"Processit longe flammantia mœnia mundi.""His vigorous and active mind was hurl'dBeyond the flaming limits of the world."—Creech.
"Processit longe flammantia mœnia mundi.""His vigorous and active mind was hurl'dBeyond the flaming limits of the world."—Creech.
"Processit longe flammantia mœnia mundi."
"Processit longe flammantia mœnia mundi."
"His vigorous and active mind was hurl'dBeyond the flaming limits of the world."—Creech.
"His vigorous and active mind was hurl'd
Beyond the flaming limits of the world."—Creech.
In the former part of the dialogue, his poetical coruscations appeared only as brilliant sparks thrown off by the rapidity of the machinery which he worked for a useful end and for a definite purpose; his vivid imagination may now be compared to a display of fire-works, which dazzle and confound without enlightening the senses, and leave the spectator in still more profound darkness.
HisSecond Dialogue, entitled "Discussions connected with the Vision in the Colosæum," may be considered as a commentary upon the views he had unfolded; and a more appropriate spot, perhaps, could not have been selected for a conversation upon the progress of civilization, than the summit of Vesuvius, from which, to adopt the language ofAmbrosio, "We see not only the power and activity of man as existing at present, and of which the highest example may be represented by the steam-boat departing from Palermo, but we may likewise view scenes which carry us into the very bosom of antiquity, and as it were make us live with the generations of past ages."
The author, who assumes throughout this dialogue the name ofPhilalethes, after having been duly rallied by his friends on the subject of his vision, thus expresses himself:—"I will acknowledge that the vision in the Colosæum is a fiction;but the most important parts of it really occurred to me in sleep, particularly that in which I seemed to leave the earth and launch into the infinity of space, under the guidance of a tutelary genius. And the origin and progress of civil society form likewise parts of another dream which I had many years ago; and it was in the reverie which happened when you quitted me in the Colosæum, that I wove all these thoughts together, and gave them the form in which I narrated them to you.—I do not say that they are strictly to be considered as an accurate representation of my waking thoughts; for I am not quite convinced that dreams are always the representations of the state of the mind, modified by organic diseases or by associations. There are certainly no absolutely new ideas produced in sleep; yet I have had more than one instance, in the course of my life, of most extraordinary combinations occurring in this state, which have had considerable influence on my feelings, my imagination, and my health."
Philalethesnow relates a fact to which his preceding observation more immediately referred; he anticipates unbelief,—but he declares that he mentions nothing but a simple fact.
"Almost a quarter of a century ago, I contracted that terrible form of typhus fever known by the name of jail fever,—I may say, not from any imprudence of my own, but whilst engaged in putting in execution a plan for ventilating one of the great prisons of the metropolis.[118]My illness was severe and dangerous;as long as the fever continued, my dreams and deliriums were most painful and oppressive; but when weakness consequent to exhaustion came on, and when the probability of death seemed to my physicians greater than that of life, there was an entire change in all my ideal combinations. I remained in an apparently senseless or lethargic state, but, in fact, my mind was peculiarly active; there was always before me the form of a beautiful woman, with whom I was engaged in the most interesting and intellectual conversation."
AmbrosioandOnuphriovery naturally suggest that this could have been no other than the image of some favourite maiden which had haunted his imagination; butPhilalethesrejects with indignation such an explanation of the vision. "I will not," he exclaims, "allow you to treat me with ridicule on this point, till you have heard the second part of my tale. Ten years after I had recovered from the fever, and when I had almost lost the recollection of the vision, it was recalled to my memory by a very blooming and graceful maiden fourteen or fifteen years old, that I accidentally met during my travels in Illyria; but I cannot say that the impression made upon my mind by this female was very strong. Now comes the extraordinary part of the narrative: ten years after,—twenty years after my first illness, at a time when I was exceedingly weak from a severe and dangerous malady, which for many years threatened my life, and when my mind was almost in a desponding state, being in a course of travels ordered by my medical advisers, I again met the person who was the representative of my visionaryfemale; and to her kindness and care, I believe, I owe what remains to me of existence. My despondency gradually disappeared, and though my health still continued weak, life began to possess charms for me which I had thought were for ever gone; and I could not help identifying the living angel with the vision which appeared as my guardian genius during the illness of my youth."
The reader will probably agree withOnuphrio, in seeing in this history nothing beyond the influence of an imagination excited by disease.
The discourse now turns upon that part of the vision in the Colosæum in which was exhibited the early state of man, after his first creation, and whichAmbrosioconsiders as not only incompatible with revelation, but likewise with reason and every thing that we know respecting the history or traditions of the early nations of antiquity.
I shall merely state the objection whichAmbrosiooffers. I must then refer the reader to the work itself for an account of the discussion it provoked.
"Ambrosio.—You consider man, in his early state, a savage like those who now inhabit New Holland, or New Zealand, acquiring, by the little use that they make of a feeble reason, the power of supporting and extending life. Now, I contend that, if man had been so created, he must inevitably have been destroyed by the elements, or devoured by savage beasts, so infinitely his superiors in physical force."
During the discussion, an opinion is advanced byAmbrosio, so singular, that I must be allowed to quote it. "I consider," says he, "all the miraculousparts of our religion as effected by changes in the sensations or ideas of the human mind, and not by physical changes in the order of nature! To Infinite Wisdom and Power, a change in the intellectual state of the human being may be the result of a momentary will, and the mere act of faith may produce the change. How great the powers of imagination are, even in ordinary life, is shown by many striking facts, and nothing seems impossible to this imagination when acted upon by Divine influence."
This is surely a most extraordinary line of argument for the apologist of the Christian faith, and of the miracles by which it is supported.
In theThird Dialogue, called the Unknown, the author and his friends,AmbrosioandOnuphrio, make an excursion to the remains of the temples of Pæstum. "Were my existence to be prolonged through ten centuries," exclaims the author, "I think I could never forget the pleasure I received on that delicious spot." In contemplating beautiful scenery, much of its interest depends upon the feelings and associations of the moment; and the author was upon this occasion evidently in that poetical frame of mind which sheds a magic light over every landscape, and converts the most ordinary objects into emblems of morality: in the admixture of the olive and the cypress tree, he saw a connection, to memorialize, as it were, how near each other are life and death, joy and sorrow; while the music of the birds, and, above all, the cooing of the turtle-doves, by overpowering the murmuring of the waves and the whistling of the winds, served but to show himthat, in the strife of nature, the voice of love is predominant.
