Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845

But what is the resolution of this problem which the author of the Vestiges proposes? Assuredly not one which indicates the boldness of advancing science, but one of those hardy conjectures which are permitted to arise only in the infancy of a science, and which show how clear the field is, hitherto, of certain knowledge – how open to the very wantonness of speculation. Very little has been done towards determining the laws of life, and therefore the space is still free to those busy dreamers, who are to science what constructors of Utopias are to history and politics. His solution is simple enough, and with good reason may it be simple, since it depends on nothing but the will of its framer. The germ of life – that primary cell with its granule, in which some physiologists have detected the first elementary form of life – he finds to be a product of chemistry. From this germ, cell, or animalcule, or whatever it may be called, has been developed, in succession, all the various forms of existence – each form having, at some propitious moment, given birth to the form just above it, which again has not only propagated itself, but produced an offspring of a still higher grade in the scale of creation. Thus the introduction of life, and the various species of animals, is easily accounted for. "It has pleased Providence to arrange, that one species should give birth to another, till the second highest gave birth to man, who is the very highest." – (P. 234.) Under favourable skies, some remarkable baboon had, we presume, a family of Hottentots, whose facial angle, we believe, ranks them, with physiologists, next to the brute creation; these grew, and multiplied, and separated from the tribes of the Simiæ; under a system of improved diet, and perhaps by change of climate, they became first tawny, and then white, and at last rose into that Caucasian family of which we here, in England, boast ourselves to be distinguished members.

Such a solution as this most people will at once regard as utterly unworthy of serious consideration. This progressive development is nowhere seen, and contradicts all that we do see; for no progeny, even amongst hybrids, was ever known to be of a superior order, in the animal creation, to both its parents. Such a proposed origin of the human race would be sufficient, with most of us, for its condemnation. "Give us at least," we exclaim, "a man to begin with – some savage and his squaw – some Iceland dwarf if you will, wrapt in his nutritious oils – something in the shape of humanity!" In short, it is a thing to be scoffed away, and deserving only of a niche in some future Hudibras. But although the theory is thus rash and absurd, and requires only to be stated to be scouted, the author, in his exposition of it, advances some propositions which are deserving of attention, and for this reason it is we propose to give to his arguments a brief examination.

The theory divides itself into two parts – the production of organic life from the inorganic world; and the progressive development of the several species from the first simple elementary forms of life.

Spontaneous, or, as our author calls it, aboriginal generation, is a doctrine neither new, nor without its supporters. But unfortunately for his purposes, the class of cases of spontaneous generation which appear to be at all trustworthy, are those in which the animalcule, or other creatures, have been produced either within living bodies, (entozoa,) or from the putrefaction of vegetable or animal life, the decay and dissolution of some previous organization. Here life still produces life, though like does not produce like. It is well known that, amongst some of the lower class of animals, as amongst certain of the polypi, reproduction is nothing more than a species of growth; a bud sprouts out of the body, which, separating itself, becomes a new animal. With such an analogy before us, there appears nothing very improbable in the supposition that entozoa, and other descriptions of living creatures, should be produced from the tissues of the higher animals, either on a separation of their component parts when they decay, or on a partial separation when the animal is inflicted with disease. We make no profession of faith on this subject; we content ourselves with observing, that this class of cases, where the evidence is strongest, and approaches nearest to conviction, lends no support whatever to our author's hypothesis, and provides him with no commencement of vital phenomena. Of cases where life has been produced by the operation of purely chemical laws on inorganic matter, there are certainly none which will satisfy a cautious enquirer.

If Mr Crosse or Mr Weekes produce a species of worm by the agency of electricity, it is impossible to say that the germ of life was not previously existing in the fluid through which the electricity passed. When lime is thrown upon a field, and clover springs up, it is the far more probable supposition that the seed was there, but owing to ungenial circumstances had not germinated; for no one who has mentioned this fact has ventured to say that the experiment would always succeed, and that lime thrown upon a certain description of soil would in all parts of the world produce clover. Not to add, that it would be strange indeed if such an instance were solitary, and that other vegetation should not be produced by similar means.[3 - We were about to make some remarks on the alleged production of animated globules in albumen by electricity; but we find that, in a note to the third edition, the author virtually relinquishes this ground. We had made enquiries amongst scientific men; but no such experiment had been received or accredited amongst them.]

