LIBRARY OF THE Theological Seminary, PRINCETON, N. J. BL 240 .B88 1873 ( Burr, E. F. 1818-1907. I Pater mundi, or, Doctrine o} evolution kj\j\jg\j) PATER MUNDI; DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. BEING IN SUBSTANCE LECTURES DELIVERED IN VARIOUS COL- LEGES AND THEOLOGICAL SEMI- NARIES. BY REV. E. F. BURR, D. D., AUTHOR OF "ECCE CCELUM " AND " AD FIDEM," AND LECTURER ON THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF RELIGION, IN AMHERST COLLEGE. El fxr) KaTeo-irapfxevoi $\aa.v ol t.olovtoi Xoyoi eV rois iracriv, &s tiroi elwfTv, avOpwirois, ovSev &v eSet twv iirafxvuovTdov \6yct>v, a>s clal 8eo\, vvv de avdyKt]. — Plato. If a man sets out to write a book, let him put down only what he knows — I have guesses enough of my own. — Goethe. SECOND SERIES. BOSTON: NOYES, HOLMES AND COMPANY, No. 117 Washington Street. 1873. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Noyes, Holmes and Company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. TO THE HEAVENLY FATHER, TO WHOM WE DEDICATE OUR SABBATHS, OUR SANCTUARIES, AND OURSELVES, £i)ese Volumes, IN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS BEING AND GREATNESS, ARE REVERENTLY INSCRIBED. PREFACE. When a child says, // broke itself, we are not much astonished. Such philosophy might be ex- pected from childhood. But what if the same philosophy comes to us from the lips and pens of full grown men who have taken their degrees in science In the course of progressive development we have come to — what ? Look about you. Here is an idol, with a crowd of half-naked people danc- ing about it like madmen. There is a slave till- ing the field with a sharpened stick. And, sure as you live, yonder is old Democritus — I should know him among a thousand — standing at the mouth of his burrow ; unclothed and uncombed and unwashed ; a silly leer on his face ; whom all the people say to be mad, and who is so mad as to say that God and virtue are mere names, as he writes in the sand with dirtiest of fingers the sin- gle word, "Arofioif Why, this is not Christendom vi PREFACE. in the last of the nineteenth century ! It is heathen Greece, of some thousands of years ago — Greece without the useful arts, without science, without morals — at least Greece Li its very childhood as to these chief things. And the child says, The universe made itself. Such is Progress. If the author of this volume could enter again its locked forms he would feel disposed to add — i. A few striking examples of organisms, at first set down by experts as being clearly of the same species, but afterward found so broadly unlike in their more interior structure as to be unanimously assigned to distinct species, and sometimes even to distinct genera. 2. Some account of that very instructive civil war now raging among evolutionists, in which scarcely a single principle important to their scheme but is loudly called in question by some first-class authority among themselves. 3. A chapter showing in detail how the sort of argument used in favor of evolution might be used, with equal or greater plausibility, in favor of the heathen doctrine of metempsychosis ; or some other doctrine which nobody now thinks of believing. As it is, perhaps this book will serve a purpose PREFACE. v jj till a better comes to us from the pen of M. Thiers. " I must give a pendant to my book on property. I am preparing it — a work against materialism. There is no great distance between the enemies of God and the foes of those who possess anything. Materialism is a folly as well as a peril. I am anxious to confound it in the name of science and good sense. For twelve years I have been en- gaged in this work ; during all that time I have been demanding from botany and chemistry and natural history their arguments against the detest- able doctrine that leads honest people astray." Lymf, Conn. CONTENTS. ♦ I. DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. PAGB i. Nature 9 2. Religious Bearings IO 3. Present Attitude H 4. Duel with Theism 19 II. AS EXPLAINING NATURE. 1. A Testimony 2 S 2. General Estimate 26 3. An Objection 28 4. Not to be Accepted if Adequate .... 30 5. Cannot be Shown Adequate .... 31 6. Is not Adequate 37 7. Examples of Evolution 37 III. CHIEF DEFENSE. 1. Alleged Examples 59 2. Harmonies with Nature . 60 3. Course of Scientific Experience .... 63 IV. CONFLICT WITH ONTOLOGY. 1. An Illustration 8 3 2. Combination no Creator 9 1 X CONTENTS. PAGB 3. No Equal from Equai 9 ^ 4. No Like from Like 97 V. CONFLICT WITH GEOLOGY. 1. Each Age its own Species .... 105 2. No Perpendicular Chains I09 3. No Horizontal Chains II2 4. Special Chasms IX c 5. Objection I27 VI. CONFLICT WITH THE SCIENCE OF PROBA- BILITIES. 1. Doctrine of Chances ... T -^n 1 o9 2. Broken Chains ... 1AT 3. Spontaneous Minims I4 g 4. Disjecta Membra X c 2 5. OVERLAPPINGS OF SPECIES T ty 6. Improprieties of Structure ^1 7. Organic Limits I70 8. Few Types I7 5 9- Spiritual Properties !g 2 VII. CONFLICT WITH SOLAR ASTRONOMY. Nebular F 2. Estimated 1. Nebular Hypothesis I97 199 3. Central Heat 203 4- Chemical Constitution 2 o$ 5. Mechanical Relations 209 6. Rotations 2l6 7. Revolutions 22 - 8. What Next? 2 _ 9 CONTENTS. xi VIII. CONFLICT WITH STELLAR ASTRONOMY. PAGE i. A Principle 246 2. Visible Systems 248 3. No Huge Centers 250 4. Without Certain Graduations .... 252 5. Various Planes 256 6. Eccentric Orbits 258 7. Different Chemistries 262 8. A Dream 269 IX. CONFLICT WITH NEBULAR ASTRONOMY. 1. Nebula • . 267 2. Examined by Spectroscope 269 3. Shown to be Fire Mists? 270 4. Shown not to be 273 5. What if they are? 285 6. The Whole Field 291 7. A Voyage 297 8. The Whence and the Whither .... 300 I. DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. Anaximenes omnes rerum causas infinito aeri dedit. St. Austin. Sed quibus ille modis conjectus materiae Fundarit coelum, ac terram, pontique profunda, Solis, lunae cursus, ex ordine ponam Nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum Ordine se quaeque atque sagaci mente locarunt. Lucretius. I. Doctrine of Evolution. i. NATURE 9 2. RELIGIOUS BEARINGS 10 3- PRESENT ATTITUDE 14 4. DUEL WITH THEISM 19 FIRST LECTURE. DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. / T^HE Doctrine of Evolution — known also as ■*■ the Law Scheme, and the Development Hy- pothesis — in its ripest form, is that all things we perceive, including what are called spiritual phe- nomena, have come from the simplest beginnings, solely by means of such forces and laws as be- long to matter. Suppose all matter expanded into one great cloud of atoms. Then these atoms, by virtue of properties inherent in themselves, would, in course of time, come together into worlds, into astronomic systems, into the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and even into that great spiritual realm which is the chief wonder and glory of Nature. I propose to discuss these views at length, be- cause they seem to me the great, and indeed the only possible, assailant of Theism from the side of science. It is true that not a few persons of great con- 10 FIRST LECTURE. sideration are disposed to think that the Doctrine of Evolution does not really assail our Theism at all. They say it is perfectly consistent with the existence of God, and even with His being the author of Nature. Supposing the nature of mat- ter to be the proximate source of all natural struc- tures and organisms, with their phenomena, the matter itself may have come directly from the hand of a Creator. This must be admitted. A positive proof of the Law Scheme would do just nothing toward disprov- ing a creating God. At the same time it is true that this scheme is extremely hostile to Theism and evangelical religion generally. One might con- jecture as much from its history. It was started by old Greek atheists — Anaximander, Anaxag- oras, Democritus, and Epicurus — in the interest of atheism. It was revived and enlarged in the interest of atheism, at the first of this century, by French atheists — Lamarck, St Hilaire, St. Vincent, and La Place. And, up to the present time, most of its leading supporters, the men who have pressed it with most zeal and intelligence, have been widely astray in point of religious belief. They have been materialists, rationalists, free- religionists. They have been deists, atheists, skep- RELIGIOUS BEARINGS. I I tics. They have been active foes of churches, min- istries, Bibles. To a man, such gross errorists are now found catching at the Doctrine of Evolution with great eagerness. They scarcely need to be argued with in its behalf. They are ready to take it on sight. At once it becomes their pet philoso- phy. They dote on it ; they put it forward on all occasions ; they loudly advertise us that it is des- ined to be, at no distant day, the destruction of what they are pleased to call superstition — mean- ing Supernaturalism and the Christian Religion. Especially true is this of the " fast and furious" unbelievers in Continental Europe. These men tell us with shining faces that they already see the beginning of the end ; that all the sacred tradi- tions are crumbling beneath the ponderous battle- axe of the new scientific giant. " God is dead," say they, " or if not yet dead, He is dying." And they blow a trumpet at the news. Whatever doubt others may have as to the real bearing of the Doctrine of Evolution, these men seem to have no doubt at all. While some Christian people look on the speculation with favor, and still more do not as yet see their way clear to reject it (per- haps lest they should repeat the story of Galileo and his persecutors), these men feel, and are glad 12 FIRST LECTURE. to feel, that, both in its practical influence and in its logical sequences, it is quite inconsistent with a reasonable faith in the Bible and in God. And I think their view is correct. The Law Scheme crowds God away till His great orb loses all sensible diameter. It contradicts that whole idea of a personal Divine interference in the affairs of the world, of which our Scriptures are full. Inspiration and miracles and regenerations and even prayers are scornfully cast out by it, as, at best, mere figures of speech. As to the Bible account of the origin of man, of the stage of "ad- vancement at which he appeared, of his fall, and of the way in which he is to be restored and saved — this scheme strikes it squarely in the face. Let men say what they will, evolutionism means materialism ; and so denies to man moral charac- ter, responsibility, personal immortality ; and so denies the chief use of having a God. " And thus," says Hugh Miller, " though the development the- ory be not atheistic, it is at least practically tanta- mount to atheism. For, if man be a dying crea- ture, restricted in his existence to the present scene of things, what does it really matter to him, for any one moral purpose, whether there be a God or no ? If in reality en the same religious RELIGIOUS BEARINGS. 1 3 level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are by na- ture atheists — a nature most properly coupled with irresponsibility — to what one practical pur- pose should he know or believe in a God whom he, as certainly as they, is never to meet as his Judge ; or why should he square his conduct by the requirements of the moral code, further than a low and convenient expediency may chance to demand ? " Evolutionism also denies that great class of Theistic evidences drawn from the admirable nat- ural objects of the universe, and on which faith in all ages has so largely rested. Indeed, it is not too much to say that in effect it suppresses all Theistic evidences : for, after I have admitted that the properties of matter itself will account for all we find within the bounds of Nature, what shall hinder a philosopher from saying, " These atoms are just as easily conceived of as being eternal as is an Infinite Mind. The atoms we know to ex- ist, the Mind we do not know to exist. In this case it is unphilosophical to assume the eternity of the unknown, rather than of the known, as an explanation of the facts. One assumption is simpler than two assumptions." No satisfactory answer can be made to this. Accordingly, those 14 FIRST LECTURE. scholars who hold to eternal atomic forces and laws which are able of themselves to build up all the various natural structures, are universally athe- ists. Founded by atheism, claimed by atheism, supported by atheism, used exclusively in the in- terest of atheism, suppressing without mercy every jot of evidence for the Divine existence, and so making a positive rational faith in God wholly impossible, the Doctrine of Evolution may well be set down as not only a foe to Theism, but a foe of the most thorough-going sort. And of late it has become a very aggressive and influential foe. Not so influential, indeed, as some of its friends are apt to claim. Listening to these, one might suppose that the entire scientific world had come over to their way of thinking — that the Development Hypothesis is as much accepted science as is the law of gravitation — that none but theologians and the crudest sciolists now think of calling it in question. And has the age really so swept by us ? Have matters actually come to that pass that a single curt and casual word of some young Comtist is sufficient to thrust into a corner that old supernaturalism which has reigned supreme through so many ages ? Is this hoary doctrine now only worthy of passing PRESENT ATTITUDE. 1 5 mention as a thing which every well-informed man knows to have been thoroughly exploded some time since ; and against which to offer a serious argu- ment at this late day almost calls for an apology ? Of course all this is abundantly preposterous. It would be ridiculous if it were not so criminal. It belongs to that well-known policy which tries to gain a battle by assuming it to be already gained. The battle is not gained — very far from it — whether we regard evidences or suffrages. Great scholars, and many of them, and most of them, still bow toward the throne of an Almighty Creator, and toward the Cross of His Son, Jesus Christ. There is, perhaps, no country where scholarship is so apt to be unbelieving as Germany ; and it has even been fashionable among evolutionists to claim, in a vague way, that all the German science and cul- ture are in favor of the new views ; but an actual search by one of our most eminent professors among German publications on the Development Hypothesis, discloses the fact that, out of some thirty works issued within a certain time, more than twenty were against the hypothesis, and these as much superior to the others in ability and in the repute of their authors, as they were in number. 1 6 FIRST LECTURE. Still, it is true that the hypothesis has come to have a very large following and influence, and threatens to have more. It has taken to itself the dress, the airs, the language, and the ideas of our best science. It speaks with the voices, writes with the pens, and persuades with the reputations of well-known scientific men to whose entire scholarly life and labors it is evidently giving shape. So it has managed to come to great notice and influence. It dwells unmolested under the/ eaves of Christian colleges. It sits honorably in professors' chairs. It is rewarded for its labors by Commencement honors. It is even invited to ex- pound itself in our Theological Seminaries ; an< to feed itself to the young men who are about t( feed the churches. It no longer confines itself to obscure treatises in the dialect of the learned, but tries to popularize itself to the utmost. It stands forth on the bemas of popular lecture-rooms. It drives the pens of widely read authors. It solicits in quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies, dailies. It affects the language of the common people, and even aspires to deal in the speech of the nursery. It has its tracts and its catechisms, and even its pictures. It has its Apostles' Creed, its West- minster Shorter, and even its " Can you tell me, PRESENT ATTITUDE. \y child, who made you ? " And the people and the youth are, to an alarming extent, being snared by such means. You can hear this new gospel stam- mering by the country roadside, in the village grocery, in the blacksmith's shop of the hamlet, and in the Sabbathless cabins of the remote school district among the hills. And if the evil is not hourly creeping up, like the plague of frogs, into all our " houses and bed-chambers and kneading- troughs," it is not the fault of many religious news- papers and Christian book-publishers — the latter publishing freely, and probably blindly, popular works all subtly steeped in the new views ; and the others as blindly praising these books and their authors in thousands of Christian families all over the land, and even inviting these authors across the seas to diffuse their views everywhere as itinerant lecturers — sounding a trumpet before them to be- speak attention. And why not — seeing that not a few devout and eminent theists and Christians, looking merely at the unquestionable fact that organization by atomic forces and laws is perfectly consistent with the existence of God, and over- looking the equally unquestionable fact that it is perfectly inconsistent with all evidence of His existence (especially with that evidence from the 1 8 FIRST LECTURE. things that are made, which the Christian Scrip- tures say leaves even the heathen without excuse), have been led to tolerate and sometimes to favor so much of the Law Scheme as philosophically draws after it all the rest. Altogether this scheme has come to great estate. We find it almost everywhere, doubting, insin- uating, arguing, dogmatizing, according to cir- cumstances ; sometimes directly affirming atheism, more often quite silent about it, sometimes stoutly and honestly denying it ; but always, I cannot but feel, practically implying it among such beings as make up mankind. No observant theist can fail to see that it is the great intellectual adversary of religion in our times. The rational battle for re- ligion is no longer on the metaphysical field : it is now almost wholly on the field of the natural sciences ; and the champion of unbelief on that field is the Doctrine of Evolution. And a formi- dable champion it is. As M. Guizot says, " All those who are still Christians and believers in a supernatural life, must become more united against the invasion of materialistic doctrines." There is no other speculation from which so much is to be apprehended ; none equally seductive and dan- gerous in all the speculating past. And far more DUEL WITH THEISM. 1 9 emphatically now than when the words were written, more than twenty years ago, by one of the most eminent of modern scientists, can it be said : " The evangelistic churches cannot, in consistency with their character, or with due regard to the interests of their people, slight or overlook a form of error at once exceedingly plausible and consum- mately dangerous, and which is telling so widely on society, that one can scarcely travel by railway or in a steamboat, or encounter a group of intelli- gent mechanics, without finding decided trace of its ravages." The Doctrine of Evolution deserves much atten- tion — especially since it is not merely the only actual, but also the only possible, competitor of Theism as an explanation of Nature. We' cannot conceive of any other way of accounting for Nature that has any plausibility about it to a thinking and enlightened age. If we may assume that the world will hold fast to at least some respectable fraction of its present intelligence, we may assume that it will never again entertain the idea, either of a creation by chance or of the eternity of existing organic individuals or races. It will always be the Law Scheme or Theism. It always must be. There is no tertium quid. The moment on'e gives up the 20 FIRST LECTURE. idea of creating law, he will, of necessity, fill the vacancy with the idea of a creating God. The Law Scheme is the John o' Groat's house to the atheist. It is quite the last ground on which he can stand. Dislodged from this, there is nothing beyond into which he can step forth but that illimitable Theism which washes and encroaches at his very feet. God may be, if the Law Scheme is true ; but God must be, if the Scheme is false. While establishing it would prove absolutely noth- ing against Theism, refuting it establishes The- ism in the strongest manner. Hence every blow on this one enemy is really a direct blow in behalf of God ; all sound objections that can be stated against the one are so many positive proofs of the other. And they are proofs that can never become obsolete. They meet not only all present atheism, but all atheism that can appear from this time forward. Of course, such universal and immortal arguments are invaluable. One might naturally be somewhat reluctant to spend much time and strength on an argument that may be made useless at any moment by the shifting course of speculation. But such is not the argu- ment against the Development Hypothesis. It cannot be superseded. The age can never get DUEL WITH THEISM. 21 beyond it. And one can afford to expend himself liberally in the effort to remove what is not merely the most noted, plausible, influential, and violent enemy of Theism in our day, but what is its only possible enemy for all ages to come. I propose to make this large outlay. And I ask particular attention to the fact that, in making it, I do not suspend for a moment the progress of that positive Theistic argument on which I have already considerably advanced. The case being that of a duel, in which the Law Scheme and The- ism are the contending parties, you are to count all things which I may be able to show as mak- ing fatally against the one, as being so many posi- tive proofs of the other. II. AS EXPLAINING NATURE. Zuxx Sr) iravTO. Ovyjto. /cat cfyvrd, ocra r inl yrjs ck aTrep/xd- ruiv KOt. ptt,Cov cfiveTai koX ocra aipv^a kv yrj £vvio~Ta.TCU—— fMwv aWov tlvo<; 7) 6euv Syj/xiovpyovvros r]o~o/x€v varepov nrNE2®AI trpoTtpov ovK y ONTA ; — P/at0. II. As Explaining Nature. i. A TESTIMONY . 25 2. GENERAL ESTIMATE 26 3. AN OBJECTION 28 4. NOT TO BE ACCEPTED IF ADEQUATE ... 3° 5. CANNOT BE SHOWN ADEQUATE 3* 6. IS NOT ADEQUATE : . 37 7. EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION 3/ SECOND LECTURE. AS EXPLAINING NATURE. HHE Doctrine of Evolution, as actually held, -■■ consists of three parts : First, The Nebular Hypothesis, which undertakes to show how worlds and systems of worlds were made in a natural way from a fire mist; Second, The Doctrine of Spontaneous Generation, which undertakes to show the natural origin of life and simplest organisms ; Third, The Doctrine of the Transmutation of Spe- cies, which undertakes to show how all the higher sorts of plants and animals came, by a series of natural changes, from one or a few simple species spontaneously produced. In regard to this last part of the Law Scheme, Agassiz has written, " I wish to enter my earnest protest against the transmutation theory. It is my belief that naturalists are chasing a phantom, in their search after some material gradation among created beings, by which the whole animal king- 26 SECOND LECTURE dom may have been derived by successive devel- opment from a single germ, or from a few germs. I confess that there seems to me a repulsive pov- erty in this material explanation, that is contra- dicted by the intellectual grandeur of the universe. I insist that this theory is opposed to the proc- esses of Nature as we have been able to apprehend them ; that it is contradicted by the facts of Em- bryology and Paleontology, the former showing us norms of development as distinct and persistent for each group as are the fossil types of each pe- riod revealed to us by the latter ; and that the ex- periments on domesticated animals and cultivated plants, on which its adherents base their views, are entirely foreign to the matter in hand." This strong testimony against a part of the Law Scheme, seems to me not too strong to be borne against the whole. The whole scheme, cosmical and physiological — deriving worlds in their or- derly and balanced arrangements from a fiery cloud by such laws as those of heat and gravity, and gradually peopling these worlds with the marvels of vegetable and animal and rational life in the way of spontaneous generation and transmutation of species — this entire scheme seems to me utterly unscientific. I have studied it long. I have read GENERAL ESTIMATE. 2J about it much, and thought about it more. I have listened to the arguments of its enemies, and to the arguments of its friends as well. And, alto- gether, I must say that, while fully allowing the high scientific character of some leading evolu- tionists, and the real value of many of the facts they have gathered, and even many interesting analogies between their theory and fact, my opin- ion of that theory is just as unfavorable from the side of science as it is from the side of religion. It is not science. It is not even a scientific speculation ; only a speculation held by some sci- entific men, and by still more who are no men of science at all. As best drawn out it is very ingen- ious, very elaborate, very showy, with not a few plausible agreements with Nature — in these re- spects not unlike many other things which no- body believes in — but after all deserves quite as severe words as Agassiz and Miller and Sedg- wick and Brewster and the younger Herschel and many another great student of Nature have spoken against it. That is to say, it is a dream. It is an air-castle. It is a chain of guesses and possi- bilities and suppositions, holding up a prismatic bubble. It is the mythology of science ; defended by such assumptions, fancies, analogies, odds and 28 SECOND LECTURE. ends of truth and error dextrously woven to- gether, as can be brought forward m favor of the stories in our classical dictionaries. Do you see yon turreted and battlemented cloud, not with- out a certain symmetry and likeness to real archi- tecture, but still without solidity and foundation ? That is the Law Scheme : save, this cloud is not only without foundation, but agaitist foundation; not only without dear friends among the funda- mental conceptions of reason and science, but positively at war with them to an extent hardly known in the case of any other speculation that has pushed its way into notoriety. Despite its notoriety, despite some learned and scientific fea- tures, despite the support it has had from some men of great scientific attainments, it may well be doubted if ever another hypothesis made so great a figure on so small a capital. If any think it hardly possible that so many persons of scientific pursuits should take up the Doctrine of Evolution on very slight grounds, I refer them in explanation to two things. The first is that original sin of mankind, the desire to have just as little of God in the universe as possi- ble ; and which is ever saying in the hearts of irreligious men, scientific as well as other, " De- AN OBJECTION. 29 part from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." And the second is the curious his- tory of science and philosophy. Has empty speculation never set up claim to be called science, and had a very considerable fol- lowing ? Have learned men never held to any extravagant opinions ? Have they never been obliged to take back things which they have most positively asserted and most zealously fought for ? Have not even the mathematicians sometimes exchanged characters with the poets, and been as flighty with their differentials and integrals as are the bay-crowned men who make flight a profes- sion ? Has Philosophy, so called, always shown itself to be the same as Euclid ? Nay, has it not often fathered and mothered such outrageous and preposterous notions as to almost bring its name into contempt among sensible people ? In short, is there not very much in the history of what are called science and philosophy to give color to the charge, " When philosophers set out to be foolish there is no folly equal to theirs " ? A very morti- fying history indeed, although an autobiography — about as mortifying to a scholar as must be to a Jew that history which his nation has written of itself in the Old Testament ! Even the annals of 30 SECOND LECTURE, the Inductive Sciences will help one to understand how very possible it is for very slender specula- tions to get audience and friends and apostles in scientific circles. After looking over the whole field of Evolution- ism, it seems to me that the three following prop- ositions are true in regard to it. I. Even if the Doctrine of Evolution were shown to be an adequate explanation of Nature, it should not be received as the true explanation. II. // cannot be shown to be adequate. III. On the contrary, it can be shown positively inadequate in many particulars. The first of these propositions has been fully treated elsewhere. In the last lecture of the first volume of Pater Mundi, I granted, for the sake of argument, that the Law Hypothesis is an adequate explanation of Nature ; and then went on to show at length that, even in that case, the true explana- tion is to be looked for in another quarter. There is another hypothesis, the common Theistic, which also is adequate. And this has greatly the advan- tage of the other in several respects, which, taken together, are so weighty as to be overwhelmingly decisive in its favor, according to the principles which in other matters uniformly govern the judg- IF ADEQUATE. 3! ments of both practical and scientific men. I mean chiefly its simplicity, its sureness, its salu- tary character, and its striking accord with what seem to be the primary convictions and traditions of mankind. But I now withdraw that admission. I no longer accept the Law Scheme as sufficient to explain Nature. On the contrary, I claim that it cannot be accepted as sufficient, if we would con- sistently hold fast to the principles that lie at the foundation of all our proven knowledge. And, first, because it cannot be shown to be sufficient. Of course we are not to be called on to accept its sufficiency without evidence. That ancient, established, and most useful doctrine that God is needed to account for the wonders of the stellar, organic, and spiritual universe, cannot reasonably be asked to abdicate the throne and opulent man- ors of dignity and privilege it has held for ages in these lands, in favor of a quite unsubstantiated claimant. Can the Law Hypothesis be substanti- ated — at least so far as to show that matter, with a plenty of time allowed it, can form itself into, say, the bodies and souls of the grandest statesmen, philosophers, and saints ? I answer in the nega- 32 SECOND LECTURE. tive. The thing is intrinsically impossible. It never has been done, despite the greatest efforts ; and, from the nature of the case, it never can be done. Suppose one should take a bit of albumen, and after passing a charge of electricity through it, should see, not merely a globule within a globule, but atoms hastening to atoms and arranging them- selves into a rude organism in which life at once appears. Suppose, further, that, after a careful study of the conditions under which living organ- isms have best flourished, he should combine and intensify these conditions in a Forcing Establish- ment ; and, introducing into it the new organism, should actually see it pass in the course of a few hours through all the intermediate forms up to a full man. Nay, let us make a still larger supposition. We will suppose the following bit of romance from the newspapers to be solemnly true — every word of it. " Dr. Meissner has lately shown a very wonderful experiment before the Berlin Academy of Sciences. After years of patient study, he has succeeded in obtaining a certain white powder. This powder was placed in a hollow glass globe about two feet in diameter, from which the air CANNOT BE SHOWN ADEQUATE. 33 was, as nearly as possible, withdrawn. The globe was then hung from the ceiling at such hight that it could readily be watched by the members of the Academy. Dr. Meissner then violently agi- tated the powder by shaking the globe with great force. When the powder had become chaotic in its forms, he allowed the globe to hang quietly, and requested the audience to watch it closely. At first all was confusion ; but soon the powder be- came brilliantly prismatic and a tremendous motion pervaded the mass. A sudden scintillation of the exterior portions succeeded, and a flash of light shot from them toward the center. At the center was then seen, in rapid process of formation, an intensely bright crystal. This crystal began to revolve slowly, and, as it was the only portion of the whole which had at all approached the solid form, the particles of powder began to approach and unite themselves to it. In all directions the effects of attraction were seen ; and, like myriads of scintillating comets, the atoms rushed toward their sun till all had united themselves to it. And now this sun revolved with ever-increasing rapid- ity, until, as the centrifugal force overcame the centripetal, the ball in whirling threw off ring after ring, and the rings, breaking, rolled up into 3 34 SECOND LECTURE. planets revolving rhythmically around the central sun. Selecting the third planet from this minia- ture sun, which represented the earth, Dr. Meiss- ner provided the president of the Academy with a powerful magnifying-glass {very powerful) and requested him to examine the earth. It was in its azoic age. Not a trace of life could be seen on the barren rocks, none in the lonely seas breaking unimpeded on desolate shores. The paleozoic age came on, and the eye could trace sea-weeds and the earliest vegetation. So the astonished presi- dent went through the mesozoic era, and onward as life increased. Vast vegetable forms, mighty ferns, tossing their giant arms in the gale, ap- peared. Uncouth monsters crept over the land, and swam in the seas. Convulsions rent the earth's crust, and hurried millions of animated creatures to death. Time passed and men ap- peared, digging roots and ranging the forest. Cities arose, and history — the story of human woe — was represented on this mimic world." There is an experiment for you ! It beats Mun- chausen — it almost beats Maillet. It throws completely into the shade those famous discover- ies in the Moon which Sir John Herschel was once said to have made at the Cape of Good Hope. CANNOT BE SHOWN ADEQUATE. 35 It is to be hoped that the next time the German men of science get a chance at that remarkable glass, they will notice, and make a note of, the histories and productions and people of the other planets of our system, and so set at rest several much mooted questions. It is also to be hoped that they will be at pains to preserve a specimen tribe or two of those primitive human savages, with examples of the roots they were seen sub- sisting on. Perhaps they may, by following down the stream of development very far, be able even to discover the entire Berlin Academy — not the smallest thing in the world — in session, with Meissner himself at their head, astonishing and enlightening them with his wonderful experiment till their faces shine again. Above all, let them preserve us a specimen of that. It would be worth preserving. But, seriously, suppose such experiments were actually made. Would even they decide whether the force by which the original atoms passed through all those changes, and at last came to- gether into an astronomical system, and the high- est vegetable and animal forms, was a force inher- ent in the matter itself, or an extraneous Divine force ? No force is seen. All that is seen is the 36 SECOND LECTURE. moving atom. And all that the experiments show is that some invisible force acting according to law, and the conditions of whose action man is able to supply, does the observed wonders. Now the Divine Force, as commonly received, answers this description perfectly. All intelligent theists claim that God is in the habit of acting in this world in fixed ways and under fixed conditions, which can be discovered by men, and largely sup- plied by them. Indeed, it is essential to the very idea of a perfect ruler that this be so. Otherwise science and profiting by experience would be im- possible. So the experiment would prove just nothing at all as to whether forces sufficient to make a man inhere in matter itself. It would only prove that such forces exist somewhere. That they are intrinsic properties of the very atoms has not begun to be proved. And yet who expects to get nearer to a proof of the adequacy of the Law Hypothesis than he would be at the close of such experiments as we have supposed ? At present we are some stellar intervals short of even that. We shall need to do that impossible thing of going some stellar intervals beyond it, in order to show that matter, out of its own inherent resources, can construct the miracles of organic and spiritual life. IS NOT ADEQUATE. 37 It is enough to prevent our accepting the Law Scheme, that it cannot be positively shown to be an adequate explanation of Nature. But we have much more than this. We can, I think, show that the scheme is not an adequate explanation. To this the rest of the argument will be devoted. Against this view evolutionists bring several considerations. I will notice these first. And, first of all, I will notice the allegation that actual examples of a nebular cosmogony, of spontaneous generation, and of naturally transmuted species have been found. Such examples, if they can be furnished, would be very convincing. No better proof that Nature can do a thing, than proof that she has actually done it. On examining these examples, however, we find that they are not what they profess to be. The cases of spontaneous world-building turn out to be no cases of spontaneous world-building at all ; at the very utmost, only cases of worlds becoming formed and arranged in accordance with the laws of heat and gravity. The cases of spontaneous generation turn out to be no cases of spontaneous generation at all ; at the very utmost, only cases of organic life beginning without the presence of any reproductive germ. The cases of transmuta- 38 SECOND LECTURE. tion of species by natural causes turn out to be not cases of such transmutation at all ; at the very utmost, only cases of transmutation under natural conditions. Granting all that can be claimed foi these examples, they leave totally undecided, as we have just seen, the question whether the un- seen force that first brings the atoms together, say into an organic form, and then varies that form from age to age, is a force belonging to the atoms themselves, or an outward Divine Force subjecting itself to certain constant conditions and laws. I say, granting that the examples are made out, they do not touch the matter in dis- pute. But they are not made out. As yet there are no proved cases of worlds formed and arranged into systems in the way of the nebular hypothesis — no proved cases of vegetable and animal births without common parentage — no proved cases of transmuted species. Certainly no one has ever seen a fog become a world ; no succession of ob- servers, since astronomy began, have seen it. This is not claimed. It is merely matter of inference, on the part of some, from certain physical princi- ples and certain appearances in the sky. But the justice of this inference is still largely denied by EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 39 astronomers as profound and eminent as any. And most of those who in some sort favor it do not think of claiming that it has been proved, in any proper sense of the word. They express themselves interrogatively. They make a sug- gestion. They speak of possibilities and plausi- bilities. They see some things or many things about the hypothesis that look like the truth ; that is all. As to positively asserting that there is a single proved case of world-building in the way of natural law, in all the round of the sky, very few ripe astronomical scholars indeed would do such a thing. And with great reason. In an- other place I hope to make it plain that there is great reason, not only for this caution, but even for emphatically rejecting the nebular hypothesis as being opposed by the latest discoveries. As to examples of spontaneous generation among plants and animals, something still stronger can be said. History is against them. Case after case of such generation, as confidently put for- ward as any, has been exploded and fully given up : out of the large number reported to us a few years ago, there is scarcely one that has not been made so untenable by the researches of Ehren- berg, Pasteur, and others, that it has ceased to be 40 SECOND LECTURE. spoken of. And at the present time it is admitted by nearly all the European naturalists, and even by nearly all of them who are decided evolution- ists, that as yet not a single instance of organiz- ation without seed has been made out. " The time may come," say they, "when this will be done." Some seem to expect that it will come soon ; the most eminent are satisfied that it has not come yet. For my part I am satisfied that it will never come. The history will go on repeat- ing itself. These men will continue to hear of their examples, and will continue to see them fall to pieces under the mallet of careful inquiry; just as it always has been from the days of the acarus Crossii down to Bastian's bacteria. So I believe. Elsewhere I propose to show that it must be so. At present it is enough to call attention to the fact that most evolutionists have themselves given up their cases of spontaneous generation ; and that those few cases which are still clung to by some, are wholly within that misty region of in- finitesimals where one easily sees there must be enormous exposure to mistake. It is an abuse of language to say that a single case of spontaneous generation in either worlds or organisms has been proved ; while disproof in long succession has, EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 4 1 from the beginning, been the order of the day. Standing at the end of so long a line of castaway examples which have made their noise, and had their day, and regularly fallen to pieces, one after the other — will not all friends of the Law Scheme soon lose heart as to what the future will bring them, and conclude to content themselves with that old-fashioned philosophy which finds in God the direct source of all the life and mechanics of Nature ? Evolutionists also allege examples of trans- muted species, and cite in proof very many ac- counts of modifications which natural organisms have undergone in various natural ways. In regard to these accounts, it would perhaps not be altogether unpardonable if one should modestly suggest — especially to men who are apt to criticise so sharply the facts brought for- ward by supernaturalists — that there is just the slightest shade of doubt as to the correctness of some of them. We like to have our data sound. Facts are great things, but then, one wants to be sure that they are facts. Who shall assure me that some of these eager partisans have always been sufficiently careful to winnow the wheat from the chaff; that in judging of what is true 42 SECOND LECTURE. they have always used the good judgment which undoubtedly they possess ; that they have never been too hasty in accepting stories which they would be glad to find true (you know we are all poor, weak creatures) ; in fine, that the random assertions and undue strength of statement and palpable non-seqiriturs which a sensible man has no trouble in finding thickly scattered over their books, have not more or less tampered with the facts set at the basis of their reasonings ? When I am told by a writer that he understands that a gentleman in Sussex has succeeded in modify- ing that very plastic bird, the rock pigeon, not only into the fan-tailed pigeon and the pouter, but also into a sort of owl, I begin to shrug my shoulders, and to feel somewhat as I suppose some readers of Maillet felt when they read, "At Marseilles the fishermen daily find in their nets, and among their fish, plants of a hundred kinds, with their fruits still upon them. They there find clusters of white and black grapes, peach-trees, pear-trees, prune-trees, apple-trees, and all sorts of flowers." Great pains have been taken to hunt up, and also to make, cases of extreme variation in plants and animals. Some men think they have found EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 43 variations actually crossing the boundaries of species. And I have no doubt they have, if we allow them to use the word species as loosely as many do. It is a much abused word. What have really been only varieties of the same spe- cies have often been erected into so many sepa- rate species. No doubt the air lines arbitrarily parceling* out such groups have often been varied across organically, and will be again ; and that without going very far. If a man makes the mistake of calling the negroes a distinct species from the whites, he will find that Nature makes little of clearing his little wall ; even less than Remus did of leaping over the wall of infant Rome. But if he sets up the bounds of species where two groups refuse to mingle their kinds, he will find no example of variation across such bounds. No such examples are agreed on among naturalists. But many are disposed to claim that, if they cannot point to any such examples, they can at least point to the equivalents of these, in varia- tions quite as large and arduous as would be required to pass the extreme members of a spe- cies into adjoining species. They tell us of men who not onlv look and act amazing"! v like brutes 44 SECOND LECTURE. — say the dog, the sheep, the goose, the donkey — but also men who look and act more like mon- keys than they do like the better sort of men. They say that the interval between extreme spec- imens of men is quite as large and formidable, anatomically and physiologically and intellect- ually, as that between the lowest human spec- imen and some apes. And, to help our slow thought, they show us a very mortifying chart of heads and skeletons in which the ape is shaded off by minute differences into the highest man. " Now look at this carefully. Do you not see that really it is further from that head of Newton to this head of Wamba, than it is from Wamba's head to that of yonder chimpanzee ? And do you not see just as clearly that it is further from this Caucasian Apollo to that hunchback yEsop, than it is from that /Esop to yon athlete gorilla, who will bend a gun-barrel as if an osier ? " I answer that the actual variation in such cases does seem, especially at first view, as if it might be about as large and difficult as that required to transmute the species. But then there is reason to suspect that this seeming may be deceptive ; even reason to believe that it is so. Great inner differences are very often found underlying great EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 45 resemblances, and almost identity of appearance. Two seeds whose shape and size and skin look very much alike, and which, if cut open, would show very much the same interior, on being planted side by side, are found coming to be very different plants. How is this ? Of course, in the dim interiors of those seeds there was as wide a difference as there is between the plants into which, under just the same circumstances, they finally grow. We compare two worms : under that superficial likeness lurks as wide a difference as there is between the butterfly and a crawling reptile. We compare two embryos. They are almost precisely alike both to the eye and the glass : but one has the human nature wrapped up in it, and the other the nature of the swine. In both the ape and the man there are large un- known interiors which we cannot compare : and here may lie hid vast dissimilarities, as in a thousand other cases. Just beyond where that apish man has come, on his way to the ape, there may be an invisible structural limit, as impassable as the unseen Bastile wall which stops the night walk of a prisoner : and that such a limit really exists in the cases alleged is strongly suggested, both by the great spiritual gulf between the two, 46 SECOND LECTURE and by the fact that neither history, nor monu- ments, nor the strata of the globe show the least change in the general type of any existing spe- cies. It has always been, so far as we can go back, just the same island we find it to-day — just as widely separated from its neighbors of the same archipelago. And it is found that all the modifications which men, with much pains, bring about in breeds, are invariably lost when the organisms are left to themselves ; as they always have been till lately. But this is but a small part of the answer that should be made to the claim that variations have taken place within a species, as large and difficult as would be needed to reach a neighboring spe- cies. To fairly make out such a claim and have it avail for the purpose of the evolutionist, five things must be proved. I. The two species com- pared are really distinct. Is he quite sure that his argument does not go to show that the ape belongs to the human family — being some de- graded prodigal son, who, generations agone, went into a far country, and there lived like swine so long that he has come to apehood on his way to swinehood ? 