Part 23

No less certain are we that the processes of digestion and assimilation have ever been unchanged. We find the same organs for these purposes as in existing animals, viz., the mouth, the stomach, the intestines, and the blood-vessels, as the coprolites and the cololites abundantly testify. We infer, therefore, with great confidence, the existence of gastric juice and bile for completing the transformation of the food into blood. Indeed, the discovery by a lady (Miss Mary Anning, of England) of that singular secretion from which the color called _India ink_ is prepared, with the ink-bag of the sepia, or loligo, in a petrified state, shows that the process of secretion existed in these ancient animals; and when we find that in all respects their structure was like that of existing animals, although some of the softer vessels have not been preserved, we cannot doubt but the entire process of digestion, and the conversion of blood into bone, nerve, and muscle, was precisely the same as it now is.

In the fact, also, that we find in fossil specimens organs of respiration, such as lungs, gills, and trachea, we learn that the process of a circulation of blood, and its purification by means of the oxygen of the atmosphere, have never varied. Animal heat, too, dependent as it is essentially upon this oxygenating process, was always derived from the same source as at present.

The perfectly preserved minute vessels of vegetables enable us, by means of the microscope, to identify them with the plants now alive; and they prove, too, incontestably, that the nourishment of vegetables has always been of the same kind, and has been converted into the various proximate principles of plants by the same processes.

Again. We have evidence that these ancient animals possessed the same senses as their congeneric races now on the globe. We have one good example in which that most delicate organ, the eye, is most perfectly preserved. It is well known that the visual organ of insects and of crustaceans is composed of a multitude--often several hundreds or thousands--of eyes, united into one, so as to serve the purpose of a multiplying glass; each eye producing a separate image of the object observed. Such an eye had the trilobite. Each contained at least four hundred nearly spherical lenses on the surface of the cornea, united into one organ; revealing to us the interesting fact, that the relations of light to animal organization were the same in that remote era as they now are.

But I need not multiply proof of the functional identity of organic nature in all ages. It may, however, be inquired, how this identity, as well as that of anatomical structure, is reconciled with the great anomalies, both in size and form, which have confessedly prevailed among ancient animals. Compare the plants and animals which now occupy the northern parts of the globe with those which flourished there in the remote periods of geological history, and can we believe them to be portions of one great system of organic nature?

Compare, for instance, the thirty or forty species of ferns now growing to the height of a few inches, or one or two feet, in Europe and this country, with the more than two hundred species already dug out of the coal mines, many of which were forty to forty-five feet in height; or the diminutive ground pines, and equiseta, now scarcely noticed in our forests, with the gigantic lepidodendron, sigillaria, calamites, and equiseta, of the carboniferous period; and who will not be struck with the great difference between them?

Or go to Germany, and imagine the bones of the dinotherium to start out of the soil, and become clothed with flesh and instinct with life. You have before you a quadruped eighteen feet in length, and of proportional height, much larger than the elephant, and with curved tusks reaching two or three feet below its lower jaw, while no other living animal would be found there larger than the ox, or the horse--mere pygmies by the side of such a monster, and evidently unfit to be his contemporaries.

Again. Let the megatherium be brought back to life on the pampas of South America, and you have an animal twelve feet long and eight feet high, with proportions perfectly colossal. Its fore feet were a yard long, its thigh bone three times thicker than that of the elephant, its width across the haunches five feet, its spinal marrow a foot in diameter, and its tail, where it was inserted into the body, two feet in diameter. What a giant in comparison with the sloth, the anteater, and the armadillo, to which it was allied by anatomical structure!

Still more unequal in size, as compared with living batrachians, was the labyrinthidon, once common in England and Germany, if, indeed, the tracks on sandstone were made by that animal. It was, in fact, a frog as large as an ox, and perhaps as large as an elephant. Think of such animals swarming in our morasses at the present day!

But coming back from Europe, and turning our thoughts to the animals that trod along the shores of the estuary that once washed the base of Mount Holyoke, in New England, we shall encounter an animal, probably of the batrachian family, of more gigantic proportions. It was the _Otozoum Moodii_, a biped, with feet twenty inches long, more than twice the size of those of the labyrinthidon; yet its tracks on the imperishable sandstone show that such a giant once trod upon the muddy shore of that ancient estuary.

Along that same shore, also, enormous struthious birds moved in flocks, making strides from three to five feet long, with feet eighteen inches long, lifting their heads, it may be, from twelve to eighteen feet above the ground, surpassing, as it appears, even the gigantic dinornis of New Zealand, now that the feet of the latter have been discovered. I refer to the _Brontozoum giganteum_, whose tracks are so common on the new red sandstone of the Connecticut valley. What dwarfs are we in comparison, who now consider ourselves lords of that valley!

