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SITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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 SITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY 
 
LONDON : FEINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQT7ABB 
 AND PARLIAMENT STBEET 
 
ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY 
 
 COMPARED 
 
 BY LORD ORMATHWAITE 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1872 
 
Q.ni 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PART I. ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY COMPARED 1 
 
 II. REMARKS ON THE THEORIES OF MR. DARWIN 
 
 AND MR. BUCKLE 57 
 
 III. PROGRESS AND CIVILISATION . . .112 
 
I MUST PREFACE these pages by a few words of 
 explanation. The decay of my eye-sight has within 
 the last year incapacitated me from reading or 
 writing. Cut off by this affliction from my usual 
 mental employments, I have found relief and 
 occupation to my thoughts in dictating these 
 essays to a short-hand writer. This mode of writing 
 will excuse any inaccuracies or mistakes which 
 I may have committed. 
 
 WAEFIELD PARK, BRACKNELL : 
 December 1, 1871. 
 
ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY 
 
 COMPAEED. 
 
 THERE is a certain affinity between these two sciences : 
 they have this feature in common that each in its 
 respective province extends the intellectual vision 
 of Man far beyond the limits of his present mortal 
 existence. They enable him to comprehend a vast 
 portion of those *two great infinities of time and of 
 space by which he is surrounded. How wonderful 
 that a being so 'ephemeral, whose life is compressed 
 within the bounds of some seventy or eighty years at 
 the utmost, and is cribbed and tethered to a narrow 
 spot on this earth's surface, should thus be enabled 
 to traverse in thought such a boundless area ! Our 
 first sentiment is perhaps one of melancholy and dis- 
 couragement. When we contrast our own nothing- 
 ness with the immensity of the Universe, which these 
 sciences disclose to us, how infinitesimally small we 
 
 B 
 
2 Astronomy and Geology compared. 
 
 PT. I. 
 
 appear in our own eyes ; what mere atoms we are, 
 no more permanent than the flies which buzz through 
 a summer and then die ; no larger than the motes 
 which dance in the sunbeam I But our second 
 thoughts are more inspiring and consolatory. Is not 
 the fact that we are thus enabled to measure and to 
 comprehend so large a part of this mighty scheme, a 
 proof that we are connected with it by ties more 
 lasting than are at present visible to us ? The acts 
 of the Almighty are never purposeless, and the cir- 
 cumstance that we are thus permitted a prospect of 
 what is beyond us here, is one evidence, among the 
 many others which are afforded to us, of the truth of 
 those hopes which associate us with a larger future. 
 Not only do these two sciences afford us these 
 prospects beyond the boundaries of this present world, 
 but I think it will be found that they are the only 
 ones which do so. The other sciences, which add so 
 largely to our knowledge of the laws of nature here, 
 and place in our hands such vastly augmented powers 
 over the material world, deal almost exclusively with 
 sublunary matters. Chemistry, Electricity, Anatomy, 
 Botany, and many others, have their relations here. 
 Other sciences borrow, indeed, from Astronomy or 
 Geology, but they are merely dependent on them ; 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 3 
 
 they are secondary and subsidiary in their relations 
 to them. 
 
 For example, the two sciences of Navigation and 
 of Greography are largely indebted to Astronomy, 
 which points out to them the modes, by the means 
 of celestial observations, of verifying all the positions 
 on the earth's surface ; but Greography and Naviga- 
 tion only borrow from Astronomy the means by which 
 they make these calculations, they add nothing to 
 them, they only derive aid from them, they originate 
 nothing. 
 
 Although, as I have remarked, there is a close 
 connection, and, if I may use the expression, a sym- 
 pathy, between these two great sciences, yet, on the 
 other hand, there are several important differences 
 between them which it may be interesting to observe. 
 Let us endeavour to enumerate some of the most 
 striking and remarkable. 
 
 First. The dates of their birth differ as widely as 
 possible. Astronomy is about the oldest ; Greology 
 is nearly the youngest and last in the whole circle of 
 the sciences. We must carry our knowledge of the 
 commencement of Astronomy to the very beginning 
 of the historic period ; we must mount up to the 
 days of the Assyrian monarchy, and the periods of the 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 glories of Nineveh and Babylon ; we must picture to 
 ourselves the astronomers of that period watching 
 the celestial firmament in the clear, dark blue skies, 
 and through the transparent atmosphere, of Southern 
 Asia. Nor let us too hastily depreciate, or too scorn- 
 fully despise, the labours of these early pioneers on 
 the road of Astronomical science. True, they sup- 
 posed the earth the great centre of the universe, 
 and conceived that sun, moon, and stars made a 
 diurnal revolution round the earth, for the sole pur- 
 pose of warming and enlightening us. True, their 
 conceptions of the mechanism of the heavens, or of 
 the relative magnitude of the great bodies which 
 people the void, were utterly erroneous. Still we 
 must remember that science advances step by step ; 
 they were very accurate observers of all they saw ; 
 they noted with great truth and precision all the 
 apparent phenomena of the heavens ; they mapped 
 out very distinctly all the constellations which spangle 
 the vault of heaven ; they noticed very correctly all 
 the signs of the zodiac ; and to this day, although 
 we know how to interpret all the motions for which 
 they wanted the key, yet still we are contented to 
 adopt their fanciful map of the constellations, and 
 to use their nomenclature. Sir Greorge Cornewall 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 5 
 
 Lewis, in his interesting work on the ' Astronomy of 
 the Ancients,' has done justice to their labours. 
 Even, however, if we determine to ignore all these 
 early periods, if Pythagoras and Ptolemy groped and 
 blundered amidst confusion and error, and if we date 
 the birth of true Astronomy from the days of Coper- 
 nicus and Galileo, Kepler and Newton, it still has a 
 priority in date of well nigh 400 years over its sister 
 Geology, which cannot be said to have existed before 
 the very end of the last and the commencement of 
 the present century. 
 
 Another difference between the two sciences arises 
 from the periods to which they refer. Geology is 
 essentially a retrospective science ; it never looks 
 forward, it invites us to cast our regards behind us, 
 and. to endeavour through the obscurity of the past 
 to trace out the former conditions of the earth's sur- 
 face ; its pages are all written in the praeterpluper- 
 fect tense ; just as some wizard or necromancer in 
 the legends of the middle ages evoked by his potent 
 spells the spirits of departed mailed knights, beau- 
 teous dames, or crowned monarchs, so the modern 
 geologist calls out from their stony tombs the gaunt 
 skeletons of Ichthyosauri, Pterodactyls, Mastodons, 
 and Megatheriums, to astonish us with these relics of 
 
6 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 former creations. Geology has its being only in the 
 past, but Astronomy exists in the present. The vast 
 orbs which, in companionship with ourselves, roll 
 round the sun; that mighty luminary itself, the 
 centre and life of our system, exists now as surely as 
 we do ourselves, and will exist in after ages. The 
 dominion of Geology is restricted to the past ; 
 Astronomy is with us in the present, and will be 
 with us in the future. 
 
 Another and a very important distinction between 
 these two sciences is a difference in the nature of the 
 proofs upon which they rest. There are three great 
 methods of inquiry by which we advance to the 
 attainment of scientific truth, three roads on which 
 the human mind travels in the acquisition of 
 knowledge. The first of these is the study of the 
 Abstract and Exact Sciences of Arithmetic and of 
 pure Mathematics, whether in the form of Geometry 
 or of algebraical analysis, and their subsequent 
 application to the solution of all those problems 
 capable of being submitted to them. The second 
 is the accumulation, observation, comparison, and 
 analysis of the Evidence of Facts, and the de- 
 duction from them of uniform laws of nature and 
 fixed relations of cause and effect. The third is 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 1 
 
 the system of Experimental Philosophy which is 
 coupled with the great name of Bacon as its 
 inventor. Some farther consideration of the nature 
 of these three methods may not be superfluous. 
 
 The first of these, viz. the study of abstract science, 
 is distinguished from the other two by not being 
 dependent upon the evidence of facts. When its 
 principles have been determined, it is only necessary 
 to ascertain that the facts are in accordance with 
 the data required by the conditions of the problem ; 
 the result then follows as a matter of necessity. 
 For example, we are perfectly sure that 2 and 2 
 make 4 ; and although we know nothing of the state 
 of matters or of the conditions which exist in Sirius 
 or the Pleiades, or any other of the constellations, 
 yet we are perfectly certain that 2 and 2 must 
 make 4 there as they make 4 here. We are sure 
 that in no quarter of the universe can 2 and 2 make 
 3, or 5, or 7, or any number but 4 ; and it is not 
 necessary to adduce facts in confirmation of this 
 from any experience of the particular state of things 
 in any of these stars. What is true of this first and 
 simplest in the series of the multiplication table 
 must be true of all the others, though they may not 
 be quite so patent to the eyes ; it is as certain that 
 
8 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. T. 
 
 7 times 7 make 49 as that 2 and 2 make 4, and the 
 whole multiplication table must be as correct in the 
 star Arcturus as in any national school in the three 
 kingdoms where it is painfully drubbed into the 
 heads of puzzled ploughboys. The multiplication 
 table is one of the first stages in arithmetic ; 
 logarithms are amongst the most refined and the 
 most subtle, yet it is as impossible that the logarithm 
 of the tangent of the angle of 44 should be any- 
 thing less than 9-984837, or that the logarithm of 
 the number 365 should be anything but 2-562293 
 as that 2 and 2 should not make 4. Where the 
 principle is true the results must be always the 
 same. Eelying upon the correctness in the prin- 
 ciples of logarithms, mathematicians use them to 
 facilitate their most abstruse calculations. What 
 is true in arithmetic is equally true in every descrip- 
 tion of pure mathematics. When the young student 
 has mastered the pons asinorum in his Euclid, he 
 knows absolutely that the two angles at the base of 
 an isosceles triangle are equal ; he does not require 
 to seek for a confirmation of this in the evidence of 
 fact; it is not necessary for him to measure 100 or 
 1,000 or 10,000 isosceles triangles in corroboration 
 of. the demonstration of the fifth proposition of 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 9 
 
 Euclid ; it is quite sufficient for him to have con- 
 sulted the diagram and to have mastered the 
 demonstration in order to convince him that, under 
 all possible circumstances, and in every quarter of 
 the Universe wherever an isosceles triangle is found, 
 the angles at its base are equal. The demonstrations 
 upon which rest the truth of Newton's ' Principia,' 
 which may be regarded as the most refined examples 
 from geometrical proofs, are as certain and as fully 
 demonstrative as Euclid's fifth proposition can be ; 
 they are equally independent of the evidence of 
 fact, and facts when in accordance with them in the 
 planetary system must of necessity be bound by 
 them. The same reasoning applies to all the methods 
 of Algebraical analysis up to the Integral Calculus, 
 and the great distinguishing superiority of this mode 
 of reasoning follows throughout, that it is indepen- 
 dent of the evidence of facts, but facts must obey 
 its laws wherever the conditions are in conformity 
 with them. 
 
 The second method of proof is by establishing an 
 invariable and continuous connection of Cause and 
 Effect, by showing that certain events invariably 
 follow from certain antecedents, thereby establishing 
 a necessary connection between them. By this 
 
10 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 method of reasoning and observation a very high 
 degree of proof may be obtained, but it is not quite 
 so overwhelmingly convincing as are the conclusions 
 drawn from mathematical demonstration. Let us 
 compare two examples of proofs obtained by each 
 of these two methods. Nothing can be much more 
 certain upon this earth than that every oak has 
 sprung originally from an acorn, and that a sackful 
 of acorns planted at the proper season and in favour- 
 able soil will produce a whole crop of young oaks ; 
 but our only ground for believing this is founded 
 upon the past experience of similar facts. We can 
 have no possible means of knowing, if shown an 
 acorn for the first time, that it would produce an 
 oak ; no reasoning of the a priori kind could lead 
 us to such a conclusion ; we know that the con- 
 sequence will be such merely from universal pre- 
 vious experience. The nature of the proof differs 
 altogether from that by which we arrive at the 
 certainty that the angles at the base of an isosceles 
 triangle are equal. In the one case the result is 
 certain under all circumstances, and arises from the 
 nature of things. In the other it is a consequence 
 which we have observed to follow under existing 
 conditions from certain premises, but we cannot 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 11 
 
 trace the connection ourselves, and only that, so far 
 as our experience extends, it uniformly follows. 
 
 Mr. Babbage, in his ' Passages from the Life of a 
 Philosopher,' gives an instance of the possible error 
 which may lurk under these arguments, founded on 
 the principle that similar causes will always produce 
 similar effects. He says that he observed that he 
 could set his calculating machine to such a point 
 that a certain combination would be produced a 
 million of times, but at the million-and-first the 
 result would be different. Anyone, he said, merely 
 reasoning from cause and effect would conclude at 
 the 999,000th time that at the million-and-first time 
 the same result would follow which had already 
 preceded so many similar trials ; yet he would be 
 wrong, and his reasoning would be proved to be fal- 
 lacious. Still, although the certainty is not so 
 absolute or the proof so overwhelming as in cases 
 where the reasoning is founded on mathematical 
 demonstration, a degree of proof almost amounting 
 to certainty may be attained through the evidence of 
 facts. We must however admit the possibility of 
 error, and adopt conclusions based upon the relations 
 of cause and effect, with a slight reservation. 
 
 The third method of inquiry does not differ alto- 
 
12 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 gather in principle from the second, in the same 
 manner as they both differ from the first. The second 
 and third methods are both founded upon the evidence 
 of fact and the relations traced between cause and 
 effect. They differ from each other in the manner 
 of attaining this evidence and of tracing these rela- 
 tions of cause and effect. In the second method the 
 inquirer merely observes ; he watches, and notes, and 
 chronicles the operations of nature as he witnesses 
 them ; but in the process of experimental philosophy 
 the enterprising and inquiring spirit of Man takes a 
 bolder step. He is not satisfied with the mere passive 
 part of an observer, he renders himself an active 
 agent ; he not only observes but directs, he brings 
 into exercise that highest gift accorded by his Creator 
 to Man, the -faculty of imitating in however faint 
 and imperfect a manner the acts of Omnipotence, 
 and becoming in a remote and secondary degree an 
 Intelligent Cause. He is no longer satisfied merely 
 to observe : he interrogates nature by the means of 
 experiments, he asks questions of her, he twists the 
 materials in his hands into new and artificial com- 
 binations, he brings substances together which would 
 naturally have always remained apart, he probes 
 the depths hitherto unrevealed. Sometimes he 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 13 
 
 flings himself purely at hazard into the bosom of 
 nature, and by accident discovers some novel secret ; 
 at another time he pursues some already discovered 
 analogy up to fresh results ; he resembles a skilful 
 counsel cross-examining a reluctant witness, and 
 he forces some concealed truth into light by dint of 
 questions, each experiment being a question. By 
 this process most of the great discoveries in the 
 natural sciences have been arrived at. Experimental 
 philosophy did not originate with Bacon, although 
 the name of the system might. Those who first 
 discovered that tin and copper combined produced 
 bronze were experimental philosophers ; those who 
 discovered that a mass of grapes left to ferment 
 produced wine were experimental philosophers, and 
 very useful ones too. This third method of experi- 
 mental philosophy is, in other words, the intellect 
 and energy of Man guiding him to become an 
 intelligent and active agent, producing those great 
 discoveries by which he has obtained such mastery 
 .over the material world. It is the great element of 
 that Progress which we hear so often spoken of and 
 so frequently misunderstood ; its power seems by no 
 means exhausted, and it is quite possible that the 
 energy of Man will add many new discoveries to 
 
14 Astronomy and Geology compared. 
 
 FT. I. 
 
 those which have already rendered him the monarch 
 of the material world. It is worth remark also, in 
 days when a certain sect of philosophers seems 
 always intent upon levelling Man to the condition 
 of an animal, that this faculty of originating new 
 effects by new combinations, the offspring of intelli- 
 gence, is not shared in the remotest degree by any of 
 the lower animals it is the sole prerogative of Man. 
 
 These three methods of inquiry appear to me to 
 be distinct from each other, but they are not incom- 
 patible ; the philosopher may employ one or two, or 
 all three of them, as he may find them to be most 
 available for his purpose ; in point of fact, in the 
 study of most sciences they are so employed. 
 
 In applying these principles to the consideration 
 of the evidence by which Astronomy and Geology 
 are respectively supported, we find that Astronomy 
 rests upon the double basis of observation and pure 
 mathematical reasoning. The evidence of fact has 
 accumulated in immense stores. The perfection 
 which modern telescopes have attained, particularly 
 since the days of the elder Herschel, multiplies a 
 hundredfold the powers of the human eye. 
 
 Every appearance of the heavens, every motion of 
 the bodies comprising our solar system, are scanned 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 15 
 
 and noted with extraordinary accuracy. Within the 
 last century two planets of first-class magnitude and 
 importance (Uranus and Neptune) have been dis- 
 covered. A numerous body of asteroids have been 
 found occupying a large space in our system be- 
 tween Mars and Jupiter. The appearance of any 
 comet within the circumference of our system 
 is immediately perceived, and its course watched 
 and measured. All the motions of the planetary 
 bodies and of their satellites are distinctly visible to 
 us through these great and powerful telescopes. 
 Their changes of position and their revolutions 
 round the sun can be traced with the minutest 
 accuracy, and all this array of facts can thus be 
 marshalled in confirmation of the truth of that great 
 solar system which it is the glory of modern 
 astronomy to have discovered. All this can be 
 established by pursuing the second method that of 
 reasoning on the evidence of facts ; but Astronomy 
 can be supported on that still sounder and more 
 certain basis of pure mathematical demonstration. 
 The ' Principia ' of Newton and the ' Analysis ' of 
 Laplace draw their proofs from the sources of pure 
 mathematics. It is this combination of the results 
 of these two methods which gives to Astronomy, at 
 
16 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 least so far as it relates to our own solar system, 
 such absolute certainty in calculating the magni- 
 tudes, the distances, the velocities, and the motions 
 of the different bodies composing the planetary 
 system ; we cannot conceive the possibility of error. 
 The novel and bold theories of Professor Stokes and 
 others, founded upon the results of the spectroscope 
 and calculations of the velocity of light, carry the 
 speculations of the astronomer beyond the bounds of 
 our own solar system, in an attempt to measure the 
 distance of the fixed stars, and to trace motion in 
 those bodies which hitherto were deemed stationary. 
 I will not attempt to follow those daring specula- 
 tions through those new fields on which they invite 
 us to enter. No doubt the enterprising energy of 
 those philosophers will explore these new regions of 
 science, should they prove accessible to the powers 
 of Man. I am contented for the purposes of this 
 essay to restrict myself within the bounds of our 
 own solar system, which has been so thoroughly 
 understood and established. Should it prove pos- 
 sible to future astronomers to extend our knowledge, 
 no new discovery lying altogether beyond the limits 
 of our own system can disturb the calculations we 
 have arrived at, or shake the truths which have 
 
FT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 17 
 
 been so firmly established. We may attain a yet 
 wider knowledge, we may complete our acquaintance 
 of a still more comprehensive scheme of Omnipo- 
 tence, but such additions cannot disturb the know- 
 ledge we have already attained. I will only remark, 
 that the reasoning of these gentlemen seems in great 
 degree to be founded upon the third method that 
 of experimental philosophy ; the use of the spectro- 
 scope seems to belong to it. 
 
 When we turn to Geology, we perceive at once 
 that it stands on a far narrower basis than its sister 
 science; it derives no support from pure mathe- 
 matics. A state of things which has passed away, 
 and which we can only imperfectly conjecture, 
 cannot afford the data necessary for mathematical 
 demonstration. Perhaps some small exception may 
 be made in favour of those calculations as to time, 
 which are afforded by the accumulation of deposits 
 at the mouths of great rivers, by the rate of the 
 formation of peat morasses, or of the growth of 
 primeval forests, which may afford a loose and 
 general ground of arithmetical calculation. With 
 these trifling exceptions, Geology must rest entirely 
 upon the evidence of facts, and it must be owned 
 that these facts are neither so numerous nor so well 
 
18 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 ascertained as those relating to Astronomy. As I 
 think I already observed, they are derived from the 
 relics of former conditions of our Grlobe ; they cannot 
 be tested by comparison with what now exists ; 
 they are also very much scattered and unconnected. 
 We cannot refer to any former period of the world's 
 history as indicating a state of things complete in 
 itself; each of the various strata which geologists 
 trace beneath the earth's surface seems to refer to 
 a period of transition between the stratum imme- 
 diately below and that above it. Each of these 
 strata contains many of the older species of plants 
 and animals, and each contains many new animals. 
 At each step many of the older varieties disappear, 
 and many new ones appear ; but all this renders the 
 evidence of facts upon which they are founded 
 exceedingly complicated and difficult to trace. We 
 long for the certainties of mathematical demonstra- 
 tion, and for the power of examining the present. 
 Where all the theory is founded upon the evidence 
 of facts, and of facts so scattered and so remote, our 
 calculations are liable to be disturbed at every turn 
 by new facts inconsistent with the results we 
 imagined that we had realised. 
 
 An example of this may be found in the different 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 19 
 
 theories respecting the 'age of Man and his first 
 appearance upon the earth. The earlier geologists 
 had adopted the conclusion that the creation of man 
 corresponded in time very nearly with the chrono- 
 logy of Genesis; all their calculations have been 
 disturbed by some later discoveries. There have 
 been discovered under some peat bogs and morasses 
 in the neighbourhood of Amiens a great number 
 of spear-heads rudely chiselled, but which are 
 apparently the work of human beings. It is con- 
 sidered certain that a much longer period would be 
 required for the formation of the morasses of peat 
 under which these relics are buried, and this fact 
 alone has shaken all the conclusions of former geolo- 
 gists. There have subsequently been discovered also 
 caves in which human bones have been found in 
 proximity with those of some species of quadrupeds 
 which have long become extinct; and this has 
 thrown still farther doubt upon the date to be 
 assigned to the first appearance of man upon the 
 Globe. No question can be more profoundly in- 
 teresting to us, whether upon physiological, moral, 
 or theological grounds, than that of the date of man's 
 creation : and yet these latter discoveries appear 
 to have enveloped it in the greatest uncertainty. 
 c 2 
 
20 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 Incomplete and defective as the evidence of facts in 
 Greology appears to be, yet much has been established 
 from the mine of facts, which is still rich in new 
 materials ; and the tendency must be to strengthen 
 and improve our knowledge as fresh stores come to 
 light. Many of the principles of Greology may be 
 considered as established, and future labours will 
 doubtless confirm them, and correct any existing 
 errors. 
 
