term could not have any other than a limited sense. Obadiah
says to Elijah, " As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation
or kingdom whither my lord Jhath not sent to seek thee."
But there is no instance we could mention, perhaps, which
bears so closely upon our present subject, while it will, I hope,
help to make it more definite and clear, as the word day, which,
whether in its wider or more limited sense, is so differently
rendered in different places, as thereby to lead to the most
painful doubts. If geologists had always borne in mind this
fact, that whenever the word day was limited in its sense, to
mean only twenty-four hours, that limitation is always borne
out by the context, — the words evening and morning, or some
like expression, being invariably added, — they would have been
unmistakably sure, that in rendering the six days of creation
ini Genesis i. the words evening and morning take it quite out
of our power to attach the more lengthened period to the
word day in this place.
The words of Scripture do not oblige us to understand
that every variety of living creature at the time of the Deluge ,
was necessarily taken by Noah into the ark, though all flesh
wherein was the breath of life at that time perished. And if .
it were possible for such a thing to have taken place, we should ,
actually have attributed to God an unnecessary act. For, *
while there was an unerring design in not breaking the moral t
chain which was to link the existing man with the old Adam, •
there could be no such necessity for linking the brute creation —
those animals which were unable to see the cause which brought
their existence to an end. ?
It seems, therefore, that the idea of taking animals into the
136
ark for any other purpose than the accommodation of man,
and to preserve seed alive for his comfort, places a gra-
tuitous restraint upon our creed, and causes many to believe
that those things which really are stated for our belief
have a meaning attached to them which Scripture does not
warrant.
The introduction of the ark in the position that it takes in
the Mosaic account justifies us in saying that, while it was
only there for man's accommodation and comfort, without
which he could not have existed or continued on the earth, it
brings him inseparably and morally in contact with those
parents that first brought him into existence upon the earth,
and identifies him immediately with the punishment that had
been denounced upon his progenitors; thereby showing the
imperative necessity there is for man's believing that the sin
of Adam was the only cause which led to the death of any
creature, and that, therefore, without this cause, there would
have been no death. The ark, therefore, placed where it is in
the Mosaic account, not only shows the justice and consistency
of God in uniting in this way by blood relationship the ante-
diluvial with the post-diluvial man, but it still further verifies
the truth of the Scriptures, that for man's sin, and for no
other cause, death first came into the world, at the time stated
by the Prophet.
The Chairman. — It is my pleasing duty to ask you to tender your most
grateful thanks to Dr. Burnett for the admirable paper just read, which has
lost none of its force from the manner in which it has been read by Mr.
Montagu Burnett I feel that this paper is one which requires attentive
study. Though it may appear contrary to the popular views of geology, I
believe it to be most accordant with the recent progress of that science.
I venture to characterize it as a far-sighted paper, — one which could only have
been written by a person thoroughly conversant with geological progress,
while it is penetrated by a profound reverence for revealed truth. Dr.
Burnett has not shrunk from any of the difficulties of the question. He has
shown that geology has made no discoveries inconsistent with Revelation,
while he has also shown that it has not yet developed itself into a perfect
science. The popular theory among geologists a few years since — a theory
retained in many modern text-books — was to ascribe the fossil remains of
certain strata to different successive creations ; the plants and animals of
one creation being destroyed by some cataclysm before those of the succeed-
ing creation made their appearance. This theory is now for the most part
abandoned as inconsistent with the facts accumulated within the last few
years. The tendency is to abandon it altogether, and to admit one creation
only. It is true that some would spread this creation over a large period,
and that most still require millions or billions of years for the formation of
137
the various strata of the earth yet explored. When we ask, however, for
demonstrative proof that these strata could not have been formed in any
shorter space of time, we are met, not with proof, but the mere assertion that
they cannot be conceived to have been formed in a lesser space of time.
When instead of mere assertion, we find attempted proof, from the rate of
the deposition of mud in deltas, the gradual upheaval of strata in certain
periods of time, the formation of coral reefs, &c., we find the assumed data
of calculation altogether upset by other data obtained from a more careful
survey of the phenomena relied upon. Dr. Burnett treats the subject from
another point of view ; from a wide range of induction, he argues, from the
unity of plan, anatomically and physiologically considered, of all the fossil
remains of the earth yet discovered, for one, not many successive creations.
Natural history has only been studied with anything like scientific accuracy
for less than a couple of centuries ; yet within that time we know races of
animals have become extinct. One picture and a few bones in the British
Museum and Oxford, are all that we now possess as records of the Dodo.
We cannot therefore argue, that because an animal has become extinct, it
belongs to a former creation. Only some two specimens of the encrinite,
so abundant in fossil strata, have yet been dredged from the bottom of the
sea, yet there may be zones of animal life, in which it may still exist in great
abundance, in the vast unexplored beds of the ocean. I do not think that
geologists need complain if we call their science an imperfect one. It is yet' *
in its infancy. The first meeting of the British Association gave a gold medal
to William Smith, the father of English geology, — so called, because he
first pointed out the identification of strata, not by their mineralogical
character, but by their fossil remains. Hasty generalization and reasoning
on the contents of these strata led to the successive-creation theory, a theory
opposed entirely to the analogy of the present distribution of creatures on the
earth. As an example : had Australia been submerged, and its present
fauna been embedded in sand, clay, or calcareous matter, and then raised
again, that fauna would certainly a few years since have been classed as a fauna
of great geological antiquity. Geology, as a science, is one of the most
difficult and intricate man has undertaken to explore. We need not be
surprised if its progress be slow. The presumed great and vast antiquity of
its many strata has not been proved ; the progress of facts tends rather to
disprove it. In this, geology seems to be passing through the same phase
which other sciences have done. We hear little now of the vast antiquity
of Chinese civilization, though some would still maintain a fabulous antiquity
for ancient Egyptian civilization. We may doubt, with Sir G. Lewis, whether
much real progress has been made in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics ;
but analogy with the ideographic writing of the Chinese would lead us to
suppose that foreign names at least were represented by phonetic characters.
In this we may credit hieroglyphists, when they decipher the names of foreign
rulers of Egypt Judged in this manner, the vaunted antiquity of the
Zodiac of Denderah, assumed from astronomical considerations, collapsed into
that of comparatively modern times, by the discovery of its dedication to a
138 '
Roman emperor. I am sure you will not feel less indebted to Dr. Burnett
for the great mass, of information he has given us in his paper, than gratified
by the noble love of truth which pervades it from beginning to end. (Hear,
hear.)
Captain Fishbourne. — I was very much struck by the observations which
Dr. Burnett has made with respect to the disorganization of the human mind
which had resulted from the fall of Adam. Those who disputed the truth of
the events related in the Bible, ignore the fact that something had taken
place with respect to the mind of man which constantly caused him to run
contrary to his whole reason. How was this accounted for ? The opposition
of science to revelation appeared to him to proceed in a great measure from
ignorance on the part of those who raised the objections — ignorance of science
and ignorance of Scripture. An instance of that was afforded in the objec-
tion to the passage in the Bible with regard to the serpent. Here was a very
complex question, a very difficult passage ; and the scientific man putting his
own construction upon it, and bringing in his science to his aid, rushed at
once to the conclusion that the Scripture was all wrong. He did not descend
to the question of exegesis ; he read the passage in the sense which he
thought proper to put upon it himself, and, without waiting for further in-
quiry, he pronounced it to be all wrong. He added, that having examined
the serpent, he found that it was never adapted for walking ; but he had no
right to presume that the serpent had walked. There was not a word in the text
about its having been previously erect. But he assumed too much, and he
failed to give any proof in support of his assumption. It would be necessary
for him first to prove that there was a pre- Adamite serpent ; secondly, that
the interpretation which he put upon the passage in the Scripture was the
correct one ; and thirdly, that the curse pronounced by God had reference to
the serpent, and not to the devil. But instead of doing that, what did the
scientific man do ? Why, he simply told them he had examined the physical
organs of the serpent, and found that serpents never walked. He might
as well have examined the dumb ass of Balaam, and told them it did not
speak. (Hear.) He passed entirely out of his province when he entered into
these questions ; — he was not in a position to deal with them. They were
things supernatural, which he could not investigate. With a miracle once
granted, they could afford to make the man of science a present of all such
arguments. (Hear, hear.) Now, it was only necessary to observe the effect
which Christianity produced on those who practised its teachings, in order
to be convinced of its truth. With such demonstrative evidence in favour of
the Scriptures, I think we have very good grounds for not accepting the
deductions of simple reason, when we find them in opposition to the doctrines
taught by the Bible. But what was the position which men of science took
up with regard to this question ? They said, " Oh, you have so many different
forms of belief. When you are as much agreed on the subject of religion as
we are with regard to science, we will be prepared to listen to you." This
was the most monstrous assertion I ever heard in my life. What is the
acf ? Let us take, for instance, the Apostles'. Creed : Christians of all ages,
139'
and of nearly every denomination, had agreed to that ; and I ask those who
taunted them with their disagreement, to produce so many articles of
scientific faith, which they would all adopt (hear), or which they had ever
adopted, for one century. (Hear, hear.) Nay, I challenge men of science to
produce such a confession of faith in the truths of science, as is contained in
the Apostles* Creed, upon which they were agreed at the present moment, or
upon which they had agreed even for the last ten years. (Hear, hear.) When
they have done that, it would be time enough to taunt Christians with
their differences of opinion on matters of faith. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Ince. — It was not my intention to take any part in the discussion ;
but I desire to mention a remarkable circumstance which, perhaps, no one
else in the room is aware of, and that is, that within the last few days some
twenty specimens of terebratuke have been found in this country, off Skye.
On the previous Friday night I had the pleasure of examining one, and when
I took it into my hand it was still alive, though just dying. I think it impor-
tant to mention this fact as bearing out the arguments of Dr. Burnett, to
whom our best thanks are due for the very valuable paper he has con-
tributed.
Mr. Warington. — In the few remarks which I shall make upon the paper,
I shall occupy as little time as possible. It struck me that the paper was
one which, if any sceptic had been present, would have afforded him an
opportunity for very severe criticism. It appears to me that there is one
radical fault in Dr. Burnett's argument, and a very radical fault it is. The
absence of Dr. Burnett would make one loath to speak of it in a critical
manner ; but it seems to me as if he had overlooked what the true mode of
reasoning is by which any science obtains its conclusions. He admits that
scientific induction in geology is just and right up to a certain point ; but
he argues that it is presumptuous to go one step further. He admitted that
geology was right in saying that the remains of veritable animals had been found
in the earth, which animals certainly died ; but he contended that it was
presumption on the part of geologists to say that those animals died before
Adam was created. But the kind of reasoning by which geologists arrived at
the one fact was precisely identical in principle with the kind of reasoning by
which they arrived at the other. The difference was merely in degree. How
was it, when a bone was discovered in the earth, that they were able to say
that it was the bone of an animal ? Was it possible to give mathematical proof
of it ? It was certainly impossible ; no one could tell whether it was the bone
of an animal or not, except by analogy. They were enabled to recognize it
as a bone, from its resemblance in form to the bones of animals with which
they were acquainted ; but that was all the proof that could be given, and
they had no other grounds for arriving at the conclusion that it was a bone.
It was quite possible that there might be such a structure unconnected
with a living animal, and that there might be such a form unconnected with
life ; but inasmuch as no human being had ever known of such a thing, it was
taken as proof that the structure was a bone, and that the bone was the
bone of a living animal which had died. It was a proof which rested solely
140
upon analogy ; and while Dr. Burnett admitted that the geologists were right
in their reasoning so far, he asserted that they were not justified in fur-
ther assuming, upon the same evidence, that those animals existed at a very
remote period. But what was the evidence upon which geologists based
their conclusions ? They found a bone incased in a certain rock, and they
asked themselves the question how it had become incased there. I will take,
for instance, the case of a bone found imbedded in sandstone. How did it
get there ? the geologist asked. It could not be supposed that it was purposely
buried there. It was therefore very plain that the animal must have died in
that position, and that the rock must have accumulated round it in process
of time. The animal must have died amongst loose sand, and the sand
having accumulated round it, gradually became hard, until it formed sand-
stone. This was the kind of reasoning adopted by geologists. I am not
going to say that the conclusion is right or wrong. But it is a mode
of reasoning which is entirely based upon analogy; and until the facts were
otherwise accounted for, geologists had clearly as much right to assume that the
bone had been in the rock for a long period, as they had in the first instance
to assume that it was a bone at alL Therefore it strikes me that the argument
of Dr. Burnett was open to objection on this ground. It appears to me that
if the reasoning of geologists was just in the first instance, it was no presump-
tion on their part to take the further step, unless it could be shown that the
evidence upon which they based their conclusions was insufficient I will
take the case which has been instanced by Dr. Burnett himself, — the case of
the flint pebbles. It is found that pebbles are round, and geologists con-
clude that they are made round by the action of running water. Here,
again, they were reasoning from analogy ; for they found that pebbles exposed
to the action of water are made round, and they had therefore concluded
that round pebbles mast have been at some time or other exposed to the
action of such water. And they further asserted that if pebbles had been
made round by the action of water, the process must have occupied so
much time. I think this is a very fair assumption, and until those who
hold a different opinion are able to disprove it by facts, they have no
right to complain of the views advanced by geologists. I am not going to
say that geologists are right or wrong, but I certainly think that Dr.
Burnett had found fault with them unjustly ; because they were not
making hypotheses, but were reasoning from facts, as far as they knew them.
What they want, if they were wrong, is more facts to set them right.
Until those facts were adduced, it was useless to argue that geologists had no
grounds for the conclusions which they arrived at I have only one more
observation to make. I think it is rather a grave assumption on the part of
Dr. Burnett to say that there was no death in the world before the fall of
man. It is contrary to the opinion of a very large proportion of the best
scholars of the present day, including those who were most opposed to the
innovations of science, and to me it appears to be very dangerous ground to
take. I have also a word to add with regard to the remarks which had fallen
from one of the speakers who preceded me. I think that Captain Fishbourne
141
was a little unjust to men of science who objected to the Scriptures, when
he stated that tbey put their own interpretation upon them. To a certain
extent that observation may be true ; but so far as I know of scientific
objectors, they quoted the interpretations which had been received as orthodox,
and then proceeded to show that, according to the teaching of science, these
could not be true. They do not put an interpretation on the passage them-
selves, but they take the commonly received interpretations, and endeavour
to show that in that sense the Bible is inconsistent with the truths of
science, and calculated to mislead. How far they had succeeded is a
question into which I am not now prepared to enter ; but I think it right
that their objections should be fairly stated, in order that they might be
fairly met. (Hear, hear.)
Dr. Gladstone. — There are one or two things in the paper upon which
I should like to make a few observations ; but I feel, like Mr. Warington,
some delicacy in doing so in the absence of Dr. Burnett My first objection is
to the title of the paper. I cannot see why the subject treated by Dr. Burnett
is called " A Comparison between Science and Revelation, as Standards of
Truth.*' I think those two terms are incompatible. The term science is
very indefinite ; it might mean natural science, or theological science, or
metaphysical science, or political science. But when we come to the essay
itself, I find it commences very properly with the statement that God created
the entire world, and that the evidence of His power and wisdom is to be
found in all His works. It is further laid down, that having created the
world, God had revealed himself to man, whom He had also created to
inhabit that world. Now I can understand a comparison between these
two things as standards of truth — a comparison between Nature and Reve-
lation. Both manifest, though in different ways, that God who was their great
Author. But I do not understand how science can be regarded as a standard
of truth. Science is simply a knowledge acquired by man from what he observes
in Nature or Revelation ; but the deductions of man, whether in natural
or theological science, can in neither the one case nor the other be regarded
as standards of truth. I think it should have been more clearly shown in
the paper that the science spoken of meant natural science, and that natural
science meant the deductions of man from the facts which he observed in Nature.
But while the facts of Nature are perfectly true, and while Revelation, coming
as it did from God, must also be true, the deductions of man from the facts
of Nature might be far indeed from the truth, just as his deductions from
the words of Revelation might be very far from being true. (Hear, hear.)
I was very much struck with the observations in the paper upon which Capt
Fishbourne had remarked. I do not think there can be any doubt as to the
disorganization of man's reason. He is constantly falling into all kinds
of errors. It should be borne in mind, too, that this disorganization prevails
to a far greater extent in things spiritual than in purely temporal matters.
Far greater danger therefore exists of men being led away by false theories with
respect to the words of God in Revelation, than by false theories with respect to
the facts of nature. I am not going to enter into the theological question ; but
142
I will say that nowhere in Genesis can I find it stated that the death of
animals depended upon the fall of man. I remember that this is stated in
Milton ; but I do not recollect any passage in the Bible itself by which
the assumption could be maintained. It contained no reference whatever to
the cause of the death of animals. I know very well that theologians are
divided upon the point ; but I will not go further into that question. I
would, however, remark that in my opinion the present existence of the
Terebratula has really very little bearing upon the subject under discussion.
There are many other arguments for the antiquity of fossiliferous strata to
which Dr. Burnett had not alluded. There can be no doubt of the apparent
succession of species in rock after rock as they are dug up out of the earth.
Attempts had been made by geologists to determine by mathematical calcula-
tion the length of time which had elapsed since the animals found in these rocks
had died ; but the more they applied mathematics to the solution of the problem,
the longer the periods became. I cannot sit down without making one further
remark. I think that Capt. Fishbourne was rather hard upon men of science
when he spoke of them as rejecting Revelation, and as believing less in the
Bible than other people. Now, I know a number of scientific men, and I am
nearly always amongst them ; and, from my experience of them, I do not
believe the charge of Capt. Fishbourne is well founded. (Hear, hear.) I do
not think science induces a man to believe or disbelieve in Revelation.
A man's faith had its origin in far higher teaching. (Hear, hear.) I think
it is therefore very unwise to put forth such statements. I do not believe, as
a rule, that men of science are opposed to Revelation. If it were a fact that
men, by their study of science, were led away from a belief in the Bible, it
would be the most cogent argument that could be urged against the truth of
Christianity ; but I do not believe any such argument can be used. Among
men of science there are doubtless individuals who do not believe in
revealed truth ; but it is the same in every other profession on the face of the
earth. (Hear, hear.) I am certain that great harm would be done to young
minds if the statement that science was opposed to Revelation were to go
forth, and I feel it to be my duty to correct it. (Hear, hear.)
Rev. J. B. Owen. — However we may differ with respect to the views
contained in the paper, we shall all agree to the vote of thanks which has
been proposed to the author. (Hear, hear.) I think our thanks are also due
to those gentlemen who have spoken upon the paper, for the observations
which they have made. I fully concur in the remarks which have been made
by Dr. Gladstone with respect to some apparent deficiencies in the line of
argument pursued by Dr. Burnett, and it occurs to me, that if Dr. Gladstone
would favour us with a paper remedying the defects which he has pointed
out, he would confer a very valuable service upon the Society. (Hear, hear.)
I am sure that a paper on this subject from one whose deep scientific
research is only equalled by the soundness of his religious views, and the
catholicity of his sentiments, would be listened to with very great interest
(hear, hear) ; and, with Dr. Burnett on the one hand and Dr. Gladstone on the
143
other, I think we might be assured that, between two such able and intelli-
gent witnesses, every word of the truth would be established. (Hear, hear.)
Notwithstanding any minor defects, I think the paper a very admirable one.
This is an age in which a vast amount of attention is given to geology. A
great deal more attention was now paid to the earth, than to the heavens. In
former times astronomy was the science which chiefly attracted man's
attention, and we all know the series of blunders they had fallen into with
respect to it till the time of Copernicus ; and that it is the scientific glory of
England to have produced the system of Sir Isaac Newton. It now
appears that astronomy is given up in favour of geology. But it strikes
me that we have not reached that position in respect of geology which we
have attained in astronomy. Geology wants its Newton. We want some
great mind, who, by a careful investigation of the crust of the earth, will
arrive at a series of definite conclusions upon which he could base a true
system. With respect to other remarks, I will only say that, in my opinion,
it is of the utmost importance that, in a society like ours, we should
have all sorts of relevant observations. (Hear, hear.) The only things which
should be excluded from our discussion are noise, and nonsense, and abuse. As
long as what is stated is expressed civilly, and has any scientific basis to
support it, there should be no objection to it. We profess to stand upon a
foundation which, like the kingdom of the Redeemer, can not be shaken,
and therefore we can afford to listen to all kinds of suggestions, and discuss
them as the Lord Jesus did constantly, while on earth, in a calm and tem-
perate spirit. The more we imitate His example in this Society, the more
we shall show ourselves consistent disciples and sincere believers in the
grand truths which He came on earth to proclaim, — namely, the truths which
God had revealed to man, and which it is our object in this Society to defend.
(Hear, hear.) I think we shall be able to maintain our position against
attacks of every kind. And I can far easier believe that there is no God,
than believe that a God existed and never revealed himself. I do not
understand how any one could believe in God, and deny that He had revealed
Himself to the creatures whom He had made. It is quite as monstrous an
hypothesis as to suppose that the father of a family loving his children
would never reveal himself to them in his paternal relations. It is such
a hypothesis as could not stand for a moment. It is absurd. It is our
belief that the Bible is His revelation, and though we may not be able
always to reconcile the statements which it contains with certain phenomena
in Nature, it is- our duty to wait and study, and not take for granted that they
never can be reconciled. The institution of such a society as this is worthy
of London, the great metropolis of Christendom. Let us only have a few
more papers such as that read this evening, and a few more discussions such
as have followed, and I am satisfied that a great deal of good will be done.
We should be very glad on all occasions to hear the opinions of men who da
not agree with us. We would perhaps be able to lead them gradually to our
way of thinking ; but I hope, at all events, that no one who listens to our
144
discussions will ever be allowed an opportunity of saying that they were
not pervaded by the spirit of charity, and of true Christian gentlemen, which
was the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. (Hear.)
Mr. Redd ie. — Had it not been now so late, I should have ventured to
make a few remarks upon Dr. Burnett's paper. But at this hour I feel I
must confine my observations to answering some of the criticisms of former
speakers. I must first notice the remarks of Dr. Gladstone, who has rather
taken Captain Fi&hbourne to task, as if he had invented the cry that science
is opposed to Scripture. I would beg Dr. Gladstone to recall to mind the
very history and origin of this Society. It is surely notorious that an alleged
contradiction between science and Scripture had been publicly put forward
and thrown at Christians, which had made it necessary that they should
defend themselves. This charge was certainly raised by our opponents,
more especially of late in the Essays and Reviews ; and it had been publicly
repeated since by Dr. Temple, Dr. Colenso, and others. It may be said that
these writers are not men of science, which we may admit ; but the argu-
ments which they have advanced secondhand are based upon the opinions
of certain reputed men of science. I do not, however, for a moment mean
to say either that science, or that all men of science, are opposed to Revela-
tion. The very institution of this Society is in itself a protest against any
such notion. And when my friend Captain Fishbourne or I have alluded to
" men of science " as opposed to the Scriptures, we do not of course mean
all men of science. We do not, for instance, include Dr. Gladstone himself,
any more than we would include our most worthy and thoroughly scientific
Chairman. I think we ought all to feel much indebted to Dr. Burnett for
his paper. I hope, with the Rev. Mr. Owen, that it will give rise to at least
one paper from Dr. Gladstone himself, and to a great many others. (Hear.)
With reference to Mr. Warington's criticisms, I think he has made a mistake
as regards Dr. Burnett's arguments, which bear upon the difference in scope
between Scripture and science. Dr. Gladstone has also fallen into the same
mistake ; for in quoting, in order to criticise, the title of the paper, he over-
looked the words " in scope," which form the real key-note to its meaning.
Dr. Burnett argued, for instance, that Scripture professed to reveal the cause
of death coming into the world, while science and observation could only
possibly discover the fact of death, but could not ever get at its cause. That
is certainly true, whether we regard it as of much consequence or not. But
I am inclined to agree with our Chairman, that this argument is worthy of
deep consideration, with all that flows from it. When Dr. Burnett, how-
ever, comes to what we call scientific proofs, he does not object to them in
principle, as appears to have been supposed by Mr. Warington. He admits
the method, but he does not admit particular proofs in certain cases to be
satisfactory. Take, for instance, Mr. Warington's argument as regards the
so-called rolled pebbles and their assumed great age—
The Chairman. — I think there is some misapprehension with regard
to Dr. Burnett's allusion to flint pebbles. It is hardly fair, perhaps, to
criticise very severely a mere illustration. A very faulty illustration may be
145
taken without at all weakening the force of the argument it has been chosen
to illustrate. Flint pebbles are very much softer when dug out of the
chalk than they afterwards become when exposed to the sun and air.
Even in their hardest condition, a few days' rolling by a stream, or by the
action of waves in contact with each other, is all that is required to give
them a rounded form and water-worn appearance.
Mr. Rbddib. — I had only a few observations to offer with regard to
Mr. Warington's argument as to the pebbles, and they were rather in
support of Dr. Burnett's conclusions. I venture to deny that there
is proof that round pebbles are always " rolled," as has been too generally
assumed. I find in gravel a vast number, perhaps a majority, of pebbles
that have been originally formed in a round shape, with a centre or nucleus,
and layers, as it were, all round, like miniature strata. Some pebbles, no
doubt, have had their corners rubbed off by rolling ; but others, and perhaps
most of them, have as evidently been originally crystallized and formed in
the round form in which they are found. Then it has been said by Mr.
Warington that the presence of a bone, or other animal remains, found
embedded in strata, proves that death must have existed for ages in the
world —
Mr. Warington. — I wish to state that I have expressed no opinion as to
whether the conclusions arrived at by geologists are just or unjust I have
simply referred to the kind of argument used by geological sceptics to sup-
port their conclusions.
The Chairman. — So far as I understood Mr. Warington, he did not
adopt the arguments which he used. He had simply stated that the sceptic,
if he had been present, might have argued that way.
Mr. Rkddib. — It appears to me that it is of no consequence whether the
arguments advanced by Mr. Warington are adopted by him or not. Having
been advanced by him in discussion, whether as his own or as those of
an imaginary sceptic, I think they ought to be answered. When a theory is
brought forward by geologists, from which certain deductions are drawn
contrary to the teaching of Revelation, we are not only entitled, but bound to
examine the evidence by which it is supported. Now what proof do geologists
give of the antiquity of the sedimentary rocks ? The arguments formerly used
in support of the long periods which must have elapsed from the creation have
recently been changed. Dr. Burnett has presented us with some new facts
and arguments against the theory of distinct creations ; but in Sir Charles
Lyell's latest work on the Antiquity of Man, he had not attempted to
maintain them, or rather he had plainly given them up. And now I have in
my hand an extract from an able review of Sir William Logan's Geological
Survey of Canada, which appeared in The Times of the 21st of October, 1864,
in which the reviewer observes, with special reference to those assumed
immense geological periods, as to which Mr. Warington — or his " sceptic " —
are so positive, that, " in order to expose the fallacy of such an argument, it
would only be necessary to appeal to a few of those Canadian geological
monuments, the true interpretation of which, we believe, icill establish the fact
146
that the dement of time has very little share in the alteration and crystaUizdr
tion of the sedimentary rocks? (Hear, hear.) I quote this to show that (as
our Chairman has said) the tendency of the latest scientific conclusions is to
reverse not only the theory of distinct creations, but also that of the long
geological periods which Dr. Gladstone and Mr. Warington have both so
confidently appealed to. But these are questions we shall have to investi-
gate. We are yet but a young society, and perhaps we have all been too
eager to dispose of such large questions off-hand, in the course of the two
discussions which as yet are all we have had. I, for one, do not admit that
these long periods and the great antiquity of the sedimentary rocks have
been proved. Dr. Burnett has furnished us with some fresh matter for
consideration ;* but his paper must not be considered as having even at-
tempted to settle so large a question. It is to be hoped that it will lead to
other papers, in which the various points raised by him will be more
minutely discussed. It was, in fact, with that object that these introductory
papers had been written and read as a commencement of our Transactions.
The Rev. Dr. Irons. — While there are some things in the paper to which we
might demur, I feel that Dr. Burnett is not the less entitled to our most cordial
thanks. I should like to know whether it is probable that the paper will
come on for discussion at another meeting. I think it would be desirable
that an opportunity should be given us to discuss it at some future time,
after we have read and weighed its contents. And I think that nothing is
more essential to the character of the Institute as a philosophical Society,
than that we should eschew all unnecessary bickering between science and
religion. We are here engaged in the pursuit of truth, and our duty is to
examine the arguments of those who are opposed to us, and to eliminate as
much as possible all merely controversial disputes. (Hear.)
Mr. Burnett. — I should like to say a few words before the meeting closes,
upon the observations which have been made. Of course the paper was
intended to meet with criticism. My father would have been Very much
disappointed if it had not been criticised ; and I am glad to find that
dt has given rise to as much discussion as if he had been present. With
respect to the critical objections of Mr. Warington, I have only to say that
my father is perfectly aware of the defects of his paper, but his illness had
•prevented him from producing a more complete essay at present. (Hear,
hear.) I beg to thank the meeting for the kind manner in which it has
listened to me, and for the cordial vote of thanks which has been passed for
my father's paper. (Hear.)
The Chairman then adjourned the meeting.
* Some of his arguments are similar in character to those so ably put
forward in Omphalos by our Vice-President, Mr. Gosse. For instance, if we
admit creation at all, say of a tree or an animal, it is evident that such tree
or animal would appear as if it had slowly grown in time to be what it is,
which appearance would, in the case supposed, be deceptive. This is a
difficulty which inductive science must face. Whereas, if men deny creation,
they are then involved in greater difficulties of another kind.
H7
ORDINARY MEETING, July 2, 1866.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-Pbebident, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed.
Mr. Rebdib, Hon. Sec, then announced that the following Foundation
Members and Associates had been elected since the 4th of June : —
Members. — Rev. Edward Auriol, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul's, Rector
of St. Dunstan's in the West, 35, Mecklenburg Square; Rev. J.
Stevenson Blackwood, D.D., LL.D., Middleton Tyas, Yorkshire ; Rev.
W. Weldon Champneys, M. A. (late Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford),
Canon of St Paul's, 31, Gordon Square ; Robert Hardwicke, Esq., F.L.S.,
Publisher, 192, Piccadily ; John Napier, Esq., Shipbuilder, Saughfield
House, Glasgow ; Robert Napier, Esq., Shipbuilder, Glasgow, West
Shandon, Dumbartonshire ; Rev. William Pennefather, B.A., 2, Mildmay
Road ; John Shields, Esq., Church Street, Durham ; William Cave
Thomas, Esq., Historical Painter, 49, Torrington Square ; Rev. B. W. S.
Vallack, B.A. Oxon, St Budeaux's Vicarage, near Plymouth ; C. W. H.
Wyman, Esq., 53, St. John's Park, Upper Holloway.
Associates, 2nd Class : — Rev. S. Skrine, M.A., Southborough, Tunbridge
Wells ; Rev. W. Webster, M.A. (late Fellow of Queen's College, Cam-
bridge), 3, Park Villas West, Richmond, Surrey.
The Honorary Secretary also announced that Mr. Edward J. Morshead
had been elected a member of the Council, and bad accepted the Office of
Honorary Foreign Secretary ; and that the Council had appointed Mr.
Charles H. Hilton Stewart as Clerk to the Society, — the temporary engage-
ment made with Dr. Evans having ended.
It was also announced that the following books and pamphlets had been
presented to the Society : —
Modern Scepticism and Modem Science. By J. R. Young, Esq., M.V.I.,
formerly Professor of Mathematics, Belfast College. From the Author.
The Inspiration of Moses proved, dkc. By the Rev. James Ivory Holmes, M.A.,
Associate V.L From the Author.
A Plain old Indian's Solution of some of Bishop Colenso's BiffimMes. By
John Stalkartt, Esq., M.V.I. From the Author.
148
Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot By Philip Henry
Gosse, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President V.I. From the Author.
Man: Hi* trite Nature and Ministry. From the French of De Saint-
Martin. Translated by E. B. Penney, Esq., M.V.I. From the Translator.
Theosophic Correspondence of St. Martin and the Baron de Liebestorf.
From the same.
The Conformation of the Material by the Spiritual, and Holiness of Beauty.
By W. Cave Thomas, Esq., M.V.I. From the Author.
The Biblical Antiquity of Man ; or, Man not older tlum the Adamic Creation.
By the Bev. S. Lucas, F.G.S. From Alexander McArthur9 Esq., M. V.I.
The Rev. Dr. Thornton then read the following Paper : —
ON COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, WITH REFERENCE
TO TEE THEORIES OF MAN'S ORIGIN. By the
Bev. Robinson Thobnton, D.D., Head Master of Epsom
College.
IT may seem presumptuous to commence my task with a
criticism of a term which is universally employed by
scholars; but I cannot help expressing some regret at the
title I am compelled to use. The word philology is, to nay
mind, inexpressive, and therefore unfortunate. According to
analogy, it must signify " the science of friends," not " the
science of human speech" Nor, if we look to the ordinary
classical meaning of the Greek, shall we find it more appro-
priate. The word (fn\6\oyog is used by Plato to signify " fond
of learned discussion ;" Isocrates employs <pi\o\oyia in the
abstract sense of fondness for such discussion; while in
Plutarch and Athenaaus the word sometimes means " talka-
tive," sometimes " fond of historical and scholastic pursuits "
• — in short, what we should express by " a literary man/' The
ancient Greeks, with whom it was not common to know any
language but their own — who seem to have been, in fact,
slaves to their own rich and varied tongue — had no idea of
a science of speech. Cratylus is by no means an anticipator
of Bask and Bopp, of Grimm and Miiller. The science is one
of modern days : it is not a century old. Linguists there
may have been, like Charles V., or Mithridates, who could
converse with most of their subjects in their own tongue;
linguists like Hickes, who drew up regular grammars, in
149
the old Priscianio form, of old and little-known dialects.
But all these, with a vast amount of linguistic and gramma-
tical lore, were scarcely scientific. A good many of them
were rather inclined to believe Greek and Hebrew to be
the parents of languages, and to consider Latin to be a
derivative from Greek, Arabic an impure" form of Hebrew,
and Turkish and Persian both barbarous corruptions of
Arabic. The comparative science of language, the methodical
classification of dialects, is one of our own days : the name
we require for it is Gloaaoloqy, or Dialectology, the science
of tongues or dialects i and one regrets that a word so
inappropriate as Philology should have received the sanction
of usage. No philosopher would dare, of course, to violate
the rule of Bacon (de Aug. Sc, iii. 4) : " Nobis decretum
manet, antiquitatem comitari usque ad aras, atque vocabula
antiqua retinere, quanquam sensum eorum et definitiones
eaepius immutemus." But let us hope the " vocabulum " is
not yet so " antiquum " as to be unchangeable. The German
" Sprachkunde " is excellent, but " speech-cunning " would be
tincouth to our ears, might perhaps mean Rhetoric, or the
art of eloquence, and would be at variance with our rule (the
rule of Linnaeus) to employ no scientific names but those derived
from the Greek. Perhaps " Dialectology " may eventually
obtain favour. It will have the virtue (which " Philology "
has not) of really meaning what it stands for. Though
" verba notionum tesserae sunt," Bacon did not mean that
the counter was to be stamped with the externals of another
notio than the one it represented.
If we picture to ourselves a man with a keen ear and
an observant mind, standing in some open spot in the great
fair of Nijni Novgorod, we can imagine what a host of
subjects for thought must be aroused and enter that mind,
from the varied sounds which would strike that ear. The
soft but sibilant Buss, the softer and less sibilant Servian,
the harsher Bulgarian, the easy-flowing Osmanli, the rougher
and more diversified Turkoman, Bashkir., and Mongol; the
grunting Chinese, the guttural Arabic, the elegant and
stately Persian, perhaps the strange Circassian, Georgian,
Ossetic, the ear-breaking Pushtoo, mingled possibly with
some sonorous tongue from the south of the Himalaya, and
with the strongly accentuated dialects of Latins or Germans
from the West, would meet in his sensorium with an appa-
rently unmeaning tumult. And yet it would be clear, on
reflection, that this was no tumult, nor yet unmeaning.
Those varying sounds might all be observed to vary accord-
ing to some law, and to recur at certain intervals ; each set
m 2
150
of sounds would be found to have its peculiar character,
distinguishing it from other sets of sounds ; and the character
and laws of variation of one set would be found to approxi-
mate more or less to those of some of the other sets, and to
differ more or less notably from those of others. And it
would soon occur to a thoughtful mind that those various sets
of sounds might be grouped, and the groups subdivided with
reference to the greater or less similarity of their character and
laws. Such grouping would be a " Philology," or Dialectology.
What we have fancied as presenting itself to the mind of
our thinker at Novgorod, has occurred to the minds of men
who have observed the similarities and differences of the
various modes of communication by articulate sounds in use
among mankind; and the result \» been that science.of
classification of languages which we term Comparative
Philology.
Philologers have as yet definitely pointed out only certain
great families of languages, which they distinguish from one
another mainly by their grammatical characteristics.
1. The simply monosyllabic, in which one word of one
syllable stands for one idea, and these words are never altered,
but relation is expressed by their arrangement in order in the
sentence. The type of these is the Chinese.
2. Those in which relation is expressed by attaching to the
original root a number of monosyllabic or dissyllabic suffixes,
the root remaining almost or entirely unchanged. These are
termed agglutinative, and the family is usually named
Turanian. The type of them is the Turkish.
3. Those which express relation by a system of prefixes and
suffixes, joined to a root mostly monosyllabic, but variable in
form. These are termed Hamitic, and their type is the
Coptic. The family seems to extend through the whole of
Africa; but as the great majority of these modern African
tongues are entirely without literature, and none are written,
their classification is by no means easy, nor has the task yet
been carried very far.
4. Those which express relation by a system of suffixes
almost entirely monosyllabic, and a very few prefixes, joined
to a root normally dissyllabic, and very slightly variable. These
are termed Shemitic, and their type is Arabic or Hebrew.
5. Those in which relation is expressed by variations in the
middle or ending of a root primarily monosyllabic, but deriva-
tively polysyllabic. These are called Aryan, and the type of
the family, a very large and varied one, is Sanskrit.
6. To these we may add the family of languages spoken in
the islands of the Pacific. They have not yet been regularly
151
classified ; and some are of opinion that they may be con-
sidered as offshoots of the Malay, which is itself (they imagine)
to be referred to the Aryan family. The peculiarity of tnese
languages is that the words and their inflective particles are
simple syllables, consisting of a consonant and vowel, or in
some cases of a single vowel. They might be termed poly-
syllabic.
7. The languages of Northern America are characterized by
the same colligation of syllables ; but as the syllables are com-
pound, and the whole system of colligation more complicated,
some incline to group them with the Turanian or agglutina-
tive, some to consider them a special family, the polysynthetio.
We have here, then, seven families of human speech ; or, to
reduce them to the very lowest number, by classing the Poly-
nesian with Aryan, the Shemitic with Hamitic, and the
American with Turanian— at least four different forms of
language.
But the clear statement of Scripture is that there was a
time when " all the earth was one lip, one set-of-words " (I
translate Gen. xi. 1, literally). Their vocabulary and their
pronunciation were the same.
Here the opponents of Scripture join issue. They tell us
that, do what we will, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the
various families of languages, be they seven or four, or any
ultimate number, exhibit such specific differences that they
cannot have been developed from one original ; that, in fact,
the diversity of human speech is as good and convincing an
argument in favour of the polygenist hypothesis as the diver-
sity of human physiology.
But this is rather a violent assumption. What proof is
there that the differences in human languages, great as they
are now, are so essential that they may not be explained by
the disturbing and disorganizing causes which are at work
even amongst ourselves, and are productive of speedy effects
where there is no written literature to give fixity to the voca-
bulary and grammatical forms ? Granted that Chinese and
Sanskrit, Siamese and Gaelic, Finnish and Kafir, are so
utterly and entirely dissimilar now, that we can scarcely
imagine the human being who has learnt the one acquiring
the power of using the other, that dissimilarity is not other in
Mndy it is only greater in degree, than the difference between
a page of the Saxon Chronicle and a page of the Times ; or
to use a still better illustration, than that between an upnekhat
of the Zend-Avesta and a division of the Shah-Nameh, or a
proclamation by the present Shah of Persia, between the
Dutch Bible and Ulfilas.
152
The disturbing forces which act upon language are in the
main the following; — I postpone, of course designedly, that
supernatural disturbing force which we of this Institute believe
to have been injected into humanity in the plain of Babel ;
and to have been, temporarily and in part, lulled in the early
days of Christianity after the great day of Pentecost : —
1. National or tribal peculiarities. Those anatomical or
physiological peculiarities which constitute the differences be-
tween races of men are not without effect upon their speech.
The inhabitants of a southern climate, and of a richly fertile
territory, naturally fall, after a generation or two, into slothful
unenergetic habits. They speak lazily ; they shrink from the
difficulty of hard consonantal pronunciation, and complicated
inflexion. Compare the Polynesian tongues with every other
family ; or, to come to differences in the same family, contrast
the soft Italian with the harder Bumonsch of the mountains ;
Servian with Polish ; Bengali with Mahratta, — nay, the English
of Aberdeen with the English of Exeter. Again, a peculiar
conformation of the organs of speech, produced by some
external cause, climatic or otherwise, would soon eliminate
some sounds, and introduce others; and thus, if I may so
express it, the tuning of the national ear would take a parti-
cular direction, and the pronunciation and vocalization of the
language would have a tendency to alter towards one class of
sounds, and away from another class. As an instance of this
" tuning '* as I have called it, I may allege the aversion of
the Italian ear to a number of consonants in juxtaposition.
Such a sentence as " with great strength and speed " is posi-
tively terrible to a nation which cannot say il but lo sbaglio,
and turns Xerxes into Serse. Another example is the rigid
rule of harmonizing sounds in Turkish, according to which a
flat suffix must follow a flat root, and a sharp suffix a sharp
root : 6. g. u-MJ (ye-mec, to eat) ; but JU*£ (yu-mak, to
wash). Another perhaps is the rejection, as offensive and
barbarous, of the clicks which are so prominent in the language
of the Bosjesmans and some few other African tribes ; riot only
are they found in no other family of tongues, but the higher
Kafirs, as the Sechuana, never employ them.
Further, habits of mutilation or distortion, not uncommon
among barbarous tribes, must exercise a great influence in
.modifying language. Dental sounds and sibilants must be
considerably altered, if not utterly lost, among those who file
away or strike out the front teeth. Distortion of the lips, too,
must interfere with the articulation of labials. So also among
the imperfectly civilized, the habits of mutual suspicion and
153
dread lead to a plan of speaking with as little apparent move-
ment of the face as possible ; hence labials and fine distinctions
in vowels disappear, and gutturals, with slight modifications
of the " ur-vocale " (Sanskrit ^ ) take their place in the
development.
2. Not only national peculiarities, but those of individuals,
influence the language of a tribe. A natural defect in the
articulation of a powerful chieftain would lead his followers,
out of respect, to imitate that very defect, or at least to con-
ceal their possession of superior powers of speech. . Even
amongst ourselves we can often observe a tendency to affect
some peculiarity in the enunciation or mode of expression of
a leading man ; his very phrases are caught up and incor-
porated into the language of his admirers. In the days bf
unwritten language such imitation must have had a very
decided and permanent effect upon the speech of a tribe.
3. A fertile source of variations in dialect is the tendency
to imitate the imperfect pronunciation of children, and to clip
and alter words in order to adapt them to their untrained
organs. Cases of this kind are familiar to ourselves. There is
scarcely a family in whose domestic language some eccentric
phrase or mis-pronunciation has not become current, derived
from the prattle of some one of its youthful members. Such
disturbances as these are of course counteracted by the com-
parative fixedness of a written language : the family wrgot is
confined within the circle in which it was produced. But in
earlier days, without this impediment to change, as in illiterate
tribes at this day, the mimicry of children was doubtless a
powerful disturbing force, affecting not only the forms, but
the grammatical inflexions of words, and their collocation in
sentences.
4. Superstition in less civilized tribes, and, to a slight extent,
social rules in more civilized communities, affect the language.
Many words and phrases which were usual in this country two
centuries ago have become offensive, quaint or ridiculous, and
as such are practically banished from our normal literary tongue,
though they linger in our provincial dialects. The verbal in-
flexion in th (hath, goeth, &c.) is now quite lost in classical
English, though it was current a century ago, and common
at double that distance of time. Now, if an inflexion can
be lost in this manner out of a written language in whose
literary remains it is of continual occurrence, it is plain that
under circumstances of less restraint the process of alteration
would go on more rapidly; and two portions of the same
tribe, separated from one another by a range of mountains
or an arid plain, might find, after half a century without
154
intercourse, that their inflexions were different, and their
very vocabulary so altered that they were no longer mutually
intelligible. That this process is now going on in many places
we learn from travellers. The Indiaus on the Amazon, we
are told, speak languages differing in an extraordinary manner,
and varying so much that a person who has learnt to express
himself with tolerable fluency in conversation with a certain
tribe will with difficulty understand or be understood on
revisiting them after the lapse of twenty or twenty-five years.
Superstition, too (as I have said), exercises a great influence
on the vocabulary, if not on the grammar. In some nations
the king takes the name of some animal or object, which
name is forthwith banished from the language, since any one
using it would be immediately suspected of trying to bewitch
the chief. A new noun has to be invented and thenceforward
employed to designate the object. In others the fetish of
the community, or the instrument of some good or evil to
them, must no longer be called by the name it bore up to that
period. So the greatest ingenuity has to be exercised in the
formation of new words which shall be as different as possible
from the old ones. It does not always happen that two
branches of the same tribe invent the same new appellative ;
and hence a variation which a very few years suffice to convert
into an actual breach of continuity.
5. To these disturbing forces we may add the occasional
intermixture of foreign individuals. These intermixtures were
rarer in early times ; but still there is no reason to doubt that,
when they did occur, the presence of a few influential strangers
had a tendency to introduce new words into the vocabulary,
and perhaps to affect in a perceptible degree the use of pre-
fixes, suffixes, and medial changes ; or . that conquerors or
slaves would compel their subjects or masters to accept some
of their language, and (in JuvenaPs words) make Orontes
flow into Tiber.
Such are the principal causes of the alteration, develop-
ment, and decay of the forms of human speech. Nor will it
be correct to argue that they affect vocabulary only, and not
grammatical character ; that they quite account for the evolu-
tion of Persian out of Pehlvi, or of Hindi out of Sanskrit, but
cannot be adequate to explain how from one origin there could
spring tongues so radically different as Manchu* and German.
True, the grammar of a written language is invariable in every
direction but one. No philological circumstances could ever
make Italians form the plural with s} or Spaniards without it.
But that is owing to the fixity given by written, or at all
events traditional, literature. To an early tribe, using a simple
155
monosyllabic language, the adoption and development of
inflexional forms is a matter of ease. It is by no means
Shilologically impossible that oat of the Chinese of the present
ay should be formed languages possessing inflexions, some
of them assimilating themselves to the Aryan "umlaut"
(change of vowel) and varied termination, others to the
Hamitic prefix and suffix system, others to the Shemitic dis-
syllabic root and varied suffix, others to the Turanian agglu-
tination. In fact (according to Muller), those Turanian
languages which have hitherto been considered almost on
a par with the uninflectod Chinese, I mean the Tungusian
or Manchti branches, are actually beginning to adopt in-
flexions and develop verbal forms. What Manchti can do in the
nineteenth century A.D., I suppose it might have done in the
nineteenth (or twenty-third) B.C. There were adequate causes
then, as there are adequate causes now, for throwing out from
an uninflected and monosyllabic original a set of inflected
polysyllabic and variable offshoots.
But it must not be forgotten, as I said in the outset, that
holy Scripture adds another disturbing force, supernatural,
or at least exceptional in its character, communicating (to use
mechanical language) an initial velocity. The Deity Himself
willed to " confound their language " — to mingle with the gift
of speech an element of repulsion which it did not formerly
Sossess, or at least not in so eminent a degree. " We will go
own" (I translate literally from the Hebrew) " and confuse
there their lips, so that they shall not hear each man the lip
of his neighbour . . . Therefore He called its name con-
fusion, for there Jehovah confused the lip of all the earth ; and
from thence Jehovah made them disperse upon the face of all
the earth." Such is the simple statement of the will of the
Most High and its execution. The bold critic sees in these
words a mere legend, engrafted on the original Elohistic docu-
ment by some Jehovistic fabricator ; but more reverent minds
will accept them as a Divine record of the chastisement of
rebellious man by the timely withdrawal of that gift of unity
which had been enjoyed and abused. And a sublime chastise-
ment it was too— sublime in its simplicity and its perfectness.
The mythology of man's invention told of the consternation in
Olympus, the battle of the celestials, the fallen giants welter-
ing in a sea of sulphurous flame ; or of the wailing over Baldur,
the howls of Fenris, the yawning gulf of Niflheim, the crashing
blows of Mjolner ; but the Divine record bears the stamp of
truth : Jehovah willed to restrain men, and restrained them
by the effectual means of destroying the community of their
speech.
156
There are then sufficient reasons (without taking into con-
sideration the Scriptural statement) for us to consider the
doctrine of the original unity of language quite as tenable as
the polygenist hypothesis — or at least not untenable, for that
is amply sufficient for our purpose : we are quite satisfied if it
be allowed that, however many reasons there may appear for
holding to another theory> there are not sufficient scientific
grounds for considering the Scriptural statement as at variance
with the conclusions of philology ; and that, if the truth of the
Scriptural record be granted, the whole matter is clear.
But there are also certain affirmative arguments, — arguments,
I mean, which make in favour of the monogenist doctrine of
language. To prove constructively and actually the oneness
of all existing languages, — to show in them all marks of unity
which could be explained satisfactorily only on the supposition
of identity of origin, would be a superhuman task. It would
require that a man should be able to overcome the fiat of Babel,
and to learn all languages more or less perfectly ; and that he
should be further able to exert upon this mass of knowledge a
stupendous analysis : to do, in short, for all tongues of every
family, what it was the labour of half of Grimm's life to do for
one division of one family, in his great Deutsche Grammatih.
Yet it is possible, in a cursory manner, to show that there
are similarities between the great families, which seem to be
consistent rather with the idea of unity than of plurality of
origin.
I. The readiness with which words are assimilated from one
family to another. A very deep acquaintance with grammatical
and inflexional forms, — deeper perhaps than has been yet
attained, — would, I am convinced, show a unity of principle
in all, from which a unity of origin might be justly inferred.
But, as I have already hinted, grammar is a constant quantity
in languages such as we are able to deal with, viz., those
which have a written literature. Though the grammar even
of a written language still has a tendency to change in its
own direction, it can never retrograde ; every change must
tend to remove it farther from others, and to diminish the
argument for identity of origin ; or rather to remove all marks
from which arguments on either side can be brought. We
must be content with drawing our proofs from vocabularies.
Within the same family there is no wonder at words being
easily borrowed and assimilated; but this operation is not
restrained within this limit. We can borrow and incorporate
into our own language such words as sofa from Turanian,
coffee from Shemitic (l?j*»)> taboo from Polynesian. The Modern
157
Gree& helps itself to plenty of Turanian Words : rovfoici, gun,
(jl}°)> a&VTh master, (fJ^)> ^rom Turkish, are examples. So
the Shemitic Syriac has no difficulty in borrowing and adopting
from Aryan Greek not only such words as UDu^L^ojQffl ovy-
/c\r)TO<;9 (V.nmoN^ yXcjaaoKOfiov, but even such a particle as
\^*y<*p I and the Hamite Coptic can assimilate not only words
from Shemitic Hebrew, but also Aryan Greek — CUJJLtA a&jia,
ty*XH ylrvxh> CTCflNH aro\ff9 X^P^ X^P^ In tte same
way the Aryan Persian has introduced and appropriated a large
vocabulary of pur6 Shemitic (Arabic) words; and the Turanian
Turkish has done the same to such an extent, that the Osmanli
of the capital is scarcely intelligible to the Turkish peasant from
the country. This easy adoption of foreign and unfamiliar words
seems to prove that there is not that difficulty of blending which
would be sure to characterize languages specifically and radically
different Were the difference such between the Aryan and
Shemitic, the Modern Persian would be no more possible than
a breed between a trilobite and a batrachian.
II. Further, we are often startled at finding in the vocabu-
laries of extremely different languages traces of similar roots,
and remarkable coincidences of words. A great many of these
may be allowed to be mere coincidences ; a great many more
may be really borrowed either by one from the other, or by both
from the same source. But still the phenomenon remains ; there
will still be a residuum of similarities which can be best explained
by the doctrine of a common origin. Thus the Coptic verb
T*AXO cto perish, corrupt,' is perhaps borrowed from the Greek
r^tao, but it looks very like a derivative from an earlier common
origin. ftOCJ ' a serpent,' is exactly like the Greek 8<f>is ; but if
a borrowed word it would be spelt with the ^> phi : its having
the non-Greek letter CJ fei, and the g hori prefixed for the
spiritus lenis, seems to prove, that (unless we suppose it came
from Egyptian into Greek) the two words are derivatives from a
common root, prior to the distinction between Hamitic and
Aryan. (The Shemitic has a fuller form from the same root j
Arab. J*t, Heb. njJSItf). So, comparing Coptic with Hebrew,
the word lOJUt for D* , ' sea,' may be a borrowed one ; but JUtOOY,
' water/ is a word as old as the time of Moses, whose name is
derived (probably) from JUtOOY OY2C6 , ' water-saved,' and can
scarcely be the Hebrew Dp . It must be a growth from a prior
158
root, from which DSD was also formed. The same must be .said,
I think, of the following coincidences, taken at random :
CHA.Y D'Jtf (two). C<J>OTOV D\T©fe (lips).
• *
C.yjUtOYft rtftotf (eight). JUtUiOYT* J"fiD (to die).
JCH TVTI (to live, to be).
Such a coincidence as that of £&JU>JT!, ' to be done ' or ' born/
with the Aryan Teutonic ' scippan? 'schaffen,9 our 'shape'
(originally ' to create '), is perhaps fortuitous, — that is, I mean,
does not spring from any identity of root But as instances of a
number of singular similarities between Turanian and Hamitic
we may compare the Coptic HI with Turkish jl (a house), a£\OY
with Jtej\ (a youth), gOO with ol (a horse).
The similarities of Shemitic and Aryan are innumerable : the
most remarkable are pointed out in every good Hebrew, Syriac,
Arabic, or iEthiopic Lexicon. I select at random half a dozen :
n}ft cto roar' (of bulls) . . . . ift our cow.
T T
101 ' mountain ' fnft» 8po$.
*1"1D (hif *il) * to nourish ' . . . . jm, rpi<f>-Q).
W2 (nif al), Syr. Ji^, cto bend, kneel,' spi, yovv, our knee.
"HS) c to divide ' pars, part-is.
HJ1B {ji) ' to open ' irer-avwfii, pat-eo.
Again, the two negatives in Turkish are jy> and *. The * is
perhaps the Arabic U ; but is it a mere coincidence that the
Greek words are ovk and /lmJ ? or that the Turkish for 'well' is
?\ (pronounced ai/i, but written dy o) when the Greek is ei ? Do
not such similarities point to a time and a tongue anterior to the
separation of Aryan and Turanian? But we may go a step
further. On comparing other languages with Chinese, we find
some strange similarities. A proportion of these may be, as I
have said, mere chance resemblances in sound ; but some it will
not be fanciful to consider as arising, in part at least, from unity
of derivation. I take at random a few from the 21 4 radical
forms (Grundsetzen) of the Chinese.
/^ jin> f a man,' resembles Sanskrit flT , ' to know,' and ipr, ' to
produce ;' as if " the rational," and " the animal," were to be
r
159
expressed by the same word* From the latter Sanskrit
root came the Greek yivofuu and yw^ ; thence Saxon
acenned, 'born,' cynn, 'race/ cwen, 'a woman;' our kin,
and queen (originally the same as quean), Danish kbne.
It is curious that the Australian blacks use the word jin for
wife.
-Bf wu9 ' not' Greek ov. Turkish jjj, as above.
^ fu, ' father/ Sanskrit *?, 'to be :' whence Greek Qwo,
Lat/i*t, our word * be' Or perhaps, m, ' to protect/ which
is the root in Sanskrit of the word far, ' a father.'
^ Viuan. Greek kxwv. Sanskrit "w, our hound.
pj^ shi. Greek ov$, our swine, sow.
j* pi, 'nose.' Hebrew *)N, 'nose/ H9, ''mouth/ halves pro-
bably of the onomatopoeic *\TH, 8TB3.
•jg UlCi. Hebrew D^ , ' teeth ' (sing. ]tf ).
^ san. Hebrew TPtP , ' hair.'
Here, then, are samples of a large class of similitudes in
words between the Aryan, Turanian, Hamitic, Shemitic, and
monosyllabic families. I repeat what I have said before, that
a few of such similitudes might be explained consistently with
the polygenist theory, by suggesting fortuitous coincidences or
borrowing of words or roots ; but I contend that on the whole
they point to a time when there was one and but one primeval
language, from which the roots of all languages — whether of
their vocabulary or their imflexional forms — are taken, and to
which they may, conceivably, be ultimately traced back, though
it is scarcely probable that man will ever be able to complete
the work.
What, then, was this primeval tongue ? It is not the task
of our Institute to originate theories : our business is to show
that Scripture — I mean the very letter of the written Word,
as we have it, — is not untenable ; and that those who deny it
and reject it, because of its alleged discrepancy with the
results of science, eventually find themselves involved in
difficulties equal to, if not greater than, those which they
escaped when they severed the consecrated cord that bound
the humble believer to his scientific but not less believing
brother. Still I hope I may be pardoned if I throw out an
attempt at a theory, or rather a hypothesis, for which, of
course, the Institute is not responsible.
160
" All that the man, the living soul, calls it, that is its name."
(I translate literally from the Hebrew, The LXX and our
version prefer "all that Adam called it, the living soul" —
" whatsoever Adam called any living creature.") Man, with
the gift of reason, had appended to it, either as a property or
an inseparable accident (to speak in logical fashion), the gift of
speech, — the gift of producing various articulate sounds as
representatives of the various objects and actions coming
before his notice, and cognizable by his reason. The primary
language, then, must have been formed by onomatopoeia (the
applying names taken from sounds or peculiarity of external
appearance). I cannot hold with Goropius Becanus, that this
language was German or Flemish ; nor with the Welshman I
have read of, who claimed the honour of primevalism for his
own native tongue; nor yet can I accept the argument of
Bishop Patrick and others (borrowed from or suggested by
St. Augustin, de Civ. Dei, xvi, 11), that as Adam conversed
with Methuselah, Methuselah with Shem, Shem with Jacob,
the language of Jacob and his people must have been the,
same with that of Adam. The long lives of the -patriarchs
must have contributed to a regular and orderly development
of the first articulate utterances of the first man into a real
language capable of expressing the relations of time and
mutual action. It is not to be conceived that men endued
with the gift of speech, and all that that gift comprises, went
on from year to year of an extended life without finding some
means to express not only the varied objects which were pre-
sented to them, but the varied relations in which those objects
stood to one another. The Scripture account favours the view
that poetry was rapidly evolved in the elder branch of the
Adamite race. The address of Lamech, sixth from Adam, to
his wives is given in a poetical form in Hebrew. There can be
little doubt that it is a metrical translation of an antediluvian
poem preserved by direct tradition in the younger Adamite
house, though originating in the elder, and rendered into the
poetry of the age from generation to generation, as time went
on and the language altered. The book of Genesis gives us, of
course, the current Hebrew version at the time of Moses of
this remarkable composition.
The centuries (nearly seventeen according to the ordinary
reckoning) which intervened between the Creation and the
Flood afforded time for the organization and solidification of
the primeval speech. And as there was then no element of
mutual repulsion, the development was all in one direction,
and each man and set of men contributed something to the
improvement of the language, not to increasing the width of
161
the gulf between it and some other. On the plain of Babel
the impetus was given which has resulted in the evolution of all
the marvellous number of dialects in which men think and
hold converse at the present day.
The earliest variations of the one language were probably-?r
1st, the uninflected, or nearly uninflected, represented by the
Chinese and Tungusian ; 2nd, the inartificial, though inflected
by prefix and suffix, now styled Hamitic ; spoken in various
form by Menes the Egyptian and Urukh the Babylonian,
and the early Canaanites, and represented to us in the Coptic.
The relics of the ancient Egyptian preserved to us in this
language, and in the little that is decipherable and intelli-
gible of the earlier tongue, show us that the vocabulary was
inartificial to a degree, preserving much of the presumed
onomatopoeia of its primeval original.
XeXxeX ' to drop/ JtXOVl < lion/
nexenen the < hoopoe/ onr^oop < dog/
are specimens of the evidently ancient appellatives used by the
Hamites. The Shemite speech of Terah's tribe was probably
evolved from an earlier Hamite modification of Noah's tongue,
rather than started as an independent branch. And thus, though
Abraham and the Canaanites had little difficulty in under-
standing one another, Jacob and Laban used two different
names (apparently mutually intelligible) for " the heap of
witness/' and the children of Jacob at the court of a Pharaoh
— that Pharaoh perhaps a Philistine shepherd-king — found it
more convenient to employ the services of an interpreter.
Relics of the. Noachid speech exist, no doubt, in every
tongue, modern and ancient, living and dead. Yet they
should be sought for, it may well be imagined, and would be
most likely to be detected in greatest number and earliest con-
dition,—!, in those tongues which have to all appearance
altered so little from their primitive form, the dialects of
China and the Tungusian division of the Turanian family ;
2. in the Coptic, and in those offshoots of the great Hamitic
Egyptian language which exist, in more or less degraded
form, in various parts of Africa; 3. in the language in which
the sacred books are written, the Biblical Hebrew, which,
though it bears marks of cultivated development, must needs
(if our sacred records are to be listened to) contain much that
has really directly descended from primeval times.
162
I cannot close this paper without apologizing for the appa-
rently dogmatic tone which may to some appear to pervade it.
Bat I have designedly abstained from quotations, and from
alleging the opinions of eminent writers on either side. Our
object is not to collect what men have said, but to induce men
to think, and think deeply. I have therefore ventured to
place before you my own thoughts and reflections on the
matter, and leave to profounder learning and deeper reflec-
tion the task of going farther. Sure I am, that the profounder
the thought and learning, the more clearly will be displayed
the simple sublimity of the dealings of the Creator with His
creatures, and the unity of the great creation called into being
by that Deity who in His wisdom has willed to leave us written
records of Himself and of His providence, truer and more
certain than the deductions even of the highest of finite
minds from the steadiest of finite senses. And as a deep
mathematic brings us nearer to the source of all number — >
the Infinite yet One; as a deep astronomy carries us closer
to the Lord of Heaven, a profound geology to the Creator of
earth ; so will an extended and profound philology raise us
nearer to the Author of the tongues of men and angels — to
Him who has not disdained to be called the Alpha and Omega,
the Word of God.
The Chairman. — I think I may call upon you to give with acclamation
a vote of thanks to the Rev. Dr. Thornton for the exceedingly valuable paper
he has read. I am sure every one will feel that this Institute is doing a
great work, by calling forth such papers as that we have heard this evening —
a paper displaying the most' profound learning, and yet marked by the
deepest modesty. (Hear.) I am sure you will all agree that the author of
it is entitled to our most cordial thanks ; and I have only to add, that as
we are anxious to encourage discussion, I shall be glad to hear any gentleman
who has any remarks to make ; but I would request that, as our discussions
are reported very fully, every one should confine himself as much as possible
to the subject of the paper. It has also been intimated to me that the dis-
tinguished biblical scholar Dr. Tregelles is present with us this evening,
with a suggestion that perhaps he would favour us with his views on the
subject. I can only say that I feel certain we shall all be extremely gratified
if he will kindly do so. (Hear, hear.)
Dr. Tregelles. — As you have invited me to speak on this paper, I shall
avail myself of the privilege which you have granted, to make a few remarks
upon it. I think it is a very valuable paper, and I listened to it with much
pleasure, and followed the arguments which Dr. Thornton brought forward
in support of his views with a peculiar degree of interest. I think he has
dealt with a very difficult subject in a very masterly manner ; and though
there are many things which are stated in that paper, for which the writer
163
has not quoted authorities, I believe it will be found, upon examination, that
his statements are quite consistent with the views of some of the highest
authorities who have written on the subject There is one point upon which
I presume all are agreed, who hold the Scriptures to be the word of God ;
and that is, that there can be no real contradiction between it and the facts
of Nature : there can be no contradiction between the word and the works
of God, In the pursuit of philological studies, there is one thing which often
occurred to me : — the history which is given in Genesis of the origin of
language, must either be a well-founded statement, or it must have been
invented afterwards to account for the different tongues which are spoken.
If it were the latter, I think it would have been far more precise ; if it had
been invented in order to account for the different languages in the world, it
would have been far more elaborate than the simple narrative which is given
in the Bible. With regard to the general question relating to what is
commonly called " philology," I should feel myself exceedingly incompetent
to discuss it ; but I might remark that upon this question, as well as a great
many others, I have observed that some persons have gone out of their way
to raise difficulties against the Scriptures, where no difficulties really exist.
(Hear, hear.) I have observed the manner in which Scripture has been ob-
jected to, and have seen many persons straining at the merest trifles in order
to raise difficulties, which in any other matter they would have felt to be no
difficulty at all. And in consequence of the determination which has been shown
to do this, the believers in Revelation have often been called upon to defend
and explain things which, if it were not for the way in which their meaning
has been distorted, would have required no explanation whatever, Now I
think we have reason to complain of this. It is very unfair. Let the readers
of Scripture, and men of science, and observers of facts, wait until facts are
fully ascertained before they raise objections. It is quite possible that upon
a closer examination they might find that many things turned out in a
different manner from what they had at first supposed. We all find that, as
children, we formed opinions upon those things that came under our notice,
which we have since discovered to be altogether erroneous. It is thus with
science. Men form their opinions with too much haste, and they subse-
quently find that they were wrong. I say that science ought to be the
observer of facts. Let men of science wait a sufficient time for facts, and let
them thoroughly test every theory which is put before them, before they
come forward and say, (i Here is something infallible, — here is something
which cannot be disproved." We often hear it said that " science teaches "
this or that. Something is wrapped up in this mysterious language, which
we are supposed to be bound to accept as absolutely dogmatic. Now in
such cases there is room for considerable doubt as to what science, does
teach. It may be true that our present knowledge of science teaches us so
and so ; but our present knowledge is quite imperfect. We are only just
beginning to know what is the meaning of some things which are called
science ; and therefore the phrase " science teaches " has no real meaning.
It is an expression commonly used, not by those who are most competent to
N
164
discuss questions, but by those who endeavour by phrases of that kind to
conceal their own ignorance, and who really know nothing about what science
teaches or what it does not teach. I did not, however, come here with the
view of taking any part in the discussion. I would far rather have heard
the remarks of others ; and it was only because I was called upon that I
have ventured at all to say a word. I have only one more observation to
make, and it is this : It is a strange fact that a person who has the greatest
powers to acquire languages has often the least comprehension of the rela-
tions of one language to another. We have an instance of this in the late
Cardinal Mezzofanti. He was perfectly accustomed to read and write in
very many different languages ; but if you asked him a question upon any
point with respect to philology as a science, he had no conception of the
matter whatever, and was unable to give you any information. It is also a
remarkable circumstance in connection with this subject, that if you are
listening to several different languages spoken at the same time, the effect is
such as to produce a sensation almost like absolute deafness. With regard
to the observations in the paper as to the way in which habit and tempera-
ment affect language and the pronunciation of speech, it is a thing which all
of us must have observed ; it is a thing which is doing its work at present,
and will continue to do its work after our generation has passed away. I
have nothing further to say with respect to the paper, except to state how
heartily I join in the vote of thanks which has been proposed to Dr. Thornton,
and to express the sincere desire that I have to see men who deal in science
confining themselves strictly to facts. The moment we find science taking
primary ground of opposition to Scripture, we ought to ask whether it is
science or insolence ; and I do not think we need have any doubt as to the
answer which we should get to that question.
Professor Oliver Byrne. — There is one argument which I think Dr.
Thornton might have used in support of his theory as to the common
origin of the languages now in use in the world. It might be possible to
select twelve words in one language similar to those in another ; but for
that language to be able to return the compliment, unless they were of
common origin, is not within the range or mathematical probability.
Mr. Warington. — I have just two remarks to make with reference to the
paper. I have listened to it with great interest ; but it struck me that
there is one objection to the conclusions drawn, which I think can be
very easily disposed of, and which has not been touched upon in the
arguments of Dr. Thornton. It is this : — We have to account for more than
a mere difference in the names applied to things ; we have to account for
a difference of grammar. It appeared to me that Dr. Thornton gave us no
hint in his paper as to how he would account for one nation having suf-
fixes and another affixes, in their grammar. Is it not to be accounted for in
this way ? If you take a language with suffixes, you will find that these
appendages consist of other words shortened so habitually that they lose
their apparent meaning. You can trace them, upon the examination of
several words ; and you will find that what appears to be a suffix is really
165
another word tacked on to the root in such a way that it has lost part of its
sound. I think that is a very important point It clears up matters of
grammar as well as matters of vocabulary. Both differ very much ; but I
believe if we examined the question, we should find that the differences of
grammar are the greater and the more important of the two. There is one
other point to which I wish to call attention. I think Dr. Thornton showed
great wisdom in not pressing his argument for the unity of language as neces-
sarily destructive to the polygenous theory. It is plainly possible, a priori,
that the different races of men may have descended from different original
stocks, and yet possess similar and apparently related languages. For, whether
from one stock or from many, it is certain that there is a very close resem-
blance between human beings of different races. All are formed in the same
way ; all are possessed of similar organs of speech. It is therefore a moral
certainty that, however originated, their languages would also be similar.
Scripture, indeed, tells us that the polygenous theory is incorrect, and so leads
us to adopt another explanation of these phenomena, but if we had no
revelation to tell us, we could not arrive at that conclusion from the simi-
larity discovered between one language and another. Again, with regard
to the monogenous theory, it is no disproof of that theory, that differences in
lauguage exist ; but it is no proof of it, that similarities exist ; because
they can be accounted for on other grounds. Take the instance quoted by
Dr. Thornton, the great resemblance of the word father in all languages. I
do not know whether he quoted also the word mother, but I believe it would
be found that nearly all the words which represent father and mother in dif-
ferent languages, possess one or two sounds which are closely related to the
sounds of Pa and Ma. This might seem a proof that all languages came from
the same source ; but there is another explanation of it, which is this — that
those are likely to be just the sort of sounds that children would first make
in addressing their father or mother. It is therefore only natural that they
should be nearly alike in all languages. The only case in which similarity
affords really a good argument is when you can show a number of words
which are similar ; but it is rather a hazardous argument to contend that
races are identical because languages are similar. (Hear, hear.)
Rev. W. Niven. — I should highly value the lecturer's opinion with respect
to the following passage in the third chapter of the book of Zephaniah, v. 9 :
— " For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call
on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent."
Capt. Fishbourne. — It occurred to me, taking the language as we find it in
Scripture, — from the speech of God with Adam, as well as the speech of
the devil with Eve — that language must have been in a much more perfect
condition than the arguments of the polygenists would admit of. I would go
a little further, and say that if Dr. Thornton had enlarged in that direction
he must have told us that language is more than a means of communication.
I think we must consider language as something more than a mere philolo-
gical science ; it is the instrument of thought. Without language I do not
think we could excogitate. I think that the fact of the devil speaking to
N 2
166
Eve and reasoning with her implies that there was a current language with
which he made himself acquainted. And the facts which I think go far to
prove the unity of speech are the remarkable traditions we have, and their
palpable identity. We must deny history altogether if we deny tradition.
We have a tradition of the Flood and of the dispersion of mankind prevail-
ing amongst the Chinese and amongst the Mexicans. It is not, perhaps, so
remarkable to find it amongst the Chinese, who had a written language ; but
it is very remarkable to find it existing amongst nations which had no written
language. With respect to the remarks in the paper, as to the facility with
which people slide out of the original language of their ancestors, it might be
supposed that in China, where they have a written language, these modifica-
tions would be the least likely to occur. Yet it is a most extraordinary thing
that in that country there is the greatest difference between the dialects
spoken in the various and even in adjacent provinces. I remember on one
occasion being at Nankin, and, wishing to communicate with certain indi-
viduals, we were only able to reach them through a chain of four or five
interpreters, in consequence of the amazing difference in the dialects. I never
yet saw two Chinese persons, even belonging to the same district, and speak-
ing the same language, who yet spoke with perfect intelligence one to the
other. So nice are the inflections, that two persons in China cannot converse
for five minutes together, without having recourse to the employment of the
signs or characters, which they make on their hands, to explain what they
mean. If you observe them conversing, you can Bee at once that there is a
great diversity in their dialects. And this diversity is becoming greater
every day, so that, in the course of time, instead of having nine hundred
languages, we shall have a thousand, or perhaps more.
Mr. Ince. — I rise for the purpose of making one remark. An expression
was introduced into the paper implying that man had improved upon the
language which he originally possessed. Now, I cannot agree with Dr.
Thornton in that matter. I think that, as God Almighty created Adam, He
created him a perfect being with perfect speech, and He did not leave His
work for man to mend. Man might have increased the number of words,
but I do not think it was possible for him to improve upon what God had
imparted to him.
Mr. Reddie. — With reference to the observations of Mr. Ince, I quite
hold with him that language must of necessity have been a gift to man from
his Creator ; and, if so, that it would be a " perfect gift." I was glad to find
it plainly advanced in the admirable paper we have all listened to with so
much pleasure, that language was a gift from God, and not a human
invention. I think I may also venture to say that it was not Mr. Ince's
intention to attribute to Dr. Thornton anything contrary —
Mr. Ince. — My objection was only to the word " improve."
Mr. Reddie. — So I understood. I was about to point out, that if man,
as created by God, was endowed with the highest wisdom and capacity for
knowledge, he must also have been endowed with the power of speech ; for
without speech, as Capt. Fishbourne has very properly observed, he could
167
not really have thought : he would not have been man. Mr. Max Muller
appears to be of the same opinion ; for he calls thinking " speaking low."
In saying this, of course he does not mean, that, in thinking, there is an
absolute articulation of words, but that there is necessarily the idea of words,
or what words mean. But although man was so created in this perfect state,
— with every capacity for knowledge, with the power of speech, and with
wisdom and intelligent instincts, all of the highest order,— he must still have
been ignorant of that kind of knowledge which can only be gained by ex-
perience. For instance, he could have no knowledge or experience of the
sensation of fear, till he disobeyed God and fell from his original state of
innocence. Therefore, his ideas, and correspondingly his language, would
have to be increased, as of necessity ; and by being thus increased, his
language would also be " improved," without implying any imperfection in
his original gift of speech, but rather the contrary. If we bear in mind that
the gift of speech was a faculty, a power intended to be exercised and de-
veloped by man, rather than a mere vocabulary or complete set of words, it
will be seen that its capability of thus improving in development is really
the best proof of its perfection. Touching this question of the improvement
of a language, I was somewhat surprised at one remark of Dr. Thornton's
with reference to the language of the Greeks. Philologists, I believe, con-
sider the Sanskrit to be the most perfect language. But, at least, after the
Sanskrit, I suppose the Greek will be acknowledged to be the most perfect
and polished language with which we are acquainted. Now, I am inclined
to think that it chiefly owes that perfection to what I thought Dr. Thornton.
was almost inclined to sneer at (though I do not like to use the expression),
namely to their exclusive devotion and attention to the study and develop-
ment of their own language, without much regarding the other languages
spoken around them. I believe, as a consequence of this, that in Athens
you would not have heard Greek spoken with such constant variation as we
hear English spoken, even at our chief seats of learning, in the present day.
At Oxford and Cambridge, more attention is certainly given to the pronuncia-
tion and composition of Greek and Latin, than to English. At present, too,
we make a point of knowing something of so many other living languages
besides our own, that it does not improve, as no doubt it otherwise would.
I do not say we are wrong in being so cosmopolitan. To a certain extent we
may be forced to be so. But this certainly does not conduce to the improve-
ment of our own language, which some even disparage and despise. In that
respect, the French are now more like what the Greeks were : they are
devoted to their own language especially, and pride themselves upon it ; and
it is correspondingly improved. With reference to Mr. Warington's criticism
of Dr. Thornton's argument, I must say I do not think he has quite done
justice to it. It appeared to me that Dr. Thornton put the case upon the
very lowest ground, and claimed to have proved much less than he was enti-
tled to claim. He did not say that there was any strong positive argument
in favour of the monogenist theory to be derived from comparative
philology ; but only that there is a balance in its favour. He argued, that if
] 68
we start with believing the Scriptures, and then find, upon a scientific exam-
ination of man's speech, tbat there is an undercurrent of similarity running
through all languages, this is a ground for holding to the truth of what the
Scriptures tell us. Now I think that that is a perfectly sound argument.
And if you do not limit your consideration of the subject merely to language,
— but if you will also take into account all human traditions ; if you will
take the whole of man's history, and all the facts connected with his post
and present condition, so far as we can discover them, then you will find that
what might be but a weak argument by itself, and if it rested upon philology
alone, becomes, with the addition of these other arguments, a very strong
and completely built-up proof of the original unity of the human race. We
have the statement of tie Bible to begin with — which suTely must go for
something ; and when we find it is supported by all the other evidence we
can collect, docs not that afford good ground for holding tc what the Scriptures
narrate f (Hear, hear.) For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that I
do not believe that man could ever have invented language, if originally
without speech. But, at the best, if he really did so, it must have been by
a very slow process indeed. For we must remember that those who reject "
the Scriptures and adopt the polygenist theory, must start with mankind in
the very lowest condition. Except to account for the existence of savages in
that abject condition, with their low mental capacity and imperfect language,
there would be no need for a polygenist hypothesis at all But if you adopt
that hypothesis, then the question is limited very nearly to this: What rational
ground have you for believing that civilized man with his perfect language
has been developed out of the savage with his almost unintelligible gibberish )
Now I venture to say, Mr. Warington has not given us any reason, nor a
single fact, for believing in that. *(Hear, hear.) As regards the somewhat
ingenious argument he has advanced (whether he has adopted it btm&fide as
his own view, I do not know), namely, that as human nature is everywhere
much alike, and as men have all the same organs of speech, they would
therefore naturally hit upon the same sounds to express their ideas ; and hence
the similarities in all languages might be accounted for. I can scarcely
imagine a more thoroughly perverted view of the whole question than this,
The admission of such similarities is important. Bat it is surely notorious
that it is because of the physical differences and the philological differences
between one race and another of mankind, and between one language and
another, that the polygenous theory of man's origin has ever been thought of.
It is surely a fact within our own experience also, that, starting with the same
parents, we find diversities in their children, and that every living language
of which we know anything ia gradually changing and modifying before our
eyes, and tending to diverge away from its original ; while it is not a fact that
from diversity of origin we have any experience of this assumed tendency
towards unity. The differences between languages arc patent ; but those
traces of unity in various languages which Dr. Thornton has called attention to,
are found lying hid in the original roots and the oldest germs of words, and not
in their present forms or last developments. Then, as to the notion that the
169
radical sounds in father and mother come from some primary root to be found
in Pa and Ma, it would prove nothing for the one theory more than the
other, even if true. It is akin to what Max Miiller calls the " bow-wow
theory " of language, in which I have no faith whatever. Children are taught
to say Pa and Ma in the nursery, and it is natural that they should imitate
the Baa of the sheep, when they can do little else as babies. But, if that is
a true theory for language beyond the nursery, how is it that in no language
whatever, so far as I am aware, the sheep is, after all, called a Baa? It is
not so in Latin, where we have ovis and agnus for what in English we call a
sheep and a lamb. It is not so in Greek or in French, and perhaps not in any
other tongue ; and therefore the theory requires no other refutation : it is
not founded on any facts. As regards the monogenist theory, on the other
hand, you have not only the Holy Scriptures which give you the hypothesis,
but you have those extraordinary coincidences of similarity in language which
Dr. Thornton has so ably brought before us, in support of it. You have,
also, the high perfection of the Sanskrit language, though one of the oldest ;
and that is in accordance with the idea that God created man not only a
perfect being, but with a perfect faculty of speech, or perfect instrument of
thought. And, indeed, it could not have been otherwise, if you once admit
the theory that God created man in a state of perfection. It will be my
duty a fortnight hence to bring forward some arguments against the contrary
notion that God might have created man imperfect. If, however, you adopt
the Scriptural account, and admit that speech was a gift of God, there is still
a question which perhaps may be raised, as to whether that gift was not at
first limited to the power of giving things names. Dr. Thornton appears to lean
to this view. To give names to objects would no doubt be naturally one of the
first exercises of that power ; but I can see no reason for believing that it had
any such limitation. The idea of action or of motion is inseparable from the
observance of living beings, and is as definite as the idea of the existence of
things themselves ; and therefore verbs to express such ideas are as essential
to intelligent thought and intelligible speech as substantives. If there is any
part of Dr. Thornton's valuable paper with which I did not go, it is what
relates to this. But I do not agree with Mr. Warington that the learned
Doctor overlooked the grammatical differences or agreements in language, to
which Mr. Warington has called special attention. Mr. Crawfurd and other
ethnologists I know are of opinion that grammatical inflection is a matter of
the greatest importance in determining the family of a dialect. Granting
that man was created a perfect being, he must have been endowed with the
capacity of speaking what he was obliged to think. He would at the very
first have to think of the power of God as his Creator, and of his own relative
position upon earth. According to Revelation, he had to think, in his commu-
nications with the Deity himself ; but that is beyond our present range of con-
ception, as it relates to what is supernatural But at all events, after the crea-
tion there is nothing in the Scriptural account to lead us to the conclusion that
man had to invent his language. And, in point of fact, now, we never invent
words: we either borrow them, or we modify them, to suit new ideas. And if we
170
were to attempt to describe any object by some inherent quality which it pos-
sessed, we should find it the most diifieult thing imaginable. We fancy sometimes
that words are thus expressive of ideas by their sound ; but that is mostly
imaginative. If we take, for instance, the words " rush " and " crush," — the
one signifying rapid motion, and the other arrested motion — which are almost
quite opposite in idea ; yet they both appear perfectly expressive, merely
because, through the association of ideas, we are accustomed to connect the
meanings of the words with their sound, and so we think that they are
expressive. Again, bearing upon the question of change of dialect, we must
all have observed what a difference exists amongst ourselves with regard to
the pronunciation of the English language. If you go down to Whitechapel,
you will not find the same dialect there as you will find in Belgrave Square.
Language, as it were, develops and grows naturally, and as it grows it some-
times also tends to corrupt in its growth. The only thing which preserves it
from more rapid alterations now, as formerly, is that it is written. In
former days, when men had not the facilities for writing which they now so
commonly possess, and when they wrote on stones or on tablets of wax, and %
when a still greater majority of the people than now were necessarily illiterate,
language must have degenerated or altered very rapidly ; and thus would be
originated that great diversity of speech among mankind which we are now
trying to account for. But, if anything is clear from the numerous philological
differences and theories of language that exist, it is this, — namely, that there
has been a " confusion of tongues " in the world. I do not think we can
want any more absolute proof than we already have to be convinced of this.
Professor Byrne. — There is one principle in the law of Confucius which
ought to be mentioned. He taught the Chinese that they should give atten-
tion to things and not to words. It is a part of their religious duty to carry
out this principle.
Mr. Reddie. — I fancy they must have been very unsuccessful in doing
so, for they have more words than any other nation in the world. (Laughter.)
Mr. Warington. — I wish to state that in the observations which I made I
was not criticising the paper ; I was rather praising the author for not using
an argument which he might have used.
The Chairman. — I may say that I did not understand the observations
of Mr. Warington as criticisms upon the paper. I rather thought that he
was calling attention to an argument which might have been used, but was
not used by Dr. Thornton. I think the arguments in the paper have been
very ably sustained in the discussion; and the views advanced by the
author have been supported by the very interesting fact which has been
mentioned by Captain Fishbourne with respect to the Chinese language.
The variety of language spoken in China affords a remarkable confirmation of
what Dr. Thornton has been maintaining in his paper. There is this re-
markable distinction between the Chinese and every other language, — it is
a language of ideographic symbols ; all other languages are phonetic. The
symbols used by the Chinese do not represent sounds ; they represent things,
as was stated by Professor Byrne. It is a very remarkable fact, that in a
171
nation like China, which is a very exclusive nation, and a nation possessing
the power of writing, you need not travel out of it to look for an illustration
of all the arguments which have been maintained in Dr. Thornton's paper.
If you take one of the northern provinces in China, and compare the dialect
spoken there with that spoken in one of the southern provinces
Captain Fishbourne. — You might take the adjoining provinces.
The Chairman. — You will find that if, as Captain Fishbourne states, you
compare the dialects even of the adjoining provinces, the diversity between
them is so great that the inhabitants cannot understand each other ; yet they
have no difficulty in communicating their thoughts in writing. It is also to
be remembered that we possess exactly the same kind of thing in the language
of our arithmetical calculations. If we write down an arithmetical calcula-
tion, or an equation in algebra, it can be read by a man in France or Germany
who knows nothing about our language ; and thus mathematicians write
down their symbols, and can communicate their ideas, though they may not
be able to speak the same language. With regard to the observations of Mr.
Warington, I differ from him in thinking that Dr. Thornton has neglected
the comparison of the different grammars as well as the words of languages,
though I don't think so much can be made out of the argument from gram-
mar. Nothing can be more unsettled than the grammar of our own language,
I know some who state that we have no grammar at all ; such is the delight-
ful position in which we are placed. It must have been observed by every
one, that our language has degenerated from the complex grammar of its
supposed parent language. At any rate we have lost almost all our inflexions,
and have nearly arrived again at what some might think the more primitive,
style of language.
Rev. Dr. Thornton. — Allow me to say, before I allude to the remarks
which have been made on my paper, that I thank you most heartily for the
vote of thanks which you have passed to me. I can assure you that I had
great pleasure in preparing the paper, and that pleasure has been very
much enhanced by hearing the many valuable observations which it has
called forth. With reference to the observations of Dr. Tregelles, they were
so favourable, that any remark upon them would be presumptuous on my
part ; nor was there anything in those of Mr. Warington which calls for any
particular remark ; I think he appreciated my arguments very fairly. I
argued that, putting Scripture entirely out of the question, there is no reason
to believe, from the study of man's speech, that what we find stated historically
in the Scripture is not true, or that it disagrees with the conclusions which we
fairly derive from the facts obtained from other sources. Of course it is im-
possible to invent a theory which will square with facts in every particular,
and my argument was that the apparent probability inclined in favour of
Scripture. It is perfectly true that suffixes and prefixes are originally separate
words attached to the inflected word, as, for instance, the verb " have " may
be clearly traced as a suffix in the futures and conditionals of Romance verbs ;
and the use of these attachments in so many different families of languages
is a proof of their common origin. The choice of prefix by one family and of
172
suffix by another, is the result of that tendency to divergence which I hold to
have been inflicted on mankind at Babel: the primaeval tongue of the
Noachidae probably used both. With regard to the observations of Mr. Waring-
ton, as to the similarity, in all languages, of the words used for father and
mother, there are certain radical sounds which are accepted as word-roots in
nearly all tongues. One of the first of these is " P," and " M " is a modification
of it, — both implying " that which is near." We might add that the harder " P"
is probably used to distinguish the sterner, and the softer " M " the gentler
parent. "Ma" is used in the Sanskrit in the sense of bringing into the
world, and " Pa " in that of preserving or maintaining. It is certain that the
radicals Pa and Ma exist in every language, however it may be accounted for.
I come now to the question as to the probable meaning of a passage in Scrip-
ture. Of course my explanation is given, off-hand, with the greatest diffidence.
But the way in which I understand it is that in a future state the curse of
Babel is to be done away. Man then being unwilling to speak that which
is wrong, will be privileged to communicate in "pure language" with his
Father. That language will not be the tongue of man, but what I will call
the tongue of angels, which he shall use for glorifying God. (Hear.) As to
the communications in Paradise, between the woman and the devil, and between
man and the Deity, we cannot argue or deduce much from the little we know
of what went on in the Garden of Eden. Man, in a state of innocence, which
he lost by his fall, had very simple ideas, which did not require any extensive
knowledge of language to express. The devil, in his conversation with Eve,
had only to use a little persuasion in addition to the negative reasons which
he gave to her ; but to enlarge on this topic would lead us into metaphysical
theology, which is beyond the range of our present debate. Captain Fish-
bourne said that without speech we cannot think ; but I should modify this
statement by saying that, granting that we think in words, we do not think in
grammar. If you contrast a conversation which you hold with any one with
a debate carried on in your own mind, you will find that the relations ex-
pressed by grammatical means in the former case are, in the latter, necessities
of thought rather than mentally-conceived inflexions. Here, again, however,
we are getting into metaphysics. A farther objection was started with which
I cannot agree, that language came from God perfect — that it was given as a
gift to man, and was not given imperfect. I think that argument cannot be
sustained. " Whatever Adam called every living thing, that was the name
thereof." There was a work which was left to man to do. His power to arti-
culate was absolutely perfect, but it was given to him that he should develop
it, and use it for something higher. I do not suppose that the power of speech
can be called an imperfect gift, any more than a grain of wheat which has not
been put into the ground is imperfect ; but language, till developed, was so.
I will only now refer to the observation of Mr. Reddie as to what I stated
about the Greek language. As an Oxford man and a schoolmaster, J am not
one who is likely to undervalue that language ; and when I stated that the
Greeks were slavish in their devotion to their own language, I did not
mean to sneer at this, as Mr. Eeddie appears to think, but to express an
173
opinion that they cultivated their own language so deeply and exclu-
sively that it almost amounted to a fault. There is, for instance, in the
Rhetoric of Aristotle an amusing passage, in which a person is introduced as
contending, half in earnest, that if you predicate non-existence, you predi-
cate a species of existence ; as if not-being were a peculiar way of being.
That is a confusion which would never occur to a man who had learned
another language. I do not think I need now make any further observations
upon the question, and I will conclude by again thanking you for the kind
way in which you have heard me.
The Chairman then adjourned the meeting.
ORDINAKY MEETING, July 16, 1866.
175
Polygenous Theory, which, without descending quite so low for
an ancestor, nevertheless propounds that the primitive men
were savages, but lower than any known race of savages,
inasmuch as, according to the theory, men originally could not
even speak.
There may be minor distinctions and sub-theories perhaps,
but still it will be convenient to keep to this classification.
There may be polygenists, for instance, whose imagined
primitive men were not all of the same low caste, — all merely
speechless savages of different colours, white, yellow, red, and
black. And it is surely not worth while to have a polygenous
theory at all, if merely physical differences are all it can
account for. There would certainly be a greater similarity
between men of all the existing varied races, while in the
same savage, low condition, than between men of identical
race when savage and when civilized. The physical race-
characteristics of a people might not much differ, through such
a change in their mental character, — or rather, let me say,
the physical differences would be only and literally superficial,
— whereas the differences, between savage and civilized races,
when regarded in a mental, moral, and social point of view,
are well-nigh infinite. But then, the polygenist, who would
make only some of his primitive men to be low-caste savages,
and others an elevated race of superior clay and capacity,
would be involved in contradictions as to his very theory of
creation, or, if he denies creation, in his theory of man's
origin and development. And, in point of fact, no such
theory has yet been propounded, at least not in such a
way as to lay hold upon men's minds, or to call for further
examination. Some, who have not studied the whole question,
may vaguely speak as if they held such a theory. They may
have been puzzled at seeing the marked differences between
the various races of mankind as now developed; and,
influenced by the persistency with which a diverse origin
for each has been urged by some eminent physiologists upon
scientific grounds, they may not have inquired what science
and equally eminent physiologists have said upon the other
side.
But here Darwinism comes to the aid of the religious
theory, and decides in favour of a monogenist hypothesis,
professedly upon scientific grounds. Not that there may not
be, again, a sub-class here, who are Darwinians and yet
polygenists. At one time I thought that not possible ; but
on arguing before the Anthropological Society of London,*
* Anthropological Review, vol. II. p. cxv et seq.
176
two years ago, that Darwinism " gets rid of the polygenous
theory, by assigning to us the ape for an ancestor, mediately
through the negro/' I was answered thus : —
" Mr. Bendyshe could not perceive how the transmutation
theory could get rid of the polygenous theory. Mr. Reddie
appeared to suppose that, admitting the transmutation theory,
man must have descended from a single ape ; but that by no
means followed. Man might have descended from several
different apes. The question of the origin of man from one or
from many Adams was not settled at all by the transmutation
theory."*
To this it was replied, that " Mr. Bendyshe's suggestion of
' more apes than one/ to reconcile transmutation with the
polygenous theory, is at any rate something new; but if
these apes are all to be found in the c equatorial regions/ to
which Sir Charles Lyell refers us for a search, we are still
relegated to the ( unimprovable ' negro races for the first
ancestor of civilized man ! If it could be established that
low-class savages could raise themselves, one difficulty in this
theory would be got rid of — that would be all. But if this
cannot be established, the theory is incredible, as being im-
possible.'^
Mr. Bendyshe is Vice-President of the Anthropological
Society of London ; but I am not aware how far his opinions
are shared by others, or even if there really exists a class of
Darwinian Polygenists in this country. On the Continent,
Professor Carl Vogt is a Darwinian, who derives makind from
three kinds of apes ; and he denounces, as irreconcilable with
facts, the Darwinian monogenist theory. But it will be
observed that this view of more apes than one, to obtain for
the human race a polygenous origin, only brings us back,
after all, to the other polygenous theory we have glanced
at, which gives us " merely low-caste speechless savages of
different colours " for the ancestors of all the races of
mankind. If there be any great difference between the two
theories, so far as anthropological considerations are involved,
it is only this, that the one gets entirely rid of the special
creation of man. In that respect Darwinism is completely
antagonistic both to the religious theory and to all such
polygenous theories as recognize the necessity for the interven-
tion of a Creator, in order to account, for the existence of
" the paragon of animals " — man.
But the two best-known advocates of Darwinism are mono-
genists. Professor Huxley has become a convert to it as a
* Anthropological Review, vol. II. p. cxxxii. t Ibid. p. cxxxiv.
177
monogenist, and has urged its probability upon physiological
grounds. Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, who (upon Mr. Darwin's frank
acknowledgment) may be regarded as the joint author of the
theory, and ought therefore to understand it, pleads for it
exclusively on monogenist grounds. The Darwinian is, there-
fore, so far in agreement with the Religious Theory ; but only
so far.
Still it is useful to have an eminent physiologist and anato-
mist, like Professor Huxley, strenuously declaring upon scien-
tific grounds that he has no difficulty in understanding how
all the varieties of the human race may originally have sprang
from a single pair. His scientific dicta and arguments coun-
terbalance what may be put forward, also as scientific dicta
and arguments, on the other side. It is of great consequence
also to have Mr. Wallace, as a distinguished naturalist, traveller
and ethnologist, upon the monogenist side; even although
other travellers and ethnologists, also eminent, have come to
totally opposite conclusions. This being so, the holders of the
religious theory may fairly say, that at least nothing is scien-
tifically determined by physiology, comparative anatomy or
ethnology, on the one side or the other. And this leaves us
free to study the matter with regard to other considerations,
if it does not indeed compel us to do so, in order* to
understand on what side is the weight of evidence and pro-
bability. It is to these other considerations I now wish
especially to call attention.
But there may be also monogenists, who, while rejecting
Darwinism, do not hold the religious theory. They may
believe that all mankind are of one species, and have sprung
from a single pair, but yet they may consider the primitive man
to have been a savage. If there be such a theory, it prac-
tically differs little from the Darwinian, after (but only after)
we have arrived at man upon the theory of transmutation.
The difficulties of Darwinism begin, however, long before we
have got to man.
The classification adopted may, therefore, suffice for a
tolerably complete review of the leading theories opposed to
that of Scripture, which differs essentially from the others, in
this, that it not only holds the special creation of man, but
also that man was created not a low-caste, speechless savage,
but a man in perfection. All the theories recognize the
fact that there has been some kind of development or change
in the human family ; the chief differences between them all
relate to the origin and character of the primitive man.