Vegetable and animal life, we ought here to mention, are considered by our author as both derived from the same elementary germ which branches out into the two great kingdoms of nature; so that it is of equal importance to him to find a case of spontaneous generation amongst the plants as amongst the animals. We must, therefore, extend the observation we made on a certain class of cases amongst animals, to an analagous class of supposed cases of spontaneous generation amongst vegetables. If that downy mould, for instance, which the good housewife finds upon her pots of jam, be considered as a vegetable, and be supposed to have grown without seed, it would be somewhat analagous to the entozoa amongst animals; it would be a vegetation produced by the decay of a previous vegetation.

It is only necessary to recall to mind the instances which naturalists record of the minuteness of the seeds of life, and the manner in which they may lie for a long time concealed, in order to induce us to presume, in the majority of examples that are alleged of spontaneous generation, the previous existence of the seed or the germ. Take the following from Dr Carpenter's work on Comparative Physiology: – "Another very curious example of fungous vegetation, in a situation where its existence was not until recently suspected, is presented in the process of fermentation. It appears from microscopic examination of a mass of yeast, that it consists of a number of minute disconnected vesicles, which closely resemble those of the Red Snow, and appear to constitute one of the simplest forms of vegetation. These, like seeds, nay remain for almost any length of time in an inactive condition without losing their vitality; but when placed in a fluid in which any kind of sugary matter is contained, they commence vegetating actively, provided the temperature is sufficiently high; and they assist in producing that change in the composition of the fluid which is known under the name of fermentation." – P. 74. With such instances before us, the experiments of Messieurs Crosse and Weekes must be conducted with singular care and judgment, in order to lead to any satisfactory result.

Let us be allowed to say, that the experiments of those gentlemen excite in us no horror or alarm. A Frankenstein who produces nothing worse than a harmless worm, may surely be suffered to go blameless. Let these electricians pursue their experiments, and make all the worms they can. They will incur no very grave responsibility for such additions as they can make to that stream of life which is pouring from every crack and crevice of the earth. Some persons have a vague idea, that there is something derogatory to the lowest form of animal life to have its origin in merely inorganic elements; an idea which results perhaps not so much from any subtle and elevated conceptions of life, as from an imagination unawakened to the dignity and the marvel of the inorganic world. What is motion but a sort of life? a life of activity if not of feeling. Suppose – what indeed nowhere exists – an inert matter, and let it be suddenly endowed with motion, so that two particles should fly towards each other from the utmost bounds of the universe; were not this almost as strange a property as that which endows an irritable tissue or an organ of secretion? Is not the world one– the creature of one God – dividing itself, with constant interchange of parts, into the sentient and the non-sentient, in order, so to speak, to become conscious of itself? Are we to place a great chasm between the sentient and the non-sentient, so that it shall be derogation to a poor worm to have no higher genealogy than the element which is the lightning of heaven, and too much honour to the subtle chemistry of the earth to be the father of a crawling subject, of some bag, or sack, or imperceptible globule of animal life? No; we have no recoil against this generation of an animalcule by the wonderful chemistry of God; our objection to this doctrine is, that it is not proved.

But, proved or not, our author has still the most difficult part of his task to accomplish. From his animated globule he has to develop the whole creation of vegetable and animal life. We shall be contented with watching its development through one branch, that of the animal kingdom.

