mmm THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES 7W' THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH f t X&:BvM f f) •Tf^ftm^ } i ^•mm^mtmimmpf THE PRE-AD AMITE EARTH: CONTKIBUTIONS THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. BY JOHN HARRIS, D.D. AUTHOR OF THE "GREAT TEACHER," ETC. LONDON: WARD AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW. PREFACE. The present volume is intended to be the first of a short series of Treatises — each complete in itself — in which the principles or laws hereafter deduced, and applied to the successive stages of the pre- Adamite earth, Avill be seen in their historical development as applied to individual man ; to the family ; to the nation ; to tlie Son of God as " the second Adam, the Lord from heaven;" to the church which he has founded ; to the revelation which he has completed ; and to the future prospects of humanity. It would not be difficult to state the reasons which have induced me to adopt this particular method of exhibiting theological science; to specify the points in which it differs from those methods which may be considered most nearly to resemble it ; and to enlarge on the advantages, direct and indirect, Avhich it is proposed to secure by it. But, besides that such topics, if introduced at all, would require to be treated at considerable length, I would rather that the method adopted 940784 VI PREFACE. should, as it is gradually unfolded in the successive Trea- tises, he allowed to speak for itself. If any explanatory remarks respecting it are deemed necessary, they will, it appears to me, be more in place at the close of the Series than at the commencement. This first volume consists of five parts. Of these, the first part contains those Primary Truths which Divine Re- velation appears to place at tlie foundation of all the objective manifestations of the Deity; the second, presents the Laws or General Principles, which are regarded as logically resulting from the preceding Truths ; and the third, fourth, and fifth parts, are occupied with the Exemplifica- tion and Verification of these Laws in the inorganic, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms of the pre- Adamite earth, respectively. From this statement it will be seen that the first two parts are here as introductory, not to the present volume merely, but to the entire series; and that, as exhibiting the process by which the method has been arrived at, they Avill not require, except in substance, to be subsequently repeated. As Revealed Theology is here seen in organic connexion with natural science, a few remarks explanatory of that connexion will not be deemed irrelevant. Of the theology itself, 1 will only say, at present, that it is that which I believe; but, inasmuch, as it is exhibited in mere human forms of thought and language, I can, of course, expect tliat PREFACE. Vll others will accede to it only as far as they believe it to be in harmony with " the true sayings of G-od." Nor can I be insensible that the laws deduced froai it will be prejudiced in some minds, by the notion that the adoption of them in- volves the reception of the theology. But as views dedu- cible from the highest grounds are generally found to be inferrible also from lower and analogical premises, it should be considered, in the present instance, whether these laws might not be accepted on such inferior grounds without committing the recipient to any ulterior views. Even less than this, however, is necessary. For, if the reader should demur to adopt the Laws as they are deduced from the Pri- mary Truths of the first Part, he has to consider whether he is not called on to admit them, as they are sustained and inductively verified by the facts adduced in the three con- cluding Parts. These facts, I may remark in passing, ad- mit of almost indefinite multiplication, but it has been my aim to adduce only such and so many as appeared essen- tial to the verification of the laws. Of the connexion between theology and natural science generally, it may be assumed that every one who admits that there is a true theology and a true science of nature, will admit also that there is a sense, whatever it may be, in which the two are related. The mind which elicits and embraces both, is one ; so that, however distinct the pro- cesses by which it arrives at the knowledge of each, and VI PREFACE. however different the sources and kinds of evidence on which that knowledge rests, both branches evince their in- herent unison, in the unity of the knowing mind itself. On this conviction it is that men no sooner begin to think, than they next proceed to examine the laws of tliought ; if they collect facts, they next inquire for the causes of those facts ; and when they have succeeded in developing any of the sciences, they then look for the internal bond of union wiiich makes them all one. And for such a nexus they seek under the unquestioned conviction that it exists; for the con- viction simply implies that, as reasoning concerning each separate science is possible, so reasoning concerning col- lective science must be possible. Well had it been for theology and philosophy if the bond which unites them had been clearly ascertained, and never dissevered. But the erroneous views which some have entertained respecting the relation of the two, have origin- ated evils only less than those flowing from their unnatural separation. The error of Descartes and his followers con- sisted not in making theology the starting point of their philosophy, but in regarding their metaphysical deductions as adequate to explain all physical phenomena. By reason- ing only, a jyriori, or proceeding continually downwards from cause to efTect, they were not questioning Nature, but answering for her; legislating, in effect, Avhere God had legislated already ; and so " building a world upon liypo- PREFACE. IX thesis."^ There is, however, a wide interval between the extreme which makes everything of a principle, and that which seeks security from it, by abandoning tlie prin- ciple altogether. As surely as the mind is one, the truth to which the mind is preconfigured is one. On this ground it is that we argue from the known to the unknown ; approacli a subject of inquiry under the guidance of an antecedent probability as to what we shall find in it; and employ analogy and hypothesis as instruments of scientific discovery. " How," inquires Plato, " can you expect to find unless you have a general idea of what you seek?" " The mind," says Lord Bacon, " must bring to every experiment a ' precogitation,' or antecedent idea, as the ground of that 'prudens qusestio,' " which he pronounces to be the prior half of the knowledge sought — " dimidium scientise." Indeed, is not the Novum Organum itself of hypothetical origin? " When Newton said, ' Hypotheses non fingo,' he did not mean that he deprived himself of the facilities of investigation afforded by assuming, in the first instance, what he hoped ultimately to be able to prove. Without such assumptions, science could never have attained its present state; they are neces- sary steps in the progress to something more certain ; and nearly everything which is now theory was once liypo- tliesis. Even in purely experimental science, some induce- ' Introduction to Butler's " Analogy, &o." X PREFACE. ment is necessary for trying one experiment rather than another."^ These hypotheses, as the Language implies, are only provisional. They must be of a nature to admit of verification ; and be actually subjected to a test which shall confirm or explode them. In the same provisional manner might principles derived from the domain of revealed theology be advantageously carried into the province of nature. There is a true deduc- tive method in science as well as a false ; and there is a right method of employing theological principles in philo- sophy, as well as a wrong. Everything depends on the manner in Avhich they are employed. The inductive con- clusion must be kept distinct from the speculative assump- tion. However fruitful the deductive principle may be, it can be used only for suggestion, not for demonstration ; the proof of the view suggested must be of the same nature with that of the subject investigated or discussed. In the folloAving pages, the principles introduced are to be regarded as employed only in this conditional manner. The reader is to view them, as far as their application to nature is concerned, as entirely tentative or provisional, until their applicability has been tested. If on a comparison of the inductive truth adduced, with these deductive prin- ciples, their applicability is apparent, let the obvious infer- ence be accepted, tliat there is a tlieology in nature which ' Mill's System of Logic, vol. ii. p. 18. PREFACE. XI is ultimately one with the theology of the Bible — that there are principles of varied hut universal application. The attempt which is here made to deduce such principles, and to apply them to the successive stages of creation, pro- ceeds on the assumption that the whole process of Divine Manifestation, including nature, is to be viewed in the light of a sublime argument in which God is deductively reason- ing from principles to facts, from generals to particulars. With the great synthetic Whole ever present to His mind, He is seen unfolding the parts of Avhich it consists. In order that man may feel the force of this reasoning, his mind, equally with the Divine Mind, must pre-suppose, or be prepared to admit, the primary truths on which the reasoning depends. But besides these, the Great Argument implies (as in every case of ordinary reasoning) that there are certain ideas or truths in the mind of God, which are not yet in the mind of man, and which it is the design of the argument to convey. For example — whatever exhibits marks of design must have had an intelligent author; the world exhibits marks of design, therefore the world must have had an intelligent Author. Here, the major is as- sumed alike by God and man; the conclusion is, at first, in the mind of God alone, and the design of the great argu- ment is to convey it into the mind of man also; but the attainment of this end depends on the truth of the minor — that the world does exhibit marks of design; and how is XU PREFACE. this proposition to be established except by induction? To the infinitely blessed God, then, the entire process of Divine Manifestation is, in its reference to man, a sublime syllo- gism, of which the last object and the remotest event are already included potentially in the major; the unfolding of which is destined to occupy the coming eternity. While man, appointed to find the sphere of his activity and improvement in the intermediate space between the Neces- sary and the Contingent, and unable to rest but in the felt junction of the two, shall derive perpetual accessions of enjoyment as he ascends from the Particular to the Infinite with whom it has originated, and in whom is it contained. CONTENTS. PACE Preface v FIRST PART. Primauy Truths 1 SECOND PART. Principles deducible from the preceding Truths ... 50 THIRD PART. Inorganic Nature 68 FOURTH PART. Organic Life 156 FIFTH PART. Sentient Existence 220 NOTES. I. On Genesis i. 1 — 3 347 II. Illustrative of the Theory of Successive Creations 356 Index 361 *^* It may save the reader some trouble to be apprised, that the order in which the Principles are stated in the Second Part is not the order in which they are subsequently illustrated. The order in which they are illustrated in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Parts, is tlie same. ERRATA. Page. Line. 22 .. Note . 07 . 27 77 11 117 . . Note 1 . 126 . 3 . 137 . . 21 . 103 . . 31 . 185 . 4 . 215 . . 12 . 252 5 289 . . 29 . 305 . . 18 . Error. Correction. p. cii c. ii. tliey come it comes. uo oue only one. Maccullocirs Proofs, v. i. c. 5 . . Wliewcll's B. T. witliin with. organization oiigination. " habitation" " luibitat." animals annuals. ligiiine ligiiiue. pretension prehension. animiU...to vegetative .... vegetable... to animal, medusae medusae. FIRST PART. CHAPTER I. The Great Reason ; or, ichy God is, and must he His own end from everlasting to everlasting. God is not nature; nor is nature God. Before nature, before any part or being of the objective universe existed, the God of the Bible had existed from eternity in His own self-sufficience. And the absolute perfection which that self-sufficience implies, determines that it shall be, in some sense, the chief reason and last end of everything created ; so that He will continue to inhabit His self-sufficience through the eternity to come. We believe, indeed, that, while He supremely regards His OAvn glory, He really regards the well-being of the created universe ^or its own sake; that this well-being is regarded by God as an end — in the sense of being an object desirable on its own account; and that He delights in it as such ; but that the ultimate, chief, and all comprehending end is His own glory. 1. Had tliere ever been a period Avhen nothing was, no- thing would still have been. Then the Creator of all things is himself uncreated, unoriginated, eternal. "He is from everlasting." Far back, in thought, and beyond the limits of time, as we may be able occasionally, and for a single B 2 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. moment, to go, we arc ever accompanied by the humbling conviction that we have made no approach whatever to the understanding of His eternity. The discoveries of science lead back our imagination to a period incalculably remote ; but even if each of the countless stars had been formed in succession, and if the time which elapsed between the formation of each had equalled that entire period, the mind which could span the wliole — which could dart back a thought to the moment in which the first star beamed on the regions of space, would feel that it had only reached the starting point for the preceding eternity. For if then it should ask, "Where dwelt the Deity before that?" — the answer of the Oracle is, " He inhabited eternity ;" and that star of which it had caught a glimpse, could only be regarded as the first lamp that was lighted up to guide the way back to His dread abode. 2. Then must His mysterious existence be necessary and independent ;^ for as there has never been anything, ad extra, to necessitate it, had it not been necessary of and from itself only, it could neither have been, nor have con- tinued to be. The great parent truth, therefore, which He may be regarded as silently repeating, through all the soli- tudes of space, and through every point of duration, is the sublime affirmation, " I AM — underived, self-existent, abso- lute Being ; in which sense there never has been, never will be, never can be, any Being besides." All other being can only be derived and dependent. 3. In harmony with the dictates of enlightened reason, the Bible authenticates the deduction that the Being whose existence is eternal and independent, is also absolutely per- fect. The power of God must be omnipotence; His know- ledge, omniscience ; His holy benevolence, unlimited by any ' See Gillespie's Necessary Existence of God. THE GREAT REASON. thing incompatible with perfection. No one kind of excel- lence can be unlimited unless it be associated with every other kind of excellence; so that the possession of any one unlimited excellence implies the existence, and involves the necessity, of absolute perfection. 4. But if the infinite nature of the Divine Being pre- cludes the existence of another independent and unlimited Being, the existence of a second would necessarily involve mutual limitation ; which would amount to a self-contra- diction. In every sense, therefore, consistent with j)erfec- tion, He has ever existed alone. Were He to break the silence of eternity He might demand, " Is there a God besides me? yea, there is none; I know not any.^ I, who know all the possibilities of being, know not of such a being ; I, Avho at this moment am everywhere present throughout illimitable space, find such a being nowhere ; I, who have thus inhabited immensity from eternity, have never, in any point of past duration, beheld the least mani- festation of such a being ; I, who am unlimited Being, exclude, by that, very necessity of my nature, the possibility of another unlimited being." 5. But what finite mind can conceive the conditions included in Absolute Perfection ! To evolve these will re- quire eternity ; for could they be evolved in less they would not be unlimited. All that we can say, therefore, or shall ever be able to say, is, that whatever the amount of mystery included in the objective universe may ever be, the proba- bility is, that the proportion which it bears to the mystery of the Divine nature will be that of the limited to the unlimited ; that if infinite perfection implies infinite mys- teriousness, which it certainly does, then infinite mysteri- ousness must ever form one of the distinctive excellences ^ Isaiah, xliv. 6, 8. B 2 4 Tin: PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of that perfection ; that if the operation of infinite activity (either of love, or power, or of any other excellence) be essential to infinite perfection, and if such activity could not be agent and object at the same time, and in the same act, and yet no object, ad extra, existed from eternity, then must it liavc existed in the Divine nature itself; in other words, the Divine nature must include a plurality of dis- tinctions, and include it as one of its necessary conditions, or essential perfections;^ that if no exercise of the Divine efficiency, ad extra, can ever be adequate to its infinite per- fection, and yet such adequate exercise, in some way, must always be necessary to infinite perfection, tlien must it be one of the excellences of the Divine nature, not only that it should include a plurality of distinctions, but that the adequate sphere of its infinite activity sliould be its own in- finite perfections ; that if a God in unity, without internal distinctions, or diversity of modes, be incapable of moral afiection, because having had nothing, ad extra, from eternity to love, then such internal distinctions must ever have existed as elements of reciprocal, socijil, self-sufficient perfection; and that if such plurality be an excellence, and if unity be an excellence also ; and if there be any respect in which this plurality of one kind can consist as an excel- lence with this unity of another, then it will certainly be included in absolute perfection. And further, this perfec- tion implies not only that all the excellence which it includes is simple, uncompounded, one, but that God and it are identical : that it is not an adjunct of His being, but His being itself. • See Howe's Calm Enquiry concerning the Possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead. Professor Kidd on the Trinity. Storr and Flatt, B. ii. § 46. § 44. III. 8. Dr. J. P. Smith's Testimony of the Mes- siah, (Second Edition,) v. i. c. iv. § 3.3., v. iii. app. iv. THE GUEAT REASON. 5 G. But for tlie same reason that His perfection of being and character is unlimited, it must ever have been unchange- able also. Besides which, it must be of the essence of Absolute Perfection that in everything belonging to tluit perfection, it can neither require nor admit of a change. Though an eternity has passed, the Deity is now what He ever was; " without the shadow of a turning." The past has stayed witli Him, the future has ever been present to Him : the one could not diminish his perfection, nor the other augment it. " Who by searching can find out God !" 7. Then the Deity has existed from eternity as His own end. By supposition, nothing as yet has been brought into existence. No ground therefore exists, no occasion has yet been given, for raising the great question as to who or what can be that end. No creative fiat has yet gone forth. Time has not counted its first revolution. In imagination, we are standing in the solitudes of the past eternity. Never has this stillness been broken. No ray of created light has ever penetrated this darkness. This infinite space has never owned a world. No seraph bows before His throne. If these solitudes shall ever be peopled with finite beings, the purpose is shut up in the mind of God. Boundless as His capacity for happiness must always have been, the conscious- ness of His own excellence, and the contemplation of His own perfections, have ever been sufiicient to fill it. Un- limited and unceasing as must have been His activity. His own nature has been sufiicient to exercise and contain the whole. Dateless in His duration, the postponement of creation for ten thousand thousand ages would not increase that duration, nor would it have been diminished had the fiat gone forth ten thousand thousand ages before it did. Unshared by anything, ab extra, as His eternity, and lonely, in the same sense, as His immensitv must ever have been, 6 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. His self-commnnion has been sufficient to occupy and replenish the Avhole with happiness. And inconceivably great as the end answered by this infinity and immensity of per- fection must have been, His own enjoyment and glory are amply commensurate to the whole. 8. But if He has always been His own end, it follows that He must ever continue to be the same. For on the supposition of any other object becoming that end, then all- that had gone before during the past eternity could only be regarded as its own end in a subordinate sense ; while in reference to tliis other end since developed, it has been only the means. " That which exists merely as a cause, exists merely for the sake of something else — is not final in itself, but simply a means towards an end; and in the accom- plishment of that end, it consummates its own perfection." From which it would follow, that, during a whole eternity. Infinite Self-sufficience stood in the subordinate relation of means to beings not yet in existence ; that during that eter- nity Infinite Perfection was imperfect as the means without the end ; and that the addition of imperfect and dependent beings was necessary to give perfection to that imperfection. 9. If to be His own end be an antecedent right, ante- cedent to creation by an eternity ; and if after enjoying that right for an eternity. He choose to exercise another right — the right of creation — the exercise of this subsequent and inferior right cannot affect the primary eternal right. The display of Divine perfection can never impair the original prerogatives of that perfection. That He should lose His right, because of his perfection, is revolting to reason. Render his prerogatives more evident it may, but destroy them it cannot. For glorious as that display may be, and after it has been augmenting ten thousand ages. His abso- lute perfection will remain the same as it was before that THE GREAT REASON. display began. That manifestation will not have increased it; for it will be only the objective existence of that which was His subjectively from eternity. Lofty as may be the natures, and countless as may be the myriads which will encircle His throne, He must ever continue to dwell as per- fectly alone, in a sense, through the eternity to come, as He did through the sublime and appalling solitude of the eter- nity past. On account of His incomparable greatness and excellence, never will He be able to bring himself within their comprehension. However exalted their natures and attainments may be, the universe will still exhibit the infi- nite distinction of the One unlimited being, and of orders of limited beings entirely dependent on Him. Retired within the depths of his own immensity, they will never be able to approach and behold Him directly. For all they know of Him, they will ever feel that they are indebted to a medium of His own devising; and that, Avithout that medium, the whole created universe, including themselves, would only have constituted a living altar with this inscrip- tion, " To the unknown God." 10. Whatever excellence, natural or moral, the created universe may ever contain, was contained previously in the Divine nature. Surely his impartation of it cannot give away His right in it ! Rather, He will be laying the re- cipients under an obligation to love Him as its Giver, and to adore Him as its Source. However vast the amount of excellence may be, it will still be limited, so that they will have to remember at any given moment of their unending being, that they are still infinitely short of His excellence. However vast and various the displays of His glory may be, they will ever have to remember that the universe which displays it leaves more unevolved and undisplayed, by an infinite amount. However much they may be able to com- 8 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. preliend of what He is, from wliat He has done since they came into being, they will ever have to remember that all the eternity of His past glory remains unexplored. And unless tliey could exhaust the mystery of the Divine perfections during every moment since they came into being, they will ever have to remember that the mystery is every moment augmenting in their hands; that time is adding its mystery to the mystery of the past eternity ; and that the mystery of both is to be carried forwards to the still greater account of the eternity to come. However various the orders of their intellect may be, here they wall all find themselves on a level ; here they will all and ever find that to reflect is to be lost ; that the very choicest terms which they may employ to denote their knowledge of God, will be only so many tacit confessions of their ignorance, and escapes from difficulty; since to speak of Him as eter- nal, is only to say that His duration had not, like theirs, a beginning; and to speak of Him as infinite, that His nature is not, like theirs, bounded by limits. 11. Nor will they ever cease to be entirely dependent on Him. Suppose the creation yet to commence, and we may ask, How can they be ever otherwise than dependent? During the eternity past, that question has never by possi- bility been raised; for He has existed, and, as to anything ad extra, still remains alone. By what possibility, then, can it ever be raised in the eternity to come ? The fact that God has been His own end in all the past determines the question for all the future. Whence could ever come the principle or the power which should invade, even in thought, this Divine prerogative, unquestioned and undisturbed as it has been from eternity ? Surely not from any being of whom it is true that he has yet to be; and as to whom the question whether he shall ever be or not, depends entirely THE GREAT REASON. 9 on the Divine pleasure; and who, even if it he the Divine pleasure that he shall be, will be as entirely dependent on the same pleasure for every successive moment of being, as he was for the first moment ! The idea of such a being, or of any number of such beings, entering into, and taking possession of the place which for an eternity had been oc- cupied by God, as constituting his OAvn end, is revolting to reason. The necessity of their own nature will forbid it. The only relation which that necessity will sustain to Him is that of dependence more profound, universal, and abso- lute, than they will ever be able to comprehend ; while the relation of His own nature to that end will always be, what it ever has been — that of self-sufficience. 12. And as His infinite self-sufiicience necessitated that He should be His own end during the eternity past, the un- chano-eableness of His nature secures the same result during^ the eternity to come. What He was, He is, and what He was and is, He ever will be. However many worlds or sys- tems He may create, they will never do more than display the nature of His perfection, they can never be the measure of its amount, much less limit that amount. Now, were He to make only a solitary being, that being could never think that God existed, and had existed from all eternity, for him — and why? because he would ever feel that God is infinitely above him. But no multiplication of mere finite beings will ever make an infinite being; and conse- quently can never affect the right of God to be the end of all things. On the contrary, the greater their multii)lica- tion, the more evident His claim, because they would feel the more vividly that the difierence between them, the limited, and Him, the unlimited, is still infinite; and that after they shall have continued to advance through inter- minable ages from throne to throne, and shall have come 10 THE PRE- ADAMITE EARTH. nearer to Tlim at every such advance, tlie distance between Him and tliem is still infinite — that God is all in alL And thus we reach the conclusion, from the eternal self- sufficience of God, that He must ever be His own End ; or that His nature and glory form the Great Reason of the universe. For there was no reason zt?//^ it should be, nor what it should be, but what existed in Himself. CHAPTER II. The ITltimate Purpose; or, the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency the last end of creation: The preceding Chapter showed that for the great reason of His eternal self-sufficience, God will ever be, what He always has been. His own end. But if He be thus abso- lutely self-sufficient and infinitely perfect, it follows that He is all-sufficient. By which we mean, generally, that, from eternity, He has included in himself all that is or ever will be necessary to impart (consistently with infinite perfection) existence and ever-advancing excellence, and happiness, to a created universe. And the object of the jDresent Chapter is to show that the manifestation of this glory, by which we mean all-sufficiency, is the great purpose or ultimate end of creation. I. Sucli a manifestation appears to involve the following conditions : — 1 . That the manifestation be progressive. For surely a system which is ahvays in progress both in its own develop- THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE. 11 ment, and in the powers of the beings to whom it is made known and who form a part of it, must, by the endless combinations which it involves, furnish an inconceivably severer test of Divine all-sufficiency, than one Avliich should be in every respect stationary from the beginning. And this anticipates and answers the plausible but incon- siderate inquiry, " If the manifestation of the Divine all- sufficiency be infinitely desirable, would it not be equally desirable that the greatest possible extent should be given to the creation, and be given at once ; since, until that be done, how can it be known that God is all-sufficient?" In other words, an infinite cause should produce an infinite effect. We reply, that an exercise of the Divine perfections pro- perly infinite can only take place in the Divine nature itself; and possibly involves the mystery of a plurality of distinc- tions in the unity of the Godhead, to and by which that display is mutually made : that were such an infinite mani- festation to be made, ad extra, unless the mind of the crea- ture were adequate to its comprehension — ?'. e. were infinite — the manifestation to the creature would be limited, limited to the measure of his understanding : and that hence, for aught we know, the manifestation of God made in an atom, while to us it is extremely limited, to Him who sees the end from the beginning may be virtually and potentially infi- nite. So that, (if the hypothesis may be allowed,) were it possible to present such a particle to Ilim from the hand of another maker. He could say, " The being from whom this came is infinite, eternal, self-existent, and absolutely per- fect. His titles are here all written out at full lens-th, and his perfections embodied. He is all-sufficient. This atom- point is the type and promise of an ever-enlarging and un- bounded universe. It contains potentially all that tlie mu' 12 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. teritil universe will ever exhibit actually. No additions to this atom-world could ever add to my knowledge of him. To me the manifestation is complete." We reply further; the inquirer is evidently thinking of an all-sufficiency of poicer only, whereas we are speaking of an all-sufficiency of perfection, including wisdom, holiness, and benevolence, as well as power. As to the production of an unlimited effiict, ad extra, the supposition of such a thing, as far as it can be understood, is an impossibility. For, first, it would involve the contradiction of two infinites — the infinite cause and the infinite eflect; in which case, the one must limit the other, so that neither would be unlimited ; or, secondly, it would imply the contradiction of an unlimited something brought within limits, the limits of time; and, thirdly, it would involve the absurdity of an independent dependence — of an effi?ct not dependent on any cause — for if depend- ent, in that respect, the most vital of all, it would be limited. 2. But to say what would be necessary to the full mani- festation of all-sufficiency, is a task to which none but all- sufficiency itself can be competent ; since it supposes a ma- nifestation continued through eternity. Here, then, is another condition of the manifestation, that it be unending. For if it should terminate at any given point in futurity, the proof of all-sufficiency for an eternal manifestation would terminate with it; and then the suspicion might be justly awakened, that if the manifestation had gone on, a crisis might have arrived for which the Deity might not have been sufficient. Besides which, all-sufficiency, from its very nature, requires infinity and eternity in which to be deve- loped, for it implies sufficiency for nothing less than that. And it requires the same, from the very nature and consti- tution of those to Avhom the manifestation is to be made; THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE. lo for they are capable of interminable progression. To the objector then who should call for an unlimited effect in proof of Divine all-sufficiency, we would simply reply, that when he shall have existed for an unlimited duration, he may consistently expect to behold it. Considering the constitution of the beings to whom the manifestation is to be made, in connexion with the infinite perfection of the Being who is to make it, such a manifes- tation, then, would seem to require that it should be pro- gressive and unending; in order that they might be able to go along step by step with the great development; to hang over the mighty process, and mark how the attainment of one end attains a number of inferior ones placed in a line with it ; how part is linked to part ; how the evolution of one part tends to the evolution of another part, contains the promise of it, leads to it, and predicts another and another yet; so that all-sufRciency is perpetually making fresh demands on itself, and illustrating itself by perpetually meeting those demands in a way demonstrative of all- suffi- ciency, constraining them to acknowledge that it has no limits. The remark, then, that the manifestation, not being ob- jectively completed at once, cannot be regarded as worthy of God, admits of the most satisfactory reply ; for, to allege no other reason, it is a manifestation for a purpose — to he understood; and its gradual development is that which especially adapts it to this end. The objection would hold only on the supposition that the manifestation was not made rapidly enough for the rapid mental and moral pro- gress of the beings for whom it was made — did not keep pace with their advancing powers of comprehension and ap- preciation. For if it does meet those demands, to them, in effect, it will be always unlimited and virtually infinite. Had 14 THE TKE- ADAMITE EARTH. such a thing been possible, then, that it could luive been completed at once, man would not have known more of it ten thousand ages hence, than he will at the same distant point of time, now that it is progressive. While, at every stage of his knowledge, to him, in effect, the disjday will have been infinite and complete; for tlie limits of his com- prehension will be always unspeakably within the limits of the manlfestiition at its every stage. We have said that, in the case supposed, he would not have known more ten thousand ages hence than he will now by a progressive ma- nifestation. But Ave advance farther, and remark, that one of the reasons of this progressiveness is that, in the case sup- posed, he would not have known so much. Nor, as we shall hereafter show, would his knowledge have equally availed him, for it would not have been the knoAvledge of observation and experience. Experience supposes a process, and a process requires time, and implies advance from one stage to another. 3. And a third condition of this manifestation appears to be that it be all-comprehending — including the revela- tion of everything essential to the Divine nature, and pro- vision for every crisis in the onward history of the creature, as well as the union and co-operation of all orders of being to the one great end. If there be distinctions as well as perfections in the Godhead, and if it would be for the glory of God to reveal them, sooner or later they must be dis- closed ; otherwise the manifestation would not be sufficient in this infinitely important particular. Again, if this all- sufficiency implies the power of meeting every crisis ; and should the creature ever come by some dreadful possibility to question the Divine all-sufiiciency — which would be sin — the Deity, by the very fact of being able to meet that moral crisis, would be demonstrating the all-sufficiency THE ULTIMATE PUlirOSE. 15 called in question. And still farther would this Divine perfection appear to be illustrated, if, in answering one end, it accomplislied many, in sketching beforehand the great outlines of the Divine procedure ; and should there be dif- ferent orders of accountable bein2;s, in includinnj and unitin2: them together as voluntary and organic parts of the one great system. II. Here, however, it may be asked, whether this does not imply that, until this all-sufficiency be made manifest, there must be something wanting to the Divine glory which that manifestation is necessary to acquire for it ; and that as that all-sufficiency was not displayed for an eternity, there- fore something was eternally wanting to the completion of that glory? We reply, that the display of this all-suffi- ciency is no actual augmentation of God's essential glory, but only the objective manifestation of excellence Avhich existed and acted subjectively from eternity ; and that the fact that He should have existed from eternity without ma- nifesting it to the creature, arises solely from the infinite per- fection of His own nature which is uncommencing, and from the unavoidable imperfection of created natures Avhich neces- sarily imply a beginning. His all-sufficience was necessary to the idea of his self-sufficience, and was included in it. The objection, then, can acquire force only by erroneously supposing that, having purposed to manifest His all-suffi- ciency, there Avas yet (as is often the case with human pur- poses) a doubt as to whether or not it would be carried into effi^ct : but let it be remembered that we are speaking of all-sufficiency, and the objection turns into absurdity. Further, if the objection have any force with respect to the eternity past, it has the same still, and will have the same through all the eternity to come ; since the manifesta- 16 THE PRE- ADAMITE EARTH. tion of all-sufficiency can never, from the very nature of all- sufficiency, come to an end — and herein consists its perfec- tion. Moreover, there is not a particle of being or of ex- cellence in existence now more than existed potentially from eternity, since the whole objective universe is only the ma- nifestation of the Divine being and excellence. Great and real as is the satisfaction of the Deity in the existence and happiness of his creatures, the perfection of His nature for- bids that it should ever have had to begin. There can never have been a point in past duration in which His purpose has not made such existence and happiness certain^ or in which His omniscience has not made it present to His mind as an object of ineffiible delight. Besides which, however much of the Divine excellence be made objective, such manifesta- tion must always fall short of the reality to an infinite amount. And, then, the infinite desirableness of such a manifestation includes and supposes the infinite desirable- ness of all the conditions of the manifestation; so that any alteration would be not only infinitely undesirable, but would be so for this very reason, that it would not be a manifestation of Divine all sufficience. ni. From the preceding section, and from what has been advanced in the preceding chapter, it is evident that if a creation take place, it can be only by the voluntary act of the Godhead. To say that God creates by a natural and unavoidable necessity, is to deny His self-sufficience, and to make Him dependent for perfection on an external object ; whereas we have seen that He has existed from eternity in a state of infinite perfection. Hypotheses of fiite and necessity have not been wanting, indeed, from the time of Anaximander downwards. Ac- cording to him, the infinite is necessarily an ever-producing THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE. 17 energy, and, as such, is in a constant state of incipiency. The necessary spiritualism of Leibnitz, and the necessary materialism of Spinoza, are alike hostile to the Divine free- will. Hegel and M. Cousin, have defended substantially the same tenet. According to the latter, " the distinguishing characteristic of the Deity being an absolute creative force, which cannot but pass into activity, it follows, not that the creation is possible, but that it is necessary." Now as the necessity here contended for, is not that moral necessity or determination which arises from the choice of an infi- nitely perfect Being, but a physical or natural necessity, it has been ably answered that " to what extent a thing exists necessarily as a cause, to that extent it is not all-sufiicient to itself; for to that extent it is dependent on the effect, as on the condition through which alone it realizes its exist- ence; and what exists absolutely as a cause, exists, there- fore, in absolute dependence on the efiect for; the reality of its existence. An absolute cause, in truth, only exists in its effects : it never ?>, it always becomes.''''^ The God of the Bible, on the contrary, is subject neither to the necessity of acting, ad extra, nor to the necessity of not acting. The universe has been created for his " plea- sure ;" not from a necessity which He could not physically resist. And whatever takes place in it of a beneficial nature, takes place '' according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will." The only necessity, therefore, which can be regarded as obliging Him in respect to a creation, is the moral necessity, that having freely determined to create. He should propose an adequate end, and employ the appropriate means for its attainment. ^ From a searching and masterly review of Cousin's Cours de Phi- losophic, in the Edin. Rev., vol. 1. p. 213. C 18 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. IV. Accordingly, if the Deity create, it seems infinitely desirable that the chief and ultimate design of the creation should be the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency — by which the Divine glory should appear equal to all things, even for the greatest — that of being its own end. 1. For, first, in the very nature of things, all the being, excellence, and happiness, which can ever exist, ad extra, and by which alone the Divine manifestation can be made, vir- tually existed from eternity, ad intra. ^ It is only in this way that they can manifest Him ; and it is only so long, there- fore, as they remain what they are — the means of the mani- festation of Himself — that they answer their end; and the more of them there is in the creature, the more do they answer that end. All the relations which may ever bind •created beings together ; the laws which may prescribe the duties of these relations ; the excellence which, by obedience to these laws, they may ever possess or be able to acquire; and the happiness which, as the result of this excellence, they may ever enjoy — all potentially existed from eternity in the character and mind of God, and existed there as the expression of His mind and character. His nature is the fountain of the whole. So that every authoritative announce- ment which He may make that such and such is His will, must be founded in the fact that such and such is His nature. From the all-comprehending perfection of the Divine nature, then, the manifestation of Divine all-suffi- ciency must have been the chief and \iltimate design of creation. 2. But, secondly, as God does nothing which He does not purpose, and as the manifestation of a cause is necessarily • Admirable remarks on this subject may be found in Howe's Living Temple, part i. c. iv., and part ii. c. ii. ; and in Hooker's Eccles. Pol., b. V. THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE. 19 the first end answered by an effect, so the purpose of making this manifestation must have been, in its own right, the first purpose in the mind of God. To speak, indeed, as if the purposes of God observed an order of succession in the Divine mind, is a metaphysical inconsistency; but it is one which arises from that necessary constitution of our nature by which we can conceive of but one subject at a time ; and by which we conceive that that which is the first in the order of importance should be, with a perfect Being, the first in the order of intention. On this account we conclude that the Divine purpose relative to the design or end of creation must have been the first in the mind of God, since every other purpose could only relate to the means for the accom- plishment of that end. What we call the various purposes of God, indeed, are, properly speaking, only parts of the same all-comprehending purpose ; so that what we denomi- nate His first purpose, included the reason of all His other purposes, and determined the order of their successive development. When we say, therefore, that every other purpose could only relate to the means, we do not intend that God had only one end in view absolutely, or in every sense. ^ It seems to be necessary, in order to satisfy our idea of all- sufficiency, that, in accomplishing one end, it should be answering many. For instance, that the very creation of the beings to whom the manifestation should be made, should involve in itself a grand part of the manifestation ; that even the globe prepared to receive them, and to be the theatre of the manifestation, should contain in itself some of the elements of that manifestation ; that the well-beinj; of the creature should furnish the chief occasion for display- ' See President Edwards's Treatise on God's chief End in Crea- tion. — Introductory Paragraphs. c2 20 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. ing that all-sufficiency ; and that the very questioning of that all-sufficiency, and the first obstruction offered to it, should bring with it the very occasion wanted to evolve and demonstrate that all-sufficiency, and to augment the happi- ness of the creature : so that the well-being of the creature should be as secure of attainment as if it were the chief and only end aimed at, since it is coincident with that end ; — all these are designs worthy of Divine all-sufficiency. Although, then, in relation to the chief end, every other end is subor- dinate and a means, viewed apart from that chief end, many of the means themselves become important ends; and it seems, we repeat, worthy of Divine all sufficiency that in an- swering its own great end, it should be accomplishing many subordinate ones. 3. And, thirdly, the well-being of the creature required that the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency should be the ultimate design of God in creation. Next in impor- tance to this design, is that well-being itself And hence, some would inconsiderately regard that as the ultimate end of creation. But if, as we have seen, the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency must be, in its own right, the chief end of creation, the very well-being of the creature required that no other end, not even his own well-being, should be that end. For if the creature be himself apart of that mani- festation, he is, in so far, a means to that end. His excellence consists in that resemblance to God by which he is consti- tuted a part of that manifestation ; and if he be an intelli- gent being, his happiness consists in his perceiving that resemblance, and in being conscious that he is answering that end of his existence. The character of his every act depends on its correspondence with that end. The value of every being is to be estimated by its capabilities for answer- ing that end. And the truth of every system or theory, is THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE. 21 to be tested by the fact whether or not it contemplates that end, and attaches to it the same importance which God does. Tor if that end be infinitely greater than all the subordinate ones taken together ; then tliat theory of things which takes no note of that end, or which assigns it only an inferior place, must be faulty to a much greater degree than any arithmetical calculation which professes to give the sum- total of a number of figures, but which casts up only the fractions and omits the integers. A holy intelligence, therefore, could not be happy under an arrangement which should make his own happiness the chief end of creation, unless he were quite ignorant of the infinite perfection of God. But however happy he might be in that ignorance, it would be only necessary to disclose to him a sight of that perfection in order to render him un- happy ; for he would clearly see that he could be his own end only at the expense of right, and that would render him, as a righteous being, miserable. His own happiness, then, would require that he should be subordinated to the higher end — the manifestation of the Divine glory; for he would see that his well-being consisted in it — that he was made for it. So that could the great question be referred to the arbitration of the holy universe, with one voice they would instantly exclaim, " Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and w^ere created. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all tilings ; to Him be glory for ever. Amen." Thus the verdict of the intelligent universe coincides Avith the primary purpose of the Infinite Mind — that the manifestation of the Divine all- sufficiency is the ultimate end of creation. The work is dedicated to Himself: " All His works praise Him." And thus, from the Eternal Self-sufficience, w^e reach the 22 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. grand conclusion that God must be His own end, or that His infinitely -perfect nature is the great reason of the uni- verse ; and, from a consideration of His all-sufficiency, that His glory, in creation, consists in the manifestation of His all-sufficiency, and that His display of this is His primary and all-comprehending design. CHAPTER HI. The Fundamental Relation ; or, the manifestation of the Divine all-sujfficiency^ mediatorial. God having determined on the display of His all-suffici- ency as the end of creation, the next part of His purpose related to the constitution of a medium, or system of media- tion, as the only condition on which and through which the manifestation was to be made. Let it be observed, that we do not here restrict the mean- ing of the term mediation to the principal or evangelical sense. We now employ the term as equivalent to medial, or that which intervenes between the purpose of God and its accomplishment, as the means of that accomplishment. While we regard the Atonement, therefore, as the great dis- tinctive act of moral mediation, and as that to which all preceding acts of creation and providence were only intro- ductory, we now employ the term in reference to these pre- paratory acts as well as to that great act of moral media- tion. I. And we find, first, that the constitution of the universe THE FUNDAMENTAL RELATION. 23 is mediatorial. The creation is represented in Scripture as owing its actual existence and well-being from first to last, not to the invisible and absolute God directly, but indirectly, on account of the assumed relation and voluntary agency of one who stands medially or mediatorially between Him and the dependent universe. " He created all things by Jesus Christ according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." " By Him (the Mediator) were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him ; and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." n. Accordingly, we find, in the second place, that the institution of the medial, or mediatorial relation, preceded the first act of creation, and Avas the medium of it. For, " in the beginning was the Word, (or Logos,) and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. This (Logos) was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that has been made." In verification of our second proposition we remark that it is here stated, 1. That the Logos is in some sense distinct from o 6foc, for He was with o Qtog. Besides which, His personal sub- sistence is manifest from the attributes of intelligence and active power which are here ascribed to Him, 2. That He sustained a relation of peculiar intimacy and union with o Otoe, for He was irpog t6v Ohh' ; -n-pog, equivalent here to irapci, governing the dative, and denoting rest in a place or an object. But we are by no means dependent on a single proof. Passages to the same effect are so nume- rous as to require selection. Such, for instance, is the Ian- 24 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. guage — " the glory which I had, Trapu o-ot, with Thee, before the world was." And the compound term fiovoyH'i)g — the only-hecfoften Son — which occurs four times; and "the only-ljegotten Son who is in the bosom of the Fatlier ;^ denoting a relation absolutely unique and exclusive, and a state of tlie most perfect conjunction of knowledge, happi- ness, and nature.^ 3. That He was Himself God, for Ofot,- y]v o \6yog. The connexion of this clear affirmation with the preceding clause may be expressed thus — " The Word was with God, in such anianne?', that, in fact, the Word was God." Other proofs to the same effect might be easily adduced. 4. That of everything brought into existence, He, in distinction from o 9£oc, was the actual Maker. " All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." The affirmation is here followed by the negation, after the Hebrew manner, in order the more emphatically to declare that every created thing originated with Him ; and, to create, is the scriptural demonstration of Deity. 5. And therefore that tlie relation or office in virtue of which He created all things preceded the first act of crea- tion. For iv apxy — '^^^ ^^^^ beginning — equivalent to the Hebrew JT'i'N"!:! — even then He already ^v — was. The assertion of His pre-existence is included alike in ap^^ and in )]j'. For when every created thing had yet to be. He already was. He comprehends every beginning in Him- self.^ As passages, parallel, in this particular, we might ' Authorities corroborative of these views might be cited to almost any extent; and some of tliem by no means unfriendly to Neologist doctrines. 2 Qui in principio erat, intra se concludit omne principium. — Aug. Serm.yi. — de Temp. THE FUNDAMENTAL fiELATION. 25 refer to Prov. viii. 23, where to be " from the beginning " is made equivalent with being " from everlasting, or ever the earth was," and to Isaiah xliii. 12, 13, and Hab. i. 12, where to he from the beginning i& regarded as the peculiar prerogative of the eternal and self-existent God. And yet, this ante-beginning, or unbeginning existence is here pre- dicated of the Logos, not once only; in the second verse it is repeated — " this (Word) was in the beginning with God." As if He had said, " This is a truth of the first importance, and I therefore repeat it, that when creation had yet to be- gin to be, the Divine Logos existed in a state of perfect union with the Divine Nature."^ For, "He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Thus Inspiration, leading us back to the beginning of all created things, points us to the existence of that medial relation Avhich preceded creation, and was the means of its actual origin. III. And, thirdly, as the primary purpose of God is the manifestation of Divine all-sufficiency, this primary official relation is represented as in coincidence with, and subser- vience to, that purpose. This is indicated by the very meaning of the appellation Logos, w^hether examined philo- logically, historically, or exegetically. 1. It might be asked, " May not o Aoyoc stund philo/ogi- cally, as abstract for concrete, for o \kyu)v — the speaker or teacher?" To Avhich we reply that Xiynv does not signify directly to teach ; and \6yoq has only in an indirect manner the meaning of doctrine. Much more proper would it be to understand Xoyoc according to the phraseology of Philo, who distinguishes in God the state of dvai — being, and that * Dr. J. p. Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, v. iii. p. cii. b. iv. 26 THE niE-ADAMITE EARTH. of XeyetrOai — revealing Himself. According to which the Lo2ros would be the Divine Revealer.' o 2. But that which is much more important to determine, here, tlian its grammatical, is its historical sense. For the Evangelist speaks of the Logos as of a conception already knoAvn, and which he takes for granted his readers will im- mediately connect with the word.'^ Now, it is matter of history that by the Logos was then understood. He who is the medium of Divine manifestation. The idea of such a medium appears to have early obtained among the students of the Hebrew Scriptures ; and from them to have extended to other lands, till in one form or another, the idea had be- come very generally incorporated with Oriental theology. Traces of it are to be found scattered, with more or less distinctness, in the Apocrypha, in Philo, in the Cabalistic Writings, and in the Chaldee Paraphrasts. In the last of these especially it is taught that God never appears acting immediately upon the world, but always through the medium of another. Tliis medium of the Divine acts is called the Memra of Jah — the Word of Jeliovah. And although the phrase is sometimes employed idiomatically, to signify merely the Divine Voice, at others, it can denote nothing less than a distinct personal subsistence. While in Philo the doctrine is taught that the Deity has developed His essence through His highest lievealer, the Logos, who is the express image of God — the name and the shadow of God— a repre- sentative God. The Evangelist, aware of this familiar doctrine of Jewish theology, declares that the true Logos — He who in the capacity of Logos had made the Avorld as a part of the ' So Professor Tholuck, i?i loc. 2 See Professor Burton's Bampton Lecture. THE FUNDAMENTAL RELATION. 27 Divine manifestation, lias really and historically appeared witli a view to a yet farther manifestation. 3. To have selected so unusual a word as Logos in order to express so simple an idea as that of a teacher only, would have been, exegetically considered, most inappropriate. Be- sides, the idea conveyed is, that the Being intended had, in His capacity of Logos, or, of the Divine lievealer, created the universe ; and that He who had done this had now Him- self appeared to carry on the process of Divine manifesta- tion. Thus understood — and we know no other sense in which we can understand it — how admirably descriptive is the appellation, the Logos, of Him who is the medium of the Divine manifestation. What speech is as a means of rational communication betAveen one mind and another, that is the Divine Logos between the Invisible Essence and all created minds. He is the utterer of His thoughts, the dis- closer of His purposes, the manifestation of His character. Jfow the Being who sustains this relation must in every respect be co-equal with God. To be in any sense inferior would be to be infinitely inferior ; in which case, the mani- festation itself would be limited to the capacity of the me- dium through which it came, and, consequently, be infi- nitely inferior to the Divine original. Accordingly, we have seen, that the Divine Logos is, in perfections, as in name, co-equal with the Father; he has been with Him, and has so been with Him as to be one with Him, from eternity. To the same effect are those passages of Holy Scripture which describe Him as the Lnage of the Invisible God ; as the Brightness of the Father's Glory, and the Ex- press Representation of His Essence. For as the internal being and character of a man are expressed in his face, so God hath given us the knowledge of His glory in the face 28 THE rilE-ADAMITE EARTH. of Jesus Christ. The doctrine which gives to these and parallel phrases all their force is, that He to whom they re- late is the great medium of Divine manifestation. And this prepares us to expect that the manifestation Avill not be verbal merely. For how can the imperfect me- dium of speech convey an adequate idea of the invisible God? Besides, the intelligent creatures to whom the mani- festation is to be made, had first to be created, and the world they should inhabit to be called into existence ; and, as He performed these works in His medial capacity, it might be expected that He would begin the manifestation even in these. This is the right key to the volume of the universe. Properly understood, every material particle is impressed with His seal. Every atom is a letter, and every work a word. Every element lectures on his attributes, and each globe is a messenger ever moving in His service. Man him- self was made in His image. The stars come forth nightly on their solemn embassy to " proclaim the glory of God." And the earth daily affirms with voices innumerable the " eternal power and Godhead." In harmony with this re- presentation, the Divine Logos is represented as having come into the world not so much to promote the Divine ma- nifestation by verbal instruction, as by embodying and ma- nifesting Himself in actions. He came to he the manifest- ation of God. " He that hath seen Me," said He, " hath seen the Fatlier also." He claimed for Himself the exclu- sive power of revealing the Father; and affirmed that to make this revelation was the great end of His own coming. And, when about to depart from the world, He was heard to say to the Father, " Having declared unto them Thy name, and having thus glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." While His disciples subsequently declared, that the Life had been manifested, TIIK FUNDAMENTAL RELATION. 29 and tliat they had seen it; that that which was from the beginning they had handled and seen, even the Word of Life ; that though no man had seen God at any time, the only- begotten Son had come from the bosom of the Father to de- clare Him, and that they had beheld His glory. And thus, be it observed, the very means of external manifestation became itself the manifestation of a myste- rious plurality of subsistencies in the Godhead. In the very first step taken to give the universe an economy ad extra., a mysterious economy ad intra was disclosed ; and which became the ground and means of every subsequent disclosure. Here, then, are the basis and medium of the Divine Manifestation; for, in relation to God, as we shall pre- sently evince more clearly, it is constituted the ground on which such manifestation is made; and is itself, perhaps, to His eye, the manifestation already and ever perfect. While in respect to the subsequent creation, it is the means by which the process will be ever conducted. Thus, while the reason of this Relation is laid, proximately, at least, in the Divine purpose, and the reason of the Divine Purpose lies in the Divine Nature, the reason of everything else will be found to be laid in this Relation. CHAPTER lY. The Primary Obligation ; or^ duty arising from the Mediatorial Relation. If the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency be the object for which the mediatorial relation exists, and if the Being sustaining the relation be infinitely perfect, or equal 30 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. to the relation, it follows that by voluntarily assuming it, He comes under obligation to do everything which may be necessary for the full attainment of the object proposed. I. For what is obligation but the necessary link which connects the antecedent with its consequent ; or, the indis- pensable necessity of employing the means proper to attain a requisite end ? Now every relation brings with it certain appropriate obligations ; and these obligations vary in cha- racter and amount according to the character of the rela- tions. A relation may be voluntary, or involuntary and natural. If it be voluntary. He who assumes it is bound to fulfil the obligations which it imposes; always providing that he either knew, or had the means of knowing, the nature of the relation ; and that he is not physically unable to discharge its duties, and thus answer its end. II. Now He who sustains the mediatorial relation, not only possesses, as we have seen, all the requisites for accom- plishing the great purpose, but His fitness is the special reason Avhy He sustains that relation ; the relation therefore hinds or obliges Him to do everything necessary to the attainment of the end for wliich it e.vist^. That end may be immeasurably distant, but let the first creative fiat be once issued, and never can His eye be withdrawn from the process which leads to it. Vast as the theatre may be which that process may, in the course of time, come to occupy, His presence must, in some sense, pervade the entire space. Innumerable as the parts belonging to the process may speedily come to be, and receiving as they may innumerable accessions at every moment after, all of them must be known to Him in their natures, relations, and remotest effects. TDE PRIMARY OBLIGATION. 