2. The variation actually observed took place under purely natural forces and laws. EXAMPLES OE EVOLUTION. 47 This also must be proved. The variation has come to us through that dim and wondrous re"- gion pointed at by the words parentage and birtJi — in fact through a long succession of such re- gions — and there are some of us who are not disposed to admit that it is as plain as day that the birth of a man from his equal or inferior has nothing supernatural about it. 3. The range of the actnal variation is really, as well as apparently , as large and hard to be made as that needed to transmute the species. And this, too, must be positively proved. It will not answer to assume it. As facts stand — with such spiritual and historic gulfs between the species compared, and with so many examples of natural objects that look very much alike, even under the micro- scope, and yet are known to be widely unlike in their more inner parts — how can I feel sure that in those dim interiors of the man and the ape which our knives and glasses cannot lay open to sight, there are not great and radical phys- ical differences ? A vast terra incognita as yet belongs to each of these beings. Not Africa itself, known only as to its coast-line and a few marginal districts, is more a field for "Bruces and Bakers and Livingstones. 4. There is no 48 SECOND LECTURE. bound of an unstructured sort limiting varia- tion to the species. And this, too, should be proved. After it has been shown that there is no hidden organic limit, it is still a question whether there may not be one of the inorganic sort. It is conceivable that there may be a chemical limit — even one made up wholly of space and time — a wall as invisible and impal- pable as that which keeps us from going to the moon. Indeed, Nature is known to have many such shadowy ne plus idtras, as invisible and unstructural as the line of perpetual congelation. Such are those that limit the lives of all plants and animals. Such are those that limit their sizes. That which keeps two very unlike species from intermixture does not seem to be structural, but the contrary. It rather seems like that un- substantial spell with which mediaeval romancers were so fond of making business for their heroes, and which no natural forces could break through. "The knight saw nothing: the road seemed quite clear for miles in advance : but he could no more move forward than if a castle wall stood across his path. Then he knew his journey was at an end. He had reached the enchanted dis- trict." 5. TJierc is no limit, structural or u //struct- EXAMPLES OE EVOLUTION. 49 uraly at any point of the long highway by which we follow tip the organic races to their rude begin- nings. The evolutionist must prove this, too: for it will be of no use to show that a variation has taken place within a species, equal in amount and difficulty to what would be required to carry some members of it into the nearest neighbor- species, if, at some point still further on, the vari- ation can be stopped by some greater barrier. There must be a clear highway down through all the organic territories quite to the monera, and further. At least there must be no bridge- less rivers, no insuperable mountains, no uncon- querable barricades of sans culottes powers of Nature on all that long road. And it does not follow that because a thief can get into a neigh- bor's house, he can get into every house on the way to Washington. It is conceivable that some species may be more heavily barred against in- truders than are others, and that some may be utterly impregnable. Indeed, we know that some species oppose change much more strongly than others. The goose, for example, is known to remain goose with great obstinacy. So with the ass, o£^£2£ery_j[ariet}r. And there is positive reason for thinking that there is a limit to varia- 4 cjO SECOND LECTURE. tion somewhere, in the fact that as we approach the extremes of any species, the difficulty of a variation rapidly increases — strongly suggesting that at no distant point the difficulty will be in- superable. When have all these five points been positively proved ? So far as I know, the attempt to do it has never been made. And we have ground for believing that, if made, it would not be successful. And yet these are the five points of Calvinism to this argument of the evolutionist — the essence of the whole thing. But many friends of evolution evidently have the idea that it is by no means necessary to furnish examples of large organic variations, in order to prove that species may be naturally transmuted. To them all examples are such proof; especially if they are very abundant, re- late to the more essential parts of structure, and show change in almost every direction. It seems to them plain that if Nature can make one small organic variation, it can make another like it, and then another ; and so may go on adding equals to equals till at last any given organic interval is passed over — even that which parts a man from sea-weed. Accordingly, they fill up EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 5 I their books with detailed cases, from as wide a field as possible, of small variations in plants and animals ; chiefly such as are brought about by skillful human effort. And they treat such cases as if they were virtually so many examples of transmuted species. Of course they are nothing of the sort. Still it is well to inquire at this point, what force such instances of variation really have. Can evolu- tionists properly infer from them even the pos- sibility of the transmutation of species by natural causes ? To infer from the fact that you can stretch an elastic a little way, that you can go on stretch- ing it indefinitely ; that, because you can creep up the mountain slope somewhat, you can go on creeping till you reach the zenith-moon, or even the beetling brow of yon dizzy precipice not twenty yards away ; that, because the prisoner of Chillon can pace freely across his scanty cell, he can extend his walk beyond that leaguer of iron and rock that frowns around him, into all Switzerland, and even into all the world, is not , exactly the highest style of scientific reasoning. How know these strange logicians that the vari- able terms in organic beings are not so many 52 SECOND LECTURE. prisoners of Chillon ! They have some liberty. There is some length to their chain. There is a space within which they can very freely pace up and down. But how do you know that this space is not that of a narrow cell, and that a few short steps will not bring the promenade up squarely against impassable barriers ? This much you do know — that natural limits must be reached, sooner or later, on all the observed lines of organic variation. Who supposes that the breed of sheep which can be improved somewhat in size and color and range of diet and fineness of wool and dura- tion of life and length of tail — say into a South Down or a Thibete — could, with any amount of time and pains, be made as large as a man-of- war, or as pictured as a peacock, or as little of a vegetarian as a tiger, or as long-lived as an astral system, or as long-tailed as the most favored comet ; or even cease to be unmistakable mutton ? Who supposes it ? And who knows but that these anatomical, or physiological, or circumstan- tial dead walls which must at last be reached, may be reached soon ; in fact, be reached before that line of species is crossed which the races have never yet been found crossing, and where they resolutely refuse to mingle ? EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 53 Indeed, the stress of appearance is all toward showing that the variable terms in plants and ani- mals are like those belonging to many mathemati- cal formulae. In these formulae the variables are mixed with great controlling constants, and the amount of variation is never such as to alter the specific shape of the whole symbol. Look at those formulae which express and solve the Higher As- tronomical Problems. Here on the earth we have certain organic systems which we call plants and animals. Out yonder in the depths of the sky we find certain other elaborate systems which we call satellite systems, planetary systems, and solar sys- tems These celestial systems have the advantage of being expressible mathematically. Examining their mathematical expressions, we find that in no instance does a variable term vary indefinitely, and in no instance does the sum of all the varia- tions in any formula avail to alter radically its form. Each scheme of worlds holds fast to its specific character, whatever secondary changes it may un- dergo. The size of each orbit varies, its shape varies, its inclination varies, varies its place in the system ; in short, almost everything about a ce- lestial system is changing constantly. And there was a time when it was yet a grave, unanswered 54 SECOND LECTURE. question whether such changes might not go on heaping themselves up indefinitely, and at last bring ruin to our Solar System. Some predicted the worst. Why not ? The changes were real, they were numerous, they were confessed by all astronomers, they were creeping forward with the steady ease and determination of a natural law ; nowhere were there visible goals toward which the perturbations traveled : and not a few trembled and said, There are no goals, and the System must pass on and on to dire confusion and wreck — just as some say now in view of a cooling sun or retarding ether. Then La Grange arose. He invoked the aid of the mightiest Calculus. " Tell me," said he, " what is to be the upshot of this ? Must we all perish in the endless ongoings of these celestial variables ? " To these unpromising ques- tions he grappled his giant Geometry. It was a hard struggle ; every muscle heaped itself into knots, and quivered ; but at last the giant over- came. Every change turned out to be periodical. Every variable element reluctantly gave up to view the twin Ultima Thule hidden in its bosom. Not only were these limits real, but in most cases they were not far apart. They were also found to in- here in the very Law of Gravity ; that is to EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION. 55 say, in the very constitution of the variable itself. So our System was safe. And there went up from the whole scientific world a joyful shout as if for a great deliverance. The great Problem of the Stability of the System of the World was crowned. Crowned was the great Geometer. And from that day to this the name of La Grange has been green both summer and winter ; and every astron- omer who notices a change going on in the sky, under the influence of gravity, at once sets it down as a prisoner of Chillon, able to go only the length of a short chain, and closely shut in by hopeless walls. The heavens are full of such im- prisoned variations. Not one of them but is pent within narrow limits by the very constitution and underlying law of the variable. Who. shall say that it is not so with these earthly variations which evolutionists make so much of — the vari- ations among plants and animals ? It is even easier to believe in " metes and bounds " to these, than it was to believe in them as belonging to the astronomical variations before the discoveries of La Grange. These earthly perturbations are less fluent, less steady, less general, less large, and on the whole less suggestive of unobstructed progress and indefinite continuance, than the perturbations 56 SECOND LECTURE. in the -sky. Without any Geometry, one seems, at times, as he peers through the glooms, to al- most or quite catch the glinting of the chain that cannot be broken, and of the prison wall that can- not be passed ; especially when he looks toward the hybrids. In them he thinks he almost sees the permanence of species. At all events, as he looks, it becomes easy to believe that through many changes all our fauna and flora maintain substantial identity of type ; and that, if they could be expressed by mathematical formulae, we should find these formulae as steadfast in their general form as are those which express the history and assure the equilibrium of the Heavenly Bodies. We do not need to furnish the evolutionist with positive proof of the permanence of species. It is enough to show that it is an altogether unwarrant- able and most unphilosophical thing to say, that, because a plant or animal can be varied a little toward the limits of its species, it can be varied victoriously across those limits, and indeed across the whole kingdom of animated Nature. What more credible than that a Creator might see rea- son to give a certain elasticity to organic beings, to enable them to accommodate themselves to certain changing conditions, and yet see reason to confine that elasticity within certain narrow limits ? III. CHIEF DEFENSE. Uvp kclI vSuf) Kal yrjv kcll depot, vaei Tvavra etvai <£aov ~ € X V 11 ^ ovScv tovtwv. — Plato. Ipsa sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers. Ex omnibus rebus omne genus nasci posset ; nil semine egeret. — Lucretius. III. Chief Defense. i. ALLEGED EXAMPLES • . 59 2. HARMONIES WITH NATURE . 60 3. COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE .. . .63 THIRD LECTURE. CHIEF DEFENSE. I HAVE considered one part of the argument in support of the Law Scheme. This lies in certain supposed examples of natural world-build- ing, of spontaneous generation of organic beings, and of transmutation of species by the forces and laws of matter. It was said that these examples are not real ; and that, if real, in the sense meant by evolutionists, they would still leave it unproven that the forces and laws whose results are seen, belong inherently to matter. I now proceed to two other parts of the general argument of evolutionists. One is from certain harmonies between their scheme and observed fact ; the other is from the course of scientific experience. The first topic I shall speak of very briefly. The other will be treated more at length, as its greater plausibility deserves. Evolutionists invite us to consider -the many 60 THIRD LECTURE. resemblances, more or less striking, between dif- ferent sorts of animals, and even between animals and plants ; also, that obvious gradation in organic beings which enables them to compose a sort of animated staircase, from- so simple a thing as sea- weed up to so high and complex a thing as man ; also, the general advance of the races in grade along the geologic ages ; also, the nascent features of some species prophesying of next later species ; also, the successive aspects of the human foetus suggesting strongly the alleged organic progress of the fossils ; also, occasional monstrosities and rudimentary organs ; and so on. Such facts are admitted. They have been admitted, most of them, from time immemorial. Do these men tell us anything new when they tell us that the body of a man has many points of likeness to an ape, or even to a fish, or even to a worm, or even to a veg- etable, or even to the unorganized mineral ? We knew that before. It was known long ages before Darwin and his disciples were born. A certain very old book did not neglect to inform the most ancient times that man has a lower nature that allies him to the brutes, as well as a higher nature that allies him to God ; and even that this lower nature was made out of the dust of the earth. HARMONIES WITH NATURE. 6 1 Hearing the friends of evolution, one might sup- pose that the world had not all along been aware of this class of facts ; that evolutionists were the recent discoverers of it : whereas all they have done has been to give some new illustrations of a doctrine as old as the hills, and which, time out of mind, has been doing service in the cause of religion. Yes, most certainly, we admit such facts. And we even admit that they harmonize with the Law Scheme. Doubtless, if the world was made in the way this scheme suggests, we ought to find them. But what then ? Does it follow that we should not find them all the same, if each distinct species came directly from the hands of a Personal Crea- tor? Who does not see it — all these things agree just as well with the traditional hypothesis of cre- ation as with the other. What is there hard in the idea that God made all the natural organisms with a thread of unity running through them ; made them of different grades ; introduced these different grades at different times, after an orderly fashion, beginning with the lowest ; follows a cer- tain standard process in continuing the succession of each grade ; and so on ? It is true that mon- strosities and rudimentary organs, if they could 62 THIRD LECTURE. be proved both normal to the system and useless, would be against the Christian Theism : but the fact that we do not happen to see the use — say of incipient wings, feet, teeth, tails — is certainly no proof that such use does not exist. What accomplished physiologist but will readily confess that his knowledge of organic functions is exceed- ingly narrow and imperfect? How often have uses been detected which had never been sus- pected ? In view of the mere history of science, that is a rash philosopher who affirms that the. only use of wings is for flying, of feet for walking, of teeth for eating, and of tails for brushing away backbiters. And, besides, was ever an hypothesis so absurd that it did not find some things, nay, many things, to agree with in this crowded universe ? I would like to give you some exquisite specimens : but I fear all your sobriety would desert you. Suffice it to say, that not the wildest dream in the whole range of the grotesque and absurd and impossible, has failed to touch and coincide with the actual, at some points. It were strange, indeed, if the Law Dream were worse off in this respect than any other. Of course it is perfectly consistent with many facts. But the question is not whether it is COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 63 consistent with many facts ; but whether it is con- sistent with all facts, and especially with the lead- ing. There is not a crooked stick to be found which will not fit many parts of the broad earth's surface ; but how badly it expresses the general shape of the earth, and the underlying glorious arc of the meridian ! Doubtless, the Law Scheme fits kindly to some superficial parts of great Na- ture : a more pertinent fact is that it does not fit kindly to many of Nature's more essential and generic features ; that it is positively in conflict with them as expressed in the leading sciences of the day. This I hope to make plain on reaching the positive side of our subject. I come now to a more plausible argument of the evolutionists ; that from the course of scientific experience. Perhaps this argument cannot be more strongly stated than as follows. Once, almost all phenom- ena were ascribed to the direct action of Deity ; the progress of science has ever been to limit this originally vast field of the supernatural, and to en- large that of natural causes ; this course of things has continued so long and carried us so far that now intelligent men almost universally admit, not only that atomic forces and laws are real, but that 64 THIRD LECTURE. immense sections of natural objects, and very many wonderful things, such as some chemical compounds and all the marvels of crystallization, are actually produced by them ; and so it is now one of the most natural things in the world, and even a true dictate of experience, to suppose that we can go on much further in the same direction, and that really, it is nothing but our narrowness of fac- ulty and life that prevents our distinctly tracing all wonders to the same natural causation which we admit gives us the wonders of chemistry and crystallization. Besides, why are not the reasons on which we admit the purely natural origin of these latter wonders, just as good for admitting the purely natural origin of those others whose names are plants and animals and astronomic sys- tems ; especially in view of the fact that the low- est of organic beings do not differ sensibly in grade from the highest of the inorganic ? Such is the argument. I have stated it as strongly as possible. So stated, it has at first view a plausible look ; owing to its having a gen- erous outline of fact, certain quiet assumptions colored to imitate fact, and over all a showy vague- ness of language which well hides obnoxious par- ticulars. The really empty argument is made to COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 65 seem sound in very much the same way that yon- der bush, with a rag upon it, is made to seem a true human form in the deceitful moonlight. Something that might pass for a human outline is really there ; the fancy quietly supplies some con- venient additions ; and the vague shimmer of the moon ekes out the awful giant. The child's hair stands on end. And yet the whole thing is emp- tiness. And so is this argument from the course of scientific experience. Its premises are largely assumptions ; and, if they were proven, they would not warrant the conclusion drawn from them. It is not admitted that the difference between the highest inorganic and the lowest organic being is small. It may be small to the sense, but it is not small to the reason. The humblest organic being has the principle of life, the highest inor- ganic has none of it ; the one has the principle of growth, the other has none of it ; the one has the principle of reproduction, the other has none of it ; the one is a system of organized instruments conspiring to one result, the other is not necessa- rily any instrument at all. Certainly these are radically very different things, though seeming so much alike. Is this so very strange ? The horse 66 THIRD LECTURE. that neighed to the canvas-horse of Apelles and got no answer ; the bird that pecked at the can- vas-grapes of Zeuxis and found no food ; still more the Zeuxis himself who put out his hand to lift the canvas-curtain of Parrhasius, and took derisive laughter instead, might have suggested as much. The best senses are no infallible popes. No Ecumenical has yet been bold enough to say it of them. They are unable to take any note whatever of many gross differences. Here are two seeds. To all our organs the inner matter of the two seems very much one thing, the same white, unorganized farina ; and yet they must dif- fer constituently from each other as much as do the tiny flower and the lordly tree into which the same soil will finally develop them. — Here are two eggs. To all our senses the inner substance of the two seems very much one thing — the same yellow yolk and white albumen — and yet really these eggs must differ constituently from each other as much as do the unsightly reptile and the beautiful bird into which the same incubation will finally ripen them.— Here are two stars. To all common observation they seem quite alike — the same radiant eye — and yet one is a mere light- COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 67 house flame a few miles away, while the other is a solid world on which great nations might dwell, to whose golden skirts a family of planets cling, and whose rays are shot at us across abysses which might almost weary the wings of angels. So do not say that because in certain cases the organic and inorganic are almost perfectly alike to our gross senses, they may not be very unlike in their more interior constitution. They must be. They must differ from each other as do mysterious life and death ; indeed, as do whole systems of such stupendous opposites. They must be like two rays coming to us from opposite sides of the same star. Within our sphere these bright lines are practically one ; but the deeper we go into space, the further apart are they, and at last they are found apart by the whole breadth of a mighty sun. Such is the final inter- val that divides the organic from the inorganic. At least, who can show the contrary ? Again, it is not admitted that the reasons on which men receive — if they intelligently receive it at all — that atomic forces and laws are the sources of chemical compounds and crystals, are just as good for admitting that they are the sources of the highest natural structures. These 68 THIRD LECTURE. reasons are as follows : Atomic forces and laws are known to exist ; they seem equal to that low grade of product ; it actually seems pro- duced by them ; and there is no assignable reason why the seeming does not express the reality. Now this last feature, to say the least, does not belong to the new case. There are as- signable positive reasons, and many of them, why we may not admit that matter ever makes itself into organic beings. Some of these have already been given. And many others I propose soon to give from sciences which are the special pets and boasts of unbelievers. It can even be shown, I think, that principles which underlie the whole body of our experimental science positively de- mand that we ascribe living organic Nature to nothing short of an intelligent author. We must do this or have no science at all. And indeed no reliable business. For all our common affairs are actually conducted on principles which, if applied to religion, would give us a God who is both direct maker and governor of organic Nature. It is a part of my plan to show this. Further. I do not admit that Deity was once generally supposed the direct author of almost all phenomena. This has never been the popular COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 69 faith. The true statement would be, that in unen- lightened times men were apt to ascribe all events of a very unusual or startling character, not other- wise readily explainable, to direct Divine action ; for example, such events as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, eclipses. It is true that this class of events has gradually come, in the advance of knowledge, to be ascribed to natural causes ; but it is not so clearly true that the field of the super- natural, as viewed by men, has at all narrowed in consequence. It has narrowed at some points, and enlarged at others. While the waters have encroached on the great continent here, they have retreated yonder. And, on the whole, no ground has been lost. Indeed, I am disposed to claim that much ground has been gained ; that the same science which has enlarged before us the field of natural causation, has more than correspondingly enlarged before us the field of the supernatural ; that the same science which has explained many things on purely natural principles, has more than made up for this by greatly enlarging the wonder- fulness of countless known objects which cannot be so explained, and by discovering countless other objects equally wonderful which were quite unknown to our recent ancestors. Who does not JO THIRD LECTURE. know that the wonderfulness of Nature has in- creased on us greatly faster than her explainable- ness ? I say, who does not know it ? The one has expanded like the astronomical spaces, the other more like the area of geographical discovery. Ten problems rain upon us, to one solution of a prob- lem. And the further we go, the larger and swifter fall the drops, and the more prismatic with beauti- ful mystery do they show between us and the sun. So that, with all our explanations, Nature is ever getting more high and deep and awful. The more we know, the greater seem the things to be known. The deeper we go into the structure of any nat- ural organism, the more exquisite and bewildering does that structure seem. It is as when we enter some caves. With every step of advance, the higher swells the grotto, the larger and grander range the apartments, and the less impression do our torches make on the deepening and yet superber glooms. Never was the universe so wonderful to human eyes as it is to-day. The heavens that shone in at the eye of the Hebrew Psalmist were a mere blank, compared with the Newtonian heavens which shine in at our eyes. The terrestrial Na- COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. J I ture that went darkling through the Middle Ages was a mere beggar, compared with the Crcesus- Nature that goes with more than oriental pomp and largess along our highways. See the exquisite refinements of animal and vegetable structure, which the present lancet and microscope display ; see the glorious celestial mechanics that blaze in the foci of our present telescopes and mathematics ; see the long series of life-epochs which now bestar to us, with their radiant mile-stones, the prodigious track of the geologic ages — such facts as these, and not nat- ural explanations of such things as thunder and lightning, make the leading feature of our present science ! These are really the facts whose scep- ters govern, and whose coronets dazzle our times. Accordingly, I suppose that to-day the faith of intelligent and devout theists — men both intelli- gent and devout — in the direct Divine production of profuse natural objects, is not only more intense and broad and firm than ever before, but that it relates to a much larger proportion of particulars. Indeed, such persons now almost universally be- lieve that a direct Divine action is mixed up inti- mately with the production of all events, great and small, that swarm through the daily universe. J 2 -THIRD LECTURE. And so it happens that all sorts of things are now more freely made subjects of prayer than ever before. We feel far more at liberty than did our fathers, to carry the smallest items of family and personal interest to the ear of Heaven. The mi- croscope has not lightened in vain. Not in vain has that endless revolver, especially for the last generation, been constantly blazing and reporting away at the minims of Nature. It has reported wonders of exquisite littleness ; a populous world hanging from the point of a needle. And we have come to feel, more than ever, that nothing is too small for the personal attention and interference of God. If we are less superstitious than the an- cients, I trust we have a wider faith. If the mira- cles of saints and demons are less believed in now than formerly, I trust God's miracles are believed in more than ever. I would not undertake to say that unbelievers are not at present making more noise than ever before ; that this noise is not more than ever couched in the tones and words and formulas of science ; that, on this account, it is not creating a greater danger to faith than ever tried any pre- ceding age. All this I sorrowfully believe. At the same time I believe it would be hard to show COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 73 that, as yet, the proportion of unbelievers in the greatly enlarged class of scientifically informed men has at all increased. Much harder still — let us say impossible — would it be to show that among those men of this class to whom such words as conscience and duty and virtue are not mere empty names, faith in God, and in His direct action in Nature, has grown less as science has advanced. I am confident it cannot be shown. But suppose it can. Suppose it true that the field of the supernatural has gradually narrowed with even this class of persons during the very short, and in many respects crude, time which has elapsed since science began. What then ? Do not men, on first receiving sight, sometimes see men as trees walking ? Is not the faint and un- steady twilight of the morning, especially to eyes just opened from sleep, often fruitful in mistakes ? Even truth has its unaccountable ebbs. Even virtue has its surprising backslidings. Even the stars occasionally strangely retrograde, or seem to do so. And why may not Theism, though as true as truth and virtue and the stars, sometimes go strangely backward ? It may have done so, and still there be no warrant for the act in the discov- eries which the age has made. What has come 74 THIRD LECTURE. to be believed in the disturbed and flickering be- ginnings of science is one thing ; what has actu- ally been shown worthy of belief is another. Every philosopher knows, or ought to know, that those men say truly who say that science, with all its achievements, has never yet succeeded in distinctly tracing anything whatever to mere mat- ter as its efficient cause. Indeed, it has not yet been able to show that force ever belongs to mere matter at all. The most it has done in this direc- tion has been to trace phenomena to some force intimately associated with, and conditioned on, certain forms of matter ; but that this force comes from the essential nature of matter, instead of coming directly from a Divine source, it does not show. In no single instance has science gone so far. It is speculation, and not science, that pre- tends to that remote feat. So much for the unsoundness of the premises in the argument from the course of scientific ex- perience. But what I would lay most stress upon is that the premises, if sound, would not support the conclusion. Does it follow from the fact that an agent does some things, and is gradually found doing more things than was first supposed — does it follow that this agent does all things, and es- COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 75 pecially things of a vastly higher grade than any it has ever actually been found doing ? That were a wonderful style of logic. The Hebrews say that Moses had under him many officers to issue all the smaller matters of government, while the greater matters were issued by himself in person. How widely the man would have erred, who, on finding case after case of those secondary agen- cies, should have allowed himself to conclude that there were no others throughout all the pilgrim host of Israel ; that the great lawgiver himself never appeared with his own personal forces in any part of the administration, however exalted and important ! Take another example. A child comes to hear of the first Napoleon. For a time he very natu- rally imagines that all the things which he finds ascribed to that sovereign in a general way, were done by him personally. By degrees, as his knowledge improves, he becomes aware that many of these things, even some that were quite conspicuous, were proximately done by subordi- nates — by cabinet ministers, by marshals, by officers of many lower grades, by mere privates. Now if one should bid this child, on the strength of such an experience, leap to the conclusion 76 THIRD LECTURE. that Napoleon was a mere cipher ; that he did nothing whatever in his own proper person to- ward the administration of public affairs ; that those subalterns of his issued absolutely every matter, up to the greatest and gravest — would it not be a most absurd proceeding? Logic would laugh at such a logician. The facts would laugh at him. Why, Napoleon was a miracle of personal labor. Though doing many things by others, he reserved to himself a certain high grade of agency to which he alone was com- petent. On this he daily poured out imperial force and genius. With his own hand he drafted the Code Napoleon. With his own hand he dia- gramed battles and treaties. With his own hand he signed great warrants of pardon, or death, or nobility. Not only did he personally issue all the higher affairs of his empire, but, in point of fact, all those much-doing proxies were vitalized, in what they seemed to do of themselves, by his magnetic intelligence and force that throbbed away perpetually to the very extremities of the monarchy. Why may it not be so with God ? What is to hinder us from supposing that He, too, has His special plane of agency ; that, above that plane COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. J -J on which second causes are found fulfilling their mission, there is another which the Lawgiver of lawgivers and the Emperor of emperors has re- served exclusively to Himself, where He works alone, in His own proper person, the surpassing feats of natural mechanics, celestial and terrestrial, and from whence He pours down on all the wheels of Nature the immense volume and gravity and propulsion of His supreme will ? I say, what is to hinder ? Would it be so very strange if He, too, with His glorious fund of agency, should refuse to be next to eternally idle — if He, too, with His glo- rious versatility of powers, should choose to have the ranere of two modes of causation instead of one o mode — if He, too, with such a glorious round of empire, should have occasion for things too great to be done by subaltern atoms, or too great to be done sufficiently well by them — if He, too, most important to be known and with glorious claims to admiration and love, should object to being practically lost in an abyss of proxyship ; to be hidden at every point behind a tangled thicket, if not a dead wall, of second causes ; to be every- where separated from the thoughts and feelings and realization of His subjects by a chain of se- quences stretching across the whole breadth of 7 8 THIRD LECTURE. Nature and of inexpressible chronologies, that is to say, across that most bewildering interval sup- posed to lie between yonder fire mist and this fully equipt solar system populous with Newtons and Paradises ; nay, perhaps across an indefinite succession of such monster intervals, each of which might defy the mightiest computing mathe- matics ? Would it be so very strange ? I think not. On the contrary, I claim that nothing would be more natural. For the universe's sake, if for no other, God would be likely to disrelish being so thrust into the background of the picture, so dwarfed in the long perspective of mediators, so dimmed and wasted on human sight by innumera- ble reflections from innumerable planes of causa- tion. He would be likely to disrelish having our thoughts obliged to travel such tiresome and ex- hausting distances in order to reach Him ; and then, on that bleakest and dimmest outpost of be- ing, lift up faint and bewildered eyes on a Majesty whose chiefest glories are necessarily hid in twi- lights and clouds to such jaded, benumbed, and almost swooning faculties. So what sort of logic is it that infers from the fact that God does many things by atomic forces, COURSE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. 79 that He never does anything directly by Him- self? Worse inferring could hardly be found. I particularly beg that it may not be called scien- tific. It is equally against plainest and countless facts, and against the inherent probabilities of the case. Men are everywhere found combining the direct and indirect modes of causation ; are everywhere finding it extremely serviceable to do so ; are everywhere able to see that doing so is equally suited to their natures and their interests. Else they would be wretched. Else they would wretchedly sacrifice themselves. Else one half would be subtracted from the meaning and use- fulness of their lives. And why may it not be so with God ? Do not be so unscientific as to as- sume that He is an exception. If you must as- sume at all, let your assumption be in accordance with experience, and not in opposition to it. Es- pecially in view of the admitted immeasurable aptitude of a Divine Nature for all modes of caus- ation ; of the universal and immemorial tradition that He uses all ; and of the obvious moral disad- vantage of His propagating Himself on our notice solely through an endless series of ever-weakening undulations — the obvious moral disadvantage of His always dealing with us at arm's length, from 80 THIRD LECTURE. more than telescopic distances, from the furthest extremity of a wand, however magical, that crosses the terrible breadth of all our Geologies and As- tionomies. IV. CONFLICT WITH ONTOLOGY. Be'/Yriov ovv tov fxlv koct/x.w vtto Beau yeyovivat Xiyziv kcll aSeu: — Plutarch. Quaerit Socrates, uncle animam arripuerimus, si nulla fuerit in mundo ? — Cicero. Kcu eXoLTTOv he ka.VTOV yevia. — PlotitlUS. IV. Conflict with Ontology. i. AN ILLUSTRATION 83 2. COMBINATION NO CREATOR .'91 3. NO EQUAL FROM EQUAL 95 4. NO LIKE FROM LIKE 97 FOURTH LECTURE. I CONFLICT WITH ONTOLOGY. HAVE now examined the three leading argu- ments of the friends of evolution. It seems to me that they are very much such arguments as might be brought, with equal or greater pro- priety, to encourage a belief in the spontaneous origin of the Giant Cities of Bashan. No living man ever saw those cities being built by human hands. We know of no chain of tes- timony that can carry us back to such an event. And yet, not a person, not even the evolutionist, doubts that those silent structures all came from the labor and skill of intelligent beings. We would not listen for a moment to any other ex- planation of them. And yet one could talk against that universal conviction and sure knowl- edge, almost exactly as we have just heard men talking against the supernatural origin of plants and animals and astronomical systems. 84 FOURTH LECTURE. Hear him. "The old traditional notion," says he, " about these cities is altogether at fault. They are, indeed, very remarkable structures — the great rocky blocks are fairly squared and fit- ted and piled into very architectural forms, as if for human use — and yet my idea is that they really came in a gradual way, one out of another, by the spontaneous action of forces belonging to the atoms which compose them. Do not laugh, but listen. Perhaps you will not think the opin- ion so very ridiculous, when you have heard my reasons for it. Just look at the countless minute cells (simplest of dwellings) that are constantly being formed in a natural way : at the countless crystals that are ever building themselves up in the primary geometrical figures : at the many natural grottoes, small and great, furnished almost like palaces, with suites of apartments and col- umns and tables and vases and thrones : at the shapes which the very clouds take in imitation of the more solid castles and cathedrals below : at the rocks and hills in mountainous districts, piling themselves into fortresses, amphitheaters, domes, towers, buttresses, battlements, and almost everything the architect deals in : in fine, at those many living organisms, very small indeed, AN ILLUSTRATION. 85 but more elaborate by far than the best rock-city of Bashan, and which seem to swarm into being of themselves under the careful experiments of naturalists ! These things are very suggestive. I regard them as so many examples of what unin- telligent Nature can do in the way of developing architecture." Then this ingenious philosopher, warming with his subject, goes on to exclaim : " Now look at those Bashan cities ! See the gradation among them, and among the structures composing them ! Some are vast, complex, carefully wrought. Oth- ers are small, simple, and left very much in the rough. Still others are so rude in form and ar- rangement as to raise the question whether they are structural at all. Between these are many grades, from a palace for a king to a hut for a coney. Notice, further, that the higher grades, apparently, are of later date than the others — are less weather-stained, are less sunk in the soil, are nearer the edge of the desert where the forces of Nature seem most active and powerful. Visit Bozrah and Edrei, and see." " And I wish you to notice, also, a process of variation in such structures. To lay no stress on the changes made by time in those ancient rock- 86 FOURTH LECTURE. cities themselves — for example, in softening their outline, improving their color, wearing off here and there an objectionable feature, sometimes taking completely down parts that disfigure — to lay no stress on these, look at the great changes, which, wholly apart from intelligent agency, some- times take place in limestone caverns in a few years. Ten years will bring about a change nearly as marvelous as the original glory of that subterranean palace. A new order of architect- ure appears. The rocky furniture has been changed almost as completely as if that cave were some temple of fashion. Even the shape and size of the apartments have altered. And all without any human help. But if you choose to take a little pains while some processes of crys- tallization are going forward, you can determine to a great extent the arrangement of the crystals with respect to each other, and even pile them up in about as many different architectural forms as you please — as many as are shown in the various buildings made by man, and almost as easily as we change the symmetrical combina- tions of the kaleidoscope." "And you must not overlook the vein of resem- blance running through all those structures in AN ILLUSTRATION. 87 Argob. There is everywhere a family likeness. Everywhere stone, everywhere basalt, every- where squared blocks, everywhere Cyclopean blocks in Cyclopean walls without cement, every- where the doors and gates and horizontal roofs of rocky slabs. This most perfect city of all looks as much like yon neighbor city which Porter sees with his glass, as a man looks like an ape ; and yet is not wholly unlike the unwalled hamlet of a dozen small stone huts that show between. You can, if your eyes are good, see in each edi- fice some rudimental feature and prophecy of the one next higher : and, if your eyes are not good, you can find many things about those lonely piles that seem to you obscure, useless, and deformed. And I have no doubt that, if you could watch the development of the architectural idea from its simplest beginning in the mind of a child till his mature life, you would find the same succession of stages as is found in those cities, traditionally, but fabulously, ascribed to Moabite giants of four thousand years ago." " In short, all is just as it would have been if one city had grown out of another, and all out of the basaltic atoms by merely basaltic forces and laws. If you say that no such growth has been 88 FOURTH LECTURE. observed in Bashan, I answer that it takes a won- derfully long time for Nature to do such work, and that the time during which Bashan has been watched is a mere nothing. If you say that there are gaps in the chain of likeness and sequence that connects these structures, and inquire for the transitional forms which the theory of devel- opment supposes, my sufficient answer is, that they have been swallowed up by the vandalisms of unlimited time ; and that the wonder is, not that some links of the chain have been swallowed up, but .that any remain. Is not this enough ? See you not how easily objections are met, and how strongly my theory of development for Ba- shan agrees with observed fact ? " But then our ingenious philosopher suddenly remembers that there is something still better to be said before closing the case : and his voice waxes very confident as he begins to tell about the course of scientific experience. " Who does not know that in earliest times almost all remarkable things were supposed due to intelligent agency ? As knowledge has advanced, more and more of these things have been traced to unintelligent forces and laws. So the experience of the race is ever pressing us toward the point of believing AN ILLUSTRATION. 