AN EXPOSITORY OUTLINE

OF THE

"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION;"

WITH A COMPREHENSIVE AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ARGUMENTS BY WHICH THEEXTRAORDINARY HYPOTHESES OF THE AUTHOR ARE SUPPORTED AND HAVE BEENIMPUGNED, WITH THEIR BEARING UPON THE RELIGIOUS AND MORAL INTERESTS OFTHE COMMUNITY. 

WITH A NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR'S

"EXPLANATIONS:"

A SEQUEL TO THE VESTIGES. 

 * * * * *

_Originally printed in a Supplement of_ THE ATLAS _Newspaper of August30 and December 20, 1845. _

 * * * * *

LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. J. VINCENT, OXFORD; G. ANDREWS, DURHAM; J. TEPPELL, NORWICH; BRODIE AND CO. , SALISBURY. A. ANDC. BLACK, EDINBURGH; D. ROBERTSON, GLASGOW; A. BROWN AND CO. , ABERDEEN. W. CURRY, JUN. , AND CO. , DUBLIN. 

1846. 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

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The following tractate first appeared in the form of a literary reviewin a supplement of the ATLAS; but two impressions of that journal havingbeen long since exhausted, and inquiries still continuing numerous andurgent, the proprietor has granted permission for the article to bereprinted in a separate, more convenient, and perhaps enduring vehiclethan that of a newspaper. 

Few works of a scientific import have been published that so promptlyand deeply fixed public attention as the _Vestiges of Creation_, orelicited more numerous replies and sharper critical analysis anddisquisition. Upon so vast a question as the evolution of universalcreation differences of opinion were natural and unavoidable. Many havedisputed the accuracy of some of the author's facts, and the sequenceand validity of his inductive inferences; but few can withhold from himthe praise of a patient and intrepid spirit of inquiry, much occasionaleloquence, and very considerable powers of analysis, systematicinduction, arrangement and combination. 

In what follows the leading objects kept in view have been--first, anexpository outline of the author's facts and argument; next, of thechief reasons by which they have been impugned by Professor SEDGWICK, Professor WHEWELL, Mr. BOSANQUET, and others who have entered the listsof controversy. These arrayed, the concluding purpose fitly followed ofa brief exhibition of the relative strength of the main points in issue, with their bearing on the moral and religious interests of thecommunity. 

It is the fourth and latest edition that has been submitted toinvestigation. In this impression the author has introduced severalcorrections and alterations, without, however, any infringement ormitigation of its original scope and character. More recently appearedhis "Explanations, " a Sequel to the "Vestiges of the Natural History ofCreation;" in which the author endeavours to elucidate and strengthenhis former position. This had become necessary in consequence of thenumber of his opponents, and the inquiry and discussion to which theoriginal publication had given rise. Of this, also, a lengthened reviewwas given in the ATLAS, which has been included; so that the reader willnow have before him a succinct outline of a novel and interesting topicof philosophical investigation. 

In the present reprint a few corrections have been made, and theillustrative table at page 34, and some other additions, introduced. 

_London, January_ 1, 1846. 

AN EXPOSITORY OUTLINE

OF THE

"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. "

It rarely happens that speculative inquiries in England command muchattention, and the _Vestiges of Creation_ would have probably formed noexception, had it not been from the unusual ability with which the workhas been executed. The subject investigated is one of vast, almostuniversal, interest; for everyone--the low, in common with the high inintellect--find enigmas in creation that they would gladly haveunriddled, and promptly gather round the oracle who has boldly steppedforth to cut the knot of their perplexities. The first impression made, too, is favourable. No very striking originality, eloquence, or genius, is displayed; yet there is ingenuity; and though the author betrays thezeal of an advocate, desirous of leading to a determinate and _material_conclusion, his address, like that of the apostle of temperance, ismostly mild and equable, with occasionally a little gentlemanly fervourto give animation to his discourse. His style is mostly felicitous, sometimes beautiful, lucid, precise, and elevated. In tone and manner ofexecution, in quiet steadiness of purpose, in the firm, intrepid spiritwith which truth, or that which is conceived to be true, is followed, regardless of startling presentments, the _Vestiges_ call to mind the_Mecanique Celeste_, or _Systčme du Monde_. In caution, as in science, the author is immeasurably inferior to LAPLACE; but in magnitude andboldness of design he transcends the illustrious Frenchman. LAPLACEsought no more than to subject the celestial movements to the formulasof analysis, and reconcile to common observation terrestrialappearances; but our author is far more ambitious--more venturesome inaim--which is nothing less than to lift the veil of ISIS, and solve thephenomena of universal nature. With what success remains to beconsidered. That great skill and cleverness, that a very superiormastery is evinced, we have conceded, and, we will also add, great showof fairness in treatment and conclusion. 

No partial opening is made; the great design, in all its extent, ismanfully grappled with. The universe is first surveyed, next the mysteryof its origin. After ranging through sidereal space, examining thebodies found there, their arrangement, formation, and evolution, theauthor selects our own planet for especial interrogation. He disembowelsit, scrutinizing the internal evidences of its structure and history, and thence infers the causes of past vicissitudes, existing relations, and appearances. These disposed of, the surface is explored, thephenomena of animal and vegetable existence contemplated, and thesources of vital action, sexual differences, and diversities of speciesassigned. Man, as the supreme head and last work of progressivecreation, challenges a distinct consideration; his history and mentalconstitution are investigated, and the relation in which a sublimereason stands to the instinct of brutes discriminated. The end andpurpose of all appropriately form the concluding theme, which finished, the curtain drops, and the last sounds heard are that the name of theGreat Unknown will probably never be revealed; that "praise will elicitno response, " nor any "word of censure" be parried or deprecated. 

"Give me, " exclaimed ARCHIMEDES, "a fulcrum, and I will raise theearth. " "Give me, " says the author of the _Vestiges_, "gravitation anddevelopment, and I will create a universe. " ALEXANDER'S ambition was toconquer a world, our author's is to create one. But he is wrong insaying that his is the "first attempt to connect the natural sciencesinto a history of creation, and thence to eliminate a view of nature asone grand system of causation. " The attempt has been often made, bututterly failed; its results have been found valueless, hurtful--to haveoccupied without enlarging the intellect, and the very effort has longbeen discountenanced. Great advances, however, have been made in sciencesince system-making began to be discredited; nature has beenperseveringly ransacked in all her domains, and many extraordinarysecrets drawn from her laboratory. Astronomy and geology, chemistry andelectricity, have greatly extended the bounds of knowledge; still, weapprehend, we are not yet sufficiently armed with facts to resolve intoone consistent whole her infinite variety. 

Efforts at generalization, however, and the systematic arrangement ofnatural phenomena, are seldom wholly fruitless. If false, they tend toprovoke discussion--to lead to active thought and useful research. Asolitary truth, though new and useful, rarely obtains higher distinctionthan to be quietly placed on the rolls of science, while a boldspeculation, traversing the whole field of creation, and smoothing allits difficulties, satisfies for the moment, and fixes general attention. Of this the _Vestiges of Creation_ are an example. Without adding to ourpositive knowledge by a single new discovery, demonstration, orexperiment, they have excited more interest than the _Principia_ ofNEWTON. From this popular success, if good do not accrue, no great evilneed be anticipated. Hypotheses are most hurtful when accredited by anirreversible authority--when erected into a tribunal without appeal, they become the arbitrary dictator in lieu of the handmaid of science. Discussion and invention, in place of being stimulated, are thenfettered by them; the human mind is enslaved, as Europe was forcenturies by the _Physics_ of ARISTOTLE, and still continues to be insome of the ancient retreats and conservatories of exploded errors. Butthese form the exceptions, not the rule of the age, which is free andequal inquiry. Errors have ceased to have prescriptive immunities; andmere conjectures, however sanctioned or plausible, if inconsistent withscience--with the ascertained facts of experiment and observation, arespeedily passed into the region of dreams and chimeras. 

Whether this will be the fate of our author remains to be proved. Themoment selected for his appearance has at least been well chosen. The_Vestiges_ have the air of novelty, a long time having elapsed since anyone had the hardihood to propound a new system of Nature. In common withmost manifestations of our time, his effort exhibits a markedimprovement on the crudities of his predecessors in the same line ofarchitectural ambition. Science has been called to his aid, and thepatient ingenuity with which he has sought to make the latestdiscoveries subservient to his purpose challenges admiration, if notacquiescence. Some of our contemporaries have been warmed into almosttheological aversion by the boldness of his conclusions, but we seelittle cause for fear, and none for bitterness or apprehension. Moreclosely Nature is investigated and deeper the impression will become ofher majesty and might. Unlike earthly greatnesses, she loses nopower--no grandeur--no fascination--no prestige, by familiarity. Thegreatest philosophers will always rank among her greatest admirers andmost devout and fervent worshippers. 

Had our author proved all he has assumed our faith would not belessened, nor our wonder diminished. Whether matter or spirit has beenthe world's architect, the astounding miracle of its creation is not theless. What does it import whether it resulted direct from the fiat ofOmnipotence, or intermediately from the properties He impressed, or thelaw of development He prescribed? He who gave the law, who infused theenergies 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 closerinvestigation of the _Vestiges of Creation_. Our purpose is not hastily, and without examination, to deprecate, deny, or controvert; butpatiently, and without prejudice, to inquire, to submit faithfully andintelligibly the outlines of a remarkable treatise; describe briefly itsscope and bearing, the arguments by which they are supported, and thecounter reasons by which they appear to be wholly or partially impugned. Our readers will thus be enabled to appreciate the merits of acontroversy, the most comprehensive and interesting that for alengthened period has occupied the attention of the scientific andintellectual world. 

For greater clearness of exposition we shall endeavour to follow theorder observed by the author in the division and treatment of hissubjects, commencing first with the

BODIES OF SPACE. 

The author opens his subject with a brief but luminous outline of thearrangement and formation of the astral and planetary systems of theheavens. He first describes the solar system, of which our earth is amember, consisting of the sun, planets, and satellites with the lessintelligible orbs termed comets, and taking as the uttermost bounds ofthis system the orbit of Uranus, it occupies a portion of space not lessthan three thousand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. The mindcannot form an exact notion of so vast an expanse, but an idea of it maybe obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest racehorse ever knownhad began to traverse it at full speed at the time of the birth ofMOSES, he would only yet have accomplished half his journey. Vast as isthe solar system, it is only one of an infinity of others which may bestill more extensive. Our sun is supposed to be a star belonging to aconstellation of stars, each of which has its accompaniment of revolvingplanets; and the constellation itself with similar constellations toform revolving clusters round some mightier centre of attraction; and soon, each astral combination increasing in number, magnitude, andcomplexity, till the mind is utterly lost in the vain effort to graspthe limitless arrangement. 

Of the stars astronomers can hardly be said to know anything withcertainty. Sirius, which is the most lustrous, was long supposed to bethe nearest and most within the reach of observation, but all attemptsto calculate the distance of that luminary have proved futile. Of itsinconceivable remoteness some notion may be formed by the fact, that thediameter of the earth's annual orbit, if viewed from it, would dwindleinto an invisible point. This is what is meant by the stars not having, like the planets, a _parallax_; that is, the earths' orbit, as seen fromthem, does not subtend a measurable angle. With two other stars, however, astronomers have unexpectedly and recently been more fortunatethan with Sirius, and have been able to calculate their distances fromthe earth. The celebrated BESSEL, and soon afterwards, the late Mr. HENDERSON, astronomer royal for Scotland, were the first to surmount thedifficulty that had baffled the telescopic resources of the HERSCHELS. BESSEL detected a parallax of one-third of a second in the star 61Cygni, and in the constellation of the Centaur HENDERSON found anotherstar whose parallax amounted to one second. Of the million of fixedglittering points that adorn the sky, these are the only two whosedistances have been calculated, and to express them, miles, leagues, ororbits seems inadequate. Light, whose speed is known to be 192, 000 milesper second, would be three years in reaching our earth from the star ofHENDERSON; and starting from BESSEL'S star and moving at the same rateit could only reach us in ten years. These are the nearest stars, butthere are others whose distances are immeasurably greater, and whoselight, though starting from them at the beginning of creation, may nothave reached our globe!

The stars visible to the eye are about 3, 000, but the number increaseswith every increase of telescopic power, and may be said to beinnumerable. They are not of uniform lustre or form, but vary in figureand brightness. Some of them have a _nebulous_ or cloudy appearance; andthere are entire clusters with this dusky aspect, mostly pervaded, however, with luminous points of more brilliant hue. In the outer fieldsof astral space Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL observed a multitude of nebulę, oneor two of which may be seen by the naked eye. All of them, when seen byinstruments of low power, look like masses of luminous vapour; but someof them had brighter spots, suggesting to Sir WILLIAM the idea of acondensation of the nebulous matter round one or more centres. But whenthese luminous masses are examined by more powerful instruments many ofthem lose their cloudy form, and are resolved into shining points, "likespangles of diamond dust. " It is in this way several nebulę have yieldedto the gigantic reflector of Lord ROSSE, and others with still greateroptical resources may follow. This brings us to the first questionableand controversial portion of the _Vestiges_; namely, --the

NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 

It is among the gaseous bodies just described, in the outer boundary ofNature, which neither telescope nor geometry can well reach, thatspeculation has laid its _venue_, and commenced its aerial castles. LAPLACE was the first to suggest the nebular hypothesis, which he didwith great diffidence, not as a theory proved, or hardly likely, but asa mathematical possibility or illustration. His range of creation, moreover, was not so vast as that of our author, which assumes tocompass the entire universe, but was limited to the evolution of thesolar system. The mode in which this might be evolved, LAPLACE thusexplains:--

He conjectures that in the original condition of the solar system thesun revolved upon his axis, surrounded by an atmosphere which, in virtueof an excessive heat, extended far beyond the orbits of all the planets, the planets as yet having no existence. The heat gradually diminished, and as the solar atmosphere contracted by cooling, the rapidity of itsrotation increased by the laws of rotatory motion, and an exterior zoneof vapour was detached from the rest, the central attraction being nolonger able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. The zone ofvapour might in some cases retain its form, as we still see in Saturn'sring; but more usually the ring of vapour would break into severalmasses, and these would generally coalesce into one mass, which wouldrevolve about the sun. Such portions of the solar atmosphere abandonedsuccessively at different distances, would form planets in the state ofvapour. These masses of vapour, it appears from mechanical laws, wouldhave each its rotatory motion, and as the cooling of the vapour stillwent on, would each produce a planet that might have satellites andrings formed from the planet, in the same manner as the planets wereformed from the atmosphere of the sun. 