31 Various, and formidable to finite apprehension, as may he the apparent obstacles to the attainment of the end, arising from the ever-varying combinations of circumstances; from the junctures of events which had their respective causes in different ages of creation, and in different departments of the universe; and, especially, from the voluntary actions of free agents ; not merely must He be prepared to meet them all, but (as an illustration of all-sufficiency) to render them all conducive, as parts of His plan, to the attainment of His ultimate end. Ever receding, and even unattain- able (in an absolute sense) as that end, owing to its perfec- tion, must necessarily be, yet as long as there are aspects of the Divine character to be manifested, new creatures must continue to be formed for the purpose of displaying and ap- preciating them; or, which would seem to be better still, those already formed must be placed by Him in new situa- tions for beholding it in fresh aspects, and have their powers enlarged for appreciating such enlarged disclosures ; or — that which would seem to be still more worthy of all- sufficiency — both these conditions might be made to meet in the same order of creatures ; that is, besides taking up into their constitution all that is most important in the con- stitution of the creatures preceding them, they may be made to exhibit something more excellent of their own in addi- tion, and be placed in circumstances favourable to the ever- advancing exercise and development of the whole. And thus the glories which creation may display at any period indefinitely distant from the first moment of the opening manifestation, and the power which the creature may at such period possess for appreciating it, will only be the means, in the hand of the Mediator, for entering on a new career of Divine manifestation as immeasurably distant, and incomparably more glorious still ; and the attainment of 32 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. that be only tlie bare preparation for anotlier beyond, so much more glorious than tlie preceding that the eye which had gazed on all the splendours of the past, and the ear which had heard all the speculations and conjectures to which that past had given rise, and the heart which had been occupied ten thousand ages in putting all these toge- ther into every imaginable form of ideal glory, will yet have to confess that it had never seen, or heard, or even ima- gined, anything to be compared with it — and so on ad inf.' nitum. So that as the manifestation will never have reached a point beyond which it cannot be carried farther still, the mediatorial office can never, absolutely, and in every sense, cease ; in other words, the relation which the Mediator sus- tains in the great purpose of manifestation binds or obliges Him to do everything which may be necessary to the full attainment of the great end — and therefore to continue the manifestation for ever. This view of the mediatorial obligation harmonizes with, and is suggested by, that numerous and important class of Scriptures which appears to take such obligation for granted ; and which represents even the self-denial and suiferings of the Mediator, as events which " behoved him " — and which " ought " to take place. The proximate obligation implied in these Scriptures, indeed, may be that which bound Him to the employment of suitable means for the attainment of a particular end. That particular end was the recovery of a race which by voluntarily obstructing the great process of manifestation, and by thus forfeiting all right to the hap- piness attending it, could be restored to it again only when such restoration could be made as safe to the great process, and as conducive to the great end, as their abandonment to the consequences of their sinful defection would be. And the Mediator, having undertaken to effect that restoration, THE rniMARY OBLIGATION. 33 had brought liimself under obligation to do all that was necessary to render this particular end consistent with the attainment of the great end. The event showed that suf- fering and death were the necessary means — and therefore even suffering and death "became Him," and He " ought" to endure them. But this view accounts only for the iwoximate obligation. It leaves unanswered the natural and momentous inquiry why such an obligation was incurred? Whereas, the right answer, I apprehend, would show that this proximate obli- gation, great and wonderful as it is, resolves itself into one higher and more comprehensive still ; and that to this the class of Scriptures referred to ultim.ately relates — namely, the all-comprehending obligation to which His mediatorial relation binds Him, of doing everything essential to the great end. In virtue of that relation. He was bound from the beginning, not only to keep the great process in constant activity, but to keep it ever advancing and enlarging; and this, as we have seen, involved the requirement that He should meet every exigency which might arise, and even turn it to the account of the final result. His earthly humi- liation, indeed, is, probably, on many accounts, the central wonder and most amazing part of that duty to which His mediatorial relation can ever oblige Him; but still it is only one of an unbroken series of acts, which, beginning with the first fiat of creation, can never end, unless the great mani- festation itself, on account of which the relation exists, could ever arrive at completion. III. This view seems to place us in an advantageous position for gaining an insight into the very reason of the medial relation — disclosing, not merely Avhat it is, but partially, at least, ivhy it is so. That this subject should D 34 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. be felt to be profound might have been expected, if for no other reason than that it appears to involve, in some de- gree, the very nexus which unites the internal economy of the Divine nature with the external economy of the de- pendent universe. Even in the philosophy of our own minds, the mode in which the thinking principle within is related to the world without — how that which is I, can come to know that which is not I, is the great, and, com- paratively, the only difficulty. So that every theory on the mind derives its character from the view which is taken of this starting-point : — one denying that there is any sub- jective; another, that there is any objective; another affirm- ing that they are identical ; and a fourth, that they are not identical but inexplicably related. Precisely in like manner, some have denied that there is any Originating Mind, and reo-ard the universe as eternal ; others have affirmed that there is no material universe, but that God alone exists; others, that God and nature are identical; and others, that they exist distinctly, but are inexplicably related. Now Divine revelation discloses the vital fact that they are related, and that the relation is, properly understood, not direct but medial. 1. But wliat is the reason of the fact? Is it a natural reason merely ; one, that is, arising from the disparity of nature between the created and the infinite Invisible? Such was the theory of many of tlie emanative systems of the East ; indirectly derived, but perverted, from the Hebrew Scriptures. They taught that as the Highest Being is, in himself, incomprehensible and unapproachable, there can be no immediate transit from Him to a world of created existences; that, consequently, it became necessary that there should be found in God some transition-point to make His fulness comprehensible and communicable; and that THE PRIMARY OBLIGATION. 35 this was found in Himself from eternity in a Being like Himself, through whom the concealed God was manifested. And this opinion, slightly modified, and reproduced in some of the early Christian creeds, has continued to exercise a powerful influence on the theology of this subject down to the present day. That it involves some truth we readily admit ; but, if it is to be regarded as the whole truth, the reply to it is obvious — namely, that if the supposed medium be infinite, the natural chasm intended to be filled up be- tween God and the creature remains, for one infinite is as unapproachable as another ; and that if it be not infinite, it no less remains, for a finite medium necessarily leaves the gulf as it was — infinite. 2. Is the reason, then, a mortal one; and, if so, what is its specific nature? The general reply would doubtless be in the affirmative, and to this effect — that the constitution of a universe worthy of an Infinitely Perfect Being involved the existence of free agents, and therefore of a moral ad- ministration ; that under such an administration righteously administered, forgiveness, in the event of sin, would be im- possible, unless such a compensation should be provided as ~ would render forgiveness as safe and honourable to the administration as the infliction of the merited punishment would be ; and that God, therefore, foreseeing such an event, and determined on the illustration of His infinite grace, devised a system of mediation, at once safe for His govern- ment, suited to tlie exigency of the sinner, and glorious for His own character. Now, not only is this true — it is ines- timable truth. To a sinful Avorld it is Gospel. But to regard this as the whole of the reason, would be to limit the reason to a single act or class of actions; whereas, if our preceding views are correct, that reason is to be found in the purpose of Divine manifestation, just as the ground d2 36 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of that is to be found in the great Reason of all — the Divine Nature. 3. For the sake of distinguishing the oi-iginal ground of the mediatorial relation, then, from that just named, and yet avoiding the employment of a term liable to misinter- pretation, we would designate it simply as the primary moral reason, in contradistinction from the last, which we regard as the proximate moral reason ; and this primary reason we conceive to be, because nothing else than the in- stitution and voluntary assumption of the subordinate office, understood by the mediatorial relation, woidd have adequately manifested the infinite Holiness and Love of God, or His all-sifficiency for the well-being of an intelli- gent and accountable universe. That other reasons for this amazing arrangement are de- ducible from Scripture, is gladly admitted. There is that great proximate reason, to which we have just adverted. There is also the reason, that we might not be discouraged, by a sense of God's ineffable majesty, from approaching Him. And there is the weighty reason of the moral in- fuence arising from the Mediator\s example f willing subordination to the Father. That He should be seen standing in the view of the universe — seen by His own creatures — in a station of obedience ! Who else can refuse to obey ? That He, of His own free-will, should consent to serve! — -what creature -Avill but must feel constrained to yield? That He should find glory in this subordination! — does it not point the intelligent universe the only way to perfection — namely, by its coincidence with the Divine will? But these reasons, and others which might be named, are all included in that Avhich I have designated as the primary moral reason. And I venture to repeat, that, not THE PRIMARY OBLIGATION. 37 only is the manifestation of tlie Divine all-sufficiency that primary reason, hut that nothing else than the mediatorial relation can be conceived of as furnishing an adequate ma- nifestation of that all-sufficiency. That the Divine Being might have abstained, had He so pleased, from all external manifestation, I believe to be a doctrine of Scripture ; but I believe also that, having determined on the manifestation, nothing less than the voluntary subordination of one of the persons in the Godhead could adequately express the re- sources of all-sufficiency. Had the sufficiency of God been limited; or had He designed that the manifestation should have been of any amount of His excellence short of all- sufficiency — i. e., had He himself been imperfect, or had He determined on an imperfect manifestation — an arrangement inferior to that of the system of mediation might have suf- ficed; but if God all-sufficient is to be revealed, this would appear to be the adequate and only exponent. And still farther, so effi^ctually does the mediatorial arrangement provide for the purposed manifestation, that the mere wil- lingness of the Mediator to sustain the relation, apart from all that He has done in consequence, and, hypothetically speaking, even short of His actually sustaining it at all — His mere willingness to sustain it, could that have been signified to the universe, would have given us a deeper in- sight into the character of God, and have furnished a brighter illustration of His all-sufficiency, than it could ever have entered into the mind of man or angel to conceive. The wonder is, then, not so much that He should fulfil every condition to which His mediatorial relation obliges Him, as that He should be found sustaining the relation at all from Avhich that obligation takes its rise. To say that He fore- saw these conditions, is only saying that He is equal to the relation which He sustains. And to say that He yet volun- 38 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. tarily undertook that office, is only saying that He who is at the head of a system of free agency is Himself a free agent. But that He should have done this, I repeat, that He who had known no necessity but that of being, and of being what He was, should have brought Himself under obligation ; that He who had known no relation but that of the ineffable union of the Godhead, should oblige Himself to sustain a relation to a created universe — to become the centre of an ever-enlarging system of such relations ; and to do everything necessary to the well-being of such relations ; that the cause of all things, ad extra, should have voluntarily assumed that office as an effect of a previous purpose; that " the Beginning of Creation " should range Himself in a line with His own creatures — subjecting Himself to His own laws — as the first term in a series of means, for the accomplishment of the end which that purpose contem- plated ; — this can be accounted for only by supposing that the end is the illustration of the Divine all-sufficiency. Nor is this final reason unfrequently or obscurely adverted to in the word of God. To this effect, ultimately, are those passages to which reference has been made already. So also is the inspired declaration, that in the most self- denying acts of the Mediator, the eternal Father was allow- ing or appointing that which " became Him ;" but, then, the capacity or relation in which it became Him is distinctly stated, as " Him, by whom are all things, and for whom are all things," — as Him who is His own end, and the end of everything else, even of the system of mediation, with all that it includes. And to this view the Mediator Himself sets His seal in all those passages, cited in the last chapter, in which He declares, tliat whatever He said, did, or suffered, the whole was for the disclosure of the Divine glory. THE PRIMARY OBLIGATION. 39 (1.) Tlien, it is to be inferred, tliut the character of the Father is perfectly free from that unlovely and invidious light which some views of mediation are charged Avith un- justly casting on it. The object of the Father in appoint- ing^ and of the Son in voluntarily assuming the relation, is one — the fulfilment of the great purpose. So that the arrangement is required by a principle rather than by a person; is rendered, on the one hand, for the very same reason that it is required on the other — namely, that the full manifestation of the Divine glory to the universe might be made possible. (2.) That as the appointment of such an arrangement argues no deficiency of benevolence on the one hand, but the reverse, so the accession to it, on the other, argues no absolute loss of original prerogatives, or entire renunciation of antecedent rights. These, as they belong to the Divine nature, can never be detached or diminished, but are as unchangeable as the nature to which they belong. Besides, these prerogatives constitute the fitness of the Mediator, or His infinite adequacy, for the mediatorial ofiice, and enable Him to discharge it; and surely His rights are not to be regarded as annulled because of His perfections. And it is because of His retaining these original prerogatives, as well as on account of His manifestation of God, that He is often spoken of in Scripture, interchangeably, as acting both in His original and in his official capacity. (3.) That the mediatorial obligation will never termi- nate. As its sole design is the manifestation of God, its duration must run parallel with the manifestation; so that unless the universe were to be blotted out, or the perfec- tions of Deity to be exhausted, it can know no end. Com- mencing prior to the introduction of sin, it will continue in some sense, after all the probationary perturbations of 40" THE PRE- ADAMITE EARTH. the moral system have ceased, as the indispensable and everlasting proof of the Divine all-sufficiency. And what a view does this wonderful economy afford lis of tlie all- comprehending glory of that end which could justify the adoption of such means in order to fulfil it ! (4.) And how inevitably does the arrangement suggest that if the primary relation gives rise to obligation, every subordinate relation will do the same; that the Creator will not 1)0 the only being under obligation; that all His creatures, in proportion to their relation to Him and to each other, will be under obligation also. CHAPTER V. The Supreme Right ; or, Mediatorial Autliority and Hap- piness commensurate ivith the discharge of Obligation. If the primary obligation be commensurate with the me- diatorial relation, it may be expected that the discharge of that obligiition will be associated with corresponding r?*^Ate, so that if the Being discharging it, do everything necessary to a constant approximation towards the great end, it will follow that he should meantime enjoy, or possess a right consistently with that end, both to whatever is necessary to the prosecution of his object, and to whatever flows from it. Here is a twofold right ; the first part, presupposing obliga- tion, and the second, presupposing its discharge. I. Independently of His original and unalienable rights, the nature of the Great End invests Him with a right of the highest order in relation to whatever may be included in the mystery of the Godhead. For example, if there be a THE SUPREME RIGHT. 41 distinction or subsistency in tlie Divine nature, designated the Holy Spirit; if the attainment of tlie end require the disclosure of this mysterious fact; and if this disclosure can he only eifected, consistently with the end, by His employ- ment of the agency of this Divine subsistency, His office entitles Him to avail Himself of that agency. His right is commensurate with His obligation. The end at which He aims being unlimited, all limitation must be removed from the means; so that all the resources of the Divine nature are to be considered as at His disposal. II. 1. If He call any order of intelligent creatures into existence, with a view to their subordination to the great end, (and for no other purpose can they exist,) He has a right to their proper activity and service. If He Himself be under obligation to attain a certain end ; and if that obligation include the production and employment of appro- priate means, the same obligation rests on the means, pro- vided they are capable of obligation, as necessary steps to the attainment of the end ; for without them, the end can- not be attained. This is the very condition of their exist- ence; for had it not been for that end they would not have been called into being ; had it not been for the mediatorial constitution on which that end is pursued, they could not have existed ; and were it not that they are intended to serve as means to that end, they would not have been con- stituted what they are. They hold existence, therefore, and their particular constitution of existence, on the prime con- dition that they answer the great end for which they have received both ; and to do this is at once their excellence and their happiness. He who has imparted both, has in no sense parted with His right in either. The excellence and happiness now found in the creature, existed potentially in 42 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. the Creator before they came into the creature ; but in im- parting them to the creature, the Creator intended, not that His own glory should be thereby left unaffected, but that they should answer an end by which both they should be increased, and the Divine glory be thereby augmented. 2. If, then, any of the creatures are so constituted that their activity increases their power of subserving the great end of their existence, He has a right to the whole of that increase ; for it is owing entirely to his having constituted them as they are, that they are capable of such increase ; and the great reason why He did so, is the same as that for which He constituted them at all — to subserve the great end of the Divine manifestation. 3. If, again, owing to the providence or plan on which the end will be sought, and the consequent relationships in which successive creatures will stand to each other, their power of subserving that end should be augmented, He will, for the same reason, have a right to the whole of that augmentation. For, as the great system of means advances from one stage of development to another, it will be only the gradual unfolding of a plan which had always existed in His infinite mind. And as it existed there only with a view to the end, so whatever may be gained by the accom- plishment of a preceding part of the plan, is so much gained for the part succeeding, and so on to the end. 4. If, again, owing to any of the free agents, which the plan contemplates, abusing their free agency, and with- holding their poAver, and thus violating the condition of their existence, the progress of the plan and the attainment of the great end should be thwarted, or, in any sense, endangered ; and if, then, owing to His interposition in any way, the derangement of the system should be remedied, and be even turned to the account of the great end. He THE SUPREME HIGIIT. 43 would have a right to all the advantage which that gracious interposition would give Him. Absolute as His right to their activity and devotedness was before, He has now established a new right of peculiar cogency. Before, He had called them from nothingness into happy existence, now he has called them from misery to happiness. But for the first act, they would never have been ; but for the second, they would never have been aught but miserable. Whatever may be the amount of their new obligation, there- fore. He is entitled to the result of it ; — of all the additional moral influence which it gives Him over their minds, of all the new motives to obedience which it should call into ex- istence, and of all the increase of power arising from the stimulating influence thus shed over the great system of means. III. The Mediator has a right also to whatever satisfac- tion can arise from the contemplation of His own conduct in its respective relations to God and to the creature. 1. There is the happiness of beholding His ideas or designs ohjectivelij realized — He has a right to that. Accordingly, He is represented as having contemplated the flrst objects even of the material world, as they came forth from His hand, with Divine complacency. He looked on them as visible realizations of eternal types. On comparing them, so to speak, witli the archetypes in His own infinite mind. He beheld the perfect resemblance, and was satisfied. He regarded them as exponents or signs of certain corre- sponding qualities, infinitely greater in the Divine nature. And He beheld them in their prospective application; serving as indexes or memorials of that infinite greatness to myriads of minds which He purposed to create, and so to constitute that each of all these things should operate on 44 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. tliem suggestively. lie knew, therefore, all the lofty tlioughts Avliich these objects would ever suggest, and all tlie exquisite delight those thoughts would occasion, and all the holy admiration which the perception of this rela- tion between things that differ would ever produce. He looked on those objects also as the first in an endless series yet to come. In His first acts of creation, the great architect was laying the foundation of an all-comprehend- ing and eternal temple; and His infinite mind is to be regarded as having embraced, by anticipation, all the sublime results. The worshippers, the liomage, the temple filled with the glory of the Divine manifestation — all were present to His mind — and He rejoiced in the glorious prospect. 2. There is the happiness of prospectively beholding the activity, enlargement, and progress of the whole system of creation and providence — He has a right to the enjoyment of that. Not more certainly is the earth perpetually speed- ing on its destined course through space, and carrying with it all the momentous interests of hunumity, than His plan, freighted with an eternal weight of glory for the creature, and with a weightier revenue of glory to God, is in con- stant progress. Never for a moment does it retrograde — never pause — never linger. Look on it when He will. He beliolds it arrived at that stage, where, a thousand ages ago, He foresaw it would be ; and look forwards to what distant age He will. He beholds it, in anticipation, already there arrived. Hence, He is often represented in Scripture as foretasting the happiness arising from the contemplation of this progress. Out of the depths of eternity. He looked onwards to the period when creation should commence. " From everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was, when there were no depths, no fountains abounding THE SUPREME RIGHT. 45 with water, when as yet lie had not made the earth, nor the fiekls, nor the highest part of the dust of the world,"^ He anticipated the period when all these would be. Beyond this, He looked on to the remote period when the earth should he prepared for the reception and sustenance of animal life. He saw its forests wave ; its watci's roll ; its surface clothed with verdure ; and the Avhole replenished with various orders of sentient being. Ages beyond, and when, by successive creations and mighty intervals of change, the earth should have been slowly prepared for the reception of a being such as man, His eye fixed on the time when, in order to that event, He siiould " prepare the heavens, and set a compass upon the face of the deep; when He should establish the clouds above ; and when He should give to the sea His decree that the waters should not pass His commandment." Already, in His prescient view, the sun had received its final commission to shine, and earth had received its general outline of Alp, and Apennine, and Himalaya — of Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean, Already Eden bloomed, and a river Avent out of it to water the garden. Man's mansion was prepared, but where was the great inhabitant ? The theatre was ready — where was the being on whose introduction the mighty drama should begin? Already, in intention. He saw that creature come, radiant in His own image — the crown of creation : and, as He saw. He already heard "the morning stars sing to- o-ether;" saw earth's first sabbath dawn; beheld man's earliest act of adoration ; and pronounced the whole to be " good." Even then, though existing only in His Divine purpose, " He rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of men." He foresaw ' '?an ni-ip5? mw — Prov. viii. 26. Rendered by Gesenius the Jirst (earliest) clod of the earth — i. e., wliicli was first formed. 46 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. His blessing enlarging Japheth, and causing him to dwell in the tents of Shem. His purpose had formed the great con- tinents of the earth, had smootlied the valleys where nations should be cradled, and given direction to the course of the rivers whose banks should become the seat of empire. The actual distribution of Canaan among the tribes of Israel was only the transcription of an eternal plan. " Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations; ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance ; when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people accord- ing to the number of the children of Israel." Before Moses — before Pisgah itself, from which Moses looked down on the promised land, existed — His eye had looked down from the height of His sanctuary, and had beheld prospectively that Sinai whence His law should be given; that Zion which should be crowned with His temple; that Calvary which should sustain the mystery cf the cross. Now that the prospect of the development of His great plan affords him profound satisfaction is evident, not only from the Scriptures already quoted, but from the fact that He has sought, at times, to inspire His church with an ecstacy of delight by affording them glimpses of its onward course. All the sublime disclosures of prophecy are merely revelations of that future on which His eye is perpetually fixed ; and by the prospect of which He would fain admit the faithful to a fellowship in His own delight. And all the satisfaction those disclosures have ever yielded to an Abraham, who " saw His day and was glad ;" to a David, an Isaiah, an Ezekiel, a Paul, a John, entranced with the vision — to the whole church, which " having seen them afar off, were persuaded of them, and embraced them," and died THE SUl'KEME ItlGHT. 47 in exulting faith — all this is only a particle of the bound- less "joy which they have ever set Ijefore him." 3. To Iliin also belongs the happiness of prospectively beholding the effects of His gratuitous interposition for human salvation. If, owing to no defect in the original constitution of the great plan of Providence, any part of that plan be violated by man ; and if, owing to no original defect in man, but owing to an abuse of his necessary free- agency, that violation take place; and if, therefore, without any claim on the interposition of the Mediator, He yet determined to remedy the evil, to take advantage of it in a way which shall accrue to the infinite good of the very beings who had introduced the evil, and to the furtherance of the great end of Divine manifestation — surely He has a right to the happiness arising from a view of the effects of His own interposition. Accordingly, there is a class of Scriptures which represents Him as rejoicing in the pros- pect of this interposition. And the satisfaction which He derives from the contemplation of that prospect, is heightened by the vivid contrast in which it ever stands before his view with what must have been the dreadful alternative if He had not interposed. And when He anticipates the day in which " He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and ad- mired in all them that believe," He " sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied." 4. Then He is entitled to the grateful homage of all who share the effects of His gracious interposition. Hence His own language, " that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father." 5. The happiness fiowing from the fact that on account of His mediatorial work, He is the object of the Father's in- finite delight, is greater still. For He estimates that com- placency at its proper worth, which is infinite, absolutely 48 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. infinite ; and therefore greater than the intelligent creation, though its capacity be always enlarging, Avill ever be able to experience. 6. And then there is the happiness derivable from know- ing that He is attaining the greatest of all ends — the mani- festation of the Divine all-sufficiency. Now, if this end be so great, that every other stands to it only in the relation of means ; if this is infinitely greater than all other ends com- bined, the happiness arising from the attainment of it must be infinitely greater also. The happiness flowing from the spectacle of a redeemed and happy creation must be great; for Ha knew not only what would be the exact measure of its happiness at this moment, but how happy it will be ten thousand ages hence, when its capacity for happiness will be increased ten thousand-fold — with all the happiness it will have enjoyed in the interval, and so on for ever. But in- conceivably high as He values that complacency, more highly still does He value that glory on account of the manifesta- tion of which that complacency is accorded to Him. He esti- mates everything as the eternal Father does ; so that if the manifestation of the Divine glory be so dear to the Father that He pours His complacency on the Son for undertaking it, the Mediator himself regarding it in the same light, must derive from the contemplation of its attainment His highest delight. The prospect of beliolding a universe of dependent beings hanging on independent all-sufficience; every heart a channel through which a fulness of delight is constantly streaming from the great central source, and every moment enlarging to receive more; every sin forgiven, every evil remedied, every want su})plied ; the whole reflecting, and re- plenished with, the Divine glory — this is the consummation of that glory which is set before Him. Much as He may delight in the favour of Deity, He rates the glory of the THE SUPREME RIGHT. 49 Deity higher still : for it is that which gives even to His favour all its value ; so that to be the means of manifesting it to the universe is the croAvn of His mediatorial happiness, as it is the end of creation. And thus by a circularity in the nature of the mediato- rial constitution we are brought back to the point from which we set out — ^that the glory of God is the chief end of creation. It must necessarily have been so independent of all appointment ; and even had there been (supposing an impossibility,) an appointment to the contrary. For even if a decree had appointed that the ultimate end of all things should be the well-being of the creature, the infinite capa- city for enjoyment of the Divine Being would not have allowed it to be the greatest end ; since God in beholding that well-being, and the manifestation of the Divine glory which it carried along with it, would, by right and necessity of nature, enjoy more tlian all the creatures together — infi- nitely more. The great reason, then, accounts for the pri- mary purpose ; the purpose originates the medial relation ; the relation imposes the great obligation ; and the obligation is followed by the right of the Being discharging it ; that is, the last ensues on the attainment, or, in proportion to the attainment of the first: and thus the Mediator, as such, finds his own end in attaining the great end. SECOND PART. Principles deducihle from the preceding Lectures ; or^ Laws of the Manifestation. From the preceding scriptural views of that which is pre- dicable of the Deity, considered as prior to the manifestation of the divine all -sufficiency, and in order to it, the following general deductions seem logically to result. Certain other intermediate principles, iiTdeed, might with equal clearness, be inferred ; but, for the present, it is proposed to deal only with general truths. I. Tliat every divinely originated object and event is a result, of which the supreme and ultimate reason is in the Divine Nature. By which we mean that, not only is a reason for it to be found there, — this would only acquit the Maker from a charge of folly — but, that the ultimate and adequate reason why it is, and is what it is, is to be found there. For, if the origin of everything which may exist must be traced to him as the great first cause, everything will, in some sense, be like him; i.e., it will be, and will be what it is, when it proceeds from him, because he is what he is ; for before it was produced, it was potentially included in him. Additional reasons may be found in itself, and in other LAWS OF THE MANIFESTATION. 51 parts of creation, to account for its existence. And of vast significance may many of these reasons be to the creature. Yet all these will be found subordinate and traceable to that infinite reason which includes, but is independent of them all, as belonging to the infinite nature of God. These sub- ordinate reasons may only be coexistent with the respective natures in which they are found, — beginning and ending, therefore, in some cases, within the space of a few short hours — soon, and perhaps for ever, to be forgotten by all the rest of creation : but the infinite reason of their being at all existed from eternity in the nature of God, and can never cease to exist. However insignificant, comparatively, any given creature may be, not only is the reason of its exist- ence to be sought in God, as prior to, in the order of time, and causative of, that existence ; but as a reason which ap- proved itself to, and, in some sejise, expressed a property of the divine nature. So that even if there were no purpose of manifesting Divine all-sufficiency, — but the creation were to be limited to the production of a single creature — still, as every effect must be in some sense like its cause, that single effect would be, (notyonwQ'% but virtually^) a manifesta- tion, 2^ro tanto, of the Divine Nature : in other words, its ultimate reason would be found in God. And on the same ground, every expression of His will, however it may be made, whether by word or act, will be a manifestation of something anterior, viz. of the Divine Nature. II. That everything sustains a relation to the great pur- pose, and is made subservient to it. If our view of the Divine purpose be correct, it will fol- loAv, that besides the former law of the creature's existence, E 2 52 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. by wliicli it is what it is, because God is what he is, and which Uiw can never be superseded; there is another law, arising from the Divine purpose, Avhich makes it a primary condition of the creature's existence that it should contri- bute in some measure to the Great Manifestation. We can conceive, then, of a two-fold reason for everything, ad extra: — the one, arising from what God Z5, the other from what he j^urposes — the former a natural reason^ the latter a moral necessity or reason of Divine appointment — the former looking back to its origin, the latter looking onwards to its end. For if the design of the whole be to manifest the Divine All-suificiency, every part of the whole must of course combine to the same end. And as nothing which may exist, can have a separate, exclusive, and independent end of its own, everything will find its own end, in answering His. III. That the Manifestation will he carried on hy a system of means, or medial relations. If our view of the great relation be correct, we may ex- pect, that that relation^ as constituting the medium of the Divine Manifestation, will itself be manifested ; or that, in harmony with that primary relation, the whole manifesta- tion will consist of, or be carried on by, a system of corres- ponding medial relations, (relations rising with the rising nature of the being sustaining them ;) otherwise, that great relation itself will be but partially disclosed, if it be not even entirely, and for ever, unknown. Another reason for the medial constitution of the Crea- tion, is, that the Great Relation is not merely the medium of the manifestation, but an important part of it; just as the sun, besides being the medium of vision, is also the LAWS OF THE MANIFESTATION. 53 glory of the creation. Now as everything exists for the Divine Manifestation, of which that rehition itself is a vital part, everytliing may be expected to manifest that Relation by itself sustaining a medial relation. And, as everything is to express something of the Divine nature, and the Great Relation involves an infinite disclo- sure of that nature, everything may be reasonably expected to bear, in some respects, the stamp of that Relation. And further, — if, as we have shown in a previous chap- ter, the Great Purpose requires that the Manifestation should he progressive, it follows that it must consist of a succes- sion of events, in which each part will necessarily hold a re- lation to all the parts preceding, and following; just as the Primary relation is medial between the purpose and the end. For we can neither conceive of an event which must not be conceived of, as being, in some sense, an effect; nor of a succession of events which must not be conceived of as me- dially dependent and related. So that viewed in connexion with the second law, which determines that everything shall subserve the great end, this determines the mode or form in which that subserviency shall be rendered — by everything sustaining a relation, not merely to that end, but to every- thing else contributing to that end — a relation of mutual dependence and influence. IV. That everything will he found either promoting^ or under an obligation to promote^ the great end commensurate with its means and relations. If our view of the Great Relation be correct — that it brings him who sustains it under obligation commensurate with his means of answering the great end — we may expect to find, that every subordinate relation will be accompanied 54 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. by obligations corresponding in their number and amount with its power of promoting the end. For, according to the^'r.s'^ law, it will necessarily express sometliing of the Divine nature; and according to the second law, it receives existence on the condition of manifesting that resemblance, and of contributing towards the Great End ; and according to the #/ Optics, Query 28, p. 345. 2 Sir J. Herschel's Astronomy, p. 232. INORGANIC NATURE. 151 be only of a physical nature, the Personal Cause may not be equally adequate to produce effects of any other kinds; language, again, which implies that He may be adequate; and we know that He has since proved it. A material cause is measured by the eifect, an intelligent cause is only jiroclaimed. 12. Secondly, it is to be remarked, that this necessary limitation of the a posteriori argument is a tacit confession of its own incompetence and insufficiency, except within the circle of mere mechanical causes and effects. It professes to trace only the operation of laws, not to account for their origination. By this very confession, that its mate- rials are not self-contained and self-sufficient, but derived, it refers the inquirer to a source of derivation beyond themselves. By acknowledging its own inefficacy, it em- phatically directs him to carry his appeal from the laws of matter to the laws of mind. By exhibiting laws, it silently points to a lawgiver. The very tendency of the a j^oste- riori process, in its ascent from effects to their apparent causes, is to awaken the idea of a First Cause. And, once the idea is awakened, the existence of such a Cause is felt to be an intellectual necessity; the mind cannot be satis- fied without it. Aristotle himself has said, " All that is in motion refers us to a mover, and it were but an endless adjournment of causes were there not a primary immovable Mover." That First Cause, indeed, must be immensely different, both in rank and in nature, from the subordinate physical causes to which it has imparted motion ; but still the mind feels the necessity for such a cause with all the force of an intellectual instinct. The mind was constituted to feel this necessity, and thus to supply the last link in the chain of reasoning from itself, as much as it was made and meant to find the preceding links in the phenomena of nature. 152 THE niE-ADAMITE EAKTH. 13. The inquirer is to be reminded, thirdly, that in af- firming the limitation of the created universe, he is quitting his a lyosteriori ground, and is inconsistently availing him- self of an a priori assumption. True, he may start, on this point, from a posteriori ground — having observed that some parts of the material universe are divisible from each other ; but he cannot make this the basis for the inference that all parts are in the same predicament, without either most unpliilosophically jumping to a conclusion, or having recourse to a priori deductions. Certainly, observation has nothing to do with his supposition. Push his inquiries as far as he may, he nowhere finds vacuity or a limit. All the regions of space, as far as he can explore them, are occupied. Could he actually look on the frontiers of creation, he would not know that he Avas doing so ; — there might, for aught he could say, be something beyond. But he has abandoned all thought of finding any confines to nature. Reasoning a priori^ there must be limits ; for a substance divisible into parts cannot be infinite. But observation, and the legitimate inductions of observation, can exhibit no proof of limitation. 14. We have to remind the inquirer, fourtlily, that he is in danger of overlooking the power presupposed in the creating act — the act of the absolute origination of matter. He is thinking only of the quantity of matter in existence, and of its motions. The nature of the agency necessary to call it into existence is lost sight of. Now it seems impossible to conceive of that power as limited. Not only was there nothing, ex hypothesis absolutely no- thing, existing objectively to limit it; but that, in this state of absolute nonentity, the Deity should have " called the things which were not as though they were," can be conceived of only as the prerogative of Omnipotence alone. INORGANIC NATURE. 153 Probably, the. absolute origination of even a single atom would be proof demonstrative of infinite power in the eyes of exalted intelligences. 15. Fifthly^ the inquirer is to be reminded of the very important fact that, on his own admission, the limitations of matter in space originate, not in the Cause, but in the very nature of the thing caused — of the material medium which exhibits the effect. He himself predicates of matter that it is conditioned by limits ; that its nature forbids it to be properly infinite in extension. The question arises, therefore, what series of efiects, exhibited in a substance necessarily subject to spacial limits, he — as a being consti- tuted to infer, from what he sees, more than he sees — would deem an adequate illustration of uncircumscribed power? We just now intimated that the absolute origi- nation of a single atom might be, in the estimation of superior beings, both the sole prerogative and the adequate proof of Omnipotence. But here is a universe of matter ! He has no line with which to measure it. Words, num- bers, imagination, fail, in succession, to do justice to the interminable reality. We say, interminable; for the in- quirer must bear in mind that our view of the Divine power relies especially on the phenomena of the inaterial universe, regarded as successive and progressive. Now, could its unimaginable masses be caused to roll or rush before him, in succession; surely he would not require many ages of such a survey to elapse, before he would feel constrained to exclaim, "It is enough!" Here, too, is a universe of matter ?V? motion. Let him be given to under- stand the numerical amount of the forces implied in all this activity; surely, after the calculation had lasted for ages without any prospect of termination, he could not forbear confessing, " Nothing is too hard for God!" Here is a uni- 154 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. verse perpetually chans;ing in all its parts. The clianges which our own planet has passed through imply periods of time beyond our computation. Let him conceive himself to have beheld the first change, and the next, and so on, in succession ; surely he would have exclaimed, ages, and cycles of ages ago, " Power belongeth unto God ! " — all-sufficient power. He cannot but feel that, in such an imaginary position, the mere reasoning which measures the cause by the effect would soon be out of place; that, having pre- pared the way for a loftier rule, it would confess its own inadequacy, and be silent. Other and higher faculties than it implies would be awakened, and would assert their claims. And when he remembered tliat the mighty system was, both in the constitution of every particle and the collocation of its unnumbered worlds, entirely dependent on the will of God, he would feel that even here " was the hiding of His power" — that He could reduce or enlarge the universe at pleasure. When he saw the innumerable changes which the great system had already passed through ; and that no trace was visible of a failure of power, but, on the contrary, that everything was apparently constructed and conducted to evince its presence and its plenitude, he could not but feel himself challenged to say whether anything more was wanting to convince him of the all-sufficiency of God, in this department, for all the future. And when he recollected, that " the arm of God was still bare," still evolving and working out the immeasurable scheme; that every new moment brought with it an incalculable amount of new evidence of the Divine Power to be added to all the accumulations of the past ; and that of such increase there was no prospect of an end ; he would feel himself in the pre- sence of a God all-sufficient, and spontaneously adore. INORGANIC NATURE. 155 16. For, in the consideration of this subject, it should never be forgotten, that, as we have before remarked, man is not merely an intellectual, but also a moral being ; a being meant for virtue as well as for reasoning, and partly, as the result of his reasoning. In relation to every moral truth, therefore, Avhich he may be required to believe, evidence, depending for its due effect on his own diligence, attention, and state of mind, is to be expected, to a certain amount, but not beyond that amount. If wanting in that amount, belief would be impossible ; if it be in excess of that amount, it would, by compelling belief, make virtue impossible. Constituted as man is, if his belief is to be at once rational and virtuous, the evidence on which it is to be based must be supplied in "weight and measure." Such evidence, it is conceived, is supplied in this opening stage of the Divine procedure — evidence calculated to call forth the intelligent and adoring exclamation, " Lo ! these are parts of His ways; but the thunder of His power who can understand ! " And thus the method and the reason of the Divine Plan, as evinced in this primary display, find their ultimate end, in contributing to prove the all-sufficiency of the power of God: FOURTH PAHT. ORGANIC NATURE. The Second Stage of Divine Manifestation: POWER AND WISDOM. The first stage of the Divine manifestation disclosed to us " enormous masses of matter rolling around the horizon of illimitable space," impelling us to the conclusion that the Creator of these must be a Being of all-sufficient power. Let it be supposed that, haunted and bewildered with the sublime spectacle, and with the laws to which we saw mat- ter successively subjected, we had retired to muse on the omnipotence of the Being who had produced the whole, and on the probable design of its production ; and suppose, that now again, after the lapse of an incalculable period, it were permitted us to revisit some part of the material universe, to behold the manifestation of another perfection of Deity; what may we conceive that perfection would be? 1. But here, again, let it be premised that we do not contemplate anything like sudden transition in the Divine Manifestation, any distinct line which appropriates all within it to one attribute to the exclusion of every other. The very progressiveness of the manifestation implies the OllGANIC LIFE. 157 contrary ; implies that which we actually find, that even the earliest attribute supposes the coexistence of all that appear after it, and is itself to be carried on through all the intermediate stages of the great process, to the last. 2. But if, for reasons already assigned, we are warranted in concluding that the manifestation will be gradual ; and if, in harmony with this expectation, we have found that the first display was an exercise of power, and that even this display advanced from step to step, as if to point attention to something yet beyond ; we are surely warranted in expecting that the period will come in the history of creation, when another attribute will characterize the manifestation as distinctly as power does already. What, we repeat, is that attribute likely to be? We have already answered the question, in efiect, by supposing that the manifestation of that power has filled us with wonder as to what is the design of the universe of matter. Wisdom, then, is the next perfection for whose manifestation we look; for with God, design and wisdom mean the same thing. Wisdom is evinced in the adaptation and adjustment of means to ends. Having seen the means, (we might be supposed to say,) let us proceed to examine the ends. Power has produced the material ; in what way, and to what purposes, will Wisdom employ it? Immeasurable ages have elapsed since the first fiat went forth, and the universe seemed filled, or filling, with a new substance; what changes may not have passed on it, be- sides those which we witnessed, during the mighty interval ! What if, since our last survey, another fiat should have gone forth ; and, in consequence, another efiect have been produced as wonderful as the first, and by means of it ! Now what should we be willing to accept as such an effect? And here, if the mind w^ould do anything like 158 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. justice to those primary displays to wliicli, in the order of the subject, we are now approaching, it shoukl Uibour to divest itself, as much as possible, of all the impressions of the Divine Wisdom which it has received from the later and loftier stages of the manifestation. Placing ourselves, then, in the situation of beings to whom nothing of the kind has yet been disclosed, what, we repeat, should we be willing to consider as a display of wisdom — of wisdom so marked, as to constitute an era in the manifestation, so wonderful, that it should seem to unveil to us a new view of the Divine character, to bring us nearer than ever to the Divine presence, and to remove all bounds from our expectation as to the future? 3. We will suppose that the particular section of the universe visited is the solar system; and that, having marked the scientifically calculated intervals between the sun and the planets, and between the planets themselves, and especially the rigorous equality subsisting between the angular motions of rotation and revolution of each satellite, we have been brought to conclude, with Laplace, that the arrangement is a protest against chance. We will suppose that the particular part of the solar system to Avhich we direct our attention is the earth ; that we mark the pro- gressive changes which it exhibits as compared with that primitive fluidity in which we beheld it untold ages ago ; trace over again its laws of motion, and chemistry, and crystallization ; and fancy ourselves one while standing in the midst of a vast chemical laboratory, where the great agent heat was crystallizing all things ; and another while, amidst the conflicting operations of its well-matched antagonist, water, assailing, wearing, and reducing con- tinents of crystal to atoms, and carrying them away to its own depths, but bearing them away only to lose them ORGANIC LIFE. 159 again by a subterranean furce, which lifts them up from their submerged state to the light of day — a lofty table- land. Still, we should feel that all this was only the play or conflict of inorganic matter ; that each form we beheld was lifeless, and each motion compelled, or impressed by a force from without, " ceasing when that ceased, and never proceeding beyond its compulsory impulse, either in direction or degree." 4. What, then, if some form of organic vegetable life had now for the first time met our view! It matters .not whether that form came into existence slowly or suddenly, alone, or in company with kindred tribes, and with millions of each tribe ; the fact that the earth, after the existence of a '' limited eternity," has become the owner of a new principle — a principle, be it remarked, hitherto unknown to the whole course of nature — a principle hitherto peculiar to the Creator himself, the sacred and mysterious principle of Life; and that innumerable pre-existing phenomena were now for the first time employed as means^ for the development of this new principle as an end ; this would surely be hailed by us as an epoch in the progress of the Divine Manifestation. I. Wisdom. — Here was a result of ivhicli the supreme and ultimate reason is in the Divine Nature. 5. We have not yet to speak of the extent of the wisdom to be inferred from this new form of existence. At present, we have only to regard it as evincing the existence of design in the Divine Creator. Hereafter, we shall have to treat of it as being also a new illustration of creative power, and of every attribute and relation of the Deity already displayed in the preceding stage. And whatever ilhis- 160 THE PRE-AD AMITE EARTH. trations of taste in arrangement, elegance in form, beauty in colour, and majesty in magnitude and waving motion, are now for the first time brought before us in the botanical kingdom, are to be regarded as indications of the Divine complacency in the graceful, the beautiful, and the sublime. As effects, they point to correspondencies infinitely greater in their cause. But even the manner in which each of these effects is produced is a proclamation of the amazing wisdom of the Maker. ETcry green leaf is a magazine of contrivances ; every part of it capable of action, a theatre of different organic wonders. And these diversities are multiplied to such a degree, that, if we would not be bewildered, an attempt at classification is necessary at the very outset of our observa- tions. Here, in the primeval earth, are the three classes which are still extant; the acotyledons, or those which, having no flowers, produce no true seeds ; the monocotyle- dons, or those producing one-lobed seeds ; the dicotyledons, or those producing two-lobed seeds. Of these classes, each exhibits an internal structure or organization peculiar to itself; the first being either vascular and cellular in its tissues, or else entirely cellular ; the second, endogenous, its growth taking place by addition from without to the centre ; the third, exogenous, the growth taking place by the addition of concentric layers without, immediately under the bark. But each of these classes includes numerous orders of plants, each order a number of genera, each genus many species, and every species a number of individuals defying calculation. Here, too, is " a new thing in the earth f^ the great elements and phenomena of the inorganic world are seen subserving the purposes of organic life. The hand of the Creator has mysteriously bound them to the new principle. Every root in creation is, by a chemistry ORGANIC LIFE. 161 of its own, selecting elements from the earth ; every leaf is silently feeding on the great air-tield around it ; every fibre is vibrating to the quickening influence of the light. Quiet as is the aspect of the new scene, repose is, in reality, a thing unknown to it. Movement, activity, multifarious excitement, pervade the silent life of this new creation. Now could we have looked intelligently on this new, this organized, this living, kingdom of nature when first it came into existence, without saying respecting the Creator, " His understanding is infinite!" Here was the first utterance of His wisdom, in the adaptation of means to ends. II. The Past brought forwards. — We have now to see whe- ther or not |j>rd^-e.r/.§^mg' laws and elements are brought forwards and employed in organic life. .1. Preparatory to this, however, an important question claims our attention. Did the creation of vegetable life precede that of animal life ? or were they contemporaneously produced? " The earliest forms of life known to geology [at present] are not, as might have been expected, plants.^ hut animals.'' A few species of coralloids and conchifers, in the slates of the Cambrian system, are, " the oldest monuments yet discovered of the creation of living things."^ But this fact, geologists admit, leaves the question we have proposed unanswered. Lindley's experiments show that some species of plants entirely disappear in water. Had such plants, then, existed for ages prior to the introduction of animal life, their want of power to- resist decomposition would sufficiently account for the loss of all trace of their existence. And geologists are well aware that no certain ' Philips's Cyclop. Treat, i. 129. 162 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. inferences can be drawn from the numerical proportion of fossil plants in different strata, respecting tlie numbers ■which actually flourished during the formation of those strata; since tlieir preservation would depend on their more or less perishable nature, and on many*other circum- stances. 2. For the decision of the question, then, we are referred to other considerations. Some suppose they have adequate ground for ascribing priority of existence to vegetable life, in the evidences which they think they can adduce that the atmosphere of the primitive world was surcharged with ^ carbonic acid; that this very excess, which would have been fatal to animal life, would have been conducive to the luxuriance of land vegetation ; and that it was the office of such vegetation to purify the atmosphere of the ingredient in question, preparatory to the coming of land animals. As this supposition, however, is at present open to doubts, we. will not rely on it ; and we need not. A moment's reflection will show that in the system of things which God has been pleased to constitute, animal life necessarily presupposes vegetation, and is, indeed, very much regulated in its ex- tent by the quantity supplied. Vegetable is tlie ultimate support of animal life ; for, though some aninuUs are car- nivorous, those preyed on, if traced downwards, are found herbivorous ; just as the herb itself derives its nourishment from the pre-existing inorganic elements. This is true of fishes and cetaceous animals which feed on the smaller plant-eating Crustacea; and thus, in the ocean, the phos- phoric acid of inorganic nature is, by means of plants, carried over to animals. ^ Both analogy and fact, then, ^ authorize the inference that plants preceded and prepared ' See a paper by Professor Forchhammei*, read by Sir R. I. Mur- chison to the British Association, 1844. ORGANIC LIFE. 163 the way for animal existence. And the reader of the scriptures need not to be reminded that, in the Mosaic history of the last creation, vegetable life was called into being first. 3. And as slowness characterises the processes of nature, except where the God of nature has an end to be answered by quickening them, analogy would lead us to infer that between the commencement of the Flora and the Fauna of the earth, a considerable period would elapse. This, at least, is certain, that the carboniferous group contains more than half the known species of fossil plants, and yet no trace of the existence of the great herbivorous land qua- drupeds appears before the tertiary period. Besides which, it should be remembered that some of the vegetable tribes found in the earliest strata, appear to have had an end to answer prior, in the order of nature, to that of sustaining animal life — namely, the office of producing soil, and thus preparing the way for the superior tribes of their own order of life. But, wdiether the Flora i)receded the Fauna by an interval longer or shorter, is of little present im- portance. It is enough for us that we have ground to be- lieve that life began on the earth by the vegetable kingdom. 4. We are now prepared to see whether or not the pre- existing laws and elements of the inorganic world are brought forwards and employed in oi'ganic life. "What more there may be in this new department, is not now the question; we have at present only to look for the con- tinuity described. And first, we recognise it in the e.r- teimal relations of the plant. Botany has its geography. The plant is not only a native of the earth, but each diSerent species has its peculiar territory, or, in technical language, its "habitation." Did light exist before the M 2 164 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. plant was created? The humblest herb requires it, turns towards it, seeks after it, and, without it, perishes. For water, it has the power of absorption. For air, it has the function of respiration ; its leaves are, in effect, its lungs. For the temperature, each species possesses a constitutional adap- tation which can never be violated with impunity. The first seed that germinated claimed kindred with all the material elements which were in existence when it came. And the bud at this moment bursting, is holding com- munion with the distant sun, and comes to lay all nature under tribute. 