S. Laing

“ GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ON THE VESTIGES. The heavens are wonderful, and the earth is wonderful, and man, who, by force of intellect, has sought to comprehend the immensity of one and unravel the formation of the other, is hardly less wonderful than either. Still the great mystery remains unriddled; our researches have brought us no nearer the beginning, and the first cause of all continues unapproachable and undefinable as ever. Instead of explaining physical creation, we begin with it ”

“ The rock upon rock of vast thickness, by which the earth's crust, through countless ages, has been formed, unquestionably constitutes a most extraordinary phenomenon of physical creation, but hardly so marvellous and incomprehensible as the beginning, progress, and end of the divers orders of marine and terrestrial beings that filled each world of life. It is to geologists, to PLAYFAIR, HUTTON, LYELL, BUCKLAND, SEDGWICK, OWEN, and other great names, native and foreign, to whom we are indebted for this singular revelation of Nature's works. ”

“ It rarely happens that speculative inquiries in England command much attention, and the Vestiges of Creation would have probably formed no exception, had it not been from the unusual ability with which the work has been executed. The subject investigated is one of vast, almost universal, interest; for everyone—the low, in common with the high in intellect—find enigmas in creation that they would gladly have unriddled, and promptly gather round the oracle who has boldly stepped forth to cut the knot of their perplexities. ”

“ Had the divine COSMOS been more fully dwelt upon and depicted—had the harmony, beauty, and beneficence of creation been more fully and exclusively displayed—we should have been more gratified; but we are thankful, in the main, for what we have received. An impulse has been given to popular inquiry, and a vast field for discussion opened, from which we can prospectively discern neither less love for man, nor reverence for God. ”

“ Thus, in the sublime chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we first find ourselves called upon to consider the globe which we inhabit as a child of the sun, elder than Venus and her younger brother Mercury, but posterior in date of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; next to regard our whole system as probably of recent formation in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. We must, however, be on our guard against supposing the earth as a recent globe in our ordinary conceptions of time. ”

“ But the time had arrived when it seemed expedient to relax the strictness of the investigative rule, and afford scope for a more systematic, if not speculative research. Science had made great acquisitions, and it seemed desirable, if only for experiment sake, to see what kind of FRANKENSTEIN would result from the architectural union of her scattered limbs. This formed the scope of the Vestiges of Creation; novelties were not propounded, only a portentous skeleton raised from the truths physical astronomy, geology, chemistry, physiology, and natural history had established. ”

“ To reduce to a system the acts of creation, or the development of the several forms of animal life, no more impeaches the authorship of creation, than to trace the laws by which the world is upheld, and its phenomena perpetually renewed. ”

“ Chemists have long commanded the power to resolve the seeds of animal and vegetable life into their elements; they have analysed them, and shown the exact weight and proportion of each constituent; but they never could put them together again, or, by any similar compound produce the primordial egg or organic germ, from which a living being would arise. A connecting link—a vital spark, or animating soul—is always wanting to complete the existence of the Prometheus of the laboratory. ”

“ CROSSE'S experiment, produced them, but only aided by the voltaic battery the development of the insects from their eggs. Such a mode of generation is contrary to all human experience, and can only be believed in on the strongest corroborative proof.
Neither by chemistry nor galvanism can man, we apprehend, be more than instrumental and co-operative, not originally and independently creative. In almost every form of life, whether animal or vegetable, art can multiply varieties,—can train, direct—but cannot form new species. This is the mockery of science. ”

“ Like the fanciful theories of the ancient philosophers, it seems only to involve a profitless topic of controversy, without solving natural phenomena. It does not unravel the mystery of the beginning, brings us no nearer to the first creative force. Like a good chemist, previous to analysis, the author first throws all matter into a state of solution; but granting him his fire-mist and nuclei in the midst, how or whence came this condition and arrangement of nature? ”

“ BUCKLAND conjectures, of ten or fifteen miles below the surface, and each may be considered a vast cemetery or graveyard, entombing the remains of ages long anterior to human creation. We, in fact, live upon a pile of worlds, and anticipating the future from past records and from changes still manifest from the shallowing soundings of neighbouring seas, it is not improbable that the existing scene of bustle may have heaped upon it as many superincumbent masses as the lowest of the rocks enclosing the vestiges of life. ”

“ We have proof demonstrative that many parts of Scotland, and that all England, formed, during many ages, the solid bottom of the sea. It may be true that the antagonist powers of nature during the human period have reached a kind of balance. But during all geological periods there have been such long intervals of repose, or of such gradual movements, that we may trace the history of the earth in the successive deposits formed in the waters of the sea." This is the great business of geology. ”

“ Supreme in intelligence, man, we firmly believe, is not less supremely blessed in the means of felicity, provided his real nature and position in the scheme of creation were understood, recognised, and carried out. ”