With their hearts touched by the scene they had witnessed, the travellers descended to the ruins, and began to examine those wonderful remains which have outlived even the name of the people by whom they were raised. While engaged in measuring the Doric columns in the interior of the Temple of Neptune, a stranger, remarkable both in dress and appearance, was observed to be writing in a memorandum book; the author immediately addresses him, and becoming mutually pleased with each other, they enter into a conversation of high scientific interest.
The sentiments delivered by the "Unknown," for by this title is the philosopher designated, notwithstanding their dramatic dress, are evidently to be received as the bequest of the latest scientific opinions of Sir H. Davy upon several important subjects, and must consequently command our respect and consideration.
To a question relative to the nature of the masses of travertine, of which the ruins consisted, the Unknown replied, that they were certainly produced by deposition from water; and he rather believed, that a lake in the immediate neighbourhood of the city furnished the quarry. The party are then described as visiting this spot.
"There was something peculiarly melancholy in the character of this water; all the herbs around it were grey, as if incrusted with marble; a few buffaloes were slaking their thirst in it, which ran wildly away at our approach, and appeared to retireinto a rocky excavation or quarry at the end of the lake. 'There,' said the stranger, 'is what I believe to be the source of those large and durable stones which you see in the plain before you. This water rapidly deposits calcareous matter, and even, if you throw a stick into it, a few hours is sufficient to give it a coating of this substance. Whichever way you turn your eyes, you see masses of this recently produced marble, the consequence of the overflowing of the lake during the winter floods.'
"This water is like many, I may say most, of the sources which rise at the foot of the Apennines; it holds carbonic acid in solution, which has dissolved a portion of the calcareous matter of the rock through which it has passed:—this carbonic acid is dissipated in the atmosphere, and the marble, slowly thrown down, assumes a crystalline form, and produces coherent stones. The lake before us is not particularly rich in the quantity of calcareous matter, for, as I have found by experience, a pint of it does not afford more than five or six grains; but the quantity of fluid and the length of time are sufficient to account for the immense quantities of tufa and rock which, in the course of ages, have accumulated in this situation.
"It can, I think, be scarcely doubted that there is a source of volcanic fire at no great distance from the surface, in the whole of southern Italy; and, this fire acting upon the calcareous rocks of which the Apennines are composed, must constantly detach from them carbonic acid, which rising to the sourcesof the springs, deposited from the waters of the atmosphere, must give them their impregnation, and enable them to dissolve calcareous matter. I need not dwell upon Ætna, Vesuvius, or the Lipari Islands, to prove that volcanic fires are still in existence; and there can be no doubt that, in earlier periods, almost the whole of Italy was ravaged by them; even Rome itself, the eternal city, rests upon the craters of extinct volcanoes; and I imagine that the traditional and fabulous record of the destruction made by the conflagration of Phaeton, in the chariot of the Sun, and his falling into the Po, had reference to a great and tremendous igneous volcanic eruption which extended over Italy, and ceased only near the Po, at the foot of the Alps. Be this as it may, the sources of carbonic acid are numerous, not merely in the Neapolitan but likewise in the Roman and Tuscan states. The most magnificent waterfall in Europe, that of the Velino near Terni, is partly fed by a stream containing calcareous matter dissolved by carbonic acid, and it deposits marble, which crystallizes even in the midst of its thundering descent and foam, in the bed in which it falls.
"There is a lake in Latium, a few yards above the Lacus Albula, where the ancient Romans erected their baths, which sends down a considerable stream of tepid water to the larger lake; but this water is less strongly impregnated with carbonic acid; the largest lake is actually a saturated solution of this gas, which escapes from it in such quantities in some parts of its surface, that it has the appearance of being actually in ebullition. Its temperature I ascertained to be, in the winter, in thewarmest parts, above 80 degrees of Fahrenheit, and as it appears to be pretty constant, it must be supplied with heat from a subterraneous source, being nearly twenty degrees above the mean temperature of the atmosphere. Kircher has detailed, in hisMundus Subterraneus, various wonders respecting this lake, most of which are unfounded; such as, that it is unfathomable,—that it has at the bottom the heat of boiling water, and that floating islands rise from the gulf which emits it. It must certainly be very difficult, or even impossible, to fathom a source which rises with so much violence from a subterraneous excavation; and at a time when chemistry had made small progress, it was easy to mistake the disengagement of carbonic acid for an actual ebullition. The floating islands are real; but neither the Jesuit, nor any of the writers who have since described this lake, had a correct idea of their origin, which is exceedingly curious. The high temperature of this water, and the quantity of carbonic acid that it contains, render it peculiarly fitted to afford a pabulum or nourishment to vegetable life; the banks of travertine are every where covered with reeds, lichens, confervæ, and various kinds of aquatic vegetables; and at the same time that the process of vegetable life is going on, the crystallizations of the calcareous matter, which is every where deposited in consequence of the escape of carbonic acid, likewise proceed, giving a constant milkiness to what from its tint would otherwise be a blue fluid. So rapid is the vegetation, owing to the decomposition of the carbonic acid, that even in winter, masses of confervæ and lichens,mixed with deposited travertine, are constantly detached by the current of water from the bank, and float down the stream, which being a considerable river, is never without many of these small islands on its surface; they are sometimes only a few inches in size, and composed merely of dark green confervæ, or purple or yellow lichens; but they are sometimes even of some feet in diameter, and contain seeds and various species of common water-plants, which are usually more or less incrusted with marble. There is, I believe, no place in the world where there is a more striking example of the opposition or contrast of the laws of animate and inanimate nature, of the forces of inorganic chemical affinity and those of the powers of life. Vegetables, in such a temperature, and every where surrounded by food, are produced with a wonderful rapidity; but the crystallizations are formed with equal quickness, and they are no sooner produced than they are destroyed together. The quantity of vegetable matter and its heat make it the resort of an infinite variety of insect tribes; and, even in the coldest days in winter, numbers of flies may be observed on the vegetables surrounding its banks or on its floating islands, and a quantity of their larvæ may be seen there, sometimes incrusted and entirely destroyed by calcareous matter, which is likewise often the fate of the insects themselves, as well as of various species of shell-fish that are found amongst the vegetables which grow and are destroyed in the travertine on its banks.