5. But let us proceed from this general reference to the relation subsisting between the external conditions of the plant and its organization, to mark the presence and con- tinuity of the laws and results of inorganic nature in the inteimal relations of the plant. Now, as to the organic constituents of plants, they are derived entirely, in the first instance, from the inorganic world ; and consist chiefly of four of the fifty or sixty simple elements — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Whatever there may have been originally included in the constitution of inorganic nature, with a view to the future Flora of the earth, no new materials were called into existence on the occasion of its creation. And, entirely distinct as was the new principle of life which was now to be introduced, the pre-existing elements were sufiicient in the hands of the Creator, for the means of its manifestation. Modern organic chemistry, we repeat, consists of little more than the study of four of these selected elements' and their multiform combinations. Here is the law of gravity, carrying the root of the plant downwards, and making it one with the mass of the earth. Here is the attraction of cohesion uniting the parts of the plant, and giving it individuality. Here is motion, or ORGANIC LIFE. 1G5 mechanical force, carrying the fluids absorbed for nutrition from the root upwards. Here is chemical affinity, attract- ing the surrounding particles with elective forces, and completely changing their nature. Here is developed symmetry, answering, in form, to crystallization, giving determinate figure to the organized body. 6. In the preceding Fart, we remarked that in the pro- duction of the crystal we saw what might be regarded as the most finished production of the inorganic world; and that, in its symmetrical arrangement we beheld an image suggestive of the coming flower. But if the crystal is to be looked on, in respect to form, as a mineral flower, the flower, though much more, is a vegetable crystal. Cuvier affirmed even that the form of the living body is more essential to it than its matter. Be this as it may, mor- phology, or the subject of form, belongs to the science of botany. III. Progression. — The same theory which led us to look for the continuance of pre-existing laws and elements in organized matter, leads us farther to expect in this organi- zation the manifestation qfneio effects, or the introduction of a new principle. Nor are we disappointed. Here are life and its manifestations. 1. But what is organic life? As we can acquire a knowledge of matter only by the changes of which it is susceptible, so life becomes known to us only by its efiects or manifestations. And these may be summed up under the heads of Assimilation and Propagation; the nourish- ment of the individual and the continuance of the race. 2. An organic body is distinguished from an inorganic by the mysterious poAver of assimilation. The inorganic 166 THE PRE-AD AMITE EARTH. increases by external additions ; thus particles allowed to coalesce from a state of solution, arrange themselves into crystalline forms, which can increase only by the further juxta-position of particles added to them externally. The organic is nourished by a poAver of appropriation within. The former only finds, the latter prepares, makes, what is added to its structure ; re-casting the inert substance, and exhibiting it in new unions, not of binary merely, but of ternary and quaternary combinations. The inorganic changes that on which it acts chemically; the organic vitalizes, and imparts to the matter which it vitalizes the power of acting in the same way on other substances. This is the end and object of that series of functions which, beginning Avith absorption, conveys the absorbed matter through the stem into the leaves, then subjects it to a pro- cess of exhalation, submits the rest to the action of the atmosphere, conveys it back into the system, elaborates it by secretion, and ends in assimilation. 3. And the plant is also generative. The inorganic mass, as we have seen, can only increase by cohesion and agglomeration from without. But the plant " hath its seed in itself." It exists in generations. Besides vitalizing that which is necessary to the conservation of each of its own parts, it is endowed with the power of giving exist- ence to a new whole, and of providing the germ with the nourishment necessary for it in order to commence its in- dependent being. 4. If now to the question. What is life? it be replied in the language of Schmid, " Life is the activity of matter, according to the laws of organization ;" the question na- turally arises, What is organization ? Perhaps the best answer which has been furnished is by Kant, " An organ- ized product of nature is that in which all the parts are ORGANIC LIFE. 167 mutually ends and means. "^ Let it be remarked, it is not said that the product is made up of mutually dependent parts; nor that the parts are mutually causes and effects; both of these descriptions miglit, in a sense, be true of a piece of machinery. But in a piece of mechanism, " the parts have no properties which they derive from the whole." In an organized body they have; the leaf, separated from the plant, begins immediately to lose the properties of a leaf, and soon ceases to retain even its form. Here, the causes and effects are so related as not merely to excite the idea of contrivance and intention ; the light in which we feel impelled to regard them is that of means and ends re- turning into each other with a view to the constitution of a whole. The physiologist finds that each intelligible part of the system has a definite office ; each organ, an appro- priate function ; that no portion of it exists in vain ; and that each part not only answers an end, but is so formed as to lead to the conclusion that it was constructed for that end ; and that that end, which is again to become a means, is the reason why it is where, and what, it is. Here, then, we find ourselves in a new department of Divine ope- ration. The notion of design in organized bodies — of contri- vance, and of an end to be attained by such contrivance — is natural and inevitable to the human mind. The mind is made to ask, why this function, or this member, just because the object is made to rejyly. And it is by wisely questioning nature, under the conviction that each organ and part was intended to answer a certain end, that phy- siology has been able to make any progress. Under this persuasion it is that Cuvier speaks of the combination of organs adapted to " the part which the animal lias to play ' See Professor Whewell's Phil, of the Indue. Sciences, vol. ii. c. iii. 168 THE PRE- AD AMITE EARTH. in nature." But there is another school of physiologists which attempts to decry the doctrine of final causes, though they will be found to be frequently using language in har- mony with it ; thus unconsciously rendering homage to the idea which they profess to repudiate. " I know nothing of animals which have to play a part in nature,"^ says Geof- frey St. riilaire. " I take care not to ascribe any inten- tion to God."" But this, it appears to me, is mere logo- machy and self-delusion. Some guiding idea to direct his inquiries the physiologist must have. The idea which Geoffrey St. Hilaire and his school profess to have taken, in opposition to the idea of design or final cause, is that of " unity of composition," or " analogues," or " morphology," which seeks to reduce all animated nature to one plan or principle of composition. Now let their writings be re- ferred to, and it will be found that, in efiect, they have only substituted one form of the doctrine of final causes for another; that " unity of composition" is their ^n«/ cause; that they mentally assume it in every physiological in- quiry, and find or fancy illustrations of it in every organized body. 5. That organization involves this idea of meaiis and ends^ as distinguished from causes and effects^ contem- plated in our last Part, will appear, if we remember, that it is here for the first time that we speak of failure or dis- ease. " Physiology," observes Bichat, " is to the move- ments of living bodies what astronomy, dynamics, hydrau- lics, &c., are to those of inert matter ; but these latter sciences have no branches which correspond to them as pathology corresponds to physiology. For the same reason, all notion of a medicament is repugnant to the physical y ' Principes de Philosophie Zoologique, p. 65. 2 Ibid., p. 10. ORGANIC LIFE. 109 sciences. A medicament has for its object to bring the properties of the system back to their natural type; but the physical properties never depart from tliis type, and have no need to be brought back to it. And thus there is nothing in the physical sciences which holds the place of therapeutic in physiology." On which Professor Whewell remarks, " Of inert force, we have no conception of what they ought to do, except what they do. The forces of gravity, elasticity, affinity, never act in a diseased manner; we never conceive them as failing in tlieir purpose; for we do not conceive them as having any purpose, which is answered by one mode of their action rather than another. But with organical forces the case is different; they are necessarily conceived as acting for the preservation and development of the system in which they reside. If they do not do this, they fail, they are deranged, diseased. And he founds on the distinction this aphorism : " The idea of living beings as subject to disease includes a recognition of a final cause in organization ; for disease is a state in which the vital forces do not attain their proper ends.'" Now physiological botany includes nosology, or the science which treats of the diseases of the vegetable kingdom. 6. Here, then, (and we only call attention to the fact in passing, with a view to its future application,) here, in the botanical kingdom, we find ourselves in a department of the Divine procedure essentially different from that which we have left behind us in the mineral kingdom. There we saw events^ and thought only of their efficiejit cause ; here Ave find means, and look for i\\Q\v Jinal cause or end. There we found ourselves so near to the First cause, — for we cannot conceive of a material cause of the adjustment and motions of the planetary system, — that we naturally look back to recognise and adore it; here, we 170 THE I'RE-ADAMITE EARTH. finil ourselves so near to ends answered by proximate causes Avliich we can recognise, that we as naturally look on to these ends in admiration of the Divine Contriver. There, Ave saw fixed laws in operation, so that nothing happened by chance; here we see the wise adjustment of means to ends, so that nothing is in vaim. There we saw physical cause and effect taking place in a certain invariable order and symmetry, and we felt ourselves in the presence of Intelligent Power; here, we see fixed ends or purposes, the direction of means towards them, and changes taking place to attain them, and we feel ourselves in the presence of a Wise as well as an Intelligent Power. 7. And does not this important distinction account for the sagacious remark of Bacon, ^ that final causes are not to be admitted into physical or mechanical inquiries? For we see that, while there, we are only among causes and effects. It is not until we get into our present region of organization that we find ourselves among means and ends. As soon as Ave reach the first link of the living chain, " whose seed is in itself," we feel that the only adequate definition is, that " the parts are mutually means and ends." 8. And will not the distinction throw light also on the difficulty sometimes felt in the estimate of the proofs of creative wisdom and power supplied by the contemplation of organized life as compared with those derived from the study of the heavenly bodies? The former — the organic phenomena — it has been noticed, do not furnish (to some minds at least) the same ready and conclusive evidence of a Deity as the latter — the mechanical phenomena.^ And ^ De Augment. Sc. ii. 105. 2 Professor Powell's Connexion of Nat. and Div. Truth, p. 146. Dr. Turton's Nat. Theology, p. 54. ORGANIC LIFE. 171 the view which we arc now taking wonhl Iiave enabled us to show, a jmori, that such woukl probably be the fact, and to assign the reason why. Organic phenomena dis- close a number of visible proximate causes combined to accomplish a purpose, and we think only or principally of the ivisdom of the Being who has designed it; the celestial phenomena simplify the theological argument by confining our attention to the Being himself, the First Cause of the whole. Or thus; if we begin at an advanced stage of the Creative process, — say, in the animal kingdom, where there is conscious enjoyment, we should find illustrations of the existence of a good, a ivise and an intelUgeiit Power. Descending to the botanical kingdom, we find that we have lost the proofs of goodness, and have narrowed our argu- ment to the fact of a wise and intelligent Power. Descending again to the mineral and mechanical kingdom, we find that the proof of Wisdom is gone, and that our illustrations are restricted to the lact of the existence of an intelligent Power} The argument tapers to a single term. But then it is all the more powerfully felt, owing to its very simplicity. 9. Kant's definition of an organized body, as " that in which all the parts are mutually ends and means," implies a circularity in the operation of the organized system. Hence Cuvier represents life under the image of a ivhirlpool, having a constant direction, and always carrying along its stream particles of the same kinds ; individual particles of which are constantly entering in and departing out ; so that ' In the same way, the mere act of creation, couUl we have wit- nessed it, would have furnished a proof of power onlj, without the intelligence. 172 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. the form of the living body is more essential to it than its matter. Now without attempting to estimate the importance of th^form — understanding by the term, the structure as com- pared witli the matter of organic life, we would, for the present, simply point attention to the fact tliat an organized body involves the idea of a determinate structural form. In addition, an organized body has the power of attracting into itself parts of surrounding substances, of detaining and changing a portion for its own use, and of giving up some of its own substance in return. This is in constant pro- cess. The structure not only retains its form, like the whirl of the vortex, though the matter constantly passes away and is renewed ; but each particle is acted on at every point of the vortex, and is transformed in the whirl. On these grounds, the best idea we can obtain of organic life is, in the language of Professor Whewell, that it is a constant form of circulating matter, in which the matter and the form determine each other hy peculiar laws {that is, hy vital forces). Of the mysterious nature of these vital forces we shall speak hereafter. IV. Continuity. — By another of our laws, we are led to ex- pect that the manifestation, besides being progressive, will be continuous — leaving no intervals of space or time, but such as the modifying influence of other laws may require or account for. Now if, as we believe, such conditional breaches of con- tinuity occur, and if, according to another of our laws, every inferior part of creation is destined to serve a higher moral purpose, we may be able to show that the exceptions ORGANIC LIFE. 173 to the rule of continuity contribute ultimately to the same end as the rule itself, only in a clifFerent manner. The ex- ceptions may be as cogent against the doctrine of a necessity in nature, as the continuity may be in favour of design. At present, however, our concern is Avith the evidences of continuous progress in the Floras of the ancient earth. 1. For reasons already named, especially that of the absorption of plants, owing to their soft and destructible nature, during the consolidation of strata, no certain in- ferences can be drawn from the numerical proportion of fossil plants in the different formations. In the new list, by M. Goppert, the species of fossil plants discovered up to the present time all over the globe, amount to 1,792.^ Their numerical distribution in the different rocks is stated to be as follows : — Palaeozoic 52 Carboniferous 819 Permian 58 Triassic 86 Oolitic 234 Wealden 16 Cretaceous 62 Tertiary 454 Unknown 11 1,792 From this table it appears that the carboniferous group alone contains nearly half the known species of fossil plants. This sudden outburst of vegetable life in the ancient earth, as compared with the Floras immediately preceding and following, intimates, at least, that the continuous progress to be looked for is not that of successive numerical in- ^ From a paper read by Sir R. J. Murehison to the British Associa- tion, 1845. 174 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. crease. The living Flora, of about 80,000 species, is pro- bably an increase on all the past ; but then the increase has been numerically irregular. 2. If traces of a great botanical plan or system are sought for, they are not wanting; though they appear to be subject to interruptions similar to those which aifect the numerical proportions of plants. Certain chasms now ex- isting in the scheme of botanical organization, have been partially filled up by discoveries in the ancient Floras. Thus, by means of Lepidodendra, in the transition series, a kind of link is supplied between the flowering and the flowerless plants.^ So also the Cycadete, of the secondary series, appear to fill up a blank wliich would otherwise have separated the three great natural divisions of plants — the seedless class, the one-lobed seed class, and the two-lobed seed class. Here, however, without stopping to remark on the existence of intermediate spaces which probably have never been filled up in the manner suggested, it is enough for us to know " that although many extinct genera and certain families have no living representatives, and even ceased to exist after the deposition of the coal formation, yet are they connected with modern vegetables by common principles of structure, and by details of organization, which show them all to be parts of one grand, and consistent, and harmonious design. "^ 3. But, chiefly, is continuous progress observable in the gradual increase, and final ascendancy, of the more com- plicated dicotyledons, or two-lobed seed class of plants, over the more simple forms of the earlier periods. If we look at the ancient Floras, as distributed through the three great periods of geological history — the transition, the • Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora, vol. ii. p. 53. 2 Buckland's B. Treatise, p. 480. ORGANIC LIFE. 175 secondary, and the tertiary eras — we find that sea-weeds, or algae, existed during even the early formations of the first period. Such structures are found in Scandinavia among the very oldest fossil groups.^ But it is in the carboniferous series of this era, especially, that we are called to admire the fulness of vegetable life. Here are, already, the three great divisions of plants — the seedless, the one-lobed, and the two-lobed seed classes. But while plants of the second and third classes are here comparatively rare, those of the Cryptogamic, or first class, such as Ferns and gigantic Equisetacece, abound. In the next era, a decided change is visible. The Ferns and Equisetacese are reduced both in size and number ; being perhaps about one third of the whole. The greater part of the remainder are Cycadeaj and Coniferoe, with a few Liliaceous plants; the Conifers belonging to the two-lobed seed class, the Liliacea? to the one-lobed seed class, and the Cycadeae, which are so prevalent as to give a character to the upper formations of this era, resembling the palms of the monocotyledonous class in external ap- pearance, and the Coniferte in the structure of the flower and fruit. Here, then, is an approach to proportion between the first and the third classes of plants. In the third era the scale is decidedly turned. Most of the families of the first period, and many of those of the second, have disappeared. Plants resembling our own Flora have taken their place. We recognise our planes and firs, willows and elms, poplars, chesnuts and sycamores. The dicotyledonous, or two-lobed seed class, predominates. In our living Flora they form about two-thirds of the whole. Taken as a whole, the©, the geological periods exhibit botanical progression. It is easy to conceive of more * Professor Forchhammer's paper to the British Association, 1844. 176 THE PRE- ADAMITE EARTH. striking illustrations of the rule. ,We can conceive, for example, of every family resembling the Coniferse, which, beginning with the lEirst stage of vegetation, has gone on " increasing in the number and variety of its genera and species," down to the last stage. But the plan of the Creator did not require such an illustration of the law; and, therefore, probably the conditions of the earth did not consist with it. It is sufficient to find that the Divine out- line of botanical organization has been progressively filling up; and also that the order observed has been, on the whole, from the primary prevalence of the more rudimentary and simple, to the ultimate predominance of the more com- plex and perfect forms. Here is nothing, be it remarked, to countenance the idea of any want of permanence of species. The great three-fold distinction of acotyledonous, monocotyledonous, and dicotyledonous, existed in the first period as they do still. V. Activity. — This new principle of organic assimilation may be farther illustrated if we proceed to inquire after the application of that law of creation which affirms that every being will be found to manifest all that it is calculated to exhibit of the Divine nature, by developing or working out its own nature — by activity. The activity of the mechanical and chemical forces we saw in the preceding Part. But these are constantly tending " to produce a final condition. Mechanical forces tend to produce equi- librium; chemical forces tend to produce composition or decomposition; and this point once reached, the matter in which these forces reside is altogether inert. But an organic body tends to a constant motion, and the highest activity of organic forces shows itself in continuous ORGANIC LIFE. 177 clifinge." " So long as this motion subsists," observes Cuvier, " the body in whicli it takes place is alive; it lives:'^ Even in popular language, life is a term employed to ex- press the highest degree of activity. And in accordance with this view of the activity of the vital forces we find that they form an ever-whirling vortex. But even this is far from conveying an adequate idea of their activity. They leave nothing as they found it. They not merely move that on which they act, but subdue it; not merely change, but assimilate, organize, and share with it their own vitality. And though this activity is not always maintained at the same rate, so essential is it to the full development of organic life that it never pauses. Even during winter, when vegetable life is thought to repose, new fibres are forming at the roots, a slight progression of the sap is going on, and a trifling enlargement of the buds taking place ;^ while, wherever an organ is wanting to complete the symmetry of the plant, or any departure from the normal structure of the flower exists, it is to be ascribed to the restraint, or the diversion, of its natural activity. Cavanilles, the Spanish botanist, conceived the thought of literally " seeing grass grow," by ingeniously adjusting his instruments, at one time to the tip of the shoot of a Bambusa, at another, to that of the fast-growing flowering stem of an American aloe. And who can doubt that, with our sight preternaturally sharpened, and the integuments of plants made transparent, we should see ceaseless motion in every tissue and every cell of the " germinating, leaf- pushing, flower-unfolding, organisms" of the great vege- table covering of the earth. ^ Professor Whewell's Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. c. iv. ^ Professor Ilenslow's Pliysiol. Botany, p. 234. N 178 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. VI. Development. — According to another law, the same pro- perties or characteristics ichich existed in the preceding stage are here found to he not only brought on to the present^ hut to he in a more advanced condition. 1. Here every law seems double, or to have a counter- part. The vital power, as we have seen, is subject to the law of gravity ; but while the plant tends downwards, it rises upwards too. The same power includes the mecha- nical forces producing motion ; but it has the twofold force of attracting and repelling at the same point. It is also chemical, changing the nature of the substance on which it acts; but it also supports itself by the change. It ex- hibits affinity; but to affinity it adds assimilation. Not only has it forms of symmetry, and forms, some of which do not appear possible to crystals, (as the pentagonal;) but while there is reason to believe that in the crystal the form depends on the matter, in organic symmetry the matter appears to be subordinated to form It has activity, but, beyond this, it supports its activity by its action, in- creases its strength by exercise. Owing to its superiority over all the pre-existing powers of nature it is, that during « its presence in the organized structure it holds them all in subjection. And hence, the vital principle no sooner secedes, than these ordinary laws return, dissolve the structure, and cause the separated parts to enter into new combinations, distinct from those under which they had ex- isted as a living body. 2. And what is still more remarkable, different plant- cells possess different powers in this respect. With little more than the four elementary bodies — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, they are found to elaborate an almost ORGANIC LIFE. 179 endless series of what are called " proximate organic principles" of the most diverse properties; one cell secreting one principle, and another, another principle, by simply combining these elements in slightly different pro- portions. Here, again, is the binary principle of inorganic nnion; but here is also a form of union entirely unknown in that division of science. Instead of combinations by pairs, here are three or four substances bound up together into a single group — a set of ternary and quaternary compounds — constituting one indivisible whole, and ex- hibiting properties before unknown. Nor, in many cases, can the stamp imparted to these properties, of their vital origin, be easily effaced by any means employed to destroy if 3. But this superiority of organic nature involves other points of distinction with which there is nothing in in- organic nature to compare. The vital principle includes excitability. We are aware that certain phenomena ex- hibited by plants have by some been regarded as proofs of the presence of irritability also, and even of sensibility. But as they appear to have nothing analogous to a nervous system, these phenomena seem to be only instances of the extreme action of excitability; by which we mean, generally, that property of the cellular tissue — the chief organ of nutrition — which " takes cognizance of the action of external influences upon it, and by which it resists those mechanical and chemical efforts which would otherwise soon succeed in decomposing its substance."- And even when the mystery of life closes in the mystery of death, it is only the death of the individual structure we are called to witness. The living plant includes the mystery of ' See Fownes' Chemistry, &c. p. 4 1 . ^ Henslow's Botany, p. 161. N 2 180 THE PHE-Al) AMITE EARTH. propagation — the power of self-multiplication during life, and of continued reproduction after death. Were it our object, then, to distinguish between the inorganic and or- ganic parts of nature briefly and broadly, we might say, that while the former originate fortuitously, enlarge externally, and are terminated by mechanical or chemical force, the latter originate by propagation, grow by an internal power of assimilation, and terminate by death. VII. Relations The harmony of the plant with the con- ditions of its existence is necessary, because, according to another of our laws, everything is related. Were the continuance of the vegetable species independent of the reproductive process, or reproduction independent of nutri- tion, or were one organ independent of another, that com- pliance with law and order of which Ave have spoken would of course be unnecessary. Were botany unconnected with light, and air, and moisture, and heat, all these elements might depart, and yet leave a flourishing vegetable creation behind. It is because each plant is related to the whole, by an appointment of the Creator never to be re- pealed, that every change in its external condition, and in its own organization, involves a corresponding change in its well-being. 1. Relations are traceable between the various species of the subterraneous Flora and the co-existing conditions of inorganic nature. Not, indeed, — and, as we have already remarked, the difference is of the greatest importance, — not that there is any evidence that a change of inorganic con- ditions necessitates the production of new forms of organic life, (as if these conditions were independent causes,) but ORGANIC LIFE. 181 that tlie production of siicli new forms of life presupposes a corresponding change of inorganic conditions. 2. Internal relations are also traceable; or correspon- dencies between the various parts of the vegetable creation. Ti/pe is the very term which Naturalists have chosen to express this resemblance. It will be remembered that, when speaking of crystals, we remarked that their forms suggested the idea of likeness or resemblance. We may expect, then, that in organic bodies also we shall find this analogy, and something else in addition. And we do so; we find resemblance of nature and habits. Now this is the difference in natural history between analogy and affinity ; analogy is superficial resemblance, affinity is re- semblance of internal structure, properties, and habits. But in order to ascertain the affinity of organic bodies, the relative importance of the difierent parts compared must be determined; as, for example, whether resemblance be- tween the organs of nutrition in two species is to reckon for more than resemblance between the organs of repro- duction, or for less. The number of affinities present, which may be regarded as an equivalent for the absence of other affinities, must be settled. Now when these laws of classification are ascertained, a type or specimen is to be taken, and tlie question asked, " which approaches the nearest to it in all the affinities which characterize the class; and which the nearest to this, and so on." The re- sult Avill be, the formation of a natural group around the characteristic type. This will not be found to form a direct or linear series, answering to the figure of a chain, or of a cone of being, to a circular, quinary, or dichotomous system, or to any precise artificial arrangement. It may form a figure very irregular at its circumference, for it seeks no boundary line without; it enlarges from the 182 THE PRE-AD AMITE EARTH. central type. And as it ramifies in various directions, its continuity may be that of a branching tree. But so evident is its continuity, that the attempt at natural classi- fication can hardly be begun before the mind becomes im- pressed with the firm persuasion that analogy and affinity reign throughout — that the whole botanical kingdom is con- structed on a plan. 3. From the all-related nature of organic forms, it follows, also, that a modification of any one part of a plant supposes the modification of every other part. And, accordingly, it is found that a change of one organic function involves a corresponding change of the whole body. VIII. Order. — But, according to another of our principles, every law will be found to have its order, and may be ex- pected to come into operation on each individual subject of it, according to its priority of date in the great system of creatio7i. Thus, at the moment of separation from the parent plant, the seed tends to the earth by gravitation. The chemical conditions requisite for germination — moisture, oxygen, and a certain elevation of temperature — must next be satisfied. Having imbibed " moisture through its in- teguments, the embryo swells, the radicle protrudes and tends downwards;" the plumule, or terminal bud, expands and rises upwards; in other words, the law of developed symmetry obtains. Taking firm hold of the earth, it commences its own independent existence; its conservative functions come into play in orderly succession ; all of which combine to prepare the way for the higher and orderly pro- cesses of reproduction, by which its species will be con- tinued after its own individual existence shall have ceased. Here are " first the blade, then the ear, after that the ORGANIC LIFE. 183 full corn in the ear." The order of the progression is fixed, and no power but His who appointed it can re- verse it. IX. Influence. — It is to be expected that everything will bring in if, and with it, in its own capability of subserving the end, a i^eason ichy all other things shoidd be injluenced by it; a reason for the degree in which they should be in- fluenced by it; and for the degree in which it, in its turn, should be influenced by everything else. If the powers of inorganic nature are to be ranged according to their activity and energy, or their capability of producing changes, it will yet be found that the most powerful are themselves susceptible of change. Action and reaction pervade the physical system, and are essential to its stability. For organic nature, all this action and reaction is " taken into account," calculated, and employed. The introduction of a single plant would have changed the relations of the whole. Its most wonderful property is the power which it possesses of influencing chemical action, and of thus secreting and preparing its own food, and securing its own growth. But while thus aifecting everything external to itself, it is also modified by the very properties which it changes. While the leaf is decomposing the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, appropriating the carbon to the formation of its own proper juices, and returning the disengaged oxygen into the atmosphere, its own vital powers are af- fected by the quantity of carbonic acid which may happen to be present in the atmosphere — a fact, belonging to a class, suggestive of the difficult, but momentous truth, that human character is at once a constitution and a formation; a subjective power, at once modifying, and modified by, ob- jective influences. 184 THE ITvE-ADAMITE EARTH. X. Subordination. — Again, we tiud tltat every law subordi- nate in rank^ though it may have been prior in its origin^ is subject to each higher law of the Manifestation. 1. Accordingly, the productions of power are found to be subservient to the exercise of wisdom — the inorganic sustains the organic world. And not only so ; it is prepared for its office by a process. It is subordinated by decompo- sition. No single earth, nor even a composition of two earths, is fertile. The union of at least three — lime, silica, and alumina, is indispensable to fertility. For this the granite is decomposed, and the matter deposited by rivers in the bottom of valleys. And to this, every re- volution and commingling of the strata of the ancient earth has been made subservient. 2. But this subordination is continuous, extending into the vegetable kingdom itself. Chemical and mechanical action almost fails to convert some rocks (as quartz) into soil. Yet not the less are these rocks made subservient to vegetable life. Here, where no other plants would exist, the Creator has placed the nudtitudinous and inexplicable tribe of lichens — " the pioneers of vegetation." These prepare tlie way for the mosses; and these, again, for other plants superior still; each retiring in succession, when it has contributed by its own life and death to place a better race on the spot; till at length the stately tree waves where once nothing but the apparently rootless, leafless, flowerless lichen could exist. 3. And this law of subordination is found to descend to the physiology of the individual plant. The organs of conservation are subservient to the organs of reproduction, the individual to the species. Though unconscious of a ORGANIC LIFE. 185 purpose, no plant lives to itself. In some tribes, the con- stitution and cares of the parent plant appear to be con- centrated on this point, as on the end of its existence. The tribes of animals die as soon as this end is an- swered. Others, in a sense, refuse to die, till they have answered it. 4. The same subordination obtains among the individual organs. " God hath set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased Ilim." And though no organ is useless, their value is graduated; and hence, a leaf, having answered its end, may fall off without any injury to the plant. 5. But then this subordination of one organ to another, of plant to plant, and of inorganic matter to the whole, lasts only as long as the plant continues to live. By death, it loses its status in the ascending rank of creation, and be- comes subject to the ordinary inorganic laws. XL Uniformity. — Profound as the subject of life is, all its operations ivill he found to he impressed icith the re- gularitij of general laws. On this condition alone can we hope to ascertain its operations, and mark the wisdom which they evince. Now the actual existence of such regularity is implied in the remarks we have already advanced. The vital principle, once superinduced by the Living God, acts, according to His appointment, and under His superinten- dence, with constancy and certainty. True it is, that in studying organic life w^e find ourselves for the first time in the region of mutual adaptations; and that the writer on systematic botany is obliged to indite a chapter of anomalies. 186 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTU. Unlike the law of chemical affinity, which requires that the compound be in definite proportions, we find that Life asserts its freedom and its power by dispensing with this chemical exactness. But even this freedom is only within certain limits, or is bounded by law. This power of adaptation is according to particular rules, which are all ranged under a general rule. It is a law unto itself. For example : — Oxygen is indispensable to the germination of seeds; where it is entirely wanting, as in distilled water, they will not germinate ; while, if acted on by more than a certain proportion, they will be over-stimulated. But let them have about the right proportion — one part of oxygen with three of azote, and they will germinate accordingly. The general law cannot be violated; while the power of adaptation by which the seed is adjusted to the circum- stances is itself regulated by the universal law which measures the cause by the effect, and which determines that its action shall be always the same in the same cir- cumstances. And as no compliance with the other con- ditions of germination will compensate for the want of the necessary oxygen, so no supply of this alone will atone for the absence of the other conditions of germination. Its constitution is defined by laws which must be complied with. These laws, indeed, must not be confounded with causes. The life of the plant presupposes the organization which the Creator has been pleased to make a necessary con- dition; this condition, however, is not the cause of its vitality, but only the means of its manifestation. And organization presupposes certain inorganic conditions; but these conditions are not the cause of it ; they are only em- ployed and subordinated to organic ends. All that we re- cognise, in either case, is the law or rule according to ORGANIC LIFE. 187 which the organic and the inorganic are made to act ; the cause of that action is entirely distinct. XII. Ohligation Organic life exists under cm obligation to promote the end of creation^ commensurate with its 7neans and relations. Of course, the only sense in which obliga- tion can be predicated of the organic scheme is similar to that in which, like the inorganic, it is said to be governed by laws. The laAvs themselves suppose an agent ; for they only express the mode in which he acts, the order accord- ing to which he proceeds. And as that agent is no other, can be no other, than the Lawgiver himself, the obligation of which we speak can be only the necessity which He has been pleased to incur, to operate in a certain manner in order to the attainment of a certain end. Having volun- tarily determined on a given end. the adoption of the neces- sary means becomes obligatory ; and as the means of which we are now speaking are merely organic existences, what- ever obligation there is can rest only on a power external to themselves, the Power that employs them. XIII. Well-being. — In accordance with another of our laws, we find that the well-being of the plant depends on its con- formity to the laws of its constitution. 1 . Thus, in relation to the internal economy of vegetable life, let the process of reproduction fail, and the species ceases to exist. Let the organs of nutrition be obstructed, and the individual fails. Let the development of the plant be arrested, and deformity ensues ; remove the impediment, and, if done in time, the dormant power of expansion awakes, and the development of the body is completed. 188 THE PRE- ADAMITE EARTH. And as to the external relations of vegetable life, the range of most plants — as to climate, for example — is very limited. If tlie average temperature adapted to the various families of plants were to vary as much as five degrees, they would, with their present constitutions, speedily suffer, languish, and die. From first to last, the life of the plant depends on the maintenance of a definite adjustment between its constitution and external influences. Compliance with the conditions of its existence is indispensable to its well- being. 2. In this stage of creation, still more than in the pre- ceding, the idea of perfection is forcibly suggested. In this domain of resemblances, we seek a type with which to compare analogous objects ; and that type we select from among the most perfect objects of its kind. Partly from finding that one specimen is better than another, the mind erects an ideal standard of excellence with which to com- pare everything comparable. But by this standard no specimen is absolutely perfect. No two roses, for example, have ever been entirely, in every property and particular, alike ; so that no two have ever stood in precisely the same relations to tlie ideal standard. Even the individual flower which has approached the nearest to ideal perfection has fallen short of it. Some slight difference in itself, or in its circumstances — a difference inappreciable by man, Avould have been followed by a real, though equally inappreciable difference in its claim to perfection. Its approach to that standard is the measure of its harmony with the prescribed laws of its being. XIV. Analogy. — We have already found, to a considerable extent, that this second, or botanic, stage of creation, is constructed according to a plan. ORGANIC LIFE. 189 1. We have seen that it is, in all its mineral and chemical elements, in complicated harmony with the first, and dependent on it, Eitlier the inorganic stage was pre- configured to the organic, or the latter was entirely con- figured to the former. This correspondence extends even to that symmetry, or definite relation of form and number, which obtains first in crystallography. For while there are some kinds of symmetry common among flowers, which are unknown to crystals — such as the pentagonal, there are other kinds, such as the trigonal, which prevail in both, and which externally unite them together. 2. The various parts of the vegetable kingdom are also in harmony with each other. Indeed, no one family of plants could be naturally arranged, except as part of a natural classification of all plants, Now the symmetry to which reference is here made, involves numerical properties which afibrd a basis for such botanical classification. For it is found that the number three is the ground of the symmetry of monocotyledonous plants, and the number /?re of dicotyledonous plants, the numerical distinction harmo- nizing with, or expressing itself by, a leading difference of physiological structure. 3. The various parts of the vegetable kingdom, regarded as successively existent, not only do not derange the plan which classifies existing species, but seem necessary in order to complete it. The large calamites of the coal for- mation take their place in the existing family of equi- setaceae. The fossil lepidodendra, of gigantic stature, are intermediate between living lycopodiacece and conifera^. And even the extinct sigillarise and stigonariae, of which no living representatives exist, find, as far as the details of their organization are known, a definite place among ex- isting families. In the Flora of the secondary series, the 190 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. leading feature consists in the prevailing presence of cycadeee. Now, of this family, the cycas revoluta exhibits an important physiological peculiarity, by which it forms a characteristic link between the living and fossil cycadeae, while the existing cycadeas can be shown to connect to- gether the great cone -bearing family with the families of palms and ferns, and thus to occupy an intermediate station between the three great natural divisions of plants. And, speaking generally, the plants of the secondary series ex- hibit characters of an intermediate kind, between the in- sular Flora of the transition series, and the continental vegetation of the tertiary strata. 3. In addition to the evidence of a plan which arises from this constant adherence to a determined class of primitive types, and to the consequent reduction of every species to its appropriate place in the great system, there is the remarkable fact of the existence of apparently abor- tive^ yet always symmetrical, parts in plants. Botanical physiologists "find parts existing in a rudimentary or abortive state in one species, which in others serve some manifestly important design." In this rudimentary state, they seem to exist only for the purpose of suggesting the idea of symmetrical arrangement, and of inviting and facilitatins; classification. And " it must be considered an additional proof of arrangement, when, as in many in- stances, we are able to show that they become subservient to a new purpose, by being unfitted to their primary one."^ 4. Classification Now, according to our theory, the true system of botanical classification is that which arranges the relationship of plants according to the orde7' of pro- gressive nature, taken in connexion with the relative im- portance of the progressive steps. Thus, beginning witli 1 Dr. Daubeny's Inaugural Lecture on Botany, p. 24. ORGANIC LIFE. 191 mechanical properties, as those of the lowest value, we ascend to those of chemical affinity ; to symmetry, or rela- tions of form and number ; then to the organs of nutrition, each organ rising in value as the process advances ; and, finally, to the organs of reproduction, as of the highest value; — the relationship being nearest where the affinity lies between those characteristics which are of the highest value. 5. This method, 1, so far from arbitrarily selecting any one part of the plant as the basis of arrangement, — as the corolla, by Tournefort; or the stamen and pistils, by Lin- neeus, — requires a minute investigation of every part and property. Its peculiarities of chemical composition, the " proximate principles" which distinguish it, as well as its geographical and climatic relations, are all to be taken into the account. 2. Although it assigns the highest value to a particular function, it by no means follows that such principle is to be universally the basis of arrangement; inasmuch as resemblance, in this particular, may be out- weighed in some families of plants, by a combination of characteristic differences in other particulars. The law of the subordination of characters is itself subject to a more comprehensive law, which takes cognizance of the entire scale of their values, and divides and combines them according to the relation of those characters. 3. As an organic body is all-related, so that a change in one part of its constitution involves a corresponding change in every other part, our method supposes that an arrangement cor- rectly formed on one function will harmonize with an arrangement correctly formed on another function. 4. Our method provides, not only for the formation of groups, but also of series of groups, ranging according to organic per- fection. The distinction between the cellular class, lichens, 192 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. algae, &c., without sexes, flowers, or spiral vessels, and the vascular class, is obvious. And a more intimate acquaint- ance with the physiology of the latter class Avould, doubt- less, enable us to range all its species in the order of their ascending organization. 6. The multiplication of the points of agreement which the organic kingdom presents as compared with the inor- ganic, prepares us to expect an increase of such points with every advancing stage of creation ; and, consequently, an increasing power of testing the truth of our classifi- cations. XV. Contingent. — According to another of our laws, we may expect to find tltat this new department of organic life ex- hibits marks of its confingencj/, or dependence on the sovereign will of the Divine Creator. In the section corresponding to this, in the preceding part, we saw the cosmical and terrestrial arrangements taking law directly from the will of God. Here the illustrations of the Creative Will are still further multiplied in the constitutions and properties of organic forms. 1. For example: there is in plants a cycle of functions requiring about 365 days. There is a lesser cycle, or alternation, requiring about twenty-four hours. There is a measured force iu the motion of the sap of every flower ; and there is an appointed degree of stiffness in the stalk. Now there is no inherent necessity whatever, in the plant itself, why it should have these particular cycles, alterna- tions, and forces, and no others. We can conceive them increased or diminished to any degree. But these exact phenomena and no others, it may be said, are made neces- sary by the previous conditions of the earth, of which they have come to form a part. Unquestionably, the first ORGANIC LIFE. 193 peculiarity is adapted to the annual motion of the earth, the second to its diurnal revolution, and the third and fourth to the mass of the earth. But, we have shown that this motion, revolution, and mass, were themselves originally dependent on the Divine appointment. Whether, there- fore, we regard inorganic nature as preconfigured to the preordained constitution of organic life, or the organic con- stitution as adapted to the pre-existing plan of inorganic nature, we have alike a twofold proof of the exercise of a Designing Will. 2. True, the farther we remove from the first stage of the Creative process, the less manifest becomes the direct intervention of the Creating Will in the subsequent stages, and the less marked the direct dependence of the things created. This second stage, for example, from being ad- justed and made to fit into the first, appears to some as if it were directly and entirely derived from it. He who is admitted to have originated the first, is supposed to have less to do with the second, just because, in His all-compre- hending plans, the organic is made to presuppose the inor- ganic. The first, from being made a mere condition of the second, is in danger of being promoted into the place of the great originating Cause. 3. Even if vegetable life could be shown to be a necessary development of material elements merely, still, as no one who admits that the laws of matter were derived from God, would deny that He foresaw all the developments and results of which these laws were capable, and therefore foresaw their development in organic life as one of those results, such development must be held to furnish a neAV illustration of His manifold design in the creation of matter. The illustration only takes a different date. And this, let me restate, is a sufl^icient reply to those who, admitting the 194 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. Divine origination of nature, would have every subsequent stage to be a mere natural development; partly, on the ground of saving the Divine dignity from the supposed trouble or unworthiness of a more direct interposition. For this view, besides involving an anthropomorphic misap- prehension of the nature of the Divine Greatness, implies that it may be worthy of the Deity to devise a law in eternity, which yet it would be unworthy of Him to carry into effect in time; and thus overlooks tlie fact, that in re- lieving the Deity from an act of immediate creation, it does so by supposing that He has yet from eternity de- signed and contemplated the results of such a creation. 4. But the idea of a natural and necessary development of matter, is a mere assumption. While the fact of the Divine origination of matter, at first, is itself a strong pre- sumption in favour of the Divine origination of every new use subsequently made of it. In accordance with which, we find that fossil vegetation exhibits no indication of a regular development of species, from the most simple on- wards to the most perfect. The dicotyledon of the present day is not derived from the rudimentary acotyledon of the palaeozoic series; even then they grew together side by side. Nor has the rudimentary vegetable of that day been ab- sorbed in higlier forms, and gone out of existence ; it exists, unchanged, by the side of the ancient dicotyledon. The vegetable kingdom of the early carboniferous group, re- quires to be distributed into three classes; nor does the botany of the present day require a fourth class. Even from that early period, the plan, or outline, of vegetable life liad been laid down by the Designing Will. 5. Such direct creative interposition is to be inferred also from the ground there is to believe that plants have a character of their own, more or less independent of mere ORGANIC LIFE. 195 external influences. That they are related to all the great pre-existing laws and elements of inorganic nature, we have shown; but, according to the views of the best bota- nical writers, they have characteristics which no external forces can account for, and which can be ascribed only to independent laws.' " Deciduous plants, when carried across the equator, will put forth leaves at the approach of winter; evidently because it is their habit so to do after settled intervals of time." In the experiments made by Decandolle on this subject, it was found that some plants kept their habits, without regarding either the artificial light or heat to which they were subjected. And it is admitted to be among " the unsatisfied problems of geology" to account for " the uniformity of the types of organic life over great areas, accompanied as it was by considerable diversity of local association."^ Great as is the power of plants to adapt themselves to external changes, they have laws and a constitution of their own. Stimulated they may be, but not forced. In their creation, a principle was superadded to all that had gone before, subjecting matter to itself, but not to be subjected by it. 6. And is not the same direct interposition to be inferred from the apparent want of correspondence observable be- tween the inorganic conditions of existence, and the organic existences themselves? That the appearance of organic life has been made by the Creator to depend on certain inor- ganic conditions, we hold to be a point settled. But we submit that it is not consequent on this, that the presence of the mere physical conditions shall always be followed by the presence of the life. According to creation by natural de- velopment, indeed, life must follow the physical conditions, ' Decandolle's Physiologie, vol. ii. 478. 2 Mr. Philips, at British Association. 1845. 2 196 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. directly, necessarily, universally, and to the utmost amount ; for these conditions are supposed to be the only causes of life. If the new creation did not invariably follow the new con- dition, the law of natural development would be at an end ; for it is supposed to act inevitably. And yet such apparent irregularities do exist. For example, some families of land plants, as the coniferie and the palms, have pervaded all the series of formations. Why did the physical conditions of the secondary series fail to reproduce the sigillariae, as they did the coniferas, both of which had existed toge- ther in the first series ? Or what was there in many of the plants of the second series less suited to the temperature, and other conditions of the first series, than in those of the first to the conditions of the second, throughout which they both afterwards concurrently flourished without any appa- rent deterioration? While we believe it to be fully esta- blished that organic life does not exist, except in connexion with certain physical conditions, we believe also that the conditions are not the causes of life, and may exist without it ; and that the Will which originated the first, is the cause of the second. 7. In the organic, then, as well as in the inorganic world, all that we can recognise are conditions and laws ; and only some of these. The originating cause in each alike was the Divine volition. The same free scope which existed when matter was yet to be created, as to everything which re- lated to its properties and arrangements, existed in relation to the introduction of vegetable life. The precise period of its commencement ; the plan of the great system ; the va- rieties which it should include ; and the laws of its histori- cal and geographical distri])ution; all are referrible to " the good pleasure of His will," in whose purpose it is allowed to have originated. ORGANIC LIFE. 197 XVI. Ultimata. — If organic life be thus dependent on tlie will of the Creator, we may expect to find that it reveals the existence of ultimate truths. Accordingly, after all the in- quiries into the phenomena of organization, if the question recurs, what is life ? or, what is the cause which produces these effects in living bodies? or, what is the principle which unites all these organic functions in the single result called life ? we are as far as ever from being able to fur- nish an explanation. We have only described some of the phenomena. The thing itself is indefinable. 1. The organs by which life acts, maybe anatomically examined, and correctly classed ; but life is something independent of them all : for not one of them is universal in organized nature, and therefore is not essential to the vital force. The functions of these organs may be known, and the chemistry of their operations be silently and perse- veringly watched ; but the principle of that chemistry, the cause of these functions, are meanwhile presupposed and unapproached. The " proximate organic principles " Avhich the chemistry of life produces, and submits to our examina- tion, may be minutely analysed and correctly named; but they have been produced " in circumstances which Ave cannot imitate, and, in fact, do not understand." They are, at best, only proximate principles ; effects, which refer us to the existence of a cause, the nature of which they do not reveal; their very number and diversity not explaining, but multiplying the mysteries in which it is involved. The little " nucleated cells" evolved from these proximate prin- ciples, and by the development of Avhich the organic mass is supposed to be enlarged, may be known and truly described ; but this is something already existing ; the cause 198 THE TRE- AD AMITE EARTH. which has led to it is still presupposed. The analogy be- tween certain crystalline, and certain vegetable forms, may be interesting and familiar ; but if those crystalline forms be referred to electric action, here is something which deals with electricity, and employs it ; or, if they be referred to the form or quality of the ultimate atoms, here is something which subordinates both. Organization is, as we have seen, not an affair of outward form merely, but of inward struc- ture. Admitting even the possibility of the artificial imi- tation of some of the proximate principles, and of the cells or globules of organic life, still they are inorganic principles and globules; the very absence of the vital power shows that it is something distinct from form and elementary com- position, though it may employ both, and that these artifi- cial imitations are not organization. 2. Vegetation involves an orderly series of processes. And all that the physiologist can do is to describe the results of each, and the order in which they occur. Having done this, he is said to have explained the subject; but all that he has done is to state ichat takes place ; how it has taken place, is as mysterious as before. He shows you the circu- lation of the sap, but the force which circulates it is pre- supposed. He takes a flower, and discloses all that has taken place in order to its production, since he deposited the seed in the earth; but with that seed he deposited an already existing principle which he cannot disclose. He has told you only of laws ; but with each law he has left a cause unexplained. Like the astronomer looking at his supposed nebula, let the physiologist trace back the process of organization as far as he can, he cannot detect it in its primary state; he has to refer it "back to some previous state, out of which it appears to have emerged impercepti- bly and inexplicably." He sees the phenomena of life only ORGANIC LIFE. 199 after it has begun to work. Life itself is presupposed and ultimate. 3. Now organic life, like inorganic matter, is to be viewed, first, as an object, or in its relation to space : and the question arises, how came it really and objectively to be? What relation did the Divine power and wisdom bear to its creation ? We may be able to describe the organiza- tion in which life is developed. But, having done this, and having traced the organization back to the seed, and searched the very elements of the seed itself, we find that we have reached an impassable barrier. It contains nothing in itself to account for its own origination, as a living organific power. And could we have looked on the first seed that germinated, or the first vegetable creation that lived, we should have felt, instinctively, that the only ground of its existence must be the will of God. 4. But if the first moment of its existence revealed a wise Creator; the second moment revealed a Providence, for vegetable life was seen in relation, not only to space, but also to time — it continued. Organic processes were constant and universal. What was the Divine relation to the vital forces implied in all this new kind of activity ? Here we come to ultimate laAvs. For in tracing the sequences of organic phenomena, we find a series of laws, each of which is related to all the rest ; and all of which refer us to a cause of which they are only the results, or the means of mani- festation. And the only conclusion warranted is, that the continuance of vegetable life, no less than its origination, has its ground in the will of God. We are as unable to con- ceive of a self-sustained, as of a self-originated organization. Dependence is not less its characteristic, in relation to time, than it is in relation to space. The regularity of the organic processes, so far from denoting the absence of the 200 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. Great Agent, is the very circumstance which indicates His presence. It is the only way in which wa can conceive of His agency. The laws proclaim the presence of the Law- giver. 5. Life, then, as imparted in creation, and revealed in the phenomena of organization, is something distinguishable from tlie phenomena or laws which reveal it. We may, indeed, know nothing of the vital principle, but by the operation of these laws; just as the properties of matter as created, are disclosed to us only by the sequences of matter as continued. But, as the laws of matter presuppose its properties, so the phenomena of life presuppose the life which it reveals. XVIL Necessary Truth. — The existence of ultimate truth, re- minds us of the law which prepares us to recognise the existence of necessary truth. 1. In the former inorganic stage, we saw matter take possession of space; and we saw that, besides implying the pre-existence of space as a necessary condition, it implied the necessary existence of the Divine Power both as condi- tion and cause. Here, we see life take possession of matter; and we cannot but feel that the idea of a Living Cause is indispensable. The contrary is impossible. Such a cause might have been inferred, indeed, from the creation of inorganic matter; but the existence of organic life proclaims and represents it, 2. In the laws of organic phenomena, too, we recognise proofs of the wisdom of God. AVe see a vast and compli- cated system of means employed for the attainment of certain ends. And thus, if the creation of organic life, in its relation to space, implies the necessary existence of a ORGANIC LIFE. 201 Living Cause, the laws of its existence as related to time, imply the necessary wisdom, as well as the life-giving- power of the Creator. We cannot but conceive of that Living Wisdom as existing prior to all objective manifesta- tion, and independently of it. As condition, its activity from eternity was only subjective; as cause, it has now become objective also. Here then we have the subjective living wisdom, and the objective ; for that which was possible, has become real. The nature of Him who is " the Life," begins to be manifested Things not only are, they live; and live by means which give us a deeper insight than we possessed before, into the necessary perfections of the Divine Creator. XVHL Change. — This stage of the Divine procedure not only prepares us to look for another, but, according to our theory, the law of ever-enlarging manifestation is itself regulated by a law determining the time and manner of each successive stage of the advancing process. 