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BRIDGEwATER TREATIs Es.
C.A.R.E.Y., I, E.A & BIA N GHARD
HAVE PUBLISHED,
ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS, con-
sidered with reference to Natural Theology, by the
Rev. WILLIAM WHEwBLL, M. A., Fellow and Tutor of
Trinity College, Cambridge; being the Third Part of
the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and
Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation.
The series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is publish-
ed under the following circumstances:—
The Right Honourable and Rev. FRANCIs HENRY, Earl of Bridge-
water, died in the month of February, 1825; he directed certain
trustees therein named, to invest in the public funds, the sum of
eight thousand pounds sterling; this sum, with the accruing divi-
dends thereon, to be held at the disposal of the President, for
the time being, of the Royal Society of London, to be paid to
the person or persons nominated by him. The Testator farther
directed, that the person or persons selected by the said Presi-
dent, should be appointed to write, print and publish one thou-
sand copies of a work, on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of
God, as manifested in the Creation; illustrating such work, by all
reasonable arguments, as, for instance, the variety and formation
of God’s creatures in the Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral King-
doms; the effect of digestion, and, thereby, of conversion; the
construction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of other
arguments; as also by discoveries, ancient and modern, in arts,
sciences, and the whole extent of literature.
He desired, moreover, that the profits arising from the sale cf
the works so published, should be paid to the authors of the
works.
The late President of the Royal Society, DAVIES GILBERT, Esq.,
requested the assistance of his Grace, the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, and of the Bishop of London, in determining upon the best
mode of carrying into effect, the intentions of the Testator.
Acting with their advice, and with the concurrence of a noble-
man immediately connected with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gil-
bert appointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate
Treatises in the different branches of the subjects here stated:—
I. The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intel-
lectual Constitution of Man, by the Rev. THOMAS CHALMERs. D.D.,
Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh.
II. The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condi-
tion of Man, by John KIDD, M.D., F. R. S., Regius Professor of
Medicine in the University of Oxford. *
III. Astronomy and General Physics, considered with reference
to Natural Theology, by the Rev. WILLIAM WHEwBL.L., M. A.,
P. R. S., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
IV. The Hand: its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as evinc-
ing Design, by Sir CHARLEs BELL, K. H., F. R. S.
V. Animal and Vegetable Physiology, by PETER MARK Roger,
M. D., Fellow of and Secretary to the Royal Society. -
VI. Geology and Mineralogy, by the Rev. WILLIAM Buck-
LAND, D. D., F. R. S., Canon of Christ Church, and Professor of
Geology in the University of Oxford.
VII. The History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals, by the
Rev. WILLIAM KIR By, M. A., F. R. S. -
VIII. Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion,
by WILLIAM PRout, M.D., F. R. S.
The whole of these Treatises are mearly finished, and will be put
to press as soon as received, and published in a cheap and handsome
form.
THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSO-
PHY ; containing the Doctrines, Duties, Admonitions,
and consolations of the Christian Religion, by John
BURNs, M. D., F. R. S. From the fourth London edi-
tion. In the press.
CONVERSATIONS WITH LORD BYRON ON
THE SUBJECT OF RELIGION. By J. KENNEDY,
M. D. 12mo. .
GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY, witH
LOCAL RECOLLECTIONS. By Edward JEssE, Esq.
To which are added, Maxims and Hints for Anglers.
From the second London edition, in one volume, being
a Companion to the Journal of a Naturalist.
We have occasionally selected a paragraph from a very pretty
volume, by Mr. Jesse, published under the above title. The au-
thor lives in the neighbourhood of Kew, and like Mr. White of
Selborne,—who made a small village of Hampshire one of the
most interesting spots to the lover of nature, by his ample de-
scriptions of the natural objects which he saw around him, Mr.
Jesse has rendered his walks a vehicle for much instruction and
amusement to himself and to others. He principally confines his
attention to zoology—the most generally attractive of the depart-
ments of natural history; and he looks upon the animal world
with so much practical wisdom, being disposed to be happy him-
self, and to see every creature around him happy, that there are
few persons who will not read his slight sketches with improve-
ment to their hearts and understandings.-Penny Magazine.
THE MECHANISM OF THE HEAVENS. By
Mrs. SomERVILLE. In 18mo. -
Is it asking too much of Mrs. Somerville to express a hope that
she will allow this beautiful preliminary Dissertation to be printed
separately for the delight and instruction of thousands of readers,
young and old, who cannot understand, or are too indolent to
apply themselves to the more elaborate parts of the work? If
she will do this, we hereby promise to exert our best endeavours
to make its merits known.— Literary Gazette. -
SALMONIA; OR, DAYS OF FLY FISHING.
By Sir H. DAvy.
We are surprised in meeting with an American reprint of this
delightful volume, that a work so universally popular has not
been before republished in this country.—JV. Y. American.
One of the most delightful labours of leisure ever seen; not a
few of the most beautiful phenomena of nature are here lucidly
explained.—Gent. JMagazine.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.
By the late Rev. GILBERT WHITE, A. M., Fellow of the
Oriel College, Oxford; with additions by Sir WILLIAM
JARDINE, Bart. F. R. S., E. F. L. S. M. W. S., author of
“Illustrations of Ornithology.” -
White's History of Selborne, the most fascinating piece of rural
writing and sound English philosophy that has ever issued from
the press.--Athenaeum. .
JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. With Plates.
Plants, trees, and stones we note;
Birds, insects, beasts and rural things.
We again most strongly recommend this little unpretending
volume to the attention of every lover of nature, and more parti-
cularly of our country readers. It will induce them, we are sure,
to examine more closely than they have been accustomed to do,
into the objects of animated nature, and such examination will
prove one of the most innocent, and the most satisfactory sources
of gratification and amusement. It is a book that ought to find
its way into every rural drawing-room in the kingdom, and one
that may safely be placed in every lady’s boudoir, be her rank
and station in life what they may.— Quart. Review, No. LXXVIII.
This is a most delightful book on the most delightful of all stu-
dies. We are acquainted with no previous work which bears any
resemblance to this, except “White’s History of Selborne,” the
most fascinating piece of rural writing and sound English philoso-
phy that ever issued from the press.--Athenaeum.
THE FAMILY CABINET ATLAS, constructed
upon an original plan : being a Companion to the En-
cyclopædia Americana, Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Family
Library, Cabinet Library, &c.
[This Atlas comprises, in a volume of the Family Li-
brary size, nearly one hundred Maps and Tables, which
present equal to fifty thousand names of places; a body of
information three times as extensive as that supplied by
the generality of Quarto flilases.]
This beautiful and most useful little volume, says the Literary
Gazette, is a perfect picture of elegance, containing a vast sum
of geographical information. A more instructive little present, or
a gift better calculated to be long preserved and often referred
to, could not be offered to favoured youth of either sex. Its
cheapness, we must add, is another recommendation; for, although
this elegant publication contains one hundred beautiful engrav-
ings, it is issued at a price that can be no obstacle to its being
procured by every parent and friend to youth.
This Atlas far surpasses any thing of the kind which we have
seen, and is made to suit the popular libraries which Dr. Lardner
and Mr. Murray are now sending into every family in the em-
pire.—Monthly Review.
Its very ingenious method of arrangement secures to the geo-
graphical student the information for which hitherto he has been
obliged to resort to works of the largest dimensions.—Athenæum.
THE RECTORY OF VALEHEAD. By the Rev.
RoBERT WILson Evans, M. A.
Universally and cordially do we recommend this delightful vo-
lume. Impressed with the genuine spirit of Christianity; a diary,
as it were, of the feelings, hopes, and sorrows of a family,–-it
comes home to all, either in sympathy or example. It is a beau-
tiful picture of a religious household, influencing to excellence
all within its sphere. We believe no person could read this work,
and not be better for its pious touching lessons.—Literary Gaz.
We fearlessly pronounce this delightful little volume to be not
only one of the most faultless, but every way valuable works it
has ever fallen to our lot to recommend to public perusal.—Stam-
..ford Herald.
The Rectory of Walehead is a beautiful model of domestic life
in the Christian home of a well-regulated family, and combines
iiterary amusement with the most refined and intellectual im-
provement.—Scotsman.
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, chiefly during the Seven-
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By Sir JAMES MAck-
INTosh, M. P. In 8vo.
The best offspring of the pen of an author who in philosophi-
cal spirit, knowledge and reflection, richness of moral sentiment,
and elegance of style, has altogether no superior—perhaps no
equal—among his contemporaries. Some time ago we made co-
pious extracts from the beautiful work. We could not recom-
mend the whole too earnestly.—JVational Gazette.
THE BOOK OF THE SEASONS ; or THE CA-
LENDAR of NATURE. By WILLIAM How ITT. In one
volume, 12mo.
THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES
ÖN THE POWER, WISDOM, AND GooDNESS OF GOD
AS MANIFESTED IN THE CREATION.
TREATISE III.
{)N ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS.
BY THE REW. W. WHEWELL.
ET HAEC DE DEo, DE QUO UTIQUE EX PHÆNOMENIS DISSERERE AD
PHILOSOPHIAM NATURALEM PERTINET.
NEWTON, CONCLUSI0N OF THE PRINCIPIA.
ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS
CONSIDE RED WITH REFERENCE TO
NATURAL THE OL OGY.
BY THE
R. E. W. W II, L H A M y H.E. we L.L., M. A.
- * 2-r
FELLOW AND TUTOR of TRINITY CoILEGE,
CAMIBRIDGE.
#hiladelphia:
C A R EY, L E A & B L A N C H A R D,
CHESTNUT STREET.
1833.
f i
+: , , , 7C; 2 ...
78/ºr /% & 3-6 - &c.;
*TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT RIEVEREND
CHARLES JAMES,
LORD BISHOP OF LONDON.
MY LORD--
I owe it to you that I was selected for the task
attempted in the following pages, a distinction which
I feel to be honourable; and on this account alone I
should have a peculiar pleasure in dedicating the
work to your lordship. I do so with additional gratifi-
cation on another account: the Treatise has been
written within the walls of the College of which your
lordship was formerly a resident member, and its
merits, if it have any, are mainly due to the spirit
and habits of the place. The society is always pleased
and proud to recollect that a person of the eminent
talents and high character of your lordship is one of
its members; and I am persuaded that any effort in
the cause of letters and religion coming from that
quarter, will have for you an interest beyond what it
would otherwise possess.
The subject proposed to me was limited: my pre-
scribed object is to lead the friends of religion to look
with confidence and pleasure on the progress of the
S DEDICATION.
physical sciences, by showing how admirably every
advance in our knowledge of the universe harmo-
nizes with the belief of a most wise and good God.
To do this effectually may be, I trust, a useful labour.
Yet, I feel most deeply, what I would take this occa-
sion to express, that this, and all that the speculator
concerning Natural Theology can do, is utterly in-
sufficient for the great ends of Religion; namely, for
the purpose of reforming men's lives, of purifying
and elevating their characters, of preparing them for
a more exalted state of being. It is the need of
something fitted to do this, which gives to religion its
vast and incomparable importance; and this can, I
well know, be achieved only by that Revealed Reli-
gion of which we are ministers, but on which the plan
of the present work did not allow me to dwell.
That Divine Providence may prosper the labours
of your lordship, and of all who are joined with you
in the task of maintaining and promoting this Reli-
gion, is, my lord, the earnest wish and prayer of
Your very faithful
And much obliged servant,
WILLIAM WHEwBLL.
Trinity College, Cambridge,
Feb. 25, 1833.
NOTICE.
THE series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is pub-
lished under the following circumstances:
The RIGHT Honour ABLE and REVEREND FRANCIS HENRY,
EARL OF BRIDGEwATER, died in the month of February, 1829;
and by his last Will and Testament, bearing date the 25th of
February, 1825, he directed certain Trustees therein named
to invest in the public funds the sum of Eight thousand pounds
sterling; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be
held at the disposal of the President, for the time being, of the
Royal Society of London, to be paid to the person or persons no
minated by him. The Testator further directed, that the person
or persons selected by the said President should be appointed to
write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work On the
Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the
Creation; illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments,
as for instance the variety and formation of God’s creatures in
the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms; the effect of di-
gestion, and thereby of conversion; the construction of the hand
of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments; as also by
discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole
eactent of literature. He desired, moreover, that the profits
arising from the sale of the works so published should be paid to
the authors of the works.
The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gäbert, Esq.
requested the assistance of his Grace the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and of the Bishop of London, in determining upon the best
mode of carrying into effect the intentions of the Testator. Act-
ing with their advice, and with the concurrence of a nobleman
immediately connected with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert ap-
pointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate Trea-
tises on the different branches of the subject as here stated:
THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh.
ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND
INTELLECTIVAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
10
JOHN KID, M. D. F. R. S.
Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford.
ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE Physical
CONDITION OF MAN,
THE REv. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A. F. R. S.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
ON ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICs.
SIR CHARLES BELL, K. H. F. R. S.
THE HAND : ITS MECHANISM AND WITAL ENDOW MENTS AS EVINCING
I}}{SIGN.
PETER. M. A. R. K R O GET, M. D.
Fellow of and Secretary to the Royal Society.
ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.
THE REv. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D. F. R. s.
Canon of Christ Church, and Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford.
ON GROLOGY AND MINERALOGY.
THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M. A. F. R. S.
ON THE HISTORY, HABITs, AND INSTINCTs of ANIMALs.
WILLIAM PROUT, M. D. F. R. S.
ON CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION.
His Roy AL HIGHNESs THE DUKE of Sussex, President of the
Royal Society, having desired that no unnecessary delay should
take place in the publication of the above mentioned treatises,
they will appear at short intervals, as they are ready for publi-
cation. ~ -
{} O N T ENTS,
... [Within the last year or two, several works have been pub-
iished in this country on subjects more or less closely approach-
ing to that here treated.
It may, therefore, be not superfluous
to say that the author of the following pages believes that he
has not borrowed any of his views or illustrations from recent
Pnglish writers on Natural Theology.]
iNTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I. Object of the Present Treatise tº tº
II. On flaws of Nature - gº tºº gº
III. Mutual Adaptation of Laws of Nature -
IV. Division of the Subject - tºº gº
HOOK I. T.RRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONs - tº gº
CHAPTER I. The Length of the Year - tº wº
II. The Length of the Day dº * tº
III. The Mass of the Earth - - gº
IV. The Magnitude of the Ocean º tºº
V. The Magnitude of the Atmosphere -
VI. The Constancy and Variety of Climates
VII. The Variety of Organization correspond-
ing to the Variety of Climate * = gº
WIII. The Constituents of Climate - tº
The Laws of Heat with respect to the
Earth Gº tº ºt. gº º * *
IX. The Laws of Heat with respect to Water
X. The Laws of Heat with respect to Air -
XI. The Laws of Electricity - ^ tº ſº
XII. The Laws of Magnetism tº “gº sº
XIII. The Properties of Light with regard to
Vegetation gº * --> tº- gºs gº
YIV. Sound - ſº gº gº gºs tº tº
XV. The Atmosphere * ºn †- tº ſº
XVI. Light - - * = * *º tº sº tº
XVII. The Ether * * . tºs * - ºn
XVIII. Recapitulation gº ºng ºn * - . *
Page.
13
17
20
23
25
28
37
43
50
51
52
57
66
67
70
81
91
93
94
96
I 02
104
111
113
12 CONTENTS.
BOOK II. CoSMICAL ARRANGEMENTs - ºr gº
CHAPTER I. The Structure of the Solar System -
II. The Circular Orbits of the Planets round
the Sun - tº- - --> se º
III. The Stability of the Solar System tºº?
IV. The Sun in the Centre - tº- -
W. The Satellites - º tº- -> º
VI. The Stability of the Ocean - gº &=
VII. The Nebular Hypothesis - g-
VIII. The Existence of a Resisting Medium in
the Solar System - tº- tº-
IX. Mechanical Laws sº º -> wº
X. The Law of Gravitation * > • -
XI. The Laws of Motio º º * >
XII. Friction - - - - - -
BOOK III. RELIGIOUS WIEws gº º º ºs
CHAPTER I. The Creator of the Physical World is the
Governor of the Moral World º º
II. On the Vastness of the Universe tº-
III. On Man’s Place in the Universe - -
IV. On the Impression produced by the Con-
templation of Laws of Nature; or, on
the Conviction that Law implies Mind
V. On Inductive Habits; or, on the impres-
sion produced on Men’s Minds by dis-
- covering Laws of Nature - º -
VI. On Deductive Habits; or, on the Impres-
sion produced on Men’s Minds by tracing
the Consequences of ascertained Laws
VII. On Final Causes - ºn - º
VIII. On the Physical Agency of the Deity -
IX. On the Impression produced by consider-
ing the Nature and Prospects of Science;
or, on the Impossibility of the Progress
of our Knowledge ever enabling us to
comprehend the Nature of the Deity -
Page,
119
121
123
127
134
137
I40.
143
150%
163
166
178
183
193
195
205
212
223
230
243
257
267
273
ON
A S T R O N O MY
AND
G E N E R A L PHY S I C S.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER. I.
Object of the Present Treatise.
THE examination of the material world brings
before us a number of things and relations of things
which suggest to most minds the belief of a creating
and presiding Intelligence. And this impression,
which arises with the most vague and superficial
consideration of the objects by which we are sur-
rounded, is, we conceive, confirmed and expanded
by a more exact and profound study of external na-
ture. Many works have been written at different
times with the view of showing how our knowledge
of the elements and their operation, of plants and
animals and their construction, may serve to nourish
and unfold our idea of a Creator and Governor of
the world. But though this is the case, a new work
on the same subject may still have its use. Our views
of the Creator and Governor of the world, as col-
lected from or combined with our views of the world
itself, undergo modifications, as we are led by new
discoveries, new generalizations, to regard nature in
a new light. The conceptions concerning the Deity,
his mode of effecting his purposes, the scheme of his
B
14 INTRODUCTION.
government, which are suggested by one stage of
our knowledge of natural objects and operations,
may become manifestly imperfect or incongruous,
if adhered to and applied at a later period, when our
acquaintance with the immediate causes of natural
events has been greatly extended. On this account
it may be interesting, after such an advance, to show
how the views of the creation, preservation, and go-
vernment of the universe, which natural science
Opens to us, harmonize with our belief in a Creator,
Governor, and Preserver of the world. To do this
with respect to certain departments of Natural Phi-
losophy is the object of the following pages; and the
author will deem himself fortunate, if he succeeds in
removing any of the difficulties and obscurities which
prevail in men’s minds, from the want of a clear mu-
tual understanding between the religious and the
scientific speculator. It is needless here to remark
the necessarily imperfect and scanty character of
Natural Religion; for most persons will allow that,
however imperfect may be the knowledge of a
Supreme Intelligence which we gather from the con-
templation of the natural world, it is still of most es-
sential use and value. And our purpose on this oc-
casion is, not to show that Natural Theology is a
perfect and satisfactory scheme, but to bring up our
Natural Theology to the point of view in which it -
may be contemplated by the aid of our Natural
|Philosophy.
Now the peculiar point of view which at present
belongs to Natural Philosophy, and especially to the
departments of it which have been most successfully
cultivated, is, that nature, so far as it is an object of
scientific research, is a collection of facts governed
by laws: our knowledge of nature is our knowledge
of laws; of laws of operation and connexion, of laws
of succession and co-existence, among the various
elements and appearances around us. And it must
therefore here be our aim to show how this view of
the universe falls in with our conception of the Di-
OBJECT. 15
vine Author, by whom we hold the universe to be
made and governed.
JVature acts by general laws; that is, the occur-
rences of the world in which we find ourselves, re-
sult from causes which operate according to fixed
and constant rules. The succession of days, and
seasons, and years, is produced by the motions of
the earth; and these again are governed by the at-
traction of the sun, a force which acts with unde-
viating steadiness and regularity. The changes- of
winds and skies, seemingly so capricious and casual,
are produced by the operation of the sun's heat upon
air and moisture, land and sea; and though in this
case we cannot trace the particular events to their
general causes, as we can trace the motions of the
Sun and moon, no philosophical mind will doubt the
generality and fixity of the rules by which these
causes act. The variety of the effects takes place,
because the circumstances in different cases vary;
and not because the action of material causes leaves
anything to chance in the result. And again, though
the vital movements which go on in the frame of ve-
getables and animals depend on agencies still less
known, and probably still more complex, than those
which rule the weather, each of the powers on
which such movements depend has its peculiar laws
of action, and these are as universal and as invaria-
ble as the law by which a stone falls to the earth
when not supported.
The world then is governed by general laws; and
in order to collect from the world itself a judgment
concerning the nature and character of its govern-
ment, we must consider the import and tendency of
such laws, so far as they come under our knowledge.
If there be, in the administration of the universe, in-
telligence and benevolence, superintendence and
foresight, grounds for love and hope, such qualities
may be expected to appear in the constitution and
combination of those fundamental regulations by
which the course of nature is brought about, and
made to be what it is.
16 INTRODUCTION.
If a man were, by some extraordinary event, to
find himself in a remote and unknown country, so
entirely strange to him that he did not know whether
there existed in it any law or government at all; he
might in no long time ascertain whether the inhabi-
tants were controlled by any superintending autho-
rity; and with a little attention he might determine
also whether such authority were exercised with a
prudent care for the happiness and well-being of its
subjects, or without any regard and fitness to such
ends; whether the country were governed by laws
at all, and whether the laws were good. And ac-
cording to the laws which he thus found prevailing,
he would judge of the sagacity, and the purposes of
the legislative power.
By observing the laws of the material universe
and their operation, we may hope, in a somewhat
similar manner, to be able to direct our judgment
concerning the government of the universe: con-
cerning the mode in which the elements are regu-
lated and controlled, their effects combined and
balanced. And the general tendency of the results
thus produced may discover to us something of the
character of the power which has legislated for the
material world.
We are not to push too far the analogy thus sug-
gested. There is undoubtedly a wide difference be-
tween the circumstances of man legislating for man,
and God legislating for matter. Still we shall, it will
appear, find abundant reason to admire the wisdom
and the goodness which have established the Laws of
JVature, however rigorously we may scrutinize the
import of this expression,
17
CHAPTER II.
On Laws of JNature.
WHEN we speak of material nature as being go-
verned by laws, it is sufficiently evident that we use
the term in a manner somewhat metaphorical. The
laws to which man’s attention is primarily directed
are moral laws; rules laid down for his actions; rules
for the conscious actions of a person; rules which,
as a matter of possibility, he may obey or may trans-
gress; the latter event being combined, not with an
impossibility, but with a penalty. But the Laws of
JVature are something different from this; they are
rules for that which things are to do and suffer; and
this by no consciousness or will of theirs. They are
rules describing the mode in which things do act;
they are invariably obeyed; their transgression is
not punished, it is excluded. The language of a mo-
ral law is, man shall not kill; the language of a Law
of Nature is, a stone will fall to the earth.
These two kinds of laws direct the actions of per-
sons and of things, by the sort of control of which
persons and things are respectively susceptible; so
that the metaphor is very simple; but it is proper for
us to recollect that it is a metaphor, in order that we
may clearly apprehend what is implied in speaking
of the Laws of Nature.
In this phrase are included all properties of the
portions of the material world; all modes of action
and rules of causation, according to which they
Operate on each other. The whole course of the visi-
ble universe therefore is but the collective result of
such laws; its movements are only the aggregate of
their working. All natural occurrences, in the skies
and on the earth, in the organic and in the inorganic
world, are determined by the relations of the ele-
B 2
18 INTRODUCTION.
ments and the actions of the forces of which the
rules are thus prescribed.
The relations and rules by which these occurrences
are thus determined necessarily depend on measures
of time and space, motion and force; on quantities
which are subject to numerical measurement, and
capable of being connected by mathematical proper-
ties. And thus all things are ordered by number and
weight and measure. “God,” as was said by the
ancients, “works by geometry:” the legislation of
the material universe is necessarily delivered in the
language of mathematics; the stars in their courses
are regulated by the properties of conic sections,
and the winds depend on arithmetical and geometri-
cal progressions of elasticity and pressure.
The constitution of the universe, so far as it can
be clearly apprehended by our intellect, thus assumes
a shape involving an assemblage of mathematical
propositions: certain algebraical formulae, and the
knowledge when and how to apply them, constitute
the last step of the physical science to which we can
attain. The labour and the endowments of ages
have been employed in bringing such science into
the condition in which it now exists; and an exact
and extensive discipline in mathematics, followed by
a practical and profound study of the researches of
natural philosophers, can alone put any one in pos-
session of the knowledge concerning the course of
the material world, which is at present open to man.
The general impression, however, which arises from
the view thus obtained of the universe, the results
which we collect from the most careful scrutiny of
its administration, may, we trust, be rendered intelli-
gible without this technical and laborious study, and
to do this is our present object.
It will be our business to show that the laws which
really prevail in nature are, by their form, that is,
by the nature of the connexion which they establish
among the quantities and properties which they re-
gulate, remarkably adapted to the office which is as-
ON LAWS OF NATURE, 19
signed them; and thus offer evidence of selection,
design, and goodness, in the power by which they
were established. But these characters of the legis-
lation of the universe may also be seen, in many in-
stances, in a manner somewhat different from the
selection of the law. The nature of the connexion re-
maining the same, the quantities which it regulates
may also in their magnitude bear marks of selection
and purpose. For the law may be the same while
the quantities to which it applies are different. The
law of the gravity which acts to the earth and to
Jupiter, is the same; but the intensity of the force at
the surfaces of the two planets is different. The law
which regulates the density of the air at any point,
with reference to the height from the earth's surface,
would be the same, if the atmosphere were ten times
as large, or only one-tenth as large as it is; if the baro-
meter at the earth's surface stood at three inches only,
or if it showed a pressure of thirty feet of mercury.
Now this being understood, the adaptation of a law
to its purpose, or to other laws, may appear in two
ways:—either in the form of the law, or in the amount
of the magnitudes which it regulates, which are
sometimes called arbitrary magnitudes.
If the attraction of the sun upon the planets did
not vary inversely as the square of the distance, the
form of the law of gravitation would be changed; if
this attraction were, at the earth’s orbit, of a differ-
ent value from its present one, the arbitrary magni-
tude would be changed; and it will appear, in a sub-
sequent part of this work, that either change would,
so far as we can trace its consequences, be detrimen-
tal. The form of the law determines in what manner
the facts shall take place; the arbitrary magnitude
determines how fast, how far, how soon; the one
gives a model, the other a measure of the phenome-
non; the one draws the plan, the other gives the
scale on which it is to be executed; the one gives the
rule, the other the rate. If either were wrongly
taken, the result would be wrong too.
20
CHAPTER III.
JMutual Adaptation in the Laws of JNature.
To ascertain such laws of nature as we have been
describing, is the peculiar business of science. It is
only with regard to a very small portion of the ap-
pearances of the universe, that science, in any strict
application of the term, exists. In very few depart-
ments of research have men been able to trace a
multitude of known facts to causes which appear to
be the ultimate material causes, or to discern the
laws which seem to be the most general laws. Yet,
in one or two instances, they have done this, or
something approaching to this; and most especially
in the instance of that part of nature, which it is the
object of this treatise more peculiarly to consider.
The apparent motions of the sun, moon, and stars
have been more completely reduced to their causes
and laws than any other class of phenomena. As-
tronomy, the science which treats of these, is already
a wonderful example of the degree of such know-
ledge which man may attain. The forms of its most
important laws may be conceived to be certainly
known; and hundreds of observers in all parts of the
world are daily employed in determining, with ad-
ditional accuracy, the arbitrary magnitudes which
these laws involve. -
The inquiries in which the mutual effects of heat,
moisture, air, and the like elements are treated of,
including, among other subjects, all that we know of
the causes of the weather (meteorology) is a far
more imperfect science than astronomy. Yet, with
regard to these agents, a great number of laws of
nature have been discovered, though, undoubtedly, a
far greater number remain still unknown.
ADAPTATION OF LAWS., 21
So far, therefore, as our knowledge goes, astro-
nomy and meteorology are parts of natural philoso-
phy in which we may study the order of nature with
such views as we have suggested; in which we may
hope to make out the adaptations and aims which exist
in the laws of nature; and thus to obtain some light
on the tendency of this part of the legislation of the
universe, and on the character and disposition of the
Legislator.
The number and variety of the laws which we
find established in the universe is so great, that it
would be idle to endeavour to enumerate them. In
their operation they are combined and intermixed in
incalculable and endless perplexity, influencing and
modifying each other's effects in every direction. If
we attempt to comprehend at once the whole of this
complex system, we find ourselves utterly baffled
and overwhelmed by its extent and multiplicity. Yet,
in so far as we consider the bearing of one part upon
another, we receive an impression of adaptation, of
mutual fitness, of conspiring means, of preparation
and completion, of purpose and provision. This im-
pression is suggested by the contemplation of every
part of nature; but the grounds of it, from the very
circumstances of the case, cannot be conveyed in a
few words. It can only be fully educed by leading
the reader through several views and details, and
must grow out of the combined influence of these
on a sober and reflecting frame of mind. How-
ever strong and solemn be the conviction which may
be derived from a contemplation of nature, concern-
ing the existence, the power, the wisdom, the good-
ness of our Divine Governor, we cannot expect that
this conviction, as resulting from the extremely com-
plex spectacle of the material world, should be capa-
ble of being irresistibly conveyed by a few steps of
reasoning, like the conclusion of a geometrical pro-
position, or the result of an arithmetical calculation.
We shall, therefore, endeavour to point out cases
and circumstances in which the different parts of the
22 INTRODUCTION.
universe exhibit this mutual adaptation, and thus to
bring before the mind of the reader the evidence of
wisdom and providence, which the external world
affords. When we have illustrated the correspon-
dencies which exist in every province of nature, be-
tween the qualities of brute matter and the constitu-
tion of living things, between the tendency to de-
rangement and the conservative influences by which
such a tendency is counteracted, between the office
of the minutest speck and of the most general laws;
it will, we trust, be difficult or impossible to exclude
from our conception of this wonderful system, the
idea of a harmonizing, a preserving, a contriving,
an intending Mind; of a Wisdom, Power, and Good-
ness far exceeding the limits of our thoughts.
23
CHAPTER IV.
Division of the Subject.
IN making a survey of the universe, for the pur-
pose of pointing out such correspondencies and adap-
tations as we have mentioned, we shall suppose the
general leading facts of the course of nature to be
known, and the explanations of their causes now
generally established among astronomers and natu-
ral philosophers to be conceded. We shall assume
therefore that the earth is a solid globe of ascertain-
ed magnitude, which travels round the sun, in an
orbit nearly circular, in a period of about three hun-
dred and sixty five days and a quarter, and in the
mean time revolves, in an inclined position, upon its
own axis in about twenty-four hours, thus producing
the succession of appearances and effects which con-
stitute seasons and climates, day and night;-that
this globe has its surface furrowed and ridged with
various inequalities, the waters of the ocean occu-
pying the depressed parts:–that it is surrounded by
an atmosphere, or spherical covering of air; and that
various other physical agents, moisture, electricity,
magnetism, light, operate at the surface of the earth,
according to their peculiar laws. This surface is, as
we know, clothed with a covering of plants, and in-
habited by the various tribes of animals, with all their
variety of sensations, wants, and enjoyments. The
relations and connexions of the larger portions of
the world, the sun, the planets, and the stars, the cos-
mical arrangements of the system, as they are some-
times called, determine the course of events among
these bodies; and the more remarkable features of
these arrangements are therefore some of the sub-
jects for our consideration. These cosmical arrange-
24 . . INTRODUCTION.
ments, in their consequences, affect also the physical
agencies which are at work at the surface of the
earth, and hence come in contact with terrestrial
occurrences. They thus influence the functions of
plants and animals. The circumstances in the cos-
mical system of the universe, and in the organic sys-
tem of the earth, which have thus a bearing on each
other, form another of the subjects of which we shall
treat. The former class of considerations attends
principally to the stability and other apparent perfec-
tions of the solar system; the latter to the well being
of the system of organic life by which the earth is
occupied. The two portions of the subject may be
treated as Cosmical Arrangements and Terrestrial
Adaptations.
We shall begin with the latter class of adaptations,
because in treating of these the facts are more fami-
liar and tangible, and the reasonings less abstract and
technical, than in the other division of the subject.
Moreover, in this case men have no difficulty in re-
cognizing as desirable the end which is answered by
such adaptations, and they therefore the more readily
consider it as an end. The nourishment, the enjoy-
ment, the diffusion of living things, are willingly ac-
knowledged to be a suitable object for contrivance;
the simplicity, the permanence, of an inert mechani-
cal combination might not so readily be allowed to
be a manifestly worthy aim of a Creating Wisdom.
The former branch of our argument may therefore
be best suited to introduce to us the Deity as the in-
stitutor of Laws of Nature, though the latter may
afterwards give us a wider view and a clearer in-
sight into one province of his legislation,
B O OK I.
TER RESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS,
WE proceed in this book to point out relations
which subsist between the laws of the inorganic
world, that is, the general facts of astronomy and
meteorology; and the laws which prevail in the or-
ganic world, the properties of plants and animals.
With regard to the first kind of laws, they are in
the highest degree various and unlike each other.
The intensity and activity of natural influences fol-
łow in different cases the most different rules. In
some instances they are periodical, increasing and
diminishing alternately, in a perpetual succession of
equal intervals of time. This is the case with the
heat at the earth’s surface, which has a period of a
year; with the light, which has a period of a day.
Other qualities are constant, thus the force of gravity
at the same place is always the same. In some
cases, a very simple cause produces very compli-
cated effects; thus the globular form of the earth,
and the inclination of its axis during its annual mo-
tion, give rise to all the variety of climates. In
other cases a very complex and variable system of
causes produces effects comparatively steady and
uniform; thus solar and terrestrial heat, air, moisture,
and probably many other apparently conflicting
agents, join to produce our weather, which never
deviates very far from a certain average standard.
Now a general fact, which we shall endeavour to
exemplify in the following chapters, is this:–That
C
26 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
those properties of plants and animals which have
reference to agencies of a periodical character, have
also by their nature a periodical mode of working ;
while those properties which refer to agencies of
constant intensity, are adjusted to this constant in-
tensity: and again, there are peculiarities in the na-
ture of organized beings which have reference to a
variety in the conditions of the external world, as,
for instance, the difference of the organized popula-
tion of different regions: and there are other pecu-
liarities which have a reference to the constancy of
the average of such conditions, and the limited range
of the deviations from that average; as for example,
that constitution by which each plant and animal is
fitted to exist and prosper in its usual place in the
world.
And not only is there this general agreement be-
tween the nature of the laws which govern the or-
ganic and inorganic world, but also there is a coin-
cidence between the arbitrary magnitudes which
such laws involve on the one hand and on the other.
Plants and animals have, in their construction, cer-
tain periodical functions, which have a reference to
alternations of heat and cold; the length of the pe-
riod which belongs to these functions by their con-
struction, appears to be that of the period which
belongs to the actual alternations of heat and cold,
namely, a year. Plants and animals have again in
their construction certain other periodical functions,
which have a reference to alternations of light and
darkness; the length of the period of such functions
appears to coincide with the natural day. In like
manner the other arbitrary magnitudes which enter
into the laws of gravity, of the effects of air and
moisture, and of other causes of permanence, and of
change, by which the influences of the elements ope-
rate, are the same arbitrary magnitudes to which
the members of the organic world are adapted by
the various peculiarities of their construction.
The illustration of this view will be pursued in
TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 27
the succeeding chapters; and when the coincidence
here spoken of is distinctly brought before the reader,
it will, we trust, be found to convey the conviction
of a wise and benevolent design, which has been ex-
ercised in producing such an agreement between
the internal constitution and the external circum-
stances of organized beings. We shall adduce cases
where there is an apparent relation between the
course of operation of the elements and the course
of vital functions; between some fixed measure of
time or space, traced in the lifeless and in the living
world; where creatures are constructed on a certain
plan, or a certain scale, and this plan or this scale is
exactly the single one which is suited to their place
on the earth; where it was necessary for the Crea-
tor (if we may use such a mode of speaking) to take
account of the weight of the earth, or the density of
the air, or the measure of the ocean, and where
these quantities are rightly taken account of in the
arrangements of creation. In such cases we con-
ceive that we trace a Creator, who, in producing
one part of his work, was not forgetful or careless of
another part; who did not cast his living creatures
into the world to prosper or perish as they might
find it suited to them or not; but fitted together, with
the nicest skill, the world and the constitution which
he gave to its inhabitants; so fashioning it and them,
that light and darkness, sun and air, moist and dry,
should become their ministers and benefactors, the
unwearied and unfailing causes of their well being.
We have spoken of the mutual adaptation of the
organic and the inorganic world. If we were to
conceive the contrivance of the world as taking
place in an order of time in the contriving mind, we
might also have to conceive this adaptation as taking
place in one of two ways: we might either suppose
the laws of inert nature to be accommodated to the
foreseen wants of living things, or the organization
of life to be accommodated to the previously estab-
lished laws of nature. But we are not forced upon
28 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
any such mode of conception, or upon any decision
between such suppositions: since, for the purpose of
our argument, the consequence of either view is the
same. . There is an adaptation somewhere or other,
on either supposition. There is account taken of
one part of the system in framing the other: and
the mind which took such account can be no other
than that of the Intelligent Author of the universe.
When indeed we come to see the vast number, the
Variety, the extent, the interweaving, the reconciling
of such adaptations, we shall readily allow, that all
things are so moulded upon and locked into each
other, connected by such subtilty and profundity of
design, that we may well abandon the idle attempt
to trace the order of thought in the mind of the Su-
preme Crdainer.
CHAPTER I.
The Length of the Year.
A YEAR is the most important and obvious of the
periods which occur in the organic, and especially
in the vegetable world. In this interval of time the
cycle of most of the external influences which ope-
rate upon plants is completed. There is also in
plants a cycle of internal functions, corresponding to
this succession of external causes. The length of
either of these periods might have been different
from what it is, according to any grounds of neces-
sity which we can perceive. But a certain length is
selected in both instances, and in both instances the
same. The length of the year is so determined as
to be adapted to the constitution of most vegetables;
or the construction of vegetables is so adjusted as to
be suited to the length which the year really has,
and unsuited to a duration longer or shorter by any
LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 29
considerable portion. The vegetable clock-work is
so set as to go for a year.
The length of the year or interval of recurrence
of the seasons is determined by the time which the
earth employs in performing its revolution round the
Sun: and we can very easily conceive the solar sys-
tem so adjusted that the year should be longer or
shorter than it actually is. We can imagine the
earth to revolve round the sun at a distance greater
or less than that which it at present has, all the
forces of the system remaining unaltered. If the
earth were removed towards the centre by about
one-eighth of its distance, the year would be di-
minished by about a month ; and in the same man-
ner it would be increased by a month on increasing
the distance by one-eighth. We can suppose the
earth at a distance of eighty-four or a hundred and
eight millions of miles, just as easily as at its present
distance of ninety-six millions: we can suppose the
earth with its present stock of animals and vegetables
placed where Mars or where Venus is, and revolving
in an orbit like one of theirs: on the former supposi-
tion our year would become twenty-three, on the
latter seven of our present months. Or we can con-
ceive the present distances of the parts of the system
to continue what they are, and the size, or the den-
sity of the central mass, the sun, to be increased or
diminished in any proportion ; and in this way the
time of the earth's revolution might have been in-
creased or diminished in any degree; a greater ve-
locity, and consequently a diminished period, being
requisite in order to balance an augmented central
attraction. In any of these ways the length of the
earth's natural year might have been different from
what it now is : in the last way without any neces-
sary alteration, so far as we can see, of tempera-
ture.
Now, if any change of this kind were to take
place, the working of the botanical world would be
thrown into utter disorder, the functions of plants
G 2
30 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
would be entirely deranged, and the whole vegetable
kingdom involved in instant decay and rapid extinc-
tion.
That this would be the case, may be collected
from innumerable indications. Most of our fruit
trees, for example, require the year to be of its pre-
sent length. If the summer and the autumn were
much shorter, the fruit could not ripen; if these sea-
sons were much longer, the tree would put forth a
fresh suit of blossoms, to be cut down by the winter.
Or if the year were twice its present length, a se-
cond crop of fruit would probably not be matured,
for want, among other things, of an intermediate
season of rest and consolidation, such as the winter
is. Our forest trees in like manner appear to need
all the seasons of our present year for their perfec-
tion; the spring, summer, and autumn, for the de-
velopement of their leaves and consequent formation
of their proper juice, and of wood from this; and the
winter for the hardening and solidifying the substance
thus formed.
Most plants, indeed, have some peculiar function
adapted to each period of the year, that is of the
now existing year. The sap ascends with extraor-
dinary copiousness at two seasons, in the spring and
in the autumn, especially the former. The opening
of the leaves and the opening of the flowers of the
same plants are so constant to their times, (their
appointed times, as we are naturally led to call
them,) that such occurrences might be taken as indi-
cations of the times of the year. It has been pro-
posed in this way to select a series of botanical facts
which should form a calendar; and this has been
termed a calendar of Flora. Thus, if we consider
the time of putting forth leaves,” the honeysuckle
pººl. them in the month of January; the goose-
erry, currant, and elder in the end of February, or
beginning of March; the willow, elm, and lime-tree
* Loudon, Encyclopædia of Gardening, 848.
LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 31
in April; the oak and ash, which are always the
latest among trees, in the beginning or towards the
middle of May. In the same manner the flowering
has its regular time : the mezereon and snowdrop
push forth their flowers in February; the primrose
in the month of March; the cowslip in April; the
great mass of plants in May and June; many in
July, August, and September; some, not till the
month of October, as the meadow saffron; and some
not till the approach and arrival of winter, as the
laurustinus and arbutus.
The fact which we have here to notice, is the re-
currence of these stages in the developement of
plants, at intervals precisely or very nearly of twelve
months. Undoubtedly, this result is in part occa-
sioned by the action of external stimulants upon the
plant, especially heat, and by the recurrence of the
intensity of such agents. Accordingly, there are
slight differences in the times of such occurrences,
according to the backwardness or forwardness of
the season, and according as the climate is genial or
otherwise. Gardeners use artifices which will, to a
certain extent, accelerate or retard the time of de-
velopement of a plant. But there are various cir-
cumstances which show that this recurrence of the
same events and equal intervals is not entirely owing
to external causes, and that it depends also upon
something in the internal structure of vegetables.
Alpine plants do not wait for the stimulus of the
sun's heat, but exert such a struggle to blossom, that
their flowers are seen among the yet unmelted snow.
And this is still more remarkable in the naturaliza-
tion of plants from one hemisphere to the other.
When we transplant our fruit trees to the temperate
regions south of the equator, they continue for some
years to flourish at the period which corresponds to
our spring. The reverse of this obtains, with cer-
tain trees of the southern hemisphere. Plants from
the Cape of Good Hope, and from Australia, coun-
tries whose summer is simultaneous with our winter,
32 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
exhibit their flowers in the coldest part of the year,
as the heaths.
This view of the subject agrees with that main-
tained by the best botanical writers. Thus Decan-
dolle observes that after making allowance for all
meteorological causes, which determine the epoch
of flowering, we must reckon as another cause the
peculiar nature of each species. The flowering once
determined, appears to be subject to a law of
periodicity and habit.*
It appears then that the functions of plants have
by their nature a periodical character; and the
length of the period thus belonging to vegetables is
a result of their organization. Warmth and light,
soil and moisture, may in some degree modify, and
hasten or retard the stages of this period; but when
the constraint is removed the natural period is again
resumed. Such stimulants as we have mentioned
are not the causes of this periodicity. They do not
produce the varied functions of the plant, and could
not occasion their performance at regular intervals,
except the plant possessed a suitable construction.
They could not alter the length of the cycle of vege-
table functions, except within certain very narrow
limits. The processes of the rising of the sap, of the
formation of proper juices, of the unfolding of leaves,
the opening of flowers, the fecundation of the fruit,
the ripening of the seed, its proper deposition in order
for the reproduction of a new plant;-all these ope-
rations require a certain portion of time, and could
not be compressed into a space less than a year, or
at least could not be abbreviated in any very great
degree. And on the other hand, if the winter were
greatly longer than it now is, many seeds would not
germinate at the return of spring. Seeds which
have been kept too long require stimulants to make
them fertile.
If therefore the duration of the seasons were much
* Dec. Phys. vol. ii. 478.
LENGTH OF THE YEAR, 33
to change, the processes of vegetable life would be
interrupted, deranged, distempered. What, for in-
stance, would become of our calendar of Flora, if
the year were lengthened or shortened by six months?
Some of the dates would never arrive in the one
case, and the vegetable processes which mark them
would be superseded; some seasons would be with-
out dates in the other case, and these periods would
be employed in a way harmful to the plants, and no
doubt speedily destructive. We should have not
only a year of confusion, but, if it were repeated and
continued, a year of death.
But in the existing state of things, the duration of
the earth’s revolution round the sun, and the dura-
tion of the revolution of the vegetable functions of
most plants are equal. These two periods are ad-
justed to each other. The stimulants which the ele-
ments apply come at such intervals and continue for
such times, that the plant is supported in health and
vigour, and enabled to reproduce its kind. Just such
a portion of time is measured out for the vegetable
powers to execute their task, as enables them to do
so in the best manner.
Now such an adjustment must surely be accepted
as a proof of design, exercised in the formation of
the world. Why should the solar year be so long
and no longer" or, this being of such a length, why
should the vegetable cycle be exactly of the same
length? Can this be chance? And this occurs, it
is to be observed, not in one, or in a few species of
plants, but in thousands. Take a small portion only
of known species, as the most obviously endowed
with this adjustment, and say ten thousand. How
should all these organized bodies be constructed for
the same period of a year? How should all these
machines be wound up so as to go for the same time?
Even allowing that they could bear a year of a month
longer or shorter, how do they all come within such
limits " No chance could produce such a result.
And if not by chance, how otherwise could such a
34 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS,
coincidence occur, than by an intentional adjustment
of these two things to one another? by a selection
of such an organization in plants, as would fit them
to the earth on which they were to grow; by an
adaptation of construction to conditions; of the scale
of the construction to the scale of the conditions.
It cannot be accepted as an explanation of this
fact in the economy of plants, that it is necessary to
their existence; that no plants could possibly have
subsisted, and come down to us, except those which
were thus suited to their place on earth. This is true;
but this does not at all remove the necessity of re-
curring to design as the origin of the construction by
which the existence and continuance of plants is
made possible. A watch could not go, except there
were the most exact adjustment in the forms and
positions of its wheels; yet no one would accept it
as an explanation of the origin of such forms and
positions, that the watch would not go if these were
other than they are. If the objector were to suppose
that plants were originally fitted to years of various
lengths, and that such only have survived to the pre-
sent time, as had a cycle of a length equal to our
present year, or one which could be accommodated
to it; we should reply, that the assumption is too gra-
tuitous and extravagant to require much considera-
tion; but that, moreover, it does not remove the dif-
ficulty. How came the functions of plants to be
periodical at all ! Here is, in the first instance, an
agreement in the form of the laws that prevail in
the organic and in the inorganic world, which ap-
pears to us a clear evidence of design in their Au-
thor. And the same kind of reply might be made to
any similar objection to our argument. Any suppo-
sition that the universe has gradually approximated
to that state of harmony among the operations of its
different parts, of which we have one instance in the
coincidence now under consideration, would make it
necessary for the objector to assume a previous state
of things preparatory to this perfect correspondence.
LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 35
And in this preparatory condition we should still be
able to trace the rudiments of that harmony, for
which it was proposed to account: so that even the
most unbounded license of hypothesis would not en-
able the opponent to obliterate the traces of an in-
tentional adaptation of one part of nature to another.
Nor would it at all affect the argument, if these
periodical occurrences could be traced to some
proximate cause: if for instance it could be shown,
that the budding or flowering of plants is brought
about at particular intervals, by the nutriment accu-
mulated in their vessels during the preceding months.
For the question would still remain, how their func-
tions were so adjusted, that the accumulation of the
nutriment necessary for budding and flowering, to-
gether with the operation itself, comes to occupy ex-
actly a year, instead of a month only, or ten years.
There must be in their structure some reference to
time : how did such a reference occur ! how was it
determined to the particular time of the earth's revo-
lution round the sun ? This could be no otherwise,
as we conceive, than by design and appointment.
We are left therefore with this manifest adjust-
ment before us, of two parts of the universe, at first
sight so remote; the dimensions of the solar system
and the powers of vegetable life. These two things
are so related, that one has been made to fit the
other. The relation is as clear as that of a watch to
a sundial. Iſ a person were to compare the watch
with the dial, hour after hour, and day after day, it
would be impossible for him not to believe that the
watch had been contrived to accommodate itself to
the solar day. We have at least ten thousand kinds
of vegetable watches of the most various forms,
which are all accommodated to the solar year; and
the evidence of contrivance seems to be no more
capable of being eluded in this case than in the other.
The same kind of argument might be applied to
the animal creation. The pairing, nesting, hatching,
fledging, and flight of birds, for instance, occupy
36 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
each its peculiar time of the year; and, together
with a proper period of rest, fill up the twelve months.
The transformations of most insects have a similar
reference to the seasons, their progress and duration.
“In every species,” (except man,) says a writer* on
animals, “there is a peculiar period of the year in
which the reproductive system exercises its ener-
gies. And the season of love and the period of ges-
tation are so arranged that the young ones are pro-
duced at the time wherein the conditions of tempera-
ture are most suited to the commencement of life.”
It is not our business here to consider the details of
such provisions, beautiful and striking as they are.
But the prevalence of the great law of periodicity
in the vital functions of organized beings will be al-
lowed to have a claim to be considered in its refer-
ence to astronomy, when it is seen that their periodi-
cal constitution derives its use from the periodical
nature of the motions of the planets round the sun;
and that the duration of such cycles in the existence
of plants and animals has a reference to the arbi-
trary elements of the solar system: a reference
which, we maintain, is inexplicable and unintelligi-
ble, except by admitting into our conceptions; an In-
telligent Author, alike of the organic and inorganic
UIIll VeTSé.
* Fleming, Zool. i. 400.
37
{XHAPTER II.
The Length of the Day.
WE shall now consider another astronomical ele-
ment, the time of the revolution of the earth on its
axis; and we shall find here also that the structure of
organized bodies are suited to this element;-that
the cosmical and physiological arrangements are
adapted to each other.
We can very easily conceive the earth to revolve
on her axis faster or slower than she does, and thus
the days to be longer or shorter than they are, with-
out supposing any other change to take place. There
is no apparent reason why this globe should turn on
its axis just three hundred and sixty-six times while
it describes its orbit round the sun. The revolutions
of the other planets, so far as we know them, do not
appear to follow any rule by which they are con-
nected with the distance from the sun. Mercury,
Venus, and Mars have days nearly the length of
ours. Jupiter and Saturn revolve in about ten hours
each. For any thing we can discover, the earth
might have revolved in this or any other smaller
period; or we might have had, without mechanical
inconvenience, much longer days than we have.
But the terrestrial day, and consequently the length
of the cycle of light and darkness, being what it is,
we find various parts of the constitution both of ani-
mals and vegetables, which have a periodical cha-
racter in their functions, corresponding to the diurnal
succession of external conditions; and we find that
the length of the period, as it exists in their constitu-
tion, coincides with the length of the natural day.
The alternation of processes which takes place in
plants by day and by night is less obvious, and less
D
38 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
obviously essential to their well-being, than the an-
nual series of changes. But there are abundance of
facts which serve to show that such an alternation is
part of the vegetable economy.
In the same manner in which Linnaeus proposed a
Calendar of Flora, he also proposed a Dial of Flora,
or Flower-Clock; and this was to consist, as will
readily be supposed, of plants, which mark certain
hours of the day, by opening and shutting their flow-
ers. Thus the day-lily (hemerocallis fulva) opens at
five in the morning; the leontodon tarazacum, or
common dandelion, at five or six; the hieracium lati-
folium (hawkweed), at seven ; the hieracium pilosella,
at eight; the calendula arvensis, or marigold, at nine;
the mesembryanthemum neapolitanum, at ten or
eleven; and the closing of these and other flowers
in the latter part of the day offers a similar system
of hour marks.
Some of these plants are thus expanded in conse-
quence of the stimulating action of the light and
heat of the day, as appears by their changing their
time, when these influences are changed; but others
appear to be constant to the same hours, and inde-
pendent of the impulse of such external circum-
stances. Other flowers by their opening and shutting
prognosticate the weather. Plants of the latter kind
are called by Linnaeus meteoric flowers, as being re-
gulated by atmospheric causes: those which change
their hour of opening and shutting with the length of
the day, he terms tropical; and the hours which they
measure are, he observes, like Turkish hours, of va-
rying length at different seasons. But there are other
plants which he terms equinoctial; their vegetable
days, like the days of the equator, being always of
equal length ; and these open, and generally close,
at a fixed and positive hour of the day. Such plants
clearly prove that the periodical character, and the
period of the motions above described, do not depend
altogether on external circumstances.