 The general conditions which geologists may con- 
 sider as being established are, first of all, the im- 
 measurable antiquity of the earth ; secondly, the 
 existence of different and separate periods indicated 
 by various strata containing the fossil remains of 
 animals and plants proper to them. The series of 
 these strata is never found inverted; particular 
 strata may be found wanting in any locality, but 
 older strata are never found over more modern for- 
 mations. It may be remarked that one great de- 
 fect pervades Greology, as far as it has yet been ex- 
 plored, which is the entire vagueness and uncertainty 
 of all its chronology. Whether the various epochs 
 embraced 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 or 5,000,000 
 of years is a calculation on which Geology has 
 hitherto failed to afford the slightest light, or to 
 make any estimate. 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 21 
 
 The extent embraced by Geology is no doubt a 
 very large one, particularly when considered with 
 reference to the earth and to man. It includes not 
 only the whole existing surface of the Globe, but a 
 number of former surfaces which it would appear 
 have been successively covered by new formations. 
 Geology may thus be regarded as embracing not 
 only the present surface of the Globe, but several 
 other former surfaces now buried beneath it. When, 
 however, we contrast it with the extent of the whole 
 Solar System, it shrinks into comparatively small 
 proportions. We find that the Earth itself is but a 
 planet of a secondary magnitude and importance in 
 the system. The eight principal planets which 
 revolve round the Sun may be divided into two 
 classes: the four nearest the Sun, consisting of 
 Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars ; and the four 
 most remote, composed of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, 
 and Neptune. The difference in magnitude of the 
 four nearest and the four most remote is very con- 
 siderable, Jupiter being 590 and the Sun 602,000 
 times larger than the four Terrestrial planets com- 
 bined. The division as to space also is great, since 
 the first four planets revolve within an area the 
 radius of which is not one-third of the distance be- 
 tween the Sun and Jupiter and one-twentieth of the 
 
22 Astronomy and Geology compared. 
 
 PT. I. 
 
 distance to Neptune, the most remote of the known 
 planets. The subjoined table of the diameters, 
 volume or cubic contents, and the distances from 
 the Sun of the eight principal planets, and of the 
 Sun's diameter and volume, will render the com- 
 parison more obvious : 
 
 Name of 
 
 Planet 
 
 l 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 Mean. Diameter 
 
 Mean distance 
 from Sun. 
 Miles 
 
 Volume or Cubic Contents 
 
 Miles 
 
 Earth's=l 
 
 Millions of Miles: 
 
 Earth's=l 
 
 Mercury \ 
 Venus . ! 
 Earth . f * 
 Mars J 
 
 3,058 
 7,510 
 7,912 
 4,363 
 
 0-387 
 0-949 
 1-000 
 0-551 
 
 35,392,000 
 66,134,000 
 91,430,000 
 139,311,000 
 
 14,973 
 
 221,778 
 259.333 
 43,486 
 
 0-0577 
 0-855 
 1-000 
 0-168 
 
 Jupiter .] 
 Saturn . ! 
 Uranus . ft 
 Neptune . ) 
 
 84,846 
 70,136 
 33,247 
 37,276 
 
 10-724 
 8-865 
 4-202 
 4-711 
 
 475,692,000 
 872,137,000 
 1,753,869,000 
 2,745.998,000 
 
 319,811,264 
 180,643,616 
 19,242.302 
 27,119,866 
 
 1,233-205 
 696-685 
 74-199 
 104-575 
 
 Sun . . 
 
 852,908 
 
 107-799 
 
 
 
 324,867,451,701 
 
 1,252,691-000 
 
 * The four nearer or terrestrial planets, 
 f The four farther or major planets. 
 
 J The cubic contents are calculated as if the planets were spheres, and no 
 account is taken of their trifling spheriodicity. 
 
 It will be observed, by the comparative estimate 
 in the foregoing table (column 5), how small and 
 insignificant is the Earth when compared with the 
 larger planets, and still more strikingly, with the 
 Sun itself. There is one remark which suggests 
 itself in this comparison, and that is, notwithstand- 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 23 
 
 ing the immense disproportion in size between the 
 Earth and the Sun, how much more close and inti- 
 mate is their connection than that between the 
 Earth and any of the other planets. If Jupiter 
 should leave his place in our system, and set out on 
 the grand tour through all the constellations of the 
 firmament, or if Venus should elope with a comet, 
 such events would occasion great amazement and 
 consternation throughout all the observatories of 
 Europe, scientific societies would be holding meet- 
 ings in all the principal cities, and the gravest 
 professors would be in a state of almost frenzied 
 excitement. But all this while, if there were no 
 newspapers or journals to tell the tale, it may be 
 doubted whether the great bulk of the people would 
 ever find out anything about the matter. Neither 
 Jupiter nor Venus would be missed from their 
 accustomed places by ordinary mortals, nor is there 
 any proof that their disappearance would sensibly 
 affect the remaining members of the system; but 
 we are all aware that light and warmth and ex- 
 istence itself depend entirely upon the presence of 
 the Sun : were his rays withdrawn from us for even 
 the briefest space of time, utter extinction would be 
 the inevitable consequence. 
 
24 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 Here I propose to limit my comparison to the 
 Solar System. I will not venture to enter upon 
 those larger speculations which have been lately 
 opened by Professor Stokes and others in the field 
 of Sidereal Astronomy. I think it is sufficient for 
 my purpose to point out the vast disproportion in 
 size between the Earth and the other members of 
 our own system, and show that our world itself is 
 but a very small fraction of that great whole. When 
 we endeavour to pass beyond the limits of our own 
 system, we leave behind us our two great props and 
 aids the powers of the telescope and the resources 
 afforded by pure mathematics. Before these specu- 
 lations had been started, we possessed certain negative 
 testimonies with regard to the sidereal system lying 
 beyond our own. We knew that the range of our 
 own telescopes extended to the utmost limits of our 
 own system ; as therefore they were powerless when 
 applied to the fixed stars, it followed, as a natural 
 consequence, that the latter were greatly more re- 
 mote even than the most distant of our own planets. 
 We might also infer that, as the light of the Sun 
 can but feebly illuminate our own remoter planets, 
 it would produce no effect upon those still vaster 
 distances, and therefore that the fixed stars shine, 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 25 
 
 like the Sun itself, by their own light, and are, in 
 fact, also suns. Should the calculations of Professor 
 Stokes be confirmed and the distances of the fixed 
 stars ascertained, these discoveries would only con- 
 firm what we possess a negative knowledge of 
 already that these stars are infinitely remote. The 
 same observation, however, would not apply to the 
 fact, if established, that the stars are not fixed, but 
 moved. Such a result would induce the belief, 
 either that they wandered about in space without 
 any guiding law, or that they were governed by 
 some more comprehensive system of which we only 
 could reach a part. 
 
 We now approach the consideration of an essen- 
 tial difference of vast importance between these two 
 sciences. The magnitude of the consequences in- 
 volved in this difference it is impossible to estimate. 
 The distinction upon which I am about to remark is 
 no less than that of an absolute and entire difference 
 between the main principles of astronomical and 
 geological science. The Solar System is governed 
 by a law of fixity ; by which I mean, of course, not 
 that the bodies which compose it are stationary, but 
 that all their motions and the revolutions which 
 they make round the Sun as a common centre are 
 
26 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 periodical, but are always the same. The Solar 
 System may be compared to a vast clock, all the 
 wheels and mechanism of which are perfect, and 
 which keeps time with unvarying correctness. In 
 illustration of this proposition, we may select at 
 hazard any one of the parts of this great system, and 
 the result will be the same. 
 
 For example, let us take the Earth's annual revo- 
 lution in its orbit round the Sun. The distance 
 traversed is about 574,310,000 miles, and the velo- 
 city at which the Earth moves in accomplishing this 
 revolution is 65,518 miles an hour, or 18-2 miles 
 per second. Yet this prodigious space is traversed 
 by the Earth every year to a second of time. The 
 difference in the mode of computing the year, 
 whether the sidereal or solar day is adopted, does 
 not in the least affect this argument. The exactness 
 of the Earth's revolution is, in point of time, the 
 same in each. The consequences resulting from 
 this are invariably the same, as is the motion of 
 the Earth itself. For example, the lengthening and 
 the shortening of the days in any given latitude 
 are the same in each succeeding year. The motion 
 of the Earth through its orbit is not less wonder- 
 fully exact when considered with reference to space 
 
FT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 27 
 
 than it is to time ; it not only occupies the same 
 time to a second, but it traverses exactly the same 
 orbit. This may be verified by observations of the 
 position of the Earth with reference to the con- 
 stellations, and in passing through the different 
 signs of the zodiac at different periods of the year. 
 We find that its relative bearing to the fixed stars, 
 which determines its place in the heavens, is always 
 the same at the same period of the year. 
 
 Another proof of the absolute precision and uni- 
 formity by which all the motions of the heavenly 
 bodies are regulated may be drawn from the methods 
 to ascertain the longitude. The general principle 
 upon which the observations for this purpose are 
 founded is of course familiar to all educated persons. 
 The daily revolution of the Earth round its axis 
 from west to east takes place in twenty-four hours. 
 The 360, therefore, into which every one of the 
 parallels of latitude is divided, are traversed at the 
 rate of 15 per hour, or 1 in four minutes. IF, 
 therefore, any particular meridian is adopted, say 
 the meridian of Greenwich, as the line from which 
 the distances in longitude are calculated, the differ- 
 ence in time between that meridian and any point 
 on the Earth's surface will correspond with the 
 
28 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 distance in degrees and miles east or west of that 
 meridian. Say, for instance, that when it is twelve 
 o'clock at Greenwich, it is eleven o'clock at some 
 point to the west of Greenwich, we then know that 
 the distance is 15; or if, on the contrary, it is one 
 o'clock at the place of observation and it is twelve 
 o'clock at Greenwich, we know that we must be 15 
 to the east of Greenwich. But, in order to institute 
 this comparison, it is necessary to possess the means 
 of ascertaining the exact time at Greenwich and at 
 the place of observation simultaneously. The time 
 at the place of observation is obtained by certain 
 astronomical observations, which it is not necessary 
 now to particularize. The time at Greenwich is 
 calculated by two methods. The first and easiest is 
 by a chronometer set to Greenwich time, and there- 
 fore indicating the hour at that place, wherever the 
 chronometer is taken. The great improvements 
 which have been made in the construction of chro- 
 nometers has rendered this simple method one of 
 considerable accuracy. It is exceedingly valuable to 
 navigators in conjunction with that more scientific 
 process, by lunar observation, as verifying a cor- 
 rection of any error in the reckoning, and also as 
 filling up the blank occasioned by any interruption 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 29 
 
 in the state of the weather. Pocket chronometers 
 are also of the greatest use to travellers by land in 
 the remote and unknown quarters of the globe, as 
 in the interior of Africa or Australia, or in Central 
 Asia, where a ready and portable means of deter- 
 mining the longitude of places is an invaluable aid 
 to geography. Nevertheless, as the best chronometers 
 are liable to irregularities and cannot always wholly 
 be relied upon, the means of ascertaining the longi- 
 tude by astronomical observation had long been a 
 great desideratum to the navigator. The motion of 
 a ship at sea threw considerable difficulties in the 
 accomplishment of this object, where such great 
 accuracy in the observation is requisite. A reward 
 of 30,000. was long offered in the last century for 
 the attainment of this object ; but although a large 
 portion of this reward was given to Mr. Harrison 
 for his chronometer in 1767, yet, as perfect accuracy 
 has never yet been obtained either by chronometers 
 or, in consequence of the motion of the ship, by 
 lunar observation, the whole 30,000. has never been 
 adjudged. Still, however, the tables constructed by 
 the Board of Longitude, and inserted in the Nautical 
 Almanac, do give the means of determining the 
 longitude with perfect accuracy, subject only to the 
 
30 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 error which may arise from the motion of the ship. 
 It is evident from the foregoing that, as the deter- 
 mination of the longitude is arrived at by ascertain- 
 ing the time at two places simultaneously, the 
 astronomical means of effecting this is by converting 
 the heavens into one great clock, from which the 
 observer can read the hour as from a dial-plate ; 
 and in order to accomplish this, three things are 
 necessary. First, to ascertain the exact time at the 
 place of observation; secondly, to know, by the 
 position of the Sun, Moon, and stars, the corre- 
 sponding time at Greenwich; and, thirdly, that the 
 motions of these bodies should be so uniform and 
 regular as to enable the astronomer to calculate 
 beforehand what will be their exact apparent dis- 
 tances from each other at every hour of the twenty- 
 four. Now it is this last calculation which is made 
 in the Nautical Almanac for every year, and which 
 is in constant use in navigation, and which furnishes 
 a convincing proof of two astronomical facts. First, 
 the wonderful accuracy and regularity of the move- 
 ments of the Earth and its attendant Moon through- 
 out the whole of its annual revolution. Secondly, 
 the thorough mastery which astronomical science 
 must have obtained over the knowledge requisite 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 31 
 
 for these calculations, so as to enable astronomers to 
 calculate them beforehand with such perfect correct- 
 ness. Let us see what are the elements upon which 
 they are founded. The Sun and the stars may be 
 considered as stationary, and the Earth as describing 
 its annual revolution in its orbit through the void 
 between the Sun and the stars ; while this is being 
 accomplished, the Moon is describing her monthly 
 revolution round the Earth and accompanying it in 
 its progress. Now it is evident that, although the 
 positions of the Sun and the stars are in fact 
 stationary, yet they appear to alter to an observer 
 upon the Earth as it proceeds on its course ; but as 
 the Earth pursues exactly the same track in each 
 succeeding year, her relative apparent position to 
 each of the stars will be the same as it was in the 
 same day and hour in the preceding year ; and also 
 with regard to the Moon, which revolves round the 
 Earth in the same manner, her apparent distances 
 from the Sun and from the several stars will be the 
 same ; but the whole certainty of these results will 
 depend upon the perfect accuracy of this complicated 
 calculation, viz., the exact coincidence in time and 
 place of the Earth's track round the Sun, and also 
 of the Moon's revolution round the Earth. These 
 
32 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 data being given, and the position of the Sun and 
 stars being assumed as fixed, the apparent distance 
 of the Moon from different stars will be calculated 
 with certainty. The calculations, however, are 
 necessarily very complicated, as they involve the 
 two motions of the Earth round the Sun, and of 
 the Moon round the Earth, and when we see in the 
 Nautical Almanac that these calculations are made 
 to decimals of a second, we may form a conception 
 both of the labour required and of the thorough 
 knowledge of both these motions to calculate them 
 beforehand with such minuteness. 
 
 A similar illustration of the uniformity in all 
 the motions of the heavenly bodies composing our 
 planetary system, and of the correctness with which 
 astronomers are enabled to calculate them, may be 
 furnished by the observations of the satellites of 
 Jupiter. This planet, as may be seen in the fore- 
 going table, has a mean distance from the centre of 
 the Sun of 475,692,000 miles ; its distance from the 
 Earth varies in proportion to the position of each 
 planet in their respective orbits. When the Sun 
 is exactly between Jupiter and the Earth, their 
 distance then is the whole distance of the Earth 
 from the Sun, added to the whole distance between 
 
PT. I. 
 
 Astronomy and Geology compared. 33 
 
 the Sun and Jupiter, viz. 567,122,000 miles; when 
 the Earth is directly between the Sun and Jupiter, 
 the distance is diminished by the distance of the 
 Earth from the Sun, viz. 384,262,000 miles, and 
 the distances vary within these limits, in proportion 
 to the position of the planets in their respective 
 orbits. Now at these immense distances, the moment 
 of the eclipse of the satellites is calculated to seconds 
 reduced to Greenwich time, and another means is 
 thus given of ascertaining the longitude. Thus we 
 find that the revolutions of the. satellites of Jupiter 
 round that planet are known to us with as much 
 accuracy as the revolutions of our Moon round the 
 Earth, and that they are equally regular . and 
 constant. 
 
 A still more convincing proof of the uniformity 
 and regularity of the motions of the planets is to be 
 found in the periodical transits of Venus over the 
 Sun's disc. As Venus is 25,296,000 miles nearer to 
 the Sun than the Earth is, the orbit in which she 
 describes her revolution is contained entirely within 
 ours ; if, therefore, the orbits were in the same 
 plane, or, to use a more popular form of expression, 
 upon the same level, Venus would be continually 
 passing and repassing between the Sun and the 
 
 D 
 
34 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 Earth ; but this does not occur, because the orbit of 
 Venus is not in the same plane with that of the 
 Earth, but is, as it were, tilted up on one side and 
 down on the other, to use a very unscientific mode 
 of expression ; or, as astronomers would say, the 
 orbit of Venus is inclined at a certain angle to the 
 orbit of the Earth. When, therefore, Venus, in her 
 revolution, passes between the Earth and the Sun, 
 she does so, to use the same popular and unscientific 
 mode of expression, either at a height above, or at 
 a depth below the exact line between the centres of 
 the Sun and of the Earth ; Venus only passes 
 directly between the Earth and the Sun on those 
 rare occasions when the planes of the two orbits 
 intersect each other, so that a line drawn from the 
 centre of the Earth to the centre of the Sun would 
 pass through the centre of Venus. Now, in con- 
 sequence of the angle of inclination of these orbits 
 to each other, such a result happens but rarely ; it 
 only takes place at intervals of 105 and of 8 years, 
 two transits following each other at the short in- 
 terval, and then the long period of 105 years 
 elapsing before another takes place. Now the proof 
 of the great exactness and uniformity in the motions 
 of both these planets is found in the fact that these 
 
PT. T. Astronomy and Geology compared. 35 
 
 transits can be foretold with the same precision as 
 that with which we calculate the eclipses of our 
 own Moon. This shows that in 105 years not the 
 slightest change takes place in the revolutions of 
 either. 
 
 Many other illustrations might be afforded in. 
 proof of the foregoing facts, establishing the per- 
 fect uniformity and exact periodical recurrence of 
 all the motions of the bodies composing the Solar 
 System, governed as they are by the universal law 
 of gravitation. Indeed, there is no part of that 
 system which does not corroborate the truth of these 
 principles. Wherever slight disturbances have been 
 discovered, they have been found to result from the 
 effects of the law of gravitation acting by the dif- 
 ferent planets upon each other, and therefore slightly 
 modifying the force of gravitation exercised by the 
 Sun itself. These were first traced by Laplace, but 
 they always furnished, upon examination, a corrobo- 
 ration of the proof of the great principles upon 
 which the Solar System rests. The last instance of 
 this kind is to be found in the simultaneous dis- 
 covery of the planet Neptune by our own country- 
 man Mr. Adams, and by M. Le Verrier, deduced 
 from the observation of slight irregularities in the 
 D 2 
 
36 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 motion of the planet Uranus. But the calculations 
 of astronomers prove that none of these irregularities 
 permanently derange the system; they are com- 
 pensated for in the whole action, and the stability 
 of the system is never permanently affected by 
 them. 
 
 The researches of astronomers have never found 
 in any part of this glorious scheme the principle of 
 decay ; those who entertain a firm belief in the 
 existence of the Great First Cause, acknowledge 
 indeed with reverence and awe that He who created 
 this great work of His omnipotence could, if He so 
 pleased, destroy it ; but there is no indication what- 
 ever to be found of such a purpose ; as far as 
 human knowledge and foresight extend, our Solar 
 System bears the evidence of being eternal. We 
 may remark that, as there is no perceptible symptom 
 of the germ of decay, so, on the other hand, we can 
 never discern any mark of progress ; no fifth satel- 
 lite is in process of formation to add to the light of 
 Jupiter, nor is Mars furnished with a moon, although, 
 his being more remote from the Sun than the Earth, 
 he may consider himself as somewhat unfairly 
 treated ; the numerous asteroids, or small frag- 
 mentary planets, which float in the large vacant 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 37 
 
 space between Mars and Jupiter, show no symptom 
 of congregating together, although they might form 
 a planet of respectable dimensions. Progress and 
 decay are equally imperceptible in our Solar System. 
 Some theologists and divines may be startled at 
 this view, which they may consider at variance with 
 the prophecies of Scripture, which so frequently 
 refer to the end of the world ; but I think that no 
 such discrepancy will, on consideration, be found to 
 exist. Both the Old and New Testament relate 
 exclusively to the destinies of Man. Now whenever 
 the Almighty should, in His wisdom, determine to 
 end the mortal existence of man, such an exercise 
 of His power would not be difficult to conceive. 
 Life is so frail a possession that it would seem as if 
 the exercise of the Divine power were far more 
 needed to preserve than to extinguish it ; it would 
 but need the temporary abstraction of the oxygen 
 from 'the atmosphere, or the escape of some me- 
 phitic vapour from the bowels of the Earth, to 
 destroy, in an incredibly short space of time, all Life, 
 whether human, animal, or vegetable ; leaving the 
 earth a tabula rasa, to be re-occupied by new 
 forms, according to the will of the Creator. We 
 may also remark that Geology shows us that various 
 
38 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 races of animals existed at remote periods upon 
 the Earth, and have become extinct from different 
 causes : it is quite possible to conceive that analo- 
 gous causes might extirpate man; but all these 
 changes need not affect the course of the planets, 
 or the position of the Earth as a member of the 
 Solar System. Uninfluenced by these changes, the 
 great mass of our Globe might continue to fill its 
 accustomed place in the system of which it is a 
 member. 
 
 The whole of the beautiful scheme of our Solar 
 System, so complicated and yet so perfect in its 
 working, gives the most convincing proof of design. 
 Its vast mechanism is to be traced to the combined 
 agency of two forces in nature directly opposed to 
 each other, and therefore modifying the effects pro- 
 duced by each. The first of these is the universal 
 law of gravity, by which all bodies are attracted to 
 each other ; the vast mass of the Sun would *under 
 this influence absorb the whole planetary -system 
 within itself, were not its action controlled by the 
 centrifugal force imparted to all these bodies, and 
 which gives them a tendency to fly off in a straight 
 line, as a sj:one does when escaping from a sling. 
 What that force is may be conceived, when we 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 39 
 
 remember, as stated above, that the whole mass of 
 our own Globe rushes through space with a velocity 
 exceeding eighteen miles a second ; and we may 
 estimate the exquisite nicety of adjustment between 
 these two opposing forces, when we consider that 
 they are so accurately balanced as to produce, as I 
 have stated above, the annual revolution of the 
 Earth round the Sun to the fraction of a second 
 of time. The same effects result from the same 
 causes throughout the whole Solar System ; every- 
 where we see the law of gravity controlling the 
 centrifugal force, and compelling the planet to 
 describe the elliptical curve marked out for it 
 in space. 
 
 What are these two forces ? whence do they 
 spring? how are they governed? how modified so 
 that their combined operation produces so harmo- 
 nious an effect ? We cannot tell ; human reason only 
 enables us to trace secondary causes to their origin 
 in the First Great Cause. These secondary causes 
 we call laws, but that term cannot explain their 
 origin. The force of gravity is a law of nature 
 which, as far as we know, is universally operative, 
 but so is the law of centrifugal force, which is 
 directly opposed to the other. What is the power 
 
40 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 which is superior to both these laws ? which directs 
 and moulds them and counteracts one by the other, 
 and uses the two to accomplish a mighty design ? 
 There can be but one answer ; the earliest in- 
 stincts of the rudest nation sprompt it ; the loftiest 
 flights of human reason can only enable us to 
 repeat it. 
 
 Greology exhibits a strong contrast in principle to 
 the Solar System, which I have endeavoured to illus- 
 trate. It would be impossible indeed to conceive 
 two principles more completely opposed to each 
 other ; throughout the whole Solar System fixity and 
 uniformity of law is everywhere found, the vast 
 mechanism works in obedience to a common prin- 
 ciple, each part is consistent with every other, and no 
 symptom of variation from the mighty plan can there 
 be detected now, or anticipated in the future. The 
 Earth, considered as one of the planets, and as far as 
 it is associated in this common design, strictly obeys 
 all its laws ; indeed I have drawn from the motion 
 of the Earth and its relation to the Sun and the 
 other planets some of the most striking illustrations 
 of the principles I have sought to explain. Greology, 
 however, does not contemplate the Earth in its 
 relation to the other part of the system ; its province 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 41 
 
 is to consider the Earth in what may be termed 
 its individual character, and to trace as far as is 
 practicable the past history of the planet from the 
 vestiges which are accessible to the researches of 
 man. Viewed under this aspect, the leading- 
 principle of the Astronomical system is reversed ; 
 fixity seems to govern the one, change appears to 
 guide the other. When we follow the Geologist in 
 his explorations, and penetrate those strata from 
 which he extracts his evidence of former conditions 
 of the surface, one truth appears to be evident that 
 the Earth has undergone a series of transformations. 
 Whatever uncertainty may prevail as to the date 
 and manner or the cause of these changes, the fact 
 seems to be indisputable. Primitive strata are 
 found at the bottom of the series in which no trace 
 either of animal or vegetable life can be discovered ; 
 over them are found more recent formations, 
 mounting in an ascending scale to the animal and 
 vegetable productions, which are preserved in them 
 in a fossil state, indicating a closer resemblance to 
 our condition. 
 
