"Vestiges of the natural history of creation": its argument examined and exposed

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AS. /^^

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1.

A NEW SYSTEM OF LOGIC, and Development of the
Principles of Truth and Reasoning: applicable to Moral Subjects and
the Conduct of Human Life. Upon Christian Principles.

2.

THE RIGHTS of the POOR and CHRISTIAN ALMS-
GIVING Vindicated; or, The State and Character of the Poor, and
the Conduct and Duties of the Rich, Exhibited and Illustrated.

3.

PRINCIPIA : a Series of Essays on the Principles of Evil
manifesting themselves in these Last Times, in Religion, Philosophy,
and Politics.

«•«•

"VESTIGES

*0P

THE NATURAL HISTORY

OP

creations"

ITS ARGUMENT EXAMINED AND EXPOSED.

BY

S. R. BOSANQUET, ESQ.

' Oo, wond'roQS creature ! mount where science guides ;
Oo, measure earth, weigh air, and state tht tides ;
Instruct the planets in their orbs to lun ;
Correct old time, and regulate the sun.
Oo, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-
Then drop into thyself, and be a fooll"'-EssAT ON Man.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON :
JOHN HATCHARD & SON, PICCADILLY.

1846.

/iS. /^^

4 YESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

the maiden gem of truth and singleness oF purpose;
divorced from the sacred and ennobling rule and disci-
pline of faith. Without this^ philosophy is a wanton
and deformed adultress.

Before giving an outline of the scheme and theory
v^rhich is elaborated in the " Vestiges of Creation/' and
combating the evil tendency and intention of the work,
we think it right to show the depth and strength of the
poison to which we would provide an antidote ; and the
principles and conclusions to which these speculations
have brought their author ; or being first in the author'^
mind, have dictated the work, and animated the growth
of it.

The design of the work is to show that there has been
no such thing as creation, in the sense in which we re-
ceive it from the Mosaic History and Revelation ; that
there is no such thing as a Special Providence; that the
very notion of it " is ridiculous :" —

" For how can we suppose that the august Being, who
brought all these countless worlds into form by the
simple establishment of a natural principle flowing from
his mind, was to interfere personally and specially on
every occasion when a new shell-fish or reptile was
to be ushered into existence on one of these worlds ?
Surely this idea is too ridiculous to be for a moment
entertained." — (p. 165, 2d edition.)

No, the great truth which is to be received is, that
God made all things from eternity, even the infinity of
the universe, by one fiat ; since which. He has reposed,
and not interfered with the affairs or the order of Crea-

OF CREATION EXPOSED. O

tion; for this would be *' a mean view of Him." — (p.
164.) That the whole of what we call creation has been
only the development of this one first fiat, by Nature,
not by God ; — that the whole is resolvable into, and is
proved to be consistent only with " the doctrine of law-
creation,*' — (p. 176), "the general doctrine of an or-
ganic creation by law," — (p. 183) ;--that at every suc-
cessive stage of new orders of things and new existence,
the beings and things existing have always produced
the higher order of their successors, by natural gene-
ration.

We will not enter at present upon the merits of the
philosophy and the proofs, but will exhibit only their
end and open intention.

The denial is avowed and continually repeated of the
agency of a Special Providence. It is assumed to be
disproved, and that abundantly, by the analogical rea-
soning, and imaginative assumptions, by which the dis-
coveries of philosophy have been ingeniously put to-
gether, and the system built up, as we shall exhibit
presently. The perfect goodness of God also is freely
canvassed and impeached, as necessarily opposed by
this new and enlightened system.

" It will occur to every one, that the system here un-
folded does not imply the most perfect conceivable love
or regard on the part of the Deity towards his creatures.
Constituted as we are, feeling how vain our efforts often
are to attain happiness or avoid calamity, and knowing
that much evil does unavoidably befal us from no fault
of ours, we are apt to think this a dreary view of the

b YESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

Divine economy ; and before we have looked farther,
yre might be tempted to say, ' Far rather let us cling to
the idea so long received, that the Deity acts continually
for special occasions, and gives such directions to the
fate of each individual as he thinks meet ; so that when
sorrow comes to us, we shall have at least the consola-
tion of believing that it is imposed by a Father who
loves us, and who seeks by these means to accomplish
our ultimate good/ Now, in the first place, if this be
an untrue notion of the Deity and his ways, and that it
is so has been amply shown, it can be of no real benefit
to us ;" &c.— (p. 386— 7) *

With the usual inconsistency and false reasoning of
these sceptical writers, the author, while he professes to
exalt the greatness of the Deity by attributing to him

* In a third edition, \?hich has appeared, the author has omitted
this passage; together with thirty or forty pages besides: for some of
which he has introduced new matter. Of these omissions he has only
given the following notice, in a note at the last page but three of the
book ; —

** In the present edition a few alterations and omissions have been
made, either because of doubts which had entered my mind with
regard to the passages concerned, or merely because it appeared
advisable to remove out of the way illustrations or arguments which
had been made the ground of sweeping objections, while in reality
they were all but indifferent to the general question/'

The passages omitted, when quoted, will all be noticed ; from whicE
it will be seen how very few they are, and that they are indeed ^ all
but indifferent to the general question," at least of the sceptical inten-
tion of the author's argument. But it could hardly have been con-
ceived from this notice, that the author has actually taken out the
very key-stone of his argument, without which the whole connection
is broken and falls to pieces : as will be noticed at the proper place.

OF CREATIOK EXPOSED. 7

one aboriginal and all-suj£cient fiat, ascribes to the
machine so set in motion an imperfection both in exe-
cution and design, which essentially limits his goodness
and perfection, and denies his omnipotence.

" We there see" (in the view which has been given
of the constitution of nature) " the Deity operating in
the most august of his works by fixed laws ; an arrange^
ment which, it is clear, only admits of the main and
primary results being good, but disregards exceptions."
— (p. 365.) And again,

" It is clear, moreover, from the whole scope of the
natural laws, that the individual, as far as the present
sphere of being is concerned, is to the Author of Nature
a consideration of inferior moment. Everywhere we
see the arrangements for the species perfect ; the indi-
vidual is left, as it were, to take his chance amidst the
melee of the various laws affecting him. If he be found
inferiorly endowed, or ill befals him, there was at least
no partiality against him. The system has the fairness

Independently of this, by the loose and facile shifting of his ground,
and the adoption of new positions, upon matters which he had so
repeatedly asserted to be proved and demonstrated, the author has
deposed himself from the class of laborious philosophers to that of
every-day writers. He might seem, on this account, to have rendered
himself unworthy of a formal exposure. But as Four Thousand copies
of the book have been circulated, in the two former editions, and
there is peither extraction nor acknowledgment of the poison in the
present, it still seems to be necessary to furnish an antidote ; which
will fortunately ^nly be the more complete by means of the weapon
which the author has thus furnished against his own system, while at
the same time he still holds it up for further castigation.

8 VESTIGES OP THE KATURAL HISTORY

of a lottery, in which every one has the like chance of
drawing the prize/' — (p. 380.)

Of course in such a philosophy the doctrines of Re-
vealed Truth have not a place. Knowledge coming
from God himself is not worthy the name of truth and
iact; and is not to be placed beside, or in aid of, or op-
position to what are called phsenomena. Angel or devil
have no place, for evil or good, in such a system : not
even in the moral system. " War is produced," and
other crimes of course, not by the instigation of the
devil, but by "certain tendencies of human nature,
as keen assertion of a supposed right, resentment of
supposed injury^ &c. All of these are tendencies which
are every day, in a legitimate extent of action, producing
great and indispensable benefit to us. Man would be a
tame, indolent, unserviceable being without them, and
his fate would be starvation. War then, huge evil
though it be, is^ after all, but the exceptive case, a
casual misdirection of properties and powers essentially
good. God has given us the tendencies for a bene-
volent* purpose." — (p. 367 — 8.)

But in such a philosophy there is no admittance in
fact for any moral system. Still less is it possible that
there should be any room for the belief in a state of
probation, and the doctrine of future rewards and pu-
nishments. The object and use of man'^s pre-eminence
over the beasts, his use of reason instead of instinct, is
not his probation here, and his preparation for an here-
after ; but, it is said,

OF CREATION EXPOSED. ^

" Man's faculties might have been restricted to de-
finiteness of action, as i? greatly the case with those of
the lower animals, and thus we should have been equally
safe from the aberrations which lead to disease ; but in
that event we should have been incapable of acting to
so many different purposes as we are, and of the many
high enjoyments" [of a future state? — no, those] " which
the varied action of our faculties put in our power."
—(p. 373.)

In such a philosophy, the Holy Scriptures are either
set down to the level of ancient fables ; or, as being
directly opposed to it, are altogether rejected from
notice. The Bible is, in the following, either wholly
left unnoticed, or purposely levelled to the standard of
traditionary histories.