Some curious experiments on this subject were

I,ENGTH OF THE YEAR. 39
made by Decandolle. He kept certain plants in two
cellars, one warmed by a stove and dark, the other
lighted by lamps. On some of the plants the artifi-
cial light appeared to have no influence, (convolvulus
arvensis, convolvulus cneorum, silene fruticosa) and
they still followed the clock hours in their opening
and closing. The night-blowing plants appeared
somewhat disturbed, both by perpetual light and per-
petual darkness. In either condition they accelerated
their going so much, that in three days they had
gained half a day, and thus exchanged night for day
as their time of opening. Other flowers went slower
in the artificial light (convolvulus purpureus.) . In like
manner those plants which fold and unfold their
leaves were variously affected by this mode of treat-
ment. The oacalis stricta and oacalis incarnata kept
their habits, without regarding either artificial light
or heat. The mimosa leucocephala folded and unfold-
ed at the usual times, whether in light or in dark-
ness, but the folding up was not so complete as in
the open air. The mimosa pudica (sensitive plant.)
kept in darkness during the day time, and illumi-
mated during the night, had in three days accommo-
dated herself to the artificial state, opening in the
evening, and closing in the morning; restored to the
open air, she recovered her usual habits.
Tropical plants in general, as is remarked by our
gardeners, suffer from the length of our summer
daylight; and it has been found necessary to shade
them during a certain part of the day.
It is clear from these facts, that there is a diurnal
period belonging to the constitution of vegetables;
though the succession of functions depends in part
on external stimulants, as light and heat, their peri-
odical character is a result of the structure of the
plant; and this structure is such, that the length of
the period, under the common influences to which
plants are exposed, coincides with the astronomical
day. The power of accommodation which vegeta-
bles possess in this respect, is far from being such as
40 TERRESTRIAL ÁDAPTATIONS,
either to leave the existence of this periodical cori-
stitution doubtful, or to entitle us to suppose that the
day might be considerably lengthened or shortened
without injury to the vegetable kingdom.
Here then we have an adaptation between the
structure of plants, and the periodical-order of light
and darkness which arises from the earth’s rotation;
and the arbitrary quantity, the length of the cycle
of the physiological and of the astronomical fact, is
the same. Can this have occurred any otherwise
than by an intentional adjustment? -.
Any supposition that the astronomical cycle has
occasioned the physiological one, that the structure
of plants has been brought to be what it is by the
action of external causes, or that such plants as
could not accommodate themselves to the existing
day have perished, would be not only an arbitrary
and baseless assumption, but moreover useless for
the purposes of explanation which it professes, as we
have noticed of a similar supposition with respect to
the annual cycle. How came plants to have pe-
riodicity at all in those functions which have a rela-
tion to light and darkness? This part of their
constitution was suited to organized things which
were to flourish on the earth, and it is accordingly
bestowed on them; it was necessary for this end that
the period should be of a certain length; it is of that
length and no other. Surely this looks like inten-
tional provision.
Animals also have a period in their functions and
habits; as in the habits of waking, sleeping, eating,
&c. and their well-being appears to depend on the
coincidence of this period with the length of the
natural day. We see that in the day, as it now is,
all animals find seasons for taking food and repose,
which agree perfectly with their health and comfort.
Some animals feed during the day, as nearly all the
ruminating animals and land birds; others feed only
in the twilight, as bats and owls, and are called
crepuscular; while many beasts of prey, aquatic
LENGTH OF THE DAY. 41
birds, and others, take their food during the night.
Those animals which are nocturnal feeders are diur-
nal sleepers, while those which are crepuscular,
sleep partly in the night and partly in the day; but
in all, the complete period of these functions is
twenty-four hours. Man, in like manner, in all na-
tions and ages, takes his principal rest once in
twenty-four hours; and the regularity of this prac-
tice seems most suitable to his health, though the
duration of the time allotted to repose is extremely
different in different cases. So far as we can judge,
this period is of a length beneficial to the human
frame, independently of the effect of external agents.
In the voyages recently made into high northern la-
titudes, where the sun did not rise for three months,
the crews of the ships were made to adhere, with
the utmost punctuality, to the habit of retiring to
rest at nine, and rising a quarter before six; and
they enjoyed, under circumstances apparently the
most trying, a state of salubrity quite remarkable.
This shows, that according to the common constitu-
tion of such men, the cycle of twenty-four hours is
very commodious, though not imposed on them by
external circumstances. -
The hours of food and repose are capable of such
wide modifications in animals, and above all in man,
by the influence of external stimulants and internal
emotions, that it is not easy to distinguish what por-
tion of the tendency to such alternations depends on
original constitution. Yet no one can doubt that the
inclination to food and sleep is periodical, or can
maintain, with any plausibility, that the period may
be lengthened or shortened without limit. We may
be tolerably certain that a constantly recurring pe-
riod of forty-eight hours would be too long for one
day of employment and one period of sleep, with
our present faculties; and all, whose bodies and
minds are tolerably active, will probably agree that,
independently of habit, a perpetual alternation of
eight hours up and four in bed would employ the
D 2
42 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS,
human powers less advantageously and agreeably
than an alternation of sixteen and eight. A crea-
ture which could employ the full energies of his body
and mind uninterruptedly for nine months, and then
take a single sleep of three months, would not be a
Iſla Ile
When, therefore, we have subtracted from the
daily cycle of the employments of men and animals,
that which is to be set down to the account of habits
acquired, and that which is occasioned by extraneous
causes, there still remains a periodical character;
and a period of a certain length, which coincides
with, or at any rate easily accommodates itself to,
the duration of the earth’s revolution. The physio-
logical analysis of this part of our constitution is not
necessary for our purpose. The succession of exer-
tion and repose in the muscular system, of excited
and dormant sensibility in the nervous, appear to be
fundamentally connected with the muscular and ner-
vous powers, whatever the nature of these may be.
The necessity of these alternations is one of the
measures of the intensity of those vital energies;
and it would seem that we cannot, without assuming
the human powers to be altered, suppose the inter-
vals of tranquillity which they require to be much
changed. This view agrees with the opinion of some
of the most eminent physiologists. Thus Cabanis”
notices the periodical and isochronous character of
the desire of sleep, as well as of other appetites.
He states also that sleep is more easy and more sa-
lutary, in proportion as we go to rest and rise every
day at the same hours; and observes that this pe-
riodicity seems to have a reference to the motions of
the solar system. - -
Now how should such a reference be at first
established in the constitution of man, animals, and
plants, and transmitted from one generation of them
to another? If we suppose a wise and benevolent
* Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’Homme, II. 371.
MASS OF THE EARTH, 43
Creator, by whom all the parts of nature were fitted
to their uses and to each other, this is what we might
expect and can understand. On any other supposi-
tion such a fact appears altogether incredible and
inconceivable.
CHAPTER III.
The JMass of the Earth.
WE shall now consider the adaptation which may,
as we conceive, be traced in the amount of some of
the quantities which determine the course of events
in the organic world; and especially in the amount
of the forces which are in action. The life of vege-
tables and animals implies a constant motion of their
fluid parts, and this motion must be produced by
forces which urge or draw the particles of the fluids.
The positions of the parts of vegetables are also the
result of the flexibility and elasticity of their sub-
stance; the voluntary motions of animals are pro-
duced by the tension of the muscles. But in all those
cases, the effect really produced depends upon the
force of gravity also; and in order that the motions
and positions may be such as answer their purpose,
the forces which produce them must have a due pro-
portion to the force of gravity. In human works, if,
for instance, we have a fluid to raise, or a weight to
move, some calculation is requisite, in order to de-
termine the power which we must use, relatively to
the work which is to be done: we have a mechani-
cal problem to solve, in order that we may adjust the
one to the other. And the same adjustment, the
same result of a comparison of quantities, manifests
itself in the relation which the forces of the organic
world bear to the force of gravity.
44 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
The force of gravity might, so far as we can judge,
have been different from what it now is. It depends
upon the mass of the earth; and this mass is one of
the elements of the solar system, which is not deter-
mined by any cosmical necessity of which we are
aware. The masses of the several planets are very
different, and do not appear to follow any determi-
nate rule, except that upon the whole those nearer
to the sun appear to be smaller, and those nearer the
outskirts of the system to be larger. We cannot see
any thing which would have prevented either the
size or the density of the earth from being different,
to a very great extent, from what they are.
Now, it will be very obvious that if the intensity
of gravity were to be much increased, or much di-
minished, if every object were to become twice as
heavy or only half as heavy as it now is, all the
forces, both of involuntary and voluntary motion
which produce the present orderly and suitable re-
sults by being properly proportioned to the resistance
which they experience, would be thrown off their
balance ; they would produce motions too quick or
too slow, wrong positions, jerks and stops, instead of
steady, well conducted movements. The universe
would be like a machine ill regulated; every thing
would go wrong; repeated collisions and a rapid
disorganization must be the consequence. We will,
however, attempt to illustrate one or two of the cases
in which this would take place, by pointing out
forces which act in the organic world, and which
are adjusted to the force of gravity.
1. The first instance we shall take, is the force
manifested by the ascent of the sap in vegetables. It
appears by a multitude of indisputable experiments,
(among the rest, those of Hales, Mirbel, and Dutro-
chet,) that all plants imbibe moisture by their roots,
and pump it up, by some internal force, into every
part of their frame, distributing it into every leaf. It
will be easily conceived that this operation must re-
quire a very considerable mechanical force; for the
MASS OF THE EARTH. 45
fluid must be sustained as if it were a single column
reaching to the top of the tree. The division into
minute parts and distribution through small vessels
does not at all diminish the total force requisite to
raise it. If, for instance, the tree be thirty-three feet
high, the pressure must be fifteen pounds upon every
Square inch in the section of the vessels of the bot-
tom in order merely to support the sap. And it is
not only supported, but propelled upwards with great
force, so as to supply the constant evaporation of the
leaves. The pumping power of the tree must, there-
fore, be very considerable.
That this power is great, has been confirmed by
various curious experiments, especially by those of
Hales. He measured the force with which the stems
and branches of trees draw the fluid from below, and
push it upwards. He found, for instance, that a vine
in the bleeding season could push up its sap in a glass
tube to the height of twenty-one feet above the stump
of an amputated branch.
The force which produces this effect is part of the
economy of the vegetable world; and it is clear that
the due operation of the force depends upon its being
rightly proportioned to the force of gravity. The
weight of the fluid must be counterbalanced, and an
excess of force must exist to produce the motion up-
wards. In the common course of vegetable life, the
rate of ascent of the sap is regulated, on the one
hand, by the upward pressure of the vegetable
power, and on the other, by the amount of the gra-
vity of the fluid, along with the other resistances,
which are to be overcome. If, therefore, we sup-
pose gravity to increase, the rapidity of this vege-
table circulation will diminish, and the rate at which
this function proceeds, will not correspond either to
the course of the seasons, or the other physiological
processes with which this has to co-operate. We
might easily conceive such an increase of gravity as
would stop the vital movements of the plant in a
very short-time. In like manner, a diminution of the
46 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
gravity of the vegetable juices would accelerate the
rising of the sap, and would, probably, hurry and
overload the leaves and other organs, so as to inter-
fere with their due operation. Some injurious change,
at least, would take place. - -
Here, then, we have the forces of the minutest
parts of vegetables adjusted to the magnitude of the
whole mass of the earth on which they exist. There
is no apparent connexion between the quantity of
matter of the earth, and the force of imbibition of
the roots of a vine, or the force of propulsion of the
vessels of its branches. Yet, these things have such
a proportion as the well being of the vine requires.
How is this to be accounted for, but by supposing
that the circumstances under which the vine was to
grow, were attended to in devising its structure ?
We have not here pretended to decide whether
this force of propulsion of vegetables is mechanical
or not, because the argument is the same for our
purpose on either supposition. Some very curious
experiments have recently been made, (by M. Du-
trochet,) which are supposed to show that the force
is mechanical; that when two different fluids are se-
parated by a thin membrane, a force which M. Du-
trochet calls endosmose urges one fluid through the
membrane: and that the roots of plants are provided
with small vesicles which act the part of such a
membrane. M. Poisson has further attempted to
show that this force of endosmose may be considered
as a particular modification of capillary action. If
these views be true, we have here two mechanical
forces, capillary action and gravity, which are ad-
justed to each other in the manner precisely suited
to the welfare of vegetables.
2. As another instance of adaptation between the
force of gravity and forces which exist in the veget-
able world, we may take the positions of flowers.
Some flowers grow with the hollow of their eup up-
wards: others “hang the pensive head,” and turn
the opening downwards. Now of these “nodding
MASS OF THE EARTH, - 47
flowers,” as Linnaeus calls them, he observes that
they are such as have their pistil longer than the
stamens; and, in consequence of this position, the
dust from the anthers which are at the ends of the
stamens can fall upon the stigma or extremity of the
pistil; which process is requisite for making the
flower fertile. He gives as instances the flowers
campanula, leucoium, galanthus, fritillaria. Other
botanists have remarked that the position changes at
different periods of the flower's progress. The pistil
of the Euphorbia (which is a little globe or germen
on a slendar stalk) grows upright at first, and is taller
than the stamens: at the period suited to its fecun-
dation, the stalk bends under the weight of the ball
at its extremity, so as to depress the germen below
the stamens; after this it again becomes erect, the
globe being now a fruit filled with fertile seeds.
The positions in all these cases depend upon the
length and flexibility of the stalk which supports the
flower, or in the case of the Euphorbia, the germen.
It is clear that a very slight alteration in the force of
gravity, or in the stiffness of the stalk, would entirely
alter the position of the flower cup, and thus make
the continuation of the species impossible. We have
therefore here a little mechanical contrivance, which
would have been frustrated if the proper intensity of
gravity had not been assumed in the reckoning. An
earth greater or smaller, denser or rarer than the
one on which we live, would require a change in the
structure and strength of the footstalks of all the lit-
tle flowers that hang their heads under our hedges.
There is something curious in thus considering the
whole mass of the earth from pole to pole, and from
circumference to centre, as employed in keeping a
Snowdrop in the position most suited to the promo-
tion of its vegetable health.
It would be easy to mention many other parts of
the economy of vegetable life, which depend for
their use on their adaptation to the force of gravity.
Such are the forces and conditions which determine
48 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
the positions of leaves and of branches. Such again
those parts of the vegetable constitution which have
reference to the pressure of the atmosphere; for dif-
ferences in this pressure appear to exercise a power-
ful influence on the functions of plants, and to require
differences of structure. But we pass over these con-
siderations. The slightest attention to the relations
of natural objects will show that the subject is in-
exhaustible; and all that we can or need do is to
give a few examples, such as may show the nature
of the impression which the examination of the uni-
verse produces. - -
3. Another instance of the adjustment of organic
structure to the force of gravity may be pointed out
in the muscular powers of animals. If the force of
gravity were increased in any considerable propor-
tion at the surface of the earth, it is manifest that all
the swiftness, and strength, and grace of animal mo-
tious must disappear. If, for instance, the earth were
as large as Jupiter, gravity would be eleven times
what it is, the lightness of the fawn, the speed of the
hare, the spring of the tiger, could no longer exist
with the existing muscular powers of those animals;
for man to lift himself upright, or to crawl from
place to place, would be a labour slower and more
painful than the motions of the sloth. The density
and pressure of the air too would be increased to an
intolerable extent, and the operation of respiration,
and others, which depend upon these mechanical pro-
perties, would be rendered laborious, ineffectual, and
probably impossible.
If, on the other hand, the force of gravity were
much lessened, inconveniences of an opposite kind
would occur. The air would be too thin to breathe;
the weight of our bodies, and of all the substances
surrounding us, would become too slight to resist
the perpetually occurring causes of derangement and
unsteadiness: we should feel a want of ballast in Our
movements. -
It has sometimes been maintained by fanciful the-
MASS OF THE EARTH. 49
orists that the earth is merely a shell, and that the
central parts are hollow. All the reasons we can
collect appear to be in favour of its being a solid
mass, considerably denser than any known rock. If
this be so, and if we suppose the interior to be at any
time scooped out, so as to leave only such a shell as
the above mentioned speculators have asserted, we
should not be left in ignorance of the change, though
the appearance of the surface might remain the
same. . We should discover the want of the usual
force of gravity, by the instability of all about us.
Things would not lie where we placed them, but
would slide away with the slightest push. We should
have a difficulty in standing or walking, something
like what we have on ship-board when the deck is
inclined; and we should stagger helplessly through
an atmosphere thinner than that which oppresses the
respiration of the traveller on the tops of the highest
mountains.
We see therefore that those dark and unknown
central portions of the earth, which are placed far
beyond the reach of the miner and the geologist, and
of which man will probably never know anything
directly, are not to be considered as quite discon-
nected with us, as deposits of useless lumber without
effect or purpose. We feel their influence on every
step we take and on every breath we draw ; and the
powers we possess, and the comforts we enjoy would
be unprofitable to us, if they had not been prepared
with a reference to those as well as to the near and
visible portions of the earth’s mass.
The arbitrary quantity, therefore, of which we
have been treating, the intensity of the force of gra-
vity, appears to have been taken account of, in es-
tablishing the laws of those forces by which the pro-
cesses of vegetable and animal life are carried on.
And this leads us inevitably, we conceive, to the be-
lief of a supreme contriving mind, by which these
laws were thus devised and thus established.
E
50
CHAPTER IV.
The Magnitude of the Ocean.
THERE are several arbitrary quantities which con-
tribute to determine the state of things at the earth’s
surface besides those already mentioned. Some of
these we shall briefly refer to, without pursuing the
subject into detail. We wish not only to show that
the properties and processes of vegetable and animal
life must be adjusted to each of these quantities in
particular, but also to point out how numerous and
complicated the conditions of the existence of or-
ganized beings are; and we shall thus be led to think
less inadequately of the intelligence which has em-
braced at once, and combined without confusion, all
these conditions. We appear thus to be conducted
to the conviction not only of design and intention,
but of supreme knowledge and wisdom.
One of the quantities which enters into the consti-
tution of the terrestrial system of things is the bulk of
the waters of the ocean. The mean depth of the sea,
according to the calculations of Laplace, is four or
five miles. On this supposition, the addition to the
sea of one-fourth of the existing waters would drown
the whole of the globe, except a few chains of moun-
tains. Whether this be exact or no, we can easily
conceive the quantity of water which lies in the cavi-
ties of our globe to be greater or less than it at pre-
sent is. With every such addition or subtraction
the form and magnitude of the dry land would vary,
and if this change were considerable, many of the
present relations of things would be altered. It may
be sufficient to mention one effect of such a change.
The sources which water the earth, both clouds,
rains, and rivers, are mainly fed by the aqueous va-
MAGNITUDE OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 51
pour raised from the sea; and therefore if the sea
were much diminished, and the land increased, the
mean quantity of moisture distributed upon the land
must be diminished, and the character of climates,
as to wet and dry, must be materially affected. Simi-
lar, but opposite changes would result from the in-
crease of the surface of the ocean. -
It appears then that the magnitude of the ocean is
one of the conditions to which the structure of all
organized beings which are dependent upon climate
must be adapted.
CHAPTER V.
The Magnitude of the Atmosphere.
THE total quantity of air of which our atmosphere
is composed is another of the arbitrary magnitudes
of our terrestrial system; and we may apply to this
subject considerations similar to those of the last sec-
tion. We can see no reason why the atmosphere
might not have been larger in comparison to the
globe which it surrounds; those of Mars and Jupi-
ter appear to be so. But if the quantity of air were
increased, the structure of organized beings would
in many ways cease to be adapted to their place.
The atmospheric pressure, for instance, would be in-
creased, which, as we have already noticed, would
require an alteration in the structure of vegetables.
Another way in which an increase of the mass of
the atmosphere would produce inconvenience would
be in the force of winds. If the current of air in a
strong gale were doubled or tripled, as might be the
case if the atmosphere were augmented, the destruc-
tive effects would be more than doubled or tripled.
With such a change, nothing could stand against a
storm. In general, houses and trees resist the vio-
52 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONs.
lence of the wind; and except in extreme cases, as
for instance in occasional hurricanes in the West In-
dies, a few large trees in a forest are unusual trophies
of the power of the tempest. The breezes which we
commonly have are harmless messengers to bring
about the salutary changes of the atmosphere, even
the motion which they communicate to vegetables
tends to promote their growth, and is so advan-
tageous, that it has been proposed to imitate it by
artificial breezes in the hothouse. But with a stream
of wind blowing against them, like three, or five, or
ten, gales compressed into the space of one, none of
the existing trees could stand; and except they could
either bend like rushes in a stream, or extend their
roots far wider than their branches, they must be
torn up in whole groves. We have thus a manifest
adaptation of the present usual strength of the ma-
terials and of the workmanship of the world to the
stress of wind and weather which they have to
SuStain. --
CHAPTER VI.
The Constancy and Variety of Climates.
IT is possible to conceive arrangements of our sys-
tem, according to which all parts of the earth might
have the same, or nearly the same, climate. If, for
example, we suppose the earth to be a flat disk, or
flat ring, like the ring of Saturn, revolving in its own
plane as that does, each part of both the flat sur-
faces would have the same exposure to the sun, and
the same temperature, so far as the sun’s effect is
concerned. There is no obvious reason why a planet
of such a form might not be occupied by animals
and vegetables, as well as our present earth; and on
this supposition the climate would be every where
CLIMATES. 53
the same, and the whole surface might be covered
with life, without the necessity of there being any
difference in the kind of inhabitants belonging to dif-
ferent parts.
Again, it is possible to conceive arrangements ac-
cording to which no part of our planet should have
any steady climate. This may probably be the case
with a comet. If we suppose such a body, revolving
round the sun in a very oblong ellipse, to be of small
size and of a very high temperature, and therefore
to cool rapidly; and if we suppose it also to be sur-
rounded by a large atmosphere, composed of various
gases; there would, on the surface of such a body,
be no average climate or seasons for each place.
The years, if we give this name to the intervals of
time occupied by its successive revolutions, would be
entirely unlike one another. The greatest heat of
one year might be cool compared with the greatest
cold of a preceding one. The greatest heats and
colds might succeed each other at intervals per-
petually unequal. The atmosphere might be per-
petually changing its composition by the condensa-
tion of some of its constituent gases. In the opera-
tions of the elements, all would be incessant and
rapid change, without recurrence or compensation.
We cannot say that organized beings could not be
fitted for such a habitation; but if they were, the
adaptation must be made by means of a constitution
quite different from that of almost all organized be-
ings known to us.
The state of things upon the earth, in its present
condition, is very different from both these supposi-
tions. The climate of the same place, notwithstand-
ing perpetual and apparently irregular change, pos-
sesses a remarkable steadiness. And, though in
different places the annual succession of appear-
ances in the earth and heavens, is, in some of its
main characters, the same, the result of these influ-
ences in the average climate is very different.
Now, to this remarkable constitution of the earth
E 2
- 54 ... TERRESTRIAL AIDAPTATIONS.
as to climate, the constitution of the animal and ve-
getable world is precisely adapted. The differences
of different climates are provided for by the exist-
ence of entirely different classes of plants and ani-
mals in different countries. The constancy of climate
at the same place is a necessary condition of the
prosperity of each species there fixed.
We shall illustrate, by a few details, these charac-
teristics in the constitution of inorganic and of Or-
ganic nature, with the view of fixing the reader's
attention upon the correspondence of the two.
1. The succession and alternation, at any given
place, of heat and cold, rain and sunshine, wind and
calm, and other atmospheric changes, appears at first
sight to be extremely irregular, and not subject to
any law. It is, however, easy to see, with a little
attention, that there is a certain degree of constancy
in the average weather and seasons of each place,
though the particular facts of which these generali-
ties are made up seem to be out of the reach of fixed
laws. And when we apply any numerical measure
to these particular occurrences, and take the average
of the numbers thus observed, we generally find a
remarkably close correspondence in the numbers be-
longing to the whole, or to analogous portions of
successive years. This will be found to apply to the
measures given by the thermometer, the barometer,
the hygrometer, the raingage, and similar instru-
ments. Thus it is found that very hot summers, or
very cold winters, raise or depress the mean annual
temperature very little above or below the general
standard.
The heat may be expressed by degrees of the
thermometer; the temperature of the day is esti-
mated by this measure taken at a certain period of
the day, which is found by experience to correspond
with the daily average; and the mean annual tem-
perature will then be the average of all the heights
of the thermometer for every day in the year.
The mean annual temperature of London, thus
CLIMATES. 55
measured, is about 50 degrees 4-10ths. The frost of
the year 1788 was so severe that the Thames was
passable on the ice; the mean temperature of that
year was 50 degrees 6-10ths, being within a small
fraction a degree of the standard. In 1796, when the
greatest cold ever observed in London occurred, the
mean temperature of the year was 50 degrees 1-10th,
which is likewise within a fraction of a degree of the
standard. In the severe winter of 1813-14, when the
Thames, Tyne, and other large rivers in England
were completely frozen over, the mean temperature
of the two years was 49 degrees, being little more
than a degree below the standard. And in the year
1808, when the summer was so hot that the tempera-
ture in London was as high as 93; degrees, the mean
heat of the year was 50%, which is about that of the
standard.
The same numerical indications of the constancy
of climate at the same place might be collected from
the records of other instruments of the kind above-
mentioned. -
We shall, hereafter, consider some of the very
complex agencies by which this steadiness is pro-
duced; and shall endeavour to point out intentional
adaptations to this object. But we may, in the mean-
time, observe how this property of the atmospheric
changes is made subservient to a further object.
To this constancy of the climates of each place,
the structure of plants is adapted; almost all vege-
tables require a particular mean temperature of the
year, or of some season of the year; a particular de-
gree of moisture, and similar conditions. This will
be seen by observing that the range of most plants
as to climate is very limited. A vegetable which
flourishes where the mean temperature is 55 degrees,
would pine and wither when removed to a region
where the average is 50 degrees. If, therefore, the
average at each place were to vary as much as this,
our plants with their present constitutions would suf-
fer, languish, and soon die.
56 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
2. It will be readily understood that the same
mode of measurement by which we learn the con-
stancy of climate at the same place, serves to show
us, the variety which belongs to different places.
While the variations of the same region vanish when
we take the averages even of moderate periods,
those of distant countries are fixed and perpetual;
and stand out more clear and distinct, the longer is
the interval for which we measure their operation.
In the way of measuring already described, the
mean temperature of Petersburg is 39 degrees, of
Rome 60, of Cairo 72. Such observations as these,
and others of the same kind, have been made at va-
rious places, collected and recorded; and in this way
the surface of the earth can be divided by boundary
lines into various strips, according to these physical
differences. Thus, the zones which take in all the
places having the same or nearly the same mean an-
nual temperature, have been called isothermal zones.
These zones run nearly parallel to the equator, but
not exactly, for, in Europe, they bend to the north
in going eastward. In the same manner, the lines
passing through all places which have an equal tem-
perature for the summer or the winter half of the
year, have been called respectively isotheral and iso-
chimal lines. These do not coincide with the isother-
mal lines, for a place may have the same tempera-
ture as another, though its summer be hotter and its
winter colder, as is the case of Pekin compared with
London. In the same way we might conceive lines
drawn according to the conditions of clouds, rain,
wind, and the like circumstances, if we had observa-
tions enough to enable us to lay down such lines.
The course of vegetation depends upon the combined
influence of all such conditions; and the lines which
bound the spread of particular vegetable productions
do not, in most cases, coincide with any of the se-
parate meteorological boundaries above spoken of
Thus, the northern limit of vineyards runs through
France, in a direction very nearly north-east and
GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 57
south-west, while the line of equal temperature is
nearly east and west. And the spontaneous growth
or advantageous cultivation of other plants, is in like
manner bounded by lines of which the course de-
pends upon very complex causes, but of which the
position is generally precise and fixed.
CHAPTER VII.
The Variety of Organization corresponding to the Va.
riety of Climate.
THE organization of plants and animals is in diſ-
ferent tribes formed upon schemes more or less dif-
ferent, but in all cases adjusted in a general way to
the course and action of the elements. The diffe-
rences are connected with the different habits and
manners of living which belong to different species;
and at any one place the various species, both of
animals and plants, have a number of relations and
mutual dependences arising out of these differences.
But besides the differences of this kind, we find in
the forms of organic life another set of differences,
by which the animal and vegetable kingdom are fit-
ted for that variety in the climates of the earth,
which we have been endeavouring to explain.
The existence of such differences is too obvious to
require to be dwelt upon. The plants and animals
which flourish and thrive in countries remote from
each other, offer to the eye of the traveller a series
of pictures, which, even to an ignorant and unreflec-
tive spectator, is full of a peculiar and fascinating in-
terest in consequence of the novelty and strangeness
of the successive scenes.
Those who describe the countries between the
tropics, speak with admiration of the luxuriant pro-
fusion and rich variety of the vegetable productions
58 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
of those regions. Vegetable life seems there far more
vigorous and active, the circumstances under which
it goes on, far more favourable than in our latitudes.
Now if we conceive an inhabitant of those regions,
knowing, from the circumstances of the earth’s form
and motion, the difference of climates which must
prevail upon it, to guess, from what he saw about
him, the condition of other parts of the globe as to
vegetable wealth, is not likely that he would suppose
that the extratropical climates must be almost devoid
of plants? We know that the ancients, living in the
temperate zone, came to the conclusion that both the
torrid and—the frigid zones must be uninhabitable. In
like manner the equatorial reasoner would probably
conceive that vegetation must cease, or gradually
die away, as he should proceed to places further and
further removed from the genial influence of the sun.
The mean temperature of his year being about 80
degrees, he would hardly suppose that any plants
could subsist through a year, where the mean tem-
perature was only 50, where the temperature of the
summer quarter was only 64, and where the mean
temperature of a whole quarter of the year was a
very few degrees removed from that at which water
becomes solid. He would suppose that scarcely any
tree, shrub, or flower could exist in such a state of
things, and so far as the plants of his own country
are concerned, he would judge rightly.
But the countries further removed from the equa-
tor are not left thus unprovided. Instead of being
scantily occupied by such of the tropical plants as
could support a stunted and precarious life in unge-
nial climes, they are abundantly stocked with a mul-
titude of vegetables which appear to be constructed
expressly for them, inasmuch as these species can no
more flourish at the equator than the equatorial spe-
cies can in these temperate regions. And such new
supplies thus adapted to new conditions, recur per-
petually as we advance towards the apparently frozen
and untenantable regions in the neighbourhood of the
~
GEOGRAPHY JF PLAN TS. 59
pole. Every zone has its peculiar vegetables; and as
we miss some, we find others make their appearance,
as if to replace those which are absent,
If we look at the indigenous plants of Asia and
Europe, we find such a succession as we have here
spoken of. At the equator we find the natives of the
Spice Islands, the clove and nutmeg trees, pepper
and mace. Cinnamon bushes clothe the surface of
Ceylon; the odoriferous sandal wood, the ebony tree,
the teak tree, the banyan, grow in the East Indies.
In the same latitudes in Arabia the Happy we find
balm, frankincense and myrrh, the coffee tree, and
the tamarind. But in these countries, at least in the
plains, the trees and shrubs which decorate our more
northerly climes are wanting. And as we go north-
wards, at every step we change the vegetable group,
both by addition and by subtraction. In the thickets
to the west of the Caspian Sea we have the apricot,
citron, peach, walnut. In the same latitude in Spain,
Sicily, and Italy, we find the dwarf palm, the cy-
press, the chestnut, the cork tree: the orange and
lemon tree perfume the air with their blossoms; the
myrtle and pomegranate grow wild among the rocks.
We cross the Alps, and we find the vegetation which
belongs to northern Europe, of which England is an
instance. The oak, the beech, and the elm are na-
tives of Great Britain: the elm tree seen in Scotland,
and in the north of England, is the wych elm. As
we travel still further to the north the forests again
change their character. In the northern provinces
of the Russian empire are found forests of the vari-
ous species of firs: the Scotch and spruce fir, and
the larch. In the Orkney Islands no tree is found
but the hazel, which occurs again on the northern
shores of the Baltic. As we proceed into colder re-
gions we still find species which appear to have been
made for these situations. The hoary or cold elder
makes its appearance north of Stockholm: the syca-
more and mountain ash accompany us to the head
of the gulf of Bothnia: and as we leave this and tra-
60 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
verse the Dophrian range, we pass in succession the
boundary lines of the spruce fir, the Scotch fir, and
those minute shrubs which botanists distinguish as
the dwarf birch and dwarf willow. Here, near to
or within the arctic circle, we yet find wild flowers
of great beauty; the mezereum, the yellow and white
water lily, and the European globe flower. And
when these fail us, the reindeer moss still makes the
country habitable for animals and man.
We have thus a variety in the laws of vegetable
organization remarkably adapted to the variety of
climates; and by this adaptation the globe is clothed
with vegetation and peopled with animals from pole
to pole, while without such an adaptation vegetable
and animal life must have been confined almost, or
entirely, to some narrow zone on the earth's surface.
We conceive that we see here the evidence of a wise
and benevolent intention, overcoming the varying
difficulties, or employing the varying resources of
the elements, with an inexhaustible fertility of con-
trivance, a constant tendency to diffuse life and well
being. -
2. One of the great uses to which the vegetable
wealth of the earth is applied, is the support of man,
whom it provides with food and clothing; and the
adaptation of tribes of indigenous vegetables to every
climate has, we cannot but believe, a reference to the
intention that the human race should be diffused over
the whole globe. But this end is not answered by
indigenous vegetables alone; and in the variety of
vegetables capable of being cultivated with advan-
tage in various countries, we conceive that we find
evidence of an additional adaptation of the scheme
of organic life to the system of the elements.
The cultivated vegetables, which form the neces-
saries or luxuries of human life, are each confined
within limits, narrow, when compared with the whole
surface of the earth; yet almost every part of the
earth's surface is capable of being abundantly co-
vered with one kind or other of these. When one
&EOGRAPHY OF PLANTS.” 6]
class fails, another appears in its place. Thus corn,
wine, and oil, have each its boundaries. Wheat ex-
tends through the old Continent, from England to
Thibet; but it stops soon in going northwards, and
is not found to succeed in the west of Scotland. Nor
does it thrive better in the torrid zone than in the
polar regions: within the tropics, wheat, barley and
oats are not cultivated, excepting in situations con-
siderably above the level of the sea: the inhabitants
of those countries have other species of grain, or
other food. The cultivation of the vine succeeds
only in countries where the annual temperature is
between 50 and 63 degrees. In both hemispheres,
the profitable culture of this plant ceases within 30
degrees of the equator, unless in elevated situations,
or in islands, as Teneriffe. The limits of the culti-
vation of maize and of olives in France are parallel
to those which bound the vine and corn in succes-
sign to the north. In the north of Italy, west of
Milan, we first meet with the cultivation of rice;
which extends over all the southern part of Asia,
wherever the land can be at pleasure covered with
water. In great part of Africa millet is one of the
principal kinds of grain.
Cotton is cultivated to latitude 40 in the new world,
but extends to Astrachan in latitude 46 in the old.
The sugar cane, the plantain, the mulberry, the betel
nut, the indigo tree, the tea tree, repay the labours
of the cultivator in India and China; and several of
these plants have been transferred, with success, to
America and the West Indies. In equinoctial Ame-
rica a great number of inhabitants find abundant
nourishment on a narrow space cultivated with plan-
tain, cassava yams, and maize. The breadfruit tree
begins to be cultivated in the Manillas, and extends
through the Pacific; the sago palm in the Moluccas,
the cabbage tree in the Pelew islands.
In this manner the various tribes of men are pro-
vided with vegetable food. Some however live on
F
62 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
their cattle, and thus make the produce of the earth
only mediately subservient to their wants. Thus the
Tartar tribes depend on their flocks and herds for
food: the taste for the flesh of the horse seems to
belong to the Mongols, Fins, and other descendants
of the ancient Scythians: the locust eaters are found
now, as formerly, in Africa. -
Many of these differences depend upon custom,
soil, and other causes with which we do not here
meddle; but many are connected with climate: and
the variety of the resources which man thus possesses,
arises from the variety of constitution belonging to
cultivable vegetables, through which one is fitted to
one range of climate, and another to another. We
conceive that this variety and succession of fitness
for cultivation, shows undoubted marks of a most
foreseeing and benevolent design in the Creator of
man and of the world.
3. By differences in vegetables of the kind we
have above described, the sustentation and gratifica-
tion of man’s physical nature is copiously provided
for. But there is another circumstance, a result of
the difference of the native products of different re-
gions, and therefore a consequence of that difference
of climate on which the difference of native pro-
ducts depends,” which appears to be worthy our
notice. The difference of the productions of differ-
ent countries has a bearing not only upon the phy-
sical, but upon the social and moral condition of
. Iſha.I].
The intercourse of nations in the way of dis-
covery, colonization, commerce; the study of the
natural history, manners, institutions of foreign
countries; lead to most numerous and important re-
sults. Without dwelling upon this subject, it will
* It will be observed that it is not here asserted that the dif-
ference of native products depends on the difference of climate
alone. *. :: .
GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 63
probably be allowed that such intercourse has a
great influence upon the comforts, the prosperity,
the arts, the literature, the power, of the nations
which thus communicate. Now the variety of the
productions of different lands supplies both the sti-
mulus to this intercourse, and, the instruments by
which it produces its effects. The desire to possess
the objects or the knowledge which foreign countries
alone can supply, urges the trader, the traveller, the
discoverer to compass land and sea; and the pro-
gress of the arts and advantages of civilization con-
sists almost entirely in the cultivation, the use, the
improvement of that which has been received from
Other countries. º * .
This is the case to a much greater extent than
might at first sight be supposed. Where man is
active as a cultivator, he scarcely ever bestows
much of his care on those vegetables which the
land would produce in a state of nature. He does
not select some of the plants of the soil and improve
them by careful culture, but, for the most part, he
expels the native possessors of the land, and intro-
duces colonies of strangers.
Thus, to take the condition of our own part of the
globe as an example; scarcely one of the plants
which occupy our fields and gardens is indigenous
to the country. The walnut and the peach come to
us from Persia; the apricot from Armenia : from
Asia Minor, and Syria, we have the cherry tree,
the fig, the pear, the pomegranate, the olive, the
plum, and the mulberry. The vine which is now
cultivated is not a native of Europe ; it is found wild
on the shores of the Caspian, in Armenia and Cara-
mania. The most useful species of plants, the cereal
vegetables, are certainly strangers, though their
birth place seems to be an impenetrable secret.
Some have fancied that barley is found wild on the
banks of the Semara, in Tartary, rye in Crete, wheat
at Baschkiros, in Asia; but this is held by the best
botanists to be very doubtful. The potatoe, which
64. TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
has been so widely diffused over the world in modern
times, and has added so much to the resources of
life in many countries, has been found equally dif-
ficult to trace back to its wild condition. -
Thus widely are spread the traces of the connex-
ion of the progress of civilization with national in-
tercourse. In our own country a higher state of the
arts of life is marked by a more ready and extensive
adoption of foreign productions. Our fields are
covered with herbs from Holland, and roots from
Germany; with Flemish farming and Swedish tur-
nips; our hills with forests of the firs of Norway.
The chestnut and poplar of the south of Europe
adorn our lawns, and below them flourish shrubs
and flowers from every clime in profusion. In the
mean time Arabia improves our horses, China our
pigs, North America our poultry, Spain our sheep,
and almost every country sends its dog. The pro-
ducts which are ingredients in our kuxuries, and
which we cannot naturalize at home, we raise in our
colonies; the cotton, coffee, sugar of the east are
thus transplanted to the farthest west; and man lives
in the middle of a rich and varied abundance which
depends on the facility with which plants and animals
and modes of culture can be transferred into lands
far removed from those in which nature had placed
them. And this plenty and variety of material com-
forts is the companion and the mark of advantages
and improvements in social life, of progress in art
and science, of activity of thought, of energy of
purpose, and of ascendancy of character.
The differences in the productions of different
countries which lead to the habitual intercourse of
nations, and through this to the benefits which we
have thus briefly noticed, do not all depend upon the
differences of temperature and climate alone. But
these differences are among the causes, and are some
of the most important causes, or conditions, of the
variety of products; and thus that arrangement of
GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 65
the earth’s form and motion from which the different
climates of different places arises, is connected with
the social and moral welfare and advancement of
Iſla.I]. . - *
We conceive that this connexion, though there
must be to our apprehension much that is indefinite
and uncertain in tracing its details, is yet a point
where we may perceive the profound and compre-
hensive relations established by the counsel and fore-
sight of a wise and good Creator of the world and of
man, by whom the progress and elevation of the hu-
man species was neither uncontemplated nor uncared
for. - - -
4. We have traced, in the variety of organized
beings, an adaptation to the variety of climates, a
provision for the sustentation of man all over the
globe, and an instrument for the promotion of civil-
ization and many attendant benefits. We have not
considered this variety as itself a purpose which we
can perceive or understand without reference to
some ulterior end. Many persons, however, and
especially those who are already in the habit of re-
ferring the world to its Creator, will probably see
something admirable in itself in this vast variety of
created things. There is indeed something well
fitted to produce and confirm a reverential wonder,
in these apparently inexhaustible stores of new forms
of being and modes of existence; the fixity of the
laws of each class, its distinctness from all others, its
relations to many. Structures and habits and cha-
racters are exhibited, which are connected and dis-
tinguished according to every conceivable degree of
subordination and analogy, in their resemblances
and in their differences. Every new country we ex-
plore presents us with new combinations, where the
possible cases seem to be exhausted; and with new
resemblances and differences, constructed as if to
elude what conjecture might have hit upon, by pro-
ceeding from the old ones. Most of those who have
F 2
66 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
any large portion of nature brought under their no-
tice in this point of view, are led to feel that there is,
in such a creation, a harmony, a beauty, and a dig-
nity, of which the impression is irresistible; which
would have been wanting in any more uniform and
limited system such as we might try to imagine; and
which of itself gives to the arrangements by which
such a variety on the earth's surface is produced, the
character of well devised means to a worthy end.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Constituents of Climate.
WE have spoken of the steady average of the cli-
mate at each place, of the difference of this average
at different places, and of the adaptation of organized
beings to this character in the laws of the elements
by which they are affected. But this steadiness in
the general effect of the elements, is the result of an
extremely complex and extensive machinery. Cli-
mate, in its wider sense, is not one single agent, but
is the aggregate result of a great number of different
agents, governed by different laws, producing effects
of various kinds. The steadiness of this compound
agency is not the steadiness of a permanent condi-
tion, like that of a body at rest; but it is the steadi-
ness of a state of constant change and movement,
succession and alternation, seeming accident and
irregularity. It is a perpetual repose, combined
with a perpetual motion; an invariable average of
most variable quantities. Now, the manner in which
such a state of things is produced, deserves, we con-
ceive, a closer consideration. It may be useful to
show how the particular laws of the action of each
of the elements of climate are so adjusted that they
do not disturb this general constancy. -
*...*
LAWS OF HEAT—THE EARTH. 67
The principal constituents of climate are the fol-
lowing:—the temperature of the earth, of the water,
of the air:—the distribution of the aqueous vapour
contained in the atmosphere —the winds and rains
by which the equilibrium of the atmosphere is re-
stored when it is in any degree disturbed. The
effects of light, of electricity, probably of other
causes also, are no doubt important in the economy
of the vegetable world, but these agencies have not
been reduced by scientific inquirers to such laws as
to admit of their being treated with the same exact-
ness and certainty which we can obtain in the case
of those first mentioned. * . -
We shall proceed to trace some of the peculiari-
ties in the laws of the different physical agents which
are in action at the earth’s surface, and the manner
in which these peculiarities bear upon the general
result.
The Laws of Heat with respect to the Earth.
One of the main causes which determine the tem-
perature of each climate is the effect of the sun’s
rays on the solid mass of the earth. The laws of
this operation have been recently made out with
considerable exactness, experimentally by Leslie,
theoretically by Fourrier, and by other inquirers.
The theoretical inquiries have required the applica-
tion of very complex and abstruse mathematical in-
vestigations; but the general character of the opera-
tion may, perhaps, be made easily intelligible.
The earth, like all solid bodies, transmits into its
interior the impressions of heat which it receives at
the surface; and throws off the superfluous heat from
its surface into the surrounding space. These pro-
cesses are called conduction and radiation, and have
each their ascertained mathematical laws.
By the laws of conduction, the daily impressions
of heat which the earth receives, follow each other
68 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
into the interior of the mass, like the waves which
start from the edge of a canal;% and like them, be-
come more and more faint as they proceed, till they
melt into the general level of the internal tempera-
ture. The heat thus transmitted is accumulated in
the interior of the earth, as in a reservoir, and flows
from one part to another of this reservoir. The parts
of the earth near the equator are more heated by the
sun than other parts, and on this account there is a
perpetual internal conduction of heat from the equa-
torial to other parts of the sphere. And as all parts
of the surface throw off heat by radiation, in the po-
lar regions, where the surface receives little in return
from the sun, a constant waste is produced. There
is thus from the polar parts a perpetual dispersion of
heat in the surrounding space, which is supplied by
a perpetual internal flow from the equator towards
each pole.
Here, then, is a kind of circulation of heat; and
the quantity and rapidity of this circulation, deter-
mine the quantity of heat in the solid part of the
earth, and in each portion of it; and through this,
the mean temperature belonging to each point on its
surface. -
If the earth conducted heat more rapidly than it
does, the inequalities of temperature would be more
quickly balanced, and the temperature of the ground
(below the reach of annual and diurnal variations)
would differ less than it does. If the surface radiated
more rapidly than it does, the flow of heat from the
polar regions would increase, and the temperature
of the interior of the globe would find a lower level;
the differences of temperature in different latitudes
* The resemblance consists in this; that we have a strip of
greater temperature accompanied by a strip of smaller tempera-
ture, these strips arising from the diurnal and nocturnal impres-
sions respectively, and being in motion; as in the waves on a
canal, we have a moving strip of greater elevation accompanied
by a strip of smaller elevation. We do not here refer to any
hypothetical undulations in the fluid matter of heat.
LAWS OF HEAT. THE EARTH. 69
would increase, but the mean temperature of the
globe would dimininish. , t
There is nothing which, so far as we can perceive
determines necessarily, either the conducting or the
radiating power of the earth to its present value.
The measures of such powers, in different substances,
differ very widely. If the earth were a globe of pure
iron, it would conduct heat, probably, twenty times
as well as it does; if its surface were polished iron,
it would only radiate one-sixth as much as it does.
Changes in the amount of the conduction and radia-
tion far less than these, would, probably, subvert the
whole thermal constitution of the earth, and make it
uninhabitable by any of its present vegetable, or ani-
mal tenants. .
One of the results of the laws of heat, as they exist
in the globe, is, that, by their action, the thermal
state tends to a limiting condition, which, once
reached, remains constant and steady, as it now is.
The oscillations or excursions from the mean condi-
tion, produced by any temporary cause, are rapidly
suppressed; the deviations of seasons from their
usual standard produce only a small and transient
effect. The impression of an extremely hot day
upon the ground melts almost immediately into the
average internal heat. The effect of a hot summer,
in like manner, is soon lost in its progress through
the globe. If this were otherwise, if the inequalities
and oscillations of heat went on, through the interior
of the earth, retaining the same value, or becoming
larger and larger, we might have the extreme heats
or colds of one place making their appearance at
another place after a long interval; like a conflagra-
tion which creeps along a street and bursts out at a
point remote from its origin.
It appears, therefore, that both the present differ-
ences of climate, and the steadiness of the average
at each place, depend upon the form of the present
laws of heat, and on the arbitrary magnitudes which
determine the rate of conduction and radiation. The
70 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
laws are such as to secure us from increasing and
destructive inequalities of heat; the arbitrary magni-
tudes are elements to which the organic world is ad-
justed. .
CHAPTER IX.
The Laws of Heat with respect to Water.
THE manner in which heat is transmitted through
fluids is altogether different from the mode in which
it passes through solids; and hence the waters of the
earth's surface produce peculiar effects upon its con-
dition as to temperature. Moreover, water is sus-
ceptible of evaporation in a degree depending upon
the increase of heat; and in consequence of this pro-
perty it has most extensive and important functions
to discharge in the economy of nature. We will
consider some of the offices of this fluid.
1. Heat is communicated through water, not by
being conducted from one part of the fluid to another,
as in solid bodies, but (at least principally) by being
carried with the parts of the fluid by means of an in-
testine motion. Water expands and becomes lighter
by heat, and, therefore, if the upper parts be cooled
below the subjacent temperature, this upper portion
will become heavier than that below, bulk for bulk,
and will descend through it, while the lower portion
rises to take the upper place. In this manner the
colder parts descend, and the warmer parts ascend
by contrary currents, and by their interchange and
mixture, reduce the whole to a temperature at least
as low as that of the surface. And this equalization
of temperature by means of such currents, is an ope-
ration of a much more rapid nature than the slow
motion of conduction by which heat creeps through
a solid body. Hence, alternations of heat and cold,
LAWS OF HEAT—WATER." 71
as day and night, summer and winter, produce in
water, inequalities of temperature much smaller than
those which occur in a solid body. The heat com-
municated is less, for transparent fluids imbibe heat
very slowly; and the cold impressed on the surface
is soon diffused through the mass by internal circu-
lation. -
Hence it follows that the ocean, which covers so
large a portion of the earth, and affects the tempera-
ture of the whole surface by its influence, produces
the effect of making the alternations of heat and
cold much less violent than they would be if it were
absent. The different temperatures of its upper and
lower parts produce a current which draws the seas,
and by means of the seas, the air, towards the mean
temperature. And this kind of circulation is pro-
duced, not only between the upper and lower parts,
but also between distant tracts of the ocean. The
great Gulf Stream which rushes out of the Gulf of
Mexico, and runs across the Atlantic to the western
shores of Europe, carries with it a portion of the
tropical heat into northern regions: and the return-
ing current which descends along the coast of Africa,
tends to cool the parts nearer the equator. Great as
the difference of temperature is in different climates,
it would be still greater if there were not this equal-
izing and moderating power exerted constantly over
the whole surface. Without this influence, it is pro-
bable that the two polar portions of the earth, which
are locked in perpetual ice and snow, and almost des-
titute of life, would be much increased.
We find an illustration of this effect of the ocean
on temperature, in the peculiarities of the climates of
maritime tracts and islands. The climate of such
portions of the earth, corrected in some measure by
the temperature of the neighbouring sea, is more
equable than that of places in the same latitudes dif-
ferently situated. London is cooler in summer and
warmer in winter than Paris.
2. Water expands by heat and contracts by cold,
72 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
as has been already said; and in consequence of this
property, the coldest portions of the fluid generally
occupy the lower parts. The continued progress of
cold produces congelation. If, therefore, the law just
mentioned had been strictly true, the lower parts of
water would have been first frozen ; and being once
frozen, hardly any heat applied at the surface could
have melted them, for the warm fluid could not have
descended through the colder parts. This is so far
the case, that in a vessel containing ice at the bot-
tom and water at the top, Rumford made the upper
fluid boil without thawing the congealed cake below.
Now, a law of water with respect to heat operat-
ing in this manner, would have been very inconve-
nient if it had obtained in our lakes and seas. They
would all have had a bed of ice, increasing with
every occasion, till the whole was frozen. We could
have had no bodies of water, except such pools on
the surfaces of these icy reservoirs as the summer
sun could thaw, to be again frozen to the bottom
with the first frosty night. The law of the regular
contraction of water by cold till it became ice, would,
therefore, be destructive of all the utility of our seas
and lakes. How is this inconvenience obviated!
It is obvitated by a modification of the law which
takes place when the temperature approaches this
limit. Water contracts by the increase of cold,
till we come near the freezing temperature; but then,
by a further increase of cold, it contracts no more,
but expands till the point at which it becomes ice. It
contracts in cooling down to 40 degrees of Fahren-
heit's thermometer; in cooling further it expands,
and when cooled to 32 degrees, it freezes. Hence,
the greatest density of the fluid is at 40 degrees, and
water of this temperature, or near it, will lie at the
bottom with cooler water or with ice floating above
it. However much the surface be cooled, water
colder than 40 cannot descend to displace water
warmer than itself. Hence we can never have ice
formed at the bottom of deep water. In approaching
#,AWS OF HEAT—WATER. 73
the freezing point, the coldest water will rise to the
surface, and the congelation will take place there;
and the ice so formed will remain at the surface, ex-
posed to the warmth of the sunbeams and the air,
and will not survive any long continuance of such
action.
Another peculiarity in the laws which regulate the
action of cold on water is, that in the very act of
freezing a further sudden and considerable expansion
takes place. Many persons will have known in-
stances of vessels burst by the freezing of water in
them. The consequence of this expansion is, that the
specific gravity of ice is less than that of water of any
temperature ; and it therefore always floats in the
unfrozen fluid. If this expansion of crystallization
did not exist, ice would float in water which was be-
low forty degrees, but would sink when the fluid was
above that temperature: as the case is, it floats
under all circumstances. The icy remnants of the
effects of winter, which the river carries down its
stream, are visible on its surface till they melt away;
and the icebergs which are detached from the shores
of the polar seas, drift along, exposed to the sun and
air, as well as to the water in which they are im-
mersed.
These laws of the effect of temperature on water
are truly remarkable in their adaptation to the bene-
ficial course of things at the earth's surface. Water
contracts by cold ; it thus equalizes the temperature
of various times and places; but if its contraction
were continued all the way to the freezing point, it
would bind a great part of the earth in ſetters of ice.
The contraction then is here replaced by expansion,
in a manner which but slightly modifies the former
effects, while it completely obviates the bad conse-
quences. The further expansion which takes place
at the point of freezing, still further facilitates the
rapid removal of the icy chains, in which parts of
the earth's surface are at certain seasons bound.
