LIBRARY OF THK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. QIF-T PACIFIC THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. Accession ^84597 Class BURNETT TREATISE, MDCCCUY. THEISM: THE WITNESS OF REASON AND NATURE TO AN ALL-WISE AND BENEFICENT CREATOR. THEISM: THE WITNESS OF REASON AND NATURE TO AN ALL-WISE AND BENEFICENT CREATOR. BY THE REV. JOHN TULLOCH, D.D., PRINCIPAL AND PRIMARIES PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGT, ST. MART'S COLLEGE. ST. ANDREWS. Znrelv rdv Kvpiov, it apa yc ^/rjXa^rjirftav airdv xal ttipcxev- KAITOirE OY MAKPAN AHO ENO2 EKAZTOY HMfiN YHAPXONTA. Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 27- " : NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 285 BEOADWAY. 1856. BTERKOTTFEDBT >. O. JENKIXS, THOMAS B. SMITH, PRINTER, 83 & 84 Beekman Street 22 & 24 Frankfort TO SIR DAVID BREWSTER, K.H. D.C.L. F.B.S. V.P.R.S., EDINBURGH, MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE FRAKCE, AND PRINCIPAL OF BT. LEONARD'S COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS. MY DEAR Sm DAVLD, I DEDICATE this Volume to you with sincere pleasure. Through your kindness I was enabled, while engaged in its composition, to have beside me certain volumes which otherwise I would have had great difficulty in procuring in my retirement in the country. I am glad to have such an opportunity of acknowledging this favor, as well as of expressing my grateful sense of the hearty interest which you have always taken in my studies, and my conviction of the cor- diality with which you are always ready to respond to any demands on your literary sympathy, and to lend your encouragement to stu- dious aspiration. I fe< 1, moreover, that I can, with peculiar fitness, dedicate to you the attempt which is made in this Volume to trace some portion of the Divine meaning every where inscribed on Nature, and illustrated by the progress of Scientific Discovery. However imperfect this attempt may be, I am sure that it is one which will warmly engage your regard. Allow me to express the hope that you may be long spared to adorn our ancient University, on which your name and distinguished labors in science and literature have already conferred BO much luster. I have the honor to be, MY DEAR Sm DAVID, Yours faithfully, JOHN TULLOCH. Pr. MART'S COLLXXSB, _8459 PREFACE. THE circumstances in which this Essay originated are probably familiar to many. It has been thought proper, however, briefly to state them here. Mr. Burnett, a merchant in Aberdeen, whose character appears to have been marked by a rare degree of Christian sensibility and benevolence, among other acts of liberality,* bequeathed certain sums, to be expended at intervals of forty years, in the shape of two Premiums, inviting to the discussion of the evidences of religious truth, and es- pecially to the consideration and confirmation of the at- tributes of Divine Wisdom and Goodness. The exact terms of the subject of inquiry, as given in Mr. Burnett's own deed of bequest, will be found to head the Introduc- tion which opens the pfesent Essay. * Mr. Webster, agent for the Burnett Trustees, informs me that Mr. Burnett's Christian liberality extended itself to many important objects but too little attended to in his time ; for example, the care of pauper lunatics, and the religious instruc- tion of poor persons in jail, for both of which objects he left benevolent provision. The date of Mr. Burnett's Deed of Be- quest is 1786. Viii PREFACE. On the previous occasion of competition, the first of the Premiums was awarded to the late Principal Brown of Aberdeen, and the second to the Rev. John Bird Sumner, Fellow of Eton College, and now Archbishop of Canter- bury. On this occasion, the First Premium of 1,800 has been adjudged to the Rev. R. A. Thompson, M.A., Lincolnshire ; and the second, of 600, to the present writer; the judges having been Mr. Isaac Taylor, Mr. Henry Rogers, and the Rev. Baden Powell. In passing my Essay through the Press, I have submit- ted it to a careful and thorough revision. Although the subject had been long in my mind, it had, in the end, as- sumed form very hurriedly ; and on my receiving the manuscript back, many parts appeared to me greatly capa- ble of improvement. I have not hesitated, therefore, to correct freely, with the view of imparting to the argument greater consistency, and to the whole a better finish. In its general plan and principles, however, the Essay remains substantially the same. Of the truth of these principles I feel, with the further opportunity of reflection, only the more convinced, if I still continue to feel, as I truly do, that my representation of them is very imperfect. In reference to much of the illustrative matter embraced in the Essay, I think it right to state here, that I make no pretensions to an independent investigation of the scientific PREFACE. ix details. My special studies, such as they are, have been devoted to quite different provinces of inquiry. I have gathered my illustrative materials, therefore, from the most available sources whi ^h occurred to me, writing in a retired country Manse, where the difficulty of procuring the requisite books for such a miscellaneous course of study can only be understood by those who have expe- rienced it. These sources, in some cases, are certainly not so original as I could have desired ; but I have conscien- tiously aimed, in all cases, to present the facts as accurately as I could ascertain them ; and there is little, if any, of what I have thus collected that will, I think, be found open to a charge of inadvertency or inaccuracy. The spirit of fairness and comprehensiveness in which I have endeavored to seize my subject throughout, will, I hope, commend itself to my readers. I have sought the truth simply ; I have sought it with respect and tolerance for the opinions of those from whom I differ, but have never shrunk, in deference to any names, from the asser- tion of my own convictions. I certainly did not undertake the subject from the first as a mere taskwork, but because I felt a true interest in it, and conceived that it was capable, in some respects, of a more argumentatively consistent treatment than it had hitherto received. How far I have accomplished this my aim must be left to the judgment of others. I have further to express my acknowledgments to the X PREFACE. kind friends who have given me their aid and advice in the correction of the press. I would fain have mentioned my obligations in this respect more particularly, had I been permitted. It is my earnest prayer that the volume now submitted to the public may in some degree fulfill, under the Divine blessing, the benevolent purpose in which it originated. May it strengthen, in the hearts of those who read it, im- pressions of that Divine wisdom and love which are all around them, and ever near to them. CONTENTS. mm INTRODUCTION, 1 SECT. L PRINCIPLES OF INDUCTIVE EVIDENCE, 11 CHAP. 1. PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE, ... 13 2. DOCTRINE OP CAUSATION, .... 26 . . 3. DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES, .... 4? . . 4. THEISTIC CONCLUSION (GENERAL LAWS), . . 73 SUPPLEMENTARY. SPECIAL (GEOLOGICAL) EYIDENCE OF A CREATOR, 81 SECT. II. ILLUSTRATIVE (INDUCTIVE) EVIDENCE, 95 CHAP. 1. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS, .... 97 2. STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH, . . . .120 * .. 3. COSMICAL AND TERRESTRIAL MAGNITUDES DIVINE POWER, 131 4. ELEMENTARY COMBINATIONS CRYSTALLIZA- TION, 137 5. ORGANIZATION DESIGN, . . . .147 6. SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE, 160 7. SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL, . 176 8. TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM, . .199 9. MENTAL ORDER, 211 . . 10. SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS, . . .216 .. 11. INSTINCT, 225 . . 12. COGNITIVE STRUCTURE IN MAN, . . .234 . . 13. EMOTIVE STRl'CTURE IN MAN, . . , 259 Xll CONTENTS. PAGB SECT. Ill MORAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE, . . 287 CHAP. 1. MORAL INTUITIVE EVIDENCE, .... 289 . . 2. FREEDOM DIVINE PERSONALITY, . . . 292 . . 3. CONSCIENCE DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS, . . 309 . . 4. EEASON INFINITY (A PRIORI ARGUMENT), . 319 SECT. IV. DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE DIVINE WISDOM AND GOODNESS, . . 337 CHAP. 1. STATEMENT OF DIFFICULTIES, ETC., . . 339 2. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS, INTENDED TO OB- VIATE DIFFICULTIES, .... 343 3. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES PHYS- ICAL PAIN AND DEATH, . . . .351 4. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES SORROW, 361 5. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES SOCIAL EVILS, 371 6. SPECIAL EXAMINATION OF DIFFICULTIES SIN, 379 7. CONSIDERATIONS, ETC. DERIVED FROM "WRIT- TEN REVELATION," 396 8. THE DIVINE MAN INCARNATE WISDOM AND LOVE, 403 9. THE GOSPEL A DIVINE POWER OF MORAL ELE.- VATION AND CONSOLATION, . . .411 .. 10. LIMITED RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL MILLEN- NIAL PROSPECT, . . . . .417 CONCLUSION, 427 INTRODUCTION. "THE EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS A BEING, ALL- POWERFUL, WISE, AND GOOD, BY WHOM EVERY THING EXISTS ; AND PARTICULARLY TO OBVIATE DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF THE DEITY; AND THIS, IN THE FIRST PLACE, FROM CONSIDERATIONS INDEPEND- ENT OF WRITTEN REVELATION; AND X IN THE SECOND PLACE, FROM THE REVELATION OF THE LORD JESUS ; AND, FROM THE WHOLE, TO POINT OUT THE INFERENCES MOST NECESSARY FOR, SOME ambiguity seems to rest on the main sub- ject here claiming the consideration of the Essayist. The words may be so interpreted as to give for the special subject of Essay the polemical treatment of the various objections that have been urged against the wisdom and goodness of the Deity. This, how- ever, is not the interpretation which they were probably intended to bear. The special attention claimed to difficulties respecting the Divine wisdom 184597 2 THEISM. and goodness was not meant, in all likelihood, to constitute these the chief topics of treatment, in contrast to the general subject announced in the first clause ; but simply to indicate that, inasmuch as these attributes have been more frequently the objects of skeptical assault, and are in themselves more obviously exposed to cavil, so they deserve a more particular proof, not only on positive grounds, but in direct reference to the objections which readily occur, and have been often brought against them. The truth is, that, in any attempt " to obviate" these difficulties, the main recourse must ever be to the vastly preponderating positive evidence in favor of the wisdom and goodness of the Deity ; and just the more thorough and com- plete the presentation of this evidence, the less force will be felt in such difficulties, and the less trouble in dealing with them polemically. In any point of view, therefore, we consider ourselves justified in regarding the main and proper subject of Essay as that announced in the first clause viz., the " Evidence that there is a Being, all-powerful, wise, and good, by whom every thing exists." And to this subject, accord ingly, the bulk of the present treatise is devoted. The science of Natural Theology has especially suffered from the narrow and one-sided spirit in which it has been cultivated. Separate inquirers have generally given themselves to some favorite INTRODUCTION. branch of evidence, which they have not been con- tent merely to explore by itself, but which they have aimed to exalt over other branches. The successive labors of natural theologians appear in this way to present the spectacle rather of incon- sistent structures, displacing or overlying one an- other, than of parts fitting harmoniously together into one great scheme of argument. The still standing dispute between the a posteriori and a priori classes of thinkers, testifies strongly to this discordance. While some profound and earnest men have sought to raise the whole superstructure of natural theology upon an a priori datum, others, equally earnest, though with less speculative power, have at once put aside all such attempts as useless, and even impugned them with a jealous restrict- iveness. Zeal on the one side has provoked contempt on the other ; arid here, as in other cases, the abstract reasoner and the popular expositor have seemed to stand as opponents, rather than as helpmates in the same cause.* The result of thjs has been not a little confusion and uncertainty as to the principles of the science * This conflict among natural theologians was already indi- cated by Kant in his great work, in which he submits all the separate modes of theistic argument to a keenly scientific sift- ing. And it is impossible that any can be familiar with even our own British literature on the subject, without being made aware of the existence of such a conflict. 4 T H E I S M . on the one hand, and its comprehensiveness on the other. With a general acknowledgment of the convincing mass of evidencs on which it is based, the clear logical coherence and relative bearing of that evidence are still very indistinctly appre- hended. The problem of natural theology what it really is ? what principles it involves ? and the distinctive character and force of these principles ? it can not be said that there exists any thing like harmony of opinion on these questions. Great as was the service rendered to the science by the varied interest and argumentative skill of the Bridgewater Treatises, these questions lay beyond the formal range of any of them ; and, with all the light which they cast on its diversified applications, they contributed but little to the determination, the scientific analysis and co-ordination of its fundamental doctrine. But so far as the interests of the science are con- cerned in our day, this is undoubtedly the special task required of the natural theologian. It is in the region of First Principles, above all, that an earnest and sifting discussion is now taking place. There is an evident striving to grasp in a clearer solution, to hold in a more thorough unity and comprehensiveness than have been hitherto at- tained, the elements of our science. The spirit of eclecticism which has largely penetrated philoso- phy in general, is seeking, in this department of it, INTRODUCTION. 5 with special eagerness, a common center and per- vading interest. We have ourselves, at least, strongly felt the necessity for a treatment of the theistic problem at once more penetrating and syn- thetic, and have accordingly aimed at such a treat- ment of it in the present essay. We apprehend the theistic evidence, as far as possible, under one plan or scheme, which may be generally called " Inductive." Inasmuch, however, as this plan of evidence, in its very conception, rests upon certain definite principles of philosoph- ical belief, we consider it necessary, in the first instance, to lay down and verify these principles. We have felt that, in the present state of specula- tive discussion, we could not for a moment take these principles for granted, seeing that the two most living and active schools of philosophical un- belief proceed upon the express negation of them, and that in them really lies the gist of the theistic problem. It is our aim, accordingly, not merely to state these principles, but to establish them. Having laid down a satisfactory basis of princi- ples, we proceed, in the second section of the essay, to unfold, in something like organic relation and coherence, the array of inductive or a posteriori evidence for the Divine power, wisdom, and good- ness presented by the vastly diversified phenomena of matter and of mind. This, obviously, is a boundless field, which nc range of inquiry can ex- 6 THEISM. haust, and which, even were it possible, it would be needless, for the end in view to try to exhaust. Our object is simply to unfold the distinguishing and essential features of this ever-accumulating mass of evidence, and to present them, as far as we can, in an order of progression, in which they may be seen to bear with expansive force upon the vindication and illustration of the Divine character. "We advance from the more general and simple phenomena of nature, through the more complex, up to the highest and most subtle combinations to be found in man's intellectual and emotive consti- tution ; and in the course of this procession it is our chief aim that under the guidance of which we advance to seize and set forth those ultimate typical realities which all along meet us, and which, while in their mystery they point directly back to a Divine Source, serve at the same time prominent- ly to characterize this Source. It is only some guiding aim of this sort, however imperfectly it may be carried out, that could bring within any in- telligible limits, or give any living interest to, such a survey. Whereas the section on " Principles" will, it is hoped, serve to verify on the deepest grounds the fundamental theistic conception of an intelligent First Cause this second illustrative section will serve to clothe the bare abstract idea of such a Cause in the attributes of power, wisdom, and INTRODUCTION. 7 goodness reflected from the great leading forms or facts of nature. Having completed our inductive survey, we re- turn, in a third section, which we have entitled, " Moral Intuitive Evidence," to the region of First Principles, and in this region endeavor further to establish certain elements of the theistic conception viz., Personality, Righteousness, and Infinity without a special verification of which, every theis- tic argument must, according to our view, utterly fail of its purpose. Under this section of evidence we are led to treat of the common a priori argu- ment, and to assign to it its distinctive value in the general plan of theistic speculation. It may be inferred from what we have said that, while our second section of Evidence corresponds to the common treatment of the a posteriori argu- ment, as exemplified in Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises, both our first and third sections deal simply with the elements of the a priori argument. And if any choose to apply the term a priori to the discussions contained in these sections, it mat- ters very little. They really, however, embrace a course of reasoning to which that term, in the re- strictive sense in which it has been applied to defi- nite arguments for the existence of the Deity, has no proper application.* * The term a priori is, not, in fact, applied with any consist- o: y even to these arg\raients, some of the different forms of the 8 THEISM. Upon any definite scheme of a priori argument- ation, involving a process of mere abstract deduc- tion from some single element of thought, or even of experience, it will be seen in the sequel that we do not place any reliance. We are as little in- clined as those who have most zealously opposed this sort of argumentation, to ascribe a convincing force to it. So far we are at one with the general spirit of natural theological inquiry which prevails in this country, as represented by such writers as Brown, Brougham, and Chalmers. But, then, we consider that these writers, while rightly repudiat- ing the conclusiveness of a priori reasoning in refer- ence to our subject, have failed to set forth, and even to apprehend with clearness and comprehen- siveness, the subjective conditions, or, in our pre- vious language, principles, which their a posteriori argument at once presupposes as its essential basis, and demands in order to its complete and effective validity. Now, it is simply the object of the first and third section of this essay to determine and verify these conditions or principles, which, as thus forming the only adequate foundation, and the culminating force of the general evidence for the Divine existence and character, seem eminently in Cartesian argument, and that of Clarke especially, resting on an express datum of experience ; whereas it is the pretension of a pure a priori argument to demonstrate the Divine existence from the formal conceptions of the human mind. INTRODUCTION. 9 present day to claim the attention of the natu- ral theologian. The chain of induction goes up in unnumbered links; but this chain rests at both points on principles of intuitive belief, which must be thoroughly understood and substantiated. While, therefore, our third section receives a distinctive name, and might, as a branch of theistic evidence, to some extent stand by itself, we would yet have it to be viewed in strict connection with the preceding sections ; in which connection alone our general evidence will be seen in its fully con- clusive bearing. A fourth and concluding section is devoted, ac- cording to our view of the terms of the subject, to a particular examination of the " difficulties regard- ing the wisdom and goodness of the Deity," as they derive any explanation from the light of Nature, or finally from the disclosures of "written Kevela- tion." Throughout the essay we have kept in view very prominently the anti-theistic tendencies of our time, especially as manifested in the form of Positivism. This seemed to be demanded by the character of the essay, which, prescribed at intervals of forty years, was probably designed to meet the forms of speculative skepticism likely to arise at such inter- vals. In the history of thought, forty years is a wide period, during which great changes of opinion may be expected tq occur. And it is at least certain 1* 10 THEISM. that, since the date of the publication of the last essays on our subject, the question between the Christian Theist and the speculative Skeptic, if, as they ever must be, essentially the same, have yet assumed very changed aspects. Materialistic Pan- theism, in the shape of "Positive Philosophy," has especially assumed a dignity and pretension which in some respects invest it with a new char- acter, and require a new and more comprehensive mode of treatment. Our essay throughout will be found to bear the impress of this conviction.* * Miss Martineau's recent translation of Comte's great work, and Mr. G. II. Lewes' popular exposition of Positivism (pub- lished as one of the volumes of Bohn's Scientific Library), give additional significance to the purpose that animates our essay. SECTION I, PRINCIPLES OF INDUCTIVE EVIDENCE. j ,3IT Y I. CHAPTER I. PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE. THE Theistic Evidence, in its common inductive form, derives its logical force from certain princi- ples implied in its very conception. It is necessary, therefore, in entering upon our subject, to deter- mine these principles, and the grounds on which they rest. The special necessity of such an initial explanation and verification of principles, is shown by the fact that it is in regard to them alone that there remains any dispute. The question between the Theist and the Anti-Theist Pantheist or Atheist necessarily always resolves itself into one of this fundamental character. It becomes a con- troversy, not as to the existence of certain phe- nomena in nature whose existence is really indis- putable on either side but as to the true meaning or interpretation of these phenomena. And espe- cially is this the present aspect of the question, amid the new stir which, from opposite quarters, has begun in philosophical inquiry. We can not 14 T II E I S M . therefore save ourselves, even if we would, from taking up the speculative discussions which lie across the threshold of our subject, and endeavor- ing to establish our position securely on the nar- row platform of First Principles. In this way, besides, we shall exhibit, better than in any other, the condensed logical force of the Evidence, illus- tratively expanded in the succeeding section. The theistie argument may be syllogistically expressed as follows, in a form which appears to us at once simple and free from ambiguity viz., First or major premiss, Order universally proves Mind. Second, or minor premiss, The works of Nature discover Order. Conclusion, The works of Nature prove Mind* * Dr. Reid long ngo expressed the theistie argument in a syllogistic form, as follows : "First, That design and intelligence in the cause may, with certainty, be inferred from marks or signs of it in the effect. This is the major proposition of the argument. The second, which we call the minor proposition, is, That there are in fact the clearest marks of design and wis- dom in the works of nature ; and the conclusion is, That the works of nature are the effects of a wise and intelligent Cause. One must either assent to the conclusion, or deny one or other of the premises." To this statement of 'the theistie syllogism, which, to say the least, is not remarkable for precision, considerable exception has been taken by succeeding writers. Dr. Crombie, in his work on Natural Theology, maintains that the syllogism of Reid is vicious in this respect, that in passing from the major to the minor proposition, he tacitly carries over to the " works PRINCIPLES. 15 It is of great importance to keep clear in the outset of all ambiguous or misleading terms. And this conviction has led us to reject from our syllo- gism such common expressions as not only " cause" and "effect," but also "design." There will be abundant use in the sequel for this latter ex- pression in all its full and appropriate significance, when we have established the great general doc- of nature" the conclusion suggested by the term " effect ;" while yet, according to Dr. Crombie, this is the very thing to be proved viz., That the world is an effect. He thus repre- sents Reid's statement of the argument : " Marks of design in the effect prove design in the cause. The works of nature are an effect, and exhibit marks of design ; therefore the works of nature prove design in the cause." Besides the invalid assump- tion which Dr. Crombie maintains is here introduced into the minor premiss, he objects, and we think with perfect justice, to the mode in which the first proposition is stated, " marks of design in the effect" being simply equivalent to "design in the caose." The more general form in which we have put the syllogism in the text, appears to us entirely to obviate these objections ; and especially to liberate us from any such preliminary neces- sity as that of proving the world to be an " effect." By putting out of view this term, and dealing simply with the fact of order, we have already, according to the truth of our first proposition, Mind as its cause. It is not necessary that we show previously that the orderly fact or phenomenon is an " effect," for this simple reason, that in its very nature it is such. In virtue of its character as manifesting order it is already declared a product or effect. This of course may be held equally true on the syllogistic basis of Reid ; and we do not therefore concur in this part of Dr. Crombie's criticism. Only by avoiding the use of the term "effect," we obviate such an objection. Our mode of expression disencumbers the argu- ment of an extraneous element of debate, and so far places the skeptical cavil of Hume simply beside the question. 16 THEISM. trine on which it rests viz., That Mind is every- where the only valid explanation of Order its necessary correlate. It is this doctrine the equivalent obviously of the major premiss of our syllogism which appears to us to present, in its really valid and fundamental character, the theistic problem. Essentially, it is neither more nor less than the old doctrine of Final Causes ; but, for the reason already stated, we prefer considering it in the mean time in a new and untechnical form of expression. Upon this fundamental position rests the whole burden of the inductive theistic argument. If this position can be established if the right of Intelli- gence to stand every where as the correlate of Order can be made good the Pantheist or Posi- tivist very well knows that, even according to his own favorite mode of viewing nature as a system of law or order, the theistic conclusion directly fol- lows. The fact of a supremely Intelligent Cause then every where asserts itself. The discoveries of science, in all their rich variety, became only tributary witnesses to this fact. Here, accordingly, the whole contest of Theism centers, and finds its most vital struggle. And of this the opposite school of thinkers are sufficiently aware. They clearly feel that it is here alone that a consistent position of denial can be taken up. The right of Mind to be held every where as the correlate of PRINCIPLES. 17 Order, and so to stand at the head of nature, is stoutly, and even scornfully, impugned by them. That Mind is in man and animals the appropriate explanation of many facts of order, is of course not denied ; but it is expressly denied that it has any claim to be regarded as the only true source, and final explanation, of all order. "We may seem to have put the theistic problem in a somewhat unfamiliar form. But, while con- fessedly not the form in which it has been usually discussed, it is nevertheless that in which, beyond all doubt, it most urgently presses itself upon our attention. Even in the writings of Hume it is this aspect of the question which suggests itself most powerfully, and which gives the main point to his famous skeptical reasoning a fact which has not been sufficiently perceived. Interest has been con- centrated upon his ingenious attempt to represent the world as a ''singular effect," but without a clear insight into the deeper principle by which he was led to take up this ground, and which alone gives to it all its force. If we can establish Mind as the universal correlate of order, it must be man- ifest that there is no room for such a position as that the world is a u singular effect." The only question is, Does the world discover order ? That Hume was perfectly aware of this, and that the real and final question regarding Theism related to the rightful claims and dignity of Mind, is so 18 THEISM. abundantly plain in the course of his reasoning, that it seems strange that it has not hitherto at- tracted more special examination. Even Dr. Chal- mers who plainly enough saw that the mode, adopted by Keid and Stewart, of settling the mat- ter by at once declaring design to be an intuitive principle of belief, was not all that was demanded against such an opponent does not seem to have penetrated to this essential element of the subtlety which he manfully encounters. So far triumphant in his vindication of the theistic inference, as rest- ing on the same basis of experience as any other inference from design, he does not yet reach, and bring out fully, the ultimate rational truth on which alone that inference, in the end, must rest. To employ his own illustration, " If we can infer the agency of design in a watchmaker, though we never saw a watch made, we can, on the very same ground, infer the agency of design on the part of a world-maker, though we never saw a world made." All that is requisite to constitute the inference valid in either case is not, as the skeptical objec- tion implied, experience with the actual produc- tion of the special effects with the making of a watch on the one hand, or the making of a world on the other but only with the simple fact of adaptation on the one hand, and Mind as its expla- nation on the other. This general form of experi- ence is the sufficiently warrantable basis of infer- p i: i x c i p L E s . 19 ence in either case.* But it must be plain, we think, that the result of experience, generalize it as we may, can only be argumentatively valid when seen to be a truth of reason in other words when transformed into the position laid down in our first premiss, viz. that adaptation or order universally proves Mind. For otherwise we do not see how it would avail to say that the " watch," so far as our experience of its production is concerned, is in the very same category as the " world." The old objection would still recur, in this higher form, exactly the opposite of the position we have laid down viz., that order (confessed in many cases to be the result of mind) can not yet be validly main- tained, in all cases, to flow only from Mind. No basis of experience simply can warrant such a con- clusion. Admitting the effects to be similar, we are not thereby warranted in asserting that the ex- planation of the human effect is the only valid explanation of the universal effect. It can only be on grounds of reason on the basis not simply of experience, but of the inherent laws of our rational constitution that we can impregnably take up such a position against the Anti-Theist. This must, beyond doubt, come to be the final argumentative bearing of the question which is thus really, when pushed back to its last analysis, one not so * This is virtually the import of Chalmers' amplified argu- ment. See his Natural Theology, pp. 150, 151. 20 T H E I S M . much regarding the world as a singular effect, as regarding Mind as a singular cause. How this appears in the writings of Hume as the really vital element of the question, is abundantly clear from the following paragraphs : * "But can you think, Clean thes, that your usual philosophy has been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to the uni- verse houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes ? TJwught, design, intelli- gence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or re- pulsion, and a hundred others ivhichfall under daily observation. It is an active cause by which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce altera- tions on other parts. Bat can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole F" " But, allowing that we were to take the opera- tions of one part of nature upon another for the foundation of our judgment concerning the origin of the whole (which never can be admitted), yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a prin- ciple as the reason and design of animals is found to be upon this planet ? What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain, which we call * Dialogue concerning Natural Religion, HUME'S Works, vol. iL pp. 446, 443. PRINCIPLES. 21 thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe f" " Admirable conclusion ! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at this time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without human art and contrivance ; therefore the universe could not originally attain its order and arrange- ment without something similar to human art. But is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former ? Is it a rule for the whole f Is a very small part a rule for the UNIVERSE ?" The real subject of dispute, then, on the old battle- ground of Theism, which has descended to us, re- gards the valid claim of Mind to stand universally as the Interpretation of Order. And more emi- nently than ever, in the present day, is this the vital point at issue. The views thrown out with such an apparently heedless, yet far-reaching subtle- ty, by Hume, have at length been taken up in a strictly scientific form, and elaborated into a philo- sophical creed, which boasts numerous and able advocates. Positivism, indeed, if springing direct- ly from the irreverent soil of French scientific cul- ture, yet traces back its lineage to the Scottish skeptic, of whose keen and arrogant genius it is so fitting a representative. It is true that in this modern skeptical system, the theological bearing of the views advocated is not always prominently brought forward some- 22 T H E I S M . times rather simply passed by, as beyond the con- cern of science. This is specially the case with the writer who is, in this country, its ablest and most systematic expositor. But in other cases no oppor- tunity is lost of bringing out this bearing in the most decided manner ; and, even in the chief work of the writer in question, it is so clear and unmis- takable that it is impossible not to perceive, under the show of courtesy, the deadly shafts leveled at the foundation of the thcistic argument. This will be sufficiently apparent from the following quotation, which condenses the result of a train of argument the object of which is to prove that what Mr. Mill calls the Volitional Theory"* meaning thereby i * Mill's transposition of the Theistic Principle into a " Voli- tional Theory," is just one of the many instances in which the real import of the principle has been obscured under a one-sided and willfully perverted nomenclature. It is surely time that, in the search after truth, men should cease to be content to es- cape from the pressure of an antagonistic, doctrine by hiding its highest meaning under an easily-degraded phraseology ! There is a further misrepresentation conveyed by Mr. Mill's language, which, although it will be afterward fully cleared up, it maybe well to notice here, as rending to involve our own position in some degree of doubt. lie speaks of the writers, against whom he argues, maintaining volition to be the " direct cause of all phenomena" a statement very readily suggesting a caricature of their true doctrine which does not for a mo- ment deny the fact of physical causes, in Mr. Mill's sense of that term, but only that these causes, save as taking their rise in a RATIONAL Will, and forming an expression of such a Will, afford no satisfactory explanation of the phenomena. It is not by any means as their direct and immediate cause (in the sense of excluding physical causes general laws), but only always PRINCIPLES. 23 the very truth which we have laid down in our first proposition is incompetent to stand as the only (ultimate) explanation of phenomena in gen- eral. We present it, in the mean time, merely in order that the antagonistic position with which we have to deal may be seen in its full meaning and force. " Though it were granted," he says,* " that every phenomenon has an efficient, and not merely a phe- nomenal cause, and that volition, in the case of the peculiar phenomena which are known to be pro- duced by it, is that efficient cause, are we, therefore, to say with these writers that since we know of no other efficient cause, and ought not to assume one without evidence, there is no other, and volition is the direct cause of all phenomena ? A more out- rageous stretch of inference could hardly be made. Because among the infinite variety of the phenom- ena of nature there is one namely, a particular mode of action of certain nerves which has for its cause, and, as we are now supposing, for its effi- cient cause, a state of our mind ; and because this is the only efficient cause of which we are con- scious, being the only one of which, in the nature of the case, we can be conscious, since it is the only one which exists within ourselves does this justi- as their First or Original Cause, that Mind is spoken of as the explanation of physical phenomena. * MILL'S Logic, vol. i. p. 371. 