INCONCEIVABLENESS OF HETEROGENY.

255

but no indication of an acarus was observed. At last, however, he saw one-here, then, was the creation. He anxiously took his glass from his pocket, to examine its structure, when, on bringing it close enough to be observed, he found the animal was on the outside of the bell-glass in which the experiment had been conducted!""

To cite but one more testimony-the most recent, and considering its author, perhaps the most important-in condemnation of this conjectural creation; Mr. Darwin writing to the Athenæum, says "I hope you will permit me to add a few remarks on Heterogeny, as the old doctrine of spontaneous generation is now called, to those given by Dr. Carpenter, who, however, is probably better fitted to discuss the question than any other man in England. Your reviewer believes that certain lowly organized animals have been generated spontaneously— that is, without pre-existing parents-during each geological period in slimy ooze. A mass of mud with matter decaying and undergoing complex chemical changes is a fine hiding place for obscurity of ideas. But let us face the problem boldly. He who believes that organic beings have been produced during each geological period from dead matter, must believe that the first being thus arose. There must have been a time when inorganic elements alone existed in our planet: let any assumptions be made, such as that the reeking atmosphere was charged with carbonic acid, nitrogenized compounds, phosphorus, &c. Now is there a fact, or a shadow of a fact, supporting the belief that these elements, without the presence of any organic compounds, and acted on only by known forces, could produce a living creature? At present, it is to us a result absolutely inconceivable."

i.

26

"British Quarterly Review, vol. p. 501.

forces,' he has, of course, a right to his opinion; though by most naturalists such spontaneous generation' of rotalines and nummulites will be regarded as a far more 'astounding hypothesis' than the one for which it is offered as a substitute. But I hold that mine is the more scientific, as being conformable to the fact

Here then we may dismiss this first and fundamental doctrine of "naturalism," as disowned and disavowed by naturalists themselves. On their own showing, there is neither a fact, nor a shadow of a fact, to support it; and it is "absolutely inconceivable." The Truth of Science confirms the Truth of Scripture, and admits no other origin of animated being than the inexhaustible energy of that Creative Spirit who, in primæval chaos, first "brooded" on the face of the waters.

Nor is the second, or developmental theory, more fortunate. That theory asserts, as we have seen, that "the simplest and most primitive type gave birth to a type superior to it ;" "this again produced the next higher, and so on to the highest ;" "an advance, under favour of peculiar conditions, from the simplest forms of being to the next more complicated." We must thus go back to the infusorial point, "whose seed was in itself," for the germ of human existence, and then, in retracing our steps, notice how throughout the whole marvellous process there is no mixture of the supernatural.

But the very first thing that strikes us is, that this effort to avoid the supernatural is itself supernatural. For, according to this theory, it cannot be said either of the first infusorial point or of any of its products, that its seed is in itself; but rather that it is endowed with the seed of the next being higher in the scale. Like produces like; that is natural: but it is the very fundamental principle of this theory that like produces unlike, and that is supernatural. The illustrative examples, however, by which the theory might have gained a basis of actual fact, are not to be found. Their place has to be supplied by conjecture. Thus e.g., Mr. Darwin says, "I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same class.' And again: "I can indeed hardly doubt that all vertebrate animals having true lungs, have descended, by ordinary generation from an ancient prototype, of which we know nothing, furnished with a floating

.; whilst his is not supported anywhere else." by any evidence that rotalines or 1863 p. 461.) nummulites ever originate spontaneously, either in 'ooze' or

27

(Athenæum for

Origin of Species: p. 484.

MR. DARWIN'S CONJECTURES.

257

apparatus or swim-bladder." "It is conceivable that the now utterly lost branchiæ might have been gradually worked in by natural selection for some quite distinct purpose, in the same manner as . . . it is probable that organs which at a very ancient period served for respiration, have been actually converted into organs of flight."" Now, all this is mere conjecture. First, it is assumed that swim-bladders are used for the purpose of oxygenizing the blood of fishes. Next, it is assumed that these modified swim-bladders are transformed into lungs to form the bronchiæ by which the blood of land animals is oxygenized. And lastly, it is very modestly assumed that the mere possession of lungs, which show palpably that their possessors were purposed and constituted, not for living in water, but in air, betrays their aquatic origin!" This is the triumphant conclusion drawn from such elaborate arguments as "I can hardly doubt," "I cannot doubt," "It is conceivable," "It is probable;" and then this conclusion is "worked up" as an established fact, for the purpose of establishing other notions, equally illogical, with just an equal amount of demonstration. Such vagaries do indeed shew how easily the process of argument can be conducted when the conclusion is foregone. "From the beginning of the book to the end, we have not one jot of direct and substantial evidence in favor of this theory, by which the belief of the whole Christian world is to be overthrown. It is conjecture at the beginning, conjecture in the middle, conjecture at the conclusion, conjecture throughout. Facts, whose evidence might be turned into quite another channel, are bent into one particular direction. The absence of facts is made to tell in the same direction-imagination being called upon to fill up the hiatus."

