Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation Robert Chambers 1747 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Vestiges of the Natural
History of Creation

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Author: Robert Chambers

Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7116]
Most recently updated: September 7, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7116

Credits: Transcribed from the 1844 John Churchill edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTIGES OF
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION ***

Transcribed from the 1844 John Churchill edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

VESTIGES
OF
THE NATURAL HISTORY
OF
CREATION.

LONDON:
JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO.
M DCCC XLIV.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

The Bodies of Space—Their arrangements and formation 1
Constituent materials of the Earth and of the other Bodies of Space 27
The Earth formed—Era of the Primary Rocks 44
Commencement of Organic Life—Sea Plants, Corals, etc. 54
Era of the Old Red Sandstone—Fishes abundant. 66
Secondary Rocks. Era of the Carboniferous Formation.—Land 76
formed—Commencement of Land Plants
Era of the New Red Sandstone—Terrestrial Zoology commences with 94
Reptiles—First traces of Birds
Era of the Oolite—Commencement of Mammalia 105
Era of the Cretaceous Formation 116
Era of the Tertiary Formation—Mammalia abundant 125
Era of the Superficial Formations—Commencement of present 134
Species
General Considerations respecting the Origin of the Animated Tribes 145
Particular Considerations respecting the Origin of the Animated Tribes 165
Hypothesis of the Development of the Vegetable and Animal 191
Kingdoms
Macleay System of Animated Nature—This System considered in 236
connexion with the Progress of Organic Creation, and as indicating
the natural status of Man

Early History of Mankind 277
Mental Constitution of Animals 324
Purpose and General Condition of the Animated Creation 361
Note Conclusory 387

THE BODIES OF SPACE,
THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION.

It is familiar knowledge that the earth which we inhabit is a globe of
somewhat less than 8000 miles in diameter, being one of a series of eleven
which revolve at different distances around the sun, and some of which
have satellites in like manner revolving around them. The sun, planets, and
satellites, with the less intelligible orbs termed comets, are comprehensively
called the solar system, and if we take as the uttermost bounds of this
system the orbit of Uranus (though the comets actually have a wider range),
we shall find that it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand
six hundred millions of miles in extent. The mind fails to form an exact
notion of a portion of space so immense; but some faint idea of it may be
obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest race-horse ever known had
begun to traverse it, at full speed, at the time of the birth of Moses, he
would only as yet have accomplished half his journey.
It has long been concluded amongst astronomers, that the stars, though they
only appear to our eyes as brilliant points, are all to be considered as suns,
representing so many solar systems, each bearing a general resemblance to
our own. The stars have a brilliancy and apparent magnitude which we may
safely presume to be in proportion to their actual size and the distance at
which they are placed from us. Attempts have been made to ascertain the
distance of some of the stars by calculations founded on parallax, it being
previously understood that, if a parallax of so much as one second, or the
3600th of a degree, could be ascertained in any one instance, the distance
might be assumed in that instance as not less than 19,200 millions of miles!
In the case of the most brilliant star, Sirius, even this minute parallax could
not be found; from which of course it was to be inferred that the distance of
that star is something beyond the vast distance which has been stated. In
some others, on which the experiment has been tried, no sensible parallax

could be detected; from which the same inference was to be made in their
case. But a sensible parallax of about one second has been ascertained in
the case of the double star, α α, of the constellation of the Centaur, [3] and
one of the third of that amount for the double star, 61 Cygni; which gave
reason to presume that the distance of the former might be about twenty
thousand millions of miles, and the latter of much greater amount. If we
suppose that similar intervals exist between all the stars, we shall readily
see that the space occupied by even the comparatively small number visible
to the naked eye, must be vast beyond all powers of conception.
The number visible to the eye is about three thousand; but when a telescope
of small power is directed to the heavens, a great number more come into
view, and the number is ever increased in proportion to the increased power
of the instrument. In one place, where they are more thickly sown than
elsewhere, Sir William Herschel reckoned that fifty thousand passed over a
field of view two degrees in breadth in a single hour. It was first surmised
by the ancient philosopher, Democritus, that the faintly white zone which
spans the sky under the name of the Milky Way, might be only a dense
collection of stars too remote to be distinguished. This conjecture has been
verified by the instruments of modern astronomers, and some speculations
of a most remarkable kind have been formed in connexion with it. By the
joint labours of the two Herschels, the sky has been “gauged” in all
directions by the telescope, so as to ascertain the conditions of different
parts with respect to the frequency of the stars. The result has been a
conviction that, as the planets are parts of solar systems, so are solar
systems parts of what may be called astral systems—that is, systems
composed of a multitude of stars, bearing a certain relation to each other.
The astral system to which we belong, is conceived to be of an oblong,
flattish form, with a space wholly or comparatively vacant in the centre,
while the extremity in one direction parts into two. The stars are most
thickly sown in the outer parts of this vast ring, and these constitute the
Milky Way. Our sun is believed to be placed in the southern portion of the
ring, near its inner edge, so that we are presented with many more stars, and
see the Milky Way much more clearly, in that direction, than towards the
north, in which line our eye has to traverse the vacant central space. Nor is
this all. Sir William Herschel, so early as 1783, detected a motion in our
solar system with respect to the stars, and announced that it was tending

towards the star λ, in the constellation Hercules. This has been generally
verified by recent and more exact calculations, [5] which fix on a point in
Hercules, near the star 143 of the 17th hour, according to Piozzi’s catalogue,
as that towards which our sun is proceeding. It is, therefore, receding from
the inner edge of the ring. Motions of this kind, through such vast regions
of space, must be long in producing any change sensible to the inhabitants
of our planet, and it is not easy to grasp their general character; but grounds
have nevertheless been found for supposing that not only our sun, but the
other suns of the system pursue a wavy course round the ring from west to
east, crossing and recrossing the middle of the annular circle. “Some stars
will depart more, others less, from either side of the circumference of
equilibrium, according to the places in which they are situated, and
according to the direction and the velocity with which they are put in
motion. Our sun is probably one of those which depart furthest from it, and
descend furthest into the empty space within the ring.” [6] According to this
view, a time may come when we shall be much more in the thick of the
stars of our astral system than we are now, and have of course much more
brilliant nocturnal skies; but it may be countless ages before the eyes which
are to see this added resplendence shall exist.
The evidence of the existence of other astral systems besides our own is
much more decided than might be expected, when we consider that the
nearest of them must needs be placed at a mighty interval beyond our own.
The elder Herschel, directing his wonderful tube towards the sides of our
system, where stars are planted most rarely, and raising the powers of the
instrument to the required pitch, was enabled with awe-struck mind to see
suspended in the vast empyrean astral systems, or, as he called them,
firmaments, resembling our own. Like light cloudlets to a certain power of
the telescope, they resolved themselves, under a greater power, into stars,
though these generally seemed no larger than the finest particles of diamond
dust. The general forms of these systems are various; but one at least has
been detected as bearing a striking resemblance to the supposed form of our
own. The distances are also various, as proved by the different degrees of
telescopic power necessary to bring them into view. The farthest observed
by the astronomer were estimated by him as thirty-five thousand times more
remote than Sirius, supposing its distance to be about twenty thousand
millions of miles. It would thus appear, that not only does gravitation keep

our earth in its place in the solar system, and the solar system in its place in
our astral system, but it also may be presumed to have the mightier duty of
preserving a local arrangement between that astral system and an immensity
of others, through which the imagination is left to wander on and on
without limit or stay, save that which is given by its inability to grasp the
unbounded.
The two Herschels have in succession made some other most remarkable
observations on the regions of space. They have found within the limits of
our astral system, and generally in its outer fields, a great number of objects
which, from their foggy appearance, are called nebulæ; some of vast extent
and irregular figure, as that in the sword of Orion, which is visible to the
naked eye; others of shape more defined; others, again, in which small
bright nuclei appear here and there over the surface. Between this last form
and another class of objects, which appear as clusters of nuclei with
nebulous matter around each nucleus, there is but a step in what appears a
chain of related things. Then, again, our astral space shews what are called
nebulous stars,—namely, luminous spherical objects, bright in the centre
and dull towards the extremities. These appear to be only an advanced
condition of the class of objects above described. Finally, nebulous stars
exist in every stage of concentration, down to that state in which we see
only a common star with a slight bur around it. It may be presumed that all
these are but stages in a progress, just as if, seeing a child, a boy, a youth, a
middle-aged, and an old man together, we might presume that the whole
were only variations of one being. Are we to suppose that we have got a
glimpse of the process through which a sun goes between its original
condition, as a mass of diffused nebulous matter, and its full-formed state as
a compact body? We shall see how far such an idea is supported by other
things known with regard to the occupants of space, and the laws of matter.
A superficial view of the astronomy of the solar system gives us only the
idea of a vast luminous body (the sun) in the centre, and a few smaller,
though various sized bodies, revolving at different distances around it; some
of these, again, having smaller planets (satellites) revolving around them.
There are, however, some general features of the solar system, which, when
a profounder attention makes us acquainted with them, strike the mind very
forcibly.

It is, in the first place, remarkable, that the planets all move nearly in one
plane, corresponding with the centre of the sun’s body. Next, it is not less
remarkable that the motion of the sun on its axis, those of the planets
around the sun, and the satellites around their primaries, [9] and the motions
of all on their axes, are in one direction—namely, from west to east. Had
all these matters been left to accident, the chances against the uniformity
which we find would have been, though calculable, inconceivably great.
Laplace states them at four millions of millions to one. It is thus powerfully
impressed on us, that the uniformity of the motions, as well as their general
adjustment to one plane, must have been a consequence of some cause
acting throughout the whole system.
Some of the other relations of the bodies are not less remarkable. The
primary planets shew a progressive increase of bulk and diminution of
density, from the one nearest to the sun to that which is most distant. With
respect to density alone, we find, taking water as a measure and counting it
as one, that Saturn is 13/32, or less than half; Jupiter, 1 1/24; Mars, 3 2/7;
Earth, 4 1/2; Venus, 5 11/15; Mercury 9 9/10, or about the weight of lead.
Then the distances are curiously relative. It has been found that if we place
the following line of numbers,—
0 3 6 12 24 48 96 192,
and add 4 to each, we shall have a series denoting the respective distances
of the planets from the sun. It will stand thus—

4 7 10 16 28 52 100 196
Merc. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus.

It will be observed that the first row of figures goes on from the second on
the left hand in a succession of duplications, or multiplications by 2. Surely
there is here a most surprising proof of the unity which I am claiming for
the solar system. It was remarked when this curious relation was first
detected, that there was a want of a planet corresponding to 28; the
difficulty was afterwards considered as in a great measure overcome, by the
discovery of four small planets revolving at nearly one mean distance from
the sun, between Mars and Jupiter. The distances bear an equally
interesting mathematical relation to the times of the revolutions round the

sun. It has been found that, with respect to any two planets, the squares of
the times of revolution are to each other in the same proportion as the cubes
of their mean distances,—a most surprising result, for the discovery of
which the world was indebted to the illustrious Kepler. Sir John Herschel
truly observes—“When we contemplate the constituents of the planetary
system from the point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer
mere analogy which strikes us, no longer a general resemblance among
them, as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the
sun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it by its
own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a true family
likeness; they are bound up in one chain—interwoven in one web of mutual
relation and harmonious agreement, subjected to one pervading influence
which extends from the centre to the farthest limits of that great system, of
which all of them, the Earth included, must henceforth be regarded as
members.” [12]
Connecting what has been observed of the series of nebulous stars with this
wonderful relationship seen to exist among the constituents of our system,
and further taking advantage of the light afforded by the ascertained laws of
matter, modern astronomers have suggested the following hypothesis of the
formation of that system.
Of nebulous matter in its original state we know too little to enable us to
suggest how nuclei should be established in it. But, supposing that, from a
peculiarity in its constitution, nuclei are formed, we know very well how,
by virtue of the law of gravitation, the process of an aggregation of the
neighbouring matter to those nuclei should proceed, until masses more or
less solid should become detached from the rest. It is a well-known law in
physics that, when fluid matter collects towards or meets in a centre, it
establishes a rotatory motion. See minor results of this law in the
whirlwind and the whirlpool—nay, on so humble a scale as the water
sinking through the aperture of a funnel. It thus becomes certain that when
we arrive at the stage of a nebulous star, we have a rotation on an axis
commenced.
Now, mechanical philosophy informs us that, the instant a mass begins to
rotate, there is generated a tendency to fling off its outer portions—in other
words, the law of centrifugal force begins to operate. There are, then, two

forces acting in opposition to each other, the one attracting to, the other
throwing from, the centre. While these remain exactly counterpoised, the
mass necessarily continues entire; but the least excess of the centrifugal
over the attractive force would be attended with the effect of separating the
mass and its outer parts. These outer parts would, then, be left as a ring
round the central body, which ring would continue to revolve with the
velocity possessed by the central mass at the moment of separation, but not
necessarily participating in any changes afterwards undergone by that
body. This is a process which might be repeated as soon as a new excess
arose in the centrifugal over the attractive forces working in the parent
mass. It might, indeed, continue to be repeated, until the mass attained the
ultimate limits of the condensation which its constitution imposed upon it.
From what cause might arise the periodical occurrence of an excess of the
centrifugal force? If we suppose the agglomeration of a nebulous mass to
be a process attended by refrigeration or cooling, which many facts render
likely, we can easily understand why the outer parts, hardening under this
process, might, by virtue of the greater solidity thence acquired, begin to
present some resistance to the attractive force. As the solidification
proceeded, this resistance would become greater, though there would still
be a tendency to adhere. Meanwhile, the condensation of the central mass
would be going on, tending to produce a separation from what may now be
termed the solidifying crust. During the contention between the attractions
of these two bodies, or parts of one body, there would probably be a ring of
attenuation between the mass and its crust. At length, when the central
mass had reached a certain stage in its advance towards solidification, a
separation would take place, and the crust would become a detached ring.
It is clear, of course, that some law presiding over the refrigeration of
heated gaseous bodies would determine the stages at which rings were thus
formed and detached. We do not know any such law, but what we have
seen assures us it is one observing and reducible to mathematical formulæ.
If these rings consisted of matter nearly uniform throughout, they would
probably continue each in its original form; but there are many chances
against their being uniform in constitution. The unavoidable effects of
irregularity in their constitution would be to cause them to gather towards
centres of superior solidity, by which the annular form would, of course, be
destroyed. The ring would, in short, break into several masses, the largest

of which would be likely to attract the lesser into itself. The whole mass
would then necessarily settle into a spherical form by virtue of the law of
gravitation; in short, would then become a planet revolving round the sun.
Its rotatory motion would, of course, continue, and satellites might then be
thrown off in turn from its body in exactly the same way as the primary
planets had been thrown off from the sun. The rule, if I can be allowed so
to call it, receives a striking support from what appear to be its exceptions.
While there are many chances against the matter of the rings being
sufficiently equable to remain in the annular form till they were
consolidated, it might nevertheless be otherwise in some instances; that is to
say, the equableness might, in those instances, be sufficiently great. Such
was probably the case with the two rings around the body of Saturn, which
remain a living picture of the arrangement, if not the condition, in which all
the planetary masses at one time stood. It may also be admitted that, when
a ring broke up, it was possible that the fragments might spherify
separately. Such seems to be the actual history of the ring between Jupiter
and Mars, in whose place we now find four planets much beneath the
smallest of the rest in size, and moving nearly at the same distance from the
sun, though in orbits so elliptical, and of such different planes, that they
keep apart.
It has been seen that there are mathematical proportions in the relative
distances and revolutions of the planets of our system. It has also been
suggested that the periods in the condensation of the nebulous mass, at
which rings were disengaged, must have depended on some particular crises
in the condition of that mass, in connexion with the laws of centrifugal
force and attraction. M. Compte, of Paris, has made some approach to the
verification of the hypothesis, by calculating what ought to have been the
rotation of the solar mass at the successive times when its surface extended
to the various planetary orbits. He ascertained that that rotation
corresponded in every case with the actual sidereal revolution of the
planets, and that the rotation of the primary planets in like manner
corresponded with the orbitual periods of the secondaries. The process by
which he arrived at this conclusion is not to be readily comprehended by the
unlearned; but those who are otherwise, allow that it is a powerful support
to the present hypothesis of the formation of the globes of space. [17]

The nebular hypothesis, as it has been called, obtains a remarkable support
in what would at first seem to militate against it—the existence in our
firmament of several thousands of solar systems, in which there are more
than one sun. These are called double and triple stars. Some double stars,
upon which careful observations have been made, are found to have a
regular revolutionary motion round each other in ellipses. This kind of
solar system has also been observed in what appears to be its rudimental
state, for there are examples of nebulous stars containing two and three
nuclei in near association. At a certain point in the confluence of the matter
of these nebulous stars, they would all become involved in a common
revolutionary motion, linked inextricably with each other, though it might
be at sufficient distances to allow of each distinct centre having afterwards
its attendant planets. We have seen that the law which causes rotation in the
single solar masses, is exactly the same which produces the familiar
phenomenon of a small whirlpool or dimple in the surface of a stream.
Such dimples are not always single. Upon the face of a river where there
are various contending currents, it may often be observed that two or more
dimples are formed near each other with more or less regularity. These
fantastic eddies, which the musing poet will sometimes watch abstractedly
for an hour, little thinking of the law which produces and connects them, are
an illustration of the wonders of binary and ternary solar systems.
The nebular hypothesis is, indeed, supported by so many ascertained
features of the celestial scenery, and by so many calculations of exact
science, that it is impossible for a candid mind to refrain from giving it a
cordial reception, if not to repose full reliance upon it, even without seeking
for it support of any other kind. Some other support I trust yet to bring to it;
but in the meantime, assuming its truth, let us see what idea it gives of the
constitution of what we term the universe, of the development of its various
parts, and of its original condition.
Reverting to a former illustration—if we could suppose a number of
persons of various ages presented to the inspection of an intelligent being
newly introduced into the world, we cannot doubt that he would soon
become convinced that men had once been boys, that boys had once been
infants, and, finally, that all had been brought into the world in exactly the
same circumstances. Precisely thus, seeing in our astral system many
thousands of worlds in all stages of formation, from the most rudimental to

that immediately preceding the present condition of those we deem perfect,
it is unavoidable to conclude that all the perfect have gone through the
various stages which we see in the rudimental. This leads us at once to the
conclusion that the whole of our firmament was at one time a diffused mass
of nebulous matter, extending through the space which it still occupies. So
also, of course, must have been the other astral systems. Indeed, we must
presume the whole to have been originally in one connected mass, the astral
systems being only the first division into parts, and solar systems the
second.
The first idea which all this impresses upon us is, that the formation of
bodies in space is still and at present in progress. We live at a time when
many have been formed, and many are still forming. Our own solar system
is to be regarded as completed, supposing its perfection to consist in the
formation of a series of planets, for there are mathematical reasons for
concluding that Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, which can,
according to the laws of the system, exist. But there are other solar systems
within our astral system, which are as yet in a less advanced state, and even
some quantities of nebulous matter which have scarcely begun to advance
towards the stellar form. On the other hand, there are vast numbers of stars
which have all the appearance of being fully formed systems, if we are to
judge from the complete and definite appearance which they present to our
vision through the telescope. We have no means of judging of the seniority
of systems; but it is reasonable to suppose that, among the many, some are
older than ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability
of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human
traditions and the geognostic appearances of the surface of our planet. This
consists in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused around the sun to
nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately spheroidal shape. This
matter, which sometimes appears to our naked eyes, at sunset, in the form
of a cone projecting upwards in the line of the sun’s path, and which bears
the name of the Zodiacal Light, has been thought a residuum or last
remnant of the concentrating matter of our system, and thus may be
supposed to indicate the comparative recentness of the principal events of
our cosmogony. Supposing the surmise and inference to be correct, and
they may be held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might
with the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder born

of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical and moral, as yet
lay undeveloped, while myriads of others were fully fashioned and in
complete arrangement. Thus, in the sublime chronology to which we are
directing our inquiries, we first find ourselves called upon to consider the
globe which we inhabit as a child of the sun, elder than Venus and her
younger brother Mercury, but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, and Uranus; next to regard our whole system as probably of recent
formation in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. We
must, however, be on our guard against supposing the earth as a recent
globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. From evidence afterwards to be
adduced, it will be seen that it cannot be presumed to be less than many
hundreds of centuries old. How much older Uranus may be no one can tell,
much less how more aged may be many of the stars of our firmament, or
the stars of other firmaments than ours.
Another and more important consideration arises from the hypothesis;
namely, as to the means by which the grand process is conducted. The
nebulous matter collects around nuclei by virtue of the law of attraction.
The agglomeration brings into operation another physical law, by force of
which the separate masses of matter are either made to rotate singly, or, in
addition to that single motion, are set into a coupled revolution in ellipses.
Next centrifugal force comes into play, flinging off portions of the rotating
masses, which become spheres by virtue of the same law of attraction, and
are held in orbits of revolution round the central body by means of a
composition between the centrifugal and gravitating forces. All, we see, is
done by certain laws of matter, so that it becomes a question of extreme
interest, what are such laws? All that can yet be said, in answer, is, that we
see certain natural events proceeding in an invariable order under certain
conditions, and thence infer the existence of some fundamental arrangement
which, for the bringing about of these events, has a force and certainty of
action similar to, but more precise and unerring than those arrangements
which human society makes for its own benefit, and calls laws. It is
remarkable of physical laws, that we see them operating on every kind of
scale as to magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance. The tear
that falls from childhood’s cheek is globular, through the efficacy of that
same law of mutual attraction of particles which made the sun and planets
round. The rapidity of Mercury is quicker than that of Saturn, for the same

reason that, when we wheel a ball round by a string and make the string
wind up round our fingers, the ball always flies quicker and quicker as the
string is shortened. Two eddies in a stream, as has been stated, fall into a
mutual revolution at the distance of a couple of inches, through the same
cause which makes a pair of suns link in mutual revolution at the distance
of millions of miles. There is, we might say, a sublime simplicity in this
indifference of the grand regulations to the vastness or minuteness of the
field of their operation. Their being uniform, too, throughout space, as far
as we can scan it, and their being so unfailing in their tendency to operate,
so that only the proper conditions are presented, afford to our minds matter
for the gravest consideration. Nor should it escape our careful notice that
the regulations on which all the laws of matter operate, are established on a
rigidly accurate mathematical basis. Proportions of numbers and
geometrical figures rest at the bottom of the whole. All these
considerations, when the mind is thoroughly prepared for them, tend to
raise our ideas with respect to the character of physical laws, even though
we do not go a single step further in the investigation. But it is impossible
for an intelligent mind to stop there. We advance from law to the cause of
law, and ask, What is that? Whence have come all these beautiful
regulations? Here science leaves us, but only to conclude, from other
grounds, that there is a First Cause to which all others are secondary and
ministrative, a primitive almighty will, of which these laws are merely the
mandates. That great Being, who shall say where is his dwelling-place, or
what his history! Man pauses breathless at the contemplation of a subject
so much above his finite faculties, and only can wonder and adore!

CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH
AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE.

The nebular hypothesis almost necessarily supposes matter to have
originally formed one mass. We have seen that the same physical laws
preside over the whole. Are we also to presume that the constitution of the
whole was uniform?—that is to say, that the whole consisted of similar
elements. It seems difficult to avoid coming to this conclusion, at least
under the qualification that, possibly, various bodies, under peculiar
circumstances attending their formation, may contain elements which are
wanting, and lack some which are present in others, or that some may
entirely consist of elements in which others are entirely deficient.
What are elements? This is a term applied by the chemist to a certain
limited number of substances, (fifty-four or fifty-five are ascertained,)
which, in their combinations, form all the matters of every kind present in
and about our globe. They are called elements, or simple substances,
because it has hitherto been found impossible to reduce them into others,
wherefore they are presumed to be the primary bases of all matters. It has,
indeed, been surmised that these so-called elements are only modifications
of a primordial form of matter, brought about under certain conditions; but
if this should prove to be the case, it would little affect the view which we
are taking of cosmical arrangements. Analogy would lead us to conclude
that the combinations of the primordial matter, forming our so-called
elements, are as universal or as liable to take place everywhere as are the
laws of gravitation and centrifugal force. We must therefore presume that
the gases, the metals, the earths, and other simple substances, (besides
whatever more of which we have no acquaintance,) exist or are liable to
come into existence under proper conditions, as well in the astral system,
which is thirty-five thousand times more distant than Sirius, as within the
bounds of our own solar system or our own globe.

Matter, whether it consist of about fifty-five ingredients, or only one, is
liable to infinite varieties of condition under different circumstances, or, to
speak more philosophically, under different laws. As a familiar illustration,
water, when subjected to a temperature under 32° Fahrenheit, becomes ice;
raise the temperature to 212°, and it becomes steam, occupying a vast deal
more space than it formerly did. The gases, when subjected to pressure,
become liquids; for example, carbonic acid gas, when subjected to a weight
equal to a column of water 1230 feet high, at a temperature of 32°, takes
this form: the other gases require various amounts of pressure for this
transformation, but all appear to be liable to it when the pressure proper in
each case is administered. Heat is a power greatly concerned in regulating
the volume and other conditions of matter. A chemist can reckon with
considerable precision what additional amount of heat would be required to
vaporise all the water of our globe; how much more to disengage the
oxygen which is diffused in nearly a proportion of one-half throughout its
solids; and, finally, how much more would be required to cause the whole
to become vaporiform, which we may consider as equivalent to its being
restored to its original nebulous state. He can calculate with equal certainty
what would be the effect of a considerable diminution of the earth’s
temperature—what changes would take place in each of its component
substances, and how much the whole would shrink in bulk.
The earth and all its various substances have at present a certain volume in
consequence of the temperature which actually exists. When, then, we find
that its matter and that of the associate planets was at one time diffused
throughout the whole space, now circumscribed by the orbit of Uranus, we
cannot doubt, after what we know of the power of heat, that the nebulous
form of matter was attended by the condition of a very high temperature.
The nebulous matter of space, previously to the formation of stellar and
planetary bodies, must have been a universal Fire Mist, an idea which we
can scarcely comprehend, though the reasons for arriving at it seem
irresistible. The formation of systems out of this matter implies a change of
some kind with regard to the condition of the heat. Had this power
continued to act with its full original repulsive energy, the process of
agglomeration by attraction could not have gone on. We do not know
enough of the laws of heat to enable us to surmise how the necessary
change in this respect was brought about, but we can trace some of the steps

and consequences of the process. Uranus would be formed at the time
when the heat of our system’s matter was at the greatest, Saturn at the next,
and so on. Now this tallies perfectly with the exceeding diffuseness of the
matter of those elder planets, Saturn being not more dense or heavy than the
substance cork. It may be that a sufficiency of heat still remains in those
planets to make up for their distance from the sun, and the consequent
smallness of the heat which they derive from his rays. And it may equally
be, since Mercury is twice the density of the earth, that its matter exists
under a degree of cold for which that planet’s large enjoyment of the sun’s
rays is no more than a compensation. Thus there may be upon the whole a
nearly equal experience of heat amongst all these children of the sun.
Where, meanwhile, is the heat once diffused through the system over and
above what remains in the planets? May we not rationally presume it to
have gone to constitute that luminous envelope of the sun, in which his
warmth-giving power is now held to reside? It could not be destroyed—it
cannot be supposed to have gone off into space—it must have simply been
reserved to constitute, at the last, a means of sustaining the many operations
of which the planets were destined to be the theatre.
The tendency of the whole of the preceding considerations is to bring the
conviction that our globe is a specimen of all the similarly-placed bodies of
space, as respects its constituent matter and the physical and chemical laws
governing it, with only this qualification, that there are possibly shades of
variation with respect to the component materials, and undoubtedly with
respect to the conditions under which the laws operate, and consequently
the effects which they produce. Thus, there may be substances here which
are not in some other bodies, and substances here solid may be elsewhere
liquid or vaporiform. We are the more entitled to draw such conclusions,
seeing that there is nothing at all singular or special in the astronomical
situation of the earth. It takes its place third in a series of planets, which
series is only one of numberless other systems forming one group. It is
strikingly—if I may use such an expression—a member of a democracy.
Hence, we cannot suppose that there is any peculiarity about it which does
not probably attach to multitudes of other bodies—in fact, to all that are
analogous to it in respect of cosmical arrangements.
It therefore becomes a point of great interest—what are the materials of this
specimen? What is the constitutional character of this object, which may be

said to be a sample, presented to our immediate observation, of those
crowds of worlds which seem to us as the particles of the desert sand-cloud
in number, and to whose profusion there are no conceivable local limits?
The solids, liquids, and aeriform fluids of our globe are all, as has been
stated, reducible into fifty-five substances hitherto called elementary. Six
are gases; oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen being the chief. Forty-two are
metals, of which eleven are remarkable as composing, in combination with
oxygen, certain earths, as magnesia, lime, alumin. The remaining six,
including carbon, silicon, sulphur, have not any general appellation.
The gas oxygen is considered as by far the most abundant substance in our
globe. It constitutes a fifth part of our atmosphere, a third part of water, and
a large proportion of every kind of rock in the crust of the earth. Hydrogen,
which forms two-thirds of water, and enters into some mineral substances,
is perhaps next. Nitrogen, of which the atmosphere is four-fifths composed,
must be considered as an abundant substance. The metal silicium, which
unites with oxygen in nearly equal parts to form silica, the basis of nearly a
half of the rocks in the earth’s crust, is, of course, an important ingredient.
Aluminium, the metallic basis of alumin, a large material in many rocks, is
another abundant elementary substance. So, also, is carbon a small
ingredient in the atmosphere, but the chief constituent of animal and
vegetable substances, and of all fossils which ever were in the latter
condition, amongst which coal takes a conspicuous place. The familiarly-
known metals, as iron, tin, lead, silver, gold, are elements of comparatively
small magnitude in that exterior part of the earth’s body which we are able
to investigate.
It is remarkable of the simple substances that they are generally in some
compound form. Thus, oxygen and nitrogen, though in union they form the
aerial envelope of the globe, are never found separate in nature. Carbon is
pure only in the diamond. And the metallic bases of the earths, though the
chemist can disengage them, may well be supposed unlikely to remain long
uncombined, seeing that contact with moisture makes them burn.
Combination and re-combination are principles largely pervading nature.
There are few rocks, for example, that are not composed of at least two
varieties of matter, each of which is again a compound of elementary
substances. What is still more wonderful with respect to this principle of

combination, all the elementary substances observe certain mathematical
proportions in their unions. One volume of them unites with one, two,
three, or more volumes of another, any extra quantity being sure to be left
over, if such there should be. It is hence supposed that matter is composed
of infinitely minute particles or atoms, each of which belonging to any one
substance, can only (through the operation of some as yet hidden law)
associate with a certain number of the atoms of any other. There are also
strange predilections amongst substances for each other’s company. One
will remain combined in solution with another, till a third is added, when it
will abandon the former and attach itself to the latter. A fourth being added,
the third will perhaps leave the first, and join the new comer.
Such is an outline of the information which chemistry gives us regarding
the constituent materials of our globe. How infinitely is the knowledge
increased in interest, when we consider the probability of such being the
materials of the whole of the bodies of space, and the laws under which
these everywhere combine, subject only to local and accidental variations!
In considering the cosmogenic arrangements of our globe, our attention is
called in a special degree to the moon.
In the nebular hypothesis, satellites are considered as masses thrown off
from their primaries, exactly as the primaries had previously been from the
sun. The orbit of any satellite is also to be regarded as marking the bounds
of the mass of the primary at the time when that satellite was thrown off; its
speed likewise denotes the rapidity of the rotatory motion of the primary at
that particular juncture. For example, the outermost of the four satellites of
Jupiter revolves round his body at the distance of 1,180,582 miles, shewing
that the planet was once 3,675,501 miles in circumference, instead of being,
as now, only 89,170 miles in diameter. This large mass took rather more
than sixteen days six hours and a half (the present revolutionary period of
the outermost satellite) to rotate on its axis. The innermost satellite must
have been formed when the planet was reduced to a circumference of
309,075 miles, and rotated in about forty-two hours and a half.
From similar inferences, we find that the mass of the earth, at a certain
point of time after it was thrown off from the sun, was no less than 482,000
miles in diameter, being sixty times what it has since shrunk to. At that

time, the mass must have taken rather more than twenty-nine and a half
days to rotate, (being the revolutionary period of the moon,) instead of as
now, rather less than twenty-four hours.
The time intervening between the formation of the moon and the earth’s
diminution to its present size, was probably one of those vast sums in which
astronomy deals so largely, but which the mind altogether fails to grasp.
The observations made upon the surface of the moon by telescopes, tend
strongly to support the hypothesis as to all the bodies of space being
composed of similar matters, subject to certain variations. It does not
appear that our satellite is provided with that gaseous envelope which, on
earth, performs so many important functions. Neither is there any
appearance of water upon the surface; yet that surface is, like that of our
globe, marked by inequalities and the appearance of volcanic operations.
These inequalities and volcanic operations are upon a scale far greater than
any which now exist upon the earth’s surface. Although, from the greater
force of gravitation upon its exterior, the mountains, other circumstances
being equal, might have been expected to be much smaller than ours, they
are, in many instances, equal in height to nearly the highest of our Andes.
They are generally of extreme steepness, and sharp of outline, a peculiarity
which might be looked for in a planet deficient in water and atmosphere,
seeing that these are the agents which wear down ruggedness on the surface
of our earth. The volcanic operations are on a stupendous scale. They are
the cause of the bright spots of the moon, while the want of them is what
distinguishes the duller portions, usually but erroneously called seas. In
some parts, bright volcanic matter, besides covering one large patch,
radiates out in long streams, which appear studded with subordinate foci of
the same kind of energy. Other objects of a most remarkable character are
ring mountains, mounts like those of the craters of earthly volcanoes,
surrounded immediately by vast and profound circular pits, hollowed under
the general surface, these again being surrounded by a circular wall of
mountain, rising far above the central one, and in the inside of which are
terraces about the same height as the inner eminence. The well-known
bright spot in the south-east quarter, called by astronomers Tycho, and
which can be readily distinguished by the naked eye, is one of these ring-
mountains. There is one of 200 miles in diameter, with a pit 22,000 feet
deep; that is, twice the height of Ætna. It is remarkable, that the maps given

by Humboldt of a volcanic district in South America, and one illustrative of
the formerly volcanic district of Auvergne, in France, present features
strikingly like many parts of the moon’s surface, as seen through a good
glass.
These characteristics of the moon forbid the idea that it can be at present a
theatre of life like the earth, and almost seem to declare that it never can
become so. But we must not rashly draw any such conclusions. The moon
may be only in an earlier stage of the progress through which the earth has
already gone. The elements which seem wanting may be only in
combinations different in those which exist here, and may yet be developed
as we here find them. Seas may yet fill the profound hollows of the
surface; an atmosphere may spread over the whole. Should these events
take place, meteorological phenomena, and all the phenomena of organic
life, will commence, and the moon, like the earth, will become a green and
inhabited world.
It is unavoidably held as a strong proof in favour of any hypothesis, when
all the relative phenomena are in harmony with it. This is eminently the
case with the nebulous hypothesis, for here the associated facts cannot be
explained on any other supposition. We have seen reason to conclude that
the primary condition of matter was that of a diffused mass, in which the
component molecules were probably kept apart through the efficacy of heat;
that portions of this agglomerated into suns, which threw off planets; that
these planets were at first very much diffused, but gradually contracted by
cooling to their present dimensions. Now, as to our own globe, there is a
remarkable proof of its having been in a fluid state at the time when it was
finally solidifying, in the fact of its being bulged at the equator, the very
form which a soft revolving body takes, and must inevitably take, under the
influence of centrifugal force. This bulging makes the equatorial exceed the
polar diameter as 230 to 229, which has been demonstrated to be precisely
the departure from a correct sphere which might be predicated from a
knowledge of the amount of the mass and the rate of rotation. There is an
almost equally distinct memorial of the original high temperature of the
materials, in the store of heat which still exists in the interior. The
immediate surface of the earth, be it observed, exhibits only the temperature
which might be expected to be imparted to such materials, by the heat of the
sun. There is a point, very short way down, but varying in different climes,

where all effect from the sun’s rays ceases. Then, however, commences a
temperature from an entirely different cause, one which evidently has its
source in the interior of the earth, and which regularly increases as we
descend to greater and greater depths, the rate of increment being about one
degree Fahrenheit for every sixty feet; and of this high temperature there
are other evidences, in the phenomena of volcanoes and thermal springs, as
well as in what is ascertained with regard to the density of the entire mass
of the earth. This, it will be remembered, is four and a half times the weight
of water; but the actual weight of the principal solid substances composing
the outer crust is as two and a half times the weight of water; and this, we
know, if the globe were solid and cold, should increase vastly towards the
centre, water acquiring the density of quicksilver at 362 miles below the
surface, and other things in proportion, and these densities becoming much
greater at greater depths; so that the entire mass of a cool globe should be of
a gravity infinitely exceeding four and a half times the weight of water. The
only alternative supposition is, that the central materials are greatly
expanded or diffused by some means; and by what means could they be so
expanded but by heat? Indeed, the existence of this central heat, a residuum
of that which kept all matter in a vaporiform chaos at first, is amongst the
most solid discoveries of modern science, [42] and the support which it gives
to Herschel’s explanation of the formation of worlds is most important. We
shall hereafter see what appear to be traces of an operation of this heat upon
the surface of the earth in very remote times; an effect, however, which has
long passed entirely away. The central heat has, for ages, reached a fixed
point, at which it will probably remain for ever, as the non-conducting
quality of the cool crust absolutely prevents it from suffering any
diminution.

THE EARTH FORMED—ERA OF THE
PRIMARY ROCKS.

Although the earth has not been actually penetrated to a greater depth than
three thousand feet, the nature of its substance can, in many instances, be
inferred for the depth of many miles by other means of observation. We see
a mountain composed of a particular substance, with strata, or beds of other
rock, lying against its sloped sides; we, of course, infer that the substance of
the mountain dips away under the strata which we see lying against it.
Suppose that we walk away from the mountain across the turned up edges
of the stratified rocks, and that for many miles we continue to pass over
other stratified rocks, all disposed in the same way, till by and bye we come
to a place where we begin to cross the opposite edges of the same beds;
after which we pass over these rocks all in reverse order till we come to
another extensive mountain composed of similar material to the first, and
shelving away under the strata in the same way. We should then infer that
the stratified rocks occupied a basin formed by the rock of these two
mountains, and by calculating the thickness right through these strata, could
be able to say to what depth the rock of the mountain extended below. By
such means, the kind of rock existing many miles below the surface can
often be inferred with considerable confidence.
The interior of the globe has now been inspected in this way in many
places, and a tolerably distinct notion of its general arrangements has
consequently been arrived at. It appears that the basis rock of the earth, as
it may be called, is of hard texture, and crystalline in its constitution. Of
this rock, granite may be said to be the type, though it runs into many
varieties. Over this, except in the comparatively few places where it
projects above the general level in mountains, other rocks are disposed in
sheets or strata, with the appearance of having been deposited originally
from water; but these last rocks have nowhere been allowed to rest in their

original arrangement. Uneasy movements from below have broken them up
in great inclined masses, while in many cases there has been projected
through the rents rocky matter more or less resembling the great inferior
crystalline mass. This rocky matter must have been in a state of fusion
from heat at the time of its projection, for it is often found to have run into
and filled up lateral chinks in these rents. There are even instances where it
has been rent again, and a newer melted matter of the same character sent
through the opening. Finally, in the crust as thus arranged there are, in
many places, chinks containing veins of metal. Thus, there is first a great
inferior mass, composed of crystalline rock, and probably resting
immediately on the fused and expanded matter of the interior: next, layers
or strata of aqueous origin; next, irregular masses of melted inferior rock
that have been sent up volcanically and confusedly at various times
amongst the aqueous rocks, breaking up these into masses, and tossing them
out of their original levels. This is an outline of the arrangements of the
crust of the earth, as far as we can observe it. It is, at first sight, a most
confused scene; but after some careful observation, we readily detect in it a
regularity and order from which much instruction in the history of our globe
is to be derived.
The deposition of the aqueous rocks, and the projection of the volcanic,
have unquestionably taken place since the settlement of the earth in its
present form. They are indeed of an order of events which we see going on,
under the agency of more or less intelligible causes, even down to the
present day. We may therefore consider them generally as comparatively
recent transactions. Abstracting them from the investigations before us, we
arrive at the idea of the earth in its first condition as a globe of its present
size—namely, as a mass, externally at least, consisting of the crystalline
kind of rock, with the waters of the present seas and the present atmosphere
around it, though these were probably in considerably different conditions,
both as to temperature and their constituent materials, from what they now
are. We are thus to presume that that crystalline texture of rock which we
see exemplified in granite is the condition into which the great bulk of the
solids of our earth were agglomerated directly from the nebulous or
vaporiform state. It is a condition eminently of combination, for such rock
is invariably composed of two or more of four substances—silica, mica,
quartz, and hornblende—which associate in it in the form of grains or

crystals, and which are themselves each composed of a group of the simple
or elementary substances.
Judging from the results and from still remaining conditions, we must
suppose that the heat retained in the interior of the globe was more intense,
or had greater freedom to act, in some places than in others. These became
the scenes of volcanic operations, and in time marked their situations by the
extrusion of traps and basalts from below—namely, rocks composed of the
crystalline matter fused by intense heat, and developed on the surface in
various conditions, according to the particular circumstances under which it
was sent up; some, for example, being thrown up under water, and some in
the open air, which conditions are found to have made considerable
difference in its texture and appearance. The great stores of subterranean
heat also served an important purpose in the formation of the aqueous
rocks. These rocks might, according to Sir John Herschel, become subject
to heat in the following manner:—While the surface of a particular mass of
rock forms the bed of the sea, the heat is kept at a certain distance from that
surface by the contact of the water; philosophically speaking, it radiates
away the heat into the sea, and (to resort to common language) is cooled a
good way down. But when new sediment settles at the bottom of that sea,
the heat rises up to what was formerly the surface; and when a second
quantity of sediment is laid down, it continues to rise through the first of the
deposits, which then becomes subjected to those changes which heat is
calculated to produce. This process is precisely the same as that of putting
additional coats upon our own bodies; when, of course, the internal heat
rises through each coat in succession, and the third (supposing there is a
fourth above it) becomes as warm as perhaps the first originally was.
In speaking of sedimentary rocks, we may be said to be anticipating. It is
necessary, first, to shew how such rocks were formed, or how stratification
commenced.
Geology tells us as plainly as possible, that the original crystalline mass was
not a perfectly smooth ball, with air and water playing round it. There were
vast irregularities in the surface,—irregularities trifling, perhaps, compared
with the whole bulk of the globe, but assuredly vast in comparison with any
which now exist upon it. These irregularities might be occasioned by
inequalities in the cooling of the substance, or by accidental and local

sluggishness of the materials, or by local effects of the concentrated internal
heat. From whatever cause they arose, there they were—enormous granitic
mountains, interspersed with seas which sunk to a depth equally profound,
and by which, perhaps, the mountains were wholly or partially covered.
Now, it is a fact of which the very first principles of geology assure us, that
the solids of the globe cannot for a moment be exposed to water, or to the
atmosphere, without becoming liable to change. They instantly begin to
wear down. This operation, we may be assured, proceeded with as much
certainty in the earliest ages of our earth’s history, as it does now, but upon
a much more magnificent scale. There is the clearest evidence that the seas
of those days were not in some instances less than a hundred miles in depth,
however much more. The sub-aqueous mountains must necessarily have
been of at least equal magnitude. The system of disintegration consequent
upon such conditions would be enormous. The matters worn off, being
carried into the neighbouring depths, and there deposited, became the
components of the earliest stratified rocks, the first series of which is the
Gneiss and Mica Slate System, or series, examples of which are exposed to
view in the Highlands of Scotland and in the West of England. The vast
thickness of these beds, in some instances, is what attests the profoundness
of the primeval oceans in which they were formed; the Pensylvanian
grawacke, a member of the next highest series, is not less than a hundred
miles in direct thickness. We have also evidence that the earliest strata were
formed in the presence of a stronger degree of heat than what operated in
subsequent stages of the world, for the laminæ of the gneiss and of the mica
and chlorite schists are contorted in a way which could only be the result of
a very high temperature. It appears as if the seas in which these deposits
were formed, had been in the troubled state of a caldron of water nearly at
boiling heat. Such a condition would probably add not a little to the
disintegrating power of the ocean.
The earliest stratified rocks contain no matters which are not to be found in
the primitive granite. They are the same in material, but only changed into
new forms and combinations; hence they have been called by Mr. Lyell,
metamorphic rocks. But how comes it that some of them are composed
almost exclusively of one of the materials of granite; the mica schists, for
example, of mica—the quartz rocks, of quartz, &c.? For this there are both
chemical and mechanical causes. Suppose that a river has a certain quantity

of material to carry down, it is evident that it will soonest drop the larger
particles, and carry the lightest farthest on. To such a cause is it owing that
some of the materials of the worn-down granite have settled in one place
and some in another. [52] Again, some of these materials must be presumed
to have been in a state of chemical solution in the primeval seas. It would
be, of course, in conformity with chemical laws, that certain of these
materials would be precipitated singly, or in modified combinations, to the
bottom, so as to form rocks by themselves.
The rocks hitherto spoken of contain none of those petrified remains of
vegetables and animals which abound so much in subsequently formed
rocks, and tell so wondrous a tale of the past history of our globe. They
simply contain, as has been said, mineral materials derived from the
primitive mass, and which appear to have been formed into strata in seas of
vast depth. The absence from these rocks of all traces of vegetable and
animal life, joined to a consideration of the excessive temperature which
seems to have prevailed in their epoch, has led to the inference that no
plants or animals of any kind then existed. A few geologists have indeed
endeavoured to shew that the absence of organic remains is no proof of the
globe having been then unfruitful or uninhabited, as the heat to which these
rocks have been subjected at the time of their solidification, might have
obliterated any remains of either plants or animals which were included in
them. But this is only an hypothesis of negation; and it certainly seems
very unlikely that a degree of heat sufficient to obliterate the remains of
plants or animals when dead, would ever allow of their coming into or
continuing in existence.

COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE—
SEA PLANTS, CORALS, ETC.

We can scarcely be said to have passed out of these rocks, when we begin
to find new conditions in the earth. It is here to be observed that the
subsequent rocks are formed, in a great measure, of matters derived from
the substance of those which went before, but contain also beds of
limestone, which is to no small extent composed of an ingredient which has
not hitherto appeared. Limestone is a carbonate of lime, a secondary
compound, of which one of the ingredients, carbonic acid gas, presents the
element carbon, a perfect novelty in our progress. Whence this substance?
The question is the more interesting, from our knowing that carbon is the
main ingredient in organic things. There is reason to believe that its
primeval condition was that of a gas, confined in the interior of the earth,
and diffused in the atmosphere. The atmosphere still contains about a two-
thousandth part of carbonic acid gas, forming the grand store from which
the substance of each year’s crop of herbage and grain is derived, passing
from herbage and grain into animal substance, and from animals again
rendered back to the atmosphere in their expired breath, so that its amount
is never impaired. Knowing this, when we hear of carbon beginning to
appear in the ascending series of rocks, we are unavoidably led to consider
it as marking a time of some importance in the earth’s history, a new era of
natural conditions, one in which organic life has probably played a part.
It is not easy to suppose that, at this period, carbon was adopted directly in
its gaseous form into rocks; for, if so, why should it not have been taken
into earlier ones also? But we know that plants take it in, and transform it
into substance; and we also know that there are classes of animals (marine
polypes) which are capable of appropriating it, in connexion with lime,
(carbonate of lime,) from the waters of the ocean, provided it be there in
solution; and this substance do these animals deposit in masses (coral reefs)

equal in extent to many strata. It has even been suggested, on strong
grounds of probability, that a class of limestone beds are simply these reefs
subjected to subsequent heat and pressure.
The appearance, then, of limestone beds in the early part of the stratified
series, may be presumed to be connected with the fact of the
commencement of organic life upon our planet, and, indeed, a consequent
and a symptom of it.
It may not be out of place here to remark, that carbon is presumed to exist
largely in the interior of the earth, from the fact of such considerable
quantities of it issuing at this day, in the form of carbonic acid gas, from
fissures and springs. The primeval and subsequent history of this element is
worthy of much attention, and we shall have to revert to it as a matter
greatly concerning our subject. Delabeche estimates the quantity of
carbonic acid gas locked up in every cubic yard of limestone, at 16,000
cubic feet. The quantity locked up in coal, in which it forms from 64 to 75
per cent., must also be enormous. If all this were disengaged in a gaseous
form, the constitution of the atmosphere would undergo a change, of which
the first effect would be the extinction of life in all land animals. But a
large proportion of it must have at one time been in the atmosphere. The
atmosphere would then, of course, be incapable of supporting life in land
animals. It is important, however, to observe that such an atmosphere
would not be inconsistent with a luxuriant land vegetation; for experiment
has proved that plants will flourish in air containing one-twelfth of this gas,
or 166 times more than the present charge of our atmosphere. The results
which we observe are perfectly consistent with, and may be said to
presuppose an atmosphere highly charged with this gas, from about the
close of the primary non-fossiliferous rocks to the termination of the
carboniferous series, for there we see vast deposits (coal) containing carbon
as a large ingredient, while at the same time the leaves of the Stone Book
present no record of the contemporaneous existence of land animals.
The hypothesis of the connexion of the first limestone beds with the
commencement of organic life upon our planet is supported by the fact, that
in these beds we find the first remains of the bodies of animated creatures.
My hypothesis may indeed be unsound; but, whether or not, it is clear,
taking organic remains as upon the whole a faithful chronicle, that the

deposition of these limestone beds was coeval with the existence of the
earliest, or all but the earliest, living creatures upon earth.
And what were those creatures? It might well be with a kind of awe that
the uninstructed inquirer would wait for an answer to this question. But
nature is simpler than man’s wit would make her, and behold, the
interrogation only brings before us the unpretending forms of various
zoophytes and polypes, together with a few single and double-valved shell-
fish (mollusks), all of them creatures of the sea. It is rather surprising to
find these before any vegetable forms, considering that vegetables appear to
us as forming the necessary first link in the chain of nutrition; but it is
probable that there were sea plants, and also some simpler forms of animal
life, before this period, although of too slight a substance to leave any fossil
trace of their existence.
The exact point in the ascending stratified series at which the first traces of
organic life are to be found is not clearly determined. Dr. M’Culloch states
that he found fossil orthocerata (a kind of shell-fish) so early as the gneiss
tract of Loch Eribol, in Sutherland; but Messrs. Sedgwick and Murchison,
on a subsequent search, could not verify the discovery. It has also been
stated, that the gneiss and mica tract of Bohemia contains some seams of
grawacke, in which are organic remains; but British geologists have not as
yet attached much importance to this statement. We have to look a little
higher in the series for indubitable traces of organic life.
Above the gneiss and mica slate system, or group of strata, is the Clay Slate
and Grawacke Slate System; that is to say, it is higher in the order of
supraposition, though very often it rests immediately on the primitive
granite. The sub-groups of this system are in the following succession
upwards:—1, hornblende slate; 2, chiastolite slate; 3, clay slate; 4,
Snowdon rocks, (grawacke and conglomerates;) 5, Bala limestone; 6,
Plynlymmon rocks, (grawacke and grawacke slates, with beds of
conglomerates.) This system is largely developed in the west and north of
England, and it has been well examined, partly because some of the slate
beds are extensively quarried for domestic purposes. If we overlook the
dubious statements respecting Sutherland and Bohemia, we have in this
“system” the first appearances of life upon our planet. The animal remains
are chiefly confined to the slate beds, those named from Bala, in Wales,

being the most prolific. Zoophyta, polyparia, crinoidea, conchifera, and
crustacea, [60] are the orders of the animal kingdom thus found in the
earliest of earth’s sepulchres. The orders are distinguished without
difficulty, from the general characters of the creatures whose remains are
found; but it is only in this general character that they bear a general
resemblance to any creatures now existing. When we come to consider
specific characters, we see that a difference exists—that, in short, the
species and even genera are no longer represented upon earth. More than
this, it will be found that the earliest species comparatively soon gave place
to others, and that they are not represented even in the next higher group of
rocks. One important remark has been made, that a comparatively small
variety of species is found in the older rocks, although of some particular
ones the remains are very abundant; as, for instance, of a species of
asaphus, which is found between the laminæ of some of the slate rocks of
Wales, and the corresponding rocks of Normandy and Germany in
enormous quantities.
Ascending to the next group of rocks, we find the traces of life become
more abundant, the number of species extended, and important additions
made in certain vestiges of fuci, or sea-plants, and of fishes. This group of
rocks has been called by English geologists, the Silurian System, because
largely developed at the surface of a district of western England, formerly
occupied by a people whom the Roman historians call Silures. It is a series
of sandstones, limestones, and beds of shale (hardened mud), which are
classed in the following sub-groups, beginning with the undermost:—1,
Llandillo rocks, (darkish calcareous flagstones;) 2 and 3, two groups called
Caradoc rocks; 4, Wenlock shale; 5, Wenlock limestone; 6, Lower Ludlow
rocks, (shales and limestones;) 7, Aymestry limestone; 8, Upper Ludlow
rocks, (shales and limestone, chiefly micaceous.) From the lowest beds
upwards, there are polypiaria, though most prevalent in the Wenlock
limestone; conchifera, a vast number of genera, but all of the order
brachiopoda, (including terebratula, pentamerus, spirifer, orthis, leptæna;)
mollusca, of several orders and many genera, (including turritella,
orthoceras, nautilus, bellerophon;) crustacea, all of them trilobites,
(including trinucleus, asaphus, calamene.) A little above the Llandillo
rocks, there have been discovered certain convoluted forms, which are now
established as annelids, or sea-worms, a tribe of creatures still existing,

(nereidina and serpulina,) and which may often be found beneath stones on
a sea-beach. One of these, figured by Mr. Murchison, is furnished with feet
in vast numbers all along its body, like a centipede. The occurrence of
annelids is important, on account of their character and status in the animal
kingdom. They are red-blooded and hermaphrodite, and form a link of
connexion between the annulosa (white-blooded worms) and a humble class
of the vertebrata. [62] The Wenlock limestone is most remarkable amongst
all the rocks of the Silurian system, for organic remains. Many slabs of it
are wholly composed of corals, shells, and trilobites, held together by
shale. It contains many genera of crinoidea and polypiaria, and it is thought
that some beds of it are wholly the production of the latter creatures, or are,
in other words, coral reefs transformed by heat and pressure into rocks.
Remains of fishes, of a very minute size, have been detected by Mr. Philips
in the Aymestry limestone, being apparently the first examples of
vertebrated animals which breathed upon our planet. In the upper Ludlow
rocks, remains of six genera of fish have been for a longer period known;
they belong to the order of cartilaginous fishes, an order of mean
organization and ferocious habits, of which the shark and sturgeon are
living specimens. “Some were furnished with long palates, and squat,
firmly-based teeth, well adapted for crushing the strong-cased zoophytes
and shells of the period, fragments of which occur in the fœcal remains;
some with teeth that, like the fossil sharks of the later formations, resemble
lines of miniature pyramids, larger and smaller alternating; some with teeth
sharp, thin, and so deeply serrated, that every individual tooth resembles a
row of poniards set up against the walls of an armory; and these last, says
Agassiz, furnished with weapons so murderous, must have been the pirates
of the period. Some had their fins guarded with long spines, hooked like
the beak of an eagle; some with spines of straighter and more slender form,
and ribbed and furrowed longitudinally like columns; some were shielded
by an armour of bony points, and some thickly covered with glistening
scales.” [64]
The traces of fuci in this system are all but sufficient to allow of a
distinction of genera. In some parts of North America, extensive though
thin beds of them have been found. A distinguished French geologist, M.
Brogniart, has shewn that all existing marine plants are classifiable with
regard to the zones of climate; some being fitted for the torrid zone, some

for the temperate, some for the frigid. And he establishes that the fuci of
these early rocks speak of a torrid climate, although they may be found in
what are now temperate regions; he also states that those of the higher rocks
betoken, as we ascend, a gradually diminishing temperature.
We thus early begin to find proofs of the general uniformity of organic life
over the surface of the earth, at the time when each particular system of
rocks was formed. Species identical with the remains in the Wenlock
limestone occur in the corresponding class of rocks in the Eifel, and
partially in the Harz, Norway, Russia, and Brittany. The situations of the
remains in Russia are fifteen hundred miles from the Wenlock beds; but at
the distance of between six and seven thousand from those,—namely, in the
vale of Mississippi, the same species are discovered. Uniformity in animal
life over large geographical areas argues uniformity in the conditions of
animal life; and hence arise some curious inferences. Species, in the same
low class of animals, are now much more limited; for instance, the Red Sea
gives different polypiaria, zoophytes, and shell-fish, from the
Mediterranean. It is the opinion of M. Brogniart, that the uniformity which
existed in the primeval times can only be attributed to the temperature
arising from the internal heat, which had yet, as he supposes, been
sufficiently great to overpower the ordinary meteorological influences, and
spread a tropical clime all over the globe.

ERA OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE—
FISHES ABUNDANT.

We advance to a new chapter in this marvellous history—the era of the Old
Red Sandstone System. This term has been recently applied to a series of
strata, of enormous thickness in the whole mass, largely developed in
Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and South Wales; also in the
counties of Fife, Forfar, Moray, Cromarty, and Caithness; and in Russia and
North America, if not in many other parts of the world. The particular strata
forming the system are somewhat different in different countries; but there
is a general character to the extent of these being a mixture of flagstones,
marly rocks, and sandstones, usually of a laminous structure, with
conglomerates. There is also a schist shewing the presence of bitumen; a
remarkable new ingredient, since it is a vegetable production. In the
conglomerates, of great extent and thickness, which form, in at least one
district, the basis or leading feature of the system, inclosing water-worn
fragments of quartz and other rocks, we have evidence of the seas of that
period having been subjected to a violent and long-continued agitation,
probably from volcanic causes. The upper members of the series bear the
appearance of having been deposited in comparatively tranquil seas. The
English specimens of this system shew a remarkable freedom from those
disturbances which result in the interjection of trap; and they are thus
defective in mineral ores. In some parts of England the old red sandstone
system has been stated as 10,000 feet in thickness.
In this era, the forms of life which existed in the Silurian are continued: we
have the same orders of marine creatures, zoophyta, polypiaria, conchifera,
crustacea; but to these are added numerous fishes, some of which are of
most extraordinary and surprising forms. Several of the strata are crowded
with remains of fish, shewing that the seas in which those beds were
deposited had swarmed with that class of inhabitants. The investigation of

this system is recent; but already [68] M. Agassiz has ascertained about
twenty genera, and thrice the number of species. And it is remarkable that
the Silurian fishes are here only represented in genera; the whole of the
species of that era had already passed away. Even throughout the sub-
groups of the system itself, the species are changed; and these are
phenomena observed throughout all the subsequent systems or geological
eras; apparently arguing that, during the deposition of all the rocks, a
gradual change of physical conditions was constantly going on. A varying
temperature, or even a varying depth of sea, would at present be attended
with similar changes in marine life; and by analogy we are entitled to
assume that such variations in the ancient seas might be amongst the causes
of that constant change of genera and species in the inhabitants of those
seas to which the organic contents of the rocks bear witness.
Some of the fossils of this system,—the cephalaspis, coccosteus,
pterichthys, holoptychius—are, in form and structure, entirely different
from any fishes now existing, only the sturgeon family having any trace of
affinity to them in any respect. They seem to form a sort of connecting link
between the crustacea and true fishes.
The cephalaspis may be considered as making the smallest advance from
the crustacean character; it very much resembles in form the asaphus of
lower formations, having a longish tail-like body inserted within the cusp of
a large crescent-shaped head, somewhat like a saddler’s cutting-knife. The
body is covered with strong plates of bone, enamelled, and the head was
protected on the upper side with one large plate, as with a buckler—hence
the name, implying buckler-head. A range of small fins conveys the idea of
its having been as weak in motion as it is strong in structure. The
coccosteus may be said to mark the next advance to fish creation. The
outline of its body is of the form of a short thick coffin, rounded, covered
with strong bony plates, and terminating in a long tail, which seems to have
been the sole organ of motion. It is very remarkable, that, while the tail
establishes this creature among the vertebrata and the fishes, its mouth has
been opened vertically, like those of the crustaceans, but which is contrary
to the mode of vertebrata generally. This seems a pretty strong mark of the
link character of the coccosteus between these two great departments of the
animal kingdom. The pterichthys has also strong bony plates over its body,
arranged much like those of a tortoise, and has a long tail; but its most

remarkable feature, and that which has suggested its name, is a pair of long
and narrow wing-like appendages attached to the shoulders, which the
creature is supposed to have erected for its defence when attacked by an
enemy.
The holoptychius is of a flat oval form, furnished with fins, and ending in a
long tail; the whole body covered with strong plates which overlap each
other, and the head forming only a slight rounded projection from the
general figure. The specimens in the lower beds are not above the size of a
flounder; but in the higher strata, to judge by the size of the scales or plates
which have been found, the creature attained a comparatively monstrous
size.
The other fishes of the system,—the osteolepis, glyptolepis, dipterus, &c.,
are, in general outline, much like fishes still existing, but their organization
has, nevertheless, some striking peculiarities. They have been entirely
covered with bony scales or plates, enamelled externally; their spines are
tipped with bone, and, as one striking and unvarying feature, the tail is only
finned on the lower side. The internal skeleton, of which no traces have
been preserved, is presumed to have been cartilaginous. They therefore
unite the character of cartilaginous fishes with a character peculiar to
themselves, and in which we see pretty clear vestiges of the pre-existent
crustaceous form.
With regard to the link character of these animals, some curious facts are
mentioned. It appears that in the imperfect condition of the vertebral
column, and the inferior situation of the mouth in the pterichthys,
coccosteus, &c., there is an analogy to the form of the dorsal cord and
position of the mouth in the embryo of perfect fishes. The one-sided form
of the tail in the osteolepis &c. finds a similar analogy in the form of the tail
in the embryo of the salmon. It is not premature to remark how broadly
these facts seem to hint at a parity of law affecting the progress of general
creation, and the progress of an individual fœtus of one of the more perfect
animals.
It is equally ascertained of the types of being prevalent in the old red, as of
those of the preceding system, that they are uniform in the corresponding
strata of distant parts of the earth; for instance, Russia and North America.

In the old red sandstone, the marine plants, of which faint traces are
observable in the Silurians, continue to appear. It would seem as if less
change took place in the vegetation than in the animals of those early seas;
and for this, as Mr. Miller has remarked, it is easy to imagine reasons. For
example, an infusion of lime into the sea would destroy animal life, but be
favourable to vegetation.
As yet there were no land animals or plants, and for this the presumable
reason is, that no dry land as yet existed. We are not left to make this
inference solely from the absence of land animals and plants; in the
arrangement of the primary (stratified) rocks, we have further evidence of
it. That these rocks were formed in a generally horizontal position, we are
as well assured as that they were formed at the bottom of seas. But they are
always found greatly inclined in position, tilted up against the slopes of the
granitic masses which are beneath them in geological order, though often
shooting up to a higher point in the atmosphere. No doubt can be
entertained that these granitic masses, forming our principal mountain
ranges, have been protruded from below, or, at least, thrust much further up,
since the deposition of the primary rocks. The protrusion was what tilted up
the primary rocks; and the inference is, of course, unavoidable, that these
mountains have risen chiefly, at least, since the primary rocks were laid
down. It is remarkable that, while the primary rocks thus incline towards
granitic nuclei or axes, the strata higher in the series rest against these
again, generally at a less inclination, or none at all, shewing that these strata
were laid down after the swelling mountain eminences had, by their
protrusion, tilted up the primary strata. And thus it may be said an era of
local upthrowing of the primitive and (perhaps) central matter of our planet,
is established as happening about the close of the primary strata, and
beginning of the next ensuing system. It may be called the Era of the
Oldest Mountains, or, more boldly, of the formation of the detached
portions of dry land over the hitherto watery surface of the globe—an
important part of the designs of Providence, for which the time was now
apparently come. It may be remarked, that volcanic disturbances and
protrusions of trap took place throughout the whole period of the deposition
of the primary rocks; but they were upon a comparatively limited scale, and
probably all took place under water. It was only now that the central
granitic masses of the great mountain ranges were thrown up, carrying up

with them broken edges of the primary strata; a process which seems to
have had this difference from the other, that it was the effect of a more
tremendous force exerted at a lower depth in the earth, and generally acting
in lines pervading a considerable portion of the earth’s surface. We shall
by-and-by see that the protrusion of some of the mountain ranges was not
completed, or did not stop, at that period. There is no part of geological
science more clear than that which refers to the ages of mountains. It is as
certain that the Grampian mountains of Scotland are older than the Alps and
Apennines, as it is that civilization had visited Italy, and had enabled her to
subdue the world, while Scotland was the residence of “roving barbarians.”
The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other ranges of continental Europe, are all
younger than the Grampians, or even the insignificant Mendip Hills of
southern England. Stratification tells this tale as plainly as Livy tells the
history of the Roman republic. It tells us—to use the words of Professor
Philips—that at the time when the Grampians sent streams and detritus to
straits where now the valleys of the Forth and Clyde meet, the greater part
of Europe was a wide ocean.
The last three systems—called, in England, the Cumbrian, Silurian, and
Devonian, and collectively the palæozoic rocks, from their containing the
remains of the earliest inhabitants of the globe—are of vast thickness; in
England, not much less than 30,000 feet, or nearly six miles. In other parts
of the world, as we have seen, the earliest of these systems alone is of much
greater depth—arguing an enormous profundity in the ocean in which they
were formed.

SECONDARY ROCKS.
ERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATION.
LAND FORMED.
COMMENCEMENT OF LAND PLANTS.

We now enter upon a new great epoch in the history of our globe. There
was now dry land. As a consequence of this fact, there was fresh water, for
rain, instead of immediately returning to the sea, as formerly, was now
gathered in channels of the earth, and became springs, rivers, and lakes.
There was now a theatre for the existence of land plants and animals, and it
remains to be inquired if these accordingly were produced.
The Secondary Rocks, in which our further researches are to be prosecuted,
consist of a great and varied series, resting, generally unconformably,
against flanks of the upturned primary rocks, sometimes themselves
considerably inclined, at others, forming extensive basin-like beds, nearly
horizontal; in many places, much broken up and shifted by disturbances
from below. They have all been formed out of the materials of the older
rocks, by virtue of the wearing power of air and water, which is still every
day carrying down vast quantities of the elevated matter of the globe into
the sea. But the separate strata are each much more distinct in the matter of
its composition than might be expected. Some are siliceous or arenaceous
(sandstones), composed mainly of fine grains from the quartz rocks—the
most abundant of the primary strata. Others are argillaceous—clays, shales,
&c., chiefly derived, probably, from the slate beds of the primary series.
Others are calcareous, derived from the early limestone. As a general
feature, they are softer and less crystalline than the primary rocks, as if they
had endured less of both heat and pressure than the senior formation. There
are beds (coal) formed solely of vegetable matter, and some others in which
the main ingredient is particles of iron, (the iron black band.) The

secondary rocks are quite as communicative with regard to their portion of
the earth’s history as the primitive were.
The first, or lowest, group of the secondary rocks is called the
Carboniferous Formation, from the remarkable feature of its numerous
interspersed beds of coal. It commences with the beds of the mountain
limestone, which, in some situations, as in Derbyshire and Ireland, are of
great thickness, being alternated with chert (a siliceous sandstone),
sandstones, shales, and beds of coal, generally of the harder and less
bituminous kind (anthracite), the whole being covered in some places by
the millstone grit, a siliceous conglomerate composed of the detritus of the
primary rocks. The mountain limestone, attaining in England to a depth of
eight hundred yards, greatly exceeds in volume any of the primary
limestone beds, and shews an enormous addition of power to the causes
formerly suggested as having produced this substance. In fact, remains of
corals, crinoidea, and shells, are so abundant in it, as to compose three-
fourths of the mass in some parts. Above the mountain limestone
commence the more conspicuous coal beds, alternating with sandstones,
shales, beds of limestone, and ironstone. Coal is altogether composed of
the matter of a terrestrial vegetation, transmuted by pressure. Some fresh-
water shells have been found in it, but few of marine origin, and no remains
of those zoophytes and crinoidea so abundant in the mountain limestone
and other rocks. Coal beds exist in Europe, Asia, and America, and have
hitherto been esteemed as the most valuable of mineral productions, from
the important services which the substance renders in manufactures and in
domestic economy. It is to be remarked, that there are some local variations
in the arrangement of coal beds. In France, they rest immediately on the
granite and other primary rocks, the intermediate strata not having been
found at those places. In America, the kind called anthracite occurs among
the slate beds, and this species also abounds more in the mountain
limestone than with us. These last circumstances only shew that different
parts of the earth’s surface did not all witness the same events of a certain
fixed series exactly at the same time. There had been an exhibition of dry
land about the site of America, a little earlier than in Europe.
Some features of the condition of the earth during the deposition of the
carboniferous group, are made out with a clearness which must satisfy most
minds. First we are told of a time when carbonate of lime was formed in

vast abundance at the bottoms of profound seas, accompanied by an
unusually large population of corals and encrinites; while in some parts of
the earth there were patches of dry land, covered with a luxuriant
vegetation. Next we have a comparatively brief period of volcanic
disturbance, (when the conglomerate was formed.) Then the causes
favourable to the so abundant production of limestone, and the large
population of marine acrita, decline, and we find the masses of dry land
increase in number and extent, and begin to bear an amount of forest
vegetation, far exceeding that of the most sheltered tropical spots of the
present surface. The climate, even in the latitude of Baffin’s Bay, was
torrid, and perhaps the atmosphere contained a larger charge of carbonic
acid gas (the material of vegetation) than it now does. The forests or
thickets of the period, included no species of plants now known upon earth.
They mainly consisted of gigantic shrubs, which are either not represented
by any existing types, or are akin to kinds which are now only found in
small and lowly forms. That these forests grew upon a Polynesia, or
multitude of small islands, is considered probable, from similar vegetation
being now found in such situations within the tropics. With regard to the
circumstances under which the masses of vegetable matter were
transformed into successive coal strata, geologists are divided. From
examples seen at the present day, at the mouths of such rivers as the
Mississippi, which traverse extensive sylvan regions, and from other
circumstances to be adverted to, it is held likely by some that the vegetable
matter, the rubbish of decayed forests, was carried by rivers into estuaries,
and there accumulated in vast natural rafts, until it sunk to the bottom,
where an overlayer of sand or mud would prepare it for becoming a stratum
of coal. Others conceive that the vegetation first went into the condition of
a peat moss, that a sink in the level then exposed it to be overrun by the sea,
and covered with a layer of sand or mud; that a subsequent uprise made the
mud dry land, and fitted it to bear a new forest, which afterwards, like its
predecessor, became a bed of peat; that, in short, by repetitions of this
process, the alternate layers of coal, sandstone, and shale, constituting the
carboniferous group, were formed. It is favourable to this last view that
marine fossils are scarcely found in the body of the coal itself, though
abundant in the shale layers above and below it; also that in several places
erect stems of trees are found with their roots still fixed in the shale beds,
and crossing the sandstone beds at almost right angles, shewing that these,

at least, had not been drifted from their original situations. On the other
hand, it is not easy to admit such repeated risings and sinkings of surface as
would be required, on this hypothesis, to form a series of coal strata.
Perhaps we may most safely rest at present with the supposition that coal
has been formed under both classes of circumstances, though in the latter
only as an exception to the former.
Upwards of three hundred species of plants have been ascertained to exist
in the coal formation; but it is not necessary to suppose that the whole
contained in that system are now, or ever will be distinguished.
Experiments shew that some great classes of plants become decomposed in
water in a much less space of time than others, and it is remarkable that
those which decompose soonest, are of the classes found most rare, or not at
all, in the coal strata. It is consequently to be inferred that there may have
been grasses and mosses at this era, and many species of trees, the remains
of which had lost all trace of organic form before their substance sunk into
the mass of which coal was formed. In speaking, therefore, of the
vegetation of this period, we must bear in mind that it may have
comprehended forms of which we have no memorial.
Supposing, nevertheless, that, in the main, the ascertained vegetation of the
coal system is that which grew at the time of its formation, it is interesting
to find that the terrestrial botany of our globe begins with classes of
comparatively simple forms and structure. In the ranks of the vegetable
kingdom, the lowest place is taken by plants of cellular tissue, and which
have no flowers, (cryptogamia,) as lichens, mosses, fungi, ferns, sea-
weeds. Above these stand plants of vascular tissue, and bearing flowers, in
which again there are two great subdivisions; first, plants having one seed-
lobe, (monocotyledons,) and in which the new matter is added within,
(endogenous,) of which the cane and palm are examples; second, plants
having two seed-lobes, (dicotyledons,) and in which the new matter is
added on the outside under the bark, (exogenous,) of which the pine, elm,
oak, and most of the British forest-trees are examples; these subdivisions
also ranking in the order in which they are here stated. Now it is clear that
a predominance of these forms in succession marked the successive epochs
developed by fossil geology; the simple abounding first, and the complex
afterwards.

Two-thirds of the plants of the carboniferous era are of the cellular or
cryptogamic kind, a proportion which would probably be much increased if
we knew the whole Flora of that era. The ascertained dicotyledons, or
higher-class plants, are comparatively few in this formation; but it will be
found that they constantly increased as the globe grew older.
The master-form or type of the era was the fern, or breckan, of which about
one hundred and thirty species have already been ascertained as entering
into the composition of coal. [84a] The fern is a plant which thrives best in
warm, shaded, and moist situations. In tropical countries, where these
conditions abound, there are many more species than in temperate climes,
and some of these are arborescent, or of a tree-like size and luxuriance.
[84b]
The ferns of the coal strata have been of this magnitude, and that
without regard to the parts of the earth where they are found. In the coal of
Baffin’s Bay, of Newcastle, and of the torrid zone alike, are the fossil ferns
arborescent, shewing clearly that, in that era, the present tropical
temperature, or one even higher, existed in very high latitudes.
In the swamps and ditches of England there grows a plant called the horse-
tail (equisetum), having a succulent, erect, jointed stem, with slender leaves,
and a scaly catkin at the top. A second large section of the plants of the
carboniferous era were of this kind (equisetaceæ), but, like the fern,
reaching the magnitudes of trees. While existing equiseta rarely exceed
three feet in height, and the stems are generally under half an inch in
diameter, their kindred, entombed in the coal beds, seem to have been
generally fourteen or fifteen feet high, with stems from six inches to a foot
in thickness. Arborescent plants of this family, like the arborescent ferns,
now grow only in tropical countries, and their being found in the coal beds
in all latitudes is consequently held as an additional proof, that at this era a
warm climate was extended much farther to the north than at present. It is
to be remarked that plants of this kind (forming two genera, the most
abundant of which is the calamites) are only represented on the present
surface by plants of the same family: the species which flourished at this era
gradually lessen in number as we advance upwards in the series of rocks,
and disappear before we arrive at the tertiary formation.
The club-moss family (lycopodiaceæ) are other plants of the present
surface, usually seen in a lowly and creeping form in temperate latitudes,

but presenting species which rise to a greater magnitude within the tropics.
Many specimens of this family are found in the coal beds; it is thought they
have contributed more to the substance of the coal than any other family.
But, like the ferns and equisetaceæ, they rise to a prodigious magnitude.
The lepidodendra (so the fossil genus is called) have probably been from
sixty-five to eighty feet in height, having at their base a diameter of about
three feet, while their leaves measured twenty inches in length. In the
forests of the coal era, the lepidodendra would enjoy the rank of firs in our
forests, affording shade to the only less stately ferns and calamites. The
internal structure of the stem, and the character of the seed-vessels, shew
them to have been a link between single-lobed and double-lobed plants, a
fact worthy of note, as it favours the idea that, in vegetable, as well as
animal creation, a progress has been observed, in conformity with
advancing conditions. It is also curious to find a missing link of so much
importance in a genus of plants which has long ceased to have a living
place upon earth.
The other leading plants of the coal era are without representatives on the
present surface, and their characters are in general less clearly ascertained.
Amongst the most remarkable are—the sigillaria, of which large stems are
very abundant, shewing that the interior has been soft, and the exterior
fluted with separate leaves inserted in vertical rows along the flutings—and
the stigmaria, plants apparently calculated to flourish in marshes or pools,
having a short, thick, fleshy stem, with a dome-shaped top, from which
sprung branches of from twenty to thirty feet long. Amongst
monocotyledons were some palms, (flabellaria and næggerathia,) besides a
few not distinctly assignable to any class.
The dicotyledons of the coal are comparatively few, though on the present
surface they are the most numerous sub-class. Besides some of doubtful
affinity, (annularia, asterophyllites, &c.,) there were a few of the pine
family, which seem to have been the highest class of trees of this era, and
are only as yet found in isolated cases, and in sandstone beds. The first
discovered lay in the Craigleith quarry, near Edinburgh, and consisted of a
stem about two feet thick, and forty-seven feet in length. Others have since
been found, both in the same situation, and at Newcastle. Leaves and fruit
being wanting, an ingenious mode of detecting the nature of these trees was
hit upon by Mr. Witham of Lartington. Taking thin polished cross slices of

the stem, and subjecting them to the microscope, he detected the structure
of the wood to be that of a cone-bearing tree, by the presence of certain
“reticulations” which distinguish that family, in addition to the usual
radiating and concentric lines. That particular tree was concluded to be an
araucaria, a species now found in Norfolk Island, in the South Sea, and in a
few other remote situations. The coniferæ of this era form the dawn of
dicotyledenous trees, of which they may be said to be the simplest type, and
to which, it has already been noticed, the lepidodendra are a link from the
monocotyledons. The concentric rings of the Craigleith and other coniferæ
of this era have been mentioned. It is interesting to find in these a record of
the changing seasons of those early ages, when as yet there were no human
beings to observe time or tide. They are clearly traced; but it is observed
that they are more slightly marked than is the case with their family at the
present day, as if the changes of temperature had been within a narrower
range.
Such was the vegetation of the carbonigenous era, composed of forms at the
bottom of the botanical scale, flowerless, fruitless, but luxuriant and
abundant beyond what the most favoured spots on earth can now shew. The
rigidity of the leaves of its plants, and the absence of fleshy fruits and
farinaceous seeds, unfitted it to afford nutriment to animals; and,
monotonous in its forms, and destitute of brilliant colouring, its sward
probably unenlivened by any of the smaller flowering herbs, its shades
uncheered by the hum of insects, or the music of birds, it must have been
but a sombre scene to a human visitant. But neither man nor any other
animals were then in existence to look for such uses or such beauties in this
vegetation. It was serving other and equally important ends, clearing
(probably) the atmosphere of matter noxious to animal life, and storing up
mineral masses which were in long subsequent ages to prove of the greatest
service to the human race, even to the extent of favouring the progress of its
civilization.
The animal remains of this era are not numerous, in comparison with those
which go before, or those which come after. The mountain limestone,
indeed, deposited at the commencement of it, abounds unusually in
polypiaria and crinoidea; but when we ascend to the coal-beds themselves,
the case is altered, and these marine remains altogether disappear. We have
then only a limited variety of conchifers and shell mollusks, with fragments

of a few species of fishes, and these are rarely or never found in the coal
seams, but in the shales alternating with them. Some of the fishes are of a
sauroid character, that is, partake of the nature of the lizard, a genus of the
reptilia, a land class of animals, so that we may be said here to have the first
approach to a kind of animals calculated to breathe the atmosphere. Such is
the Megalichthys Hibbertii, found by Dr. Hibbert Ware, in a limestone bed
of fresh-water origin, underneath the coal at Burdiehouse, near Edinburgh.
Others of the same kind have been found in the coal measures in Yorkshire,
and in the low coal shales at Manchester. This is no more than might be
expected, as collections of fresh water now existed, and it is presumable
that they would be peopled. The chief other fishes of the coal era are
named palæothrissum, palæoniscus, diperdus.
Coal strata are nearly confined to the group termed the carboniferous
formation. Thin beds are not unknown afterwards, but they occur only as a
rare exception. It is therefore thought that the most important of the
conditions which allowed of so abundant a terrestrial vegetation, had ceased
about the time when this formation was closed. The high temperature was
not one of the conditions which terminated, for there are evidences of it
afterwards; but probably the superabundance of carbonic acid gas supposed
to have existed during this era was expended before its close. There can be
little doubt that the infusion of a large dose of this gas into the atmosphere
at the present day would be attended by precisely the same circumstances as
in the time of the carboniferous formation. Land animal life would not
have a place on earth; vegetation would be enormous; and coal strata would
be formed from the vast accumulations of woody matter, which would
gather in every sea, near the mouths of great rivers. On the exhaustion of
the superabundance of carbonic acid gas, the coal formation would cease,
and the earth might again become a suitable theatre of being for land
animals.
The termination of the carboniferous formation is marked by symptoms of
volcanic violence, which some geologists have considered to denote the
close of one system of things and the beginning of another. Coal beds
generally lie in basins, as if following the curve of the bottom of seas. But
there is no such basin which is not broken up into pieces, some of which
have been tossed up on edge, others allowed to sink, causing the ends of
strata to be in some instances many yards, and in a few several hundred

feet, removed from the corresponding ends of neighbouring fragments.
These are held to be results of volcanic movements below, the operation of
which is further seen in numerous upbursts and intrusions of volcanic rock
(trap). That these disturbances took place about the close of the formation,
and not later, is shewn in the fact of the next higher group of strata being
comparatively undisturbed. Other symptoms of this time of violence are
seen in the beds of conglomerate which occur amongst the first strata above
the coal. These, as usual, consist of fragments of the elder rocks, more or
less worn from being tumbled about in agitated water, and laid down in a
mud paste, afterwards hardened. Volcanic disturbances break up the rocks;
the pieces are worn in seas; and a deposit of conglomerate is the
consequence. Of porphyry, there are some such pieces in the conglomerate
of Devonshire, three or four tons in weight. It is to be admitted for strict
truth that, in some parts of Europe, the carboniferous formation is followed
by superior deposits, without the appearance of such disturbances between
their respective periods; but apparently this case belongs to the class of
exceptions already noticed. [93] That disturbance was general, is supported
by the further and important fact of the destruction of many forms of
organic being previously flourishing, particularly of the vegetable kingdom.

ERA OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE.
TERRESTRIAL ZOOLOGY COMMENCES
WITH REPTILES.
FIRST TRACES OF BIRDS.

The next volume of the rock series refers to an era distinguished by an
event of no less importance than the commencement of land animals. The
New Red Sandstone System is subdivided into groups, some of which are
wanting in some places; they are pretty fully developed in the north of
England, in the following ascending order:—1. Lower red sandstone; 2.
Magnesian limestone; 3. Red and white sandstones and conglomerate; 4.
Variegated marls. Between the third and fourth there is, in Germany,
another group, called the Muschelkalk, a word expressing a limestone full
of shells.
The first group, containing the conglomerates already adverted to, seems to
have been produced during the time of disturbance which occurred so
generally after the carbonigenous era. This new era is distinguished by a
paucity of organic remains, as might partly be expected from the
appearances of disturbance, and the red tint of the rocks, the latter being
communicated by a solution of oxide of iron, a substance unfavourable to
animal life.
The second group is a limestone with an infusion of magnesia. It is
developed less generally than some others, but occurs conspicuously in
England and Germany. Its place, above the red sandstone, shews the
recurrence of circumstances favourable to animal life, and we accordingly
find in it not only zoophytes, conchifera, and a few tribes of fish, but some
faint traces of land plants, and a new and startling appearance—a reptile of
saurian (lizard) character, analogous to the now existing family called
monitors. Remains of this creature are found in cupriferous (copper-

bearing) slate connected with the mountain limestone, at Mansfield and
Glucksbrunn, in Germany, which may be taken as evidence that dry land
existed in that age near those places. The magnesia limestone is also
remarkable as the last rock in which appears the leptæna, or producta, a
conchifer of numerous species which makes a conspicuous appearance in
all previous seas. It is likewise to be observed, that the fishes of this age, to
the genera of which the names palæoniscus, catopterus, platysomus, &c.,
have been applied, vanish, and henceforth appear no more.
The third group, chiefly sandstones, variously coloured according to the
amount and nature of the metallic oxide infused into them, shews a
recurrence of agitation, and a consequent diminution of the amount of
animal life. In the upper part, however, of this group, there are abundant
symptoms of a revival of proper conditions for such life. There are marl
beds, the origin of which substance in decomposed shells is obvious; and in
Germany, though not in England, here occurs the muschelkalk, containing
numerous organic remains, (generally different from those of the magnesian
limestone,) and noted for the specimens of land animals, which it is the first
to present in any considerable abundance to our notice.
These animals are of the vertebrate sub-kingdom, but of its lowest class
next after fishes,—namely, reptiles,—a portion of the terrestrial tribes
whose imperfect respiratory system perhaps fitted them for enduring an
atmosphere not yet quite suitable for birds or mammifers. [97] The
specimens found in the muschelkalk are allied to the crocodile and lizard
tribes of the present day, but in the latter instance are upon a scale of
magnitude as much superior to present forms as the lepidodendron of the
coal era was superior to the dwarf club-mosses of our time. These saurians
also combine some peculiarities of structure of a most extraordinary
character.
The animal to which the name ichthyosaurus has been given, was as long as
a young whale, and it was fitted for living in the water, though breathing the
atmosphere. It had the vertebral column and general bodily form of a fish,
but to that were added the head and breast-bone of a lizard, and the paddles
of the whale tribes. The beak, moreover, was that of a porpoise, and the
teeth were those of a crocodile. It must have been a most destructive
creature to the fish of those early seas.

The plesiosaurus was of similar bulk, with a turtle-like body and paddles,
shewing that the sea was its element, but with a long serpent-like neck,
terminating in a saurian head, calculated to reach prey at a considerable
distance. These two animals, of which many varieties have been
discovered, constituting distinct species, are supposed to have lived in the
shallow borders of the seas of this and subsequent formations, devouring
immense quantities of the finny tribes. It was at first thought that no
creatures approaching them in character now inhabit the earth; but latterly
Mr. Darwin has discovered, in the reptile-peopled Galapagos Islands, in the
South Sea, a marine saurian from three to four feet long.
The megalosaurus was an enormous lizard—a land creature, also
carnivorous. The pterodactyle was another lizard, but furnished with wings
to pursue its prey in the air, and varying in size between a cormorant and a
snipe. Crocodiles abounded, and some of these were herbivorous. Such
was the iguanodon, a creature of the character of the iguana of the Ganges,
but reaching a hundred feet in length, or twenty times that of its modern
representative.
There were also numerous tortoises, some of them reaching a great size;
and Professor Owen has found in Warwickshire some remains of an animal
of the batrachian order, [99] to which, from the peculiar form of the teeth, he
has given the name of labyrinthidon. Thus, three of Cuvier’s four orders of
reptilia (sauria, chelonia, and batrachia) are represented in this formation,
the serpent order (ophidia) being alone wanting.
The variegated marl beds which constitute the uppermost group of the
formation, present two additional genera of huge saurians,—the
phytosaurus and mastodonsaurus.
It is in the upper beds of the red sandstone that beds of salt first occur.
These are sometimes of such thickness, that the mine from which the
material has been excavated looks like a lofty church. We see in the present
world no circumstances calculated to produce the formation of a bed of
rock salt; yet it is not difficult to understand how such strata were formed in
an age marked by ultra-tropical heat and frequent volcanic disturbances.
An estuary, cut off by an upthrow of trap, or a change of level, and left to
dry up under the heat of the sun, would quickly become the bed of a dense

layer of rock salt. A second shift of level, or some other volcanic
disturbance, connecting it again with the sea, would expose this stratum to
being covered over with a layer of sand or mud, destined in time to form the
next stratum of rock above it.
The plants of this era are few and unobtrusive. Equiseta, calamites, ferns,
Voltzia, and a few of the other families found so abundantly in the
preceding formation, here present themselves, but in diminished size and
quantity.
This seems to be the proper place to advert to certain memorials of a
peculiar and unexpected character respecting these early ages in the
sandstones. So low as the bottom of the carboniferous system, slabs are
found marked over a great extent of surface with that peculiar corrugation
or wrinkling which the receding tide leaves upon a sandy beach when the
sea is but slightly agitated; and not only are these ripple-marks, as they are
called, found on the surfaces, but casts of them are found on the under sides
of slabs lying above. The phenomena suggests the time when the sand
ultimately formed into these stone slabs, was part of the beach of a sea of
the carbonigenous era; when, left wavy by one tide, it was covered over
with a thin layer of fresh sand by the next, and so on, precisely as such
circumstances might be expected to take place at the present day.
Sandstone surfaces, ripple-marked, are found throughout the subsequent
formations: in those of the new red, at more than one place in England, they
further bear impressions of rain-drops which have fallen upon them—the
rain, of course, of the inconceivably remote age in which the sandstones
were formed. In the Greensill sandstone, near Shrewsbury, it has even been
possible to tell from what direction the shower came which impressed the
sandy surface, the rims of the marks being somewhat raised on one side,
exactly as might be expected from a slanting shower falling at this day upon
one of our beaches. These facts have the same sort of interest as the season
rings of the Craigleith conifers, as speaking of a parity between some of the
familiar processes of nature in those early ages and our own.
In the new red sandstone, impressions still more important in the inferences
to which they tend, have been observed,—namely, the footmarks of various
animals. In a quarry of this formation, at Corncockle Muir, in
Dumfriesshire, where the slabs incline at an angle of thirty-eight degrees,

the vestiges of an animal supposed to have been a tortoise are distinctly
traced up and down the slope, as if the creature had had occasion to pass
backwards and forwards in that direction only, possibly in its daily visits to
the sea. Some slabs similarly impressed, in the Stourton quarries in
Cheshire, are further marked with a shower of rain which we know must
have fallen afterwards, for its little hollows are impressed in the footmarks
also, though more slightly than on the rest of the surface, the comparative
hardness of a trodden place having apparently prevented so deep an
impression being made. At Hessberg, in Saxony, the vestiges of four
distinct animals have been traced, one of them a web-footed animal of small
size, considered as a congener of the crocodile; another, whose footsteps
having a resemblance to an impression of a swelled human hand, has
caused it to be named the cheirotherium. The footsteps of the
cheirotherium have been found also in the Stourton quarries above
mentioned. Professor Owen, who stands at the head of comparative
anatomy in the present day, has expressed his belief that this last animal
was the same batrachian of which he has found fragments in the new red
sandstone of Warwickshire. At Runcorn, near Manchester, and elsewhere,
have been discovered the tracks of an animal which Mr. Owen calls the
rynchosaurus, uniting with the body of a reptile the beak and feet of a bird,
and which clearly had been a link between these two classes.
If geologists shall ultimately give their approbation to the inferences made
from a recent discovery in America, we shall have the addition of perfect
birds, though probably of a low type, to the animal forms of this era. It is
stated to be in quarries of this rock, in the valley of Connecticut, that
footprints have been found, apparently produced by birds of the order
grallæ, or waders. “The footsteps appear in regular succession on the
continuous track of an animal, in the act of walking or running, with the
right and left foot always in their relative places. The distance of the
intervals between each footstep on the same track is occasionally varied,
but to no greater amount than may be explained by the bird having altered
its pace. Many tracks of different individuals and different species are often
found crossing each other, and crowded, like impressions of feet upon the
shores of a muddy stream, where ducks and geese resort.” [103] Some of
these prints indicate small animals, but others denote birds of what would
now be an unusually large size. One animal, having a foot fifteen inches in

length, (one-half more than that of the ostrich,) and a stride of from four to
six feet, has been appropriately entitled, ornithichnites giganteus.