" There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the
probability of the comparative youth of our systen\,
altogether apart from human traditions, and the geo*
gnostic appearances of the surface of our planet." —

-(p. 22.)

Again, in the following, the revelation of God's will
is either intentionally denied, or natural evidence and
religion is placed upon an equal footing of value with
revealed doctrine.

" These are words which God speaks to us as truly
through his works, as if we heard them uttered in his
own voice from heaven." — (p. 386.)

And lastly, in the following words, the whole esti-
mate of the value of revealed truth, as contained in
Holy Writ, stands plainly professed*

b5

10 TESTIGES OF THE NATITBAL HISTORY

" Thus we give, as is meet, a respectful reception to
what is revealed through the ifiedium of nature, at the
same time that we fully reserve our reverence for all
we have been accustomed to hold sacred, not one tittle
of which it may ultimately be found necessary to alter."
— (Last page.)

In this the Deist stantte avowed, and openly confessed.

And what is the calibre and depth of the philosophy
which takes such high ground, and supports doctrines
and views which may be so set beside, and weighed in
the scale against divine revelation ?

This treatise lays claim to the rank and character of
the high philosophy: — whose data are of the most un-
questionable evidence, or agreement; whose proofs are
of the most perfect deduction ; and whose conclusions
are of the most exact application and extent, and
definite object. This treatise claims at least to be a
fresh recruited regiment of philosophical principia.

But we observe a difference between the manner of
JTewton, in the form and nature of his proofs, and the
manner of our author. Newton was the most skilful
and precise experimenter of his age, the most handy
manipulator and mechanist, the most accurate observer;
and he was able and careful to do everything for him-
self. His proofs and self-performed calculations are
before us, and are thought good of even by this figure-
loving, calculating-machine making, and self-admiring
age. But all the sections of our author's closely printed
book of 394 pages contain not one discovery, or cal-
culation, or proof, or experiment of his own; or the

mt^

OF CBBATXON EXPOSED. 1 1

Terification of an experiment. All its materials might
be culled from such manuals and easy and popular
treatises as The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philo-
sophical Mag. (p. 6), Lardner's Cyclopeedia (p. 12),
Cours de Philosophic Positif (p. 18), Papers read to
the British Association (p. 162), Todd's Cyclopeedia
(p. 170), Encyclopaedia Britannica (p. 182), etc.

To such a mind, on such a subject, and with such an
object, such authorities and materials are no doubt «8
good as original works, and the most abstruse calcula-
tions. We ourselves should at least look for the most
exact demonstrations, and the highest order of proof,
when Revealed Truth was to be dethroned ; for such a
comparison, and the testing of such truths, must lie in
accuracy and nice discrimination. But here we have
conjectures where we might look for calculations,
hypotheses for experiments, analogies for demonstra-
tions; and some of these analogies and illustrations
show such a liberty and looseness, such a poetry, if not
puerility, of mind, as place these tracings of the vestiges
of God's footsteps in the lowest scale of philosophical
musings: where philosophy mingles with essay and
fable and fireside conversation, and lecture room ex-
hibitions, and polytechnic experiments, ad captandum
little children.

This was not the manner of Newton; consistently
with the difference of his ambition and object. The
same word, philosophy, ought not to characterize and
comprehend these excursive and balloon-like soarings,
and Newton's measured, direct, and limited investiga-

12 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

tionsy his careful experiments, his close and conclusive
deductions, his majestic analyses. Even his Corollaries
are only modest and timid enquiries whether direct
experiments and calculations may not henceforth de-
monstrate some certain physical facts, which he looked
to as probable; not assumptions of facts and phe-
nomena, and assertions of laws, not yet ascertained :
much less the dictation of moral laws, the connection
and dependence of which on physical must at least be
a matter of the nicest and truest discernment; or the
denouncement of revealed doctrine and rule^ upon the
faith of truths which philosophy is to establish here-
after. Newton's Corollaries are consistent with his just
views of the province and powers of philosophy, and
his estimate of his own attainments, when he declared
that to others he might seem to have discovered much,
and dived deeply into the depths of nature and truth,
but that " to himself he seemed only like one who was
wandering /on the sea-shore, and picking up here a
brighter pebble and there a prettier gem, while the
whole ocean of truth lay unfathomed before him/'

We have not even another Newton in the philosopher
of the Vestiges. But unless we should have something
pre-eminently greater ; unless we should know every-
thing, and every step and relation, and these with
exact measure and perfect accuracy,— how can we ever
fit and frame together for ourselves, and unite the moral
government of God with the physical, so as to demon-
strate their mutuality and dependence, to improve and
correct, to approve and deny, to review, dispose, to

I

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 13

narrow and re-arrange what God himself has sparingly
made known to us.

Let us examine how iar our author has qualified him-*
self even to lay down physical laws for God's work in
creation.

In obedience to his plan and object, which is, to
establish that all the works of creation have been
gradual and progressive, through countless millions of
ages, and were ordained by one primeval fiat of God
from the beginning, co-existent with matter, since
which He has not interfered, or operated by any fresh act
or law, physical, intellectual, moral, or spiritual, — this
system traces all, — from the crude unformed rudimental
basis of matter to the intelligent mind, the body and
soul of man, with all his attainments and aspirations
and moml capabilities, — to the existence of matter, and
the operation of two laws. Gravitation and Develop-
ment, with which it was endowed from the beginning ;
and even these, it is surmised, may be proved eventually
to be but one law in two branches.

" The sum of all we have seen of the physical con-
stitution of man is, that its Almighty Author has de-
stined it, like everything else, to be developed from
inherent qualities, and to have a mode of action de-
pending solely on its own organization. Thus the whole
is complete on one principle. The masses of space are
formed by law ; law makes them in due time theatres
of existence for plants and animals ; sensation, disposi-
tion, intellect, are all in like manner developed and

14 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

sustained in action by law. It is most interesting to
observe into how small a field the whole of the my-
steries of nature thus ultimately resolve themselves.
The inorganic has one final comprehensive law, gravi-
tation. The organic, the other great department of
mundane beings, rests in like manner on one law, and
that is, development. Nor may even these be after all
twain, but only branches of one still more comprehen-
sive law, the expression of that unity which man*s wit
can scarcely separate from Deity itself." — (p. 361 — 2.)*
Matter, it is assumed, was originally in a nebulous
state, much thinner than vapour, and pervaded all space.
Gravity caused it to congregate towards diflPerent centres
or nuclei, of which our own solar system is one very
insignificant instance. When matter aggregates to-
wards a centre, it causes itself to rotate ; therefore, our
whole system, and each portion of it has a rotary mo-
tion. The only proofs or instances of this are, that wa-
ter forms into whirlpools in flowing towards an orifice ;
and the whirlwind. Rotary motion gives rise to centri-
fugal force ; and therefore, at certain times, some bodies
of matter are thrown off from the general mass, while
the rest continues its progress towards the centre. Thus
the primary planets were formed, and left behind ; in
like manner they threw ofi* or left behind their secon-
daries. The cooling of the general mass is the cause
of all this, heat retiring into the sun. The planets may

* In the third edition, ** The expression of a unity, flowing imme-
diately from the One who is First and Last"

1

- J

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 16

be masses crisped and congealed by cold i which there-
fore ceased to follow the general gravitation. The
farthest planet was formed first ; and it continues the
rate of motion at which the general mass was rotating
when it was lefl behind. And so of the rest in order.
The distances of the planets from the sun are nearly in
exact geometrical order. All the bodies of our system
rotate in the same direction, except the satellites of the
Georgium Sidus, which reverse the direction.

Now no weight is given to this exception, as throwing
any doubt on the theory. No, as the theory is more
worthy than the proofs, the proofs must bend to it ;
and it is only suggested that these satellites probably
over-shot themselves, ** owing to a bouleversement of the
primary," and so got somehow turning themselves over
in the opposite direction. — (p. 9, note). No observation
or admission is made, that congregating matter only
rotates just as it approaches towards the centre ; and it
is never thought of, or suggested, that both in the
whirlpool and the whirlwind, the gyration is caused by
the fluid passing, not to the centre, but through it and
away from it; in the whirlpool downwards through the
place of exit, in the whirlwird upwards to where the
vacuum has caused the rapid aggregation. But the
supposed nebulous matter only flows towards the centre,
and there remains without exit, or further destination. It
is easy to show that the same causes which occasion the
whirlpool could not operate here, and would produce
no such effect. At all events, the conditions are entirely
different.

16 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

No suggestion is made why the heavenly bodies
should be left behind at exact geometrical distances.
No excuse is given why heat should aggregate towards
the sun for ages, abstracting itself from the universe ;
and should now nevertheless be momentarily and un*
ceasingly leaving it, repaying to each part what it for-
merly robbed them of.