 Different Greologists have assigned these changes 
 to different causes. Some, particularly the earlier 
 ones, have adopted what is termed the theory of 
 
42 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 catastrophes, and have supposed the crust of the 
 Earth broken by violent internal convulsions, lofty 
 ranges of mountains thrown up, volcanic action 
 modifying the whole surface of the Grlobe, earth- 
 quakes and deluges transforming the face of nature. 
 Others have attributed more powerful effects to quiet 
 and imperceptible agencies constantly operating, such 
 as the detritus of the higher mountains carried down 
 by torrents or by rain, the alteration in the level of 
 the sea occasioned by deposits at the mouths of large 
 rivers or by currents operating throughout its extent. 
 Some have adopted the igneous theory, and have 
 supposed that the Earth was originally launched 
 forth in an incandescent state, and has gradually 
 cooled in the lapse of ages. Others have taken up 
 t,he glacial hypothesis, and have found traces of a 
 period when the Earth was much colder than at 
 present and covered with snow and ice. 
 
 All these theories, which it is difficult indeed to 
 prove, may have some foundation. If we assign to 
 the World a vast duration in point of time, it may 
 have passed through successive periods containing 
 all these diversities, and each leaving its mark. 
 Traces of all these agents may still be found, and 
 some are still actually at work. Earthquakes and 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 43 
 
 volcanoes are not extinct, and the sea is constantly 
 receiving the deposits brought by rivers into its 
 beds. 
 
 In following the footsteps of Buckland and 
 Murchison, Oflren, Cuvier, or Lyell, and the many 
 other distinguished Geologists whose names will occur 
 to us, we reverence the intellect and sagacity which 
 in the course of less than a century has opened a 
 new field of science to our inquiries. Yet in pur- 
 suing the tracks left by these enlightened minds we 
 are often tempted to regret the loss of those two 
 great aids to Astronomy pure Mathematics and the 
 assistance of the Telescope, and the observation of 
 bodies actually existing before our eyes. The Geo- 
 logist gropes comparatively in the dark; and the 
 greatest caution is necessary before we adopt con- 
 clusions founded upon the evidence of facts alone, 
 and of facts so buried in the depths of time. How 
 much has perished ! how small a residuum has 
 escaped the ravages of the Great Destroyer upon 
 which to rear our geological structure ! Yet how 
 careful ought the true philosopher to be in sub- 
 stituting hypothesis, however plausible, for the sole 
 proof he can adduce the evidence of facts or in 
 supplying by the same means the hiatus so often 
 
44 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 left in the chain. Where our resources and means 
 of proof are so slender and limited, where the facts 
 are so few and so scattered, how easy it is to adopt 
 some erroneous conclusions and to follow some false 
 lead. The bases upon which Geologists seem to be 
 agreed are : First, the great, though unknown and 
 incalculable, antiquity of the Earth. Second, the 
 series of changes which its surface has undergone. 
 Third, the long period of time which must have 
 elapsed while the Earth was passing through these 
 stages ; the record which they have successfully left 
 in the strata which they have accumulated, and in 
 the various deposits which have been preserved 
 embedded in each of these strata ; the regularity 
 of the succession in which the strata occur, showing 
 that the periods were the same throughout the 
 Globe. 
 
 This portion of Greological study has reference only 
 to inanimate nature ; but by far the most interesting 
 and important branch of it relates to those vestiges 
 and relics of Life which are sealed lip in these strata, 
 the great repositories of the past. Here it may be 
 observed the great interest in G-eology centres, and 
 in this branch of inquiry it has an undoubted 
 superiority over its sister science. Mighty as are 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 45 
 
 the prospects revealed to our wondering eyes by 
 Astronomy, there is a solitude in the spectacle offered 
 to us : one great Living Spirit indeed breathes 
 through the whole the divine intelligence of the Great 
 Creator of the Universe ; His infinite power, wisdom 
 and goodness are displayed upon their largest scale. 
 But Astronomy reveals to us no secondary or sub- 
 ordinate intelligences, animating with the breath of 
 Life those vast material organisations. It is indeed 
 highly probable that such exist, and that Life in 
 some shape or other pervades those vast habitations 
 so well calculated for its reception. We see that 
 light and heat are everywhere diffused ; the planets 
 have their atmosphere of air around them ; the 
 alternations of day and night, and of spring, summer, 
 autumn and winter, are found in them. All these 
 analogies lead us to believe that Life, which is evi- 
 dently so important a feature here, and which is so 
 bound up in the existence of our own planet, cannot 
 be absent from the other members of the system. 
 Nor is it probable that the great Sun itself, the centre 
 of all, the source of life here, and so far exceeding 
 all the planets in magnitude, should be destitute of 
 that vitality which he diffuses around. Certainly it 
 would be as easy for Omnipotence to create living 
 
4G Astronomy and Geology compared. 
 
 PT. I. 
 
 beings in the very bosom of fire as to enable fishes 
 to exist in the element of water which is incompatible 
 with the life of terrestrial animals, and to adapt their 
 organs in turn to an existence on land which is cut 
 short by a brief immersion in the other element. 
 The author of the ' Plurality of Worlds,' a work 
 attributed to the late Dr. Whewell, controverts this 
 view, and labours to demonstrate that all the other 
 planets are untenanted, and that life only exists with 
 us. I have always considered his reasons as quite 
 unsatisfactory, and although nothing upon the subject 
 can be proved, yet that all the presumptions are in 
 favour of a contrary hypothesis ; still, however, we 
 must admit that nothing on this subject can be known 
 with certainty; the condition of the planets must 
 from their remoteness be utterly unknown to us ; no 
 telescope can do more than reflect the general form 
 to our eyes, and even our own Moon, comparatively 
 so near us, only exhibits a variety of lights and 
 shadows upon her surface. 
 
 That portion of Geological research which is 
 dedicated to the study of the remains of vegetable 
 and animal Life is by far the most interesting and 
 important branch of that science. This will appear 
 very distinct to us if we picture to ourselves Geology 
 
PT. I. 
 
 Astronomy and Geology compared. 47 
 
 deprived of this part of its investigations and reduced 
 to a mere examination of the different strata of rocks 
 and soil which have been successively accumulated. 
 What interest should we feel in knowing that the 
 lowest stratum consisted of primitive granite, or that 
 others were composed of old and new sandstone ? 
 Take away the remains of those living creatures 
 which have once animated the Earth, in these its 
 stages, and Geology would then become a dull and 
 profitless study indeed. The difference between 
 granite and trap, or trap and sandstone, would become 
 very unimportant in our eyes, if these formations did 
 not tell us a tale of the former living inhabitants of 
 the Globe. These investigations also lead us to a 
 conclusion of the most momentous character ; we 
 find, in tracing the Zoology of the Globe, that a cer- 
 tain chain of succession is established, and that the 
 principle of Progress appears to have pervaded it. 
 Here is a broad distinction between Astronomy and 
 Geology. As I have already observed, the stupendous 
 mechanism of Astronomy evinces no germ of decay 
 and no symptom of progress. In every stage Geology 
 exhibits both. Without those traces and remains of 
 former life Geology would resemble a theatre without 
 actors or dramatis personce. It is by this chain of 
 
48 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 events that the past is linked to us. There is another 
 feature which distinguishes Greology from Astronomy 
 under this aspect. There is not one tittle of evidence 
 in Geological science to show that the changes it 
 exhibits have anything of a cyclical or periodically 
 recurrent character. Ichthyosauri or Plesiosauri, 
 Mastodons and Megatheriums, have disappeared from 
 the Earth for ever ; there is not the slightest proba- 
 bility that we shall ever revert to the state of things 
 in which they had their being. Not only does one 
 organisation gradually supplant and efface a preceding 
 one, but viewed as a whole there is a constant advance 
 in the structure of the animal life, the links of which 
 are thus handed down to us. Some of the earlier 
 formations are composed of conglomerations of shell- 
 fish, the very lowest forms of life of which we have 
 cognizance. What an immense advance is indicated 
 in the fossil remains of the animals of a later date, 
 showing that they like ourselves were furnished with 
 the organs of sight and of hearing, which continue 
 to be after so many ages the great avenues of per- 
 ception. These senses mark a vast increase in the 
 faculties of the beings who possess them. In order 
 to make use of these senses these animals must have 
 been endowed with instinct, that mysterious faculty, 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 49 
 
 approaching so nearly to reason, and yet so plainly 
 distinguishable from it. 
 
 Change does not necessarily include Progress, but 
 in this case both change and progress are manifested. 
 The word c progress ' may be coupled with others 
 giving it a signification of deterioration, as the 
 progress of decay, the progress of ruin, the progress 
 of destruction ; but when the word progress is used 
 by itself I think that it is popularly coupled with 
 the idea of advance. We mean progress in good, 
 progress from a comparatively worse state of things 
 to a better ; at any rate, it is in this sense alone that 
 it is applicable to Geology. As far as we can trace 
 the history of the past this idea is impressed upon 
 us; it is a regular series of advancing steps. In 
 order to measure progress, it is requisite that we 
 should adopt some point of departure or comparison. 
 A ship may be proceeding rapidly on its voyage, but 
 a passenger in the cabin has no means of testing the 
 motion. \Ve are empowered in some degree to 
 measure the progress which Oreology enables us to 
 realise, because we can estimate the point from 
 which it departed, and we know that which it has 
 reached. If there be truth in the discoveries which 
 have been made, the earliest state of the Earth was 
 
 K 
 
50 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 entirely barren both of vegetable or animal life. 
 The present condition of the Earth in this respect is 
 known to us ; every portion of land, every depth of 
 the ocean is tenanted by swarms of living beings, 
 each jostling its neighbour, and the amount of life 
 is only limited by the quantity of aliment necessary 
 for its subsistence. Above all these creations of 
 different epochs towers Man himself, so incontestably 
 the monarch of the visible World. 
 
 Now mere change may be the offspring of chance. 
 The change accomplishing ends and directed through 
 ages to purposes, dark perhaps in their origin, but 
 which are now revealed to us as having been ac- 
 complished, such change and such progress prove 
 intelligence and design. Under this aspect the Will 
 of the Great First Cause is as apparent through all 
 the mutations which the Earth has undergone as 
 it is in the fixity which reigns in the Solar System ; 
 only it may be inferred that, as the modes of action 
 are so dissimilar, the objects to be attained are 
 different. Geology displays the history and course 
 of Life, from its earliest birth to its present stage of 
 development. If we ask, what is Life? what its 
 principle ? or what is its essence ? we shall soon 
 discover that we have approached one of those 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. - 51 
 
 boundaries which the human faculties in their 
 present state are unable to overstep. There are 
 certain primary elements into which all our inquiries 
 resolve themselves, and by which our most, subtle 
 reasonings must be limited. There are some ex- 
 ceedingly just observations on this subject in Mr. 
 Buckle's 'History of Civilisation,' in which he 
 renounces the attempt to explain or to understand 
 the nature of the Soul, and he shows very clearly 
 that we do not possess the data upon which to found 
 any practical result. After two centuries he endorses 
 the truth of the couplet that those who pursue those 
 vain and fruitless studies are destined 
 
 1 on metaphysic ground to prance, 
 To show their paces, not one step advance/ 
 
 Life is another of those great mysteries very much 
 akin to this, but it is curious that we have the most 
 perfect idea of the meaning of the word, although we 
 cannot explain the nature of the essence. When we 
 speak of animal, vegetable, or human life, we know 
 perfectly, well what we mean by it. The same 
 remark applies to others of these simple and 
 primary ideas ; the difference between instinct and 
 reason, for example, is perfectly intelligible to us in 
 
 B 2 
 
52 Astronomy and Geology compared. PT. i. 
 
 their effects ; we have no difficulty in distinguishing 
 their operations from each other, although we 
 cannot trace or explain the nature of this difference 
 from its sources. 
 
 I will not attempt to trace in detail the different 
 stages in Geology through which progress is marked. 
 It is far from my purpose, as it certainly would be 
 beyond my ability, to write a work on the principles 
 of the science, or even to attempt a manual or 
 elementary treatise upon it. I will content myself 
 with referring to the admirable works which have 
 been produced during the present century. Geolo- 
 gical discoveries have required immense labour and 
 research, and vast knowledge in their authors, but 
 they principally rest upon unwearied diligence and 
 mastery of detail in the incessant comparison upon 
 which they are founded. They are not based in the 
 same degree as Astronomy is upon abstruse Mathe- 
 matics, requiring long study of abstract principles. 
 It is not so difficult for us to follow and in a general 
 degree to comprehend the outlines of the Science 
 when they have been traced for us by the sagacity 
 and intellect of these great originators. 
 
 Geology may be divided therefore into these two 
 parts, the first relating to the material structure of 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 53 
 
 the Earth itself and the various revolutions whicli it 
 has undergone, and secondly the different phases of 
 animal and vegetable life which seem to have ac- 
 companied or followed these physical and material 
 changes. As I observed above, it is one of the 
 imperfections of this Science that its chronology is 
 utterly vague : we do not seem to have the slightest 
 means of calculating the duration of time in the 
 successive epochs of the Earth's surface. All that 
 the Geologist hopes to demonstrate is that these 
 changes take place in a certain regular succession, 
 which he has been enabled to classify, and that the 
 animal and vegetable creations correspond in a con- 
 siderable degree with these epochs. They do not, 
 however, appear to do so strictly : the animal and 
 vegetable productions of which the relics are found 
 in the different strata are not separated from each 
 other by a sharp line of demarcation coincident with 
 the strata. It would appear that the animal and 
 vegetable productions of an earlier age gradually 
 fade and melt away and are replaced by a gradual 
 and diversified process by those of a later, the older 
 ones rarely becoming abruptly extinct, but some 
 variety of them being long retained, generally in 
 modified forms. Particular periods, however, seem 
 
54 Astronomy and Geology compared. 
 
 PT. I. 
 
 to be marked by new changes, the full value of 
 which we are enabled to estimate by the light of 
 our later anatomical knowledge : thus the formation 
 of the eye and ear must have created a new revo- 
 lution in animal life, and the creations of vertebrated 
 animals with their apparatus for communicating sen- 
 sation from the head to every part of the bodily 
 frame must have constituted another great step in 
 the progress of animal life. 
 
 The spectacle which Geology presents to us when 
 we survey this general retrospect is a very sublime 
 one ; it widens to a degree almost equal to that of 
 Astronomy our conception of the vastness of the 
 scheme of Omnipotence. During lapses of time 
 which we are utterly unable to measure, and under 
 alterations of circumstances and conditions putting 
 an entirely new face upon nature, we still trace one 
 great design never lost, gradually making its way 
 onwards and working to the surface in each suc- 
 ceeding transformation. If we venture to draw a 
 conclusion from this view, it is that Life is the 
 principal object of a Creator's care, and that the 
 material framework in which it is set is sub- 
 ordinate to the purpose of its gradual development 
 and ultimate perfection. From the earliest and 
 
PT. i. Astronomy and Geology compared. 55 
 
 faintest traces of lichen upon the rock to the actual 
 state of the World there is a continuity which 
 includes all the links in one vast whole. We are, 
 however, constantly reminded that this is a very new 
 science : it indefinitely extends the area of our con- 
 ception, but it rarely traces bounds or limits. If we 
 take, for instance, Sir Charles Lyell's able work on the 
 ' Antiquity of Man,' he has succeeded in unsettling 
 all our previous ideas, but he has not substituted 
 any others of a fixed character; he does not the 
 least inform us whether Man has existed 10,000 or 
 100,000 years upon the face of the Globe. Perhaps 
 this imperfection will be owing to the recent birth of 
 this branch of knowledge, and the labours of future 
 Geologists may give us additional clues through the 
 labyrinth of the past. 
 
 In pursuing that comparison between Astronomy 
 and Geology which it has been the object of this 
 treatise to institute, we must conclude that the 
 advantage in point of certainty largely preponderates 
 in favour of Astronomy. The retrospect to which 
 Geology invites us is indeed a noble one in suggest- 
 ing the grandest speculations upon the birth and 
 youth of the Creation. But Astronomy, still grander 
 in its proportions, inasmuch as it deals not only with 
 
 
56 Astronomy and Greology compared. 
 
 PT. I. 
 
 this World, but with the Universe, is, as far as our 
 own mighty Solar System extends, perfectly clear 
 and definite. There is no vagueness in the mag- 
 nitude of the Sun or of the distance of Neptune ; 
 all is thus far as precise and accurate as it is 
 elevating. 
 
REMARKS ON THE THEORIES 
 OF MR. DARWIN AND MR. BUCKLE. 
 
 I CANNOT take leave of this branch of the subject, 
 more particularly that portion of it which relates to 
 the fossil remains of animals and the progress of 
 organised life indicated by Greology, without some 
 reference to the theories of Mr. Darwin, which have 
 attracted so large a portion of the attention of men 
 of science. If I were to omit all mention of works 
 which tread the same ground which I have been 
 traversing, I should appear to evade all the ques- 
 tions which he has raised, and which have engaged 
 the attention of Natural Philosophers for several 
 years past. The doctrines which he has given to 
 the World are in many respects irreconcilable with 
 those views which I have ventured to embody in the 
 preceding pages. Should I leave them altogether 
 
58 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 unanswered, I might as well abandon entirely my 
 own opinions as having been proved untenable. I 
 feel very reluctant in a treatise so slight as this to 
 engage in any controversy with so eminent an 
 authority, particularly when I feel that a cause so 
 momentous as that which I wish to advocate may 
 sustain injury by my inability to render it adequate 
 justice. No one can fail to recognise the scientific 
 and literary merits of Mr. Darwin, no one can be 
 blind to the extent of his knowledge or to his inti- 
 mate aquaintance with the whole subject of Zoology. 
 It would be the highest presumption in me to en- 
 deavour for a moment to question his authority upon 
 any of those subjects falling within the range of 
 the studies upon which he is an oracle, yet, while 
 I am glad to receive instruction from him where he 
 pours forth the ample stores of his information on 
 all the subjects of Natural History, I may be per- 
 mitted to examine the reasoning which he founds 
 upon them, and to remark upon those points in 
 which, as it appears to me, he fails to establish his 
 principles from his facts. Mr. Darwin has all the 
 zeal which naturally belongs to the inventor of a 
 novel doctrine, and it is just to him at the same 
 time to observe that it is quite free from any mix- 
 
FT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Suckle. 59 
 
 ture of dogmatism or intolerance of opposite views ; 
 he has a profound conviction of the soundness of 
 his own theories, and invites all adverse criticism 
 with philosophical calmness and with a strong con- 
 fidence in the justice of his own system. It is due 
 both to his high authority and to the tone in which 
 he places his doctrines before us to consider them 
 in the same spirit of impartiality and moderation. 
 He invokes the judgment of our reason, and even 
 should that judgment be adverse to all our pre- 
 conceived opinions he has a right to claim it. 
 
 The march of true Science is irresistible ; wherever 
 her foot is once planted it can never be withdrawn 
 she is the mightiest of conquerors. Everything 
 must give way before her ; however unwilling or 
 reluctant mankind may be, they have no choice but 
 to follow wherever she has once taken an authorita- 
 tive lead. Just as bows and arrows have given place 
 to muskets, and brown bess to breech-loaders, the 
 old sailing vessels to screw steamers, and the screw 
 steamers to iron clads, so in every other path, when- 
 ever it is once clearly and fully illumined by the 
 torch of Science, the human race have no choice 
 but to follow. If fifty years ago any speculative 
 chemist had foretold the possibility that by a com- 
 
60 Remarks on the Theories of PT. u. 
 
 bination of Chemistry and Optics it would become 
 possible to fix the fleeting images and shadows that 
 flit before our eyes and transfer them to paper in 
 shape of durable pictures, he would have been 
 regarded as a dreamer. Yet the art of Photography 
 has within that period been diffused over the whole 
 of the civilised world, and in the future has become 
 as imperishable as civilisation itself, with which it is 
 entwined. A still more recent and far grander and 
 more important step in Science has been made by 
 the Electric Telegraph. In the commencement of 
 the present century the wonders it accomplishes 
 would have been considered on a par with the in- 
 ventions in the ' Arabian Nights' Entertainments ; ' 
 we should have regarded as the most incredible of 
 fictions an Assembly in London transmitting a 
 message to Calcutta, and receiving an answer in the 
 course of the same evening before it separated, or 
 the speech of the President of the United States 
 being circulated in London the day after it was 
 delivered. Such apparent miracles would have been 
 ranked with the feat of the African magician re- 
 moving Aladdin's palace in one night from the centre 
 of Asia to that of Africa. Yet the discovery of the 
 almost instantaneous transmission of the electric 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 61 
 
 fluid once made, and the means devised of utilising 
 it having become a permanent addition to human 
 knowledge, it will be preserved and extended by its 
 own utility. No conceivable revolution in society 
 can ever again wrest it from us ; it must remain a 
 permanent addition to the powers of Man. 
 
 The strongest example, however, which can be 
 adduced of the permanent nature of every solid 
 advance in Science may be drawn from the estab- 
 lishment of that Solar .System from which I have 
 already drawn several illustrations. It would be 
 impossible ever to revert to the erroneous systems of 
 Pythagoras or Ptolemy. The Earth can never again 
 be enthroned as the centre of the Universe, but must 
 be contented through all time to occupy her assigned 
 place whirling about the vast orb of the Sun, to 
 which we bear about the same proportion as a cricket 
 ball to the dome of St. Paul's. 
 
 The same observation applies to every discovery 
 which human invention has made in the domain of 
 Science ; each, when once proved to rest upon truth, 
 is in its nature indestructible. It is fortunate that 
 these victories of Science have always proved to be 
 blessings, and it is one presumption in favour of the 
 truth of any new discovery that it is beneficial in its 
 
62 Remarks on the Theories oj PT. n. 
 
 consequences. Our experience does not yet afford 
 us one instance of any fresh stride fully made and 
 established in the whole circle of human knowledge 
 which has not tended to the improvement and to 
 the moral and intellectual elevation of Man : when- 
 ever any novel theory may be broached which leads 
 to narrow our prospects or to lower our position, 
 the strong presumption is created that it is founded 
 in error. , 
 
 Where, however, the principles enunciated are so 
 novel and startling and their consequences would 
 give such a shock to all our most cherished con- 
 victions, as in the case of Mr. Darwin, it is natural 
 that we should scan them strictly, and examine them 
 in a spirit of doubt, and almost hostility. We must 
 be aware of the tendency of minds, even of the 
 most powerful and original caste, to become the 
 dupes of their own inventive genius, and to con- 
 struct from very slender materials the most plausible 
 systems. Descartes was one of the greatest intellects 
 of modern times, yet his whirlpools were among the 
 most notable instances of those false lights which lure 
 men of science into the path of error. 
 
 I will not venture to follow Mr. Darwin through 
 the vast field of Natural History which he treads 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 63 
 
 with such a wonderful variety of knowledge. Inde- 
 pendently, indeed, of the conclusions to which he 
 would lead us, his works afford an interesting study 
 to the general reader. Dr. Johnson remarked of 
 Oliver Goldsmith that he was writing a work upon 
 Natural History, and that he could make it as inter- 
 esting as a Persian tale. A similar remark may be 
 applied to Mr. Darwin with still greater force, while 
 handling his subject with far greater ability than 
 Goldsmith could ever attain to. There are, how- 
 ever, certain leading principles embodied in his 
 writings, which are, as it were, the pivots upon 
 which his system is founded, and upon these I shall 
 offer some remarks. They are the parts of his 
 reasoning upon which he has failed to carry convic- 
 tion to my mind. Throughout his works it appears 
 to me that he ignores, or, perhaps we may be justi- 
 fied in saying, denies, all evidence of the operation 
 of the First Cause ; his whole argument is founded 
 upon the endeavour to trace the entire scheme of 
 Nature to the operation of secondary causes only, 
 which seems to be set in motion, according to his 
 views, by some self-acting process. It would seem 
 that Mr. Darwin rejects altogether the belief in any 
 direct influence of a higher power to use his ex- 
 
64 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 pression, ' analogous to though superior to that of 
 human reason.' Now I do not wish to apply to 
 Mr. Darwin hard names, or to carry his principles 
 beyond any limits within which he himself desires 
 to confine them. I cannot, however, affix any other 
 term to these doctrines than that they contain a 
 profession of pure atheism : the words < atheism ' or 
 * atheist ' do not occur in Mr. Darwin's works, but 
 the idea seems to me to be clearly presented to the 
 mind. In the passage which I have just quoted, he 
 seems to reject altogether all belief in the agency of 
 a higher power, ' superior but analogous to ' our own 
 faculties of human reason and will ; yet it is precisely 
 this conception which can alone enable the human 
 mind to attain any idea of the nature of Grod. 
 