Still more remarkable for peculiarities of structure was the tribe of saurians, which were once so numerous in the northern parts of Europe and America. The ichthyosaurus, a carnivorous marine reptile, sometimes thirty feet long, had the snout of a porpoise, the teeth of a crocodile, the head of a lizard, the vertebrae of a fish, the sternum of an ornithorhynchus, and the paddles of a whale. Those paddles, corresponding to the fins of a fish, or the web feet of water birds, were composed, each of them, of more than one hundred bones. In short, we find in this animal a combination of mechanical contrivances, which are now found among three distinct classes of the animal kingdom. Its eye, also, having an orbital cavity, in one species, of fourteen inches in its longest diameter, was proportionally larger than that of any living animal.

The plesiosaurus had the general structure of the ichthyosaurus; but its neck was nearly as long as its whole body--longer, in proportion to its size, than even that of the swan.

The iguanodon was an herbivorous terrestrial reptile that formerly inhabited England. It approaches nearest in structure to the iguana, a reptile four or five feet long, inhabiting the marine parts of this continent. Yet the iguanodon was thirty feet long, with a thigh six feet, and a body fourteen feet in circumference. What an alarm would it now produce, to have such a monster start into life in the forests of England, where no analogous animal could be found more than half a foot in length! Surely this must have been one of the fabulous monsters of antiquity.

Still more heteroclitic and unlike existing nature was the pterodactyle, a small lizard, contemporary with the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus. At one time anatomists regarded it as a bird, at another as a bat, and finally as a reptile, having the head and neck of a bird, the body and tail of a quadruped, the wings of a bat, and the teeth of a saurian reptile. With its wings it could fly or swim; it could walk on two feet or four; with its claws it could climb or creep. "Thus," says Dr. Buckland, "like Milton's fiend, all qualified for all services, and all elements, the pterodactyle was a fit companion for the kindred reptiles that swarmed in the seas, or crawled on the shores of a turbulent planet."

"The fiend, O'er bog, or steep, through straight, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

Now, when the details of such facts are brought before us, it is very natural to feel that it is the history of monsters, and that the Centaurs, the Gorgons, and Chimeras of the ancients, are no more unlike existing animals than these resurrections from the rocks. But further examination rectifies our mistake, and we recognize them as parts of one great system. All the peculiarities of size, and structure, and form, which we meet, we find to be only wise and benevolent adaptations to the different circumstances in which animals have been placed. The gigantic size of many of them, compared with existing races, may be explained by the tropical, or even ultra tropical character of the climate; and not a single anomaly of structure and form can be pointed out, which did not contribute to the convenience and happiness of the species, in the circumstances in which they were placed. It is our ignorance and narrow views alone that give any of them the aspect of monsters. Listen to the opinion of Sir Charles Bell, one of the ablest of modern anatomists. "The animals of the antediluvian world," says he, "were not monsters; there is no _lusus_, or extravagance. Hideous as they appear to us, and like the phantoms of a dream, they were adapted to the condition of the earth when they existed." "Judging by these indications of the habits of the animals, we acquire a knowledge of the condition of the earth during their period of existence; that it was suited at one time to the scaly tribe of the lacertae, with languid motion; at another, to animals of higher organization, with more varied and lively habits; and, finally, we learn that, at any period previous to man's creation, the surface of the earth would have been unsuitable to him."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, pp. 35 and 31.

A similar view is given of this subject by England's geological poet, (Rev. Mr. Wilks,) in whose playful verses we find more of true science and just inference than in many a ponderous tome of grave prose. In one of his poems he says,--

"Seamy coal, Limestone, or oolite, and other sections, Give us strange tidings of our old connections; Our arborescent ferns, of climate torrid, With unknown shapes of names and natures horrid; Strange ichthyosaurus, or iguanodon, With many more I cannot verse upon,-- Lost species and lost genera; some whose bias Is chalk, marl, sandstone, gravel, or blue lias; Birds, beasts, fish, insects, reptiles; fresh, marine, Perfect as yesterday among us seen In rock or cave; 'tis passing strange to me How such incongruous mixture e'er could be. And yet no medley was it: each its station Once occupied in wise and meet location. God is a God of order, though to scan His works may pose the feeble powers of man."