"I have passed many hours, I may say, manydays, in studying the phenomena of this wonderful lake; it has brought many trains of thought into my mind connected with the early changes of our globe, and I have sometimes reasoned from the forms of plants and animals preserved in marble in this warm source, to the grander depositions in the secondary rocks, where the zoophytes or coral insects have worked upon a grand scale, and where palms and vegetables now unknown are preserved with the remains of crocodiles, turtles, and gigantic extinct animals of theSaurigenus, and which appear to have belonged to a period when the whole globe possessed a much higher temperature.
"Then, from all we know, this lake, except in some change in its dimensions, continues nearly in the same state in which it was described seventeen hundred years ago by Pliny, and I have no doubt contains the same kinds of floating islands, the same plants, and the same insects. During the fifteen years that I have known it, it has appeared precisely identical in these respects; and yet it has the character of an accidental phenomenon depending upon subterraneous fire. How marvellous then are those laws by which even the humblest types of organic existence are preserved, though born amidst the sources of their destruction, and by which a species of immortality is given to generations, floating, as it were, like evanescent bubbles on a stream raised from the deepest caverns of the earth, and instantly losing what may be called its spirit in the atmosphere!"
From this interesting discourse on the formationof Travertine, the conversation naturally turned to Geology; and I shall here again be compelled to give another copious extract, in order to show what were the latest opinions of Sir H. Davy upon this subject. If any doubt could exist as to the views here given being those entertained by the author, it is at once removed by his letter to Mr. Poole, in which, alluding to the work under review, he says, "It contains the essence of my philosophical opinions."
"On the geological scheme of the early history of the globe, there are only analogies to guide us, which different minds may apply and interpret in different ways; but I will not trifle with a long preliminary discourse. Astronomical deductions and actual measures by triangulation prove that the globe is an oblate spheroid flattened at the poles; and this form, we know, by strict mathematical demonstrations, is precisely the one which a fluid body revolving round its axis and become solid at its surface by the slow dissipation of its heat or other causes, would assume. I suppose, therefore, that the globe, in the first state in which the imagination can venture to consider it, was a fluid mass with an immense atmosphere, revolving in space round the sun, and that by its cooling, a portion of its atmosphere was condensed in water which occupied a part of the surface. In this state, no forms of life, such as now belong to our system, could have inhabited it; and I suppose the crystalline rocks, or, as they are called by geologists, theprimaryrocks, which contain no vestiges of a former order of things, were the results of the first consolidation on its surface. Upon the farther cooling,the water which more or less had covered it, contracted; depositions took place, shell-fish, and coral insects of the first creation began their labours, and islands appeared in the midst of the ocean, raised from the deep by the productive energies of millions of zoophytes. These islands became covered with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, such as palms, and various species of plants similar to those which now exist in the hottest part of the world. And the submarine rocks or shores of these new formations of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, on which various species of shell-fish and common fishes found their nourishment. The fluids of the globe in cooling deposited a large quantity of the materials they held in solution, and these deposits agglutinating together the sand, the immense masses of coral rocks, and some of the remains of the shells and fishes found round the shores of the primitive lands, produced the first order ofsecondaryrocks.
"As the temperature of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles were created to inhabit it; and the turtle, crocodile, and various gigantic animals of theSaurikind, seem to have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive lands. But in this state of things there was no order of events similar to the present,—the crust of the globe was exceedingly slender, and the source of fire a small distance from the surface. In consequence of contraction in one part of the mass, cavities were opened, which caused the entrance of water, and immense volcanic explosions took place, raising one part of the surface, depressing another,producing mountains and causing new and extensive depositions from the primitive ocean. Changes of this kind must have been extremely frequent in the early epochas of nature; and the only living forms of which the remains are found in the strata that are the monuments of these changes, are those of plants, fishes, birds, and oviparous reptiles, which seem most fitted to exist in such a war of the elements.
"When these revolutions became less frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and the inequalities of its temperature preserved by the mountain chains, more perfect animals became its inhabitants, many of which, such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium, and gigantic hyena, are now extinct. At this period, the temperature of the ocean seems to have been not much higher than it is at present, and the changes produced by occasional eruptions of it have left no consolidated rocks. Yet one of these eruptions appears to have been of great extent and of some duration, and seems to have been the cause of those immense quantities of water-worn stones, gravel, and sand, which are usually calleddiluvianremains;—and it is probable that this effect was connected with the elevation of a new continent in the southern hemisphere by volcanic fire. When the system of things became so permanent, that the tremendous revolutions depending upon the destruction of the equilibrium between the heating and cooling agencies were no longer to be dreaded, the creation of man took place; and since that period there has been little alteration in the physical circumstances of our globe.Volcanoes sometimes occasion the rise of new islands, portions of the old continents are constantly washed by rivers into the sea, but these changes are too insignificant to affect the destinies of man, or the nature of the physical circumstances of things. On the hypothesis that I have adopted, however, it must be remembered, that the present surface of the globe is merely a thin crust surrounding a nucleus of fluid ignited matter; and consequently, we can hardly be considered as actually safe from the danger of a catastrophe by fire.
"I beg you to consider the views I have been developing as merely hypothetical, one of the many resting-places that may be taken by the imagination in considering this subject. There are, however, distinct facts in favour of the idea, that the interior of the globe has a higher temperature than the surface; the heat increasing in mines the deeper we penetrate, and the number of warm sources which rise from great depths, in almost all countries, are certainly favourable to the idea. The opinion, that volcanoes are owing to this general and simple cause, is, I think, likewise more agreeable to the analogies of things, than to suppose them dependent upon partial chemical changes, such as the action of air and water upon the combustible bases of the earths and alkalies, though it is extremely probable that these substances may exist beneath the surface, and may occasion some results of volcanic fire;—and on this subject my notion may perhaps be the more trusted, as for a long while I thought volcanic eruptions were owing to chemical agencies of the newlydiscovered metals of the earths and alkalies, and I made many and some dangerous experiments in the hope of confirming this notion, but in vain.
