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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
+by Robert Chambers
+
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+Title: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
+
+Author: Robert Chambers
+
+Release Date: December, 2004  [EBook #7116]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, VESTIGES OF CREATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the
+1844 John Churchill edition.
+
+
+
+
+VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION
+
+
+
+
+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, alpha alpha, 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 ?, 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 nebulae; 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 formulae.
+
+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 degrees Fahrenheit, becomes ice; raise the
+temperature to 212 degrees, 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 degrees, 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 AEtna.  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 laminae 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 laminae 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, leptaena;) 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 foecal 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 foetus 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 palaeozoic 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
+(equisetaceae), 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 (lycopodiaceae) 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
+equisetaceae, 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 naeggerathia,)
+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 coniferae 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 coniferae 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 palaeothrissum, palaeoniscus, 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 leptaena, 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
+palaeoniscus, 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 grallae, 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 cycadeae, "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
+equisetaceae, 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 algae, 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 exuviae
+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 exuviae 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 exuviae." {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
+exuviae 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 mosaesaurus, 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.  Confervae 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 cycadeae, 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 [Greek], the dawn;
+[Greek], recent;) second, the miocene, ([Greek], less;) third, older
+pliocene, ([Greek], 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,
+palaeotherium, 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 felinae, (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 felinae, 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 Dianae.  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 minutiae 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 foetal 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 laminae 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 laminae 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 laminae, 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 laminae 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 foetal 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 mammae 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 struphionidae (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 foetal
+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 foetus, 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 foetal 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 foetal 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 branchiae
+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 foetal progress; this holds true with regard to the vascular,
+nervous, and other systems alike.  It may be illustrated by a simple
+diagram.  The foetus of all the four classes may be supposed to
+advance in an identical condition to the point A.
+
+
+  M
+  |
+  | B
+  |/
+D + R
+  |/
+C + F
+  |/
+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 larvae 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 foetus is often left with one of the most
+important parts of its frame imperfectly developed:  the heart, for
+instance, goes no farther than the three-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 foetal 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.
+
+
+TABLE {226}
+
+Table shows:  scale of animal kingdom (the numbers indicate orders);
+order of animals in; ascending series of rocks; foetal human brain
+resembles, in
+
+(The numbers indicate orders)
+
+Rocks:  1. Gneiss and Mica Slate system
+Foetal:  1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
+
+Scale:  RADIATA (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
+Order:  Zoophyta, Polypiaria
+Rocks:  2. Clay Slate and Grawacke system
+Foetal:  1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
+
+Scale:  MOLLUSCA (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
+Order:  Conchifera, Double-shelled Mollusks
+Rocks:  3. Silurian system
+Foetal:  1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
+
+Scale:  ARTICULATA Annelida (12, 13, 14)
+Rocks:  3. Silurian system
+Foetal:  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
+Foetal:  1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
+
+Scale:  ARTICULATA Arachnida & Insecta (21-31)
+Order:  Crustaceous Fishes
+Rocks:  4. Old Red Sandstone
+Foetal:  1st month, that of an avertebrated animal;
+
+Scale:  VERTEBRATA Pisces (32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
+Order:  True Fishes
+Rocks:  5. Carboniferous formation
+Foetal:  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
+Foetal:  3rd month, that of a turtle;
+
+Scale:  VERTEBRATA Aves (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
+Order:  Birds
+Rocks:  6. New Red Sandstone
+Foetal:  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
+Foetal:  5th month, that of a rodent;
+
+Scale:  VERTEBRATA Mammalia:  52 Marsupialia
+Order:  Marsupialia (racoon, opossum, &c.)
+Rocks:  9. Lower Eocene
+Foetal:  6th month, that of a ruminant;
+
+Scale:  VERTEBRATA Mammalia:  53 Amphibia
+Order:  Marsupialia (racoon, opossum, &c.)