 Man's faculties are limited, and however wide and 
 comprehensive may be their range, he cannot form 
 notions of which the materials are quite beyond his 
 knowledge or experience. It is only by looking 
 inwards, and forming an ideal conception of a Being 
 possessing those qualities in their highest perfection, 
 which man only possesses in a very incomplete and 
 defective degree, that we are at all enabled to realise 
 to ourselves the nature of the Almighty. It is per- 
 fectly true that the Deity may possess other attri- 
 
FT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 65 
 
 butes than those with which we can invest Him, and 
 which are as utterly incomprehensible to us as the 
 idea of colour might be to one born blind ; but these 
 qualities we cannot possibly know or comprehend. 
 Let us take the idea of Wisdom, for instance : the 
 quality does not exist in any one of the brute crea- 
 tion. When we speak of the wisdom of an elephant, 
 we only do so in a figurative sense ; it is in Man 
 alone that such a faculty can be said to exist. In 
 order to form a clear conception of the meaning of 
 Wisdom, we must embody it in some human form 
 before we can reach it in its abstract signification ; 
 we must think of the wisdom of Bacon or of 
 Newton. In the same manner the idea of Power 
 (I mean moral and material power combined) can 
 only be embodied in the case of some human being, 
 as the prophet Mahomet or the first Napoleon ; and 
 in like manner Goodness or Virtue can only be per- 
 sonified in Man : no animal can possess moral excel- 
 lence. It is only by forming a conception of a Being 
 combining these three attributes in their highest 
 perfection, that the human mind is enabled to attain 
 any comprehension of the nature of God. Such an 
 idea may be very imperfect and incomplete, far below 
 the majesty and goodness of the Supreme Being, but 
 
66 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 the utmost stretch of our faculties can only enable 
 us to reach so far. It is only by looking into our- 
 selves, limited and finite as the prospect must be, 
 that we can find any material wherewith to enable 
 us to realise, even in the faintest degree, the idea of 
 the Deity. This is exemplified in the fact that when 
 we describe the action of the Deity, we can only do 
 so by availing ourselves of terms borrowed from our 
 own senses or faculties. We speak of the all-seeing 
 eye of Providence, or we say that the ear of heaven 
 is ever open to the prayers of Man. We do not 
 ' mean by these expressions to convey a belief that 
 the Almighty really makes use of such organs ; we 
 cannot possibly conjecture what are His means of 
 communication with us ; we only use those words 
 which convey to our own minds the nearest approxi- 
 mation to the idea of His Omniscience. 
 
 When, therefore, Mr. Darwin peremptorily rejects 
 in his scheme for the production of Life all agency 
 of a higher power, analogous however superior to 
 that of Man, he does, in fact, deny the agency of 
 God, for he denies it in the sole form in which Man 
 could be able to recognise it. Now how awful ! how 
 tremendous a doctrine is this ! The mind recoils from 
 the consequences which would result from its adoption. 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 67 
 
 There is a method of reasoning not unfrequent in 
 Mathematics whereby any proposition is proved to 
 be false by assuming hypothetically that it is true, 
 and then showing that the conclusions it leads to are 
 absurd. Such a mode of reasoning may be applied 
 to Mr. Darwin's system, which repudiates, if not by 
 name, yet in fact, all the operation of an Intelligent 
 First Cause, and traces all advance to what he calls 
 the Evolution or spontaneous action in the bodies 
 themselves. I do not know how otherwise to inter- 
 pret his theories ; for if he does assign any place to 
 the influence of an external power, or the prompt- 
 ings of an invisible Intelligence, then he does exactly 
 that which he refuses to admit when he rejects the 
 action of a force superior but analogous to the 
 intelligent will of Man. I therefore believe that I 
 am not misconceiving or misrepresenting Mr. Darwin 
 when I assume that in his theory of Life he regards 
 it as effecting all the transformations it presents, 
 and generating all the varieties it exhibits, by the 
 working of certain occult principles which it generates 
 by an insensible and involuntary action, as I trans- 
 late his two main agencies Natural Selection and 
 Sexual Selection. 
 
 In his summary to the work on the ' Origin of 
 v 2 
 
68 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 Species ' Mr. Darwin seems to admit that all Creation 
 springs from four or five primordial forms, but he 
 observes that a more correct deduction from his 
 principles would lead to the conclusion that every- 
 thing originated from one prototype. Mr. Darwin 
 does not very clearly explain how he understands 
 that this first step was made. He quotes the opinion 
 of a ' celebrated author and divine ' who, he says, has 
 written to him that 
 
 ' lie has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a 
 
 * conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few 
 i original forms capable of self-development into other and 
 1 needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act 
 
 * of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of 
 His laws.' 
 
 Does Mr. Darwin adopt this theory of his corre- 
 spondent ? If he does so, then he admits the ex- 
 istence of an Intelligent and Omnipotent First 
 Cause, only that the mode of action is not direct 
 but derived through a chain of successive causes 
 and effects. If, according to the correspondent's 
 idea, he conceives that the Deity created these four 
 or five primordial forms of animal and vegetable 
 life, and that the successive stages of development 
 by which all animated nature has attained its pre- 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 69 
 
 sent varied shape necessarily followed, then his cor- 
 respondent or Mr. Darwin himself must believe one 
 of two things : either that the Deity created these 
 four or five primordial forms, ignorant of the con- 
 sequences which would result from them, or that he 
 did so cognizant of the germs that they enclosed and 
 foreseeing or predestining their ultimate results. 
 But if the latter conclusion is adopted, then all the 
 works of Creation follow from an Almighty and 
 Omniscient First Cause just as much and as com- 
 pletely as if they had emanated more directly and 
 immediately from His hand. * 
 
 A clock or watchmaker who makes a watch is 
 doubtless an ingenious mechanician, but one who 
 could contrive a machine which by turning a handle 
 would produce watches as complete as those made 
 by hand, would doubtless be a far more skilful 
 mechanist than the first ; but the watches made by 
 the machine would be quite as much the work of 
 the inventor as those made by his hand alone ; they 
 would equally be the products of his inventive 
 faculties, and the only difference would be that it 
 would require a higher order of inventive faculty 
 and more elaborate execution in the case of the 
 watches produced by the action of the machine. 
 
70 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 It would be satisfactory if we knew with greater 
 precision to which hypothesis Mr. Darwin himself 
 adheres : whether that of his correspondent, or the 
 one which appears to follow from his own expla- 
 nations. The difference is very wide : in the one 
 case he admits the whole scheme of life to be the 
 creation of an Allwise and Omnipotent First Cause, 
 although he places that First Cause at a distance 
 infinitely remote ; in the latter case he ignores the 
 existence of a First Cause altogether. Supposing 
 that Mr. Darwin admits the first hypothesis, viz. 
 that of Ms correspondent, what is gained by re- 
 mitting the action of the Great First Cause to so 
 infinitely remote a period ? If He purposed and 
 designed this long series of causes and effects from 
 the very beginning, He is in fact just as much 
 the author of the whole as if He had resorted con- 
 tinually to a more immediate and direct exercise of 
 His Power and Will. Why conclude that he never 
 has exercised and never does exercise that Power 
 and Will directly through all those countless ages ? 
 We pay a ready tribute of admiration to the vast 
 amount of Mr. Darwin's knowledge, ranging through 
 the whole circle of the Natural Sciences ; the amount 
 of his materials is overwhelming ; still I cannot, for 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 71 
 
 one, accord my conviction to the truth of the com- 
 plex system into which he has fashioned them. 
 
 As I mentioned in a previous part of this Essay, 
 all Science is founded either upon abstract mathe- 
 matical reasoning, upon the evidence of collected 
 facts, or upon facts elicited by experiment. Mr. 
 Darwin's theory is founded chiefly upon the two 
 first: his hypothesis of Natural Selection rests in the 
 first place upon the mathematical and arithmetical 
 truth that as all forms of Life are preserved or 
 maintained by some sort of aliment, and that as the 
 food, if not a finite quantity, at any rate increases 
 at a much slower rate than Life would, if supplied 
 with food to an unlimited extent, therefore the 
 amount of Life is necessarily confined to the amount 
 of food. This, as Mr. Darwin observes, is the 
 doctrine of Mr. Malthus (which he regarded solely 
 with relation to the human race) extended to all 
 living beings. Mr. Darwin draws this conclusion, 
 that the struggle for food, which is in other words 
 the Struggle for Existence, to which food is necessary, 
 pervades all animated nature ; to this extent we must 
 admit the soundness of Mr. Darwin's principles; 
 organised life is everywhere dependent upon food, 
 and the chief business of existence it to satisfy the 
 
72 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 want of it. But Mr. Darwin's next step in his chain 
 of reasoning appears to be far more doubtful ; he 
 traces the creation of all the diversified forms of Life 
 to the results of the competition for food universally 
 going on throughout the World. This competition 
 he conceives crushes the weaker, gives advantage to 
 the stronger, and as he supposes that small varieties 
 begin in the production of different forms of Life, 
 that these small varieties where they tend to the 
 advantage of the being are gradually developed by 
 hereditary succession, by sexual selection, or by the 
 favouring conditions of climate and other causes, 
 into permanently different species. Now does this 
 theory rest upon the evidence of facts sufficient to 
 prove it, or are his facts eked out by a vast number 
 of hypotheses which he cannot prove? It is very 
 remarkable how often, in almost every page of his 
 work, he makes use of the verb Ho suppose.' He 
 is always asking us to suppose something which 
 explains or supports his reasoning, but we are not 
 disposed to admit these hypotheses (as facts) built 
 upon suppositions in so very intricate a labyrinth as 
 he calls upon us to enter. He finds it impossible to 
 construct his system upon the materials afforded by 
 the actually existing World : he must press into the 
 
FT. n. 
 
 Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 73 
 
 service all the antecedent Geological periods which 
 that Science has enumerated, for he requires count- 
 less ages in order to give him time enough to work 
 out the slow results of Natural Selection. He speaks 
 of millions of years, and in his diagram he represents 
 10,000 or 14,000 generations; but the existing World, 
 of which either from history or tradition we have 
 any knowledge, is comprised within at most 4,000 
 years. A generation is perhaps rather an indefinite 
 term : we may easily conceive a father having a son 
 at 75 years of age who may live to be 75, and these 
 two generations would amount to 150 years; but if 
 we take the average duration of human life and the 
 succession of one generation to another, 100 years 
 might be calculated as numbering three generations ; 
 therefore the whole number of existing generations 
 of Man, of whom we can have the faintest knowledge 
 have existed, is 120. It is quite evident, therefore, 
 that Mr. Darwin assumes as the basis of his argument 
 periods of time purely imaginary ; he can have no 
 shadow of proof that the World has existed for 
 14,000 generations, or 470,000 years. If we were 
 to admit for the sake of argument that the solid 
 sphere of the Earth might then have been in 
 existence, how can he feel sure that that succession 
 
74 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 of Life necessary to his theory can have been 
 preserved through such an incalculable period of 
 time ? Geologists tell us that the earliest formation 
 is of primitive rock, without any sign of animal or 
 vegetable Life ; in the course of 470,000 years three 
 or four of these periods may have existed, and every 
 vestige of Life may have been swept from the Globe, 
 and creations have begun again three or four times 
 in the interval. Mr. Darwin requires for the de- 
 velopment of his theory enormous periods of time, 
 far exceeding any of which we have the slightest 
 knowledge ; this alone places his whole system 
 beyond the domain of fact and in the regions of 
 mere reverie and imagination. It is also necessary 
 that there should be a continuity preserved during 
 the whole period ; the same series must be preserved 
 during the whole 470,000 years, for if at any 
 period, a total destruction of Life had occurred, 
 it is quite evident that this process of Natural 
 Selection would have to be begun de novo. It 
 is a weak point in Geological Science that its 
 chronology is absolutely vague. No one can assign 
 any limit of years to the duration of any one of 
 those periods into which Geologists have divided it, 
 and all argument therefore based upon any assump- 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 75 
 
 tions with regard to time must be absolutely worth- 
 less. I cannot feel at all convinced of the fact that, 
 even on Mr. Darwin's own hypothesis, and granting 
 to him all that he asks us to admit, all the opera- 
 tions of nature can be aifected by this admittedly 
 tedious process of Natural Selection. We must 
 remember that this term Natural Selection does not 
 really express any exercise of the will or of the 
 understanding; it is a purely involuntary course upon 
 which the living being, whether animal or vegetable, 
 is forced by the pressure of circumstances. There 
 is no guiding direction from above ; an accidental 
 variation is supposed to confer some advantage in 
 the struggle for existence, and the advantage thus 
 obtained secures for itself a certain stability in the 
 future, which gradually ripens the accidental variation 
 into a permanent one, and the permanent variation 
 into a species. In all this there is no exercise of 
 choice or of will, no intelligence exerted either by 
 the being himself or on the part of any Higher Power. 
 Results which we have always supposed to display an 
 Intelligent Will either proceeding from the individual 
 being himself or from a Higher Power, or from both, 
 are under Mr. Darwin's thepry the consequences of 
 these different directions into which these bodies are 
 
76 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 hurried by the forces to which in this struggle for 
 existence they become exposed. Now it appears 
 inconceivable that many of the operations in nature 
 can have been effected, or many parts of that great 
 scheme which we see in action can have been framed, 
 by this process of Natural Selection alone. We must 
 recollect that on Mr. Darwin's principles foresight is 
 excluded. Foresight is an attribute of Intelligence ; 
 if any being was supposed to exist gifted with the 
 power of previously knowing and causing these results, 
 then they would cease to be due to Natural Selection 
 alone. Now even allowing any amount of time for 
 the operation, there are very many of the works of 
 nature which I cannot conceive could possibly be 
 accomplished without the agency of Intelligence. 
 For instance, one of the principal means through 
 which Mr. Darwin supposes that changes are wrought 
 is the agency of Sexual Selection ; but in order that 
 this power should be exercised, it is necessary that 
 these living beings should be divided into two sexes ; 
 Mr. Darwin tells us that in fact a vast proportion 
 both of the animal, insect and vegetable kingdoms, 
 are so divided. 
 
 The propagation of the species is the consequence 
 of sexual connection, which requires an elaborate 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. t 77 
 
 adaptation of the male and female organs to each 
 other. Now how, in the first instance, could this 
 division into the two sexes have been effected by 
 Natural Selection ? Did it occur in the parent stock, 
 and was it handed down through the successive varie- 
 ties, or was Natural Selection to effect it again in 
 each particular case ? Supposing that the first was 
 a single being, how was the division into the two 
 sexes effected ? Could Natural Selection do this ? 
 for in order that the male and female should be 
 fitted for their respective parts, a very elaborate 
 adaptation of their bodily organs would become 
 necessary ; but they must be furnished with these at 
 once in order to fulfil the purposes for which they 
 were made, and nature could not afford to stand still 
 for several generations while Natural Selection was 
 perfecting them, even if it could possibly perfect 
 them at all. 
 
 The instinct which by the process of sexual con- 
 nection sets in motion the whole machinery by which 
 Life in its different forms is renewed and perpetuated 
 is among the strongest in the economy of nature. 
 How it could spring from Natural Selection alone is 
 beyond my comprehension ; but it is also to be noted 
 that it is not only implanted in the vast majority of 
 
78 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 living beings, comprising all those raised above the 
 very lowest types, but that it is regulated by cer- 
 tain laws. This instinct operates through a desire 
 attracting the two sexes to each other. How is it 
 that this appetite is always confined within its proper 
 limits, and is never found in animals (in a savage 
 state at least) to lead them to deviate from them ? 
 If the sexual instinct were to be widely diffused, a 
 sort of chaos in animal life would be created. How 
 wonderful is it that the male and female of each 
 species are only drawn towards each other ! In a 
 state of oature this law is absolute, but in animals 
 domesticated by man it would appear that it admits 
 of some irregularity. ' Now here it would seem that 
 Intelligence must be apparent : as I have before 
 observed, foresight is a convincing proof of the pre- 
 sence of Intelligence. In the machinery for the 
 production of Life through sexual connection, which 
 is one of the most mysterious of all nature's secrets, 
 two laws are traceable : the one, general, almost 
 universal, that which restricts the sexual instinct to 
 the male and female of each particular species. In 
 a state of nature this law is absolute ; in a state 
 of domestication some irregularity appears, chiefly 
 caused by the sub-agency of man interrupting to a 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 79 
 
 certain extent the course of nature. But here 
 another law steps in protecting the different races of 
 living beings from that confusion which would result 
 if such power had been left unrestricted. Some of 
 the domestic animals, of different though very similar 
 organisations, are found, under the direction of man, 
 to be capable of sexual intercourse and of bringing 
 forth an offspring ; but here steps in another law of 
 nature, a sort of second safeguard or barrier erected 
 against the indefinite multitude of species : the issue 
 of these connections is always barren. Does not this 
 argue foresight in the Great Law Giver ? How could 
 Natural Selection alone create such prospective limi- 
 tation ? But if a future defect in the machinery for 
 the renewal of Life is thus foreseen and guarded 
 against, then there must have been a Being able 
 to foresee and competent to provide the remedy. 
 Natural Selection cannot foresee ; the very hypothesis 
 itself denies it such a power. 
 
 How different do these philosophers argue in the 
 case of Providence and of Man. The attention of 
 Geologists has of late been directed to the discovery 
 of a large number of stone spear-heads at a very 
 great depth in the marshes near Amiens. These 
 have occasioned quite a revolution in the previously 
 
80 Remarks on the Theories of PT, n. 
 
 received Chronology as to the date of Man's birth. 
 It is calculated that, at the depth at which they were 
 found, some thousands of years must have elapsed 
 since they were placed there, and it is at once pro- 
 nounced that these rough spear-heads were fashioned 
 by the hand of Man, I have seen a considerable 
 number of them, and I think that they bear out this 
 opinion. They are uniformly made, of exactly the 
 same size and pattern, and very well adapted for the 
 purposes of that description of weapon. If they were 
 copied in iron and fixed to a staff they would be 
 formidable in hand-to-hand encounters ; they, appear 
 to have been chiselled out of flint or some hard dark 
 stone with considerable neatness of execution, and 
 bear the marks of the chisel over their whole surface. 
 Now these rude weapons were not found in proximity 
 to any relics of man ; there was nothing beyond their 
 own construction to show that they were his work. 
 They were immeasurably inferior in beauty of design 
 or workmanship to a honeycomb or a thousand other 
 natural productions, and yet Geologists at once came 
 to the conclusipn that they were of human produc- 
 tion. There is a character of design stamped upon 
 them, and the workmanship is of such a nature as at 
 once to lead us irresistibly to such a belief; and yet 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Suckle. 81 
 
 while we are surrounded by works exhibiting in a 
 thousand times a greater degree proofs of wisdom and 
 power in their formation, we refuse to acknowledge 
 the hand of a Higher Power, and take refuge in this 
 incomprehensible theory of Natural Selection. 
 
 The stamp of intelligence and design appears to 
 me to be as unmistakeably imprinted in a thousand 
 instances upon the whole economy of animal and 
 vegetable Life as it could have been upon the stone 
 spear-heads ; intelligence is recognised in its effects. 
 I cannot conceive it possible that works bearing the 
 indelible character of design can possibly have been 
 created by the mere fortuitous operation of uncon- 
 scious or material influences. Mr. Darwin should 
 prefix to his volumes as a motto the parody in the 
 Rejected Addresses from Dr. Busby's 'Lucretius:' 
 
 ' I sing how casual bricks in airy climb 
 Encounter casual horsehair, casual lime.' 
 
 I cannot conceive that any lapse of time, without 
 any Intelligent guidance, could possibly have pro- 
 duced all these fruits of the highest combination of 
 wisdom and power which constitute the phenomena 
 of Life. I should as soon imagine the possibility of 
 a ship building itself, rigging itself, and navigating 
 
 G 
 
82 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 itself from the Thames to Melbourne, without ship- 
 wrights, captain or crew. 
 
 We must also remember that Life in its various 
 forms is not the whole, but only a part of the works 
 of Creation. These are certainly not all to be 
 accounted for by Natural Selection ; but if Intelli- 
 gence is to be traced in any one of them, then the 
 existence of Intelligence as a governing and creating 
 power is established, and it is almost self-evident 
 that the mighty power which is proved in any one 
 operation of Creation must pervade the whole. It 
 is not Natural Selection which guides^ the Electric 
 fluid it is not Natural Selection which dispenses 
 Light and Heat it is not Natural Selection which 
 has created and upholds the Solar System. If the 
 existence of the Grreat First Cause be shown any- 
 where else, we may surely credit it with having also 
 originated the phenomena of Life. 
 
 I know not how far Mr. Darwin may carry his 
 views, or by what process of reasoning he may 
 reconcile his own theories with any recognition of a 
 Divine authorship ; he seems faintly and obscurely 
 to intimate the possibility of such an agreement, 
 and he quotes his correspondent before referred to 
 as entertaining such an opinion. It appears to me, 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 83 
 
 however, that the very essence of his doctrine con- 
 sists in its sufficiency to account for the existence of 
 all the diversified forms of Life by the independent 
 operation of secondary causes. I have no wish to 
 invoke in opposition to him any spirit of intolerance 
 or hostility. I have remarked, in a previous passage, 
 that true Science is irresistible, and that it must be 
 accepted, with all its consequences, wherever fully 
 established. But where these consequences are so 
 momentous (not to say awful) to all those principles 
 upon which mankind have reposed, we must be 
 permitted to scrutinise them in no very friendly 
 spirit. There is no use in disguising the matter, or 
 in shrinking from those conclusions which unavoid- 
 ably follow from Mr. Darwin's writings. They are 
 totally subversive of religion a pious Darwinian 
 would be a contradiction in terms all those hopes 
 which are identified with that sacred sentiment, all 
 those restraints which our feeling of accountability 
 to Heaven enjoins, would be swept away: amoral 
 revolution would be effected, and that revolution 
 would be subversive, not constructive. 
 
 Has Mr. Darwin succeeded in establishing his 
 theory upon a basis of proof which must convince 
 the understanding ? To me it does not appear that 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 he has succeeded in forming even a plausible one. 
 In order to carry out his system, and to give time 
 for the operation of those agents of Natural Selec- 
 tion and Sexual Selection, he finds it necessary to 
 press -into the service the whole series of Geological 
 periods about which we know so little ; at the same 
 time he constantly admits what he calls the c Imper- 
 fection of the Geological Record,' as an apology for 
 the inconclusiveness of his arguments. Our existing 
 world, with its short experience of some 4,000 years, 
 affords him no foundation. Here we everywhere see 
 what appears to our benighted reason irrefragable 
 proofs of design ; here we everywhere see forms of 
 Life the most varied yet everywhere the most 
 adapted to their several purposes ; but nowhere do 
 we see those agents of Natural Selection or Sexual 
 Selection effecting any considerable results. The 
 Earth does not exhibit at this epoch any instance of 
 a new creation. Varieties may be produced by the 
 skill of Man, which is itself a sort of Intellectual 
 First Cause, but a new creation of the animal king- 
 dom can nowhere be produced. All those products 
 of the most wonderful and elaborate contrivance 
 must have been gradually evolved out of nothing, 
 by a process of Natural Selection which Mr. Darwin 
 
PT. rr. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 85 
 
 says may have taken millions of years to accomplish, 
 .and 120 generations is all that we can possibly look 
 back upon. How does Mr. Darwin prove the con- 
 nection between all these periods? upon the sole 
 evidence of fossil remains which come down to us, 
 by his own showing, in a broken and disjointed 
 condition. When we confine our observations to 
 the existing Geological period, where can we trace 
 the action of these agents ? Mr. Darwin dwells 
 upon the variation effected by breeders in domestic 
 animals ; all those varieties (which exist after all to 
 a very small extent) are only found among animals 
 of the same kind, and which breed and multiply 
 with most perfect facility. Wherever a cross takes 
 place between animals of a different although very 
 similar species, as in the case of the horse and the 
 ass, it is always a result of the contrivances of man, 
 and never occurs in wild animals. Many varieties 
 of the cat kind appear more nearly allied to each 
 other than is the horse to the ass, but sexual inter- 
 course never takes place between them. A tiger 
 and a lioness differ very little perhaps in the case 
 of the lion he might alarm the tigress by his magni- 
 ficent mane but the lioness, who has no such 
 distinguished appendage, does not differ very much 
 
86 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 from the tigress except in the colour of the hide, far 
 less certainly than the horse differs from the ass ; 
 yet neither between these animals nor any other 
 species, in a wild state, does any sexual intercourse 
 ever take place, or is any offspring ever born. So 
 far as our experience extends the barriers between 
 the races are never passed. 
 