We do not know how far these laws of expansion
G.
74 TERRESTRIAL AIDAPTATIONS.
are connected with and depend on more remote and
general properties of this fluid, or of all fluids. But
we have no reason to believe that, by whatever
means they operate, they are not laws selected from
among other laws which might exist, as in fact for
other fluids other laws do exist. And we have all
the evidence, which the most remarkable furtherance
of important purposes can give us, that they are se-
lected, and selected with a beneficial design.
3. As water becomes ice by cold, it becomes steam
by heat. In common language, steam is the name
given to the vapour of hot water; but in fact a va-
pour or steam rises from water at all temperatures,
however low, and even from ice. The expansive
force of this vapour increases rapidly as the heat in-
creases; so that when we reach the heat of boiling
water, it operates in a far more striking manner than
when it is colder; but in all cases the surface of wa-
ter is covered with an atmosphere of aqueous va-
pour, the pressure or tension of which is limited by
the temperature of the water. To each degree of
pressure in steam there is a constituent temperature
corresponding. If the surface of water is not pressed
by vapour with the force thus corresponding to its
temperature, an immediate evaporation will supply
the deficiency. We can compare the tension of such
vapour with that of our common atmosphere; the
pressure of the latter is measured by the barometri-
cal column, about thirty inches of mercury; that of
watery vapour is equal to one inch of mercury at
the constituent temperature of 80 degrees, and to one-
fifth of an inch, at the temperature of 32 degrees.
Hence, if that part of the atmosphere which con-
sists of common air were annihilated, there would
still remain an atmosphere of aqueous vapour, aris-
ing from the waters and moist parts of the earth;
and in the existing state of things this vapour rises
ſin the atmosphere of dry air. Its distribution and
effects are materially influenced by the vehicle in
which it is thus carried, as we shall hereafter notice;
LAWS OF HEAT—wATER. - 75
but at present we have to observe the exceeding
wtility of water in this shape. We remark how suit-
able and indispensable to the well-being of the crea-
tion it is, that the fluid should possess the property
of assuming such a form under such circumstances.
The moisture which floats in the atmosphere is of
most essential use to vegetable life.* “The leaves
of living plants appear to act upon this vapour in its
elastic form, and to absorb it. Some vegetables in-
crease in weight from this cause when suspended in
the atmosphere and unconnected with the soil, as the
house-leek and the aloe. In very intense heats, and
when the soil is dry, the life of plants seems to be
preserved by the absorbent power of their leaves.”
It follows from what has already been said, that, with
an increasing heat of the atmosphere, an increasing
quantity of vapour will rise into it, if supplied from
any quarter. Hence it appears that aqueous vapour
is most abundant in the atmosphere when it is most
needed for the purposes of life; and that when other
sources of moisture are cut off, this is most copious.
4. Clouds are produced by aqueous vapour when
it returns to the state of water. This process is con-
densation, the reverse of evaporation. When vapour
exists in the atmosphere, if in any manner the tem-
perature becomes lower than the constituent tempera-
ture, requisite for the maintenance of the vapoury
state, some of the steam will be condensed and will
become water. It is in this manner that the curl of
steam from the spout of a boiling tea-kettle becomes
visible, being cooled down as it rushes to the air.
The steam condenses into a fine watery powder,
which is carried about by the little aerial currents.
Clouds are of the same nature with such curls, the
condensation being generally produced when air,
charged with aqueous vapour, is mixed with a colder
current, or has its temperature diminished in any
other manner.
* Loudon, 1219.
'76 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
Clouds, while they retain that shape, are of the
most essential use to vegetable and animal life. They
moderate the fervour of the sun, in a manner agree-
able, to a greater or less degree, in all climates, and
grateful no less to vegetables than to animals. Du-
hamel says that plants grow more during a week of
cloudy weather than a month of dry and hot. It
has been observed that vegetables are far more re-
freshed by being watered in cloudy than in clear
weather. In the latter case, probably the supply of
fluid is too rapidly carried off by evaporation. Clouds
also moderate the alternations of temperature, by
checking the radiation from the earth. The coldest
nights are those which occur under a cloudless win-
ter sky.
The uses of clouds, therefore, in this stage of their
history, are by no means inconsiderable, and seem
to indicate to us that the laws of their formation
were constructed with a view to the purposes of or-
ganized life. -
5. Clouds produce rain. In the formation of a
cloud the precipitation of moisture probably forms a
fine watery powder, which remains suspended in the
air in consequence of the minuteness of its particles:
but if from any cause the precipitation is collected
in larger portions, and becomes drops, these descend
by their weight and produce a shower.
However rain is formed, it is one of the conse-
quences of the capacity of evaporation and conden-
sation which belongs to water, and its uses are the
result of the laws of those processes. Its uses to
plants are too obvious and too numerous to be de-
scribed. It is evident that on its quantity and distri-
bution depend in a great measure the prosperity of
the vegetable kingdom ; and different climates are
fitted for different productions, no less by the rela-
tions of dry weather and showers, than by those of
hot and cold. -
6. Returning back still further in the changes
which cold can produce on water, we come to snow
LAWS OF HEAT-WATER, 77
and ice: snow being apparently frozen vapour, ag-
gregated by a confused action of crystalline laws;
and ice being water in its fluid state, solidified by the
same crystalline forces. The impression of these
agents on the animal feelings is generally unpleasant,
and we are in the habit of considering them as symp-
toms of the power of winter to interrupt that state
of the elements in which they are subservient to life.
Yet, even in this form, they are not without their
uses.* “Snow and ice are bad conductors of cold;
and when the ground is covered with snow, or the
surface of the soil or of water is frozen, the roots
or bulbs of plants beneath are protected by the con-
gealed water from the influence of the atmosphere,
the temperature of which, in northern winters, is
usually very much below the freezing point; and
this water becomes the first nourishment of the plant
in early spring. The expansion of water during its
congelation, at which time its volume increases one-
twelfth, and its contraction in bulk during a thaw,
tend to pulverize the soil, to separate its parts from
each other, and to make it more permeable to the
influence of the air.” In consequence of the same
slowness in the conduction of heat which snow thus
possesses, the arctic traveller finds his bed of snow
of no intolerable coldness; the Esquimaux is shel-
tered from the inclemency of the season in his snow
hut, and travels rapidly and agreeably over the
frozen surface of the sea. The uses of those ar-
rangements, which at first appear productive only
of pain and inconvehience, are well suited to give
confidence and hope to our researches for such use-
fulness in every part of the creation. They have
thus a peculiar value in adding connexion and uni-
versality to our perception of beneficial design.
7. There is a peculiar circumstance still to be
noticed in the changes from ice to water and from
water to steam. These changes take place at a
* Loudon, 1214.
G 2
78. TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
particular and invariable degree of heat; yet they
do not take place suddenly when we increase the
heat to this degree. This is a very curious arrange-
ment. The temperature makes a stand, as it were,
at the point where thaw, and where boiling take
place. It is necessary to apply a considerable quan-
tity of heat to produce these effects; all which heat
disappears, or becomes latent, as it is called. We
cannot raise the temperature of a thawing mass of
ice till we have thawed the whole. We cannot raise
the temperature of boiling water, or of steam rising
from it, till we have converted all the water into
steam. Any heat that we apply while these changes
are going on is absorbed in producing the changes.
The consequences of this property of latent heat
are very important. It is on this account that the
changes now spoken of necessarily occupy a consi-
derable time. Each part in succession must have a
proper degree of heat applied to it. If it were
otherwise, thaw and evaporation must be instan-
taneous: at the first touch of warmth, all the snow
which lies on the roofs of our houses would descend
like a waterspout into the streets: all that which
rests on the ground would rush like an inundation
into the water courses. The hut of the Esquimaux
would vanish like a house in a pantomime : the icy
floor of the river would be gone without giving any
warning to the skaiter or the traveller: and when, in
heating our water, we reached the boiling point, the
whole fluid would “flash into steam,” (to use the ex-
pression of engineers,) and dissipate itself in the at-
mosphere, or settle in dew on the neighbouring
objects.
It is obviously necessary for the purposes of hu-
man life, that these changes should be of a more
gradual and manageable kind than such as we have
now described. Yet this gradual progress of freezing
and thawing, of evaporation and condensation, is
produced, so far as we can discover, by a particular
contrivance. Like the freezing of water from the
LAWS OF HEAT—WATER. 79
top, or the floating of ice, the moderation of the rate
of these changes seems to be the result of a violation
of a law: that is, the simple rule regarding the effects
of change of temperature, which at first sight appears
to be the law, and which, from its simplicity, would
seem to us the most obvious laws for these as well
as other cases, is modified at certain critical points,
so as to produce these advantageous effects:—why
may we not say in order to produce such effects?
8. Another office of water which it discharges by
means of its relations to heat, is that of supplyin
our springs. There can be no doubt that the old hy-
potheses which represent springs as drawing their
supplies from large subterranean reservoirs of wa-
ter, or from the sea by a process of subterraneous
filtration, are erroneous and untenable. The quantity
of evaporation from water and from wet ground is
found to be amply sufficient to supply the requisite
drain. Mr. Dalton calculated” that the quantity of
rain which falls in England is thirty-six inches a year.
Of this he reckoned that thirteen inches flow off to
the sea by the rivers, and that the remaining twenty-
three inches are raised again from the ground by
evaporation. The thirteen inches of water are of
course supplied by evaporation from the sea, and
are carried back to the land through the atmo-
sphere. Vapour is perpetually rising from the ocean,
and is condensed in the hills and high lands, and
through their pores and crevices descends, till it is
deflected, collected, and conducted out to the bay,
by some stratum or channel which is watertight.
The condensation which takes place in the higher
parts of the country, may easily be recognised in the
mists and rains which are the frequent occupants of
such regions. The coldness of the atmosphere and
other causes precipitate the moisture in clouds and
showers, and in the former as well as in the latter
shape, it is condensed and absorbed by the cool
* Manchester Memoirs, v. 357.
S0 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
ground. Thus a perpetual and compound circulation
of the waters is kept up; a narrower circle between
the evaporation and precipitation of the land itself,
the rivers and streams only occasionally and par-
tially forming a portion of the circuit; and a wider
interchange between the sea and the lands which
feed the springs, the water ascending perpetually by
a thousand currents through the air, and descending
by the gradually converging branches of the rivers,
till it is again returned into the great reservoir of the
OCéâIle -
In every country, these two portions of the aque-
ous circulation have their regular, and nearly con-
stant, proportion. In this kingdom the relative quan-
tities are, as we have said, twenty-three and thirteen.
A due distribution of these circulating fluids in each
country appears to be necessary to its organic
health; to the habits of vegetables, and of man. We
have every reason to believe that it is kept up from
year to year as steadily as the circulation of the
blood in the veins and arteries of man. It is main-
tained by a machinery very different, indeed, from
that of the human system, but apparently as well,
and, therefore, we may say as clearly, as that, adapt-
ed to its purposes.
By this machinery, we have a connexion esta-
blished between the atmospheric changes of re-
mote countries. Rains in England are often intro-
duced by a south-east wind. “Vapour brought to
us by such a wind, must have been generated in
countries to the south and east of our island. It is,
therefore, probably, in the extensive valleys watered
by the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, if not
from the more distant Elbe, with the Oder and the
Weser, that the water rises, in the midst of sunshine,
which is soon afterwards to form our clouds, and
pour down our thunder-showers.” “Drought and
sunshine in one part of Europe may be as necessary
to the production of a wet season in another, as it is
on the great scale of the continents of Africa and
LAWS OF HEAT-AIR. 81
South America; where the plains, during one half
the year, are burnt up, to feed the springs of the
mountain; which in their turn contribute to inundate
the fertile valleys and prepare them for a luxuriant
vegetation.” The properties of water which re-
gard heat make one vast watering-engine of the
atmosphere. -
CHAPTER X.
The Laws of Heat with respect to Air,
WE have seen in the preceding chapter how many
and how important are the offices discharged by the
aqueous part of the atmosphere. The aqueous part
is, however, a very small part only; it may vary,
perhaps, from less than 1-100dth to nearly as much
as 1-20th in weight, of the whole aerial ocean. We
have to offer some considerations with regard to the
remainder of the mass.
1. In the first place we may observe that the aerial
atmosphere is necessary as a vehicle for the aqueous
vapour. Salutary as is the operation of this last ele-
ment to the whole organized creation, it is a sub-
stance which would not have answered its purposes
if it had been administered pure. It requires to be
diluted and associated with dry air, to make it ser-
viceable. A little consideration will show this.
We can suppose the earth with no atmosphere ex-
cept the vapour which arises from its watery parts:
and if we suppose also the equatorial parts of the
globe to be hot, and the polar parts cold, we may
easily see what would be the consequence. The
waters at the equator, and near the equator, would
produce steam of greater elasticity, rarity, and tem-
* Howard on the climate of London, vol. ii. pp. 216, 217,
82 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
perature, than that which occupies the regions fur-
ther polewards; and such steam, as it came in con-
tact with the colder vapour of a higher latitude,
would be precipitated into the form of water. Hence
there would be a perpetual current of steam from
the equatorial parts towards each pole, which would
be condensed, would fall to the surface, and flow
back to the equator in the form of fluid. We should
have a circulation which might be regarded as a
species of regulated distillation.* On a globe so
constituted, the sky of the equatorial zone would be
perpetually cloudless; but in all other latitudes we
should have an uninterrupted shroud of clouds, fogs,
rains, and, near the poles, a continual fall of snow.
This would be balanced by a constant flow of the
currents of the ocean from each pole towards the
equator. We should have an excessive circulation
of moisture, but no sunshine, and probably only mi-
nute changes in the intensity and appearances of
One eternal drizzle or shower.
It is plain that this state of things would but ill an-
swer the ends of vegetable and animal life: so that
even if the lungs of animals and the leaves of plants
were so constructed as to breathe steam instead of
air, an atmosphere of unmixed steam would deprive
those creatures of most of the other external condi-
tions of their well being.
The real state of things which we enjoy, the steam
being mixed in our breath and in our sky in a mode-
rate quantity, gives rise to results very different from
those which have been described. The machinery by
which these results are produced is not a little curious.
It is in fact the machinery of the weather, and there-
fore the reader will not be surprised to find it both
complex and apparently uncertain in its working.
At the same time some of the general principles
which govern it seem now to be pretty well made
out, and they offer no small evidence of beneficent
arrangement.
* Daniell. Meteor. Ess. p. 56.
LAWS OF HEAT-AIR. 83
Besides our atmosphere of aqueous vapour, we
have another and far larger atmosphere of common
air; a permanently elastic fluid, that is, one which is
not condensed into a liquid form by pressure or cold,
such as it is exposed to in the order of natural events.
The pressure of the dry air is about twenty-nine and
a half inches of mercury; that of the watery vapour,
perhaps, half an inch. Now if we had the earth
quite dry, and covered with an atmosphere of dry
air, we can trace in a great measure what would be
the results, supposing still the equatorial zone to be
hot, and the temperature of the surface to decrease
perpetually as we advance into higher latitudes.
The air at the equator would be rarefied by the heat,
and would be perpetually displaced below by the
denser portions which belonged to cooler latitudes.
We should have a current of air from the equator to
the poles in the higher regions of the atmosphere,
and at the surface a returning current setting to-
wards the equator to fill up the void so created.
Such aerial currents, combined with the rotatory
motion of the earth, would produce oblique winds;
and we have in fact instances of winds so produced,
in the trade winds, which between the tropics blow
constantly from the quarters between east and north,
and are, we know, balanced by opposite currents in
higher regions. The effect of a heated surface of
land would be the same as that of the heated zone of
the equator, and would attract to it a sea breeze
during the day time, a phenomenon, as we also
know, of perpetual occurrence.
Now a mass of dry air of such a character as this,
is by far the dominant part of our atmosphere; and
hence carries with it in its motions the thinner and
smaller eddies of aqueous vapour. The latter fluid
may be considered as permeating and moving in the
interstices of the former, as a spring of water flows
through a sand rock.” The lower current of air is,
* Daniell. p. 129.
84 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
as has been said, directed towards the equator, and
hence it resists the motion of the steam, the tendency
of which is in the opposite direction; and prevents
or much retards that continual flow of hot vapour
into colder regions, by which a constant precipita-
tion would take place in the latter situations.
If, in this state of things, the flow of the current
of air, which blows from any colder place into a
warmer region, be retarded or stopped, the aqueous
vapours will now be able to make their way to the
colder point, where they will be precipitated in clouds
or showers.
Thus, in the lower part of the atmosphere, there
are tendencies to a current of air in one direction,
and a current of vapour in the opposite; and these
tendencies exist in the average weather of places
situated at a moderate distance from the equator.
The air tends from the colder to the warmer parts,
the vapour from the warmer to the colder.
The various distribution of land and sea, and many
other causes make these currents far from simple.
But in general the air current predominates, and
keeps the skies clear and the moisture dissolved.
Occasional and irregular occurrences disturb this
predominance; the moisture is then precipitated, the
skies are clouded, and the clouds may descend in co-
pious rains.
These alternations of fair weather and showers,
appear to be much more favourable to vegetable and
animal life than any uniform course of weather could
have been. To produce this variety, we have two
antagonist forces, by the struggle of which such
changes occur. Steam and air, two transparent and
elastic fluids, expansible by heat, are in many re-
spects and properties very like each other. Yet, the
same heat similarly applied to the globe, produces
at the surface currents of these fluids, tending in op-
posite directions. And these currents mix and ba-
lance, conspire and interfere, so that our trees and
fields have alternately water and sunshine; our fruits
LAWS OF HEAT—AIR. . S5
and grain are successively developed and matured.
Why should such laws of heat and elastic fluids so
obtain, and be so combined 7 Is it not in order that
they may be fit for such offices? There is here an
arrangement, which no chance could have produced.
The details of this apparatus may be beyond our
power of tracing; its springs may be out of our sight.
Such circumstances do not make it the less a curious
and beautiful contrivance: they need not prevent our
recognizing the skill and benevolence which we can
discover.
2. But we have not yet done with the machinery
of the weather. In ascending from the earth’s sur-
face through the atmosphere, we find a remarkable
difference in the heat and in the pressure of the air.
It becomes much colder, and much lighter; men's
feelings tell them this; and the thermometer and ba-
rometer confirm these indications. And here again
we find something to remark. -
In both the simple atmospheres of which we have
spoken, the one of air and the one of steam, the pro-
perty which we have mentioned must exist. In each
of them, both the temperature and the tension would
diminish in ascending. But they would diminish at
very different rates. The temperature, for instance,
would decrease much more rapidly for the same
height in dry air than in steam. If we begin with a
temperature of 80 degrees at the surface, on ascend-
ing five thousand feet the steam is still 76% degrees,
the air is only 64; degrees; at ten thousand feet,
the steam is 73 degrees, the air 48% degrees; at
fifteen thousand feet, steam is at 70 degrees, air has
fallen below the freezing point to 31% degrees.
Hence these two atmospheres cannot exist together
without modifying one another: one must heat or cool
the other, so that the coincident parts may be of the
same temperature. This accordingly does take
place, and this effect influences very greatly the con-
stitution of the atmosphere. For the most part, the
steam is compelled to accommodate itself to the tem-
H
86 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
perature of the air, the latter being of much the
greater bulk. But if the upper parts of the aqueous
vapour be cooled down to the temperature of the air,
they will not by any means exert on the lower parts
of the same vapour so great a pressure as the gaseous
form of these could bear. Hence, there will be a de-
ficiency of moisture in the lower part of the atmo-
sphere, and if water exist there, it will rise by eva-
poration, the surface feeling an insufficient tension ;
and there will thus be a fresh supply of vapour up-
wards. As, however, the upper regions already con-
tain as much as their temperature will support in
the state of gas, a precipitation will now take place,
and the fluid thus formed will descend till it arrives
in a lower region, where the tension and tempera-
ture are again adapted to its evaporation.
Thus, we can have no equilibrium in such an at-
mosphere, but a perpetual circulation of vapour be-
tween its upper and lower parts. The currents of
air which move about in different directions, at dif-
ferent altitudes, will be differently charged with
moisture, and as they touch and mingle, lines of
cloud are formed, which grow and join, and are
spread out in floors, or rolled together in piles. These,
again, by an additional accession of humidity, are
formed into drops, and descend in showers into the
lower regions, and if not evaporated in their fall,
reach the surface of the earth.
The varying occurrences thus produced, tend to
multiply and extend their own variety. The ascend-
ing streams of vapour carry with them that latent
heat belonging to their gaseous state, which, when
they are condensed, they give out as sensible heat.
They thus raise the temperature of the upper regions
of air, and occasion changes in the pressure and
motion of its currents. The clouds, again, by shad-
ing the surface of the earth from the sun, diminish
the evaporation by which their own substance is
supplied, and the heating effects by which currents
are caused. Even the mere mechanical effects of
LAws of HEAT—AIR. 87
the currents of fluid on the distribution of its own
pressure, and the dynamical conditions of its motion,
are in a high degree abstruse in their principles and
complex in their results. It need not be wondered,
therefore, if the study of this subject is very difficult
and entangled, and our knowledge, after all, very
imperfect.
In the middle of all this apparent confusion, how-
ever, we can see much that we can understand.
And, among other things, we may notice some of
the consequences of the difference of the laws of
temperature followed by steam and by air in going
upwards. One important result is that the atmo-
sphere is much drier, near the surface, than it would
have been if the laws of density and temperature
had been the same for both gases. If this had been
so, the air would always have been saturated with
Vapour. It would have contained as much as the
existing temperature could support, and the slightest
cooling of any object would have covered it with a
watery film like dew. As it is, the air contains
much less than its full quantity of vapour: we may
often cool an object ten, twenty, or thirty degrees
without obtaining a deposition of water upon it, or
reaching the dew-point, as it is called. To have had
such a dripping state of the atmosphere as the for-
mer arrangement would have produced, would have
been inconvenient, and so far as we can judge, un-
suited to vegetables as well as animals. No evapo-
ration from the surface of either could have taken
place under such conditions.
The sizes and forms of clouds appear to depend
on the same circumstance, of the air not being satu-
rated with moisture. And it is seemingly much
better that clouds should be comparatively small and
well defined, as they are, than that they should fill
vast depths of the atmosphere with a thin mist, which
would have been the consequence of the imaginary
condition of things just mentioned.
Here then we have another remarkable exhibition
88 * TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
of two laws, in two nearly similar gaseous fluids,
producing effects alike in kind, but different in de-
gree, and by the play of their difference giving rise
to a new set of results, peculiar in their nature and
beneficial in their tendency. The form of the laws
of air and of steam with regard to heat might, so far
as we can see, have been more similar, or more dis-
similar, than it now is: the rate of each law might
have had a different amount from its present one, so
as quite to alter the relation of the two. By the laws
having such forms and such rates as they have, ef-
fects are produced, some of which we can distinctly
perceive to be beneficial. Perhaps most persons will
feel a strong persuasion, that if we understood the
operation of these laws more distinctly, we should
see still more clearly the beneficial tendency of these
effects, and should probably discover others, at pre-
sent concealed in the apparent perplexity of the sub-
iect.
Jº 3. From what has been said, we may see, in a
general way, both the causes and the effects of winds.
They arise from any disturbance by temperature,
motion, pressure, &c. of the equilibrium of the atmo-
sphere, and are the efforts of nature to restore the
balance. Their office in the economy of nature is to
carry heat and moisture from one tract to another,
and they are the great agents in the distribution of
temperature and the changes of weather. Other
purposes might easily be ascribed to them in the
business of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and
in the arts of human life, of which we shall not here
treat. That character in which we now consider
them, that of the machinery of atmospheric changes,
and thus, immediately or remotely, the instruments
of atmospheric influences, cannot well be refused
them by any person.
4. There is still one reflexion which ought not to
be omitted. All the changes of the weather, even
the most violent tempests and torrents of rain, may
be considered as oscillations about the mean or
LAwS OF HEAT—AIR. 89
average condition belonging to each place. All
these oscillations are limited and transient; the storm
spends its fury, the inundation passes off, the sky
clears, the calmer course of nature succeeds. In
the forces which produce this derangement, there is
a provision for making it short and moderate. The
oscillation stops of itself, like the rolling of a ship,
when no longer impelled by the wind. Now, why
should this be so? Why should the oscillations, pro-
duced by the conflict of so many laws, seemingly
quite unconnected with each other, be of this con-
verging and subsiding character 7 Would it be so
under all arrangements 7 Is it a matter of mecha-
nical necessity that disturbance must end in the re-
storation of the medium condition 7 By no means.
There may be an utter subversion of the equilibrium.
The ship may roll too far, and may capsize. The
Oscillations may go on, becoming larger and larger,
till all trace of the original condition is lost; till new
forces of inequality and disturbance are brought into
play; and disorder and irregularity may succeed,
without apparent limit or check in its own nature,
like the spread of a conflagration in a city. This is
a possibility in any combination of mechanical
forces; why does it not happen in the one now be-
fore us? By what good fortune are the powers of
heat, of water, of steam, of air, the effects of the
earth’s annual and diurnal motions, and probably
other causes, so adjusted, that through all their
struggles the elemental world goes on, upon the
whole, so quietly and steadily? Why is the whole
fabric of the weather never utterly deranged, its
balance lost irrecoverably" Why is there not an
eternal conflict, such as the poets imagine to take
place in their chaos?
“For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms:— -
• to whom these most adhere,
He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits, -
And by decision more embroils the fray.”—Par. Lost. b. ii.
H 2
90 TTERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS,
A state of things something like that which Milton
here seems to have imagined, is, so far as we know,
not mechanically impossible. It might have con-
tinued to obtain, if Hot and Cold, and Moist and Dry
had not been compelled to “run into their places.”
It will be hereafter seen, that in the comparatively
simple problem of the solar system, a number of
very peculiar adjustments were requisite, in order
that the system might retain a permanent form, in
order that its motions might have their cycles, its
perturbations their limits and period. The problem
of the continuation of such laws and materials as
enter into the constitution of the atmosphere, is one
manifestly of much greater complexity, and indeed
to us probably of insurmountable difficulty as a me-
chanical problem. But all that investigation and
analogy teach us, tends to show that it will resemble
the other problem in the nature of its result; and that
certain relations of its data, and of the laws of its
elements, are necessary requisites, for securing the
stability of its mean condition, and for giving a small
and periodical character to its deviations from such
a condition.
It would then be probable, from this reflection
alone, that in determining the quantity and the law
and intensity of the forces, of earth, water, air, and
heat, the same regard has been shown to the perma-
mency and stability of the terrestrial system, which
may be traced in the adjustment of the masses, dis-
tances, positions, and motions of the bodies of the
celestial machine.
This permanency appears to be, of itself, a suita-
ble object of contrivance. The purpose for which
the world was made could be answered only by its
being preserved. But it has appeared, from the pre-
ceding part of this and the former chapter, that this
permanence is a permanence of a state of things
adapted by the most remarkable and multiplied com-
binations to the well-being of man, of animals, of
vegetables. The adjustments and conditions there-
ELECTRICITY, 91
fore, beyond the reach of our investigation as they
are, by which its permanence is secured, must be
conceived as fitted to add, in each of the instances
above adduced, to the admiration which the several
manifestations of Intelligent Beneficence are calcu-
lated to excite.
CHAPTER XI,
The Laws of Electricity.
ELECTRICITY undoubtedly exists in the atmosphere
in most states of the air; but we know very imper-
fectly the laws of this agent, and are still more igno-
rant of its atmospheric operation. The present state
of science does not therefore enable us to perceive
those adaptations of its laws to its uses, which we
can discover in those cases where the laws and the
uses are both of them more apparent.
We can, however, easily make out that electrical
agency plays a very considerable part among the
clouds, in their usual conditions and changes. This
may be easily shown by Franklin’s experiment of the
electrical kite. The clouds are sometimes positively,
sometimes negatively, charged, and the rain which
descends from them offers also indications of one or
other kind of electricity. The changes of wind and
alterations of the form of the clouds are generally
accompanied with changes in these electrical indica-
tions. Every one knows that a thunder-cloud is
strongly charged with the electric fluid, (if it be a
fluid,) and that the stroke of the lightning is an elec-
trical discharge. We may add that it appears, by
recent experiments, that a transfer of electricity be-
tween plants and the atmosphere is perpetually go-
ing on during the process of vegetation. -
92 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS,
We cannot trace very exactly the precise circum-
stances, in the occurrences of the atmospheric re-
gions, which depend on the influence of the laws of
electricity: but we are tolerably certain, from what
has been already noticed, that if these laws did not
exist, or were very different from what they now are,
the action of the clouds and winds, and the course of
vegetation, would also be other than it now is.
It is therefore at any rate very probable that elec-
tricity has its appointed and important purposes in
the economy of the atmosphere. And this being so,
we may see a use in the thunder-storm and the stroke
of the lightning. These violent events are, with re-
gard to the electricity of the atmosphere, what winds
are with regard to heat and moisture. They restore
the equilibrium where it has been dissolved, and
carry the fluid from places where it is superfluous,
to others where it is deficient.
We are so constituted, however, that these crises
impress almost every one with a feeling of awe. The
deep lowering gloom of the thunder-cloud, the over-
whelming burst of the explosion, the flash from which
the steadiest eye shrinks, and the irresistible arrow
of the lightning which no earthly substance can with-
stand, speak of something fearful, even independently
of the personal danger which they may whisper.
They convey, far more than any other appearance
does, the idea of a superior and mighty power, mani-
festing displeasure and threatening punishment. Yet
we find that this is not the language which they speak
to the physical inquirer: he sees these formidable
symptoms only as the means or the consequences of
good. What office the thunderbolt and the whirlwind
may have in the moral world, we cannot here dis-
cuss: but certainly he must speculate as far beyond
the limits of philosophy as of piety, who pretends to
have learnt that there their work has more of evil
than of good. In the natural world, these apparently
destructive agents are, like all the other movements
MAGNETISM. 93
and appearances of the atmosphere, parts of a great
scheme, of which every discoverable purpose is
marked with beneficence as well as wisdom.
CHAPTER XII.
The Laws of JMagnetism.
MAGNETISM has no very obvious or apparently ex-
tensive office in the mechanism of the atmosphere
and the earth: but the mention of it may be intro-
duced, because its ascertained relations to the other
powers which exist in the system are well suited to
show us the connexion subsisting throughout the uni-
verse, and to check the suspicion, if any such should
arise, that any law of nature is without its use. The
parts of creation when these uses are most obscure,
are precisely those parts when the laws themselves
are least known. -
When indeed we consider the vast service of
which magnetism is to man, by supplying him with
that invaluable instrument the mariners’ compass,
many persons will require no further evidence of this
property being introduced into the frame of things
with a worthy purpose. As however, we have hith-
erto excluded use in the arts from our line of argu-
ment, we shall not here make an exception in favour
of navigation, and what we shall observe belongs to
another view of the subject.
Magnetism has been discovered in modern times
to have so close a connexion with galvanism, that
they may be said to be almost different aspects of
the same agent. All the phenomena which we can
produce with magnets, we can imitate with coils of
galvanic wire. That galvanism exists in the earth,
we need no proof. Electricity, which appears to be
only galvanism in equilibrium, is there in abundance;
94 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
and recently, Mr. Fox+ has shown by experiment
that metalliferous veins, as they lie in the earth, ex-
ercise a galvanic influence on each other. Some-
thing of this kind might have been anticipated; for
masses of metal in contact, if they differ in tempera-
ture or other circumstances, are known to produce
a galvanic current. Hence we have undoubtedly
streams of galvanic influence moving along in the
earth. Whether or not such causes as these pro-
duce the directive power of the magnetic needle, we
cannot here pretend to decide; they can hardly fail
to affect it. The Aurora Borealis too, probably an
electrical phenomenon, is said, under particular cir-
cumstances, to agitate the magnetic needle. It is
not surprising, therefore, that, if electricity have an
important office in the atmosphere, magnetism should
exist in the earth. It seems likely, that the magnetic
properties of the earth may be collateral results of
the existence of the same cause by which electrical
agency operates; an agency which, as we have al-
ready seen, has important offices in the processes of
vegetable life. And thus magnetism belongs to the
same system of beneficial contrivance to which elec-
tricity has been already traced.
We see, however, on this subject very dimly and
a very small way. It can hardly be doubted that
magnetism has other functions than those we have
noticed, t
CHAPTER XIII.
The Properties of Light with regard to Vegetation.
THE illuminating power of light will come under
our consideration hereafter. Its agency, with regard
to organic life, is too important not to be noticed,
* Phil, Trans. 1891.
MAGNETISM. 95
though this must be done briefly. Light appears to
be as necessary to the health of plants as air or mois-
ture. A plant may, indeed, grow without it, but it
does not appear that a species could be so continued.
Under such a privation, the parts which are usually
green, assume a white colour, as is the case with
vegetables grown in a cellar, or protected by a cover-
ing for the sake of producing this very effect; thus,
celery, is in this manner blanched, or etiolated.
The part of the process of vegetable life for which
light is especially essential, appears to be the func-
tions of the leaves; these are affected by this agent
in a very remarkable manner. The moisture which
plants imbibe is, by their vital energies, carried to
their leaves; and is then brought in contact with the
atmosphere, which, besides other ingredients, con-
tains, in general, a portion of carbonic acid. So long
as light is present, the leaf decomposes the carbonic
acid, appropriates the carbon to the formation of its
own proper juices, and returns the disengaged oxy-
gen into the atmosphere; thus restoring the atmos-
pheric air to a condition in which it is more fitted
than it was before for the support of animal life. The
plant thus prepares the support of life for other crea-
tures at the same time that it absorbs its own. The
greenness of those members which affect that colour,
and the disengagement of oxygen, are the indica-
tions that its vital powers are in healthful action: as
soon as we remove light from the plant, these indica-
tions cease: it has no longer power to imbibe carbon
and disengage oxygen, but on the contrary, it gives
back some of the carbon already obtained, and robs
the atmosphere of oxygen for the purpose of recon-
verting this into carbonic acid.
It cannot well be conceived that such effects of
light on vegetables, as we have described, should
occur, if that agent, of whatever nature it is, and
those organs, had not been adapted to each other.
But the subject is here introduced that the reader
may the more readily receive the conviction of com-
96 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
bining purpose which must arise, on finding that an
agent, possessing these very peculiar chemical pro-
perties, is employed to produce also those effects of .
illumination, vision, &c., which form the most ob-
vious portion of the properties of light.
CHAPTER XIV.
Sound.
BESIDEs the function which air discharges as the
great agent in the changes of meteorology and vege-
tation, it has another office, also of great and exten-
sive importance, as the vehicle of sound.
1. The communication of sound through the air
takes place by means of a process altogether differ-
ent from anything of which we have yet spoken :
namely, by the propagation of minute vibrations of
the particles from one part of the fluid mass to ano-
ther, without any local motion of the fluid itself.
Perhaps we may most distinctly conceive the kind
of effect here spoken of, by comparing it to the mo-
tion produced by the wind in a field of standing
corn; grassy waves travel visibly over the field, in
the direction in which the wind blows, but this ap-
pearance of an object moving is delusive. The only
real motion is that of the ears of grain, of which
each goes and returns, as the stalk stoops and reco-
vers itself. This motion affects successively a line
of ears in the direction of the wind, and affects si-
multaneously all those ears of which the elevation or
depression forms one visible wave. The elevations
and depressions are propagated in a constant direc-
tion, while the parts with which the space is filled
only vibrate to and fro. Of exactly such a nature is
the propagation of sound through the air. The par-
ticles of air go and return through very minute
SOUND. 97
spaces, and this vibratory motion runs through the
atmosphere from the sounding body to the ear.
Waves, not of elevation and depression, but of con-
densation and rarefaction, are transmitted ; and the
sound thus becomes an object of sense to the organ.
Another familiar instance of the propagation of
vibrations we have in the circles on the surface of
smooth water, which diverge from the point where
it is touched by a small object, as a drop of rain. In
the beginning of a shower, for instance, when the
drops come distinct, though frequent, we may see
each drop giving rise to a ring, formed of two or
three close concentric circles, which grow and
spread, leaving the interior of the circles smooth,
and gradually reaching parts of the surface more
and more distant from their origin. In this instance,
it is clearly not a portion of the water which flows
onwards; but the disturbance, the rise and fall of the
surface which makes the ring-formed waves, passes
into wider and wider circles, and thus the undulation
is transmitted from its starting-place, to points in all
directions on the surface of the fluid.
The diffusion of these ring-formed undulations
from their centre resembles the diffusion of a sound
from the place where it is produced to the points
where it is heard. The disturbance, or vibration, by
which it is conveyed, travels at the same rate in all
directions, and the waves which are propagated are
hence of a circular form. They differ, however,
from those on the surface of water; for sound is
communicated upwards and downwards, and in all
intermediate directions, as well as horizontally;
hence the waves of sound are spherical, the point
where the sound is produced being the centre of the
sphere. * -
This diffusion of vibrations in spherical shells of
successive condensation and rarefaction, will easily
be seen to be different from any local motion of the
air, as wind, and to be independent of that. The cir-
cles on the surface of water will spread on a river
"I
98 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
which is flowing, provided it be smooth, as well as
on a standing canal.
Not only are such undulations propagated almost
undisturbed by any local motion of the fluid in which
they take place, but also, many may be propagated
in the same fluid at the same time, without disturbing
each other. We may see this effect on water. When
several drops fall near each other, the circles which
they produce cross each other, without either of
them being lost, and the separate courses of the
rings may still be traced. -
All these consequences, both in water, in air, and
in any other fluid, can be very exactly investigated
upon mechanical principles, and the greater part of
the phenomena can thus be shown to result from the
properties of the fluids.
There are several remarkable circumstances in
the way in which air answers its purpose as the ve-
hicle of sound, of which we will now point out a few.
2. The loudness of sound is such as is convenient
for common purposes. The organs of speech can, in
the present constitution of the air, produce, without
fatigue, such a tone of voice as can be heard with
distinctness and with comfort. That any great alter-
ation in this element might be incommodious, we
may judge from the difficulties to which persons are
subject who are dull of hearing, and from the dis-
agreeable effects of a voice much louder than usual,
or so low as to be indistinct. Sounds produced by
the human organs, with other kinds of air, are very
different from those in our common air. If a man
inhale a quantity of hydrogen gas, and then speak,
his voice is scarcely audible.
The loudness of sounds become smaller in propor-
tion as they come from a greater distance. This
enables us to judge of the distance of objects, in
some degree at least, by the sounds which proceed
from them. Moreover, it is found that we can judge
of the position of objects by the ear: and this judg-
ment seems to be formed by comparing the loudness
SOUND, 99
of the impression of the same sound on the two ears
and two sides of the head.*
The loudness of sounds appears to depend on the
eatent of vibration of the particles of air, and this is
determined by the vibrations of the sounding body.
3. The pitch, or the differences of acute and grave,
in sounds, form another important property, and one
which fits them for a great part of their purposes.
By the succession of different notes, we have all the
results of melody and harmony in musical sound ;
and of intonation and modulation of the voice, of
accent, cadence, emphasis, expression, passion, in
speech. The song of birds, which is one of their
principal modes of communication, depends chiefly
for its distinctions and its significance upon the com-
binations of acute and grave.
These differences are produced by the different
rapidity of vibration of the particles of air. The
gravest sound has about eighty vibrations in a second,
the most acute about one thousand. Between these
limits each sound has a musical character, and from
the different relations of the number of vibrations in
a second arise all the differences of musical inter-
vals, concords and discords.
4. The quality of sounds is another of their differ-
ences. This is the name given to the difference of
notes of the same pitch, that is the same note as to
acute and grave, when produced by different instru-
ments. If a flute and a violin be in unison, the notes
are still quite different sounds. . It is this kind of dif-
ference which distinguishes the voice of one man
from that of another: and it is manifestly therefore
one of great consequence; since it connects the
voice with the particular person, and is almost ne:
cessary in order that language may be a medium of
intercourse between men.
5. The articulate character of sounds is for us one
of the most important arrangements which exist in
* Mr. Gough in Manch. Mem. vol. v.
100 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
the world; for it is by this that they become the in-
terpreters of thought will and feeling, the means
by which a person can convey his wants, his in-
structions, his promises, his kindness, to others;
by which one marſ can regulate the actions and in-
fluence the convictions and judgments of another.
It is in virtue of the possibility of shaping air into
words, that the imperceptible vibrations which a
man produces in the atmosphere, become some of
his most important actions; the foundations of the
highest moral and social relations; and the condi-
tion and instrument of all the advancement and im-
provement of which he is susceptible.
It appears that the differences of articulate sound
arise from the different form of the cavity through
which the sound is made to proceed immediately
after being produced. In the human voice the sound
is produced in the larynx, and modified by the cavity
of the mouth, and the various organs which surround
this cavity. The laws by which articulate sounds are
thus produced have not yet been fully developed,
but appear to be in the progress of being so.
The properties of sounds which have been men-
tioned, differences of loudness, of pitch, of quality,
and articulation, appear to be all requisite in order
that sound shall answer its purposes in the economy
of animal and of human life. And how was the air
made capable of conveying these four differences, at
the same time that the organs were made capable of
producing them 7 Surely by a most refined and skil-
ful adaptation, applied with a most comprehensive
design.
6. Again; is it by chance that the air and the ear
exist together ? Did the air produce the organization
of the ear? or the ear, independently organized, an-
ticipate the constitution of the atmosphere " Or is
not the only intelligible account of the matter, this,
that one was made for the other: that there is a mu-
tual adaptation produced by an Intelligence which
was acquainted with the properties of both; which
SOUND. 101
adjusted them to each other as we find them adjust-
ed, in order that birds might communicate by song,
that men might speak and hear, and that language
might play its extraordinary part in its operation
upon men's thoughts, actions, institutions, and for-
tunes 7
The vibrations of an elastic fluid like the air, and
their properties, follow from the laws of motion; and
whether or not these laws of the motion of fluids
might in reality have been other than they are, they
appear to us inseparably connected with the existence
of matter, and as much a thing of necessity as we
can conceive any thing in the universe to be. The
propagation of such vibrations, therefore, and their
properties, we may at present allow to be a neces-
sary part of the constitution of the atmosphere. But
what is it that makes these vibrations become sound?
How is it that they produce such an effect on our
senses, and, through those, on our minds? The vibra-
tions of the air seem to be of themselves no more
fitted to produce sound, than to produce smell. We
know that such vibrations do not universally produce
sound, but only between certain limits. When the
vibrations are fewer than eighty in a second, they
are perceived as separate throbs, and not as a con-
tinued sound; and there is a certain limit of rapidity,
beyond which the vibrations become inaudible. This
limit is different to different ears, and we are thus
assured by one person’s ear that there are vibrations,
though to that of another they do not produce sound.
How was the human ear adapted so that its percep-
tion of vibrations as sounds should fall within these
limits"—the very limits within which the vibrations
fall, which it most concerns us to perceive: those of
the human voice for instance " How nicely are the
organs adjusted with regard to the most minute me-
chanical motions of the elements?
I 2
102
CHAPTER XV.
The Atmosphere.
WE have considered in succession a number of
the properties and operations of the atmosphere, and
have found them separately very curious. But an
additional interest belongs to the subject when we
consider them as combined. The atmosphere under
this point of view must appear a contrivance of the
most extraordinary kind. To answer any of its pur-
poses, to carry on any of its processes, separately, re-
quires peculiar arrangements and adjustments; to
answer, all at once, purposes so varied, to combine
without confusion so many different trains, implies
powers and attributes which can hardly fail to excite
in a high degree our admiration and reverence.
If the atmosphere be considered as a vast ma-
chine, it is difficult to form any just conception of the
profound skill and comprehensiveness of design which
it displays. It diffuses and tempers the heat of dif-
ferent climates; for this purpose it performs a circu-
lation occupying the whole range from the pole to
the equator; and while it is doing this, it executes
many smaller circuits between the sea and the land.
At the same time, it is the means of forming clouds
and rain, and for this purpose, a perpetual circula-
tion of the watery part of the atmosphere goes on
between its lower and upper regions. Besides this
complication of circuits, it exercises a more irregu-
lar agency, in the occasional winds which blow from
all quarters, tending perpetually to restore the equi-
librium of heat and moisture. But this incessant and
multiplied activity discharges only a part of the func-
tions of the air. It is, moreover, the most important
and universal material of the growth and sustenance
THE ATMOSPHERE. 103
of plants and animals; and is for this purpose every
where present and almost uniform in its quantity.
With all its local motion, it has also the office of a
medium of communication between intelligent crea-
tures, which office it performs by another set of mo-
tions, entirely different both from the circulation and
the occasional movements already mentioned; these
different kinds of motions not interfering materially
with each other : and this last purpose, so remote
from the others in its nature, it answers in a manner
so perfect and so easy, that we cannot imagine that
the object could have been more completely attain-
ed, if this had been the sole purpose for which the
atmosphere had been created. With all these quali-
ties, this extraordinary part of our terrestrial system
is scarcely ever in the way: and when we have oc-
casion to do so, we put forth our hand and push it
aside, without being aware of its being near us.
We may add, that it is, in addition to all that we
have hitherto noticed, a constant source of utility
and beauty in its effects on light. Without air we
should see nothing, except objects on which the sun's
rays fell, directly or by reflection. It is the atmo-
sphere which converts sunbeams into daylight, and
fills the space in which we are with illumination.
The contemplation of the atmosphere, as a ma-
chine which answers all these purposes, is well suited
to impress upon us the strongest conviction of the
most refined, far-seeing, and far-ruling contrivance.
It seems impossible to suppose that these various
properties were so bestowed and so combined, any
otherwise than by a beneficent and intelligent Being,
able and willing to diffuse organization, life, health,
and enjoyment through all parts of the visible world;
possessing a fertility of means which no multiplicity
of objects could exhaust, and a discrimination of con-
sequences which no complication of conditions could
embarrass.
104
CHAPTER xvi.
Light.
BESIDEs the hearing and sound there is another
mode by which we become sensible of the impres-
sions of external objects, namely, sight and light.
This subject also offers some observations bearing on
our present purpose.
It has been declared by writers on Natural Theo-
logy, that the human eye exhibits such evidence of
design and skill in its construction, that no one, who
considers it attentively, can resist this impression:
nor does this appear to be saying too much. It must,
at the same time, be obvious that this construction of
the eye could not answer its purposes, except the
constitution of light corresponded to it. Light is an
element of the most peculiar kind and properties, and
such an element can hardly be conceived to have
been placed in the universe without a regard to its
operation and functions. As the eye is made for
light, so light must have been made, at least among
other ends, for the eye. -
1. We must expect to comprehend imperfectly
only the mechanism of the elements. Still, we have
endeavoured to show that in some instances the ar-
rangements by which their purposes are effected are,
to a certain extent, intelligible. In order to explain,
however, in what manner light answers those ends
which appear to us its principal ones, we must know
something of the nature of light. There have,
hitherto, been, among men of science, two prevailing
opinions upon this subject: some considering light as
consisting in the emission of luminous particles;
others accounting for its phenomena by the propaga-
tion of vibrations through a highly subtle and elastic
LIGHT. 105
ether. The former opinion has, till lately, been most
generally entertained in this country, having been
the hypothesis on which Newton made his calcula-
tions; the latter is the one to which most of those
persons have been led, who, in recent times, have
endeavoured to deduce general conclusions from the
newly discovered phenomena of light. Among these
persons, the theory of undulations is conceived to be
established in nearly the same manner, and almost as
certainly, as the doctrine of universal gravitation;
namely, by a series of laws inferred from numerous
facts, which, proceeding from different sets of phe-
nomena, are found to converge to one common view;
and by calculations founded upon the theory, which,
indicating new and untried facts, are found to agree
exactly with experiment.
We cannot here introduce a sketch of the progress
by which the phenomena have thus led to the accept-
ance of the theory of undulations. But this theory
appears to have such claims to our assent, that the
views which we have to offer with regard to the de-
sign exercised in the adaptation, of light to its pur-
poses, will depend on the undulatory theory, so far
as they depend on theory at all.”
2. The impressions of sight, like those of hearing,
differ in intensity and in kind. Brightness and Colour
are the principal differences among visible things, as
loudness and pitch are among sounds. But there is
a singular distinction between these senses in one
respect: every object and part of an object seen, is
necessarily and inevitably referred to some position
in the space before us; and hence visible things have
place, magnitude, form, as well as light, shade, and
colour. There is nothing analogous to this in the
sense of hearing; for though we can, in some ap-
* The reader who is acquainted with the two theories of
light, will perceive that though we have adopted the doctrine of
the ether, the greater part of the arguments adduced would be
equally forcible, if expressed in the language of the theory of
emission, -
106 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
proximate degree, guess the situation of the point
from which a sound proceeds, this is a secondary
process, distinguishable from the perception of the
sound itself; whereas we cannot conceive visible
things without form and place.
The law according to which the sense of vision is
thus affected, appears to be this. By the properties
of light, the external scene produces, through the
transparent parts of the eye, an image or picture
exactly resembling the reality, upon the back part of
the retina: and each point which we see, is seen in
the direction of a line passing from its image on the
retina, through the centre of the pupil of the eye.*
In this manner we perceive by the eye the situation
of every point, at the same time that we perceive its
existence ; and by combining the situations of many
points, we have forms and outlines of every sort.
That we should receive from the eye this notice
of the position of the object as well as of its other
visible qualities, appears to be absolutely necessary
for our intercourse with the external world; and the
faculty of doing so is so intimate a part of our con-
stitution that we cannot conceive ourselves divested
of it. Yet in order to imagine ourselves destitute of
this faculty, we have only to suppose that the eye
should receive its impressions as the ear does, and
should apprehend red and green, bright and dark,
without placing them side by side; as the ear takes
in the different sounds which compose a concert,
without attributing them to different parts of space.
The peculiar property thus belonging to vision, of
perceiving position, is so essential to us, that we may
readily believe that some particular provision has
been made for its existence. The remarkable me-
chanism of the eye (precisely resembling that of a
camera obscura,) by which it produces an image on
the nervous web forming its hinder part, seems to
* Or rather through the focal centre of the eye, which is al-
ways near the centre of the pupil.
LIGHT. - 107
have this effect for its main object. And this me-
chanism necessarily supposes certain corresponding
properties in light itself, by means of which such an
effect becomes possible.
The main properties of light which are concerned
in this arrangement, are reflexion and refraction : re-
flexion by which light is reflected and scattered by
all objects, and thus comes to the eye from all : and
refraction, by which its course is bent, when it passes
obliquely out of one transparent medium into another;
and by which, consequently, convex transparent sub-
stances, such as the cornea and humours of the eye,
possess the power of making the light converge to a
focus or point; an assemblage of such points forming
the images on the retina, which we have mentioned.
Reflexion and refraction are therefore the essential
and indispensable properties of light; and so far as
we can understand, it appears that it was necessary
that light should possess such properties, in order that
it might form a medium of communication between
man and the external world. We may consider its
power of passing through transparent media (as air)
to be given in order that it may enlighten the earth ;
its affection of reflexion, for the purpose of making
colours visible ; and its refraction to be bestowed,
that it may enable us to discriminate figure and po-
sition, by means of the lenses of the eye.
In this manner light may be considered as consti-
tuted with a peculiar reference to the eyes of ani-
mals, and its leading properties may be looked upon
as contrivances or adaptations to fit it for its visual
office. And in such a point of view the perfection of
the contrivance or adaptation must be allowed to be
very remarkable.
3. But besides the properties of reflexion and re-
fraction, the most obvious laws of light, an extraor-
dinary variety of phenomena have lately been dis-
covered, regulated by other laws of the most curious
kind, uniting great complexity with great symmetry.
We refer to the phenomena of diffraction, polarisa-
108 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
tion, and periodical colours, produced by crystals
and by thin plates. We have, in these facts, a vast
mass of properties and laws, offering a subject of
study which has been pursued with eminent skill and
intelligence. But these properties and laws, so far
as has yet been discovered, exert no agency what-
ever, and have no purpose, in the general economy
of nature. Beams of light polarised in contrary di-
rections exhibit the most remarkable differences
when they pass through certain crystals, but mani-
fest no discoverable difference in their immediate
impression on the eye. We have, therefore, here, a
number of laws of light, which we cannot perceive
to be established with any design which has a refer-
ence to the other parts of the universe.
Undoubtedly it is exceedingly possible that these
differences of light may operate in some quarter,
and in some way, which we cannot detect; and that
these laws may have purposes and may answer ends
of which we have no suspicion. All the analogy of
nature teaches us a lesson of humility, with regard to
the reliance we are to place on our discernment and
judgment as to such matters. But with our present
knowledge, we may observe, that this curious system
of phenomena appears to be a collateral result of the
mechanism by which the effects of light are pro-
duced; and therefore a necessary consequence of the
existence of that element of which the offices are so
numerous and so beneficent.