One peculiarly simple and triumphant proof of the
exact identity and uniformity of all bodies in infinite
space, is furnished in the universality of light ; the
existence of which alone must be sufficient to establish
the uniformity of all beings, at least in the matter of
eyes. "Where there is light there will be eyes, and
these, in other spheres, will be the same in all respects
as the eyes of tellurian animals, with only such differ-
ences as may be necessary to accord with minor pecu-
liarities of condition and of situation.'* — (p. 165.)

Now Dr. Wollaston was a very considerable philo-
sopher; as great, at least, as the philosopher of the
Vestiges. And he had discovered, that there were sounds,
both so high and so low, that the human ear could not
perceive them. But people's ears differed ; and though
some sounds were inappreciable by all, yet some persons
could hear sounds which others could not. And he
used to carry very minute pipes in his pocket, by which
he amused himself in testing the capabilities of hearing
in different people's ears. He conjectured that insects,
&c., heard sounds which our ears were unable to appre-*
ciate. This itself makes some little inroad upon the

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 17

argument^ that what exists must be appreciated by the
senses of all beings. Furthermore, philosophers have
concluded that insects and other animals have means
and organs of communication and mutual intelligence,
and instinctive sensibilities, which we have no experience
of. Does our author suppose angels to apprehend by
the sense of sight, because light is everywhere and
around them ^ or is he a true Sadducee, and denies the
existence of either angel or spirit? Is it a weaker phi-
losophy than his, to suppose that there may be elements
and agencies around us and among us, of which we
have no knowledge, or for which we have no organs of
apprehension, but for which there may be oi^ans of ap-
prehension or instinctive sensibility in other beings,
either of a higher or a lower intelligence ?

Having thus formed the earth, and summarily ad-
judged that all other worlds are alike, —indubitably, as to
their general constitution and structure, and the generic
characters of their inhabitants: probably also, as to
their varieties and species, (p. 165); our author travels
through all the empires and kingdoms, and preadamite
successions and dynasties of Radiata, Mollusca, Articu-
lata, Pisces, Reptilia, Aves, Mammalia, which geology
reveals to us. This is smooth and well trodden ground ;
and the system gets almost into a full galloping trot,
so that you feel it has well nigh run away with you,
and that there is no chance of stopping it. When,
lo ! man presents himself on the scene : — the great end of
the race, the climax of the theory, the great pheeno-

18 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

menon ; and we must either ride through him, or over
him.

But such a leap is not to be accomplished at the end
of a long heat ; so that perforce we must rein in again ;
and re-gathering all our strength^ and recruiting our
courage, and making our ground good and firm for such
a spring, we may come to this crowning effort with
perfect certainty of success.

The usual observation is made, that 6od*s ways are
not as our ways ; and that Moses must have meant that
a thousand years were as one day, in relating the six
days of Creation ; — for though the confutation of Scrip-
ture history and doctrine is evidently the intention and
object of the present work, yet with the invariable in-
consistency of all such philosophers, our author seeks
to disarm or lull the kindlings of faith by some feeble
reconcilements, or rather to show the flourish of candour
and indifference, by a generous exercise of philosophical
ingenuity on what some little minds may hold sacred
and dear to them.

We are concerned only, in reference to this argument,
to show that Moses really intended what his readers of
old, and for more than forty centuries, believed him to
have written and intended; that he must either be
believed or denied by those who weigh his evidence
against the lights of philosophy ; and that there is no
such easy and ambiguous way of getting over the in-
spired text. The author of the Vestiges says, that God
issued one fiat from eternity, since which He has never
worked any new creation, or performed any special

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 19

operation or act. And he says^ that the days of Moses'
creation are as thousands of years, or as still longer and
more incalculable periods. But still they are periods,
and measures of time ; and in each of them God is said
to have worked ; and after the sixth of them Qod is said
to have rested. How, if God worked only in the be-
ginning of all, is he consistent with Moses, who says
that he worked six days and then rested ? or, how, if
in concurrence with his philosophy, did not Moses write,
that God rested on the first day, and not on the seventh ?
Our author 'attributes no work to God, since the very
beginning, which He is not equally performing at this
present period.

He is also, like others, constrained to pass over con-
fusedly, and with little notice, that interruption of the
parallelism which geologists would establish between
the fossil remains and the Mosaic order of creation — in
respect of the class, birds ; which in the Mosaic record
are made contemporary with the fishes: at a period,
nevertheless, when the dry land was separated from
the ocean.

Having brought together, with no ordinary ability
and ingenuity, and exhibited in one view the interesting
phaenomena which geology unfolds to us, of the constant
succession and progression of the orders and classes of
organized matter, according to a regularly ascending
scale of vegetable and animal life, corresponding with
the regular succession of strata in the order of supei*posi-
tion, — the gradual appearance of higher orders and
genera, — the addition of new species, the cessation of

20 VESTIGES OP THE NATURAL HISTORY

others, — the fossil record of some species which, ac-
cording to the principles of comparative anatomy, seem
to be identical with some of those which are now ex-
isting on the earth — the infinite number and variety,
and the nice differences of these species, — the author
proceeds : —

*^ A candid consideration of all these circumstances
can scarcely fail to introduce into our minds a somewhat
different idea of organic creation from what has hitherto
been generally entertained. That God created animated
beings, as well as the terraqueous theatre of their being,
is a fact so powerfully evidenced, and so universally
received, that I at once take it for granted. But in the
particulars of this so highly supported idea, we surely
see cause for some reconsideration. It may now be
inquired. In what way was the creation of animated
beings effected ? The ordinary notion may, I think, be
not unjustly described as this, — that the Almighty au-
thor produced the progenitors of all existing species by
some sort of personal or immediate exertion. But how
does this notion comport with what we have seen of
the gradual advance of species, from the humblest to
the highest ? How can we suppose an immediate exer-
tion of this creative power, at one time to produce
zoophytes, another time to add a few marine mollusks,
another to bring in one or two Crustacea, again to pro-
duce crustaceous fishes, again perfect fishes, and so on
to the end ? This would surely be to take a very mean
view of the Creative Power — tOy in short, anthropo-
morphize it, or reduce it to some such character as that

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 21

borne by the ordinary proceedings of mankind. And
yet this would be unavoidable; for that the organic
creation was thus progressive through a long space of
time^ rests on evidence which nothing can overturn or
gainsay. Some other idea must then be come to with
regard to the mode in which the Divine Author pro-
ceeded in the organic creation. Let us seek, in the
histoiy of the earth's formation, for a new suggestion
on this point. We have seen powerful evidence, that
the construction of this globe and its associates, and
inferentially that of all the other globes of space, was
the result, not of any immediate or personal exertion
on the part of the Deity, but of natural laws which
are expressions of his will. What is to hinder our
supposing that the organic creation is also a result of
natural laws, which are in like manner an expression
of his will ? More than this, the feet of the cosmical ar-
rangements being an effect of natural law, is a powerful
argument for the organic arrangements being so like-
wise, for how can we suppose that the august Being
who brought all these countless worlds into form by
the simple establishment of a natural principle flowing
from his mind, was to interfere personally and specially
on every occasion when a new shell-fish or reptile was
to be ushered into existence on one of these worlds?
Surely this idea is too ridiculous to be for a moment
entertained." — (p. 153—5.)

Again, " The mere solitary commencement of species,
which would have been the most inconceivably paltry
exercise for an immediately creative power, are sufEci-

22 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

ently worthy of one operating bylaws/' — (p. 161.) And
farther, '' Is it conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise
for creative intelligence, that it should be constantly
moving from one sphere to another, to form and plant
the various species, which may be required in each
situation at particular times ?" — (p. 162.)

It would be wonderful, were it not that the will al-
ways gives the weight to argument, that this extremely
shallow reasoning against the agency of a special pro-
vidence should have been so often repeated. But we
never recollect to have seen it more boldly and blas-
phemously stated, or more persistingly followed up.

It is open to the readiest answer; and, indeed, it
almost answers itself.

It is asserted that it is a mean view of the Deity to
consider that He " works hitherto," and is engaged
continually or from time to time in the creation and
disposal of particular beings and events ; that it attri-
butes to Him a littleness and weakness, a paltry pursuit
and object, such as assimilates Him with weak and frail
men ; that it anthropomorphizes Him ; that an eternal
repose and inaction, and contemplation of his own
works, from the beginning, the results of his one pri-
meval fiat, is more noble and dignified, more worthy of
the great Ruler, the great Governor, the great Func-
tionary of the social order of the universe.