The idea of the development of the animal creation from certain primary rudiments or simple forms of life, is due, we believe, to Lamarck; and although his peculiar theory has met, and deservedly, with ridicule, we do not hesitate to say that it is far more plausible, and substantially far more rational, than that which our author has substituted. Geology reveals to us a gradual extinction of species, accompanied by a successive appearance of new species;[4 - "In tracing the series of fossiliferous formations, from the most ancient to the more modern, the first deposits in which we meet with assemblages of organic remains having a near analogy to the Fauna of certain parts of the globe in our own time, are those commonly called tertiary. Even in the Eocene, or oldest subdivision of these tertiary formations, some few of the testacea belong to existing species, although almost all of them, and apparently all the associated vertebrata, are now extinct. These Eocene strata are succeeded by a great number of modern deposits, which depart gradually in the character of their fossils from the Eocene type, and approach more and more to that of the living creation. In the present state of science, it is chiefly by the aid of shells that we are enabled to arrive at the results; for, of all classes, the testacea are the most generally diffused in a fossil state, and may be called the medals principally employed by nature in recording the chronology of past events. In the Miocene deposits, which succeed next to the Eocene, we begin to find a considerable number, although still a minority, of recent species intermixed with some fossils common to the preceding epoch. We then arrive at the Pliocene strata, in which species now contemporary with man begin to preponderate, and in the newest of which nine-tenths of the fossils agree with species still inhabiting the neighbouring sea."In thus passing from the older to the newer members of the tertiary system, we meet with many chasms; but none which separate entirely, and by a broad line of demarcation, one state of the organic world from another. There are no signs of an abrupt termination of one Fauna and Flora, and the starting into life of new and wholly distinct forms. Although we are far from being able to demonstrate geologically an insensible transition from the Eocene to the recent Fauna, yet we may affirm that the more we enlarge and perfect our survey of Europe, the more nearly do we approximate to such a continuous series, and the more gradually are we conducted from times when many of the genera and nearly all the species were extinct, to those in which scarcely a single species flourished which we do not know to exist at present." – Lyell's Principles of Geology. Vol. i. p. 283.] it reveals to us also that the surface of the earth has undergone great mutations; that land and sea have frequently changed places; and that the climate of the several regions of the world, owing to many causes, has greatly varied. Natural history is replete with striking accounts of the modifications produced in a race of animals by the change of climate, diet, and the enforcement of new habits; and linking all these facts together, it does not appear a very violent supposition, nor one that departs from the frequent analogies of nature, to say, that the causes which have brought about the extinction of certain species may have also operated to the development of new species. The manifest error of Lamarck was an egregious exaggeration of certain well-known truths. Because external circumstances may do much in directing the inherent power of development possessed by a given organization, he resolved that it should do every thing. The camelopard was to get his long neck by stretching for his food; and the duck her web-foot by paddling in the water. But the author before us breaks loose entirely from the region of facts; or rather he announces to us, on his own responsibility, an entirely new fact – that it is the law of animal life that each species should, from time to time, produce a brood of the species next in order of perfection or complexity of organization. With him, this development is the result merely of a law of generation which he himself has devised to meet the emergency.

Amongst the laws of life, the most conspicuous and undoubted is this – that each species reproduces itself, that like begets like. This law our author cannot of course gainsay; but he appends to it another overruling law, that from time to time, at long intervals, the like does not beget the like, but the different and superior form of organization. In other words, the old law changes from time to time. Of this novel description of law he borrows the following illustration of Mr Babbage: —

Unquestionably, what we ordinarily see of nature is calculated to impress a conviction that each species invariably produces its like. But I would here call attention to a remarkable illustration of natural law, which has been brought forward by Mr Babbage in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. The reader is requested to suppose himself seated before the calculating machine and observing it. It is moved by a weight, and there is a wheel which revolves through a small angle round its axis, at short intervals, presenting to the eye successively a series of numbers engraved on its divided circumference.

"Let the figures thus seen, be the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. &c., of natural numbers, each of which exceeds its immediate antecedent by unity.

"Now, reader," says Mr Babbage, "let me ask you how long you will have counted before you are firmly convinced that the engine has been so adjusted that it will continue, whilst its motion is maintained, to produce the same series of natural numbers. Some minds are so constituted, that after passing the first hundred terms they will be satisfied that they are acquainted with the law. After seeing five hundred terms, few will doubt; and after the fifty thousandth term, the propensity to believe that the succeeding term will be fifty thousand and one, will be almost irresistible. That term will be fifty thousand and one, and the same regular succession will continue; the five millionth, and the fifty millionth term will still appear in their expected order, and one unbroken chain of natural numbers will pass before your eyes from one up to one hundred million.

"True to the vast induction which has been made the next succeeding term will be one hundred million and one; but the next number presented by the rim of the wheel, instead of being, one hundred million and two, is one hundred million ten thousand and two. The law changes."