All the known motions of the solar system are consistent andreconcileable with this theory of LAPLACE, and upon it the author of the_Vestiges_ has enlarged and founded his wider scheme of physicalcreation. He supposes the void of nature to have been originally filledwith a universal FIRE MIST (p. 30), out of which all the celestial orbswere made and put in motion. How this mist was put in activity, andresolved into the luminous and revolving bodies that we now see, and oneof which we inhabit is the first urgent perplexity to surmount in theconjecture. It is manifest that if a mist filled the entire region ofspace, a mist it must for ever remain, unless acted upon by some causeadequate to give it new action and arrangement. No sun, no stars orplanets could spontaneously emanate from an inert vapour any more thanfrom nothing. To meet this, his first difficulty, the author supposesthat there were certain _nuclei_, or centres of greater condensation, analogous to those still remarked in the nebulę of the heavens, and thatthese nuclei, by their superior attractive force, consolidated intospheres the gaseous matter around them:--

 "Of nebulous matter, " says he, "in its original state we know too little to enable us to suggest _how nuclei should be established in it_. But supposing that from a _peculiarity_ in the constitution nuclei are formed, we know very well how, by the power of gravitation, the process of an aggregation of the neighbouring matter to these nuclei should proceed until masses more or less solid should be detached from the rest. It is a _well-known law in physics, that when fluid matter collects towards, or meets in a centre, it establishes a rotatory motion_. See minor results of this law in the whirlpool and the whirlwind--nay, on so humble a scale as the water sinking through the aperture of a funnel. It thus becomes certain, that when we arrive at the stage of a nebulous star we have a rotation on its axis commenced. "

Up to this, however, the author has proved nothing. The existence of thefire-mist and nuclei are assumptions only, and the way by which he triesto account for rotatory motion is clearly erroneous. The aggregation ofmatter round the nuclei by gravitation would have no such tendency; nomore than a perfect balance would of itself have a tendency to moveabout its fulcrum, or a falling stone to deviate from its verticalcourse. Gravitation would indeed compress the particles of matter, butits tendency and entire action is towards the nucleus; it compressesthem no more on one side of the line of their direction to the centre offorce than on any other side; and hence no _lateral_ or _rotatorymotion_ would ensue. Rotation, therefore, is yet unaccounted for; thoughthe author says _it is a well-known law in physics_ that when fluidmatter collects towards, or meets in a centre, it establishes a rotatorymotion; and then for illustration refers to a whirlwind or whirlpool. Nosuch effect would follow the conditions stated, and an entire ignoranceis betrayed of the laws of mechanical philosophy. In the whirlpool andthe whirlwind the gyration is caused by the fluid passing, not _to_ thecentre, but _through_ it and away from it; in the whirlpool downwardsthrough the place of exit, in the whirlwind upwards to where the vacuumhas caused the rapid aggregation. 

LAPLACE was too able a mathematician to commit these elementaryblunders; he did not assume to account for rotation by inapplicablelaws, but took for granted that the sun revolved upon its axis, andthence communicated a corresponding motion to the bodies thrown from itssurface. But our author has sought to advance beyond his teacher, and inthis way has shown his ignorance of physics by an egregious mistake. Atthis point we might stop, without following the ulterior steps by whichthe solar system is made to evolve out of heated vapour. Having gotrotation, though by an impossible process, the author falls into theillustration already given of the theory of LAPLACE. The rotation ofeach nucleus or sun round its axis produces centrifugal force; thatforce, by refrigeration, increases beyond the centripetal force ofgravity; in consequence rings are formed and detached from the surface, whose unequal coherence of parts mostly causes them to break intoseparate masses or planets, partaking of the motion of the bodies fromwhich they have been separated, and these primaries in their turnbecoming centres of gravitation and centrifugal force, throw off theirsecondaries, or _moons_. 

In this way the solar system and other systems upon a similar plan ofarrangement, it is conjectured, may have been formed. According to theauthor the generative process is still in progress, and new worlds arein course of being thrown off from new suns in the confines of creation. These nebulous stars on the outer bounds of space, of varying forms andbrightness, are supposed to be the centres of new systems in differentstages of development, like children of various ages and growth in anumerous family. This is the author's own illustration (p. 20), andafter giving it he proceeds:--

 "Precisely thus, seeing in our astral system many thousands of worlds in all stages of formation, from the most rudimental to that immediately preceding the present condition of those we deem perfect, it is unavoidable to conclude that all the perfect have gone through the various stages which we see in the rudimental. This leads us at once to the conclusion that the whole of our firmament was at one time a diffused mass of nebulous matter, extending through the space which it still occupies. So also, of _course_, must have been the other astral systems. Indeed, we must presume the whole to have been originally in one connected mass, the astral systems being only the first division into parts, and solar systems the second. 

 "The first idea which all this impresses upon us is, that the formation of bodies in space is _still and at present in progress_. We live at a time when many have been formed, and many are still forming. Our own solar system is to be regarded as completed, supposing its perfection to consist in the formation of a series of planets, for there are mathematical reasons for concluding that Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, which can, according to the laws of the system, exist. But there are other solar systems within our astral systems, which are as yet in a less advanced state, and even some quantities of nebulous matter which have scarcely begun to advance towards the stellar form. On the other hand, there are vast numbers of stars which have all the appearance of being fully formed systems, if we are to judge from the complete and definite appearance which they present to our vision through the telescope. 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. This consists in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused around the sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately spheroidal shape. This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards in the line of the sun's path, and which bears the name of the Zodiacal Light, has been thought a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating matter of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the comparative recentness of the principal events of our cosmogony. _Supposing the surmise and inference_ to be correct, and they may be held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might with the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder born of Heaven, but one whose various phenomena, physical and moral, as yet lay undeveloped, while myriads of others were fully fashioned, and in complete arrangement. 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. From evidence afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it cannot be presumed to be less than many hundreds of centuries old. How much older Uranus may be, no one can tell, far less how much more aged may be many of the stars of our firmament, or the stars of other firmaments, than ours. "

All this is ingenious and fluently expressed. The author has an easy wayof surmounting his difficulties by the use of such little auxiliaryphrases, as "of course, " "it may be surmised, " "it is reasonable tosuppose, " and so on; which, though trifling in themselves, help him intheir connecting inferences through many embarrassing perplexities. Buthis hypothesis is yet unproved; his fire-mist is only a conjecture; hisnuclei, scattered like so many eggs in space out of which future sunsand worlds are in process of incubation, is of the same description, androtation, the first step in his process of creation, would not ensueunder the conditions he has assigned. Without dwelling on theseshortcomings, we shall terminate this portion of the author's inquirywith a few general strictures. First, on its inconsistency with what weknow of the solar system; and, secondly, on its inadequacy to explainthe facts of which we are cognizant on our own globe. 

In the first place, for the hypothesis to be applicable to our system, it is requisite that the primary and secondary bodies should revolve, both in their orbits and round their axes, in one direction, and nearlyin one plane. Most of the bodies of the system observe these laws, theirorbits are nearly circular, nearly in the plane of the original equatorof the solar rotation, and in the direction of that rotation. But thereare exceptions; the comets, which intersect the equatorial plane inevery angle of direction form one, and the most distant of the planetsforms another. The satellites of Uranus are retrograde. They move fromeast to west in orbits highly inclined to that of their primary, and onboth accounts are exceptions to the order of the other secondary bodies. Our author is so perplexed by this inconsistency that he first doubtsthe fact, and next tries to explain it by alleging that "it may be owingto a _bouleversement_ of the primary. " What is meant by the_bouleversement_ of a planet none of his critics seem to apprehend, nordo we. But that the moons of Uranus are contrariwise to those of theother planets, Sir JOHN HERSCHEL has indubitably established; so thatthe author at any rate upon this point has sustained a bouleversement. 

Our own moon forms a third exception to his theory. According to hissystem, this satellite is a slip or graft from our planet, and inconstitution, it might be inferred, would partake of the elements of theparent. But the fact is otherwise. The moon has no atmosphere, no seas, or rivers, nor any water, and of course totally unfit for humaninhabitants, or organic life of any kind. It must, then, have had adifferent origin, or be in some earlier stage of development than thatthrough which our earth has passed. 

Leaving these exceptions, we may next inquire into the relevant purposesof the nebular hypothesis, supposing its assumptions acquiesced in. Likethe fanciful theories of the ancient philosophers, it seems only toinvolve a profitless topic of controversy, without solving naturalphenomena. It does not unravel the mystery of the beginning, brings usno nearer to the first creative force. Like a good chemist, previous toanalysis, the author first throws all matter into a state of solution;but granting him his fire-mist and nuclei in the midst, how or whencecame this condition and arrangement of nature? What was its pre-existingstate? or, if that be answered, how or whence was that preceding stateeduced, for it, too, must have had one prior to it? So that the mindmakes no advances by such inquiries, is lost in a maze that can have noend, because it has no beginning; and, like Noah's messenger, for wantof a resting place, is compelled to return to the first starting point. Easier, and quite as satisfactory, it seems to believe, as we have beentaught to believe, that the celestial spheres were at once perfect andentire, projected into space from the hands of the maker, than that theywere elaborated out of luminous vapour by gravity and condensation. Hopeless inquiry is thus foreclosed, an inquisition that cannot beanswered, silenced, and removed out of the pale of discussion. 

It is not from any attribute of the Deity being impugned that thehypothesis is objectionable. Design and intelligence in the creation areleft paramount as before, and our impression of the skill exercised, andthe means employed, only transferred to another part of the work. He whoproduced the primordial condition the author supposes, who filled spacewith such a mist, composed of such materials, subjected to such laws, such constitution, that sun, moon, and stars necessarily resulted fromthem, appears omnipotent as ever. But it does not advance inquiry, norassist us in explaining the wonders we contemplate in our own globe. Suppose a planet formed by the author's process, what kind of a bodywould it be? Something, as Professor WHEWELL suggests, resembling alarge meteoric stone. How after wards came this unformed mass to be likeour earth, to be covered with motion and organization, with life andgeneral felicity? What primitive cause stocked it with plants andanimals, and produced all the surprising and subtle contrivances whichwe find in their structure, all the wide and profound mutual dependencewhich we trace in their economy? Is it possible to conceive, as the_Vestiges_ inculcate, that man, with his sentiment and intellect, hispowers and passions, his will and conscience, were also produced as theultimate result of vapourous condensation?

One more conjecture of the author, in this division of his subject, weshall only notice. It is that "the formation of bodies in space _isstill in progress_. " What may be doing in the nebulę, in the regionscarcely within reach of telescopic vision, in what may be consideredthe yet uninclosed and commonable waste of the universe, is a subject, we suspect, of much obscurity, and respecting which no preciseintelligence has been received; but limiting attention to the solarsystem, which is nearer home and more within cognizance, the work seemsfinished, perfect, and unchangeable, and, like the Great Architect, madeto endure for ever. This was the conclusion of LAPLACE; he proved thatthe state of our system is _stable_; that is, the ellipsis the planetsdescribe will always remain nearly circular, and the axis of revolutionof the earth will never deviate much from its present position. He alsogave a mathematical proof that this stability is not accidental, but theresult of design, of an arrangement by which the planets all move in thesame direction, in orbits of small eccentricity and slightly inclined toeach other. Reasoning from analogy, as the author of the _Vestiges_ isprone to do--extending our views from our solar system to othersystems--other suns and revolving planets--it is fair to conclude thatthey are not less perfect in arrangement--subject to like conditions ofpermanency, and alike exempt from mutation, decay, collision, orextinction. 

Descending from this high region, we accompany the author to his nextand lower field--the

EARTH AND ITS GEOLOGICAL HISTORY. 

Our globe is somewhat less than 8, 000 miles in diameter; it is of aspheroidal form, the equatorial exceeding the polar axis in theproportion of 300 to 299, and which slight inequality, in consequence ofits diurnal revolution, is necessary to preserve the land near theequator from inundation by the sea. The mean density or average weightof the earth is, in proportion to that of distilled water, as 5. 66 to 1. So that its specific gravity is considerably less than that of tin, thelightest of the metals, but exceeds that of granite, which is threetimes heavier than water. 

Descending below the surface, the first sensation that strikes is theincrease of temperature. This is so rapid, that for every one hundredfeet of sinking we obtain an increase of more than one degree ofFahrenheit's thermometer. If there be no interruption to this law, andno reason exists to conclude there is, it is manifest that at the depthof a few miles we must reach an intensity of heat utterly unbearable. Hence it follows that by no improvements in machinery can miningoperations be carried down to a great depth below the surface. Thegreatest depth yet penetrated does not exceed three thousand feet, andforms a very small advance towards the earth's centre, distant 4, 000miles. 