It is more dignified, to the human ruler and governor,
so to enjoy seasons of repose and remission from busi-
ness ; to have so disposed and ordered every department
of his office, that the course of it may proceed, while he

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 23

himself retires for relaxation and enjoyment; because
rest, and remission from the necessity of labour, is the
desire and ambition of man, and of all men : and this,
because of his infirmity and weakness. It would be the
triumph of a machinist to invent a perpetual machine ;
because it would increase his powers, and give him the
opportunity of repose and inaction, or of some more
agreeable occupation or labour, while his once accom-
plished work would continually supply him with bread.
But to a finite being alone, who is capable of fatigue,
and can do but one thing well at once, can remission
from work be an object, or choice or change of occupa-
tion ? To attribute any desire to God for repose, is to
attribute human parts and conditions and feelings to
Him. This is to anthropomorphize Him.

It is remarkable that the illustration given by our
author, is that of a '^ public functionary," who has it in
charge to attend to a multitude of afiairs, and who aC"
cordingly so arranges his plans, and orders the details
of his office, that the lesser matters may be conducted
by his inferiors in office, while he himself undertakes
the greater, or retires to some repose.— (p. 158.) Is not
this to anthropomorphize the Deity ?

Whereas, what is worthier the omnipotent God, than
to work continually, in all time, and in all places, every-
where ? He is Almighty : it is no toil to Him to frame
the Leviathan, and the thunder, and the whirlwind. He
is All-bountiful ; and he can fashion the feeble insect for
beauty and enjoyment, the animalcules and the infusoria.
He is Omniscient ; and He can without effort observe

24 VESTIGES OF THE KATUBAL HISTORY

and number every hair, and name every star, and exa-
mine every word and thought, and every place for a new
plant, or insect, or angel in his universe. He is Omni-
present ; and he can do all these things everywhere and
at once, at one moment of time, and in every place in his
creation.

'* It is He that baildeth his stories in the heaven,
and hath founded his arch in the earth ; and turn-
eth the shadow of death into the morning, and
maketh the day dark with night ; who calleth for
the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon
the face of the earth : — The Lord is his name."
(Amos.)

But our author says that it is not fitting for creative
intelligence that it should be constantly moving about
from sphere to sphere, to form and plant the various
species, &c. — thus denying his ubiquity ; and by this he
seeks to exalt and magnify the Deity ! No : this is to
blaspheme Him ; and it has no other intention. This is
to anthropomorphize Him.

But man is now about to enter upon the scene ; and
his first appearance is ushered in with the promulgation
of a law of creation — a branch of the great law of con-
tinuity and development ; to which, as there is only one
law for all time and place, man himself also must be
subject.

** A human foetus is often left with one of the most
important parts of its frame imperfectly developed : the
heart, for instance, goes no farther than the three-cham-
bered form, so that it is the heart of a reptile. There
are even instances of this organ being left in the two-

/f

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 25

chambered or fish form. Such defects are the result of
nothing more than a failure of the power of development
in the system of the mother, occasioned by weak health
or misery, and bearing with force upon that sub-stage
of the gestation at which the perfecting of the heart to
its right form ought properly to have taken place.
Here we have apparently a realization of the converse
of those conditions which carry on species to species, so
far, at least, as one organ is concerned. Seeing a com-
plete specific retrogression in this one point, how easy
it is to suppose an access of favourable conditions suffi-
cient to reverse the phaenomenon, and make a fish mother
develope a reptile heart, or a reptile mother develope a
mammal one." As easy as to suppose that, because a
stocking-frame sometimes produces a very bad stocking,
therefore it may sometimes produce a good pair of
breeches. *^ It is no great boldness to surmise, that a
super-adequacy in the measure of this under-adequacy
(and the one thing seems as natural an occurrence as
the other) would suffice in a goose to give its progeny
the body of a rat, and produce the ornithorynchus, or
might give the progeny of an ornithorynchus the mouth
and feet of a true rodent, and thus complete at two
stages the passage from the aves to the mammalia.
Perhaps even the transition from species to species does
still take place in some of the obscurer fields of creation,
or under extraordinary casualties, though science pro-
fesses to have no such facts on record." — (p. 219— 20.)
We must revert back to the theory of the first produc-

c

26 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

tion of animal life, for the sake of bringing this whole
system into one view.

''The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form of all
organization, we must regard as the meeting-point
between the inorganic and the organic— the end of the
mineral and the beginning of the vegetable and animal
kingdoms."— (p. 204.)

Here then is the turning-point, the essential and car-
dinal link between the animate and inanimate creation.
Let us see whether, and how far, our philosopher makes
it good.

" The fundamental form of organic being," as far as
it has been discovered by microscopical examination, '' is
a globule, having a new globule forming within itself,
by which it is in time discharged, and which is agaiq
followed by another and another, in endless succession."
. . . . " Now it was announced some years ago by a
French physiologist, that globules could be produced in
albumen by electricity. Ify therefore, these globules
be identical with the cells which are now held to be re-
productive, it might be said that the production of albu-
men by artificial means is the only step in the process
wanting." — (p. 173.)

So, then, upon the faith of microscopical observa-
tion being able to penetrate no farther than the produc-
tion of a globule, it knows not how — and which is unable
to distinguish between the ovum of a mammal (which is
afterwards developed into an ox, an ape, or an elephant)
and the (developed) young of the infusory animalcules,
(p. 1 72)— and the quondam announcement of a nameless

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 27

French physiologist,* that globules could be produced by
electricity in albumen ; and an " i/" these globules be
identical with cells (or nucleated vesicles) which are re-
productive, &c. ; and another *' i/*" albumen can be pro-
duced by artificial means : it is concluded, and ever
afterwards taken as ** proved," "amply shown," as
spoken to us by God, " as truly through his works, as if
we heard them uttered in his own voice from heaven"
— "that the first step in the creation of life upon this
planet was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple
germinal vesicles were produced." — (p. 206.)

We cannot follow the author through all his details,
and display all his ability and ingenuity, and artful
plausibility in the use and management of the many
curious phsenomena which he has industriously brought
together, without making such another book. We can
' only endeavour to extract from and represent him faith-
fully. But the rest of his conclusions follow easily from
the above principia. That,

In the stage from inorganic to organic existence and
life, as well as in every previous change in the mineral
creation, " The first step was an advance, under favour
of peculiar conditions, from the simplest forms of being
to the next more complicated, and this through the
medium of the ordinary process of generation ,'' — (p. 206.)

" The simplest and most primitive type, under a law
to which that of like-production is subordinate, gave
birth to the type next above it, that this again produced

* Two names, those of Prevost and Dumas, are inserted in the
3rd edition.

c2

28 VESTIGES OP THE NATURAL HISTORY

the next higher, and so on to the very highest." ....
" Thus, the production of new forms, as shown in the
pages of the geological record, has never been anything
more than a new stage of progress in gestation, an event
as simply natural, and attended as little by any circum-
stances of a wonderful or startling kind, as the silent
advance of an ordinary mother from one week to another
of her pregnancy." — (p. 223 — 4.)

We arrive at the now anticipated conclusion, that
man has had no actual or specific creation ; but was
produced from the lower animal kingdom by the natural
process of generation, one species of animal giving
birth to another, " until the second highest gave birth
to man, who is the very highest." — (p. 236).

Accordingly, man is believed " to have originated
where the highest species of the quadrumana (monkeys)
are to be found," namely, " in the Indian archipelago."
—(p. 298).

Any notion or feeling that this theory is degrading
would show an "unkindliness towards the lower animals,
which is utterly out of place." " Why should they
(the brutes) be held in such contempt ? Let us regard
them in the proper spirit, as parts of the grand plan,
instead of contemplating them in the light of frivolous
prejudices, and we shall be altogether at a loss to see
how there should be any degradation in the idea of our
race having been genealogically connected with them."
—(p. 237).*

♦ In the 3rd edition, — " As parts cf a grand plan, which only ap-
proaches its perfection in ourselves, and we shall see no degradation

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 29

Sex, even, is only a phaenomenon of natural develop-
ment : — the female being only an exactly similar being
and organization, stopped in her progress towards be-
coming a male ; — because the queen bee in a hive is
brought to perfection, by the assiduities of the hive, in
sixteen days, while it takes twenty days for the neuters
to come to maturity, and twenty-four days for the
males. From this it would seem intended to be under-
stood that the females, males, and neuters are the same
larvae, only in different stages of development; and he
quotes Kirby and Spence for these facts, who never
dreamed of any such use of them. He furnishes his
own answer and contradiction ; for he acknowledges
that " there is, at the period of oviposition, a destined
distinction between the sexes of the young bees ;" that
" the queen lays the whole of the eggs which are de-
signed to become workers (or neuters) before she begins
to lay those which become males," (p. 217) ; and that it
is only the workers or neuters which are imperfect fe-
males, (p. 215), and capable of becoming perfect females
or queen bees, having their ovaries developed by the
extra warmth, and peculiar food and care applied to
them by the other bees. So there is no warrant for
asserting, or ground for supposing, that the neuter
larvsB could, by any prolongation of their period of
maturity, ever become males. And is this philosophy ?