1. That the process itself cannot consistently terminate, is evident ; for then the proof of the Divine sufficiency for unlimited manifestation would terminate with it. That it was not yet to terminate, might now have been inferred from a new analogical ground ; for not only was the activity of the inorganic universe from the first the activity of pro- gression, but the addition of vegetable life furnished an entirely distinct ground of expectation for the addition of yet another stage. Nor can we conceive ourselves as sur- veying this second display of the Divine resources, without becoming conscious of the persuasion that we shall " see greater things than these," and that these are intended, in some way, to prepare for them. 2. But what was it which made the time of the actual 202 THE PRE-ADAMITE EAKTII. cliange, the riglit time? For here again I may remark, that even those who adopt the hypothesis of development by natural law, mnst admit that every stage of develop- ment was prospectively included in tlic })lan of the Law- giver; and that for the same reason that any stage was designed to occur at all, tliere must have been a right time for its occurrence, or a reason which made the period of its actual occurrence the right period. And the law with which we have now to do, respects the nature of that reason. 3. Believing that no such change takes place capri- ciously; but as either the law of progression, or of the end, or the coincidence of the two, requires, Ave have to remark, first, on the claims of the law of progression. What these were, was declared by the event. The intro- duction of vegetable life was designed by the Creator to become subservient to animal enjoyment. As soon, there- fore, as the vegetable and other foreseen conditions were present, the law of progression might be expected to re- ceive a new illustration in the addition of animal existence, provided no other law intervened. I am aware, indeed, that by those who advocate natural development, the pre- sence of certain conditions would alone constitute, not merely the fitness of the occasion for the addition of animal life, but even necessitate such addition. But this is a position which, from the nature of the case, can never be susceptible of proof. And is it philosophical to conclude that, because a thing does not exist without certain con- ditions, therefore it must exist with them? That certain events may invariably follow the presence of certain condi- tions, I do not deny ; for it may be the law of the Divine pro- cedure that they shall do so ; and, further, the Creator may have arranged that this coincidence in the law of progres- ORGANIC LIFE. 203 sion shall fall in with the law of the end, and, indeed, with other laws also of wliicli we know nothing. I object only to the manner in which what may be, is confounded with what must be — the possible with the necessary, and in which conditions are gratuitously promoted into the place of causes. 4. Admitting, then, that the organic creation was not originated without a design, or, that it forms part of the Divine plan ; and that, as a great system of adaptations of means to ends, it proclaims a Divine designer, the question arises whether or not that ultimate end was, in any sense, adequately attained. That it had not been attained, when animal life commenced on the earth, if such attainment depended on the diversity and multiplication of vegetable structures to the utmost extent possible, is evident; for this multiplication was most probably much greater after that period than it was before. Then, was the original creation of organic life, taken in connexion with its sub- sequent reproductions, and successive enlargements, prior to the creation of man, adequate to warrant the inference of the all-sufficiency of Creative wisdom? Does the long series of vegetable worlds, including the present, exhibit all the changes, and consequent displays of Design, which, under the circumstances, (such as the geological revolu- tions and the size of the planet,) might have been ex- pected ? 5. In order to answer this question otherAvise than inferentially and approximately, we should require to be put in possession of data which can never come within our reach — to know possibilities, for the comprehension of Avhich our minds would need a diiferent constitution. It is enough for us to yield ourselves up to the inferences and impressions flowing from the data which we do possess. 204 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. If, for example, it should appear that the inorganic crea- tion, in all that closely woven web- work of mechanical, and chemical operations, of which man, as yet, has unravelled so little, was only a world of prospective contrivances for the coming of organic life: if, further, it should appear that vegetable life has been adapted to every inorganic change and variety — to the bare granite and the recent cinders of the volcano, to the emerging coral-reef and the dark recesses of the mine, to the sand of the torrid zone and the perpetual snow of the poles — as if Wisdom rejoiced in the occasion which such apparent difficulties and ex- tremes afforded for displaying the fertility of its resources ; showing that the conditions, destructive of one form of life, can be made essential to the existence of another, and that, in its hand, the same general plan admits of diversity of adaptation without end: and, further, that of all this variety, there has existed a fulness to which Wisdom alone has assigned the limits, what more can be necessary to assure us of the all-sufficiency of the Creative Wisdom? 6. Now, the truth of these suppositions are undeniable. Vegetable physiology brings to light the fact that, even if the material universe had been constructed solely for the reception of organic life, it could not have been more studiously adapted, in all its great elements and operations, to the attainment of the end, than it actually is. The most scientifically constructed plant-house, and the most elaborate apparatus that may be introduced into it, can only pretend, not to originate, but simply to take advan- tage of, two or three of these natural adaptations. But the wonders of the great Nursery are only as yet in process of discovery. " The half has not been told." Scientific botany has arranged between eighty and a hundred thou- sand species of plants; and still it continues to add to the ORGANIC LIFE. 205 number. Literally, its "field is tlie world." Every clod of earth belongs to it, and the floor of the ocean. While fossil geology brings to light the remains of departed floras, and suggests the idea of species not only extinct but effaced ; — as if, amidst the prodigality of evidence of design still extant, some of the earlier illustrations might Avell be spared. The abundance of vegetable life is equal to its variety. " In order to form an idea of tlie luxu- riance of vegetation in the former world, and of the masses of vegetable matter accumulated by running water, and which have certainly been converted into coal in the humid way, I remind the reader that in the Saarbriick coal field there are 120 seams of coal lying one over another, exclu- sive of a host of smaller seams ; and that some of these single seams of coal are of thirty, and otliers of more than fifty feet thick, as at Johnstoun in Scotland, and Creuzot in Burgundy .... It is also well to remember, that these coal measures are indebted for no inconsiderable portion of their materials, not to the trunks of mighty trees, but to small grasses, and to frondiferous and low cryptogamic vege- tables."^ At the mouth of the Missisippi, and in the " wood hills" of the icy Siberian Sea, the same process of vegetable accumulation is, probably, still going on. But to estimate the existing fulness of vegetable life, it is necessary to remember the mighty forests of the tropical zone of South America. And yet, could the whole be surveyed, it would be as nothing compared with the seeds of organic life en- closed in the crust of the earth. Kneaded up with the inorganic material, to an unknown depth, are the germs of vegetation ; and only awaiting exposure to air and light, in order to " bring forth and bud" as if the hand of God had but just sown them. And, not only so, but almost every ' Humboldt's Cosmos. 206 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. variety of material is found to contain a corresponding variety of vegetable existence. So that not only may it be said of organic life that its " field is the world," but world u})on world. 7. Here, then, is evidence enough to justify the conclu- sion that the Wisdom which has shown itself sufficient for all this unexplored range . of organic life, is sufficient for every change of the same kind of which the earth, or even the material universe, admits. The question, be it observed, is not whether this range, extended as it is, might not have been more extended ; this demand is of a kind which no range short of infinity could satisfy. For even if, instead of a hundred thousand species, every individual plant had been different from all the rest, and every inch of the earth's surface had been crowded with vegetable life, the question might have been still raised whether the earth itself might not have been larger, and so on, ad mfinitum. In other words, it is to ask for that, wliich, if possible, would yet be useless. But the question is, whether the Creative wisdom displayed in the organic stage of the Divine plan, does not warrant the conviction of its sufficiency for the same hind of display to any possible extent. And every one who con- siders the question must feel that it admits of only one reply. And hence it is that we can hear of the discovery of new vegetable species, not only without surprise, but as if the fact merely gratified a feeling of antecedent proba- bility. Nor can we doubt that if the earth were to be once more stripped of its verdant robe, and if the conditions of organic life were to be afterwards restored, that, sooner or later, it would again look like " the garden of the Lord." And, with the same confidence, we feel assured that, if simi- lar conditions exist in other worlds, the same wisdom which has so often " renewed the face of the earth," is sufficient ORGANIC LIFE. 207 to clothe tlieni' with similar beauty, in diversities without end. But, if the design of the organic creation be to illustrate, in the sense explained, the sufficiency of the Creative wis- dom, we shall be ready to admit that not until the evidence of such sufficiency was complete, could " the fulness of time " for man's creation have arrived. Not until it had existed long enough to accumulate all the proofs of the truth which it was designed to teach, Avould the " set time " arrive for the coming of the creature destined to interpret that truth. And whatever may be the apparent hardihood of this view, it entirely vanishes when we remember that He who forelaid the plan of the whole creative series, makes every part to harmonize with every other part, and the whole to subserve the ultimate end. XIX. Reason of the Method. — In passing from the method of the Divine procedure to the reason of the method, we find it to be two-fold ; — being founded partly in the constitution of the creature by ivhom the method is to be studied, and involving His ivell-beijig, and jj^^'dy in his destiny, and so involving, in addition, the glory of the Divine Creator. 1. As to the first part of the reason; it w^ould be easy to show that, if the organic world is to be made subservient to human interests, the laws of the metliod are indispensable. Without the uniform sequences and dependencies, for example, which vegetable life exhibits, its cultivation would be impossible; indeed, without amenableness to laAv, it would not be even useable.^ And how impossible would it ^ See on this subject Professor Liebig's " Organic Chemistry in its application to Agriculture and Physiology;" a work devoted especially to an explanation of the proper food of plants, and to the modes in which, and the sources from which, they receive this nourishment. In 208 THE niE-ADAMITE EARTH. be for man to turn his observations to any scientific ac- count, were it not for those relations of analogy and affinity which arrange the diversified members of the botanic kingdom in an orderly plan? And that which especially marks the wisdom of the Creator is the manner in which the medium is observed be- tween bewildering irregularity on the one hand, and an uninstructive and depressing sameness on the other. Only imagine these laws to be so obvious as to cost man no effort ; and they Avould yield him no interest. On the con- trary, suppose them to be but slightly illustrated by fact, or to be inextricably entangled by circumstance; and they would defy his utmost diligence and application. In the first instance, he could not be said to learn; and in the second, nature could not be said to teach. But as it is, his position somewhat resembles that of a child into whose lap its parent has thrown a handful of flowers selected for a nosegay, but intentionally mingled together, that the taste of the child might be cultivated in their re-arrange- ment; the parent taking care that the exercise shall not be so difficult as to be hopeless, nor so easy as to be use- less. The organic world is so constituted that, without either forcing its lessons, or dispensing with attention, it invites observation, and rewards well-directed diligence of, every kind and degree. Its " doctrine drops as the rain ; harmony with the subject of this chapter he remai-ks: — " Innumerable are the aids afforded to the means of life, to manufactures and to com- merce, by the truths which assiduous and active inquirers have dis- covered and rendered capable of practical application. But it is not the mere practical utility of these truths, which is of importance. Their influence upon mental culture is most beneficial; and the new views acquired by the knowledge of them enable the mind to recognise in the phenomena of nature proofs of an infinite wisdom, for the un- fathomable profundity of which human language has no expression." -p. 6. ORGANIC LIFE. 209 its speech distils as the dew." But its instructions are all optional; man receives them only if he will. 2. And as to the second part of the reason, if organized nature is to be construed by man so as to subserve the ultimate end, all the laws which we have considered as be- longing to the method of the Divine procedure are, in one respect or another, indispensable. In the absence of law, it would be impossible for the mind to infer a Law-giver. In the absence of all signs of dependence, organic nature would be regarded as proclaiming its independence. But, here, every vegetable family has its place ; every species, its type; every function, its order; every fibre, its pre- scribed rule. Here life is found in union with organization ; a union, however, which can only be shown to be uniform, not necessary. And here, everything relating to the com- mencement of organic life, to its progress, and to the filling up of the great plan on which it is formed, must be re- solved into the will of the Divine Creator; for even those who believe only that laws were originally impressed on matter of which all this is the developed result, must admit that the entire result was in the original contemplation and choice of the Deity. 3. But here again the evidence needs to be balanced be- tween two extremes. If the proof of a Divine agency were to be so obvious and cogent as to leave man no option whatever as to the nature of his conclusions respecting it, this would be as unsuited to his moral freedom, as the ab- sence of all or of adequate proof would be to his rational con- viction — a consideration which applies to every department of the Divine procedure ; and which, if seasonably remem- bered and applied, would answer many objections, and solve many difficulties, respecting it. Accordingly, the evidence is supplied in " weight and measure." It is as P 210 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. reserved to one, as it is open and communicative to another. To some, the laws of organic life answer the purpose only of self-manifestation ; and seem to publish both their own sufficiency and the sagacity of the party discovering or ap- prehending them;^ while to others, they convincingly declare that their " sufficiency is of God." To each class the same evidence is supplied. For the former, it is not so scanty as to excuse their impiety ; nor for the latter, so overpowering as to constrain belief, and make virtue im- possible. It is so graduated and adjusted, that it may be regarded as having formed, from the first, a mute prophecy, both of the voluntary constitution of the being destined to interpret it, and of the end it was designed to answer. XX. The ultimate end. — According to our theory, both the laws of the method^ and the proximate reason of it^ will find their ultimate end^ in relation to this stage of the Divine procedure, in contributing to jirove the all-sufficiency ' of the wisdom of God. 1. But first, having distinctly stated that each preceding display of the Divine perfection may be expected to be ' Ur. Maccullocli has well remarked of certain philosophers, who never " think of a designing and wise Creator — they search, and when they have found, they produce the discovery as a proof of their own wisdom. They seek for ends and uses; and they boast of having seen the means and the end, as much as if they had intended the end and invented the means. Yet they who boast, should not forget that there was a Wisdom which anticipated their own; that had there not been a Sagacity which planned, their own sagacity in tracing the execution would never have appeared; that they are but students, and that in their pride of assigning the wisdom and the design, they ought not to overlook Him, the Designer and the Wise, their own designer, and the great Being who gave them the power of knowing Himself, their God."— Vol. i. p. 607. ORGANIC LIFE. 211 brought forwards and enlarged through each successive stage of creation, and having assigned the grounds of this expectation, we have to begin by remarking on its fulfil- ment in the continued exercise of the Divine Power. During the entire period, from the introduction of organic life to the creation of man, all the pre-existing forces of in- organic matter continued in activity. The argument for the power of God, therefore, remained unabated; rather it was augmented during every moment of the period. 2. But here Avere new displays of power. It originated and introduced the new principle of life. It was present in the motion of every plant that waved ; as well as in the mechanical and chemical action constantly going on for the production of soil. It was present in the mountain cedar braving the tempest by resistance ; and in the slender flower evading the storm by elasticity : in the plenitude of vegetable life which crowded the wilderness; and in the lichen of the almost indestructible rock which appears to live on through ages, the only form of life in a region of desolation. It proclaimed its presence in the molecular moveuients and ceaselessly diversified currents of every minute cellular structure ; and in the organic force which pumps up the sap and diffuses it throughout the most gigantic and branching tree. If, for example, as it can be shown, a tree of thirty-three feet high, requires a pressure of " fifteen pounds upon every square inch in the section of the vessels of the bottom, in order merely to support the sap," how great must be the power which propels the sap upwards so as to supply the constant evaporation of the leaves. And if this be true of an individual tree, who shall calculate the amount of the forces which came into play with every outburst of vernal life during the era of the great coal formations ! p2 212 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. 3. But power is here seen waiting on Wisdom; laying out her resources to be employed as adaptations and means. Wherever we look we are impressed with the idea of difficulties overcome, difficulties originated as if for the purpose of overcoming them, — and overcome, not in one way merely, but in ways so gratuitously varied and multi- plied as if to impress us with the conviction of the inex- haustible resources of the Being who has overcome them ; and, further, that He actually intended to produce this im- pression. 4. We have just been showing that the displays of power co-exist with those of wisdom, and are even multi- plied in her service. We have now to recognise the prospective contrivances of wisdom even in the inorganic world, where before we saw nothing but power. Take, for example, the fact that granite should have been selected from many other substances to constitute the great frame- work of the earth, in connexion with its peculiar chemical fitness for the support of vegetable life. Animals do not ultimately depend on vegetable food, more certainly than vegetables depend on mineral sustenance. Primarily, in- deed, they depend on the surrounding water, and on the moisture which bathes their roots : but experiment demon- strates that there are certain other bodies — such as potash and phosphoric acid, which are universally present in vegetable structures, and essential to their existence. Now there is satisfactory evidence to show that these substances formed specific ingredients in the granites of the ancient earth; and that, consequently, they were provided ages before the commencement of organic life. But in vain Avould this provision have existed, if, in addition, these granite masses had not been elevated to form the great mountain chains of the earth ; for in this way only could ORGANIC LIFE. "213 that slow disintegration take place by which their liberated materials contribute to produce the fruit-bearing soil of the earth. Now who can fail to recognise here the bearing of one part upon another, the presence of conspiring means, of preparation and completion? 5. We may notice, also, instances of the remarkable manner in which organic life has been adapted to pre- existing laws. Had the earth, for example, its astronomical year and its diurnal rotation? The entire life of annual plants agrees exactly with the former, and the circle of action in the perennial tribes with the latter. Is the force of the earth's gravity specific ? Then must the forces of organic life be precisely adjusted to it ; for, were they below a certain amount, the rate of vegetable circulation would stop ; or were they in excess, it would be accelerated in a manner equally destructive of life. Creative wisdom, however, has nicely adapted the minutest parts of vegetable structures to the mass of the earth on which they exist. Is matter endowed with the properties of tenacity, hard- ness, density, flexibility, and elasticity ? So exquisitely is the vegetable constitution adapted to all these, — not in a single way, but in a different manner for each species, — that a slight alteration in any one of these laws would require the reconstruction of the whole. The magnitude of the ocean and its extensive currents are related to the magnitude of the moveable atmosphere, the repository and the moving force of the clouds; and both combine to the production of such a distribution of tlie temperature as is essential to vegetable life, and determines many of its forces. The laws of radiation, evaporation, electricity, all sustain vital relation to the organic economy; while light, besides administering the necessary stimulus to its func- tions, paints and beautifies every flower that blows. 214 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. 6. But the same system of adaptations has re-appeared, and been applied, tliroiigh a prolonged succession of geological changes ; so that its accommodative power has been always receiving additional confirmations. Had we seen the earliest organic products of the primitive earth, we should most likely have concluded that the then existing condition of the globe was essential to their existence. But other con- ditions of the planet succeeded, and the mighty forests now entombed as coal formations came with them. And as other changes followed, plants, of forms and characters now unknown on the surface of the earth, succeeded; specimens of which were stored away in the grand natural Herbaria of the earth, as if reserved for the purpose of shaming us from setting limits to the Creator's power and wdsdom. 7. In speaking of the boundless variety of vegetable life, we may take the existing flora of the earth as a specimen of all those which have preceded it. The Divine Being might have clothed the earth with verdure, and yet have limited the whole vegetable variety to two or three species ; but between eighty and a hundred thousand species are already classed. Had we seen land-plants only, we should have considered the existence of aquatic plants an impossi- bility; and yet forests wave at the bottom of the ocean. Had we seen them only in a fertile soil, we should have deemed such a soil essential to their existence ; but God has appointed the apparently insignificant lichen to live on the rock, and it eats for ages into a substance which defies the chemical and mechanical forces. From the sea-shores, from the bed of the sea, from the deep caverns of the earth, upwards, as the land rises, in stages, to the line of eternal snow, organic life is to be found diffused over the entire range. Is land to be rescued from the sea? A succession of plants effects the process, each giving place as soon as it ORGANIC LIFE. 215 has prepared the way for a superior species; others, again, being ready to defend and retain the rescued territory. Did the Creator determine tliat the phmt sliuuhl l)e distin- guished by definite form? All the species are obviously constructed on a general plan ; but, while that plan is nevec lost sight of, the characteristic of tigure, colour, fragrance, and duration, is diversified without end ; and, in many instances, as if for the sake of showing that, in the hands of Infinite Wisdom, any single idea admits of endless illus- tration. Are plants to grow by nutrition ? The food which they elaborate and store up is not of a single kind merely; in one tribe it is oil, in another fecula, in another liguine, in another sugar, in another gum, &c. ; while " an inter- minable catalogue of other substances may be extracted from the juices of different plants, all of Avliich have been formed by secretion in some part or other of their struc- ,ture." Are they to be continued by reproduction? The modes of sustaining the feeble parent plants are so variously diversified, as if for tlie sole object of showing that such variety was practicable; some of these are supported by different kinds of hooks, others by voluble stems, by claws, by voluble leaves, by radicles, by tendrils, &c. The modes of protecting seeds comprise unnumbered inventions ; many of them so far from simple, that they would seem to be adopted only for the sake of demonstrating a power of in- vention. From some plants the seeds simply fall; from others, a mechanical force projects them to a distance ; others yield them to the power of the winds; and the seeds of others are winged for distant flight. 8. Now, we do not say that this diversity and exube- rance of organic life, together with the complicated inor- ganic arrangements which it involves, scientifically demon- strates the absolute infinity of the Divine wisdom. If it 216 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTU. did SO, all the illustrations of wisdom exhibited in the sub- sequent stages of the Divine procedure avouUI, as further evidence, be superfluous. A similar remark to this we made in the preceding Part, Avlien inferring the extent of the Divine power from the evidence then before us. And from the advanced point we have now reached, we can see how great would have been our error if we had limited our views of that Power by the evidence afforded by that first stage. For, here we behold it putting forth fresh displays, and demonstrating that "the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary." And, in a similar manner, the illustrations of the Divine wisdom have been accumu- lating ever since, and in new departments of creation. In harmony with which fact, we repeat our conviction, that an infinite proof of infinite wisdom can be furnished to finite creatures, or be received by them, only by a progressive accumulation through infinite duration, and therefore can only be always in process. But we can conceive also of such a display of wisdom, within a space and a time not unlimited, as should furnish beings capable of reasoning from analogy, with abundant evidence of wisdom unlimited. Such an exercise of wisdom we believe to have been dis- played in the organic creation. 9. In bringing this conviction home to the mind, it is to be remembered, as a fact of universal admission, that the spacial limitations of matter, and therefore the limita- tions of the uses made of it, are necessitated by the nature of matter itself. The material mediimi for exhibitino- o design is itself inherently conditioned by limits. So that we have to determine the question, what amount of evi- dence of design, exhibited under circumstances in which the medium of design itself forbids absolute infinity, we, ORGANIC LIFE. 217 as beings, constituted to infer more tliiin we see, should deem an adequate illustration of wisdom unlimited. Now we think Ave are uttering a very soLer supposition in say- ing, that the production of the first form of organic life that appeared, would be, in the estimation of superior intel- ligences, both the sole prerogative and the adequate illustra- tion of infinite wisdom. We can conceive of beings to wdiom that simple form would furnish a key to the material universe. For them, the full exposition of that single con- stitution would involve the exposition of the whole physical creation. But, that single specimen was accompanied or followed by a world of diversified organizations. It would have been in vain for man, had he then lived, to attempt the individual enumeration. Now, surely he could not have listened to such an exposition of organic life as that to which we have adverted, — a tale of ages, — for it must have included the mechanical and chemical history of our planet from the beginning; could not have marked how all phy- sical science was presupposed by each organic form, and met in it ; how it stood the centre, not of a system merely, but of plan within plan, and system within system, with all the inorganic laws and elements, like angels, ministering to it ; and that the same was true of every species, but with an endless diversity of details in each ; he could not have required ages of such occupation, in order to feel con- strained to admit, of the Divine Creator, that " His ways are past finding out !" Long as that early geological period may have lasted, it w^ould doubtless have come to an end before the supposed exposition was completed, for every returning season would add to its subjects. While yet the investigation was in process, a new epoch would dawn, and a new world of or- 218 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. ganic wonders come to view. And thus the illustrations of Creative wisdom would be accumulating on him in an ever augmenting ratio. Surely, as these worlds came be- fore him in a succession which promised no end, and yet every one of them exhibiting myriads of differences from all the rest, he would have confessed, unnumbered ages ago, " Tliere is no searching of His understanding ! " Further, when he found that each of these varying organic worlds as it came before him was not only perfect in itself; and perfect from the first ; but that each formed part of a plan which comprehended the whole; a plan presupposed by the whole series, and which had been invariably adhered to amidst all the endless modifications which its principles were always receiving; and a plan which, while retaining in their original and appropriate places the fossil remains of every extinct family, provided a definite place for every new creation, and every additional species, he could not forbear exclaiming, " Lord, how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all ! " In the imaginary position we have described, he could not but feel, as every onward step in the organic series brought with it an incal- culable amount of evidence of the Divine wisdom, to be added to all the accumulations of the past, that the Being who had designed all this could have covered the earth, had it been ten times larger than it is, with a proportionate enlarge- ment of the organic plan; that, if He has not clothed every distant star with vegetable life, it is not owing to any limit or exhaustion of His designing power ; and that the organic worlds of past time are only a specimen of the manner in which He could go on varying the details of or- ganic adaptations for ever. And when he saw that there was no prospect of an end to His designs ; and remembered ORGANIC LIFE. 211) that, as the Divine power of the inorfi^anic stage had been brought on into the organic, so the Divine wisdom of the organic stage would probably receive fresh illustrations in some new economy, he would feel that he was in the presence of wisdom all-sufficient, and acknowledge, " Great is the Lord, and of great power; His understanding is infinite!" FIFTH PART. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. The Third Stage of the Divine Manifestation: POAVER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS. Let it be imagined that another extended period has elapsed since we took our last survey of creation, and be- held the wisdom of God as displayed in the wonders of vegetable life. It seems but natural that the view, so far from leading us to conclude that we had reached the ulti- matum of Divine Manifestation, would have awakened rather an expectation of beholding ulterior displays. The Being, we might have said, whose Power called this visible universe into existence, and whose Wisdom has ever been conducting it from one stage to another, till it is literally organizing its elements and exhibiting them in the posses- sion of life, can surely know no limits to His operations, but such as the same Wisdom may see fit to prescribe. The use which He had made of matter when last we looked on the scene of creation, seems to warrant the conjecture that, if life can be added to matter, something equally Avonderful may be added to life. What if that addition should con- sist of enjoyment! Who can say l)ut that in the revolution of ages, tlie period may come when forms of organized being may not only live, but move and be happy! SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 221 1. Another visit to the object of our meditations is at length permitted us; and a scene opens to our view which compels us to exclaim, " How great is His goodness!" For the sake of illustration, let the season of our supposed visit be fixed, long after the new era of animal existence had commenced, yet before the time of the Adamic creation ; and let it be imagined that the various changes Avhich, at long intervals, had occurred since our last visit, were all laid open to us. AVe should find that not only had the great change itself, whicli had been the subject of our con- jectures, taken place — tliat vegetable life had been actually succeeded by animal enjoyment — but that even that enjoy- ment had reached a point which awoke the expectation of something greater still at hand. 2. In the last Part, we saw vegetable life in the solitary and entire occupation — we say not for any length of time — of the advancing earth; we saw it in busy and diversified activity, preparing the way, in some places, both for the coming of higher orders of its own kind of life, by pro- ducing the necessary kind of soil, and for the Divine origi- nation of that animal life which it was destined to support. We beheld in its presence, and varieties, and rapid increase, an indication that the Great and Provident Householder was contemplating the arrival of unnumbered guests. Now we find, not only that they have come, but that, since their first appearance, the crust of the globe has undergone many a revolution, and has exhibited many a rich and varied surface of vegetable life, crowded with correspond- ing forms of animated existence. While, on each occasion, there is reason to believe the same order has been observed as to the subsequence of animal to vegetable life : an inorganic change being followed by a corresponding change in vegetation; and a change in vegetation followed by appropriate species of animated beings. "i'l^ THE PRE-ADAMITE EAKTII. I. 3. Goodness. — We have not yet to speak of the extent of the Divine benevolence to be inferred from this new form of existence. We have only, at present, to regard it as evincing the existence of goodness in the Creator. Hereafter we shall have to view it as furnishing new illus- trations also of the Creative power and wisdom already displayed in the preceding stages. But, for the present, we have only to do with the law, that every Divinely originated effect is a residt, of ivhich the supreme and ultimate reaso?i is in the Divine nature. Now, here, in the animal kingdom, is a being constructed for enjoyment ; each of its movements yielding it gratification ; each of its senses an inlet to pleasure : and the whole is ever preparing the way for greater enjoyment still, and finding happiness in the occupation. If the reason for the existence of this creature is to be sought in the Divine Creator, so also must be the reason of its enjoyment. Even if there were no purpose of manifesting the Divine All-sufficiency — if the creation were to be limited to a single creature — still, as every effect must be, in some sense, like its cause, that single creature would be, not indeed formally, but virtually, a manifestation, p7^o tajito, of some property of the Divine Nature. But here is not merely an individual animal designed for enjoyment, nor a single species, but a world, a succession of worlds, filled with animal enjoyment. What property of the Divine Creator can this fact be supposed to manifest, but that He, " the Happy God," is good, or delights to impart happiness! 4. But is animal pain and death, especially the system of prey, compatil^le with the goodness of the Creator ? We admit, first, tliat death, and even the system of prev, were SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 223 originally intended by God. That the former was, will be, in general, readily admitted. In proof of the latter, we have merely to call attention to the fact that whole tribes of animals are expressly constructed for it. Their instincts and organization prepare them to be engines of destruction. 6. But, then, secondly, the pain attending animal death by violence is apparently reduced to its minimum. For, 1, the animal knows not that death is the extinction of life. Yet this is the very consideration which, in the case of man, gives to death all its bitterness. 2. As the animal knows not that it is ceasing to be, even when it is in the article of death, the difficulty is, in reality, reduced to one of physical pain merely. For as to its unconscious removal by death, no objection can be consistently raised ao-ainst such an arrangement in the animal world, apart from the attendant pain, any more than against the corres- ponding arrangement in the vegetable world. And yet we there admired the wisdom which made a lower order of vegetable organization subservient by death to a higher order. Now, it should be remembered that the dying animal is as unconscious of its fate as the dying plant ; the only question to be resolved then, we repeat, is one of animal pain. 3. There appears to be a law of graduating sensibility pervading the animal kingdom; according to which, the degree of feeling diminishes as the organization descends in the scale ; till, as we approach the point at which it touches the vegetable kingdom, it verges on total insensibility to pain. We are aware that in proportion to this reduction, nuist be the reduction also of animal enjoy- ment during life. But while death is the event of a moment, the enjoyment of life is to be multiplied by all the moments through which it is prolonged. Now, as the myriad tribes of these inferior orders constitute the staple 224 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of animal food, the arrangement provides, in so far, for the least possible amount of suifering; if, indeed, in their case, there be any suifering at all. 4. And then, as to one large animal preying upon another, though the sensibility is greater, it is subject to great deductions on some of the grounds already adverted to; and, by a simple, if not a special, contrivance, death is rendered as sudden, and therefore as easy, as possible. Tliat the predatory animal should kill before it begins to devour, is a beneficent pro- vision. Some animals, it is well known, seize on the carotid arteries; in consequence of which, death speedily ensues. But the fact to which we allude is, that at one particular point of the neck, near the skull, a wound of the spinal nerve produces instant death, and apparently with- out suffering. Now, while man has discovered this fact only by experiment, the predatory animals have always made this part of the spine the object of attack. 6. This animal death is an unavoidable part of the pre- sent constitution of creation. That constitution, we have shown, is progressive. In order to prepare the earth for man, it has been subjected to successive revolutions. The coal which forms our fuel is the produce of the destruction of plants, preserved from former worlds. But that provi- sion involved the death of all the myriad forms of life and enjoyment with which the woods of the ancient earth were crowded. And were unknown ages of animal enjoyment to be then withheld, because a physical revolution was even- tually, and for a time, to interrupt it ? 7. " But might not these revolutions have been spared; and the earth have been created at the first as we now find it?" In many respects, it is progressive still. The lichen and the moss produce a soil on Avhich they can no longer live; new races of plants follow in succession, improving SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 225 with every change, and occupying the once arid waste. Insects and reptiles at first possessed it, for it could main- tain nothing better; but as it has improved, superior races have successively come into possession. Were ages of reptile and insect life to be withheld, because the progres- sive change involved their ultimate extinction, for a higher order of life ? 8. "But might not such progression have been ren- dered unnecessary by making the entire amount of animal and vegetable life, as well as the state of the globe, unchangeable from the beginning?" The inquirer may not foresee that this is to ask, in effect, whether the Divine Being might not have adopted a mode of government entirely and essentially different from that which He has chosen ; for if one part be changed, every part must undergo a corresponding change. A Avorld of immortal animals and plants ; a world that knew no climatic change, no seasons, no organic nor inorganic variety — a stagnant and unprogressive creation — would be as unsuited to the created as to the Creating mind. 9. It might be suggested, also, that the continuance of the first created animals, and of everything else to corre- spond, would force on the attention of man evidence of their miraculous origin, too obvious and overbearing for a system of free agency. Besides which, (and this is the adequate answer to the implied objection,) such an unchangeable state of the animate creation would inconceivably diminish the amount of animal enjoyment. So that if the greatest degree and diitusion of such enjoyment be the object in view, the supposed change would defeat itself. That ob- ject can be obtained only by death, and especially by the system of prey. And shall the comparatively small amount of pain which that system involves prevent the incalculable Q 226 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. amount of animal fecundity and enjoyment wliicli it neces- sarily presupposes ? For the right view of this part of the question seems to be that, if animals are to be sustained by food, it is more consistent with the greatest amount of enjoyment that a certain proportion of that food sliould be animated, and be filled with pleasure until it is wanted, than that it should be inanimate and incapable of enjoyment. 10. " Then might not animal life have been sustained on vegetable food alone?" Not only would such an arranf^ement — as we have seen — inconceivably diminish tbe amount of animal life and enjoyment which exists under the present arrangement, it would still leave death in the animal world, from the ten thousand sources of what are called accident. The foot of the ox would crush the insects in the grass; the breeze waft them by myriads into the stream; and the evaporation and exhaustion of the lake leave the fish dead on the shore. Nothing less than perpetual miracle could have saved them from de- struction. And thus it is, in the all-related system of creation, that a single essential alteration would throw the whole into disorder, or be a virtual repeal of the entire scheme; and that every objection made against it involves an incalculable reduction of animal life and enjoyment, and is therefore incompatible with the Divine benevolence. 11. "Then might not animal death have been unac- companied even with the smallest degree of suffering?" To this objection it seems to be a sufficient reply, that sensibility to pain is but the necessary alternative to sen- sibility to pleasure ; — that in fcAv things is the beneficence of God more strikingly apparent than in the arbitrary manner in which he has arranged the animal system so as to economise pain; rendering each nerve belonging to a sense, for instance, sensitive to pain only from the excess of that impression which constitutes its peculiar function, SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 227 (as the optic nerve from excess of light, but not from ex- cess of sound also, and that of the ear from excess of sound, but not of light;) — that this sensibility to pain operates as a necessary warning of danger, without which the animal would soon and inevitably perish; so that its benevolent language is emphatically, " Do thyself no harm ; take limely warning, and be happy;" — and that this possibility of pain could not be separated from the powers of sense without miraculous interposition, since it is the natural consequence of their fimctions. In addition to which, it should be observed, that where death is the simple con- secpience of age, the power of feeling does gradually cease before that event arrives. It is benevolently arranged that the prior departure of physical sensibility shall leave the final struggle to be carried on by the vital powers alone. So that the animal passes through a state of stupor into the sleep of death. 12. According to the existing arrangements of creation, then, we behold, on the one hand, a system of provisions for securing the greatest amount of animal life; for only a small proportion of it could find the necessary sustenance in any other way than that of prey: so that if animals, we repeat, are to be sustained by food, it is more consistent with the Divine goodness that a certain proportion of that food should be animated and filled with enjoyment until it is wanted, than that it should be inanimate and incapable of pleasure. While, on the other hand, we find a number of remarkable provisions for reducing the pain involved in this system of animal enjoyment, to the smallest amount. Other and higher considerations we omit; such as the fact that animal sensibility forms a perpetual appeal to human sensibility, and is an important means of its improvement; and the manner in which the progressiveness of creation is q2 228 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. made subservient to the moral education and advancement of the beings to whom the Divine Manifestation is made, and worthy of Him who makes it. But we are content with having shown that a fact which might at first appear to diminish the claims of the Divine goodness, becomes, when viewed in its relations, an occasion for enlarging our conceptions of Creative benevolence, by showing that it secures animal existence and enjoyment to the greatest amount. 13. And thus we have found, as the great Reason led us to expect, that every stage and object of creation is an ex- ponent of some characteristic of the Divine Nature. II. The past brought forwards. — By the principle Avhich requires that the laws of the past should be brought for- wards to the present, we are led to expect that the elements and results of the mineral and vegetable kingdom will be found brought on into the animal kingdom. 1. Accordingly, though the animal is more withdrawn from the inorganic world, in point of rank, than the vege- table, it is still amenable to all those laws of inanimate matter which make it a part of the great material system. Here is the law of gravitation, by which the animal stands. Here is mechanical force, illustrating its laws, and dis- tributing its levers and fulcra, in a way which enables it to fulfil a thousand distinct purposes. The various secretions are complicated products of chemical action; though no artificial chemistry can imitate them. Here light and air find appropriate organs ; and electricity finds functions and properties expressly adapted for its development and action. The same laws which operate in the formation of the sili- cious crystals, here compose the skeleton of many zoophytes, SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 229 and the calcareous crystals of many radiated animals. The simple symmetry of vertebrate animals, and the pen- tagonal symmetry of radiate animals, show that we are still investigating the productions of a Being who is acting on general principles, and filling up a plan. While the presence of organic life in its leading functions, nutrition and reproduction, shows that the vegetable and animal kingdoms are connected parts of a great whole. Of these facts, numerous illustrations will occur as we proceed ; none of them, however, tending to efface the great characteristics which separate the organic kingdom from the inorganic, and the animal kingdom from both. 2. Thus we have seen pre-existing laws brought on into each succeeding stage of creation; the inorganic into the organic, and both these into the animal kingdom. III. Progress. — Our theory leads us to inquire next for the indications of progress, or for the introduction of new laws. And we find animal life superadded to the vegetable or organic life. Now it is obvious to remark that the comparison of the two must be drawn, not between the highest form of the one and the lowest form of the other, but between the more elaborate and perfect forms of each division. Were it our object to show the contiguity and continuity of the two organized kingdoms, we might then (as we shall here- after have occasion to do,) point out the principles which they have in common, jind the points at which they appear to touch and even blend. But in illustrating their dis- tinctive characteristics, it would be as irrelevant to com- pare the lowest state of animal life with the highest form of vegetable life, as it would be to compare the lo^vest form 230 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of vegetation with the highest form of animal existence. Taking both, however, in their more perfect states, it will be found that the animal world differs from the vegetable, as widely as both these differ from the mineral. So marked is this difference, that Avere the various endowments which are distributed separately throughont the whole vegetable world to be concentrated in a single plant, the superiority of an animal, taken promiscuously from the herd, would still be instantly and abundantly manifest. 2. When treating of vegetable physiology, Ave saw that organic life includes a series of functions by which the individual plant is preserved and the species continued. Now the physiology of animals discloses the fact, that they possess functions analogous to those of vegetables; and that, in addition to these, and distinct from them, they possess also the functions of a higher order of life, involv- ing sensibility and locomotion. Each hind of life has its own system of organs. The centre of the organic life is the heart ; of the animal life, the brain. The functions of organic life act continuously; those of animal life intermit- tingly. The former operate nnconsciously and involun- tarily ; the latter not so. Such are some of the leading distinctions between the functions of organic and animal life. 3. Accordingly, Bichat has shown (and the distinction is now generally accepted,^) that the natural division of the complex animal system is twofold. Such parts as the heart, the intestines, and whatever acts independently of the will, and without the consciousness of the subject, be- long to what he denominates the vegetative or organic ' See Dr. Phiyfiiir's Abstract of Liebig's Report on Organic Che- mistry applied to Physiology and Pathology, read at the Meeting of the British Association, 1842. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 231 life. While the senses, and the parts that i)ring it into vohmtary rehition with the external world, he calls the animal life. In the plant, life is endowed only, at most, with the property of excitability ; in the animal, it super- adds to this property, those of sensation, perception, passion, mental association, and impelled volition, followed by the expression of that volition in muscular contraction. To the plant is assigned the power of drawing nourishment from inorganic matter — mere earths, salts, and airs; while the aliments by wliich animals are nourished are derived from animal or vegetable substances alone. Whence plants, says M. Eicherand, may be considered as the laboratories in which nature prepares aliment for animals; and thus, we may add, emphatically seals their superiority. 4. But v/hat is the nature of that instinctive mind by which the animal is especially distinguished from the vege- table creation? The difficulty of giving what may be deemed a satisfactory reply to this question, arises, perhaps, not so much from any inherent profundity in the subject, as from our necessary ignorance, or inability to obtain the requisite data; and from tlie prepossessions respecting it of those w^ho are too much amused with the facts to examine the reasons, and who would rather " see in the shifting cloud wdiat sliapes they please." 5. With a view to a reply, however, let us first mark the distinctions which exist among the functions of the ani- mal life itself. Analogous in office to the eaxitability of the plant, is iha sensibility oi i\\Q animal; though the latter is secured by a nobler arrangement than the corresponding property in the vegetable, and is made to answer additional ends. The animal is placed in new and wonderful relations to the external world by the organs of touch, hearing, sight, &c. United to these organs is a system of nerves which 232 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. conveys " sensations from the organs of sense inwards, so as to make these sensations the objects of the animal's con- sciousness." And in " the higher animals these impres- sions upon the nerves are all conveyed to one organ, the brain." Here then is one step towards an explanation of the functions of animal life, 6. But what part of its physical structure is it by which the animal on receiving these impressions changes its pos- ture, its place, or its action? It is now satisfactorily ascer- tained that the immediate agents in such motions are the muscles. The property by which, under natural stimulus, they produce motion, has been termed ii^ritahility^ or, more properly, contractility^ from the manner in which they con- tract in the movement of the limbs. Here then, is another and a distinct step in the explanation. The sensations which the animal feels, and the muscular action which it consequently exerts, may be inseparably connected ; yet are they obviously distinguishable. Animal sensibility has the nerves for its organs; animal contractility, the muscles. The former is the passive ; the latter, the active element of animal life. The former seems preparatory to whatever of instinct, intelligence, or mind, may be expressed by the latter. So that between these two extreme terms, lies the sphere of our present inquiry. 7. Now, if we mark the effect directly consequent on certain sensations, we shall find that the animal appears to have received a notice or knowledge of the external object which has occasioned them. And the knowledge thus acquired is called perception. Here, then, is a connexion apparently mental. The knowledge resulting from the sensation, reveals the existence of animal mind ; of something, at least, which is not material, and wliich is not merely vital; but is distinct from, and superior to, both. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 233 8. If next, we mark the effect consequent on certain per- ceptions, we shall liud that they are apparently followed by volitions: by which we mean that mental act which imme- diately determines muscular action. And thus there inter- venes between the tw^o states of sensation and muscular contraction, the two links of perception and volition. So that " the cycle of operations which appear to take place when animals act in reference to external objects is this, sensation, perception, volition, muscular contraction;"^ the brain being the seat or centre to which sensation tends, and from Avhich volition proceeds. It is not intended by these remarks that the supposed mental part of this process clearly and consciously attends every animal action. At least, man, while performing the ordinary acts of breathing, walking, &c., is but faintly con- scious of the sensations and volitions which these acts imply. So that, in representing the sensation and muscu- lar action of animals as connected by the intermediate pro- cess of perception and volition, we must be regarded as stating only an extreme case. But, at this stage of the subject, the question arises, whether the cycle we have described includes the whole of the process belonging to the operation of animal mind or instinct ; or, whether, in addition to the four steps named, there may not be at least a fifth. In entertaining this question, indeed, we shall be anticipating that side of the subject which compares the animal with the human mind ; yet, an adequate view of the inquiry will not allow us to postpone it. Now, it will be admitted, that, in the human mind, at least, one additional link intervenes between perception and volition. To this link we w^ill give the general name, not ' Dr. Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, ii. p. 71. 234 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of understanding, but of reason ; by which we mean, the power which the mind has of deducing universal truths from particuhir appearances, or of contemplating the ideal relations of things ; and of willing or determining, in har- mony with such ideas, on the means necessary to the attain- ment of a proposed end. The cpiestion to be decided, then, may assume this simple form, is the volition of brutes deter- mined without the intervention of reason? The great end of instinct appears to be the preservation of life in the individual, and its perpetuation in the species. That man occasionally trains and turns it to a dilferent account, does not affect the truth of the statement. During all the ages prior to human existence, and wherever the animal is left undisturbed by the influence of human reason, the direct and only reference of its instincts is to the conti- nuance of its race. And as this is their only obvious end, so the various ways in which it is gained, by the different species, is evidently predetermined by the organization peculiar to each. From which it is inferred by some that wherever there is life there is instinct; or, that instinct and life are co-ei'tensiue. 9. Instinctive motions, viewed in this enlarged sense, are of different classes. First, there are those which belong to organic life, and which may be called vital. These are common to plants and animals; such as the involuntary processes of secretion and assimilation. But whether these processes should be regarded as instinctive or not, is imma- terial to the principal point at issue. 10. Second, there are those instincts which call into action the muscles considered to be under the control of volition, and which may be called adaptive. Such are the actions of the new-born young of animals ; the beau- tiful and perfect nest-building of birds; and the mathe- SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 23o matical cell-making of bees. These constitute the great class of actions, allowed, on almost all hands, to be strictly instinctive; and whose direct tendency is to the conti- nuance of animal existence. And yet, as far as the animal is promoting this object, it is evidently acting toAvards an end which is unknown to itself; and, therefore, acting blindly. Agreeably to Paley's definition of instinct, it is acting " prior to experience, and independent of instruction," and, we might add, with a perfection Avhicli no instruction could teach, and no experience improve. 11. And, thirdly, there are those which appear to be the result of experience, and which discover a power of selecting means for proximate ends according to varying circum- stances : these may be said to be mental. To this class of actions pertain those remarkable instances of animal sagacity, at the recital of which every one has been more or less inte- rested and astonished, and Avhich have even suggested to some the extravagant idea of a system of animal metaphy- sics. The remainder of our remarks on instinct will be restricted to this class; and our object will be to show that, even allowing some mental act to intervene, in such instances, between perception and volition, that intermediate act or operation is not what we intend by reasoning. 1. That an action ascribable to reason in man, would, when performed by an animal, be hastily ascribed to the same principle, was antecedently probable. But to do this is to forget that just as rational, and quite analogous, would it be to infer, that because the bird constructs its nest by instinct, and the bee its cell, therefore, if a man attempts an imitation of that nest or that cell, he acts under the impulse of instinct also. 2. If what the animal does evidently from instinct, is done better, and is of greater importance to the end of its 236 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. existence, tlian that which it does from what some would ascribe to a higher faculty, it seems unphilosophical to ascribe the superior efforts to the inferior principle, and the lower efforts to the higher principle. Now, probai)ly, no one supposes that the lamb when it first follows its mother, and adapts its muscular action to the form of the ground, knows anything of the geometrical relations which the action involves ; or that the dog, in hunting only a certain kind of animal, and in crossing the field repeatedly, to scent it, knows anything of the doctrines of llesemblance and of Space ; or that the bird, in its first flight, adjusting its effort to the distance and height of the flight with mechanical precision, really recognises the doctrine of force. All this is attributed to instinct. If then, under different circumstances, the animal should afterwards be found acting differently, consistency would seem to require that the difference should be ascribed to the provisional operation of the same instinct. If the bird on perceiving that the rising stream is approaching its half- finished nest, begins to build higher up the bank, it does but build on the spot where it would have placed its nest at first, had the waters then been as high as they have since become, and the end in both cases is the same — the conti- nuance of its species. o. If animals ever perform actions from instruction or experience, to which human sagacity would be unequtd, it must result either from an mstinctive intelligence, or (which would be proving too much,) from the exercise of a reason superior to man's. Now the great majority of the remarkable feats related of animals are of this description. The advocates of brute rationality, in their anxiety to do the best for their clients, adduce illustrations of so remark- able a nature as to show that no human reason would have been competent to such doings. Such, for example, are SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 237 those instances in which an animal reads in the countenance of its master that he contemplates its destruction, and absents itself accordingly; or in which it knows, better perhaps tlian its master, that he is about to take a certain favourite walk, and runs on before to secure a share in tlie enjoyment; or, in which it finds its way straight home again when it had been taken by a circuitous route, and blindfolded, to a great distance. It was this want of dis- crimination in ascribing to reason, actions Avhich had not afforded scope for reasoning, and which were too quick and too certain for anything but instinct, whicli led Descartes^ to say, " their doing many things better than ourselves does not prove them to be endowed with reason, for this would prove them to have more reason than we have, and that they are capable of excelling us in all other things also; but it rather proves them to be void of reason." 