few, are the insane. destroy the reason. Much knowledge unsanctified will sometimes "An undevout astronomer is mad." Such a one was, perhaps, La Place. He studied nature faithfully and well. He probed its mysteries; but when the first impression of the Almighty was forced upon his mind, as it must have been, he failed to recognize and acknowledge it. He failed to adore it. From neglect, his adoration gradually expired, and he found himself deifying nature, admiring the laws without worshiping the Lawgiver, unraveling new mysteries which he himself in all their parts acknowledged incomprehensible, yet sublimely beautiful, without perceiving that there must be a wise and good Being to control the whole. Like the monomaniac, who passed his time among the ever-burning furnaces of Sheffield, and imagined that fire, which effected so much, must be a demon, and worshiped it, -not reflecting that it was all in the power of inan and directed by an external intelligence-he almost worshiped nature instead of nature's God. Fearful is the responsibility of the student; unless he exercise the heart as well as the intellect, destruction will be his reward. But scientific investigations have no dangerous peculiarity in this respect. Any one object, pursued solely and unremittingly without constant attendance to religious obligations, has a tendency to unhinge the mind and produce a species of monomania. It being then premised that the "laws of nature" are but the manifestations of the will of an unchangeable Being, and that all true philosophy recognizes the constant superintendence of this Being, whether manifested immediately or through a series of causes, we are prepared to examine the views of our author upon the cause of organization and life. They are introduced as follows: "In this work the existence of the vital force of physiologists—as a homogeneous and separate force-is uniformly denied. The progress of science shows plainly that living structures, far from being the product of one such homogeneous power, are rather the resultants of the action of a multitude of natural forces. Gravity, cohesion, elasticity, the agency of the imponderables, and all other powers which operate both on masses and atoms, are called into action, and hence it is that the very evolution of a living form depends on the condition that all these various agents conspire. There is no mystery in animated beings which time will not at last reveal. It is astonishing, that, in our days, the ancient system, which excludes all connection with natural philosophy and chemistry, and depends on the aid of a visionary force, should continue to exist; a system which, at the outset, ought to have been broken down by the most common considerations, such as those connected with the mechanical principles involved in the bony skeleton, the optical principles in the construction of the eye, or the hydraulic action of the valves of the heart."-Introduction, paragraph 3. The great error of philosophers has ever been an unwillingness to acknowledge their ignorance. Human knowledge is but a small, partially explored, and cultivated tract in infinite space, constantly enlarging, as was the "totus orbis terrarum" of the ancients, as daring adventurers sail into unknown seas. But the difficulty is, these adventurers are not contented to relate what they see and learn, but draw upon their own resources to complete the picture; and never did ancient traveler deviate more widely from the truth than some of these scientific voyagers. If the cause of phenomena was unknown, a term must be invented for that cause, and henceforth it must be considered as known. And what is still more, a high wall must be built, preventing all revisiting of that once explored region, and wo to the man who dares to doubt established opinion-the authority of ages trembles over him and threatens to bury him in its crumbling ruins. Hence the horror vacui, the quinta essentia of Aristotle, the vortices of Des Cartes, the oscillating ether and animal tubes of the materialist Hartley, and may we not add, the vital force of physiologists? If the term is to be used as an open acknowledgment of ignorance, it is convenient and well: but let it be understood that it is a mere phantom, and let it not for an instant brandish a weapon or assume a substance to prevent the free advancement of such as would explore still further the great question of the origin of life. The true system is the Baconian-to experiment and observeand this is the system of our author. He begins by examining carefully all those circumstances which affect the organization of living beings. "Organized beings and organized bodies spring forth in those positions only to which the rays of the sun have access. They are, therefore, limited to the atmosphere, the sea, and the surface of the earth. Periodical vicissitudes, which are observed both in vegetables and in animals, serve to show that this is not a mere fortuitous coincidence, but rather an intimate connection between the phenomena of life and the presence of the imponderables. When the sun is set, the leaves of plants no longer decompose the carbonic acid of the air, but a pause takes place in the activity of their functions, and they sink into a passive condition. The gaseous bodies brought from the ground by the action of the spongioles, percolate through the delicate tissues of the leaf, and escape away into the atmosphere. At night, also, in many flowers the petals fold themselves together, and, for a time, all active processes cease. It is, therefore, through an instinctive impulse, that comes over them during this period, that all animals, except such as take their prey by night, seek places of rest. Darkness, and silence, and repose, are all connected together."-Introduction, paragraph 5. The subject is pursued still further by a general yet philosophical examination of the effect of different climates upon the various tribes of plants and animals upon its surface. It becomes those who do not acknowledge that life is the result of the imponderable agents, light, heat, and electricity, to show why it does not appear except where these forces are exerted. Why is the organic character of the world graduated in undeviating conformity with the latitude and other influences which affect the climate? Can the "vital force" exist only where these agencies are found? Why is life confined to the limited range in temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees? But we must let the author speak for himself. "In this manner we might proceed to show how the existence of individuals and races is completely determined by external conditions. How, for the same reason that an individual dies, so, too, does a tribe become extinct. Pursuing these considerations, we might show how closely the development of the intellect itself is connected with them: we might compare the effect of climates in the torrid, the temperate, and the frigid zones, and show how history bears out the truth of these views. We might appeal to individual experience for the enervating effects of hot climates, or to the common understanding of men, as to the great control which atmospheric changes exercise not only on our intellectual powers, but even on our bodily well-being. It is within a narrow range of climate that great men have been born. In the earth's southern hemisphere, as yet, not one has appeared; and in the northern they come only within certain parallels of latitude. I am not speaking of that class of men who, in all ages and in every country, have risen to an ephemeral elevation, and have sunk again into their native insignificance so soon as the causes which have forced them from obscurity cease, but of that other class, of whom God has made but one in a century, and gives him a power of enchantment over his fellows, so that by a word, or even by a look, he can' electrify, and guide, and govern mankind."