.While acknowledging in what respect the religious theory
differs from all the others, it must also be pointed out in what
i aypowiesis appiieu to roan, nur
does Mr. Darwin make any attempt to explain this, in his
, own elaborate volume. But the question is really a very old
one, now revived. It differs nothing from that discussed in
the Sympotiacs of Plutarch, namely, " Which was first, the
bird or the egg? " And I must say, to the credit of those
ancient inquirers, that when they started a theory, they did
not shrink from discussing it in all its bearings. The same
question — which really involves the theory of creation — has
been more ably and fully discussed than anywhere else, so far
as I am aware, in the work called Omphalos, by our Vice-
President, Mr. GoBse, F.E.S.
But passing over that, with all other difficulties which lie
against Darwinism long before we come to its application to
the origin of man, and contemplating " the lowly stock
whence man has sprung," as Professor Huxley expresses him-
self, it has also been pointed out that " to this physiological
difficulty there is added one that is psychological ; for, even
if we see no difficulty as to the physical rearing and training
of the first human baby which some favoured ape brought
forth, we are forced to ask the transmutationist to favour us
with some hint of the educational secret by which the monkeys
trained and elevated their progeny into men, when we our-
selves are scarcely able, with all our enlightenment and educa-
tional efforts, to prevent our masses falling back to a state
rather akin to that of monkeys and brutes."
To this, again, no answer has ever been given; and there is
even a prior difficulty, which I may say has been suggested by
Mr. Wallace himself. For, in the paper already referred to,
he laid it down that the intellect of man and his speech would
be developed together; in fact, he recognized that they are
* Anthropological Review, vol, II. p. ulviii, d seq.
179
correlative. And, granting this, he was asked to explain how,
" upon any principle of natural selection, this intellect came at
all? We have only as yet the animal — something between
the man and the gorilla ; but it could not speak nor think.
From whence then did intellect and speech proceed ? " — Now
I beg your especial attention to all that Mr. Wallace could
reply to such an essential question. He said : €S Mr. Eeddie
also wants to know how the intellect came at first. I don't pre-
tend to answer that question, because ive must go so long back.
If Mr. Reddie denies that any animal has intellect, it is a
difficult question to answer ; but if animals have intellect in
different proportions, and if the human infant, the moment it
is born, has not so much intellect as an animal, and if, as the
infant grows, the intellect grows with it, I do not see the
immense difficulty, if you grant the universal process of se-
lection from lower to higher animals. If you throw aside
altogether this process of selection, you need not make the
objection about the intellect ."* Now, in the first place,
there is an ignoratio elenchi in this reply; for the objection has
been urged expressly to enable us to test the theory (assuming
its possibility) on a point in which we can test it ; and, besides,
Mr. Wallace ought to have seen that he had also answered
himself. It is his own proposition, that speech and intellect
would go together ; and if that be so, then the inferior ani-
mals have not the intellect, so defined, that goes with speech.
But the difference between the intelligence of the dumb crea-
tion and the intelligence of speaking man might well form the
subject of further investigation, which might fitly be brought
before this Society. No doubt the intellect of the child grows
with its growth ; but then the child is the child of intelligent
and speaking man; and let me ask, would its intellect grow even
now as it does, if the child was not taught to speak ? The
problem Mr. Wallace had to solve, and failed to solve, was how
intellect and speech could come of themselves, to endow an
animal whose progenitor had neither one nor other ?
Before I bid farewell to Darwinism, I must notice Mr.
Wallace's reply to another pertinent objection raised in the
Anthropological Society. He said : " Dr. Hunt asserts that
archaeology shows that the crania of the ancient races were
the same as the modern. Well, that is a fact I quoted on my
own side, and his quoting it against me only shows that you
can twist a fact as you like. I quoted it as a proof that you
must go to an enormous distance of time, to bridge over the
difference between the crania of the lower animals and man.
* Anthropological Review, vol. II. p. clxxxiii.
O
180
I said, perhaps a million, or even ten millions, of years were
necessary."
I beg leave to recall attention to the fact, though no doubt
known to many present, that the famous Neanderthal skull,
of which so much was made both by Sir Charles Lyell and
Professor Huxley as probably a specimen of this missing link—
which is still, however, missing— between men and apes, has
been proved to be merely an abnormal formation, arising from
synostosis or ossification of the sutures, and that similar de-
formed skulls of perfectly modern date are in existence. And
so we are still without a single specimen of the crania that, if
found, would be considered as bridging over the gulf between
man and apes.
Having mentioned Sir Charles Lyell's name in connection
with Darwinism, I must observe that, in his Antiquity of Man,
he adopts the theory, and recommends it as " at least a good
working hypothesis/' in the absence of any proof of its pro*
bability, or even possibility, upon the sole ground that the
geological record, which at present contradicts it, is so very
imperfect. This has been characterized as not merely an
instance of non-induction, or " hasty generalization," based
upon a limited or partial knowledge of facts, which is so rightly
and Btrongly condemned by Lord Bacon, even when the facts we
do know are not inconsistent with the hypothesis we adopt ;
but as, indeed, a " glaring specimen of positively false gene-
ralization, the hypothesis being not in accordance with any
recognized facts or principles whatever, but directly in the
teeth of all our knowledge and experience."
Having made use of the word Darwinism, I also feel bound
to notice, that Mr. Darwin has not himself worked up his
theory so as to apply it to man's development, though Profes-
sor Huxley is no doubt right in saying, plainly, that that is the
goal to which it tends. Strictly speaking, Mr. Darwin has not
professed to prove anything beyond "the origin of species"
by his theory. And all that he has proved as a naturalist, is
the fact, that numerous varieties of plants and animals are de-
veloped within the limits of each particular species* He has
not proved a single instance of development beyond these
limits of nature's laws ; and most certainly no permanence of
development in any such case* He has indeed shown that the
classifications of naturalists may probably in some cases be at
fault, and that what they may have called different species
are sometimes only varieties. But this rather goes against his
theory, and may be the true explanation of the few excep-
tional and only apparent approximations to the origination of
new species which he almost claims to have observed. But
181
even were we to grant that a new variety might, under special
influences, become So distinct as to form a new species, that
would still leave us very far short of transmutation from one
genus to another, and farther still from the change from
vegetable to animal life, or from any of the inferior annuals to
man. All beyond the probable, but not proved, origin of
species, is mere speculation, with not a ghost of a proof in
support of it* And when Sir Charles Lyell admits that the
paleaontological facts are as yet against the theory, what does
that mean ? Namely, that, so far as we know, there have not
ever been the necessary graduated forms in existence which
the theory requires before it can be thought possible even by
its advocates. But, of course, we must remember, that even
if the gradations in nature were found to be finer and more
shaded off one into another than they are yet known to be,
that would not by any means prove that any one form had
been developed out of another. At present, and within the
historical period, this does not happen, and has never hap-
pened. To suppose that it did take place continually, though
"a, long time back," is to assert that nature's laws have
been reversed. I do not understand how that can ever be
established Upon scientific or inductive grounds I
* [At the meeting of the British Association at Birmingham
last year, I ventured to oppose the polygenous theory, chiefly by
an appeal to all the facts of which we have knowledge relating
to the savage and civilized races of mankind. The monkey
theory waB then left out altogether ; for, to say truth, it had
not a single advocate who ventured to raise his voice in the
Ethnological section ! Mr. John Crawfurd, the venerable Presi-
dent of the Ethnological Society, plainly denounced it ; though
he is one of the most strenuous advocates of the polygenous
theory which derives all the civilized races of mankind from
savage progenitors. But when he Was asked to give a single
instance of a savage race who had civilized themselves,— as
some justification of his extraordinary faith that all the tjivili-
zation of the world owes its origin to savagery !— he was
ominously silent.
As the discussion of this question has thus already b6en
approached from the point of view both of the so-called
Darwinians and of those who hold a polygenous theory which
makes out man to have been originally a savage, — there can be
no reason why, on the present occasion, and especially in this
* Vide Note, p. 214.
0 2 , - ... :^:
«♦ -> ^-j
182
Society, the subject may not be contemplated from the nobler
stand-point which is furnished us in Holy Scripture, in con-
trast with all conflicting hypotheses. What our religion teaches
us of man's origin is nothing new. And, to examine it freely,
we need not go beyond the scope of the objects of this Society,
by entering upon theological discussion or exegesis of Scrip-
ture. Our arguments, on the contrary, may be exclusively
rational and based upon our knowledge of nature. They may
be directed — like miracles at the foundation of our religion —
to those who believe not, and not merely to those who believe
the Scriptures. But we have no right to conceal the fact, that
we have not invented the theory we may have adopted. And
my endeavour shall now be to prove that, apart altogether
from its origin, the religious theory ought to be adopted
by all rational men, as being in accordance with all evidence
and analogy, and with all our experience and knowledge
of the human family. Surely there is no appeal to natural
things in Scripture, that is not an appeal to man's reason,
and to all he can investigate and discover with respect
to the nature that surrounds him. When St. Paul argues
that the invisible things of God — His Eternity, His power
and Godhead — are clearly witnessed by the things that do
appear, — that is, by the whole visible creation, — is not that
an appeal to man's reason, which throughout the whole world,
except among the few most degraded races or rather tribes of
mankind, has been universally and rationally responded to ?
Is not the beneficence of the Creator — " filling our hearts
with food and gladness " — equally a matter of rational proof,
appreciable by all mankind ? And so, when it is recorded
that God created man in His own image, and gave him
dominion over the inferior creatures, have we not a hypothe-
sis of man's place in nature, that also appeals to all we can
discover of man's past history, and to all we know now of
mankind throughout the world ?
Without presuming to fathom all that is meant by man
being created in God's image and likeness, and taking merely
the generally understood and universally accepted idea among
Jews and Christians for ages, that man was created a perfect
being, " upright," "very good" (for how, if created at all,
could he come otherwise than perfect from the hand of God ?), —
taking that as what religion teaches us of our origin, I wish
to show what a wide field of investigation and inquiry we may
have in this Society, without in the least trenching upon
the territory of the theologian or the Scripture expositor.
Not that I undervalue theology or Scriptural exigesis, any
more than I would admit that religion is not one of the
183
most important considerations affecting anthropology. If this
were disputed, indeed, I might appeal to other quarters, which
might possibly have greater weight with some, outside this
Society, who do not with us accept Holy Scripture as " the
key of knowledge."
For instance, in M. Boudin's Etudes Anthropologiques, pub-
lished in Paris in* 1864, he begins by citing Cicero as one
of the most eminent philosophers of antiquity who has defined
man as a religious animal. " There is not, in fact, any other
animal," says Cicero, "who has knowledge of God. And
there is no nation so barbarous or so savage, that even if
it is ignorant what deity it ought to have, does not at least
know that it ought to have a deity of some kind." (De Leg.,
lib. II. cap. 8.) Boudin then goes on to quote Plutarch, as
saying, " You may find peoples in cities deprived of walls, of
houses, of gymnasia, of laws, of monies, of literature ; but a
people without God, without prayers, without oaths, without
religious rites, without sacrifices, is what nobody has ever
seen." (Adv. Colleton.) In citing Cicero's definition of man
as a religious animal, Boudin refers, in a foot-note, to a curious
exception, or rather attempt to make an exception to this,
which I quote as having a peculiar value in the present
day. He says, " Buddhism alone has the credit of attempting
to teach religion to beasts. The author of a Tibetian work,
translated into the Mongol tongue, and from Mongol rendered
into French by Klaproth, who treats of the origin of the pro-
gress of the religion of Buddha in India and in other Asiatic
countries, recounts the following : ' When the veritable religion
of Chackiamouni (Qakya-Muni) had been spread inHindostan
and among the most distant barbarians, the high priest and chief
of the Buddhist faith, not seeing any others of mankind to
convert, resolved to civilize the large species of monkey called
jaktcha or raktcha ; to introduce among them the religion of
Buddha, and to accustom them to the practice of duties, as
well as the exact observance of sacred rites. This enterprise
was entrusted to a mission under the direction of a priest
regarded as an incarnation of the saint Khomchim-Botitaso.
This priest succeeded perfectly, and converted a prodigious
number of apes to the Indian faith/ " — You smile at this
story, as so recounted, even although you may before have
heard of the sacred monkeys kept in the Buddhist temples.
It is doubtful whether the story would be accepted in the
Ethnological or Anthropological societies. But, if you reject
it here, and laugh at it; if the notion of monkeys being
taught religious duties and observances by men is truly ridi-
culous ; how much more ridiculous and absurd must be the
184
notion that mankind owe their own faith and ideas of religion,
and even themselves, to a monkey origin ! Well may M,
Boudin observe, that " just as the aiseased eye bears every-
thing better than light, so the mind diseased with the evil of
pride, accepts anything rather than the truth ;" (C and
instead of attaching itself to transcendent truths which en-
lighten, it gives itself over to astounding errors which
delude."
Not long ago I observed it was argued in an article in the
Anthropological Revieio, that, in order to study history aright,
we must step out of our libraries— *-a hint, perhaps, in other
words, that we may as well burn all our books I And you
cannot fail to have heard of late years that anthropology,
or the study of man, is quite a new science. Before you can
believe that, you must, indeed, walk out of your libraries ! The
oldest books in the world, the oldest history, sacred and pro-
fane, and the oldest poetry of the ancients, alike disprove it. It
is not only, as our own poet has it, " the noblest study of man-
kind," but it has been, in truth, the oldest and most universal.
Nor could we find a more fitting motto for a work on anthro-
pology— unless, indeed, we borrowed the language of holy
Scripture, that S€ God created man "— *-than the words of the
Pelphic oraole, <( Know thyself."]
Assuming, then, man's creation in a perfect condition, or as
"made upright" by God, — as having intuitive wisdom, the
highest intellectual power, the gift of speeoh, and moral facul-
ties all in perfection,~we must yet remember that he had not
possibly the kind of knowledge that comes alone by expe-
rience; and that he was necessarily at first without those
artificial adjuncts of an elevated or civilized condition which
we are now, perhaps, too apt to confound with the true
essentials of civilization or elevation of character. The <c many
inventions," whether for good or evil, whether for man'tf com-
fort or destruction, which were readily found out, were yet not
all discovered in a moment ; and, as necessity is well said to
be the mother of invention, we should remember that, as at
first man's necessities in a fruitful and genial clime were
probably few, inventions of arts of some kinds would come
but by degrees. Nevertheless, as we have assumed the
greatest intellectual capacity for the primitive man, as part of
our hypothesis, we may fairly deduce from this, that man's
first strides in invention and in art would be stupendous, and
even more than equal to his absolute necessities. And so, just
as we might have anticipated upon these suppositions, we find,
185
in the earliest chapters of Genesis, while Cain and Abel were,
the one a (t tiller of the ground/' and the other a "keeper of
sheep/' that Enoch, Cain's first-born, built a city ; and we
afterwards read, not only of those who dwelt in tents, and of
others who were breeders of cattle, but also of the invention of
harps and organs, and of artificers in brass and iron. Again,
immediately after the Flood, we have the account of the
building of Nineveh and other great cities, and of the pro^
jected building of the tower of Babel ; and then, afterwards,
of the dispersion of mankind, and their separation into diverse
nations and communities. After this general indication of the
primitive history of the world, the Scriptures almost exclusively
narrate the history of the descendants of Abraham, or of other
peoples only when their history comes in contact with that of
the Jews.
We therefore naturally turn to profane records, and to the
monuments of antiquity, to discover what they tell of the past
history of mankind. But we have no other such systematic
written history of the world at large as we find in the sacred
Soriptures. If we turn to Herodotus, "the father of profane
history/' we find he deals with particular nations merely,
and with peoples comparatively modern; and only repeats
vague traditions as to their origin and first migrations. But
still let us observe the character of the facts as well as of the
traditions he narrates. Invariably he introduces us to peoples
more or less civilized, having the arts and ornaments and other
appliances of civilized life, though a civilization differing from
ours. And we find that all the traditions of their past relate
to preceding civilizations, and those frequently superior to
that of their then present condition. In no instance is there a
record, and apparently not any knowledge, of the existence of
mere savages without civilization, its arts and appliances.
Barbarous and horrid customs are no doubt alluded to as
practised by some of those ancient peoples, but yet there are
none of them (not even those least known, about whom the
traditions recorded are most vague,) without some adjuncts of
civilization.
It is much the same if we turn to Homer or Hesiod as poets.
They also introduoe us to men who had noble sentiments,
though heathens j to men who knew something of astronomy,
understood agriculture, erected fortifioations, wore armour,
and wielded well-made weapons of war ; whose women also
worked embroidery, and taught their children in their tents or
houses to emulate the noble deeds and speak the dignified
language of their fathers.
I may venture to say that ancient history knew nothing of
186
savages, such as have been discovered now to exist in remote
corners of the earth, furthest away from the traditional place
of the origin and dispersion of mankind. Is it not then a
fair question to raise, Whether, at the times of the history
recorded by the most ancient historians, human nature had so
far degenerated as to have arrived at the savage state ?
For, when we turn from written history to the still older
monuments of antiquity, what do we find ? The pyramids of
Egypt, the remains of Thebes, of Memphis, of Eabek (the
Scriptural On, and Heliopolis of the Greeks), the ruins of
Persepolis, Nineveh, Babylon, of the Giant Cities, of Khors-
abad, Birs Nimroud, Balbek, and Palmyra. In India, Ceylon,
Japan, China, Central America, Italy, Greece, everywhere
almost throughout the whole world, evidences may be adduced
of man's possession of knowledge, ingenuity, art and science,
in the ages long past. Even in North America, on the banks of
Ohio and Mississippi, the latest discoveries of archaeology and
geology go to prove, as Sir Charles Lyell bears witness in his
Antiquity of Man, that an anterior civilization had also existed
there, — where " the noble savage ran " in later times — older
than that savagedom of the Red Indians which was found to
exist when the modern Europeans first visited America.
But while noticing this testimony to the antiquity of civili-
zation in America, which surely goes somewhat towards
proving that the Red Indian savages are not specimens of
" the primitive man," as some have supposed, but really a
degenerate race, we must keep in mind that the absence of
any such proof of the former civilization of the oldest dwellers in
America would by no means have established the contrary.
Nomadic tribes sunk in barbarism, and in process of degene-
ration to savagery, whose remote ancestors might have been
civilized, might of course migrate into regions previously
uninhabited altogether; in which case the local geological
record could afford no evidence of the stock whence such a
people might have really sprung.
Again, if we trace the thread of civilization backwards,
begin where we may, we have the same results. If we begin
with ourselves and our own authentic history, — comparatively
recent though it be, — we are led back to Rome, to Greece, to
Phoenicia, and so on, till civilization becomes lost in time
immemorial; and then the vast ruins of magnificent and
giant cities, of obelisks, pyramids and temples, speak to us
where all written history — save that of Holy Scripture —
is silent.
That there are difficulties in dealing with man's past his-
187
tory, whatever view we may take of his origin and primitive
state, no one who has given the least attention to the intrica-
cies of the problem, or to the volumes that have been written
upon it, by the ancients and moderns alike, can have any
doubt. I can only hope to be able to bring forward a few of
the most important considerations and salient points which
affect the question, in order to elicit truth and to show what
theory, if any, is free from difficulties which are insuperable.
In the mean time there is one thing more to be noticed as
regards the religious theory, in which it is in marked opposi-
tion to all the others. When we take the Scriptural view of
man's creation, we can at once comprehend and read aright
all those evidences afforded by the remains of antiquity and of
profane history of his wonderful original capacity and early
civilization. We thus get over all difficulties we might other-
wise feel as regards the time in which he would arrive at this
artificially cultivated condition, and accomplish these stupen-
dous monuments of his genius and pristine glory. We can
then understand our old chronology, which makes the world
to be but some six or eight thousand years old ; and so also
perceive the value of the conclusion arrived at by the most
critical of our modern authors, the late Sir George Cornewall
Lewis, who in his last work, The Astronomy of the Ancients,
considers that we have little ground for believing in any chro-
nology of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, beyond
about 3,000 or 4,000 years prior to the Christian era.
I cannot, of course, enter here upon any discussion of the
long antiquity claimed for the world upon geological grounds.
In my opinion these long leaps into the past make few of the
difficult problems of nature a whit more easy. But I will say
this, that those who ask for millions or tens of millions of
years, in order to get over the difficulties of their own invented
theories. — whether thev start the world with a nebulous fire,
or man with an ape,-are really moderate in their demand
for time, compared with what they. ask of our faith. They
might multiply their millions of years by millions more, and
yet not have time enough to develop this real world we know
— full of teeming life and intelligence — out of fire-mists,
monads, and monkeys !
The religious theory, on the contrary, throws light upon
history and experience. Supposing mankind to be highly en-
dowed, with the highest intellectual capacity, at the time of
the confusion of their language and dispersion in the Bast,
it also presumes they would carry with them, in greater or
less degree, the primitive traditions and the acquired know-
ledge which would be retained by individuals in each family
188
or tribe. The men, in short, who combined together to build
Babel, are supposed to be dispersed in different directions in
the richest virgin countries of the earth, and the result to be
the sudden erection of magnificent temples, pyramids, palaces,
and cities. In confirmation of this view, we have the actual
remains of antiquity, which puzzle or excite the admiration of
our modern architects, engineers, and mathematicians, as to
how some of those ancient works were accomplished ; and yet,
according to all trustworthy chronology, they were executed
about the period we speak of. To enable us to realize this the
better, extraordinary as it may appear, I oannot do better than
quote from a newspaper paragraph of recent date. We oan
only properly judge of the past by a wise consideration of the
present, or understand what our predecessors upon earth may
have done, by considering what men do now in our own age.
In The Times, then, of 28th June last will be found the fol-
lowing pregnant words in an article relating to the American
iron-clad turret-ship Miantonomoh :-~-<e To say that the Ame-
ricans are a great people is but to repeat a universally acknow-
ledged aphorism. They build a city, launch a fleet, or set an
army in the field^ in about the same space of time it would
oocupy us in this grand old but slow-moving country, to dis-
cuss the preliminaries." — Let us consider this. The capital
of the United States of America is not yet one hundred years
old ; and there, as alsq in Australia, we see what an intelli-
gent and civilized community of emigrants oan do in a very
few years j and that too, remember, in our commercial times,
when not under the rule of absolute kings, or chiefs of castes,
like those who in former times bestowed their energies chiefly
upon works that would redound to their pride and glory. If
we also merely consider the changes in the cities of London
or Paris within a hundred or even fifty years, we ought to
have no difficulty in realizing how much could be done in
Egypt, India, Assyria, Etruria, Greece and Rome, in some
hundreds of years, granting that three or four thousand years
ago men were intelligent and civilized, and not degraded
savages. In America also, we find already, in the course of
one or two generations such a change in the very physique of
a people, as enables us, within our own experience, to see how
new races would come to be developed out of an originally
common stook.
[With these hints for reflection, I must now pass on, to
glance at the opinions of those who, notwithstanding what all
history and archaeology attest, have come to conolusions dia-
metrically opposed to what is here advanced.
189
No answer having been given last year at Birmingham,
when the question was asked, What single instance oould be
adduced of a savage people having civilized themselves ? I
afterwarda wrote a brief paper, with the title, " Man, savage
and civilized — an appeal to facts," and published it in the
Ethnological Journal tor October, 1865, embodying the same
arguments and repeating that question ; from which paper I
beg leave to make the following brief extract, by way of in*
troducing the answer it received j—
The thesis I now venture especially to maintain is, not only that civiliza-
tion is older than the savage state, but that it must be so. Here I appeal to
all our knowledge of mankind, moral, social, and metaphysical, as well as to ,
all the facte of history, both as regards the oourse of civilisation throughout
the world and all that we know of savage races,
. . . Setting out with M, Guizot's famous sentence, that " Civilization
is a fact," I argue, from its very existence now, that it must always have
existed since man was, We are not here, of course, concerned with minor
details respecting the various phases into which civilization may have been
developed. I speak of " the civilized man n only as an elevated, intellectual,
and moral being, apart from his peculiar circumstances. .
I argue that civilization (in this proper sense) must always have existed
since man's oreation : — First, because I am not aware of any civilization in
the world which has not either always existed among the civilized race from
time immemorial, or has had its origin attributed to the prior civilization of
another race, brought ah extra to the race becoming civilized. We can
scarcely consider that the Greeks were " savages " before the introduction
among them of written language and Egyptian civilization ; nor that the
Britons (with their chariots) were savages when invaded by the Romans.
But, be that as it may, the civilization of Egypt and of Borne had at least a
prior existence; which is enough for my main thesis. — And, Second, because
we know nothing of any truly " savage " race having raised itself to a state
of civilization ; while it is questionable whether there is any thoroughly
savage people that can be said to have become civilized through the influence
of a superior race. But, even could such a case be adduced, it would not of
course disprove the priority of civilization. The real point to be established
by those who dispute my position is the proof that savage rates can civilize,
or have ever civilized, themselves.
To this, two answers appeared in the Ethnological Journal
of November last; one by a writer signing s* A. B./J who
began by explaining why no answer was given by the Presi-
dent of the Ethnological Society at Birmingham. He says :
'< I fear the explanation amounts simply to this, that Mr.
Crawford may have thought the theory the mere coruscation
of a too exuberant fancy which needed no extinguisher. But
190
as your contributor now repeats his challenge, and, above all,
as this is not the first time that the strange crotchet has been
propounded, I shall attempt a refutation of it."
It is amusing to hear what had frankly been called " the
old tradition of the creation of Adam," characterized at once
as " a theory " of mine, as " the mere coruscation of a too
exuberant fancy," and as " a strange crotchet," by a writer
who forgets, while he is writing, his admission that he had
heard of it before ! It is high time surely that this sneering
tone should cease in discussing such questions. I trust the
institution of this Society will do something to put a stop to
it. Before eminent ethnologists or physiologists talk thus of
crotchets, or parade that in their opinion " no competent man
of science believes in Adam and Eve," they had better be
sure that the theories they have adopted, as so superior to
what they call " time-honoured and strongly -rooted prejudices"
are not themselves mere crotchets, that will never either
become "time-honoured," or succeed in establishing a preju-
dice in thinking minds. Even traditions must have had a
beginning, and strong prejudices may exist in favour of what
is merely new, as well as for what has stood the test of time,
and withstood not a little antagonism.
But to return to our ethnologist. — He says, " Let us see
what this supposed civilized man and woman must have been
when first created. If they had the persons of Apollo and
Venus, and the brains of Newton and Elizabeth, they must
still have been cowering, helpless savages, for they had every-
thing to acquire. The imaginary civilized pair must have
been at first without language, without fire, without tools,
without clothing. They had to learn even to walk and to
run They must have fed on the dead carcases of fish,
reptiles, birds, and quadrupeds, or starved. In fact, the civi-
lized man of your imaginative contributor turns out to be a
more arrant savage than a native of Australia, of Tierra del
Fuego, or of the Andaman Islands ; for all of these had made
some small progress." This is ruthless — I had almost said savage
— logic I to which the only reply of a rational being could be,
that if the " imagined civilized man" was really a savage
that could not even walk or talk, he could not have been
supposed to be elevated or civilized. — Of course, you all know
very well who are the real authors of this imagined animal,
that " a long time back " — no doubt a very long time ! —
had neither intellect nor speech, and it seems (unlike all other
animals) not even power to walk ! Although, also, we know
as a fact, that perhaps the great majority of the human race
have lived, and do probably now live, upon vegetable food, yet
191
the primitive man, wo are assured, €€ must have eaten dead
carcases " or starved !
To throw light upon this tissue of mere assertions and
" musts/' I ought to explain that Mr. Crawford, in his History
of Cannibalism, puts it forward in greater detail, and imagines
that all races of mankind must have passed through a can-
nibal era, which followed one during which they were content
to pick up what he calls "the dead carcases of animals/'
which may have died. This theory found few, if any, adhe-
rents in the British Association last year, where it was dis-
cussed ; and it is worthy of notice that, notwithstanding all
we do really know of the Cannibal Islands and Dahomey, Mr.
Crawfurd comes to the conclusion, that " although in Northern
and Western Europe the quality of the race of man was of the
highest order, yet, owing to unpropitious conditions, it was pre-
cisely in this cold quarter of Europe that cannibalism probably,
and human sacrifices certainly, lingered the longest !" Such
doctrine, I think, might well make any man shudder who is
not rather inclined to exercise a peculiarly human function,
and to laugh, in thinking of the contrast between a theoretical
and the actual world ! Well may we smile, once more, with
Voltaire's Vieux Solitaire, at the notions of those speculators
(a race of men not yet extinot), qui ont cree Vunivers avec lew
plume !
But our critic goes boldly on : " How the declaration of
Solomon, that f- God hath made man upright/ comes to be in
accord with the paradox, is more than I am able to guess ; for
it simply means that a vertical attitude was given to man, to
distinguish him from the beasts of the field that had a hori-
zontal one. In truth, the declaration of Solomon seems as
little in accord with the theory as is the wisdom of Solomon."
Now, this was not only printed and published in London in
1 865, but it occurs in what was specially praised in a literary
notice in a famous London journal, on 10th November last,
" as an excellent paper on savagery and civilization ! " I
must observe that the word rendered " upright," in the pas-
sage of Scripture referred to (Eccles. vii. 29), is yashar in
the original. It occurs about 120 times altogether in the sacred
volume, in the same or in cognate forms, and in every instance
it refers solely to moral or spiritual uprightness. It is several
times applied to describe the character of God Himself;
thus making Solomon's declaration throw light upon that of
Moses, that man was made in God's spiritual image, or in
uprightness like to God. I have referred to this argument as
an instructive illustration of how both science and Scripture
are sometimes handled in our day, and not without applause
192
in certain influential quarters. And perhaps I may be per-
mitted to add, with reference to the discussion at our first
ordinary meeting last month, that I do not consider I am
trenching in the least upon the province of the Scriptural
exegesist, in merely ascertaining and noticing what is the
unquestionable sense of a word or the undisputed meaning of
a passage of Scripture. I doubt whether there exists a second
man who in any reputed organ of the press would venture to
say that yashar only means perpendicular I
But our ethnologist made use of such arguments and ven-
tured to write in such a tone, although obliged to make the
following important admissions : u The Greeks and Romans,
(he says), who might have written an account of savages,
knew of none, They knew many 'barbarians/ but never
saw a savage. .... .The races inhabiting Europe that came under
the notice of the Greeks and Romans were all of a high
quality Among the most backward known to the ancients
were our own forefathers, the Britons $ but, in possession of
herds and flocks, of iron and corn, they were very far advanced
beyond the savage state. The other civilized races of the old
world, such as the Egyptians, the Jews, and Assyrians, the
Persians, the Hindoos, and the Chinese, were probably in the
same state of ignorance of the existence of savages, such as
were found in America and the isles of the Pacific, as the
Greeks and Romans were. They had experience of many
barbarians, as they have now, but of no savages."
This, you will perceive, iB precisely my argument. I had
appealed to all these facts, which my opponent cannot deny $
and asked for facts upon the other side. The only reply was
this j " But those who are now civilized must once have been
barbarians,— the barbarians must have been savages, and the
lowest savages known to us, as in the example of the Austra-
lians, must have been once lower still,- — must have been once
without language, fire, and implements. We can hardly be
said to have any authentic account of savages rising to the
ranks of barbarians; but we are notwithstanding satisfied
that, from the nature of things, such a progress must have
taken place."
Of course, these reiterated " musts " all go for nothing.
They are mere strongly-prejudiced assumptions of the point
at issue ; and being contrary to the ascertained facts within
our knowledge and experience, they are false assumptions
against analogy and induction. I am glad to say that such
views were emphatically repudiated by Professor Rawlinson
(an ethnologist who yet pays some respect to history), while
presiding in the Ethnological section of the British Associa-
tion last year : —
193
" Professor Rawlinson protested against the assumption that
human beings were originally in that poor and destitute con-
dition, which had been described, and that they all rose from
a state of barbarism. He held the very opposite opinion,
viz., that they were created in a state of considerable civiliza-
tion, and that while most of the races had declined into -abso-
lute barbarism, some races had never done so. The Egyp-
tian, Babylonians and Jews had never so declined." (Rep*
of Brit. Assoc, 1865.)
And now, mark the importance of the facts contradicted by
such assumptions. If this theory of the savage origin of
mankind were true, is it not utterly incredible that not a
single civilized people should have a knowledge, not even a
tradition, of their immediate ancestors having been savages ?
But some further important admissions have been made in
confirmation of the religious theory. Our critic admits that
" empires have fallen through their own vices and the inroads
and conquests of barbarians," and also that " there are a few
examples of civilization ending in barbarism ; " nevertheless,
he has the hardihood to conclude by telling me that "my
theory," (as he will call our common old tradition of the Bible,)
"is an idle attempt to turn the order of social progress
bottom upwards j " and he patronizingly advises that, " as I
evidently possess both knowledge and ingenuity, I should
henceforth use them logically and forswear paradox I "
My other critic in the Ethnological Journal was scarcely
another, for his views are much the same. His conclusion is,
that, " scientifically considered, primitive man must be viewed
as naked, speechless, defenceless, and ignorant." This is
Burely " science made easy "I If a " needs must " is thus
" scientifically" to be employed to drive us into distance and
darkness beyond all our knowledge, what does science mean ?
Then he tries to evade the evidence of all history by saying,
" history can know nothing of the remote times of man unless
by divine revelation, and to bring in this is to remove the
question out of the domain of scientific discussion." But
may it not rather be said that, therefore^ divine revelation may
be the very means to enable us to complete our science ? At
all events, we surely keep within the scientific domain when
we subject the theory we adopt— whether its source is bejieved
to be divine or human — to every possible test of experience*
and never once say that it "must" be so, except upon
rational grounds, and because it is in accordance with human
history and human knowledge of facts and nature. This
objector also admits that social degradation is easily intel-
ligible and may happen to any people, though he does not
194
appear to consider that that would eventually result in a con-
comitant " physical degradation. " He calls the theory of
degradation " Darwinism read backwards," to which he
objects ; and yet I venture to say that, if there is any truth in
Darwinism at all, it will be found, whether as regards plants
or animals, — when all is left to " nature," and mere " natural
selection " — to tend, though even then within certain limits,
rather in this downward direction. The question now, how-
ever, is, whether or not this has been the case in respect of
mankind.]
We must remember, however, that the fact of the antiquity
of civilization, as proved by all history, tradition, and archaeo-
logical remains, is only one of many converging proofs, all
bearing in favour of the religious theory of man's past and
present condition. There are also other proofs to be derived
from the common knowledge among civilized races, which
speak of a common origin, and of some previous intercom-
munion among them all. One of the most important of these
proofs is derived from the astronomy of the ancients, more
especially from the names and figures of the constellations
still delineated upon our celestial globes. Similar figures are
found upon the Dendera planisphere and zodiac of Bsneh, and
upon sarcophagi from Egypt, and landmark-stones from
Assyria, which may be seen in the British Museum. The
apparently arbitrary character of these figures, there being
nothing in nature to suggest them, and yet their being found
nearly identical among all the ancient nations of the old
world, and sufficiently similar, even in America, to indicate
the same common origin, — all combine to furnish a most
important cumulation of proof as to the ancient intercom-
munication between peoples and races, besides those derived
from comparative philology, comparative mythology, or the
common traditional stories found among mankind. From all
these sources may be urged other arguments in favour of the
religious theory. [That derived from comparative philology
was most ably treated by Dr. Thornton at the last meeting
of this Society ; and it will now also be seen, that the very
origin of speech is bound up with the origin of man himself.]
I venture to allege that no theory either about man or language
which we can devise — even with all our after-knowledge of the
facts now existing in respect of both — will so well account for
all the facts of the case as our old religious and (I think I
may still say) u time-honoured " theory of man's origin and the
confusion of language at Babel.
Having now appealed, in proof of this, to all we can gather
195
from history and among the civilized races, there is one further
appeal to be made, though one of less importance. It is to
all that we also can discover from the traditions of the various
savage races. The result of that appeal I must be content
to state in little more than a sentence from the paper already
quoted ; namely, " That among all savage races (except perhaps
the very lowest of the low, from whom we can gather nothing),
there are traces, more or less, of an anterior civilization, or
previous superiority of condition, that testifies to their being
now in a literally degraded state. Even the poetical legends
of the Viti Islanders, and the superstitious traditions of the
Negroes, testify to something in their ancestors superior to
themselves." In illustration of this, I quote from an inde-
pendent source the following : — " The islands of the Pacific,
under a general appearance of primeval simplicity, present
here and there many remarkable evidences of a former
civilization, as well as of a degree of connection between the
several populations, which seems inconsistent with their pre-
sent isolation."* I ought here perhaps also to observe inci-
dentally, that among almost all the savage races when first
discovered, the traditions connected with their corrupt forms
of religion are found to have something about serpents, and
trees, and woman.
So that here again the verdict of facts is still in favour of
the priority of civilization, and a proof that the savage races
have degenerated from a higher grade. On this point, too, I
may refer to the Bosjesmen, as a known instance of the growth
of a distinctive savage race within a few generations. Without
going further into details as regards the savage races, I venture
to claim to have pretty well established my thesis, and proved
that the religious theory may now also be called with propriety
the Historical Theory.
Since the foregoing was written, additional testimony of a
valuable kind has come under my notice, and to this I beg
leave very briefly to allude. At the last meeting of the
Ethnological Society, held only on Tuesday, 10th July, a paper
was read by the distinguished African traveller Mr. S.W.Baker,
in which he gave an interesting account of the various tribes
of the White Nile Basin. One of these tribes (the Kytch tribe),
he says, is " hardly a remove above the chimpanzee, except
(a most important exception) in the power of speech. They live
in a marshy district and are wretched skeletons " Most of these
tribes, it seems, know how to work in metals. But in one in the
* Principles of Mythonomy, by Mr. Luke Burke, p. 51.
P
196
Shir district, having no iron-ore, hard iron-wood supplies the
people with a substitute for iron, like the hard stone used by
the New Zealander, and flints by other savages elsewhere.
Mr. Baker remarks that " the absence of articles and weapons
of metal in no way proves their excess of savagery ; but where
there are no metals to work, there are no blacksmiths." Mr.
Baker also describes " the tribes on the borders of Abyssinia,
who are still in a state of superior civilization." They are sprung
from a land inhabited by the only independent Christian commu-
nity in the whole of Africa, among whom reading and writing are
common, and where the features and forms of the inhabitants
are closely allied to the European, forming a strong contrast
to the tribes who inhabit the borders of the White Nile."
At the same meeting, Dr. Beke, also a well-known African
traveller, is reported as having made some remarks on the
retrogression of civilization among the savage tribes. In his
opinion, they are becoming more and more savage, and he
asserts that nearly all travellers in Africa are of that opinion.
I am glad that Mr. Crawfurd, the President, was present when
this was stated in the Ethnological Society, as he is well known
to entertain opinions opposed to those I have here ventured
to advance.
[Still bearing intimately on our subject, and especially on an
important point to which I am anxious to allude before I con-
clude, another paper was read the same evening, by Lieut.-
Colonel Fytche, on attempts that had been made to civilize
some of the Andaman Islanders, which had entirely failed,
even the wearing of clothes producing consumption. Dr.
Mouet, however, spoke of other similar attempts, and of one ex-
ceptional case, that of a young girl, in which the efforts made
had proved successful.
It was no part of my case to prove that individual savages,
or tribes, cannot be reclaimed and raised. That this may
even be possible of races, I will not dispute, though it may
be a question whether the process of degeneration may not
sometimes proceed so far as to render the elevation of the race
afterwards impossible. My argument has been, that these low
races do not, as a fact, ever rise of themselves. The late Dr.
Waitz has said further, that they neither do emerge from their
barbarous state, nor do they exhibit any desire to leave it ;
and they even, in spite of example and teaching, rather
tend to remain as they are. It is not a fact, then, that they
rise, nor is it " natural " that they should, however easy
and natural it may be that they should fall still lower and
lower.
197
But, whence, then, it may be asked, if all this be true, has
the idea of human advancement and progress come to enter
men's minds at all ? To that I reply, it has no doubt also been
derived from human experience, and is best explained by the
religious theory. Ours is no dark and fatalistic creed that always
and only points downwards. We have, thank God, a knowledge
and experience of advancement and human progress in the
world's history, as well as of man's degeneration. The real
fact is, indeed, that we have lived so much in the light of this
state of advancement, in which we were born, that some of us
have forgotten its cause, and that it is an absolute reversal
of a previously existing state of things. Not a reversal of
any natural law — let us leave that to those who believe that
intellect and speech could come of themselves, and the noblest
manhood be developed out of apes or speechless savages ; —
not a reversal of any natural law, but the introduction of a higher
law, that claims to regenerate man, and to elevate his nature.
Just as by our theory we believe that soine thousands of years
ago man was created very good by God, yet .afterwards fell, and
so the human race degenerated ; — by slow degrees no doubt, for
he always had a better spirit that strove within him, and an
intellect that could not lose its lustre in a day; — so we also
believe that some eighteen hundred years ago the progress of
this human corruption was arrested, by a revival of new
spiritual life and fresh power of becoming " upright." We
appeal equally to the facts of history, to prove both man's fall
and his restoration. Since the second Adam came, in fact,
the history of human advancement and of the highest civiliza-
tions, from the time the Roman empire fell, is little else than
the history of the progress of Christianity. The students of
" the science of man" will never understand their whole subject
if they ignore this crowning fact of all, which completes the
religious theory of man's past and present condition.
My argument required that I should chiefly dwell upon the
downward course of humanity, but I gladly recognize that
that is only half the truth with which we are concerned. " The
question of questions for mankind (well says Professor Huxley)
— the problem which underlies all others, and is more deeply
interesting than any other, is the ascertainment of the place
which man occupies in nature, and of his relation to the
universe of things. Whence our race has come; what are
the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power
over us ; to what goal we are tending ; are the problems
which present themselves anew, and with undiminished in-
terest to every man born in the world."
These words of the learned Professor are worthy of the
p 2
198
theme. They recognize a power beyond mere nature, and
show that the past and present of man cannot be well con-
sidered without reference also to his future. The institution
of this Society has not been devised with the view of stifling
or suppressing such problems, but to secure their more com-
plete consideration. This paper, be assured, is no "idle
attempt to turn the order of social progress bottom upwards,"
but rather an honest endeavour — however inadequate — to
overthrow ill-grounded theories, which, — by ignoring the true
source of all " our power over nature," and of that righteous-
ness, or moral uprightness, which alone can raise a people,
and secure for them a social progress that will last, — not
only cannot tell mankind " to what goal they are tending,"
but have even failed to account satisfactorily for either the
original existence or present condition of the civilized and
savage races of the great human family.]
The Chairman. — I am sure it will be perfectly unnecessary for me to call
upon you to pass a vote of thanks by acclamation to Mr. Reddie for the very
valuable paper he has read. (Hear.) I can only say that it is adding one
more to the many obligations which the Victoria Institute owes him. No
one who has not been associated with him in the formation of this Society
can understand how earnestly he has worked for its advancement ; and the
admirable and exhaustive paper which he has produced this evening shows
how, in the midst of those labours, he has found time to devote himself to
the great cause which this Society advocates. I have to announce that
I have received a letter from our noble President (the Earl of Shaftesbury),
in which he expresses his deep regret that he is prevented by indisposition
from profiting by Mr. Reddie's paper. (Hear, hear.) I have only to add that
I most cordially invite discussion upon this paper. I am sure Mr. Iteddie
will be disappointed if his paper does not provoke that free discussion which
he considers the most wholesome feature of this Society's proceedings.
(Hear, hear.)
Dr. Gladstone. — I rise to express the great pleasure with which I have
listened to Mr. Reddie's paper this evening, and especially to the latter part of
it ; and I am quite sure that there are many here who have also felt, and who
will express that same pleasure. I know Mr. Reddie likes discussion ; he
and I can never be together for two minutes without coming across one
another ; and he had not been reading his paper one minute this evening
before he advanced an opinion which I could not adopt. The subject is a
most noble one. It has been treated very extensively ; it ought to be treated
with all philosophical calmness ; it ought to be considered with all the
largeness of mind that can be brought to bear upon it. We ought, if possible,
to remove every prejudice, and everything which would prevent philosophical
consideration. I am quite sure Mr. Reddie has too much nobility of mind
and too much courage to call people bad names when they don't deserve it ; or
199
to give them a bad character without facts to justify him in doing so. He has,
however, done this, I am sure unintentionally, in his paper, in using the classifi-
cation which he adopted in dealing with his subject ; for he has called one theory
a religious theory, and by doing so he has implied that the other theories are
irreligious. (No, no.) Well, I think you will allow me to say that I do
understand that it does imply that ; and that is the accusation which I have
to bring against him. I have been curious to know what is the reason of the
objection on religious grounds to the Darwinian theory. I am not going to
speak now of the polygenous theory, or to defend it from the charge to which
I think it lies open, of being irreligious ; but I am anxious to know what are
the Scriptural grounds of objection to the Darwinian theory. The Bible
declares that God created man. It tells us what sort of a being he was when
he was created ; but it does not tell us how or by what process he was
created. I have looked carefully into all the passages in which the Hebrew
word for " create n occurs, and I do not find that any one of them indicates any
particular theory of creation. The word " created " is never used in the Old
Testament except in reference to the works of God ; but it may indicate either
the calling of things out of nothing, or the bringing together of various
parts, and putting them in a form in which they were not known before.
In several cases it distinctly refers to ordinary generation. It never im-
plies that all that was created or made by God was not called out of some-
thing that existed before. If we turn to the New Testament, we find that the
equivalent Greek word has in only two instances been applied to the works of
man. It is applied expressly to that which God makes ; so that, in the New
Testament, as in the Old, there is no theory of creation laid down. I do not
say we ought to accept the Darwinian theory ; but we have no other which
gives us a possible solution as to how God made all those creatures He has
placed in the world, and I do not see how it opposes any statement of Scripture.
I think we ought to remove this impression, and consider the question upon
its own merits. I am aware that Darwin himself not only never applies his
theory to the creation of man, but that there are various expressions in hip
book which seem to indicate, by the idea of natural selection, the action of
some kincl of power independent of God. We are not, however, to suppose
that some persons may not take this natural selection as in subordination to
the will of God ; and it seems to me, that, if we were to , come to the
conclusion that God created great whales by natural selection, we should be as
much in accordance with Scripture as if we supposed that He created them by
some other process. We know the argument of Paley, that if a person going
along the ground strikes his foot against a watch, and takes it up and looks at
the various contrivances, and sees how it is made, he must come to the conclu-
sion that it was the work of some intelligent being. But supposing, in
continuing his walk across the common, he came upon a chronometer and a
clock, he would arrive at the same conclusion as before ; but most likely he
would think that different minds had been employed to create the different
pieces of mechanism. But if it were revealed to him by some messenger
from heaven or otherwise, that the clock was produced from the chronometer,
200
and the chronometer from the watch, and that the mechanism was so perfect
that the one was evolved out of the other, then his idea of the intelligence of
the artificer, instead of being diminished, would be exalted. But this analogy
is not perfect, because in mechanism we cannot bring in God's work — we
cannot bring in the laws of nature, that is, the finger of God. But whether
God, in some inscrutable way, has called beings out of nothing, or whether
He has acted in some such way as is indicated by Darwin, in either case we
have God's direct power in creating and sustaining all things, and directing
the processes by which He produced animal* life, and lastly, man himself. I
think I will close this subject with these few remarks. I am quite sure they
do not detract in the least from the value of Mr. Reddie's arguments. I
think he has shot most powerful shells into the hostile camp, although
some of them may have fallen short of the mark.
Captain Fishbourne. — It did not strike me that in using the expression
" religious theory," any attack was made upon the opponents of it — not the
least. I think I)r. Gladstone's exegesis is not fair. He attacks the term ;
but the term is used to express, shortly, what is the view taken by a class
of persons from the stand-point of revealed truth. It means no more
than that the class of persons to whom it especially refers, are those who
accept the Scriptural account of the creation ; and I think it is perfectly
natural that their theory should be called the religious theory. I say, taking
the whole argument in the paper, it is quite in opposition to the view Dr.
Gladstone has taken of it. The argument throughout has been based on a
rational, and not a mere scriptural consideration of the facts brought under
our notice ; taking them more particularly, too, from witnesses on the oppo-
site side of the question ; and it is only after Mr. Reddie has established
his position, from the evidence of persons who exclude the religious view,
that he introduces proofs of its being in accordance with what might be
termed the religious view, or that which is drawn from Scripture. I think
Dr. Gladstone is a little touchy about this. (A laugh.) I think Mr. Reddie
has pointedly and distinctly, on more occasions than one, not only insisted,
but emphatically insisted, that there was no intended antagonism to other
views on any but rational grounds, or, at least, that there was no imputation
of irreligion intended. I do not think it is right or fair, therefore* to fix upon a
mere expression, and deduce from it an argument which neither anything in
the paper warrants, nor anything which Mr. Reddie has ever said or
written on any previous occasion. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Warington. — If I apprehend the matter rightly, I think the objec-
tion of Dr. Gladstone was not that he thought Mr. Reddie had charged
those who did not accept the scriptural account of the creation with being
irreligious, but that the term was not exactly the one which ought to be
chosen to denote the particular views to which Mr. Reddie applied it, since
there might be other views entertained on the subject that might be con-
sidered equally religious. Now I really must, on that point, go hand in
hand very warmly with what Dr. Gladstone has said. It struck me, after
reading Darwin's book on The Origin of Species, that it was quite possible
201
that it might be perfectly true that man originated in that way, and that
devoutly religious men might therefore hold the Darwinian theory and also
believe their Bible to be literally true. We believe God created all men. I
think we should all deny the assertion that God only created the first man.
We believe He has created all men. We make it part of our religion that
we believe in God as our Creator. What do we mean by that ? Vfy don't
mean that He has brought together a number of atoms from different parts
of the world and made us just as we are at once. We believe He has made
us by the process of generation ; that we gradually developed into our pre-
sent state. But what then ? • Does that make it the less true, at the
same time, that He created us ? I do not think there is anything irreligious
in believing that the first man was developed from a lower animal ; but,
then, it does not follow that the animal had power of itself to develop us.
That may be the opinion of Darwin, but it is by no means involved in his
theory. It might be a power exercised upon the animal by some higher
influence. We admit that all varieties have arisen on the principle of natural
selection ; but in the origin of these varieties, then, do we exclude the hand
of God ? If I find a plant, differing from all its fellows, growing in a different
place from other plants of the same kind, I hold that that plant has come
thus to differ by what is called the action of natural selection ; but this does
not by any means exclude the idea that God made that plant as well as all
the others. On this account, it struck me that the term " religious theory "
was scarcely the correct term by which to designate the particular theory
to which it was applied. I have, further, one or two remarks to make in
the way of criticism, with reference to the arguments of Mr. Reddie. I
think there is nothing more dangerous than bad arguments. I believe that
bad arguments are worse than no arguments at all ; and if there be any weak*
ness in those which have been used, I think it is our duty to point them
out. There was an argument used by the essayist which seemed, at the
first glance, to be very plausible — that was an argument with reference to
language and intellect. He said animals did not seem to have an analogy to
man, such as was necessary to make development possible, because they had
no language. But though that may seem very plausible, it struck me as being
really a most unsound argument ; for if you take a child born perfectly
deaf, that child has no spoken language, it hears no sound, and it cannot be
taught any language
Mr. Reddie. — Oh, yes ; it can.
Mr. Warington. — It cannot be taught any language by sound ; but yet
that child develops its intellect, though unable to talk ; for it can express
its ideas by means of signs. (Hear.) Therefore it appears to me that the
connection of articulate speech with intellect is not essential There must be
speech of some kind (hear, hear) ; but it is hot at all necessary that it should be
articulate language. Now Mr. Reddie is not surely prepared to assert that
there is no inarticulate speech amongst animals, no signs or sounds by which
they can convey their ideas to one another. (Laughter.) For instance, you
see a dog in the street going and fetching another dog ; by which it would
202
appear that dogs had some means of conveying their thoughts to one another,
either by instinct, or reason, or intellect, or whatever you like to call it
Mr. Reddie. — Excuse me for the interruption ; but you are contending
against an argument of Mr. Wallace, to which I alluded, and not to an
argument of mine. I never raised that issue. But Mr. Wallace, in a paper
which he read before the Anthropological Society, advocating the Darwinian
theory, laid it down as a canon of that theory, that intellect and speech
would go together. I have no objection to that view ; but I wish it to be
understood that I gave no reasons in its favour ; because Mr. Wallace having
laid down that theory, I merely adopted it Us an argumentum ad hominem.
Mr. Warington. — I was quite aware of that. I was simply endeavouring
to show that the answer you gave to that was an insufficient answer. There
is a kind of speech possible among animals, and a kind of intellect, as well
as human speech and human intellect
Mr. Reddie. — I beg your pardon ; but if you had attended to the paper,
I think you would have seen that I had almost said as much, and expressly
reserved that point as onerequiring further consideration.
Mr. Warington. — Very well ; I will not further dwell upon that. The
other point which I wish shortly to mention, is in respect to the possibility
or impossibility of savage nations ever rising in civilization. We are told
as evidence that they never could have risen, that there is no tradition
existing amongst civilized nations of their having been previously in a savage
state. Before we insist upon that argument, it would be necessary to look at
this further point — Is it probable, if a nation had risen from savagery to a state
of high civilization, that it would recollect, as a tradition to be handed down
from one generation to another, that it originally belonged to a class near to
the brute ? I put it to yourselves : Is that the kind of tradition you would
hand down ? If you were aware of the fact that your immediate ancestor
was a monkey, or some other species of brute (laughter), would you have
taken care to hand that down to your children ? On the contrary, would
you not try to conceal it ? I know I should. (Laughter.) Therefore, is it
not possible that a nation may have risen from a state of savagery, and have
forgotten it, from the people having concealed the fact ? Mr. Reddie has
quoted evidence to show that particular nations look back to a higher state
of civilization ; but is it not perfectly natural that they should do so ? Tra-
ditions of this kind, looking back to former glories, would be precisely those
most likely to be handed down. This, it struck me, considerably weakened
his argument. Again, is it not a fact which tells against the general
position of Mr. Reddie, that there are traditions existing among nations who
have attained to an advanced state of civilization, as to certain persons who
were the inventors of the most fundamental parts of civilization ? Are
there not traditions of those who invented the use of fire ? When we have
traditions of that kind actually existing
Mr. Reddib. — Would you mention precisely what traditions you refer to ?
Mr. Warington. — I believe the tradition exists amongst the Chinese, and
amongst a number of other nations considerably civilized
203
Rev. Dr. Irons. — I doubt that.
Mr. Warington. — I am speaking from memory ; but I am quoting from a
book written by one of our best ethnologists (Mr. E. B. Tylor), who men-
tions a considerable number of nations in which traditions exist amongst
the people as to those who first brought fire into their country. I think we
might take a statement of this kind, — especially from a person who is
extremely careful and cautious in all he says, and whose deductions have
been always well considered, — I think we might take his statement as some-
what antagonistic to the general position which Mr. Reddie took up in
his argument ; for surely this is a tradition of rising in civilization, or rising
from a lower state in civilization to a state which was higher. I do not
mean to say it is a rise from utter savagery (hear, hear) ; but it is a rise tending
in that direction, — it is a tradition going against that which I thought Mr.
Reddie insisted upon so strenuously, namely, the tradition of a fall from
what was higher to what was lower ; — an item, therefore, of positive evi-
dence, over and above the general probability that the traditions of a fall
from a higher state would be remembered, while the traditions of a rise from
a lower to a higher state of civilization would be forgotten.
Professor Oliver Byrne. — I have just one remark to make with
reference to the arguments in the paper. We find that all those
properties in creation that have come by little and little have more
or less a complete gamut. We have, however, five senses; but we
have no positive gamut for any of them. Neither have we a gamut
for any of the qualities of the heart. We have no gamut for friendship ; we
have got no gamut for love ; we have not a single gamut for any of those
perfect things of which we have experience, — consequently they never grew
little by little. If they had grown little by little, there would have been a
symbol for every change — there would have been a mark for all the powers
and passions of the head and heart. For instance, there are three qualities of
the head : we have got the power to analyze — the power of taking things
apart arid looking at them ; the power of putting them together ; and the
power of alternation ; but we have got no gamut to show how we commenced to
learn these mental processes. When we speak of science, also, we must recollect
that true science depends upon positive proof. But Darwinism is not
science : it is without proof — without axioms or definitions. Had man grown
little by little, as the Darwinians say, every single power and passion of the
head and heart would have had a nicely-formed gamut. But what is the
fact ? Look at the man, for instance, who is employed in China tasting tea.
He cannot teach a man how he tells the taste ; he cannot tell how he does it ;
he cannot give a gamut for the taste that God Almighty gave him,— it can-
not, therefore, have grown little by little : it must have been got altogether ;
and so it is with all the perfect things in creation.
Mr. Fowler. — With reference to the remarks of the gentleman who
spoke before Professor Byrne, I have one word to say. Mr. Warington's
argument appeared to be, that it was quite possible that civilized man could
have developed himself from a savage state. Now it appears to me, that wo
204
must look at the question as regards the development of mankind, in the way
it has been very ably put in Mr. Reddie's paper, but which, among the many
other points referred to, has been somewhat overlooked ; namely, that there is
no account of the history of mankind which does not essentially harmonize
with the account we have in the Scriptures. If we look at the question as
to how civilization grew up, we will find, as Mr. Reddie very properly ob-
served, that the oldest uninspired account we have is that given by Herodotus,
and if we examine his history, we do not find it inconsistent with the Scriptures.
All we learn from it of the history of mankind thoroughly harmonizes with
the account which we get in the Bible. Egypt is the oldest country of which
Herodotus speaks in much detail ; but when he refers to the ancient
accounts of transactions which occurred in the early part of the history of
Egypt, he only mentions what he was told by the priests of that country.
He does not appear to be able to vindicate all that he has written, or to
speak with the accuracy and certainty which is evident in the inspired
writings of the Bible. Now the same thing might be said with regard to
the oldest accounts which we get from all other sources with regard to the
history of mankind. And I think it is a point we ought especially to bear
in mind, among the many able arguments that have been advanced in the
paper, that we have no account of the early history of mankind which in any
way contravenes the earliest account of all, namely that given us by the
inspired writers of the Old Testament (Hear, hear.)
Rev. S. C. Adam. — I rise for the purpose of asking a question of some
able Hebrew scholar with regard to the meaning of the Hebrew word bar a,
created. I have always understood that it means that God gave a perfect
existence to everything that He created ; and if so, He gave a perfect form
to man in creating him.
Rev. Dr. Iron& — It is an awkward thing to rise in order to answer a ques-
tion so put Without, however, professing to be a Hebrew scholar, I may say
that I have read Hebrew for many years, and I may observe that the state
of the language is so primitive that it is impossible for us to analyze the
exact force of its roots, beyond a certain limit You find instances in
which the word in question has a definite meaning ; but they are very few,
and it would be out of the question to attempt to build up a doctrine of
philosophy on the etymology of a Hebrew word. It is used ordinarily in
the same way as we use the ordinary English word " created," or " made," —
sometimes it means the one and sometimes the other. The idea of " cre-
ating out of nothing " is an idea we bring to the word, rather than extract
from it It is not an idea which belongs necessarily to the word itself.
There is no doubt that is the traditional sense of the word ; but it would be
impossible to push its force beyond a mere general sense, and to build an
argument upon its etymology would be most unwise. Would you allow me
to say in defence of our Essayist, that I think a little unfairness was used
by Mr. Warington and Dr. Gladstone in questioning what is or is not reli-
gious. Of course, Mr. Reddie used the word in its ordinary sense. We are
not here merely to play with words. -We are using terms in their common
205
signification. Every one knows that there is a religious view of all the sub-
jects which engage us here ; and we must not be debarred from using common
phrases in discussion. It leads people from the truth, and gives an appearance
of pettiness to our discussions, to have issues raised in debate which are not
worthy of debate. Now with respect to the Darwinian theory, I think it was
incumbent upon Dr. Gladstone to "define what he meant when he made a dis-
tinction between Mr. Darwin and the Darwinian theory. The force of his argu-
ment was that a man might be a good Darwinian and be at the same time a
sound Mosaical theologian ; but at the present moment I am in doubt as to what
he meant when he said that the Darwinian theory might be held by those who
considered the Bible substantially true throughout. Of course I could put a
meaning upon it, because in the Christian Church there has been a theory
(though it has not been ordinarily discussed amongst us) which very closely
approximates to that which I suppose to be the Darwinian theory, and it
has been held by great men without the least rebuke. I remember, some time
ago, reading a sermon by Father Ventura, preached in Rome and Paris, which
received the direct approbation of the Pope, and it begins with a statement
which I recently had occasion to quote. It occurs in a sermon on the certainty
of the instruction of the Catholic Church ; and in it the preacher states :
" There is no father of the Church, there is no doctor of Catholic antiquity,
who does not acknowledge that everything in the system of grace is cor-
respondent with something which had previously existed in the realm of
nature." He attempts to show from that the truth, that there is nothing
whatever in the new creation which had not its dim parallel shadowed before-
hand in the previous operations of what we call nature. That I suppose may
harmonize to a great extent with Darwinism. I remember distinctly, when I
quoted this in a sermon, that several good old Churchmen were shocked at
it, and said it was Darwinism. I suppose I must not mind being called hard
names, but I think a Christian clergyman standing up in this metropolis of
Christianity, in this city which we might regard as the centre of intellectual
Christendom, ought not to be called names for maintaining a truth which, ac-
cording to Le Pere Ventura, and according to his present Holiness the Pope,
has been laid down by all the doctors and fathers of the Church unanimously.
But all this only shows that we might eliminate that whole discussion from
our present debate ; and I think we might spare altogether that part of Mr.
Warington's observations. I do not think it was ad rem to-night. He came at
at last to the point. He came to consider whether there was anything like a
tradition in the world, of a savage people having civilized themselves. Now,
I think our essayist threw down the challenge boldly. And, indeed, this is
not a matter in respect to which there need be any doubt. As to the obscure
and more thau obscure tradition existing in some races, that their ancestors
had originally derived fire from the discovery of their fellow-men, I would
put it to the conscience of Mr. Warington, whether that tradition is not
more like poetry than history ? It is a sort of imagination. Being accustomed
to the comforts and blessings of fire, it was not unnatural, in the savage state
to which they had sunk, that they should have some vague tradition of this
206
kind. Bat the very fact that there was such a tradition, attributing the origin
of fire to some one who brought it to them, rather proves Mr. Reddie's case, and
shows that they attributed even their knowledge of fire to some being wiser
than themselves. (Applause.) It was not a thing discovered by their gene-
ration ; it was in the dim religions past. And so we find that traditions in-
variably take a religions turn. We all know that Prometheus suffered for
stealing fire from heaven ; but then Prometheus wan considered to be a
demigod. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Barrett. — The impression left on my mind is similar to that which
was. left on the mind of Dr. Gladstone. As far as I can judge, Mr. Reddie
appeared to think that Christianity must stand or fall by the objections to
the Darwinian theory. (Cries of No, no.) Well I may be right, or I
may be wrong, but that was the impression left on my mind. I think a
greater disservice cannot be done to Christianity than dogmatically to assert
that its claims depended upon refuting the truth of the Darwinian theory.
Darwinism may be right or it may not ; but the Bible teaches us nothing
at all about it (Hear, hear.) The Bible teaches us nothing about science.
It was not written to teach us science. It was sent to appeal to our affections,
not to our intellectual nature. I do not think, therefore, it has any connection
with the Darwinian theory
Mr. Reddie. — I am sure I will be excused for the interruption, for I
must say that this is really not the question here. I have not said
that Christianity must stand or fall by Darwinism, or the objections to
Darwinism. I stated what Darwinism was, and I tried to oppose it, not by
any words of Scripture, but by our experience and the facts of nature. (Hear,
hear.)
Mr. Barrett. — I was simply stating the impression left on my mind
from hearing the paper
The Chairman. — As I understood the paper, the subject has not been dis-
cussed from the Bible point of view simply, but from a consideration of the
facts of nature, as opposed to the Darwinian theory.
Mr. Barrett. — I was simply stating the impression left on my mind,
which was, that it was argued that Christianity must stand or fall by the
objections to the Darwinian theory ; and I thought I was justified in stating
that I did not adopt that opinion.
The Chairman. — I must say I can see nothing of that kind in the paper. I
regret the tone which has been imported into this discussion by Dr.
Gladstone, unintentionally no doubt ; as it has drawn us away from the
subject of the paper. I think Mr. Reddie was extremely cautious in not
attempting to call names. But in dealing with a subject of this kind, it is
sometimes very hard not to call things by their right names. There is a
certain theory which we believe to be the religious theory ; and by the reli-
gious theory I mean that which a plain common-sense man will deduce from
the word of God, reading it as a plain, common-sense man will read the
Scriptures. I cannot conceive that a man is very much to be deprecated, if
he calls that plain, common-sense view the religious view, as opposed to other
207
views which deduc3 theories out of their own conceptions rather than from
the facts of nature. Dr. Gladstone referred us to a well-known simile — that of
Paley — of a man going across a common and striking his foot against a watch.
Now if Paley had known more of the question, he would have seen that this was
a bad sort of simile to take for working out his theory from analogy ; because
if a man struck his foot against a stone instead of a watch, he would have
found, upon an examination of it, that it contained a far more complicated
structure than was to be seen even in a watch, and that it was the work of
a far higher power. With regard to the observations which have been made
in reference to the Darwinian theory, — and when I make use of that term, it
is in no spirit of calling names, — I must «ay that those that advance that
there is no such thing as a Creator, or no such thing as creation, claim (I do
not say whether they do it rightly or wrongly) Darwin as a supporter of
what I think every one must therefore admit to be an irreligious theory. But
take his own arguments. I have not to go simply to statements scattered here
and there in the volume of Mr. Darwin ; I take the whole spirit of it. The
whole gist of his argument is directed against anything like design appearing
in creation. How does he form the eye ? I need not now go into that
matter ; it takes a very prominent part in the Darwinian theory. No one
can read his description of the formation of the eye, without seeing that it is
an attempt, as unphilosophical as contrary to common sense, to account for
such a perfect instrument without any design on the part of the Creator.
I think any theory which attempts to get rid of that which is the most
striking feature in God's work, namely design, is the most irreligious theory
that the mind of man has ever yet devised. Darwin completely fails to
account for the marvellous structure of the eye from any principle of natural
selection. In my opinion, if Thomas Carlyle were to give his version of
Darwinism, he would call it "the devil-take-the-hindmost theory.,, This
monstrous theory that the stronger will always destroy the weaker,
and that perfection comes through the destruction of the weaker, utterly
ignores the operation of any intelligent design. Another great crux of
Darwin's was the formation of the cell of the common hive bee. He could
not discover how to account for this upon the theory of " natural selection."
He could not tell how the bee discovered that marvellous angle of 109 deg.
28 min., by which it secured the greatest possible amount of jspace with the
least amount of work, except that, after much trial and error, it discovered
the square root of two to six places of decimals ! You may think I
am travelling out of the question under discussion, but I do not think I am.
I want to draw a very important distinction, which has not been drawn
to-night in this discussion. I have not heard one real objection to the argu-
ments of Mr. Reddie, with the exception of that taken by Mr. Warington with
reference to the tradition about fire, which has been so ably answered by
Dr. Irons. Therefore I think the paper is a very triumphant one. But there
is one thing which was not argued in the paper. It is this, we have heard of
men- improving, and of men making inventions. Men can make out the
square root of two to twenty or thirty, or even fifty places of decimals ; but
208
we find that there is this distinction between man's intellect and die inseQeet,
if yon will so call it, or the intelligence or the instinct of other anrmah, that
they were created with their instincts perfect, and required no m&ruetioa. no
bringing oat, no improvement of any kind. As tbey were created so they are
now. We find amongst the simplest and the humblest of God's creatures that
their instincts hare anticipated some of the greatest inventions and discoveries
of man* Before Archimedes was a mathematician, before logarithms were
invented, the bee was the great geometrician. When we were in want of
materials for paper, we went to the wasp to be instructed, and found h making
paper out of dry wood. We thought we had made a discovery in aeronautics,
but we found that we had been anticipated by the little spider. Another
spider anticipated the invention of the diving belL All this proves that
it is possible for beings to be created with perfect instincts, and that there-
fore it is possible for such a thing as a perfect man to have been created. If
we have perfect insects created, with all their faculties at once appearing
bright, clear, and beautiful, I say man might have been— I don't say he was
— created perfect ; and that he might have degenerated, for he has the power
to lose knowledge as well as to acquire it I do not think that men ought
to shrink from expressing their opinion upon a matter, as to whether it is
religious or whether it is not, when they do not do it in the spirit of calling
names,* and they ought to be allowed to protest against theories which
they do not believe to be true, without being charged with being unchristian
and uncharitable in the interpretation which they put upon them. There is
another thing which I think has a remarkable bearing on the question.
That is, when a man is raised to a high point of civilization he forgets a
vast amount of the instinctive faculties he possesses. As science advances,
he is better able to interpret great facts in nature ; and it is by these facts
that he begins to learn what instincts he unknowingly possesses. How is it
that one class of men in one part of the world have discovered that the leaf
of a certain tree dried and formed into tea makes a very valuable article
of food ? How is it that in another quarter of the globe men have discovered
that the fruit of another tree (coffee) roasted and ground produces an article
of food which has the very same effect on their constitution ? How is it that
another set of men have discovered the value of cocoa ? How is it that
these things have been ascertained ? What could have guided men in
their selection of these things ? They are substances without taste or any
other sensible property in common. Everything was so naturally adverse
to the gamut of which Professor Byrne has spoken ; and yet, if we come to
a chemical analysis, we find that they all contain the same kind of substance,
and that is a certain vegetable alkaloid, of an isomeric character. All of
them contain the same elements, combined together in the same proportion.
How is it that men instinctively arrived at that knowledge ? And if man
has such subtle instincts as these, has he not other higher instincts ? Is
not poetry a subtle instinct ? Is not the power of reasoning a subtle instinct 1
Is not geometry founded upon- the most subtle instincts of the human mind 1
Are we to deny all that ? Again to recur to the instructive use of coffee and
209
tea. If we go to Wiltshire, we find the ill-paid labourer knowing that by the use
of tea he is enabled to do the greatest amount of labour with the least amount
of waste. We also find that the poor, hardworking sempstress has discovered
the same fact. She knows that it is. the best food she can take. How is it
that these people find out these things ? I was told once by an inspector of
prisons that he had made an experiment in which he put 400 men on oat-
meal and milk, and 400 others on tea ; and he found that those to whom
the oatmeal had been given had lost in weight, while those who received tea
had lost nothing at all : the alkaloid in tea, coffee, and cocoa prevents
waste of muscle. These marvellous human instincts lead us to the
conclusion that man comes not from the lower animals by any educational
process or any education of instincts, and prove that while man possesses
instincts in common with the brute species, he has something which the
brute species do not possess ; for the latter cannot be educated — they never
can improve their instincts, nor, on the other hand, do they ever lose them
or become in any way degenerated. .
Rev. Dr. Thornton.* — The Periplus of Hanno, and Herodotus's account
of the Troglodyte, seem to contain instances of savagery known to the Greeks.
But the Gorilla of Hanno were most probably apes, — the name perhaps
derived from gur and jalal, meaning " howling monsters w in Punic. The
Troglodytes were apparently a very early Hamitic colony, degenerated, through
want of communication with their fellow- men, both in physical character
and in language ; and this is, therefore, an argument in favour of Mr. Reddie's
view.
* Dr, Thornton was unable to remain sufficiently long at the meeting to
make these remarks, which he has since been good enough to forward for
insertion in the Journal of Transactions. In addition to what he has stated
as regards the Troglodytes, I would beg leave to observe, that the allusion
Herodotus makes to them does not seem to indicate any actual knowledge
of their existence or real character, but only hearsay, and so little of that —
mixed up, too, with so much besides that is incredible — as to amount to
nothing. He tells us in the same place of the Lotophagi, whose kine feed
backwards, because they have horns so bent forward and downwards that
they would stick in the ground if the animals endeavoured to advance. Then
he says — " The Garamantes hunt the Ethiopian Troglodytes in four-horse
chariots ; for the Ethiopian Troglodytes are the swiftest of foot of all men
of whom we have heard any account given. They feed upon serpents and
lizards, and such-like reptiles ; and they speak a language nke no other, but
screech like bats." (Melpom. IV. 183.) Very little of this, I think, can be
accepted as history, or as facts within the writer's actual knowledge. That
one race of men might in his day chase another in four-horse chariots might
be true enough ; but to speak of employing " four-horse chariots " for the
purpose of hunting men who were " the swiftest of foot," destroys the whole
story. Take away the horses and chariots, and the foundation of fact for
this exaggerated " hearsay " may well be imagined to relate to a monkey-
hunt ! In referring to Herodotus, I only meant to rely upon what he nar-
rates as within his personal knowledge, and to exclude the more fabulous
stories he repeats, such as the above, and also what he recounts of a one-eyed
people, the Arimaspians, in whose existence, Herodotus tells us, he did not
believe himself. (Thai. III. 116.)
210
Mr. Reddie. — I have but very little to say in reply to the remarks which
have been made upon my paper. I regret extremely that it has not been
criticised more thoroughly. With the exception of the observations of Mr.
Warington, as to the traditions relating to the discovery of fire, no attempt
has been made to controvert any one of my arguments. I should wish,
however, to give a few explanations. In the first place, I am most anxious
to remove the impression which my friend Dr. Gladstone appears to entertain
with respect to my use of the term " religious theory." I can only say that
I used it most innocently, and without the slightest idea that my doing so
could have given offence to those who hold other theories. I certainly had
no intention of implying that either the Darwinian or the polygenous theories
are necessarily irreligious
Rev. Dr. Irons. — But they are so! (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Reddie. — Well ; perhaps I may think so too ; but I wish to explain,
as a matter of fact, that, whatever I may think, I did not wish to convey
any such impression, by applying the term " religious theory " to that which
I adopted. I think I might further appeal to the way in which I have spoken
in detail of the other theories, as a proof that I could have had no such
intention. I may observe, besides, that I am quite aware that Mr. Darwin
himself unquestionably recognizes the Creator in his book ; and in one of the
discussions which took place in the Anthropological Society, to which I have
referred in my paper, I actually appealed to that fact against the arguments
of several gentlemen who had adopted his theory and advocated it upon
what would generally be called Atheistic grounds. I had to remind them
that Mr. Darwin was obliged, in order to get a beginning for his system, to
speak of " the breathing of life by the Creator into one or into a few forms,"
from which his theory derives all the others.* And, in truth, they did not
like it. And I believe that most Darwinians would themselves repudiate
the notion that their theory has the religious character which Dr. Gladstone
claims for it. There is great difficulty in the present day in speaking of
questions that touch religion. If you go to one Society, for instance, to
advocate what I have now called " the religious theory," merely as a mono-
genous theory, and say nothing about religion, religion and miraculous creation
are thrown in your teeth. This I have experienced. While here, I am now called
to account, when I call the theory which derives mankind from Adam and Eve,
as the Scriptures teach, plainly by its name, which I thought every one would
understand. I certainly did so most innocently, as I have said, and merely as
the best descriptive term I could think of. But since the question has been
raised, I would ask Dr. Gladstone, as one of the managers of the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, whether he is not aware of the fact, that one at
least of the best-known and most zealous advocates of Darwinism, Professor
Huxley, who has lectured upon it in that Institution, distinctly adopts
it, because it gets rid of the interposition of the Creator to account for man's
origin ; or (as noticed in our Chairman's Inaugural Address) gets rid of
* Anthrop. Rev., vol. II. p. cxxxiv.
211
the special creation of Adam and Eve 1 Now, I would ask, how can we
possibly tell what a theory is, unless we take its advocates as its exponents ?
And since the theory I advocate is not merely a monogenous theory, but is
founded upon what Professor Huxley so completely despises — the Scriptural
account which begins mankind with the special creation of Adam and Eve —
what can I call it, if I do not call it the religious theory 1 I should be glad
to change it, if Dr. Gladstone or Mr. Warington will supply me with some
other term by which I could better or more intelligibly designate it. With
regard to the polygenous theory, I not only do not think it is necessarily
irreligious, but I know that some persons found their views upon the expres-
sions they find in Genesis as to " the sons of God " and " the daughters of
men," in support of a polygenous theory, which they may therefore regard as
religious. But still, while admitting this, I think everybody will under-
stand that what I have called the religious theory is what the Scriptures
most obviously teach. And what is the main feature of that theory ? Why,
that man was created perfect, and in the same way that God created all
things. Animals, for instance, do not acquire their instincts gradually : they
have them, and, so far as we know, always had them complete, and each its
own distinctive characteristics. The dog has its baric, the cow its low, the
nightingale its song, and every inferior creature its distinctive instincts, by
nature, and all in perfection. But we do not suppose that the bee, in forming
its hexagonal cells, knows anything of geometry or understands the nature
of angles. And when the Chairman was speaking of those wonderful powers
exhibited by the insect creation, he was, in fact, really speaking of the
greatness and power of the Deity who formed them, and gave them all those
wonderful instincts which they possess, but which they exercise without
understanding: — the skill which they exhibit being rather — like an instrument
that is played upon by a skilful hand — an exhibition of the skill of the Great
Invisible performer who gave them all their instincts. (Hear, hear.) When
Dr. Gladstone reproved me (with a mild censure, I admit,) for calling names,
as he termed it, he himself did the very thing for which he was blaming me ;
for, while he thought proper to defend the Darwinian theory as possibly
religious, he distinctly charged the polygenous theory with being irreligious.
(Hear, hear.) Now my argument against that theory was chiefly this, that
it involves an inconsistency in its theory of creation, if it assumes that some
men were originally inferior to others, as if God would contradict himself by
making a being which was not perfect. And surely there is nothing more
shocking, nothing more revolting to one's ideas of what a human being
ought to be, than a low, degraded savage ; there is nothing so utterly abject
even among the brute creation. But then, although I frankly acknowledged
the source whence we derive the theory I have advocated, and gave a state-
ment in a general way of the facts relating to man's origin contained in the
Bible ; still I have not supported it by a single argument to be derived from
Scripture : I have taken the Bible merely as a historical book ; I have referred
to it, as it were, merely as containing a part of our knowledge of the history
of our race ; and my arguments have been rational appeals to nature through-
ia
212
out, and have been supported by such facts as those which have been so
recently told us by Mr. Baker and Dr. Beke in the Ethnological Society,
based upon their actual knowledge of the degeneration of the savage tribes
of Africa. Taking such facts, and taking the traditions of all civilization, I
must say I do not understand how the conclusions I have arrived at can be
disputed. As to the tradition among some savages as to the origin of fire,
to which Mr. Warington has alluded, my friend Dr. Irons has satisfactorily
shown that that rather would tell in favour of my view ; but I think it will
be found upon investigation, that among those low races this is one of the
vaguest of traditions, and not even worthy- of the name of " poetry."* And
when Mr. Warington argues that if we were derived from savages we would
not tell it, I suppose he means that he would not do so : he has, in fact, said
that he would not (hear, hear) ; but I can only tell him that this argument
has been already repudiated in anticipation by the Darwinians. Professor
Huxley almost glories in his ape-ancestry, and argues that to have risen
from a monkey " is the best proof of the splendour of man's capacities."
Perhaps his monkey progenitor ought rather to have this credit ; but I have
never yet heard of a Darwinian who had such faith in his theory as to
put his children under the tutorship of monkeys. (Laughter.) It is all very
well for men to speculate about these things ; but when we come gravely to
discuss a subject of this kind, we must deal with facts. I never meant
in my paper to deny that there are different phases of civilization, or that
there may be an advance from one degree of civilization to another. I care-
fully guarded against that, though I could not dwell upon that branch of
the subject at any length. I was, of course, obliged to leave out a great deal,
and I have, indeed, felt as if I had only dealt with one ninety-ninth part
of the whole question. But I have discussed this subject before ; and
* Mr. Warington has quoted Mr. E. B. Tylor on this point ; and, in en-
deavouring to find the passages he may have had in mind, I have come upon
the following remarks of Mr. Tylor, bearing upon my general argument.
Speaking of " the native Australian and the Andaman Islander, as fairly
representing the lowest state of human society of which we have any certain
knowledge/' Mr. Tylor says : — " These savages have articulate language ;
they know the use of fire ; they have tools, though but simple and clumsy
ones. There is no authentic account" he adds, " of any people having been
discovered who did not possess language, tools, and fire." He concludes the
interesting paper from which this is quoted in the following words : — " The
' original men,' as the poet- describes them, roaming, ' a dumb and miserable
herd,' about the woods, do not exist on the earth. The inquirer who seeks to
find out the beginnings of man's civilization must deduce general principles
by reasoning downwards, from the civilized European to the savage, and then
descend to still lower possible levels of human existence? These citations are
taken from an article in the Anthropological Review (vol. I. p. 21, et seq.), on
" Wild Men and Beast-Children," well worthy of consideration with refer-
ence to this whole question. For (as I once remarked in previously dis-
cussing this subject), " the few questionable instances of ' beast-children,' as
they are called, if they prove anything, only prove that if not rescued from
association with beasts, the offspring even of men might soon sink into some-
thing scarcely better than brutes." (Anthrop. Rev., vol. II. p. cxxi.)
213
in doing so, I especially noticed what I believe is the nearest approach
to a rise, — I cannot quite say from savagery, — but from a lower to a
higher state of civilization, of which we have any knowledge. I am
glad that Mr. Warington's objection has given me an opportunity of
referring to this case now, which I was reluctantly forced to exclude from
my paper. I allude to the Sikhs, who have risen to a state of civilization,
and attained an elevation of character, far superior to the rest of the Hindoos
from whom they were originally derived. Now the Sikhs might be described
as originally a sect of Indian iconoclasts, who through the influence of Nanaka
threw off the superstitious worship of idols, to which they were accustomed,
for the worship of the invisible and only God. And, it is remarkable, the
consequence has been precisely similar to what Mr. Baker found among the
African Christians ; namely, that we have a race very superior even in
their physical appearance, and with features corresponding with, or at least
closely approximating to, the European type. Then again we have the natives
of Cashmere, with a striking resemblance to Europeans in their features. And
to what, let me ask, is their superiority over the tribes which surround them
to be traced ? Well, they are Mahometans ; and Mahometanism, with all
its faults, has this grand feature, in common with Judaism and Christianity, —
it teaches men to look up to heaven for Deity, and away from idols as gods.
And I would venture to argue, that the essential or fundamental principle of
all civilization is not fire, as Mr. Warington seemed to think, but a true
notion of Deity — of the invisible God. Wherever a people possess that, they
have that in them which is the seed of progress and elevation ; and when they
reject it and make their own gods, they are on the downward path of degra-
dation. To turn to another point, — the perfection of the animal creation is
the foundation of one of my arguments, and it is a perfectly natural and rational
one, and not merely derived from Scripture. I could not, however, afford
time to do more than allude to this, and I am glad the Chairman dwelt some-
what upon it in his remarks. All other animals being made perfect, there
seems to be no reason why there should have been a difference between them
and man. I do not think there was anything else advanced which remains
unanswered, and at this late hour, I will not trouble the meeting with any
further observations.
The Cjiairman then announced the adjournment of the meetings of the
Society until November next, and expressed a hope that they would all meet
again at the opening of the next session, which he trusted would be as success-
ful as that just closed.
214
NOTE. (See p. 181.)
DISCUSSION IN THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.
It will be observed that portions of the forgoing paper, On the various
Theories of Man's Past and Present Condition, are inclosed within brackets.
I beg leave to explain that the other portions of the paper were read by me
before Section E of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
at Nottingham, on the 25th of August, 1866 ; on which occasion the passages
bracketed were omitted.
I may observe that it is not unusual to read papers before the British Asso-
ciation which have been previously read in scientific societies, provided they
have not been published previously ; and, having taken with me to Nottingham
a single copy of this paper, in proof, I showed it to Mr. Crawfurd, the presi-
dent of the Ethnological Society, and one of the vice-presidents of the Section,
stating briefly its purport, and said that I should be glad to read it if approved.
He at once most frankly took charge of the paper, to lay it before the com-
mittee of the Section in the usual manner ; and h$ afterwards told me it
would be read, but would require (as I quite expected) to be cut down con-
siderably, in order to bring it within the limit of time that alone could be
spared for a single paper among so many others^ I therefore bracketed-off such
passages as were least essential to my main thesis, and especially those, it will
be seen, that relate to the cognate discussion which had taken pfifcce in the
same Section, at Birmingham, in 1865, and was continued in the Ethnological
Journal shortly afterwards. I was also, I regret, obliged to omit the conclu-
ding portion of my paper, relating to the advancement of mankind and the
progress of civilization, through the influence of Christianity ; as, to have
touched upon that, would have opened up quite another branch of the same
large question. But I beg to say, that the decision as to what I should
omit, as well as what I should read, was left entirely to myself — not even a
hint of any kind whatever having been given to me on the subject. I say
this in justice to the committee of Section E, which was most ably and
courteously presided over by Sir Charles Nicholson ; and I do so more
especially, in order to remove certain misapprehensions which appear to have
been entertained in some portions of the press, as to the reading of this
paper before the British Association — partly attributable, no doubt, to the
remarks which Professor Huxley was pleased to make, on being invited to
discuss it by the president.
I may observe, for the information of those who are unacquainted with
the doings of what has been called " our great scientific congress," that the
meetings in Section E, combining Geography and Ethnology, are usually by
far the most numerously attended, and that that Section has consequently
always the largest room assigned to it for its meetings. This was the case
at Nottingham ; and I confess that, for various reasons, I felt a desire to be
215
able to bring forward some of the arguments I had so recently urged in the
Victoria Institute, against the notion that the primitive man could possibly
have been a speechless savage, before the largest possible audience that could
be hoped for in the Sections of the British Association. I may also add
that, while no discussion follows the introductory A ddrezz delivered by the
president of the Association or the evening Lectures that are given every year,
all the papers read in the several Sections are open to discussion, and are
usually discussed, although unfortunately there is no systematic or official
report of the discussions that take place. The newspapers to a certain extent
supply this defect ; but it will be obvious that, when so much has to be
recorded, their reports, as a rule, must be very imperfect.
I have much pleasure in stating that when my paper was read at Notting-
ham, it was as well received by the audience generally, as it had been
previously when read in the Victoria Institute.
I shall now give some account of the discussion that followed, partly
taken from the newspaper reports (in which case I shall employ quotation-
marks), and otherwise upon my own responsibility as to accuracy. Professor
Huxley's observations I am glad to be able to give, I think very nearly
verbatim, from the Nottingham Daily Guardian, viz. : —
" Professor Huxley, who was invited by the president to offer some re-
marks on the paper which had just beeu read, said :— I should be delighted
in my private capacity to obey any of your behests, but, on the present
occasion, I am unfortunately not in my primitive or personal insignificance,
but the representative of a department of the Association, and one of the
officers of the Association charged with the administration of a Section.
It has, in the wisdom of the council of the Association, been thought proper
that a department should be instituted in Section D, of which I have the
honour to be the head. It is called the Department of Anthropology ; and if
I have any comprehension of scientific method or arrangement, the paper we
have just heard read is purely an anthropological paper, and can only be
competently discussed by those persons who are familiar with all the sciences
necessary for the student of anthropology. Under these circumstances, there-
fore, I should, by beginning to discuss this paper, admit the propriety of its
being read here, and that in my official capacity I cannot do. I may, perhaps,
be allowed to remark that in our department we have a wholesome practice
called ' referring a paper.' When a paper is sent to us we ' refer ' it, in order
to ascertain whether it contains anything new, anything true, or anything
worth discussing ; in a word, whether the paper should be read or whether
it should not. But though I think this is a paper for our section, I do not
pledge myself that it would have passed the particular ordeal which I have
described. (Laughter.)"
Mr. Nash, as secretary of the Ethnological Society, and one of the secre-
taries of Section E, " protested against the views of Professor Huxley, and
defended the reading of the paper in this section, inasmuch as it is not
only a Geographical, but an Ethnological Section ; " and he added that the
Ethnological Society had never admitted that their science precluded them
from the consideration of all the facts that bear upon man's past and
present condition, such as those which had been brought forward in this paper.
216
Sir John Lubbock said, he must also differ from his friend Professor
Huxley ; but with reference to the ingenious paper which had been read,
" he objected to the term ' religious theory,' because it implied that all
other theories must be anti-religious. Now, for his part (without professing
to be more orthodox than he was), he believed that religion and science were
not opposed one to the other. He did not think Mr. Reddie really com-
prehended the Darwinian theory. He was an humble disciple of Mr.
Darwin's, and he ventured to claim for that gentleman's theory, that it was the
only one which accounted in any way for the origin of man ; for all the other
theories were, in his judgment, no theories at all, but simply confessions of
ignorance, and did not convey those definite ideas to the mind which were
conveyed by the theory of Mr. Darwin."
" Mr. Crawftjrd was of opinion that the terms ' anthropology ' and * ethno-
logy ' were synonymous, or nearly so. For his own part he could not believe
one word of Darwin's theory. He was sorry for that, because it was believed
in by so many men of eminence. It was a surprising thing to him that men
of talent should nail themselves to such a belief. (Hear, hear.) Man, it
was said, was derived from a monkey. From what monkey 1 (Laughter.)
There were two hundred or three hundred kinds of monkeys, and the biggest
monkey, viz., the gorilla, was the biggest brute. (Laughter.) Then there
were monkeys with tails and monkeys without tails, but curiously enough
those which had no tails, and were consequently the most like man, were
the stupidest of all. (Laughter.) People were at a loss to know how the
universe was created, and that, no doubt, was a difficult subject. Mr.
Reddie, however, seemed to invert the order of nature, for all the history of
man showed that he was progressive. Our ancestors were barbarians, and it
was the same with every other race."
Mr. Carter Blake said he should wish to be informed what traditions
among savages Mr. Reddie referred to, as relating to their previous higher con-
dition ; and where such traditions are to be found recorded.
Mr. Fellows also briefly addressed the meeting, but his observations
were of a general kind (not, however, adverse to the paper), and I regret
they have not been reported, so far as I am aware.
In reply to Professor Huxley's remarks, so far as they related to the pro-
priety of my paper being read in Section E, I contented myself— as Professor
Huxley had then left the room — with referring to the complete answer he had
received from Mr. Nash. His observations were, besides, rather a reflection upon
the Committee of the Section, and it is not forme to say whether they were in
the best taste or not. They were received with " laughter," no doubt, but also
with adverse murmurs in the Section. For myself, I was not placed on the
committee till after my paper had been accepted, but I am not aware that
Professor Huxley had any grounds whatever for affecting to suppose that my
paper had not been "referred " (as I do know that other papers were), in
Section E, before being read. Anyhow, the paper, upon being read, was ex-
tremely well received, and was also more fully reported in the newspapers,
with one or two exceptions, than perhaps any other ordinary paper read at
the meetings. As it is now printed and published along with Professor
Huxley's remarks as to its character, the public generally will be able to form
their own judgment of it, and will further know (if I gather the Professor's
217
meaning aright), that had it gone before his Section he would have en-
deavoured to suppress it. I am glad that in Section E, a more liberal spirit
was exhibited and my paper allowed to be read. I do not deny that it
might quite properly be called an "Anthropological Paper," though now
(knowing what its probable fate would have been), I am very glad I
had declined to offer it to the Anthropological Department of Section P.
There are, however, special reasons for saying that the paper was most
properly read in Section E. In the first place, it will be observed, that
the physiologists and naturalists being at issue about Darwinism, the
arguments advanced in the paper are chiefly based upon historical and
ethnological evidences. At the very next meeting of the same Section a
most interesting account was given by Mr. Thomson of the recent dis-
coveries in Cambodia (in Siam), of the ruins of magnificent and gigantic
temples, so . far beyond the capabilities of the present inhabitants or their
immediate forefathers for many generations to accomplish, that their tradition
is that these ancient buildings must have been constructed by a superior
race of beings altogether, — or " the gods." Of their great antiquity there
can be no doubt ; the style of architecture is intermediate between that of
Egypt and Greece ; and there is now a dense forest interposed between the
buildings and the rocks whence the stone used in their construction is sup-
posed to have been procured. Dr. Mann, also, on the same day and in the
same Section, narrated his experiences relating to the attempts which have
been made to educate and civilize the Kaffirs and Zulus ; and on the follow-
ing day Sir Samuel Baker recounted some of his recent most interesting
adventures among the negroes of the White Nile Basin, and especially dis-
cussed their savage condition, and their tendency to continue savage and
degenerate. The only instance which he mentioned of anything somewhat
better to be found among them, he attributed to the influence of the Arabs
with whom they had had communications. Professor Huxley was present,
too, when that paper was read, and he even spoke upon it ; though I cannot
say he discussed it, for he only referred to one or two of the facts mentioned
by Sir Samuel Baker, which did not bear upon " the question of questions
for mankind." Having referred in my paper (p. 195) to Sir Samuel Baker's
statements made in the Ethnological Society, merely as I had seen them re-
ported in the newspapers, it was a great gratification to me to hear them
myself, repeated in the crowded meeting in Section E, where my own paper
had been previously read, and to hear not a word from him that was not
entirely confirmatory of the views which I had expressed. The account of
the ruins of Cambodia was also a fresh illustration in support of one branch
of my arguments ; and I think, now, it will be seen that it was most fitting
that arguments based upon our knowledge of such archaeological and ethno-
logical facts should have been advanced in the same section of the British
Association, where fresh evidence and additional facts of the very same kind
are constantly brought forward.
To revert to the discussion upon my paper. J scarcely required to answer
Sir John Lubbock's objection to the term " religious theory," as it had met
218
with a pretty general expression of dissent in the meeting. If people would
only consider, that for thousands of years no one ever thought that anything
like " development," or Darwinism, was taught in Genesis, they would surely
refrain from the vain endeavour to import that meaning now into the old
Mosaic narrative, — into the language of a book (to quote Mr. Warington's
words*) " written in plain and simple style, which has been in the hands of
theologians complete for nigh 1,800 years, and on which they have bestowed
unremitting study ; where no new facts can ever be rising up to disconcert
past conclusions ; and where, therefore, if anywhere, unanimity would seem
to be inevitable, and diversity of opinion most inexplicable and criminal."
As regards the charge of not understanding Darwinism, I replied by citing
Professor Carl Vogt, who, as a physiologist, is just as eminent on the Continent
as Professor Huxley is in England, and who, as a Darwinian, differs totally
from the latter. I was somewhat surprised that a debater so clear-headed
and courteous as Sir John Lubbock, should have cared to repeat what is now
a mere hackneyed charge against all who oppose Darwinism. When the
Darwinians are themselves agreed about the theory it might be time enough
to expect objectors to " understand it." But Sir John Lubbock surely over-
looks the drift of my argument altogether, when he makes that reply, even
were he right in his assertion. My main argument in the present paper, he
might see, does not require me to understand Darwinism. It is a reductio
ad absurdum, assuming the possibility of the theory, and not questioning in
detail its processes. Of course, I do not believe that even a monkey, and still
less a man, could be developed in the Darwinian way. But granting that we
have got the imaginary " speechless man," or the real " low-caste savage/' to
begin with, then, I say, you cannot even then, with such a beginning, get the
world as it is, or arrive at the civilized man. All our experience is against
this. All the facts we know are contrary to it ; and, if so, it is not possibly
true, and it is irrational to believe it. It is not only not " science," but it is con-
trary to all we really do know. I have no doubt that Darwinism can be and
will be (if it has not already been) refuted at other stages. I do not think it
has established even a single step of its almost infinite assumptions. But be
that as it may, — and raising no primary objections, — I have maintained that
it must stop at man ; because, as I have proved, civilization has not, and can-
not be, developed out t)f savagery. Everybody knows that it is only when
Darwinism comes to be applied to man, that its conclusions ostensibly clash
with " time-honoured traditions," and what Professor Huxley calls "strongly-
rooted prejudices." I have therefore met it at that point.
With respect to Mr. Crawford's observations, I am bound to notice, that
besides what he is above reported to have said, he also disclaimed being a
polygenist (very much to my surprise), though it will be seen he still thinks
mankind have advanced from an originally savage condition. But his refer-
ence to our ancestors having been barbarians, is nothing against my argument.
I have not denied the possibility of a rise from a " barbarous " to a "civilized"
condition, using the words strictly, but a rise from utter " savagery.*' But
* Journal of Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. i., p. 101.