ERA OF THE OOLITE.
COMMENCEMENT OF MAMMALIA.

The chronicles of this period consist of a series of beds, mostly calcareous,
taking their general name (Oolite System) from a conspicuous member of
them—the oolite—a limestone composed of an aggregation of small round
grains or spherules, and so called from its fancied resemblance to a cluster
of eggs, or the roe of a fish. This texture of stone is novel and striking. It is
supposed to be of chemical origin, each spherule being an aggregation of
particles round a central nucleus. The oolite system is largely developed in
England, France, Westphalia, and Northern Italy; it appears in Northern
India and Africa, and patches of it exist in Scotland, and in the vale of the
Mississippi. It may of course be yet discovered in many other parts of the
world.
The series, as shewn in the neighbourhood of Bath, is (beginning with the
lowest) as follows:—1. Lias, a set of strata variously composed of
limestone, clay, marl, and shale, clay being predominant; 2. Lower oolitic
formation, including, besides the great oolite bed of central England,
fullers’ earth beds, forest marble, and cornbrash; 3. Middle oolitic
formation, composed of two sub-groups, the Oxford clay and coral rag, the
latter being a mere layer of the works of the coral polype; 4. Upper oolitic
formation, including what are called Kimmeridge clay and Portland oolite.
In Yorkshire there is an additional group above the lias, and in
Sutherlandshire there is another group above that again. In the wealds
(moorlands) of Kent and Sussex, there is, in like manner, above the fourth
of the Bath series, another additional group, to which the name of the
Wealden has been given, from its situation, and which, composed of
sandstones and clays, is subdivided into Purbeck beds, Hastings sand, and
Weald clay.

There are no particular appearances of disturbance between the close of the
new red sandstone and the beginning of the oolite system, as far as has been
observed in England. Yet there is a great change in the materials of the
rocks of the two formations, shewing that while the bottoms of the seas of
the one period had been chiefly arenaceous, those of the other were chiefly
clayey and limy. And there is an equal difference between the two periods
in respect of both botany and zoology. While the new red sandstone shews
comparatively scanty traces of organic creation, those in the oolite are
extremely abundant, particularly in the department of animals, and more
particularly still of sea mollusca, which, it has been observed, are always
the more conspicuous in proportion to the predominance of calcareous
rocks. It is also remarkable that the animals of the oolitic system are
entirely different in species from those of the preceding age, and that these
species cease before the next. In this system we likewise find that
uniformity over great space which has been remarked of the Faunas of
earlier formations. “In the equivalent deposits in the Himalaya Mountains,
at Fernando Po, in the region north of the Cape of Good Hope, and in the
Run of Cutch, and other parts of Hindostan, fossils have been discovered,
which, as far as English naturalists who have seen them can determine, are
undistinguishable from certain oolite and lias fossils of Europe.” [108a]
The dry land of this age presented cycadeæ, “a beautiful class of plants
between the palms and conifers, having a tall, straight trunk, terminating in
a magnificent crown of foliage.” [108b] There were tree ferns, but in smaller
proportion than in former ages; also equisetaceæ, lilia, and conifers. The
vegetation was generally analogous to that of the Cape of Good Hope and
Australia, which seems to argue a climate (we must remember, a universal
climate) between the tropical and temperate. It was, however, sufficiently
luxuriant in some instances to produce thin seams of coal, for such are
found in the oolite formation of both Yorkshire and Sutherland. The sea, as
for ages before, contained algæ, of which, however, only a few species have
been preserved to our day. The lower classes of the inhabitants of the ocean
were unprecedentedly abundant. The polypiaria were in such abundance as
to form whole strata of themselves. The crinoidea and echinites were also
extremely numerous. Shell mollusks, in hundreds of new species, occupied
the bottoms of the seas of those ages, while of the swimming shell-fish,
ammonites and belemnites, there were also many scores of varieties. The

belemnite here calls for some particular notice. It commences in the oolite,
and terminates in the next formation. It is an elongated, conical shell,
terminating in a point, and having, at the larger end, a cavity for the
residence of the animal, with a series of air-chambers below. The animal,
placed in the upper cavity, could raise or depress itself in the water at
pleasure by a pneumatic operation upon the entral air tube pervading its
shell. Its tentacula, sent abroad over the summit of the shell, searched the
sea for prey. The creature had an ink-bag, with which it could muddle the
water around it, to protect itself from more powerful animals, and, strange
to say, this has been found so well preserved that an artist has used it in one
instance as a paint, wherewith to delineate the belemnite itself.
The crustacea discovered in this formation are less numerous. There are
many fishes, some of which (acrodus, psammodus, &c.,) are presumed
from remains of their palatal bones, to have been of the gigantic
cartilaginous class, now represented by such as the cestraceon. It has been
considered by Professor Owen as worthy of notice, that, the cestraceon
being an inhabitant of the Australian seas, we have, in both the botany and
ichthyology of this period, an analogy to that continent. The pycnodontes,
(thick-toothed,) and lepidoides, (having thick scales,) are other families
described by M. Agassiz as extensively prevalent. In the shallow waters of
the oolitic formation, the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and other huge
saurian carnivora of the preceding age, plied, in increased numbers, their
destructive vocation. [110] To them were added new genera, the cetiosaurus,
mososaurus, and some others, all of similar character and habits.
Land reptiles abounded, including species of the pterodactyle of the
preceding age—tortoises, trionyces, crocodilians—and the pliosaurus, a
creature which appears to have formed a link between the plesiosaurus and
the crocodile. We know of at least six species of the flying saurian, the
pterodactyle, in this formation.
Now, for the first time, we find remains of insects, an order of animals not
well calculated for fossil preservation, and which are therefore amongst the
rarest of the animal tribes found in rocks, though they are the most
numerous of all living families. A single libellula (dragon-fly) was found in
the Stonesfield slate, a member of the lower oolitic group quarried near
Oxford; and this was for several years the only specimen known to exist so

early; but now many species have been found in a corresponding rock at
Solenhofen, in Germany. It is remarkable that the remains of insects are
found most plentifully near the remains of pterodactyles, to which
undoubtedly they served as prey.
The first glimpse of the highest class of the vertebrate sub-kingdom—
mammalia—is obtained from the Stonesfield slate, where there has been
found the jaw-bone of a quadruped evidently insectivorous, and inferred,
from peculiarities in the structure of that small fragment, to have belonged
to the marsupial family, (pouched animals). It may be observed, although
no specimens of so high a class of animals as mammalia are found earlier,
such may nevertheless have existed: the defect may be in our not having
found them; but, other things considered, the probability is that heretofore
there were no mammifers. It is an interesting circumstance that the first
mammifers found should have belonged to the marsupialia, when the place
of that order in the scale of creation is considered. In the imperfect
structure of their brain, deficient in the organs connecting the two
hemispheres—and in the mode of gestation, which is only in small part
uterine—this family is clearly a link between the oviparous vertebrata
(birds, reptiles, and fishes) and the higher mammifers. This is further
established by their possessing a faint development of two canals passing
from near the anus to the external surface of the viscera, which are fully
possessed in reptiles and fishes, for the purpose of supplying aerated water
to the blood circulating in particular vessels, but which are unneeded by
mammifers. Such rudiments of organs in certain species which do not
require them in any degree, are common in both the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, but are always most conspicuous in families approaching in
character to those classes to which the full organs are proper. This subject
will be more particularly adverted to in the sequel.
The highest part of the oolitic formation presents some phenomena of an
unusual and interesting character, which demand special notice.
Immediately above the upper oolitic group in Buckinghamshire, in the
vicinity of Weymouth, and other situations, there is a thin stratum, usually
called by workmen the dirt-bed, which appears, from incontestable
evidence, to have been a soil, formed, like soils of the present day, in the
course of time, upon a surface which had previously been the bottom of the
sea. The dirt-bed contains exuviæ of tropical trees, accumulated through

time, as the forest shed its honours on the spot where it grew, and became
itself decayed. Near Weymouth there is a piece of this stratum, in which
stumps of trees remain rooted, mostly erect or slightly inclined, and from
one to three feet high; while trunks of the same forest, also silicified, lie
imbedded on the surface of the soil in which they grew.
Above this bed lie those which have been called the Wealden, from their
full development in the Weald of Sussex; and these as incontestably argue
that the dry land forming the dirt-bed had next afterwards become the area
of brackish estuaries, or lakes partially connected with the sea; for the
Wealden strata contain exuviæ of fresh-water tribes, besides those of the
great saurians and chelonia. The area of this estuary comprehends the
whole south-east province of England. A geologist thus confidently
narrates the subsequent events: “Much calcareous matter was first deposited
[in this estuary], and in it were entombed myriads of shells, apparently
analogous to those of the vivipara. Then came a thick envelope of sand,
sometimes interstratified with mud; and, finally, muddy matter prevailed.
The solid surface beneath the waters would appear to have suffered a long
continued and gradual depression, which was as gradually filled, or nearly
so, with transported matter; in the end, however, after a depression of
several hundred feet, the sea again entered upon the area, not suddenly or
violently—for the Wealden rocks pass gradually into the superincumbent
cretaceous series—but so quietly, that the mud containing the remains of
terrestrial and fresh-water creatures was tranquilly covered up by sands
replete with marine exuviæ.” [114] A subsequent depression of the same
area, to the depth of at least three hundred fathoms, is believed to have
taken place, to admit of the deposition of the cretaceous beds lying above.
From the scattered way in which remains of the larger terrestrial animals
occur in the Wealden, and the intermixture of pebbles of the special
appearance of those worn in rivers, it is also inferred that the estuary which
once covered the south-east part of England was the mouth of a river of that
far-descending class of which the Mississippi and Amazon are examples.
What part of the earth’s surface presented the dry land through which that
and other similar rivers flowed, no one can tell for certain. It has been
surmised, that the particular one here spoken of may have flowed from a
point not nearer than the site of the present Newfoundland. Professor
Philips has suggested, from the analogy of the mineral composition, that

anciently elevated coal strata may have composed the dry land from which
the sandy matters of these strata were washed. Such a deposit as the
Wealden almost necessarily implies a local, not a general condition; yet it
has been thought that similar strata and remains exist in the Pays de Bray,
near Beauvais. This leads to the supposition that there may have been, in
that age, a series of river-receiving estuaries along the border of some such
great ocean as the Atlantic, of which that of modern Sussex is only an
example.

ERA OF THE CRETACEOUS FORMATION.

The record of this period consists of a series of strata, in which chalk beds
make a conspicuous appearance, and which is therefore called the
cretaceous system or formation. In England, a long stripe, extending from
Yorkshire to Kent, presents the cretaceous beds upon the surface, generally
lying conformably upon the oolite, and in many instances rising into bold
escarpments towards the west. The celebrated cliffs of Dover are of this
formation. It extends into northern France, and thence north-westward into
Germany, whence it is traced into Scandinavia and Russia. The same
system exists in North America, and probably in other parts of the earth not
yet geologically investigated. Being a marine deposit, it establishes that
seas existed at the time of its formation on the tracts occupied by it, while
some of its organic remains prove that, in the neighbourhood of those seas,
there were tracts of dry land.
The cretaceous formation in England presents beds chiefly sandy in the
lowest part, chiefly clayey in the middle, and chiefly of chalk in the upper
part, the chalk beds being never absent, which some of the lower are in
several places. In the vale of the Mississippi, again, the true chalk is
wholly, or all but wholly absent. In the south of England, the lower beds
are, (reckoning from the lowest upwards), 1. Shankland or greensand, “a
triple alternation of sands and sandstones with clay;” 2. Galt, “a stiff blue
or black clay, abounding in shells, which frequently possess a pearly
lustre;” 3. Hard chalk; 4. Chalk with flints; these two last being generally
white, but in some districts red, and in others yellow. The whole are, in
England, about 1200 feet thick, shewing the considerable depths of the
ocean in which the deposits were made.
Chalk is a carbonate of lime, and the manner of its production in such vast
quantities was long a subject of speculation among geologists. Some light
seemed to be thrown upon the subject a few years ago, when it was

observed, that the detritus of coral reefs in the present tropical seas gave a
powder, undistinguishable, when dried, from ordinary chalk. It then
appeared likely that the chalk beds were the detritus of the corals which
were in the oceans of that era. Mr. Darwin, who made some curious
inquiries on this point, further suggested, that the matter might have
intermediately passed through the bodies of worms and fish, such as feed on
the corals of the present day, and in whose stomachs he has found impure
chalk. This, however, cannot be a full explanation of the production of
chalk, if we admit some more recent discoveries of Professor Ehrenberg.
That master of microscopic investigation announces, that chalk is composed
partly of “inorganic particles of irregular elliptical structure and granular
slaty disposition,” and partly of shells of inconceivable minuteness,
“varying from the one-twelfth to the two hundred and eighty-eighth part of
a line”—a cubic inch of the substance containing above ten millions of
them! The chalk of the north of Europe contains, he says, a larger
proportion of the inorganic matter; that of the south, a larger proportion of
the organic matter, being in some instances almost entirely composed of it.
He has been able to classify many of these creatures, some of them being
allied to the nautili, nummuli, cyprides, &c. The shells of some are
calcareous, of others siliceous. M. Ehrenberg has likewise detected
microscopic sea-plants in the chalk.
The distinctive feature of the uppermost chalk beds in England, is the
presence of flint nodules. These are generally disposed in layers parallel to
each other. It was readily presumed by geologists that these masses were
formed by a chemical aggregation of particles of silica, originally held in
solution in the mass of the chalk. But whence the silica in a substance so
different from it? Ehrenberg suggests that it is composed of the siliceous
coverings of a portion of the microscopic creatures, whose shells he has in
other instances detected in their original condition. It is remarkable that the
chalk with flint abounds in the north of Europe; that without flints in the
south; while in the northern chalk siliceous animalcules are wanting, and in
the southern present in great quantities. The conclusion seems but natural,
that in the one case the siliceous exuviæ have been left in their original
form; in the other dissolved chemically, and aggregated on the common
principle of chemical affinity into nodules of flint, probably concentrating,
in every instance, upon a piece of decaying organic matter, as has been the

case with the nodules of ironstone in the earlier rocks, and the spherules of
the oolite.
What is more remarkable, M. Ehrenberg has ascertained that at least fifty-
seven species of the microscopic animals of the chalk, being infusoria and
calcareous-shelled polythalamia, are still found living in various parts of the
earth. These species are the most abundant in the rock. Singly they are the
most unimportant of all animals, but in the mass, forming as they do such
enormous strata over a large part of the earth’s surface, they have an
importance greatly exceeding that of the largest and noblest of the beasts of
the field. Moreover, these species have a peculiar interest, as the only
specific types of that early age which are reproduced in the present day.
Species of sea mollusks, of reptiles, and of mammifers, have been changed
again and again, since the cretaceous era; and it is not till a long subsequent
age that we find the first traces of any other of even the humblest species
which now exist; but here have these humble infusoria and polythalamia
kept their place on earth through all its revolutions since that time,—are we
to say, safe in their very humility, which might adapt them to a greater
variety of circumstances than most other animals, or are we required to look
for some other explanation of the phenomenon?
All the ordinary and more observable orders of the inhabitants of the sea,
except the cetacea, have been found in the cretaceous formation—
zoophytes, radiaria, mollusks, crustacea, (in great variety of species,) and
fishes in smaller variety. In Europe, remains of the marine saurians have
been found; they may be presumed to have become extinct in that part of
the globe before this time, their place and destructive office being perhaps
supplied by cartilaginous fishes, of which the teeth are found in great
quantities. In America, however, remains of the plesiosaurus have been
discovered in this part of the stratified series. The reptiles, too, so
numerous in the two preceding periods, appear to have now much
diminished in numbers. One, entitled the mosæsaurus, seems to have held
an intermediate place between the monitor and iguana, and to have been
about twenty-five feet long, with a tail calculated to assist it powerfully in
swimming. Crocodiles and turtles existed, and amongst the fishes were
some of a saurian character.

Fuci abounded in the seas of this era. Confervæ are found enclosed in
flints. Of terrestrial vegetation, as of terrestrial animals, the specimens in
the European area are comparatively rare, rendering it probable that there
was no dry land near. The remains are chiefly of ferns, conifers, and
cycadeæ, but in the two former cases we have only cones and leaves. There
have been discovered many pieces of wood, containing holes drilled by the
teredo, and thus shewing that they had been long drifted about in the ocean
before being entombed at the bottom.
The series in America corresponding to this, entitled the ferruginous sand
formation, presents fossils generally identical with those of Europe, not
excepting the fragments of drilled wood; shewing that, in this, as in earlier
ages, there was a parity of conditions for animal life over a vast tract of the
earth’s surface. To European reptiles, the American formation adds a
gigantic one, styled the saurodon, from the lizard-like character of its teeth.
We have seen that footsteps of birds are considered to have been discovered
in America, in the new red sandstone. Some similar isolated phenomena
occur in the subsequent formations. Mr. Mantell discovered some bones of
birds, apparently waders, in the Wealden. The immediate connexion of that
set of birds with land, may account, of course, for their containing a
terrestrial organic relic, which the marine beds above and below did not
possess. In the slate of Glarus, in Switzerland, corresponding to the English
galt, in the chalk formation, the remains of a bird have been found. From a
chalk bed near Maidstone, have likewise been extracted some remains of a
bird, supposed to have been of the long-winged swimmer family, and equal
in size to the albatross. These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of
the birds than we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be
remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any class of
animals from a certain period of the earth’s history, can never be considered
as more than negative. Animals, of which we find no remains in a
particular formation, may, nevertheless, have lived at the time, and it may
have only been from unfavourable circumstances that their remains have
not been preserved for our inspection. The single circumstance of their
being little liable to be carried down into seas, might be the cause of their
non-appearance in our quarries. There is at the same time a limit to
uncertainty on this point. We see, from what remains have been found in
the whole series, a clear progress throughout, from humble to superior types

of being. Hence we derive a light as to what animals may have existed at
particular times, which is in some measure independent of the specialties of
fossilology. The birds are below the mammalia in the animal scale; and
therefore they may be supposed to have existed about the time of the new
red sandstone and oolite, although we find but slight traces of them in those
formations, and, it may be said, till a considerably later period.

ERA OF THE TERTIARY FORMATION.—
MAMMALIA ABUNDANT.

The chalk-beds are the highest which extend over a considerable space; but
in hollows of these beds, comparatively limited in extent, there have been
formed series of strata—clays, limestones, marls, alternating—to which the
name of the Tertiary Formation has been applied. London and Paris alike
rest on basins of this formation, and another such basin extends from near
Winchester, under Southampton, and re-appears in the Isle of Wight. There
is a patch, or fragment of the formation in one of the Hebrides. A stripe of
it extends along the east coast of North America, from Massachusetts to
Florida. It is also found in Sicily and Italy, insensibly blended with
formations still in progress. Though comparatively a local formation, it is
not of the less importance as a record of the condition of the earth during a
certain period. As in other formations, it is marked, in the most distant
localities, by identity of organic remains.
The hollows filled by the tertiary formation must be considered as the beds
of estuaries left at the conclusion of the cretaceous period. We have seen
that an estuary, either by the drifting up of its mouth, or a change of level in
that quarter, may be supposed to have become an inland sheet of water, and
that, by another change, of the reverse kind, it may be supposed to have
become an estuary again. Such changes the Paris basin appears to have
undergone oftener than once, for, first, we have there a fresh-water
formation of clay and limestone beds; then, a marine-limestone formation;
next, a second fresh water formation, in which the material of the celebrated
plaster of Paris (gypsum) is included; then, a second marine formation of
sandy and limy beds; and finally, a third series of fresh-water strata. Such
alternations occur in other examples of the tertiary formation likewise.
The tertiary beds present all but an entirely new set of animals, and as we
ascend in the series, we find more and more of these identical with species

still existing upon earth, as if we had now reached the dawn of the present
state of the zoology of our planet. By the study of the shells alone, Mr.
Lyell has been enabled to divide the whole term into four sub-periods, to
which he has given names with reference to the proportions which they
respectively present of surviving species—first, the eocene, (from ’ηως, the
dawn; χαινος, recent;) second, the miocene, (μειων, less;) third, older
pliocene, (πλειων, more;) fourth, newer pliocene.

EOCENE SUB-PERIOD.

The eocene period presents, in three continental groups, 1238 species of
shells, of which forty-two, or 3.5 per cent, yet flourish. Some of these are
remarkable enough; but they all sink into insignificance beside the
mammalian remains which the lower eocene deposits of the Paris basin
present to us, shewing that the land had now become the theatre of an
extensive creation of the highest class of animals. Cuvier ascertained about
fifty species of these, all of them long since extinct. A considerable number
are pachydermata, [127] of a character approximating to the South American
tapir: the names, palæotherium, anthracotherium, anoplotherium,
lophiodon, &c., have been applied to them with a consideration of more or
less conspicuous peculiarities; but a description of the first may give some
general idea of the whole. It was about the size of a horse, but more squat
and clumsy, and with a heavier head, and a lower jaw shorter than the
upper; the feet, also, instead of hooves, presented three large toes, rounded,
and unprovided with claws. These animals were all herbivorous. Amongst
an immense number of others are found many new reptiles, some of them
adapted for fresh water; species of birds allied to the sea-lark, curlew, quail,
buzzard, owl, and pelican; species allied to the dormouse and squirrel; also
the opossum and racoon; and species allied to the genette, fox, and wolf.

MIOCENE SUB-PERIOD.

In the miocene sub-period, the shells give eighteen per cent. of existing
species, shewing a considerable advance from the preceding era, with
respect to the inhabitants of the sea. The advance in the land animals is less
marked, but yet considerable. The predominating forms are still
pachydermatous, and the tapir type continues to be conspicuous. One

animal of this kind, called the dinotherium, is supposed to have been not
less than eighteen feet long; it had a mole-like form of the shoulder-blade,
conferring the power of digging for food, and a couple of tusks turning
down from the lower jaw, by which it could have attached itself, like the
walrus, to a shore or bank, while its body floated in the water. Dr. Buckland
considers this and some similar miocene animals, as adapted for a semi-
aquatic life, in a region where lakes abounded. Besides the tapirs, we have
in this era animals allied to the glutton, the bear, the dog, the horse, the hog,
and lastly, several felinæ, (creatures of which the lion is the type;) all of
which are new forms, as far as we know. There was also an abundance of
marine mammalia, seals, dolphins, lamantins, walruses, and whales, none of
which had previously appeared.

PLIOCENE SUB-PERIOD.

The shells of the older pliocene give from thirty-five to fifty; those of the
newer, from ninety to ninety-five per cent. of existing species. The
pachydermata of the preceding era now disappear, and are replaced by
others belonging to still existing families—elephant, hippopotamus,
rhinoceros—though now extinct as species. Some of these are startling,
from their enormous magnitude. The great mastodon, whose remains are
found in abundance in America, was a species of elephant, judged, from
peculiarities of its teeth, to have lived on aquatic plants, and reaching the
height of twelve feet. The mammoth was another elephant, but supposed to
have survived till comparatively recent times, as a specimen, in all respects
entire, was found in 1801, preserved in ice, in Siberia. We are more
surprised by finding such gigantic proportions in an animal called the
megatherium, which ranks in an order now assuming much humbler forms
—the edentata—to which the sloth, ant-eater, and armadillo belong. The
megatherium had a skeleton of enormous solidity, with an armour-clad
body, and five toes, terminating in huge claws, wherewith to grasp the
branches, from which, like its existing congener, the sloth, it derived its
food. The megalonyx was a similar animal, only somewhat less than the
preceding. Finally, the pliocene gives us for the first time, oxen, deer,
camels, and other specimens of the ruminantia.

Such is an outline of the fauna of the tertiary era, as ascertained by the
illustrious naturalists who first devoted their attention to it. It will be
observed that it brings us up to the felinæ, or carnivora, a considerably
elevated point in the animal scale, but still leaving a blank for the
quadrumana (monkeys) and for man, who collectively form, as will be
afterwards seen, the first group in that scale. It sometimes happens,
however, as we have seen, that a few rare traces of a particular class of
animals are in time found in formations originally thought to be destitute of
them, displaying as it were a dawn of that department of creation. Such
seems to be the case with at least the quadrumana. A jaw-bone and tooth of
an animal of this order, and belonging to the genus macacus, were found in
the London clay, (eocene,) at Kyson, near Woodbridge, in 1839. Another
jaw-bone, containing several teeth, supposed to have belonged to a species
of monkey about three feet high, was discovered about the same time in a
stratum of marl surmounted by compact limestone, in the department of
Gers, at the foot of the Pyrenees. Associated with this last were remains of
not less than thirty mammiferous quadrupeds, including three species of
rhinoceros, a large anoplotherium, three species of deer, two antelopes, a
true dog, a large cat, an animal like a weasel, a small hare, and a huge
species of the edentata. Both of these places are considerably to the north
of any region now inhabited by the monkey tribes. Fossil remains of
quadrumana have been found in at least two other parts of the earth,—
namely, the sub-Himalayan hills, near the Sutlej, and in Brazil, (both in the
tertiary strata;) the first being a large species of semnopithecus, and the
second, a still larger animal belonging to the American group of monkeys,
but a new genus, and denominated by its discoverer, Dr. Lund,
protopithecus. The latter would be four feet in height.
One remarkable circumstance connected with the tertiary formation remains
to be noticed,—namely, the prevalence of volcanic action at that era. In
Auvergne, in Catalonia, near Venice, and in the vicinity of Rome and
Naples, lavas exactly resembling the produce of existing volcanoes, are
associated and intermixed with the lacustrine as well as marine tertiaries.
The superficies of tertiaries in England is disturbed by two great swells,
forming what are called anticlinal axes, one of which divides the London
from the Hampshire basin, while the other passes through the Isle of Wight,
both throwing the strata down at violent inclination towards the north, as if

the subterranean disturbing force had waved forward in that direction. The
Pyrenees, too, and Alps, have both undergone elevation since the deposition
of the tertiaries; and in Sicily there are mountains which have risen three
thousand feet since the deposition of some of the most recent of these
rocks. The general effect of these operations was of course to extend the
land surface, and to increase the variety of its features, thus improving the
natural drainage, and generally adapting the earth for the reception of
higher classes of animals.

ERA OF THE SUPERFICIAL FORMATIONS.
COMMENCEMENT OF PRESENT SPECIES.

We have now completed our survey of the series of stratified rocks, and
traced in their fossils the progress of organic creation down to a time which
seems not long antecedent to the appearance of man. There are,
nevertheless, monuments of still another era or space of time which it is all
but certain did also precede that event.
Over the rock formations of all eras, in various parts of the globe, but
confined in general to situations not very elevated, there is a layer of stiff
clay, mostly of a blue colour, mingled with fragments of rock of all sizes,
travel-worn, and otherwise, and to which geologists give the name of
diluvium, as being apparently the produce of some vast flood, or of the sea
thrown into an unusual agitation. It seems to indicate that, at the time when
it was laid down, much of the present dry land was under the ocean, a
supposition which we shall see supported by other evidence. The included
masses of rock have been carefully inspected in many places, and traced to
particular parent beds at considerable distances. Connected with these
phenomena are certain rock surfaces on the slopes of hills and elsewhere,
which exhibit groovings and scratchings, such as we might suppose would
be produced by a quantity of loose blocks hurried along over them by a
flood. Another associated phenomenon is that called crag and tail, which
exists in many places,—namely, a rocky mountain, or lesser elevation,
presenting on one side the naked rock in a more or less abrupt form, and on
the other a gentle slope; the sites of Windsor, Edinburgh, and Stirling, with
their respective castles, are specimens of crag and tail. Finally, we may
advert to certain long ridges of clay and gravel which arrest the attention of
travellers on the surface of Sweden and Finland, and which are also found
in the United States, where, indeed, the whole of these phenomena have
been observed over a large surface, as well as in Europe. It is very

remarkable that the direction from which the diluvial blocks have generally
come, the lines of the grooved rock surfaces, the direction of the crag and
tail eminences, and that of the clay and gravel ridges—phenomena, be it
observed, extending over the northern parts of both Europe and America—
are all from the north and north-west towards the south-east. We thus
acquire the idea of a powerful current moving in a direction from north-
west to south-east, carrying, besides mud, masses of rock which furrowed
the solid surfaces as they passed along, abrading the north-west faces of
many hills, but leaving the slopes in the opposite direction uninjured, and in
some instances forming long ridges of detritus along the surface. These are
curious considerations, and it has become a question of much interest, by
what means, and under what circumstances, was such a current produced.
One hypothetical answer has some plausibility about it. From an
investigation of the nature of glaciers, and some observations which seem
to indicate that these have at one time extended to lower levels, and existed
in regions (the Scottish Highlands an example) where there is now no
perennial snow, it has been surmised that there was a time, subsequent to
the tertiary era, when the circumpolar ice extended far into the temperate
zone, and formed a lofty, as well as extensive accumulation. A change to a
higher temperature, producing a sudden thaw of this mass, might set free
such a quantity of water as would form a large flood, and the southward
flow of this deluge, joined to the direction which it would obtain from the
rotatory motion of the globe, would of course produce that compound or
south-easterly direction which the phenomena require. All of these
speculations are as yet far too deficient in facts to be of much value; and I
must freely own that, for one, I attach little importance to them. All that we
can legitimately infer from the diluvium is, that the northern parts of Europe
and America were then under the sea, and that a strong current set over
them.
Connected with the diluvium is the history of ossiferous caverns, of which
specimens singly exist at Kirkdale in Yorkshire, Gailenreuth in Franconia,
and other places. They occur in the calcareous strata, as the great caverns
generally do, but have in all instances been naturally closed up till the
recent period of their discovery. The floors are covered with what appears
to be a bed of the diluvial clay, over which rests a crust of stalagmite, the
result of the droppings from the roof since the time when the clay-bed was

laid down. In the instances above specified, and several others, there have
been found, under the clay bed, assemblages of the bones of animals, of
many various kinds. At Kirkdale, for example, the remains of twenty-four
species were ascertained—namely, pigeon, lark, raven, duck, and partridge;
mouse, water-rat, rabbit, hare, deer, (three species,) ox, horse,
hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, weazel, fox, wolf, bear, tiger, hyena.
From many of the bones of the gentler of these animals being found in a
broken state, it is supposed that the cave was a haunt of hyenas and other
predaceous animals, by which the smaller ones were here consumed. This
must have been at a time antecedent to the submersion which produced the
diluvium, since the bones are covered by a bed of that formation. It is
impossible not to see here a very natural series of incidents. First, the cave
is frequented by wild beasts, who make it a kind of charnel-house. Then,
submerged in the current which has been spoken of, it receives a clay
flooring from the waters containing that matter in suspension. Finally,
raised from the water, but with no mouth to the open air, it remains
unintruded on for a long series of ages, during which the clay flooring
receives a new calcareous covering, from the droppings of the roof. Dr.
Buckland, who examined and described the Kirkdale cave, was at first of
opinion that it presented a physical evidence of the Noachian deluge; but he
afterwards saw reason to consider its phenomena as of a time far apart from
that event, which rests on evidence of an entirely different kind.
Our attention is next drawn to the erratic blocks or boulders, which in many
parts of the earth are thickly strewn over the surface, particularly in the
north of Europe. Some of these blocks are many tons in weight, yet are
clearly ascertained to have belonged originally to situations at a great
distance. Fragments, for example, of the granite of Shap Fell are found in
every direction around to the distance of fifty miles, one piece being placed
high upon Criffel Mountain, on the opposite side of the Solway estuary; so
also are fragments of the Alps found far up the slopes of the Jura. There are
even blocks on the east coast of England, supposed to have travelled from
Norway. The only rational conjecture which can be formed as to the
transport of such masses from so great a distance, is one which presumes
them to have been carried and dropped by icebergs, while the space
between their original and final sites was under ocean. Icebergs do even
now carry off such masses from the polar coasts, which, falling when the

retaining ice melts, must take up situations at the bottom of the sea
analogous to those in which we find the erratic blocks of the present day.
As the diluvium and erratic blocks clearly suppose one last long submersion
of the surface, (last, geologically speaking,) there is another set of
appearances which as manifestly shew the steps by which the land was
made afterwards to reappear. These consist of terraces, which have been
detected near, and at some distance inland from, the coast lines of
Scandinavia, Britain, America, and other regions; being evidently ancient
beaches, or platforms, on which the margin of the sea at one time rested.
They have been observed at different heights above the present sea-level,
from twenty to above twelve hundred feet; and in many places they are seen
rising above each other in succession, to the number of three, four, and even
more. The smooth flatness of these terraces, with generally a slight
inclination towards the sea, the sandy composition of many of them, and, in
some instances, the preservation of marine shells in the ground, identify
them perfectly with existing sea-beaches, notwithstanding the cuts and
scoopings which have every here and there been effected in them by water-
courses. The irresistible inference from the phenomena is, that the highest
was first the coast line; then an elevation took place, and the second highest
became so, the first being now raised into the air and thrown inland. Then,
upon another elevation, the sea began to form, at its new point of contact
with the land, the third highest beach, and so on down to the platform
nearest to the present sea-beach. Phenomena of this kind become
comparatively familiar to us, when we hear of evidence that the last sixty
feet of the elevation of Sweden, and the last eighty-five of that of Chili,
have taken place since man first dwelt in those countries; nay, that the
elevation of the former country goes on at this time at the rate of about
forty-five inches in a century, and that a thousand miles of the Chilian coast
rose four feet in one night, under the influence of a powerful earthquake, so
lately as 1822. Subterranean forces, of the kind then exemplified in Chili,
supply a ready explanation of the whole phenomena, though some other
operating causes have been suggested. In an inquiry on this point, it
becomes of consequence to learn some particulars respecting the levels.
Taking a particular beach, it is generally observed that the level continues
the same along a considerable number of miles, and nothing like breaks or
hitches has as yet been detected in any case. A second and a third beach are

also observed to be exactly parallel to the first. These facts would seem to
indicate quiet elevating movements, uniform over a large tract. It must,
however, be remarked that the raised beaches at one part of a coast rarely
coincide with those at another part forty or fifty miles off. We might
suppose this to indicate a limit in that extent of the uniformity of the
elevating cause, but it would be rash to conclude positively that such is the
case. In the present sea, as is well known, there are different levels at
different places, owing to the operation of peculiar local causes, as currents,
evaporation, and the influx of large rivers into narrow-mouthed estuaries.
The differences of level in the ancient beaches might be occasioned by
some such causes. But, whatever doubt may rest on this minor point,
enough has been ascertained to settle the main one, that we have in these
platforms indubitable monuments of the last rise of the land from the sea,
and the concluding great event of the geological history.
The idea of such a wide-spread and possibly universal submersion
unavoidably suggests some considerations as to the effect which it might
have upon terrestrial animal life. It seems likely that this would be, on such
an occasion, extensively, if not universally destroyed. Nor does the idea of
its universal destruction seem the less plausible, when we remark, that none
of the species of land animals heretofore discovered can be detected at a
subsequent period. The whole seem to have been now changed. Some
geologists appear much inclined to think that there was at this time a new
development of terrestrial animal life upon the globe, and M. Agassiz,
whose opinion on such a subject must always be worthy of attention, speaks
all but decidedly for such a conclusion. It must, however, be owned, that
proofs for it are still scanty, beyond the bare fact of a submersion which
appears to have had a very wide range. I must therefore be content to leave
this point, as far as geological evidence is concerned, for future affirmation.
There are some other superficial deposits, of less consequence on the
present occasion than the diluvium—namely, lacustrine deposits, or filled-
up lakes; alluvium, or the deposits of rivers beside their margins; deltas, the
deposits made by great ones at their efflux into the sea; peat mosses; and the
vegetable soil. The animal remains found in these generally testify to a
zoology on the verge of that which still exists, or melting into it, there being
included many species which still exist. In a lacustrine deposit at Market-
Weighton, in the Vale of York, there have been found bones of the elephant,

rhinoceros, bison, wolf, horse, felis, deer, birds, all or nearly all extinct
species; associated with thirteen species of land and fresh water shells,
“exactly identical with types now living in the vicinity.” In similar deposits
in North America, are remains of the mammoth, mastodon, buffalo, and
other animals of extinct and living types. In short, these superficial deposits
shew precisely such remains as might be expected from a time at which the
present system of things (to use a vague but not unexpressive phrase)
obtained, but yet so far remote in chronology as to allow of the dropping of
many species, through familiar causes, in the interval. Still, however, there
is no authentic or satisfactory instance of human remains being found,
except in deposits obviously of very modern date; a tolerably strong proof
that the creation of our own species is a comparatively recent event, and
one posterior (generally speaking) to all the great natural transactions
chronicled by geology.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
RESPECTING
THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES.