The author throughout his argument displays similar

in the idea of our generic connexion with them, but, on the contrary,
reason incontestable for treating them in the manner which we already
feel that a high morality demands."

1

1

30 VESTIGES OF THE NATUBAL HISTORY

carelessness, or artifice, in the use of his facts, and
inconsistencies in his reasonings ; and exhibits the
Hsual amount of credulity and measure of puerilities so
eminently characteristic of the writers of sceptical phi-
losophies. He is an ingenious arguer, but a shallow
philosopher.

In support of his theory of transmutations, he is ready
to believe, on the authority of an article in the Maga-
zine of Natural History, that oats sown in the spring,
and kept cropped down during the summer and autumn,
will produce a crop of rye in the following year from
the same roots and seed. — (p. 222).

He conceives the earth still to retain an intense
central heat, from the original state of all matter ; and
though it has been continually cooling from the begin-
ning of time, that '' the central heat has for ages
reached a fixed point, at which it will probably remain
for ever.''— (p. 42-^3).

Again, to suit the status of Saturn, he supposes it^
the second formed planet, according to his system, still
to retain so much heat as to account for its substance
being no denser than cork. — (p. 31).

He says (pp. 49, 50) geology tells us that in the ori-
ginal state of our globe " there were vast irregularities
in the surface ;" — " there were enormous granitic moun-
tains, interspersed with seas which sunk to a depth
equally profound, and by which perhaps the mountains
were wholly or partially covered." And, on the con-
trary, (p. 160—1), he states, that "Marsupials," one
of the earlier forms of animal existence, "appear at

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 31

the time when the surface was generally in that flat,
imperfectly variegated state in which we find Australia/
And ^* it was not till the land and sea had come into
their present relations, and the former, in its principal
continents, had acquired the irregularity of surface ne-
cessary for man, that man appeared."

In page 138 he says, " that if a sudden thaw of the
circumpolar ice were to set free a large flood of water,
the southward flow of this deluge, joined to the direc-
tion which it would obtain from the rotatory motion of
the globe, would of course produce that compound or
south-easterly direction which the phsenomeiia require."
Whereas, under the above circumstances, from the
operation of the causes suggested, the flow of water
would, " of course," be south-westerly instead of south-
easterly, and westerly by the time it reached the equa-
tor ; being the same direction as that of the trade-
winds, which are occasioned by the operation of the
very same causes.

So we have not to follow an infallible demonstrator
and guide. We have not a Newton,

Our author sets aside Lamarck's theory, — "that one
being advanced in the course of generations to another,
in consequence merely of its experience of wants call-
ing for the exercise of its faculties in a particular direc-
tion, by which exercise new developments of organs
took place, ending in variations sufficient to constitute
a species :" as a bird might become web-footed by being
forced to seek its food in the water, and as animals
acquire colour, shape and instincts suited to their ne-

32 YESTIGBS OF THE NATURAL BISTORT

cessities and place and climates^ — as '' obviously so in-
adequate to account for the rise of the organic king-
doms, that we can only place it with pity among the
follies of the wise.*'* — (p. 233). But he does not perceive
that his own theory is supported upon a still infirmer
basis, or even has less of fact and reasoning to warrant
it.

But there is one branch of the argument, with respect
to the position of man in the ranks of creation, to
which we must give a somewhat more lengthened at-
tention. There is a certain complex system of analogies
by which all the parts of the animate creation may be
classed into corresponding groups or families. Macieay^
Vigors and Swainson are the three naturalists who have
laboured in the department of these analogies, and have
endeavoured to reduce them to a system. Wherefore
the author of the Vestiges has grappled with this great
theory. Whether for the further proof of his own sys-
tem ; or for the mere sake of revelling in any thing
which promises system and theory; or whether be-
cause, being of universal ambition and appetite, he is
resolved to bring this also within his embrace, and to
use or conquer it, as it may turn out most possible or
convenient; or whether to show his extensive know-
ledge and attainment; whether any or all of these
may be the motive, he at all events resolves to try a
fall with it. And having so resolved, he addresses him-
self to the form before him manfully. Whether for foe
or friend it is not easy, or it matters not to determine.

* The last line is omitted in the 3rd edition.

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 33

Macleay has concluded that each and all the king-
domSy classes, orders, tribes, families, sub-families, down
to genera and species, may be reduced and arranged into
five relations and analogies. These five relations form
a circle, the last of them approaching again to the
first ; and so these five specific relations form the com-
plete group in the particular department of animate
nature in which they are brought together. For ex-
ample, the animal kingdom is divided into five sub-
kingdoms — the vertebrata, aunulosa, radiata, acrita,
mollusca. (N. B. — One of these is changed, and ano-
ther is invented for the occasion.) Again, the sub-
kingdom of the vertebrata is composed of five classes —
the mammalia, reptilia, pisces, amphibia, and aves.
And so forth.

Further, these five members of each division and ar-
rangement have specific and corresponding characters.
This is thus instanced in the aves. The class aves has
five orders — insessores (perching birds), raptores (birds
of prey), natatores (swimming birds), grallatores (wa-
ders), rasores (scrapers). And according to the law just
mentioned, the scrapers, that is scratching fowls, come
round in the circle, and approach to the insessoreSy that
is, they are domestic, and men eat them. The several
members of these groups are otherwise distinguished
and designated, according to their organic characters
and degrees of perfectness, as the typical, sub-typical,
natatorial, suctorial, rasorial orders ; corresponding re-
spectively to the same five characteristics, — the typical
being the most perfect in its organism and character,

c 5

34 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

and therefore the best representative of the whole class.
These same characters reappear in every group, from
the highest to the lowest. Thus in dogs, the bull-dog
and mastiff represent the second or ferocious type ; the
water-dog the natatorial ; the greyhound, the third, or
grallatorial ; the gentle spaniel and the shepherd's dog,
the rasorial or domestic. The variety corresponding to
the perchers is not exemplified, but we presume that it is
to be found in the setters and pointers.— (p. 238, &c.).

Thus far Macleay ; and we see nothing surmised by
him in support of the great system and theory.

Mr. Swainson endeavours to ascertain the several
grades which exist in the classification of animals : in
each of which this fivefold division is to be expected
to exl^bit itself; and in tracing down the line through
the Avds, he finds that there are nine grades: the
kingdom, sub-kingdom, class, order, tribe, family, sub-
family, genus, sab-genus, or species.

Tracing down again the class Mammalia, Mr. Swain-
son exhibits the fivefold orders which it includes, ac-
cording to the Macleay system, and places the qua-
drumana as the typical or perching order. He then
takes the quadrumana, and, according to the same
system, divides it into five tribes.

And now our expectation is raised to the highest
pitch. We are looking to the ultimate object and
climax, which is man ; and we are ready to ask with
our author, ^^ What place or status is assigned to man in
the new natural system 1 " Parturiunt mantes. We are in
pain for the birth of this ultimate proof and demonstra-

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 35

tion. When, behold, nascitur abortium. Mr. Swainson
pronounces the simiadse to be *' a complete circle, and
argues thence that there is no room in the range of
the animal kingdom for man." — (p. 267).

This now is a great deal too much for philosophical
endurance. Our author vents his virtuous indignation
against the treasonous violation of the rights of philo-
sophical analogy. As he before considered the argu-
ment, that God worked out his plans by specially
directing the hands and wills of his creatures as instru-
ments, " a dangerous kind of reasoning," (p. 160); so
now he considers the suggestion of a single breach in
the universality of any one of nature's analogies to be
a downright impiety, and worthy of his most religious
reprobation. Accordingly he turns his whole wrath
and tirtue against Mr. Swainson.

Some one or two of the nine grades of Mr. Swainsoa
are sometimes found wanting. What a pity ! " This is
much to be regretted, as it introduces an irregularity
into the natural system, and consequently throws a
difficulty and doubt in the way of our investigating it."
(p. 266). Mr. Swainson, who alone has given a review
of the animal kingdom on the Macleay system, " unfor-
tunately writes on this subject in a manner which ex-
cites a suspicion of his judgment." — (p. 267). But then,
with regard to Mr. Swainson's decree, that "man is
not a constituent part of any circle," and his view of
" our race as standing apart, and forming a link between
the unintelligent order of beings and the angels," after
sundry reflections and notes of wonder, he concludes.

36 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

" but any serious argument on a theory so preposterous
may be considered as nearly thrown away." — (p. 267-8.)

Man shall have a place in this new natural system,
because it is philosophical and theoretical ; and there-
fore the author of the Vestiges proceeds to find or
make him one. " I shall, therefore," he says, *' at once
proceed to suggest a new arrangement of this portion
of the animal kingdom, in which man is allowed the
place to which he is zoologically entitled." — (p. 268-9).