219
so far as I know, even barbarians have not, as a rule, civilized themselves, but
they have either had civilization brought to them, or they have gone to it.
Our barbarian ancestors had civilization brought to them by the Romans,
while Rome itself was invaded by barbarians. But there are various degrees
of " barbarism " running upwards and into civilization, as well as various
phases of the latter running downwards into barbarism. But the utterly
" savage " condition is perfectly distinct from both. No one knows that
better than Mr. Crawfurd. Therje were two passages in my paper among
those bracketed-off as unread at Nottingham, which, however, I did read ;
namely, the quotation on page 192 (from line 12 to the end of the paragraph),
the author of which (as I suspected) was discovered upon reading it to be
Mr. Crawfurd himself. The other was the quotation from Professor Rawlin-
son at the top of page 193 ; and taking it in connection with what I say in
the latter part of my paper (p. 197), I think we have the real key to all Mr.
Crawfurd's difficulties about human progress and the spread of civilization.
I am glad that Mr. Carter Blake asked the question he did, relating to
savage traditions, as it gave me an opportunity of removing an evident mis-
conception on this point, for which I am probably to blame. I by no means
meant to say that the savages had definite traditions of their own descent
from a superior ancestry. To say truth, I should not have regarded such
traditions as of much value, coming from such a quarter. What I rely upon
is better evidence, as being unintentional and quite incidental I appeal to
their traditional stories and songs, extravagant though they be, as proofs that
their authors were superior to those who can only now repeat them, without
-even professing to understand them. In doing this, I had chiefly in mind
what I had heard stated in the Anthropological Society, or read in the
Journal of that Society, which is edited by Mr. Carter Blake himself, — and
especially an interesting memoir by Mr. Pritchard, relating to the Viti
Islanders ; while I may add that I have heard Dr. Seemann, a vice-president
of the Anthropological Society, say, on more than one occasion, that among
all savage tribes their oldest traditions are almost always mixed up with some
references " to trees and serpents and to woman," as I have stated on p. 193*
To give further authorities as to the character of savage traditions, — their
frequent resemblance to one another, and their superiority to anything the
savages who now repeat them could themselves originate, — would require a
reference to almost every work on ethnology.
Mr. Pritchard's interesting Paper {On Viti and its Inhabitants) will be
found in the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society (p. 195, et seq.), When
it was read the following remarks were made upon it, which I reproduce, as
bearing upon the present discussion : —
" Dr. Seemann said he considered the paper they had heard was one of the
most important that had been communicated to the Society, and he was able,
from personal acquaintance with the island, to corroborate many of Mr.
Pritchard's statements. A great many things connected with the inhabitants
of the Fiji islands had only appeared to him in their true light since he^
arrived in England. For instance, the Andaman islanders showed that in
R
T-
220
many particulars they are similar to the Fijians. The first account of the
Andaman islanders was that given in ' Sinbad the Sailor/ which narrative,
though generally regarded only as a fiction, contained many correct state-
ments. The Andaman canoes were similar to those used by the Fijians,
especially in the outrigger. Dr. Seemann remarked? on the curious legends
of the islanders, of which Mr. Pritchard had given an account, especially
those relating to their own origin. It was interesting to notice that, in so
many legends, the original progenitors of man were placed under or near
sacred trees. It was a curious circumstance that, in these legendary cosmo-
gonies, there was always a serpent, in which symbol he considered there was
a deep meaning. The supreme god of Fiji (Degei) had the shape of a serpent.
" Mr. Rbddib observed that the traditions of these islanders were very
remarkable, and he considered it extraordinary that the people should be able
to preserve them and repeat them to travellers. Such a preservation of our
Christian legends could not be expected even in London among the common
people. As to the frequent occurrence of the serpent in those legends, it was
a very curious fact. ... In the constellations of the heavens, which had been
traced to the most ancient peoples on the face of the earth, the serpent was
one of the most common emblems, and was to be found in several parts of
both hemispheres of the celestial globe. It was interesting to find also the same
symbols conspicuous among the legends of the inhabitants of the Fiji islands,
and it appeared they had a common ancient origin. Such beautiful traditions
could not be inventions of the present Fijians. Even in civilized London, not
one out of ten would be capable of inventing such beautiful stories. The
question" was, whether they were not traditions of a people superior to those
who now inhabited those islands, thus showing that the present inhabitants
had deteriorated. The invention of such legends, in more ancient times, at all
events tended to prove that their inventors must have been greatly superior
to improved baboons. It would be interesting to know something of the
dresent literary qualifications jof the people, and how far such traditions are
retained among the inhabitants generally.
" Mr. Pritchard in reply said : — As to the date of the traditions, there
can be no doubt of their antiquity. Different natives, without the possibility
of collusion, narrate the same traditions in almost the same words. The mis-
sionaries discountenance the old traditions, and also any new stories. It is
not easy to collect these traditions from the inhabitants, for it is necessary to
be master of the language to do so, and those who are not thoroughly ac-
quainted with it sometimes are imposed on, especially by runaway sailors,
who know the language very imperfectly, and invent strange stories, which
they represent to have heard from the natives. To learn their legends and
traditions correctly, it is necessary to live amongst the natives, as he had done ;
and, to gain an influence over tne native mind, it is necessary to learn their
mode of reasoning when certain data are placed before them."*
* Anthropological Review, vol. III. pp. xii — xiv.
/*
221
ORDINARY MEETING, Nov. 19, 1866.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed ; and the
names of the following Foundation Members and Associates were announced
as having been elected since last Ordinary Meeting : —
Members : — The Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon, 66, Lower
Grosvenor Street, W. ; Richard Edward Arden, Esq., Barrister-at-Law,
J.P., and Dep.-Lieut. for Middlesex, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Fell Acclim.
and OrnithoL Socs., M.R.I., Sunbury Park, Middlesex ; William
Barrington, Esq., C.E., 51, George Street, Limerick, and Ballywilliam
Cottage, Rathkeale ; Amos Beardsley, Esq., F.L.S., F.G.S., Surgeon, &c,
the Grange, Newton-in-Cartinel ; Henry Beckett, Esq., F.G.S., Mining
Engineer, &c. &c, Penover, near Wolverhampton ; Henry Butler, Esq.,
H. M. Civ. Serv., Bexley House, Blackheath, S.E. ; Rev. Charles Campe,
Minister of Christ Chapel, 14, North wick Terrace, Maida Hill, N.W. ;
T. B. Chester, Esq., B.C.L., Solicitor, 24, The Grove, Hammer-
smith, W. ; Henry G. Heald, Esq., 9, County Terrace, Camberwell, S. ;
Elkanah Healey, Esq., Oakfield, Gateacre, Liverpool ; Rev. John Kirk,
Professor of Practical Theology in the Evangelical Union Academy at
Glasgow, 17, Greenhill Gardens, Edinburgh ; Rev. W. Leask, D.D.,
Newington Green, N. ; Rev. R. T. Lowe, M.A., Cantab., Member of
the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member Z.S.L., Lea
Rectory, Gainsborough ; George Lowe, Esq., C.E., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. &c,
9, St. John's Wood Park, N.W. ; William Macdonald, Esq., M.D.,
F.R.S.E., F.L.S., F.G.S., Fellow of Royal College of Physicians, Edin-
burgh, Professor of Civil and Natural History, St. Andrews ; Patrick
M'Farlane; Esq., Comrie, Perthshire ; John Patton, junr., Esq., Ship-
owner, 11, Pembury Road, Clapton, N.E. ; Thos. Prothero, Esq.,
F.S.A., M.R.I., Barrister-at-Law, 36, Queen's Gardens, Hyde Park, W. ;
Charles Ratcliff, Esq., Wyddrington, Edgbaston, Birmingham; Rev. S.
D. Waddy, D.D., 3, Chester Place, Kennington Cross, S. ; John Hewitt
Wheatley, Esq., Abbey View, Sligo ; Edward Whitwell, Esq., Bank
Field, Kendal, Westmoreland ; Thomas Vernon Wollaston, Esq., M. A.,
F.L.S., &c. &c, 1, Barnepark Terrace, Teignmouth.
Associates, 1st Class :— Mr. D. R. Davies, 5, Cardiff Street, Aberdare ;
2nd Class :— A. K. Bickford, Esq., Lieut. R.N., H.M.S. Be8wrchf
8
222
Channel Squadron ; Thomas Ensor, Esq., Merchant, Milborne Port,
Somerset ; W. A. Nunes, Esq., Her Majesty's Civil Service, 2, Hanover
Villas, Brook Green, W.
It was also announced that the following books and pamphlets had been
presented to the Society : —
Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh : The History of the TirPing Revolution, including the
Author's adventures. By Lin-Le. Two Vols.
From Messrs. Wyman & Sons.
Modern Geology Exposed. By Patrick M'Farlane, Esq., M.V.I.
From the Author.
The First Man, and his Place in Creation. By George Moore, Esq., M.D.
From the Author.
The Flint Implements from the Drift not Authentic. By Nicholas Whitley,Esq.
From the Author.
The Chairman. — I must apologize for the extemporary character of the
few remarks I am about to make. Until this afternoon, I thought I should
only have had to commence our business by calling upon Professor Young
to read his paper. It has, however, been suggested to me that on the
present occasion it may be expected that I should give a short introductory
address : —
Ladies and Gentlemen, — At this opening meeting of our
second session, I cannot help congratulating the society on
the progress it has made since its public inauguration only
six months ago. That progress is a proof that there are not
a few persons of educated minds and of varied pursuits, who
are ready not only to declare that a man can be a believer in
Divine Revelation, and at the same time maintain that the
Author of that Revelation is the Author of all truth, of all know-
ledge, and of all that constitutes sound science ; but who are
also willing to evince the sincerity of their convictions by
openly co-operating as members and associates of this Institute,
in order that the pretensions of all contrary science may be
thoroughly and impartially investigated, and that truth may
be elicited and established.
Since we last met, the British Association, called by some
the Parliament of Science for Great Britain, has held its
annual session. It was opened by an eloquent address by a
very distinguished cultivator of science. I cannot but regret
the tone of that address — a tone which seems to imply that
a calm inquiry after truth can only be undertaken by such as
ignore those truths which we believe the Creator has specially
revealed to His creature, man ; — which assumes that a belief in
223
the miraculous, if not quite inconsistent with philosophy, is
at least to be restricted within the narrowest limits, and that
as any special act of creation is a miracle, it is expedient to
reduce creation, if possible, to the smallest possible number of
acts ; — and which ends by concluding, that what elsewhere has
been termed the chain of endless causation, is merely a law of
" continuity," which, if not infinite, has no definite beginning
that can be traced even to one special act of creation ! This is
a tone of thought, as I conceive, only suited to those who
wish to evade all acknowledgment of a final cause, or the
design of an intelligent and omnipotent Creator, and not to
such as are satisfied that the Creator has revealed to man, that
" by His word were all things created that are in heaven, and
that are in earth, visible and invisible." It cannot be palat-
able to those who believe that there were consecutive acts of
creation, in which God said " Let there be," and there was, —
that plants and animals were created in a perfect state, (so
that God could behold His works and pronounce them very
good,) and not imperfect works, left to perfect themselves by
accidental " laws " of natural selection and emendation, carried
on through aeons of ages.
To show that I am not misinterpreting the tone of Mr.
Grove's address, I will quote from it some few passages : —
" To suppose a zoophyte the progenitor of a mammal, or to suppose at
some particular period of time a highly developed animal to have come out of
nothing, or suddenly grown out of inorganic matter, would appear at first
sight equally extravagant hypotheses. As an effort of Almighty creative
power, neither of these alternatives presents more difficulty than the other ;
but as we have no means of ascertaining how creative power worked, hut by
an examination and study of the works themselves, we are not likely to get
either side proved to ocular demonstration."
Now, does not this passage ignore the revelation that God
has made to us, that He did act in a manner which is here de-
signated as an apparently extravagant hypothesis ? and allege
that in a matter where we cannot have demonstration, the
same kind of faith by which we arrive at so many truths, even
of science, which do not admit of ocular demonstration, cannot
lead us up to a rational, that is not an extravagant, hypothesis f
I will quote another passage :—
" The more the gaps between species are filled up by the discovery of inter-
mediate varieties, the stronger becomes the argument for transmutation, and
the weaker that for successive creations, because the former view then
becomes more and more consistent with experience, the latter more discordant
s2
224
fyrim it. As undoubted cases of variation, more or less permanent, from
given characteristics, are produced by the effects of climate, food, domestica-
tion, &c, the more species are increased by intercalation, the more the dis-
tinctions slide down towards those which are within the limits of such
observed deviations ; while on the other hand, to suppose the more and more-
frequent recurrence of fresh creations out of amorphous matter, is a
multiplication of miracles or special interventions not in accordance with
what we see of the uniform and gradual progress of nature, either in
the organic or inorganic world. If we were entitled to conclude that
the progress of discovery would continue in the same course, and that species
would become indefinitely multiplied, the distinctions would become
infinitely minute, and all lines of demarcation would cease, the polygon would
become a circle, the succession of plants a line. Certain it is, the more we
observe, the more we increase the subdivision of species, and consequently the
number of these supposed creations ; so that new creations become innumerable,
and yet of these we have no one well authenticated instance, and in no other
observed operation of nature have we seen this want of continuity, these
frequent per saltum deviations from uniformity, each of which is a miracle"
There is not a word of this argument which does not apply
as much to a number of simultaneous or consecutive creations
of vegetable or animal living organisms, out of what Mr. Grove
calls amorphous matter (why amorphous I know not), as to
the theory of successive creations in periods of time widely
apart. Nay, if the argument be taken rigidly and logically,
it militates equally against any single act of creation, which
must be as miraculous as a thousand, whether simultaneous or
successive creations.
In words Mr. Grove professed that he was not " going to
put forth any theory of his own, or to argue in support of any
special theory ; " but I maintain that making his choice
between two at first sight, as he terms them, equally extrava-
gant hypotheses, — whether we are " to suppose a zoophyte the
progenitor of a mammal, or to suppose at some particular
period of time a highly developed animal to have come out of
nothing, or suddenly grown out of inorganic matter," — he
ignored the latter, (which I believe to be a truth revealed by
God to man,) and argued with all the art and dialectic skill of
a practised advocate in favour of the former.
. To test his reasoning and conclusions, I willingly assent to
a proposition laid down by Mr. Grove himself, namely: —
" Does the newly proposed view (hypothesis ?) remove more
difficulties, require fewer assumptions, and present more
consistency with observed facts, than that which it seeks to
supersede ? "
- I am prepared to maintain that the hypothesis Mr. Grove
225
rejects — the hypothesis put forth in a book which many, nay, I
believe a large majority of sound-thinking men, consider a
Divine Revelation, — is more consistent with observed facts,
removes more difficulties and requires fewer assumptions, than
that which he endeavoured to enforce, with all his skill, on
his auditors at the meeting of the British Association.
Not only do I believe this, but by the same laws of thought
by which I am compelled to accept those axioms which I
acknowledge as scientific truths, or rather as the bases upon
which the sciences are built, — I feel constrained to believe
that all things, whether organic or inorganic, with which my
senses make me conversant, were the works of a Divine Creator.
Mathematical axioms are not the only self-evident truths,
or, if not self-evident, truths which must, nevertheless, be accepted
without demonstration, before we can raise the structure of any
science* Before we make any progress in science, whether
abstract or applied, we must lay the foundations of our science
on axioms. The man who will not admit these puts himself
beyond the pale of science. The man who tells me that he
cannot believe that " the whole is greater than the part," or
" that things which are equal to the same are equal to one
another," cannot step over the very threshold of geometry.
Nor are these axioms confined to self-evident truths. Even in
the abstract science of geometry, the eleventh axiom of the
first book of Euclid is an undemonstrable proposition, as
difficult to be received as any proposition for which Euclid has
produced a demonstration.
If I were required to show what claims pure science makes
on man's capacity for faith, I might refer you to the algebraist
who says that any thingmultiplied bynothing is nothing, but that
anything divided by nothing is infinite, while nothing divided
by nothing may be something ! If not satisfied by these calls
on his faith, I might go a step further, and mystify him with
the astounding metaphysical assumptions required by the
differential and integral calculus. When, however, we take a
stride from the abstract sciences to the concrete or applied
ones, what do we meet with ! The same foundation on
axiomatic truths. Are not the three laws of motion axioms
on which the whole structure of astronomical and dynamical
science rest? These axioms apply to the motion of physical,
tangible matter, yet an experimental, a true convincing
experimental demonstration of any one of these three laws
cannot be given. They are deduced from a vast crowd of
facts, by making some special deduction, or excepting some
particular phenomenon from each experimental fact. They
are then added to the science of abstract mathematics, as
226
unfolded by the differential and integral calculus, or their
representative calculi, and the final convincing proof of the
truth of these laws of motion, and the propositions of the
calculus, which defy even the power of the most metaphysical
of minis thoroughly or satisfactorily to comprehend, is founded
on the agreement of profound mathematical analysis, and of
calculation founded on these axioms, with the observed
Ehenomena of the movements of the planets and their satel-
tes. But are there no axioms but those of abstract mathematics
and applied dynamical science which force themselves on the
acceptance of thinking minds ? I think there are. Ay ; and I
believe they force themselves for acceptance, even with greater
power than these.
I would fearlessly maintain that all the works of creation
carry with them a proof that they are works of design, that
they are the product of an intelligent mind ; and that every
rightly constituted mind, freely and without prejudice examin-
ing these works, must admit that they indicate that they were
framed, are preserved, and continued, by the design of an
all- wise as well as intelligent mind ; and that the. admission of
this requires no higher, if so high, a call on man's credulity,
imagination or reason than those axioms on which every
boasted science of man's construction is reared.
He who can read no evidence of design in the marvellous
structure of the eye and its adaptation to those laws of light,
which certainly were no active agents in forming that eye in
the dark recesses of the womb — where its marvellous structure
was reared — can certainly make no rational progress in the
realms of pure or applied science. He who can see this marked
design in the eye, may read evidence as cogent for it, in every
animal or vegetable structure. Nay, he may go farther, and find
that the most minute particle of dust, if thoroughly interro-
gated, gives a proof to the rightly educated mind of design
not less certain than the most marvellous structures of organic
life, which are only more striking because more easily read.
Among the discussions of men, reputed to be men of science,
why do we find such vain efforts to hide or evade this evidence
of design ? and to form the works of nature by some chain of
endless causation, some law of continuity, which shall seem to
evade its evidence? Design implies a designer, as creation
implies a creator, and law a lawgiver. Why this effort to evade
the evidence of design — why this attempt to exclude a creating
power, or to confine its efforts — why this endeavour to make
law convey the impression of independence of a lawgiver ?
We may trace it everywhere, wherever it is exhibited, to a
manifest impatience of all miracle and all mystery. And here
227
I may remark, how in Mr. Grove's address, as elsewhere,
miracle and mystery are confounded. Many things may be
mysterious which are by no means miraculous, in the ordinary
or generally received sense of the words. These terms are
not to be confounded; our whole existence and everything
around us teems with mystery. The power by which I now
perceive you, the power by which I convey my thoughts to
you at this moment, are mysteries which no human knowledge,
no human inquisition, can thoroughly or satisfactorily explain
or even penetrate. Take the commonest occurrences of nature.
Consider the lilies, how they grow ; try to get at the bottom
of this common occurrence ; though it is no miracle, it none
the less leads you ultimately to that which is profoundly
mysterious.
If the growth of things be a mystery, if the power of mind
over matter be mysterious, if the communication of thought
be also mysterious, if the power of investigating the laws
which govern these things be still more mysterious, must not
the origin of all these mysterious things be itself mysterious ?
But there are things not only mysterious but even miraculous ;
and creation is admitted to be in this sense miraculous as well
as mysterious, — a miracle also, in that sense of the word in
which it is used in Scripture — a miracle, because a sign, a
token of God's own working.
When the Bible tells me that God made all things, that He
said and it was done, that He created the earth and the
waters, that He commanded the earth to produce the herbs
and plants, that He commanded the waters and the earth to
bring forth all living animal creatures after their kinds, lastly,
that He made man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and caused him to become
a living soul, and that after He had done all this by many
successive fiats, He rested from the work of His creation ; I
am content to believe all this. If it be called an apparently
extravagant hypothesis, I ask, does it not present a greater
consistency with observed facts— does it not require fewer
assumptions, does it not remove more difficulties, than any
other hypothesis ? I maintain, without fear, without shrinking,
with every love for truth, with all boldness in investigating the
regions of science, that it does. And therefore, on Mr. Grove's
own canon, I claim for it the character of being the most
rational and philosophical hypothesis.
What proofs have I afforded me for the contrary hypothesis
which Mr. Grove has laboured so assiduously to maintain?
Where am I to look for my origin as a man, if I refuse to
admit man's special creation ? I am called upon to trace my
228
ancestry, not only through some series of improving apes, but
even some myriads of ages back to some zoophyte ! Even
here I am not to stop, but must conceive that this zoophyte
attained its life by some accidental chemical combination of
dead matter ! And, when I ask for the origin of this matter,
I am not allowed to attribute even its formation to creation,
but must wait till "philosophy" can discover some less myste-
rious or non-miraculous origin for it ! Hence, at last of all, I
am led back only to an unreasoning dislike of the miraculous
and the mysterious. But will this extravagant, monstrous
hypothesis, for which nothing like demonstration can be urged;
this hypothesis, which, while it attempts to evade, does not
account for one of the teeming mysteries by which we are
surrounded, explain how life, that mysterious, undefinable
thing, was communicated to the matter of the zoophyte?
Matter cannot multiply or increase itself one single particle.
Yet the hypothesis which would derive man or an elephant
from the primeval zoophyte makes me maintain the mystery
or the miracle, call it which you please, that the chance combi-
nation of certain material elements produced a new power, the
power of life, capable under certain circumstances of forcing
matter to reproduce this form, ad infinitum. Nay, more than
this, that one such combination was the commencement of all
those marvellous structures, which evince so much design,
without one particle of design being ever exerted by any
intelligent agent ! Is this, or is it not, the more monstrous
hypothesis ? Am I to be laughed out of my faith by ridicule,
by a free translation of the Epicurean poet Lucretius ?
" You have abandoned the belief in one primeval creation at one point of
time ; you cannot assert that an elephant existed when the first saurians
roamed over earth and water. Without, then, in any way limiting Almighty
power, if an elephant were created without progenitors, the first elephant
must, in some way or other, have physically arrived on this earth. Whence
did he come ? did he fall from the sky, (i.e., from the interplanetary space) ?
did he rise moulded out of a mass of amorphous earth or rock ? did he appear
out of the cleft of a tree ? If he had no antecedent progenitors, some such
beginning must be assigned to him."
Though the point of this satire is levelled against those
palaeontologists who, till lately, maintained a succession of
widely separated creations, I may ask does not this free trans-
lation, like the original, satirize every creative act ? Is it not
as applicable to the creation of a zoophyte as to that of a
mammal ?
Can Mr. Grove prove that elephants were not co-existent
with the first saurians that ever roamed over earth and water?
229
Paleontologists have abandoned their theory, because now
there is evidence that creatures supposed to be members of
successive creations have been contemporary, and, in reality,
members of the same creation. Is it not more consonant with
the known facts of geology, that the elephant and saurians
should have been co- existent, than to suppose the saurian
transmuted by the "law of continuity" into an elephant? Where
are we to look for the successive steps of this process, not
only from the saurian upwards, but further back still, from
the zoophyte ? We have now the admission that the records
of geology, the records of the rocks and strata of the earth,
afford no such evidence ; and since we may look in vain for
the production of a mammal or saurian by the naked eye, we
are taught to look for the first step in the creative process of
life by the aid of the microscope !
"As we detect no such phenomenon as the creation or spontaneous
generation of vegetables and animals which are large enough for the eye to
see without instrumental assistance ; as we have long ceased to expect to find
a Plesiosaurns spontaneously generated in our fishpond, or a Pterodactyle in
our pheasant-cover, the field of this class of research has become iden-
tified with the field of the microscope, and at each new phase the investi-
gation has passed from a larger to a smaller class of organisms. The question
whether among the smallest, and apparently the most elementary forms of
organic life the phenomenon of spontaneous generation obtains, has recently
formed the subject of careful experiment and animated discussion in France.
If it could be found that organisms of a complex character were generated
without progenitors out of amorphous matter, it might reasonably be argued
that a similar mode of creation might obtain in regard to larger organisms.
Although we see no such phenomenon as the formation of an animal such as
an elephant, or a tree such as an oak, excepting from a parent which resem-
bles it, yet if the microscope revealed to us organisms, smaller but equally
complex, so formed without having been reproduced, it would render it not
improbable that such might have been the case with larger organic beings."
Yet, after all these sage remarks, Mr. Grove confesses that
the balance of experiment and opinion is against the spon-
taneous generation of even the simplest form of organism !
In vain do I look for the grand Baconian system of induc-
tion, in arriving at the hypothesis which would substitute the
spontaneous generation of a zoophyte, and the development
of a zoophyte into an elephant, for the creation of the elephant
at once by the fiat of the Almighty, perfect in form, and with
every organ of its body, evidencing the wisdom of its designer,
fit for the wants of the animal. I meet no array of facts inex-
licable on any other hypothesis. No evidence of the com-
230
*
mencement, no evidence of the successive steps of the process
of transmutation. All these exist nowhere but in the fertile
imagination of the coiners of such theories, based upon sup-
position, and not upon facts. I venture to maintain that no
so-called Aristotelians of the middle ages, no philosophers of
any period where the inductive method was entirely dis-
regarded, ever displayed a more mischievous instance of
groundless hypothesis or hasty generalization, where imagina-
tion has usurped the office of reason.
For Mr. Grove to command our respect for his authority, on
matters leading us up to the most transcendental parts of
human knowledge, we should look at least for a display of
sound philosophical induction, on those subjects with which his
scientific pursuits have rendered him more familiar. Even here,
however, I find his dread of the mysterious leading him beyond
the limits of strict inductive sci ence.
The belief in the elixir vit8D,inthe archaDus or stomach demon,
and in the notion that amber possessed a soul, Mr. Grove classes
as equal absurdities with the supposition " that a mysterious
fluid could knock down a steeple." I find him also casting
doubt on the existence of what he terms " so-called impon-
derables." Yet I search in vain for some substitute for the
" mysterious fluid," — so destructive and terrific, in the stroke
of lightning, which undoubtedly has knocked down many a
steeple — and for something to supply the place of the " so-called
imponderables." I know of but two theories of light sup-
ported by anything like sound deduction from a vast
number of intricate and varying phenomena. Both these
theories require the admission of the existence of so-called
imponderable matter. What is imponderable matter ? It
is matter not subject to the law of gravitation. If, as
regards light, I take the emission theory of Newton, which
accounts for a large array of optical facts, then light consists
of imponderable matter projected from a luminous body. If I
abandon this theory for the undulatory hypothesis, (which
accounts for a greater number of optical phenomena of the
most recondite character than the former,) light is produced
by the vibration of "an imponderable fluid." Now heat,
light, and electricity are regarded, as far as I can understand
Mr. Grove's speculations, as not only correlative, but even
transmutable phenomena of matter — as indications of the
same force under varied conditions, or as modes of the motion
of matter. Now I ask how are we to eliminate the mysterious
fluid which, under the form of lightning, strikes down a steeple
or shatters an oak into a thousand splinters, from the electrical
phenomenon, and not, according to Mr. Grove's own theories,
231
eliminate the notion of imponderables from the phenomena
of light ?
I know many men of sound science who deplore the depar-
ture of so many modern scientific men from the sound method
of induction, for the dreams of inventors of hypotheses.
The hazy notions of Mn. Grove and kindred philosophers, on
the nature of force and matter, are supported more by theo-
retical dreams than by sound deductions from facts.
While Mr. Grove speaks with contempt of mysterious fluids
and so-called imponderables, (supported by an array of facts
not much less numerous, and by mathematical analysis as
rigid as that by which the law of gravitation is proved,) he
can regard with complacency, where facts and arguments fail,
the imagined perpetual-motion shower of innumerable meteors
into the sun ; a hypothesis unsupported by a single fact or
observed phenomenon of nature, but invented solely to make
tenable those theories of force and matter which evade the
existence of imponderables.
If I take the most transcendental views of matter that have
ever yet been imagined by men, I am led on the one hand to
regard all interplanetary space, not as filled with imponderable
fluid, but by something very like a solid combination of matter ;
while on the other hand, the Boscovichian theory would lead me
to regard all this matter ultimately, as having no physical
length, breadth or thickness, but to be absolute geometrical
points — mere centres of force. Either of these hypotheses I
may hold, without laying aside my claim to the rank of a
philosophical thinker. But if I talk of a supposed Hebrew
firmament, or believe that God made all things out of nothing,
I must be derided as centuries behind the progress of modern
thought !
Apologizing for having allowed my observations to run
to such a length, I now call on Professor Young to read
his paper.
The following paper was then read : —
ON THE LANGUAGE OF GESTICULATION; AND ON
TEE ORIGIN OF SPEECH. By J. R. Young, Esq.,
late Professor of Mathematics, Belfast College.
I AM about to invite your attention this evening to a sub-
ject which has, I think, received as yet too little notice
from philological speculators in their inquiries into the origin
of articulate language.
Much learned and successful research has been devoted to
232
the consideration of the question, — Is it possible that all
spoken languages can have sprung from a single root ? Can
they possibly be all but so many corruptions or modifications
or offshoots of one primitive form of speech ?
Professor Max Miiller, after a laborious investigation of the
matter, upon purely philological considerations, decides this
question in the affirmative. His conclusion is, that however
dissimilar the various dialects, "they are all nevertheless
derived from one primeval language." (I quote from his
Lectures on the Science of Language, Lecture VIII.) This
conclusion has been also reached and confirmed by the Rev.
Dr. Thornton, and the results of observation which justify it
were placed before you, in this Society, in that gentleman's
recent paper on Comparative Philology.*
Still the important question remains, — Whence came this
primeval language ? Was it of human invention, or was it
supernaturally communicated to our first parents ? Here, —
putting revelation aside, as in every independent investiga-
tion we are bound to do, — we have nothing to guide us except
reasonable conjecture and the balance of probabilities ; and
therefore, at whatever result under this guidance we may
arrive, we can never pronounce our conclusion to be indis-
putably and irresistibly true.
But this character of indisputable truth is not stamped
upon any of our conclusions as to the origin of things, to
whatever department of nature our investigations are
directed. In every such inquiry it behoves us to proceed, not
only with caution, but even with distrust. Whatever con-
clusion, within the entire range of human research, is arrived
at otherwise than by demonstration, or by observation, or by
experiment, is not a scientific conclusion. Demonstration is
confined exclusively to necessary truths, — to things that could
not possibly be other than what they are. Observation and
Experiment, on the other hand, deal exclusively with pheno-
mena,— with things which, for aught we know to the con-
trary, might be other than what they are. Such are the
objects with which strict science has alone to do. And it is
deeply to be deplored, for its own sake, that in recent times
the dignity of science has been usurped by speculative con-
clusions based upon neither demonstration, nor observation,
nor experiment, but upon the unsubstantial foundation of
pure fancy, — the appeal being, not to our convictions, but to
our credulity.
Yet it is a precept universally admitted in theory, however
* Journ. of Trans, of Vict. Instit. vol. I. p. 148, tt seq.
233
widely departed from in practice, that the revelations of
science should always be read, — not with a feeling of credulous
assent, in the absence of evidence, but with a reasonable
scepticism ; while the revelations of Scripture, on the con-
trary, must be read with an equally reasonable faith. But the
modern doctrine reverses the application of these precepts :
science is to have all the faith, and the Bible all the
scepticism.
If I am required to admit that man is developed from the
ape, and the ape from a fish, I am quite ready to admit it,
provided I be shown this developing principle in operation, —
provided I be shown only a few consecutive steps of the
approximating process. I am ready to admit it even, if the
propounder of the doctrine seriously tells me that he himself
has witnessed this onward and continuous advance from ape to
man, or from fish to ape, though in but a single instance. I
go further : though neither he nor I have seen anything of
the kind, yet I will admit it, if he can only point to the
recorded testimony of trustworthy eye-witnesses of the phe-
nomena in bygone times.
If not even one of these items of evidence exist, then the
belief in this, or in any other physical theory equally un-
supported,— though a few men of unquestionable science may
embrace that belief, — may be fitly characterized, not as
scientific conviction, but as scientific superstition, — an appella-
tion quite as appropriate as the similar appellation sometimes
applied to the extravagances of really religious minds.
If I could not submit to you this evening better and
sounder reasons in support of the position that the speech of
man came from the Creator of man, than the philosophers
alluded to can furnish in favour of their position that the
human being came from the ape, I certainly should not pre-
sume to appear before you. I think and trust, as the event
will show, that I shall not incur the charge of arrogance or
egotism in preferring these pretensions. Yet, as I have
already hinted, the evidence which I shall offer, in support of
this position, must not be expected to reach the high
character of scientific proof. The inquiry is not one in refer-
ence to which the rigid demands of science can be satisfied.
It is an inquiry out of the range of strict science ; for, as Sir
John Herschel truly states, in his beautiful and masterly
Discourse, "to ascend to the origin of things is not the
business of the natural philosopher."
I shall, however, appeal to that which is of little less
authority. I shall appeal to that which, independently of
science, is the^ guiding principle, — not only in ordinary
234
matters, but even in matters of high moment, — of all rational
intelligent beings. I shall appeal to that important though
undefined principle called common sense, to the unbiassed
decisions of a sound practical understanding, in reference to a
matter in which absolute certainty is not attainable.
I have already stated that the great question for our con-
sideration, on the present occasion, is this : Was speech of
human invention? This may be divided into two other
questions, which, together, embody the same inquiry : —
1st. Could man, placed speechless upon earth, without any
external aid, have invented articulate language ?
2nd. Would he, of himself, have originated and elaborated
speech, even if he could ?
I have just said that (as you will at once perceive) the two
questions here proposed may replace the single question —
Was speech of human invention ? The first of these two may,
however, be dismissed : it will be sufficient, admitting hypo-
thetically that man could originate speech, if it be shown,
with a high degree of probability, that he would never have
addressed himself to the task.
The single question then to be discussed is this, — Is it
probable, that if man had been placed speechless upon the
earth, he would have been urged by necessity to contrive for
himself an articulate language ?
Now, under whatever circumstances man made his first
appearance, — whether he was placed here by a gorilla or by
God, is a matter of no moment in this inquiry. Come how he
might, he brought a language with him — the language of
gesticulation, implanted in him by what is called Nature ; and
by nature he was prompted, and even constrained to use it.
That is my first position. Man has, and was never without,
a natural language, a language which is no more an invention
of his own, or the gradual acquirement of ages, than his out-
ward manifestations of love and hate, joy and sorrow, pleasure
and pain, or any other of the promptings of nature, are con-
ventional signs, agreed upon by social compact, taught and
acquired.
Wherever man is found, he is found (unless he be in a con-
dition of idiotcy) in possession of this natural language ; — he
never learns it, he never loses it. It is universal throughout the
whole human family. It is employed as a means of inter-
communication among the most degraded races of savages, and
it is employed in the most polished societies of Europe, — in
the animated war-palavers of the wildest Indians, and in the
cultivated conversation of courts and palaces^ But there is
285
this difference, — the savage gives full and unrestrained ges-
tural expression to his feelings and emotions, — his articulate
language is often too limited and feeble to supply the place of
gesture ; whereas we, with our copious vocabulary, can dis-
pense with it ; and we not unfrequently use effort to check
and suppress what, if we were speechless, would be our only
resource, and what, therefore, it would be our great object, as
social creatures, to cultivate and amplify.
Whenever we use gesture, — and use it we do, in spite of all
our endeavours to curb nature, — we use it, for the most part,
unconsciously ; and therefore, to ourselves, it escapes notice,
I wish this evening to invite your attention to some of the
principal of these natural gestures, to show you what they
really are ; and, by directing your special notice to what, when
engaged in animated discourse, you yourselves do, to show
you, by ocular proof, that you unconsciously employ the lan-
guage of gesticulation to an extent you little suspect ; in short,
that you use the natural signs of the deaf and dumb, which, in
fact, are no other than the natural signs of the whole human
family.
[Here Professor Young exhibited various gesticulations and
explained their meaning. It was specially noticed, that in all
cases where feeling or emotion was expressed, the eye of the
observer was steadily directed to the countenance, the manual
signs being but auxiliary — natural, but subordinate.]
I think it has now been sufficiently shown that, by whatever
agency man made his appearance in the world, he came
endowed with the ability to communicate with his fellows in a
language intelligible to all, a language requiring no con-
ventions to establish, no long and laborious efforts to construct,
yet amply sufficient for the expression of all his physical
wants, and for social intercourse respecting all the natural
objects and circumstances with which he might be sur-
rounded.
Now it must be remembered that, according to theories
ancient and modern, the primitive race of mankind was a
barbarous race, — a race inferior even to the present natives of
the Fiji Islands or of the interior of Australia : without speech
it must have been so. It has been said that such a people
could teach themselves articulate language, as well as they can
teach themselves to make a fire. But the savage is driven by
necessity to devise means for kindling a fire. What stern
necessity is there to drive him to originate a spoken language,
even supposing him to possess the ability ? What is there in
236
his condition, at the present day, that would make him feel
the want of articulate sounds, even if he were to lose the
scanty vocabulary he now has, — the language of gesture being
still preserved ? In Major Long's expedition to the Rocky
Mountains, there is an account of certain tribes of the aboriginal
inhabitants of the country west of the Mississippi, who, though
speaking different languages, readily communicate with one
another in the common natural language of signs : many of
these are described in Major Long's volumes, and, as might
be expected, they closely agree with those employed by the
deaf and dumb.
It may be said, however, that man, even in this primitive and
barbarous condition, would instinctively know that the organs
with which he was endowed all had their appropriate offices,
and that he would not be man without an instinctive propen-
sity to use them. This is true. But I submit, that previouslv
to his having witnessed articulation in others, or exercised it
himself, he would not be conscious that he possessed organs of
speech, as such, at all. The larynx, the tongue, the palate,
the teeth, and the lips, he would naturally employ for other
and even more important purposes, at least for more im-
portunate purposes. How is he to know that in addition
to those offices these parts of his frame can, by certain
mechanical adjustments, convert mere voice into an artificial
system of intelligible sounds, conventionally to be employed
to express thoughts, and actions, and things ? His
throat is a channel for his food ; his tongue and palate, —
the organs by which he tastes it ; his teeth, — the instru-
ments by which he masticates it ; while his lips he employs
in the act of drinking. Who, or what, is to tell him
that these same organs could be employed, n6t only for the
nourishment of his body, but also for the elevation and enlarge-
ment of his mind ? Is it likely, in the primitive low condition
we are here contemplating him, that he would ever think of
these ministers to his physical wants and enjoyments in con-
nection with any intellectual or moral purposes ; or of using
them, with the view of supplanting his natural and signifi-
cant language of signs by non-natural and non- significant
utterances ?
There can be no doubt, on the hypothesis that speech was
the gift of God to man, that there would have been what may
be called a pleasurable instinctive propensity to speak, but
this is very different from an instinctive propensity to invent
speech ; — to invent that of which (if in his primitive condition
he were without) he would neither have felt the want, nor
have known the value.
237
But if, in spite of these considerations, it be still maintained
that savage man invented speech, I would ask, — How comes it
that civilized man, when in danger of losing this precious trea-
sure, instead of using every effort to prevent the threatened
calamity, always feels a strong propensity to accelerate it ?
Those who have the misfortune, after they are grown up, to
lose their hearing, are always found inclined voluntarily to give
up their speech also. They well know, since the avenue to
the speech of others is now closed, that, without exercising
their own, it will in time be lost and forgotten, and that tney
will inevitably lapse into permanent dumbness. They know
this; and yet, by their willing neglect, they seem to say:
" Well, let it go ;" and, .in many instances, they do let it go,
never to be recovered. I appeal to facts.
Most persons here have, no doubt, heard of Dr. Kitto, the
author of " The Pictorial Bible/' and other excellent works.
He was totally deaf, having lost his hearing at the age of twelve
years, by a fall from a ladder, at which period he was of course
in full possession of articulate language. In his interesting
book called " The Lost Senses " he gives this account of
himself in the deaf state : —
" Although I have no recollection of physical pain in the act of speaking,
I felt the strongest possible indisposition to use my vocal organs. I seemed
to labour under a moral disability which cannof be described by comparison
with any disinclination which the reader can be supposed to have experienced.
The disinclination which one feels to leave his warm bed on a frosty morning
is nothing to that which I experienced against any exercise of the organs of
speech. The force of this tendency to dumbness was so great, that for many
years I habitually expressed myself to others in writing, even when not more
than a few words were necessary ; and where this mode of intercourse could
not be used, I avoided occasion of speech, or heaved up a few monosyllables,
or expressed my wish by a slight motion or gesture. . . . , . In fact, I came
to be generally considered as both deaf and dumb, excepting by the few who
were acquainted with my real condition. I rejoiced in the protection which
that impression afforded ; for nothing distressed nie more than to be asked
to speak : and from disuse having been superadded to the pre-existing
causes, there seemed a strong probability of my eventually justifying the im-
pression concerning my dumbness which was generally entertained, I now
speak with considerable ease and freedom, and, in personal intercourse, never
resort to any other than the oral mode of communication," — {The. Lost
Senses — Deafness, p. 19.)
This return to speech, however, was not voluntary, but co-
erced. Two friends who accompanied Dr. Kitto on his first
visit to the Mediterranean, conspired, in conjunction with the
captain, to disregard every word he said otherwise than orally
T
238
throughout the voyage. As no request was attended to, and
no inquiry answered, which was presented in writing, he was
thus driven again to speak.
I will mention another instance, — the case of an accomplished
lady with whose writings many persons here are familiar. I
allude to the late Mrs. Tonna, under which name, however,
perhaps few will recognize the celebrated authoress I am ad-
verting to, — " Charlotte Elizabeth." The following interesting
particulars respecting this lady were communicated to me by
her husband, Mr. Tonna, shortly after her death, in a letter
which I have the writer's permission to make public : —
" Mrs. Tonna [Charlotte Elizabeth] lost her hearing at the age of nine or
ten. It was entirely gone — I believe from a thickening of the membrane of
the tympanum. No sound of any kind reached her, as a sound, although she
was acutely sensitive to vibrations, whether conveyed through the air or
through a solid medium. In this way the vibrations from an organ, or from
the sounding-board of a piano-forte, gave her great pleasure ; and from her
recollection of Handel's music, she took great delight in it ; and from the
vibrations would recollect the sounds so familiar in her childish days. You
will see some particulars of this in her * Personal Recollections/
" On one occasion, at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, a new country
dance was played : the tune was called the * Recovery,' the rhythm of which
is very peculiar. She was a# usual at her station, with her hand on the
sounding-board, when some friends present expressed a doubt as to the pos-
sibility of her forming any idea of the tune. She sat down at once, and
wrote a song, which I possess, most perfectly adapted to the tune in all its
changes.
" There is a poem of hers beginning ' No generous toil declining,' which it
is quite difficult to read as poetry until informed that it was written to the
tune of * A rose-tree in full bearing,' and to that it is perfectly adapted. The
poem is included in the volume of * Posthumous Poems' about to be pub-
lished, in which it will be plainly seen that most of her poems were written
to mental tunes. All conversation was conveyed to her by the fingers —
spelling each word, without any attempt at shorthand, which she said always
confused her. After repeating to her sermons and speeches from the most
rapid Irish speakers, I have often been distressed at the apparent impossibility
of her having understood me ; for I felt that I had repeatedly rather indi-
cated than completed the formation of each letter. Seeing my distress, she
would often begin and give me every head of division of the sermon, together
with the most striking passages, verbatim, as the orator had uttered them.
" We never divided the words, but spelt on the letters as fast as it was
possible to form them on the fingers. When in society, I have been repeating
to her a general conversation, and communicating the remarks made by each
individual, her eye would incessantly range about the room, catch the expres-
sion of each speaker's face, and yet never lose a word of what *was said.
239
Strangers were amazed at seeing a smile on her face at the very instant that
a humorous remark was being made. The power and quickness of her eye
was truly surprising. "
I have made this long quotation from Mr. Tonna's letter,
because I thought that, apart from the general purposes of this
address, many persons present might feel an interest in parti-
culars, not generally known, respecting Charlotte Elizabeth.
But my special object, in this extract, is to draw your attention
to a passage in it further confirmatory of the fact I have already
mentioned; namely, that people who lose their hearing are
content to lose their speech too. The passage is this : — " We
never divided the words, but spelt on the letters as fast as it was
possible to form them on the fingers." Now this lady still re-
tained the faculty of speech : Instead of employing it, why
should she, even when conversing with her own husband, habi-
tually use the finger-language of the deaf and dumb ?
Dr. Kitto accounts for this repugnance to speak on the hy-
pothesis that the loss of hearing is attended with injurious
effects upon the organs of speech, from some mysterious sym-
pathy between the two sets of organs,-^— the auditory and the
vocal ; the destruction of the former set occasioning a func-
tional derangement of the latter, or of some of them. And I
am amazed to find that so distinguished a physiologist as Pro-
fessor Huxley, in his recent work on Man's Place in Nature
favours the same view. It is a mistaken view. There is no
necessity to resort to anatomical or physiological considera-
tions to settle the doubt. Deaf-mutes, whether their deafness
be congenital or the result of disease or accident in after-life,
can all be taught to speak, unless there be a malformation of
their organs of speech entirely independent of their deafness.
I have witnessed hundreds of such persons taught to speak,
— to pronounce all the vocal articulations that we utter, and
with equal accuracy. Of all these hundreds of deaf and dumb
children, I never knew even one who had the slightest defect
in his vocal organs. The records of the Royal Institution for
the Deaf and Dumb at Paris also abundantly testify to the
same fact, namely, that although the ear is paralyzed, the
organs of speech remain unimpaired.
The propensity to silence on the part of those who, after
long familiarity with the exercise of speech, have become deaf,
arises, I am convinced, not from any functional impediment,
but entirely from the changed character which, to the utterer,
his speech assumes. To him, as to every hearing person,
speech is the utterance of articulate sounds, and not mechanical
actions merely of the organs of speech. These actions, how-
ever indispensable to speech, are executed almost uncon-
t2
240
sciously ; our attention is not directed to them, and they go
on unobserved; we are wholly occupied with the result, and
not at all with the machinery which produces it. With the
recently deaf, however, the language which had grown up
with him from infancy, — which had become natural to him,
and which had always been graced, too, by features of Nature's
own, — tones of voice, — upon the loss of hearing, suddenly
wears an altered aspect. He has hitherto been accustomed to
it, associated with modulation,— cadence, — clothed in all the
harmonious drapery of sound. It is now stripped of this, and
presents itself to him shorn of its vitality, — a non-natural,
lifeless skeleton, formed by artificial adjustments of the vocal
organs, but emitting no sound to his own ear.
The fact is, that our vernacular tongue, descending to us, as
it were, by inheritance, and acquired imperceptibly in child-
hood,— and a wonderful acquirement it is, — seems, to the
child, as natural to him as eating, or drinking, or sleeping.
He scarcely feels conscious that it is an acquirement at all ;
and even when grown up, he little reflects that the words he
uses are all but so many artificial conventions, in themselves
all, or nearly all, non-significant ; and not only that " a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet," but that any other
name would be just as significant, or rather just as non- signi-
ficant of its fragrance. But when his hearing is gone, and
with it all that was really natural in his speech, vocal sound,
gone too, he becomes painfully awakened to the fact that
nothing but what is wholly artificial is now left to him ; and
that what were once articulate sounds to his own ear, are
henceforth to be, to him, only inaudible movements of the
vocal organs.
It is this sudden apparent transmutation of speech, from
the natural to the artificial, that creates in the mind of the
deaf person the repugnance to employ it. That this aversion
must be very great is obvious, since those who entertain it
well know the trouble and inconvenience it occasions to all
with whom they converse, — forcing them to read on the
fingers, — an art in which few are expert, or else to receive in
writing, still more slowly executed, every sentence addressed
to them.
Now I would ask,— If a highly enlightened and educated
people, at great cost to themselves and others, knowing too
the full value of speech, cherish this almost unconquerable
repugnance to the use of it, so soon as the only touch given to
it by nature has become effaced, is it likely that an unen-
lightened savage community, already in possession of an ex-
pressive natural language, a language fully commensurate with
241
all their physical wants and desires, — and other than physical
they have not — is it likely that they would apply themselves to
the difficult and strange task of inventing, to supply its place,
an artificial, non-natural language of vocal articulations ?
Where would be the incentives — what the motives ? They had
never witnessed speech, — it did not exist. Whence would
originate the impulse ?
Is it not more likely that as their experience enlarged and
their wants increased, if this sign-language were felt to be
inadequate, that they would engraft upon it conventional
gestures, just as the deaf and dumb do ? If circumstances
were favourable to it, or necessity required it, the gestural
language of the deaf and dumb might be carried to a much
greater extent than it ever has been carried. The deaf and
dumb do not congregate together in distinct communities
while in their uneducated state : they are isolated, coming into
contact with one another only accidentally and occasionally,
and never in any considerable numbers. They thus have no
opportunity, in that state, of amplifying their language by
general compact or agreement. And when they assemble
together in institutions set apart for their education, it is the
business of their teachers to discourage and suppress the
use of gesture so soon as it has served the purpose of facili-
tating the acquisition of a spoken language. But that gesture-
language can be greatly amplified there is no doubt, and this
is the language that speechless savages would cultivate, and
not an entirely new language, a language of articulation, an
artificial contrivance they had never witnessed, and one which
it is hard to imagine they could have any conception of.
I think it therefore to be a reasonable conclusion that, in the
absence of all aid from without, a speechless community would
be, and would ever continue to be, a gesticulating community.
To gesture they would add inarticulate vocal sounds, but
nothing more. And this is my second position.
In further confirmation of it I will merely submit to your
consideration an additional remark or two.
A primitive speechless race of men would be but little more
than mere animals. Their gestural language, though amply
sufficient for their uncivilized condition, would be very inade-
quate to elevate them to a state of civilization; for gesture
alone could never be an adequate exponent of aught but
animal feelings, material objects, and visible appearances, a
fact which must be especially borne in mind in speculating
upon the capabilities of gestural language, to whatever extent
it be cultivated. Speech (or the written symbols of it) ia
indispensable to any progress in moral, religious or intellectual
242
education. Nobody has ever succeeded, or ever can succeed,
. in conveying spiritual instruction to the deaf and dumb by
gesture, unless indeed conventional signs be used as transla-
tions of previously-understood written or spoken words, as in
the case of the finger-alphabet for instance, which no unedu-
cated deaf-mute can use. Such an isolated race of human
beings as we are here supposing might, indeed, become more
and more morally degraded ; but without speech, and excluded
from all example and all external influence, they could never
morally advance. In a late number of the Quarterly Review
(No. 211) the writer of an article on the Poleynian Islanders
observes that " the present state of these people shows the ten-
dency of men to descend lower and lower in the social scale,
as they become more widely scattered and separated into small
isolated bodies."
Now if it be true that without speech civilization could not
be attained, it is equally true that without civilization speech
could not be invented. No people would invent what they had
no felt need of.
Here then is a dilemma. Speech is indispensable to civiliza-
tion, and civilization is indispensable to the invention of speech.
How can such a contradiction be avoided on the hypothesis
that speech is of human invention ? " Modern science " may
perhaps discover some way of reconciling the apparent in-
consistency, but common sense, I think, cannot. And this,
be it remembered, is the only tribunal to which I here appeal.
Its functions are definite and unmistakeable, whereas, in the
modern acceptation, " science" means anything — except know-
ledge.
In what has hitherto been said, however, the advantages of
the ear, even to a speechless community of uncivilized men,
have not been dwelt upon. There is no doubt that the posses-
sion of the organs of hearing would place them in a position
superior to that of deaf-mutes. They could recognize sounds,
and would thus be conscious of noises made by themselves or
others ; of the cries and growlings of land animals, and of
the shrieks and melodious utterings of the feathered tribes.
Certain of these sounds they would find that they themselves
could imitate, and that they could thus, in their descrip-
tion of a quadruped or a bird, or of any natural sounding
object, as the rushing torrent, or the moaning wind, add to
those peculiarities which address the eye or the organs of
touch, the other characteristics which address the ear. The
congenitally deaf know no difference between the notes of
the cuckoo and those of the nightingale. They can dis-
243
tinguish one bird from another, in their descriptions, only by
the size, the shape, the plumage, the bill, and such-like ex-
ternal features, and by the visible bearing and habit3 of the
individual. A community of human beings without speech,
but in possession of the ear, would be superior to the deaf and
dumb only in these natural advantages ; besides expression of
countenance and gesticulating with their limbs, they could
imitate sounds, and call at a distance. But these additional
powers would render the possessors of them even more inde-
pendent of, and therefore, less urged by necessity to invent,
articulate speech. I have not the slightest doubt, if I were
brought into communication with a savage on his own soil,
(safety, of course, being guaranteed,) that I could enter into
instant converse with him, without a single articulate sound
being uttered by either of us, and, allowing me only half an hour
to feel my way, that I could understand everything he had to
communicate, and he as readily understand me, as if we were
two persons speaking the same articulate language. The more
of the savage he was, the better I could converse with him ;
and every one who has paid sufficient attention to the language
of natural signs could do the same.
It has often occurred to me that many of the tragical dis-
asters which have befallen early missionary enterprise, and our
exploring expeditions* both by sea and land, might have been
averted if a person having this familiarity with gesture-
language had been among the unfortunate party. I have
thought that even poor Bligh and his wretched companions
would not have been so cruelly repulsed from every island at
which they sought succour during their unparalleled voyage
of nearly 4,000 miles in an open boat, if one of those nineteen
unhappy wanderers had been deaf and dumb ; if but one among
them could have made their case known in a language intel-
ligible to all.
When Basil Hall endeavoured to conciliate the natives of
the coast of Corea, they rejected his overtures, as he thought,
by making the sign for cutting throats. A person familiar
with gesture-language could have ascertained in a moment
whether by this sign they threatened to be the perpetrators or
merely expressed a dread of being the victims. From their
subsequent behaviour it would seem that they meant to convey
the latter impression. Oii Captain Hall proceeding to land, he
says, " This movement the natives did not seem to relish in
the least, for they made use of a sign which, though we could
not determine exactly to whom it referred, was sufficiently
expressive of their alarm and anxiety. It consisted in drawing
their fans across their throats, and sometimes across ours, as if
244
to signify that our going on would lead to heads being cut off;
but whether they or we were to be the sufferers was not very
clear ." — (Voyage to Loo-Choo, second edition, p. 11.)
It has been affirmed, both by ancient poets and modern
visionaries, that primitive man must have herded with the
beasts of the field, feeding on acorns and on the roots he could
scratch up with his fingers. This imagined association with
brutes could never be. The two parties could not communi-
cate ; the language of human gesture, as a medium of social
intercourse, could be intelligible only to human beings, who
would therefore naturally and necessarily congregate together
in a wholly distinct ana separate society. A single human
being, having no such society, could, of course, have no other
companionship.
But it is time that I brought this paper to a close. In the
course of it I have not insisted on the absolute impossi-
bility of man inventing speech ; I have merely aimed at
showing, by an appeal to facts and to reasonable considera-
tions, that, even admitting his ability, the improbability of
his actually doing so is very great ; for I feel less hesitation
in affirming that he would not do it, than that he could not
do it ; and this because, cast about as I may, I cannot discover
anything in the low condition, hypothetically assigned to him,
to stimulate him to the undertaking. When I find it to be a
fact that the natural language of gesture, which every human
being possesses, is amply sufficient for all his social require-
ments in such a primitive uncivilized state ; when I find it to
be a fact that when the spoken language of a person who has
employed it from infancy, and which has become natural to
him — his vernacular tongue, — becomes to that person changed
to a non-natural system of organic actions merely, he being
conscious of nothing more — nothing that is nature's own, — that
this non-natural speech is repulsive to him, that he would
rather have none at all, I ask myself in vain, Why should
primitive speechless man invent artificial language ? With a
natural and expressive means of intercourse commensurate
with all the demands of his then condition, why should he be
at the trouble even of devising and settling by general compact
another language, consisting of symbols purely conventional
and artificial ? To these questions no satisfactory answers
suggest themselves to my mind.
I reflect, too, that civilization presupposes the exercise of
speech ; and, yet, that a considerable advance in civilization
must precede the invention of speech ; and that no result can
chronologically be antecedent to that which brings it about. I
bear in mind, further, that those who never possessed a faculty
245
given to others care bat little about it : a faculty they never
had, they never miss. And a faculty that none ever had
cannot be even conceived, any more than we can conceive a
sixth sense, or could conceive a fifth, if we had but four. I
well remember conversing, some years ago, with a boy who was
born blind; he was about 16 or 17 years old, highly intelligent,
well informed, and well educated. I put this case to him —
" Suppose a person, having the power to give you eyesight
without subjecting you to any pain or inconvenience, should
say to you, ' John, which would you rather have — the ability
to see, or five pounds ? ' " He raised his sightless eyeballs
upwards, in the act of reflection, for a few seconds, and replied,
" I think I would rather have the five pounds " ! This is an
uncoloured and strictly literal fact. The boy's name was
John McCallion, and he was an inmate of the Ulster Institution
for the Blind.
From all these considerations I find myself constrained to
conclude, quite independently of Scripture, that speech was
not of human invention. I am constrained to conclude that
the universal existence of speech among savage tribes,
though in a poor and imperfect form — testifies (as they them-
selves testify), not to the elevation to which they have risen,
but to the degradation to which they have fallen; not to
what they have acquired, but to what .they have lost. Just as
a once beautiful face, though marred by accident or disease-
though even overspread by the pallor of death, will still retain
some faint lineaments of its former comeliness — so, even in the
debased and benighted savage, all trace is not lost of what
man once was. Speech, Heaven's direct bestowment, in one
feeble form or other, survives the decay of all else, and ever
continues a mark and memento of man's high origin.
Yes : reason and Revelation alike tell us that when our first
parents trod the groves of Paradise they communed with each
other, not in dumb pantomime, but in heaven-born speech; and
that they learnt to speak just as much as the bee learnt to
construct its cell, the spider to weave its web, or the sparrow
upon the house-top to build her nest. No mortal instructor
taught them — they had no rudimentary training to go through
— no long apprenticeship to serve. Their lesson was the
lesson of an instant, for their Creator was their Teacher.
What this primitive language was we know not. Hereafter,
perhaps, we may know. The language of Eden may, in a
future state, be our own, if permitted to dwell in the paradise
above. And, as the Apostles of old " spake with other
246
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance/' so there, — " Par-
thians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopo-
tamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya
about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians," — may all, in one language and one
tongue, " speak the wonderful works of God."
The Chairman. — I think I may at once thank Professor Young for his
exceedingly valuable and logical paper, which I think will be read, as it has
been listened to, with the greatest interest. I call upon any gentleman for any
remarks he may wish to make on the subject.
Mr. Warington. — In order to lose no time, as we have but little left for
discussion, I will at once mention that it struck me, in listening to Professor
Young's paper, that there was this flaw running through the whole of it, —
that he argued, because people who became deaf were not anxious to retain
the power of articulation, therefore others, who had not got it, but who were
not deaf, would not think of inventing articulate speech. But surely all
here turns upon the fact of the people being deaf. They could not hear the
sounds made by them, and so were disinclined to use them as a medium of
communication. But now apply this principle to a parallel case. Suppose
a man who knew the gesture language became blind, would not he in like
manner give it up ? You won't find a man use the gesture language in the
dark Even if perfectly certain that another man could see he was using
gestures, he yet would not use them, because he could not see them him-
self. But again, is it quite certain that those who are deaf are always thus
disinclined to use articulate language 1 Let me read a short extract from
a chapter on gesture language, written by Mr. Tylor.* He writes thus : —
" Teuschner, a deaf-mute, whose mind was developed by education to a
remarkable degree, has recorded that, in his uneducated state, he had
already discovered the sounds that were inwardly blended with his sensations.
So, as a child, he had affixed a special sound to persons he loved, — his
parents, brothers and sisters, to animals, and things for which he had no
sign (as water) ; and called any person he wished with one unaltered voice."
Mr. Tylor accumulates several distinct cases of deaf-mutes who were
thus anxious to use articulate language, although quite unable to hear
what was said ; he refers also to the most remarkable case of all, that of
Laura Bridgman, who though deaf, dumb and blind, was yet so anxious to
use sounds that she was obliged to be restrained from making them,
because it was inconvenient and painful to those who were near her.
Then there is another point in Professor Young's paper, I wish to allude to.
He says that savages would not invent language of this kind, because they
have no need for it. And if man was created in an utterly savage state, of
* Researches into the Early History of Mankind. By E. B. Tylor.
Chap. iv. p. 72.
247
course this is a good argument. But if we take it the other way, that man
was not created in a savage state ; then, according to Professor Young's own
principles, he was created with wants and feelings, to express which a
gesture language would be utterly inadequate—
The Chairman. —The question is, whether, having been created without
language, he would have invented one.
Professor Young. — You are going into a case not contemplated. I have
been proceeding distinctly upon the hypothesis, and have discussed the phe-
nomenon, of a community of people sent into the world in a savage and bar-
barous condition. You are drawing something from a civilized state, which
does not affect my argument. Will not that be infringing upon our time ?
Mr. Warington. — I think not, for this reason ; because, if we take only
the hypothesis which Professor Young has put before us, we are taking so
one-sided a view, that we may be running away with a conclusion which only
refers to that one hypothesis, and yet may fancy it refers to the whole
subject —
Professor Young. — You must stick to the hypothesis ; do not change it,
I pray.
The Chairman. — I think you are travelling away from the question under
discussion.
Mr. Rbddib. — I think it would be valuable to hear this other hypothesis
also discussed.
Mr. Warington. — Our subject, I believe, is the origin of language, con-
nected with gesticulation. I want to prove that if man had been (upon
another hypothesis) created in a state similar to what we are in now, he
would have naturally invented an articulate language, and that therefore the
facts which Professor Young advances will not prove anything on this
hypothesis. According to Professor Young's statement, which I agree with,
gesture language only refers to things physical and material Then if a
man has feelings which he wants to express as to things which are not
physical and material, would he not at once employ articulate language ?
There is an objection which is raised to this. It is said that all these
languages are arbitrary, and that the idea that man invented arbitrary
word-language, is too difficult to be credited. But is it quite certain that
articulate language, when first spoken, was arbitrary 1 We know that written
language at the present time is arbitrary, and that the signs we put on paper
have not the slightest connection with the sounds or the things for which
they stand ; but there is yet nothing more certain than that in the primitive
alphabets the signs were used, not merely as signs, but as pictures of
the things they were intended to denote ; and therefore that written language
has had its origin in picture language, and afterwards became gradually
arbitrary. Then why may not the same have occurred in respect to spoken
language ? We can see that written language was originally a picture lan-
guage, in which there was a natural connection between the sign and the
thing signified, because we have certain very ancient and primitive alphabets
248
still existing. But we have not the old primitive sounds, and so cannot
say whether there was or was not in spoken language as natural a connection
between the sign and the thing signified as in written language. In the case
of mutes, however, they have articulate signs which they connect with
certain things, and are able to put words together (some of the instances
go as far as that), and to form compound words. I think these facts go
to prove, then, that it is possible, — I do not say that it is certain, — but
that it is possible, that man, if created in a high moral condition, would
have had power and inclination to invent articulate language.
Professor Young. — I have said nothing to the contrary.
Mr. Reddie. — I regret that I cannot quite accept the hypothesis of
Professor Young, anxious as I am to have it established by all means that
language was originally a gift of God to man. But neither can I quite agree
with Mr. Warington in the latter part of his remarks, that if man had been
created in a high condition, with the feelings and wants of civilized man, he
could have invented language, if he means language such as we have it
among civilized races. I do not deny that he would have endeavoured to
speak, or that he could probably invent some kind of language ; but it is a
very important hypothesis that Professor Young puts before us, namely, that
if man was created in the low and savage condition, which it is now the
fashion to assume, he would begin with mere gesture language and would be
content with it. But be that as it may, I venture to go further and say, that
if man was originally speechless he must have been lower than any known
savage, and even if we conclude that man in that low condition could
invent a spoken language, we are bound to infer that it would only be
language such as we do find it among actual savages. And if that be so,
we are then still left without any explanation of the origin of the most ancient
and perfect languages that exist, — as for instance the Sanskrit, — which never
could have been invented by man in this low condition. But as the time of
the meeting has been already so much exceeded, I think it will be more
valuable, instead of pursuing such speculations, that I should appeal to some
further facts, like those which the author of the paper has brought before us.
I ventured to give Professor Young's paper to a friend of mine to read — a
gentleman who, although he is a " deaf-mute," is in the same public depart-
ment as myself, and, I may add, a very able man of business. I consider his
is a better instance to cite than those adduced by Professor Young ; because
Dr. Kitto lost his hearing at twelve years of age and Mrs. Tonna at nine or
ten, but the gentleman whose case I am about to cite became deaf at a very
much earlier age, and all that he knows of vocal articulation he learnt before
he was four years old. Well, I gave him Professor Young's paper to read,
and requested to have the benefit of his remarks upon it ; and he has been
kind enough to allow me to make use of the letter that he wrote to me in
reply, which when printed in our Proceedings will I think be read with great
interest, both as an acute criticism upon the paper, and as giving his own
experience as regards the supposed disinclination of deaf-mutes to speak.
His letter is as follows: —
249
" Roehampton, 10th October, 1866.
" Dear Mr. Reddib, —
" I return, with many thanks, the paper on the language of gesticulation,
which you kindly lent me to read.
" The argument derived from that language, on the question as to the
origin of speech, is apparently that, because there is a natural language of
signs sufficient for all ordinary necessities, therefore it is not reasonable to
suppose that savages would set to work to invent such a complicated and
arbitrary structure as human speech ; and it is sought to strengthen the
argument by showing that deaf people, although able to speak, have no
great inclination to do so.
" I confess that I cannot see the value to the argument of these latter
considerations. If we push the argument to its conclusion, viz., that speech
and language must have been the gift of God, then that conclusion itself
reduces the value of the premises on which it is sought to found it.
Speech being concluded to be the gift of God, and there being a natural
healthy pleasure in the exercise of all the faculties God has given us, any
repugnance to use the faculty of speech must arise from ill of some kind or
other. If so, the whole point is foreign to the argument.
"That is what I think; nevertheless the facts of my experience are
very much at the service of any one who thinks he can make any use
of them.
"When I was four years old, I had two attacks of scarlet fever in
quick succession. The doctors gave up all hope of saving my life, but I
recovered, with the loss of my hearing. Before my illness I had been
taught to read, and I understood spoken language as well as any child of
four years old. I learnt the finger alphabet for myself when recovering from
my illness, and I was able at once to understand what my brothers or sisters
told me by means of it. There was not in my case that difficulty which
arises with those born deaf and dumb, or who lose their hearing before
their education has at all begun, viz., the absence of any language, other
than the very imperfect one of gesture, wherewith to work. I had acquired
sufficient knowledge of language to understand the force of a sentence,
and to be able to put my words together in grammatical order. That one
small fact made a world-wide difference to me.
" Although quite deaf, I never did otherwise than speak to my brothers and
sisters ; and to this day I never have said a sentence to any of them by
signs or by spelling on my fingers.
"At six years old I was sent to a school for the deaf and dumb, and
there I remained till fifteen. At this school once or twice a week there
was a speaking lesson ; but the main teaching was carried on by signs, and
out of school nothing else was used. Therefore I may say, speaking
generally, I was dumb while at school, and my speaking ability of course
fell off from want of practice. Yet, when at home for the holidays, I inva-
riably naturally spoke. After leaving school, (and I may observe in passing,
that it is an entire mistake to send any one who has merely lost hearing,
250
but who possesses language, to a deaf and dumb 3chool,) I saw very little
of the deaf and dumb, and I gradually got into the habit of speaking more
and better.
" The reason why I do not speak to every one is, simply, that every one
cannot understand me, and I am reluctant to give people the trouble of trying
to understand. Being deaf, I cannot always pitch my voice at the right
tone with reference to surrounding noises. I mispronounce some words,
and have little skill in modulation ; hence I cannot expect to be imme-
diately understood, except for single words or common expressions ; but I
infinitely prefer being with people who can understand me, and I have
not the smallest hesitation or reluctance in speaking to them, or to my
servants, or others to whom I do not mind giving the trouble of finding
out what I say. Most people understand me readily enough, and after a
few days' acquaintance and practice find it hard to believe they ever could
not understand me.
" Of course I am silent in company ; the reason being, simply, that I
cannot hold by the thread of the conversation going round. If I do get hold
of it now and then, I have no hesitation in saying anything I wish ; but
of course the thread drops off again directly, unless, indeed, there is some
one by who takes the great trouble to repeat to me on his fingers or by
writing the main points of the conversation as it goes on.
" I never think of using signs, or of speaking on my fingers, except to
persons deaf and dumb. In fact, I hardly ever meet with a hearing
person, other than a teacher of the deaf and dumb, who can read spelling or
understand signs.
" It is much more difficult to read spelling than to spell. I was much
astonished at the statement in the paper that Mrs. Tonna always spelt on
her fingers, and did not speak. If the statement rests only on the words
quoted, * We never divided the words, &c./ I should be inclined to doubt
whether the * we ' is not here exclusive of Mrs. Tonna herself. It would be
quite true for one of my sisters to say, * We never divided the words, &c.,
in talking to Arthur ; ' but not one of my family or friends would under-
stand me if I spelt a sentence on my fingers to them, unless I did it with
most emphatic slowness.
" To sum up ; although I do not speak to every one, and am silent in
mixed or large companies, it does not arise from any kind of 'moral
disability ' or ' disinclination,' such as Dr. Kitto appears to have laboured
under, but from reasons easily understood, and of which I feel quite
certain.
" I started by saying that I did not think the case of the deaf and
dumb strengthened the main argument of the paper; therefore, my ex-
periences, which differ firom those brought forward, must be equally
immaterial to it.
" The conclusions of the paper have my sympathy, although I remember
reading a very ingenious argument to prove that speech had its origin
from men trying to imitate the sounds of nature and of animals, the
251
mitation standing for the name of the object. It is easy to see how,
from these first simple sounds, which a savage might make as naturally as
gesticulation, a language might be elaborated ; at least there are no such
great difficulties as lie in the way of the transmutation of an ape into a
man. I thought I had read the theory in Goguet's Origin of Laws, but I
cannot now find it in that book.
" Believe me ever faithfully yours,
"A. H. Bather.
" James Reddie, Esq."
I consider, Sir, that this is an important communication ; and with reference
to Mr. Bather's want of any disinclination to speak, such as was experienced
by Dr. Kitto, I think it may be explained thus. Having as a child only heard
up to four years old, he would not be afterwards so conscious of the marked
difference between his condition as a person who once had heard, and one
who does not now hear ; which would probably be acutely felt in the case
of Dr. Kitto and by " Charlotte Elizabeth." Mr. Bather's case also is more
nearly analogous to that of those who are deaf-mutes from their birth, and
who consequently never heard at all. And here lies, I think, the great weak-
ness of Professor Young's argument. He has himself slightly noticed it, —
but I think it ought not to be noticed merely incidentally, for it is the most
important point of all, — namely, that the theory is only good if applied to a
community of deaf people ! The argument is founded upon only two cases,
and those are of people who did not hear. They, of course, could have no
pleasure in speaking, and therefore would not use speech, unless convinced
of the usefulness of speaking. I may observe, that although Mr. Bather does
not hesitate to speak, yet he speaks in an awkward monotone, and one
requires to get accustomed to his imperfect articulation to understand him
readily. I am sorry I have not got from him an explanation of one point, where
his letter would seem to be discordant with Professor Young's statement, that
all those people who cannot hear, may yet be taught to articulate perfectly.
But Professor Young has also not told us whether congenital deaf-mutes are
disinclined to use that power of speaking which, he tells us, they all may
acquire. With reference to the question whether speech could be invented
from imitating sounds in nature, I must say, (if man had not a gift of speech
originally, and the ideas that come with the power of speaking,) it appears to me
that he would scarcely have been able to express with his hands what is
meant by such gestures as those which Professor Young has exhibited. But,
at any rate, he could surely do quite as much in making signs of various
kinds with his tongue, when he had the power of uttering sounds, as he
could by merely moving his hands. And people who are not deaf cannot
help being aware of their power of vocal utterance, because even children
from their birth utter sounds naturally, and man hears every variety of
sound in nature all around him, especially the cries of birds and beasts, which
he would naturally imitate. I must also say, with reference to those gesture-
signs which Professor Young exhibited, that I can scarcely believe that a
252
single one of them would be intelligible to any person, unless taught their
meaning by means of spoken language. Nine-tenths of the gesticulations
which Professor Young exhibited before us appeared to me to be rather speech
interpreted by signs, than signs significant in themselves ; and but for his
verbal explanations, I confess I should not have understood their meaning in
the least. There is a curious passage in one of Montaigne's Essays, perhaps
bearing on the Professor's side, with which I shall conclude. Montaigne con-
sidered that beasts may speak, for all we can tell, because, he observes, we
can say all we have to say by signs. Then he goes on : — " Quoi des mains ?
Nos requerons, nous promettons, appellons, congedions, menaceons, prions,
supplions, nions, refusons, interrogeons, admirons, nombrons, confessons,
repentons, craignons, vergoignons, doubtons, instruisons, commandons, absol-
vons, injurious, mesprisons, desfions, despitons, flattens, applaudissons,
benissons, humilions, mocquons, reconcilions, recommendons, festoyons, re-
jouissons, complaignons, attristons, descomfortons, desesperons, estonnons,
escrions, taisons, et quoi non ? "
There we have the same idea as in the paper ; but I must add that I do
not understand how any savage, who only knew gesture-language, could ever
have such ideas at all, or understand one half of the things signified by those
words, and the fine shades of thought they often express.
Rev. Dr. Irons. — I think we are scarcely doing justice to the paper of Pro-
fessor Young, if we forget he began by telling us he could pretend to no demon-
stration in such a matter. He merely endeavoured to accumulate all the
probabilities of the case ; and with respect to those examples of deaf-mutes, they
were by no means all his argument, — they were only illustrations which he in-
troduced, like the mythical savage with whom he could communicate, who was
not deaf ; and I think without at all proving his point, which he never
attempted, he suggested the great probability of the difficulty of originating
a language, if man had been created a mute savage. And when Mr
Warington affirms that there is a probability, if man was created in a
civilized condition, that he would form a language for himself, I think he
is bound, in fairness to Professor Young, to show how he could meet the
dilemma which the Professor put before us, that civilization implies lan-
guage, as much as language implies civilization. Let us meet the issue
fairly, and see whether there is a probability, or an improbability, of savages
inventing speech. It occurs to me that the illustrations drawn by Mr.
Warington do not apply to the Professor's argument, which was put
forward to meet the idea of man being a monkey previously, and gradually
.becoming man. The primitive men were said to be of the lowest type, and
the Fiji Islanders were particularly mentioned as an instance. Now they
have no civilization surrounding them to suggest the thoughts like those
which might be suggested to civilized mutes by what they see. The very
language originating thought and producing high desires could not have been
excited if these mutes had been in the position of the Fiji Islanders, or of a
still lower class, namely, a people just risen above the monkey.
Rev. Dr. Thornton.— At the risk of being called to order, I shall first, Sir,
253
return you my thanks, and I think I may say those of all present (hear, hear,)
for your very able and lucid introductory remarks. Everybody must be glad
to be told that he may be a Christian and a man of science at the same time ;
and that if he reads the Bible, he need not fling away science, or if he
studies science he need not fling away the Bible. (Hear, hear.) I beg also
to offer a few remarks on the paper of Professor Young ; in doing which, I
shall not detain you long. — I would say to the learned Professor, that I
listened to his paper with interest ; and if I take the liberty of criticising it,
it is not because I deny his facts, or disagree with his conclusion. I think he
has stated his argument from probability very clearly. He says it is probable
that man would not have supplied a spoken language for himself out of his
own powers ; therefore it must have been given him, as he has it, from above.
I believe that it was given him from above ; but not for this reason ; and we
must be careful, while defending a truth, to defend it with correct arguments ;
for a weak argument is an evil ; and therefore, if we bring forward a proba-
bility which will not hold water, we are really doing harm to truth. I
would suggest to the Professor, whether those signs, which he so clearly put
before us, are really capable of forming a language ? I fail to see in them a
power of representing complicated objects. I can understand their represent-
ing the sun, or the moon, or the stars ; but how represent a special thought, or
even a particular animal by a sign of that kind ? It is there that articulation
steps in. A man has a certain feeling or emotion, for instance ; he strives
to express it, and utters a sound ; but his utterances are inarticulate What
are they ? Sounds not yet reduced to law. When they are reduced to law,
they are articulate. There is no more inarticulate sound than " Boo ;" but
that in Greek has the meaning of " bulL" There is " 0 " inarticulate, but it
becomes an articulate sound. The original words of human speech were in-
articulate sounds, and they were forced by the energy of man's nature, into
something like order and articulate condition. I therefore should say, with
all due deference to the arguments that Professor Young has placed before us,
that primeval language — speaking of course without consideration of what we
know from revelation — primeval language would be a sort of compound of
gesture and half-articulate sound ;— gesture to express certain ideas and
emotions, and sound to express others. One might multiply instances ; but
to select one. In Hebrew, if the lion is represented, I find the word is the
expressive sound ari; and in Coptic the Egyptian represents the same animal
by moui. I find in all such names, in the words employed to express both
emotions and individual objects, a transition from the inarticulate to the
articulate states of sounds ; and therefore I suggest, with all due deference
to the Professor, that his theory has only given us half the truth. Is there
not a probability, on the other side; that man would invent an articulate
language ? Many may remember the sceptical question asked by Tindal in
his Christianity as Old as (he Creation, relative to the miracle of Balaam's
ass, — how many ideas the ass had? — and how Waterland points Out, in
answer, that not a syllable is mentioned about ideas ; it is merely said that
the ass spoke ; and he humorously adds that it probably had as many ideas
U
1
254
as asses common]/ have, — the number of which, Mr. Tindal might reckon up
for himself at his leisure* Now, I do not wish man to be considered as being
in the position of Balaam's ass, uttering sounds without corresponding ideas.
There is a current of ideas which must pass through the mind of every
man, civilized or savage ; and the natural striving of his mental being will be
to express those sounds in some way, partly by gesture and partly by sounds,
varying from the merely inarticulate to those developed as in the Sanskrit
and our own language*
The Chairman.— I shall now call upon Professor Young to reply to the
observations made, though perhaps I may say that I agree with his paper, and
think he has most logically carried out all that he attempted to set before us ;
a matter which I think in some of the replies has been lost sight of* Professor
Young's paper altogether proceeds as an answer to a certain hypothesis which
has been brought strongly forward, — namely, that man is derived from the
monkey, from the lower orders of creation, and in that position he has invented
language. As I understand Professor Young's argument (and he will correct
me if I am wrong), he proceeds to answer that hypothesis— his argument is
altogether founded upon that ; — and it is no answer to him to state what man
would do in a civilized state, or if created in that state ; for it does not touch his
hypothesis. His argument is, if man was in such a low position as that, he would
take that which is natural and not artificial. He maintains thatspoken language
is as arbitrary in its character as the signs which the deaf and dumb acquire in
the finger alphabet. He shows us that the deaf and dumb possess one language
with people who speak, a gesture-language, which would be sufficient for un-
civilized man, and that having a natural language, man would not be forced
to invent an artificial one. And I think all the arguments of the paper would
stand in all their strength if he omitted everything with regard to the deaf
and dumb. I do not think that altogether the case of Mr. Reddie's friend so
far contradicts Professor Young's examples. It depends upon the different
circumstances in which the deaf and dumb person is placed. This deaf and
dumb gentleman I suppose was in an educated family, and he found it con-
venient to keep up the language he possessed, rather than give to others
the pain of spelling out their words ; and I can easily conceive that as
a child brought up that way, he was forced by a kind of necessity to use
language, however disagreeable at the time. Dr. Kitto recovered his
language when forced upon him by a similar necessity, and I think the same
kind of necessity which caused Dr. Kitto to recover his language would
have also caused Mr. Reddie's example to do the same.
Professor Younck — Mr. Vice-President, you have anticipated a good deal
of what I should say in reply on this subject With reference to Mr.
Warington's observations, I have little to say, because he has not kept to the
hypothesis on which I started* He instances a case of man in a civilized
state, who had got very considerably in advance and ahead of the people I
had constructed my observations upon, and I have nothing to say to that.
As to the interesting letter that Mr. Reddie has read from this gentleman
who became deaf so young, that is one instance in opposition to those two
255
instances I have given. That gentleman says that he has continued to
cultivate his language notwithstanding his loss of hearing. I think you will
find that that is rather a remarkable case, because I have had a great deal
of experience with persons in that condition. I am sure I have held inti-
mate conversation with at least four hundred deaf and dumb persons, and
that is a large amount of experience. Everything I have said in this paper
has been the result of that enlarged experience, and not the reflecting upon
the matter merely for a few weeks. I have long, from intimate and lengthened
consideration of the phenomena presented, entertained the convictions I have
come to. There has been a great deal of theorizing on this subject. I cannot
but say that much I have heard is purely theoretical, for I do not think a
single speaker in reference to this paper has had any experience with the
deaf and dumb. They may have had intercourse occasionally with one or two,
but as for any amount of experience that would warrant anything like deductions
for a trustworthy theory or statement, I do not think that such experience has
been possessed by any person" who has made observations on this paper. In
reference to what has been said respecting a primitive race or community of
persons having no speech, but hearing, that they would frame a language,
partly gestural and partly vocal, I think, to a certain extent, that is likely.
I have not the slightest doubt they would give sound-names to every
sounding object, but they would consider it ridiculous to give a sound-
name to a soundless object. And as for not giving a gestural name to an
animal, I think that is very simple. Every animal I have seen, I can
describe by signs. If I want a horse, what have I to imitate but the ambling
of the horse ? or a dog, what but to imitate the action that we generally
perceive in a dog ? Or, if a cat, the whiskers and the stroking of the cat ;
the cow, by the milking operation ; thus distinguishing the cow from the
bullock. [The appropriate signs were here given.] And I say there is no
difficulty in giving a gestural description of any animal thatjias been seen.
The deaf and dumb are extremely expert in this method of description ; and
I remember an instance in which a deaf and dumb boy explained to his com-
panion that he had for the first time seen a steamboat, and he gave a rough
but very ingenious idea of the motion of the boat. This was done by
covering the back of the left hand with the palm of the right, advancing the
hands thus placed with a wave-like movement, and giving a rotary motion to
the thumbs. [These gestures were exhibited.]
The Meeting was then adjourned to 3rd December.
u2
256
ORDINAKY MEETING, December 3, 1866.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed, after which
the following Papers were read by the Honorary Secretary in the absence of
the Authors : —
ON MIRACLES; THEIR COMPATIBILITY WITH PHI-
LOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES. By the Rev. W. W.
English, M.A., Mem. Vict. Inst.
AGREEMENT as to fundamental principles underlying
miraculous interpositions of the Almighty is very de-
sirable. We want a philosophy of miracles — a foundation
wide enough to admit even the sceptic. Not that I would
advocate the abandonment of a single point that is tenable ;
but, instead of arguing, for example, with a Theistic writer,
that "all things are possible with God," and, upon this
foundation, proceed to defend the miracles of the Bible,
I would seek rather for some basis that accords with ac-
knowledged principles of philosophy, and take my stand upon
that.
In dealing with opponents of revelation it would also tend
to the simplification of points at issue, were the. various
objections urged against miracles classified under appropriate
heads. For example, the. cloudy array of direct and implied
assaults in Mr. Baden Powell's Essay in Essays and Reviews,
would appear much smaller if arranged, as they might bo,
under the three heads of objections drawn from moral, met a-
physical, and physical considerations. The question of the
historical fact of miracles, and their evidential value, would
fall under the first head; the bearing of the nature aud
attributes of God upon miraculous interposition would fall
under the second ; and the question of the compatibility of
the facts and discoveries in physical science with a belief
in miracles, would fall under the third. These questions
would, doubtless, be found to interlace in minute discussion ;
but such a classification would have two advantages, — it
would be convenient, and also tend to keep before the mind
257
facts and principles which we are in danger of undervaluing
or forgetting. , For example, while Mr. Powell is loud and
frequent in praise of what he calls "those grander concep-
tions of the order of nature, those comprehensive primary
elements of all physical knowledge, those ultimate ideas of
universal causation, which can only be familiar to those tho-
roughly versed in cosmical philosophy in its widest sense,"
he is not above stepping occasionally out of this " grander"
position to admit objections from humbler considerations of
a moral and metaphysical kind. Physical science contains
in fact but a part, and not the whole, of the scientific prin-
ciples involved in the acceptance or rejection of miracles.
Definition of Miracles.
It is of primary importance to define what we mean by a
miracle. Yet the task is not easy. Like faith, a miracle
scarcely admits of strict logical definition. But if we regard
miracles as direct, mediate, and providential, a definition may
be given that will suit all practical purposes. By a direct
miracle is meant such as God wrought immediately or without
the intervention of second causes ; as the act of creation. By
a mediate miracle is meant such as God wrought through
the instrumentality of chosen agents, as Prophets and
Apostles; abundant instances of which are to be found in
Holy Scripture. By a providential miracle is meant such as
God wrought by means of second causes, combined in an
" unusual manner ; as the advent of the swarm of flies or cloud of
locusts in Egypt, — events that could be explained upon natural
principles. Their evidential force as miracles lay in the occa-
sion and circumstances of their production, and particularly
in the foreknowledge displayed in their prediction and fulfil-
ment at a given time and for a specified purpose. A Bible
miracle, then, may be defined — " an event having for its
efficient cause the active power of God exercised directly,
mediately, or providentially, for the accomplishment of moral
ends, among free agent3."
All such statements as " violations " of nature, or events
" contrary to nature," adopted by Mr. Powell, ought to be
discarded. They do not describe a miracle in any sense;
for it is neither a "violation" of, nor "contrary" to, na-
ture. The expression " laws of nature " is misleading and
ambiguous.
" Nature," for example, is used sometimes to include the
active operations of Deity, direct and mediate (natura natwans),
and in this sense it may include miracles. Bishop Butler used
258
the term nature in this sense, but not to include miracles.
He said,—- " The only distinct meaning of the word natural
is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much
requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it
so, that is, to effect it continually, or at stated times, as what
is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once"*
Then, again, " nature" is sometimes used to include simply
the works of nature (natura naturata). But even here the
term is ambiguous and variously modified, for it is some-
times made to include both mind and matter ; at other times
it is used of matter to the exclusion of mind. " The term
nature (said Sir W. Hamilton) is used sometimes in a wider,
sometimes in a narrower extension. When employed in its
most extensive meaning, it embraces the two worlds of mind
and matter. When employed in its more restricted significa-
tion, it is a synonym for the latter only, and is then used in
contradistinction to the former .... With us the term
nature is more vaguely extensive than the terms physics,
physical, physiology, physiological, or even the adjective
natural; whereas, in the philosophy of Germany, Natur and
its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are, in
general, expressive of matter in contrast to the world of
intelligence.'^
Then, again, not only is the question of miracles often
clouded by this ambiguous tertn "nature," but we have
another word, " law," used as vaguely. " All things (said
Hooker) that have some operation, not violent or casual, — that,
which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth
moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the
form and measure of working, the same we term a law."J
" It is a perversion of language (said Dr. Paley) to assign
any law as the efficient operative cause of anything/' § " The
rules of navigation (said Dr. Eeid) never steered a ship, and
the law of gravity never moved a planet." " Those who go
about (said Hale) to attribute the origination of mankind (or
any other effect) to a bare order or law of nature as the primi-
tive effecter thereof, speak that which is perfectly irrational
and unintelligible ; for although a law or rule is the method
and order by which an intelligent being may act, yet a law, or
rule, or order, is a dead, unactive, uneffective thing of itself,
without an agent that useth it, and exerciseth it as his rule
and method of action." || " In the language of modern
* Anal., ch. i. t Reid's Works, p. 206, note.
t Ecc. PoL, book I. § Nat Theol., ch. i.
|| Prim, Origin, Horn., ch. vii
259
science (said Dugald Stewart) the established order in the
succession of physical events is commonly referred (by a sort
of figure or metaphor) to the general laws of nature. It is a
mode of speaking extremely convenient from its conciseness,
but it is apt to suggest to the fancy a groundless, and indeed
absurd analogy between the material and moral worlds. In
those political associations from which the metaphor is
borrowed, the laws are addressed to rational and voluntary
agents, who are able to comprehend their meaning, and regu-
late their conduct accordingly; whereas, in the material
universe the subjects of our observation are understood by all
men to be unconscious and passive. .... If the word law,
therefore, be in suoh instances literally interpreted, it must
mean a uniform operation, prescribed by the Deity to Himself;
and it has accordingly been explained in this sense by some of
our best philosophical writers, particularly by Dr. Clarke."* "A
law (said Dr. Whewell) supposes an agent and a person ; for it
is the mode according to which the agent proceeds, the order
according to which the power acts. Without the presence of
such a power, conscious of the relations on which the law
depends, producing the effects which the law prescribes, the
law can have no efficacy, no existence. Hence we infer that
the intelligence by which the law is ordained, the power by
which it is put into action must be present at all times and in
all places, where the effects * of the law occur ; that thus the
knowledge of the agency of the Divine Being pervades every
portion of the universe, producing all action and passion, all
permanence and change. The laws of matter are the laws
which He, in His wisdom, prescribes to His own acts ; His
universal presence is the necessary condition of any course of
events ; His universal agency, the only organ of any efficient
force."t
Taking, then, " law " in this, its true philosophical sense,
and the term " nature " as including both mind and matter, it
will be difficult to conceive in what sense a miracle can be said
to €t violate the laws of nature," or be " contrary to nature."
The laws of nature are not causes, but courses — they are not
efficient forces. Yet they are often spoken of in this decep-
tive sense. They cannot, with strictness or propriety, bo con-
fined to the material world. Yet this appears to be the sense
in which they are commonly understood when miracles are said
to be opposed to them. The mind of man has its " natural"
laws, as well as the material world ; hence we have a philosophy
* Phil, of the Human Mind, pp. 393-4.
f Astron., p. 361.
260
of mind as well as of matter. The laws of nature comprise
that mental, moral, and material order, according to which all
things are carried on. A miracle cannot be " contrary " to
mental laws, if free-agency is a fact. It cannot be " contrary "
to moral laws, if it is the result of divine energy, put forth for
ends that are good. It cannot be " contrary " to material
laws, if it is found to have its place in the eternal purposes of
God, equally with the succession of day and night, or any of
those moral and material laws according to which the world is
governed. There may be intersections among the mental,
moral, and material laws of nature. There are : — mind acts upon
matter and controls it, and the whole nature of man is held
subject to moral law. But a miracle breaks no law when it
neutralizes or suspends a lower — it falls in rather with the
general workings of nature. " We have (says Archbishop
Trench) abundant analogous examples going forward before
our eyes. Continually we behold in the world around us lower
laws held in restraint by higher, mechanic by dynamic,
chemical by vital, physical by moral [ mental ? ] ; yet we do
not say, where the lower law gives place to the higher, that
there was any violation of law, or that anything contrary to
nature came to pass ; rather we acknowledge the law of a
greater freedom swallowing up the law of the lesser." * This
passage was said by Mr. Powell to " evince a higher view of
physical philosophy than we might have expected from the
mere promptings of philology and literature." I hope that
we are all desirous of entertaining the very highest view of
physical philosophy, that is consistent with truth. I was not
myself aware that the "mere promptings of philology and
literature " were at all adverse to forming a correct estimate of
any branch of philosophy. On the contrary, I had always
thought that precise terms, and accuracy of expression, were
essential to all branches of philosophy. Mr. Powell was,
perhaps, right in saying that "physical by moral " in the
passage from Archbishop Trench, is " not very clear," and I
would suggest that " physical by mental " might remove the
point of the objection. The question of miracles, indeed, is inse-
parable from the question of the existence and supremacy of mind.
This is the fundamental point, the key to the right understanding
of the subject and the clearing up of its difficulties. Admit
the existence and supremacy of mind, and we can account for
miracles; deny this, and miracles are not only inexplicable
but impossible. And I believe we become defenders or
doubters of miracles just in proportion as we retain or lose the
* On Miracles, ch. il
261
fact of the mind's existence and supremacy. The exclusive
study of physics is calculated to beget materialistic habits of
thought. Physiology and physics have to do with organized
and unorganized bodies, and this department of. study implies
necessity of nature, rather than liberty of intelligence. Tho
natural bias, therefore, which it is liable to beget in the human
inind, is one in favour of materialism, and therefore of fatalism.
Its natural counteractive is in the study of mind. Mr. Grove,
in his address before the British Association, appeared to
betray materialistic habits of thought, if not unduly to exalt
physical science. He said, " While in ethics, in politics, in
poetry, in sculpture, in painting, we have scarcely, if at all,
advanced beyond the highest intellects of ancient Greece or
Italy, how great are the steps we have made in physical science
and its applications." Now it is only since the time of Bacon
that physical science has been studied with any degree of
success. " When we reflect then (said Dugald Stewart) on
the shortness of tho period during which natural philosophy
has been successfully cultivated, and, at the same time, how
open to examination, the laws of matter are, in comparison
of those which regulate the phenomena of thought, we shall
(1) neither be disposed to wonder that the philosophy of mind
should still remain in its infancy, nor (2) be discouraged in our
hopes respecting its future progress.'
»
Mind and Matter.
If we believe neither in God, Angel, nor Spirit, miracles are
plainly impossible. But if we admit the existence of God and
of spiritual beings, and the supremacy of Mind, then miracles
are, at least, possible. I would not appeal to Divine sovereignty
and omnipotence in support of miracles, because the argument
from this source may be questioned by doubters. However
true the conclusion, the process by which it is arrived at is not
satisfactory. It is an instance of the vicious circle in the eyes
of those who have thrown off belief in revelation. It is, there-
fore, better to seek a foundation, as I think we safely may,
among facts and principles in the field of philosophical inquiry.
Perhaps I cannot define very satisfactorily to myself what I
mean by mind, as distinct from matter; but I know that I
think, feel, hope, desire, and will, and I feel an irresistible con-
viction that my thoughts, feelings, hopes, desires, and volitions
all belong to one and the same being, viz., myself These
phenomena, I believe, exhibit the qualities of mind, and prove
its existence as convincingly as extension, colour, hardness, &c,
prove the existence of matter. At least, I cannot feel more
262
certain of the existence of matter than I do of mind. If I
am to draw a distinction, I feel the evidence for mind to be
stronger than the evidence for matter; for the former rests
upon my own consciousness of subjective facts, while the
latter rests upon my perceptions of what is, or what is thought
to be, objective. I cannot, then, deny the Ego, and claim
with any share of reason to believe in the non-ego. The non-
ego is the phenomena exhibited to my senses, the subject-
matter of physical science. The ego is the phenomena
presented by my own consciousness, the subject - matter of
mental and metaphysical science. "The evidence for the
existence of mind (said Lord Brougham) is to the full as
complete as that upon which we believe in the existence of
matter. Indeed, it is more certain, and more irrefra-
gable."*
Materialists, however, have doubted the separate existence
of mind, notwithstanding its greater rapidity of movement,
and the phenomena presented by it. But the attempt ha3
been illogical, the very points in dispute being taken for
granted, as a basis to argue upon. If we suppose the sub-
stance said to have the qualities of thinking, feeling, &c., to
be the same as the substance which is said to have extension,
hardness, &c, this supposition only proves the impotence of
materialism to grapple with its difficulties. Why should not
these two substances underlying the two different kinds of
phenomena, if they are to be considered as one and not two,
be mind, after all, and not matter ? To quote Lord Brougham
again on this point : — " We only know the existence of matter
through the operations of mind ; and were we to doubt of the
existence of either, it would be far more reasonable to doubt
that matter exists than that mind exists. The existence of
the operations of mind (supposing mind to exist) will account
for all the phenomena which matter is supposed to exhibit ; but
the existence and action of matter, vary it how we may, will
never account for one of the phenomena of mind."t
However, I am glad to feel myself at liberty to pass over
this point, because natural philosophers have given up the
question of substance, and confined themselves to the pheno-
mena exhibited, and the laws deducible therefrom ; and we
may follow their example, and leave out of the question the
nature of mind, confining ourselves to the phenomena it ex-
hibits, and the laws deducible therefrom. The two sciences
admit of precisely the same inductive principles, and may be
prosecuted safely side by side. The law of gravity in the one
* Discourse on Nat. Theol., p. 56. t JW& p. 106.