24 T II E I S M . fj us in concluding that all other phenomena must have the same kind of efficient cause with that one eminently special, narrow, and peculiarly human or animal phenomenon ?" In endeavoring to verify the position which forms the argumentative basis of our Evidence, there are two special lines of proof demanded of us the one relating directly to the position itself that Order universally proves Mind, or, in other words, that Design is a principle pervading the uni- verse; and the other relating to a doctrine which, as it appears to us, lies every where involved in the more special theological principle. This prin- ciple, in the form announced in our first proposi- tion, undoubtedly implies a definite doctrine of causation. In asserting the principle of design, we clearly assert, at the same time, that Mind alone answers to our true, or at least ultimate, idea of cause. We pronounce causation, or at least our highest conception of it, to imply efficiency. But does it really do so ? We find ourselves met on this general philosophical ground as to the true na- ture of causation, as well as on the ground of the special theological application which we make of the general truth. They who dispute the theistic inter- pretation of nature, no less dispute the doctrine of efficient causation, and in fact base their opposition to the higher principle on this lower and wider ground. PRINCIPLES. 25 In order, therefore, fully to sustain our position, we must make it good on this lower ground. Ac- cording to our whole view, the one position is un- tenable apart from the other. The two doctrines of final causes and of efficient causation we regard as essentially related. They are not to us, indeed, separate doctrines, but only separate phases of the same fundamental necessity of our rational nature : the relation of the two is not that of dependency the one upon the other but of intricacy the one in the other ; for while the theological principle virtually asserts the philosophical, the latter in its highest conception, already implicitly contains the former. It is very true that many theistic thinkers, and eminently among ourselves, Dr. Chalmers,* have not recognized this interchangeable relation between the general doctrine of causation and the special theological doctrine. But a fact of this sort has no further claim to our consideration, than to lead us to ponder more thoroughly the grounds of our own conviction ; and the more this is done, the more, we feel confident, will the view set forth in the follow- ing pages approve itself as the only sound and com- prehensive one. * Natural Theology, vol. i. pp. 121-161. 2 ' I. CHAPTER II. DOCTEINE OF CAUSATION. THERE have been few if any questions in Phi- losophy more thoroughly discussed than that of causation. Especially since the skeptical genius of Hume carried its pitiless search into the founda- tions of the prevailing philosophy of his day, and exposed its genuine logical consequences, has spec- ulative discussion gathered round this point as a center, and found unceasing life in it. It appears to us that at length the ground may be said to be pretty well cleared, if not for a settlement of the question, yet for a definite truce regarding it. For it has become clearly apparent that the combatants, on one side at least, contend, not so much in direct opposition to the view held on the other side, as for a further and higher view in addition. The two classes of thinkers are indeed fundamentally opposed, but they are not throughout opposed. For the one class only insists on carrying up the posi- tion of the other into a higher, and, as they think, more comprehensive Truth than the' other will ad- DOCTKINE OF CAUSATION. 27 dt. The one feels impelled to look beyond the lere physical view, and to find every where in fature a further and more sacred MEANING than the other is content to accept. It is no longer, for example, disputed by any school of philosophy, that all we. perceive, of the re- lation between physical phenomena is a relation of succession. "It is now universally admitted that we have no perception of the casual nexus in the material world."* The writings of Hume and of Brown, and again of Mill in our own day, have been so far successful in making this plain beyond doubt, and exposing, in its precise form, the bear- ing of the question between them and the opposite school of thinkers. We see events following events in regular succession. All that we really see and apprehend is the succession. " The impulse of one billiard ball is attended with motion in the second* This is the whole that appears to the out- ward senses."f But is this perception of sequence commensurate with our notion of causation ? Is it what we specially mean when we express the rela- tion of cause and effect ? If the measure of our experience be the measure of our conception, why is it that we do not apply the one universally to the objects of the other? To take the often-re- peated illustration of the relation between day and * SIE W. HAMILTON'S Discussions, Appendix, p. 687. f HUME'S Works, vol. ii. p. 74. 28 THEISM. night. This we apprehend as an invariable succes- sion. Yet we never understand nor speak of day as the cause of night, or the reverse. It must be admitted, then, that our empirical apprehension is at least not commensurate with our causal judg- ment. And this is in fact admitted by Mr. Mill in reference to this very relation, and the " very specious objection" which he acknowledges has been often founded upon it, against his view of the subject. "When we define," he says,* "the cause of any thing to be { the antecedent, which it inva- riably follows,' we do not use this phrase as ex- actly synonymous with ' the atecedent which it in- variably has followed in our past experience.' Such a mode of conceiving causation would be liable to the objection very plausibly urged by Dr. Eeid namely, that, according to this doctrine, night must be the cause of day, and day the cause of night ; since these phenomena have invariably succeeded one another from the beginning of the world. But it is necessary to our using the word cause, that we should believe not only thafr the an- tecedent always has been followed by the conse- quent, but that, as long as the present constitution of things endures, it always will be so, and this would not be true of day and night." The concession forced upon Mr. Mill, and ex- pressed in this passage is, we can not help thinking, * MILL'S Logic, vol. i. p. 350. DOCTEINE OF CAUSATION. 29 remarkable. It is here clearly admitted, that the measure of our observational experience is not the measure of the idea of causation, even as held by him. It is not the perception of uniform succession merely, but a certain belief regarding the succession, which specially determines it to be a relation of cause and effect. But what do the opponents of a mere sensational philosophy every where contend for, but just the admission of such an element of belief, as the determining element of the idea of causation ? The belief, no doubt, is with them of a very different character, and arises in a^very dif- ferent manner from that represented by Mr. Mill ; but it is significant how, in the most earnest effort which has been made in our time to resolve the idea of causation into that of mere antecedent and consequence, there should be allowed to enter an element of belief which is confessedly not generated by our mere observation of sequence. The se- quence, besides being invariable, or, in other words, uniformly observed, Mr. Mill says must be uncon- ditional ; and day and night is not a sequence of this character. "We do not believe that night will be followed by day under all imaginable cir- cumstances, but only that it will be so, provided the sun rises above the horizon." According to this view, before we can pronounce any two phenomena to be in the relation of cause and effect, we must not only have observed the fact of their invariable 30 THEISM. association, but we must know that, according to the " present constitution of things,"* they always will be associated. "We must understand the con- ditions of the sequence so thoroughly, as to com- prehend whether they form a part of " the general laws of matter," before we can rightly pronounce * There seems to be an inaccuracy and misapplication of language here, singular in a writer generally so clear-sighted and accurate aa Mr. Mill. For surely the regular rising of the Bun above the horizon, or, in other words, the diurnal revolu- tion of the earth, is, if any thing can be said to be so, a part of "the present constitution of things." According to this "con- stitution," then, it may be said to be truly known that night will always be followed by day. The terms of this sequence, even on his own interpretation, are therefore unconditional, and yet we do not regard them as cause and effect. We can, no doubt, conceive the sun not to rise above the hori- zon, compatibly with the " general laws of matter," a phrase by which Mr. Mill makes his meaning more distinct and unequivo- cal. But, in the first place, the "general laws of matter," while they MAY be conceived by us apart from such a special result of .their operation, can yet be only said to be really known to us in their varied actual results, apart from which they are .simply abstractions; nonentities, on a mere physical view of things ; and, in the second place, we can easily conceive, it ap- pears to us, the general laws of matter themselves to cease, or be entirely changed. The unconditionalness, therefore, which he considers to attach to them, and which he believes a " dis- tinction of first-rate importance for clearing up the notion of Cause," does not seem, even in their case, to be available to any further extent than in reference to the constant experience re- specting day and night. The fact is, as shown in the text, that the constant succession of day and night is not regarded in the light of cause and effect, simply because it is not succession, but something else, and quite distinct, with which the mind, directly and initially, concerns itself in pronouncing this re- lation. DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 31 one term of the sequence to be the cause of the other. But if it were not already apparent in the out- set of Mr. Mill's discussion, this conclusion were enough to show that the subject with which he concerns himself, under the name of causation, and that which is commonly meant under that name, and in our view is alone entitled to it, are quite different. While, under this name, he really speaks of the order which, according to the " general laws of matter," obtains among the phenomena of na- ture the "invariable and unconditional" deperd- ence which, in virtue of these laws, subsists amo: ig physical sequences the intellectual common sen? se, by causation, does not mean to express any thing of this sort. It does not concern itself with tae special conditions under which phenomena emerge, so as to determine their invariable and uncon- ditional antecedents (in Mr. Mill's language, their causes) ; but on the emergence of any phenomenon, the appearance of any change, it simply says that it is caused; meaning by this, that the change, does not originate in itself, but in something else. It says this wholly irrespective of the special sources or conditions of the change ; and says it equally, although it should never learn any thing of these sources or conditions. It pronounces, in short, not what is the relation among observed phenomena, whether lying within the sphere of our observa- 32 THEISM. tion or not, are related. Springing from even a single basis of experience, this judgment goes forth without hesitation into the whole world of reality, and every where proclaims its validity ; and it is this judgment which constitutes to the common sense the doctrine of causation. It is of importance to understand what is the real difference which thus exists between sensa- tionalists of the school of Hume and Mill, and those who contend for a deeper meaning in causa- tion than they allow. Artfully shifting the ques- tion of causation into the domain of physical ob- servation, they come, in fact, to treat of something quite special, which, under whatever protestations, they in the "end assume to be the whole matter, so far as it has any intelligible relation to the human mind. Mr. Mill, for example, while declaring that he is " in no way concerned" in the question of efficient causes, and that he simply passes it by, has no sooner laid down his own " law of causa- tion," than .he turns to contemplate in its light the doctrine of causation as commonly understood, and on the strength of his own principles to engage in an elaborate refutation of this doctrine. Now, this does not seem to us to be realty the fairest way of dealing with a subject of so much importance. To profess to have in view simply the discussion of physical causes and effects as to the relation of which the~e is really no dispute and yet to pass DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 83 over from this to the truth of causation as a prin- ciple of human knowledge, can only tend to mis- lead the reader, and embroil still further the meta- physical controversy which Mr. Mill is desirous of avoiding. The Positivist must either abide in the domain of physical phenomena where none deny that all which comes directly within the sphere of human knowledge is mere antecedence and conse- quence or he must be prepared to take up the general fact of causation, as it reveals itself in the common intellectual consciousness, and show it to be coincident in import with the law of mere suc- cession. It is on this ground of common belief that the question must be discussed. "We have already so far seen what this belief signifies. Let us still more precisely fix its import. When, on the appearance of any change, we in- stinctively pronounce it to have a cause, what do we really mean ? Do we affirm merely that some other thing has gone before the observed phenom- enon ? Is priority the constitutive element of our intellectual judgment ? Is it not rather something quite different ? Is not our judgment characterist- ically to this effect that some other thing has not only preceded but produced the change we con- template ? Nay, is it not this element of produc- tion that we peculiarly mean to express in the use of the term " cause" ? Succession is no doubt also involvM, but it is not the relation of succession 2* 34 THEISM. with which the mind, in the supposed judgment is directly and initially concerned, but rather the relation of power. That when we speak of cause and effect, we express merely the relation of con- junction between phenomena of antecedence and consequence in any defined sense, is something of which no ingenuity of sophistry will ever be able to persuade the common mind. It matters not in the least degree that it can be so clearly proved that nothing intervenes between the simple facts observed, that all we see is the sequence of the .phenomena. This is not in dispute. Only, the intellectual common sense insists on recognizing a deeper relation among phenomena than mere se- quence. It accepts the order of succession, which it is the special function of Science to trace every where to its most general expression ; but it more- over says of this order, that it is throughout pro- duced, or, in other words, that it is only explicable as involving a further element of power. That this is really the import of the intellectual judg- ment which we pronounce in speaking of cause and effect to which the very words themselves testify in an unmistakable manner is so clear, that it is now admitted by every school of philos- ophy which does not rest on a basis of materialism, and has even been conceded by writers of this school, however irresolvable on their principles.* * See LEWES' 'Biographical History of Philosophy, vol. i v. p. 47, seq. DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 35 Causation, therefore, implies power. What we mean by a cause is something quite different from a mere antecedent, however we may define the conditions of its relation to the consequent. It is peculiarly an AGENT. But in order to see this more fully, it will be necessary to consider whence we have the idea of power, which we have seen to constitute the main element of causation. That this idea is not derived from without that it does not come through any phase of sensational experience is already clear in the fact admitted on all hands, that we only perceive succession that we are only conversant, through the senses, with the two terms of a se- quence. But if not from without, it must be frois within ; we must have the idea of power given us in our own mental experience. This we hold to be the fact ; and recent psychological analysis has pretty sufficiently explained the more special ori- gin of this prime intellectual element. It flows from the depths of our self-consciousness ; or, more truly speaking, it is nothing else than the ideal projection of our self-consciousness. With the first dawn of mind we apprehend ourselves as dis- tinct from the objective phenomena surrounding us ; the Ego emerges, face to face, with the nor.- Ego. And in this springing forth )f self, so far back in the mental history as to elude all trace, is primarily given the idea of power. 36 THEISM. What is commonly called the Will, therefore, is, according to this view, the ultimate source or fountain of the notion of causation. We appre- hend ourselves as agents, and in this apprehension we have already, in the fullest sense, the idea of cause. Had we not this apprehension, it seems impossible that we could have ever risen above sequence, as the obvious fact given us in outward observation. With this apprehension lying at the very root of our being, and constituting it essen- tially, it is equally impossible that we can hold by that fact as furnishing the exhaustive conception of the Universe. According to the radical and imperative character of our mental constitution, we must recognize a deeper life than mere se- quence, however grand and orderly, in the phe- nomena of nature ; and this deeper life is just what we mean by a cause. Not sequency, there- fore, but agency, or, in other words, efficiency, is the attribute commensurate with our notion of causation. The question before us then really passes into the old one as to the origin of our knowledge. Let it only be admitted that our knowledge is the product of a spiritual as well as a material factor, and then it is quite beside the question to argue that because cause, according to our interpretation of it, is not given in external nature, the notion of it is not a valid and real portion of human knowl-= DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 37 edge ; on the very contrary, it becomes, in such a case, only an obvious and expected conclusion that we should find more in outward phenomena than they, so to speak, contain. The subjective brings its element of knowledge as well as the objective ; and it is not merely what we apprehend by the senses, but what, through the whole mental life awakened in us by the original contact of subject and object, spirit and matter, we intuitively know or believe to be the truth that we must hold as the truth. The only available argument against this position save on a basis of pure materialism would be to dispute the reality of any such primi- tive mental experience as we have asserted the fact of that consciousness of agency, which we have assumed as indisputable. It is of great importance that the view which we have thus endeavored to set forth should be com- prehended in its precise import, with reference both to certain objections which have been urged against it, and to the final conclusion to which it seems to us to lead. It will be observed that we trace the idea of causation, in its primitive origin, to our self-consciousness, our apprehension of our- selves as distinct activities, not carried away in, but exercising a reaction upon, the flow of physical se- quences. This apprehension, in its most obscure form, involves what has been specially called the Will. The apprehension of ourselves is and can be 38 THEISM. nothing else than the apprehension of our personal voluntary activity. In its most mature and de- veloped form, this apprehension becomes what is called the consciousness of free will. The causal idea ; however is not dependent on any particular manifestations of this highest form of our activity. It is already present in its dawn in our primitive self-consciousness. It awakens side by side with the Ego ; and is therefore truly, as M. Cousin calls it, the " primary idea." The clear perception of this will clear away some difficulties from the view exhibited. It has been represented, for example, as if the advocates of the theory of efficient causation held the notion to be given altogether independently of experience in the very conception of voluntary action, apart from its exercise. They have been held as maintaining that the "feeling of energy or force inherent in an act of will is knowledge a priori ; assurance prior to experience that we have the power of causing effects." * But, so far as we understand this state- ment at all, it seems to us to imply something which could not well be deliberately maintained by any one, however an incautious use of expres- sions may have led the writer to suppose so. It implies something, certainly, which we are so far from maintaining, that it appears to us to be simply absurd and inconceivable. To speak of any mental * MILL'S Logic, vol. i. p. 860. DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 39 possession as prior to or independent of experience, in the right and comprehensive meaning of that term, is to speak of something which, in the na- ture of things, is impossible. Our consciousness only comes into being under experience-conditions. All our mental life only arises under them ; and of what it would be or contain apart from them, we can have no conception. Of an " assurance prior to experience, that we have the power of causing effects," we therefore know nothing. Ex- perience is already present in the first act of con- sciousness, and our idea of cause flows from the primitive awakening of consciousness under the contact of experience. It is already given in the primary apprehension of our personal existence. It may, therefore, certainly be held before the mind apart from special results ; but apart from voluntary activity, as such, and in a true sense, it is inconceivable. Again, with reference to a special objection of more importance, the view we have presented seems to render it inapplicable. The objection in question deserves examination, as having been taken up by Sir W. Hamilton, and urged by him against our doctrine. The weakness, however, which Sir William assails successfully, does not lie in the doctrine itself, but only in the special state- ment of it which is the subject of his criticism. This statement is that of a distinguished French 40 T H E I S M . philosopher, M. de Biran, who has" certainly the eminent merit of having, in the most elaborate manner, fixed attention on the theory of causation under discussion. It is to this effect: "I will to move my arm, and I move it." This complex fact gives us on analysis : 1. The consciousness of an act of will ; 2. The consciousness of motion pro- duced ; 3. The consciousness of a relation of the motion to the volition. This relation is in no respect a simple relation of succession. The motion not merely follows our will, or appears in conjunc- tion with it, but it is consciously produced by it. The idea of power or cause is thus evolved. Sir W. Hamilton objects to the theory thus laid down, that the empirical fact on which it is founded is in- correct. "For," he says,"* "between the overt fact of corporeal movement, which we perceive, and the internal act of the will to move, of which we are self-conscious, there intervenes a series of inter- mediate agencies, of which we are wholly unaware ; consequently, we can have no consciousness, as this hypothesis maintains, of any causal connection between the extreme links of this chain that is, between the volition to move and the arm moving." The same objection to the general doctrine is hinted at by Mr. Mill,f and stated fully, and with all his usual ingenuity, by Hume, in his famous chapter on the idea of " necessary connection." * Phil. Discussions, Appendix, p. 588. f Logic, pp. 361, 371. ide sul DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 41 Now, it is not to be disputed that the point upon which this objection rests is indubitable viz., that it is only through the intermediate agencies of the nerves and muscles that the act 'of volition goes forth in corporeal movement. Volitions produce nervous action, and this action again expresses itself in outward movement. We have not, there- fore, and can not have, any proper consciousness of this movement. The volition or act of will itself is all of which we are properly conscious. But in this act, as we conceive, we have already sufficient ba^sis for our theory. For what is this simple movement of the will but the Ego express- ing itself? And in this original act of self-expres- sion we have already, according to our view, the idea of cause. Will it be said that, apart from re- tarit motion or special activity, we could have no evidence of such self-expression ? It may be readily granted that, had we possessed no experi- ence of volition passing into activity ; had, in truth, the present constitution of things been entirely different from what it is for this is really what is asserted in such a supposed case there is no cer- tainty that we could have had such evidence, or that which is the same thing volition could have been to us any longer a fact. We can not tell ; we have simply again to reply that we pretend to no elements of knowledge apart from experience in the sense here intended. All we know is, and 42 THEISM. can be, only known to us within the conditions of our actual being ; in other words, within the sphere of experience. What we might or might not have known out of this sphere, it is utterly idle to con- jecture, as we can not, in the nature of the case, transcend it, and survey ourselves from a point above it. Thus, in the present case, the sense of will or power is to us a fact, given in the first dawn of self-consciousness, and repeated in every mo- ment of self-consciousness. It is implied in every forth-putting of our being. It lies at its root, and our whole mental life is only a continual passing of it into activity. That which is specially called the Will is, as already represented, implicitly con- tained in this original affirmation of self, in which all our knowledge begins. Special acts of freedom are merely special manifestations of a power quickened in us, or, more truly, which constitutes us (the Me) from the first. It is by no means neces- sary, therefore, that we should be directly conscious of corporeal movement, as the special result of an act of volition, in the sense set forth by M. de Biran, and questioned by Sir W. Hamilton and others, before we can attain the idea of cause. This idea emerges far more deeply in our spiritual life than is thus implied, and is quite independent of such special realizations as are here connected with it. Let us review, then, the conclusion at which we DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 43 have arrived; the meaning of causation as thus determined. A cause we have found to be truly coincident with an agent; to have its primitive type in the Ego, the living root oJ^ur being ; and to be specially represented in that which consti- tutes the highest expression of our being, Free Will. A cause, therefore, implies Mind. More definitely, and in its full conception, it implies a rational will. Let this conclusion be fairly pondered, and it will be found to sustain itself irrefragably. The Ego, which in its first-drawn and highest life alone gives us the idea of cause, is simply the rational being which we call by the name of Mind. It is this being, no doubt, apprehended predominantly on the side of activity. But this activity, apart from the reason in which it inheres, and which it expresses, is nothing. We can never subtract the one element and leave the other. We have been in the habit, indeed, of speaking of dif- ferent mental faculties ; but the mind is really one, and not a separable congeries of powers. Free will is and can be nothing else, therefore, than the highest or consummate expression of our rational being or mind ; and a rational will the only fully answering idea to that of Cause. The one idea is the only commensurate of the other. The latter only exhausts itself, and finds rest, in the former. We will now be able to understand the true 44 THEISM. character of the causation which we apprehend in nature. In the light of our spiritual consciousness, we every where perceive in nature a deeper mean- ing than it contains. We apprehend a living power in its continual flow. This is the general expression of what reason demands. It never stops short of this. But already it contains a higher and more explicit truth. Already, in its lowest indica- tions, it points to one original, comprehending Will. The savage or childish apprehension of nature, as animated in its different movements by separate voluntary agents like ourselves,* is a mere dim and temporary expression of the rational ne- cessity which knows no satisfaction till, driven up- ward, it rests in the idea of one all-pervading power an Ultimate Cause. According to this whole view, there is no such thing as mere physical causation. What is so de- nominated is of course a reality ; but inasmuch as it is only in virtue of our spiritual life that we could ever find a cause in nature, this term is truly inapplicable to physical phenomena per se : nature can not give what it does not contain. Physical causes, apart from the idea of a will in which they originate, and which they manifest, have no mean- ing. Eemove the one idea, and the other disap- pears. It is assuredly only in the reflection of a POWER beyond them, and in which they are con- * COUSIN, On Locke, p. 166: Ed. Didier; Paris, 1847. . .i_~,3 4.1, DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION. 45 tained, that such causes are or can be to us any thing but antecedent phenomena. It is only as the expression of such a Will or Power that the physical order of the universe is recognized as caused. And this recognition is truly ineradica- ble and necessary ; in no way affected by the dis- coveries of science ; still asserting itself by the side of the most extended of these discoveries. Let science expose the domain of physical order as it majr, Will is still present as its implicate and only explanation. And this Will, according to what we have already said, is no mere naked po- tentiality. We know nothing of Will apart from Keason ; the one is to us merely the peculiarly active, the other the peculiarly intelligent, side of the same spiritual energy. They unite and form one in what we comprehensively call Mind, which we therefore recognize as the only adequate source and explanation of the universe. It will be observed that we have confined our- selves to the fact of causation what it implies. Our aim has been to find a true and final explana- tion of what we mean by a " cause." The principle of causality, in its characteristic of irresistibleness and necessity, has been rather assumed than dealt with : and rightly so ; for the principle, under one form of explanation or another, can not be said to be in dispute. The real and important subject of dispute is unquestionably what the principle ad- 46 THEISM. mitted to be one which conditions human Intelli- gence involves. What is its import? Does it lead us upward merely from one link of sequences to another ? or does it necessitate our finding, in all sequences, a higher element in which alone they inhere? Is Cause, in short, Antecedence or Power? This is the essential question, and it is this to which we have endeavored to give an an- swer. L CHAPTER III. DOCTKINE OF FINAL CAUSES. THE conclusion of the preceding chapter already clearly pointed to what we mean by the doctrine of Final Causes. The idea of causation we found to resolve itself into that of the operation of a rational will or mind in nature; and this opera- tion, looked at deductively from a theological point of view, is neither more nor less than the doctrine before us. But while thus implicitly given in our previous argument, this doctrine, in its distinctive form, deserves from us a further and more atten- tive consideration. It deserves this especially on account of the obscurity and misrepresentations in which it has been involved. There is no doctrine which has been more mis- understood. The scientific applications of it have been confounded with its genuine theological im- port, and abuses resulting from the former per- versely passed over to the discredit of the latter. What it really signifies, what is the comprehensive 48 THEISM. meaning in which the doctrine must be held, if it is to be held at all ; has been often as little understood by its supporters as by its opponents. The notion of Final Causes, for example, is fre- quently represented as if limited to organic or physiological phenomena. In a purely scientific relation, viewed as a method of scientific discovery, it may be rightly so limited ; although, even in this respect, it seems only an absurd perversion of the doctrine, and not the doctrine itself, which can be truly held as an invalid guide of inquiry in any department of nature. It is only the confusion of its genuine meaning with an impertinent and bar- ren curiosity the very opposite of its inquiring and reverent gaze which can render it abusively applicable to any order of phenomena.* But cer- tainly, whatever view may be held on this point, there can not remain any doubt in the minds of those who really understand the doctrine, that, in its higher theological meaning and relation, it is equally applicable to all orders of phenomena, or- ganic and inorganic. It is true that, even in this higher relation, the doctrine has been especially applied to the organic products of creation, so that the argument from Design or Final Causes is prob- * This is the simple explanation of Lord Bacon's frequently- quoted disparagement of Final Causes. It was not the doc- trine itself, in any true sense of it, but only the scholastic abuse of it, that he condemned. DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 49 ably interpreted by many, if not most minds, with exclusive reference to these products the wonder- ful structures of the vegetable and animal kingdom. But this has simply arisen from the fact, that design is capable of being more conspicuously traced in these structures than in the more general and com- prehensive phenomena presented to us by the in-* organic kingdom. Assuredly it will not for a mo- ment bear to be affirmed that the principle of de- sign, rightly apprehended in the fundamental form in which alone it concerns the theistic argument, has any real application to the one class of phe- nomena which it has not to the other. It may have, in the one case, a more manifest application, and one, therefore, more effective for purposes of popular argumentation ; but, beyond all question, there are no logical grounds on which the princi- ple can sustain itself in the one case and not in the other. These grounds are equally valid or invalid in both cases. Supposing we admit them, design, the operation of Mind, is every where recognized in nature. Supposing we reject them, every such conception as that of " design," or " final cause," "end" or "purpose," disappears from nature.* * The different modifications of the doctrine of Final Causes form a very interesting subject, were we reviewing the doctrine historically, instead of expounding the right view of it. The double relation of the doctrine has of course attracted attention, yet without any definite effort, so far as we are aware, to bring into clear harmony the more general doctrine, and the special 3 50 T H E I S M . Let us then look still more closely at these grounds, that we may be thoroughly satisfied of their validity. Why is it that we apprehend every where in phenomena of order the operation of a rational will or mind ? Simply because we can not help doing so ; because the laws of our rational being compel us to do so. These will not permit us to rest short of Mind as an ultimate explanation of such phenomena. The theistic position, there- fore, is based on an inherent rational necessity. "We do not know where it could be so strongly based. We do not know, indeed, where else it could be based. But this strong foundation is not conceded to us without controversy. How plainly the right and dignity thus claimed for Mind are repudiated by a certain school of thinkers, we have already seen ; and the special arguments by which our position form in. which it has been applied in physiology. Boyle and Stewart both point to the respective theological and scientific uses of the doctrine, but they do not expound the relation of the latter to the former, which is all-important both for the in- terests of theology and the validity of the equally disputed scientific principle. K"or do they concern themselves with the consideration of the more general and the more special form in which, even in a purely theological point of view, the doctrine admits of being apprehended and applied. Any obscurity that may seem to rest on these respective bearings of the doctrine is, we trust, sufficiently cleared up in the course of our discussion, and especially in a subsequent chapter, where the peculiar sig- nificance of the action of design in organic phenomena receives attention. DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 51 has been assailed bj the same able writer with whom we have already engaged, and who so emi nently, in the present day, represents the school in England, certainly deserve examination. Ttieso arguments no doubt originate in a fundamental op- position of philosophical principle, to which the discussion must always at length be driven back, and to which we might, therefore, confine ourselves ; this opposition being neither more nor less than the old one of Spiritualism and Empiricism, Platonism and Epicureanism. Yet it may serve in some re- spects to strengthen our ground and elucidate the truth, to examine the more special reasoning of Mr. Mill. It is wholly denied by this writer that the ten- dency to find Mind every where in nature rests on an ineradicable necessity of reason. This is simply " the instinctive philosophy of the human mind in its earliest stage, before it has become familiar with any other invariable sequences than those between its own volitions and its voluntary acts."* . . . " Sequences entirely physical and material, as soon as they had become sufficiently familiar to the hu- man mind, came to be thought perfectly natural, and were regarded not only as needing no explana- tion, but as being capable of affording it to others, and even of serving as the ultimate explanation of things in general."f And, as illustrations of this, * Logic, voL i. p. 365 ; second edition. f Hid., p. 366. 52 T H E I ,S tt . are instanced the early Greek philosophers, some of whom held that Moisture, and others that Air, was the universal cause. These are brought for- ward as examples to show that mankind, so far from regarding the action of matter upon matter as inconceivable, have even rested satisfied with some material element as a final principle of ex- planation. Others and he mentions Leibnitz and the Cartesians are also stated to have been so little of our way of thinking, that they found the " action of mind upon matter to be itself the grand inconceivability," to get over which they were forced to invent their respective theories of Pre- established Harmony and Occasional Causes. On the case of the Cartesians he dwells particularly according to whose system, he says, " God is the only efficient cause, not qua mind, or qua endowed with volition, but qua omnipotent."