Geologists, however, without penetrating far into the earth, have foundmeans for obtaining an insight for several miles into its interiorstructure, and armed with hammer, chisel, and climbing hook, theyexplore the beetling sea-cliff, traverse the deepest valleys, and scalethe highest mountains, carefully examining their formation, disposition, and substance, and are thus enabled to obtain some knowledge of theearth's stomach, as it were, by scrutinising the deposits and eruptiveejectments on its surface. For example, we come to a mountain composedof a particular substance with strata or beds of other rock lyingagainst its sloped sides; we, of course, infer that the substance of themountain dips away under the strata that we see lying against it. Suppose that we walk away from the mountain across the turned-up edgesof the stratified rocks, and that for many miles we continue to passover other stratified rocks, all disposed in the same way, till we beginto cross the opposite edges of the same beds; after which we pass overthese rocks all in reverse order, till we come to another extensivemountain composed of similar materials to the first, and shelving awayunder the strata in the same way; we should then infer that thestratified rocks occupied a basin formed by the rocks of these twomountains, and by calculating the thickness right through these stratacould say to what depths the rock of the mountain extended below. Inthis way has the interior of the globe been examined, and its contentsand arrangement, for several miles below the surface, ascertained. Theresult of such inspection we leave the author of the _Vestiges_ todescribe:--

 "It appears that the basis rock of the earth, as it may be called, is of hard texture, and crystalline in its constitution. Of this rock, granite may be said to be the type, though it runs into many varieties. Over this, except in the comparatively few places where it projects above the general level in mountains, other rocks are disposed in sheets or strata, with the appearance of having been deposited originally from water. But these last rocks have nowhere been allowed to rest in their original arrangement. Uneasy movements from below have broken them up in great inclined masses, while in many cases there has been projected through the rents rocky matter more or less resembling the great inferior crystalline mass. This rocky matter must have been in a state of fusion from heat at the time of its projection, for it is often found to have run into and filled up lateral chinks in these rents. There are even instances where it has been rent again, and a newer melted matter of the same character sent through the opening. Finally, in the crust as thus arranged, there are, in many places, chinks containing veins of metal. Thus, there is first a great inferior mass, composed of crystalline rock, and probably resting immediately on the fused and expanded matter of the interior: next, layers or strata of aqueous origin; next, irregular masses of melted inferior rock that have been sent up volcanically and confusedly at various times amongst the aqueous rocks, breaking up these into masses, and tossing them out of their original levels. "

This, we believe, is a correct outline of the crust of the earth, so faras it has been possible to observe it. It exhibits extraordinary signsof commotion and vicissitude; the lowest rocks indicating a previouscondition of igneous fusion; those above them of aqueous solution. Fireand water have thus been the chief tellurian anarchists, and the shakingof continents and the constant shifting of level in sea and land stillcontinue to attest their restless energies. That igneous matter has, during many periods, been protruded from below--that mountains haverisen in succession from the sea, and injected their molten substancethrough cracks and fissures of superincumbent strata--are facts restingon indubitable evidence. Many masses of granite became the solid bottomof some portions of the sea before the secondary strata were laidgradually upon them. The granite of Mont Blanc rose during a recenttertiary period. "We can prove, " says Professor SEDGWICK, "more thanmere shiftings of level, and that many portions of sea and land haveentirely changed their places. The rocks at the top of Snowdon are fullof petrified sea-shells; the same may be said of some high crests of theAlps, Pyrenees, and Andes. We have proof demonstrative that many partsof Scotland, and that all England, formed, during many ages, the solidbottom of the sea. It may be true that the antagonist powers of natureduring the human period have reached a kind of balance. But during allgeological periods there have been such long intervals of repose, or ofsuch gradual movements, that we may trace the history of the earth inthe successive deposits formed in the waters of the sea. " This is thegreat business of geology. 

Although at first sight the interior of the earth appears a confusedscene, after careful observation we readily detect in it a regularityand order from which much instructive light is thrown on its pastvicissitudes. The deposition of the aqueous rocks and the projection ofthe volcanic have unquestionably taken place since the settlement of theearth in its present form. They are, indeed, of an order of events whichare going on under the agency of intelligible causes, down to thepresent day. We may therefore consider these generally as recenttransactions. But advancing to the far distant antecedent era of itsexistence, we may consider it to have been a globe of its present sizeenveloped in the crystalline rock already described, with the waters ofthe present seas and the present atmosphere around it, though these wereprobably in considerably different conditions, both as to temperatureand their constituent materials, from what they now are. We may thuspresume that, without this primitive case of granitic texture, the greatbulk of the matters of our earth were agglomerated, whether in a fluidor solid state is uncertain; but there cannot be any doubt that theycontinue to exist in a condition of great heat and compression, having amean density of more than double that of the minerals on the surface. 

Judging from the results and still observable conditions, it may beinferred that the heat retained in the interior of the globe was moreintense, or had greater freedom to act, in some places than in others. These become the scenes of volcanic operations, and in time marked theirsituations by the extrusion from below of trap and basalts--rockscomposed of the crystalline matter, fused by intense heat, and developedon the surface in various conditions, according to the particularcircumstances under which it was sent up; some, for example, beingthrown up under water, and some in the open air, which contingencieswould make considerable difference in its texture and appearance. Itwould, however, be a mistake to infer that, previous to these eruptions, the earth was a smooth ball, with air and water playing round it. Geology tells us plainly that there were great irregularities--loftymountains, interspersed with deep seas--and by which, perhaps, themountains were wholly or partially covered. But it is a fact worthy ofobservation that the solids of our globe cannot for a moment be exposedto water or the atmosphere without becoming liable to change. Theyinstantly begin to wear down. The matter so worn off being carried intothe neighbouring depths and there deposited, became the components ofthe successive series of stratified rocks, extending from the basalenvelope of granite to the earth's surface, and which it will be properbriefly to describe. 

DEPOSITS OR ROCK FORMATIONS. 

The first of the series is the _Gneis and Mica Slate System_, of whichexamples are exposed to view in the Highlands of Scotland and the westof England. These earliest stratified rocks contain no matters which arenot to be found in the primitive granite. They are the same inmaterial--silica, mica, quartz, or hornblende--but changed into newforms and combinations, and hence called by Mr. LYELL metamorphic rocks. Some of them are composed exclusively of one of the materials ofgranite; the _mica schist_, for example, of mica; the _quartz rocks_, of quartz. In the metamorphic rocks no organic remains have been found, and they are geologically below all the rocks that do contain traces ofanimal life. 

From the primary rocks we pass into the next ascending series, calledthe _Clay Slate and Grauwacke Slate System_, which in some places isfound resting immediately on the granite, the antecedent bed being therewanting. This deposit has been well examined, because some of its slatebeds have been extensively quarried for domestic purposes. By somegeologists it is called the _Silurian System_, it being largelydeveloped at the surface of a district of western England formerlyoccupied by the Silures. It is found also in North Wales and in thenorth of England, in beds of great thickness, and in Scotland, but therethe Silurian rocks are more feebly represented. 

The _Old Red Sandstone, or Devonian System_, comes next. It forms thematerial of the grand and rugged mountains which fringe many parts ofour Highland coasts, and ranges, on the south flank of the Grampians, from the eastern to the western sea of Scotland. There is no part ofgeology and science more clear than that which refers to the ages ofmountains. It is as certain that the Grampian mountains are older thanthe Alps and Apennines, as it is that civilisation had reached Italy andenabled her to subdue the world, while Scotland was the abode ofbarbarism. The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other ranges of continentalEurope are all younger than these Scotch hills, or even theinsignificant Mendip Hills of southern England. Stratification tellsthis tale as plainly, and more truly, than LIVY tells the story of theRoman republic. It tells us that at the time when the Grampians sentstreams and detritus to straits where now the valleys of the Forth andClyde meet, the greater part of Europe was a wide ocean. 

The last three series of strata contain the remains of the earliestoccupants of the globe, and of which we shall soon speak. They are ofenormous thickness--in England, not much less than 30, 000 feet, ornearly six miles. 

We have now arrived at the secondary rocks, of which the lowest group isthe _Carboniferous Formation_, so called from its remarkable feature ofnumerous interspersed beds of coal. It commences with beds of themountain limestone, which in England attains a depth of 800 yards. Coalis altogether composed of the matter of a terrestrial vegetation, transmuted by putrefaction of a peculiar kind beneath the surface ofwater, and in the absence of air. From examples seen at the present dayat the mouths of such rivers as the Mississippi, which traverseextensive sylvan regions, it is thought that the vegetation, the rubbishof decayed forests, was carried by rivers into estuaries, and thereaccumulated into vast natural rafts, until it sank to the bottom, wherean overlayer of sand or mud would prepare it for becoming a stratum ofcoal. Others conceive that the vegetation first went into the conditionof peat moss, that a sink in a level then exposed it to be overrun bythe sea and covered with a layer of sand or mud; that a subsequentuprise made the mud dry land, and fitted it to bear a new forest, whichafterwards, like its predecessors, became a bed of peat--that, in short, by repetitions of this process the alternate layers of coal, sand andshell constituting the carboniferous group were formed. 

The _Magnesian Limestone_ deposits succeed the carboniferous, andsometimes pass into them by insensible gradations. In the south ofEngland they are represented by conglomerates, and partly composed ofthe solid and more or less rounded fragments of the older strata. Theyafford a proof of what geologists have often occasion to remark of thelong periods of time during which the ancient works of nature wereperfected; for the older rocks were solid as they are now, and theirorganic remains petrified at the time these conglomerates were forming. 

We can only briefly glance at the remaining chapters of geologicalhistory. The _New Red Sandstone_ forms the base of the great centralplains of England, and is surmounted by the oliferous marls and redarenaceous beds which pass under the succession of great ooliticterraces that stretch across England from the coasts of Dorsetshire tothe north-eastern coast of Yorkshire. It marks the commencement of animportant era, being the strata in which land animals are first found. The _Oolte System_ which follows marks the beginning of mammalia, and insome of its beds in Buckinghamshire are found the exuvię of tropicaltrees. Near Weymouth, in the well-known dirt beds, are found trees withtheir silicified trunks growing up in the position of nature, and theirroots embedded in the soil on which they grew. 

Next we have the chalk or _Cretaceous Formation_, that makes such aconspicuous figure in England. The celebrated cliffs of Dover are ofthis era. It forms a stripe from Yorkshire to Kent, and is found inFrance, Germany, Russia, and in North America. The English chalk bedsare 1, 200 feet thick, showing the considerable depth of the ocean inwhich they were formed. Their origin has been a questionable topic; theywere thought to be formed from the detritus of coral reefs, butProfessor EHRENBERG has recently announced, as the result of hismicroscopical researches, that chalk is composed partly of inorganicparticles and partly of shells of inconceivable minuteness, a cubic inchof the substance containing about ten millions of them. 

In the hollows of the chalk-beds have been formed series ofstrata--clay, limestone, marl alternating--to which the name of the_Tertiary System_ has been given. It is irregularly distributed overvast surfaces of all our continents, and must be considered as the bedsof estuaries left at the conclusion of the cretaceous period. London andParis rest on basins of this formation, and another such basin extendsfrom near Winchester under Southampton, and reappears in the Isle ofWight. 

We hasten upward to the _Diluvial System_, which brings us near to thepresent surface. To this era is referred the erratic blocks, or giganticboulder stones, which have been driven by floods across our continents, or drifted in icebergs over valleys, and perched sometimes on mountaintops. To it also must be referred the _till_ of Scotland and the greatbrown clay of England, and our vast beds of gravel and superficialrubbish, connected with the deluvium in the history of _ossiferouscaverns_, of which that examined by Dr. BUCKLAND at Kirkdale is anexample. They occur in the calcareous strata, as the great cavernsgenerally do, and have in all instances been naturally closed up tillthe period of their discovery. At Kirkdale the remains of twenty-fourspecies of animals were found--namely, pigeon, lark, raven, duck, partridge, mouse, water-rat, rabbit, hare, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, weasel, fox, wolf, deer, ox, horse, bear, tiger, hyena. Frommany of the bones of the gentler of these animals being found in abroken state, it is supposed that the cave was the haunt of hyenas andother predaceous animals, by which the smaller ones had been consumed. 

We come last to the _Modern_ or _Superficial Formation_, of which thebest specimen is the great Bedford level, that spreads over the lowerlands of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Lincolnshire, consisting ofaccumulations of silt, drifted matter, and bog-earth, some of whichbegan before the earliest periods of British history. When theseaccumulations are removed by artificial means, we find below sometimesshells of recent species, and the remains of an old estuary, sometimessand-banks, gravel beds, stumps of trees, and masses of drifted wood. Onthis recent surface are found skulls of a living species of Europeanbear, skeletons of the Arctic wolf, European beaver and wild boar, andnumerous horns and bones of the roebuck and red deer, and of thegigantic stag or Irish elk. They testify to a zoology on the verge ofthat now prevailing or melting into it. In corresponding deposits ofNorth America are found remains of the mammoth, mastadon, buffalo, andother animals of extinct or living species. 

Considering it best not to interrupt the description of the successiveformations, this is almost the only allusion that has been made to thefossils which constitute so important a part of geological science. Itis now to be explained that from an early period, that is, from themetamorphic deposit to the close of the rock series, each formation isfound to enclose remains of the organic beings, plants, and animals, which flourished upon earth during the time they were forming; and theseorganisms, or such parts of them as were of sufficient solidity, havebeen in many instances preserved with the utmost fidelity, although forthe most part converted into the substance of the enclosing mineral. Therocks may be thus said to form a kind of history of the organicdepartments of nature apparently from near their beginning to thepresent time. It is upon the commencement and progress of life underthese circumstances that the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ hasput forth some of his most startling and controversial propositions; butbefore noticing them it will be useful to prepare the way by shortlydescribing the gradations of organic existences, following the sameorder as observed in the rock series, by beginning with the lowest orhumblest forms of organization. 

RISE AND PROGRESS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 

The interior of the earth reveals wonders not less impressive than thoseof the skies. We have seen in the last section how the crust of ourglobe is composed of successive layers or tiers of strata, risingupward, terrace upon terrace, till we reach the present vegetable mouldor superficial platform of animated existence. In the aggregate theseformations or systems, marking the several epochs in nature'sdevelopment, may extend to a depth, as Dr. BUCKLAND conjectures, of tenor fifteen miles below the surface, and each may be considered a vastcemetery or graveyard, entombing the remains of ages long anterior tohuman creation. We, in fact, live upon a pile of worlds, andanticipating the future from past records and from changes stillmanifest from the shallowing soundings of neighbouring seas, it is notimprobable that the existing scene of bustle may have heaped upon it asmany superincumbent masses as the lowest of the rocks enclosing thevestiges of life. 