The facts and reasonings which have now been presented will sustain the following important inferences:--

_In the first place, we learn that the notions which have so widely prevailed, in ancient and modern times, respecting a chaos, are without foundation._

Among all heathen nations of antiquity, the belief in a primeval chaos was almost universal; and from the heathen philosophers it was transmitted to the Christian world, and incorporated with the Mosaic cosmogony. It is not, indeed, easy to ascertain what is the precise idea which has been attached to a chaos. It is generally described, however, as "a confused assemblage of elements," "an unformed and undigested mass of heterogeneous matter;" not, of course, subject to those laws which now govern it, and which have arranged it all in beautiful order, even if we leave out of the account vegetable and animal organization. Now, I have attempted to show that there never was a period on the globe when these laws, with the exception of the organic, did not operate as they now do. Nay, the geologist, when he examines the oldest rocks, finds the results of these laws at the supposed period when chaos reigned; that is, in the earliest times of our planet. And what are these results? The most splendid crystallizations which nature furnishes. The emerald, the topaz, the sapphire, and other kindred gems, were elaborated during the supposed chaotic state of the globe; for no earlier products have yet been discovered than these most perfect illustrations of crystallographical, chemical, and electrical laws. If, indeed, any should say, that by a chaos they mean only that state of the world when no animals or plants existed,--in other words, when no organic laws had been established,--to such a chaos I have no objection. And this is the chaos described in the Bible, where it is said that, before the creation of animals and plants, the earth was _without form and void_. The _tohu vau bohu_ of Moses, which is thus translated in our English Bible, means, simply and literally, _invisible and unfurnished_--_invisible_, both because the ocean covered the present land, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and _unfurnished_, because as yet no organic natures had been called into existence. This is the meaning which the old Jewish writers, as Philo and Josephus, attached to these words; and they have been followed by some of the ablest modern commentators. "It is wonderful," says Rosenmuller the elder, "that so many interpreters could have persuaded themselves that it was possible to detect a chaos in the words [Hebrew]. That notion unquestionably derived its origin from the fictions of the Greek and Latin poets, which were transferred by those interpreters to Moses. If we follow the practice of the language, the Hebrew phrase has this signification: _The earth was waste and desert_, or, as others prefer, _empty and vacuous_; that is, _uncultured and unfurnished_ with those things with which the Creator afterwards adorned it."--_Antiquiss. Tell. Hist._ p. 19-23.

Upon the whole, there is no evidence whatever, either in nature or revelation, that the earth has ever been in a state corresponding to the common notions of a chaos; while, on the other hand, there is strong proof that the present laws of nature have been in operation from the beginning. These laws have varied in the intensity of their action, and we have strong reason to believe that organic laws did not always exist; but none of these laws have ever been suspended, to leave the elements to mix in wild disorder in a formless mass. It is high time that religion was freed from the indescribable incubus of a chaos.

_Finally, the most important conclusion to which the mind is conducted by this subject is, that the present and past conditions of this world are only parts of one and the same great system of infinite wisdom and benevolence._

We have seen that the same wise and benevolent laws, organic and inorganic, have always controlled, as they now control, this lower world. It is true we find modified conditions of the globe in its past history; but they were always the foreseen result of the same laws, and in harmony with the same great plan. And the modifications of organic structure, which were great in the successive economies, were always in perfect correspondence with the earth's physical changes. Nowhere do we meet with conflicting plans; but throughout all nature, from the earliest zoophyte and sea-weed of the silurian rocks to the young animals and plants that came into existence to-day, and from the choice gems that were produced when the earth was without form and void, to the crystals which are now forming in the chemist's laboratory, one golden chain of harmony links all together, and identifies all as the work of the same infinite mind.

"In all the numerous examples of design which we have selected from the various animal and vegetable remains that occur in a fossil state," says Dr. Buckland, "there is such a never-failing identity in the fundamental principles of their construction, and such uniform adoption of analogous means to produce various ends, with so much only of departure from one common type of mechanism as was requisite to adapt each instrument to its own especial function, and to fit each species to its peculiar place and office in the scale of created beings, that we can scarcely fail to acknowledge in all these facts a demonstration of the unity of the intelligence in which such transcendent harmony originated; and we may almost dare to assert that neither atheism nor polytheism would ever have found acceptance in the world, had the evidences of high intelligence and unity of design which have been disclosed by modern discoveries in physical science been fully known to the authors or the abetters of systems to which they are so diametrically opposed. It is the same handwriting that we read, the same system and contrivance that we trace, the same unity of object and relation to final causes which we see maintained throughout, and constantly proclaiming the unity of the great divine original."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 584.