263
field has its analogy in the laws of association in the other.
Neither field has been barren of fruits, and a student in the
one need not undervalue the labours of a student in the
other.
It is obvious that miracles are impossible upon the principles
of materialism. Are they to be considered impossible or un-
reasonable upon the principles underlying a belief in mind ?
This appears to me to be the question, for although doubters
of miracles have mainly relied upon materialistic arguments,
which, if pushed, would go far towards subjecting mind to
matter, or excluding it from our books and papers, still I
believe most of them would repudiate all sympathy with mate-
rialism. We have therefore to meet objectors who will grant
the position which we have taken up thus far in reference to
mind.
Now the two worlds of mind and matter, with their sepa-
rate facts and phenomena, must be taken into account in the
settlement of the question of miracles, because no man ever
contended that miracles were possible apart from mind and
free agency. It is preposterous to attempt to settle this
question, connected as it is with the power and spontaneity
of mind or will, by an appeal to the bare order or course of
nature in its material aspect. Yet this is neither more nor
less than what is attempted mainly to be done by the oppo-
nents of miracles in the present day. "Whatever the value of
their conclusion may bo, it cannot be said to follow from their
premisses. Instead of the conclusion that miracles are scienti-
fically impossible, following, as Mr. Powell asserted, from the
" higher laws of thought," I venture to affirm that that conclu-
sion, in his own essay, was drawn in contravention of the first
principles of legitimate argumentation.
The supremacy of mind is a thing of daily experience. We
know that the laws of nature are under the control of our own
will to a limited extent. We are able to control the forces of
nature so as to produce what results we please. Matter bows
in subjection to the human will. Eesults are brought about,
which in the first instance, it is allowed, are traceable to mate-
rial or second causes ; but when these results are traced back-
wards, we arrive at last at the human will as their sole efficient
cause, acting upon the human body, and through it upon ex-
ternal nature. Here, then, we have an avreZovcriov or sui
potestas, which supplies us with the foundation of a legitimate
argument from the less to the greater, in favour of miracles.
The power of the Supreme Win exceeds that of man by an
infinite difference, and the freedom of the Divine Will must be
commensurate with Divine power. Miracles, then, as effects
264
having for their efficient cause the active power of God, are
not only possible, but, a priori, probable, from the limited
share of freedom and power which we know by experience
we have. We cannot conceive of a God of freedom never
exercising that freedom. Providence implies the constant
exercise of freedom. Without such an exercise there could
be nothing for us here below but fate. But this is con-
trary to the facts of human consciousness and the results of
mental study. Physical science might — if taken alone, it
would — lead to fatalism ; but the higher science of mind sup-
plies the counteractive to this uninviting, one-sided view of
nature, and leads the inquirer onwards to the great law of
freedom. We know we are free, and we cannot, without an
absurdity, suppose man, who was made in the likeness of
God, to be free to control the forces of nature, while He who
made man is not so. As to material nature, it is, of pur-
pose apparently, endued with a certain elasticity. The
orbits of the heavenly bodies bulge and flatten within a
given sphere ; so do the laws of nature, without any general
disturbance, bend before the will of man. This elasticity
appears to have been necessary for the harmonious working
and general stability of the universe. So may the moral re-
quirements of man have necessitated miracles to instruct
him in the knowledge of Divine things. Our social and
domestic well-being stands in need of the power and play
over matter which we know we have ; so may our moral and
religious well - being stand in need of that freedom which
miracles and the providential care of the great God imply
and presuppose. And the fact that we are formed with mind
and will, and the power to exercise a certain control over
nature's forces for our own happiness and good, warrants the
inference that our Maker is not only able but willing to suc-
cour and defend us where our own freedom and power cannot
reach. He knew from all eternity, doubtless, not only the
laws which He proposed to give to matter, but also the wants
of His intelligent and moral creatures. He had, doubtless,
a care both for the world's general working and also man's
benefit. What seems to us irregular, as miracles, cannot
possibly be so to Him, with whom there is no past nor future,
but simply an Eternal now — an Omnipresent here. Miracles
are the effects of His own free will and power, and they may
fall in with higher and wider laws than mere physical science
has discovered or can discover. Every separate department
of science may have a partial unity, but there must be a
universal science which compares together particular sciences,
and ascends to the whole pf things. " If there were cnly
265
a physical substance, then would physics be the first and the
only philosophy; but if there be an immaterial and unmoved
essence which is the ground of all being, then must there be
also an antecedent, and, because antecedent, an unmoved philo-
sophy J9 We agree in the doctrine that nature does nothing
per saltum ; theology, a term given by Aristotle occasionally
to what he called the first philosophy, has no hostile bear-
ing to physical science, it recognizes to the full the state-
ment natura non operator per saltum; but then it does not
exclude mind and intelligence when it seeks a basis for the
unity of science ; on the contrary, it teaches that such unity
is to be found solely in mind and intelligence, that is say, in
the Supreme Will of God.
c,0 T6 yap Gcoc SokcT ro alnov iratriv cli/cu Kai apxfi Tig, —
(Arist. met, lib. i. cap. 2.)
Objections drawn prom Moral Considerations.
Having stated the principles underlying a belief in miracles,
it remains that I notice some of the main objections to them,
drawn from moral, metaphysical, and physical considerations.
In doing this, I must study brevity as much as possible, lest I
should exhaust your patience.
Necessity of Miracles. — Lord Bacon said "that a miracle
was never yet performed to convert Atheists, because these
might always arrive at the knowledge of a Deity by the light
of nature." This remark was just. Upon the hypothesis
of the fall of man, however, and his consequent need of
redemption, miracles were antecedently probable. And upon
the further hypothesis (I put the case in the least dogmatic
form possible) of a revelation having been given, miracles
were absolutely necessary. Whether Mr. Powell's remark that
" Paley took too exclusive a view in asserting that we cannot
conceive a revelation substantiated in any other way," be true
or false, it is self-evident that a revelation could not have been
given except by miracle. It implies in its very nature miracles,
— the communication of truth otherwise unattainable. The call
of Abram, which I take to be the origin of the visible Church,
was supernatural, but not impossible upon the principles of
this paper. The communication of sacred truth to be written
down and deposited with the Church was supernatural, but
not impossible. (I am not here careful to draw any distinction
between the supernatural and a miracle.) Revelation began of
necessity by miracle, was continued and ended by miracle.
An outward visible Church, divinely called, and an outward
266
revelation divinely inspired, are correlates,— the one implies the
other, and each implies a miracle ;— neithqr could have been
began otherwise. Whatever, therefore, the value of miracles
as mere evidences may be, they were at least essential to the
nature both of a divinely-called Church and a divinely-inspired
revelation.
The Evidential Value of Miracles. — The value of miracles
as evidences, says Professor Mansel, " is a question which may
be differently answered by different believers without preju*
dice to their common belief. It has pleased the Divine Author
of the Christian religion to testify His revelation with evi-
dences of various kinds, appealing with different degrees of
force to different minds, and even to the same minds at dif-
ferent times."* This is a sufficient answer to the objection
that Christian writers are not agreed among themselves as to
the precise value of miracles as evidences. But as the miracles
of the Bible profess to move in the sphere of redemptive
work, and are themselves an essential and necessary part of
that work, I cannot see how we are to regard them as mere
evidences only. There may be a few of the miracles of the
Bible less closely connected with the gift and development of
revelation than others, but they were all either preparatory to,
essential parts, or confirmatory of God's revelation and will.
They cannot, therefore, be viewed apart from the truth itself
as mere evidences. The greater part of the hundred or more
miracles in the Old Testament, and the most remarkable of
them, cluster around the giving of the Law, the Exodus, and
the times of the prophets, who were inspired to write parts of
the Old Testament.
Present Need of Miracles. — It has been objected that miracles,
if needed at all, were never more necessary than at this present
time. "When were miracles (it was asked in Essays and
Reviews) more needed than in the present day to indicate the
truth amid manifest error, or to propagate the faith ? "t In
this question, I think, there are confounded the gift and de-
velopment of revelation, with a free acceptance of it; the
facts of its divine nature and bestowal with its actual propa-
gation. The faith, if it had to be propagated in every age by
miracle, would require nothing short of continuous miracles ;
which is absurd. But it would be very hard to conceive of
any miracle which could possibly be of service to those who
affirm that " testimony is but a blind guide"— that "the
essential question of miracles stands quite apart from any
testimony " — that " if we had the testimony of our senses to
an alleged miracle, it would not establish it." The objection,
* Aids to Faith. f Pp- 126-6.
267
indeed, is idle in the face of these assertions, for u where
Moses and the Prophets " are not heard in faith, we are plainly
told " neither would " the objector " be persuaded though one
rose from the dead " to convince him. As to the question,
" Ought any moral truth to be received in mere obedience to
a miracle of sense ? "* — I cannot conceive of any antagonism
between our moral sentiments and such a display of Divine
Power as a miracle implies ; but if it is meant to be insinuated
that moral perception is completely dissociated from sensi-
tivity, then I can but answer that I know of no theorist in
morals who has held such a monstrous and absurd position,
either in ancient or modern times. Mr. Powell divorced faith
and philosophy, and this last quotation implies apparently, a
divorce between morality and sense. What the ethical resi-
duum would be, we are not informed. But the spiritual and
moral parts of our nature are too much bound up with our
material economy to admit of any wild theorizing of this kind.
The supernatural is not so far removed as the materialist would
have us believe. Though miracles are not now wrought for
social and moral ends, we have a constant Providence, and
therefore a Supreme Will in constant play and activity—
— km yap ry ovap itc Aiog lam**
That " even a dream is from God " is old, in profane authors,
as Homer. The revelation of future events is a thing of rare
occurrence ; but it happens sometimes, and when it does hap-
pen, the law of suggestion can no more account for it than tho
law of gravitation. We know of no other way of accounting
for it, than by assuming that it is Deity communicating tho
future to our minds. The mode of communication is not easily
explained, it is hidden from us, like the link which binds to-
gether cause and effect in physics ; the fact of such commu-
nications, however, is, as Mr. Morell has said, " an internal
phenomenon, perfectly consistent" (no doubt) "with tho
natural laws of the human mind," though, it should be added,
not to be explained by them.
The Morality of Miracles. — Miracles being connected with
ends that are moral, must be themselves moral in their nature.
In the old dispensation, they partook of the severity of the
law as well as of its holiness ; in the new, they are almost
universally examples of mercy and redemptive power. The
death of the firstborn sounds a little harsh, but it was no doubt
an act of retributive justice, dealt back as a blow in return
* Essays and Reviews, p. 147.
268
for the death of the male children when Moses was born. It
was but a carrying out of the moral law, which sanctions the
" visiting of the sins of the fathers npon the children." I
would not be guilty of the impiety of calling in question the
goodness of God ; but I may be permitted, in reply to an ob-
jection sometimes urged against the miracles of the Old Tes-
tament, to say, that the loss of life by earthquakes, storms,
plague, and lightning at unknown and irregular periods,
might be and has been brought against the book of nature
with far greater force than anything said or done in the Bible
can be urged against revelation. Yet no one who believes
in God doubts that the earthquake and storm are parts of His
work.
Reason and Testimony. — Mr. Powell said, " testimony can
avail nothing against reason." " The question would remain
the same if we had the evidence of our senses to an alleged
miracle." " It is not the mere fact, but the cause or explana-
tion of it, which is the point at issue."
By " reason" I suppose we are here to understand the
conclusions arrived at from physical science, against which
" testimony" is said to avail nothing. Yet this very science
itself is built upon " testimony " and observation. The truth
is, that all reasoning whatsoever must rest upon authority ov
testimony of some kind. The data of reason do not rest
upon reason, but are of necessity accepted by it, on the
authority of what is beyond itself, viz., faith. But if it were
true that " testimony " can avail nothing against " reason"
where there is any antagonism, it must yet be proved that
such antagonism exists when we accept miracles upon proper
evidence. This proof, however, is not yet forthcoming,
and we may wait with perfect calmness. In the general or
abstract, reason itself depends upon faith and testimony for
its data, and the postulate that " testimony is but a blind guide"
can hardly be a safe one.
Objections drawn from Metaphysical Considerations.
The objections of a metaphysical kind that have been urged
are mostly such as are drawn from particular views of the
Divine attributes, as the Wisdom, Power, and Unchangeable-
ness of God. The Divine attributes are conclusions arrived
at from natural and revealed religion. The Divine Sovereignty
follows as an inference from recognized views of the Divine
attributes, — it can scarcely be called an attribute of itself, and
I would prefer to speak of it as a prerogative contained in or
dcducible from the Divine attributes. I would never appeal
269
to it, therefore, in any sense otherwise than is compatible with
received views of the Divine attributes.
The Divine Wisdom has been said to be opposed to miracles,
" on the plea that our ideas of the Divine perfections must
directly discredit the notion of occasional interposition ; that
it is derogatory to the idea of infinite wisdom to suppose an
order of things so imperfectly established that it must be
occasionally interrupted and violated when the necessity of
the case compelled, as the emergency of a revelation was
imagined to do."* Putting aside the "interpositions" implied
in the belief in a Divine Providence, I do not know how this
objection could be made to square with the views of some
eminent professors in physical science, with such a passage, for
example, as the following from Professor W. Thomson : —
" (1) There is at present in the natural world a universal tendency to the
dissipation of mechanical energy. (2) Any restoration of mechanical energy,
without more than equivalent dissipation, is impossible in inanimate material
processes, and is probably never effected by means of organized matter,
either endowed with vegetable life or subjected to the will of an animated
creature. (3) Within a finite period of time past, the earth must have been,
and within a finite period of time to come, the earth must again be, unfit for
the habitation of man as at present constituted, unless operations have been
or are to be performed, which are impossible under the laws to which the
known operations going on at present in the material world are subject."f
Those who deify the laws of nature might do well to consider
this passage. It does not fall in certainly with the spirit of
this objection to miracles, in answer to which I would make
three remarks. First, it is founded upon that misrepresenta-
tion which persists in calling a miracle a " violation " of the
" established order of things." Secondly, it confounds appa-
rently physical " imperfections " with the moral wants of man ;
a course well suited to create prejudice in the public mind,
but one which can have no other tendency than that of con-
cealing the truth. Thirdly, this very objection urged against
revelation, and miracles in particular, lies open, with whatever
force it has, against the book of nature and the creed of the
Theist who brings it. The "order of things" is charged
with " imperfection," if we suppose it to have stood in need
of any revelation or miracle. This supposition, it is said,
would be " contrary to our ideas of the Divine perfections,"
u derogatory to the idea of Infinite Wisdom /" Divesting
ourselves, then, of all ideas of revelation or miracle, let us
* Essays and Reviews, p. 136. (The Italics are my own.)
t Trans, of the Royal Soc. of Edin., 1852.
x
270
think for one moment upon the faot of absence or defect in the
powers and capacities of ten thousand created beings, even
in this age, when progress has got so far as to have forwarded
man, according to some, from an ape or monkey beginning, to
what he is now. The different grades of animals beneath U3
are wanting in that higher enjoyment which, with a more
" perfect " nature, they might have had. All sentient and
living beings are " imperfect " and limited in their natures.
What follows then ? Why we have, according to the Theist's
objection to miracles, ground to impeach the "Divine wisdom;"
the "established order of things" bears marks of "imper-
fection," that is to say, metaphysical evil ; for
There's nothing situate under heaven's eye,
But hath its bounds in earth, in sea, in sky.
But we find, besides " imperfection," also pain ; here again,
therefore, the " Divine perfections " are at variance, according
to the objector, with the " established order of things," for it
is " clogged" with. physical evil. There are, it is true, com-
pensating considerations; enjoyment may be heightened by
suffering, and even death itself rendered easy by a little pre-
paration on a bed of pain ; yet the fact of death and previous
suffering remains, that is to say, physical evil. And, further,
the Theist has also moral evil to " clog " his own system. He
is troubled, not only with imperfections, with suffering, but
also with sin. Man came into existence like other organized
beings, we believe, under a law suited to him as a moral agent ;
he was endued with knowledge and understanding, with free-
dom to obey or disobey. But he did not follow the law of his
nature — he does not do so now — he violates that law and falls
into sin. " What then shall we say to these things ? Shall
the thing formed (man with a free-will leading him into sin)
say to Him who formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ?"
This charge would be as reasonable as that against " Divine
wisdom," against " our ideas of the Divine perfections," on
the hypothesis of miracles. " The order of things " is not
freed from " imperfections " when miracles are taken out of
the way.
As to the unchangeableness of God, it has no special bearing
upon the question of miracles. The Theist, or the advocate
of " continuity," is as much open to its difficulties as the
Christian apologist. If God, from all eternity, purposed that
the race of man should make progress from an obscure begin-
ning, He may also have purposed that miracles should have
their place and use on the great theatre of time. God must
have a purpose, and that purpose must be fixed; but it may
271
have conditions which admit of human freedom being played
in its own orbit or within prescribed limits. There is, we are
sure, freedom even in dependence. The Almighty's omni-
potence does not swallow up that limited power which He
has assigned to man. His omnipresence does not blot from
existence that place which we, His creatures, occupy in space
and time ; His omniscience does not absorb nor quench that
little light which our reason gives us ; in short, the infinite
does not annihilate the finite; otherwise, dependence would
find no place in which to write its name, Divine Sovereignty
no creature over which to exercise its just control. The
unchangeableness of God must, therefore, be viewed in its
relation to other things, such as the Divine purpose.
There is yet another objection from metaphysics that pro-
perly falls to be noticed here. No testimony, it has been objected,
can reach to the supernatural, and therefore no miracle can be
proved by the evidence of sense. This objection was urged
for another purpose in a famous atheistical work (Systeme de la
Nature) published in 1780. The writer, said Lord Brougham,
" began by endeavouring to establish the most rigorous mate-
rialism, by trying to show that there is no such thing as mind.
The whole fabric is built upon this foundation ; and it would
be difficult to find in the history of metaphysical controversies,
such inconclusive reasoning, and such undisguised assumptions
of the matter in dispute, as this fundamental part of his system
is composed of. He begins by asserting that man has no
means of carrying his mind beyond the visible world, that he is
necessarily confined within its limits. He asserts what is
absolutely contrary to every day's experience, and to the first
rudiments of science — that we know, and can know, nothing
but what our senses tell us."* In Essays and Reviews the
objection against miracles (not mind) stands thus : " No testi-
mony can reach to the supernatural ; testimony can only apply
to apparent sensible facts ; testimony can only prove an extra-
ordinary and perhaps inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon ;
that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on
the previous belief and assumption of the parties/'*t The
objection, that we " can know nothing but what our senses
tell us," appears to me to, be the same as saying that " testi-
mony can only apply to apparent sensible facts :" but in the
former case it was urged to get rid of mind, in the latter, to
get rid of miracles. But Mr. Powell professed to believe in
mind ; he held that there is a world of intelligence — vonr6v, as
* Discourse on Nat. Theol. ; note, p. 235.
t Pp. 127, 128.
x 2
272
well as a world of sense, — bparov. The difficulty which occurs
to my mind is, how, upon the principles of this objection to
miracles, he could believe in those grand truths of physical
science which he parades so ostentatiously. Were we to confine
ourselves to bare facts, — "the testimony of sense," — even
physical science itself must stand still ; for how could we arrive
at the conception of a general law ? Generalization involves
a principle which experience or testimony neither does nor can
give. If, then, we cannot get outside "apparent sensible
facts," if evidence is bounded by the region of the sensible,
those very conclusions of physical science which are brought
against miracles can have no foundation to rest upon. But if,
on the contrary, we can rise to the conception of a general
law, and so leave behind us the region of the sensible, may
we not also rise to the conception of the supernatural, when
we see works performed in the name of God which no man
ever could of himself perform ?
Mr. Morell, a writer of philosophic acuteness, thinks that
Divine or religious truth is not received through the medium
of the senses or common understanding, but deep down in our
intuitive consciousness ; and there may be truth in this so far
as it relates to the theory of inspiration ; no doubt the highest
mental faculties, as the reason and conscience, are the media
of Divine communications. And in the case of miracles the
presence and aid of God, though unseen, may yet be felt, — it
was so when the Apostle said, " In the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, rise up and walk." * Here the Apostle disclaimed
the power to work the miracle himself, and he had " expe-
rience," if not " testimony," reaching directly to the super-
natural. Of course a spectator could not have this experience,
and the difference between present and past time has, in our
case, removed from the region even of the " sensible " to the
region of what is only " credible," the evidence for the miracles
of the Bible. But a spectator at the time, or a believer now,
in the fact of this lame man's cure, may ascend by legitimate
reasoning to the supernatural as the only adequate efficient
cause. The passage translated by Sir W. Hamilton from a
German work, and quoted by Professor Mansel, is worthy of
being repeated: — "Nature conceals God; for, through her
whole domain, Nature reveals only fate, only an indissoluble
chain of mere efficient causes, without beginning and without
end, excluding with equal necessity both Providence and
chance. An independent agency, a free original commence-
ment within her sphere, and proceeding from her powers, is
* Acts, iii. 6.
273
absolutely impossible. . . . Man reveals God ; for man by
his intelligence rises above Nature ; and, in virtue of this in-
telligence, is conscious of himself as a power, not only inde-
pendent of, but opposed to Nature, and capable of resisting,
conquering, and controlling her. As man has a living faith in
this power superior to Nature, which dwells in him, so has he
a belief in God, a feeling, an experience of His existence. As
he does not believe in this power, so does he not believe in
God; he sees, ho experiences nought in existence but Nature —
necessity — fate."
From facts within we rise to thoughts of God. The sensible
gives us knowledge of the external world. But the mind, in
virtue of its own intuition and energy, rises from effects to
causes. When it rises from effects to causes, it does so by
reasoning, as strictly and properly so called, as the inductive
philosopher in the process of generalization. Distance is not
seen; it is inferred in the mind. Anger is not seen; it is
inferred from the expression of the countenance. And God,
the Author of miracles, is not seen, yet His presence and
power are inferred from His works.
Objections drawn from Physical Considerations.
The results of physical science have been represented as
hostile to faith in miracles. Mr. Powell repeated again and
again, in round, b.old statements, without a fragment of argu-
ment or proof, that such hostility does exist. I have not,
however, myself been able to discover any argument against
faith in miracles from this source. " The grand truth of the
universal order and constancy of natural causes " is beside the
question.
Tilings which differ. — Mr. J. S. Mill confounds, in his chapter
on Induction, (see his Logic,) two things essentially different,
and Mr. Powell, in his Essay, has done the same ; viz. belief
in causation with belief in the uniformity of nature. Necessary
and contingent truths are not distinguished. That every
effect must have a cause is an intuitive truth, self-evident and
necessary ; that the operations of nature must be uniform, is
neither an intuitive truth, self-evident, nor necessary. Belief
in causation is a fundamental law of the human mind; uni-
formity of operation in nature is a thing simply of experience.
We could conceive of nature's operations being different from
what tliey are without any violation of the fundamental laws
of human belief. As to miracles, the question is simply one
of fact : the Bible affirms that miracles have been wrought,
and physical science has done nothing to disprove the Bible's
274
testimony upon this point. Physical science does not touch
the question as to the historical fact of miracles, and it has not
attempted to explain them. It has left them simply where
they were a century ago. I believe in the " grand truth/'
repeated so often and needlessly by Mr. Powell, " of the uni-
versal order and constancy of natural causes." It is " fixed, in
my windy so firmly that I cannot conceive of the possibility of
its failure," when left to itself. A miracle has nothing to do
with this "constancy/' or reverse, of "natural causes" — it is
simply the fact, or otherwise, of personal agency producing
special results. The phenomena produced by "natural
causes," that is, viewed as effects proceeding from merely
physical causes, are of necessity uniform and constant, being
subject to the law of necessity as opposed to the law of free-
dom j but the phenomena of mind or -personal agency are the
reverse — they are not of necessity uniform, being subject to
the law of freedom as opposed to the law of necessity. It
matters not what hypothesis is accepted to explain the
efficiency or activity of " natural causes." Mr. Stewart
enumerated six, and the law of natural selection and struggle
for existence, perhaps, might be called a seventh hypothesis ;
but whether we accept materialism, or the explanation that
the phenomena of nature result from certain powers com-
municated to matter at its first formation, or that the pheno-
mena proceed from general laws, or that the universe is a sort
of machine put in motion, and so constructed that the multi-
plicity of effects which we see are all to be traced to one
original ac€ of sovereign power, — I say it matters not which,
nor what hypothesis we accept ; they all come under the law
of necessity ; and are, therefore, foreign to the question before
us. Physics without mind may exclude the question of
miracles ; but physics alone can do nothing, either to argue or
settle such a question.
The real point. — Does the natural Exclude the supernatural ?
Are natural causes and effects so arranged as not to allow the
intervention of mind and personal agency ? Gravity draws all
bodies to the earth, but man puts forth his hand and arrests
the falling apple at will. Mr. Powell, however, affirmed that
"miracles are -inconceivable to reason," opposed to "the
primary laws of human belief." But by what primary law of
belief we are required to reject miracles without looking at
their evidence, is not said. The statements in Essays and
Reviews are naked and bold enough; but when we search for
argument, we find appeals to fact where reason fails, and
appeals to reason where facts are wanting. Miracles are not
" inconceivable to reason ; " we have no intuitive principles in
275
the mind which compel us to reject them. On the contrary,
when an effect is produced which cannot be accounted for on
natural principles, the mind rises naturally from the greatness
of the work to a supernatural cause. Neither have we any
experience to urge in behalf of the objection to miracles. We
have discovered uniformity of working among certain agencies,
and we have discovered diversity of operations proceeding
from the will of man. If it is replied, God does not work
except by His laws in the economy of material nature, we
demand in vain from Physical Science either reason or proof
for such an assertion. God's will is expressed in His material
works — whoever said it was not ? But when it is asserted
that His will is not expressed anywhere else, we again demand
of the physical student reason or proof, and find none. His
will, as expressed in His works, cannot, it is admitted, be
contrary to His will as expressed in His Word, or revelation ;
but neither is it so. There is no opposition; physical science
has done nothing to prejudice faith in revelation or miracles.
Material nature is elastic enough to admit of the play of the
human will, and if it can and does admit of the play of the
human will, it cannot shut out the Divine will. The chain
of antecedents and consequents, the <( grand truth of the
universal order and constancy of natural causes," therefore,
presents no argument against miracles as effects proceeding
from special causes.
Let the science of physics be cultivated in all its bearings to
the utmost extent; but do not undervalue the tools of the'
workman; do not exclude mind and the higher science of
mind. There is both room and need for the study of meta-
physics and mental philosophy, as well as of physics. "It
must be borne in mind (said the President of the British
Association) that, even if we are satisfied, from a persevering
and impartial inquiry, that organic forms have varied indefi-
nitely in kind, still the causa causans of these changes is not
explained by our researches ; if it be admitted that we find no
evidence of amorphous matter suddenly changed into complex
structures, still, why matter should be endowed with the plas-
ticity by which it slowly acquires modified structures is un-
explained. If we assume that natural selection, or the struggle
for existence, coupled with the tendency of like to produce like,
gives rise to various changes, still our researches are at present
uninstructive as towhy like should produce like, why acquired
characteristics in the parent should be reproduced in the off-
spring. Eeproduction is still itself an enigma." Without
another science, then, the doctrine of continuity is dark — we
lengthen out the chain backwards, it snaps asunder, and we
276
are left gazing upon a gap which nothing but Deity itself can
fill up. We agree that philosophy should have no likes or dis-
likes ; and, while a " glow of admiration " will assuredly be
permitted "to the physical enquirer when he beholds his orderly
development by the necessary inter-relation and inter-action
of each element of the Cosmos," we, too, viewing this neces-
sary chain of cause and. effect as concealing God when considered
alone, as exhibiting nothing but a dark and inevitable fatalism —
we, I say, may also be permitted a glow of admiration when
we find ourselves set free from the darkness which surrounds
this chain of endless causation, to behold in the purer light of
mind and intelligence the Cause of all causes, even Him u who
stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the
earth upon nothing."
THOU GET 8 ON MIRACLE 8. By Edward Bubton
Penny, Esq*, M.V.I.
IT has been said that " Scientific investigation plainly shows
that every department of Nature is under the control of laws
the most exact and inexorable"* — which may well be conceded ;
nor does it require any depth of " investigation " to arrive at
a fact so patent to all observers. We may, therefore, allow it
to be an axiom of science, and an " inexorable law " that no
effect can take place, in Nature or out of Nature, without an
adequate cause; and we add that one of these "inexo-
rable laws " is that the laws which " control " are necessarily,
and ipso facto, stronger than the Nature "controlled."
It has been said further, that " the whole course of Nature
is a chain of antecedents and consequents, bound together by a
necessary and absolutely certain connection entirely beyond the
reach of interruption or alteration; wid every event that happens
in Nature is the inevitable result of the laws and properties of
matter and force, which can neither be violated, modified, nor
suspended ; and beyond these laws and properties Nature knows
no other rule; they are alone and supreme" * — But the very
reverse of this is manifest in every " event in Nature," every
one of which is a breach, interruption, or overruling of one
chain of antecedents by another. The laws of inertia and
gravitation are broken through by vegetation; the chain of
consequents in vegetation is broken by the animal that feeds
upon it ; and, above all, the will of man disposes according to
his need, his pleasure, or his caprice, of all the chains of
* Vide Journal of Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. I. p. 95.
277
consequents, in every region or kingdom of Nature, mineral,
vegetable, animal, or elementary.
That the " laws which rule Nature" are " alone and
supreme " may be conceded, relatively speaking, L e., in respect
to the ruling of Nature ; but this is merely moving round the
circle of cause and effect, antecedent and consequent; the
question is, How these laws work, and how the manifold results
in Nature are obtained ? And the partisan of " science" who
has acknowledged that there is a God,* does not pretend that,
distinct from material Nature, there is no other ruling power
or law. Nature's laws, " ruling Nature," are themselves distinct
from and above Nature ; and, whether Nature " know " it or
not, we know that the Intelligence which established those laws
and ordained them to work out His unchangeable will, and
still upholds them in His hands, causing while yet placing
bounds to their mutual action and reaction, is necessarily
distinct from and above Nature.
The argument continues : —
" To assert that an event, or a series of events occurred, which
are contrary to this uniformity, which are not the result of these
laws and properties, but opposed to them, and incompatible with
them, is to assert the occurrence of an impossibility, and is simply
absurd" f
But we have seen that nothing is more " uniform," in the
sense here intended, in Nature, than the constancy of a
mutual crossing or counteraction in its laws, and that it is
not et incompatible " with these laws that one should be con-
tinually over-riding another, and producing thereby a new
order of results or chain of consequents, therefore miracles ; and
that without such opposition and mutual reaction of her laws,
Nature's only law would be speedily to die out and cease to be.
In miracles, commonly so called, Nature's laws are neither
violated nor modified in themselves ; one law is simply over-
ruled by another, a new chain of cause and effect being com-
menced thereby. The power which directs this over-ruling,
whether intelligibly to itself or not, is the worker of the
miracle. The vegetable germ, blindly exerting the powers
with which it is endowed, assimilates the earthy and gaseous
elements to itself, over-rules the mineral and atmospheric
laws, and works a miracle. The ox which eats the grass, and
converts its elements into its own flesh and bones, over-rules
the laws of vegetable life, and works a miracle. And, above
all, every act of man may be called a miracle, inasmuch as one
law of Nature is thereby, and that " inexorably," over-ruled
* Ibid. p. 96. t Ibid. p. 95.
278
by another, and a new chain of cause and effect commenced.
This, indeed, may be affirmed of every act or movement of
animal life generally ; the " uniform course " of Nature being
altered by every footfall on its surface.
But man's whole mission upon earth seems to be that he
should work miracles. He breaks the " uniform course " and
overrules the laws of wild Nature, and turns a howling wilder-
ness into a fruitful field or smiling garden, and subdues the
whole animal kingdom to serve his convenience, by the simple
process of opposing one law of Nature to another, by the
superior power of his own intelligence and will.
Neither vegetables nor animals " know " anything of the
laws by which they act or are acted upon ; they fulfil their
parts by a blind faith in the power implanted in their
germs and developed by the counteraction of other powers
ordained for the purpose by the Supreme Intelligence.
But man is not precluded from knowing the laws and power
by which he works, although the vast majority of men concern
themselves to know nothing about it $ and the nations and
peoples do their Creator's behest, and work the miracles they
were sent on earth to work, knowing little more of the secret
springs of their own life and action than the animals around
them.
Man has been called a Microcosm, because he unites in
himself something of the essences of all the kingdoms of
Nature, sidereal, as well as earthly. And it is manifest that
this must be so ; for, since he is capable of receiving the influ-
ences of the sun and the skies, of the atmosphere and the
earth, and of the animal and vegetable world living and
moving in them, there must necessarily be something in him
of the nature of all these things ; and the power which we
see he possesses to act upon Nature is in itself a proof that
he must have visible or secret connecting links homogeneous
with that Nature, vital and physical.
Some men are not only conscious of their power over Nature,
but exercise themselves in it, and strengthen it to a remark-
able degree. We may instance the Rareys, and tamers of
wild beasts or reptiles in all countries, who, by faith in their
power, and by the exercise of their will, tighten or relax
the secret sympathetic links at their pleasure, and make the
fiercest of such animals tremble at their look, and end by
lying down like lambs at their feet.
Of such are mesmerists, who, by the power of their will
alone, transmitted through the secret links which connect
them with their patients, send them to sleep and make them
do many wonderful things.
279
All power is of God ; and God has apportioned the use of it
to all His creatures according to their kind and to the purposes
of His goodness and wisdom. The vegetable and the animal
have each power after their kind, according to the work given
them to perform, while the secret springs of their action are
beyond their ken. But man seems to be master of the springs
of his own power (i. e. the portion with which God endowed
him) : he can strengthen them by exercise, and relax or destroy
them completely by disuse ; and he can direct them as he will,
either in subjection to inward inspirations of a pure conscience
(which is God's gift), or to the wild and lawless allurements
of his imagination or his passions.
In conformity with this freedom of choice, and indifferently
for good or for evil, we find at all times, and in our own day,
instances of men who, by their earnestness, enthusiasm, or
faith, have more or less powerfully moved the springs of
Nature, and done many wonderful works or miracles.
Religious enthusiasm, so called, has been the means of many
wonderful results ; and these results are of a nature according
to the direction of this enthusiasm or faith; and may be
characterized as good, or evil, or neuter. If this faith is
exercised in entire submission to the Divine light, its results
are in conformity ; and thus we see how a Moses was enabled
to overcome the magicians, and bring his people out of Egypt,
and separate them as a peculiar people, a light for the Gentiles
till Shiloh should come.
The magicians of Egypt and those of other countries, Fetish
Sriests, Fakirs, Medicine-men, and Marabouts of the present
ay, work many wonders or miracles, by moving the same
springs of Nature (for all their performances are not mere
jugglery) ; but their works lack the beauty of those of the
Divine order, and are rightly named occult, or deeds of
darkness.
The Chairman. — I am sure you will all return a cordial vote of thanks to
these two gentlemen for their very interesting papers. I think you will also
agree that Mr. English's Essay is one of the most valuable papers that we
have had yet brought before us, and I hope we shall now have a useful and
profitable discussion on the subject.
Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D. — I will trouble you with a few remarks
on the first of the interesting papers we have heard this evening ; and they
will not be in opposition, but rather in harmony with the arguments of
Mr. English. They have brought out (but not, perhaps, quite with the clear-
ness I could wish) two very important questions, which we have to consider
on the subject of miracles. On this subject there are two grand fallacies, in
my opinion, which are constantly urged by those who oppose miracles. The
280
first lies in the words " law of nature." What is a law of nature ? Who
enacted that law ? What Parliament met together, and by a majority of
votes decided there should be that law ? Why use the term "law" ? Because
it is something written down ? But you must remember, that though
" written," it is not enacted. Where is it written 1 It is written in our
own minds. From the observation of a certain set of phenomena, we find
underlying them a certain principle ; and we write that down on the tables
of our mind or on paper, and call it a " law of nature." But you must
not argue that it is to be treated as a human law passed amongst men. It is
not something to which a punishment is attached for violation ; — it is
not vindicated by the Lawgiver — we speak of a law of nature indeed ;
but there is the fallacy. A law of nature is, we must remember, not some-
thing by which, as people would seem to say, the Deity is bound, but some-
thing belonging to ourselves : it is a part of our own thought and of our own
consciousness. We, having analyzed certain phenomena, find a certain princi-
ple, as I said, underlying them, and we register it in our minds as a law.
But we have no business to impose it on others ; it is part of ourselves.
Therefore, when a person says, "I do not believe a miracle takes place,
because it is a violation of the laws of nature," he means that a miracle is
something which is different from his own especial observation ; he merely
asserts the limited character of his own observations. If a person tells me
that no testimony can be sufficient to make him believe that such a thing as
a miracle ever happened, he is in fact saying, " I am so convinced of the
superiority of my intellect and of my own generalization, that no testimony
shall prove to me there is an intellect superior to mine." We know how that
was answered in early times, and a hundred years ago, when Hume brought
forward his argument against miracles as being "contrary to experience."
The answer was plain. What do you mean by contrary to experience ? Do
you mean that miracles are not what people observe every day ? That is
what we mean, — something not met with in every-day experience ; — but if you
mean to say they are contrary to experience in this sense, that no person
has ever seen one, you are begging the question ; you are assuming what
you ought to prove ; you say these things did not occur, and when asked
why, your answer is the not very convincing one, " Because they did not."
The next fallacy to which I should like to call attention resides in the word
" Causation." What do you mean by causation ? The term is used in two
senses, which are apt to be confounded. In the first place, causation is taken
to mean, and really does mean, the sequences of phenomena which, as far as
our limited observation goes, are invariable. When we find that invariably
in our experience one phenomenon follows another, we say the first is the cause
of the second. That is the first mode in which the term causation is used.
There is another sense in which it is used, and a much higher one, which is
this — the operation of superior intellect on inferior existence. Now opponents
of miracles confound these two together. They say, no superior existence can
have exerted itself in a manner to which we are unaccustomed, upon
the works of creation. Why ? Not because they deny the power of intel-
281
lect ; but they argue in the other sense, that no phenomenon has power
in itself to alter the phenomenon which follows it. It is on a confusion
between these two meanings that I think some of the arguments alleged
against miracle are founded. I repeat, therefore, that we should guard
ourselves carefully against the confusion which exists in the words " law of
nature," and the other confusion which exists in the word " causation." I
think we can understand what a miracle really is. It is where a superior
intellect asserts itself in order to command the respect of an inferior intellect.
The inferior has attained to a certain "law," by such generalization as it
is capable of, but the superior at certain times steps in and introduces a
phenomenon which is not recorded in that generalization, and by displaying
that phenomenon shows its superiority. Let those who reject miracles
beware ; because in rejecting them, they say their intellect is superior to any
other intellect that can exist. They are, in point of fact, raising matter
nearly, if not quite, to Deity.
Rev. John Manners. — Since I have had the pleasure of joining this
Society, this is the first meeting I have been able to attend, and I wish to
make a few observations upon the excellent papers we have just heard ; and
first to " men of science n just a few words. I think it has been well said
that we are surrounded by a continuation of miracles in nature, using that
word in the fullest sense. Let us look at some of these mysterious agents for
a moment or two. There is what we call the principle of fire,— there is light,
and there is electricity, for instance. Now it really seems to be contrary to
the principle of light that two rays or wave3 should produce darkness ; and yet
two undulations of light, one following the other by half a length or a multiple
of half a length, do produce darkness. And so with heat : — two waves of heat
produce cold. And so of sound : — two waves of sound produce silence.
Now, this is in accordance with what may be termed the acting of recondite
powers, and is in order and harmony with the general principles by which we
are surrounded. I recollect when at Cambridge, after reading the Third
Book of Newton's Principia, there was something seemed wanting. We talk
of the law of gravitation ; but what is gravity ? Newton said, " With regard
to what it is, I do not pretend to understand, I won't venture to say ; but
with regard to the phenomena, I say, such and such things are produced by
it." But when we come to ask — What is it ? How came it about ? What
is the origin of all these forces of nature ? How is it that fire should burn ?
How is it that this electrical force does pass here and there ? How is it
all these effects are produced ? We must answer, — Not per se. There must
be something that pervades, that directs all these wonderful, beautiful, and
glorious powers. I would ask men of science to tell us why, if a little
bit of sodium is thrown into water, we see the wonderful effect of fire
and light brought into action ? How is it these pieces of potassium and
sodium accomplish this? Why this strange affinity for oxygen that it
actually seems to set .fire to water ? I want men of science to tell me
in plain words Iww these things are produced ; and I want to know why are
these things so beautifully harmonized : I want to know how it is there is
282
such order and harmony ? It is not enough to tell me, it is ; we can see
that But we want the living presence ; and this living presence (the solu-
tion to all the questions with regard to miracles) is the Most High, who
created all things according to His own will. Can you tell me how light is
produced ? Or what, on the other hand, is darkness 1 Why (for a third
instance) are all things in nature circular ? Whence these wonderful powers ?
We use the term " nature," it is true, as if we understood what is natural
and what supernatural ; hut all these things can only be understood when
connected with one beautiful order and harmony by the Almighty. Now, for
one moment again, to look at our individual selves, it is quite true, what was
said in one of the papers read, there must be connected with man somewhat
of all the principles of the material and spiritual universe, centred in him in
one way or another. How is it that words, for instance, declare " my will," and
that my thoughts spring up into ideas, and are embodied in the words I now
utter in this assembly ? Here are beautiful mysteries, proving that my
origin is not mere matter, not a merely temporary thing, not merely an
advance on a monkey ; but rather is it not in this way, that man is
" made in the image and likeness of God " ? Man feels that nothing is im-
possible with Him. When I go to the Gospels, I see the manifestation of the
Creator on the earth, in the marvellous things done by Christ's word. When
He speaks to the fig-tree, and commands it to bear no fruit ; there is a power
from Himself which goes forth — the thing is done ; and so in all His miracles.
He is thus a true light to me, and He solves all mysteries in creation by the
mysteries of redemption ; He brings to light the things of darkness, and leads
me and brings me home to that Paradise which I lost in the Fall. So we say,
again, that men of science, if asked the cause of electricity, answer they do
not enter into causes, and that we must be content with phenomena. But that
is no answer, and I know the best men of science will admit that there must
be a mysterious power besides, which they cannot reach. That leads us up to
the Eternal In Him we live and move and have our being ; and His living
Presence alone is the solution of the whole question.
Dr. Gladstone. — I should like to express the great admiration with which
I listened to the first of the papers read this evening. The second was also
interesting ; but I think we ought to avoid using the term miracles in the sense
in which it was employed in that paper, — a totally different sense to that
used in the first, and not miracles in the true sense of the word. Accepting,
therefore, miracles in the proper sense in which the term is employed in the
paper of Mr. English, I may perhaps be allowed to make one or two remarks.
The first is, that the paper scarcely went beyond showing (that, however, it
proved most conclusively) the possibility of miracles. It also stated, that
supposing God to give a revelation to man, not only were miracles & priori
possible, but also probable and necessary, because revelation itself was a
miracle. But it appears to me that supposing God is about to communicate
anything to His creature man, miracles are, a prioriy probable in another
sense besides that which is spoken of in the paper. It is quite clear, con-
sidering the power of man's imagination and the large number of false
283
religions which have come into the world, that if the Supreme Being wishes
to give a revelation to man, He must in some way authenticate that revela-
tion ; He must authenticate it to the man to whom He speaks, in order to
give him the power of convincing his contemporaries and successors that he
is actually speaking from God. Both for the man's own satisfaction and for
the satisfaction of those to whom he is sent, there is required some testimony,
something which the man cannot of himself produce ; and it appears to me
that there is no notice of this in the paper. Now, I cannot conceive of any
better credentials of a revelation than miracles— miracles in the sense which
includes prophecy, which is only a species of miracle —
The Chairman. — It is so stated in the paper.
Dr. Gladstone. — If we look through the Bible, we shall find, I think,
that miracles are spoken of almost universally in that way. They are the
testimony which God has given to His servants ; and when there has been no
revelation there has been no miracle. Trace throughout the whole history of
the Bible, and I think you will find this is almost always the case. There
may be a few instances in which miracles are wrought, not for testimony, but
to preserve the Church, and for certain purposes of goodness towards man ;
and it is possible we may extend the use of the word miracle to some of
those cases of recent times, wherein God seems to have interposed in the
history of the Church, so as to bring about what appears as a miracle, in
answer to prayer, or to serve some great purpose for the extension of the
Church. I do not know exactly, but it is matter for consideration, how far
the great change of heart that is wrought by the operation of God's Spirit
should be regarded as a miracle or not. As to what has led to such observa-
tions upon miracles as Mr. Powell put forth, I think I can better understand
that feeling, perhaps, than the writer of the Essay. There is no doubt in
my mind it has arisen from the great attention paid recently to the uniformity
of Nature's laws. Now, that has an effect upon the mind, if we consider it
too exclusively. We begin to feel that a miracle comes in as something inter-
fering with the grand march of Nature ; that it belongs to something alien,
which does not come within our philosophy. We know this can be upset
most thoroughly by reasoning such as has been brought forward this evening.
And what is the result of this ? It shows us, how difficult it is to perform
miracles ; and therefore, supposing we have, on the ground of sufficient tes-
timony, proof that miracles have been performed, it proves with increasing
force that those miracles are not the action of chance or of evil spirits, but of
Him who rules all things.
Mr. Wabjnqton. — I may say that I think the first paper read this evening
deals with the question of miracles more fully and impartially than I ever
remember hearing it before treated of. I do not mean, that the subject is
exhausted, nor the matter put everywhere in the best point of view, for it
strikes me it might be expressed better and- clearer ; but that there is no
one element necessary for the right understanding of miracles overlooked.
The remarks I have to make refer to some expressions of preceding speakers,
and a few points in the paper which I think will bear a slight amendment First,
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as to the preceding speakers Dr. Thornton argued, that because we could not
assert our generalizations, on which our conceptions of law were founded, to be
complete, we had no right to assume there were any laws at all ; and there-
fore to assert any event to be opposed to natural laws was impossible —
The Chairman. — I think Dr. Thornton stated nothing of that kind. I do
not disagree with your statement, but it is only fair for me to say so, in
justice to Dr. Thornton, who has now left the room.
Mr. Warington. — Dr. Thornton stated that our knowledge of phenomena
was necessarily imperfect in every case ; and he seemed to think that as that
fact made our generalization equally imperfect, therefore we could not regard
the generalization as equivalent to law. I ask is that true practically ? Of
course, I agree with him theoretically, but not practically ; and the question of
miracles is a practical question. We have no absolute demonstration that
miracles were performed ; we have merely a certain number of probabilities.
We cannot then demand demonstration against miracles if we cannot give it
for them — I mean mathematical demonstration. For what does our know-
ledge depend on ? For instance, I heard Dr. Thornton speak. How did I
know what he meant by what he spoke ? Simply from a limited amount of
observation as to what certain words signified. I cannot pretend to lay down
as a fact that those words never could mean anything else. My generalization
is imperfect I cannot say it is a mathematical law that a certain word
means a certain thing. I have only probability to guide me ; I take that and
act upon it ; and I am practically right. Theoretically, however, I am not
certain of the meaning of the words said to me ; yet, practically, I am right
in acting as if I was. Just so with miracles. It is quite sufficient if the
objector can show us a certain amount of probability against them without
being able to give demonstration , for that is impossible. This is the great
fallacy that runs through Mr. Mozley's otherwise able book on miracles.
He has assumed that because all laws of science are founded on imperfect
generalizations, therefore they cannot be taken as proper reasons for coming
to any conclusion. If that is admitted, we have no real reason for coming
to any conclusion on any subject ; because in every case our reasons are
simply dependent on probability, and not on mathematical demonstration.
Then, — to take a point mentioned by a speaker before Dr. Thornton, — Why
do not men of science inquire into the reason of things ?
The Chairman. — It was not asked " Why do not men of science inquire
into the reason of things ? " You are imputing an expression never used by
Mr. Manners.
Mr. Warington. — I mean the reason why bodies have certain properties —
why laws exist. I understood he asked why men of science did not go
further, and ask why bodies have certain properties ? If it is the fact,
however, that we are unable to go back to this primal cause, is that any reason
for our not taking the amount of scientific knowledge we have, as a fair ground
and basis of reasoning ? Can we arrive at the primal cause of anything ?
No. In any subject, the instant you go back to what is the primal cause why
such and such a thing is, you are at sea ; and therefore there is no blame to
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physical or natural science, if it also fails in this particular. Thus there is no
valid reason why the deductions of science may not be used in considering
miracles. I notice this point, because I am loath to see arguments put
forward which will not bear scrutiny. There are so many at the present
day who are inclined to scrutinize everything put forward on behalf of
miracles, that it behoves the defenders of miracles to be cautious what argu-
ments they use. Then to come back to the paper itself ; there was one point
which seemed to be a little overdrawn — that which referred to the un-
changeableness of God. Mr. English argued, because man was free, God
must be free ; because man in his freedom did not always do the same
things, but his actions were varied, there must be a larger latitude of freedom
and of variableness assigned to God. If you look at the two statements, the
parallel seems striking ; but go lower, and it seems to me the parallel drops
out. Why is it, that man having a free will, produces variable results ? Because
his knowledge is imperfect, and he does not know what is best for himself.
If his knowledge of nature was perfect, if he was perfectly aware what was
the best thing to be done, his will would be unchangeable ; he would do one
thing and never swerve from it, and with all his freedom of will there would
be absolute uniformity. Is not that the case with God ? Has not God not
only perfect freedom, but also perfect knowledge, perfect acquaintance with
what is best ? Does it not therefore arise from the nature of God, that His work
is uniform and unchangeable, just as that from the nature of man his work
is un-uniform and changeable ? It seems to me that this point was overlooked
by Mr. English. I am quite aware that he adduced reasons further on in his
paper, which account for God's interference with the uniformity of nature,
but I submit that this one point of comparison was overdrawn. Then I
will make two further remarks ; first, on the essence of a miracle. What is
the essence of a miracle ? It is, that it contradicts the uniformity of
nature ; for if not, it would be no miracle at all. And further : that it not
only contradicts the uniformity of nature as seen in outward phenomena,
but as the result of scientific law. For if we can show that miracles thus
regarded were not contrary to nature, but were really in harmony with law,
they would at once cease, upon this view, to be miracles at all. Therefore,
it was essential to the very nature of miracles that they should be contrary
to law ; and so when advocates of miracles endeavour to reject the idea of
a violation of the uniformity of nature, they are really cutting their own
throats. One word more, as to the purpose of miracles. I take it that every
miracle was performed, not as matter of evidence for another thing, but as
matter of evidence in itself. I think that point has been too much over-
looked. When you find in the Gospel history one miracle following rapidly
after another, you cannot say each was performed as an evidence of something
beside itself; but you can say that there was always an object for the miracle
in itself, — a direct object, which we must hold as the true one, the indirect
object merely as a subordinate one. I believe these two points have not been
thrown out in the paper itself, nor in the remarks of those who have
spoken. I do not say they are original : it struck me however that they
Y
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were of sufficient importance to make it worth while to add these re-
marks.
Captain Fish bourne.— It strikes me that Mr. Warington has misunder-
stood Dr. Thornton. Dr. Thornton said this ; — that we observe phenomena
and deduce a law from that ; but this was a " law/' he said distinctly, with
reference only to us, and not binding upon the Creator ; that it was, after alb
the law merely of our finite faculties and observations, and might not be true
theory, but that by further observation we might arrive at the feet that we
had not known the law at all, and therefore our arguments would fall
to the ground. He specifically said that the tendency to measure the
Infinite by our finite conceptions was tending to deify man and lower the
Deity. That I think was his view ; and surely that is the tendency of such
reasoning.
Rev. Dr. Irons. — I should be sorry that a subject of such importance should
come before us without receiving grave consideration, and you will readily
believe that it is one which could not but have occupied my mind frequently
in the closest way. I feel that much that Mr. Warington said was extremely
valuable ; but from one part of his speech I must beg to differ, because his view
seems to me almost to destroy the very essence of volition in the Deity. I sup-
pose it is quite competent for the All-Perfect Being to make His own creation
according to His own choice, and all " very good." But I cannot conceive
of the All-Perfect Being being so fixed in one volition as to be unable to make
another creation. That seems to me to be almost an Atheistic conclusion.
I must be forgiven for saying that, because I am sure nothing was further
from Mr. Warington's thoughts than any such conclusion ; but it seems to
annihilate God, if we deprive Him of volition or choice. Passing from this,
which was the principal if not the only point from which I differ, in Mr.
Warington's remarks, I would address myself for a few moments to the great
question which is before us ; because if this Institute is in any degree to
affect the general course of thought in the scientific world, or the world of
literature, it must deal carefully and closely with such a subject as the present.
It appears to me that we overlook the fact that the whole course of dis-
cussion and controversy on this subject seems as if intended to place the
advocate of Christianity at a disadvantage. It is assumed at the outset that
there is one and only one " order of nature." In the next place, it is taken for
granted that the order of nature is linked together by inexorable conse-
quence,— a law of causation absolutely inviolable. Then it is concluded that
any revelation that comes forward must put in the foreground a violation of
that order of nature as the very guarantee which it produces for itself. And
lastly, it seems to be assumed that we are bound to accept the word of any
violator of a law of nature, as though the power of his violating that law
constituted him a teacher for our consciences. On all these points, I take
my stand. I decidedly object to that way of putting the whole question. I
do not think that there is only one law or order of nature. We may grant
that there is already ascertained by the observation of mankind one general
and pervading physical law, as we term it, extending not only throughout
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this world, but, according to the remotest observations which we hAve made,
reaching to the most distant objects. But there is another order of
nature besides that which regulates the starry system. The order of
nature which there prevails is surely entirely distinct from the laws of right
and wrong in the human conscience, for example. There is a moral order
of nature — an entirely different thing from that material or external order of
nature. I do not say they come into collision, but I mention that moral order
of nature to show my position, that we are wrong in assuming there is but
one order of nature, and that all things are ruled to happen in one way. I
point to the laws of right and wrong, of justice, generosity, and truth, between
man and man, which cannot be altered or changed by our mere will or caprice ;
for what is equity here cannot be inequity elsewhere. By the general
conscience of mankind these laws are acknowledged ; and therefore, I say,
there may be other orders of nature besides that moral order of nature. I
entirely dispute the assumption, as unfair to the whole subject, that there is but
one order, and that a physical order of nature. But not only do I object
to that assumption, but to the assumption, for which we have not yet I think
sufficient data, that the physical external order of nature is bound together by
such inexorable principles of causation as that it is utterly inconceivable that any
natural laws should reverse or change. Now it is perfectly conceivable, I do
not say it is probable, that the doctrine of Mr. Hume in the last century may
eventually be accepted as truth in philosophy. Mr. Hume affirmed there
was no such thing as efficient causation in nature, — that one event lies by the
side of another like two stones in a quarry ; and Mr. Mozley, in the book
referred to by Mr. Warington, has actually assumed Mr. Hume's principles ;
he has taken the very doctrine of the sceptical philosopher, and has argued
for the doctrine of miracles from Mr. Hume's premises. He seems to me,
however, thus to destroy the very foundations of theology in his eagerness
to construct an argument for miracle. Mr. Mozley says : — "Philosophers now
are agreed that there is no efficient connection between one event and another."
That is his argument ; and thus he destroys the whole ground for believing
in God Himself, or the Great First cause. Anything more monstrous I could
scarcely conceive. Yet the Quarterly Review has praised his lectures, which
are sceptical, and the University of Oxford, I am sorry to say, has received
them with almost unmixed applause. I ask any gentleman present to give
himself the trouble of reading the first two of those lectures to test what I
have said. I am only referring to this, however, to illustrate the proposition
that it is entirely an assumption, an unfair assumption, that efficient causa-
tion is beyond all relaxation defended ex necessitate, by theologians more
than others, if any party in the scientific or theological world has an
interest in defending it, I should say it is the scientific men ; but if they
repudiate it, that is their affair. They will find it difficult to proceed without
it In the next place, suppose we were to grant these two concessions, then
we have to meet a third difficulty. If we grant there is but one order of
nature, and yet find morality must be in some way twisted into the physical
order of things ; and if we concede that there is efficient causation which
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cannot possibly be evaded ; still the third difficulty in our pathway is this,
that this invasion of the necessary efficient causation of things is absolutely
to be fastened upon us as a condition of revelation. I see not, if it pleases God
to give us revelation, why He may not give it us with or without miracles, as
He pleases. I am not prepared to bind myself down beforehand to any such
philosophy as this, that if it pleases God to reveal Himself to man, He shall
and must of necessity work a miracle to convince man. No : the difficulty in
my mind at once is this, that if there be such a necessity, then every man who
has an interest in revelation can demand a miracle for himself in particular.
If the thing ex necessitate belongs to revelation, and if it must be guaranteed
to man's mind in that way, we might all demand miracle. We shall at once
acknowledge there is a difference between seeing a miracle and having a
record of it handed down through very distant media, requiring a great
deal of testing. I cannot conceive of miracles wrought eighteen hundred
years ago, in order to be tests of faith for us in the nineteenth century, as
standing on the same footing exactly as miracles wrought before our own eyes.
So, if men are determined to put theological argument on such a basis, they
may require a miracle for each of us. But, supposing these assumptions and
difficulties were got over, we come at last to this. Where is the necessary con-
nection between the working of a miracle and the convincing of man's con-
science of right and wrong ? For if we admit our own records, if we admit the
Holy Scriptures, we shall see that miracles are very far from being confined
to good agents. Pharaoh's magicians are said to have wrought miracles as
well as Moses. I do not see how, on purely natural principles, there should
be any connection between the working of a miracle and the truth of the
doctrine of the man who worked it. — Now, thus far we have been speaking
of miracles without at all defining nature, and I have not heard anything
like a definition of what we mean by nature. We come here upon a wide
subject, which our scientific men seem to me to take a great deal of pains to
avoid. I recollect that Cuvier, in the beginning of his Animal Kingdom, — I
think in the first chapter, — takes pains to describe what he meant by nature. He
meant the properties, first of all, distinguishing any individual being ; so that
the properties of a man or of a stone are not the same. The nature of one is
not confounded with that of any other. We know what this means ; the
human being has human nature ; and however difficult the definition may
be, I am not prepared myself to find fault with this definition, that the
nature of an individual is that which constitutes him with certain properties,
so that he is what he is. We are taught in Scripture that God's nature (I
speak with reverence) is best defined " I am that I am." But, beyond this,
Cuvier says there is a law of relation which prevails, connecting various
natures or classes of being. That is the all-pervading law which he calls
general nature. This individual and this general law of nature ought to be
thoroughly apprehended oy us before we can speak of exceptions to the law.
Put before any man anything astonishing, and, if ignorant, he will think it a
miracle. If he does not know very well the laws of his own being and of
general being, he would be likely to err on that subject ; for we cannot
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arrive at any clear conception of a miracle unless we have a wide acquaintance
with nature —
Mr. Reddie. — May I interrupt the Reverend Doctor ? I think we had
better assume that we do know something about nature, and discuss
miracles ; or I do not see when we shall draw our arguments to a close.
The Chairman. — I am exceedingly interested in what I am hearing ; but
perhaps Dr. Irons will be kind enough to bring his argument more to the
subject of miracles, for time presses.
Rev. Dr. Irons. — I feel there is justice in Mr. Reddie's suggestion, that
the course on which my mind was entering, might take further time than is
convenient to-night. I will now, therefore, confine my observations to a
narrower compass. I was saying we cannot understand a miracle, unless we
form to ourselves an idea of what we mean by nature ; and here seems to me
to be the great difficulty in which this whole discussion is involved. People
assume that a miracle is a violation of a law of nature. That is somewhat
premature. Why may it not please Almighty God to perform other actions
more astonishing and more surprising than anything apparently yet per-
formed by Him ? Miracles may or may not be what they seem to us to be,
u violations of the law of nature," but I shrink from saying that God violates
His own laws ; I do not like that way of putting it. He performs, let me
rather say, supernatural things ; but any being who performed a wonderful
thing, if greater, wiser, and mightier than myself, would seem to me to
be doing something surprising— in other words, a miracle ; and we are not
in a position to say how far what is so done is a violation of natural
law, or whether, if it be so, it is not also in conformity with some
higher law. I will now condense in a sentence or two the practical conclu-
sion to which this argument should lead. A Divine revelation, we may be
sure, will speak for itself. We believe God has given two revelations : we
acknowledge that God has spoken by Moses and Christ. There are the
Jewish and the Christian revelations. Let any man look now at the Jewish
people, he there will see what a standing miracle that people is. I defy any
one to study their history, without feeling there is something more in that
history than is the result of natural causes. It is a miracle. There is a
real revelation. It is a miracle quite apart from the miracle of
the Red Sea, or others that were wrought, as recorded in the Old
Testament. The language itself, the existing Jewish nation and insti-
tutions, are absolutely supernatural. You cannot look in the face of
the people at this day — they are living like the burning bush, unconsumed
from age to age — without feeling that God really did a supernatural thing in
taking that family and stamping a character upon it for Himself and for
us. They may deny revelation, or own it ; there they move, and wherever
they exist, they tell that God has done it. So also the Christian revelation.
I do not appeal for its proof to any one of the recorded miracles of the New
Testament ; I appeal to the thing itself. There was (the world said) a young
man, a Galilean, put to death in the reign of Tiberius. In the reign of Con-
stantine, that young Jewish peasant was worshipped^— worshipped through-
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out the Roman world ! That is a miracle ; — let the infidel make what he
can of the fact. We point now to the simple words of that same Jesus
of Nazareth, that the gates of hell should never prevail against the system
He was going to found ; and we are quietly confident ; we know, come what
may come, — mat ccdum, — science and human knowledge and power, and
" heaven and earth shall pass away, — but His words shall not pass away."
Mr. Reddie. — I must apologise to Dr. Irons for interrupting him. He
will quite understand that it was only because our time was pressing, and I
was anxious to bring him back from very wide questions as to general
nature to the subject of miracles. Taking his concluding observations, how-
ever, I must say that I do not think that even they quite bear upon the
precise question we have before us. They are most interesting and im-
portant) I admit ; and no doubt, in a certain sense, the propagation of the
Christian religion and the existence of the Jews among the nations, are what
we might call, in common parlance, " standing miracles." But we are now
discussing " miracles," in the ordinary sense, as signified by a precise word,
having a definite meaning. The question is not one of the super-naturalism
of revelation, or of grace ; neither is it a question of the marvels of nature,
many of which were referred to by Mr. Manners in very eloquent terms.
A stranger present might suppose that nobody here understood what we were
talking about, or really knows what a miracle is ; and yet every common
person in Judea knew what a " notable miracle " was ! In order to discuss
our subject, we do not require to know all the laws of nature. Nobody ever
alleged either that miracles were violations of all the laws of nature, or that they
are standing violations of any natural law. Such a statement, if ever put
forward, would be inconsistent with simple fact. We have only to deal with
miracles as exceptional violations of distinct and simple laws, with which we
are perfectly well acquainted. For instance, the very first miracle that our
Lord wrought, was to convert water into wine. Now, we know that by the
laws of nature, water will remain water, and we cannot even conceive any
" higher law," of any kind whatever — I put it to the most fertile imagination
of the most imaginative man of science or modern theologian — we cannot, I
say, conceive any possible " law n by which water could ever become wine.
I must further say, that I think it is a great mistake to attempt to defend
miracles upon any such principle as that they may perhaps be the results of
other " laws." The very gist of them, the very object for which they were*
wrought, (and I think, in saying this, I shall yet gain the assent even of
those whom for the moment I oppose,) was to show that they were
wrought independent of all law, by means of the direct power of God. Even
the very opening sentence of our paper, speaks of them as the " miraculous
interpositions of the Almighty ; " and that is exactly what a miracle is. I
must, however, quarrel somewhat with Mr. English's more formal definition.
He divides miracles into three classes, direct, mediate and providential ; but I
venture to say that only one of these classes is what we have properly to deal
with. As an instance of a " direct miracle," he takes the act of creation as
being the direct act of God. Well ; if so, then every marvel of nature, such
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as our own existence, is a miracle. Of course our life is marvellous, — all
God's works are ; but still this is not what we mean by a miracle —
The Chairman. — I think that the creation of matter out of nothing is a
miracle.
Mr. Reddib. — As a fact, when we speak of " the miracles of Scripture,"
we do not include creation. Bishop Butler properly argues that creation is
antecedent to law ; but the " miracles " we speak of were wrought after crea-
tion, and so they come after law ; and therefore they are not the same as the
" miracle of creation/2 if you will call creation a miracle —
Rev. Dr. Irons. — They might belong to another law, although not that
law. I pointed out two laws at least.
Mr. Reddib. — I am prepared to maintain that miracles do not belong to
any " law " whatever ; and I shall be glad to hear what can be said in reply,
when I have finished my argument. Then we come to what Mr. English
calls " providential miracles " — the swarms of flies and of locusts in Egypt.
Now, I say that these, but for the intervention of Moses in having put forth
his rod and summoned them, as it were, and they having come when called,
would not have been miracles at all. A cloud of locusts or a swarm of flies
now, however great, would not be considered as miraculous ; and, in fact,
such things are not in themselves miracles. Besides, if we take the whole
facts of the case, these miracles, as defined by Mr. English himself, simply re-
solve themselves into what he calls " mediate miracles," for they "were wrought
by God through the instrumentality of a chosen agent," Moses. Those
" mediate miracles," I contend, are the only "miracles" we have to deal with ;
for I know of nothing which is commonly called a miracle*, except what has
been wrought in that way. — But it is a mistake to suppose that scientific men
have invented the statement that miracles are violations of the laws of nature.
It is the language of our own orthodox and best theologians. And on that
point I must agree with Mr. Warington, I must differ from Mr. English,
and I must defend Mr. Baden Powell. It is not often that I find myself on
the same side of an argument with that writer ; but truth is truth ; and I
think I shall be able to prove him right, and, in justifying him, I shall give
such high authority for the statement that miracles are necessarily violations
of the laws of nature, as will not be lightly disputed by any theologiail
present. That language, in fact, was only adopted by Mr. Powell, and not
invented by him ; for, in addition to the passage Mr. English has quoted, — in
which Bishop Butler says that "the only distinct meaning of the word natural
is stated, fixed or settled" — there is another passage inthe Analogy (Part II.
chapter 2, § 2,) which defines the word miracle in these terms : — " A miracle,
in its very notion, is relative to a course of nature, and implies somewhat
different from it, considered as being so." In other words, if it were
not contrary to nature, it would not be a miracle. But to turn water
into wine is a miracle. You may deny the fact of the miracle ; but
if you admit it, its character is unquestionably this, that it is contrary
to that stated course of nature by which the water would remain in
statu quo : it is a violation of this ordinary course, or " law," of nature ; and
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I can find no difficulty about " the expression ' laws of nature/ " such as our
essayist and some previous speakers seem to have felt. Mr. English gives the
instance of the hand, by the human will, arresting the fall of a stone ; and
he speaks of our being " able to control the forces of nature " by our will ;
while Mr. Penny says that " every act of man may be called a miracle." Well,
I am as much a part of " nature " as the stone is ; and though my powers are
different from that which presses down the stone, and from any inorganic
force in nature ; still, to exercise my power to arrest the fall of a stone which
is not too heavy for my strength is no miracle. I must protest against this
confounding of terms. The use of philosophical disquisition is not to con-
found and confuse, but to discriminate and analyze. Were I to arrest the
fall of a stone a ton in weight, of course that would be considered super-
human ; but whether it was truly supernatural or not might be a question,
as we know that some men have naturally extraordinary strength. If I
were to say I could do this, although it was known that previously I could
do nothing of the kind, and if I attributed this power to God, people might
well believe it to be a miracle. I further think that Mr. English made a
mistake in attempting to find a theory of miracles, or an argument in support
of them, that would include the sceptic And I not only think he has failed
in this attempt, but that it would have been a pity if he had succeeded. I
say so, because in this matter "the sceptic" means the denier of
the power of God — not merely a sceptic as to revelation, but rather an
atheist, — and it would only be doubly irrational to believe in miracles and not
in Deity. I am glad also to find that throughout the paper (the whole tone
and main arguments of which I agree with, though obliged thus to criticise,)
the real view of the writer crops out in spite of his intention to discuss the
question " without reference to the omnipotence of God" ; for in one place he
speaks of miracles as " God's miracles ;" in another, -as having for " their
efficient cause the active power of God ;" and, in fact, throughout his paper,
as summed up in his concluding words, you will see that his whole argument
has really reference to " the Cause of all causes ;" and I must say I should
not know the use of miracles at all if they did not especially and purposely
point in that direction. But I think I now have nearly done with criticism
as far as it must appear to be adverse to the paper. There is, however, one
incidental passage I must noticebefore I proceed further to substantiate the
general drift of the paper by anew argument not hitherto advanced. The pas-
sage I refer to is where the Almighty is described as being " an Eternal Now —
with whom there is no past nor future." I am aware that this has become a
mode of speaking of Deity which might almost be said to be fashionable ;
but I must object to it, if meant to be taken literally. At all events, as we
cannot be supposed to comprehend Deity, and if we cannot ourselves under-
stand how " past, present and future should be as one " — if to us such a
notion is absolutely unintelligible — and if this notion is merely a concep-
tion of our own applied to Deity, then I must protest against it ; and I
will point to a single passage in Scripture which is entirely in opposition to
this view. Christ as God is described as " Alpha and Omega, the beginning
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and the ending" — "which is, and which was, and which is to come — the
Almighty." So there is a Scriptural definition that expressly applies the
past, the present and the future to God's very existence ; and surely the
very idea of eternal duration implies the past and future as mxich as the
present.— Now I come to my new argument, and to what I consider the best
way of treating this subject We have not, as I have said, to deal with the laws
of nature generally. Miracles never professed to set them aside ; but yet they
have never happened without violating some particular and ordinary law. For
instance, take the second miracle of our Lord in Cana of Galilee — the healing
of the nobleman's son. I am aware that the fact, that some of our Lord's
miracles were performed by the imposition of hands, has led to some foolish
modern speculations that perhaps they were all accomplished by some kind of
mesmeric operation. But, in this instance, any such notion is at once
refuted ; for here Christ only speaks a word, when at a distance from the
person healed ; He merely says, " Thy son liveth." There is no medicine,
no natural means, not even a touch employed : only a word, and the natural
progress of the disease is at the instant arrested. Now, I put it to any
man, whether this can be even imagined to be the result of anything but
the mere fiat and will of Deity ? And then, when we come to consider the
great majority of Christ's miracles, what were they ? Did they violate or
infringe the laws of nature ? Yes ; but what laws 1 Net the mere physical
laws which are invariable ; but those that affect moral agents, and are, I may
say, out of gear. There is evil as well as good around us : the moral system,
we know, has gone wrong ; and, as a consequence, some of the physical laws of
nature, especially those that affect moral agents, are also awry. Now, Christ's
miracles were mainly wrought to put these straight ; — not to violate or infringe
God's original laws of nature, but to vindicate and restore them to what they
were at first Evil is permitted in this world, but its author is not God. The
laws of nature affecting moral agents are not " invariable " and congruous.
For instance, there is health and disease, beauty and deformity. Let me
interrogate any sceptic upon this point. Do you call disease natural ? But,
if so, is not health also natural ? But they are contradictories —health and
disease are opposites ; — and which of them was God's original law of nature.?
When Christ told the man with the withered hand to stretch it forth, and
made it whole with a word, was that to violate an original law of nature ?
No ; it was to restore one which was already violated, to set right a law of
nature that had gone wrong. Philosophers, whether they choose or not, in
some cases, only to recognize the physical laws affecting inanimate things,
cannot shut their eyes to the existence of those other laws and operations
which affect moral agents. They cannot deny that health and disease, though
both in a sense natural, are nevertheless at issue, and contrary and con-
flicting. They may not ignore the existence of moral evil and of disease.
They must go into that question if they will discuss miracles. It is not a
matter of choice that they may overlook these things, and only regard such
laws as those of light, heat, electricity, or gravitation ; about which we are
always changing our opinions after all, and are perhaps most profoundly
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ignorant, with the greatest professions of knowledge. Besides, the " laws of
nature " which miracles have infringed are not recondite, theoretical " laws,"
but obviov8 and ordinary laws. And it is a serious mistake to attribute
everything in nature to God, as if there were no evil or opposition
to God's will in the world. But I will give you the express testimony of
our Lord Himself to this view of the subject, that His miracles were
wrought to interfere not with God's original laws of nature, but rather
with Satan's perversion of them, and with the evils arising from the trans-
gression of man and the sin in the world. For what did Christ say when He
healed the bowed-down woman ? He asked, " Why should not this woman,
whom Satan hath bound, lo these eighteen years, be loosed from her infirmity ? "
To set her straight, then, was not to violate God's law, though it was to
violate what was then a "law of nature," but of nature diseased. No ; it was
to set aside a law of nature which had its origin in the power of Satan, and
to vindicate and re-establish God's original law of health and strength. But
surely that is the very drift, the very essence of all the miracles of Christ.
What were the disciples of John the Baptist to tell their master ? " That
the blind receive their sight, the dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lepers are
cleansed," &c. Well, whether blindness is natural or not, at all events, when a
man is born blind, it is the law or rule of nature that he should remain so ; and
Christ violated that law of nature. But if you do call blindness natural, surely
you will admit that it is nature a little out of gear ; or else seeing would not
be natural I am quite sure, if we had a Socrates here, and if some of our
sceptical philosophers were bound to answer his interrogations as they used
to do of old, and not shirk answering questions, he would soon put them into
an untenable position when speaking about the uniformity of nature's laws,
if we include those laws which affect moral agents. It is a remarkable
fact that there are few miracles in Scripture which deal with physical
laws alone, I mean apart from moral agents. The first of our Lord's
miracles was, however, one, — that of changing water into wine ; and you can-
not imagine how such a miracle could be performed except as being the fiat
of the Divine Will. But if we consider that it was to give the blind sight, to
restore hearing, to heal disease, and generally to help those who were afflicted,
that Christ's >miracles were done, we must see that it is no objection to
miracles that they are violations of what we call nature, but that that is even
their merit, and that instead of being violations of the original laws of God,
they afford the best proofs of God's power and goodness in vindicating His
own laws of nature, which once were all and only " very good." So Christ, as
" stronger than " " the strong man armed," cast out devils " with the finger
of God," and so infringed the power of evil These are miracles that, I may
say, define themselves by their character as Divine ; and they have nothing
in common with lying-wonders, or jugglery, or any deeds of darkness.
Before I conclude, I should like to quote another passage from Sir Matthew
Hale's work on Man, in addition to the very brief citation from it in Mr.
English's paper. I think you will be interested in hearing it It contains the
very same idea that runs through the paper ; and you will see that both
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authors know, after all, what are the laws of nature which miracles infringe ;
and that it is only a mode of speech when they say that nature is not
violated: —
" For although the Divine wisdom hath with great stability settled the
laws of His general Providence, so that ordinarily or lightly they are not
altered, yet it could never stand with the Divine administration of the
world, that He should be eternally mancipated to those laws He hath ap-
pointed for the ordinary administration of the world. Neither is this, if it be
rightly considered, an infringing of the kw of nature, since every created
being is most naturally subject to the sovereign will of his Creator ; therefore,
though He is sometimes pleased by extraordinary interposition, and, pro
imperio voluntatis, to alter the ordinary method of natural or voluntary causes
and effects to interpose His own immediate power, He violates no law of nature,
since it is the most natural thing in the world that everything should obey
the Will of Him that gave it being, whatever that Will be, or however mani-
fested."— Prim. Orig. of Mankind, p. 36, folio ed., 1677.
From the whole tenour of this passage, — " the law of nature " being used
in the singular, and explained to mean " the Will of the Creator," while it is
admitted that " the ordinary method of natural causes and effects " is altered
or infringed, — it would seem that the author did not intend to deny (in the
modern or literal sense) that " the ordinary courses (or laws) of nature are
violated " by the " extraordinary interposition " of " God's own immediate
power." But, if he did, then another passage in Sir Matthew Hale's work
shows us that he could not stick to his own proposition ; for the truth crops
up in him as in Mr. English's essay, and enables us to see that miracles must
refer us to Deity and the Divine Will, and not to mere imagined " higher
laws." He says : —
" In that administration of special Providence which is miraculous, God
commanded the fire not to burn, stopped the mouths of lions, and prohibited
the natural operation and agency of natural causes.^ — Ibid., p. 41.
If Dr. Thornton had remained here, I would have told him that the Author
of nature does vindicate His laws, when not miraculously suspended ; for
if Dr. Thornton were to put his finger in the fire, he knows that naturally,
and without a miracle, it would burn. I will now only say, in conclusion,
that I think Mr. English's paper a most valuable one, although in some
respects I differ from him, and have been obliged to criticise his arguments.
But I am glad to think that Mr. English himself is of opinion that fair
criticism can never do any harm.
Mr. Warington. — May I say one word in explanation of my remarks ? I
am quite aware that the expressions I made use of as to the unchangeable-
ness of God, if taken by themselves, would be capable of the construction of
Dr. Irons. I made them simply in correction of what I thought was an
exaggeration the other way in the paper, saying at the same time that
Mr. English had urged reasons quite sufficient to account for a change in
the action of God taking place.
Mr. Reddie. — Let me also add one word which I omitted as to the
miracles of the loaves and fishes. Christ fed 5,000 people with five loaves,
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and 4,000 with seven loaves, and how many baskets of fragments remained ?
Twelve and seven. Now, had it been by any " law " that the food was multi-
plied, the basketfuls over would have borne some proportion to the original
quantities of food and the numbers of the people, whereas it was just
the reverse ; and our Lord seems to have drawn special attention to this
circumstance, as if by anticipation to refute this theory of possible "higher
laws."
Rev. Br. Irons. — In this order of things, that would be so ; but is there
no other order of things ?
The Chairman. — A very important subject has been brought before us, if
not the most important subject that could be brought, because it is one now
coming before all the scientific, and all the thoughtful minds in the country.
It is the one of all others that thoughtful men now want to hear about.
Some men require to have their faith strengthened, and others to be con-
verted to a right faith in the matter. I must say I do think a great deal of
the discussion about miracles arises from the infirmity of our human intellect,
and the great difficulty we have in defining things ; or, when defined, in
reasoning strictly upon our definitions. It may be, and it has been said
against the theologian, that he does not give a strict definition of miracle ;
but I want to know where we have strict definitions, even in science ? If we
are to wait for knowledge on most scientific subjects until we have strict
definitions, I maintain we shall find we have but little knowledge left I would
ask physiologists what is their definition of life ? I have heard the best-reputed
physiologists of the day confess that they could give no definition of life ;
and we may be excused if we can give no very correct or logical definition of
miracles. We have to regard .certain facts and phenomena which are
brought before us in Scripture ; and, if from God, we should conceive they
would be such things in their nature as to force themselves, not upon the
attention of the philosopher merely, but of every observer. I think a great
deal of the argumentation against miracles has arisen from the definitions
which meu have given of miracles. A miracle in itself taking the word in
its ordinary sense, means something wonderful ; and we can understand,
with the author of the second paper, how everything around and about us
that is marvellous is to some extent also miraculous — a thing to be admired
and wondered at. But on the point under discussion, in what way does
Scripture speak of miracles ? They are spoken of in Hebrew, I believe,
under three or four distinct words ; in the Greek Scriptures by as many,
and we find these terms used co-relatively and synonymously, and translated
in our version by the words " miracle," " signs," and " wonders." Miracles are
signs, or wonders, — that is, signs or wonders of such a character that the
most casual observer sees there is something in them more than man can do.
There is no definition in Scripture about nature or violation of laws of nature;
but there is something that strikes the observation, and shows the presence
of supernatural power. That is the scriptural character of a miracle. I
think it is that character of miracle which the defender of Revelation is
called upon to defend. He is not called upon to defend Hale's definition of
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miracles, or Butler's, however much we may bow to their great intellects.
But then we must remember there is another aspect of miracles in Scripture.
Scripture brings before us the important fact that these, what we call in
common language supernatural events, which force themselves on the mind
of the observer as from something higher than man, emanate not from a
good source alone, but many also proceed from an evil one. I think this
was distinctly brought forward by Dr. Irons and another gentleman, and it is
important for the consideration of the subject. I believe that Satan did take
our Saviour by a miracle from the wilderness where He was, and placed
Him upon a pinnacle of the Temple. I believe that by as great a miracle
he also showed Him on a high mountain, whither he conveyed Him from a
pinnacle of the Temple, all the glory of this world in one moment of time,
though I may have but a very faint conception what the marvellous deed
was. And I know that the same Scriptures have also told me, for my instruc-
tion and my warning, that the time will come when signs and wonders — the
same terms used precisely in the original, for the good miracles of Christ
and His followers — will be used by the Father of Lies for the purpose .
of deceiving even the elect. But I am afraid I am breaking the law I laid
down for others. It is late, and there is a great deal I should like to say
on this subject of miracles from the point of view which seems to be the
grand stand-point of many natural philosophers. I believe their difficulties
arise from a misconception and misuse of the term " law of nature." I may
give such a definition of a law of nature that a miracle is no violation of it at
all ; or I may give you another definition, such as Mr. Reddie has given,
in which there is a violation. There are things, which we need not be
acute physiologists to know; for though the most advanced could not tell
exactly what life is, the merest tyro could distinguish, in most instances, a
living from an inanimate, or an organic from an inorganic object. There is
a general sense of the term " nature " which may lead us to acquire a definite
idea of the expression " law of nature." What is the distinction between a
work of nature and a work of art ?' You might find it hard to define them ;
but if I brought before you a brick, or any other work of man, — any work
of art, a microscope, a telescope, a watch, a chronometer, or anything like
that — you would have no difficulty in saying, " That is a work of art, and not
a work of nature." What do you mean by a work of art ? It is the result
of the human mind acting upon the productions of nature —
Dr. Irons. — That is the definition of Ouvier.
The Chairman. — We have that definition, and it appeals at once to our
intellect. I know, if I wanted to puzzle a man, I might bring a certain thing
and say, " Is that animal or vegetable, animate or inanimate, living or dead 1 "
and if you take an extreme case, you might puzzle any one. I might, for
instance, bring a model of a crystal, which I might cut out of a certain sub-
stance, and it would be a work of art, and contrast it with a work of nature,
a real crystal Let us reflect upon a work of art. It leads us up to some-
thing, it teaches us a power in mind, (and I think that is the definition Dr.
Thornton wanted to express) — power in man's .mind controlling the powers
298
of nature ; but we use these terms in a subordinate sense. This conception
of a "work of art" leads to that of a" work of nature." If I go to the
highest conception of nature, I must go to this, that the law of nature ends
in the will of Deity, and that is the highest If the law of nature ends in the
will of Deity, no miracle can be contrary to that law, because all the miracles
of revelation are wrought in perfect accordance with the will of the Deity. If
we grant Him infinite knowledge— His own book says He foresaw these things,
that they are done and must be done, because all along determined upon in
the counsels of the Almighty — therefore miracles are in accordance with that
higher and grander view of the law of nature. But there may be a lower
view ; there is something so distinct in miracles from the ordinary trans-
actions that occur in the world, that the one thing diners as much from the
other, and infinitely more, than a work of art from a work of nature. All
our Saviour's miracles, all those of the Bible, are of this class. But we
must remember other miracles which were wrought for evil, and therefore
you must import, if you follow the Scripture, moral considerations when
you come to questions of miracle. Our Saviour Himself does it Th©
Jews said of Him, " By Beelzebub he casteth out devils." They did not deny
the miraculous effect ; that was admitted by the people. But how did He
defend Himself ? " Look at the works I do ; they are not- wrought for the
power of evil, but for good. I appeal to my works ; did any man ever do
the works I have done for evil ? If so, Satan is fighting against himself.
But I am fighting against Satan." And here you have the moral responsi-
bility of every man who saw these miracles, of choosing good from evil.
There the moral responsibility was forced upon man, whether he would accept
or reject revelation. Now let us go back to the consideration of what natural
philosophers tell us of the laws of nature, and see how confined are the
notions they can give us. A law of gravitation, or any other law of nature,
is nothing more than the general expression of the observation of a succession
of phenomena in a certain order of sequence. It is nothing more than that
If you can group a certain class of phenomena and their sequence, and
express them in mathematical terms, you say you have a law. For instance
you say that ponderable matter everywhere and always attracts ponderable
matter with a force varying directly as the mass and inversely as the square
of the distance of the attracting matter — that you call the law of gravitation.
What do we call the law of reflexion in light ? A ray of light, if it strike an
object so as to be reflected, will be reflected always in the plane of its inci-
dence, and make the reflected angle equal to the angle of incidence. We
talk of the law of refraction — we say that a ray of light, except its incidence
is perpendicular, will have its direction changed, though it will remain in
the same plane ; but according to what we call the law of sines, the sine of
the angle of incidence will be to the sine of the angle of refraction in a
certain ratio. We might be disposed to regard this as a universal law, and
it was supposed to be so, until it was found that the law was broken, and that
there was a class of substances which divided the ray into two parts, and one
followed the ordinary law and the other the extraordinary law. Now, all the
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philosopher can do is to point out certain phenomena and include them in
some general formula, and when he has included a certain amount of pheno-
mena in one hypothesis, he calls it a law. Now it is assumed, and that I
maintain shows the fallacy of the argument against miracles from natural
philosophy, — it is assumed with regard to any related fact in the world's
history, that we can say from what we know of these laws, such and such a
thing could not occur. That we can say, for instance, a man could not
be raised from the dead — such an event could not occur. Now I am
prepared to maintain, upon strictly mathematical and philosophic prin-
ciples, philosophy cannot say that ; that it cannot even tell us that such
a law as that of gravitation is universal It is said, as a grand triumph,
that we know it proceeds to the last planet discovered ; it is said it
proceeds to the binary stars. Are you sure, with regard to the latter,
that it is the exact law ? Are you sure it is a law not varying directly
as the distance ? We will now test this assumption by mathematics or
mechanics. If I put on the 1st horizontal row of wheels of the calculating
machine in Somerset House, the number 41, under that the number 2 on the
2nd row, and again the number 2 on the 3rd row ; the machine could then
be set to produce a certain series of numbers for thousands of terms, in due
sequence, according to a certain mathematical law ; each term in succession
being calculated and recorded in stereotype by simply turning the handle of
the machine. A mathematician ignorant of the numbers originally placed on
the machine, and looking only at the recorded results, would find the series
41, 43, 47, 53, 61, &c, printed in succession. Observing every one of these
numbers to be primes, that is numbers indivisible by any other number but 1,
he might assume the machine to be set so as to record prime numbers only.
The correctness of this assumption would increase in probability till the
40 and 412 terms were reached, when it would be broken by the appearance
of numbers not primes. Again the mathematician regarding the law of
sequence of these numbers might find that they could all be included in the
general algebraical formula aj2+ac+41, by giving successive integral values
to x from 0, 1, 2, 3, &c, upwards. This would enable the mathematician to
predicate the numbers I had placed on the machine. But I will now give
you a case in which he could not do so. I might start by putting on the
machine, once for all, such a series of numbers that the recorded results should
be the squares or cubes of the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c, in due sequence for any
number of terms I pleased, but that at some predetermined term, say the
7,345,671st, the law should be broken. The odds that this breach of law
should occur, so far as observation could determine, would be estimated
mathematically by millions to one against its occurrence. In this case, con-
trary to the example I gave in the instance of the prime numbers, nothing
in the sequence of the numbers, or in any mathematical formula? which would
express that sequence, could give the mathematician the slightest clue as to
the possibility of the occurrence of this breach of continuity in the law of
sequence. Now when man is observing the laws of nature, he does not know
what is put on the original machine of the universe. There is no interposition
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of man, who merely reads the results on the machine; and no natural
philosopher can say that any event cannot possibly happen. If he tells
me it cannot, I have a right to say, " For aught you know, the Maker of
the machine determined at that particular period to meet a certain moral
exigency, which He foresaw, and supplied by this operation taking place." I
say that Babbage has triumphantly proved such violations of the observed
laws of nature to be possible ; and (we must always bear in mind) that such
events may or may not be miraculous. We read that Herodotus was told
by the Egyptian priests that the sun rose twice in the twenty-four hours.
" Well," the philosopher may say, " it is not true, it is contrary to the law
of gravitation." I say there is nothing whatever in the presumed improbability
derived from any succession of phenomena, however great, to show that we
can absolutely and mathematically assert that such an event, whether
miraculous or not, could not have occurred. If I am told that God heard
the voice of man, and caused the sun and the moon to stand still, could I
say that that was not one of the things God provided for 1 There is nothing
in natural philosophy to compel me to deny it. When attempting to argue
against this miracle, Dr. Colenso tells me the earth could not have stood still
on its axis — that its motion could not have been arrested without everything on
the earth being hurled into space. But I ask how was the earth to be stopped
on its axis 1 It must be by a power which acted upon the motion of the
earth. Now, I maintain that that power would equally apply to the trees
and everything else on it. Let me take the rough comparison which
Dr. Colenso mentions : — You are in a railway carriage, and a collision
happens, and you are thrown forward. Why ? Because you are inde-
pendent of the carriage ; but if you were tied in the carriage, and made
one with the carriage, you would not be hurled forward. I would ask
Colenso to explain by his philosophy, why, when we consider the earth's
great velocity, every particle of the ocean at the equator is not hurled into
space ? It is owing to the gravitation of the earth. This same gravitation
would so hold the trees and houses to the earth, that anything stopping the
motion of the earth would likewise so stop their motion, as to prevent their
flight into space. I would only mention that to show that when men deny
miracles as contrary to natural philosophy, we can get sufficient demonstration
from mathematics to show that miracles are more probable than improbable —
that they contradict no laws which the mathematician or observer of nature
is bound to believe ; and I thoroughly agree with the important con-
sideration brought forward by Dr. Gladstone, that the unhappy state of
men's minds is from confining their attention to the inorganic world. As
you rise from inorganics to organics, there are phenomena which would
show that all the arguments raised against the miraculous are fallacies. It
was well put by Mr. Reddie with regard to our Saviour's miracles,
that when you rise from inorganics to organics, the philosopher is bound
to admit perturbations and interruptions ; that disease is an interruption
of the law of health, and that you cannot use the word law in the same
sense here as you use the word law with regard to inorganic matter ; that
301
you can have no disease of gravitation, though you have disease of life.
But there is a higher thing than even life—the soul of man. Reason is still
higher, and rises to higher laws ; and when you find in the moral world
there is disease, and remember that the miracles of God wrought in Scrip-
ture were to take away sin and its effects, then I say, the Christian can
be a scientific man, and receive all the miracles recorded in Scripture,
and yet study, with intense admiration and devotion, the works of his
Creator ; he need have no fear in investigating them, and he may believe
that the works of nature and revelation are in the most perfect harmony the
one with the other.
The meeting was then adjourned.
REPLY BY THE REV. W. W. ENGLISH.
To make my views clearer, I would wish to add a very few words. The
distinction between mind and matter, and the supremacy of the former over
the latter, are points that underlie every essential part of the subject. The
will of man is a faculty of the human mind, a mi potestas, and the arresting
of the falling apple at will, is an illustration of the supremacy of mind or spirit
over matter, though not a miracle, because here the human mind controls matter
simply within its own prescribed limits. Satan or evil spirits controlling matter
within their prescribed limits are a further illustration of the same funda-
mental point. To us their acts, when they exceed what falls within our
limits, appear, and no doubt are, really miraculous, in the true sense of the
term ; a miracle being, as Butler and Mr. Birks contend, " relative " and not
absolute. The great Spirit of God controls matter and its laws, within His
own limits — that is to say, without limits ; for He can have none, except
such as would be inconsistent with His goodness. To Him there can be no
such thing as a miracle — nature, if it includes Deity, (and I see not how it
can exclude it,) comprises all that is possible as well as actual I am not sure
that my short paragraph on what I termed " the real point," bearing upon
objections drawn from physical considerations, is of itself sufficiently clear ;
but I thought it would have appeared so, in the light of what I said in
reference to mind and matter. I have sought to find no theory by
which, to account for miracles apart from God. I have endeavoured
simply to show by a chain of reasoning, that we can account for
miracles upon principles apart from the Bible, or an appeal directly to
God's sovereignty and omnipotence. Bishop Butler does not disagree
materially with anything I have said on the subject. Those "higher
laws n I referred to, are moral and not physical — those principles, in short,
according to which all things are wisely governed. Miracles may be real or
apparent infractions of material sequence, but they are, nevertheless, fulfil-
ments of " higher laws " of moral government. Much confusion arises
from confining the term law too exclusively to what it can only figuratively
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302
be applied, — matter, and not allowing it to be really and properly applied
to that from which the term itself is borrowed, — mind and moral agency,
Bntler says a miracle is something different from a settled course of
nature ; he does not say it is something contrary to it, nor that it does
not range under "higher laws" in the scheme of Divine Government.
God cannot, it seems to me, act " contrary " to Himself, nor "violate" His
own ways or acts ; but, in saying this, I do not mean to confine Him to
material sequence. In using the terms an " Eternal now," and saying that
with God there can be neither past nor future, I did but use the language
of the great Augustine, Toplady, and philosophical writers of the present
century. God's own definition of Himself, "I am," is very near to an
" Eternal now ? and as our notions of past and future are got from our
connection with matter, I can conceive of the disembodied Spirit being
unconscious of the lapse of time altogether. With it " a thousand years
may be as one day ;" and when we read in Holy Scripture, " which is,
and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" — I would say that
God here speaks, as St. Paul elsewhere affirms, "after the manner of
men." It only remains for me to thank the members of the Institute
for the kind way in which they listened to my paper.
303
ORDINARY MEETING, Dec. 17, 1866.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed.
The Honorary Secretary announced that Mr. Alfred J. Woodhouse,
M.R.L, had been elected a member of the Council.
The following Paper was then read :—
ON THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF GEOLOGICAL
FORMATIONS. By Evan Hopkins, Esq., C.E., F.G.S.,
Mem. Vict. Inst.
ALTHOUGH it may not be the intention of the members
of the Victoria Institute to support any geological
theory, or, indeed, any of the [doctrines of physical science
which may be promulgated from time to time, I presume that
papers describing the general facts of geology will be accept-
able, inasmuch as they will furnish materials and data by which
unreasonable speculations may be fairly met and checked.
Had the public at large been better acquainted with the
leading facts of geology, many speculations with reference to
the world would never have been entertained. It is not
sufficient to point out the absurdity of some geological specu-
lations : we should also be prepared to show wnat are the
actual conditions of the surface of the globe, founded on direct
observations, in order to satisfy the inquiring mind and lead
it in the right direction. The object of this paper is to give a
brief description of geological formations according to my owii
experience, as well as the experience of others, in various parts
of the world, which I trust will be of some service in discuss-
ing and elucidating questions connected with geology, when
they are brought forward at our meetings as arguments
bearing upon the Mosaic account of the creation or the origin
of the earth. The first step towards establishing the order
of deposition of the Sedimentary rocks was made about the
commencement of the present century by Mr. William Smith.
He discovered, during his surveys in England, that there were
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304
apparent sequences in the order in which the beds had been
laid down ; that the different strata could be distinguished by
their fossils ; that this order of succession of different groups
was never inverted; and, further, that they might be iden-
tified at very distant points by their peculiar organic remains.
This classification of the sedimentary rocks became then es-
tablished, each division being marked by its peculiar fossils.
The founders of the Geological Society of London thus directed
their attention to this theory of deposition, and the active
members of the Society have almost exclusively confined their
attention to this view of the science from that time to this day.