 We must persist, although Mr. Darwin objects to 
 it, in pursuing an analogy between the works of Man 
 and those of the Deity. Immeasurably inferior as 
 are the productions of human invention, yet we 
 know beyond dispute that these are the productions 
 of Intelligence. If the word 'Intelligence' has a 
 meaning at all, a ship or a railway engine, or a 
 watch or an Electric Telegraph, are productions of 
 Intelligence ; yet although the highest efforts of the 
 human mind are immeasurably inferior to the works 
 of Providence, still are they not the same in nature, 
 and do they not only differ in degree ? Can we say 
 that a telescope is the work of design, while the eye 
 has been evolved by Natural Selection and produced 
 without an Intelligent Cause ? Is there nothing to 
 be accorded to that universal instinct of humanity 
 which turns to a Higher and unseen Power ? Is it 
 not much easier, much more credible, to believe in 
 
FT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 87 
 
 an Intelligent First Cause as the Great and Invisible 
 Power directing all things, than to construct by so 
 elaborate a process works bearing the stamp of the 
 Highest Intelligence and Power out of mere brute 
 matter? In his recent work on the 'Descent of 
 Man,' he applies the same process of evolution by 
 Natural Selection and Sexual Selection to Man, and 
 traces his existence in his present state to some 
 species of ape or monkey from whom he has 
 originated. I do not know if we have any ground 
 for taxing Mr. Darwin with inconsistency in pushing 
 his system to this length : it seems quite as 
 inconceivable that the ape should have originated in 
 a mass of lichen on a rock, as that Man should have 
 sprung from the ape. The fallacy appears to me to 
 exist in the assumption of a power of self-creation, 
 or of self-development anywhere, which we are 
 utterly unable to discover in nature. If we ask, 
 what is Life itself? we shall find that it is a question 
 quite beyond the faculties of man to answer ; Life, 
 like spirit, like matter, like the nature of the Deity, 
 like the difference between reason and instinct, like 
 the nature of the union of the soul and the body, is 
 among those primary ideas which it is only given to 
 Man to know and recognise by their effects, but the 
 
88 Remarks on the Theories of PT. u. 
 
 essence of which it is quite beyond the power of his 
 faculties to conceive. We know that a stone does 
 not possess life, and we know that the moss which 
 covers it does ; but we cannot explain in what lies 
 the difference: all that we know is, that this 
 difference could not have been imparted to the moss 
 by itself some external influence must have created 
 it. By no conceivable process of reason or imagina- 
 tion can we arrive at the conclusion that Life is 
 inherent in some bodies and not in others, or that it 
 can exist without having been created. But if we 
 come to this conclusion, it appears to me it disproves 
 all Mr. Darwin's theory, because if we admit Creation 
 as a necessary first step, and that such Creation is 
 the act of a Power separate from or superior to the 
 thing created, then it would follow that the thing 
 created would be derived in all its subsequent stages 
 from that Power. It is as great an act of Omnipo- 
 tence to create Life as to form and fashion it after 
 creation. 
 
 Mr. Darwin's first step in his theory of Natural 
 Selection is what he terms the Struggle for Existence 
 arising from the ever-pressing necessity for food 
 acting upon all animated nature. We grant to him 
 the truth of this first proposition. Life, as it exists 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 89 
 
 upon this earth, is dependent upon air, water, and 
 food ; and as the supply of the two first requirements 
 is practically unlimited, the amount of Life cannot 
 exceed the quantity of the third. But Life is repro- 
 duced in much more rapid ratio than food can be 
 augmented. If the countless forms under which it 
 exists were suffered to increase, unrestricted by any 
 check, they would soon overtake the supply of food, 
 which they could not however pass, and the progress 
 of reproduction would thereby be violently and 
 suddenly arrested. But Nature interposes various 
 checks regulating and controlling the operation of 
 this principle, and preserving its system from the 
 rude shock of such a collision. One great means 
 for effecting this is, that so large a number of the 
 animals and insects prey upon each other, and any 
 excess in one portion of the Zoology of the Grlobe is 
 immediately arrested by the action of those others 
 to which it supplies the necessary aliment. Diseases, 
 severities of climate, and other causes, contribute to 
 diminish this redundancy wherever it exists. The 
 necessity for food may be compared to the main- 
 spring of a watch or other complicated machine : it 
 sets the whole in motion, and regulates the move- 
 ment, which would otherwise fall into confusion. 
 
90. Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 We see its influence most distinctly in the case of 
 man, whom it obliges to labour : it is at the root of 
 all the movements and operations of that complicated 
 machine which we call Civilisation. It is not, there- 
 fore, upon this first term in his proposition that I am 
 disposed to take issue with Mr. Darwin. He repro- 
 duces the theory of Mr. Malthus, which has always 
 appeared to me quite incontrovertible, and through 
 the agency of which so much of the economy of 
 Life appears to be carried on. Mr. Darwin affords 
 us some strong instances of the working of this prin- 
 ciple. He states that the elephant lives for ninety 
 years, and during that long period only gives birth 
 to young three times, producing a pair at each birth. 
 This animal is supposed to be the slowest of all 
 breeders, and yet Mr. Darwin states that at this rate 
 there would be fifteen millions of elephants at the 
 end of the fifth century. If such be the wonderful 
 increase of this slow-breeding elephant, what would 
 be that of the herring, producing millions of spawn 
 every year ? We do not therefore dispute Mr. Dar- 
 win's first proposition, that all Life tends to a far 
 more rapid increase than the resources of food 
 would be long adequate to support, and that this 
 struggle to maintain it has a great motive power in 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 91 
 
 the World. It is the second step in Mr. Darwin's 
 theory, the proof of which it seems to me he fails 
 to establish that this struggle for food is the cause 
 of all those countless varieties of organised beings 
 which people the earth. We do not dispute that 
 the progeny of a pair of elephants in five hundred 
 years might amount to fifteen millions, or that the 
 spawn of a single herring might in the same period 
 produce a number of descendants which it would tax 
 the ocean to contain or the powers of arithmetic to 
 enumerate. What we do dispute is, that by any chain 
 of descent, of which we have knowledge, the elephants 
 can have been the progenitors of the herrings, or the 
 herrings of the elephants. This I conceive to be 
 Mr. Darwin's theory, for although he may not under- 
 take to affirm in what degree of consanguinity the 
 herrings and the elephants stand to each other, yet 
 he does assert that all organised and animated Life 
 flows from one source, and is, in fact, related together. 
 He also conceives that this relation follows from 
 no action of a Superior Will, but from an involun- ' 
 tary and unavoidable sequence of cause and effect. 
 Now the first part is proved with figures ; it is arith- 
 metically true, indeed, and proves itself; but his 
 second proposition does not follow the least from the 
 
92 Remarks on the Theories of PT. u. 
 
 first ; it is a question of fact, and are his conclusions 
 supported by the evidence of facts ? It is here that, 
 as it appears to me, Mr. Darwin's long chain of hypo- 
 thesis and supposition commences which he sub- 
 stitutes for facts. I revert to a proposition which I 
 have laid down previously, that we can only proceed 
 by the light of our own faculties and powers, and by 
 the knowledge that we possess ; we cannot step 
 beyond that circle. Now all the innumerable forms 
 of Life, all the beings adapted to their several condi- 
 tions, all the means and appliances by which they 
 breathe, move, and have their being, appear to me 
 to be stamped with the unmistakeable character of 
 design. There must be the mind to conceive and 
 the power to execute, in order to produce the results 
 before us. I do not see how it is possible to deny 
 this ; if we examine any one of the works of Creation, 
 whether animate or inanimate, and if we analyse the 
 meaning of the word invention, I cannot understand 
 how it can be denied that all those vast and multi- 
 farious arrangements of parts to a whole, and of 
 means to an end, as exhibited in all the provinces, 
 whether of animate or inanimate existence, can fail 
 to bear out this truth. Mr. Darwin may say that 
 all these appearances are illusory and deceptive, that 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 93 
 
 the whole of that wonderful machinery by which 
 living beings, from their lowest to their highest forms, 
 have been produced in all their marvellous combi- 
 nations follow from his motive power of Natural 
 Selection and Sexual Selectibn alone. But it is for 
 him to prove his system. The first and obvious 
 character imprinted upon the whole is that of in- 
 vention, emanating from a superior Power, a superior 
 Intelligence, and a superior Will. 
 
 I have remarked in a previous part of this Essay 
 that all our progress in knowledge and in Science is 
 attained by three methods : the first by the appli- 
 cation of the exact sciences to the determination of 
 all those questions to which they can be applied ; the 
 second, the evidence of fact ; and the third, experi- 
 ment employed to elicit fact. Now the first step in 
 Mr. Darwin's theory may be regarded as founded 
 upon the first of these methods ; the ratio of increase 
 in living- beings is an arithmetical problem which 
 follows from the premises. But his second propo- 
 sition that all the countless varieties of organised 
 Life upon this globe are derived from the action of 
 two principles, that of Natural Selection and of 
 Sexual Selection, is a proposition which cannot be 
 mathematically demonstrated, and which must be 
 
94 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 established, if established at all, by the evidence of 
 facts. Do Mr. Darwin's facts prove his theory? 
 Let us recollect for a moment the immense and com- 
 plicated variety of the conditions of Life upon this 
 Globe, and the wonderful adaptation of Life in its 
 different forms to such varying conditions : for 
 instance, aquatic and terrestrial life, where the con- 
 ditions are so dissimilar as to be absolutely incom- 
 patible with each other, and yet the organs of the 
 living inhabitants are so constituted as to be exactly 
 suited to each state. Let us look at the birds of the 
 air; the genius of man is fertile in mechanical 
 inventions, but he has never been able to construct 
 a machine by which he could fly ; yet the wings and 
 feathers of birds are mechanical contrivances, which 
 no human skill has ever enabled us to imitate. It 
 would be superfluous to multiply examples of all the 
 marvels of the animate and inanimate world which 
 surround us ; no one can better appreciate them than 
 Mr. Darwin, whose peculiar studies have constantly 
 led him to examine them. He must therefore have at 
 any rate satisfied his own mind of the adequacy of his 
 two principles of Natural Selection and Sexual Selec- 
 tion to account for all the phenomena which he of all 
 men might be supposed least likely to undervalue. 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 95 
 
 Nevertheless, is his reasoning of the second step 
 satisfactory ? and does he establish the. connection 
 between his two principles and the facts which he 
 ascribes to their operation ? In the first place, his 
 actual experience must be a very confined one in 
 comparison with the extent of the field which his 
 theory embraces ; it comprehends all time, but the 
 living world alone and the scattered fossil remains 
 of extinct geological periods can be brought within 
 the sphere of his actual observation. But if I 
 understand his work, the living world alone only 
 exhibits the ultimate and latest effects of these prin- 
 ciples ; they have worked in order to produce them 
 during countless ages, quite beyond his view. All 
 the confirmation which actual observation can afford 
 must be sought in these latest and most recent 
 periods, whereas the working of his system has been 
 carried on in the most remote. But he does not 
 appear to cite instances of the results of Natural 
 Selection as falling within later experience ; indeed, 
 he seems to require such vast periods of time for 
 their operation that they quite pass the bounds of 
 any human observation ; we cannot see more than 
 the very faintest indication ; while, on the other 
 hand, we everywhere encounter what appear to be 
 
96 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 fixed laws of nature, which are opposed to them. 
 To begin with his first motive power the Struggle 
 for Existence there seems to be no evidence to 
 show that this struggle for existence leads to any 
 transmutation or fundamental alteration of species ; 
 the primary effect of an insufficiency of food is to 
 cause the diminution or extinction of the race, but 
 it is not obvious how it can supply the place of in- 
 vention, and transform the animal into one better 
 adapted to new conditions. All the existing world 
 of animated nature seems to be divided by hard and 
 fast lines into different groups, which admit of no 
 amalgamation ; everywhere carnivorous and herba^. 
 ceous animals birds and quadrupeds, inhabitants of 
 the land and of the ocean, all the countless varieties, 
 races and species seem to be divided by impassable 
 lines of demarcation. Mr. Darwin himself quotes 
 numerous instances ; he speaks of the humble bee 
 and other bees so nearly allied in structure and yet 
 never mingling together or losing their distinctive 
 characteristics. The great law of sexual connection 
 seems to be that like seeks like, and the whole of 
 Mr. Darwin's theory of Sexual Selection seems to be 
 founded upon the hypothesis that this law is fre- 
 quently broken or transgressed. But we cannot 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 97 
 
 find any well recorded or defined instance in which 
 this law has been violated, and a new race sprung up 
 in consequence. It does not appear, in fact, that he 
 ever traces any of these new formations to their 
 commencement. The origin of all those different 
 races, species, and varieties in the zoology of the 
 earth seems to be quite beyond the reach of our 
 mental vision ; experience cannot be said to have 
 brought any confirmation of Mr. Darwin's theory, 
 and most of the known laws of nature contradict it. 
 There is no proof that the struggle for existence has 
 ever occasioned or does tend to create any modifica- 
 tion in existing species, or that there are any irregu- 
 larities or deviations from the laws of sexual inter- 
 course sufficient to account for the vast variety of the 
 races and species on the globe. The natural history 
 of the earth worked out upon Mr. Darwin's two 
 principles, and excluding the direction of Intelligent 
 Design, is to me perfectly incomprehensible and 
 incredible. Now, admit the agency of an over-ruling 
 and Intelligent First Cause, and all appears to be 
 simple and easy. 
 
 Mr. Darwin objects to any analogy drawn from the 
 powers or faculties of Man ; but I contend that it is 
 only from this comparison that we can gain any con- 
 
 H 
 
98 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 ception of those higher powers which regulate the 
 Universe. Let us contemplate some of the mighty 
 efforts of his faculties recently displayed the Elec- 
 tric Telegraph, for instance. By this invention man 
 can communicate his thoughts with the speed of 
 light to the most distant quarters of the globe ; but 
 it is not the electric fluid passing along the wire, nor 
 the signs denoting the letters of the alphabet, nor 
 the letters of the alphabet, which of themselves 
 express no ideas, but it is the Intelligence of Man, 
 combining all these different agents for a purpose, 
 which Intelligence alone could plan, and an Intelli- 
 gent recipient could alone benefit by. Although we 
 cannot trace the subtle agency by which the govern- 
 ment of the world is carried on, yet it is quite within 
 our power to conceive ; just as the intellect of man and 
 his power over the material world effects such wonders 
 as the Electric Telegraph, so a Higher Power and a 
 Brighter Intelligence may effect all those operations 
 of nature which we see around us. There is nothing 
 very difficult to understand in its operation ; we can- 
 not trace its subtle agency, but there is nothing at 
 all difficult to reconcile to our reason the supposition 
 that such agencies exist. If we grant the existence 
 of the over-ruling Power directed by Intelligence, 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 99 
 
 the whole scheme of Nature, and the forces which 
 move, guide, and control it, are perfectly conceivable. 
 But this theory of accounting for everything by the 
 operation of secondary causes, by whatever name they 
 may be distinguished, whether Natural Selection, 
 Sexual Selection, or any other, is to me perfectly 
 incomprehensible. I can neither trace their opera- 
 tion in the actual world, nor can I imagine it by any 
 exercise either of reason or of fancy. 
 
 There is one consideration with reference to this 
 subject which appears to me entitled to considerable 
 weight. It is this : if the operation of the Divine 
 Will is supposed (as Mr. Darwin in parts of his work 
 appears to suppose It) to have any influence in the 
 economy of nature, It must have the whole power ; 
 we cannot conceive It to be partial, indirect, or 
 divided : if he admits It in any degree, he must allow 
 It to be universal, direct, and supreme. A partner- 
 ship in the exercise of Omnipotence is the most 
 irrational of all suppositions. 
 
 In conclusion, it appears to my comprehension that 
 Mr. Darwin's theory for accounting for all the innu- 
 merable varieties of animal and vegetable Life in 
 this globe is not proved. It must depend upon the 
 evidence of facts ; and facts are so far from bearing 
 
 H 2 
 
100 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 it out, that they seem in many necessary particulars 
 to be altogether wanting, and in others to contra- 
 dict his premises. They are quite insufficient and 
 inadequate to accomplish the results ascribed to 
 them. 
 
 First, he assumes that these various forms were 
 transmuted or evolved one from the other in an end- 
 less succession ; that each variety springs somehow 
 from another variety ; in animal life particularly that 
 each variety of animal form is produced or evolved 
 from some other different animal form, and that 
 these new varieties have arisen from some changes 
 in cognate or nearly similar species. For example, 
 he supposes that Man has sprung from some variety 
 produced either by Natural or Sexual Selection in 
 those apes who physically bear the most resemblance 
 to the human frame. But this theory is totally un- 
 supported by any positive fact. No naturalist ever 
 knew of any such variety thus produced, nor of any 
 variety whatever produced by any analogous process 
 in any other animals. Mr. Darwin seems to consider 
 that he has proved his case when he. has shown that 
 all animal and indeed vegetable Life is divided into 
 classes, genera, and species which do more or less 
 resemble each other. Such would in all probability 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 101 
 
 be the case, if every one were a distinct creation. 
 Creation would probably be carried on in groups 
 which, though independent of each other, might be 
 classified under distinct heads. But Mr. Darwin is 
 totally unable to supply the next link in his chain, 
 by showing that in any one case these species have 
 become intermingled. The laws of nature appear to 
 be quite fixed and absolute in this respect, and no 
 change can ever be traced by which any one species 
 is merged in another. In order to prove his theory, 
 Mr. Darwin should have been able to cite cases in 
 which new forms of life have been thus evolved ; but 
 he fails to do so, and cannot cite a single case confir- 
 matory of the process by which he supposes the whole 
 zoology of the globe to have been metamorphosed. In 
 the next place, were we for the sake of argument to 
 concede that this process of Evolution by Natural 
 Selection and Sexual Selection had produced all the 
 innumerable varieties of life which exist, they would 
 bear the unmistakeable evidence of design, and there- 
 fore that they would be the manifestations of a Great 
 First Cause. These secondary agencies, to which he 
 refers, would in that case be the mere instruments 
 of His Will. We might as well suppose that the 
 Transfiguration by Kaphael or the Communion of St. 
 
102 Remarks on the Theories of PT. ir. 
 
 Jerome by Dominichino were the works of the paint 
 and the brushes which delineated them, or even of 
 the hand which used these instruments, and not of 
 the minds of Eaphael and Dominichino. The works 
 of Nature all imply design ; and the secondary 
 agencies evoked by Mr. Darwin can have no design, 
 and must therefore be subordinate to some Higher 
 Power that has. The belief in the agency of a Great 
 Intelligent Omnipotent First Cause fully satisfies the 
 understanding, and alone enables the mind to repose 
 in the certainty of conviction. Faith in the existence 
 of a direct though invisible communication is an 
 essential part of our moral nature : it is interwoven 
 with all our best hopes and highest aspirations, and 
 is necessary at once to happiness and to virtue. 
 
 To sum up my objections to Mr. Darwin's theory, 
 First, he either does or he does not refer to the 
 agency of an Intelligent and Omnipotent First Cause. 
 If he does so assign it, then all the complications of 
 his machinery, his Natural Selection, his Sexual 
 Selection and Evolution, by which he accounts for 
 all the endless variety in the forms of organic Life, 
 are only so many additional difficulties in the work 
 accomplished by the Deity. It becomes the more 
 necessary than ever to believe in design ; because a 
 
FT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 103 
 
 governing power directing the whole becomes more 
 imperative in proportion to its complication. If he 
 excludes all reference to the Intelligent First Cause, 
 then this chain of totally distinct organisations 
 issuing one out of another becomes quite incompre- 
 hensible. Unless we suppose design and a presiding 
 direction, nothing but chaos could result. 
 
 Secondly, I do not understand how Mr. Darwin 
 can support his system by the evidence of fact. He 
 supposes that in an incalculable number of ages one 
 organism gradually melts into another, but he no- 
 where can point out any one case in which such a 
 transformation has taken place. Slight variations in 
 some of the domestic animals, which he adduces as 
 proofs, seem wholly insufficient, since they are only 
 to be found among those slight varieties who freely 
 cohabit and breed together. Where these slight 
 varieties assume a more fixed character it is always 
 in obedience to the subordinate but still Intelligent 
 Will of Man. Mr. Darwin's whole arguments seem 
 to be confined to showing that different species 
 resemble each other very nearly and are separated 
 only by apparently slight lines of demarcation ; and 
 then he assumes that these lines are in the course of 
 ages overstepped and new species thus fashioned, 
 
104 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 but he never does show that these slight lines are so 
 overstepped. With all his wonderful knowledge of 
 Natural History, he cannot prove this from fact. 
 On the contrary, his work teems with instances in 
 which the very slightest different characteristics are 
 always permanent, and no intermingling takes place. 
 For example, in two or three different species of 
 bees, so resembling each other in every particular, 
 nourished by the same food, living in the same 
 fields, constructing almost similar hives, and yet 
 separated from each other by a few marked differ- 
 ences, and remaining always distinct. This, I think, 
 is a fatal objection to Mr. Darwin's theory, that he 
 always supposes that at some remote period such 
 causes have separated different organisms, but he 
 never adduces a fact to support this theory, and all 
 the known laws of Nature seem to contradict it. 
 
 Another modern author has bequeathed to English 
 literature an interesting work on the 'History of 
 Civilisation.' It must be a matter of regret to the 
 world of letters that Mr. Buckle was so soon re- 
 moved from among us in the midst of those labours 
 which bear the stamp of so much talent and origin- 
 ality of thought. But while all must admire his 
 early promise, and regret his loss, such a tribute does 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 105 
 
 not involve any assent to his opinions, or conversion 
 to the doctrines which he so boldly enunciated. 
 Mr. Buckle's genius was essentially speculative ; he 
 delighted in inventing new theories, and was more 
 ambitious of originality than careful of soundness. 
 He did not, like Mr. Darwin, push his inquiries 
 beyond the very existence of Man ; he was satisfied 
 with carrying them into the darkness of the pre- 
 historic times. Still to a certain degree these two 
 philosophers treated of the same subjects ; and I 
 cannot leave Mr. Darwin without a few remarks on 
 Mr. Buckle's system. 
 
 In one material respect they contradict each 
 other, and Mr. Darwin's positions and Mr. Darwin's 
 conclusions are totally subversive of one of Mr. 
 Buckle's main principles. The latter declares, with- 
 out stopping altogether to prove it, that the primi- 
 tive state of Man was one of absolute equality ; that 
 every member of the human family came into the 
 world the equal of every other ; and that all the 
 differences, whether of nation or of race, are the 
 results of external circumstances influencing their 
 subsequent condition. Now Mr. Darwin maintains 
 a totally different doctrine. In his chapter on the 
 'Eaces of Man' he distinctly states that they pre- 
 
106 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 
 
 sent varieties so strongly marked, as to have almost 
 justified some naturalists in regarding them as 
 different species ; and he has applied to them the 
 term c sub-species,' indicating that although the 
 distinctions are not so broad and absolute as to 
 justify their being ranked as distinct species, yet 
 that they are too widely apart to be classed merely 
 as varieties, and he has therefore invented a sort of 
 middle term of c sub-species ' by which to characterise 
 them. 
 