The illustration is carried through a page or two more, but we have quoted all that is essential.

Mr Babbage makes a very useless parade here of his calculating machine. A common household clock that strikes the hours, would illustrate all that his machine can possibly illustrate. If the reader seat himself before that homely piece of mechanism, he will hear it tick for sixty minutes, when the law of the machine will change, and it will strike.

In a scientific point of view it is absurd to talk about the law of his machine. His machine partakes only of the laws of mechanics, which, we presume, are as constant there as elsewhere. Our only definition of law is, a sequence that is constant; deny its constancy, and you deny it to be law; it is a mere contradiction in terms to speak of a law that changes.

If, therefore, our author, guided by this illustration of Mr Babbage's, proclaims a law of animal life which changes of itself from time to time, he is departing from the fundamental principle of all science – he who is so zealous to reduce all phenomenon to the formula of science! Anxious to escape from an abrupt interposition of creative power, he introduces a sudden mutability in the laws themselves of nature! If it be said that he does not (although his words imply it) insist upon a single law of nature that varies at intervals, but contends for a variable result, produced by the law of reproduction acting under varied circumstances, and in co-operation with different laws – then was Mr Babbage's machine of no use whatever to him, nor did he stand in need of any peculiar illustration. There is not a class of phenomena which does not exhibit this variety of result by the diversified co-operation of laws constant in themselves. The frozen river becomes motionless; it ceases to flow; yet no one attributes any inconstancy to the laws of heat, or the laws of hydrostatics.

Quitting these abstractions, in which the writer before has shown himself no very great adept, let us enquire by what arguments he attempts to support his peculiar principles of development. That on which he appears chiefly to rely is the fact, that the embryo of one of the higher animals passes through the fœtal stages of the lower animals – the fish, the reptile, the bird – before it assumes its last definite shape. From this he would infer, that the germ of life is alike in all, and that it depends only on peculiarities of gestation whether it shall become a fish, a fowl, or a mammal. He lays particular stress on the circumstance, that the brain of the human embryo passes through these several stages.

But, 1. In order to derive any thing like an argument here, surely the whole human embryo, and not the brain only, ought to undergo these changes. But not only in man, in the other mammalia to which allusion is made, it is never the entire animal which passes through these transformations.

2. If the embryo of one of the mammalia pass through the fœtal stages of the fish and the bird, the embryo fish bears the same transitory resemblance to the fœtal condition of the bird or the mammal. So that the order here is reversed, and nothing appears proved but that some deviations of form are in all cases assumed before the final shape is adopted. And,

3. The physiologists who have made this branch of their science an especial study, tell us, as the result of their microscopic observations, that the embryo of the higher animals pursues a different course of development, from the very earliest stages, to that of the lower animals. It cannot be, therefore, according to the diagram that the author presents to us, that the same germ which is nourished up to a certain point to be fish, would, if transferred to other care and a better system of nutrition, be nourished into a bird or a mammal. If it is to be a mammal, it must be fashioned accordingly from the very beginning.

We will content ourselves with quoting, as our authority for these assertions, a passage from Dr Carpenter's work on Comparative Physiology; and we cite this author the more willingly, because he is certainly not one who is himself disposed to damp the ardour of speculation, and because the very similarity of some of his views, or expressions, renders him, at all events, an unexceptionable witness on this occasion.

"Allusion has been made to the correspondence which is discernible between the transitory forms exhibited by the embryos of the higher beings, and the permanent conditions of the lower. When this was first observed, it was stated as a general law, that all the higher animals, in the progress of their development, pass through a series of forms analogous to those encountered in ascending the animal scale. But this is not correct, for the entire animal never does exhibit such resemblance, except in a few particular cases to which allusion has already been made, (the case of the frog, and others, who undergo what is commonly called a metamorphosis.) And the resemblance, or analogy, which exists between individual organs, has no reference to their forms, but to their condition or grade of development. Thus we find the heart of the mammalia, which finally possesses four distinct cavities, at first in the condition of a prolonged tube, being a dilatation of the principal arterial trunk, and resembling the dorsal vessel of the articulated classes; subsequently it becomes shortened in relation to the rest of the structure, and presents a greater diameter, whilst a division of its cavity into two parts – a ventricle and an auricle – is evident, as in fishes; a third cavity, like that possessed by reptiles, is next formed by the subdivision of the auricle previously existing; and lastly, a fourth chamber is produced by the growth of a partition across the ventricle; and in perfect harmony with these changes are the metamorphoses presented by the system of vessels immediately proceeding from the heart. In like manner, the evolution of the brain in man is found to present conditions which may be successively compared with those of the fish, reptile bird, lower mammalia, and higher mammalia; but in no instance is there an exact identity between any of these. It is to be remembered, that every animal must pass through some change in the progress of its development, from its embryonic to its adult condition; and the correspondence is much closer between the embryonic fish and the fœtal bird, or mammal, than between these and the adult fish." – (P. 196.)