The ideal geological sections have made this order of deposi-
tion familiar to all who have paid any attention to geological
works. The ascending order of the sedimentary beds is as
follows: — 1st, Cambrian and Silurian; 2nd, Old Red Sand-
stone; 3rd, Carboniferous; 4th, New Red Sandstone; 5th, Lias;
6th, Oolite; 7th, Chalk; 8fch, Tertiary. As far as the sedi-
mentary beds of England are concerned, these sections might
be accepted as representing the general order and character of
the beds, provided they are not made to appear to cover each
other over the whole area. Although this order of the beds is
not inverted, they are not of equal extent, and are merely
found in patches here and there, and partially overlapping
each other, where the beds are reduced in thickness and taper
away. Hence the sections which represent the beds as
uniformly piled on each other, and as of equal extent, from
the Silurian and Cambrian below to the Tertiary above, are
erroneous. With regard to the Silurian formation, it has not
only absorbed the Cambrian, but actually also embraces (very
improperly) the primary slates. The first mistake made by
geologists, in establishing this classification of the fossiliferous
rocks, was in assuming that this variety of beds was univer-
sally the same in all parts of the world. They further erred in
attempting to assign to each system a distinct creation, and
in naming the series of beds in other countries according to
the English type, without demonstrable proof of their corre-
spondence. This hasty and very incorrect generalization,
together with the assumption that the fossils were all remains
of extinct species, different from those now existing, have
caused a very great injury to the progress of geological science,
by giving encouragement to extravagant theories.
A mere glance at a geologically coloured globe will show
how insignificant, for instance, is the extent of the area of the
carboniferous formation as compared with the entire surface of
the earth. The same may be said of every other division of the
sedimentary series, from the Cambrian below to the Tertiaries
305
above. As investigations have been extended to distant regions
of the earth, more especially to South America, South Africa,
Australia, New Zealand, and India, other combinations of
beds have been brought to light, showing the total absence
of almost two-thirds of the grand series represented on the
ordinary geological sections of Europe. Again, instead of
finding beds indicating distinct creations, as assumed at one
time, the formations present the appearance of a gradual
transition of one variety of fossiliferous beds into another as
the rule, and those indicating apparent distinctions as the
exception. Daily researches show that no real breaks exist
between the remains of one formation and another, as was
once supposed. We now learn that those forms of animal life
which roamed over parts of the earth before man came to
encroach and exercise dominion over them, were not destroyed
before his arrival, but continued to co-exist with him, though
in other localities, until the time came when they were to
make way for man and domestic animals more suited to new
conditions of life and to man's requirements.
Let us commence in the South, and reflect on the general
character of the sedimentary deposits of Chili, Australia, New
Zealand, and Tasmania in the south temperate zone. Chili is
covered with a great thickness of gravel and sand-beds, in
which are found marine remains of existing species. The
plains of Patagonia present the same appearance : nothing but'
thick beds of gravel deposited on the edges of the primary
crystalline rocks, as is seen by a transverse section from Rio
Santa Cruz to the base of the Cordillera, and in another on
the Rio Negro. Beds of recent shells are found as high as
1,300 feet from the level of the Pacific along this coast; and
the apparent freshness of the shells indicates that all these
deposits are comparatively of very recent date.
In the south of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, are
found some carboniferous strata of inferior kind and very
limited area. These are deposited on the broken edges of the
primary slate. The general superficial deposits are composed
of loose gravel and sand, partially cemented here and there
by ferruginous matter. These beds contain the same kind of
shells as those now seen on the coast, and the bituminous beds
inclose fern-trees with leaves of the same character as those
now growing on the banks of the Yarra Yarra river and in Tas-
mania. In Equatorial America the sedimentary beds are better
developed, and more numerous than in the south, and they
can be examined on their escarpment from the plains of Mari-
quita to the plains of Bogota ; that is, from about 800 feet to
9,000 feet above the level of the sea,
306
The plains of Mariquita are more or less covered with thick
beds of gravel, in which are found fossil trunks of coniferae,
fern-trees, corals, and the remains of crocodiles, similar to
those now flourishing in that zone. The old sedimentary beds
resting on the primary base contain deep-sea shells and corals,
similar to those seen along the beach on the Chilian coast. As
we ascend the series, we find there seams of coal, containing in
the inter-stratified black shale impressions of fern-leaves, but
not very abundant. Above these are argillaceous beds in-
closing a variety of shells and the remains of fishes. On
these, again, are deposited several calcareous beds containing
fossils in abundance, such as ammonites, hamites, &c,
some of which were described and figured in the Journal
of the Geological Society by the late Professor Forbes in 1844.
These fossils were collected in situ% and presented to the
Geological Society by me in 1843, Amongst them were eight
new species. Finally, the upper part of this great sedimentary
formation forms the plains of Bogota, where we find again
deposits of sand (and gravel containing the relics of gigantio
ammonites and oyster-shells. I examined the eastern flank of
this branch of the Andes to the sources of the rivers Orinoco
and the Amazon, and found very extensive beds of similar
character to those seen on the other side ; but all their organic
contents, with the exception of the ammonites and hamites,
were of the same description as those now existing on the
coast of South America. I have obtained from white clay
seams, impressions of leaves with their green and yellow
colours partially preserved, which indicates that the
formation could not have been of great antiquity. As we
proceed northward, we find the sedimentary beds much more
developed than they are in the south, and containing tropical
remains, even in high latitudes. If we take Nova Scotia, for
example, we find the lower beds enclose only a few deep-sea
shells, somewhat similar to those still living in the south.
These are covered by the carboniferous beds, in which are
entombed tropical vegetation, such as fern-trees, calamites,
&c, with reptiles of the existing tropical character; and on
these coal-seams, again, are various beds of sandstone-clay
and gravels.
J need not dwell further on this subject, as I trust I have
sufficiently shown that, although the order of the sedimentary
beds is never found inverted, their development in different
countries is not the same; and the periods of their deposition
have been very variable, and that, therefore, they cannot be
correlated as to their ages.
807
The Formation of the Pkimabt Rocks.
The preceding observations refer exclusively to the forma-
tion of the sedimentary beds, in which organic remains are
enclosed. I shall now proceed to describe the fundamental
crystalline rocks, on which the sedimentary rocks have been
deposited, and in which there are no organic remains.
On reference to the ordinary geological sections, it will be
observed that the primary crystalline rocks, which have a
more or less laminated structure, such as the gneiss and ar-
gillaceous schists, are represented as sedimentary beds, like
the superincumbent mechanical deposits; and their general
vertical position has been attributed to a tilting action pro-
duced by upheavals, &c. During my residence and travels
near equatorial America from 1834 to 1842, and again from
1844 to 1848, I had an opportunity of inspecting, surveying,
and carefully studying the true character of this vertical struc-
ture of the fundamental crystalline rocks, in ravines,, and in
natural sections, from the surface to 3,000 feet deep. I then
discovered that this structure did not arise from the subdivision
of sedimentary beds, but had originated from a semi-crystal-
line action of the primary base upwards, in the direction of the
grain ; and that vertical cleavage planes gradually and imper-
ceptibly became developed in the subterranean base during the
changes and the transitions of the granites into the schistose
rocks. I further found, by very extensive surveys across the
three branches of the Andes, and for some hundreds of miles
from south to north, that this structure was not only more or
less vertical, but that it had also a meridional bearing. Having
fully satisfied myself of this great fact, which, as far as I was
then aware, had not been noticed before, I referred to the
observations of others, thinking that such a striking pheno*
menon could not have escaped attention.
I naturally concluded that if such great facts as this vertical
and meridional order in the structure of the primary rocks had
been observed, the subject would have been pursued, and some
hypothesis founded thereon. On referring to geological works,
I found the following observations : —
Von Buch remarks that " the structure and cleavage-planes
of the laminated granite, gneiss, and schist run in a south and
north direction, in a position deflecting little from the perpen-
dicular, in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. , . . The same
order of structure was observed by M. Boue in Auvergne, and
in many parts of Spain, Portugal, and Africa." — " When I
arrived on the coast of Venezuela," says Humboldt, " and
808
passed over the lofty littoral chain and the mountains of
granite gneiss that stretch from the Lower Orinoco to the
basin of the Bio Negro, and the Amazon, I recognized again
the most surprising parallelism in the direction of the beds
(crystalline bands); that direction was from S.S.W. to N.N.E."
During my survey of the Isthmus of Panama and Veraguas,
where the same vertical structure is observed, the Californian
gold discoveries were made. American geologists surveyed
that gold region, and in their official reports I find the follow-
ing observations : —
" The auriferous gravel and clay are deposited on the edges
of the primary slate rocks. The fundamental rocks are com-
posed of bands of granite, chloritic and micaceous slate, and
have been traced running on their edges in a north and south
direction for hundreds, of miles."
On my arrival in Australia in 1852 I surveyed a very large
area of the gold districts, and found the same order of structure
in the primary rocks as I had observed in South America and
other places. I then published a pamphlet, with illustrated
sections of the vertical and meridional structure of the
Australian rocks, which was much appreciated by the gold-
diggers. — But I shall quote from others who have travelled in
Australia, though not geologists, this further account of the
general appearance of the exposed crystalline rocks of that
country : —
"A great portion of the Australian quartz ridges," says
Mr. W. Howitt " runs from north to south over the hills of
the gold regions. . . . The clay slates and other rocks are
all perpendicular. . . . Some action has taken place which
has left them standing edgeways. . . . They are always
true to the north and south direction, and are nearly as good as
a compass where they prevail ; and you may trace them for
twenty or thirty miles at a stretch, and, no doubt, they extend
across the colony/'
The official reports of the Gold Commissioners of New South
Wales furnish similar descriptions. They all agree in repre-
senting the structure of the primary rocks as more ' or less
vertical, and with a uniform bearing north and south. I there-
fore venture to maintain that the crystalline rocks have not
been formed in beds, like the superincumbent sedimentary de-
posits, but that they have been produced by a semi-crystalline
action under the influence of some universal power, which has
given them the order of structure which they now present ;
and which is plainly exhibited in all deep natural sections of
all the crystalline rocks in all parts of the world.
I communicated these results of my geological researches in
309
South America to the Fellows of the Geological Society in
1843, accompanied with large sections of the Andes. I then
showed, by means of real geological sections, that the primary
slates were not sedimentary beds, but the result of a semi-
crystalline action, and that the structure presented a most
beautiful geometrical order ; that the crystalline rocks were
ever active, and that the whole series crystallized from water,
and did not present any indication of igneous action or dry
heat. These views appeared so novel at the time that but few
considered them worthy of attention. I then published the
results of my investigations under the title of " Geology and
Magnetism,"* so as to place them on record.
In 1850 I again, on my return from South America and the
Isthmus of Panama (which I had been surveying), read a
paper at the Geological Society, reiterating my former
opinions, on the structure of the primary rocks and their
aqueous character. An abstract of the paper was published
in the Journal of that Society. My views were again strongly
opposed, but more especially as regards the aqueous nature of
the granite. I then saw it was useless to bring forward
such geological facts in opposition to the prevailing igneous
theory. Nevertheless, I again brought the subject forward
in a long paper, with abundance of illustrations, before the
geological section at the Meeting of the British Association at
Glasgow in 1855; also in the Institution qf^Givil Engineers,
where it gave rise to a discussion, which was prolonged for
three evenings. This paper and my general views were much
appreciated by mining engineers, who were acquainted with
the true character of the rocks below. About that time, or
soon after, Messrs. Daubr^e and Bischoff made known their
observations on hydrothermal action, or the influence of water
in the formation of rocks. The result of their investigations
was that the minerals which enter into the composition of
granite were admitted not to have been formed by crystal-
lizing from a state of fusion, but that they have been derived
from liquid solutions, or formed in the wet way.
Professor Ramsay was one of the most determined opponents
of my views regarding the aqueous nature of the granite. It
is but justice to that gentleman to state that, in compliment-
ing Messrs. Daubr^e and Bischoff on the result of their
investigations, when President of the Geological Society in
1862, he remarked that " he could not pass over the papers and
observations of one of their own members (Mr. Hopkins) on
* Geology and Terrestrial Magnetism. By Evan Hopkins, C.E., F.G.S.,
(Lond. : Taylor & Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street)
310
this very same subject, which he had brought before them from
time to time, many years before the investigations now referred
to were undertaken." He also added, " That he believed that
geological science was on the eve of a great revolution ." —
In the anniversary Address of Mr. Hamilton, President of the
Geological Sopiety last year, he made the following observa-
tions : —
" Recent investigations have upset the ancient theories. It
was formerly supposed that the crystalline rocks, particularly
granite, owed their origin to igneous action. Now, it is well
known that these granites are chiefly arranged in layers. The
granite passes into gneiss, and the gneiss into mica schist and
talc schist, and this is again closely connected with the green
and grey slates ; and it is well known that many of these rocks,
formerly considered as plutonic, are really metamorphosed
rocks."
These remarks refer principally to the order of the structure,
and notice that granite is divided into bands, and changes into
the slaty structure, as was described in my sections^ and
explained in my papers written in 1837 and since.
I shall now quote Mr. Hamilton's observations, in his last
annual Address, with reference to the igneous theory; which I
had opposed for so many years, and which at length is being
given up as untenable : —
" Another point," observed Mr. Hamilton, " to which I would invite atten-
tion is one of greater difficulty ; it requires the serious aid of chemistry,
mineralogy, and the laws of physical forces. The study of the older crystal-
line and metamorphic rocks has of late years greatly occupied the attention
of many of those geologists who have examined the chemical and mineralo-
gical conditions of formations. We are told that heat alone could not have
produced the results we see ; that water was an essential element in all these
metamorphic operations; and we find, in the works of Sterry Hunt, Daubr^e,
Evan Hopkins, Delesse, Desor, and others, that even a high temperature was
not necessary to produce these changes. Many of those results which have
hitherto been considered as the effect of igneous action, are now believed to
be owing to chemical action. It therefore appears that the time is come
when it is desirable to investigate this question, — whether the theory of
central incandescent heat is tenable ? Whether the plastic conditions of the
earth, to which its oblate spheroidal form has been attributed, be not owing
to an aqueous rather than to an igneous origin ? Water is an essential ele-
ment in every rock, not only mechanically but chemically ; and without
attempting to revive the doctrine of Werner, it may be questioned whether
we have not sometimes been disposed to overlook the importance of the
part it has played in the construction and solidification of our earth." *
* Quart. Journal of Geo. Society. May, 1866. Vol. xxii.
311
Mr. Hamilton, in making these observations on the influence
of water in the formation of rocks, appears to have been under
the impression that it was reviving the doctrine of Werner. This
is a misconception of the modus operandi of the semi-aqueous
action in the subterranean base, and shows that geologists, with
all the advantages of modern discoveries and experiments in
hydrothermal action, have not yet been able to comprehend
the subject in its true light. The chemical or electro-magnetic
wet process of crystallization, the production of metals from
solutions, and the aggregation of crystals into large and
compact massive rocks, must not be confounded with the old,
crude mechanical theory, called the " Aqueous," introduced by
Werner. It is as different from that, as the formation of a
crystal is from that of a brick or a sediment. The one ope-
rates by attraction and chemical action, and the other by
mere mechanical deposition or precipitation. The former
action produces the crystalline rocks, and causes their upward
crystalline growth, and the latter produces the superincum-
bent beds of deposits from substances held in suspension, and
carried to lower levels by water.
The Formation of Cobals.
Before I went to South America, I had been taught to
believe that corals were built by marine animalculse, in a
way somewhat similar to the formation of the honeycomb by
bees.
I have had the opportunity of studying the growth of corals,
in great variety and magnitude, on the shores of South
America, the coast of the Isthmus of Panama, in some of tho
islands of the Pacific, in the Red Sea, at Singapore, Ceylon, in
the coral islands of the Indian Sea, and on the coast of Australia,
but I never detected a single case of a coral being built by
animalcules. I have seen, as it were, plantations of corals, cul-
tivated for lime. I have seen their stems transplanted, and
have watched their growth, both the mushroom and the
arborescent form. The former appears to grow in the water
like a fungus or sponge, and the latter has a growth and
development like arborescent crystals, such as aragonite, &c.
In fact, corals are not built up by inseots, but are formed and
grow like vegetation, having a beautiful internal structure,
like the fibres, rings, and medullary rays of the trunks of
ooniferae, &c. There are siliceous as well as calcareous plants
found growing in the sea* but I shall not on this occasion
dwell longer on these formations. My object in thus noticing
312
the coral growth is to show how much we have yet to learn
with respect to the formations and the productions of the earth.
The Gradual Formation of Islands and Continents.
We have abundant evidence that the continents were not
suddenly formed in their present shape : they gradually ac-
quired it by progressive enlargement of the crystalline growth,
and successive elevations and depressions.
Australia presents a good example of this terrestrial action.
The wharfs at Melbourne have risen six feet above the level
of the sea during the last twenty years ; i. e., a rise at the rate
of four inches per annum. The coast of Lacepede Bay has
upheaved eighteen feet in the last sixty years. This slow rate
of upheaval, if it has continued during the last five hundred
years, would be sufficient to raise two-thirds of Australia above
the level of the sea. Indeed, a large portion of the interior
of that country is still covered with lagoons of brackish water,
and the whole of the low lands are strewed over with marine
shells, similar to those seen on the bordering coast.
The upheaval is by no means uniform. In Western Australia
it is less than in the south-east, and in some parts on the north
the land is subsiding. The flat country in Western Australia
is strewed over with beds of oysters and cockle-shells, of the
species still existing in the adjacent seas, and these are found
in various terraces, from two to twenty feet above the level of
high-water mark. The remains of a vessel of considerable
tonnage have been discovered in a shallow estuary near Vasse
Inlet, which is now shut out from the sea. New Zealand,
like Australia, is likewise more or less covered by compara-
tively recent beds of sands and gravel, containing marine shells
similar to those now existing in the adjacent sea, occa-
sionally mixed with the remains of terrestrial animals which
have only recently become extinct, some of them having been
seen alive in the last century.
The elevation of Tasmania is comparatively of a recent
date. A great portion of what now constitutes the site of
Hobart Town had been under water at a not very remote period.
This is proved by the extensive deposits of comminuted
shells, all of recent species, which are met with, for miles,
along the banks of the Derwent. Some of these deposits are
at an elevation of upwards of one hundred feet above high-
water mark, and from fifty to one hundred yards from the
water's edge, plainly showing thereby that a very recent ele-
vation of the land has taken place. Judging from the condi-
313
tion and comparative freshness of the shells and corals, the
emergence of Tasmania from the sea could not be assigned
to many centuries. Indeed, the general aspect of the southern
part of Australia indicates comparatively modern upheaval,
at first rapidly and then somewhat slowly, but, probably, subject
to periodical increased intensity in the subterranean forces, as
observed on the coast of Chili.
In the Bay of Panama, along the banks of the river Bayano,
I have seen several terraces of marine beds, from the coast
to about fifty feet above high-water mark, of comparatively
recent origin. Since the town was built the upheaval has
been sufficient to render the port worthless excepting for
small boats and canoes. Hence the subterranean action is
never at rest, and is constantly, although imperceptibly, rising
or depressing the surface of the earth. The fundamental base
of the dry land is composed of an aggregation of crystals,
formed into masses of rocks of various degrees of compact-
ness, from mere pasty consistency to the hardness of quartz,
presenting various structures, from the compact granular to
the laminated formations known by the names of granites, por-
phyries, gneiss, and schistose rocks.
The predominating crystals of which the fundamental base,
or the primary rock, is composed, are quartz, felspar, mica,
talc, hornblende, chlorite, schorl, carbonate of lime, sulphate
of lime, fluor spar, &c, &c. Besides these conspicuous crys-
tals there are also disseminated in the primary rocks, either
in minute grains or in solution, all the known metals ; and
these are often seen gradually developed by crystallization
from their solvents in subterranean vacuities, caverns, mineral
veins, &c, and the aggregated crystalline compound becomes
active en masse.
The crystals of which the primary rocks are composed could
never be the production of incandescent matter, as they all
require a certain proportion of water in combination for their
formation, to which their transparency is in many instances
referable.
Thus, crystals of sulphate of lime are of a glossy trans-
parency, and of regular figure : this is due to water ; heat
them and they crumble into a white powder. Quartz
contains from 5 to 20 per cent, of water ; felspar from 3 to 10
per cent. ; and many compounds as high as 45 per cent, of
water. All the rocks, the most solid and compact, lose a large
proportion of their weight on being exposed to the sun, and
many decrepitate when exposed to strong heat: the weight thus
lost being water. Indeed, there is scarcely a substance known
but what is either found in solution, or may be dissolved in an
314
aqueous compound. The apparent insolubility of quartz was
at one time the argument held in favour of the igneous theory,
although silica was found in solution. Silica is now artificially
dissolved, and can be obtained as plastic as clay ; therefore
there is not a single case connected with the materials of
which the globe is composed to warrant the assumption that
they originated from fire. On the contrary, all the observed
facts confirm the belief that the crystals first came forth and
grew from water, and that the lands have gradually risen from
the deep.
The evidence of successive elevations and degressions is so
manifest as not to require further remarks. The evidence is
equally strong that the various deposits of organic remains
have not only been lifted from the deep, but have also been
carried en masse from clime to clime at a slow rate, inasmuch as
the deposits of the northern hemisphere, as far as the Arctic
region, contain all the organic productions of the world.
This subject, however, will have to be treated separately, in
connection with the probable ages of geological formations
founded on astronomical data.
Superficial Changes.
The changes going on over the face of the earth are much
more rapid than the public at large appear to be aware
of. The deposits in deltas are frequently formed in great
thickness, in a comparatively short time, by mountain torrents,
floods and avalanches. The great region between the rivers
Orinoco and the Amazon is intersected by rivers, and covered
here and there with shallow lagoons, subject to periodical
floods. This country is so overloaded with thick and gigantic
vegetation as to render it impenetrable to bulky animals. In
these regions man is considered as a being not congenial to
such a state of nature. The earth there luxuriates in its
gigantic palms, fern-trees, club-mosses, and various rank and
succulent plants. The crocodiles, sharks, iguanoes, &c., are
masters of the rivers ; and the jaguar, pecari, tapir, boa, and a
variety of reptiles, rove and infest the banks, and the high
grass surrounding the lagoons, nothing impeding their increase;
and are almost the sole possessors of the country— as in the
imagined primeval world— without fear and without danger of
being'disturbed by any human being. Were this region to sink
320 feet, the whole surface would be covered by the Atlantic
ocean, and the eastern declivity of the Andes would become
again what it was before, a shore of the ocean. In many parts
of the country are large plains partially covered with gravel,
315
and periodically subject to droughts, rains, heavy floods, inun-
dations, and denudations. Some of the lagoons become dry,
and the thick mud at the bottom, when in a moist state,
incloses alligators and other amphibious reptiles during the
dry season. They remain entombed like eels, in a somewhat
dormant state, and come to life again in the rainy season if the
dry lagoons be not in the interim too thickly covered by
gravel. In the upper regions during the rainy seasons land-
slips occur daily, and large masses of forests and trees of
colossal dimensions are brought down, and the banks of the
rivers and the lower plains become frequently strewed over
with the debris. Some of the large marshes and lagoons are
often changed in a day into plains of gravel, and the sandy
plains are converted into lagoons teeming with life. The delta
of the Amazon exposed to these periodical floods comprises
an area equal to one-half of England.
I remember a great flood and an avalanche which occurred on
February 19th, 1845, on the eastern flank of the central Andes.
Immense masses of ice and boulders gave way on the upper
part of the Paramo de Kuiz, in latitude 5° north, and came
down the ravines in awful torrents of muddy water, with ice,
large granitic and porphyritic boulders, broken fern-trees, &c,
laying waste many square leagues of the hot plains below.
The destruction of human beings, animals and property was
immense. Two or three rivers in the plains were choked, and
their channels changed ; and over many square miles of the
fertile plains were deposited several feet of sand and gravel,
inclosing trunks of trees belonging to the upper cold regions
mixed with those flourishing in the hot countries below. The
tobacco, sugar and guinea-grass plantations were completely
destroyed, and upwards of 1,000 natives perished by this
glacial deluge, or avalanche, in less than twelve hours. The
quantity of sand and gravel deposited on that day was esti-
mated at upwards of 250 millions of tons. The ice and
boulders brought down from the snowy region to the hot
plains below killed a very large quantity of fish and reptiles.
The beds of sand and gravel may be still seen occupying a
very large area, and in places clothed with rank vegetation,
but the catastrophe is almost forgotten amongst the inhabit-
ants. Were an ardent young student of geology, trained in
the recently-accepted geological theory, to visit this district
now, and examine the formation, he might possibly conclude
that it belonged to the glacial period, and was of very remote
antiquity. I could mention various and extensive changes
which have taken place in the interior and along the coast of
South America since the Spanish conquest, but I need not
316
dwell on them on this occasion. I shall conclude with noticing
some of the changes which have been, and still are, going on
in Africa and Asia.
M. Charles Martins, of Montpellier, gives the following
account of the physical characters of the great Sahara, or
desert, in the province of Constantino : —
" We entered a district composed of grey, blue, yellow, and red marks,
associated with conglomerates and limestones, cut up into deep ravines by
the torrents which, during the rainy season, descend from the rock-salt
mountains. These ravines, from fifty to sixty yards in depth, were so close
to each other that it would have required several days to reach the foot of the
mountain, distant only a few miles in a straight line, through this labyrinth
of gorges separated by sharp narrow ridges. Let those geologists who wish
to describe the erosive action of pluvial waters set aside the wretched
examples they quote to illustrate their argument ; let them visit Algeria, and
gain their inspirations from the ravined district of Djebel-el-Mela and the
mountains of the Kabyle. There they will see how the erosive power of
water is able, under our very eyes, to transform a level plain into a mass of
mountains as varied and broken in their forms as those which have been
caused by the elevation and fracture of strata."
The Sahara itself is a dried-up sea-bottom. No correct
estimate can be made when the inland sea disappeared, but the
indications presented by the marine deposits favour the idea
that the event was not very remote. M. Martins observes : —
" When it took place, the Mediterranean existed as it is now,
for we find in the Sahara the shells of the same mollusca which
still live on its shores." Indeed, a very large area of the
Sahara is still below the level of the Mediterranean Sea, from
which it is separated by an isthmus of sand and gravel. The
communication having been thus closed, the inland sea-waters
have been absorbed and evaporated. "Were this isthmus
broken through, a large area of the Sahara would again
become a sea." These changes bordering the African coast
appear to have been brought about more from the influence of
prevalent winds and currents, tropical rains, and the sand-
storms of the desert, than from any great upheavals. Drifted
sands in eastern Africa have overwhelmed the temple of
Jupiter Ammon and the villages on the west side of the Nile,
and have thus converted the scenes of habitation and cultivation
into a barren, sandy desert during the last three thousand
years. Look at Thebes and behold its colossal columns,
statues, temples, obelisks, all desolated and dilapidated. Yet
its hundred gates were celebrated by Homer, and its magnifi-
cence praised during its decline even by the Romans. It and
other great cities, including Carthage, flourished within the last
317
3,000 years. The drifting of the sands of the Nubian desert
K>duces remarkable changes in a comparatively short time,
e encroachment of the Nubian -sandy desert is irresistible,
and the population is gradually emigrating to Lower Egypt.
Where the land has been abandoned, the advance of the sand
on the cultivated districts is becoming more apparent. About
sixty-five miles north of Wadi Halfeh the desert has covered a
great alluvial plain, which had formerly been under cultivation,
and is approaching the river, so that the trunks of the palm-
trees are completely surrounded with sand for upwards of
fifteen feet from their roots. Although rain seldom falls in
Nubia, yet, when such is the case, the fall is remarkable for its
violence, as testified by the magnitude of the water-courses
and tne heaps of boulders, gravel, and sands. I could mention
numbers of other changes which have been brought about
during a few centuries, of the same character as those which
geologists have ascribed to many thousands of years. Even
the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which have been dis-
covered entombed in the vicinity of Vesuvius, were all but lost
to history. Had it not been for Dion Cassius incidentally
noticing their destruction, about a century and a half after the
catastrophe (which occurred about 1,785 years ago), their ages
would, doubtless, have been computed as of many thousands of
years. If, then, these changes have been so much overlooked
in the centre of the civilized world, we cannot expect to obtain
complete accounts in other and less favoured regions.
Had it not been for the records of Holy Writ and of profane
history, the relics found in the mounds of Nineveh would,
doubtless, have been assigned to countless ages past, like the
mounds in the basin of the Mississippi, which have been com-
puted as 50,000 years old. Two thousand five hundred years
ago Nineveh flourished in all its grandeur. Never did any
city equal it in greatness and magnificence, yet it is now buried
in oblivion, and its site overwhelmed with sand. Where is
Babylon, the glory of kingdoms ? The very ground on which
it stood is a scene of desolation — drifted sands and pools of
water. Yet this great capital of the Chaldeans was in all its
splendour as late as about 2,200 years ago.
The scenes of our terrestrial habitation are not permanent,
but ever changing. I have appealed to demonstrable facts ;
but the alleged myriads of years required to effect such changes
are purely imaginary, totally unworthy of those who seek the
fundamental facts of science ; and they ought not to be used as
the foundation of arguments against the veracity of the
Mosaic record. It is my firm persuasion that the more closely
we study the actual conditions of the earth and its true geo-
2a
818
logical changes, setting aside all rash speculations, the
stronger will become our convictions of the substantial truth
and marvellous accuracy of the Holy Scriptures, in the account
of the Creation in Genesis, and in other allusions to the facts
of nature throughout the sacred text.
The Chairman. — I need scarcely call upon you to return thanks for this
valuable paper, the more valuable as it is bristling with facte, gathered from
a very extensive survey of the globe* It is not a paper made up from
'researches in geological works. It bears the impress of actual investigation,
and of such investigation as few men have opportunities of making. I cannot
but conceive that the vast mass of facte brought before us must be of very
great value in the records of this Institute, and that they will be quoted from
those records by many with gteat satisfaction.
Professor Oliver Byrne. — I have been viewing this subject from a
different stand-point to that of Mr. Evan Hopkins ; but I think that the
conclusions and calculations I have come to will establish without much
doubt the truth of his observations) carried further down than he was able to
see. Astronomers say that this earth has six motions — the annual, diurnal,
precession of the equinoxes, solar nutation, lunar nutation (established by
theory and not by observation), and the collapsing of the planes of the
equator and ecliptic* I say there are only three — the annual, diurnal,
and the right motion of the earth's axis. I have travelled over the whole
country Mr. Evan Hopkins has surveyed ; I have been in South America,
and up the Nile, and had an opportunity of seeing that he is perfectly
correct in his statements, as far as I could investigate. But the mathematical
reason of all this is simple indeed. The earth being an oblate spheroid,
revolving on its axis, has a protuberance at the equator, making the diameter
there twenty-six miles greater than the diameter through the poles. If this
earth was a perfect globe, the action of the sun and moon upon it — as a
perfect globe — would have no influence to change the spinning position of the
body. It is not a change of the whole body, axis and all, but a swinging
of the body upon a consecutive axis, that changes the latitude of any place.
There are twenty-six miles of a bulb always changing their position ; and the
action of all the particles must be perpendicular to tangent planes and in the
direction of the plumb-line, from this combined motion* The feet is, that
sand being loose, it nearly obeys the same laws of motion as a fluid like water ;
but the hard rock of the earth changes altogether and all at once. This pro*
tuberance progresses continually round the earth; and twentynrix miles
of a mountain moving on consecutively, causes all these changes. And
that this motion of the earth is in existence can be proved as easily as
anything in the multiplication table. Then if we take and examine the
changes that have taken place in sun-dials — the one dug up in Hercula-
neum for instance, — we find that the position of the dial at the time it wad
in use, would not tell the time correctly now. Take another instance — the
city of Philadelphia, in our own time ; — Market Street and Broad Street
319
cross at right angles, and the instrument with which Philadelphia was laid
but is still in existence ; yet the whole city of Philadelphia has moved in
accordance with this law. The bases of all churches, laid out east, west,
north, and south, have changed. There is not a single observatory in the
world in which an astronomer has taken his latitude where such astronomer
does not differ from his predecessor ; and that this does not arise from errors
is proved, because the difference is always in one way. It is very extra-
ordinary that all the " errors " run one way, and in every place, according to
this law. In our own country, on the plains of Norbury, in Wiltshire, the
Druids erected their stones in an ellipse, to receive the rays of the sun at
the period of the summer solstice ; but it is now 12£ degrees from that
position. You can get any number of facts to prove the soundness of Mr.
Evan Hopkins's views, that the rocks are perpendicular, and that changes of
position take place ; and that not so much time as millions of years is
required, as some suppose. It would not take 500 years, under certain
circumstances, to change the whole country altogether, or even to raise the
whole of the bed of the Pacific Ocean. Geologists tell me that insects are
there building upwards from the bottom at the rate of 4J inches a year.
Fancy insects doing this over the entire bed of the Pacific ! No. It is the
foundation rising. We are gradually going out of our present latitude ; and
so our climates change, and everything else changes in accordance.
Captain Fishbourne. — I may mention a fact which is rather relevant to
this discussion. When, in the reign of the Empress Catherine, the city
of Krasnajask was discovered in Siberia (it is some twenty-five years since I
read the narrative, but to the best of my recollection that was the name),
M. Pallas, a Frenchman, was sent to report upon the discovery ; and he
found amongst other things sun-dials, but the gnomons were not set at an
angle to suit the latitude. His explanation was that these sun-dials had
been imported from a previous centre of civilization, and that the people
were ignorant of their inaccuracy. But that, of course, is not likely ; for if
they used them they would have found that they would not give time cor-
rectly. This would quite agree with the supposition of Mr. Byrne, that the
situation itself had altered in latitude ; and so that the sun-dials found
there were suitable to the place— to the city of Krasnajask, when it was in
its original position, and when founded.
Mr. Reddie. — As bearing upon some of the views put forward in the
paper read by Mr. Hopkins, I will quote a paragraph which I observed in
the Dublin Daily Express of the 20th of November. It states, that at a
meeting of the Royal Dublin Society,
" Mr. Robert H. Scott read his translation of a paper by Professor Oswald
Heer, of Zurich, 'On the Miocene Flora of Atane-kerdluk and North
Greenland.' The paper was interesting both from a botanical and geological
point of view, and it went to prove from fossil specimens of forest trees at
Atane-kerdluk, in North Greenland, especially the Sequoia sempervirens
(red-wood), that Hie climate of Greenland had formerly been thirty degrees
higher than at present ; the ordinary temperature of the locality being now
twenty-one degrees, while the most northern latitude in which that plant
2 A 2
320
now grows in Europe is about fifty-three degrees. The paper concluded by
stating that it would be impossible, by any arrangement of the relative posi-
tions of land and water, to produce for the northern hemisphere a climate
which would explain the phenomena in a satisfactory manner. It must
only be admitted that we are face to face with a problem whose solution,
in all probability, must be attempted, and, doubtless, completed, by the
astronomer."
I have now in my hands a paper which I am about to read, after a few
words of explanation. It is written by a gentleman, a practical chemist,
who had heard that Mr. Hopkins's paper would be read here this evening,
and among other things that it would call attention to the now impugned
doctrine that granite is an igneous formation. A friend of mine, and a
member of the Institute, now present, knowing that this gentleman had been
engaged in making experiments on granite, and that his conclusions were
opposed to those of Mr. Hopkins, let him know that we were about to
discuss this subject ; and I requested that he might be invited to send us a
paper giving his results, that we might hear both sides. He had said that
he supposed we did not care for " facts " in this Institute ; to which I replied
that facts were what we especially cared for. I am, therefore, about to read
what he has sent me, — not as a regular paper, that has been presented in the
ordinary way and passed the council, — but I wish to bring it before you with
this explanation ; and I wish myself individually to do so, all the more,
because I have, in the Scientia Sctmtiarum, and on other occasions, called
public attention to the fact that the theory of granite being an igneous
formation had been given up by geologists. I believe Mr. Hopkins was one
of the first, if not the very first, who impugned that doctrine ; for he did so
nearly thirty years ago. It is certainly now acknowledged by Sir Charles
Lyell, and Mr. Hamilton, the President of the Geological Society, and
indeed by all " authorities " among geologists, that it was an error to suppose
that granite is an igneous crystallization, or that the centre of the earth is
now in an incandescent state, heated up to 195,000 degrees of temperature,
as had been deduced from the nebular hypothesis. I cannot, however, say
that this paper (which is by Mr. Lewis Thompson, M.B.C.S.,) carries conviction
to my mind. I rather think Mr. Hopkins will claim some of its facts as being
rather upon his side, but that is the author's look-out. I only wish to put
the arguments forward, even although I am not convinced by them, because
we do wish in this society to hear all sides of every question we take up.
But Mr. Thompson, I must add, although he does not believe in the aqueous
formation of granite, is by no means a supporter of the nebular theory ; and
he endeavours to destroy that hypothesis, while believing in the igneous
formation of granite. So that if Mr. Thompson's experiments are sufficient
and his reasons sound, we shall have the nebular theory twice slain — first by
water, and now again by fire ! But let us hear Mr. Thompson himself. His
paper is as follows : —
The object of the present paper is to institute an unprejudiced comparison
between certain well-established facts and' a particular theory of the forma-
tion of the earth, known as the " Nebular Theory." According to this theory,
321
the earth was at one time an immense volume of white-hot vapour, which, by
loss of heat and subsequent condensation, was resolved into a globular mass
of white-hot fluid, that slowly cooled down, and after an enormous lapse of
time became the solid compact sphere upon which we live. Much of the
argument in favour of this nebular hypothesis has been drawn from the fact
that the substance called " granite," and which forms a great part of the
crust of the earth, bears upon it distinct evidences of igneous fusion at some
previous period of its existence. Admitting, then, the fact that much of the
granite of the earth was once in a perfect state of fusion, — I ask, does the
solidified granite of the present day afford, as it ought to do, undeniable
proofs that it has cooled down and become solid in the extremely slow and
gradual manner implied in the nebular theory ? Now, I have examined a
great number of specimens of granite from various parts of the world, and so
far from supporting the nebular theory, they all tend to show the extreme
inaccuracy of that theory. Such, at least, is my "opinion ; but upon this
point I leave every one to form an opinion for himself, merely remarking
that the experiments and results I am now about to relate may be, and I
hope will be, repeated and verified or contradicted by many other inquirers
after truth. I have said that granite ought to afford undeniable proofs of the
rate at which it has cooled down and become solid from the fused condition,
and I will here explain in what those proofs consist. Granite is made up of
an aggregation of three or four different substances, which merely cohere
together, and have been designated by mineralogists as felspar, quartz, mica,
and hornblende. But if these substances were once in fusion, and then con-
stituted one uniform fluid, it is clear that in cooling they must have obeyed
the existing laws of chemical affinity, and have arranged themselves into
their present relative positions before the period of actual solidification. That
they did obey the ordinary laws of chemical affinity has been proved by their
analysis, which shows that they have been formed in accordance with the
rules of atomic proportion ; and that the law of gravitation was then in force
will not be denied by the nebular theorists, since it is upon this law that their
whole theory rests. If, then, the substances constituting granite, that is to
say, the felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende, segregated themselves during
the period or fusion, and were at the same time subject to the law of gravita-
tion, it is beyond doubt that they would arrange their respective positions as
regards each other in the exact order of their gravitation, or, as it is palled, in
accordance with the attraction of gravitation, just as we see a piece of lead
sink in water, and oil swim upon its surface. That the said process of solidifi-
cation was not rapid but extremely slow requires no illustration, for this con-
stitutes a part of the nebular theory ; consequently, there was abundant time
to meet the requirements of gravitation. But it may be urged that perhaps
the gravitating power of all these substances maybe alike and uniform, con-
sequently, there might be no disposition for any one of them to sink under or
to swim upon the others, and therefore, if felspar, quartz, mica, and horn-
blende possess exactly the same specific gravity, a melted mixture of them
would probably cool down into just such a regularly arranged granular mass
as is exhibited to us by an ordinary piece of granite. Here, then, was a
practical question : are the components of granite all alike in specific weight,
or are they different ? It is now more than two years ago since I set myself
down to investigate this matter, and during that time I have examined
granite obtained from almost every quarter of the globe — from Siberia,
Norway, Saxony, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, the Mont Cenis Tunnel, Upper
Egypt, the Himalaya Mountains, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New
Zealand, Patagonia, California, and Nova Scotia. As a result of this labour,
I am enabled to say most authoritatively, that not only do the components in
question differ in their specific gravities, but that this difference is sufficiently
322
great to Tender the production of granite under the conditions of the nebular
theory an utter impossibility. In fact, had the cooling and solidification of
granite taken place in the slow and gradual manner indicated by that theory,
it is certain that the felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende would have
arranged themselves into at least three separate and distinct layers, having
not the least resemblance to granite. The uppermost of these layers would
have been felspar, the next quartz, and the lowest would have consisted of
mica and hornblende. Such a view, be it observed, is in strict accord with
the laws of nature, and, in making the assertion, I become only the exponent
of that force which is known as the attraction of gravitation. By an average
of all my experiments I found the specific gravity of granite to be 2*654 ;
that of felspar derived from granite 2*45 ; that of quartz 2*63, and that of
mica and hornblende to vary from 2*82 to 3*17. If, therefore, we suppose a
mixture of felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende fused together into one
fluid, and then left to cool gradually for many days under the influence of
gravitation, it is undeniable that these ingredients would separate and form
distinct layers exactly in the order which I have pointed out, just as mud
under the same influence falls to the bottom of water, and cream rises to the
surface of milk. Viewing, then, the incredible time assumed in the nebular
theory for the cooling and solidification of the whole globe, it ought to follow
in the face of these different specific gravities that the separation of the
felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende should be found most complete and
perfect ; whereas in granite we find nothing but evidences of an imperfectly
crystallized and hastily cooled mass. The evidences of chemical absurdity in
the nebular theory do not, however, stop at this point. By that theory it is
asserted that after the vapour period the earth remained for many ages in
the form of a fluid sphere, subject meanwhile to the influence of gravitation,
so that all the heaviest and most fixed of its elements ought to have settled .
down towards the centre of the globe. As, however, we find, even in the
outer crust, highly ponderous bodies like gold and platinum, we have a right
to infer from the above theory that the portion of the earth under that crust
is composed of matters having an enormous specific gravity. But we know
by experiment that platinum is more than twenty-one times heavier than an
equal bulk of water, and, following out the nebular hypothesis, we are com-
pelled to conclude that the specific gravity of the whole globe is at least
equal to that of platinum. Nevertheless, it has been proved by the most
careful calculations that the whole earth, viewed as a planet, cannot be more
than five or six times heavier than its own bulk of pure water ; so that it is
impossible for its interior to be filled with substances heavier, or even so
heavy, as gold and platinum.
Having satisfied myself that granite could not have been produced accord-
ing to the slow nebular notion, I determined to try what effect rapid cooling
would have upon fused granite. For this purpose a cavity was chiselled out
in a lump of Aberdeen granite, and a piece of granite from the Himalaya
mountains in India was placed in this ^cavity. The piece in question
weighed 740 grains, and, by the action of a powerful oxy-hydrogen blow-
pipe, it was fused in less than five minutes into a fluid, having the consis-
tence of thin syrup, and being then allowed to cool, in less than two minutes
it became solid. When quite cold, the fused mass was detached and
examined. Its resemblance to the mineral called obsidian, proved most
striking, so much so indeed, that when compared with a sample of dark-
coloured obsidian from Iceland, it was only with great difficulty identified.
To granite it had not the least resemblance, and as I had entirely repu-
diated the idea of the production of granite by slow cooling, so now I
abandoned all thoughts of a rapid cooling process ; consequently nothing
remained but a supposition that some length of time, though not a long
time, had been employed in the granitic formation.
323
Looking round for something analogous to this in the processes of our
manufacturing industry, I was not long in discovering one which not only
resembles, but most singularly illustrates that formation. It is a process in
which a fused fluid is employed, composed of different substances, having
different colours and different specific gravities exactly as in the case of the
components of granite ; and this fluid can be cooled down rapidly or slowly,
or in a way that lies between these extremes ; and the results of these
different rates of cooling and solidification may be watched and recorded.
The substance in question is the article known by the name " mottled soap,"
which, as any one may see, has, when recently cut, very much of the appearance
of Scotch granite. This substance on being taken from the copper, is a fused
fluid, and if a portion of it is cooled rapidly, it concretes into a homogeneous
Bolid of a dark uniform hue, somewhat like our artificial obsidian ; if, how-
ever, the fused soap is cooled very slowly, the dark-coloured portions of it,
which are also the highest in specific gravity, all fall to the bottom, and
leave the upper portions quite white, and free from any colour or mottling.
The art of making mottled soap consists in so arranging the time of cooling,
as to allow the dark-coloured parts to gather themselves together in little
masses, by the time the whole of the soap is so cooled as to begin to solidify,
and thus prevent the descent of the heavy dark portions. The imperfectly
crystallized state of granite, and the uniform diffusion throughout its whole
substance of the dark and ponderous particles of mica and] hornblende,
all bespeak a result so identical with that produced by the above process, as
to leave no doubt on an unprejudiced mind of similarity in the cause of
their production. Now, it so happens, that the period of tune in which the
separation of the " mottle " and thickening or solidification of the soap takes
place, is from twenty-four to thirty-six hours ; and if I had never read in the
fable anything to guide me as to the time employed in the solidification of
granite, I should have unhesitatingly fixed upon the above hours as the only
period in which granite could possibly have been formed. That at the
creation it was foqned by the agency of the ordinary laws of nature, I
entirely deny, for by these iaws the interior of a large mass of non-conducting
material like granite could never lose its heat so rapidly as to prevent
crystallization ; in proof of which, we see in extensive irruptions of volcanic
lava that require years to cool, there are produced large, distinct, and well-
defined crystals of basic felspar, to which mineralogists have given the name
" Leucite," from their white colour ; and this alone might serve to satisfy us
that granite had not been slowly cooled.
With regard to the theory which considers granite to have been formed by
solution from water, I feel that very little need be said. There are certainly
many strong arguments of a chemical nature that stand in direct opposition
to such a hypothesis ; but I shall content myself by bringing forward only one
objection to it. It is this, that all the water in our planet is quite in-
sufficient to dissolve the solid portion, even if that solid portion were as
soluble as common salt. A saturated solution of common salt consists of
twenty-seven parts of salt, and seventy-three parts of water ; consequently
these would require to be the relative proportions of land and water accord-
ing to this preposterous assumption of solubility. But if the specific gravity
of the whole globe be 5*6, then these twenty-seven parts, or in other words
the solid portion of the globe, must have a specific gravity of 17*7, which
would seem to indicate that nearly all the solid matter was pure gold. In
reality, however, granite, if it be soluble at all in water, is so to a very
trifling extent ; and to assume that it can be dissolved in 1,000 times its
weight of water is therefore, to say the least of it, greatly favouring the
water hypothesis. But, if the whole of the solid matter of the
globe had ever been dissolved in 1,000 times its weight of water,
then from the gravity of the earth it follows that the specific weight of
324
that solid matter must have been 4,500 times greater than that of water,
and more than 200 times heavier than platinum ! As to the action of
water at high temperatures and under enormous pressures, it would seem
that the originators of this idea are ignorant of the fact that water can only
be heated up to a certain point under any pressure, without ceasing to be
water. Thus M. Cagniard de la Tour long ago proved by experiment, that
ether contained in a sealed-up tube and heated, became wholly converted into
vapour in a space twice its original bulk, and with a pressure of between
thirty-seven and thirty-eight atmospheres : alcohol did the same, exerting a
pressure of 119 atmospheres ; and water became altogether vapour at a tem-
Eerature below that of melting zinc. To talk, therefore, of the action of red-
ot or white-hot water, is simply ridiculous.
I have now arrived at that stage of my undertaking in which nothing
more remains than for me to describe the simple means employed for deter-
mining the specific gravity of the constituent parts of granite, and I do this
with a pleasant hope that others will be induced to repeat my labours. To
ascertain whether the granite contained combined water, the sample was
placed with some chloride of calcium for twenty-four hours in the exhausted
receiver of an air-pump ; it was then carefully weighed and heated red hot,
but in no instance did any loss of weight occur ; therefore granite does not
contain combined water. The granite was next reduced to a coarse powder,
and 500 grains of this were put into an ordinary 1,000 grain specific gravity
bottle, which, being filled up with distilled water, was weighed, and the
weight so found deducted from 1,500 gave a result to be used as a divisor of
the 500 grains of granite, from the product of which the specific gravity of
the granite was found. And I will here remark that this mode is more accu-
rate than the common plan of weighing in water a single piece ; because there
are always fissures and sometimes cavities in minerals, and these fissures
remain filled with air and buoy up the mineral so as to vitiate the result.
To obtain the specific gravity of felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende, the
same process was followed ; but much trouble requires to be taken for the
purpose of separating these components of granite from each other. It is
not difficult to separate the mica and hornblende from the quartz and felspar
after the granite has been coarsely powdered ; but it requires a strong light,
good eyesight, and much patience to pick out the mica from the hornblende,
and still more to separate the quartz from the felspar ; and this last constitutes,
in fact, the greatest difficulty in the whole proceeding.
Having read this paper, I must now once more repeat that it does not
carry conviction to my mind. Without attempting to criticise it throughout,
I shall briefly notice one or two of the points wherein it appears to me to be
defective. Mr. Thompson promised us facts ; but he has only given us the
result of a single experiment And what does it teach us ? Not, in my
opinion, what he draws from it. He melts a few hundred grains of granite
and lets it cool ; and he obtains something like obsidian. He tells us this
fused granite cooled rapidly ; and he assumes that had it cooled more slowly
it would have cooled into granite, instead of obsidian. I must demur to that
assumption. The experiment appears to me only to prove that, if the mate-
rials of granite were ever in a state of fusion, the result would be some
homogeneous matter like obsidian, and not granite. He thinks the result
would have been different if the fused granite had been more slowly cooled.
But he has not verified that by experiment. He has given us no facts to
prove this conclusion. I will notice another point where the reasoning does
325
not satisfy me. You will remember in one part of his paper Mr. Thompson
objects to the predominance of water in the earth, and states that if that were
the case, then the specific gravity of its solid parts must be nearly that of
gold. Now, were that so, not only should we haye a new Plutonic theory !
but it would really after all be only in accordance with what was stated in
the address of Mr. Grove, as President of the British Association, last
August — namely, that instead of the heaviest matter of the earth being near
its surface (as we have long been taught), it is probably more solid and
heavier as it gets nearer the centre. But apparently Mr. Thompson's sole
reason for rejecting this, is merely that it is contrary to the Newtonian
theory as to the mass of the whole earth ; for it is upon that theoretical
assumption, and not upon facts, that the whole reasoning is based. It is
enough for me to point out, that at any rate, that theory has not stood in the
way of Mr. Grove propounding, as now most probable, what is not only con-
trary to the Newtonian doctrine as to the earth's mass, but also to the nebu-
lar notion that the earth's centre is filled with matter in a state of igneous
fluidity. In conclusion, I am obliged to say that if we consider that MM.
Daubree and Bischoff made certain experiments with granite which convinced
them that it is a watery crystallization, and also that they have brought over
the leading geologists to this view, although it was contrary to all their pre-
conceived notions and previous teaching, I think it was incumbent upon Mr.
Thompson to have noticed the experiments of these eminent chemists, and,
if he could, to have shown where they were defective and faulty ; and not
merely to have made a detached and single experiment of his own, which
appears to prove very little, and even that little, in my opinion, to be rather
against what he deduces from it.
Mr. Hopkins. — I can see clearly, from the observations of Mr. Thompson,
that he has been making experiments from cabinet specimens of granite.
Suppose you were to make experiments from cabinet specimens of wood, to
ascertain something as to the sap of a tree in its living state, you would ob-
tain very strange results ! Now, if you want to ascertain the real constitution
of granite, you should study the granite in situ. For instance, in one place
you may have a granite undergoing change. That granite is composed of
hornblende, felspar, mica, and so on, and is undergoing lamination. If you
take a piece of that granite, and cut a block of it, and weigh it, you will find
that it loses weight after exposure to heat, just the same as minerals. We
allow so much for* water, and we call that water mechanically combined.
Granite is saturated with water ; it is always saturated, and is not a mere
dry block. —
Rev. W. Mitchell. — May I ask you, Mr. Hopkins, to answer one question,
as you are well acquainted with deep mines, Whether you can go to any depth
where you do not find water ; and whether water is not the greatest enemy
of the miner ?
Mr. Hopkins. — It is the most difficult thing the miner has to contend
with, and you cannot go to any depth without finding it. Wherever you go,
you come to water, whether in granite or any other formation. With refer-
2b
326
enoe to the constitution of granite, if you take separate crystals, you will also
find that each crystal has a certain proportion of water chemically or minerar
logically combined ; and if you drive it out, the crystal becomes opaque, and
loses weight, the quantity varying from two or three to twenty per cent.
Without water, crystals are not formed, especially rock-crystals. Again you
may have granite, with gold in saturation. In another place you will find
the gold becoming gradually developed out of the granite as the granite under-
goes changes, and coming out like large round balls. Elsewhere you find a
little gold in dissemination, but not like the other. There is change constantly
going on ; the condition of the rocks is never stationary, but it either changes
into lamination, or into fractures, something like the bark on the trunk of a
tree. Now, I say we have such an immense accumulation of facts, that we
ought now to insist upon facts ; and not go on trying to find out what is in
the centre of the earth, and so on. Let us attend to facts as we find them, and
see what we really have ; and let us leave theories for the future. I will add
one or two words with regard to minerals. I have no hesitation in stating
that I will go to any rock and say what it contains by looking at it. If you
let me see a good surface of it, I will state whether it contains gold, silver,
tin, and so on. I am speaking as to the metal the rock will contain, and
net as to the quantity of the metal, for that will depend on the amount of
deposits and accumulations, but I am referring only to the nature of the
constituents.
The Chairman. — I shall only make a few observations from my own point
of view, in confirmation of what Mr. Hopkins has said with regard to the
formation of granite. In doing so I may express some of my objections to
the theory advanced by Mr. Thompson. The experiment performed by the
latter gentleman on a small scale, as Mr. Hopkins has reminded us, is wrough
out by nature on the most gigantic scale. Wherever we find active volcanoes,
we find them melting granite, or some other primary rock. Lava, obsidian,
pitchstone, and such-like volcanic products, are but molten primary roclts.
Now I ask what analogy do any of these substances bear in their structure
to the so-called primary rocks ? Are they anything like granite, for instance ?
Mr. Thompson admits that the structure of granite could not be formed
from any of these substances by slow cooling. That I take to be an im-
portant admission. I cannot believe it is produced by quick or any inter-
mediate rate of cooling. We have not to go far eVen in London for a practical
demonstration of the structure of the primary rocks. Our bridges and public
buildings show us that granite is composed of well-formed crystals of several
distinct minerals, interlacing one another in every direction ;— crystals of
quarts, mica, and felspar. On London or Southwark Bridge you may see
crystals of the latter substance as large, or larger, than your hand, presenting
to the casual observer the appearance of large fossil bones. The constituents
of granite not only contain water chemically united to them, but they also
contain water mechanically diffused,-- a fact which can hardly be reconciled
with their production by crystallization from a molten mass. Now let us
consider the crystalline constituents of granite — we have crystals of quartz,
327
consisting of silica in a state more or less free from admixture with foreign
substances. Then we have the crystals of mica and felspar, the most com*
posite of mineral substances. These three substances are distinct from one
another in crystalline and chemical composition. But then the micas and
felspars admit of the greatest and most puzzling varieties of chemical con-
stitution ; one chemical element taking the place of another, without altering
the crystalline character of the mica or the felspar in which the change of
composition is found. We may have some conception of the composite
structures and varieties of these minerals, when we state that nearly all, if
not all, the metals and the mineral constituents of the sedimentary rocks may
be found in the granites or other primary rocks. We have potash and also
soda felspars. In the micas as well as the felspars we have not only the
principal constituents, silica and alumina, but also soda, potash, lime, iron,
magnesia, and water, replacing each other with most puzzling variations.
We all know how gold is diffused through the quartz of some kinds of granite.
The microscope is said also to reveal native iron among the constituents of
granite. Doubtless all the metals and other minerals found in the cracks
and crevices of the primary rocks were once in combination with these rocks.
But I never could form any clear conception of the origin of metallic and
mineral veins till I read Mr. Hopkins's work on the subject. Very high
geological and mineralogies! authorities used to speak of gold as the most
recent of all the metals ; — how more recent than others, I could not conceive.
Some went so far as to imagine some recent geological event, when, as it were,
a golden shower had fallen from heaven to earth ! The experiments of
Daubr^e and Bischoff have proved the mechanical and chemical combination
of water in granite. Though the authorities of the Geological Society were
not convinced by Mr. Hopkins, their faith in the igneous origin of granite
was first shaken, I believe, by my friend Mr. Clifton Sorby's microscopical
researches. By investigating microscopically the minute bubbles in crystals,
he was able to determine whether the crystal was formed from an aqueous or
some other liquid solution, or produced by cooling from a molten mass.
With regard to Mr. Thompson's assumption of the insolubility of silica in
water, the geysers in Iceland afford a direct refutation of this. How, again,
without the solubility of silica, can we account for the formation of silicified
woods, without injury to the most delicate vegetable fibres ? Dr. Bowerbank
has shown that the most delicate structures in sponges (which he had found
destroyed by decomposition only a few hours after the death of the sponge),
are faithfully and perfectly preserved in the flint. Before electro-metallurgy
was discovered, we could form no idea as to the method nature takes to
separate metals from the rocks through which they may be diffused. We
have now, however, learnt the power of electricity in separating metals from
the aqueous solutions of their salts. Soon after the discovery of this fact, a
copper electrotype was produced without any artificial battery, by imbedding
wires in two different strata of a mine, and using the galvanic current thus
produced. Here then we have a demonstration of the electro-magnetic action
of the earth, and of its power in the formation of mineral products. This
328
goes far, in my opinion, to show that Mr. Hopkins's hypothesis of the for-
mation of metallic veins is one well supported by foots which come under
our observation, analogous to those he attributes to the natural magnetic
currents of the globe, operating constantly, though almost imperceptibly, on
a large scale.
The meeting was then adjourned.
'i
1
329
ORDINARY MEETING, Jan. 7, 1867.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed ; and
the Hon. Secretary then announced the names of the following Members
and Associates who had been elected since ; the first Meeting at the com-
mencement of the Session: —
Members : — Benjamin Bond Cabbell, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., &c, &c, Bencher
of the Middle Temple, J.P., and Dep.-Lieut. for Middlesex, 52, Portland
Place, W. (Vice-Patron and Life Member.)
■
"William Henry Elliott, Esq., 10, Claremont Crescent, Surbiton
Hill, S.W. (Life Member.)
Thomas Ball, Esq., Bramcote, Notts ; Charles Lloyd Braithwaite, Esq.,
Kendal, "Westmoreland ; John Colebrook, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., late
H.M. Madras Army, 31, Moore Street, Chelsea, S.W. ; Rev. "William
Reyner Cosens, M.A., Oxon. et Cantab., Incumbent of Holy Trinity,
Westminster, 10, Bessborough Gardens, Pimlico, S.W. ; Rev. M. Davi-
son, 5, Lansdowne Place, Lansdowne Road, Hackney, N.E. ; Charles
Deacon, Esq., 5, Orsett Place, Westbourne Terrace, "W. ; Thomas Fol-
jambe, Esq., M.A., J.P., and Dep.-Lieut for West Riding of Yorkshire,
Acomb, near York ; Alexander Gailey, Esq., Harengey Park, Hornsey, N. ;
Sydney Gedge, Esq., Mitcham Hall, S. ; Bruce Goldie, Esq., Russell
Street, Chelsea, S.W. ; Thomas Gray, Esq., H.M. Civil Service, Assoc.
I.N.A., 9, St. Martin's Road, Stockwell, S. ; John Hall, Esq., Bondicar
House, Blackheath, S.E. ; James Peddie Harper, Esq., M.D., Edin.
Univ., M.R.C.S.E., Clydesdale Villa, Windsor, Berks ; Rev. Sir W. R.
Tilson-Marsh, Bart., M.A., Oxon., Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall-
mall, S.W. ; Arthur C. Rainey, Teignmouth, Devon ; John Henry
Sadler, Esq., 34, Norfolk Road, Brighton ; John Shaw, Esq., M.D.,
Viatoris Villa, Boston, Lincolnshire ; William Stewart, Esq., of Glen
Stewart, Prince Edward's Island, 12, Cottage Road, Eaton Square, S.W. ;
James K Vanner, Esq., Stamford Hill, N. ; William Vanner, Esq.,
Stamford Hill, N.
2 C
330
Associates ; 1st Class : — Rev. George Ranking, B.C.L., Cantab., Beulah
Road, Tunbridge "Wells ; 2nd Class : — Mrs. Curteis, Aldenham, St.
James's Road, Tunbridge Wells {Life Associate) ; Mrs. Harward, Chesham
House, Nelson Street, Ryde, Isle of Wight ; Mr. Thomas G. Salt,
7, Downs Park Road,. Shacklewell, N.E.
The above Members and Associates were elected upon the Foundation
List.
The following Associates have also been elected for the current year : —
Associates, 1st Class :— Joseph Delpratt, Esq., 54, Queen's Gardens,
Hyde Park ; 2nd Class — Mrs. Flint, 34, Arundel Gardens, Ken-
sington Park, W.
The following books were announced as having been presented to the
Society : —
Adam and the Adamite, By Dominick M'Causland, Esq., Q.C., M.V.I.
From the Author.
Sermons in Stones. By the same. From the Author.
The Honorary Secretary then stated that he had much pleasure in
announcing, that the Foundation List, as now printed, corrected to 31st
December, 1866, contained 276 names, viz. : —
2 Vice-Patrons,
10 Life Members,
224 Members, Annual Subscribers,
3 Life Associates, 2nd Class,
37 other Associates, 13 1st Class, 24 2nd Class,
#
276
He also observed that the total assets for the year, in Donations and Sub-
scriptions, including the donations of sixty guineas each from two Vice-
Patrons, amount to £868, — of which the sum of £500. 10s. is from Annual
Subscriptions.
Professor Kirk then read the following Paper : —
881
ON THE PAST AND PRESENT RELATIONS OF GEOLO-
GICAL SGIENOE TO TEE SACRED SCRIPTURES.
By the Rev. John Kirk, Professor of Practical Theology
in the Evangelical Union Academy, Glasgow ; Author of
" The Age of Man Geologically considered in its bearing on
tlie Truths of the Bible" fyc, fyc. ; Memb. Vict. Inst,
IT seems too like presumption for an (C outsider " in
Geology to undertake such a subject as this. We are
reminded of a young man who had been trained in the
country as a cartwright, and came to town seeking employ-
ment as a joiner. He was asked if he had ever made a
window, and replied that he had not, but that he had made a
harrow, which he said "was very like it." We fear that
the present paper will be only too like the writer's former
" harrow," to pass well for the window which is required. It
will lack symmetry, and its joints will admit, all too freely,
the "cold winds of criticism/' And yet the glorious sun,
whose radiance is truth, may condescend to shine through it.
Geology is literally the " word of the earth." Not a word
which the earth speaks, but the word which is spoken or
written concerning the earth.
A word is a symbol of thought. It is only in so far as
geology expresses thought regarding the earth, that it is any-
thing. It is not the structure of the globe itself — nor is it
the absolute truth regarding that structure — neither is it the
expression of that truth. It is only the expression of that
imperfect thought by which the structure of the earth is re-
presented in the minds of men. He who is aware of this,
will guard against the idea that Geology is any part of that
supreme knowledge to which all other thought must ultimately
bow.
When we take up Geological Science in this view, it lays
itself out to us in three great divisions. There is that
thought in which what are called the facts of the science are
represented, then that representing the true inferences drawn
from the comparison of these facts, and, last, the conjectural
ideas that are allowed to represent themselves, but do not
represent any other reality. If we wish to illustrate the first
of these divisions of thought by an example, we may take up
2 c 2
332
a piece of rock, composed, we shall say, of sandstone, which
has just been broken from the solid bed in the side of a hill.
In that piece of rock, and as it lay in the mass of the
mountain, you see the form of a shell. The words which
express the thought of that fact form a part of that which is
fundamental in geology. Apart from this kind of thought
there is nothing real in the science.
In that which is called a fact of this character, you have
three things; first, the material rock with its shell-form;
then the thought representative of that object in the mind ;
and third, the words which express that thought. The piece
of rock is the same to all who see it; the thought repre-
senting it in one mind is probably, so far, unlike the thought
of it in every other ; and the words expressive of such thought
are both varied and changeable. Yet, from the nature of the
rocky fact itself, there is at least a possibility of such repeated
observation as issues in the all but perfect agreement of
informed minds, as to the thing itself. It is the expression of
thought regarding such facts, about which the truly scientific
mind is ever most careful.
But to proceed to another example. You are on the sea-
shore ; and observing a portion of the sand which the tide has
left exposed, you see that true shells, as they have been left by
the molluscs that dwelt in them, are imbedded in that sand
exactly as the form you have seen is imbedded in the rock.
As yet we assume that you do not reason on the relations of
those objects — you only observe them as they lie. Your
thoughts represent little more than that which has reached you
through your senses, sufficiently cogitated to present the
objects to your mind. We shall suppose that you go on ob-
serving objects of this character, you are treasuring that kind
of thought, out of which all geological science must be
formed.
But there is, as we have said, a second and very different
description of geological thought. You bring together the
form of a shell which you have observed in the rock, and a
real shell which you observed in the sand ; comparing them,
you perceive that, in many respects, they are not alike. They
are indeed similar, but also strikingly dissimilar, and you
begin to reason or to infer, that is, to form certain thoughts
which represent relations of objects rather than the objects
themselves. You then leave the thoughts representative of
the mere facts for totally different thoughts, and enter a region
in which difficulties and dangers greatly increase. It is then
that you begin to realize what Steno, one of the ablest of
geologists, wrote about two centuries ago. He says, addressing
333
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, — " Most Serene Duke, it often be-
falls travellers in unknown countries, that, hastening through
a mountainous tract unto a town standing on the top of a
hill, they think it hard by, as soon as they come in sight of it ;
the manifold turnings and windings of the ways thereto retard
their hopes unto a trouble. For [at first] they have only a
view of the nearest tops, but they cannot guess what is hidden
by the interposition of those high places ; whether they be
lower hills or deep valleys, or plain fields, because with their
flattering hopes they measure the distances of places by the
eagerness of their desires." It is not the sight of the hill-
tops, nor even that of the town beyond them, that gives
the traveller difficulty and the danger of error, but the effort
to infer, or to form the thought which will truly represent the
unseen distances between. "So," says this learned Dane,
"Having once or twice seen those grounds out of which are
digged up shells and other such-like things cast up by the
sea, and found that those earths were the sediments of a
turbid sea, and that everywhere we might estimate the num-
ber of times how often the sea had been troubled here and
there, I hastily not only imagined by myself, but confidently
affirmed to others, that the whole business [of accounting for
them] would be an inquiry and work but of a very short
time."* There was no difficulty to Steno as to the facts ; but
when he undertook to produce the true thoughts which would
represent the relations of those facts, he found himself encoun-
tering the real labour of science.
And yet it is not in the field of patient inference from
facts that either great difficulty or danger may be said to
lie. If we are satisfied to accept the certain thought which
fairly compared facts gradually give us, and to wait patiently
for the increase of such true light, we may learn an incalcu-
lable amount of relative truth. Much that cannot be seen
will be as real to us, and even far more powerful and precious
in its influence over us, than anything that is seen. For
example, we may observe how a shellfish lives and dies in the
bed of the sea at the present time, leaving its shell in the sand,
and observe also the form of a similar shell imbedded in a
rock, which is now high above the level of the sea. We may
note that this shell-form is so imbedded as to indicate that the
creature to which the shell belonged lived and died in the
very sand of which that rock is composed, just as the modern
one lived and died under the present waters of the ocean. We
* I quote from an interesting old volume entitled " The Prodromus to a
Dissertation concerning Solids contained icithin Solids, &c. By Nicokus
Steno. Englished by H. 0. 1671 ;" pp. 1 to 4.
334
have now got a great amount of relative thought, and we may
go on till we believe, without difficulty and without danger of
error, that the sea at one time flowed over the rock in which
this shell-form lies imbedded. So long as the facts are duly
observed, and the inferential thoughts derived from their com-
parison are manifestly related to the facts, and beyond reason-
able doubt, so long we are gathering real science in its two
great branches of trustworthy instruction.
But, as we have indicated, there is a third kind of geological
thought, which is of a value very different from that of the
other two. This consists of speculation, which, so far as dis-
covery has gone, has no realities to represent. The universe
of waking dreams, to which this introduces us, consists of all
the possibilities of falsehood as well as of all those of truth.
It is the region from which, we humbly think, true science
warns us away. That which is, and so may be known, as dis-
tinguished from that which is not, but may be conceived, is the.
proper object of science. It is very important, when we would
trace the relations of geological science to the Sacred Scrip-
tures, to consider whether we mean the relations of our first
two divisions of thought, or the relations of that so-called Geo-
logy, which is chiefly composed of conjecture. Because of the
extremely speculative tendencies of scientific men, it has be-
come painfully necessary that we should sift most carefully that
which is presented, even by the highest authorities, as geolo-
gical science ; so that we may be able to distinguish between
truth which is the logical result of real discovery, and doctrine
held as above all price, but which may be abandoned to-morrow
by those who are to-day its most earnest advocates. Because
of the fond partiality, too, with which favourite hypotheses are
almost worshipped, and on account of which every opposing
idea is disliked, it is needful that we take up, and examine with
great care, views that have been scouted by scientific leaders
and their followers as worthless.
Almost all truth has been thus treated for a time by the
rulers of public opinion during whose reign it has been dis-
covered. To those who have not yet attended to the evidence
from which it really springs, and who are more in love with
speculation than with real science, every new truth will appear
conjectural, it may be even preposterous; while conjecture,
which has no evidence whatever to support it, may seem
highly reasonable, only because it happens to accord with
some preconceived notion.
It is in connection with this part of our subject that we
come upon the phrase " negative evidence." At first sight
one would naturally imagine that this means really " evidence."
>}
335
But it means nothing of the kind. Such evidence as could,
with any degree of propriety, be called " negative/' must be
such as would nullify some apparently positive evidence opposed
to it. That to which we are geologically introduced has no
such effect. The " negative evidence " of popular geology is
only that to which we are told the Irishman appealed, when,
on being confronted with a witness who saw him commit the
crime laid to his charge, said he could bring a dozen who did
not see him do it ! For example, what were called the " oldest
rocks " were termed azoic, because it was held that no relics of
life had been found in them. And, as it was held also that
no relics of life had yet been found beneath them, it was con-
cluded that there was no life on the surface of the globe when they
were formed. The support of this great doctrine was " nega-
tive evidence." In other words, it was not known that there
were no relics of life in such rocks — there was no evidence of
such a negative ; on the contrary, very worthy testimony had
been borne to the effect that such relics had been found — still
less was it known that there never had been such relics of
life in these old rocks ; there is now, at least, pretty strong
evidence that such relics existed, though they have been obli-
terated in the alterations of the strata in which they were
inclosed. It was only generally unknown whether or not there
were such relics of life in these rocks, or under them. We
need scarcely say that all conclusions built on ignorance, under
the name of " evidence," are utterly unworthy of science.
We have only too strong reason to dwell on this conjectural
aspect of the fashionable geology of our day. It is not as if
only details, here and there, were turning out false, while grand
principles remain evidently sound. If we do not err greatly,
the speculative geological mind is escaping out of one great
mistake in principle, and that only by leaping into another as
great, because its leaders are careless as to the true nature of
their reasoning. When their evidence is not " negative," or, in
plain words, not nothing, it is so utterly inadequate as to leave
the ideas supposed to be proved by it, as purely conjectural as
if they were altogether matters of fancy. For example, look
at the measurement of time believed to be required for the
upheaval of land. " Two feet and a half in a centwry " is a
scale of upheaval adopted for the whole world during all time !
Why ? Only because there is apparently some reason to think
that the coast of Norway, taking the north and south of that
coast together, and striking the average, is rising at that
two-and-a-half-feet rate ! The observation of this mere scrap
of the earth's surface, and that during a very brief period, is
taken as if it furnished a sufficient standard for measuring the
336
rate of upheaval over all portions of the surface of the globe,
during all ages ! Such is a grand instance of conjectural
chronology as given by one of the greatest of geologists.*
As another instance, I take the following from the same
high authority; in this case, an estimate of time required for the
growth of strata. A mass of rock, sixty feet thick, is described
as composed of layers so thin, that " thirty are sometimes
contained in the thickness of an inch." Observe the " some-
limes ;" for we notice in the same description, that there are
" occasionally " layers of flint, carbonaceous matter and marl,
each, as it seems from the statement, " about an inch thick."
We have no means given of estimating the " sometimes," nor
the ' e occasionally," that are manifestly of so much importance
in the case. Between the layers, of which thirty occupy an
inch, there are marks of plants that have been flattened and
carbonized, and " sometimes myriads of small Paludince and
other fresh-water shells." Here again we observe the " some-
times" For these thin leaves are spoken of as each " a page of
history representing a certain period of the past." And we
are evidently expected to draw the inference that these rocks
that have grown in ancient lake-bottoms, were formed " with
extreme slowness." We are also told that masses of the same
sort of rock, two hundred feet thick, are found in the neigh-
bouring hills.f Well, how shall we calculate ? Say that we
give each bed of shells a year to grow, and forget the " some-
times," and the ' i occasionally " also. One inch of rock gives
thirty years ; a foot of rock, 360 years ; sixty feet, 21,600 years ;
200 feet, 72,000 years ! Here, then, is a magnificent idea.
But what if abed of such very small snail-shells should not take
a month to grow ? What, if some of the flattened plants might
be floated and laid on the surface of the lake-bottom every
day ? What, if the heat at noon and the cold at night, affect-
ing the muddy water, might account for the layers ? Each of
them would then represent but a day, and thirty of them only
a month. What if the " sometimes," in which the snail-shells
occur, should be very few times, and the u occasionally,"
which qualifies the occurrence of layers an inch in thickness,
should be really very often. How do our 72,000 years dwindle
down into a very brief period indeed ! If we take for example
any pond into which muddy streams are flowing, it is surely
anything but according to experience and observation among
those who should clean such places out, that they take ages to
* LyelPs Antiquity of Man, edition 1863, pp. 58, 178. Sir Charles
advances this two-and-a-half-feet scale in exceedingly cautious language, but
argues upon it as if it might be fairly assumed.
t Lyell's Elements of Seology, edition 1865, page 229.
337
silt up. The slightest change in the inflowing water, or in
the temperature of the pond itself, causes a change in the
character of the silt, and, consequently, a layer in the mass
forming in the bottom. As to larger bodies of water, Page
says that the clayey mud of the great Chinese rivers is esti-
mated as borne down at the rate of two million cubic feet in an
hour ! The Ganges alone carries 700,000 cubic feet every
hour into the Bay of Bengal ! * Must such work take tens of
thousands of years to deposit sixty feet of muddy strata ? In
the face of the most common facts, it is surely anything but
scientific to magnify duration into measureless vastness, when
looking at a rock which has been formed by such means.
So much for the three great divisions of what is generally
understood to be geology. It seems well that we should have
the true nature of that which passes as the science clearly
before us, ere we attempt to trace its relations in any direction.
Sacred Scripture is the Word of God. It is a word which
He speaks, rather than one spoken concerning Him. It is the
expression of thoughts which He desires to communicate to
men. It is, we think, really an expression of a portion of His
own thoughts, although that expression is necessarily cast in
the mould of human language, and these thoughts are neces-
sarily made to take a form such as allows them to enter the
human mind. When thus viewed, the Sacred Scriptures
present us with several divisions of very important matter for
consideration.
First of all, we think it necessary to note a very important
distinction between what is called "the Book of Nature,"
and the written revelation contained in the Bible. The created
universe is, no doubt, in a certain sense, an expression of
divine thought, and as such, it is a " Book " which may, and
ought to be " read;" but it is not such an expression as that
which takes the form of human language, and comes near, in
that language, with the treasures of the divine heart, to the
human soul, as man comes near in speech, and opens his heart
to his fellow-creature. If, for example, we observe attentively
what a man does, we may generally so far learn what that man
thinks and feels. If we note what he does to us, we may
generally so far learn his state of heart towards us. Man's
works are, in this sense, an expression of his thoughts
which may be read. So far, we may speak of his doings as
the Book of his deeds; and we may also thus far speak of the
" Book " of God in nature. But this is very different from
* Page's Advanced Textbook of Geology, edition 1856, page 31.
338
that which takes place when any one either speaks to ns him-
self, or sends another, for the purpose of telling us the very
thoughts and feelings of his own mind. In the former case,
we indirectly learn something regarding the mind of the
person whose deeds we observe, — we may, so to speak, guess
correctly his feelings and designs ; but, in the latter case, we
are not left to guess at all. We are directly told the thoughts
and feelings, as well as the true intentions of his heart. He
who, in any proper sense, believes in the divine authorship
of the Bible, sees in it an expression of God's own thoughts,
and that by Himself, as really addressing Himself to man-
kind.
This view is greatly strengthened, when we remember that
portions of the Sacred Scriptures consist of God's own state-
ments of such doings of His as could not, in the nature of the
case, be otherwise known to man. The account of the creation
is plainly of this character. It could not be gathered from any
other source than God's own testimony. Man seeks in vain
for it in the so-called " Book of Nature." He finds it in the
plain testimony of the inspired teacher, who is made to com-
municate God's own thoughts of it to mankind. We see in it
the teaching of the Creator himself as to His work — not the
teaching of the work, but of Him by whom the work was
performed.
But there are other distinctions of great moment to be
noticed. We must not confound the noblest productions of
men as authors, with this Word of God. To take, therefore,
another illustrative example. If we open a book which has
been written by one of ourselves in the ordinary way, we
gather merely the thoughts of the man who has originally
written the book. If we open the book of Genesis, we gather
not merely thoughts which passed through the mind of Moses,
but the thoughts of God, which He passed through the mind of
the Hebrew, that they might be communicated to us. No modi-
fication of the idea of inspiration, which allows any fragment of
that idea to remain in the mind, can dispense with this view of
the divine origin of those thoughts that are embodied and
expressed in the Sacred Scriptures. These Scriptures must
be accepted as God's" expression of His thoughts, as truly as
man's scripture is his expression of his own thoughts, or we
are not regarded as possessing any true Word of God in the
Bible. What is called " the inspiration of the poet," is no
more " inspiration," such as that of Sacred Scripture, than is
ordinary thought of the dullest kind. Both are only the
thoughts of human beings. But the inspiration of the Bible
is really God's personally passing His thoughts through human
339
minds, so as to cause them to be expressed in human language
to men.
I am careful to make this part of our subject clear, because
the entire importance of all true defence of the Bible hinges
on the idea of a real inspiration of the thoughts communicated
in that record by the Infinite One. The relation of science to
Milton's " Paradise Lost/' for example, is a matter of little or
no moment ; and if the Books of Moses had no other inspira-
tion than those of Milton, and others of like genius, the
relation of science to them would be equally unimportant. It
is the belief that God spake by Moses, and meant that the
words which Moses wrote should express His own divine
thoughts, and this belief alone, which gives the relation of
Science to Scripture its intense interest. " Thus saith the
Lord/1 are words that express the grand peculiarity of Sacred
Scripture, and they can have no meaning short of that to which
we are now directing attention.
There is, however, another aspect of this matter which re-
quires to be carefully considered here. If thought is to pass
from the Divine to the human mind, that thought will be
affected both in form and degree, because of the nature of the
mind which it enters. It must be evident, at a glance, to
any one, that the infinite conceptions of God cannot be com-
prehended in the extremely limited intelligence of man. So
must it be evident that the absolute harmony which appears
to the Omniscient, because of His omniscience, cannot be made
to appear to those who can, in the nature of the case, see only
a few fragments of the vast whole. This is true even in the
communication of truth from a largely informed to a little
informed mind among men. If any one who has mastered a
great subject is desirous to communicate some portion of his
thoughts to another who is as yet very ignorant not only of
that subject but of things in general, he must present only a
portion of those thoughts, and that such a portion as cannot
represent the loftiness and harmony of that which delights his
own mind. While, then, the believer in the divine inspiration
of the Sacred Scriptures, regards them as the expression of
God's thoughts, he does not imagine that these Scriptures
were ever intended to express all God's thoughts on any sub-
ject, or to represent the harmony of truth as it is seen in the
Infinite Mind. He means only that the thoughts, so far as
expressed, are God's own thoughts, and hence infallibly true.
But if these thoughts are affected by the nature of the mind
which they enter, they are still more affected as they pass from
one human mind to another. We all know how seldom anything
is told twice over in exactly the same shade of meaning, and
340
how necessary it is, if we would secure the truth, to have it as
far as possible at first hand. This makes it necessary ever to
distinguish between the teachings of the inspired writers and
all interpretations of those teachings. Not that we would un-
dervalue interpretation. When a mind full of vast and varied
knowledge, reads a portion of the Sacred Scriptures, the divine
thought which rises in that mind will be far more full than that
which rises in the mind that has but little information. Con-
sequently, the well-informed will often be able to help the
ill-informed to more lofty and expanded views of divine things,
or of things divinely spoken of, than could otherwise be reached
by the less favoured among men. So the mind which is free
from error, to a great extent, will be capable of far more
truthful thought in reading the divine record, than that mind
which has imbibed a great deal of false idea. There will be
less mixture in the views suggested by revelation in the one
mind, than in those which rise in the reading of it by the
other. The man, therefore, who is comparatively free from
misleading preconceptions, must often be of great use to the
man who is not so. Hence the value of his interpretations.
But if these same interpretations are allowed to take the place
which can only be properly occupied by the sacred Word
itself, it is not difficult to see that there must be great risk of
evil. In so far as the interpreter enables the reader to see the
meaning of the divine text more fully for himself, he proves of
use and value ; but the moment the person to whom the in-
terpretation is given is turned from thinking of the word of
God, as addressed to his own mind, away to the thoughts of
an uninspired interpreter, even if he is not led into error, he is
led into a false position, in which he loses the peculiar influence
which truth has on the mind when it is seen to come from God
Himself.
Here, then, it seems well to glance at Scripture interpreta-
tion, as that has been affected by geological theories. The
desire to accommodate men of science, and to accept their
conjectures as established discoveries of truth, rather than to
face the unpleasant consequences of sifting their statements
so as to show the visionary character of their most cherished
theories, has had a powerful and, we think, a disastrous effect,
on the exposition of the Bible. It is not an easy matter for
those who have the duties and responsibilities of active minis-
terial life resting fairly on their hearts, to find time to cultivate
much acquaintance with geology. If they are earnest, they
are likely to be swallowed up with what they deem more urgent
work, so as to excuse themselves from that labour which alone
can enable them to judge for themselves on so complicated a
subject. If they are not earnest, then they avoid the toil on
other grounds. If they see in some degree the momentous
character of the agreement of popular science with religious
belief, and so turn their hearts to do something in the way of
promoting that agreement, they are tempted to study rather
the things that make for peace than those by which a really
solid edification may be secured in the public mind. They too
readily accept the decisions of the great leaders of science,
and set to work to make the ideas given forth in Scripture
harmonize with these decisions. Hence the almost incalculable
amount of utterly groundless thought that has been made to
overlie the clear ideas of God put before us in the Sacred
Scriptures. It is not possible to see the relations of geological
science to the Sacred Word, without some knowledge of the
effect which has been thus produced on its interpretation.
We have illustrations of this in the productions of some of
the most noble minds. One of the first of these, a truly
representative man of an important class, may be quoted as
an example. Dr. John Pye Smith, of Homerton College, was
not only a man of the most earnest religion, but also of the
most intensely scientific spirit. In his masterly book, " On
the Relations between the Holy Scriptures and some parts of
Geological Science," he shows that he felt himself forced to
give a new and startling interpretation to the teaching of the
Bible, by what he thought were the irresistible conclusions of
geology. It is most instructive to observe where the centre
of this fancied compulsion lay. He imagines one opposing '
his views, and says, " If, for example, the objector could say
to us, ' You have arrived at no term. You cannot show us
the indications of a cessation of the materials which you say
have been deposited, and which form the portion through
which you have passed. The series may be repeated, pos-
sibly again and again; or there may be another series of
entirely different composition, such as precipitates from sus-
pension in water, or products of chemical action, or results of
igneous fusion, and so on indefinitely. Unless you had
penetrated through all these, you can draw no conclusion on
which dependence can be placed/ " How does the good man
reply to this supposed objector ? He says, — " But the objector
cannot say this. He would be guilty of a false assumption.
The true state of the facts is the very contrary to what he
supposes. We are acquainted certainly, I might almost say
perfectly, with the character and succession of the deposited
substances, which, laid upon each other, compose the crust of
our globe ; and we know the totally different constitution of
the materials which lie underneath. We see demonstrated
342
with satisfactory clearness the distinct character and the
opposite mode of production of these two classes of mineral
formations. We have all the evidence that can reasonably be
desired, of the previous condition of those underlying rocks,
their ancient, and, at a depth not great, their present liquidity
by heat ; their boiling up ; their extrusion, both in the melted
state and in different degrees of advancement towards being
cooled and hardened ; their being driven upward through the
overlying formations of deposited layers ; their sometimes
insinuating themselves between the previously contiguous
surfaces of those deposits; their filling long furrows of
outbursts, and their being laid bare in many cases to open
daylight. It is therefore no presumption to affirm that we
do know, with the clearness of sensible evidence, the con-
stituent formations of the crust of the earth, their modes of
production, their relations to each other, and the fact of their
enveloping a mass of materials similar in composition to the
lowest rocks, and which we have much reason to think are, at
certain depths, still in a state of constant fusion."* "What does
the editor of the Geological Magazine for 1865 say to this
" certain " and almost " perfect " knowledge ? His words
are : t( Many a range of so-called primeval granite, gneiss,
and slate, lapping the one over the other successively for
hundreds of thousands of feet, or of upright s primary
schistus ' miles across, will exhibit to the geologist of to-day
only many-times-repeated folds of an altered set of strata;
nor will their furthest change, or granitic form, be taken either
for primeval or intrusive granite : and whilst the latter may
still be found, the former, or the hypothetical granite of a
cooling globe, becomes a myth."t Sir Charles Lyell ex-
presses the same truth still more decidedly. In the first
volume of his " Principles," which has just Been issued, he
says, "The progress of geological investigation gradually
dissipated the idea, at first universally entertained, that the
granite or crystalline foundations of the earth's crust were of
older date than all the fossiliferous strata. It has now been
demonstrated that this opinion is so far from the truth that it
is difficult to point to a mass of volcanic or plutonic rock
which is more ancient than the oldest known organic remains." J
So the all but perfect knowledge of the excellent man who
felt, in view of it, that our Scriptural cosmogony must be all
recast, was only a perfect delusion ! Are we not taught by
this that great minds are not only gigantic in their grasp of
* Dr. J, Pye Smith's Scripture and Geology, edition 1843, pp. 44 to 46.
t Geological Magazine for January, 1865, page 2.
j LyelVs Principles of Geology, edition 1867, in loco.
343
truth, but equally gigantic in their grasp of error? Are we
not warned against that grand popular mistake which leads
thousands to accept as true that which has no other evidence
in their thoughts than the fact that great men believe it?
And do we not see how important it ever must be to keep the
Sacred testimony itself most carefully in view ?
We do not think it necessaiy on our part in this paper to
give any interpretation of what the Sacred Scriptures teach on
geological subjects. Our present duty is not to interpret, but
to state and illustrate relations which are not essentially de-
pendent on any peculiar interpretation of Bible teaching. If
we do not greatly err (and are not led on in our error by all
we can learn as we go on with the study of our great subject),
the Bible will turn out in the end to be its own best interpreter.
The account of the creation and the flood, as given by Moses
will, we think, prove to be only the plain truth, as the scien-
tific world will be compelled to admit it at last.
From what we have said thus far, it will appear that there
are various fields of thought in which we might attempt to
trace the relations of geological science to the Sacred Scriptures.
These relations exist in the absolute truth as that stands in the
Divine Mind. The thought of this leads us to raise our eye
to that ocean on the shores of which we can only gather frag-
ments of the wealth that lies hid in its waters. It is beyond
measure cheering to the Christian to remember that endless
time remains for the exploration of this expanse of thought.
It is because he finds that he gathers most precious treasures
cast up by this vast sea on Bible ground, that he so loves the
Bible. But relations between geological science and the Sacred
Scriptures exist also in that field of thought in which we meet
with the true facts and sound inferences of geology, on the one
hand, and the actual teachings of the Bible on the other. This
is our true field of safe investigation. If we could only keep
within its enclosures, all would go well. But neither have
theologians nor geologists been as yet confined to such ground.
As we have seen, the influence of great names — the power of
great talents — the vanity which makes us proud of that which
is knowledge in appearance only — the worship, we may say,
of magnificent delusions, even after their delusive nature is
exposed — in a word, the deceivableness of our common hu-
manity, seems to have swept us into a turbid stream of thought
in which it is extremely difficult to say whether the teachings
of the geologist or the interpretations of the expositor are
most to be distrusted.
In the way of reviewing the actual facts and such conclusions
of true reasoning in geology as have been derived from the
344
comparison of those facts, wo are disposed to regard the
history of this science as naturally divided into certain gTea:
epochs, or stages of development. It will suit our purpose of
making the past and present relations of the science somewiut
clear, if we glance at the progress made during each of "these
great epochs. With this plan in mind, we go back to the
earliest thoughts recorded on the subject, and run rapidly
down the stream till we reach the present state of affairs.
Ever since man was on the earth, the more prominent facts
of geology must have been patent to his observation, and they
must, we think, have so far arrested his attention, and exer-
cised his reason. When, therefore, we trace back the literature
of the science, and light upon the first written thoughts that
indicate observation and reasoning on the subject, it would
not be wise to conclude that men never thought geologically
till the authors of that literature lived among them. Those
who did write so much as six or seven hundred years before the
commencement of the Christian era, constantly refer to others
who had written before them, and to ideas on the subject that
had generally prevailed. We are disposed to select two of the
?rominent names of antiquity, as representative of all the rest,
'hese are Herodotus among the Greeks, and Pliny among the
Romans. In the works of both of these authors, we think we
see that which may be very respectfully regarded as worthy-
geological observation and not unworthy reasoning on the
important facts that had been observed.
We turn for our earliest historical notes to the pages of
Herodotus. This masterly Greek had evidently thought
geologically, and so far correctly. Speaking of the account
which the Egyptians gave of their peculiar country, he tells us
that, in the time of Menes, " no part of the land that now
exists below Lake Myris was then above water."* Herodotus
says that " they seemed to me to give a good account of this
region. For it is evident to a man of common understanding,
who has not heard it before, but sees it, that the part of
Egypt which the Greeks frequent with their shipping, is land
acquired by the Egyptians, and a gift from the river; and the
parts above the lake, during a three days' passage, of which,
nowever, they said nothing, are of the same description."
Then he speaks of the sea-bottom, a day's sail from land, as
mud in eleven fathoms, and evidently " an alluvial deposit."
He says again, "The space between the above-mentioned
mountains [the Arabian and Libyan], that are situated beyond
Memphis, seems to me to have been formerly a bay of the
• Herod., Ent. ii. 5 and 12.
j
345
sea." He goes on to establish this idea by a reference to
other rivers, and especially by a description of the Arabian
Gulf, into which, he says, if the Nile were turned, it would fill
it up within twenty thousand, or even within ten thousand
years. Herodotus gives a number of other reasons for his
belief that the sea once flowed over the space now occupied
by Egypt ; among which is the fact that " shells are found on
the mountains." He says, u that a saline humour forms on
the surface, so as even to corrode the pyramids, and that this
mountain, which is above Memphis, is the only one in Egypt
which abounds in sand ; add to which that Egypt in its soil is
neither like Arabia or its confines, nor Libya, nor- Syria
(Syrians occupy the sea-coast of Arabia), but is black and
crumbling, as if it were mud and alluvial deposit, brought
down by the river from Ethiopia, whereas we know that the
earth of Libya is reddish and somewhat more sandy; and that
of Arabia and Syria is more clayey and flinty." It is very
clear, we think, from these true ideas of this author regarding
the basin of the Nile, that he was accustomed to a certain
extent to follow out his observations of the surface of the
earth, in true geological reasoning.
But we pass from the Greeks to the Romans, to give the
ideas of another truly representative man. So far as the
collection of facts and correct reasoning on these are concerned,
Pliny is our best ancient writer on geology. This does not
arise from his own observation of the structure of the earth,
so much as from the wonderful acquaintance which he displays
with the works of other authors. Herodotus was a traveller,
and observed with his own eyes the facts which he narrated.
Pliny gathered sheaves of information from the labours of all
reapers in the field of knowledge.
It is in connection with earthquakes that this author gives
us his best geology. Speaking of these, he says that " the
earth is shaken in various ways, and wonderful effects are
produced ; in one place the walls of cities are thrown down,
and in others swallowed up by a deep cleft ; sometimes great
masses of earth are heaped up, and rivers forced out, some-
times even flame and hot springs, and at others the course
of rivers is turned." " There is no doubt," he says, ' ' that
earthquakes are felt by persons on shipboard, as they are
struck by a sudden motion of the waves, without these being
raised by any gust of wind." Then he notes the important
truth that "inundations of the sea take place at the same
time with earthquakes ; the water being impregnated with the
same spirit, and received into the bosom of the earth which
subsides." "The same cause produces an increase of the land;
2 D
T
i
346
the vapour when it cannot burst out forcibly lifting up the
surface. For the land is not produced merely by what is
brought down by rivers, as the islands called Echinades are
formed by the river Achelous, and the greater part of Egypt
by the Nile, where, according to Homer, it was a day and a
night's journey from the island of Pharos ; but in some cases
by the receding of the sea, as, according to the same author,
was the case with the Circean Isles." Then again he says,
"Land is sometimes formed in a different manner, rising
suddenly out of the sea, as if nature was compensating earth
for its losses, restoring at one place what she has swallowed
up at another."* He gives abundant instances of islands so
formed. Then he shows that lands are separated by the sea,
and islands formed, by this means ; while islands are added to
the mainland by the elevation of their channels. All this is
unexceptionable geology. It reads like some modern treatise
on the principles of the science. Like everything of that
early time, it was mixed up with fabulous statements, just as
nearly all modern geology is mixed up with conjectural notions
equally fabulous ; but, so far as it goes, it indicates a very
large and successful observation of the changes that affect the
earth's surface.
The great amount of attention now drawn to recent for-
mations, lends peculiar interest to the observations and rea-
sonings of these ancient writers. There seems to be no good
ground for believing that they had thought of penetrating to
the secret depths of earlier strata, so as to classify the rocks ;
but we ourselves have been brought up from the depths to the
surface by the most important controversies of our time.
Hence the peculiar relish with which one now reads the records
of thought so ancient, and traces the formation and character
of that thought, so very mufch like the ideas which occupy the
minds of the men of our own day.
If we endeavour to sum up the knowledge of the ancient
philosophers, so far as their geology is concerned, I think
we should regard them as having observed, to a great extent
successfully, the characteristic changes of the surface of the
globe— the degradation of higher strata — the consequent for-
mation of alluvial land— the upheaval of the bed of the sea,
and of mountain-ranges— the vast alterations connected with
the phenomena of earthquakes— as well as the aqueous and
igneous agencies and forces by which these effects are so
far accounted for. If we compare their collections of minute
facts with the collections and classifications of these accn-
* Pliny, ii. 82, 86, and 87.