—Introduction, paragraph 26. Well is it said that the sunbeam is the chain of the lion. He never ventures beyond the parched clime of his appropriate place. So with man and all organized beings. Matter has its laws, or rather its character, which never changes. The spirit may seem to control it, but in its own sphere it is supreme; and so long as the soul is connected with its present gross material body, it is under a tyranny which cannot be escaped, the laws which regulate the movements of worlds. The conclusion of our author in the last paragraph of the Introduction appears philosophical and sound. We bespeak its careful examination. "What, then, are the final impressions left upon our minds by these general considerations? They teach us that life never occurs except in regions to which the imponderable agents can have access,-an observation which is equally true of vegetable and animal forms; that elementary organization, directly or indirectly, arises from the plastic energy of those all-pervading forces. Whether we consider the organic or inorganic world, all things around us are in incessant changeschanges which result from the fixed operation of invariable laws; that of the successive tribes of beings which have peopled our earth, each series may be regarded as expressing the general relation of all physical agents at the time of its existence, the brilliancy of the sun, the pressure of the air, and other such conditions; for we see that, between those conditions and the organization of the structures considered, there are fixed relations; that in the more highly complicated forms of beings mutations more readily take place, and in all time enters as an element; that, in the same way that whole races have disappeared from the face of the earth, and have become extinct, so, also, do individuals die and atoms change; that, whatever motion is accomplished, or whatever change is brought about, there is a consumption of material or expenditure of force; that, as the surface of the earth is continually remodeled by physical agents, so are the vicissitudes through which organized forms pass determined by physical powers, and bring about physical ends. The passage of a comet, never more to return, in a hyperbolic orbit past the sun, is a result of the same general law that keeps a planet revolving in repeated circles-the extinctions of races which have heretofore taken place, or which are going on before us, are not brought about by a direct intervention of supernumerary forces, but are the constant result of those which are always in action. If, moreover, our thoughts are directed to the relations which exist between climates and the character of races, the distribution of vegetables and animals, if we observe the antagonization of these great classes in the result of their vital processes, their position as respects the atmosphere, the control which astronomical events possess over everything, the action which currents in the air or currents in the sea exercise over the distribution of animated forms, and even over the well-being of man, we surely shall have but little difficulty in understanding that, as in the organic world, so, also, in the world of organization, these all-pervading forces, which natural philosophers and chemists recognize, are constantly employed."-Introduction. After having thus ably and philosophically stated and defined his theory, the author proceeds to relate and explain some simple and definite experiments which have led him to its adoption. He be gins on the very confines of life, where the organic and inorganic kingdoms are separated by an almost imperceptible line. The origin, the chemical nature, and the circumstances necessary for the production of the simplest organic substance, viz., that green flocculent matter which will invariably form in an open vessel of spring-water when exposed to sunlight, are rigidly investigated. This simplest of all vegetables, it is evident, derives its substance from the gases, carbonic acid, oxygen and nitrogen, with which water is usually saturated, and the power which effects the transfer of matter from the inorganic state to the organic, from the mineral to the vegetable, is light. There, however, arises a question, which, though it has reference to infinitesimals in magnitude, is of great importance. It is a question upon which the materialist and the immaterialist would probably differ; and yet, granting the materialist his own view, the non-existence of spirit would not absolutely follow. The question is, are these minute vegetables produced immediately from inorganic matter, or must we suppose the existence of germs, products of previous organization in the water, to be brought into action by the vivifying influence of the sun? In other words, is the creation of new vegetables and animals continually going on around us, or have we good reason to conclude that there is not one more species now on earth than there were when, at the termination of the sixth day, "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good?" That species have become extinct is an historical fact -are others, by the action of material agents, brought into being to take their places? If so, was any special or miraculous exertion of Almighty power necessary to originate man? It has been quite a custom among philosophers of a certain class to endow "plastic nature" with wonderful powers. If we may believe them, the creation of animalculæ by this power is of daily occurrence, and the progression from inferior to superior species, constant. Therefore, so far from crediting the account that man was created six thousand years ago as man, it is much more flattering to suppose that he is the perfection of some species of vermin that a hot sun brought into existence on the muddy margin of some pond, fifteen or twenty millions of centuries ago. But waiving this insuperable difficulty in the theory of progressive development, that no transmutation of species can be shown to have taken place, and that all the accumulated effects of centuries upon organized beings often disappear in one or two generations, when unnatural influences are removed, • See Lyell's Principles of Geology. First ed., pp. 500-526. |