Thus concludes the wondrous chapter of the earth’s history which is told by
geology. It takes up our globe at the period when its original incandescent
state had nearly ceased; conducts it through what we have every reason to
believe were vast, or at least very considerable, spaces of time, in the course
of which many superficial changes took place, and vegetable and animal
life was gradually developed; and drops it just at the point when man was
apparently about to enter on the scene. The compilation of such a history,
from materials of so extraordinary a character, and the powerful nature of
the evidence which these materials afford, are calculated to excite our
admiration, and the result must be allowed to exalt the dignity of science, as
a product of man’s industry and his reason.
If there is any thing more than another impressed on our minds by the
course of the geological history, it is, that the same laws and conditions of
nature now apparent to us have existed throughout the whole time, though
the operation of some of these laws may now be less conspicuous than in
the early ages, from some of the conditions having come to a settlement and
a close. That seas have flowed and ebbed, and winds disturbed their
surfaces, in the time of the secondary rocks, we have proof on the yet
preserved surfaces of the sands which constituted margins of the seas in
those days. Even the fall of wind-slanted rain is evidenced on the same
tablets. The washing down of detached matter from elevated grounds,
which we see rivers constantly engaged in at the present time, and which is
daily shallowing the seas adjacent to their mouths, only appears to have
proceeded on a greater scale in earlier epochs. The volcanic subterranean
force, which we see belching forth lavas on the sides of mountains, and
throwing up new elevations by land and sea, was only more powerfully

operative in distant ages. To turn to organic nature, vegetation seems to
have proceeded then exactly as now. The very alternations of the seasons
has been read in unmistakable characters in sections of the trees of those
days, precisely as it might be read in a section of a tree cut down yesterday.
The system of prey amongst animals flourished throughout the whole of the
pre-human period; and the adaptation of all plants and animals to their
respective spheres of existence was as perfect in those early ages as it is
still.
But, as has been observed, the operation of the laws may be modified by
conditions. At one early age, if there was any dry land at all, it was perhaps
enveloped in an atmosphere unfit for the existence of terrestrial animals,
and which had to go though some changes before that condition was
altered. In the carbonigenous era, dry land seems to have consisted only of
clusters of islands, and the temperature was much above what now obtains
at the same places. Volcanic forces, and perhaps also the disintegrating
power, seem to have been on the decrease since the first, or we have at least
long enjoyed an exemption from such paroxysms of the former, as appear to
have prevailed at the close of the coal formation in England and throughout
the tertiary era. The surface has also undergone a gradual progress by
which it has become always more and more variegated, and thereby fitted
for the residence of a higher class of animals.
In pursuing the progress of the development of both plants and animals
upon the globe, we have seen an advance in both cases, along the line
leading to the higher forms of organization. Amongst plants, we have first
sea-weeds, afterwards land plants; and amongst these the simpler (cellular
and cryptogamic) before the more complex. In the department of zoology,
we see zoophytes, radiata, mollusca, articulata, existing for ages before
there were any higher forms. The first step forward gives fishes, the
humblest class of the vertebrata; and, moreover, the earliest fishes partake
of the character of the next lowest sub-kingdom, the articulata. Afterwards
come land animals, of which the first are reptiles, universally allowed to be
the type next in advance from fishes, and to be connected with these by the
links of an insensible gradation. From reptiles we advance to birds, and
thence to mammalia, which are commenced by marsupialia,
acknowledgedly low forms in their class. That there is thus a progress of
some kind, the most superficial glance at the geological history is sufficient

to convince us. Indeed the doctrine of the gradation of animal forms has
received a remarkable support from the discoveries of this science, as
several types formerly wanting to a completion of the series have been
found in a fossil state. [149]
It is scarcely less evident, from the geological record, that the progress of
organic life has observed some correspondence with the progress of
physical conditions on the surface. We do not know for certain that the sea,
at the time when it supported radiated, molluscous, and articulated families,
was incapable of supporting fishes; but causes for such a limitation are far
from inconceivable. The huge saurians appear to have been precisely
adapted to the low muddy coasts and sea margins of the time when they
flourished. Marsupials appear at the time when the surface was generally in
that flat, imperfectly variegated state in which we find Australia, the region
where they now live in the greatest abundance, and one which has no higher
native mammalian type. Finally, 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 necessary for man, that man appeared.
We have likewise seen reason for supposing that land animals could not
have lived before the carbonigenous era, owing to the great charge of
carbonic acid gas presumed to have been contained in the atmosphere down
to that time. The surplus of this having gone, as M. Brogniart suggests, to
form the vegetation, whose ruins became coal, and the air being thus
brought to its present state, land animals immediately appeared. So also,
sea-plants were at first the only specimens of vegetation, because there
appears to have been no place where other plants could be produced or
supported. Land vegetation followed, at first simple, afterwards complex,
probably in conformity with an advance of the conditions required by the
higher class of plants. In short, we see everywhere throughout the
geological history, strong traces of a parallel advance of the physical
conditions and the organic forms.
In examining the fossils of the lower marine creation, with a reference to
the kind of rock in connexion, with which they are found, it is observed that
some strata are attended by a much greater abundance of both species and
individuals than others. They abound most in calcareous rocks, which is
precisely what might be expected, since lime is necessary for the formation
of the shells of the mollusks and articulata, and the hard substance of the

crinoidea and corals; next in the carboniferous series; next in the tertiary;
next in the new red sandstone; next in slates; and lastly, least of all, in the
primary rocks. [151] This may have been the case without regard to the
origination of new species, but more probably it was otherwise; or why, for
instance, should the polypiferous zoophyta be found almost exclusively in
the limestones? There are, indeed, abundant appearances as if, throughout
all the changes of the surface, the various kinds of organic life invariably
pressed in, immediately on the specially suitable conditions arising, so that
no place which could support any form of organic being might be left for
any length of time unoccupied. Nor is it less remarkable how various
species are withdrawn from the earth, when the proper conditions for their
particular existence are changed. The trilobite, of which fifty species
existed during the earlier formations, was extirpated before the secondary
had commenced, and appeared no more. The ammonite does not appear
above the chalk. The species, and even genera of all the early radiata and
mollusks were exchanged for others long ago. Not one species of any
creature which flourished before the tertiary (Ehrenberg’s infusoria
excepted) now exists; and of the mammalia which arose during that series,
many forms are altogether gone, while of others we have now only kindred
species. Thus to find not only frequent additions to the previously existing
forms, but frequent withdrawals of forms which had apparently become
inappropriate—a constant shifting as well as advance—is a fact calculated
very forcibly to arrest attention.
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
here see cause for some re-consideration. 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
author 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 exertion 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 conchifers, again to produce
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—to, in short,
anthropomorphize it, or reduce it to some such character as that 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 proceeded in the organic creation. Let us seek in the history 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 fact of the cosmical
arrangements being an effect of natural laws is a powerful argument for the
organic arrangements being so likewise, 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.
It will be objected that the ordinary conceptions of Christian nations on this
subject are directly derived from Scripture, or, at least, are in conformity
with it. If they were clearly and unequivocally supported by Scripture, it
may readily be allowed that there would be a strong objection to the
reception of any opposite hypothesis. But the fact is, however startling the
present announcement of it may be, that the first chapter of the Mosaic
record is not only not in harmony with the ordinary ideas of mankind
respecting cosmical and organic creation, but is opposed to them, and only
in accordance with the views here taken. When we carefully peruse it with
awakened minds, we find that all the procedure is represented primarily and
pre-eminently as flowing from commands and expressions of will, not from
direct acts. Let there be light—let there be a firmament—let the dry land

appear—let the earth bring forth grass, the herb, the tree—let the waters
bring forth the moving creature that hath life—let the earth bring forth the
living creature after his kind—these are the terms in which the principal
acts are described. The additional expressions,—God made the firmament
—God made the beast of the earth, &c., occur subordinately, and only in a
few instances; they do not necessarily convey a different idea of the mode
of creation, and indeed only appear as alternative phrases, in the usual
duplicative manner of Eastern narrative. Keeping this in view, the words
used in a subsequent place, “God formed man in his own image,” cannot
well be understood as implying any more than what was implied before,—
namely, that man was produced in consequence of an expression of the
Divine will to that effect. Thus, the scriptural objection quickly vanishes,
and the prevalent ideas about the organic creation appear only as a mistaken
inference from the text, formed at a time when man’s ignorance prevented
him from drawing therefrom a just conclusion. At the same time, I freely
own that I do not think it right to adduce the Mosaic record, either in
objection to, or support of any natural hypothesis, and this for many
reasons, but particularly for this, that there is not the least appearance of an
intention in that book to give philosophically exact views of nature.
To a reasonable mind the Divine attributes must appear, not diminished or
reduced in any way, by supposing a creation by law, but infinitely exalted.
It is the narrowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of a humble
class of intellects, to suppose him acting constantly in particular ways for
particular occasions. It, for one thing, greatly detracts from his foresight,
the most undeniable of all the attributes of Omnipotence. It lowers him
towards the level of our own humble intellects. Much more worthy of him
it surely is, to suppose that all things have been commissioned by him from
the first, though neither is he absent from a particle of the current of natural
affairs in one sense, seeing that the whole system is continually supported
by his providence. Even in human affairs, if I may be allowed to adopt a
familiar illustration, there is a constant progress from specific action for
particular occasions, to arrangements which, once established, shall
continue to answer for a great multitude of occasions. Such plans the
enlightened readily form for themselves, and conceive as being adopted by
all who have to attend to a multitude of affairs, while the ignorant suppose
every act of the greatest public functionary to be the result of some special

consideration and care on his part alone. Are we to suppose the Deity
adopting plans which harmonize only with the modes of procedure of the
less enlightened of our race? Those who would object to the hypothesis of
a creation by the intervention of law, do not perhaps consider how powerful
an argument in favour of the existence of God is lost by rejecting this
doctrine. When all is seen to be the result of law, the idea of an Almighty
Author becomes irresistible, for the creation of a law for an endless series
of phenomena—an act of intelligence above all else that we can conceive—
could have no other imaginable source, and tells, moreover, as powerfully
for a sustaining as for an originating power. On this point a remark of Dr.
Buckland seems applicable: “If the properties adopted by the elements at
the moment of their creation adapted them beforehand to the infinity of
complicated useful purposes which they have already answered, and may
have still farther to answer, under many dispensations of the material world,
such an aboriginal constitution, so far from superseding an intelligent agent,
would only exalt our conceptions of the consummate skill and power that
could comprehend such an infinity of future uses under future systems, in
the original groundwork of his creation.”
A late writer, in a work embracing a vast amount of miscellaneous
knowledge, but written in a dogmatic style, argues at great length for the
doctrine of more immediate exertions on the part of the Deity in the works
of his creation. One of the most striking of his illustrations is as follows:
—“The coral polypi, united by a common animal bond, construct a defined
form in stone; many kinds construct many forms. An allotted instinct may
permit each polypus to construct its own cell, but there is no superintending
one to direct the pattern, nor can the workers unite by consultation for such
an end. There is no recipient for an instinct by which the pattern might be
constructed. It is God alone, therefore, who is the architect; and for this
end, consequently, he must dispose of every new polypus required to
continue the pattern, in a new and peculiar position, which the animal could
not have discovered by itself. Yet more, millions of these blind workers
unite their works to form an island, which is also wrought out according to
a constant general pattern, and of a very peculiar nature, though the separate
coral works are numerously diverse. Still less, then, here is an instinct
possible. The Great Architect himself must execute what he planned, in
each case equally. He uses these little and senseless animals as hands; but

they are hands which himself must direct. He must direct each one
everywhere, and therefore he is ever acting.” [159] This is a most notable
example of a dangerous kind of reasoning. It is now believed that corals
have a general life and sensation throughout the whole mass, residing in the
nervous tissue which envelops them; consequently, there is nothing more
wonderful in their determinate general forms than in those of other animals.
It may here be remarked that there is in our doctrine that harmony in all the
associated phenomena which generally marks great truths. First, it agrees,
as we have seen, with the idea of planet-creation by natural law. Secondly,
upon this supposition, all that geology tells us of the succession of species
appears natural and intelligible. Organic life presses in, as has been
remarked, wherever there was room and encouragement for it, the forms
being always such as suited the circumstances, and in a certain relation to
them, as, for example, where the limestone-forming seas produced an
abundance of corals, crinoidea, and shell-fish. Admitting for a moment a
re-origination of species after a cataclysm, as has been surmised by some
geologists, though the hypothesis is always becoming less and less tenable,
it harmonizes with nothing so well as the idea of a creation by law. The
more solitary commencements of species, which would have been the most
inconceivably paltry exercise for an immediately creative power, are
sufficiently worthy of one operating by laws.
It is also to be observed, that the thing to be accounted for is not merely the
origination of organic being upon this little planet, third of a series which is
but one of hundreds of thousands of series, the whole of which again form
but one portion of an apparently infinite globe-peopled space, where all
seems analogous. We have to suppose, that every one of these numberless
globes is either a theatre of organic being, or in the way of becoming so.
This is a conclusion which every addition to our knowledge makes only the
more irresistible. 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? Is such an idea accordant with our general
conception of the dignity, not to speak of the power, of the Great Author?
Yet such is the notion which we must form, if we adhere to the doctrine of
special exercise. Let us see, on the other hand, how the doctrine of a
creation by law agrees with this expanded view of the organic world.

Unprepared as most men may be for such an announcement, there can be no
doubt that we are able, in this limited sphere, to form some satisfactory
conclusions as to the plants and animals of those other spheres which move
at such immense distances from us. Suppose that the first persons of an
early nation who made a ship and ventured to sea in it, observed, as they
sailed along, a set of objects which they had never before seen—namely, a
fleet of other ships—would they not have been justified in supposing that
those ships were occupied, like their own, by human beings possessing
hands to row and steer, eyes to watch the signs of the weather, intelligence
to guide them from one place to another—in short, beings in all respects
like themselves, or only shewing such differences as they knew to be
producible by difference of climate and habits of life. Precisely in this
manner we can speculate on the inhabitants of remote spheres. We see that
matter has originally been diffused in one mass, of which the spheres are
portions. Consequently, inorganic matter must be presumed to be
everywhere the same, although probably with differences in the proportions
of ingredients in different globes, and also some difference of conditions.
Out of a certain number of the elements of inorganic matter are composed
organic bodies, both vegetable and animal; such must be the rule in Jupiter
and in Sirius, as it is here. We, therefore, are all but certain that herbaceous
and ligneous fibre, that flesh and blood, are the constituents of the organic
beings of all those spheres which are as yet seats of life. Gravitation we see
to be an all-pervading principle: therefore there must be a relation between
the spheres and their respective organic occupants, by virtue of which they
are fixed, as far as necessary, on the surface. Such a relation, of course,
involves details as to the density and elasticity of structure, as well as size,
of the organic tenants, in proportion to the gravity of the respective planets
—peculiarities, however, which may quite well consist with the idea of a
universality of general types, to which we are about to come. Electricity we
also see to be universal; if, therefore, it be a principle concerned in life and
in mental action, as science strongly suggests, life and mental action must
everywhere be of one general character. We come to comparatively a
matter of detail, when we advert to heat and light; yet it is important to
consider that these are universal agents, and that, as they bear marked
relations to organic life and structure on earth, they may be presumed to do
so in other spheres also. The considerations as to light are particularly
interesting, for, on our globe, the structure of one important organ, almost

universally distributed in the animal kingdom, is in direct and precise
relation to it. 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 differences as may be necessary to accord with minor
peculiarities of condition and of situation. It is but a small stretch of the
argument to suppose that, one conspicuous organ of a large portion of our
animal kingdom being thus universal, a parity in all the other organs—
species for species, class for class, kingdom for kingdom—is highly likely,
and that thus the inhabitants of all the other globes of space bear not only a
general, but a particular resemblance to those of our own.
Assuming that organic beings are thus spread over all space, the idea of
their having all come into existence by the operation of laws everywhere
applicable, is only conformable to that principle, acknowledged to be so
generally visible in the affairs of Providence, to have all done by the
employment of the smallest possible amount of means. Thus, as one set of
laws produced all orbs and their motions and geognostic arrangements, so
one set of laws overspread them all with life. The whole productive or
creative arrangements are therefore in perfect unity.

PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS
RESPECTING
THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES.

The general likelihood of an organic creation by law having been shewn,
we are next to inquire if science has any facts tending to bring the
assumption more nearly home to nature. Such facts there certainly are; but
it cannot be surprising that they are comparatively few and scattered, when
we consider that the inquiry is into one of nature’s profoundest mysteries,
and one which has hitherto engaged no direct attention in almost any
quarter.
Crystallization is confessedly a phenomenon of inorganic matter; yet the
simplest rustic observer is struck by the resemblance which the examples of
it left upon a window by frost bear to vegetable forms. In some
crystallizations the mimicry is beautiful and complete; for example, in the
well-known one called the Arbor Dianæ. An amalgam of four parts of
silver and two of mercury being dissolved in nitric acid, and water equal to
thirty weights of the metals being added, a small piece of soft amalgam of
silver suspended in the solution, quickly gathers to itself the particles of the
silver of the amalgam, which form upon it a crystallization precisely
resembling a shrub. The experiment may be varied in a way which serves
better to detect the influence of electricity in such operations, as noted
below. [166] Vegetable figures are also presented in some of the most
ordinary appearances of the electric fluid. In the marks caused by positive
electricity, or which it leaves in its passage, we see the ramifications of a
tree, as well as of its individual leaves; those of the negative, recal the
bulbous or the spreading root, according as they are clumped or divergent.
These phenomena seem to say that the electric energies have had something
to do in determining the forms of plants. That they are intimately connected
with vegetable life is indubitable, for germination will not proceed in water

charged with negative electricity, while water charged positively greatly
favours it; and a garden sensibly increases in luxuriance, when a number of
conducting rods are made to terminate in branches over its beds. With
regard to the resemblance of the ramifications of the branches and leaves of
plants to the traces of the positive electricity, and that of the roots to the
negative, it is a circumstance calling for especial remark, that the
atmosphere, particularly its lower strata, is generally charged positively,
while the earth is always charged negatively. The correspondence here is
curious. A plant thus appears as a thing formed on the basis of a natural
electrical operation—the brush realized. We can thus suppose the various
forms of plants as, immediately, the result of a law in electricity variously
affecting them according to their organic character, or respective germinal
constituents. In the poplar, the brush is unusually vertical, and little
divergent; the reverse in the beech: in the palm, a pencil has proceeded
straight up for a certain distance, radiates there, and turns outwards and
downwards; and so on. We can here see at least traces of secondary means
by which the Almighty Deviser might establish all the vegetable forms with
which the earth is overspread.
Vegetable and animal bodies are mainly composed of the same four simple
substances or elements—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The first
combinations of these in animals are into what are called proximate
principles, as albumen, fibrin, urea, alantoin, &c., out of which the structure
of the animal body is composed. Now the chemist, by the association of
two parts oxygen, four hydrogen, two carbon, and two nitrogen, can make
urea. Alantoin has also been produced artificially. Two of the proximate
principles being realizable by human care, the possibility of realizing or
forming all is established. Thus the chemist may be said to have it in his
power to realize the first step in organization. [169a] Indeed, it is fully
acknowledged by Dr. Daubeny, that in the combinations forming the
proximate principles there is no chemical peculiarity. “It is now certain,” he
says, “that the same simple laws of composition pervade the whole
creation; and that, if the organic chemist only takes the requisite precautions
to avoid resolving into their ultimate elements the proximate principles
upon which he operates, the results of his analysis will shew that they are
combined precisely according to the same plan as the elements of mineral
bodies are known to be.” [169b] A particular fact is here worthy of attention.

“The conversion of fecula into sugar, as one of the ordinary processes of
vegetable economy, is effected by the production of a secretion termed
diastose, which occasions both the rupture of the starch vesicles, and the
change of their contained gum into sugar. This diastose may be separately
obtained by the chemist, and it acts as effectually in his laboratory as in the
vegetable organization. He can also imitate its effects by other chemical
agents.” [170] The writer quoted below adds, “No reasonable ground has yet
been adduced for supposing that, if we had the power of bringing together
the elements of any organic compound, in their requisite states and
proportions, the result would be any other than that which is found in the
living body.”
It is much to know the elements out of which organic bodies are composed.
It is something more to know their first combinations, and that these are
simply chemical. How these combinations are associated in the structure of
living bodies is the next inquiry, but it is one to which as yet no satisfactory
answer can be given. The investigation of the minutiæ of organic structure
by the microscope is of such recent origin, that its results cannot be
expected to be very clear. Some facts, however, are worthy of attention
with regard to the present inquiry. It is ascertained that the basis of all
vegetable and animal substances consists of nucleated cells; that is, cells
having granules within them. Nutriment is converted into these before
being assimilated by the system. The tissues are formed from them. The
ovum destined to become a new creature, is originally only a cell with a
contained granule. We see it acting this reproductive part in the simplest
manner in the cryptogamic plants. “The parent cell, arrived at maturity by
the exercise of its organic functions, bursts, and liberates its contained
granules. These, at once thrown upon their own resources, and entirely
dependent for their nutrition on the surrounding elements, develop
themselves into new cells, which repeat the life of their original. Amongst
the higher tribes of the cryptogamia, the reproductive cell does not burst,
but the first cells of the new structure are developed within it, and these
gradually extend, by a similar process of multiplication, into that primary
leaf-like expansion which is the first formed structure in all plants.” [171]
Here the little cell becomes directly a plant, the full formed living being. It
is also worthy of remark that, in the sponges, (an animal form,) a gemmule
detached from the body of the parent, and trusting for sustentation only to

the fluid into which it has been cast, becomes, without further process, the
new creature. Further, it has been recently discovered by means of the
microscope, that there is, as far as can be judged, a perfect resemblance
between the ovum of the mammal tribes, during that early stage when it is
passing through the oviduct, and the young of the infusory animalcules.
One of the most remarkable of these, the volvox globator, has exactly the
form of the germ which, after passing through a long fœtal progress,
becomes a complete mammifer, an animal of the highest class. It has even
been found that both are alike provided with those cilia, which, producing a
revolving motion, or its appearance, is partly the cause of the name given to
this animalcule. These resemblances are the more entitled to notice, that
they were made by various observers, distant from each other at the time.
[172]
It has likewise been noted that the globules of the blood are
reproduced by the expansion of contained granules; they are, in short,
distinct organisms multiplied by the same fissiparous generation. So that
all animated nature may be said to be based on this mode of origin; the
fundamental form of organic being is a globule, having a new globule
forming within itself, by which it is in time discharged, and which is again
followed by another and another, in endless succession. It is of course
obvious that, if these globules could be produced by any process from
inorganic elements, we should be entitled to say that the fact of a transit
from the inorganic into the organic had been witnessed in that instance; the
possibility of the commencement of animated creation by the ordinary laws
of nature might be considered as established. Now it was given out some
years ago by a French physiologist, that globules could be produced in
albumen by electricity. If, therefore, these globules be identical with the
cells which are now held to be reproductive, it might be said that the
production of albumen by artificial means is the only step in the process
wanting. This has not yet been effected; but it is known to be only a
chemical process, the mode of which may be any day discovered in the
laboratory, and two compounds perfectly co-ordinate, urea and alantoin,
have actually been produced.
In such an investigation as the present, it is not unworthy of notice that the
production of shell is a natural operation which can be precisely imitated
artificially. Such an incrustation takes place on both the outside and inside
of the wheel in a bleaching establishment, in which cotton cloth is rinsed

free of the lime employed in its purification. From the dressing employed
by the weaver, the cloth obtains the animal matter, gelatin; this and the lime
form the constituents of the incrustation, exactly as in natural shell. In the
wheel employed at Catrine, in Ayrshire, where the phenomenon was first
observed by the eye of science, it had required ten years to produce a
coating the tenth of an inch in thickness. This incrustation has all the
characters of shell, displaying a highly polished surface, beautifully
iridescent, and, when broken, a foliated texture. The examination of it has
even thrown some light on the character and mode of formation of natural
shell. “The plates into which the substance is divisible have been formed in
succession, and certain intervals of time have elapsed between their
formation; in general, every two contiguous laminæ are separated by a thin
iridescent film, varying from the three to the fifty millionth part of an inch
in thickness, and producing all the various colours of thin plates which
correspond to intermediate thicknesses: between some of the laminæ no
such film exists, probably in consequence of the interval of time between
their formation being too short; and between others the film has been
formed of unequal thickness. There can be no doubt that these iridescent
films are formed when the dash-wheel is at rest during the night, and that
when no film exists between two laminæ, an interval too short for its
formation, (arising, perhaps, from the stopping of the work during the day,)
has elapsed during the drying or induration of one lamina and the
deposition of another.” [175] From this it has been deduced, by a patient
investigation, that those colours of mother-of-pearl, which are
incommunicable to wax, arise from iridescent films deposited between the
laminæ of its structure, and it is hence inferred that the animal, like the
wheel, rests periodically from its labours in forming the natural substance.
These, it will be owned, are curious and not irrelevant facts; but it will be
asked what actual experience says respecting the origination of life. Are
there, it will be said, any authentic instances of either plants or animals, of
however humble and simple a kind, having come into existence otherwise
than in the ordinary way of generation, since the time of which geology
forms the record? It may be answered, that the negative of this question
could not be by any means formidable to the doctrine of law-creation,
seeing that the conditions necessary for the operation of the supposed life-
creating laws may not have existed within record to any great extent. On

the other hand, as we see the physical laws of early times still acting with
more or less force, it might not be unreasonable to expect that we should
still see some remnants, or partial and occasional workings of the life-
creating energy amidst a system of things generally stable and at rest. Are
there, then, any such remnants to be traced in our own day, or during man’s
existence upon earth? If there be, it clearly would form a strong evidence in
favour of the doctrine, as what now takes place upon a confined scale and in
a comparatively casual manner may have formerly taken place on a great
scale, and as the proper and eternity-destined means of supplying a vacant
globe with suitable tenants. It will at the same time be observed that, the
earth being now supplied with both kinds of tenants in great abundance, we
only could expect to find the life-originating power at work in some very
special and extraordinary circumstances, and probably only in the inferior
and obscurer departments of the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
Perhaps, if the question were asked of ten men of approved reputation in
science, nine out of the number would answer in the negative. This is
because, in a great number of instances where the superficial observers of
former times assumed a non-generative origin for life, (as in the celebrated
case in Virgil’s fourth Georgic,) either the direct contrary has been
ascertained, or exhaustive experiments have left no alternative from the
conclusion that ordinary generation did take place, albeit in a manner which
escapes observation. Finding that an erroneous assumption has been
formed in many cases, modern inquirers have not hesitated to assume that
there can be no case in which generation is not concerned; an assumption
not only unwarranted by, but directly opposed to, the principles of
philosophical investigation. Yet this is truly the point at which the question
now rests in the scientific world.
I have no wish here to enter largely into a subject so wide and so full of
difficulties; but I may remark, that the explanations usually suggested
where life takes its rise without apparent generative means, always appear
to me to partake much of the fallacy of the petitio principii. When, for
instance, lime is laid down upon a piece of waste moss ground, and a crop
of white clover for which no seeds were sown is the consequence, the
explanation that the seeds have been dormant there for an unknown time,
and were stimulated into germination when the lime produced the
appropriate circumstances, appears extremely unsatisfactory, especially

when we know that (as in an authentic case under my notice) the spot is
many miles from where clover is cultivated, and that there is nothing for six
feet below but pure peat moss, clover seeds being, moreover, known to be
too heavy to be transported, as many other seeds are, by the winds.
Mushrooms, we know, can be propagated by their seed; but another mode
of raising them, well known to the gardener, is to mix cow and horse dung
together, and thus form a bed in which they are expected to grow without
any seed being planted. It is assumed that the seeds are carried by the
atmosphere, unperceived by us, and, finding here an appropriate field for
germination, germinate accordingly; but this is only assumption, and though
designed to be on the side of a severe philosophy, in reality makes a pretty
large demand on credulity. There are several persons eminent in science
who profess at least to find great difficulties in accepting the doctrine of
invariable generation. One of these, in the work noted below, [179a] has
stated several considerations arising from analogical reasoning, which
appear to him to throw the balance of evidence in favour of the aboriginal
production of infusoria, [179b] the vegetation called mould, and the like.
One seems to be of great force; namely, that the animalcules, which are
supposed (altogether hypothetically) to be produced by ova, are afterwards
found increasing their numbers, not by that mode at all, but by division of
their bodies. If it be the nature of these creatures to propagate in this
splitting or fissiparous manner, how could they be communicated to a
vegetable infusion? Another fact of very high importance is presented in
the following terms:—“The nature of the animalcule, or vegetable
production, bears a constant relation to the state of the infusion, so that, in
similar circumstances, the same are always produced without this being
influenced by the atmosphere. There seems to be a certain progressive
advance in the productive powers of the infusion, for at the first the
animalcules are only of the smaller kinds, or monades, and afterwards they
become gradually larger and more complicated in their structure; after a
time, the production ceases, although the materials are by no means
exhausted. When the quantity of water is very small, and the organic matter
abundant, the production is usually of a vegetable nature; when there is
much water, animalcules are more frequently produced.” It has been shewn
by the opponents of this theory, that when a vegetable infusion is debarred
from the contact of the atmosphere, by being closely sealed up or covered
with a layer of oil, no animalcules are produced; but it has been said, on the

other hand, that the exclusion of the air may prevent some simple condition
necessary for the aboriginal development of life—and nothing is more
likely. Perhaps the prevailing doctrine is in nothing placed in greater
difficulties than it is with regard to the entozoa, or creatures which live
within the bodies of others. These creatures do, and apparently can, live
nowhere else than in the interior of other living bodies, where they
generally take up their abode in the viscera, but also sometimes in the
chambers of the eye, the interior of the brain, the serous sacs, and other
places having no communication from without. Some are viviparous,
others oviparous. Of the latter it cannot reasonably be supposed that the
ova ever pass through the medium of the air, or through the blood-vessels,
for they are too heavy for the one transit, and too large for the other. Of the
former, it cannot be conceived how they pass into young animals—certainly
not by communication from the parent, for it has often been found that
entozoa do not appear in certain generations, and some of peculiar and
noted character have only appeared at rare intervals, and in very
extraordinary circumstances. A candid view of the less popular doctrine, as
to the origin of this humble form of life, is taken by a distinguished living
naturalist. “To explain the beginning of these worms within the human
body, on the common doctrine that all created beings proceed from their
likes, or a primordial egg, is so difficult, that the moderns have been driven
to speculate, as our fathers did, on their spontaneous birth; but they have
received the hypothesis with some modification. Thus it is not from
putrefaction or fermentation that the entozoa are born, for both of these
processes are rather fatal to their existence, but from the aggregation and fit
apposition of matter which is already organized, or has been thrown from
organized surfaces. Their origin in this manner is not more wonderful or
more inexplicable than that of many of the inferior animals from sections of
themselves. * * Particles of matter fitted by digestion, and their
transmission through a living body, for immediate assimilation with it, or
flakes of lymph detached from surfaces already organized, seem neither to
exceed nor fall below that simplicity of structure which favours this
wonderful development; and the supposition that, like morsels of a planaria,
they may also, when retained in contact with living parts, and in other
favourable circumstances, continue to live and be gradually changed into
creatures of analogous conformation, is surely not so absurd as to be
brought into comparison with the Metamorphoses of Ovid. * * We think the

hypothesis is also supported in some degree by the fact, that the origin of
the entozoa is favoured by all causes which tend to disturb the equality
between the secerning and absorbent systems.” [182] Here particles of
organized matter are suggested as the germinal origin of distinct and fully
organized animals, many of which have a highly developed reproductive
system. How near such particles must be to the inorganic form of matter
may be judged from what has been said within the last few pages. If, then,
this view of the production of entozoa be received, it must be held as in no
small degree favourable to the general doctrine of an organic creation by
law.
There is another series of facts, akin to the above, and which deserve not
less attention. The pig, in its domestic state, is subject to the attacks of a
hydatid, from which the wild animal is free; hence the disease called
measles in pork. The domestication of the pig is of course an event
subsequent to the origin of man; indeed, comparatively speaking, a recent
event. Whence, then, the first progenitor of this hydatid? So also there is a
tinea which attacks dressed wool, but never touches it in its unwashed
state. A particular insect disdains all food but chocolate, and the larva of
the oinopota cellaris lives nowhere but in wine and beer, all of these being
articles manufactured by man. There is likewise a creature called the
pimelodes cyclopum, which is only found in subterranean cavities
connected with certain specimens of the volcanic formation in South
America, dating from a time posterior to the arrangements of the earth for
our species. Whence the first pymelodes cyclopum? Will it, to a geologist,
appear irrational to suppose that, just as the pterodactyle was added in the
era of the new red sandstone, when the earth had become suited for such a
creature, so may these creatures have been added when media suitable for
their existence arose, and that such phenomena may take place any day, the
only cause for their taking place seldom being the rarity of the rise of new
physical conditions on a globe which seems to have already undergone the
principal part of its destined mutations?
Between such isolated facts and the greater changes which attended various
geological eras, it is not easy to see any difference, besides simply that of
the scale on which the respective phenomena took place, as the throwing off
of one copy from an engraved plate is exactly the same process as that by
which a thousand are thrown off. Nothing is more easy to conceive than

that to Creative Providence, the numbers of such phenomena, the time
when, and the circumstances under which they take place, are indifferent
matters. The Eternal One has arranged for everything beforehand, and
trusted all to the operation of the laws of his appointment, himself being
ever present in all things. We can even conceive that man, in his many
doings upon the surface of the earth, may occasionally, without his being
aware of it, or otherwise, act as an instrument in preparing the association
of conditions under which the creative laws work; and perhaps some
instances of his having acted as such an instrument have actually occurred
in our own time.
I allude, of course, to the experiments conducted a few years ago by Mr.
Crosse, which seemed to result in the production of a heretofore unknown
species of insect in considerable numbers. Various causes have prevented
these experiments and their results from receiving candid treatment, but
they may perhaps be yet found to have opened up a new and most
interesting chapter of nature’s mysteries. Mr. Crosse was pursuing some
experiments in crystallization, causing a powerful voltaic battery to operate
upon a saturated solution of silicate of potash, when the insects
unexpectedly made their appearance. He afterwards tried nitrate of copper,
which is a deadly poison, and from that fluid also did live insects emerge.
Discouraged by the reception of his experiments, Mr. Crosse soon
discontinued them; but they were some years after pursued by Mr. Weekes,
of Sandwich, with precisely the same results. This gentleman, besides
trying the first of the above substances, employed ferro-cyanet of potash, on
account of its containing a larger proportion of carbon, the principal
element of organic bodies; and from this substance the insects were
produced in increased numbers. A few weeks sufficed for this experiment,
with the powerful battery of Mr. Crosse; but the first attempts of Mr.
Weekes required about eleven months, a ground of presumption in itself
that the electricity was chiefly concerned in the phenomenon. The changes
undergone by the fluid operated upon, were in both cases remarkable, and
nearly alike. In Mr. Weekes’ apparatus, the silicate of potash became first
turbid, then of a milky appearance; round the negative wire of the battery,
dipped into the fluid, there gathered a quantity of gelatinous matter, a part
of the process of considerable importance, considering that gelatin is one of
the proximate principles, or first compounds, of which animal bodies are

formed. From this matter Mr. Weekes observed one of the insects in the
very act of emerging, immediately after which, it ascended to the surface of
the fluid, and sought concealment in an obscure corner of the apparatus.
The insects produced by both experimentalists seem to have been the same,
a species of acarus, minute and semi-transparent, and furnished with long
bristles, which can only be seen by the aid of the microscope. It is worthy
of remark, that some of these insects, soon after their existence had
commenced, were found to be likely to extend their species. They were
sometimes observed to go back to the fluid to feed, and occasionally they
devoured each other. [187]
The reception of novelties in science must ever be regulated very much by
the amount of kindred or relative phenomena which the public mind already
possesses and acknowledges, to which the new can be assimilated. A
novelty, however true, if there be no received truths with which it can be
shewn in harmonious relation, has little chance of a favourable hearing. In
fact, as has been often observed, there is a measure of incredulity from our
ignorance as well as from our knowledge, and if the most distinguished
philosopher three hundred years ago had ventured to develop any striking
new fact which only could harmonize with the as yet unknown Copernican
solar system, we cannot doubt that it would have been universally scoffed at
in the scientific world, such as it then was, or at the best interpreted in a
thousand wrong ways in conformity with ideas already familiar. The
experiments above described, finding a public mind which had never
discovered a fact or conceived an idea at all analogous, were of course
ungraciously received. It was held to be impious, even to surmise that
animals could have been formed through any instrumentality of an
apparatus devised by human skill. The more likely account of the
phenomena was said to be, that the insects were only developed from ova,
resting either in the fluid, or in the wooden frame on which the experiments
took place. On these objections the following remarks may be made. The
supposition of impiety arises from an entire misconception of what is
implied by an aboriginal creation of insects. The experimentalist could
never be considered as the author of the existence of these creatures, except
by the most unreasoning ignorance. The utmost that can be claimed for, or
imputed to him is that he arranged the natural conditions under which the
true creative energy—that of the Divine Author of all things—was pleased

to work in that instance. On the hypothesis here brought forward, the
acarus Crossii was a type of being ordained from the beginning, and
destined to be realized under certain physical conditions. When a human
hand brought these conditions into the proper arrangement, it did an act
akin to hundreds of familiar ones which we execute every day, and which
are followed by natural results; but it did nothing more. The production of
the insect, if it did take place as assumed, was as clearly an act of the
Almighty himself, as if he had fashioned it with hands. For the
presumption that an act of aboriginal creation did take place, there is this to
be said, that, in Mr. Weekes’s experiment, every care that ingenuity could
devise was taken to exclude the possibility of a development of the insects
from ova. The wood of the frame was baked in a powerful heat; a bell-
shaped glass covered the apparatus, and from this the atmosphere was
excluded by the constantly rising fumes from the liquid, for the emission of
which there was an aperture so arranged at the top of the glass, that only
these fumes could pass. The water was distilled, and the substance of the
silicate had been subjected to white heat. Thus every source of fallacy
seemed to be shut up. In such circumstances, a candid mind, which sees
nothing either impious or unphilosophical in the idea of a new creation, will
be disposed to think that there is less difficulty in believing in such a
creation having actually taken place, than in believing that, in two
instances, separated in place and time, exactly the same insects should have
chanced to arise from concealed ova, and these a species heretofore
unknown.

HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS.

It has been already intimated, as a general fact, that there is an obvious
gradation amongst the families of both the vegetable and animal kingdoms,
from the simple lichen and animalcule respectively up to the highest order of
dicotyledonous trees and the mammalia. Confining our attention, in the
meantime, to the animal kingdom—it does not appear that this gradation
passes along one line, on which every form of animal life can be, as it were,
strung; there may be branching or double lines at some places; or the whole
may be in a circle composed of minor circles, as has been recently
suggested. But still it is incontestable that there are general appearances of a
scale beginning with the simple and advancing to the complicated. The
animal kingdom was divided by Cuvier into four sub-kingdoms, or
divisions, and these exhibit an unequivocal gradation in the order in which
they are here enumerated:—Radiata, (polypes, &c.;) mollusca, (pulpy
animals;) articulata, (jointed animals;) vertebrata, (animals with internal
skeleton.) The gradation can, in like manner, be clearly traced in the classes
into which the sub-kingdoms are subdivided, as, for instance, when we take
those of the vertebrata in this order—reptiles, fishes, birds, mammals.
While the external forms of all these various animals are so different, it is
very remarkable that the whole are, after all, variations of a fundamental
plan, which can be traced as a basis throughout the whole, the variations
being merely modifications of that plan to suit the particular conditions in
which each particular animal has been designed to live. Starting from the
primeval germ, which, as we have seen, is the representative of a particular
order of full-grown animals, we find all others to be merely advances from
that type, with the extension of endowments and modification of forms
which are required in each particular case; each form, also, retaining a strong

affinity to that which precedes it, and tending to impress its own features on
that which succeeds. This unity of structure, as it is called, becomes the
more remarkable, when we observe that the organs, while preserving a
resemblance, are often put to different uses. For example: the ribs become,
in the serpent, organs of locomotion, and the snout is extended, in the
elephant, into a prehensile instrument.
It is equally remarkable that analogous purposes are served in different
animals by organs essentially different. Thus, the mammalia breathe by
lungs; the fishes, by gills. These are not modifications of one organ, but
distinct organs. In mammifers, the gills exist and act at an early stage of the
fœtal state, but afterwards go back and appear no more; while the lungs are
developed. In fishes, again, the gills only are fully developed; while the lung
structure either makes no advance at all, or only appears in the rudimentary
form of an air-bladder. So, also, the baleen of the whale and the teeth of the
land mammalia are different organs. The whale, in embryo, shews the
rudiments of teeth; but these, not being wanted, are not developed, and the
baleen is brought forward instead. The land animals, we may also be sure,
have the rudiments of baleen in their organization. In many instances, a
particular structure is found advanced to a certain point in a particular set of
animals, (for instance, feet in the serpent tribe,) although it is not there
required in any degree; but the peculiarity, being carried a little farther
forward, is perhaps useful in the next set of animals in the scale. Such are
called rudimentary organs. With this class of phenomena are to be ranked
the useless mammæ of the male human being, and the unrequired process of
bone in the male opossum, which is needed in the female for supporting her
pouch. Such curious features are most conspicuous in animals which form
links between various classes.
As formerly stated, the marsupials, standing at the bottom of the mammalia,
shew their affinity to the oviparous vertebrata, by the rudiments of two
canals passing from near the anus to the external surfaces of the viscera,
which are fully developed in fishes, being required by them for the
respiration of aerated waters, but which are not needed by the atmosphere-
breathing marsupials. We have also the peculiar form of the sternum and
rib-bones of the lizards represented in the mammalia in certain white
cartilaginous lines traceable among their abdominal muscles. The
struphionidæ (birds of the ostrich type) form a link between birds and

mammalia, and in them we find the wings imperfectly or not at all
developed, a diaphragm and urinary sac, (organs wanting in other birds,) and
feathers approaching the nature of hair. Again, the ornithorynchus belongs
to a class at the bottom of the mammalia, and approximating to birds, and in
it behold the bill and web-feet of that order!
For further illustration, it is obvious that, various as may be the lengths of
the upper part of the vertebral column in the mammalia, it always consists of
the same parts. The giraffe has in its tall neck the same number of bones
with the pig, which scarcely appears to have a neck at all. [195] Man, again,
has no tail; but the notion of a much-ridiculed philosopher of the last century
is not altogether, as it happens, without foundation, for the bones of a caudal
extremity exist in an undeveloped state in the os coccygis of the human
subject. The limbs of all the vertebrate animals are, in like manner, on one
plan, however various they may appear. In the hind-leg of a horse, for
example, the angle called the hock is the same part which in us forms the
heel; and the horse, and all other quadrupeds, with almost the solitary
exception of the bear, walk, in reality, upon what answers to the toes of a
human being. In this and many other quadrupeds the fore part of the
extremities is shrunk up in a hoof, as the tail of the human being is shrunk up
in the bony mass at the bottom of the back. The bat, on the other hand, has
these parts largely developed. The membrane, commonly called its wing, is
framed chiefly upon bones answering precisely to those of the human hand;
its extinct congener, the pterodactyle, had the same membrane extended
upon the fore-finger only, which in that animal was prolonged to an
extraordinary extent. In the paddles of the whale and other animals of its
order, we see the same bones as in the more highly developed extremities of
the land mammifers; and even the serpent tribes, which present no external
appearance of such extremities, possess them in reality, but in an
undeveloped or rudimental state.
The same law of development presides over the vegetable kingdom.
Amongst phanerogamous plants, a certain number of organs appear to be
always present, either in a developed or rudimentary state; and those which
are rudimentary can be developed by cultivation. The flowers which bear
stamens on one stalk and pistils on another, can be caused to produce both,
or to become perfect flowers, by having a sufficiency of nourishment
supplied to them. So also, where a special function is required for particular

circumstances, nature has provided for it, not by a new organ, but by a
modification of a common one, which she has effected in development.
Thus, for instance, some plants destined to live in arid situations, require to
have a store of water which they may slowly absorb. The need is arranged
for by a cup-like expansion round the stalk, in which water remains after a
shower. Now the pitcher, as this is called, is not a new organ, but simply a
metamorphose of a leaf.
These facts clearly shew how all the various organic forms of our world are
bound up in one—how a fundamental unity pervades and embraces them all,
collecting them, from the humblest lichen up to the highest mammifer, in
one system, the whole creation of which must have depended upon one law
or decree of the Almighty, though it did not all come forth at one time. After
what we have seen, the idea of a separate exertion for each must appear
totally inadmissible. The single fact of abortive or rudimentary organs
condemns it; for these, on such a supposition, could be regarded in no other
light than as blemishes or blunders—the thing of all others most
irreconcilable with that idea of Almighty Perfection which a general view of
nature so irresistibly conveys. On the other hand, when the organic creation
is admitted to have been effected by a general law, we see nothing in these
abortive parts but harmless peculiarities of development, and interesting
evidences of the manner in which the Divine Author has been pleased to
work.
We have yet to advert to the most interesting class of facts connected with
the laws of organic development. It is only in recent times that physiologists
have observed that each animal passes, in the course of its germinal history,
through a series of changes resembling the permanent forms of the various
orders of animals inferior to it in the scale. Thus, for instance, an insect,
standing at the head of the articulated animals, is, in the larva state, a true
annelid, or worm, the annelida being the lowest in the same class. The
embryo of a crab resembles the perfect animal of the inferior order
myriapoda, and passes through all the forms of transition which characterize
the intermediate tribes of crustacea. The frog, for some time after its birth, is
a fish with external gills, and other organs fitting it for an aquatic life, all of
which are changed as it advances to maturity, and becomes a land animal.
The mammifer only passes through still more stages, according to its higher
place in the scale. Nor is man himself exempt from this law. His first form

is that which is permanent in the animalcule. His organization gradually
passes through conditions generally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and
the lower mammalia, before it attains its specific maturity. At one of the last
stages of his fœtal career, he exhibits an intermaxillary bone, which is
characteristic of the perfect ape; this is suppressed, and he may then be said
to take leave of the simial type, and become a true human creature. Even, as
we shall see, the varieties of his race are represented in the progressive
development of an individual of the highest, before we see the adult
Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal scale.
To come to particular points of the organization. The brain of man, which
exceeds that of all other animals in complexity of organization and fulness of
development, is, at one early period, only “a simple fold of nervous matter,
with difficulty distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like
prolongation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the first to
appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in this state it
perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus assuming in transitu the
form that in the fish is permanent. In a short time, however, the structure is
become more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better
marked; it is now the brain of a reptile. The change continues; by a singular
motion, certain parts (corpora quadragemina) which had hitherto appeared
on the upper surface, now pass towards the lower; the former is their
permanent situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in birds and mammalia.
This is another advance in the scale, but more remains yet to be done. The
complication of the organ increases; cavities termed ventricles are formed,
which do not exist in fishes, reptiles, or birds; curiously organized parts,
such as the corpora striata, are added; it is now the brain of the mammalia.
Its last and final change alone seems wanting, that which shall render it the
brain of MAN.” [201] And this change in time takes place.
So also with the heart. This organ, in the mammalia, consists of four
cavities, but in the reptiles of only three, and in fishes of two only, while in
the articulated animals it is merely a prolonged tube. Now in the mammal
fœtus, at a certain early stage, the organ has the form of a prolonged tube;
and a human being may be said to have then the heart of an insect.
Subsequently it is shortened and widened, and becomes divided by a
contraction into two parts, a ventricle and an auricle; it is now the heart of a
fish. A subdivision of the auricle afterwards makes a triple-chambered form,

as in the heart of the reptile tribes; lastly, the ventricle being also subdivided,
it becomes a full mammal heart.
Another illustration here presents itself with the force of the most powerful
and interesting analogy. Some of the earliest fishes of our globe, those of the
Old Red Sandstone, present, as we have seen, certain peculiarities, as the
one-sided tail and an inferior position of the mouth. No fishes of the present
day, in a mature state, are so characterized; but some, at a certain stage of
their existence, have such peculiarities. It occurred to a geologist to inquire
if the fish which existed before the Old Red Sandstone had any peculiarities
assimilating them to the fœtal condition of existing fish, and particularly if
they were small. The first which occur before the time of the Old Red
Sandstone, are those described by Mr. Murchison, as belonging to the Upper
Ludlow Rocks; they are all rather small. Still older are those detected by
Mr. Philips, in the Aymestry Limestone, being the most ancient of the class
which have as yet been discovered; these are so extremely minute as only to
be distinguishable by the microscope. Here we apparently have very clear
demonstrations of a parity, or rather identity, of laws presiding over the
development of the animated tribes on the face of the earth, and that of the
individual in embryo.
The tendency of all these illustrations is to make us look to development as
the principle which has been immediately concerned in the peopling of this
globe, a process extending over a vast space of time, but which is
nevertheless connected in character with the briefer process by which an
individual being is evoked from a simple germ. What mystery is there here
—and how shall I proceed to enunciate the conception which I have
ventured to form of what may prove to be its proper solution! It is an idea
by no means calculated to impress by its greatness, or to puzzle by its
profoundness. It is an idea more marked by simplicity than perhaps any
other of those which have explained the great secrets of nature. But in this
lies, perhaps, one of its strongest claims to the faith of mankind.
The whole train of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the
highest and most recent, are, then, to be regarded as a series of advances of
the principle of development, which have depended upon external physical
circumstances, to which the resulting animals are appropriate. I contemplate
the whole phenomena as having been in the first place arranged in the
counsels of Divine Wisdom, to take place, not only upon this sphere, but

upon all the others in space, under necessary modifications, and as being
carried on, from first to last, here and elsewhere, under immediate favour of
the creative will or energy. [204] 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 beginning of the
vegetable and animal kingdoms, which thence start in different directions,
but in perfect parallelism and analogy. We have already seen that this
nucleated vesicle is itself a type of mature and independent being in the
infusory animalcules, as well as the starting point of the fœtal progress of
every higher individual in creation, both animal and vegetable. We have
seen that it is a form of being which electric agency will produce—though
not perhaps usher into full life—in albumen, one of those compound
elements of animal bodies, of which another (urea) has been made by
artificial means. Remembering these things, we are drawn on to the
supposition, that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet was a
chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles were
produced. This is so much, but what were the next steps? Let a common
vegetable infusion help us to an answer. There, as we have seen, simple
forms are produced at first, but afterwards they become more complicated,
until at length the life-producing powers of the infusion are exhausted. Are
we to presume that, in this case, the simple engender the complicated?
Undoubtedly, this would not be more wonderful as a natural process than
one which we never think of wondering at, because familiar to us—namely,
that in the gestation of the mammals, the animalcule-like ovum of a few days
is the parent, in a sense, of the chick-like form of a few weeks, and that in all
the subsequent stages—fish, reptile, &c.—the one may, with scarcely a
metaphor, be said to be the progenitor of the other. I suggest, then, as an
hypothesis already countenanced by much that is ascertained, and likely to
be further sanctioned by much that remains to be known, that 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.
Unquestionably, what we ordinarily see of nature is calculated to impress a
conviction that each species invariably produces its like. But I would here
call attention to a remarkable illustration of natural law which has been
brought forward by Mr. Babbage, in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. The
reader is requested to suppose himself seated before the calculating machine,

and observing it. It is moved by a weight, and there is a wheel which
revolves through a small angle round its axis, at short intervals, presenting to
his eye successively, a series of numbers engraved on its divided
circumference.
Let the figures thus seen be the series, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c., of natural numbers,
each of which exceeds its immediate antecedent by unity.
“Now, reader,” says Mr. Babbage, “let me ask you how long you will have
counted before you are firmly convinced that the engine has been so
adjusted, that it will continue, while its motion is maintained, to produce the
same series of natural numbers? Some minds are so constituted, that, after
passing the first hundred terms, they will be satisfied that they are
acquainted with the law. After seeing five hundred terms few will doubt,
and after the fifty thousandth term the propensity to believe that the
succeeding term will be fifty thousand and one, will be almost irresistible.
That term will be fifty thousand and one; and the same regular succession
will continue; the five millionth and the fifty millionth term will still appear
in their expected order, and one unbroken chain of natural numbers will pass
before your eyes, from one up to one hundred million.
“True to the vast induction which has been made, the next succeeding term
will be one hundred million and one; but the next number presented by the
rim of the wheel, instead of being one hundred million and two, is one
hundred million ten thousand and two. The whole series from the
commencement being thus,—

1
2
3
4
5
.
..
...