4. If the most wonderful feats of animal sagacity are the result of human instruction, such instances only show the adaptiveness, within certain fixed and narrow limits, of the mental instinct. It was antecedently probable, in a world whose regularity is made consistent with variety, and whose every principle admits of diversified application, that the higher order of animals would find scope for their instinctive mind within a certain range. Even the plant has a con- fined power of adapting itself to circumstances. It is only in analogy with nature, that the dog, for example, the most instinctively sagacious of animals, if he become the com- panion of man, and so be made to feel indirectly the in- fluence of the human mind, should liave ;dl its better adaptations brought to light ; though itself entirely uncon- scious of the fact. Compared with its condition in the \ preadamite earth, the domestic dog is now in another world, ' In his treatise De Mcf/iodo. 238 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. walking among gods. " Man is to him instead of a god, or melior oiatura.'"^ And, while there is no ground to believe that, if the canine race existed a thousand ages be- fore man appeared on the earth, a single trait of the in- stinctive sagacity we now so much admire, had ever been exhibited by them, so neither is there reason to conclude that such sagacity is now the result of anything higher than an instinctive adaptiveness, of which they themselves have no intelligent perception. 5. If, again, the power of performing extraordinary feats be liereditary^ it cannot be the result of reason or of knowledge; for knowledge and reason are not, in this way, transmissible. A paper of Mr. Knight's, read before the Eoyal Society,^ shows that even the acquired faculties of dogs — the expertness tliey gain by teaching, descend^ in the race, " He found the young and untaugiit ones (spring- ing spaniels) as skilful as the old ones, not only in finding and raising the woodcocks, but in knowing the exact degree of frost which will drive those birds to springs and rills of unfrozen water." It is evident that such a fact cannot be I adduced in favour of animal rationality; for the knowledge ! exhibited was strangely possessed without instruction or \ experience; and the reasoning, if there had been any, being destitute of data, must have been nothing less than a train of a 'priori speculation. 6. Among the presumptive proofs against the rationality of animals, it is, we think, justly alleged that, Avhile man can transmit the knowledge which he has gained by ex- perience, from generation to generation, conscious of its being experience, and that it is capable of receiving in- definite addition and application, the experience of animals, ^ Bacon's Essay on Atheism. 2 Quoted in Lord Brougham's Dissertations, &c., vol. i. p. 140. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 289 confined at most within narrow limits, is incapable of accumulation and transmission. So that the bee and the beaver of to-day, build no better than the bee and the beaver of a thousand years ago. 7. Another fact, of the same class, noticed by Adam Smith, is, that animals practice nothing approaching to barter. The most barbarous South Sea Islander will eagerly part with his rude ornaments and his food for a piece of iron. But even the animal which collects stores for the winter, shows that, in making this provision, he is impelled by instinct and not by foresight, for he is incapable of making an exchange which might exempt him from the trouble of collectinf? stores. 8. But, perhaps, the great fact which lies against the rationality of brutes, is, that they are destitute of the power of speech. To say that they have voices, or inarti- culate language, adequate to the indication of certain appetites and passions, only increases the force of the remark. For how unlikely is it that they would be en- dowed with the means of expressing animal feelings, and be denied the ])ower of imparting ideas, supposing them to have ideas to impart. And besides the inconsistency, perhaps few things would seem to impugn the goodness of the Creator more, than to withhold from a creature capable of even very limited reasoning, the faculty of expressing and imparting its reasonings. 9. But, it may be asked, whether the power of inarti- culate signs which animals possess, may not be adequate to the communication of thought? " The intention and the capacity, of expressing thought,^' says W. Humboldt/ " is the only thing which characterizes the articulate sound; and nothing else can be fixed on to designate its difference ' Quoted in Lieber's Political Ethics, p. 12. 240 THE PRE-ADA^IITE EARTH. from the animal cry on the one hand, or the musical tone on the other." To which it may be sufficient to add, that, arguing from analogy, inarticulate cries serve only for the expression of sensations and passions. Hence man, during infancy, when he has only feelings to express, has only the limited signs and cries of the animal. With the dawning of thought comes its appropriate vehicle, speech; and, altliongh, afterwards, thought and feeling are generally com- bined in his vocal communications, it is worthy of remark that, in proportion as he essays to express nnrningled feeling or passion, as in moments of great danger or pain, he invariably falls back on inarticulate sounds and inter- jections. 10. As- little would it serve the purpose of an objector, and as much serve our own, to say that the animal is not entirely denied the organs of speech; for this would only increase the incongruity of giving an animal both reason, and organs for expressing it, and yet withholding from it the medial link, whatever it may be, necessary to connect and develop both. That some animals, especially birds, have at least imperfect organs of speech is evident, for they can be tanght to speak; and the only reason which can be assigned why they do not utter a single untaught sentence of their own, is tliat they have not a single thought to ex- press. For " in a question respecting the possession of reason, the absence of all proof is tantamount to a proof of the contrary."^ 11. But, while the train of our remarks impels us to the conclusion that, in the mental process of the animal, reason does not intervene between its perceptions and its volitions, it forcibly indicates wliat may or does intervene, namely, ' Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, p. 291. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 241 the operation of appetites, passions, habits, and, not recollection, but memory or associations of past impressions. To the expression of these alone, its sounds and signs are adequate ; and of these alone we believe it to be conscious. As sensation issues in perception, perception awakens desire or attachment, aversion or anger, iear, or the operation of habit, or some past impression or mental association; the influence of this again determines the volitions necessarily, and determines them ditferently accordingly as they act feebly or powerfully, singly or in combination ; while the volitions, so determined, issue in corresponding muscular action. The relation of the Divine agency to animal in- stinct, will be a subject for after consideration. 12. Having thus considered the subject independently, we may now be allowed to glance at it in its relation to the unfolding of that great system of Divine procedure of which it forms a part. We are not aware that the con- clusions at which we have arrived have been in the least degree biassed by a reference to that system. If, therefore, on comparing them with the expectations which that system would naturally suggest, we find them harmonize with each other, we shall be entitled to regard such harmony as additional evidence of the truth of our conclusions. And besides this, we shall feel the advantage of being able to bring our independent conclusions to the test of an inde- pendent system, and of there finding, so to speak, a place awaiting these conclusions. For to the want of such a test it is, we tliink, to be chiefly ascribed that so much diversity and uncertainty of opinion on the subject, prevails. We will only premise farther, that it is not our purpose to do more at present than barely to indicate some of those expectations to which we refer; leaving the more complete exposition of them to their proper places in the coming sections. R 242 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. 13. If, for instance, in our hypothetical visit to the scene of the advancing creation, we had been forewarned that the animal kingdom was only to form a part of the creation, but was not to be that part to which the Divine manifestation was to be made, what more reasonable than to expect that we should find a form of existence naturally incapable of recognising the great design? Now this is to expect that the animal kingdom will be found irrational ; destitute alike of that faculty of concluding universal truths from particular appearances, which would have re- ferred it back to its origin; and of that power of proposing an ultimate end, and of determining the will by ideas, which would have pointed it on to the chief and last end of all things. And accordingly, we do not find that it ex- hibits the least evidence of reason. 14. But if this stage of creation is to manifest the goodness of the Creator, the animal must not be endowed even with the power of recognising its humble position in the scale of creation, otherwise its enjoyment might be completely marred. Accordingly, it occupies its place as a link, unconscious of its office, in the yet ascending but unfinished series of being ; and is incapable alike of mentally "looking before or after." 15. But, though unconscious of the ultimate design of creation, an end it must and does answer. The tendency of all its motions, voluntary and involuntary, is to preserve its own life, and to perpetuate its kind. Yet must it not be allowed to be conscious that it is answering even this end ; otherwise the same mental power, which would enable it to recognise this fact, would enable it to recognise other truths, and might fill its life with care and anxiety. Accordingly, the bird, while patiently sitting on its eggs, week after week, is ignorant of the end to be answered. An Jnterme- SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 243 diate or present end may be answered of which it is con- scious ; for, during every moment of the time, some sense may be receiving present gratification. But the purpose to which this present enjoyment is subservient is that great favourite object of nature, tlie continuation of the kind; and this end the animal is accomplishing blindly and unin- tentionally. 16. But if the great object of its life is to answer this end, and if the circumstances in which, and the external means by which, this end is to be gained, vary, we may ex- pect that it will not be destitute of adaptive power and in- stinctive intelligence. Even the plant, we have seen, pos- sesses the former ; it is only analogous, then, that to the nobler animal should be superadded the latter. Accordingly, the power which the animal possesses of unknowingly profiting by experience, is simply the slightly diversified application and perseverance of instinct in gaining its own great end. 17. Farther, if the animal be thus insensible to the ulti- mate end of creation, and even of the part which it is made to act for the attainment of that end, we may expect that its signs of communication will be of a very humble description. Having no thoughts to disclose, speech, the vehicle of thought, will be unnecessary. Having nothing to express but the feeling of the moment, nothing more can be necessary than inarticulate signs; and nothing more does it possess. " The minister and interpreter of nature" is yet to come. 18. In resumption of the law now under consideration, then, we remark that a superior order of life is here found added to the vegetable or organic life. By the wonderful addition of the senses, the points of relation between the animal and the external world are multiplied above those of the plant a thousand-fold. By the properties of animal 11 2 244 THE PRE-ADAJIITE EARTH. mind wliich we have iilready considered — sensation, percep' tion, passion, mental association, and constrained volition, comparatively inferior as these may be, those relations are furtlier increased. The powers of muscular contraction and locomotion, by clianging the position of the animal in relation to external objects, and by enabling it to put itself in proximity or even contact with them, augments these re- lations still more. And the faculty of communicating by sounds and signs with the creatures of its own kind, renders the number of these relations indefinite. While each of these innumerable relations is a designed and calcu- lated part of an elaborate system of animal enjoyment. And thus have we illustrated and substantiated the law of progress. And, here, it is obvious to remark, how as each part of creation comes into existence, and becomes related to the preceding parts, certain terms progressively enlarge their meaning. There was a time, for example, when the word creation, supposing there were beings to employ it, meant only, in reference to the material system, chaos; and when life meant only ijegetable existence. The doctrine of Providence., in relation to the same material system, originally indicated much less than it has come to mean, for there was but little comparatively to provide for. And so also of the medial relation, — expressing itself at first in effects representative of an originating cause ; then adding to these the attainment of ends by the organization and employment of prepared means, representative of power guided by wisdom ; and then endowing certain organic forms with susceptibilities of enjoyment, thus adding to power and wisdom, goodness, and awakening the idea that, as we are looking on a progressive scheme, the relation in question will yet express itself in other and higher forms. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 245 IV. Contimu'tif. — Distinct as is the aiiiiii;il kingdom from the vegetable, and numerous and striking as are tlie addi- tional characteristics whicli, in some of its departments, it exliibits, the progression will be found to be, in that general sense in Avhich alone it can be expected, continuous. 1. It is continuous if regarded organical/i/, or in rela- tion to the vegetable kingdom. This is evident from the appellation given to a large division of organized bodies, zoopliytes, or animal plants. So imperceptible are the gra- dations by which the two kingdoms are apparently con- nected at their origins, that naturalists are often divided as to the kingdom to which many well-known bodies belong. And a proposition has been entertained by more than one scientific society, that certain classes of organized beings should be placed in a new kingdom, occupying a place between plants and animals. Still, it should be distinctly remembered, that this con- tinuity is only apparent or general. It may be an insen- sible gradation to us. To superior powers, the passage from the vegetable to the animal would be visible, and could be measured. To suppose that, because it is difficult to assign the boundaries of the two kingdoms, therefore there are no boundaries, would be as irrational as to con- clude that, because material atoms disappear, first from our unaided sight, and tlien vanish even beyond the reach of microscopic power, tliere is a point at which they graduate into nothingness. A moment's reflection will show us that, between that supposed point and the point beyond, there is all the difference between body and space, something and nothino; — an infinite difference. In the same manner, how- ever slight the break, where the vegetable appears to gra- 246 THK PRE-AD AMITE EARTH. cluate into the animal, such an interruption tliere is; and it is nothing less than an interruption in kind^ a transition from identity to essential difference. Accordingly, Cuvier affirms the universal application of the graduating prin- ciple to be philosophically untenable ; and disclaims its rigorous application to the objects even of one and the same kingdom of nature.' And even Lamarck, than whom no one, perhaps, entertains more extravagant views of a structural gradation in animals, expresses his belief that plants and animals, when most resembling, are always dis- tinguishable."^ 2. Progression is also traceable, in the same general manner, in what may be called a geological or historical continuity. Physiologists regard the animal kingdom as susceptible of a fourfold division, in the following ascending order, — Zoopliytes or Radiata, animals whose parts are distributed around a common centre, as the star-fish ; Mol- lusca, pulpy animals, inclosed wholly or partially in a mus- cular envelope, as the cuttle-fish; Ammlosa or Articulata, jointed animals, as the lobster; and Vertehrata^ or animals with a spinal column.^ This last division is composed of four classes, in the following order, — Fish, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, or anim[ils which suckle their young. Now, as the fossil remains of all these divisions and classes are not found together in the lowest strata of the earth, are they found by geologists in any order; and, if so, what is that order ? The lowest or earliest system of rocks in which any ^ Regne Animal, Pref., pp. xx. xxi. 2 Philosoph. Zoolog., torn, i, pp. 377, 384, and 398, in note. See Professor Kidd's B. Treatise, pp. 310, 311. 3 This is the order of arrangement adopted by Geoffrey and others. Cuvier's order reversed the position of the second and third divisions. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 247 traces of organic structure have been discovered are the Cambrian. Here are found in abundance the remains, not of radiata alone, but of the second division of the animal kingdom also, predaceous cephalopods, the most advanced of all molluscs in organic structure ; and, of the third divi- sion, highly organized crustaceans — trilobites, with reticular eyes. In the next system of the ascending series, the upper Silurian rocks, some of the preceding species are found, " but, as a group, the species are new and charac- teristic." Here, first, a vertebrate appears — a fish. But while the class to which it belongs is the lowest of the four vertebral divisions, the specimen itself belongs to the highest order of its class — the placoid. Indeed, all the fishes found in this system are of a high organic structure. The old red sandstone above the Silurian rocks, contains numerous genera of placoids, and of the order next below — ganoids. Above the old red sandstone comes the carboniferous system ; and above this, the zechstein or magnesian limestone for- n.ation. Here reptiles appear for the first time — Palaeo- saurs, thecodonts, and monitors. But while reptiles com- pose the class of vertebrata next in order above fishes, the fossil bones of these three first-found species show them to have belonged to the order of lacertilians — the third from the top of Owen's nine orders of fossil reptiles. Ascending to the secondary class of rocks, we reach first the new red sandstone and saliferous marls. Here the gigantic 'frog or toad-like labyrinthodons occur ; and here, for the first time, are the traces of birds. Still, as far as their structure can be ascertained, they do not appear to have been of the lowest order. Next comes the oolitic or Jurassic system ; and here occurs the didelphys — the first known example of mammalian remains, though not so low in organic structure as some living mammals. The green sand and cretaceous 248 THE I'KE-ADAMITE EAK'ITI. systems follow. The latter exhibits great changes of or- ganic types ; for while some of the preceding families have become degenerate, and others extinct, new families are called into being; and here we have the first traces of animal species still living. Leaving the cretaceous, we enter the tertiary system; and here we find ourselves in a comparatively new world of organic remains. " Among the millions of organic forms, from corals up to mammals, of the London and Paris basins," we find hardly one species belonging to the secondary rocks. Here, in the first sub- division of the system — the eocene — we find numerous ex- tinct species of vertebral animals — fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals ; but the first and the last coexist. And, of the mammals, the carnivora are as old as the pachyderms; nor are monkeys wanting even in this opening page of the new chapter. And, then, as eocene implies that the sub- division exhibits the dawn of species still existing, the miocene subdivision above contains more of the species now living, though extinct species still predominate ; while in the pliocene, or upper division, extinct species decline, and species now living predominate.' From these remarks, it will be seen that geology afibrds no ground whatever for the hypothesis of a regular succes- sion of creatures, beginning Avith the simplest forms in the older strata, and ascending to the more complicated in the later formations. The earliest forms of life known to geology are not of the lowest grade of organization ; neither are the earliest forms of any of the classes which appear subsequently the simplest of their kind. The fanciful hypothesis which derives the higher animal from the lower — ' See Professor Sedgwick's Address to the Geol. Society, p. 2; and an admirable article in the Edin. Rev., July, 1845. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 249 and of wliich we shall speak hereafter — is here contradicted at every step. Neither have we any reason to believe that, of the species found in the older fossiliferous rocks, the individuals be- longing to each existed in smaller iiumbers than they did afterwards. Animal forms, too, appear there in as full development, as to size, as they do in the analogous forms of existing creatures. But the continuity which we do find is truly remarkable. As to the uninterrupted maintenance of life ; from the time of its first creation, there does not appear to have been any break in the vast chain, till we reach the existing order of things : " no one geological period, long or short, no one series of stratified rocks, is everywhere devoid of traces of life.'" As to the increase of species ; " although the older fossiliferous strata often contain vast quantities of organic remains, the number of species is much smaller than in more recent deposits." - Chiefly, as to the succes- sion of the vertebral classes ; notwithstanding the subor- dinate exceptions to regular progress we have noticed, the geological order in which we find them is that of an ascend- ing series — fishes, reptiles; birds, and mammals. And, as to the gradual conformity of the successive animal crea- tions to the existing types; "we find successive stages marked by varying forms of animal and vegetable life, and these generally differ more and more widely from existing species, as we go further downwards into the receptacles of the wreck of more ancient creations."^ ' Note by Mr. Phillips, in Professor Powell's Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 309. 2 Mr. Murchison's Silurian System, p. 583. 3 Dr. Buckland's B. Treatise, vol. i. p. 113. 250 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. o. The animal kingdom exhibits phi/sioiogical contimnty , Hero, again, we employ the term continuity, only in a general sense, and as opposed to any essential departure from the original plans of animal function or structure. From the lowest radiate, up to the most complicated and perfect animal structure, endowed witli digestive, intestinal, circulatory, respiratory, and nervous functions, a gradation may be traced of an easy, and, in some parts, almost im- perceptible ascent. The types which represent the great divisions of the animal kingdom, exhibit points of resem- blance; showing that they are all parts of one general plan. In the progress of discovery, species are often occur- ring which seem to fill places in the general classification which, were previously vacant. Thus the numerous pachy- dermata found by Cuvier among the earliest fossil mam- malia, enabled him to* supply many intermediate forms which do not occur in the species of that order now living ; the cetacea seem to occupy the interval between fishes and warm-blooded quadrupeds; and the ornitliorhynchus be- tAveen birds and mannnalia. It is not to be inferred from this representation, however, that the gradation of animal being is absolutely continuous and complete. Man, probably, will never succeed in re- covering fossil specimens of all the forms of past creations. But even if he did, and if to these were added any given number of new species, the existing plan of animal life would find room for them all. They would form a con- tinuation of the present system; not one of them would stand isolated. Thus interpreted, we have no objection to the doctrine of " the unity of organic composition." It Avas by a masterly application of it, in this sense, that Cuvier was able to supply from the fossil genera of former states of the earth, many of the links that appeared to be SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 251 wanting, in order to connect the past and present forms of animal life as parts of one great system. 4. In our examination of nature, tlien, we liave found, not only progression, but continuity — the only kind of con- tinuity which we were led to expect — that wliich discloses the Divine manifestation in the order of power, wisdom, and goodness ; and we have found this graduated connexion existing, not merely between the several stages of the advancing creation, but also, in various respects, between the multiplied parts of each stage separately considered. Activity. — Another of our laws is, that the animal struc- ture and functions are developed by regidated activity. 1. " All parts of the animal body," says Liebig, "are produced from the fluid circulating in its organism. A destruction of the animal body is constantly proceeding. Every motion, every manifestation of force, is the result of the transformation of the structure or of its substance. . . . At every moment, with every expiration, parts of the body are removed, and are emitted into the atmosphere." Every part of the frame of a vertebral animal, for instance, circulates more or less rapidly. Its food circulates quickly in the fluids, more slowly in the flesh, more slowly still in the bones; but its life requires that every part should be in motion. 2. Besides which, as animals rise in the scale of exist- ence, the systems of digestion, circulation, respiration, and sensation, bear a proportional increase ; which is only say- ing that organic activity and animal perfection correspond with each other. 3. Again, an organ being given, its development or degree of perfection is regarded as depending on the extent 2o2 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. and number of the uses to which it is applied. Thus the teetli, the special use of Avhich is to triturate the food, to which alone by sonic classes of animals tlicy are applied; are by the graminiverous class applied to the further office of pretension ; and in the carnivorous they become, in ad- dition, organs of attack. 4. Hence too, all those defective formations, formerly deemed mis-shapen or monstrous productions, or lusus naturcF, are now found to be occasioned, as in abnormal plants, by the irregular development — the activity in defect or excess — of some parts of the embryo, while the natural process was carried on regularly in the rest of the system. 5. And, in harmony with the locomotive power, and organization of the animal, the external world is adapted to call forth its activity. The senses, and the objects which excite them; the appetite, and the food which gratifies it; the passions, and the means of appeasing them, mutually operate to excite the activity of the animal. And on the constant exercise of its functions, in conformity with their nature, its well-being and enjoyment depend. 6. Every stage and part then of the progressive and all- connected scheme of creation is found to manifest all that it is calculated to exhibit of the Divine nature, by develop- ing or working out its own. Every being, every organ, element, and particle, is in constant activity. Much of this activity, indeed, is so subtle and rapid, as to defy our means of measurement and calculation; yet has' every atom an appointed place, and obeys a definite law. And much of this activity may appear to be objectless ; yet is everything acting its appropriate part, and answering a momentous end; for, here, everything is ever tending to realize the great end. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 253 VI. Development. — According to another law, tlte same pro- perties and characteristics which existed in the preceding stage are found to be, not only bi'oug'ht on to the present, hut to he in a more advanced condition; in the sense of being expressed in higher Jbrms, or applied to hi glier pur- poses. 1. We saw that while the plant, in obedience to the law of gravity, tends downwards, it rises npwards too. But the animal is able to resist this law so far as to maintain a variety of motions and attitudes at variance "with its ten- dency; or even to rise, like the eagle, many thousand feet into the air, in opposition to its own natural weight. j\lany plants will bear a very limited variety of temperature ; but many animals preserve an elevated and steady temperature, ■whether exposed to severe cold or to excessive heat; some will even bear exposure to the intensest cold of the Polar regions, without having their own temperature reduced even by a single degree. The plant receives its nourishment by a slow and nearly constant supply, and by being rooted in one spot : the animal is furnished with a receptacle into which it can receive at once a large supply of food; by which it is rendered independent of local situation; and enjoys the privilege of moving from place to place, and of selecting its food. The animal has all its organs of nutri- tion within itself; for, while the plant absorbs from the soil without, it is not until the food is deposited in the stomach of t^e animal, that the lacteals, or absorbing vessels, answering in their office to the roots of vegetables, imbibe nourishment. The sexual distinction of dioecious plants is, at most, little more than an obscure intimation of the same distinction developed in the animal kingdom ; where it is 254 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. made the basis of the strongest sympathies, relations, and affections. Tlie parent plant is constructed to provide the seed with that nutriment on which, when it fails to the earth, it may live during its germination, before the roots have sufficiently enlarged to absorb the moisture from the surrounding soil ; but from the moment in which it is shed, its separation from the plant is complete. While, in the animal kingdom, the moment of birth is, in the case of some tribes, the commencement of a series of parental cares; some species continuing to protect their young; others, both male and female, uniting to protect and to feed them; while the mammal protects &n(\.iQQdiSt\iQm.with food drawn from its own life, and even continues to associate with them and to be mutually dependent, to the close of life. The excitahility of the plant is, as we have seen, suc- ceeded in the animal by sensibility and contractility — that passive and that active element of animal life by which it is distinguished, not only from mechanical, chemical, and all other merely physical forces, but even from organic vital powers. For, in addition to the nerves of sensibility for conveying sensations to the sensorium, there are also nerves of motion for conveying the mandates of volition to the muscles. 2. These illustrations may remind the reader of the following admired passage in Coleridge's " Aids to Reflec- tion :"^ " Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of creation, leaves death behind it or under it. The Metal at its height of being seems a mute prophecy of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of which it crystalizes. The Blossom and Flower, the acme of vegetable life, divides into correspondent organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive motions and approximations seems impatient of that fixture by which it is differenced in kind from the ' Pj). Ill, 112, 1st cd. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 255 flower-shaped Psyche, that flutters with free wing above it. And wonderfully in the insect realm doth the irritability, the proper seat of instinct, while yet the nascent sensibility is subordinated thereto — most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular life in the insect, and the musculo-arterial in the bird, imitate, and typically rehearse the adaptive under- standing, yea, and the moral aflections and charities of man. Let us carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the myste- rious week, the teeming ^vork-days of the Creator ; as they rose in vision before the eye of the inspired historian of ' the generations of the heaven and the earth, in the days that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.' And who that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could contemplate the filial and loyal bee; the home-build- ing, wedded, and divorceless swallow; and above all, the manifoldly intelligent^ ant tribes, with their commonw^ealths and confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband- folk that fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of maternal love, detached, and in selfless purity, and not say to himself. Behold the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising from behind, in the kindling morn of creation ! Thus all lower natures find their highest good in semblances and seek- ings of that which is higher and better." This is the poetic but guarded language of a mind which more than "half- creates that which it sees." No one could be more fully aware than its author that, in thus subjectiving nature, and allowing his active but trained imagination to speak, he was only illustrating a moral truth ; or be less in danger of mistaking rhetoric for science. The gradation of a plant into an animal, or of an inferior animal into one of a higher class, by any process of natural and necessary development, is a hypothesis requiring far ' See Huber on Bees and ou Ants. 256 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. Other data. In preceding chapters it has been sliown that development, in such a sense, is entirely unknown to fossil geology ; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of this part it is made apparent that the hypothesis is at variance with the facts, both of geology and of animal physiology. 3. The facts wliicli we have adduced, however, are suffi- cient to illustrate the law of development in the limited, but important sense in which alone we hold it to be true. We have seen that pre-existing laws are not merely brought on into each succeeding department of creation, but are there expressed in higher forms, or promoted to higher ofiices. The scheme of the Divine Creator advances and ascends. His last and greatest display virtually includes, and provisionally completes, the exhibition of all that had preceded it. His wisdom is the perfection of His power ; His goodness, the provisional complement of both. vn. Relations. — Everif part is mutually and medially re- lated to the ivhole. 1. Numerous and complicated relations exist between the earth and every animal which inhabits it. The mag- nitude of the earth determines the strength of its bones, and the power of its nuiscles. The depth of the atmosphere determines the condition of its fluids, and the resistance of its blood-vessels. The common act of breathing, the trans- piration from the surface, must bear relation to the weight, moisture, and temperature of the medium which surrounds it. Tlie external form of every part of its body, and every organ of sense, relates to the properties of the objects around it. All its parts are created in accordance with the condition of the globe, and are systematic portions of a gi-eat whole. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 257 2. From this it may be expected, not only that an adaptation will be luiind between the animal and the par- ticular element of air, earth, or Avater, which it inhabits, but between it and the different states of the earth at different geological periods. Accordingly, the fossil remains of animals inform us, not only that certain races of animals, now extinct, existed at certain remote periods; they even reveal the prevailing condition of the earth during those periods, and the nature of the changes which it successively passed through. 3. May we not expect, then, if the relation be so close, that similar adaptations will be found existing between the animal and the region which it inhabits ? They exist in abundance. It is this fact which explains to us, for ex- ample, the periodical changes in the plumage of birds, and the furs of quadrupeds, the migrations of animals, and the theory of their geographical distribution. 4. Nice adjustments are observable in order to preserve the balance between the different races of animals existing at any one time on the earth. The produce of so minute a thing as a fly, if unchecked, would soon darken the air and render whole regions desolate. Had there been an error as to the grouping of the different races of any one period, there might have been a destruction of the whole. But, so nicely have all the varieties been balanced, that they have mutually conduced to the existence of the whole. Even the conflicting instincts of animals — as, of one to pursue and another to flee — are related parts of this whole. 5. A single living animal is the result of a system of relations. It is this fact which enables the comparative anatomist to infer from a single fossil bone, the division, class, order, and even species and habits of the being to which it belonged. E.v un^ue leoncm. To say that there s 258 THE PRE- AD AMITE EARTH. is 11 perfect relation established between the bones and the muscles, or that everything remarkable in the outward configuration of an animal is always attended with some corresponding change in the anatomy, would give but an imperfect view of its organic relations. " With each new (animal) instrument, visible externally, there are a thousand internal relations established; the introduction of a ncAV mechanical contrivance in the bones or joints, infers an alteration in every part of the skeleton; a corresponding arrangement of all the muscles ; that the nervous filaments, laid intermediate between the instrument and the centre of life and motion, have an appropriate texture and distribu- tion ; and, finally .... that new sources of activity must be created, in relation to the new organ, otherwise the part will hang a useless appendage."^ So perfect is this system of relations, that whatever part or function of the animal engages our attention, we feel inclined to conclude that the whole has been adjusted for that particular point. Though a thousand parts consent and conform to every single act, the nervous system, besides being the medium of sympathy among the organs, secures a consentaneousness of action among tlie parts, and establishes a unity of consciousness in the individual being. 6. But more remarkable than all, perhaps, and the type of mysteries beyond itself, is that sexual relation, by which one entire being becomes the complement of another, and sustains a medial relation to all the generations of the same kind, from the first of the race to the last that shall exist. 7. Thus we have seen that the whole universe, organic and inorganic, presents a system of instrumental relations. The last effect, of any particular kind, which the pre- adaraite creation exhibited, was variously connected with ' Sir C. Beirs B. Treatise, p. 180. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 259 the fii'st of the entire scries. The bare coming into existence of that first effect prockiimed a Cause; and the bare continu- ance of that effect, for a single moment, proclaimed a distant end; why else did it continue in existence even for that moment? Its continuance not only foretold an end, but announced that by means of all the intermediate effects which should instrumentally flow from it, it would be re- presentatively present in that end, however distant — thus connecting the origin with the end of all things. In a similar manner, each of the several kinds of effects in nature is found to be related to all the rest. The object of the Creator is ultimately one ; and they all stand in the relation of means to that one end. Vast as is the space they may have occupied from the beginning, and ever widening as it may have been through each successive moment since, the Divine plan circumscribes the Avhole. Nothing wanders at large and unrelated in all that immea- surable circumference. And nothing, once related, can ever break away, and reach a point beyond. Every atom is bound to the system as effectually as if it formed the centre of the whole. And the last and most finished speci- men of sentient life that lias come from the Creating hand, is variously related to that apparently insignificant atom. On no one point can we lay our finger and positively affirm, " Here ends one class of effects and begins another :" — this is the province of the Creator alone. The very par- titions of nature are denoted by disjunctive conjunctions. Eange where we will, we never find that we have passed into another sphere — a strange department of creation. There is, says Paley, " a certain character, or style, (if I may use the expression,) in the operations of Divine Wisdom; something which everywhere announces, amidst an infinite variety of detail, an inimitable unity and har- s 2 260 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. mony of design." How obvious tlie inference, then, that no one science can be properly arranged, which does not provide for its reLation to every other science. Philosophy, says Adam Smith, is the science of the connecting prin- ciples of nature. VIIL Order. — We may expect tliat laws will come into ope- ration on every subject ofthem^ according to their order in the system of creation. Were our knowledge of the phy- siology of the subject sufficiently accurate and minute, we doubt not that this principle would be found to hold good in every respect in which it could be legitimately applied; whether tested from the first moment of emhryonic life to the birth of the animal, or from the first moment of inde- pendent existence at birth to complete maturity. At pre- sent, however, physiologists differ respecting many of the phe- nomena concerned, so that we could not rely on them either for argument or illustration. Thus, the view, that animals occupying the highest place in the scheme of organization present, at the commencement of their embryonic existence, a marked resemblance to that which is the permanent con- dition of the lowest animals of the same division ; and that in the course of their progress to their own mature and dis- tinctive form, they assume in succession the characters of each class of the division to which they belong, correspond- ing to their consecutive order in the ascending scale, would seem to promise a strong corroboration of our principle. Kor would the serviceableness of this view be much dimi- nished, even if accompanied by the important admission, that at no period of embryonic development does an animal of a higher class resemble in all its parts an animal of a lower class ; for, at the same moment that one of its organs , cil; UllV. octlJl^ iiiv^.iiviii; l-i^CVl. v>x.^ v.. XV>^ V.Xj^. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 261 resembles the corresponding organ in a lower animal, another will be found to resemble a corresponding orgim in a much higher aninud. But we cannot accept a view which rests, as we shall presently show this does, on very insufficient and doubtful data. It is sufficient to find, however, that, generally, and as far as physiologists are agreed, our principle proves to be in harmony with fact. Does it imply, for example, that the de- velopment of the organic life would precede that of the animal life ? The pulsations of the heart, the centre of the organic life, give the first indications of vitality in the embryo, while the sensorial functions are the last Avhich attain per- fection. Would it lead us to expect that the nutritive organs would be found to precede the reproductive? " Tlie appa- ratus first perfected is that which is immediately necessary for the exercise of the vital functions, and which is there- fore required for the completionof all the other structures."^ Even the prior appearance of the spinal cord,- is no impeach- ment of our principle ; for as it presents itself before the embryo has any life, or organs of life of its own, it can only be regarded as an extension of the parental life f and to that life our principle does apply. • Roget's B. Treatise, vol. ii. p. 540. ^ According to Miiller, the first trace of tlie nervous system is not merely that of the spinal cord or of the ganglionic string, but is the potential whole of that system, of the brain and all its appendages. — Physiology, vol. i. p. 20. ^ Up to this point, the embryo cannot be spoken of as a separate existence. Even those organs which ultimately become single are said to be formed in halves; or to present, at first, a double appear- ance. They are dividual; they do not yet form an individual. It is not until the halves approach, infold, and unite, that an intimation is given of a distinct system. At first, too, the formation is said to {)ro- ceed from without inwards, showing the external dependence of the process; it is not until the order is reversed that an intimation is given of the approaching self-dependence of the animal. 262 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. And would it further lead us to expect tliat the nutritive process would correspond with the order of the same process in plants? From the mechanical operations to w'hich the food is, in the lirst place, subjected, and the chemical changes which it next undergoes in the stomach, through all the intermediate stages, to that of absorption, the order of the process is the same in each economy. IX. Influence. — It may be expected that everything will bring in it, and ivith it, in its oivn caiJahilifij of subserv- ing the end, a reason why all other things should he in- fluenced by it; and for the degree in which it, in its turn, should be influenced by everything else. 1 . In our preceding illustration of this law, we saw the living plant decomposing the carbonic acid of the atmo- sphere, appropriating the carbon to the formation of its own juices, and returning the disengaged oxygen into the atmo- sphere; itself, meanwhile, influenced by the amount of the element present and sul)ject to decomposition. We have now to remark that by this very process, the plant was not only rendering the atmospheric air more fitted than it was before for the support of animal life, and thus preparing for the support of a higher order of life while absorbing its own means of nourishment, but that it was preparing to become the food of that superior order of life. 2. Looking up the scale of creation, the highest order of being at any time existing is to be regarded as the relative end of all the orders below it.^ This is its prerogative by right of its comparative importance, or of that greater power ' Liebig shows the closeness of the connexion between vegetable and animal life, from the fact that " the first substance capable of affording nutriment to animals is the last product of the creative energy of vegetables." SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 263 which it possesses of answering the great end of creation. But as all inferior beings possess a measure of the same power, and therefore, of the same right, their subordination to the higher is never absolute. It is regulated by the de- gree in which they can conduce to the well-being of that higher order of existence. This is at once the extent and the limit of their subordination. Hence, one of the nobler species no sooner dies, than he loses his status in creation. The lowest forms of animal life become his superiors, and prey on him. And even the physical laws regain their ascendancy over him. So that in this sense, " a living dog is better tlian a dead lion." 3. The law now under consideration is recognised in all our natural classifications of objects. For it provides not only for the calculation of all the points of resemblance, for the subordination of characters, and for the arrangement of animals in natural groups, but also for the arrangement of these groups in an ascending series according to the degree of value or intensity in the leading phenomena of the animal economy. Indeed, the principle is recognised in that system • of Providence which, while it " feeds the young lions," notes I " the fallen sparrow," and " taketh care for oxen," is repre- \ sented as apportioning its regard according as its objects are ] of lesser or of " greater value ;" according, that is, to the ) measure of the capacity which an object has to receive and / exhibit the proofs of the Divine care, and so to answer the ( end of creation. X. Subordination. — Every law subordinate in ra7ik^ though it may have been prior in its origin^ may be ex- pected to be subject to each higher law of the manifestation. 1. Accordingly, we here find the productions of Wisdom 264 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. subordinate to the exercise of goodness; the vegetable sus- taining the animal creation. 2. But this subordination is continuous ; extending into tlie animal kingdom itself. Each class of animated being is, generally speaking, food for those immediately above it in the scale of existence. 3. The same principle of subordination obtains among animals of the sams species. For instance, if, as we have already seen, the perpetuation of the species be a later and a higher law than the preservation and enjoyment of the individual, we may anticipate that the earlier but inferior law will submit to it. Accordingly, numerous tribes, especially of insects, appear to live only to propagate their kind. And, among the mammalia, the parental instincts, while they last, subordinate every other. The " bear be- reaved of her whelps" is reckless of her own life. 4. Nor is the law of subordination less traceable in the organization and functions of the individual animal. In- deed, here it asserts itself in a new and remarkable manner. For, as we have seen, while the primary object of vegetable germs appears to be the preparation of the functions of nutrition, the primitive trace of the animal structure in its embryonic state, is that of a part to which all the functions of vitality are to be placed in subordination ; namely, the rudiments of the central organ of nervous power. The same early intimation of the ultimate supremacy of the organ of sight is given by the appearance of a rudimental eye, before any of the other organs of sense. — I say, the supremacy of the eye ; for, if the value of the senses is to be estimated according to the degree in which they enlarge the circle of our objective perceptions, the order in which they would rank would, probably, be this — touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 265 5. But though intimation is thus early given of the nervous system, and of the higher senses, the order in which they come into active use is in strict accordance with our preceding law. For, the parts first perfected are those which are immediately necessary for the exercise of the vital functions. The heart, the punctum saliens of organic life, begins its pulsations while yet it resembles a mere tube ; the sensorial system is perfected last. And, to the last and highest power of the animal — the power of volition — all the earlier functions of vitality are placed in subordination. To this, its organs of locomotion are sub- servient. And, when they are wearied, for this it reposes and sleeps, while the heart keeps vigil, and all the organic system continues at work; that, when it awakes, it may be able again to obey its volitions, gratify its desires, and re- sume its enjoyments. XL Umformitij . — This stage of creation is found to be per- vaded by the operation, and impressed with the regularity, of general laws. All these are doubtless contained in the Divine mind ; for they are only the rules of that agency by which all animated nature is sustained in activity. 1. The uniformity of such activity, or the presence of such laws, is implied in most of the views already advanced. How else, for example, could we speak of the animal scheme? What would prevent one class of beings from assuming the form of another, till the animal kingdom pre- sented a scene of inexplicable confusion, if each of them were not kept within the limits assigned to it? Especially is this reign of law discernible in the arrangements of animal sensation. The function of each nerve of sense is determinate, and can be performed by no other part of the 266 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. system. The optic nerve alone can give rise to the sensa- tion of light; "no part of the nervous system but the auditory nerve can convey tliat of sound; and so of the rest." While it is evident that the relations subsisting be- tween the nervous system and the external agents capable of affecting it, must be maintained by laws equally deter- minate. 2. Fossil geology shows that such relations have existed from the first appearance of animal life to the present day ; binding the whole together as the successive parts of one great system. Paley has well remarked, respecting the variations observable in living species of plants and animals, in different regions and under various climates, that " we never get amongst such original or totally different modes of existence, as to indicate that we are come into the pro- vince of a different Creator, or under the direction of a different Will."^ The philosophy of Diigald Stewart carries him a step further, when he acutely remarks, that the uniformity of animal instinct " presupposes a corresponding regularity in the physical laws of the universe, insomuch that, if the established order of the material world were to be essentially disturbed, (the instincts of the brutes remain- ing the same,) all their various tribes would inevitably perish."^ Geology immeasurably enlarges the range of this truth. " Any naturalist," sagaciously observes Mr. Lyell, " will be convinced, on slight reflection, of the justice of this remark. He Avill also admit that the same species have always retained the same instincts, and therefore that all the strata wherein any of their remains occur, must bave been formed when the phenomena of inanimate matter were the same as they are in the actual condition of the 1 Nat. Theol., p. 450. Chap, on the Unity of the Deity. 2 Phil of the Human Mind, vol ii. p. 230. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 267 earth. The same conchision must also be extended to the extinct animals with which the remains of these living species are associated ; and by these means we are enabled to establish the permanence of the existing physical laws throughout the whole period when the tertiary deposits were formed."^ 3. But while the uniformity contended for is essential, in order even that any reasoning respecting the past may be possible, it should be borne in mind that the same source which supplies the means of proving it, furnishes also abun- dant evidence of its interruption. Because no other physical laAvs than those wliich are now known to us have ever ex- isted, it by no means follows that these have, in no sense, known interruption. Every destructive earthquake, though itself the result of general laws, is, in so far as it is de- structive, a breach of that stability of nature for which the animal is made, and shows that such uniformity is not in- violable. While the successive a]5pearance of races of animals, entirely unknown to pre-existing nature, shows that it is an uniformity as compatible with the addition of new creations as with the destruction of old ones. XII. Obligation. — Animal life exists under an obligation to promote the end of creation, commensurate with its means and relations. Here, again, obligation can be affirmed of the animal kingdom only in the same figurative sense in which all the kingdoms of nature are said to be governed by laws. Tlie mind of the Lawgiver is the only conceiv- able seat of these laws; for they only and simply express His modes of operation. If, moreover, these created ex- istences have been originated for a purpose, the mind of ' Geology, p. 161. 1st Ed. 268 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. the Creator is the only conceivable seat of that purpose ; for animal natures are only, at most, instinctive and im- pulsive. The mere proximate ends, indeed, for which they blindly live — their own conservation and the propagation of their kind — may be regarded by the imagination as a foreshadowing of a being capable of consciously aiming at a higher end. But of such an end the animal itself knows nothing. Whatever obligation may exist, therefore, to employ the means necessary for the attainment of the end, and to create and sustain the animal kingdom as a part of those means, can be binding only on Him with whom the purpose of their creation has originated. The idea of this law is thus recognised and poetically ex- pressed by Hooker : " The world's first creation, and the preservation since of things created, what is it but only so far forth a manifestation by execution, what the eternal law of God is concerning things natural? And as it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, after a law is once published, it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto ; even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world : since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of His law upon it, heaven and earth have hearkened unto His voice, and their labour hath been to do His Avill. He ' made a law for the rain.' (Job, xxvii. 26.) He gave his 'decree unto the sea that the waters sliould not pass his connnandment ' (Jer. v. 22). Now, if Nature should intermit her course, and leave alto- gether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother-elements of the world whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 269 wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen ; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now, as a giant, doth run his unwearied course, should as it Avere, through a languishing fiiintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief; — what would become of man himself? whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world!'" XIII. Well-heing. — In accordance with another of our princi- ples — that everything icill he entitled to an amount of good, or enjoy a degree of well-being proportionate to the discharge of its obligations, or to the measure of its con- formity to the laws of its being ; we find that the well-being of the animal depends on its conformity to the laws of its own constitution. 1. The laws of its own being, physical, organic, and mental, are in conformity with each other, and with the laws of the external world ; and provided nothing occurs to disturb that harmony, its well-being is secure. If the germ from which it springs be perfect, and if its embryonic development be unimpeded, it Avill come into existence as a complete organization, sound in its whole constitution ; but, if either of these conditions be wanting, it will be feeble and sickly, or else a malformation. If, from the first moment of 1 JVorlis of Iloohcr, by Keble, vol. i. ^t. 2o7. 270 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. its separate existence, it is supplied properly, as to quan- tity and quality, with food, air, light, and every physical element requisite for its support, the result will be a healthy development of its organs and powers, a pleasing conscious- ness of existence, and an aptitude for the performance of its natural functions; but the result of non-compliance Avith these conditions, will be a stunted growth, imperfection, or an early death. If it duly exercises its organs according to the laws of its constitution, enjoyment Avill be experienced in the very act of exercise, and appropriate gratifications be acquired ; but the absence of such activity will result in the sluggishness and consequent derangement of the func- tions, together with the want of the appropriate gratifica- tions, and with a sense of uneasiness or of positive pain. " The whole life of animals," says Liebig, " consists of a conflict between chemical forces and the vital powers. In the normal state of the body of an adult, both stand in equilibrium. Every mechanical or chemical agency which disturbs the restoration of tliis equilibrium is a cause of dis- ease. Disease occurs when the resistance offered by the vital force is weaker than the acting cause of disturbance. Death is that condition in which chemical or mechanical powers gain the ascendancy, and all resistance on the part of the vital force ceases." 2. But this animal well-being does not depend, in a mere general and indefinite manner, on conformity with the laws of its constitution, but is exactly regulated in its kind and degree by the nature and relative importance of the laws obeyed. Some laws were intended to be subservient to others. If they are so subordinated, they both yield their own peculiar kind and degree of pleasure, and instru- mcntally enable the higher laws to minister their superior enjoyment. If the law of appetite be limited to its appro- SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 271 priate gratification, the pleasure of eating is enjoyed; and, besides this, the animal is prepared for all the higher pleasures arising from muscular activity and the exercise of the senses. But if they are not so subordinated, though the higher enjoyment is lost, they do not, therefore, necessarily and at once, cease to be productive of their own peculiar kind of pleasure. By feeding inordinately, the animal may render itself incapable of higher gratifications, of even avoiding the attacks to which it is exposed; and may thus hasten the end of its life, and therefore, of this solitary pleasure of eating; still, while its appetite continues, it con- tinues to enjoy the animal gratification which arises from eating. 3. Here, again, we are reminded of the ideal perfection to Avhich we have referred in the corresponding sections of the preceding parts. The chances, so to speak, that no two animals of the same species have ever stood in precisely the same relations to the standard of absolute animal perfection, are here multiplied by all the additional laws, and all their possible combinations, which characterise the animal as com- pared with the vegetable economy. For the same reason, the chances are equally increased that no one animal has ever reached that standard. In the case of even that one which may have most nearly approached it, if certain inci- dents had been added to the myriads which had actually combined in its history, it would have approached still nearer to perfection. Its resemblance to the ideal standard is in exact proportion to its conformity to the laws of its being. 4. And thus Ave have found that everything in the vege- table and animal world has an end of its own; and that all such proximate ends are so placed in a line Avith the ulti- mate end, that everything answers it most eflectually, by aiming at its own immediate end. The happiness of the 272 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTU. creature and the glory of the Creator are thus seen to har- monize and become one. XIV. Analogy. — Tlie rehition of every part of the animal kingdom to every other part, as well as to all that had been created previously, suggests another of our laws, that the whole is in analogy^ or is arranged on a plan. 1. Accordingly, it is found that, notwithstanding the almost interminable variety of animal forms with which the earth, the air, and the waters, teem, the whole are reducible to a very small number of types, or principal schemes of organization. Cuvier, as we have seen, limited these models to four — the radiata, the mollusca, the articulata, and the vertebrata. Take any of these divisions — say the vertebral — and it would almost seem as if, in its construc- tion, a definite type or standard had been kept in view; and to which, amidst endless modifications, all the species had been conformed. For, in many instances, where the greatest diversity might have been expected, this original type is departed from only just so much as is necessary for the purpose of adapting it to the destiny of the par- ticular species ; while, in other instances, where the greatest dissimilarity of size, and form, and habit, exists, the closest analogy to the type is still traceable. Thus, the longest necked cpiadruped at present known, and the shortest necked, have the same number of bones in the neck — the giraffe the same as the hog or the mole. And the bones which we recognise in the paddle of the turtle, are, by slight changes and gradations, adjusted so as to form the fin of the whale, the wing of the bird, and of the paw, the foot, and the hoof of the land mannnifers. 