"I have no objection to the 'refined Plutonic view,' (of Professor Playfair and Sir James Hall,) as capable of explaining many existing phenomena; indeed, you must be aware that I have myself had recourse to it. What I contend against is, its application to explain the formations of the secondary rocks, which I think clearly belong to an order of facts not at all embraced by it. In the Plutonic system, there is one simple and constant order assumed, which may be supposed eternal. The surface is constantly imagined to be disintegrated, destroyed, degraded, and washed into the bosom of the ocean by water, and as constantly consolidated, elevated, and regenerated by fire; and the ruins of the old form the foundations of the new world. It is supposed that there are always the same types both of dead and living matter,—that the remains of rocks, of vegetables, and animals of one age are found imbedded in rocks raised from the bottom of the ocean in another. Now, to support this view, not only the remains of living beings which at present people the globe, might be expected to be found in the oldest secondary strata, but even those of the art of man, the most powerful and populous of its inhabitants, which is well known not to be the case. On the contrary, each stratum of the secondary rocks contains remains of peculiar and mostly now unknown species of vegetables and animals. In those strata which are deepest, and which must consequentlybe supposed to be the earliest deposited, forms even of vegetable life are rare; shells and vegetable remains are found in the next order; the bones of fishes and oviparous reptiles exist in the following class; the remains of birds, with those of the same genera mentioned before, in the next order; those of quadrupeds of extinct species in a still more recent class; and it is only in the loose and slightly consolidated strata of gravel and sand, and which are usually called diluvian formations, that the remains of animals, such as now people the globe, are found, with others belonging to extinct species. But in none of these formations, whether called secondary, tertial, or diluvial, have the remains of man, or any of his works, been discovered. It is, I think, impossible to consider the organic remains found in any of the earlier secondary strata, the lias-limestone and its congenerous formations, for instance, without being convinced, that the beings whose organs they formed belonged to an order of things entirely different from the present. Gigantic vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of the equatorial countries than to any other plants, can only be imagined to have lived in a very high temperature; and the immense reptiles, theMegalosauri, with paddles instead of legs, and clothed in mail, in size equal, or even superior to the whale; and the great amphibiaPlethiosauri, with bodies like turtles, but furnished with necks longer than their bodies, probably to enable them to feed on vegetables growing in the shallows of the primitive ocean, seem to show a state in which low lands, or extensive shores, rose above an immense calm sea,and when there were no great mountain chains to produce inequalities of temperature, tempests, or storms. Were the surface of the earth now to be carried down into the depths of the ocean, or were some great revolution of the waters to cover the existing land, and it was again to be elevated by fire, covered with consolidated depositions of sand or mud, how entirely different would it be in its characters from any of the secondary strata! Its great features would undoubtedly be the works of man: hewn stones, and statues of bronze and marble, and tools of iron, and human remains, would be more common than those of animals, on the greatest part of the surface; the columns of Pæstum, or of Agrigentum, or the immense iron bridges of the Thames, would offer a striking contrast to the bones of the crocodiles, orSauri, in the older rocks, or even to those of the mammoth, orElephas primogenius, in the diluvial strata. And whoever dwells upon this subject must be convinced, that the present order of things, and the comparatively recent existence of man, as the master of the globe, is as certain as the destruction of a former and a different order, and the extinction of a number of living forms, which have now no types in being, and which have left their remains wonderful monuments of the revolutions of nature."
TheFourth Dialogue, to which is given the title of "The Proteus, or Immortality," is of a more desultory nature than those which precede it. It contains many beautiful descriptions of scenery in the Alpine country of Austria; furnishes an interesting account of that most singular reptile theProteus Anguinus, which is found only in the limestone caverns of Carniola, and concludes with reflections upon the indestructibility of the sentient principle.
The author's companion, during the tour he describes, is a scientific friend, whom he callsEubathes. The dialogue opens with a passage of considerable pathos and eloquence: the author having been recalled to England by a melancholy event, the death of a very near and dear relation, describes his feelings on entering London.
"In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of pleasure and hope. It was to me as the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field of every species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis of the world of business, thought, and action. There, I was sure to find the friends and companions of my youth, to hear the voice of encouragement and praise. There, society of the most refined kind offered daily its banquets to the mind, with such variety that satiety had no place in them, and new objects of interest and ambition were constantly exciting attention either in politics, literature, or science.
"I now entered this great city in a very different tone of mind—one of settled melancholy, not merely produced by the mournful event which recalled me to my country, but owing likewise to an entire change in the condition of my physical, moral, and intellectual being. My health was gone, my ambition was satisfied; I was no longer excited by the desire of distinction; what I regarded most tenderlywas in the grave; and to take a metaphor, derived from the change produced by time in the juice of the grape, my cup of life was no longer sparkling, sweet, and effervescent; it had lost its sweetness without losing its power, and it had become bitter."
There is perhaps not a more splendid passage to be found in the work; and it is scarcely inferior to Dr. Johnson's memorable conclusion to the preface of his Dictionary.
"After passing a few months in England," says he, "and enjoying (as much as I could enjoy any thing) the society of the few friends who still remained alive, the desire of travel again seized me. I had preserved amidst the wreck of time, one feeling strong and unbroken—the love of natural scenery; and this, in advanced life, formed a principal motive for my plans of conduct and action."
The fall of the Traun, about ten miles below Gmünden, was one of his favourite haunts; and he describes an accident of the most awful description which befell him at this place. While amusing himself on the water by a rapid species of locomotion, in a boat so secured by a rope as to allow only of a limited range, the tackle gave way, and he was rapidly precipitated down the cataract. He remained for some time after his rescue in a state of insensibility, and on recovering found himself attended by his mysterious friend the "Unknown," who had so charmed him in his excursion to Pæstum.
With this stranger, he proceeded on his tour; and he again becomes the medium through which much philosophical information is conveyed to the reader.