* The best way of approaching the strength of our argument will be through these supposed illus- trations of the adverse position. In the two latter instances, the real point at issue is certainly to some extent mistaken. The ground of discussion is at least so shifted as to draw off attention from that point. In speaking, for example, of the action of matter upon matter, and again of that mind upon matter, the special idea suggested is clearly as tc the mode of action in the one case and the other, as * Logic, vol. i. p. a69. DOCTRINE OF FIXAL CAUSES. 53 if the real point were the conceivable ness of this mode in the respective cases. But this is not in any sense the true question. The Theist does not profess to comprehend or explain the difficulty thus suggested. The mode of action of mind upon matter, or indeed the mode of connection between matter and matter, is acknowledged to be wholly inscrutable. The point in dispute is simply the fact of action or efficiency at all. In the one case that is to say, when we apprehend Mind as the cause of phenomena we are satisfied with this ap- prehension, not because we understand how Mind is the cause or, in other words, how it acts upon matter but simply because we know, in our own experience, that it does so act. We rest in Mind as a source and explanation of action generally, just because it is to us all this, and we know of nothing else that is this. It is true that Leibnitz and the Cartesians did not regard the human mind in this light. Denying, as they did, finite efficiency, they could not, of course, rest in it as an explanation of action, any more than they could hold one physical element or event to be an explanation of another. Within the sphere of finite existence they did not recog- nize any efficiency ; and hence the theory of Pre- established Harmony on the one hand, and that of Occasional Causes on the other, to account for the connection between finite spirit and matter. But 54 T H E I S M . so far was either Leibnitz or the Cartesians from denying the fact of efficiency as applied to the Divine Being, that it was just this fact they called in to solve the absurd difficulty in which they had involved themselves. They could not conceive the action of finite mind upon matter. The fact was not enough for them; but they must understand it logically ; and, being unable so to understand it, they arbitrarily called in the Divine efficiency to explain it. In the case of the Cartesians this is clearly admitted by Mr. Mill ; and it is undeniable in both cases, whatever may be said to the con- trary.* It does not seem, therefore, that the views of these philosophers, in their true and comprehensive sense, avail much for Mr. Mill's position. It is, in- deed, admitted that they did not recognize the fact of limited efficiency in the human mind, from * See (Logic, vol. i. p. 368) Mr. Mill's strange attempt to prove that Leibnitz denied the ultimate adequacy of the Divine effi- ciency to account for things in general. Nothing could be fur- ther from the true thoughts of Leibnitz. He merely says that he can not conceive this efficiency working save in certain ways. The fact of the Divine efficiency is not in question, but only the mode of its working. The following are the words of Leibnitz, quoted and emphasized by Mr. Mill : "Si Dieu donnait cette loi, par exemple, a un corps libre, de tourner a 1'entour d'un cer- tain centre, il faudrait ou qu'il y joignit d'autres corps qui par leur impulsion 1'obligeassent de rester toujours dans son orbite circulaire, ou qu'il mit un ange fc ses trousses, ou enfin il fau- drait qu'il y concourat extraordinairement ; car naturellement il s'ecartera par la tangente." LEIBNITZ'S Works, iii. 446 : Ed. Dutens, DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 55 which we rise argumentatively to the fact of the Divine efficiency, and that in their respective phi- losophies, accordingly, they did not leave any ra- tional basis for Theism. We willingly abandon them as consistent theistic thinkers. Yet they were so far from resting short of the theistic con- clusion the conclusion of a Supreme Mind effi- ciently connected with things in general that their respective theories rest expressly on the sup- position of Divine efficiency. Mr. Mill's refine- ment as to the Divine efficiency being apprehended, not qua mind or qua volition, but qua omnipotence even if we were disposed to grant it does not in the least militate against our view, according to which, as will be immediately more fully explained, it is only as resting in Mind that power has any meaning, or can have any. So far, therefore, from denying the theistic position or, in other words, the fact of a Supreme Kational Will as the only explanation of things it was in truth the peculiar error of Leibnitz and the Cartesians, that they pushed this position to such excess as to overbear the no less valid fact of the finite rational will, through which alone, according to our whole ap- prehension, the higher fact can be consistently reached. A little examination will equally avail to obviate the force of the more pertinent illustration, drawn from the case of the early Greek philosophers, and 56 THEISM. even to show how its more correct understanding may be turned in favor of our position. These philosophers, says Mr. Mill, found in some single physical element a sufficient explanation of things. If they could rest satisfied with such an explanation, this is a proof that there is no inherent mental ne- cessity which compels us to place Mind at the head of things as their ultimate cause. But admitting that Thales* and Anaximenes acknowledged in the physical elements the one of Water, and the other of Air not only a primordial principle or prima ma.teria, but an ultimate cause or final ex- planation of things, it may be shown beyond dis- pute that they only held such an opinion in virtue of their having recognized in Water or Air respect- ively a peculiar formative energy. To borrow Mr. Mill's own mode of explanation, with a fairer application than he makes of it, it was not qua matter (this or that material form), but qua the vital Energy or Soulf with which they were supposed * Tbales whose case is out of all question the most in point, he having, in virtiie of his supposed views, been accused of Atheism is yet expressly stated by Cicero to have only held that the vovr or Divine Intelligence created all things from water ; a statement which at least ought to have so much weight as to convince us how little can be drawn from the fragmentary memorials of ancient Grecian philosophy to determine authori- tatively the question before us. j- That this was really the opinion of Anaximenes in regard to Air is admitted by Lewes, in his rapid and clever review of the Ancient Philosophers in the first volume of his Biog. History of Philosophy, p. SI; and the admission on his part, as being so DOCTRINE O'F-S-XJSLAL CAUSES. O< endowed, that these elements were apprehended to be the fountain of existence. The idea of Originant force was what they mainly associated with the (*OT which they sought, whatever may be the merely material character which its name now suggests to us. Now, in this recognition of the ancient Grecian philosophy, we have really, it is important to ob- serve, the essential germ of our doctrine. Even if it be indisputable that the clear conception of the Ultimate Cause as intelligent were a later pro- duct of the same philosophy, it can be shown that in the acknowledgment (under whatever special form) of Force as the original spring of existence, there is already infolded the great truth, of Mind forming the only final explanation of things. The grounds on which we rest this assertion will be im- mediately apparent. Kightly regarded, therefore, these early Grecian speculations, so far from being truly a thinker after Mr. Mill's own heart, is significant. Nay, so truly did Anaximenes recognize his original principle on the side of activity or productive energy, that he made it identical with the soul the "something which moved him he knew not how." While Mr. Lewes represents the doctrine of Thales as being of a lower character, he yet admits, in his case as well, the apprehension of a vital force, as prominent in the supposed primordial element, as indeed it is impossible in our view to conceive otherwise. He says in a note, p. 34 : " When Anaxi- menes speaks of Air, as when Thales speaks of "Water, we must not understand these elements as they appear in this or that determinate form on earth, but as "Water and Air pregnant with vital energy" 3* 58 THEISM. opposed to our position, furnish a powerful testi- mony to its strength. For what were they, one and all of them, but attempts to rise to the origin of things, and to apprehend them in the light of some single Living power or principle? To endeavor to represent them as evidences of the mind's capa- city to rest short of such a living supernatural Cause, is profoundly to mistake, not only them, but the whole course and meaning of human specula- tion.* The position, indeed, on which we rest viz,, the irrepressible necessity of the human mind thus to ascend to the origin of things, and to apprehend this origin as a Power above nature is a position that so directly carries with it its own evidence, that, like all self-evident truths, it is difficult to deal with it argumentatively. All Religion and all Philosophy testify to it. They express, the one the deep feeling of the common consciousness, the other the modified but no less genuine feeling of the reflective consciousness, that there is a Higher Source from which flow all the visible changes that occur around us. So far from this being the mere dictate of that instinctive philosophy of the human mind which disappears with the advance of science, it is the utterance of an ineradicable ra- It is even to mistake the fundamental law of human de- velopment expounded by Positivism, according to which man's earliest speculations are always of a theological character. DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 59 tional necessity, which never changes, however it may change its mode of expression. In one case the Ultimate Source or Power may be so rudely apprehended, and in another so refined and unified, that the two results may seem not to represent the same conviction ; but it is the same rational ne- cessity that speaks in both. It is the same truth, however in certain cases obscured and even dis- torted, that forced itself upon us. Men can not rest in tmy lower truth : they are driven unceas- ingly upward, till they rest in some ultimate and comrpehending Power. They can not be satisfied with any mere endless series of changes, which does not originate in such a Power, however vari- ous may otherwise be their notions of it. Every ascent along the chain of mere natural facts, leaves the mind still in search of an Origin beyond na- ture. Here alone it searches no more, but rests in peace. " We pass from effect to cause, from se- quence to sequence, and from that to a higher cause, in search of something on which the mind can rest ; but if we can do nothing but repeat this process, there is no use in it. We move our limbs, but make no advance. Our question is not an- swered, but evaded. The mind can not acquiesce in the destiny thus presented to it, of being referred from event to event, from object to object, along an interminable vista of causation and time. Now this mode of stating the reply to say that the 60 THEISM. mind can not thus be satisfied appears to be equiva- lent to saying that the mind is conscious of a prin- ciple in virtue of which such a view as this must be rejected ; the mind takes refuge in the assump- tion of a First Cause from an employment incon- sistent with its own nature.' 7 * But this irresistible tendency to believe in some Power above nature is not in itself, it may be said, commensurate with the position we have laid down viz., that Mind is the only finally valid ex- planation of order. It gives us merely the vague idea of some First Cause. Now of course we do assert that the conception of Intelligence is plainly present in that most universal form of the faith in a First Cause to which we have appealed, and on which, in the last case, our position rests. We are content to accept this faith, in all its variety of ex- plicit meaning, for what it is in itself simply and incontrovertibly viz., a testimony to some Higher Power. But what we do assert is, that this faith in the vaguest form 'implicitly contains the idea of Mind. For the lower fact has only existence in and through the higher. Mind is to us the only analagon of power or force. Our self-conscious- ness according to the whole scope of our previous argument supplies us with our only type of effi- ciency. Apart from, and independently of Mind, there is no reason to think that the conception of * Dr. WHEWELI <* Indications of the Creator, p. 199. DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 61 force could have ever arisen within us. However, then, the generic element Intelligence may, in cer- tain cases, be concealed behind mere Power, we only require to analyze and carry out the true meaning of the latter in order to find the former. Power may perhaps be held apart from Mind ; but as it only comes through the latter, it certainly, as a fact, every where involves it, and has a constant tendency to return into it. It is true, there are states of society in which, either from gross igno- rance or an over-driven speculative rage which is no less, in the irjost real sense, ignorance the high- er and more comprehensive significance is lost sight of, or does not distinctively emerge ; but it is equally true that such states are abnormal and tem- porary, and that the narrower and more special idea can nowhere be long or consistently held with- out expanding into the other. Power can only permanently assert itself as the acknowledged attri- bute of Mind. To those who have not thoroughly reflected on the subject, this may not seem an obvious conclu- sion ; but there is nothing appears to us at once more true, and more important to be kept in view. Let it but be granted that we obtain the idea of force solely from the conscious operation of our own minds and it does not seem, according to all we formerly said, and even according to the express basis of materialism, that this admits of any dispute 62 THEISM. and let it further be admitted that it is this idea of power or force in which, alone we can ultimately rest in our impelled ascent to the Source of things it seems impossible that we can help recognizing this Source as Intelligent, when it is only through the conscious fact and operation of our own intelligence that we have the idea with which it is identical. Power being only known to us at all as the expres- sion of Mind, the Ultimate Power necessarily be- comes to us an Ultimate Mind. Let it be, that the dim unexamined promptings of consciousness may per- mit us to rest for a little, and may even permit races, in whom intelligence, save as a blind force, is scarce- ly developed, to rest for ages, in the mere vague conception of Power in the external universe, this conception can never fail, in the clearer working of consciousness, to be transferred into its full symbol Mind.* We can no more, in fact, help making * " Let us ask how the primordial force of pantheism is le- gitimately transformed into an attribute of an intelligence ? Let a designer stand for an intelligence who is possessed of power, and who intentionally adapts means to an end. Design, there- fore, will stand for intentional adaptation ; and from the con- templation of man, we are enabled to make the above defini- tions without transcending the realm of experience. When we have made man objective, we can affirm, 'man can design ;' and when we contemplate the product of man's design, we find it expressed in the terms, ' adaptation of means to an end,' where neither of the terms are psychological, but such are used legiti- mately in physical science. And when, on the other hand, we find in nature the adaptation of means to an end, we infer design and a designer, because the only circumstances within our experience in which we can trace the origination of ndapt- DOCTKINE OF FINAL CAUSES. t)i5 mind objective, and apprehending it as the only ulti- mate cause O;T explanation of tilings, than we can help recognizing existence under the forms of our men- tal constitution at all. The one result is simply the carrying out of the other. This is the final view of our position ; and so clearly is it felt to be so, that it will be found that the opposite school of thinkers have retreated ation, are those in which human mind is implicated. And thus what was at first an omnipresent and immortal substance, and afterward an omnipresent and immortal power, becomes trans- formed into an omnipresent and immortal intelligence." We give this quotation from a recent work, marked by eminent ability (The Theory of Human Progression, p. 481-2), not as co- inciding with its representation of the mode in which force be- comes transformed into an attribute of Intelligence (Mind), in so far as that representation is exclusive; although we recog- nize the influence of the process to which the writer ascribes the origin of the idea of Intelligence, in educating and clearing up this phase of the theistic conception, as indeed our whole illustrative evidence is based on such a recognition. In this, however, we disagree with the representation of the writer be- fore us that we recognize Mind as already implicitly given in Force the higher, as already contained in the lower phase of the theistic conception and on the very grounds on which he finds design in nature viz., that the only circumstances within our experience, in which we can trace force or origination of any kind, are those in which Mind is implicated because Mind, in short, is to us the only analagon of force. Not only does adaptation, as a fact, give Mind, but Force (Cause), already in our view, however obscurely, gives it. The study of design in Creation does not, as we hold, add Intelligence for the first time to our original causal belief. For this belief already in its vaguest form only takes its rise in the conscious operation of Mind. The manifestations of design are, however, of the utmost value in quickening and educating the idea of Mind or Intelli- gence. 64 T II E ISM. thither in an attitude of denial. This is felt to be the last and essential point on either side, and ap- pears to us to be clearly indicated as such in that remarkable passage of Mr. Mill which we quoted in the outset. Let it be admitted that Mind is tbe only efficient cause of things with which we are or can be acquainted : does this entitle us to place it at the head of nature ? Because Mind is to us the only conceivable origin, does this justify us in making it the origin of things in general ? Have we any right, in short, to apply the limited modes of our rational conceptivity to the universe ? This appears to be a fair statement of the ultimate ques- tion. Mr. Mill, indeed, might repudiate this state- ment. His eagerness to argue the question of efficient causes on the lower ground of their rejec- tion not being incompatible with the " laws of our mental conceptivity," would seem to imply his willingness to abide by what might be proved to be the true character of these laws. But we think it plain beyond dispute, that the true source of his views lies in that deeper skepticism which treats the human soul as a mere product of nature, whose essential modes of conception do not necessarily mirror, in any true sense, the universe. And this position, which is more implied than asserted in his work, is openly and explicitly assumed by other writers of the same school. Human ideas are denied any correspondent relation to the Di- DOCTRINE OF FIN ALGA USES. 65 vine Existence. The attempt to bring the universe within the forms of man's reason, is represented as being equivalent to the old sophistic canon of "man the measure of things." "At all times," writes Mr. Lewes, "man has made God in his own image ; he has idealized and intensified his own nature, and worshiped that. This he has ever done ; this, perhaps, he ever will do. But we who, in serene philosophy, smile condescendingly on the ill-taught barbarian, whom we find attribut- ing his motives, his passions, his infirmities, to the Creator of all we who shudder at the idea of such anthropomorphism, how comes it that we also have fallen into the trap, and, having withdrawn from God the investiture of Passion, persist in substitut- ing for it an abstraction named Eeason ? Is not God conceived to be pure Reason- omnipotent Intelligence? and as Intelligence is Lord and Master of this Universe, so what Intelligence rec- ognizes as perfect or imperfect, must be perfect or imperfect."* This last assertion of materialistic infidelity de- serves particular attention, for it embraces the whole sum of the question between it and a the- istic Philosophy. It presents, we feel assured, the only consistent argument by which this Philosophy can be assailed. And it is full of pregnant meaning * COMTE'B Philosophy of the Sciences. By G. H. LEWES, pp. 89, 90. 66 THEISM. for the great issue at stake in Natural Theology, that it should become manifest that the validity of its conclusions can only be consistently disputed on grounds which can be shown to involve the negation of all Philosophy and all Theology, and which spring from a mode of thought essentially hostile to those highest expressions of truth which we so deeply venerate in Christianity. Let us see more particularly what this assertion involves. When it is alleged that the facts of the universe are not necessarily correspondent to the modes of human reason, what is implied ? Un- doubtedly this, that however man may observe and classify the facts of nature, these facts can never become to him truth, for it is only the light of interpretation with which his reason invests them, that makes them to him TRUTH. This, however, is called by our Positive Philosophers " anthropomorphism," and the boundless Life of the universe is represented as unwarrantably con- fined within the forms of man's interpretation. It is surely enough to say, in answer to such a view, that it is not possible to conceive how man could have ever known truth save under the conditions of his reason ; and to allege, therefore, this neces- sary condition of his having any knowledge in proof of the weakness and incompetency of that knowledge, is simply a desperation of skepticism so ridiculous that we might well be pardoned for DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 67 not attempting any reply to it. Whether or not there be any other truth in regard to the universe than that which the forms of his reason compel him to accept as such, must be to man an utterly idle question. There can be no other truth to him than that which he is thus compelled to accept. To state the matter still more pertinently, let it be admitted to be a fair hypothesis that there may be efficient causes in the universe entirely different from that of which alone he has, or can have, any idea, it yet remains a fact, that the universe is to him only conceivable as the production of Mind Intelligent Power. It is a fact, according to our whole theory, that this conception is one inextin- guishable in human nature. And the refusal of the Positivist, therefore, to accept the verdict of human nature on the subject, simply amounts to an assertion of utter skepticism a denial of any truth being possible to man. Indeed, if the demands of our rational conscious- ness be repelled in this, one of its deepest expres- sions, it seems a clear inference, that not only truth in the highest sense is rendered impossible, but that even the foundations of Science are assailed. For if we refuse to accept the rational interpreta- tion of nature in its full extent, we can have no right to accept it to any extent. If it be an in- herent necessity of our mental constitution which we have so fullv shown it to be that we recognize 68 THEISM. Mind in nature as its source, and we refuse that re- cognition, we thereby impugn the veracity of the human consciousness altogether, and leave no foot- hold for truth of any kind, according to the well- known maxim, which in such an application can admit of no dispute, "falsus in uno, falsus in omni- bus." The final position assumed by Positivism might well, therefore, be left to its own refutation ; for a position of such a character is self- destructive. Positivism is, in fact, essentially, whatever philo- sophical pretensions it may arrogate to itself, nothing else than a species of philosophical suicide. The condition of all true science, as of all phi- losophy, lies in a totally different view of the re- lation of the human mind to the universe. They essentially presuppose, as the ground of their vera- city, an original harmony between Mind and nature, so that the former finds it own laws in the latter, and rightly relies on the reality of what it there finds. Man is thus conceived to stand to the whole world of material existence in the light of Inter- preter. He is the prophet of the otherwise dumb oracle the voice of the otherwise silent symbol. He looks abroad with a clear confidence that what he every where reads in the light of his own con- sciousness is the very truth and meaning which is there, and which he therefore ought to receive. Let this confidence be destroyed, and there remains DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. ^ for him no truth or genuine science that we can imagine. It is important to observe the exact character of the relation thus maintained to exist between Mind and nature. The correct perception of it dissipates at once all ingenious and plausible misrepresenta- tions with which it may be attacked. It is a rela- tion of correspondence or harmony 'as already stated, so that Mind apprehends nature in a faith- ful mirror, and finds a reality answering to its in- tuitions ; but it is not asserted to be a commensu- rate relation in the sense of the old dictum, " Man the measure of things." There is a most important distinction between the two views, amounting to all the difference between a sound and reverent philosophy and that higher and more vaulting speculation which overleaps itself in the attempt to construct the universe from the mere abstract forms of human thought. In the latter case, alone, is man made the "measure of things," when he aspires not merely to apprehend truth, and to stand face to face with it, but to comprehend and contain all truth within the limits of his mental concep- tivity. In the one case man only aspires to the knowledge of God, without which he were the most miserable of all beings that inexplicable con- tradiction which he has been sometimes painted ; in the other he aspires to be as God an attitude in which he appears just as ridiculously and falsely 70 T H E I S M . exalted, as, in the other, he is wretchedly And falsely degraded. We approach here that significant opposition in the modes of thought we are considering, at which we have already hinted, and which is highly worthy of our notice in conclusion. The question before us, resolved into this its most general shape, comes un- doubtedly to be one regarding the whole position and dignity of man in the universe. According to the old* religious view, on which Christianity, as well indeed as all Eeligioii and all Philosophy, rests, man is considered to be not merely a creature, making his appearance in the course of nature, but a creature, while in nature, at the same time in a true sense above it specially allied to its Divine Source. The perfect expression of this only truly religious and philosophic view is given in the im- perishable language of Scripture " God made man in his own image." The same truth is classically expressed in the memorial words "In nature there is nothing great but man ; in man there is nothing great but mind." According to this view, man, while in the very fact of his present existence a product of nature, is yet endowed with capacities which exalt him far above it, and place him in a perfectly peculiar re- lation to the universe. He is indeed Matter, but yet Spirit. There is a Divine element of conscious reason in him, which asserts its superiority over the DOCTKIXE OF F T X A L CAUSES. 71 whole sphere of nature, and validly finds its own laws in all. In one aspect of his being, indeed, he is purely natural a mere element, and a very frail one, in the world-progress ; but, in another aspect, he is truly supernatural, and even the whole uni- verse is his" inferior and subject. According to the fine thought of Pascal, "Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature ; but he is a reed that thinks (un roseau pensanf). It needs not that the universe arm itself to crush him. An exhalation, a drop of water, suffices to destroy him. But were the universe to crush him, man is yet nobler than the universe, for he knows that he dies; and the universe, even in prevailing against him, knows not its power."* "Man is yet nobler than the universe" Here, where clearly center the most significant depths of Christian doctrine, lies also the essential doctrine of Theism. The Infidelity which rejects it, there- fore, is really, probed to its bottom, an infidelity not only in Grod, but in man. Eeason is with it only the plaything of time the growth of nature. With the Theist it is the first-born of Eternity the very " image of God." The soul is infinitely higher than all nature, and validly, therefore, brings all nature within its sphere, and finds its own re- flection every where in it. Matter is only glorified in the light of Spirit. Nature is only beautiful * Pensees. Faugcre's edit. Tome ii. p. 84. 72 THEISM. only, in fact, intelligible in the mirror of EVER- LIVING MIND. We receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live. I. CHAPTER IY. THEISTIC CONCLUSIONS. (GENERAL LAWS.) THE major premiss of our theistic syllogism has been made good, according to the validity of our previous reasoning. More than this, the theistic conclusion itself, in its primary and most naked form, has been made good along with it. In the very nature of the case, the question passed over from its initiative and abstract, to its direct and conclusive statement. The minor premiss was held as implied ; and the essential question came to be whether a mode of conception, valid in certain human applications, was valid in reference to nature at large whether, in short, Mind, admitted to be to man the only efficient cause, was yet entitled to be considered the only efficient cause and final ex- planation of the universe. We have claimed this position for Mind in virtue of a rational necessity, which will not allow us to rest short of such a conclusion. More particularly, have endeavored to vindicate it by determining 4 74 THEISM. the true nature of causation, which we find to be always a relation of efficiency, and which, there- fore, at the very first, carried us beyond the mere range of physical sequences to some Power in which they originate. This Power can be nothing else than a Mind, as it is only in the fact and con- scious operation of our own minds that we have the conception of power at all. The rational necessity on which the argument rests can only be consistently set aside by denying the veracity of our rational being altogether, and so destroying the foundations of all science and philosophy whatever. Mind is found in nature as a whole, and held to be its only ultimate explanation on the very same grounds on which we apply to nature the forms of our mental life at all. The theistic conclusion is only the fair result of the rational interpretation of nature carried out. The conclusive sum of our previous argument gives us, then, when fully expressed, an Intelligent First Cause of nature. The root of this conclusion, however, is not in external nature, but in our rational consciousness. Nay, it emerges in what is distinctively called our moral consciousness. It starts from this as its special source. But, inas- much as our spiritual life is a unity, this distinctive origin of the theistic conception does not affect, as some would seem to think, the appropriate signifi- cance and validity of the general argument from GENE HAL LAWS. 75 design. It only points to the deep harmony which, underlies the whole of the theistic evidence. It only indicates where the links of that evidence gather up into a final and irrefragable postulate of our spiritual being. Before passing from this branch of our subject, there is a relation of it which it may be well to consider with such perverseness has it been mis- interpreted and misapplied. It has been held that our conclusion is at variance with the results of Science. Science gives us, as the final expression of phenomena every where, general laws, to which the phenomena may all be traced back, and upon which they seem to depend. It is simply the aim of Science to discover these laws in every depart- ment of nature, and so to give to man a greater mastery over its multiplied resources. It is not, perhaps, much to be wondered at that, in the proud and continued triumph with which Science has pursued her course, there should have been some of her votaries who believed themselves not only exposing the domain of nature, but revealing the last truths which concerns man to learn. And while the great conclusion of Theism has been thus deliberately discarded by certain minds, it has been felt by many more as if that conclusion were somehow dangerously affected by the discoveries of Science. It will afterward be our aim, in a more special 76 T H 1 3 3f . way, to show how little the theistic position is affected by the most notable of these discoveries ; how little, in truth, we can rest in even the most signal of general laws as self-explanatory as fur- nishing the last expression of truth for the human mind. The fact is, that any such law, instead of explaining the phenomena which seem to issue from it, is merely the general condition in which these phenomena express themselves, and apart ffom which it has no existence. Instead of the law ex- plaining the phenomena, therefore, it might be more truly said that the phenomena explain the law, just as a sum in arithmetic gives the answer rather than the answer the sum. The true realities are the separate facts. The law is only the summary expression by which we hold these facts before our mind. In the mean time it concerns us to show how finely and truly, in a right point of view, the highest conceptions of Science harmonize with the theistic conclusion. It is only an unworthy and absurd representation of either that leaves any ground for hostility between them. It has been presumed, for example, that there is an inconsistency between a self-acting power and that invariable uniformity which is seen to charac- terize the operations of nature. The order which Science discovers every where is supposed, in its silent and undeviating march, to exclude any per- G- E N E R A L L A W S . 77 sonal agency. This agency is apprehended as something necessarily arbitrary, and hence as con- flicting with general laws. Volition, in short, and law or order, are conceived of as incompatible realities ; and the idea of any directing Volition is held as dispelled by the knowledge which Science enables us to acquire of natural phenomena, so that we can foretell and even control them.* Now, nothing can well be imagined more absurd and unphilosophical than such a notion of volition applied to the Supreme Being. The only valid presumption in the case would be of a totally different character. Instead of regularity being supposed inconsistent with the agency of such a Being, it would be held as only its appropriate ex- pression. It is only the most vicious idea of will, as divorced from reason, that could for a moment give rise to a different apprehension: A Supreme * The following quotation will show that we do not mis- represent the doctrine of Positivism: " The fundamental char- acter of all Theological Philosophy is the conceiving of phenom- ena as subjected to Supernatural Volition, and consequently (! 1) as eminently and irregularly variable. Now, these Theological conceptions can only be subverted finally by means of these two general processes, whose popular success is infallible in the long run (1) the exact and rational prevision of phenomena, and (2) the possibility of modifying them, so as to promote our own ends and advantages. The former immediately dispels the idea of any 'Directing Volition;' and the latter tends to the same result, under another point of view, by making us regard this power as subordinate to our own." COMTE'S Philosophy of the Sciences, by LEWES, pp. 102, 103, 78 THEISM. Will, which, is at the same time Supreme Wisdom, we can only think of as manifesting itself in order. The actual order of nature, therefore, so far from affording a ground of objection to the fact of superintending Volition, is just the very form in which we should rationally conceive that Volition to express itself. And the mastery which, by the help of Science, we acquire over the resources of nature instead of destroying the notion of such Yolition, only serves to bring into clearer view the wonderful means by which it works, and through which it provides for human happiness. The scientific pre- vision of phenomena is simply the interpretation of the plans of the Divine Eeason by that human reason which is allied to it, and which only finds in the Divine plans the realization of its own highest conceptions of order. The same fundamental prejudice, strange as it may seem, is found even to pervade the language of Theology. Looking upon general laws more as vast mechanisms than living forces, the theologian too has been apt to consider them as inconsistent with the idea of directing Yolition or special Prov- idence. They have seemed to him to destroy that living guardian presence of God in nature which the heart instinctively cherishes : and he has, ac- cordingly, sometimes spoken of them with a sort of jealousy. But, according to their right concep- tion, they are very far from thus displacing and GENERAL LAWS. 79 putting out of view the Divine Agency. So very far from doing this, they are truly nothing else than the expression of that Agency the continual going forth of the Divine Efficiency. Instead, therefore, of postponing or removing to a distance the Divine Presence, they are every where simply the manifestations of that Presence. To suppose that, because the order of nature is fixed to us, the Divine Father can not exercise through that order a special providence toward His children, is simply a presumptuous imagination of the most unworthy kind. For to the great Source of Being, who " seeth in all His works the end from the begin- ning," these only are at any moment, in all their endless intricacy of action and reaction, even as He appoints. The truer view, therefore, would be to regard the whole course of Providence, the whole order of nature, as special, in the sense of proceeding directly every moment from the awful abysses of Creative Power. Certainly, if there is any correction needed in our theological conceptions and nomenclature on this subject, it is in reference to the supposition of a general rather than of a special Providence of the former as in any true or intelligible sense dis- tinguished from the latter. For surely, to conceive of any order of events, or any facts of nature, as less directly connected than others with their Di- vine Author, is an absurdity. And what, save 80 THEISM. this, can be distinctively meant by a general Prov- idence, we are at a loss to imagine. Only suppose the Deity equally present in all His works, equally active in all, and Providence no longer admits of a twofold apprehension. It is simply, in every possible mode of its conception, the Agency of God; equally mediate in all cases as expressing itself by some means, but also in all cases equally immediate as no less truly expressed in one species of means as in another. According to this higher and comprehensive view, the Divine Presence lives alike in all the Divine works. God is every where in nature speaking to us the same language. He is equally near to us in all its more ordinary and more striking aspects ; in the glad sunshine or the gentle shower, as in the boding darkness and the dreadful storm ; in the fall of a leaf amid the fields of autumn, as in the waste of the whirlwind on the desolated plains of winter. SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.