2. Instances of particular change are always accompanied l)y the corresponding readjustment of the entire structure. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 273 No limb, organ, or structure, is isolated. Every part con- forms to every other part. " We are inclined to say, whatever part occupies our attention for the time, that to this particular object tlie system has been framed." Hence it is that the physiologist acquainted with comparative anatomy can infer from the fossil fragments of a skeleton — a mutilated bone — the entire structure and the habits of the animal to which it belonged.' And were all the bones of any geological period to be laid at his feet, he would be able to build up all their frames, " bone coming to his bone;" to reduce each species to its class, and each indivi- dual to its place, as harmonious parts of an all-related system. 3. This unity of design is further illustrated by the fact that the same parts which are fully developed in some classes, exist in others only in what is termed " a rudi- mental" state. Thus, a row of small teeth are said to exist in the lower jaw of the young of the whale, before its birth ; but, as they do not rise above the gums, they are useless for mastication, and gradually disappear. " liudi- raental" organs of this kind may have special applications, of which we know nothing. In the instance named, for example, both the coming and going of the teeth may minister to the pleasure of the unborn animal; in which case, there would be the same reason for the process, as we are accustomed to assign for the existence of the animal at all. Our knowledge must not be made to limit the crea- tive designs. But even if such ]-udimental parts answer no other end, they indicate the relation of the species ; they point to a type, and are suggestive of the general plan. And as man could know little or nothing of the Divine Wisdom, apart from the classification of created objects, ^ Cuvier's Discourse, prefixed to liis Ossanots Fossiles, p. 47. T 274 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. here are some of the innumerable helps to the necessary arrangement. 4. This comprehensive plan of animal life, viewed co- existently, is still further illustrated by the recovery of the fossil remains of animals which have existed in successive states of the globe. They fill up the apparent blanks in the plan. Novel as many of these ancient forms are, they are never at variance with the order of the general system. Not one of them stands apart in isolation. The scheme is all-including; so that the strangest organization belongs to it, and finds an appropriate place in it. 5. Now it was only to have been expected that such in- dications of a great plan of animal existence would give rise to a number of hypotheses respecting both the mode of its production, and the principle of the classification of its members. Accordingly, by dint of overlooking some phe- nomena, of seeing others which existed only in the imagina- tion, of occasionally exalting particular instances into general principles, and of torturing doubtful circumstances till they seemed to utter • the language desired, various theories have been formed, and have flourished in succes- sion; each being considered, for the time, a most remark- able discovery of science. 6. As to the mode of production, Lamarck took occasion, from the obvious traces of a scheme of animal life, to ad- vocate, in his Phihsophie Zoologique the extravagant hypothesis of the transmutation of species; according to Avhich, there was no distinction of species originally; but each class has in the course of ages been derived from some other and different class, less perfect than itself, by a spontaneous effort at improvement. Now the only reply which is really due to this f\incy, falsely called philosophy, is the origination of some counter fancy, equally baseless, SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 275 but equally aspiring to tlie honours of philosophy. If, how- ever, the reply must needs partake of a grave character, it is obvious to remark, iirst, that while fossil geology ex- hibits abundant remains of distinct species, it presents no remains of any species in a state of transition into other species. Striking as the resemblance may be between any two species, still, what more can be said than that the difference is specific ? Short as the step may appear to be from the one to the other, it is an impassable chasm. And hence the same species is found, in many instances, to re- tain its essential characteristics through a long succession of strata, while, in some one of these very strata, new species come into view, not by a gradual change, but suddenly and completely ; leaving it to be inferred that all other species liave had the same independent origin. On this subject, let us listen to the weighty testimony of Agassiz in his Eeport on the Fossil Fishes of the Devonian System, or Old Eed Sandstone. " One of the first ob- servations to be made on the ichthyological fauna of the old red sandstone is, that it is wholly peculiar to this formation ; its numerous species diifer alike from those of the Silurian system, and from those of the carboniferous strata: the greater position of the genera, even of the Devonian system are restricted to the duration of this geological system. ... It is a truth Avhich I consider now as proved, that the '"ensemble^ of organized beings was re- newed not only in the interval of each of the great geo- logical divisions which we have agreed to i^vva formations ; but also at the time of the deposition of each particular member of all the formations. For examj)le, I think I can prove that in the oolitic formation, at least, within the limits of the Swiss Jura; the organic contents of the lias, those of the oolitic group properly so called, those of the T 2 276 THE PllE-ADAMITE EARTH. Oxfordian group, and those of the Portlandian group, as they occur in Switzerland, are as different from each other fis the fossils of the lias from those of the Keuper, or those of the Portlandian beds from those of the Neocomian formation. I also believe very little in the genetic descent of living species, from those of the various tertiary layers which have been regarded as identical, but which, in my opinion, are specifically distinct. I cannot admit the idea of the transformation of species from one formation to another. In advancing these general notions, I do not wish to offer them as inductions drawn from the study of any particular class of animals, (of fishes for instance,) and applied to other classes; but as the results of direct obser- vation of very considerable collections of fossils of different formations, and belonging to different classes of animals, in the investigation of which I have been specially engaged for many years, in order to assure myself whether the con- clusions which I had drawn from the tribe of fishes were applicable to this class only, or whether the same relation existed in the other remains of the animal kingdom."^ 7. The advocate for the progressive transmutation of a species may be fairly pressed with the inquiry, why the essential parts which characterize every individual member of that species, have not exhibited any corresponding development. The eye of the extinct Trilobite, for in- stance, one of the most ancient forms of animal life, but which has not been found in any strata more recent than the carboniferous series, exhibits an optical instrument as perfect as that of any crustacean now existing. Now surely if the condition of any crustaceous animal of the present day is the result of a long series of improving transmuta- tions from an inferior condition of preceding crustaceans, ' Twelfth Report of the Brit. Assoc, p. 85. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 277 we may analogically look for a corresponding improvement in all its parts ; and, of all its parts, especially in its cha- racteristic parts; and, of these, especially in so complex an organization as the eye. But the eye of the earliest crustacean is found to be as perfect as the eye of the last living Scrolls that was caught ; leaving us to infer that the eye of this class has not depended for its structure on any preceding and progressive improvements, but that " it was created at the very first, in the fulness of perfect adaptation to the uses"^ for which it was designed; and, further, that if such changes have not been necessary in order to account for the condition of the crustacean eye, neither have they been necessary to the present condition of that animal as a whole, nor productive of that condition. 8. The observations of mankind for thousands of years, have furnished no instance of a transmutation of species. Exploded statements to the contrary are sometimes revived, and vague phenomena are, for a time, confidently reported. But on investigation it will be found, that all the imaginary instances of such changes may rank under one or other of the following heads, — supposed spontaneous generation, which is a thing distinct from the translation of species, and which will be presently noticed ; or else a variation of the individual plant or animal, owing, not to a natural cause, but to artificial treatment to that efiect; or else, that large class of instances which belong to an imagination more active than trustworthy, and not unwilling to be be- guiled. But not one example of a transmutation of species^ we repeat, has ever been witnessed or proved. Now if it be said that this is a question of time, and that the evi- dence wanting to-day may come into existence a thousand ages hence, we have only to reply, that if we are to wait 1 Dr. Buckland's B. Treatise, p. 403. 278 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. • for the phenomena, we had rather wait also for the hypo- thesis which proposes to explain them. Meantime, we may record our wonder, that parties who, on other subjects, re- fuse to believe anything in the absence of facts, evidence, induction, should here so readily dispense with them all as superfluities. 9. The hypothesis proceeds on the assumption that the propensities of the animal have determined its organization ; that the structural peculiarities of a species have resulted from its prolonged efforts at something for which it was not originally adapted. Now, allowing this, it only remains for the theorist to explain what it is that determined the propensities of any given species. If, according to him, the organization, so far either from being one with the pro- pensity, or from giving direction to it, has had actually to be conformed to it, whence then this presupposed, organ- izing, creative propensity? 10. In direct opposition to the transmutation of species, all the great changes of animal conformation which come under our notice are prospective; taking place, not in con- sequence of a new condition, but in preparation for it. Thus, the larva of tlie winged insect can only walk ; but, if we take, it, and dissect it, just before its metamorphosis is completed, we find an apparatus in progress for flight through the air. The embryonic animal has a life adapted to its condition; but this life is subordinate to the formation of organs for a life after birth ; and for which, during the whole period of gestation, it is unconsciously preparing. 11. Distinct from the preceding, in particulars, but aim- ing at the same end, is tlie emhryotic hypothesis ; according to which it is affirmed that the organic germs of all animals are identical, and that the higher animals, while in the womb, pass through all the successive conditions which, in SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 279 the lower grades of animals, are permanent; that the quadruped, for example, is successively a fish, a reptile, and a bird, before it attains its permanent organic form. And the assumption which professes to account for these mutations is that of " an advance under favour of peculiar conditions,"^ by which, at some time, a fish produced a reptile ; a reptile, a bird ; and a bird, a beast. 12. Now here again, we might remark, that as no such an advance has ever come under human observation, we might surely wait for the hypothesis, until the phenomena Avhicli it undertakes to explain are forthcoming. But as presumptive evidence of such an " advance " is supposed to exist in the embryotic changes referred to, we must not omit to glance at the nature of these changes. And the first remark proper to the subject seems to be this; the strong antecedent probability there existed, that marked re- semblances Avould be observable between the yet undeveloped embryos of different classes of animals. Resemblance to some extent was inevitable, for they are all to exist in the same world ; and the points of analogy would be multiplied in proportion to the analogous modes of their existence after birth. But prior to their birth, and while yet their ultimate differences were only in process of formation, their apparent resemblances would be the greater, the farther back we can carry our observations — resemblances implying chiefly the imperfection of our tests. 13. It is obvious to remark also the strong likelihood there was that embryotic resemblances would be over- rated, and that mere likeness would be mistaken for identity. The tendency of the mind to generalize and con- clude on insufficient data, admits of abundant illustra- tion. It was only necessary for Marsigli to affirm certain ' Vestiges of Creation. 280 THE PKE-AD AMITE EAIITH. spontaneous movements in the round apertures on the surface of sponges, and Ellis persuaded himself that he saw the same and something more; and Pallas reported, without examination, the assertion of Ellis ; and, for more than half a century, it was received as an established fact in natural history. And in a similar manner, it was only necessary for certain physiologists to point out fissures im- properly called bronchial, in the foetus of the mammal, and two or three other suggestive phenomena; and forthwith others imagined that they saw the gills of the fish, the heart of the reptile, and the brain of a number of animids in succession, in the same foetal form; and others too readily gave currency to such reports as unquestionable facts. Now it ought to be sufficient to throw suspicion on the whole hypothesis when it is known, that these resem- blances only relate to some one organ or part of the foetus at a time ; that the likeness is seen only by dint of refusing to see the difference ; and that the difierence to be kept out of sight relates sometimes to the foetus, and sometimes to the object with which it is compared, — thus, the primitive streak of the embryo resembles the zoophyte in which nutrition is performed by imbibition, but no notice must be taken of the fact that this rudimentary streak extends into a membrane which becomes the vascular area; it re- sembles a worm, inasmuch as it is cylindrical and has no limbs for motion, but no notice must be taken of the fact, that the worm has rings and contractile bands, for its motions, while the embryo has neithei' ;^ and its brain may be thought to resemble the brain of difierent orders of animals, provided only that a sufficient variety be summoned for the comparison, and that from these a selection be made ' See Dr. W. Clark's Report on Animal Physiology in the Fourth Report of the Brit. Association, p. 114. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 281 at a "certain point" of fcetal development; taking care that such point he any stage of the development at which the resemblance may be thought to be most striking. " With what shadow of reason," asks Dr. Clark, in his ]\Iemoir on Fatal Development,^ can any school of ana- tomists pretend to say, that one order of animals can pass into another order, in the way of ordinary generation, seeing that the indispensable respiratory foetal organs are so different in each? The fallacy which allows for a moment such an absurdity to pass, is this — that, to serve their purpose, they describe their foetus by its central por- tions only, and not by its whole mass, including its organic appendages, which are essential to its continued life, and its matured structure." 14. It is to be remarked further, that nniny of those physiologists who have looked not unfavourably on these progressive foetal resemblances, have yet qualified their statements Avith such remarks as to make them perfectly useless to the advocate of the transmutation of species by ordinary generation. Thus Fletcher, in his Rudbnents of Physiology^ after speaking of it as " a fact of the highest interest and moment" that the brain of every class of animals appears to pass, during its development, in suc- cession, through the types of all those below it, adds, " it is hardly necessary to say, that all this is only an approxi- mation to the truth; since neither is the brain of all osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all tlie species of any one of the above order of mammals, by any means precisely the same, nor does the brain of the Jiuman foetus at any time precisely resemble, perhaps, that of any individual whatever among the lower animals." Even if • Read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society, (1845.) See also the second volume of the Poisso7is Fossiles of Agassiz. 282 THE PRE-ADAMITE EAHTII. the resemblance had been substantiated, it would not have proved the truth of the hypothesis in question; but here the inaccuracy of the resemblance itself is confessed. 15. Beyond this, the serial character of the supposed development fails in the most essential parts. The first set of germinal membranes laid down are those of the organs proper to animal life, the nervous system and organs of motion; but, according to the hypothesis, they ought to be some vegetable resemblances. Tlie first indication of the embryo is, as we have said, the priinitive trace ^ the rudiment of a back bone, and of a continuous spinal cord; whereas, according to the hypothesis, it should liave been something assimilating the embryo to the avertebral classes; but these three entire classes — radiata, mollusca, and articulata — are passed over without any corresponding foetal type. As to the organs of respiration ; at the very time when the lower vertebrates are quitting the ovum, and " when frogs and fishes are beginning to breathe by bron- chial tufts ?ini\. gills ^ other amphibia and birds are breathing by allantotd., and never for an instant breathe by gills ; hot- blooded quadrupeds are breathing by alluntoi'd iind placenta jointly; while man is hventhing hj placenta alone." As to the heart of the foetus of a mammal, " it does not pass through the form Avhich is permanent in the amphibia, but it does pass through a form not found permanent in any known creature. This grand correction of an old mistake we owe to the concurrent labours of Valentine, Rathke, and Bischoff*, who stand in the first rank of discoverers; and no good anatomist has pretended to contradict them. The hearts of birds and mammals do not, therefore, pass through forms which are permanent in fishes and reptiles." The development of the brain also is marked by corresponding differences; and the same is true of the individuality in SEiNTIENT EXISTENCE. 283 respect to sex.^ Indeed, it is only during the first beginnings of life, and while the organic structure is yet in its primary elements, that we are liable to be deceived by resemblances. But who would infer that because the far- distant mountain looked uniformly green, therefore only one kind of vegetable clothed it? And yet this would be only parallel to the inference that because there is a time when, owing to our imperfect means of discrimination, the liver and the lung are indistinguishable, therefore they are identical. As soon as ever organs begin to be distinguish- able, the distinctions are found to be specific. And, as far as we knoAv anything on the subject, these specific differences are constant and immutable. In the attempt, then, to advocate the transmutation of species by generation, we have phenomena adduced, the ex- istence of W'hich physiologists disprove; as the basis of a hypothesis whose object is to explain other phenomena which, it is admitted, no one ever saw. 16. But, as if the foregoing hypotheses were not sufficiently indefensible already, each of them has to presuppose another hypothesis, in order to account for the existence of the first species, the hypothesis of spontaneous generation or production. By which it is meant, according to Buffon and others, that plants and animalcules make tlieir appearance under circumstances where no germs could have existed, and that they are originated by a power inherent in certain material particles. 17. When it is remembered, however, that most of the instances which were formerly relied on in proof of the hypothesis, can now be explained on ordinary principles, the natural inference is that an increase of knowledge will enable us to explain the residuary phenomena on the same ' Dr. Clark's Memoir on " Fatal Development." 284 THE PRE-ADAMITE EAIITII. principles. As to tenacity of life, it is known of some yegetable seeds that they will germinate after they have been kept for many centuries, and that such minute organ- isms as flour-eels, and wheel-animalcules may not only be reduced to perfect dryness, so that all the functions of life shall be suspended for years, yet without the destruction of the vital principle, but that in " despite of drying in vacuo, along with chloride of calcium and sulphuric acid, for twenty-eight days, subjected to a heat of 248° F., some of them have been observed to recover." And as to the subtle manner in Avhich germs thus tenacious of life obtain access to the interior of living bodies, the probability is that they can enter wherever air can penetrate. The fact that minute infusory animalcules can be raised with the watery vapour, and floated for a season in the atmosphere, deserves, as Humboldt remarks in his Cosmos, to be well considered in connexion with this subject; especially, since " Ehrenberg has discovered in the kind of dust-rain fre- quently encountered in the neighbourhood of the Cape de Verd Islands, at a distance of 380 sea miles from the coast of Africa, the remains of eighteen species of sili- ceous-sKelled polygastric animalcules." And if entozoa — creatures living in the interior parts of other animals — have been found in embryos and in the eggs of birds; so also, says Tiedemann, have pins and small pieces of flint. 18. Is it not enough to cast suspicion on the hypo- thesis, that when experimental efforts to procure spontaneous production have resulted in the appearance of anything, it should have been ?i full-groiun forest of confervte, or an adult infusoria? These are certainly suggestive of pre- existing germs, and seem to presuppose them. But instead of the production of the more simple seed and egg, we have the complicated and developed individual itself. And SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 285 that which further assures us that the individual animal- cule has, in such instances, been derived from another in- dividual of the same species as itself, is that its body has been found to be full of eggs. 19. Indeed, the revelations of the microscope were hardly more fatal to the Brahminical doctrine, that animal life should never be destroyed for food, than they were, in skilful hands, to the hypothesis of equivocal generation. As no stomach had been previously rendered visible in the smallest species of Infusoria, such as monads, Lamarck and others hastily regarded them as consisting of a mere homogeneous substance, having neither mouth nor digestive, cavity, and as nourished simply by means of absorption through the external surface of the body. And here, it was conjectured, we saw an illustration of the natural development of a particle to a mammal, at that point of the process where the organism stands between the vegetable and animal worlds. But Ehrenberg, by supplying these miscroscopic species with organic colouring matter as nutriment, has demonstrated that their bodies are highly organized, " provided in all cases with at least a mouth and digestive system." Accordingly his arrangement of In- fusoria is " based on the structure of the digestive system, which gives rise to the two natural classes of Polygastrica and Rotafon'a.^'^ Besides a digestive apparatus, Ehrenberg has discovered in tliem a generative, and often a muscular system. Both in structure and in functions, tlicrefore, they are placed comparatively on a level with the larger animals. The blank which they were supposed to fill in the process of transmutation is left vacant. The only legitimate con- clusion is, that the smallest of them is derived from an 1 Jenyns's Report on Zoology, British Association, 1834, p. 244. 286 THE PKE-ADAMITE EARTH. antecedent cause, as natural and uniform as that of any other class of animated being. 20. And this conclusion harmonises with the evidence of geology. Had spontaneous production, and the trans- mutation of species, been among the processes of, nature, we might have expected to meet with abundant indications in the bosom of tlie earth. ^ The subterranean fossil museum might have been expected to be crowded with monstrous malformations. The fact is, however, that amidst all the vast accumulations of animal remains, not a single abnormal specimen has yet been found. Every or- ganic partis finished; every animal complete, — the first of his race as complete as its offspring of the present day; every species articulating with every other species, and falling into the place appointed for it in a perfect all com- prehending plan. Accordingly, the verdict returned by all the enlightened geologists of the day — some of them by no means unduly biassed in favour of the view, is " that species have a real existence, and that each was endowed at the time of its creation with the attributes and organs by which it is now distinguished.""^ The following, there- ' " There are some," says Cuvier, in his Discours Preliminaire to the Ossemens Fossiles, " qui pensent qu'avec des siecles et des habi- tudes toutes les especes pourraient se changer les unes dans les autres, ou resulter d'une seule d'entre elles." But he naturally inquires, " Pourquoi les entrailles de la terre n'ont-elles point conserve les mo- numens d'une genealogie si curieuse ?" 2 Such is the conclusion at which Mr. Lyell arrives, after occupying the first four chapters of the second volume of his " Principles of Geology," in a masterly examination of the arguments which have been advanced in favour of transmutu.tion. See also De la Beche's " Geological Researches," p. 239. In the same view, Coneybeare and Buckland, Philips and Sedgwick, concur; and to these might be added the names of a number of eminent physiologists. Les especes perdues ne sont pas des varieles des especes vivantes, is Cuvier's first propo- SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 287 fore, are to be regarded as among the first principles of physiology ; that even those species which most nearly re- semble each other, exhibit characteristic differences; and that these characteristic differences are constant. So that however short the interval between any two steps in an animal series may appear to be, it is still in reality an abrupt transition. 21. Classification. — We have remarked also that the indications which are traceable that animal life is formed according to a plan, were likely to give rise to a number of hypotheses respecting the principle of the classification of the animal kingdom. Accordingly, some have fancied that if all the species could be collected and arranged, they would be found to form a cone or pyramid. Oken, and a German school of zoologists, contend that the animal kingdom is analogous to the anatomy of man — each class specially re- presenting a division of the human organs, such as the articulate representing the viscera, and the vertebrata the motive organs. Kaup, and another school, extend the fancy to the representation of the " five senses." Mac Leay pro- sition. " Does the hypothesis of the transmutation of species afford any exphmation of these surprising phenomena ?" asks Professor Owen, referring to the facts resuhing from his anatomical examination of fossil animals : " Do the speculations of Maillet, Lamarck, and Geoffroy derive any support from this department of Palasontology?" and he shows that comparative anatomy returns a decided negative. While Agassiz, at the end of his great work, Poissons Fossiles, after rejecting the scheme of natural development, affirms, " It is necessary that we recur to a cause more exalted, and recognise influences more powerful, exercising over all nature an action more direct, if we would not move eternally in a vicious circle. For myself, I have the con- viction that species have heen created successively at distinct intervals, and that the changes which they have undergone during a geological epoch ax-e very secondary, relating only to their fecundity, and to mi- grations dependent on epochal influences." 288 THE PRE-ADAMITE EAETIL pounded the theory, which Swainson and others have sub- sequently endeavoured to develop, that all natural groups, of whatever denomination, form circles; and that each of these circular groups is resolvable into exactly five others. 22. Now the error which appeared in the transmutation hypothesis, is here repeated in another form. There, be- cause there is evidence that relations of animal resemblance universally exist, the method by which such resemblance is produced is unphilosophically inferred without evidence. Here, because such relations render the animal kingdom susceptible of some arrangement, it is inferred that the arrangement must be one of determinate numbers, or of geometrical forms. Such a hypothesis, however, has no warrant either in reason or in observation. It assumes a regularity, if not even an actual organization, in that which is only a mere abstraction, the system of nature. It loses sight of the natural irregularities of the inorganic world in all geological periods ; for unless the strata of the earth had been formed as regularly as the concentric coatings of an onion, the relations of their organized inhabitants could hardly be expected to be such as to presuppose the square compartments of a museum. Indeed, as long as organic nature is influenced by inorganic, certain gaps in the former cannot fail to exist. To suppose the contrary would be to infer that in many cases whole tribes of animals have been made, not with a view "to perform certain functions in the external world, but merely in order to complete the circularity of a group, to fill a gap in a numerical arrange- ment, or to represent (in otiier words, imitate) some other group in a distant part of the system.'" But the Divine ' Strickland's Report on Ornithology before the British Association, 1844, p. 177. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 289 Creator lias higher cuds in view; nor can his mode of operation be thus prescribed, nor its results be predicted. 23. The true system of classification in the animal king- dom, as in the preceding kingdoms, may be supposed to be that which determines the affinities of animals according to the order and to the relative value of their distinctive characters. Thus, regarding the earliest as the lowest in value, we ascend to the organs of nutrition, each organ risiu"" in value as the order advances; then to the ors^ans of reproduction in succession, as of still greater value: and then to those of sensation and volition as of the highest value, including, of course, the development of the in- stinctive aiFections. So that the relationship is to be re- carded as nearest, when the resemblance lies between those characteristics which are of the highest value. 24. According to this method, 1. the classification pre- supposes, in order to be perfect, a knowledge of all the physiological properties of animals ; of the order in which the mechanical, chemical, and symmetrical laws come into operation in their constitution; and the order in which the nutritive and reproductive organs are developed. 2. The classification is made from a calculation of all the points of resemblance ; none being arbitrarily rejected as unimportant. 3. It requires that each group shall be formed of such in- dividuals only as resemble each other more than they re- semble anything else, or, as have the greatest number of important properties in common. 4. It combines the principle of the subordination of characters — as of the animal functions to the vegetative, with the coincidence of the two ; for it proceeds on the principle that each system is all-related, so that the one graduates with the other. 5. It provides not only for the arrangement of animals in natural groups, but also for the arrangement of these groups U 290 THE PRE- AD AMITE EARTH. in an ascending series according to the scale of animal per- fection ; for it recognises degrees of value or intensity in the main phenomena of the animal economy. G. And, as we intimated when treating of vegetable classification our method has become more obvious and certain in the present department, owing to the new points of comparison and the new means of verification consequent on the additional characters of motion, sensation and volition. And it furnishes the important test which arises from successiveness, or the order in which distinctive characters are developed. XV. Contingent. — Innumerable illustrations exist to show that the arrangements of animal life are contingent on the Divine appointme7}t. 1. In calling attention to the complex adjustments be- tween the animal constitution and pre-existing nature, we may be reminded that such adaptations were made indis- pensable by the previous conditions of the system into which the new constitution came. But we have seen that these conditions themselves exhibit no original and inherent material necessity, but were primarily dependent on the Divine volition. Whether, therefore, we regard pre-existing nature as designed in anticipation of the animal constitu- tion, or the latter as simply adapted to the former, we have a new complication of the proof of a designing will. Even if animal life could be shown to be a necessary development of previously existing elements, still, as no one who admits that the properties and laws of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms were derived from God, would deny that He fore- saw all such developments, they must be held to be a new illustration of the Divine intention. No one can imagine, for example, that the air produced the ear, any more than SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 291 he can that the ear produced the air; or that the two, with their complicated and refined adaptations, exist together hy accident. The light could not have produced the exquisite organization of the eye, any more than the eye, as an in- dependent organization, could have anticipated the myste- rious laws of light. 2. But while the idea of a necessary development of animal life is a mere assumption, the fact of the Divine origination of matter at first, is strongly in favour of the inference of the Divine origination of every new purpose to which it is subsequently applied. In harmony with this view, we find that the fossil Fauna exhibits no indication of a regular development of species from the most simple up to the most complex. Of the four divisions of the animal kingdom, indeed, the principal, or vertebral, ap- pears last ; and, of this division, the four classes appear in the order of natural importance. But among the species of these classes, no such order is observable. For example, of the four orders of fishes, the oldest known fossil specimen belongs, as we have seen, to the highest order, and occurs in the upper Silurian rocks : while the two lowest orders do not make their appearance till we reach the cretaceous system. We might notice also the manner in which whole families appear, increase, flourish for a time, then decline, and finally disappear. In the tertiary series, too, we come suddenly on an almost entire change of species ; and yet so complete was the plan or outline of animal life, even at that early period, that it requires no reconstruction, or essential enlargement, for the Fauna of the present d:iy. 3. The directness of the Divine volition is to be inferred also from the ground there is to believe that animal life is more or less independent of mere external and pre-existing influences. That it presupposes the laws of the mineral u 2 292 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. and vegetable kingdoms, and is vitally related to them, we have seen. Animals involve, in their construction, certain functional references to the length of the day, and to the seasons of the year. The weight of the earth, the density of the air, the dimensions of the solar system, have been taken into account in the plan of their constitution. But, besides this system of refined adjustments between things so widely diverse, there are numerous indications that the animal plan involves other and higher arrangements. There is, for instance, a particular period of the year in which the reproductive system of animals exercises its energies. And the complicated operations of this system " are so ar- ranged that the young ones are produced at the time wherein the conditions of temperature are most suited to the com- mencement of life." Now, that the young should appear just at the season Avhen their food appears, is itself a striking instance of adaptation; but that the time for the commencement of the reproductive process should have been fixed with a view to this coincidence ; that this com- mencement for the food having been fixed, say, at two months before, the commencement for the feeder should have been fixed at seven months before that, in order that both might fall due at the same time, this must be regarded as preternatural. The striking contrast between the embry- onic development of plants and animals is also deserving of attention; for, while "the primary object of vegetable structures appears to be the establishment of the functions of nutrition," the first indication of organic develop- ment in the animal embryo is a trace of the nervous system, a rudiment of an organ destined to subserve a higher order of life, and to subordinate the mere vegetable or organic life to its use. The definite and arbitrary manner in which peculiar organic distinctions and instincts SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 293 are given and confined to certain animals, is further illus- trative of the contingency of the system on the Supreme will.' Surely no one can imagine that there was an in- herent organic necessity why all animals which chew the cud should also cleave the hoof; or, any physical necessity why the cell of the bee should be hexagonal, and the bee be the only insect that builds a cell of such a form. Then, again, the very remarkable manner in which different nerves are endowed not with sensibility in general, but each with a different kind of sensibility, demonstrates that this property does not inhere in them necessarily. The nerve of touch is insensible to light; the eye may be fingered without pain, for the optic nerve is sensitive only to light. Each part of the nervous system is an arbitrary and special provision for a definite purpose. Indeed, so Ions: as it is evident that the material substance is not the principle of organic life, any more than the living principle is the material substance; and so long as it appears that no one organ is universal in the animal kingdom, or essential to the phenomena of animal life, so long must we recognise in the arrangements of this kingdom the operation of the Supreme will. And the fact also that animals can be trained to changes of food, and climate, and to the ac- quisition of new habits, evinces that, within certain limits, they possess a constitution independent of everything but the creative appointment. 4. And the same direct dependence of animal life 1 That the power which determines these distinctions is not de- pendent on external physical influences, " is ascertained from the facts, that ova belonging to species the most different are all developed, according to their kinds, under similar external conditions; and tliat ova of the same species are true to their kinds, under conditions which are not absolutely the same for any two individuals." — Dr. "W. Clarke's Report on Aiiimal Physiology, Brit. Assoc. 1834. 294 THE ITvE-ADAMITE EARTH. appears from the want of coincidence observable between the conditions of animal existence and the succession of these existences. It can hardly be necessary to repeat our settled conviction that the appearance of animal life has been made to depend on certain physical and organic con- ditions. But it may be important to restate, that it is by no means a consequence of this arrangement, that the existence of these conditions shall be invariably followed by the existence of the life. According to the theory of natural development, indeed, this connexion is invariable, inevitable ; for these natural conditions are supposed to be causes, and the only causes necessary to the production of life ; so that if the new creation did not follow the new con- dition, the law of natural development would prove a fiction. Yet such apparent irregularities abound. For ex- ample, "as to the corals of the Silurian system, the Wen- lock species certainly did not make their appearance in the calcareous beds of the Caradoc series, where similar condi- tions prevailed." Again, certain families, the Nautilus, Echinus, and Terebratnla, have pervaded strata of every age; why did the physical conditions of the secondary series fail to re-produce the Trilobites, as tliey did the Nau- tilus, both of which had existed together in the preceding series? Or what was there in the fishes — say the two orders of Cycloids and Ctenoids, which make their appear- ance for the first time in the cretaceous system, less suited to the temperature, and other conditions, of the preceding series, than in the Cestraciont family of that series to the conditions of the second and the third, throughout which they have continued to exist together even to the present day? Evidently, the physical conditions of life are essentially distinct from its causes, and could never have been un philosophically confounded with them, but in order SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 295 to serve a hypothesis. Add to which, the facts which fossil geology supplies, if they are to be admitted as evi- dence at all, are directly opposed to the theory of develop- ment. For while, as we have shown, the order in which the great vertebral classes come into view, harmonizes Avith tlie law of creative progression, the succession in which the orders of tlicse classes make their appearance is, on the wliole, in the reverse direction. Now if the succes- sion of tlie classes favours the tlieory of natural develop- ment, what is to be inferred from the succession of the orders ? It will not do to accept the one as evidence, and to put the other out of court. And then it is to be observed that, while the apparently different direction taken by these classes and orders may be perfectly compatible with the operation of Divine appointment, and even intention- ally illustrative of it, a single deviation from the supposed straight line of natural development, is entirely subversive of the theory. 5. From such evidence, the only conclusion at Avhich we can arrive is, that in the animal kingdom, as well as in the mineral and vegetable worlds, the originating cause is the Divine volition. And if so, tlic time of its commencement, the varieties which it should include, the order of their ap- pearance, their instincts and habits, and the geological and geographical distribution of the entire plan, are dependent on the Sovereign will. XVT. Ultimata. — If animal life be thus dependent on the Divine volition, we must expect to find that it will reveal the existence of ultimate truths. In the last stage, we found the mystery of organic life. In the present, we find the great mystery of sensation, the medium of enjoyment, added to the mystery of life. What is the principle of a 296 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. sense ? How is it that impressions on the nerves can speak to the animal of an external world ? How is it that, by the aid of its nervous system, it can become acquainted apparently not only with impressions, but with things; with the forms, and qualities, and actions of objects ? And what is the underived cause of all the phenomena which we denominate instinct, affection, passion, and animal volition? 1 . There are those who have set about the vain task of resolving all the phenomena of sensation into the operation of physical agents; but one of the first discoveries they have made is that they must be allowed to indulge in the slight inconsistency of supposing a principle not physical, in order to begin even to work out their theory. For a time, the vital principle was the popular hypothesis; but this was a principle which, as it did not belong to the domain of physics, was the very phenomenon which required ex- planation. Bichat preferred animal sensibility and con- tractility; and these words are as descriptive, perhaps, of what we believe to take place, as any that can be employed ; but still they leave us to seek for the cause of the phe- nomena. And, says Lamarck, one of the most extravagant speculators on the subject, " I was soon convinced that the internal sentimeiit constituted a power which it was necessary to take into account." And, hence, Lawrence, in his lectures on physiology, while affirming that the same kind of reasoning which shows digestion to be the function of the alimentary canal, proves that sensation is the animal function of its appropriate organ, adds, "if we go beyond this, and come to inquire the manner how, the mechanism by which, these things are eifected, we shall find everything around us equally mysterious, equally incompre- hensible." 2. Further, "it is useful to remark, that the ultimate SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 297 laws of nature cannot possibly be less numerous, than the distinguishable sensations or other feelings of our nature, — those I mean which are distinguishable from one another in quality, and not merely in quantity or degree."^ In rela- tion to the phenomenon of colour, for example, no evidence that some chemical or mechanical action invariably pre- ceded the phenomenon, would "explain how or why a motion, or a chemical action, should produce a sensation of colour." And the same is true of every class of sensations. Point out as many intervening phenomena as we may, we sooner or later come to a point where a principle is to be presupposed. In every attempt at explanation, we have to introduce the idea of some antecedent or other which produces the sensation. In other words, the sensitive pro- cess is not caused by sensation, but by some power which exists independently of the animal in which its effects are developed. Here, again, animal life, like organic life, is to be viewed in relation either to space or to time. Eegarded in its relation to space, the question arises, how came it really and objectively to be? We may trace the phenomena which it exhibits, from the adult animal to the embryo;^ or from the animal of to-day through fossiliferous strata of every age, and tlu'ough varying generic forms, back to the first form of its existence, but at no stage can we find that it contains anything to account for its origination. And could we have investigated the first animal form that breathed, 1 Mills' Logic, ii. § 2. 2 In his work on Physiology, Tiedemann remarks, " When it is said that organic movements are occasioned by external influences, we do not admit that they are the immediate effects of the external mechanical or chemical impressions; but Ave assert that they are the effects of powers which the external impression, be it mechanical or be it chemical, has thus solicited to act." 298 THE niE-ADAMITE EARTH. we must liave felt instinctively, that the reasons of its sensa- tional existence at all and of that existence being what it was, were grounded alike in the will of God. And then, as to its relation to time ; if the first moment of animal sensation revealed a benevolent Creator, the second moment revealed a benevolent or ever acting Providence, for that sensation continued. To suppose that because we see nothing more than the organic processes, therefore there is nothing more, is to confound the means of sensational mani- festation with the thing manifested. Laws are not causes. Nor do the regularity of the laws denote the absence of the Law-giver. Rather, they demonstrate His presence. Nor does the continuance of the organic processes render them less dependent than they were at first — as if they could ac- quire self-sufficiency by the lapse of time. They are now what they were when they were called into existence; the mere means of the manifestation of an independent and an- terior power. 4. And thus we have found that everything traceable to an ultimate fact, involves a mystery which points us silently but emphatically to Him whose Nature it is calculated to illustrate. That one class of physical phenomena, — for example, the inorganic — is associated with motion only ; that another class — the organic — is associated with motion and life ; and that another class of organized phenomena is associated with motion, life, and sensation, is, substantially, all that we can learn. Why motion and matter, life and matter, or sensation and matter, should thus be found in union, can be explained by no physical law whatever. Here all the sciences are equally and utterly at fault. They cannot show that the union is necessary ; but only that, as far as observation goes, the conjunction is uniform. They cannot imitate, but only proclaim it. Our theory affirms SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 299 that the sufficient reason why activity, life, and enjoyment exist in creation, is that the same properties exist in an in- finitely higher respect in the Divine Creator; that one reason, at least, why He uniformly associates each with a certain class of phenomena, is that, as the. nltimate end of each is the manifestation of Ilis Nature, such uniformity is essential in order to our attainment of that end ; and that the mystery investing the union of eacli with a certain class of phenomena, is just that which necessarily attends the arbitrary conjunction of things essentially different — of Creative mind with created matter. The mystery would not, could not he diminished, were activity, life, and sensa- tion to be associated with any other class of material pheno- mena. And- this very fact, by proclaiming the dependence of motion, life, and enjoyment on the Will of the Creator, promotes the ultimate end of creation by disclosing the power and Avisdom, -the goodness and boundless resources of His exalted Nature. xvn. Necessary truth. — The law of ultimate facts conducts us to the law of necessary truth. 1. We have seen matter take possession of space, and life take possession of matter ; now, we find sensibility added to life. And whether we look at the addition as an object or an event, in its relation to space or to time, we cannot but feel that the idea of, at least, a conscious Creator is indispen- sable. The sentient object contains nothing in itself to ac- count for anything more tlian the manifestation of its pecu- liar endowments; the endowments themselves authorita- tively refer us to an independent cause ; for to conceive of their absolute self-origination is impossible. Or if, tracing back the existence of animal life histori- 300 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. cally, we conceive of the first of its kind, Ave are compelled to presuppose an adequate cause of that life. Nor can we then conceive of that Conscious cause as not existing. We cannot but conceive of Ilim as existing prior to all objective revelation, and independently of it. In the ol)jective world we behold the manifestation of an attribute, which could not but have existed subjectively from eternity. This new stage of creation brings to light another of the necessary perfections of the Creator. XVIII. Change. — Once more we are brought to that point in our subject which leads us to speak of the law of change. 1. And, again, we have to remark that, in addition to the reason for expecting such a change derivable from the fact that it is involved in the very nature of a progressive system, the introduction of animal life brings with it an entirely new ground for anticipating yet another stage. But the question with which we have now especially to do, relates to the reason that made the time of the great change which brought in the human dispensation, the right time. For even those who, as we think, erroneously adopt the hypothesis of development by natural law, must admit that the Lawgiver would prospectively regulate the development of the law, for the same reason that the law itself was appointed. 2. Admitting, then, that the successive changes of crea- tion have not hitherto taken place either accidentally or capriciously, we have to advert to the reason of the next change which ended the mere animal economy. Now the event has declared that the new stage was to be dis- tinguished by the creation of man. The advocates of development by natural law would infer, therefore, that as SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 301 soon as ever certain natural conditions were present, man would emerge into being by an inevitable necessity; that the only reason for his appearance would be the concur- rence of certain favourable organic conditions, independently of any Divine interposition. Now, while we freely admit that the time of man's creation presupposes the existence of innumerable conditions, organic and inorganic, and shall hereafter have to direct our admiring attention to the in- conceivable complication of these conditions, we must protest more earnestly than ever against the attempt to confound created conditions with the Creating cause. For auglit that geology can show to the contrary, man might have appeared at a much earlier period than he did, had it so pleased his Creator. The origin of many of the warm-blooded species around him dates from an earlier period; and who shall say that the mere natural conditions which their appearance presupposes were not adequate for the time of his appear- ance, if the Deity had so pleased ? Were we confidently to affirm their adequacy, we should not be so unphilosophical as they are who argue that because an event cannot take place without certain conditions, therefore it must uniformly and inevitably take place with them. 3. While it is admitted, then, that, in harmony with the law of progression, the creation of man could not be ex- pected to take place prior to the existence of certain natural conditions, whether or not it might then be expected, would, we believe, depend on what we have called the law of the end ; or, rather, on the coincidence of the two laws. We have to ask, then, whether the ultimate end of the present stage of creation had, in any sense, been adequately attained? Does the long succession of animal worlds, including the present, exhibit all the illustrations of all sufficient Bene- volence, wliich, under the circumstances, miglit have been 302 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. expected? Now if we can be content witli answering this question inferentially and approximately — the only kind of answer which, in the present instance, our mental constitu- tion and our data render possible — we can only return one reply, and that in the afErmative. If it should appear, for example, not only that the animal economy is minutely adapted for enjoyment, but that the complicated arrange- ments of the inorganic and vegetable worlds were prospec- tively constructed with a view to that enjoyment; so that where before we saw only design we now see goodness also ; if it should appear, further, that animal life has been suc- cessively modified, so as to be kept in harmony with the altered character of the other kingdoms of nature; that this succession of changes has been, on the Avhole, a succes- sion of enlargements, so that both the domains of animal life, and the degree of animal enjoyment, have ever been on the increase; and that every element, region, and situation, where life can exist, is crowded Avith animated beings, as if Goodness rejoiced to find, in the endless diversity of the physical conditions, scope for its own endless resources to meet them, and to convert them into new stores of enjoy- ment; what more can be necessary to evince the all-suffi- ciency of Creative benevolence ? 4. Now that all these conditions are realized, and realized in a manner the variety and degree of which is inconceiv- able, is beyond all question. Animal physiology shows, as we have seen, that the ways in which the inorganic and vegetable creations were preconfigured to the requirements of animal life, are literally innumerable. Complicated though the laws, even of the first of these, were, to a degree which science probably will never be able fully to explain ; the addition of the second complicated them still further; and, though the complication was again repeated in the SENTIENT EXISTENCE. dUd addition of the animal economy, yet every one of them all then became, for the first time, a channel of pleasure. As if every element and law of the material universe had been selected, weighed, measured, and commingled, to form a vast apparatus for animal well-being alone, the Avhole com- bined to welcome the new-made sentient creation, and to bathe it in enjoyment. And " the world, once inhabited, has apparently never, for any ascertainable period, been totally despoiled of its living wonders. But there have been many changes in the individual forms ; great altera- tions in the generic assemblages ; entire revolutions in the relative number and development of the several classes. Thus the systems of life have been valued., from time to time, to suH the altered condition of the planet, but never extinguished."^ As we ascend from the first few species of the Snowdon slates, to the hundreds of species in the Silu- rian formations, and number almost by thousands in the oolite, and by thousands on thousands as we pass througli the tertiary, till we emerge amidst the hundreds of thou- sands of now existing species, we are struck not merely "with additions but with changes. Species, genera, whole groups of animals, come in, and die out; to be replaced and followed by others in turn. Four times, at least, do these changes take place in the course of the tertiary era; and to an extent which leaves hardly a species of the first period extant among the species now living. Of testaceous creatures, for example, the conchologist finds about seven thousand living species. But of these he finds not one among the four thousand fossil kinds, by the time he has descended to the chalk formation. General analogies of structure and adaptation remain, but the species are all ' Supplementary Note to Prof. Powell's Connexion, &c. ; by Jolm Phillips, Esq., p. 309. 304 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. changed.' Of fislies, the carboniferous, oolitic, and chalk formations, present respectively an entire change of genera. Agassiz, who enumerates seventeen hundred species of fossil fishes, and about eight thousand living species, states that, with the solitary exception of a species found in the nodules of claystone, on the coast of Greenland, and which is pro- bably a modern concretion, he has " found no animal in all the transition, secondary, and tertiary strata, which is specifically identical with any fish now living."' Indeed, not a single species of fossil fishes has yet been found that is common to any two great geological formations.^ 5. The evidence, however, that animal life, once intro- duced on the earth, has been continued through immeasur- able periods, and not only continued, but enlarged, and not only enlarged, but changed again and again for new systems of life — though sufiicient of itself to establish the power of the Deity to impart unlimited sentient enjoyment — we have the means of increasing to any amount. As to the wonderful diversity of animal sizes, we might begin w^ith Ehrenberg's polishing slate, formed of infusoria, of which about 41,000 millions are contained in a cubic inch; or still lower with the animalcules of the Raseneisen or iron- clod, of which a cubic inch contains about a billion; and we might show them ranging through all the intermediate degrees up to the crocodilean Megalosaurus of fifty or seventy feet in length, or to the Dinotherium giganteum, the largest of all terrestrial mammalia yet discovered. We might speak of the vast variety of animal forms; but, of these, the mind is apt to fix only on the more strange and striking — the heavy-armed megatherium, the large-eyed 1 Lyell's rrin., iii. 369—373. Fifth Edit. 2 Poissons Fossiles, Tom. i. pt. xxx., T. iii. p. 1 — 52. 3 Dr. Buckland, vol. i. p. 273—277. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 305 ichtliyosuiirian, the colossal lizard iguanodon, the long- necked plesiosaurian, and the still more monstrous bat- winged pterodactyle — and to overlook tlie ten thousand ordinary forms of animal life; while to tliink of the internal structures suggested by, and answering to, all these forms, is to be absolutely overwhelmed. Adverting to the 'multi- plication of life characteristic of some species, we might point to the remarkable fact that the creatures commonly referred to as the smallest in size, should be those Avhich, by their rapid increase, present themselves in the most amazing masses. Thus the monad^e, the smallest of in- fusoria, form, by accumulation, subterraneous strata many fathoms in thickness. The mountain limestone, about a thousand feet thick, and often many miles in length and breadth, consists of nothing else than the remains of coral- line and testaceous forms compressed into hard masses. In relation to ^\\\m?i\. fecundity^ it is enough to refer either to parts of the Greenland seas so swarming with medusae that, as it has been curiously calculated, in a cubic mile the number is such that, allowing one person to count a million in a Aveek, it would have required eighty thousand persons, from the creation of the world, to complete the enumeration; or to the hotter zones of the earth, where, between the tropics, many thousand square miles of ocean teem with light-engendering life; and, of "the wide level glowing with lustrous sparks, every spark is the vital motion of an invisible animal world." Of the uniuersality of animal life we shall speak again ; for the present it may be sufficient to state, generally, that, from the floor of the ocean, where its depths surpass the height of our loftiest mountains, every successive stratum of waters is crowded with its own orders of life; and that from the sea-shores where the innumerable hosts of light-flashing mammaria X 306 THE FRE-AD AMITE EARTH. " turn each Avave into luminous foam," up through every stage of ground rising to the line of eternal snow, animal life is adapted to every part, and is diffused over the whole. 6. Here, surely, is evidence more than adequate to attest the sufficiency of Divine benevolence for the same Jcind of sentient enjoyment to any possible extent. That the dis- play, boundless as it is to us, is not absolutely infinite is admitted, for such a display is an impossibility; and, if possible, would be utterly useless to man as a proof of infinite goodness. That the display, indefinite as it is to us, might be more extended still, inasmuch as the planet itself might have been more extended, is admitted; and the same might be said, and would be true, even though the enlargement should advance for ever. But the question is, whether the existing display of the Divine resources is not sufficient to warrant the conviction, that, even in the event of such enlargement, Creative Benevolence would be more than adequate to replenish the whole with enjoyment ; that though the largest material area must be necessarily limited, the goodness of God could fill the whole, and show itself unlimited? Now, no one can doubt, judging from the proofs we possess, the adequacy of the Divine resources for an ever-increasing exercise of the same kind of benevolence to any extension of space or of time. But, if the design of the animal creation be to illustrate, in the sense explained, the all-sufficiency of the Divine goodness, we must admit, that not until the evidence of such sufficiency was complete, could the appropriate time for man's creation have arrived. XIX. Reason of the Method. — Kespecting the reason of the Divine method in creation, we have again to remark that it is twofold; relating^ partly., to the constitutio7i of the SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 307 creature hy ivhom the method is to be studied, and irivolv- ing his niell-being; and parthj to his destiny^ as a being capable of voluntarily promoting the great end of creation ., and so involving, in addition, the glory of the Divine Creator. 