on the origin of Nature resemble the distempered ravings of lunacy, rather than the mature results of philosophic thought "Physio-philosophy has to show," says Dr. Oken, "how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin, and, therefore, how something took its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method, by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and, in man, attained self-consciousness. … Physio-philosophy is, therefore, the generative history of the world; or, in general terms, the history of Creation, a name under which it was taught by the most ancient philosophers, namely, as Cosmogony. From its embracing the Universe, it is plainly the Genesis of Moses!"[37]
It will be observed that this strange speculation goes far beyond the comparatively modest conjecture of La Place. It postulates nothing, and undertakes to account for everything. In flagrant opposition to the old atheistic maxim, "Ex nihilo, nihil," it boldly affirms, "Ex nihilo, omnia." It speaks, indeed, of "laws in accordance with which the world took its origin;" but these laws must be as abstract as those of Mathematics, since they existed before matter itself; nay, more abstract, or, rather, more inconceivable still, since they existed, it would seem, even before Mind! Dr. Oken attempts to explain the production of the world from nothing by comparing it to the evolution of Arithmetical and Mathematical Science, out of the fundamental conception of zero! But, waiving this, we shall direct our attention to the only points in this theory which, in the existing state of speculative thought, can be held to have any practical interest in connection with our great theme.
That theory attempts to account for the production both of the Flora and the Fauna of the natural world by the process of Development rather than by the miracle of Creation. It proceeds on the assumption, akin to that of Epicurus, that atoms or monads alone existed in the first instance; and that from these were derived, under the action of natural law and by a process of gradual development, all existing substances and beings, whether organic or inorganic, mineral, vegetable, or animal. "No organism has been created," says Dr. Oken, "of larger size than an infusorial point. No organism is, nor ever has one been created, which is not microscopic. Whatever is larger has not been created, but developed. Man has not been created, but developed." On this fundamental assumption the whole theory is based. But we must carefully distinguish between the Atomic Theory and the application which is here made of it. The recent discoveries of Chemistry, by which all material compounds have been decomposed into their constituent elements, amounting to little more than fifty substances, which are either the primary or the proximate bases of all existing bodies, and the marvellous transformations which these elementary principles undergo, in respect alike of form, of density, of solidity, and of magnitude, under the action of natural laws—may serve to make it credible that there is no a priori impossibility in the assumption on which the Atomic Theory depends. Had it been the will of God to call into being the various vegetable and animal races in the way of gradual evolution out of these primary monads, no enlightened Theist will presume to say that it was either impossible, or inconsistent with His wisdom to do so. It must be observed, however, that the natural analogies which have sometimes been appealed to in support of this hypothesis, labor under a grievous defect when they are applied to account for the origin of the existing races, and that they are extended far beyond their legitimate limits when they are supposed to prove that these races might begin to be without any direct interposition of creative power. For, while the oak may spring from an acorn, and the largest animal from a microscopic monad, yet within the whole range of our experience both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, the seed is produced by the organism, and necessarily presupposes it; whence it follows, either that there must have been an eternal succession of organisms producing seed, and thereby perpetuating the race, or if this be inconceivable, still more if it can be disproved by geological or historical evidence, then that the analogy of our present experience leads us up, not to "an infusorial point" or "microscopic monad," but to a primary living organism as the commencement of each existing tribe. In the words of Dr. Barclay, "It will not be easy, on any principles exclusive of the vital, to answer these questions, What was the origin of the first egg, or what was the origin of the first bird? For where is the egg that comes not from a bird, and where is the bird that comes not from an egg? To the mere materialists, who exclude every species of vitality but that from organism, this problem is nearly as embarrassing as the origin of the Universe itself."[38]
If these views be correct, all the natural analogies would lead us to acquiesce, as Dr. Barclay did, in the Mosaic narrative as the most philosophical account of the commencement of the present order of things. It traces up every race to a primary organism, endowed with reproductive powers; for it tells us, in regard to the Flora, that God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so." And it tells us, with regard to the Fauna, that God said, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."
Here the distinction between different genera and species, and the provision that was made for the perpetuation of different races, are prominently presented; while the production, in the first instance, not of an "infusorial point" or "microscopic monad," but of a living organism capable of multiplying its kind, is expressly declared; and every race is traced up to that primary organism, in perfect consistency with the only law, whether of vegetable or animal reproduction, which is known to be in operation at the present day. And this law of reproduction, so far from being exclusive of a primary act of Creation, seems to presuppose and require it; for there must be a living organism before there can be vital transmission. But the theory of Physiological Development proceeds on a totally different supposition—a supposition for the truth of which we have not only no historical evidence, but not even the slightest analogical presumption, since we have no instance of development anywhere except from a germ or seed, produced by an organism preëxisting in a state of maturity.
But the exigencies of that theory demand a wide departure from all the familiar lessons of experience; and hence recourse has been had to a series of the wildest and most extravagant conjectures, such as may well justify the opinion of those who have held that the creed of certain philosophers makes a much larger demand on human credulity than that of almost any section of the Christian Church. For, according to that theory, the origin of the Flora is first accounted for by the action of some element—probably electricity—on a certain mucus, which is supposed to be generated at those points where the ocean comes into contact with the earth and air; that is, on the shore of the sea at low water mark. Maillet had broached the idea of the marine origin of all our present "herbs, plants, roots, and grains,"[39] at a period when the Universal Ocean, of which Leibnitz said so much, was still the creed of some speculative minds; but it has been more recently revived, and exhibited in greater detail, though not with stronger evidence, by some writers of our own age. Thus Dr. Oken tells us that "all life is from the sea;" that "when the sea organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in attaining into form, there issues forth from it a higher organism;" and that "the first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea." And so the author of "The Vestiges" attempts to show that new races, both of plants and animals, marine and terrestrial, may be accounted for, without any act of immediate creation, by a change or transmutation of species resulting from the agency of natural causes. "There is," as he tells us, "another set of phenomena presented in the course of our history; the coming into existence, namely, of a long suite of living things, vegetable and animal, terminating in the families which we still see occupying the surface. The question arises—In what manner has this set of phenomena originated? Can we touch at, and rest for a moment on, the possibility of plants and animals having likewise been produced in the way of Natural Law, thus assigning but one class of causes for everything revealed to our sensual observation? Or are we at once to reject