* SPECIAL (GEOLOGICAL) EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR. THE doctrine of an Intelligent First Cause, which it has been the aim of the foregoing chap- ter to establish, has been supposed to derive a special testimony and confirmation from the facts of Geological science. It has been maintained that these facts not only enable the Natural The- ologian as in the case of existing organic pro- ducts to infer a supreme Creative Mind, although, this, too, they eminently do ; but moreover conduct us directly backward to the presence and agency of such a Mind. In a word, they are said to take us out of the region of natural cause and effect, and to bring us face to face with the great Creative Cause. Lord Brougham, in his review of the memorable labors of Cuvier in the department of Fossil Osteology, was among the first to draw at- * The character of the evidence treated of in this chapter sufficiently separates it from the general range of merely illus- trative evidence. This, upon the whole, seemed to be the proper position for it. 4* 82 THEISM. tention to the distinctive character and cogency of this branch of the theistic evidence. Dr. Chalmers was disposed to place great stress upon it, especially as serving in a direct and tangible way to extricate the Natural Theologian from the meshes of Hume's sophistry. The question it involves, the reader will at once recognize as one which has recently assumed a peculiar and prominent importance in scientific discussions. Interesting, however, as this question is to the Natural Theologian, it is right to observe that we do not hold it to involve the essential interests of Theism. The theistic argument no doubt receives a striking illumination from the idea of successive creative interpositions, manifest in the very struc- ture of the earth and its organic remains. It is in the highest degree significant, that, as we turn over the stony tablets of the Geological volume, we should not merely be arrested at every page with impressive manifestations of that pervading design which we perceive every where, but at definite in- tervals should gaze with awe upon the very record of Creation, and behold, as it were, the finger of Omnipotence in mysterious operation. Yet it is clearly evident to us, and deserves to be carefully considered, that even should advancing science tend to throw obscurity upon the supposed traces of direct Creative Energy, the great doctrine of The- ism would remain altogether untouched. Even if SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR. 83 those finger-prints of the Creator, upon which the Christian Geologist has delighted to expatiate, should become dim and obliterated, as the eye of Science grows more familiar with them, and pierces them with a keener scrutiny, the fact of a Creative Presence would not thereby be really affected. God would equally, if not so strikingly, live and work in the supposed extended development of creation, as in the supposed instances of direct Creative Power. It is worthy of notice how completely this is ad- mitted by the chief expounder of the development hypothesis in our own country.* However his * This admission is, upon the whole, so clearly and happily expressed, that we are prompted to submit it to the reader. " What, in the Science of Nature," asks the author of the Ves- tiges, "is a law ? It is merely the term applicable where any series of phenomena is seen invariably to occur in certain given circumstances, or in certain given conditions. Such phenomena are said to obey a law, because they appear to be under a rule or ordinance of constant operation. In the case of these physi- cal laws, we can bring the idea to mathematical elements, and see that numbers, in the expression of space or of time, form, as it were, its basis. We thus trace in law, Intelligence. Often we can see that it has a beneficial object, still more strongly speaking of Mind as concerned in it. There can not, however, be an inherent intelligence in these laws. The intelligence ap- pears external to the laws : something of which the laws are but as the expressions of the Will and Power. If this be admitted, the laws can not be regarded as primary or independent causes of the phenomena of the physical world. We come, in short, to a Being beyond nature its Author, its God ; infinite, incon- ceivable, it may be, and yet one whom these very laws present to us witb attributes showing that our r.ature is in some way a 84 THEISM. conclusions may seem, as they certainly seem to us, to obscure and pervert, in its highest meaning, the doctrine of Theism, they are yet by no means essentially, still less expressly, atheistic. On the contrary, the author strongly recognizes a Supreme Mind, as necessarily implied in all the order of the universe ; and, in the most recent edition of his work, he has added the special confession, that he "believes" in a personal and intelligent Gfod, and can not conceive of dead matter receiving life otherwise than through Him* The peculiar question involved is not one which properly affects the existence of God, however deep- ly it may affect all for which that truth is important and dear to us. It is truly a question as to the mode of the Divine Agency. In the one case as in the other, a Creator is admitted ; only in the one case it is maintained that we have (in the fact of the origin of life, for example and again, of the successive animal species that have peopled the earth) the manifestations of a special Creative En- ergy ; in the other, that we have merely the mani- faint and far-cast shadow of His, while all the gentlest and beait- tifullest of our emotions lead us to believe that we are as chil- dren in His care, and as vessels in His hand. Let it then be un- derstood and this is for the reader's special attention that when rational law is spoken of here, reference is only made to the mode in which the Divine Power is exercised. It is but an- other phrase for the action of the ever-present and sustaining God." P. 10. * Appendix to Vestiges, p. 65 ; tenth edition. SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR. 85 festations of an advance in the course of natural law an advance not alleged to exclude the Crea- tor, yet the immediate result of an inherent impulse originally imparted to matter, and not of a special creative fiat. In the question thus at issue, the burden of proof lies plainly upon the advocate of the development hypothesis. He proposes a special theory to ac- count for the ascending phenomena of creation, and the successive changes of organic being to which Geology testifies. This theory is one which is un- deniably at variance with the law which now most obviously regulates the production of life. The very words in which the author of the Vestiges has expressed his theory imply this. The hypothetical development which he defends is one whereby, he says, " the simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like production is subordinate, gave birth, to the type next above it this again produced the next type, and so on to the highest."* But the law of like production, which he here sub- ordinates to a higher and more comprehensive law, is the only one with, which, in the historical period of creation, we are familiar. As yet we certainly possess no valid evidence of a different law or, in other words, of the transmutation, of species and still less of the origin of life under any material in- fluences, electrical or otherwise. * Vestiges ; Appendix, p. 60. 86 THEISM. True, it is admitted on all hands, that both veg- etable and animal organisms are capable of certain degrees of variation and modification under exter- nal circumstances. There are even, it must be granted, certain indications among the lower forms of life of this modifiable capacity extending further than was at first supposed. The alleged case of the jEgilops ovata* is an illustration. But, admit- ting all" this, it will not be contended that any series of facts, as yet discovered by science, tends to es- tablish a doctrine of mutation of species. Indica- tions there have been sufficiently curious, and fit- ted to arrest the inductive inquirer as to the sup- posed accuracy of his specific distinctions, but certainly no foundation whatever for denying the reality of such distinctions. Nay, the fact that or- ganisms generally are modifiable within certain limits, but not beyond them that this is the un- questionable law of organic species within the his- torical period, would seem to imply that there is, in all cases, a set boundary to the operation of ex- ternal influences. Definite variability within the range of species would seem to form just the most strongly presumptive evidence of the substantive and radical distinction of species. This is clearly the truth to which the " overbalance of physiologi- * This naturally barren grass, according to the alleged dis- covery of M. Esprit Fabre, is merely the wild form of cultivated wheat. SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR. 87 cal authority" testifies. The decision of the au- thority is thus expressed by Dr. Whewell : " There is a capacity in all species to accommodate them- selves, to a certain extent, to a change of external circumstances, this extent varying greatly accord- ing to the species. There may thus arise changes of appearance or structure, and some of these chan- ges are transmissible to the offspring : but the mu- tations thus superinduced are governed by constant laws, and confined within certain limits. Indefi- nite divergence from the original type is not possi- ble ; and the extreme limit of possible variation may usually be reached in a short period of time. In short, species have a real existence in nature, and a transmutation from one to another does not ex- ist."* We are aware that it is argued by the advocate of development that the law of mutation of species, which we fail to discover in the present order of things, may yet have been in active operation throughout the lengthened periods of Geological history, in comparison with which the years of man's scientific observation of the earth are not to be reckoned ; but until he can show this, it is at least the safer course to abide by the testimony of historical experience. Here and now we perceive that the law of like from like is the law of organic production ; and if the fact of this being the * Indications of the Creator, p. 100. 88 THEISM. present law will not perhaps entitle us t pro- nounce authoritatively that it was the law as well of the ancient periods of the earth, still less, surely, are we warranted in admitting the operation of a wholly different law during these periods, without a wholly different kind of evidence from that which Geology has yet furnished. But even if there were as many presumptions in favor of the theory of the transmutation of species as there are presumptions against it, there would still remain the stubborn and inexplicable fact of LIFE (not to mention the higher facts of Intelligence and Eesponsibility) in the way of the' adoption of the hypothesis of the Vestiges. For it will hardly be seriously maintained that any of the attempts which have been made to explain by natural means the genesis of life from dead matter, deserves from us other acknowledgment than is ever due to the persevering and aspiring efforts of Science, in what- ever direction. The thedry of spontaneous genera- tion, in any shape, has undoubtedly been losing rather than gaining ground from the late advances of physiology. Suppositions, at one time pretty generally entertained, as to the production of infu- sory animalcula apart from ova, have been pro- nounced by Professor Owen, in conformity with the result of his recent researches into the various modes of reproduction with which nature has provided these animals, to be " quite gratui- SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR. 89 tons."* The more thoroughly, indeed, the minuter facts of nature are apprehended the more the light of science is cast upon them only the deeper becomes the mystery of Life. Instead of our ap- proaching the exposure of this secret, we are only the more fully taught that it lies beyond our scru- tiny, and must forever baffle our research. In the view of the facts thus briefly urged, which leave the development hypothesis at the best a mere unsupported, if not uninteresting, conjecture, it can not be doubted that the theory of successive creations, defended by all our highest Geologists, is the one which has the most claim to our accept- ance. It proceeds on an obvious basis of facts, which not only warrants, but, in the mean time at least, seems to necessitate it. In tracing back- ward the Geological history, we meet with phe- nomena which do not relate themselves to antece- dent phenomena in the way of natural' cause and effect. The supposition of a Supernatural or Cre- ative Cause seems inevitable. Be it observed that this theory, according to its just meaning, does not put itself forward as a dogma. It does not inter- dict inquiry, and pronounce that there are no links of natural sequence between the phenomena in question ; it only states that none such have been proved. It does not judge nature, but simply in- * Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 190, quoted by Hitchcock in his Religion of Geology, p. 269. 90 THEISM. terprets it ; asserting merely as matter of fact, that no such links have been exposed ; that in our re- trogressive ascent along the course of creation we reach gaps in the evolution of physical sequences points which yield no natural explanation, and which therefore necessitate a Supernatural. We trace backward the threads of physical relations, till we can go no further by the boldest light of Science, until, by the very penetrating blaze of its torch, we are brought face to face with directly Creative Power-. In thus recognizing successive interventions of direct Creative Power in the Geological history, we do not for a moment necessarily deny the presence of a general order of procession among the phe- nomena of creation. The advocates of develop- ment have indeed dexterously sought to represent their theory as the only possible conception of pro- cesssional "order, applied to the universe. They have put the question as between it and any intel- ligible theory at all. But this is wholly unwar- rantable ; for it surely is not in the least degree necessary that we hold that the whole process of creation has been a mere evolution from primordial principles at first imparted to matter that, in the language of Dr. Whewell, "Life grows out of dead matter, the higher animals out of the lower, and man out of brutes"* in order to be able to discover a * Dr. WHEWELL'S Indications, Preface, p. 12. SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CKEATOB. 91 true and vast order of progress in the course of creation. Such a merely mechanical development appears, on the contrary, from its very affectation of simplicity, to be an ambiguous and suspicious conception. In any case it can have no claim, a priori, to represent the process of creation ; and they who discredit it are not to be supposed -at all insensible " to the wonderful order and harmony, the gradations and connections, which run through the forms of animal life, and enable the anatomist and physiologist to pass in thought, along the un- broken line, from the rudest and simplest organic germs to the most completely developed animal structure."* The idea of an ascensional order of creation is one which, in our opinion, the Christian Theist is by no means called upon to dispute ; and perhaps it will be admitted, on a calm review of the recent controversy on the subject, that too much anxiety has been evinced to break up the alleged evidence of ascension of development, in a true sense, upon which the author of the Vestiges has founded his conclusions. Even should the supposed discovery of vertebrated fossils in the lower Silurian rocks, as recently reported, be, in the end, able to sustain itself, this would by no means settle the matter against the theory of ascent. It would by no means follow that the course of creation may not * Dr. WHEWELL'S Indications, Preface, p. 13. 92 THEISM. have been, as a whole, from the lower to the higher, although we may yet discover the highest animals in the lowest stratified rocks. Such a dis- covery would, no doubt, bear with damaging effect against the author of the Vestiges, but it would not at all necessarily destroy a rational theory of de- velopment. It does not and can not overturn the idea of a regular procession of species; it only removes the date and verge of that procession further back. This is all that such a discovery would necessarily imply ; and as Theism has noth- ing to dread from the idea of a processional ad- vance from the lower to the higher types of being, rightly apprehended while this idea is one which commends itself by its suggestive grandeur we do not see that it should either attract suspicion or provoke refutation. If only we hold by the clear conception of the course of nature or, in other words, Providence being nothing else than a continued forth-putting of originally Creative Energy, we shall see nothing to surprise us in the gradual rise and ever-expand- ing development of new forms of being along the march of creation. These will seem to us, on the contrary, just what we might expect, so far as our expectations have any claim to be regarded in the matter ; only brighter flashings, as it were, of the Divine Presence, here and there, along the ex- tended scroll of creation, telling more directly SPECIAL EVIDENCE OF A CKEATOIl. 93 of the radiant Power which it every where re- veals. And this view is that which no less tells most decisively against the hypothesis of the Vestiges. It is the same vicious metaphysical assumption which we have seen to underlie the reasoning of the Positive School as to the direct action of Divine Will being something necessarily irregular being what is called (in language which concentrates the whole perverted essence of the assumption) an "interference." It is undoubtedly this vicious idea, as to a necessary opposition between law and Creative Will, which lies at the root of the whole reasoning of the Vestiges, and forms the most vital question between the author and his opponents. But why, we may surely ask, should direct Creat- ive action be necessarily conceived of as an inter- ference, and, as such, unworthy of the Infinite repose and majesty of God ?* What is law itself, according to the clear admission of the writer, but a mode of the Divine Efficiency an expression of the Divine Mind or Will ? What is it that- consti- tutes the permanence which we peculiarly ascribe to law to the order of Providence but the con- tinued forth-putting of that Efficiency ? Were this forth -putting to cease any moment, the law * Every one familiar with the Vestiges will recall how re- peatedly the author falls back upon this assumption as to the Divine character and mode of action. It is the pervading idea, *u fact, in which the book obviously originated. 94 THEISM. would disappear, the course of Providence would dissolve and vanish away. Now, because God, for obvious reasons, maintains the forth-puttings of His Efficient Energy, after certain modes which, collectively, we call Nature, why should this ex- clude new and special forth-puttings of that energy, when He may see meet in other words, when fit- ting occasions may arise ? Why should such fresh expressions of Creative Power be supposed to be irregularities, " interferences" in the great plan of creation and not, as according to the genuine theistic conception they truly are, parts in the de- velopment of that great plan contemplated from the first ? Is not the former supposition the one which truly degrades that Infinite Being, who knoweth all His works from the beginning to the end? The truth is, it is only the most deep-seated an- thropomorphism (which is yet the peculiar con- tempt of Materialism) that gives rise to the imag- ination of a conflict between law or order, and the special. action of the Divine Will, in any case. For if we remove the wholly human element of imper- fection, all such possible discrepancy disappears. In this conception of the Highest, all arbitrariness vanishes, and the whole order of nature is appre- hended as simply a continued efflux of Infinite Power and Wisdom. SECTION II, ILLUSTRATIVE (INDUCTIVE) EVIDENCE. II. CHAPTER L COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. IN the course of our previous argument we have assumed that nature every where presents an aspect of ORDER. This we were quite warranted in doing from the universal testimony of Science ; and on this assumption our argument advanced directly to its conclusion. Mind was found entitled to stand at the head of nature as its only valid explanation. With a view, however, to the complete exhibition of the theistic doctrine, it is necessary to return to the minor premiss of our syllogism, and unfold it at length. It is only by a detailed exposition of the fact of order, as it reveals itself in manifold forms in nature, that we can fully show " that there is an all-powerful, Wise, and Good Being, by whom every thing exists. 1 ' We begin our illustrative survey with the most general and comprehensive phenomena that can engage us ; those, namely, disclosed by astronomy. The celestial arrangements are at once the most 98 THEISM. simple and the most magnificent of which we have any knowledge the most independent, and at the same time the most widely influential, of all others. Astronomical science, above every other, has en- larged and transformed our conceptions- of the uni- verse. Has the grand utterance of ancient piety, " The Heavens declare the glory of God," lost any thing of its meaning in the light of modern dis- covery ? Or have the ever-expanding disclosures of the telescope only added to it a depth and gran- deur of meaning hitherto inconceivable ? We will endeavor in this chapter to find an answer to these questions. The general character of our solar system may be said to be now familiar to the common intelli- gence. It is composed, so far as has hitherto been discovered, of eight planetary bodies of what is called first class magnitude, surrounding the sun at different distances, with a comparatively numerous group of smaller bodies circling between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Previous to the year 1845 there were only reckoned four of these lesser bodies ; but, on the 8th of December of that year, a fifth member of the group was discovered by Hencke ; and, since then, yearly observation has been adding to their number.* It is, moreover, * Tip to the present date no fewer than thirty-two of these smaller bodies have been discovered, chiefly through the labors of an English observer, Mr. Hind. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 99 only a few years since the last we know of the larger order of planets was discovered. Previ- ously, Uranus was supposed to "be the outermost of our system ; but, in the year 1846, the independent calculations of two students* conducted almost simultaneously to the discovery of another plane- tary body removed far beyond the orbit of Uranus, and circling round the sun in about double its year. The extent of the solar system was thus immensely augmented. Before, it was calculated to embrace a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. But now tliis vast tract has been to our view nearly doubled. Almost twice the distance of Uranus, another world has been found attached to our system, and revolving in the warmth of our sun. But the solar system, stupendous as it is, occupies only a small portion of the expanse of space. Even to the eye, that space is seen to be peopled with a multitude of starry bodies, of a character quite dif- ferent from those that move around our sun ; and the telescope brings into view not merely thou- sands, but millions of these bodies. The great zone of the Milky Way, which has in all ages ar- rested attention from its peculiar appearance, is found, on the application of the telescope, to verify the conjecture of an ancient philosopher, and to be nothing else than a pathway of stars, so densely * Leverrier and Adams. 100 THEISM. crowded as to be separately indistinguishable to the unaided eye. These countless orbs Science teaches us to regard as suns similar to our own, with atten- dant planetary trains, although actual traces of these latter can scarcely be said to be yet discov- ered. Every bright and twinkling point above us, that seems to stand as a mere brilliant gem in the nocturnal crown of our earth, is probably the lumi- nous center of a system often far exceeding that to which we belong. For, shining as many of the stars do, with a brilliancy greatly more intense than that of our sun (Sirius is reckoned equal to sixty-three suns), it is only a likely inference that they irradiate and control much vaster systems. But not only has Science taught us to see in tbe starry firmament unnumbered repetitions of simple systems resembling our own ; it has, moreover, dis- closed binary systems, and even triple and quad- ruple, and higher combinations, all entering into the scheme of the stellar universe. The mind is thus not only transported in space far beyond our system ; the magnitudes and distances with which it makes us familiar are not only enlarged beyond all our powers of imagination the nearest star ( Centauri) being not fewer than twenty millions of millions of miles away from us. or about seven . hundred times farther removed from our sun than the planet Neptune ; we are further introduced into wholly new orders of worlds, marked by the mf\ COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 101 most wonderful diversities. What strange and in- teresting changes alone must result from the sim- plest of the combinations which we have mentioned ! If we suppose, as it is allowable to do, that each of the suns in such a system has its attendant planets, how novel the physical conditions ! how singular the complexities of relationship which they must present ! " Besides passing through the varying climates of a year, depending on its revo- lution around it own luminary, every planet of either system must undergo the changes of another cycle, whose course is the great period of the Binary system, and which at one of its terms must subject it to the influence of two suns virtually in contact ! And as to the movements of bodies acted on by forces so strange and fluctuating, we can have little other idea except that it is a sequence or succession of louleversements, the virtual periodic overthrowing by each sun of the independence of the system established by the other, which again is to recover itself in so far during the years leading to their elongation."* If we add to these considerations the well-ascertained fact of the diversity of color which distinguishes not a few of the double stars, f * NICHOL'S Architecture of the Heavens, p. 217. f Struve records that in at least one hundred and four binary systems the two stars exhibit the complementary colors that is, the color of one constituent belongs to the red or least re- frangible end of the spectrum, while that of the other belongs to the violet or most refrangible extremity. Ibid., p. 218. 102 THEISM. we shall derive a still more striking impression of the peculiarities of Existence to be found in the stellar spaces peculiarities doubtless increas- ing in novelty and intricacy with the ascend- ing complexity of the starry groups. In the lan- guage of Sir John Herschel, " it may be easier sug- gested in words than conceived in imagination what a variety of illumination two stars a red and a green, or a yellow and blue one must afford a planet circulating around either; and what cheer- ing contrasts and grateful vicissitudes a red and a green day, for instance, alternating with a white one and with darkness must arise from the pres- ence or absence of one or other, or both, from the horizon !" But all this even by no means exhausts the ex- tent of view or variety of cosmieal life which the telescope has revealed to us. We are enabled, by the light of recent astronomy, to penetrate to still vaster depths and hitherto unimagined worlds. In various quarters of the heavens the telescope has discovered patches of dim hazy light, now well known by the name of Nebulae. Some of these were from the first recognized to be dense clusters of stars, only rendered indistinct and nebulous from their immense remoteness ; others, however, were supposed to possess a quite distinct character to be portions of diffused gaseous matter inca- pable of being resolved by any telescopic power, hnt C O S M I C A L ARRANGEMENTS. 103 but, as was conjectured, in the course of being con densed into separate stars. And so generally did this view prevail for a while, that an hypothesis was built upon it to explain the whole course of cosmical creation. Many of the phenomena, how- ever, upon which this hypothesis rested, have been found to lose their supposed character of distinc- tion under the application, of Lord Eosse's magnifi- cent telescope, so recently brought to the service of astronomy. Nebulous masses, previously irre- solvable, have been at once resolved by it. What had seemed only dim patches of twilight haze, as yet unformed into suns, are discovered to be already systems of countless suns glowing with ancient fire. The great conclusion to which these nebulous phenomena every where point is, that the starry firmament of which our system is a part, is only a member of innumerable galaxies of firmaments that people the tracts of space. The millions of suns that shoot toward us their arrowy light from such immeasurable distances, and the millions of systems attached to them, are after all, as it were, an insignificant portion of the suns and systems that actually exist. Beyond the limits of our sidereal firmament, and with what spaces of desert and trackless gloom intervening we can not in the feeblest degree imagine, there lie other firmaments, it may be far vaster and grander than our own. Looking out far beyond the milk-white girdle of our 104 T H E I S M . own galaxy, we are transported into regions where other galaxies lie all around, some of them of the most strange and marvelously impressive shapes. " Improbable as it must have seemed," says Dr. Nichol,* " previous to discovery by unimpeachable observation, the spiral figure is characteristic of an extensive class of galaxies. Majestic associations of orbs, arranged in this winding form branches, as above, issuing like a divergent geometric curve from a globular cluster these rise up on all sides as the telescope journeys onward, supplanting shapes formerly imagined to be most simple, be- cause of their obscurity." Unexhausted marvels thus crowd upon us as we penetrate into space ; for, after all that the telescope has even now revealed, we know not what may still lie beyond. When we remember that, in order to enable us to see anything by the telescope or otherwise, light must reach us from it, may there not be firmaments so immeasur- ably distant as to be beyond our utmost powers of vision? So distant are some of the ascertained nebulae that their light is not supposed to reach us in less than fifty thousand or sixty thousand years. How true it may be, then, that there may be many starry shores in the sea of immensity, bright with a beauty of their own, no ray from which ever shines on us. If we now turn from the first bewildering view * Architecture of the Heavens, p. 94. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 105 of these vast cosmical revelations to contemplate them more steadily, we find throughout all the august presence of ORDER. Even in those twilight regions, in which the telescope is our only guide, and among phenomena whose very existence it strugglingly essays to determine, we find ever, along with the mere fact of existence, indications of arrangement. Speaking of those most recent marvels of cosmical being, the spiral nebula, Dr. Nichol testifies that, mysterious and bewildering as seem such shapes, they " have nothing in common with the fantastic creations of a dream. It is the essence of these nebulae that they are not formless, but, on the contrary, impressed indelibly by system on the grandest scale : clearly as a leaf, they have an organism ; something has seized on their enor- mous volumes, and molded them into a wonderful order."* Passing to our own galaxy, and the diversified phenomena which it presents, we can, in the nature of things, trace more distinctly the indications of system. Besides the motions to which we have already referred of multiple stars around one an- other, revealing such grand and peculiar varieties of order, it may now be said to be established that there is a general motion pervading our galaxy. So long ago as 1783, Sir William Herschel was im- pressed with the fact of our sun being in movement, * Architecture of the Heavens, p. 100. 5* 106 THEISM. and this fact has at length been amply verified. The sun's course is found to be toward the constellation Hercules, and the rate even of his progress has been calculated. As there can exist no doubt that this solar motion is only a type of what prevails among the stars generally, we are thus led to the conclusion of a grand galactic movement. What- ever credit may be due to Professor Madler's conject- ure, that the present position of one of the Pleiades (the star Alcyone) represents the apparent position of the common center of force to the firmamental system, there can not be any question that our sun and the other stars are revolving round such a dis- tant center. And this mighty movement, however we may more particularly regard it, is a vast har- monious one, shared in by the several orbitual systems. The subordinate movements of so much variety and complexity unite in the general pro- cession, which sways, as with an instinct of brother- hood, all the members of the galaxy. There is no appearance of disorder or disruption. One vast government guides the whole. As far as we can penetrate, therefore, and where- ever we trace existence, we trace, at the same time, order. The discoveries of astronomy, in their widest and most marvelous bearings, are simply revelations of hitherto hidden harmonies. And as we descend from these loftier stellar spaces in which, with all we see, we still see so COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 107 imperfectly to the sphere of our own system, whose magnitudes and movements have been so accurately determined, we find evidences of ar- rangement to multiply around us. This is only what we might expect. "While traveling, by the help of the telescope, in regions so remote as those of stellar existence, we can but faintly note the special combinations which there exist. It is only far-off and partial glimpses of those higher mechan- isms we can catch. Darkness still overhangs the bright route of the telescope. It is enough that what we do see every where speaks of order. But in the contemplation of our own planetary system, we are not only able to mark the general presence of order we can note and appreciate, more- over, the several special conditions entering into the construction of the system, and on which, as well as on the great pervading energies of attrac- tion and impulse, its maintenance depends. These conditions are all so many instances of arrangement. This has been recently so well shown by Dr. Whewell in his Bridge water Treatise, that nothing almost remains to be added to his impressive argument. "We merely present one or two of its features. Among the most marked characteristics of our system is the luminous nature of its central body, Nowhere else, obviously, could light have been placed with equal advantage for diffusion through^ 108 THEISM. out the entire system. Now, whence this light ? It can not be said that there is any necessary con- nection between the mere matter of the sun and its luminousness. According to the conjectures of astronomers, indeed, the heat and light of the sun are not supposed to reside in its mass, but in a coating or envelop which surrounds it. Why, then, should it come to pass that this coating of light should be, among the bodies of the system, confined to the sun, just where it is peculiarly adapted for use ? The mere position of the sun can not furnish any adequate explanation of this. Its position displays the fitness of the fact ; but we are unable to recognize any necessity for the fact in the posi- tion. The only admissible conclusion is, that this was an express arrangement designed for the pur- pose which it so obviously serves. Newton was particularly impressed with the force of this conclu- sion. In the first of his famous series of letters to Bentley, he has expressed it with his wonted sim- plicity and force. Allowing that matter would collect into masses by the power of attraction, he believes that the sun and fixed stars might thus be formed, supposing the matter were of a lucid na- ture, ** But how," he continues, " 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 COSMIC AL ARRANGEMENTS. 