They visit together the grotto of the Maddalena at Adelsberg, and he gives us the conversation that took place in that extraordinary cavern.
"Philalethes.—If the awful chasms of dark masses of rock surrounding us appear like the work of demons, who might be imagined to have risen from the centre of the earth, the beautiful works of nature above our heads may be compared to a scenic representation of a temple or banquet-hall for fairies or genii, such as those fabled in the Arabian romances.
"The Unknown.—A poet might certainly place here the palace of the king of the Gnomes, and might find marks of his creative power in the small lake close by, on which the flame of the torch is now falling; for, there it is that I expect to find the extraordinary animals which have been so long the objects of my attention.
"Eubathes.—I see three or four creatures, like slender fish, moving on the mud below the water.
"The Unknown.—I see them; they are the Protei,—now I have them in my fishing-net, and now they are safe in the pitcher of water. At first view, you might suppose this animal to be a lizard, but it has the motions of a fish. Its head, and the lower part of its body and its tail, bear a strong resemblance to those of the eel; but it has no fins; and its curious bronchial organs are not like the gills of fishes; they form a singular vascular structure, as you see, almost like a crest, round the throat, which may be removed without occasioning the death of the animal, who is likewise furnished with lungs. With this double apparatus for supplying air to the blood, it can live either below or above the surfaceof the water. Its fore-feet resemble hands, but they have only three claws or fingers, are too feeble to be of use in grasping, or supporting the weight of the animal; the hinder feet have only two claws or toes, and in larger specimens are found so imperfect as to be almost obliterated. It has small points in place of eyes, as if to preserve the analogy of nature. Its nasal organs appear large; and it is abundantly furnished with teeth, from which it may be concluded that it is an animal of prey; yet in its confined state it has never been known to eat, and it has been kept alive for many years by occasionally changing the water in which it is placed.
"Eubathes.—Is this the only place in Carniola where these animals are found?
"The Unknown.—They were first discovered here by the late Baron Zois; but they have since been found, though rarely, at Sittich, about thirty miles distant, thrown up by water from a subterraneous cavity; and I have lately heard it reported that some individuals of the same species have been recognised in the calcareous strata in Sicily. I think it cannot be doubted, that their natural residence is an extensive deep subterranean lake, from which in great floods they sometimes are forced through the crevices of the rocks into this place where they are found; and it does not appear to me impossible, when the peculiar nature of the country in which we are is considered, that the same great cavity may furnish the individuals which have been found at Adelsberg and at Sittich.
"This adds one more instance to the number already known of the wonderful manner in which life is produced and perpetuated in every part of our globe, even in places which seem the least suited to organized existence. And the same infinite power and wisdom which has fitted the camel and the ostrich for the deserts of Africa, the swallow that secretes its own nest for the caves of Java, the whale for the Polar seas, and the morse and white bear for the Arctic ice, has given the Proteus to the deep and dark subterraneous lakes of Illyria,—an animal to whom the presence of light is not essential, and who can live indifferently in air and in water, on the surface of the rock, or in the depths of the mud."
Much interesting physiological discussion follows. I shall, however, merely notice the opinion delivered by the "Unknown," on the subject of respiration, and which I think shows that, at the conclusion of his career, Davy entertained the same notions, with regard to the communication of some ethereal principle to the blood, as he maintained in the earlier part of his life.[119]—"The obvious chemical alteration of the air is sufficiently simple in this process; a certain quantity of carbon only is added to it, and it receives an addition of heat or vapour; the volumes of elastic fluid inspired and expired (making allowance for change of temperature,) are the same, and if ponderable agents only were to be regarded, it would appear as if the only use of respiration were to free the blood from a certain quantity of carbonaceous matter. But it is probable thatthis is only a secondary object, and that the change produced by respiration upon the blood is of a much more important kind. Oxygen, in its elastic state, has properties which are very characteristic; it gives out light by compression, which is not certainly known to be the case with any other elastic fluid except those which oxygen has entered without undergoing combustion; and from the fire it produces in certain processes, and from the manner in which it is separated by positive electricity in the gaseous state from its combinations, it is not easy to avoid the supposition, that it contains, besides its ponderable elements, some very subtile matter which is capable of assuming the form of heat and light.My ideais, that the common air inspired enters into the venous blood entire, in a state of dissolution, carrying with it its subtile or ethereal part, which in ordinary cases of chemical change is given off; that it expels from the blood carbonic acid gas and azote; and that, in the course of the circulation, its ethereal part and its ponderable part undergo changes which belong to laws that cannot be considered as chemical,—the ethereal part probably producing animal heat and other effects, and the ponderable part contributing to form carbonic acid and other products. The arterial blood is necessary to all the functions of life, and it is no less connected with the irritability of the muscles and the sensibility of the nerves than with the performance of all the secretions."
TheFifth Dialogueis entitled "The Chemist." Its object is to demonstrate the importance of this noble science. An interlocutor is made todisparage its utility, and to mark its weaker points. These of course are answered, the sceptic becomes a true believer, and the intellectual gladiators separate mutually satisfied with each other.
"Eubathes.—I feel disposed to join you in attacking this favourite study of our friend,but merelyto provoke him to defend it, in order to call forth his skill and awaken his eloquence.
"The Unknown.—I have no objection. Let there be a fair discussion: remember, we fight only with foils, and the point of mine shall be covered with velvet."
After having enumerated the scientific attainments necessary to constitute the chemist, and described the apparatus essential for understanding what has been already done in the science, he proceeds to define the intellectual qualities which he considers necessary for discovery, or for the advancement of the science. Amongst them, patience, industry, and neatness in manipulation, and accuracy and minuteness in observing and registering the phenomena which occur, are essential. A steady hand and a quick eye are most useful auxiliaries; but there have been very few great chemists who have preserved these advantages through life; for the business of the laboratory is often a service of danger, and the elements, like the refractory spirits of romance, though the obedient slaves of the magician, yet sometimes escape the influence of his talisman, and endanger his person. Both the hands and eyes of others, however, may be sometimes advantageously made use of. By often repeating a process or an observation, the errors connected with hastyoperations or imperfect views are annihilated; and, provided the assistant has no preconceived notions of his own, and is ignorant of the object of his employer in making the experiment, his simple and bare detail of facts will often be the best foundation for an opinion. With respect to the higher qualities of intellect necessary for understanding and developing the general laws of the science, the same talents, I believe, are required as for making advancement in every other department of human knowledge; I need not be very minute. The imagination must be active and brilliant in seeking analogies; yet entirely under the influence of the judgment in applying them. The memory must be extensive and profound; rather, however, calling up general views of things than minute trains of thought;—the mind must not be like an Encyclopedia,—a burthen of knowledge, but rather a critical Dictionary, which abounds in generalities, and points out where more minute information may be obtained.