> 30

There still remain facts, however, whose evidence cannot be thus tortured: and foremost among these, for its recency, as well as for the high authority on which it rests, is the general fact that "there has been no advance in the foraminiferous type from the palæozoic period to the present time." Such is

28 Ibid.,
p. 191.

29 .. Land animals, which in their lungs or modified swim-bladders betray

their aquatic origin." (Ib. p. 196.) 30 Christian Observer, vol. lix.,

p. 565.

R

the explicit testimony of an authority to whose perfect competency Mr. Darwin himself has paid a handsome tribute in estimating it more highly than that of "any other man in England:" the testimony of Dr. Carpenter, in his recent "Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera." And by this testimony, as he has subsequently stated, we are put in possession of his "conviction that the present state of scientific evidence, instead of sanctioning the idea that the descendants of the primitive type or types of Foraminifera can ever rise to any higher grade, justifies the anti-Darwinian inference, that however widely they diverge from each other and from their originals, they still remain Foraminifera.'

" 31

Now, how does Mr. Darwin deal with this absolute matter of fact, this unquestionable "scientific evidence?" Characteristically enough, he first admits what he finds impossible to deny, and then proceeds to supplement his extorted admission with a gratuitous assertion that renders it null and void. He says that the objection to his views, furnished by the fact now stated, "is grounded on the belief-the prevalence of which seems due to the well-known doctrine of Lamarck-that there is some necessary law of advancement, against which view I have often protested."" So that while making the distinct admission "that certain groups of animals, such as the Foraminifera, have not advanced in organization" "from an extremely remote epoch to the present day," he first protests against the doctrine of development, which hitherto he has been universally understood to maintain; and then neutralizes his own admission by adding that "as we do not know under what forms or how life originated in this world, it would be rash to assert that even

TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY.

" 33

259

such lowly endowed animals as the Foraminifera, with their beautiful shells as figured by Dr. Carpenter, have not in any degree advanced in organization." So that with Dr. Carpenter's words (just quoted) before him, condemning, as opposed to scientific evidence, the idea that the Foraminifera "can ever advance, Mr. Darwin still declares that it would be rash to assert that they have not advanced. Mr. Darwin says that he perceives no force in Dr. Carpenter's "objection" to his views. Dr. Carpenter may well reply that he perceives no force in Mr. Darwin's "protest" against the doctrine of Lamarck.

It is a triumph for the facts of the case, however, that one who has displayed such singular ingenuity in their "natural selection," should yet be constrained to appear to protest against the doctrine which in reality he has subserved. Those facts are in irreconcileable hostility to that doctrine. Even Humboldt-who, as we have seen, could proclaim himself a believer in "primordial necessity," shewed this doctrine no mercy. "What displeases me in Strauss," says he, "is the scientific levity which leads him to see no difficulty in the organic springing from the inorganic, nay, man himself from Chaldean mud." ." "Nothing is more obvious than that if the development theory were true, the earlier fossils would have been very small in size, and very low in organization. But the very reverse is the case. We meet with giants where we should have found dwarfs, and creatures of a high organization instead of creatures of a low one. In one of the ablest replies to this fanciful hypothesis, Hugh Miller shows that the oldest ganoids yet known, are, both as to size and organization, in direct opposition to it. "Up to a certain point in the geologic scale we find that the ganoids are not; and when they at length make their appearance upon the stage, they enter large in their stature, and high in their organization." * The Fossil Flora also contradict it. At the base of the Old Red Sandstone where, according to the development theory, "nothing higher than a lichen or a moss could have been expected, the ship-carpenter

33 Ibid.

34

34

33+ Letters to Varnhagen: First Edition, p. 117. Footprints of the Creator: p. 105.