109 coalesce, not into one great body, like the shining matter, but into many little ones; or if the sun were at first an opaque body like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body, while all they continue opaque; or all they be changed into opaque ones, while he continued unchanged I do not think explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and con- trivance of a voluntary Agent." The uniform character of the planetary motions present striking evidence of order. "We find these motions to be all in nearly circular orbits in the same direction, and in nearly the same plane. There is here surely the clear impress of arrange- ment. For to what can we attribute this uniformity, save to a uniform determination of original im- pulse? "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 direction, will give a circle. If we suppose the planet to be originally projected, it must be projected perpen- dicularly to its distance from the sun, and with a certain precise velocity, in order that the motion may be circular. . . . No one 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 accustomed to shoot at, was 110 THEISM. painted in concentric circles by the accidental dashes of a brush in the hands of a blind man."* And this conviction is greatly heightened when we bring into view the further features of the planetary motions. For any thing in the nature of the case that we can see, any one of the planets might have moved in a different direction, or in a different plane; but not one of them does so. It is not merely a single uniformity which characterizes their motions, but they present exactly the same combination of uniformities. The inference seems irresistible, that such a combination of identical results could only spring from an identity of purpose. But the proof of arrangement comes out most strongly when we contemplate the great end which these uniformities of planetary movement subserve in the maintenance of the system. Had a different determination been given to any one of the ele- ments of this movement, it is demonstrable that the stability of the system would have been impaired. Had, for example, the orbits of the planets been of extremely varied eccentricity, instead of being, as they are, nearly circular had they moved in different directions, or in different planes, it is un- doubted that, under the existing law of gravitation, their mutual interferences would have terminated * Dr. WHEWELL'S Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 154, 156, ,. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. Ill in confusion and destruction. Even as it is, the attraction of the planets upon one another, as well as upon the sun, results in a partial derangement, which, however insignificant over a given space of time, it was for a time supposed might, in the lapse of ages, end in breaking up the system. Under the influence of their mutual attraction, changes are actually going on in the motions of the planetary bodies ; the eccentricity of the earth's orbit is di- minishing, the moon is approaching nearer the earth, and its motion in consequence becoming ac- celerated. So slight, indeed, is the course of these changes, and so vast the cycle in which they run, that they have been going on progressively from the earliest observations to our own times. Yet, if they were unlimited, it can not be doubted that they would at length reach a climax of subversion and ruin. And for some time it was really uncer- tain whether our system might not thus be tend- ing, from the inherent character of its constitution, to decay. Newton did not undertake to pronounce upon the question ; but Lagrange and Laplace suc- ceeded in showing that this partial derangement, extending over such lengthened periods, was yet only of limited operation. After reaching a cer- tain stage, reaction ensues. The orbits do not con- tinue to deviate in one direction ; but they deviate periodically now in this, and now in the opposite direction. The planetary perturbations are not in- 112 THEISM. definitely progressive, long as they continue in one direction, but oscillatory. After reaching a certain height they return and correct themselves. And what chiefly deserves our attention is, that the special conditions of this periodical adjustment of the planetary system are those uniformities of movement which so prominently characterize the various bodies of the system. " I have succeeded," says Laplace, fin demonstrating 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 sys- tem will only oscillate about a mean state, and will never deviate from it except by a very small quan- tity:"* When we turn from these special characteristics of the planetary movements to the great law ex- pressed in all, and under which they all proceed, the same aptitude of appointment meets us. While it can not be said that of all laws that of gravitation is the only conceivable one, the only one compati- ble with the maintenance of the system, it has yet been shown, in the clearest manner, that of all others this law is at once the most fitting and the most simple. It is owing alone to the particular * Systeme du Monde, book iv. chap. ii. p. 226, quoted by Dr. Whewell, p. 164. me COSMIC Ah ARRANGEMENTS. 113 measure of the attractive force that the planets re- turn regularly in the same track, preserving with very slight deviations the same periods in their revolutions. Had this force varied otherwise than inversely with the square of the distance, this regu- larity in the orbits of the planets would have been entirely destroyed.* It is remarkable, moreover, that this is the only law save that of direct distance (otherwise unsuitable) which is the same for spher- ical masses, such as the planets, and for the separate particles composing them. This is surely a signi- ficant and wonderful provision. The mind is filled with a solemn sense of simplicity as it contem- plates the varied and beautiful operation of such a law, alike binding the dew into glistening gems, and holding the planets and the stars in their courses. On the whole, we perceive every where among the celestial phenomena, adaptation. Order meets us wherever we turn our gaze. The old atheistic notion of chance has wholly disappeared before the discoveries of science. Every where, therefore, in the course of our survey, the theistic conclusion is impressively forced upon us. The agency of a mighty Mind, working in all this order, is irresist- ibly manifested. As of old, the " heavens declare the glory of God." In the language of Newton, " Elegantissima hcecce compages solis, planetarum et * Dr. WHEWELL'S Bridgewater Treatise, p. 220. 114 THEISM. cometarum (et stellarum) non nisi consilio et dominio Entis cujusdam potentis et intelligentis oriri pof.uit." In this conclusion we might rest securely on the grounds already laid down. It is irrefragable, on our general basis of reason. In reference, however, to certain objections which have been specially urg- ed against it in this region, it deserves some further attention. Astronomy is the favorite sphere of the scientific materialist. Whatever sciences may still linger within the domain jof theology, this is con- sidered finally emancipated from its control. Those same facts which to the reverent mind of Newton were so irresistibly demonstrative of Divine power and wisdom, to the minds of others are only indic- ative of a vast necessity, which, unintelligent in its character, is by no means to be considered perfect in its working. And this antagonism of opinion, of ancient date, continues to live, and even to de- velop itself with clearer prominence than ever, in our present modes of thought. According to the modern school of scientific ma- terialists, the planetary and cosmical order is suffi- ciently explained by the law of gravity. It is simply the necessary result of this law, beyond which, as an explanation of the universe, we are not competent to go. This mode of explanation, if not distinctly announced by Laplace himself, has sought confirmation in the tone of his reasoning in different parts of the Sys&me du Monde, and espe- cia COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 115 ciallj in his famous cosmogonic hypothesis. La- place certainly discarded all notion of design in connection with the planetary mechanism as un- philosophical, and even ventured to point out in one instance, in regard to the motion of the moon, how it might have been, for the bestowal of light, more advantageously arranged.* M. Comte has, however, outstripped his master, and declares the inconsistency of astronomy not only with the doctrine of final causes, but with every idea of religion. He ridicules the grand sen- timent of the Psalmist with which we set out, and pronounces that to minds " early familiarized with true philosophical astronomy, the heavens declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, of Kepler, of Newton, and of all those who have aided in es- tablishing their laws." " No science," he says, " has given more terrible shocks to the doctrine of final causes than astronomy. The simple knowl- edge of the movement of the earth must have de- stroyed the original and real foundation of this doctrine the idea of the universe subordinated to the earth, and consequently to man. Besides, the accurate exploration of our solar system could not fail to dispel that blind and unlimited admiration which the general order of nature inspired, by showing in the most sensible manner, and in a very great number of different respects, that the orbs * Systeme du Monde, book iv. chap. v. p. 266. 116 T II E I S M . were certainly not disposed in the most advanta- geous manner, and that science permitted us easily to conceive a better arrangement by the develop- ment of true celestial mechanism since Newton. All the theological philosophy, even the most per- fect, has been henceforth deprived of its principal intellectual function, the most regular order being thence consigned as necessarily established and main- tained in our world, and even in the whole uni- verse, by the simple mutual gravity of its several parts."* The grounds on which we rest the doctrine of final causes, and on which we consider it wholly untouched by the discoveries of science, have already been sufficiently explained. All, there- fore, which demands our present attention in this famous classical passage of atheism is, the assertion of the necessity and explanatory sufficiency of the law of gravity. Have we any right to regard this law as necessarily existent ? Would it explain the phenomena in question even if it were ? Now, so far from our having any right to regard the law of gravity as necessarily existent, the truth is, that it is a mere assumption to speak of this law as existent by itself at all. We know the law in certain phenomena in those orderly manifestations of which we have been speaking. It is the expres- sion of the relation of these phenomena, but noth- * COMTE, Philosophic Positive, tome ii. pp. 36-38. mo 1 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 117 ing more. It is the name by which we generalize and hold before our mind the action of these phe- nomena, but nothing more. To regard it for a moment, therefore, by itself, as a necessary power or property, to whose operation we can conceive the cosmical order to be owing, is simply to impose upon our imagination by a fiction ; and if it is not so regarded, it amounts to nothing ; it explains nothing. It simply assigns for the fact of the cos- mical order, the fact; while yet our reason im- peratively demands an explanatory origin of this fact. But even if we allowed the necessary existence of gravity, it would not explain the whole order of phenomena before us. Even if we granted it to be an independent property working in matter, the position of the materialist would not be made good. So far, indeed, it may be admitted, according to the Laplacian cosmogony, that the simple opera- tion of gravity would account for the successive formation of the planetary bodies, and their motion round a common center ; yet how much would this still leave unexplained ! Given the nebulous mass and the force of gravity, it is conceivable that, un- der the continued action of this force, the mass would be broken up and condensed into separate parts, each taking a necessary position and assum- ing a necessary motion. But, as has been urged, whence the existence of the nebulous mass itself? 118 THEISM. Whence the peculiar character which enabled it to separate and contract in the fitting way, and in no other ? Whence the determinate velocity of the primitive movement, destined to such results, and no other ? Whence, particularly, certain phenom- ena which do not lie in the plane of the planetary movements, nor proceed in the same course, al- though, according to the Laplacian view, all the generated motions must lie in the same plane, and be in the same direction ?* To such questions the theory gives no answer. Gravity, therefore, even if admitted to be the cause of the planetary order so far, entirely fails to account for that order as a whole. Even if necessary, it is inadequate as a source of explanation. In truth, and in conclusion, the Laplacian cos- mogony, while interesting as a speculation, and serving to point, as by a venturous aim, the path of knowledge beyond the existing order of things, is yet, no less than any other cosmogonic theory, wholly worthless as a final explanation of things. To suppose it for a moment to be such an explana- * When Laplace proposed his hypothesis, it was believed that, not only the planets, but their satellites, all moved in the same direction, from west to east ; " but since that time," says Sir D. Brewster, "all the satellites of Urauus have been found to move in an opposite direction ; and Mr. Hind has very re- cently found that the satellite of Neptune also moves in the opposite direction ; thus proving that the hypothesis is utterly incapable of explaining the celestial motions." More World* than One, p. 122. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 119 tion, were not merely to exalt man to be the inter- preter, but the god of nature. It were to constitute his proud dreams the measure of existence in the most daring sense, and verily, with Comte, to make the heavens reflect his glory. The highest, which is also the most reverent reason, at once shrinks from and contradicts such pretensions. It allows the speculation for what it may be worth, but ut- terly disallows it as a final efficient explanation. Here, as every where, we can only rest in an orig- inal self-subsistent Mind, in which the whole cos- mical order lives, and from which it ever proceeds. This, the conclusion in which the great intellect of Newton rested, is that which the common reason universally demands, and in which alone it can find satisfaction evermore. II CHAPTER II. STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. DESCENDING from the contemplation of the ce- lestial order, in the composition of which our globe is only an insignificant element, we turn our atten- tion to the massive structure of that globe itself. We carry our illustrative survey from the vast re- gions and unnumbered worlds, lying all around us in space, and with which we are only enabled dim- ly to converse, to the bosom of that familiar earth on which we dwell, and which every where invites our inspection. We are prepared to trace order here, as in the far-off regions we have been traversing. To the untutored eye, the mass of our earth may seem a mere vast conglomeration, even as the heavens seem a mere mazy dance of sparkling lights ; but as science has disclosed the magnificent system of the one, so has it unfolded the special structure of the other. As in the heavens we still read in the blaze of modern astronomy the glory of God, so STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. 121 in the crust of the earth do we read, in the light of modern geology, the impress of Divine power and wisdom. As we confine our attention here to the massive construction of this crust, a few words will suffice to bring before us the facts which the subject involves. The component rocks of the earth are divided into two great classes stratified and unstratified. The latter represent the oldest, and, so to speak, the original material of the earth. They constitute its solid basement. The foundations of the struc- ture are laid in granite. The hard and agglutinated character of these rocks favors the supposition that they were originally in a state of fusion. There can not, at least, be any doubt that they are of ig- neous production. Their unworn and angular crystals clearly point to such a mode of produc- tion. The stratified rocks, in all their varieties, present different peculiarities of formation. Those which lie immediately above the unstratified granitic mass, closely resemble the latter in character: they are in fact composed of the same constituents, different only in the form and proportion in which they are aggregated. Their crystalline texture betrays the same fiery agency which discovers itself in the parent rock. At the same time, they bear marks of distinctive origin. Their crystals are worn and abraded by the action of atmospheric and aqueous 122 THEISM. influences. Yet the igneous character is here still predominant; and, as might be expected, in the fire locked embrace of these primary rocks there is to be found no trace of organic existence. Above what we may call this hard and unfossil- iferous basis, the fossiliferous rocks rise in an as- cending series, comprehending various systems which geologists have grouped into three great periods or epochs, successively called Palaeozoic, Secondary, and Tertiary. The Palaeozoic group, which is next in age to the metamorphic rocks, comprehends the vast systems of the lower and upper Silurian, the Old red sand-stone, and the Coal- measures. The Crystalline texture of the previous rocks disappears, save among the lowest of these strata, and a clayey or sandy texture takes its place, discovering the more powerful working of those atmospheric and aqueous influences which we have mentioned. Here, also as the name of the group implies in the Llandeito flags of the lower Silurian, we find the first traces of organic be- ing, which henceforth multiply, in endless and mar- velous forms, in the onward course of the earth's growth. In the great carboniferous system we per- ceive in a very large degree the operation of a fur- ther influence in the formation of the earth's crust the submersion and depression, namely, of organic remains. This, in the ascending history of our globe, is one of the most extensive of all the causes STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. 123 contributing to the earth's formation, in respect not merely of vegetable, but also of animal remains. The former, it is well known, are the peculiar in- gredient of the vast coal-measures. In them we behold the deposition of the enormous vegetation which, in the carboniferous era, must have over- spread the earth vegetation in comparison with which, it has been said, the existing jungle of the tropics is mere barrenness. In the secondary period we have, as in the Palaeo- zoic, three great systems, the New red sandstone, the Oolitic, and the Chalk the Oolitic being especially remarkable as the era of those gigantic reptiles, whose strange and fearful forms at once amaze the ignorant and interest the curious. With the tertiary period with whose subdi- visions, as laid down by Lyell, and generally ac- cepted by geologists, we need not here concern our- selves we approach our own era. We meet with animals of dimensions, indeed, far exceeding any with which we are now familiar, but in structure allied to existing species. We are carried forward to an arrangement of physical conditions not differ- ing widely from the present. Such is a brief statement of the successive mate- rials, so to speak, which compose the structure of the earth. Imperfect as it is, it is sufficiently com- plete for our purpose. In the mere facts thus dis- closed, there seems already evidence of the order 124 THEISM. for which we seek. The actual structure of the earth, however, is something very different from that now suggested. It is not built up in the man- ner we have described, with the successive systems regularly laid upon one another, as they were pro- gressively formed the earliest every where lowest, and the latest highest. If such had been its actual construction, that construction would probably have forever remained a secret ' to us. "We could not have penetrated to its deep and hidden founda- tions. As it is, however, we are enabled to explore the whole structure, and find order and beauty in it, through means which might have seemed only destined to insure its destruction. Its foundations have been laid bare to us ; while its later architec- ture lies equally exposed, not in mere disrupted fragments, but in vast and orderly terraces. The fact is, that in the process of the earth's formation, during the long periods which had been employed in the gradual deposition of the various strata in the order of time we have described, those igneous agencies concerned in the production of the earliest rocks continued at work, breaking up and dislocat- ing the incumbent strata, and forcing the granite upward in all directions. To the same causes the different species of trap- rocks, piercing upward in great veins, owe their elevation causes which we still see in some degree active in our volcanoes. Whatever theory may be S T K U C T U K E OF TUB E A K T H . 125 held as to the special intensity of these causes in the past periods of the earth's history whether we adopt a catastrophic or a uniformitarian hypothe- sis the result is the same. The granite, which is every where the base of the earth's crust, has yet been elevated far above all the posterior strata. It is no longer merely the impenetrable foundation or central abutment of the rocky systems ; but it stretches upward in vast branches, forming, so to speak, a skeleton framework for the earth. Some- what as the bony skeleton in the living body every where ramifies it, giving strength and con- sistency to all its parts, so the granitic framework pierces on all sides throughout the earth's crust, compacting and consolidating it into its present state. And even somewhat as the muscular tissues and folds of flesh overlie the bony skeleton, and find in it their ultimate points of support, so do the various rocky tissues, the successive folds of softer material, rest against the mountain masses. "We must surely in all this trace evidence of special ar- rangement. " It is not," as Dr. Chalmers has said, " from some matter being harder than others that we infer design ; but when we see the harder placed just where it is most needed, the inference seems irresistible." And in the present case it is surely impossible to contemplate the peculiar dis- position of the granite in our earth, without recog- nizing that so it must have been placed. The very 126 THEISM. terms which we are compelled to use in speaking of it, after the least theological fashion, imply so much. That so it is by any mere accident, is alto- gether inconceivable. The enormous agencies con- cerned in the elevation of the granite could we have seen them operating might have seemed merely blind and lawless ; but the result is order, and we can not help concluding that some presid- ing mind has been at work. The granite has been upheaved, it may be, by convulsive agencies of a magnitude and intensity far beyond any of which we have now experience ; the superimposed strata have been rent, and tossed hither and thither. The vast process by which this was accomplished might have seemed mere wild confusion. But pierce and bore the earth in all directions, there is really noth- ing like confusion. The term is indeed unknown to science, and to no science more than to geology, immense and catastrophic, according to the most common opinion, as are the changes with which it has to do. Let the granite, for example, rise to whatever heights let it tower in whatever alpine magnitudes we never find that its proper, or what we might call its constitutional position, is altered : the foundations are still granite, if the granitic mass yet stretch in cleaving branches through the sedi- mentary strata, and far overreach their roof. And even so of all the different strata over the diversified surface of the earth ; they all of them lie, r>lin STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. 127 ie, as we have mentioned, severally exposed characterizing, in their distribution, different coun- tries and localities. The old red sandstone and carboniferous systems of the pala3ozoic era, for in- stance, form the immediate platform of large tracts of our island. The oolitic sj^stem of the reptilean era marks its eastern seaboard, while the chalk ex- tends on the south and southeast. The whole economy of the terrene architecture is thus laid bare. It is spread out for our inspection; but, while all the various depositions thus appear on the surface, there is no confusion in their relative positions. They are never found at random one set of strata being now below and then above an- other set but always occupying the same relation to one another. If we find, for example, the lower Silurian formation exposed in Wales, it is every where found to rest directly on the granite ; if we find the old red sandstone in Devonshire, it again rests on the silurian, and the carboniferous system again on it. We never find the silurian imposed on the old red sandstone, nor the chalk below the oolitic. A set structure is surely here in the clear- est manner discernible. We can not well conceive any higher idea of structure than just such a special distribution of parts the parts of the same charac- ter being always found in the same place, in rela- tion to the others. The order, indeed, which the mass of our earth 128 T H E ISM. discovers, is on a vast and comprehensive scale, which may not very readily fall in with our pre- conceptions or fancies. Man's feebleness is apt every where not merely to limit, but to spoil his judgments, so that order is perhaps more easily seen by him in mere neatness and formality, than in the bursting and glorious fullness of Nature's own form. Could the crust of our earth, for ex- ample, have preserved that appearance of uniform regularity which would have followed from the continuance of the sedimentary strata in the suc- cessive positions of the order of their formation had it been a granite nucleus surrounded, in the words of Dr. Buckland, "by entire concentric cov- erings of stratified rocks like the coats of an onion," and could we have been cognizant of this regu- larity, it might, we dare say, have impressed many more than the actual structural appearance which it presents. The order in the one case might have seemed more direct and apparent than in the other. But as it is, it is undoubtedly a far more glorious order the product of a boundlessly comprehen- sive Plasticity, molding the most mighty and apparently lawless agencies to the most magnifi- cent, yet most exquisite results, and the more per- fect just as it may transcend our feebleness and awaken our wonder. Apart from the disruptive movements of which our earth has been the scene, it would not have . STRUCT U K E OF THE EARTH. 129 presented any of its characteristic and beautiful variety of hill and valley, of glen and stream. Its surface would have been a mere uniform level, without life or picturesqueness ; its rivers mere sluggish canals ; its whole aspect destitute of that interchangeable sweetness and grandeur, softer love- liness and rugged magnificence, which now makes it so glorious a mirror of Power and Wisdom ar L Goodness. To the same causes obviously does , ' also owe its peculiar fitness as the abode of humar life. For otherwise the metals, without sony knowledge of which man has never been able- to rise above barbarism, would have been forever concealed in their native crypts. Coal would have been sunk at an impenetrable depth, which no eye could have seen, and no skill have reached. And where, again, would have been our oceans, with no vast hollows to repose in ? But it is needless, and even absurd, to make such suppositions. We have only done so for a moment, in order to make it clear how the mighty agencies which have been concerned in the present structure of the globe, wild and convulsive as they may have been, have been directed by the most far-reaching foresight to purposes of human improvement and happiness. They were only the tools in the Divine hand for the construction of man's abode. Far from being, in any sense, interferences with the terrene archi- tecture, they were the very means by which it has 6* 130 THEISM been built up into the special order, at once most beautiful and most appropriate for him. In contemplating the great movements which geology reveals, it is important to observe further how completely dependent they appear. In those disruptive agencies, as well as in the various at- mospheric, aqueous, and organic influences, under the operation of which the earth has assumed its present structure, it seems impossible that any one could for a moment find the ultimate explanation of the phenomena presented. If there are minds content to linger among the ultimate harmonies of astronomy, which stand forth so palpably to the intellectual view, we can not yet imagine any abid- ing by the final agencies of geology, as if they carried with them any self-sustaining or efficient energy. They appear in the highest degree to be simply instrumental the merely blind agencies of a creative and designing Mind. II. CHAPTER III. COSMICAL AND TERRESTRIAL MAGNITUDES DIVINE POWER. IN the two previous chapters we have dwelt mainly on the celestial and terrestrial structures, as evincing an intelligent First Cause. It is order, as such, we have been contemplating. We have glanced but slightly at the peculiar evidence which the phenomena both of astronomy and geology furnish of immense power concerned in their crea- tion and maintenance. So striking and impressive, however, is this evidence, that it seems right to devote a brief chapter to its statement. The phenomena in question bring before us, more sig- nally than any other, an all-powerful as well as wise Being. It is of course obvious, according to our whole plan of treatment, that we do not present this illustrative evidence as a logical proof of the Divine omnipotence. "We do not profess to find the infi- nite in the mere bewildering magnitude and dura- 132 THEISM. tion of the finite. This was indicated already in our introductory remarks. Yet it deserves to be noticed, that the only conceivable way in which the infinite could be exhibited and impressively set forth to finite beings, is by such an array of phenomena as the sciences of astronomy and geology unfold to us namely, by an accumulated display of vast magnitudes and apparently inter- minable durations. If we do not amid such views logically reach the infinite, we are yet carried on- ward to it, on the wings of an imagination which in vain essays to grasp the immensity of the fields of contemplation open to it. The simple extent of the celestial space, briefly exhibited in our first chapter, is well calculated to fill our minds with vast ideas of Divine power. Looking out from beyond our earth, the sphere of observation extends immeasurably on all sides. Inexhaustible to the naked ej^e, it is equally inex- haustible when, by the aid of the telescope, we are carried into regions so inconceivably remote- that the mind sinks utterly overwhelmed by the spectacle. Neptune circles round the sun at a dis- tance of nearly three thousand millions of miles; the nearest fixed star ( Centauri) is seven hundred times farther removed ; while the bright Dog-star, according to the parallax given to it by Professor Henderson, is almost four times farther off than Centauri, or about eighty billions of miles 1 These DIVINE P O W E K . 133 distances, however, inconceivable as they are, are nothing to those of the nebulous clusters which people the more inaccessible tracts of space, whose light, it is stated, can only reach us in thousands and even millions of years.* There is, in short, no limit to creation. In the expanse of cosmical phenomena we have assuredly, therefore, the only visible type of the infinite that it was possible for us to possess. If from the mere boundless expanse of the cos- mical regions we turn to contemplate some of the special magnitudes and velocities with which they make us familiar, the attribute of power will per- haps display itself even more strikingly. Let the mass of our earth, possessing a diameter of about eight thousand miles, and of which we may be supposed to have some not indistinct conception, be taken as our starting-point. Enormous as it is, it dwindles into a mere point among the stellar magnitudes, and becomes even small beside its planetary companions. Jupiter is fourteen hun- dred times larger, and Saturn nearly the same size, encircled by a gorgeous envelop or ring which, it has been said, would enclose five hun- dred worlds as large as ours.f The mass of the sun itself is three hundred and fifty -four thousand nine hundred and thirty -six times that of the * Sir J. HERSCHEL'S Astronomy, 590. f DICK'S Celestial Scenery p 274. 134 THEISM. earth. It would not only fill up the orbit of the moon, but would extend nearly as far again. But this is as nothing compared with the mass of some of the stars. Who can conjecture the magnitude of a body which would fill the vast orbit of the earth ? But the bright star in Lyra has a diameter which, it has been said, would fill even that orbit.* And among the nebulous stars some are supposed to be of even greater dimensions. Let us think, then, of the force concerned in the movements of such enormous masses. A cannon- ball projected from the mouth of a gun moves at the rate of about a thousand miles an hour, which is the rate of the diurnal motion of the earth at the equator; but the velocity of the earth's motion round the sun is sixty -five times faster than this. "Jupiter, equal in weight to fourteen hundred earths, moves with a velocity of twenty -nine thou- sand miles an hour. The rate of Mercury is one hundred and seven thousand miles an hour. The velocity of the comet of 1680 is estimated at eight hundred and eighty thousand miles an hour."f The annual motion of one of the (fixed!) stars, sixty -one Cygni, has been computed at one hun- dred and twenty millions of millions of miles. How mighty and transcending is the power dis- played in these celestial masses and movements I It is certainly quite impossible that the conception * HARRIS'S Prc-Adamite Earth, p. 145. f Ibid, p. 148. DIVINE POWER. 135 of an all-powerful Being could have been more impressively set forth to the human mind. For whatever limit is at length reached in such con- templations does not arise from the exhaustion of evidence, but from the feebleness of our mental capacity to grasp the phenomena presented to it. The vast periods of geology, and the immense forces that must have operated in the formation of the earth, are eminently calculated to give us the same impression of an eternal and omnipotent Be- ing. The data with which the science of geology furnishes us, are not, indeed, so indisputable as those furnished by astronomy. For while there are some who estimate the geological cycles by millions of years, there are others who strive to bring them within much narrower bounds ; while there are some who recognize the agency of ele- mental forces in the past career of the earth, of a magnitude of which we have now no experience, there are others who contend for a uniformity of those agencies with those presently existing. The character of the agencies employed, it is clear, must be estimated according to the different reckoning of the periods allotted to the work. On any spe- cial geological hypothesis, however, the data are sufficiently significant for our purpose. According to any admissible estimate, we find ourselves, in tracing back the progress of the earth's formation, contemplating, not a succession of days and years, 136 THEISM. but of ages and cycles of ages. The epochs that must have elapsed since the first great stones of the terrene structure were laid, and while terrace after terrace was added to it, carry us back into the night of time, far beyond the most fabulous computations of History. We ascend into the past by steps that weary our imagination to keep in view. Again, the power concerned in the production of the vast effects which we see around us would seem to "be equally indubitable, whether we assume them to have been brought about by suddenly vio- lent or by gradual action. On any tenable suppo- sition as to the mode of the elevation of the Alps and the Andes to their present heights, we must surely recognize in such phenomena the agency of a Power, before which we can only bow in dumb and lowly reverence. Here, surely, we be- hold the doing of the Almighty of Him before whom " the nations are as a drop of the bucket," and who " taketh up th'e isles as a very little thing." II CHAPTER. IV. ELEMENTARY COMBINATIONS CRYSTALLIZATION BENEATH the architectural structure of the earth, there is an interior elementary structure of great interest and significance. The stones of the build- ing are not merely disposed in an orderly and fitting manner, but in the composition of the stones themselves there is found an order of the most exquisite kind. The separate masses of mat- ter are not only arranged ; but matter itself, with which we have been hitherto only dealing in masses, presents a constitution of the most exact and definite character, highly illustrative of the Divine wisdom. As geology makes us familiar with the mechanical, or, as we have termed it, architectural structure of the earth, chemistry un- folds its elementary constitution. Chemists reckon at present upward of sixty ele- mentary substances. This, however, is a merely provisional reckoning, liable any day to alteration. A hitherto hidden bond of identity may yet be 138 THEISM. discovered between many substances which now obstinately resist identification. It is found, in fact, that only a comparatively small number of these substances enter, to any large and pervading extent, into the constitution of nature viz., oxy- gen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and, among the metals, silicium and aluminium. Oxygen is con- sidered by far the most abundant substance in*the earth. United with hydrogen, it constitutes water ; with nitrogen, and a comparatively small propor- tion of carbon, it makes common air; while it enters, at the same time, largely into every kind of rock in the crust of the earth. Carbon, again, is the main constituent of all vegetable and animal matters ; and silicium, in nearly equal combina- tions with oxygen (making silica), is said to form the basis of about half of the rocks of the earth. There appears to us to be something profoundly impressive in the contemplation of the few simple substances to which we can thus trace back all the multiform diversity 6f nature. How marvelous to reflect that the solid earth, the compact rocks, the limpid stream, and the clear atmosphere, the fields clothed with grass, and the valleys covered over with corn, are only the varied combinations of a few elementary ingredients ! So plastic is Nature ! Science strips off the glorious forms in which she is every where robed, and brings us into her secret laboratories. But surely this does not diminish, CRYSTALLIZATION. 