 Now this is totally irreconcilable not only with 
 Mr. Buckle's premises, but with all his subsequent 
 deductions, which proceed to explain by some very 
 ingenious but far-fetched hypotheses the causes of 
 these differences which, according to him, were not 
 innate, but have been subsequently grafted upon 
 Man's original nature. Mr. Buckle lays down that 
 all the diversities found in Mankind spring from 
 differences in < Climate, Food, and Soil, and in the 
 impressions made upon the mind by the different 
 Aspects of Nature.' With regard to the three first, 
 there can be no doubt that they have a considerable 
 influence upon the character and condition of 
 nations ; but Mr. Buckle is inclined, as most in- 
 ventors of systems are, to bring everything within 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 107 
 
 their operation. If Mr. Darwin is correct in sup- 
 posing that there are natural differences in different 
 races of Man, which are either coeval with their 
 birth or spring from some very remote and ante- 
 cedent state, then these natural differences would 
 inevitably act upon the future progress of the 
 different races, and would be a cause of difference 
 quite independent of either of the four to which 
 Mr. Buckle would alone confine them. Mr. Buckle 
 is very fond of laying down some absolute rule to 
 which he conceives the whole history of Man con- 
 forms. As an instance, we will take his position 
 the fertility of the soil in an early state of society 
 always leads to a small wealthy class who are abso- 
 lutely despotic, and who crush and oppress the bulk 
 of the population. He instances Egypt, but Egypt 
 is not singular in being despotic, or in sharing that 
 principle of government with fertile countries alone. 
 The whole of Asia, from the earliest records, seems 
 to have been governed by despotic rulers, yet many 
 parts of Asia are rigorous in climate and sterile in 
 soil a proof that there is no exclusive connection 
 between fertility and despotism, since despotism is 
 quite as absolute and quite as cruel in the less 
 favoured regions of the north. Were Zingis Khan, 
 
108 Remarks on the Theories of PT. IT. 
 
 Tamerlane, or Attila one whit less arbitrary and 
 tyrannical than the Pharaohs? Were the ancient 
 Czars of Russia very humane and liberal rulers? 
 As I have noticed elsewhere, quoting from Montes- 
 quieu, all Asia has been immemorially governed by 
 despotisms, and the principle of fear has been the 
 sole and universal engine by which authority has 
 been maintained. 
 
 Some of the most fertile regions in the World are 
 the banks of the Mississippi and the great rivers 
 of the North American Continent. Mr. Buckle 
 broaches a theory, that to produce fertility it is 
 necessary that heat and humidity should co-exist in 
 the same country, that heat is confined to the 
 Western coasts of America beyond the Eocky Moun- 
 tains, that humidity, without heat, is found in the 
 Eastern portion of that Continent. Nothing can be 
 more erroneous. It is possible that there may be 
 greater aridity in some parts beyond the Rocky 
 Mountains, but so far from there being any in- 
 sufficiency of heat in all the Southern Provinces 
 of the North American Continent, the Floridas, 
 Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Georgia, and Virginia 
 are very hot countries, and there is quite sufficient 
 sun, combined with their moisture, to produce the 
 
PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 109 
 
 most luxuriant vegetation. The banks of the Missis- 
 sippi are quite as favourable to human life, and 
 quite as capable of supporting an enormous popu- 
 lation, as the lofty table-lands of Mexico ; and other 
 causes must be found than those alleged by Mr. 
 Buckle why they did not become the seat of a 
 population as numerous and as civilised as either 
 the Mexicans or Peruvians. 
 
 Mr. Buckle's theories respecting the Aspects of 
 Nature are still more unsound and visionary. He 
 supposes that the terror inspired by the repulsive 
 aspect of tropical countries, and by the alarming 
 convulsions by which nature is visited, press upon 
 the mind and imagination of Man, and induce him 
 to be weakly, superstitious, and selfish, while more 
 engaging and cheerful aspects brighten his faculties 
 and elevate his moral nature. He compares Greece 
 with India, but Greece is by no means so deficient 
 in the terrible : her mountains are high, often 
 rugged, and in earlier times her forests must have 
 frowned over the blue seas of the Mediterranean. 
 India is indeed a tropical country, but it by no 
 means presents those terrible features with which 
 Mr. Buckle invests it ; there is no part of the world 
 in which there are fewer earthquakes, its soil is not 
 
110 Remarks on the Theories of PT. u. 
 
 volcanic, and the general character of the Peninsula 
 is more beautiful than savage ; the lower valleys of 
 the Himalayas are among the loveliest spots on the 
 globe ; and there is no conceivable ground to a man 
 with ordinary observation for supposing that Vishnu 
 and Siva should have been conceived by the ima- 
 gination of Man, contemplating these beautiful and 
 picturesque localities, while Parnassus should have 
 given birth to the ' Iliad.' 
 
 Mr. Buckle appears to have had a great facility of 
 adapting his theories to circumstances. In the Old 
 World a fertile soil leads to redundant population, 
 cruelty and oppression in the upper orders, and 
 slavery among the mass of the people ; but in the 
 Eastern portion of the South American Continent 
 vegetation becomes too luxuriant, it overpowers 
 Man, and stifles him beneath the very redundance 
 of its productions. He is engaged in a war with 
 Nature, in which he is crushed and subdued by the 
 very vigour of her productive powers. All this, 
 however, is a mere dream ; Brazil is one of the most 
 flourishing States of the New World, and its popu- 
 lation is rapidly increasing. 
 
 There is one feature common to the writings both 
 of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle which is to be 
 
PT. ii. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle 111 
 
 regretted they both of them seem to ignore, if they 
 do not altogether deny, the existence of a First 
 Cause. Secondary causes are always with them the 
 only springs of motion. This gives a repulsive chill- 
 ness to all their theories, which the mind in- 
 stinctively rejects. 
 
112 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 PIIOGKESS AND CIVILISATION. 
 
 THEEE is no one idea which so universally per- 
 vades the public mind of Europe as that of Progress. 
 The Progress of the Nation, the Progress of the 
 Age, the Progress of Civilisation, the Progress of 
 Society, the Progress of Mankind, are phrases which 
 meet us everywhere. We find them in the columns 
 of every newspaper, in the articles of every Eeview, 
 in the Philosophic pages of Buckle and Macaulay, 
 in Social Science Congresses, in private circles, 
 in Parliamentary Debates, and even in the Pulpit. 
 Nor is there anything the least surprising in the 
 general prevalence of such ideas. We whose lot 
 has been cast in this nineteenth century have had 
 the high privilege of living during a most eventful 
 epoch in the history of civilised man. We are 
 often referred to the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
 turies as the period when Europe was aroused 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 113 
 
 from the lethargy of the Middle Ages, and when 
 various discoveries and inventions imparted a new 
 impulse to civilisation. We read of the inventions 
 of printing and of gunpowder, of the discovery of 
 the properties of the Magnetic needle, and the 
 consequent improvement of Navigation. The pro- 
 gress thus made in this art led to the discovery of 
 the New World and of the passage by the Cape of 
 Grood Hope, while from the great astronomical 
 discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo in the same 
 period may be dated the birth of modern Science. 
 There cannot be a doubt either that these great 
 events did give an extraordinary stimulus and 
 momentum to the advancing movement of that age, 
 or that these powerful agents are still at work after 
 the lapse of between three and four centuries. 
 They have lost none of their original force, they are 
 not spent or exhausted ; but, on the contrary, are 
 going through a process of development, which is 
 adding to, their strength, and extending the sphere 
 of their operation. We are now better able to 
 appreciate their vast importance, and to measure the 
 immense results which have flowed from them, than 
 .when they originally burst upon the World. We 
 have inherited all these means and resources in 
 
 I 
 
1 14 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 their full force and activity ; but we have added to 
 them new ones, not less potent, not less wonderful, 
 not less signal triumphs of the intellect and genius 
 of Man. 
 
 In the foremost rank of these new achievements 
 of the inventive genius of Man, the first place will 
 be assigned to the application of the motive power 
 of Steam to every description of manufacturing 
 industry, and to the three great purposes of river 
 and ocean navigation and railway communication, 
 and immediately after these follows the still newer 
 invention of the Electric Telegraph. We advance 
 so rapidly, and these great inventions of our age 
 have now become so thoroughly established as part 
 of our daily existence, that we recall with a sort of 
 surprise that they were all unknown during the 
 first twenty years of the present century. Those 
 still only on the threshold of old age can perfectly 
 remember the days when Sailing-packets, Mail- 
 coaches, and Post-horses were our means of 
 locomotion. Steamboats were not established 
 between England and France or Ireland until after 
 the year 1820, and the first great Eailway line for 
 Passenger traffic, the Manchester and Liverpool, 
 was opened in 1830, acquiring a melancholy celebrity 
 
PT. Hi. Progress and Civilisation. 115 
 
 by the tragical death of Mr. Huskisson. The new 
 invention did not make any rapid progress at first, 
 and it was not till the ten years from 1840 to 1850 
 that our principal lines were completed. Since that 
 time these mighty works of human skill and power 
 have been extended with wonderful rapidity. 
 Kailways traverse, more or less completely, every 
 country in Europe. The great Continent of North 
 America is intersected by them. In India they are 
 in course of construction. We may safely assume, 
 however the process may be delayed by the immense 
 amount of Capital they require in their formation, 
 that another half century will see them everywhere 
 co-extensive with European civilisation, and bringing 
 new regions and semi-barbarous peoples under their 
 beneficial and humanising influences. The progress 
 of Steam Navigation, as it was earlier in date, and 
 is created with less amount of Capital, has been 
 still more generally diffused. Ships navigated by 
 Steam, either wholly or in combination with sails, 
 traverse every sea and ascend every river. They 
 are to be found in the Chinese waters, the Eastern 
 Archipelago, the Caspian Sea, and the Kiver Wolga 
 No one whose attention is alive to the presenl 
 temper of the times can fail to remark that this 
 
 i 2 
 
116 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 idea of Progress has acquired a predominance over 
 the public mind which it never before exercised. It 
 has become in itself a moving force in human affairs. 
 I mean that the universal impression that great 
 changes are taking place, and that Progress is a law 
 of Nature, has in itself an active influence. There 
 is, however, something vague and indefinite in the 
 current impressions which are so widely scattered 
 throughout all classes of the community. Men echo 
 the phrases, 'The Progress of Society,' 'The Advance 
 of Civilisation,' ' This is an Age of Progress.' They 
 use these general expressions without any very dis- 
 tinct or accurate sense of their purport, or any 
 attempt to explore the depths of the vast subject 
 comprehended in these expressions. A civilised 
 State is generally understood to describe a society 
 which has attained a certain point of refinement 
 and cultivation, in which the Arts and Sciences 
 are studied and understood, where a regular Govern- 
 ment is established, and where a system of laws 
 administered with tolerable justice, and securing the 
 fundamental rights of property, is established. 
 
 A rough, but not very incorrect classification is 
 adopted in familiar conversation. The European 
 Nations, and their descendants established in America 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 117 
 
 and Australia, are alone admitted to the rank of 
 civilised nations; the Asiatic Eaces, partly extending 
 over the North of Africa, are semi-barbarous, or 
 half-civilised, and the rest of the World is regarded 
 as more or less in a savage state. These popular 
 ideas seem of a superficial character. They do not 
 answer the questions : What is Civilisation ? What 
 is Progress ? When and where did it commence ? 
 What are its causes, its laws, its duration, and its 
 limits ? No subject of human inquiry can be more 
 extensive, more important, more profound, or better 
 worthy of Philosophical Analysis. 
 
 What is Civilisation? When, and where did it 
 originate ? These are questions which the popular 
 and current acceptation does not satisfy. Civilisation 
 is used in a comparative sense. We are civilised in 
 relation to some other States, which are half-civilised, 
 or not civilised at all. We are civilised now, in 
 contrast with some former period, when we were 
 ourselves uncivilised, and out of which we have 
 emerged. What date shall we assign to that epoch ? 
 Shall it be the revival of learning, and the birth of 
 Science at the close of the Middle Ages ? Shall it be 
 the Christian era? Shall it be the foundation of 
 the Koman Empire, or the Babylonian Monarchy ? 
 
118 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 All these are no doubt important stages in the 
 History of Man ; but when we have reached the 
 remotest, we find that we have not yet attained the 
 Zero of Civilisation. Let us adopt another test, 
 and try to discover that period in which what we at 
 present call the arts of civilised life had their origin, 
 antecedent to which Man was utterly rude and un- 
 cultivated, and from which we have derived nothing, 
 and nothing has descended to us. But such an 
 inquiry will lead us into still darker obscurity. We 
 shall find that not only in Science, but that in all 
 our Arts, in all the contrivances of human ingenuity 
 with which our modern life is surrounded, whether 
 the most familiar or the most elaborate, what is 
 recent is constantly interwoven with the remote and 
 unknown Past. All that we can trace is one con- 
 tinued and connected movement, the beginning of 
 which extends far beyond the limits of History, or 
 of Tradition, or of any known Kecord. We can only 
 arrive at an approximate guess by examining our- 
 selves, and by endeavouring to discover in what 
 faculties of our nature this great distinguishing 
 characteristic of Man is situated. 
 
 In illustration of this view, let us take one of the 
 latest, and one of the noblest creations of an advanced 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 119 
 
 civilisation ; let us select the ' Warrior ' man-of-war*. 
 How much of human skill, contrivance, invention, 
 and Science, have been combined to produce that- 
 work ; how many hands have laboured, how many 
 brains have toiled, how much of Art and Science, of 
 mechanical ingenuity and skilled labour, have been 
 put in requisition to launch that mighty construction 
 upon the ocean ? A legion o.f miners, iron-founders, 
 ship-builders, carpenters, sail-makers, cordwainers, 
 and artificers of almost every description, have united 
 to frame her. Astronomy has given us the means of 
 ascertaining her place in the trackless ocean. The 
 great discovery of the fifteenth century the 
 Mariner's Compass has enabled us to direct her 
 course ; the foremost invention of our own times 
 the motive power of Steam has empowered us to 
 impart resistless velocity to the mighty mass. Arm- 
 strong guns, conical shot, all the most recent im- 
 provements in Artillery, have been enlisted to 
 augment her force as an Engine of War. Nothing 
 more modern, no better type of Progress, could be 
 chosen. But among all these modern inventions, 
 among all these achievements of the fifteenth and 
 succeeding centuries down to our own nineteenth, 
 do we owe nothing to a much earlier epoch, to a 
 
120 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 date altogether too remote for us to trace its 
 origin ? 
 
 It would be useless for the Compass to point the 
 right direction, or for Steam to propel her with 
 untiring speed, if the rudder did not enable the 
 steersman to govern her every movement, and to 
 render all this mighty machine subordinate to his 
 will. The rudder is a tolerably simple contrivance, 
 but it is not altogether an obvious one. Kudders do 
 not come by nature, or grow spontaneously out of 
 the sterns of ships. The first rudder was probably 
 hailed as a great invention, and might have im- 
 mortalised its author, had there been any means 
 of chronicling inventions. When did he live? 
 What nation did he belong to ? How long have 
 vessels been steered by rudders? None of these 
 questions can we answer. All that we know is that 
 the rudder has descended to us from remote ages, 
 and that it is now as necessary to the ' Warrior ' as 
 either the Compass or the Steam Engine. 
 
 If we push our inquiries farther we shall be able 
 to discover the inventions of a yet higher antiquity, 
 forming a necessary part of the basis on which this 
 wonderful structure has been reared. Of what 
 material are the sides, and the armament, of the 
 
PI. in. Progress and Civilisation. 121 
 
 ' Warrior ' composed ? Of iron. And how is that 
 iron ore extracted from the stone in which it is 
 lodged ? By the action of Fire. How is the Steam 
 generated, which is her moving force? By the 
 action of Fire upon Water. The element of Fire is 
 one of the primitive constituent parts of the material 
 world; but the power of kindling, managing, 
 directing and extinguishing fire, is an effort of 
 human reason and invention. No animal we ever 
 heard of ever lighted a fire or cooked its own 
 dinner. The use of Fire was essential to the 
 construction of the ' Warrior,' and when was Fire 
 first employed by Man ? We cannot answer that 
 question. 
 
 In all that vast floating mass there is scarcely the 
 smallest portion in the state Nature has produced. 
 The raw material she has furnished has been so 
 changed, moulded, and combined with other sub- 
 stances, by the various arts of Man's ingenuity, as 
 scarcely to be recognised in its original condition. 
 Human heads have planned, human hands have 
 executed, all the parts of that great machine. The 
 latest inventions of mechanical sciences the Steam 
 Engine and the Screw Propeller contribute their 
 aid to give her velocity. When she is launched, 
 
122 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 how much of Science is comprised in that art of 
 Navigation, which has been slowly reaching its 
 present advanced stage through centuries of Progress? 
 The groundwork of Navigation is the Science of 
 Astronomy; the spheroidal form of the Earth, its 
 annual and diurnal motions, the declination of the 
 Sun, the relative position of the Moon, the apparent 
 angles with the fixed Stars, all are essential compo- 
 nent parts of that Science of Navigation so necessary 
 to the direction of the Vessel. 
 
 ' I have selected the 4 Warrior ' as a convenient 
 example of the truth of my assertion that Civilisa- 
 tion cannot be dated from any known epoch, but 
 that it is the gradual development of the faculties 
 originally implanted in our nature by its Divine 
 Author. There is an advantage in choosing this 
 example, because a vessel like the ' Warrior ' stands 
 singly. It is a creation in itself. The elements in 
 its formation are thus more easily traced, and more 
 distinctly marked than in more complicated results 
 of the intellectual powers of Man. But every 
 department of Knowledge, or Science, every work of 
 human hands, would afford, if subjected to scrutiny 
 and analysis, similar results. In all it would be 
 manifest that there is no branch of our acquirements 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 123 
 
 or acquisitions which has not sprung from be- 
 ginnings evidently stamped with the unmistakable 
 character of human invention, but of which all 
 record is lost. 
 
 Civilisation, in its highest and most comprehensive 
 sense, is the united accumulation of all Science, of 
 all Art, of all the mechanical inventions, of all 
 useful trades, of every part of knowledge which have 
 been handed down to us. It is the sum total of 
 that vast inheritance of acquirements of every 
 description which has been bequeathed to us by all 
 past generations of men. 
 
 This illustration, drawn from the ' Warrior,' leads 
 us to the conclusion, that the whole history of Man 
 forms one scheme, and that it is one of the designs 
 of the Creator. Each part is linked to every other, 
 and the whole forms one consistent and continued 
 plan. Under this aspect, Man may be considered as 
 a unity, as an individual, as a single chain, consisting 
 of innumerable links. It is unfortunate that the 
 present state of Geological Science does not afford 
 us the means of arriving, even approximately, at the 
 commencement of that period when Man first 
 appeared upon the globe. The earlier Geologists 
 seem to have fixed this at a comparatively recent 
 
124 . Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 period ; but Sir Charles Lyell, and other later ones, 
 have thrown great doubt upon their calculations, 
 and assign a much remoter period to his origin. 
 Whatever may be the date of it, we may assume 
 that he was endowed then, as he is now, with the 
 two gifts of Instinct and Eeason; his Instinct 
 appertaining to the merely animal part of his 
 nature, his Reason constantly tending to elevate him 
 above it. His instincts, we may conclude, were 
 inseparably connected with his corporeal frame, or 
 formed a part of him, and were identified with it 
 and him, from his very birth. The higher faculty 
 of Eeason must have been developed far more 
 gradually, and must have been some time in 
 acquiring the government of his actions. The 
 instincts of the lower animals serve for their 
 preservation : were the instincts of Man at the very 
 earliest commencement of his earthly course suf- 
 ficient for his preservation ? Did Reason, even 
 from the beginning, lend its aid ? or did the Power 
 which created him aid the first steps of his infancy ? 
 Whichever may be the case, there must have been a 
 period, and that a very brief period, after his birth, 
 when his higher nature must have asserted itself, 
 when his instincts became subordinate to his reason. 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 125 
 
 and when the latter became the governing principle 
 of his nature. Whenever that first step was made, 
 the seed of Civilisation was planted. 
 
 It is a distinguishing characteristic of Man that 
 the child can receive new impressions from the 
 parent ; ideas not originally innate are formed in one 
 generation ; inventions are made, human ingenuity 
 finds means to add to Man's command over some 
 portion of the material world, and the power which 
 Reason gives the parent of transmitting to his 
 offspring any such new acquirements constitutes the 
 first step in the Progress of Civilisation. It is 
 worthy of remark, that no animal possesses in the 
 remotest degree this power of grafting by an 
 intellectual process any improved methods of dealing 
 with the material world which did not form a part 
 of its original nature, and which were not prompted 
 by an unvarying instinct. 
 
 There is a sect of philosophers always desirous of 
 assimilating Man to the brute creation, and of iden- 
 tifying him with it by dwelling upon all those parts 
 of his nature which he has in common with it. But 
 this faculty of change, this gift of appropriating to 
 himself new powers, and of extending his command 
 over inanimate nature by fresh contrivances, and of 
 
126 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 subsequently transmitting them to his descendants, 
 is possessed by him alone : no animal has the slightest 
 shade of it, the most intellectual species of the brute 
 creation can never make the slightest permanent 
 advance, for they are entirely without this power of 
 grafting a new habit upon their offspring. It is, I 
 think, almost self-evident that the Progress of Civi- 
 lisation must entirely follow from this power of 
 transmitting the acquirements of one generation to 
 the succeeding one, which in turn passes it to another, 
 enriched and augmented by its own. It must also 
 be remarked that this process is a purely intellectual 
 one, and is distinct from the transmission of qualities 
 by hereditary succession. No one doubts that cor- 
 poreal, and to a certain degree mental, qualities are 
 transmitted by hereditary succession ; everyone is 
 aware that family likenesses are long preserved, and 
 peculiarities of constitution and even mental and 
 moral characteristics are often reproduced by lineal 
 descent. What is traceable in individuals is indis- 
 putable in nations and in races. It would be little 
 short of a miracle if a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, 
 fresh-coloured child were to be born on the coast of 
 Guinea of negro parents : or if a little woolly-haired, 
 thick-lipped, ebony-skinned negro were to be the 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 127 
 
 offspring of a couple of Chinese parents at Pekin. 
 Even in nations most nearly allied differences of 
 race are distinguishable. Within our own Islands, 
 English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh are marked by 
 sufficiently obvious differences, both mental and 
 physical. But all these differences spring from 
 another source altogether ; they are traceable to that 
 mysterious process of nature, by which Life is re- 
 newed, through the intercourse of the sexes. But 
 the process by which inventions, arts, and knowledge 
 are transmitted from one generation to another is a 
 purely intellectual one, and has nothing whatever to 
 do with the laws of generation. There may no 
 doubt be natures more or less adapted to receive 
 these ideas, but the ideas themselves must pass from 
 one individual to the other through a purely intel- 
 lectual medium. Some children may learn to read 
 more easily than others, but among the most 
 cultivated nations children are never born able to 
 read. 
 