If not with a kind of awe, it must have certainly been with intensecuriosity that the first investigators of fossilology looked upon theearliest forms of animated being of which we have any traces as existingupon this globe. These first denizens, however, seem to have been of asimple structure and humble order, not fit to play high classcharacters. No land animals are found among them, none which couldbreathe the atmosphere, none but tenants of the water, and even animalsso high in the scale as fish were wanting. In popular language, theearliest fossils are corals and shellfish. 

But to make the subject generally intelligible it will be necessaryfirst to define the orders of the animal kingdom. CUVIER was the firstto give a philosophical view of the animal world in reference to theplan on which each animal is constructed. According to him there arefour forms on which animals have been modelled, and of which ulteriordivisions are only slight modifications founded on the development oraddition of some parts that do not produce any essential change ofstructure. 

The four great branches of the animal world are the _vertebrata_, _mollusca_, _articulata_, and _radiata_. The _vertebrata_ are thoseanimals which (as man and other sucklers, birds and fishes) have abackbone and a skull with lateral appendages, within which the visceraare excluded, and to which the muscles are attached. The _mollusca_ orsoft animals have no bony skeleton; the muscles are attached to theskin, which often include stony plates called shells; such mollusca areshell-fish, others are cuttle-fish, and many pulpy sea animals. The_articulata_ consist of crustacea (lobsters, &c. ), insects, spiders, andannulos worms, which, like the other classes of this branch, consist ofa head and a number of successive portions of the body jointed together, whence the name. Finally the _radiata_ include the animals known underthe name of zoophytes. 

Now it is fossils of the _radiata_ division of the animal kingdom thatare found in the lowest stratified rocks, polypiaria and crinodia, thefirst including various forms of these extraordinary animals(corallines) which still abound in tropical seas, often obstructing thecourse of the mariner, and even laying the foundation of new continents. The crinoids are an early and simple form of the large family ofstar-fishes; the animal is little more than a stomach, surrounded bytentacula to provide itself with food, and mounted upon a many-jointedstalk, so as to resemble a flower upon its stem. Along with these in theslate system are a few lowly genera of crustacea, and of a higher class, the mollusca, and the existence of these imply the contemporaryexistence of certain humbler forms of life, vegetable and animal, fortheir subsistence, forming a scene approaching to what is found in seasof the present day, excepting that fishes, nor any higher vertebrata, asyet roamed the marine wilds. 

The animal species of this era seem to have been few in number, andalmost the whole had become extinct before the next group of strata hadbeen formed. In the Silurian deposit the vestiges of life become moreabundant, the number of species extended, and important additions madein the traces of sea plants and fishes. Remains of fishes have beendetected in rocks immediately over the Aymestry limestone, beingapparently the first examples of vertebrated animals which breathed uponour planet. (p. 64). The cephaloda, represented in our era by thenautilus and cuttle-fish, pertain to the Silurian formation, and are themost highly organised of the mollusca, possessing in some families aninternal bony skeleton, together with a heart and a head with mandiblesnot unlike those of the parrot. 

In the Old Red Sandstone the same marine specimens are continued withnumerous additions. Several of the strata are crowded with remains offish, showing that the seas in which these beds were deposited hadswarmed with that class of inhabitants. The predominating kinds are ofan inferior model to the two orders which afterwards came intoexistence, and still are the principal fishes of our seas; the formerare covered with integuments of a considerably different character fromthe true scales covering the latter, and which orders, from their formof organization, are named stenoid and cycloid. 

Up to the present we find proofs of the general uniformity of organiclife over the surface of the earth at the time when each particularsystem of rocks was formed. The types of being formed in the old red asin preceding deposits, are identical in species with the remains thatoccur in the corresponding class of rocks in Brittany, the Hartz, Norway, Russia, and North America; attesting the similarity and almostuniversality, if not contemporary character, of terrestrial changes. Afew other geological facts may be here mentioned for recollection, andwhich throw light on the marine animal and vegetable forms of this andpreceding eras. First there was comparatively an absence of salt in theearly ocean; and next the temperature of the earth is conjectured tohave been higher, and perhaps almost uniform throughout. The highertemperature of the primeval times is attributed to the greater proximityor intensity of the globe's internal heat, and which, poured throughcracks and fissures of the lately concreted crust, M. BRONGNIARTsupposes to have been sufficiently great to overpower the ordinarymeteorological influences and spread a tropical climate all over itssurface. 

It must be further borne in mind that as yet no _land animals orplants_ existed, and for this presumable reason, that dry land had notappeared. It is only in the next or carboniferous formation thatevidence is traced of island or continent. As a consequence of thisemergence there was fresh water; for rain, instead of returning to thesea, as formerly, was collected in channels of the earth and becamesprings, rivers, and lakes. It was made a receptacle for an advance inorganism, and land plants became a conspicuous part of the new creation. 

According to the _Vestiges of Creation_, terrestrial botany began withclasses of comparatively simple forms and structure. In the ranks of thevegetable kingdom the lowest place is taken by plants of cellulartissue, and which have no flowers, as lichens, mosses, fungi, ferns, andsea-weeds. Above these stand plants with vascular tissue, bearingflowers, and of which there are two subdivisions: first, plants havingone seed-lobe, and in which the new matter is added within, of which thecane and palm are examples; second, plants having two seed lobes, and inwhich the new matter is added on the outside under the bark, of whichthe pine, elm, oak, and all the British forest trees are examples. Nowthe author of the _Vestiges_ states that two-thirds of the plants ofthis era belong to the cellular kind, but to this one of his ablestcritics (_Edinburgh Review_ for July) demurs, asserting that thecarboniferous epoch shows a gorgeous _flora_--that the first fruits ofvegetable nature were not rude, ill-fashioned forms, but in magnificenceand complexity of structure equal to any living types, and that theforest approached the rank and complicated display of a tropical jungle, where the prevalence of great heat with great moisture, combined withthe fact that the atmosphere contained a greater proportion of thenatural food of plants, must undoubtedly have forcibly stimulatedvegetation, and in quantity and luxuriance of growth, if not fineness oforganization, produced it in rich abundance. The earth, it is likely, was one vast forest, which would perform a most important part for thegood of its future inhabitants, helping to purge the air of its excessof carbonic acid, by which the earth's surface would be prepared for itsnew occupants. 

The animal remains of this era are not numerous in comparison with thosethat 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 pointwhether birds cheered the ancient forests with their song. But fishesreached their most perfect organic type. They were the lords ofcreation, and had a structure in conformity with their high office. Since then the class has increased in its species, but has degeneratedto a less noble type. 

In the next formation, the New Red Sandstone, reptiles make theirappearance. They are considered next to fishes in the zoological scale. So nearly are they sometimes connected, that it is doubtful to whichclass they belong. Many reptiles are also amphibious, adapted either towater or land. The surface of the globe abounded in large flat, muddyshores, and was suited to the new order of visitants called intoexistence. 

In the Oolite System, mostly consisting of calcareous beds, mammals maketheir appearance. Some additions were made to the reptile form. Oneanimal (the behemite) appeared, but terminated in the next era. In thefollowing series of rocks mammals increase in abundance. The advance inland animals is less marked, but considerable in the tertiary strata. The tapir forms a conspicuous type. One animal of the kind was eighteenfeet long, and had a couple of tusks turning down from the lower jaw, bywhich it could attach itself, like the walrus, to a bank, while its bodyfloated in the water. Many animals of a former period disappear, and arereplaced by others belonging to still existent families--elephant, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros--though extinct as species. Some of theseforms are startling from their size. The great mastadon was a species ofelephant living on aquatic plants, and reaching the height of twelvefeet. The mammoth was another elephant, and supposed to have survivedtill comparatively recent times. The megatherium is an incongruity ofnature, of gigantic proportions, yet ranking in a much humbler orderthan the elephant, that of the edenta, to which the sloth, ant-eater, and armadilla belong. The megatherium had a skeleton of enormoussolidity, with an armour-clad body, and five toes, terminating in hugeclaws to grasp the branches on which it fed. Finally, beside the dog, cat, squirrel, and bear, we have offered to us, for the first time, oxen, deer, camel, and other specimens of the rumantia. Traces of thequadrumane, or monkey, have been found in the older tertiaries ofFrance, India, and England. So that we may now be said to have arrivedat the zoological forms not long antecedent to the appearance of thechief of all, bimana, or man, and shall here pause to consider theconclusions of the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ on the origin ofthe organic existences that have been successively exhibited. 

It will be convenient, however, first to introduce a synoptic view ofthe evolutions of the earth as set forth in this and the precedingsection. For this purpose the author has introduced a parallel table, exhibiting on one side a scale of animal life beginning with thehumblest and ascending to the highest species; and on the other side thesuccessive series of rock formations, in which their fossiliferousremains have been found up to the present superficial deposits of theglobe. Objections have been made to the correctness of the author'sanalogies, scale, and his classification of animals, the chief of whichwill be adverted to in the next section; but the table is essential, aspresenting at one view an outline of the hypothesis he has sought toestablish. 

SCALE OF ANIMAL KINGDOM. ORDER OF ANIMALS IN ASCENDING SERIES FOETAL HUMAN BRAIN OF ROCKS. RESEMBLES, IN _Invertebrata. _ 1 Infusoria _Traces of Infusoria_(?) 1 Gneiss and Mica\ Slate System \ 2 Polypi Polypiaria \ \ 5 Echinodermata Echinodermata \ \ { 7 Brachiopoda {15-20 Brachiopoda} Crustacea } 2 Clay Slate System \ 1st month, typically, Moll-{ 9 Pteropoda Artic-{Crustacea Pteropoda } / } that of anusca {10 Gasteropoda ulata {12-14 Gasteropoda} Annelides / / avertebrated animal {11 Cephalopoda {Annelides Cephalopoda} \ / } 3 Silurian system / _Vertebrata. _ { _Remains of Fishes_ / / { Fishes of low type; \ \ 32-36 Fishes { heterocercal; allied } 4 Old Red Sandstone } 2nd month, that of a fish; { to crustacea / / { Sauroid Fishes \ 37 Batrachia (frogs, &c. ) Batrachia \ } 5 Carboniferous 39 Sauria (lizards, &c. ) Sauria / formation 40 Chelonia (tortoises) Chelonia / 3rd month, that of a turtle; 41-46 Birds _Footsteps of Birds_ 6 New Red Sandstone 4th month, that of a bird; 47 Cetacea (dolphins, whales, &c. ) _Bones of a \ Cetaceous Animal_ } 7 Oolite _Bones of a Marsupial_ / 8 Chalk 48 Pachydermata (tapirs, &c. ) Pachydermata \ 49 Edentata (sloths) Edentata \ 50 Rodentia (squirrels, hare, &c. ) Rodentia \ 5th month, that of a rodent; 51 Marsupialia (opossums, &c. ) Marsupialia \ 52 Ruminantia (oxen, stag, &c. ) Ruminantia \ 6th month, that of a ruminant; 53 Amphibia (seals) } 9 Tertiary 54 Digitigrada (dog, cat, &c. ) Digitigrada / 7th month, that of a digitigrade animal; 55 Plantigrada (bear, &c. ) Plantigrada / 56 Insectivora (shrew, &c. ) Insectivora / 57 Cheiroptera (bats) Cheiroptera / 58 Quadrumana (apes) Quadrumana / 8th month, that of the quadrumana; 29 Bimana (man) Bimana 10 Superficial deposits 9th month, attains full human character. 

TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES. 

In the two last sections we have gone through the earth's geologicalhistory, first of the changes in its physical structure, next of themutations in the organic forms that have, in serial order, appeared inthe successive strata of its external envelope, from the period of thatfar distant crisis when it was a molten globe on which its primitivegranitic covering was just beginning to concrete, in consequence ofabating heat, until we have arrived at the first prognostic signs ofapproaching human existence. 

The rock upon rock of vast thickness, by which the earth's crust, through countless ages, has been formed, unquestionably constitutes amost extraordinary phenomenon of physical creation, but hardly somarvellous and incomprehensible as the beginning, progress, and end ofthe divers orders of marine and terrestrial beings that filled eachworld of life. It is to geologists, to PLAYFAIR, HUTTON, LYELL, BUCKLAND, SEDGWICK, OWEN, and other great names, native and foreign, towhom we are indebted for this singular revelation of Nature's works. Itis their unwearied research that has opened to us the surprisingspectacle we have attempted briefly to describe of the diversifiedgroups of species which have, in the course of the earth's history, succeeded each other at vast intervals of time; one set of animals andplants wholly or partly disappearing from the face of our planet, andothers, which apparently did not before exist, becoming the only orpredominant occupants of the globe. 

Now the great question arises--whence, by what power, or by what law, were these reiterated transitions brought about? Were the organizedspecies of one geological epoch, by some long-continued agency ofnatural causes, transmuted into other and succeeding species? or werethere an extinction of species, and a replacement of them by others, through special and miraculous acts of creation? or, lastly, did speciesgradually degenerate and die out from the influence of the altered andunfavourable physical conditions in which they were placed, and besupplanted by immigrants of different species, and to which the newconditions were more congenial?