89 that such forces and laws are the source of those very remarkable cities. I choose to go at once to the point where all must finally come. Bashan was developed. Its cities are crystals. Who says that hammer and chisel, and straining muscle of man, set up Kenath and Kerioth and Keires and their threescore fellows ? They are stony Law Schemes. They came forth spontaneously from the blind womb of motherly Nature ; and were evolved by little and little, through crevice and chasm and cave and geode and cabin, into Cy- clopean castles and palaces." Thus, at length, our ingenious philosopher makes an end. And he looks about on his audi- ence to see what impression his subtle eloquence has made on them. To his amazement he finds every face ablaze with laughter — or with impa- tience. Nobody deigns him a reply. And his hearers scatter to their homes, as firmly con- vinced as ever that the Giant Cities of Bashan rose under the hands of contriving beings ; and better convinced than ever of the " beauties of scientific speculation." Of just as little weight are similar arguments when brought in support of the spontaneous ori- gin of those flying cities of the sky which we call 90 FOURTH LECTURE. astronomical systems, or of those walking cities of flesh and blood which we call men, or of those still greater thinking cities within us, which both walk and fly, and which we call souls. I come now to the positive side of the argu- ment. I propose to show that the Doctrine of * Evolution is inadequate to explain Nature, by showing that it is in conflict with several sci- ences, and with each of these at several points. We have only to open our ears to such witnesses as Ontology and Geology and Astronomy and the Science of Probabilities, to hear from each many an emphatic denial of the only scheme which in these days tries to explain Nature without a God. And you should bear in mind that, in such a case, each of these denials — each distinct scientific fact found in conflict with the Hypothesis of Evolu- tion — becomes an independent theistic argument. If we find three such ontological facts, and three- score such geological facts, and three hundred such facts astronomical, we have three hun- dred and threescore and three distinct arguments of scientific authority for the being of a God. Nay, the case is stronger than this. As we add the facts, we multiply the argument. COMBINATION NO CREATOR. 91 The Conflict with Ontology. However lightly one may think of many specu- lations which profess to sound the depths of Be- ing, and to bring to light its fundamental condi- tions, it cannot be denied that some such condi- tions do exist, have become known, and are of so clear and generic a character as to deserve to be called scientific. Among these conditions I sup- pose to be the following. 1 . No being can reproduce itself in kind. 2. No being can produce its ozvn equal, much less its superior. 3. No mere combination of beings can produce essentially new properties ; tJie properties resulting must be properties, or modifications of properties, already possessed by the constituent beings. Let us consider this last principle first. The Law Hypothesis aims to deduce mind from blind matter. It supposes that the ultimate atoms of which the most intelligent men are composed, are quite without thought, will, and feeling. These attributes mysteriously appear as the result of certain combinations of atoms, which in them- selves are utterly unconscious, involuntary, and insensible. Such is the assumption. And neces- sarily. For no scheme of this sort can face sci- 92 FOURTH LECTURE. entific men, save with an offer to account for Na- ture by means of things known to exist, namely, matter with only such properties as our physical sciences recognize matter as possessing. Be- sides, it will not do to claim, in opposition to con- sciousness, that the human mind is multiple — a congeries of many separate consciousnesses, in- tellects, wills, sensibilities. Still less will it do to admit a host of eternal thinkers and souls of even a very low grade. ' An eternal intelligence were approaching a God too nearly. So an atheistic Law Scheme is under the necessity of getting everything organic and mental out of such atoms as figure in the natural sciences ; atoms with only mechanical and chemical and such properties ; atoms altogether without such properties as we call mental and spiritual. Our human minds must come from the mere combination of atoms which themselves neither think, nor feel, nor will. To this doctrine the answer is easy. No possible way of combining atoms can generate essentially new properties. The utmost it can do is to mod- ify properties already possessed. It can intensify, abate, neutralize ; that is all. Of course it must be so. You cannot get out of things what is not in them. Arrangement cannot by any possibility COMBINATION NO CREATOR. 93 become a Creator. No chess-playing with posi- tions, mixtures, combinations ; no conjuring with distances, bearings, proportions, attitudes, times, can start into being a property essentially differ- ent from any to be found in the constituent atoms. It is true that chemical combinations are some- times said to originate new properties. But we do not mean properties essentially new. We only mean something remarkably different in expres- sion from the old properties, though still of the same essential nature, and perfectly conceivable as resulting from the counteractions and coac- tions of the old among themselves. Thus the traits of common air are perfectly conceivable as resulting from the agreements and antagonisms of oxygen and nitrogen, though in aspect and effects the compound is largely unlike either con- stituent. So in other cases. Two forces inclined to each other give a diagonal between them — this principle, with its implications, expresses all we find in Chemistry as well as in Mechanics. But such things as thought, feeling, choice, are not sums, differences, diagonals, of the material. They are essentially different from the gravities and attractions, from the mechanical and chemi- 94 FOURTH LECTURE. cal attributes with which we are familiar. They differ in conception, they differ in the laws which govern them, they differ in effects, they differ in the means by which they are known ; they differ according to that overwhelming verdict of mankind in all ages and countries which has always broadly distinguished between body and soul, matter and spirit. Pray, how do we know that any things differ in kind from each other ? Are we ever warranted in saying that things are totally unlike ? People do not hesitate to believe in differences ; they feel confident that such things as extension and color and hardness differ radically from each other ; and yet it is quite without warrant that they do so if there is not a great and insuperable chasm between thought and such properties of matter as the natural sciences concern themselves with. For one, I am not yet willing to quit my hold on the very foundations of knowledge. I must still continue to flatter myself that I know some things ; and, among these, that spiritual and material properties are mutually inconvertible. They cannot be developed or tortured out of each other. As much even can be said of the funda- mental properties of matter. How can one get NO EQUAL FROM EQUAL. 95 extension out of gravity, or gravity out of color ? Much less can one get choice out of either or all of such material attributes. They are essentially and totally different things. Really, the man who does not see this to begin with, will not see it to end with. How can argument help the man who does not perceive the difference between exten- sion and color ? As little will it help the man who does not at once perceive the difference be- tween extension and thought. Such differences, if they appear at all, appear as intuitions. At sight we recognize opposite poles of being in the material and spiritual. They have nothing in common ; unless such a hopeless chasm between them as divides the stars be reckoned a common possession. And so, no mere combination of atoms, though the choicest and most dynamical of all ; no mere play among themselves of deftly arranged chemistries and mechanics, though as subtle and forceful as ever boiled in crucible or thundered from engine, could begin to convert blind matter into an intelligent and voluntary be- ing. There are present no materials out of which to make him. Observe also that it is an essential part of the Law Hypothesis, that ordinary parentage fully 96 FOURTH LECTURE. explains the continuance of races. Sandwiched in everywhere with the notions of spontaneous generation and transmutation of species, is the quiet and yet — when one comes fairly to think of it — the astounding assumption, that there is not the slightest difficulty in each sort of plant or animal producing the equal of itself. As if even a God could produce his own equal ! Outside of the field now being considered, who ever knew a cause make something of the same grade with itself ? The beaver is - vastly superior to the dwelling it builds, the bee to its cells, the bird to its nest, the spider to its web. Among the vari- ous machines made by man, not one but is vastly inferior to his body, though that is largely aided in its work by the contriving mind ; and the products of these machines — say the sewing and • pin machines — are always vastly inferior to the machines themselves. And, from the nature of the case, it must be so. Reverently be it said, not even Almightiness can make a man that is able to turn out an organism as admirable as himself, or even anything of the same order of admirableness. It is a pure impossibility in the nature of things. The fountain always does and must have a higher level than its stream — the NO LIKE FROM LIKE. 97 producer always does and must tower loftily above his product — and human beings neither do nor can make any approach toward producing those wonderful children of theirs who are their equals, and sometimes their superiors. Children are sometimes, both physically and mentally, greatly the superiors of their parents. What a poor explanation do their parents give of such offspring as Milton, and Newton, and Pascal ? No, the only sufficient explanation of such per- sons is found, not in the parents who reverently looked up to them from a much lower plane, but in some Being who looked down on them from that vastly higher plane whence even their great- ness seemed as the littleness of grasshoppers. But the Law Hypothesis does more than claim that the organic races produce their peers and even superiors. It claims that these races re- produce themselves, in kind ; that they originate beings, not only of equal nature, but of precisely the same sort of nature. As if even a God could make a God ! As if even Almightiness could make a watch that is able of itself to make another watch, or to do anything toward such a feat ! Can any power get four out of two ? Sup- pose an organism composed of a pin machine 7 98 fourth lecture. and a machine for making pin machines. Can such a thing, by any manner of means, reproduce its own sort, or do anything whatever in that direction ? The pin machine can turn out pins, and the machine for making pin machines can turn out pin machines — at least with a plenty of aid from watching and manipulating men — but there is absolutely nothing left to do the least thing toward a maker of pin machines ; which last is vastly the most intricate and mar- velous part of the original organism. For, pins are vastly less wonderful than the machine that makes them, and a pin machine vastly less won- derful than a maker of pin machines. Thus an animal composed of a given organism and a system of means for reproducing the organism in kind, cannot reproduce its whole self, but nec- essarily leaves unproduced, even in part, what is by far the most surprising part of the whole structure, namely, its reproducing system. And this, whether the original structure act mechani- cally, or chemically, or in any other way. It can- not do the least thing toward reproducing the perfect like, in kind, of itself; which self is not the organism, nor the system for reproducing that, but the sum of the two. So in no case can a plant or animal reproduce itself. NO LIKE FROM LIKE. 99 Plainly, the matter is not helped by supposing two similar organisms to be concerned in the reproduction. That to which neither can con- tribute the least thing, cannot be made by both. So parents are no sufficient explanation of their offspring. These new beings which are contin- ually appearing about us in immense numbers, and of the highest structural grades — these won- derful human beings, for example — need to be accounted for independently of their, fathers and mothers, as much as if they were so many Adams newly sprung on the world without any visible means. Ordinary parentage does absolutely noth- ing toward accounting for them. And this in whatever way parentage may be supposed to act. Call it chemical, electric, physiological, mechan- ical, all of these together, it makes no difference. What the argument objects to is the thing to be done, not some particular mode of doing it. It objects to a thing producing its greater, or even its equal, by any mode. It objects to a thing be- getting its like in any conceivable way of action. The parental forces, in whatever way acting, are, at best, of only the same order with those generated : in whatever way acting, they can include nothing that tends in the least to produce a new system of reproduction. 100 FOURTH LECTURE. So the forces and laws included in parents do nothing toward accounting for their offspring. And so the Law Hypothesis, which offers noth- ing but parentage in explanation, does nothing toward accounting for them. And it can offer nothing better. Suppose it should say that the generating forces and laws are partly from with- out the parents, and yet are purely material. Then, I answer that this eternal something must be incalculably superior to its product ; in fact, of quite another order of being. But what is the order that rises incalculably above Blaise Pascal ? Are there any unintelligent, involuntary forces known to us in the whole round of Nature that can look down, as from the stars, on such a Sub- lime Soul ? Can any blind chemicals do it ? Can any blind electricities, or gravities, or com- pounds of such things do it ? What can do it save a vast Personal Being, with oceanic intelli- gence and will ? Where can be the source of such swift streams but above the clouds ? Doubt- less from above the clouds they come — from higher than thy cloud-capped summits, great Andes, and thy dazzling white crown of eternal snows, O highest Alps ! " That which planted the ear shall it not hear, that which formed the iVO LIKE FROM LIKE. 10 1 eye shall it not see, that which teacheth man knowledge shall not it know ? " To the Hebrew prophet there was but one answer to such questions as these. He knew no greater absurdity than that of making blind, deaf, and unintelligent things the fathers of mankind. No greater absurdity exists. It is of the same order with that which proposes to get, in a nat- ural way, something out of nothing. Surely, inadequate Law Hypothesis ! Full surely, O in- toxicate Law Scheme ; bouleversing thyself, and then supposing the universe to stand on its apex instead of its base ! Most surely, O unnatural Naturalism ; impossibly deducing like from like, equals from equals, and even the greater from the less, and even the greatest things in ail Nature from that which is next to nothing ! As surely as that a God cannot make a God, nothing in the parental economy, or anywhere else on the same level, can be anything more than the conditions, arteries, and tools through which a Great Per- sonal Force from above pours along its mighty reproductive energies : and that whole childhood which perpetually freshens the earth and rejuve- nates mankind, must have been begotten from far above the human plane ; say from the " cir- 102 FOURTH LECTURE. cuit of heaven " — why not say from that awful Zenith of which we can assert, and toward which we can wonder, but whither neither sight nor thought can climb ? There is the spring of these swift human rivers. Thence come our broad Amazons, fruitful Niles, and arrowy Rhones. Thence flows down the Parent-Power upon all the world. True Protozoon — infinite, instead of infinitesimal, Alpha of worlds and organisms — intelligent, voluntary, personal, august, cloud-en- veloped Summit of all things — we reverently pronounce before Thee that most ancient and venerable of all names, God ! V. CONFLICT WITH GEOLOGY. On 6 ®€os Tvavra. TrcrroirjKe to. eV toj koct/xo), kcu clvtov tov Kocrfxov. — M. Antoninus. Res sic quaeque suo ritu procedit, et omnes Fcedere naturae certo discrimina servant. Luc?-etius. V. Conflict with Geology. *. EACH AGE ITS OWN SPECIES 105 2. NO PERPENDICULAR CHAINS .... 109 3. NO HORIZONTAL CHAINS 112 4. SPECIAL CHASMS «5 5. OBJECTION 127 FIFTH LECTURE. CONFLICT WITH GEOLOGY. A CCORDING to the Development Scheme, we ought to have in each Geologic Period all the organic species of preceding Periods. Of course, the protozoa, or primitive organic germs, are continually being showered on all parts of each Period ; and all the lines of development are always beginning anew. If there is no ob- struction to the progress of these lines — if each Period has congenial circumstances for them all, and there is free transit for them all between the Periods — then, of course, each Period will have living in it all the species of the earlier Periods, and will only differ from them in having some more advanced organisms. Now, as a matter of fact, each Period had throughout congenial places for receiving these germs and developing them along the several observed lines of variation. That is to say, at any given time the earth has had, some- 106 FIFTH LECTURE. where, congenial habitats for all actual species of earlier formations. For example, in our own time, there are somewhere on the globe districts and conditions suited to each known fossil species — places of all sorts as to food, temperature, moisture, air, light ; land, water, air ; marshes, streams, seas ; fresh water, salt water, waters shallow and deep ; tropical, temperate, and arctic places ; in fine, places where every organism known to the paleon- tologist could be as much at home as it was in that ancient site where it actually lived and flourished. So of all other Geologic Periods known to us as fossiliferous. There is not one of them through- out which all the earlier species of fauna and flora could not have been thoroughly accommodated. Hence there is but one thing wanted _to secure the presence in each Period of all earlier organic spe- cies. We need free communication between the Periods. We need full opportunity for all the spe- cies to get across those yawning convulsions and exterminations which, as some say, separate the different formations. Now, according to the De- velopment Scheme, there have been such oppor- tunities in abundance — broad viaducts of safe transit opening from all the " homes and haunts " of each Period into the matching homes and EACH AGE ITS OWN SPECIES. \0J haunts of the Period below. Most evolutionists are now disposed to claim that the Periods and Eras were not separated by destructive convul- sions, but glided quietly into each other : in which case there was infinite opportunity of transit. And, in any case, see the countless sorts of highly advanced and widely differing organisms now on the earth ! All these, according to the Develop- ment Scheme, came safely across whole Periods and Eras on as many different lines of escape. These lines cut the strata at all points. They pass through all classes of habitats. They cross — those untold crowds of them which belong to the most advanced and widely differing species — the whole breadth of fossil Geology quite down into the Silurian. And they are not mere mathe- matical lines. They are rather so many wide thoroughfares, so many winding Stygian rivers, visiting all the habitats of all the Periods, ever giving and ever receiving species, and finally drifting down on ever broadening bosoms into our own time crowded specimens of the population of every other. So we ought to see strange sights about us. The old trilobites and saurians ought to plod in our modern marshes. The old asterol- epis and zeuglodon and enaliosaur ought to swim 108 FIFTH LECTURE. in our modern seas. The old pterodactyles and moas ought to fly in our modern air. All those strange forms whose mummied relicts stare at us from the cabinets as souvenirs of dead ages, ought to come out of their cases and incrusting stone, to lead over their lives in new homes and haunts of the nineteenth century as much like their old ones as two pennies are like each other. Do we find those old fossils now living ? Not one of them. Not a single Silurian species has come down to us ; not a single species of any other Geologic Age. Each Age has species altogether peculiar to itself; and even each of the several Periods of each Age has but few species, if any, in common with adjoining Periods. This could not have been on development principles. It is absolutely incredible that not a single individual of the vast army of fossils should have drifted down to us alive through all the great and swarm- ing aortas of the past. Especially incredible is it that not a single specimen of those hardy mol- luscan species of the Silurian, which would have found easy home all over the globe in all the Eras, and whose individuals were so amazingly numer- ous as to make up with their flinty remains whole strata, miles in thickness — I say, it is enormously NO PERPENDICULAR CHAINS. 109 incredible that not a single specimen of such spe- cies should have succeeded, in escaping out of its own age by any of those countless tunnels — or, if you please, that immense open prairie, wide as the world — connecting it with all other ages. Even supposing we should, as our researches widen, find a few clear examples of species passed over from preceding formations, it would not be sufficient to save the theory. According to it, we ought to find almost an infinite number of such examples. They ought to swarm through the rocks of every Era. All our present lands and seas should be alive with those strange creatures whose ghostly visages peer at us out of the glooms of the most ancient past. 2. According to the Development Scheme, each organic individual now living, or that has lived since history began, ought to shade away by in- sensible structural differences along a continuous line of ancestry into some rude mite of a protozoon. This I say in full view of the fact that it is be- ginning to be fashionable among evolutionists to claim that Nature sometimes takes leaps, more or less large, on her lines of development. It is well known that, at least as a rule, mon- strosities among the organic races do not perpet- I 10 FIFTH LECTURE. uate themselves ; that, at least as a rule, hybrid- ism prevents great leaps from species to species ; that almost, if not quite, universally, durable im- provements in any specific type are made very slowly, and have not spontaneously taken place, to any appreciable amount, since the dawn of his- tory. So that it is a necessary, as well as ac- cepted, part of the Development Scheme that the organic world has advanced to its present high grades in the most gradual manner. It has been an immeasurable creeping. Each organic thing, of any complexity, has come up to its present place through indefinite ages, and by a series of steps so minute that they deserve to be called dif- ferentials. Conceive these series as so many lines drawn downward through the earth, and passing through all the links of ancestry, to their respect- ive protozoa. These lines are as innumerable as are the thronging individual plants and animals of every name that have lived on the earth for some thousands of years ; and pierce the strata at all points — thick as ever darts stood on the shield of a beset warrior, or as grain-stalks on the valley of the Nile. Of these, a number altogether incom- putable express series of organisms whose remains were capable of being preserved in the strata, and NO PERPENDICULAR CHAINS. \ \ \ — considering the host of individuals belonging to almost every known species — must have been preserved in the strata. Where are these long lines of closely graded fossils ? Where are these organic perpendiculars whose close-bound sheaves choke all the bowels of the earth ? Some of them, at least, ought to have been met with and recog- nized in the abundant continuous excavations and explorations which have been made with widely- open eyes. As if to make examination easier for us, the strata are often greatly thrown out of the horizontal, so as to place on the surface the whole breadth of successive formations, and thus enable a traveler in going a few miles with his feet to pass through vast periods of time with his eyes. With what result ? Not a single one of these in- numerable scalce has been seen. Not a single continuous structural grade, of any length, has been made out ; though, according to the Develop- ment Theory, they are really as thick in every formation as are autumnal leaves in Vallambrosa. We sometimes find, and doubtless shall continue to find, a plant or animal intermediate in structure to two others of plainly different species, and mak- ing the gap between them less than till then it had been supposed : but never yet has the gap I I 2 FIFTH LECTURE. been so filled up as to allow one to pass in a known natural way over to the other. I know of no evolutionists who show it. They only show that they have been able to reduce the interval be- tween species somewhat. They might do any amount of this sort of work and not help their case in the least. Who denies that different sorts of plants and animals resemble each other, some- times very closely ? It still remains true that no organic chain long enough to connect two species confessedly different has been brought to light. This could not have happened had evolutionism been true. Researches among the fossils have been too close and extensive. 3. According to the Development Scheme, eaeh organic individual that has ever lived on the eartJi ought to shade away laterally, as well as perpen- dicularly, by minute differences into its protozoon. That is, there ought to exist, cotemporaneously with any given organic individual, specimens of all the terms of that closely graded series of an- cestors which connects that individual with its root-form. I have already called your attention to the fact that, according to the new doctrine, protozoa like that from which any given organism sprung, have NO HORIZONTAL CHAINS. 113 been freely coming into existence and freely ad- vancing ever since. Hence, this organism ought to have cotemporaneously existing on the earth all the preceding grades, away down to the aboriginal germ. The perpendicular series ought to appear also as a horizontal series. The line of closely graded ancestors ought to be perfectly duplicated in a line of closely graded cotemporaries. For example, man ought to find, somewhere among the living things of the world, examples of all the links in that ancestral chain which connects him with his protozoon. He ought to shade away laterally through present countries as he shades away perpendicularly through ancient strata. So of every other thing now living. What infinite, infinite lines ! Do we find any of them ? Do we find any of them ? Can we shade away a man into a tadpole by judiciously selecting from among liv- ing and historic animals ? Can we do as much for a single living thing ? Enthusiastic observers and travelers are not few. Sea and land and air, all round the world, have been vexed by our curi- ous inquiry. Our Natural Histories are getting to be exceedingly bulky. And yet not a single line of closely graded organisms can be made out from all known living Nature. Not even a con- 8 114 FIFTH LECTURE. siderable fraction of such a line. The best we can do is to piece out a few inches, so to speak, from varieties of the same species : then comes a gap which we cannot bridge by the proper transitional forms. The best series we can make out is but a succession of gaps. Now this could not be if the Development Scheme were correct. With infinite graded series of organisms, in all their integrity, lying along our horizon, right under the eyes of mankind, it is simply incredible that we should not be able to find a single considerable fraction of a single one of them. And the geologists are no more successful. We should not suppose they would be. What is, - hints strongly at what has been. If no continu- ous organic chain is now living, and if we find no sign of such by going back through the ages of history, the fact pointedly suggests, not merely that we shall not find such among the fossils, but that they did not exist to be found. Still let us search. So we leave the bright, warm, vocal homes of the living races, and go down with our torches into those cold and silent mausolea where Nature with impartial hand has laid up the remains of the ancient inhabitants of the world. What do we find ? What but that the fossils SPECIAL CHASMS. 115 appear to have been related to each other just as the living and historic races are found related ! In all directions the same succession of gaps and partitions. We pass with our hue and cry for the missing links from stratum to stratum, but dis- cover none of them, or not enough of them — neither the organic Jwrizontals with which each buried era ought to be crowded, nor the crowded perpendiculars. The infinite fossil grades that pass along the strata are fully as scarce to our finding as those passing through the strata. You see the difficulty is twofold. First, we have infi- nite sinuous ladders and stairs, so finely graded that an animalcule might walk up them, passing upward from the Silurian ; second, we have these infinite ladders and stairs all fallen, like so many felled trees, across the formations, making for each age a closely-woven stony web, whose warp and woof alike contrive to elude the observation of all careful observers. Let those believe it who can. Geology does not believe it. 5. According to the Development Scheme, we ought to find 110 very abrupt occurrence of, especially, the higher forms of organism. This scheme being witness, each of these forms must have been reached in the way of numberless 1 1 6 FIFTH LECTURE. delicate transitions from something lower. So there ought to be no organic chasms at all. Especially, there ought to be no great chasms. Still more especially, there ought to be no great chasms just back of organisms of the higher grades ; for such organisms are found to have less elasticity and variability of structure than the lower. To such chasms as these last the Devel- opment Hypothesis especially objects. It makes oath by itself (for what greater has it to swear by) that they never have occurred — that a very abrupt appearance of high organic life, whether in fauna or flora, has never in a single instance and under any pretense ventured to take place. Well, what do we find ? First, we find not a few particular organs and organic features of a very high grade appearing with extreme sudden- ness, with enormous organic chasms directly back of them, with an entire absence for a long dis- tance just behind them of those flights of infini- tesimal steps by which alone they should have made their appearance. Does any one know a more exquisite organ than the eye ? And yet the eye in great com- plexity and perfection is found in the trilobite, at the very threshold of the fossil world : also in SPECIAL CHASMS. \\y those very microscopic infusoria which some men would have us accept as examples of spontaneous generation. The result was reached by a great leap. For a long distance there were none of those cautious and delicate approaches to an eye, such as military engineers sometimes make to a formidable besieged fortress. There could not have been. The eye of the trilobite abuts hard on a general convulsion incompatible with organic life. Further, it abuts on the Azoic Age, an age without organisms of any sort, save perhaps a few sea-weeds and animalcules. So, all at once, an eye of large size leaped into being across the great gulf that divides it from practical zero. No series of constantly increasing dents in a shell, followed by a series of constantly enlarging and improving holes, and these gradually filled in with humors that slowly ripened into lenses, helped to bridge the immense interval. The whole was cleared at a bound. This is just as impossible on development principles, as it would be for one to mount, without a graduated progress, to that utmost dome of St. Peter's which commands the whole broad Campagna. And there must have been organs of a still higher order than even eyes, at the very outset H8 FIFTH LECTURE. of the organic ages. Life, Growth, Reproduction — these things were all there in as perfect exam- ples as can be found to-day. And yet these are the very highest and most wonderful attributes possessed by organic beings : and if, as the new doctrine says, they come of mere organization, the organs producing such wonderful things must be still more wonderful. The cause of a thing must be superior to the thing itself. What a bound have we here ! It is passing suddenly from the vale of Chamouni to that utmost Alpine summit which displays all Switzerland and Lom- bardy ; without sloping and spiraling our way up through the usual fifty miles of ascent. Second, we find entire organic beings of high grade appearing suddenly — with great struct- ural chasms just behind them — with no finely graded antecedents by the aid of which they might have crept up to their high places. Huge ferns such as are now nowhere seen ; huge pines, stout and lofty as any that dominate Norwegian forests, appeared suddenly — with nothing be- tween them and sea-weed, not even the mosses. Huge cephalopods, with shells twelve or fifteen feet long, and of the very highest mollusk struct- ure, appeared suddenly — with nothing between SPECIAL CHASMS. I 1 9 them and nothing. Huge sharks and ganoids, over twenty feet long and of the very highest type of fish structure — with great organic blanks just behind them — began the Age of Fishes. Huge reptiles, from thirty to sixty feet long and of the very highest reptile structure — with great organic blanks just behind them — began the Age of Reptiles. Huge land-mammals, as the Megatheres and Deinotheres and Mastodons, to some of which our largest modern quadrupeds are mere pigmies ; huge sea-mammals, as the Zeuglodons, seventy feet long — all with great organic blanks just back of them — began the Age of Mammals. All of these come upon the scene with extreme abruptness ; as if evoked by the stroke of a magician's wand. Now, the Development Scheme does not object to huge and high-graded organisms, but it does object, and that most strenuously, to their occur- ring by huge leaps. It makes oath that they can- not do so. Lower species of the same group must precede them. They must reach their pinnacle by climbing slowly along finely gradu- ated precursors of less dignity. There can be no great chasm as to size or grade of structure be- tween them and the most similar of preceding 120 FIFTH LECTURE. organisms. You see how such a notion flies in the face of facts. These fossil giants just men- tioned — all of them — crowd up hard against general exterminations. All of them have the next lower species of their respective groups after them in time, or at the most with them ; never just before them. A great gulf yawns between them and their nearest kindred of the preceding formation — always as to size, often as to grade of structure, and sometimes as to both. The lower steps of the necessary flight are before the climbers, instead of just behind them. There is a sort of broken stairs to come down on, but none whatever to go up on. And this not in a single instance merely ; it is the habit of the Geologic Ages. You see the argument is cumulative. It is not to be supposed that Geology mistakes in so many particulars and on so wide a field. Besides, these are only the great chasms. Ge- ology is full of minor ones, which, though not so striking, are really as inconsistent with any known scheme of evolution as are the others. It is really just as impossible to get half-way up the pyramid of Cheops without a flight of steps as it is to get to the top without it. All chasms that deserve the name abhor the Development Hy- SPECIAL CHASMS. 121 pothesis as much as Nature abhors a vacuum. " Nature makes no structural leap which she can hold," is history ; and so is the necessary motto of the new scheme for explaining Nature. Ac- cording to this, it is just as impossible for the properties and laws of matter to reach a whale or a trout, except along a gentle slope of im- proving organisms, as it would be to build a cathedral without successive tiers of scaffolding, or from the top downward. But there is a still greater leap than any of these are commonly supposed to be. I mean a leap from a protozobn to a man. It is common to place man alone at the very head of the scale of organic beings. And it is true that, all things considered, he deserves the place. But he does not deserve it apart from his mental and moral characteristics. Viewed apart from these, as he ought to be — for evolutionists may not ask us to allow them to assume, in defi- ance of the beliefs, traditions, needs, and almost sight of all mankind, that mind is a product of bodily combinations — viewed apart from these and considered as a mere animal, man is not more wonderful than many other animals. As a spiritual being he is plain king over all the world. 122 FIFTH LECTURE. In some highest specimens — men within whose roomy souls might be described the whole orbit of Neptune — he rises almost unspeakably above all other earthly organisms. But it is only in virtue of his superior spiritual traits. The mo- ment we strip him of this superiority, the Sam- son is shorn of his locks, and the king loses his crown : the moment that speaking face and form of his cease to be informed by a lofty and respon- sible intelligence, whose regal lightnings flash in glances, words, and actions, he becomes merely a better sort of ape. And an ape he is, structurally, according to the views of development men. They universally accept the ape as being the next extant link to man in his chain of being ; while Huxley and others claim that man differs less from apes than apes differ among themselves. Granting for a moment this most unpalatable doctrine, I ask for some light on the grade of this brother of ours. We reckon the grade of a machine in view of two qualities, namely, beauty and efficiency ; espe- cially, in view of what it can do. If better than another machine in doing difficult things it is reckoned of a higher grade, though, perhaps, it is the simplest in structure. Judged by this SPECIAL CHASMS. 1 23 principle, the ape is certainly not a higher struct- ure than that vision of beauty the bird of para- dise, or that Bucephalus whose " neck is clothed with thunder," or that behemoth who is " chief of the ways of God," or that leviathan who is " king over all the children of pride." It is not the fairest, strongest, swiftest, hardiest — does not show the greatest variety and excellence of organic feats and qualities. Esthetically considered, phys- iologically considered, considered even anatom- ically, that gorilla is not more wonderful, to say the least, than any one of a whole menagerie of animals that might be named, living or fossil. Is the best monkey that ever chattered in African or Asian woods a nobler animal in struct- ure than yonder eagle, who, with eye fixed un- blinkingly on the sun, soars so easily out of our sight on his graceful and powerful pinions, and then cleaves his level way at the rate of two hun- dred miles an hour ; or than that lion, whose kingly voice and lithe strength and mighty bound are the terror of jungles and hamlets ? Pray, is our brother ape a more wonderful animal than any of those huge Tertiary mammals ; or than that Triassic saurian, still huger, before whose frightful jaws and bulk and strength and eyes of 124 FIFTH LECTURE. a full foot diameter the Paladins of Charlemagne, and the renowned Cid, and Coeur de Lion, and even the monster-destroying Hercules himself, would have trembled and incontinently run away ? Indeed, is the human ape at all more wonder- ful, considered as a mere organism, than that great placoid fish, the asterolepis, swimming in the very door-way of the Devonian ; or than those other placoids lately found swimming in the Silurian seas and on the very utmost coast of discovered life — fishes armed in iridescent and exquisitely carved plate-mail, such as no warring monarch ever wore, or Cellini fashioned ; fishes that could outswim the swiftest ship, out- see the sharpest human eye, outdo with force and promptness and endurance of muscle the strong- est and most agile human athlete ? Indeed, I verily believe that man, whether ape or not, is not more wonderful, simply as a mech- anism, than many of those myriad-eyed insects of the Coal Measures ; or than some of those ani- malcules that must have swarmed to meet the tentacula of larger Silurian animals, now forming whole immense beds of limestone. These living mites of eldest time, these avant-couriers of or- ganic magnitude, among which or near which SPECIAL CHASMS. 1 25 development men look for their protozoa — we have the analogues and organic equivalents of these (so the scheme demands) under our micro- scopes to-day : and find them endowed with mouths, teeth, stomachs, muscles, nerves, eyes ; in short, with all the leading human organs. As we gaze we are astonished to see the rich hues, the beautiful forms, the graceful movements, the prodigious reproductiveness, the astonishing deli- cacy of senses and instincts, the amazing agility and strength of muscle which, if reproduced in a man, would enable him to spring like a whirlwind half round the globe. We have been truly taught that the realms of the microscope are fully as marvelous as those of the telescope. Is not the Lord's Prayer, all perfectly printed beneath a pin- head, quite as remarkable as when printed on a folio page ? These pocket editions of Nature, these miniature copies of the Pater Noster which our searching lenses show us among the animal- cules, I hold, are fully as wonderful as our grosser human bodies, as mere bodies. We are not likely to see the man who can prove the contrary — who, for example, can prove that the wheel ani- malcule is a less exquisite piece of putting to- gether than a living Apollo Belvidere. It is dif- 126 FIFTH LECTURE. ferent from a man ; it wants some things that a man has ; but then it has other things that a man wants : and it would be very hard to show that, on an equitable striking of the balance between the two as wholes, the microcosm is not as admirable as the macrocosm. So of the eagle, the behemoth, the saurian, the placoid. Each is inferior to man in some re- spects ; but each is so superior in other respects that we cannot say that, on the whole, its struct- ural grade is not equally high with our own. To all appearance it is. Indeed, a man with only the mental grade of these animals is well known to be a far more helpless creature : in the range and quality of the work he can do, he is below almost all the living tribes. What matters it that his ratio of brain to body is greater than theirs ? We are speaking of organic grade ; and that fatty pulp which we call the brain is, to all appear- ance, one of the least organized parts in the whole body ; and no man is entitled to assume that this appearance is deceptive and really covers a won- derful mechanics — or even chemistry or galva- nism — which gives birth to all mental phenom- ena. And thus, on each abrupt brink of the successive OBJECTION. 127 Geologic Ages, stands at least the organic equiva- lent of a man. He stands at the very brink of the Azoic, looking down a precipice as steep and pro- found as stretches from zenith to nadir. How- came he hither ? By what stairs did he ascend ? That finely graduated stairs is not to be found. It did not exist. The wondrous organism came up from the mighty profound by one great leap. What a leap was that ! What leaps were all those that began the various Geologic Eras ! It was really the leap from zero to a Man — that impos- sibility of impossibilities, according to the Devel- opment Hypothesis. What answer do the friends of this hypothesis make to such considerations ? They plead the imperfection and uncertainty of Geology. They tell us how small a part of the strata has been ex- amined, and what great mistakes have sometimes been made in the effort to decipher the Ten Com- mandments from those tables of stone. It is very true that large parts of the world have not even been looked on by geologists. It is also true that, in the parts examined by them, by no means every cubic foot of soil and rock has been faithfully dug over and sifted. True — and likely to remain true for some little time yet. But that 128 FIFTH LECTURE. researches among the formations have not been extensive and thorough enough to bring to light the missing links, if such ever existed, in the supposed continuous chain of organic development — this is not allowed so easily. The strata have been ex- amined enough to find thousands of cases where two closely related species appear by multitudes of specimens, and not a single example of those intermediate forms needed to connect them, and which, if they existed, must have been as numer- ous and easily preserved as the others. The chances against this are so enormous, that some of the friends of evolution have felt compelled to give up the idea of development by minute changes, and to suppose that it has taken place largely by leaps. But this is mere supposition. Not a case is known in which the whole distance from one species to another has been cleared at a single bound. As much has been confessed by leading evolutionists ; although a late attempt has been made to show that such cases have been found in that twilight region of the infinitesimals which is almost darkness itself, and where it is about as easy to stumble as it is to walk. And if the pas- sage from one species to another is supposed to OBJECTION. 129 be made by several leaps, we have just as much right to demand that the transitional forms appear among the fossils as we have in the case of the other hypothesis. The cases are precisely of the same kind : only the links in the one are much larger than in the other. Besides, an hypothesis that allows a new species to be naturally produced in a very short time — almost flashed on the world — is specially open to the objection that never once in all the long range of human history has a new species been known to arise in this way. All human experience, for thousands of years, is against Nature having come down to us after the manner of a rabbit. " But is not Geology a very uncertain sort of a thing ? " Well : I am prepared to admit that ge- ologists are not infallible. And, while I am about it, I might as well admit that no Vatican Council is even considering the question of their infalli- bility. They have made a great many mistakes. Some of their mistakes have been of the " high and mighty " sort, and will not soon be forgotten — great bubbles of crude and flighty speculation, launched into the air with infinite parade, called worlds and science and philosophy, wondered after a little as they rose gayly over the opened-mouthed 9 130 FIFTH LECTURE. crowd, then disappearing ; generally oursting as they disappeared. Up to the present time geolo- gists have had to take back not far from a hundred different theories. There is sign that they will have to take back some more. If matters go on as they have done, it will not be long before — what with the deep-sea dredgings and other explora- tions — there will be great shaking in certain quarters. The very text-books are already hav- ing indignation meetings in view of the mutila- tions preparing for them. And no one dreams of denying that on the outskirts of Geology, as in a degree on the outskirts of every other science, there is a debatable land where the light is weak and the footing insecure ; where truth and error with uncertain faces still contend doubtfully for the mastery. Time was when Geology was all outskirts. The case is not so bad now ; but a vexatious suburb, of large breadth, with its umbras and penumbras, still remains. So much must be admitted. But then the ad- mission is hardly worth the making. I have not asked you to follow me into that contested border- land of speculation. On the contrary, I have strictly confined myself to the central geological region of assured knowledge. If there are any OBJECTION. 