"In announcing even the greatest and most important discoveries, the true philosopher will communicate his details with modesty and reserve; he will rather be a useful servant of the public, bringing forth a light from under his cloak when it is needed in darkness, than a charlatan exhibiting fire-works, and having a trumpeter to announce their magnificence.
"I see you are smiling, and think what I am saying in bad taste; yet, notwithstanding, I will provoke your smiles still farther, by saying a word or two on his other moral qualities. That he shouldbe humble-minded, you will readily allow, and a diligent searcher after truth, and neither diverted from this great object by the love of transient glory or temporary popularity, looking rather to the opinion of ages than to that of a day, and seeking to be remembered and named rather in the epochas of historians than in the columns of newspaper writers or journalists. He should resemble the modern geometricians in the greatness of his views and the profoundness of his researches, and the ancient alchemists in industry and piety. I do not mean that he should affix written prayers and inscriptions[120]of recommendations of his processes to Providence, as was the custom of Peter Wolfe, who was alive in my early days; but his mind should always be awake to devotional feelings; and in contemplating the variety and the beauty of the external world, and developing its scientific wonders, he will always refer to that Infinite Wisdom, through whose beneficence he is permitted to enjoy knowledge; and, in becoming wiser, he will become better,—he will rise at once in the scale of intellectual and moral existence, his increased sagacity will be subservient to a more exalted faith, and in proportion as the veil becomes thinner through which he sees the causes of things, he will admire more the brightness of the divine light by which they are rendered visible."
TheSixth and last Dialogue, entitled "Pola, orTime," presents a series of reflections, to which a view of the decaying amphitheatre at Pola, an ancient town in the peninsula of Istria, is represented as having given origin. On former occasions, the inspection of the mouldering works of past ages called up trains of thought rather of a moral than of a physical character; in the present dialogue, the effects of time are considered in their relations to the mechanical and chemical laws by which material forms are destroyed, or rather changed,—for the author has shown by a number of beautiful examples, that without decay there can be no reproduction, and that the principle of change is a principle of life.
Having considered the influence of gravitation, the chemical and mechanical agencies of water, air, and electricity, and the energies of organized beings, in producing those diversified phenomena which, in our metaphysical abstractions, we universally refer to Time, he proceeds to enquire how far art can counteract their operation. A great philosopher, he observes, has said, "Man can in no other way command Nature but in obeying her laws:" it is evident that, by the application of some of those principles which she herself employs, we may for a while arrest the progress of changes which are ultimately inevitable.
"Yet, when all is done that can be done in the work of conservation, it is only producing a difference in the degree of duration. It is evident that none of the works of a mortal can be eternal, as none of the combinations of a limited intellect canbe infinite. The operations of Nature, when slow, are no less sure; however man may, for a time, usurp dominion over her, she is certain of recovering her empire. He converts her rocks, her stones, her trees, into forms of palaces, houses, and ships; he employs the metals found in the bosom of the earth, as instruments of power, and the sands and clays which constitute its surface, as ornaments and resources of luxury; he imprisons air by water, and tortures water by fire to change, or modify, or destroy the natural forms of things. But in some lustrums his works begin to change, and in a few centuries they decay and are in ruins; and his mighty temples, framed as it were for immortal and divine purposes, and his bridges formed of granite and ribbed with iron, and his walls for defence, and the splendid monuments by which he has endeavoured to give eternity even to his perishable remains, are gradually destroyed; and these structures, which have resisted the waves of the ocean, the tempests of the sky, and the stroke of the lightning, shall yield to the operation of the dews of heaven,—of frost, rain, vapour, and imperceptible atmospheric influences; and as the worm devours the lineaments of his mortal beauty, so the lichens and the moss and the most insignificant plants shall feed upon his columns and his pyramids, and the most humble and insignificant insect shall undermine and sap the foundations of his colossal works, and make their habitations amongst the ruins of his palaces and the falling seats of his earthly glory."
On no occasion can such a subject be presented to a contemplative mind, without filling it with aweand wonder; but the circumstances under which these reflections are presented to us, in the last days of our philosopher, impress upon them an almost oracular solemnity. When we remember that while the mind of the philosopher was thus engaged in identifying the processes of decay with those of renovation in the system of nature, his body was palsied, and the current of his life fast ebbing, we cannot but admire that active intelligence which sparkled with such undiminished lustre amidst the wreck of its earthly tenement.
In the extracts which have been introduced from this last work, I trust the pledge that was given in the earlier part of these memoirs, has been redeemed by showing that a powerful imagination is not necessarily incompatible with a sound judgment, that the flowers of fancy are not always blighted by the cold realities of science, but that the poet and philosopher may, under the auspices of a happy genius, mutually assist each other in expounding the mysteries of nature. It cannot be denied, as a general aphorism, that the tree which expands its force in flowers is generally deficient in fruit; but the mind of Davy, to borrow one of his own metaphors, may be likened to those fabled of the Hesperides, which produced at once buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruits.
The happy effects resulting from this rare and nicely adjusted combination of talents, offer themselves as interesting subjects of biographical contemplation, and they can be studied only with success by a comparative analysis of different minds.
That the superiority of Davy greatly dependedupon the vivacity and compass of his imagination cannot be doubted, and such an opinion was well expressed by Mr. Davies Gilbert, in his late address to the Society:—"The poetic bent of Davy's mind seems never to have left him. To that circumstance I would ascribe the distinguishing features in his character and in his discoveries:—a vivid imagination sketching out new tracks in regions unexplored, for the judgment to select those leading to the recesses of abstract truth."