1. In illustration of the first part, it would be easy to show, were this the proper place, that there is not one of the laws of the method to Avhich our attention has been directed, which is not indispensable. Thus, by placing the animal in universal relation to the inorganic and vegetable king- doms, and by expressing this complicated relation with all the constancy and regularity of law, the Creator was but saying, in effect, in reference to man. Let his domestica- tion of animals and their subserviency to him, be possible. And so also in constructing the animal economy according to a plan, He was, in effect, determining that comparative anatomy, and animal physiology, should be possible to man. The training and government of animals are among man's first lessons on the art of self-government, especially in the pastoral and agricultural states of society, while their habits and instincts are full of instruction, and the sights and sounds with which they enliven creation are perpetually appealing to his emotions. But, then, if man is to be educated and benefited by this stage of the Divine procedure, a medium must be ob- served between a disheartening depth and diversity in its laws, on the one hand ; and a tame, unexciting superficiality and sameness, on the other. The effect of the former ex- treme would be, that the volume of nature would never be opened ; and the result of the latter, that it would be shut almost as soon as opened. Noav that such a medium is ob- served, is evident from the event. The zoology of nature is, ordinarily, the fii'st book that engages the attention of child- X 2^ 308 THE PIIE-ADAMITE EARTH. hood, and stimulates its opening efforts at comparison. It was the book from Avhieh the father of the human race received his "first lessons on objects.'" And though from that time to this, man has been exploring its pages, yet, so far from being exhausted, it never engaged so much attention as it does at present, nor so filled the student with the conviction that it is inexhaustible. But it addresses only the attentive eye and the willing ear. For the observant and comparing eye of an Aristotle,^ it has still unnumbered facts awaiting the right arrangement, and laws admitting of illustration to an indefinite extent. And for the listening ear, it is ever uttering ncAv JEsopian fables, and each with a Aveighty moral; but only for the listening ear. 2. The second part of the reason is equally self-com- mending ; for if animated nature is to be so construed by man as to subserve the ultimate end of creation, all tli^ laws which we have pointed out as belonging to the method of the Divine procedure are, in one respect or another, indis- pensable. They have made the manifestation of the Creator possible. We cannot, indeed, conceive of his operations, except as activity according to law; for He is "the God of order." So that in embodying law, and making it visible, He was saying, in effect, Let the knowledge of the Lawgiver be possible. In imprinting certain signs of dependence on animated nature, He is, in effect, leading up our minds to His o'^n independence. The manner in which He has been pleased. to add sentient enjoyment to organic life, is stu- diously '.adapted to remind us that the addition Avas by no means inherK^ntly necessary; but that everything relating to the mode of its manifestations, to the extent of the animal ' Gen. ii. 19, 20. 2 Conformity of structure is the leading principle of his classifica- tion of animals, in his work, irepl Zwwj- 'loroptag, as well as of Cuvier in bis T-p Regne Animal SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 309 kingdom, and to its progressive filling up, are all referrible to Ilis own purpose. So also of the selected and prepared variety of natural productions which awaited the coming of man ; " till that variety was occasioned on the globe, it was not the fitting place for intellectual man that it now is. For, surely, among other uses and correlations of the visible creation, this is one — by its inexhaustible diversity, and ever-growing newness, to interest with a perpetual charm the growing mind of a rational being, and to lead him to the cultivation of the divine thing within him, which raises him above all that his senses make known; and thus to fit him for the highest contemplation of which he is capable ; namely, the relatipn which he bears to the unseen Author of all this visible material world. "^ 3. Here again, however, the means must be measured, and the evidence balanced between two extremes. The signs of the Divine presence and agency must be sufiicient for conviction, but not for compulsion. Accordingly, every law has its apparent exception; and every phenomenon its centre or circumference of difiiculty and mystery. The uniformity of nature holds on its way, leaving man to infer its Divine origination and superintendence, or, if he will, to "explode the hypothesis of a God." The evidences of 1 desifijn are inexhaustible ; but if man chooses to call certain J things which his ' knowledge but of yesterday ' fails at present 1 to explain, defects, no coercive power restrains him. Proofs [ of the Divine goodness are lavished around him ; but if he is pleased to infer that the conflicting instincts of animals, and animal death, are incompatible with goodness, though forming, in fact, a provision for securing the greatest amount of sentient enjoyment — he is at responsible liberty to do so. The laws of nature are not audibly proclaimed ' Professor Phillips. 310 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. from Sinai; thoiigli, to the apprehensive mind, every object is a table of stone, written over with the finger of God. Nature is a volume which is " open night and day," and he that runneth may read. But while to one the very first page is gloriously inscribed with the great name of the Author, to another every page is a blank; for it is written throughout with sympathetic ink. XX. The ultimate end. — The laws of the method,, and the reason of it, find their end, in relation to the present stage of the Divine procedure, in contributing to illustrate the all- sufficiency of the goodness of God. 1. In harmony with the view already propounded, that each preceding display of the Divine perfection may be ex- pected to be brought forwards and enlarged in each succes- sive stage of creation, we have to remark on the continued exercise of the power of the Deity. During the whole of the period now under consideration, the forces of inorganic nature continued, as far as we know, in full activity. The celestial mechanism was ever in motion. On our own planet, the gradual uprising of the Carpathians, the Pyre- nees, the Alps, and other mountain chains, showed the unspent activity of the subterraneous forces. While the regular reproduction of organic life after each geological change, and on the return of every season, went on aug- menting the proofs of the all-sufiiciency of the Divine Power. But here were now new displays of the same energy. It originated and sustained the new principle of animal life in all its endless varieties of organization. Life by no means necessarily results from any of these varieties. And hence it is that no organ is universal in the animal kingdom. Uniform, therefore, as the connexion may be SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 311 between animal organization and animal life, the former is necessary to the latter, not for its existence, but only for its exhibition. And the more complicated the organization, the richer the illustration supplied of the energy of the great originating Cause. The single property of muscular contractility, adapted and employed as it is by the Divine wisdom, converts the breathing frame into a system of animal mechanics of prodigious power and incessant activity. But in order to form an idea of the display of energy added, by this stage of creation, to all that had gone before, we should be able to multiply the average strength of each animal engine by the average number of myriads living at any one time, and these again by the myriads of ages which have elapsed since animal life commenced. 2. And here again Power is seen subservient to Wisdom; presenting its vast resources as means for the accomplish- ment of important ends. In the first stage, for instance, we saw that air was the great agent in the changes of meteorology ; in the second, we saw every leaf of the forest feeding on it; and now we find it discharging additional offices, as the breath of animal life, and the vehicle of sound. Thus, at every step, our views of the prospective arrange- ments of creation acquire a wider range, and the proofs of Design become more complicated and profound. Again : we saw that the atmosphere is composed of different kinds of air, and that these again are of different densities. What then will take place when two or more kinds of air are brought together? will not the heavier subside, and the lighter ascend, like oil floating on water? The analogy of gases to liquids would lead us to expect this. But the " principle of gaseous diffusion," as it is called, determines otherwise. Two kinds of air — say hydrogen and carbonic acid, which latter, bulk for bulk, is twenty times heavier than 312 TDE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. hydrogen — cannot be in contact without melting away into each other, and becoming uniformly mixed. Is any end to be answered by this remarkable law? Is it a provision ? Now that the animal kingdom is come, if not before, we can reply to the inquiry. If the heavy carbonic acid of the atmosphere, copiously generated as it is frpm a variety of sources, had simply obeyed the law of gravitation, and rested on the surface of tlie earth, animal life would have been poisoned in its birth. If the whole were collected into a bed or layer, it is calculated that it would surround the surface of the earth with a stratum of about tliirteeu feet in thickness. In this irrespirable all-encircling ocean, life would be impossible. But the law of inter-diffusion is always in silent operation, obviating the evil. . By it, the most noxious exhalations are diluted,! and made innocent. And thus — not by a chemical action of the gases on each other — but by simple mixture^ by un aerial mechanism, a world of life and happiness exists, where else there would have stagnated and slept an ocean of deatlL 3. "What is the form or hgiire to be given to a solid body, of certain dimensions, in order that it may move through the air or water with the least resistance? Mathe- matical reasoning of a very abstruse nature determines that it must be a curve. But the curve-like face or front of fishes anticipates the discovery, and shows their adapta- tion, on mathematical principles, for most easily moving through the element they were made to live in. The art of ship-builcling has reached its present perfection as the result of many corrections, improvements, and slowly- matured devices. They are all forestalled in nature — the boat-like figure ; the paddle-shaped levers, and their succes- sive impulses; the rudder-like tail; the sail-like membrane, hoisted or furled, with ease, for scudding before the breeze. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. The valves by which the maker of a hydraulic engine pre- vents the retrograde motion of the fluids which are to pass through particular parts, were performing their functions in the animal economy before man was made. Long-con- 'tinued mathematical and chemical experiments have led to a succession of improyements in the instruments of the optician; but on comparing each, in succession, with the leye, they are fouml to be all there ; together with a number of provisions-^exquisite refinements of .provision — unknown to man's imperfect workmanship, and by which the refract- ing powers of the eye are instantly adjusted to the different 'distances of the objects viewed, the. organ is rendered achro- .matic, is protected, kept clean, and moved in various directions. The engineer makes his axles and. various parts of his machinery hollow, for it has been discovered that hollow rods and tubes,. of the same length and quantity of matter, have more strength than solid ones.. The bones of animals are all more or less hollow; and. thiis attain the end of the greatest strength with the least weight and quantity of matter. In the bones of birds, this principle is remarkably exemplified, as well 'as in the construction of their quills ; and thus, they are adapted for flight. But, in addition, in distinction from ail other animals, tlie air- vessels of tlieir lungs communicate with the hollow parts of their bodies, enabling them to blow out their bodies as we do a bladder, and thus to rise and to regulate their flight. The air-bladders of fishes answer a similar purpose. Mathe- matical reasoning demonstrates that if it be proposed to fill a certain space with the greatest number of little cells, all of tlie same size and shape, there are only three shapes which will answer ; and that, of these, that which combines the greatest convenience with the greatest strength, is tlie figure of six equal sides. Now this is precisely the shape 314 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of the cells of bees, by which they effect the greatest pos- sible saving both of room and of material. But more; the higher parts of algebra enable the mathematician to prove that, to save the most room, and to give the greatest strength to the cell, the roof and the floor must be made of three square planes meeting in a point ; and that there is one particular inclination of these planes to each other where they meet, which effects a greater saving of material and of labour than any other inclination could effect. Thousands of years before the mathematician had slowly and abstrusely worked his way to this conclusion — a con- clusion of which Newton was ignorant, though it is one of the fruits of his most wonderful discovery — the bee was acting in harmony with it in every cell which it made. As far as we know, the beaver builds his dam on principles as mathematically correct, to give the greatest resistance to the water in its tendency to turn the dam round, as the bee its cell.' But the illustrations of Creative wisdom, in the animal kingdom, are endless. Every page of science teems with them. 4. The particular and proximate ends attained in the animal economy are innumerable, and yet all related. For example : there is hardly a bone which has not a constitu- tion of its own, or a disposition of its material specifically adjusted to its place and use ; there is not one of these which is not formed in relation to the whole individual structure to which it belongs ; there is not an individual structure which is not formed in relation to the entire scheme of animal organization ; while that scheme itself exists in close relationship to the whole circle of external nature. Still more are we impressed with the resources of Creative wisdom 1 See tlie admirable Preliminary Treatise of the Library of Useful Knowledge, on the Objects, Advantages, and Pleasures of Science. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 610 •vvben we reflect, that wliilc the admission of a single new principle into a complicated machine is attended with re- sults which the utmost ingenuity can hardly anticipate, the indescribable variety of form and condition in which animal life seems to revel is the result of a principle endlessly diversified, as if for the sole purpose of showing that the difficulties created can be overcome. We might instance the various modes of reproduction, gemmiparous and gem- muliparous, fissiparous and oviparous, marsupial and vivi- parous; and to the diversified kinds of locomotion. The number of distinct species of insects already known is about a hundred thousand ; but while every species differs from all the rest, conformity is preserved throughout the whole to the same general plan of construction. Even when the purpose to be attained is identical, the means which are employed are inconceivably diversified, and althougli this diversity has to be carried through the minutest parts of the organization, yet every structure, from the most simple to the most complicated, is alike finished, and perfectly adapted to its destined condition. And Avhen we find, in addition, that all this variety of mechanical contrivances, chemical agencies, prospective arrangements, compensations, and comprehensive inter-dependencies, is the development of a scheme which embraces the whole range of zoology ; and that even when no other end appears to be answered by any part of the process, it has, at least, a direct application in filling up a place which would be otherwise unoccupied in the all-comprehending system, we almost involuntarily con- fess to the boundlessness of the Creative wisdom. 5. But here, both Power and Wisdom are seen in sub- servience to Goodness. The results of the preceding stages of creation are brought on to the present. So that on look- ing back from this advanced position, we can now see good- 316 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. ness, wliere before we beheld only -wisdom and power; for we perceive that both the productions of power, and the arrangements of wisdom, waited to find their places in the service of Benevolence ; that when Omnipotence was laying the foundations of the earth, and Infinite Wisdom was rear- ing the superstructure, it was only that Goodness might have a theatre in Avhich to display its inexhaustible resources of animal enjoyment. 6. Now what are the conditions on which the conclusion that animated nature is calculated to illustrate the all- sufiiciency of the goodness of God^ — might be reasonably accepted? The most obvious and general of these seems to be that the tendency bf animal life should decidedly pre- ponderate in favour of enjoyment. The monuments of power and skill are to us infinite. Had the amount of animal^ suffering borne any proportion to them, or had it been nearly balanced with animal enjoyment, we might have hesitated, as to the Benevolence of the Creator, in this particular. But the tendency to suffering as compared with the immensity of his w^orks, is quite as small as the proportion of cases in which design is un discoverable is to those of acknowledged contrivance. So evidently and so desi^-nedly is the tendency of animal existence in favour of enjoyment, that it can only be accounted for by referring it to Divine Benevolence. " Contrivance proves design," says Paley,^ " and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances ; and all the contrivances which we are acquainted with, are directed to beneficial purposes." 7. But if this representation be correct, we may expect that a Benevolent Being will create as great a number of animals as possible, consistently with other claims, in order 1 Moral Phil. p. 51. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 317 that the amount of enjoyinent may he tlie greater. And, as the same kind of animal could only exist in one condition, and yet the conditions of external nature are exceedingly diversified, Ave may expect, for the same reason, that differ- ent races will he created for different conditions; so that the means of happiness maybe improved to the utmost. And, as the amount of animal life miglit be vastly increased, if a portion of the food required could be animated and happy till it is wanted as sustenance, we may expect, that, if consistent with goodness, life will be thus conditionally granted to it. Now all these conditions are found to be fulfilled on a most magnificent scale. As to the existing numbers of the animal kingdom, more than a thousand species of quadrupeds, five thousand species of birds, and as many of fishes, are now known to naturalists. Of reptiles, the number and variety are immense but unknown. " The species of shell-fish or tes- tacea, crustaceous animals, worms, radiated animals, and zoophytes, which almost cover the bottom of tlie vast abyss, exceed all calculation. The forms of animalcules vary in almost every infusion of vegetable or animal matter which nature presents." Nine hundred species of intestinal worms have already been extracted from the bodies of animals, and even some of these worms have parasites within them. And of insects, a hundred thousand species arc known. But tlie number of species affords but a faint idea of the incal- culable myriads of individuals which some of them include. Vast flocks of birds sometimes darken the heavens like an eclipse. Clouds of life float in the atmosphere. Immense tracts of the ocean are often coloured by medusae, or covered as with a sheet of fire. Every drop of the ocean, from pole to pole, teems with existence. " These all wait upon thee, God ; and thou givest them their meat in due season." OlS THE PKE-ADAMITE EARTH. Nor is any part of the surface of the globe untenanted. The tropical desert, and the arctic sea, the stagnant marsh and the deep sands of the ocean, the mud and the rocky strata, the subterranean cavern and the eternal hills of Polar ice, not less than the temperate clime, and the open and undulating plain, are full of animal existence. The malaria fatal to one race is the necessary condition of life to another. Where one species terminates its range of en- joyment, another begins. Desolation owns not a foot of the globe. To increase the amount of happiness still further, not only is a large proportion of the food of animals endowed with life ; some exist entirely on ova, and on the rapidly multiplied embryos of others, thus preventing their injurious increase; some on the excreted matters of the .skin ; and some, not only on, but in others, inhabiting the organs and secretions of the interior, to the mutual advantage, probably, of both kinds. One of the ends of the Divine arrangement of the animal kingdom evidently is, the production of the largest amount of life and enjoyment. 8. But if every element, region, and situation where life can exist is to be thus crowded with animated beings, the same animal conformation would be so ill adapted for many of these external conditions that life and wretchedness would mean the same thing. The benevolence of the Creator therefore, may be expected to find scope in adapting the animal to its condition. Accordingly, these adaptations exist; and so numerous, varied, and minute are they, as to defy description. If we take only the law of gravitation, we find that to secure them from the dangers of its infraction, " the goat, which browses on the edge of precipices, has re- ceived a hoof and legs that give precision and firmness to its steps ; the bird, destined to sleep on the branches of SENTIKNT EXISTENCE. 319 trees, is provided with a muscle in the leg and foot which makes it cling the faster the greater its liability to fall ; the fly, which walks and sleeps on perpendicular walls, and the ceilings of rooms, has a hollow in its foot, from which it expels the air, and the pressure of the atmosphere on the outside of the foot holds it fast to the object on which the in- side is placed; the same is true of some kinds of lizards; the walrus is provided with a similar apparatus for climbing up the sides of icebergs ; and the broad and spreading hoof of the camel fits it for the loose and sandy soil of the torrid desert." And still more does the benevolence of this arrangement appear, when we remember, that each modifi- cation of a part of the animal requires the co-adjustment of the entire structure. Buffon and others, indeed, have expressed commiseration for some species, especially for the tardigrade family, as if they were the victims of a defective organization, because their motions, as compared with our aim, are so remarka- bly slow. But our sensations are not the standard by which to estimate their condition. The rapidity of our motions would be death to the sloth. He is made for his condition ; nor does he less find security and subsistence in it, than the lion ranging the plain, or the eagle sweeping the horizon of a continent. As an illustration of the diversity of ways by which the Creator adjusts the habits of the animal to its external con- dition, " let us imagine a noble forest tree, in whose luxu- riant foliage the birds of the air find shelter, and whose leaves supply food to hosts of insects. In this respect, the tree may be considered a world in itself, filled with dif- ferent tribes of inhabitants, diflering, not only in their aspect, but even in the stations or countries they inhabit, and assimilating as little together as the inhabitants of Tar- 320 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. tary do Avith those of England. . . . Some of the insects, as caterpilhirs, feed upon the leaves; others upon the flowers; a few will eat nothing but the bark; while many derive their nourishment from the internal substance of the trunk. ... If we examine further, new modifications of habits are discovered. Those insects, for instance, which feed upon leaves, do not all feed in the same manner, or upon the same parts : a few devour only the bud ; others spin the terminal leaves together, forming them into a sort of hut, under cover of which they regale at leisure, upon the ten- derest parts; some, apparently, even more cautious, con- struct little compact cases, Avhicli cover their body, and make them appear like bits of stick, or the ends of broken twigs; some eat the outside of the leaf only — like the cater- pillars of New Holland, mentioned by Lewin — bore them- selves holes in the stem, into which they carry a few leaves; sally out during the night for a fresh supply, and feed upon them at their leisure during the day. It seems, in fact, im- possible to conceive greater modifications than are actually met with, even among insects which feed only upon leaves ; while other variations are equally numerous in such tribes as live upon other portions of the tree. . . . Let us now look to those tribes of the feathered creation whicli would frequent this same tree for the purpose of seeking food. The wood- peckers begin by ascending the main trunk ; they traverse in a spiral direction, and diligently examine the bark as they ascend; wherever they discern the least external in- dication of that decay produced by the perforating insects, they commence a vigorous attack : with repeated strokes of their powerful wedge-shaped bill, they soon break away the shelter of the internal destroyer, who is either dragged from his hole at once, or speared by the barbed tongue of his powerful enemy. Next come the creepers and the nuthatches: SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 321 they have nothing to do with the tribes of insects just mentioned ; their food is confined to the more exposed in- habitants of the bark, the crevices of which they examine with the same assiduity, and traverse in the same tortuous course, as do the woodpeckers : the one taking what the other leaves. In temperate regions, like Europe, few insects are found on the liorizontal hvAwohQ^ of trees; and this seems the true reason why we have no scansorial birds which frequent such situations ; but in tropical countries the case is different ; and we there find the whole family of cuckows exploring such branches, and such only. Finally, the extreme ramifications, never visited by any of the fore- going birds, are assigned — in this country at least — to the different species of titmice, whose diminutive size and facility of clino-ino: are so well suited for such situations."^ CD O 9. If the well-being of the animal depend on its con- formity with the laws of its constitution, the benevolence of the Creator would be further displayed by associating that conformity with sensations of pleasure. And it is so. The legitimate exercise of every sense is accompanied with pleasure. Activity itself yields gratification. But activity so operates as to render rest peculiarly delicious. The voluptuousness of repose again is succeeded by a desire for exertion, while every appetite, properly indulged, yields a measure of enjoyment. And thus " nature resembles the law-giver, who, to make his subjects obey, should prefer holding out rewards for compliance with his commands, rather than denounce punishments for disobedience."^ 10. But as the constant activity of the vital functions is essential to life, would not the Divine benevolence be shown in withdrawing their operation from the contin- ' Swainson's Discourse on Nat. History, p, 175. 2 Lord Brougham's Illustrations of Paley's Theology, vol. ii. p. 65. Y 322 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. gencies of animal volition, and in rendering it involuntary and independent? It is so. " For the continuance of life a thousand provisions are made. If the vital actions of an animal's frame were directed by its volition, they are neces- sarily so minute and complicated, that they would imme- diately fall into confusion. It cannot draw a breath, with- out the exercise of sensibilities as well ordered as those of the eye or ear. A tracing of nervous cords unites many organs in sympathy ; and if any one filament of these were broken, pain, and spasm, and suffocation would ensue. The action of its heart, and the circulation of its blood, and all the vital functions, are governed through means and by laws which are not dependent on its volition, and to which its mental powers are altogether inadequate. For had they been under the influence of its volition, a doubt, a moment's pause of irresolution, a neglect of a single action at its appointed time, would have terminated its existence.'" 11. Still, as neither of these arrangements will secure for the animal entire exemption from danger, would not Benevolence be as apparent in guarding the animal against the evil by a warning pain, as in rewarding its obedience by pleasure ? Now, such an arrangement does exist. The senses have been called sentinels placed at the outposts of life, to give timely warning of approaching danger. Every sense has its own sphere of perception, ranging circle beyond circle. Every appetite, if denied the gratification necessary to animal well-being, becomes uneasy and importunate. While the skin, drawn over the entire surface of the body, becomes a robe of sensibility and protection to all the parts within. This view affords the appropriate reply to the incon- ' Very slightly altered, for the sake of adaptation, from Sir C. Bell's Bridgevvater Treatise, p. 13. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 323 siderate inquiry, " wliy is there pain at all? or, why is not every action performed at the suggestion of pleasure?" For, not only is pain the necessary alternative to pleasure, but, if pleasure were to precede the act of obedience, as well as to attend, and to follow^ it, where would be the in- ducement to activity? If the animal, while in danger of famishing, be happy, what inducement would it have to arise and eat? But, according to the existing arrange- ment, it is aroused to the necessary activity by a twofold stimulus — incipient hunger inciting it from within, and the desire of gratitication in prospect. Besides which, it is often of the utmost importance that the notices of the presence of objects should be transmitted instantly to the brain; for the slightest delay would be attended with serious evil, and might even lead to fatal consequences. " Could the windpipe and the interior of the lungs be protected by a pleasurable sensation, inducing a slow determination of the will — so well as by that rapid and powerful influence which the exquisite sensibility of the throat produces upon the act of respiration, or by those forcible yet regulated exertions which nothing but the in- stinctive apprehension of death can excite?" 12. But while the benevolence of the Creator is thus apparent in employing pain as a safeguard against danger, most remarkably is it displayed in the manifold contri- vances adopted for economizing suffering. We have seen this illustrated in the graduated scale of sensibility, and the other alleviating arrangements, included in the system of prey. When death is the result of age, the power of feeling gradually ceases, and the last moments of departing life assume the tranquillity of approaching sleep. In the case of an injury short of death, the vis medicatriv is called into activitv, or a power tending to remedy the evil. This y 2 324 THE TEE-ADAMITE EARTH. is seen in the tear which flows to wash the irritating particle from the eye; and in the new l)one and new flesh produced to make the parts severed by accident knit again and heal. The vast majority of sensations intended to guard against evil, are unattended with pain. And even of those which may become painful if prolonged, many, at first, are merely calculated to excite attention : such is the incipient sensa- tion of hunger. The sense of danger is generally timed and proportioned according to the urgency of the case. Were the sensations always equally distressing, the animal would suffer unneces- sarily; for the great majority of its dangers are trivial. Were they always equally slight, the animal would soon be destroyed; for some of its dangers require a sudden and strenuous effort, which it would not have a sufficient in- ducement to make. "It is provided that the more an organ is exposed, or the greater is its delicacy of organiza- tion, the more exquisitely contrived is the apparatus for its protection, and the more peremptory the call for the activity of that mechanism : and as, in such instances, the motive to action admits of no thought and no hesitation, the action is more instantaneous than the quickest suggestion or im- pulse of the will."* " The velocity with which the nerves subservient to sensation transmit the impressions they re- ceive at one extremity, along their whole course, to their termination in the brain, exceeds all measurement, and can ^be compared only to that of electricity passing along a conducting wire. These nerves may, in fact, be regarded as constituting a system of electric telegraphs, established by nature as the general medium of instantaneous trans- missions of sensorial agencies between all. and even the most distant parts, of the body."^ 1 Sir C. Bell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 202. 2 Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. ii. p. 330. SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 325 Every perception of a different kind of danger has its own distinct sensation. This is essential, in order that the kind of effort to be made may answer to the nature of the evil to be avoided. For if the sensation arising from intense heat were the same as that occasioned by intense cold, the danger might be increased in the very attempt to escape from it. But by thus varying the sensation with the danger, an important end is gained in the diminution of pain ; for the same painful sensation, however trifling at first, becomes by repetition or continuance intolerable. But that which strikingly illustrates the Divine benevo- lence here is, the law that each part of the body should be endowed with a susceptibility to pain from those impressions only which tend to injure its structure; while it is compara- tively insensible to every injury to which it is not likely to be exposed. " The extreme sensibility of the skin to the slightest injury, conveys to every one," says Sir C. Bell, " the notion that the deeper the wound the more severe must the pain be. This is not the fact ; nor would it accord with the beneficent design which shines out everywhere. The sen- sibility of the skin serves not only to give the sense of touch, but to be a guard upon the deeper parts ; and as they cannot be reached except through the skin, and pain must be suffered therefore before they can be injured, it would be superfluous to bestow such sensibility upon these deeper parts themselves. If the internal parts, which act in the motions of the body, had possessed a similar degree and kind of sensibility with the skin, so far from serving any useful purpose, it would have been a source of incon- venience and continual pain, in the common exercise of the frame." On the same principle it is that the nerve of touch is insensible to excess of light ; the nerve of vision is insensible to touch ; and so are also those important organs, 326 THE PRE-AD AMITE EARTH. the bruin and the heart ; for had they possessed such sensi- bility, it would liave been useless as a protection, since no external injuries could reach them without a previous warning having been received through the sensibility of the skin. What, then, is the kind of sensibility with which these various parts are endowed? In every case it is different, for it is appropriate to the function of every part. The eye may be rudely fingered without inflicting pain ; for the optic nerve is sensitive only to excess of light — its nerve of touch is distinct. The heart may be handled without feeling it; but, as the great circulatory organ, it is in the closest sympathy with all the vital powers, and keenly alive to their slightest variations. The brain is as insensible to touch " as the sole of our shoe;" but let it be diseased, and consciousness departs. The bones may be exposed and cut witli impunity ; but the application of a force which tends to fracture them will cause exquisite pain. The tendons and ligaments which cover them may be exposed, and cut, pricked, or even burned, without the animal suffering the slightest pain ; but let them be violently stretched, and the warning pain is instantly felt. Now by this benevolent arrangement pain is reduced to a minimum. The sensi- bility of each part varies with the function of the part; is limited to the peculiar liabilities of that part; and is occu- pied in its protection. 13. But do not these facts intimate the great truth that a nerve is not necessarily sensible, but only by the Divine appointment? We have already seen that no organization, no mechanical hypothesis, no chemical process, will suffice to account for life. And here we are brought to the analogous conclusion, that the sensibilities of the living frame are not qualities necessarily arising from life; that SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 327 still less arc they the consequences of delicacy of texture; but that they are endowmeuts appropriate to their assigned and respective offices. For not only have the different parts of the nervous system totally distinct endowments, there are nerves, as we have renuirked, " insensible to touch and incapable of giving pain, though exquisitely alive to their proper office;" and thus showing that, in each instance, that office is a special provision for a dehnite purpose — the benevolent purpose of animal enjoyment. " We here perceive design, because we trace adaptation. But we, at the same time, trace Benevolent design, because we perceive gratuitous and supererogatory enjoyment be- stowed. See the care with wdiich animals of all kinds are attended from their birth. The mother's instinct is not more certainly the means of securing and providing for her young, than her gratification in the act of maternal care is great, and is also needless for making her perform that duty. The grove is not made vocal during pairing and incubation, in order to secure the laying or the hatching of eggs ; for if it were still as the grave, or were filled with the most dis- cordant croaking, the process would be as well performed. But thus it is that nature adds more gratification than is necessary to induce the creature to obey her calls.'" 14. And when the complicated and minute provision necessary for this enjoyment is considered, the benevolence of the Creator is still further conspicuous. The mathe- matical structure of the eye alone, on which the pleasures of sight depend, and its exquisite adaptation to the physical laws of light, might well fill us with astonishment at the goodness of God. But this is only one of numberless arrangements having the same kind tendency; and when we remember that all these are parts of a prospective plan ' Lord Brouglmiu's Illustrations, 8tc., vol. ii. p. GG. 328 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. contemplated before the birth of the animal; that the fonndation of the whole is laid in the germ of which its after life is only the development; that maternal care awaited its coming ; that the season of its birth is adjusted to the season of the year, and to the period of the food, most conducive to its well-being, our conviction of the goodness of God is still more increased. Nor can we thoughtfully pause at any moment, and try to bring before our minds all the fulness of animal life the world contains, and the infinitely varied sounds, and motions, and signs of enjoyment which it exhibits, Avithout saying with Paley, " it is a happy world after all ;" nor recollect that every sense, of every animal, of every herd, and shoal, and swarm, and flock, which throng creation, is a gift of Sovereign goodness — a channel in which the Divine benevolence may pour forth a stream of enjoyment, and behold the reflection of its image, without gratefully exclaiming, " How great is His good- ness !" And this we conceive to be pre-eminently the de- sign of the animal creation — the manifestation of the Divine benevolence. 15. But if the animal possess not the power of appre- hending the great End of its creation, it may be expected to act from an instinctive regard to that end which is rela- tive to the great End, namely, its own happiness. And, as it can answer the end of its creation only by, and as long as it retains, its relative perfection, Ave may expect that a strong desire will be implanted in its nature, and form a part of it, to maintain its well-being. Accordingly, life, enjoyment, and offspring, form the objects of all the animal instincts. From its own kind, it derives higher happiness than from any other objects in creation. In obeying the highest and most important instinct of its nature, it de- rives the highest pleasure. And in the possession of off"- SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 329 spring, the resources and enjoyments of two distinct beings are, in a sense, imparted to each. Even the manner in which, in the higher classes of animals, nutriment has been provided for the helpless young, evinces the kindest consi- deration; for, besides that the nourishment itself is "the most perfect type of food in general that it is possible to give," the way in which it is imparted is a source of tran- quil enjoyment both to the giver and the receiver. Indeed, the entire arrangement by which the multiplication and per- petuation of animal life is secured, appears to carry animal enjoyment to the liighest point. 1 6. But does this great theatre of animal enjoyment demonstrate the absolute infinity of the Divine goodness? Our reply is similar to that which we have returned to the same question in relation to the displays of Divine power and wisdom. If it were a proof of goodness, metaphysically infinite, all the illustrations of benevolence subsequently exhibited in the history of man, and which may be here- after displayed in the progress of the universe, would, as further evidence, be superfluous or extra-infinite. Analo- gous remarks were made in the preceding Parts, relative to the power and wisdom of God ; and from the advanced point which we have now reached, we can see how erroneous it would have been to treat the proof as already completed, or to limit our views of those Divine perfections by the evidence then before us ; inasmuch as that evidence is still in pro- cess of augmentation. And in a similar manner, the illus- trations of Goodness are constantly receiving fresh accessions. To which it is to be added, that even if the objective exer- cise of the Divine goodness were literally infinite, it would be utterly useless for all the purposes of manifestation, since its infinity would remain unknown to us; except, indeed, on Divine testimony. But how should we know that testimony 330 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. to be true, except on infinite evidence? and so on, ad infi- nitum. If we utter any complaint at all, then, relative to the limitation of our knowledge of the Divine perfections, we should begin with the complaint that our minds are limited ; which would be to complain in effect, that they are created, and not uncreated. Even as it is, the actual illustrations of the goodness of God exceed our conceptions ; and yet, in- definite as they are, they go on multiplying at a rate which defies all human computation. 17. The only way, then, in which an infinite proof of infinite goodness can be presented to finite creatures, or be received by them, is by a progressive accumulation through endless duration ; so that it must be always in the course of exhibition. It is easy to conceive, however, of such a dis- play of benevolence within a space and a time not unlimited, as should furnish free agents, capable of reasoning from analogy, with ample evidence of benevolence unlimited. And such a display of goodness we believe to have been made in the animal creation. Now, in attempting to shoAV this, it is to be borne in mind, as a fact universally admitted, that the limitations of matter in relation to space, are necessitated by the nature of matter itself; and therefore, the limitations of the uses made of it also. If, then, the material medium through which benevolence is to be displayed is itself inherently conditioned by limits, we have to determine what evidence of goodness, exhibited under such circumstances, we, as beings constituted to reason by inference, and from analogy, should be justified in deeming an adecpiate illustration of goodness unlimited — of the kind of goodness, that is, which is displayed in sentient enjoyment. Displays of other kinds are, hypothetically, yet in store. 18. Now, we can conceive of intelligences so superior to ourselves as to be able to recognise in the first forms of sen- SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 661 tient life that appeared on our earth, an adequate proof of the unlimited goodness of the Creator. Tlieir view of cause and effect might be such as to enable them to say defini- tively, and at once, " tlic Being that could (ni^inate these forms of happiness, must be distinguished by inlinite good- ness." For, be it remeoibered, that the full understanding of these primitive forms would include also the full under- standing of the inorganic and vegetable worlds; and would evince that the production of these sentient beings had always been in the contemplation of the creative mind. But these primeval creatures were actually accompanied or followed by U ivorid of animal existences. True, those early creations were not probably so diversified in their species as the later creations; but geology shows that, at a very early period, the sea-covered earth swarmed with individual life. It would have been useless for man, liad he then lived, to attempt the individual enumerations of beings contained in even a section of " the great and wide sea;" and yet every being was a distinct argument for the goodness of the Creator, since every one of them all was comprehended in his Divine plan. Now surely a human spectator of that scene could not have expended years and ages in the contemplation of animal enjoyment, especially as viewed in connexion with the complicated pro- vision made for it from the beginning, and with the end- lessly diversified manner in which all nature ministered to it, without receiving an overwhelming impression of Creative benevolence. Long before he could have fully estimated tlie proofs of benevolence teeming around him, a new creation Avould dawn, and a new world of animate wonders come into view ; and as he gradually discovered that phe- nomena which at first appeared at variance with goodness, only required to be understood in order to become remark- 332 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. able illustrations of it; that where a liability to pain ex- isted, tlie most refined and complicated means are resorted to for reducing it to the smallest amount possible, or for providing against it altogether ; and that even the system of prey is resolvable into the greatest amount of animal enjoyment compatible with the existing plan of creation, he could not but feel that the benevolence to which all this was owing, must be literally past finding out. Let him revisit the earth in imagination time after time, with intervals of ages between each visit: surely he could not remark that every change of external condition was associated with a corresponding change in animal organiza- tion; that these changes were diversified to a degree designed apparently to impress him with their inexhausti- bleness; that the systems of life and enjoyment were ever on the increase, and tliat the analogy of every part with all the rest showed the whole to be in accordance with a plan which must have ever existed in the Divine mind, without being impelled to the conclusion that for such dis- plays of goodness to an indefinite extent, God is all-sufiicient. And, beyond this, he should remark that the amount of actual life exhibited at any given time on the earth, is as nothing compared with the amount of potential life and happiness which it contains. The vegetable seeds germi- nating at this moment on the surface of the earth, are, probably, insignificant compared with the number con- cealed below to an unknown depth ; and who shall calculate the superficial extent of the world, or worlds, which those seeds would be sufiicient speedily to clothe with verdure? And so also of the ova of some animal species, such as the carp, the cod, or the flounder, in an individual of which more than a million have been counted, — who shall say the number of Atlantics which either of these species would SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 333 fill in the course of a thousand years, if all their ova were allowed to be developed ; or how many atmospheres, of the same extent as tliat of our planet, would, in the same time, become crowded and darkened, by the unchecked multipli- cation of so minute a thing as a fly ? Now he could not survey the recovered fossil species of former worlds, re- membering that all traces of many species have probably vanished; and then glance at the five hundred thousand species now living, remembering that the actual multipli- cation of some of them, prodigious as it is, is as nothing compared with their possible increase; and that this has been always true from the beginning, without yielding to the full impression, that, subjectively, the creative goodness can know no limitation; and that, objectively, He is all- sufiicient for replenishing alike a single planet, or ten thousand worlds, with sentient happiness, and for sustaining the whole for an age, or for ever. This we believe to be the impression which a world of sentient enjoyment was in- tended to produce on the mind of man. That it is adapted to produce this effect is evident, for it actually produces it. And the very manner in which this end is attained — the mental effort Avhich it demands, and the apparent moral difficulties which it involves — still farther evinces the far- reaching purpose of the Creator, in making it the means of man's intellectual and moral education. But man, " the interpreter of nature," is yet to come. 19. Now, suppose a being capable of appreciating the successive stages of creation as we have endeavoured to describe it, to have taken a survey of the whole on the eve 334 THE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. of that great revolution which gave occasion to tlie Adamic creation, what an enlarged view must it have afforded him of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God ! Could he have cast back a mental glance to the remote antiquity when the first creative fiat went forth, and then have called before his mind all the long series of creation on creation with extended intervals between, which had since then taken place, — could he have i-emembered how many vege- table kingdoms had successively existed and perished, only to be followed by others better adapted to the altered globe ; and how every such change had been followed by a corre- sponding adaptation in all the indefinite varieties of animal life, so that the earth had been kept "full of His goodness," without feeling, with a depth of conviction no language can express, and long before he had arrived at the close of his retrospection, the all-sufficiency of God for the indefinite enlargement and continuance of similar manifestations! He would have seen that, here, every object and event formed at least a letter in the great name of God — a symbol of the Divine perfections. Even if the creative process had been arrested at this point, never to be resumed, he would yet have felt that he was worshipping in a temple dedicated to "the eternal power and Godhead;" for the shekinah of the Divine presence was everywhere visible. But that temple had ever been enlarging and receiving fresh memorials of the Deity; and long before he had deciphered every symbol, and bowed at every altar sacred to these perfections, he would have felt prepared for the unveiling of another aspect of the Divine character. 20. Could he then have had disclosed to him the nature of man's constitution, — physical, mental, and moral, — the creation would forthwith have seemed to assume a new character. He would have seen that man Avas not to be SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 335 made for tlie world, but that the worhl from the first had been made for man ; tliat all its laws were mute predictions of what he would be ; that all nature was pre-configured to him, and looked forwards to his coming. The earth, then, he might have said, is to be a school for the education of the human being. What a severe and useful discipline will it be for him, if left to his own unaided efforts, to determine the point from which his physical studies should start, the method they should observe, and the direction they should take. When the time shall come for him to try to ascertain the position of his planet in the system to which it belongs, and the disposition of the parts of that system, what prolonged and improving efforts is it likely to call forth? for he will see it " not m plan but in section;^ his point of observation will lie in the general plane of the system, while the notion he will aim to form of it will be not that of its section, but of its plan ; as if he should attempt to make out the countries on a map, with his eye on a level with the map.^ Even the size and physical geography of the planet itself are relative to the powers of the being destined to occupy it; for, while it is not so diminutive and unvaried as to promise no reward to curiosity and effort, neither is it so vast and unmanageable as to depress and forbid them. For him, the Creator has " weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance." Here, objects are so formed as to call him to activity, and to give him lessons in self-government ; and secrets so hid in the depths of nature as to invite his dis- covery, and to correct his pre-judgments; and events so intimately and universally related, as to reveal to his attentive eye the fact, tliat all nature is united in a close net-work of mutual connexions and dependence. Here, ' Sir J. IlerscheU's Nat. Phil., p. 267. 336 TIJE TRE-ADAMITE EARTH. advancing from the domain of facts, he will ascend to the region of laws. Ilis discovery and generalization of these will constitute his natural science, his practical application of them will be his art and occupation. From this com- manding point, all creation will assume the appearance of order, and be seen under law. And every onward step in this direction will bring him, by a path increasingly lumi- nous, nearer to the throne of the Eternal, in whose hand all laws will be seen to meet. 21. The being who is supposed to be intelligently antici- pating the creation of man, would foresee that the earth was designed also to be a temple for worship. Here — he might have said farther — wherever man may look, he will find himself surrounded by the symbols of the Godhead. Every object on which his eye will rest, is either an " altar of memorial," or an offering to be laid on it. Even the earth itself, as it goes speeding through space, what should it be but an altar, at which he should be perpetually ministering, as the high-priest of nature? Here, if he ask for proofs of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, he may ascend, by higher and higher generalizations, from phenomenal causes to the Great First Cause Himself ; and from the contemplation of the unin- terrupted order, the symmetry of relations, and the har- monious combination of laws observable throughout organic nature, to the conviction of universal design in the Creating Cause; and from the perception that all this exercise of wisdom is directed to the multiplication and happiness of a world of sentient life, to the conclusion that the Creator is as benevolent as He is powerful and wise. But geology will give a range to his views of the Divine all-sufficiency beyond all admeasurement ; it will admit him to a succession of departed worlds, stored with the SENTIENT EXlSTExNCE. 337 monuments of the Creator's inexliaustible resources. Plunge as far back as lie may into the past, he will still find him- self in the province of the same Creator, and surrounded by evidences that " He seeth the end from the beginning." But what impressive views of the same perfections will open on him Avhen he shall come to perceive, that all the long series of creations by which the globe is adapted to become his habitation, has distinctly contemplated his own well-being! Were his advent among the creatures to be that of a distinguished being from some paradise above, means for developing his hidden powers, the exquisite adjustment of things to strike him with the kind fore- thought of the Being who had sent him here, provision for his health, and comfort, and entire well-being during his stay, could hardly have been made more obvious and abun- dant than they actually are. Of all the species of animated beings that h^e inhabited the earth, he will be the first to look upon nature with an intelligent eye. Till he comes, this glorious volume of the Creator will remain unread; and not only will he be able to interpret nature, it will be his prerogative to employ it for his improvement. The only use which the brute creation unconsciously make of it, is that of sustaining and perpetuating their kind. He will employ it also for the same purpose, but this very employ- ment of it may be of a nature to call forth the exercise of his reason, and to tend to his intellectual progress. So that even in that one solitary respect, in which he and the animals will appear to be placed on a level, he will be able in reality to assert his essential superiority over them ; and from it he may date his actual rise above them. They only use and only need some of the present products of the earth. JMan may employ the products of every departed world. In his hands the extremes of geological duration z 338 THE rilE-ADAMlTE EARTU. may meet. The granite of ten thonsand ages back may be made tlie foundation of liis dwelling, or the pedestal of his image. The mountain limestone — petrified exuvise of de- parted worlds — may serve to cement and beautify his abode. The wreck of tlie forests, that for ages waved on the sur- face of the ancient lands, and the ferruginous accumulations deposited in primeval waters may supply him with the principal means of his material progress and comfort. Froni the rich metallic veins which interlace the earth, he may derive the means of his choicest ornaments, the representa- tives of all his material wealth, and knowledge " more precious than rubies." Every flood which swept over the ancient continents, and every dislocating earthquake, which contributed to the formation of cultivable soils, may re-appear in man's science, and be converted to his purposes. The loadstone, in his hands, may become an instrument by which to call the stars to his aid, and to bid defiance to the apparent boundlessness of the ocean, while, in quest of scope for his enterprise, he steers to a distant region of the globe. The subterranean treasuries of the earth contain nothing which he will not be able to use; and who shall say but that the time may come in his history Avhen its stores will prove to have been not unnecessarily great? Surely the creature who will point to little artificial contrivances of his own in proof of his sagacity and skill, will not fail to recognise in these vast prospective arrangements for his coming, con- vincing indications of a beneficent superintending mind! And surely as time advances, and new and more profound adaptations of nature rise to view, as man comes to find that his race have been living for ages in the midst of com- plicated adaptations of whicli they were unconscious, and which could be developed only as the result of a long series of prior discoveries, but all tending to his development and SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 339 well-being, his recognition of the Creative wisdom and goodness Avill become more vivid and grateful, and the earth become more sacred in his eyes ! Probably, too — the supposed soliloquist might have con- tinued — probably, as preceding changes of the earth have been followed by new and enlarged creations of animal life, the period of man's creation may be marked by some new productions of the Divine power, designed to contribute yet further to human welfare. But, whether it should be so or not, the earth, even as it is, appears to be so replete with preparations for his coming, that He alone could perceive any deficiency, whose unlimited power is able to supply it. ' It is only in such a world that a creature like man could live, and his character be developed. Here, every part of his nature will find its appropriate domain. The phe- nomena of geology alone — what lessons will they read to his intellectual and moral nature? Can he recognise in the series of organic worlds, distinct evidence of a succession of creations, without feeling as if he were reading so many proclamations of the Divine power laid up for his perusal? feeling it with a vividness which could hardly be increased even if he could reach the foundation of the earth and there find the inscription, " Laid by the Divine Hand, to be discovered and deciphered by man unnumbered ages hence." When he shall perceive that these successive creations are only the gradual filling up of a vast and har- monious outline, will he not be penetrated with wonder at the comprehensiveness of the Divine plans, and the un- changeableness of the Divine nature ? Can he ever attempt a computation of the enormous periods which must have elapsed since life first moved on the globe, without being carried back in imagination to a past eternity ; and with- out thinking, by the mere rebound of the mind, of an etcr- z 2 340 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. nity yet to come? And, then, will it be possible for him to mtirk how all the stupendous miracles of the past have con- spired to prepare the earth to receive him, without feeling that the adaptation must have been contemplated from the first, and without surrendering himself up to the emotions of adoration and joy? And shall these geological records of the past furnish him with no ground of conclusion, or of rational conjecture, respecting the future ? He Avill be able to point to an era when his race had not yet begun to exist. An age after, and man had been called into being, and had entered on his career. Every one of his posterity, therefore, traced back to his origin through the preceding generations of mankind, will carry about in his own person indubitable evidence of a miracle. And may he not justly reason that, unless the Supreme Power can be supposed to have exhausted itself in his own creation, the energy which could perform the long succession of stupendous miracles of which the production of the first man was the crowning act, must be capable of performing other miraculous acts ? And unless he should suppose that he himself has been created without any object, or that God has excluded Himself from his own world, and has bound Himself in the iron chain of an ever- lasting mechanism, will it not be natural for him to infer that the object for which the miracle of his own creation was wrought may subsequently require the performance of other miracles in harmony with the primary one, and lead- injr to the same result? And unless it could be shown that no beneficent provision whatever had been originally made for human happiness, the existence of such provision will surely warrant the conclusion that, if ever circumstances should arise in which it would be more for the well-being of man to modify or to enlarge that provision than not to SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 341 do SO, it would — all other things being equal — be worthy of Divine Goodness so to modify or enlarge it. And will not the persuasion that he stands in the midst of a system yet in progress — a system, therefore, from which God is never absent — tend to invest the earth with the hallowed character of a temple, and to convert his every inquiry respecting the past and the future into an act of worship? 