And take, also, the following short passage from the preface of the same work, where the author has been speaking of the latest discoveries of physiologists on the development of the embryo.

"Thus, when we ascend the scale of being, in either of the two organized kingdoms, we observe the principle of specialisation remarkably illustrated in the development of the germ into the perfect structure. In the lowest of each kind, the first-formed membranous expansion has the same character throughout, and the whole enters into the fully-developed structure. In higher grades the whole remains, but the organs evolved from the centre have evidently the most elevated character. In the highest none but the most central portion is persistent; the remainder forming organs of a temporary and subservient nature."

The fact that the animal kingdom exhibits a gradual progression from forms the most simple to forms the most complex, is, of course, appropriated by our author as a proof of his theory of successive development. It is well known, that whilst this scale of being is an idea which occurs to every observer, the naturalist finds insuperable difficulties in arranging the several species of animals according to such a scale. To relieve himself from these, the author has taken under his patronage what, in honour of its founder, he calls the Macleay System, in which the animal kingdom is "arranged along a series of close affinities, in a circular form;" into which circles we will excuse ourselves from entering. It is a system as confused as it is fantastic; and our author, who writes in general in a clear and lucid manner, in vain attempts to present us with an intelligible exposition of it. Arrange the animal creation how you will, in a line or in circles, there is one fact open to every observer, that however fine may be the gradations amongst the lower animals, the difference between the higher animals is very distinctly marked. It is a difference which does not at all accord with the hypothesis of our author, "that the simplest and most primitive type gave birth to the type next above it, and this again produced the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases very small – namely, from one species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of simple and modest character." Whilst he confines himself to mollusks, and suchlike obscure creatures, the phenomenon he supposes may not be very startling; but when he ascends to the higher and larger animals, whose forms and habits are well known to us – when he has to find a father for the horse, the lion, the rhinoceros, the elephant – his phenomenon, we are sure, will no longer retain its "simple and modest character."

Naturalists have observed, that there is a striking uniformity of plan even amongst animals of very different habits, and which, perhaps, inhabit different elements; they have remarked, that this uniformity is adhered to even when it appears to answer no specific purpose, as when in the fin of a whale the unbending bone bears the semblance of the jointed hand. This, too, is pressed into the service of our author's hypothesis. It is a curious fact. But if we say of it, that it appears to hint the existence of some law, and to tempt the investigation of the physiologist, we assign to it all the scientific importance that it can possibly deserve.

Some physiologists, we must be permitted to observe, have rather amused themselves by a display of ingenuity, than profited science by their discoveries of a unity of structure in animals of the most opposite description. It is easy to surprise the imagination by pointing out unexpected resemblances, if all cases of diversity are at the same time kept out of view. These writers will mention, for instance, that all quadrupeds have uniformly seven bones in the neck. The giraffe has no more than the pig. But they refuse to mention at the same time, that in birds the number varies from nine to twenty-three, and in reptiles from three to eight. Sometimes the merest fancy is indulged. We are told that in the pulpy substance of a certain mollusk there are lines drawn presenting a sketch of a vertebrated animal, and it is gravely intimated that nature seems to have made a rough design of the next work of art she was about to produce.

