An Expository Outline of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation | Page 2

beautiful, lucid, precise, and elevated. In tone and manner of execution, in quiet steadiness of purpose, in the firm, intrepid spirit with which truth, or that which is conceived to be true, is followed, regardless of startling presentments, the Vestiges call to mind the Mecanique Celeste, or Syst��me du Monde. In caution, as in science, the author is immeasurably inferior to LAPLACE; but in magnitude and boldness of design he transcends the illustrious Frenchman. LAPLACE sought no more than to subject the celestial movements to the formulas of analysis, and reconcile to common observation terrestrial appearances; but our author is far more ambitious--more venturesome in aim--which is nothing less than to lift the veil of ISIS, and solve the phenomena of universal nature. With what success remains to be considered. That great skill and cleverness, that a very superior mastery is evinced, we have conceded, and, we will also add, great show of fairness in treatment and conclusion.
No partial opening is made; the great design, in all its extent, is manfully grappled with. The universe is first surveyed, next the mystery of its origin. After ranging through sidereal space, examining the bodies found there, their arrangement, formation, and evolution, the author selects our own planet for especial interrogation. He disembowels it, scrutinizing the internal evidences of its structure and history, and thence infers the causes of past vicissitudes, existing relations, and appearances. These disposed of, the surface is explored, the phenomena of animal and vegetable existence contemplated, and the sources of vital action, sexual differences, and diversities of species assigned. Man, as the supreme head and last work of progressive creation, challenges a distinct consideration; his history and mental constitution are investigated, and the relation in which a sublime reason stands to the instinct of brutes discriminated. The end and purpose of all appropriately form the concluding theme, which finished, the curtain drops, and the last sounds heard are that the name of the Great Unknown will probably never be revealed; that "praise will elicit no response," nor any "word of censure" be parried or deprecated.
"Give me," exclaimed ARCHIMEDES, "a fulcrum, and I will raise the earth." "Give me," says the author of the Vestiges, "gravitation and development, and I will create a universe." ALEXANDER'S ambition was to conquer a world, our author's is to create one. But he is wrong in saying that his is the "first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation, and thence to eliminate a view of nature as one grand system of causation." The attempt has been often made, but utterly failed; its results have been found valueless, hurtful--to have occupied without enlarging the intellect, and the very effort has long been discountenanced. Great advances, however, have been made in science since system-making began to be discredited; nature has been perseveringly ransacked in all her domains, and many extraordinary secrets drawn from her laboratory. Astronomy and geology, chemistry and electricity, have greatly extended the bounds of knowledge; still, we apprehend, we are not yet sufficiently armed with facts to resolve into one consistent whole her infinite variety.
Efforts at generalization, however, and the systematic arrangement of natural phenomena, are seldom wholly fruitless. If false, they tend to provoke discussion--to lead to active thought and useful research. A solitary truth, though new and useful, rarely obtains higher distinction than to be quietly placed on the rolls of science, while a bold speculation, traversing the whole field of creation, and smoothing all its difficulties, satisfies for the moment, and fixes general attention. Of this the Vestiges of Creation are an example. Without adding to our positive knowledge by a single new discovery, demonstration, or experiment, they have excited more interest than the Principia of NEWTON. From this popular success, if good do not accrue, no great evil need be anticipated. Hypotheses are most hurtful when accredited by an irreversible authority--when erected into a tribunal without appeal, they become the arbitrary dictator in lieu of the handmaid of science. Discussion and invention, in place of being stimulated, are then fettered by them; the human mind is enslaved, as Europe was for centuries by the Physics of ARISTOTLE, and still continues to be in some of the ancient retreats and conservatories of exploded errors. But these form the exceptions, not the rule of the age, which is free and equal inquiry. Errors have ceased to have prescriptive immunities; and mere conjectures, however sanctioned or plausible, if inconsistent with science--with the ascertained facts of experiment and observation, are speedily passed into the region of dreams and chimeras.
Whether this will be the fate of our author remains to be proved. The moment selected for his appearance has at least been well chosen. The Vestiges have the air of novelty, a long time having elapsed since any one