22. But wliat if this same being wlio had been given to understand that the earth would be a school for man's education, and a temple for his worship, had been foretold also that it would be the sphere of human prohatio7i; that even its natural scenery and productions would, in a sense, be conveyed into the mind of man, and be taken up into his character; that every object and event in nature would, in a variety of ways, be wrought into the texture of man's moral history ; and that every law expressed, and every truth symbolized, in nature, would sooner or later be- come a test of character, what a field for solemn conjecture would have been opened before him ! Perversions of these truths which have become familiar to us, would doubtless have appeared to him so gross as to be next to impossible. Whatever errors man may imbibe, we may suppose him to have said — it is not to be imagined that he will ever so far discredit his reason as to mistake those created exponents of certain attributes of the Divine Nature for that Infinite Nature itself; converting the intended means of worship into objects of adoration. Man's moral freedom, if nothing else, seems to require that the period of the earth's origin should be hid in a dateless antiquity; but surely he will not therefore irrationally jump to the conclusion that it is eternal and uncreated. For the same reason, it would seem to be necessary that the successive stages of the creative process should not be so obtrusively marked and palpable 342 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. as to compel the judgment to the right conclusion ; but can it be that all other evidence except that of visible creative interference shall go for nothing with a being meant to reason; or that advantage will ever be taken of the absence of mere visible evidence, to affirm the non-existence of an invisible Agent? AVhatever may be meant by the uni- formity of the course of nature, it is evident that it must be something compatible with a succession of changes in which new races have been brought into being, dilFering from all previous existences. Contrary, therefore, as such a creative change may be to the course of nature for a certain period, evidently, it is by no means contrary to the great scheme to which that limited period belongs. And confidently as the permanence of nature may be relied on during a given period, with equal confidence may a change be looked for, sooner or later, to put an end to that period. The changes may be as regular on a large scale of things, as is the intervening uniformity on a smaller scale. Both are only parts of a great whole. It cannot be that man, who will actually o-we his existence to one of these miracu- lous changes, should ever come to question their possibility ; that, arguing from his own uniform experience of a few ages, he should feel himself Avarranted to pronounce against such changes during the vast preceding cycles compared with which his ages will be as moments ; and that he should do this in the face of all the successive worlds of geological evidence to the contrary. The Divine Creator is the " God of order;" regularity is the natural characteristic of His procedure; without it, man will not be able to arrive at any knowledge respecting Him : and can it be that man will take occasion from the very order of nature to " ex- plode the idea of a God?^' shall those sequences, without which he will not be able to infer the Creative Existence, SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 34.3 be tlie very reason why he denies it? shall the very laws whose existence are essential in order that he may under- stand anything of the Lawgiver, become, in his hands, weapons for dethroning Him? If it shall appear from the event that one of the great reasons of the Creator for adopting the actual method of creation, was that it might be preconfigured to man's in- telligent, voluntary, and moral nature, can it be that any human creature will ever come to construe the infinitely complicated coincidence of the two into a proof of its accidental origin — as if the proof of design diminished in proportion as the evidence increased. If man's free-agency is not to be overborne by the visible display of immediate Divine operation ; if the evidence of creative agency is to be enough to convince, but not so much as to overwhelm, the attainment of this balance will involve relations and adjustments of infinitely diversified complication, and will form, in truth, the grand sphere for the exercise of creative wisdom and goodness; surely no human being will ever employ this freedom in questioning the existence of the agency which alone makes it possible ! Without it, there would be no reasoning — no man ; with it, shall there be, for him, no God? If the ultimate end both of the creative method and of its reason in respect to man, be the unfolding of the Divine all-sufficiency, can it be that he will ever derive two directly opposite conclusions from the same creative displays? that he will at one time contend, that as his inferences can only go to the extent of his evidence, his views of the Divine perfections, derived from natural theology, are necessarily limited ; and, at another, that the Being who could originate the universe must be too exalted to interest himself in any of its mere details? Is it possible that, on a survey of 344 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. creation, one man should withhold from the Creator the homage involved in the recognition of His infinity; and that another, on the ground of His infinite greatness, should " compliment Him out of this world as a place too mean for His reception," and excuse Him from its government, as a care and an incumbrance unsuited to His dignity ; and from its worship, as a thing beneath His regard? Thoughts such as these — had there been a being to entertain them — might well have projected a deep shadow over the earth as the scene of man's approaching probation. But may we not suppose that the gloom would have been relieved and brightened by anticipations of a very opposite tendency? Here, the imaginary seer might have said, as he recalled the past and glanced over the present — here is a great system of argumentative appeals, for the infinite power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, appeals which predict a constitution fitted to receive and respond to them. More than one part of that constitution will be constructed to re- spond. Often, the response will be so sudden as to anticipate the slow conclusions of the reasoning process ; so clear and distinct as to be heard by the most unwilling ear; and so authoritative and impressive as to be remembered and felt long after every opposing voice has ceased. Eightly con- sidered, creation will be regarded as a hymn of praise to its Maker ; and man will aspire to lead the song. While from the depths of the earth — from the wreck of former worlds — he will derive materials with which to erect an altar of gratitude to Him who " reneweth the face of the earth." And what even if man's moral relations to the Deity should be disturbed, and his condition should con- sequently become such as to require information which it is not in the power of nature to impart; even then — though some of his race, alas ! owing partly to the very scantiness SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 345 of their natural knowledge of God, and in proportion to it, may blindly profess to be satisfied and to desire no more, — yet the natural theology of others will, in proportion to its extent and fulness, tend to awaken a thirst for a higher and more enlarged revelation of the Divine character, and pre- pare them to expect it. Insufficient as the knowledge of God derivable from nature may be as a sanctuary for conscious guilt, it may yet serve as the substructions and steps of another temple, from the sacred recesses of which may be caused to issue the oracles of Holiness, Mercy, and Love. And as the vastness of the Divine resources dis- played in nature, joined with the consideration that, in- definite as they must be to man, they are after all finite to God, is the reflection which, more than any other, will im- press him with the all-sufficiency of God in creation, so it may inspire him with the hope of the Divine all-sufficiency for his moral recovery, and be even employed by God to image that sufficiency forth. 23. A being placed, and informed respecting the past and the future, as we have supposed, could not have recognised the signs of approaching change — if such signs there were — symptoms of the impending revolution of a portion, at least, of the earth's surface ; and then have re- called before his mind the succession of new creations, which had followed from like revolutions before, without rising to adoration, and saying, in effect, " Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the work of thy hands : they shall perish, but thou remainest ; yea, they all shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou roll them up, and they shall be changed : but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." And as he stood on the verge of the crisis, with the ominous shadows of the last evening settling around him, and all nature 346 THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. huslied in portentous silence, he could not picture to his mind the possibilities involved in the impending stage of the Divine procedure, without being conscious of an earnest desire to behold the creature, man, and the wondrous scenes which would signalize his eventful history. NOTE REFERRED TO AT PAGE 83.' " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth Avas without form and waste, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." — Genesis i. i, 2. From a careful consideration of the subject, it is the full con- viction of the writer, that the first of the two verses just quoted was placed by the hand of Inspiration at the opening of the Bible as a distinct and independent sentence; that it was the Divine intention to affirm by it, that the material universe was primarily originated by God from elements not previously existing; and that this originating act was quite distinct from the acts included in the six natural days of the Adamic creation.^ It should be observed that this interpretation by no means implies that Moses himself put this construction on the sentence, or intended to convey this meaning. He might; or he might not. He was only the organ for its transmission. But it is a well-known canon of Scripture interpretation, that the statements of the word of God are to be understood, not merely in that sense in which they were ajipre- hended by the human instruments employed to make them, nor in that sense to which their hearers or readers at the time could reach, but in the sense which He himself attached to them. For example, there is ground to believe that Moses himself was not aware of the profound spiritual meaning of much of the ritual which he was employed to institute. It was an obscure text, which awaited the Divine commentary of the Christian dispensation. Nor is it meant to be implied by this interpretation that the Bible was designed to teach astronomy, geology, or any other branch of natural science. When we are enlarging on the historical parts of Scripture, for instance, no one infers that we mean to affirm that the Bible was designed to teach either the ' This Criticism has already appeared as an article in the " Biblical Review." ■ See Dr. J. P. Smith's admirable work on Scripture and Geology. Lecture VI. Part II., and Notes P. Q. Second Edition. 348 NOTE. mere facts, or the philosophy, of history. Its object, in such parts, is to teach the doctrine of God's government of the world; and all that we are supposed to mean is, that the events related in proof or illustration of the doctrine, were matters of fact, actual occurrences, divinely attested. So here; the obvious purpose of the inspired writer is to teach the great truth that God is the Creator of all things ; and all that the nature of the case requires — and this it does seem to require — is, that, however anthropomorphic and jwpular the language employed may be, the events related in illus- tration of the truth should be actual occurrences. But being such, it follows that they will be found in harmony with the facts of science. The view just propounded, and which appears to the writer to be the only just construction of the verse in question, involves the following three propositions; that, by "the heavens and the earth," are here to be understood the material universe; that the original act of creation was the calling of the material of the universe into existence; and that this act was not included in the six days of the Adamic creation. The^r*'^ of these propositions — that by " the heavens and the earth," are here to be understood the material universe — hardly admits of a question. Even if the phrase, " the heavens and the earth," does notinclude more than the material universe — (namely, dependent sentient and intelligent beings also) — it cannot be re- garded as denoting less. In proof of which, if proof be necessary, it may be alleged, that the material universe is the subject imme- diately taken up in the verses following; that the phrase in question became a Hebrew formula for expressing the material universe, a formula most likely adopted from this opening verse ; and that such appears to be the inspired exposition of the phrase — as in Psalm cii. 25, " Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the founda- tion of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands." The second proposition — that the original act of creation was the calling of matter into existence — thongh not, at first sight equally obvious, appears, on examination, to be equally certain. There are those, indeed, who, while they firmly believe that matter is not eternal, refuse to admit that this vers'e affirms its origination. Their persuasion is, that the verse takes us back only to the beginning of the Adamic creation, and affirms that God was the immediate former of the present state of things; and that the verses following unfold the process of the formation. And the chief reason which they assign for this view is, that hara — created, according to the usus loquendi, signifies, not to call a thing out of non-existence, but to re-constitute something already in existence; and is used indiff"erently and interchangeably in many passages NOTE. 349 with anali — made, and ijafnar—forined or fas/tioned; and that tliere does not appear to be any word in any language which expresses the idea oi' creation indci)end(nitly of pre-existing matter. In reply, I would submit that this objection, even if it could be substantiated, does not meet the requirements of the case ; and that the' only appropriate evidence is that which is derivable from the interpretations of the phrase, and of the subject, as found in other parts of Scripture. For, first, from the very nature of the subject, the ?/s7/.s lu(jiie)idi never can obtain in relation to any word em- ployed to express creation out of nothing. And the apparent sin- gularity of the fact might have well awakened inquiry how it is that, while every language has the idea, no language has a term ex- clunveJy employed to express it, but adopts a phrase instead.* The obvious reason is, that even if a term — hara, for example — had been at first devised and employed to express the Divine origination of matter, man, according to a well-known and uni- versal tendency, would soon have ado])ted it as the most emphatic mode of expressing his own secondary origination, or mere formation, of things. And then as, in its primary signification, it could only, in the nature of things, be applied to a single act of the Divine Being, while in its secondary sense it could be applied to all kinds of human origination of all kinds of things, the ufiUii loquendi would speedily place the secondary meaning first. Let it be imagined that a new term were to be now devised to express the idea in question — let it be the term £?.rnihilate — and immediately man would adopt it to express his own production of things, just as he now speaks of annihilating them; though he can do either only in a secondary sense. And as, in this secondary sense, he would be daily cxnihilating, while the term, in its primary signification, could be predicated only of the one originating act of the Divine Being, of course the usus loquendi would immediately obtain in favour of the secondary sense. Now, admitting the term hara to have meant, when employed in the first verse of Genesis, the actual creation of matter, its • When Dr. Pusey, Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, states, (Buckland's " Bridge- water Treatise," note, p. 22,) that "our very addition of the words 'out of nothing,' shows that the word creation has not, in itself," the force of absolute origination, he appears to overlook the only point in the discussion worth remembering, raniely, that this additional phrase is properly employed only when somethinij is supposed already to exist, out of which the thing made might possiiili/ be produced. On the other hand, when speaking of the origination of primordial elements, no one could say that they were created out of nothinr) without tautology ; for this would be to state formally that the first has no antecedent, or that the first is not second. So that the word creation, when predicated of primordial matter — and this is the pre- cise thing in question — does possess, without any additional words, the force of absolute origination. 350 NOTE. secondary aiiplication would soon have acquired, in this manner, the sanction of custom ; and then, as inspired hinguage did not differ from ordinary language, the term would subsequently come to be usiid, in Scripture, interchangeably with axali — made, and yatsar — -furmed. Our only resource, therefore, is to ascertain the scriptural interpretation of the term in those passages in which the first verse of Genesis was present to the mind of the inspired writers. Or if, secondly, the verb liara was taken by inspiration from a prior and familiar application to a human 2^rocess, and was employed metaphorically to denote a Divine act of an analogous but unique description, then also, as the thought would govern the word, and not the word the thought, we should have to look for that thought in other parts of the in- spired volume. Now, that the first verse of Genesis is to be regarded as an- nouncing the proper creation of the matter of the visible universe, is apparent from the following joassages: — 1. A comparison of the second and following verses in Gen. i, with the first verse, justifies the conclusion that the act denoted by hara in the first verse must have been essentially different from mere formation out of materials already existing; for after that first act had been performed, the earth still remained in a formless chaotic state. On this point, I avail myself of the critical judgment of Professor M. Stuart, of America; and I do so the more readily, because he is avowedly an anti-geologist, and is therefore free from all suspicion of a bias from that quarter. " All order and arrangement plainly seem to be con- sidered, by the writer of Gen. i. as having been efiected after the original act of creation. **">■" The original act of creation, as understood by the sacred writers, appears plainly to have been, the calling of matter into being, the causing of it to exist ; and out of this the heavens and the earth were afterwards formed, i. e., reduced to their present order and arrangement,"^ 2. In the opening verses of St. John's Gospel we read, " In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos vias with God, and the Logos was God. * * * All things were made by him." Here, it is evident that the design of the sacred writer is to affirm that, before anything existed ad extra, the Logos existed; for his object is to prove that everything was brought into existence by the liOgos. If Scripture, then, is to be its own interpreter, we must infer that the phrase, in the heginning, as employed in the book of Genesis, takes us back to the same period. And this conclusion becomes inevitable when we observe that, in using • Hebrew Chrestomathy, p. 112. NOTE. 351 this phrase, the Gospel designedly, and for obvious reasons, imitates the history. If the Mosaic use of the phrase, therefore, does not take us back to a period i)rior to the origination of matter, it cannot be justly inl'crred that the ai)ostolic sense of the phrase does ; but that the " all things made by him," excei)ts matter, i. e., that matter was not made by him, and that he did not exist before it. 3. In harmony with the view for which we are contending, and apparently conclusive of it, is Heb. xi. 3, " By faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen, were not made from those which do appear." It cannot be justly questioned that the Divine declaration, hy faith in which we attain to this conviction, is that contained in Gen. i. I, for the apostle next refers to Geti. iv. 4, and next to Gen. v. 24; and so on, in orderly succession, Now, the apostolic exposition of that declaration is, " that the worlds were formed by the word of God " — by the aunmandinf/ word^ — " the symbol of the Almighty and self-competent power, which requires no means exterior to itself."^ And, still further to evolve and expound the idea of absolute origination, it is added, " so that the things which are seen, were not made from things which do api^ear;"^ or, which amounts to the same, "the things visible were made from things not visible;"'* i. e., not from anything ])re-existing; they were strictly originated by the creative fiat. Had the apostle meant merely that the visible creation was formed from a pre-existing invisible matter, he surely would not have made it a doctrine of faith. This is rather a doctrine of sense, in antagonism to faith; and, as such, it has been always acceptable to a sensuous jijiilosophy. Indeed, it does not api)ear that any other meaning was ever attached to the Mosaic statement, by the ancient church, than that, given by the apostle. " God made tbem [heaven and earth] from things that do not exist,"^ /. e., from nothing previously ' Psalm xxxiii. 6 ; cxlviii. 5. - Tholuck on the Hebrews, in loc. ^ EIq to 111) tK 0rtn'Oji(f rail' tu f^Xarofisva ylyorfvat. * ]M)/ /.niro/tfj'o))' being here equivalent to /u) oiTwr; for, as God alone existed to see or to know, if there was nothing? visible to IJim, there was nothing. Just as in Hebrew, nimtsa — that which is found, is a term employed to denote that which crix/s ; and, with the negative particle, to denote the not-found, meaning the non- existent. See Bloomfield, in loc; Stuart; Storr and Flatt, § xxxi. ; Knapp's 'tiieo- lo"y, § xlvi. note ; the trauNlations of Sacy, Osterwald, Luther, Diodati, and the English versions of 1.5.57 and 1611. •"' OvK fS (u-rwi- iTTohjfffv ai'Tct o Otoc- 2 Macc. vii. 28. The Vulgate, e.r niliilo fecit Deus calum et terram. 352 i^'OTE. existing. According to the Eabbins.i the verse should he rendered, " God, in the beginning, created the substance of the heavens, and the substance of the earth." The Syriac translator under- stood the verse in the same sense.^ It is clear, says Chrysostom, in his ])araphrase of the apostolic interpretation, " that God, from things not in being, made those which are in being; from those not visible, the things which do appear; and. from things having no subsistence, those things which subsist." But if such is the apostohc exposition of Gen. i. 1, it follows that the same exposition must be received as the inspired interpretation of the whole of that class of parallel passages in the Old Testament, of which that verse stands at the head. The third proposition is, that this absolute origination of matter was a Divine act not included in the six days of the Adamic creation. The question, here, does not respect the length of the interval between that originating act and the Adamic creation. The proposition simply affirms that there uas an interval; and implies, that the inspired text neither asserts its brevity nor denies its length. Its duration is supposed to be indicated in indelible characters elsewhere — in the crust of the globe itself. The scriptural record is simply, but significantly, indicative of an interval. The principal objection to this view is derived from Exod. xx. 11, wherein, as the reason for observing the Sabbath, the entire and conqilete work of creation is supposed to be described as carried on and ended in six days. To w^hich it should be suffi- cient to reply, that so much of the creative process is there referred to — and only so much — as related to the law of the Habbath, namely, the six days of the Adan)ic creation; or the making of the heaven and the earth as described in Gen. i. 3, &c. But, secondly, the same rule which leads one objector to rely on Exod. XX. 11, as a proof that the entire creation was comprised in six Adamic days, would justify another in insisting that it was comprised in one day, because it is said. Gen. ii. 4, " These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, in their being created, in the day oi ^ ahoy oh. God's making earth and heavens:'' the obvious meaning of the original being, however, at the time ' Who understand eth, here, to denote the substance or material. Compare Gese- n'uis, sub voce ; Aben Ezra; Kimchi, in his Book of Roots ; and Buxtorf s Tal- niiidic Lexicon. •^ In Walton's Polyglott, the Syriac is very properly translated, esse coeli et esse terrtc— the behcj or substance of the heaven, and the being or substance of the earth. NOTE. 353 of their creation, or afler they were created. And, thirdly, it is a violation of an essential rule of sound interpretation to infer the meaning of an author from a condensed sentence, introduced incidentally, instead of deriving it fi'om his more fUrcct, con- nected, and ample statements on the same subject. Now, the full and formal treatment of creation occupies the whole of the first chapter of Genesis. To affirm, without proof, that the verse in Exodus condenses the whole of the chapter, is to beg the very question at issue. That the chapter includes all that the verse relates to, I admit. But it includes more. It affirms, for example, in the second verse, the significant fact that there was a j)eriod when "the earth was without form and void:" respecting this the verse in Exodus is silent; while, in the first verse, the chapter affirms that at some period prior to that state of chaos — in the heginning — God originated the material of the universe. And the question is, whether, according to the critical and correct rendering of the text, that period was not prior to the six days of the Adamic creation. When it is objected to this priority, that the decision of the question might be safely left to any unbiassed mind on a perusal of the English version of the text, the objector is evidently cal- culating on the effect likely to be produced on the " unbiassed mind" by the mere juxtaposition of the oj^ening verses, and by the conjunctive meaning, and, given to the Hebrew particle van, which commences the second verse. This, however, is an appeal, not to his knowledge, but to his ignorance. It is to take advantage, not of his judgment, but of his prejudice. For unless, by an act of marvellous intuition, he could infer the Hebrew original from the English rendering, he may, for aught he knows to the contrary, be pronouncing on the mean- ing of a faulty translation. So that the question to be first decided, relates to the correct rendering of the original. If, for example, according to the learned and judicious Dathe, that rendering should be, " In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. But afterwards the earth became waste and desolate," — an unbiassed mind, in that case, could arrive only at the conclusion that a period was spoken of prior to the six natural days described in the verses following. Now such appears to be the true sense of the original. The connecting particle at the beginning of the second verse leaves the question of time entirely open. It does not rule the sentence; the sentence rules it, and determines what its particular shade of meaning was intended to be. Even in our English version, it is often translated l)y other conjunctions: thus, in the very next A A 354 NOTE. chapter, verse 17, it is rendered hut. Sometimes, it begins whole hooks. At other times, as in Numb. xx. 1, it spans a wide chronological interval. Indeed, as the general connective par- ticle of tlie Hebrew language, it is employed as copulative, con- tinuative, adversative, disjunctive, and for other purposes;' the specific purpose, in every case, being determinable by a con- sideration of the context alone. To an examination of the text, then, let the question be referred. Nowi, that the originating act, described in the first verse, was not meant to be included in the account of the six Adamic days, is evident from the following considerations : First, the creation of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, begins with the formula, Ajid God mid ; it is only natural, there- fore, to conclude that the creation of the first day begins with the third verse, where the same formula is employed, " And God said. Let there be light." But if so, it follows that the act described in the first verse, and the state of the earth spoken of in the second, must have both belonged to a period anterior to the first day. Secondly, the only adequate reason assignable for the account given in the second verse is, to prepare the reader for the description which follows of the six days' work. For it both intimates the necessity for such work, by affirming the chaotic condition of the earth ; and describes the Spirit of God as hovering over the chaos, preparatory to it. Not only the originating act in the first verse, therefore, but also the commencement of the energizing process in the second, appears to have preceded the opening fiat of creation on the first day, and to have been introductory to it. Thirdly, if it be admitted that the regular unfolding of the six days' work begins at the third verse, it follows that the origination of the earth, in the first verse, was anterior to and independent of it; for no such an act is again adverted to in the subsequent verses. On the whole, then, my firm persuasion is, that the first verse of Genesis was designed, by the Divine Spirit, to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and that it is so understood in other parts of Holy Writ: that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation; and that the third verse begins the account of the six days" work. ' Gesenius, sub voce. The lexicographer refers to the particle in Gen. i. 2, as an instance of its continuative force merely — i. c, as employed for the simple purpose of connecting one |)art of a subject with the next which followed it in the order of the writer's design, without any reference to the length of intervening time. NOTE. 355 If I am reraindod that I am in danpjor of being biassed in favour of these conchisions by the hoj^e of harmonizing Hcripture with geology, I might venture to suggest, in reply, that the danger is not all on one side. Instances of adherence to traditional interpretations, chiefly because they are traditional and popular, though in the face of all evidence of their faulti- ness, are by no means so rare as to render warning unnecessary. The danger of confounding the infallibility of our own inter- l^retation with the infallibility of the sacred text, is not peculiar to a party. If, again, I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my reply is, that I am simply making the works of God illustrate his word, in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative voice ; that " it is all the same whether our geological or theological investigations have been prior, if we have not forced the one into accordance with the other ;"i and that it might be deserving consideration, whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just animadversion, wdio first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a passage of Scrip- ture irrespective of all the appropriate evidence, and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their a priori interpretation as the only true one. But in making these remarks, I have been conceding too much. The views which I have exhibited are not of yesterday. It is " important and interesting to observe, how the early fathers of the Christian church should seem to have entertained precisely similar views; for St. Gregory Nazianzen, after St. Justin Martyr, supposes an inde/inite j)eriodhetvfeen the creation and the first ordering of all things. St. Basil, St. Csesarius, and Origen, are much more explicit. "2 To these might be added Augustine, Theodoret, Episcopius, and others, whose remarks imply the existence of a considerable interval " between the creation related in the first verse of Genesis, and that of which an account is given in the third and following verses. "^ In modern times, but long before geology became a science, the independent character of the opening sentence of Genesis was affirmed by such judicious and learned men as Calvin, Bishop Patrick, and Dr. David Jennings.* And " in some old editions ' Dr. S. Davidson's Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 672. - Principal Wiseman's Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion, vol. i. p. 297. 3 The Note in Buckland's Bridgcwater Treatise, by Dr. Pusey, •wbo refers to Petavius, lib. c. cap. 11, § i. — viii. * Dr. J. Pye Smith's Scripture and Geology, pp. 179, 180. A A 2 356 NOTE. of the Englisli Bible, where there is no division into verses, you actually (ind a break at the end of what is now the second verse; and in lAither's Bible (Wittenberg, 1557) you have in addition the figure 1 placed against the third verse, as being the beginning of the account of the creation on the first day." Now these views were formed independently of all geological considerations. In the entire absence of evidence from this quarter — probably even in opposition to it, as some would think — these conclusions were arrived at on biblical grounds alone. Geology only illustrates and confirms them. The works of God prove to be one with this preconceived meaning of his word. And there is ground to expect that this early interpreta- tion will gradually come to be universally accepted as the only correct one. Note II., referriufj to iiages 194 and 294. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE THEORY OF SUCCESSIVE CREATIONS. This note is taken, partly, from an abstract of a communica- tion to the British Association, in 1845, by Professor E. Forbes, " On the distribution of Endemic Plants, more especially those of the British Islands, considered with regard to Geological Changes;" and partly from his essay " On the Connexion between the Distribution of the existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles, and the Geological Changes which have affected their area, especially during the epoch of the Northern Drift," in the " Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, &c." The object of its insertion here is to illustrate the doctrine of suc- cessive creations. " In the following remarks on the history of the indigenous Fauna and Flora of the British Islands and the neighbouring sea," writes Professor Forbes, " I take for granted the existence of spcci/ic centreH — i. e., of certain geographical points from which the individuals of each species have been diffused. This, indeed, must he taken for granted, if the idea of species (as most naturalists hold) involves the idea of the relationship of all the individuals composing it, and their consequent descent from a single progenitor, or from two, according as the sexes might be united or distinct. " That this view is true, the following facts go far to prove. First: Species of opjiosite hemis])heros placed under similar eonditions are rojircsentalice, and not idendcdl . Secondly : Species NOTE. 357 occupying similar conditions in geological formations far apart, and which conditions are not met with in the intermediate for- mations, are representative and not identical. Thirdly: Where- ever a given assemblage of conditions, to which, and to which only, certain species are adapted, arc continuous — whether geo- graphii^aiiy or geologically — identical species range throughout. " I oiler no comments on these three great facts, which I present for the consideration of the few naturalists who doubt the doc- trine of sijecitic centres. The general and traditional belief of mankind has connected the idea of descent with that of distinct kinds, or species, of creatures ; and the abandonment of this doctrine would place in a very dubious position all the evidence the paheontologist could offer to the geologist towards the com- parison and idcntilication of strata, and the determination of the epoch of their formation. " Moreover, it is notorious that the doctrine of more than one point of origin for a single species, and consequently, more than one primogenitor for the individuals of it, sprang out of ap- l)arent anomalies and dilficulties in distribution, such as those which I am about to show can be reasonably accounted for, without having recourse to such a supposition." The hypothesis of the descent of all the individuals of a species either from a first pair or from a first individual, and the consequent theory of specific centres, being assumed, the isola- tion of assemblages of individuals from those centres and the existence of endemic or very local plants, remain to be accounted for. Natural transport, the agency of the sea, rivers, and winds, and carriage by animals, or through the agency of man, are means, in the majority of cases, insufficient. It is usual to say that the presence of many jjlants is determined by soil or climate, as the case may be ; but if such i)lants be found in areas dis- connected from their centres by considerable intervals, some other cause than the mere influence of soil or climate must be sought to account for their presence. This cause the author proposes to seek in an ancient connexion of the outposts or isolated areas with the original centres, and the subsequent isolation of the former through geological changes and events, especially those dependent on the elevation and ilepression of haul. Selecting the flora of the Uritish Isles for a lirst illustra- tratiou of this view. Professor Forbes calls attention to the fact, well known to botanists, of certain species of flowering plants being found indigenous in portions of that area at a great dis- tance from the nearest assemblage of individuals of the same species in countries beyond it. Thus many plants peculiar in 358 NOTE. the British flora to the west of Ireland have the nearest portion of their specific centres in the nortli-west of Sjiain ; others, con- fined with us to the south-west promontory of England, are, beyond our shores, found in the Channel Isles and the opposite coast of France ; the vegetation of the south-east of England is that of the opposite part of the Continent ; and the Alpine vegetation of Wales and the Scottish Highlands is intimately related to that of the Norwegian A1])S. The great mass of the British flora has its most intimate relations with that of western Germany. The vegetation of the British Islands may be said to be composed of Ave floras: — 1st, a west Pyreneau, confined to the west of Ireland, and mostly to the mountains of that district; 2nd, a flora related to that of the south-west of France, extending from the Channel Isles, across Devon and Cornw-all, to the south-east and part of the south-west of Ire- laud ; 8rd, a flora common to the north of France and south- east of England, and especially developed in the chalk districts; 4th, an Alpine flora, developed in the mountains of Wales, north of England, and Scotland ; and, 5th, a Germanic flora, extending over the greater part of Great Britain and Ireland, mingling with the other floras, and diminishing, though slightly, as we proceed westwards, indicating its easterly origin and rela- tion to the characteristic flora of northern and western Germany. Interspersed among the members of the last-named flora are a very few specific centres, pecidiar to the British Isles. The author numbers these floras according to magnitude as to species, and also, in his opinion, according to their relative age and jDcriods of introduction into the area of the British Islands. His conclusions on this point are the following : — " 1. The oldest of the floras now composing the vegetation of the British Isles is that of the mountains of the west of Ireland. Though an Alpine flora, it is southernmost in character, and quite distinct as a system from the floras of the Scottish and Welsh Alps. Its very southern character, its limitation, and its extreme isolation, are evidences of its antiquity, jjointing to a period when a great mountain barrier extended across the mouth of the Bay of Biscay from Spain to Ireland. " 2. The distribution of the second flora, next in point of pro- bable date, depended on the extension of a barrier, the traces of which still remain, from the west of France to the south-west of Britain, and thence to Ireland. " 3. The distribution of the third flora depended on the con- nexion of the coasts of France and England towards the eastern part of the Channel. Of the former existence of this union no geologist doubts. NOTE. 359 " 4. The distribution of the I'oiirth, or Alpine flora of Scothind and Wales, was eiibcted during the glacial period, when the mountain summits of Britain were low islands, or members of chains of islands, extending to the area of Norway through a glacial sea, and clothed with an arctic vegetation, which, in the gradual u})heaval of the land, and consequent change of climate, becauje limited to the summits of the new-formed and still existing mountains. " 5. The distribution of the iifth, or Germanic flora, dei)ended on the upheaval of the bed of the glacial sea, and the consequent coiinexion of Ireland and England, and of England with Ger- many, by great plains, the fragments of which still exist, and upon which lived the great elk, and other quadrupeds now extinct. " The breaking up, or submergence, of the first barrier led to the destruction of the second ; that of the second to that of the third ; but the well-marked epoch of the Germanic flora indicates the subsequent formation of the Straits of Dover and of the Irish Sea, as now existing. " To determine the probable geological epoch of the first, or west Irish flora, a fragment, perhaps, with that of north-western Spain, of the vegetation of the true Atlantic, we must seek among fossil plants for a starting-point in time. This we get in the flora of the London clay, or eocene, which is tropical in cha- racter, and far anterior to the oldest of the existing floras. The geographical relations of the miocene sea, indicated by the fos- sils of the coralline crag, give an after-date certainly to the second and third of the above floras, if not to the first. The epoch of the red or middle crag was probably coeval with the in-coming of the second flora ; that of the mammaliferous crag with the third. The date of the fourth is too evident to be questioned ; and the author regards the glacial region in which it flourished as a local climate, of which no true traces, so far as animal life is concerned, exist southwards of the second and third barriers. This was the newer pliocene epoch. The period of the fifth flora was that of the post-tertiary, when the present aspect of things was of ganized." In his masterly essay, the Professor has shown that the ])ecu- liar distribution of the endemic animals, especially of the terres- trial mollusca, bears him out in these views. And among the chief conclusions which he derives from the facts and arguments there adduced, the first is, that " the flora and fauna, terrestrial and marine, of the British islands and seas, have originated, so 360 NOTE. far as that area is concerned, since the miocene epoch." And the second, that " the assembhiges of animals and jihxnts com- posinpj that fauna and flora, did not appear in the area they now inhabit simultaneously, hut at several distinct jDoints of time." These distinct periods, beginning some time after the miocene epoch and ending with that of the post-tertiary, are indicated above. And the evidence of the in-coming of each assemblage of plants and animals, in the order and at the time specified, is to be found in the fossil records which the earth contains, and which the essay clearly exhibits. It hardly need be added, that the same course of investigation is as applicable to the entire globe as to the area in question, and to the relations of the ancient epochs of geology one with another, as of the present with the geological past. 1 N T) i: X Abundance, of vegetable life, 205, 215; of animal, 305, 317, 318, 332. Action and reaction in the vegetable kingdom, 183. Activity, law of, stated, 60 ; illustrated from inorganic nature, 98, 102 ; from organic life, 176; from sen- tient existence, 251. Adaptations to pre-existing laws, 213; animal, 318. Affinity, 181. Agassiz, on transmutation of species, 275, 287; on the number of fossil fishes, 304. All-sufficiency of God, 10 ; of creative power, 138, 144, 154; of creative wisdom, 204, 207, 216, 219; of creative goodness, 302, 306 ; mani- festation of, progressive, 1 ; unend- ing, 12 ; all-comprehending, 14. Analogy, 65 ; law of, stated, ib. ; il- lustrated froni inorganic nature, 112; from organic life, 188 ; from sentient existence, 272. Analogies of nature to moral truth, 113. Anaximander, his opinion of the cre- ating cause, 16. Animal kingdom, organically continu- ous, in what sense, 245, 262, Note ; geological continuity of, 246 ; four- fold division of, ib. ; physiological continuity of, 250 ; organization, plan of, 250, 314 ; numbers of, 317 ; means of its enjoyment improved to the utmost, ib. Animal and organic life, distinguished, 230, 246 ; earliest forms of, not the lowest order, 248 ; variety and suc- cession of, 247, 303, 332 ; fecundity, 305 ; universality, 317, 318, 332. Anticiuity of the earth, 70. Appointment, primary, and ever-pre- sent agency, in creation, 120. Argument a posteriori, its dependence on a priori beliefs, 150; limited to mechanical causes and effects, 150, 152; overlooks the origination of matter, ib. Aristotle, his principle of animal clas- sification, 308. Assimilation, distinctive of life, 165. Astronomy, its limits, 82. Attributes, Divine, not separable, 69y 86, 156. Augustine on " the beginning," 24. Bacon, on final causes, 170. Bell, Sir C, on the relations of animal organization, 258 ; organic provi- sions for animal well-being, 322, 324 ; on the sensibility of the skin, 325. Berzelius, on crystallization, 89. Bichat, on physiology, 168; on the twofold nature of the animal system, 230, 296. Botanical plan, 174, 181, 188, 218. progress, 174, 176. Boyle, on the pervading agency of God in nature, 128. Brougham, Lord, on instinct, 238 ; on the benevolence of the Creator, 321,327. Buckland, Rev. Dr., on the botanical plan, 174; on the gradual conformity of animals to existing tyi)es, 249 ; on transmutation of species, 277. 362 INDEX. Cambrian system, 76. Ciirlionifcruus system, 74. Causation, tlie idea of, liow derived, 70. Cause cuulouuded with law. Til ; witli eonditiou, 19:3, 21)4, 301 ; the first, ditt'eriiiy in nature from second causes, 150, 151. final, 1G7, 170. Cavanilles, on vej^'-etable growth, 177. Chalk formation, 73. Change, law of, stated, 6G ; illustrated from inorganic nature, 132, 140; from organic life, 201,207; from sentient existence, 300, 306 ; ground for expecting it, 133, 20 U 300; conditions of, 134, 202, 204, 301 ; time of, not capricious, 134, 201,202 301. Clark, Dr. W., on foetal development, 280, 281, 293. Classes of plants, the same from the first, 160. Classification of inorganic substances, principles of, 114, 116; of the ve- getable kingdom, 181, 190, 192; . of the animal kingdom, 287, 290. Coleridge, on animal rationality, 240; on the progress of creation, 254. Concurrence, constant, of the Divine Will, in creation, 121. Condition, not to be confounded with cause, 193, 294, 301. Constitution of plants, independent, 194; of animals, 291, 293. Contingent truth, law of, stated, 57 ; illustrated from inorganic nature, 116, 118; from organic life, 192, 196; from sentient existence, 290, 295. Continuity, law of, stated, 59 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 94, 98 ; from organic life, 1 72, 1 76 ; from sentient existence, 245, 251 ; its unwarranted application, 94 ; not to be rejected for its misap- plication, 95 Contrivances, prospective, 212, 278, 311,327. Cousin, J\I., his opinion of the creating cause, 17. Created excellence originally in God, 7, 18. Creation, cannot supersede the Di- vine right, 6 ; a voluntary act, 16 ; the well-being of, coincident with the Divine glory, 20, 21 ; by natural law, not free from moral objections, 121, 123,128; its li- mitation, inherent in matter, 153, 216; an all-related system, 258, 259 ; primary act of, 348 ; crea- tion proper, scriptural view of, 348, 352. Creature, none for an eternity, 5. Cumbrian formation, 76. Cuvier, on final causes in organization, 167 ; on life, 171 ; its activity, 177 ; organic continuity, 24(5 ; transmu- tation, 286. Daubeny, Dr., on the rudimentary parts of plants, 190. Davidson, i)r. S.., words and works of God, mutually illustrative, 355. Daw, Sir 11., on the electric state of the earth, 99. Death, animal, a part of the system of nature, 222, 226; objections answered, 224 ; involved in the greatest amount of animal enjoy- ment, 225 ; natural, preceded by the cessation of sensibility, 227. Decandolle, on the habits of plants, 195. De la Jieche, Sir Henry T., on trans- mutation, 286. Descartes, his error in reasoning only a j)riori, viii. ; on animal rationality, 237. Design, when inferrible, 70, 142; twofold evidence of, 193, 290, 292. Development, law of, stated, 62; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 1 03 ; from organic life, 178, 180; from sentient existence, 253, 256. Development, natural, anthropomor- phizing views of!, 122, 127 ; reason assigned for, inconsistent, 194. Distances of the heavenly bodies, 146. Earth, its antiquity, 70 ; its magni- tude, 144; not eternal, 78; primi- tive activity of, 101 ; proximately made for man, 335 ; a school for his education, ib. ; a temple for his worship, 336; the scene of his pro- bation, 341. liNDEX. 363 Earth's crust, ideal section of, 72. Edinburgh Review, on Cousin's philo- sophy, 17- _ Effect, an infinite, in space, not pos- sible, 11 ; the first objective, 85. Ehrenberg", on microscopic animal- cules, 145, 284, 285. Embryotic hypothesis, unfounded, 260, 278, 283. End of creation, the ultimate, 18, 19. End, more than one, designed in crea- tion, 19; proximate ends concur with the ultimate, 271 ; ultimate, law of, stated, 51 ; illustrated from inorganic nature, 143, 155 ; from organic life, 210, 219; from sen- tient existence, 310, 333. Enjoyment, the existing scheme of animal life secures the greatest amount of, 227. Eocene, meaning of, 248. Evidence of a Creator, measured, 141 ; of power and wisdom, from organic and inorganic nature, different, 170, 171, 193 ; khid and degree of, adapted to man's designed consti- tution, 207, 210, 309, 335, 345 ; increased, 211, 311, 315. Excitability, a property of organic life, 179. Final causes, 167, 170; assumed by those who profess to dispense with them, 168 ; not to be admitted into mechanical inquiries, 170. First Cause, differing in nature from second causes, 150, 151. Fletcher, on foetal development, 281. Foetal development, 280, 283. Forbes, Professor P^., on the connexion between the fauna and flora of the British isles, and the geological changes which have affected this area, 356. Forchhammer, 162, 175. Fossil riora of tertiary strata, 175, 356 ; fauna of, 247, 248 ; flora of secondary strata, 1 75 ; fauna of, 247 ; flora of primary formation, 174 ; fauna of, 246 ; variety of, 303, 332. Fossil plants, number of species, 173. Fownes, on organic combinations, 179. Fundamental relation, 22. Generation, spontaneous, 283, 287. Genesis, i., 1, 83, 348. Geofl'rey St. llilaire, on final causes, 168. Geological evidence of the earth's an- tiquity, objections answered, 83. Geology and miracle, 339, 343. God, his own end, 1,5, 10 ; eternity of, 1 ; necessary existence, 2 ; ab- sokite perfection ib.; onliness, 3; plurality in unity, ib. ; self-sutK- ciency, 3, 9 ; unchangeableness, 5 ; to be his own end, an antecedent, eternal right, 6 ; his ultimate pur- pose in creation, 10; his all-suffi- ciency, ib. ; manifestation of, not verbal merely, 28. Goodness, creative, 222 ; pain con- sistent with, ib. ; economized, 223, 226, 322, 326; prey, system of, 222, 224; all-sufficient, 302, 306, 316, 333; display of, why not absolutely infinite, 306, 329, 330 ; power and wisdom, subservient to, 315; infinity of, inferrible, 329; unlimited, in relation to tune, 330. Goppert, on the number of species of fossil plants, 173. Great reason, 1. " Heavens and earth," meaning of, 348. Heb. xi., 3. Henslow, Rev. Professor, on the ac- tivity of vegetable life, 177; exci- tability, 179. Herschel, Sir John, on law as predi- cated of inanimate nature, 91 ; on the relations of the planetary sys- tem, 103; on star-clusters, 146; on causation, 150. Hooker, on the stability of nature, 268. Humboldt, Alexander, on volcanic activity, 99, 100; on the distances of heavenly bodies, 147; on the abundance of vegetable life, 205. Hj'pothesis, the legitimate use of, 1 11 ; of an atom proving an infinite being, 11; nebular, 81, 86, 96; embryotic, unfounded, 260. Idea of causation, how derived, 70. Ideal ph3'sical perfection suggested, 111 ; botanical, 188; animal, 271. 364 INDEX. Ideal section of the earth's crust, 72. Influence, law of, stated, GS ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 106; from organic life, 18.3; from sen- tient existence, 262. Inorganic nature, 68. Instinctive mind, 231, 243 ; why diffi- cult to explain, 231, 23.5; sensa- tion, a projiorty of, 231 ; perception, 232 ; muscular contraction, 232 ; volition, 233 ; its proximate end, 234 ; vital, ib. ; adaptive, 234, 237 ; mental, 235 ; advocates of animal rationality prove too much, 236, 238 ; incapable of transmitting knowledge, 238 ; of barter, 239 ; of speech, ib. ; what intervenes be- tween its perceptions and volitions, 241 ; its memory and associations, 241 ; unconscious of its own ends, 242 ; why without speech, 243. Instincts of' the same species perma- nent, 266. Jenyns, on the arrangement of Infu- soria, 285. John, the Gospel of, i. 1 — 3, 23, 350. Kant, on organization, 166. Knowledge, instinctive, not trans- missible, 238. Lamarck, on organic continuity, 246 ; on transmutation of species, 274 ; on the internal sentiment, 296. Laplace, his nebular hy[)othesis, 81 ; on chance, 93, 114, 117; on the stability of the heavens, 107, 112. Law, meaning of, as applied to nature, 91, 108, 109. Law of resemblance, stated, 50 ; of the end, 51 ; of relation, 52 ; of obli- gation, 53; of well-being, 54; of necessary truth, 56 ; of contingent truth, 57 ; of ultimate facts, 58 ; of progression, ib. ; of continuity, 59 ; of the {)ast carried forwards, 60 ; of activity, ib.; of development, (!2; of order, 63 ; of influence, ib. ; of sub- ordination, 64 ; of uniformity, ib. ; of analogy, 65 ; of change, 66 ; of the method, 67. Laws deduced and stated, 50. Lawrence, on the mystery of sensa- tion, 296. Liebig, on the influence of natural science on mental improvement, 207; on organic activity, 251 ; on organic continuity, 262 ; on chemi- cal forces and vital powers, 270. Liebnitz, on continuity, 94 ; on the calculable nature of the universe, 114. Life, organic, 165 ; assimilation, a distinction of, 165 ; propagation, 166; excitability, 179; freedom of life, 186; organization, a condition of, not its cause, ib. ; not necessi- tated by its physical conditions, 195 ; known only by its manifesta- tions, 1 97 ; explained by physio- logy, in what sense, 198; its rela- tions to creation and providence, 199; distinguished from animal, 230, 246 ; always continued on the earth, 249 ; superiority of animal to vegetable, 253 ; embryotic, first trace of, 261, 265. Limestone beds, 74. Limitation of creation, inherent in matter, 153, 216. Limits of astronomical science, 82. Lindley, Dr., on the decomposition of plants, 161 ; on botanical relations, 174. " Logos," considered philologically, 25 ; historically, 26 ; exegeticalh', 27. Lusus naturae, accounted for, 252. Lyell, C, Esq., on geological grada- tion, 98 ; on the permanence of instincts in the same species, 266 ; transmutation, 286. Macculloch, John, M. D., on geolo- gical gradation, 97 ; on the incon- sistency of not recogtiising a De- signing Cause, 210. Man, his voluntary nature consulted, 141,207— 2 10, .307—310; a medi- tation on his coming, 333 ; his well- being provided for, 337. Manifestation of God, not verbal merely, 28. Matter, creation of, a display of power, but not exclusively, 85, 144; inorganic, its constitution, 90; its nndecompounded forms, ib. ; its properties, ib. ; its laws, ib. ; its INDEX. 3G5 combinations, 91 ; relations of, to space and to time, distinction be- tween, 129 ; proportion of, to space, 147 ; origination of, not included in the six days of the Adamic crea- tion, 352—354. Means and ends, distinguished from causes and effects, 168. Mediatorial, the constitution of the universe, 22. Method, law of the, stated, 67 ; illus- trated, from inorganic nature, 140 — 143; from organic life, 207 — 210; from sentient existence, 306 — 310. Mill, J. S., on the legitimate use of hypotheses, iii. ; on laws of nature, 108 ; on their supposed explanation, 122 ; on ultimate laws, 297. Midler, on i\\e primitive trace^ 261. Murchison, Sir R. S., on fossil plants, 173; on increase of species, 249. Natural Theology, 336, 341 ; con- nexion with revealed, 344. Nature, inorganic, 68; distinguished from organic, 180. Nature, laws of, 91, 108, 109 ; com- patible with numerical increase, 108 ; with perturbations, 108, 257 ; and with certain changes in its con- stitution, 109 ; regularity of, often confounded with explanation, 121 ; anticipated art, 312. Nebular hypothesis, its design, 31 ; claims, 81, 86, 96. Necessary truth, law of, stated, 56 ; illustrated from inorganic nature, 130; from organic life, 200; from sentient existence, 299 ; time and space, necessary conditions, 130, 131 ; power, both cause and condi- tion, 131. Necessary development, an assump- tion, 202, 295, 300. Nerves, each class of, specific, 293, 325 — 327 ; benevolent arrangement of, 324; sensibility of each nerve varies with its function, 325 ; not necessarily sensitive, 293, 326. Newton, on the perturbations of the planetary system, 107 ; on the divine agency in nature, 121 ; on the relation of physical science to the first cause, 150. Nichol, Prof., on planetary changes, 96. Obligation, the primary, 29 ; moral, 30 ; varies with the relation, ib. ; mediatorial, ib. ; Scripture assumes it, 33 ; reason of, 34 — 38 ; essential to the Divine manifestation, 39 ; un- ending, ib. Obligation, law of, stated, 53 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 109; from organic life, 189; from sen- tient existence, 267 — 269. Old red sandstone, 74. Oolitic formation, 73. Order, law of, stated, 63 ; illustrated from inorganic nature, 105; from organic life, 182; from sentient existence, 260 — 262. Order of the manifestation, 68. Organic life, a display of wisdom, but not exclusively, 159; laws of, es- sential to man's interests, 207 ; dis- tinguished from animal. 230, 246. Organs, perfect from the first, 276 ; no one animal organ universal, 293. Organization, 166; a condition of life not its cause, 186. Owen, Professoi", on the orders of fossil reptiles, 247 ; on the transmutation of species, 287. Pain, compatible with creative good- ness, 222 — 227; its warning na- ture, 322 ; contrivances for econo- mizing it, 323. Paley's definition of instinct, 235 ; all nature pervaded by the same cha- racteristics, 259, 266 ; on the pre- ponderance of animal enjoyment, 316. Past, brought forwards, law of, stated, 60 ; illustrated from inorganic na- ture, 88 ; from organic life, 161 — 165 ; from sentient existence, 228. Perfections, divine, not separable, 69, 86, 156. I'hillips, Professor, on the earliest fos- sil forms of life, 161 ; life and its conditions, 195 ; its uninterrupted maintenance, 249, 303 ; adaptation of the globe to man, 309. Plan, itotanical, 174, 181, 188,218; animal, 250, 272 ; all related, 314. 366 INDEX. Planetary system, magnitude of, 145. Powell, Rev. Professor, on the evidence of power and wisdom compared, 170. Power, fundamental to every other attribute, 69. creation of matter, a display of, but not exclusively, 86, 144; creative, unlimited in relation to time, 153, 216 ; evidence of, in- creased, 211. Power, creative, the display of, not absolutely infinite, 136, 144, 150; all-sufficient, 138, 144, 154; a dis- play of, unlimited, requires time unlimited, 144; interpositions di- rect, 194, 195, 294, 295 ; increased display of, 310. Preliminary Treatise of the library of useful knowledge on creative ar- rangements, 312, 314. Primary formation, 75 ; fossil flora of, 174 ; fauna of, 246. Primary obligation, 29. Primitive trace of embryonic life, 264. Progressive, display of divine all- sufficiency, 10. Progression, law of, stated, 58 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 89 — 94; from organic life, 165 — 172; from sentient existence, 229 — 243. Propagation, distinctive of life, 166. Prospective contrivances, 212, 278, 311,327. Prout, on the molecular constitution of matter, 117. Proximate principles of life, not imi- table, 197. Purpose, the ultimate, 10. Pusey, Rev. Dr., on Gen. i. 1. Reason, the great, 1 . Recency of man's creation, 84. Relation, the fundamental, 22 ; me- diatorial, 23 ; preceded creation, ib. ; subservient to the display of the Divine all-sufficiency, 2.5 ; reason of, 33 — 38 ; will never terminate, 39. Relations, law of, stated, 52 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 103 — 105 ; from organic life, 180 — 182 ; from sentient existence, 256 — 260 ; relations of matter, co-existent, 1 03 ; successively existent, 104; to God, 1 05 ; of resemblance, 112; of or- gan ic life, external, 180, 189; in- ternal, 181 ; of the animal, external, and co-existent, 256 ; internal and successive, 257. Resemblance, law of, stated, 50 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 85, 87; from organic life, 159 — 161; from sentient existence, 222, 227. Resisting medium, 80. Revelation and natural science, 347. Right, the supreme, 40 ; of the Medi- ator to the agency of the Holy Spirit, 40 ; to the service of the creature, 41 ; to all its legitimate increase, 42 ; to the satisfaction arising from the accomplishment of His creative designs, 43 ; from beholding the progress of His pro- vidential scheme, 44 ; the effects of His interposition for man's recovery, 47 ; from the homage of the reco- vered, ib. ; from being the object of infinite complacency, ib. ; from the attainment of the ultimate end, 48. Roget, P. ISIark, M.D., on the part of the foetus first perfected, 261 ; on the nervous arrangements, 324. Rudimental organs, 190, 273. Schmidt, on life, 166. Science versus atheism, 78, 91. Secondary strata, 73; fossil flora of, 175; fossil, fauna of, 247. Sedgwick, Rev. Prof, on the succes- sion of fossil species, 248. Sensation, a property of animal mind, 231 ; known only by its manifes- tations, 296 ; physiological expla- nations presuppose it, 296 — 299 ; its relation to Creation and Provi- dence, 297. Sensibility to pain involved in sensi- bility to pleasure, 226 ; of each class of nerves specific, 293, 325, 327. Silurian system, 75. Smith, Dr. J. P., on John, i. 1 — 3, 25, 347, 355. Species, increase of, 249. Spontaneous generation, 283 — 287. Stewart, D., on the pervading nature INDEX. of the Divine agency, 125 ; on the regularity of physical laws, 260. Strickland, on classification, "288. Stuart, Prof. IVL, on the original act of creation, 350. Subordination, law of, stated, 64 ; il- lustrated from inorganic nature, 107; from organic life, 184; from sentient existence, 203. Succession of vegetable worlds, 214. Supreme right, 40. Swainson, on animal adaptation and enjoyment, 319. Tertiary strata, 72 ; fossil flora of, 175 ; fossil fauna of, 248. Theology, natural, 33()— 341. Tholuck, Prof., on the " Logos," 26, 351. Tiedemann, on the ultimate character of life, 197. Transmutation of species, 274 — 278 ; of individual organs unknown, 276. Ultimate end, proximate ends concur with the, 271. Ultimate facts, law of, stated, 58 ; il- lustrated from inorganic nature, 118 — 130; from organic life, 197 — 200 ; from sentient existence, 295—299. Ultimate purpose, 10. Unending display of Divine all- suiliciency, 12. Uniformity, law of, stated, 64 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature, 107 — 109; from organic life, 185; from sentient existence, 265 — 267. Unity of organic composition, 168, 250. Universe dependent, 8 ; its constitu- tion mediatorial, 22 ; self-acting, without analogy, 125 ; material, magnitude of 146. Vegetable, did it precede animal, life? 161; variety of 204, 214; worlds, succession of, 214. Velocities of the heavenly V)odies, 148. Vertebral classes, order of succession, 249. " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," on continuity and deve- lopment, 95 ; on the relative dis- tances of the planets, 97 ; creation made independent, 120; anthropo- morphizing views of, 122 — 128; embryotic hypothesis of, 279. Vital functions, involuntary, 321. Well-being, law of, stated, 54 ; illus- trated from inorganic nature. 111; from organic life, 187; from sen- tient existence, 269 — 272. Whewell, Rev. Dr., on crystalliza- tion, 89 ; on laws of nature, 109 ; on gravitation, 117; contingency of natural laws, ib. ; on organiza- tion, 167, 172, 176 ; on final causes, 169; on instinct, 233. Wisdom, what, 157 ; its display to be expected, 157; displayed, but not exclusively, in organic life, 159 ; creative, all-sufficiency of, 204 — 207, 216—219 ; display of, not ab- solutely infinite, 206,215; infinity of inferrilile, 216 ; unlimited, in re- lation to time, 217 ; increased dis- play of, 311, 327. Wiseman, Rev. Dr., on the interval between the original and the Adamic creation, 355. Words, progressive enlargement of their meaning, 244. T. C. Savill, Printer, 4, Chandos-street, Corent-garden. ARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. L 006 058 01 7 '2 UC SOUTHERN RFGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 773 366 ' /' ■''■'"r. .# ^1^ ••>•. •"•*;-" :^\ '« -l-^v;^- >:•; L<-' /<*• ■'m