99,999,999
100,000,000
regularly as far as 100,000,001
100,010,002 the law changes.
100,030,003
100,060,004
100,100,005
100,150,006
100,210,007
100,280,008
...
...
...

“The law which seemed at first to govern this series failed at the hundred
million and second term. This term is larger than we expected by 10,000.
The next term is larger than was anticipated by 30,000, and the excess of
each term above what we had expected forms the following table:—

10,000
30,000
60,000
100,000
150,000
...
...

being, in fact, the series of triangular numbers, [208] each multiplied by
10,000.

“If we now continue to observe the numbers presented by the wheel, we
shall find, that for a hundred, or even for a thousand terms, they continue to
follow the new law relating to the triangular numbers; but after watching
them for 2761 terms, we find that this law fails in the case of the 2762d term.
“If we continue to observe, we shall discover another law then coming into
action, which also is dependent, but in a different manner, on triangular
numbers. This will continue through about 1430 terms, when a new law is
again introduced which extends over about 950 terms, and this, too, like all
its predecessors, fails, and gives place to other laws, which appear at
different intervals.
“Now it must be observed that the law that each number presented by the
engine is greater by unity than the preceding number, which law the
observer had deduced from an induction of a hundred million instances, was
not the true law that regulated its action, and that the occurrence of the
number 100,010,002 at the 100,000,002nd term was as necessary a
consequence of the original adjustment, and might have been as fully
foreknown at the commencement, as was the regular succession of any one
of the intermediate numbers to its immediate antecedent. The same remark
applies to the next apparent deviation from the new law, which was founded
on an induction of 2761 terms, and also to the succeeding law, with this
limitation only—that, whilst their consecutive introduction at various
definite intervals, is a necessary consequence of the mechanical structure of
the engine, our knowledge of analysis does not enable us to predict the
periods themselves at which the more distant laws will be introduced.”
It is not difficult to apply the philosophy of this passage to the question
under consideration. It must be borne in mind that the gestation of a single
organism is the work of but a few days, weeks, or months; but the gestation
(so to speak) of a whole creation is a matter probably involving enormous
spaces of time. Suppose that an ephemeron, hovering over a pool for its one
April day of life, were capable of observing the fry of the frog in the water
below. In its aged afternoon, having seen no change upon them for such a
long time, it would be little qualified to conceive that the external branchiæ
of these creatures were to decay, and be replaced by internal lungs, that feet
were to be developed, the tail erased, and the animal then to become a
denizen of the land. Precisely such may be our difficulty in conceiving that
any of the species which people our earth is capable of advancing by

generation to a higher type of being. During the whole time which we call
the historical era, the limits of species have been, to ordinary observation,
rigidly adhered to. But the historical era is, we know, only a small portion of
the entire age of our globe. We do not know what may have happened
during the ages which preceded its commencement, as we do not know what
may happen in ages yet in the distant future. All, therefore, that we can
properly infer from the apparently invariable production of like by like is,
that such is the ordinary procedure of nature in the time immediately passing
before our eyes. Mr. Babbage’s illustration powerfully suggests that this
ordinary procedure may be subordinate to a higher law which only permits it
for a time, and in proper season interrupts and changes it. We shall soon see
some philosophical evidence for this very conclusion.
It has been seen that, in the reproduction of the higher animals, the new
being passes through stages in which it is successively fish-like and reptile-
like. But the resemblance is not to the adult fish or the adult reptile, but to
the fish and reptile at a certain point in their fœtal progress; this holds true
with regard to the vascular, nervous, and other systems alike. It may be
illustrated by a simple diagram. The fœtus of all the four classes may be
supposed to advance in an identical condition to the point A. The fish there
diverges and passes along a line apart, and
peculiar to A itself, to its mature state at F.
The reptile, bird, and mammal, go on
together to C, where the reptile diverges in
like manner, and advances by itself to R.
The bird diverges at D, and goes on to B.
The mammal then goes forward in a straight
line to the highest point of organization at
M. This diagram shews only the main
ramifications; but the reader must suppose
minor ones, representing the subordinate
differences of orders, tribes, families, genera,
&c., if he wishes to extend his views to the
whole varieties of being in the animal
kingdom. Limiting ourselves at present to
the outline afforded by this diagram, it is
apparent that the only thing required for an
advance from one type to another in the

generative process is that, for example, the fish embryo should not diverge at
A, but go on to C before it diverges, in which case the progeny will be, not a
fish, but a reptile. To protract the straightforward part of the gestation over
a small space—and from species to species the space would be small indeed
—is all that is necessary.
This might be done by the force of certain external conditions operating
upon the parturient system. The nature of these conditions we can only
conjecture, for their operation, which in the geological eras was so powerful,
has in its main strength been long interrupted, and is now perhaps only
allowed to work in some of the lowest departments of the organic world, or
under extraordinary casualties in some of the higher, and to these points the
attention of science has as yet been little directed. But though this
knowledge were never to be clearly attained, it need not much affect the
present argument, provided it be satisfactorily shewn that there must be
some such influence within the range of natural things.
To this conclusion it must be greatly conducive that the law of organic
development is still daily seen at work to certain effects, only somewhat
short of a transition from species to species. Sex we have seen to be a matter
of development. There is an instance, in a humble department of the animal
world, of arrangements being made by the animals themselves for adjusting
this law to the production of a particular sex. Amongst bees, as amongst
several other insect tribes, there is in each community but one true female,
the queen bee, the workers being false females or neuters; that is to say, sex
is carried on in them to a point where it is attended by sterility. The
preparatory states of the queen bee occupy sixteen days; those of the neuters,
twenty; and those of males, twenty-four. Now it is a fact, settled by
innumerable observations and experiments, that the bees can so modify a
worker in the larva state, that, when it emerges from the pupa, it is found to
be a queen or true female. For this purpose they enlarge its cell, make a
pyramidal hollow to allow of its assuming a vertical instead of a horizontal
position, keep it warmer than other larvæ are kept, and feed it with a peculiar
kind of food. From these simple circumstances, leading to a shortening of
the embryotic condition, results a creature different in form, and also in
dispositions, from what would have otherwise been produced. Some of the
organs possessed by the worker are here altogether wanting. We have a
creature “destined to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be

incited to vengeance, and to pass her time without labour,” instead of one
“zealous for the good of the community, a defender of the public rights,
enjoying an immunity from the stimulus of sexual appetite and the pains of
parturition; laborious, industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful; incessantly
engaged in the nurture of the young, in collecting honey and pollen, in
elaborating wax, in constructing cells and the like!—paying the most
respectful and assiduous attention to objects which, had its ovaries been
developed, it would have hated and pursued with the most vindictive fury till
it had destroyed them!” [215] All these changes may be produced by a mere
modification of the embryotic progress, which it is within the power of the
adult animals to effect. But it is important to observe that this modification
is different from working a direct change upon the embryo. It is not the
different food which effects a metamorphosis. All that is done is merely to
accelerate the period of the insect’s perfection. By the arrangements made
and the food given, the embryo becomes sooner fit for being ushered forth in
its imago or perfect state. Development may be said to be thus arrested at a
particular stage—that early one at which the female sex is complete. In the
other circumstances, it is allowed to go on four days longer, and a stage is
then reached between the two sexes, which in this species is designed to be
the perfect condition of a large portion of the community. Four days more
make it a perfect male. It is at the same time to be observed that there is,
from the period of oviposition, a destined distinction between the sexes of
the young bees. The queen lays the whole of the eggs which are designed to
become workers, before she begins to lay those which become males. But
probably the condition of her reproductive system governs the matter of sex,
for it is remarked that when her impregnation is delayed beyond the twenty-
eighth day of her entire existence, she lays only eggs which become males.
We have here, it will be admitted, a most remarkable illustration of the
principle of development, although in an operation limited to the production
of sex only. Let it not be said that the phenomena concerned in the
generation of bees may be very different from those concerned in the
reproduction of the higher animals. There is a unity throughout nature
which makes the one case an instructive reflection of the other.
We shall now see an instance of development operating within the
production of what approaches to the character of variety of species. It is
fully established that a human family, tribe, or nation, is liable, in the course

of generations, to be either advanced from a mean form to a higher one, or
degraded from a higher to a lower, by the influence of the physical
conditions in which it lives. The coarse features, and other structural
peculiarities of the negro race only continue while these people live amidst
the circumstances usually associated with barbarism. In a more temperate
clime, and higher social state, the face and figure become greatly refined.
The few African nations which possess any civilization also exhibit forms
approaching the European; and when the same people in the United States of
America have enjoyed a within-door life for several generations, they
assimilate to the whites amongst whom they live. On the other hand, there
are authentic instances of a people originally well-formed and good-looking,
being brought, by imperfect diet and a variety of physical hardships, to a
meaner form. It is remarkable that prominence of the jaws, a recession and
diminution of the cranium, and an elongation and attenuation of the limbs,
are peculiarities always produced by these miserable conditions, for they
indicate an unequivocal retrogression towards the type of the lower animals.
Thus we see nature alike willing to go back and to go forward. Both effects
are simply the result of the operation of the law of development in the
generative system. Give good conditions, it advances; bad ones, it recedes.
Now, perhaps, it is only because there is no longer a possibility, in the higher
types of being, of giving sufficiently favourable conditions to carry on
species to species, that we see the operation of the law so far limited.
Let us trace this law also in the production of certain classes of
monstrosities. A human fœtus 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-chambered form, so that it is the heart of a reptile.
There are even instances of this organ being left in the two-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. 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 complete specific retrogression in this one
point, how easy it is to imagine an access of favourable conditions sufficient
to reverse the phenomenon, and make a fish mother develop a reptile heart,
or a reptile mother develop a mammal one. 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 professes to have no such facts on record. It is here to be
remarked, that such facts might often happen, and yet no record be taken of
them, for so strong is the prepossession for the doctrine of invariable like-
production, that such circumstances, on occurring, would be almost sure to
be explained away on some other supposition, or, if presented, would be
disbelieved and neglected. Science, therefore, has no such facts, for the very
same reason that some small sects are said to have no discreditable members
—namely, that they do not receive such persons, and extrude all who begin
to verge upon the character. There are, nevertheless, some facts which have
chanced to be reported without any reference to this hypothesis, and which it
seems extremely difficult to explain satisfactorily upon any other. One of
these has already been mentioned—a progression in the forms of the
animalcules in a vegetable infusion from the simpler to the more
complicated, a sort of microcosm, representing the whole history of the
progress of animal creation as displayed by geology. Another is given in the
history of the Acarus Crossii, which may be only the ultimate stage of a
series of similar transformations effected by electric agency in the solution
subjected to it. There is, however, one direct case of a translation of species,
which has been presented with a respectable amount of authority. [221] It
appears that, whenever oats sown at the usual time are kept cropped down
during summer and autumn, and allowed to remain over the winter, a thin
crop of rye is the harvest presented at the close of the ensuing summer. This
experiment has been tried repeatedly, with but one result; invariably the
secale cereale is the crop reaped where the avena sativa, a recognised
different species, was sown. Now it will not satisfy a strict inquirer to be
told that the seeds of the rye were latent in the ground and only superseded
the dead product of the oats; for if any such fact were in the case, why
should the usurping grain be always rye? Perhaps those curious facts which
have been stated with regard to forests of one kind of trees, when burnt
down, being succeeded (without planting) by other kinds, may yet be found
most explicable, as this is, upon the hypothesis of a progression of species

which takes place under certain favouring conditions, now apparently of
comparatively rare occurrence. The case of the oats is the more valuable, as
bearing upon the suggestion as to a protraction of the gestation at a particular
part of its course. Here, the generative process is, by the simple mode of
cropping down, kept up for a whole year beyond its usual term. The type is
thus allowed to advance, and what was oats becomes rye.
The idea, then, which I form of the progress of organic life upon the globe—
and the hypothesis is applicable to all similar theatres of vital being—is, that
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 the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of
advance being in all cases very small—namely, from one species only to
another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a simple and modest
character. Whether the whole of any species was at once translated forward,
or only a few parents were employed to give birth to the new type, must
remain undetermined; but, supposing that the former was the case, we must
presume that the moves along the line or lines were simultaneous, so that the
place vacated by one species was immediately taken by the next in
succession, and so on back to the first, for the supply of which the formation
of a new germinal vesicle out of inorganic matter was alone necessary.
Thus, the production of new forms, as shewn 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
circumstances of a wonderful or startling kind, as the silent advance of an
ordinary mother from one week to another of her pregnancy. Yet, be it
remembered, the whole phenomena are, in another point of view, wonders of
the highest kind, for in each of them we have to trace the effect of an
Almighty Will which had arranged the whole in such harmony with external
physical circumstances, that both were developed in parallel steps—and
probably this development upon our planet is but a sample of what has taken
place, through the same cause, in all the other countless theatres of being
which are suspended in space.
This may be the proper place at which to introduce the preceding
illustrations in a form calculated to bring them more forcibly before the mind
of the reader. The following table was suggested to me, in consequence of
seeing the scale of animated nature presented in Dr. Fletcher’s Rudiments of

Physiology. Taking that scale as its basis, it shews the wonderful parity
observed in the progress of creation, as presented to our observation in the
succession of fossils, and also in the fœtal progress of one of the principal
human organs. [224] This scale, it may be remarked, was not made up with a
view to support such an hypothesis as the present, nor with any apparent
regard to the history of fossils, but merely to express the appearance of
advancement in the orders of the Cuvierian system, assuming, as the
criterion of that advancement, “an increase in the number and extent of the
manifestations of life, or of the relations which an organized being bears to
the external world.” Excepting in the relative situation of the annelida and a
few of the mammal orders, the parity is perfect; nor may even these small
discrepancies appear when the order of fossils shall have been further
investigated, or a more correct scale shall have been formed. Meanwhile, it
is a wonderful evidence in favour of our hypothesis, that a scale formed so
arbitrarily should coincide to such a nearness with our present knowledge of
the succession of animal forms upon earth, and also that both of these series
should harmonize so well with the view given by modern physiologists of
the embryotic progress of one of the organs of the highest order of animals.

[226]

The reader has seen physical conditions several times referred to, as to be
presumed to have in some way governed the progress of the development of
the zoological circle. This language may seem vague, and, it may be asked,
—can any particular physical condition be adduced as likely to have affected
development? To this it may be answered, that air and light are probably
amongst the principal agencies of this kind which operated in educing the
various forms of being. Light is found to be essential to the development of
the individual embryo. When tadpoles were placed in a perforated box, and
that box sunk in the Seine, light being the only condition thus abstracted,
they grew to a great size in their original form, but did not pass through the
usual metamorphose which brings them to their mature state as frogs. The
proteus, an animal of the frog kind, inhabiting the subterraneous waters of
Carniola, and which never acquires perfect lungs so as to become a land
animal, is presumed to be an example of arrested development, from the
same cause. When, in connexion with these facts, we learn that human
mothers living in dark and close cells under ground,—that is to say, with an

inadequate provision of air and light,—are found to produce an unusual
proportion of defective children, [229] we can appreciate the important effects
of both these physical conditions in ordinary reproduction. Now there is
nothing to forbid the supposition that the earth has been at different stages of
its career under different conditions, as to both air and light. On the
contrary, we have seen reason for supposing that the proportion of carbonic
acid gas (the element fatal to animal life) was larger at the time of the
carboniferous formation than it afterwards became. We have also seen that
astronomers regard the zodiacal light as a residuum of matter enveloping the
sun, and which was probably at one time denser than it is now. Here we
have the indications of causes for a progress in the purification of the
atmosphere and in the diffusion of light during the earlier ages of the earth’s
history, with which the progress of organic life may have been conformable.
An accession to the proportion of oxygen, and the effulgence of the central
luminary, may have been the immediate prompting cause of all those
advances from species to species which we have seen, upon other grounds,
to be necessarily supposed as having taken place. And causes of the like
nature may well be supposed to operate on other spheres of being, as well as
on this. I do not indeed present these ideas as furnishing the true explanation
of the progress of organic creation; they are merely thrown out as hints
towards the formation of a just hypothesis, the completion of which is only
to be looked for when some considerable advances shall have been made in
the amount and character of our stock of knowledge.
Early in this century, M. Lamarck, a naturalist of the highest character,
suggested an hypothesis of organic progress which deservedly incurred
much ridicule, although it contained a glimmer of the truth. He surmised,
and endeavoured, with a great deal of ingenuity, to prove, that one being
advanced in the course of generations to another, in consequence merely of
its experience of wants calling for the exercise of its faculties in a particular
direction, by which exercise new developments of organs took place, ending
in variations sufficient to constitute a new species. Thus he thought that a
bird would be driven by necessity to seek its food in the water, and that, in
its efforts to swim, the outstretching of its claws would lead to the expansion
of the intermediate membranes, and it would thus become web-footed. Now
it is possible that wants and the exercise of faculties have entered in some
manner into the production of the phenomena which we have been
considering; but certainly not in the way suggested by Lamarck, whose

whole notion is obviously so inadequate to account for the rise of the organic
kingdoms, that we only can place it with pity among the follies of the wise.
Had the laws of organic development been known in his time, his theory
might have been of a more imposing kind. It is upon these that the present
hypothesis is mainly founded. I take existing natural means, and shew them
to have been capable of producing all the existing organisms, with the
simple and easily conceivable aid of a higher generative law, which we
perhaps still see operating upon a limited scale. I also go beyond the French
philosopher to a very important point, the original Divine conception of all
the forms of being which these natural laws were only instruments in
working out and realizing. The actuality of such a conception I hold to be
strikingly demonstrated by the discoveries of Macleay, Vigors, and
Swainson, with respect to the affinities and analogies of animal (and by
implication vegetable) organisms. [232] Such a regularity in the structure, as
we may call it, of the classification of animals, as is shewn in their systems,
is totally irreconcilable with the idea of form going on to form merely as
needs and wishes in the animals themselves dictated. Had such been the
case, all would have been irregular, as things arbitrary necessarily are. But,
lo, the whole plan of being is as symmetrical as the plan of a house, or the
laying out of an old-fashioned garden! This must needs have been devised
and arranged for beforehand. And what a preconception or forethought have
we here! Let us only for a moment consider how various are the external
physical conditions in which animals live—climate, soil, temperature, land,
water, air—the peculiarities of food, and the various ways in which it is to be
sought; the peculiar circumstances in which the business of reproduction and
the care-taking of the young are to be attended to—all these required to be
taken into account, and thousands of animals were to be formed suitable in
organization and mental character for the concerns they were to have with
these various conditions and circumstances—here a tooth fitted for crushing
nuts; there a claw fitted to serve as a hook for suspension; here to repress
teeth and develop a bony net-work instead; there to arrange for a bronchial
apparatus, to last only for a certain brief time; and all these animals were to
be schemed out, each as a part of a great range, which was on the whole to
be rigidly regular: let us, I say, only consider these things, and we shall see
that the decreeing of laws to bring the whole about was an act involving such
a degree of wisdom and device as we only can attribute, adoringly, to the one
Eternal and Unchangeable. It may be asked, how does this reflection

comport with that timid philosophy which would have us to draw back from
the investigation of God’s works, lest the knowledge of them should make us
undervalue his greatness and forget his paternal character? Does it not rather
appear that our ideas of the Deity can only be worthy of him in the ratio in
which we advance in a knowledge of his works and ways; and that the
acquisition of this knowledge is consequently an available means of our
growing in a genuine reverence for him!
But the idea that any of the lower animals have been concerned in any way
with the origin of man—is not this degrading? Degrading is a term,
expressive of a notion of the human mind, and the human mind is liable to
prejudices which prevent its notions from being invariably correct. Were we
acquainted for the first time with the circumstances attending the production
of an individual of our race, we might equally think them degrading, and be
eager to deny them, and exclude them from the admitted truths of nature.
Knowing this fact familiarly and beyond contradiction, a healthy and natural
mind finds no difficulty in regarding it complacently. Creative Providence
has been pleased to order that it should be so, and it must therefore be
submitted to. Now the idea as to the progress of organic creation, if we
become satisfied of its truth, ought to be received precisely in this spirit. It
has pleased Providence to arrange that one species should give birth to
another, until the second highest gave birth to man, who is the very highest:
be it so, it is our part to admire and to submit. The very faintest notion of
there being anything ridiculous or degrading in the theory—how absurd does
it appear, when we remember that every individual amongst us actually
passes through the characters of the insect, the fish, and reptile, (to speak
nothing of others,) before he is permitted to breathe the breath of life! But
such notions are mere emanations of false pride and ignorant prejudice. He
who conceives them little reflects that they, in reality, involve the principle
of a contempt for the works and ways of God. For it may be asked, if He, as
appears, has chosen to employ inferior organisms as a generative medium
for the production of higher ones, even including ourselves, what right have
we, his humble creatures, to find fault? There is, also, in this prejudice, an
element of unkindliness towards the lower animals, which is utterly out of
place. These creatures are all of them part products of the Almighty
Conception, as well as ourselves. All of them display wondrous evidences
of his wisdom and benevolence. All of them have had assigned to them by
their Great Father a part in the drama of the organic world, as well as

ourselves. Why should they be held in such contempt? Let us regard them
in a 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.

MACLEAY SYSTEM OF ANIMATED NATURE.
THIS SYSTEM CONSIDERED IN CONNEXION WITH THE
PROGRESS OF ORGANIC CREATION, AND AS INDICATING
THE NATURAL STATUS OF MAN.

It is now high time to advert to the system formed by the animated tribes,
both with a view to the possible illustration of the preceding argument, and
for the light which it throws upon that general system of nature which it is
the more comprehensive object of this book to ascertain.
The vegetable and animal kingdoms are arranged upon a scale, starting from
simply organized forms, and going on to the more complex, each of these
forms being but slightly different from those next to it on both sides. The
lowest and most slightly developed forms in the two kingdoms are so closely
connected, that it is impossible to say where vegetable ends and animal
begins. United at what may be called their bases, they start away in different
directions, but not altogether to lose sight of each other. On the contrary,
they maintain a strict analogy throughout the whole of their subsequent
courses, sub-kingdom for sub-kingdom, class for class; shewing a beautiful,
though as yet obscure relation between the two grand forms of being, and
consequently a unity in the laws which brought them both into existence. So
complete does this analogy appear, even in the present imperfect state of
science, that I fully expect in a few years to see the animal and vegetable
kingdoms duly ranked up against each other in a system of parallels, which
will admit of our assigning to each species in the former the particular shrub
or tree corresponding to it in the latter, all marked by unmistakable analogies
of the most interesting kind.
It is as yet but a few years since a system of subordinate analogies not less
remarkable began to be speculated upon as within the range of the animal
kingdom. Probably it also exists in the vegetable kingdom; but to this point

no direct attention has been given; so we are left to infer that such is the case
from theoretical considerations only. We are indebted for what we know of
these beautiful analogies to three naturalists—Macleay, Vigors, and
Swainson, whose labours tempt us to dismiss in a great measure the artificial
classifications hitherto used, and make an entirely new conspectus of the
animal kingdom, not to speak of the corresponding reform which will be
required in our systems of botany also.
The Macleay system, as it may be called in honour of its principal author,
announces that, whether we take the whole animal kingdom, or any definite
division of it, we shall find that we are examining a group of beings which is
capable of being arranged along a series of close affinities, in a circular
form,—that is to say, starting from any one portion of the group, when it is
properly arranged, we can proceed from one to another by minute
gradations, till at length, having run through the whole, we return to the
point whence we set out. All natural groups of animals are, therefore, in the
language of Mr. Macleay, circular; and the possibility of throwing any
supposed group into a circular arrangement is held as a decisive test of its
being a real or natural one. It is of course to be understood that each circle is
composed of a set of inferior circles: for example, a set of tribe circles
composes an order; a set of order circles, again, forms a class; and so on.
Of each group, the component circles are invariably five in number: thus, in
the animal kingdom, there are five sub-kingdoms,—the vertebrata, annulosa,
[239a]
radiata, acrita, [239b] mollusca. Take, again, one of these sub-kingdoms,
the vertebrata, and we find it composed of five classes,—the mammalia,
reptilia, pisces, amphibia, and aves, each of the other sub-kingdoms being
similarly divisible. Take the mammalia, and it is in like manner found to be
composed of five orders,—the cheirotheria, [239c] feræ, cetacea, glires,
ungulata. Even in this numerical uniformity, which goes down to the lowest
ramifications of the system, there would be something very remarkable, as
arguing a definite and preconceived arrangement; but this is only the least
curious part of the Macleay theory.
We shall best understand the wonderfully complex system of analogies
developed by that theory, if we start from the part of the kingdom in which
they were first traced,—namely, the class aves, or birds. This gives for its
five orders,—incessores, (perching birds,) raptores, (birds of prey,)
natatores, (swimming birds,) grallatores, (waders,) rasores, (scrapers.) In

these orders our naturalists discerned distinct organic characters, of different
degrees of perfectness, the first being the most perfect with regard to the
general character of the class, and therefore the best representative of that
class; whence it was called the typical order. The second was found to be
inferior, or rather to have a less perfect balance of qualities; hence it was
designated the sub-typical. In this are comprehended the chief noxious and
destructive animals of the circle to which it belongs. The other three groups
were called aberrant, as exhibiting a much wider departure from the typical
standard, although the last of the three is observed to make a certain
recovery, and join on to the typical group, so as to complete the circle. The
first of the aberrant groups (natatores) is remarkable for making the water
the theatre of its existence, and the birds composing it are in general of
comparatively large bulk. The second (grallatores) are long-limbed and
long-billed, that they may wade and pick up their subsistence in the shallows
and marshes in which they chiefly live. The third (rasores) are distinguished
by strong feet, for walking or running on the ground, and for scraping in it
for their food; also by wings designed to scarcely raise them off the earth
and, farther, by a general domesticity of character and usefulness to man.
Now the most remarkable circumstance is, that these organic characters,
habits, and moral properties, were found to be traceable more or less
distinctly in the corresponding portions of every other group, even of those
belonging to distant subdivisions of the animal kingdom, as, for instance, the
insects. The incessores (typical order of aves) being reduced to its
constituent circles or tribes, it was found that these strictly represented the
five orders. In the conirostres are the perfections which belong to the
incessores as an order, with the conspicuous external feature of a
comparatively small notch in their bills; in the dentirostres, the notch is
strong and toothlike, (hence the name of the tribe) assimilating them to the
raptores; the fissirostres come into analogy with the natatores in the slight
development of their feet and their great powers of flight; the tenuirostres
have the small mouths and long soft bills of the grallatores. Finally, the
scansores resemble the rasores in their superior intelligence and docility, and
in their having strong limbs and a bill entire at the tip. This parity of
qualities becomes clearer when placed in a tabular form:—

Orders of Characters. Tribes of
Birds. Incessores.

Incessores Most perfect of their circle; notch of bill Conirostres.
small
Raptores Notch of bill like a tooth Dentirostres.
Natatores Slightly developed feet; strong flight Fissirostres.
Grallatores Small mouths; long soft bills Tenuirostres.
Rasores Strong feet, short wings; docile and Scansores.
domestic

Some comprehensive terms are much wanted to describe these five
characters, so curiously repeated throughout the whole of the animal, and
probably also the vegetable kingdom. Meanwhile, Mr. Swainson calls them
typical, sub-typical, natatorial, suctorial, [242] and rasorial. Some of his
illustrations of the principle are exceedingly interesting. He shews that the
leading animal of a typical circle usually has a combination of properties
concentrated in itself, without any of these preponderating remarkably over
others. The sub-typical circles, he says, “do not comprise the largest
individuals in bulk, but always those which are the most powerfully armed,
either for inflicting injury on their own class, for exciting terror, producing
injury, or creating annoyance to man. Their dispositions are often
sanguinary, since the forms most conspicuous among them live by rapine,
and subsist on the blood of other animals. They are, in short, symbolically
types of evil.” This symbolical character is most conspicuous about the
centre of the series of gradations:—

Kingdom Annulosa.
Sub-kingdom Reptilia.
Class (Mammalia) Feræ.
(Aves) Raptores.

In the annulosa it is not distinct, although we must also remember that
insects do produce enormous ravages and annoyance in many parts of the
earth. In the reptilia it is more distinct, since to this class belong the ophidia,
(serpents,) an order peculiarly noxious. It comes to a kind of climax in the
feræ and raptores, which fulfil the function of butchers among land animals.

As we descend through tribes, families, genera, species, it becomes fainter
and fainter, but never altogether vanishes. In the dentirostres, for instance,
we have in a subdued form the hooked bill and predaceous character of the
raptores; to this tribe belongs the family of the shrikes, so deadly to all the
lesser field birds. In the genus bos, we have, in the sub-typical group, the
bison, “wild, revengeful, and shewing an innate detestation of man.” In
equus, we have, in the same situation, the zebra, which actually shews the
stripes of the tiger, and is as remarkable for its wildness as its congeners, the
horse and ass, are for their docility and usefulness. To quote again from Mr.
Swainson, “the singular threatening aspect which the caterpillars of the
sphinx moth assume on being disturbed, is a remarkable modification of the
terrific or evil nature which is impressed in one form or another, palpable or
remote, upon all sub-typical groups; for this division of the lepidopterous
order is precisely of this denomination. In the pre-eminent type of this order
of insects, the butterflies, (papilionides,) our associations little prepare us for
expecting any trace of the evil principle; but here, too, there is a sub-typical
division. These,” says our naturalist, “are distinguished by their caterpillars
being armed with formidable spines or prickles, which in general are
possessed of some highly acrimonious or poisonous quality, capable of
injuring those who touch them. It is only,” continues Mr. Swainson, “when
extensive researches bring to light a uniformity of results, that we can
venture to believe they are so universal as to deserve being ranked as
primary laws. Thus, when a celebrated entomologist denounced as impure
the black and lurid beetles forming the saprophagous petalocera of Mr.
Macleay, a tribe living only upon putrid vegetable matter, and hiding
themselves in their disgusting food, or in dark hollows of the earth, neither
of these celebrated men suspected the absolute fact, elicited from our
analogies of this group, that this very tribe constituted the sub-typical group
of one of the primary divisions of coleopterous insects: nor had they any
suspicion that, by the filthy habits and repulsive forms of these beetles,
nature had intended that they should be types or emblems of hundreds of
other groups, distinguished by peculiarities equally indicative of evil. On
the other hand, the thalerophagous petalocera, forming the typical group of
the same division, present us with all the perfections and habits belonging to
their kind. These families of beetles live only upon fresh vegetables; they
are diurnal, and sport in the glare of day, pure in their food, elegant in their
shapes, and beautiful in their colours.” [246]

The third type, (first of the three aberrant,) called by Mr. Swainson, the
natatorial, or aquatic, are chiefly remarkable for their bulk, the
disproportionate size of the head, and the absence, or slight development of
the feet. They partake of the predaceous and destructive character of the
adjoining sub-typical group, and the means of their predacity are generally
found in the mouth alone. In the primary division of the animal kingdom,
we find the type in the radiata, not one of which lives out of water. In the
vertebrata, it is in the fishes. In both of these, feet are totally wanting.
Descending to the class mammalia, we have this type in the cetacea, which
present a comparatively slight development of limbs. In the aves, as we
have seen, the type is presented in the natatores, whose name has been
adopted as an appropriate term for all the corresponding groups. An
enumeration of some other examples of the natatorial type, as the
cephalopoda (instanced in the cuttle-fish) in the mollusca; the crustacea
(crabs, &c.) in the annulosa; the owls (which often duck for fish) in the
raptores; the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, &c., among reptilia, will serve to
bring the general character, and its pervasion of the whole animal world,
forcibly before the mind of the reader.
The next type is that of meanest and most imperfect organization, the lower
termination of all groups, as the typical is the upper. It is called by Mr.
Swainson the suctorial, from a very generally prevalent peculiarity, that of
drawing sustenance by suction. The acrita, or polypes, among the sub-
kingdoms; the intestina, among the annulosa; the tortoises, among the
reptilia; the armadillo and scaly ant-eater, pig, mouse, jerboa, and kangaroo,
among quadrupeds; the waders and tenuirostres, among birds; the
coleoptera, (bug, louse, flea, &c.) among insects; the gastrobranchus, among
fishes; are examples which will illustrate the special characters of this type.
These are smallness, particularly in the head and mouth, feebleness, and
want of offensive protection, defect of organs of mastication, considerable
powers of swift movement, and (often) a parasitic mode of living; while of
negative qualities, there are, besides, indisposition to domestication, and an
unsuitableness to serve as human food.
The rasorial type comprehends most of the animals which become
domesticated and useful to man, as, first, the fowls which give a name to the
type, the ungulata, and more particularly the ruminantia, among quadrupeds,
and the dog among the feræ. Gentleness, familiarity with man, and a

peculiar approach to human intelligence, are the leading mental
characteristics of animals of this type. Amongst external characters, we
generally find power of limbs and feet for locomotion on land, (to which the
rasorial type is confined,) abundant tail and ornaments for the head, whether
in the form of tufts, crests, horns, or bony excrescences. In the animal
kingdom, the mollusca are the rasorial type, which, however, only shews
itself there in their soft and sluggish character, and their being very generally
edible. In the ptilota, or winged insects, the hymenopterous are the rasorial
type, and it is not therefore surprising to find amongst them the ants and
bees, “the most social, intelligent, and in the latter case, most useful to man,
of all the annulose animals.”
As yet the speculations on representation are imperfect, in consequence of
the novelty of the doctrine, and the defective state of our knowledge of
animated nature. It has, however, been so fully proved in the aves, and
traced so clearly in other parts of the animal kingdom, and as a general
feature of that part of nature, that hardly a doubt can exist of its being
universally applicable. Even in the lowly forms of the acrita, (polypes,) the
suctorial type of the animal kingdom, representation has been discerned, and
with some remarkable results as to the history of our world. The acrita were
the first forms of animal life upon earth, the starting point of that great
branch of organization. Now, this sub-kingdom consists, like the rest, of five
groups, (classes,) and these are respectively representations of the acrita
itself, and the other four sub-kingdoms, which had not come into existence
when the acrita were formed. The polypi vaginati, in the crustaceous
covering of the living mass, and their more or less articulated structure,
represent the annulosa. In the radiated forms of the rotifera, and the simple
structure of the polypi rudes, we are reminded of the radiata. The mollusca
are typified in the soft, mucous, sluggish intestina. And, finally, in the fleshy
living mass which surrounds the bony and hollow axis of the polypi
natantes, we have a sketch of the vertebrata. The acrita thus appear as a
prophecy of the higher events of animal development. They shew that the
nobler orders of being, including man himself, were contemplated from the
first, and came into existence by virtue of a law, the operation of which had
commenced ages before their forms were realized.
The system of representation is therefore to be regarded as a powerful
additional proof of the hypothesis of organic progress by virtue of law. It

establishes the unity of animated nature and the definite character of its
entire constitution. It enables us to see how, under the flowing robes of
nature, where all looks arbitrary and accidental, there is an artificiality of the
most rigid kind. The natural, we now perceive, sinks into and merges in a
Higher Artificial. To adopt a comparison more apt than dignified, we may
be said to be placed here as insects are in a garden of the old style. Our first
unassisted view is limited, and we perceive only the irregularities of the
minute surface, and single shrubs which appear arbitrarily scattered. But our
view at length extending and becoming more comprehensive, we begin to
see parterres balancing each other, trees, statues, and arbours placed
symmetrically, and that the whole is an assemblage of parts mutually
reflective. It can scarcely be necessary to point to the inference hence
arising with regard to the origination of nature in some Power, of which
man’s mind is a faint and humble representation. The insects of the garden,
supposing them to be invested with reasoning power, and aware how
artificial are their own works, might of course very reasonably conclude that,
being in its totality an artificial object, the garden was the work of some
maker or artificer. And so also must we conclude, when we attain a
knowledge of the artificiality which is at the basis of nature, that nature is
wholly the production of a Being resembling, but infinitely greater than
ourselves.
Organic beings are, then, bound together in development, and in a system of
both affinities and analogies. Now, it will be asked, does this agree with
what we know of the geographical distribution of organic beings, and of the
history of organic progress as delineated by geology? Let us first advert to
the geographical question.
Plants, as is well known, require various kinds of soil, forms of geographical
surface, climate, and other conditions, for their existence. And it is
everywhere found that, however isolated a particular spot may be with
regard to these conditions,—as a mountain top in a torrid country, the marsh
round a salt spring far inland, or an island placed far apart in the ocean,—
appropriate plants have there taken up their abode. But the torrid zone
divides the two temperate regions from each other by the space of more than
forty-six degrees, and the torrid and temperate zones together form a much
broader line of division between the two arctic regions. The Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, and the Persian Gulf, also divide the various portions of

continent in the torrid and temperate zones from each other. Australia is also
divided by a broad sea from the continent of Asia. Thus there are various
portions of the earth separated from each other in such a way as to preclude
anything like a general communication of the seeds of their respective plants
towards each other. Hence arises an interesting question—Are the plants of
the various isolated regions which enjoy a parity of climate and other
conditions, identical or the reverse? The answer is—that in such regions the
vegetation bears a general resemblance, but the species are nearly all
different, and there is even, in a considerable measure, a diversity of
families.
The general facts have been thus stated: in the arctic and antarctic regions,
and in those parts of lower latitudes, which, from their elevation, possess the
same cold climate, there is always a similar or analogous vegetation, but few
species are common to the various situations. In like manner, the
intertropical vegetation of Asia, Africa, and America, are specifically
different, though generally similar. The southern region of America is
equally diverse from that of Africa, a country similar in clime, but separated
by a vast extent of ocean. The vegetation of Australia, another region
similarly placed in respect of clime, is even more peculiar. These facts are
the more remarkable when we discover that, in most instances, the plants of
one region have thriven when transplanted to another of parallel clime. This
would shew that parity of conditions does not lead to a parity of productions
so exact as to include identity of species, or even genera. Besides the
various isolated regions here enumerated, there are some others indicated by
naturalists as exhibiting a vegetation equally peculiar. Some of these are
isolated by mountains, or the interposition of sandy wastes. For example,
the temperate region of the elder continent is divided about the centre of
Asia, and the east of that line is different from the west. So also is the same
region divided in North America by the Rocky Mountains. Abyssinia and
Nubia constitute another distinct botanical region. De Candolle enumerates
in all twenty well-marked portions of the earth’s surface which are peculiar
with respect to vegetation; a number which would be greatly increased if
remote islands and isolated mountain ranges were to be included.
When we come to the zoology, we find precisely similar results, excepting
that man (with, perhaps, some of the less conspicuous forms of being) is
universal, and that several tribes, as the bear and dog, appear to have passed

by the land connexion from the arctic regions of the eastern to those of the
western hemisphere. “With these exceptions,” says Dr. Prichard, “and
without any others, as far as zoological researches have yet gone, it may be
asserted that no individual species are common to distant regions. In parallel
climates, analogous species replace each other; sometimes, but not
frequently, the same genus is found in two separate continents; but the
species which are natives of one region are not identical with corresponding
races indigenous in the opposite hemisphere.
“A similar result arises when we compare the three great intertropical
regions, as well as the extreme spaces of the three great continents, which
advance into the temperate climates of the southern hemisphere.
“Thus, the tribes of simiæ, (monkeys,) of the dog and cat kinds, of
pachyderms, including elephants, tapirs, rhinoceroses, hogs, of bats, of
saurian and ophidian reptiles, as well of birds and other terrene animals, are
all different in the three great continents. In the lower departments of the
mammiferous family, we find that the bruta, or edendata, (sloths, armadillos,
&c.,) of Africa, are differently organized from those of America, and these
again from the tribes found in the Malayan archipelago and Terra Australis.”
[255]

It does not appear that the diversity between the similar regions of Africa,
Asia, and America, is occasioned in all instances by any disqualification of
these countries to support precisely the same genera or species. The ox,
horse, goat, &c., of the elder continent have thriven and extended themselves
in the new, and many of the indigenous tribes of America would no doubt
flourish in corresponding climates in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has,
however, been remarked by naturalists unacquainted with the Macleay
system, that the larger and more powerful animals of their respective orders
belong to the elder continent, and that thus the animals of America, unlike
the features of inanimate nature, appear to be upon a small scale. The
swiftest and most agile animals, and a large proportion of those most useful
to man, are also natives of the elder continent. On the other hand, the bulk
of the edentata, a group remarkable for defects and meanness of
organization, are American. The zoology of America may be said, upon the
whole, to recede from that of Asia, “and perhaps in a greater degree,” adds

Dr. Prichard, “from that of Africa.” A much greater recession is, however,
observed in both the botany and zoology of Australia.
There “we do not find, in the great masses of vegetation, either the majesty
of the virgin forests of America, or the variety and elegance of those of Asia,
or the delicacy and freshness of the woods of our temperate countries of
Europe. The vegetation is generally gloomy and sad; it has the aspect of our
evergreens or heaths; the plants are for the most part woody; the leaves of
nearly all the plants are linear, lanceolated, small, coriaceous, and
spinescent. The grasses, which elsewhere are generally soft and flexible,
participate in the stiffness of the other vegetables. The greater part of the
plants of New Holland belong to new genera; and those included in the
genera already known are of new species. The natural families which
prevail are those of the heaths, the proteæ, compositæ, leguminosæ, and
myrthoideæ; the larger trees all belong to the last family.” [257]
The prevalent animals of Australia are not less peculiar. It is well known
that none above the marsupialia, or pouched animals, are native to it. The
most conspicuous are these marsupials, which exist in great varieties here,
though unknown in the elder continent, and only found in a few mean forms
in America. Next to them are the monotremata, which are entirely peculiar
to this portion of the earth. Now these are animals at the bottom of the
mammiferous class, adjoining to that of birds, of whose character and
organization the monotremata largely partake, the ornithorynchus presenting
the bill and feet of a duck, producing its young in eggs, and having, like
birds, a clavicle between the two shoulders. The birds of Australia vary in
structure and plumage, but all have some singularity about them—the swan,
for instance, is black. The country abounds in reptiles, and the prevalent
fishes are of the early kinds, having a cartilaginous structure.
Altogether, the plants and animals of this minor continent convey the
impression of an early system of things, such as might be displayed in other
parts of the earth about the time of the oolite. In connexion with this
circumstance, it is a fact of some importance, that the geognostic character
of Australia, its vast arid plains, its little diversified surface and consequent
paucity of streams, and the very slight development of volcanic rock on its
surface, seem to indicate a system of physical conditions, such as we may
suppose to have existed elsewhere in the oolitic era: perhaps we see the

chalk formation preparing there in the vast coral beds frontiering the coast.
Australia thus appears as a portion of the earth which has, from some
unknown causes, been belated in its physical and organic development. And
certainly the greater part of its surface is not fitted to be an advantageous
place of residence for beings above the marsupialia, and judging from
analogy, it may yet be subjected to a series of changes in the highest degree
inconvenient to any human beings who may have settled upon it.
The general conclusions regarding the geography of organic nature, may be
thus stated. (1.) There are numerous distinct foci of organic production
throughout the earth. (2.) These have everywhere advanced in accordance
with the local conditions of climate &c., as far as at least the class and order
are concerned, a diversity taking place in the lower gradations. No physical
or geographical reason appearing for this diversity, we are led to infer that,
(3,) it is the result of minute and inappreciable causes giving the law of
organic development a particular direction in the lower subdivisions of the
two kingdoms. (4.) Development has not gone on to equal results in the
various continents, being most advanced in the eastern continent, next in the
western, and least in Australia, this inequality being perhaps the result of the
comparative antiquity of the various regions, geologically and
geographically.
It must at the same time be admitted that the line of organic development has
nowhere required for its advance the whole of the families comprehended in
the two kingdoms, seeing that some of these are confined to one continent,
and some to another, without a conceivable possibility of one having been
connected with the other in the way of ancestry. The two great families of
quadrumana, cebidæ and simiadæ, are a noted instance, the one being
exclusively American, while the other belongs entirely to the old world.
There are many other cases in which the full circular group can only be
completed by taking subdivisions from various continents. This would seem
to imply that, while the entire system is so remarkable for its unity, it has
nevertheless been produced in lines geographically detached, these lines
perhaps consisting of particular typical groups placed in an independent
succession, or of two or more of these groups. And for this idea there is,
even in the present imperfect state of our knowledge of animated nature,
some countenance in ascertained facts, the birds of Australia, for example,
being chiefly of the suctorial type, while it may be presumed that the

observation as to the predominance of the useful animals in the Old World,
is not much different from saying that the rasorial type is there peculiarly
abundant. It does not appear that the idea of independent lines, consisting of
particular types, or sets of types, is necessarily inconsistent with the general
hypothesis, as nothing yet ascertained of the Macleay system forbids their
having an independent set of affinities. On this subject, however, there is as
yet much obscurity, and it must be left to future inquirers to clear it up.
We must now call to mind that the geographical distribution of plants and
animals was very different in the geological ages from what it is now. Down
to a time not long antecedent to man, the same vegetation overspread every
clime, and a similar uniformity marked the zoology. This is conceived by
M. Brogniart, with great plausibility, to have been the result of a uniformity
of climate, produced by the as yet unexhausted effect of the internal heat of
the earth upon its surface; whereas climate has since depended chiefly on
external sources of heat, as modified by the various meteorological
influences. However the early uniform climate was produced, certain it is
that, from about the close of the geological epoch, plants and animals have
been dispersed over the globe with a regard to their particular characters, and
specimens of both are found so isolated in particular situations, as utterly to
exclude the idea that they came thither from any common centre. It may be
asked,—Considering that, in the geological epoch, species are not limited to
particular regions, and that since the close of that epoch, they are very
peculiarly limited, are we to presume the present organisms of the world to
have been created ab initio after that time? To this it may be answered,—
Not necessarily, as it so happens that animals begin to be much varied, or to
appear in a considerable variety of species, towards the close of the
geological history. It may have been that the multitudes of locally peculiar
species only came into being after the uniform climate had passed away. It
may have only been when a varied climate arose, that the originally few
species branched off into the present extensive variety.
A question of a very interesting kind will now probably arise in the reader’s
mind—What place or status is assigned to man in the new natural system.
Before going into this inquiry, it is necessary to advert to several particulars
of the natural system not yet noticed.
It is necessary, in particular, to ascertain the grades which exist in the
classification of animals. In the line of the aves, Mr. Swainson finds these to

be nine, the species pica, for example, being thus indicated:—

Kingdom Animalia.
Sub-kingdom Vertebrata.
Class Aves.
Order Incessores.
Tribe Conirostres.
Family Corvidæ.
Sub-family Corvinæ.
Genus Corvus.
Sub-genus, or species Pica.