139 but only heightens, the impression of wonderful intelligence which she .every where reveals. So exquisite did nature's forms seem to the Grecian mind, that a Divine Presence seemed to speak from all of them. Beside the beautiful there every where arose the spiritual. The Oread, the Dryad, and the Nereid, were the graceful embodiments of the plastic Life, that seemed thus to animate the mountain, the forest, and the ocean ; and, surely, intelligence is not less but more visible, that science shows us the few ingredients which, in different combinations, produce these diverse phenomena of nature. Although the mystery has been so far un vailed, and we can look far beyond the simple- hearted view of Paganism, yet we can not get rid of the truth to which it dimly testified. We find ourselves among the last analyses of nature's pro- cesses, more impressively than ever in the presence of a living and presiding Intelligence. This is in the highest degree evident, when we contemplate the special character of those element- ary combinations with which chemistry makes us acquainted : for it is ascertained, not merely that all the great features and products of nature are compounded of a comparatively few elementary ingredients, but that these ingredients every where combine only in certain definite and unvarying proportions. They obey laws of the greatest sim- plicity and exastness, u which never change, and 140 T H E I S M . which govern the formation of compounds of all classes and descriptions."* Thus, " water, however produced, always consists of oxygen and hydrogen, in the proportion of 8 parts of the former to 1 of the latter by weight. Chalk, whether formed by nature or by the chemist, yields 43.71 parts of carbonic acid, and 56.29 parts of lime. The rust which forms upon the surface of iron by the action of the atmosphere, is as invariable in its composi- tion as if it had been formed by the most delicate adjustment of weight, by the most accurate mani- pulator, being 28 parts of iron, and 12 parts of oxygen. This law is the basis of all chemical in- quiry.'^ Where, again, the same elements unite, as they often do, to form different bodies, such combina- tions are always related as multiples. Thus, in the different compounds of nitrogen with oxygen, we find that with the same proportion of the former the latter unites only in the successive ratios of 8, 16, 24, 32, and 40. " There are no intermediate compounds whatever. And this law is perfectly general ; whenever bodies combine in more than one proportion, a relation of this kind between the quantities concerned can be observed. It applies alike to elementary substances, and to compounds formed by the union of bodies themselves com- * FOWNES' Chemistry, p. 39. f HUNT'S Poetry of Science, p. 253. ; CRYSTALLIZATION. i41 pound."* There may be an interruption in the series of numbers, or the relation of the numbers may not be quite so simple as in the case men- tioned, but an exact numerical relation is found to underlie all compounds. So, in the gaseous state, bodies only unite according to exact measures or volumes, depending upon the wonderful connec- tion between the specific weight of a gas or vapor and its volume. The volumes are always equal, or multiples the one of the other, and any extra quantity that may be present is sure to be left over when combination ensues. It is impossible to conceive any thing more grand and simple than the mode in which the infinitely varied processes of nature are thus carried on. By merely multiplying the proportion of one of the ingredients, the most diverse substances are pro- duced from the same elements. Thus, in the case mentioned by us, and so often instanced for its im- pressive simplicity the combinations of oxygen with nitrogen the several compounds are well known to possess the most different qualities a definite increment of one of the ingredients making all the difference between a virulently noxious poison and the breath of man's life. What an un- erring providence and skill does this evince in the continual assortment of nature's elementary pro- ducts ! What power, save an almighty one, could, * FOWNES' Chemistry, p. 41. 142 THEISM. from the mere varying composition of the same few elements, produce all this wonderful diversity of result? What intelligence, save an infinite one, could order and preserve with such a nice adjust- ment the infinitely multiplied combinations so as not to interfere with animal life and happiness? What striking and beautiful alliances, moreover, thus pervade nature ! Things apparently the most opposite are yet radically akin. The pleasant nu- triment and the noxious poison are of the same parentage ; the rude lump of charcoal and the glit- tering diamond are the same substance. Matter is truly kindred in all its forms ; nature a vast broth- erhood, confessing to the same Maker and the same Preserver. But what perhaps especially claims our notice is, the numerical exactitude thus found to lie at the root of nature. In breaking up its rounded and beautiful forms, they are found to rest on the most strictly arithmetical basis. It is seen to be the most literal scientific truth that the "mountains are weighed in scales and the hills in a balance." As in the mighty movements of the heavens we are dealing with the most rigorous measurements ; so, in the minute and hidden movements of matter, the great discovery of Dalton shows us to be equally dealing with such measurements. Whether or not we are justified in concluding all that the atomic theory demands, the law of definite and CRYSTALLIZATION. 143 multiple proportions which it serves to express re- mains indubitable ; and in contemplating the con- stitution of matter, this leaves us, in the last resort, face to face with numerical order. Whence, then, this order? Science has disclos- ed its character ; what has it to say as to its explan- ation? It has expressed, under the name of chemical affinity, all that it has to say on this sub- ject. Elementary combinations take place under the influence of an elective force, so described with reference to the special dispositions to union mani- fested by all ultimate particles. It is under the op- eration of this so-called force that the constant interchange and balance of nature's ingredients are alone preserved, and that its existing forms are maintained with such nice and unvarying discrimi- nation. As we have, in the wide region of space, gravitation uniting all bodies, and drawing them to common centres, so we have the attraction of co- hesion holding the masses of the different bodies together; and finally, chemical or elective attrac- tion, serving by its occult power to give determi- nate character or form to every kind of material creation.* But, after all, science merely conceals its ignorance by such general expressions. The laws in question are simply the last reductions of its persevering research ; and so far from their fur- nishing any adequate explanation of the phenome- * HUNT'S Poetry of Science, p. 2fi2. 144 THEISM. na, they imperatively claim themselves to bo explained. It is only, according to our whole ar- gument, when we recognize in these general laws the operative modes of a Supreme Intelligence, that we reach a satisfactory meaning in nature, or an adequate explanation of its order. There is a further order of inorganic matter pe- culiarly mathematical in its character, and well de- serving our attention before proceeding to higher illustrations of our subject that, namely, which is expressed in the beautiful and well-known phe- nomena of crystallization. If, among the last results of chemistry, we find ourselves in the region of numbers, we here become conversant with the exact forms of geometry. Stones and minerals we are familiarly apt to regard as not possessing any definite shape and structure an idea which lies with somewhat vitiating force at the bottom of Paley's famous comparison of the stone found upon the heath, and the watch. In fact, however, there are few things so exactly defined as simple miner- als ; and this not only in their external figure, but peculiarly in their interior and most hidden struc- ture. Crystallization, which is the ordinary state in which a great number of the substances of the Dearth are found, in nothing else than a regular geometrical form, accompanied by and dependent upon a regular structure. It has been well describ- ed to be a " peculiar and most admirable work of CRYSTALLIZATION. 145 nature's geometry ;" and so minutely and elaborate- ly has nature wrought her geometrical patterns, that they are found to reappear after the most mi- nute subdivision. Beneath the fixed variety of external or secondary forms which crystalline bodies assume, there is an ultimate or primitive form retained by the smallest particles of each crys- tal. Thus, to employ the illustration of Dr. Buck- land, " We have more than five hundred branches of secondary forms presented by the crystals of the well-known substance of carbonate of lime. In each of these we trace a fivefold series of subordi- nate relations of one system of combinations to' another system, under which every individual crys- tal has been adjusted by laws acting correlatively to produce harmonious results." Again, he adds, " Every crystal of carbonate of lime is made up of millions of particles of the same compound sub- stances having one invariable primary form viz., that of a rhomboidal solid, which may be obtained to an indefinite extent by mechanical division."* Some, as Professor Moh, reckon four, and others six, of these primitive crystalline forms. It is needless for us to dwell upon the abundant theistic meaning which such phenomena present. The only conception which we can have of crys- tallization, the definition by which alone we can express it, indicates, in the clearest manner, the * BUCKLAND'S Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 576, 577. 7 146 THEISM. working of intelligence. The geometric stamp is impressed on the minutest particle. The die is in- wrought beyond the furthest process of cleavage or mere mechanical division. Shiver the crystal- line mass as we may, the figure still lives. Where form is so deeply and curiously impressed, we must surely recognize a Former. Nature's " admirable geometry" irresistibly points to nature's great Ge- ometer. II. CHAPTER Y. ORGAN I ZAT ION DESIGN. WE have been hitherto tarrying amid the com- paratively simple and general phenomena of inor- ganic matter. By degrees we have advanced from the most simple and comprehensive to the more special and definite laws which mark the inorganic world. "We have contemplated the vast and beau- tiful cosmical order subserved by the law of gravi- tation, and the general laws of motion ; the struc- ture of the earth in its apparently irregular, yet most orderly flights of architecture the constitu- tion of matter, revealing relations so exact, and a higher and more refined law of kindred or elective attraction. "We have further observed the regular geometrical forms exhibited in crystallization no longer merely chemical compositions, but symmet- rical arrangement. Our illustrations have been thus of a progressive character. Material order has been contemplated in an ascending series of com- 148 THEISM. plexity, from the ruder form of mere mechanical adjustment, to the higher forms of chemical affinity and geometric adaptations. Crystallization is the most perfect form assumed by inorganic matter. It is the highest order we reach among inorganic phenomena. There are, however, far higher, or at least more complex and impressive, modes of order presented to us in the material world, and bearing, therefore, as they have been always supposed to bear, with a special force upon the illustration of our subject. Clearly marked as is the highest kind of inor- ganic order which we have considered, it is yet, so to speak, a mere outward order, proceeding from external junction of parts. It is the result of force from without, and dependent upon the direction and degree of the compulsory application. On the first view of organic phenomena, we are struck with their essential difference in this respect. We contemplate no longer merely a combination of outward relations, but a product of inward forces. The material object is no longer merely, as even in the case of the crystal, the result of aggregation, of the external juxtaposition of particles ; it is a liv- ing production forming itself from within. A new power is seen stirring in matter a power not only of selection or of adaptation, but of assimilation, and, moreover, of reproduction. Inorganic matter, it has been well said, "only finds, organic makes, ORGANIZATION DESIGN. Ii9 what is added to its structure ; recasting the inert substance, and exhibiting it in new unions, not of binary merely, but of ternary and quaternary com- binations. The inorganic changes that on which it acts chemically; the organic vitalizes, and im- parts to the matter which it vitalizes the power of acting in the same way on other substances. This is the end and object of that series of functions which, beginning with absorption, conveys the ab- sorbed matter through the stem into the leaves, then subjects it to a process of exhalation, submits the rest to the action of the atmosphere, conveys it back into the system, elaborates it by secretion, and ends in assimilation. The plant is also genera- tive. The inorganic mass can only increase by cohesion, by agglomeration from without. But the plant * hath its seed in itself.' It exists in gen- erations. Besides vitalizing that which is necessary to the conservation of each of its own parts, it is endowed with the power of giving existence to a new whole, and of providing the germ with the nourishment necessary for it, in order to commence its independent being."* These two attributes of assimilation and repro- duction mark off and determine organic matter, in its lowest forms, from inorganic. They are the distinctive attributes of life in its feeblest develop- ments. Our knowledge of life begins with them ; * HARRIS'S Pre- Adamite Earth, p. 166. 150 THEISM. and beyond such manifestations of the vital ele- ment unsearchable in its hidden depths our knowledge will probably never reach. Whenever matter is found to possess these properties, in con- tradistinction to the mere properties of chemical attraction or crystallization, it is said to be organ- ized. If we inquire more particularly for a defini- tion of organization, that given by Kant seems to be acknowledged to be the best. " An organized product of nature," he says, " is that in which all the parts are mutually means and ends." It is not only, it will be observed, the idea of dependence among the parts which is here expressed; this would not form an advance beyond the formerly considered phenomena of matter. There is a beautifully coherent dependence between the seve- ral particles of a crystal. But the definition of Kant expresses further an adjustment or dependence between all the different parts of an organized body, so as to subserve the definite purpose of maintaining the whole body ; and not only so, but the further idea that the maintenance of the whole is essential to the maintenance of any of the parts. It expresses, in short, the fact of a constantly subsisting relation between all the parts on which the subsistence of the whole depends. Such an interacting relation does not exist between the several parts of an in- organized body. We can, on the contrary, break up a crystal, as we have seen, even indefinitely, ORGANIZATION DESIGN. 151 without destroying its primitive constitutive form But let us take to pieces a plant, and, destroying the living relation between the parts, we destroy the organism. Organization, in its simplest appear- ance, presents, therefore, a more complex and delicate so to speak a more subtle and essential species of order than any which we have hitherto contemplated. In this mere fact of organization furnishing us with a further and more refined example of order, we have an additional illustrative evidence of Di- vine intelligence. We recognize, with impressive force, the artist, in the higher specimen of art be- fore us. To the query, Whence ? which immedi- ately arises here, as in the contemplation of all order, we are carried, in answer, irresistibly back to a supremely intelligent Will. But is this all the theistic inference impressed upon us in the contemplation of organic phenome- na ? Is not design in some sense peculiarly pres- ent in such phenomena ? Physiology has been commonly supposed to be the special sphere of the doctrine of final causes, and its study held to pos- sess a special interest and value in this respect. It will be well to set clearly before the reader the dis- tinctive relation of this branch of the illustrative evidence to that presented by the simple phenomena of inorganic matter, especially as this relation has not always been apprehended in a just and dis- criminating light. 152 THEISM. First of all, then, it seems undoubted that the phenomena of organization do possess a certain peculiar impressiveness in regard to the theistic argument. Merely as examples of a higher and more curiously related order, they are, to many minds at least, peculiarly suggestive of creative in- telligence. The elaborate texture and delicately- wrought coloring of vegetable forms, or again, the manifold and complex felicities of animal struc- tures, may be conceived more vividly pregnant with the idea of design, of wisdom concerned in the result, than even the most perfect and mathe- matically regular combinations of inorganic matter. In this view Paley's often-impugned comparison the boldly-struck key-note of his delightful work may be so far justified. Taking the stone gathered from the heath on the one hand, and the watch on the other, there can be no doubt that the absolute contrast which he institutes between them is not to be defended. The stone is by no means destitute of those marks of workmanship which we recognize so immediately in the watch ; and to the inquiry, "how the stone came to be there ?" these marks or characters, on examination, furnish an answer no less decided than the special adjust- ment of the several parts of a watch does as to its origin. Supposing the stone were a crystal, we have seen how skillfully configured is such an inorganic product ; supposing it only a rude mass ORGANIZATION DESIGN. 153 of sandstone, without symmetry of form or beauty of luster, it yet appears, in the light of Dalton's great discovery, to be an exquisitely-arranged com- pound ; and its special composition, whatever that might be, would be full of reply as to its origin. Paley's comparison, therefore, fails when pushed to the extent which he has implied ; but, when used as merely serving to bring before the popular mind a more impressive exhibition of design, it is sufficiently valid. A watch, with its complicated mechanism of wheels and pulleys and springs, causing a definite motion in a definite time, is ap- parently the result of greater skill than any mineral composition, however exact. So at. least it would doubtless seem to most minds. In the same way, any flower or animal structure of peculiar delicacy and utility may be thought to speak of God more plainly than even the most beautiful and elaborate crystalline structure. But further than this beyond such a higher utility in the way of popular illustration we can not admit that organic phenomena by themselves exhibit any peculiar theistic meaning. They ex- press the inference of design more conspicuously, but this is all. This, we imagine, is incapable of being disputed, on reflection. At the same time, it appears to us that considerable confusion and inconsequence of thought prevail upon this subject even among some of our highest scientific thinkers. 7* 154 THEISM. The relation of the doctrine of final causes, in its fundamental theological import, to the special scientific application which has been made of it in physiology, is not apprehended with sufficient clearness ; and a certain measure of doubt has been thus allowed to rest on the subject, which seems to us perverting, and even fata], in reference to the general principle. Dr. Whewell, for example, has observed : " It has appeared to some persons that the mere aspect of order and symmetry in the works of nature the contemplation of compre- hensive and consistent law is sufficient to lead us to the conception of a design and intelligence pro- ducing the order and carrying into effect the law. "Without here attempting to decide whether this is true, we may discern, after what has been said, that the conception of design arrived at in this manner is altogether different from that idea of design which is suggested to us by the organized bodies, and which we describe as the doctrine of final causes. The regular form of a crystal, whatever beautiful symmetry it may exhibit, whatever gene- ral laws it may exemplify, does not prove design in the same manner in which design is proved by the provisions for the preservation and growth of the seeds of plants and of the young of animals. The law of universal gravitation, however wide and simple, does not impress us with the belief of a purpose, as does that propensity bv which ORGANIZATION DESIGN. 155 the two sexes of each animal are brought to- gether."* There is, according to what we have already said, a certain measure of truth in this passage. The law of gravitation does not impress us with the belief of purpose and design in the same degree, perhaps, as does that "propensity by which the two sexes of each animal are brought together ;" but surely there is nothing altogether different in the idea of design in the two cases. It may be, that in the one case the idea presents itself to our sensuous observation more vividly, and is there- fore entitled to guide us in our scientific researches into physiological relations, in a way that would be apt rather to mislead than assist the astronomer in his researches among the heavenly bodies. Design, in short, may not be with the astronomer, as with the physiologist, an appropriate principle of discovery. The former does not take it with him directly as a guide. The lower principle of mere sequential induction sufficiently serves his purpose. Yet if the higher principle be a reality and not a fiction, it must meet the astronomer equally in the end. He must ascend to it. He can not rest, according to our whole previous reasoning, in the mere relation of sequence with which he sets out. The physiologist, on the other hand, may be said to star^ with the principle of design in possession, * Indications of the Creator, p. 130. 156 THEISM. as a clew of discovery ; for the phenomena with which he deals are no longer merely sequential, but teleological. They express themselves not only as related, but as related after the special manner of means and ends. The principle of design has therefore, it may be granted, a special application to these phenomena. So at least it has been main- tained by many of our highest physiologists, and with apparent justice. "Whereas in the one case it is only the final answer to the inevitable inquiry, Whence ? in the other it is present from the first, every where suggesting the inquiry, Why? Yet it must never be forgotten that design is only thus present in the latter case, because found in all cases, in relation to one class of phenomena as well as to another inorganic as well as organic to establish itself as the only final principle of explanation. It is only possibly present as a scientific guide, because admitted as a theological principle. It is only in the light of the ultimate rational necessity which finds Mind every where in nature, that design, or the operation of Mind, can be especially maintained in organic phenomena. This follows in the clearest manner from the whole basis of our previous reasoning, and is indubitable on the simple ground, that nature in no case of itself can give us Mind, but only reflect it in the mirror of our consciousness. And assuredly there ORGANIZATION DESIGN. 157 is no rational basis on which we can conclude Mind to be thus reflected in one set of natural phenomena and not in another. Now it is because the language of Dr. "Whewell leaves this, as it were, in doubt, that it appears to us objectionable. He puts aside the question as to whether the mere aspect of order and symmetry in nature is sufficient to lead us to the conception of design and intelli- gence ; or, in other words, demands this conception in order to its explanation. He puts aside this question as one not necessarily affecting the special scientific doctrine of final causes ; whereas, accord- ing to our whole view, it is one most vitally affect- ing this doctrine, and without a clear settlement of which, this doctrine can not for a moment be consistently maintained. The only theistic difference, then, in the phe- nomena now before us, consists in the more vivid impression of Mind which they give us. In the very conception of a set of organs related to one another as means to ends, we have intelligence di- rectly suggested. The contrivance bespeaks a con- triver, yet only a contriver adequate to the special result in each case. "While here, therefore, we may be said to be brought more immediately into the presence of Mind, it may yet be doubted whether" we are brought so near to the first or supreme Mind as among the general laws of astronomy and chem- istry. The comparative value of the respective 158 THEISM. phenomena for the theistic conclusion may in this way truly admit of question ; and we can 'easily understand how some minds feel themselves more directly borne onward to this conclusion in the ul- timate region of inorganic order, than while mere- ly tarrying amid the crowded and endless intrica- cies of organic contrivance. The true view seems to be, that the study of the latter phenomena is more useful in educating and strengthening within us the ideas of Divine wis- dom and goodness ; the contemplation of the former, in carrying us backward to a great First Cause. The element of intelligence, already lying at the root of the theistic conception, is set forth in clear and engaging brightness by the variedly curious and beautiful phenomena of organic nature ; while, in the nature of the case, the evidence for the Di- vine goodness only emerges as we travel onward to the facts of sentient organism.* The higher complicacy of physiological order stamps on our minds more impressively the fact of the Divine wisdom ; while the subserviency of this order to ends of happiness in the animal creation, brings, before us the beneficence of the Designer. Our illustrative evidence, while resting from the outset on the same logical basis, thus truly gathers force and comprehensiveness for our special conclu- sion as it proceeds. Setting out with the theistic * See subsequent chapter on "Sensation." ORGANIZATION DESIGN. 159 conception in its most naked form, it clothes itself with the full attributes of that conception, as it ex- patiates over a wider and more diversified field of induction II CHAPTER VI. SPECIAL ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. IN entering on the wide and diversified field of organic contrivance, our sole difficulty is that of selection. So crowded is it with illustrations fitted to our subject, that volumes might easily be devot- ed to special sections of it ; and in fact, there is no other department of our evidence that has received such ample and varied, and, we may add, such skillful treatment. The work of Paley alone has made all familiar with its interesting details ; and, conceived as this work is throughout in so fine a vein of homely English sense ; rich with the light of a meaning every where clear and impressive, if not highly consecutive or profound ; written, more- over, with such inimitable grace and felicity of style it seems as if it were at once presumptuous and useless for us to enter upon ground which he has traversed with such fascinating success.* We * The Natural Theology, and in fact the general works of Pa- ley, have of late somewhat lost the distinction they once enjoy- ed. This is undoubtedly owing to their marked deficiency in OKGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 161 are only led to do so from a conviction of the too obvious gap and imperfection which would other- wise be left in the course of our illustrative evi- dence. The knowledge of what has been already so fully accomplished in this department, will at the same time lead us to dwell upon it as briefly as we can, consistently with the necessities of our plan. The two great characteristics of organic phenom- ena, in their lowest forms, we have, in the last chapter, pointed out to be assimilation and repro- duction. The plant, down to its least developed specimen, exhibits these properties in contradis- tinction to any specimen of inorganic matter. Or- ganization analyzed to its finest point the minute philosophic depth and comprehension, which leaves the reader so often unsatisfied, while yet pleased with their admirable clear- ness and sense. "With an exquisite tact and homely intellect unrivaled, Paley was certainly no philosopher ; and it is need- less now to urge his claims in this respect. "What he saw, he saw with a precision, and could express with a force and lucidi- ty unsurpassed by any writer; but, for the most part, he not only did not see far into the deeper bearings of his subject, but there does not seem to have been any desire in his mind to do so. It will not, however, be a good sign of British thought if the works of Paley ever come to be generally depreciated. Types as they are of that healthy sobriety, tolerant temper, and quiet unobtrusive piety, which have hitherto distinguished the high- est products of British theology characteristics which, in the present day, we may well pray God it may not lose their study can never fail to be highly advantageous to the Christian stu- dent, and to reward him with an increase of strength and man- liness. 162 THEISM. cell, which it requires the highest powers of the microscope to detect is marked by a forming pow- er, quite distinct from any thing in the inorganic creation. While the inorganic, at the highest point of development, is, as it has been said, a mere carrier offeree, the organic is essentially a center of force. It is deserving of notice how complete is the structure which the microscope reveals in the ele- mentary cell. Beaching to the rudimentary source of organization the hidden workshop, may we call it ? of the beautiful forms of life that teem all around, we are here, as every where, in the presence of order. The forming hand appears in the most signal manner, although we can not trace its action, save by the delicate scrutiny of the microscope. The general process of assimilation or nutrition in plants is of a highly interesting description. The various organs concerned in the process the root, the stem, and the leaves are all so many struc- tures of the most exquisite delicacy and beauty, furnishing, in their study, a continued illustration of the Divine wisdom. We can not now, however, dwell upon the simple construction of these organs. Their functions, in the discharge of the nutritive process, are for our object even more interesting ; and to the consideration of these, therefore, we readily pass. The root at once gives stability to the plant in ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 163 the soil, and, by the fibrils which it sends forth in all directions, collects materials for its food. For this latter purpose, the fibril roots, with the main root itself (caudex), are provided with soft porous terminations, called spongioles, from their peculiar efficacy in imbibing the surrounding moisture. When the moisture, holding different matters in solution, has been absorbed, it ascends through the stem - by modes which vary, and which are not yet in all respects thoroughly understood to the leaves, where it is partly exhaled, and partly undergoes an important chemical change, rendering it fit for becoming assimilated. The leaves are the peculiar seat of what has been called vegetable digestion, though the entire process of this and even the na- ture of the action of the leaves, are still involved in considerable obscurity. It is certain, however, that during the day, and pre-eminently during bright sunshine, they are ceaselessly inhaling from the atmosphere carbonic acid, decomposing it, ap- propriating and assimilating its carbon, and exhal- ing its oxygen. It is, indeed, believed that during darkness this process is inverted ; that oxygen is absorbed, and combined with waste or superfluous carbon, and carbonic acid exhaled ; but still we know with certainty, from its own continued in- crement, that the plant appropriates more carbon than its rejects ; .that it therefore removes from the atmosphere more carbonic acid than it throws out 164 THEISM. into it ; and thus that the permanent influence of these changes upon the atmosphere is in the high- est degree favorable, the assimilating functions op^ erating much more powerfully to purify than the respiratory to vitiate it. Plants are thus, in con- tradistinction to animals, the great conservators of atmospheric purity. The sap, strengthened and enriched in the labo- ratory of the leaves, is sent back from them to the various parts of the plant for assimilation, for which it has now become exactly fitted. The same de- gree of uncertainty prevails regarding the precise character of the sap's descent as exists regarding its ascent. In dicotyledonous plants its main cur- rent is through the liber, or inner portion of the bark, but it also descends through the alburnum or most recently formed wood, through which, in the same plants, flows the main current of the ascend- ing sap. In monocotyledonous plants its passage is through the innermost layer of the structure, which is also the most recently formed.* The sap * It may be necessary to explain for some readers the general classification of plants into three great divisions viz., Dico- tyledons, Monocotyledons, and Acotyledons, the name being de- i-ived from the structure of the seed in the first t\vo cases, which, in the plants of the first division, is composed of two cotyledons, or lobes inclosing the germ, or proper seed ; and in plants of the second division, is composed of only one such cotyledon. Plants of the third division, such as ferns, mosses, and lichens, have no seeds properly so called, and hence, as their name imports, no cotyledons. They are propagated by ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 165 in its descent deposits the materials of fresh growth in the plant, as well as of the different well-known products gum, sugar, oils, and resin, so useful in domestic economy and in the arts. At the root, whence the nutritive process started, it terminates with imparting hardness and tenacity to the fibrils, and bringing matter to form new spongioles, while the old are gradually covered with an impervious cuticle. It is impossible to contemplate this process with- out being impressed with its marvelous fitness and beauty. "What a busy scene of orderly activity is thus every plant around us, from the noble forest- tree to the lowly lichen. And when we contem- plate all the successive and intervolved adaptation conducing to the result, and again how the life, which is the result, alone gives impulse and con- tinuance to the whole, we can not, surely, doubt the Wisdom which directs and controls so finely ad- justed a series of phenomena. The phenomena of vegetable reproduction are even more strikingly manifestive of creative design. minute granular bodies called sporules, which are really nothing else than distinct plants, disjoined from the parents, and in- creasing by the simple addition of cellular tissue. The first" and second classes are also respectively called Exogenous and Endogenous, from the peculiar formation of the stem in each case its increase in the first class proceeding from external addi- tions, in the second from internal development. ISTew matter in the one case is formed by successive layers on the outside, in the other by succeEsive layers on the inside, or toward the center. 166 THEISM. Passing by the simpler facts displayed by the cryptogamous vegetation, we have in the reproduc- tive organs of the higher- classes of plants some very curious and complicated adaptations. These organs are all embraced in what is botani- cally called the flower. Its parts consist of four series or whorls, as they are technically termed 1, the calyx ; 2, the corolla ; 3, the stamen ; 4, the pistil. These are all now regarded as merely trans- formations of leaves, altered so as to suit the par- ticular functions which each performs. They some- times appear in the form of true leaves, without any marked- modification. The calyx is the outer cov- ering of the flower the symmetrical cup in which it commonly rests. It is usually of the same green color as the leaves, but sometimes also, as in the fuchsia and Indian cress, it is differently colored. Its several parts are termed sepals. The corolla is the flower, popularly so called ; its parts, which are sometimes distinct and sometimes united in various ways, are termed petals. " The petals are com- posed of a congeries of minute cells, each contain- ing coloring matter and delicate spirals interspersed, all being covejed by a thin epidermal coat or skin. The colored cells are distinct from one another, and thus a dark color may be at one part and a light color at another. How exquisitely are the colors of flowers diversified, and with what a masterly skill are their varied hues arranged ! Whether blended ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 167 or separated, as Thornton remarks, they are evi- dently under the control of a taste which never falls short of the perfection of elegance."* The two latter or inner organs, upon which the production of seed essentially depends, show a pe- culiarly minute and delicate structure. The pistil consists of a hollow tube called the style, terminat- ing at one end in a kind of spongiole named the stigma ; at the other, in the seed-vessel or ovary The stamens, which commonly, as in the rose, in close the pistil, consist of a stalk or filament sup- porting a rounded oblong body called the anther, the cells of which are filled with the fine fecundat- ing powder termed pollen, which is sometimes little more than visible to common inspection, but presents, under the microscope, multiplied distinct forms. There is a singular and highly interesting nu- merical order found to characterize the relation of all these different organs of the plant to one an- other. " Thus, if a flower has 5 parts of the calyx, it has usually 5 of the corolla alternating with them, 5, 10, 20, etc., stamens, and 5, or some mul- tiple of 5, in the parts of the pistil." And equally so when the parts of the calyx are 3 the numer- ical bases of 3 and 5 being the most generally pre- vailing in the vegetable kingdom, although the numbers 2 and 4, with their multiples, are also to * BALFOUR'S Botanical Sketches, p. 148. 