Authorities and facts are well as long as they assist
and support our theories ; but when they run counter,
why, the theory is the more worthy, and the phseno-
mena must be altered ; the facts must be remodelled
and re-arranged to suit, andHhe authorities must be
omitted. Of course the necessary arrangement is easily
made, the pattern of it being at hand in the ready formed
theory, and the workman having no experiences or ob-
servations of his own to make difficulties in the exe-
cution.

" The place which man is entitled to ! " His title is,
that '^ the human constitution is merely a complicated
but regular process in electro-chemistry," (p. 372) ; and
that " the difference between mind in the lower animals
and in man is a difference in degree only ; it is not a
specific difference." — (p. 338). The privilege which he
obtains thereby is, that he is withdrawn from his place
as a link between the unintelligent order of beings and
the angels, and more properly associated in the myfetic
circle of philosophy and nature, with the monkeys, the
bats, the lemurs, and the cebidae.

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 37

Mr. Swainsoii divides the order quadrumana into the
Typical .... SimiadsBy (Monkeys of the Old World).
Sub-typical . . Cebidse, (Monkeys of the New World).
Natatorial . . Unknown.
Suctorial . . . VespertilionidflB, (Bats).
Rasorial .... Lemuridse, (Lemurs).

The author of the Vestiges rejects the order Qua-
drumana^ and substitutes that of Cheirotheria, or hand-
animal. He then divides this order into the tribes,

Typical Bimana.

Sub-typical Simiadae.

Natatorial VespertilionidsB.

Suctorial Lemuridse.

Rasorial Cebidse.

" Here man is put into the typical place, as the
genuine head, not only of this order, but of the whole
animal world. The double affinity which is requisite is
obtained, for here he has the Simiadss on one hand,
and the Cebidae on the other. The five tribes of the
order are completed, the vespertilionidae being shifted
(provisionally) into the natatorial place, for which their
appropriateness is so far evidenced by the aquatic habits
of several of the tribe, and the lemuridse into the sucto-
rial, to which their length of muzzle and remarkable
saltatory power are highly suitable. At the same time,
the simiadsB are degraded from the typical place, to
which they have no sort of pretension, and placed
where their mean character seems to require ; the eebidee
again being assigned that situation which their compa-
ratively inoffensive dispositions, their arboreal habits.

38 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

and their extraordinary development of the tail^ (which
with them is like a fifth hand); render so proper." —
(p. 269—70).

So the fifth hand brings the Cebidae round again in
the circle to the nearest relation to the two-handy-
man ! And this; though the Cebidae are found in the
New World, which is productive of the lower classes of
animals ; and in page 298 he says, that the highest
species of the quadrumana are to be found in the Old
World, in the Indian Archipelago, and from these he
expressly supposes man to have derived his origin.
Much notice or comment upon this new arrangement
cannot be wanted, or upon the excuses made for it.
But a comparison between it and Mr. Swainson's,
sliowing the convenient and provisional substitutions
and shiftings, furnish a good specimen of the wide
latitude which philosophical analogies afford for accom-
modation to all theories and systems.

We have one crowning analogy and confirmation,
which is found in the pre-eminence of the crow above
all other classes and orders of birds, and puts him in a
striking relation to man as the highest and typical genus
of his class and family.

" The crow," says Mr. Swainson, (here we have the
author and Mr. Swainson at friends again), ^^ the crow
unites in itself a greater number of properties than are
to be found individually in any other genus of birds ;
as if in fact it had taken from all the other orders a
portion of their peculiar qualities, for the purpose of
exhibiting in what ma,nner they could be combined.

OP CREATION EXPOSED. 39

From the rapacious birds, this * type of types', as the
crow has been justly called, takes the power of soaring
in the air, and of seizing upon living birds, like the hawks,
whilst its habit of devouring putrid substances, and the
picking out the eyes of young animals, is borrowed from
the vultures. From the scansorial or climbing order, it
takes the faculty of picking the ground, and discovering
its food when hidden from the eye, while the parrot
family gives it the taste for vegetable food, and fur-
nishes it with great cunning, sagacity, and powers of
imitation, even to counterfeiting the human voice."
(" Never say die." But crows will die at last, though
singularly long lived ; which is another analogy between
man and this his prototype). '' Next come the order of
waders, who impart their quota to the perfection of
the crow, by giving it great powers of flight, and perfect
facility in walking, such being among the chief attri-
butes of the suctorial order. Lastly, the aquatic birds
contribute their portion, by giving this terrestrial bird
the power of feeding, not only on fish, which are their
peculiar food, but actually occasionally of catching it." —
(p. 272—3).

Now all this is ridiculous in the extreme. But it is

sublimely so when we come to the crowning climax, ia
the comparison of the crow with man, as to their rela-
tive status.

"To fill worthily so lofty a station," — among the
mammalia, as the crow does amongst the aves, — " Man
alone is competent. In him only is to be found that
concentration of qualities from all the other groups of

40 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

his order which has been described as marking the
corvidaB. That grasping power, which has been selected
as the leading physical quality of his order, is nowhere
so beautifully or so powerfully developed as in his
hand. The intelligence and teachableness of the simiadsB
rise to a climax in his pre-eminent mental nature. His
sub-analogy to the feras is marked by his canine teeth,
and the universality of his rapacity ; for where is the
department of animated nature which he does not with-
out scruple ravage for his gratification? With san-
guinary, he has also gentle and domesticable dispositions,
thus reflecting the characters of the ungulata, (the
rasorial type of the class), to which we perhaps see a
further analogy in the use which he makes of the sur-
face of the earth as a source of food. To the aquatic
type his love of maritime adventure very readily assimi-
lates him ; and how far the suctorial is represented in
his nature it is hardly necessary to say." Surely not,
since every one must at once recollect, with fellow
feeling, his infantine aptness and fondness for mother's
milk, his manly for tobacco, and his youthful for
lollipops.

There is one more analogy between the crow and the
man which could hardly have escaped this omnivora-
cious analogizer. There is a propensity both in crows
and in philosophers to strut ; and this is so prominent
an analogy, that it has passed into a proverb,-— and
proverbs are wonderfully productive and probative of
philosophical analogies, — it has passed into a saying
among parish school-boys, when they see a conceited

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 41

philosophic coxcomb marching along the street, — " Sir,"
says the little boy from the opposite pavement: — " What
do you say to me, sir, interrupting my thoughts," says
the pedant. — " Why, sir, I was only saying, that you
strut like a crow in a gutter." But the author has made
some reference to this, in the crow's capacity for walk-
ing. There is also another likeness, in man's ability to
live everywhere, from the equator to the pole, in town
and country, from the cellar to the garret ; and in his
powers of eating in all manners, and every kind of
thing.— (p. 273—4.)*

Having thus probed the depths of our author's philo-

* The 3d edition has omitted nine pages, from p. 244 to 253, and
fifteen pages, from 264 to 278 ; and the passages, therefore, which
have been just quoted from those places, {n place of the nine former,
two pages and a half have been substituted, in which this authoritative
philosopher partially reconciles himself to Mr. Swainson ; doubts the
quinarian system, upon which he before founded himself; and makes
a near approach to Lamarck's theory, of species being advanced by
wants and adaptation, which he before placed " with pity among the
follies of the wise." With respect to the omission of the whole of the
latter fifteen pages, which professed to assign the exact status of man
in this quinarian system, we said too much, in a former note, when
we said that the author had taken out the key-stone of his arch, since
he retains the grand principle of man's generation from the brute
creation. But this status of man is one stone, next to the key-stone,
in the circle of this great theor}\ And what ought we to think of a
system of nature, which professes to be so exactly and perfectly linked
and fitted in all its parts that it may be put in opposition to revealed
truth and religious belief, and from which, at the same time, one part
may be subtracted, and another altered or substituted, at will, and
without a new proof, or remark, and to satisfy a change of fancy.
** From nature's chain whatever link you strike.
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike."

42 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

sophy^ though we have not brought up all the ore into
view, and tested it in detail, or proved the polish and
glitter which he has given to it by elaborate ingenuity
and laborious puerilities; we may now venture, without
apprehension, to present a sketch of the superstructure,
and the conclusions physical and moral, which are the
end and object of the work ; not fearing that many
Will feel disposed to venture themselves under the roof
and shelter of a building which has such a foundation.
But it is almost too bold even to repeat such blasphe-
mous denials of those truths which the revealed Word
of God has consecrated.

With impious candour and indifference he regards it
as " an open question, whether mankind is of one or of
many origins." — (p. 298.) His congener Niebuhr, though
of the " typical" order of philosophers as compared with
our present author, who is but an "aberrant," concluded,
contraiy to our author's inclination, that the different
races of men had different origins ; because he did not
hold the Bible at the value of an ordinary historical
authority.

" Man in the mass," even in his " moral affairs " and
dealings, " is a mathematical problem." — (p. 333.)

*' Free will in man is nothing more than a vicissitude
in the supremacy of the faculties over each other." —
(p. 351.)

