Part 13

My sincere desire in the composition of the book was to give the true view of the history of nature, with as little disturbance as possible to existing beliefs, whether philosophical or religious. I have made little reference to any doctrines of the latter kind which may be thought inconsistent with mine, because to do so would have been to enter upon questions for the settlement of which our knowledge is not yet ripe. Let the reconciliation of whatever is true in my views with whatever is true in other systems come about in the fulness of calm and careful inquiry. I cannot but here remind the reader of what Dr. Wiseman has shewn so strikingly in his lectures, how different new philosophic doctrines are apt to appear after we have become somewhat familiar with them. Geology at first seems inconsistent with the authority of the Mosaic record. A storm of unreasoning indignation rises against its teachers. In time, its truths, being found quite irresistible, are admitted, and mankind continue to regard the Scriptures with the same respect as before. So also with several other sciences. Now the only objection that can be made on such ground to this book, is, that it brings forward some new hypotheses, at first sight, like geology, not in perfect harmony with that record, and arranges all the rest into a system which partakes of the same character. But may not the sacred text, on a liberal interpretation, or with the benefit of new light reflected from nature, or derived from learning, be shewn to be as much in harmony with the novelties of this volume as it has been with geology and natural philosophy? What is there in the laws of organic creation more startling to the candid theologian than in the Copernican system or the natural formation of strata? And if the whole series of facts is true, why should we shrink from inferences legitimately flowing from it? Is it not a wiser course, since reconciliation has come in so many instances, still to hope for it, still to go on with our new truths, trusting that they also will in time be found harmonious with all others? Thus we avoid the damage which the very appearance of an opposition to natural truth is calculated to inflict on any system presumed to require such support. Thus we give, as is meet, a respectful reception to what is revealed through the medium of nature, at the same time that we fully reserve our reverence for all we have been accustomed to hold sacred, not one tittle of which it may ultimately be found necessary to alter.

FOOTNOTES.

{3} By Mr. Henderson, Professor of Astronomy in the Edinburgh University, and Lieutenant Meadows.

{5} Made by M. Argelander, late director of the Observatory at Abo.

{6} Professor Mossotti, on the Constitution of the Sidereal System, of which the Sun forms a part.—London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine, February, 1843.

{9} The orbitual revolutions of the satellites of Uranus have not as yet been clearly scanned. It has been thought that their path is retrograde compared with the rest. Perhaps this may be owing to a bouleversement of the primary, for the inclination of its equator to the ecliptic is admitted to be unusually high; but the subject is altogether so obscure, that nothing can be founded on it.

{12} Astronomy, Lardner’s Cyclopædia.

{17} M. Compte combined Huygens’s theorems for the measure of centrifugal force with the law of gravitation, and thus formed a simple fundamental equation between the duration of the rotation of what he calls the producing star, and the distance of the star produced. The constants of this equation were the radius of the central star, and the intensity of gravity at its surface, which is a direct consequence of its mass. It leads directly to the third law of Kepler, which thus becomes susceptible of being conceived à priori in a cosmogonical point of view. M. Compte first applied it to the moon, and found, to his great delight, that the periodic time of that satellite agrees within an hour or two with the duration which the revolution of the earth ought to have had at the time when the lunar distance formed the limit of the earth’s atmosphere. He found the coincidence less exact, but still very striking in every other case. In those of the planets he obtained for the duration of the corresponding solar rotations a value always a little less than their actual periodic times. “It is remarkable,” says he, “that this difference, though increasing as the planet is more distant, preserves very nearly the same relation to the corresponding periodic time, of which it commonly forms the forty-fifth part,”—shewing, we may suppose, that only some small elements of the question had been overlooked by the calculator. The defect changes to an excess in the different systems of the satellites, where it is proportionally greater than in the planets, and unequal in the different systems. “From the whole of these comparisons,” says he, “I deduced the following general result:—Supposing the mathematical limit of the solar atmosphere successively extended to the regions where the different planets are now found, the duration of the sun’s rotation was, at each of these epochs, sensibly equal to that of the actual sidereal revolution of the corresponding planet; and the same is true for each planetary atmosphere in relation to the different satellites.”—Cours de Philosophie Positif.

{42} The researches on this subject were conducted chiefly by the late Baron Fourier, perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences of Paris. See his Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur. 1822.

{52} Delabeche’s Geological Researches.

{60} In the Cumbrian limestone occur “calamoporæ, lithodendra, cyathophylla, and orbicula.”—Philips. The asaphus and trinucleus (crustacea) have been found respectively in the slate rocks of Wales, and the limestone beds of the grawacke group in Bohemia. That fragments of crinoidea, though of no determinate species, occur in this system, we have the authority of Mr. Murchison.—Silurian System, p. 710.

{62} Such as amphioxus and myxene.

{64} Miller’s “New Walks in an Old Field.”

{68} June, 1842.

{84a} The principal families are named sphenopteris, neuropteris, and pecopteris.

{84b} A specimen from Bengal, in the staircase of the British Museum, is forty-five feet high.

{93} “Some of the most considerable dislocations of the border of the coal fields of Coalbrookdale and Dudley happened after the deposition of a part of the new red sandstone; but it is certain that those of Somersetshire and Gloucestershire were completed before the date of that rock.”—Philips.

{97} The immediate effects of the slow respiration of the reptilia are, a low temperature in their bodies, and a slow consumption of food. Requiring little oxygen, they could have existed in an atmosphere containing a less proportion of that gas to carbonic acid gas than what now obtains.

{99} The order to which frogs and toads belong.

{103} Dr. Buckland, quoting an article by Professor Hitchcock, in the American Journal of Science and Arts, 1836.

{108a} Murchison’s Silurian System, p. 583.

{108b} Buckland.

{110} In some instances, these fossils are found with the contents of the stomach faithfully preserved, and even with pieces of the external skin. The pellets ejected by them (coprolites) are found in vast numbers, each generally enclosed in a nodule of ironstone, and sometimes shewing remains of the fishes which had formed their food.

{114} De la Beche’s Geological Researches, p. 344.

{127} Thick-skinned animals. This term has been given by Cuvier to an order in which the hog, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros are included.

{149} Intervals in the series were numerous in the department of the pachydermata; many of these gaps are now filled up from the extinct genera found in the tertiary formation.

{151} See paper by Professor Edward Forbes, read to the British Association, 1839.

{159} Macculloch on the Attributes of the Deity, iii. 569.