The new properties of light, and the speculations
founded upon them, have led many persons to the
belief of the undulatory theory; which, as we have
said, is considered by some philosophers as demon-
strated. If we adopt this theory, we consider the
luminiferous ether to have no local motion; and to
produce refraction and reflexion by the operation of
its elasticity alone. We must necessarily suppose
the tenuity of the ether to be extreme; and if we
moreover suppose its tension to be very great, which
the vast velocity of light requires us to suppose, the

iiGHT. 109
vibrations by which light is propagated will be trans-
verse vibrations, that is the motion to and fro will be
athwart the line along which the undulation travels;
and from this circumstance all the laws of polarisa-
tion necessarily follow. And the properties of trans-
verse vibrations, combined with the properties of vi-
brations in general, give rise to all the curious, and
numerous phenomena of colours of which we have
spoken.
If the vibrations be transverse, they may be re-
solved into two different planes; this is polarisation :
if they fall on a medium which has different elasticity
in different directions, they will be divided into two
sets of vibrations; this is double refraction ; and so on.
Some of the new properties, however, as the fringes
of shadows and the colours of thin plates, follow from
the undulatory theory, whether the vibrations be
transverse Or not. -
It would appear, therefore, that the propagation of
light by means of a subtle medium, leads necessarily
to the extraordinary collection of properties which
have recently been discovered; and, at any rate, its
propagation by the transverse vibrations of such a
medium does lead inevitably to these results.
Leaving it therefore to future times to point out
the other reasons (or uses if they exist) of these
newly discovered properties of light, in their bearing
on other parts of the world, we may venture to say,
that if light was to be propagated through transpa-
rent media by the undulations of a subtle fluid, these
properties must result, as necessarily as the rainbow
results from the unequal refrangibility of different
colours. This phenomenon and those, appear alike
to be the collateral consequences of the laws im-
pressed on light with a view to its principal offices.
Thus the exquisitely beautiful and symmetrical
phenomena and laws of polarisation, and of crystal-
line and other effects, may be looked upon as indi-
cations of the delicacy and subtlety of the mechanism
by which man, through his visual organs, is put in
K
I 10 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
communication with the external world; is made ac-
quainted with the forms and qualities of objects in the
most remote regions of space; and is enabled, in
some measure, to determine his position and relation
in a universe in which he is but an atom.
4. If we suppose it clearly established that light is
produced by the vibrations of an ether, we find con-
siderations offer themselves, similar to those which
occurred in the case of sound. The vibrations of
this ether affect our organs with the sense of light
and colour. Why, or how do they do this? It is
only within certain limits that the effect is produced,
and these limits are comparatively narrower here
than in the case of sound. The whole scale of co-
lour, from violet to crimson, lies between vibrations
which are four hundred and fifty-eight million mil-
lions, and seven hundred and twenty-seven million
millions in a second; a proportion much smaller
than the corresponding ratio for perceptible sounds.
Why should such vibrations produce perception in
the eye, and no others? There must be here some
peculiar adaptation of the sensitive powers to these
wonderfully minute and condensed mechanical mo-
tions. What happens when the vibrations are slower
than the red, or quicker than the blue 2 They do not
produce vision: do they produce any effect? Have
they any thing to do with heat or with electricity ?
We cannot tell. The ether must be as susceptible of
these vibrations, as of those which produce vision.
But the mechanism of the eye is adjusted to this lat-
ter kind only; and this precise kind, (whether alone
or mixed with others,) proceeds from the sun and
from other luminaries, and thus communicates to us
the state of the visible universe. The mere material
<lements then are full of properties which we can
understand no otherwise, than as the results of a re-
fined contrivance. -
111
CHAPTER XVII.
The Ether.
IN what has just been said, we have spoken of
light, only with respect to its power of illuminating
objects, and conveying the impression of them to the
eye. It possesses, however, beyond all doubt, many
other qualities. Light is intimately connected with
heat, as we see in the case of the sun and of flame;
yet it is clear that light and heat are not identical.
Light is evidently connected too with electricity and
galvanism; and perhaps, through these, with magnet-
ism : it is, as has already been mentioned, indispen-
sably necessary to the healthy discharge of the func-
tions of vegetable life; without it plants cannot duly
exercise their vital powers: it manifests also chemi-
cal action in various ways.
The luminiferous ether then, if we so call the me-
dium in which light is propagated, must possess
many other properties besides those mechanical ones
on which the illuminating power depends. It must
not be merely like a fluid poured into the vacant
spaces and interstices of the material world, and ex-
ercising no action on objects; it must affect the phy-
sical, chemical and vital powers of what it touches.
it must be a great and active agent in the work of
the universe, as well as an active reporter of what is
done by other agents. It must possess a number of
eomplex and refined contrivances and adjustments
which we cannot analyze, bearing upon plants and
chemical compounds, and the imponderable agents;
as well as those laws which we conceive that we
have analyzed, by which it is the vehicle of illumi-
nation and vision.
I 12 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
We have had occasion to point out how complex
is the machinery of the atmosphere, and how varied
its objects; since, besides being the means of com-
munication as the medium of sound, it has known
laws which connect it with heat and moisture; and
other laws, in virtue of which it is decomposed by
vegetables. It appears, in like manner, that the
ether is not only the vehicle of light, but has also
laws, at present unknown, which connect it with
heat, electricity, and other agencies; and other laws
through which it is necessary to vegetables, enabling
them to decompose air. All analogy leads us to sup-
pose that if we knew as much of the constitution of
the luminiferous ether as we know of the constitu-
tion of the atmosphere, we should find it a machine
as complex and artificial, as skilfully and admirably
Constructed.
We know at present very little indeed of the con-
struction of this machine. Its easistence is, perhaps,
satisfactorily made out; in order that we may not
interrupt the progress of our argument, we shall
refer to other works for the reasonings which appear
to lead to this conclusion. But whether heat, elec-
tricity, galvanism, magnetism, be fluids; or effects or
modifications of fluids; and whether such fluids or
ethers be the same with the luminiferous ether, or
with each other; are questions of which all or most
appear to be at present undecided, and it would be
presumptuous and premature here to take one side
or the other.
The mere fact, however, that there is such an
ether, and that it has properties related to other
agents, in the way we have suggested, is well caleu-
lated to extend our views of the structure of the uni-
verse, and of the resources, if we may so speak, of
the Power by which it is arranged. The solid and
fluid matter of the earth is the most obvious to our
senses; over this, and in its cavities, is poured an
invisible fluid, the air, by which warmth and life are
diffused and fostered, and by which men communi-
RECAPITULATION. 113
cate with men: over and through this again, and
reaching, so far as we know, to the utmost bounds of
the universe, is spread another most subtle and at-
tenuated fluid, which, by the play of another set of
agents, aids the energies of nature, and which, fill-
ing all parts of space, is a means of communication
with other planets and other systems.
There is nothing in all this like any material ne-
cessity, compelling the world to be as it is and no
otherwise. How should the properties of these three
great classes of agents, visible objects, air, and light,
so harmonize and assist each other, that order and
life should be the result. Without all the three, and
all the three constituted in their present manner, and
subject to their present laws, living things could not
exist. If the earth had no atmosphere, or if the
world had no ether, all must be inert and dead.
Who constructed these three extraordinary complex
pieces of machinery, the earth with its productions,
the atmosphere, and the ether? Who fitted them
into each other in many parts, and thus made it
possible for them to work together ? We conceive
there can be but one answer; a most wise and good
God. -
CHAPTER XVIII.
Recapitulation.
1. It has been shown in the preceding chapters
that a great number of quantities and laws appear to
have been selected in the construction of the universe;
and that by the adjustment to each other of the
magnitudes and laws thus selected, the constitution
of the world is what we find it, and is fitted for the
K 2 -
I 14 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
support of vegetables and animals, in a manner in
which it could not have been, if the properties and
quantities of the elements had been different from
what they are. We shall here recapitulate the prin-
cipal of the laws and magnitudes to which this con-
clusion has been shown to apply.
1. The Length of the Year, which depends on
the force of the attraction of the sun, and its dis-
tance from the earth. •
2. The Length of the Day.
3. The Mass of the Earth, which depends on its
magnitude and density.
4. The Magnitude of the Ocean.
5. The Magnitude of the Atmosphere.
6. The Law and Rate of the Conducting Power
of the Earth.
7. The Law and Rate of the Radiating Power
of the Earth.
8. The Law and Rate of the Expansion of
Water by Heat.
9. The Law and Rate of the Expansion of
Water by Cold, below 40 degrees. -
10. The Law and Quantity of the Expansion of
Water in Freezing.
11. The Quantity of Latent Heat absorbed in
Thawing.
12. The Quantity of Latent Heat absorbed in
Evaporation.
13. The Law and Rate of Evaporation with re-
gard to Heat.
14. The Law and Rate of the Expansion of Air
by Heat.
15. The Quantity of Heat absorbed in the Ex-
pansion of Air. -
16. The Law and Rate of the Passage of
Aqueous Vapour through Air.
17. The Laws of Electricity; its relations to
Air and Moisture.
RECAPITULATION. I i5
18. The Fluidity, Density, and Elasticity of the
Air, by means of which its vibrations produce
Sound. - -
19. The Fluidity, Density, and Elasticity of the
Ether, by means of which its vibrations produce
Light.
2. These are the data, the elements, as astronomers
call the quantities which determine a planet’s orbit,
on which the mere inorganic part of the universe is
constructed. To these, the constitution of the organic
world is adapted in innumerable points, by laws of
which we can trace the results, though we cannot
analyze their machinery. Thus, the vital functions
of vegetables have periods which correspond to the
length of the year, and of the day; their vital powers
have forces which correspond to the force of gravity;
the sentient faculties of man are such that the vibra-
tions of air (within certain limits,) are perceived as
sound, those of ether, as light. And while we are
enumerating these correspondencies, we perceive
that there are thousands of others, and that we can
only select a very small number of those where the
relation happens to be most clearly made out or
most easily explained.
Now, in the list of the mathematical elements of
the universe which has just been given, why have we
such laws and such quantities as there occur, and no
other? For the most part, the data there enume-
rated are independent of each other, and might be
altered separately, so far as the mechanical condi-
tions of the case are concerned. Some of these data
probably depend on each other. Thus the latent
heat of aqueous vapour is perhaps connected with
the difference of the rate of expansion of water and
of steam. But all natural philosophers will, probably,
agree, that there must be, in this list, a great number
of things entirely without any mutual dependence, as
the year and the day, the expansion of air and the
H 16 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
expansion of steam. There are, therefore, it appears,
a number of things which, in the structure of the
world, might have been otherwise, and which are
what they are in consequence of choice or of chance.
We have already seen, in many of the cases sepa-
rately, how unlike chance every thing looks:–that
substances, which might have existed any how, so
far as they themselves are concerned, exist exactly
in such a manner and measure as they should, to se-
cure the welfare of other things:–that the laws are
tempered and fitted together in the only way in
which the world could have gone on, according to
all that we can conceive of it. This must, therefore,
be the work of choice; and if so, it cannot be doubt-
ed, of a most wise and benevolent Chooser.
3. The appearance of choice is still further illus-
trated by the variety as well as the number of the
laws selected. The laws are unlike one another.
Steam certainly expands at a very different rate from
air by the application of heat, probably according to
a different law; water expands in freezing, but mer-
cury contracts: heat travels in a manner quite dif-
ferent through solids and fluids. Every separate
substance has its own density, gravity, cohesion,
elasticity, its relations to heat, to electricity, to mag-
netism ; besides all its chemical affinities, which form
an endless throng of laws, connecting every one sub-
stance in creation with every other, and different for
each pair anyhow taken. Nothing can look less like.
a world formed of atoms operating upon each other
according to some universal and inevitable laws,
than this does: if such a system of things be con-
ceivable, it cannot be our system. We have, it may
be, fifty simple substances in the world; each of
which is invested with properties, both of chemical
and mechanical action, altogether different from
those of any other substance. Every portion, how-
ever minute, of any of these, possesses all the pro-
perties of the substance. Of each of these substances
RECAPITULATION. 117
there is a certain unalterable quantity in the uni-
verse; when combined, their compounds exhibit new
chemical affinities, new mechanical laws. Who gave
these different laws to the different substances? who
proportioned the quantity of each 7 But suppose this
done. Suppose these substances in existence; in con-
tact, in due proportion to each other. Is this a world,
or at least our world ! No more than the mine and
the forest are the ship of war and the factory. These
elements, with their constitution perfect, and their
proportion suitable, are still a mere chaos. They
must be put in their places. They must not be where
their own properties would place them. They must
be made to assume a particular arrangement, or we
can have no regular and permanent course of na-
ture. This arrangement must again have additional
peculiarities, or we can have no organic portion of
the world. The millions of millions of particles which
the world contains, must be finished up in as com-
plete a manner, and fitted into their places with as
much nicety, as the most delicate wheel or spring in
a piece of human machinery. What are the habits
of thought to which it can appear possible that this
could take place without design, intention, intelli-
gence, purpose, knowledge"
In what has just been said, we have spoken only of
the constitution of the inorganic part of the universe.
The mechanism, if we may so call it, of vegetable
and animal life, is so far beyond our comprehension,
that though some of the same observations might be
applied to it, we do not dwell upon the subject. We
know that in these processes also, the mechanical
and chemical properties of matter are necessary, but
we know too that these alone will not account for
the phenomena of life. There is something more than
these. The lowest stage of vitality and irritability
appears to carry us beyond mechanism, beyond af-
finity. All that has been said with regard to the
exactness of the adjustments, the combination of va-
H 18 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS.
rious means, the tendency to continuance, to preser-
vation, is applicable with additional force to the
organic creation, so far as we can perceive the
means employed. These, however, belong to a dif-
ferent province of the subject, and must be left to
other hands,
B O OK II.
COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
WHEN we turn our attention to the larger portions
of the universe, the sun, the planets, and the earth
as one of them, the moon and other satellites, the
fixed stars and other heavenly bodies;–the views
which we obtain concerning their mutual relations,
arrangement and movements, are called, as we have
already stated, cosmical views. These views will, we
conceive, afford us indications of the wisdom and
care of the Power by which the objects which we
thus consider, were created and are preserved: and
we shall now proceed to point out some circumstances
in which these attributes may be traced.
It has been observed by writers on Natural The-
ology, that the arguments for the being and perfec-
tions of the Creator, drawn from cosmical considera-
tions, labour under some disadvantages when com-
pared with the arguments founded on those provisions
and adaptations which more immediately affect the
well-being of organized creatures. The structure of
the solar system has far less analogy with such ma-
chinery as we can construct and comprehend, than we
find in the structure of the bodies of animals, or even
in the causes of the weather. Moreover, we do not
see the immediate bearing of cosmical arrangements
on that end which we most readily acknowledge to
be useful and desirable, the support and comfort of
sentient natures. So that, from both causes, the im-
pression of benevolent design in this case is less
120 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
striking and pointed than that which results from the
examination of some other parts of nature.
But in considering the universe, according to the
view we have taken, as a collection of laws, astro-
nomy, the science which teaches us the laws of the
motions of the heavenly bodies, possesses some ad-
vantages, among the subjects from which we may
seek to learn the character of the government of the
world. For our knowledge of the laws of the mo-
tions of the planets and satellites is far more com-
plete and exact, far more thorough and satisfactory,
than the knowledge which we possess in any other
department of Natural Philosophy. Our acquaint-
ance with the laws of the solar system is such, that
we can calculate the precise place and motion of
most of its parts at any period, past or future, how-
ever remote; and we can refer the changes which
take place in these circumstances to their proximate
cause, the attraction of one mass of matter to an-
other, acting between all the parts of the universe.
If, therefore, we trace indications of the Divine
care, either in the form of the laws which prevail
among the heavenly bodies, or in the arbitrary
quantities which such laws involve; (according to
the distinction explained in the former part of this
work;) we may expect that our examples of such
care, though they may be less numerous and ob-
vious, will be more precise than they can be in
other subjects, where the laws of facts are imper-
fectly known, and their causes entirely hid. . We
trust that this will be found to be the case with re-
gard to some of the examples which we shall ad-
duce.
#21
{XHAPTER I.
The Structure of the Solar System.
In the cosmical considerations which we have to
offer, we shall suppose the general truths concerning
the structure of the solar system and of the uni-
Verse, which have been established by astronomers
and mathematicians, to be known to the reader. It
is not necessary to go into much detail on this sub-
ject. The five planets known to the ancients, Mer-
cury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, revolve round
the sun, at different distances, in orbits nearly cir-
cular, and nearly in one plane. Between Venus and
Mars, our Earth, herself one of the planets, re-
volves in like manner. Beyond Saturn, Uranus has
been discovered describing an orbit of the same
kind; and between Mars and Jupiter, four smaller
bodies perform their revolutions in orbits somewhat
less regular than the rest. These planets are all
nearly globular, and all revolve upon their axis.
Some of them are accompanied by satellites, or at-
tendant bodies which revolve about them; and these
bodies also have their orbits nearly circular, and
nearly in the same plane as the others. Saturn's
ring is a solitary example, so far as we know, of
such an appendage to a planet.
These circular motions of the planets round the
sun, and of the satellites round their primary planets,
are all kept going by the attraction of the respective
central bodies, which restrains the corresponding
revolving bodies from flying off. It is perhaps not
very easy to make this operation clear to common
apprehension. We cannot illustrate it by a compa-
rison with any machine of human contrivance and
fabrication: in such machines every thing goes on
L
122 . COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
by contact and impulse: pressure, and force of all
kinds, is exercised and transferred from one part to
another, by means of a material connexion; by rods,
ropes, fluids, gases. In the machinery of the uni-
verse there is, so far as we know, no material con-
nexion between the parts which act on each other.
In the solar system no part touches or drives an-
other : all the bodies affect each other at a distance,
as the magnet affects the needle. The production
and regulation of such effects, if attempted by our
mechanicians, would require great skill and nicety
of adjustment; but our artists have not executed any
examples of this sort of machinery, by reference to
which we can illustrate the arrangements of the
solar system. *
Perhaps the following comparison may serve to
explain the kind of adjustments of which we shall
have to speak. If there be a wide shallow round
basin of smooth marble, and if we take a smooth
ball, as a billiard ball or a marble pellet, and throw
it along the surface of the inside of the basin, the
ball will generally make many revolutions round the
inside of the bowl, gradually tending to the bottom
in its motion. The gradual diminution of the motion,
and consequent tendency of the ball to the bottom
of the bowl, arises from the friction; and in order
to make the motion correspond to that which takes
place through the action of a central force, we must
suppose this friction to be got rid of. In this case,
the ball, once set a going, would run round the basin
for ever, describing either a circle, or various kinds
of ovals, according to the way in which it was ori-
ginally thrown; whether quick or slow, and whether
more or less obliquely along the surface.
Such a motion would be capable of the same kind
of variety, and the same sort of adjustments, as the
motion of a body revolving about a larger one by
means of a central force. Perhaps the reader may
understand what kind of adjustments these are, by
supposing such a bowl and ball to be used for a game
SOLAR SYSTEM. 123
of skill. If the object of the players be to throw the
pellet along the surface of the basin, so that after de-
scribing its curved path it shall pass through a small
hole in a barrier at some distance from the starting
point, it will easily be understood that some nicety in
the regulation of the force and direction with which
the ball is thrown will be necessary for success. In
order to obtain a better image of the solar system,
we must suppose the basin to be very large and the
pellet very small. And it will easily be understood
that as many pellets as there are planets might run
round the bowl at the same time with different velo-
cities. Such a contrivance might form a planetarium
in which the mimic planets would be regulated by
the laws of motion as the real planets are; instead of
being carried by wires and wheels, as is done in
such machines of the common construction: and in
this planetarium the tendency of the planets to the
sun is replaced by the tendency of the representative
pellets to run down the slope of the bowl. We shall
refer again to this basin, thus representing the solar
system with its loose planetary balls.
CHAPTER II.
The Circular orbits of the Planets round the Sun.
THE orbit which the earth describes round the sun
is very nearly a circle: the sun is about one thirtieth
nearer to us in winter than in summer. This nearly
circular form of the orbit, on a little consideration,
will appear to be a remarkable circumstance.
Supposing the attraction of a planet towards the
sun to exist, if the planet were put in motion in any
part of the solar system, it would describe about the
sun an orbit of some kind; it might be a long oval, or
124 COSM1CAL ARRANGEMENTS.
a shorter oval, or an exact circle. But if we suppose
the result left to chance, the chances are infinitely
against the last mentioned case. There is but one
circle; there are an infinite number of ovals. Any
original impulse would give some oval, but only one
particular impulse, determinate in velocity and di-
rection, will give a circle. If we suppose the planet
to be originally projected, it must be projected per-
pendicularly to its distance from the sun, and with a
certain precise velocity, in order that the motion
may be circular. -
In the basin to which we have compared the solar
system, the adjustment requisite to produce circular
motion would require us to project our pellet so that
after running half round the surface it should touch
a point exactly at an equal distance from the centre,
on the other side, passing neither too high nor too
low. And the pellet, it may be observed, should be
in size only one ten thousandth part of the distance
from the centre, to make the dimensions correspond
with the cast of the earth's orbit. H the mark were
set up and hit, we should hardly attribute the result
to chance.
The earth's orbit, however, is not exactly a circle.
The mark is not precisely a single point, but is a
space of the breadth of one thirtieth of the distance
from the centre. Still this is much too near an agree-
ment with the circle to be considered as the work of
chance. The chances were great against the ball
passing so nearly at the same distance, for there
were twenty-nine equal spaces through which it
might have gone, between the mark and the centre,
and an indefinite number outside the mark.
But it is not the earth's orbit alone which is nearly
a circle: the rest of the planets also approach very
nearly to that form: Venus more nearly still than
the earth: Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus have a differ-
ence of about one tenth, between their greatest and
least distances from the sun : Mars has his extreme
distances in the proportion of five to six nearly; and
CIRCULAR ORBITS. 125
Mercury in the proportion of two to three. The last
mentioned case is a considerable deviation, and two
of the small planets which lie between Mars and Ju-
piter, namely Juno and Pallas, exhibit an inequality
somewhat greater still; but the smallness of these
bodies, and other circumstances, make it probable
that there may be particular causes for the exception
in their case. The orbits of the satellites of the
Earth, of Jupiter and of Saturn, are also nearly cir-
cular.
Taking the solar system altogether, the regularity
of its structure is very remarkable. The diagram
which represents the orbits of the planets might have
consisted of a number of ovals, narrow and wide in
all degrees, intersecting and interfering with each
other in all directions. The diagram does consist,
as all who have opened a book of astronomy know,
of a set of figures which appear at first sight con-
centric circles, and which are very nearly so; no
where approaching to any crossing or interfering,
except in the case of the small planets, already no-
ticed as irregular. No one, looking at this common
diagram, can believe that the orbits were made to
be so nearly circles by chance; any more than he
can believe that a target, such as archers are accus-
tomed to shoot at, was painted in concentric circles
by the accidental dashes of a brush in the hands of a
blind man. -
The regularity, then, of the solar system excludes
the notion of accident in the arrangement of the or-
bits of the planets. There must have been an ex-
press adjustment to produce this circular character
of the orbits. The velocity and direction of the mo-
tion of each planet must have been subject to some
original regulation; or, as it is often expressed, the
projectile force must have been accommodated to
the centripetal force. This once done, the motion of
each planet, taken by itself, would go on for ever,
still retaining its circular character, by the laws of
motion. *
L 2
126 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENT$,
If some original cause adjusted the orbits of the
planets to their circular form and regular arrange-
ment, we can hardly avoid including in our concep-
tion of this cause, the intention and will of a Creating
Power. We shall consider this argument more fully
in a succeeding chapter; only observing here, that
the presiding Intelligence, which has selected and
combined the properties of the organic creation, so
that they correspond so remarkably with the arbi-
trary quantities of the system of the universe, may
readily be conceived also to have selected the arbi-
trary velocity and direction of each planet's motion,
so that the adjustment should produce a close ap-
proximation to a circular motion.
We have argued here only from the regularity of
the solar system ; from the selection of the single
symmetrical case and the rejection of all the unsym-
metrical cases. But this subject may be considered
in another point of view. The system thus selected
is not only regular and symmetrical, but also it is, so
far as we can judge, the only one which would an-
swer the purpose of the earth, perhaps of the other
planets, as the seat of animal and vegetable life. If
the earth’s orbit were more eccentric, as it is called,
if for instance the greatest and least distances were
as three to one, the inequality of heat at two seasons
of the year would be destructive to the existing spe-
cies of living creatures. A circular, or nearly cir-
cular, orbit, is the only case in which we can have a
course of seasons such as we have at present, the
only case in which the climates of the northern and
southern hemispheres are nearly the same; and what
is more clearly important, the only case in which the
character of the seasons would not vary from cen-
tury to century. For if the eccentricity of the earth's
orbit were considerable, the difference of heat at dif-
ferent seasons, arising from the different distances of
the sun, would be combined with the difference, now
the only considerable one, which depends on the
position of the earth's axis. And as by the motion
STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM, 127
of the perihelion, or place of the nearest distance of
the earth to the sun, this nearest distance would fall
in different ages at different parts of the year, the
whole distribution of heat through the year would
thus be gradually subverted. The summer and win-
ter of the tropical year, as we have it now, being
combined with the heat and cold of the anomalistic
year, a period of different length, the difference of
the two seasons might sometimes be neutralized alto-
gether, and at other times exaggerated by the accu-
mulation of the inequalities, so as to be intolerable.
The circular form of the orbit therefore, which,
from its unique character, appears to be chosen with
some design, from its effects on the seasons appears
to be chosen with this design, so apparent in other
parts of creation, of securing the welfare of organic
life, by a steadfast and regular order of the solar in-
fluence upon the planet.
CHAPTER III.
The Stability of the Solar System.
THERE is a consequence resulting from the actual
structure of the solar system, which has been brought
to light by the investigations of mathematicians con-
cerning the cause and laws of its motions, and which
has an important bearing on our argument. It ap-
pears that the arrangement which at present obtains
is precisely that which is necessary to secure the
stability of the system. This point we must endea-
vour to explain. .
If each planet were to revolve round the sun
without being affected by the other planets, there
would be a certain degree of regularity in its mo-
tion; and this regularity would continue for ever.
But it appears, by the discovery of the law of uni-
128 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
versal gravitation, that the planets do not execute
their movements in this insulated and independent
manner. Each of them is acted on by the attraction
of all the rest. The Earth is constantly drawn by
Venus, by Mars, by Jupiter, bodies of various mag-
nitudes, perpetually changing their distances and po-
sitions with regard to the earth; the Earth in return
is perpetually drawing these bodies. What, in the
course of time, will be the result of this mutual at-
traction?
All the planets are very small compared with the
sun, and therefore the derangement which they pro-
duce in the motion of one of their number will be
very small in the course of one revolution. But this
gives us no security that the derangement may not
become very large in the course of many revolu-
tions. The cause acts perpetually, and it has the
whole extent of time to work in. Is it not easily
conceivable then that in the lapse of ages the de-
rangements of the motions of the planets may accu-
mulate, the orbits may change their form, their mu-
tual distances may be much increased or much
diminished 7 Is it not possible that these changes
may go on without limit, and end in the complete
subversion and ruin of the system 7
If, for instance, the result of this mutual gravita-
tion should be to increase considerably the eccen-
tricity of the earth's orbit, that is to make it a longer
and longer oval; or to make the moon approach
perpetually nearer and nearer the earth every revo-
lution; it is easy to see that in the one case our year
would change its character, as we have noticed in
the last section; in the other, our satellite might
finally fall to the earth, which must of course bring
about a dreadful catastrophe. If the positions of the
planetary orbits, with respect to that of the earth,
were to change much, the planets might sometimes
come very near us, and thus exaggerate the effects
of their attraction beyond calculable limits. Under
such circumstances, we might have “years of une-
STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 129
qual length, and seasons of capricious temperature,
planets and moons of portentous size and aspect,
glaring and disappearing at uncertain intervals;”
tides like deluges, sweeping over whole continents;
and, perhaps, the collision of two of the planets, and
the consequent destruction of all organization on
both of them.
Nor is it, on a common examination of the history
of the solar system, at all clear that there is no ten-
dency to indefinite derangement. The fact really is,
that changes are taking place in the motions of the
heavenly bodies, which have gone on progressively
from the first dawn of science. The eccentricity of
the earth’s orbit has been diminishing from the ear-
liest observations to our times. The moon has been
moving quicker and quicker from the time of the
first recorded eclipses, and is now in advance, by
about four times her own breadth, of what her place
would have been if it had not been affected by this
acceleration. The obliquity of the ecliptic also is in
a state of dirminution, and is now about two-fifths of
a degree less than it was in the time of Aristotle.
Will these changes go on without limit or reaction?
If so, we tend by natural causes to a termination of
the present system of things: If not, by what adjust-
ment or combination are we secured from such a
tendency? Is the system stable, and if so, what is the
condition on which its stability depends?
To answer these questions is far from easy. The
mechanical problem which they involve is no less
than this;–Having given the directions and veloci-
ties with which about thirty bodies are moving at
one time, to find their places and motions after any
number of ages; each of the bodies, all the while,
attracting all the others, and being attracted by
them all.
It may readily be imagined that this is a problem
of extreme complexity, when it is considered that
every new configuration or arrangement of the bo-
dies will give rise to a new amount of action on
I 30 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
each; and every new action to a new configuration.
Accordingly, the mathematical investigation of such
questions as the above was too difficult to be attempt-
ed in the earlier periods of the progress of Physical
Astronomy. Newton did not undertake to demon-
strate either the stability or the instability of the sys-
tem. The decision of this point required a great
number of preparatory steps and simplifications, and
such progress in the invention and improvement of
mathematical methods, as occupied the best mathe-
maticians of Europe for the greater part of last
century. But, towards the end of that time, it was
shown by Lagrange and Laplace that the arrange-
ments of the solar system are stable: that in the long
run, the orbits and motions remain unchanged; and
that the changes in the orbits, which take place in
shorter periods, never transgress certain very mode-
rate limits. Each orbit undergoes deviations on this
side and on that of its average state; but these de-
viations are never very great, and it finally recovers
from them, so that the average is preserved. The
planets produce perpetual perturbations in each
other's motions, but these perturbations are not in-
definitely progressive, they are periodical: they
reach a maacimum value and then diminish. The
periods which this restoration requires are, for the
most part, enormous; not less than thousands, and,
in some instances, millions of years; and hence it is,
that some of these apparent derangements have been
going on in the same direction since the beginning
of the history of the world. But the restoration is
in the sequel as complete as the derangement; and
in the meantime the disturbance never attains a suf-
ficient amount seriously to alter the adaptations of
the system.*
The same examination of the subject by which this
is proved, points out also the conditions on which
this stability depends, “I have succeeded in de-
* Laplace Expos. du Syst, du Monde. p. 441.
STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 131
monstrating,” says Laplace, “that whatever be the
masses of the planets, in consequence of the fact that
they all move in the same direction, in orbits of
small eccentricity, and slightly inclined to each other
—their secular inequalities are periodical and includ-
ed within narrow limits; so that the planetary system
will only oscillate about a mean state, and will never
deviate from it except by a very small quantity. The
ellipses of the planets have been, and always will be,
nearly circular. The ecliptic will never coincide with
the equator, and the entire extent of the variation in
its inclination cannot exceed three degrees.”
There exists, therefore, it appears, in the solar sys-
tem, a provision for the permanent regularity of its
motions; and this provision is found in the fact that
the orbits of the planets are nealy circular, and near-
ly in the same plane, and the motions all in the same
direction, namely, from west to east.*
Now is it probable that the occurrence of these
conditions of stability in the disposition of the solar
system is the work of chance " Such a supposition
appears to be quite inadmissible. Any one of the or-
* In this statement of Laplace, however, one remarkable pro-
vision for the stability of the system is not noticed. The planets
Mercury and Mars, which have much the largest eccentricities
among the old planets, are those of which the masses are much
the smallest. The mass of Jupiter is more than two thousand
times that of either of these planets. If the orbit of Jupiter were
as eccentric as that of Mercury is, all the security for the stability
of the system, which analysis has yet pointed out, would disap-
pear. The earth and the smaller planets mightin that case change
their approximately circular orbits into very long ellipses, and
thus might fall into the sun, and fly off into remote space.
It is further remarkable that in the newly discovered planets,
of which the orbits are still more eccentric than that of Mer-
cury, the masses are still smaller, so that the same provision is
established in this case also. It does not appear that any mathe-
matician has even attempted to point out a necessary connexion
between the mass of a planet and the eccentricity of its orbit
on any hypothesis. May we not then consider this combination
of small masses with large eccentricities, so important to the
purposes of the world, as a mark of provident care in the
Creator?
132 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
bits might have had any eccentricity.” In that of
Mercury, where it is much the greatest, it is only
one-fifth. How came it to pass that the orbits were
not more elongated " A little more or a little less
velocity in their original motions would have made
them so. They might have had any inclination to
the ecliptic from no degrees to 90 degrees. Mercury,
which again deviates most widely, is inclined 7# de-
grees, Venus 3%, Saturn 23, Jupiter 14, Mars 2. How
came it that their motions are thus contained within
such a narrow strip of the sky? One, or any number
of them, might have moved from east to west:
none of them does so. And these circumstances,
which appear to be, each in particular, requisite for
the stability of the system and the smallness of its dis-
turbances, are all found in combination. Does not
this imply both clear purpose and profound skill"
It is difficult to convey an adequate notion of the
extreme complexity of the task thus executed. A
number of bodies, all attracting each other, are to be
projected in such a manner that their revolutions
shall be permanent and stable, their mutual pertur-
bations always small. If we return to the basin with
its rolling balls, by which we before represented the
solar system, we must complicate with new condi-
tions the trial of skill which we supposed. The prob-
lem must now be to project at once seven such balls,
all connected by strings which influence their move-
ments, so that each may hit its respective mark.
And we must further suppose, that the marks are to
be hit after many thousand revolutions of the balls.
No one will imagine that this could be done by
accident. *
In fact it is allowed by all those who have consi-
dered this subject, that such a coincidence of the ex-
* The eccentricity of a planet's orbit is measured by taking
the proportion of the difference of the greatest and least distances
from the sun, to the sum of the same distances. Mercury’s
greatest and least distances are as two and three; his eccentri-
city, therefore, is one-fifth.
STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. I33
isting state with the mechanical requisites of perma-
mency cannot be accidental. Laplace has attempted
to calculate the probability that it is not the result of
accident. He takes into account, in addition to the
motions which we have mentioned, the revolutions
of the satellites about their primaries, and of the sun
and planets about their axes: and he finds that there
is a probability, far higher than that which we have
for the greater part of undoubted historical events,
that these appearances are not the effect of chance.
“We ought, therefore,” he says, “to believe, with at
feast the same confidence, that a primitive cause has
directed the planetary motions.”
The solar system is thus, by the confession of all
sides, completely different from any thing which we
might anticipate from the casual operation of its
known laws. The laws of motion are no less obeyed
to the letter in the most irregular than in the most re-
gular motions; no less in the varied circuit of the
ball which flies round a tennis court, than in the go-
ing of a cłock; no less in the fantastical jets and leaps
which breakers make when they burst in a corner of
a rocky shore, than in the steady swell of the open
sea. The laws of motion alone will not produce the
regularity which we admire in the motions of the
heavenly bodies. There must be an original adjust-
ment of the system on which these laws are to act;
a selection of the arbitrary quantities which they are
to involve; a primitive cause which shall dispose the
elements in due relation to each other, in order that
regular recurrence may accompany constant change;
that perpetual motion may be combined with per-
petual stability; that derangements which go on in-
creasing for thousands or for millions of years may
finally cure themselves; and that the same laws which
lead the planets slightly aside from their paths, may
narrowly limit their deviations, and bring them back
from their almost imperceptible wanderings.
If a man does not deny that any possible peculiari-
ty in the disposition of the planets with regard to the
M
134 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
sun could afford evidence of a controlling and order-
ing purpose, it seems difficult to imagine how he
could look for evidence stronger than that which
there actually is. Of all the innumerable possible
cases of systems, governed by the existing laws of
force and motion, that one is selected which alone
produces such a steadfast periodicity, such a constant
average of circumstances, as are, so far as we can
conceive, necessary conditions for the existence of
organic and sentient life. And this selection is so far
from being an obvious or easily discovered means to
this end, that the most profound and attentive consi-
deration of the properties of space and number, with
all the appliances and aids we can obtain, are barely
sufficient to enable us to see that the end is thus se-
cured, and that it can be secured in no other way.
Surely the obvious impression which arises from this
view of the subject is, that the solar system, with its
adjustments, is the work of an intelligence, who per-
ceives, as self-evident, those truths, to which we at-
tain painfully and slowly, and after all imperfectly;
who has employed in every part of creation refined
contrivances, which we can only with effort under-
stand; and who, in innumerable instances, exhibits to
us what we should look upon as remarkable difficul-
ties remarkably overcome, if it were not that, through
the perfection of the provision, the trace of the dif-
ficulty is almost obliterated.
CHAPTER IV.
The Sun in the Centre.
THE next circumstance which we shall notice as
indicative of design in the arrangement of the mate-
rial portions of the solar system, is the position of the
sun, the source of light and heat, in the centre of the
THE SUN IN THE CENTRE, 135
system. This could hardly have occurred by any
thing which we can call chance. Let it be granted,
that the law of gravitation is established, and that
we have a large mass, with others much smaller in
its comparative vicinity. The small bodies may then
move round the larger, but this will do nothing to-
wards making it a sun to them. Their motions might
take place, the whole system remaining still utterly
dark and cold, without day or summer. In order that
we may have something more than this blank and
dead assemblage of moving clods, the machine must
be lighted up and warmed. Some of the advantages of
placing the lighting and warming apparatus in the
centre are obvious to us. It is in this way only that
we could have those regular periodical returns of
solar influence, which, as we have seen, are adapted
to the constitution of the living creation. And we
can easily conceive, that there may be other incon-
gruities in a system with a travelling sun, of which
we can only conjecture the nature. No one probably
will doubt that the existing system, with the sun in
the centre, is better than any one of a different kind
would be.
Now this lighting and warming by a central sun
are something superadded to the mere mechanical
arrangements of the universe. There is no apparent
reason why the largest mass of gravitating matter
should diffuse inexhaustible supplies of light and heat
in all directions, while the other masses are merely
passive, with respect to such influences. There is no
obvious connexion between mass and luminousness,
or temperature. No one, probably, will contend that
the materials of our system are necessarily luminous
or hot. According to the conjectures of astronomers,
the heat and light of the sun do not reside in its mass,
but in a coating which lies on its surface. If such a
coating were fixed there by the force of universal
gravitation, how could we avoid having a similar
coating on the surface of the earth, and of all the
other globes of the system. If light consist in the
136 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
vibrations of an ether, which we have mentioned as
a probable opinion, why has the sun alone the power
of exciting such vibrations? If light be the emission
of material particles, why does the sun alone emit
such particles? Similar questions may be asked, with
regard to heat, whatever be the theory we adopt on
that subject. Here then we appear to find marks of
contrivance. The sun might become, we will sup-
pose, the centre of the motions of the planets by
mere mechanical causes: but what caused the centre
of their motions to be also the source of those vivi-
fying influences? Allowing that no interposition was
requisite to regulate the revolutions of the system,
yet observe what a peculiar arrangement in other
respects was necessary, in order that these revolu-
tions might produce days and seasons ! The machine
will move of itself, we may grant: but who con-
structed the machine, so that its movements might
answer the purposes of life? How was the candle
placed upon the candlestick? How was the fire de-
posited on the hearth, so that the comfort and well-
being of the family might be secured Did these too.
fall into their places by the casual operation of
gravity 7 And, if not, is there not here a clear evi-
dence of intelligent design, of arrangement with a
benevolent end ?
This argument is urged with great force by New-
ton himself. In his first letter to Bentley, he allows
that matter might form itself into masses by the force
of attraction. “And thus,” says he, “might the sun
and fixed stars be formed, supposing the matter were
of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide
itself into two sorts; and that part of it which is fit
to compose a shining body should fall down into one
mass, and make a sun; and the rest, which is fit to
compose an opaque body, should coalesee, not into
one great body, like the shining matter, but into
many little ones; or if the sum at first were an opake
body like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies hike
the sun, how he alone should be changed into a

THE SATELLITES. 137
shining body, whilst all they continue opake; or all
they be changed into opake ones, while he continued
unchanged: I do not think explicable by mere natu-
ral causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel
and contrivance of a voluntary Agent.”
GHAPTER V.
The Satellites.
1. A PERSON of ordinary feelings, who, on a fine
moonlight night, sees our satellite pouring her mild
radiance on field and town, path and moor, will pro-
bably not only be disposed to “bless the useful light,”
but also to believe that it was “ordained” for that
purpose ;-that the lesser light was made to rule the
night as certainly as the greater light was made to
rule the day.
Laplace, however, does not assent to this belief.
He observes, that “some partisans of final causes
have imagined that the moon was given to the earth
to afford light during the night:” but he remarks that
this cannot be so, for that we are often deprived at
the same time of the light of the sun and the moon;
and he points out how the moon might have been
placed so as to be always “full.”
That the light of the moon affords, to a certain ex-
tent, a supplement to the light of the sun, will lº
be denied. If we take man in a condition in which
he uses artificial light scantily only, or not at all,
there can be no doubt that the moonlight mights are
for him a very important addition to the time of
daylight. And as a small proportion only of the
whole number of nights are without some portion of
moonlight, the fact that sometimes both luminaries
are invisible very little diminishes the value of this
advantage. Why we have not more moonlight,
- M 2
138 COSMACAE, ARRANGEMENTS,
either in duration or in quantity, is an inquiry which
a philosopher could hardly be tempted to enter upon,
by any success which has attended previous specula-
tions of a similar nature. Why should not the moon
be ten times as large as she is 7 Why should not the
pupil of man's eye be ten times as large as it is, so
as to receive more of the light which does arrive t
We do not conceive that our inability to answer the
latter question prevents our knowing that the eye was
made for seeing: nor does our inability to answer
the former, disturb our persuasion that the moon was
made to give light upon the earth.
Laplace suggests that if the moon had been placed
at a certain distance beyond the earth, it would have
revolved about the sun in the same time as the earth
does, and would have always presented to us a ful!
moon. For this purpose it must have been about four
times as far from us as it really is; and would there-
fore, other things remaining unchanged, have only
been one sixteenth as large to the eye as our present
full moon. We shall not dwell on the discussion of
this suggestion, for the reason just intimated. But
we may observe that in such a system as Laplace
proposes, it is not yet proved, we believe, that the
arrangement would be stable under the influence of
the disturbing forces. And we may add that such
an arrangement, in which the motion of one body
has a co-ordinate reference to two others, as the mo-
tion of the moon on this hypothesis would have to
the sun and the earth, neither motion being subordi-
nate to the other, is contrary to the whole known
analogy of cosmical phenomena, and therefore has
no claim to our notice as a subject of discussion.
2. In turning our consideration to the satellites of
the other planets of our system, there is one fact
which immediately arrests our attention;–the num-
ber of such attendant bodies appears to increase as
we proceed to planets farther and farther from the
sun. Such at least is the general rule. Mercury and
Venus, the planets nearest the sun, have no such at-
THE SATELLITES. 139
tendants: the Earth has one. Mars, indeed, who is
still farther removed, has none; nor have the minor
planets, Jumo, Vesta, Ceres, Pallas; so that the rule
is only approximately verified. But Jupiter, who is
at five times the earth’s distance, has four satellites;
and Saturn, who is again at a distance nearly twice
as great, has seven, besides that most extraordinary
phenomenon his ring, which, for purposes of illumi-
nation, is equivalent to many thousand satellites. Of
Uranus it is difficult to speak, for his great distance
renders it almost impossible to observe the smaller
circumstances of his condition. . It does not appear
at all probable that he has a ring, like Saturn; but
he has at least five satellites which are visible to us,
at the enormous distance of nine hundred millions of
miles; and we believe that the astronomer will hardly
deny that he may possibly have thousands of smaller
ones circulating about him.
But leaving conjecture, and taking only the ascer-
tained cases of Venus, the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn,
we conceive that a person of common understanding
will be strongly impressed with the persuasion that
the satellites are placed in the system with a view to
compensate for the diminished light of the sun at
greater distances. The smaller planets, Juno, Vesta,
Ceres, and Pallas, differ from the rest in so many
ways, and suggest so many conjectures of reasons
for such differences, that we should almost expect to
find them exceptions to such a rule. Mars is a more
obvious exception. Some persons might conjecture
from his case, that the arrangement itself, like other
useful arrangements, has been brought about by
some wider law which we have not yet detected.
But whether or not we entertain such a guess, (it can
be nothing more,) we see in other parts of creation,
so many examples of apparent exceptions to rules,
which are afterwards found to be explained, or pro-
vided for by particular contrivances, that no one,
familiar with such contemplations, will, by one ano-
140 UOSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
mally, be driven from the persuasion that the end
which the arrangements of the satellites seem suited
to answer is really one of the ends of their creation.
CHAPTER VI.
The Stability of the Ocean.
WHAT is meant by the stability of the ocean may
perhaps be explained by means of the following il-
łustration. If we suppose the whole globe of the
Earth to be composed of water, a sphere of cork,
immersed in any part of it, would come to the sur-
face of the water, except it were placed exactly at
the centre of the earth; and even if it were the
slightest displacement of the cork sphere would end
in its rising and floating. This would be the case
whatever were the size of the cork sphere, and even
if it were so large as to leave comparatively little
room for the water; and the result would be nearly
the same, if the cork sphere, when in its central
position, had on its surface prominences which pro-
jected above the surface of the water. Now this
brings us to the case in which we have a globe re-
sembling our present earth, composed like it of water
and of a solid centre, with islands and continents,
but having these solid parts all made of cork. And
it appears by the preceding reasoning, that in this
case, if there were any disturbance either of the
solid or fluid parts, the solid parts would rise from
the centre of the watery sphere as far as they could:
that is, all the water would run to one side and leave
the land on the other. Such an ocean would be in
wnstable equilibrium.
Now a question naturally occurs, is the equilibrium
of our present ocean of this unstable kind, or is it
'stable 7 The sea, after its most violent agitations,
STABILITY OF THE OCEAN. 141
appears to return to its former state of repose; but
may not some extraordinary cause produce in it
some derangement which may go on increasing till
the waters all rush one way, and thus drown the
highest mountains? And if we are safe from this
danger, what are the conditions by which we are so
secured 7
The illustration which we have employed ob-
viously suggests the answer to this question; namely,
that the equilibrium is unstable, so long as the solid
parts are of such a kind as to float in the fluid parts;
and of course we should expect that the equilibrium
will be stable whenever the contrary is the case, that
is, when the solid parts of the earth are of greater
specific gravity than the sea. A more systematic
mathematical calculation has conducted Laplace to
a demonstration of this result.
The mean specific gravity of the earth appears to
be about five times that of water, so that the condi-
tion of the stability of the ocean is abundantly ful-
filled. And the provision by which this stability is
secured was put in force through the action of those
causes, whatever they were, which made the den-
sity of the solid materials and central parts of the
earth greater than the density of the incumbent fluid.
When we consider, however, the manner in which
the wisdom of the Creator, even in those cases in
which his care is most apparent, as in the structure
of animals, works by means of intermediate causes
and general laws, we shall not be ready to reject all
belief of an end in such a case as this, merely be-
cause the means are mechanical agencies. Laplace
says, “in virtue of gravity, the most dense of the
strata of the earth are those nearest to the centre ;
and thus the mean density exceeds that of the waters
which cover it; which suffices to secure the stability
of the equilibrium of the seas, and to put a bridle
upon the fury of the waves.” This statement, if
exact, would not prove that He who subjected the
materials of the earth to the action of gravity did
142 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
not intend to restrain the rage of the waters: but the
statement is not true in fact. The lower strata, so
far as man has yet examined, are very far from be-
ing constantly, or even generally, heavier than the
superincumbent ones. And certainly solidification
by no means implies a greater density than fluidity :
the density of Jupiter is one fourth, that of Saturn
less than one seventh, of that of the earth. If an
ocean of water were poured into the cavities upon
the surface of Saturn, its equilibrium would not be
stable. It would leave its bed on one side of the
globe; and the planet would finally be composed of
one hemisphere of water and one of land. If the
Earth had an ocean of a fluid six times as heavy as
water, (quicksilver is thirteen times as heavy,) we
should have, in like manner, a dry and a fluid hemi-
sphere. Our inland rivers would probably never be
able to reach the shores, but would be dried up on
their way, like those which run in torrid desarts;
perhaps the evaporation from the ocean would
never reach the inland mountains, and we should
have no rivers at all. Without attempting to
imagine the details of such a condition, it is easy to
see, that to secure the existence of a different one is
an end which is in harmony with all that we see of
the preserving care displayed in the rest of crea-
tion.* -
* The stability of the axis of rotation about which the earth
revolves, has sometimes been adduced as an instance of preserva-
tive care. The stability, however, would follow necessarily, if
the earth, or its superficial parts, were originally fluid ; and that
they were so is an opinion widely received, both among astrono-
mers and geologists. The original fluidity of the earth is proba-
bly a circumstance depending upon the general scheme of crea-
tion; and cannot with propriety be considered with reference to
one particular result. We shall therefore omit any further con-
sideration of this argument, -
143
CHAPTER VII.
The Nebular Hypothesis.
WE have referred to Laplace, as a profound ma-
thematician, who has strongly expressed the opinion,
that the arrangement by which the stability of the
solar system is secured is not the result of chance;
that “a primitive cause has directed the planetary
motions.” This author, however, having arrived, as
we have done, at this conviction, does not draw from
it the conclusion which has appeared to us so irre-
sistible, that “the admirable arrangement of the solar
system cannot but be the work of an intelligent and
most powerful being.” He quotes these expressions,
which are those of Newton, and points at them as
instances where that great philosopher had deviated
from the method of true philosophy. He himself pro-
poses an hypothesis concerning the nature of the
primitive cause of which he conceives the existence
to be thus probable : and this hypothesis, on account
of the facts which it attempts to combine, the view
of the universe which it presents, and the eminence
of the person by whom it is propounded, deserves
Our notice.
1. Laplace conjectures that in the original condi-
tion of the solar system, the sun revolved upon his
axis, surrounded by an atmosphere which, in virtue
of an excessive heat, extended far beyond the orbits
of all the planets, the planets as yet having no exist-
ence. The heat gradually diminished, and as the
solar atmosphere contracted by cooling, the rapidity
of its rotation increased by the laws of rotatory mo-
tion, and an exterior zone of vapour was detached
from the rest, the central attraction being no longer
able to overcome the increased centrifugal force.
144 - COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
This zone of vapour might in some cases retain its
form, as we see it in Saturn's ring; but more usually
the ring of vapour would break into several masses,
and these would generally coalesce into one mass,
which would revolve about the sun. Such portions.
of the solar atmosphere, abandoned successively at
different distances, would form “planets in the state
of vapour.” These planets, it appears from mecha-
nical considerations, would have each its rotatory
motion, and as the cooling of the vapour still went
on, would each produce a planet, which might have
satellites and rings, formed from the planet in the
same manner as the planets were formed from the
atmosphere of the sun. -
It may easily be conceived that all the primary
motions of a system so produced would be nearly
circular, nearly in the plane of the original equator
of the solar rotation, and in the direction of that ro-
tation. Reasons are offered also to show that the
motions of the satellites thus produced and the mo-
tions of rotation of the planets must be in the same
direction. And thus it is held that the hypothesis
accounts for the most remarkable circumstances in
the structure of the solar system : namely, the mo-
tions of the planets in the same direction, and almost
in the same plane; the motions of the satellites in the
same direction as those of the planets; the motions
of rotation of these different bodies still in the same
direction as the other motions, and in planes not
much different; the small eccentricity of the orbits
of the planets, upon which condition, along with
some of the preceding ones, the stability of the sys-
tem depends; and the position of the source of light
and heat in the centre of the system. -
It is not necessary for the purpose, nor suitable to
the plan of the present treatise, to examine, on phy-
sical grounds, the probability of the above hypothesis.
It is proposed by its author, with great diffidence, as
a conjecture only. We might, therefore, very rea-
sonably put off all discussion of the bearings of this
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS, 145
opinion upon our views of the government of the
world, till the opinion itself should have assumed a
less indistinct and precarious form. It can be no
charge against our doctrines, that there is a difficulty
in reconciling with them arbitrary guesses and half-
formed theories. We shall, however, make a few
observations upon this nebular hypothesis, as it may
be termed. -
2. If we grant, for a moment, the hypothesis, it by
no means proves that the solar system was formed
without the intervention of intelligence and design.
It only transfers our view of the skill exercised, and
the means employed, to another part of the work.
For, how came the sun and its atmosphere to have
such materials, such motions, such a constitution,
that these consequences followed from their primor-
dial condition ? How came the parent vapour thus
to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction,
solidification 7 How came the laws of its motion,
attraction, repulsion, condensation, to be so fixed, as
to lead to a beautiful and harmonious system in the
end ? How came it to be neither too fluid nor too
tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor too
slowly, for the successive formation of the several
planetary bodies? How came that substance, which
at one time was a luminous vapour, to be at a subse-
quent period, solids and fluids of many various kinds?
What but design and intelligence prepared and tem-
pered this previously existing element, so that it
should by its natural changes produce such an or-
derly system : -
And if in this way we suppose a planet to be pro-
duced, what sort of a body would it be l—something,
it may be presumed, resembling a large meteoric
stone. How comes this mass to be covered with
motion and organization, with life and happiness?