"The earth, from her deep foundations, unites with the celestial orbs, that roll throughout boundless space, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one eternal and dominant intelligence, the almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist; _the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from everlasting and without end_."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 596.

LECTURE IX.

THE HYPOTHESIS OF CREATION BY LAW.

In all ages of the world, where men have been enlightened enough to reason upon the causes of phenomena, a mysterious and a mighty power has been imputed to the laws of nature. A large portion of the most enlightened men have felt as if those laws not only explain, but possess an inherent potency to continue, the ordinary operations of nature. Most men of this description, however, have thought that to originate nature must have demanded the special exercise of an infinite and all-wise Being. But a few, in every age, have endeavored to exalt law into a Creator, as well as Controller, of the world. The hypothesis has assumed a great variety of forms, and until recently few have attempted to draw it out in all its details, and apply it to all nature. Among the ancient philosophers it was based on the eternity of matter, and made the foundation of a system of rank atheism. Starting with the position, as an axiom, that nothing produces nothing,--in other words, that creation out of nothing is impossible,--Democritus maintained that all existence was the result of two necessary and self-existent principles, viz., space, infinite in extent, and atoms, infinite in number. The latter have been eternally in motion, in directions varying from right lines; and their necessary collisions have produced the various forms of organic and inorganic nature. To produce animals and plants, it was only necessary that the atoms should be suitably arranged. The only animating principle was the rapid agitation of atoms.

In modern times, very few philosophers have ventured to solve the whole problem of the universe by any self-acting, self-producing power in nature. La Place limited himself to the mode in which the great bodies of the universe were produced by the vertical movements of nebulous matter; although his object, equally with that of Democritus and Epicurus, was to dispense with an intelligent, personal Deity. Lamarck, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, and Bory St. Vincent, assuming the existence of matter and its laws, have endeavored to show, by the inherent vitality of some parts of matter, how the first or lowest classes of animals and plants may have been produced; and how, from these, by the theory of development and the force of circumstances, all the higher families, with their instincts and intellects, may have been evolved. A still more recent, but anonymous, writer has had the boldness to unite these nebular hypotheses, with those of spontaneous generation and transmutation, into a single system, and to attempt to clothe it with the garb of philosophy; nay, to do this in consistency, not only with Theism, but with a belief in revelation. This theory is what I denominate the _hypothesis of creation by law_. And judging from its wide reception, we should be led to infer that it had strong probabilities in its favor. It should, therefore, at least receive a careful and candid examination. For though many of its statements and conclusions are absurd, and some of them are highly ridiculous, the hypothesis, at least in some of its parts, falls in with certain loose notions that have got possession of the public mind, and which nothing but cogent reasoning can eradicate.

Before entering upon such an examination, however, it seems necessary to go somewhat more into detail in illustration of the nature of this hypothesis. It may conveniently be described under the heads of _cosmogony_, which attempts to account for the origin of the world; _zoogony_, which explains the origin of animals; and _zoonomy_, which describes the laws of animal life.[17]

The cosmogony of this theory is embraced in what is denominated the nebular hypothesis, propounded by the eminent mathematician La Place. He supposes that, originally, the whole solar system constituted only one vast mass of nebulous matter, being expanded into the thinnest vapor and gas by heat, and more than filling the space at present occupied by the planets. This vapor, he still further supposes, had a revolution from west to east on an axis. As the heat diminished by radiation, the nebulous matter must condense, and consequently the velocity of rotation must increase, and an exterior zone of vapor might be detached; since the central attraction might not be able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. This ring of vapor might sometimes retain its original form, as in the case of Saturn's ring; but the tendency would be, in general, to divide into several masses, which, by coalescing again, would form a single mass, having a revolution about the sun, and on its axis. This would constitute a planet in a state of vapor; and by the detachment of successive rings might all the planets be produced. As they went on contracting, by the same law, satellites might be formed to each; and the ultimate result would be solid planets and satellites, revolving around the sun in nearly the same plane, and in the same direction, and also on their axes.

Although this hypothesis has been regarded with favor by many philosophers, who were Theists, and even Christians, yet the object of La Place in proposing it was to sustain atheism. Sir Isaac Newton had expressed the conviction that "the admirable arrangement of the solar system cannot but be the work of an intelligent and most powerful Being." La Place declared that, in this statement, Newton "had deviated from the method of true philosophy," and brought forward these views to sustain his declaration. Whether they do sustain it, will be considered in another place. But since it is one of those modes in which men have attempted to account for the universe without a Deity, it is a proper subject of examination in this lecture, in which we are inquiring whether law alone will account for the creation and sustentation of the universe.