347
mulated at the present day, the advance of science since their
time has been immense, but if we- fairly compare their phi-
losophy of the earth with that reasoning as to the causes of
terrestrial changes which prevails in even the highest quarters
now, I am not sure that progress can be reported as of so
great a measure. Fire and water unitedly filled up their
thoughts of causation, so far as the surface of the earth was
concerned, and these two well-known agencies seem to occupy
the same space in the thoughts of modern philosophers. The
forces that produce fire, and give water its power to dissolve,
and which must be considered before many of the greatest
facts in the earth's history can be explained, are nearly, if
not quite, as much unknown to the moderns as they were to
the ancients. Perhaps here the comparatively superficial
thinker will remember Newton and "gravitation." The
more careful thinker will remember Faraday, who says that
force is " matter." " Gravitation," he says, " is a property
of matter depending on a certain force, and it is this force
which constitutes matter."* He will ask whether either Newton
or Faraday really knew what gravitation is. He will find it
very difficult to think that they did so. He will deeply ponder
the manner in which the most favoured of the moderns rea-
son on the effects of forces ; exaggerating the least, and
forgetting the greatest. And he will be constrained to give
the ancients credit for a very great amount of geological
science — that is, when that which they knew is weighed
against that which is known at the present hour. There is
a dangerous vanity which feeds on imaginary progress in
knowledge, and needs often to be made aware of the fanciful
character of that on which it thrives. I am persuaded that
few things are more salutary in the way of restraining this
vanity than an honest and patient comparison of what even
the heathen thinker knew with the actual science mastered by
the most civilized and enlightened among ourselves.
When we leave the period of observation and reasoning
represented by such men as Herodotus and Pliny, and endea-
vour to find some tufts of truth on which to place our feet as
we pass through the morass of stagnant and phosphorescent
thought which followed that time, we feel greatly at a loss.
For nearly fifteen hundred years rational inquiry stood as still
as if progress had ceased to be a feature in humanity. It is,
* Faraday's Researches, vol. it p. 293. In this remarkable utterance
gravitation is not a force but a property of a force. It is a property of
matter, but then that is constituted by, or, in plainer words, %s a certain
force. So gravitation is a property of a force depending on a certain force,
which force is just force !
2 d 2
*L
848
however, remarkable that with the revival of intellectual ac-
tivity generally, we have a very decided revival of geological
inquiry. When Leonardo da Vinci pictured the fossil shells of
Italian rocks so beautifully, and contended that they had once
been real shells, there must have been a somewhat deep and
wide interest awakened in connection with fossil remains. This
was at the close of the fifteenth century. When Fracastoro
wrote, about the year 1517, on the petrifactions that were
brought to light at Verona, some degree of fundamental
geology had found its way into the more intelligent minds.
But it is not till more than a century after that we have much
of a really scientific character in the form of geological litera-
ture. Then, it is clear, that true thought on the earth's struc-
ture had begun to spread widely. There is a rather interesting
evidence of this in a production from which we have already
quoted. It is a translation of Steno's work on " Solids con-
tained in Solids," which was published in London in 1671.
In the address of the " Interpreter " to the reader, he says
that the treatise "giveth very fair hopes, that by a due weighing
of the particulars therein laid down, the sagacious inquirers
into nature may be much assisted to penetrate into the true
knowledge of one of the great masses of the world, the earth,
and therein to find out not only the constitution of the whole,
but also the several changes and the various productions made
in the parts thereof." Steno, as we have already indicated,
was a learned Dane, living, at the time when he wrote this
treatise, under the Grand Duke of Tuscany, but about to leave
for his native land. The treatise itself is constructed as a mere
sketch of a much larger work which had been contemplated.
It was published as a sort of apology for so full and noble a
discussion of the deeply interesting theme as might have been
worthy of the acceptance of the prince. Thought on such
subjects had ripened to a very great extent before the date of
this publication.
We consequently find a very considerable amount of sound
and excellent geology in the treatise of Steno. He writes on
what he calls " the much controverted question about marine
bodies found at a great distance from the sea," and says that
the question itself iC is ancient, delightful, and of use." He
complains that modern writers had rendered the subject more
difficult and doubtful by departing from the solutions of the
ancients. He says, " The ancients were exercised by one only
difficulty, which was, how marine bodies came to be left in
places remote from the sea." The discussion in Steno's time
was as to the origin of these marine bodies — some ascribing
them to the sea, others to the earth — while many held that
349
some had been produced by the earth and others by the sea.
He says, " Only some make mention of inundations, and I
know not what immemorial course of ages ; though they do
that overly, and as 'twere by the by." Steno himself gives
as good an account of the matter as could be desired. Speak-
ing of " cockles," he says, " Where the penetrating force of
juices hath dissolved the substance of the shell, the same juices
being either drunk up by the earth, have left the spaces of
shells void (which I call aerial shells), or being altered by new
adventitious matter, have, according to the variety of that
matter, filled up the spaces of the shells, either with crystal,
or marble, or stone. Whence comes that very pretty marble,
called Nephwi, which is nothing else but a sediment of the
sea full of all sorts of shells, where the substance of the
shells being wasted, a stony substance is come in the place
thereof."
But Steno wrote not only of objects found in the rocky
beds bf the earth, but of the beds, or strata, themselves. In
a notable passage on this part of the subject, he says : "At
the time that any bed was formed, there was another body
under the same bed, which did hinder the further descent of
that dusty [muddy?] matter." Again, "At what time there was
formed one of the upper beds, the lower bed had attained a solid
consistency/' So he reasons as to the succession and super-
position of strata. Then he says, " 'Tis certain that when any
bed was formed, its inferior surface and that of its sides did
answer to the inferior body and of the bodies lateral, but the
superior surface was, as far as possible, parallel to the horizon.
So that all the beds, except the lowest, were contained in two
planes, parallel to the horizon. Hence it follows that beds,
either perpendicular to the horizon, or inclined to it, have
been at another time parallel to the same." He then speaks
of the "beds" changing their places, "first, by a violent
excussion of the beds upwards." " The other is by the falling
down of the upper beds, when the lower matter or foundation
being thrown down, the upper bodies begin to crack ; whence,
according to the variety of cavities and crevices, there follows
a various situation of the broken beds." So he says, " This
changed situation of beds affords an easy explanation of many
things else difficult enough to give an account of."* The for-
mation of strata, the inclosure of fossils, the change of the
position of strata, the forces at work in producing these effects,
the conditions necessary to the operation of these forces, and
the consequent result in the external form of the earth, as
* Steno, pp. 42, 43, and 99.
350
affected by the lofty mountains and deep seas, were known in
a very remarkable measure by this intelligent thinker.
An author like Steno, who could write such geology above
two hundred years ago, is worthy of respect ; and we may quote
him at some length on the relation of geology to Sacred Scrip-
ture. He had come to the conclusion that " Etruria," which
he had surveyed with some attention, had had six different
"faces " or states of the surface, and he conjectured that this
had been the case with the earth as a whole. So he says : —
"But lest there should be apprehended any danger in the
novelty, I shall, in short, lay down the agreement of Nature
with Scripture, reciting withal the chief difficulties that may be
raised about each face of the earth. As to the first face,
Scripture and science agree in this, that all was covered with
water ; but how it began to be thus, and when, and how long
this continued so, Nature is silent, Scripture is not." Then he
says : " Of the second face of the earth, which was plain and
dry, Nature is likewise silent when and how it began, but the
Scripture is not so; meantime, that there was once such a face
of the earth, Nature affirms and Scripture confirms, foras-
much that it teacheth that waters arising from one spring
did water the whole earth." So he writes as to the whole
appearance of this world spoken of by Scripture and seen in
Nature. He says : " How great the height of the sea hath
been, where Scripture determines it, Nature contradicts it
not ; forasmuch, I. There are certain marks of sea extant in
places which are many hundred feet high above the surface
of the sea ; II. It cannot be denied that all the solids of the
earth were in the beginning of things covered with an aqueous
fluid, as they may have been covered with it again, in regard
that the change of natural things is indeed continual, but
there is no annihilation." This passage gives us a very fair
view of geology in its relation to Scripture as it stood at this
time, though we have given but a small portion of what Steno
says on this relation, and its perfect harmony. He was, as we
learn from his treatise, evidently a man of great ability and of
a truly scientific spirit— worthy of being taken as the repre-
sentative of the most advanced opinions of his time on the
great subject we have in hand.
Thus for it will be seen, that we have little in what may be
called geological science that could seriously come into con-
flict with anything that occurs in the Sacred Scriptures. Those
ideas of a vast duration through which changes have been fol-
lowing one another in the earth's structure, ideas which have
played so important a part in some recent controversies;
351
these had been mooted only, as Steno says, "overly and by
the by." They had not taken the form of conclusions of
science to which the cultivated intellect was expected to bow.
Geology, though " descriptive," and so far philosophical, had
not become sufficiently " systematic " to give even apparent
solidity to speculations in reference to the time required for
1 the world's upbuilding, or in reference to the manner of that
1 great work. A most spirited controvery had arisen as to " pre-
Adamite " men, but the discussion was not geological in any
: degree. It was founded on an exposition of the fifth chapter
to the Romans, and not on deposits in the earth.* The foun-
dation, however, was broadly laid, on which in later days a
1 geological argument was to be raised in favour of these ' € pre-
r- Adamites," and also in favour of vast ages through which
i such beings had lived on the earth.
i- It was about 1759 that the element of time fairly took its
£ place in geological science. Whewell says that at that date
i Arduino deduced from original observations, the distinction of
fc rocks into primary, secondary, and tertiary, and that the re-
ft lations of positions and fossils were from this period inseparably
ie associated with opinions concerning succession in time.f
t It is at this point, therefore, in the history of geology, that
a: we meet with these formidable elements of which so much
it advantage has been taken, against the more ordinary views of
is: Sacred Scripture. It was now that geological science in almost
ill every one of its branches began to give system and great
rfe additional force to the reasonings of those who studied the
[ i structure of the earth. In giving a brief sketch of what may be
0 regarded as a grand advance in geological inquiry about this
era: time, we shall follow other and more competent judges in giving
°j$ the names of Werner, Smith, and Cuvier, as the representative
& men.
tii Werner's great distinction lay in his mineralogy. The
0 ordinary inquirer, who thinks with any degree of care, will
5 it see the importance of this in all that concerns the true
idij knowledge of the earth's structure. If any one takes his stand
prt opposite a cutting which has been made — say for railway pur-
ple poses— -through a large and varied mass of rock, he sees layer
above layer of the stony substance, each layer, perhaps, dif-
fering in its composition from every other. No inference is
more certainly true than that all these layers have not been
TUB
,ose
* The chief promoter of the Pre- Adamite idea at this time was Peyrere, in
. whose Latin work on the subject the curious may see the best that could be
>°'' said in its favour.
ive t Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, edition 1857, vol. iii
1
352
originally formed and transformed in the same way. The
sandstone has not been formed as the coal has been, nor
has the ironstone been formed in the same manner as either
of the other two, nor has the limestone been composed of
the same materials, or in exactly the same way, as any of the
other three. The conditions of mineral formation must have
been different, and even greatly different, in order to the com-
position of the strata exposed to view. If the observer has
the opportunity of watching the sinking of the shaft of a deep
mine, he will find a variety in the character of the layers
passed through, corresponding somewhat with the thickness of
the penetrated mass. Every layer will indicate by its mineral
character that a peculiar state of things prevailed at the time
and place of its original formation, or at that of its trans-
formation afterwards. It was, as we have said, the great
distinction of Werner to apply this truth to the study of
geology. His classification of rocks depended on their out-
ward characters. It was not their chemical distinctions, but
such as could be detected by the eye or hand, that formed
the bases of his ideas of them. Jamieson, his great Scottish
follower, says that chemical science was not then in such a
state as to warrant dependence on its decisions. He says,
when speaking of his tour through the Scottish Isles : " The
chemical characters which form even the foundation of many
mineralogical systems, I have seldom employed ; from a convic-
tion that the chemical part of mineralogy, notwithstanding the
late improvements in the art of analysis, is still to be con-
sidered as imperfect." — (See Preface, page viii, Jamieson's
Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles.) — It was Werner's immensely
superior acuteness in distinguishing one mineral from another
by the eye, or hand, or smell, that made him great as a pioneer
of advanced science, and enabled him to bring a grand truth
to bear upon the earth's structure. Although his theory of
the origin of rocks cannot be said to have been at all esta-
blished, his views of their character will be found to be far
nearer the truth than those of the men who have all but
despised them. He was the great champion of the aqueous
theory as to the formation of almost all strata.
Hutton opposed this view, with a popularity which shows
painfully how error may triumph. When this great geologist
was searching the rocks of the Grampian range, and lighted
on what he took for veins of injected granite, his joy was
unbounded. The scientific world may be said to have gone
after him in the belief of an internal molten state of the globe,
only to find that it had been misled by a false idea. Yet the
varied composition of the rocks to which Werner had effec-
tually drawn attention, remained as a momentous truth in
established science.
But the name of William Smith represents an advance in
the knowledge of the earth, of greater importance than that of
Werner. This was characterized chiefly, though far from
exclusively, by true doctrine as to the superposition of the
strata.* It was not so much the varied character of the rocks,
nor the varied character of the fossils which they contained
(though both of these were known to this thinker), as the
order in which they had been laid on one another, which first
influenced his thinking on the structure of the globe. It was
clear and certain enough that sandstone and coal had not been
laid down in the same circumstances in their original beds ;
but this could not tell whether the actual sandstone or the
coal in a particular series of rocks, had been first formed.
When, however, it was noted that the coal had from the first
lain beneath the sandstone, it was sure enough that the coal
had been first laid down ; and so on through all the varied
strata of the earth. A field of vast dimensions was thus opened
for inquiring minds, and the work of many generations was
cut out for them. Men imagined ere long that they had lighted
on the nethermost rocks — the true foundations of the ever-
lasting hills — and that they could trace the whole of the
wonderful building of the globe all the way from the centre up
to the grassy turf that crowned it ! But a great deal more
has yet to be learned ere that can be done.
Then came that most important of all advances, which is
represented by the name of Cuvier. It was his great task to
mark off the physiological distinctions that separated the kinds
of creatures that lived on dry land and in the ocean, when
the various strata of the earth were laid down.f The difference
between stone and stone was something, the position of
rock above rock was something more; but the genera
and species imbedded in one set of strata, shown to be so
thoroughly different from those imbedded in another set,
proved a far more important affair than either of the other
two. The trees on land and the shell-fish in the ocean,
compared with the fossil wood and rocky forms and casts of
ancient mollusca, brought wonderful results to the minds of
men. Yet, if we consider calmly the true extent of those
results, so far as they constitute real science, they seem to us
to amount to little, if anything, more than the placing of an
* Whewell's Hist, vol. iii. p. 424. " In 1792 he [Smith] 'had considered
how he could hest represent the order of superposition — continuity of course
— and general eastern declinations of the strata.' "
t Whewell, vol. iii. p. 418.
354
instrument in scientific hands, by which important work may
be done in the course, perhaps, of centuries.
There were now, however, three great general ideas esta-
blished in scientific minds. Certain rocks, deep in the earth's
crust, or* high on the sides of lofty mountains, were seen to have
been formed in the same manner as similar rocks are now in
the course of formation in the bed of the sea. The masses of
Bandstone that lie buried so many fathoms down, or have been
raised so many thousands of feet high, were once sand-beds
washed by the waves that now wash the sandbanks over
which they flow. It was not yet within reach to tell how the
rocks were formed on which the sand was first laid down ; and
it is not yet, we think, within reach of science to tell this
secret. The limestone could be traced to its formation by the
living creatures, and otherwise from the ocean, and it could be
seen in course of deposition on that ocean's bed. How the
first bed was formed in which the shell-fish lived, or on which
the ooze was first thrown down itself, was and is the grand
mystery. But the discovery of the truth, that deeply hid
masses had been formed at one time on the surface, and that
masses now high up the mountains, had been formed in the
depths of the ocean, was the opening of a vast field of thought
for men. Then there was the order of superposition, teaching
that difference in age is irresistibly evident from difference of
place in that order. That which is now forming on the surface,
must, as to its formation, be new; that over which it is
forming, must, as to its formation, be older. Strata laid con-
formably on each other, show that they were formed during
one series of changes, while those on whose edges they have
been laid down, have been formed during a very different
series ; and so on, as far as men can make out the actual facts
of the order of deposition. But the grandest of all the teach-
ings of these discoveries, was found in the order which seemed
to be disclosed by the fossil contents of the strata. Man was
on the surface, but no trace of his existence could be found,
except on that surface. Creatures approaching man in his
material structure, were found in the relics of their existence
some way down, but only a short way ; and just as the search
descended, the class of being discovered was " low " in the
scale of life. Not that it was less perfect in its kind. . As Sir
Eoderick Murchison says : " When first created, the Onchus
of the uppermost Silurian rocks was a fish of the highest and
most composite order; and it exhibits no symptoms whatever
of transition from a lower to a higher grade of the family/'
Only it was a fish and not a reptile. This truly eminent geo-
logist, speaking of one of the great objects he had in view in
355
his vast labours, says : " I am, indeed, led to hope that my
readers will adhere to the views which, with many contempo-
raries, I entertain of the succession of life. For he who looks
to a beginning, and traces therefrom a rise in the scale of
being, until the period is reached when man appeared upon
the earth, must acknowledge in such works repeated mani-
festations of design, and unanswerable proofs of the superin-
tendence of a Creator"* This was and is felt to be a point of
great moment, though we must confess that it is one of those
points which, to say the least, are very far from being fully
established. Some modification of Sir Roderick's idea may
prove true, but not that idea, we think, as it appeared to
him when he wrote the words we have quoted. Yet enough
had become certain to convince men that there has been only
a limited line of life on earth. So far as mineral character and
the superposition of rocks were concerned, it appears as if
there may have been an indefinite series of changes going
on; but what is regarded as the irrresistibly evident pro-
gress of life, from things of the most humble to beings of the
most exalted character, seems to shut up the inquirer to a
belief in the limited character of the creation.
We have now before us the three great parallel lines along
which all geological science, properly so called, has been tra-
velling : the varied mineral character of strata, the varied
order of their deposition, and the changing character of the
fossils which they contain. If we trace the progress of the
science up to the present hour, we find only a development in
detail of these three great branches of truth, and that develop-
ment rendering it continually more evident that the present
state of the earth's surface is the result of a series of material
changes, as to the nature of which men are yet only beginning
to see as through a glass very darkly. But from this point,
I think we pass naturally over into the dreamland of con-
jectural geology.f
When we come to consider the speculative divisions of geo-
logical science, we find ourselves at once in a region where
men are in conflict equally with all true reason, as with the
Sacred Scriptures, — a region in which, however, they stand on
ground of the most unstable character. It was because of their
unwise love for pure fancy in the garb of Philosophy, that the
* Sihtria, pp. 239, 483.
t Probably the careful reader will think that we have already passed into
that region. The succession jof life on the earth, which has been thought so
fully established as a truth in science, is not unlikely to share the fate of some
other great but too hasty generalizations.
356
ancients were so completely led away from the true paths of
knowledge. Whewell strikingly describes their failure, and
its cause, in his admirable History of the Inductive Sciences.
"Yet," says he, "we are not to think slightingly of those
early speculators. They were men of extraordinary acuteness,
invention and range of thought ; and, above all, they had the
merit of first completely unfolding the speculative faculty ; of
starting in that keen and vigorous chase of knowledge by
which all the subsequent culture and improvement of man's
intellectual stores have been occasioned. The sages of early-
Greece form the heroic age of science. Like the first naviga-
tors, in their own mythology, they boldly ventured their
untried bark in a distant and arduous voyage, urged on by
the hopes of a supernatural success ; and though they missed
the imaginary golden prize which they sought, they unlocked
the gates of distant regions and opened the seas to the keels
of the thousands of adventurers who, in succeeding times,
sailed to and fro, to the indefinite increase of the treasures of
mankind."* We can enter with all our hearts into this well-
merited eulogium ; but it is more difficult to praise the specu-
lative ambition of an age which has the failure of the Greeks
so fully before its eyes, and yet follows in that very track in
which they reached only failure, and misled the. inquirers of
succeeding centuries.
When Herodotus proceeds to account for the overflow of
the Nile, he furnishes us with a very good example of early
speculation. He says : "During the winter months, the sun,
being driven by storms from his former course, retires to the
upper parts of Libya; this in few words comprehends the
whole matter, for it is natural that the country which this god
is nearest to, and over which he is, should be most in want of
water, and that the native river-streams should be dried up.
But, to explain my meaning more at length, the case is this :
the sun passing over the upper parts of Libya, produces the
following effect : as the air in these regions is always serene,
and the soil is always hot, since there are no cold winds passing
over, he produces the same effect as he usually does in the
summer when he passes through the middle of the firmament ;
for he attracts the water to himself, and having attracted it,
throws it back upon the higher regions."f It is not necessary
to quote the whole passage. That to which I direct attention
is the purely conjectural character of the explanation of the
historian, coupled with the show of science, which caused his
words to pass for the language of truth.
* Whewell's Hut, vol i. p. 48. f Herod., Eut. ii. 24, 25.
357
We have equally striking illustrations of the conjecture into
which scientific minds are ready to fall in the literature of later
times. Steno, who has given us so much excellent geology,
gives us also a good specimen of speculation in his explanation
of the general deluge. " If it shall be said that in the earth
the centre of gravity is not always the same with the centre of
the figure, but that now and then it recedes from the one or
the other side, according as the subterranean cavities are
grown in divers places, it is easy to render a reason why
the fluid which in the beginning of things covered all, left
certain places dry and returned to them again. With the
same ease may be explained the general deluge, if we place
about the fire in the middle of the earth, a sphere of waters,
or at least certain receptacles of them, whence without the
motion of the centre, the pouring forth of the included water
may be deduced." So he goes on at great length to account
for the Deluge by means of conjectural reasoning, which is as-
suredly every whit as scientific as the best of the speculations
of the present day.
When we come to the geological speculations of modern
science, we find them arranging themselves along the three
lines of thought to which we have already referred. Where
reason and true science stand waiting for light, imagination
kindles the torch of fancy, and passes on. Werner worthily
represents those who pass down to the beginnings of the
earth's strata, and see old Chaos amid his watery desola-
tions, commencing the work of uprearing the present order
of things. It is not a little interesting to find, as we have
already said, recent discoveries lending so much countenance
to Werner's ideas. Sir W. B. Logan's descriptions of the
Laurentian rocks of Canada go very far in this direction.
He has not only described the limestone formations inter-
stratified with gneiss and granite, but he says, " Interstratified
with the Laurentian limestones there are beds of conglomerate,
the pebbles of which are themselves rolled fragments of
still older laminated sand-rock, and the formation of these
beds [that is of the beds of sand-rock from which these
pebbles came] leads us still further into the past." Speaking
of these limestones still, he says, " Of these calcareous masses,
it has been ascertained that three, at least, belong to the
lower Laurentian. But as we do not yet know with cer-
tainty either the base or the summit of the series, these three
may be conformably followed by many more."* All, therefore,
* Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, February 1st, 1865, pp. 46, 47
i
358
that we can say from these discoveries is, that the lowest rocks
!ret known to popular geology are sedimentary. If by the
eadings of the highest note in the world, we go down to
those sand-rocks seen in the pebbles of Laurentian conglo-
merate, and ask for the character of the rocks on which their
sand was first laid down, we have no reply. We are not told
that the foundation is granitic, nor are we told that it is not so.
Our conscious ignorance here is, perhaps, our surest know-
ledge. We know that we do not know — that is all.
Hutton represents that host of speculators who still go
down to the centre of the earth, and see all on fire. Because
veins of superincumbent rock were full of granite that looked
as if it had been melted and injected from below, he imagined,
as we have seen, that the conclusion was irresistibly estab-
lished that the basis of all the strata of the earth's crust was
cooled lava, or molten rock cooled down and crystallized under
great superincumbent pressure. It is most instructive to see how
the very best authorities were led astray by this unfounded
notion. As an illustration of this, though the author is one
who discourages conjecture (at least in words), we find in Page's
Advanced Text-Book (1856) the statement that the variable
temperature of the crust of the earth descends to from sixty
to ninety feet, "but at this limit it is stationary." Then he
says, "that downwards from this invariable stratum, the tem-
perature increases at the ratio of one degree for every fifty or
fifty-five feet, and at this rate a temperature would soon be
reached sufficient to keep in fusion the most refractory rock
substances " !* At the depth of twenty-five miles, his estimate
is 2,400° Fahrenheit ! This is surely hot enough for the most
fiery philosopher. To give another instance. Whewell says,
in the second edition of his admirable history, regarding
Hutton's theory, (which, however, he admits was "premature/')
" that many of its boldest hypotheses and generalizations have
become a part of the general creed of geologists; and its I
publication is, perhaps, the greatest event which has yet
occurred in the progress of Physical Geology." f These words
were published in 1857 ; and in 1865 the very foundations of
Hntton's theory were seen by all informed men to be false.
Playfair, Dr. Hutton's great illustrator, says, " The power of
the same subterranean heat which consolidated and mineral-
ized the strata at the bottom of the sea, has since raised them
up to the height at which they are now placed, and has given
them the various inclinations to the horizon which they are
found actually to possess." % This is just what the very best
* Page's Advanced Text-Book, p. 15. f WhewelTs Hist., vol. iii. p. 505.
X Playfair's Illustrations, edition 1802, p. 55.
L
359
authorities now tell us is utterly untrue in both its halves. We
shall see this fully as we proceed. What then was the ad-
vantage derived from Dr. Hutton's speculations ? Physical
Geology has had the benefit of being effectually misled
for half a century. No matter for congratulation, certainly.
This remarkable delusion did not spread, because no one
opposed it. Far abler geologists than Dr. Hutton gave facts
and arguments to the world more than sufficient to show
the fallacy of his notions, but they were all despised as
mere Neptunian prejudices. One cannot but regret that it
should have been so. It is true that we are profited by
being even painfully convinced of our folly, and so far good
may come out of these grand mistakes when their spell has
been broken ; but surely it would be better if we were suf-
ficiently careful of the grounds of our belief to secure that
we should not be misguided, generation after generation, by
these magnificent fancies. As matters stand, we see only the
groundless nature of those grand ideas by means of which
so many have been led to think that the teachings of
Scripture are overthrown.
As we proceed with the review of theories, we see how one
series of errors issues in another. When it was thought to
be a truth, established by the mineral character of the rooky
strata, that the earth was a globe of molten matter cooled
down till a solid crust surrounded the still molten centre, it
was natural that men should seek for a " beginning " to the
history of such a globe, in something from which a fiery mass
might come. Astronomy teaches that our world is one of
multitudes that whirl in space; and so in searching among
those other orbs it might be hoped, that men would find some
analogies to guide them in conjecturing the real origin of the
earth. A great astronomer had already given the fancied cue
to the wished-for mystery. In looking among the myriad stars,
we descry certain bright clouds that could not at first sight,
or even by the aid of very powerful telescopes, be regarded as
crowds of distant globes. So far as even Sir Wm. Herschel
could judge with the aid of his vastly improved speculum,
these nebulce were composed of "star-dust," or luminous matter
in a* gaseous state, and in process of concentration. The
nebula seen in the constellation of Orion was one of the
most persistent of these clouds. It can be seen by the naked
eye, and yet the most powerful telescope that could be con-
structed then, failed to show that it consisted of separate
stars. The irresolvability of this nebula seemed to teach
that it was not so much distance which gave it a nebulous
appearance, as its gaseous constitution. In the winter between
I
360
1844 and 1845, the Earl of Rosse brought his "three-feet
mirror " to bear upon it, but could not see the vestige of a star.
" The Nebular Hypothesis " was strong then. The immense
weight of Hutton's influence, combined with that of Herschel
and Laplace, bore on the scientific mind, and made the conviction
apparently as irresistible as the nebula was irresolvable. Men
felt as if they must believe that here was the primary state
of a world — a cloud of luminous matter circling round a cen-
tre, and in process of cooling down into a solid globe like
our own.* But Lord Rosse at length constructed his telescope
with a six-feet speculum. Professor Nichol tells us the result,
in language of intense eloquence. He was present the first
time the "mighty tube" was directed to the mysterious
nebula in Orion. The instrument was still imperfect, and no
stars were seen. At length, however, Lord Rosse wrote,
under date March 19th, 1846, telling him that with only-
half the magnifying power the speculum bore, he " could
plainly see that all about the trapezium is a mass of stars;
the rest of the nebula also abounding with stars, and exhi-
biting the characteristics of resolvability strongly marked."
"And thus," says Dr. Nichol, "doubt and speculation on this
great subject vanished for ever ! " Then he says, " Yes !
the Infinite we had built up after the fashion of what had
become familiar, was yet, with all its greatness, only Idola,
and could fill neither Space nor Tirae."t It required, as we
have seen, a few years longer to demonstrate the mythical
character of the " fundamental granite of a cooling globe ; "
but now these " brilliant " notions are safely registered in the
record of dreams. It should never be forgotten that the most
confident unbelief in the Sacred Scriptures perhaps ever en-
tertained, had its foundations in these purely imaginary notions
of great minds. So had the most laboriously framed but
misleading interpretations of the Mosaic narrative, the force
of their imagined necessity in those now abandoned theories.
It is not, however, in what may be regarded as isolated
hypotheses that we notice the most signal failures in specu-
lative geology. In its grandest generalizations there are
astonishing defects. For example, when we are told that the
crust of the earth is known to the depth of " perhaps ten
miles,n{ and inquire into the grounds of the statement, we are
introduced into a field of astonishing reasoning. The deepest
* It is a puzzling question why philosophers did not regard these nebulae
as worlds going to smoke, rather than consolidating into globes like our own.
t Nichol's System of the World, ed. 1846, pp. 53 to 53.
X Lyell's Elements of Ge-ology, page 2.
361
mine of which I have seen any record, is only about a
twenty-second part of ten miles. Twenty-two such shafts
end to end with each other, would be required to pierce the
earth's surface to that depth. Then if we take the estimated
thicknesses of the strata that have been classified, that proves
far too much. Those formations which are now placed below
the Silurian, are described as fifteen miles in thickness in
themselves alone ! Were we to go by the estimated thicknesses
of the rocks, and to imagine that at one time they all lay one
over the other at any one point on the globe, we must con-
clude that we know something like a hundred miles down,
instead of ten ! Then suppose that we take a mountain and
let it even be 20,000 feet high, that is, nearly four miles,
who shall tell us what is in the interior of that mountain on
a level with the plains at its feet ? We are told that " it may
appear inconceivable to a beginner, how mountains several
thousand feet high, can have become filled with fossils from top
to bottom •" but our difficulty is not with the conception, but
with the entire absence of proof that there are any such
mountains on earth. We may be perfectly satisfied that the
surface of the mountain, even to its summit, is formed of
sedimentary strata and contains fossils; but this is only a
surface matter of comparatively a few feet, while we are
seeking for some scientific grounds on which to found the
belief that geologists know the crust of the planet to a
vertical depth of ten miles ! But we have the " dip " and
bend of strata going down from the surface and coming back
to it again. Say we take a Laurentian rock that rises to the
surface, at a certain point, and consequently, if we trace it
back from that point, it " dips " away towards the earth's
centre at a certain angle. We pass along in the direction of
this " dip " till we at last believe that we meet with this
same rock rising to the surface again, we shall say at a similar
angle to that at which it went down. Working on this angle,
and on the distance between the two points at which the rock
rises to the surface, we draw a " section " of the crust of the
earth which accords with these data. We have a magnificent
bend in the bosom of which to "fill in" any amount of
newer formations, and at the point at which the bend is the
deepest, we have a great deal more, we suspect, than ten
miles ! Our difficulty here again is, not that we have not
proved enough, but that we have proved a great deal too
much ! We begin to be deeply thoughtful on the problem,
as to whether, if geologists had known the crust of our globe
to half the distance we have reached, they could ever have
fallen into those mistakes -as to its character which have
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turned out to be so enormous. Their real knowledge amounts
simply to this. At the time when certain creatures lived
under the sea in a certain place, certain rocks were formed
at the sea-bottom; certain rocks were formed after these,
inasmuch as they were laid above them; and during the
period of this newer formation, certain other creatures lived
above where those older rocks now lie. We do not know
that the older rocks continued to lie exactly where they were
formed, when the newer rocks were being formed above
them. We know that certain rocks dip at a certain angle
and rise to the surface at a certain angle too, — sometimes the
same as that at which they dip ; — but we do not know that
they form always such a curve as may be drawn in following'
this angle of dip and rise. The variations of position and
contortion are innumerable, and our ignorance of the unseen
depths is perfect.
But the ignorance which, so far as we can see, prevails as to
the depths, is clearly traceable among geological ideas of the
surface. We may give, in passing, a notable instance of the
evidence that it is so. One of the most influential theories in
that class which has been used against ordinary scriptural
ideas, is that usually called the glacial. It is given as the
true account of the formations embraced in the "boulder
clay," which means so much in geology. It is thus briefly
but clearly stated by Page. — He says : "After the deposition
of the lower tertiaries, it would seem that the latitudes of
Britain and the North of Europe underwent a vast revolution
as to climate, and that some new arrangement of sea and land
took place at the same period. At all events, the large mam-
malia of the earlier tertiaries disappeared, and the land was
submerged to the depth of several thousand feet, for we now
find water- worn boulders on the tops of our highest hills, or
at all events, at an altitude of from 1,800 to 2,000 feet. A cold
period ensued, and icebergs laden with boulders and gravel
from other regions, passed over these latitudes, and dropped
their boulders on the then submerged lands."* This im-
mense ocean then gave place ; and upheaved land with masses
of ice pressing down the mountain-sides, and laying similar
loads of boulders and clay at the sea-bottom, to be raised by
fresh elevations, gave existence and character to the boulder-
formations of the present surface. He says, " It is thus that
we find granite and gneiss boulders from the Scottish High-
lands now spread on the plains of Fife and Midlothian, and
blocks from the hills of Cumberland spread over the moors of
* Page's Advanced Text-Book, pp. 233, 235.
363
Yorkshire." But this dream of a vast ocean with its burdens
of ice and stone has been most successfully supplanted by one
(if it also be a dream) which shows the north of Europe, and
especially the regions spoken of above, all covered by a mass
of snow like that now covering Iceland, which travels over
even the tops of high mountains, and across valleys, car-
rying with it similar boulders to those advanced in proof of
the submergence of the land, even to the thousands of feet
spoken of. Especially by Mr. T. F. Jamieson, of Aberdeen,
we are shown the folly of the fashionable faith in an ocean
flowing over mountains now 2,000 feet above the sea-level, and
the reasonableness of the mass of superincumbent snow,
such as is still creeping over the inequalities of the northern
surface, carrying with it all that is required to account for
the boulder formations.*
Other ice-theories are contending with this of Mr. Jamieson
for the mastery over the upheavals and subsidences of the
ocean-bed. Among these, the most important is that which
is founded on the fancied displacement of the centre of gravity
in the globe by means of an immense accumulation of snow at
the Pole. A grand difficulty in the way of this is the fact of
open sea at the Pole now, though such masses as those which
cover Iceland lie on Polar lands. But even if this displace-
ment theory could be accepted fully, it would not at all change
the relation of the boulder formations to the ice-covering.
It might account for a submergence of northern regions to the
extent of 300 or 400 feet, but could say nothing as to those
facts which call for one of more than 3,500 feet, if an ice-bearing
sea were to be maintained instead of snow. This dissolving
view of an immense frozen ocean, with all its accessory ideas,
is disappearing, like those of the central fires and the nebulae
of space.
If we pass from these glacial affairs, and examine into what
is known as to the formation and transformation of the rocks,
we find that the same absence of true thought characterizes
the present condition of this science which is seen in the
matters we have thus reviewed. The mineral constitution of
the strata, as enabling men to say how they were formed or
transformed, is a cardinal affair in geology. Let us take up
the popular notions of " trap " rocks, as a striking example of
the light which prevails in this direction.
Looking into the Geological Magazine of July 2nd, 1866, we
find, in a brief notice of an excursion of the Bath Naturalists'
* Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society } vol. xyiii. p. 164.
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364
Field Club, that on the 15th of May, " whilst passing along
the Ridgeway, several indications of trap were noticed." One
of these rocks was pointed out, coming to the surface " in the
form of a boss; thus giving evidence of a mighty volcanic
movement, which took place at a remote period, the limestone,
before horizontal, being then upheaved by this great pro-
truding mass, and thrown off on either side with considerable
force ; the lava at the same time bursting forth wherever a
vent could be found." Such are popular ideas of trap rocks.
In the same number of the Magazine (and, indeed, in the page
facing that from which I have quoted) we find that the
Warwickshire Field Club, on the 16th of May, had been exa-
mining " interesting sections of the lower coal-measures, with
intrusive trap," and that they had some interesting discussion,
on finding this once molten rock " in connection with coal
shales," which in some cases remained little changed, though
" in close proximity " with the igneous rock. Let us fairly-
fancy a melted mass of stone at its white heat flowing over
a bed of combustible shale, and this same shale remaining "little
changed " ! In the same number of the Magazine still, we
find that a paper was read to the Glasgow Geological Society
on trap rocks near Bowling, on the Clyde. The writer,
speaking of Auchentorlie Glen, says, " A little way up, on
the left-hand side, there is a cave-like recess under the trap,
partly filled with water, which has been formed by the scooping
out of a bed of coal and shale which crops out near the level
of the stream. The trap is here seen resting on the coal,
which dips to the south-west at an angle of twenty-six
degrees, and is almost two and a half feet in thickness. It is
considerably burnt in its upper part, but some of it gives off a
little flame. Between the coal and the trap there is a thin bed
of clay-shale, and another bed of shale underlies the coal."
Here then is a problem. Let us imagine a furnace large and
hot enough to send out a stream of slag sufficient to form a
mass like that which lies on this bed of coal. This stream, at
its white heat, flows over this thin clay and combustible coal,
yet the clay is not altered, and the coal is only "considerably
burnt," and not even changed enough to prevent its "giving
off a little flame " ! Can anybody that ever saw molten slag
coming in contact with shale and coal, conceive of such a
miracle in nature as this ? It would be just as easy to believe
that geologists are trap rocks themselves, as to believe that coal
could lie under a stream of molten lava of size enough to form
the Bowling hills, and yet be only " considerably burnt." Yet
Professor Ramsay himself, in his inaugural address to the
Geological Section of the British Association, refers to the car-
365
boniferous system of Scotland as one in which " igneous rocks
are rife ; " the igneous rocks being this very trap which could lay
itself so harmlessly at a white heat on clay-shale and ordinary
coal, without even taking the colour or the smoke out of them !
The facts to which we call attention are just such as Kirwan,
for example, published as early as 1799. He tells us that at
Borrowstounness, in Scotland, a stratum of trap or whin is the
immediate roof of a seam of coal, and at Hillhouse, near Lin-
lithgow, a thin seam of coal is found beneath a stratum of
columnar basalt. At Bathgate hills, strata of coal and basalt
alternate with each other. His authority is John Williams,
of whom Sir Charles Lyell says that he gave " the best account
of the coal strata." Kirwan gives an instance from Hessia,
in which a bed of coal six to ninety feet thick lies under a
" mass of trap or basalt 600 feet high." He says that " when
the coal is some fathoms thick, it forms a stratum that, next to
the basalt, is the best and most bituminous."* Jamieson, in
1800, published the results of his personal observation of the
geology of the Islands of Scotland. Speaking of the island
of Canna, he says that there the people who had worked
the coal told him that it was from six to eight inches thick,
and inclosed in whin rock. At Portree, in Skye, he " observed
a stratum of coal one to two feet wide, resting on basalt, and
covered by a similar mass sixteen to twenty feet high." At
another part he saw coal only a few inches thick, " covered by
a stratum of basalt thirty feet high." In keeping with these
observations, Kirwan quotes Bruckenman, who " found mussel-
shells, ammonites, and corallites in the basalt of pretended
extinct volcanoes of France," and says " Doctor Richardson
lately discovered, and showed me shells in the basalt of Bally-
castle." f Such testimonies might be multiplied to a very great
extent ; and the wonder is how the facts testified escape the
notice and fail to be quoted, at least for refutation or explana-
* See Kirwan's Geological Essays, edition 1799, pp. 247 to 252, and 310
to 311. The passage in Williams is worthy of quotation ; he says, " Strata
of basaltine rocks are very common in many coal-fields in Scotland. There
are several thick beds of this stone betwixt the different seams of coal at
Borrowstounness, and one of them is the immediate roof of a seam of coal in
that ground ; and there is a thin seam of coal below a beautiful bed of co-
lumnar basaltes at Hillhouse lime-quarry, a mile south of Linlithgow. In the
Bathgate Hills, south of Linlithgow, there are several strata of coal and several
strata of basaltes blended together, stratum super stratum. These instances
may suffice as a proof that strata of basaltes are sometimes the immediate
roof and pavement of strata of coal." (The Natural History of the Mineral
Kingdom. By John Williams, F. R. S. A. Posthumous edition, 1810.)
t Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles, &c. By Robert Jamieson, F. R. A. S., &c.
Vol. ii. pp. 38, 57, 87, 88 (edition 1800).
\
366
tion, by those who uphold so strenuously that the trap forma-
tions of the carboniferous period of Scotland are the lavas of
submarine volcanoes.
If it were necessary to give the authority of a living geologist
for the truthfulness of our ideas regarding these so-called
igneous rocks, Mr. Geikie might be referred to. He read a
paper before the Geological Society on the 6th of last June^
and wrote also an article which appears in the December number
of the Geological Magazine (1866) ; in both of which he shows
that sandstones and clay, as well as limestones, can be seen
passing into trap and granite in Ayrshire ; and that without
either rising from their beds or being overheated in them.*
Speaking of sandstones, he says that they " have become
changed in places into a rock of variable composition,
which is sometimes quartzless syenite, sometimes minette
or mica-trap," and goes on to show how crystalline struc-
ture is fully reached. " At last," he says, " I am therefore
forced to conclude that the crystalline rocks, described above,
have resulted from the alteration, in situ, of certain bedded
deposits." It is interesting to see the effect of this conclusion,
as to sandstone passing into trap and granite, in connection
with these rocks passing into each other. Sir Charles Lyell
says, " It would be easy to multiply examples to prove that
the granite and trap rocks pass into each other, and are
merely different forms which the same elements have assumed
according to the different circumstances in which they have
consolidated from a state of fusion." — (Principles, vol. iii. p.
362, ed. 1833.) Now, sandstone and even clay, passing into
trap and granite, must be classed among the fused rocks too,
or the whole "fused" theory of trap and granite must be
given up. If the positive statements as to the origin of
trap rocks, which so abound in our popular geology, taken
along with what we have thus stated, do not prove ignorance
of fundamental truth in the science, nothing can be proved.
When we would account for geological belief as to the origin
of certain strata — belief that is so palpably false — we have only
to mark the oblivion which prevails as to some of the grandest
discoveries of kindred sciences. Our great leading geologists
* Mr. Geikie says, near the commencement of his paper in the magazine,
" The rocks referred to below are Diorite, Minette, and Granite, all of which,
with one exception, are admitted by most geologists to have generally had an
igneous origin— that is to say, they have not only been in a state of fusion,
but have also at various periods forced themselves among pre-existing strata."
The exception is Granite evidently. Mr. Geikie lets the fused theory down
gently, but he lets it down effectually.
367
seem to us to have failed truly to study the subject of force.
This cannot but prove a defect of great influence, and such as
might be expected to produce results of the most disastrous
character to the science. In these rocks, observed by Mr.
Geikie in the very process of change from sedimentary sand
and mud into what were imagined to be fused masses slowly
cooled down and crystallized under pressure, but which are now
seen to be simply changed masses becoming trap and granite
before the observer's eyes, the very chief of geologists seem
not to have even the ghost of an idea as to the power which is
effecting the change. Take, for example, a piece of the un-
doubtedly aqueous rock before it has become changed, and a
piece of the trap into which it has been changed; — here are two
" facts," and what is the relation of the one to the other ? The
one kind of rock has passed into the other ; — but how has the
change been effected ? Geology cannot tell. Why so ? Because
a force is at work which has been ignored. It has been thought
of only by " heretics " !
In explaining the present mineral constitution of the varied
strata, there are still, as we have said, only two great agencies
recognized in any adequate degree. These are fire and water.
Igneous and aqueous influences are the only ones that are
allowed prominently to occupy the mind, while the best
writers describe what is believed to be the origin of rocks
as they now appear in the earth. The wearing down of
strata, with the consequent formation of sedimentary beds
by means of water, and the alteration of these sedimentary
strata, by heat, under great pressure, seem to have filled the
scientific mind, as if almost no other forces existed in nature.
Play fair speaks decisively on this point. He says, " In Dr.
Hutton's system water is first employed to deposit and arrange,
and then fire to consolidate, mineralize, and lastly to elevate
the strata ; but with respect to the unstratified or crystallized
substances, the action of fire only is recognized."* Hutton has
been followed with wonderful docility by most of our popular
geologists. Hence fire and water are still the only great
acknowledged forces. Chemical changes, so far as they are
aqueous, that is, so far as they occur through water, are
recognized. The electrical force, which is surely more
than equal to heat, on the one hand, and to all aqueous
forces on the other — more than equal indeed to both
combined — seems lost sight of. I should think that it
will readily be admitted that the altering power of the
electric current is greater than that of either heat or
* Playfair's Illustrations, p. 131.
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368
chemical affinity, so far as that is found in igneous or aqueous
agencies. It is more powerful than pressure, or heat
under pressure, or hydraulic force, or anything else yet
known in material changes. Yet this most inscrutable of
all forces seems scarcely thought of in relation to the trans-
formation of rocks. Must not speculations on the effects of
force, which leave out of calculation the most powerful force
of all that is known in physics, be radically defective and
misleading? Is it not this neglect which leads geologists so
often into the gross error of imagining that even stagnation
itself will issue in the most magnificent changes, if it is only
allowed sufficient time ?
But the same defect is visible in the utterly inadequate
accounts given of the positions of strata. The only upheaving
force thought of is heat, and the only degrading force is water.
In upheaval, water in the form of steam is thought of so far,
but that only as it is, like the rocks themselves, affected by
heat. Hydraulic force seems scarcely thought of, nor is that
force fully considered, whatever it is, which makes water the
parent of fire. Take a ship-load of burnt limestone, and let
into the hold only a small portion of water, the result
is fire, and a resistless rending and destruction of the
vessel. So far as volcanic fires are concerned, there seems
enough in this " chemical affinity," as it is called, to account
for them, were it not for the associated earthquake. The
shock of that seems to us to travel much too far to be
accounted for by anything but electricity. The force which
shakes the solid crust of the globe throughout an area of two
hundred miles in breadth, and as much as fifteen hundred
miles in length, cannot, I humbly think, be referred on any
reasonable principle, either to the agency of fire or to that of
chemical change. No development of force has any likeness
to that required for such an effect, but such as we see in
electricity. That strata should be rent and changed in
mineral constitution, by a force that can affect the globe in
this way, seems at least like reason, and it does not call for
the time so anxiously prayed for by the fashion of the present
geological day.
But there is a more important defect to notice in relation
to the positions of strata. We naturally inquire' where the
subsiding masses that are said to sink down into or through
the earth's " crust " are " stowed away." And how are the
spaces out of which Alps and Andes, and even continents rise,
so filled up as to suppoit such burdens? The conglomerate
which lies below the Laurentian limestone contains, as we
369
have seen, pebbles of sand-rock which must have come from
older strata than that conglomerate itself. But we have no
sign as to the nature of- that rock on which the older strata
were laid down. In popular geology, with its vertical up-
heavals, we have no provision for anything below, that could
sustain the now raised sea-bed on which these pebbles were
strewed. . Heat is only a state of matter analogous to motion,
and to have the heat we must have something to be heated ;
but as at present taught, we lack this actual substrate which
is so indispensable. The truth is, we are worse off than
Archimedes when he would have moved the world : we
have neither fulcrum nor lever ! Then we are taught to
believe in masses equally great, that sink down without
our getting any idea of unoccupied space below. Even
molten matter requires space, but the molten character of the
inner centre is now seen to be a " myth ;" and how to account
for the subsidence of vast continents is as difficult, if not more
difficult, than to account for their upheaval. There is one
among some other curious exceptions to this vertical rule
which we have noticed in Sir Charles Lyell's explanation of
the position of a mass of gneiss 1,000 feet thick and 15,000
feet long, which he found in the Alps "not only resting
upon, but also again covered by strata containing oolitic
fossils."* He supposes " great solid wedges of intrusive
gneiss to have been forced in laterally between strata," to
which he found them to be in many sections unconformable.
This is a great step out of the usual road of movement. It is
amusing to see how happy many great minds are in their
enjoyment of vertical motion alone. Their sea-beds sink
to nowhere, and their mountains and continents rise from
nowhere; but they themselves are not troubled with the
incongruity in the dream ! Is it not possible that there may
be a horizontal motion of the earth's surface ? May not
the travelling of Icelandic snows bear some analogy to the
changing position of the masses of the earth's surface ? It is
surely more philosophical to speculate with the greatest of all
natural forces and the only possible direction of motion in
view, than to leave them out of sight, imagining vast effects
without adequate causes, risings without lever or fulcrum,
sinkings without empty space below, and when difficulty is
hinted, merely to pray for time ! But like all else that is
really fundamental in popular geology, this vertical upheaval
* LyelPs Elements of Geology, edition 1866, p. 752. This whole passage
in one of Sir Charles's latest editions is strikingly indicative of confusion of
idea as to the nature and position of the strata on which he is remarking ;
however unpardonable it may be in us to think so.
1
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370
and subsidence is passing from the scientific mind. It too is
doomed.
The latest ideas of upheaval and subsidence entertained in
what may be called " head-quarters " in this science, are stated
by Professor Ramsay, in his address already quoted. He says,
" There, in the Alps, we find areas half as large as an English
county, in which a whole series of formations has been turned
upside down. But by what means were masses of strata many-
thousands of feet thick bent and contorted, and raised into the
air, so as to produce such results, and thus affording matter for
the elements to work upon? Not by igneous or other pressure and
upheaval from below; for that would stretch instead of crumpling
the strata in the manner inwhich we find them,in great mountain
chains like the Alps, or in less disturbed groups like those of
the Highlands, Wales, and Cumberland, which are only frag-
ments of older mountain-ranges ; but perhaps, as some have
supposed, from the radiation from the earth of heat into space,
Sroducing gradually a marked shrinkage of the earth's har-
ened crust."* Again, he speaks of the formation of mountain-
chains by " direct igneous action operating from below," as an
old-fashioned idea which he wonders to see produced in memoirs
of even well-informed writers now, and thus he leads on to the
new theory of a " shrinkage of the earth's hardened crust."
He does not say how this shrinkage and crumpling were pro-
duced. He only speaks of the radiation of heat as that which
" some have supposed;'' and in regard to the formation of gneiss
and granite, he says frankly, as to how they were produced,
he'" cannot tell;" only he imagines that somehow the means
must have been heat ! This launches the hypothesis of a
shrinking crust on the sea of willing speculation ; but by " the
law of continuity," which has so ruled the race of theories
from the beginning till now, ought we not to expect that
" shrinkage " will, perhaps, by the time the British Association
meets again, have given place to a successor ? Surely when
we recollect that the lowest stratum yet discovered in the for-
mation of the globe is one from water, which gives no sign
whatever of shrinkage, it requires a very bold stroke of fancy
to imagine that such a thing is to account for the mighty dis-
turbance evident even in the Alps themselves. Who, then, can
contemplate the real state of speculative geology, as we are
thus finding it in its very foundations, without seeing that its
great leaders are completely adrift, and that without either
chart or compass by which to steer ? We have been kindly
told, not to be afraid of the effect which this science may have
* Geological Magazine for November 1st, 1866, p. 510.
371
on religion. We hope it is understood that our fear has never
arisen from its truthfulness. But false speculations are to be
feared. *
•
It may be the highest presumption in us to allow the thought
to enter our minds, yet we cannot help thinking that the be-
wilderment of our geological guides may be in a great measure
traced to one fallacy. They seem to think that it is impossible
that a stratum of rock could have been formed anywhere else
on the earth's surface than where it now lies. Although we
have seen that a whole formation, half as large as an English
county, has been turned literally upside down, it seems, ac-
cording to current ideas, that this remarkable revolution must
have taken place on the spot above which the strata of this
formation were originally deposited. Upheaval and subsidence
being the only recognized movements of the earth's surface,
the transportation of such masses from one latitude or longi-
tude to another, is not to be thought of! It is, however,
extremely difficult for one who looks at the subject from a
common- sense point of view, to imagine the mass of rock
forming half an English county turned over, so that it would
lie upside down over the same portion of terrestrial surface on
which it lay before ; but if such a mass might change its place,
so that its latitude or longitude, or both, should no longer be
the same as they were, it is hard to see how the British Isles
themselves might not also change their place. But such change
of place at once introduces the idea of a change of climate,
and that again a change of the plants and animals inhabiting
the transported region. Alterations of climate have been
generally accounted for by referring to changes in the at-
mosphere arising from new directions of the oceanic currents,
or changes of sea into land, or of land into sea. But such changes
could never account adequately for the plants and animals of a
tropical climate that are found embedded in the rocks even of
England itself. Winds passing over burning deserts, and the
Gulf Stream passing more directly northward, might modify
the climate greatly ; but with- the relation of the sun and sur-
face, as it stands, they could never account for the fossils that
are found in the North now. The case is very different with
the view to which I am now calling attention. For example,
when we have satisfactory evidence that a climate like that of
Egypt once affected the life of England, and that a change from
Egyptian heat to our present climate has extinguished certain
species that now live only in the Nile, or in rivers of distant
lands, we are free to ask whether this change is the result of an
alteration in the atmosphere of England, considered in its rela-
372
tion to the terrestrial surface only, or of an altered position of
England in relation to the sun. I am aware that I am sug-
gesting a " heresy " for which Mr. Evan Hopkins is responsible
now for some twenty years j but surely the fact that an idea has
been condemned as " heretical " can be no drawback to it
among truly scientific men.* The idea is forced upon us, not
by the weight of any name, unless it be that of Professor
Ramsay. His facts and his bewilderment, when meditating
among those old Alps, seem to urge us to accept the idea.
His observed crumpling cannot be explained by his suggested
shrinkage — of that we are sure. It can be explained by a
lateral motion of the earth's unequal surface — of that we are
as sure. How could shrinkage lay half an English county flat
on its back ? A force sufficiently powerful, pushing the mass
along among other masses, might accomplish such an overturn.
That force whose shiverings shake the solid globe at once over
even 1,500 miles, when at its steady, earnest work, is more than
enough to lay England itself, if not upside down, at least on a
new and distant bed in the course of years. We do not say
that this view is infallibly right, nor can we say that it is
wrong ; but we certainly think that the progress of Descriptive
Geology shuts us up to some doctrine of lateral movement in
the surface of the globe, if we would allow our physical prin-
ciples to keep pace with discovery. Its rejection by geologists,
combined with the necessity for some such explanatory force, is
another powerful proof that the science we have in hand is
loose in an extreme degree in its fundamental principles. As it
now stands, no one can say what its doctrine as to the real
character of strata, or as to their superposition, may be to-
morrow. It is, in these essential principles, in a state of perfect
indecision, and ready, like a vane in the wind, to turn itself
to any current that may blow.
But it is equally clear that a thoroughly unsettled state of
mind prevails among speculative geologists as to organic
remains. We have already seen how important are the dis-
coveries that men have thought they had made in this direction.
Sir Roderick Murchison especially lays great stress on the idea
of successive creations in the peopling of the globe, and those
who take very different views from his are almost equally in-
terested in progression. It is clear, however, that discovery
of great importance is threatening the science in the direction
of its doctrine as to these organic remains. The writer of the
* See Geology and Terrestrial Magnetism, by Evan Hopkins, C.E., F.G.S.
third edition, 1865 ;'a book worthy of earnest study.
373
first article in the Geological Magazine for 1865, from which I
have already quoted, in asking the question, " Have we got
back to the first of earth's created beings?" and replying
" That is not for us to say/' concludes his remarks with these
words : " Judging from analogy, then, the Eozoon rock of
Canada was the foraminiferous formation in one part of an
ocean which elsewhere may have borne manifold and higher
species, and buried them in sands and muds, that have since
lost all form and feature by the metamorphism of age and
pressure, or which were altogether shorn away by wave and
weather when the old ocean-bed was lifted up/'* Nothing can
be more evident than that language such as this expresses be-
wilderment in fundamental thought, such as prepares men for
any change. The theory of progression, as it has been called,
is sick and ready to die. That is, not merely Darwin's notion
of the transmutation of species, but the theory of a gradual
evolution of higher forms, either by creations or transmuta-
tions. The grand, general idea, that the production of man
formed the last step in an inconceivably long chain of de-
velopment, which rose from a low first link fastened on some-
where to a piece of " fundamental granite," is expiring I If
" manifold and higher species " might live in the ocean at the
time of the Eozoon, why might not manifold and higher species
live also on land ? And if higher species, why not the highest ?
Here we ask our guide, if he knows the road beyond ? and he
replies, " No, gentlemen, we are off the track. I see no path
either behind or ahead !" Such is Geological Science in one
of its grandest features at the present hour. Pressed to speak
as to even the way to light, it can tell us simply nothing. So
we must think for ourselves.
If, then, we give up the merely vertical movement of up-
heaval and subsidence, with latitude maintained, and believe
that since half an English county could be turned over like a
turf on its grassy side, any number of such formations could
be pushed along from tropical to temperate and thence to
arctic positions on the great globe, we have, at least, one line
of thought marked off, by which changes of climate, and all
consequent changes of species, may ultimately be accounted
for. We have also that in view, of which the sickly theory of
progression, as it has been held by geologists, may be allowed
to die, and the doctrine of creation, as taught us through
Moses, may be seen in its proper scientific light.
As a fuller illustration of what we mean, we must direct
* Geological Magazine, January, 1865, p. 3.
374
the most earnest attention to some of the very thoroughly
ascertained facts of geology. We observe that Sir Charles Lyell
says : " Mr. [now Dr.] Bowerbank, in a valuable publication
on the fossil fruits and seeds of the island of Sheppey, near
London, has described no less than thirteen fruits of palms of
the recent type Nipa, now only found in the Molucca and
Philippine Islands, and in Bengal." He says also, that " the
teeth and bones of crocodiles and turtles " are found here,
with other relics of an unquestionably tropical character.
Here then fairly occurs the question as to whether all these
undoubtedly tropical productions and living creatures grew in
the present latitude of London ; or have the relics of a truly
tropical situation been transported northward by the removal
of the strata in which they were entombed ? Certain minor
causes might, perhaps, account adequately for a milder climate
prevailing in England, or in its latitude, than even that which
is produced by the Gulf-stream now. But it is impossible,
apart from the vertical rays of a tropical sun, to account for
the richest results of a tropical clime ; and the very richest are
entombed in the London clay. Is it not evident that this clay
was formed within the tropics, and that somehow it has been
removed, until it lies in our northern latitude ? And is it not
this removal alone that can account for the difference between
its climatal character and that of the beds of sediment now
forming in the Thames ? But if such is the account to be given
of changes in climate, we must recast our ideas of the extinc-
tion of species, and alter our views of what is called geological
time. The shutting off of the warm waters of the great
Atlantic current from our shores might bring a glacial period
over Britain ; but as we know, the letting on of those waters
would not give us the heat of Bengal. No raising or sinking
of the surface, which could be conceived, could give us the
effects of the direct radiance of a tropical sun without those
rays themselves. But the removal of the abodes of tropical
creatures from under tropical skies is abundantly sufficient
to account for their extinction or emigration from the portion
of the earth's surface so removed; and it requires only, that
we should be able to form some true idea of the time consumed
in this removal, in order to our coming somewhat near the
date of the extinctions and emigrations which the records of
the rocks disclose.
It is at this point that we are, as it were, compelled to look
into current astronomy, where that science has been called in to
account for changes on the surface of the earth. And here,
too, we must distinguish between practical and physical
science. Because astronomers predict, to the fraction of a
375
second, when an eclipse will occur, if it should be thousands
of years hence, it is taken for granted that all they teach must
be true ! But while a child may look to the dial of a time-
piece, and tell us to a second when the pointer will coyer a
certain mark, not one among ten thousand of grown men
can go behind the dial, and explain how the causes operate by
which the hands or pointers are moved. So may a very poor
thinker calculate the time of a transit, or an eclipse, while the
loftiest intellect becomes bewildered, and is lost in trying to
prove even • the existence of those forces on the reality of
which the fundamental doctrines of. physical astronomy
depend. The noblest minds are overtaxed when honestly
attempting to tell us whether there is such a thing as centri-
fugal force, and what it really is, which is called i: gravitation ."
No one has gone behind the scenes, and seen how the highest
authorities in astronomy are situated, without seeing that the
physics of this science are as unsettled and uncertain as those
of geology itself. But we gladly look into its teachings
notwithstanding.
Mr. Croll, of the Glasgow Andersonian University, has
presented the world of science with the best phase of one of
the most interesting of all theories from this quarter.* Sir
Charles Lyell has given Mr. Croll great credit for his
labours in this matter, as one who has pointed out a real cause
hitherto neglected in the calculations of geologists; and
although we cannot accept the conclusions at which he arrives,
we must acknowledge our admiration of this writer. His idea,
in essence, may be briefly stated. Our globe in being carried
round the sun, as modern astronomy teaches, has a path which
is not a circle, but an ellipse. This, of itself, causes the earth
to be nearer the sun in certain parts of its orbit, and farther
away in others. But this elliptical path of the earth does not
always maintain the same relation to the sun as a centre ; it
changes continually, and in the course of time, the aggregate
of change is very considerable. At one time, the earth, at its
nearest approach to the sun, is vastly nearer, and, at its
farthest departure, vastly farther from that source of heat than
it is at other times. The difference, as it is calculated by
astronomers, is expressed in millions of miles. This element
alone, however, would not give us any reason which could
account for a change of temperature on the surface of the
globe, because the motion of the earth being quickened in pro-
portion to the nearness of its path to the sun, the amount of
heat which it receives is the same when it is nearest as when
* See the Reader for October 14th and December 2nd and 9th, 1864 ; also
Philosophical Magazine, 1866, pp. 26, 27, 28, and 30.
376
it is farthest from the solar centre. But there is another
element which combines with what is called the eccentricity
of the orbit. Winter and summer are not caused by our being1
farther from the sun in the one than in the other ; but by that
motion of the earth which shortens, or, as we may say of
polar regions, blots out the winter's day, and lengthens the
day of summer. In polar latitudes, the sun shines on the
surface of the globe during the whole twenty-four hours of the
summer's day, and is not seen at all in winter. It is on the
effect of this, which arises from the turning away of the polar
surface from the sun, that Mr. Croll chiefly depends for the
proof of his theory. The radiations of heat must be excessive
from the polar surface, when it is dark and at its greatest
distance from the sun — when, too, because of its slow motion,
its winter is at the longest. This loss of heat (as Mr. Croll
argues) will not be compensated by the sun's nearness in
summer ; for the shortness of that season, from the swiftness
of the earth's motion, in proportion to the length of the
winter, will prevent all that would otherwise make the summer
warm. Put, then, these two things together — let the northern
winter occur when the earth is farthest ' from the sun, and,
consequently, the summer when it is nearest — the winter will
then be excessively severe, and the short summer, not even
usually warm. This, Mr. Croll thinks, will cause a glacial
period over great part of the northern hemisphere. Now, let
the case be reversed — the short winter occurs when the earth
is nearest the sun in space, and the long summer when it is
farthest away. The consequence of this will be greatly
lessened radiation in winter, and the equalizing, to a great
extent, of that season and the summer in northern regions.
These opposite combinations of the earth's position, in relation
to the source of heat, account, according to this view, for
regularly recurring periods of extreme winter cold, combined
with proportionally small summer heat, such as will fail to melt
the winter snow, and periods when the summer and winter
are lost in constant spring. Could we confine our reasoning to
astronomical theory, and leave out other considerations of a
geographical nature, Mr. Croll would, we think, make out a
pretty strong case by his argument for a " glacial period"
during the time when the winter occurs at our greatest
distance from the sun. But this is not the problem which is
of greatest importance, as we are constrained to view the case,
— that has respect to a hot climate sufficient for palms and
turtles in our northern latitude. Mr. Croll does not attempt
to make out this. He has difficulty in making out a period
fit even for the ferns of the coal-measures, when winter occurs
377
at our nearest to the sun in the earth's eccentric orbit. He
argues only for a " perpetual spring." His mean temperature,
calculated for Great Britain, is only 60° F. This, he argues,
must have been the summer and winter heat, with scarcely any
variaiioD, in the Carboniferous period. But, as we have seen,
geology calls for the climate of the hottest parts of India, an
equatorial climate whose^ mean heat is 81 p. What we want is,
at least, a tropical climate in the latitude of London — a climate
very different indeed from that which, even according to re-
vised ideas, could suit the vegetation of the Coal period. In
thinking of the possibilities of such a climate in the North, it
is necessary to keep in mind the truth to which we have
already referred, that the length of the polar summer's day,
though giving great advantage in the reception of heat by
the constantly enlightened parts, presents only a slanting face
to the sun, and so can never account for the heat and other
effects which flow from the vertical radiance of Bengal. Sir
Charles Lyell, in criticising Mr. Croll's theory, quotes from
the Encyclojjcedia Britannica; the results of the reasoning
there given in the article on climate. It is to the effect that
the sun's rays passing through the atmosphere, so as to fall on
the earth's surface at the equator, give 115° of heat, for 51°
given in latitude 45° south or north, arid for 14° given at
either pole.* The latitude of the London clay is 51° 30' N.
The radiance of the sun, which gives 115° F. at the equator,
and gives only 51° as far as 45° north latitude, is re-
quired to give an equatorial heat more than six degrees
further north than where it can give only 51°. How will
Mr. Croll, or any one else, make this out, and so explain on
this theory the tropical remains in the isle of Sheppey ? Yet
this is that for which an account is required as the facts of
geology: stand. -
The remains which, as we have seen, are imbedded in the
London clay and kindred formations, are such that nothing
short of the sun's vertical radiance will account for them.
Dr. Hook saw this as early as 1688, and although his
idea has been scouted, it is not on that account the less
true. But, in addition to all this, any one who has had to do
with the growth of palms and other tropical plants in this
country, knows that it is not so much want of heat which ren-
ders it impossible to grow them satisfactorily, nor is it the
want of irioisture. These can be supplied ; but what we lack
is the sun's tropical radiance. Sunshine means much more
than mere heat. How to show that this ever fell on the
* LyelTs Principles of. Geology, vol. L, edition 1867, p. 284
2 P
378
earth, in such a latitude as that of Britain, as it falls now in
India, and raised even the ocean to a temperature such as that
of the Indian Ocean now, is the problem which we think astro-
nomy, as generally understood, cannot solve. Even if we
grant the truth of the fundamental principles on which the cal-
culations of the first philosophical astronomers of our time are
based (and many competent thinkers will not grant so much),
we are totally without anything in the popular teachings of the
science that accounts in any degree for the facts of geology
to which we refer.
In coming to a conclusion,* we are very forcibly reminded of
a saying of one great man of science, which has been quoted
and applied to a special idea by another of nearly equal
standing. We direct attention to it, because it falls so signally
short of the whole truth, and yet so faithfully represents a part
of that truth. It fails to express that very thought which is of
freatest moment as science stands at the present day. Agassiz
as said, " that whenever a new and startling fact is brought
to light in science, people first say, ' It is not true \y then, € It is
contrary to religion ;* and, lastly, that ' Everybody knew it be-
fore/ Sir Charles Lyell quotes this in reference to the idea of
the former existence of man with many extinct mammalia,
holding that this, which he seems to regard as a " fact," has
gone through all the three stages spoken of by Agassiz, at
least so far as practical geologists are concerned. This idea of
the coexistence of men with mammoths, it is important to ob-
serve is not a fact, even if perfectly true. It is only an inference,
at best, perhaps a theory by which certain facts are partially
explained. So far as this matter of coexistence of man with
extinct species of animals is concerned, we are not anxious as
to what may prove to be its ultimate development. We refer
to it at present only in connection with the idea of the three
stages through which Agassiz said a new and startling fact
passes. Such " facts " are often only theories, and we think
we have given abundant evidence that the law of such things
in geology calls for a fourth stage, which follows the three
thus mentioned. In this fourth stage, " people " believe and
teach the startling doctrine for a generation or two, and then
find out that they have been all the while thoroughly deceived !
Let any one pass carefully over the ground at which we have
but glanced in this paper, and then let him say if the vast
* In preparing this paper I have left out of sight not a few of the specu-
lations by which geology has come into conflict with the Bible, partly because,
moderate limits had to be studied, and also because I was desirous not to re-
peat here what I have published already.
379
majority of ideas that have prevailed in the geological mind
have not passed already through all these four stages.
What, then, are the relations of geological science, as popu-
larly understood, to the Sacred Scriptures? They are the
relations of that which in its fundamental principles has been
changing, we might almost say, every hour of its history, to that
which has passed down through thousands of years, running
the. gauntlet between the ranks of ten thousand times ten
thousand assailants, remaining unchanged and even untouched
to the present moment. So far as the facts and certain infer-
ences of geology are concerned, they do not in any degree
affect the Sacred Scriptures. The vast ages that have been
made to occupy the minds of men when thinking of the
world's history, and are now multiplied into endless millions
of years, belong all to that conjectural thought which, as we
have seen, is so perpetually changing. Few things are so
fitted to humble us as an honest admission of our weakness
under the influence of this. Men have thought that they
were forced to remodel their ideas of the word of God, and
even to abandon the belief of its Divine inspiration, by
the force of that which turns out to be only a shifting
dream ! So we see the wisdom of those who have said to us,
as they held back themselves, < ' Allow your Bibles to remain
as they are ; wait awhile, till it is seen what these speculations
are worth. We have been too often misled by such conjec-
turings to be in any hurry to acknowledge their weight."
And we see now our own well-meant folly, mingling with that
of many others, in labouring to construct Scriptural theories
that might harmonize with the passing visions of the scientific
mind. As the men of science and the men of Scripture — the
geologists and the theologians — awake together from their
reveries, it seems as if it were to find, as we have already
hinted, that the teachings of Moses regarding the world's up-
rearing are, after all, the grandly comprehensive truth — in
very deed the Word of the Living God.
The Chairman. — It would be a mere idle form for me to ask you for a vote
of thanks to Professor Kirk for the interesting and valuable paper he has just
read. I am sure no one who has heard it found it too long ; our only regret
must be, that we had not the time to listen to, and Professor Kirk the
physical power to have delivered, one double the length. There are few out-
siders of Geology (as Professor Kirk has characterized himself) who have
paid any attention to the subject, who will not feel that the Professor's
greatest difficulty in writing his paper, must have been in selecting the few
baseless theories he has spoken of this evening from among the many whose
2 f 2
380
fallacies lie might hare exposed. We have heard much about the difficulties
of Revelation in regard to the progress of physical science, and particularly
that of Geology. Professor Kirk has given us a very fair exposition of the
difficulties of Geology itself, in its claim to be even an approximation to an
exact science. When I have been pressed to reconcile Geology with Rerve-
lation, I have always said, Let us wait till Geology becomes established as a
sound science ; then, and not till then, need the theologian care to seek to
reconcile the Bible with Geology. While the Professor was reading his paper,
I felt what a vast field of facts he had also left untouched, simply because he
had so recently brought them before the world in his admirable little book,
The Age of Man, geologically considered in Us bearing on ike Truths of the
Bible.* The theory of man's great antiquity as an inhabitant of the earthy
so well received in high geological quarters, and already crumbling so rapidly
before the accumulation of new facts, has been so completely refuted in that
work, that the Professor seems altogether to have passed the subject by in his
paper. In saying all this, I cast no reflection on the pursuit of the real science
of Geology. What we do protest most earnestly against is the present habit of
neglecting the sound method of Baconian induction, — not only in the science of
Geology, but in so many other sciences, — and attempting, by vague hypotheses,
hastily built on a few facts, to get a short cut to truth, instead of pursuing the
toilsome wearying work of collating and arranging facts irrespective of
theory. When men had few facts to reason upon, such a process was
excusable — now it is utterly inexcusable. Great as may be the mass of facts
known to modern geologists, it sinks into insignificance, compared with what
must be accumulated before we can pretend to say we have gathered together
the materials necessary to construct a true science of Geology. Not only,
as Professor Kirk has pointed out, do we only know a mere superficial
scraping as it were of the structure of the globe, but how little do we know
even of that ! How small a portion of the earth's surface has been geologi-
cally mapped, — and even of that how little has been accurately done,— is
admitted by our best geologists, who consider the geological map of our
own country as falling far behind the present requirements of the science.
When we reflect upon the grand and bold theories founded on knowledge
so very superficial in respect to that which is necessary to found the science,
we cannot be surprised that they should so rapidly fall into oblivion. Not
only are the data wanting to construct Geology as a science, but we have
to contend also with the difficulties of the problems it presents for solu-
tion. Its requirements are almost superhuman. To measure the chronology
of given strata demands the skill of a profound mineralogist, and how
many of these can we find among the ranks of the geologists ? But to be
a good mineralogist, implies also a considerable knowledge of chemistry and
crystallography. You must have all this knowledge before you can interpret
the nature of the material whose age you wish to determine. And even this
will not carry you far. You must add to it a knowledge of the whole range of
* Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 27, Paternoster Row, London.
381
natural history, of comparative anatomy, and comparative physiology, before
you can interpret the palaeontological facts of your strata. Then some other
condition may call for all the powers of mathematics to solve some dyna-
mical portion of your problem. And as if all this were not enough, Professor
Bark has shown us that we must ask the aid of the science of Electricity.
There has been much boasting lately about the connection of the Old
"World with the New by the electric chain ; and it is a feat of which science
may well be proud. But the earth-currents and magnetic storms which affect
that cable, give us a glimpse of the important part which electricity may
play in the changing structure of the globe. When we consider the vast
requirements, the vast amount of knowledge a man must bring to bear,
in order rightly to interpret geological facts when he has discovered them,
we need not wonder that blunders should be committed. We do not
complain of the blunders, but we do complain of the tone of infallibility some
men assume, and the absence of that modest humility so requisite in the
pursuit of truth. Compare Geology with Astronomy, and you will find that
the solution of the problems which has raised the latter almost to the rank
of an exact science, is a far easier task than those with which the geologist
is called upon to grapple. Professor Kirk has asked us, " What do you know
about gravitation ? " You cannot tell what it is. Newton did not profess
to know. It was to him the name of an unknown force ; though in his
modest queries he seems to consider it not an inherent property of matter,
but something external to it. What is the problem of the astronomer ? It
deals with the motion of bodies under the influence of this unknown force.
Even here the imperfection of our mathematical analysis shows itself. We
can only deal with three bodies at a time. And even then, were the problem
not simplified by assuming the absence of an appreciable resisting medium,
and many other favourable conditions I cannot now enter into, we could
neither establish the lunar nor planetary theory. If such difficulties beset the
establishment of the comparatively easy science of Physical Astronomy, surely
modesty must be most becoming in dealing with the far more abstruse problems
of Geology, — a science in my estimation requiring not only a more gigantic
intellect than that of Newton, but an age equal to the patriarchs of old, for the
sound solution of some of its easiest problems. I need now only express our
deepest obligations to Professor Kirk for the valuable instruction he has given us,
The Meeting then adjourned
1
382
ORDINARY MEETING, January 21, 1867.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell, Vice-President, in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed.
The following paper was then read by Mr. Walter Brodie, in the absence
of his father : —
ON THE LESSONS TAUGHT US BY GEOLOGY IN
REGARD TO THE NATURE OF GOD AND THE
POSITION OF MAN. By the Rev. James Brodie,
M.A., Mem. Vict. Inst.
MANY seem to entertain the opinion that there is a
natural antagonism between the study of science
and a simple and earnest belief in the Record of Revela-
tion. Not a few of those who take an active part in our
philosophical societies, and who speak on the subjects brought
before them as men who are entitled to assume the voice of
authority, treat the Mosaic narrative as they would treat an
idle tale, and speak as if they deemed it inconsistent with the
character and position of savants to pay any regard to the
statements of Scripture. Some timid theologians, on the other
hand, draw back from the study of science, as if the necessary
result of engaging in it would be the awakening in their minds
of doubt and perplexity, and shrink from an investigation into
the laws which regulate the material creation, as if that would
prove a first step to open infidelity.
As it is one of the special objects of the Victoria Institute
to show that these views are altogether erroneous, and that
the Work and the Word of God are in perfect harmony with
each other, it is hoped that a few remarks on the lessons which
geology teaches, in regard to the nature of God and the position
of man, may be regarded as suitable to the times in which we
live, and appropriate to the objects of the Society before which
they are brought.
Without stopping to inquire whether the facts on which
geologists rest their hypotheses have been ascertained with
_i
383
sufficient accuracy, or whether the arguments which, they em-
ploy have been weighed with the requisite care, we shall assume
that their conclusions are correct ; and, after briefly stating
them, we shall consider some of the inferences to which they
lead.
Conclusions of Geologists.
During a lengthened course of ages the earth remained
destitute alike of animal and of vegetable life ; at least, no
trace of organized existence has hitherto been discovered. At
an after-period, a period, however, very remote from the pre-
sent, life began to manifest itself in some of its lowest forms.
Since that time it has been exhibited in a great variety of spe-
cies and genera. Abundant evidence is afforded that there
have not only been innumerable generations of plants and
animals that have lived for their appointed season and then
passed away ; but that species after species, and genera after
genera, have lived and died, and been entombed, since life
first dawned on the globe.
The history of the earth's varied conditions has been divided
into more than thirty epochs, or formations, as they are usually
termed, which are distinguished from one another by the pecu-
liarity of their organic remains. The vegetation that covered
the earth in the earlier eras, and the living creatures that then
inhabited it, were very different from those that afterwards
appeared ; and these again were altogether unlike those that
now exist. There seems also to have been a gradual change
in the material or physical condition of our planet. Its outer
crust, in the earlier ages, appears to have been subjected to
subterranean action of a far more formidable kind than any
that is experienced in the present day. A larger proportion
of the carboniferous element was diffused through the atmo-
sphere, and there is reason to conclude that the average tem-
perature of the globe was much higher than that which now
prevails.
Two things more especially press themselves on the notice
of the inquirer, who takes a general view of the conclusions
to which geologists have come, without allowing his thoughts
to be distracted by a minute attention to details. These are,
the vast duration of the epochs that are past, and the uni-
formity of system that has been exhibited in the course of
creation and providence.
The Vast Duration of Former Epochs.
The more carefully we consider the subject, the more are we
384
impressed with the sense of the earth's immense antiquity.'
Upwards of thirty formations, or eras of creation, containing
thick beds of fossil remains, have already been discovered, and
without doubt many more remain to be explored. These must
have taken very protracted periods for their accumulation ;
beds of sand and gravel may be deposited in a single season,
but thick masses of organic remains must have required a
lengthened time for the production, the growth, and the life
of the vegetable or animal forms of which they were once a,
part. The duration of the different geological formations is
not to be reckoned by centuries, but by millenniums. When
we are told, for instance, that in Nova Scotia there are found
" fifty or even a hundred ancient forests, buried one above the
other, with the roots of trees remaining in their original
Eosition," we conclude that as each of these forests must
ave required at least five hundred years for the formation of
the soil in which it grew, for the growth and decay of the
trees, in so far as we can judge, the epoch to which they be-
long must have extended from forty to fifty thousand years.
Masses of shells and corals, " hundreds of feet in thickness/'
demand an equally lengthened period for their deposition.
Another formation, of less extent than these, conveys, per-
haps, even more vividly than they do, the idea of great dura-
tion. Sir C, Lyeli, in describing some lacustrine strata that
are found in Auvergne, gives the following statement : — " The
entire thickness of these marls is unknown ; but it certainly
exceeds, in some places, seven hundred feet. - They are thinly
foliated, a character which frequently arises from the innu-
merable thin plates, or scales, of that small animal called
cypris, a genus which comprises several species, of which some
are recent, and may be seen swimming swiftly through the
waters of our stagnant pools and ditches. The animal resides
within two small valves, not unlike those of a bivalve shell, and
moults its integuments annually, which the conchiferous mol-
luscs do not. This circumstance may partly explain the
countless myriads of the shells of the cypris which were shed
in the ancient lakes of Auvergne, so as to give rise to divi-
sions in the marl as thin as paper, and that, too, in masses
several hundred feet thick." The little shells or scales, here
referred to, are smaller in diameter than the head of the
smallest pin ; they are annually shed, and float lightly in the
stream. Here, we are told, that layers of them divide the
marl into beds as thin as paper. These facts naturally lead
to the conclusion that, year by year, as the moulting season
came round, and these diminutive denizens of the stream and
pool dropped their scales, their cast-off habiliments were car-
385
ried into the lake, and scattered over its silent, depths. Autumn
and winter followed, and sent down their floods, swollen with
the rain, and carrying along the debris of the mountains around.
While the , gravel and sand brought down by the streams
were deposited at the sides of the lakes, the lighter particles of
floating mud were spread over its entire extent, and settled down
in the stillness of its^ deeps. The cypris scales were the de-
posits of the summer . floods ; the alternating marl was the
product of the winter's rain. Every layer, therefore, may be
regarded as the record of a year ; and if these layers are as
" thin as paper," in masses " several hundred feet thick," a
very extended time must have elapsed before the lake had
its peaceful repose disturbed. . If ,we reckon ten of these divi-
sions to an inch — and the description would lead us to suppose
that there are many more — stratified masses thus formed, and
of the thickness Sir Charles mentions, must indicate a period
of at least some fifty thousand year s. These marls, moreover, are
spoken of as representing only the latter, part of the period,
during which the Upper Eocene was formed; and the whole
of that epoch seems to have been brief when compared to the
duration of others*
Who then can calculate the age of the earth, or reckon up
the years of its many generations !
1 r ■
Uniformity op System in the Course op Creation.
We now proceed to remark that the history, written in the
records of the rocks, very plainly shows that in all the periods
of the earth's existence, the laws that regulate the material
world have been the same as those that are now in operation.
The ripple-mark left by the tiny billow on the muddy shore, and
the impression made by the raindrop on the yielding sand, can
still be traced in formations many epochs old. The annual
rings that we find in the trunks of fossil trees testify to the
regular return of "summer and winter, seed-time and har-
vest," in ages long since gone by.
Leaving it to others to speculate on the law of progression,
according to which animals of higher development and more
delicate organization have, from time to time, been introduced
into the terrestrial sphere, we content ourselves with remarking
that in all the various stages through which the world has
passed, we find creatures formed with an organization that
was admirably fitted for the circumstances in which they were
placed. When the globe was subject to volcanic convulsions,
far more terrible than any we now experience, and the ocean
was tossed with tempests of proportionate violence, the ani-
386
inals that peopled the dry land belonged to the reptile tribes
and other genera which are distinguished for their tenacity of
life, while the fishes that swam in the primeval seas had bones
of gristle, the better to endure the stunning effects of a blow,
and were covered with scales of bone, that, clad in coats of
mail like the knights of olden time, they might pass unscathed
through the elemental war. Other epochs came, and saw
other races rise, conformed to the altered conditions of the
time. " Fishes and reptiles," says Mr. Miller, " were the pro-
per inhabitants of our planet during the age of the earth's
tempests ; and when, under the operation of the chemical
laws, these had become less frequent and terrible, the higher
mammals were introduced. That prolonged ages of these tem-
pests did exist, and that they gradually settled down until the
state of things became at length comparatively fixed and stable,
few geologists will be disposed to deny. The evidence which sup-
ports this special theory of development of our planet, in its
capabilities as a scene of organized and sentient being, seems
palpable at every step. When the coniferse could flourish on
the land, and fishes subsist in the seas, fishes and cone-bearing
plants were created ; when the earth became a fit habitat for
reptiles and birds, reptiles and birds were produced ; and with
the dawn of a more stable and mature state of things, the
sagacious quadruped was ushered in."
The Lesson taught by Geology in regard to the Nature
op God.
We now direct attention to the lesson that Geology teaches
in regard to the Author of All. In all these lengthened eras,
amid all the changes which the globe has undergone, we can
trace the same unwearying power, the same unerring wisdom,
and the same beneficent design, that we discover in the scenes
that now surround us. We review the list of epochs past, we
stretch our ideas of time along the far receding array, till we
are oppressed with a sense of the vastness of a duration which
the mind of man attempts in vain to conceive ; and still the
world testifies of Him that made it, that in all the varied mani-
festations of His providence, which the terrestrial scene has
beheld, the character of the Creator has remained the same.
Geology and Scripture alike declare that the Lord hath reigned
through all the ages of the past, as He reigns in the time that
now is — infinite in wisdom, in power, and in goodness — the
unchanged and unchangeable God.
387
The Lesson taught b* Geology in regard to the Position
of Man.
Another important lesson which Geology teaches, is the
peculiarity of Man's nature and position. When the records
of the different strata are laid open before our eye, and we
examine one by one their pages of stone, they tell of a vast
variety of species and genera that lived, and multiplied, and
passed away ; but from the earliest appearance of life on the
globe, up to the day of Adam's creation, during ages so long
that we cannot conceive them, and among species and genera
so numerous that the thought of their multitude overwhelms
us, there is no trace of any creature possessing the faculties
and feelings of a rational mind, the hopes and aspirations of
an immortal soul. In all the epochs of the past, we find no
evidence of any being exhibiting intelligence like that of the
human race. There are no remains of the builder's toil, or of
the potter's art ; there is nothing to indicate the presence of
mechanical skill capable of directing the agencies of Nature ;
there is no sign of a master-mind capable of subduing the in-
ferior orders to his will. Had such a being existed, he must
have left some impress of his operations, some relics of his
power.
When Man appeared on the terrestrial scene an altogether
new element was introduced into the constitution of earthly
things. Mineral, vegetable, and animal existences had been
there before ; but it was not till that time that an accountable
and intelligent creature became a dweller here below. Geology
teaches us that man stands alone, and that he is not to be classed
with any other being that has hitherto inhabited the globe.
His nature and his position are altogether peculiar. He is as
highly, and as essentially, exalted above the most intelligent
of the irrational animals as they are exalted above the vege-
table, or as the vegetable is above the stone. He has before
him a nobler destiny than theirs, and he has been created for
a higher end.
It is needless to remark that the lesson taught us by Geology
is in perfect harmony with the doctrines of the Bible. We may
go farther, and affirm that even the conjectures that are sug-
gested by the study of the past, find a striking confirmation in
the statements of Scripture. Science leads us to conclude
that, if the primeval introduction of animal life into the globe
was followed by brighter manifestations of the Creator's per-
fections than had been exhibited before, the creation of a
rational and intelligent being must be followed by still more
striking exhibitions- of His sovereign power. It bids us look
388
for scenes as far surpassing those that we have hitherto seen, as
the beauty of the present world excels the dreary and desolate
aspect of the Azoic ages. Science and Scripture concur in saying-
that Man does not belong to the past, but to the future. To that
future they bid him look, and for that future they tell him to
prepare.
The Chairman. — In asking you to return your thanks to the author of
this Paper and also to Mr. Walter Brodie for reading it, I may observe that
Dr. Gladstone's Paper, which is to follow, is of such a cognate, character, that,
unless any one wishes now to make some observations upon the Paper just
read, I think it will be more convenient to take the discussions on both
papers together. (Hear, hear.)
The following Paper was then read : —
ON THE MUTUAL HELPFULNESS OF THEOLOGY
AND NATURAL SCIENCE. By John Hall Gladstone,
Esq., Ph. D., F.R.S., Mem. Vict. Inst.
MAN, God's child, is put to school in this world, and among
the books which he has to study is the varied volume of
Nature. There he finds endless pictures to arouse his infant
wonder; and there, if he read thoughtfully, he may learn
much, not only of the mysteries of. the universe, but also
about the wisdom, power, and goodness of its Architect, and his
Father. But this child is a rebellious one, and in order to
restore him to the position which he has forfeited, and to
reveal more fully the Father's will, message after message
has been sent him from on high. In the book of Nature he
finds a multitude of facts which he combines as he best can,
and the result is Natural Science : in the volume of grace he
finds a number of facts and statements, from which he builds
up Theology. The lessons in either department, as God gives
them, can scarcely be conceived as otherwise than absolutely
true; but as apprehended by man, they are necessarily subject to
human error ; and thus his systems of Theology and Natural
Science must always admit of correction and enlargement.
In this essay I propose to confine my attention to these two
parts of man's curriculum — the knowledge of Nature and the
knowledge of God ; and I shall endeavour to show in what way
they are mutually helpful.
The great difference between the two books is in the subject
treated of; the resemblance is in their indications of the cha-
racter and mind of their Author,
389
They tell of different things. The book of Nature appeals
to the bodily senses, and the whole of its teaching relates to
the physical universe, and to this life. It knows nothing of
the spirit, and its destinies. The Bible, on the other, hand,
never professes to teach Natural Science. Its words, of course,
are coined from natural objects and actions, and it makes large
use of Nature in the way of illustration ; but its subject matter
is the moral law of God, the way of salvation, and eternal life.
It is not in this direction, therefore, that we need look for
much mutual confirmation, nor need we fear much disagree-
ment.
The two books, however, as was just stated, resemble each
other in their indications of the character and mind of their
Author. Nature leads us up to the conviction of a Supreme
Intelligence; the Bible assumes His existence from the be-
ginning. The unity of design that runs through the universe
bespeaks the oneness of its Maker; in the Bible we read,
"Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God is one •Lord." Nature
shows us the superabundant evidence of power; the Holy
Scriptures call God " Almighty ." Our proudest achievements
in natural knowledge are but the disclosing of a higher wisdom ;
the sacred writers stand amazed at "the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God." The philosopher and the
inspired apostle agree that " in Him we live and move and
have our being," and alike recognize His constant sustaining
energy. In our study of the universe we come to a profound
conviction of the uniformity of law ; Jehovah declares, " I
change* not;" and even miracles appear in the Bible as part of
the working out of a foredetermined plan. The terribleness of
the Most High is seen alike in the world and on the page of
inspiration. His justice and His goodness may be gathered,
though somewhat uncertainly, from the book of Nature ; but
they are clearly revealed in His word. It is only when our
accusing conscience forces the question of His mercy, and
makes us doubt the possibility of His favour, that Nature is
silent, and we turn to those better oracles which unfold to us
the scheme of redemption, and assure us that " God is
love."
There is also another kind of resemblance between the two
books of Nature and Revelation, which springs from their
having the same Author, and which I may, perhaps, be al-
lowed to term the analogy of style. In both we find facts given
abundantly, but no scientific systems ; in both there is a won-
derful unity of plan in diversity of operation ; in both there is
a frequent recurrence of types — that is, of th'e same Divine
idea repeated, perhaps many times, but modified to suit the
390
altered circumstances. In both, too, we find a gradual de-
velopment in time, the later additions being not mere additions,
but also evolutions of that which preceded, and ever tending" to
what is more comprehensive and better. It would take me too
long to work out and illustrate these points of analogy;
indeed each might be the subject of an essay. I mention
them because they have a direct bearing upon part of my
future argument.
If there be truth in the statements hitherto made, we shall
be fully prepared to find that the study of Nature and of the
Sacred Scriptures are mutually helpful. I propose considering
the subject under the three heads of Natural Theology, Evi-
dences of Christianity, and Methods of Interpretation.
I. Natural Theology. — It is needless to say much on this
head, for this is a department of Divinity which depends
wholly, as its name imports, on the study of Nature. The
pious in all ages have loved to trace the hand of God in the
visible creation, and in doing so they have only followed the
example of the inspired Psalmist, or have learned of Him who
" answered Job out of the whirlwind " — of Him who on the
Galilean mount drew lessons from " the birds of the air," and
" the lilies of the field."
This habit of noticing the indications of the Supreme
Intelligence may be of service also to the philosopher in his
scientific pursuits. Thus, to take an illustration, a physiologist
examining an eye will see its exquisite adaptation to the pro-
perties of light and the purposes of vision ; but he may come
across some muscle the use of which is not evident, or such an
organ as the tapetum lucidum of the cat, and the conviction
that this also has some " final cause " will probably lead him
to discover the part it plays in perfecting the mechanism of
sight.
Under this head of Natural Theology, may be mentioned
another important service which the fuller study of Nature
renders to true religion, — it clears away much rubbish ; for
science is the foe to superstition. The unknown or ill-under-
stood forces of Nature beget a vague fear in the minds of the
ignorant ; the movements in the world around them appear the
actions of spiritual beings ; a roaring waterfall, a black damp
cavern, a tree waving its branches in the moonlight, the sun
beaming forth heat and splendour — each is inhabited by some
mysterious agent, and the character of this spirit takes its hue
from the character of the mind that imagines it. If the un-
taught man be gentle and comparatively innocent, the spirit will
be a nymph or* a fairy ; if he be mischievous, a satyr or an elf;
and if he be wicked, the mysterious being will be a demon as
39J
licentious or as malignant as himself. I need not remind you
of the multitude and variety of false religions which have these
fancies for their basis. All such ghosts vanish at the sunrise
of scientific truth. No man taught in modern science can any
longer believe the statement of the Hindoo scriptures, that
"heavenly cows hurl the destructive thunderbolt"; nor, as
the lightning flashes around him, will his fear embody itself in
the picture of Thor wielding his mighty hammer, or Jupiter
Tonans grasping a handful of lightnings. In the mighty
electric discharge he sees only one manifestation of a force
which pervades all Nature, and is convertible into other forces,
the varied exponents of that one Supreme Will whose wisdom
ordained and whose power sustains the whole.
II. Evidences of Christianity. — Natural Theology is not
Christianity : its deductions may be perfectly true, and yet the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures may be false. It seems to me,
however, that the study of Nature has something also to say
to this question, and that in more ways than one.
The accordance of the character of God, as we find it de-
scribed in the Bible, with that deduced from Nature, is itself an
argument in favour of the truth of Revelation.
The fact that the same difficulties which meet us in Revela-
tion have their analogues in the world of sense, as shown by
Bishop Butler and others, not merely serves to stop the mouths
of objectors, but is of some value in establishing a common
origin.
But there is a more important issue. Science sweeps away
the rubbish of superstition ; — is what we deem sacred truth
likewise doomed to disappear ? Facts seem against such a
supposition. The present century, which has seen so wondrous
an extension of physical science, is marked by an increase of
religious earnestness ; and it seems to me that, notwithstanding
some great and peculiar perils, our age has the healthy sign of
a more intelligent and painstaking desire to arrive at the true
meaning of the Word of God than characterized any earlier
period of the Church's history. If, moreover, we turn from the
effect of Natural Philosophy on an age to its effect on indi-
viduals, do we really find that the pursuit of science overthrows
the belief in the Divine origin of what is recorded in the sacred
writings of the Jews and Christians ? By no means. A singu-
larly large proportion of the highest men of science of this
and preceding times have been devout believers, or, at least,
have acknowledged the truth of the Scriptures ; while, if we
descend to men of the second or third ranks, we find — at least
in my experience — about the same proportion of Christians as
in most other professions. It is true there are scientific men
392
who are infidels, and at the close of last century we saw on the
Continent of Europe the sad spectacle of French Encyclopae-
dists/ arid other learned men, labouring to extinguish the little
faith that was then to be found in the world ; but it remains to
be inquired whether these men were not infidels before they
were philosophers; and subsequent events have shown that
they raised their paean before they had won their victory ; for
the Bible is read now far more than it was then, and Christ
has His disciples in the halls of Continental as well as British
science. "
And it has not been for want of will on the part of
infidels that our Sacred Writings have remained the firm
foundation of the faith of Christendom. As science after
science has risen into notice, they have ransacked its store-
house in search of something which they could forge into a
new weapon against the old book ; and even the guardians of
the faith have sometimes been the first to brand some new
scientific doctrine as unscriptural, or to decry the whole in-
vestigation as irreligious. As time has gone on, it has occa-
sionally happened that the scientific doctrine proved to be a
crude and erroneous conclusion; or the suspicious theory
being established, it has been found that what it opposed
was merely the view of some Jewish commentator or Christian
poet.
The history of astronomy is instructive in this respect.