The last, we confess, is the view to which we are most inclined--first, because we think a transmutation of species, from a lower to a highertype, has not been satisfactorily proved; and second, because of thestrong impression we entertain, that the universe, subject to certaincyclical and determinate mutations, was made complete at first, withself-subsisting provisions for its perpetual renewal and conservation. We shall advert to this matter hereafter; but at present it is theconclusions of the author of the _Vestiges_ that claim consideration. Headopts the first interpretation of animal phenomena, namely, that therehas been a transmutation of species, that the scale of creation has beengradually advancing in virtue of an inherent and organic law ofdevelopment. Nature, he contends, began humbly; her first works were ofsimple form, which were gradually meliorated by circumstances favourableto improvement, and that everywhere animals and plants exhibit traces ofa parallel advance of the physical conditions and the organic structure. The general principle, he inculcates, is, that each animal of a higherkind, in the progress of its embryo state, passes through states whichare the final condition of the lower kind; that the higher kinds ofanimals came later, and were developed from the lower kinds, which cameearlier in the series of rock formations, by new peculiar conditionsoperating upon the embryo, and carrying it to a higher stage. Theseconclusions the author maintains geology has established, and of theresults thence derived he gives the subjoined recapitulation:--

 "In pursuing the progress of the development of both plants and animals upon the globe, we have seen an advance in both cases, from simple to higher forms of organization. In the botanical department we have first sea, afterwards land plants; and amongst these the simpler (cellular and cryptogamic) before the more complex. In the department of zoology, we see, first, traces all but certain of infusoria [shelled animalculę]; then polypiaria, crinoidea, and some humble forms of the articulata and mollusca; afterwards higher forms of the mollusca; and it appears that these existed for ages before there were any higher types of being. The first step forward gives fishes, the humblest class of the vertebrata; and, moreover, the earliest fishes partake of the character of the lower sub-kingdom, the articulata. Afterwards come land animals, of which the first are reptiles, universally allowed to be the type next in advance from fishes, and to be connected with these by the links of an insensible gradation. From reptiles we advance to birds, and thence to mammalia, which are commenced by marsupialia, acknowledgedly low forms in their class. That there is thus a progress of some kind, the most superficial glance at the geological history is sufficient to convince us. "

Now this appears plausible and conclusive, but the correctness of therecapitulation here made, and its conformity to actual nature, have beensharply disputed. It may be true that sea plants came first, but of thisthere is no proof; and of land plants there is not a shadow of evidencethat the simpler forms came into being before the more complex: thesimple and complex forms are found together in the more ancient _flora_. It is true that we first see polypiaria, crinoidea, articulata, andmollusca, but not exactly in the order stated by the author. It is truethat the next step gives us fishes, but it is not true that the earliestfishes link on to the lower sub-kingdom, the articulata. It is true thatwe afterwards find reptiles, but those which first appear belong to thehighest order of the class, and show no links of an insensible gradationinto fishes. In the tertiary deposit of the London clay the evidence ofconcatenation entirely fails. Among the millions of organic forms, fromcorals up to mammalia of the London and Paris basins, hardly a singlesecondary species is found. In the south of France it is said that twoor three secondary species struggle into the tertiary strata; but theyform a rare and evanescent exception to the general rule. Organic natureat this stage seems formed on a new pattern--plants as well as animalsare changed. It might seem as if we had been transported to a newplanet; for neither in the arrangement of the genera and the species, nor in their affinities with the types of a pre-existing world, is thereany approach to a connected chain of organic development. 

For some discrepancies the author endeavours to account, and it is fairto give his explanation:--

 "Fossil history has no doubt still some obscure passages; and these have been partially adverted to. Fuci, the earliest vegetable fossils as yet detected, are not, it has been remarked, the lowest forms of aquatic vegetation; neither are the plants of the coal-measures the very lowest, though they are a low form, of land vegetation. There is here in reality no difficulty of the least importance. The humblest forms of marine and land vegetation are of a consistence to forbid all expectation of their being preserved in rocks. Had we possessed, contemporaneously with the fuci of the Silurians, or the ferns of the carboniferous formation, fossils of higher forms respectively, _equally unsubstantial_, but which had survived all contingencies, then the absence of mean forms of similar consistency might have been a stumbling-block in our course; but no such phenomena are presented. The blanks in the series are therefore no more than blanks; and when a candid mind further considers that the botanical fossils actually present are all in the order of their organic development, the whole phenomena appear exactly what might have been anticipated. It is also remarked, in objection, that the mollusca and articulata appear in the same group of rocks (the slate system) with polypiaria, crinoidea, and other specimens of the humblest sub-kingdom; some of the mollusca, moreover, being cephalopods, which are the highest of their division in point of organization. Perhaps, in strict fact, the cephalopoda do not appear till a later time, that of the Silurian rocks. But even though the cephalopoda could be shewn as pervading all the lowest fossiliferous strata, what more would the fact denote than that, in the first seas capable of sustaining any kind of animal life, the creative energy advanced it, in the space of one formation, (no one can say how long a time this might be, ) to the highest forms possible in that element, excepting such as were of vertebrate structure. 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. _ There is indeed a remarkably rapid change of forms in such an embryo at first: the rapidity, says Professor Owen, is 'in proportion to the proximity of the ovum to the commencement of its development;' and, conformable to this fact, we find the same zoologist stating that, in the lowest division of the animal kingdom, (the Acrita of his arrangement, ) there is a much quicker advance of forms towards the next above it, than is to be seen in subsequent departments. There is, indeed, to the most ordinary observation, a rapidity and force in the productive powers of the lowest animals, which might well suggest an explanation of that rush of life which seems to be indicated in the slate and Silurian rocks. With regard to the so-called early occurrence of fishes partaking of the saurian character, I would say that their occurrence a full formation after the earliest and simplest fishes, is, considering how little we know of the space of time represented by a formation, not early: their being later in any degree is the fact mainly important. The subsequent rise of new orders of fishes, fully piscine in character, may be explained by the supposition of their having been developed, as is most likely, from a different portion of the inferior sub-kingdom. In short, all the objections which have been made to the great fact of a general progress of organic development throughout the geological ages, will be found, on close examination, to refer merely to doubtful appearances of small moment, which vanish into nothing when rightly understood. "

Upon some of the chief points here involved, it may be remarked that themost eminent physiologists are not agreed; they are not agreed thatanimals can be arranged in a series, passing from lower to higher; northat animals of a higher kind in the embryo state pass through thesuccessive stages of the lower kinds; the character of these stages, inthe asserted doctrine, being taken from the brain and heart, and manbeing the highest point of the series. There are physiologists too whodeny that the brain of the human embryo at any period, however early, resembles the brain of any mollusk or of any articulata. It never, theyassert, passes through a stage comparable or analogous to a permanentcondition of the same organ in any invertebrate animal; and in likemanner the spinal cord in the human vertebrę at no period agrees withthe corresponding part of the lower kind of animals. The moment itbecomes visible in the human embryo, it is entirely dorsal in position;while in mollusks and articulatas a great part, or nearly the whole, isventral. The same is true of the heart, or centre of the vascularsystem, which has always a different relative position in the greatnervous centre in the human embryo from what it has in any articulateanimal, and in most mollusks. 

A second position in the _Vestiges_ appears not to have beenestablished--namely, as to the uniform geological arrangement ofdifferent organic structures. It is not true that _only_ the lowestforms of animal life are found in the lowest fossiliferous rocks, andthat the more complicated structures are gradually and exclusivelydeveloped among the higher bands in what might be called a naturalascending scale. On the contrary, the predaceous cephalopods and thehighly organized crustaceous are among the oldest fossils. Such appearsto be the order of nature as evidenced by facts, and it must beadmitted, however repugnant to preconceived notions or mere mortalconjectural amendments. 

In the third place the evidence seems to preponderate in favour of_permanency of species_. There can be no doubt that both plants andanimals may, by the influence of breeding, and of external agentsoperating upon their constitution, be greatly modified, so as to giverise to varieties and races different from what before existed. Butthere are limits to such modifications, as in the different kind andbreed of dogs; and no organized beings can, by the mere working ofnatural causes, be made to pass from the type of one species to that ofanother. A wolf by domestication, for example, can never become a dog, nor the ourang-outang by the force of external circumstances be broughtwithin the circle of the human species. 

In this opinion Mr. LYELL, Dr. PRICHARD, and Mr. LAWRENCE, concur. Thegeneral conclusion at which they have arrived is, that there is acapacity in all species to accommodate themselves to a certain extent toa change of external circumstances; this extent varying greatlyaccording to the species. There may thus be changes of appearance orstructure, and some of these changes are transmissible to the offspring;but the mutations thus superinduced are governed by certain laws, andconfined within certain limits. Indefinite divergence from the originaltype is not possible, and the extreme limit of possible variation mayusually be reached in a short period of time; in short, ProfessorWHEWELL concludes (_Indications of Creation_, p. 56), _that everyspecies has a real existence in nature_, and a transmutation from one toanother does not exist. Thus for example, CUVIER remarks that, notwithstanding all the differences of age, appearance and habits, whichwe find in the dogs of various races and countries, and though we have(in the Egyptian mummies) skeletons of this animal as it existed 3, 000years ago, the relation of the bones to each other remains essentiallythe same; and with all the varieties of their shape and size, there arecharacters which resist all the influences, both of external nature, ofhuman intercourse, and of time. 

What varieties, again, in the forms of the different breeds of horsesand horned cattle; racers, hunters, coach horses, dray horses, andponies; short-horns and long-horns, Devons and Herefords, polledgalloways and Shetlands; how unlike are the unimproved breeds of cattleas they existed a century ago before the march of agriculturalimprovement began, and how different were most of these as then existingin what may be called the normal state from the wild cattle produced inChillington Park. It has been found, however, when external andartificial conditions are removed, and these different breeds areallowed to run wild, as in the Pampas and Australia, no matter what thediversity of size, shape, and colour of the domestic breeds, theyreverted in their wild state, in these respects, to their primitivetypes. 

So again with regard to cultivated vegetables and flowers. How differentare the species of the red cabbage and the cauliflower; who would haveexpected them to be varieties of the wild _brassica oleracea_? Yet fromthat they have been derived by cultivation. They have, however, atendency like animals to revert to the original type, or, in thegardener's phrase, to degenerate, which it requires the utmost care onhis part to counteract. When left to a state of nature, they speedilylose their acquired forms, properties and character, and regain those ofthe original species. 

If species be permanent--if no education or training can educe newkinds--if the higher classes of animals are not the results ofmeliorations of the lower--whence did they come? This question we arenot bound to answer. It might be as reasonably asked, whence did thelower classes come? Geology, like other sciences, does not conduct us tothe _beginning_, it only takes up creation at certain ulterior stages ofdevelopment. The changes and construction of the globe may have beendifferent in different parts; it has not been proved that geologicalrevolutions have been either universal or contemporary. There may havebeen climates and regions adapted to the existence of the higher classof land animals, while contemporarily therewith other portions of theglobe might be undergoing changes beneath the ocean. It is notimprobable that the human species dwelt nearly stationary for ages onthe old continents of Africa and Asia, while Europe and America werecovered with water. Supposing these new continents formed, either by thegradual subsidence of the sea or the rising of its bed, successiveinhabitants would follow in the order presented by existing organicremains. While covered by the sea, what now form Europe and Americacould only be peopled by marine animals; but as the land rose or thewaters subsided into their ocean channels, and dry land appeared, reptiles and amphibię might become the occupants; next, as the earthbecame drier and more salubrious, the new continent would be resorted toby terrestrial animals; in a still more advanced stage of purificationand salubrity, man himself, as the lord of all the preceding classes ofimmigrants, would take possession, and as he still continues the livingoccupant it is premature to look for his petrifaction. 

ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 

Science has mastered many perplexities, but is almost powerless as everin generation. All that lives, and still more all that moves, must havea pre-existing germ formed independently of the created being, but whichis essential to its existence, and fixes the type of organization. Theold adage--_omne animal ab ovo_--may be taken as generally true. Butthough every animal has its primordial egg or germ, all germs are notidentical. In the beginning of life there are other organic elementsbesides the ovum. Partly on direct proof and partly on good analogy, itmay be inferred that these differ in different species--that each in thefirst stages of existence is bound by a different and immutable mode ofdevelopment--and, if so, there can be no embryotic identity. "By nochange of conditions, " says Dr. CLARKE, "can two ova of animals of thesame species be developed into different animal species; neither by anyprovision of identical conditions can two ova of different species bedeveloped into animals of the same kind. " If these views be right, andwe believe them to be so, there cannot be a transmutation of speciesunder the influence of external circumstances. 

Baffled in the effort either to create species or organically to changethem, attempts have been made to approach nearer to the source ofvitality, and explain the chemical, electric, or mechanical laws bywhich the vital principle is influenced. For this purpose varioushypotheses have been put forth; one is the noted conjecture of LordMONBODDO, that man is only an advanced development of the chimpanzee orourang-outang. A second explanation is that given by LAMARCK, whosurmised, and with much ingenuity attempted to prove, that one beingadvanced in the course of generations into another, in consequencemerely of the experience of wants calling for the exercise of facultiesin a particular direction, by which exercise new developments of organstook place, ending in variations sufficient to constitute new species. In this way the swiftness of the antelope, the claws and teeth of thelion, the trunk of the elephant, the long neck of the giraffe have beenproduced, it is supposed, by a certain plastic character in theconstruction of animals, operated upon for a long course of ages by theattempts which these animals make to attain objects which their previousorganization did not place within their reach. This is what is meant bythe hypothesis of _progressive tendencies_, and which requires for itsvalidity not only the assumption of a mere capacity for change, but ofactive principles conducive to improvement and the attainment of higherpowers and faculties. More recently ST. HILAIRE has published a paper inwhich he speaks of the immutability of species as a conviction that ison the decline, and that the age of CUVIER is on the close. Carried awayby what Professor PHILLIPS has called a poetical conjecture that cannotbe proved, this writer propounded the speculation that the presentcrocodiles are really the offspring of crocodilian reptiles, thedifference being merely the effect of physical conditions, especiallyoperating during long geological periods upon one original race. Thehuman species, he contends, are but an advanced development of thehigher order of the monkey tribe, and that the negroes are degeneratingtowards that type again. According to him the sivatherium--a fossilanimal that had been found in the Himalaya mountains--was the primevaltype that time had fined down into the giraffe from long-continuedfeeding on the branches of trees. Dr. FALCONER and Capt. CAUTLEY, however, have shown that anatomical proofs are all against thisinference, but if any doubt remained it must yield to the fact, thatamong the _fauna_ of the Sewalik hills the sivatherium and the giraffewere contemporaries. 