I have always thought that the mind of the late Dr. Clarke, the Mineralogical Professor of Cambridge, was little less imaginative than that of Davy; but it was deficient in judgment, and therefore often conducted him to error instead of to truth. Dr. Black was not deficient in imagination, and certainly not in judgment; but there was a constitutional apathy, arising probably from ill health, which damped his noblest efforts.[121]
It is by the rarity with which the talent of seizing upon remote analogies is associated with a spirit of patient and subtile investigation of details, and a quick perception of their value, that the fact so truly stated by Mr. Babbage is to be explained;viz.m> that long intervals frequently elapse between the discovery of new principles in science and their practical application: thus he observes, that "the principle of the hydrostatic paradox was known as a speculative truth in the time of Stevinus, as far back as the year 1600,—and its application to raising heavy weights has long been stated in elementary treatises on natural philosophy, as well as constantly exhibited in lectures; yet it may fairly be regarded as a mere abstract principle, until the late Mr. Bramah, by substituting a pump, instead of the smaller column, converted it into a most valuable and powerful engine. The principle of the convertibility of the centres of oscillation and suspension in the pendulum, discovered by Huygens more than a century and a half ago, remained, until within these few years, a sterile though most elegant proposition; when, after being hinted at by Prony, and distinctly pointed out by Bonenberger, it was employed by Captain Kater as the foundation of a most convenientmethod of determining the length of the pendulum. The interval which separated the discovery of Dr. Black, of latent heat, from the beautiful and successful application of it to the steam-engine, was comparatively short; but it required the efforts of two minds; and both were of the highest order."[122]
The discoveries of Davy present themselves in striking contrast with such instances. The same powerful genius that developed the laws of electro-chemical decomposition, was the first to apply them for the purpose of obviating metallic corrosion; and the nature offire-damp, and the fact of its combustion being arrested in its passage through capillary tubes, were alike the discoveries of him who first applied them for the construction of a safety-lamp.[123]
In contrasting the genius of Wollaston with that of Davy, let me not be supposed to invite a comparison to the disparagement of either, but rather to the glory of both, for by mutual reflection each will glow the brighter. If the animating principle ofDavy's mind was a powerful imagination, generalizing phenomena, and casting them into new combinations, so may the striking characteristic of Wollaston's genius be said to have been an almost superhuman perception of minute detail. Davy was ever imagining something greater than he knew; Wollaston always knew something more than he acknowledged:—in Wollaston, the predominant principle was to avoid error; in Davy, it was the desire to discover truth. The tendency of Davy, on all occasions, was to raise probabilities into facts; while Wollaston as continually made them subservient to the expression of doubt.
Wollaston was deficient in imagination, and under no circumstances could he have become a Poet; nor was it to be expected that his investigations should have led him to any of those comprehensive generalizations which create new systems of philosophy. He well knew the compass of his powers, and he pursued the only method by which they could be rendered available in advancing knowledge. He was a giant in strength, but it was the strength of Antæus, mighty only on the earth. The extreme caution and reserve of his manner were inseparably connected with the habits of his mind; they pervaded every part of his character; in his amusements and in his scientific experiments, he displayed the same nice and punctilious observation,—whether he was angling for trout,[124]or testing for elements,
he alike relied for success upon his subtile discrimination of minute circumstances.
By comparing the writings as well as the discoveries of these two great philosophers, we shall readily perceive the intellectual distinctions I have endeavoured to establish. "From their fruits shall ye know them." The discoveries of Davy were the results of extensive views and new analogies; those of Wollaston were derived from a more exact examination of minute and, to ordinary observers, scarcely appreciable differences. This is happily illustrated by a comparison of the means by which each discovered new metals. The alkaline bases were the products of a comprehensive investigation, which had developed a new order of principles; the detection of palladium and rhodium among the ores of platinum, was the reward of delicate manipulation, and microscopic scrutiny. As chemical operators, I have already pointed out their striking peculiarities, and they will be found to be in strict keeping with the other features of their respective characters. I might extend the parallel farther; butDr. Henry, in the eleventh edition of his "System of Chemistry," has delineated the intellectual portraits of these two philosophers with so masterly a hand, that by quoting the passage, all farther observation will be rendered unnecessary.
"To those high gifts of nature, which are the characteristics of genius, and which constitute its very essence, both those eminent men united an unwearied industry and zeal in research, and habits of accurate reasoning, without which even the energies of genius are inadequate to the achievement of great scientific designs. With these excellencies, common to both, they were nevertheless distinguishable by marked intellectual peculiarities. Bold, ardent, and enthusiastic, Davy soared to greater heights; he commanded a wider horizon; and his keen vision penetrated to its utmost boundaries. His imagination, in the highest degree fertile and inventive, took a rapid and extensive range in pursuit of conjectural analogies, which he submitted to close and patient comparison with known facts, and tried by an appeal to ingenious and conclusive experiments. He was imbued with the spirit, and was a master in the practice, of the inductive logic; and he has left us some of the noblest examples of the efficacy of that great instrument of human reason in the discovery of truth. He applied it, not only to connect classes of facts of more limited extent and importance, but to develope great and comprehensive laws, which embrace phenomena that are almost universal to the natural world. In explaining those laws, he cast upon them the illumination of his own clear and vivid conceptions;—he feltan intense admiration of the beauty, order, and harmony, which are conspicuous in the perfect Chemistry of Nature;—and he expressed those feelings with a force of eloquence which could issue only from a mind of the highest powers and of the finest sensibilities. With much less enthusiasm from temperament, Dr. Wollaston was endowed with bodily senses[125]of extraordinary acuteness and accuracy, and with great general vigour of understanding. Trained in the discipline of the exact sciences, he had acquired a powerful command over his attention, and had habituated himself to the most rigid correctness, both of thought and of language. He was sufficiently provided with the resources of the mathematics, to be enabled to pursue with success profound enquiries in mechanical and optical philosophy, the results of which enabled him to unfold the causes of phenomena not before understood, and to enrich the arts connected with those sciences, by the invention of ingenious and valuable instruments. In Chemistry, he was distinguished by the extreme nicety and delicacy of his observations; by the quickness and precision with which he marked resemblances and discriminated differences; the sagacity with which he devised experiments and anticipated their results; andthe skill with which he executed the analysis of fragments of new substances, often so minute as to be scarcely perceptible by ordinary eyes. He was remarkable, too, for the caution with which he advanced from facts to general conclusions: a caution which, if it sometimes prevented him from reaching at once to the most sublime truths, yet rendered every step of his ascent a secure station, from which it was easy to rise to higher and more enlarged inductions. Thus these illustrious men, though differing essentially in their natural powers and acquired habits, and moving, independently of each other, in different paths, contributed to accomplish the same great ends—the evolving new elements; the combining matter into new forms; the increase of human happiness by the improvement of the arts of civilized life; and the establishment of general laws, that will serve to guide other philosophers onwards, through vast and unexplored regions of scientific discovery."