131 conclusions in Geology which may be relied on, they are those just brought forward as being in conflict with the Doctrine of Evolution. What student of the earth doubts that its past was broken up into many ages — that each of these lacked the specific fauna and flora of earlier times — that neither perpendicular nor horizontal or- ganic chains have as yet been found in any of them — that in multitudes of cases high organ- isms appeared without leaving sign of such grad- uated antecedents as the Law Scheme requires ? Besides, these teachings of Geology should be good against evolutionists, if not good against any- body else. These men accept, and appeal to, and heavily lean on, certain geological teachings for the support of their scheme. That scheme re- quires an enormous lapse of time since life began in the world, in order to lift its protozoa into men — they very freely go to Geology for that fact. That scheme requires a higher temperature for the earth in remote times than it now has — they very freely go to Geology for that. That scheme requires an advance along the mighty slopes of the past in organic grade of being — they quite freely go to Geology for that ; and think they find it when they find a very different matter, namely, I32 FIFTH LECTURE. an advance in the grade of organic beings. They unhesitatingly take these geological facts and found on them as on so much granite. And yet this granite of theirs is not one jot more reliable than those other facts which we have just been viewing. Both rest on the same grade of research and evidence ; and the same style of objecting which is used against the one class is just as good against the other. " The record has been very imperfectly read." Well : how do you know that further examination of this very imperfectly read record will not track fossil birds, quadrupeds, men even — not the or- ganic equivalents of men, but men themselves — d v i to the very earliest fossiliferous formations ; just as some persons are plainly aching to do ; and just as some mammals have been tracked down from the Tertiary to the latest, middle, and earliest Secondary ; and just as fishes have been tracked down from the Devonian to the latest, (and as some say) middle, and earliest Silurian ? " But the record itself is very imperfect." Well : how do you know that some such causes as have made this record imperfect, and suppressed count- less links in all the chains of development, have not also suppressed traces of a vastly swifter rate OBJECTION. 133 of rock building in ancient times than we see now — traces which would finish doing what the oce- anic dredgings have so astoundingly begun to do, and reduce that venerable geologic eternity which we have so much admired, and during which the races have had ample time for leisurely and drow- sily climbing to their present dignity along the easy grade of their fluxional steps, to compara- tively very pitiful dimensions ? Certainly, we might talk to evolutionists about their facts very much as some of them do to us about ours. The fact is, their suppositions are like some very tall men ; they have only to lie down properly at full length, in order to be wherever they wish to go. They do not need any evidence. But if they would still keep to the time-honored custom of giving a reason for the supposition that is in them, and if they feel in- clined to go to Geology in part for that reason, by all means let them deal impartially with facts of equal standing and prestige. Let them accept those on the right hand, and those on the left as well. Surely they will not allow themselves to do so unscientific a thing as to take the science where it suits them, and cast away the same sci- ence where it refutes them ! Surely they will take the whole rounded science as it stands ! 134 FIFTH LECTURE. What then? Why, our facts are flatly incon- sistent with their scheme for explaining Nature ; while their facts fully agree with our scheme. It is nothing against the doctrine of an eternal God that millions on millions of years have come and gone since living beings began on the earth ; nothing against the doctrine of a God whose name is Law and Order and Progress, that these living beings have risen in grade as to brain and spiritual qualities as they have moved toward us along that bewildering past. On the contrary, such facts are in embracing harmony with The- ism. They say benedictions over it. They put warm, though reverent, lips to its august brow. But those other facts which it has been the ob- ject of this lecture to set forth, do nothing of the sort to the Law Scheme. They do just the oppo- site. They assault the scheme with both hands. And they are not a scanty two or three that join in the assault. They are comprehensive, mani- fold facts. Those breaks in the continuity of or- ganic life are many — those absences from each era of the species of all preceding eras are count- less — those absences of organic perpendiculars and horizontals are countless also — those great chasms just back of the higher grades of organs, OBJECTION. 135 organic properties, and complete individuals are many as well as vast. And, altogether, the facts march by battalions. They are the brunt and drift of our accepted Geology. Some years ago, Professor Sedgewick, one of the most eminent of British geologists, wrote the following words : " Were all the anatomists of the earth against us we should not one jot abate our confidence. For we have examined the old rec- ords ; but not in cabinets where things of a dif- ferent age are put side by side, and so viewed, might suggest some glimmering notions of a false historical connection. We have seen them in spots where Nature placed them, and we know their true historical meaning. We have visited in succession the tombs and charnel-houses of these old times, and we took with us the clew spun in the fabric of development ; but we found this clew no guide through these ancient laby- rinths, and, sorely against our will, we were com- pelled to snap its thread ; and we now dare to affirm with all the confidence of assured truth, that Geology — not seen through the mists of any theory, but taken as a plain succession of monu- ments and facts — offers one firm cumulative ar- gument against the hypothesis of development." 136 FIFTH LECTURE. Is this an antiquated testimony ? It is as true to the latest geological facts as to those of twenty years ago. You can read in your own college text- book of to-day, by one who stands in the front rank of living geologists, these weighty words, — " Geology appears to bring us directly before the Creator. It leads to no other solution of the great problem of the creation, whether of kinds of matter or of species of life, than this, Deus Fecit." VI. CONFLICT WITH THE SCIENCE OF PROBABILITIES. NOW elvCLL KCLL TOV KOafXOV KCU T^S T(X^C(OS 7T(X(Tr]<; UlTLOV. Anaxagoras. Sed neque centauri fuerunt, neque tempore in ullo Esse queat duplici natura, et corpore bino, Ex alienigenis membris compacta potestas. Lucretius. VI. Conflict with the Science of Probabilities. :. DOCTRINE OF CHANCES i 30 2. BROKEN CHAINS 141 3. SPONTANEOUS MINIMS i 4 8 4. DISJECTA MEMBRA 152 5. OVERLAPPINGS OF SPECIES 157 6. IMPROPRIETIES OF STRUCTURE 161 7. ORGANIC LIMITS 170 8. FEW TYPES 176 9. SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES iSa SIXTH LECTURE, CONFLICT WITH THE SCIENCE OF PROB- ABILITIES. ASK your attention, in the present lecture, to ■*• another witnessing Science — the Science of Probabilities. This is really a mathematical branch of knowl- edge ; and it is not altogether easy to render its testimony acceptably into our common forms of thought and speech. I will, however, venture to make the attempt. The fundamental principle of the Science of Probabilities is, that if there is no assignable rea- son why a given event should occur in one way rather than in another, then in a large number of cases of such an event, it will occur about equally often in both ways ; and the larger the number of cases, the nearer the approach to equality. For example, if a penny is tossed carelessly into the air a million of times, it will fall about as many I4 SIXTH LECTURE. times on one face as on the other. In any given case of toss-up, one result is, a priori, just as likely as the other. No reason can be assigned why this result should appear rather than that. Both results are evidently equally consistent with the nature of things, and with the general tenor of circumstances and experience. So we are quite sure that in a multitude of toss-ups both sorts of results will occur about equally often. On this principle has been built up, with the aid of analyt- ical mathematics, and especially of what is called the Calculus of Probabilities, a great Science which stands proved to us both by the logic of geometry, and the logic of experience. It has met with splendid success in its numerous applications to other Sciences, and to the affairs of actual life. Its conclusions accord wonderfully with observa- tion. It is found perfectly safe to venture on them enormous sums of money ; and enormous interests of reputation, social economics, and government. Men are thus venturing every day — in all sorts of insurance companies, in political philosophy, in judicial proceedings, in historical criticism, and especially, in Astronomy and Gen- eral Physics. Observational Astronomy, and in- deed, all the Sciences of observation and experi- DOCTRINE OF CHANCES. 141 ment, are getting to build greatly on the new Science. It is hard to say what class of intelli- gent men build on it with the greatest readiness and conviction. Philosophers, statesmen, general scholars, men of affairs — all freely unite in ad- mitting its principles and in doing them the high- est possible honor, that of trusting their most valued interests to them. Prominent among these are the leading friends of the Law Hypothesis. These are the men who profess to hope some day, largely by means of the Science of Probabilities, to extend the reign of known law over the whole domain of social, mental, and moral facts. Of course they should be the last persons to find fault with conclusions carefully drawn from a science on which they themselves lean so heavily. Let us examine some of these conclusions. 1. If matter is self -organizing — if it has in it- self certain properties by sole virtue of zvhich, in more or less of time, the atoms come together into all the organic forms of nature — then we ought to find no chasms, especially no zuide chasms, between different sorts of organic beings ; but they should be seen shading away into each other in every direction by insensible differences. This has already been inferred from certain I42 SIXTH LECTURE. physiological and historical considerations. I now infer it independently from the Science of Prob- abilities. Conceive such transition forms as nat- urally fill the space between two given organic species. All these middle forms are, intrinsically and circumstantially, just as possible and easy, and so just as credible, as the two extreme forms. In advance of a given construction, whether by a short or long process, the chances are just as good for one of those as for one of these. There is no assign- able reason why one should occur rather than the other. Both are equally consistent with the pos- sibilities and facilities and likelihoods of Nature. In fact, it is a pure toss-up which it shall be — as much so as it is which face shall fall uppermost when a penny is carelessly cast into the air. Hence it follows that, in innumerable cases of construction, we ought to have as many examples of each transitional form as of each of the others. It is vastly improbable — millions of chances to one — that there should be millions of examples of the one, and absolutely none at all of the other. So there ought to be no organic gaps about us ; none between species, and none between genera or kingdoms. Wherever we take our stand, we ought to see countless long lines of closely-graded DOCTRINE OF CHANCES. 143 organisms stretching away from us in every direc- tion. How poorly this agrees with facts you know. But the Law Hypothesis, as commonly held, not only supposes that Nature organizes itself, but that it organizes itself in a given way. It sup- poses that matter first brings itself into certain small and rude organic forms, and then gradually improves these forms through long successions of individuals and ages. Thus man shades away through the strata, by insensible structural differ- ences, toward the worm or some other less prom- ising first ancestor. The succession is that of a line, and not that of a ladder — much less that of a ladder whose rounds are so far apart that no human skill and patience could ever pass a being from one round to another. So of the other or- ganic races. Each has reached its present state through a succession of individuals which shade away into each other by minute structural differ- ences, and so form a continuous line of connection with some rude mite of a protozoon. What says the Science of Probabilities to this ? It says that, since each of these intermediate types is just as likely to be present and just as likely to be discovered as are its next neighbors on both 144 SIXTH LECTURE. sides of it, it follows that in case of a vast number of individuals of each type we ought to find as many of one type as of another ; and it would be vastly improbable — millions of chances to one — that we should find millions of one sort, and ab- solutely none at all of its neighbors ; still more im- probable that this should happen everywhere along that prodigious line of development ; more improb- able still that this should happen everywhere on all the myriads of such lines which exist ; in fine, infinitely improbable that we should not find a single considerable fraction of a single one of these long and many lines that pierce at all points the domain of our fossil Geology. And yet Ge- ology finds not a single such fraction. So much for organic perpendiculars. But the Doctrine of Chances has also something to say of organic horizontals. It says that the different races of plants and animals, coexisting now or in any past time, ought to be found melting into each other as the seasons melt into each other — it ought to be so if the common form of the Law Hypothesis is true. For, since there is, a priori, no reason why any given protozob'n should have a nature or circumstances leading in one direction rather than in another across the field of actual DOCTRINE OF CHANCES. 1 45 organic life, in the case of an infinite number of protozoa all directions would be equally taken, and the total protozoic life would be radiate — would be like a star shooting out its light or its gravity toward all points of the sphere. All gaps would be forestalled ; no partialities would be shown to certain forms of organic being existing at any epoch above the equally possible, easy, and credi- ble intermediate forms ; at the present time and in every past age, parallel and transverse lines of development, touching and crossing each other everywhere, would give us a seamless web of or- ganisms undistinguishable into such groups as we call species, genera, and so on. Nothing can be plainer than the immense con- tradiction of these conclusions to the facts of our own living times. Do the organic races now liv- ing run together and confuse all their outlines as do day and night, and as all objects seem to do in the twilight ? You know how different this is from the fact. Organic groups do, indeed, some- times very delicately approach each other, so that one is in doubt whether they ought not to be classed together and called by one specific name. Each species has its varieties which do melt into each other almost as the hours melt into each 146 SIXTH LECTURE. other. By putting these varieties together we can make a short organic chain, a few tiny links long, — a short organic line, consisting of a few dots that touch each other. But then comes a break — an indisputable chasm for which no occupants can be found by our most careful researches — and then, almost immediately, another break ; and so on, until that long continuous line of organic groups structurally touching each other, which has been so surely promised us, millions of chances to one, turns out to be, instead of a line, a succession of chasms, sometimes of enormous dimensions. The chasms amount to vastly more than the occu- pied spaces. So it is on all the promised lines — chasms, chasms, hardly anything but chasms. Those between species are generally very marked ; between genera, still more marked. And so the intervals go on widening through families and orders and classes and branches and kingdoms. What a space between the Vertebrates and the Mollusks or Radiates ? What a space between the animal and the vegetable kingdom — between things potential with sensation and volition and intelligence, and things wholly vacant of these wonderful properties ? Above all, what a space between the organic and the inorganic — between BR OKEN CHA INS. 1 4 7 things having life, growth, power of reproduction, and things having absolutely nothing of these at- tributes. This last chasm is a great black gulf across which things look hopelessly at each other, and scarcely interchange intelligible signals. If species are separated as satellites of the same planet are separated, then genera are separated as planets of the same sun, orders as suns of the same cluster, branches as clusters of the same nebula, kingdoms as nebulae of the same universe. And the same broken character that is seen in the organic being of our own time, and has been seen in all the times of history, is found prevailing in all the fossil ages. These ages were not so hard on bones and trees as are our phosphate-sell- ing and timber-cutting times. And yet the hiatus is regnant among them as among ourselves. Nowhere are the different sorts of plants and ani- mals found gently shading into each other on long unbroken lines, whether horizontal or perpendicu- lar, whether running through successive ages or along the expanse of the same age. No consider- able fractions, even, of such lines appear. Accord- ing to the Science of Probabilities, this is alto- gether incredible, if the Law Hypothesis is true. There is an infinite balance of chances against it I48 SIXTH LECTURE. And this is the same thing as saying that it is in- finitely improbable that the Law Hypothesis is true : which is the same thing as saying that it is infinitely probable that organic Nature came from God. The Law Hypothesis is the only rival of our Theism. 2. If Nature is self -organizing, we ought to see numerous organisms of all sorts and of the larger sizes spontaneously occurring around us. It is claimed — and it is convenient to claim — that the instances of spontaneous genera- tion, though many, are always among exceed- ingly small, if not microscopic, objects. At first thought, this would seem very unlikely in a scheme of mere blind Nature. Pray, why should such a Nature exclusively choose the twilight region of infinitesimals for her creations ? And when we come to formally question the Theory of Chances in regard to the matter, we learn that if Nature spontaneously generates organic beings at all, she generates many of them in such size and number and way as to force the fact on the notice of the most careless observer. Indeed, we get so far as to learn that there are millions of chances to one against spontaneous generation being confined to the microscopic and twilight world. Once grant SPONTANEOUS MINIMS. 149 that atoms of matter can of themselves come to- gether into some sort of a living organism, and the way is broadly open to admit that they can come together into any living forms that we see. In going so far, we have gone beyond all the dif- ficulties of the case. These lie altogether in the nature of living organism — not at all in its size or grade or rate of formation. One number of organizing atoms is intrinsically as credible as an- other. One grade of organizing properties is in- trinsically as credible as another grade. One rate of formation is intrinsically just as credible as an- other rate. The same general sort of properties that suffices to make the lowest organic living thing, will, when merely hightened in degree, suffice to make the highest. And this extra de- gree, considered as belonging to eternal atoms, is just as conceivable, just as self-consistent, just as consistent with a scheme of such atoms, as an- other degree. Hence it is just as possible and easy, and so just as credible in the nature of things, for atoms to have natures tending to an elaborate organization as to a rude one, to a large organization as to one that is microscopic, to a swiftly formed organization as to one that ripens through a million of years. There is no assign- 150 SIXTH LECTURE. able reason why one should be produced rather than the other. It is an even chance between them. In advance of a spontaneous organization it would be a pure toss-up what it would be, whether large or small, slowly or swiftly formed, high or low in the scale of organization — as pure a toss-up as when a penny is spun carelessly up- ward. Accordingly a vast number of such or- ganizations would give us as many spontaneous generations of large, elaborate, and swiftly formed structures as of the opposite sorts. But the latter, according to the Law Hypothesis, are all the while occurring about us. Therefore, mature trees, cattle, men should all the while come into being around us without any perceptible cause — sometimes as suddenly as they say Pallas started from the head of Jupiter, Venus from the sea-foam, Arabian or Norse pal- aces under the wands of mighty magicians. In other cases, the process of -structure would pro- ceed more slowly, and philosophers could stand and leisurely watch it through all its stages. Clouds of atoms would visibly seek their fellows — bones, muscles, sinews would visibly take shape and size — the largest and most elaborate fauna and flora would be spontaneously built up SPONTANEOUS MINIMS. I 5 I under our eye, as men seemed to be in the vision of the Hebrew prophet : " A noise, and behold a shaking and the bones came together, bone to his bone ; and when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them and the skin covered them above." In some such way the larger plants and animals would profusely build themselves up in full blaze of day. Instead of occurring always in the dim Debatable Land of microscopic life where nothing is easier than mistake, these spon- taneous constructions would as often occur in the very center and focus of our field of observation. There is no lack of material anywhere about us. It is as plentiful as water and common earth. This is the stuff we are made of. The matter that composes all these organic beings is, to an immense extent, loose in the soil ; dissolved in the water ; diffused through the air ; at liberty in impalpable dust and smoke and vapors and gases ; moving its atoms freely about among each other in all conceivable ways of approach, contact, and association. Indeed, the very same atoms that once were organic beings make up a large part of the loose surface of the world, and even whole compacted Geologic beds. In cases not a few, we have together in a state of great freedom, 152 SIXTH LECTURE. all the elements composing a given plant or ani- mal — as when wood or coal is burned, or men decompose by the fires of autos-da-fe and of crowded battle-fields. Do we see this adult sort of spontaneous gen- eration ? Have we ever heard of its being seen in all historic time ? And yet we should both hear of and personally see it to an immense ex- tent — the Law Hypothesis being true. Millions on millions of large and elaborate structures ought to appear spontaneously, instead of none. They ought to abound as the microscopic sponta- neous beings are supposed to abound. Hence, millions to one, the Law Hypothesis is not true. And so our Science affirms again that the only competing hypothesis is infinitely probable — that it is infinitely probable that God is the Au- thor of Nature. 3. If Nature is self -organizing, we ought to see every iv here about us natural Disjecta Membra — odds and ends of abortive organic beings of all sorts. We should see not only complete plants and animals spontaneously formed, but also separate fractions of such beings. For example, we should see scatteied about disconnected arms, hands, DISJECTA MEMBRA. I 53 legs, feet, teeth, hearts, heads, trunks ; not the ruins of completed organisms, but what seem like unsuccessful attempts at such organisms. We ought to find such organic fractions in all stages of progress — formed, forming, inchoate — and in great numbers. So says the Science of Proba- bilities. At first glance, one would say that a scheme of mere Nature would not be likely to confine its spontaneous generations to complete beings. Why should it ? Why should it incline to completeness rather than to incompleteness ? Is it not intuitively certain that there is nothing in the nature of a scheme of blind eternal atoms requiring it to affect wholes rather than parts ? To be sure, the parts might be useless and un- able to live. But what of that ? Would it be out of character for a blind Nature to make some use- less and dead things ? And, further, is it not absolutely certain that such wholes as might be affected would be largely counteracted and muti- lated while on their way to realization ? Nature is full of counteractions. Forces meet and neu- tralize each other on all hands. Chemistry founds itself on the victories and defeats of contending forces. The harmony and stability in astronom- ical regions come from the equilibrium of con- 154 SIXTH LECTURE. tending forces. All organized bodies, sooner or later, are destroyed in the contest between the forces that favor and the forces that oppose or- ganic life. Hence, in advance of a given organ- ization, there is no assignable reason, either in the nature of things or in the actual working of Nature, why it should be complete rather than incomplete — so a pure toss-up — but rather a reason why it should be partly suppressed by the counteracting forces which are known to exist all around in great profusion and strength. On the whole, the incomplete structure is greatly the more likely of the two. For there are a thousand forms of incompleteness to one of completeness ; a thousand fractions to one whole ; and each of these fractions is, at least, quite as likely to occur as the whole organism. Consequently, there is a host of chances to one that the organism will be partial. Thus in any single instance of organiza- tion. In the innumerable such instances during present and historic time, there would, according to the Science of Probabilities, occur vastly, vastly more fractions than integers. Wholes would be the exception, pieces the rule. It would be a world of seeming organic debris. It would be a tremendous miscellany of fragments. No Arma- DISJECTA MEMBRA, 1 55 geddon of a battle-field would present a more dreadful aspect. Lift up your eyes. Buds, branches, roots, veins, arms, eyes, brains, lungs, hearts ; all sorts of Disjecta Membra as separate as they are pic- tured on our anatomical charts ; sometimes em- bryonic, and sometimes rounded out into the ripeness of a finished organization ; sometimes fresh and dripping with the sap of the algae, and sometimes fresh and dripping with blood as blue as ever coursed under the white skin of a Plan- tagenet — see them falling through the air, float- ing in the water, stirring in the sod ! Here you see the horns of an ox ripening apart from the ox itself, there by itself the hoof of a horse, yon- der the proboscis of an elephant, yonder still the feather of an ostrich, and still yonder the brow of a man. Armless hands such as say, Behold, in newspapers and on guide boards, or such as is said to have written the doom of Belshazzar ; bod- iless heads such as are painted on our canvas ; busts and torsos such as are hewn in our mar- bles ; fleshless skeletons such as might stand for ancient Time himself; single bones as if from plundered reliquaries and catacombs — all such dreadful spontaneous creations stare at us in our 156 SIXTH LECTURE. walks, especially from amid the great decomposi- tions of laboratories, conflagrations, cemeteries, and marshes. The Dismal Swamps, the burning Moscows, the plagued Londons, the steaming Pere la Chaises, show something more startling than ignes fatui. It is as if the museums of Com- parative Anatomy had been sacked and scattered by unscrupulous vandals. It is as if the mem- ories of ancient surgeons and tyrants and butch- ers had been emptied into the objective all around us. So it would be in case the Law Hypothesis were true. The Science of Probabilities stands voucher. Have we, as travelers or historians, ever become aware of such wonders ? Has any Gonzalo, in any land, had occasion to say, in presence of such things and with hair on end, " All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement inhabit here : some Heavenly Power guide us out of this fearful country ! " Has a single well- authenticated example of such fragments of nat- ural creation ever come to the knowledge of man- kind ? Not a single example. As we have seen, this could never have happened under a scheme of mere Law. The chances are millions to one against it. Hence the Law Scheme is infinitely O VERLAPPJNGS OF SPECIES. \ 5 7 improbable. That is to say, our Science espouses the Theistic branch of the dilemma, and declares it infinitely probable that God is the Author of Nature. 4. If Nature is self-organizing, we ought to see very many and striki?ig overlappings and dovetail- ings of the different sorts of plants and animals among themselves. We should not only see these different sorts del- icately approach each other so as to have no per- ceptible interval between them, but we should see them superinduced on, and mortised into each other in a great variety of striking ways. For ex- ample, the head of one animal would be set on the body of another, the wings of a bird on the body of a quadruped, the legs of a brute on the body of a man — and so on, until no earthly animal could be identified by any one of its members. Cuvier could not tell a lion by his paw, or even a donkey by his ears. Conceive of a lion with the wings of an eagle — a conception very common to the writings and sculptures of many nations. Is not this griffin as easy to a scheme of mere naturalism, as is either of the animal types contributing to it ? Is it not as easily conceivable ? Is it not quite as self- I 58 SIXTH LECTURE. consistent ? Is it not fully as consistent with a scheme of blind eternal atoms ? Pray, why is it not ? Who can show why it is not ? Would any sane man undertake to show cause why blind eternal atoms cannot as well incline to this fa- miliar griffin, or indeed, to any of a thousand simi- lar overlapping constructions which might be men- tioned, as to any other ? Indeed, it is absolutely certain — as certain as Euclid's axioms — that there is no such cause ; that there is absolutely nothing in the idea of blind eternal atoms that is not just as compatible with their having natures tending toward those composite forms imagined by poets and artists, as toward those actually found in Nature. Intuitively, the one sort is just as credible in all respects as the other. One could live as well as the other. The chances for both, as parts of an actual living Nature, are equal. In advance of a given organization — whether by a short or long process, whether by direct sponta- neous generation or through protozoa and an enormously protracted development — it is a pure toss-up which it will be ; as pure a toss-up as when a penny flies aloft from a careless hand. Nay, this statement fails to do justice to the case. The world is full of counteractions. Miscarriages O VEKLA PPINGS OF SPE CIES. I 5 9 abound like the sands on the sea-shore. And were the atoms to tend constitutionally only to such an organism as does not overlap another, they would, to say the least, be quite as likely as not to miscarry on their way to such organization through the maze of contending currents ; would be quite as likely as not to get misplaced and mis- joined among the similar organisms cotempo- raneously forming in the same neighborhood. So that, on the whole, the chances are greatly in favor of an overlapping organism. The griffin is far more likely to occur than the lion or the eagle. Hence, in an infinite number of such organizations, there ought to be many more examples of these poetical forms than of others : and the probabili- ties are millions and even infinites to one against our finding no such forms whatever. But we find none whatever. The superposition of one species of plants or animals on another exists only in the vision of poets and allegorists, or in the dead cre- ations of painters and sculptors. No centaur, part man and part horse, gallops on our highways — no mermaid, part woman and part fish, swims in our seas — no minotaur, part man and part ox, roams over our pastures — no cecrops, part man and part serpent, glides among our rocks — no l60 SIXTH LECTURE. faun nor satyr, part man and part goat, frolics in our glades — no harpy, part woman and part bird,; no hippogriff, part horse and part bird, flies in our air — no chimera, part lion and part goat and part dragon, anywhere frightens our children or our men. In our forests we cut no trees that bleed, and weep, and complain with human voices. In our homes, we are happy to know, are no women whose tresses are snakes. Nowhere among the haunts of men appears a man with horns like the Moses of Michael Angelo, or with bird-head like an Egyptian idol, or with horns and hoofs and tail like the medieval Satan. No errant ^Eneas, nor Perseus, nor Hercules, nor Rinaldo — off on his adventures — finds such things to smite in even outlandish places. Such men have no chance to ply their vocation. They never did have. They have always been out of date. Never a single instance of such grotesque monsters — grotesque and monstrous only because unfound in Nature — has been met with in any land, or in any historic ages, or in any fossiliferous stratum. This would not be so if the Law Hypothesis were true. Myr- iads of millions to one it would not be so — says the Doctrine of Chances, standing with one foot on irrefragable Geometry and the other on equally I M PRO PR IE TIES OF STR UCTURE. \ 6 1 irrefragable Experience, and holding up to the noon of our time the vouchers of her splendid successes. Let every corporator in an insurance company hear — hear every person who gets in- sured — hear every social philosopher and statis- tician — hear every scientific man who takes the mean of a number of observations, whether in Astronomy or Geology or any other science of observation ! Hear that the Law Hypothesis is beyond measure incredible. And let this be the same thing to you as hearing that the only com- peting doctrine, which announces God as the Au- thor of Nature, is bright with immeasurable like- lihood. 5. If Natter e is self -organizing, we ought to see about us innumerable improprieties of natural con- structioji — redundant, inadequate, puerile, absurd, and horrid organisms vastly more numerous than those of the opposite character. For example, species of animals with more or less legs than they can use ; or with necks too short for conveniently reaching the pasture ; or with eyes in the feet instead of the head ; or with stomachs fit only for grass, while the teeth are carnivorous ; or with forms and faces as hideous as sometimes appear in dreams, deliriums, and caricature prints of the day. 1 62 SIXTH LECTURE. Can any claim that such animals cannot be as easily conceived of as any ; would not be just as self-consistent, considered as mere structures ; would not be just as consistent with that general idea of Nature which underlies the Law Hypothe- sis ? To be sure, some of these might not be able to continue to live : but all of them could begin to live, or at least to exist as dead organisms. Pray, why not ? Apart from a wise designer, is not an eternal impropriety just as possible and easy to the nature of things, as an eternal propriety ? Apart from a wise designer, is there any assign- able reason in the wide universe why there cannot be atoms that constitutionally tend to puerile, ab- surd, and hideous combinations, as well as to com- binations that are philosophic, exquisite, and beau- tiful ? Evidently not. The axioms of Geometry are not plainer. In advance of a given construc- tion, it is a pure toss-up what it will be — whether desirable or undesirable, foolish or wise, horrid or attractive — as pure a toss-up as when a penny flies aloft from a careless hand. Nay, this is an understatement of the truth. The chaos of dis- turbing forces is to be taken into account. Each propriety of structure, on its way to the objective, is liable to all sorts of modifications from the IM PRO PR IE TIES OF S TR UCTURE. 1 63 crowds of assailants through which it has to run the gauntlet. Quite as likely as not it will get seriously scarred and mutilated in the attempt. So that, on the whole, the chances are greatly against such an organism as wisdom would choose. And, in countless cases of organization, we should be sure to have far more examples of improprieties than of proprieties ; far more super- fluities, deficiencies, follies, and frights of struct- ure than the reverse. We should be sure to have infinite examples of undesirable organisms. It would be infinitely improbable that we should find only a few of them. So testifies the Science of Probabilities. This on the supposition of the spontaneous generation of large and elaborate organisms. But the argument does not depend on this supposi- tion. Whatever mode Nature may be supposed to take in realizing the proper things will answer just as well for realizing great numbers of the improper. For example, the mode supposed in the Development Hypothesis. It is true that some structures may be supposed so improper and ill-adapted that they could not be perpet- uated, or even live ; and so could never have belonged to such lines of development as the 1 64 SIXTH LECTURE. evolutionist imagines. But there are infinite structures of this class that could have belonged to them — just as easily as any — all the carica- ture forms, all the redundant forms, all the forms in which certain unfitnesses for " the struggle for life " are compensated, or more than compen- sated, by certain special fitnesses. For the mere functions of living and strife, forms answering to those of our comic journals are just as eligible as more symmetrical and beautiful forms. Some man with a hundred hands, some hydra with fifty heads, some bison with a score of eyes or ears or horns, would, other things being equal, have spe- cial facilities for making his way in the world, and for helping competitors to make their way out of it. And that bison with neck too short to reach the pasture, so that he must kneel whenever he would eat, might have this disadvantage as re- gards competitors more than fairly offsetted by a tougher skin, a better ear, or a larger muscle than theirs. So that on whatever scheme Nature may be supposed to organize, we ought to see around us innumerable examples of such outland- ish constructions as have been mentioned. We ought to see far more of these than of others ; be- cause there are a thousand conceivable organic IMPROPRIETIES OF STRUCTURE. 1 65 improprieties to one such propriety ; and because each propriety, on its way to realization, would have to make its way for millions of years through one continuous tangled wilderness of blind object- ing forces. Now what do we actually find ? Where is the famous Monstrum Horrendum ? Where is the Cyclops with one round eye in the middle of his forehead ? Where is double-faced Janus ? Where is Geryon of the three bodies ? Where Briareus fighting with a hundred hands, or Cerberus bark- ing with fifty heads, or Hydra hissing with nine ? Where is the dragon of St. George — where St. Patrick going about with his head under his arm ? Where is horrid Caliban — where the ogres of fairy tales ? Where are the counterparts of those extreme misshapes which children form with wanton pencil or scissors ; or with which Punch has made us familiar in his immense caricatures ; or which seem to stare and chatter from the ceil- ing on the victim of delirium tremens ? Imagine a given animal changed as much as possible as to the place and proportion of its various organs — and plainly a vast number of such changes might be made, so as to make an animal as monstrous as ever oppressed our breasts in nightmare, with- 1 66 SIXTH LECTURE. out doing violence to the conditions of a living and capitally struggling organization — who ever fled with bristling hair from such an animal ? What geologist ever found the remains of such in the bowels of the rocks ? A still harder ques- tion. Where is that great crowded limbo of or- ganic improprieties — of superfluities, incongru- ities, puerilities, and absurdities — which this world, as a whole, ought to be ? A Limbo Fatuo- mm — is this the sort of Nature that blazes in the astronomical systems, or waves in our earthly gardens and fields and forests, or swarms in con- scious life along the expanses of our sea and air and land ? Is this the Nature which our scien- tists study, and our travelers and historians re- late ? Has ever pilgrim come to such an outland- ish Nature in all his audacious wanderings among the outlands of the earth ? You know how strongly such questions may be answered. Everybody knows. " Faith, Sir Alonzo, you need not fear : when we were boys, who would believe that there were mountaineers dew-lapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them wal- lets of flesh ; or that there were such men whose heads stood in their breasts ? " It is open to the most casual observation, that Nature as a whole IMPR PR IE Tl ES OF S TR UC TURK . \Gj is just the antipodes of that inquired for. The actual world is apart, by a whole sky, from that which would have been given by creating Law. It is a system philosophic, exquisite, and beauti- ful in a very high degree. The further our re- searches go into the mechanism and physiology of plants and animals, the louder grows the call for admiration. Our experience in this direction has already become so great that we know, by a most commanding induction, that the tenor of all future discoveries will be the same ; and that, could we explore down to the uttermost omegas of natural structure, we should still be bound to say, " Wonderful, wonderful adaptations ! " The world is no Patent Office stuffed with all sorts of inventions, good, bad, and indifferent : it is rather a Sydenham of prize specimens where ripest ar- tists may roam as learners, and over which waves in graceful affidavit of approval both the banner of science and the banner of the Empire. It is a superb gallery which has wisely plundered all ages and countries for the choicest works of the Great Masters, and to which all coming ages will go for inspiration and models. From kingdoms down to species and varieties of species, there is not a group of organic beings — I say group — 1 68 SIXTH LECTURE. that has a single feature of construction which an artist as such could stigmatize as " improper " — in view of their sphere and line of life. Who ever saw a species of animals — I say species — whose eyes were cubes instead of ellipsoids, opaque in- stead of transparent, of the same density through- out instead of different densities ? Who ever found a species with ears where the air could not reach them, or with necks too short for proper feeding, or with the retina back of the mouth instead of the eye, or with more organs than it could turn to account ? Indeed, the same thing can be said of almost every individual of every species. No fault can be found. No improve- ment can be suggested. We do not see how we can either prune or graft the being to advantage — in view of its line of life. In all that bundle of myriad machinery there is nothing which a careful man sees his way clear to pronounce ab- surd or weak or unwise. Such an economy of means, such short cuts to results, and yet such entire sufficiency — it puts to shame the best machine of human devising. And it is only at very great intervals that we find things that suggest a difficulty. It is true that we often find things the use of which we do IMPR OPRIE TIES OF STR UCTURE. 1 69 not know : but this was something to be expected. It is true that sometimes we come across in ma- ture individuals rudimental organs which seem to be doing nothing of the work which seems to be the chief business of the organs when mature — for example, incipient teeth, tails, wings — but who knows that the chief business of such organs is their only business, and that in their incipient state they may not answer excellently well some obscure lesser ends in the complex organism ? It is true . that once in a great while we stumble on a lusus naturcz, a malformation and even mon strosity : but such cases are extremely rare for so crowded a world ; are plain thwartings of the con- structive forces ; are plain results of disease or of disordered parental structure, and are soon elimi- nated from the system. They are an admonition. They signify that natural organisms can get out of order. They proclaim that the parental econ- omy must not be trifled with. Ravi nantes in gur- gitc vasto — they proclaim a stormy latitude, and advise all mariners to prudence. In short, they are such things as may well be supposed to oc- cur occasionally in a system created and presided over by One who works by general methods, who sees it best to have His creatures to a certain I/O SIXTH LECTURE. extent mutually dependent, who has moral as well as natural uses to promote, and who will have the whole earthly system bear some marks of sym- pathy with and adaptation to that moral derange- ment which has crept into it. Such is actual Nature. An incredible Nature to have come in the way of self-organization — says the Science of Probabilities, crowned with the chaplet of her mathematics and splendid suc- cesses. The witness says true. The chances are unspeakably against such a system from such a source. That is, it is infinitely likely that the Law Hypothesis is false. And this is the same thing as saying that it is infinitely likely that the alternative Theism is true, and that this won- drous Cosmos of exquisite organisms which so rejoicingly sympathizes with the idea of a God is the actual work of His marvelous hands. 