The author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ has put forth an hypothesisfounded on the preceding conjectures, but more compact and conclusive. He is, as we have seen, in favour of the progressive change of species, adopting the notion that men once had tails, and that the rudiments ofthis condal appendage are found in an undeveloped state in the _oscoccygis_ (p. 199. ) His leading idea of the progress of organic life isthat the "_simplest and most primitive type under a law to which that oflike production is subordinate, gave birth to the type next above it;that this again produced the next higher, and so on to the veryhighest_, the stages of advance being in all cases very small--namely, from one species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always beenof a modest and simple character. " (p. 231. ) The arguments by which theauthor endeavours to prove his hypothesis may be thus compressed. 

According to him foetal development is a science, illustrated byHUNTER'S great collection of the Royal College of Surgeons, andestablished by the conclusions of ST. HILAIRE and TIEDMANN. Its primarypositions are--1. That the embryos of all animals are notdistinguishably different from each other; and, 2. That those of allanimals pass through a series of phases of development, each of which isthe type or analogue of the permanent configuration of tribes inferiorto it in the scale. Higher the order of animals, the more numerous itsstages of progress. Man himself is not exempt from this law. His firstfoetal form is that which is permanent in the animalcule; it next passesthrough ulterior stages, resembling successively a fish, a reptile, abird, and the lower mammalia before it attains its specific maturity. The period of gestation determines the species; protract it, and thespecies is advanced to a higher class. This might be done by the forceof certain conditions operating upon the system of the mother. Give goodconditions and the young she produces will improve in development; givebad conditions and it will recede. Cases of monstrous birth in the humanspecies are appealed to, in which the most important organs are leftimperfectly developed; the heart, for instance, having sometimesadvanced no further than the three-chambered or reptile form, whilethere are instances of that organ being left in the two-chambered orfish-like form. These defects arise from a failure of the power ofdevelopment in the mother, occasioned by misery or bad health, and theyare but the converse of those conditions that carry on species tospecies. The _differences of sexes_ is the result of foetal progressonly one degree less marked than that of a change of species. Sex isfully ascertained to be a matter of development. All beings are at onestage of the embryotic progress _female_. A certain number of them areafterwards advanced to the more powerful sex. For proof of this, theeconomy of bees is cited; when they wish to raise a queen-bee, or truefemale, they prepare for the larva a more commodious cell, and feed itwith delicate food. But we shall here stop to remark on the author'sargument up to this point. 

It is manifest, according to his hypothesis, that neither sex norspecies depend on the ancestral germ, but simply on physical conditionsand mechanical development. But eminent physiologists deny that thefacts are such as he has stated; they deny, as we have stated in aformer section, that the foetal progress is such as the _Vestiges_represent them to be; they deny that the human embryo, for example, exhibits in successive stages the form of fish, lizard, bird, beast: onthe contrary, they contend that it is only in the earliest period of theorganic germ, when the manifestations are almost too obscure formicroscopic sense, that any resemblance exists; that immediately theorganic germ becomes sensible to observation, sex and species are foundto be fixed. Take, for example, the vertebrata; in these, by somemysterious bond of union, the organic globules are seen to arrangethemselves into two nearly parallel rows. We may then say that the keelof the animal is laid down, and in it we have the first rudiments of abackbone and a continuous spinal chord. But during the progress andcompletion of this first organic process no changes have been observedassimilating the nascent embryo to any of the inferior animals. The nextseries of changes in the germinal membrane are of two kinds--in one thenervous system, the organs of motion, the intestinal canal, the heartand blood-vessels are manifested; the other set of changes, which aresubsequent, produce the perfection of the animal and determine its sex. All these manifestations result from germinal appendages that cannot besevered or changed without ruin to the embryo, and the conditionsessential to life as the structure advances are due temperature, duenutriment of the nervous organs, and due access to the atmospheric air. Without, therefore, pursuing further this part of the inquiry, we shallremark that the question at issue between the _Vestiges_ and itsopponents is one of facts--of conflicting evidence--to be tried by thejury of the public, or rather by those who, from science or professionalpursuits, are competent to form an authoritative opinion. Our ownconclusion is, that in face of the testimony adduced against it, theauthor's hypothesis is not yet established. 

For proof that species do change, and that even new species have beenactually and recently produced, the author has adduced statementscertainly as questionable and little satisfactory as his representationof foetal phenomena. We can only briefly enumerate them. First we aretold that oats sown at midsummer, if kept cropped down, so as to beprevented shooting into ear, and then allowed to remain in the groundover winter, will spring up next year in the form of rye (p. 226). Thisneed not be disputed about; the experiment can be easily tried; but ifrye were the result, it would be no conclusive proof of a translation ofspecies. Perhaps the oat-plants perished under the operation of repeatedcuttings, and the rye seed was dormant in the earth and sprung up in itsplace; or, if not so, oats and rye may not be different species, onlyvarieties of the same species. They are scarcely more dissimilar thanthe primrose, the cowslip, and the oxlip, which have all been raisedfrom the seed of the same plant, and are now regarded by botanists asvarieties instead of species. 

When lime is laid on waste ground we are told that white clover willspring up spontaneously, and in situations where no clover-seed couldhave been left dormant in the soil (p. 182). But how is this to beproved? It is certain that seeds will remain dormant in the soil forcenturies, and then spring up the first year the soil is turned up bythe plough. Some seeds have retained their vitality for thousands ofyears in the old tombs of Egypt; they have been repeatedly brought toEngland, sown, and produced good wheat. 

We are next told that wild pigs never have the measles, they areproduced by a _hyatid_ and the result of domestication; that a _tinea_is found in dressed wool that does not exist in its unwashed state; thata certain insect disdains all food but chocolate, and that the larva of_oinopota cellaris_ only lives in wine and beer. All these are articlesmanufactured by man, and are adduced as proofs of animal life, independent of any primordial egg. The entoza are dwelt upon; they arecreatures living in the interior of other animals, of which thetape-worm that infests the human body is a melancholy instance. Inthese illustrations we think the author has some show of reason, for wefeel convinced that there is such a thing as spontaneous generation fromthe inorganic substance, wisely provided for clearing the earth ofnoxious effluvia and putrid matter, and converting them into newelements conducive to health and life. We believe in this source ofvitality from its wisdom and necessity, its necessity and wisdom, in ourestimate, being strong presumptive proofs of its existence in harmonywith the general forecast and economy of nature. Of the self-originatingspring of life, some of the examples adduced by the author are proofs, and of which we have familiar illustrations in cheese-mites, maggots incarrion, and the green fly that breeds so profusely in weak and decayingvegetation; in all which by some inscrutable law the organic germ, without an antecedent, appears to evolve from the dead or putrifyingmass for its riddance and transmutation. 

Conceding, however, thus far to the author, we are not prepared to admitthat the creative powers of Messrs. CROSSE and WEEKES has beenestablished. These gentlemen are said (p. 190) to have introduced astranger in the animal kingdom, a species of _acarus_ or mite amidst asolution of silica submitted to the electric current. The insectsproduced by the action of a galvanic battery continued for eleven monthsare represented as minute and semi-transparent, and furnished with longbristles. One of the creatures resulting from this elaborate term ofgestation was observed in the very act of emerging, in its first-bornnudity, and sought concealment in a corner of the apparatus. Some ofthem were observed to go back into the parent fluid and occasionallythey devoured each other; and soon after they were called to life, theywere disposed to multiply their species in the common way! So much forthe experiment; against its verity it is alleged, first, that the_Acarus Crossii_ are not a new species, or if new, that neither Mr. CROSSE nor Mr. WEEKES, who repeated Mr. CROSSE'S experiment, producedthem, but only aided by the voltaic battery the development of theinsects from their eggs. Such a mode of generation is contrary to allhuman experience, and can only be believed in on the strongestcorroborative proof. 

Neither by chemistry nor galvanism can man, we apprehend, be more thaninstrumental and co-operative, not originally and independentlycreative. In almost every form of life, whether animal or vegetable, artcan multiply varieties, --can train, direct--but cannot form new species. This is the mockery of science. With all its invention and resource, itcannot produce organic originals. It can rear a crab-apple into agolden-pippin, or wild sea-weed into a luxuriant cabbage; it can raiseinfinite varieties of roses, tulips, and pansies, but can create no newplant, fruit, or flower. Man can make a steam-engine, or a watch, but hecannot make a fly, a midge, or blade of grass. He is an ingeniouscompiler, but not a creator; and his powers of manufacture andconversion are restricted within narrow boundaries. He cannot wander farin the indulgence of his fancies without being recalled, and compelledto return to the first models set by the Great Architect. The further hestrays from primitive types in the effort to improve, by crossing, cutting, and grafting, and proportionably less becomes the procreativeforce. Hybrids are notoriously sterile. Garden fruit is not permanent, and requires to be renewed from seed. The law seems universal in plantsand animals, that the vital energy or germ is less forcible and prolificin the pampered and artificial, than in the natural and wild races. 

HYPOTHESIS OF THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 

It is ascertained that the basis of all vegetable and animal substancesconsists in nucleated cells--that is, cells having granules within them. Nutriment is converted into these before being assimilated by thesystem. It has likewise been noted that the globules of the blood arereproduced by the expansion of contained granules; "they are, in short, "says the _Vestiges_, "_distinct organisms multiplied by the samefissiporous generation_. So that all animated nature may be said to bebased on this mode of origin; _the fundamental form of organic being isa globule, having a new globule forming within itself_, by which it isin time discharged, and which is again followed by another and another, in endless succession. It is of course obvious, that if these globulescould be produced by any process from inorganic elements, we should beentitled to say that the fact of a transit from the inorganic to theorganic had been witnessed. " (p. 176. ) "Globules, " the authorcontinues, "can be produced in albumen by electricity. _If_, therefore, these globules be identical with the cells which are now held to bereproductive, it _might_ be said that the production of albumen byartificial means is the only step in the process wanting. This has notyet been effected. " (p. 177. )

These are the advances towards generation by chemistry and electricity. The process, however, according to this detail, appears still far fromcomplete. Albumen is to be produced "by artificial means;" and even thenwe should doubt entire success. Chemists have long commanded the powerto resolve the seeds of animal and vegetable life into their elements;they have analysed them, and shown the exact weight and proportion ofeach constituent; but they never could put them together again, or, byany similar compound produce the primordial egg or organic germ, fromwhich a living being would arise. A connecting link--a vital spark, oranimating soul--is always wanting to complete the existence of thePrometheus of the laboratory. Mark, too, the "_if_, " and the "_might_, "in this most lame and impotent hypothesis:--"_If_, therefore, theseglobules be identical with the cells which are held to be reproductive, it _might_ be said, " &c. Globules can be easily produced; the passage ofthe electric fluid through water will produce aerial globules in rapidand expansive movement; boys can produce them with suds and atobacco-pipe in rapid succession, each, for aught we know, containing a"granule" that multiplies by "fissiporous generation. " But these are notorganic globules, and the author has committed the great perversion inlanguage or logic of confounding the organic globule of life with theinorganic globule of a chemist. His theory is more fanciful than that ofLAMARCK, from whom it is derived, and who had, at least, his _petitcorps gelatineux_ to begin with--to commence weaving organic tissuefrom--but our author's organic globule is not so substantive aconception; and as he does not pretend to be able to produce even thisby physical means, he has not made a single step in generation. 

This we consider the least satisfactory and successful portion of theauthor's work. It assigns no intelligible cause for the origin oflife--it only _begs the question_, by the substitution of one mysteryfor another. His law of DEVELOPMENT is of the same description, --withoutsense or significancy, unsupported by applicable facts, and is not socomprehensible a cause of vital changes as LAMARCK'S assignedprogressive tendencies of animals to master the appliances essential totheir wants. 

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 firstas the law of inorganic, the latter of organic matter. By the last, however, no new principle is revealed, only a new phrase devised, by theamplified application of which the author's entire system may be said tobe _begged_ rather than proved; since development is used in a senseimplying an indefinite power of animate and inanimate creation; so thatat last we make no new discovery, only grasp a new nomenclature. 

But the author is always interesting, either by the novel display offacts or the ingenious concatenation of plausibilities. Consistentlywith his fundamental notion of animal transmutation, he tries to prove afamily likeness or affinity from the humblest to the highest species. Inthis way he seeks to explain the marvel with respect to the huge bulk ofmany of the tertiary mammalia--the mammoth, mastadon, and megatherium;they were in immediate descent from the cetacea, or whale and dolphintribe. (p. 267. ) Again, human reason is considered no exclusive gift; itexists subordinately in the instinct of brutes, and is alleged to benothing more than a mode of operation peculiar to the faculties in ahumble state of endowment, or early stage of development. CUVIER andNEWTON are only intellectual expansions of a clown; and this notion isextended to moral obliquities, the wicked man being characterised as one"whose highest moral feelings are rudimental. " (p. 358. ) From a likeprinciple the writer concurs with Dr. PRICHARD, that mankind may havehad a common origin; that there exists no diversities of colour orosseous structure not referable to climatable or other plastic agenciesinfluencing the development of the different races, commencing with thelowest, or Negro tribe, and ascending upward through the intermediateaboriginal American, Mongolian, and Malay, to the last and most perfectstage of the Caucasian type. 

Into the verity of these conclusions we are not called upon to enter;they have been long in controversy, involve a great array of facts andinductive inferences, and we have only referred to them as corollariesor collaterals of the author's hypothetical fabric. 

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TENDENCIES. 