168 THEISM. be found. " It is worthy of notice," adds the author from whom we borrow these facts, " that flowers exhibiting 5 or 4, or multiples of these numbers, in their whorls, usually belong to plants having two seed-lobes or cotyledons, and which, when they form permanent woody stems, exhibit dis- tinct zones or circles, and have separable bark ; while flowers having 3, or a multiple of 3, in their whorls, present only one seed-lobe, and when they form permanent woody stems, exhibit no distinct zones nor circles, and have no separable bark. The numbers 2 and 4, or multiples of them, are seen also in the parts of fructification of flowerless plants which have no seed-lobes, such as ferns, mosses, sea- weeds, etc. The processes which pro- ject from the urn-like cases of mosses are arranged in the series of 4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 64, etc. The parts of fructification of scale-mosses (Jungermannue) are in fours, as also the germs of some sea-weeds. Thus the numbers 5 and 4 and their multiples prevail among dicotyledonous and exogenous plants ; the number 3 and its multiples occur among monocotyledonous or endogenous plants ; while 2 and 4, and multiples of them, are met with among acotyledonous or acrogenous plants."* The theistic conclusion undoubtedly receives confirmation from these and all other evidences of exact numerical relations in nature. They express * BALFOUR'S Sketcles, pp. 137, 138, OEGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 169 very clearly the Divine plan every where stamped on it. Let us now mark the reproductive process as subserved by these organs. Fecundation is the immediate result of communication between the stamens and pistil the former, which produce the pollen, being the active or male, the latter the re- ceptive or female organs. In the great majority of cases the stamens and pistil are found on the same plant, the former overtopping the latter an arrangement which gives the most simple mode of fecundation, by enabling the stigma readily to re- ceive the falling pollen as it bursts from the anther. In order to secure this purpose more effectually, the stigma exudes a slightly glutinous fluid, to which the grains of pollen adhere. These grains, whose manifold structure, as seen under the micro- scope, has been already noticed, have each two coats, one of which bursts when the grain is ripe, and the other, in touching the stigma, elongates itself into the shape of a slender tube, passing downward through the style into the ovary, and so conveying to the germ the vivifying fluid. " The cells of the stigma are beautifully contrived to admit the passage of these tubes, as they are long, and extremely loose in texture, at the same time so moist and elastic as to be easily compressed when necessary. It is so contrived that the minute particles contained in the grains enter slowly to 8 170 THEISM. the ovary, as it seems necessary that the fecundat- ing matter should be admitted by degrees. It is also necessary that the tube should enter the fora- men of the ovule ; and as the ovule is not always in a proper position to receive it, it will be found to erect itself or to turn, as the case may be, while the granules of the pollen grains are passing down the tubes."* In drooping flowers, such as the fuchsia where it would be obviously no longer fitting that the stamens should exceed the pistil in length, as thereby the pollen would be scattered on the ground instead of reaching the stigma the rela- tion of the parts is found inverted in correspond- ence with the altered character of the plant. And, in fact, nothing can be more beautiful and impress- ive than the great variety of adaptations by which, in special cases, communication is secured between the pollen and the pistils. " In the common net- tle the stamens have elastic filaments, which are at first bent down, so as to be obscured by the calyx ; but when the pollen is ripe, the filaments jerk out, and thus scatter the powder on the pistils, which occupy separate flowers. In the common barberry, the lower part of the filament is very irritable ; and whenever it is touched, the stamen moves forward to the pistil. In the style-wort (Stylidium) the stamens and pistil are united in a common column * Vegetable Physiology, p. 79. Edinburgh : Chambers. ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 171 which projects from the flower; this column is very irritable at the angle where it leaves the flower, and when touched, it passes with a sudden jerk from one side to the other, and thus scatters the pollen. In the hazel, where the pollen is in one set of flowers and the pistil in another, the leaves might interfere with the application of the pollen, and therefore they are not produced until it has been scattered."* In Dioecious plants, such as the willow, where the flowers are not only unisexual, but the stamen-bearing are on one tree and the pistil-bearing on another, the process of communi- cation is effected in some cases by the winds, but in other cases, after a more complicated and inge- nious manner, by insects. The bee, while provid- ing food for its young, is at the same time aiding in the dispersion of the pollen. The peculiar shape of some flowers the Orchids especially seems to form an attraction for certain insects which are helpful in the same office. One of the most re- markable examples of this insect-agency in the distribution of the pollen is furnished by the birth- wort (Aristolochia). In this plant the "flower consists of a long tube in a chamber, at the bot- tom of which the stamens and pistils are placed, completely shut out from the agency of the winds. It is frequented, in its native country, by an insect which enters the tube easily, ar.d gets into the little * BALFOUR'S Sketches, pp. 152-154. 172 THEISM. chambei. On attempting to get out, it is p revented by a series of hairs in the tube, which all point down- ward. It therefore moves about in the little cavity, and thus distributes the pollen on the pistil, soon af- ter which the flower withers and the insect escapes."* When impregnation is completed, the other parts of the flower decay, while the "gravid seed-vessel" increases in balk, till it becomes, under very diver- sified forms, what is called the fruit. All these forms, many of which are so familiarly known and useful, would seern to have one prime object in view, viz. the preservation of the seed. The pro- duction of this seed has been the great end of the process hitherto described; and, this end accom- plished, the flower dies, while the energies of the plant are turned to the nursing of the little embryo which it has left behind, and which is destined in its time to advance into new forms of flora] beauty. "Nothing," adds Paley,f "can be more single than the design, more diversified than the means. Pel- licles, shells, pulps, pods, husks, skin, scales armed with horns, are all employed Li prosecuting the same intention." When the seeds reach maturity, their dispersion is provided for in various interesting ways. In some cases the fruit falls without opening, and gradually decays, forming a sort of manure with * BALFOUR'S Sketches, pp. 158, 159. f Natural Theology, Knight's edit., vol. iii. p. 58. ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 173 the soil in which the plant sprouts. In other cases the seed-vessels open and scatter the seeds. "In the common broom, the pod, when ripe, opens with considerable force : so also the fruit of the sandbox- tree, and the balsam, which is called Touch-me- not, on account of its seed-vessel bursting when touched. The squirting cucumber, when handled in its ripe state, gives way at the point where the fruit joins the stalk, and the seeds are sent out with amazing force. The common geranium seed- vessels curl up when ripe, and scatter the seeds. In the case of firs, bignonias, and some other plants, the seeds are furnished with winged appendages ; while in the cotton-plant and asclepias they have hairs attached to them, by means of which they are wafted to a distance." " The plant called Kose of Jericho becomes dried up like a ball, and is tossed about by the wind until it conies into contact with water, when its small pods open, and the seeds are scattered ; and a species of fig-marigold in Africa opens its seed-vessel when moisture is applied." "In the dandelion, the leaves which surround the clusters or heads of flowers are turned downward, the receptacle becomes convex and dry, the hairs spread out so as to form a parachute-like appendage to each fruit, and collectively to present the appear- ance of a ball, and in this way the fruit is prepared for being dispersed by the winds."* * BALFOUR'S Sketches, pp. 44, 172-174. 174 THEISM. The seed being deposited in the soil, the process of germination takes place under the influence of heat, air, and moisture. The embryo sends forth, in one direction, a number of fibrous threads, which fix the plant in the ground. The radicle, in short, becomes the root. The plumule on the other side elongates itself, rising into the air in the form of the stem, frequently accompanied by one or more cotyledons or seed-leaves, according to the nature of the plant. And thus the great processes of nutrition and re- production again proceed in the same varied and beautiful round, proclaiming the Wisdom which guides and which guards the whole. We might add indefinitely to the force of these illustrations, by a consideration of the same pro- cesses as exemplified in the animal kingdom. In this field we might easily glean some examples of peculiarly elaborate and striking contrivance,* sub- servient to the production and preservation of those higher and more complex forms of life which here meet us. The numerous and intricate organs em- ployed in digestion, in the circulation of the blood, in respiration, and the exquisite order and regu- larity with which they perform their functions, are * The suckling of the kangaroo, admirably described by Dr. Whewell (Indications of the Creator, p. 123, 124), is among the most remarkable of such instances for complication, and at the same time propriety, of contrivance. ORGANIC PHENOMENA VEGETABLE. 175 especially marked with instructive meaning in ref- erence to our subject. As, however, according to our whole plan, we do not and can not aim at a mere accumulation of instances which do not add some significance to our evidence, we pass onward to those higher illustrations presented by the mus- cular and nervous phenomena, which are con- sidered to be the distinctive characteristics of the animal kingdom. II. CHAPTER VII. SPECIAL OKGANIC PHENOMENA CONTINUED ANIMAL. BICHAT first clearly propounded the distinction between merely vegetable and animal life* which is now generally accepted. Besides the functions of nutrition and reproduction which the animal shares with the plant, the former is characterized by two special tissues, the muscular and the nerv- ous, issuing in distinctive manifestations of vitali- ty, higher than those to be found in the vegetable kingdom. It is doubtful, indeed, as formerly said, whether the separation thus marked out be clear and decided. We have certainly, among plants, at least the shadow of these higher vital develop- ments which so prominently mark the animal crea- tion, as in the phenomena of irritability in the Venus' fly-trap, the sensitive-plant, and some others. In the former plant the leaves are marked by three * Bichat's own language is organic and relative; but we pre- fer, for obvious reasons, the less technical, more readily intelli- gible language ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 177 projecting hairs, which, when touched, have the singular property of causing the leaf to fold upon itself, shutting in the insect which may have caused the movement. The mode in which the leaves of the sensitive- plant fold themselves together on the slightest touch is still more familiarly known. Ke- markable as these movements are, however, the conclusion of botanical authorities, upon the whole, appears to be against the supposition of their being identical in source with similar movements in ani- mals. " They are not dependent," says the Pro- fessor of Botany in Edinburgh, " on nervous and muscular power, as is the case in animals, but they seem to be caused by the greater or less distension of cells connected with the base of the leaves and of the leaf-stalks."* The peculiar property of the muscular tissue is denominated contractility. It is simply the power possessed by the muscles of contracting or shorten- ing themselves. This contractile power is observa- ble in the lowest class of animals, although they do not present any distinct trace of a fibrous struc- ture. In the inferior zoophytes such as the Infu- soria, Polypi, Medusae -the whole body seems to exhibit an incessant action upon the surrounding fluid, maintained by means of " very minute and generally microscopic filaments" called cilia, and which apparently serve in the case of these genera * BALFOUR'S Sketches, p. 131. 8* i 8 THEISM. nv t only the purpose of progressive motion, but also of respiration, and of procuring a supply of food.* In the Eadiata generally, however, no dis- tinct muscles can be said to be traced, and their powers of movement are for the most part very limited. As we ascend the scale of animal life we begin to observe the formation of fibers, at first irregular- ly dispersed through the soft body, and then, as the organization becomes more complex, collected into bundles, composing what are properly called mus- cles.f In many of the Articulata the muscular system is highly developed. Lyonet is said to have counted in some species of caterpillar not fewer than four thousand muscular bands ; and the extraordi- nary weights which ants and beetles easily move, prove the muscular energy to be very powerful in these creatures. It is in the Yertebrata, however, and especially as displayed in the human body, that the muscular system has been most carefully studied, and is most familiarly known. And from this comparatively limited, but very adequate sphere, our illustrations will for the most part be drawn. The bundle-fcrm is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the muscular tissue. The com- pact bundle is foixnd, on examination, to be com- posed of a series of lervser and lesser bundles, firm- * IV. ROGET, Bridg. TV-art vol. i. p. 126. f Ibid., p. 126. ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 179 ly bound together in sheaths. " The dilatation of the muscular fibers in thickness, which accom- panies their contraction in length, would, if these fibers had been loose and unconnected, have occa- sioned too great a separation and displacement, and have impeded their co-operation in one common effect. Nature has guarded against this evil by collecting a certain number of the elementary fibrils, and tying them together with threads of cel- lular substances, thus forming them into a larger fiber ; and, again, packing a number of these fibers into larger bundles, always surrounding each packet with a web of cellular tissue."* As muscular action is wholly the result of the contractile power possessed by the tissue, it is obvi ous that reciprocal sets of such muscular bundles as we have described are necessary to produce the varied and reciprocal motions of animals. As Paleyf states and illustrates the fact: "It is evi- dent that the reciprocal energetic motion of the limbs, by which we mean motion with force in opposite directions, can only be produced by the instrumentality of opposite or antagonistic muscles of flexors and extensors answering to each other. For instance, the muscles placed in the front part of the upper arm, by their contraction bend the elbow, and with such degree of force as the case * Dr. ROGET, Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p, 130. f Natural Theology, vol, i. pp. 104, 105; Knight's edit, 180 THEISM. requires or the strength admits of. The relaxation of these muscles after the effort would merely let the fore-arm drop down. For the back stroke, therefore, and that the arm may not only bend at the elbow, but also extend and straighten itself with force, other muscles, placed on the hinder part of the arms, by their contractile twitch, fetch back the fore-arm into a straight line with the cubit, with no less force than that with which it was beat out of it. The same thing obtains in all the limbs, and in every movable part of the body. A finger is not bent and straightened without the contraction of two muscles taking place. It is evident, therefore, that the animal functions require that particular disposition of the muscles which we describe by the name of antagonist muscles. And they are accordingly so disposed. Every muscle is provided with an adversary. They act, like two sawyers in a pit, by an opposite pull ; and nothing surely can more strongly indicate design and attention to an end than their being thus stationed." To which Sir C. Bell in a note adds : " The muscles are an- tagonists certainly, but there is a fine combination and adjustment in their action, which is not illus- trated by the two sawyers dividing a log of wood. The muscle having finished what we call its action or contraction, is not in the condition of a loose rope, but, on the contrary, there is always a perfect balance of action preserved between the extent of ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 181 relaxation of the one class of muscles and the con- traction of the other ; and there is a tone in both by which the limb may be sustained in any posture that is willed." The muscles are attached by tendons or sinews to the parts to be moved : and there is often singular contrivance shown in the mode in which these are made to act. The most obvious and simple mode of producing motion, would of course be to stretch the tendons in a straight line betwixt the parts to be moved. But this would not, in many cases, suit the convenience of the body. The muscles are, in consequence, found in positions whence they can only act on the movable object in an oblique manner, and with a corresponding loss of force, but, at the same time, with an increase of velocity, and a saving of muscular contraction highly advan- tageous. Muscles acting after this oblique fashion are often used in pairs, in which case the direction of motion is the diagonal line between them an arrangement which, in certain movements of the body, is productive of a rapid and easy motion particularly desirable. The action of the chest in breathing is of this kind.* In certain parts of the body, where mobility is especially requisite, a condensation of muscular fibers would have been especially incommodious. By a skillful provision, the muscles are in such * Dr. ROGET, p. 132. 182 THEISM. cases placed at a distance, where their presence is subservient to the beauty of the corporeal outline ; while they are, at the same time, by a special ap- paratus of long tendons, stretching like wires from a mechanical center, brought within range of their appropriate sphere of action. It is in this way that the muscles which move the hands and feet are found respectively in the arm and the calf of the leg, instead of forming, as Paley expresses it, an " unwieldy tumefaction in the hands and feet themselves. The observation," he adds, " may be repeated of the muscle which draws the nictitating membrane over the eye. Its office is in the front of the eye, but its body is lodged in the back part of the globe, where it lies safe, and where it encumbers nothing."* There are many other advantages connected with the use of tendons which have been carefully pointed outf By their intervention the whole concentrated power of the muscular fibers is con- veniently brought to bear upon any particular point where an accumulation of force is necessary. The action is upon the very same principle on which a number of men pull together at a rope, in order to influence by their combined strength a given position. By means of tendons, also, a * Natural Theology, vol. ii. p. 106. f Dr. ROGET, p. 134, 135, to whose treatise we are here, and throughout this description, greatly indebted. ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 183 change of direction may be imparted to the mov- ing power, without any alteration of its place. Tendons are thus found, in numerous instances, " to pass round corners of bones, and along grooves or channels expressly formed for their transmis- sion, producing the effect of pulleys." The troch- lear muscle of the eye acts in this manner. It passes round a cartilaginous support and turns back, just like a rope round a pulley. By a simi- lar mode of muscular action the lower jaw is pulled down, the moving power proceeding not from be- low but from above the jaw rising, in fact, in the side of the face, and of course descending in the first instance, but, at a certain point, taking a turn and then ascending which is the direction in which it could alone produce the appropriate effect.* The peculiar configuration of certain muscles serves still further to show the design with which they are marked. In many cases " the fibers, in- stead of running parallel to one another, are made either to converge or to diverge, in order to suit particular kinds of movements ; and we frequently find that different portions of the same muscle have the power of contracting independently of the rest, so as to be capable of producing very various effects, according as they act separately or in com- bination."f The muscle of the back, called the * PALEY'S Natural Theology, vol. i. p. 116. f Dr. ROOET, vol i. p. 135. 184 THEISM. trapezius, is an example of this. Sometimes they radiate from a common center, as in the delicate muscle of the ear-drum ; and at other times they run in a circular direction, forming what is called an orbicular or sphincter muscle. In the mem- brane of the eye called the iris these two last-men- tioned muscles are combined with beautiful effect. On the application of too much light, the circular fibers directly surrounding the pupil instantaneous- ly contract, diminishing its size ; while again, when more light is needed, the contraction of the radiat- ing fibers, acting on the circular, serves as instan- taneously to enlarge the pupil. The instinctive character of this balanced action (the will having but a slight and occasional control over it) espe- cially evinces foresight ; for thus alone does it re- spond with unerring precision to all the varying necessities and circumstances of the animal. A somewhat corresponding action of circular fibers with longitudinal, distinguishes the muscular coats surrounding canals of various kinds, such as the blood-vessels, and the alimentary tube ; the former tending, by their contraction, to extend the canal and propel its contents the latter, agaiu, by their contraction, having a tendency to shorten it."* One of the most general and remarkable charac- teristics of muscular action in the limbs remains to * Dr. ROGET, voL i. p. 147. ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL 185 be mentioned. It takes place at what is called a mechanical disadvantage. The axis of motion is much nearer to the exciting force than to the re- sistance to be overcome. There is, of course, a great sacrifice of power in this way ; but while this is compensated, on the one hand, by the special energy of the muscular exertion, on the other hand, velocity and freedom of motion (which are the great requisites in the animal system) are ob- tained in proportion to the mechanical disadvan- tage. "Strength is sacrificed," as Dr. Eoget ob- serves,* " without scruple, to beauty of form or convenience of purpose ; and that disposition of the force is always adopted from which, on the whole, the greatest practical benefit results. Eve- ry where do we find the wisest adaptation of mus- cular power to the objects proposed, whether it be exerted in laborious efforts of the limbs and trunk ; whether employed in balancing the frame or urg- ing it into quick progression ; or whether it be ap- plied to direct the delicate evolutions of the fingers, the rapid movements of the organs of speech, or the more exquisite adjustment of the eye, or of the internal ear." It were difficult, indeed, to conceive a more im- pressive display of design than is represented by all the varied and intricate action of the muscular system in any of the higher animals, and in the * Dr. ROGET, vol i. p. 141. 186 THEISM. human frame especially. All is hidden from our view beneath the covering of skin which encases and protects the delicate machinery. But could we see within, and trace the unceasing play of muscular adjustment under any of our most com- mon movements, nothing could be more wonderful than the spectacle exhibited. The movement of the eye in vision, of the ear in hearing, of the tongue and larynx in speaking, all depend upon relations of the nicest and most complicated de- scription, whose operation, unceasing as it is, is at the same time unwearying. How wonderful the muscular endurance of the heart alone, which con- tracts "with a force equal to sixty pounds eighty times every minute, for eighty years together, with- out being tired 1"* When the hand performs any common task executes a piece of music, for ex- ample, or simply writes how numerous the muscles brought into play, and yet how happily measured, definite, and wholly uninterfering their mutual action ! "Not a letter," as Paley has well described the latter case, " can be turned without more than one, or two, or three tendinous contrac- tions definite, both as to the choice of the tendon, and as to the space through which the contraction moves ; yet how currently does the work pro- ceed ! and when we look at it, how faithful have the muscles been to their duty ! how true to * Animal Physiology, p- "74. Edinburgh : Chambers. ORGANIC P HEN CM EN A- -ANIMAL. 187 the order which endeavor or habit hath incul- cated !"* The disposition of so many muscles in the human body (anatomists have given names to between four and five hundred), often so closely contiguous to one another, that they are found " in layers, as it were, over one another, crossing one another, sometimes imbedded in one another; sometimes per- forating one another," yet all so perfectly arranged that they never obstruct or interfere with one an- other this of itself surely furnishes evidence of design which it is impossible to resist. What, save prescient Wisdom, could have devised an arrange- ment at once so exquisitely intervolved, and so faultlessly harmonious. In advancing to a brief consideration of the nervous system, we enter upon a sphere of illustra- tion peculiarly significant for our subject. For the nerves are not, like the muscles, simply examples of organic contrivance ; they are the seats of sensa- tion, the media of animal consciousness, in whose varied phenomena we find the appropriate evi- dence, not only of Divine wisdom, but especially of Divine goodness. In this chapter, however, we glance at the nervous system simply in its organic arrangement, as contributing, in the mere compli- cacy and order of its parts, to the force of our pre- ceding evidence. The mental meaning, which * Natural Theology, vol. ii. p. 113. 188 THEISM. every where underlies it, will immediately receive full attention. The nervous, like the muscular system, is found, in the lower animal races, in a very undeveloped state. In the very lowest, indeed, including the Porifera (sponges) ; Polypifera (mushroom corals) ; Polygastrica (infusory animalcules) ; Acalephse (sea-blubbers) ; and Entozoa (intestinal worms), no trace of it can be detected by the closest scrutiny. These animals are hence arranged by zoologists into a sub -kingdom by themselves, under the name of Acrita. It must not, however, be supposed that the neurine or nervous matter is really absent in these races. It is no doubt present, although it can not be traced ; not gathered into masses, nor even into threads, but probably diffused in imper- ceptible atoms through the wtole of their very simple structure.* In the races immediately above the preceding, the nervous matter is distinctly visible in the shape of threads dispersed through the "body. They are hence arranged in a sub-kingdom, under the name of Nematoneura, the most interesting and import- ant section of which are the Echinodermata, or star-fishes. In the Articulata we reach a further and very significant development of the nervous structure. It is no longer merely in the form of threads, but * Gosss's Text-Book of Zoology, p. 1. ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 189 presents the first appearance of a spinal chord, with ganglions or nervous centers collected on it ; that is to say, knots or swellings at regular intervals along it, from which the nervous fibers run. From the fact that these ganglions are, in the Articulata, regularly disposed along the main line or chord to which they are attached, it has been proposed to call this general division of the animal kingdom Homogangliata, as being a name more truly dis- tinctive than the older and familiar one of Articu- lata. The varied and deeply interesting class of insects, as also the Arachnida (spiders, etc.), and Crustacea (crabs, etc.), are representatives of this great division. In the Mollusca the nervous system does not ad- vance. They are distinguished, Professor Owen has remarked, by the development rather of the vegetal series of organs, or those which are con- cerned in nutrition and reproduction. The nervous matter is in them also collected into ganglions ; but these are no longer symmetrically disposed along a main line, but are unequally scattered throughout the body. "The principal mass of nervous matter takes the form of a thick ring or collar surrounding the gullet, whence threads are sent off in an unsymmetrical manner to other parts of the body ; several ganglions being placed around the collar, and others dispersed in other parts, so as best to supply the most important 190 THEISM. organs."* From this unequal distribution of the nervous centers in the races of this division of the animal creation, it has been proposed to apply to them the more definite and characteristic name of Heterogangliata. It is only in the Vertebrata that we reach the fully developed form of the nervous system. Here we have a spinal chord, truly so called, not only with ganglionic knots distributed along it, but ex- panded at the summit into a collection of nervous matter, which gradually becomes of main signifi- cance in the system. To this terminal collection of nervous matter the general name of brain is giv- en. In all the classes of the Vertebrata a brain and spinal marrow are present, but the brain especially is extremely diversified in size, and in the relation of its parts. It is composed of two hemispheres, respectively named the cerebrum or proper brain, and the cerebellum or lesser brain. It is by the full development of the former that the nervous system in the human species is distinguished. It extends so far back in man as to cover the whole of the cerebellum, while, in the lower "vertebrate orders, the latter becomes always more apparent, till in reptiles and fishes it is wholly "With this very summary description of the nerv- ous system in the animal races generally, we will * GOSSK'S Text-Book, p. 193. ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 191 now look, for the sake of special illustration, a little more closely at its structure and operations in man, in whom it assumes its chief interest and import- ance. The nervous matter in the human body presents the appearance of an elaborate and intricate trace- work running out to all its parts, from the verte- brate column and encephalon. Comparatively dense and unformed in the immediate region of the central line or axis of the body, it branches off into more rare and distinct outline toward the surface extremities. When this matter, as exhibited in the brain, is examined, it is found to be composed of two different substances. The main substance, which is placed internally, is white-looking and of fibrous structure. A coating of gray matter, vesic- ular in structure, incloses the other, and gathers into large ganglionic masses at the base, where it constitutes, as we shall see, a special center of nerv- ous force. This twofold material is found also in the spinal marrow, but in an inverted relation, the gray matter here forming the interior, and the white matter the exterior mass. The gray or vesic- ular matter is supposed to be the generating source of the nervous energy, the white or fibrous matter to form the lines of communication between the different parts of the system. In the diversified operation of man's nervous sys- tem, we meet, first of all. with centers of nervous 192 THEISM. action, strictly corresponding to those found in the lower orders, viz., simple ganglions, distributed along the spine, or at least chiefly there. But we also, as might be expected, meet with higher and peculiar centers of such action in what are called the sensory ganglions, collected at the bass of the brain, and especially in the cerebrum itself. From these respective centers emanates the whole varied and wonderful activity of human life. To Sir Charles Bell we are indebted for the great discovery which has opened up the whole field of nervous operation. He found that sensation and motion are dependent upon different sets of nervous filaments. The sensiferous filaments, stretching all along the surface of the body, are constantly receiv- ing impulses which they transmit along the line to the different centers of nervous action, whence again proceed the other or motor set of filaments running to all the different parts of the body. These filaments start from distinct roots in the nerv- ous column the roots of the former being in the posterior, and those of the latter in the anterior, portions of that column. They preserve through- out their distinct character and quality, although in their ramifications they become inextricably in- termingled. According to their function, the form- er set have been called afferent, as conveying impressions toward the center ; the latter efferent, as conveying the respondent movement from the ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 193 center.* We have thus, in the most simple form of nervous operation, three distinct organs, as it were the afferent nerve, the ganglion ic center, and the efferent nerve. These together form an appa- ratus which has often been represented by the an- alogy of a voltaic battery. The impression com- municated at the sensitive surface passes along the line of the afferent nerve to the central station, where it is not expended or thrown away, but, in virtue of its nature, acts upon the vascular struc- ture of the ganglions, developing a motive force which issues along the efferent nerve to the parts originally affected. An act or operation of sense always tends to complete itself in this way. The stimulus passing inward is reflected to the sentient surface whence it started, quickening there a move- ment of closer contact, or, as it may be, of repul- sion toward the object of sensation. When we touch any thing, we have thus a tendency either to grasp it more firmly, or to reject it, should there be any thing in it disagreeable to the organs of sens- atioD. Without one or other of these results the sensation has not completed its natural round. It has fallen short through its own original weakness, or the weakness of some of the organs ; or, as is very commonly the case, in the ceaseless and com- plex play of the system, it has been interfered with * Also esodic, or ingoing nerves ; and exodic, or outgoing nerves. 9 194 THEISM. by some opposing influence of greater power bear- ing on the same center of nervous force. The intimate union which is thus seen to exist between the nervous and muscular systems is de- serving of notice. The action of the one always tends to pass into that of the other. The two sys- tems are not only combined, but so combined, or rather inwrought, that the one every where presup- poses and includes the other. "We have been speaking all along of sensation as implied in the nervous process ; and so it is. But, in the very lowest forms of this process, that which we peculiarly mean by sensation does not emerge. There are, in other words, appropriate ranges of nervous action which transact themselves beyond the region of consciousness. Among these are the common functions of organic life the action of the heart, of the lungs, and of the stomach. These, as well as sometimes also special motions of the limbs, are found, in a state of health, to proceed wholly irrespective of any conscious recognition or sensation properly so called. The sense-impulses which have set them agoing do not, as it were, awaken, or realize themselves. And in this we may perceive a special mark of Divine wisdom ; for how important is it that those functions upon which our daily health depends, should be thus se- cured from the distracting influences that would be otherwise constantly bearing upon them ! How ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 195 comparatively imperfect and unhappy would life be, did the respirator or digestive processes inces- santly claim our attention ! As it is, these processes, proceeding in a separate round by themselves, min- ister in the most faithful and efficient manner to our daily maintenance and well-being. Such simple reflex actions constitute in man, however, only the lowest circle of nervous opera- tion. And even in regard to them there is so inti- mate a relation between the different parts of the system, that the processes which may be, and in ordinary cases are, transacted beyond the region of consciousness, yet very readily pass into it. For, according to the full law of nervous action, whose exposition we owe only to the most recent physio- logical labors, every impression is represented as having a tendency to pass along the nerve of trans- mission upward through every intermediate posi- tion to the cerebrum itself.* This tendency, we have seen, is not in many cases carried out. The nervous impression is intercepted at a lower gan- glionic center, and reflected there for the perform- ance of various important functions. Yet ; even in those cases in which there is no conscious recogni- tion, the relation of the nerves to the higher con- scious center is so intimate that some influence is probably at all times given forth upon it. The reflections from the sensory ganglions at the * MOREIX'S Psychology, p 97. 196 THEISM. base of the brain may be said to form the second range of nervous action in man, which, in its special character, is of the most important kind. These ganglions are the great seat of sensation. The nerves of the senses terminate in them, and hence proceed all our well-known modes of sensation, so various and exquisite. But while this range of nervous action lies so completely within the sphere of feeling and consciousness, it is yet irrespective of the will. The responsive movements flow forth instinctively ; they are the simple involuntary play of sensations. Such automatic movements are the winking of the eye, shuddering, balancing of the body to prevent falling, and many others. The highest and complete range of nervous action proceeds from the cerebrum itself. While, in truth, the lower ganglionic centers are so constituted as to be capable of originating independent ranges of ac- tion, they are yet so intimately related to this high- est center as to be constantly within its influence. The effects, for example, of intense thought or of strong emotion upon the processes of organic life are familiarly known. It is deserving of remark, however, that this cerebral influence can only be propagated downward after a certain manner. The mind can only influence directly the sensory gan- glions, the sensations which are the appropriate expression of their action again acting upon the lower ganglionic centers concerned in the processes ORGANIC PHENOMENA ANIMAL. 