6. If Nature is self-organizing, we ought to fnd me7t, or any other organic group, confined to no one standard of adult size, or of period of groivth, or of JcngtJi of life. The individuals of each species should vary among themselves almost without limit in these respects. Men have an adult stature of about five feet. ORG A NIC L IMITS. I 7 T They reach this stature in about twenty years. They die in about seventy years. Other species have other standards. Each has its own full size, its own rate of growth, its own age-term. The cedars are old after many centuries, the mush- room after a few hours. The standard bulk of ele- phants is so much, of sheep so much, of rabbits so much. Ravens get their growth in ten years, horses in four, may-flies in a few hours. And so on. While different species differ greatly among themselves in these respects, the members of the same species differ but little. They follow a com- mon law — somewhat elastic, indeed, but still one. Now, according to the Law Hypothesis, this ought not to be. Individuals of the same species ought to have the freedom of all the sizes, of all the growth-periods, of all the age-terms — at least within such limits as are actually found in Na- ture ; or rather, within such limits as recognize on the one hand the immense divisibility of matter, and on the other hand the immense abundance of free organic material of all sorts about us. Why not ? Why cannot a pigeon incline to live a hun- dred years as well as a raven or a turtle ? What hinders a pilot-fish from being constructed on the scale of the whale ? What earthly reason can be 172 SIXTH LECTURE. given why such atoms as make up human bodies could not as well have natures tending to one bulk as to another? Who can tell why fifty-foot men or five-inch men are not every way as credible, in a purely natural system, as men of five feet ? Who would try to tell why such a system should incline to a man who is full grown at twenty years, and old at threescore and ten, rather than to one who is full grown at four, and old at sixteen ? I think no one who has ever seen a balance hesi- tating at equilibrium. It is plain as noon — plain as the noon of Geometry — that a very great range of sizes, and growth-periods, and life-terms is equally open throughout to a self-organizing hu- man body : that they all are equally possible and easy to it ; all as easy to conceive of, as self-con- sistent, and as consistent with the nature of a scheme of blind eternal atoms. And this, in what- ever way Nature may be supposed to organize men — whether by immediate generation, or by first generating an organic germ and then develop- ing it through countless ages and grades into the best Caucasian. Evidently, nothing depends on the mode. If an adult eye can be developed in all sizes, from that of a monad to the Grecian shield of a deinothere, so may an adult man. ORGANIC LIMITS. 173 So, a priori, it is an even chance what sort of an organism we get as to the three particulars men- tioned. In advance of a given organization, it is a pure toss-up what it will be — whether mountain or mote, whether momentary or millennial — as pure a toss-up as when a penny leaps upward from a wanton hand. Who knows what face will fall up- permost ? But this all know, that in a million of such random casts, one face will appear about as many times as the other. And so we may know that, in case of millions of even-chanced human bodies, one stature, one age-term, one growth- period will not appear more than another. So of any other species of natural organisms that has a great many individuals. What a world it would be ! All around us, as well as in the strata, the fables of the classics and the classic fables of our childhood would cease to be fables. Behold Liliputians, fairies, elves ! Behold Brobdignags, Cyclops, and Titans ! Lo, little men, for a regiment of whom the palm of your hand would be ample parade ground ! Lo, great men, one of whom could place Pelion on Ossa ; or, Atlas like, seem to bear up the African heavens ! Not merely giants and dwarfs, not merelv Anakim and Tom Thumbs, but veritable 174 SIXTH LECTURE. monsters as large as the Genii of the Arabian Nights on the one hand ; and, on the other, merest specks of humanity as small as those organic points which one has to put into the focus of a powerful magnifier in order to see ! Men who can look down on the tallest Sequoia Gigantea of Cali- fornia ; and, among them, men who can look up at the shortest blade of grass that ever rose on Arc- tic plain ! Men who, like a fungus, have ripened to full stature in a night ; and, among them, men who, like some British oaks, have been growing ever since their fathers came over with the Conqueror, or at least ever since the famous three brothers landed in this country ! People of three centuries as well preserved as the Seven Sleepers of Ephe- sus ; Methuselahs as fresh as yesterday ; Wander- ing Jews still as strong to journey as they were in the days of the Cross ; and yet, among them, pa- triarchs bearded like pards and covered with ven- erable snows, though they have not yet kept their first birthday ! Nay, men who, like the yew of Hedsor and the cypress of Chapultepec and the Baobab of Africa, still stand firmly under the weight of their three thousand and five thousand years ; and yet, among them, men who, like some insects, are borne quite from birth to old age by the short flight of a summers morning ! ORGANIC LIMITS. 175 So of other things. Expect next summer mos- quitoes as large as eagles, and fleas as large as ele- phants. Count on seeing in the garden something like Jack's famous bean stalk ; or in the poultry yards eggs that tell of Sindbad the sailor. Wonder not at finding the morning-glories durable as those century-glories, the oaks ; and your corn as tall as the majestic palms of Palmyra. In short, the even handed lottery has been sowing in the skies, the fields, and the seas. Such is the Nature we ought to see, in case we are dealing with nothing but Nature. Millions to one we should see it — protests the Theory of Probabilities. It protests by its unimpeachable standing as a science, and by all its triumphantly successful applications to affairs as well as to sci- ence, that it is just as incredible that we should not find a single instance in which a species through- out has the range of all the standards in these three respects — and where is there such an instance — as it is that in innumerable random casts of a die it will always fall on the same side. That is to say it is infinitely incredible. Hence it is infinitely improbable that the Law Hypothesis is true ; and that anything short of God selected and firmly maintains for each organic species those remark- 176 SIXTH LECTURE. able standards to which we have seen each indi- vidual is full surely, though somewhat elastically, held. Such a disposing of the lot when cast into the lap must have been from the Lord. He it was, who, probabilities beyond measure, deter- mined for each group the times before appointed ; set to each the bounds which it cannot pass ; said to each — whether tiny moss or mighty conifer, whether momentary mote or enduring man — in regard to size and growth and life, " Thus far shalt thou come and no farther." 7. If Nature is self -organizing, we ought to find 710 one plan of structure — indeed, no few plans, but an indefinite number of them. As a matter of fact, all natural organisms have the property we call life, and sustain themselves and grow by appropriating matter from without by means of certain organs. This means one common plan of structure for all. Such a plan, the Law Scheme, when consulted by the Science of Probabilities, strongly objects to. For, there are other plans of structure which are just as possible and easy to the world of fact as is this one which involves life and growth. Witness the many sorts of machines which man makes ! Wit- ness the vastly larger variety which he can and FEW TYPES. 177 will make in course of the coming centuries ! These neither live nor grow, and are none the less organisms for that. Hence, in the immense field of natural organizations, it is infinitely un- likely that they would all be of this one living and self-enlarging pattern. Multitudes of them ought to be of the nature of watches, pin-machines, cotton-gins, steam-engines. Where are they ? Who sees a saw-mill, or anything like it, in pro- cess of being formed without hands ? When have any such things as spinning-jennies all ready to hum, and ships all ready to sail — or even the beginnings of them — managed to ap- pear without the toilsome contrivance and labor of intelligent- workmen ? Who finds such things as even the simplest tools of the farmer, the car- penter, the shoemaker, raining from the air ; or compounding in the seas, and the sod, and the smoke ; or slowly developed along the ages ? The man who should wait for the supply of his tool- chest till Nature, of its own accord, came to his aid would, I ween, wait long enough. Whatever else it may be, full surely the Nature we wot of is no spontaneous Trip-Hammer for the manu- facture of anything like those lifeless and un- growing tools, machines, and engines with which 178 SIXTH LECTURE. human ingenuity has made and armed our civili- zation. The one general plan of structure in Nature is found divided into four sub-plans, called the Ra- diate, Mollusk, Articulate, and Vertebrate. Why four? Are there no more plans conceivable and possible for living and growing beings ? So far from it, we can conceive of an indefinite number of them just as realizable in their nature. Wit- ness, again, the countless sorts of human inven- tions not belonging to either of the four natural classes ; though they are as easily conceived of as having vitality and growth as are woody fibre and the bones of animals. Should living wheels, velocipedes, chariots roll along our streets ; should living hoes, plows, reapers toil in our fields ; should living chairs, tables, pianos rap and leap and sing in our houses, as we are told they some- times do for the Spiritualist — why, for the life of him, no one could give a reason why such things are not fully as much in harmony with that notion of Nature that belongs to the Law Hypothesis as are any animals that we see. When one reads in the Hebrew prophet of those wheels full of eyes in which was the spirit of the living creature, and which came and went like a flash of lightning FEW TYPES. 179 — while he recognizes the novelty of the concep- tion, he does not recognize it as being a concep- tion of the impossible. Just as possible to the world of fact as is a man ! Consequently, in a prodigious throng of living and growing construc- tions, it is infinitely unlikely that they should all turn out to be of only four patterns — as incred- ible as it would be that a castaway penny should fall on the same face only four times in a million of throws. Again, each of these four sub-plans is found divided into %.few others. For example, the ver- tebrate plan appears under the forms of fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals. These forms are only four out of indefinite millions equally possi- ble and credible. You might sit down and with wanton pencil prolifically design, for a lifetime, vertebrates which would be neither fishes nor reptiles nor birds nor mammals, and yet be fully as fair candidates as they for a place in a merely natural scheme of a living and growing world. Why not romance at Natural History as easily and plausibly and plentifully as at any other sort of History ? Further, each of the four vertebrate plans is found divided into a feiv others. For example, ISO SIXTH LECTURE. the reptile plan appears under the forms of tur- tles, lizards, and serpents. Are these three the only conceivable reptilian forms ? Say three billions rather — just as possible and credible, for aught one can see, as the forms that actually exist — say as many as would affright us were all the uncouth monsters ever stealthily drawn by the unfledged and lunatic pencils of children, small or great, on slate and fly-leaf and desk and disfigured wall, to suddenly step forth into life, cold-blooded, oviparous, and scaly. And so on — down as far as naturalists have dis- tinguished and classified structural differences. It is a long succession of independent selec- tions. And then this selection rapidly spreads out like an open fan as we go downward, until, at last, it covers the whole earth with some hun- dreds of thousands of collateral selections for as many different collateral species. Under each group are preserved, at most, only a few types of structure, out of indefinite multitudes equally credible in a scheme of mere Nature. Almost all the sands on the sea-shore fall through the coarse web of the tempestuous sieve : it is only here and there a grain of special largeness that remains on the reluctant wires. Now this is FEW TYPES. l8l altogether contrary to the Doctrine of Chances. In case of toss-ups almost without number, it is incredible that the penny should always come down on the same face, save in four instances, more or less. Perfectly incredible, I say : as in- deed is the idea that Nature has only one plan of spontaneous generation (if any), namely, that of rude and microscopic germs in one or four, or at most but few, types ; only one plan of growth for the individual, namely, that by self action for a certain small proportion of its whole life ; only three modes of animal reproduction, namely, the oviparous, the viviparous, and the polypal ; in short, only one or a few plans of almost anything, from the one law of gravity, downward or upward. And you observe that, altogether, what we have is an incredibility of an incredibility to the «th power. The question is on the joint occurrence of many independent selections, each of which is supremely incredible by itself. The problem is one in geometrical progression. What think you of a differential of the millionth order ? It is the wonderful denominator of such a fraction as this which scientifically expresses the unlikelihood — why not say impossibility — of the joint occur- rence of this long Chinese alphabet and gamut 1 82 SIXTH LECTURE. of incredible things. So says the Calculus of Probabilities. See the huge way in which this Science, with all its well-earned laurels and stars and crosses of the Legion of Honor, pronounces against the Law Hypothesis and for the Theistic ! Beyond measure and beyond measure — says this solid witness — it is sure that there is a Person who carried through into the objective this long quadrant of selections. No lottery, though bear- ing the grand name of Law, would have done it. We must look toward a still grander name — one that dazzles as we look. With bated breath, call it God. He it was who chose here one, there four, yonder two, and almost everywhere a few, plans of structure and process out of thronging multitudes that might as easily have been taken ; and then swept the mighty remainder into the limbo of rejected ideas where the curious and leisurely may still find them. It is thus we have that unity of Nature in which philosophy rejoices, and in which religion sees mirrored the august face of One Eternal Creator. 8. If Nature is self -organizing, the folloiviiig things should be true of Mind. It should be with- out freedom, without moral character, without just accountability , without power of being influenced by SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES. 1 83 perceived motives, without immortality or even a future beyond this world, without limitation of de- gree, and without limitation of the higher degrees to men or even to organic forms. The Law Hypothesis proposes to account for all natural things, including mental phenomena, by means of the admitted inherent properties and laws of matter. It supposes that Mind is solely the result of the coming together in certain ways of certain blind material atoms. Of course it . must be as inflexible and necessary, in its mode of action, as the matter from which it solely springs is shown to be by the whole tenor of our expe- rience and of physical science. The child must be like the parent. The stream must be like the fountain, however long and tortuous the flow. We must think and will and feel by fate. There can be no more freedom in the workings of our minds than there is in gravity or chemical actions. This is admitted, and even claimed, by most friends of the Law Hypothesis. We are mere organized stones — say, if you prefer, organized heat or light or electricity. Of course, such things as virtue and vice, and just responsibility for anything they are or do, are impossible to men. No one has been justly pun- 184 SIXTH LECTURE. ished or blamed since the world began. — Of course, also, men cannot be influenced by perceived mo- tives of any degree. Our views, choices, feelings, voluntary conduct, can only be modified by modi- fying the physical causes on which only they de- pend, namely, the unperceiving atoms, or that unperceiving arrangement of the atoms which incubates them into intelligence. All arguments and eloquence, all examples and appeals to reason or conscience or interest, all the boundless talk- ings of men with their fellows to get them to do or not do certain things, amount to nothing. They are altogether nugatory and absurd. The only way to alter the opinions, purposes, and feelings of men is to alter the number or the arrangement of the particles on which such things solely de- pend. While the cause remains the same, the effect must not be expected to vary. — Of course, further, the human mind is not immortal. We are brothers to the brutes. Come on, all ye apes and toads and worms, sure we are brothers — or, if not brothers, parents and children ! The death that completely dissolves all the structures and compounds of our bodies must carry extinction to all our souls. We not only have no forever, but we have no future. We are only a better sort of SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES. 1 85 cattle. All these inferences from the Law Scheme are of the million-to-one class. But there is still another closely related infer- ence which appeals formally to the Theory of Probabilities. If the Law Scheme is sound we ought to find neither men nor any other class of beings confined to any one standard of intelli- gence : but while men should show far higher specimens of mind than they do now, such high specimens should be quite as frequent among the other animals, and even among plants and lifeless things, as among men. Do mental faculties come of a certain combi- nation of certain blind atoms ? Then, of course, these atoms on whose special properties and laws our minds ultimately depend, are, in the nature of things, just as open to one measure of these special properties and laws as to another. Why not ? What is there in the nature of things requiring these elements to look toward the average human mind rather than toward that of a Newton or of a thousand-fold Newton ? Why cannot they as well, from all eternity, beckon and bow in the di- rection of a Plato as of an ordinary mind, of a Ju- piter as of a Plato, of God as of a Jupiter — why not propose to themselves One who can flood all 1 86 SIXTH LECTURE. space with sovereign knowledge and power as they themselves are already flooding it with their sover- eign gravitation ? I know of no man who is phi- losopher enough to tell why. But I know many men who are philosophers enough to see why they cannot tell. No reason can be given because none exists. Nor does any reason exist why such atoms, of whatever grade, together with such com- binations as would make the most of them, could not just as well be connected with one organiza- tion as with another, with inorganic things as with organic. For it is not the general animal body that thinks and feels and chooses ; this is struct- urally perfect even after it is quite dead. If the thinking power depends on a certain system of deftly arranged atoms, it must be a subtle interior system that eludes our nicest observation. And I say, there is no assignable reason why this oc- cult system could not just as well be connected with one thing as with another, with inorganic things as with organic. Evidently not — as evi- dentlv as that there is nothing in the nature of a ship why it should move toward one point of the compass rather than toward another. The sys- tem of atoms, freighted with seeds and types and prophecies of the Academy or of Olympus, could SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES. 1 87 sail away as easily and prosperously toward, and anchor as firmly by, a mollusk or a mountain as a man. All grades of these soul-germs, all conceiv- able combinations of them, all allocations of such combinations, are equally possible and easy to the thought — equally possible and easy to such a scheme of Nature as the Law Hypothesis sup- poses. As candidates for the world of self-con- sistent and scientific ideas, as candidates for the world of outward realities, there is nothing to choose between them. One would leap into Fact just as readily as the other at the bidding of a Creator. It is a case of unmitigated lottery. In advance of a given mind, it is a pure toss-up what measure of endowments it will have, and with what natural objects it will stand connected — whether it will have the twilight intelligence of the hum- blest brute, or the midday intelligence of the loftiest Christian archangel ; whether it will be linked to a human body, or to the body of a tree or a body of water — as pure a toss-up as when a penny is shot aloft with the abandon of a Bacchus. Hence, in the case of a vast number of minds, we ought to find as many examples of one grade as of an- other ; and we ought to find all the grades sown with impartial broadcast among all sorts of things 1 88 SIXTH LECTURE. Instead of each sort of animals having its own standard of intelligence, each should have the sweep of all the standards — instead of plants and inorganic things being totally without mind, they should be as liberally supplied with all its grades as are the animal tribes. Millions to one it would be so. Now see the actual world. Is not every man conscious that he is a free, moral, and justly re- ' sponsible being : and have not all mankind, with- out exception and from time immemorial, treated each other accordingly — praising, blaming, and punishing to any extent ? — Are we prepared, de- spite the almost universal doctrine and hope of mankind, to give up the idea of Another Life — not merely the proof of it, but the very possibility of it — to give up all idea of ever meeting again our dissolved fathers and mothers, or even our own dissolved selves (to be dissolved a few years hence)? — Is there no standard human mind? Are men with the souls of foxes and geese and worms on the one hand, and of the traditionary angels on the other, as common as men with such souls as yours and mine ? There is as much a standard stature for the minds of men as there is for their bodies. We find occasional dwarfs, oc- SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES. 189 casional giants also ; but the vast majority of minds are clustered closely about a certain mean measure toward which, it is plain, they all gravi- tate, and from which all deviations are due to dis- turbing forces. The oscillations of the pendulum recognize a fixed center. Just as the needle rec- ognizes the Pole, though it has some play to either side of it ; just as all the particles of a sphere rec- ognize the common center of gravity, though some succeed in approaching it more nearly than others : so our souls, though variant within cer- tain limits, recognize and incline to a certain com- mon and fixed type of capacity. Where are the human Jupiters ? Where are genuine Minervas, hiding in the flesh and blood of genuine Men- tors ? The pool, the pond, the Pacific— is our human tonnage as often gauged to one as to an- other ? — So of the other animal tribes. Each has its own standard measure of the intelligent prin- ciple, and that a very small one. Any Houyhn- hnms ever discovered by errant Gullivers ? Any sign of Pitts and Websters among the oxen ? Any hint of Tassos and Dantes among the fowls ? Worms and insects — do they ever give token of being Napoleons and Massillons ? When we speak of the brute creation, is it all an egregious I90 SIXTH LECTURE. misnomer ; and, while the intelligence of one ani- mal shakes the wing of a butterfly, does his fellow of the same species mount on that of an eagle, and still another fellow soar with a wing that can shadow a solar system ? Do plants and inorganic things love and hate and plan and choose as well as the best of us ? Do Mozarts and Ciceros and Sapphos wave to the breeze under the name of myrtles and oaks, or ripple over the stones under the name of brooks and rivers, or draw the clouds and lightnings under the name of hills and moun- tains, or trip our feet under the name of stum- bling-blocks ? Is the power of articulate speech all that is needed by the " things," to enable them to turn the Fables of ^sop and Fontaine into his- tory — so that the bramble shall advise the cedar of Lebanon like a very Nestor, and storks and foxes and lions reason together as if the Seven Wise Men of Greece were in them ? Is the old mythology, after all, nothing but a sort of Natural History ; and is almost any grove, or island, or stream, or valley, or hill, possessed by an Intelli- gence which may be as worthy of love or fear as any sylvan deity ever fancied by the heathen ? Are there Nereids for the seas, Naiads for the streams, Dryads for the woods ? Is there a Ceres SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES. 19 1 in the corn, a Pomona in the apple, a Bacchus in the grape, a Vulcan in the volcano, a Diana in the moon, an Apollo in the sun, and a Venus in the sweet evening star ? Is everything really pos- sessed? The metaphors and personifications of orators and poets — are these merest nineteenth century prose ? Are oaks really stubborn, roses proud, lilies of the valley humble, vines affection- ate, cypresses melancholy ? Is there really a grain of sense in the child getting angry at and beat- ing the stone against which he has stubbed his foot ? Do landscapes really smile, the clouds get angry, fires and waters rage, stones and stars and all between understand the apostrophes we ad- dress to them ? Ho, Father Tiber ! Ho, Mother Earth ! Ho, crescent Astarte ! " Ho, thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers — whence are thy beams, O Sun, thine everlasting light ! " And is there really nothing to hinder us from getting satisfactory answer from these per- sonages, save perchance some such slight difficulty as that of their hearing or talking our vernacular Latin, or Saxon, or Phenician, or Celtic?- Has the shadow really gone back so far on the dial of old Chronos, and are we once more in the midst of the old heathenism. God forbid — if there be a God ! 192 SIXTH LECTURE. And yet this is what we should find in case the Law Hypothesis were true. Millions to one we should find it — pronounces the great Doctrine of Chances. She pronounces it from above that Arc de Triomphe which our best nations and sciences have united in raising to her honor, and covering with the marble pictures of her achievements. And yet, so far from finding minds of all orders, from that as small as the tiniest dew-drop to that as large as the hugest world, scattered at ran- dom among all sorts of natural objects as if from the hands of some Quadrifrons Janus, we find most classes of these objects showing no minds at all, and those which do show them confined each to a single standard capacity. Behold the meas- ureless improbability with which the atheistic Law Hypothesis is weighted ! Such a millstone ought to drag it down to the very bottom of the seas — there to lie drowned and buried forever. And this is the same thing as saying that it ought to raise that shining alternative, Theism, which, beau- tiful as an angel, presses foot on the other arm of the lever, as high as Heaven — thence to behold and rule all nations. Let us say, All hail, loftiest Doctrine ! Infinite probabilities with an infinite exponent are swelling beneath thy buoyant and SPIRITUAL PROPERTIES. 1 93 star- fanning wings ! How keenly -flash those stars under that mighty pulse ! And then, full surely, no such discriminations ever came out of a dice box, or were reeled off from some great lottery wheel of blind law. I am sorry for you if you can- not see it — but lo, God ! See here the true First of Aries ! See here the true Prime Meridian of science ! See here the true Epoch of history for the whole astronomical heavens ! It was doubt- less a true Natural Selection that presided over the grades and distributions of Mind ; and gave to man his day, to the worm its dawn, and to innu- merable objects most fair and exquisite in their way their starless night — a true Natural Selection — but then the name is too long and savors too much of a mere Tiling. Please call it Gob ! And God it is — personal, eternal, unbounded — though some few men may choose to hide and belittle and suppress Him under the learned names of Pan- genesis, Parthenogenesis, and Protoplasm. 13 VII. CONFLICT WITH SOLAR ASTRONOMY. Nam cum dispositi quaesissem fcedera mundi, Praescriptosque mari fines, annisque meatus, Et lucis noctisque vires : tunc omnia rebar Consilio firmata Dei. — Claudian. VII. Conflict with Solar Astronomy. i. NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS 197 2. ESTIMATED 199 3. CENTRAL HEAT 203 4. CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION 205 i. MECHANICAL RELATIONS 209 6. ROTATIONS 216 7. REVOLUTIONS 223 8. WHAT NEXT? 239 SEVENTH LECTURE. CONFLICT WITH SOLAR ASTRONOMY. TT is essential to the Law Hypothesis that it -*- account, not only for the living organic bodies on our globe, but also for that globe itself and all those systems of worlds which make up the great realm of Astronomy. This it attempts to do. Thus. Suppose out in free space a great mass of glowing vapor. This vapor, under the influence of gravity, will take a globular figure, as being the figure of equilibrium. This vaporous globe, by loss of heat and stress of gravity, will gradually contract on its center. This inward flow of mat- ter from all quarters will be sure to be made un- equal here and there by inequalities of structure, and so will cause a central whirlpool. This cen- tral whirl will gradually extend itself to the whole mass and become its rotation. This rotation will cause an equatorial protuberance. This protuber- ance will gather speed as the mass contracts until, 198 SEVENTH LECTURE. at last, the centrifugal force willexceed the centrip- etal and a ring be detached ; and, as the con- traction goes on, successive rings with an ever increasing speed of rotation. Each of these rings will have in it some nuclei — one or more — of special condensation and confluence of currents, and so eddies : and these nuclei will finally draw the whole material of the ring about themselves and become so many rotating planets ; each of which in its turn may throw off from its equator successive rings to become satellites. So, at last, a solar system may be born out of mere vapor by the sole means of well-known natural forces and laws. This is the noted Nebular Hypothesis. Its more advanced friends add that the system thus naturally constructed must at last be ruined in a natural way, if not by the gradual decay of the solar heat, by the resistance of the ether which is found occupying the planetary spaces. This will retard the planets and satellites in their revolu- tions and at last cause them all to fall into the sun, there to be vaporized and expanded again into the original fire mist. Then, in the same way as before, the system will be built up anew. And so on eternally. And so backward eternally. NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 199 See a specimen of the history of every celestial system ! The nebulous tree slowly ripens its fruit through the ages until comes the cosmical autumn. Then Law lifts its great hand and shakes the loaded boughs till they have cast all their mellow and yellow globes — as it is written, The stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. But at length comes the cos- mical spring again ; and new world-buds, blos- soms, fruits take the place of the old and exactly repeat their history. And so on, in endless rep- etition, upon the same huge immortal tree. In support of these views it is claimed that fire mists are actually found in space — that they are found, apparently, in various stages of such a world-forming process as has just been described ; condensing at the center, parting into nuclei, ac- quiring rings — and that, on the supposition that the solar and stellar systems were once fire mists and formed according to the Nebular Hypothesis, their leading facts are well accounted for. Before considering how far the hypothesis and its alleged proofs agree with facts, it is worth while to notice that the agreement might be per- fect, and yet amount to very little as support to a scheme of mere naturalism. Most theists are free 200 * SEVENTH LECTURE. to admit that there are such things as natural causes. They are also free to admit that such causes are able to do not a few interesting and striking things. If any one can show that among these interesting and striking things is the com- pacting and arranging of those huge masses which we call planets, suns, stars — what follows ? That mere Nature can do everything ? By no means. That mere Nature can people these worlds which it has made with the higher wonders of vegetable and animal and spiritual life ? By no means. All that follows is that I must enlarge somewhat the field of possible natural causation, as it lay in my mind. I have been inclined, say, to regard that field as bounded by terrestrial crystals ; now I must regard it as including those huger crystals in space which we call worlds. That is all. I have merely shifted boundaries a little — I have not abolished them. I have advanced the walls somewhat, but I have not advanced them beyond the entire universe of matter and mind. A great domain is still left for the supernatural. Still may it be true that this domain includes all that living world of organic and spiritual being whose intri- cate and exquisite adjustments and powers, even in their lowest forms, baffle our understandings as no astronomic systems have ever done. ESTIMATED. 201 Proving the Nebular Hypothesis would amount to very little. But disproving it would amount to a great deal. It would break down the whole Law Scheme, break it down with a feather, break it down at a point where it really is strongest. Nowhere does that scheme have so specious a look', nowhere does it really come so near to ade- quacy, as where it attempts to account for the origin of worlds. And worlds of some sort are by far the easiest part of Nature to account for on natural principles. No one ever yet had a glimpse, or pretended to have, of the way in which atoms could naturally come together so as to make a Newton, or even a daisy ; but almost any one can see how atoms might come together, through gravity and loss of heat, into a great round body of rude matter for a daisy and New- ton to live on. It can be made clear to a little child. Still it is a question whether the actual worlds (which are something more than great heaps, or even happy compilations, of moving matter) were actually made in this way. If it can be shown that they were not, then the Law Scheme is shown unequal to the easiest of all the work it has to do. Can it be shown — shown that such an origin 202 SEVENTH LECTURE. of the worlds as the Nebular Hypothesis supposes is in direct conflict with astronomical facts ? That it does not conflict with some of these facts is a plain matter. No doubt there are many bodies in space more or less aeriform ; that many of these bodies are incandescent ; that some of them have shapes and aspects such as they would have if ripened from a vague fire mist after the manner supposed ; that aeriform incandescent bodies of a certain sort would, in virtue of well- known laws of heat and gravity, gradually con- dense into solid spheres having revolutions and rotations somewhat like those of our own system ; and that, at last, such a system might come to a fiery end in which " the heavens dissolve and the elements melt with fervent heat." All these, and some lesser facts to the same effect — such as the agreements of the Nebular Scheme with the par- ticular shape of our earth ; with the gradual in- crease of heat toward its center ; with the traces of a far higher ancient temperature at the surface than now exists, and even of a general igneous fusion — are freely granted. There is, beyond a doubt, a large and interesting agreement between the heavens as they are and the heavens as they would be if built according to the Nebular Hy- pothesis. CENTRAL HEAT. 203 But, then, this is only one side of the subject. There is also another large side — a side of dis- agreement and insufficiency. Not only does the hypothesis fail to account for many astronomical facts ; but it is in direct conflict with many other astronomical facts of the surest and weightiest character. I will give some examples. And they will be, on the present occasion, exclusively from the Solar System. I begin at the center of the System ; and call your attention to the immense heat and bright- ness of the Sun. If the Sun is the residuum of a fire mist which has been cooling for an immense period, its origi- nal heat and brightness must have been almost in- finitely greater than they are now. But what is a brightness almost infinitely greater than now be- longs to the Sun — on the face of which the Vol- taic arch, whose as yet unmeasured heat vaporizes the most refractory substances, turns to a shadow ? Something inconceivable. Something wonderfully beyond example — unless the nebulae give exam- ples. But they do not. The latest advices from the spectroscope — as I shall have occasion to no- tice more fully hereafter — are to the effect that the gaseous nebulae, so called, are not particularly 204 SEVENTH LECTURE. heated. Besides, if they were, they would, as a rule, outshine those nebulae pronounced solid by their spectra ; as- they do not. Moreover, their central part would outshine the stars them- selves ; on account; both of its greater size and of its greater intrinsic brightness. We ought to see at the heart of every large gaseous nebula a region of visible diameter so effulgent as to put to shame most easily the glory of Sirius himself. It should be so — unless the nebulae are in general much further from us than are the stars. But this would not consist with the view that the stars are all made from fire mists, and are destined in due course of Nature to turn to fire mists again. This view requires that the gaseous nebulae, on the average, be at the same distance from us as the stars which stand for their completed state. Thus the Solar System, at its fervid center, begins to object to that hypothesis which, what- ever may be thought of its real significance, is the sole dependence in these days of all who try to explain the natural without help of the super- natural. Instead of falling down before an atom (say several atoms, if you please) and saying, Thou art my Maker, the Sun prefers to go further for its worship and fare better ; and sends far CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION. 205 down the abysses its flaming glances asking, Where is He f I next call your attention to the fact that our Solar System has not the same chemical consti- tution throughout — as it would have if all its members came from the same fire mist. By the laws of gravity the materials of the mist would tend to arrange themselves in the nebulous sphere in successive layers, according to density, the densest at the center ; but, by the laws of heat, the heat in such a sphere would become supreme at the center where its loss is least, and so start thence to the outside currents that, com- ing and going everywhere — like the streams of pilgrimage at Mecca, center of faith ; or like the streams of trade at Palmyra, center of gain, in her days of palm — would carry everywhere on their incessant caravans all the elements of the nebula and intimately mix its constituent mate- rials. Of course, other heat-centers would still further promote the mixing. It would be un- bounded free trade. Every place would get everything. It would be a case of extreme boil- ing — of the most thorough, most terrible, and most merciless sort. As every housekeeper knows, the mighty caldron could not fail to get 206 SEVENTH LECTURE. its various contents well distributed. In no other way can such chemical unions as we find through- out the Earth, between the lightest and the dens- est substances, be accounted for by the hypoth- esis. In no other way can it account for the present state of the Sun, whose tempestuous atmosphere of hydrogen, the lightest substance known, is found by that greatest of detectives, the spectroscope, to be charged with the heaviest of known metals. Considering the Sun as the residuum of our fire mist, it could not be so flooded with hydrogen as it is, unless that ele- ment had pervaded the whole original nebula. It would all have been used up in manufacturing the planets. Indeed, hydrogen has been found picturing itself most strongly in the spectrum of Uranus. So the great nebulous egg, out of which by the incubation of heat and gravity the broods of our Solar System are said to have been hatched, must, like other eggs, in due course of incubation have had its contents thoroughly stirred and churned and mingled. It must have come to the same general constitution throughout. And, becoming organized into worlds under quite the same gen- eral conditions throughout, it must have yielded CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION. 20y everywhere bodies of the same general character as to kind and proportion of materials. Are the members of our System actually such bodies ? We go to the spectroscope for answer. This subtle analyst confesses that terrestrial ele- ments are very largely diffused through the solar realm, but it also tells us of great differences in the chemistry of its various bodies. For exam- ple, it tells us that oxygen and nitrogen, both of which so abound in the Earth, and one of which makes up not far from half its substance, either do not exist at all in the Sun or do not exist in any appreciable proportion — while chromium and other metals, which make no figure in the composition of the Earth, show themselves . in great force in the solar atmosphere. Some four- teen familiar substances write out their names in a plain hand in the spectral register: but most of the names we read there are the names of perfect strangers. Of the two thousand lines that cross the solar spectrum, by far the greater part have nothing whatever answering to them among terrestrial elements. The comets, also, as far as examined, show a chemical treasury quite different from all other bodies of our System. Of the four comets whose 2CS SEVENTH LECTURE. spectra have been criticised, two consist of un- known elements ; while the other two consist, one of carbon and the other of nitrogen. Here we have a triple unlikeness to the Earth and Sun-- but a single element belonging to each comet, that element different for each, and in half the cases ex- amined that element quite new to our chemistry. How could a single element like carbon disengage itself from the confused stirabout of the parent mist, and set up a sphere and revolution of its own — especially such a sphere and revolution ? The idea that comets are foreign bodies will be considered further on. In regard to the planets — it is found that the solar light as reflected from Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus gives as many different spectra, each differing somewhat from the direct solar spec- trum ; showing that at least the atmospheres of these planets are to some extent differently con- stituted. And a difference in the atmospheres implies a difference in the bodies beneath. We sometimes say that a man is known by the com- pany he keeps. We are quite sure that we can divine his inner character, if not from the way he dresses, at least from the kind of atmosphere he breeds about himself. So we can divine in the MECHANICAL RELATIONS. 209 case of the planets. Different atmospheres be- token different interior chemistries. In this con- nection the case of Uranus is particularly striking. Its envelope consists largely of hydrogen, but is quite without sign of oxygen. Were oxygen there in a free state, a single spark would set the planet aflame. So the Solar System objects again to that hy- pothesis which, whatever may be thought of its real bearing, is in fact the last stand and depend- ence of all who in these days try to explain the .natural without help of the supernatural. This time the challenge comes from the CJiemistries of the System. Instead of falling down before an atom (say a fog-bank of atoms, if you please) and saying, Thou art my Maker, these Chemistries prefer to go further for their worship and fare bet- ter ; and send far abroad into space their messen- ger-spectra, robed like Solomon, asking, Where is He ? For that He is, they can have no manner of doubt. The Law Scheme breaking down, there must be God. As science now stands, there is no tertium quid — God is the only alternative to development. Consider certain mechanical relations. By these I mean the relations of the principal T4 210 SEVENTH LECTURE. bodies of the Solar System to each other in re- gard to such matters as size, density, atmosphere, position, number of satellites. One well-mixed material forming the fire mist. This one material acted on throughout by two causes, gravity and heat ; the one steadily increas- ing in force at the outside, and the other as steadily diminishing. This one material steadily becoming smaller and denser, steadily increasing its speed of rotation, steadily throwing off rings that steadily become less. So runs the hypothesis. That is to say, it supposes that the members of the Solar System are formed successively out of the same material, by the same causes, under the same circumstances, or such as vary steadily in one direction according to a simple law. Of course the products should be alike ; or, in chief points of unlikeness should vary in the same steady, straightforward manner as do the circumstances on which they depend. Thus, if one member of the System is without atmosphere and water, all the other members should also be without them. If they differ in density, the series ought to show a steady increase of density toward the Sun. If they differ in size or number of satellites, the series ought to show a steady decrease toward the Sun in these respects. So it would seem. MECHANICAL RELATIONS. 211 What are the facts ? We turn to our Moon and find it without sign of water or atmosphere ; while the Earth from whose surface it was cast off is well supplied with both. We turn to Mars and find that, though god of war, he has not a sin- gle henchman to attend him, not a single page even ; while his two nearest neighbors worth mentioning, on either hand, are provided for ; in- deed, all the chiefs of the System beyond himself, nobly, though irregularly, provided for. Running eye along the whole bright line of orbs, we notice that in general those near the Sun are smaller and denser than those more remote ; but, just as soon as we come to particulars, we find we must break up completely the actual order of succession that we may range the planets in the order of their size or density. Mars is smaller than the Earth or Venus, though further from the Sun. Saturn is smaller than Jupiter, and yet larger than either Uranus or Neptune. The great Giant of the Sys- tem, as if to intensify his stature, takes stand by its veriest dwarf. So of the densities. There are Uranus and Neptune both denser than Saturn. Here is Venus no denser than Mars and not so dense as the Earth. So of the orbital eccentricities and inclinations. 