When it was contended that the earth, instead of being a flat
plain was a round ball, with people walking on the other
side of it, the idea was denounced as unscriptural and pre-
posterous. After this was generally received, the Copernican
theory of the solar system was promulgated, and then monks
preached against the new: heresy, and the authorities of the
Church passed these two resolutions : — " 1st. The propo-
sition that the sun is the centre of the world, and immovable
from its place, is absurd, philosophically false, and formally
heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
2nd. The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the
world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a
diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and theo-
logically considered at least erroneous in faith." When,
however, these propositions were universally taught, even
at the Roman observatory, the immense magnitudes and
distances of the stars were looked upon with suspicion
as reducing our globe to a mere speck in the universe,
although it is the theatre of man's probation, and of the Son
of God's great sacrifice. . But no educated man doubts these
conclusions now, and in many a sermon, as in Dr. Chalmers's
393
Astronomical Discourses, they serve as an additional proof
that "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament showeth His handywork." Yet astronomy may
still have its theological battles to fight : the nebular theory
of the formation of worlds seems to be offensive to some
religious minds, and if it be ever established, it will be in the
teeth of opposition.
I think that without presumption I may suggest an idea as
to the purpose for which Providence has permitted this diffi-
culty to stand in the way of the reception of many scientific
truths. It thus becomes clear there is no collusion between
the teachers of physical and theological science ; it is not a
sacred priesthood, as in ancient Egypt, that holds the key of
the mysteries of nature ; and thus the ultimate concord can
scarcely be suspected of being at the expense of truth. No
doubt foolish attempts have sometimes been made to twist
the facts of science and the statements of the Bible into
harmony, as for instance, by some of the advocates in the
great case of Genesis versus Geology ; but usually the physical
philosopher has calmly or boldly pursued his own line of
investigation, and the theologian has inquired whether the
apparent discrepancy has not arisen from a human gloss, or
from a misunderstanding of the true province of revelation.
And what is the result ? There has been the din of battle,
and the shrieks of the timid have been heard amid the shouts
of the warriors : earthworks which the defenders of the faith
have pushed forward have been repeatedly carried by the
assailants, but the citadel of the word of God remains untaken,
and its venerable walls are the more redoubtable on account
of the sieges which it has withstood.
III. Methods op Interpretation. — If two books were
products of the same mind, and, especially, if they are
written somewhat in the same style, we should expect that
the study of the one would make us better fitted for under-
standing the other.
In treating of the analogies between the two branches of
study here referred to, I may allude to the necessity of the
mind being adapted to the reception of the particular kind of
truth. This is mentioned first to obviate an objection that
has probably presented itself already to the minds of some
hearers, and which has, perhaps, clothed itself in the emphatic
words of Paul : " The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God ; neither can he know them, for they are
spiritually discerned: but he that is spiritual discerneth all
things." Indeed, ordinary reason is sufficient to teach us that
if a man would apprehend the word of God, his mind must be
2 a
394
previously brought into unison with that of God ; while ex-
perience proves abundantly that an intellectual worldling is
often blind where an unlearned believer sees intuitively. And
{"ust so is it with physical science ; the man who has not a
oving interest in it, can never understand its doctrines, or
weigh its conclusions.
Yet neither Scripture, nor logic, nor experience teaches
that the spiritual mind is all that is needed on the one side,
or the scientific mind all that is needed on the other side, in
order to arrive at the fulness of the truth in either department
of study.
Assuming then that each student is possessed of the proper
receptive faculty, and a true interest in the subject, I proceed
to notice several points of analogy in the temper of mind, or
the intellectual processes required. The sketch will be a very
rough one, and nothing more than a sketch; for the fall
illustration of the subject must be left till either I, or some
one with greater leisure, may take up the subject in a separate
treatise.
The first requisite for a successful prosecution of any inquiry
into the ways of God either in Nature or Revelation, is a reverent
spirit, — a desire to arrive at the truth — a remembrance that
what we are studying is incomparably greater and nobler
than our first impressions of it. This is surely self-evident.
Flippancy is fatal to success. And here the student of each
department may often learn a lesson from his brother; for,
unhappily, there are theologians who think they can overthrow
the careful deductions of scientific men by a few dashing
remarks ; while there are philosophers who anxiously inquire
into the mysteries and apparent contradictions of nature, yet
fling aside the Bible at the first seeming discrepancy either in
its statements or (more foolish still) in the statements of its
interpreters.
A proper reverence will evince itself, by the care taken to
arrive at whatever is the truth, by the adoption of the best
methods, and by a readiness to reconsider our views, when-
ever any new facts or fresh arguments appear to throw any
reasonable doubt on their correctness.
Passing from this moral requirement to intellectual ones, we
may remark that the first step in any process of investigation,
is to ascertain the facts on which our conclusion is to be based.
Now this is a most difficult thing, though, unfortunately,
people often think it so easy. Thus, turning first to Nature,
let any ordinary observer try to describe such a common phe-
nomenon as the rainbow. What a string of errors his account
will probably be as to its apparent height and size, its distance,
895
the order of the colours, their brightness, &c. Aristotle, who
investigated the subject, says that the circle is of smaller
diameter at sunrise and sunset than at any other period,
whereas it is in reality always 82°. The history of science is full
of such mistakes of eminent men, including Herodotus's lioness,
which never has more than one cub ; the consequence of which
of course would be that the leonine race must rapidly become
extinct, by its numbers being at least halved in each generation.
And the popular beliefs, how strange they often are ! There
is, for instance, that of the influence of a change of the moon on
the Weather. How many of our weatherwise friends have
noticed it a hundred times ! And yet the highest meteorolo-
gical authorities, after a series of observations continued
through many years, have come to the conclusion that no
influence of any sort can be traced.
Turning from natural to divine science, we find that the facts
which we must collect are the statements of Revelation ; but
how difficult is it to quote the Bible correctly ! Passing by
the errors introduced by bad translations, there is the Scarcely
honest practice of cutting down a text, so as to produce sucn
unqualified statements as "Hear the church," or " All things
work together for good." There is the thoughtless practice
of laying hold of anything within the covers of the Bible, and
using it as authoritative truth, though it should be the words
of the Father of lies,* the statements of wicked and designing
men,t the mistaken opinions of good men, J ironical remarks, §
or sayings introduced by inspired writers only to be refuted. ||
There is the ignorant practice of associating modern ideas
with the ancient story; as the noteworthy reference of the
Mormon apostle to Paul's sailing by the mariner's compass.^
And there is the foolish practice of wrenching a text from its
connection, and making it carry any meaning which the words
seem susceptible of. Some of these, indeed, have become the
popular meaning of the texts; as "one star differeth front
another star in glory," which generally does duty to prove the
different degrees of blessedness in the heavenly state, instead
of the difference between celestial and terrestrial bodies, as the
context at once would show.
Passing from the facts of Nature or Revelation tothelanguage
in which we clothe our impressions of them, it may be remarked
that the terms employed should be definite and appropriate.
Some words have necessarily a more complex signification
* As Job ii. 4. t As Luke xi. 15.
X As Isa. xxxviii. 18. § As Eccles. vii. 16.
As CoL ii 21. % Acts xxviii. 13.
2 a 2
396
than others ; and generic terms — such as metal, or minister —
have a certain vagueness which does not attach to specific
terms, such as iron or Levite. In the history of science, this
ambiguity of terms has been a constant source of error. The
Greek philosophy was rendered almost fruitless by it ; and
from that time to the present, some words, such as fermenta-
tion, have been used to express two or more different modes
of action. Sometimes even now a word has a different signi-
fication among the votaries of one science to that which it
bears among those attached to another : thus, if a geologist
hammer out of a rock a bone or shell, which, in process of
ages, has been reduced simply to phosphate and carbonate of
lime, he places the relic among his " organic remains," while
a chemist examining the specimen, will pronounce it to be
wholly " inorganic." Other words, as Catalysis or Epipolism,
seem to have been woven as a cover for our ignorance. And
as to the appropriateness of terms — in inventing a name, a
discoverer is tempted to make it express his own theory of the
matter; the name thus becomes bright with significance, a
spark capable of kindling a similar thought in those minds on
which it falls. But, while there is a present gain in this, there
may be a future loss; and it may be fairly questioned, whether
a simple unmeaning name is not often preferable. The dis-
advantage is this: as knowledge increases the theory alters,
and the word becomes inappropriate; and since it is very
difficult to disturb a name which has acquired general accept-
ance, the facts continue to be presented to the mind under the
old heraldic device, on which is conspicuous the bar sinister
of an original mistake. Thus, when Priestley isolated a certain
gas eminently capable of supporting combustion, he called it
t€ Dephlogisticated air," thus giving it a name that involved, a
theory then under discussion, and which shortly ceased to
exist ; and when Lavoisier renamed this gas, believing it to
be the acidifying principle, he termed it " Oxygen," the Acid-
producer, and " oxygen " it has ever since been called, though
chemists know that some of the strongest acids contain none
of this substance. I would just remind those acquainted with
the subject, how " chemical affinity " has come to mean almost
the opposite of what the words naturally imply; and how
what is called the "north pole" of a magnet is really its
" south pole," with reference to the north magnetic pole of
the earth.
Turning from natural to theological science, we find the same
dangers attending a bad choice or employment of words. While,
however, theological terms are very often ambiguous, I believe
they are more appropriate than those of most other sciences :
397
for the sacred writers themselves furnish the words — some-
times words of their own invention — and the duty of the
interpreter is not so much to put the facts of revelation into
appropriate language, as to discover the meaning of the words
of Scripture, and thus penetrate into the revealed mysteries.
This demands scholarship, no doubt ; but what is far more
essentia], is a certain logical power of seeing through the
significance of words in relation to their context. Sometimes
a popular misapprehension of a term will greatly mislead;
and it should be borne in mind that words are always shifting
in meaning, and have to be brought back again to their true
bearings by the public teacher, or they will go hopelessly
adrift. For instance, how many hearing the verse "Now
abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of
these is charity," have a confused idea that this pre-eminent
virtue is little else than either almsgiving, or a disposition
to condone the faults and errors of others !
If care had been generally taken to arrive at the true under-
standing of what is symbolized by the terms of Scripture, how
many differences among Christian speakers and writers would
be saved ! Thus, faith is considered by some as totally
independent of, if not opposed to reason, while others view it
as the highest development of reason ; again, some speak of
faith as the same mental act, though exercised on different
objects; while others draw distinctions between historic,
saving, practical, miraculous, and other kinds of faith; and
there is a popular use of the word which actually confounds it
with superstition.
Would that theologians were content to employ scriptural
terms, and that in their scriptural significations ! We should
then be saved from many an unseemly controversy.
In any investigation, beside the definiteness of the words
employed, the ideas themselves must be definite. As instances
of the contrary, may I not take almost at random, " A visi-
tation of Providence •" " Nature abhors a vacuum " (at least
up to 33 feet) ; and "Miracles are impossible."
To think clearly in one department of knowledge is good
training for thinking clearly in another.
Leaving many tempting points of analogy, I pass on to
consider the most important of all — the formation of our
larger generalizations, — what Bacon calls uthe raising of
doctrines" For natural science is not a mere collection of
facts, or even a classified arrangement of them ; and theology
398
is more than a siring of texts, even though they be selected
to bear on one point.
In treating this subject, I must be permitted to glance
back at past history, and in a few sentences to recall to
your minds some of the broader features of the progress of
thought.
We know little of the science of the Chaldeans, Egyptians,
or Chinese, before the Christian era ; but the works of many
Greek philosophers have been handed down to us, so that we
can form a good opinion of the way of thinking of the master-
minds of that nation. While we stand awestruck before these
mighty intellects, we are still amazed (perhaps amused) to see
what a prodigious edifice of theory they could build on a small
and often shaky foundation of fact, and how it was mental
conceptions and not natural phenomena that formed the
materials of their arguments. In the mean time the Jewish
prophets, though generally exhibiting a loving admiration of
nature, scarcely attempted to trace secondary causes. After-
wards there arose in that nation a series of commentators,
who spun out a wondrous web of divinity and ethics, by as
faulty a system of deduction from narrow premises as ever
spoilt the philosophy of a Grecian sage. The fathers of the
Christian Cnurch were not much affected by these Rabbinical
fancies, but Greek speculation had a more potent influence ;
and it is little to be wondered at that such mighty spirits as
Plato and Aristotle cast a spell over the minds alike of the
theologian and natural philosopher; and presently we find all
parties bowing implicitly before the authority of the Stagirite.
* * * * >
But from the gloom of the middle ages a better philosophy
began to dawn, and reformers arose both in the schools and
the Church : they began to recognize a higher authority, and
to allow " the ideas of the Divine Mind," whether in Nature or
Revelation, to overthrow " the idols of the human mind." At
length Bacon, with his "new engine," demolished the
structures of the Aristotelians ; and on a more careful inductive
basis the temple of modern science has been erected.
*****
Thus, while the mediaeval natural philosophy is only known
by its fossil remains, the huge saurians, the pterodactyls, or the
mammoths of former theological epochs still walk the earth ;
or, to return to the old figure, I am sure that each of my
hearers, whatever his own religious views may be, will readily
acknowledge that while the rubbish of astrologers and alche-
i
399
mists has been cleared away, lie is surrounded by faulty
theological systems, some in ruins, some tottering, but others
still erect, though doomed to fall.
The true method of interpreting either Nature or Revelation
so as to build up a scientific system, is, first to collect all the
known facts of the case, and then to form a theory, which,
without going beyond them, shall include them all in its ex-
planation.
Though this principle is well known, and has been often
recognized both theoretically and practically in each of these
departments of knowledge, and in others which we are not
now considering, it may not be superfluous to illustrate it
step by step.
First, as to collecting all the known facts bearing on a
particular subject, — in the world of sense this is generally a
very arduous undertaking, or rather, the wider we push our
inquiry the greater becomes our knowledge of the facts,— in
matters of revelation it is not so very arduous, for the Bible is
a limited book, and the additional facts of Christian expe-
rience are gathered without great difficulty. The natural
tendency of the human mind to select involuntarily one par-
ticular class of facts, and to found its conclusion on them, is a
fruitful source of error and controversy. The history of
geology and mineralogy furnishes us with a remarkable
instance in the fierce and acrimonious discussions of the
Vulcanists and Neptunists at the close of the last century.
The one party, fixing their attention on the basalts, traps, and
granites, held that the configuration of the surface of the
earth was due to the agency of fire ; while the other party,
finding everywhere hardened sand and mud filled with organic
remains, contended that the whole of the land was a deposit
from water; and each one insisted that the opinion of his
party was the only orthodox one, till a better school arose,
and pointed out that in the production of the multifarious
rocks and strata of our globe both agencies must be recog-
nized. Just so in theology, there a-re those who think of
"the man Christ Jesus," as He wandered about Galilee or
Judaea, often hungry and weary, thwarted in His wishes,
imperfect in His knowledge, and saying such words as " My
Father is greater than I," till they adopt Arian or Socinian
views ; while there have been others, who seeing in Christ
the authoritative worker of miracles, the divine Logos, the
Creator of the worlds, and hearing Him utter such language
as "I and my Father are one," have sublimed away His
humanity, and formed for themselves views like those of the
ancient Docetee. But each of these doctrines is erroneous, in
400
as far as it ignores or denies the opposite truth, and they
must both be combined in a true theory of the God-man.
The theory must not go beyond the facts. But how hard it
is for imagination to bear the harness and the bridle ! We see
a piece of rubbed amber giving rise to certain phenomena of
attraction and repulsion, and we spring to the supposition of
of an " electric fluid." We count seven colours in the solar
spectrum, and we at once associate it with the gamut of music ;
or we read, " Render unto Ca9sar the things that are Caesar's,"
and we conclude the divine right of kings. Of course it is
when we have a strong preconceived notion, that we are sure
to see proofs of it everywhere. A man is easily supported on
a one-legged stool if his own two feet are firmly fixed on the
ground.
^^% ^^* ^^* ^^^ ^^^
Oh for that intellectual temperance which would prevent our
seeing in Nature the products of our own brain, or drawing
out of a Scripture statement what we have ourselves put into
it beforehand !
A good theory must include all the facts in its explanation.
That advance towards a true conception of Nature which should
mark the progress of every physical science, is only to be ob-
tained by the gradual replacement of the first hypotheses by
such as are founded on a larger generalization. Thus the idea
that heat was some imponderable form of matter, which could
be transferred from one substance to another, and could remain
latent among its particles, was once deemed competent to
explain the various phenomena ; but now its incompetence is
fully recognized, and we are led to regard heat as one of the
ever-shifting forms of force, so that our measure of it now is
expressed in terms of foot-pounds, that is, of the amount of
force required to lift a pound weight through a space of twelve
inches. Similarly, we should expect that in the progress of
Divine science our doctrines should become fuller and truer,
as we sound more thoroughly the depths of the Divine word
and the dealings of Providence. I must, as before, select an
instance. Suppose we are investigating the benefits which
flow to mankind from Christ's death, we must enter into the
meaning of those typical sacrifices under the old dispensations
by which atonement was made ; wo must listen to the utterances
of the prophets ; we must catch the allusions of Christ to that
future scene of suffering which appears to have been constantly
present in His mind; we must study the simple narratives of the
401 •
crucifixion ; and we must try to discover what is involved in
the Apostles' preaching of the cross, and in such words as
propitiation and ransom, reconciliation and eternal redemption.
Then we shall scarcely be satisfied with the opinions of Anselm,
or Aboard, or Bernard of Clairvaux, but we shall endeavour
to include the whole of the Scriptural statements in our great
conception of the Saviour's sacrifice.
I have thus endeavoured to illustrate some of the points of
analogy between the methods of interpreting Nature and
Revelation ; and it is on this account that the present lecture
has been written, for I want to plead for the larger introduction
of the study of Natural Science into our schools of Theology.
The power and usefulness of the Christian ministry in the
future will depend little on their ability to make verses in dead
languages, or on their knowledge of the differential calculus,
but it will depend greatly on their being abreast of their fellow-
thinkers in their appreciation of those processes by which truth
is arrived at. Every parish priest, and every teacher of re-
ligion, must be more or less an expounder of the word of God,
and it is surely desirable that he should enjoy, as far as possible,
the advantage which may be derived from a knowledge of
those methods of investigation which have proved so fruitful
in a kindred region of thought, — a region where calmness is
more easy, for human passions and human interests are less
involved in the issue, — a region, too, where the conclusions are
more readily brought to the test of direct experiment than
they generally can be in the domain of Theology. I do not
forget the greater importance of those studies which bear
directly on the duties of the sacred office, but I plead for the
study of Natural Philosophy because I believe in its peculiar
adaptation as a trainer of the mind in the pursuit of truth.
There will be also minor advantages. A better acquaintance
with physical science will remove distrust, and enable the
sacred teacher to feel as well as to repeat, " The word of the
Lord is right, and all His works are done in truth." And then
again it will furnish the preacher with an abundant store of
illustrations, such as adorn Moses's Song of the Rock,* or
Paul's argument about the resurrection of the body.f
I feel that my train of reasoning has led me to speak of the
services rendered by natural science to theology rather than
those rendered by theology to natural science. The advantage
of their mutual intercourse would seem to be on the side of
theology. Perhaps it is so, and perhaps it is right that it should
be so. Theology is the queen of sciences : it is befitting that
* Deut. xxxii. 1—43. f 1 Cor. xv. 35—44.
402
those of lower rank should wait upon her. Yet, if I had spoken
not of theology, but of the Christian religion, I know not but
that the obligation would have been on the other side. Human
philosophy has done little to make men better Christians ; but
had Christ never become man and suffered, or had the Holy
Spirit never been poured out, it may be a question whether
the race of man would not have sunk lower and lower in their
degradation, and whether there could have been that state of
civilization which allows of the calm pursuit of intellectual stu-
dies, or that mutual confidence which is necessary for such
great undertakings as the establishment of museums, the per-
fection of large and costly machinery, or the laying of sub-
marine telegraphic cables. But I care not to compute too
nicely the gain on either side, but rather to remember that
every honest student may be the servant of Him, who has
given to us the command, " By love serye one another/
a
The Chairman. — I am sure you all feel very much indebted to Dr.
Gladstone for his paper ; and I may say that both Dr. Gladstone's paper
and the preceding one exemplify one of the canons which Dr. Gladstone has
laid down, — namely, that the first requisite for a successful prosecution of
any inquiry into the ways of God, either in nature or revelation, is a reverent
spirit. I am sure you will feel that that marks both the papers we have
heard this evening ; and I now call upon any gentleman who wishes to make
remarks on these papers, to do so.
Capt Fishboubne. — There was another canon that Dr. Gladstone gave,
us, which is a very excellent one, and which, I observe in the paper, is
marked in Italics, — That we should first ascertain all the facts upon which our
conclusions are based. Now I observed that in the first paper all the facts
are assumed, and I must protest against this — against taking for granted that
all the conclusions advocated by geologists are true. It appears to me they
are all rather in question ; and the whole argument falls to the ground, if
that be so. Mr. Brodie argues as if the current system of deposition and
of the stratification of the earth were quite true ; but in the paper read at
our last meeting, we were told that Professor Ramsay had alluded to strata
in extent equal to an English county, that had all been turned up-
side down. In Mr. Brodie's paper the question is begged, while we want
proof ; and until we have that we cannot admit the order of stratification.
Again, in the paper it is assumed that the earth was once a great many
degrees hotter than now — that the world was at one time a globe of fire, and
gradually cooled down ; — and that this accounted for the tropical plants, and
evidence of tropical signs in this country and in Spitzbergen. On the con-
trary, however, it appears that will not answer the case at all. You may
have a hotter climate the result of internal heat, but that will not give the
tropical rays of the sun or the plants of the tropics. In this view is wanting
A
403
that characteristic adaptation which is found all over the world at the present
pioment: — it does not account for the tropical plants requiring the sun's
rays and the showers of a tropical climate ; for mere heat below would not
give these. I need say no more about Mr. Brodie's remarks, because I think
they fail, from not being founded upon established facts.— Dr. Gladstone's
paper was on the subject of the mutual helpfulness of Science and Scripture ;
but, as he tells us, he went rather on the one side ; and I strongly feel this?
that it is in this way that science is doing one of the greatest injuries to
Scripture that is possible at the present moment. There is a passage in his
paper which shows what I allude to ; and I am sure, that if he had thought
of it, he is really of the same mind as myself. I allude to the passage
where he quotes from St. Paul, that "the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God." The meaning of this is, that a$
respects Scripture, it is indispensable we should have a power — the teaching
of the Holy Spirit — to enable us to understand it ; but Dr. Gladstone draws
a parallel between Philosophy and Scripture in that respect ; whereas there
is this characteristic difference between the two, I say that elevating the re-
quirements of philosophy, into the position of a strict parallel with the require-
ments for the interpretation of Scripture, has just this effect, that men fancy
that by mere force of intellect they can understand all Scripture. Now, I
say, that this is most fatal; and that as long as any idea of that -kind arises
in the mind, — while it ignores, either directly or indirectly, that indispensable
power for the understanding of Scripture, — it is not helpful, but exceed-
ingly injurious, and I think that view is a main defect in Dr. Gladstone's
paper. I am sure we are one in sentiment ; but in the paper he has over-
looked the point, perhaps from writing it hastily.
Mr. Warington. — I confess on looking through Mr. Brodie's paper as
Captain Fishbourne was speaking, I failed to see there any assertion on the
part of the writer that the earth was at one time hotter in consequence of
internal heat. I find it there stated that " a larger proportion of the car-
boniferous element was diffused through the atmosphere, and that there is
reason to conclude that the average temperature of the globe was much
higher than that which now prevails ; " but I .did not see any assertion as to
how it came to be higher, nor did I see any assertion of our globe being ori-
ginally a molten mass
Capt. Fishbotjrnb.— I said it was assumed ; I did not say it was asserted.
Mr. Warington. — I am not disputing that it is possible the writer of this
paper may have had that theory in his mind ; but I do not think he has so
expressed himself as to be open to the charge of having bound up the lessons
which geology teaches, with particular theories which may be erroneous. No
theory of geology will ignore this, that the earth has existed a long time and gone
through many changes, and that man is aj>out the last being that has been
created on the earth ; and as these are the whole]foundations of the lessons
which Mr. Brodie draws, I think it is hardly fair to say, because there may
be a particular detail questionable here and there, that his whole paper is at
fault. Surely we are too much disposed, in looking at these questions, to
404
forget that all our knowledge rests on probability. That was the great thing
Bishop Butler insisted on in his Analogy, that probability is a fair founda-
tion for practical conclusions. I think, then, that in these matters of science,
we are not to say, because a certain thing is not mathematically demonstrated,
therefore we are not to take it as a basis of argument. If so, we should
have no arguments at alL Our chairman has told us that in the purest of
all sciences, mathematics, there are propositions taken as bases of argument
which cannot be demonstrated in mathematical fashion— they are assumed ;
so that even in that science we have to take probability into account Hence
I take it, that all we can fairly demand in taking any conclusion of science
as a basis for argument, is that it should be a probable conclusion. To
pass to the second paper ; it struck me that the objection which Captain Fish-
bourne raised against it, arose from a misunderstanding of what the author
of the paper intended to convey. As I heard it and read it, it did
not seem to me that Dr. Gladstone meant that it was the same quality,
the same faculty of mind, which rendered man able to interpret the facts
of nature scientifically, that would enable him to interpret Scripture
scientifically ; but rather that there was in each a true and proper faculty,
and that so far the two cases were analogous ; because just in the same way
as the scientific faculty of the mind was required for the investigation of the
facts of nature, so the spiritual faculty of the mind was required for the
investigation of the facts of Scripture. It struck me that the position Dr.
Gladstone took up was one of great importance with a view to tracing out the
analogies which exist between nature and Scripture in this way. It gives a
useful answer to objections which are raised at the present day, something
in the same fashion as the great work of Bishop Butler on Analogy
did, to objections in his day. For there are certain prominent fallacies
put forward by some thinkers now, which can be met most effectively -by
this analogy between science and Scripture. I will take two, which are
hinted at, though not worked out, in Dr. Gladstone's paper. In the first
place, we are constantly hearing men say that there is but one standard in
theology, and that is conscience ; and of course if we reason on k priori
principles, we must admit that the standard of ultimate appeal is man's
conscience. There may be others, but we must come at last to the practical
one, the ultimate one, and that is conscience. The conclusion drawn is, that,
consequently, whatever a man's conscience thinks right, is right. Now, to
turn to science ; — the ultimate standard of appeal, by which every scientific
conclusion has to be judged, is reason. And this not merely reason
generally, but by each man's faculty of reason. But would it there-
fore be fair to jump to the conclusion that what every man's reason
decides is science ? Certainly not. We see that although reason is the
true faculty to which appeal must be made, yet that faculty has to
be educated, and must have before it a proper estimate of the facts
of the case on which the conclusion is to be based; and unless these
are kept steadily in mind, it is extremely probable that reason will
come to a wrong conclusion ; and thus though the right standard may be
405
referred to, that standard will give a wrong verdict. So, if conscience is
not educated to discern right and wrong, and you have not considered the
full estimate of the facts of the case, you are liable to make similar mis-
takes in religion ; and therefore, just as you say to a man in regard to science,
your individual reason is not sufficient ground for adopting a conclusion ;
so also you may say to a man in regard to religion, your individual conscience
is not a sufficient ground for adopting any conclusion. To take another parallel
case, we hear it constantly said by persons who uphold conscience as opposed
to authority : We are to search out everything for ourselves, and believe
nothing on trust. Now, if we look at this matter on & priori principles, it
is right that we should search out everything for ourselves, just as in matters
of science, the scientific student is supposed a priori to search out everything
for himself. But what is he obliged to do practically ? If he wants to learn
astronomy, for instance, he does not immediately begin investigating the
minutest principles of his science, and go through every step. No ; he takes
a manual of astronomy and learns first of all the conclusions to which others
have come in the science he proposes to learn. Then when he has mastered
these conclusions, if he thinks a point defective, he tests it, and puts the whole
into practical use ; and if it passes this greatest test of all, the test of practice,
he does not quarrel with the conclusions of others, but accepts certain things,
contrary to the theory of science, on trust. And so it is precisely in theology ;
the student does not begin by questioning the fundamental positions of
theology, but learns of his teacher or theological manuals ; then he puts their
conclusions to the test of practice, or tries any particular point which seems
defective, and decides whether it is true or not. It struck me that in this
kind of way the false positions taken up by theological sceptics at the present
day may be advantageously met, by showing that precisely the same thing is
done in the matter of science ; especially as it is on the scientific method
that pur sceptics profess to deal with Scripture. We should say to them, then,
Deal with your conscience in religion in the same way as with reason in science.
Deal with authority as to theological conclusions arrived at in days gone
by, in the same way as you do as regards scientific conclusions come to by
investigation in days gone by ; and you will find your objections touching
conscience and authority fall to the ground. In this way, I say, science may
very notably be the helper of theology.
Rev. Dr. Irons. — What has fallen from the preceding speakers has failed,
I confess, to reconcile me altogether to the thesis which Dr. Gladstone has
attempted to demonstrate this evening. I am reluctant to admit the expression
that science is helpful to Revelation, or Revelation helpful to science. I think
that Revelation being most distinctly the impartation of truth from God to us,
does not as such need help from science or man at alL Of course there is a
sense in which every external instrumentality may be said to be helpful to it.
Language may be said to be helpful to the promotion of the cause of religion,
and so may all social institutions ; and in that sense I, of course, cannot deny
that science may do a little in helping the education of the human mind. It
certainly has done but little as yet, though it may do more in time to come.
406
Bat as to its being helpful in any higher sense, I confess Dr. Gladstone has
failed to convince me. If he will excuse my saying so, I think there did
preTail throughout his essay a kind of patronage of theology, a kind of treat-
ment which I think, as theologians, we do not desire. I do not, as a theolo-
gian myself, wish to be patronized. Believing that Divine Revelation is
actually true, I ask no favour to be shown to it whatever. Let it confront the
world in its own way, and I am quite sure it will answer for itself. If it be not
capable of doing so, it is not of God. Then the tone which was adopted in some
parts of this well-meant paper, seemed to me to be otherwise scarcely respectful
to our side — the theological side— of the subject brought before us. Indeed,
Dr. Gladstone admitted that he had paid rather more attention to the other
side, and in some degree in one passage he apparently apologizes for it ; yet
I thought the apology a somewhat awkward one. It is that sort of apology
which we make to a lady when we tell her, in some very complimentary way,
that we defer to her judgment, that she is our queen ! And " queen " was
the title assigned to our science, — not by Dr. Gladstone in the first instance,
I grant, but in his paper to-night, in a somewhat new sense, — a sense which
seemed to me to be about as respectful as that which I have just indicated.
But there were graver tilings that arose in my mind many times as the paper
proceeded. One or two points seem to me to show that Dr. Gladstone has
not given that close attention to theology that he undoubtedly has given to
science. He may probably retort that on me ; and I cannot help it. But I
think in his case, it would have been well if he had not classed Anselm on
the doctrine of atonement with Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, as though
there were anything in accordance between them
Dr. Gladstone.— I referred to them as holding totally different views !
Dr. Irons. — I only mention that as an instance of a kind of treatment
of theological science which, I think, would scarcely have been thought
respectful, if it had proceeded from our side towards natural science. It
would have been thought to have been a mmg\\np together of incongruous
and impracticable theories, as if all were science alike. But with respect to
one part of Dr. Gladstone's paper, I have to take a much stronger line of
objection. He says that the Bible is so much easier to understand than
natural science. You will recollect the passage, as the paper has been so
recently read. He seems to consider even the language of the ancient
prophets to be so extremely intelligible that any one might make out their
meaning for himself. Now I do not hesitate to say, that if he would take
the prophet Isaiah, and read it through (in the Hebrew) with care, and take
his pen and endeavour to put down in plain modern language side by side, in
a parallel column (in language such as The Times newspaper, for instance)
the exact sense of the prophet, — what he means in every phrase, — Dr.
Gladstone would certainly not arrive at any of these conclusions concerning
any single chapter of Isaiah, which have been universally taken, in the
Christian Church, as being the sense of the prophet. I am persuaded there
would be found in the literal language much more that is acceptable to a
Jew than to a Christian. And yet, notwithstanding this, we should accept
407
the Christian interpretation of Isaiah, for instance (and I only give that as
one example) and not be prepared to accept Dr. Gladstone's dictum, that we
can ascertain its tneaning for ourselves, in that off-hand way which he seems
to suppose in this essay. I am perfectly sure that, apart from the hereditary
faith of the Church, we should not be able to interpret truly the Old Testa-
ment prophecies. Take, for example, the prophecy concerning the Child
that was to be born, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day. We read,
that " before that Child should be able to know good or evil, the land would
be abhorred of both her hmgs" All such details connected with the pro-
phecy, literally and simply understood, would lead to a distinctly Jewish
interpretation of the whole. I mention this as one warning as to the way in
which the whole of Christian truth may be cut from under our feet, if we
were to adopt the rule implied in this paper, of reading by our own wit the
Old Testament, instead of being led by the Spirit of God to those interpre-
tations handed down from the days of Christ. It was not my intention this
evening to address you at all. I have been, though interested in the subject, so
engrossed by other matters, up to the moment of my coming here, that I have
been unable to do justice to the subject, in any observations I might have wished
to make ; and you must forgive me for speaking in this desultory way. I
do feel that this is an important Institution, and that every subject here dis-
cussed ought to be watched with care. I should be sorry indeed if any paper
read in the Victoria Institute should give currency to the idea that we are
going to " help Revelation " in any way. Let us remember that we must be
helped by Revelation, rather than that we can assist it. The passage which
I referred to before, my eye now falls upon — " Theology is the queen of
sciences, it is befitting that those of lower rank should wait upon her." Wait
upon her ! With reverence, surely ; in a lowly and distant spirit of homage,
if you will ; but not wait upon her in the spirit thus intimated ; for
here she is set before us, as not only having an equal, but perhaps
an equal of a somewhat domineering character, in this natural science!
No, I must entirely dispute, either that science receives help from us,
or that we rreceive help from science. I have not yet glanced, indeed,
at the other side of the alternative. But I quite admit that it is not
our business, as theologians, to import into science any of our dogmas.
The two subjects should be pursued with independence of thought, and
with fearlessness as to all conclusions. Reverence, indeed, in both should
be predominant, for if there be not a reverent mind, I cannot conceive
that any one would be either a truly scientific man or a good theological
student; but the two things must stand on their own merits. Science
must be pursued for its own sake, humbly, fearlessly, truthfully ; and.so also
Revelation ; but that must further be aided externally by the gift of God
directly, and internally by the Spirit of God applying His truth to the
soul of man. I have no further observations to address to you on this
paper, and I thank Dr. Gladstone for his patience in listening io these few
remarks.
Mr. Reddib. — I should wish to notice first the remarks of Captain Fish-
403
bourne with reference to Mr. Brodie's paper. While I quite agree with
Captain Fishbourne, that some of the assumed facts in the paper may not be
regarded as facts by many of us here now, — and especially after Professor
Kirk's able Discourse upon the history of geology ever since geology became
part of the science of the world, — yet I think Mr. Brodie puts it very
modestly in his paper, that he is only assuming certain conclusions in the
meantime, without stating that they are ascertained facts : — his words are,
" without stopping to inquire whether the facts on which geologists raise
their hypotheses, have been ascertained with accuracy ; " — and I think the
paper is valuable in this respect, that assuming all those long epochs, and
assuming even the now extinct " Azoic ages," we find that a reverent spirit
can still extract grounds to support his belief in a Supreme Being of
Almighty power and wisdom, and yet perceive that man occupies that posi-
tion in the world, even upon these suppositions, which he also is shown to
occupy from the teaching of Scripture. Of course, it is always to be preferred
that arguments should be based upon what are perfectly ascertained facts ;
but I think it must be in all our recollections, that most of these assumed
facts in Mr. Brodie's paper, have been taught as the certain facts of geology
during the last twenty or thirty years. Some men also, we know, have
made use of these same " facts " to teach impious doctrines, or to oppose Reve-
lation. And it is, therefore, of great consequence to find that a gentleman
like Mr. Brodie, — himself an able geologist, who has written one of the best
replies to Sir Charles Lyell's book on the Antiquity of Man,— can extract
proper notions of the Deity, and of man's position in the world, from those
same facts from which others have drawn very different deductions. — I come
now to the more important paper of the evening. I do not quite go with
Dr. Gladstone's mode of treating the subject of his paper, especially when we
view it with regard to its title, — " The Mutual Helpfulness of Theology and
Natural Science." — I however consider this a fair subject for philosophical con-
sideration, and I cannot agree with Dr. Irons in saying that the one cannot
derive any benefit from the other. Still, it strikes me that Dr. Gladstone (as he
in fact himself states in his paper) has not treated the subject of their mutual
helpfulness, but rather the respective modes of interpreting the two sciences,
Theology and Natural Science, and drawn analogies between them. Now,
of course, there are analogies, or ought to be, between all kinds of right
reasoning ; and if you have not a fact to deal with, you cannot very well
reason soundly, or at least, to any good purpose. You may assume a hypo-
thesis, and say that such and such follows ; but this too often results in
idle speculation. — I must now notice some incidental remarks in the paper,
although I consider that there is this mistake throughout, that it does not
quite fulfil its promise ; for I do not know in what respect it has shown
us that science helps theology or theology helps science. In the opening of
Dr. Gladstone's paper, the first thing I find to which I should venture to
demur, is the almost hopeless view he seems to take of the whole subject. He
says that our "systems of theology and natural science must always admit
of correction and enlargement." Now to me that sounds too like Pilate's
409
question, " What is truth ?" I have greater hopes of both than that ; and
trust that science, as well as theology, is on a sounder basis, and that we are
not destined to be ever learning, and yet " never able to come to a knowledge
of truth." Then he says, " The book of nature appeals to the bodily senses, and
the whole of its teaching relates to the physical universe, and to this life." I
must also demur to that. I do not know what Dr. Gladstone means to
include in natural science ; but I consider that some of the heathen in their
"natural science" taught more as regards another life than almost our own
Christian theologians. For instance, the immortality of the soul has been
almost demonstrated by Plato and the Greek philosophers, while it is a
question scarcely argued in the Christian church. It has been assumed no
doubt, and many other arguments have been added, in connection with the
resurrection of the body ; but I fancy no Christian theologian would like to
throw aside the teachings of pure natural science, or human philosophy, on
that subject. Then I find St. Paul himself making use of natural science to
aid theology (I say this in all deference to Dr. Irons's opinion) ; and he does so,
no doubt, because theology has for its basis, belief in God ; and St. Paul appeals
to things visible as proving the existence of the invisible Deity ; thus also
showing us that even natural science does properly deal with something
besides this life and mere material things. — (Dr. Gladstone here made an
observation to the Chairman.)
The Chairman. — I think Mr. Eeddie means this, that he considers natural
science in a wider sense than Dr. Gladstone has done, and would include
in natural science, mental philosophy, and I suppose what the Scotch term
" the humanities."
Mr. Eeddie. — I include all human philosophy, and that is why I think
this Society has such a wholesome range in its scope. We are not a mere
" scientific Society " in the narrow modern sense, but truly a philosophical
Society —
The Chairman. — I think Dr. Gladstone's paper was directed to the one
branch of science, which I should term " Natural Philosophy," rather than
as including the whole range of philosophy.
Mr. Eeddie. — I would scarcely like thus to dissociate the various branches
of human philosophy or natural science — for instance, natural philosophy
from natural theology. But I shall endeavour to bring out my views, and
also to show what is found in Scripture, in their justification. I would agree
with Dr. Irons that " science," in our modern sense, is not made use of in
Scripture ; but if by science you mean a true knowledge of certain things in
nature, without any pretence of going into the depths of nature and beyond
what we do know of the laws affecting these things, then I consider that
Scripture makes very great use of science in this sense. It does not profess
to propound the particular laws that regulate the movements of the heavenly
bodies, but it recognizes most distinctly that they are regulated by law, as in
the phrase, " He hath given them a law which shall not be broken." Again,
we have the verse, " The Heavens declare the glory of God ;" teaching us,
therefore, that the contemplation of the material heavens ought to lead the
2 H
410
mind of man beyond the visible to the invisible. Now, thai- is the essence
gf what we properly call " Natural Theology ;" it is, I might say, the constant
burden of the teaching of the prophets in the Old Testament as against
idolaters ; and it is just what St Paul argues to the Romans. The allusions
to the facts of natural science in Scripture are oftenincidental, and yet I
venture to say they are always characterized by extreme accuracy, although
necessarily appeals to the actual knowledge, or science, of those addressed.
When Dr. Gladstone tells us that the notion of the earth not being a level
plain was opposed as being unscriptural, I can only say that whoever made
that objection must have known very little of the Scriptures. What is the
fact ? In the Book of Job — and I believe that is the oldest book in the
world in which the idea occurs — the earth is distinctly spoken of as hung
upon nothing, ox as we should say, suspended in free space, in the beautiful
passage, " He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangetb
the earth upon nothing.'' There is there no notion of a flat plain with a
solid arch over it ; but, on the contrary, as correct an allusion to the earth as
we now p>Hftiy**nd it, as a globe suspended in space, as we ourselves could
indite. Then in Job, besides, look at the allusions to the sweet influences of
the Pleiades, and to some other of the constellations. I believe it is also the
first book in which the extraordinary far-sight of the eagle is noticed. This
fact in natural history you will find in modern books, like Bishop Stanley's
History of Birds ; but many such facts are now spoken of always as if only
we moderns had discovered them ; and we take credit for this, though you
may find them in the Scriptures. The theory of the circuits of the wind and
what we now call " the law of storms," was suggested by the language of
Scripture, as has been frankly acknowledged by Captain Maury. There are
many other allusions to the facts of nature in Scripture which are very
important ; and I must say I think Dr. Irons has overlooked them, and will
acknowledge this, because some of them have an important bearing upon
those toaWu'ngs of Christianity which relate to the mysteries of grace. For
instance, there is St Paul's argument from the engrafting of the wild olive.*
Now, it is a very curious fact, that we have nothing in science, so far as I am
aware, to explain to us what constitutes the difference thus produced between
thg wild and cultivated fruits. We are all acquainted with the fact, and
with the mode of engrafting upon the wild tree ; but we cannot convert the
latter into a cultivated tree without this mysterious engrafting. We must all
recollect how St. Paul makes use of this, as an analogy between nature and
the operation of grace in man. I recollect, at the meeting of the British
Association at Cambridge, in 1862, hearing Dr. Gray, of the British Museum,
speak, if I may so say, an admirable " paper" to a number of gentlemen
arouno) him out of doors, in the course of which he declared there was no
cultivated plant and no tame animal that had not always been cultivated or
tame from time immemorial And he then challenged Colonel Sykes and
* This method of reasoning is, moreover, strictly " theological ;" for instance,
in the Athanasian Creed we have the argument, " For, as the reasonable
soul and flesh is one man ; so God and man is one Christ."
411
other travellers and naturalists who were present, to adduce a single instance
of a tame animal that had originally been wild, or of a cultivated plant that
had originally been a wild one. Among many others, which he showed to be
groundless, (such as the potato and domestic fowl and turkey,) the case of the
horse in the Pampas was brought forward ; but Dr. .Gray was prepared to
prove that the Pampas horse was descended from the tame animal, which
had been imported into South America from Europe and allowed to become
temporarily wild. Besides, the Pampas horse is not, properly speaking, "wild,"
for the moment you put a bridle upon him he submits, and his tame nature
shows itself. But you cannot do that with really wild animals, like the
zebra, or the wild ass, the untameable character of which, also, is recognized
in Job. Now, if we consider the use which St. Paul made of his knowledge
of the process and effect of engrafting, to teach the mysterious power of grace ;
and also of the sowing of seed or grain, from which we raise the crop of grass
or wheat that grows afterwards, to illustrate the doctrine of the resurrection ;
I think we must admit that there are apt analogies in nature, which may
most fitly be made use of, to help us to understand theology and certain
parts of religion. So, our Lord, in His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount,
tells us to " consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; " and He alludes
to the feeding of the ravens by God ; thus showing us that we ought to derive
sentiments of natural religion (which will so far concur and agree with revealed
religion) from the study of the objects in nature. That being the case, I
should be sorry to think there should ever be such a total dissociation between
theology and natural science as some in the present day contend for. There
is this further thing I would venture to say, — though we ought to be most
cautious and not presume to found arguments for religion upon mere
imagined knowledge of the laws of nature, — and it is this : — that there can
be no harm in taking any of those scientific discoveries, about the truth of
which there can be no question, and arguing from them to something higher.
I will now, therefore, instance a case in which we may thus make use of our
more advanced scientific knowledge as an aid to faith. I do not believe it
was possible for the ancients, with the knowledge of physics they had attained,
to have such a perfect appreciation of the reasonableness of some of the
doctrines laid down in Scripture, (as, for instance, the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, and what is also said of " the seven spirits of God," who is yet " the
One Eternal Spirit,") as we can now have, knowing as we do that white or
colourless light is actually composed of the three primary colours, with their
seven brilliant prismatic shades. I think, therefore, our science of light is a
help in that respect to us. I also think that all true natural science may well
play its part thus, and " wait upon ' the Queen of Sciences/ " without assum-
ing in the least an improper position. Lord Bacon well said that " natural
philosophy is the handmaid of religion ;" but in saying this he never meant
that science was to intrude upon things supernatural, which can be only
known to us by Revelation. Nor should the perversion of true science by
others frighten us from its legitimate and rational use. We must recollect
that the foundation of all religion is a true belief in Deity, and in God's
2 h2
412
benevolence and wisdom, as well as in His power and eternity. And
it is surely by tracing the signs of design in nature, and understanding
the various uses of the organs of the body and the marvellous laws of
adaptation and compensation throughout nature, that we may best arrive
at a higher appreciation of God's wisdom and goodness ; — better than
we ever could attain if in a state of ignorance of nature. On the other
hand, religion, in its turn, has especially benefited our natural science,
and above all "the science of man," by throwing light upon what was
felt by the earnest heathen philosophers to be dark as regards the origin
of evil, and difficult as regards man's nature and future destiny. It has
taught us God's mercy in a way that no mere natural science could have ever
reached, and thus has enabled us to understand how the evil in the world,
" that mars the fair face of creation," is to be redressed by the Creator. — But
I must pass on to another part of Dr. Gladstone's paper, — that in which he
pleads for a "larger introduction of the study of natural science into our
schools of theology." I am afraid we ought to be warned to be cautious as
to this, from actual experience of what might be the result. Cambridge, I
believe, turned out Dr. Colenso somewhat better taught in the science
of the day than in theology. It would depend upon how science is to
be taught. I am afraid that we might have an enormous amount of bigotry
(I can only use that term) introduced into the teaching of our theological
colleges, were all that passes for science to take a higher and more positive
place than it does at present. Only remember what scientific varieties our
students would have been taught in geology, had there been a " Natural
Science Tripos " at Oxford during the last twenty or thirty years ; because
they could only be taught science in one particular way at a time, or they
would be "plucked." With Mr. Mitchell in the chair, I may venture,
perhaps, to speak even a little plainer, and ask him, whether there is not a
good deal too much of irrational " cramming " at Cambridge already, in the
matter of mathematics ? Men are expected to get up certain transcendental
propositions and repeat them, whether they understand them or not ; and I
appeal to our chairman, as an eminent Cambridge mathematician, to say
whether this is not a fact that may be stated in the face of the world ? What
could have been the advantage of teaching theological students to accept as
scientific truth the doctrines of " latent heat,"* of the Azoic ages, or the
Nebular theory ? And what might not be taught next as " science " — the
theory of " continuity," perhaps, or Darwinism, or the eternity of matter !
In this Society, happily, these things are intended to be questioned and in-
* I was glad to hear from Dr. Gladstone that the " incompetence77 of the
theory of latent heat is now "fully recognized," I was taught to believe it
as " science," (with what is in fact co-relative to it, that cold is a mere " nega-
tion,") but ventured to oppose it in Vis Inertias Victa, or Fallacies affecting
Science (§ 33), several years ago ; but I am really not aware in what text-
book on Chemistry or Natural Philosophy it is not even yet taught, just as
it was in our chemical classes thirty years ago. It will be found, for instance,
in the last edition of Bird And Brook's Mements of Natural Philosophy,
§§ 1223— 1230, etc.
413
vestigated, and we publish what is said on both sides. Now, though you
have good scientific papers read in the Royal and other societies, you have
also bad papers ; but the objections taken to them are too often lost sight of,
not being reported. But surely the only way in whidh science can be pro-
perly arrived at is when it is discussed as it is here, and as it was among the
ancients in their academies ; — not taught dogmatically, in what Bacon calls
" the professorial style." There is one remark as to this, which Mr. Waring-
ton's observations have suggested. I went with much that he said with
reference to appeals to conscience and authority in religion, though even
that might require a little qualification. But when he came to argue for
such absolute authority in the teaching of science, it struck me that if his
principles had been thoroughly at work among people who believed the earth
to be a level plain, they would never have been allowed to think or prove the
earth to be round ; and if taught to submit in this abject way to authority in
science when men believed the earth to be stationary, we should never
have had the Oopernican theory put forward, and not any modification of
it allowed afterwards. We have surely had too much of this authority in
the world already. We are just as prejudiced and positive about our
current theories as ever the ancients were about theirs, and there is,
in fact, a growing'! odvum scientificum among us now, apparently in-
tended to supersede the odivm iheologicum of former days, when science
was not the fashion. Now, I think neither one theory nor another in
science should be taught as absolute truth ; but all regarded as matters of
free inquiry ever open to investigation. We, however, boast of the great ad-
vancement we have made in science, — and Dr. Gladstone would be the last
man to Bay that we have not truly made great strides in science, — but, how
have we done so ? Not by teaching it as now proposed at the Universities ;
but by science being comparatively free ; and by means of the press, and
societies like this, such as the Royal Society and the Royal Institution of
Great Britain, of both which Dr. Gladstone is so distinguished a member. — I
shall conclude by citing from the Transactions of the Royal Society a fact
little known, relating to what has been certainly taught most authoritatively
in our Universities, and is the greatest boast of modern science — " universal
gravitation." In voL ii. of the Philosophical Transactions fcom 1672 to 1683,
(Lond. 1809, pp. 126, 127 ; vol. ix. of the original edition, anno 1674,) there
is an account of a book, entitled An Attempt to prove the Motion of the Earth
from observations made by Robert Hook, F.R.S., in 4to. 1674 Hook was the
well-known Secretary of the Royal Society ; and in this book we have the
theory of universal gravitation (which is generally taught as having occurred
to Sir Isaac Newton, by a kind of inspiration of genius, from observing the
fall of an apple) actually published, and an account of it given in the
Transactions of the Royal Society of London, twelve years before Newton
produced his Principia. The Principia is said to have been some two years
in MS. ; but that still leaves ten years' priority to Hook. This is what ap-
pears in the Philosophical Transactions, and you will see it is precisely
Newton's law which Hook then put forward —
414
" He [Hook] affirms to have actually made four observations ; by which, he
says, it is manifest that there is a sensible parallax in the earth's orbit to
the star in the dragon's head, and consequently a confirmation of the Coper-
nican system against the Ptolemaic and xychonic. Lastly, he
promises that he will explain to the curious a system of the world, differing
in many particulars from any yet known, but answering in all things to the
common rules of mechanical motions ; which system he here declares to depend
on three suppositions : — 1. That all celestial bodies whatsoever have an
attraction or gravitating power towards their own centres, whereby they
attract, not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them,
as we may observe the earth to do ; but also all other celestial bodies that are
within the sphere of their activity. 2. That all bodies whatsoever, that are
put into a direct and simple motion, will so continue to move forward in a
straight line, till they are by some other more effectual power deflected and
bent into a motion tnat describes some curve line. 3. That these attractive
powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer
the body acted on is to their own centres."
There was besides this another book, by Halley, published iti 1676, still
ten years before the Principia, which even gives the precise ratio' of
attractive force as " increasing inversely as the square of the distance."* Now
the only book in which we have any approximation to a statement of the
real facts as to this theory is in WhewelFs History of the Inductive Sciences.
He laughs at the mythical story of the apple ; but even he does not tell us the
whole truth : and although it is actually to be found in print in the Philo-
sophical Transactions, it seems to have been lost sight of or intentionalry put
aside. I thmk, therefore, these interesting facts are weD worth being put ori
record in our Journal of Transactions. We hear many now still talk of this
theory as one not to be questioned, although Mr. Grove really gave it up iri
his address at Nottingham last year ; and indeed every one who htfs learnt
more than this child's story of the apple, or really understands anything about
the matter, must know that whatever may be the amount of truth or error in
the theory, it has the merit at least of being totally inconsistent with any-
thing Hke " the law of continuity " applied to the heavenly bodies ; for they,
according to Newton, must have been hurled into space, or projected in the
direction of tangents to their orbits, by a force once given ah extra.
Dr. Irons. — I would mention, in addition to the story of Newton's apple,
another old story which some men are never tired of quoting — that of Galileo
and his recantation — which should be revised before it is again brought
forward. The Pope has really never had justice done to him on that subject ;
and I think this stock story of sham scientifics ought to be entirely eliminated
from scientific history.
The Chairman.— I think the late Professor Whewell has conclusively
shown that the whole story of Galileo's persecution has been greatly exag-
gerated, and that he never was thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition.
With regard to the first paper read this evening, that of Mr. Brodie, no one
* Philosophical Transactions, anno 1676, vol. ii. p. 326. (Lond., 1809.)
The Principia itself was not published, or noticed in the Philosophical
Transactions, till the year 1687. (lb., vol. iii. p. 358.)
415
who heard it could fail to mark the extremely reverential tone ill which it id
written. It may well be taken as an example of the manner in which such
subjects ought to be treated by believers in revelation. Mr. Brodie's paper
will be- a valuable addition to our Transactions, as affording a fair sample of
the manner in which geology was attempted to be reconciled with revelation
ten or twelve years ago. Since then geology has so changed its theories that
we see how needless such attempts were to reconcile an imperfect science
with the Bible. Though Captain Fishbourne has been'fairly answered by
Mr. Warington, I believe his remarks were substantially true. 1 shall 6nly
quote one passage from Mr. Brodie's paper : — " A larger proportion of tie
carboniferous element was diffused through the atmosphere, and there fe
reason to conclude that the average temperature of the globe was mtfcfa
higher than that which now prevails." In this one sentence are two hypo-
theses now abandoned by the majority of geological professors. They have'
shared the fate of so many others which, once almost universally received,
are now as completely laid aside. Br. Gladstone has also treated his subject
in a very reverential manner. I think, perhaps, that he has not drawn all
the lessons he might have done, or shown fully how helpful theology ig
to science. Perhaps, as Dr. Irons has stated, he has shown a stronger leaning
to the scientific than to the spiritual element of his theme. But of this I
feel assured, that no one can more highly estimate the spiritual element than
Dr. Gladstone does. And in this respect, taking into consideration the diffi-
culty of dealing with subjects so vast and so transcending the powers of the
human mind, I feel that there is very little real divergence between Dr.
Irons and Dr. Gladstone. We are much indebted to Mr. "Warington for a
useful line of argument analogous to that pursued by t)r. Gladstone, when,
however, he tells us that all our knowledge of science is based on probability,
though I agree with him in the main, I might be disposed to take some
exception to his illustrations. He has brought forward many useful analogies
between a right method of acquiring scientific knowledge, and that of
theology. I am sorry that we have not time to extend Mr. Warfngton'g
analogies still further than he has done, as they would strengthen Dr. triad-
stone's subject of the Mutual helpfulness of Geology and Natural Science.
I shall only endeavour to pursue the subject with respect to one science, ihat
of astronomy. A real knowledge of that science can only be acquired by a
long training and a mental discipline very analogous to that required for a
reverential study of theology. Before our reason can master the proofs on
which astronomy claims to be a natural science, we must cultivate, profound
humility and great deference to the authority of those who have mastered the
subject. Mr. Warington told us he would commence his study of astronomy
by reading a manual of the science. But this, though it would give him a
fair view of the theories and conclusions of astronomers, would utterly fail
to enable him to follow intelligently any of the processes of reasoning by
which those theories are proved or are accepted by scientific astronomers.
The whole Cambridge course of mathematics in my day was subsidiary to
acquiring those methods of reasoning by which Physical Astronomy was
416
proved to be a true science. I found it a very hard and thorny path to
acquire this knowledge. Without this discipline I consider it impossible
to judge the pretensions of any theory of astronomy to be a demonstrable
science. If you have not gone through such a training as this, and you would
ask me what you must do before you can understand the reasonings on
which Physical Astronomy is based, I tell you you must acquire knowledge
of the whole science of pure mathematics. But this will require an exercise
of a vast amount of patience, perseverance, and docility. As Sir John
Herschel once so pertinently remarked, you must enter upon this subject
through the portal of humility. And in a science of pure reasoning, founded
professedly on pure reasoning, you must first defer to your teachers. You
must admit the humiliating confession that you cannot at first appreciate
the reasoning processes of your teachers. But taking on trust their superior
power of reasoning to your own, you cannot test their accuracy till fami-
liarity with their processes has strengthened your own powers. To take
Geometry alone, as an instance, what does the study of Euclid require 1
The admission, at its very commencement, of the most difficult metaphysical
problems and paradoxes on which metaphysicians might dispute for ever.
That this is no exaggeration on my part, I may mention that only a few days
since I was conversing with a most distinguished mathematical professor, and
he told me he was engaged in preparing a geometry which should be sound
in its logic. He said that it was not till called upon to teach Euclid to others
as it had been taught to himself, that he learned how very faulty and illogical
that method had been. But the metaphysical difficulties of plane geometry
sink into utter insignificance when compared with those of the higher algebra
and mathematical analysis. (Hear, hear.) Here long familiarity with new
processes and new methods of thought— continued drudgery in the mechani-
cal combinations of symbols, by rules and methods — taken at first as true on
the authority of your teachers, or that of men famous in the mathematical
world : all this must be gone through before you are capable of compre-
hending the reasonings, or mathematical logic, by which the problems of
physical astronomy are proved. There may be mathematical geniuses who
may perceive almost by intuition what costs so much toil and mental labour
to others. But men of the average endowment of intellect must pass through
this course of mental drudgery with profound docility and humility, before
they can feel competent to reason for themselves as to the truth or error of
the demonstrations of physical astronomy. The task does not end here.
Before his mathematical analysis can be applied to solve the motions of the
heavenly *bodies, " Laws of motion " must be accepted, which have been
inferred, but not proved, from thousands of experiments, which can never be
repeated by one man, and must be taken for granted on the faith of others.
And after all, the grand problem" of celestial mechanism must be solved by
methods admitted by no incompetent mathematical authority (M. Comte),
to be quite illogical, because of the insuperable difficulty of applying those
that are considered strictly logical Then, when you have interpreted the equa-
tion of the moon's place, or that of a perturbed planet, you depend upon the
417
observations of others to interpret the constants- of your equations. And,
finally, the real place of the moon or planet occupying the place predicted by
your mathematical analysis is your only ultimate proof that you have not
been misled by the subtile methods of thought, experiment, and observation,
of which you have made use. In such a course as this I think we may see a
useful analogy as to the humility, long training, and serious study required
by a sound pursuit of theology. I feel assured that men who will apply to
theology the same training imperatively required for a sound knowledge of
natural science will never be found among the impugners of revelation.
Here I am reminded by an observation of Mr. Eeddie how much more im-
portant is a sound philosophical education to the mere cramming and accu-
mulation of scientific facts — and oftentimes of those doubtful hypotheses so
frequently dignified by the name of science. I regret the formation of a natural
science tripos at Cambridge. I think the old training was much better, which
taught men rather how to pursue science than to acquire after all what must
be little more than a mere smattering of science, or of scientific theory.
Dr. Gladstone has told us that such terms as Catalysis or Epipolism seem only
to have been woven as a cover for our ignorance. It may be a humiliating
confession after all our boast of the advance of natural science — of our science
of physical astronomy, which we have supposed advanced to the rank of an
exact science, perhaps the only one fairly dignified by that epithet, — it may
be a humiliating confession, but I believe the term gravitation to be as much
a cover to cloak our ignorance as Catalysis or Epipolism. Gravitation is a
name for certain phenomena observed among material bodies. Catalysis is a
name for certain phenomena when one kind of matter is in contact with
another whose ultimate cause is unknown. Epipolism is a term for certain
phenomena of light manifested in its passage through certain fluids. But
what do we know about the ultimate cause of the phenomena classed under
the term gravitation ? Is gravitation a property inherent in matter, or is it
the result of certain forces independent of and external to matter 1 We can
give no answer to such queries ; even Newton was too modest to hazard any
more than a guess inclining to the latter. When I consider how little we
really do know of natural science, with all our boasted progress, I feel how
little we should boast of our reasoning powers, and I cannot but thank God,
who, by the influence of His Holy Spirit on the human heart, affords even the
peasant a stronger ground for his faith in the truths of Divine revelation
than any the philosopher can adduce for the 'most advanced of all natural
sciences. Dr. Gladstone said, " We see a piece of rubbed amber giving rise
to certain phenomena of attraction and repulsion, and we spring to the sup-
position of an ' electric fluid' ; we count seven colours in the solar spectrum,
and we at once associate it with the gamut of music." Dr. Gladstone, in this
passage, as well as in what he said about heat, seems to follow Mr. Grove in the
idea that imponderable fluids have been banished from nature. I shall not
repeat what I have so recently said to you on this subject, further than to
remark that some of the most eminent of modern philosophers have recently
started a hypothesis which replaces the imponderable fluids or aethers of
418
gpace by an imponderable, vibrating, jelly-like substance, capable of trans-
mitting the vibrations of light, heat, electricity, and other forces, from the
sun and stars, while forming a perfectly unresisting medium to the motions
of material and ponderable bodies. And with regard to the analogy between
the colours of the spectrum and the diatonic scale of music, I have always
considered Newton's treatment of that analogy as a prophetic anticipation of
one of the most brilliant triumphs of modern analysis. There is one point
which I could have wished to have seen introduced into Dr. Gladstone's
paper, and that is the powerful aid the belief in the wisdom of the Creator,
as displayed in His works, has given to the advance of true science. Newton,
Harvey, Cuvier, and Hunter, not to mention other great discoverers of scien-
tific truth, were led to make their discoveries by a profound sense of this
wisdom. An assurance of the perfection and wisdom of God's works led
them to a right interpretation of facte which to others seemed inexplicable
or unmeaning.
Dr. Gladstone. — In rising at this late hour of the evening, I must be very
brief in what I say ; and first I have to thank all those gentlemen, who have
spoken upon my paper, for the kind tone in reference to myself in which they
have treated it ; and I have also to thank Mr. Wanngton, Mr. Ifceddie, and
Mr. Mitchell, for the additions that they have made to my argument. I think
each of these gentlemen said things that I might have put in my paper if
thought of at the time ; though I do not of course endorse everything they
may have said in reference to the matter. As to the objections that have
been raised to my paper, they seem to class themselves under three heads : —
1. Objections raised upon a mistaken idea of what the pa£er contains ;
2. Objections which I must leave simply to a difference of opinion
between myself and those gentlemen ; and
8. Objections which I think it worth while to enter upon at length.
First, as to objections which arose from a mistaken idea of what my paper
contains, I am sorry to say, it so happens, that all the ftve objections (I
have put down five) of Dr. Irons originate in mistakes — I am quite sure
unintentionally, for he tells us he has not read the paper before, and merely
received his first impressions of it this evening. He objected, first, to the
statement that revelation was helpful to science or science to revelation. 1
never said either the one or the other. My thesis is, that theology is helpful
to natural science and natural science to theology. Then, with reference to the
patronage of theology, I am sure I did not mean to speak in a patronising
way of theology any more than of natural science. In reference to the par-
ticular passage where I spoke of theology being the queen of the sciences, and
those of lower rank waiting upon her, — I meant simply what I said. In
reference to Anselm, or Abelard, or Bernard of Clairvaux, I mentioned them
as representing three extremely divergent doctrines of the atonement.
Abelard, I believe, had a definite theory ; and not only that, but was one of
the earliest promulgators of views relating to the atonement, which have been
brought into prominence now ; and it is for this reason that I mentioned hi.s
name. Then comes the objection that I stated that the Bible is easier to
419
understand than natural science. Upon asking Dr. Irons for the passage, he
referred me to one in which I speak merely of the collection of facts, and I
am prepared to stand by what I said in that paragraph. I think it is more
easy to collect the mere texts of Scripture bearing upon a particular subject
than to collect the facts in nature bearing upon any particular subject there.
I speak, of course, in a general way. As to the interpretation of these facts
of nature or texts of Scripture, that is another subject, and instead of believ-
ing the Bible to be easier to understand than nature, I think the opposite ;
indeed, one of my reasons for writing the paper was, that I consider nature
is a matter which we can understand and comprehend more easily, and
that the various methods of interpretation which we arrive at in reference
to nature may well be transferred to interpreting the Bible. I am sure that
in saying these things you will understand I do not suppose that Dr. Irons in
any invidious way brought forward these objections ; t>ut, in a brief paper like
mine, it is not easy to find the meaning in all cases, and there are complicated
lines of thought and argument, and sometimes one may get hold of a
meaning which ought to be counterbalanced by what is said elsewhere. As
to the second class of objections, Mr. Reddie made various remarks in
reference to natural science which showed that he put a very different meaning
on the words " natural science " to what 1 did ; but 1 must leave this as a mere
matter of definition. In reference to the question of the introduction of
natural science into colleges, I mean to advocate it, and to maintain all I said
in my paper ; and I hope to express these opinions in other places : I have done
so in one theological college, and hope to do so in others. The subject deserves
the widest discussion. I am glad it has been brought forward, and that
arguments have been used against the position I maintain ; and I hope these
discussions will extend beyond the Victoria Institute, and th/it the truth will
prevail. Perhaps I may add this, — I repudiate altogether the taking of Colenso
as a scientific man, for his objections are non-scientific. Then comes one
objection which I ought in justice to myself to deal with at some little
length, and it is the objection of Captain Fishbourne, that I have not dwelt
sufficiently clearly upon the difference between the natural mind and the
spiritual mind. It is possible that the few words I have said on that subject
might not convey the whole of my meaning, and you will permit me to
explain further my view of the case. In my paper I spoke of there being
a receptive faculty in both cases. I think that is what is alluded to in the
writings of St. Paul. But there is a different receptive faculty for each :
it is the power of appreciating spiritual truth in the one case, and the power
of appreciating physical truth in the other. Then the question arises, — How are
we to get this faculty ? Upon that subject there is not a word in my essay ;
but there is an important difference between the two. In respect to natural
science, there are some men who have the ability born in them of loving
science and of taking an interest in it and understanding it, and other
men have not this faculty; but when we come to the spiritual mind,
we do not find there is by nature this faculty : it has to be imparted to man
by the Holy Spirit of God. The origin of these two is therefore different,
420
and we must bear that in mind always, and I am glad to have an opportunity
of expressing my conviction of it here ; but, granted the capability of under-
standing the Bible, which comes from the Holy Spirit teaching the individual
heart ; granted, too, the capability of understanding natural science : then we
start on parallel roads, we must have the honest mind and the clear intellect,
and I believe the canons of interpretation in the two cases will be found
analogous. It has been objected to my essay that it is not complete, and here
I fully agree with what has been said. The subject is very large. If, indeed,
I have only taken up some particular lines of thought, why, I have left other
lines of thought for other persons to pursue. I have dwelt more upon that
analogy between the methods of interpretation, because it is one very little
written upon or spoken about, and I thought it better to treat of it at greater
length. I trust we shall find our efforts will be of service to natural science,
and natural science helpful to theology. I believe it is so, and the argu-
ments of others this evening convince me still more that we must enter on
the study of theology in the same way in which we enter on studies of
natural science, in order to arrive at full comprehension of the truth. There
are other points that have been stated by some of the speakers, which, if
I had time, I should like to enter upon ; but I must conclude, again thank-
ing you for the friendly spirit in which you have considered my paper.
The Meeting was then adjourned.
Note. — The asterisks on pp. 397, 398, and 400, indicate that certain pas-
sages in Dr. Gladstone's original Paper were omitted at the request of the
Council, as trenching upon purely theological and controversial points.
421
ORDINARY MEETING, February 4, 1867.
Captain E. Gardiner Fishbourne, R.N., C.B., Hon. Treas.,
in the Chair.
The minutes of the previous l^eeting were read and confirmed.
The following Paper was then read : —
ON FALLING STABS AND METEORITES. By the
Rev. Walter Mitchell, M.A., Vice-President, Vict. Inst:
THE term Meteor, taken in its literal signification as a
" thing in the air," is sometimes used so as to include all
atmospheric phenomena, such as clouds, rain, snow, rainbows,
mock suns, &c. ; but in a more restricted sense it is applied to
falling stars and flaming bodies seen passing through the
atmosphere. A fallingstar is a phenomenon with which every-
one must be familiar. Yet familiar as it may be, it is far more
frequent than many would suppose. A star is seen to shoot
across a portion of the heavens, vanishing as suddenly as it
appeared, sometimes leaving a slight luminous track behind
it, to mark for a few moments its course. Generally speaking,
few of these falling stars are seen on the same night ; but there
are occasions when they are so numerous as to fall for hours
together in perfect showers, — so numerous as to be" compared
to a dense snow-storm where every flake is a burning star.
Brilliant and startling as was the display last November, when
between six and seven thousand falling stars are estimated to
have pursued their fiery course in one hour, and at the time of
the maximum display at the rate of one hundred per minute,
this falls short of the awful majesty of some of the star-storms
that have been observed.
A remarkable display of falling stars, seen by Humboldt
when travelling in South America, was thus described by
him: — "Towards the morning of the 13th November, 1799,
we witnessed a most extraordinary scene of shooting meteors.
Thousands of bolides and falling stars succeeded each other
422
during four hours. Their direction was very regular from
north to south. From the beginning of the phenomenon there
was not a space in the firmament equal in extent to three dia-
meters of the moon which was not filled with bolides or falling
stars. All the meteors left luminous traces, or phosphorescent
bands, behind them, which lasted seven or eight seconds." Mr.
Ellicott, an agent of the United States, thus describes the same
phenomenon, as seen by him from the sea between Cape Flo-
rida and the West-India Islands : — " I was called up about
three o'clock in the morning, to see the shooting stars, as they
are called. The phenomenon was grand and awful. The whole
heavens appeared as if illuminated by skyrockets, which dis-
appeared only by the light of the sun after daybreak. The
meteors, which at any one instant of time appeared as numer-
ous as the stars, flew in all possible directions, except from the
earth, towards which they all inclined more or less ; and some
of them descended perpendicularly over the vessel we were in,
so that I was in constant expectation of their falling on us."
This particular display of falling stars seems to have been
visible from the equator to Greenland in America, and was also
observed at Weimar in Germany.
On the 13th of November, 1838, another splendid shower
of falling stars was observed over the whole of North and
a considerable portion of South America, some of the meteors
being of a very large size, — one described as greater than the
full moon appears when in the horizon. Another, over the Falls
of Niagara, remained for some time almost stationary in the
zenith, emitting streams of light. No wonder that many, call-
ing to mind the vision of St. John the Divine, when " the stars
fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs,
when she is shaken of a mighty wind," felt awestruck, and
imagined that the day of wrath was come. " I was suddenly
awakened," says a South Carolina planter, " by the most dis-
tressing cries that ever fell on my ears. Shrieks of horror and
cries for mercy, I could hear from most of the negroes of three
plantations, amounting in all to about six or eight hundred.
While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice
near the door calling my name. I arose, and taking my sword,
stood at the door. At this moment, I heard the same voice
still beseeching me to rise, and saying, c 0 my God, the world
is on fire/ I then opened the door, and it is difficult to say
which excited me most, — the awfulness of the scene or the
distressed cries of the negroes. Upwards of one hundred lay
prostrate on the ground, some speechless, and some with the
bitterest cries, but with their hands raised, imploring God to
save the world and them. The scene was truly awful ; for
423
jW£r die) pain fell rnupfc. thicker than the meteors fell towards
th£ eaftfr ; east, west, north, and south, it was the same."
Notwithstanding, says Humboldt, the great quantity of fall-
ing stars and fire-balls of the most various dimensions which
were seen to fall at Potsdam on the night of the 12th and
13th November, 1822, and on the same night of the year 1832,
throughout the whole of JJurope from Portsmouth to Oren-
burg on the Ural river, and even in the Southern hemi-
sphere at the IsJ# of France, no one seemed to remark the
coincidence of so many of these displays happening pn thje
same day of the month. Olmsted and Palmer were the two
principal scientific men who described the great meteoric
shower of 1833 in America. The latter, calling to mind that
the date of the shower described by Humboldt and EUicott
in 1799, was the 13th of November, first suspected the perio-
dicity of these showers, — a fact fully confirmed by a histori-
cal investigation into the dates of extraordinary showers of
meteors.
On the 9th and 10th of November, 1 787, many falling stars
were observed at Manheim, in southern (Jermany. Besides the
manifestations already mentioned on the 13th November in the
years 1 799, 1822, 1832 and 1833, on the same day of the month
m 1831, at four o'clock in the morning, a great shower of falling
stars was seen by Captain Berard on the Spanish coast near
Carthagena. On the same date in 1834 a similar shower,
though not so great as that of 1833, was seen. Olmsted was
the first to remark that nearly all the falling stars on the 13th
of November, ] 833, seemed to radiate from one point in the
heavens, namely near the star y in the constellation Leo. The
point of radiation did not change, but followed the apparent
height and azimuth of the star during the continuance of the
shower. This remarkable fact has been confirmed by obser-
vation of all the showers witnessed on this date since 1 833. Ac-
cording to Enke's computation, this radiant point in space
marks the direction in which the earth was moving on the
13th of November in its annual course round the sun.
The periodical appearance of falling stars on the same day
of the year, all radiating from a point in the direction of the
earth's motion, led Humboldt to conjecture that at that parti-
cular period the earth was passing through a ring or belt of
minute planetary bodies, which were then drawn within the
sphere of the earth's attraction, — a conjecture since pretty
generally adopted. He also conjectured that there was, owing
to the earth's or other planetary disturbance, a gradual retar-
dation of the November phenomenon, owing to the change of
the points where the ring of meteoric bodies intersected the
earth's course. He sought for records of falling stars in an-
424
cient histories. On the night when king Ibrahim Ben Ahmed
died, in October, 902, there fell a heavy shower of shooting stars
" like a fiery rain," on which account that year was called the
year of stars. On the 19th of October, 1202, the stars were
in motion all night, and "fell like locusts/' On the 21st of
October, O.S., 1366, stars fell in such multitudes that they
could not be counted. On the night between the 9th and 10th
of November, 1787, many falling stars were observed at
Manheim. Adopting the conjecture of Humboldt as to the
gradual retardation of the November shower, others, more
than twenty-three years since, ventured to predict that the
great November shower of shooting stars and fire-balls inter-
mixed, falling like flakes of snow, would not recur till between
the 12th and 14th of November, 1867, taking for granted
that the great November star-showers occurred once in thirty-
three years, when the earth intersected the hypothetical ring
of minute planetary bodies.
These showers are not equally visible from all parts of the
earth's surface. The shower of 1799 was only seen in America;
those of 1831 and 1832 were only visible in Europe ; those
of 1833 and 1834 only in the United States of America; and
while a very splendid meteoric shower was seen in England in
the year 1837, a most attentive observer at Braunsberg, in
Prussia, on the same night, which was there uninterruptedly
clear, only saw a few shooting stars, radiating from no parti-
cular point of the heavens, between the hours of seven in the
evening and sunrise the next morning.
Though such occurrences as the great star-shower on the 19th
of October, 1202, and 21st of October, 1366, seem to indicate
a gradual retardation of the November shower, the relation of
Theophanes, one of the Byzantine historians, that in November
of the year 472 the sky appeared to be on fire over the city of
Constantinople with the coruscations of flying meteors, may
make us pause before assuming the November shower to be
the retardation of the October phenomenon. Again, in the
year 1766, just before the fearful earthquake at Quito,
Humboldt states that the volcano of Cayambe was so enveloped
with falling stars for the space of an hour, that the inhabitants
fancied the mountain on fire, and endeavoured to appease
Heaven by religious processions. The year corresponds with
the 33-year period; but as the earthquake occurred on the
21st of October, the shower would seem to belong rather to
the October manifestations of the 19th of October, 1202, and
21st of October, 1366. This should caution us not to general-
ize too hastily on a few recurrences of similar dates. Again,
not to speak of the November showers for two years pre-
425
viously and for three years successively to that of 1838, the
showers of 1787 and 1822 cannot be brought into the 33-
year period of maximum manifestations of falling stars.
Besides the November period, there is another well-marked
periodical fall of stars between the 9th and 14th of August.
The 10th of August (St. Lawrence's day) was traditionally
famous for "the fiery tears of St. Lawrence." As early as 1 762,
Muschenbroek remarked the large number of falling stars
in the month of August. But the periodic return on St.
Lawrence's day was first shown by Quetelet, Olbers, and
Benzenberg. Bessel and Erman pointed out that the radiant
point for the August shower was in Perseus. In April it is
probable that there may be another period. On the 25th of
April, 1095, "innumerable eyes in IVance saw stars falling
from heaven as thickly as hail;" and on the 25th of April,
1800, a great fall of stars was observed in Virginia and
Massachusetts; it was a "fire of rockets that lasted two
hours." On the night of the 6th and 7th of December, 1798,
Brandes counted 2,000 falling stars. At Quito on the 4th of
February, 1797, shortly before the terrible earthquake of
Eiobamba, stars were seen to fall in swarms.
It may be well to remark that the train seen to follow a
shooting star is no mere optical delusion, produced by the
impression of light remaining impressed on the retina. It
sometimes continues visible for a minute, or even longer, and
even changes its shape. The falling stars which ordinarily
occur, that is, which cannot be traced to any periodic display,
and do not seem to emanate from any particular point of the
heavens, are termed " sporadic." Bight is supposed to be the
mean number to be observed in the course of an hour on any
night. Perhaps they are more abundantly seen at some
places than others. Burnes, describing the clear atmosphere
of Bokhara, says, " At night the stars have uncommon lustre,
and the Milky Way shines gloriously in the firmament. There
is also a never-ceasing display of the most brilliant meteors,
which dart like rockets in the sky : ten or twelve of them are
sometimes seen in an hour, assuming every colour,— fiery red,
blue, pale and faint." Jansen, again, describing the night
scenes of the Java Sea, says, " The starlight, which is reflected
by the mirrored waters, causes the nights to vie in clearness with
the early twilight in high latitudes. Numerous shooting stars
weary the eye, although they break the monotony of the
sparkling firmament. Their unceasing motion in the un-
fathomable ocean affords a great contrast to the seeming
quiet of the gently-flowing aerial current of the land breeze.
But at times, when 30° or 40° above the horizon, a fire-ball
2r
426
arises which suddenly illumines the whole horizon, appearing*
to the eye the size of the fist, and fading away as suddenly as
it appeared, falling into fiery nodules ; then we perceive that,
in the apparent calm of nature, various forces are constantly
active, in order to cause, even in the invisible air, such com-
binations and combustions, the appearance of which amuses
the crews of ships."
The Reports of the British Association on Meteors from
1848 to 1853* from observations so zealously collected by the
late Mr. Baden Powell, show how very frequent are the
phenomena of fiery meteors, and what remarkable appear-
ances some of them present. Considering the difficulty of
determining the height of bodies presented so suddenly, and
so transitory in their appearance, it is no wonder there
should be considerable discrepancy among calculators. Olm-
sted thought the radiant point in Leo of the November
meteors could not have been less than 2,238 miles above the
earth's surface. Humboldt considers that the heights at the
points of which shooting stars begin and cease to be visible
fluctuate between 16 and 140 miles. Professor Brandes
gives from 240 to 400 miles, and Olbers considers all deter-
minations for elevations beyond 120 miles doubtful, owing to
the -smallness of the parallax. Brandes ascribes a diameter
varying from 80 to 120 feet for shooting stars, and a luminous
train extending from twelve to sixteen miles. The relative
velocity of their motion he oomputes to be from 18 to 86
miles per second, their motion being frequently opposite to
that of the earth.
Having now described the phenomena of the falling stars,
and the larger meteors that accompany them, we proceed to
the consideration of another class.
The falling stars, and the larger fire-balls sometimes associ-
ated with them, make their appearance suddenly, and, after
describing an arc in the heavens, are as suddenly extinguished
without passing below the horizon. No sound is heard to
accompany this phenomenon. There is another class of fire-
balls which are seen to traverse the whole vault of heaven,
seen often simultaneously over a large extent of country,
whose course can sometimes be traced as passing, for instance,
from one end of Great Britain to the other, — of large apparent
magnitude, and of such brightness as sometimes to emit a
light dazzling even at midday, and superior to the light of the
sun. They are sometimes seen to burst into fragments with
an explosion heard over a large area.
In the year 1676, on the 21st of March, O.S., about two
427
hours after sunset, a large meteor passed over Italy : it came
over the Adriatic Sea as if from Dalmatia, crossing the
country in the direction of Rimini and Leghorn, disappearing
out at sea towards Corsica.
It was heard to make a hissing sound as it passed, like that
of artificial fireworks. At Bologna the head of the meteor
appeared larger than the moon in one diameter, and above
half as large again in the other. At Leghorn it was heard to
give a very loud report, like a great cannon; immediately
after which another sort of sound was heard, like the rattling
of a great cart running over stones. Its Velocity was estimated
at 160 miles per minute, its height about 38 miles, and its
lesser diameter about half a mile. Another meteor was
observed to pass over all England on the 19th of March, 1718.
It was seen by Sir Hans Sloane in London at about a quarter
after 8 at night. He was surprised by a sudden light far
exceeding that of the moon. Turning towards it, he observed
a large spherical meteor not so large as the moon, near the
Pleiades, whence it moved after the manner of a falling star,
but more slowly, in a seeming direct line, descending beyond
and below the stars in Orion's belt. Its brightness was so
dazzling that he was obliged to turn his eyes several times
from it, as well when it appeared as a stream as when it
became pear-fashioned and a globe. It left behind a track of
a faint reddish-yellow colour, that continued for more than a
minute. He heard no noise. Through Devon and Cornwall,
and along the opposite coast of Bretagne the meteor was heard
to explode. The report was like that of a very great cannon,
or, rather, a broadside at a distance, followed by a rattling
noise, as if many small-arms had been promiscuously dis-
charged. Halley estimated the height of this meteor at
60 miles, and its rate at 300 miles per minute.
A similar meteor was observed in England on the 11th of
December, 1741, while the sun was shining brightly in a
serene sky, and was heard to explode in Sussex. A friend
of Humboldt, in the year 1788, at Popayan, found his room
lighted up at noonday by a meteor, while the sun was shining
brightly in a cloudless sky.
Hundreds of such meteors have been described, and though
explosions have been heard over parts of the country favour-
able for recovering anything solid if it fell from a meteor,
in but some four or five cases has anything been picked up
likely to have fallen from a meteor; and out of these few
cases some are considered doubtful.
We now proceed to consider another phenomenon,— tits fell
2 i 2
428
of stones or hard masses of iron from the heavens. In spite
of many recorded instances in ancient and modern times, the
account of these falls was regarded with scepticism by the
scientific world.
In the year 1794 Chladni published a tract at Riga, on the
supposed origin of a mass of iron found by Dr. Pallas in
Siberia, which the Tartars called a holy thing, and asserted
that it had fallen from heaven. In this tract Chladni called
attention to many authentic instances of stones falling from
heaven, adducing, among others, the testimony of the cele-
brated Cardan, that in the year 1510 he himself had seen 120
stones fall from heaven, one weighing 120 and another 60
pounds ; — that they were mostly of an iron colour, very hard,
and smelt of brimstone.
In the same year that Chladni published this tract, a
remarkable shower of stones fell in Tuscany on the 16th of
June. This was described in a pamphlet by Ambrose Soldani,
Professor of Mathematics in the University of Sienna. In
1795 a large stone, now in the British Museum, fell near
Wold Cottage, the house of Captain Topham, in Yorkshire,
and was exhibited in London. Mr. Edward King, a fellow of
the Royal Society, having received from Sir Charles Blagden
some manuscript accounts of the Sienna fall of stones, and
having also seen the pamphlets of Soldani and Chladni, called
the attention of English men of science to this phenomenon in
the first English work on meteoric stones. It is called Remarks
concerning Stones said to have fallen from the Olouds both in
these Days and in Ancient Times, and was published in London
in 1796. It is an exceedingly clear, well written, and scientific
account of a remarkable phenomenon, to which little can really
be added, with all our increase of knowledge on the subject.
It was very unfairly treated and ridiculed, at the time it was
published, by the reviewers. In 1799, Sir J. Banks received
some specimens of stones which were seen to fall at Benares,
in Bengal, on the 19th of December, 1798, and perceived a
remarkable similarity between these stones and that of the
Yorkshire stone, and a specimen of one of the Sienna stones
which he possessed. In 1802, Mr. Luke Howard published
in the Philosophical Transactions a paper entitled " Experi-
ments and Observations on certain Stony Substances which,
at different times, are said to have fallen on the Earth." In
this paper will be found the first chemical analysis of an
aerolite.
The year after this, when an official account was received
in Paris of a shower of stones at L'Aigle, in Normandy, on
the 26th of April, 1803, the matter was treated with ridicule.
429
But the Academy of Sciences, influenced doubtless by what
had been published in England, deputed Biot to examine the
matter. His report being satisfactory, the fall of meteoric
stones was admitted to be a well-ascertained fact coming
within the domain of science.
Mr. King, in his treatise, refers to Holy Scripture in con-
firmation of the fall of stones from heaven in these words : —
In the Acts of the Holy Apostles we read that the chief magistrate at
Ephesus began his harangue to the people by saying, " Ye men of Ephesus,
what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a
worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down
from Jupiter, or rather, as the original Greek has it, " of that which fell down
from Jupiter." And the learned Greaves leads us to conclude this image of
Diana to have been nothing but a conical or pyramidal stone that fell from
the clouds ; for he tells us, on unquestionable authorities, that many others
of the images of heathen deities were merely such.
And again : —
And in Holy Writ also a remembrance of similar events is preserved. For
when the royal psalmist says, " The Lord also thundered out of heaven, and
the Highest gave his thunder : hailstones, and coals of fire n ! — the latter
expression, in consistency with common sense, and conformably to the right
meaning of language, cannot but allude to some such phenomena as we have
been describing. r And especially, as in the cautious translation of the Seventy,
a Greek word is used, which decidedly means real hard substances made red
hot, and not mere appearances of fire or flame.
Whilst, therefore, with the same sacred writer, we should be led to con-
sider all these powerful operations as the works of God, " Who casteth forth
his ice like morsels f and should be led to consider " fire and hail, snow and
vapours, wind and storm, as fulfilling his word," we should also be led to
perceive that the objections to Holy Writ, founded on a supposed impos-
sibility of the truth of what is written in the Book of Joshua concerning the
stones that fell from heaven on the army of the Canaanites, are only founded
in ignorance and error.
The earliest record that 'we have of the fall of an aerolite
is of one that fell at -^Egos Potamos, 465 B.C. It is so well
described by Plutarch in his life of Lysander, that I quote the
passage in full, more especially as it throws light on the
opinions held by the ancient Greeks on the causes of such
phenomena.
There were those who said that the stars of Castor and Pollux appeared
oh each side the helm of Lysander's ship, when he first set out against the
Athenians. Others thought that a stone, which according to the common
opinion fell from heaven, was an omen of his overthrow. It fell at Mgos %
Potamos, and was of prodigious size. The people of the Chersonesus hold it
430
in great veneration, and show it to this day. It if said that Anaxagoras had
foretold that one of those bodies, which are fixed to the vault of heaven,
would one day be loosened by some shock or convulsion of the whole machine,
and fall to the earth, for he taught that the stars are not now in the places
where they were originally formed ; that being of a stony substance and
heavy, the light they give is caused only by the reflection and refraction of
the ether ; and that they are carried along, and kept in their orbits, by the
rapid motion of the heavens, which from the beginning, when the cold pon-
derous bodies were separated from the rest, hindered them from falling.
But there is another and more probable opinion, which holds that falling
stars are not emanations or detached parts of the elementary Are, that go
out the moment they are kindled, nor yet a quantity of air bursting out from
some compression, and taking Are in the upper region ; but that they are
really heavenly bodies, which from some relaxation of the rapidity of their
motion, or by some irregular concussion, are loosened and fall, not so much
on the habitable part of the globe as into the ocean, which is the reason that
their substance is seldom seen.
Damachus, however, in his treatise concerning religion, confirms the opinion
of Anaxagoras, He relates, that for seventy-five days together, before that
stone fell, there was seen in the heavens a large body of fire, like an inflamed
cloud, not fixed to one place, but carried this way and that with a broken
and irregular motion ; and that by its violent agitation several fiery fragments
were forced from it, which were impelled in various directions, and darted
with the celerity and brightness of so many falling stars. After this body
was fallen in the Ohersonesus, and the inhabitants, recovered from, their
terror, assembled to see it, they could find no inflammable matter, or the
least sign of fire, but a real stone, which, though large, was nothing to the
size of that fiery globe they had seen in the sky, but appeared only as a bit
crumbled from it. It is plain that Damachus must have very indulgent
readers, if this account of his gains credit. If it is a true one, it absolutely
refutes those who say that this stone was nothing but a rock rent by a
tempest from the top of a mountain, which, after being borne for some time
in the air by a whirlwind, settled in the first place where the violence of that
abated. Perhaps, at last, this phenomenon, which continued so many days,
was a real globe of fire ; and when that globe came to disperse and draw
towards extinction, it might cause such a change in the air, and produce
such a violent whirlwind, as tore the stone from its native bed, and dashed
it on the plain. But these are discussions that belong to writings of another
nature.
Now this passage is most instructive, not only as to the
ancient opinions held on the subject of falling stars and
meteoric stones; but read by the light of well-known and
authentic cases which I will afterwards bring before you, we
see that Damachus* in spite of the scepticism of rlutarch
and even of some of our modern philosophers, has given
431
us, in all probability, a most truthful account of a real phe-
nomenon.
Pliny, though sceptical as to the prophecy of Anaxagoras,
gives an account, not only of the fall of the stone at ^Egos
Potamos, but of several others.
The Greeks boast that Anaxagoras, the Clazomenian, in the 2nd year of
the 78th Olympiad, from his knowledge of what relates to the heavens, had
predicted that, at a certain time, a stone would fall from the sun. And the
thing accordingly happened, in the daytime, in a part of Thrace, at the
river ^Egos. The stone is now to be seen, a waggon-load in size and of a
burnt appearance : there was also a comet shining in the night at thftt time.
But to believe that this had been predicted would be to admit that the
divining powers of Anaxagoras were still more wonderful, and that our
knowledge of the nature of things, and indeed everything else, would be
thrown into confusion, were we to suppose either that the sun is itself com-
posed of stone, or that there was even a stone in it ; yet there can be no
doubt that stones have frequently fallen from the atmosphere. There is a
stone, a small one indeed, at this time, in the gymnasium of Abydos, which
on this account is held in veneration, and which the same Anaxagoras pre-
dicted would fall in the middle of the earth. There is another at Cassandria,
formerly called Potidsea, which from this circumstance was built in that
place. I have myself seen one in the country of the Vocontii, which had
been brought from the fields only a short time before* (Plmyf bk. ii«,
eh. 59.)
From the passage quoted by Plutarch, it is not clear that
Anaxagoras predicted the precise day on which a stone would
fall from heaven, but, believing that the stars were stony
bodies, he predicted that at some time or other some of them
would fall from the firmament.
Pliny relates, in the second book of his Natural History,
chap. 52, that M. Heremnius, a magistrate of Pompeii, was
struck by lightning when the sky was without clouds* He
also, in his 57th chapter, gives from ancient monuments
several strange meteoric phenomena, not without interest to
our subject.
Besides these, we learn from certain monuments, that from the lower part
of the atmosphere it rained milk and blood, in the consulship of M. Aeilius
and 0. Porcius, and frequently at other times. This was the case with
respect to flesh, in the consulship of P. Volumnius and Sqrvius Sulpicius,
and it is said, that what was not devoured by the birds did not become
putrid. It also rained iron among the Lucanians, the year before Orassus
was slain by the Parthians, as well as all the Lucanian soldiers, of whom
there was a great number in this army. The substance which fell had very
much the appearance of sponge ; the augurs warned the people against wounds
432
that might come from above. In the consulship of L. Paulas and C. Mar-
cellus it rained wool, round the castle of Caripanum, near which place, a year
after, T. Annius Milo was killed. It is recorded, among' the transactions of
that year, that when he was pleading his own cause, there was a shower of
baked tiles.
Livy gives an account of several showers of stones, and
states that it was the ancient custom of the Romans to expiate
the fall of stones from heaven by a nine days' festival.
After the defeat of the Sabines, when the government of Tullus and
the whole Roman state was in high renown, and in a very flourishing con-
dition, word was brought to the king and senators, that it rained stones on
the Alban Mount. As this could scarcely be credited, on persons being sent
to inquire into the prodigy, a thick shower of stones fell from heaven in their
sight, just as when hail collected into balls is pelted down to the earth by
the winds. .... A festival of nine days was instituted publicly by the
Romans also on account of the same prodigy, either in obedience to the
heavenly voice sent from the Alban Mount (for that, too, is stated) or by the
advice of the aruspices. Certain it is, it continued a solemn observance,
that whenever the same prodigy was announced, a festival for nine days was
observed. (Livy, bk. L, ch. 31.)
The accounts also of prodigies which arrived just at the time of the news
of the revival of the war, had occasioned great alarm. At Cumse the orb of
the sun seemed diminished, and a shower of stones fell ; and in the territory
of V eliternum the earth sank in great chasms, and trees were swallowed up
in the cavities. At Aricia the forum and the shops around it, at Frusino a
wall in several places, and a gate, were struck by lightning ; and in the
Palatium a shower of stones fell The latter prodigy, according to the custom
handed down by tradition, was expiated by a nine days' sacred rite ; the rest
with victims of the larger sort (Lwy, bk. xxx., ch. 31.)
Several prodigies were observed at Rome that year, and others reported
from other places. In Forum, Comitium, and Capitol, drops of blood were
seen, and several showers of earth fell, and the head of Vulcan was sur-
rounded with a blaze of fire. It was reported that a stream of milk ran in
the river at Interamna, that, in some reputable families at Ariminum,
children were born without eyes and nose; and one in the territory of
Picernum that had neither hands nor feet. These prodigies were expiated
according to an order of the pontiffs ; and the nine days' festival was cele-
brated, because the Hadrians had sent intelligence that a shower of stones
had fallen in their fields. (Livy, bk. xxxiv., ch. 45.)
Before the consuls cast lots for their provinces, several prodigies were
reported : that in the Crustumine territory a stone fell from the sky into
the grove of Mars. (Lwy, bk. xlL, ch. 9.)
I am well aware that, through the same disregard of religion, owing to
which the men of the present day generally believe that the gods never give
433
portents of any future events, no prodigies are now either reported to govern-
ment, or recorded in histories. (Livy, bk xliii., ch. 13.)
Towards the close of this year (584) it was reported that two showers of
stones had fallen, one in the territory of Borne, the other in that of Veii ;
and the nine days' solemnity was performed. (Livy, bk. xliv., ch. 18.)
To come to the Middle Ages : a stone fell at Ensisheim, on
the Rhine. It was ordered to be preserved in the church near
which it fell, together with a record, which thus commences : —
" In the year of the Lord 1492, on Wednesday, which was
Martinmas eve, the 7th of November, a singular miracle
occurred ; for, between eleven o'clock and noon, there was a
loud clap of thunder, and a prolonged confused noise, which
was heard at a great distance; and a stone fell from the air, in
the jurisdiction of Bnsisheim, which weighed 260 pounds, and
the confused noise was, besides, much louder than here.
Then a child saw it strike on a field in the upper jurisdiction,
towards the Shine and Inn, near the district of Giscano,
which was sown with wheat; and it did no harm, except that
it made a hole there ; and then they conveyed it from that
spot; and many pieces were broken from it, which the land-
vogt forbade." After remaining in the church for centuries,
it was carried to Colmar during the French revolution. Many
fragments were broken from it, which have found their way to
many museums ; but the remainder of the relic was afterwards
restored to the church of Ensisheim.