When Dr Carpenter tells us, in exemplifying this law of unity of composition, that "the skull is but an expansion of the three highest vertebræ, modified to afford space for the development of the contained brain and of the organs of sense," p. 191 – is he much wiser than those entomologists whom he had been previously criticising for "maintaining that the wing of an insect is a modification of its leg?" Verily we suspect that if Martinus Scriblerus had had his attention drawn to this manner of viewing things, it would have greatly excited his learned ingenuity; he would probably have begun to apply this scientific method to a variety of things, and found a unity of composition never before dreamt of. What should have prevented him from casting a philosophic glance upon the furniture of his room? With less ingenuity than certain physiologists, he would easily detect a marvellous unity of plan. He would have probably taken the table with its four legs, and the disk they support, as his great type of joinery, and would have traced a modification of this type in all the articles around him. The chair is manifestly nothing else than the table, with a development of the hinder legs commonly called the back. From the chair to the sofa the transition would be ridiculously easy; indeed the sofa can only be considered as a variety of the chair, produced by a high state of cultivation. In the footstool, or ottoman, the disk of the table has become thick and pulpy, while its legs have dwindled into small globular supports. This exaggeration of the upper portion at the expense of the lower, is carried a step further in the chest of drawers, where the small globular supports bear a singular disproportion to the corpulent figure they sustain. In some varieties even these knob-like legs are wanting; but precisely in these cases, he would observe, the knobs invariably re-appear in the shape of handles, which are still a sort of paw. What is the fire-screen, he would say, but a table with the disk in a vertical position? What the four-post bedstead but a reduplication of the original type, a table placed on a table, the upper one being laid open? If he had had the advantage of reading Mr Dickens, he would have mentioned, in confirmation of this view, that young Mr Weller, when sleeping under a table, congratulates himself upon enjoying the luxury of a four-post bedstead. The coal-scuttle might perhaps present some difficulties; but if he might be allowed to approach it through the loo-table, he would doubtless succeed in tracing here also the unity of composition. In the loo-table the four legs have collapsed into a central column! The coal-scuttle is only a loo-table with the edges of the disk curled up – assuming a bonnet-like shape, the result, perhaps, of its long domesticity. In short, we believe the only insuperable difficulty Martin would encounter, would be, when, after having completed his survey, he would run off to the joiner to convince him of the unity of plan on which he had been so unconsciously working.

It was a bold step of our author's to adduce the geographical distribution of the several species of animals as a proof of his law of development. To most minds it would have immediately occurred as an objection. Each region of the earth has its own peculiar fauna, and this difference is not accountable on any known influence of soil or climate. What can explain the peculiar fauna of New Holland? If all the varieties of animal life spring from one and the same germ under the uniform laws of nature, how is it that in some regions, fitted in every respect for the support of animal life, no animals whatever of the higher order are found? "New Zealand, which may be compared in dimensions to Ireland united with Scotland, which extends over more than 700 miles in latitude, and is in its many parts 90 miles broad, with varied stations, a fine climate, and land of all heights, from 14,000 feet downwards, does not possess one indigenous quadruped, with the exception of a small rat." —Lyell's Principles of Geology, Vol. i. p. 102. Other instances equally striking might be mentioned. How are we to explain them upon our author's hypothesis? Are we to make supposition upon supposition, and presume that the land of New Zealand had not been long enough emerged from the sea to allow of the ample development of the original germ of life; and that, if the rat had been left to himself, he would in process of time have peopled the whole region with dogs, and horses, and oxen, or some other analogous quadrupeds?

But our readers have perhaps heard sufficient of an hypothesis which is built only on a series of conjectures, and we ourselves are wearied with a too easy victory. There are many other topics in the book which would far better reward discussion than the one we have chosen – as, for instance, the geological views here put forward, the claims of phrenology, and the difference between instinct and intelligence; but if disposed to treat these subjects, we could have found other and more suitable opportunities; we thought it fit to select that which forms the peculiarity of the present work.

But absurd as the matter is, we must complete the account which the author gives of the development of that race in which we are chiefly interested – man. We have seen, that according to his law of progressive generation, and as an instance of what he denominates "a modest and simple phenomenon," man was one day born of the monkey or the ape. But this discovered law has not only thus happily introduced the human being upon the earth, it also throws light upon the diversities which exist in the family of man.