“ But though every animal has its primordial egg or germ, all germs are not identical. In the beginning of life there are other organic elements besides the ovum. Partly on direct proof and partly on good analogy, it may be inferred that these differ in different species—that each in the first stages of existence is bound by a different and immutable mode of development—and, if so, there can be no embryotic identity. ”

“ Is it not idle almost to speculate on the impenetrable secret of their origin when their very existence is undefinable—when their end, their glittering discs, and all but immeasurable distances are wholly unapproachable? Nor hardly less beyond our grasp is the commencement of organic existences. ”

“ He adopts the first interpretation of animal phenomena, namely, that there has been a transmutation of species, that the scale of creation has been gradually advancing in virtue of an inherent and organic law of development. Nature, he contends, began humbly; her first works were of simple form, which were gradually meliorated by circumstances favourable to improvement, and that everywhere animals and plants exhibit traces of a parallel advance of the physical conditions and the organic structure. ”

“ In each species a gradation of improvement, approximating from a lower to the next higher organism, is not perceptible; but each seems to have been made perfect at first, and most suited to the co-existent state of the earth. The earliest reptiles were not reptiles of inferior structure; nor the earliest fishes, birds, or beasts. They were adapted, as we now find them, to their precise sphere of existence, without progressive aptitude, preparatory to a higher and translated condition of being. Geology rather points to the extinction and degeneracy of species than their improvement ”

“ The remains and traces of plants and animals found in the succession of strata show that, while these operations were going on, the earth gradually became the theatre of organic being, simple forms appearing first, and more complicated afterwards. A time when there was no life is first seen. We then see life begin, and go on; but whole ages elapsed before man came to crown the work of nature. ”

“ It has always appeared to us that this conjecture is worthy of consideration, and, if found tenable, would reconcile many perplexities.
Upon subjects so obscure, and to which the human intellect has been only recently directed, it is not surprising that men of science have not arrived at uniformity of conclusion. Unable to reconcile phenomena with positive knowledge, there are names of no mean repute who would reserve certain domains of creation as the fields of special interventions. ”

“ Design and intelligence in the creation are left paramount as before, and our impression of the skill exercised, and the means employed, only transferred to another part of the work. He who produced the primordial condition the author supposes, who filled space with such a mist, composed of such materials, subjected to such laws, such constitution, that sun, moon, and stars necessarily resulted from them, appears omnipotent as ever. But it does not advance inquiry, nor assist us in explaining the wonders we contemplate in our own globe. ”

“ It is their unwearied research that has opened to us the surprising spectacle we have attempted briefly to describe of the diversified groups of species which have, in the course of the earth's history, succeeded each other at vast intervals of time; one set of animals and plants wholly or partly disappearing from the face of our planet, and others, which apparently did not before exist, becoming the only or predominant occupants of the globe. ”

“ The mind cannot form an exact notion of so vast an expanse, but an idea of it may be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest racehorse ever known had began to traverse it at full speed at the time of the birth of MOSES, he would only yet have accomplished half his journey. Vast as is the solar system, it is only one of an infinity of others which may be still more extensive. ”

“ It may here be inquired if geologists are entitled to set so high a value as they do upon the point in the scale of organic life which is marked by the upper forms of the mollusca. It will afterwards be seen that this is a low point compared with the whole scale, if we are to take as a criterion that parity of development which has been observed in the embryo of one of the higher animals. The human embryo passes through the whole space representing the invertebrate animals in the first month, a mere fraction of its course. ”

“ Nature's greatest phenomena are the celestial spaces and the bodies that fill them; our own planet and its living occupants. Upon each of these, their commencement and subsequent vicissitudes, the Vestiges of Creation have propounded an hypothesis, but one mystery is only sought to be explained by another still more mysterious. For the fiat of a Creator chemical affinities and mechanical laws have been substituted, but aided by these the author has failed to produce a world such as we find it. ”

“ Whether matter or spirit has been the world's architect, the astounding miracle of its creation is not the less. What does it import whether it resulted direct from the fiat of Omnipotence, or intermediately from the properties He impressed, or the law of development He prescribed? He who gave the law, who infused the energies by which Chaos was transmuted into an organized universe, remains great and inscrutable as ever.
It is time, however, that we entered upon a more detailed and closer investigation of the Vestiges of Creation. ”

“ Without adding to our positive knowledge by a single new discovery, demonstration, or experiment, they have excited more interest than the Principia of NEWTON. From this popular success, if good do not accrue, no great evil need be anticipated. Hypotheses are most hurtful when accredited by an irreversible authority—when erected into a tribunal without appeal, they become the arbitrary dictator in lieu of the handmaid of science. ”

“ The animal remains of this era are not numerous in comparison with those that go before or follow. Contrary to what the author of the Vestiges supposes (p. 111) , insects were already buzzing in the air; there were, however, no crawling reptiles on the ground, and it is a doubtful point whether birds cheered the ancient forests with their song. But fishes reached their most perfect organic type. They were the lords of creation, and had a structure in conformity with their high office. Since then the class has increased in its species, but has degenerated to a less noble type. ”