What primitive cause stocked it with plants and ani-
mals, and produced all the wonderful and subtle con-
trivances which we find in their structure, all the
wide and profound mutual dependencies which we
N
146 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
trace in their economy? Was man, with his thought
and feeling, his powers and hopes, his will and con-
science, also produced as an ultimate result of the
condensation of the solar atmosphere 7 Except we
allow a prior purpose and intelligence presiding over
this material “primitive cause,” how irreconcilable
is it with the evidence which crowds in upon us from
every side -
3. In the next place, we may observe concerning
this hypothesis, that it carries us back to the begin-
ning of the present system of things; but that it is
impossible for our reason to stop at the point thus
presented to it. The sun, the earth, the planets, the
moons were brought into their present order out of
a previous state, and, as is supposed in the theory, by
the natural operation of laws. But how came that
previous state to exist? We are compelled to sup-
pose that it, in like manner, was educed from a still
prior state of things; and this, again, must have been
the result of a condition prior still. Nor is it possi-
ble for us to find, in the tenets of the nebular hypo-
thesis, any resting place or satisfaction for the mind.
The same reasoning faculty, which seeks for the ori-
gin of the present system of things, and is capable of
assenting to, or dissenting from the hypothesis pro-
pounded by Laplace as an answer to this inquiry, is
necessarily led to seek, in the same manner, for the
origin of any previous system of things, out of which
the present may appear to have grown: and must
pursue this train of inquiries unremittingly, so long
as the answer which it receives describes a mere as-
semblage of matter and motion; since it would be to
contradict the laws of matter and the nature of mo-
tion, to suppose such an assemblage to be the first
condition. - . . .”
The reflection just stated, may be illustrated by
the further consideration of the Nebular Hypothesis.
This opinion refers us, for the origin of the solar
system, to a sun surrounded with an atmosphere of
enormously elevated temperature, revolving and cool-
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 147
ing. But as we ascend to a still earlier period, what
state of things are we to suppose 7–a still higher
temperature, a still more diffused atmosphere. La-
place conceives that, in its primitive state, the sun
consisted in a diffused luminosity so as to resemble
those nebulae among the fixed stars, which are seen
by the aid of the telescope, and which exhibit a nu-
cleus, more or less brilliant, surrounded by a cloudy
brightness. “This anterior state was itself preceded
by other states, in which the nebulous matter was
more and more diffuse, the nucleus being less and
less luminous. We arrive,” Laplace says, “in this
manner, at a nebulosity so diffuse, that its existence
could scarcely be suspected.”
“Such is,” he adds, “in fact, the first state of the
nebulae which Herschel carefully observed by means
of his powerful telescopes. He traced the progress of
condensation, not indeed on one nebula, for this pro-
gress can only become perceptible to us in the course
of centuries; but in the assemblage of nebulae; much
in the same manner as in a large forest we may
trace the growth of trees among the examples of
different ages which stand side by side. He saw in
the first place the nebulous matter dispersed in
patches, in the different parts of the sky. He saw in
some of these patches this matter feebly condensed
round one or more faint nuclei. In other nebulae,
these nuclei were brighter in proportion to the sur-
rounding nebulosity; when by a further condensation
the atmosphere of each nucleus becomes separate
from the others, the result is multiple nebulous stars,
formed by brilliant nuclei very near each other, and
each surrounded by an atmosphere : sometimes the
nebulous matter condensing in a uniform manner
has produced nebulous systems which are called
planetary. Finally, a still greater degree of conden-
sation transforms all these nebulous systems into
stars. The nebulae, classed according to this philo-
sophical view, indicate with extreme probability their
148 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
future transformation into stars, and the anterior ne-
bulous condition of the stars which now exist.
It appears then that the highest point to which this
series of conjectures can conduct us, is, “an extremely
diffused nebulosity,” attended, we may suppose, by a
far higher degree of heat, than that which, at a later
period of the hypothetical process, keeps all the ma-
terials of our earth and planets in a state of vapour.
Now is it not impossible to avoid asking, whence was
this light, this heat, this diffusion ? How came the
laws which such a state implies, to be already in ex-
istence Whether light and heat produce their ef-
fects by means of fluid vehicles or otherwise, they
have complex and varied laws which indicate the
existence of some subtle machinery for their action.
When and how was this machinery constructed 7
Whence too that enormous expansive power which
the nebulous matter is supposed to possess? And if,
as would seem to be supposed in this doctrine, all the
material ingredients of the earth existed in this dif-
fuse nebulosity, either in the state of vapour, or in
some state of still greater expansion, whence were
they and their properties? how came there to be of
each simple substance which now enters into the
composition of the universe, just so much and no
more ? Do we not, far more than ever, require an
origin of this origin? an explanation of this explana-
tion ? Whatever may be the merits of the opinion as
a physical hypothesis, with which we do not here
meddle, can it for a moment prevent our looking be-
yond the hypothesis, to a First Cause, an Intelligent
Author, an origin proceeding from free volition, not
from material necessity? .
But again: let us ascend to the highest point of the
hypothetical progression: let us suppose the nebulosi-
ty diffused throughout all space, so that its course of
running into patches is not yet begun. How are we
to suppose it distributed? Is it equably diffused in
every part? clearly not; for if it were, what should
TNEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 149
cause it to gather into masses, so various in size,
form and arrangement? The separation of the ne-
bulous matter into distinct nebulae implies necessarily
some original inequality of distribution; some deter-
mining circumstances in its primitive condition.
Whence were these circumstances ! this inequality"
we are still compelled to seek some ulterior agency
and power.
Why must the primeval condition be one of
change at all? Why should not the nebulous matter
be equably diffused throughout space, and continue
for ever in its state of equable diffusion, as it must
do, from the absence of all cause to determine the
time and manner of its separation? why should this
nebulous matter grow cooler and cooler? why should
it not retain for ever the same degree of heat, what-
ever heat be ' If heat be a fluid, if to cool be to part
with this fluid, as many philosophers suppose, what
becomes of the fluid heat of the nebulous matter, as
the matter cools down Into what unoccupied re-
gion does it find its way? -
Innumerable questions of the same kind might be
asked, and the conclusion to be drawn is, that every
new physical theory which we include in our view of
the universe, involves us in new difficulties and per-
plexities, if we try to erect it into an ultimate and
final account of the existence and arrangement of
the world in which we live. With the evidence of
such theories, considered as scientific generalizations
of ascertained facts, with their claims to a place in
our natural philosophy, we have here nothing to do.
But if they are put forwards as a disclosure of the
ultimate cause of that which occurs, and as super-
seding the necessity of looking further or higher; if
they claim a place in our Natural Theology, as well
as our Natural Philosophy; we conceive that their
pretensions will not bear a moment’s examination.
Leaving then to other persons and to future ages
to decide upon the scientific merits of the nebular
hypothesis, we conceive that the final fate of this
N 2
150 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
*
opinion cannot, in sound reason, affect at all the view
which we have been endeavouring to illustrate;—
the view of the universe as the work of a wise and
good Creator. Let it be supposed that the point to
which this hypothesis leads us, is the ultimate point
of physical science: that the farthest glimpse we can
obtain of the material universe by our natural facul-
ties, shows it to us occupied by a boundless abyss of
luminous matter: still we ask, how space came to be
thus occupied, how matter came to be thus luminous?
If we establish by physical proofs, that the first fact
which can be traced in the history of the world, is
that “there was light;" we shall still be led, even
by our natural reason, to suppose that before this
could occur, “God said, let there be light.”
CHAPTER VIII.
The Earistence of a Resisting JMedium in the Solar
System.
THE question of a plenum and a vacuum was for-
merly much debated among those who speculated
concerning the constitution of the universe; that is,
they disputed whether the celestial and terrestrial
spaces are absolutely full, each portion being occu-
pied by some matter or other; or whether there are,
between and among the material parts of the world,
empty spaces free from all matter, however rare.
This question was often treated by means of abstract
conceptions and a priori reasonings; and was some-
times considered as one in which the result of the
struggle between rival systems of philosophy, the
Cartesian and Newtonian for instance, was involved.
It was conceived by some that the Newtonian doc-
trine of the motions of the heavenly bodies, according
to mechanical laws, required that the space in which
R1ESISTING . MEDIUM. 151
they moved should be, absolutely and metaphysically
speaking, a vacuum.
This, however, is not necessary to the truth of the
Newtonian doctrines, and does not appear to have
been intended to be asserted by Newton himself.
Undoubtedly, according to his theory, the motions
of the heavenly bodies were calculated on the suppo-
sition that they do move in a space void of any resisting
fluid; and the comparison of the places so calculated
with the places actually observed, (continued for a
long course of years, and tried in innumerable cases,)
did not show any difference which implied the exist-
ence of a resisting fluid. The Newtonian, therefore,
was justified in asserting that either there was no
such fluid, or that it was so thin and rarefied, that no
phenomenon yet examined by astronomers was ca-
pable of betraying its effects.
This was all that the Newtonian needed or ought
to maintain; for his philosophy, founded altogether
upon observation, had nothing to do with abstract
possibilities and metaphysical necessities. And in
the same manner in which observation and calcula-
tion thus showed that there could be none but a very
rare medium pervading the solar system, it was left
open to observation and calculation to prove that
there was such a medium, if any facts could be dis-
covered which offered suitable evidence.
Within the last few years, facts have been observ-
ed which show, in the opinion of some of the best
mathematicians of Europe, that such a very rare
medium does really occupy the spaces in which the
planets move ; and it may be proper and interesting
to consider the bearing of this opinion upon the views
and arguments which we have had here to present.
1. Reasons might be offered, founded on the uni-
versal diffusion of light and on other grounds, for be-
lieving that the planetary spaces cannot be entirely
free from matter of some kind; and wherever mat-
ter is, we should expect resistance. But the facts
which have thus led astronomers to the conviction
152 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
that such a resisting medium really exists, are cer-
tain circumstances occurring in the motion of a body
revolving round the sun, which is now usually called
Encke's comet. This body revolves in a very eccen-
tric or oblong orbit, its greatest or aphelion distance
from the sun, and its nearest, or perihelion distance,
being in the proportion of more than ten to one. In
this respect it agrees with other comets; but its time
of revolution about the sun is much less than that of
the comets which have excited most notice; for
while they appear only at long intervals of years, the
body of which we are now speaking returns to its
perihelion every twelve hundred and eight days, or
in about three years and one-third. Another ob-
servable circumstance in this singular body, is its
extreme apparent tenuity: it appears as a loose
indefinitely formed speck of vapour, through which
the stars are visible with no perceptible diminution
of their brightness. This body was first seen by
Mechain and Messier, in 1786,” but they obtained
only two observations, whereas three, at least, are
requisite to determine the path of a heavenly body.
Miss Herschel discovered it again in 1795, and it
was observed by several European astronomers. In
1805 it was again seen, and again in 1819. Hitherto
it was supposed that the four comets thus observed
were all different; Encke, however, showed that the
observations could only be explained by considering
them as returns of the same revolving body; and by
doing this, well merited that his name should be as-
sociated with the subject of his discovery. The re-
turn of this body in 1822, was calculated beforehand,
and observed in New South Wales, the comet being
then in the southern part of the heavens; but on
comparing the calculated and the observed places,
Encke concluded that the observations could not be
exactly explained, without supposing a resisting me-
dium. This comet was again generally observed in
* Airy on Encke's Comet, p. 1, note.
RESISTING MEDIUM. 153
Europe in 1825 and 1828, and the circumstances of
the last appearance were particularly favourable for
determining the absolute amount of the retardation
arising from the medium, which the other observa-
tions had left undetermined.
The effect of this retarding influence is, as might
be supposed from what has already been said, ex-
tremely slight; and would probably not have been
perceptible at all, but for the loose texture and small
quantity of matter of the revolving body. It will
easily be conceived that a body which has perhaps
no more solidity or coherence than a cloud of dust,
or a wreath of smoke, will have less force to make
its way through a fluid medium, however thin, than
a more dense and compact body would have. In
atmospheric air much rarefied, a bullet might pro-
ceed for miles without losing any of its velocity,
while such a loose mass as the comet is supposed to
be would loose its projectile motion in the space of a
few yards. This consideration will account for the
circumstance, that the existence of such a medium
has been detected by observing the motions of
Encke's comet, though the motions of the heavenly
bodies previously observed showed no trace of such
an impediment. - - -
It will appear perhaps remarkable that a body so
light and loose as we have described this comet to
be, should revolve about the sun by laws as fixed and
certain as those which regulate the motions of those
great and solid masses, the Earth and Jupiter. It is
however certain from observation, that this comet is
acted upon by exactly the same force of solar at-
traction, as the other bodies of the system; and not
only so, but that it also experiences the same kind of
disturbing force from the action of the other planets,
which they exercise upon each other. The effect of
all these causes has been calculated with great care
and labour; and the result has been an agreement
with observation sufficiently close to show that these
causes really act, but at the same time a residual
154 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
phenomenon (as Sir J. Herschel expresses it), has
come to light: and from this has been collected the
inference of a resisting medium.
This medium produces a very small effect upon
the motion of the comet, as will easily be supposed
from what has been said. By Encke's calculation,
it appears that the effect of the resistance, supposing
the comet to move in the earth's orbit, would be
about an eight hundred and fiftieth of the sun's force
on the body. The effect of such resistance may ap-
pear, at first sight, paradoxical; it would be to make
the comet move more slowly, but perform its revolu-
tions more quickly. This, however, will perhaps be
understood if it be considered that by moving more
slowly the comet will be more rapidly drawn towards
the centre, and that in this way a revolution will be
described by a shorter path than it was before. It
appears that in getting round the sun, the comet
gains more in this way than it loses by the diminu-
tion of its velocity. The case is much like that of a
stone thrown in the air; the stone moves more
slowly than it would do if there were no air; but yet
it comes to the earth sooner than it would do on that
supposition.
It appears that the effect of the resistance of the
ethereal medium, from the first discovery of the
comet up to the present time, has been to diminish
the time of revolution by about two days: and the
comet is ten days in advance of the place which it
would have reached, if there had been no resist-
a. Il C62. -
2. The same medium which is thus shown to pro-
duce an effect upon Encke's comet, must also act
upon the planets which move through the same
spaces. The effect upon the planets, however, must
be very much smaller than the effect upon the comet,
in consequence of their greater quantity of matter.
It is not easy to assign any probable value, or
even any certain limit, to the effect of the resisting
medium upon the planets. We are entirely ignorant
RESISTING MEDIUM. 155
of the comparative mass of the comet, and of any
of the planets; and hence, cannot make any calcu-
lation founded on such a comparison. Newton has
endeavoured to show how small the resistance of the
medium must be, if it exist.* The result of his cal-
culation is, that if we take the density of the me-
dium to be that which our air will have at two hun-
dred miles from the earth’s surface, supposing the
law of diminution of density to go on unaltered, and
if we suppose Jupiter to move in such a medium, he
would in a million years lose less than a millionth
part of his velocity. If a planet, revolving about
the sun, were to lose any portion of its velocity by
the effect of resistance, it would be drawn propor-
tionally nearer the sun, the tendency towards the
centre being no longer sufficiently counteracted by
that centrifugal force which arises from the body’s
velocity. And if the resistance were to continue to
act, the body would be drawn perpetually nearer
and nearer to the centre, and would describe its re-
volutions quicker and quicker, till at last it would
reach the central body, and the system would cease
to be a system.
This result is true, however small be the velocity
lost by resistance; the only difference being, that
when the resistance is small, the time requisite to
extinguish the whole motion will be proportionally
longer. In all cases the times which come under
our consideration in problems of this kind, are enor-
mous to common apprehension. Thus Encke's
comet, according to the results of the observations
already made, will lose, in ten revolutions, or thirty-
three years, less than one thousandth of its velocity:
and if this law were to continue, the velocity would
not be reduced to one-half its present value in less
than seven thousand revolutions or twenty-three
thousand years. If Jupiter were to lose one-millionth
of his velocity in a million years, (which, as has been
* Principia, b. iii. prop. x.
156 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
seen, is far more than can be considered in any way
probable,) he would require seventy millions of years
to lose one-thousandth of the velocity; and a period
seven hundred times as long to reduce the velocity
to one-half. These are periods of time which quite
overwhelm the imagination; and it is not pretended
that the calculations are made with any pretensions
to accuracy. But at the same time it is beyond doubt
that though the intervals of time thus assigned to
these changes are highly vague and uncertain, the
changes themselves must, sooner or later, take place,
in consequence of the existence of the resisting me-
dium. Since there is such a retarding force perpe-
tually acting, however slight it be, it must in the end
destroy all the celestial motions. It may be millions
of millions of years before the earth’s retardation
may perceptibly affect the apparent motion of the
sun; but still the day will come (if the same Provi-
dence which formed the system, should permit it to
continue so long) when this cause will entirely change
the length of our year and the course of our seasons,
and finally stop the earth’s motion round the sun
altogether. The smallness of the resistance, how-
ever small we choose to suppose it, does not allow
us to escape this certainty. There is a resisting me-
dium; and, therefore, the movements of the solar
system cannot go on for ever. The moment such a
fluid is ascertained to exist, the eternity of the move-
ments of the planets becomes as impossible as a per-
petual motion on the earth.
3. The vast periods which are brought under our
consideration in tracing the effects of the resisting
medium, harmonize with all that we learn of the
constitution of the universe from other sources.
Millions, and millions of millions of years are ex-
pressions that at first sight appear fitted only to over-
whelm and confound all our powers of thought; and
such numbers are no doubt beyond the limits of any
thing which we distinctly conceive. But our powers
of conception are suited rather to the wants and
RESISTING MEDIUM. $57
uses of common life, than to a complete survey of
the universe. . It is in no way unlikely that the whole
duration of the Solar system should be a period im-
measurably great in our eyes, though demonstrably
finite. Such enormous numbers have been brought
under our notice by all the advances we have made
in our knowledge of nature. The smallness of the
objects detected by the microscope and of their
parts;–the multitude of the stars which the best
telescopes of modern times have discovered in the
sky;—the duration assigned to the globe of the earth
by geological investigation;–all these results require
for their probable expression, numbers, which so far
as we see, are on the same gigantic scale as the
number of years in which the solar system will be-
come entirely deranged. Such calculations depend
in some degree on our relation to the vast aggregate
of the works of our Creator; and no person who is
accustomed to meditate on these subjects will be sur-
prised that the numbers which such an occasion re-
quires should oppress our comprehension. No one
who has dwelt on the thought of a universal Crea-
tor and Preserver, will be surprised to find the con-
viction forced upon the mind by every new train of
speculation, that viewed in reference to Him, our
space is a point, our time a moment, our millions a
handful, our permanence a quick decay.
Our knowledge of the vast periods, both geologi-
cal and astronomical, of which we have spoken, is
most slight. It is in fact little more than that such
periods exist; that the surface of the earth has, at
wide intervals of time, undergone great changes in
the disposition of land and water, and in the forms of
animal life; and that the motions of the heavenly
bodies round the sun are affected, though with in-
conceivable slowness, by a force which must end by
deranging them altogether. It would therefore be
rash to endeavour to establish any analogy between
the periods thus disclosed; but we may observe that
they agree in this, that they reduce all things to the
O
158 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
general rule of finite duration. As all the geological
states of which we find evidence in the present state
of the earth, have had their termination, so also the
astronomical conditions under which the revolutions
of the earth itself proceed, involve the necessity of a
future cessation of these revolutions.
The contemplative person may well be struck by
this universal law of the creation. We are in the
habit sometimes of contrasting the transient destiny
of man with the permanence of the forests, the moun-
tains, the ocean,—with the unwearied circuit of the
sun. But this contrast is a delusion of our own ima-
gination; the difference is after all but one of degree.
The forest tree endures for its centuries and then
decays; the mountains crumble and change, and
perhaps subside in some convulsion of nature; the
sea retires, and the shore ceases to resound with the
“everlasting” voice of the ocean: such reflections
have already crowded upon the mind of the geolo-
gist; and it now appears that the courses of the hea-
vens themselves are not exempt from the universal
law of decay; that not only the rocks and the moun-
tains, but the sun and the moon have the sentence
“to end” stamped upon their foreheads. They enjoy
no privilege beyond man except a longer respite.
The ephemeron perishes in an hour; man endures
for his three score years and ten; an empire, a na-
tion, numbers its centuries, it may be its thousands of
years; the continents and islands which its dominion
includes have perhaps their date, as those which pre-
ceded them have had ; and the very revolutions of
the sky by which centuries are numbered will at last
languish and stand still.
To dwell on the moral and religious reflections sug-
gested by this train of thought is not to our present
purpose; but we may observe that it introduces a
homogeneity, so to speak, into the government of the
universe. Perpetual change, perpetual progression,
increase and diminution, appear to be the rules of
the material world, and to prevail without exception.
RESISTING MEDIUM. 159
The smaller portions of matter which we have near
us, and the larger, which appear as luminaries at a
vast distance, different as they are in our mode of
conceiving them, obey the same laws of motion; and
these laws produce the same results; in both cases
motion is perpetually destroyed, except it be repaired
by some living power; in both cases the relative rest
of the parts of a material system is the conclusion to
which its motion tends. - •
4. It may perhaps appear to some, that this ac-
knowledgment of the tendency of the system to de-
rangement through the action of a resisting medium
is inconsistent with the argument which we have
drawn in a previous chapter, from the provisions for
its stability. In reality, however, the two views are
in perfect agreement, so far as our purpose is con-
Černed. The main point which we had to urge, in
the consideration of the stability of the system, was,
not that it is constructed to last for ever, but that
while it lasts, the deviations from its mean conditionſ
are very small. It is this property which fits the
world for its uses. To maintain either the past or
the future eternity of the world, does not appear con-
sistent with physical principles, as it certainly does
not fall in with the convictions of the religious man,
in whatever way obtained. We conceive that this
state of things has had a beginning; we conceive that
it will have an end. But in the mean time we find
it fitted, by a number of remarkable arrangements,
to be the habitation of living creatures. The condi-
tions which secure the stability, and the smallness of
the perturbations of the system, are among these pro-
visions. If the eccentricity of the orbit of Venus, or
of Jupiter, were much greater than it is, not only
might some of the planets, at the close of ages, fall
into the sum or fly off into infinite space, but also, in
the intermediate time, the earth's orbit might become
much more eccentric; the course of the seasons and
the average of temperature might vary from what
they now are, so as to injure or destroy the whole
160 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
organic creation. By certain original arrangements
these destructive oscillations are prevented. So long
as the bodies continue to revolve, their orbits will
not be much different from what they now are. And
this result is not affected by the action of the resist-
ing medium. Such a medium cannot increase the
small eccentricities of the orbits. The range of the
periodical oscillations of heat and cold will not be
extended by the mechanical effect of the medium,
nor would be, even if its density were incomparably
greater than it is. The resisting medium therefore
does not at all counteract that which is most import-
ant in the provision for the permanency of the solar
system. If the stability of the system had not been
secured by the adjustments which we described in a
former chapter, the course of the seasons might have
been disturbed to an injurious or even destructive
extent in the course of a few centuries, or even within
the limits of one generation; by the effect of the re-
sisting medium, the order of nature remains un-
changed for a period, compared with which the
known duration of the human race is insignificant.
But, it may be objected, the effect of the medium
must be ultimately to affect the duration of the earth’s
revolution round the sun, and thus to derange those
adaptations which depend on the length of the year.
And, without question, if we permit ourselves to look
forward to that inconceivably distant period at which
the effect of the medium will become sensible, this
must be allowed to be true, as has been already
stated. Millions, and probably millions of millions,
of years express inadequately the distance of time at
which this cause woild produce a serious effect.
That the machine of the universe is so constructed
that it may answer its purposes for such a period, is
surely sufficient proof of the skill of its workmanship,
and of the reality of its purpose: and those persons,
probably, who are best convinced that it is the work
of a wise and good Creator, will be least disposed to
RESISTING MEDIUM. I61
consider the system as imperfect, because in its pre-
sent condition it is not fitted for eternity.
5. The doctrine of a Resisting Medium leads us
towards a point which the Nebular Hypothesis as-
sumes;—a beginning of the present order of things.
There must have been a commencement of the mo-
tions now going on in the solar system. Since these
motions, when once begun, would be deranged and
destroyed in a period which, however large, is yet
finite, it is obvious we cannot carry their origin in-
definitely backwards in a range of past duration.
There is a period in which these revolutions, when
ever they had begun, would have brought the re-
volving bodies into contact with the central mass;
and this period has in our system not yet elapsed.
The watch is still going, and therefore it must have
been wound up within a limited time.
The solar system, at this its beginning, must have
been arranged and put in motion by some cause. If
we suppose this cause to operate by means of the
configurations and the properties of previously exist-
ing matter, these configurations must have resulted
from some still previous cause, these properties must
have produced some previous effects. We are thus
led to a condition still earlier than the assumed be-
ginning;--to an origin of the original state of the
universe; and in this manner we are carried per-
petually further and further back, through a labyrinth
of mechanical causation, without any possibility of
finding any thing in which the mind can acquiesce
or rest, till we admit “a First Cause which is not
mechanical.”
Thus the argument which was before urged against
those in particular, who put forwards the Nebular Hy-
pothesis in opposition to the admission of an Intelli-
gent Creator, offers itself again, as cogent in itself,
when we adopt the opinion of a resisting medium,
for which the physical proofs have been found to be
so strong. The argument is indeed forced upon our
minds, what ever view we take of the past history of
O 2
162 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
the universe. Some have endeavoured to evade its
force by maintaining that the world as it now exists.
has existed from eternity. They assert that the pre-
sent order of things, or an order of things in some
way resembling the present, produced by the same
causes, governed by the same laws, has prevailed
through an infinite succession of past ages. We shall
not dwell upon any objections to this tenet which
might be drawn from our own conceptions, or from
what may be called metaphysical sources. Nor shall.
we refer to the various considerations which history,
geology, and astronomical records supply, and which
tend to show, not only that the past duration of the
present course of things is finite, but that it is short,
compared with such periods as we have had to speak
of. But we may observe, that the doctrine of a re-
sisting medium once established, makes this imagina-
tion untenable; compels us to go back to the origin,
not only of the present course of the world, not only
of the earth, but of the solar system itself; and thus
sets us forth upon that path of research into the se-
ries of past causation, where we obtain no answer of
which the meaning corresponds to our questions, till
we rest in the conclusion of a most provident and
most powerful Creating Intelligence.
It is related of Epicurus that when a boy, reading
with his preceptor these verses of Hesiod,
Hrot we, ziporugo Koos yewsr’, owtop exstro.
Tot’ evpus spyos rrowwow soo; ooºows; ovst
A60 vorov,
Eldest of beings, Chaos first arose,
Thence Earth wide stretched, the steadfast seat of all
The Immortals,
the young scholar first betrayed his inquisitive genius
by asking “And cháos whence?” When in his riper
years he had persuaded himself that this question was
sufficiently answered by saying that chaos arose from
the concourse of atoms, it is strange that the same.
MECHANICAL LAWS., - 163
inquisitive spirit did not again suggest the question
“ and atoms whence 7” And it is clear that however
often the question “whence 7" had been answered, it
would still start up as at first. Nor could it suffice
as an answer to say, that earth, chaos, atoms, were
portions of a series of changes which went back to
eternity. The preceptor of Epicurus informed him,
that to be satisfied on the subject of his inquiry, he
must have recourse to the philosophers. If the young
speculator had been told that chaos (if chaos indeed
preceded the present order) was produced by an
Eternal Being, in whom resided purpose and will,
he would have received a suggestion which, duly
matured by subsequent contemplation, might have
led him to a philosophy far more satisfactory than
the material scheme can ever be, to one who looks,
either abroad into the universe, or within into his
own bosom.
CHAPTER IX.
JMechanical Laws.
In the preceding observations we have supposed
the laws, by which different kinds of matter act and
are acted upon, to be already in existence; and have
endeavoured to point out evidences of design and
adaptation, displayed in the selection and arrange-
ment of these materials of the universe. These ma-
terials are, it has appeared, supplied in such measures
and disposed in such forms, that by means of their
properties and laws the business of the world goes
on harmoniously and beneficially. But a further
question occurs: how came matter to have such
properties and laws? Are these also to be considered
as things of selection and institution ? And if so, can
we trace the reasons why the laws were established
I64 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
in their present form; why the properties which mat-
ter actually possesses were established and bestowed
and bestowed upon it? We have already attempted,
in a previous part of this work, to point out some of
the advantages which are secured by the existing
laws of heat, light and moisture. Can we, in the
same manner, point out the benefits which arise from
the present constitution of those laws of matter which
are mainly concerned in the production of cosmical
phenomena" -
It will readily be perceived that the discussion of
this point must necessarily require some effort of ab-
stract thought. The laws and properties of which
we have here to speak, the laws of motion and the
universal properties of matter, are so closely inter-
woven with our conceptions of the external world,
that we have great difficulty in conceiving them not
to exist, or to exist other than they are. When we
press or lift a stone, we can hardly imagine that it
could, by possibility, do otherwise than resist our
effort by its hardness and by its heaviness, qualities
so familiar to us: when we throw it, it seems inevit-
able that its motion should depend on the impulse we
give, just as we find that it invariably does.
Nor is it easy to say how far it is really possible to
suppose the fundamental attributes of matter to be
different from what they are. If we, in our thoughts,
attempt to divest matter of its powers of resisting
and moving, it ceases to be matter, according to our
conceptions, and we can no longer reason upon it
with any distinctness. And yet it is certain that we
can conceive the laws of hardness and weight and
motion to be quite different from what they are, and
can point out some of the consequences which would
result from such difference. The properties of mat-
ter, even the most fundamental and universal ones,
do not obtain by any absolute necessity, resembling
that which belongs to the properties of geometry. A
line touching a circle is necessarily perpendicular to
a line drawn to the centre through the point touch-
MECHANICAL LAWS. 165
ed; for it may be shown that the contrary involves
a contradiction. But there is no contradiction in
supposing that a body’s motion should naturally
diminish, or that its weight should increase in remov-
ing further from the earth’s centre. -
Thus the properties of matter and the laws of mo-
tion are what we find them, not by virtue of any in-
ternal necessity which we can understand. The
study of such laws and properties may therefore dis-
close to us the character of that external agency by
which we conceive them to have been determined to
be what they are; and this must be the same agency
by which all other parts of the constitution of the
universe were appointed and ordered.
But we can hardly expect, with regard to such
subjects, that we shall be able to obtain any complete
or adequate view of the reasons why these general
laws are so selected, and so established. These laws
are the universal basis of all operations which go on,
at any moment, in every part of space, with regard
to every particle of matter, organic and inorganic.
All other laws and properties must have a reference
to these, and must be influenced by them; both such
as men have already discovered, and the far greater
number which remain still unknown. The general
economy and mutual relations of all parts of the uni-
verse, must be subordinate to the laws of motion and
matter of which we here speak. We can easily sup-
pose that the various processes of nature, and the
dependencies of various creatures, are affected in the
most comprehensive manner by these laws;—are
simplified by their simplicity, made consistent by
their universality; rendered regular by their symme-
try. We can easily suppose that in this way there may
be the most profound and admirable reasons for the
existence of the present universal properties of mat-
ter, which we cannot apprehend in consequence of
the limited nature of our knowledge, and of our facul-
ties. For, compared with the whole extent of the
universe, the whole aggregate of things and relations
166 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
and connexions which exist in it, our knowledge is
most narrow and partial, most shallow and super-
ficial. We cannot suppose, therefore, that the rea-
sons which we discover for the present form of the
laws of nature go nearly to the full extent, or to the
bottom of the reasons, which a more complete and
profound insight would enable us to perceive. To
do justice to such reasons, would require nothing less
than a perfect acquaintance with the whole constitu-
tion of every part of creation; a knowledge which
man has not, and, so far as we can conceive, never
can have.
We are certain, therefore, that our views, with
regard to this part of our subject, must be imperfect
and limited. Yet still man has some knowledge with
regard to various portions of nature; and with re-
gard to those most general and comparatively simple
facts to which we now refer, his knowledge is more
comprehensive, and goes deeper than it does in any
other province. We conceive, therefore, that we
shall not be engaged in any rash or presumptuous
attempt, if we endeavour to point out some of the
advantages which are secured by the present consti-
tution of some of the general mechanical laws of na-
ture; and to suggest the persuasion of that purpose
and wise design, which the selection of such laws
will thus appear to imply.
CHAPTER x.
The Law of Gravitation.
WE shall proceed to make a few observations on
the Law of Gravity, in virtue of which the motions
of planets about the sun, and of satellites about their
planets take place; and by which also are produced
LAW OF GRAVITATION, 167
the fall downwards of all bodies within our reach,
and the pressure which they exert upon their sup-
ports when at rest. The identification of the latter
forces with the former, and the discovery of the sin-
gle law by which these forces are everywhere regu-
lated, was the great discovery of Newton: and we
wish to make it appear that this law is established by
an intelligent and comprehensive selection.
The law of the sun's attraction upon the planets
is, that this attraction varies inversely as the square
of the distance; that is, it decreases as that square
increases. If we take three points or planets of the
solar system, the distances of which from the sun are
in proper proportion one, two, three; the attractive
force which the sun at these distances exercises, is
as one, one-fourth, and one-ninth respectively. In
the smaller variations of distance which occur in the
elliptical motion of one planet, the variations of the
force follow the same law. Moreover, not only does
the sun attract the planets, but they attract each
other according to the same law; the tendency to
the earth which makes bodies heavy, is one of the
effects of this law: and all these effects of the attrac-
tions of large masses may be traced to the attractions
of the particles of which they are composed; so that
the final generalization, including all the derivative
laws, is, that every particle of matter in the universe
attracts every other, according to the law of the in-
Verse square of the distance.
Such is the law of universal gravitation. Now,
the question is, why do either the attractions of
masses, or those of their component particles, follow
this law of the inverse square of the distance rather
than any other ? When the distance becomes one,
two, and three, why should not the force also become
One, two, and three?—or if it must be weaker at
points more remote from the attracting body, why
should it not be one, a half, a third? or one, an eighth,
a twenty-seventh? Such laws could easily be ex-
pressed mathematically, and their consequences cal-
168 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
culated. Can any reason be assigned why the law
which we find in operation must obtain? Can any
be assigned why it should obtain? -
The answer to this is, that no reason, at all satis-
factory, can be given why such a law must, of ne-
cessity, be what it is; but that very strong reasons
can be pointed out why, for the beauty and advan-
tage of the system, the present one is better than
others. We will point out some of these reasons.
1. In the first place, the system could not have
subsisted, if the force had followed a direct instead
of an inverse law, with respect to the distance; that
is, if it had increased when the distance increased.
It has been sometimes said, that “all direct laws of
force are excluded on account of the danger from
perturbing forces;” that if the planets had pulled at
this earth, the harder the further off they were, they
would have dragged it entirely out of its course.
This is not an exact statement of what would hap-
pen: if the force were to be simply in the direct
ratio of the distance, any number of planets might
revolve in the most regular and orderly manner.
Their mutual effects, which we may call perturba-
tions if we please, would be considerable; but these
perturbations would be so combined with the unper-
turbed motion, as to produce a new motion not less
regular than the other. This curious result would
follow, that every body in the system would describe,
or seem to describe, about every other, an exact
elliptical orbit; and that the times of the revolution
of every body in its orbit would be all equal. This
is proved by Newton, in the sixty-fourth proposition
of the Principia. There would be nothing to prevent
all the planets, on this supposition, from moving
round the sun in orbits exactly circular, or nearly
circular, according to the mode in which they were
set in motion. 4.
But though the perturbations of the system would
* Paley. *
LAw of GRAVITATION. 169
not make this law inadmissible, there are other cir-
cumstances which would do so. Under this law, the
gravity of bodies at the earth's surface would cease
to exist. Nothing would fall or weigh downwards.
The greater action of the distant sun and planets
would exactly neutralize the gravity of the earth: a
ball thrown from the hand, however gently, would
immediately become a satellite of the earth, and
would for the future accompany it in its course, re-
volving about it in the space of one year. All ter-
restrial things would float about with no principle of
coherence or stability: they would obey the general
law of the system, but would acknowledge no par-
ticular relation to the earth. We can hardly pretend
to judge of the abstract possibility of such a system
of things; but it is clear that it could not exist with-
out an utter subversion of all that we can conceive
of the economy and structure of the world which we
inhabit.
With any other direct law of force, we should in
iike manner lose gravity, without gaining the theo-
retical regularity of the planetary motions which we
have described in the case just considered.
2. Among inverse laws of the distance, (that is,
those according to which the force diminishes as the
distance from the origin of force increases,) all which
diminish the central force faster than the cube of the
distance increases are inadmissible, because they are
incompatible with the permanent revolution of a
planet. Under such laws it would follow, that a
planet would describe a spiral line about the sun,
and would either approach nearer and nearer to
him perpetually, or perpetually go further and fur-
ther off: nearly as a stone at the end of a string,
when the string is whirled round, and is allowed to
wrap round the hand, or to unwrap from it, ap-
proaches to or recedes from the hand.
If we endeavour to compare the law of the inverse
square of the distance, which really regulates the
central force, with other laws, not obviously inad-
P
170 CoSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
missible, as for instance, the inverse simple ratio of
the distance, a considerable quantity of calculation
is found to be necessary in order to trace the results,
and especially the perturbations in the two cases.
The perturbations in the supposed case have not
been calculated; such a calculation being a process
so long and laborious that it is never gone through,
except for the purpose of comparing the results of
theory with those of observation, as we can do with
regard to the law of inverse square. We can only
say, therefore, that the stability of the system, and
the moderate limits of the perturbations, which we
know to be secured by the existing law, would not,
so far as we know, be obtained by any different law.
Without going into further examination of the
subject, we may observe that there are some circum-
stances in which the present system has a manifest
superiority in its simplicity over the condition which
would have belonged to it if the force had followed
any other law. Thus, with the present law of gra-
vitation the planets revolve, returning perpetually on
the same track, very nearly. The earth describes
an oval, in consequence of which motion she is
nearer to the sun in our winter than in our summer
by about one-thirtieth part of the whole distance.
And, as the matter now is, the nearest approach to
the sun, and the farthest recess from him, occur al-
ways at the same points of the orbit. There is in-
deed a slight alteration in these points arising from
disturbing forces, but this is hardly sensible in the
course of several ages. Now if the force had follow-
ed any other law, we should have had the earth run-
ning perpetually on a new track. The greatest and
least distances would have occurred at different
parts in every successive revolution. The orbit
would have perpetually intersected and been inter-
laced with the path described in former revolutions;
and the simplicity and regularity which charac-
terizes the present motion would have been quite
wanting.
LAW OF GRAVITATION. 171
3. Another peculiar point of simplicity in the pre-
sent law of mutual attraction is this: that it makes
the law of attraction for spherical masses the same
as for single particles. If particles attract with
forces which are inversely as the square of the dis-
tance, spheres composed of such particles, will exert
a force which follows the same law. In this charac-
ter the present law is singular, among all possible
laws, excepting that of the direct distance which we
have already discussed. If the law of the gravita-
tion of particles had been that of the inverse simple
distance, the attraction of a sphere would have been
expressed by a complex series of mathematical ex-
pressions, each representing a simple law. It is truly
remarkable that the law of the inverse square of the
distance, which appears to be selected as that of the
masses of the system, and of which the mechanism
is, that it arises from the action of the particles of
the system, should lead us to the same law for the
action of these particles: there is a striking preroga-
tive of simplicity in the law thus adopted.
The law of gravitation actually prevailing in the
solar system has thus great and clear advantages
over any law widely different from it; and has more-
over, in many of its consequences, a simplicity which
belongs to this precise law alone. It is in many such
respects a unique law; and when we consider that it
possesses several properties which are peculiar to it,
and several advantages which may be peculiar to it,
and which are certainly nearly so; we have some
ground, it would appear, to look upon its peculiari-
ties and its advantages as connected. For the rea-
sons mentioned in the last chapter, we can hardly
expect to see fully the way in which the system is
benefited by the simplicity of this law, and by the
mathematical elegance of its consequences: but when
we see that it has some such beauties, and some ma-
nifest benefits, we may easily suppose that our ignor-
ance and limited capacity alone prevent our seeing
that there are, for the selection of this law of force,
172 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
reasons of a far more refined and comprehensive
kind than we can distinctly apprehend.
4. But before quitting this subject we may offer a
few further observations on the question, whether
gravitation and the law of gravitation be necessary
attributes of matter. We have spoken of the selec-
tion of this law, but is it selected 7 Could it have
been otherwise 7 Is not the force of attraction a
necessary consequence of the fundamental proper-
ties of matter? --
This is a question which has been much agitated
among the followers of Newton. Some have main-
tained, as Cotes, that gravity is an inherent proper-
ty of all matter; others, with Newton himself, have
considered it as an appendage to the essential quali-
ties of matter, and have proposed hypotheses to
account for the mode in which its effects are pro-
duced.
. The result of all that can be said on the subject
appears to be this: that no one can demonstrate the
possibility of deducing gravity from the acknow-
ledged fundamental properties of matter: and that
no philosopher asserts, that matter has been found
to exist, which was destitute of gravity. It is a pro-
perty which we have no right to call necessary to
matter, but every reason to suppose universal.
If we could show gravity to be a necessary con-
sequence of those properties which we adopt as es-
sential to our notion of matter, (extension, solidity,
mobility, inertia) we might then call it also one of the
essential properties. But no one probably will assert
that this is the case. Its universality is a fact of
observation merely. How then can a property, in
its existence so needful for the support of the uni-
verse, in its laws so well adapted to the purposes of
creation,-how came it to be thus universal? Its
being found every where is necessary for its uses;
but this is so far from being a sufficient explanation
of its existence, that it is an additional fact to be
explained. We have here, then, an agency most
LAW OF GRAVITATION. 173
, simple in its rule, most comprehensive in its in-
fluence, most effectual and admirable in its opera-
tion. What evidence could be afforded of design,
by laws of mechanical action, which this law thus
existing and thus operating does not afford us 7
5. It is not necessary for our purpose to consider
the theories which have been proposed to account
for the action of gravity. They have proceeded on
the plan of reducing this action to the result of pres-
sure or impulse. Even if such theories could be
established, they could not much, or at all, affect
our argument; for the arrangements by which pres-
sure or impact could produce the effects which gra-
vity produces, must be at least as clearly results of
contrivance, as gravity itself can be.
In fact, however, none of these attempts can be
considered as at all successful. That of Newton is
very remarkable : it is found among the Queries in
the second edition of his Optics. “To show,” he
says, “that I do not take gravity for an essential
property of bodies, I have added one question con-
cerning its cause, choosing to propose it by way of
question, because I am not yet satisfied about it for
want of experiments.” The hypothesis which he
thus suggests is, that there is an elastic medium per-
vading all space, and increasing in elasticity as we
proceed from dense bodies outwards: that this
“causes the gravity of such dense bodies to each
other: every body endeavouring to go from the
denser parts of the medium towards the rarer.” Of
this hypothesis we may venture to say, that it is in
the first place quite gratuitous; we cannot trace in
any other phenomena a medium possessing these
properties: and in the next place, that the hypothe-
sis contains several suppositions which are more
complex than the fact to be explained, and none
which are less so. Can we, on Newton's principles,
conceive an elastic medium otherwise than as a col-
lection of particles, repelling each other ? and is the
repulsion of such particles a simpler fact than the
P 2
174 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
attraction of those which gravitate 7 And when we
suppose that the medium becomes more elastic as we
proceed from each attracting body, what cause can
we conceive capable of keeping it in such a condi-
tion, except a repulsive force emanating from the
body itself: a supposition at least as much requiring
to be accounted for, as the attraction of the body.
It does not appear, then, that this hypothesis will
bear examination; although, for our purpose, the ar-
gument would be rather strengthened than weaken-
ed, if it could be established. -
6. Another theory of the cause of gravity, which
at one time excited considerable notice, was that ori-
ginally proposed by M. Le Sage, in a memoir enti-
ted “Lucrece Newtonien,” and further illustrated by
M. Prevost; according to which all space is occu-
pied by currents of matter, moving perpetually in
straight lines, in all directions, with a vast velocity,
and penetrating all bodies. When two bodies are
near each other, they intercept the current which
would flow in the intermediate space if they were
not there, and thus receive a tendency towards each
other from the pressure of the currents on their
farther sides. Without examining further this cu-
rious and ingenious hypothesis, we may make upon
it the same kind of observations as before;—that it
is perfectly gratuitous, except as a means of explain-
ing the phenomena; and that, if it were proved, it
would still remain to be shown what necessity has
caused the existence of these two kinds of matter;
the first kind being that which is commonly called
matter, and which alone affects our senses, while it
is inert as to any tendency to motion; the second
kind being something imperceptible to our senses,
except by the effects it produces on matter of the
former kind; yet exerting an impulse on every ma-
terial body, permeating every portion of common
matter, flowing with inconceivable volocity, in inex-
haustible abundance, from every part of the abyss of
infinity on one side, to the opposite part of the same
LAW OF GRAVITATION. 175
abyss; and so constituted that through all eternity it
can never bend its path, or return, or tarry in its
COUTS62.
If we were to accept this theory, it would little or
nothing diminish our wonder at the structure of the
universe. We might well continue to admire the evi-
dence of contrivance, if such a machinery should be
found to produce all the effects which flow from the
law of gravitation.
7. The arguments for and against the necessity of
the law of the inverse square of the distance in the
force of gravity, were discussed with great anima-
tion about the middle of the last century. Clairault,
an eminent mathematician, who did more than al-
most any other person for the establishment and de-
velopment of the Newtonian doctrines, maintained,
at one period of his researches, not only that the in-
verse square was not the necessary law, but also that
it was not the true law. The occasion of this con-
troversy was somewhat curious.
Newton and other astronomers had found that the
line of the moon's apsides (that is of her greatest and
least distances from the earth) moves round to dif-
ferent parts of the heavens with a velocity twice as
great as that which the calculation from the law of
gravitation seems at first to give. According to the
theory, it appeared that this line ought to move round
once in eighteen years; according to observation, it
moves round once in nine years. This difference,
the only obvious failure of the theory of gravitation,
embarrassed mathematicians exceedingly. It is true,
it was afterwards discovered that the apparent dis-
crepancy arose from a mistake ; the calculation,
which is long and laborious, was supposed to have
been carried far enough to get close to the truth;
but it appeared afterwards that the residue which
had been left out as insignificant, produced, by an
unexpected turn in the reckoning, an effect as large
as that which had been taken for the whole. But
this discovery was not made till afterwards; and in
176 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
the mean time the law of the inverse square appeared
to be at fault. Clairault tried to remedy the defect
by supposing that the force of the earth's gravity con-
sisted of a large force varying as the square of the
distance, and a very small force varying as the fourth
power (the square of the square.) By such a suppo-
sition, observation and theory could be reconciled;
but on the suggestion of it, Buffon came forward
with the assertion that the force could not vary ac-
cording to any other law than the inverse square.
His arguments are rather metaphysical than physi-
cal or mathematical. Gravity, he urges, is a quality,
an emanation; and all emanations are inversely as
the square of the distance, as light, odours. To this
Clairault replies by asking, how we know that light
and odours have their intensity inversely as the
square of the distance from their origin: not, he ob-
serves, by measuring the intensity, but by supposing
these effects to be material emanations. But who,
he asks, supposes gravity to be a material emanation
from the attracting body.
Buffon again pleads that so many facts prove the
law of the inverse square, that a single one, which
occurs to interfere with this agreement, must be in
some manner capable of being explained away.
Clairault replies, that the facts do not prove this law
to obtain exactly; that small effects, of the same or-
der as the one under discussion, have been neglected;
and that therefore the law is only known to be true,
as far as such an approximation goes, and no farther.
Buffon then argues, that there can be no such ad-
ditional fraction of the force, following a different
law, as Clairault supposes: for what, he asks, is there
to determine the magnitude of the fraction to one
amount rather than another? why should nature se-
lect for it any particular magnitude " To this it is re-
plied, that, whether we can explain the fact or not,
nature does select certain magnitudes in preference
to others: that where we ascertain she does this, we
are not to deny the fact because we cannot assign the
LAw OF GRAVITATION. 177
grounds of her preference. What is there, it is asked,
to determine the magnitude of the whole force at
any fixed distance? We cannot tell; yet the force is
of a certain definite intensity and no other. .
Finally, Clairault observes, that we have, in cohe-
sion, capillary attraction, and various other cases,
examples of forces varying according to other laws
than the inverse square; and that therefore this can-
not be the only possible law.
The discrepancy between observation and theory
which gave rise to this controversy was removed, as
has been already stated, by a more exact calcula-
tion: and thus, as Laplace observes, in this case the
metaphysician turned out to be right and the mathe-
matician to be wrong. But most persons, probably,
who are familiar with such trains of speculation, will
allow, that Clairault had the best of the argument,
and that the attempts to show the law of gravitation
to be necessarily what it is, are fallacious and un-
sound.
8. We may observe, however, that the law of gra-
vitation according to the inverse square of the dis-
tance, which thus regulates the motions of the solar
system, is not confined to that province of the uni-
verse, as has been shown by recent researches. It
appears by the observations and calculations of Sir
John Herschel, that several of the stars, called double
stars, consist of a pair of luminous bodies which re-
volve above each other in ellipses, in such a manner
as to show that the force, by which they are attract-
ed to each other, varies according to the law of the
inverse square. We thus learn a remarkable fact
Concerning bodies which seemed so far removed that
no effort of our science could reach them; and we
find that the same law of mutual attraction which we
have before traced to the farthest bounds of the solar
System, prevails also in spaces at a distance compared
with which the orbit of Saturn shrinks into a point.
The establishment of such a truth certainly suggests,
as highly probable, the prevalence of this law among
I'78 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
all the bodies of the universe. And we may there-
fore suppose, that the same ordinance which gave to
the parts of our system that rule by which they fulfil
the purposes of their creation, impressed the same
rule on the other portions of matter which are scat-
tered in the most remote parts of the universe; and
thus gave to their movements the same grounds of
simplicity and harmony which we find reason to ad-
mire, as far as we can acquire any knowledge of our
own more immediate neighbourhood.
CHAPTER XI.
The Laws of Motion.
WE shall now make a few remarks on the general
Laws of Motion by which all mechanical effects take
take place. Are we to consider these as instituted
laws? and if so, can we point out any of the reasons
which we may suppose to have led to the selection
of those laws which really exist 7
The observations formerly made concerning the
inevitable narrowness and imperfection of our con-
clusions on such subjects, apply here, even more
strongly than in the case of the law of gravitation.
We can hardly conceive matter divested of these
laws; and we cannot perceive or trace a millionth
part of the effects which they produce. We cannot,
therefore, expect to go far in pointing out the advan-
tages of these laws such as they now obtain.
It would be easy to show that the fundamental
laws of motion, in whatever form we state them,
possess a very preeminent simplicity, compared with
almost all others, which we might imagine as exist-
ing. This simplicity has indeed produced an effect
on men's minds which, though delusive, appears to
THE LAWS OF MOTION. 179
be very natural; several writers have treated these
laws as self-evident, and necessarily flowing from
the nature of our conceptions. We conceive that
this is an erroneous view, and that these laws are
known to us to be what they are, by experience
only; that they might, so far as we can discern,
have been any others. They appear therefore to be
selected for their fitness to answer their purposes;
and we may, perhaps, be able to point out some in-
stances in which this fitness is apparent to us.
Newton, and many English philosophers, teach the
existence of three separate fundamental laws of mo-
tion, while most of the eminent mathematicians of
France reduce these to two, the law of inertia and
the law that force is proportioned to velocity. As
an example of the views which we wish to illustrate,
we may take the law of inertia, which is identical
with Newton’s first Law of Motion. This law as-
serts, that a body at rest continues at rest, and that
a body in motion goes on moving with its velocity
and direction unchanged, except so far as it is acted
on by extraneous forces.”
We conceive that this law, simple and universal
as it is, cannot be shown to be necessarily true. It
might be difficult to discuss this point in general
terms with any clearness; but let us take the only
example which we know of a motion absolutely uni-
form, in consequence of the absence of any force to
accelerate or retard it;-this motion is the rotation
of the earth on its axis.
1. It is scarcely possible that discussions on such
* If the Laws of Motion are stated as three, which we con-
ceive to be the true view of the subject, the other two, as applied
in mechanical reasonings, are the following: .
Second Law. When a force acts on a body in motion, it
produces the same effect as if the same force acted on a body at
reSt.
Third Law. When a force of the nature of pressure produces
motion, the velocity produced is proportional to the force, other
things beings equal. . .
180 COSMICAL ARRANGEMEN Ts.
subjects should not have a repulsive and scholastic
aspect, and appear like disputes about words rather
than things. For mechanical writers have exercised
all their ingenuity so to circumscribe their notions
and so to define their terms that these fundamental
truths should be expressed in the simplest manner:
the consequence of which has been, that they have
been made to assume the appearance rather of iden-
tical assertions than of general facts of experience.
But in order to avoid this inconvenience, as far as
may be, let us take the first law of motion as exempli-
fied in a particular case, the rotation of the earth.
Of all the motions with which we are acquainted
this is alone invariable. Each day, measured by the
passages of the stars, is so precisely of the same
length that, according to Laplace's calculations, it is
impossible that a difference of hundredth of a second
of time should have obtained between the length of
the day in the earliest ages and at the present time.