This brings us down to species, the subdivision where intermarriage or
breeding is usually considered as natural to animals, and where a
resemblance of offspring to parents is generally persevered in. The dog, for
instance, is a species, because all dogs can breed together, and the progeny
partakes of the appearances of the parents. The human race is held as a
species, primarily for the same reasons. Species, however, is liable to
another subdivision, which naturalists call variety; and variety appears to be
subject to exactly the same system of representation which have been traced
in species and higher denominations. In canis, for instance, the bull-dog and
mastiff represent the ferocious sub-typical group; the waterdog is natatorial;
we see the speed and length of muzzle of the suctorial group in the
greyhound; and the bushy tail and gentle and serviceable character of the
rasorial in the shepherd’s dog and spaniel. Even the striped and spotted skin
of the tiger and panther is reproduced in the more ferocious kind of dogs—
an indication of a fundamental connexion between physical and mental
qualities which we have also seen in the zebra, and which is likewise
displayed in the predominance of a yellow colour in the vultures and owls in
common with the lion and his congeners.
It is by no means clearly made out that this system of nine gradations over
and above that of variety applies in all departments of nature. On the
contrary, even Mr. Swainson gives series in which several of them are

omitted. It may be that, in some departments of nature, variation from the
class or order has gone down into fewer shades than in others; or it may be,
that many of the variations have not survived till our era, or have not been as
yet detected by naturalists; in either of which cases there may be a necessity
for shortening the series by the omission of one or two grades, as for
instance tribe or sub-family. This, however, 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. With these
preliminary remarks, I shall proceed to inquire what is the natural status of
man.
That man’s place is to be looked for in the class mammalia and sub-kingdom
vertebrata admits of no doubt, from his possessing both the characters on
which these divisions are founded. When we descend, however, below the
class, we find no settled views on the subject amongst naturalists. Mr.
Swainson, who alone has given a review of the animal kingdom on the
Macleay system, unfortunately writes on this subject in a manner which
excites a suspicion as to his judgment. His arrangement of the first or
typical order of the mammalia is therefore to be received with great
hesitation. It is as follows:—

Typical Quadrumana Pre-eminently organized for grasping.
Sub-typical Feræ Claws retractile; carnivorous.
Natatorial Cetacea Pre-eminently aquatic; feet very short.
Suctorial Glires Muzzle lengthened and pointed.
Rasorial Ungulata Crests and other processes on the head.

He then takes the quadrumana, and places it in the following arrangement:—

Typical Simiadæ (Monkeys of Old World.)
Sub-typical Cebidæ (Monkeys of New World.)
Natatorial Unknown
Suctorial Vespertilionidæ (Bats.)
Rasorial Lemuridæ (Lemurs.)

He considers the simiadæ as a complete circle, and argues thence that there
is no room in the range of the animal kingdom for man. Man, he says, is not
a constituent part of any circle, for, if he were, there ought to be other
animals on each hand having affinity to him, whereas there are none, the
resemblance of the orangs being one of mere analogy. Mr. Swainson
therefore considers our race as standing apart, and forming a link between
the unintelligent order of beings and the angels! And this in spite of the
glaring fact that, in our teeth, hands, and other features grounded on by
naturalists as characteristic, we do not differ more from the simiadæ than the
bats do from the lemurs—in spite also of that resemblance of analogy to the
orangs which he himself admits, and which, at the least, must be held to
imply a certain relation. He also overlooks that, though there may be no
room for man in the circle of the simiadæ, (this, indeed, is quite true,) there
may be in the order, where he actually leaves a place entirely blank, or only
to be filled up, as he suggests, by mermen! [266] Another argument in his
arrangement is, that it leaves the grades of classification very much
abridged, there being at the most seven instead of nine. But serious
argument on a theory so preposterous may be considered as nearly thrown
away. I shall therefore 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.
I propose that the typical order of the mammalia should be designated
cheirotheria, from the sole character which is universal amongst them, their
possessing hands, and with a regard to that pre-eminent qualification for
grasping which has been ascribed to them—an analogy to the perching habit
of the typical order of birds, which is worthy of particular notice. The tribes
of the cheirotheria I arrange as follows:—

Typical Bimana.
Sub-typical Simiadæ.
Natatorial Vespertilionidæ.
Suctorial Lemuridæ.
Rasorial Cebidæ.

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 simiadæ on one hand, and the cebidæ on the
other. The five tribes of the order are completed, the vespertilionidæ 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 lemuridæ into the suctorial, to which their length of muzzle
and remarkable saltatory power are highly suitable. At the same time, the
simiadæ are degraded from the typical place, to which they have no sort of
pretension, and placed where their mean and mischievous character seem to
require; the cebidæ again being assigned that situation which their
comparatively inoffensive dispositions, their arboreal habits, and their
extraordinary development of the tail, (which with them is like a fifth hand,)
render so proper.
The zoological status thus assigned to the human race is precisely what
might be expected. In order to understand its full value, it is necessary to
observe how the various type peculiarities operate in fixing the character of
the animals ranked in them. It is easy to conceive that they must be, in some
instances, much mixed up with each other, and consequently obscured. If an
animal, for example, is the suctorial member of a circle of species, forming
the natatorial type of genera, forming a family or sub-family which in its
turn is rasorial, its qualities must evidently be greatly mingled and ill to
define. But, on the other hand, if we take the rapacious or sub-typical group
of birds, and look in it for the tribe which is again the rapacious or sub-
typical group of its order, we may expect to find the qualities of that group
exalted or intensified, and accordingly made the more conspicuous. Such is
really the case with the vultures, in the rapacious birds, a family remarkable
above all of their order for their carnivorous and foul habits. So, also, if we
take the typical group of the birds, the incessores or perchers, and look in it
for its typical group, the conirostres, and seek there again for the typical
family of that group, the corvidæ, we may expect to find a very marked
superiority in organization and character. Such is really the case. “The
crow,” says Mr. Swainson, “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 manner they could be combined. 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, while its habit of devouring putrid substances, and 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 furnishes it with great cunning, sagacity, and powers
of imitation, even to counterfeiting the human voice. 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 attributes 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 of occasionally catching it.
[270]
In this wonderful manner do we find the crow partially invested with
the united properties of all other birds, while in its own order, that of the
incessores or perchers, it stands the pre-eminent type. We cannot also fail to
regard it as a remarkable proof of the superior organization and character of
the corvidæ, that they are adapted for all climates, and accordingly found all
over the world.
Mr. Swainson’s description of the zoological status of the crow, written
without the least design of throwing any light upon that of man, evidently
does so in a remarkable degree. It prepares us to expect in the place among
the mammalia, corresponding to that of the corvidæ in the aves, a being or
set of beings possessing a remarkable concentration of qualities from all the
other groups of their order, but in general character as far above the corvidæ
as a typical group is above an aberrant one, the mammalia above the aves.
Can any of the simiadæ pretend to such a place, narrowly and imperfectly
endowed as these creatures are—a mean reflection apparently of something
higher? Assuredly not, and in this consideration alone Mr. Swainson’s
arrangement must fall to the ground. To fill worthily so lofty a station in the
animated families man alone is competent. In him only is to be found that
concentration of qualities from all the other groups of his order which has
been described as marking the corvidæ. 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 simiadæ rise to a climax in his pre-eminent mental
nature. His sub-analogy to the feræ is marked by his canine teeth, and the
universality of his rapacity, for where is the department of animated nature

which he does not without scruple sacrifice to his convenience? With
sanguinary, 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 surface of the
earth as a source of food. To the aquatic type his love of maritime adventure
very readily assimilates him; and how far the suctorial is represented in his
nature it is hardly necessary to say. As the corvidæ, too, are found in every
part of the earth—almost the only one of the inferior animals which has been
acknowledged as universal—so do we find man. He thrives in all climates,
and with regard to style of living, can adapt himself to an infinitely greater
diversity of circumstances than any other animated creature.
Man, then, considered zoologically, and without regard to the distinct
character assigned to him by theology, simply takes his place as the type of
all types of the animal kingdom, the true and unmistakable head of animated
nature upon this earth. It will readily occur that some more particular
investigations into the ranks of types might throw additional light on man’s
status, and perhaps his nature; and such light we may hope to obtain when
the philosophy of zoology shall have been studied as it deserves. Perhaps
some such diagram as the one given on the next page will be found to be an
approximation to the expression of the merely natural or secular grade of
man in comparison with other animals.

[274]

Here the upright lines, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, may represent the comparative height
and grade of organization of both the five sub-kingdoms, and the five classes
of each of these; 5 being the vertebrata in the one case, and the mammalia in
the other. The difference between the height of the line 1 and the line 5
gives an idea of the difference of being the head type of the aves, (corvidæ,)
and the head type of the mammalia, (bimana;) a. b. c. d. 5, again, represent
the five groups of the first order of the mammalia; a, being the organic
structure of the highest simia, and 5, that of man. A set of tangent lines of
this kind may yet prove one of the most satisfactory means of ascertaining
the height and breadth of the psychology of our species.
It may be asked,—Is the existing human race the only species designed to
occupy the grade to which it is here referred? Such a question evidently
ought not to be answered rashly; and I shall therefore confine myself to the

admission that, judging by analogy, we might expect to see several varieties
of the being, homo. There is no other family approaching to this in
importance, which presents but one species. The corvidæ, our parallel in
aves, consist of several distinct genera and sub-genera. It is startling to find
such an appearance of imperfection in the circle to which man belongs, and
the ideas which rise in consequence are not less startling. Is our race but the
initial of the grand crowning type? Are there yet to be species superior to us
in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in device and act, and who
shall take a rule over us! There is in this nothing improbable on other
grounds. The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best
adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world
goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much
serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type of
humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and
realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race.

EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.

The human race is known to consist of numerous nations, displaying
considerable differences of external form and colour, and speaking in
general different languages. This has been the case since the
commencement of written record. It is also ascertained that the external
peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change. There is rather a
tendency to a persistency of type in all lines of descent, insomuch that a
subordinate admixture of various type is usually obliterated in a few
generations. Numerous as the varieties are, they have all been found
classifiable under five leading ones:—1. The Caucasian or Indo-European,
which extends from India into Europe and Northern Africa; 2. The
Mongolian, which occupies Northern and Eastern Asia; 3. The Malayan,
which extends from the Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula into the numerous islands
of the South Sea and Pacific; 4. The Negro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5.
The aboriginal American. Each of these is distinguished by certain general
features of so marked a kind, as to give rise to a supposition that they have
had distinct or independent origins. Of these peculiarities, colour is the most
conspicuous: the Caucasians are generally white, the Mongolians yellow, the
Negroes black, and the Americans red. The opposition of two of these in
particular, white and black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems
almost necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late years, however, the
whole of this question has been subjected to a rigorous investigation, and it
has been successfully shewn that the human race might have had one origin,
for anything that can be inferred from external peculiarities.

It appears from this inquiry, [278] that colour and other physiological
characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one
time supposed. One fact is at the very first extremely startling, that there are
nations, such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, known to be one in descent,
which nevertheless contain groups of people of almost all shades of colour,
and likewise discrepant in other of those important features on which much

stress has been laid. Some other facts, which I may state in brief terms, are
scarcely less remarkable. In Africa, there are Negro nations,—that is,
nations of intensely black complexion, as the Jolofs, Mandingoes, and
Kafirs, whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the best European
nations. While we have no proof of Negro races becoming white in the
course of generations, the converse may be held as established, for there are
Arab and Jewish families of ancient settlement in Northern Africa, who have
become as black as the other inhabitants. There are also facts which seem to
shew the possibility of a natural transition by generation from the black to
the white complexion, and from the white to the black. True whites (apart
from Albinoes) are not unfrequently born among the Negroes, and the
tendency to this singularity is transmitted in families. There is, at least, one
authentic instance of a set of perfectly black children being born to an Arab
couple, in whose ancestry no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in
the valley of the Jordan, where it is remarkable that the Arab population in
general have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair, than any other
tribes of the same nation. [280]
The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the
human figure in the course of generations, and this even in its osseous
structure. About two hundred years ago, a number of people were driven by
a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim and Down, in Ireland,
towards the sea-coast, where they have ever since been settled, but in
unusually miserable circumstances, even for Ireland; and the consequence is,
that they exhibit peculiar features of the most repulsive kind, projecting jaws
with large open mouths, depressed noses, high cheek bones, and bow legs,
together with an extremely diminutive stature. These, with an abnormal
slenderness of the limbs, are the outward marks of a low and barbarous
condition all over the world; it is particularly seen in the Australian
aborigines. On the other hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England is
very remarkable, being, in the main, as clearly a result of good external
conditions. “Coarse, unwholesome, and ill-prepared food,” says Buffon,
“makes the human race degenerate. All those people who live miserably are
ugly and ill-made. Even in France, the country people are not so beautiful as
those who live in towns; and I have often remarked that in those villages
where the people are richer and better fed than in others, the men are
likewise more handsome, and have better countenances.” He might have
added, that elegant and commodious dwellings, cleanly habits, comfortable

clothing, and being exposed to the open air only as much as health requires,
cooperate with food in increasing the elegance of a race of human beings.
Subject only to these modifying agencies, there is, as has been said, a
remarkable persistency in national features and forms, insomuch that a
single individual thrown into a family different from himself is absorbed in
it, and all trace of him lost after a few generations. But while there is such a
persistency to ordinary observation, it would also appear that nature has a
power of producing new varieties, though this is only done rarely. Such
novelties of type abound in the vegetable world, are seen more rarely in the
animal circle, and perhaps are least frequent of occurrence in our own race.
There is a noted instance in the production, on a New England farm, of a
variety of sheep with unusually short legs, which was kept up by breeding,
on account of the convenience in that country of having sheep which are
unable to jump over low fences. The starting and main taming a breed of
cattle, that is, a variety marked by some desirable peculiarity, are familiar to
a large class of persons. It appears only necessary, when a variety has been
thus produced, that a union should take place between individuals similarly
characterized, in order to establish it. Early in the last century, a man named
Lambert, was born in Suffolk, with semi-horny excrescences of about half
an inch long, thickly growing all over his body. The peculiarity was
transmitted to his children, and was last heard of in a third generation. The
peculiarity of six fingers on the hand and six toes on the feet, appears in like
manner in families which have no record or tradition of such a peculiarity
having affected them at any former period, and it is then sometimes seen to
descend through several generations. It was Mr. Lawrence’s opinion, that a
pair, in which both parties were so distinguished, might be the progenitors of
a new variety of the race who would be thus marked in all future time. It is
not easy to surmise the causes which operate in producing such varieties.
Perhaps they are simply types in nature, possible to be realized under certain
appropriate conditions, but which conditions are such as altogether to elude
notice. I might cite as examples of such possible types, the rise of whites
amongst the Negroes, the occurrence of the family of black children in the
valley of the Jordan, and the comparatively frequent birth of red-haired
children amongst not only the Mongolian and Malayan families, but
amongst the Negroes. We are ignorant of the laws of variety-production; but
we see it going on as a principle in nature, and it is obviously favourable to
the supposition that all the great families of men are of one stock.

The tendency of the modern study of the languages of nations is to the same
point. The last fifty years have seen this study elevated to the character of a
science, and the light which it throws upon the history of mankind is of a
most remarkable nature.
Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown the earth’s languages
into a kind of classification: a number bearing a considerable resemblance to
each other, and in general geographically near, are styled a group or sub-
family; several groups, again, are associated as a family, with regard to more
general features of resemblance. Six families are spoken of.
The Indo-European family nearly coincides in geographical limits with those
which have been assigned to that variety of mankind which generally shews
a fair complexion, called the Caucasian variety. It may be said to commence
in India, and thence to stretch through Persia into Europe, the whole of
which it occupies, excepting Hungary, the Basque provinces of Spain, and
Finland. Its sub-families are the Sanskrit, or ancient language of India, the
Persian, the Slavonic, Celtic, Gothic, and Pelasgian. The Slavonic includes
the modern languages of Russia and Poland. Under the Gothic, are (1) the
Scandinavian tongues, the Norske, Swedish, and Danish; and (2) the
Teutonic, to which belong the modern German, the Dutch, and our own
Anglo-Saxon. I give the name of Pelasgian to the group scattered along the
north shores of the Mediterranean, the Greek and Latin, including the
modifications of the latter under the names of Italian, Spanish, &c. The
Celtic was from two to three thousand years ago, the speech of a
considerable tribe dwelling in Western Europe; but these have since been
driven before superior nations into a few corners, and are now only to be
found in the highlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and certain
parts of France. The Gaelic of Scotland, Erse of Ireland, and the Welsh, are
the only living branches of this sub-family of languages.
The resemblances amongst languages are of two kinds,—identity of words,
and identity of grammatical forms; the latter being now generally considered
as the most important towards the argument. When we inquire into the first
kind of affinity among the languages of the Indo-European family, we are
surprised at the great number of common terms which exist amongst them,
and these referring to such primary ideas, as to leave no doubt of their
having all been derived from a common source. Colonel Vans Kennedy
presents nine hundred words common to the Sanskrit and other languages of

the same family. In the Sanskrit and Persian, we find several which require
no sort of translation to an English reader, as pader, mader, sunu, dokhter,
brader, mand, vidhava; likewise asthi, a bone, (Greek, ostoun;) denta, a
tooth, (Latin, dens, dentis;) eyeumen, the eye; brouwa, the eye-brow,
(German, braue;) nasa, the nose; karu, the hand, (Gr. cheir;) genu, the knee,
(Lat. genu;) ped, the foot, (Lat. pes, pedis;) hrti, the heart; jecur, the liver,
(Lat. jecur;) stara, a star; gela, cold, (Lat. gelu, ice;) aghni, fire, (Lat. ignis;)
dhara, the earth, (Lat. terra, Gaelic, tir;) arrivi, a river; nau, a ship, (Gr.
naus, Lat. navis;) ghau, a cow; sarpam, a serpent.
The inferences from these verbal coincidences were confirmed in a striking
manner when Bopp and others investigated the grammatical structure of this
family of languages. Dr. Wiseman pronounces that the great philologist just
named, “by a minute and sagacious analysis of the Sanskrit verb, compared
with the conjugational system of the other members of this family, left no
doubt of their intimate and positive affinity.” It was now discovered that the
peculiar terminations or inflections by which persons are expressed
throughout the verbs of nearly the whole of these languages, have their
foundations in pronouns; the pronoun was simply placed at the end, and thus
became an inflexion. “By an analysis of the Sanskrit pronouns, the elements
of those existing in all the other languages were cleared of their anomalies;
the verb substantive, which in Latin is composed of fragments referable to
two distinct roots, here found both existing in regular form; the Greek
conjugations, with all their complicated machinery of middle voice,
augments, and reduplications, were here found and illustrated in a variety of
ways, which a few years ago would have appeared chimerical. Even our
own language may sometimes receive light from the study of distant
members of our family. Where, for instance, are we to seek for the root of
our comparative better? Certainly not in its positive, good, nor in the
Teutonic dialects in which the same anomaly exists. But in the Persian we
have precisely the same comparative, behter, with exactly the same
signification, regularly formed from its positive beh, good.” [287]
The second great family is the Syro-Phœnician, comprising the Hebrew,
Syro-Chaldaic, Arabic, and Gheez or Abyssinian, being localized principally
in the countries to the west and south of the Mediterranean. Beyond them,
again, is the African family, which, as far as research has gone, seems to be
in like manner marked by common features, both verbal and grammatical.

The fourth is the Polynesian family, extending from Madagascar on the west
through all the Indian Archipelago, besides taking in the Malayan dialect
from the continent of India, and comprehending Australia and the islands of
the western portion of the Pacific. This family, however, bears such an
affinity to that next to be described, that Dr. Leyden and some others do not
give it a distinct place as a family of languages.
The fifth family is the Chinese, embracing a large part of China, and most of
the regions of Central and Northern Asia. The leading features of the
Chinese are, its consisting altogether of monosyllables, and being destitute
of all grammatical forms, except certain arrangements and accentuations,
which vary the sense of particular words. It is also deficient in some of the
consonants most conspicuous in other languages, b, d, r, v, and z; so that this
people can scarcely pronounce our speech in such a way as to be intelligible:
for example, the word Christus they call Kuliss-ut-oo-suh. The Chinese,
strange to say, though they early attained to a remarkable degree of
civilization, and have preceded the Europeans in many of the most important
inventions, have a language which resembles that of children, or deaf and
dumb people. The sentence of short, simple, unconnected words, in which
an infant amongst us attempts to express some of its wants and its ideas—the
equally broken and difficult terms which the deaf and dumb express by
signs, as the following passage of the Lord’s Prayer:—“Our Father, heaven
in, wish your name respect, wish your soul’s kingdom providence arrive,
wish your will do heaven earth equality,” &c.—these are like the discourse
of the refined people of the so-called Celestial Empire. An attempt was
made by the Abbé Sicard to teach the deaf and dumb grammatical signs; but
they persisted in restricting themselves to the simple signs of ideas, leaving
the structure undetermined by any but the natural order of connexion. Such
is exactly the condition of the Chinese language.
Crossing the Pacific, we come to the last great family in the languages of the
aboriginal Americans, which have all of them features in common, proving
them to constitute a group by themselves, without any regard to the very
different degrees of civilization which these nations had attained at the time
of the discovery. The common resemblance is in the grammatical structure
as well as in words, and the grammatical structure of this family is of a very
peculiar and complicated kind. The general character in this respect has
caused the term Polysynthetic to be applied to the American languages. A

long many-syllabled word is used by the rude Algonquins and Delawares to
express a whole sentence: for example, a woman of the latter nation, playing
with a little dog or cat, would perhaps be heard saying, “kuligatschis,”
meaning, “give me your pretty little paw;” the word, on examination, is
found to be made up in this manner: k, the second personal pronoun; uli, part
of the word wulet, pretty; gat, part of the word wichgat, signifying a leg or
paw; schis, conveying the idea of littleness. In the same tongue, a youth is
called pilape, a word compounded from the first part of pilsit, innocent, and
the latter part of lenape, a man. Thus, it will be observed, a number of parts
of words are taken and thrown together, by a process which has been happily
termed agglutination, so as to form one word, conveying a complicated
idea. There is also an elaborate system of inflection; in nouns, for instance,
there is one kind of inflection to express the presence or absence of vitality,
and another to express number. The genius of the language has been
described as accumulative: it “tends rather to add syllables or letters, making
farther distinctions in objects already before the mind, than to introduce new
words.” [291] Yet it has also been shewn very distinctly, that these languages
are based in words of one syllable, like those of the Chinese and Polynesian
families; all the primary ideas are thus expressed: the elaborate system of
inflection and agglutination is shewn to be simply a farther development of
the language-forming principle, as it may be called—or the Chinese system
may be described as an arrestment of this principle at a particular early
point. It has been fully shewn, that between the structure of the American
and other families, sufficient affinities exist to make a common origin or
early connexion extremely likely. The verbal affinities are also very
considerable. Humboldt says, “In eighty-three American languages
examined by Messrs. Barton and Vater, one hundred and seventy words have
been found, the roots of which appear to be the same; and it is easy to
perceive that this analogy is not accidental, since it does not rest merely
upon imitative harmony, or on that conformity of organs which produces
almost a perfect identity in the first sounds articulated by children. Of these
one hundred and seventy words which have this connexion, three-fifths
resemble the Manchou, the Tongouse, the Mongal, and the Samoyed; and
two-fifths, the Celtic and Tchoud, the Biscayan, the Coptic, and Congo
languages. These words have been found by comparing the whole of the
American languages with the whole of those of the Old World; for hitherto
we are acquainted with no American idiom which seems to have an

exclusive correspondence with any of the Asiatic, African, or European
tongues.” [293] Humboldt and others considered these words as brought into
America by recent immigrants; an idea resting on no proof, and which seems
at once refuted by the common words being chiefly those which represent
primary ideas; besides, we now know, what was not formerly perceived or
admitted, that there are great affinities of structure also. I may here refer to a
curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if
three words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one they must be
derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced in some
other manner. “Six words would give more,” he says, “than seventeen
hundred to one, and eight near 100,000, so that in these cases the evidence
would be little short of absolute certainty.” He instances the following
words to shew a connexion between the ancient Egyptian and the Biscayan:
—

Biscayan. Egyptian.
New Beria Beri.
A dog Ora Whor.
Little Gutchi Kudchi.
Bread Ognia Oik.
A wolf Otgsa Ounsh.
Seven Shashpi Shashf.

Now, as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred and seventy words
in common between the languages of the new and old continents, and many
of these are expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by Dr. Young’s
calculation, overpowering proof of the original connexion of the American
and other human families.
This completes the slight outline which I have been able to give, of the
evidence for the various races of men being descended from one stock. It
cannot be considered as conclusive, and there are many eminent persons
who deem the opposite idea the more probable; but I must say that, without
the least regard to any other kind of evidence, that which physiology and

philology present seems to me decidedly favourable to the idea of a single
origin.
Assuming that the human race is one, we are next called upon to inquire in
what part of the earth it may most probably be supposed to have originated.
One obvious mode of approximating to a solution of this question is to trace
backward the lines in which the principal tribes appear to have migrated, and
to see if these converge nearly to a point. It is very remarkable that the lines
do converge, and are concentrated about the region of Hindostan. The
language, religion, modes of reckoning time, and some other peculiar ideas
of the Americans, are now believed to refer their origin to North-Eastern
Asia. Trace them farther back in the same direction, and we come to the
north of India. The history of the Celts and Teutones represents them as
coming from the east, the one after the other, successive waves of a tide of
population flowing towards the north-west of Europe: this line being also
traced back, rests finally at the same place. So does the line of Iranian
population, which has peopled the east and south shores of the
Mediterranean, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt. The Malay variety, again, rests its
limit in one direction on the borders of India. Standing on that point, it is
easy to see how the human family, originating there, might spread out in
different directions, passing into varieties of aspect and of language as they
spread, the Malay variety proceeding towards the Oceanic region, the
Mongolians to the east and north, and sending off the red men as a sub-
variety, the European population going off to the north-westward, and the
Syrian, Arabian, and Egyptian, towards the countries which they are known
to have so long occupied. The Negro alone is here unaccounted for; and of
that race it may fairly be said, that it is the one most likely to have had an
independent origin, seeing that it is a type so peculiar in an inveterate black
colour, and so mean in development. But it is not necessary to presume such
an origin for it, as much good argument might be employed to shew that it is
only a deteriorated offshoot of the general stock. Our view of the probable
original seat of man agrees with the ancient traditions of the race. There is
one among the Hindoos which places the cradle of the human family in
Thibet; another makes Ceylon the residence of the first man. Our view is
also in harmony with the hypothesis detailed in the chapter before the last.
According to that theory, we should expect man to have originated where the
highest species of the quadrumana are to be found. Now these are
unquestionably found in the Indian Archipelago.

After all, it may be regarded as still an open question, whether mankind is of
one or many origins. The first human generation may have consisted of
many pairs, though situated at one place, and these may have been
considerably different from each other in external characters. And we are
equally bound to admit, though this does not as yet seem to have occurred to
any other speculator, that there may have been different lines and sources of
origination, geographically apart, but which all resulted uniformly in the
production of a being, one in species, although variously marked.
It has of late years been a favourite notion with many, that the human race
was at first in a highly civilized state, and that barbarism was a second
condition. This idea probably took its origin in a wish to support certain
interpretations of the Mosaic record, and it has never yet been propounded
by any writer who seemed to have a due sense of the value of science in this
class of investigations. The principal argument for it is, that we see many
examples of nations falling away from civilization into barbarism, while in
some regions of the earth, the history of which we do not clearly know, there
are remains of works of art far superior to any which the present
unenlightened inhabitants could have produced. It is to be readily admitted
that such decadences are common; but do they necessarily prove that there
has been anything like a regular and constant decline into the present state,
from a state more generally refined? May not these be only instances of
local failures and suppressions of the principle of civilization, where it had
begun to take root amongst a people generally barbarous? It is, at least, as
legitimate to draw this inference from the facts which are known. But it is
also alleged that we know of no such thing as civilization being ever self-
originated. It is always seen to be imparted from one people to another.
Hence, of course, we must infer that civilization at the first could only have
been of supernatural origin. This argument appears to be founded on false
premises, for civilization does sometimes rise in a manner clearly
independent amongst a horde of people generally barbarous. A striking
instance is described in the laborious work of Mr. Catlin on the North-
American tribes. Far placed among those which inhabit the vast region of
the north-west, and quite beyond the reach of any influence from the whites,
he found a small tribe living in a fortified village, where they cultivated the
arts of manufacture, realized comforts and luxuries, and had attained to a
remarkable refinement of manners, insomuch as to be generally called the
polite and friendly Mandans. They were also more than usually elegant in

their persons, and of every variety of complexion between that of their
compatriots and a pure white. Up to the time of Mr. Catlin’s visit, these
people had been able to defend themselves and their possessions against the
roving bands which surrounded them on all sides; but, soon after, they were
attacked by small-pox, which cut them all off except a small party, whom
their enemies rushed in upon and destroyed to a man. What is this but a
repetition on a small scale of phenomena with which ancient history
familiarizes us—a nation rising in arts and elegances amidst barbarous
neighbours, but at length overpowered by the rude majority, leaving only a
Tadmor or a Luxor as a monument of itself to beautify the waste? What can
we suppose the nation which built Palenque and Copan to have been but
only a Mandan tribe, which chanced to have made its way farther along the
path of civilization and the arts, before the barbarians broke in upon it? The
flame essayed to rise in many parts of the earth; but there were always
considerable chances against it, and down it accordingly went, times without
number; but there was always a vitality in it, nevertheless, and a tendency to
progress, and at length it seems to have attained a strength against which the
powers of barbarism can never more prevail. The state of our knowledge of
uncivilized nations is very apt to make us fall into error on this subject.
They are generally supposed to be all at one point in barbarism, which is far
from being the case, for in the midst of every great region of uncivilized
men, such as North America, there are nations partially refined. The Jolofs,
Mandingoes, and Kafirs, are African examples, where a natural and
independent origin for the improvement which exists is as unavoidably to be
presumed as in the case of the Mandans.
The most conclusive argument against the original civilization of mankind is
to be found in the fact that we do not now see civilization existing anywhere
except in certain conditions altogether different from any we can suppose to
have existed at the commencement of our race. To have civilization, it is
necessary that a people should be numerous and closely placed; that they
should be fixed in their habitations, and safe from violent external and
internal disturbance; that a considerable number of them should be exempt
from the necessity of drudging for immediate subsistence. Feeling
themselves at ease about the first necessities of their nature, including self-
preservation, and daily subjected to that intellectual excitement which
society produces, men begin to manifest what is called civilization; but never
in rude and shelterless circumstances, or when widely scattered. Even men

who have been civilized, when transferred to a wide wilderness, where each
has to work hard and isolatedly for the first requisites of life, soon shew a
retrogression to barbarism: witness the plains of Australia, as well as the
backwoods of Canada and the prairies of Texas. Fixity of residence and
thickening of population are perhaps the prime requisites for civilization,
and hence it will be found that all civilizations as yet known have taken
place in regions physically limited. That of Egypt arose in a narrow valley
hemmed in by deserts on both sides. That of Greece took its rise in a small
peninsula bounded on the only land side by mountains. Etruria and Rome
were naturally limited regions. Civilizations have taken place at both the
eastern and western extremities of the elder continent—China and Japan, on
the one hand; Germany, Holland, Britain, France, on the other—while the
great unmarked tract between contains nations decidedly less advanced.
Why is this, but because the sea, in both cases, has imposed limits to further
migration, and caused the population to settle and condense—the conditions
most necessary for social improvement. [302] Even the simple case of the
Mandans affords an illustration of this principle, for Mr. Catlin expressly,
though without the least regard to theory, attributes their improvement to the
fact of their being a small tribe, obliged, by fear of their more numerous
enemies, to settle in a permanent village, so fortified as to ensure their
preservation. “By this means,” says he, “they have advanced farther in the
arts of manufacture, and have supplied their lodges more abundantly with
the comforts and even luxuries of life than any Indian nation I know of. The
consequence of this,” he adds, “is that the tribe have taken many steps ahead
of other tribes in manners and refinements.” These conditions can only be
regarded as natural laws affecting civilization, and it might not be difficult,
taking them into account, to predict of any newly settled country its social
destiny. An island like Van Dieman’s land might fairly be expected to go on
more rapidly to good manners and sound institutions than a wide region like
Australia. The United States might be expected to make no great way in
civilization till they be fully peopled to the Pacific; and it might not be
unreasonable to expect that, when that even has occurred, the greatest
civilizations of that vast territory will be found in the peninsula of California
and the narrow stripe of country beyond the Rocky Mountains. This,
however, is a digression. To return: it is also necessary for a civilization that
at least a portion of the community should be placed above mean and
engrossing toils. Man’s mind becomes subdued, like the dyer’s hand, to that

it works in. In rude and difficult circumstances we unavoidably become
rude, because then only the inferior and harsher faculties of our nature are
called into existence. When, on the contrary, there is leisure and abundance,
the self-seeking and self-preserving instincts are allowed to rest, the gentler
and more generous sentiments are evoked, and man becomes that courteous
and chivalric being which he is found to be amongst the upper classes of
almost all civilized countries. These, then, may be said to be the chief
natural laws concerned in the moral phenomenon of civilization. If I am
right in so considering them, it will of course be readily admitted that the
earliest families of the human race, although they might be simple and
innocent, could not have been in anything like a civilized state, seeing that
the conditions necessary for that state could not have then existed. Let us
only for a moment consider some of the things requisite for their being
civilized,—namely, a set of elegant homes ready furnished for their
reception, fields ready cultivated to yield them food without labour, stores of
luxurious appliances of all kinds, a complete social enginery for the securing
of life and property,—and we shall turn from the whole conceit as one
worthy only of the philosophers of Utopia.
Yet, as has been remarked, the earliest families might be simple and
innocent, while at the same time unskilled and ignorant, and obliged to live
merely upon such substances as they could readily procure. The traditions
of all nations refer to such a state as that in which mankind were at first:
perhaps it is not so much a tradition as an idea which the human mind
naturally inclines to form respecting the fathers of the race; but nothing that
we see of mankind absolutely forbids our entertaining this idea, while there
are some considerations rather favourable to it. A few families, in a state of
nature, living near each other, in a country supplying the means of livelihood
abundantly, are generally simple and innocent; their instinctive and
perceptive faculties are also apt to be very active, although the higher
intellect may be dormant. If we therefore presume India to have been the
cradle of our race, they might at first exemplify a sort of golden age; but it
could not be of long continuance. The very first movements from the primal
seat would be attended with degradation, nor could there be any tendency to
true civilization till groups had settled and thickened in particular seats
physically limited.