+Rocks:  9. Lower Eocene
+Foetal:  6th month, that of a ruminant;
+
+Scale:  VERTEBRATA Mammalia:  54 Digitigrada
+Order:  Digitigrada (genette, fox, wolf, &c.)
+Rocks:  10. Miocene
+Foetal:  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
+Foetal:  8th month, that of the quadrumana;
+
+Scale:  VERTEBRATA Mammalia:  59 Bimana
+Order:  Bimana (man)
+Rocks:  12. Superficial deposits
+Foetal:  9th month, attains full human character;
+
+
+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} ferae, 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 Birds.      Characters.       Tribes of Incessores.
+
+Incessores --Most perfect of their circle;      Conirostres.
+              notch of bill small
+Raptores   --Notch of bill like a tooth         Dentirostres.
+Natatores  --Slightly developed feet;           Fissirostres.
+              strong flight
+Grallatores--Small mouths; long soft bills      Tenuirostres.
+Rasores    --Strong feet, short wings;          Scansores.
+              docile and 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) . . .  Ferae.
+(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 ferae 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 ferae.  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 simiae, (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 proteae, compositae, leguminosae, and
+myrthoideae; 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,
+cebidae and simiadae, 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                   Corvidae.
+Sub-family               Corvinae.
+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 Ferae . . . 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 . .   Simiadae  . . .  (Monkeys of Old World.)
+Sub-typical . Cebidae   . . .  (Monkeys of New World.)
+Natatorial .  Unknown  .
+Suctorial . . Vespertilionidae (Bats.)
+Rasorial .    Lemuridae . .  . (Lemurs.)
+
+
+He considers the simiadae 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 simiadae 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 simiadae, (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    Simiadae.
+Natatorial     Vespertilionidae.
+Suctorial      Lemuridae.
+Rasorial       Cebidae.
+
+
+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 simiadae on one
+hand, and the cebidae on the other.  The five tribes of the order are
+completed, the vespertilionidae being shifted (provisionally) into
+the natatorial place, for which their appropriateness is so far
+evidenced by the aquatic habits of several of the tribe, and the
+lemuridae into the suctorial, to which their length of muzzle and
+remarkable saltatory power are highly suitable.  At the same time,
+the simiadae 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 cebidae 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 corvidae, 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
+corvidae, 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
+corvidae 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 corvidae as a
+typical group is above an aberrant one, the mammalia above the aves.
+Can any of the simiadae 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 corvidae.  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 simiadae rise to a
+climax in his pre-eminent mental nature.  His sub-analogy to the
+ferae 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 corvidae, 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.
+
+
+           /          /  |
+          /          /   |
+         /          /    |
+        /|         /|    |
+       / |        / |    |
+      /  |       /| |    |
+     /|  |      / | |    |
+    / |  |     /| | |    |
+   /| |  |    / | | |    |
+  / | |  |   /| | | |    |
+ /| | |  |  / | | | |    |
++-1-2-3--4-+--a-b-c-d----+ {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, (corvidae,) 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 corvidae, 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-Phoenician, 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 Abbe 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 foetus 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 foetus 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
+foetus 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 melee
+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 Cyclopaedia.
+
+{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 a 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 Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur.  1822.
+
+{52}  Delabeche's Geological Researches.
+
+{60}  In the Cumbrian limestone occur "calamoporae, 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 Dianae, 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 Cyclopaedia 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
+Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology.
+
+{179b}  The term aboriginal is here suggested, as more correct than
+spontaneous, the one hitherto generally used.
+
+{182}  Article "Zoophytes," Encyclopaedia 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 vertebrae 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 foetus 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}  [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.]
+
+{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
+simiadae are only too rigid, for fossil geology has since added new
+genera to this group and the cebidae, and there may be still farther
+additions.
+
+{270}  See Wilson's American Ornithology; article, Fishing Crow.
+
+{274}  [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 degrees and the line from the a,b,c,d
+being at around 60 degrees.  It isn't possible to reproduce this
+using normal characters.  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, [Greek], [Greek], 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.
+
+
+
+
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