 The principal means by which this advance must 
 have been originally made, and the acquirements of 
 the parents imparted to the children, must have been 
 through the medium of the gift of Speech, another 
 of the qualities possessed by Man alone. This power 
 
128 Progress and Civilisation. . PT. m. 
 
 of communication between the different members of 
 the human race is absolutely essential to Progress ; 
 without it the mind could never have expanded 
 beyond the limits of the lower animals. Some small 
 advance in mechanical skill or workmanship may be 
 transmitted from an older to a younger generation 
 by manual instruction : a carpenter may show his 
 apprentice how to use a plane, a hammer, or a saw, 
 without the use of words, or a sailor may teach a 
 cabin-boy the art of knotting and splicing in perfect 
 silence. But there is no real difference in principle. 
 A certain mental process directs the saw or teaches 
 a sailor to knot ; it is equally an art transmitted by 
 an operation of the understanding, though the means 
 of communication are not quite the same. This 
 mode, however, of transmitting arts from one gene- 
 ration to another is far more restricted, and is, 
 indeed, of a very limited operation ; it may be con- 
 sidered as merely supplementary and auxiliary to the 
 mode of communication by Speech. Language is at 
 the root of all improvement ; it is not only that we 
 cannot speak without words, that we are altogether 
 cut off from interchanging our ideas with each other, 
 but without words we cannot think ; let any one 
 examine the operation of his own thoughts, and he 
 
FT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 129 
 
 will find that beyond the simplest ideas of form and 
 colour, sound or taste, which are the direct impres- 
 sions made upon the senses, all ideas of a more 
 complex character must be embodied either mentally 
 or orally in words in order to enable the individual 
 to conceive them. This consideration will assist us 
 in estimating the immeasurable importance of that 
 greatest of human inventions the Alphabet. How 
 curious that this great step in human acquirement 
 is now synonymous with the very lowest rudiments 
 of learning ? The youngest child is expected to know 
 its letters as soon as or often before it can speak, 
 and yet it is the mightiest single stride that the 
 human mind ever made in its progress towards a 
 higher state of knowledge. Let us suppose the first 
 inventor of the Alphabet, whoever he might have 
 been, coming forward in some assembly of elders or 
 sages, and exhibiting a handful of black marks traced 
 upon any substance, and saying, ' With these figures 
 I can express all my wants, all my wishes, all my 
 ideas ; I can make them convey the most delicate 
 shades of thought, and embody them in a durable 
 shape ; I can describe scenes and events with such 
 accuracy that my auditors may almost fancy that 
 they have themselves witnessed them ; I can transmit 
 
 K 
 
130 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 to the most remote quarters of the globe and to the 
 most distant periods of time narratives of the events 
 which are passing around me.' How difficult would 
 the sages have found it to believe that so apparently 
 simple a contrivance should be capable of such results. 
 Probably no single individual ever did invent letters 
 or establish such a claim to the gratitude of man- 
 kind. The process was probably a gradual one ; 
 hieroglyphics or cuneiform characters would probably 
 among all nations be the more obvious method of 
 recording events ; a rude representation of the thing 
 to be recorded, a battle or the erection of a building, 
 would be loughly sculptured in some durable mate- 
 rial ; then perhaps some conventional signs might 
 connect different events ; but the idea of representing 
 them by characters, not resembling or bearing any 
 reference in form to the objects to be described, 
 would be a much later process. Then would come 
 the idea of connecting these characters with sounds, 
 and gradually by successive stages arriving at a 
 written language. But the superiority of this mode 
 of expression would not at first be recognised, and 
 probably it was long before hieroglyphics were insen- 
 sibly and gradually supplanted by written words ; it 
 seems, indeed, that the two co-existed during the 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 131 
 
 early ages of history ; to this day the Chinese cha- 
 racter appears to be a sort of combination of the two, 
 yet it seems to be a form capable of expressing ideas 
 with considerable facility; the Chinese are great 
 readers, and their books are generally in the hands 
 of the natives as they sit at their stalls and their 
 shops. It is curious that not only are we ignorant 
 of the name of any individual inventor of the 
 Alphabet, but we do not know with any certainty 
 among what nation the art of writing was first prac- 
 tised. This mighty invention, through wh'ich all 
 the fruits of human thought, past and present, are 
 transmitted to us ; this invention by means of which 
 we of these later times become acquainted with the 
 Poems of Homer, the Histories of Thucydides, the 
 Philosophy of Plato and the Inspirations of Isaiah, 
 seems to have stolen among the human race with so 
 gradual and noiseless a step as to leave no trace of 
 its tirst appearance. Yet it has gradually developed 
 into the great engine of human progress, connecting 
 the whole human race together past and present, and 
 conferring upon Man, considered collectively, a species 
 of earthly immortality. 
 
 ' Non omnis inoriar, multaque pars mei 
 Vitabit Libitinam.' 
 
J 32 Progress and Civilisation. PT. in. 
 
 The thought so beautifully expressed by the 
 greatest of elegiac poets, has acquired an expansion, 
 possibly far beyond his own conception. He most 
 likely limited his aspirations of future fame to the 
 Roman Empire, which he might have conceived 
 eternal, but the Eoman Empire has passed away ; 
 yet, through the medium of printing, the Odes of 
 Horace have obtained a wider celebrity than Rome 
 could ever have given them, and will probably be 
 the delight of the scholar, in all countries, for ages 
 to come. 
 
 The invention of written language is in many 
 respects a far more accurate and comprehensive 
 medium of thought than speech itself. It is gene- 
 rally more the offspring of deliberation and reflec- 
 tion ; it is more completely an intellectual process. 
 Speech is often the almost unconscious utterance of 
 some passing impression, but it is the mind and the 
 will which dictate writing, and leave a permanent 
 record of thought. It has exercised a wonderful 
 influence in extending and perfecting the gift of 
 speech itself; it has gradually imparted to it re- 
 gularity, grammatical correctness, and copiousness. 
 The perpetual recurrence to a fixed standard must 
 have a constant influence in correcting errors, and 
 
PI. in. Progress and Civilisation. 133 
 
 giving to language greater precision as a vehicle 
 of thought, while at the same time it must afford 
 constant facilities for new modes of expression ; by 
 the perpetual extension it will be giving to the 
 intellectual powers, it will be constantly stimulating 
 the mind to satisfy its wants by coining new words 
 and framing new forms of expression. It is impos- 
 sible to estimate to what extent all the intellectual 
 faculties of man have been enlarged by this great 
 invention ; but we cannot avoid perceiving that all 
 the higher achievements of the human race are 
 directly or indirectly attributable to it. It seems so 
 necessary to us, so interwoven with our very being, 
 that we can scarcely contemplate it in the light of 
 an art or an invention ; it seems to have become a 
 part of our very nature. All accurate knowledge of 
 mankind is co-extensive with this art ; every other 
 means by which we try to read the Past is vague, 
 speculative and shadowy ; they resemble at best the 
 faint recollections of our earliest childhood, which 
 we are scarcely able to distinguish from dreams. 
 All those Sciences which treat of the structure of 
 Man, or of his origin, or of the conditions through 
 which he has passed, can only afford us external 
 views of him. We study with more or less accuracy 
 
134 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 and success, just as we would study any other being 
 distinct from ourselves, but written language enables 
 us to identify ourselves with his inner nature, and to 
 know him in some sort as we know ourselves. 
 
 Modern Science has been making efforts in diffe- 
 rent directions to penetrate through the mists which 
 overshadow Man's origin ; but it may be doubted if 
 these inquiries have led to any certainty, or even if 
 these results were attained, would have any par- 
 ticular bearing upon our present condition, or our 
 future prospects. Sir Charles Lyell has involved 
 the chronology of primeval man in yet profounder 
 darkness and obscurity ; and the philological re- 
 searches of Professor Max Miiller have given us but 
 a shadowy glimpse of the races who are either alto- 
 gether extinct, or who have become so blended 
 together as to have lost all separate identity. But 
 these inquiries must always possess a philosophic 
 interest: the materials which enable us to study 
 Man as he at present exists can only be furnished 
 with an approach to accuracy since the dawn of the 
 historical period. We may be told of the Aryans as 
 our progenitors; but we know so little of them, 
 that we derive little more than a name from these 
 studies. But when we come down to the historical 
 
FT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 135 
 
 period, our knowledge of races and of nations 
 acquires distinctness ; we recognise them through 
 successive periods, as retaining the same features, and 
 it is wonderful how accurately their characteristics 
 are reproduced during long ages. 
 
 The origin of Man is involved, and probably 
 will always continue to remain, in impenetrable 
 obscurity; but were even the- most correct know- 
 ledge of it obtained, we should probably add little 
 more to our stock of information. It would most 
 likely be the history of savage and migratory tribes 
 in the earliest stages of civilisation. It might be 
 compared to the biography of an individual in 
 infancy, which would contain few or no indications 
 of his future character. We possess perhaps all the 
 materials necessary to the knowledge of Man from 
 as early a period as there was anything to be known ; 
 it is certain at least that the histories are abundant 
 and increasing which may enable us to estimate his 
 nature. One great subject of controversy meets us 
 at the very threshold of our inquiries. It is the 
 question, Whether the human race spring from one 
 common origin, or whether the varieties of the great 
 family of Man arise from distinct sources ? On this 
 subject physiologists are much divided. Some dwell 
 
136 Progress and Civilisation. PT. in. 
 
 upon the marked differences, others rest upon those 
 features which are common to the whole race, and 
 the dispute in the present state of our information 
 is not easily settled. Without venturing to come to 
 any decision upon it, we may safely assume that in 
 either case the practical result at the present stage 
 is the same ; whether the various races who people 
 the globe, the Europeans, the Mongol tribes, the 
 Red Indians of North America, or the Negroes of 
 Africa, sprung all originally from the same parents, 
 and their differences arise from the operation of 
 climate, modes of life and other causes through a 
 succession of ages, or whether they were originally 
 separate families, in either case the results at the 
 present period are identical. These different races 
 of men are as distinct from each other as different 
 varieties of the same species among the lower 
 animals. There is as much difference between an 
 Englishman and a Negro, both physically and 
 morally, as between a greyhound and a bulldog. 
 Their physical frames, their moral qualities, and 
 their intellectual powers differ widely, and the 
 difference is not lessened whichever of the two 
 theories is adopted. Nothing would seem to be 
 more clearly demonstrated by the evidence of facts, 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 137 
 
 than the existence of wide differences of character 
 between races and between nations. It is just as 
 certain and as indisputable to an unprejudiced mind 
 as the diversity of individual character in private 
 life. It would be as easy to contend that all men 
 were equally tall or equally short, equally fair or 
 equally dark, equally wise or equally silly, equally 
 brave or equally timid, as that the characteristics of 
 nation and of race were always the same. Of all 
 the fallacies which have misled mankind in modern 
 times, the greatest and most apparent, and perhaps 
 the most mischievous, has been that of the natural 
 inherent equality of mankind. The word Character, 
 like most abstract terms, is not easy of definition, 
 and yet is perfectly intelligible. We know very 
 well what we mean when we speak of the character 
 of an individual, the character of a nation, or the 
 character of a race ; but the exact signification of* 
 the word, which combines a certain union of mental, 
 moral, and physical qualities, stamped with the 
 impress of individuality, is not very easy to analyse 
 with accuracy. We must assume, therefore, that 
 they are intelligible when we say that from the 
 earliest ages of which we have any trustworthy 
 record, distinct and marked features of character 
 
138 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 are traceable in the different nations of the 
 globe. 
 
 One of the most remarkable of these is the 
 Oriental or Asiatic type. This is the largest of the 
 four quarters into which geographers have divided 
 the World. It is probably the most anciently in- 
 habited, and it is to this day by far the most populous 
 in the globe. Throughout the whole extent of 
 this region, from the beginning of time, certain 
 defined characteristics are and have been always 
 apparent. Montesquieu remarks that, while honour 
 is the principle of European monarchies, and virtue 
 the principle which ought to govern republics 
 whether ancient or modern, fear is the universal 
 principle in despotic Asia. Of the truth of this 
 last statement I think there can be little doubt. 
 Whether in the most eastern portions of China, 
 'Siarn, or Burmah, or in all the countries under the 
 Mussulman sway, extending to Persia, Turkey, and 
 the shores of the Mediterranean there is an unvarying 
 uniformity of despotism. Everywhere fear is para- 
 mount, everywhere fear is the ruling principle. 
 Asiatic nations never seem to have been inspired by 
 any of the loftier motives which animate Europeans. 
 We cannot recognise among them patriotism, or 
 
PT. ni. Progress and Civilisation. 139 
 
 honour, or moral principle. Their attachment to 
 their religion, whether Buddhist, Hindoo, or Ma- 
 hometan, is very tenacious, and would be an en- 
 nobling sentiment but that the religions themselves 
 are so inherently false and corrupt. Their treatment 
 of their women appears to be another strong distin- 
 guishing trait ; everywhere the females are more or 
 less secluded, and have been so from the earliest 
 times. I was reading lately narratives of two 
 English ladies who resided for a considerable period 
 in the capacity of governesses in the harems of two 
 Asiatic Princes at the opposite extremities of that 
 Continent. One lady was engaged to instruct the 
 numerous offspring of the Sultan of Siam, the other 
 the children of the Viceroy of Egypt. Perhaps 
 hypercritics may object that Egypt is not Asia, but 
 Africa. No doubt it is so, but the race belong, by 
 habits, customs, religion, and I believe origin, to the 
 Asiatic family. It is singular to find how closely 
 these two narratives resemble each other. 
 
 Another feature of the Asiatic character is its 
 immobility, which pervades all the nations which 
 compose it, whatever their religion. Chinese, Japa- 
 nese, Persians, Turks, and Hindoos, all adhere perti- 
 naciously to the customs and habits of their ancestors, 
 
140 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 all resist doggedly the introduction of any change. 
 Their sense of morality is lower than that of the 
 European nations ; they are treacherous, dissimulat- 
 ing, and cruel ; they evince a great disregard for 
 human life and human suffering ; they are not 
 deficient in animal courage, and when trained and 
 disciplined make good soldiers. One of the most 
 remarkable of their characteristics is that they at- 
 tained, at a very early period, a very considerable 
 proficiency in all the arts of civilisation, and have 
 remained stationary ever since. Our recent Exhi- 
 bitions of Industry in Paris and in London have 
 rendered us familiar with a great variety of Oriental 
 fabrics, and most of us have observed the beauty of 
 the designs and colours, and the excellence of the 
 workmanship of all the manufactures exhibited, 
 particularly of those woven by the hand. Carpets, 
 brocades, and silk stuffs equal ours in beauty and 
 surpass them in durability. But the range of these 
 industrial products is very much limited ; they are 
 chiefly confined to those, produced by manual labour, 
 in which all the Eastern nations appear to possess 
 much delicacy of touch and dexterity of the hand. 
 They have also a considerable talent for imitation, 
 and can copy most of our productions with great 
 
PT. HI. Progress and Civilisation. 141 
 
 fidelity. They seem never to attain to inventive 
 genius, or even in practice or in theory to be gifted 
 with a capacity for Science. They are wonderfully 
 stationary ; what they are now they appear to have 
 been, as far as we have any records, two thousand 
 years ago. Arrian's ' History of Alexander' describes 
 the natives of India much as they exist at the present 
 day. The History of Asia, too, reproduces at suc- 
 cessive epochs the same series of events. The natives 
 of the southern and more fertile and genial regions 
 seem to become relaxed and effeminate ; the tribes 
 of Central Asia swell in numbers, and under the 
 command of some great conqueror, Zingis Khan or 
 Tamerlane, fall like an avalanche upon the effemi- 
 nate natives of the southern regions and extirpate 
 or reduce them to slavery, settle in their country, 
 and are by the operation of the same causes cor- 
 rupted and rendered effeminate, to be in their turn 
 subjugated by new eruptions from the North. 
 
 Asia is certainly the earliest seat of Civilisation, 
 and, if mankind were all equal in natural powers, 
 would have had the advantage of a start of at least 
 two thousand years. But the Asiatic races, having 
 attained a certain imperfect stage of culture, seem 
 never to have made any further advance. They have 
 
142 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 been especially unable to realise the fruits which 
 grow from the exercise of the higher mental faculties. 
 It is remarkable that although they have been in 
 constant intercourse with the more advanced Euro- 
 pean nations, and although they have a natural 
 facility, yet they never have been able to imitate 
 any of our higher productions of Science. For 
 example, English ships have found their way to 
 China ever since the discovery of the Cape of Grood 
 Hope, and for the last two hundred years our com- 
 mercial intercourse with that country has been 
 frequent and increasing. Chinese are active sailors 
 and have long navigated their own waters ; it is even 
 said that the Mariner's Compass was known to them 
 before it was introduced into Europe ; and yet, 
 though they have our superior ships before their 
 eyes, they have never improved upon the model of 
 their heavy, cumbrous junks. They have never had 
 sufficient enterprise to construct a ship on the Euro- 
 pean model, or to return to us in Europe the visits 
 we make to them. If Chinese were at all made of 
 the same stuff with English or Americans, we should 
 have had long since Chinese merchantmen visiting 
 the western coasts of the American Continent, from 
 San Francisco to Panama, Callao, and Valparaiso, 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 143 
 
 and perhaps anchoring in the harbour of New York, 
 or in the Thames. Having the European examples 
 constantly before their eyes, they never seem to have 
 made the slightest advance in this or in any other 
 European art. The only exception to this rule of 
 Eastern immobility seems to be found among the 
 Japanese, who of late years have both built and 
 navigated steam vessels entirely by their own native 
 artificers and engineers. The Japanese are supposed, 
 however, to belong to the Polynesian family. 
 
 If we pass in review the long catalogue of inven- 
 tions, discoveries, and additions to the knowledge 
 and power of Man during the last five hundred years, 
 and which may be said to have exalted his position 
 and to have given him such immense command in 
 the material world, we shall find that not one of 
 them can be traced to an Asiatic origin. They are 
 all the offspring of the higher intellect and genius of 
 the European nations. I know no more convincing 
 proof of the inferiority of the Asiatic mind than this 
 fact. Even with all the example of Europe before 
 them, they have never been able to tread in our 
 footsteps or to follow in the paths which have led us 
 to so high an eminence. 
 
 As a general rule, the features of character which 
 
144 Progress and Civilisation. FT. m. 
 
 I have noticed as pervading the Asiatic races are 
 universal throughout that Continent, and have 
 existed there from the beginning of history. They 
 constitute a type clearly distinguishing them by 
 unmistakable characteristics from the other quarters 
 of the World. 
 
 If we turn our eyes to Africa, and examine the 
 Negro race, we shall find them sunk to a much lower 
 level than the Asiatic nations. This vast Continent 
 has been peopled from the earliest times chiefly by 
 the Negro race, and all history represents them as 
 very much in the same low state of civilisation which 
 they occupy at present. The Egyptian hieroglyphics 
 represent them in the character of slaves performing 
 the rudest tasks. Travellers have never discovered 
 in any part of Africa buildings, public works, or 
 monuments of any antiquity or durability. In the 
 long series of ages during which they have peopled 
 that Continent, they have left scarcely a trace of 
 their existence. They have no literature, no arts, 
 except of the simplest kind ; in size, stature, and 
 muscular strength, they surpass most other races, and 
 their peculiar physical constitution enables them to 
 labour without injury in the hottest regions of the 
 ton-id zone. But they are naturally indolent, and do 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 145 
 
 not voluntarily support any toil. Their moral nature 
 appears to be far milder than that of the Asiatic, 
 and though occasionally liable to bursts of fero- 
 city, they seem capable of strong attachment, and 
 not destitute of the gentler affections. Still, whether 
 we contemplate them in their native Continent, or 
 as naturalised in America, they occupy a very low 
 place in the scale of Intelligence. 
 
 If we pass in brief review the remaining members 
 of the human family, the savage tribes scattered 
 over different portions of the globe, we shall 
 nowhere discover indications of any great power of 
 improvement. The late Archbishop Whately was 
 of opinion that savage and uncivilised man could 
 nowhere attain to civilisation except under the tute- 
 lage of a more advanced race, and that generally 
 even with such guidance they were incapable of 
 reaching it. 
 
 The history of the Xorth American Eed Indians 
 confirms this view. In a state of nature they are 
 represented as among the noblest of savages, but 
 they have never during three hundred years been 
 reclaimed from their wild lives, or induced to acquire 
 the rudiments even of civilised life. They have 
 never been incorporated in the society of the white 
 
146 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 man, but have uniformly been driven, as he ad- 
 vanced, farther and farther into the wilderness, and 
 been reduced in numbers, and will probably become 
 shortly extinct. Unlike the Negro they cannot exist 
 in a state of servitude ; they must live like the 
 wild animal of the forest or must perish. 
 
 Wherever we direct our eyes we are unable to 
 discover either in Asia, Africa, or in any savage life, 
 any equality with the European, or germs of a nature 
 capable of attaining to the same height. It is boot- 
 less to try to trace how it is composed or from 
 whence it came. We may have originally been 
 Aryans, or Caucasians, or derived from any other 
 stock, or combination of different stocks, but it is 
 quite clear that we are at this moment the dominant 
 race in the World. Our superiority was visible 
 from the earliest appearance of the race in the 
 records of history. When the Greeks first en- 
 countered Darius at? Marathon, and Xerxes at Ther- 
 mopylae and Salamis, the same superiority of nature 
 was apparent as when Olive, with his handful of 
 Europeans and Sepoys, defeated the hosts of Surajah 
 Dowlah, and founded our Indian Empire. When 
 Alexander the Great led his victorious bands from 
 the shores of the Mediterranean to the centre of 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 147 
 
 Hindustan the same inherent superiority of race 
 was exhibited. 
 
 We recognise the same character of superiority in 
 their Literature. While all Eastern writings are cha- 
 racterised by a certain mystic and obscure mode of 
 expression, the pages of Xenophon and Thucydides 
 are the perfection of style, and speak to us the lan- 
 guage of truth. It is marvellous, indeed, to throw a 
 retrospective glance upon the whole body of Grecian 
 literature, and to recall the fact that in an age so 
 remote it constitutes one of the noblest in the 
 World. It attained at once the utmost perfection 
 of style. In the words of Johnson, ' the Poems of 
 Homer were only known to pass the common limits 
 of human intelligence, when it was found that age 
 after age and nation after nation could do little 
 more than copy his incidents, new name his charac- 
 ters, and paraphrase his sentiments.' It contrasts 
 in this particular with all the nations of the Asiatic 
 Continent. They never appear to have possessed 
 any body of works worthy to be termed a Litera- 
 ture. 
 
 It is not, however, in Poetry alone that Greek 
 writers have attained the highest excellence. Poetry 
 may be supposed to be the first and natural expres- 
 1 2 
 
148 Progress and Civilisation. FT. m. 
 
 sion to which the efforts of a young nation whose 
 imagination is fresh are directed. But it is not in 
 poetry alone that the Greeks excelled. The works 
 of Plato and Aristotle breathe the profoundest philo- 
 sophy, and are inspired by deep thought. The 
 Orations of Demosthenes continue to rank as the 
 most finished specimens of eloquence that the World 
 has ever witnessed. In all these departments of 
 literature the Greeks appear to have attained at 
 once perfection. From what source they imbibed 
 their thoughts, or in what school they acquired their 
 inimitable grace and beauty of language, must re- 
 main a mystery to us. Of this we may be quite 
 certain that it was from no Asiatic fountain. The 
 same sudden and immediate attainment of the highest 
 standard of excellence is noticed in Sculpture. If, 
 according to Johnson, succeeding poets have never 
 been able to surpass Homer, the sculptors who have 
 followed his footsteps for 3,000 years have never 
 been able to equal Phidias. Nothing can be more 
 marked than the distinction between the Greek type, 
 and the character of any Eastern nation we have ever 
 known. No progress of civilisation, no cultivation 
 of the taste or of the understanding, has ever enabled 
 succeeding nations to surpass these exquisite models. 
 
PI. m. Progress and Civilisation. 149 
 
 In Politics, in Laws, and in Government, the 
 European element was equally discernible. The vices 
 inherent in all Democracies soon destroyed indeed 
 these brilliant little Communities; but they exhibited 
 varieties and energies during their brief existence 
 quite foreign to every Oriental nation of which we 
 have any knowledge. The love of liberty or the 
 sentiment of patriotism are utterly unknown to 
 the Asiatic. When Greece was absorbed into the 
 Eoman Empire, and that great and glorious nation 
 gradually raised itself to supreme power through 
 ages of sustained effort, the same thoroughly Euro- 
 pean character was reproduced ; indeed of the two 
 nations the Eoman was perhaps the more intensely 
 European. If less brilliant, if less deeply imbued 
 with the sentiment of beauty, his was the more 
 robust and firmer nature. During the long series of 
 ages in which he was gradually arising to supreme 
 power he enjoyed the advantage, which I believe 
 the Englishman alone has ever shared with him, of a 
 political constitution in which the aristocratic and 
 the democratic elements were combined ; and it is 
 probably to the durability which resulted from this 
 union that he owes his twelve hundred years of 
 national existence. But all the features of his 
 
150 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 national character, all the records of his glorious 
 history, bear the unmistakable impress of the 
 European type. We can trace in the Eoman quali- 
 ties akin to our own. We can thoroughly sympathise 
 with his lofty patriotism, and his indomitable con- 
 stancy of purpose. We feel that he is made of the 
 same materials as ourselves. But we are sensible 
 that we have nothing in common with the Chinese 
 or the Persians at any period of their history. From 
 the earliest origin of the European Nations, at least 
 from the earliest time when any knowledge of their 
 existence has been handed down to us, we find them 
 exhibiting a marked difference from, and evincing an 
 incontestable moral and intellectual superiority over, 
 the older civilisations of Asia. It is not merely 
 that they have surpassed them, but that the whole 
 of their national character is essentially different. 
 This is shown in their writings, in their political 
 institutions, and in their history. 
 