212 SE VENTH LECTURE. So of the rates of rotation. As we follow the planets down to the Sun, in the supposed order of their age, it is all backward and forward after a most capricious fashion — this is the way we speak — with nearly all the chief mechanical ele- ments of the System. The same perplexing irreg- ularities exist in the satellite systems, if we may take the Jovian family for an example. In place of that steady variation in one direction which answers to the hypothesis, we have one strongly like, in its break-ups and reversions, to the appar- ent path of a planet. In short, as Humboldt says, " The planetary system, in the mechanical relations between its members, does not appear to offer to our apprehension any stronger evi- dence of a natural necessity than does the propor- tion observed in the distribution of land and water on the Earth, the configuration of conti- nents, or the height of mountain chains." As to the position of the solar bodies among themselves — they ought to lie in successive, well separated groups, answering to the successive rings of vapor cast off from the nebula. Thus, there should be several planets in the general district occupied by Neptune ; after an interval, another similar group in the general district MECHANICAL RELATIONS. 21 3 occupied by Uranus ; and so on. The solitary should be set in families. The planets should show themselves of a social turn. And the sat- ellites, in this respect, should take after their par- ents. As humanity divided itself and went forth into the early world by clusters of related fami- lies ; as northern Europe in our day breaks up and appears again by societies of kin and neigh- bors in our western wilderness — so, on nebular principles, the cosmical vapor should have parted and gone forth to the peopling of the void by clusters, rather than by individuals. For, it is not to be supposed that a ring would generally have but one nucleus ; or that, there being sev- eral nuclei, one of them would generally prevail over and finally absorb all others. The chances are greatly against either event in any given ring. As should be admitted with special readiness by those who admit that some comets, and the great meteoric systems, and the rings of Saturn, are, or may be, composed of myriads of distinct bodies. Consequently, there ought to be in the System several cases, at least, of a ring being resolved into two or more worlds : whereas there is only one case that can possibly be supposed to be 214 SEVENTH LECTURE. such, namely, that of the asteroids. The chief planets are all apart by immense intervals, such as could not separate bodies born of the same ring. Each planet is a hermit. Each satellite, also, so far as known, is a hermit — a very Simeon Stylite, separated both by horizontal wastes and wastes perpendicular from all his fellows. And as to the clan of asteroids — if we admit that they all came from one ring, in spite of the great difference between them in orbital planes, then it follows that a ring may part into more than one hundred bodies of unequal size and contiguous paths and paths wonderfully interwoven, which yet can keep apart indefinitely long : hence, that it is very unlikely that in all other cases, not to say in any other case, a ring has furnished but one world, or one world has devoured all the rest. The parent nebula may be expected to colonize by companies, not by individuals. Like the wicked man, it will send forth its children by flocks. It will scatter itself in successive showers, instead of a continuous drizzle. The planets will be Jews : eight tribes, if not twelve, from center to outskirt will pitch nomadic tents. Gregarious planets, gregarious satellites — each class found, for the most part, MECHANICAL RELATIONS. 21 5 in distinct groups, instead of each orb appearing as the solitary heir and representative of its own ring. Such should be the " manner of the king- dom " — the kingdom over which blazes the corona of the Sun, of which the planets are the great Peers, and of which millions on millions of com- ets and meteors are the multitudinous Commons. To suppose anything else, would be about as un- reasonable as it would be for a statistician to suppose that Irish families, on the average, turn out but one child apiece. So the Solar System continues to object to that hypothesis which, whether it mean atheism or not, is undeniably the last stand and sole depend- ence and loud boast of all who try to explain the natural without help of the supernatural. This time the challenge is many-voiced and comes from the Mechanical Relations of our System. In stead of falling down before an atom (say, if you please, a great cloud of atoms) and saying, Thou art my Maker, these great Relations prefer to go further for their worship and fare better, and hang out signals to the infinite Beyond from every promontory and hill-top and turret of the System (whether its name be density, or size, or atmosphere, or satellite) asking, Where is He ? 2l6 SEVENTH LECTURE. For that He is, they can have no manner of doubt. Where the Law Scheme breaks down there must be God. There is no tertinni quid. As science now stands, a personal Creator is the only alterna- tive to eternal evolution. Who to-day believes in chance ? A man, a Solar System, a Paradise Lost, made by a fortuitous concourse of atoms — who now believes that, or is in danger of believ- ing it ? Not a solitary soul. It is all law, eter- nal law, with present unbelievers. And when law breaks down there is nothing left on which the reasonable thought can fall back, save " the King eternal, immortal, invisible ; the only wise God." Consider, too, the rotations of the Solar System. We find that these rotations are not all accu- rately in the planes of their respective orbits ; nor is the law of their periods the same for both plan- ets and satellites ; nor is the parallelism of their axes to themselves, respectively, disturbed in the course of a revolution — all of which facts, each including many particulars, attack the Nebular Hypothesis. And it is a matter worth pointing out that, in this attack, the assailants march by bands, and not by individuals. It is not so many separate soldiers that we see — it is the Macedo- ROTATIONS. 217 nian phalanx. It is not a war of guerrillas that we have — it is rather a disciplined concert and chorus of battles. The clans have gathered, the sections are moving, it is almost " the uprising of a great People." Under this head, I ask you first to notice the ring of Saturn. We are told that in this ring we have an actual example of those nebulous zones which play so great a part in the nebular cosmogony — an actual example which Nature has kindly stereotyped and preserved as an illus- tration of her way of building worlds. If this is so, I answer, the exterior division of this rin°- whose distance from the planet is nearly fifty thousand miles, ought to rotate considerably slower than the planet ; in accordance with the law which requires that the radii describe equal areas in equal times. Actually, however, it com- pletes a rotation in about the same time as its primary. Now go on to notice that the rotations of our System differ in the principle of their periods for the planets and for the satellites. These periods are smaller for the more distant planets and larger for the more distant satellites. And, so far as the satellites have been well studied on the matter 2l8 SEVENTH LECTURE. they all seem to rotate in about the same time as they revolve ; while no such law is found binding the planets. Thus, our moon turns round once on its axis while it is making one journey about the Earth. So also the moons of Jupiter seem to do ; keeping always the same side turned toward their primary. But not a single planet is known which makes a circuit on its axis in the same time it makes a circuit round the Sun. A very singu- lar difference ! How could this be if the System was formed throughout in the one way taught in the Nebular Hypothesis ? For, according to that hypothesis, the satellites come from their prima- ries in precisely the same way and under precisely the same general conditions as these primaries do from the Sun. Hence the same general law which governs the rotation-periods of the one class of bodies should govern those of the other class. Add to this that the rotations of the System are not all exactly in the planes of their respective orbits. Far from it. The Earth rotates at an an- gle of about 23 , Saturn of 26 , Mars of 28 , Ve- nus of 50 , Neptune of 76°, and Uranus of ioo° ; while not a single planet or satellite is known to rotate exactly in its own orbital plane. All seem to have made a solemn League and Cove- ROTATIONS. 219 nant with each other not to do it ; and keep to that Covenant with even more than Scottish de- termination. How can this agree with the hypothesis ? If the System had been formed in the way supposed, all these angles of rotation would have been zero. For, suppose a rotating gaseous ring, and a nucleus entangled in it. A body so entangled tends to have one rotation in the plane of the ring in the course of one revolution — let our moon stand for an example — and, by the gradual condensation of the ring, tends to have this rota- tion hastened. The gradual shrinkage from all quarters on the body, besides pressing it toward the middle of the ring, will, according to a well- known law, hasten its outer surface and retard its inner in a direction parallel with the middle plane of the ring, and so tend to make a rotation in that direction. This threefold force, being both strong and persistent through vast periods, and the last to act on the planet as it becomes de- tached and solidified, will at last wear out any •rotation in a different direction that has chanced to fasten on the nucleus. For such a rotation depends on a force necessarily brief and changing ; and is steadily resisted by the whole neighbor- 220 SEVENTH LECTURE. hood of atoms relatively at rest, and by the gen- eral equatorial drift and suffrage of the mist ; and so can never amount to much, or be permanent. So strong a partnership against one so weak cannot fail at last to have everything its own way. It will by degrees gather to itself all the business. Its rivals will disappear. Even that general equatorial drift alone, a plenty of time being allowed it, would suffice to suppress all other rota- tion in favor of one in the same plane and direc- tion with itself. Then, in the last stages of the nucleus, as it becomes a discrete and solid orb and issues its Declaration of Independence, comes in the zone-condensation with its powerful forces to confirm the result. As is very common, just as soon as the victory is gained help comes. Who of us is not free and proud to help the man who no longer needs help ? At last his cup runs over. Assurance is made doubly sure. So here. And all westerly rotations — which, apart from the equatorial drift, are just as likely to occur as the easterly — are stopped and reversed ; and all rotations out of the plane of the orbit are re- duced into it ; and the whole orb is put under heavy bonds for the future to remain in the state it has reached. So it must be on the principles ROTATIONS. 221 of the hypothesis : and so it is very far from being in the actual System. I have stated that the parallelism of the rota- tion to itself is not disturbed during a single rev- olution. So far as astronomers have been able to notice, this is a fact ; and it is universally taken for true of all the members of the System. But how could it be true if the System was formed in the way supposed ? In all cases where the axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the orbit, there must be a change in its inclination to a fixed plane, during a revolution, proportional to the smallness of the inclination. Where the inclina- tion is nothing, the axis will completely reverse itself in the course of a revolution — as the spoke in a wheel does, as it revolves. Suppose a nucleus entangled in a revolving gaseous zone. Let its axis coincide with a radius of that zone. Then the nucleus will be borne round with the interior end of the axis pointing always at the zonal cen- ter — as exactly and steadily as do the lines of gravity ; or, what is the same thing, as exactly and steadily as do all the great Christian doctrines at the Cross — so that, at opposite points of the orbit, the same end of the axis will point in directly opposite directions. If the axis, instead 222 SEVENTH LECTURE. of being coincident with a radius of the zone, is perpendicular to it, then there will be no change in its direction during the revolution : it will always remain parallel with itself: and, in case all the revolutions of the System are in the same plane, all the swiftly going solar troops will carry their ghostly spears in exacter parallelism with each other than was ever insisted on by the mar- tinets of our earthly armies. With the axis any- where between perpendicularity and coincidence, there will be a change in direction inversely pro- portional to its inclination. But, as in fact the axis is generally far out of the perpendicular — like human nature itself — it must generally un- dergo a great change of inclination ; and the whole solar cavalry will carry their weapons after as disorderly a fashion as ever did rawest recruits from the rawest provinces. So the Solar System does not yet weary of ob- jecting to that hypothesis, which, whether it de- nies a God or not, is undeniably the last stand and whole dependence and loud boast and best helper of all who now try to explain the natural without help of the supernatural. This time also the challenge is many-voiced, coming as it does from the many Rotations of our System. Instead of RE VOL UTIONS. 223 falling down before an atom (I am quite willing to say a nebula of atoms, if you choose) and saying, Thou art my Maker, these Rotations choose to go further for their worship and fare better ; and point every axis with the pointed inquiry, ad- dressed to all the heavens, Where is He ? For that He is, they can have no manner of doubt. Where the Law Scheme fails there God must be supplied. There is no tertium quid. As science now stands, an eternal Creator is the only alterna- tive to eternal evolution. Who to-day believes in chance ? A Newton, an astral system, a Meca- nique Celeste made by a fortuitous concourse of atoms — who now believes that, or is in any dan- ger of believing it ? Not a solitary soul. It is all law, eternal law, with the latest unbelievers. And when law breaks down, there is nothing on which the reasonable thought can fall back, save " God, the Lord, He that created the heavens and stretched them out, He that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it, He that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein." Finally, consider the revolutions of our System. These are not all in the same direction, nor ex- actly circular, nor exactly in the plane of the Sun's 224 SEVENTH LECTURE. equator — as they ought to be if the System was formed after the manner of the Nebular Hypothe- sis. On the contrary, none of the bodies compos- ing the System fully meet all these conditions ; while many of them are very far removed from doing it, and some may even be said to trample upon them as they go their shining way. Thus, there is not a single body known to have a strictly circular orbit. Some orbits come very near being circles, but all are really ellipses. In some cases the ellipses are very eccentric. The eccentricity for Mercury is about one fifth of the semi-major axis of its orbit, that for Mars one tenth, that for Jupiter or Saturn or Uranus one twen- tieth. One of the asteroids, Polyhymnia, has an orbit even more drawn out than that of Mercury. But the comets and meteoric systems are the most surprising objects. Several of them move in paths many times longer than they are broad, and some sweep about the sun on curves almost parabolic in character. Encke's comet is twelve times nearer the sun at its nearest point than at its most remote. Halley's is fifty-seven times nearer ; and some of these wonderfully eccentric bodies almost brush the Sun with their fiery tresses, and then, as if in mortal terror, fly away far beyond RE VOL UTJONS. 2 2$ the orbit of Neptune. The August and Novem- ber meteoric systems almost rival the most ec- centric comets in their paths ; both approaching the Sun as near as the Earth, and then going away from him, the one further than Neptune and the other than Uranus. How can such feats of cos- mical knight-errantry agree with a scheme that supposes all the members of the System formed out of exactly circular rings, all of whose matter moves in exact circles, and which were detached from the solar nebula at the point where the cen- trifugal and centripetal forces were equal ? Under these forces in equilibrium, a body must describe a purely circular orbit, instead of one of those mighty ovals which almost promises never to re- turn into itself. So they virtually admit who appeal in support of the Nebular Hypothesis to the generally " nearly " circular form of the planetary orbits. " See," say they, " how little the path of Venus differs from a. circle : this is as it should be if the worlds had a nebular origin as supposed." Yes, we see it — but what of the many great excep- tions ? Yes, we see it — but why say " nearly " circular ? The orbits ought to be quite circular — every one of them ought to be quite circular — to 15 226 SEVENTH LECTURE. meet the demands of the Nebular Theory : and instead of the comets running such amazing tilts as they do into Nox and Erebus, as if at the fixed stars, they ought to go about the Sun on paths as round and at distances as unchanging as if they were fastened to the solar center, each by such an inflexible golden chain as Milton gives to the Earth. Besides, according to the hypothesis, the revo- lutions of the Solar System ought, without ex- ception, to be exactly in the plane of the Suns equator. The friends of the hypothesis should admit this easily. It is almost one of their own doctrines. They say that the solar orbits ought to show a general partiality for the solar equato- rial plane : and they loudly appeal to the fact that such a partiality exists, in support of their views. " See," say they, " how closely Jupiter and other planets keep to that celestial loadstone, the ecliptic : this is just what we should find if all the bodies were turned off from the solar equator in the man- ner supposed." Yes, we should find that — and just a little more. We should find not only a general partiality but a universal one. We should find not merely a partiality, but such a partiality as expresses itself in absolute union. Coquetting RE VOL UT10NS. 227 between the orbits is not enough. Hard wooing will not answer. Marriage must be consummated. And such a marriage as never asks for a divorce, or at least never gets it, not even from the State of Connecticut. All the orbits, without exception, ought to lie, exactly and forever, in that one plane in which the sun rotates, and along which its ex- pulsive power always acts to cast off its children, when their time for leaving home and setting up for themselves has come. Let us inquire a little into the early history of these celestial outcasts. It is supposed that all the nuclei which happen to form in any part of the parent mist are gradually drawn into its equatorial zone before they ripen into solid worlds. It is necessary to suppose this. A group of revolving worlds cannot be formed by the breaking up of a mist into several sporadic nuclei in advance of a general rotation : for, such a rotation must begin at once on the formation of the mist from what- ever cause ; also, without it, such nuclei being stationary in respect to each other and the center of gravity of the mist, would gradually settle in straight lines on that center — it being necessary to revolution about that center, on the part of any body, that it should have a motion across the 228 SEVENTH LECTURE. straight line joining the two. Nor can such a sporadic group be formed after general rotation begins. For, conceive the mist with its rotation and bulging equator well established. This bulge rises gradually from the poles and reaches its highest at the equator. When a part about this highest point is thrown off as a ring, the sides fall in on both hands and swell out into another equatorial bulge. So an immense suction is es- tablished. Permanent currents set in from both poles toward trie equator. They are the Trade Winds of the mist, and by them whatever nuclei may be near the surface, away back to the poles, will be driven, like so many ice-bergs which they are not, or like so many fire-bergs which they are, toward the equator. Of course these are the nuclei that have the greatest ripeness, because they are the nearest the condensing cold space ; and the ripest of all are those nearest the equator, and especially those in the detached equatorial ring, because these are most remote from the cen- ter and most exposed to the condensing cold. The great nebular tree, like other trees, has its most advanced fruit on the outside. Thus the nuclei near the surface, all over the mist, will be gradu- ally drawn, in the order of ripeness, into the equa- torial regions, as ring after ring is thrown off. RE VOL U TIONS. 2 2 9 Of course the same influences that stress the cosmical embryos toward the equatorial zone, and secure that every one of them shall reach it before ripening into a solid world, will finally carry them all to the central plane of that zone, which is the final goal of all the influences. This is the plane of form equilibrium, which always tends to become the plane of the center of grav- ity. It is also the plane toward which condensa- tion by cold tends to drive the atoms ; also the plane of motional equilibrium ; in fine, the plane toward which the whole System, by all causes of movement that can act on it, strains. It is the center of the wheel where all the spokes meet, and where they are all held fast by an iron band. This is admitted, virtually, by the friends of the Nebular Hypothesis when they appeal to the exceedingly thin ring of Saturn as an example of a ripened zone — a ring forty miles thick and one hundred thousand miles broad, and, in their view, composed of discrete bodies. Hence, in the immense course of ages spent in the ripen- ing, each planet-seed will settle accurately into this equatorial plane, and there go on developing into the great world umbrageous with the mys- teries of organism and life. Really, according 230 SEVENTH LECTURE. to the view of atheistic friends of the Nebular Scheme, these tendencies toward the central plane have had an eternity to work in : for, these men have to suppose that all the past has been occupied in alternate constructions and destruc- tions of the System under the constant pressure of these tendencies. Suppose the planets to gradually approach the Sun through the resist- ance of an ether pervading the System. Wheel- ing about their flaming goal in ever narrowing rounds and at ever increasing pace, the cosmical chariots at last strike against it, and, with broken axle and shattered frame, disappear from the race- course. Up flames the* solar bonfire fiercer than ever ! Out swells the fiery nebula till the whole solar amphitheater, and more, is ablaze ! King Arthur is dead, and each knight of the Round Table. But Arthur and his knights shall live again, that great Table shall be reset, and then each hero shall sit at it more squarely than ever. But what happens meanwhile ? As the planets approach the Sun the inclinations of their orbits to the solar equator gradually lessen under the action of its protuberance : at last they fall into the Sun with a motion more nearly than now, if not exactly, in its equatorial plane, and with a RE VOL UTIONS. 2 3 I velocity the same as that of the equator. This fierce fall itself must alter somewhat the plane of the Sun's rotation, and bring it nearer the orbit of the planet ; and, in the resulting fire mist, the planets must be represented by rotat- ing nuclei more equatorially disposed than at present. So the approach to the equator would go on, through successive reconstructions, till at last the approach would become an arrival, and all the planets move accurately in the plane of the Sun's equator. At last the grand climac- teric is reached. By littles and littles the planet- ary millennium has come. Henceforth shall nothing disturb the Concord of the Orbits. In the same way it may be shown that the satellites ought to move accurately in the equa- torial planes of their primaries. But these, as I have shown, ought in all cases to coincide with their orbital planes, and so with the plane of the Sun's equator and of the ecliptic. So the hypothesis demands. But, on looking at the actual heavens, we find the demand not acceded to in a single instance ; and, in some cases, flatly and even sternly refused. Not a planet joins the Earth in moving exactly in the plane of the ecliptic. Pallas crosses it at an 232 SEVENTH LECTURE. angle of 34 . The satellites of Uranus, and probably Uranus itself, cross it almost perpen- dicularly. As much ^s suspected of Neptune. As to the comets and meteoric systems — they have a sovereign contempt and perpendicular aversion for all rules in the matter ; and, in their headlong steeple-chase through space, tear across our plane just as may happen to be con- venient, whether at 9 of inclination or at 90 . Next look at the direction of the revolutions in our System. This ought to be the 'same throughout : because all the revolutions are sup- posed to come from one cause, namely, the rota- tion of the solar nebula. This rotation must throw off the planets in its own direction (as who does not know who has seen the grindstone casting off its drops and sparks, or the millstone its grain) : these, in their turn, must throw off satellites in the direction of the planetary rota- tions. But these rotations, as we have seen, should, according to the theory, be in the planes of their respective orbits, and so in the plane of the Sun's equator. But actually they are not. What we are entitled to find we do not find. While an easterly motion is the rule, there are many striking exceptions. The satellites of RE VOL UTIONS. 233 Uranus move from east to west : probably the primary does the same. Very considerable reason exists for thinking that this westerly motion is shared by Neptune and its satellites. It certainly is by the meteoric system of November. And not a few comets join in this retrograde, and run backward on their orbits faster and more fiercely than ever planet ran forward — as backward going people are apt to do. It is commonly allowed that many of the comets could never have come from the same fire mist as the planets. And no wonder. How can one look at those immensely elongated and almost upright orbits, as well as at the singular chemical constitution and fierce retrogrades of the ghostly bodies that traverse them, and do less ? Not La Place. He said they must be foreign bodies. They must be importations from beyond our solar seas. One day our System in its progress through space neared these lost Children of the Mist, as they wandered about the wilderness spaces without a protector, and benevolently took them into its own family — despite their extrava- gant and undisciplined ways. Such Phaetons, such break-neck riders, such incorrigible vagrants, were enough to corrupt the habits of the staidest 234 SEVENTH LECTURE. young family in Planetdom ; and yet the pitiful sire opened his arms and took them in. This was very kind of him — for aught I can see, im- possibly kind. For, according to the Nebular Hypothesis these stray comets must have be- longed at first to some fire mist and its system of worlds ; and, once members of such a system, how could they have been parted from it and united to our System, save by such a near ap- proach of the two to each other as must have immensely changed the economy of both, and probably kept them together ever after ? Systems fairly brushing each other — especially sporadic ones with slow motions — would not part com- pany in a hurry. They would not part at all. But there is no evidence that stellar systems have ever grazed each other in this manner — much less that it has been a frequent event, as it would need to be, considering the great number of comets. Certainly our System has never been party to a single such event within the scope of history and tradition. We are now, and, to the best of our knowledge, always have been, apart by almost immeasurable intervals from all the stars : indeed, it could not be otherwise consist- ently with the hypothesis which in the last resort RE VOL UTIONS. 235 derives all the systems of space from one great fire mist, and of course relates them to each other very much as the planets are related, only on a far vaster scale of intervals — while even the planets are so far apart that not one of them is able to draw off bodies belonging to another. They feel its influence, but are not overcome by it. Like the best men under temptation, they may round out their orbits a little toward the tempter ; but yet they go firmly on their way, holding fast to the company and course to which they belong. It should be noted that no disturbing influences of the planets and other members of our System, among themselves, can account for either their reverse motion in the orbits, or their eccentrici- ties, or their variety of plane. Plainly not for the retrograde motion. Almost as plainly, not for their variety of plane : for, if all the bodies had originally been set revolving in the equatorial plane of the Sun, their actions on each other, being always within that plane, could never tend to draw from it. So with the eccentricities. The orbits, though flexible to a certain extent, are not like some hoop of rubber which one can draw out into a most eccentric oval without breaking. See 236 SEVENTH LECTURE. how the boy strains between hand and hand ! The circle has become almost a line ! But the orbital diameters of our System can only vary from age to age by the merest trifles. La Grange has shown that the greatest possible change in the eccentricities, from the mutual actions of the Sys- tem, is extremely small — in some cases less than the eccentricities themselves at their smallest. For example, the least eccentricity of Mercury is 0.1886, and that of Mars 0.0746. But the changes in these numbers for two hundred thou- sand years, reckoned from a. d. 1800 as middle point, are respectively only 0.0170 and 0.0347. In fact, the theory of gravity gives the least change to those small planets which have the most eccentric orbits. Surely it is not a remark- able merit in an hypothesis that it gives the least explanation where the most is needed ! Besides, if the eccentricities were due to the disturbing actions of the worlds on each other, the fluctua- tion would be about a circle as the mean figure. But the mean figure is not a circle, but an ellipse. The eccentricity is never zero in a single solar orbit. By no means the only class of orbits of which this can be said ! So once more the Solar System shakes its REVOLUTIONS. 237 bright locks horizontally at that hypothesis which, though some deem it not inconsistent with Theism, is undeniably the pet and toast and boast, the philosopher and orator and household gods, of the latest atheism trying hard to explain the natural without help from the supernatural. This time, also, the challenge is many-voiced, coming as it does from all the many Revolutions of the System. Instead of falling down before an atom (I am quite willing to say a universe of atoms, if you choose) and saying, Thou art my Maker, the Revolutions prefer to go further for their worship, in hope of faring better ; and send off from all their westerly, elliptic, and inclined orbits unlimited tangents and centrifugals of tel- egram into the great void, asking, Where is He ? For that He is, they can have no manner of doubt. Where the Law Scheme does not answer God must be accepted. There is no tertium quid. As science now stands, the only alternative to eternal evolution is an eternal Creator. Who to- day believes in chance ? Newtons and Miltons, celestial systems by hosts, Principias and Iliads, made by a fortuitous concourse of atoms — who now believes that, or is in any danger of believ- ing it ? Law, eternal law — this is the present 238 SEVENTH LECTURE. chorus of all unbelievers. And when law breaks down, what but a personal Creator can the rea- sonable thought fall back upon ? Nothing. It goes up and down the spaces asking for God. Nor does it ask in vain. Though azure seas on seas may say, He is not in us ; and deeps on deeps beyond may say, He is not in us ; and a still remoter hell and destruction may say, We have only heard the fame thereof with our ears — He is at last found sitting in the very zenith, and on the circle of the heavens. And then the whole Solar System, from center to circumference unexplained by mere naturalism, and from center to circumference explained by the supernatural, solemnly lifts confessing hands, thick as grain stalks by the Nile, and says, / believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. This ends my list of facts from the Home Field. It is a small field — only some thousands of millions of miles across, and ruled by a globe only about a million of miles in diameter — but then it is near to us, and we are able to see things in detail to an extent impossible in remoter regions. And, altogether, for so narrow a district, it has quite a breadth of story to tell about the Nebular Hypothesis. WHAT NEXT? 239 In the next lecture we will pass on to a wider domain. We will pass from the Home Astron- omy to the Foreign, from the canton to the em- pire, from our Solar System to that distant realm of stellar and nebular glory where distance is the least of the things that " lend enchantment to the view." Here, if I mistake not, we shall hear the same testimony from richer voices, and from the very latest. Astronomy. Sun-clouds, and clouds of suns, will " take up the wondrous tale and re- peat the story of their birth." And it will be the story of a birth, not by law, but by God. Per- haps, these higher witnesses will be even more communicative than those we have just heard. Perhaps, even, we shall find their gleanings better than the vintage of the Solar System. This Sys- tem, by the present extreme light and heat of its center, by its various chemical constitution, by its diverse mechanical relations, and by numerous features of its rotations and revolutions, has al- ready told us much. And it might have told us more if we had chosen to cross-question it — es- pecially if we had chosen to ask, not merely about things inconsistent with the Nebular Hypothesis, but also about things which it leaves unexplained. 240 SEVENTH LECTURE. But the most will be told by that great Foreign Realm whose breadth fatigues our thought : and, as we pass along its glorious highways, systems after systems will present themselves to us, and almost ask permission to drown with their sub- limer, but chording, voices the witnessing of the Solar System. Hear ! " Lo, the heavens are not self-sown. Their bright harvests are not of spon- taneous growth. Yonder great prairies of the sky did not clothe themselves in the green of suns and worlds — did not stock themselves with these astonishing conservatories, and rear amid them these gleaming Sydenhams of beauty and wonder. Never did such palaces build their own splen- dors — never did such gardens do their own sow- ing and planting and arranging. There is a Heavenly Sower, Planter, Builder. Some su- preme Virgil sung these wonderful Bucolics in worlds. Some celestial Linneus set up this celes- tial Jardin des Plantes. Some Divine Person and Potentate set up these magnificent Concordats through the heavens, far and near." So, with voice that ought to make itself heard specially by every astronomer, and well by every one who can understand astronomy, the WHAT NEXT? 24 1 whole astronomic field, domestic and foreign, will declare itself against that scheme of nat- uralism which not only makes the celestial sys- tems begin and end in smoke, but finds in that smoke all the attributes of a Creator. 16 VIII. CONFLICT WITH STELLAR ASTRONOMY. Ets tcus aXeOeiataiv, ets lariv ©eos, tV 09 OVpOLVOV T €T€V^€. SofiJlOCleS. Bene autem universus mundus Dei templum vocatur, propter illos, qui aestimant nihil esse aliud Deum, nisi ccelum et ccelestia ista quae cernimus. — Macrobius. VIII. Conflict with Stellar Astronomy. i. A PRINCIPLE 246 2. VISIBLE SYSTEMS 248 3. NO HUGE CENTERS 250 4. WITHOUT CERTAIN GRADUATIONS . . .252 5. VARIOUS PLANES 256 6. ECCENTRIC ORBITS 258 7. DIFFERENT CHEMISTRIES 259 8. A DREAM 26a EIGHTH LECTURE, CONFLICT WITH STELLAR ASTRON- OMY. ' I ^RUE science is not easily overvalued. Only ■*• one thing is worth more. What that is you do not need to have me say in so many words. As much cannot be said in favor of what is sometimes called scientific speculation. That is a very different matter. While often useful, and even necessary, as preparing the way for science, it is not seldom totally worthless and even per- nicious in its scope. It would be hard to find among the professed rhapsodies of poets things more extravagant in conception, more lame in ar- gument, and more strange to the world of fact and experience than are some of the notions now be- ing put before the world under the great name of science. The Doctrine of Metempsychosis is a great piece of sobriety compared with the Doc- trine of Evolution. 246 EIGHTH LECTURE. In the last lecture, I spoke of the origin of worlds and astronomic systems ; and tried to make clear that the actual Solar System offers to the Nebular Hypothesis insuperable objections. Among these objections are the present extreme light and heat of the sun, the various chemistry of the System, its diverse mechanical relations, and whole sheaves of difficulties bound up into two by the words rotations and revolutions. We will now widen our view. Instead of a horizon which just manages to pass around Nep- tune and the most outpost comet, let us have that grander horizon which takes in the fixed stars WITH THEIR VARIOUS SYSTEMS OF KINDRED SUNS. What say these higher systems to the Nebular Hypothesis — to the astronomical part of that Law Scheme which is now so generally used in the interest of unbelief, and on which so many are now gliding, with all sails set, into the black deep of atheism ? Do they speak against it ? If so, what do they speak ? Before answering these questions, I must call your attention more particularly to the full mean- ing of the Nebular Hypothesis. It means much more than appears on its face. It means that each stellar system, however large, is derived from a A PRINCIPLE. 247 single fire mist : for, if it supposes several fire mists as the source of the system, it has to sup- pose them existing* as a system of revolving bodies, and so begins its explanation of Nature at a point which itself needs explanation. Also, the scheme cannot avoid calling in the supernatural save by supposing that each group of worlds, built up after its manner, finally falls together at its cen- ter of gravity and goes back to the gaseous state, and so on in eternal cycle : and the same natural causes that would bring this about for each planet- ary group belonging to a stellar system, would bring it about for the whole system however large, and from time to time resolve it into one fire mist. Accordingly, it is an essential part of the Nebular Hypothesis, as held by atheists, that not only such a small system as our sun presides over, but also all those group and cluster sun- systems whose vastness appals the imagination, and even that ultimate system which throws its stupendous tentacuke about all the starry nations , — that each of these came from one great nebula. Just think of that greatest nebula of all, that one all-comprehending fire mist, that Mighty Cloud which at some remote time was the sum of all material things ! It is from this last unit of 248 EIGHTH LECTURE. Astronomy — contracting, rotating, accelerating, casting off rings, compacting its rings into spheres — we must manage to get such stellar systems as we find peopling the remoter depths of the heavens. And, in general, each system of stars, whatever its size, must have come from one nebula ; and this one nebula, as we have already seen, could only separate itself into worlds by the breaking up of successive equatorial rings. Now let us notice some facts as to the stellar systems inconsistent with these views. 1. There are multitudes of stellar systems dis- tinctly and gloriously visible — not a few of them of immense size. According to the hypothesis, there ought to be no visible self-luminous stellar systems at all ; at least none of many members. Judging from our own solar group, by the time the central part of a fire mist is in the state of our sun, all the bodies thrown off from it ought to be cool and without light of their own. Even Mercury shines only by reflected light. It has cooled away into darkness, before a new zone has been cast off from the sun, or the solar surface ceased to be at white heat. Now the central parts of many systems appear quite like our sun ; and so the systems should VISIBLE SYSTEMS. 249 have no visible distant outskirts — every system ought to consist of, at most, only one or two visi- ble members. But, in reality, we have shining on the naked eye, and especially on the eye of the telescope, hosts of systems much larger than this : sometimes of prodigious size both as to number of orbs and the space through which they are dis- tributed ; wholly self-luminous, as their spectra show ; and not seldom showing on their remote borders as intense a brilliancy as at the very cen- ter. 2. Many a stellar system is without a dominant central orb. Though there is often considerable difference in size among the members of a star-group, yet there is seldom, if ever, so great difference in favor of some one star as the analogy of our system and the principle of the Nebular Hypothesis seem to call for. In some cases what seems the heart of the system is held by a body no larger than any other member ; in some cases it is held by a body much smaller than the average ; and in by far the greater number of cases it is held by no body at all. The center of gravity is in mere empty space. The real pivot of the system is totally invisible. Most astronomers would say with Humboldt that 2 SO EIGHTH LECTURE. this is true of all the multiple stars. Like too many of us, they revolve about nothing. But this is not according to the hypothesis — which requires at the center of every system, not only some orb (for I would like to know how it is possible for a fire mist, by mere rotation, to empty its center of all matter), but also an orb much greater than any other member of the system, and great in proportion to the size of the system. In all the satellite systems which we can observe, the center is held by a body not only much larger than any one companion, but even much larger than all its companions put together. The same is true of our Solar System. In both stature and governing power the sun is overwhelmingly the king of the group. Much more ought there to be a kingly visible center to all those much larger stellar systems which show themselves in remote space. For the larger the fire mist, out of which a system is made, the greater, other things being equal, must be the density of its central region, and the greater the centripetal force at a given distance from the center, and of course the greater the distance from the center at which a given centrifugal force will succeed in casting off a ring. Also, the NO HUGE CENTERS. 25 I denser the central region is the less will it con- tract by a given loss of heat, and the sooner it will reach the point where it will not contract at all. Thus the greater central density of a large nebula must act in two ways to give a greater central orb, namely, by increasing the centripetal force, and by resisting the growth of the centrif- ugal by contraction. Hence, as the very smallest systems, and all which are known to us, have dominating central orbs, much more will the great stellar systems have them : and the larger the system the larger will be the orb. This is according to what we observe among the small systems with which we are connected ; which range in the following order, both as to the size of the system and the size of the central body — the Earth's, Neptune's, Uranus's, Saturn's, Jupi- ter's, the Sun's. How amazingly large ought to be the central world of such a system as the great cluster in Hercules, or the Milky Way ! It ought to be an emperor. It ought to be Caesar Augustus among the emperors. Alcyone, espec- ially, ought to appear in our sky with almost solar glory. Though now some 12,000 times larger than our sun, it ought to be millions on millions of times larger still. And our benighted 252 . EIGHTH LECTURE. earth, whose sky is perpetually illustrious with mighty groups, ought to be so far like that Better Country of which we have heard, and which we reverently hope for, that we could say of it, And there is no night there. 3. Many a stellar system presents no graduated appearance as to the light, distance, a?zd size of its members, from the center outward. According to the Nebular Hypothesis, the stars in each system were ripened successively, at immense intervals, and are in widely different stages of combustion. These different stages ought to show themselves in a certain graduated aspect of the system as to light. Its brightest part should be the center, and it should gradually shade away toward the outskirts. This should be specially noticeable in large systems. That there is a considerable number of sys- tems whose light is graduated after this manner is well known. The trouble is that they are not universal. Nay, the trouble is that they make but a small part of the stellar domain. Almost all the multiple stars, and scattered groups con- sisting of members physically connected, may be cited in proof. In these, whatever star you may take as the structural center of the system, WITHOUT CERTAIN GRADUATIONS. 253 you cannot make out a gradual fading in the light as the eye passes outward from star to star. The same is true of some large clusters. In nearly four hundred systems out of six hundred, as examined by Struve, the stars throughout are of the same color and intensity of light ; in oth- ers the brightest and whitest of the stars are at the outside of the group ; in still more cases the different sorts of stars as to light are wholly intermingled as if at random. The Pleiades, as shown by the telescope, are an example of this last class. And the examples are comparatively very few of systems whose central glory steadily fades and dies away toward the suburbs — like almost every ancient city, or like that famous ancient empire which had Augustan Rome at its center and the rude Britons and Goths and Arabs at its circumference. Instead of finding here and there a case of this sort, or here and there a considerable number of cases, we ought to find absolutely no others. The Nebular Hy- pothesis being witness. In regard to the size of the members of a sys- tem and the distance between them — these ought to increase steadily from the center out- ward. For, in the shrinkage of the mist, the 254 EIGHTH LECTURE. centrifugal force must increase faster than the radius diminishes ; so that, the nearer the center, the more frequently rings would be thrown off and orbs formed. Also, the nearer the center, the smaller would the ring be, both in diameter and in breadth of actual matter ; and so the less matter would it contain — notwithstanding the increase of density toward the center, under the influence of gravity. In fine, it would be in all systems as it tends to be in our own — the larger bodies and intervals at the greater distances from the center. As is the way of suburbs, the remot- est structures would be the furthest apart : as is not the way of suburbs, the remotest structures would be the largest of all. The elder children of the family would be the largest and most in- dependent — as in a natural scheme they ought to be. The stoutest soldiers would guard the perilous frontiers — as in a natural scheme they ought to do. In the case of very large groups and clusters, the outpost worlds and intervals would be enormous compared with the rest. Such a cluster as the Milky Way, that City of magnificent distances and sizes, ought to show on its frontiers distances and sizes incomparably most magnificent of all. The very giants of the WITHOUT CERTAIN GRADUATIONS. 