The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one
stock, which was at first in a state of simplicity, if not barbarism. As yet we
have not seen very distinctly how the various branches of the family, as they
parted off, and took up separate ground, became marked by external features
so peculiar. Why are the Africans black, and generally marked by coarse
features and ungainly forms? Why are the Mongolians generally yellow, the
Americans red, the Caucasians white? Why the flat features of the Chinese,
the small stature of the Laps, the soft round forms of the English, the lank
features of their descendants, the Americans? All of these phenomena
appear, in a word, to be explicable on the ground of development. We have
already seen that various leading animal forms represent stages in the
embryotic progress of the highest—the human being. Our brain goes
through the various stages of a fish’s, a reptile’s, and a mammifer’s brain,
and finally becomes human. There is more than this, for, after completing
the animal transformations, it passes through the characters in which it
appears, in the Negro, Malay, American, and Mongolian nations, and finally
is Caucasian. The face partakes of these alterations. “One of the earliest
points in which ossification commences is the lower jaw. This bone is
consequently sooner completed than the other bones of the head, and
acquires a predominance, which, as is well known, it never loses in the
Negro. During the soft pliant state of the bones of the skull, the oblong form
which they naturally assume, approaches nearly the permanent shape of the
Americans. At birth, the flattened face, and broad smooth forehead of the
infant, the position of the eyes rather towards the side of the head, and the
widened space between, represent the Mongolian form; while it is only as
the child advances to maturity, that the oval face, the arched forehead, and
the marked features of the true Caucasian, become perfectly developed.”
[307a]
The leading characters, in short, of the various races of mankind, are
simply representations of particular stages in the development of the highest
or Caucasian type. The Negro exhibits permanently the imperfect brain,
projecting lower jaw, and slender bent limbs, of a Caucasian child, some
considerable time before the period of its birth. The aboriginal American
represents the same child nearer birth. The Mongolian is an arrested infant
newly born. And so forth. All this is as respects form; [307b] but whence
colour? This might be supposed to have depended on climatal agencies
only; but it has been shewn by overpowering evidence to be independent of
these. In further considering the matter, we are met by the very remarkable

fact that colour is deepest in the least perfectly developed type, next in the
Malay, next in the American, next in the Mongolian, the very order in which
the degrees of development are ranged. May not colour, then, depend upon
development also? We do not, indeed, see that a Caucasian fœtus at the
stage which the African represents is anything like black; neither is a
Caucasian child yellow, like the Mongolian. There may, nevertheless, be a
character of skin at a certain stage of development which is predisposed to a
particular colour when it is presented as the envelope of a mature being.
Development being arrested at so immature a stage in the case of the Negro,
the skin may take on the colour as an unavoidable consequence of its
imperfect organization. It is favourable to this view, that Negro infants are
not deeply black at first, but only acquire the full colour tint after exposure
for some time to the atmosphere. Another consideration in its favour is that
there is a likelihood of peculiarities of form and colour, since they are so
coincident, depending on one set of phenomena. If it be admitted as true,
there can be no difficulty in accounting for all the varieties of mankind.
They are simply the result of so many advances and retrogressions in the
developing power of the human mothers, these advances and retrogressions
being, as we have formerly seen, the immediate effect of external conditions
in nutrition, hardship, &c., [309] and also, perhaps, to some extent, of the
suitableness and unsuitableness of marriages, for it is found that parents too
nearly related tend to produce offspring of the Mongolian type,—that is,
persons who in maturity still are a kind of children. According to this view,
the greater part of the human race must be considered as having lapsed or
declined from the original type. In the Caucasian or Indo-European family
alone has the primitive organization been improved upon. The Mongolian,
Malay, American, and Negro, comprehending perhaps five-sixths of
mankind, are degenerate. Strange that the great plan should admit of failures
and aberrations of such portentous magnitude! But pause and reflect; take
time into consideration: the past history of mankind may be, to what is to
come, but as a day. Look at the progress even now making over the barbaric
parts of the earth by the best examples of the Caucasian type, promising not
only to fill up the waste places, but to supersede the imperfect nations
already existing. Who can tell what progress may be made, even in a single
century, towards reversing the proportions of the perfect and imperfect
types? and who can tell but that the time during which the mean types have

lasted, long as it appears, may yet be thrown entirely into the shade by the
time during which the best types will remain predominant?
We have seen that the traces of a common origin in all languages afford a
ground of presumption for the unity of the human race. They establish a still
stronger probability that mankind had not yet begun to disperse before they
were possessed of a means of communicating their ideas by conventional
sounds—in short, speech. This is a gift so peculiar to man, and in itself so
remarkable, that there is a great inclination to surmise a miraculous origin
for it, although there is no proper ground, or even support, for such an idea
in Scripture, while it is clearly opposed to everything else that we know with
regard to the providential arrangements for the creation of our race. Here, as
in many other cases, a little observation of nature might have saved much
vain discussion. The real character of language itself has not been
thoroughly understood. Language, in its most comprehensive sense, is the
communication of ideas by whatever means. Ideas can be communicated by
looks, gestures, and signs of various other kinds, as well as by speech. The
inferior animals possess some of those means of communicating ideas, and
they have likewise a silent and unobservable mode of their own, the nature
of which is a complete mystery to us, though we are assured of its reality by
its effects. Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there
was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. The
only additional fact in the history of language, which was produced by our
creation, was the rise of a new mode of expression—namely, that by sound-
signs produced by the vocal organs. In other words, speech was the only
novelty in this respect attending the creation of the human race. No doubt it
was an addition of great importance, for, in comparison with it, the other
natural modes of communicating ideas sink into insignificance. Still, the
main and fundamental phenomenon, language, as the communication of
ideas, was no new gift of the Creator to man; and in speech itself, when we
judge of it as a natural fact, we see only a result of some of those superior
endowments of which so many others have fallen to our lot through the
medium of an improved or advanced organization.
The first and most obvious natural endowment concerned in speech is that
peculiar organization of the larynx, trachea, and mouth, which enables us to
produce the various sounds required in the case. Man started at first with
this organization ready for use, a constitution of the atmosphere adapted for

the sounds which that organization was calculated to produce, and, lastly, but
not leastly, as will afterwards be more particularly shewn, a mental power
within, prompting to, and giving directions for, the expression of ideas.
Such an arrangement of mutually adapted things was as likely to produce
sounds as an Eolian harp placed in a draught is to produce tones. It was
unavoidable that human beings so organized, and in such a relation to
external nature, should utter sounds, and also come to attach to these
conventional meanings, thus forming the elements of spoken language. The
great difficulty which has been felt was to account for man going in this
respect beyond the inferior animals. There could have been no such
difficulty if speculators in this class of subjects had looked into physiology
for an account of the superior vocal organization of man, and had they
possessed a true science of mind to shew man possessing a faculty for the
expression of ideas which is only rudimental in the lower animals. Another
difficulty has been in the consideration that, if men were at first utterly
untutored and barbarous, they could scarcely be in a condition to form or
employ language—an instrument which it requires the fullest powers of
thought to analyse and speculate upon. But this difficulty also vanishes
upon reflection—for, in the first place, we are not bound to suppose the
fathers of our race early attaining to great proficiency in language, and, in
the second, language itself seems to be amongst the things least difficult to
be acquired, if we can form any judgment from what we see in children,
most of whom have, by three years of age, while their information and
judgment are still as nothing, mastered and familiarized themselves with a
quantity of words, infinitely exceeding in proportion what they acquire in the
course of any subsequent similar portion of time.
Discussions as to which parts of speech were first formed, and the processes
by which grammatical structure and inflections took their rise, appear in a
great measure needless, after the matter has been placed in this light. The
mental powers could readily connect particular arbitrary sounds with
particular ideas, whether those ideas were nouns, verbs, or interjections. As
the words of all languages can be traced back into roots which are
monosyllables, we may presume these sounds to have all been monosyllabic
accordingly. The clustering of two or more together to express a compound
idea, and the formation of inflections by additional syllables expressive of
pronouns and such prepositions as of, by, and to, are processes which would
or might occur as matters of course, being simple results of a mental power

called into action, and partly directed, by external necessities. This power,
however, as we find it in very different degrees of endowment in individuals,
so would it be in different degrees of endowment in nations, or branches of
the human family. Hence we find the formation of words and the process of
their composition and grammatical arrangement, in very different stages of
development in different races. The Chinese have a language composed of a
limited number of monosyllables, which they multiply in use by mere
variations of accent, and which they have never yet attained the power of
clustering or inflecting; the language of this immense nation—the third part
of the human race—may be said to be in the condition of infancy. The
aboriginal Americans, so inferior in civilization, have, on the other hand, a
language of the most elaborately composite kind, perhaps even exceeding, in
this respect, the languages of the most refined European nations. These are
but a few out of many facts tending to shew that language is in a great
measure independent of civilization, as far as its advance and development
are concerned. Do they not also help to prove that cultivated intellect is not
necessary for the origination of language?
Facts daily presented to our observation afford equally simple reasons for
the almost infinite diversification of language. It is invariably found that,
wherever society is at once dense and refined, language tends to be uniform
throughout the whole population, and to undergo few changes in the course
of time. Wherever, on the contrary, we have a scattered and barbarous
people, we have great diversities, and comparatively rapid alterations of
language. Insomuch that, while English, French, and German are each
spoken with little variation by many millions, there are islands in the Indian
archipelago, probably not inhabited by one million, but in which there are
hundreds of languages, as diverse as are English, French, and German. It is
easy to see how this should be. There are peculiarities in the vocal
organization of every person, tending to produce peculiarities of
pronunciation; for example, it has been stated that each child in a family of
six gave the monosyllable, fly, in a different manner, (eye, fy, ly, &c.) until,
when the organs were more advanced, correct example induced the proper
pronunciation of this and similar words. Such departures from orthoepy are
only to be checked by the power of such example; but this is a power not
always present, or not always of sufficient strength. The able and self-
devoted Robert Moffat, in his work on South Africa, states, without the least
regard to hypothesis, that amongst the people of the towns of that great

region, “the purity and harmony of language is kept up by their pitchos or
public meetings, by their festivals and ceremonies, as well as by their songs
and their constant intercourse. With the isolated villages of the desert it is
far otherwise. They have no such meetings; they are compelled to traverse
the wilds, often to a great distance from their native village. On such
occasions, fathers and mothers, and all who can bear a burden, often set out
for weeks at a time, and leave their children to the care of two or three infirm
old people. The infant progeny, some of whom are beginning to lisp, while
others can just master a whole sentence, and those still farther advanced,
romping and playing together, the children of nature, through the live-long
day, become habituated to a language of their own. The more voluble
condescend to the less precocious, and thus, from this infant Babel, proceeds
a dialect composed of a host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together
without rule, and in the course of a generation the entire character of the
language is changed.” [317] I have been told, that in like manner the children
of the Manchester factory workers, left for a great part of the day, in large
assemblages, under the care of perhaps a single elderly person, and spending
the time in amusements, are found to make a great deal of new language. I
have seen children in other circumstances amuse themselves by concocting
and throwing into the family circulation entirely new words; and I believe I
am running little risk of contradiction when I say that there is scarcely a
family, even amongst the middle classes of this country, who have not some
peculiarities of pronunciation and syntax, which have originated amongst
themselves, it is hardly possible to say how. All these things being
considered, it is easy to understand how mankind have come at length to
possess between three and four thousand languages, all different at least as
much as French, German, and English, though, as has been shewn, the traces
of a common origin are observable in them all.
What has been said on the question whether mankind were originally
barbarous or civilized, will have prepared the reader for understanding how
the arts and sciences, and the rudiments of civilization itself, took their rise
amongst men. The only source of fallacious views on this subject is the so
frequent observation of arts, sciences, and social modes, forms, and ideas,
being not indigenous where we see them now flourishing, but known to have
been derived elsewhere: thus Rome borrowed from Greece, Greece from
Egypt, and Egypt itself, lost in the mists of historic antiquity, is now
supposed to have obtained the light of knowledge from some still earlier

scene of intellectual culture. This has caused to many a great difficulty in
supposing a natural or spontaneous origin for civilization and the attendant
arts. But, in the first place, several stages of derivation are no conclusive
argument against there having been an originality at some earlier stage. In
the second, such observers have not looked far enough, for, if they had, they
could have seen various instances of civilizations which it is impossible,
with any plausibility, to trace back to a common origin with others; such are
those of China and America. They would also have seen civilization
springing up, as it were, like oases amongst the arid plains of barbarism, as
in the case of the Mandans. A still more attentive study of the subject would
have shewn, amongst living men, the very psychological procedure on which
the origination of civilization and the arts and sciences depended.
These things, like language, are simply the effects of the spontaneous
working of certain mental faculties, each in relation to the things of the
external world on which it was intended by creative Providence to be
exercised. The monkeys themselves, without instruction from any quarter,
learn to use sticks in fighting, and some build houses—an act which cannot
in their case be considered as one of instinct, but of intelligence. Such being
the case, there is no necessary difficulty in supposing how man, with his
superior mental organization, (a brain five times heavier,) was able, in his
primitive state, without instruction, to turn many things in nature to his use,
and commence, in short, the circle of the domestic arts. He appears, in the
most unfavourable circumstances, to be able to provide himself with some
sort of dwelling, to make weapons, and to practise some simple kind of
cookery. But, granting, it will be said, that he can go thus far, how does he
ever proceed farther unprompted, seeing that many nations remain fixed for
ever at this point, and seem unable to take one step in advance? It is
perfectly true that there is such a fixation in many nations; but, on the other
hand, all nations are not alike in mental organization, and another point has
been established, that only when some favourable circumstances have settled
a people in one place, do arts and social arrangements get leave to flourish.
If we were to limit our view to humbly endowed nations, or the common
class of minds in those called civilized, we should see absolutely no
conceivable power for the origination of new ideas and devices. But let us
look at the inventive class of minds which stand out amongst their fellows—
the men who, with little prompting or none, conceive new ideas in science,
arts, morals—and we can be at no loss to understand how and whence have

arisen the elements of that civilization which history traces from country to
country throughout the course of centuries. See a Pascal, reproducing the
Alexandrian’s problems at fifteen; a Ferguson, making clocks from the
suggestions of his own brain, while tending cattle on a Morayshire heath; a
boy Lawrence, in an inn on the Bath road, producing, without a master,
drawings which the educated could not but admire; or look at Solon and
Confucius, devising sage laws, and breathing the accents of all but divine
wisdom, for their barbarous fellow-countrymen, three thousand years ago—
and the whole mystery is solved at once. Amongst the arrangements of
Providence is one for the production of original, inventive, and aspiring
minds, which, when circumstances are not decidedly unfavourable, strike out
new ideas for the benefit of their fellow-creatures, or put upon them a lasting
impress of their own superior sentiments. Nations, improved by these
means, become in turn foci for the diffusion of light over the adjacent
regions of barbarism—their very passions helping to this end, for nothing
can be more clear than that ambitious aggression has led to the civilization
of many countries. Such is the process which seems to form the destined
means for bringing mankind from the darkness of barbarism to the day of
knowledge and mechanical and social improvement. Even the noble art of
letters is but, as Dr. Adam Fergusson has remarked, “a natural produce of the
human mind, which will rise spontaneously, wherever men are happily
placed;” original alike amongst the ancient Egyptians and the dimly
monumented Toltecans of Yucatan. “Banish,” says Dr. Gall, “music, poetry,
painting, sculpture, architecture, all the arts and sciences, and let your
Homers, Raphaels, Michael Angelos, Glucks, and Canovas, be forgotten, yet
let men of genius of every description spring up, and poetry, music, painting,
architecture, sculpture, and all the arts and sciences will again shine out in
all their glory. Twice within the records of history has the human race
traversed the great circle of its entire destiny, and twice has the rudeness of
barbarism been followed by a higher degree of refinement. It is a great
mistake to suppose one people to have proceeded from another on account of
their conformity of manners, customs, and arts. The swallow of Paris builds
its nest like the swallow of Vienna, but does it thence follow that the former
sprung from the latter? With the same causes we have the same effects; with
the same organization we have the manifestation of the same powers.”

MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

It has been one of the most agreeable tasks of modern science to trace the
wonderfully exact adaptations of the organization of animals to the physical
circumstances amidst which they are destined to live. From the mandibles
of insects to the hand of man, all is seen to be in the most harmonious
relation to the things of the outward world, thus clearly proving that design
presided in the creation of the whole—design again implying a designer,
another word for a Creator.
It would be tiresome to present in this place even a selection of the proofs
which have been adduced on this point. The Natural Theology of Paley, and
the Bridgewater Treatises, place the subject in so clear a light, that the
general postulate may be taken for granted. The physical constitution of
animals is, then, to be regarded as in the nicest congruity and adaptation to
the external world.
Less clear ideas have hitherto been entertained on the mental constitution of
animals. The very nature of this constitution is not as yet generally known
or held as ascertained. There is, indeed, a notion of old standing, that the
mind is in some way connected with the brain; but the metaphysicians insist
that it is, in reality, known only by its acts or effects, and they accordingly
present the subject in a form which is unlike any other kind of science, for it
does not so much as pretend to have nature for its basis. There is a general
disinclination to regard mind in connexion with organization, from a fear
that this must needs interfere with the cherished religious doctrine of the
spirit of man, and lower him to the level of the brutes. A distinction is
therefore drawn between our mental manifestations and those of the lower
animals, the latter being comprehended under the term instinct, while ours
are collectively described as mind, mind being again a received synonyme
with soul, the immortal part of man. There is here a strange system of
confusion and error, which it is most imprudent to regard as essential to
religion, since candid investigations of nature tend to shew its

untenableness. There is, in reality, nothing to prevent our regarding man as
specially endowed with an immortal spirit, at the same time that his ordinary
mental manifestations are looked upon as simple phenomena resulting from
organization, those of the lower animals being phenomena absolutely the
same in character, though developed within much narrower limits. [326]
What has chiefly tended to take mind, in the eyes of learned and unlearned,
out of the range of nature, is its apparently irregular and wayward character.
How different the manifestations in different beings! how unstable in all!—
at one time so calm, at another so wild and impulsive! It seemed impossible
that anything so subtle and aberrant could be part of a system, the main
features of which are regularity and precision. But the irregularity of mental
phenomena is only in appearance. When we give up the individual, and take
the mass, we find as much uniformity of result as in any other class of
natural phenomena. The irregularity is exactly of the same kind as that of
the weather. No man can say what may be the weather of to-morrow; but the
quantity of rain which falls in any particular place in any five years, is
precisely the same as the quantity which falls in any other five years at the
same place. Thus, while it is absolutely impossible to predict of any one
Frenchman that during next year he will commit a crime, it is quite certain
that about one in every six hundred and fifty of the French people will do so,
because in past years the proportion has generally been about that amount,
the tendencies to crime in relation to the temptations being everywhere
invariable over a sufficiently wide range of time. So also, the number of
persons taken in charge by the police in London for being drunk and
disorderly on the streets, is, week by week, a nearly uniform quantity,
shewing that the inclination to drink to excess is always in the mass about
the same, regard being had to the existing temptations or stimulations to this
vice. Even mistakes and oversights are of regular recurrence, for it is found
in the post-offices of large cities, that the number of letters put in without
addresses is year by year the same. Statistics has made out an equally
distinct regularity in a wide range, with regard to many other things
concerning the mind, and the doctrine founded upon it has lately produced a
scheme which may well strike the ignorant with surprise. It was proposed to
establish in London a society for ensuring the integrity of clerks, secretaries,
collectors, and all such functionaries as are usually obliged to find security
for money passing through their hands in the course of business. A
gentleman of the highest character as an actuary spoke of the plan in the

following terms:—“If a thousand bankers’ clerks were to club together to
indemnify their securities, by the payment of one pound a year each, and if
each had given security for 500l., it is obvious that two in each year might
become defaulters to that amount, four to half the amount, and so on,
without rendering the guarantee fund insolvent. If it be tolerably well
ascertained that the instances of dishonesty (yearly) among such persons
amount to one in five hundred, this club would continue to exist, subject to
being in debt in a bad year, to an amount which it would be able to discharge
in good ones. The only question necessary to be asked previous to the
formation of such a club would be,—may it not be feared that the motive to
resist dishonesty would be lessened by the existence of the club, or that
ready-made rogues, by belonging to it, might find the means of obtaining
situations which they would otherwise have been kept out of by the
impossibility of obtaining security among those who know them? Suppose
this be sufficiently answered by saying, that none but those who could bring
satisfactory testimony to their previous good character should be allowed to
join the club; that persons who may now hope that a deficiency on their parts
will be made up and hushed up by the relative or friend who is security, will
know very well that the club will have no motive to decline a prosecution, or
to keep the secret, and so on. It then only remains to ask, whether the sum
demanded for the guarantee is sufficient?” [331] The philosophical principle
on which the scheme proceeds, seems to be simply this, that, amongst a
given (large) number of persons of good character, there will be, within a
year or other considerable space of time, a determinate number of instances
in which moral principle and the terror of the consequences of guilt will be
overcome by temptations of a determinate kind and amount, and thus
occasion a certain periodical amount of loss which the association must
make up.
This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under
the presidency of law. Man is now seen to be an enigma only as an
individual; in the mass he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly necessary
to say, much less to argue, that mental action, being proved to be under law,
passes at once into the category of natural things. Its old metaphysical
character vanishes in a moment, and the distinction usually taken between
physical and moral is annulled, as only an error in terms. This view agrees
with what all observation teaches, that mental phenomena flow directly from
the brain. They are seen to be dependent on naturally constituted and

naturally conditioned organs, and thus obedient, like all other organic
phenomena, to law. And how wondrous must the constitution of this
apparatus be, which gives us consciousness of thought and of affection,
which makes us familiar with the numberless things of earth, and enables us
to rise in conception and communion to the councils of God himself! It is
matter which forms the medium or instrument—a little mass which,
decomposed, is but so much common dust; yet in its living constitution,
designed, formed, and sustained by Almighty Wisdom, how admirable its
character! how reflective of the unutterable depths of that Power by which it
was so formed, and is so sustained!
In the mundane economy, mental action takes its place as a means of
providing for the independent existence and the various relations of animals,
each species being furnished according to its special necessities and the
demands of its various relations. The nervous system—the more
comprehensive term for its organic apparatus—is variously developed in
different classes and species, and also in different individuals, the volume or
mass bearing a general relation to the amount of power. In the mollusca and
crustacea we see simply a ganglionic cord pervading the extent of the body,
and sending out lateral filaments. In the vertebrata, we find a brain with a
spinal cord, and branching lines of nervous tissue. [333] But here, as in the
general structure of animals, the great principle of unity is observed. The
brain of the vertebrata is merely an expansion of one of the ganglions of the
nervous cord of the mollusca and crustacea. Or the corresponding ganglion
of the mollusca and crustacea may be regarded as the rudiment of a brain;
the superior organ thus appearing as only a farther development of the
inferior. There are many facts which tend to prove that the action of this
apparatus is of an electric nature, a modification of that surprising agent,
which takes magnetism, heat, and light, as other subordinate forms, and of
whose general scope in this great system of things we are only beginning to
have a right conception. It has been found that simple electricity, artificially
produced, and sent along the nerves of a dead body, excites muscular action.
The brain of a newly-killed animal being taken out, and replaced by a
substance which produces electric action, the operation of digestion, which
had been interrupted by the death of the animal, was resumed, shewing the
absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery. Nor is this a very
startling idea, when we reflect that electricity is almost as metaphysical as
ever mind was supposed to be. It is a thing perfectly intangible, weightless.

Metal may be magnetized, or heated to seven hundred of Fahrenheit, without
becoming the hundredth part of a grain heavier. And yet electricity is a real
thing, an actual existence in nature, as witness the effects of heat and light in
vegetation—the power of the galvanic current to re-assemble the particles of
copper from a solution, and make them again into a solid plate—the rending
force of the thunderbolt as it strikes the oak; see also how both heat and light
observe the angle of incidence in reflection, as exactly as does the grossest
stone thrown obliquely against a wall. So mental action may be
imponderable, intangible, and yet a real existence, and ruled by the Eternal
through his laws. [335]
Common observation shews a great general superiority of the human mind
over that of the inferior animals. Man’s mind is almost infinite in device; it
ranges over all the world; it forms the most wonderful combinations; it seeks
back into the past, and stretches forward into the future; while the animals
generally appear to have a narrow range of thought and action. But so also
has an infant but a limited range, and yet it is mind which works there, as
well as in the most accomplished adults. The difference between mind in the
lower animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific
difference. All who have studied animals by actual observation, and even
those who have given a candid attention to the subject in books, must attain
more or less clear convictions of this truth, notwithstanding all the obscurity
which prejudice may have engendered. We see animals capable of affection,
jealousy, envy; we see them quarrel, and conduct quarrels, in the very
manner pursued by the more impulsive of our own race. We see them liable
to flattery, inflated with pride, and dejected by shame. We see them as
tender to their young as human parents are, and as faithful to a trust as the
most conscientious of human servants. The horse is startled by marvellous
objects, as a man is. The dog and many others shew tenacious memory. The
dog also proves himself possessed of imagination, by the act of dreaming.
Horses, finding themselves in want of a shoe, have of their own accord gone
to a farrier’s shop where they were shod before. Cats, closed up in rooms,
will endeavour to obtain their liberation by pulling a latch or ringing a bell.
It has several times been observed that in a field of cattle, when one or two
were mischievous, and persisted long in annoying or tyrannizing over the
rest, the herd, to all appearance, consulted, and then, making a united effort,
drove the troublers off the ground. The members of a rookery have also
been observed to take turns in supplying the needs of a family reduced to

orphanhood. All of these are acts of reason, in no respect different from
similar acts of men. Moreover, although there is no heritage of accumulated
knowledge amongst the lower animals, as there is amongst us, they are in
some degree susceptible of those modifications of natural character, and
capable of those accomplishments, which we call education. The taming
and domestication of animals, and the changes thus produced upon their
nature in the course of generations, are results identical with civilization
amongst ourselves; and the quiet, servile steer is probably as unlike the
original wild cattle of this country, as the English gentleman of the present
day is unlike the rude baron of the age of King John. Between a young,
unbroken horse, and a trained one, there is, again, all the difference which
exists between a wild youth reared at his own discretion in the country, and
the same person when he has been toned down by long exposure to the
influences of refined society. On the accomplishments acquired by animals
it were superfluous to enter at any length; but I may advert to the dogs of M.
Leonard, as remarkable examples of what the animal intellect may be trained
to. When four pieces of card are laid down before them, each having a
number pronounced once in connexion with it, they will, after a re-
arrangement of the pieces, select any one named by its number. They also
play at dominoes, and with so much skill as to triumph over biped
opponents, whining if the adversary place a wrong piece, or if they
themselves be deficient in a right one. Of extensive combinations of thought
we have no reason to believe that any animal is capable—and yet most of us
must feel the force of Walter Scott’s remark, that there was scarcely anything
which he would not believe of a dog. There is a curious result of education
in certain animals, namely, that habits to which they have been trained in
some instances become hereditary. For example, the accomplishment of
pointing at game, although a pure result of education, appears in the young
pups brought up apart from their parents and kind. The peculiar leap of the
Irish horse, acquired in the course of traversing a boggy country, is
continued in the progeny brought up in England. This hereditariness of
specific habits suggests a relation to that form of psychological
demonstration usually called instinct; but instinct is only another term for
mind, or is mind in a peculiar stage of development; and though the fact
were otherwise, it could not affect the postulate, that demonstrations such as
have been enumerated are mainly intellectual demonstrations, not to be
distinguished as such from those of human beings.

More than this, the lower animals manifested mental phenomena long before
man existed. While as yet there was no brain capable of working out a
mathematical problem, the economy of the six-sided figure was exemplified
by the instinct of the bee. Ere human musician had whistled or piped, the
owl hooted in B flat, the cuckoo had her song of a falling third, and the chirp
of the cricket was in B. The dog and the elephant prefigured the sagacity of
the human mind. The love of a human mother for her babe was anticipated
by nearly every humbler mammal, the carnaria not excepted. The peacock
strutted, the turkey blustered, and the cock fought for victory, just as human
beings afterwards did, and still do. Our faculty of imitation, on which so
much of our amusement depends, was exercised by the mocking-bird; and
the whole tribe of monkeys must have walked about the pre-human world,
playing off those tricks in which we see the comicality and mischief-making
of our character so curiously exaggerated.
The unity and simplicity which characterize nature give great antecedent
probability to what observation seems about to establish, that, as the brain of
the vertebrata generally is just an advanced condition of a particular
ganglion in the mollusca and crustacea, so are the brains of the higher and
more intelligent mammalia only farther developments of the brains of the
inferior orders of the same class. Or, to the same purpose, it may be said,
that each species has certain superior developments, according to its needs,
while others are in a rudimental or repressed state. This will more clearly
appear after some inquiry has been made into the various powers
comprehended under the term mind.
One of the first and simplest functions of mind is to give consciousness—
consciousness of our identity and of our existence. This, apparently, is
independent of the senses, which are simply media, and, as Locke has
shewn, the only media, through which ideas respecting the external world
reach the brain. The access of such ideas to the brain is the act to which the
metaphysicians have given the name of perception. Gall, however, has
shewn, by induction from a vast number of actual cases, that there is a part
of the brain devoted to perception, and that even this is subdivided into
portions which are respectively dedicated to the reception of different sets of
ideas, as those of form, size, colour, weight, objects in their totality, events in
their progress or occurrence, time, musical sounds, &c. The system of mind
invented by this philosopher—the only one founded upon nature, or which

even pretends to or admits of that necessary basis—shews a portion of the
brain acting as a faculty of comic ideas, another of imitation, another of
wonder, one for discriminating or observing differences, and another in
which resides the power of tracing effects to causes. There are also parts of
the brain for the sentimental part of our nature, or the affections, at the head
of which stand the moral feelings of benevolence, conscientiousness, and
veneration. Through these, man stands in relation to himself, his fellow-
men, the external world, and his God; and through these comes most of the
happiness of man’s life, as well as that which he derives from the
contemplation of the world to come, and the cultivation of his relation to it,
(pure religion.) The other sentiments may be briefly enumerated, their
names being sufficient in general to denote their functions—firmness, hope,
cautiousness, self-esteem, love of approbation, secretiveness,
marvellousness, constructiveness, imitation, combativeness, destructiveness,
concentrativeness, adhesiveness, love of the opposite sex, love of offspring,
alimentiveness, and love of life. Through these faculties, man is connected
with the external world, and supplied with active impulses to maintain his
place in it as an individual and as a species. There is also a faculty,
(language) for expressing, by whatever means, (signs, gestures, looks,
conventional terms in speech,) the ideas which arise in the mind. There is a
particular state of each of these faculties, when the ideas of objects once
formed by it are revived or reproduced, a process which seems to be
intimately allied with some of the phenomena of the new science of
photography, when images impressed by reflection of the sun’s rays upon
sensitive paper are, after a temporary obliteration, resuscitated on the sheet
being exposed to the fumes of mercury. Such are the phenomena of
memory, that handmaid of intellect, without which there could be no
accumulation of mental capital, but an universal and continual infancy.
Conception and imagination appear to be only intensities, so to speak, of the
state of brain in which memory is produced. On their promptness and power
depend most of the exertions which distinguish the man of arts and letters,
and even in no small measure the cultivator of science.
The faculties above described—the actual elements of the mental
constitution—are seen in mature man in an indefinite potentiality and range
of action. It is different with the lower animals. They are there
comparatively definite in their power and restricted in their application. The
reader is familiar with what are called instincts in some of the humbler

species, that is, an uniform and unprompted tendency towards certain
particular acts, as the building of cells by the bee, the storing of provisions
by that insect and several others, and the construction of nests for a coming
progeny by birds. This quality is nothing more than a mode of operation
peculiar to the faculties in a humble state of endowment, or early stage of
development. The cell formation of the bee, the house-building of ants and
beavers, the web-spinning of spiders, are but primitive exercises of
constructiveness, the faculty which, indefinite with us, leads to the arts of the
weaver, upholsterer, architect, and mechanist, and makes us often work
delightedly where our labours are in vain, or nearly so. The storing of
provisions by the ants is an exercise of acquisitiveness,—the faculty which
with us makes rich men and misers. A vast number of curious devices, by
which insects provide for the protection and subsistence of their young,
whom they are perhaps never to see, are most probably a peculiar restricted
effort of philoprogenitiveness. The common source of this class of acts, and
of common mental operations, is shewn very convincingly by the melting of
the one set into the other. Thus, for example, the bee and bird will make
modifications in the ordinary form of their cells and nests when necessity
compels them. Thus, the alimentiveness of such animals as the dog, usually
definite with regard to quantity and quality, can be pampered or educated up
to a kind of epicurism, that is, an indefiniteness of object and action. The
same faculty acts limitedly in ourselves at first, dictating the special act of
sucking; afterwards it acquires indefiniteness. Such is the real nature of the
distinction between what are called instincts and reason, upon which so
many volumes have been written without profit to the world. All faculties
are instinctive, that is, dependent on internal and inherent impulses. This
term is therefore not specially applicable to either of the recognised modes
of the operation of the faculties. We only, in the one case, see the faculty in
an immature and slightly developed state; in the other, in its most advanced
condition. In the one case it is definite, in the other indefinite, in its range of
action. These terms would perhaps be the most suitable for expressing the
distinction.
In the humblest forms of being we can trace scarcely anything besides a
definite action in a few of the faculties. Generally speaking, as we ascend in
the scale, we see more and more of the faculties in exercise, and these
tending more to the indefinite mode of manifestation. And for this there is
the obvious reason in providence, that the lowest animals have all of them a

very limited sphere of existence, born only to perform a few functions, and
enjoy a brief term of life, and then give way to another generation, so that
they do not need much mental guidance. At higher points in the scale, the
sphere of existence is considerably extended, and the mental operations are
less definite accordingly. The horse, dog, and a few other rasorial types,
noted for their serviceableness to our race, have the indefinite powers in no
small endowment. Man, again, shews very little of the definite mode of
operation, and that little chiefly in childhood, or in barbarism or idiocy.
Destined for a wide field of action, and to be applicable to infinitely varied
contingencies, he has all the faculties developed to a high pitch of
indefiniteness, that he may be ready to act well in all imaginable cases. His
commission, it may be said, gives large discretionary powers, while that of
the inferior animals is limited to a few precise directions. But when the
human brain is congenitally imperfect or diseased, or when it is in the state
of infancy, we see in it an approach towards the character of the brains of
some of the inferior animals. Dr. G. J. Davey states that he has frequently
witnessed, among his patients at the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum, indications of
a particular abnormal cerebration which forcibly reminded him of the
specific healthy characteristics of animals lower in the scale of organization;
[346]
and every one must have observed how often the actions of children,
especially in their moments of play, and where their selfish feelings are
concerned, bear a resemblance to those of certain familiar animals. [347]
Behold, then, the wonderful unity of the whole system. The grades of mind,
like the forms of being, are mere stages of development. In the humbler
forms, but a few of the mental faculties are traceable, just as we see in them
but a few of the lineaments of universal structure. In man the system has
arrived at its highest condition. The few gleams of reason, then, which we
see in the lower animals, are precisely analogous to such a development of
the fore-arm as we find in the paddle of the whale. Causality, comparison,
and other of the nobler faculties, are in them rudimental.
Bound up as we thus are by an identity in the character of our mental
organization with the lower animals, we are yet, it will be observed,
strikingly distinguished from them by this great advance in development.
We have faculties in full force and activity which the animals either possess
not at all, or in so low and obscure a form as to be equivalent to non-
existence. Now these parts of mind are those which connect us with the
things that are not of this world. We have veneration, prompting us to the

worship of the Deity, which the animals lack. We have hope, to carry us on
in thought beyond the bounds of time. We have reason, to enable us to
inquire into the character of the Great Father, and the relation of us, his
humble creatures, towards him. We have conscientiousness and
benevolence, by which we can in a faint and humble measure imitate, in our
conduct, that which he exemplifies in the whole of his wondrous doings.
Beyond this, mental science does not carry us in support of religion: the rest
depends on evidence of a different kind. But it is surely much that we thus
discover in nature a provision for things so important. The existence of
faculties having a regard to such things is a good evidence that such things
exist. The face of God is reflected in the organization of man, as a little pool
reflects the glorious sun.
The affective or sentimental faculties are all of them liable to operate
whenever appropriate objects or stimuli are presented, and this they do as
irresistibly and unerringly as the tree sucks up moisture which it requires,
with only this exception, that one faculty often interferes with the action of
another, and operates instead by force of superior inherent strength or
temporary activity. For example, alimentiveness may be in powerful
operation with regard to its appropriate object, producing a keen appetite,
and yet it may not act, in consequence of the more powerful operation of
cautiousness, warning against evil consequences likely to ensue from the
desired indulgence. This liability to flit from under the control of one
feeling to the control of another, constitutes what is recognised as free will in
man, being nothing more than a vicissitude in the supremacy of the faculties
over each other.
It is a common mistake to suppose that the individuals of our own species
are all of them formed with similar faculties—similar in power and tendency
—and that education and the influence of circumstances produce all the
differences which we observe. There is not, in the old systems of mental
philosophy, any doctrine more opposite to the truth than this. It is refuted at
once by the great differences of intellectual tendency and moral disposition
to be observed amongst a group of young children who have been all
brought up in circumstances perfectly identical—even in twins, who have
never been but in one place, under the charge of one nurse, attended to alike
in all respects. The mental characters of individuals are inherently various,
as the forms of their persons and the features of their faces are; and

education and circumstances, though their influence is not to be despised,
are incapable of entirely altering these characters, where they are strongly
developed. That the original characters of mind are dependent on the
volume of particular parts of the brain and the general quality of that viscus,
is proved by induction from an extensive range of observations, the force of
which must have been long since universally acknowledged but for the
unpreparedness of mankind to admit a functional connexion between mind
and body. The different mental characters of individuals may be presumed
from analogy to depend on the same law of development which we have
seen determining forms of being and the mental characters of particular
species. This we may conceive as carrying forward the intellectual powers
and moral dispositions of some to a high pitch, repressing those of others at
a moderate amount, and thus producing all the varieties which we see in our
fellow-creatures. Thus a Cuvier and a Newton are but expansions of a
clown, and the person emphatically called the wicked man, is one whose
highest moral feelings are 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, and education sharpens the talents, and in some degree
regulates the dispositions of animals, as it does our own. Here I may advert
to a very interesting analogy between the mental characters of the types in
the quinary system of zoology and the characters of individual men. We
have seen that the pre-eminent type is usually endowed with an harmonious
assemblage of the mental qualities belonging to the whole group, while the
sub-typical inclines to ferocity, the rasorial to gentleness, and so on. Now,
amongst individuals, some appear to be almost exclusively of the sub-
typical, and others of the rasorial characters, while to a limited number is
given the finely assorted assemblage of qualities which places them on a
parallel with the typical. To this may be attributed the universality which
marks all the very highest brains, such as those of Shakespeare and Scott,
men of whom it has been remarked that they must have possessed within
themselves not only the poet, but the warrior, the statesman, and the
philosopher; and who, moreover, appear to have had the mild and manly, the
moral and the forcible parts of our nature, in the most perfect balance.
There is, nevertheless, a general adaptation of the mental constitution of man
to the circumstances in which he lives, as there is between all the parts of
nature to each other. The goods of the physical world are only to be realized

by ingenuity and industrious exertion; behold, accordingly, an intellect full
of device, and a fabric of the faculties which would go to pieces or destroy
itself if it were not kept in constant occupation. Nature presents to us much
that is sublime and beautiful: behold faculties which delight in
contemplating these properties of hers, and in rising upon them, as upon
wings, to the presence of the Eternal. It is also a world of difficulties and
perils, and see how a large portion of our species are endowed with vigorous
powers which take a pleasure in meeting and overcoming difficulty and
danger. Even that principle on which our faculties are constituted—a wide
range of freedom in which to act for all various occasions—necessitates a
resentful faculty, by which individuals may protect themselves from the
undue and capricious exercise of each other’s faculties, and thus preserve
their individual rights. So also there is cautiousness, to give us a tendency to
provide against the evils by which we may be assailed; and secretiveness, to
enable us to conceal whatever, being divulged, would be offensive to others
or injurious to ourselves,—a function which obviously has a certain
legitimate range of action, however liable to be abused. The constitution of
the mind generally points to a state of intimate relation of individuals
towards society, towards the external world, and towards things above this
world. No individual being is integral or independent; he is only part of an
extensive piece of social mechanism. The inferior mind, full of rude energy
and unregulated impulse, does not more require a superior nature to act as its
master and its mentor, than does the superior nature require to be surrounded
by such rough elements on which to exercise its high endowments as a
ruling and tutelary power. This relation of each to each produces a vast
portion of the active business of life. It is easy to see that, if we were all
alike in our moral tendencies, and all placed on a medium of perfect
moderation in this respect, the world would be a scene of everlasting dulness
and apathy. It requires the variety of individual constitution to give moral
life to the scene.
The indefiniteness of the potentiality of the human faculties, and the
complexity which thus attends their relations, lead unavoidably to occasional
error. If we consider for a moment that there are not less than thirty such
faculties, that they are each given in different proportions to different
persons, that each is at the same time endowed with a wide discretion as to
the force and frequency of its action, and that our neighbours, the world, and
our connexions with something beyond it, are all exercising an ever-varying

influence over us, we cannot be surprised at the irregularities attending
human conduct. It is simply the penalty paid for the superior endowment. It
is here that the imperfection of our nature resides. Causality and
conscientiousness are, it is true, guides over all; but even these are only
faculties of the same indeterminate constitution as the rest, and partake
accordingly of the same inequality of action. Man is therefore a piece of
mechanism, which never can act so as to satisfy his own ideas of what he
might be—for he can imagine a state of moral perfection, (as he can imagine
a globe formed of diamonds, pearls, and rubies,) though his constitution
forbids him to realize it. There ever will, in the best disposed and most
disciplined minds, be occasional discrepancies between the amount of
temptation and the power summoned for regulation or resistance, or between
the stimulus and the mobility of the faculty; and hence those errors, and
shortcomings, and excesses, without end, with which the good are constantly
finding cause to charge themselves. There is at the same time even here a
possibility of improvement. In infancy, the impulses are all of them
irregular; a child is cruel, cunning, and false, under the slightest temptation,
but in time learns to control these inclinations, and to be habitually humane,
frank, and truthful. So is human society, in its earliest stages, sanguinary,
aggressive, and deceitful, but in time becomes just, faithful, and benevolent.
To such improvements there is a natural tendency which will operate in all
fair circumstances, though it is not to be expected that irregular and undue
impulses will ever be altogether banished from the system.
It may still be a puzzle to many, how beings should be born into the world
whose organization is such that they unavoidably, even in a civilized
country, become malefactors. Does God, it may be asked, make criminals?
Does he fashion certain beings with a predestination to evil? He does not do
so; and yet the criminal type of brain, as it is called, comes into existence in
accordance with laws which the Deity has established. It is not, however, as
the result of the first or general intention of those laws, but as an exception
from their ordinary and proper action. The production of those evilly
disposed beings is in this manner. The moral character of the progeny
depends in a general way, (as does the physical character also,) upon
conditions of the parents,—both general conditions, and conditions at the
particular time of the commencement of the existence of the new being, and
likewise external conditions affecting the fœtus through the mother. Now
the amount of these conditions is indefinite. The faculties of the parents, as

far as these are concerned, may have oscillated for the time towards the
extreme of tensibility in one direction. The influences upon the fœtus may
have also been of an extreme and unusual kind. Let us suppose that the
conditions upon the whole have been favourable for the development, not of
the higher, but of the lower sentiments, and of the propensities of the new
being, the result will necessarily be a mean type of brain. Here, it will be
observed, God no more decreed an immoral being, than he decreed an
immoral paroxysm of the sentiments. Our perplexity is in considering the
ill-disposed being by himself. He is only a part of a series of phenomena,
traceable to a principle good in the main, but which admits of evil as an
exception. We have seen that it is for wise ends that God leaves our moral
faculties to an indefinite range of action; the general good results of this
arrangement are obvious; but exceptions of evil are inseparable from such a
system, and this is one of them. To come to particular illustration—when a
people are oppressed, or kept in a state of slavery, they invariably contract
habits of lying, for the purpose of deceiving and outwitting their superiors,
falsehood being a refuge of the weak under difficulties. What is a habit in
parents becomes an inherent quality in children. We are not, therefore, to be
surprised when a traveller tells us that black children in the West Indies
appear to lie by instinct, and never answer a white person truly even in the
simplest matter. Here we have secretiveness roused in a people to a state of
constant and exalted exercise; an over tendency of the nervous energy in that
direction is the consequence, and a new organic condition is established.
This tells upon the progeny, which comes into the world with secretiveness
excessive in volume and activity. All other evil characteristics may be
readily conceived as being implanted in a new generation in the same way.
And sometimes not one, but several generations, may be concerned in
bringing up the result to a pitch which produces crime. It is, however, to be
observed, that the general tendency of things is to a limitation, not the
extension of such abnormally constituted beings. The criminal brain finds
itself in a social scene where all is against it. It may struggle on for a time,
but the medium and superior natures are never long at a loss in getting the
better of it. The disposal of such beings will always depend much on the
moral state of a community, the degree in which just views prevail with
regard to human nature, and the feelings which accident may have caused to
predominate at a particular time. Where the mass was little enlightened or
refined, and terrors for life or property were highly excited, malefactors have
ever been treated severely. But when 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 tendencies which they are only unfortunate in
having inherited from nature. Criminal jurisprudence then addresses itself
less to the direct punishment than to the reformation and care-taking of those
liable to its attention. And such a treatment of criminals, it may be farther
remarked, 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 moral constitution are distributed,
and how thoroughly mutual obligation shines throughout the whole frame of
society—the strong to help the weak, the good to redeem and restrain the
bad.
The sum of all we have seen of the psychical constitution of man is, that its
Almighty Author has destined it, like everything else, to be developed from
inherent qualities, and to have a mode of action depending 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, disposition, intellect, are all in like manner
developed and sustained in action by law. It is most interesting to observe
into how small a field the whole of the mysteries of nature thus ultimately
resolve themselves. The inorganic has one final comprehensive law,
GRAVITATION. The organic, the other great department of mundane things,
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 comprehensive
law, the expression of that unity which man’s wit can scarcely separate from
Deity itself.

PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION OF
THE ANIMATED CREATION.

We have now to inquire how this view of the constitution and origin of
nature bears upon the condition of man upon the earth, and his relation to
supra-mundane things.
That enjoyment is the proper attendant of animal existence is pressed upon
us by all that we see and all we experience. Everywhere we perceive in the
lower creatures, in their ordinary condition, symptoms of enjoyment. Their
whole being is a system of needs, the supplying of which is gratification, and
of faculties, the exercise of which is pleasurable. When we consult our own
sensations, we find that, even in a sense of a healthy performance of all the
functions of the animal economy, God has furnished us with an innocent and
very high enjoyment. The mere quiet consciousness of a healthy play of the
mental functions—a mind at ease with itself and all around it—is in like
manner extremely agreeable. This negative class of enjoyments, it may be
remarked, is likely to be even more extensively experienced by the lower
animals than by man, at least in the proportion of their absolute endowments,
as their mental and bodily functions are much less liable to derangement
than ours. To find the world constituted on this principle is only what in
reason we would expect. We cannot conceive that so vast a system could
have been created for a contrary purpose. No averagely constituted human
being would, in his own limited sphere of action, think of producing a
similar system upon an opposite principle. But to form so vast a range of
being, and to make being everywhere a source of gratification, is
conformable to our ideas of a Creator in whom we are constantly
discovering traits of a nature, of which our own is but a faint and far-cast
shadow at the best.
It appears at first difficult to reconcile with this idea the many miseries
which we see all sentient beings, ourselves included, occasionally enduring.

How, the sage has asked in every age, should a Being so transcendently kind,
have allowed of so large an admixture of evil in the condition of his
creatures? Do we not at length find an answer to a certain extent
satisfactory, in the view which has now been given of the constitution of
nature? We there see the Deity operating in the most august of his works by
fixed laws, an arrangement which, it is clear, only admits of the main and
primary results being good, but disregards exceptions. Now the mechanical
laws are so definite in their purposes, that no exceptions ever take place in
that department; if there is a certain quantity of nebulous matter to be
agglomerated and divided and set in motion as a planetary system, it will be
so with hair’s-breadth accuracy, and cannot be otherwise. But the laws
presiding over meteorology, life, and mind, are necessarily less definite, as
they have to produce a great variety of mutually related results. Left to act
independently of each other, each according to its separate commission, and
each with a wide range of potentiality to be modified by associated
conditions, they can only have effects generally beneficial: often there must
be an interference of one law with another, often a law will chance to operate
in excess, or upon a wrong object, and thus evil will be produced. Thus,
winds are generally useful in many ways, and the sea is useful as a means of
communication between one country and another; but the natural laws which
produce winds are of indefinite range of action, and sometimes are unusually
concentrated in space or in time, so as to produce storms and hurricanes, by
which much damage is done; the sea may be by these causes violently
agitated, so that many barks and many lives perish. Here, it is evident, the
evil is only exceptive. Suppose, again, that a boy, in the course of the lively
sports proper to his age, suffers a fall which injures his spine, and renders
him a cripple for life. Two things have been concerned in the case: first, the
love of violent exercise, and second, the law of gravitation. Both of these
things are good in the main. In the rash enterprises and rough sports in
which boys engage, they prepare their bodies and minds for the hard tasks of
life. By gravitation, all moveable things, our own bodies included, are kept
stable on the surface of the earth. But when it chances that the playful boy
loses his hold (we shall say) of the branch of a tree, and has no solid support
immediately below, the law of gravitation unrelentingly pulls him to the
ground, and thus he is hurt. Now it was not a primary object of gravitation
to injure boys; but gravitation could not but operate in the circumstances, its
nature being to be universal and invariable. The evil is, therefore, only a
casual exception from something in the main good.