"The causes of the various external peculiarities of mankind, now require some attention. Why, it is asked, are the Africans black, and generally marked by ungainly forms? Why the flat features of the Chinese, and the comparatively well-formed figures of the Caucasians? Why the Mongolians generally yellow, the Americans red, and the Canadians white? These questions were complete puzzles to all early writers; but physiology has lately thrown a great light upon them. It is now shown that the brain, after completing the series of animal transformations, passes through the characters in which it appears in the Negro, Malay American, and Mongolian nations, and finally becomes Caucasian. The face partakes of these alterations. The leading characters, in short, of the various races of mankind, are simply representations of particular states in the development of the highest or Caucasian type. The Negro exhibits permanently the imperfect brain, projecting lower jaw,[5 - This lower jaw is described in another part of the work as showing in the human embryo the last trace of the monkey.] and slender bent limbs of a Caucasian child some considerable time before the period of its birth. The aboriginal American represents the same child nearer birth. The Mongolian is an arrested infant newly born. And so forth."

So that we Caucasians are, at least, the only full grown children: all others are more or less abortions. Indeed we might be described, in the language of this theory, as the only animals on the face of the earth who pass through the full period of gestation. And yet even this honour may be disputed; perhaps we ourselves are but imperfect developments of that germ of life which is the progenitor of us all. The author darkly intimates that we may be supplanted from our high place in this world, that another and more powerful and sagacious race may be born of us, who may treat us no better than we have treated the monkeys and other species of the brute creation. This is the severest blow of all. After having humbled our pride according to this philosopher's bidding, and taught ourselves to look upon the ape with due feelings of filial respect – after having acknowledged some sturdy baboon for our only Adam, and some malicious monkey for our sweet mother Eve – after having brought ourselves to see in the lower animals the same mental and moral faculties which we boast of, and to confess that the same psychology applies to both, with a slight modification in our theory of the origin of ideas – after having practised all this condescension, to be threatened with complete dethronement from our high place in the world! – to be told that we, too, shall have to obey a master who may govern us as man governs the horse! What a millennium to look forward to!

"Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type? Are there yet to be species superior to us in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in device and art, and who shall take a rule over us? There is in this nothing improbable on other grounds. The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race." – P. 276.

Melancholy prospect for man! When the earth becomes a serener field of existence, then will a race appear to take rule over him. Might not he become serener too? Is it thus that are to be solved all our social problems, all our discussions upon the perfectibility of man, all our vague but obstinate prophecies of some more rational and happier scheme of existence? This homo is to survive, it seems, only to make railroads for the future angelus.

On the authorship of this production we have no communication or conjecture to make. The writer has been successful, as far as we know, in preserving his incognito; and as the rumours that have reached our ear have all been again contradicted, we think it wisest to abstain from circulating any of then. We heard it pleasantly said that the author had been followed down as far as Lancashire, and that then all further trace of him had been lost. We think he might be traced further north than Lancashire. The style in one or two places bears symptoms of a Scottish origin. Occupied with the wild theory it promulgates, we have not said much of the literary merits of the work. Nor is there much to say. It is written in a clear, unpretending style, but somewhat careless and inexact. The exposition in the first portions of the work, the astronomical and geological, appeared to us particularly good. The author's knowledge of science is such as is gleaned by that sort of student who is denominated, in prefaces, the general reader; he is not, we should apprehend, a labourer in any one of its departments, but thankfully receives whatever is brought to his door of the results of science. With this chance-gathered stock he has ventured to frame, or rather to defend, his speculations. The sudden success of the work is not, we think, what any one could have prognosticated. It is a success which its singularity has gained for it, and which its superficiality will soon again forfeit.

We may mention that this notice was written after a perusal of the first edition. In the third edition, we observe that some passages have been slightly modified or omitted; but the hypothesis put forward is substantially the same.