We have no charge of impiety to bring against the _Vestiges_. Finalcauses, or to express ourselves more intelligibly, a _purpose_ increation, is nowhere impugned. The Deity is not degraded byimpersonification in the form and frailties of mortality, but everywherethe author reverently bows to that august and unsearchable name, acknowledges the grand and benevolent design--the admirable adaptationof every created thing to its end and place, and finally concludes in astrain of grateful and exulting Optimism, that we confess we have notfully arrived at--namely, that everything "is very good. " (p. 387. ) Fromthis impression we have only one constructive drawback to notice in theauthor's mechanical but fanciful constitution of the universe, by whicha special Providence in the government of the world seems to bedispensed with, and the Almighty is placed in the sinecure position ofthe Grand Elector of the Abbe SIEYES, with nothing to do. But no divineattribute is abscinded--no glory of Omnipotence dimmed--whether itpleases him to rule by direct interpositions of power, or his ownpre-ordained eternal laws. 

Still less can we detect in the speculative inquiries of the _Vestiges_conclusions hostile to the moral and social interests of the community. Men are formed to be what they are; vice and crime are the fruits ofmalorganization, and malorganization is the result of the unfavourableconditions in which the subject of it has been placed, prior orsubsequent to birth. These are the author's leading metaphysicalinculcations. They impose grave duties upon individuals and uponsociety, rightly understood and applied, but we cannot discern a hurtfultendency in them. They are useful knowledge, knowledge that it would bewell for parents and rulers to master, by showing the importance ofeducation, of favourable circumstances, and of good moral and physicaltraining, for rearing happy, well-ordered, and virtuous members of thecommunity. Supreme in intelligence, man, we firmly believe, is not lesssupremely blessed in the means of felicity, provided his real nature andposition in the scheme of creation were understood, recognised, andcarried out. He has his place, his office, and his destiny; he is noenigma but as an individual; "in the mass, " as the author emphaticallyremarks, "he is a mathematical problem. " His conduct is uniform andconsistent; the result of known and ascertainable causes--causescalculable and predicable in their consequences, as the statistics ofcrime have incontestibly established. 

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ON THE VESTIGES. 

The heavens are wonderful, and the earth is wonderful, and man, who, byforce of intellect, has sought to comprehend the immensity of one andunravel the formation of the other, is hardly less wonderful thaneither. Still the great mystery remains unriddled; our researches havebrought us no nearer the beginning, and the first cause of all continuesunapproachable and undefinable as ever. Instead of explaining physicalcreation, we begin with it; we take the existence of matter for granted, and its attributes for granted, and forthwith begin to fabricate auniverse, without first ascertaining whence was matter, or whence thelaws by which it is impressed, and has been governed in its evolutions. 

Nature's greatest phenomena are the celestial spaces and the bodies thatfill them; our own planet and its living occupants. Upon each of these, their commencement and subsequent vicissitudes, the _Vestiges ofCreation_ have propounded an hypothesis, but one mystery is only soughtto be explained by another still more mysterious. For the fiat of aCreator chemical affinities and mechanical laws have been substituted, but aided by these the author has failed to produce a world such as wefind it. Hence we are again driven upon the old tradition, the oldsacred authority, that the world was created out of nothing; and this isas easy to comprehend as the solution of the _Vestiges_, that it sprangfrom that which is certainly next to nothing--a heated fog or universalfire-mist. 

When the author deals with the facts of science he interests andinstructs, but when he speculates he only amuses or perplexes, withoutadvancing knowledge. His terse and luminous description of the astralfirmament deeply impresses with the might and the magnitude of the vastdesign; but when he attempts to account for the elimination of suns andworlds, their formation and arrangement, we are struck by the puerilefolly of his conjectural presumptions. 

Descending from this august and glittering canopy to our own planet, weare not less astonished by the exhibition of the extraordinaryrevolutions it has undergone. Geology is the true historian of theearth. Conducted by the lights it affords, we see an eternity of ageshas rolled before us; we discover a series of worlds rising through thedepths of ocean from the central sphere of heat, amidst boiling floodsand volcanic fires, each new platform of existence, that countlessperiods of time had been requisite to form, peopled with its owncongenial forms of organic life, mostly commencing with the simpler, andascending by almost imperceptible gradations to the higher and morecomplex structures of being. We are struck by the correspondence, by the_pari passu_ development and formation of the earth's crust and organicexistences, and we are apt hastily to conclude that a relation hassubsisted between them, that contemporary changes have been cause andeffect, and that the improvement of the earth produced the correlativeimprovement in animals and plants. 

This forms the author's second questionable hypothesis; it is plausible, but false--repugnant to fact and correct observation. We have nocredible evidence that species have changed, or are changeable by theutmost efforts of art or favouring conditions; all we can effect is toimprove them within definite limits, but not alter their characteristictypes; and we have certain proof that neither man nor the animal nearlynext to him in organization, has changed either in habits, disposition, form, or osseus structure during the last 3, 000 years. Resemblance is noproof of identity; and hence, though species run into each other byalmost inappreciable shades of difference, it is no proof that they arederivative, or other than isolated and self-dependent creations. Thatthey are such, and shall continue such, seems a fixed canon of Nature, who, apparently, has prescribed to each its circle of amendment andrange, that like shall beget like--that nought organic shall existwithout ancestral germ--and that the variety of species whichconstitutes the beauty and order of nature shall by no chance, contrivance, or mingling of races, be confounded. 

Geological facts are in favour of this conclusion. They attest theappearance of new species, not their improvement. In each species agradation of improvement, approximating from a lower to the next higherorganism, is not perceptible; but each seems to have been made perfectat first, and most suited to the co-existent state of the earth. Theearliest reptiles were not reptiles of inferior structure; nor theearliest fishes, birds, or beasts. They were adapted, as we now findthem, to their precise sphere of existence, without progressiveaptitude, preparatory to a higher and translated condition of being. Geology rather points to the extinction and degeneracy of species thantheir improvement; and the fossils of the old red sandstone, and of thecarboniferous formation, attest a loftier and more magnificent creationof both marine and land products than any now subsisting. 

For these and other reasons before adduced, we dismiss the hypothesis ofanimal transmutation as unproved and untenable. It pleases and satisfiessuperficial views, but confronted with the facts of nature, it vanisheslike a baseless vision. Man is _sui generis_, sole and exclusive inorganization, without pre-existing type or affinity to other species;and his alleged recent metamorphosis from a monkey, and his first andfar more distant one from a snail or a tadpole, are paradoxes onlyworthy of idle debating clubs. 

Having attempted to unfold the progression of species by his law ofdevelopment, the author next essays to explain the commencement of thevital principle itself. But here, too, he must have a beginning, and his"organic globule" answers a similar purpose, in deducing the mystery oflife, as his nuclei in the "nebular hypothesis. " In both the perplexityand real difficulty is not solved or mastered, but evaded. But we havealready remarked on the point, and shall only observe that when theauthor can elicit _thought_ from inorganic matter, either by chemistryor galvanism, we shall think he has made a step in creation. Until thenhe does not advance, only deceives himself and readers by verbalsubtleties and baseless suppositions. 

Apart from its hypotheses, the _Vestiges_ form a valuable andinteresting work. It is the most complete, elaborate, and--with all itsfaults of detail, logic, and inference--the most scientific expositor ofuniversal nature yet offered to the world. But its hypotheses areunwarranted, not inductively derived, and can have no hold on men ofscience, supported as they mostly are by fanciful analogies, factsmisunderstood or misstated, and illustrations selected withoutdiscrimination or applicability. Theories do sometimes conduce to thediscovery of truth, but are often obstructive; occupy the mind, liketheological controversy, without advancing science; and are viewed withthe same aversion by the philosopher that the political abstractionstendered to the multitude by the demagogue are viewed by the patrioticlegislator. 

The work, however, will live, and deserves to live. The temple of naturehas been looked into, not profoundly, perhaps, nor always successfully;but in a fearless spirit, and with a highly-accomplished mind. Had thedivine COSMOS been more fully dwelt upon and depicted--had the harmony, beauty, and beneficence of creation been more fully and exclusivelydisplayed--we should have been more gratified; but we are thankful, inthe main, for what we have received. An impulse has been given topopular inquiry, and a vast field for discussion opened, from which wecan prospectively discern neither less love for man, nor reverence forGod. 

Who the author is we have no certain knowledge. It is not, we suspect, Lord KING, nor Lord THURLOW, nor Lady BYRON; but it may be the author ofthe _Essay on the Formation of Opinions_, and of the _Principle ofRepresentation_. Mr. BAILEY, of Sheffield, though little known, possesses the fine reasoning powers, intellectual grasp, independence ofresearch, abstract analysis, and attic style, that would qualify him toproduce the _Vestiges of Creation_, though we never heard that he is agreat natural philosopher. But, as just hinted, deep science is notevinced by the _Vestiges_, only an able, systematic, and tastefularrangement of its distant and recent advances. 

"EXPLANATIONS:"

A SEQUEL TO THE

"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. "

(_From the_ ATLAS _of December 20, 1845. _)

So many strong objections had been arrayed against the _Vestiges ofCreation_, that the author was called upon to elucidate and reinforcehis argument, or abandon the ground he had taken up. The more candid andequitable of his judges--those who were disposed to try him upon themerits, and independently test the claims of his inquiry, as in fairnessit ought to be, as strictly a scientific speculation, regardless of anyconstructive bearings it might have on current opinions orprejudices--could not arrive at any more favourable conclusion than thathe had failed to establish his hypotheses. Indeed this was the onlyverdict that could be safely delivered in. The impugners of the workwere in the same helpless predicament as its author, who had, however, more venturously presumed to unravel unsearchable mysteries, concerningwhich, in the existing state of science, men can only conjecture, wonder, and adore, utterly unable to affirm or deny aught respectingthem. What, for instance, with the remotest semblance of certainty, canbe predicated of the stellar orbs? Is it not idle almost to speculate onthe impenetrable secret of their origin when their very existence isundefinable--when their end, their glittering discs, and all butimmeasurable distances are wholly unapproachable? Nor hardly less beyondour grasp is the commencement of organic existences. We do prideourselves on recent advances to the sources of entity; we tear up thedead, we torture the living, and sedulously chronicle every beat of theheart and vibration of the brain to slake an insatiable curiosity, yethow unsatisfactory our reach towards the hidden springs of life--howlimited our attainments, when the creation of a single blade of grass, the humblest worm, a poor beetle, or gadfly, would baffle the utmoststructural skill of the greatest philosopher! Into the fathomless depthsof our own globe we have also essayed to penetrate. Poor beings! ofthree score and ten, whose utmost historical span extends only to somethousands of years, have sought to trammel up the terrene vicissitudesof millions of ages anterior to their own existence! Does not thissavour of a vain research, or of a laudable thirst for knowledge?

Over all these dark and solemn inscrutabilities, however, the _Vestiges_undertook to throw a glare of light, to reveal their beginning, progression, order, relations, and law of development. Although daringin aim, the attempt was not to be wholly deprecated. While religiousfreedom had been secured, philosophy had become timid, official, andtimeserving; retentive as FONTENELLE of the truths within its grasp, andfearful to give utterance to aught that might disturb the stillness ofthe temple, the lecture-room, or fashionable auditory. Modern teachershad been used so long to the Baconian go-cart, that they had become asapprehensive of losing the inductive clue as the PALINURUSES of old ofthe sight of the directing shore. But the time had arrived when itseemed expedient to relax the strictness of the investigative rule, andafford scope for a more systematic, if not speculative research. Sciencehad made great acquisitions, and it seemed desirable, if only forexperiment sake, to see what kind of FRANKENSTEIN would result from thearchitectural union of her scattered limbs. This formed the scope of the_Vestiges of Creation_; novelties were not propounded, only a portentousskeleton raised from the truths physical astronomy, geology, chemistry, physiology, and natural history had established. Does the author recoilfrom his work? No; these _Explanations_ attest that he is steadfast inthe worship of the idol of his brain. He retracts nothing, here-asserts, elucidates, and often dexterously turns the weapons of themost formidable and orthodox of his adversaries against them, by showingfrom their writings that they had, in detail at least, acquiesced inthe truths that they now, in a generalised form, seek to controvert andrepudiate. So much adroitness and pertinacity in the author can hardlyfail to provoke resistance, if not asperity, despite of theimperturbable temper in which he maintains the combat. The learned havebeen disturbed in their daily routine, by the discharge from an unknownhand, of a massive pyrites, that has diffused as much consternationamong the herd of modish elocutionists, college tutors, and chimpanzeeprofessors, as Jove's ligneous projectile among the lieges of thestanding pool. For this commotion we have, on a former occasion, conceded that there existed valid reasons, and we hasten to see the wayin which they have been met in the rejoinder before us; contentingourselves, as we needs must, by briefly noticing some of the salientpoints of the controversy. 

First of the Nebular Hypothesis. The chief objection to this theory is, that the existence of nebulous matter in the heavens is disproved by thediscoveries made by the telescope of the Earl of ROSSE. By the reach ofthis wondrous tube, masses of light, rendered apparently nebulous bytheir vast distance, have been resolved into clusters of stars, andthence the assumption seemed unwarrantable that any luminous matter, different from the solid bodies composing planetary systems existed inthe heavenly spaces. But to this the author replies, that there are twoclasses of nebulę--one resolvable into constellations--anothercomparatively near, that remains unaffected by telescopic power, andthat until this last description can be separated, the nebularhypothesis is not disproved. It is thus brought to an issue of facts, both as to the existence of nebulę of this latter kind, and the opticalpower to resolve them into distinct stars. 

