ページの画像
PDF
ePub

all-prevailing will abstained from acting immediately, retiring further and further from material results, and employing principles and laws, which, after all, are only other names for means, just in such proportion would the phenomena of matter become charged with instruction, until, as it is now, the limit of their teachings would be found in the ability of man's intellect to receive them.

In the inorganic world of which we are speaking, elementary bodies hold a position somewhat analogous to that of species in the world of life; yet no one suspects any want of reverence towards a final cause in the suggestion that the truly elementary bodies may be much fewer than has been supposed. In the age when water was deemed to be an element, the questionHow does water exist? would have been properly answered by a reference to the will of the Creator. We now know that water exists by the combination, under certain electrical conditions, of hydrogen and oxygen. Has our increased knowledge dishonoured the Creator? And if this is only one

out of a thousand instances—if the dominion of law has no assignable limits-if the Creator has worked by means behind means indefinitely extended—why is it but that His operations might form a boundless field for man's investigation It is not contended that this or any other argument drawn from analogy in the inorganic world can prove the theory of Natural Selection; thus far, however, I think it is valid-it serves to show that the question of the origin of species may and must be open to fair investigation, without liability to the charge of impiety, on the ground of repudiating the existence of a first and final cause.

In the world of living creatures, we are far from regarding the life of any being as the immediate result of the Creator's will. A multitude of ascertained facts, relating to the sustenance and the reproduction of plants and animals, indicate the employment of means innumerable and profound. It may yet

happen that our knowledge may be still further extended, and that we may become acquainted with the laws which have governed the first introduction of species. If this should be the case, we may be quite sure the increased light will only reveal more of the benificient design with which the Creator has made provision for something of His own excellencies to be discernible in His works. It is, therefore, with regret that we read in a periodical professedly devoted to the cause of literature and science, remarks so little conducive to sound reasoning and truth as the following:

"What does he really mean, for instance, by this Natural Selection, to which so much is attributed? If it operates as a presiding principle through innumerable ages—if it selects, assorts, distinguishes and preserves-if it gathers up manifold small increments, and rejects parts obsolete and unsuitableif it aggrandizes small increments into great and long-enduring results—if it exercises a power that never fails, that is never hindered and never weakened-if it foresees its end through millions of years, and through all these years is ever controlling imperfection and contributing to perfection—and we think we find all these potencies variously, though vaguely, ascribed by Mr. Darwin to his supposed principle-if, we say, Natural Selection is and does all this—then it is either God, or it is a pestilent abstraction. If it be God, why not say so in the plain language of many men? If it be not God, what is it that you are attempting to set up upon altars where men usually worship Him? What is this wonderful power, to which you would give what most men regard as the inalienable prerogatives of Deity? Do not reply that, though it exists, we can know nothing of it-do not carry us back to Athens, where men ignorantly worshipped an unknown God. What is its significance? Is it human, or divine, or organic—a substance, an essence, or a shadow?”

Mutatis mutandis, all that is here said of Natural Selection,

unfairly and with exaggeration, might fairly be applied to gravitation in combination with the laws of motion. If it operates as a presiding principle through innumerable agesif it prevails to the extent of the known universe—if it preserves order and has the power of eliminating elements of disorder if it exercises a power that never fails, that is never weakened-if all things, the greatest as well as the most minute, are subject to it—if gravitation is, and does all this, which is truly the case, then, by the reviewer's argument, gravitation must either be God, or it is a pestilent abstraction.

Mr. HIGGINS proceeded to notice several other reviews, confessing his dissent from Mr. Darwin's theory, but regretting the manner in which it had been attacked.

TENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 4th March, 1861.

The Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

The Rev. H. J. HINDLEY, M.A., and the Rev. C. D. GINSBURG, were elected members.

Mr. MOORE exhibited a beautiful British fungus (Peziza coccinea), and some Myrabolans, covered with a Sphæria, probably of East Indian origin.

Mr. C. SPENCE remarked that he had never observed a similar growth upon the vast number of nuts that passed through his hands.

Mr. DUCKWORTH exhibited a remarkably fine specimen of Apophyllite, a mineral allied to zeolite, from the Bore Ghât, between Bombay and Poonah.

Dr. COLLINGWOOD referred to the death of the old lion at the Regent's Park, which was found stretched one morning on the floor of its den. Messrs. F. Buckland and Quekett (of the Royal College of Surgeons), having examined it, came to the conclusion that it died of congestion of the lungs. A lion which lately died in Liverpool, Dr. Collingwood had the opportunity of examining. He found extensive pulmonary congestion, sufficient to cause death in this animal, which had been ailing for some weeks, having taken cold during its transit to this town in severe weather.

Dr. Collingwood also called attention to a paper, by Prof. Asa Gray, of Harvard University, reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, entitled a "Free Examination of Darwin's Theory," and read from it some passages in which that eminent naturalist endeavoured to combine the two theories of specific creation, and derivation of species in a manner which would render the latter far less objectionable, particularly when it had to do with the introduction of the human race.

The following paper was then read :—

NOTES ON EARTH TEMPERATURES.

BY DAVID WALKER, M.D., F.L.S., &c.

As the temperature of the earth performs a very important part in the promotion of vegetation, it has lately attracted the particular attention of meteorologists and naturalists, and I shall, in this paper, briefly touch upon the most important results deduced from comparisons of observations made in different parts of the world. In the consideration of the subject of terrestrial temperature, we must distinguish three different modes for the transmission of heat. The first with which we have to deal is, the varying amount of heat which penetrates from above downwards, or from below upwards, consequent on the different positions of the sun and the seasons of the year; this forms the most important source of heat, and is the principal agent in the maintenance of the different varieties of plants exhibited by the various zones of the earth that succeed each other, from the equator to the poles. The second mode of transmission, although present, is extremely slow, and has but little influence on the temperature of the earth near the surface-I refer to the heat which is propagated from the equatorial regions towards the poles, which heat being absorbed into the interior of the earth moves off laterally to those spots where the temperature is lower. The third mode, although the slowest of all, yet is ever acting, and has played a very important part in the former economy of our globe. During the solidification of the globe-which is commonly conjectured to have been gaseous and subsequently fluid, and to have been originally heated to a very high temperature—an enormous quantity of latent heat must have been liberated; this source of heat, existing in the centre of the earth, has been clearly

« 前へ次へ »