Now why is this? How is this very remarkable uni-
formity preserved in this particular phenomenon,
while all the other motions of the system are subject
to inequalities? How is it that in the celestial ma-
chine no retardation takes place by the lapse of time,
as would be the case in any machine which it would
be possible for human powers to construct? The an-
swer is, that in the earth’s revolution on her axis no
cause operates to retard the speed, like the imperfec-
tion of materials, the friction of supports, the resis-
tance of the ambient medium; impediments which
cannot, in any human mechanism, however perfect,
be completely annihilated. But here we are led to
ask again, why should the speed continue the same
when not affected by an extraneous cause 7 Why
should it not languish and decay of itself by the mere
lapse of time? That it might do so, involves no con-
tradiction, for it was the common, though erroneous,
belief of all mechanical speculators, to the time of
Galileo. We can conceive velocity to diminish in
proceeding from a certain point of time, as easily as

THE LAWS OF MOTION. 181
we can conceive force to diminish in proceeding
from a certain point of space, which in attractive
forces really occurs. But, it is sometimes said, the
motion (that is the velocity) must continue the same
from one instant to another, for there is nothing to
change it. This appears to be taking refuge in
words. We may call the velocity, that is the speed
of a body, its motion; but we cannot, by giving it
this name, make it a thing which has any d priori
claim to permanence, much less any self-evident con-
stancy. Why must the speed of a body, left to itself,
continue the same, any more than its temperature?
Hot bodies grow cooler of themselves, why should
not quick bodies go slower of themselves? Why must
a body describe one thousand feet in the next sedond,
because it has described one thousand feet in the
last? Nothing but experience, under proper circum-
stances, can inform us whether bodies, abstracting
from external agency, do move according to such a
rule. We find that they do so, we learn that al!
diminution of their speed which ever takes place, can
be traced to external causes. Contrary to all that
men had guessed, motion appears to be of itself end-
less and unwearied. In order to account for the un-
alterable permanence of the length of our day, all
that is requisite is to show that there is no let or
hindrance in the way of the earth’s rotation;–no re-
sisting medium or alteration of size,_she “spinning
sleeps” on her axle, as the poet expresses it, and may
go on sleeping with the same regularity for ever, so
far as the experimental properties of motion are con-
cerned. - .
Such is the necessary consequence of the first law
of motion; but the law itself has no necessary ex-
istence, so far as we can see. It was discovered only
after various perplexities and false conjectures of
speculators on mechanics. We have learnt that it
is so, but we have not learnt, nor can any one under-
take to teach us, that it must have been so. For
aught we can tell, it is one among a thousand equally
Q
I82 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
possible laws, which might have regulated the mo-
tions of bodies. -
2. But though we have thus no reason to consider
this as the only possible law, we have good reason
to consider it as the best, or at least as possessing all
that we can conceive of advantage. It is the sim-
ſº. conceivable of such laws. If the velocity had
een compelled to change with the time, there must
have been a law of the change, and the kind and
amount of this change must have been determined
by its dependence on the time and other conditions.
This, though quite supposable, would undoubtedly
have been more complex than the present state of
things. And though complexity does not appear to
embarrass the operations of the laws of nature, and
is admitted, without scruple, when there is reason for
it, simplicity is the usual character of such laws, and
appears to have been a ground of selection in the
formation of the universe, as it is a mark of beauty
to us in our contemplation of it. - -
But there is a still stronger apparent reason for the
selection of this law of the preservation of motion.
If the case had been otherwise, the universe must
necessarily in the course of ages have been reduced
to a state of rest, or at least to a state not sensibly
differing from it. If the earth’s motion, round its
axis, had slackened by a very small quantity, for in-
stance, by a hundredth of a second in a revolution,
and in this proportion continued, the day would have
been already lengthened by six hours in the six
thousand years which have elapsed since the history
of the world began; and if we suppose a longer pe-
riod to precede or to follow, the day might be in-
creased to a month or to any length. All the adapta-
tions which depend on the length of the day would
consequently be deranged. But this would not be
all; for the same law of motion is equally requisite
for the preservation of the annual motion of the
earth. If her motion were retarded by the estab-
lishment of any other law instead of the existing one,
FRICTION. - 183
she would wheel nearer and nearer to the sun at
every revolution, and at last reach the centre, like a
falling hoop. The same would happen to the other
planets; and the whole solar system would, in the
course of a certain period, be gathered into a heap
of matter without life or motion. In the present
state of things on the other hand, the system, as we
have already explained; is, by a combination of re-
markable provisions, calculated for an almost inde-
finite existence, of undiminished fitness for its pur-
poses.
There are, therefore, manifest reasons, why, of all
laws which could occupy the place of the first law
of motion, the one which now obtains is the only one
consistent with the durability and uniformity of the
system;-the one, therefore, which we may naturally
conceive to be selected by a wise contriver. And as,
along with this, it has appeared that we have no sort
of right to attribute the establishment of this law to.
any thing but selection, we have here a striking evi-
dence, to lead us to a perception of that Divine
mind, by which means so simple are made to answer
purposes so extensive and so beneficial.
£HAPTER XII.
Friction.*
WE shall not pursue this argument of the last
chapter, by considering the other laws of motion in
the same manner as we have there considered the
* Though Friction is not concerned in any cosmical pheno-
mena, we have thought this the proper place to introduce the
consideration of it; since the contrast between the cases in
which it does act, and those in which it does not, is best illus-
trated by a comparison of cosmical with terrestrial motions.
184 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
first, which might be done. But the facts whicis
form exceptions and apparent contradictions to the
first law of which we have been treating, and which
are very numerous, offer, we coneeive, an additional
exemplification of the same argument; and this we
shall endeavour to illustrate. a
The rule that a body naturally moves for ever
with an undiminished speed, is so far from being ob-
viously true, that it appears on a first examination to
be manifestly false. The hoop of the school boy, left
to itself, runs on a short distance, and then stops;
his top spins a little while, but finally flags and falls;
all motion on the earth appears to decay by its own
nature; all matter which we move appears to have
a perpetual tendency to divest itself of the velocity
which we communicate to it. How is this recon-
cileable with the first law of motion on which we
have been insisting? -
It is reconciled principally by considering the ef-
fect of Friction. Among terrestrial objects frietion
exerts an agency almost as universal and constant
as the laws of motion themselves; an agency which
completely changes and disguises the results of those
laws. We shall consider some of these effects.
It is probably not necessary to explain at any
length the nature and operation of friction. When
a body cannot move without causing two surfaces to
rub together, this rubbing has a tendency to diminish
the body's motion or to prevent it entirely. If the
body of a carriage be placed on the earth without
the wheels, a considerable force will be requisite in
order to move it at all: it is here the friction against
the ground which obstructs the motion. If the car-
riage be placed on its wheels, a much less force will
move it, but if moved it will soon stop: it is the fric-
tion at the ground and at the axles which stops it:
placed on a level rail road, with well made and well
oiled wheels, and once put in motion, it might run a
considerable distance alone, for the friction is here

FRICTION. 185
much less; but there is friction, and therefore the
motion would after a time cease.
1. The friction which we shall principally consider
is the friction which prevents motion. So employed,
friction is one of the most universal and important
agents in the mechanism of our daily comforts and
occupations. It is a force which is called into play
to an extent incomparably greater than all the other
forces with which we are concerned in the course of
our daily life. We are dependent upon it at every
instant and in every action; and it is not possible to
enumerate the ways in which it serves us; scarcely
even to suggest a sufficient number of them to give
us a true notion of its functions. -
What can appear a more simple operation than
standing and walking? yet it is easy to see that
without the aid of friction these simple actions would
scarcely be possible. Every one knows how difficult
and dangerous they are when performed on smooth
ice. In such a situation we cannot always succeed
in standing: if the ice be very smooth, it is by no
means easy to walk, even when the surface is per-
fectly level; and if it were ever so little inclined, no
one would make the attempt. Yet walking on the
ice and on the ground differ only in our experiencing
more friction in the latter case. We say more, for
there is a considerable friction even in the case of
ice, as we see by the small distance which a stone
slides when thrown along the surface. It is this fric-
tion of the earth which, at every step we take, pre-
vents the foot from sliding back; and thus allows us
to push the body and the other foot forwards. And
when we come to violent bodily motions, to running, .
leaping, pulling or pushing objects, it is easily seen
how entirely we depend upon the friction of the
ground for our strength and force. Every one
knows how completely powerless we become in any
of these actions by the foot slipping.
In the same manner it is the friction of objects to
which the hand is applied, which enables us to hold
Q 2
186 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS,
them with any degree of firmness. In some contests
it was formerly the custom for the combatants to rub
their bodies with oil, that the adversary might not
be able to keep his grasp. If the pole of the boat-
man, the rope of the sailor, were thus smooth and
lubricated, how weak would be the thrust and the
pull ! Yet this would only be the removal of frie-
tion. -
Our buildings are no less dependent on this force
for their stability. Some edifices are erected with-
out the aid of cement; and if the stones be large
and well squared, such structures may be highly
substantial and durable; even when rude and slight,
houses so built answer the purposes of life. These
are entirely upheld by friction, and without that agent
they would be thrown down by the Zephyr, far more
easily than if all the stones were lumps of ice with a
thawing surface. But even in cases where cement
binds the masonry, it does not take the duty of hold-
ing it together. In consequence of the existence of
friction, there is no constant tendency of the stones
to separate; they are in a state of repose. If this
were not so, if every shock and every breeze re-
quired to be counteracted by the cement, no compo-
sition exists which would long sustain such a wear
and tear. The cement excludes the corroding ele-
ments, and helps to resist extraordinary violence ;
but it is friction which gives the habitual state of rest.
We are not to consider friction as a small force,
slightly modifying the effects of other agencies. On
the contrary its amount is in most cases very great.
When a body lies loose on the ground, the friction is
equal to one-third or one-half, or in some cases the
whole of its weight. But in cases of bodies support-
ed by oblique pressure, the amount is far more enor-
mous. In the arch of a bridge, the friction which is
called into play between two of the vaulting stones,
may be equal to the whole weight of the bridge. In
such cases this conservative force is so great, that
the common theory, which neglects it, does not help
FRICTION. • 187
us even to guess what will take place. According
to the theory, certain forms of arches only will stand,
but in practice almost any form will stand, and it is
not easy to construct a model of a bridge which will
fall.
We may see the great force of friction in the
brake, by which a large weight running down a long
inclined plane has its motion moderated and stopt;
in the windlass, where a few coils of the rope round
a cylinder sustain the stress and weight of a large
iron anchor; in the nail or screw which holds toge-
ther large beams; in the mode of raising large blocks
of granite by an iron rod driven into a hole in the
stone. Probably no greater forces are exercised in
any processes in the arts than the force of friction ;
and it is always employed to produce rest, stability,
moderate motion. Being always ready and never
wearied, always at hand and augmenting with the
exigency, it regulates, controls, subdues all motions;
—counteracts all other agents;–and finally gains
the mastery over all other terrestrial agencies, how-
ever violent, frequent, or long continued. The per-
petual action of all other terrestrial forces appears,
on a large scale, only as so many interruptions of
the constant and stationary rule of friction.
The objects which every where surround us, the
books or dishes which stand on our tables, our tables
and chairs themselves, the loose clods and stones in
the field, the heaviest masses produced by nature or
art, would be in a perpetual motion, quick or slow
according to the forces which acted on them, and to
their size, if it were not for the tranquillizing and
steadying effects of the agent we are considering.
Without this, our apartments, if they kept their
shape, would exhibit to us articles of furniture, and
of all other kinds, sliding and creeping from side to
side with every push and every wind, like loose ob-
jects in a ship's cabin, when she is changing her
course in a gale.
Here, then, we have a force, most extensive and
188 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
J
incessant in its operation, which is absolutely essen-
tial to the business of this terrestrial world, accord-
ing to any notion which we can form. The more
any one considers its effects, and the more he will
find how universally dependent he is upon it, in
every action of his life; resting or moving, dealing
with objects of art or of nature, with instruments of
enjoyment or of action.
2. Now we have to observe concerning this agent,
Friction, that we have no ground for asserting it to
be a necessary result of other properties of matter,
for instance, of their solidity and coherency. Phi-
losophers have not been able to deduce the laws of
friction from the other known properties of matter,
nor even to explain what we know experimentally of
such laws, (which is not much) without introducing
new hypotheses concerning the surfaces of bodies,
&c.—hypotheses which are not supplied us by any
other set of phenomena. So far as our knowledge
goes, friction is a separate property, and may be
conceived to have been bestowed upon matter for
particular purposes. How well it answers the pur-
pose of fitting matter for the uses of the daily life of
man, we have already seen.
We may make suppositions as to the mode in
which friction is connected with the texture of bodies;
but little can be gained for philosophy, or for specu-
lation of any kind, by such conjectures respecting
unknown connexions. If, on the other hand, we
consider this property of friction, and find that it
prevails there, and there only, where the general
functions, analogies, and relations of the universe
require it, we shall probably receive a strong impres-
sion that it was introduced into the system of the
world for a purpose. -
3. It is very remarkable that this force, which is
thus so efficacious and discharges such important
offices in all earthly mechanism, disappears altoge-
ther when we turn to the mechanism of the heavens.
All motions on the earth soon stop;-a machine
FRICTION. 189
which imitates the movements of the stars cannot
go long without winding up : but the stars themselves
have gone on in their courses for ages, with no dimi-
nution of their motions, and offer no obvious pros-
pect of any change. This is so palpable a fact, that
the first attempts of men to systematize their me-
chanical notions were founded upon it. The ancients
held that motions were to be distinguished into natu-
ral motions and violent, the former go on without
diminution—the latter are soon extinguished;—the
motions of the stars are of the former kind;—those
of a stone thrown, and in short all terrestrial mo-
tions, of the latter. Modern philosophers maintain
that the laws of motion are the same for celestial
and terrestrial bodies;–that all motions are natural
according to the above description;–but that in ter-
restrial motions, friction comes in and alters their cha-
racter, destroys them so speedily that they appear to
have existed only during an effort. And that this is
the case will not now be contested. Is it not then
somewhat remarkable that the same laws which pro-
duce a state of permanent motion in the heavens,
should, on the earth, give rise to a condition in which
rest is the rule and motion the exception ? The air,
the waters, and the lighter portions of matter are,
no doubt, in a state of perpetual motion; over these
friction has no empire: yet even their motions are
interrupted, alternate, variable, and on the whole
slight deviations from the condition of equilibrium.
But in the solid parts of the globe, rest predominates
incomparably over motion: and this, not only with
regard to the portions which cohere as parts of the
same solid; for the whole surface of the earth is
covered with loose masses, which, if the power of
friction were abolished, would rush from their places
and begin one universal and interminable dance,
with would make the earth absolutely uninhabit-
a DH6.
If, on the other hand, the dominion of friction were
extended in any considerable degree into the planet-
190 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
ary spaces, there would soon be an end of the sys-
tem. If the planet had moved in a fluid, as the Car-
tesians supposed, and if this fluid had been subject to
the rules of friction which prevail in terrestrial fluids,
their motions could not have been of long duration.
The solar system must soon have ceased to be a sys-
tem of revolving bodies.
But friction is neither abolished on the earth, nor
active in the heavens. It operates where it is wanted,
it is absent where it would be prejudicial. And both
these circumstances occasion, in a remarkable man-
ner, the steadiness of the course of nature. The
stable condition of the objects in man’s immediate
neighbourhood, and the unvarying motions of the
luminaries of heaven, are alike conducive to his well-
being. This requires that he should be able to de-
pend upon a fixed order of place, a fixed course of
time. It requires, therefore, that terrestrial objects
should be affected by friction, and that celestial
should not; as is the case, in fact. What further
evidence of benevolent design could this part of the
constitution of the universe supply?
4. There is another view which may be taken of
the forces which operate on the earth to produce
permanency or change. Some parts of the terres-
trial system are under the dominion of powers which
act energetically to prevent all motion, as the crys-
talline forces by which the parts of rocks are bound
together; other parts are influenced by powers which
produce a perpetual movement and change in the
matter of which they consist; thus plants and ani-
mals are in a constant state of internal movement,
by the agency of the vital forces. In the former case
rigid immutability, in the latter perpetual develope-
ment, are the tendencies of the agencies employed.
Now in the case of objects affected by friction, we
have a kind of intermediate condition, between the
constantly fixed and the constantly moveable. Such
objects can and do move; but they move but for a
short time if left to the laws of nature. When at
FRICTION . 191
rest, they can easily be put in motion, but still not
with unlimited ease; a certain finite effort, different
in different cases, is requisite for their purpose. Now
this immediate condition, this capacity of receiving
readily and alternately the states of rest and motion,
is absolutely requisite for the nature of man, for the
exertion of will, of contrivance, of foresight, as well
as for the comfort of life and the conditions of our
material existence. If all objects were fixed and
immoveable, as if frozen into one mass; or if they
were susceptible of such motions only as are found
in the parts of vegetables, we attempt in vain to con-
ceive what would come of the business of the world.
But besides the state of a particle which cannot be
moved, and of a particle which cannot be stopped,
we have the state of a particle moveable but not
moved; or moved, but moved only while we choose:
and this state is that about which the powers, the
thoughts, and the wants of man are mainly conver-
Sant.
Thus the forces by which solidity and by which
organic action are produced, the laws of permanence
and of developement, do not bring about all that hap-
pens. Besides these, there is a mechanical condition,
that of a body exposed to friction, which is neither
one of absolute permanency nor one naturally pro-
gressive; but is yet one absolutely necessary to make
material objects capable of being instruments and
aids to man; and this is the condition of by far the
greater part of terrestrial things. The habitual
course of events with regard to motion and rest is
not the same for familiar moveable articles, as it is
for the parts of the mineral, or of the vegetable world,
when left to themselves; such articles are in a con-
dition far better adapted than any of those other con-
ditions would be, to their place and purpose. Surely
this shows us an adaptation, an adjustment, of the
constitution of the material world to the nature of
man. And as the organization of plants cannot be
conceived otherwise than as having their life and
192 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
growth for its object, so we cannot conceive that
friction should be one of the leading agencies in the
world in which man is placed, without supposing
that it was intended to be of use when man should
walk and run, and build houses and ships, and bridges,
and execute innumerable other processes, all of which
would be impossible, admirably constituted as man is
in other respects, if friction did not exist. And be-
lieving, as we conceive we cannot but believe, that
the laws of motion and rest were thus given with re-
ference to their ends, we perceive in this instance, as
in others, how wide and profound this reference is,
how simple in its means, how fertile in its conse-
quences, how effective in its details,

B O OK III.
RELIGIOUS VIEWS,
$
THE contemplation of the material universe ex-
hibits God to us as the author of the laws of material
nature; bringing before us a wonderful spectacle, in
the simplicity, the comprehensiveness, the mutual
adaptation of these laws, and in the vast variety of
harmonious and beneficial effects produced by their
mutual bearing and combined operation. But it is
the consideration of the moral world, of the results
of our powers of thought and action, which leads us
to regard the Deity in that light in which our relation
to him becomes a matter of the highest interest and
importance. We perceive that man is capable of re-
ferring his actions to principles of right and wrong;
that both his faculties and his virtues may be unfold-
ed and advanced by the discipline which arises from
the circumstances of human society; that good men
can be discriminated from the bad, only by a course
of trial, by struggles with difficulty and temptation;
that the best men feel deeply the need of relying, in
such conflicts, on the thought of a superintending
Spiritual power; that our views of justice, our capa-
city for intellectual and moral advancement, and a
crowd of hopes and anticipations which rise in our
bosoms unsought, and cling there with inexhaustible
tenacity, will not allow us to acquiesce in the belief
that this life is the end of our existence. We are
thus led to see that our relation the Superintender of
our moral being, to the Depositary of the supreme
R
194 RELIGIOUS VIEWS,
law of just and right, is a relation of incalculable
consequence. We find that we cannot be permitted
to be merely contemplators and speculators with re-
gard to the Governor of the moral world; we must
obey His will; we must turn our affections to Him;
we must advance in His favour; or we offend against
the nature of our position in the scheme of which
He is the author and sustainer.
It is far from our purpose to represent natural re-
ligion, as of itself sufficient for our support and guid-
ance; or to underrate the manner in which our views
of the Lord of the universe have been, much more,
perhaps, than we are sometimes aware, illustrated
and confirmed by lights derived from revelation.
We do not here speak of the manner in which men
have come to believe in God, as the Governor of the
moral world; but of the fact, that by the aid of one
or both of these two guides, Reason or Revelation,
reflecting persons in every age have been led to such
a belief. And we conceive it may be useful to point
out some connexion between such a belief of a just
and holy Governor, and the conviction, which we
have already endeavoured to impress upon the
reader, of a wise and benevolent Creator of the phy-
sical world. This we shall endeavour to do in the pre-
sent book.
At the same time that men have thus learnt to look
upon God as their Governor and Judge, the source
of their support and reward, they have also been led,
not only to ascribe to him power and skill, knowledge
and goodness, but also attribute to him these quali-
ties in a mode and degree excluding all limit:-to
consider him as almighty, all-wise, of infinite know-
ledge and inexhaustible goodness; every where
present and active, but incomprehensible by our
minds, both in the manner of his agency, and the
degree of his perfections. And this impression con-
cerning the Deity appears to be that which the
mind receives from all objects of contemplation and
all modes of advance towards truth. To this con-
A MORAL GOVERNOR. 195
ception it leaps with alacrity and joy, and in this
it acquiesces with tranquil satisfaction and growing
confidence; while any other view of the nature of
the Divine Power which formed and sustained the
world, is incoherent and untenable, exposed to insur-
mountable objections and intolerable incongruities.
We shall endeavour to show that the modes of em-
ployment of the thoughts to which the well conducted
study of nature gives rise, do tend, in all their forms,
to produce or strengthen this impression on the
mind; and that such an impression, and no other, is
consistent with the widest views and most compre-
hensive aspects of nature and of philosophy, which
our Natural Philosophy opens to us. This will be
the purpose of the latter part of the present book. In
the first place we shall proceed with the object first
mentioned, the connexion which may be perceived
between the evidences of creative power, and of mo-
ral government, in the world.
CHAPTER I.
The Creator of the Physical World is the Governor of
the JMoral World.
WITH our views of the moral government of the
world and the religious interests of man, the study of
material nature is not and cannot be directly and
closely connected. But it may be of some service to
trace in these two lines of reasoning, seemingly so
remote, a manifest convergence to the same point, a
demonstrable unity of result. It may be useful to
show that we are thus led, not to two rulers of the
universe, but to one God;—to make it appear that
the Creator and Preserver of the world is also the
Governor and Judge of men;–that the Author of the
Laws of Nature is also the Author of the Law of
Duty:-that He who regulates corporeal things by
196 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
properties of attraction and affinity and assimilating
power, is the same Being who regulates the actions
and conditions of men, by the influence of the feeling
of responsibility, the perception of right and wrong,
the hope of happiness, the love of good.
The conviction that the Divine attributes which
we are taught by the study of the material world,
and those which we learn from the contemplation of
man as a responsible agent, belong to the same Di-
vine Being, will be forced upon us, if we consider
the manner in which all the parts of the universe,
the corporeal and intellectual, the animál and moral,
are connected with each other. In each of these
provinces of creation we trace refined adaptations
and arrangements which lead us to the Creator and
and Director of so skilful a system; but these pro-
vinces are so intermixed, these different trains of
contrivance so interwoven, that we cannot, in our
thoughts, separate the author of one part from the
author of another. The Creator of the Heavens and
of the Earth, of the inorganic and of the organic
world, of animals and of man, of the affections and
the conscience, appears inevitably to be one and the
same God.
We will pursue this reflection a little more into
detail.
1. The Atmosphere is a mere mass of fluid floating
on the surface of the ball of the earth; it is one of
the inert and inorganic portions of the universe, and
must be conceived to have been formed by the same
Power which formed the solid mass of the earth and
all other parts of the solar system. But how far is
the atmosphere from being inert in its effects on or-
ganic beings, and unconnected with the world of
life! By what wonderful adaptations of its mechani-
cal and chemical properties, and of the vital powers
of plants, to each other, are the developement and
well-being of plants and animals secured The crea-
tor of the atmosphere must have been also the crea-
tor of plants and animals: we cannot for an instant
A MORAL GOVERNOR. 197
believe the contrary. But the atmosphere is not only
subservient to the life of animals, and of man among
the rest; it is also the vehicle of voice; it answers
the purpose of intercourse; and, in the case of man,
of rational intercourse. We have seen how remark-
ably the air is fitted for this office; the construction
of the organs of articulation, by which they are ena-
bled to perform their part of the work, is, as is well
known, a most exquisite system of contrivances. But
though living in an atmosphere capable of transmit-
ting articulate sound, and though provided with or-
gans fitted to articulate, man would never attain to
the use of language, if he were not also endowed
with another set of faculties. The powers of abstrac-
tion and generalization, memory and reason, the ten-
dencies which occasion the inflexions and combina-
tions of words, are all necessary to the formation
and use of language. Are not these parts of the
same scheme of which the bodily faculties by which
we are able to speak are another part? Has man
his mental powers independently of the creator of
his bodily frame 7 To what purpose then, or by
what cause was the curious and complex machinery
of the tongue, the glottis, the larynx produced 7
These are useful for speech, and full of contrivances
which suggest such a use as the end for which those
organs were constructed. But speech appears to
have been no less contemplated in the intellectual
structure of man. The processes of which we have
spoken, generalization, abstraction, reasoning, have
a close dependence on the use of speech. These fa-
culties are presupposed in the formation of language,
but they are developed and perfected by the use of
language. The mind of man then, with all its intel-
lectual endowments, is the work of the same artist
by whose hands his bodily frame was fashioned; as
his bodily faculties again are evidently constructed
by the maker of those elements on which their ac-
tion depends. The creator of the atmosphere and
of the material universe is the creator of the human
R 2 r
198 RELIGIOUS VíEWS.
mind, and the author of those wonderful powers of
thinking, judging, inferring, discovering, by which
we are able to reason concerning the world in which
we are placed; and which aid usin lifting our thoughts
to the source of our being himself.
2. Light, or the means by which light is propagat-
ed, is another of the inorganic elements which forms
a portion of the mere material world. The lumini-
ferous ether, if we adopt that theory, or the fluid
light of the theory of emission, must indubitably per-
vade the remotest regions of the universe, and must
be supposed to exist, as soon as we suppose the ma-
terial parts of the universe to be in existence. The
origin of light then must be at least as far removed
from us as the origin of the solar system. Yet how
closely connected are the properties of light with the
structure of our own bodies! The mechanism of the
organs of vision and the mechanism of light are, as
we have seen, most curiously adapted to each other.
We must suppose, then, that the same power and
skill produced one and the other of these two sets of
contrivances, which so remarkably fit into each other.
The creator of light is the author of our visual powers.
But how small a portion does mere visual perception
constitute of the advantages which we derive from
vision | We possess ulterior faculties and capacities
by which sight becomes a source of happiness and
good to man. The sense of beauty, the love of art,
the pleasure arising from the contemplation of na-
ture, are all dependent on the eye; and we can hard-
ly doubt that these faculties were bestowed on man
to further the best interests of his being. The sense
of beauty both animates and refines his domestic
tendencies; the love of art is a powerful instrument
for raising him above the mere cravings and satis-
factions of his animal nature; the expansion of mind
which rises in us at the sight of the starry sky, the
cloud-capt mountain, the boundless ocean, seems in-
tended to direct our thoughts by an impressive though
indefinite feeling, to the Infinite Author of All. But
A MORAL GOVERNOR, 199
if these faculties be thus part of the scheme of man's
inner being, given him by a good and wise creator,
can we suppose that this creator was any other than
the creator also of those visual organs, without which
the faculties could have no operation and no exist-
ence " As clearly as light and the eye are the work
of the same author, so clearly also do our capacities
for the most exalted visual pleasures, and the feelings
flowing from them, proceed from the same Divine
Hand.
3. The creator of the earth must be conceived to
be the author also of all those qualities in the soil,
chemical and whatever else, by which it supports
vegetable life, under all the modifications of natural
and artificial condition. Among the attributes which
the earth thus possesses, there are some which seem
to have an especial reference to man in a state of
society. Such are—the power of the earth to increase
its produce under the influence of cultivation, and
the necessary existence of property in land, in order
that this cultivation may be advantageously applied;
the rise, under such circumstances, of a surplus pro-
duce, of a quantity of subsistence exceeding the
wants of the cultivators alone; and the consequent
possibility of inequalities of rank, and of all the ar-
rangements of civil society. These are all parts of
the constitution of the earth. But these would all
remain mere idle possibilities, if the nature of man
had not a corresponding direction. If man had not
a social and economical tendency, a disposition to
congregate and co-operate, to distribute possessions
and offices among the members of the community,
to make and obey and enforce laws, the earth would
in vain be ready to respond to the care of the hus-
bandman. Must we not then suppose that this attri-
bute of the earth was bestowed upon it by Him who
gave to man those corresponding attributes, through
which the apparent niggardliness of the soil is the
source of general comfort and security, of polity and
law 7 Must we not suppose that He who created the
200 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
soil also inspired man with those social desires and
feelings which produce cities and states, laws and
institutions, arts and civilization; and that thus the
apparently inert mass of earth is a part of the same
scheme as those faculties and powers with which
man's moral and intellectual progress is most con-
nected?
4. Again:-It will hardly be questioned that the
author of the material elements is also the author
of the structure of animals, which is adapted to and
provided for by the constitution of the elements in
such innumerable ways. But the author of the
bodily structure of animals must also be the au-
thor of their instincts, for without these the struc-
ture would not answer its purpose. And these
instincts frequently assume the character of affec-
tions in a most remarkable manner. The love of
offspring, of home, of companions, are often display-
ed by animals, in a way that strikes the most indif-
ferent observer; and yet these affections will hardly
be denied to be a part of the same scheme as the in-
stincts by which the same animals seek food and the
gratifications of sense. Who can doubt that the
anxious and devoted affection of the mother-bird for
for her young after they are hatched, is a part of the
same system of Providence as the instinct by which
she is impelled to sit upon her eggs? and this, of the
same by which her eggs are so organized that incu-
bation leads to the birth of the young animal? Nor,
again, can we imagine that while the structure and
affections of animals belong to one system of things,
the affections of man, in many respects so similar to
those of animals, and connected with the bodily
frame in a manner so closely analogous, can belong
to a different scheme. Who, that reads the touching
instances of maternal affection, related so often of
the women of all nations, and of the females of all
animals, can doubt that the principle of action is the
same in the two cases, though enlightened in one of
them by the rational faculty." And who can place in

A MORAL GOVERNOR, 201
separate provinces the supporting and protecting
love of the father and the mother? or consider as
entirely distinct from these, and belonging to another
part of our nature, the other kinds of family affec-
tion? or disjoin man's love of his home, his clan, his
tribe, his country, from the affection which he bears
to his family' The love of offspring, home, friends,
in man, is then part of the same system of contriv-
ances of which bodily organization is another part-
And thus the author of our corporeal frame is also the
author of our capacity of kindness and resentment,
of our love and of our wish to be loved, of all the
emotions which bind us to individuals, to our fami-
lies, and to our kind. - . . -
It is not necessary here to follow out and classify
these emotions and affections; or to examine how
they are combined and connected with our other
motives of action, mutually giving and receiving
strength and direction. The desire of esteem, of
power, of knowledge, of society, the love of kindred,
of friends, of our country, are manifestly among the
main forces by which man is urged to act and to ab-
stain. And as these parts of the constitution of man
are clearly intended, as we conceive, to impel him
in his appointed path ; so we conceive that they are
no less clearly the work of the same great Artificer
who created the heart, the eye, the hand, the tongue,
and that elemental world in which, by means of these
instruments, man pursues the objects of his appetites,
desires, and affections. . . . .
5. But if the Creator of the world be also the au-
thor of our intellectual powers, of our feeling for
the beautiful and the sublime, of our social tenden-
cies, and of our natural desires and affections, we
shall find it impossible not to ascribe also to Him the
higher directive attributes of our mature, the con-
science and the religious feeling, the reference of our
actions to the rule of duty and to the will of God.
It would not suit the plan of the present treatise
to enter into any detailed analysis of the connexion
202 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
of these various portions of our moral constitution.
But we may observe that the existence and univer-
sality of the conception of duty and right cannot be
doubted, however men may differ as to its original
or derivative nature. All men are perpetually led
to form judgments concerning actions, and emotions
which lead to action, as right or wrong; as what
they ought orought not to do or feel. There is a fa-
culty which approves and disapproves, acquits or
condemns the workings of our other faculties. Now,
what shall we say of such a judiciary principle, thus
introduced among our motives to action? Shall we
conceive that while the other springs of action are
balanced against each other by our Creator, this, the
most pervading and universal regulator, was no part
of the original scheme " That—while the love of
animal pleasures, of power, of fame, the regard for
friends, the pleasure of bestowing pleasure, were in-
fused into man as influences by which his course of
life was to be carried on, and his capacities and
powers developed and exercised;—this reverence
for a moral law, this acknowledgment of the obliga-
tion of duty,+a feeling which is every where found,
and which may become a powerful, a predominating
motive of action,--was given for no purpose, and
belongs not to the design? Such an opinion would
be much as if we should acknowledge the skill and
contrivance manifested in the other parts of a ship,
but should refuse to recognize the rudder as exhibit-
ing any evidence of a purpose. Without the rever-
ence which the opinion of right inspires, and the
scourge of general disapprobation inflicted on that
which is accounted wicked, society could scarcely
go on; and certainly the feelings and thoughts and
characters of men could not be what they are.
Those impulses of nature which involve no acknow-
ledgment of responsibility, and the play and strug-
gle of interfering wishes, might preserve the species
in some shape of existence, as we see in the case of
brutes. But a person must be strangely constituted,
A MORAL GOVERNOR. 203
who, living amid the respect for law, the admiration
for what is good, the order and virtues and graces
of civilized nations, (all which have their origin in
some degree in the feeling of responsibility) can
maintain that all these are casual and extraneous
circumstances, no way contemplated in the forma-
tion of man; and that a condition in which there
should be obligation in law, no merit in self-restraint,
no beauty in virtue, is equally suited to the powers
and the nature of man, and was equally contem-
plated when those powers were given him.
If this supposition be too extravagant to be admit-
ted, as it appears to be, it remains then that man,
intended, as we have already seen from his structure
and properties, to be a discoursing, social being,
acting under the influence of affections, desires, and
purposes, was also intended to act under the influ-
ence of a sense of duty; and that the acknowledg-
ment of the obligation of a moral law is as much
part of his nature, as hunger or thirst, maternal love
or the desire of power; that, therefore, in conceiv-
ing man as the work of a Creator, we must imagine
his powers and character given him with an inten-
tion on the Creator's part that this sense of duty
should occupy its place in his constitution as an ac-
tive and thinking being: and that this directive and
judiciary principle is a part of the work of the same
Author who made the elements to minister to the
material functions, and the arrangements of the
world to occupy the individual and social affections
of his living creatures. -
This principle of conscience, it may further be
observed, does not stand upon the same level as the
other impulses of our constitution by which we are
prompted or restrained. By its very nature and es-
sence, it possesses a supremacy over all others.
“Your obligation to obey this law is its being the
law of your nature. That your conscience approves
of and attests such a course of action is itself alone
an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself
204 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
to show us the way we should walk in, but it like-
wise carries its own authority with it, that it is our
natural guide: the guide assigned us by the author
of our nature.”* That we ought to do an action, is
of itself a sufficient and ultimate answer to the ques-
tions, why we should do it!—how we are obliged to
do it? The conviction of duty implies the soundest
reason, the strongest obligation, of which our nature
is susceptible.
We appear then to be using only language which
is well capable of being justified, when we speak of
this irresistible esteem for what is right, this convic-
tion of a rule of action extending beyond the grati-
fication of our irreflective impulses, as an impress
stamped upon the human mind by the Deity himself;
a trace of His nature; an indication of His will; an
announcement of His purpose; a promise of His
favour ; and though this faculty may need to be con-
firmed and unfolded, instructed and assisted by other
aids, it still seems to contain in itself a sufficient in-
timation that the highest objects of man’s existence
are to be attained, by means of a direct and inti-
mate reference of his thoughts and actions to the
Divine Author of his being. -
Such then is the Deity to which the researches of
Natural Theology point; and so far is the train of
reflections in which we have engaged, from being
merely speculative and barren. With the material
world we cannot stop. If a superior Intelligence
have ordered and adjusted the succession of seasons
and the structure of the plants of the field, we must
allow far more than this at first sight would seem to
imply. We must admit still greater powers, still
higher wisdom for the creation of the beasts of the
forest with their faculties; and higher wisdom still
and more transcendent attributes, for the creation of
man. And when we reach this point, we find that it
is not knowledge only, not power only, not foresight
* Butler, Serm. 3.
VASTN ESS OF THE UNIVERSE. 305
and beneficence alone, which we must attribute to
the Maker of the World; but that we must consider
him as the Author, in us, of a reverence for moral
purity and rectitude; and, if the author of such emo-
tions in us, how can we conceive of Him otherwise,
than that these qualities are parts of his nature; and
that he is not only wise and great, and good, incom-
parably beyond our highest conceptions, but also
eonformed in his puposes to the rule which he thus
impresses upon us, that is, Holy in the highest degree
which we can imagine to ourselves as possible.
{XHAPTER Ii.
©n the Vastness of the Universe,
R. THE aspect of the world, even without any of
the peculiar lights which science throws upon it, is
fitted to give us an idea of the greatness of the power
by which it is directed and governed, far exceeding
any notions of power and greatness which are sug-
gested by any other contemplation. The number of
human beings who surround us—the various condi-
tions requisite for their life, nutrition, well-being, all
fulfilled;—the way in which these conditions are
modified, as we pass in thought to other countries,
by climate, temperament, habit;—the vast amount
of the human population of the globe thus made up;-
yet man himself but one among almost endless tribes
of animals;–the forest, the field, the desert, the air,
the Ocean, all teeming with creatures whose bodily
wants are as carefully provided for as his;–the sun,
the clouds, the winds, all attending, as it were, on
these organized beings;–a host of beneficent ener-
gies, unwearied by time and succession, pervading
every corner of the earth;-this spectacle cannot
but give the contemplator a lofty and magnificent
S
206 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
conception of the Author of so vast a work, of the
Buler of so wide and rich an empire, of the Provider
for so many and varied wants, the Director and Ad-
juster of such complex and jarring interests.
But when we take a more exact view of this spec-
tacle, and aid our vision by the discoveries which
have been made of the structure and extent of the
universe, the impression is incalculably increased.
The number and variety of animals, the exquisite
skill displayed in their structure, the comprehensive
and profound relations by which they are connected,
far exceed any thing which we could in any degree
have imagined. But the view of the universe ex-
pands also on another side. The earth, the globular
body thus covered with life, is not the only globe in
the universe. There are, circling about our own sun,
six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous
in their nature: besides our moon and other bodies
analogous to it. No one can resist the temptation to
conjecture, that these globes, some of them much
larger than our own, are not dead and barren;–that
they are, like ours, occupied with organization, life,
intelligence. To conjecture is all that we can do,
yet even by the perception of such a possibility, our
view of the kingdom of nature is enlarged and ele-
vated. The outermost of the planetary globes of
which we have spoken is so far from the sun, that
the central luminary must appear to the inhabitants
of that planet, if any there are, no larger than Ve-
nus does to us; and the length of their year will be
eighty-two of ours.
But astronomy carries us still onwards. It teaches
us that, with the exception of the planets already
mentioned, the stars which we see have no imme-
diate relation to our system. The obvious supposi-
tion is that they are of the nature and order of our
sun: the minuteness of their apparent magnitude
agrees, on this supposition, with the enormous and
almost inconceivable distance which, from all the
measurements of astronomers, we are led to attribute
VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE. - 207
to them. If then these are sums, they may, like our
sun, have planets revolving round them ; and these
may, like our planet, be the seats of vegetable and
animal and rational life:-we may thus have in the
universe worlds, no one knows how many, no one
can guess how varied:—but however many, however
varied, they are still but so many provinces in the
same empire, subject to common rules, governed by
a common power.
But the stars which we see with the naked eye are
but a very small portion of those which the tele-
scope unveils to us. The most imperfect telescope
will discover some that are invisible without it; the
very best instrument perhaps does not show us the
most remote. The number which crowds some parts
of the heavens is truly marvellous. Dr. Herschel
calculated that a portion of the milky way, about ten
degrees long and two and a half broad, contained
two hundred and fifty-eight thousand. In a sky so
Occupied, the moon would eclipse two thousand of
such stars at once.
We learn too from the telescope that even in this
province the variety of nature is not exhausted. Not
only do the stars differ in colour and appearance, but
some of them grow periodically fainter and brighter,
as if they were dark on one side, and revolved on
their axes. In other cases two stars appear close to
each other, and in some of these cases it has been
clearly established, that the two have a motion of
revolution about each other; thus exhibiting an ar-
rangement before unguessed, and giving rise, possi-
bly, to new conditions of worlds. In other instances
again, the telescope shows, not luminous points, but
extended masses of dilute light, like bright clouds,
hence called nebulae. Some have supposed (as we
have noticed in the last book) that such nebulae by
further condensation might become suns; but for
such opinions we have nothing but conjecture. Some
stars again have undergone permanent changes, or
have absolutely disappeared, as the celebrated star
of 1572, in the constellation Cassiopea.
208 RELIGIOUS VIEws.
If we take the whole range of created objects in
our own system, from the sun down to the smallest
animalcule, and suppose such a system, or something
in some way analogous to it, to be repeated for each
of the millions of stars thus revealed to us, we have
a representation of the material part of the universe,
according to a view which many minds receive as a
probable one; and referring this aggregate of sys-
tems to the Author of the universe, as in our own
system we have found ourselves led to do, we have
thus an estimate of the extent to which his creative
energy would thus appear to have been exercised in
the material world.
If we consider further the endless and admirable
contrivances and adaptations which philosophers
and observers have discovered in every portion of
our own system, every new step of our knowledge
showing us something new in this respect; and if we
combine this consideration with the thought how
small a portion of the universe our knowledge in-
cludes, we shall, without being able at all to discern
the extent of the skih and wisdom thus displayed, see
something of the character of the design, and of the
copiousness and ampleness of the means which the
scheme of the world exhibits. And when we see that
the tendency of all the arrangements which we can
comprehend is to support the existence, to develope
the faculties, to promote the well-being of these count-
less species of creatures; we shall have some im-
pression of the beneficence and love of the Creator,
as manifested in the physical government of his
creation. -
2. It is extremely difficult to devise any means of
bringing before a common apprehension the scale
on which the universe is constructed, the enormous
proportion which the larger dimensions bear to the
smaller, and the amazing number of steps from Harge
to smaller, or from small to larger, which the consi-
deration of it offers. The following comparative re-
VASTN ESS OF THE UNIVERSE. 209
presentations may serve to give the reader to whom
the subject is new some idea of these steps.
If we suppose the earth to be represented by a
globe a foot in diameter, the distance of the sun from
the earth will be about two miles; the diameter of
the sun, on the same supposition, will be something
above one hundred feet, and consequently his bulk
such as might be made up of two hemispheres, each
about the size of the dome of St. Paul's. The moon
will be thirty feet from us, and her diameter three
inches, about that of a cricket ball. Thus the sun
would much more than occupy all the space within
the moon’s orbit. On the same scale, Jupiter would
be above ten miles from the sun, and Uranus forty.
We see then how thinly scattered through space are
the heavenly bodies. The fixed stars would be at an
unknown distance, but, probably, if all distances were
thus diminished, no star would be nearer to such a
One-foot earth, than the moon now is to us.
On such a terrestrial globe the highest mountains
would be about an eightieth of an inch high, and
consequently only just distinguishable. We may
imagine therefore how imperceptible would be the
largest animals. The whole organized covering of
such a globe would be quite undiscoverable by the
eye, except perhaps by colour, like the bloom on a
plum.
In order to restore this earth and its inhabitants to
their true dimensions, we must magnify them forty
millions of times; and to preserve the proportions,
we must increase equally the distances of the sun
and of the stars from us. They seem thus to pass
off into infinity; yet each of them thus removed, has
its system of mechanical and perhaps of organic pro-
cesses going on upon its surface. -
But the arrangements of organic life which we
can see with the naked eye are few, compared with
those which the microscope detects. We know that
we may magnify objects thousands of times, and still
discover fresh complexities of structure; if we sup-
S 2
2}0} RELIGHOU8 WFE*WS,
pose, therefore, that we increase every particle of
matter in our universe in such a proportion, in length,
breadth, and thickness, we may conceive that we
tend thus to bring before our apprehension a true
estimate of the quantity of organized adaptations
which are ready to testify the extent of the Creator's
power.
3. The other numerical quantities which we have
to consider in the phenomena of the universe are on
as gigantic a scale as the distances and sizes. By
the rotation of the earth on its axis, the parts of the
equator move at the rate of a thousand miles an hour,
and the portions of the earth's surface which are in
our latitude, at about six hundred. The former ve-
locity is nearly that with which a cannon ball is dis-
charged from the mouth of a gun; but, large as it is:
it is inconsiderable compared with the velocity of
the earth in its orbit about the sun. This latter ve-
locity is sixty-five times the former. By the rotatory
motion of the earth, a point of its surface is carried
sometimes forwards and sometimes backwards with
regard to the annual progression; but in consequence
of the great predominance of the latter velocity in
amount, the former scarcely affects it either way.
And even the latter velocity is inconsiderable com-
pared with that of light; which comparison, how-
ever, we shall not make ; since, according to the
theory we have considered as most probable, the
motion of light is not a transfer of matter but of mo-
tion from one part of space to another.
The extent of the scale of density of different sub-
stances has already been mentioned; gold is twenty
times as heavy as water; air is eight hundred and
thirty times lighter, steam eight thousand times lighter
than water; the luminiferous ether is incomparably
rarer than steam : and this is true of the matter of
light, whether we adopt the undulatory theory or
any other. -
4. The above statements are vast in amount, and
almost oppressive to our faculties. They belong to
VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE, 21: H.
the measurement of the powers which are exerted
in the universe, and of the spaces through which
their efficacy reaches (for the most distant bodies
are probably connected both by gravity and light.)
But these estimates cannot be said so much to give
us any notion of the powers of the Deity, as to cor-
rect the errors we should fall into by supposing his
powers at all to resemble ours:–by supposing that
numbers, and spaces, and forces, and combinations,
which would overwhelm us, are any obstacle to the
arrangements which his plan requires. We can ea-
sily understand that to an intelligence surpassing
ours in degree only, that may be easy which is im-
possible to us. The child who cannot count beyond
four, the savage who has no name for any number
above five, cannot comprehend the possibility of deal-
ing with thousands and millions: yet a little additional
developement of the intellect makes such numbers
manageable and conceivable. The difficulty which
appears to reside in numbers and magnitudes and
stages of subordination, is one produced by judging
from ourselves—by measuring with our own sound-
ing line; when that reaches no bottom, the ocean
appears unfathomable. Yet in fact, how is a hun-
dred millions of miles a great distance 7 how is a
hundred millions of times a great ratio ! Not in it-
self: this greatness is no quality of the numbers which
can be proved like their mathematical properties; on
the contrary, all that absolutely belongs to number,
space, and ratio, must, we know demonstrably, be
equally true of the largest and the smallest. It is
clear that the greatness of these expressions of mea-
sure has reference to our faculties only. Our asto-
mishment and embarrassment take for granted the
limits of our own nature. We have a tendency to treat
a difference of degree and of addition, as if it were
a difference of kind and of transformation. The ex-
istence of the attributes, design, power, goodness, is
a matter depending on obvious grounds: about these
qualities there can be no mistake : if we can know
212 18][2], IGIOUS VIEWS.
any thing, we can know these attributes when we
see them. But the extent, the limits of such attri-
butes must be determined by their effects; our know-
ledge of their limits by what we see of the effects.
Nor is any extent, any amount of power and good-
ness improbable beforehand: we know that these
must be great, we cannot tell how great. We should
not expect beforehand to find them bounded; and
therefore when the boundless prospect opens before
us, we may be bewildered, but we have no reason to
be shaken in our conviction of the reality of the cause
from which their effects proceed: we may feel our-
selves incapable of following the train of thought,
and may stop, but we have no rational motive for
quitting the point which we have thus attained in
tracing the Divine Perfections.
On the contrary, those magnitudes and propor-
tions which leave our powers of conception far be-
hind ;-that ever-expanding view which is brought
before us, of the scale and mechanism, the riches
and magnificence, the population and activity of the
universe ;-may reasonably serve, not to disturb,
but to enlarge and elevate our conceptions of the
Maker and Master of all; to feed an ever-growing
admiration of His wonderful nature; and to excite
a desire to be able to contemplate more steadily and
conceive less inadequately the scheme of his govern-
ment and the operation of his power.
CHAPTER III.
On JMan’s Place in the Universe.
THE mere aspect of the starry heavens, without
taking into account the view of them to which science
introduces us, tends strongly to force upon man the
MAN's PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 213
impression of his own insignificance. The vault of
the sky arched at a vast and unknown distance over
our heads; the stars, apparently infinite in number,
each keeping its appointed place and course, and
seeming to belong to a wide system of things which
has no relation to the earth; while man is but one
among many millions of the earth’s inhabitants;–
all this makes the contemplative spectator feel how
exceedingly small a portion of the universe he is ;
how little he must be, in the eyes of an intelligence
which can embrace the whole. Every person, in
every age and country, will recognize as irresistibly
natural the train of thought expressed by the Hebrew
psalmist: “when I consider the heavens the work of
thy hands—the moon and the stars which thou
hast ordained—Lord what is man that thou art
mindful of him, or the son of man that thou regard-
est him 7”
If this be the feeling of the untaught person, when
he contemplates the aspect of the skies, such as they
offer themselves to a casual and unassisted glance,
the impression must needs be incalculably augment-
ed, when we look at the universe with the aid of as-
tronomical discovery and theory. We then find,
that a few of the shining points which we see scat-
tered on the face of the sky in such profusion, ap-
pear to be of the same nature as the earth, and ma
perhaps, as analogy would suggest, be like the earth,
the habitations of organized beings;–that the rest
of “the host of heaven” may, by a like analogy, be
conjectured to be the centres of similar systems of
revolving worlds;–that the vision of man has gone
travelling onwards, to an extent never anticipated,
through this multitude of systems, and that while
myriads of new centres start up at every advance,
he appears as yet not to have received any intima-
tion of a limit. Every person probably feels, at first,
lost, confounded, overwhelmed, with the vastness of
this spectacle ; and seems to himself, as it were, an-
nihilated by the magnitude and multitude of the ob-
214 RELIGIGUS VIEWS.
jects which thus compose the universe. The distance
between him and the Creator of the world appears
to be increased beyond measure by this disclosure.
It seems as if a single individual could have no
chance and no claim for the regard of the Ruler of
the whole.
The mode in which the belief of God’s govern-
ment of the physical world is important and interest-
ing to man, is, as has already been said, through the
connexion which this belief has with the conviction
of God’s government of the moral world; this latter
government being, from its nature, one which has
a personal relation to each individual, his actions and
thoughts. It will, therefore, illustrate our subject to
show that this impression of the difficulty of a per-
sonal superintendence and government, exercised by
the Maker of the world over each of his rational
and free creatures, is founded upon illusory views;
and that on an attentive and philosophical examina-
tion of the subject, such a government is in accord-
ance with all that we can discover of the scheme
and the scale of the universe.
1. We may, in the first place, repeat the observa-
tion made in the last chapter, on the confusion
which sometimes arises in our minds, and makes us
consider the number of the objects of the Divine care
as a difficulty in the way of its exercise. If we can
conceive this care employed on a million of persons,
on the population of a kingdom, of a city, of a street,
there is no real difficulty in supposing it extended to
every planet in the solar system, admitting each to
be peopled as ours is; nor to every part of the uni-
verse, supposing each star the centre of such a sys-
tem. JVumbers are nothing in themselves; and when
we reject the known, but unessential limits of our own
faculties, it is quite as allowable to suppose a million
millions of earths, as one, to be under the moral go-
vernment of God. .
2. In the next place we may remark, not only that
no reason can be assigned why the Divine care should
MAN’s PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 215
not extend to a much greater number of individuals
than we at first imagine, but that in fact we know
that it does so extend. It has been well observed,
that about the same time when the invention of the
telescope showed us that there might be myriads of
other worlds claiming the Creator's care; the inven-
tion of the microscope proved to us that there were
in our own world myriads of creatures, before un-
known, which this care was preserving. While one
discovery seemed to remove the Divine Providence
further from us, the other gave us most striking ex-
amples that it was far more active in our neighbour-
hood than we had supposed: while the first extended
the boundaries of God’s known kingdom, the second
made its known administration more minute and
careful. It appeared that in the leaf and in the bud,
in solids and in fluids, animals existed hitherto unsus-
pected; the apparently dead masses and blank spaces
of the world were found to swarm with life. And
yet, of the animals thus revealed, all, though unknown
to us before, had never been forgotten by Providence.