The same explanation applies to even the most conspicuous of the evils
which afflict society. War, it may be said, and said truly, is a tremendous
example of evil, in the misery, hardship, waste of human life, and mis-
spending of human energies, which it occasions. But what is it that produces
war? Certain tendencies of human nature, as keen assertion of a supposed
right, resentment of supposed injury, acquisitiveness, desire of admiration,
combativeness, or mere love of excitement. All of these are tendencies
which are every day, in a legitimate extent of action, producing great and
indispensable benefits 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 benevolent purpose. He has only not laid down any absolute obstruction to
our misuse of them. That were an arrangement of a kind which he has
nowhere made. But he has established many laws in our nature which tend
to lessen the frequency and destructiveness of these abuses. Our reason
comes to see that war is purely an evil, even to the conqueror. Benevolence
interposes to make its ravages less mischievous to human comfort, and less
destructive to human life. Men begin to find that their more active powers
can be exercised with equal gratification on legitimate objects; for example,
in overcoming the natural difficulties of their path through life, or in a
generous spirit of emulation in a line of duty beneficial to themselves and
their fellow-creatures. Thus, war at length shrinks into a comparatively
narrow compass, though there certainly is no reason to suppose that it will be
at any early period, if ever, altogether dispensed with, while man’s
constitution remains as it is. In considering an evil of this kind, we must not
limit our view to our own or any past time. Placed upon the earth with
faculties prepared to act, but inexperienced, and with the more active
propensities necessarily in great force to suit the condition of the globe, man
was apt to misuse his powers much in this way at first, compared with what
he is likely to do when he advances into a condition of civilization. In the
scheme of providence, thousands of years of frequent warfare, all the so-
called glories which fill history, may be only an exception to the general
rule.
The sex passion in like manner leads to great evils; but the evils are only an
exception from the vast mass of good connected with this affection.
Providence has seen it necessary to make very ample provision for the

preservation and utmost possible extension of all species. The aim seems to
be to diffuse existence as widely as possible, to fill up every vacant piece of
space with some sentient being to be a vehicle of enjoyment. Hence this
passion is conferred in great force. But the relation between the number of
beings, and the means of supporting them, is only on the footing of general
law. There may be occasional discrepancies between the laws operating for
the multiplication of individuals, and the laws operating to supply them with
the means of subsistence, and evils will be endured in consequence, even in
our own highly favoured species. But against all these evils, and against
those numberless vexations which have arisen in all ages from the
attachment of the sexes, place the vast amount of happiness which is derived
from this source—the basis of the whole circle of the domestic affections,
the sweetening principle of life, the prompter of all our most generous
feelings, and even of our most virtuous resolves—and every ill that can be
traced to it is but as dust in the balance. And here, also, we must be on our
guard against judging from what we see in the world at a particular era. As
reason and the higher sentiments of man’s nature increase in force, this
passion is put under better regulation, so as to lessen many of the evils
connected with it. The civilized man is more able to give it due control; his
attachments are less the result of impulse; he studies more the weal of his
partner and offspring. There are even some of the resentful feelings
connected in early society with love, such as hatred of successful rivalry, and
jealousy, which almost disappear in an advanced stage of civilization. The
evils springing, in our own species at least, from this passion, may therefore
be an exception mainly peculiar to a particular term of the world’s progress,
and which may be expected to decrease greatly in amount.
With respect, again, to disease, so prolific a cause of suffering to man, the
human constitution is merely a complicated but regular process in electro-
chemistry, which goes on well, and is a source of continual gratification, so
long as nothing occurs to interfere with it injuriously, but which is liable
every moment to be deranged by various external agencies, when it becomes
a source of pain, and, if the injury be severe, ceases to be capable of
retaining life. It may be readily admitted that the evils experienced in this
way are very great; but, after all, such experiences are no more than
occasional, and not necessarily frequent—exceptions from a general rule of
which the direct action is to confer happiness. The human constitution
might have been made of a more hardy character; but we always see

hardiness and insensibility go together, and it may be of course presumed
that we only could have purchased this immunity from suffering at the
expense of a large portion of that delicacy in which lie some of our most
agreeable sensations. Or man’s faculties might have been restricted to
definiteness of action, as is 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 which
the varied action of our faculties places in our power: we should not, in
short, have been human beings, but merely on a level with the inferior
animals. Thus, it appears, that the very fineness of man’s constitution, that
which places him in such a high relation to the mundane economy, and
makes him the vehicle of so many exquisitely delightful sensations—it is
this which makes him liable to the sufferings of disease. It might be said, on
the other hand, that the noxiousness of the agencies producing disease might
have been diminished or extinguished; but the probability is, that this could
not have been done without such a derangement of the whole economy of
nature as would have been attended with more serious evils. For example—
a large class of diseases are the result of effluvia from decaying organic
matter. This kind of matter is known to be extremely useful, when mixed
with earth, in favouring the process of vegetation. Supposing the
noxiousness to the human constitution done away with, might we not also
lose that important quality which tends so largely to increase the food raised
from the ground? Perhaps (as has been suggested) the noxiousness is even a
matter of special design, to induce us to put away decaying organic
substances into the earth, where they are calculated to be so useful. Now
man has reason to enable him to see that such substances are beneficial
under one arrangement, and noxious in the other. He is, as it were,
commanded to take the right method in dealing with it. In point of fact, men
do not always take this method, but allow accumulations of noxious matter
to gather close about their dwellings, where they generate fevers and agues.
But their doing so may be regarded as only a temporary exception from the
operation of mental laws, the general tendency of which is to make men
adopt the proper measures. And these measures will probably be in time
universally adopted, so that one extensive class of diseases will be altogether
or nearly abolished.

Another large class of diseases spring from mismanagement of our personal
economy. Eating to excess, eating and drinking what is noxious, disregard
to that cleanliness which is necessary for the right action of the functions of
the skin, want of fresh air for the supply of the lungs, undue, excessive, and
irregular indulgence of the mental affections, are all of them recognised
modes of creating that derangement of the system in which disease consists.
Here also it may be said that a limitation of the mental faculties to definite
manifestations (vulgo, instincts) might have enabled us to avoid many of
these errors; but here again we are met by the consideration that, if we had
been so endowed, we should have been only as the lower animals are,
wanting that transcendently higher character of sensation and power, by
which our enjoyments are made so much greater. In making the desire of
food, for example, with us an indefinite mental manifestation, instead of the
definite one, which it is amongst the lower animals, the Creator has given us
a means of deriving far greater gratifications from food (consistently with
health) than the lower animals appear to be capable of. He has also given us
reason to act as a guiding and controlling power over this and other
propensities, so that they may be prevented from becoming causes of
malady. We can see that excess is injurious, and are thus prompted to
moderation. We can see that all the things which we feel inclined to take are
not healthful, and are thus exhorted to avoid what are pernicious. We can
also see that a cleanly skin and a constant supply of pure air are necessary to
the proper performance of some of the most important of the organic
functions, and thus are stimulated to frequent ablution, and to a right
ventilation of our parlours and sleeping apartments. And so on with the
other causes of disease. Reason may not operate very powerfully to these
purposes in an early state of society, and prodigious evils may therefore have
been endured from disease in past ages; but these are not necessarily to be
endured always. As civilization advances, reason acquires a greater
ascendancy; the causes of the evils are seen and avoided; and disease shrinks
into a comparatively narrow compass. The experience of our own country
places this in a striking light. In the middle ages, when large towns had no
police regulations, society was every now and then scourged by pestilence.
The third of the people of Europe are said to have been carried off by one
epidemic. Even in London the annual mortality has greatly sunk within a
century. The improvement in human life, which has taken place since the
construction of the Northampton tables by Dr. Price, is equally remarkable.
Modern tables still shew a prodigious mortality among the young in all

civilized countries—evidently a result of some prevalent error in the usual
modes of rearing them. But to remedy this evil there is the sagacity of the
human mind, and the sense to adopt any reformed plans which may be
shewn to be necessary. By a change in the management of an orphan
institution in London, during the last fifty years, an immense reduction in the
mortality took place. We may of course hope to see measures devised and
adopted for producing a similar improvement of infant life throughout the
world at large.
In this part of our subject, the most difficult point certainly lies in those
occurrences of disease where the afflicted individual has been in no degree
concerned in bringing the visitation upon himself. Daily experience shews
us infectious disease arising in a place where the natural laws in respect of
cleanliness are neglected, and then spreading into regions where there is no
blame of this kind. We then see the innocent suffering equally with those
who may be called the guilty. Nay, the benevolent physician who comes to
succour the miserable beings whose error may have caused the mischief, is
sometimes seen to fall a victim to it, while many of his patients recover. We
are also only too familiar with the transmission of diseases from erring
parents to innocent children, who, accordingly suffer, and perhaps die
prematurely, as it were for the sins of others. After all, however painful such
cases may be in contemplation, they cannot be regarded in any other light
than as exceptions from arrangements, the general working of which is
beneficial.
With regard to the innocence of the suffering parties, there is one important
consideration which is pressed upon us from many quarters, namely—that
moral conditions have not the least concern in the working of these simply
physical laws. These laws proceed with an entire independence of all such
conditions, and desirably so, for otherwise there could be no certain
dependence placed upon them. Thus it may happen that two persons
ascending a piece of scaffolding, the one a virtuous, the other a vicious man,
the former, being the less cautious of the two, ventures upon an insecure
place, falls, and is killed, while the other, choosing a better footing, remains
uninjured. It is not in what we can conceive of the nature of things, that
there should be a special exemption from the ordinary laws of matter, to save
this virtuous man. So it might be that, of two physicians, attending fever
cases, in a mean part of a large city, the one, an excellent citizen, may stand

in such a position with respect to the beds of the patients as to catch the
infection, of which he dies in a few days, while the other, a bad husband and
father, and who, unlike the other, only attends such cases with selfish ends,
takes care to be as much as possible out of the stream of infection, and
accordingly escapes. In both of these cases man’s sense of good and evil—
his faculty of conscientiousness—would incline him to destine the vicious
man to destruction and save the virtuous. But the Great Ruler of Nature
does not act on such principles. He has established laws for the operation of
inanimate matter, which are quite unswerving, so that when we know them,
we have only to act in a certain way with respect to them, in order to obtain
all the benefits and avoid all the evils connected with them. He has likewise
established moral laws in our nature, which are equally unswerving,
(allowing for their wider range of action,) and from obedience to which
unfailing good is to be derived. But the two sets of laws are independent of
each other. Obedience to each gives only its own proper advantage, not the
advantage proper to the other. Hence it is that virtue forms no protection
against the evils connected with the physical laws, while, on the other hand,
a man skilled in and attentive to these, but unrighteous and disregardful of
his neighbour, is in like manner not protected by his attention to physical
circumstances from the proper consequences of neglect or breach of the
moral laws.
Thus it is that the innocence of the party suffering for the faults of a parent,
or of any other person or set of persons, is evidently a consideration quite
apart from that suffering.
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 individual is left, as it were, to take
his chance amidst the mêlée of the various laws affecting him. If he be
found inferiorly endowed, or ill befalls him, there was at least no partiality
against him. The system has the fairness of a lottery, in which every one has
the like chance of drawing the prize.
Yet it is also to be observed that few evils are altogether unmixed. God,
contemplating apparently the unbending action of his great laws, has
established others which appear to be designed to have a compensating, a
repairing, and a consoling effect. Suppose, for instance, that, from a defect

in the power of development in a mother, her offspring is ushered into the
world destitute of some of the most useful members, or blind, or deaf, or of
imperfect intellect, there is ever to be found in the parents and other
relatives, and in the surrounding public, a sympathy with the sufferer, which
tends to make up for the deficiency, so that he is in the long run not much a
loser. Indeed, the benevolence implanted in our nature seems to be an
arrangement having for one of its principal objects to cause us, by sympathy
and active aid, to remedy the evils unavoidably suffered by our fellow-
creatures in the course of the operation of the other natural laws. And even
in the sufferer himself, it is often found that a defect in one point is made up
for by an extra power in another. The blind come to have a sense of touch
much more acute than those who see. Persons born without hands have been
known to acquire a power of using their feet for a number of the principal
offices usually served by that member. I need hardly say how remarkably
fatuity is compensated by the more than usual regard paid to the children
born with it by their parents, and the zeal which others usually feel to protect
and succour such persons. In short, we never see evil of any kind take place
where there is not some remedy or compensating principle ready to interfere
for its alleviation. And there can be no doubt that in this manner suffering of
all kinds is very much relieved.
We may, then, regard the globes of space as theatres designed for the
residence of animated sentient beings, placed there with this as their first and
most obvious purpose—namely, to be sensible of enjoyments from the
exercise of their faculties in relation to external things. The faculties of the
various species are very different, but the happiness of each depends on the
harmony there may be between its particular faculties and its particular
circumstances. For instance, place the small-brained sheep or ox in a good
pasture, and it fully enjoys this harmony of relation; but man, having many
more faculties, cannot be thus contented. Besides having a sufficiency of
food and bodily comfort, he must have entertainment for his intellect,
whatever be its grade, objects for the domestic and social affections, objects
for the sentiments. He is also a progressive being, and what pleases him to-
day may not please him to-morrow; but, in each case he demands a sphere of
appropriate conditions in order to be happy. By virtue of his superior
organization, his enjoyments are much higher and more varied than those of
any of the lower animals; but the very complexity of circumstances affecting
him renders it at the same time unavoidable, that his nature should be often

inharmoniously placed and disagreeably affected, and that he should
therefore be unhappy. Still unhappiness amongst mankind is the exception
from the rule of their condition, and an exception which is capable of almost
infinite diminution, by virtue of the improving reason of man, and the
experience which he acquires in working out the problems of society.
To secure the immediate means of happiness it would seem to be necessary
for men first to study with all care the constitution of nature, and, secondly,
to accommodate themselves to that constitution, so as to obtain all the
realizable advantages from acting conformably to it, and to avoid all likely
evils from disregarding it. It will be of no use to sit down and expect that
things are to operate of their own accord, or through the direction of a partial
deity, for our benefit; equally so were it to expose ourselves to palpable
dangers, under the notion that we shall, for some reason, have a dispensation
or exemption from them: we must endeavour so to place ourselves, and so to
act, that the arrangements which Providence has made impartially for all
may be in our favour, and not against us; such are the only means by which
we can obtain good and avoid evil here below. And, in doing this, it is
especially necessary that care be taken to avoid interfering with the like
efforts of other men, beyond what may have been agreed upon by the mass
as necessary for the general good. Such interferences, tending in any way to
injure the body, property, or peace of a neighbour, or to the injury of society
in general, tend very much to reflect evil upon ourselves, through the re-
action which they produce in the feelings of our neighbour and of society,
and also the offence which they give to our own conscientiousness and
benevolence. On the other hand, when we endeavour to promote the efforts
of our fellow-creatures to attain happiness, we produce a re-action of the
contrary kind, the tendency of which is towards our own benefit. The one
course of action tends to the injury, the other to the benefit of ourselves and
others. By the one course the general design of the Creator towards his
creatures is thwarted; by the other it is favoured. And thus we can readily
see the most substantial grounds for regarding all moral emotions and doings
as divine in their nature, and as a means of rising to and communing with
God. Obedience is not selfishness, which it would otherwise be—it is
worship. The merest barbarians have a glimmering sense of this philosophy,
and it continually shines out more and more clearly in the public mind, as a
nation advances in intelligence. Nor are individuals alone concerned here.
The same rule applies as between one great body or class of men and

another, and also between nations. Thus if one set of men keep others in the
condition of slaves—this being a gross injustice to the subjected party, the
mental manifestations of that party to the masters will be such as to mar the
comfort of their lives; the minds of the masters themselves will be degraded
by the association with beings so degraded; and thus, with some immediate
or apparent benefit from keeping slaves, there will be in a far greater degree
an experience of evil. So also, if one portion of a nation, engaged in a
particular department of industry, grasp at some advantages injurious to the
other sections of the people, the first effect will be an injury to those other
portions of the nation, and the second a re-active injury to the injurers,
making their guilt their punishment. And so when one nation commits an
aggression upon the property or rights of another, or even pursues towards it
a sordid or ungracious policy, the effects are sure to be redoubled evil from
the offended party. All of these things are under laws which make the
effects, on a large range, absolutely certain; and an individual, a party, a
people, can no more act unjustly with safety, than I could with safety place
my leg in the track of a coming wain, or attempt to fast thirty days. We have
been constituted on the principle of only being able to realize happiness for
ourselves when our fellow-creatures are also happy; we must therefore both
do to others only as we would have others to do to us, and endeavour to
promote their happiness as well as our own, in order to find ourselves truly
comfortable in this field of existence. 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.
It will occur to every one, that the system here unfolded 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 befall us from no fault of ours, we are apt to feel that this is a
dreary view of the Divine economy; and before we have looked farther, we
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 consolation 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, it can be of no real benefit to us; and, in the

second, it is proper to inquire if there be necessarily in the doctrine of natural
law any peculiarity calculated materially to affect our hitherto supposed
relation to the Deity. It may be that while we are committed to take our
chance in a natural system of undeviating operation, and are left with
apparent ruthlessness to endure the consequences of every collision into
which we knowingly or unknowingly come with each law of the system,
there is a system of Mercy and Grace behind the screen of nature, which is to
make up for all casualties endured here, and the very largeness of which is
what makes these casualties a matter of indifference to God. For the
existence of such a system, the actual constitution of nature is itself an
argument. The reasoning may proceed thus: The system of nature assures us
that benevolence is a leading principle in the divine mind. But that system is
at the same time deficient in a means of making this benevolence of
invariable operation. To reconcile this to the recognised character of the
Deity, it is necessary to suppose that the present system is but a part of a
whole, a stage in a Great Progress, and that the Redress is in reserve.
Another argument here occurs—the economy of nature, beautifully arranged
and vast in its extent as it is, does not satisfy even man’s idea of what might
be; he feels that, if this multiplicity of theatres for the exemplification of
such phenomena as we see on earth were to go on for ever unchanged, it
would not be worthy of the Being capable of creating it. An endless
monotony of human generations, with their humble thinkings and doings,
seems an object beneath that august Being. But the mundane economy
might be very well as a portion of some greater phenomenon, the rest of
which was yet to be evolved. It therefore appears that our system, though it
may at first appear at issue with other doctrines in esteem amongst mankind,
tends to come into harmony with them, and even to give them support. I
would say, in conclusion, that, even where the two above arguments may fail
of effect, there may yet be a faith derived from this view of nature sufficient
to sustain us under all sense of the imperfect happiness, the calamities, the
woes, and pains of this sphere of being. For let us but fully and truly
consider what a system is here laid open to view, and we cannot well doubt
that we are in the hands of One who is both able and willing to do us the
most entire justice. And in this faith we may well rest at ease, even though
life should have been to us but a protracted disease, or though every hope we
had built on the secular materials within our reach were felt to be melting
from our grasp. Thinking of all the contingencies of this world as to be in

time melted into or lost in the greater system, to which the present is only
subsidiary, let us wait the end with patience, and be of good cheer.

NOTE CONCLUSORY.

Thus ends a book, composed in solitude, and almost without the cognizance
of a single human being, for the sole purpose (or as nearly so as may be) of
improving the knowledge of mankind, and through that medium their
happiness. For reasons which need not be specified, the author’s name is
retained in its original obscurity, and, in all probability, will never be
generally known. I do not expect that any word of praise which the work
may elicit shall ever be responded to by me; or that any word of censure
shall ever be parried or deprecated. It goes forth to take its chance of
instant oblivion, or of a long and active course of usefulness in the world.
Neither contingency can be of any importance to me, beyond the regret or
the satisfaction which may be imparted by my sense of a lost or a realized
benefit to my fellow-creatures. The book, as far as I am aware, is the first
attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation. The idea
is a bold one, and there are many circumstances of time and place to render
its boldness more than usually conspicuous. But I believe my doctrines to
be in the main true; I believe all truth to be valuable, and its dissemination a
blessing. At the same time, I hold myself duly sensible of the common
liability to error, but am certain that no error in this line has the least chance
of being allowed to injure the public mind. Therefore I publish. My views,
if correct, will most assuredly stand, and may sooner or later prove
beneficial; if otherwise, they will as surely pass out of notice without doing
any harm.
My sincere desire in the composition of the book was to give the true view
of the history of nature, with as little disturbance as possible to existing
beliefs, whether philosophical or religious. I have made little reference to
any doctrines of the latter kind which may be thought inconsistent with
mine, because to do so would have been to enter upon questions for the
settlement of which our knowledge is not yet ripe. Let the reconciliation of
whatever is true in my views with whatever is true in other systems come

about in the fulness of calm and careful inquiry. I cannot but here remind
the reader of what Dr. Wiseman has shewn so strikingly in his lectures, how
different new philosophic doctrines are apt to appear after we have become
somewhat familiar with them. Geology at first seems inconsistent with the
authority of the Mosaic record. A storm of unreasoning indignation rises
against its teachers. In time, its truths, being found quite irresistible, are
admitted, and mankind continue to regard the Scriptures with the same
respect as before. So also with several other sciences. Now the only
objection that can be made on such ground to this book, is, that it brings
forward some new hypotheses, at first sight, like geology, not in perfect
harmony with that record, and arranges all the rest into a system which
partakes of the same character. But may not the sacred text, on a liberal
interpretation, or with the benefit of new light reflected from nature, or
derived from learning, be shewn to be as much in harmony with the
novelties of this volume as it has been with geology and natural
philosophy? What is there in the laws of organic creation more startling to
the candid theologian than in the Copernican system or the natural
formation of strata? And if the whole series of facts is true, why should we
shrink from inferences legitimately flowing from it? Is it not a wiser
course, since reconciliation has come in so many instances, still to hope for
it, still to go on with our new truths, trusting that they also will in time be
found harmonious with all others? Thus we avoid the damage which the
very appearance of an opposition to natural truth is calculated to inflict on
any system presumed to require such support. Thus we give, as is meet, a
respectful reception to what is revealed through the medium 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.

FOOTNOTES.

[3] By Mr. Henderson, Professor of Astronomy in the Edinburgh
University, and Lieutenant Meadows.
[5] Made by M. Argelander, late director of the Observatory at Abo.
[6] Professor Mossotti, on the Constitution of the Sidereal System, of
which the Sun forms a part.—London, Edinburgh, and Dublin
Philosophical Magazine, February, 1843.
[9] The orbitual revolutions of the satellites of Uranus have not as yet been
clearly scanned. It has been thought that their path is retrograde compared
with the rest. Perhaps this may be owing to a bouleversement of the
primary, for the inclination of its equator to the ecliptic is admitted to be
unusually high; but the subject is altogether so obscure, that nothing can be
founded on it.
[12] Astronomy, Lardner’s Cyclopædia.
[17] M. Compte combined Huygens’s theorems for the measure of
centrifugal force with the law of gravitation, and thus formed a simple
fundamental equation between the duration of the rotation of what he calls
the producing star, and the distance of the star produced. The constants of
this equation were the radius of the central star, and the intensity of gravity
at its surface, which is a direct consequence of its mass. It leads directly to
the third law of Kepler, which thus becomes susceptible of being conceived
à priori in a cosmogonical point of view. M. Compte first applied it to the
moon, and found, to his great delight, that the periodic time of that satellite
agrees within an hour or two with the duration which the revolution of the
earth ought to have had at the time when the lunar distance formed the limit
of the earth’s atmosphere. He found the coincidence less exact, but still
very striking in every other case. In those of the planets he obtained for the

duration of the corresponding solar rotations a value always a little less than
their actual periodic times. “It is remarkable,” says he, “that this difference,
though increasing as the planet is more distant, preserves very nearly the
same relation to the corresponding periodic time, of which it commonly
forms the forty-fifth part,”—shewing, we may suppose, that only some
small elements of the question had been overlooked by the calculator. The
defect changes to an excess in the different systems of the satellites, where
it is proportionally greater than in the planets, and unequal in the different
systems. “From the whole of these comparisons,” says he, “I deduced the
following general result:—Supposing the mathematical limit of the solar
atmosphere successively extended to the regions where the different planets
are now found, the duration of the sun’s rotation was, at each of these
epochs, sensibly equal to that of the actual sidereal revolution of the
corresponding planet; and the same is true for each planetary atmosphere in
relation to the different satellites.”—Cours de Philosophie Positif.
[42] The researches on this subject were conducted chiefly by the late
Baron Fourier, perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences of Paris.
See his Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur. 1822.
[52] Delabeche’s Geological Researches.
[60] In the Cumbrian limestone occur “calamoporæ, lithodendra,
cyathophylla, and orbicula.”—Philips. The asaphus and trinucleus
(crustacea) have been found respectively in the slate rocks of Wales, and the
limestone beds of the grawacke group in Bohemia. That fragments of
crinoidea, though of no determinate species, occur in this system, we have
the authority of Mr. Murchison.—Silurian System, p. 710.
[62] Such as amphioxus and myxene.
[64] Miller’s “New Walks in an Old Field.”
[68] June, 1842.
[84a] The principal families are named sphenopteris, neuropteris, and
pecopteris.
[84b] A specimen from Bengal, in the staircase of the British Museum, is
forty-five feet high.

[93] “Some of the most considerable dislocations of the border of the coal
fields of Coalbrookdale and Dudley happened after the deposition of a part
of the new red sandstone; but it is certain that those of Somersetshire and
Gloucestershire were completed before the date of that rock.”—Philips.
[97] The immediate effects of the slow respiration of the reptilia are, a low
temperature in their bodies, and a slow consumption of food. Requiring
little oxygen, they could have existed in an atmosphere containing a less
proportion of that gas to carbonic acid gas than what now obtains.
[99] The order to which frogs and toads belong.
[103] Dr. Buckland, quoting an article by Professor Hitchcock, in the
American Journal of Science and Arts, 1836.
[108a] Murchison’s Silurian System, p. 583.
[108b] Buckland.
[110] In some instances, these fossils are found with the contents of the
stomach faithfully preserved, and even with pieces of the external skin. The
pellets ejected by them (coprolites) are found in vast numbers, each
generally enclosed in a nodule of ironstone, and sometimes shewing
remains of the fishes which had formed their food.
[114] De la Beche’s Geological Researches, p. 344.
[127] Thick-skinned animals. This term has been given by Cuvier to an
order in which the hog, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros are included.
[149] Intervals in the series were numerous in the department of the
pachydermata; many of these gaps are now filled up from the extinct genera
found in the tertiary formation.
[151] See paper by Professor Edward Forbes, read to the British
Association, 1839.
[159] Macculloch on the Attributes of the Deity, iii. 569.
[166] “A glass tube is to be bent into a syphon, and placed with the curve
downwards, and in the bend is to be placed a small portion of mercury, not

sufficient to close the connexion between the two legs; a solution of nitrate
of silver is then to be introduced until it rises in both limbs of the tube. The
precipitation of the mercury, in the form of an Arbor Dianæ, will then take
place, slowly, only when the syphon is placed in a plane perpendicular to
the magnetic meridian; but if it be placed in a plane coinciding with the
magnetic meridian, the action is rapid, and the crystallization particularly
beautiful, taking place principally in that branch of the syphon towards the
north. If the syphon be placed in a plane perpendicular to the magnetic
meridian, and a strong magnet brought near it, the precipitation will
commence in a short time, and be most copious in the branch of the syphon
nearest to the south pole of the magnet.”
[169a] Fatty matter has also been formed in the laboratory. The process
consisted in passing a mixture of carbonic acid, pure hydrogen, and
carburetted hydrogen, in the proportion of one measure of the first, twenty
of the second, and ten of the third, through a red-hot tube.
[169b] Supplement to the Atomic Theory.
[170] Carpenter on Life; Todd’s Cyclopædia of Physiology.
[171] Carpenter’s Report on the results obtained by the Microscope in the
Study of Anatomy and Physiology, 1843.
[172] See Dr. Martin Barry on Fissiparous Generation; Jameson’s Journal,
Oct. 1843. Appearances precisely similar have been detected in the germs
of the crustacea.
[175] Mr. Leonard Horner and Sir David Brewster, on a substance
resembling shell.—Philosophical Transactions, 1836.
[179a] Dr. Allen Thomson, in the article Generation, in Todd’s Cyclopædia
of Anatomy and Physiology.
[179b] The term aboriginal is here suggested, as more correct than
spontaneous, the one hitherto generally used.
[182] Article “Zoophytes,” Encyclopædia Britannica, 7th edition.
[187] See a pamphlet circulated by Mr. Weekes, in 1842.

[195] Daubenton established the rule, that all the viviparous quadrupeds
have seven vertebræ in the neck.
[201] Lord’s Popular Physiology. It is to Tiedemann that we chiefly owe
these curious observations; but ground was first broken in this branch of
physiological science by Dr. John Hunter.
[204] When I formed this idea, I was not aware of one which seems faintly
to foreshadow it—namely, Socrates’s doctrine, afterwards dilated on by
Plato, that “previous to the existence of the world, and beyond its present
limits, there existed certain archetypes, the embodiment (if we may use
such a word) of general ideas; and that these archetypes were models, in
imitation of which all particular beings were created.”
[208] The numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, &c. are formed by adding the
successive terms of the series of natural numbers thus:

1 =1
1+2 =3
1+2+3 = 6
l+2+3+4 = 10, &c.

They are called triangular numbers, because a number of points
corresponding to any term can always be placed in the form of a triangle;
for instance—

.. . .
.. .. ..
... ...
....
1 3 6 10

[215] Kirby and Spence.
[221] See an article by Dr. Weissenborn, in the New Series of “Magazine
of Natural History,” vol. i. p. 574.

[224] “It is a fact of the highest interest and moment that as the brain of
every tribe of animals appears to pass, during its development, in
succession through the types of all those below it, so the brain of man
passes through the types of those of every tribe in the creation. It
represents, accordingly, before the second month of utero-gestation, that of
an avertebrated animal; at the second month, that of an osseous fish; at the
third, that of a turtle; at the fourth, that of a bird; at the fifth, that of one of
the rodentia; at the sixth, that of one of the ruminantia; at the seventh, that
of one of the digitigrada; at the eighth, that of one of the quadrumana; till at
length, at the ninth, it compasses the brain of Man! It is hardly necessary to
say, that all this is only an approximation to the truth; since neither is the
brain of all osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all the species of
any one of the above order of mammals, by any means precisely the same,
nor does the brain of the human fœtus at any time precisely resemble,
perhaps, that of any individual whatever among the lower animals.
Nevertheless, it may be said to represent, at each of the above-mentioned
periods, the aggregate, as it were, of the brains of each of the tribes stated;
consisting as it does, about the second month, chiefly of the mesial parts of
the cerebellum, the corpora quadrigemina, thalami optici, rudiments of the
hemispheres of the cerebrum and corpora striata; and receiving in
succession, at the third, the rudiments of the lobes of the cerebrum; at the
fourth, those of the fornix, corpus callosum, and septum lucidum; at the
fifth, the tubor annulare, and so forth; the posterior lobes of the cerebrum
increasing from before to behind, so as to cover the thalami optici about the
fourth month, the corpora quadrigemina about the sixth, and the cerebellum
about the seventh. This, then, is another example of an increase in the
complexity of an organ succeeding its centralization; as if Nature, having
first piled up her materials in one spot, delighted afterwards to employ her
abundance, not so much in enlarging old parts as in forming new ones upon
the old foundations, and thus adding to the complexity of a fabric, the
rudimental structure of which is in all animals equally simple.”—Fletcher’s
Rudiments of Physiology.
[226] Project Gutenberg note: the table in the book is very wide. Since it
won’t fit within the normal Gutenberg margins, and cannot be reproduced
typographically, the rows of the table have been broken out as follows.—
DP.

Table shows: scale of animal kingdom (the numbers indicate orders); order
of animals in; ascending series of rocks; fœtal human brain resembles, in
(The numbers indicate orders)
Rocks: 1. Gneiss and Mica Slate system
Fœtal: 1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
Scale: Radiata (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Order: Zoophyta, Polypiaria
Rocks: 2. Clay Slate and Grawacke system
Fœtal: 1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
Scale: Mollusca (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
Order: Conchifera, Double-shelled Mollusks
Rocks: 3. Silurian system
Fœtal: 1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
Scale: Articulata Annelida (12, 13, 14)
Rocks: 3. Silurian system
Fœtal: 1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
Scale: Articulata Crustacea (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
Order: Crustacea, Annelida, Crustaceous Fishes
Rocks: 3. Silurian system
Fœtal: 1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
Scale: Articulata Arachnida & Insecta (21–31)
Order: Crustaceous Fishes
Rocks: 4. Old Red Sandstone

Fœtal: 1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
Scale: Vertebrata Pisces (32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
Order: True Fishes
Rocks: 5. Carboniferous formation
Fœtal: 2nd month, that of a fish;
Scale: Vertebrata Reptilia (37, 38, 39, 40)
Order: Piscine Saurians (ichthyosaurus, &c.), Pterodactyles, Crocodiles,
Tortoises, Batrachians
Rocks: 6. New Red Sandstone
Fœtal: 3rd month, that of a turtle;
Scale: Vertebrata Aves (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
Order: Birds
Rocks: 6. New Red Sandstone
Fœtal: 4th month, that of a bird;
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 47 Cetacea
Order: (Bone of a marsupial animal)
Rocks: 7. Oolite
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 48 Ruminantia
Order: (Bone of a marsupial animal)
Rocks: 8. Cretaceous formation
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 49 Pachydermata
Order: Pachydermata (tapirs, horses, &c.)
Rocks: 9. Lower Eocene

Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 50 Edentata
Order: Pachydermata (tapirs, horses, &c.)
Rocks: 9. Lower Eocene
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 51 Rodentia
Order: Rodentia (dormouse, squirrel, &c.)
Rocks: 9. Lower Eocene
Fœtal: 5th month, that of a rodent;
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 52 Marsupialia
Order: Marsupialia (racoon, opossum, &c.)
Rocks: 9. Lower Eocene
Fœtal: 6th month, that of a ruminant;
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 53 Amphibia
Order: Marsupialia (racoon, opossum, &c.)
Rocks: 9. Lower Eocene
Fœtal: 6th month, that of a ruminant;
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 54 Digitigrada
Order: Digitigrada (genette, fox, wolf, &c.)
Rocks: 10. Miocene
Fœtal: 7th month, that of a digitigrade animal;
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 55 Plantigrada
Order: Plantigrada (bear)
Rocks: 10. Miocene
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 55 Plantigrada

Order: Cetacea (lamantins, seals, whales)
Rocks: 10. Miocene
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 56 Insectivora
Order: Edentata (sloths, &c.)
Rocks: 11. Pliocene
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 56 Insectivora
Order: Ruminantia (oxen, deer, &c.)
Rocks: 11. Pliocene
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 57 Cheiroptera
Rocks: 11. Pliocene
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 58 Quadrumana
Order: Quadrumana (monkeys)
Rocks: 11. Pliocene
Fœtal: 8th month, that of the quadrumana;
Scale: Vertebrata Mammalia: 59 Bimana
Order: Bimana (man)
Rocks: 12. Superficial deposits
Fœtal: 9th month, attains full human character;
[229] Some poor people having taken up their abode in the cells under the
fortifications of Lisle, the proportion of defective infants produced by them
became so great, that it was deemed necessary to issue an order
commanding these cells to be shut up.
[232] These affinities and analogies are explained in the next chapter.
[239a] Corresponding to the articulata of Cuvier.

[239b] A new sub-kingdom, made out of part of the radiata of Cuvier.
[239c] This is a newly applied term, the reasons for which will be
explained in the sequel.
[242] This is preferred to grallatorial, as more comprehensively
descriptive. There is the same need for a substitute for rasorial, which is
only applicable to birds.
[246] Distribution and Classification of Animals, p. 248.
[255] Researches, 4th edition, i. 95.
[257] Prichard.
[266] Mr. Swainson’s arguments about the entireness of the circle simiadæ
are only too rigid, for fossil geology has since added new genera to this
group and the cebidæ, and there may be still farther additions.
[270] See Wilson’s American Ornithology; article, Fishing Crow.
[274] Project Gutenberg note: in the diagram the triangles extending from
the 1,2,3,4 and the a,b,c,d meet at the same point—the line from the 1,2,3,4
being at around 45° and the line from the a,b,c,d being at around 60°.
Despite what the text says there is no line labelled 5 in the diagram.—DP.
[278] See Dr. Prichard’s Researches into the Physical History of Man.
[280] Buckingham’s Travels among the Arabs. This fact is the more
valuable to the argument, as having been set down with no regard to any
kind of hypothesis.
[287] Wiseman’s Lectures on the Connexion between Science and
Revealed Religion, i. 44. The Celtic has been established as a member or
group of the Indo-European family, by the work of Dr. Prichard, on the
Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. “First,” says Dr. Wiseman, “he has
examined the lexical resemblances, and shewn that the primary and most
simple words are the same in both, as well as the numerals and elementary
verbal roots. Then follows a minute analysis of the verb, directed to shew
its analogies with other languages, and they are such as manifest no casual
coincidence, but an internal structure radically the same. The verb

substantive, which is minutely analysed, presents more striking analogies to
the Persian verb than perhaps any other language of the family. But Celtic
is not thus become a mere member of this confederacy, but has brought to it
most important aid; for, from it alone can be satisfactorily explained some
of the conjugational endings in the other languages. For instance, the third
person plural of the Latin, Persian, Greek, and Sanscrit ends in nt, nd, ντι,
ντο, nti, or nt. Now, supposing, with most grammarians, that the inflexions
arose from the pronouns of the respective persons, it is only in Celtic that
we find a pronoun that can explain this termination; for there, too, the same
person ends in nt, and thus corresponds exactly, as do the others, with its
pronoun, hwynt, or ynt.”
[291] Schoolcraft.
[293] Views of the Cordilleras.
[302] The problem of Chinese civilization, such as it is—so puzzling when
we consider that they are only, as will be presently seen, the child race of
mankind—is solved when we look to geographical position producing fixity
of residence and density of population.
[307a] Lord’s Popular Physiology, explaining observations by M. Serres.
[307b] Conformably to this view, the beard, that peculiar attribute of
maturity, is scanty in the Mongolian, and scarcely exists in the Americans
and Negroes.
[309] Of this we have perhaps an illustration in the peculiarities which
distinguish the Arabs residing in the valley of the Jordan. They have flatter
features, darker skins, and coarser hair than other tribes of their nation; and
we have seen one instance of a thoroughly Negro family being born to an
ordinary couple. It may be presumed that the conditions of the life of these
people tend to arrest development. We thus see how an offshoot of the
human family migrating at an early period into Africa, might in time, from
subjection to similar influences, become Negroes.
[317] Missionary Scenes and Labours in South Africa.
[326] “Is not God the first cause of matter as well as of mind? Do not the
first attributes of matter lie as inscrutable in the bosom of God—of its first

author—as those of mind? Has not even matter confessedly received from
God the power of experiencing, in consequence of impressions from the
earlier modifications of matter, certain consciousnesses called sensations of
the same? Is not, therefore, the wonder of matter also receiving the
consciousnesses of other matter called ideas of the mind a wonder more
flowing out of and in analogy with all former wonders, than would be, on
the contrary, the wonder of this faculty of the mind not flowing out of any
faculties of matter? Is it not a wonder which, so far from destroying our
hopes of immortality, can establish that doctrine on a train of inferences and
inductions more firmly established and more connected with each other
than the former belief can be, as soon as we have proved that matter is not
perishable, but is only liable to successive combinations and
decombinations.
“Can we look farther back one way into the first origin of matter than we
can look forward the other way into the last developments of mind? Can
we say that God has not in matter itself laid the seeds of every faculty of
mind, rather than that he has made the first principle of mind entirely
distinct from that of matter? Cannot the first cause of all we see and know
have fraught matter itself, from its very beginning, with all the attributes
necessary to develop into mind, as well as he can have from the first made
the attributes of mind wholly different from those of matter, only in order
afterwards, by an imperceptible and incomprehensible link, to join the two
together?
“ * * [The decombination of the matter on which mind rests] is this a reason
why mind must be annihilated? Is the temporary reverting of the mind, and
of the sense out of which that mind developes, to their original component
elements, a reason for thinking that they cannot again at another later
period, and in another higher globe, be again recombined, and with more
splendour than before? * * The New Testament does not after death here
promise us a soul hereafter unconnected with matter, and which has no
connexion with our present mind—a soul independent of time and space.
That is a fanciful idea, not founded on its expressions, when taken in their
just and real meaning. On the contrary, it promises us a mind like the
present, founded on time and space; since it is, like the present, to hold a
certain situation in time, and a certain locality in space. But it promises a
mind situated in portions of time and of space different from the present; a

mind composed of elements of matter more extended, more perfect, and
more glorious: a mind which, formed of materials supplied by different
globes, is consequently able to see farther into the past, and to think farther
into the future, than any mind here existing: a mind which, freed from the
partial and uneven combination incidental to it on this globe, will be exempt
from the changes for evil to which, on the present globe, mind as well as
matter is liable, and will only thenceforth experience the changes for the
better which matter, more justly poised, will alone continue to experience: a
mind which, no longer fearing the death, the total decomposition, to which
it is subject on this globe, will thenceforth continue last and immortal.”—
Hope, on the Origin and Prospects of Man, 1831.
[331] Dublin Review, Aug. 1840. The Guarantee Society has since been
established, and is likely to become a useful and prosperous institution.
[333] The ray, which is considered the lowest in the scale of fishes, or next
to the crustaceans, gives the first faint representation of a brain in certain
scanty and medullary masses, which appear as merely composed of
enlarged origins of the nerves.
[335] If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of thought—that
is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and will—may be
presumed to have been brought to an exact measurement. The speed of
light has long been known to be about 192,000 miles per second, and the
experiments of Wheatstone have shewn that the electric agent travels (if I
may so speak) at the same rate, thus shewing a likelihood that one law rules
the movements of all the “imponderable bodies.” Mental action may
accordingly be presumed to have a rapidity equal to one hundred and
ninety-two thousand miles in the second—a rate evidently far beyond what
is necessary to make the design and execution of any of our ordinary
muscular movements apparently identical in point of time, which they are.
[346] Phrenological Journal, xv. 338.
[347] A pampered lap-dog, living where there is another of its own species,
will hide any nice morsel which it cannot eat, under a rug, or in some other
by-place, designing to enjoy it afterwards. I have seen children do the same
thing.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTIGES OF
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law
means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the
Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States
without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a
registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook,
except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying
royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge
anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg
eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do
practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by
U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any
other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you
agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License
available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing
Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work,
you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the
terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright)
agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement,
you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy
of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to
be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on
or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can
do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying
with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a
lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you
follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to
Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual
work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are

located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are
removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing
Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can
easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you
share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a
constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the
laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work.
The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status
of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied
or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with
this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in
the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country
where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from
texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice
indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the
work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without
paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a
work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on
the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs
1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the
permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply
with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed
by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project
Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the
copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License
terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any
other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently
displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or
immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the
official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no
additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of
exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work
in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format
must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph
1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing,
copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply
with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to
or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the
owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate
royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days
following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to
prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly
marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about
donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does
not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You
must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all
access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in
this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project

Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works
not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and
the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as,
but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that
damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except
for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to
you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE
THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT
EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE
THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you
can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund.
If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to

you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work
electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you
may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or
limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable
to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum
disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity
or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause
to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg
work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project
Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic
works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including
obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the

efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of
life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance
they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring
that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for
generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for
Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations
can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)
(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of
Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541.
Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s
laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516,
Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment

including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are
particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort,
much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not
received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have
not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against
accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us
with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the
United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods
and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including
checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg
electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with
anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg
eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions,
all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a

copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in
compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how
to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email
newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

back

back

back