But the author can hardly claim this negative success in grappling witha second objection--namely, his assumed origin of _rotatory motion_. According to him, a confluence of atoms round a spherical centre ofattraction, would cause the agglomerated mass to revolve upon its axisin the manner of our earth. This was denied by everybody the leastacquainted with the laws of motion; and thus did one of his imaginarysolutions of a great phenomenon of the universe fall dead to the ground. This he now seems to concede, but in a sentence unintelligible to us, in which an undoubted physical law is spoken of as only an _abstracttruth_ (p. 20). He obviously still clings to his first mistakeninference, and calls to his aid Professor NICHOL, whom he has alsopressed into his service to help him over the last-mentioned difficultyby the Professor's affirmation of a diversity of nebulous clusters. Butthe Professor does not commit himself to the extent of the author; hisaqueous whirlpool is cited from HERSCHEL, only in illustration, andcorrectly said to be produced by the unequal force of convergence of afluid to a common centre. But the author's nuclei, disposed in hisnotable "fire-mist, " did not act with unequal force on the ambientvapour, and whose central convergence in consequence, would not producerotation or motion of any kind. This was the real matter in question, the author was taken up on his own premises, and the results he assumedto follow from them proved to be inconsistent with the unquestionablelaws of gravitating matter. 

He has gone over the geological portion of his subject with much care, but if competent, it would be impossible within our narrow limits toaccompany him; nor could the discussion be made either interesting orintelligible except to the scientific, who have devoted attention to anextremely curious, but still obscure and unsettled field ofinvestigation. He has elaborately cleared up many points, andsuccessfully, we think, answered some weighty objections, but we are notyet converts to his theory of organic development. One passage we shallextract; after adverting to the facts established by powerful evidence, that during the long term of the earth's existence, strata of variousthickness were deposited in seas composed of matter worn away from theprevious rocks; that these strata by volcanic agency were raised intocontinents, or projected into mountain chains, and that sea and landhave been constantly interchanging conditions. He continues:--

 "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. This is a wonderful revelation to have come upon the men of our time, and one which the philosophers of the days of Newton could never have expected to be vouchsafed. The great fact established by it is, that the organic creation, as we now see it, was not placed upon the earth at once; it observed a PROGRESS. Now we can _imagine_ the Deity calling a young plant or animal into existence instantaneously; but we see that he does not usually do so. The young plant and also the young animal go through a series of conditions, advancing them from a mere germ to the fully developed repetition of the respective parental forms. So, also, we can _imagine_ Divine power evoking a whole creation into being by one word; but we find that such had not been his mode of working in that instance, for geology fully proves that organic creation passed through a series of stages before the highest vegetable and animal forms appeared. Here we have the first hint of organic creation having arisen in the manner of natural order. The analogy does not prove identity of causes, but it surely points very broadly to natural order or law having been the mode of procedure in both instances. "

To the allusion in the last sentence there can be no demur; thatthere is "natural order or law" in creation who will contest? But itis the author's law and the author's order that are in dispute--histransmutation of species, the higher classes emerging from andpartly annihilating the lower, under meliorated conditions of being. That the simpler form of organic life should first appear; thatremains of invertebrated animals should be first found; then, withthese, fish, being the lowest of the vertebrated; next, reptiles andbirds, which occupy higher grades; and finally, along with the rest, mammifers, the highest of all--all this appears natural enough. _Howcould it be otherwise?_ When the earth was a slimy bed, what but thelowest forms of life--the mollusca, and other soft animals, withoutbony structure--could possibly live in or occupy it? During thecarboniferous era, when the earth was enveloped in an atmosphere ofhydrogen, vegetation might thrive; but man, and animals likehim, dependent on vital air, could not exist; nor are remains ofthem found in this epoch of the globe's vicissitudes. All thisis comprehensible. But the perplexing inquiry is, whence didthe successive grades of animals emerge? That they could notcontemporaneously exist; when the whole earth was a shoreless sea, and that animals could not live is certain; but were they created insuccession by the Divine fiat, or did they emerge, as our authorsupposes and elaborately tries to prove, from the humblest primitiveforms, by an inscrutable law of progression--evidenced, he contends, by geological facts--though by some his facts are disputed--andcertainly not confirmed by any animal changes observable within thelimits of human experience?

There is another alternative offers, which would dispense both with theauthor's hypothesis and the need of successive organic creations by aspecial Providence. Is it a geological fact, since life began, that theearth has _simultaneously_ undergone throughout its entire surface therevolutions assigned to it? May it not always, from that period, haveconsisted, as it now does, of water and dry land, alternately changingtheir sites, but always apart, and allowing of the contemporaryexistence on some portion of its surface of all the varieties of tribesever found upon it? The fossiliferous rocks that formed the primevalsea-beds could only be deposited by the abrasion from the anterior andhigher rocks. It has always appeared to us that this conjecture isworthy of consideration, and, if found tenable, would reconcile manyperplexities. 

Upon subjects so obscure, and to which the human intellect has been onlyrecently directed, it is not surprising that men of science have notarrived at uniformity of conclusion. Unable to reconcile phenomena withpositive knowledge, there are names of no mean repute who would reservecertain domains of creation as the fields of special interventions. Tothis class Dr. WHEWELL appears to belong, who assumes that "events notincluded in the _course of nature_ have formerly taken place. " In thesame way Professor SEDGWICK, to account for the appearance of certainanimals, says, "They were not called into being by any law of nature, but by a power above nature. " He adds, "they were created by the hand ofGOD, and adapted to the conditions of the period. " To this the author ofthe _Vestiges_ assents, with the explanation (p. 134) that theirexistence was not the result of a "special exertion of power to meetspecial conditions, " but of an antecedent and primitive law ofdevelopment suited to the new exigencies, and emanating from theCreator. This, he contends, does not lower our estimate of the Divinecharacter; and, in proof, cites Dr. DODDRIDGE, who cannot be suspectedof irreverence. "When we assert, " says the pious and amiable author, "aperpetual Divine agency, we readily acknowledge that matters are socontrived as not to need a Divine interposition in a different mannerfrom that in which it had been constantly exerted. And it must beevident that an unremitting energy, displayed in such circumstances, _greatly exalts our idea of God, instead of depressing it_; and, therefore, by the way, is so much more likely to be true. " Againstconstructive inferences it is urged, in the _Explanations_--

 "As to results which may flow from any particular view which reason may show as the best supported, I must firmly protest against any assumed title in an opponent to pronounce what these are. The first object is to ascertain truth. No truth can be derogatory to the presumed fountain of all truth. The derogation must lie in the erroneous construction which a weak human creature puts upon the truth. And practically it is the true infidel state of mind which prompts apprehension regarding any fact of nature, or any conclusion of sound argument. "

The writer then quotes Sir JOHN HERSCHELL as having some years agoannounced views strictly conformable to those subsequently taken oforganic creation in the _Vestiges_:--

 "'For my part, ' says Sir John, 'I cannot but think it an inadequate conception of the Creator, to assume it as granted that his combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise, though, in this, as in all his other works, we are led, by _all analogy_, to suppose that he operates through a series of intermediate causes, and that, in consequence, _the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural, in contradistinction to a miraculous process_, --although we perceive no indications of any process actually in progress which is likely to issue in such a result. In his address to the British Association at Cambridge, (1845), he said with respect to the author's hypothesis of the first step of organic creation--'The transition from an inanimate crystal to a globule capable of such endless organic and intellectual development, is as great a step--as unexplained a one--as unintelligible to us--and in any sense of the word as _miraculous_, as the immediate creation and introduction upon earth, of every species and every individual would be!'"

The Rev. Dr. PYE SMITH is next adduced:--

 "'Our most deeply investigated views of the Divine Government, ' says he, 'lead to the conviction that it is exercised in the way of _order_, or what we usually call _law_. God reigns according to immutable principles, that is _by law_, in _every part of his kingdom--the mechanical, the intellectual, and the moral_; and it appears to be most clearly a position arising out of that fact, that _a comprehensive germ which shall necessarily evolve all future developments_, down to the minutest atomic movements, is a more suitable attribution to the Deity, than the idea of a necessity for irregular interferences. '"

Lastly, the reviewer of the _Vestiges_ in _Blackwood's Magazine_, who isunderstood to be a naturalist of distinguished ability, expresseshimself in an equally decided manner:--

 "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. The presumption naturally rises in the mind, that the same Great Being would adopt the same mode of action in both cases. . . . To a mind accustomed, as is every educated mind, to regard the operations of Deity as essentially differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself, the power of God as put forth _in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in;_ it pains the imagination to be obliged to assimilate those operations, for a moment, to the brief energy of a human will, or the manipulations of a human hand. . . . No, there is nothing atheistic, nothing irreligious, in the attempt to conceive creation, as well as reproduction, carried on by universal laws. "

We have dwelt so much upon this matter because it is one in whichpopular feelings are likely to be most deeply interested. We shall givethe author, too, the benefit of his _Explanations_ on another point, elucidating his former statement of the transmutation of a crop of oatsinto a crop of rye:--

 "'At the request, ' says Dr. Lindley, 'of the Marquis of Bristol, the Reverend Lord Arthur Hervey, in the year 1843, sowed a handful of oats, treated them in the manner recommended, by continually stopping the flowering stems, and the produce, in 1844, has been for the most part ears of a very slender barley, having much the appearance of rye, with a little wheat, and some oats; samples of which are, by the favour of Lord Bristol, now before us. ' The learned writer then adverts to the 'extraordinary, but certain fact, that in orchidaceous plants, forms just as different as wheat, barley, rye, and oats, have been proved by the most rigorous evidence, to be accidental variations of one common form, brought about no one knows how, but before our eyes, and rendered permanent by equally mysterious agency. Then says Reason, if they occur in orchidaceous plants, why should they not also occur in corn plants? for it is not likely that such vagaries will be confined to one little group in the vegetable kingdom; it is more rational to believe them to be a part of the _general system_ of creation. . . . How can we be _sure_, that wheat, rye, oats, and barley, are not all accidental off-sets from some unsuspected species?'"

It may be so; but this would only prove that the "unsuspected species"included greater varieties, not that a really defined species wastransmutable into another. But it is a point upon which no satisfactoryresult can be arrived at, since naturalists are not agreed in theclassification of species, nor what attributes constitute one. 

The Broomfield experiment is again brought forward, as decisive of thepower to originate new life from inorganic elements. It will beremembered that Mr. WEEKES, of Sandwich, continued during three years tosubject solutions to electric action, and invariably found insectsproduced in these instances, while they as invariably failed to appearwhere the electric action was not employed, but every other conditionfulfilled. In a letter to the author of the _Vestiges_--two areinserted, one on the independent generation of fungi--Mr. WEEKES says--

 "One hundred and sixty-six days from the commencement of the experiment--the first acari seen in connexion therewith, six in number and nearly full-grown, were discovered on the outside of the open glass vessel. On removing two pieces of card which had been laid over the mouth of this vessel, several fine specimens were found inhabiting the under surfaces, and others completely developed and in active motion here and there within the glass. Making my visit at an hour when a more favourable light entered the room, swarms of acari were found on the cards, about the glass tumbler, both within and without, and also on the platform of the apparatus. At this identical hour Dr. J. Black favoured me with a call, inspected the arrangements, and received six living specimens of the acarus produced from solution in the open vessel. "

Specimens of the insect were sent to Paris, when they set a wholeconclave of philosophers a-laughing, because they were found to containova. Other specimens were sent to London, but there their fate wassealed by their being found to be, not a new species, but one thenabundant in the country. For ourselves we think the experiment notconclusive. We adopt HUME'S principle. All but universal experiencehaving established that life is _ex ovo_ only, we must have aproportionate body of counter evidence to establish a different mode ofgeneration. At all events, Mr. WEEKES'S protracted gestation of 166 daysby his galvanic battery is not likely, in the existing rage fordespatch, to supersede the existing routine of reproduction. 

LONDON: PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND. 

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2. --THEATRICAL CRITICISMS upon the written and acted Drama, in whichboth are reviewed in a spirit of truth and perfect candour. 

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The Literary division of the ATLAS in the various branches has formed anera in the class of publications in which it ranks; and exhibits aremarkable union of the essential features of the more elaborateReviews, with the popular and practical objects of the GeneralNewspaper. 

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Published for the Proprietor, at the office, 6, Southampton-street, Strand, London. --Price Eight Pence. Orders received by all Newsmenthroughout the Kingdom. 

_In one volume octavo, cloth lettered, price Five Shillings, _

NATIONAL DISTRESS, ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES;

A Prize Essay

AS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN "THE ATLAS. "

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By SAMUEL LAING, Esq. , Jun. , _Late Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge. _

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PART I. 

Chap. I. --General Considerations--Absence of the usual HistoricalSymptoms of National Decline--Definition of the Evils which ThreatenSociety. 

Chap. II. --Official Pauperism and Unrecognised Destitution--Evidencerespecting the Condition of the Lower Classes in Large Towns. 

Chap. III. --Extent of Destitution in Large Towns--Condition of Hand-loomWeavers and other Classes of Unskilled Manufacturing Operatives. 

Chap. IV. --Condition of Class of Agricultural Labourers. 

Chap. V. --Condition of Classes of Labouring Population employed inMines, Fisheries, Canals, Railways, &c. 

Chap. VI. --Condition of Classes Superior to Common Labourers--GeneralView of Society in Great Britain. 

PART II. 

Chap. I. --General Views--Modern Theories of Society--Effect andParamount Importance of Moral Causes. 

Chap. II. --Economical Causes--Population--Theory of Malthus. 

Chap. III. --Economical Causes, continued--Revolution in the Course ofIndustry effected by Machinery--Extension of Manufactures--FactorySystem, &c. 

Chap. IV. --Foreign Competition. 

PART III. 

Chap. I. --Free Trade, Corn Laws. 

Chap. II. --Free Trade, continued--New Tariff, Provisions, Sugar, &c. Reciprocity System--Commercial Treaties. 

Chap. III. --Taxation. 

Chap. IV. --Currency and Banking. 

Chap. V. --Emigration. 

Chap. VI. --Poor Laws. 

Chap. VII. --Sanitary and Building Regulations, &c. 

Chap. VIII. --Education. 

Chap. IX. --Conclusion. 

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LONDON:

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also, At the Atlas Office, 6, Southampton-street, Strand.