Their structure, their vessels and limbs, their adapta-
tion to their situation, their food and habitations, were
regulated in as beautiful and complete a manner as
those of the largest and apparently most favoured
animals. The smallest insects are as exactly finish-
ed, often as gaily ornamented, as the most graceful
beasts or the birds of brightest plumage. And when
we seem to go out of the domain of the complex ani-
mal structure with which we are familiar, and come
to animals of apparently more scanty faculties, and
less developed powers of enjoyment and action, we
still find that their faculties and their senses are in
exact harmony with their situation and circum-
stances; that the wants which they have are pro-
vided for, and the powers which they possess called
into activity. So that Müller, the patient and accu-
rate observer of the smallest and most obscure mi-
croscopical animalcula, declares that all classes alike,
those which have manifest organs, and those which
216 - RELIGIOUS v1Ews.
have not, offer a vast quantity of new and striking
views of the animal economy; every step of our dis-
coveries leading us to admire the design and care of
the Creator.” We find, therefore, that the Divine
Providence is, in fact, capable of extending itself
adequately to an immense succession of tribes of be-
ings, surpassing what we can imagine or could pre-
viously have anticipated; and thus we may feel se-
cure, so far as analogy can secure us, that the mere
multitude of created objects cannot remove us from
the government and superintendence of the Creator.
3. We may observe further, that, vast as are the
parts and proportions of the universe, we still appear
to be able to perceive that it is finite; the subordina-
tion of magnitudes and numbers and classes appears
to have its limits. Thus, for any thing which we can
discover, the sun is the largest body in the universe;
and at any rate, bodies of the order of the sum are
the largest of which we have any evidence: we
know of no substance denser than gold, and it is im-
probable that one denser, or at least much denser,
should ever be detected: the largest animals which
exist in the sea and on the earth are almost certainly
known to us. We may venture also to say, that the
smallest animals which possess in their structure a
clear analogy with larger ones, have been already
seen. Many of the animals which the microscope
detects, are as complete and complex in their organi-
zation as those of larger size: but beyond a certain
point, they appear, as they become more minute, to
be reduced to a homogeneity and simplicity of com-
position which almost excludes them from the do-
main of animal life. The smallest microscopical ob-
jects which can be supposed to be organic, are
points,f or gelatinous globules, or threads," in which
no distinct organs, interior or exterior, can be dis-
Covered. These, it is clear, cannot be considered as
* Müller, Infusoria, Preface. f Monas. Müller. Cuvier.
i: Volvoac. § Vibrio. Müller. Cuvier.
MAN’s PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 217
indicating an indefinite progression of animal life in
a descending Scale of minuteness. We can, mathe-
matically speaking, conceive one of these animals as
perfect and complicated in its structure as an ele-
phant or an eagle, but we do not find it so in nature.
It appears, on the contrary, in these objects, as if
we were, at a certain point of magnitude, reaching
the boundaries of the animal world. We need not
here consider the hypotheses and opinions to which
these ambiguous objects have given rise; but, without
any theory, they tend to show that the subordination
of organic life is finite on the side of the little as well
as of the great.
Some persons might, perhaps, imagine that a
ground for believing the smallness of organized be-
ings to be limited, might be found in what we know
of the constitution of matter. If solids and fluids
consist of particles of a definite, though exceeding
smallness, which cannot further be divided or dimi-
nished, it is manifest that we have, in the smallness
of these particles, a limit to the possible size of the
vessels and organs of animals. The fluids which
are secreted, and which circulate in the body of a
mite, must needs consist of a vast number of parti-
cles, or they would not be fluids: and an animal
might be so much smaller than a mite, that its tubes
could not contain a sufficient collection of the atoms
of matter, to carry on its functions. We should,
therefore, of necessity reach a limit of minuteness
in organic life, if we could demonstrate that matter
is composed of such indivisible atoms. We shall
not, however, build any thing on this argument;
because, though the atomic theory is sometimes said
to be proved, what is proved is, that chemical and
other effects take place as if they were the aggre-
gate of the effects of certain particles of elements,
the proportions of which particles are fixed and de-
finite; but that any limit can be assigned to the
smallness of these particles, has never yet been made
out. We prefer, therefore, to rest the proof of the
T
218 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
finite extent of animal life, as to size, on the micro-
scopical observations previously referred to.
Probably we cannot yet be said to have reached
the limit of the universe with the power of our tele-
scopes; that is, it does not appear that telescopes
have yet been used, so powerful in exhibiting small
stars, that we can assume that more powerful in-
struments would not discover new stars. Whether
or no, however, this degree of perfection has been
reached, we have no proof that it does not exist;
if it were once obtained we should have, with some
approximation, the limit of the universe as to the
number of worlds, as we have already endeavoured
to show we have obtained the limits with regard to
the largeness and smallness of the inhabitants of our
own world.
In like manner, although the discovery of new
species in some of the kingdoms of nature has gone
on recently with enormous rapidity, and to an im-
mense extent;-for instance in botany, where the
species known in the time of Linnaeus were about
ten thousand, and are now probably fifty thousand;
—there can be no doubt that the number of species
and genera is really limited ; and though a great ex-
tension of our knowledge is required to reach these
limits, it is our ignorance merely, and not their non-
existence, which removes them from us.
In the same way it would appear that the universe,
so far as it is an object of our knowledge, is finite
in other respects also. Now when we have once
attained this conviction, all the oppressive apprehen-
sion of being overlooked in the government of the
universe has no longer any rational source. For in
the superintendence of a finite system of things, what
is there which can appear difficult or overwhelming
to a Being such as we must, from what we know,
conceive the Creator to be? Difficulties arising from
space, number, gradation, are such as we can con-
ceive ourselves capable of overcoming, merely by an
extension of our present faculties. Is it not then
MAN’s PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 219
easy to imagine that such difficulties must vanish
before Him who made us and our faculties 7 Let it
be considered how enormous a proportion the largest
work of man bears to the smallest;-the great py-
ramid to the point of a needle. This comparison
does not overwhelm us, because we know that man
has made both. Yet the difference between this
proportion and that of the sun to the claw of a mite,
does not at all correspond to the difference which we
must suppose to obtain between the Creator and the
creature. It appears then that, if the first flash of
that view of the universe which science reveals to
us, does sometimes dazzle and bewilder men, a more
attentive examination of the prospect, by the light
we thus obtain, shows us how unfounded is the des-
pair of our being the objects of Divine Providence,
how absurd the persuasion that we have discovered
the universe to be too large for its ruler.
4. Another ground of satisfactory reflection, hav-
ing the same tendency, is to be found in the admira-
ble order and consistency, the subordination and
proportion of parts, which we fifid to prevail in the
universe, as far as our discoveries reach. We have,
it may be, a multitude almost innumerable of worlds,
but no symptom of crowding, of confusion, of inter-
ference. All such defects are avoided by the manner
in which these worlds are distributed into systems;–
these systems, each occupying a vast space, but yet
disposed at distances before which their own dimen-
sions shrink into insignificance;—all governed by one
law, yet this law so concentrating its operation on
each system, that each proceeds as if there were no
other, and so regulating its own effects that perpe-
tual change produces permanent uniformity. This
is the kind of harmonious relation which we perceive
in that part of the universe, the mechanical part
namely, the laws of which are best known to us.
In other provinces, where our knowledge is more
imperfect, we can see glimpses of a similar vastness
of combination, producing, by its very nature, com-
220 RELIGIOUS WHEWS,
pleteness of detail. Any analogy by which we can
extend such views to the moral world, must be of a
very wide and indefinite kind; yet the contemplation
of this admirable relation of the arrangements of the
physical creation, and the perfect working of their
laws, is well calculated to give us confidence in a
similar beauty and perfection in the arrangements
by which our moral relations are directed, our
higher powers and hopes unfolded. We may readily
believe that there is, in this part of the creation also,
an order, a subordination of some relations to others,
which may remove all difficulty arising from the
vast multitude of moral agents and actions, and make
it possible that the superintendence of the moral
world shall be directed with as exact a tendency to
moral good, as that by which the government of the
physical world is directed to physical good.
We may perhaps see glimpses of such an order,
in the arrangements by which our highest and most
important duties depend upon our relation to a small
circle of persons immediately around us: and again,
in the manner in which our acting well or ill results
from the operation of a few principles within us; as
our conscience, our desire of moral excellence, and
of the favour of God. We can hardly consider such
principles otherwise than as intended to occupy their
proper place in the system by which man’s destina-
tion is to be determined; and thus, as among the
means of the government and superintendence of
God in the moral world. -
That there must be an order and a system to which
such regulative principles belong, the whole analogy
of creation compels us to believe. It would be strange
indeed, if, while the mechanical world, the system of
inert matter, is so arranged that we cannot contem-
plate its order without an elevated intellectual plea-
sure;—while organized life has no faculties without
their proper scope, no tendencies without their ap-
pointed object;-the rational faculties and moral ten-
dencies of man should belong to no systematic order,
MAN’s PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 221
should operate with no corresponding purpose: that,
while the perception of sweet and bitter has its ac-
knowledged and unmistakeable uses, the universal
perception of right and wrong, the unconquerable
belief of the merit of certain feelings and actions, the
craving alike after moral advancement and after the
means of attaining it, should exist only to delude,
perplex, and disappoint man. No one, with his con-
templations calmed and filled and harmonized by the
view of the known constitution of the universe, its
machinery “wheeling unshaken” in the farthest skies
and in the darkest cavern, its vital spirit breathing
alike effectively in the veins of the philosopher and
the worm ;-no one, under the influence of such a
train of contemplations, can possibly admit into his
mind a persuasion which makes the moral part of
our nature a collection of inconsistent and futile im-
pressions, of idle dreams and warring opinions, each
having the same claims to our acceptance. Wide as
is the distance between the material and the moral
world; shadowy as all reasonings necessarily are
which attempt to carry the inferences of one into the
other; elevated above the region of matter as all the
principles and grounds of truth must be, which be-
long to our responsibilities and hopes; still the astro-
nomical and natural philosopher can hardly fail to
draw from their studies an imperturbable conviction
that our moral nature cannot correspond to those re-
presentations according to which it has no law, co-
herency, or object. The mere natural reasoner may,
or must stop far short of all that it is his highest in-
terest to know, his first duty to pursue; but even he,
if he take any elevated and comprehensive views of
his own subject, must escape from the opinions, as
unphilosophical as they are comfortless, which would
expel from our view of the world all reference to
duty and moral good, all reliance on the most uni-
versal grounds of trust and hope.
Men's belief of their duty, and of the reasons for
practising it, connected as it is with the conviction
T 2
222 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
of a personal relation to their Maker, and of His power
of superintendence and reward, is as manifest a fact
in the moral, as any that can be pointed out is in
the natural world. By mere analogy which has been
intimated, therefore, we cannot but conceive that
this fact belongs in some manner or other to the
order of the moral world, and of its government.
When any one acknowledges a moral governor of
the world; perceives that domestic and social rela-
tions are perpetually operating and seem intended to
operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty;
and feels that the voice of conscience, the peace of
heart which results from a course of virtue, and the
consolations of devotion, are ever ready to assume
their office as our guides and aids in the conduct of
all our actions;–he will probably be willing to ac-
knowledge also that the means of moral government
are not wanting, and will no longer be oppressed or
disturbed by the apprehension that the superintend-
ence of the world may be too difficult for its Ruler,
and that any of His subjects and servants may be
Overlooked. He will no more fear that the mo-
ral than that the physical laws of God’s creation
should be forgotten in any particular case: and as he
knows that every sparrow which falls to the ground
contains in its structure innumerable marks of the
Divine care and kindness, he will be persuaded that
every individual, however apparently humble and in-
significant, will have his moral being dealt with ac-
Cording to the laws of God’s wisdom and love; will
be enlightened, supported, and raised, if he use the
appointed means which God’s administration of the
world of moral light and good offers to his use.
223
CHAPTER IV.
On the Impression produced by the Contemplation of
Laws of JVature; or, on the Conviction that Law
implies JMind.
THE various trains of thought and reasoning which
lead men from a consideration of the natural world
to the conviction of the existence, the power, the
providence of God, do not require, for the most part,
any long or laboured deduction, to give them their
effect on the mind. On the contrary, they have, in
every age and country, produced their impression
on multitudes who have not instituted any formal
reasonings upon the subject, and probably upon
many who have not put their conclusions in the
shape of any express propositions. The persuasion
of a superior intelligence and will, which manifests
itself in every part of the material world, is, as is
well known, so widely diffused and deeply infixed, as
to have made it a question among speculative men
whether the notion of such a power is not universal
and innate. It is our business to show only how
plainly and how universally such a belief results from
the study of the appearances about us. That in many
nations, in many periods, this persuasion has been
mixed up with much that was erroneous and per-
verse in the opinions of the intellect or the fictions of
fancy, does not weaken the force of such consent.
The belief of a supernatural and presiding power
runs through all these errors: and while the perver-
sions are manifestly the work of caprice and illusion,
and vanish at the first ray of sober inquiry, the belief
itself is substantial and consistent, and grows in
strength upon every new examination. It was the
firmness and solidity of the conviction of something
224 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
Divine which gave a hold and permanence to the
figments of so many false divinities. And those who
have traced the progress of human thought on other
subjects, will not think it strange, that while the fun-
damental persuasion of a Deity was thus irremove-
ably seated in the human mind, the developement of
this conception into a consistent, pure, and steadfast
belief in one Almighty and Holy Father and God,
should be long missed, or never attained, by the
struggle of the human faculties; should require long
reflection to mature it, and the aid of revelation to
establish it in the world.
The view of the universe which we have princi-
pally had occasion to present to the reader, is that
in which we consider its appearances as reducible to
certain fixed and general laws. Availing ourselves
of some of the lights which modern science supplies,
we have endeavoured to show that the adaptation of
such laws to each other, and their fitness to promote
the harmonious and beneficial course of the world,
may be traced, wherever we can discover the laws
themselves; and that the conceptions of the Divine
Power, Goodness and Superintendence which we
thus form, agree in a remarkable manner with the
views of the Supreme Being, to which reason, en-
lightened by the divine revelation, has led.
But we conceive that the general impressions of
mankind would go further than a mere assent to the
argument as we have thus stated it. To most per-
sons it appears that the mere existence of a law con-
necting and governing any class of phenomena, im-
plies a presiding intelligence which has preconceived
and established the law. When events are regulated
by precise rules of time, and space, of number and
measure, men conceive these rules to be the evidence
of thought and mind, even without discovering in the
rules any peculiar adaptations, or without supposing
their purpose to be known. -
The origin and the validity of such an impression
on the human mind may appear to some matters of
LAW IMPLIES MIND. 225
abstruse and doubtful speculation: yet the tendency
to such a belief prevails strongly and widely, both
among the common class of minds whose thoughts
are casually and unsystematically turned to such
subjects, and among philosophers to whom laws of
nature are habitual subjects of contemplation. We
conceive therefore that such a tendency may deserve
to be briefly illustrated; and we trust also that some
attention to this point may be of service in throwing
light upon the true relation of the study of nature to
the belief in God.
1. A very slight attention shows us how readily
Order and regularity suggest to a common apprehen-
sion the operation of a calm and untroubled intelli-
gence presiding over the course of events. Thus the
materialist poet, in accounting for the belief in the
Gods, though he does not share it, cannot deny the
habitual effect of this manifestation.
Praeterea coeli rationes ordine certo
Et varia annorum cernebant tempora vorti;
Nec poterant quibus id fieret cognoscere caussis.
Ergo perfugium sibi habebant Omnia Divis
Tradere et illorum nutu facere omnia flecti.
LUCRET. v. 1182.
They saw the skies in constant order run,
The varied seasons and the circling sun,
Apparent rule, with unapparent cause,
And thus they sought in Gods the source of laws.
The same feeling may be traced in the early my-
thology of a large portion of the globe. We might
easily, taking advantage of the labours of learned
men, exemplify this in the case of the oriental, na-
tions, of Greece, and of many other countries. Nor
does there appear much difficulty in pointing out the
error of those who have maintained that all religion
had its origin in the worship of the stars and the ele-
ments; and who have insinuated that all such im-
pressions are unfounded, inasmuch as these are cer-
tainly not right objects of human worship. The
226 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
religious feeling, the conviction of a supernatural
power, of an intelligence connecting and directing
the phenomena of the world, had not its origin in
the worship of sun, or stars, or elements; but was
itself the necessary though unexpressed foundation
of all worship, and all forms of false, as well as true,
religion. The contemplation of the earth and hea-
vens called into action this religious tendency in
man; and to say that the worship of the material
world formed or suggested this religious feeling, is
to invert the order of possible things in the most un-
philosophical manner. Idolatry is not the source of
the belief in God, but is a compound of the persuasion
of a supernatural government, with certain extrava-
gant and baseless conceptions as to the manner in
which this government is exercised.
We will quote a passage from an author who has
illustrated at considerable length the hypothesis that
all religious belief is derived from the worship of the
elements.
“Light, and darkness its perpetual contrast; the
succession of days and nights, the periodical order
of the seasons; the career of the brilliant luminary
which regulates their course; that of the moon his
sister and rival; night, and the innumerable fires
which she lights in the blue vault of heaven; the re-
volutions of the stars, which exhibit them for a longer
or a shorter period above our horizon; the constancy
of this period in the fixed stars, its variety in the
wandering stars, the planets; their direct and retro-
grade course, their momentary rest; the phases of the
moon waxing, full, waning, divested of all light; the
progressive motion of the sun upwards, downwards;
the successive order of the rising and setting of the
fixed stars, which mark the different points of the
course of the sun, while the various aspects which
the earth itself assumes mark, here below also, the
same periods of the sun's annual motion; * * * all
these different pictures, displayed before the eyes of
man, formed the great and magnificent spectacle by

T.A.W IMPLIES MINED. 227
which I suppose him surrounded at the moment when
he is about to create his gods.” -
What is this (divested of its wanton levity of ex-
pression) but to say, that when man has so far traced
the course of mature as to be irresistibly impressed
with the existence of order, law, variety in constancy,
and fixity in change; of relations of form and space,
duration and succession, cause and consequence,
among the objects which surround him; there springs
up in his breast, unbidden and irresistibly, the thought
of superintending intelligence, of a mind which com-
prehended from the first and completely that which
he late and partially comes to know? The worship
of earth and sky, of the host of heaven and the in-
fluences of nature, is not the ultimate and funda-
mental fact in the early history of the religious im-
pressions of mankind. These are but derivative
streams, impure and scanty, from the fountain of re-
ligious feeling which appears to be disclosed to us
by the contemplation of the universe, as the seat of
law and the manifestation of intellect. Time sug-
gests to man the thought of eternity; space of in-
finity; law of intelligence; order of purpose; and
however difficult and long a task it may be to deve-
lope these suggestions into clear convictions, these
thoughts are the real parents of our natural religious
belief. The only relation between true religion and
the worship of the elemental world is, that the latter
is the partial and gross perversion, the former the
consistent and pure developement of the same origi-
nal idea.
2. The connexion of the laws of the material world
with an intelligence which preconceived and insti-
tuted the law, which is thus, as we perceive, so gene-
rally impressed on the common apprehension of
mankind, has also struck no less those who have
studied nature with a more systematic attention, and
with the peculiar views which belong to science.
* Dupuis. Origine des Cultes.
228 RELIGIOUS. VIEWS.
The laws which such persons learn and study, seem,
indeed, most naturally to lead to the conviction of
an intelligence which originally gave to the law its
form. - . -
What we call a general law is, in truth, a form of
expression including a number of facts of like kind.
The facts are separate; the unity of view by which
we associate them, the character of generality and
of law, resides in those relations which are the ob-
ject of the intellect. The law once apprehended by
us, takes in our minds the place of the facts them-
selves, and is said to govern or determine them, be-
cause it determines our anticipations of what they
will be. But we cannot, it would seem, conceive a
law, founded on such intelligible relations, to govern
and determine the facts themselves, any otherwise
than by supposing also an intelligence by which these
relations are contemplated, and these consequences
realized. We cannot then represent to ourselves the
universe governed by general laws otherwise than
by conceiving an intelligent and conscious Deity, by
whom these laws were originally contemplated, es-
tablished, and applied. -
This perhaps will appear more clear, when it is
considered that the laws of which we speak are often
of an abstruse and complex kind, depending upon re-
lations of space, time, number, and other properties,
which we perceive by great attention and thought.
These relations are often combined so variously and
curiously, that the most subtle reasonings and calcu-
lations which we can form are requisite in order to
trace their results. Can such laws be conceived to
be instituted without any exercise of knowlege and
intelligence? Can material objects apply geometry
and calculation to themselves? Can the lenses of the
eye, for instance, be formed and adjusted with an
exact suitableness to their refractive powers, while
there is in the agency which has framed them, no
consciousness of the laws of light, of the course of
H.A.W IMPLIES MINID. 229
rays, of the visible properties of things? This ap-
pears to be altogether inconceivable.
Every particle of matter possesses an almost end-
less train of properties, each acting according to its
peculiar and fixed laws. For every atom of the same
kind of matter these laws are invariably and per-
petually the same, while for the different kinds of
matter the difference of these properties is equally
constant. This constant and precise resemblance,
this variation equally constant and equally regular,
suggest irresistibly the conception of some cause, in-
dependent of the atoms themselves, by which their
similarity and dissimilarity, the agreement and dif-
ference of their deportment under the same circum-
stances, have been determined. Such a view of the
constitution of matter, as is observed by an eminent
writer of our own time, effectually destroys the idea
of its eternal and self-existent nature, “by giving to
each of its atoms the essential characters, at once, of
a manufactured article and a subordinate agent.”
That such an impression, and the consequent be-
lief in a divine Author of the universe, by whom its
laws were ordained and established, does result from
the philosophical contemplation of nature, will, we
trust, become still more evident by tracing the effect
produced upon men's minds by the discovery of such
laws and properties as those of which we have been
speaking; and we shall therefore make a few ob-
servations on this subject.
* Herschel on the Study of Nat. Phil. Art. 28.
J
230
CHAPTER V.
On Inductive Habits; or, on the Impression produced
on JMen’s Minds by discovering Laws of JVature.
THE object of physical science is to discover such
laws and properties as those of which we have spoken
in the last chapter. In this task, undoubtedly a pro-
gress has been made on which we may well look
with pleasure and admiration ; yet we cannot hesi-
tate to confess that the extent of our knowledge on
such subjects bears no proportion to that of our igno-
rance. Of the great and comprehensive laws which
rule over the widest provinces of natural phenomena,
few have yet been disclosed to us. And the names
of the philosophers, whose high office it has been to
detect such laws, are even yet far from numerous.
In looking back at the path by which science has
advanced to its present position, we see the names of
the great discoverers shine out like luminaries, few
and scattered along the line: by far the largest por-
tion of the space is occupied by those whose compa-
ratively humble office it was to verify, to develope,
to apply the general truths which the discoverers
brought to light.
It will readily be conceived that it is no easy mat-
ter, if it be possible, to analyse the process of thought
by which laws of nature have thus been discovered;
a process which, as we have said, has been in so few
instances successfully performed. We shall not here
make any attempt at such an analysis. But without
this, we conceive it may be shown that the constitu-
tion and employment of the mind on which such dis-
coveries depend, are friendly to that belief in a wise
and good Creator and Governor of the world, which
it has been our object to illustrate and confirm. And
INDUCTIVE HABITS. 231
if it should appear that those who see further than
their fellows into the bearings and dependencies of
the material things and elements by which they are
surrounded, have also been, in almost every case,
earnest and forward in acknowledging the relation
of all things to a supreme intelligence and will; we
shall be fortified in our persuasion that the true
scientific perception of the general constitution of
the universe, and of the mode in which events are
produced and connected, is fitted to lead us to the
conception and belief of God.
Let us consider for a moment what takes place in
the mind of a student of nature when he attains to.
the perception of a law previously unknown, con-
necting the appearances which he has studied. A mass
of facts which before seemed incoherent and unmean-
ing, assume, on a sudden, the aspect of connexion
and intelligible order. Thus, when Kepler discover-
ed the law which connects the periodic times with
the diameters of the planetary orbits; or, when New-
ton showed how this and all other known mathemati-
cal properties of the solar system were included in
the law of universal gravitation according to the in-
verse square of the distance; particular circum-
stances which, before, were merely matter of inde-
pendent record, became, from that time, indissolubly
conjoined by the laws so discovered. The separate
occurrences and facts, which might hitherto have
seemed casual and without reason, were now seen
to be all exemplifications of the same truth. The
change is like that which takes place when we at-
tempt to read a sentence written in difficult or im-
perfect characters. For a time the separate parts
appear to be disjointed and arbitrary marks; the
suggestions of possible meanings, which succeed
each other in the mind, fail, as fast as they are tried,
in combining or accounting for these symbols; but
at last the true supposition occurs; some words are
found to coincide with the meaning thus assumed;
the whole line of letters appear to take definite
232 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
shapes and to leap into their proper places; and the
truth of the happy conjecture seems to flash upon us
from every part of the inscription. -
The discovery of laws of nature, truly and satis-
factorily connecting and explaining phenomena, of
which, before, the connexion and causes had been
unknown, displays much of a similar process, of ob-
scurity succeeded by evidence, of effort and per-
plexity followed by conviction and repose. The
innumerable conjectures and failures, the glimpses
of light perpetually opening and as often clouded
over, the unwearied perseverance and inexhaustible
ingenuity exercised by Kepler in seeking for the
laws which he finally discovered, are, thanks to his
communicative disposition, curiously exhibited in his
works, and have been narrated by his biographers;
and such efforts and alternations, modified by cha-
racter and circumstances, must generally precede
the detection of any of the wider laws and depend-
encies by which the events of the universe are re-
gulated. We may readily conceive the satisfaction
and delight with which, after this perplexity and
struggle, the discoverer finds himself in light and
tranquillity; able to look at the province of nature
which has been the subject of his study, and to read
there an intelligible connexion, a sufficing reason,
which no one before him had understood or appre-
hended. -.
This step so much resembles the mode in which
one intelligent being understands and apprehends the
conceptions of another, that we cannot be surprised
if those persons in whose minds such a process has
taken place, have been most ready to acknowledge the
existence and operation of a superintending intelli-
gence, whose ordinances it was their employment to
study. When they had just read a sentence of the
table of the laws of the universe, they could not
doubt whether it had had a legislator. When they
had deciphered there a comprehensive and substan-
tial truth, they could not believe that the letters had
INDUCTIVE HABITS, 233
*--.
been thrown together by chance. They could not but
readily acknowledge that what their faculties had
enabled them to read, must have been written by
some higher and profounder mind. And according-
ly, we conceive it will be found, on examining the
works of those to whom we owe our knowledge of
the laws of nature, and especially of the wider and
more comprehensive laws, that such persons have
been strongly and habitually impressed with the per-
suasion of a Divine Purpose and Power which had
regulated the events which they had attended to, and
ordained the laws which they had detected.
To those who have pursued science without reach-
ing the rank of discoverers;–who have possessed a
derivative knowledge of the laws of nature which
others had disclosed, and have employed themselves
in tracing the consequences of such laws, and syste-
matizing the body of truth thus produced, the above
description does not apply; and we have not there-
fore in these cases the same ground for anticipating
the same frame of mind. If among men of science
of this class, the persuasion of a supreme Intelli-
gence has at some periods been less vivid and less
universal, than in that higher class of which we have
before spoken, the fact, so far as it has existed, may
perhaps be in some degree accounted for. But whe-
ther the view which we have to give of the mental
peculiarities of men whose science is of this deriva-
tive kind be well founded, and whether the account
we have above offered of that which takes place in
the minds of original discoverers of laws in scientific
researches be true, or not, it will probably be con-
sidered a matter of some interest to point out histo-
rically that in fact, such discoverers have been pe-
culiarly in the habit of considering the world as the
work of God. This we shall now proceed to do.
As we have already said, the names of great dis-
coverers are not very numerous. The sciences
which we may look upon as having reached or at
least approached their complete and finished form,
.. U 2 ~ *
234 RELIGIOUS WiFWS.
are Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Physical, Astro-
nomy. Galileo is the father of modern Mechanics;
Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton are the great names
which mark the progress of Astronomy. Hydro-
statics shared in a great measure the fortunes of the
related science of Mechanics; Boyle and Pascal
were the persons mainly active in developing its
more peculiar principles. The other, branches of
knowledge which belong to natural philosophy, as
Chemistry and Meteorology, are as yet imperfect,
and perhaps infant sciences; and it would be rash
to presume to select, in them, names of equal pre-
eminence with those above mentioned: but it may
not be difficult to show, with sufficient evidence, that
the effect of science upon the authors of science is,
in these subjects as in the former ones, far other
than to alienate their minds from religious trains of
thought, and a habit of considering the world as the
work of God. *
We shall not dwell much on the first of the above
mentioned great names, Galileo ; for his scientific
merit consisted rather in adopting the sound philoso-
phy of others, as in the case of the Copernican sys-
tem, and in combating prevalent errors, as in the
case of the Aristotelian doctrines concerning motion,
than in any marked and prominent discovery of new
principles. Moreover the mechanical laws which he
had a share in bringing to light, depending as they
did, rather on detached experiments and transient
facts, than on observation of the general course of
the universe, could not so clearly suggest any reflec-
tion on the government of the world at that period,
as they did afterwards when Newton showed their
bearing on the cosmical system. Yet Galileo, as a
man of philosophical and inventive mind, who pro-
duced a great effect on the progress of physical
knowledge, is a person whose opinions must natu-
rally interest us, engaged in our present course of
reasoning. There is in his writings little which bears
upon religious views, as there is in the nature of his
INDUCTIVE HABITS, 235
works little to lead him to such subjects. Yet strong
expressions of piety are not wanting, both in his let-
ters, and in his published treatises. The persecution
which he underwent, on account of his writings in
favour of the Copernican system, was grounded, not
on his opposition to the general truths of natural re-
ligion, which is our main concern at present, nor
even on any supposed rejection of any articles of
Christian faith, but on the alleged discrepancy be-
tween his adopted astronomical views and the de-
clarations of scripture. Some of his remarks may
interest the reader.
In his third dialogue on the Copernican system he
has occasion to speak of the opinion which holds all
parts of the world to be framed for man’s use alone:
and to this he says, “I would that we should not so
shorten the arm of God in the government of human
affairs; but that we should rest in this, that we are
certain that God and nature are so occupied in the
government of human affairs, that they could not
more attend to us if they were charged with the
care of the human race alone.” In the same spirit,
when some objected to the asserted smallness of the
|Medicean stars, or satellites of Jupiter, and urged
this as a reason why they were unworthy the regard
of philosophers, he replied that they are the works
of God’s power, the objects of His care, and there-
fore may well be considered as sublime subjects for
man's study. -
In the Dialogues on Mechanics, there occur those
observations concerning the use of the air-bladder in
fishes, and concerning the adaptation of the size of
animals to the strength of the materials of which
they are framed, which have often since been adopt-
ed by writers on the wisdom of Providence. The
last of the dialogues on the system of the world is
closed by a religious reflection, put in the mouth of
the interlocutor who usually expresses Galileo's own
opinions. “While it is permitted us to speculate con-
cerning the constitution of the world, we are also
236 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
taught (perhaps in order that the activity of the hu-
man mind may not pause or languish) that our powers
do not enable us to comprehend the works of His
hands. May success therefore attend this intellec-
tual exercise, thus permitted and appointed for us;
by which we recognize and admire the greatness of
God the more, in proportion as we find ourselves the
less able to penetrate the profound abysses of his
wisdom.” And that this train of thought was ha-
bitual to the philosopher we have abundant evidence
in many other parts of his writings. He had already
said in the same dialogue, “Nature (or God, as he
elsewhere speaks) employs means in an admirable
and inconceivable manner; admirable, that is, and
inconceivable to us, but not to her, who brings about
with consummate facility and simplicity things which
affect our intellect with infinite astonishment. That
which is to us most difficult to understand is to her
most easy to execute.”
The establishment of the Copernican and New-
tonian views of the motions of the solar system and
their causes, were probably the occasions on which
religious but unphilosophical men entertained the
strongest apprehensions that the belief in the govern-
ment of God may be weakened when we thus “thrust
some mechanic cause into his place.” It is there-
fore fortunate that we can show, not only that this
ought not to occur, from the reason of the thing, but
also that in fact the persons who are the leading
characters in the progress of these opinions were
men of clear and fervent piety.
In the case of Copernicus himself it does not ap-
pear that, originally, any apprehensions were enter.
tained of any dangerous discrepancy between his
doctrines and the truths of religion, either natural or
revealed. The work which contains these memora-
ble discoveries was addressed to Pope Paul III., the
head, at that time, (1543) of the religious world; and
was published, as the author states in the preface, at
the urgent entreaty of friends, one of whom was a

INDUCTIVE HABITS, 237
cardinal, and another a bishop.” “I know,” he says,
“ that the thoughts of a philosopher are far removed
from the judgment of the vulgar; since it is his study
to search out truth in all things, as far as that is per-
mitted by God to human reason.” And though the
doctrines are for the most part stated as portions of
a mathematical calculation, the explanation of the
arrangement by which the sun is placed in the cen-
tre of the system is accompanied by a natural re-
flection of a religious cast; “Who in this fair temple
would place this lamp in any other or better place
than there whence it may illuminate the whole?
We find then under this ordination an admirable
symmetry of the world, and a certain harmonious
connexion of the motion and magnitude of the orbs,
such as in any other way cannot be found. Thus
the progressions and regressions of the planets all
arise from the same cause, the motion of the earth.
And that no such movements are seen in the fixed
stars, argues their immense distance from us, which,
causes the apparent magnitude of the earth's annual
course to become evanescent. So great, in short,
is this divine fabric of the great and good God;”f.
“ this best and most regular artificer of the universe,”.
as he elsewhere speaks.
Kepler was the person, who by further studying
“the connexion of the motions and magnitude of the
orbs,” to which Copernicus had thus drawn the at-
tention of the astronomers, detected the laws of this
connexion, and prepared the way for the discovery,
by Newton, of the mechanical laws and causes of
such motions. Kepler was a man of strong and live-
ly piety; and the exhortation which he addresses to
* Amici me cunctantem atque etiam reluctantem, retraxerunt,
inter quos primus fuit Nicolaus Schonbergius, Cardinalis Ca-
puanus, in omni genere literatum celebris; proximus ille vir mei
amantissimus Tidemannus Gisius, episcopus Culmensis, sa-
crarum ut est et omnium bonarum literarum studiosissimus, ºr
De Revolutionibus. Praef. ad Paulum III,
f Lib. i. cx,
238 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
his reader before entering on the exposition of some
of his discoveries, may be quoted not only for its
earnestness but its reasonableness also. “I beseech
my reader, that not unmindful of the divine goodness
bestowed on man, he do with me praise and cele-
brate the wisdom and greatness of the Creator, which
I open to him from a more inward explication of the
form of the world, from a searching of causes, from
a detection of the errors of vision: and that thus, not
only in the firmness and stability of the earth he per-
ceive with gratitude, the preservation of all living
things in nature as the gift of God, but also that in
its motion, so recondite, so admirable, he acknowledge
the wisdom of the Creator. But him who is too dull
to receive this science, or too weak to believe the
Copernican system without harm to his piety, him, I
say, I advise that, leaving the school of astronomy,
and condemning, if he please, any doctrines of the
philosophers, he follow his own path, and desist from
this wandering through the universe, and lifting up
his natural eyes, with which alone he can see, pour
himself out from his own heart in praise of God the
Creator; being certain that he gives no less worship
to God than the astronomer, to whom God has given
to see more clearly with his inward eye, and who,
for what he has himself discovered, both can and
will glorify God.” *
The next great step in our knowledge of the uni-
verse, the discovery of the mechanical causes by
which its motions are produced, and of their laws,
has in modern times sometimes been supposed, both
by the friends of religion and by others, to be unfa-
vourable to the impression of an intelligent first cause.
That such a supposition is founded in error we have
offered what appear to us insurmountable reasons for
believing. That in the mind of the great discoverer
of this mechanical cause, Newton, the impression of
a creating and presiding Deity was confirmed, not
shaken, by all his discoveries, is so well known that
it is almost superfluous to insist upon the fact. His
INDUCTIVE HABITS. 239
views of the tendency of science invested it with no
dangers of this kind. “The business of natural phi-
losophy is,” he says, (Optics, Qu. 28) “to argue from
phenomena without feigning hypotheses, and to de-
duce cause from effects, till we come to the very first
cause, which is certainly not mechanical.” “Though
every true step made in this philosophy brings us not
immediately to the knowledge of the first cause, yet
it brings us nearer to it, and is on that account highly
to be valued.” The Scholium, or note, which con-
cludes his great work, the Principia, is a well known
and most striking evidence on this point, “This beau-
tiful system of sun, planets, and comets, could have
its origin in no other way than by the purpose and
command of an intelligent and powerful Being. He
governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but
as the lord of the universe. He is not only God, but
Lord or Governor. We know him only by his proper-
ties and attributes, by the wise and admirable struc-
ture of things around us, and by their final causes;
we admire him on account of his perfections, we
venerate and worship him on account of his go-
vernment.”
Without making any further quotations, it must be
evident to the reader that the succession of great phi-
losophers through whom mankind have been led to
the knowledge of the greatest of scientific truths, the
law of universal gravitation, did, for their parts, see
the truths which they disclosed to men in such a light
that their religious feelings, their reference of the
world to an intelligent Creator and Preserver, their
admiration of his attributes, were exalted rather than
impaired by the insight which they obtained into the
structure of the universe.
Having shown this with regard to the most perfect
portion of human knowledge, our knowledge of the
motions of the solar system, we shall adduce a few
other passages, illustrating the prevalence of the
same fact in other departments of experimental
science; although, for reasons which have already
240 RELIGIOUS VIEWS,
been intimated, we conceive that sciences of experi-
ment do not conduct so obviously as sciences of ob-
servation to the impression of a Divine Legislator
of the material world.
The science of Hydrostatics was constructed in a
great measure by the founders of the sister science
of Mechanics. Of those who were employed in ex-
perimentally establishing the principles peculiarly
belonging to the doctrine of fluids, Pascal and Boyle
are two of the most eminent names. That these two
great philosophers were not only religious, but both
of them remarkable for their fervent and pervading
devotion, is too well known to be dwelt on. With
regard to Pascal, however, we ought not perhaps to
pass over an opinion of his, that the existence of
God cannot be proved from the external world. “I
do not undertake to prove this,” says he, “not only
because I do not feel myself sufficiently strong to find
in mature that which shall convince obstinate atheists,
but because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is
useless and steril.” It is obvious that such a state
of mind would prevent this writer from encouraging
or dwelling upon the grounds of natural religion;
while yet he himself is an example of that which we
wish to illustrate, that those who have obtained the
furthest insight into nature, have been in all ages
firm believers in God. “Nature,” he says, in another
place, “has perfections in order to show that she is
the image of God, and defects in order to show that
she is only his image.”
Boyle was not only a most pious man as well as a
great philosopher, but he exerted himself very often
and earnestly in his writings to show the bearing
of his natural philosophy upon his views of the
Divine attributes, and of the government of the
world. Many of these dissertations convey trains of
thought and reasoning which have never been sur-
passed for their combination of judicious sobriety in
* Pensées, Art. viii. 1.
INDUCTIVE HABITS, 241
not pressing his arguments too far, with fervent de-
votion in his conceptions of the Divine nature. As
examples of these merits, we might adduce almost
any portion of his tracts on these subjects; for in-
stance, his “Inquiry into the Final Causes of Natural
Things;” his “Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion
of Nature;” his “Christian Virtuoso;” and his essay
entitled “The High Veneration Man's Intellect owes
to God.” It would be superfluous to quote at any
length from these works. We may observe, however,
that he notices that general fact which we are at
present employed in exemplifying, that “in almost all
ages and countries the generality of philosophers
and contemplative men were persuaded of the ex-
istence of a Deity from the consideration of the phe-
momena of the universe; whose fabric and conduct
they rationally concluded could not justly be as-
cribed either to chance or to any other cause than a
Divine Being.” . And in speaking of the religious
uses of science, he says: “Though I am willing to
grant that some impressions of God’s wisdom are so
conspicuous that even a superficial philosopher may
thence infer that the author of such works must be a
wise agent; yet how wise an agent he has in these
works expressed himself to be, none but an experi-
mental philosopher can well discern. And 'tis not by
a slight survey, but by a diligent and skilful scrutiny,
of the works of God, that a man must be, by a ra-
tional and affective conviction, engaged to acknow-
ledge that the author of nature “is wonderful in
counsel, and excellent in working.’”
After the mechanical properties of fluids, the laws
of the operation of the chemical and physical pro-
perties of the elements about us, offer themselves to
our notice. The relations of heat and of moisture in
particular, which play so important a part, as we
have seen, in the economy of our world, have been
the subject of various researches; and they have led
to views of the operation of such agents, some of
which we have endeavoured to present to the reader,
X

242 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
and to point out the remarkable arrangements by
which their beneficial operation is carried on. That
the discoverers of the laws by which such operations
are regulated, were not insensible to the persuasion
of a Divine care and contrivance which those ar-
rangements suggest, is what we should expect, in
agreement with what we have already said, and it is
what we find. Among the names of the philosophers
to whom we owe our knowledge on these subjects,
there are none greater than those of Black, the dis-
coverer of the laws of latent heat, and Dalton, who
first gave us a true view of the mode in which watery
vapour exists and operates in the atmosphere. With
regard to the former of these philosophers, we shall
quote Dr. Thomson's account of the views which the
laws of latent heat suggested to the discoverer.”
“ Dr. Black quickly perceived the vast importance of
this discovery, and took a pleasure in laying before
his students a view of the beneficial effects of this
habitude of heat in the economy of nature. During
the summer season a vast magazine of heat is accu-
mulated in the water, which by gradually emerging
during congelation serves to temper the cold of win-
ter. Were it not for this accumulation of heat in
water and other bodies, the sun would no sooner go
a few degrees to the south of the equator than we
should feel all the horrors of winter.”
In the same spirit are Mr. Dalton's reflections,
after pointing out the laws which regulate the balance
of evaporation and rain, f which he himself first
clearly explained. “It is scarcely possible,” says he,
“ to contemplate without admiration the beautiful
system of nature by which the surface of the earth
is continually supplied with water, and that unceas-
ing circulation of a fluid so essentially necessary to
the very being of the animal and vegetable kingdom
takes place.”
* Thomson’s Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. 321.
f Manch. Mem. vol. v. p. 346.
DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 243
Such impressions appear thus to rise irresistibly
in the breasts of men, when they obtain a sight, for
the first time, of the varied play and comprehensive
connexions of the laws by which the business of the
material world is carried on and its occurrences
brought to pass. To dwell upon or develope such
reflections is not here our business. Their general
prevalence in the minds of those to whom these first
views of new truths are granted, has been, we trust,
sufficiently illustrated. Nor are the names adduced
above, distinguished as they are, brought forwards
as authorities merely. We do not claim for the
greatest discoverers in the realms of science any
immunity from error. In their general opinions they
may, as others may, judge or reason ill. The arti-
cles of their religious belief may be as easily and as
widely as of other men’s, imperfect, perverted, un-
profitable. But on this one point, the tendency of
our advances in scientific knowledge of the universe
to lead us up to a belief in a most wise maker and
master of the universe, we conceive that they who
make these advances, and who feel, as an original
impression, that which others feel only by receiving
their teaching, must be looked to with a peculiar
attention and respect. And what their impressions
". commonly been, we have thus endeavoured to
SH10W.
CHAPTER VI.
On Deductive Habits; or, on the Impression produced
on JMen's Minds by tracing the consequences of as-
certained Laws.
THE opinion illustrated in the last chapter, that
the advances which men make in science tend to im-
press upon them the reality of the Divine govern-
ment of the world, has often been controverted.
244 RELIGIOUS VIEWS,
Complaints have been made, and especially of late
years, that the growth of piety has not always been
commensurate with the growth of knowledge, in the
minds of those who make nature their study. Views
of an irreligious character have been entertained, it
is sometimes said, by persons eminently well in-
structed in all the discoveries of modern times, no
less than by the superficial and ignorant. Those
who have been supposed to deny or to doubt the ex-
istence, the providence, the attributes of God, have
in many cases been men of considerable eminence
and celebrity for their attainments in science. The
opinion that this is the case, appears to be exten-
sively diffused, and this persuasion has probably often
produced inquietude and grief in the breasts of pious
and benevolent men.
This opinion, concerning the want of religious
convictions among those who have made natural
philosophy their leading pursuit, has probably gone
far beyond the limits of the real fact. But if we
allow that there are any strong cases to countenance
such an opinion, it may be worth our while to con-
sider how far they admit of any satisfactory expla-
nation. The fact appears at first sight to be at vari-
ance with the view we have given of the impression
produced by scientific discovery; and it is moreover
always a matter of uneasiness and regret, to have
men of eminent talents and knowledge opposed to
doctrines which we consider as important truths.
We conceive that an explanation of such cases,
if they should occur, may be found in a very cu-
rious and important circumstance belonging to the
process by which our physical sciences are formed.
The first discovery of new general truths, and the
developement of these truths when once obtained,
are two operations extremely different; imply differ-
ent mental habits, and may easily be associated with
different views and convictions on points out of the
reach of scientific demonstration. There would
therefore be nothing surprising, or inconsistent with
DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 245
what we have maintained above, if it should appear
that while original discoverers of laws of nature are
peculiarly led, as we have seen, to believe the ex-
istence of a supreme intelligence and purpose ; the
far greater number of cultivators of science, whose
employment it is to learn from others these general
laws, and to trace, combine; and apply their conse-
quences, should have no clearness of conviction or
security from error on this subject, beyond what be-
longs to persons of any other class. -
This will, perhaps, become somewhat more evi-
dent by considering a little more closely the distinc-
tion of the two operations of discovery and deve-
lopement, of which we have spoken above, and the
tendency which the habitual prosecution of them
may be expected to produce in the thoughts and
views of the student.
We have already endeavoured in some measure to
describe that which takes place when a new law of
nature is discovered. A number of facts in which,
before, order and connexion did not appear at all, or
appeared by partial and contradictory glimpses, are
brought into a point of view in which order and con-
nexion become their essential character. It is seen
that each fact is but a different manifestation of the
same principle; that each particular is that which it
is, in virtue of the same general truth. The inscrip-
tion is deciphered; the enigma is guessed; the prin-
ciple is understood; the truth is enunciated.
When this step is once made, it becomes possible
to deduce from the truth thus established, a train of
consequences often in no small degree long and com-
plex. The process of making these inferences may
properly be described by the word Deduction, while
the very different process by which a new principle
is collected from an assemblage of facts, has been
termed Induction; the truths so obtained and their
consequences constitute the results of the Inductive
Philosophy; which is frequently and rightly described
as a science which ascends from particular facts to
X 2
246 . RELIGIOUS VIEWS,
general principles, and then descends again from
these general principles to particular applications and
exemplifications.
While the great and important labours by which
science is really advanced consist in the successive
steps of the inductive ascent in the discovery of new
laws perpetually more and more general; by far the
greater part of our books of physical science una-
voidably consists in deductive reasoning, exhibiting
the consequences and applications of the laws which
have been discovered; and the greater part of writers
upon science have their minds employed in this pro-
cess of deduction and application. -
This is true of many of those who are considered,
and justly, as distinguished and profound philoso-
phers. In the mechanical philosophy, that science
which applies the properties of matter and the
laws of motion to the explanation of the phenomena
of the world, this is peculiarly the case. The laws,
when once discovered, occupy little room in their
statement, and when no longer contested, are not
felt to need a lengthened proof. But their conse-
quences require far more room and far more intel-
lectual labour. If we take, for example, the laws of
motion and the law of universal gravitation, we can
express in a few lines, that which, when developed,
represents and explains an innumerable mass of na-
tural phenomena. But here the course of develope-
ment is necessarily so long, the reasoning contains
so many steps, the considerations on which it rests
are so minute and refined, the complication of cases
and of consequences is so vast, and even the involu-
tion arising from the properties of space and number
so serious, that the most consummate subtlety, the
most active invention, the most tenacious power of
inference, the widest spirit of combination, must be
tasked and tasked severely, in order to solve the
problems which belong to this portion of science.
And the persons who have been employed on these
problems, and who have brought to them the high
IDEDUCTIVE HABITS. 247
and admirable qualities which such an office requires,
have justly excited in a very eminent degree the ad-
miration which mankind feel for great intellectual
powers. Their names occupy a distinguished place in
literary history; and probably there are no scientific
reputations of the last century higher, and none more
merited, than those earned by the great mathemati-
cians who have laboured with such wonderful suc-
cess in unfolding the mechanism of the heavens; such
for instance as D'Alembert, Clairault, Euler, La-
grange, Laplace.
But it is still important to recollect, that the men-
tal employments of men, while they are occupied in
this portion of the task of the formation of science,
are altogether different from that which takes place
in the mind of a discoverer, who, for the first time,
seizes the principle which connects phenomena be-
fore unexplained, and thus adds another original
truth to our knowledge of the universe. In explain-
ing, as the great mathematicians just mentioned have
done, the phenomena of the solar system by means
of the law of universal gravitation, the conclusions
at which they arrived were really included in the
truth of the law itself, whatever skill and sagacity it
might require to develope and extricate them from
the general principle. But when Newton conceived
and established the law itself, he added to our know-
ledge something which was not contained in any
truth previously known, nor deducible from it by any
course of mere reasoning. And the same distinction,
in all other cases, obtains, between these processes
which establish the principles, generally few and
simple, on which our sciences rest, and those rea-
sonings and calculations, founded on the principles
thus obtained, which constitute by far the larger por-
tion of the common treatises on the most complete of
the sciences now cultivated.
Since the difference is so great between the pro-
cess of inductive generalization of physical facts, and
that of mathematical deduction of consequences, it is
248 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
not surprising that the two processes should imply
different mental powers and habits. However rare
the mathematical talent, in its highest excellence,
may be, it is far more common, if we are to judge
from the history of science, than the genius which
divines the general laws of nature. We have several
good mathematicians in every age; we have few
great discoverers in the whole history of our spe-
C1628.
. The distinction being thus clearly established be-
tween original discovery and derivative speculation,
between the ascent to principles and the descent from
them, we have further to observe, that the habitual
and exclusive prosecution of the latter process may
sometimes exercise an unfavourable effect on the
mind of the student, and may make him less fitted
and ready to apprehend and accept truths different
from those with which his reasonings are concerned.
We conceive, for example, that a person labours
under gross error, who believes the phenomena of
the world to be altogether produced by mechanical
causes, and who excludes from his view all reference
to an intelligent First Cause and Governor. But we
conceive that reasons may be shown which make it
more probable that error of such a kind should find
a place in the mind of a person of deductive, than of
inductive habits;–of a mere mathematician or lo-
gician, than of one who studies the facts of the na-
tural world and detects their laws. sº
The person whose mind is employed in reducin
to law and order and intelligible cause the complex
facts of the material world, is compelled to look be-
yond the present state of his knowledge, and to turn
his thoughts to the existence of principles higher than
those which he yet possesses. He has seen occasions
when facts that at first seemed incoherent and ano-
malous, were reduced to rule and connexion; and
when limited rules were discovered to be included in
some rule of superior generality. He knows that all
facts and appearances, all partial laws, however con-
DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 249
fused and casual they at present seem, must still, in
reality, have this same kind of bearing and depend-
ence;—must be bound together by some undiscovered
principle of order;-must proceed from some cause
working by most steady rules;–must be included in
some wide and fruitful general truth. He cannot
therefore consider any principles which he has al-
ready obtained, as the ultimate and sufficient reason
of that which he sees. There must be some higher
principle, some ulterior reason. The effort and strug-
gle by which he endeavours to extend his view, makes
him feel that there is a region of truth not included
in his present physical knowledge; the very imper-
fection of the light in which he works his way, sug-
gests to him that there must be a source of clearer
illumination at a distance from him.
We must allow that it is scarcely possible to de-
scribe in a manner free from some vagueness and
obscurity, the effect thus produced upon the mind by
the efforts which it makes to reduce natural pheno-
mena to general laws. But we trust it will still be
allowed that there is no difficulty in seeing clearly
that a different influence may result from this pro-
cess, and from the process of deductive reasoning
which forms the main employment of the mathema-
tical cultivators and systematic expositors of physi-
cal science in modern times. Such persons are not
led by their pursuits to any thing beyond the general
principles, which form the basis of their explanations
and applications. They acquiesce in these ; they
make these their ultimate grounds of truth; and they
are entirely employed in unfolding the particular
truths which are involved in the general truth.
Their thoughts dwell little upon the possibility of the
laws of nature being other than we find them to be,
or on the reasons why they are not so; and still less
on those facts and phenomena which philosophers
have not yet reduced to any rule; which are lawless to
us, though we know that, in reality, they are governed
by some principle of order and harmony. On the
250 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
contrary, by assuming perpetually the existing laws
as the basis of their reasoning, without question or
doubt, and by employing such language that these
laws can be expressed in the simplest and briefest
form, they are led to think and believe as if these
laws were necessarily and inevitably what they are.