197 in question. The idea of a pleasant taste, for ex- ample, will make the mouth water, and the sensa- tion thus created will stimulate, through the infe- rior excito-motor center, the action of the stomach. But the mind can not operate directly upon the alimentary apparatus. The cerebrum, it is well known, is the special seat of those varied ideas and emotions which, con- stitute what is peculiarly considered our mental activity. It is the seat, moreover, of that moral activity which in man is the flower of existence. In the will, as the only complete expression of our cerebral energy, the whole complex human life does not certainly take its rise, but here alone it finds its sum and perfection. What grounds there may be for reckoning in the cerebrum two distinct centers of nervous action an idea-motor, so called and described by Dr. Lay cock,* and one (the high-, est of all) specially volitionalf need not occupy us in so cursory and second-hand a sketch as this. We have presented more than enough to evince the clear design stamped on every feature of man's nervous system. On the one hand, its elaborate structure, so nicely and curiously wrought, and on the other hand, its diversified yet never conflicting action, are among the most impressive manifesta- tions of a wisdom which, shining forth every where * In a paper read before the British Association, 1844. f See MORELL'S Psychology, p. 100-102. 198 THEISM. in nature, here shines forth with, perhaps, special significance and beauty. It were a vain effort to exalt any one aspect of creation above another, Divine order being equally conspicuous in all ; yet it would seem that here, in the exquisite organiza- tion which we have been contemplating, Reason is eminent with a peculiar luster. Here, standing at the summit of the physical, on the verge of that self-conscious reason which sees its own forms re- flected every where, we seem to see the most per- fect correspondence between matter and spirit between the order that merely shows Mind, and the mind that perceives Order. The pious instinct which, on a comparatively inadequate view, lifted the soul of the Psalmist to God, here awakens irre- pressibly in every reverent heart, "I will -praise Thee : for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." II CHAPTER VIII. TYPICAL FOEMS DIVINE WISDOM. THE general conception of order with which we set out, has in the few last chapters become mixed up with the more special conception of design. The teleological aspect of organic phenomena is that which most readily fixes the attention of the Nat- ural Theologian, as it is that which has hitherto proved the most successful key of discovery in prosecuting their study. Under the influence of the illustrious Cuvier, this teleological view had as- sumed such a prominence in physiology as almost to obscure the more general view of a unity of plan or order. Of late, however, and especially through the profound and laborious researches of Professor Owen, this latter view has begun to claim renewed interest. In his two works, " On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton," and a On the Nature of Limbs" he has especially shown its value and fruitfulness as a guiding principle of investigation in comparative anatomy; and the 200 THEISM. same principle has, in truth, been gaining ground in the whole region of physiology, as probably furnishing, here no less than in other departments, the deepest and most pervading key of explanation. It is felt now, at length, after the extravagance of polemic on either side has passed away, that there is no necessary contradiction between the more special and the more comprehensive and yet grand- er doctrine. "We have already seen the numerical relation which subsists between the different parts of plants. In the great divisions of the vegetable kingdom, three is found to be the pervading or typical number of the monocotyledonous plants, and five the pervad- ing or typical number of the dicotyledonous. This numerical unity is found, on closer examination, to be merely a single indication of the typical unity which, through the whole range of the vegetable kingdom, underlies its infinite variety. Beneath all this variety, apparently and in reality so bound- less, there emerges to the critical gaze an identity of form of the most interesting and wonderful char- acter. The science which treats of this pervading fea- ture of the organic kingdom has been termed Mor- phology,* and has within the last half- century * In so far as we know the term, Morphology was first made use of in application to anatomy in the year 1819, by Burdach, in his treatise Utber die Aufgabe der Morphologic. Leipzig : 1819. TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 201 drawn the special attention of naturalists. In so far as it relates to botany, Professor Schleiden has devoted one of the chapters of his very attractive work, The Plant, a Biography, to the subject. He thus describes the importance of form to the plant, and the frequent subordination of every other thing to it: " Whether it arises from the essential nature of the circumstances or not, we can not say, but, at least so far as appearance goes, the production of shape is so prominent a point in the natural history of plants, that all the rest has often been forgotten for its sake ; and thus the study of form, or mor- phology, becomes in any case the most important branch of teaching in all botany. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that morphology is merely a meager enunciation and description of forms. It is also a scientific question ; it has to seek for the knowledge of laws, and must, at least as a preliminary step, arrange the multitude of ap- pearances under primary points of view, place them according to rule and exception, and so gradually approach nearer to the discovery of the actual laws of nature."* The fundamental idea of morphology, therefore, is the recognition of a common type of construction among plants and animals. In the case of the former, with which we are immediately concerned, * Pp. 81, 82. 9* 202 THEISM. science, penetrating beneath the mere diversity of organs, and their enumeration and classification, discerns a persistent unity of plan or law, upon which the whole plant, in its various and compli- cated structure, is molded. And it is remarkable that this beautiful conception, to which science owes so much, was, in the first instance, due to the vivid intuition of a poetic, rather than the patient induction of a merely scientific mind. It was to the fine and subtle glance of Goethe, roaming through nature with so rich a perception of its har- monies, that typical forms of structure, in the vege- table world, first revealed themselves. His Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklaren, in 1790, contained the first formal exposition of the doctrine of typical unity, and must, therefore, be considered to have laid the basis of scientific botany. It was not, however, till thirty years later, when the specu- lations of Goethe were taken up by De Candolle, and embodied in his work on Organography, that they attracted general attention, and passed into the scientific mind of Europe. The idea of the poet only then became the recognized doctrine of science. Goethe, drawn to nature from the promptings of its mirrored harmony within him, carried over, as might be supposed, a somewhat too ideal view of unity to the plant. His idea of a typical plant, "whereby he signified an ideal plant, the realization TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 203 of which, as it were, nature had proposed to herself, and which she had only attained in a certain de- gree in the individual plants," is considered by Schleiden to be deficient in clearness and grasp of reality. And it would indeed have been won- derful if the first fresh glance of the poet had ex- pi essed with perfect precision the deep-seated truth of nature. It can not even now be said that the fundamental forms of vegetable structure have been precisely determined; some, with Schleiden him- self, finding a radical twofoldness, and others aim- ing to establish a unity* as the most general plan of the plant. It is only by very patient and com- prehensive processes of induction that the most hidden order of organic nature can ever be discov- ered. As Schleiden says, " glorious system may, indeed, be thought out on paper in the study, but these have no meaning or importance in the actual world. Thus, as we enter upon these things, we must rather modestly inquire whether nature is in- clined to display her mysteries to us whether she will, in this or that individual instance, make man- ifest what characters are essential in their shape ; * See a paper on " Typical Forms" in the North British Review, August 1851, in which an attempt is made "to reduce a plant, by a more enlarged conception of its nature, to a unity." The paper, understood to be from the pen of Professor M'Cosh of Belfast, gives throughout a very informing and suggestive view of the whole subject ; and we have been greatly indebted to it in the composition of this chapter. 204 THEISM. in a word, what basis she will afford us for the erection of our system. It will suffice for our general purpose to present a very brief sketch of the now established reduc- tion of the plant to a twofold type of structure, as exhibited by Schleiden. The two representative organs, to which all the others can be reduced, are the stem and the leaf. The root, and the trunk with its lateral branches, and these again with their lateral branchlets, are simple modifications of the former. All these are of " the same struc- ture, and tend to assume the same form."* " If a thousand branches from the same tree are compared together," says Lindley, " they will be found to be formed upon the same uniform plan, and to accord in every essential particular. Each branch is also, under favorable circumstances, capable of itself becoming a separate individual, as is found by cuttings, buddings, grafting, and other horticul- tural processes." Each branch or branchlet, there- fore, is simply the plant repeating itself, in diversi- fied outline, as it advances in growth each containing within itself the germ of individual existence, and ready to become an individual plant on the application of the proper means. The term pliyton has accordingly been given with propriety to each single part. Upon the stem, and out of it, grows the leaf, * North British Review, Augiist 1851, p. 396. TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 205 which, in its turn, is the undoubted type of all the special organs of inflorescence, the calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistils. The sepals of the calyx, and the petals of the corolla, or flower commonly so called, are obviously enough foliar in their struc- ture. But the stamens and pistils have been proved to be no less so, little as, on a mere cursory inspec- tion of them, this might seem to be the case. The plant, in its most complete development, is therefore capable of analysis into two distinct parts a twofold system of constructive order. The diversity of stem and flower is seen to flow from a typical unity in each case ; and some have car- ried back, as we have said, the whole diversity to a radical unity in the stem. If we can not con- template the special relations and uses of different organs of the plant without recognizing in them the clear marks of design, it is no less impossible, surety, to contemplate this wonderful unity of or- ganization this plan of structure, underlying the whole vegetable creation without the conception of Mind forcing itself irrepressibly upon us. But this conclusion is still more strongly en- forced by the most general glance at the result of Professor Owen's researches in comparative anat- omy. The labors of this great investigator have opened up a new field of interest and significance in anatomical science. Carrying along with him the principles and conclusions of Cuvier, he soon 206 THEISM. found that their very force impelled him forward to a more profound and comprehensive principle of discovery, which, while it had been perverted by the* arbitrariness of previous theorizers, is yet of incalculable value and importance. The simple fact of corresponding bones in different species, freely recognized by former anatomists, became significant to him of a great doctrine of homology, running through the whole of the vertebrate skele- ton. By the term homology he expresses the unity or identity of character between the bones so an- swering to one another in different animals. The bones themselves he calls " homologues," in con- tradistinction to " analogues," which he applies to parts performing the same function ; whereas ho- mologous parts, identical in character, may exhibit every variety of form and function are the same organs, in fact, under whatever change of circum- stances. Thus the fore limbs of a quadruped, the wings of a bird, the pectoral fins of a fish, and the arms of man, are respectively homologous, because they are really the same organs, only differently modified ; while again the wings of Draco volans are merely analogous to the wings of a bird ;* each organ performing the same function, but being wholly different in structure. Throughout the vertebrate skeleton from that of the fish, the reptile, and bird, to that of the * Quarterly Review, June 1853, p. 72. TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 207 mammal from the cetaceans up to man Pro- fessor Owen lias demonstrated that there are no fewer than seventy of such homologous bones, which may be clearly traced, showing the uniform plan, or archetypal model, upon which the whole vertebrate races have been formed. This verte- brate archetype has been figured by him ; and, in connection with the respective type-skeletons of the fish, the reptile, the bird, and the beast, is said to constitute a perfect anatomical study. With the details of the subject we feel ourselves incom- petent to meddle ; but the great conclusion is one which claims our earnest attention the fact, namely, of the demonstrated unity of constructive plan underlying all the singular diversity of the vertebrate form. What a pregnant fact is this ! and how vast a scheme of order does it open up in the animal creation ! " If there be," says Professor Sedgwick, " an archetype in the vertebrate division of animated nature, we may well ask whether there may not be a more general archetype that runs through the whole kingdom of the living world. In a certain sense there is. All animals, if we ex- cept the Kadiata, which come close to a vegetable type, are bilateral and symmetrical,* have double organs of sense, and have a nervous and vascular system, with many parts in very near homology, * This statement regarding equilateral symmetry must be received with some limitations. 208 THEISM. even when we put side by side, for comparison, the animal forms taken from the opposite extreme of nature's scale. And even in the Radiata, where we, at first sight, seem to lose all traces of the ver- tebrate type, on a better examination many of the genera are proved still to be bilateral and symmet- rical." There is in this grand conception of typical order a significance for our sxibject in some respects quite peculiar. Even if it were the case, therefore, that the teleological principle of Cuvier suffered any abatement of its luster (which, according to a just view, it is yet far from doing) from the promulga- tion of this more comprehensive principle, the the- istic argument would still be far from sustaining any loss. It gains, on the contrary, more than by any possibility it could lose. As if the homage which science had already from all quarters ren- dered to it were not enough, this latest advance of physiology has returned laden with an offering of most precious and conclusive meaning. The essential question of Theism, we formerly saw, resolved itself into one regarding the rightful relation of man's reason to the world at large. Is this reason entitled to bring the manifold life of nature within its own forms, to embrace the cosmi- cal vastness in its own mirror ? We found that, in the nature of the case, it is and must be so enti- tled, as the very condition of science or of truth at TYPICAL FORMS DIVINE WISDOM. 209 all. Eeason is not merely a growth of nature, but truly an emanation from the Divine Source of na- ture, and therefore validly brings all nature with- in its laws. Now, looking at these latest discov- eries of physiological science, are they not found to bear an emphatic testimony to this fundamental position? For what is the typical order recog- nized as pervading creation but the signal expres- sion of a reason allied to man's, and yet above it ? What is the evidence of an ideal archetype for the world, or any part of it, but the special evidence of a Mind subsisting apart from the world, and ante- cedent to it ? For it is clear that such an arche- type could never have existed such a pattern could never have been stamped on creation so deeply inlaid that we are only now discovering it without a Mind to conceive and plan it. In the language of Professor Owen language of the high- est interest for our subject " The recognition of an ideal exemplar for the vertebrated animals, proves that the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed before man appeared. For the Divine Mind which planned the archetype also fore- knew all its modifications. The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh, under divers modifi- cations, upon this planet, long prior to the exist- ence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural or secondary causes the order- ly succession and progression of such organic phe- 210 THEISM. nomena may have been committed, we are as yet ignorant. But if, without derogation to the Divine Power, we may conceive the existence of such min- isters, and personify them by the term Nature, we learn, from the past history of our globe, that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light amid the wreck of worlds from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea, under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became ar- ranged in the glorious garb of the human form." And here appropriately our evidence for the special fact of the Divine wisdom may be said to culminate. Speaking to us every where in the laws of nature in the special ends of organic functions it seems in these last chapters to rise before us with a clear and vivid force of the most irresistible kind. In all the intricate diversity, and yet vast archetypal unity of organic life, we seem to see with a brightness, undimmed by intervening medium, the impress of a Wisdom as grand in simplicity as it is boundless in fertility.* * The evidence which this archetypal order or unity of plan in creation furnishes of the unity of the Divine Being, is, more- over, deserving of notice. Here, too, the language of Professor Owen is expressive of that sound Christian philosophy, which in him. as in so many of the highest minds of our country, is found in beautiful unison with the most eminent scientific at- tainments. " The evidence," he snys, " of unity of plan in the structure of animals, testifies to the oneness of their Creator, as the modifications of the plan for the different modes of life illus- trate the bet eficence of the Designer," IL CHAPTER IX. MENTAL ORDER. IN advancing to this further and higher branch of our illustrative evidence, we do not consider it necessary to enter into any formal proof of mind as a substance essentially distinct from matter. That it is so distinct has been assumed in the whole course of our preliminary reasoning, and quite war- rantably so. For, to say the least, mind is as much entitled, apart from proof, to be held a distinct re- ality as matter. Nay, of the two, there can not be any doubt to the genuine thinker which is the real, primary and constitutive element of knowledge : and for the materialist, therefore, to demand a proof of the separate existence of mind, and for the phi- losopher or theologian to grant him the validity of this demand, is simply among the absurdities winch have sprung out of the degradation both of philos- ophy and theology.* The right of question, the * The assumption that mind is nothing else than a material functioio, and that the science of mind is only the highest range 212 THEISM. burden of proof, lies plainly all the other way ; matter per se, nature independently of mind, being, according to our whole reasoning, as well as accord- ing to all true philosophy, the simply inconceivable and inexplicable. It is only the fact of mind, the reality of a ra- tional consciousness in man, which at once gives occasion to the theistic problem, and forms the condition of its solution. It is only to reason that the question could ever arise, Is there a God ? It is only reason that could ever originate an answer to this question. Mind, therefore, in its full and comprehensive sense the sense in which we made such frequent use of it in our first chapters is an element of wholly peculiar significance for our ar- gument. It is the condition of it from the begin- ning. Within the mental or rational sphere alone does the argument find a footing ; and within this of the general science of physiology, is one among the many specimens of the thoroiighly unphilosophic procedure which characterizes Positivism. The whole tone and reasoning of M. Comte on this subject (Philosophic Positive, tome ii. p. 7 66 et seq.) are in fact ignorantly arrogant to such a degree as to need no refutation. His followers in this country have expressly re- pudiated his confusion of psychology with physiology as merely one of its branches Vide Mr. MILL'S Logic, vol. ii. pp. 422, 423, and Mr. LEWES' Exposition of Positivism, p. 212. If any one desires to see the degraded and unintelligible sub- stitute which, under the name of " a New Cerebral Theory," M. Comte would give us, in place of our mental philosophy, let him consult the statement of this theoiy, in the Politique Positive or in the concluding section of the first part of Mr. Lewes' vol- MENTAL ORDEK. 213 sphere alone, as we shall afterward see, does it find its completion. It goes forth into the world of phenomena every where, seeking illustration and confirmation ; but the rational human spirit, the *oi>s, which is one and abiding amid all variety and fluctuation of phenomena, is alone the home of its birth, and equally of its full maturity and strength. This radical and distinctive importance of mind must not for a moment be overlooked in the course of our evidence. But mind also presents itself to us in another point of view. In its complex and various manifestations, it furnishes also an illustra- tive contribution to our argument. It is not only, according to its fundamental theistic meaning, the essential correlate and condition of order every where, but is itself, viewed objective!} 7 , in its mani- fold expressions, an illustration of order of the most interesting and impressive kind. Mental phenomena bring their own appropriate testimony to the Divine wisdom, while their specialty, be- yond all mere material facts, enables us for the first time to trace in an inductive manner the Divine goodness. The field of theistic illustration afforded by mental phenomena has not, indeed, been very much frequented by natural theologians. Lord Brougham, in his discourse on Natural Theology, adverted to this neglect, and so far took up the 214 THEISM. subject in one of the sections of that work. But at the same time he has done little really to rescue it from the neglect of which he complained ; and it may be doubted, from his partial treatment of it, whether he fully understood its character and import- ance. Dr. Chalmers, in His Natural Theology, has dealt more adequately with certain parts of our mental constitution in their theistic interpretation ; but he has left other parts of it, equally significant, wholly untouched. The truth is, that there is peculiar difficulty in dealing with mental phenomena for our purpose. They are at once so confluent and subtle in them- selves, and so encompassed with debate and uncer- tainty, arising out of the ceaseless polemic of philosophy, that the theologian has naturally sought for illustrations of his argument in a less difficult and fluctuating class of phenomena. At the same time, the very character of mental phenomena, in their higher complicacy and refinement, only ren- ders them the more richly fitted to display the Divine perfections, in so far as we can truly seize and represent them. The exquisite varieties of sensation, the marvelous structure of thought, the glorious workings of imagination, the infinite dis- play of emotion, and the profound depths of passion, all speak with the most eloquent utterance of the Divine wisdom and beneficence. In the remaining chapters of this section, we en- MENTAL ORDER. 215 deavor to bring into view some of the theistic meaning, which may be every where traced in mental phenomena. The divisions which have been commonly made of these phenomena into those of sensation, cognition, and emotion, will successively engage us. We accept these divisions as serving sufficiently to characterize the complexi- ty of our mental life, apart from those higher rational elements which afterward, according to our plan, receive attention by themselves; and while our treatment, no less than that of the writ- ers of which we have spoken, must be here very inadequate, it may yet conclude a sufficiently com- prehensive survey of the whole field, as it presents itself, in such rich diversities of aspect, for inspec- tion. II. CHAPTER X. SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. THE phenomena of sensation form in all classes the lowest range of mental life, while in many of the inferior races this life reaches no further. There are some, indeed, to whom it may seem strange to speak of mind expressed in mere sensation. But we have no other name by which to denote that higher element or presence beyond mere organic life, which sense, even in its lowest stages, implies. That which feels is every where something more than that which merely lives. Sense is only such in virtue of a sentient subject, which we can only conceive intelligibly, even in the brute creation, as the dim, crude, and frequently unawakened pres- ence of mind. It is necessary, at the same time, that we carefully preserve the distinction of mind, as possessed by man, in its fully-expressed reality of reason. Any doubt on this point would leave our argument, or indeed any theistic argument, in SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 217 a sonawehat hopeless state of confusion and uncer- tainty. With this explanation, a mental presence is to be held as every where manifested in sensation. With every sensitive act there is ever, according to Sir William Hamilton,* a distinct forthputting of mental activity. A certain attitude of attention, blind as it may be, is necessary to constitute such an act ; and hence it happens that, when attention is wholly absorbed, the mental life otherwise wholly engrossed, we can sustain the most severe bodily injuries without any feeling of pain. Sensations admit of an obvious classification in relation to the different organs on which they depend. In man they are commonly reckoned in a fivefold series, as the sensations of taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight. It is, nevertheless, now almost universally admitted that this classification is not complete. Dr. T. Brown contended for a sixth sense, under the name of the muscular sense, to which he traced various feelings generally ascribed to touch ; and it can not be doubted that there is a separate range of sensations of which our muscular frame is the appropriate organ. As this frame is tense or relaxed, as it moves rhythmically or convulsively (in shuddering, for example), or again, as it is vigorous or exhausted, it gives forth various impressions which enter into the sensory * Vide Appendix to Reid's Works, p. 878. 10 218 THEISM. system, and form a large share of our daily sensa- tional experience. In the very same manner the different affections flowing from the constant pro- cesses of vegetative life those, for example, aris- ing from a state of healthiness or disease, vigor or debility and other affections still less defined, may very well claim to be ranked as distinct orders of sensations. It can not be doubted that the feelings connected with such states of the bodily organiza- tion, however diffused, make a large portion of the common consciousness, and of the happiness or misery of our common mental existence. It is not necessary for our purpose, however, to determine such matters of purely psychological classification. Of the five more specially recognized senses, taste and smell are rightly grouped by themselves ; and again, hearing and sight stand in a similar group. Touch stands by itself, as in some respects the most important and necessary of all our senses. Taste and smell are intimately allied : they both convey impressions derived from the chemical qualities of bodies, the one in the fluid (substances tasted must be either naturally fluid ; or must be dissolved by the saliva), the other in the gaseous state. They are chiefly instrumental as subserv- ing the more physical wants of existence; and smell, from its subservience in this point of view, is well known to reach a much more intenst and SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 219 powerful development in some of the lower animals than in man. The senses of sight and hearing are more intel- lectual in their character and relations than the former. They carry the mind more outward, fixing it more upon the object awakening its regard. The former, as has been often pointed out, is more im- mediately related to the cognitive, the latter to the emotional powers, a relation whicfh is thus curiously contrasted in a passage quoted by Mr. Morell from Erdmann's Psychologische Briefe. "The one," says Erdmann, "is the clearest, the other is the deepest of the senses. The same contrast shows itself in the objects by which these organs are severally affected. In the former case the object shows its outward surface, as it exists unmoved in space ; in the latter case it betrays, by means of the tone it gives forth, what exists within and under the sur- face. It is not the form and color of an object which tells what it is, but its sound. For that reason the sight of a thing does Hot penetrate so much to the heart, it only tells us what is its ap- pearance. On the other hand, the tone moves us ; it tells us how the thing or the person stands to the heart itself. On that account we can easily explain the phenomena so often observed, that deafness is hard and distrustful, while blindness is mild and confiding."* * Psychology, pp. 113, 114. 220 THEISM. The sense of touch is peculiar in its range and the diversity of its applications. This extent and variety of operation constitute its importance and rank in comparison with the other senses ; for, in point of mere intellectual dignity and refinement, it must certainly be classed below the sense of vision. It is the same characteristic which has led to that subdivision of its functions to which Dr. T. Brown led the way, many separating with him the more objective phenomena of the sense, through which we are supposed to come to a clear knowl- edge of the primary qualities of matter extension, solidity, hardness, etc. from the more subjective phenomena, or those of feeling, strictly so called ; and others ranging in a farther separate class the sensations of temperature, usually considered to form merely a variety of those of touch. In the operation of these different senses, the unerring accuracy with which they guide the inferior orders in the selection of fitting nourish- ment, and their rich and varying, yet so nicely- discriminating flow in man, we see the bright manifestations of the same provident wisdom which we have hitherto been tracing. Marvelously com- plex and beautiful as are the higher organs of hear- ing and sight, they must yet surely yield in endless intricacy of harmonious adjustment to the crowd- ing sensations to which they minister. If the hand of a transcendent Wisdom be visible in the arrangements SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 221 of the one, must it not be also impressively recog- nized in the yet subtler arrangements of the other ? But it is not for the evidence of design, that may beyond doubt be here equally traced, that these phenomena possess a special interest for the Theist. Their peculiar significance consists not in the fact that in them also we see wisdom, but that in them, for the first time, we perceive goodness. In this new reality of creation we have a new testimony to the Creator. With the dawn of sense, we have the kindling of the light of love around the great First Cause. "We behold no longer a merely ex- quisite mechanism, nor even the elaborately beau- tiful action of unconscious life, but the yet higher and richer workings of sentient being. In these workings there emerges for the first time the fact of enjoyment, and this fact in nature it is which alone enables us inductively to find goodness in God. Apart from this fact, Paley has said, with his wonted brief simplicity, "the attribute has no object, the term has no meaning." It is only the presence of a sentient subject in organism which enables us to pronounce that the tendency of its design is beneficial. It is only its relation to con- sciousness which makes any thing good or evil. It becomes, then, for the theistic inference, a most vital and momentous question Is enjoyment really the normal expression of sensation ? Is happiness the prevailing response of consciousness? 222 THEISM. Is it, in short," li a happy world after all?" What is the testimony which sentient life, in its manifold forms, utters on this great point ? The true bear- ing of the question is to be carefully observed. It is not at all a question implying the non-existence of evil ; on the contrary, it proceeds plainly on the supposition of evil being an undoubted reality. The truth is, that with the fact of pleasure, given in sensation, there emerges so inseparably the fact of pain the one so directly suggests the other that the induction as to the Divine goodness as- sumes, from the very first, a directly polemical as- pect. It becomes a question in a different sense from the truth of the Divine power or wisdom ; and we are so far from wishing to hide from view the obvious difficulty which thus meets us, that we frankly admit it in our very mode of stating the matter. While acknowledging the difficulty, how- ever, we reserve it, according to the well-devised plan of our subject, for separate and special treat- ment. Pain is present along with pleasure evil along with good ; and it will be our subsequent aim to consider the solution of which this fact is capable. In the mean time, we simply inquire, Is not happiness present to such a degree in creation as to lead us to infer in the Creator a disposition to bestow happiness? Is not good so apparent in nature as to declare that its Author is good ? Or to place the matter before us in the strictly special SENSATION DIVINE GOODNESS. 223 form in winch it has occurred in this chapter is not the normal action of sense, enjoyment? To the question thus put we can only imagine one answer. When, with a clear mind and heart, we turn to nature, we see happiness expressing itself in endlessly multiplied forms. The play of conscious life is every where around us, and it is the play of enjoyment. Every one is familiar with the felicitous passage of Paley, descriptive of this prevailing happiness of sentient existence ; and whatever shadows may lie in the background ob- vious objections to which we have already adverted there can not well be any dispute as to the truth as well as felicity of the Archdeacon's picture on the positive side. It can not be rationally doubted that pleasure is the appropriate correlative of sen- sation every where. The natural meaning of feel- ing, so to speak, is happiness. Feeling is no doubt also liable to be pain ; but and this alone is the point of our present argument pain is the excep- tion, pleasure the rule. If a nerve be lacerated, it will unquestionably give forth a sensation of pain ; but the expression of the nervous system is never- theless, in all animals, according to its originally constituted working- or in other words, when not interfered with pleasure. And this is what we in- tend by speaking of the normal action of sensation as pleasurable. The constitution of animal life is such that it yields, in harmonious operation, enjoy- 224 THEISM. ment. The design, therefore, of that constitution is clearly benevolent, even if it were, in the actual circumstances of the case, more liable to interference than it is. In truth, however, it is not only designed to evolve happiness, but so secured in its working that the design is for the most part effectually ac- complished. Happiness ascends million-voiced to the great Source of Being day by day. It is a living, if often inarticulate speech, diffused through creation, and warming it every where with the breath of thanks- giving. It is a song of natural piety which is new every morning, and fails not every evening, although many jars mingle in the wide-toned benedicite. These mar the harmony of the song, but still it goes upward, a pervading strain of happiness, in testimony of the Love from which it comes, and in which alone it lives. II CHAPTER XI. INS! INCT. BEFORE passing onward in our inductive psycho- logical survey, we are met by a question of special theistic interest, in regard to the display of mind in certain of the lower animals. We do not here, indeed, propose to meddle with the general ques- tion of animal mind, which presents so many ap- parently insuperable difficulties ; but that peculiar manifestation of intelligence, in many of the lower creation, which has received the name of " Instinct," and which has been supposed to bear with a very conclusive effect upon our subject, demands from us a passing notice. The cell-making of the bee, and the nest-building of the bird, are familiar examples of instinct. The mental power, displayed by the animal in these operations, appear to be wholly singular. In ordi- nary cases, mind works only according to instruc- tion and experience: it is dependent on education, and increases with exercise. In these and other similar cases it operates, in the language of Paley, 10* 226 THEISM. "prior to experience, and independent of instruc- tion." Nor is this all. The definition of Paley broadly as it demarcates the mode of instinct from that of mind in. the ordinary sense is considered by Lord Brougham to fail in expressing the most essential element of distinction between the two; viz., the conscious intention or foresight which is ever present in the one case in any effort of higher constructiveness, but which, in many cases of instinct, it seems wholly impossible to conceive present. The bee or the bird, for example, not only works toward the most beautiful results builds the one its cell,