 Another great event the greatest in the life of 
 mankind served at once to exhibit and to complete 
 the essential difference between them. Christianity 
 had its birth on Asiatic ground, but the seed never 
 germinated there. Any considerable sect of Jewish 
 disciples does not appear to have survived the age of 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 151 
 
 the Apostles. Humanly speaking, we should be led 
 to suppose that had it been confined to the limits of 
 Judea, it would have been crushed by the persecuting 
 influence of the Pharisees. But this precious seed 
 was transplanted to a more genial clime. Blighted 
 in the land of its birth, it sprang up with vigour 
 and luxuriance in the soil of Europe. Asia rejected, 
 Europe claimed it. From the moment that, under 
 the authority of St. Paul, the converts to the new 
 Faith w a re absolved from obedience to the Levitical 
 Law, the purely Jewish portion were speedily ab- 
 sorbed into the universal character of the new Faith. 
 The difficulties and obstacles which it met with at 
 home were no longer encountered in the new and 
 larger theatre to which it was transferred. The 
 Romans and the Greeks had little intolerance either 
 in their nature or their policy. The fanciful and 
 poetical Mythology which they had moulded into a 
 religion, did not sink deeply enough into their minds 
 to inspire either zeal or enthusiasm, and in the eyes 
 of the philosophic and educated classes was regarded 
 only as a graceful superstition. The readers of 
 Cicero, the disciples of Plato, and above all of 
 Socrates, were not contented with this shadowy and 
 unsubstantial worship. The upper and more edu- 
 
152 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 cated classes were immersed in the speculations of 
 the Greek philosopher. Far from repulsing with 
 intolerance any form of religion which addressed 
 itself to the understanding, they were quite ready 
 to accept or at least to examine it. The fables of 
 their pagan deities were utterly insufficient to con- 
 tent that craving after religion which is a necessity 
 of our nature. When, therefore, the earnest teachings 
 of St. Paul were addressed to them they met with 
 no unwilling listeners. The temper in which the 
 governor Festus replied to him, ' almost thou per- 
 suades t me to be a Christian,' is descriptive of the 
 attitude in which the more educated portion of the 
 Greeks and Komans were disposed to meet him. It 
 is, I think, a mistake to suppose that the writings 
 or the influence of the Greek philosophers were 
 hostile to the introduction of Christianity. On the 
 contrary, they prepared the way for it, and there is 
 much in the teachings of Socrates not far removed 
 from the spirit of the Gospel. When, therefore, the 
 new doctrines were preached to them, there were 
 many who were ready to embrace a belief which at 
 once satisfied their understandings and warmed their 
 hearts. 
 
 Thus the purifying and ennobling Faith of Christ 
 
n. m. Progress and Civilisation. 153 
 
 advanced, until it triumphed in its final adoption by 
 that great Empire which, although verging to decay, 
 was still the Mistress of the World. Its reception by 
 the Northern warriors under whose prowess Eome 
 fell, is, perhaps, more difficult of explanation. In 
 one respect they may have resembled the Eomans ; 
 they do not appear to have entertained any strong 
 attachment to the gloomy superstitions of their 
 ancestors, or to have numbered among their popu- 
 lation any powerful priestly class. Thor and Odin 
 seem not to have been regarded with much deeper 
 respect than were Jupiter and Saturn. They might 
 naturally also have been attracted towards the 
 opinions and faith of a polished people, and might, 
 even while they conquered, still have looked up to 
 them as their guides. Perhaps, also, a more direct, 
 though invisible, influence by the agency of Provi- 
 dence, might have guarded the religion through this 
 period of danger and transition. Whatever may 
 have been the causes, the fact is indisputable, that 
 Christianity, far from sharing the overthrow of the 
 Roman Empire, was embraced by its conquerors, 
 whose power gave it a wider circulation and a new 
 impetus. 
 
 While such was the victorious course of Chris 
 
154 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 tianity in the Western World, its fortunes in Asia 
 were very different. Although it seems to have 
 become established in the maritime cities of Antioch 
 and Alexandria, which were more Greek than Asiatic 
 in their composition, it never appears to have pene- 
 trated far into the interior. It certainly never 
 reached either Persia or India, and whatever footing 
 it may have gained in Syria or Asia Minor was 
 utterly destroyed by the sweeping tide of Mahomet- 
 anism. Nor has Christianity, during succeeding 
 centuries, ever accomplished any settlement on the 
 whole of that vast Continent. Buddhist, Brahmin, 
 and Mahometan have equally adhered with obstinate 
 tenacity to the traditions of their fathers, and utterly 
 rejected all the efforts which the zeal of missionaries 
 has prompted for their conversion. Among all those 
 Religions the only one which assumed an aggressive 
 attitude was the Mahometan ; and it is worthy of 
 remark, that the burst of fanatical zeal, with which 
 the followers of the Prophet were inspired at its 
 commencement, is the only strong impulse which 
 ever appears to have raised the Oriental mind from 
 its passive and inert state. They poured like an 
 avalanche upon Western Asia, wrested all Northern 
 Africa (the land of Tertullian and St. Augustine) 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 155 
 
 from the faith of Christianity, and turned the flank 
 of Europe by their subjugation of Spain. For a 
 moment the fate of the Civilised World seemed 
 doubtful. The Battle of Tours decided the ques- 
 tion, and assured the ascendency of Christianity and 
 of Europe. The Moslem tide ebbed as rapidly as it 
 had risen ; and it is not without a feeling of surprise 
 that we recall to memory, that, for several hundred 
 years afterwards, the Moorish Caliphs retained posses- 
 sion of the fairest Provinces of Spain, and that even 
 to the present day, with the single exception of the 
 recent French conquest of Algiers, the Mussulman 
 continues to rule in the whole extent of Northern 
 Africa, from Morocco to Cairo. The European cha- 
 racter appears to have received a new and important 
 element through the bands of hostile warriors who 
 overthrew the Eoman' Empire. It was the spirit of 
 Chivalry, at the foundation of which lay a high 
 principle of honour, and an intense sense of personal 
 dignity and self-respect. Mr. Burke remarks, that 
 the European nature was composed of two elements, 
 6 the spirit of Keligion, and the spirit of a gentle- 
 man.' These seem to have been blended in the 
 composition of these fierce warriors, and to have 
 infused a moral elevation into their otherwise rude 
 
156 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 and savage character. The Feudal System, assailed 
 by the modern philosophy of the French school, is 
 the source of all the evils which they conceive press 
 upon society. I believe that we owe to it much that 
 is great and generous in our nature, and that to it 
 may be traced much of that spirit of freedom which 
 pervades our modern institutions. ' The generous 
 loyalty to rank and sex,' in Mr. Burke's immortal 
 passage, embodied two great and fundamental ideas 
 associated with the institutions of chivalry. In a 
 rude age the deference, and almost worship, paid to 
 women, and the customs which placed their weakness 
 under the safeguard of knightly honour, raised at 
 once the tone of sentiment and morals. While all 
 the Eastern nations withdrew their women from all 
 contact with society, secluded them in harems, and 
 sometimes treated them as slaves, the gallant 
 chivalry of Western Europe placed them at the 
 head of society, in the foremost rank of honour, and 
 protected them with the rampart of their swords. 
 Thus from the bosom of these nations, accounted as 
 barbarous by the more polished Greeks and Romans, 
 sprang a purifying and ennobling influence to which 
 they had been strangers. It is in great part through 
 these influences that the germs of a higher civilisa- 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 157 
 
 tion were preserved during the long eclipse which 
 preceded the revival of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries. The great movement of that period was 
 imparted to a society which these influences had 
 rendered worthy to receive and extend it. Four 
 centuries have passed since that great epoch four 
 centuries which, by their achievements in art, in 
 science, and in learning, have completely changed 
 the position of Man upon this globe. It is needless 
 to enumerate them ; they must be present to the 
 minds of all persons of ordinary education. Half 
 the World was then unknown to us : every portion 
 of it has now been explored, surveyed, and mapped. 
 Millions of colonists have planted new empires in 
 what where unknown wildernesses. The Arts and 
 Sciences have explored the secrets of nature and 
 extended our knowledge to worlds beyond our own. 
 All this vast movement which originated in these 
 centuries" is continuing in our own time with un- 
 abated force. It seems startling to reflect, that in 
 the latter half of the last century, just a hundred 
 years ago, New Zealand was unknown, and the bare 
 existence, but not the size or extent, of Australia, 
 recognised. It is curious to refer to the charts 
 published previous to the voyages of Captain Cook, 
 
158 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 and to observe how many blanks on the surface of 
 the globe exist in them at this comparatively recent 
 period, within the recollection of the grandfathers, 
 and even of some of the fathers, of living men. 
 Within the last forty years, as I had occasion to 
 notice in a previous passage, steamboats, and rail- 
 ways, and electric telegraphs have quite changed the 
 position of man. Our last inventions seem to be of 
 weapons and engines, which have revolutionised the 
 art of war. One effect of these inventions is to 
 place the superiority of Europeans over all the less 
 civilised nations of the globe upon an unassailable 
 height. The suppression of the Indian Mutiny was 
 much to be ascribed to the perfection of our Enfield 
 rifles and improved artillery. The same auxiliaries 
 gave us an easy triumph over the Chinese in the 
 march to Pekin, and the Abyssinians were destroyed 
 by the fire of our troops, without being able to take 
 a single life in our ranks. 
 
 Now there is an important deduction to be drawn 
 from this brief retrospect. When we speak of the 
 Progress of Mankind, of the advance of Civilisation, 
 we in fact mean the progress of the European por- 
 tion of the human race, and the advance of Civili- 
 sation among their populations. All this astonishing 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 159 
 
 advance can be clearly traced to the commencement 
 of the European nations : to the Greeks, to the 
 Romans, and to the European States. No one can 
 suppose that since the imperfect rudiments of 
 civilised society which existed at a remote period 
 among the Asiatic people any substantial progress 
 whatever has been made by any other race, except 
 the European. Of all the great discoveries, of all 
 the inventions which have illustrated this long 
 period of three thousand years, not one can be 
 traced to an Asiatic or still less to any other origin. 
 The Progress of Mankind means the progress of the 
 European branch of the human family. 
 
 The most considerable advance in this whole 
 period may certainly be dated from the revival of 
 learning in the fourteenth century ; and this is so 
 great that the European nations of the present 
 epoch may almost be ranked as beings of a higher 
 order to those of the preceding periods. This rate 
 of progress seems to be going on in an accelerating 
 ratio, and there is no ground whatever to suppose 
 that it will be arrested. The very increase of power 
 which each new discovery or invention gives to Man 
 is a fresh lever by which he can force his way to 
 another stage of development. There is no ground 
 
160 Pr oar ess and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 y 
 
 for supposing that either the resources of Nature or 
 the invention of Man are exhausted. There are 
 probably many secrets within her bosom quite as 
 valuable and available for Man's use as the Mag- 
 netic needle or the passage, of the Electric fluid 
 along an iron wire. It is quite possible that we 
 may discover or invent a motive power as strong as 
 that of steam, but more portable, cheaper, and 
 more easily adapted to manual use ; vapours afford- 
 ing a more brilliant light than gas or lime light 
 may be found out ; agents as valuable as chloroform 
 in relieving pain or in curing disease may be dis- 
 covered. Mechanical inventions are every day pro- 
 duced, abridging labour and extending the empire 
 of Man over the material world. We see that there 
 is still a vast area on the globe unoccupied, or only 
 partly inhabited by Man, and the rapidly increasing 
 population will there find space to expand. 
 
 The progress of Man has not been altogether 
 confined to the material world, although I heartily 
 concur in Mr. Buckle's view that abstract Meta- 
 physics have been absolutely stationary, and that 
 we know no more about the nature of the Soul, the 
 principle of Life, or any other question of abstruse 
 Metaphysics than the Greeks did in the time of 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 161 
 
 Plato. There are, however, some branches of moral 
 and political science in which great and important 
 progress has been made. Of these the principal 
 one is the science of Political Economy, which has 
 only existed about a hundred years, as it may be 
 fairly dated to have commenced with Adam Smith. 
 This science has thrown the strongest light upon 
 many questions of politics and of government, and 
 is the right hand of the political statesman. 
 Whether considered in that branch of it which 
 deals with the increase and distribution of wealth, 
 or with that still more important part which relates 
 to the laws regulating population, it affords the 
 clearest insight into the internal mechanism of 
 society. It not only indicates the principles of a 
 sound policy, but it furnishes the correction to a 
 number of those plausible fallacies which are always 
 misleading Mankind. It is unfortunate that while 
 those among its principles which appear to favour 
 popular theories are greedily adopted, the sound 
 Conservative truths of which it is the depository 
 are passed over altogether. The repeal of the Corn 
 Laws was eagerly embraced, and Mr. Bright and 
 Mr. Cobden almost deified ; but when the doctrines' 
 of Political Economy were applied to demonstrate 
 
162 Progress and Civilisation. PT, in. 
 
 the fallacies of Communism or the deterioration 
 caused by indiscriminate relief, it met with no such 
 willing converts. 
 
 The justice of this view is strongly illustrated at 
 the present moment in the controversies which are 
 raging between Capital and Labour, and in the 
 attempts which are made to alter the natural 
 balance between them by artificial limitations. The 
 leading principle in Political Economy is perhaps 
 contained in the celebrated answer of the French 
 merchants to the Minister Colbert, in the reign of 
 Louis XIV., ' Laissez-nous faire.' The cardinal 
 article in the creed of the political economist is 
 that all the constituents in the production of wealth 
 find their own level and adjust themselves, and that 
 any attempt to interrupt their natural course is 
 either vain or mischievous. Many of these errors 
 are to be traced to that thoroughly erroneous prin- 
 ciple of the natural equality of Mankind, a principle 
 which strongly exemplifies the pernicious effect of 
 a fundamental error in vitiating a whole train of 
 deductions and in rendering a theory thoroughly 
 unsound in all its consequences because of the 
 rottenness which is seated at its core. That we 
 shall find proofs of this in the latest achievements 
 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 163 
 
 of human progress is as clear and abundant as in 
 the earliest steps of Man. 
 
 Let us take that great invention of our own day 
 the construction of Railways. When the single 
 mind of George Stephenson elaborated the plan of 
 the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, or of the 
 other lines which his prolific and calculating brain 
 perfected, he worked alone. The conception was the 
 produce of his powerful intellect ; and if to him we 
 add the names of Brunei and two or three others of 
 the greatest and most eminent engineers, we shall 
 find that the whole Railway system of England was 
 put in motion by a very few master minds. Yet what 
 a prodigious amount of labour was required to execute 
 them ! How many navvies have toiled in tunnels or 
 in cuttings and embankments ! We have most of us 
 probably watched the progress of some of these works ; 
 there is a set of powerful men in their shirts with 
 their bare muscular arms engaged in filling wheel- 
 barrows with soil, trundling them along a narrow 
 plank, tilting them over at the end of it, and 
 returning with their barrows to repeat the same 
 operation. It is difficult to conceive any work of 
 man requiring less the use of his mental powers. 
 The operation is merely mechanical, and I am not 
 
164 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 sure if a well-trained ourang-outang might not be 
 competent to perform it. Nothing is required but 
 bodily strength ; a navvy need not write or read or 
 know his multiplication table ; education, as far as 
 the performance of his task is concerned, is useless 
 and superfluous. In the construction of one of the 
 great lines of railway thousands of men are so 
 employed for months and even years. Without their 
 aid the Railway could never have been made, and 
 the mental creations of Stephenson or Brunei would 
 have remained as unsubstantial as the baseless fabric 
 of a vision, and yet all this amount of manual labour 
 has been set in action by the mind of one man. I 
 think we may venture to extend the application of 
 this example, and to lay it down as a principle that 
 the progress of Science in its application to human 
 wants augments the demand and necessity for manual 
 labour in a far more rapid ratio than it does the 
 demand for intellectual qualifications. The ingenuity 
 of Walton and Arkwright, and the high mental 
 power engaged in the construction of their machines, 
 abridged the cost of production and gave room for 
 the employment of millions of hands in the manu- 
 facturing industry. Yet what can be more thoroughly 
 unintellectual than the occupation of a weaver sitting 
 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 165 
 
 at his loom and passing years in sending his shuttle 
 to and fro ? Those modern disciples of progress who 
 conceive that they have in Education a panacea for 
 raising all Mankind to the same level, forget that 
 acquirements when not used are lost. A weaver can 
 move his shuttle, a navvy can fill and empty his 
 barrow, without the slightest occasion for, or indeed 
 the possibility of using, the arts of reading and 
 writing. What is never used is speedily forgotten, 
 and although good fortune or superior natural ability 
 may enable an individual here and there to profit 
 by those acquirements, yet the probability is that a 
 very small residuum will remain to the masses after 
 a few years of toil in the performance of these mere 
 manual tasks. Yet it is imperative that they should 
 be performed or the civilised world would perish, 
 and the truth becomes apparent, that the amount of 
 mere manual labour, requiring the smallest amount 
 of mental capacity, increases in a far more rapid 
 ratio than do those offices which demand even a very 
 moderate exercise of the intellectual faculties. The 
 tendency of the advance of Civilisation is rather to 
 widen than to lessen the lines of demarcation, which 
 divide the possessors of intelligence and capital from 
 the mere labouring class, and all attempts to efface 
 
166 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 these distinctions by the operation of compulsory 
 laws and artificial restrictions may retard the march 
 of Progress, but will inevitably fail of their object. 
 The political economist is no friend to a crowded 
 statute book, he has little belief in the efficacy of 
 compulsory enactments or arbitrary interferences 
 with the natural course of events. He appeals to 
 the experience of the last four hundred years, and 
 points out that while Governments have been occu- 
 pying themselves with little effect, or with an inju- 
 rious effect, in legislating on measures which have 
 chiefly for their object the possession or the transfer of 
 political power, those great social movements, that 
 mighty spread of scientific knowledge combined with 
 its practical application, which have changed the face 
 of the world and the position of Man on it, have 
 gone on quietly in effecting their wonderful changes 
 unperceived or disregarded by the rulers of nations. 
 The historian who should hereafter narrate the 
 events of the present century would, if he followed 
 the example of his predecessors, dwell with minute 
 accuracy upon the historical events which have been 
 crowded into this remarkable period. He would 
 describe the whirlwind of the first French Eevolu- 
 tion, he would delight to dwell upon the astonishing 
 
PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 167 
 
 career of the First Napoleon, he would narrate the 
 successive Eevolutions which have convulsed France, 
 and would analyse the provisions and endeavour to 
 trace the effect of our own two Kef or m Bills, but he 
 would probably pass over with a cursory notice the 
 invention and application of Steam, the Electric 
 Telegraph, and all the other marvels of Science, 
 which have transformed the whole state and condition 
 of Man, and effected a change as complete as if a 
 new living being had been created. These changes 
 steal upon us imperceptibly, they are heralded by no 
 fierce contests for power, they involve no sudden 
 destruction of whole classes, no violent convulsions 
 of society ; at their commencement they scarcely 
 attract notice, they steal on gradually, and it is not 
 till their operation has become felt in its extended 
 effects that the immense influence it is exerting upon 
 the destinies of Mankind become slowly apparent. 
 There is another happy characteristic in this march 
 of scientific progress that in its results it is always 
 beneficial. It is perpetually adding to the aggregate 
 of human power, wealth and enjoyment, and it never 
 reaches its end through human suffering. It uses 
 no guillotine, it establishes no conscription, it 
 plunges into no wars, it prosecutes its peaceful con- 
 
168 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 tests by the universal assent of all populations. We 
 are not aware of the benefits it is conferring upon 
 us till we suddenly awake and find ourselves richer, 
 wiser, happier and better than we were. 
 
 The discoveries and the progress of the last four 
 hundred years have raised the human race (or at 
 least the European branch of it) to an elevation so 
 infinitely superior to that of any other known living 
 being that it is not presumption to infer that he 
 is the main object of (rod's providence on earth. 
 Nowhere do we see any rival to him, and the whole 
 scheme of creation, as far as this planet is concerned, 
 appears to have him for its end and object. 
 
 There is a tendency which is much to be depre- 
 cated in modern Religion and in modern Science 
 to diverge somewhat from each other. Religion 
 perhaps inclines to become narrow, exclusive, dog- 
 matic and polemical ; while in Science there is a dis- 
 position to refer everything to secondary causes and 
 to reduce Religion into a cold abstraction in the 
 place of a warm and living sentiment. Each of 
 these tendencies is to be deplored. 
 
 The discoveries of modern Science by their com- 
 prehensiveness afford a Key to enable us better to 
 conceive the mighty scheme of Providence ; the co- 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 169 
 
 herence of the different parts, the harmony of the 
 whole, the adaptation of means to an end afford 
 additional proofs of the unity of the design and of 
 the Wisdom, Power, and Goodness of its Great 
 Author. Let us suppose one of the Sages of 
 antiquity, or one of the early Fathers Socrates or 
 St. Chrysostom tracing out or trying to draw the 
 plans of Omnipotence. How scanty and imperfect 
 would have been their materials, how unconscious 
 they would have been of all the manifestations of 
 the Deity displayed in the Solar System ; how 
 ignorant of the wonders of chemical and mechanical 
 Science, and of their applicability to the wants of 
 Man ; how ignorant of the Geography and of the 
 various conditions of this globe itself ; how totally 
 unacquainted with all the secrets of antecedent 
 states of the Earth which Geology dimly and 
 imperfectly reveals to us how difficult for them 
 to have proved the vast capabilities of Man, or his 
 steady progress to a higher grade in the scale of the 
 Creation, which his acquirements during between 
 two and three thousand years have proved. Even 
 Paley, writing so near our own times that he is 
 almost a contemporary, wanted the proofs in favour 
 of his principles of Natural Theology which these 
 
 N 
 
170 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 
 
 later times would have afforded. It is as if some 
 I great and glorious landscape (we will say the first 
 view of Switzerland and the Alps from the descent 
 of the Jura above Jex) was gradually revealed to the 
 traveller by the. dispersion of the morning mists. 
 1 First, he would catch the rich and varied landscape 
 at his feet, then gradually the bright, crystal 
 ! reflection of the Lake of Geneva ; slowly and 
 ( imperceptibly would he discern the grand and 
 picturesque forms of the lower ranges of the 
 mountains of Savoy; and, lastly, scarce believing 
 his eyes, scarcely crediting that the giant glittering 
 masses piercing the skies belonged really to this 
 earth, he would gaze upon the sublime spectacle of 
 Mont Blanc and -the highest range of the Alps. 
 Thus we of the nineteenth century have unveiled 
 before us much of that mighty scheme which earlier 
 generations could never have suspected. We are 
 enabled in some degree to measure its grandeur, its 
 immensity, and, above all, its Unity. We must feel 
 convinced that to Astronomy, Geology, and the 
 whole circle of the Sciences from those which can 
 by Microscopic power scrutinise the minutest object 
 in terrestrial economy to those laws which embrace 
 the Universe the same stamp of Omnipotence is 
 
PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 171 
 
 affixed. We may gain additional ground for the 
 belief that the Human Mind, which has been so 
 cherished and favoured by its Divine Creator, may 
 find additional confirmation of those hopes which 
 He has given us, that our living participation in 
 this great scheme does not end here, but that we 
 shall be sharers in the destinies of that Immortal 
 Creation of which it is given to us at this advanced 
 stage of our progress to know so large a portion. 
 
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