Some mathematicians indeed have maintained that
the highest laws of nature with which we are ac-
quainted, the laws of motion and the law of universal
gravitation, are not only necessarily true, but are
even self-evident and certain à priori, like the truths
of geometry. And though the mathematical culti-
vator of the science of mechanics may not adopt this
as his speculative opinion, he may still be so far in-
fluenced by the tendency from which it springs, as
to rest in the mechanical laws of the universe as ul-
timate and all-sufficient principles, without seeing in
them any evidence of their having been selected and
Ordained, and thus without ascending from the world
to the thought of an Intelligent Ruler. He may thus
substitute for the Deity certain axioms and first prin-
ciples, as the cause of all. And the follower of New-
ton may run into the error with which he is some-
times charged, of thrusting some mechanic cause
into the place of God, if he do not raise his views,
as his master did, to some higher cause, to some
source of all forces, laws, and principles.
When, therefore, we consider the mathematicians
who are employed in successfully applying the me-
chanical philosophy, as men well deserving of honour
from those who take an interest in the progress of sci-
ence, we do rightly; but it is still to be recollected, that
in doing this they are not carrying us to any higher
point of view in the knowledge of nature than we had
attained before: they are only unfolding the conse-
quences, which were already virtually in our posses-
sion, because they were implied in principles already
discovered:—they are adding to our knowledge of
effects, but not to our knowledge of causes:–they
are not making any advance in that progress of
DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 251
which Newton spoke, and in which he made so vast
a stride, in which “every step made brings us nearer
to the knowledge of the first cause, and is on that
account highly to be valued.” And as in this ad-
vance they have no peculiar privileges or advan-
tages, their errors of opinion concerning it, if they
err, are no more to be wondered at, than those of
common men; and need as little disturb or distress
us, as if those who committed them had confined
themselves to the study of arithmetic or of geometry.
If we can console and tranquillize ourselves con-
cerning the defective or perverted views of religious
truth entertained by any of our fellow men, we need
find no additional difficulty in doing so when those
who are mistaken are great mathematicians, who
have added to the riches and elegance of the me-
chanical philosophy. And if we are seeking for ex-
traneous grounds of trust and comfort on this subject,
we may find them in the reflection;–that, whatever
may be the opinions of those who assume the causes
and laws of that philosophy and reason from them, the
views of those admirable and ever-hol:oured men who
first caught sight of these laws and causes, impressed
them with the belief that this is “the fabric of a great
and good God;” that “it is man’s duty to pour out
his soul in praise of the Creator;” and that all this
beautiful system must be referred to “a first cause,
which is certainly not mechanical.”
2. We may thus, with the greatest propriety, deny
to the mechanical philosophers and mathematicians
of recent times any authority with regard to their
views of the administration of the universe; we have
no reason whatever to expect from their speculations
any help; when we attempt to ascend to the first
cause and supreme ruler of the universe. But we
might perhaps go further, and assert that they are
in some respects less likely than men employed in
other pursuits, to make any clear advance towards
such a subject of speculation. Persons whose thoughts
are thus entirely occupied in deduction are apt to
252 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.

forget that this is, after all, only one employment of
the reason among more ; only one mode of arriving
at truth, needing to have its deficiencies completed
by another. Deductive reasoners, those who culti-
vate science, of whatever, kind, by means of ma-
thematical and logical processes alone, may acquire
an exaggerated feeling of the amount and value of
their labours. Such employments, from the clear-
ness of the notions involved in them, the irresistible
concatenation of truths which they unfold, the sub-
tlety which they require, and their entire success in
that which they attempt, possess a peculiar fascina-
tion for the intellect. Those who pursue such studies
have generally a contempt and impatience of the
retensions of all those other portions of our know-
edge, where from the nature of the case, or the
small progress hitherto made in their cultivation, a
more vague and loose kind of reasoning seems to be
adopted. Now if this feeling be carried so far as to
make the reasoner suppose that these mathematical
and logical processes can lead him to all the know-
ledge and all the certainty which we need, it is
clearly a delusive feeling. For it is confessed on all
hands, that all which mathematics or which logic
can do, is to develope and extract those truths, as
conclusions, which were in reality involved in the
principles on which our reasonings proceeded.*
And this being allowed, we cannot but ask how we
obtain these principles 7 from what other source of .
knowledge we derive the original truths which we
thus pursue into detail 7 since it is manifest that such
principles cannot be derived from the proper stores
of mathematics or logic. These methods can gene-
rate no new truth ; and all the grounds and elements
* “Since all reasoning may be resolved into syllogisms, and
since in a syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclu-
sion, it follows at once, that no truth can be elicited by any
process of reasoning.”—Whately’s Logic, p. 223.
Mathematics is the logic of quantity, and to this science the
observation here quoted is strictly applicable.
FDEDUCTIVE HABITS. 253
of the knowledge which, through them, we can ac-
quire, must necessarily come from some extraneous
source. It is certain, therefore, that the mathema-
tician and the logician must derive from some pro-
cess different from their own, the substance and
material of all our knowledge, whether physical or
metaphysical, physiological or moral. This process,
by which we acquire our first principles, (without
pretending here to analyse it,) is obviously the gene-
ral course of human experience, and the naturai
exercise of the understanding; our intercourse with
matter and with men, and the consequent growth in
our minds of convictions and conceptions such as
our reason can deal with, either by her systematic
or unsystematic methods of procedure. Supplies
from this vast and inexhaustible source of original
truths are requisite, to give any value whatever to
the results of our deductive processes, whether ma-
thematical or logical; while on the other hand, there
are many branches of our knowledge, in which we
possess a large share of original and derivative con-
victions and truths, but where it is nevertheless at
present quite impossible to erect our knowledge into
a complete system ;—to state our primary and inde-
pendent truths, and to show how on these all the rest
depend by the rules of art. If the mathematician is
repelled from speculations on morals or politics, on
the beautiful or the right, because the reasonings
which they involve have not mathematical precision
and conclusiveness, he will remain destitute of much
of the most valuable knowledge which man can ac-
quire. And if he attempts to mend the matter by
giving to treatises on morals, or politics, or criticism,
a form and a phraseology borrowed from the very
few tolerably complete physical sciences which exist,
it will be found that he is compelled to distort and
damage the most important truths, so as to deprive
them of their true shape and import, in order to force
them into their places in his artificial system.
If therefore, as we have said, the mathematical
Y
254 RELIGIOUS WIF.W.S.,
philosopher dwells in his own bright and pleasant
land of deductive reasoning, till he turns with disgust
from all the speculations, necessarily less clear and
conclusive, in which his imagination, his practical
faculties, his moral sense, his capacity of religious
hope and belief, are to be called into action, he be-
comes, more than common men, liable to miss the
road to truths of extreme consequence.
This is so obvious, that charges are frequently
brought against the study of mathematics, as unfitting
men for those occupations which depend upon our
common instinctive convictions and feelings, upon
the unsystematic exercise of the understanding with
regard to common relations and common occur-
rences. Bonaparte observed of Laplace, when he
was placed in a public office of considerable import-
ance, that he did not discharge it in so judicious and
clear sighted a manner as his high intellectual fame
might lead most persons to expect.* “He sought,”
that great judge of character said, “subtleties in
every subject, and carried into his official employ-
ments the spirit of the method of infinitely small
quantities,” by which the mathematician solves his
more abstruse problems. And the complaint that
mathematical studies make men insensible to moral
evidence and to poetical beauties, is so often repeat-
ed as to show that some opposition of tendency is
commonly perceived between that exercise of the in-
tellect which mathematics requires and those pro-
cesses which go on in our minds when moral charac-
ter or imaginative beauty is the subject of our con-
templation,
* A l’intérieur le ministre Quinette fut remplacé par Laplace,
géométre du premier rang, mais qui ne tarda pas à se montrer
administrateur plus que médiocre ; des son premier travail les
consuls s'aperçurent qu'ils s'étaient trompés: Laplace ne sais-
issait aucune question sous son vrai point de vue: il cherchait
des subtilités partout, n'avait que des idées problématiques, et
portait enfin l'esprit des infiniment petits dans l'administration.
—Mémoires écrits d Ste Hélène, i. 3.
DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 255
. . Thus, while we acknowledge all the beauty and
all the value of the mathematical reasonings by
which the consequences of our general laws are de-
duced, we may yet consider it possible that a philo-
sopher, whose mind has been mainly employed, and
his intellectual habits determined, by this process of
deduction, may possess, in a feeble and imperfect de-
gree only, some of those faculties by which truth is
attained, and especially those truths which regard
our relation to that mind, the origin of all law, the
source of first principles, which must be immeasur-
ably elevated above all derivative truths. It would,
therefore, be far from surprising, if there should be
found, among the great authors of the developements
of the mechanical philosophy, some who had refused
to refer the phenomena of the universe to a supreme
mind, purpose, and will. And though this world be,
to a believer in the Being and government of God, a
matter of sorrow and pain, it need not excite more
surprise than if the same were true of a person of
the most ordinary endowments, when it is recollect-
ed in what a disproportionate manner the various
faculties of such a philosopher may have been culti-
vated. And our apprehensions of injury to man-
kind from the influence of such examples will dimi-
nish, when we consider, that those mathematicians
whose minds have been less partially exercised,
the great discoverers of the truths which others
apply, the philosophers who have looked upwards as
well as downwards, to the unknown as well as to
the known, to ulterior as well as proximate princi-
ples, have never rested in this narrow and barren
doctrine; but have perpetually looked forwards, be-
yond mere material laws and causes, to a First
Cause of the moral and material world, to which
each advance in philosophy might bring them nearer,
though it must ever remain indefinitely beyond their
reach. "
It scarcely needs, perhaps, to be noticed, that what
we here represent as the possible source of error is,
256 RELIGIOUS VIEWS,
not the perfection of the mathematical habits of the
mind, but the deficiency of the habit of apprehending
truth of other kinds;–not a clear insight into the
mathematical consequences of principles, but a want
of a clear view of the nature and foundation of
principles;–not the talent for generalizing geomet-
rical or mechanical relations, but the tendency to
erect such relations into ultimate truths and efficient
causes. The most consummate mathematical skill
may accompany and be auxiliary to the most earnest
piety, as it often has been. And an entire command
of the conceptions and processes of mathematics is
not only consistent with, but is the necessary condi-
tion and principal instrument of every important
step in the discovery of physical principles. Newton
was eminent above the philosophers of his time, in
no one talent so much as in the power of mathemati-
cal deduction. When he had caught sight of the law
of universal gravitation, he traced it to its conse-
quences with a rapidity, a dexterity, a beauty of
mathematical reasoning which no other person could
approach; so that on this account, if there had been
no other, the establishment of the general law was
possible to him alone. He still stands at the head of
mathematicians as well as of philosophical discover-
ers. But it never appeared to him, as it may have
appeared to some mathematicians who have em-
ployed themselves on his discoveries, that the gene-
ral law was an ultimate and sufficient principle: that
the point to which he had hung his chain of deduc-
tion was the highest point in the universe. Lagrange,
a modern mathematician of transcendent genius, was
in the habit of saying, in his aspirations after future
fame, that Newton was fortunate in having had the
system of the world for his problem, since its theory
could be discovered once only. But Newton himself
appears to have had no such persuasion that the
problem he had solved was unique and final: he
laboured to reduce gravity to some higher law, and
the forces of other physical operations to an analogy
FINAL CAUSES. 257
with those of gravity, and declared that all these
were but steps in our advance towards a first cause.
Between us and this first cause, the source of the
universe and of its laws, we cannot doubt that there
intervene many successive steps of possible discovery
and generalization, not less wide and striking than
the discovery of universal gravitation: but it is still
more certain that no extent or success of physical
investigation can carry us to any point which is not
at an immeasurable distance from an adequate know-
ledge of Him.
CHAPTER VII.
On Final Causes.
WE have pointed out a great number of instances
where the mode in which the arrangements of na-
ture produce their effect, suggests, as we conceive,
the belief that this effect is to be considered as the
end and purpose of these arrangements. The im-
pression which thus arises, of design and intention
exercised in the formation of the world, or of the
reality of Final Causes, operates on men's minds so
generally, and increases so constantly on every ad-
ditional examination of the phenomena of the uni-
verse, that we cannot but suppose such a belief to
have a deep and stable foundation. And we con-
ceive that in several of the comparatively few cases
in which such a belief has been rejected, the averse-
mess to it has arisen from the influence of some of
the causes mentioned in the last chapter; the exclu-
sive pursuit, namely, of particular trains and modes
of reasoning, till the mind becomes less capable of
forming the conceptions and making the exertions
which are requisite for the apprehension of truths
not included among its usual subjects of thought.
Y 2
258 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
1. This seems to be the case with those who main-
tain that purpose and design cannot be inferred or
deduced from the arrangements which we see around
us by any process of reasoning. We can reason
from effects to causes, say such writers, only in cases
where we know something of the nature of the cause.
We can infer from the works of men, the existence
of design and purpose, because we know, from past
observation, what kind of works human design and
purpose can produce. But the universe, considered
as the work of God, cannot be compared with any
corresponding work, or judged of by any analogy
with known examples. How then can we, in this
case, they ask, infer design and purpose in the artist
of the universe " On what principles, on what axioms,
can we proceed, which shall include this necessarily
singular instance, and thus give legitimacy and va-
lidity to our reasonings?
What has already been said on the subject of the
two different processes by which we obtain princi-
ples, and by which we reason from them, will sug-
gest the reply to these questions. When we collect
design and purpose from the arrangements of the
universe, we do not arrive at our conclusion by a
train of deductive reasoning, but by the conviction
which such combinations as we perceive immediate-
ly and directly impress upon the mind. “Design
must have had a designer.” But such a principle
can be of no avail to one whom the contemplation
or the description of the world does not impress with
the perception of design. It is not, therefore, at the
end, but at the beginning of our syllogisms, not
among remote conclusions, but among original prin-
ciples, that we must place the truth, that such ar-
rangements, manifestations, and proceedings as we
behold about us imply a Being endowed with con-
sciousness, design, and will, from whom they proceed.
This is inevitably the mode in which such a con-
viction is acquired; and that it is so, we may the
more readily believe, when we consider that it is the
FINAL CAUSES. 259
case with the design and will which we ascribe to
man, no less than in that which we believe to exist
in God. . At first sight we might perhaps be tempted
to say, that we infer design and purpose from the
works of man in one case, because we have known
these attributes in other cases produce effects in some
measure similar. But to this we must reply, by ask-
ing how we come to know the existence of human
design and purpose at first, and at all? What we
See around us are certain appearances, things, suc-
cessions of events; how come we ever to ascribe to
other men the thought and will of which we are con-
scious ourselves? How do we come to believe that
there are other men'ſ How are we led to elevate,
in our conceptions, some of the objects which we
perceive into persons 2 No doubt their actions, their
words induce us to do this. We see that the mani-
festations which we observe must be so understood,
and no othewise. We feel that such actions, such
events must be connected by consciousness and
personality; that the actions are not the actions of
things, but of persons; not necessary and without
significance, like the falling of a stone, but voluntary
and with purpose like what we do ourselves. But
this is not a result of reasoning: we do not infer this
from any similar case which we have known; since
we are now speaking of the first conception of a will
and purpose different from our own. In arriving at
such knowledge, we are aided only by our own con-
sciousness of what thought, purpose, will, are: and
possessing this regulative principle, we so decipher
and interpret the complex appearances which sur-
round us, that we receive irresistibly the persuasion
of the existence of other men, with thought and will
and purpose like our own. And just in the same
manner, when we examine attentively the adjust-
ment of the parts of the human frame to each other
and to the elements, the relation of the properties of
the earth to those of its inhabitants, or of the physi-
cal to the moral nature of man, the thought must
260 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
arise and cling to our perceptions, however little it
be encouraged, that this system, every where so full
of wonderful combinations, suited to the preservation,
and well-being of living creatures, is also the expres-
sion of the intention, wisdom, and goodness of a per-
sonal creator and governor, .
We conceive then that it is so far from being an
unsatisfactory or unphilosophical process by which
we collect the existence of a Deity from the works
of creation, that the process corresponds most close-
ly with that on which rests the most steadfast of our
convictions, next to that of our own existence, the
belief of the existence of other human beings. If
any one ever went so far in scepticism as to doubt
the existence of any other person than himself, he
might, so far as the argument from final causes is
concerned, reject the being of God as well as that of
man; but, without dwelling on the possibility of such
fantasies, when we consider how impossible it is for
men in general not to attribute personality, purpose,
thought, will to each other, in virtue of certain com-
binations of appearances and actions, we must deem
them most consistent and reasonable in attributing
also personality and purpose to God, in virtue of the
whole assemblage of appearances and actions which
constitute the universe, full as it is of combinations
from which such a suggestion springs. The vivid-
ness, the constancy of the belief of a wise and good
Being, thus governing the world, may be different in
different men, according to their habit of directing
their thoughts to the subject; but such a belief is
undoubtedly capable of becoming lively and steadfast
in the highest degree. It has been entertained and
cherished by enlightened and well-regulated minds
in all ages; and has been, at least since the rise of
Christianity, not only the belief, but a pervading
and ruling principle of action of many men, and of
whole communities. The idea may be rendered
more faint by turning the mind away from it, and
perhaps by indulging too exclusively in abstract and
FINAL CAUSES. 261
general speculations. . It grows stronger by an actual
study of the details of the creation; and, as regards
the practical consequences of such a belief, by a
habit of referring our actions and hopes to such a
Governor. In this way it is capable of becoming as
real and fixed an impression as that of a human
friend and master; and all that we can learn, by
observing the course of men's feelings and actions,
tends to convince us, that this belief of the being
and presence and government of God, leads to the
most elevated and beneficial frame of mind of which
man is capable. -
2. How natural and almost inevitable is this per-
suasion of the reality of Final Causes and consequent
belief in the personality of the Deity, we may ga-
ther by observing how constantly it recurs to the
thoughts, even of those who, in consequence of
such peculiarities of mental discipline as have been
described, have repelled and resisted the impression.
Thus, Laplace, of whom we have already spoken,
as one of the greatest mathematicians of modern
times, expresses his conviction that the supposed evi-
dence of final causes will disappear as our know-
ledge advances, and that they only seem to exist in
those cases where our ignorance leaves room for
such a mistake. “Let us run over,” he says, “the
history of the progress of the human mind and its
errors: we shall perpetually see final causes pushed
away to the bounds of its knowledge. These causes,
which Newton removed to the limits of the solar
system, were not long ago conceived to obtain in
the atmosphere, and employed in explaining meteors:
they are, therefore, in the eyes of the philosopher
nothing more than the expression of the ignorance
in which we are of the real causes.”
We may observe that we have endeavoured to
give a very different, and, as we believe, a far truer
view of the effect which philosophy has produced on
our knowledge of final causes. We have shown,
we trust, that the notion of design and end is trans-
262 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
ferred by the researches of science, not from the
domain of our knowledge to that of our ignorance,
but merely from the region of facts to that of laws.
We hold that, in this form, final causes in the at-
mosphere are still to be conceived to obtain, no less
than in an earlier state of meteorological knowledge;
and that Newton was right, when he believed that
he had established their reality in the solar system,
not expelled them from it.
But our more peculiar business at present is to
observe that Laplace himself, in describing the ar-
rangements by which the stability of the solar system
is secured, uses language which shows how irre-
sistibly these arrangements suggest an adaptation to
its preservation as an end. If in his expressions we
were to substitute the Deity for the abstraction
“nature” which he employs, his reflection would
coincide with that which the most religious philoso-
pher would entertain. “It seems that “God’ has
ordered every thing in the heavens to ensure the du-
ration of the planetary system, by views similar to
those which He appears to us so admirably to follow
upon the earth, for the preservation of animals and
the perpetuity of species.* This consideration alone
would explain the disposition of the system, if it
were not the business of the geometer to go further.”
It may be possible for the geometer to go further;
but he must be strangely blinded by his peculiar pur-
suits, if, when he has discovered the mode in which
these views are answered, he supposes himself to
have obtained a proof that there are no views at all.
It would be as if the savage, who had marvelled at
the steady working of the steam engine, should cease
to consider it a work of art, as soon as the self-re-
* Il semble que la nature ait tout disposé dans le ciel, pour as-
surer la durée du système planétaire, par des vues semblables à
celles qu’elle nous parait suivre si admirablement sur la terre,
pour la conservation des individus et la perpétuité des espèces.
-Syst, du Monde, p. 442.
FINAL CAUSES. 263
gulating part of the mechanism had been explained
to him.
The unsuccessful struggle in which those persons
engage, who attempt to throw off the impression of
design in the creation, appears in an amusing man-
ner through the simplicity of the ancient Roman
poet of this school. Lucretius maintains that the
eye was not made for seeing, nor the ear for hear-
ing. But the terms in which he recommends this
doctrine show how hard he knew it to be for men to
entertain such an opinion. His advice is,
Illud in his rebus vitium vehementer et istum
Effugere errorem, vitareque praemeditator,
Lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata,
Prospicere ut possimus. iv. 823.
'Gainst their preposterous error guard thy mind
Who say each organ was for use design'd;
Think not the visual orbs, so clear, so bright,
Were furnish’d for the purposes of sight.
Undoubtedly the poet is so far right, that a most
“vehement” caution and vigilant “premeditation”
are necessary to avoid the “vice and error” of such
a persuasion. The study of the adaptations of the
human frame is so convincing, that it carries the
mind with it, in spite of the resistance suggested by
speculative systems. Cabanis, a modern French
physiological writer of great eminence, may be se-
lected as a proof of this. Both by the general cha-
racter of his own speculations, and by the tone of
thinking prevalent around him, the consideration of
design in the works of nature was abhorrent from
his plan. Accordingly, he joins in repeating Bacon’s
unfavourable mention of final causes. Yet when he
comes to speak of the laws of reproduction of the
human race, he appears to feel himself compelled to
admit the irresistible manner in which such views
force themselves on the mind. “I regard,” he says,
“with the great Bacon, the philosophy of final
causes as barren ; but I have elsewhere acknow-
264 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
ledged that it was very difficult for the most cautious
man (l'homme le plus reservé) never to have recourse
to them in his explanations.”
3. It may be worth our while to consider for a
moment the opinion here referred to by Cabanis, of
the propriety of excluding the consideration of final
causes from our natural philosophy. The great au-
thority of Bacon is usually adduced on this subject.
“The handling of final causes,” says he, “mixed
with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted
the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physi-
cal causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon
these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great
arrest and prejudice of farther discovery.”f
A moment’s attention will show how well this re-
presentation agrees with that which we have urged,
and how far it is from dissuading the reference to
final causes in reasonings like those on which we are
employed. Final causes are to be excluded from
physical inquiry; that is, we are not to assume that
we know the objects of the Creator's design, and
put this assumed purpose in the place of a physical
cause. We are not to think it a sufficient account
of the clouds that they are for watering the earth,
(to take Bacon's examples,) or “that the solidness
of the earth is for the station and mansion of living
creatures.” The physical philosopher has it for his
business to trace clouds to the laws of evaporation
and condensation; to determine the magnitude and
mode of action of the forces of cohesion and crystal-
lization by which the materials of the earth are made
solid and firm. This he does, making no use of the
notion of final causes: and it is precisely because he
has thus established his theories independently of any
assumption of an end, that the end, when after all, it
returns upon him and cannot be evaded, becomes an
irresistible evidence of an intelligent legislator. He
* Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’Homme, i. 299.
† De Augment. Sc. ii. 105. - -
FINAL CAUSES. 265
finds that the effects, of which the use is obvious, are
produced by most simple and comprehensive laws;
and when he has obtained this view, he is struck by
the beauty of the means, by the refined and skilful
manner in which the useful effects are brought about;
—points different from those to which his researches
were directed. We have already seen, in the very
case of which we have been speaking, namely, the
laws by which the clouds are formed and distribute
their showers over the earth, how strongly those who
have most closely and extensively examined the ar-
rangements there employed (as Howard, Dalton, and
Black) have been impressed with the harmony and
beauty which these contrivances manifest.
We may find a further assertion of this view of
the proper use of final causes in philosophy, by re-
ferring to the works of one of the greatest of our phi-
losophers, and one of the most pious of our writers,
Boyle, who has an Essay on this subject. “I am by
all means,” says he, “for encouraging the contem-
plation of the celestial part of the world, and the
shining globes that adorn it, and especially the sun
and moon, in order to raise our admiration of the
stupendous power and wisdom of him who was able
to frame such immense bodies; and notwithstanding
their vast bulk and scarce conceivable rapidity, keep
them for so many ages constant both to the lines and
degrees of their motion, without interfering with one
another. And doubtless we ought to return thanks
and praises to the divine goodness for having so
placed the sun and moon, and determined the former,
or else the earth, to move in particular lines for the
good of men and other animals; and how disadvan-
tageous it would have been to the inhabitants of the
earth if the luminaries had moved after a different
manner. I dare not, however, affirm that the sun,
moon, and other celestial bodies were made solely
for the use of man: much less presume to prove one
system of the world to be true and another false; be-
cause the former is better fitted to the convenience of
Z -
266 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
mankind, or the other less suited, or perhaps altogether
wseless to that end.” -
This passage exhibits, we conceive, that combina-
tion of feelings which ought to mark the character
of the religious natural philosopher; an earnest piety
ready to draw nutriment from the contemplation of
established physical truths; joined with a philosophi-
cal caution, which is not seduced by the anticipation
of such contemplations, to pervert the strict course
of physical inquiry.
It is precisely through this philosophical care and
scrupulousness that our views of final causes acquire
their force and value as aids to religion. The object
of such views is not to lead us to physical truth,
but to connect such truth, obtained by its proper
processes and methods, with our views of God, the
master of the universe, through those laws and rela-
tions which are thus placed beyond dispute.
Bacon’s comparison of final causes to the vestal
virgins is one of those poignant sayings, so frequent
in his writings, which it is not easy to forget. “Like
them,” he says, “they are dedicated to God, and are
barren.” But to any one who reads his work it will
appear in what spirit this was meant. “Not because
those final causes are not true and worthy to be in-
quired, being kept within their own province.” (Of
the Advancement of Learning, b. ii. p. 142.) If he
had had occasion to develope his simile, full of latent
meaning as his similes so often are, he would proba-
bly have said, that to these final causes barrenness
was no reproach, seeing they ought to be, not the
mothers but the daughters of our natural sciences;
and that they were barren, not by imperfection of
their nature but in order that they might be kept
pure and undefiled, and so fit ministers in the temple
of God.

267
CHAPTER VIII.
On the Physical Agency of the Deity.
1. WE are not to expect that physical investiga-
tion can enable us to conceive the manner in which
God acts upon the members of the universe. The
question, “Canst thou by searching find out God?”
must silence the boastings of science as well as the
repinings of adversity. Indeed, science shows us,
far more clearly than the conceptions of every day
reason, at what an immeasurable distance we are
from any faculty of conceiving how the universe, ma-
terial and moral, is the work of the Deity. But with
regard to the material world, we can at least go so
far as this;–we can perceive that events are brought
about, not by insulated interpositions of divine power
exerted in each particular case, but by the establish-
ment of general laws. This, which is the view of the
universe proper to science, whose office it is to search
out these laws, is also the view which, throughout
this work, we have endeavoured to keep present to
the mind of the reader. We have attempted to show
that it combines itself most readily and harmoniously
with the doctrines of Natural Theology; that the
arguments for those doctrines are strengthened, the
difficulties which affect them removed, by keeping it
steadily before us. We conceive, therefore, that the
religious philosopher will do well to bear this con-
ception in his mind. God is the author and governor.
of the universe through the laws which he has given
to its parts, the properties which he has impressed
upon its constituent elements; these laws and pro-
perties are, as we have already said, the instruments
with which he works: the institution of such laws,
268 RELIGIOUS VIIEWS.
the selection of the quantities which they involve,
their combination and application, are the modes in
which he exerts and manifests his power, his wisdom,
his goodness: through these attributes, thus exercised,
the Creator of all, shapes, moves, sustains, and guides
the visible creation.
This has been the view of the relation of the Deity
to the universe entertained by the most sagacious
and comprehensive minds ever since the true object
of natural philosophy has been clearly and steadily ap-
prehended. The great writer who was the first to give
philosophers a distinct and commanding view of this
object, thus expresses himself in his “Confession of
Faith:” “I believe—that notwithstanding God hath
rested and ceased from creating since the first Sab-
bath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil
his divine will in all things, great and small, singular
and general, as fully and exactly by providence, as
he could by miracle and new creation, though his
working be not immediate and direct, but by com-
pass; not violating nature, which is his own law upon
the creature.”
And one of our own time, whom we can no longer
hesitate to place among the worthiest disciples of the
school of Bacon, conveys the same thought in the
following passage: “The Divine Author of the uni-
verse cannot be supposed to have laid down particu-
lar laws, enumerating all individual contingencies,
which his materials have understood and obey—this
would be to attribute to him the imperfections of
human legislation;–but rather, by creating them
endued with certain fixed qualities and powers, he
has impressed them in their origin with the spirit,
not the letter of his law, and made all their subse-
quent combinations and relations inevitable conse-
quences of this first impression.” *
2. This, which thus appears to be the mode of the
Deity's operation in the material world, requires
* Herschel on the Study of Nat. Phil. Art. 28.
AGENCY OF THE DEITY. 269
some attention on our part in order to understand it
with proper clearness. One reason of this is, that it
is a mode of operation altogether different from that
in which we are able to make matter fulfil our de-
signs. Man can construct exquisite machines, can
çall in vast powers, can form extensive combinations,
in order to bring about results which he has in view.
But in all this he is only taking advantage of laws of
nature which already exist; he is applying to his use
qualities which matter already possesses. Nor can he
by any effort do more. He can establish no new law
of nature which is not a result of the existing ones.
He can invest matter with no new properties which
are not modifications of its present attributes. His
greatest advances in skill and power are made when
he calls to his aid forces which before existed unem-
ployed, or when he discovers so much of the habits
of some of the elements as to be able to bend them
to his purpose. He navigates the ocean by the as-
sistance of the winds which he cannot raise or still:
and even if we suppose him able to control the course
of these, his yet unsubjugated ministers, this could
only be done by studying their characters, by learn-
ing more thoroughly the laws of air and heat and
moisture. He cannot give the minutest portion of the
atmosphere new relations, a new course of expan-
sion, new laws of motion. But the Divine operations,
on the other hand, include something much higher.
They take in the establishment of the laws of the
elements, as well as the combination of these laws
and the determination of the distribution and quan-
tity of the materials on which they shall produce
their effect. We must conceive that the Supreme
Power has ordained that air shall be rarefied, and
water turned into vapour, by heat; no less than that
he has combined air and water so as to sprinkle the
earth with showers, and determined the quantity of
heat and air and water, so that the showers shall be
as beneficial as they are: *
We may and must, therefore, in our conceptions
Z 2
276 RELIGIOUS VIEW3.
of the Divine purpose and agency, go beyond the
analogy of human contrivances. We must conceive
the Deity, not only as constructing the most refined
and vast machinery, with which, as we have already
seen, the universe is filled; but we must also imagine
him as establishing those properties by which such
machinery is possible: as giving to the materials of
his structure the qualities by which the material is
fitted to its use. There is much to be found, in na-
tural objects, of the same kind of contrivance which
is common to these and to human inventions; there
are mechanical devices, operations of the atmo-
spheric elements, chemical processes;—many such
have been pointed out, many more exist. But be-
sides these cases of the combination of means, which
we seem able to understand without much difficulty,
we are led to consider the Divine Being as the author
of the laws of chemical, of physical, and of mechani-
cal action, and of such other laws as make matter
what it is;–and this is a view which no analogy of
human inventions, no knowledge of human powers,
at all assists us to embody or understand. Science,
therefore, as we have said, while it discloses to us
the mode of instrumentality employed by the Deity,
convinces us, more effectually than ever, of the im-
possibility of conceiving God’s actions by assimi-
lating them to our own.
3. The laws of material nature, such as we have
described them, operate at all times, and in all places;
affect every province of the universe, and involve
every relation of its parts. Wherever these laws ap-
pear, we have a manifestation of the intelligence
by which they were established. But a law supposes
an agent, and a power; for it is the mode according
to which the agent proceeds, the order according to
which the power acts. Without the presence of such
an agent, of such a power, conscious of the relations
on which the law depends, producing the effects which
the law prescribes, the law can have no efficacy, no
existence. Hence we infer that the intelligence by
AGENCY OF THE DEITY. 271
which the law is ordained, the power by which it is
put in action, must be present at all times and in all
places where the effects of the law occur; that thus
the knowledge and the agency of the Divine Being
pervade every portion of the universe, producing all
action and passion, all permanence and change. The
laws of nature are the laws which he, in his wisdom,
prescribes to his own acts; his universal presence is
the necessary condition of any course of events, his
ºnal agency the only origin of any efficient
OTCé.
This view of the relation of the universe to God
has been entertained by many of the most eminent of
those who have combined the consideration of the
material world with the contemplation of God him-
self. It may therefore be of use to illustrate it by a
few quotations, and the more so, as we find this idea
remarkably dwelt upon in the works of that writer
whose religious views must always have a peculiar
interest for the cultivators of physical science, the
great Newton.
Thus, in the observations on the nature of the
Deity with which he closes the “Opticks,” he de-
clares the various portions of the world, organic and
inorganic, “can be the effect of nothing else than the
wisdom and skill of a powerful ever living Agent,
who being in all places, is more able by his will to
move the bodies within his boundless uniform senso-
rium, and thereby to form and reform the parts of
the universe, than we are by our will to move the
parts of our own bodies.” And in the Scholium at
the end of the “Principia,” he says, “God is one and
the same God always and every where. He is omni-
present, not by means of his virtue alone, but also by
his substance, for virtue cannot subsist without sub-
stance. In him all things are contained, and move,
but without mutual passion: God is not acted upon
by the motions of bodies; and they suffer no resist-
ance from the omnipresence of God.” And he refers
to several passages confirmatory of this view, not
272 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
only in the Scriptures, but also in writers who hand
down to us the opinions of some of the most philoso-
phical thinkers of the pagan world. He does not
disdain to quote the poets, and among the rest, the
verses of Virgil; -
Principio coelum ac terras camposque liquentes
Lucentemque globum lunae, Titaniaque astra,
Spiritus intus alit, totamgue infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem et magnose corpore miscet:
warning his reader, however, against the doctrine
which such expressions as these are sometimes un-
derstood to express. “All these things he rules, not
as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of all.”
Clarke, the friend and disciple of Newton, is one
of those who has most strenuously put forwards the
opinion of which we are speaking, “All things which
we commonly say are the effects of the natural pow-
ers of matter and laws of motion, are indeed (if we
will speak strictly and properly,) the effects of God's
acting upon matter continually and at every moment,
either immediately by himself, or mediately by some
created intelligent being. Consequently there is no
such thing as the course of nature, or the power of
nature,” independent of the effects produced by the
will of God.
Dugald Stewart has adopted and illustrated the
same opinion, and quotes with admiration the well-
known passage of Pope, concerning the Divine Agen-
cy, which
“Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.”
Mr. Stewart, with no less reasonableness than
charity, asserts the propriety of interpreting such
passages according to the scope and spirit of the
reasonings with which they are connected; since,
* Elem. of Phil. ii. p. 273.
INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 273
though by a captious reader they might be associ-
ated with erroneous views of the Deity, a more fa-
vourable construction will often see in them only the
results of the necessary imperfection of our language,
when we dwell upon the omnipresence and universal
activity of God.
Finally, we may add that the same opinions still
obtain the assent of the best philosophers and divines
of our time. Sir John Herschel says, (Discourse on
the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 37) “We would
no way be understood to deny the constant exercise
of His direct power in maintaining the system of na-
ture ; or the ultimate emanation, of every energy
which material agents exert, from his immediate will,
acting in conformity with his own laws.” And the
Bishop of London, in a note to his “Sermon on the
duty of combining religious instruction with intellec-
tual culture,” observes, “the student in natural phi-
losophy will find rest from all those perplexities which
are occasioned by the obscurity of causation, in the
supposition, which although it was discredited by the
patronage of Malebranche and the Cartesians, has
been adopted by Clarke and Dugald Stewart, and
which is by far the most simple and sublime account
of the matter; that all the events, which are continu-
ally taking place in the different parts of the material
universe, are the immediate effects of the divine
agency.”
CHAPTER IX.
On the Impression produced by considering the JVature
and Prospects of Science ; or, on the Impossibility
of the Progress of our Knowledge ever enabling us
to comprehend the JNature of the Deity.
IF we were to stop at the view presented in the
last chapter, it might be supposed that—by consider-
274 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
ing God as eternal and omnipresent, conscious of all
the relations, and of all the objects of the universe,
instituting laws founded on the contemplation of
these relations, and carrying these laws into effect
by his immediate energy, we had attained to a con-
ception, in some degree definite, of the Deity, such
as natural philosophy leads us to conceive him. But
by resting in this mode of conception, we should
overlook, or at least should disconnect from Our
philosophical doctrines, all that most interests and
affects us in the character of the Creator and Pre-
server of the world;—namely, that he is the law-
giver and judge of our actions; the proper object of
our prayer and adoration; the source from which
we may hope for moral strength here, and for the
reward of our obedience and the elevation of our
nature in another state of existence.
We are very far from believing that our philoso-
phy alone can give us such assurance of these im-
portant truths as is requisite for our guidance and
support; but we think that even our physical philo-
sophy will point out to us the necessity of proceed-
ing far beyond that conception of God, which re-
presents him merely as the mind in which reside all
the contrivance, law, and energy of the material
world. We believe that the view of the universe
which modern science has already opened to us,
compared with the prospect of what she has still to
do in pursuing the path on which she has just enter-
ed, will show us how immeasurably inadequate such
a mode of conception would be: and that if we take
into our account, as we must in reason do, all that
of which we have knowledge and consciousness, and
of which we have as yet no systematic science, we
shall be led to a conviction that the Creator and Pre-
server of the material world must also contain in
him such properties and attributes as imply his moral
character, and as fall in most consistently with all
that we learn in any other way of his providence
and holiness, his justice and mercy.
IN COMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD, 275
1. The sciences which have at present acquired
any considerable degree of completeness, are those
in which an extensive and varied collection of phe-
nomena, and their proximate causes, have been re-
duced to a few simple general laws. Such are
Astronomy and Mechanics, and perhaps, so far as
its physical conditions are concerned, Optics. Other
portions of human knowledge can be considered as
perfect sciences, in any strict sense of the term, only
when they have assumed this form ; when the va-
rious appearances which they involve are reduced
to a few principles, such as the laws of motion and
the mechanical properties of the luminiferous ether.
If we could trace the endless varieties of the forms
of crystals, and the complicated results of chemical
composition, to some one comprehensive law neces-
sarily pointing out the crystalline form of any given
chemical compound, Mineralogy would become an
exact science. As yet, however, we can scarcely
boast of the existence of any other such sciences
than those which we at first mentioned: and so far
therefore as we attempt to give definiteness to our
conception of the Deity, by considering him as the
intelligent depositary and executor of laws of ma-
ture, we can subordinate to such a mode of concep-
tion no portion of the creation, save the mechanical
movements of the universe, and the propagation and
properties of light.
2. And if we attempt to argue concerning the ma-
ture of the laws and relations which govern those
provinces of creation whither our science has not
yet reached, by applying some analogy borrowed
from cases where it has been successful, we have no
chance of attaining any except the most erroneous
and worthless guesses. The history of human spe-
culations, as well as the nature of the objects of
them, shows how certainly this must happen. The
great generalizations which have been established in
one department of our knowledge, have been appli-
ed in vain to the purpose of throwing light on the
276 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
other portions which still continue in obscurity.
When the Newtonian philosophy had explained so
many mechanical facts, by the two great steps, of
resolving the action of a whole mass into the actions
of its minutest particles, and considering these par-
ticles as centres of force,—attempts were naturally
soon made to apply the same mode of explanation
to facts of other different kinds. It was conceived
that the whole of natural philosophy must consist in
investigating the laws of force by which particles of
different substances attracted and repelled, and thus
produced motions, or vibrations to and from the par-
ticles. Yet what were the next great discoveries in
physics? The action of a galvanic wire upon a
magnet; which is not to attract or repel it, but to
turn it to the right and left; to produce motion, not
to or from, but transverse to the line drawn to the
acting particles; and again, the undulatory theory
of light, in which it appeared that the undulations
must not be longitudinal, as all philosophers, follow-
ing the analogy of all cases previously conceived,
had, at first, supposed them to be, but transverse to
the path of the ray. Here, though the step from
the known to the unknown was comparatively small,
when made conjecturally it was made in a direction
very wide of the truth. How impossible then must
it be to attain in this manner to any conception of a
law which shall help us to understand the whole
government of the universe !
3. Still, however, in the laws of the luminiferous
ether, and of the other fluid, (if it be another fluid)
by which galvanism and magnetism are connected,
we have something approaching nearly to mechani-
cal action, and, possibly, hereafter to be identified
with it. But we cannot turn to any other part of our
physical knowledge, without perceiving that the gulf
which separates it from the exact sciences is yet
wider and more obscure. Who shall enunciate for
us, and in terms of what notions, the general law of
chemical composition and decomposition 7 sometimes
IN COMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 277
indeed we give the name of attraction to the affinity
by which we suppose the particles of the various in-
gredients of bodies to be aggregated; but no one
can point out any common feature between this and
the attractions of which alone we know the exact
effects. He who shall discover the true general law
of the forces by which elements form compounds,
will probably advance as far beyond the discoveries
of Newton, as Newton went beyond Aristotle. But
who shall say in what direction this vast flight shall
be, and what new views it shall open to us of the
manner in which matter obeys the laws of the
Creator?
4. But suppose this flight performed;—we are yet
but at the outset of the progress which must carry
us towards Him. We have yet to begin to learn all
that we are to know concerning the ultimate laws
of organized bodies. What is the principle of life 2
What is the rule of that action of which assimila-
tion, secretion, developement, are manifestations?
and which appears to be farther removed from mere
chemistry than chemistry is from mechanics. And
what again is the new principle, as it seems to be,
which is exhibited in the irritability of an animal nerve?
the existence of a sense " How different is this from
all the preceding notions! No efforts can avoid or
conceal the vast but inscrutable chasm. Those theo-
rists, who have maintained most strenuously the pos-
sibility of tracing the phenomena of animal life to the
influence of physical agents, have constantly been
obliged to suppose a mode of agency altogether dif-
ferent from any yet known in physics. Thus La-
marck, one of the most noted of such speculators, in
describing the course of his researches, says, “I was
soon persuaded that the internal sentiment consti-
tuted a power which it was necessary to take into. .
account.” And Bichat, another writer on the same
subject, while he declares his dissent from Stahl, and
the earlier speculators, who had referred every thing
in the economy of life to a single principle, which
A a.
278 RELIGIOUS VIIBWS.
they called the anima, the vital principle, and so
forth, himself introduces several principles, or laws,
all utterly foreign to the region of physics; namely,
organic sensibility, organic contractility, animal sen-
sibility, animal contractility, and the like. Supposing
such principles really to exist, how far enlarged and
changed must our views be before we can conceive
these properties, including the faculty of perception,
which they imply, to be produced by the will and
power of one supreme Being, acting by fixed laws.
Yet without conceiving this, we cannot conceive the
agency of that Deity, who is incessantly thus acting,
in countless millions of forms and modes.
How strongly then does science represent God to
us as incomprehensible ! his attributes as unfathoma-
ble ! His power, his wisdom, his goodness, appear
in each of the provinces of nature which are thus
brought before us; and in each, the more we study
them, the more impressive, the more admirable do
they appear. When then we find these qualities
manifested in each of so many successive ways, and
each manifestation rising above the preceding by
unknown degrees, and through a progression of un-
known extent, what other language can we use con-
cerning such attributes than that they are infinite 2
What mode of expression-can the most cautious phi-
losophy suggest, other than that He, to whom we
thus endeavour to approach, is infinitely wise, pow-
erful, and good 7
5. But with sense and consciousness the history of
living things only begins. They have instincts, affec-
tions, passions, will. How entirely lost and bewil-
dered do we find ourselves when we endeavour to
conceive these faculties communicated by means of
general laws ' Yet they are so communicated from
God, and of such laws he is the lawgiver. At what
"an immeasurable interval is he thus placed above
every thing which the creation of the inanimate
world alone would imply; and how far must he
INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 279
transcend all ideas founded on such laws as we find
there !
6. But we have still to go further and far higher.
The world of reason and of morality is a part of the
same creation, as the world of matter and of sense.
The will of man is swayed by rational motives; its
workings are inevitably compared with a rule of ac-
tion; he has a conscience which speaks of right and
wrong. These are laws of man's nature no less than
the laws of his material existence, or his animal im-
pulses. Yet what entirely new conceptions do they
involve" How incapable of being resolved into, or
assimilated to, the results of mere matter, or mere
sense ! Moral good and evil, merit and demerit,
virtue and depravity, if ever they are the subjects of
strict science, must belong to a science which views
these things, not with reference to time or space, or
mechanical causation, not with reference to fluid or
ether, nervous irritability or corporeal feeling, but to
their own proper modes of conception; with refe-
rence to the relations with which it is possible that
these notions may be connected, and not to relations
suggested by other subjects of a completely extra-
neous and heterogeneous nature. . And according to
such relations must the laws of the moral world be
apprehended, by any intelligence which contemplates
them at all.
There can be no wider interval in philosophy than
the separation which must exist between the laws of
mechanical force and motion, and the laws of free
moral action. Yet the tendeney of men to assume,
in the portions of human knowledge which are out
of their reach, a similarity of type to those with
which they are familiar, can leap over even this
interval. Laplace has asserted that “an intelli-
gence which, at a given instant, should know all the
forces by which nature is urged, and the respective
situation of the beings of which nature is composed,
if, moreover, it were sufficiently comprehensive to
subject these data to calculation, would include in
280 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
the same formula, the movements of the largest bo-
dies of the universe and those of the slightest atom.
Nothing would be uncertain to such an intelligence,
and the future, no less than the past, would be pre-
sent to its eyes.” If we speak merely of mechanical
actions, this may, perhaps, be assumed to be an ad-
missible representation of the nature of their connex-
ion in the sight of the supreme intelligence. But to
the rest of what passes in the world, such language
is altogether inapplicable. A formula is a brief mode
of denoting a rule of calculating in which numbers
are to be used: and numerical measures are appli-
cable only to things of which the relation depend on
time and space. By such elements, in such a mode,
how are we to estimate happiness and virtue, thought
and will ? To speak of a formula with regard to such
things, would be to assume that their laws must needs
take the shape of those laws of the material world
which our intellect most fully comprehends. A more
absurd and unphilosophical assumption we can hard-
ly imagine.
We conceive, therefore, that the laws by which
God governs his moral creatures, reside in his mind,
invested with that kind of generality, whatever it be,
of which such laws are capable; but of the charac-
ter of such general laws, we know nothing more cer-
tainly than this, that it must be altogether different
from the character of those laws which regulate the
material world. The inevitable necessity of such a
total difference is suggested by the analogy of all the
knowledge which we possess and all the concep-
tions which we can form. And, accordingly, no per-
sons, except those whose minds have been biassed
by some peculiar habit or course of thought, are
likely to run into the confusion and perplexity which
are produced by assimilating too closely the govern-
ment and direction of voluntary agents to the pro-
duction of trains of mechanical and physical phe-
nomena. In whatever manner voluntary and moral
agency depend upon the Supreme Being, it must be
INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE GE' GOD, 281
in some such way that they still continue to bear the
character of will, action, and morality. And, though
too exclusive an attention to material phenomena
may sometimes have made physical philosophers
blind to this manifest difference, it has been clearly
seen and plainly asserted by those who have taken
the most comprehensive views of the nature and
tendency of science. “I believe,” says Bacon, in his
Confession of Faith, “that, at the first the soul of
man was not produced by heaven or earth, but was
breathed immediately from God; so that the ways
and proceedings of God with spirits are not included
in nature; that is in the laws of heaven and earth ;
but are reserved to the law of his secret will and
grace; wherein God worketh, still, and resteth not
from the work of redemption, as he resteth from the
work of creation; but continueth working to the end
of the world.” We may be permitted to observe
here, that, when Bacon has thus to speak of God’s
dealings with his moral creatures, he does not take
his phraseology from those sciences which can offer
none but false and delusive analogies; but helps out
the inevitable scantiness of our human knowledge,
by words borrowed from a source more fitted to
supply our imperfections. Our natural speculations
cannot carry us to the ideas of “grace” and “re-
demption;” but in the wide blank which they leave,
of all that concerns our hopes of the Divine support
and favour, the inestimable knowledge which reve-
lation, as we conceive, gives us, finds ample room
and appropriate place. *
7. Yet even in the view of our moral constitution
which natural reason gives, we may trace laws that
imply a personal relation to our Creator. How can
we avoid considering that as a true view of man’s
being and place, without which, his best faculties are
never fully developed, his noblest energies never
called out, his highest point of perfection never
reached 7 Without the thought of a God over all,
superintending our actions, approving our virtues,
282 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
transcending our highest conceptions of good, man
would never rise to those higher regions of moral
excellence which we know him to be capable of at-
taining. “To deny a God,” again says the great
philosopher, “destroys magnanimity and the raising
of human nature; for take an example of a dog, and
mark what a generosity and courage he will put on,
when he finds himself maintained by a man; who,
to him, is instead of a God, or melior natura : which
courage is manifestly such, as that creature, without
that confidence of a better nature than his own,
could never attain. So man, when he resteth and
assureth himself upon divine protection and favour,
gathereth a force and faith, which human nature
could not obtain. Therefore, as atheism is in all re-
spects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human
nature of the means to exalt itself above human
frailty.”
Such a law, then, of reference to a Supremely
Good Being, is impressed upon our nature, as the
condition and means of its highest moral advance-
ment. And strange indeed it would be if we should
suppose, that in a system where all besides indicates
purpose and design, this law should proceed from no
such origin; and no less inconceivable, that such a
law, purposely impressed upon man to purify and
elevate his nature, should delude and deceive him.
8. Nothing remains, therefore, but that the Crea-
tor, who, for purposes that even we can see to be
wise and good, has impressed upon man this ten-
dency to look to him for support, for advancement,
for such happiness as is reconcileable with holiness;
—to believe him to be the union of all perfection, the
highest point of all intellectual and moral excellence;
—IS, in reality, such a guardian and judge, such a
good, and wise, and perfect Being, as we thus irre-
sistibly conceive him. It would indeed be extrava-
gant to assert that the imagination of the creature,
* Bacon, Essay on Atheism,
INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 283
itself the work of God, can invent a higher point of
goodness, of justice, of holiness, than the Creator
himself possesses: that the Eternal Mind, from whom
our motions of good and right are derived, is not him-
self directed by the rules which these notions imply.
It is difficult to dwell steadily on such thoughts.
But they will at least serve to confirm the view which
it was our object to illustrate; namely, how incom-
parably the nature of God must be elevated above
any conceptions which our natural reason enables us
to form; and we have been led to these reflections, it
will be recollected, by following the clue of which
science gave us the beginning. The Divine Mind
must be conceived by us as the seat of those laws of
nature which we have discovered. It must be no
less the seat of those laws which we have not yet
discovered, though these may and must be of a cha-
racter far different from any thing we can guess.
The Supreme Intelligence must therefore contain the
laws, each according to their true dependence, of or-
ganic life, of sense, of animal impulse, and must con-
tain also the purpose and intent for which these pow-
ers were put in play. But the Governing Mind must
comprehend also the laws of the responsible crea-
tures which the world contains, and must entertain
the purposes for which their responsible agency was
given them. It must include these laws and purposes,
connected by means of the notions, which responsi-
bility implies, of desert and reward, of moral excel-
lence in various degrees, and of well-being as asso-
ciated with right doing. All the laws which govern
the moral world are expressions of the thought and
intentions of our Supreme Ruler. All the contri-
vances for moral no less than for physical good, for
the peace of mind, and other rewards of virtue, for
the elevation and purification of individual character,
for the civilization and refinement of states, their ad-
vancement in intellect and virtue, for the diffusion of
good, and the repression of evil; all the blessings that
wait on perseverance and energy in a good cause;
284 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
on unquenchable love of mankind, and unconquer-
able devotedness to truth; on purity and self-denial;
on faith, hope, and charity;-all these things are in-
dications of the character, will, and future intentions
of that God, of whom we have endeavoured to track
the footsteps upon earth, and to show his handiwork
in the heavens. “This God is our God, for ever and
ever.” And if, in endeavouring to trace the tenden-
cies of the vast labyrinth of laws by which the uni-
verse is governed, we are sometimes lost and be-
wildered, and can scarce, or not at all, discern the
line by which pain, and sorrow, and vice fall in with
a scheme directed to the strictest right and greatest
good, we yet find no room to faint or falter; knowing
that these are the darkest and most tangled recesses
of our knowledge; that into them science has as yet
cast no ray of light; that in them reason has as yet
caught sight of no general law by which we may se-
curely hold: while, in those regions where we can
see clearly, where science has thrown her strongest
illumination upon the scheme of creation; where we
have had displayed to us the general laws which give
rise to all multifarious variety of particular facts;–
we find all full wisdom, and harmony, and beauty:
and all this wise selection of means, this harmonious
combination of laws, this beautiful symmetry of re-
lations, directed, with no exception which human in-
vestigation has yet discovered, to the preservation,
the diffusion, the well-being of those living things,
which, though of their nature we know so little, we
cannot doubt to be the worthiest objects of the Crea-
tor’s care.
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