A pamphlet published at the time, and now preserved in the
King's Library, British Museum, gives such a quaint and
instructive account of the fall of a meteorite at Aldborough,
in Suffolk, that I quote it at some length : —
A signe from Heaven, or a fearfull and Terrible Noise, heard in the Ayre at
Alborow, in the county of Suftolke, on Thursday, the 4th day of August, at
5 of the clock in the afternoone. Wherein was heard the beating of Drums,
the discharging of Muskets and great ordnance for the space of an houre and
more, as will be attested by many men of good worth, and exhibited to some
cheife members of the Honorable House of Commons. With a stone that fell
from the sky in that Storme, or Noise rather, which is here to be seene in
Towne, being of a great weight. — Aug. 12. London : Printed by T.
Fawcet, 1642.
Upon Thursday, the 4th day of this instant August, about the hour of
foure or five o'clocke in the afternoone, there was a wonderful noyse heard in
the ayre, as of a Drum beating most fiercely, which after a while was
seconded with a long peale of small shot, and after that a discharging as it
were, of great ordnance in a pitcht-field. This continued with some vicissi-
tudes of small shot and great ordnance for the space of one hour and an halfe,
and then making a mighty and violent report altogether ; at the ceasing
484
thereof there waa obeerred to fell down out of the side a stone of about foure
pounds weight, which was taken up by them who saw it fall, and being troth
strange for the forme of it, and somewhat miraculous for the manner of it,
was by the same parties who are ready to attest this Truth brought up and
shewed to a worthy member of the House of Commons, upon whose ground
it was taken up, and by him to divers friends who have both seen and
handled the same. Now the manner of finding of this stone was on this
wise : one Captaine Johnson and one Master Thompson, men well knowne in
that part of Suffolke, were that day at Woodbridge about the lanching of a
ship that was newly bnilded there, who hearing this marvellous noise towards
Alborow, verily supposed that some enemy was landed, and some sudden
onset made upon the Towne of Alborow. This occasioned them to take Horse
and hasten homewards, the rather because they heard the noise of the battel
grow lowder. And being at that Instant when that greatest cracke and
report was made in conclusion, on their way upon an heath betwixt the two
Townes, Woodbridge and Alborow, they observed the fall of this stone, which
grazing in the fall of it along upon the heath, some 6 or 7 yards, had
out run their observation where it rested, had not a dog which was in their
company followed it by the scent as was hot, and brought them where it
lay covered over with grasse and earth, that the violence of its course had
contracted about it. This is the true relation of the finding of this stone,
which is 8 inches long and 5 inches broad, and 2 inches thick.
Haying described these falls of stones as given by con-
temporary writers, I will now come to some modern instances.
I will first quote from Mr. King the phenomena attending the
fall at Sienna*
On the 16th of June, 1794, a tremendous cloud was seen in Tuscany, near
Sienna and Badacofani, coming from the north about seven o'clock in the
evening; sending forth sparks like rockets, throwing out smoke like a
furnace, rendering violent explosions, and blasts more like those of camion,
and of numerous muskets than like thunder ; and casting down to the ground
hot stones ; whilst the lightning that issued from the cloud was remarkably
red, and moved with less velocity than usual
Signor Andrew Montauli, who saw the cloud as he was travelling,
described it as appearing much above the common region of the clouds, and
as being clearly discerned to be on fire, and becoming white by degrees ; not
only where it had a communication by a sort of stream of smoke and light-
ning, with a neighbouring similar cloud ; but also, at last, in two-thirds of its
whole mass, which was originally black. And yet he took notice that it was
not affected by the rays of the sun, though they shone full on its lower parts ;
and he could discern, as it were, the basin of a fiery furnace in the cloud,
having a whirling motion.
The stones that fell were numerous, the largest weighing
five pounds and a half — some only a quarter of an ounce.
They fell over a space of ground of from three to four miles,
435
and several were so hot as to burn the fingers of those who
attempted to pick them up.
Four years before, a similar phenomenon occurred in France,
and was attested by a legal document signed by the magis-
trates of the municipality and several hundreds of the inhabit-
ants of the district where it occurred. It is as follows : — .
In the year 1790, and the 30th day of the month of August, we, the Lieu-
tenant Jean Duby, mayor, and Louis Massillon, Procurator of the commune
of the municipality of La Grange-de-Juillac, and Jean Darmite, resident in
the parish of La Grange-de-Juillac, certify in truth and verity that,
on Saturday, the 24th of July last, between nine and ten o'clock, there
passed a great fire, and after it we heard in the air a very loud and extra-
ordinary noise ; and about two minutes after there fell stones from heaven ;
but fortunately there fell only a very few, and they fell about ten paces from
one another in some places, and in others nearer, and finally, in some other
places farther ; and falling, most of them of the weight of about half a quarter
of a pound each, some others of about half a pound, like that found in our
parish of La Grange ; and on the borders of the parish of La Grange, and on
the borders of the parish of Creon they were found of a pound weight ; and
in falling they seemed not to be inflamed, but very hard and black without,
and within of the colour of steel ; and, thank God, they occasioned no harm
to the people, nor to the trees, but only to some tiles which were broken on
the houses ; and most of them fell gently, and others fell quickly with a
hissing noise ; and some were found which had entered into the earth, but
very few. In witness whereof we have written and signed these presents.
Duby, Mayor. Darmite.
On December 13th, 1795, on the afternoon of a mild but
hazy day, a report of a violent explosion followed by a hissing
sound was heard in the neighbourhood of Wold Cottage, the
house of Captain Topham, in Yorkshire. A ploughman saw a
large stone fall to the earth eight or nine yards from the spot
where he stood. It threw up the mould on every side, and,
penetrating through the soil, lodged some inches deep in the
solid chalk. The greater part of this stone is now in the
British Museum, and weighs forty-five pounds eight ounces.
The next account to which I shall draw your attention is to
the great fall of meteoric stones in Normandy which created
such a sensation in France, and caused the Academy of Sciences
to send a commission of inquiry on the subject, with M. Biot
at its head. From this date the fall of meteoric stones has
been received as an established scientific fact.
On Tuesday, April 26th, 1803, about one in the afternoon, the weather
being serene, there was observed, in a part of Normandy, including Caen,
Falaise, Alengon, and a large number of villages, a fiery globe of great bril-
liancy moving through the atmosphere with great rapidity. Some moments
after there was heard at L'Aigle and in the environs to the extent of more
436
than thirty leagues in every direction, a violent explosion, which lasted five
or six minutes. At first there were three or four reports like those of a can-
non, followed by a kind of discharge which resembled the firing of musketry;
after which there was heard a rumbling like the beating of a drum. The
air was calm, and the sky serene, except a few clouds, such as are frequently-
observed. The noise proceeded from a small cloud which had a rectangular
form, and appeared motionless all the time that the phenomenon lasted. The
vapour of which it was composed, was projected in all directions at the suc-
cessive explosions. The cloud seemed about half a league to the N.E. of the
town of L'Aigle, and must have been at a great elevation in the atmosphere,
for the inhabitants of two hamlets, a league distant from each other, saw it
at the same time above their heads. In the whole canton, over which it
hovered, a hissing noise like that of a stone discharged from a sling was
heard ; and a multitude of mineral masses were seen to fall, to the gross
number of nearly three thousand. The largest weighed 17£ pounds.
Many meteoric stones have fallen in India. On December
the 19th, 1798, at eight o'clock in the evening, a large lumi-
nous meteor was seen at Benares, and other parts of the
country. It was attended with a loud rumbling noise, like an
ill-discharged platoon of musketry, and about the same time
the inhabitants of Krakhut, fourteen miles from Benares, saw
the light, heard an explosion, and immediately after, the noise
of heavy bodies falling in the neighbourhood. The sky had
been previously serene, and not the smallest vestige of a cloud
had appeared for many days. Next morning, the mould in
the fields was found to have been turned up in many spots,
and unusual stones of various sizes, but of the same sub-
stance, were picked out from the moist soil, generally from a
depth of six inches.
Professor Maskelyn, who has deyoted such pains to the col-
lection of meteorites in the British Museum, has given in the
Philosophical Magazine an account of several falls in India,
nearly all occurring by day, in a serene sky, and almost all
unaccompanied by the appearance of any luminous meteor.
Among the most interesting of these is the fall of five stones
at Gunduk, on May 12th, 1861. They fell in four spots about
three miles apart. Their fall out of a cloudless sky was
heralded by a sound like that of ordnance succeeded by several
peals of thunder. Those who witnessed the fall of these
stones, with one exception, saw nothing peculiar in the sky,
and had their attention called to the spot where the stones fell
by the dust and gravel thrown up by their fall. The excep-
tion was a native, who was taking his cattle to the water when
he was startled by three loud reports, and saw in the air on
high a " light," which fell to the ground within two hundred
yards. Sky serene, weather fiercely hot ; but there was a very
437
small cloud, out of which this witness stated the report and
the luminous body to have come. He adds, " there was the
loud report, and about the same time I saw the light like a
flame ; then the stone fell, and in falling made a great noise ;
and after it fell, the sound was taken up high into the air."
He found five pieces of stone ; they were hot, as was the
sand around, which was thrown to the height of a foot.
Two of these fragments brought to this country fit together
exactly.
Professor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, gives an
analysis of a remarkable meteoric stone which fell at Dhurm-
salla, in the Punjab, on the 14th July, 1860, at 2.15 p.m. Con-
trary to what has been observed in all other cases, the frag-
ments of this stone were said to'l)e cold, and not hot, when
they fell. " The cold of the fragments that fell was so intense
as to benumb the hands of the coolies who picked them up,
but who were obliged, in consequence of their coldness, in-
stantly to drop them."
The last account of thefall of meteoric stones to which I will call
your attention is that described by Dr. Smith in the American
Journal of Science, as taking place in Guernsey county, Ohio,
on the 1st of May, 1860. He catalogues twenty-four stones,
the largest weighing one hundred and three pounds, and the
smallest half a pound. They were scattered over a space ten
miles long, by three miles broad. The following are some of
the facts he collected from persons on the spot : —
We, the undersigned, do hereby certify, that at about half-past twelve
o'clock on Tuesday, May the 1st, 1860, a most terrible report was heard im-
mediately overhead, filling the neighbourhood with awe. After an interval
of a few seconds, a series of successive reports, the most wonderful and un-
earthly ever before heard by us, took place, taking a direction from meri-
dian to south-east, where the sounds died away like the roaring of distant
thunder, jarring the houses for many miles distant.
This is the testimony of those who heard the noises, but
did not witness the fall of the stones. Among others who saw
stones fall, Mr. Preben affirms : —
I heard the reports and roaring as above described, and a few seconds
afterwards, I saw a large body or substance descending and striking the
earth four or five hundred yards from where I then stood ; and that I, in
company with Andrew Lister, repaired to the spot, and about eighteen inches
beneath the surface found a stone weighing fifty pounds.
Mr. Noble states :—
I distinctly heard the roaring and sounds as above described, and a few
seconds after the above report, I saw descending from the clouds a large
body that struck the earth above a hundred and fifty yards from where I then
438
stood, and I immediately repaired to the spot, and about two feet beneath
the surface found a stone weighing forty-two pounds. A second or two after
seeing the first stone, I saw another descend and strike the earth about the
same distance from where I stood I also took the last-mentioned stone
from the earth about two feet beneath the surface ; both the above stones,
when taken from the earth, were quite warm. I also saw a third stone
descend.
As to the temperature of the stones, we are told that several
of the largest stones were picked up ten minutes after their
fall, and are described as being about as warm as a stone that
had lain in the sun in summer. One fell among dry leaves
that covered it after it had penetrated the ground ; the leaves,
however, showed no evidence of having been heated; no
appearance of ignition was discoverd in places or objects with
which the stones came in contact at the time of their fall ; so
that their temperature must have been far short of red heat,
while it may not have reached that of 200°.
It may further be remarked that the day was cool, and the
sky covered at the time with light clouds. No thunder or
lightning had been noticed that day, nor could anything un-
usual be seen in the appearance of the clouds. Immediately
on hearing the report, one observer looked in the direction it
came, and noticed the clouds closely, but could not see any-
thing unusual.
Those who were in the district where the stones fell, and
witnessed their fall, saw no fire-ball or meteor. Others at a
considerable distance, however, saw a ball of fire flying with
great velocity ; to one it appeared as white as melted iron.
Another saw a ball of fire of great brilliancy emerging from
behind one cloud and disappearing behind another. The
course of this meteor seemed to be over the district where the
fall of stones occurred. Whether these two phenomena were
connected, is a point of some importance to be determined.
On other occasions, when a bright meteor has been observed
by those at a distance from where a shower of stones has
fallen, no meteor, but only a cloud, has been seen by those
witnessing the fall of the stones. Professor Shepherd, who
has devoted his life to the collection of meteorites and of all the
facts connected with them, remarks that " only four or five
large detonating meteors, out of several hundreds whose paths
have been observed with more or less precision, have been
known to throw down stones."
Generally speaking, but little damage has been done by tie
fall of meteorites. Humboldt relates that, on the 4th of
September, 1511, a monk at Crema, near Milan, — another
489
monk in the year 1660, and in 1674 two Swedish sailors on
board ship, were struck dead by aerolites.
These meteoric stones have been divided into three classes :
aerolites, siderolites, and aero-siderolites. The first class/the
aerolites, comprise the greatest number of meteoric stones that
have been seen to fall. They all, wherever they have fallen,
whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, present a most
striking resemblance to each other. They are stony masses,
covered with a very thin black rind, where they have not been
broken after their fall. Internally, they are of a greyish white,
and of a somewhat gritty structure, like coarse sandstone. They
consist of various silicates interspersed with isolated particles
of nickeliferous native iron, meteoric pyrites, &o.
Professor Daubrde proposes to divide these aerolites into two
classes — (1) Those which give after fusion a crystalline mass,
and (2) those which give a vitreous mass. The first corre-
sponds to those meteorites composed principally of magnesian
silicates, and the second to those composed principally of
aluminous silicates j the latter being extremely rare, Professor
Daubr^e having found four specimens only out of 150 different
stones preserved in the collections examined. It is certain,
says M. Daubree, that some terrestrial rocks, and at their head
lherzolite, present a composition identical even in its varia-
tions with that of the common type of meteorites. This
lherzolite is a common eruptive rock in the Pyrenees, and is
considered generally to be a massive variety of pyroxene.
The structure of aerolites, though chemically identical with
some of the basaltic or eruptive rocks, is not mechanically the
same. Mr. Clifton Sorby, in his microscopical researches into
the composition of meteorites, states, that "some isolated
portions of meteorites have also a structure very similar to
stony lavas " ; and again: "this sometimes gives rise to a
structure remarkably like that of consolidated volcanic ashes ;
so much so, indeed, that I have specimens which might at first
sight be mistaken for sections of meteorites."
The second class of meteorites — the siderolites — consist of a
sponge-like body of nickeliferous native iron, whose cavities
are filled more or less with crystals of siliceous minerals,
principally olivine. Of those preserved in the British Museum,
not one has been observed to fall from the sky. The third
class, called the aero-siderolites, are composed almost entirely of
masses of native iron, more or less combined with nickel. Out
of eighty specimens preserved in the British Museum, only five
have been seen to fail from the heavens. The remainder are
believed to be meteorites, for the following reasons. Such
440
masses have been known to fall, and they all possess the same
characteristics as those that have fallen. Native iron, that is,
iron in a metallic state, is very rarely found on the earth's
surface, and when found, only in very small particles, owing* to
the Base with which iron combines with oxygen. Iron, again,
when obtained from the ore, is rarely combined with nickel.
The masses, when found, have been in positions far removed
from any iron ore from which they could have been formed ; and,
lastly, when these meteoric irons are cut and their surfaces are
polished, the application of a dilute acid sometimes, but not
always, brings out on their surface crystalline lines and figures,
like those sometimes seen formed by frozen moisture on a
sheet of window-glass in frosty weather. These are called
after their discoverer, " Witmannstaetten figures." No
one has succeeded in producing these figures by acting on
ordinary iron, whether cast or malleable, in the same manner;
not even in the case of iron axle-trees, which have become
crystalline after long use. M. Daubr^e, by using a peculiar
furnace producing a very great heat, established the fact that
fused meteoric iron will not reproduce the figures, and that
malleable iron melted with nickel in the same proportions as
found in meteoric iron, would not produce the Witmann-
staetten figures artificially, until from two to ten per cent, of
phosphide of iron was added to the mixture.
Meteoric iron is sometimes malleable ; at others, scarcely so
at all. Knives made from malleable meteoric iron by the
Esquimaux may be seen in the British Museum. In the year
1 620 a mass of meteoric iron fell in the Punjab, and was dug
out of the earth while still violently hot. It was conveyed to
the court of the emperor Tchanjire, who ordered a sabre, a
knife, and a dagger, to be forged from this iron of lightning.
After a trial, the workmen reported that it was not malleable,
but shivered under the hammer; and it required to be mixed
with one-third part of common iron, after which the mass was
found to make excellent blades. I need not, perhaps, remind
you that there is no similarity of structure whatever between
any of the known meteorites, and the concretionary balls and
oblong masses of iron pyrites washed out of the chalk cliffs of
Dover, and often sold to the visitor as genuine thunderbolts.
I must also tell you that the existence of nickel and cobalt
combined with iron is no proof that the mass in which it is
found is necessarily a meteorite. On June 21st, 1855, Sir
E. Murchison read a short paper before the Eoyal Society " On
a supposed aerolite found in the trunk of an old willow-tree in
the Battersea Fields." This " aerolite " contained a large per-
centage of iron, and also traces of nickel, cobalt, and manga-
441
nese. It was pronounced to be an undoubted meteorite by most
competent authorities, and was supposed to have fallen into the
tree, and to have been imbedded in the timber by its growth.
Some circumstances caused a degree of scepticism to be
entertained as to the meteoric origin of the mass ; a further
search was made. Digging about the root of the tree, several
similar masses were found, having the same chemical composi-
tion, but possessing other characteristics which showed that they
were nothing more than the slag of an old iron-furnace which
once stood near the spot, and a piece of which must have been
thrown up into the fork of the tree.
It will readily be imagined that the fall of meteorites was
no sooner established as a fact, than philosophers speedily
invented theories to account for their appearance. Ignoring
the theory of Soldani, " that the stones were generated in the
air by a combination of mineral substances, which had risen
somewhere or other as exhalations from the earth; and
the more precise one of Mr. King, who traced the origin of
these meteorites to the matter projected from our own vol-
canoes into the upper regions of the air, and then con-
densed by chemical and electrical forces ; the most popular
theory for many years was to ascribe their origin to lunar
volcanoes. Herschel, senior, fancied he saw numerous
volcanoes in an active state of combustion in the moon, though
modern observers tell us that this was a delusion.
Laplace, Biot, Brandes and Poisson all adopted the theory
of lunar volcanoes, and calculated the projectile force necessary
to throw the volcanic ashes of the moon so far within the
earth's sphere of attraction as to bring them to its surface.
Laplace put this force as not greater than five or six times that
of an ordinary cannon. The reason why the lunar rather than
the terrestrial volcanic origin of the meteors was chosen, was
because of the moon's supposed freedom from water on its
surface, or moisture in its atmosphere, if it had any ; it being
assumed that the native iron could not be formed in the
presence of oxygen or water.
The discovery, however, of the large number of bodies
called the asteroids, caused the complete abandonment of the
lunar theory, and the adoption of what is now called the cos-
mical origin of meteorites.
Bode, the astronomer, discovered a peculiar arithmetical
law in the distances of the planets from the sun. Assuming
the distance of Mercury to be as 4, the following is very nearly
the order of the distances of planets from the sun : —
2k
442
Mercury
-4
Venus
-4 + 3-7.
Earth
- 4 + 3 X 2 - 10.
Mars
-4 + 3X21- 16.
-4 + 3X21- 28.
Jupiter
- 4 + 3 X 8* - 52.
Saturn
- 4 -f 3 X 21 - 100.
Uranus
- 4 + 3 X 2« - 196.
It will be observed that there is a blank between Mars and
Jupiter, which has been supplied by the discovery of not one,
but a series of ninety small planets. In 1501, Piazzi dis-
covered Ceres; in 1802, Olbers discovered Pallas; in 1804,
Harding discovered Juno; and in 1807, Olbers again dis-
covered a fourth — Vesta. These four small planets lie between
Mars and Jupiter ; their orbits intersect each other, and their
mean distance from the sun agrees with Bode's law. Herschel,
senior, called them asteroids. Herschel, junior, in writing"
his most admirable Popular Antinomy (by 'far the best in any
language), in 1833, laughs at what he calls the philosophical
dream of Bode, which led to their discovery, in these words : —
"This may serve as a specimen of the dreams in which
astronomers, like other speculators, occasionally and harm-
lessly indulge."
From the fact that the orbits of these four asteroids all inter-
sect in one point, Olbers, the discoverer of two of them, con-
jectured that they were fragments of one planet. Lagrange
determined the force necessary to blow the planet into pieces.
This theory led to a careful mapping and survey of the heavens
in the zone of the asteroids' path ; and now the asteroids
number ninety — and how many more " fragments " may be dis-
covered no one can conjecture. Sir John Herschel withdrew
this passage from the larger astronomy which he published a
lew years since — somewhat prematurely some may think;
for the discovery of Neptune proved that Bode's law of
distances altogether failed as far as that new member of the
planetary system was concerned. Now, whether deservedly
or not, the destruction of Olbers' planet is generally con-
signed to the limbo of hypotheses, as no better than a mere
philosophical dream.
The history of the discovery of this ring of small planetary
bodies circulating between Mars and Jupiter is very instruc-
1 ive. It shows us that discoveries may be made, even by a law
deduced from numerous observations and coincidences, capable
of mathematical expression, which may, after all, turn out
to be no law of nature at all, in the philosophical sense.
Since the small planetary bodies revolving round the sun
448
between Mars and Jupiter have been found to be so
numerous, and many of tnem so very small in diameter, the
lunar origin of the meteorites has been altogether abandoned.
The popular theory now is that all the meteoric phenomena I
have been describing — the falling stars, the flaming meteors
or fire-balls, and the meteoric stones which have fallen from
the heavens — are connected together, and are all due to the
attraction, within the limits of our atmosphere, of inter-
planetary masses, similar to those forming the ring of asteroids
between Mars and Jupiter.
In the first place it must be remarked that no law of perio^
dicity whatever has been observed in the fall of meteoric
stones. Looking over a list of all the observed falls of meteoric
stones, I can fine), no periods of maximum numbers of falls
near the same day of the month. A few years ago it seemed
as if more falls occurred at one period of the year than at
others ; but the addition of recent observations to the list
proves such deductions to have been fallacious. For instance,
looking at the list, the 1 3th of December would seem at first
sight to give a period for the fall of meteoric bodies. Up to
the year 1813 four stones fell in different years on the 13th of
December, and one on the 14th, and no others were recorded
as falling in that month. Since that year seven falls havd
been recorded in December, not one of which on any day
near the 13 th and 14th. The first five recorded instances for
the month of December must therefore be regarded as
simply a curious coincidence of dates, especially as the dates
for every other month fail to point out the existence of any
periodical days for the fall of meteorites.
The same want of period- days applies to the fire-balls, or
large flaming meteors, or bolides as they are sometimes called,
passing very near the earth's surface, and often exploding with
a loud report.
With regard to the falling stars, I have already observed
that the remarkable period-days for their manifestation apply
only to what we may call the great showers, or star-storms.
Falling stars are seen at all places on the earth's surface more
or less frequently by night, every night in the year. The
periodical showers, such as those of August and November,
are not seen every year. They appear for a few years perhaps
in succession, and then almost disappear altogether for several
years in any notable number on those particular period-
days ; so much so that before the great fall of last year, one
French scientific observer, devoting himself to the observation
of falling stars, was altogether scepticalas to the existence of
these periodic days.
2 k 2
444
The theory which attributes falling stars, fire-balls, and me-
teoric stones, to the attraction of minute planetary or cometary
bodies revolving round the sun, within the sphere of attrac-
tion, seems to be the following. An immense number of such
bodies are scattered through what is called inter-planetary
space. When these bodies are drawn within the sphere of
the earth's attraction by its disturbing force pulling them out
of their orbit, they enter within the limits of the earth's at-
mosphere. Coming into this atmosphere, even where, from its
height above the earth's surface, it is very greatly attenuated,
nevertheless, the friction produced by their passing through
this attenuated atmosphere, with their own planetary velocity
of motion, combined in most instances with that of the earth
itself, produces such an enormous heat as to inflame the
matter composing the body, and in most instances to convert
all its solid particles into vapour. A falling star, therefore, is
caused by the passage of an inter-planetary body with enor-
mous velocity through the earth's atmosphere, causing its rapid
combustion and speedy dissipation into vapour. Attempts
have been made (though I cannot but regard all such calcula-
tions as most fallacious) to calculate the velocity necessary to
produce the combustion of a meteoric mass, such as a meteo-
rite, at some forty or fifty, or even a hundred miles' height
from the earth's surface, and the light which would be emitted
by a given mass of matter ; this, too, in spite of our admitted
iguorance of the density, or rather tenuity, of the atmosphere
at such heights.
Some of these bodies are supposed not to be entirely con-
sumed, but their apparent track as a luminous body is sup-
posed again to be produced by their passage through a portion
of the earth's atmosphere, as they dip only through a part of
the atmosphere in their motion through space. According to
this theory, other flaming meteors or fire-balls consist of masses
of matter too large to be so dissipated into vapour, which move
for a longer time through the lower regions of the earth's
atmosphere, till the nucleus of the meteor bursts by the action
of intense heat, and meteoric stones and masses fall to the
earth.
The wandering small planetary bodies are supposed to bo
more thickly distributed in some parts of space than others,
like the ring of known and observed planetoids between Mars
and Jupiter. Two or more such rings are supposed to inter-
sect the earth's path. Such a ring would be subject to per-
turbation by the earth's attraction, causing a change in the
periods at which it would intersect the earth's orbit. Great
star-showers are supposed only to occur when a rich or thickly
445
studded part of the ring is swept into the earth's atmosphere.
As a period of maximum star-falling occurs about the 13th
and 14th of November in periods of thirty-three years, this
period gives the clue as to the period when the ring approaches
most nearly the earth's orbit, and also accounts for the maxi-
mum showers being manifested in less intensity a year or two
before and after these periods, and not in the interval between.
The coincidence of last year's display has been everywhere
quoted as a triumphant demonstration by mathematical calcu-
lation of the truth of this whole theory. I call that a coinci-
dence, for which we may more fairly perhaps be indebted to
the law of probability than to any more abstruse calculation of
the retrogression of the nodes of the assumed ring of planetoids.
For in the first place the number of recorded recurrences of fall-
ing stars on these period-days is far too small to found so great
a theory, when we consider that they are merely maximum
manifestations of a nightly phenomenon of greater or lesser in-
tensity. That the recurrence of the 33-year period has but three
occurrences in its favour, — the years 1799, 1832, and 1866,
even making allowance for an increase of a year for the last
display; the star-storm of 1799, which has been imported
into this periodical display, being, as I have before observed,
a mistake, as it occurred not in November, but in the month
of October. On the other hand, within these limits the great
November showers of 1 787 and 1822, as well as many others of
less brilliancy, cannot be brought within the period of the thirty-
three years. Again, the ancient October displays, which have
been regarded as a proof of the gradual alteration of the
planetary ring's intersection of the earth's orbit, are more
readily accounted for without this alteration as being connected
with that of 1799. If the planetary origin of falling stars is
to be made out, it can only be demonstrated by a much larger
collection of facts than have yet been observed.
Again, the inclusion of the meteorites and flaming meteors
or fire-balls in this planetary theory, only tends to throw
doubt upon the theory.
In the first place the passage of fiery meteors in the lower
atmosphere coursing over the earth, and then exploding, or of
clouds casting stones to the earth, has never yet been found
to accompany the great displays of falling stars. Both these
phenomena seem destitute of any period-days whatever. Nor
yet has the connection of flaming, bursting meteors with the
fall of meteoric stones been at all made out as conclusive ; out
of many hundred recorded instances where stones have been
seen to fall, only some four or five have been shown to be con-
nected with any appearance of a fire-ball. Even in these
446
cases, except perhaps in one instance, the fire-ball was not
seen by those witnessing the fall of the stone. So that it is
doubtful whether the two phenomena were connected. And
in the only instance in which a fire-ball and a meteoric cloud
shooting stones to the earth were observed to be identical, it by
no means follows that that fire-ball was identical in composition
or nature with ordinary fire-balls.
Again: we are to suppose that, when the earth passes
through those parts of space the richest in planetoids, all those
producing the phenomena of falling stars are reduced by frac-
tionally developed heat into vapour. And yet these bodies,
assumed to be identical in composition with meteoric stones,
thus converted in such extraordinary numbers into vapour, are
followed in no known instances by any remarkable showers of
meteoric dust. Again : the meteoric stones which reach the
earth pass through a much denser portion of the earth's
atmosphere without being so dissipated. If we are to account
for this latter fact on the supposition that they are larger
planetary masses than those causing a falling star, we are to
suppose that the larger bodies are found in those parts of the
planetary ring in which the planetoids are most sparsely
scattered. Again: I cannot at all account for the smaller
bodies being totally dissipated into vapour in the highest
regions of the atmosphere, where the density and consequent
friction of the moving mass is the least, with the appearance
of every meteorite that has been seen to fall. These indicate
the action of an intense heat indeed, but penetrating only a line
or two into the thickness of the stone. According to Professor
Thomson's and Professor Joule's estimate, every meteorite
that has reached the earth from the supposed planetary ring
ought to have been fused into vapour, like those supposed to
produce the falling stars. The meteoric stones, so far from
reaching the earth in a state of fusion, are not even red-hot.
We have seen that they have fallen on dry leaves without
setting them on fire. If the case reported by Professor
Haughton is to believed, on the testimony of the natives who
handled the stone after it fell, it was so far from being hot,
that it was colder than ice.
On the whole, I cannot but conclude that the modern theory
of the planetary origin of falling stars, fire-balls, and meteoric
stones, is far from being supported by the facts which have
been recorded; — that the common origin of these three
phenomena has by no means been proved; — and that the
planetary origin and combustion of the falling stars cannot be
admitted, if we refer the meteoric stones to the same source.
This is just one of those subjects where a confession of
447
ignorance is the best wisdom, and where science will be better
served by a close and honest observation of phenomena than
by faulty, ill-digested theories. In conclusion, I would re-
mark that, for aught we know to the contrary, falling stars
may be an electrical phenomenon, somewhat like, but differing
in intensity from, the aurora borealis. They both seem to
appear in the upper regions of our atmosphere ; both seem to
radiate from fixed points ; both can be imitated artificially by
the passage of electricity through rarefied gas or air ; both
have many points of resemblance. Moreover, both pheno-
mena seem to be connected. Aurora has been seen more than
once to accompany the display of falling stars. It has also
been noticed that the passage of a falling star through the sky
has lit up, as it were, a flash of aurora, where it had not pre-
viously been seen ; showing, at least, some connection between
the phenomena.
Again: there are electrical displays, such as the fires of
Elmo, and globular lightning, and fire-balls slowly advancing
on the sea, and bursting as an electric shock on a vessel, which
would seem to show that some of the fiery meteors at least
might be referred to an electric origin.
With regard to the origin of meteorites, the first English
theory of their terrestrial origin has not lost all supporters,
They are identical in chemical and, in some measure, even in
mechanical structure, with our own volcanic rocks.
The phenomena which so persistently accompany the fall of
meteoric stones by no means accord with their supposed
passage through the atmosphere with planetary velocity.
They fall to the earth with no greater velocity than they would
attain by falling from the clouds they are seen to be projected
from. Tons upon tons of dust, rich in the shells of foramini-
fera of South America, are carried into the atmosphere by
tornadoes. This dust rises above the trade winds, descends
after a flight of thousands of miles, and covers areas of many
square miles of the ocean in the Atlantic or Mediterranean. If
wind can thus carry dust and sand, who can tell what vapours
of metals and other materials may be projected from our
volcanoes ? Some electrical condition of the atmosphere may
condense these vapours, just as masses of ice are formed in
mid-air by the same agency. The same crackling, rumbling
sound which presages the formation of masses of ice in the
atmosphere is a never-failing accompaniment to the mysterious
cloud which projects its stony mass to the earth. Electricity
can reduce metals from their combinations, as well as resolve
them into vapour. At any rate, this theory is not wilder than
many others which have been framed about meteors. It is not
448
wilder than that which gives the sun its heat by a constant
shower of meteors, the arrest of whose motion supplies the
heat lost by the sun by constant radiation ; or the opposition
theory, which, instead of pelting the sun with meteors,
accounts for these meteors as masses of vapour escaping from
the bubbling, boiling surface of the sun, and projected with
such velocity as to reach the earth after condensation by the
extreme cold of planetary space.
The Chairman. — I am sure you will allow me to return thanks to Mr.
Mitchell for this very interesting and instructive paper. In this age there is
bo great a tendency to attach so much to authority, that it is very valuable to
see how very little authority is sometimes worth, and how great is our igno-
rance and how little our knowledge of that which we profess to know very
well We shall be glad to hear any gentleman who has any remarks to add
or suggestions to offer.
Mr. Reddib. — I think the paper that we have heard this evening (which I
am sure we have all listened to with much pleasure) is one that scarcely
admits of discussion. That is one of the disadvantages of having very good
papers. We had Professor Kirk's paper at our penultimate meeting, and Mr.
Mitchell's paper to-night, both giving us such able discourses on the subjects
they treat of, that there is nothing left for us to say. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Mitchell
will complete his paper for our Journal of Transactions, I beg leave to say,
although the latter part of it was delivered extempore. With reference to
some of his remarks, I should be very glad if he could collect some of the
various reports respecting the recent meteoric shower as seen at different
places. I think they would demonstrate the truth of what he has said as
regards the uncertainty there must be as to the real heights of those bodies ;
for the accounts have varied so much that either the witnesses must have
stated very incorectly what they saw, or else they did not all see the same
things. If you will take the accounts, published in London and different
parts of England, and others at Malta, you will observe that both as to the
numbers of the falling stars, and in various other particulars, they do not
agree with one another. And I think it will yet prove that most probably
this is an electrical phenomenon, in which there are brilliant scintillations, all
more or less tending in one direction. But there is certainly a great discre-
pancy as to the quantity of those observed ; and I may say even as to their
apparent distances from the earth. Even in this country I observe in the
various accounts in The Times there was a great difference as regards the
number of the meteors ; and even people in the same house, describing what
they saw, gave different accounts to one another the next morning. I think
it is almost impossible to consider that those majestic slow-moving fire-balls
(one of which I saw two years ago, in November, the only one I have ever
seen in my life, it was about the size of the moon, and moved in a south-
westerly direction,) can be considered similar either to those heavy masses of
meteoric matter, or to those mere scintillations called falling stars. You
449 *
might just as well consider them as actually falling stars, because they are
like the stars in heaven ; for although we call them falling stars, we know
they have nothing in common with stars. I am sure Mr. Mitchell's account
will be a most valuable record on the subject in our Transactions, and it will
very likely complete No. 4 of our Journal.
Professor Oliver Byrne. — I have a few remarks to offer to you, and
they are based upon demonstration, and not conjecture. I am going to base
what I have to say upon what Archimedes based his mechanics. It is, " the
law of sufficient reason," carried out by Leibnitz, and made great use of by
Laplace. It is known to all philosophers, who make use of it to prove one
thing, but reject it when you want to prove another. Leibnitz made great
use of it, and I should have said that our very learned and worthy Vice-
President has brought before us a subject that requires our most serious con-
sideration, because it is the only index we have left, it is really the only
weather-vane by which men can discover the motions of the heavens. Now,
I have taken 13 of the principal stars, and I have calculated their positions
up to the 1st January, 1867, and their proper motions and declinations. It
was a great deal of labour, and I am sure that each of these stars loses place,
as regards the observer, by 600 or 700 yards. The pole star and others have
travelled 666 yards out of their places. These stars all move, and there is a
delusion in astronomers about them ; they all say they have a proper motion,
and it is a curious thing that all the negative quantities of these 13 great
stars differ but 16" from all the positive motions of the larger stars in the
heavens —
The Chairman. — The difference between the positive and the negative
quantities.
Professor Byrne. — This motion takes place, which I am going to prove
by the law of sufficient reason. No philosopher has ever been able to prove
the parallelogram of forces ; and all attempts to prove have failed when the
quantities compared are incommensurable. If these had relations to one
another, we could get a law, but it is impossible. If you give me the diagonal
of the square, no one can tell the length of the side— the diagonal may bo
20 feet, but you cannot tell the length of the side — that seems simple, yet it
is impossible that any one can find it out. The diameter of a circle may be
10 feet, no one can tell the circumference. There is no law for the incom-
mensurability of quantities, and the law of sufficient reason will not apply.
What I am going to prove will be proved with the exception that I am
not taking incommensurable quantities, and the only specimen of human
reasoning totally perfect is the 5th Book of Euclid, because it takes in the
doctrine of incommensurable quantities altogether ; and consequently what I
am going to say is subject, not to comparison with incommensurable quan-
tities, but quantities that can be measured by practice. I suppose I have taken
the right motion of the stars ; but to show I have not done so, my empirical
rule differs 16 seconds, which is very small. "We will take 13 of the larger
stars, and each one in its turn operates upon its neighbour. The question is
this, — the conclusion I am coming to, the object I wish to prove is this, — and
450
I wish to prove it in this "way, that the actions of the forces of these stars act
on one another. If I take hold of this book, and Mr. Mitchell attempts to
poll it at an angle to me, and I pull it at the same angle, there is no reason
why the book will fall to him or to me, if both pull at the same angle with
the same strength. It will remain in the position in which it is, and conse-
quently obey neither one nor the other. There can be no action in the matter,
and there can be no motion in the stars unless some force is operating in
favour of one rather than the other. When a man tells me that this meteoric
stone came down on the ground with a certain velocity, it depends on the short
time in which it stopped ; it is not in the velocity, — the force depends on the
shortness of the time. (Question.) This may be very awkward ; I will try and
do my best, because Mr. Mitchell's paper bore on the velocity and force of the
aerolites falling on the earth. I returned from the subject to the equal
pulling of the proper motion of the fixed stars, showing the balancing of
one another (which I did not like to read one by one), not all going one way,
but balancing one another. There is no system of the law of gravitation
whatever, it is a secondary thing compared with the actions of the stars on
one another —
Mr. Beddie. — You began with the fixed stars, and then you passed from
them to the planets ; but the difficulty is to understand how you mean to
connect them together and with the subject of meteors.
The Chairman.— Keep to the question.
Professor Byrne. — Am I in order ? I am afraid I wish to carry the
thing one way too far ; but to go back to the force of a body and the blow
it gives, aft an aerolite coming any distance ; does that depend upon the
impression so much as the space of the time in which the body comes. My
whole object in rising is this, to show that there is an action in the fixed
stars, upon which the force of gravitation is secondary —
Mr. Keddie. — I do not think this question of the fixed stars has anything
to do with meteors.
Professor Byrne. — I got up to show that it had. Mr. Chairman, I submit
I got up to show that. Perhaps Mr. Keddie will show me that it had not,
and I will then sit down.
Mr. Beddie. — It is not for me to do so. I should be sorry to interrupt
unnecessarily any gentleman when speaking, but now I must throw myself
on the good-nature of the meeting. I must say, that I do not see that Mr.
Byrne has shown that there is any connection between the fixed stars and
meteors ; and I do think it irregular to go into such elaborate questions
as he has entered upon, when we have a specific subject before us. If, how-
ever, the other question is to be gone into, I think we ought to have it treated
a little more coherently ; and if Professor Byrne will write a paper on the
motions of the fixed stars, which it appears to me is a totally distinct subject,
I am sure we shall all be most glad to hear him. Professor Byrne is a great
mathematician, and is entitled to bring those things forward ; but we must
keep to one subject at a time ; and I certainly do not understand how these
remarks of Professor Byrne can be considered as having any reference to the
451
paper of Mr. Mitohell, if Mr. Byrne will excuse me for saying so. He knows I
am a sincere friend of his, and that I should be glad to hear him upon
any point connected with astronomy, but pray let us have it at the proper
time and place. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Warington. — I should like to ask one question of Mr. Mitchell I
never before heard the theory started, which seems a probable one, that the
origin of the shooting stars is electrical rather than cosmicaL And I would
ask, whether there is anything in the phenomena of the aurora borealis simi-
larly periodical, as to particular seasons or days of the year, with the peri-
odical display of meteors ? Because, if there is any such periodicity here
also, it would very materially help out the hypothesis. I am not aware
whether there is anything of the kind, and perhaps Mr. Mitchell will
tell us.
The Bev. Walter Mitchell. — In reply to Mr. Warington, I may state
that I am unacquainted with any period days marking a great display of
aurora borealis. I only wished to point out several analogies between the
two phenomena. In some latitudes the aurora is almost nightly visible, like
the display of falling stars in other latitudes. Then there is something similar
in the intermission of the brilliant displays of both phenomena — the aurora
appearing in lower latitudes for a few years, and then disappearing altogether,
like the maxima exhibition of falling stars. With regard to the period days
of falling stars, I may state that these are not the only meteoric phenomena
(using the term meteor in its widest sense), which are periodic. There are
certain latitudes where the return of the monsoons and the change of the
trade winds occur with such regularity as to allow their prediction nearly to
a day. In defence of the theory first put forth by Soldani as to the terres-
trial origin of meteorites, I think many facts might be urged, though I doubt
whether they would be considered sufficient to demonstrate its truth. The
majority of meteorites are admitted to be identical in composition with solid
masses ejected from our own volcanoes. These masses, for aught we know,
might have been projected in a state of vapour, and might remain for some
time uncondensed in our upper atmosphere. Or, if condensed, they might
remain, as Professor Shepherd has stated, in minute subdivision till condensed
into a solid mass by some such known agency as electricity. We know that
some metals do evaporate like water, and their vapour ascends like that of
water into the atmosphere ; mercury is an instance. We are ignorant, be-
cause our analysis is not sufficiently sensitive to tell us, how many of the
constituents of meteorites may be diffused through our atmosphere. If not
in a state of vapour, yet in a state of minute subdivision, such constituents
could be carried by the upper trade winds thousands of miles. Vessels on
the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic sometimes pass through a red fog for
days together. A red dust may be collected on the rigging of ships, and
Professor Ehrenberg has shown that this dust is composed for the most part
of the shells of foraminifera, which have been wafted thousands of miles from
the plains of South America by the upper trade winds. These fogs, covering
as they do some hundreds of square miles, must contain many tons of material
452
thus wafted by the winds. Under certain meteoric conditions, this minutely
subdivided matter returns again to the earth. Just as, in ordinary conditions
of the atmosphere, the moisture descends to the earth as rain or snow, we
know that under certain more extraordinary conditions, large masses of ice are
formed, supported during that formation contrary to the laws of gravity, and
then hurled to the earth. There appears some analogy between this latter
phenomenon and that of the formation of a meteorite. The peculiar noise,
like a discharge of small arms, which heralds the fall of a meteorite from a
cloud, in a somewhat modified form, accompanies the formation of blocks of
ice in the air. We know, as in the beautiful test for arsenic discovered by
Marsh, that a solid metal arsenic may be combined with an invisible gas,
hydrogen, and form together an invisible gas. When this is combined with
oxygen, a spark of electricity is sufficient to combine the oxygen and hydrogen
into water, and precipitate the arsenic in a pure metallic state. May there
not be some analogy between this fact and the formation of meteoric iron ?
I may add, as it appears to militate against the electrical origin of falling star
storms, that I have ascertained that no disturbance was observed in the deli-
cate magnetic needles of Greenwich Observatory during the late November
display. On the other hand, I believe that it is recorded that the most
delicate electrometers have not been in the slightest degree affected during a
magnificent display of aurora borealis.
The Eev. Dr. Irons. — I think Mr. Warington's point was this. There is ad-
mitted to be a certain moment of periodicity respecting the wonderful displays
of the meteors called falling stars, and we know that the last shower was pre-
dicted. Could you affirm anything about displays of the aurora borealis being
predicted ? because, if not, it would seem hard to connect the two things
together — the one being predictable, and the other casual.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell. — I may say in reply to this question that I
do not know of any display of aurora borealis being predicted with the same
degree of precision as to any particular day as these exhibitions of falling
stars, but I have called attention to the fact that the maximum appearance
on any day does not follow any period of years ; that for a number of years
in succession so few stars have been seen to fall on the 13th or 14th of
November, or from the 10th to the 12th of August ; that certain of the French
observers, one of whom devoted attention night after night to counting them,
gave up altogether the theory of periodicity. I might perhaps say that the
prediction of the meteoric display of 1866 was a philosophical " fluke " — it
was a fair guess from probabilities founded upon the years 1766, 1799, 1833.
It was a good guess to say 1866 ; but, as I have before pointed out, there have
been displays between those years which have not and could not have been
predicted ; that of 1766 was included by mistake ; nor can we predict whether
in November, 1867, we shall have a more abundant shower of falling stars
than we had last year, or in 1864 or 1865.
The Chairman. — I quite agree with Mr. Mitchell that there is no perio-
dicity with regard to meteoric showers, for I have been a great deal in
tropical latitudes, where falling stars are constantly seen night after night,
453
and displays so brilliant that it would be said, if such displays occurred in
England, that these were some of the great periodical exhibitions of falling
stars, and the whole argument of periodicity would be brought into question
at once. I think there is a mixing up of these questions of falling stars and
meteorolites, that are perfectly distinct. With respect to the latter, I
remember in 1829 being at Malta, when one of them came through
the roof of the house in which I was. It was associated at the time with
thunder and lightning ; and a spire of one of the churches was struck. I
can quite understand that a certain condition of the atmosphere would
facilitate the formation of these bodies from the elements, as has been sug-
gested. Captain Maury has mentioned that he has called these bodies
floating in the atmosphere "tallies ;" a "tally" being a mark a sailor puts
on a rope, in order that he may know the particular use to which it is
appropriated. So Maury terms these " tallies," and has thus been enabled
to mark out the circuits of the winds. Thus by volcanic action these things
are carried into the upper regions of the atmosphere, above the influence of the
trade winds, carried along by the upper return current, and then come down
to windward, having gone against the trade winds apparently, but in reality
having risen above them. I must say, in justice to Professor Byrne, that he
may have been a little discursive, but what he was going to say was not
altogether from the point ; and I did not stop him because he was endeavour-
ing to show that the fixed stars are not at those extreme distances they are
imagined to be, and that the sun has not got the motion astronomers assert,
but that they have mistaken an oscillatory for a direct motion. I think that
was his object, and I think his remarks were pertinent in this way, because,
if astronomers err so widely with respect to the distances of heavenly bodies,
you cannot expect them to be accurate in their suppositions respecting evan-
escent bodies, as to which Mr. Mitchell said it would be impossible to make
calculations, and it is mere charlatanism to attempt it Then, with respeot
to these masses striking the earth, they cannot go with the enormous velocity
which is supposed, because in all the records concerning them, they are merely
said to have penetrated a few inches into the earth, which shows that the
velocity cannot be very great ; and we know that at the trials of rifled gun3
mentioned in The Times, the shot has penetrated the ground for fifteen or
twenty feet.
The Rev. Walter Mitchell. — One passed quite through the butt at
Woolwich recently.
The Meeting was then adjourned.
APPENDIX (A).
FOUNDATION LIST
OF THE
VICE-PATBONS, MEMBERS & ASSOCIATES
OP
t WuUxh Institute,
OR
IP^Insojj^tral Storieitr of faxtxti Uritara.
2l
OFFICERS & COUNCIL FOR 1867-8.
THE BIGHT HON. THE EABL OF SHAFTESBURY, K.G.
Uiee^trstocnts.
PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, ESQ., F.R.S.
KEY. WALTER MITCHELL, M.A.
Sonorarg Zmmxttx.
CAPTAIN E. GARDINER FISHBOURNE, B.N., C.B.
Sonorarj JScnretarg.
JAMES REDDIE, ESQ., Hon. Mem. Dial. Soc., Edin. Uniror.
Sonnrarg JForetgn &cctctarg.
EDWARD J. MORSHEAD, ESQ., H.M.C.S.
Council
REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR, M.A.
ROBERT BAXTER, ESQ. (Trustee.)
REV. A. DE LA MARE, MJL
ROBERT N. FOWLER, ESQ., M.A. (Trustee)
WILLIAM H. INCE, ESQ., F.L.S., F.B.M.S.
JOHN J. LIDGETT, ESQ., B.A.
ALEXANDER McABTHUR, ESQ., F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L.
WILLIAM M. ORD, ESQ., M.B.
REV. J. B. OWEN, M.A.
CAPTAIN FRANCIS W. H. PETRIE, F.G.S.
REV. ROBINSON THORNTON, D.D.
GEORGE WARINGTON, ESQ., F.C.S.
ALFRED J. WOODHOUSE, ESQ., M.R.I., F.R.M.S.
REV. W. REYNER COSENS, M.A.
ALFRED V. NEWTON, ESQ., F.A.S.L.
WILLIAM VANNER, ESQ., F.R.M.S.
S. D. WADDY, ESQ., Barrister-at-Law.
erirvk.
MB. CHARLES II. HILTON STEWART.
MEMBERS.
(Members of Council *. Life Members -f\)
If Distinguishes those who have contributed Papers to the Institute.
A.
Allcroft, John D. Esq. 97, Wood Street, B.C.
Anderson, William, Esq. M.R.C.S.E. Surgeon R.N.
H.M.8. Hector, Channel Squadron:
Andrews, Thomas R. Esq. Cleveland House, Wimbledon
Park, S. W.
Arden, Richard Edward, Esq. Barrister-at-Law, J.P. and
Dep.-Lieut. for Middlesex, F.G.S. F.R.G.S. F.A.S.L.
FelL Acclim. and Ornithol. Socs. M.R.I. Sunbury
Park, Middlesex.
Armytage, Rev. J. N. Green, M.A. Cantab. Clifton,
Bristol.
* Arthur, Rev. William, M.A. Glendun, Acton, W.
Aston, Rev. John A., M.A. Brocktcell, Dulwich, S.
Auriol, Rev. Edward, M.A. Prebendary of St. Paul's,
Rector of St. Dunstan's in the West, 35, Mecklenburg
Square, W.C.
B.
Ball, Thomas, Esq., Bramcote, Notts.
Ballard, Rev- J. Hamilton, M.A. 122, Kennington Park
Road, S.
Barker, Rev. Matthias, M.A. 347, Camden Road, N.
Barrington, William, Esq. C.E., 51, George Street,
Limerick ; and Bally william Cottage, Rathkeale.
2l2
458
Barter, The Hon. Charles, B.C.L. Oxon. (Memb. of
Legislative Council of Natal), The Start, Pietermaritz-
burg, Natal.
Bathurst, Rev.W. H., M.A. Lydney Park, Gloucestershire.
•-{•Baxter, Robert, Esq. Solicitor, 10, Queen Square, West-
minster, S.W. (Trustee.)
Beardsley, Amos, Esq. F.L.S. F.G.S. Surgeon, &c. The
Grange, Newton-in-Cartmd.
Beaufort, Rev. D. A., M.A. Warburton Rectory, War-
rington.
Beckett, Henry, Esq. F.G.S. Mining Engineer, &c. Penover,
near Wolverhampton.
Bennett, John F. Esq. Carisbrooi Villa, Upper Tulse
HiU, S.
Bethune, Admiral C. Ramsay Drinkwater, C.B. 4, Cromwell
Road, South Kensington, S. W. ; and Balfour, Markinch,
Fifeshire.
Blackwood, Rev. J. Stevenson, D.D. LL.D. Middleton
Tyas, Richmond, Yorkshire.
Blomefield, Rev. Sir T. Eardley Wilmot, Bart. M.A.
Cantab. Incumbent of All Saints', Pontefract, York-
shire.
Boyce, Bev. W. B., F.R.G.S., 3, Angel Terrace, Brixton, S.
Braithwaite, Charles Lloyd, Esq. Manufacturer, Kendal,
Westmoreland.
t Braithwaite, Isaac, Esq. F.R.G.S. Assoc. I.N. A. 4, Glou-
cester Square, Hyde Park, W.
Brierly, 0. W. Esq. F.R.G.S. 8, Lidlington Place, Oakley
Square, S. W.
1 Brodie, Rev. James, M.A. Monimail, Cupar-Fife, N.B.
Brown, Robert, Esq. Solicitor and Registrar of County
Court, Barton-on-Humber.
Buckmaster, Thomas, Esq. 24, Nottingham Place, W.
459
Budgett, W. H. Esq. Merchant, Redland House, Bristol.
Bunting, Percy William, Esq. B.A. Barrister-at-Law,
10, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.
Burgess, Captain Boughey (late H.M. Indian Army),
Secretary to the Royal United Service Institution,
Whitehall Yard, S. W.
% Burnett, Charles Mountford, Esq. M.D. Grad. Univ.
of Aberdeen, Westbrook House, Alton, Hants. (Late
Vice-President, — deceased. )
Burnett, Montagu, Esq. M.A. Cantab. F. Cam. Phil. S.
F.R.M.S. Westbrook House, Alton, Hants.
Burrows, John M. Esq. 30, Alfred Place, Bedford
Square, W.C.
Butler, Charles E. K. Esq. Solicitor, 13, Onslow Square,
South Kensington, S. W.
Butler, Henry, Esq., H. M. Civ. Ser. Bexley House,
Blackheath, S.E.
Byrne, Oliver, Esq. Professor of Mathematics (formerly
Head Professor of Mathematics in College for Civil
Engineers, Putney), Ford Cottage, Birkbeck Road,
Thurton Park Road, Dulwich, S.
C.
t CABBELL, BENJAMIN BOND, Esq. M.A. F.R.S.
V.P.R.I. F.R.S.L. M.R.A.S. V.P.Z.S. F.R.H.S.
F.R.G.S. Bencher of the Middle Temple, J.P. and
D.L. for Middlesex, &c. &c. 1, Brick Court, Temple ;
and 52, Portland Place, W. (Vice- Patron.)
Campe, Rev. Charles, Minister of Christ Chapel, 14,
Northwick Terrace, Ma{da Hill, N.W.
Canham, Rev. Henry, LL.B. Cantab. Incumbent of
Ramsholt, Waldingfield, Woodbridge.
Carlisle, James, Esq. Enfield, Belfast.
460
CARNARVON, Right Hon. THE EARL OF, 66,
Latter Grostenor Street, W. ; Highclere Castle, near
Newbury, Berks; and Pixton, Somerset.
Carryer, S., Esq. 13, High Street, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Champneys, Rev. W. Weldon, M.A. (late Fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford), Canon of St. Paul's, 31,
Gordon Square, W.C.,
Chance, Edward, Esq. J. P. Lawn side, Malvern.
Chester, T. B., Esq. B.C.L. Solicitor, Addison Road., Ken-
sington, W.
Cheyne, R. R. Esq.F.R.C.S. En?. 27, Nottingham Place, W.
Chubb, John, Esq. Assoc. Inst. C.E. Radeliffe House,
Brixton Rise, S.
Clegg, Thomas, Esq. Liberian Consul, Memb. Institut
d'Afrique, &c. Cheetham Hill, Manchester.
Coane, Henry, Esq. Barrister-at-Law, Higginstown House,
Ballyshannon, Ireland.
Colebrook, John, Esq. M.R.C.S. Eng. late H.M. Madras
Army, 31, Moore Street, Chelsea, S. W.
Conway, Rev. William, M.A. Canon of Westminster, and
Rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, 17, Dean's
Yard, Westminster, S.W.
Corderoy, John, Esq. 3, Kennington Green, S.
* Cosens, Rev. W. Reyner, M.A. Oxon. el Cantab., Incum-
bent of Holy Trinity, Westminster, 10, Bessborough
Gardens, Pimlico, S. W.
Crawford, Major-General R. Fitzgerald, R.A. Erskine
House, Harrow, N. W.
Cripps, Rev. William R., B.A.Cantab. Priory Lodge, Old
Lent on, Nottingham.
Croome, Rev. T. B., M.A. Siston Rectory, Bristol.
Curtis, J. D. B. Esq. American Merchant, 4, Arenue
de V Imperatrice, Paris.
461
1).
Davis, Rev. James, Bruce Grove, Tottenham, N.
Davis, Rev. Weston B., M.A. Principal, Torquay Prepara-
tory College, Apsley House, Torquay. (Hon. Loo. Sec.)
Davison, Rev. M. 5, Lansdowne Place, Lansdowne
Road, Hackney, N.E.
Deacon, C, Esq. 5, Orsett Place, Westbourne Terrace, W.
* De La Mare, Rev. A., M.A. Cantab. Rector of St.
Thomas, Woolwich, S.E.
Duke, Rev. Edward, M.A. F.G.S. Lake House, Salisbury.
Duncan, James, Esq. Merchant, 6, Aldermanbury
Postern, E.G.
Duncan, William Aver, Esq. Woodlands House, Red Hill.
Dymes, D. D. Esq. Mincing Lane, E. C.
E.
f Elliott, William Henry, Esq. 10, Claremont Orescent,
Surbiton Hill, S.W.
Ellis, William Robert, Esq, M.A. Cantab. Barrister-at-
Law, 23, Carlton Villas, Maida Vale, W.
t English, Rev. W. W., M.A. South Tawton Vicarage,
Devon.
Eyre, Rev. C. J. Phipps, Rector of St. Marylebone, 20,
Upper Wimpole Street, W.
F.
* Fishbournc, Captain Edmund Gardiner, R.N. C.B. Vice-
President of the^ Royal United Service Institution,
6, Delamere Ttrrace, Harrow Road, W. ; 9, Conduit
Street, W. (Honorary Treasurer.)
462
Fleming, Rev. T. S., F.11.G.S. Assoc. Sec. Ch. Miss. Soc.
Retford, Notts. (Hon. Loo. Sec.)
Foljambe, Thomas, Esq. M.A. J. P. and Dep. -Lieut, for
the West Riding of Yorkshire, A comb, near York.
♦fFowler, Robert N. Esq. M.A. 50, CornhiU, E.G.
(Tbustbb.)
Fraser, James Alexander, Esq. M.D. Deputy Inspector-
General, Army Hospitals, Fort Pitt Howe, Rochester.
G.
Gailey, Alexander, Esq., Merchant, Harengey Park,
Hornsey, N.
Garbett, Rev. Edward, M.A. Oxon. Christ Church Par-
sonage, Surbiton Hill, S. W.
Garnett, William J. Esq. M.A. Oxon. Quernmore Park,
Lancaster.
Gedge, Sydney, Esq. M.A. Oxon. Solicitor, MitchamHall,8.
Gell, Rev. John Philip, M.A. St. John's, Notting Hill, W.
f Gladstone, John Hall, Esq. Ph.D. F.R.S. 17, Pembridge
Square, W.
Gl)n, Rev. Sir George L. Bart. M.A. Vicar of Ewett,
Surrey.
Goldie, Bruce, Esq. Russell Street, Chelsea^ S. W.
Goldsmith, Malcolm, Esq. H. M. Civ. Ser, 43, Addison
Road, Kensington, W.
* Gosse, Philip Henry, Esq. F.R.S. Sandhurst, Torquay.
(Vice-President.)
Grant, Captain Henry D., R.N. 4, St. Thomas's Terrace,
Charlton, S.E.
Gray, Thomas, Esq. H.M. Civ. Ser., Assoc. I.N.A. 9, St.
Martins Road, Stocktcell, S.
463
t Griffith, John, Esq. 6, Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park,
N.W.
Griffith, Lieutenant-Gen. J. G., R.A. Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Gwynne, William Oust, Esq. M.D. M.R.C.S. Edinburgh,
&c, Cilian-Ayron, Cardiganshire, via Carmarthen.
H.
Habershon, S. 0. Esq. M.D. F.R.C.P. 22, Wimpole
Street, W.
Hall, J., Esq. Merchant, Bondicar House, Blackheath,S.E.
Halsted, Rear- Admiral Edward Pellew, 74, Ebury St. S. W.
Hanson, Samuel, Esq. Merchant, 43, Upper Harley
Street, W.
Hardwicke, Robert, Esq. F.L.S. 192, Piccadilly, W.
Hare, Rev. Henry, A.B. Chaplain to the Forces, Win~
Chester.
Harper, James Peddie, Esq, M.D. Edin. Univ. M.R.C.S.E.
Clydesdale Villa, Windsor, Berks,
Harrison, Gibbs Crawfurd, Esq. H.M. Civ. Serv. 222,
Marylebone Road, N. W.
Haughton, Edward, Esq. M.D. Edin. M.RC.S.Eng.
A.B. T.C.D. Standish Villa, Great Malvern.
Heald, Henry G., Esq. 9, County Terrace, Camberwell, S.
Healey, Elkanah, Esq. Oakfield, Gateacre, Liverpool;
and "Engineer" Office, Strand, W.C.
Herford, Edward, Esq. Coroner for the City of Manchester,
Coroner's Court, Ridgefield, Manchester.
Hilliard, Rev. Joseph S., M.A. Oxon. Haven Green,
Ealing, W.
Hitchcock, Walter M. Esq. Australian Merchant, Corio
Villa, Bennett Park, Blackheath, S.E.
464
Hitchman, Rev. Richard (St Aidan's College), 3, Vincent
Terrace, Colebrook Row, City Road, E.
Hobson, Jesse, Esq. B.A. F.S.S. 48, Moorgate Street,
E.G.
Holms, John, Esq. 16, Cornwall Gardens, Queen's
Gate, W.
Holms, William, Esq. 9, Park Circus, Glasgow.
Hoole, Rev. Elijah, D.D. M.R.A.S. 8, Myddelton Square,
Pentonville, E.C.
Hoole, Elijah, Esq. 16, Craven Street, W.C.
1f Hopkins, Evan, Esq. C.E. F.G.S. 15, Clarendon Gardens,
Maida Vale, W. (Deceased.)
Horton, Captain William, R.N. United Service Club,
Pall MaU, S. W.
I.
f Ince, Joseph, Esq. Assoc. K.C.L. M.R.I. F.L.S. F.G.S.
&c. 26, St. George's Place, Hyde Park Corner, S. W.
* Ince, William H. Esq. F.L.S. F.R.M.S. F.RH.S. 27,
Thurloe Square, Brompton, S. W.
Ingle, John B. Esq. The Grove, Belmont Hill, Lee> Kent,
S.E.
Irons, Rev. William J., D.D.Oxon. Prebendary of St.
Paul's, Vicar of Brompton, Middlesex, S. W.
I vail, David, Esq. 15, Park Terrace, Brixton, S.
J.
James, Rev. John, Rector of Avington, Berks.
Jenkins, D. J. Esq. 6] , Marquis Road, Canonbury, N.
Jepps, Charles Frederick, Esq. Claremont Villas,
Streat/iam Hill, S.
465
Jobson, Rev. Fred. James, D.D. 21 r Highbury Place,
London, N.
Johnson, Rev. Edward, A Ibert Cottage, Mount Pleasant,
Newcastle-under-Lyme. (Hon. Loc. Sec.)
Johnston, D. W. Esq. Dalriada, Belfast.
K.
Kemble, Rev. Charles, M.A. Oxon. Rector of Bath, Vellore,
Bath, Somerset.
% Kirk, Rev. John, Professor of Practical Theology in the
Evangelical Union Academy at Glasgow, 1 7, Greenhill
Gardens, Edinburgh,
Knocker, Edward, Esq. Registrar of the Cinque Ports,
Castle-Hill House, Dover.
L.
Latham, John Alexander, Esq. Gem Engraver, 28, The
Grove, Hammersmith, W.
Lawrence, Major-General, A.S., C.B. Clapham Common, S.
Leask, Rev. W., D.D. Newington Green, N.
Lewis, Joseph, Esq. R.N. Southampton,
Lidgett, George, Esq. B.A. Univ. Lond. 11, Blackheath
Terrace, S.E.
* Lidgett, John J. Esq. B.A. Univ. Lond. 9, Billet er
Street, London, B.C.
Lloyd, B. S. Esq. Merchant, (Office) 2, Royal Exchange
Buildings, E.G.
' Lowe, George, Esq. C.E. F.R.S. F.G.S. &c. 9, St.
John's Wood Park, N. W.
Lowe, Rev. R. T. M.A. Cantab. Mem. Lisbon Roy.. Acad, of
Sciences, Cor. Mem. Z.S.L. Leu Rectory ], Gainsborough.
466
M.
Maberly, George, Esq. 23, St. Johns Wood Park, N. W.
Macaulay, Duncan, Esq. A.M. LL.D. (late U. S. Consul
at Manchester), Stonewall House, 25, St. Luke's Road
Villas, Paddington, W.
Macdonald, William, Esq. M.D. F.R.S.E. F.L.S. F.G.S.
F.A.S.L. Fellow of Royal ColL of Physicians, Edin-
burgh, Professor of Civil and Natural History. St
Andrews, N.B.
Manners, Rev. John, M.A.Cantab. 6, Victoria Park
Square, N.E.
Marsh, Rev. Sir W. R. Tilson-, M.A. Oxon. Oxford and
Cambridge Club, Pall Mall, S. JV.
Marston, Rev. Chas. Dallas, M.A.Cantab. Rector of
Kersall Moor, Manchester.
*fMcArthur, Alexander, Esq. F.R.G.S. F.A.S.L. Mer-
chant, Raleigh Hall, Brixton Rise, S. *
McArthur, William, Esq. Merchant, 1, Gwydyr House,
Brixton Rise, S.
McCausland, Dominick, Esq. Q.C. LL.D. 12, Fitzgibbon
Street, Dublin.
McClellan, Rev. John B., M.A.Cantab, (late Fellow of
Trin. Coll.), Bottisham Vicarage, near Cambridge.
(Hon. Loo. Sec.)
f McFarlane, Patrick, Esq. Comrie, Perthshire.
Medd, Rev. P. Goldsmith, M.A. Fellow, Dean, and
Tutor, Univ. Coll. Oxford, and Hon. Fellow King's
Coll. London, Oxford.
Merriott, Frederick, Esq. 17, Cambridge Road, Ham-
mersmith, W.
467
Miller, William V. Esq. R.N. H.M.S. Caledonia;
Albert ViUa,Mile End Road, Portsea, Hants.
Milner, Rev. John, B.A.Oxon. Chaplain R.N. H.M.S.
Galatea, and Hartley, near Brough, Westmoreland.
1f*Mitchell, Rev. Walter, M.A.Cantab. Hospitaller of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital, Vicar of St. Bartholomew the
Less, &?c. City. (Vice-Pbesident.)
Monckton, Lieut-Col. Hon. H. M. Howe Lodge, Wim-
borne, Dorset.
Moodie, George Pigot, Esq. Gov. Surv., J.P. Melsetter,
Pietermaritzburg, Natal.
* Morshead, Edward J. Esq. H. M. Civ. Serv. 164,
Euston Road, N. W.
Moule, Rev. Henry, M.A.Cantab. Vicar of Fordington,
Dorset.
N.
Napier, John, Esq. Ship-builder, Saughfield Home,
Glasgow.
Napier, Robert, Esq. Ship-builder, Glasgow ; West
Shandon, Dumbartonshire.
* Newton, Alfred V. Esq. F.A.S.L. C his wick Mall,
Chiswick, W.
Niven, Rev. William, B.D. Incumbent of St. Saviour's,
Chelsea, 5, Walton Place, Chelsea, S.W.
0.
* Ord, William M. Esq. M.B. Lond. Lecturer on Physiology
and on Comparative Anatomy, St. Thomas's Hospital,
Brixton Hill, 8.
* Owen, Rev. J. B., M.A.Cantab. Rector of St.*Judc's,
Chelsea, 40, Cadogau Place, Chelsea, S. W.
468
P.
Papengouth, Oswald C. Esq. F.R.G.S. Lieutenant Imperial
Russian Navy, 46, Russell Square, W.C.
Parker, H. T. Esq. F.R.G.S. 3, Ladbrohe Gardens,
Kensington Park, W.
PattOD, John, Jun., Esq. 11, Pembury Road, Lower
Clapton, N.E.
Payne, William, Esq. Guildhall, City, E.C.
Pears, Rev. Edmund W., M.A.Oxon. St Peter's Rec-
tory, Dorchester.
t PEEK, HENRY WILLIAM, Esq. J.P. for Surrey,
Wimbledon House, S.W. (Vice- Patron.)
Pennefather, Rev. William, A.B. 2, Mildmay Road, N.
If Penny, Edward Burton, Esq. Altamira, Topsham, Devon.
* Petrie, Captain Francis W. H. (late 11th Regiment),
F.R.S.L. F.G.S. Member Archaeological Institute,
Acacia Villa, Ladbrohe Road, W.
Petrie, Samuel, Esq. C.B. 113, Ebury Street, Pimlico, S.fV.
Powell, Walter, Esq. Merchant, 79, Lancaster Gate,
Upper Hyde Park Gardens, W.
Pratt, Henry F. A. Esq. M.D. M.RC.P.Lond. St
Cuthbert's, Hampton Park, Hereford.
Prideaux, Frederick, Esq. Barrister-at-Law, Reader on the
Law of Real Property to the Inns of Court, Castelnau
Cottage, Barnes, S. W.
Prothero, Thomas, Esq. F.S.A. M.R.I. Barrister-at-law,
36, Queen's Gardens, Hyde Park, W.
R.
Rainey, Arthur C. Teignmouth, Dccon.
469
Ratcliff, Charles, Esq. Wyddrington, Edgbaston, Bir-
mingham.
1f*Reddie, James, Esq. H. M. Civ. Serv., Hon. Mem. Dial.
Soc. Edin. Univ. Bridge House, Hammersmith, W.
(Honorary Secretary.)
Rigg, Rev. James H., D.D. Folkestone.
Robertson, Peter, Esq. H. M. Civ. Serv. 23, Porchester
Square, W.
Robey, John Hill, Esq. Mount Pleasant, Newcastle,
Staffordshire.
S.
Sadler, John Henry, Esq. 34, Norfolk Road, Brighton.
Sargood, F. J. Esq. Merchant, Broad Green Lodge,
Thornton Heath, S.
Scales, George J. Esq. Merchant, Guy Lodge, Warwick
Road, Upper Clapton, N.JBJ.
Scott, Rev. John, Principal, Wesleyan Training College,
Westminster.
Scott, Daniel Burton, Esq. Pietermariteburg, Natal
Selwyn, Captain Jasper H., R.N. Chequers Court, Tring,
Herts. {Messrs. Stilwell, 22, Arundel Street, Strand ',
Agents.)
Sendall, Rev. S., M.A.Cantab. Incumbent of Scampston,
Rillington, Malton, York.
Seymour, George, Esq. F.A.S.L. A.P.S. 94, Cambridge
Street, Pimlico, S.W.
•t SHAFTESBURY, the Right Hon. THE EARL OF,
K.G. 24, Grosvenor Square, W. (President.)
Shaw, E. R. Esq. B.A. Tube Hill School, Brixton, S.
Shaw, John, Esq. M.D. F.L.S. F.G.S., &o. Viatoris Villa,
Boston, Lincolnshire ; and Reform Club, London, S. W.
470
Shaw, Rev. William, 33, Walpole Street, Chelsea, S. W.
Shields, John, Esq. Church Street, Durham.
Silver, Hugh Adams, Esq. Manufacturer, Silvertown,
Essex.
Silver, Stephen W. Esq. Manufacturer, Bishopsgate
Street Within, E.G.
f Smith, Protheroe, Esq. M.D. M.R.I. 25, Park Street,
Grosvenor Square, W.
f Smith, W. Castle, Esq. F.R.G.S. M.R.I. Solicitor, 1,
Gloucester Terrace, Regent's Park, N. W.
Stalkartt, John, Esq. 5, Winchelsea Crescent, Dover.
Stewart, J. A. Shaw, Esq. 13, Queens Gate, W.
Stewart, William, Esq. of Glen Stewart, Prince Edward's
Island, 12, Cottage Road, Eaton Square, S.W.
Sudlow, John J. J. Esq. Solicitor and Parliamentary
Agent, 4, Westminster Chambers, Victoria Street, S. W.
Sutherland, P. C. Esq. M.D. M.R.C.S. Edin. F.R.G.S.
Surv. Gen. Pietermaritzburg, Natal.
T.
Thomas, William Cave, Esq. Historical Painter, 49,
Torrington Square, W.C.
^[♦Thornton, Rev. Robinson, D.D. Oxon. The College,
Epsom, S.E
Townley, Dr. James, L.R.C.P.Edin. F.R.C.S. Engl. 302,
Kennington Park Road, S.
Trestrail, Rev. Fred., Cler. Sec. Bap. Miss. Soc. F.R.G.S.
Stanmore Villa, Upper Norwood, S.E.
Tristram, Rev. Henry B., M.A. F.L.S. &c. Master of
Greatham Hospital, Greatham, Stockton-on-Tees.
Twells, Rev. Henry, M.A.Cantab. Head Master of the
Godolphin School, Hammersmith, W
471
Twells, Rev. John, M.A.Cantab. Prebendary of Lincoln,
Rural Dean, Rector of Gamston, Notts.
t Twells, Philip, Esq. M.A.Oxon. Darby House, Sunbury-
on- Thames, Middlesex, S.W.
Tyrel, John De Poix-, Esq. 42, Britannia Square, Wor-
cester.
V.
Vallack, Rev. B. W. S., B.A.Oxon. St. Budeauxs
Vicarage, near Plymouth
Vanner, John, Esq. Merchant {Coleman Street), Stamford
Hill, N. (Deceased.)
Vanner, James Englebert, Esq. Merchant, Stamford
ma, w.
* Vanner, William, Esq. F.R.M.S. Merchant, Stamford
Hill, jy.
Vickers, J. J. Esq. 3, Brixton-Hill Terrace, Brixton
Hill, S.
W.
* Waddy, Samuel Danks, Esq. B.A. Barrister-at-Law, 5,
Brick Court, Temple, E.C.
Waddy, Rev. S. D., D.D. 3, Chester Place, Kennington
Cross, S.
Walker, Thomas, Esq. Solicitor, Grafton Home, Upper
Mall, Hammersmith, W.
Walton, John W. Esq. Art., F.R.G.S. F.A.S.L. &c. &c.
Wickham House, Campden Hill, Kensington, W., and
26, Sarnie Row, W.
Ware, W. Dyer, Esq. 3, Richmond Place, Hereford.
^[*Warington, George, Esq. F.C.S. Apothecaries' Hall,
London, E.C.
West, William Nowell, Esq. 30, Montague Street, Russell
Square, W.C.
2 M
472
Wheatley, J. H. Esq. Abbey View, Sligo. (Hon. Loc. Sec.)
Whitley, Rev. J. L. 155, Bury New Road, Manchester.
Whitwell, Edward, Esq. Bank Field, Kendal, West-
moreland.
Wilkinson, Rev. T. W., K.C.L. 44, Lincoln's Inn Fields,
W.C.
Williams, Rev. John, M.A.Cantab. 11, Mecilenburgh
Square, W.C.
Williams, George, Esq. Merchant, 30, Wdburn Square,
W.C.
Wilson, Rev. D. F., M.A. Oxon. Vicar of Mitcham, S.
Wollaston, Thomas Vernon, Esq. M.A. F.L.S. &c.
1, Barnepark Terrace, Teignmouth.
♦fWoodhouse, Alfred J. Esq. L.D.S. M.R.I. F.R.M.S.
1, Hanover Square, W.
Wright, Francis Beresford, Esq: M.A.Cantab. J.P.
F.R.H.S. Aldercar Hall, Nottingham.
Wright, Rev. Henry, M.A. Oxon. Swamcici Parsonage,
Alfreton.
t Wright, J. Hornsby, Esq. 2, Abbey Road, Maida Hill,
N.W.
Wyman, C. W. H. Esq. 53, St. John's Park, Upper
Holloway, N.
Y.
Yorke, Alexander, Esq. Merchant, 91, Watling Street,
E.G.
Yorke, John, Esq. Merchant, 91, Watling Street, E.G.
1T Yonng, J. R. . Esq. late Professor of Mathematics, Belfast
College, Priory Cottage, Peckham, S.E.
Young, Rev. Charles, M.A. Cantab. 36, Sussex Square,
Brighton.
473
ASSOCIATES.
(1st class % — 2nd class || — Life Associates f in addition.)
|| Adam, Rev. Stephen C, M.A.Cantab. Assoc. Sec. for
Irish Missions, 5, Clifton Villas, Camden Square,
N.W.
|| Barker, Rev. Joseph H., M. A. Cantab. Aylstone Hill,
Hereford.
|| Bartlett, Mrs., Sussex Square, Brighton.
|| Bathurst, Charles, Esq. M.A. Lydney Park, Gloucester-
shire.
% Bathurst, Rev. W. A., B.A. St James's, Bristol.
X Baylee, Rev. Joseph, D.D. Principal of St Aidan's
College, Birkenhead.
X Benham, Daniel, Esq. 18, Regent Square, W.C.
|| Bickford, Lieut. A.K., R.N. H.M.S. Research, Channel
Squadron.
|| Broke, Miss, 4, Marlborough Buildings, Bath.
1 1| Carthew, Peter, Esq. 15a, Kensington Palace Gardens,
W. and Woodbridge Abbey, Suffolk,
|| Cather, Venerable John, A.M. Archdeacon of Tuara,
Rectory, West Port, Ireland.
|| Colan, Thomas, Esq. M.D. Surgeon R.N. H.M.S.
Malabar, Bombay, India.
Cowan, Rev. Ernest, B.A.Cantab., Assoc. Sec. C. & C. Ch.
Soc. Old Rectory, Bathampton, Bath. (Hon. Loc. Sec.)
2 m 2 •
474
t||Curteis, Mrs., Aldenham, St. James's Road, Tunbridge
Wells.
X Davies, Mr. D. R. 5, Cardiff Street, Aberdare.
|| Deane, Rev. Charles, D.C.L.Oxon. (formerly Fellow
St John's College), Wooherston Parsonage, Ipswich.
U Delpratt, W. Esq. M.R.C.S. National Club, Whitehall
Gardens, S. W.
|| Ensor, Thomas, Esq. Merchant, Milborne Port, Somerset.
X Fairfax, John, Esq. (Proprietor of Sydney Morning
Herald), Sydney, New South Wales.
X Fortescue, John F. Esq. (Christian Union Institute),
5, St. Mary Abbot's Terrace, Kensington, W.
X Gabriel, C. T. Esq. Norfolk House, Streatham, S.E.
|| Gardiner, Captain G. G., R.S.F. 11, Church Street, West-
minster, S.W.
|| Hamilton, William, Esq. M.D. L.R.C.S. Ireland, 12,
Abercromby Place, Edinburgh.
|| Harward, Mrs. (at Alfred Hooper's, Esq.) Worcester.
X Holmes, Rev. James I., M.A. &c. Baring Crescent,
Exeter.
X Hunt, Thornton, Esq. 26, Euston Square, W.C.
X Johnston, Miss, Dalriada, Belfast.
f || Kelly, John, Esq. C.E. (Geological Survey, Ireland),
Vice-President of the Royal Geological Society of
Ireland, 38, Mount Pleasant Square, Dublin.
475
|| Lingen, Charles, Esq. M.D. F.R.C.S.E. Surgeon Extraor-
dinary of the General Infirmary, Hereford, St. Owen
Street, Hereford.
|| Lucas, H. Walker, Esq. 21, Priory Road, Kilburn,
jsr.w.
1 1| Lycett, Sir Francis, Sheriff of the City of London,
2, Highbury Grove, N.
|| Newman, Edward Oakley, Esq. Memb. Geol. Assoc. Home
Cottage, Bexley Heath, Kent.
|| Nunes, W. A. Esq. H. M. Civ. Ser. 2, Hanover Villas,
Brook Green, W.
% O'Brien, The Honourable Mrs., Blatherwycke Park,
Wansford, Northamptonshire.
% Ranking, Rev. George, B.C.L. Cantab. Beulah Road,
Tunbridge Wells.
Salt, Mr. Thomas G., Chemist, 7, Downs Park Road,
Shacklewell, N.E.
|| Skrine, Rev. S., M. A. Southborough, Tunbridge Wells.
X Thornton, Rev. Samuel, M.A. Rector of St. George's*
142, Hockley Hill, Birmingham.
|| Vessey, Leonard Abington, Esq. The Elms, Northwood,
Hanley, Staffordshire.
|| Webster, Rev. W., M.A. late Fellow of Queen's College,
Cambridge, 3, Park Villas West, Richmond, S.W.
APPENDIX (B).
OBJECTS, CONSTITUTION & BYE-LAWS
or
€\t WuUxh Institute,
OB
|P^il08op^itaI Storietjj of (great $ritnn,
Adapted at the First Annual General Meeting of the Members
and Associates, held on Monday, May 21th, 1867.
§ I. Objects.
1. The Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society op
Great Britain, is established for the purpose of promoting
the following objects, viz. : —
First. To investigate fully and impartially the most important
questions of Philosophy and Science, but more especially
those that bear upon the great truths revealed in Holy
Scripture, with the view of defending these truths against
the oppositions of Science, falsely so called.
Second. To associate together men of Science and authors
who have already been engaged in such investigations,
and all others who may be interested in them, in order to
strengthen their efforts by association ; and, by bringing
together the results of such labours, after full discussion,
in the printed transactions of an Institution, to give
greater force and influence to proofs and arguments which
might be regarded as comparatively weak and valueless,
or be little known, if put forward merely by individuals.
Third. To consider the mutual bearings of the various scientific
conclusions arrived at in the several distinct branches into
which Science is now divided, in order to get rid of con-
tradictions and conflicting hypotheses, and thus promote
477
the real advancement of true Science; and to examine
and discuss all supposed scientific results with reference
to final causes, and the more comprehensive and funda-
mental prinoiples of Philosophy proper, based upon faith
in the existence of one Eternal God, who, in His wisdom,
created all things very good.
Fourth. To publish Papers read before the Society in further-
ance of the above objects, along with verbatim reports of
the discussions thereon, in the form of a Journal, or as
the Transactions of the Institute.
Fifth. When subjects have been folly discussed, to make the
results known by means of Lectures of a more popular
kind, to which ladies will be admissible ; and to publish
such Lectures.
Sixth. To publish English translations of important foreign
works of real scientific and philosophical value, especially
those bearing upon the relation between the Scriptures
and Science ; and to co-operate with other philosophical
societies at home and abroad, which are now or may
hereafter be formed, in the interest of Scriptural truth
and of real science, and generally in furtherance of the-
objects of this Society.
Seventh. To found a Library and Beading Rooms for the use
of the members and associates of the Institute, combining
the principal advantages of a literary Club.
§ II. Constitution.
1. The Society shall consist of Members, and of two classes
of Associates, who in future shall be elected as hereinafter set
forth.
2. The government of the Society shall be vested in a
Council, consisting of a President, two or more (not exceeding
seven) Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, one or more Honorary
Secretaries, and twelve or more (not exceeding twenty-four)
Ordinary Members of Council, who shall be elected at the
Annual General Meeting of the members and associates of the
Institute. But, in the interval between two annual meetings,
vacancies in the Council may be filled up by the Council from
among the other members of the Society ; and the members
chosen as Trustees of the funds of the Institute shall be
ex officio members of Council.
3. Persons desirous of becoming members or associates
478
shall make application for admission by subscribing the Form
A of the Appendix, which must be signed by two members of
the Institute, or by a member of Council, recommending
the candidates for admission as members.
4. Upon such application being transmitted to one of the
Secretaries of the Institute, the candidates for admission may
be elected by the Council and enrolled as members or asso-
ciates of the Victoria Institute, in such manner as the Council
may deem proper, having recourse to a ballot, if thought
necessary, as regards the election of members ; in which case
no person shall be considered as elected unless he have three-
fourths of the votes in his favour.
5. Application for admission to join the Institute being
thus made by subscribing Form A, as before prescribed, such
application shall be considered as ipso facto pledging all who
are thereupon admitted as members or associates to observe
the Rules and Bye-Laws of the Society, and as indicative of
their desire and intention to further its objects and interests ;
and it is also to be understood that only such as are professedly
Christians are entitled to be Members.
6. Associates may be admitted by the Council upon the
candidates making application on Form A, without their being
recommended for admission; and ladies shall be eligible as
associates.
7. The Council and Officers of the Society shall be chosen
from among the Members, who shall all be eligible to be so
elected.
8. Each Member shall pay an Entrance Donation of One
Guinea and an Annual Contribution of Two Guineas ; or by
the payment of Twenty Guineas at any time he may become
a Life Member.
9. No Entrance Donation shall be required from Associates.
10. First Class Associates shall pay an Annual Contribution
of Two Guineas each ; or by the payment of Twenty Guineas
each at any time they may become First Class Life Associates.
1 1 . Second Class Associates shall pay an Annual Contribution
of One Guinea each ; or by the payment of Ten Guineas each
at any time they may become Second Class Life Associates.
12. The Annual Contributions shall apply to the natural
year from 1st January to 31st December, and shall be con-
sidered as due in advance on the 1 st day of January in each
479
year; and they are to be considered payable within three
months after that date, or, in the case of new admissions,
within three months after election.
13. Any Member or Associate who contributes a donation
in one sum of not less than Sixty Guineas to the funds of the
Institute shall be enrolled as a Vice-Patron thereof, and will
thus also become a Life Member or Life Associate, as the case
may be.
14. Should Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, His
Eoyal Highness the Prince of Wales, or any other member
of the Eoyal Family, hereafter become the Patron, or a Vice-
Patron, or Member of the Institute, their connection therewith
shall be regarded as purely Honorary ; and none of the Rules
and Bye-laws relating to donations, annual contributions, or
obligations to serve in any office of the Society shall be con-
sidered as applicable to such Personages of Royal Blood.
15. Members or Associates may withdraw from the Society
at any time, by signifying their wish to do so by letter addressed
to one of the Secretaries, but they shall be liable for the con-
tribution of the year in which they signify their wish to with-
draw ; and they shall continue liable for their annual contribu-
tion until they discharge all sums due by them to the Society,
and shall have returned all books or other property borrowed
by them of the Society, or shall have made full compensation
for the same, if lost or not forthcoming.
16. Should there appear cause, in the opinion of the Council,
for the exclusion from the Society of any member or associate,
a private intimation may be made by direction of the Council,
in order to give such member or associate an opportunity of
withdrawing privately from the Society ; but, if deemed proper
by the Council, a Special General Meeting of members shall
be called for the purpose of considering the propriety of
expelling any such person, whereat, if eleven or more members
should ballot, and a majority of those balloting shall vote that
such person be expelled, he shall be expelled accordingly.
One month's notice, at least, shall be given to the members of
any such Special Meeting to be called for the purpose of
expelling any person from the Society, such notice to be given
as the Council may direct.
17. Non-resident members, associates, or other gentlemen
desirous of promoting the objects and interests of the Insti-
tute, may be elected by the Council to act as Corresponding
480
Members abroad, or as Honorary Local Secretaries, if within
the United Kingdom, under such arrangements as the Council
may deem advisable.
18. The whole property and effects of the Society shall be
vested in two or more Trustees for its use, who shall be chosen
at a General Meeting of the Society.
19. Members and Associates shall have the right to be
present, to state their opinion, and to vote by show of hands
at all General and Ordinary Meetings of the Society ; but only
Members shall be entitled to vote by ballot, when a ballot is
taken in order to determine any question at a General Meeting.
§ III. Bye-Laws (Privileges).
1. When members or associates are elected, they shall be
so informed, by having sent to them individually a printed
copy of the letter, Form B, in the Appendix.
2. Members or associates shall not be entitled to any pri-
vileges, or have the right to be present, or to vote at any of the
meetings of the Society, till they have paid the contributions
due by them.
3. Annual subscriptions shall be considered as in arrear,
if not paid on or before 31st March in each year, or within
three months after election.
4. Should any annual subscription remain in arrear to the
30th June, or six months after election, the Treasurer shall
cause to be forwarded to the member or associate from whom
the subscription is due, a letter, Form C, in the Appendix,
unless such member or associate reside out of the United
Kingdom ; in which case the Form C shall not be sent unless
the subscription continues unpaid till the 30th September, or
for three months later than above stated.
5. If the arrears are not paid within a year after they are
due, the Council shall use their discretion in erasing the name
of the defaulter from the list of members or associates.
6. Members and First-class Associates shall be entitled to
introduce two Visitors at the ordinary meetings of the Society;
and to have sent to them a copy of all the Papers read before
the Society, which may be printed as its Transactions or
otherwise, and of all other official documents which the Council
may cause to be printed for the Society ; they will also be
481
entitled to a copy of all such translations of foreign works
or other books as are published under the auspices of the
Society in furtherance of Object 6 (§ I.) ; during the period of
their being Members or Associates.
7. Associates of the Second Class may introduce one
Visitor at the Ordinary Meetings, and shall be entitled to all
the minor publications of the Society, and to a copy of its
Transactions during the period of their being associates, but
not to the translations of foreign works or other books
above referred to. It shall, however, be competent to the
Council of the Society, when its funds will admit of it, to issue
the other publications of the Society to Associates of the
Second Class, being ministers of religion, either gratuitously
or at as small a charge as the Council may deem proper.
8. When it shall be found necessary to send the letter,
Form C, to any of the members or associates who are in
arrear, as above explained (§ III. 4), the printed Papers and
other Publications of the Society shall cease to be sent to
them till their arrears are paid ; and, till then, they shall not
be allowed to attend any meeting of the Society, nor to have
access to its library, or to any public rooms which may be in
its occupation.
§ IV. Bye-Laws (General and Ordinary Meetings).
1. A General Meeting of members and associates shall be
held annually on May 24th (being Her Majesty's birthday,
and the Society's anniversary), or on the Monday following, or
on such other day as the Council may determine as most con-
venient, to receive the Report of the Council on the state of
the Society, and to deliberate thereon ; and to discuss and
determine such matters as may be brought forward relative
to the affairs of the Society ; also, to elect the Council and
Officers for the ensuing year.
2. The Council shall call a Special General Meeting of the
members and associates, when it seems to them necessary, or
when required to do so by requisition, signed by not less than
ten members and associates, specifying the question intended
to be submitted to such meeting. Two weeks' notice must
be given of any such Special General Meeting ; and only the
subjects of which notice has been given shall be discussed
thereat.
482
3. The Ordinary Meetings of the Society shall usually be
held on the first and third Monday evenings in each month,
from November to June inclusive,— or on such other evenings
as the Council may determine to be convenient; and a
printed card of the meetings for each session shall be for-
warded to each member and associate.
4. At the Ordinary Meetings, the order of proceeding shall
be as follows : — The President, or one of the Vice-Presidents,
or a Member of the Council, shall take the chair at 8 o'clock
precisely, — the minutes of the last ordinary meeting shall be
read aloud by one of the Secretaries, and, if found correct, shall
be signed by the Chairman ; — the presents made to the Society
since their last meeting shall be announced ; — the names of
new members and associates shall be read ; and any other
communications which the Council think desirable shall be
made to the meeting. After which, the Paper or Papers
intended for the evening's discussion shall be announced and
read, and the persons present shall be invited by the Chair-
man to make any observations thereon which they may wish
to offer.
5. The Papers read before the Society, and the discussions
thereon, fully reported, shall be printed by order of the Council ;
or, if not, the Council shall, if they see fit, state the grounds
upon which this Eule has been departed from, in the printed
Journal or Transactions of the Society. .
6. The Council may at their discretion authorize Papers of
a general kind to be read at any of the Ordinary Meetings,
either as introductory lectures upon subjects proper to be
afterwards discussed, or as the results of discussions which
have taken place, in furtherance of the 5th Object of the
Society. (§ I.) # .
7. At the Ordinary Meetings no question relating to the
Rules or General Management of the affairs of the Society
shall be introduced, discussed or determined.
§ V. Bye-Laws (Council Meetings).
1. The Council shall meet at least once every month from
November to June inclusive, or in any other month and on
such days as they may deem expedient. And the President or
any three members of the Council may at any time call a
Special Meeting, to which the whole Council shall be sum-
moned.
483
2. At Council Meetings three shall be a quorum; the decision
of the majority shall be considered as the decision of the
meeting, and the Chairman shall have a casting vote in case of
equality. '
3. Minutes of the proceedings shall be taken by one of the
Secretaries, or, in case of his absence, by some other member
present, whom the Chairman may appoint; which minutes
shall afterwards be entered in a minute-book kept for that
purpose, and read at next meeting, when, if found correct,
they shall be signed by the Chairman.
§ VI. Bye-Laws (Papers).
1. Papers presented to be read before the Society shall, when
read, be considered as the property of the Society, unless there
shall have been any previous engagement with its author to the
contrary ; and the Council may cause the same to be published
in any way and at any time they may think proper after having
been read. If a Paper is not read, it shall be returned to the
author ; and if a Paper is not published within a reasonable time
after having been read, the author shall be entitled himself to
publish it, and he may borrow it for that purpose.
2. When a Paper is sent to the Society for the purpose of
being read, it shall be laid before the Council, who may refer
it to one of their own body, or to some other member or
associate of the Society whom they shall select, for his opinion
as to the character of the Paper and its fitness or otherwise for
being read before the Society, which he shall state as briefly
as may be, in writing, along with the grounds of his opinion.
Should such opinion be adverse to the Paper and against its
being read before the Society, then it shall be referred to some
other referee, who is unaware of the opinion already pro-
nounced upon the Paper, in order that he may state his
opinion upon it in like manner. Should this second opinion
be also adverse to the Paper, the Council shall then consult
and decide whether the Paper shall be rejected or read ; and,
if rejected, the Paper shall be returned to the author with an
intimation of the purport of the adverse opinions which have
been given with respect to it ; but the names of the referees
are not to be communicated to him, unless with their consent,
or by order of the Council. All such references and com-
munications are to be regarded as confidential, except in so
far as the Council may please to dircet otherwise.
484
3. The Council may authorise Papers to be read without
such previous reference for an opinion thereon; and when a
Paper has been referred, and the opinion is in favour of its
being read in whole or in part, the Council shall then cause it
to be placed in the List of Papers to be so read accordingly,
and the author shall receive due notice of the evening fixed
for its reading.
4. The authors of Papers read before the Society shall, if
they desire it, be presented with twenty-five separate copies of
their Paper with the discussion thereon, or with such other
number as may be determined upon by the Council.
§ VII. Bye-Laws (General).
1. The government of the Society and the management of
its concerns are entrusted to the Council, subject to no other
restrictions than are herein iniposed, and to no other inter-
ference than may arise from the acts of the members in
General Meeting assembled.
2. With respect to the duties of the President, Vice-
Presidents and other Oflicers and Members of Council, and
any other matters not herein specially provided for, the
Council may make such regulations and arrangements as they
deem proper, and as shall appear to them most conducive to
the good government and management of the Society, and
the promotion of its objects. And the Council may hire
apartments, and appoint persons not being members of the
Council, nor members or associates of the Institute, to be
salaried oflicers, clerks or servants, for carrying on the neces-
sary business of the Society ; and may allow them respectively
such salaries, gratuities and privileges, as to them, the
Council, may seem proper; and they may suspend any officer,
clerk or servant, from his office and duties, whenever there
shall seem to them occasion; provided always, that every
such appointment or suspension shall be reported by the
Council to the next ensuing General Meeting of the members,
to be then confirmed or otherwise, as to such meeting may
seem good.
485
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486
FORM B.
Sir, 186 .
I have the pleasure to inform yon, with reference to
your application dated the , that you have
duly been elected a of the Victoria Institute, or
Philosophical Society op Great Britain.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your faithful Servant,
To Hon. Sec.
FORM C.
Sir, 186 .
I am directed by the Council of the Victoria
Institute to remind you that the Annual Contribution due by
you to the Society for the year is now six months
in arrear ; and I have to call your attention to the Bye-Laws
of the Institute, § III., pars. 4 and 8, and to request that you
will be good enough to remit to me the amount due (viz. £ )
by Post-office order, or otherwise, as early as possible.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Tour faithful Servant,
To Treasurer.
FORM D.
Form of Bequest.
I give and bequeath to the Trustees or Trustee for the time
being of The Victoria Institute or Philosophical Society op
Great Britain, to be applied by them or him for the purposes
of the said Society, the sum of £ , such sum to be
wholly paid out of such part of my personal estate as may be
lawfully applied to the purposes of charity, and in priority to
all other legacies. And I declare that the receipt of the
Trustees or Trustee for the time being of the said Society shall
be a good discharge to my Executors for the said legacy.
1
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