" Man is a piece of mechanism," (p. 367); — we have
seen before that his physical constitution is an electro-
magnetic machine ; — and again, in his intellectual, error
is only an irregularity in the operation of his thirty fa-

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 43

culties. — (p. 366.) And now, in fine, in his moral
and religious constitution and relations, '' the wicked
man is one whose highest moral feelings are (only)
rudimental. Such differences are not confined to our
species ; they are only less strongly marked in many of
the inferior animals. There are clever dogs and wicked
horses, as well as clever men and wicked men."—
(p. 363.)

" There are beings, whose organization is such that
they unavoidably become malefactors." It is " the
criminal type of brain" which is the cause of this.
** God does not make criminals :" but ^' the criminal
type of brain comes into existence in accordance with
laws which the Deity has established.'' — (p. 358.)

And now we approach to the application of this prin-
ciple, which it will be well for legislators and political
philosophers to ponder and consider. Crime has been
concluded to be only a necessary aberration from the
generally good and virtuous operation of nature's laws.
Why then should it be punished ? That it should be so
is manifestly unjust and tyranical, and a violation of
enlightened reason, and our " faith " in philosophical
laws. As reason advances, and philosophy takes its
proper place in politics and legislation, it is manifestly
designed that crime should no longer be punished, and
that offenders ought only to be the subject of pity and
care and condolence.

" Where the mass was less enlightened or refined,
and terrors for life or property were highly excited,
malefactors have ever been treated severely. But when

44 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

order is generally triumphant, and reason allowed sway,
men begin to see the true case of criminals— namely,
that while one large department are victims of erroneous
social conditions, another are brought to error by ten-
dencies which they are only unfortunate in having in-
herited from nature. Criminal jurisprudence, then, ad-
dresses itself less to the direct punishment than to the
reformation and care-taking of those liable to its atten-
tion. And such a treatment of criminals^ so that it stop
short of affording any encouragement to crime, (a point
which experience will determine,) is evidently no more
than justice, seeing how accidentally all forms of the
moml constitution are distributed,'' &c. — (p. 361.)

In agreement with this, it is reasoned, that unhappi-
ness is the necessary consequence of any breach of the
laws of wisdom and morals ; from which it is left to be
inferred that this natural correction of evil is sufficient,
and that every criminal ought, properly and justly, to
be left only to this self-punishment. — (p. 384 — 6.)

Oh, that this might open the eyes of those, at least,
who are not the masters but the disciples only in this
false philosophy : — both those who, suffering themselves
to be reasoned out of their sacred abhorrence of sin, be-
lieve that crime is not proper to be punished but to be
pitied ; and those who, studying mind too habitually in
its connection with the brain's material organism, are
led on and enticed to identify morals with mechanism,
and the propensities to sin with " the criminal type of
the brain :" — to see and believe amidst what dangers
they are navigating ; and with what companions they

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 45

are consorting in their voyage ; and whence the current
flows which brings them into these vortices; and whither
the end must be, and whither it will whirl them, if they
continue their course, and under the same convoy. Let
them see how intimately and entirely these things are
blended together, and how essentially these conclusions
depend upon this style of philosophy.

The philosophic spirit is at all times unsettling and
uncongenial to the humble and believing spirit; but
this " faith " in philosophy, this devotedness to its dic-
tates, this belief in its " revelations," and the sacrifice
and service of all things elsewhere derived, and held
sacred, to its omnivorous ambition and appetite, is the
grossest and most grievous of all idolatries.

Philosophy is the most subtle serpent that poisons
and saps the spiritual mind, and fascinates the consci-
ence. It rears its head with human front and voice,
and syren sweetness of address and invitation ; while
other idols exhibit their bestial foulness to only ordinary
discernment. It invites at once, by its most honied
sweetness, to the most tasteful, and to the bitterest
fruit. Philosophy is the fruit of man's reason. The
exercise of man's independent and unassisted reason is
rationalism. Such philosophy and such reason are the
foe to faith. Reason is man's empire : Faith is God's.

It matters not that a Socrates and a Newton have
drawn out the conclusion of their own ignorance and
weakness. Thousands of minds, such as are the minds
of the thousands, have come to the contrary conclusion ;
and each of these great souls admitted and used the

46 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

guidance and direction of a greater and a holier spirit.
Riches properly estimated and used have taught to
some their worthlessness. Strength duly exercised,
has shown to some their weakness. Experience of
high place and station^ has taught to some their
real littleness ; and- that in moral worth and force of
character, there is a greater power and pre-eminence
than in all these. But this does not forbid that, in the
multitude of instances, power leads to an oppressive
and tyrannical spirit; place, to pride and conceit; the
enjoyment of wealth, to a trust in riches. And so
reason and philosophy in the many cases, and whenever
it is free and uncontrolled, leads to rationalism, and
man's dependence on his own wisdom, and over trust
in himself.

Reason is the root of unbelief and heresies. And it
matters not that heretics war with and defeat each other,
and that Gibbon and Volney furnish the strongest
weapons against unbelief. Volney and Gibbon sowed
more seeds of infidelity than they have uprooted ; and
Others which root up their noxious weeds, will set others
as poisonous and deadly in their turn.

Philosophy is ever planting new theories of error and
unbelief. And what matters it that philosophy finds
out the antidote for the poison, and cures at length the
disease in some of the many whom it has brought to
the door of death and of perdition. — ^That the author of
the '' Vestiges" denounces and confutes Lamarck's
theory, and '^ places it with pity among the follies of
the wise;" that he philosophically disputes Niebuhr's

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 47

pbilosopfay, which pronounced that there must have
been many original races of men. The author leaves
two more deadly stings where he eradicates one ; and
every hydra's head which he beats down^ is increased
and multiplied.

It has been always the pretension of reason to inter-
pret God's works, and to reduce them to the operation
of causes and instruments which man can know and
appreciate; and to employ himself, if need be, in the pro-
duction of the same effects, in prospect and possibility
at least, if not in present use and act.

And it seems to be the design and intention of
God, that man should be subject to temptation upon
this point. It is an especial field of trial and probation,
and for the exercise of his faith. Reason is man's pro-
vince, and faith is God's. In every work of God, there
is something for reason to lay claim to, and there is
something also for faith to vindicate to itself.

In the miracles of the Old Testament, God appears
to have used the natural causes and instruments which
tended towards the event; so far as they could be
available to produce it. The Red Sea was divided by
a wind ; the east wind brought the locusts ; the magi-
cians found means to turn their rods into serpents ;
refraction might cause to recede the sundial of Ahaz.
And more than this, God seems to have expressly
offered and presented the trial to faith, and the door of
escape to unbelief, in dividing the sea by night, when
the eye of reason could not examine it ; in the exists
ence of a natural dewy manna, which distils from the

48 TESTIOES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

trees or heavens, and melts witb the sun, in the shrubby
Arabia ; in the likeness of the fire and smoke^ and
trumpet sound, on Mount Sinai, to the eruptions of vol-
canoes ; and of Korah's swallowing up in the opening
mouth of the ground, to an earthquake.

In all these there is a handle for unbelief to take hold
of; there is also a subject for the exercise of faith.
And what is the proper right and claim of each ? Faith
lays claim even to the working of the natural cause
and instrument, and vindicates the whole to God.
Reason magnifies the office of the natural and ordinary
power, and arrogates to it the entire operation^ and
resolves all into a coincidence. What is the proper so-
lution of this cause and controversy ? Undoubtedly
this. That all those causes were totally inadequate to
the production of the event. Undoubtedly they ope-
rated according to their natural power, in assisting
towards the conclusion; but there was some other
power and process concealed, by which, keeping it in
his own knowledge and disposition, God himself com-
pleted the wondrous work, and gave it its use and effect.
No other such wind ever divided the Red Sea, or brought
such locusts ; no other serpent swallowed up all his
rival serpents at once, still remaining as before; no
refracting power of the air has brought the sun back
ten degrees at a prophet's prayers or promise. No such
manna fit for food is found attendant upon travellers in
the Deserts of Arabia Petraea ; and no crater of a vol-
cano or traces of volcanic eruption are discovered upon
Mount Sinai. All these causes are weak and insuf-

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 49

ficient. Man sees the beginning and the end ; but he
cannot bring these together, or supply the intermediate
links, or trace the operation from the cause to the
effect.

" No man can find out the work that God maketh
from the beginning to the end." (Eccles. iii. 11.)

This is the right and first canon of philosophical inter-
pretation. Whosoever does not begin with this rule, and
end with this conclusion, philosophizes falsely, and is for
ever being led away towards man-worship and scepticism.
We have seen this to be the case in the miracles which
we used by way of example. It is equally so in all the
ordinary affairs of life, and the operations of nature.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth;" we hear its
sound, and see its progress and effect ; we can observe
also some of the processes which give occasion to its
most regular motions. But who has succeeded yet in
tracing the exact cause which occasioned any change of
weather or wind, so as to discover its first rise, and to
show the limit of its course, and extent of its effect ;
much less to predict the period of calm, and the place
of the tornado.