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN

Part XVI

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

    Shakspeare.
The insurrection had broken out; there could now be no scepticism on the subject. Some hundreds of armed men were already crowding the grounds in front of the mansion; and from the shouts which rose in every quarter, and still more from the fires which blazed on every hill round the horizon, the numbers of the insurgents must have amounted to thousands. It was evident that we were in a pitfall, and that resistance was only the protraction of a fate which was now inevitable. The shrieks of the females and the despondency of the men, who naturally thought that their last hour was come, were enough to dishearten all resolution. For a few minutes, the only orders which I could give were to bar the doors and close the windows. The multitude, new to hostile enterprises, had till now kept at some distance, warned by their losses in the skirmish with the yeomanry, and probably expecting the arrival of troops. But the sight of our precautions, few and feeble as they were, gave them new courage; and discharges of musketry began to drop their bullets into the midst of our startled assemblage. It is only justice to the national intrepidity to say, that every measure which I proposed for defence was unhesitatingly adopted; and that one of my chief difficulties was to prevent rash sallies, which must have only terminated in loss of life. The short interval now allowed to us was employed in barricading the mansion, which was built almost with the strength of a fortress, and posting every man who could handle a musket or pistol, at the windows. Still I knew that this species of defence could not last long; and my only hope for our lives was, that the firing might bring some of the troops who patrolled the country to our assistance. But the discharges became closer and heavier, and still no sound of succour was to be heard. My situation became more anxious every moment; all looked up to me for their guidance; and though my garrison were brave and obedient, as became the high-spirited sons of Ireland, there seemed the strongest probability that the night would end in a general massacre. Yet there was no faint-heartedness under the roof; our fire was stoutly kept up whenever the assailants came within range; and as I hurried from chamber to chamber to ascertain the condition of our defence and give directions, I found all firm. Still the terrors of the females – the sight of the first women of the province flying for refuge to every corner where they might escape the balls, which now poured into every window; the actual wounds of some, visible by the blood streaming down their splendid dresses; the horror-stricken looks of the groups clinging to each other for hopeless protection; and the actual semblance of death in others fainting on the sofas and floors, and all this under an incessant roar of musketry – made me often wish that I could give way to the gallant impatience of my friends within the mansion, and take the desperate hazard of plunging into the midst of the multitude.

But a new danger awaited us; a succession of shrieks from one of the upper apartments caught my ear, and on rushing to the spot, and forcing my way through a crowd of women half frantic with alarm, I saw some of the outbuildings, immediately connected with the mansion, wrapped in a sheet of fire. The insurgents had at last found out the true way to subdue our resistance; and we obviously had no alternative but to throw ourselves on their mercy, or die with arms in our hands. Yet, to surrender was perhaps only to suffer a more protracted death, degraded by shame; and when I looked round me on the helplessness of the noble and beautiful women around me, and thought of the agony which must be felt by us on seeing them thrown into the power of the assassins who were now roaring with triumph and vengeance, I dismissed all thoughts of submission at once, and determined to take the chances of resistance while any man among us had the power to draw a trigger. In rushing through the mansion, to make its defenders in the front aware of the new misfortune which threatened us, I happened to pass through the ball-room, where the corpse of its noble and brave master was. One figure was standing there, with his back to me, and evidently gazing on the body. All else was solitary. Of all the friends, guests, and domestics, not one had remained. Loud as were the shouts outside, and constant as was the crashing of the musketry, I could hear a groan, which seemed to come from the very heart of that lonely bystander. I sprang towards him; he turned at the sound of my step, and, to my surprise, I saw the face of the man whose share in the insurrection I had so singularly ascertained. I had a loaded musket in my hand, and my first impulse, in the indignation of the moment, was to discharge its contents through his heart. But he looked at me with a countenance of such utter dejection, that I dropped its muzzle to the ground, and demanded "What had brought him there at such a time?" "This!" he exclaimed, pointing to the pallid form on the sofa. "To that man I owed every thing. To his protection, to his generosity, to his nobleness of heart, I owed my education, my hopes, all my prospects in life. I should have died a thousand deaths rather than see a hair of his head touched – and now, there he lies." He sank upon his knees, took the hand of the dead, and wept over it in agony.

But I had no leisure to wait upon his remorse; the volleys were pouring in, and the glare of the burning buildings showed me that the flames were making fearful progress. "This," said I, "is your work. This murder is but the first-fruits of your treason; probably every life in this house is destined to butchery within the hour." He sprang on his feet. "No, no," he cried, "we are not murderers. This is the frenzy of the populace. Regeneration must not begin by massacre."

The thought suddenly struck me that I might make his fears, or his compunctions, at the moment available.