255 system should be there. Tellus, Typhon, Encel- adus — the very Olympians are afraid and fly to Egypt. And each giant mounts guard over a district proportioned in extent to his own sublime stature. How different all this is from our actual Astron- omy, every observer of the heavens knows. Per- haps, one might, with much pains, hunt up a few stellar systems which make a show of conforming to these views. But they are very few. Most, to say the least, of the physically connected multiple stars and scattered groups are plainly of quite an- other stamp. They have no such graduation as the hypothesis requires. By far the greater part have no graduation at all : their various sizes and intervals are scattered about as by some celestial lottery. And, in some -cases, we find exactly the opposite of what we are taught to expect. There is a general tenor of orderly arrangement ; but in- stead of proceeding outward from the less to the greater, it proceeds from the greater to the less. The smallest worlds and intervals are at the out- side of the system. And one of the most striking examples of this would seem to be given by that very Milky Way which, on account of its huge- ness, should be among the very last systems to 256 EIGHTH LECTURE. give it. Sir John Herschel was strongly drawn, by his extended observations within our cluster, to the opinion that the stars in its outer parts are generally really smaller and more densely placed than the others. 4. The stars of the same system are often in dif- ferent planes, while they are not known to be in the same plane in a single insta?ice. I have already called your attention to the fact that the bodies of our Solar System move in dif- ferent planes. A similar fact is written quite as plainly, and far more strikingly, on some of those larger systems of which I am now speaking. On taking the inclination of the visual ray to the orbits of the double stars — all of which belong to our Milky Way system — we find the angle exceedingly various. On criticising the relative motions in some multiple stars and other small groups, we find them explainable only on the sup- position that the orbits of the same sub-system, as well as of different sub-systems, in our cluster, are largely inclined to each other. The general tele- scopic aspect of some still larger systems tells the same story of them ; for, they are so densely crowded toward the center, and are otherwise so characterized, as to force on us the idea of stars VARIOUS PLANES. 2$ 7 arranged in globular or other solid forms. The great clusters in Hercules and Libra, and that known as 30 Doradus, may be taken as examples. Of course, in a globular cluster the orbits run through the whole gamut of inclinations. They stand out from each other like the spokes of a wheel, or rather like the miscellany of great cir- cles forming a skeleton celestial sphere : they bristle away from each other as if charged with electric repulsions : one half get as far away from the other half as they possibly can. No frisky, impetuous comets can abhor each other more cor- dially, cut each other more unkindly, object to their ecliptic more strongly, than do hosts of staid and massive suns bound up together in the various families, clans, and celestial nations of the same globular cluster. This, on the one hand. On the other, we do not as yet know a single stellar system whose orbits lie exactly in the same plane. How is this reconcilable with the notion that the worlds in each system have sprung from one central rota- tion ? Our Milky Way is a system by itself. If all its stars were in one plane with ourselves we should see them all projected on a great circle of the sphere in one narrow but most brilliant band 17 258 EIGHTH LECTURE. of light. Such a cestus, fairer and more marvel- ous than poets ever gave to Venus, we do not see. On the contrary, we see the stars of our cluster scattered all over the sky, and so know that they occupy innumerable and widely different planes. According to the theory, they all ought to be found in the ecliptic, and make a visible ecliptic, bright as the electric arc, across the heavens. Nay, all clusters and nebulae whatsoever ought to lie on the same circle : for, they must all be sup- posed to have sprung from one monster fire mist whose one rotation was along the ecliptic. But, in fact, there are immense nebular accumulations at the very poles of the Milky Way. Those arctics of Nature seem bedded in eternal snows. They are twin breakers around which the celestial seas are always breaking in clouds of silver foam. 5. The stellar systems, as far as examined, show very eccentric orbits. I have already given reasons for claiming that worlds formed in the manner of the Nebular Hypothesis must revolve in circles. But the orbits of the double stars which have been completely made out, amounting to about a score, are very like those of comets. In two cases, those of Alpha Centauri and Gamma Vir- E C CENTRIC ORBITS. 259 ginis, the orbit is nearly five times longer than it is broad ; and generally the length exceeds the breadth by more than a quarter of itself. The ex- perience of astronomers in this direction is so uni- form, that now, whenever one sets himself to find the elements of a new sun-orbit, he expects, if successful, to see it turn out very eccentric, and would not be at all surprised to find it as sharp and oval as the comet of Halley traverses — that is to say, almost a celestial needle, with the sun for its eye, piercing the night. — About seven hundred double stars have shown more or less orbital motion. Such has been the character of the arcs thus far described that it can hardly be doubted that, should time and pains enable us to extend and close up all these arcs into orbits, we will find very few of them to be accurate circles. Circular rings are as scarce in the heavens as elliptical rings are in our boxes of jewelry. 6. Many a stellar system has not the same chem- ical constitution throughout. We have found a like fact nearer home. Our own solar group is far from being a unit in con- stitution. Especially, when we compare the earth with the sun, and both with the comets, are we struck with the difference in this respect. 260 EIGHTH LECTURE. A difference not compatible with the idea that sun and planets and comets are but different specimens of the same well-mixed and homoge- neous fire mist. So I have already attempted to show. But now let us turn to those far off systems which, until lately, seemed far enough beyond the reach of our chemical critics. Of what are they made ? Are the members of the same system always made of the same materials, in the same general proportions ? We are not without an answer that can be trusted. Many double and multiple stars are found composed, each of differ- ently colored members, whose difference of color can hardly be supposed due to contrast, or to different stages of combustion. Besides, when probed by the spectroscope, these variously colored stars give forth various spectra — show- ing that they have different chemical constitutions. Indeed, stars of the same system seldom give precisely similar spectra : while in some cases the difference is very great and radical. Thus, in our cluster, Betelgeuse and Beta Pegasi and Alpha Orionis send out no lines whatever of hydrogen, an element found so largely in our sun. And our sun gives no sign of oxygen or nitrogen — ele- DIFFERENT CHEMISTRIES. 26 1 ments found largely in some other parts of the great stellar system to which it belongs. Sirius has strong rulings through the violet which do not answer to any known substance : and, on being put well through the spectral catechism, confesses to many points of singularity, especially in regard to the proportion of the elements in its great seething alembic. The lines of hydrogen are far stronger than those which come from our sun, while the metallic lines are far fainter. If these large bodies were all parceled off from the same fiercely boiling and thoroughly mixed neb- ula, they could not show such varieties of consti- tution as we are able to detect by peering through the grated windows of their spectra. This ends my list of facts from the confessed stellar systems. Please set each of them down as against the latest atheism — since each is against that only scheme of naturalism that now attempts to build the heavens without a God. And remember that the attacking force of these facts is measured, not by their sum, but by their product. Putting, then, our facts together geometrically, one feels that if he could only leave this distant post of observation from which he yet sees so 262 EIGHTH LECTURE. much, and, harnessing twin stars to some heavenly chariot, could ride freely in and out among the stellar universes, he would find almost endless in- congruities between them and the idea that their elements came together of themselves, in however much of time, (call it the brother of eternity) into such a Glorious House — as bewildering in its elaborateness and unity as it is in its vastness — as the German poet saw with his heart that wept and trembled. " God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, saying, ' Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house.' And to the serv- ants that stood around his throne He said, ' Take him, and undress him from his robes of flesh : cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his nostrils : only touch not with any change his hu- man heart — the heart that weeps and trembles.' It was done : and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage ; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes with the solemn flight of angel wing they fled through Zaarrahs of darkness, through wildernesses of death, that divided the worlds of life ; sometimes they swept over front- A DREAM. 263 iers, that were quickening under prophetic mo- tions from God. Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a time through a sleepy film ; by unutterable pace the light swept to them, they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment the rushing of planets was upon them : in a moment the blazing of suns was around them. " Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left towered mighty constellations, that by self-repetitions and answers from afar, that by counter-positions built up triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways — horizontal, up- right — rested, rose — at altitude by spans — that seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the archways, beyond memory the gates. Within were stairs that scaled the eternities below ; above was below — below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body : depth was swallowed up in hight insurmountable, hight was swallowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite, suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose — that systems more mysterious, that worlds 264 EIGHTH LECTURE. more billowy — other, hights and other depths — were coming, were nearing, were at hand. " Then the man sighed, and stopped, shuddered, and wept. His overladened heart uttered itself in tears ; and he said — ' Angel, I will go no far- ther. For the spirit of man acheth with this in- finity. Insufferable is the glory of God. Let me lie down in the grave and hide me from the per- secution of the infinite ; for end, I see, there is none.' And from all the listening stars that shone around issued a choral voice, ' The man speaks truly : end there is none, that ever yet we heard of.' ' End is there none ? ' the angel solemnly demanded : ' Is there indeed no end ? — and is this the sorrow that kills you ? ' But no voice an- swered, that he might answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens, saying, ' End is there none to the uni- verse of God. Lo ! also there is no beginning.' " IX. CONFLICT WITH NEBULAR ASTRONOMY. Xao? rji\ kolI vvc, epefios tc }xi\av 7rpa>ror, kol Tdprapo^ evpvs. Trj d\ ov8' d^p, ovR ovpavbs r)V ipefiovs 8' iv a.7ret- pocrt koAttois tlktcl 7rp(x)Ti to Nature's God," — the God of Revelation as well. To such a book the author need not hesitate to affix his name." v nm Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D., Preacher to Harvard University, and Plummet' Professor of Christian Morals. " Permit me to thank you for a work in which you have effected « rare union of scientific accuracy, eloquent diction, and rich dt* rotional sentiment. It is attractive, instructive, and edifying. It appears at a time when science needs, as never before, to be redeemel and sanctified by faith in Him, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And, best of all, it does not make Religion cringe to Science, but maintains her in that queenly status which is the only position she can hold. The book must do great good, and I heartily congratulate you as its author." From Rev. S. II. Hall, D.D. "Ecce Coelum is much more than a book-success. It will be honored as a most timely and 'admirable treatise to put into the jand of thoughtful young people, to ' turn off their minds from canity/ and lead them to God." From tfie New- York Evangelist. " This unpretending, though elegant little volume, gives a most admirable popular summary of the results of Astronomical Sci- ence. The author has evidently mastered his subject, and he has presented it in a most striking manner, adapted to the comprehen- sion of the common reader, and enriched with pertinent illus- trations. The book is perhaps the most fascinating treatise on the seence which has been published of late years, ranking indeed in many respects with that of the late lamented and eloquent Mitchell. One of its excellencies is that it doee not hide God behind his own creation.'" From the Religious Herald. "A New Book, and one that is a book, worth its weight in gold or diamonds, for it is full of gold and precious gems, — dia- monds of law and fact, — truths beaming with celestial light J 4 speak of c Ecce Caelum/ from the pen of Rev. Enoch F. Bcbk, D.D., of Lyme, Conn., published by Isichols & Noyes, Boston, a duodecimo of 198 pages. Mr. Burr modestly signs himself ' A Connecticut Pastor/ but some college has rent the vail and written out his full name, and added to it a D.D. So much the better for Connecticut and for the world. Such light as the book contains j ught not to be under a bushel. " These six Parish Lectures are a masterly, vivid, easy, sub lime presentation of the enchanting facts of Astronomy. They are adapted to all classes, — the learned and the unlearned. The astounding glories of the skies are tempered to our humble eyes. " Let all read the book, old and young. Let it be found in every school, in every library, and .in every home where wisdom is invoked. Bead it, and you will exclaim, what glorious light it sheds from the throne of God upon the lonely pathway of man ! " From C H. Balsbaugh, of Pennsylvania. "It is certainly a wonderful little book. How the world shrinks into an atom as we follow the lofty soarings of the ' Con- necticut Pastor.' I never knew rightly what Dr. Young means by saying, ' an undevout Astronomer is mad ; ' but I now see and feel the power and beauty of the expression. Such a book cannot be read without laying upon us the responsibility of a new charge from heaven. After contemplating such grandeur, we instinctively exclaim, « What is man that Thou art mindful of him ? ' " From Eon. S. L. Selden, Late Chief Justice of New York. " A beautiful book. I admire it for the elegance of its style, as well as for the lucid and able manner in which it presents the noblest of the sciences. It will prove, I think, very valuable, rot merely for the knowledge it communicates, but as suggestive of a jne of noble and elevated thought. And I am much pleased to see from the numerous notices which have come under my observa- tion that my estimate is confirmed by many persons of the first capacity for judging. To have written a work which receives md deserves such very high praise from scholars and men oi science cannot but be a source of great gratification to th« luthor." ECCE CCELUM; PARISH ASTRONOMY. ELEVENTH EDITION. SUPPLEMENTARY EXTRACTS. From the Theological Eclectic, [Edited by Professor Day, Schaff, etc.] "The style is remarkably graphic and elastic, and the matter is so skilfully grouped and lucidly stated as to be level to all classes of readers. The writer has a rare gift at popularizing science, and his book deserves the wide welcome it has received." From the New York Observer. " We have never yet seen a volume on Astronomy that seemed to us to explain more intelligently, to ordinary minds, the visible phenomena of the heavenly bodies." From the Congregationalist. " We advise all our readers who have not yet read the book entitled ' Ecce Coalum,' to embrace their earliest opportunity to do so, — a book which certainly has beeu surpassed by nothing of this general line, for many years, if ever. There is a grandeur of conception — an easy grasp of great facts — a clear apprehen- sion of deep and subtle relations — a power to see, and make others see, the nature and extent of the heavenly movements, such as are altogether wonderful. Many works have been writ- ten from time to time to popularize astronomy — to bring its great leading features within the compass of unscientific minds. But we do not know of a work in which this has been so finely done as in ' Ecce Coelum.' Six lectures of about an hour each, tell the story, and the reader feels, all the while, as if he were upon a triumphal march. He is upborne and sustaiued by his guide, so that he has no sense of labor and weariness on the journey. The last chapter, on ' The Author of Nature,' is a most worthy and fitting close to the hook. We wish it could be read by that great host of so-called scientific men, who are delv- ing away in the mines of nature, with thoughts and purposes materialistic and half atheistic. They need the tonic of such Christian thinking as this." From Hours at Home. " This little book, from the pen of Eev. E. F. Burr, D.D., has already been noticed extensively and pronounced a ' remarkable book ' by our best critics. The author first delivered the sub- stance of it to his own people in familiar lectures. It presents a clear and succinct resume of the sublime teachings of astronomy, especially as related to natural religion. The theme is an in- spiring one, and the author is master of his subject, and handles it with rare tact, and succeeds as few men have ever done in giving an intelligent view of the wonders of astronomy, accord- ing to the latest researches and discoveries. It is indeed an eloquent and masterly production." From Harper's Monthly. " The title page of ' Ecce Ccelum ' is the poorest page in the book. We have seen nothing since the days of Dr. Chalmer's Astronomical Discourses equal in their kind to these six simple lectures. By an imagination which is truly contagious the writer lifts us above the earth and causes us to wander for a time among the stars. The most abstruse truths he succeeds in translating into popular forms. Science is with him less a study than a poem, less a poem than a form of devotion. The writer who can convert the Calculus into a fairy story, as Dr. Burr has done, may fairly hope that no theme can thwart the solving power of his imagination. An enthusiast in science, he is also an earnest Christian at heart. He makes no attempt to recon- cile science and religion, but writes as with a charming ignor- ance that any one had ever been so absurdly irrational as to imagine that they were ever at variance." From the Evangelist. " We have had many inquiries in regard to the authorship of Rcce Ccelum,' the volume noticed somewhat at length two weeks since. To save writing a number of letters, we may say here, that the Country Pastor, who is the author of these six Lectures on ' Parish Astronomy,' is the Rev. E. F. Burr, D.D., of Lyme, Ct. The book is a IGnio of ahout two hundred pages, but in that small compass it corn pi ises the results of long study, and will be found as instructive as it is eloquent. The grandest truths are made level to the plainest understanding. We took it up, expecting little from its humble pretensions, but soon found that it was all compact with scientific knowledge, yet glowing with religious faith, and were not surprised that Dr Bushnell should say he ' had not been so fascinated by any book for a long time — never by a book on that subject ' — and that it had given him ' a better idea of astronomy than he ever got be- fore from all other sources.' We don't know if they have many such ministers ' lying around' in the country parishes of Con- necticut, but if so it must be a remarkable State. " While the impression of this fascinating volume is fresh in mind," etc. From Rev. G. W. Andrews, D.D., President of Marietta College. " The author has succeeded admirably in his attempt to pre- sent the great facts of Astronomical Science in such form as to be intelligible to those who have not gone through with a thorough mathematical training, and to make them intensely in- teresting to all classes of readers. I cannot express more strong- ly the interest the volume excited than by saying that I read through at once. I can hardly remember when I have done the Bame with another work." From Rev. Edwin Hall, D.D., Professor in Auburn Theological Seminary "I received it last night, and have read it through with intense interest and delight. It is a worthy book on a mighty theme. I wish it might be in every household, and read by everybody. And I am sure it will be read with admiration and wonder long lifter the author shall have been gathered to his fatb u*s." From Rev. Prof. E. W. Hooker, D. D. " The book id an admirable argument from the discoveries of modern Astronomers, for the existence of God ; and indirectly for the truth of the Gospel. It is an honor to his kindred, to the Chjrch and the place of his birth, and, above all, to Him ^hose gos- pel he preadies." From an Obituary of Rev. S. L. Pomroy, D.D., late Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M. " He was a man of extensive information, a ripe scholar, and he retained his scholarly habits and tastes to the last. A few weeks Bince he read 'Ecce Coelum' with great pleasure and satisfaction, When he returned it he remarked, ' I have read it all twice, parts of it three times, and have noted down certain passages.' He was spec- ially delighted with the arrangement of the work — the grouping of the different system so as to give us something Hke a comprehensive idea of the grand whole." From the Congregational Quarterly. That a Connecticut Pastor should be able in six lectures to his pec- ble to shed more light on this profound subject — to make it more simple and yet more grand, amazing, and impressive — than many of the great masters who have written before him is a matter of sur- prise. Yet this seems to be the generally conceded opinion of the press. We hear but one testimony concerning Ecce Coelum. Any intelligent reader of it can understand what before has been only a mystery. It is worthy of the widest circulation. From the Lawrence American. There is not a dry page in these six lectures ; but the glories of tho skies are presented in a most enchanting manner, vivid, popular, grand, and glowing. Young and old should read it. From The Christian Union. We can commend this book in the heartiest manner. It is one of the nobles* examples of the moral uses of astronomy that have appeared since Chalmer's astronomical sermons. Besides their intrinsic merit, these lectures show what may be done by a quiet pastor of a village church for tin instruction of his people. Every preacher has not the equipment required for a course of scientific lectures : but " where there is a will there is a way," and much more might be done than is done in broadening a pastor's literary education and in raising the literary tastes of his people. PATER MUNDI, OR, MODERN SCIENCE TESTIFYING TO THE HEAVENLY FATHER. BY THE AUTHOR OF "ECCE CCELUM," The First Series is now ready. Tinted paper. 300 pp. 12mo. I 'rice, $1.50. Sent post-paid on receipt of the price, by NOYES, HOLMES, & COMPANY, 117 Washington Street, Boston.. The publishers of Ecce Cozlum now solicit the attention of scholars and of the public at large,- to a still more important work by the same author. "Pater Mundl is believed to meet a great need of the times. Men are busy, as never before, at taking away the ancient Jehovah in the name of Science. In books, in popular lectures, in journals having wide circulation and relig- ious pretensions, and even in colleges whose founders hoped and demanded better things from them, the public is being industri- ously persuaded that it is scientific as well as natural to be with- out God in the world. Let all who would see for themselves how little ground exists for such claims, read Pater Mundi ; and let all who wish well to the popular faith, to our holy religion, and to the safety of society, promote its circulation to the ut- most. It is a book for the times. Though in the form of col- lege lectures, and claiming scientific thoroughness, it is believed lo be easy and luminous reading for all classes. EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES. From the Rev. W. A. Steams, D.D., L.L.D., President of Amherst College I have heard them with the deepest interest. They are so clear, so log leal, so rich in illustration, so unexceptionable and beautiful in style, an*i so conclusive in the argument attempted, that I have profoundly ad- mired them. Those gentlemen who heard them when delivered here, would, I am sure, from the comments which they made upon them, agree with me entirely in the judgment I have expressed. May the Great Being whose existence these lectures so nobly defend from the attacks of the foolish, though calling themselves scientists and philosophers, spare the life of the author and enable him to complete the full course of thinking on which he has so triumphantly entered and advanced. From Rev. Prof. C. S. Lyman, of Yale College. All whom I have heard speak of these lectures have expressed for them the highest admiration. In thought and diction they are worthy of Chalmers. From Prof. Julius H. Seelye, Professor of Mental and Moral Philoso- phy in Amherst College. It is with great delight that I have received the new book. I like, es- pecially, its whole attitude respecting the question discussed; that it is so full of faith and so uncompromising. Atheism is as unworthy the intel- lect, as it is repugnant to the heart; and I am tired of tame apologies from timid believers in a God. I like to see a book that has something of a clarion ring about it, and is not afraid to defy denial, when it speaks of the being and the glory of the Heavenly Father. I believe that Pater Mundi will do great good, and I thank the Lord for permitting the author to prepare and publish it. From Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D. L.L.D., Preacher to Harvard Uni versify, and Plummet Professor of Christian Morals. I thank the author with all my heart for Fater Mundi. It is the most efficient work of its class which the present generation has produced ; and as the now existing scepticism is deeper, more [pseudo] scientific, more pretentious, than that of any preceding age; the book which, like Pater Mundi, is adapted to our times, must need be both broader and more profound than previous needs have elicited. Its treatment of the preat theme is at once thoroughly philosophical and popular, both in style and in adaptation to the capacity of all readers of average intelli- gence. It was an unspeakable privilege to the students of Amherst Col- lege, to have heard the lectures; I trust that the same privilege will be extended through the pre;s to thousands of our young men. While I find nofau. 1 * nor deficiency in the treatment of any branch of the argu< Bient, I am especially impressed by the Seventh Lecture, as the dearest, .strongest, and most eloquent statement of the need of God, and of tha demonstration thence resulting of His existence, in the plenitude of Hii attributes, that has come within the range of my reading. From Rev. Albert Barnes, I was so profoundly impressed, or, if I may say so, oppressed and over- wnelmed with the sublimity and grandeur of the truths presented in Ecce Caelum, and with tha manner in which the author presented these great truths, that I am glad he has followed with another volume on the same general subject. I anticipate in the perusal of it great pleasure and profit. I think the author is doing great service to the cause of truth and I hope that God will spare him to complete his work. So far as I am able to judge, the greatest enemy which Christianity has to encounter now, is found in the oppositions of science, so-called. In fact, so far as I understand them, the aim and tend mcy of much of this science, are to blank Atheism; and I think a man can do no better service in this age, than to meet and counteract this tendency. I rejoice that God raises up men who are qualified to do it. I believe that the author of Ecce Ccelum is such a man. He has a noble work before him, and I hope he will be enabled to do it. From the Independent. We had not read Ecce C&lum, and imagined that the enconiums which we had seen pronounced upon it must be too high wrought for sober truth. But now that we have read Pater Mundi, by the same author, we are ready to believe every word of praise to have been within bounds- The present volume is no dry, didactic treatise. It is warm, alive, elo- quent. The author proves himself, in his freshness of thought and in the eloquence of his argument, inferior to no writer of the day. We find no slips in science, nor in his multiplied illustrations from ancient and mod em literature. And we do find a grandeur of conception and a striking originality of conception, so audacious that scarcely any other writer we know of would have ventured upon it. We see no reason why our au- thor's writings should not become classics in the language. Nothing can be more invigorating to the thoughtful reader. From the Congregationalist. We have read it with keen enjoyment, and are disposed to regard it a? be most substantial and serviceable contribution to the natural theology of this generation, as it is the freshest and most popular. No better book none more entertaining, can be placed in the hands of inquisitive readers, especially bright minded young men and women* The author lays out his work with a singularly clear perception of the crepuscular skepticism which needs to be dissipated; and enters upon it with manly and gener •us fairness of statement, vigor of argument, and amplitude of apposite and convincing illustration. His style is in the main so admirable, that it may seem ungenerous to take exceptions. Probably the excess of ornamentation, the overfulness of illustration, the easy affluence of the most highly poetic diction, and the general gorgeousness of rhetoric will secure a hearing for the truth by persons whom it is desirable to influ- ence, who might not be attracted by an ordinary book. From the //nurs at Home. The decidedly oratorical style will serve to make the essays, incisive- eloquent, and eminently philosophical as we acknowledge them to be— all the more -widely popular and useful. From the Religious Herald. Cogent argument is so lighted up with brilliant illustration, as to make Interesting the profoundest thoughts. From the Christian Union. Rev. H. W. Beecher. The author, who, in Eccc Cozlum, established a reputation for that rare combination of excellencies— fi-rvid rhetoric, scientific accuracy, and com- mon sense — has produced auother book designed to defend and illustrate the doctrine of Theism. It is like breathing mountain air to feel this man's earnestness; it is a true mental tonic. One sees instantly that he is able-souled, that he can push and climb without getting short of breath; and it is almost a foregone conclusion, after reading the first chapter, that one must either stride with him to his high conclusion, or part company before starting. This unequivocal earnestness and power display themselves at the outset ; great heart is warmed up to begin with ; bo that one is almost inclined to distrust a leader who has so much the air of a partisan. The face set like a flint does not wait to be struck to emit its spark3, but glows with a fiery zeal which inflames everything it looks upon. Yet, no candid reader will say that Dr. Burr is dogmatic; he only plies error with weapons for which infidelity has claimed a patent right. No one who reads this first volume, will wish that the author had written less or otherwise than he has. From the Advance. The previous work entitled Ecce Cozlum, received the highest commend, ation from the most competent judges. The present volume will still fur- ther augment the reputation of the author as a thinker and writer. lie puts the Atheistic hypothesis to severe and annihilating tests; fully meet- ing its objections and cavils. The arguments of this work are not only cogent, but are expressed in a lucid, glowing, and eloquent style; and the book entitles the writer to a position among our best religious authors- Fru ~ev. Edwin Hall, D.D., Professor in Auburn Tlicologica* Seminary I hjve read the work with constantly increasing satisfaction and delight Tt is entirely worthy of the author of Ecce Calum and of its subject. So far as my reading extends— and I have long endeavored to read in that de- partment whatever I could lay my hands on that promised to give me light— I regard it as the most original and valuable contribution to the subject, which the age has produced. I shall wait with longing for the second volume. In the meantime, I hope the work may have a circula- tion as extensive as its worth deserves. If i+ were left for me to fix that desert, there should not be a library or a family in the land without it. From the Watchman and Reflector. The thousands of readers of "Ecce Coelum" have not got fairly over the feeling of astonishment and admiration which the perusal of that remark- able book brought to them, before another of equal merit from the same author is announced. "Pater Mundi," we are confident, will lessen noth- ing of the high character which Dr. Burr has won as an acute and accu- rate thinker, an accomplished scholar, a brilliant rhetorician, and a humble, childlike believer in God and His revelation. The purpose of the author is to defend and illustrate Theism and Christianity from the side of Modern Science. There is a wonderful candor in the entire process of ar- gumentation. Nothing is assumed beyond what the eyes of man behold and his reason assents to. The conclusion, without being asserted, is irre- sistibly forced into one's own view, and wins acceptance from the thought- ful, reasonable soul. The eloquence of some of these passages respecting the fatherhood of God is overwhelming in effect. We earnestly com- mend the book to the careiul study of our so-called scientific men who are trying hard to rule a personal God out of the universe. We wish, too, that every young man in the nation would read these pr.ges. We are sure that nothing more fascinating in interest and really healthful and elevat- ing in influence can be found among all the books of the day. The book is handsomely printed by Nichols & Noyes of this city. From the Sunday School Times. This volume is an eloquent and unanswerable protest against modern atheism in all its forms. "Modern science testifying to the Heavenly Father,'' is the author's secondary title, and it describes accurately the course and object of his argument. His methods of presenting the sub- ject, however, are entirely original, and are wonderfully effective. The ivork is particularly opportune. There are in all our congregations thoughtful, cultivated, quiet men, whose faith has been shaken by the bold assumptions of infidel scientists. Dr. Burr's book is just suited to restore such persons to their equilibrium. It is written in a most attractive stylo and 6hows a masculine vigor of thought that carnot fail to command r» Bpect. From the Theological Eclectic. Professors Day, Schaff, etc. We have already spoken of the able work entitled Ecce Caelum, in terms of high commendation. The present work by the same author exhibits the same power of comprehensive grouping and vivid presentation, and abounds iu great thoughts freshly put. From Pev. Mark Hopkins, D.D.. L.L.D., President of Williams College. I am greatly indebted to the author of Pater Mundi. It is a freth and powerful work. If any commendation from me will aid its circulation, it is freely given. From C. H. Balsbaugh, Pa. Certainly this is a book to stop the mouth of skeptics. It seems to me that never was atheism in its protean lorms more squarely met on its own ground, and never more clearly discomfited with its own weapons. No two links of its argument are left together. The author has triumphantly vindicated the title of his book. Its matter and style appeal to both our innate susceptibility to truth, and our sense of the beautiful. In my view, never did logic and poetry more heartily embrace each other; never did beauty smile more divinely on the face of the sternest facts. From the New York Evening Post. The clear and beautiful logic, and the crystal style of Ecce Ccelum, fas- cinated religious minds everywhere in this country. This book is written by the same perspicuous pen. That it is in the form of lectures, rather improves it than otherwise. The special aim of the author is to wrest from the wild materials of this day the powerful sceptre of science, which they have seemed to wield. All the teachings of science and nature point to the "Father of the "World." This book is one calculated to strengthen the faith of professors of religion, and to lead captive young minds straying into error. We ought to mention in closing, the beautiful typography of the book. Published by Nichols & Noyes. From the Evening Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The style is clear, and always strong and forcible in an unusual degree while many passages rise to great beauty and eloquence. Seldom have we read anything upon the subject of Christian evidence that was so enter- taining, so instructive, and so satisfactory as this book. It is the offspring, of a vigorous intellect, and it is a most valuable addition to religious cul- ture. From the Christian Recorder, Philadelphia. So charmed are we with this magnificent production of Dr. Burr's, thai really we scarce know where to begin its praise. Its excellence is uniform Lecture first and lucture eigLth equally demand admiration. So every p:.r1 of each lecture. The chain of gold is not only complete, but every link is complete. The Colonnade is not only symmetrical, but its minute carv- ings are perfect. To quote from it to our own satisfaction, would be to quote the whole book, but we remember that Messrs. Nichols & Noyes, the publishers, have a copyright. How majestically does the author of Ecce Coelum send forth his thoughts into the world ! In majesty do they stride forth either to con- quer, to convince, or to woo. Now as a mailed warrior are they seen, fully panopled from head to foot, and crushing by the strength of his argu- ments every foe— crushing every atheistic shield, and helmet, and breast- plate. On almost every page of Pater Mundi, these all-crushing arguments are to be met— on almost every page we gee victims lying mangled and bleeding. We do not know that the author of Pater Mundi lays claim to the po- etic gift; and yet has he given us a sublime Didactic Poem. Not in verse, is it given; it is neither Dactylic, Anapaestic, Iambic, nor Trochaic. But poetic imagination shines on every page. Untrammeled by rule, and enjoying a freedom that the utmost poetic license could not allow, the author has given us a poem infinitely sublimer than could possibly have been done in any other form. Would that we could give our read- ers the concluding pages of Lecture VII. Such poetic thought! Such beauty of expression! Such smoothness! Such harmony! Words an- swer to words, and sentence to sentence, with such sweetness that one glides along to the conclusion, as smoothly as a New England sleigh, and as merrily as its ringing bells. From the Norwich Bulletin, It will be a groat advantage to the reader of this work to have made the acquaintance of Dr. Burr's previous volume, "Ecce Coelum," as thus many of the references in "Pater Mundi" will be the more intelligible and vivid. The quality of the new work is in all respects admirable. Dr. Burr hai a wonderful enthusiasm, always fresh and intense. He is full of his sub- ject. He has the faculty of so treating profound and sublime themes, aa to bring them easily to the comprehension of all. He has a fervid style, whose richness seems inexhaustible. He has great fertility in argument, and presents his suggestions with rare simplicity and force. The volume will go far to combat the sophistries of Atheism, both in uncultured minds and in those of strong logical powers. We cannot too highly commend it, and we predict that it will find a place in every well stocked religious library. From the Standard, Chicago, 111. If any one should infer from the title of this book that it is a heavy and prosy dissertation, he would be »«tonished on looking over its pages frothing could be further from the truth. The author is an enthusiast, one of those who have not "discovered that one must be indifferent in order to be fair." The book is fresh, earnest, and eloquent, and we felt its strong spell before reading a dozen pages. The statement of arguments is admira- bly clear, the development of them is natural and impressive, and there ia displayed a wonderful power in massing facts so as to give their full and combined effect. From the Chicago Tribune. This work in some respects is very remarkable. It is not only compact In argument, and forcible and clear in statement, but it is also absolutely brilliant and sparkling in manner, and rich and copious in illustration. Judging only from the one volume before us, we should pronounce it as one of the most remarkable and fascinating books of the day. From the Orleans Republican, Albion, N. Y. The author's premises are bold, and his line of argument clear, forcible and persuasive; shirkiug nothing, anticipating, and answering objec- tions with equal fairness. The work is calm, liberal, and large thoughted ; full of admirable logic, and profound reasoning; and the last three lec- tures, especially, are grand with beautiful and terrible imagery, exquisite poetry, and striking allusions to those mysterious facts and forces of na- ture which startle and awe believer and unbeliever alike; and his conclu- sion is singularly suggestive and powerful, From Rev. Austin Phelps, D.D.. Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. I wish to thank the author for " Pater Mundi." Not that it needs any commendation from me : but I cannot but be grateful to any man who helpa me to a new depth or vividness of conception of God; and this you have done by your book. I am specially impressed by the power with which it draws the great alternative, — a God benevolent, or a God malignant. The reductio ad absurdum is fearfully overwhelming; and the recoil with which one springs back from it gives one a lodgment and a resting-place in the Infinite Love which no gentler discipline could secure so well. This vigor of religious sensibility in your works charms me. We need it greatly in on; Christian literature, to supplement alike the wiry intellect of which we have enough, and the emotive softness of which, perhaps, we have a little more. From the American Baptist. The author has a strong and vigorous style, and a power of grasping and grouping great truths, which make all that he utters luminous and convincing. Though prepared specially for educated men, they are adapt- ed to all readers, have no abstruseness of diction, no intricate, far-fetched or dubious arguments. The author will impart no small measure of the Indignation he feels towards atheism, concealing itself under the name ol science, to those who read his book., and we trust it may have a very wide r'rculation. From The Neio Ertfjlanuer. The author of Ecce Coelum could uot well be expected to write a dull book on any subject, much less one in which God and nature were the chief topic. But whether he would be able to clothe a skeleton of a two-volume argument for Theism — often so dry and prim in other hands — with the flesh and muscle, the life and beauty, that charm us in Parish Astronomy, could only be shown conclusively by the production oi a work like that before us. Pater Mundi, will, by the glow and magnet- ism of its rhetoric, and the enthusiastic earnestness of its tone, as well as the strength of its argument, be sure to command everywhere, apprecia- tive and admiring readers, and prove, we trust, of special value to those who are inclined to regard science as hostile to religion. Its logic is vitalized and made effective by the force and richness of the illustrations drawn from the various fields of science. It is these all glowing often with poetic fervor, that rivet the attention at once, and carry the reader on insensibly from topic to topic. In some of the lectures, indeed, the argument as- sumes the elevation and almost the form of a grand poem. The sixth, for example, like a sublime ode, returns, strophe by strophe, with each point made in the argument, to the same exultant chorus, which becomes at once a quod erat demonstrandum to the understanding, and an inspi- ration of faith to the heart. The second volume promises to be even more attractive than the first ; for it is to be still more replete with the marvels and sublimities of the sciences as illustrative of the argument. It is too much forgotten by many that God may be studied in flower and forest, in storm and star, and in the soul of man, as well as in Moses and the prophets. The glowing pages of " Pater Mundi," teach impressively that the God of Revelation is the God of Nature as well. From the Methodist. The many gratified readers of" Ecce Ccelura." will welcome this new and important work of Dr. Burr. It is a book for the times. Natural Theology can no longer retain its old form : the progress, not only of Sci- ence but of speculative thought, demands a thorough revision, "Pater Mundi " meets this demand with masterly ability. From the American Presbyterian Jtevicw, A new work by the author of" Ecce Ccelum " is sure to attract unusual attention; nor will expectation be disappointed. Dr. Burr is an original and independent thinker, and he writes in a style of singular freshness and rhetorical beauty. His book is timely. Though popular in its ad- dress, it sacrifices nothing to effect, and is wholly free from that super li- cialty which is usually found in the attempt to reduce the conclusions of science to the level of a popular audiance. It discusses with masterly abil- ity the testimonies of Modern Science to the being of a God, and defends Theism from the attacks of skeptical scierce in a bold and critical spirit worthy of all praise. It is a? profoundly religious a3 it is thoroughly sc; entific. While it freely accepts the results of the freest investigations, it ably argues that there is no-thing in one of these to shake the christian's faith, but much to confirm it. The work cannot fail to hare an important influ- ence on Natural Theology— bringing it into harmony with the progress of Science and speculative philosophy, and arming it with a new power of demonstration. From the Princeton Review. Dr. Burr, known to us in his youth as a modest and studious lad, and since, as the faithful and unpretending pastor of a rural congregation, has suddenly burst on our vision as an author of the first mark in the highest realms of thought, and as a leading defender of precious truth against the assaults of scientific pretenders and pretentious sciolists. He calls to mind the days when the great New England divines, the Edwardses, Bellamy, Backus, Smalley, Emmons, were pastors of agricultural congregations. The universal approbation of Pater Mundi and the previous volume, by the press and by christian thinkers of the highest reputation, we find borne out by actual inspection. Real science is proved to be the hand- maid of true religion, in a series of discussions which evince a masterly comprehension of the issues involved— a thorough acquaintance with modern science and its relations to religion— the whole in a style clear and simple, vivid and graphic. We think the quiet of a country charge more propitious to thorough study and deep thinking, than the din and whirl of metropolitan excitements. From Prof. D. C. Gilman, Tale College. I feel moved to express my hearty appreciation of the service the author of" Pater Mundi" is rendering to the world by the publication of these earnest, brilliant and impressive discourses. Front Hon. Henri/ Z,. Ditozs, M. C. The pleasure with which I read aloud to my family " Iicce Coelum" ha9 prepared me for an increased delight and profit in reading " Pater Mundi. " I am very proud of the author, and rejoice in his growing fame. From Our Monthly, Cincinnati, Ohio. We are very glad to welcome and commend this book. The author does, with singular ability, what he proposes to do. His trumpet utters no un- certain sound. There is no danger of any one mistaking his meaning. We think it high time the arrogant assumptions and speculations of some scientific men in the interest of infidelity and atheism were exposed, and the harmony of all true science and revelation vindicated, made more ap- parent, and presented in some popular form. This Dr. Burr is doing, and the first installment of his work we have in this series of lectures. That they will be found interesting and convincing we need not say to those who have read " Eece Coelum." AD FIDEM; OK, PARISH EVIDENCES OF THE BIBLE. BY THE AUTHOR OP U ECCE CXELUM" AND "PATER MUNDI." ENLARGED EDITION. Price $2. 