Much more this is the case in the mind of man.
Parentage and education, and circumstances, and the
constitution of the brain^ may give a character and a
bias, and a stronger impulse in some particular direc-
tion ; but the application of this bias, and its extent,
and its results in good or evil, are beyond the limit of
philosophical examination ; and we cannot trace it from
the beginning to the end. More hidden than the birth

D

60 TESTIOES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

and ways of man are the birth and ways of the Holy
Spirit.

The author of the " Vestiges " furnishes examples
enough to illustrate this point.

" Parity of conditions," he says, " does not lead to
a parity of productions." — (p. 265). Where then is the
sufficiency of philosophy ?

" No physical or geographical reason appearing for
this diversity (of species), we are led to infer that it is
the result of minute and inappreciable causes." — (p.260).
Where, then, is the triumph of philosophy again ?

" It has been discovered by the microscope that there
is, as far as can be judged, a perfect resemblance be-
tween the ovum of the mammal tribes and the young of
the infusory animalcules. One of the most remarkable
of these, the volvox globatovy has exactly the form of
the germ which, after passing through a long foetal
progress, becomes a complete mammifer, an animal of
the highest class."— (p. 172). What is the pretension,
then, of philosophical penetration to the power of
tracing the works of God, and knowing their operation,
when two such dissimilar objects appear at one stage to
be exactly alike, so far as can be discovered by the
most minute and penetrating examination ?

The same truth is shown in the production of the
acarus Crossii (p. 185, &c), the greatest boast of philo-
sopjiical pretension, and now almost a trite phaenome-
non. Mr. Crosse and Mr. Weekes set a galvanic battery
to work upon some distilled water and the purest silicate
of potash or other substance. In some weeks time an

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 61

insect is produced ; and lo, man says he can create, or
has ascertained the principles of creation. But what does
he do ? He puts together water, purified according to
his imperfect notion of purity, — and a substance, of which
he knows not the first elements, the structure or com-
position, — and he employs an agent implanted by God
in the instrument which he uses, the source and opera-
tion of which he does not anywise understand, — and an
animate being is produced, — so small that a most power-
ful microscope only discovers its outward parts and
motions with accuracy, — but reveals nothing of its inter-
nal structure and working, whereby it exists, and
grows, and moves, and has life, and feeling, and intelli-
gence, and will, — of all which man knows nothing
whatever, though he supposes himself to have directed
the creation of them. Man sees the beginning in his
materials and his instruments, and the end in animal
existence and life ; of the middle, and the means, and
the operations, he knows nothing. And why? — be-
cause it is God's work and creation.

Respecting the time and order of creation, as narrated
by Moses, the language of revealed truth only requires
us to believe, that all things were created anew at the
period of man's creation. But it requires as much
as this. Inferior orders of beings may have inhabited
the seas and earth before the period at which revealed
history begins ; and Berosus, from the Chaldee records,
speaks of monsters which were supposed to have ex-
isted before the commencement of the present order of
things ; and no one conceived a doubt respecting this,

d2

52 VESTIOES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY

that it must needs contradict the belief of an entire
new creation. Such things might have been, which
are neither told of nor denied. But at the period when
the Mosaic history begins, the earth was once more
without form and void, and empty of inhabitants ; the
waters covered the whole earth, — and what wonder,
since the same thing occurred again within 2,000 years,
at the deluge, — and darkness was at that time upon the
face of these waters.

This is the second canon of interpretation, — a canon
not of philosophy, but of history, — a canon, therefore,
of historical interpretation and of faith, — that, whatever
may have existed before the beginning of revealed
history, God created all things anew at the Mosaic
creation.

The third canon is, that Ood created all things per-
fect.

Philosophy may show the principles and processes in
operation, which, in the boundless periods of time,
would or might have brought the face of nature and
the world to its present form and appearance ; — might
have elevated the mountains, abraded their sides and
summits, opened passages through their bounds for the
imprisoned waters, filled up the valleys into smooth
surfaces of soft and silty mould, ploughed meandering
courses for the rivers throughout each of them, nursed
up every living plant from the embryon seed, fish and
birds firom the egg, and lastly man from the helpless
puling child, with monkey or angel for its nurse or na-
tural mother. But God did none of these, according

OF CRBATION EXPOSED. 53

to the Mosaic account ; and did not leave the world,
which was created for man's use and dominion, in this
infantine, imperfect, and progressive state, for years,
without a lord for this his destined possession, thus
ripening in advance of him, and by fits and piecemeal.
But God created all things in their maturity and perfec-
tion, — not the seed producing the tree, but the " herb
yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit, whose seed
was in itself," " and every plant of the field before it
was in the earthy and every herb of the field before it
grewy^ in the day that God created them.

The author of "The Vestiges" may contend that
there are principles of natural and gradual production
to be observed in the primitive order of things, — in the
forming of the heavens, the fashioning the elements
and the earth, the production and increase of vegetable
life, of animate existence, — and thence he may infer that
man also had a natural origin, a necessary existence
and beginning, and that he was conceived of law, and
born of nature's womb, and exists and was nourished
up from birth to manhood of body and mind by ele-
mental inherent principles of growth, and progress, and
development ; — but we say that man was not and could
not have been so created, and in the absence of .reason
or history for such a fact, we believe the contrary.

The author of " The Vestiges" argues from the ana-
logy of the lower kingdoms of nature up to the law-
creation of man. We reverse the reasoning, and argue
from the indubitable creation of man in maturity, back
to the mature and perfect creation of the inferior king-

\

54 VESTIGES OP THE NATURAL HISTORY

doms. Man was created mature in growth, with the
perfect use and power of his limbs, which the child at-
tains only by long trial and habit and exercise. His
mind also was as mature : for he had powers of speech,
without practice and teaching ; invention to give names
to all beasts, without previous habit ; the character and
conduct fitting him for society and fellowship, without
education, and experience, and exercise.

If this the most wonderful and complicated of God's
works, the body and mind of man, was thus created
perfect, and in manhood and maturity, and fitted at
once for the place and station, and the offices which he
had to fulfil, — what wonder or difficulty could exist,
even in philosophical consideration, that the other works
of God should have been so accomplished, — the trees in
their place and growth in all lands, as in the garden of
Eden, — the rivers in their courses and channels, as
Pison and Gihon, and Hiddekel and Euphrates, — the
earth and sea in their perpetual bounds and beds, — the
sun and moon in their eternal course, — and all nature
in its full and perfect use and generative power, and
energy, and maturity.

These are God's glorious ways and works ! Philo-
sophy cannot fathom them. These are God's laws !
Philosophy cannot explain or alter them. These are
God's Revelations ! Philosophy cannot rival them by
its depths and power, or exalt itself against them. This
is God's tower of strength, and rock of adamant ! No
tool or instrument of man can penetrate it ; no collected
force or engine can overthrow or shake it ; no Babel

OF CREATION EXPOSED. 55

tower of philosophy and pride can rise above or up
to it*

Philosophy has its right exercise and use, as an of-
fering up to the service of religious faith, as well as the
improvement of man's comforts and condition. And
the greatest of all philosophers, and the very wisest
of all men, have so used and offered it. Moses and
Solomon had pursued its secrets as laboriously and
deeply as the author of the " Vestiges." But Moses
trampled under foot the philosophy of the world as
well as its riches, and all the subtle and deep know-
ledge and wisdom of the Egyptians; and just used
so much of it, and to such purpose, that there is no fear
that the highest modern philosophy will ever disprove
one physical fact or truth which he has. used or nar-
rated;— and he necessarily knew from the Egyptians,
as did Pythagoras, that the sun was the centre of our
system, and that the earth turned round upon its axis ;
which was never doubted till the philosophers of Greece
denied and disproved it, — and it never wanted the
philosophy of a Copernicus to restore the belief, except
as a corrector to a previous false dogma of philosophy
and reason.

Solomon reasoned and wrote of all the kingdoms of
nature; and we may not doubt that his conclusions
were as profound and wise as those which modern in-
struments of philosophic research have brought us to.
But Solomon did not conclude that the philosophy of
nature forced him to the denial of God's Word in the
revealed record of creation ; neither was it thought

66 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY^ &C.

worthy by him, or his successors and admirers, that his
works of natural or physical philosophy should be pre-
served and perpetuated, in comparison with his philo-
sophy of human life, and the conclusions to which it
brought him, of faith and love, and the fear of God in
every thing. We cannot doubt that his philosophy of
the material creation brought him to the same con-
clusion*

These are the three canons of truth in the works of
creation ; and the philosophy of the *' Vestiges*' cannot
shake them.

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