“ When the earth was a slimy bed, what but the lowest forms of life—the mollusca, and other soft animals, without bony structure—could possibly live in or occupy it? During the carboniferous era, when the earth was enveloped in an atmosphere of hydrogen, vegetation might thrive; but man, and animals like him, dependent on vital air, could not exist; nor are remains of them found in this epoch of the globe's vicissitudes. ”

“ Discussion and invention, in place of being stimulated, are then fettered by them; the human mind is enslaved, as Europe was for centuries by the Physics of ARISTOTLE, and still continues to be in some of the ancient retreats and conservatories of exploded errors. But these form the exceptions, not the rule of the age, which is free and equal inquiry. ”

“ We have no means of judging of the seniority of systems; but it is reasonable to suppose that among the many, some are older than ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for the probability of the comparative youth of our system, altogether apart from human traditions and the geognostic appearances of the surface of our planet. ”

“ Easier, and quite as satisfactory, it seems to believe, as we have been taught to believe, that the celestial spheres were at once perfect and entire, projected into space from the hands of the maker, than that they were elaborated out of luminous vapour by gravity and condensation. Hopeless inquiry is thus foreclosed, an inquisition that cannot be answered, silenced, and removed out of the pale of discussion.
It is not from any attribute of the Deity being impugned that the hypothesis is objectionable. ”

“ Coal is altogether composed of the matter of a terrestrial vegetation, transmuted by putrefaction of a peculiar kind beneath the surface of water, and in the absence of air. From examples seen at the present day at the mouths of such rivers as the Mississippi, which traverse extensive sylvan regions, it is thought that the vegetation, the rubbish of decayed forests, was carried by rivers into estuaries, and there accumulated into vast natural rafts, until it sank to the bottom, where an overlayer of sand or mud would prepare it for becoming a stratum of coal. ”

“ ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. Science has mastered many perplexities, but is almost powerless as ever in generation. All that lives, and still more all that moves, must have a pre-existing germ formed independently of the created being, but which is essential to its existence, and fixes the type of organization. The old adage—omne animal ab ovo—may be taken as generally true. ”

“ In the third place the evidence seems to preponderate in favour of permanency of species. There can be no doubt that both plants and animals may, by the influence of breeding, and of external agents operating upon their constitution, be greatly modified, so as to give rise to varieties and races different from what before existed. But there are limits to such modifications, as in the different kind and breed of dogs; and no organized beings can, by the mere working of natural causes, be made to pass from the type of one species to that of another. ”

“ BAILEY, of Sheffield, though little known, possesses the fine reasoning powers, intellectual grasp, independence of research, abstract analysis, and attic style, that would qualify him to produce the Vestiges of Creation, though we never heard that he is a great natural philosopher. But, as just hinted, deep science is not evinced by the Vestiges, only an able, systematic, and tasteful arrangement of its distant and recent advances. ”

“ ANIMAL AFFINITIES, INSTINCT, AND REASON. The scheme of the Vestiges is uniformly and consistently worked out; all phenomena are resolved into gravitation and development—the first as the law of inorganic, the latter of organic matter. By the last, however, no new principle is revealed, only a new phrase devised, by the amplified application of which the author's entire system may be said to be begged rather than proved; since development is used in a sense implying an indefinite power of animate and inanimate creation ”

“ In the south of France it is said that two or three secondary species struggle into the tertiary strata; but they form a rare and evanescent exception to the general rule. Organic nature at this stage seems formed on a new pattern—plants as well as animals are changed. It might seem as if we had been transported to a new planet; for neither in the arrangement of the genera and the species, nor in their affinities with the types of a pre-existing world, is there any approach to a connected chain of organic development. ”

“ We have no credible evidence that species have changed, or are changeable by the utmost efforts of art or favouring conditions; all we can effect is to improve them within definite limits, but not alter their characteristic types; and we have certain proof that neither man nor the animal nearly next to him in organization, has changed either in habits, disposition, form, or osseus structure during the last 3,000 years. ”

“ It is that "the formation of bodies in space is still in progress." What may be doing in the nebulæ, in the region scarcely within reach of telescopic vision, in what may be considered the yet uninclosed and commonable waste of the universe, is a subject, we suspect, of much obscurity, and respecting which no precise intelligence has been received; but limiting attention to the solar system, which is nearer home and more within cognizance, the work seems finished, perfect, and unchangeable, and, like the Great Architect, made to endure for ever. ”

“ Our sun is supposed to be a star belonging to a constellation of stars, each of which has its accompaniment of revolving planets; and the constellation itself with similar constellations to form revolving clusters round some mightier centre of attraction; and so on, each astral combination increasing in number, magnitude, and complexity, till the mind is utterly lost in the vain effort to grasp the limitless arrangement.
Of the stars astronomers can hardly be said to know anything with certainty. ”