00 Sent post-paid on receipt of price, by NO YES, HOLMES, & CO., 117 Washington Street, Boston. " Ad Fidem " proposes to do for the Evidences of the Christian Religion what " Ecce Ccelum " aims to do for Astronomy. It pro- poses to bring these Evidences, without any sacrifice of scholarly accuracy, luminously and effectively within the reach of ordinary minds. The attention of PASTORS is especially called to this work. Unbe- lief is trying hard to popularize itself. The most taking forms of literature are being used to insinuate doubt, and detach the masses from Church, and Sabbath, and Bible. Unless the shepherds of the people bestir themselves, a great calamity is at hand. They must see to it that what the friends of natural science are so finely doing for it, be done also for sacred science — that the Christian Evidences be brought to the people in those forms which alone are suited to interest and convince them. Cannot "Ad Fidem" help? If the judgment of men of the first eminence is worth anything, this is just the book needed for free circulation in the parishes. EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES. From Jicv. Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., President of Williams College. This elegant volume seems to me admirably admirably adapted for its purpose. I am sure it cannot fail to do great good wherever it may go. From Rev. Howard Crosby, D. D., Chancellor of the University of New York. As a Christian minister, I thank the author of "Ad Fidem," ab into pectore, not only for that book, but for all that he has done iv. his three noble works for the cause of truth. If the sympathy and approbation of his brethren all over the land is any reward for his labors, that reward he certainly has. From Rev. Roswell D. Ilitchcock, D. D., Professor in Union Theological Seminary. Its bright, fresh, vigorous rhetoric, is one of the least of its merits. Evidently the author has himself felt, and so has justly measured, the " oppositions cf science " which he combats. Only so can we get the con- fidence of thinking men, who are in trouble about the BiUe. He does well to make so much of the moral temper of the inquirer. I often think that the apologetic literature of the Church, from first to last, has done little moie than confirm and comfort those who were on the right side, and wished to remain there. From Professor Taylor Lewis, LL. Z>., Professor in Union College. I regard it as a very valuable contribution to our religious literature, and well worthy of the commendation the other works of the author have received. It is cheering to find that the many attacks on Christianity, under the names of science and free religion, are calling out so many books of intrinsic excellence. The great clamor of the enemy sometimes causes me to feel depressed; but such works as "Ad Fidem " assure me that there is power in the Church, both spiritual and intellectual. From Rev. Austin Phelps, D. Z>., Professor in Andover Theological Semi- nary. "Ad Fidem" has given me great satisfaction. It has been a greatly needed volume for a long while. What else have we in our literature on the Evidences which puts sound logic into readable style, so as to command the popular interest ? I know of scarcely anything. Pastors are hard pressed, if I may judge from letters of inquiry which sometimes come to me, to find something which their inquiring young people will read by the side of the fascinating " Seers" of the Concord school. The author of " Ad Fidem " will find many to thank him for supplying the want. From Hon. Jared B. Arbuthnot, LL. D. Those who have known the author as one of the ablest mathematicians of the country; as a close student for years, and, almost to the sacrifice of life, of the profoundest branches of science; as a contributor to scientific journals of papers bristling with the utmost resources of the Calculus; and, latterly, as the author of a book on Astronomy, which has gone into many countries, drawn unprecedented eulogy from first scholars, and done more to make the most difficult of sciences intelligible and impressive to the gen- eral public than any other work ever written, will not expect to find him treating any subject superficially. They will not find him treating the Evi- dences in this manner. No reader of "Ad Fidem," who is himself a thor- ough scholar, will fail to see on every page of this, as well as of its compan- ion volumes, under a popular dress, the order, thoroughness, immense force, and severe accuracy, as to both thought and expression, of a master in the exact sciences. From Rev. A. P. Peabody, D. D., LL. P., Professor in Harvard Univer- sity. The author, or rather his numerous readers, should be congratulated on his continued and signal success in meeting the obtrusive skepticism of our times. His " Ad Fidem," in the choice and arrangement of topics, in Its adaptation to existing needs, in soundness of reasoning, and in a vivacity and fervor which must command unwearied attention and interest, is pre- cisely the work which the cause of truth demands. I am heartily thankful to him in behalf of the public for his service in the Gospel. From Rev. W. S. Tyler, D. 7X, LL.D., Professor in Amherst College. Clear as the air, bright as the sunshine, refreshing and invigorating as the northern breezes of this rare and beautiful season. There is in it a happy union of sound sense, good learning, personal experience, strong faith, and glowing eloquence, which bears the reader along as with an irresistible current. I admire particularly its boldness and directness. While there is sufficient moderation and prudence in stating the claims of the religion of the Bible, and the arguments by which it is supported, there is very little of the apologetic tone — there is no hesitation in appealing to the con- science and common sense of the unbeliever himself as on the side of the Christian Revelation. I rejoice that the author has been permitted and enabled to add " Ad Fidem " to " Ecce Ccelum " and "Pater Mundi," and thus to lengthen and strengthen the chain which will, I trust, bind many to the truth. From Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D. D., in the New York Evangelist. Last evening my congregation enjoyed the intellectual treat of a brilliant discourse, by the author of " Ecce Ccelum " — that newly discovered star in our firmament of letters, in regard to whom so much interest is now felt. He is kinsman of President Burr, of Princeton College, and has devoted years to scientific studies. While listening to him, it seemed as if the frail form of flesh was ready to vanish away, while the inner soul was all aglow with the intense blaze of enthusiasm for the truth as it is in Jesus. His theme was — " The accord between the best literature and learning and the Word of God." It was a sparkling chapter from his newly published vol- ume " Ad Fidem." The book abounds in sentences which are finished with the point of a diamond. Those who have read " Ecce Ccelum " will be hungry for this latest production of devout genius. The skeptic who can read its honest pages and not find his infidelity shaken, would hardly believe "though one rose from the dead." From the Rl. Rev. Charles P. M'llvaine, D. D., D. C. L., Bishop of Ohio. His admirable "Ecce Ccelum" had prepared the way in my house for its fit successor " Ad Fidem." In the range of its argument and in the force of its reasoning, added to the beauty and eloquence of its style, it is calculated to be, under the Lord's grace, eminently useful. The author appeals to evidences which none of the wisdom of the wise (of this world) can shake. From the Springfield Republican. "Ad Fidem" has met with much success — the first edition of fifteen hundred copies being exhausted within four days after publication. It is a vigorous and fascinating discussion of the Evidences of Christianity. From the Interior. The previous works of this author have been widely read, and much and justly admired. The volume before us is characterized by the same clear- ness and raciness, and will be read with interest by all classes. From the Conyreyalional Quarterly. Dr. Burr has varied learning and remarkable rhetorical power. The earnestness and vigor of his faith are refreshing, particularly in an atmos- phere surcharged with a speculative and skeptical spirit. " Ad Fidetn " is well suited to relieve the doubts of the honest inquirer, and to strengthen the faith of the believer. From the Literary World. The author's fervor is exceedingly animating; the most indifferent reader cannot dwell unmoved upon his vigorous and glowing words; and those who reject his doctrines, must yield unqualified admiration to the skill and grace with which they are put forth. We have rarely fallen upon a pro- fessedly theological composition so rich in the genuine charms of rhetoric, so fascinating and persuasive in the delicate, yet forcible manipulation of grave and sombre subjects. Here is no dry discussion, no slow-going logi- cal processes to disgust the reader with theme and thesis; the discussion is lively, the reasoning pleases while it convinces, and the impassioned earnest- ness of the writer allures his readers into willing tutelage, and brightens and beautifies his whole work. '• Ad Fidetn " seems to us altogether admirable. It will bear and repay careful reading, for there has been no sacrifice of force to ornament. As a presentment of the claims of the Biblical religion, in a form at once univer- sally intelligible and universally attractive, we know of no work which sur- passes " Ad Fidem." From the New York Observer. " Ad Fidem " will, we believe, be greatly useful. It is admirably adaptea to subserve the purpose designed. The author has made his mark as one of the ablest orthodox writers of the present clay. He is a man of thought and study, and great power of expression. A short time since he burst on the religious mind of this country with a work called "Ecce Ccelum." He next appeared with a volume entitled "Pater Mundi," a profound, able, and timely series of chapters, proving that science testifies to the existence and attributes of the Christian's God. Modern professors of pure science would fain intimate to the world that it is unscientific to believe. Dr. Burr has made a book for these scientists and those who have been deluded by them to study. It is easy reading, and we recommend it to the learned and un- learned unlike. It will do them all good. From the Christian at Work. It is a worthy compeer of his two previous volumes. Rhetorically, it is most brilliant. It is full of passages which break upon the soul like a rev- elation, and in following the line of his arguments, the reader cannot fail to be convinced that of a truth the Bible is God's holy Word. We welcome it as a most efficient helper in setting at naught the efforts which are being made to cast contempt upon the sacred writings. From the Boston Journal. Another valuable addition to the solid and beneficial literature of the day, from the pen of the well known author of "Ecce Ccelum," and the almost equally admirable " Pater Mundi." The present work is a most excellent one, calculated in every respect to accomplish great and lasting good. The Evidences of the Christian Religion an brought within the scope of average intelligences. The book fills a most important place in the domain of mod- ern religious literature. The style is graphic, powerful, and elegant; and yet beautifully simple. His arguments, though conclusive, are within the reach of the unlearned as well as the accomplished. Nothing hard or pedantic characterizes any one of the sixteen essays of which "Ad Fidem " is composed; but the book is pleasant and profitable reading for everybody. From the Methodist. Dr. Burr's previous volumes have rendered everything from his pen wel- come to thoughtful readers. His new book consists of real parish lectures. It is a book of evidences skillfully wrought out, and the better for beinc: pop- ular. The author always presents a happy combination of scientific informa- tion with cogent logic and a vigorous style. From the Religious Herald. We welcome another volume from the vigorous and attractive pen of the author of "Ecce Ccelum." For weight of thought, brilliancy of imagina- tion, and force of style, it will compare favorably with his former works; and this is enough to insure for it an extensive sale. From the Home Journal. This book will doubtless attract more general attention and be more widely read than any previous work from his pen. The writer's scientific habit of mind and familiarity with the whole field of argument have enabled him to give the proofs of revealed religion in a clear and forcible style, in a way to aid many who are seeking settled religious convictions. From the Watchman and Reflector. The author who, a year or two since, so greatly startled the reading pub- lic by vaulting into a first place among Christian apologists, is likely to hold what he so splendidly won. This last book is, like the others which preceded it, in the interest of the Christian Faith. The pages sparkle with life. Its poetic fervor, its wonderful massing of facts, its brilliancy of illustration, its personal appeals, its resistless conclusions, make up a book which will not allow the most prejudiced or indifferent reader to lay it aside, when once it is fairly begun, until the last page is turned. It is the most successful attempt which has yet been made at popularizing the Evidences of the Christian Faith. From the Western World. The work is spoken well and widely of as a strong defense of Christianity against the growing materialism of the age. Its author has a high reputa- tion as one of the most powerful orthodox writers of the country. From the Evangelist. It presents the various branches of evidence in a very eloquent and effect- ive manner. Moreover, it is peculiarly appropriate to the present state of the religious world — establishing the foundations of faith in the Word of God, and vindicating the supernatural character of the Gospel of C list. 6 From the Scottish An.erican Journal. The author of « Ad Fidem " is already famous to the world by his admlr able little book, " Ecce Ccelum." His books are probably more highly and universally extolled than those of any other author — not excepting the author of "Ecce Homo " himself. "Ad Fidem" will -undoubtedly add to Dr. Burr's fame. It is a popular religious writing of the highest order, that can be read by the masses, and that will not fail to accomplish a good mis- sion. This book of itself is calculated to turn the tide against infidelity in favor of the good old-fashioned belief in the Scripture as the Word of God. From the Utica Observer. Dr. Burr's "Ecce Ccelum" and "Pater Mundi " have placed him among the foremost of modern contributors to religious literature. As a Christian writer, his characteristics are great clearness, boldness, and en- thusiasm. He seizes the sword of. argument, and gives no quarter to limping skepticism that quibbles over the Bible as a book whose Divine origin is undemonstrable. His arguments are presented with remarkable vigor and they cannot fail to strengthen the faith of the weak, and to " con- found the foolish," who accept as confirmed a thousand facts upon far less evidence than we have of the truth of the Bible as the very Word of God. It would be difficult to find a volume of three hundred and fifty pages of recent publication in which is combined more of sound logic and religious fervor, or which is likely to result in greater good than this. Dr. Burr is a man for the weak Christian to lean upon; for the strong and confident one to esteem and admire, if not indeed to reverence. From the Commercial Advertiser. This is a very welcome book from the pen of the distinguished author of • Ecce Ccelum " and " Pater Mundi." It is written at just the right time — at the time when the young men of the country show an unwilling- ness to "endure sound doctrine." Dr. Burr is a bold champion of the divine origin of revealed truth, and he handles skepticism without gloves. Let those who desire to know the truth read such a book as this. We do not fear the attacks of "scientists " upon revelation if those who read the speculations of science will, at the same time, exert themselves to reconcile history with Scripture prediction. From the Advance. A quite unanimous approval has greeted Dr. Burr in his labors as an author, as regards the value of his thoughts and the attraction of his style. The present work will meet with favor from those who appreciate the wants of our time. It aims to present the evidence in favor of the Bible, not in a dry, professional way, nor in a hot, polemic spirit, but with force and fresh- ness, with appreciation of doubts and difficulties, and with the confidence of Btrong conviction. The author has much tact in coming at his subject, and his arguments are ingeniously constructed, and skillfully marshaled. He keeps in view, also, a practical result, and aims to impress the conscience as well as to enlighten the mind, insisting ever that the most solemn respon- sibility attaches to treatment of this great subject. We like the book, and wish it a large circulation. From the Syracuse Journal. Dr. Burr, the author, is a man in the prime of life, a lecturer in Amherst College, a man of profound scientific learning, patient study, and withal an earnest pastor, whose soul is aglow with enthusiam for the truth as it is in Jesus. His previous works, " Ecce Ccelum " and "Pater Mundi," have created a new sentiment in regard to religious subjects, and won for their author unbounded praise. They are notable books for the times, warm, alive, eloquent. " Ad Fidem " follows the path they marked out. In the words of .Rev. Dr. Cuyler, " The skeptic who can read its honest pages and not find his infidelity shaken, would hardly believe ' though one rose from the dead.' " From the North American Gazelle. The line of late publications indicated by " Ecce Ccelum," " Ecce Homo," etc., the first of which is from the same pen that now gives " Ad Fidem " to the world, can all be traced to the recent disputations in Europe over religious fundamentals. Of "Ecce Ccelum" we can hardly speak too highly to express the views of those concurring in its doctrine. It is thor- oughly orthodox, compact, and thoughtful, and is a scientific as well as a religious essay; a work not unworthy to class with the great efforts of Chalmers. In half a dozen lectures it formulates more of the philosophy of orthodox faith than can be found in a century of ordinary sermonizino-. This is the concurrent testimony of those whose opinions cannot be gain- say ed. " Ad Fidem " consists of a series of parish lectures, intended to settle the argument in behalf of the Bible. Of the execution of the labor too much can hardly be said. There is such an amount of plastic learning, close logic, and happy illustration, as justifies comparison with the astro- nomical discourses of Chalmers. Even the renown of Jonathan Edwards, so immovably crowned, is brought to mind by the closeness of the scientific analysis and synthesis used. And yet the whole is lucent to any ordinary understanding. The work takes instant rank with the foremost theological contributions of the day, and must exercise great influence. From the Christian Recorder. To secure the ready reading of " Ad Fidem " by those who have been for- tunate to read "Pater Mundi," it is only necessary to inform them that it is from the pen of the same charming writer. It is a handsome book, and can be read with the most sensible joy. It ought to be a question with thoughtful men, how these books of Dr. Burr can be placed in the hands of the people. We have not read " Ecce Ccelum," and consequently cannot speak personally of its worth. The oth- ers, however, we know to be books which the times demand. Could not cheap editions be issued — so cheap indeed, that the very widest circulation could be attained ? With these in the hands of the class that make up the bone and sinew of the country, a strong bulwark would be erected against the rationalism of our German fellow-citizens, the papacy of our Irish, the infidelity of what few French we have, and the dizzy-headed nonsense of the few native-born Americans, who, to get notoriety, are willing to play the fool, in regard to the most vital of all subjects, religion. 8 From ike Philadelphia Enquirer. This volume consists of a series of lectures on the Evidences of the Bibli- cal religion, delivered by Dr. Burr, the author of " Ecce Ccehun," a book which has gained a wide celebrity, in his parish in Connecticut. They were not originally intended for publication, but the author says that even if they had been they would hardly have been more careful in their state- ment of main' facts and arguments. We do not think they would or in- deed that they could have been much more exact or telling than they are. Dr. Burr is an advanced thinker, and a man of great liberality, so far as his books photograph him. His arguments are both cogent and persuasive. while through them breathes the all-powerful spirit of earnest conviction. From the Conyregationalist. Some books are like a leaden rifle-ball ; others like a cartridge, containing not only the ball but abundant means for propelling it. Dr. Burr's books are of the latter kind. This, his last, is not only a sound and good work, but it is active and stimulating. . . . We have a very able opening chapter entitled " Presumptions," which is worthy of being a book by itself so forcibly does it outline the grand general features of Christianity Those who have read "Ecce Ccelum " and "Pater Mundi," will know what style to expect in the present volume We accept this book as one of real power. From the L?ttheran Observer. The readers of " Ecce Ccelum " and " Pater Mundi " — and their name is legion — will hail with delight this new work by the same " Connecticut pastor, 1 ' who has so strikingly made the heavens declare the glory of God, and made the wondrous achievements of science testify to his wisdom, his greatness, his divinity and eternal power. It addresses itself to doubters and unbelievei's with such an array of facts, and with such direct force of logic and argument, that it seems impossible for a rational soul to resist its conclusions. The book might appropriately be called rational and moral geometry, for its conclusions are the result of demonstrations as clear as any in Euclid. The entire work characterized by great clearness and accuracy of style and statement, and it meets the objections and cavils of cultivated modem skepticism — the vague insinuations and sneers which float like froth upon the current of modern literature — better than other work that has yet ap- peared. From (he Christian Weekly. " Ad Fidem " is a series of pastoral lectures to which the pastor has invited the reading public. And the reading public will be very apt to come when they learn that the lecturer is that same " Connecticut pastor " who fascina- ted them with the contagious imagination of " Ecce Ccelum " and " Pater Mundi." The same clear and cogent logic that in the former led us upon stepping-stones of stars to God as the father of the universe, the same flit- tering and brilliant style that in the latter led us through the phenomena of nature to God as the " Father of the World," is offered in '• Ad Fidem " to lead us to God as our Saviour. With an air of confidence which be- tokens deep conviction; with an enthusiasm that is itself an evidence of Christianity, he insists upon the honest application to the Evidences of those tests which are prescribed by Christianity itself. And this is done with no juiceless language, but in a decidedly oratorical style, that will make the book very widely popular and useful. Its very fault — excess of ornamenta- tion and gorgeousness of rhetoric — will secure a hearing for the truth by persons who might not be attracted by an ordinary book. From the Evening Post. We cordially thank the publishers for sending us this noble volume. It is most fittingly dedicated " To Christ and His Church." The work is full of irrefutable evidences of the Bible. In his delightful preface the learned and gifted author says, " Not only was Diderot," etc. The Typographical exe- cution of the book is faultless. From the New Eng lander. Ita merits are similar to those of his previous well known and popular volumes. The author has the gift of bold and impressive statement, .... a vivid and telling way of presentation, .... the glow and power of positive eloquence. The book will receive, as it deserves, extensive circula- tion, and, as we doubt not, will achieve great usefulness. We congratulate the modest and patient author upon the success which he has attained, and at which, perhaps, he himself is the most surprised. From the Express. The argumeut is strong and the style in which it is stated clear and im- pressive. The author is well known as one of the ablest and most interest- ing of the religious writers of the day. From Harper's Monthly. It is refreshing to come across a book written in a tone at once so candid and so cheeringly confident as " Ad Fidem." We find throughout the book, as Dr. Burr in his preface advises us we shall, " an air of great confi- dence." At the same time the author rarely substitutes mere assertion for argument, and never denounces as criminal the reader who fails to appre- ciate the force of his statements, and to accept the opinions to which they lead. From the Princeton Review. In this beautiful volume Dr. Burr expatiates in his favorite field of Apolo- getics with vigor, tact, and eloquence. He rightly traces the fortress of unbelief in the intellect to perverseness in the will and heart ; shows that the difficulties in the way of religious belief are no more formidable than men encounter in every sphere of life without being stumbled by them ; that with like candor applied to Christian truth all their embarrassments will vanish, etc. From the Christian Quarterly. These lectures discuss some of the living questions of the age in a man- ner at once able, pleasing, and practical. But we need not say this to those who have read Ecce Caelum and Pater Mundi. These will know that it is almost impossible for Dr. Burr to write a dull book. Ad Fidem will add to the author's reputation. It is emphatically a book for the times; and is one of the finest defenses of the Christian religion that has been made in this country. It does for the Evidences of Christianity what Ecce C&Ium does for astronomy. 10 From the Baptist Quarterly. This is a new work by an author who has achieved a popularity as wide- spread as it is merited. Dr. Burr writes in a style of singular freshness and vigor, groups his truths with great power, and communicates his en- thusiastic earnestness to his reader. From Scribner''s Monthly. The Rev. Dr. Burr, of Lyme, Conn., has made a sudden reputation of late by two attractive — perhaps we might even say brilliant — books on the Evidences of Christianity. He has just published a third. Ad Fidem is a rapid, popular, and eloquent summary of the arguments for the Bible. It is founded on careful research, and is believed to represent the latest de- velopments of Biblical scholarship. There is no pretense of originality or appearance of scholastic learning ; but the author has what is much better for his purpose, a forcible style, a dexterity in the use of striking figures and examples, and a remarkable gift of seizing and retaining the interest of his readers. He is clear, earnest, rapid, vigorous, and, above all, enter- taining. NOYES, HOLMES, & CO., BOSTOIT, HAVE JUST PUBLISHED THE FOURTH GOSPEL THE HEART OF CHRIST. BY EDMUND H. SEARS, D. D., AUTHOR OF "ATHANASIA" AND "REGENERATION." Price, $2.50. From the Boston Journal. " It is long since there has appeared in theological literature a work of such power and significance as the present. Deeply reverent and tender, imbued with a thorough sympathy with its subject, it sketches the life of the God-man with a degree of grace and beauty rarely at- tained in books of its class." From the Boston Globe. " One welcomes such a volume as this with peculiar pleasure, be- cause it comes from the mind, heart, and soul of a thoughtful, studi- ous, and religious country clergyman, who is too much absorbed in his work to care for prominence in the public eye. Mr. Sears, though a country clergyman, cannot be said to dwell in the noble obscurity of his class. His Christmas hymn is as well known as any poem in American literature, and is read and sung by hundreds of thousands who have but a faint appreciation of his worth as a religious thinker and scholar. If these persons could only know that the same tender- ness and beauty which find expression in that immortal hymn breathe through this labored work on ' the beloved disciple,' they would rush to it like ' a famished host on miraculous bread.' " From the Boston Transcript. " The name of the author of this book justifies us in expecting a scholarly and appreciative analysis of the gospel which is its title. To fitly interpret the Fourth Gospel, a man must be no formal literalist, but must possess a keen sense of spiritual realities, and a fullness of spiritual perception — qualities which are united in him to a rare de- gree. In this book, the product of long and careful study, his pur- pose has been, not ' to write a book of Christian evidences merely, but to evolve the contents of the Johannean writings, which, clearly apprehended, are their own evidence, and prove Christianity itself a gift from above, and not a human discovery.' " From the Watchman and Reflector. " It has been known for some time to not a small circle of religious scholars that Dr. Edmund H. Sears was busy in preparing a volume on the fourth Gospel. The appearance of the book has been looked forward to with largest interest. Dr. Sears is a prominent clergyman in the Unitarian denomination. He has won a distinguished name among men of every religious faith as a profound and reverent stu- dent and a forceful, eloquent writer. The subject before him is one which has challenged the best scholarship and the sharpest criticism of the last half-century. It is a subject, too, which, like the Lydian stone, tests the quality of whatever comes in contact with it. It would not be possible for Dr. Sears, or any other thoughtful man, to discuss the Johannean writings without disclosing to his readers every shadow and shade of his theological creed, as respects all those facts and doc- trines which the Church still regards as fundamental. These we give as some of the reasons which account for the wide-spread interest which has gone before the publication of this volume. And now that the book has appeared, and is being largely read, this feeling of curi- osity deepens into one of great surprise. Prepared as many readers may have been for an exhibition of a most reverential spirit in Dr. Sears' studies of this Gospel, and a statement of theological views in entire opposition to the humanitarian or pantheistic theories of very many in his denomination, they were not prepared for such interpreta- tions of Scripture, and such methods of reasoning, and such positive conclusions as fairly place Dr. Sears in the rank of orthodox thinkers and believers." From the Cincinnati Times and Chronicle. " Noyes, Holmes, & Co. publish a religious work by Rev. E. H. Sears that ought to enlist the attention of a very large circle of thoughtful readers. It is entitled, "The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ," and is devoted to elucidating the proofs of the genuine- ness of John's Gospel, its harmony with the other gospels, its theol- ogy, and the special light it throws on the nature, character, teachings, and works of Christ. Mr. Sears is one of the most vigorous and acute thinkers and dialecticians in America, and this stout book of 550 pages is one of the most important volumes yet contributed to theo- logical literature in this country. It is written from a clear head and full heart ; it is not dry argument or skeleton theology, but the thought glows with life, and the rhetoric is as grand and beautiful as the logic is strong. It would be folly to assume that the book has no vulner- able points which theological criticism can find ; but it is a very vital book, and merits the careful study of all religious readers." Frojn the New York Bulletin. "Two religious or semi-theological books have just been published, which are much above the average class of literature, namely, one is, 1 The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ? by Rev. Edmund H. Sears, a book of real ability, admirable spirit, and conclusive argument ; the author evolves the contents of the Johannean writings, which, he claims, clearly apprehended, are their own evidence, and prove Chris- tianity itself a gift direct from above, and not a human discovery. Mr. Sears is on the extreme evangelical wing of Unitarianism, and his book must make a sensible impression upon thinking minds, whether they are merely intellectual, or intellectual and religious ; the two qualities are not always found in company ! " From the New York Tribune. " His volume will take a high rank among the biographies of Jesus which within a few years past have so greatly enriched the religious literature of the country." From the Congregationalism " The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ is a book of extraordinary interest for its own sake, and still more from the position of the author, the Rev. Dr. Edmund H. Sears, as a representative of what is called Evangelical Unitarianism. Judged as a volume on its own merits, it is a rich and fresh contribution to the literature of the ages touching the life of our Lord. It is instructive and suggestive in the highest ranges of Christian thought and feeling. The title is less compre- hensive than the contents of the treatise. This is not limited to the Gospel of St. John, but covers nearly all the New Testament writ- ings, so far as they throw light on the central and controlling truth of the Supreme Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. While establishing the genuineness and authenticity of St. John's Gospel, as tributary to the argument, the authorship of the other three gospels is established, the scope, purpose, and spirit of the book of Revelation illustrated, and the character of the Epistles of Paul largely discussed. The scholarship seems to us as accurate as it is ample. The results of wide research and critical investigation are condensed into a few pages with a clearness of statement not often equaled. The brief chapter on Gnosticism, for instance, gives a better notion of that confused and confusing mysticism than can be gathered from many columns." From the Light of Home. " It would be a pity that the mass of readers should be repelled from this remarkable book by its title, which suggests dogmatic con- troversy or textual exposition ; for it is one of the most deeply inter- esting volumes of this generation. It is as much superior to " Ecce Homo " in power of statement, grasp of thought, and freshness of conception as that was to the Christologies of average writers. Here are the results of twenty years' faithful research and ripening scholar- ship. Probably it is the last, as it certainly is the best, book from the mind and heart that gave us ' Athanasia ' and ' Regeneration.' With no decrease of the vigor apparent in those earlier works, there is in this the same affluence of style, and a more comprehensive reach of thought. We earnestly commend it to our readers." From the Church and Stale. " No book of recent American theology is likely to win more notice from thoughtful readers than this handsome volume by Edmund H. Sears, of 551 pages. As a work of literary art, it has great merit, and its clear, rich, and vivid style carries in its flow great wealth of thought and learning with cumulative power to the end. " Many things may and will be said of this noble piece of thought and expression, but we choose to treat it now in its most obvious re- lation to our time, as a book for our age and country, and perhaps as preeminently indicating the mind of thoughtful and devout scholars of the Cambridge School. The writer reminds us often of Dr. Bush- nell, and, like him, is eager to mediate between the new rationalism and the Old Gospel, yet has more substance in his thought than the eloquent Hartford divine, and is less in danger of allowing the objec- tive reality of the Christian religion to evaporate into the volatile ether of his idealism. Mr. Sears, too, although he does not recognize duly the nature and power of the historical church, seems to come nearer to it than Dr. Bushnell, and he regards the being and mission, the death and resurrection of our Lord, more as central facts and powers of the kingdom of God with men, and less as having merely a subjective significance which is to be interpreted and applied by each individual. Both of them fall short of true catholicity in the estimate of church institutions, but Mr. Sears comes nearer the true catholic idea, and he has only to cany out what he says of the Incar- nation and Atonement and the Holy Spirit, to be a good Catholic Churchman of the liberal school." From the Literary World. " This is a very strong book — the work of a powerful and inde- pendent thinker ; and as an exposition of the Johannean theology, it has probably never been surpassed in acumen and thoroughness " " Not less fascinating than the ' Schonberg Cotta-Family.' " — Lawrence American. GUTENBERG, AND THE ART OF PRINTING. By EMILY C. PEARSON. A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE ART OF PRINTING FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY. Embellished with numerous interesting Plates, illustrating the progress of the art, and showing the steps of its advancement and improvement. The work gives authentic accounts of Ancient Books and their Materials — The First Press — Discovery of Cast Metal Type — The First Printed Page of the Bible — Modern Printing — Modes of Making Type — Type-set ting by Machinery — Stereotyping — Electrotyping — The Modern Press — Printing for the Blind, and the various discoveries and inventions, ancient and modern, by which the art has been brought to its present perfection. One very handsome volume, with elegant illuminated title, 300 pp. Price, $2.00. Sent post-paid to any address, on receipt of price, by NO YES, HOLMES, AND COMPANY, Publishers, 117 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. D^* For full Contents, etc., see inside. NOTICES. From the Literary World. " ' The Art of Printing.' — It is not a little remarkable that the popular knowledge touching an event of such transeendant importance as the invention of printing should be so vague and unsatisfactory. The general notion obtains that one Gutenberg, a German, about 1450, discovered a means of taking impressions from movable type ; but the particulars of the discovery are known to but few, and in the minds of many there is a doubt whether the honor of the invention belongs to Gutenberg, to Faust, or to Schoeffer. This book undertakes to settle this question, and to furnish all attainable information pertaining thereto. The author has wisely chosen to give her work the shape of an autobi- ography, for ' The Life of Gutenberg ' would attract many read- ers who would recoil from the prosy intimations of a ' History of Printing.' This autobiography is very pleasant reading ; the little love-romance which it embodies, agreeably relieves the somewhat sombre story of the inventor's trials and misfortunes. In the preparation of her work, the author has consulted the most trustworthy authorities, and has in no instance, we believe, sacri- ficed the truth of history in behalf of effect. " The progress in the art of printing, so far as Gutenberg was concerned with it ; what his partners and successors achieved, and the earliest history of printing in other lands, may be learned from the book under notice. The closing pages of this volume are occupied by a minute, accurate, and exceedingly interesting 3 account of printing as it is done to-day, when a press can throw off 20,000 to 30,000 impressions per hour. We confidently com- mend this account, as clear and comprehensive, to all who are curious as to the mechanical process of book and newspaper- making. The contrast between the old and the new, the begin- ning and — shall we say? the perfection of the art of printing, is very strikingly presented. The author has done her work well ; and hereafter there will be no excuse for the prevailing ignorance as to this interesting subject. Although her history is not ex- haustive, it informs us upon all essential points, and in the pa- thetic story of Gutenberg's life, reveals the birth and growth of the ' art preservative of arts,' in an impressive and agreeable man- ner. The volume is a beautiful specimen of book-making, printed on tinted paper, with an illuminated title-page, and profusely illustrated with cuts of old and new printing implements and machinery. Altogether, in contents and externals, it is very creditable to its publishers." From Samuel Burnham, Editor of the Congregational Quarterly, " In brief, the work is interesting, emphatically instructive, well-written, and on a fresh and important theme. The writer could scarcely have hit upon a topic more attractive. A popular work, embodying the main facts of the history of printing, has been greatly desired ; and in our opinion, this book meets that want. It has the rare merit of being entertaining as a story, while adhering closely to fact. It is greatly in its favor, that it has no rival in its subject." From Rev. H. M. Dexter, D. D., Editor of the Congregation- alist. "I have been greatly interested in the sheets of the volume, and wonder that no book of the sort has ever before been written. Surely it cannot fail to find a multitude of interested and instructed readers, who will rejoice with me that it has been put into a shape of beauty so fitting to such a subject." From C. Henry St. John, Assistant Editor ofZion's Herald. " ' Gutenburg, and the Art of Printing' is certainly a great sue- cess, and must prove as interesting, instructing, and attractive to the general reader as to the more scientific, or those in pursuit of curious information. While the printing and illustrating will meet with due appreciation, the labor bestowed on it never can. It is the handsomest book we have received for many a day, and worthy the fame of Riverside." From the Boston Evening Transcript. " « Gutenberg, and the Art of Printing/ is the title of a dainty and elegant i2mo, by Emily C. Pearson, to be published in a few days by Noyes, Holmes & Co. The beautiful title-page and the historical and other illustrations add to the attractions of the carefully prepared narrative of the chevalier and artisan who brought to light the ' art of arts.' Its descriptions of the past are not, however, the only valuable portions of the book. Added to and connected with the biography is a large amount of useful information for those not familiar with the working of the mate- rial instrumentalities which belong to the measureless influence of the press." From the Lawrence American. " We cordially welcome this entertaining and valuable work, which is not less fascinating than the ' Schonberg-Cotta Family.' A higher than romantic interest invests the story." " The whole story is admirably told One of the most charming books we have read for a long time." — Cleveland Leader. " Gutenberg was a hero, in his way, and his romantic story is admirably told."— The Pacific. " Clear, vivid, and accurate, greatly aided by the excellent illus- trations which form a marked attraction of the book." — Detroit Tribune. " What might be dull history is made to partake of the inter- esting nature of a novel." — N. H. Palladium. " Original and very attractive." — Plaindealer. " It is a wonderful tale, with the advantage of all being true. The whole work is interesting." — A". Y. Journal of Commerce. " The only book of the kind, and very attractive." — Rutland Independent. " An exquisite volume ; perfect in every appointment." — Northern Christian Advocate. " A clear account of the wonderful art, and very interesting." — Book Worm. " Reads like a graceful romance. A thoroughly attractive book." — Rural Nerv Yorker. "A very interesting volume." — Philadelphia Ledger. " The story of one of the world's great inventors, marked by striking excellencies." — Free Press. " Graceful, sprightly, effective. The whole book is exceedingly interesting, and will find a wide circle of readers." — Interior, Chicago. " A beautifully printed and illustrated history of ' the art pre- servative,' with much useful and attractively-presented informa- tion." — Alta Californian. 6 " A book of great interest." —Norwich Bulletin. " Cannot fail to please and instruct. In its subject it stands without a rival." — Orient. " Of wonderful interest. A desirable acquisition to any library." — City Item, Philadelphia. " Sounds like veritable romance, but has in it marvelous truth. It is worth one's while to read it." — Amer. Rural Home. " Many curious facts related in an agreeable manner." — North American, Philadelphia. " A most valuable book A history of a most won- derful man." — Nat. Te?np. Advocate. " Very instructive and entertaining." — M. Press, Albany. " It reads almost like a romance while it keeps closely to his- torical facts." — Journal of Chemistry. " The facts, as gracefully grouped in this volume, form a most pleasing story." — Amer. Churchman. " The best presentation that has yet been made of Gutenberg's work as an inventor, for popular reading." — Lib. Christian. "Full of romantic interest." — Albany Argus. " A valuable book, very readable, and will interest all classes." — Hartford Courant. " A very attractive volume." — San Francisco Bulletin. " It is curious that no such book as this has appeared in our language before. The author has told the romantic strange story in a very interesting way." — Windham Co. Transcript. " An elegant sample of the art it treats of. It is the only book of the kind, affording information interesting to every one." — Christian World. | DATE DUE jF£8 ' • • Demco, Inc. 38-293 1 1012 01006 9609 ,: m . ill