My history draws towards a conclusion.—Sir Humphry Davy, during the latter days of his life, was cheered by the society and affectionate attentions of his godson, the son of his old friend Mr. James Tobin.[126]He had been the companion of his travels, and he was the solace of his declining hours.
He had been resident for some months at Rome, where he occupied the second floor of a house in Via di Pietra, a street that leads out of the Corso.During this period, he declined receiving any visitors, and had constantly some one by his side reading light works of interest to him, an amusement which was even continued during his meals.
As soon as the account of Sir Humphry having sustained another paralytic seizure was communicated to Lady Davy, who was in London at the time, she immediately set off, and so rapidly was her journey performed, that she reached Rome in little more than twelve days. Dr. John Davy, also, hastened from Malta, on receiving intelligence of his brother's imminent danger.
During his slow and partial recovery from this seizure, he learnt the circumstance of his name having been introduced into parliamentary proceedings, in the following manner. On the 26th of March 1829, on presenting a petition in favour of the Catholic claims from a very great and most respectable meeting at Edinburgh, Sir James Mackintosh, after having mentioned the name of Sir Walter Scott as being at the head of the petitioners, continued thus:—"Although not pertinent to this petition, yet connected with the cause, I indulge in the melancholy pleasure of adding to the first name in British literature the first name in British science—that of Sir Humphry Davy. Though on a sick-bed at Rome, he was not so absorbed by his sufferings as not to feel and express the glow of joy that shot across his heart at the glad tidings of the introduction of a bill which he hailed as alike honourable to his religion and his country."
I am assured that the last mark of satisfaction which he evinced from any intelligence communicatedto him was on reading the above passage. He showed a pleasure unusual in his state of languor at the justice thus done, in the face of his country, to his consistency, to his zeal for religion and liberty, and to the generous sentiments which cheered his debility. The marks of his pleasure were observed by those who were brought most near to him by the performance of every kind office.
Although there appeared some faint indications of reviving power, his most sanguine friends scarcely ventured to indulge a hope that his life would be much longer protracted. Nor did he himself expect it. The expressions in his Will (printed in an Appendix) sufficiently testify the opinion he had for some time entertained of the hopelessness of his case.
In addition to this Will, he left a paper of directions, which have been religiously observed by his widow. He desires, for instance, that the interest arising from a hundred pounds stock may be annually paid to the Master of the Penzance Grammar School, on condition that the boys may have a holiday on his birthday.[127]There is something singularly interesting in this favourable recollection of his native town, and of the associations of his early youth. It adds one more example to show that, whatever may have been our destinies, and however fortune may have changed our conditions, where the heart remains uncorrupted, we shall, as theworld closes upon us, fix our imaginations upon the simplicities of our youth, and be cheered and warmed by the remembrance of early pleasures, hallowed by feelings of regard for the memory of those who have long since slept in the grave.
With that restlessness which characterises the disease under which Sir Humphry Davy suffered, he became extremely desirous of quitting Rome, and of establishing himself at Geneva. His friends were naturally anxious to gratify every wish; and Lady Davy kindly preceded him on the journey, in order that she might at each stage make arrangements for his comfortable reception. Apartments were prepared for him atL'Hotel de la Couronne, in the Rue du Rhone; and at three o'clock on the 28th of May, having slept the preceding evening at Chambery, he arrived at Geneva, accompanied by his brother, Mr. Tobin, and his servant.
At four o'clock he dined, ate heartily, was unusually cheerful, and joked with the waiter about the cookery of the fish, which he appeared particularly to admire; and he desired that, as long as he remained at the hotel, he might be daily supplied with every possible variety that the lake afforded. He drank tea at eleven, and having directed that the feather-bed should be removed, retired to rest at twelve.
His servant, who slept in a bed parallel to his own, in the same alcove, was however very shortly called to attend him, and he desired that his brother might be summoned. I am informed that, on Dr. Davy's entering the room, he said, "I am dying," or words to that effect; "and when it is all over, Idesire that no disturbance of any kind may be made in the house; lock the door, and let every one retire quietly to his apartment." He expired at a quarter before three o'clock, without a struggle.
On the following morning, his friends Sismondi[128]and De Candolle were sent for; and the Syndics, as soon as the circumstance of his death was communicated to them, gave directions for a public funeral on the Monday; at which the magistrates, the professors, the English residents at Geneva, and such inhabitants as desired it, were invited to attend. The ceremony was ordered to be conducted after the custom of Geneva, which is always on foot—no hearse; nor did a single carriage attend. The cemetery is at Plain-Palais, some little distance out of the walls of the town. The Couronne being at the opposite extremity, the procession was long.
The following was the order of the procession:—[129]
Professors of the College, in their robes,MM. Simond de Sismondi—A. de Candolle.
THE ENGLISH.
LordEglington,LordTwedell,Right Hon.Wm. Wyckham,Capt.Archibald Hamilton,Mr.Campbell,Mr.Franks,Wm. Hamilton, Esq.,Ex-Ambassador at Naples.SirEgerton Brydges, Bart.ColonelAlcock,CaptainSwinters,Mr.Alcock,Mr.Drew,Mr.Heywood,Mr.Sitwell,&c.
The Students of the College.The Citizens of Geneva.
The English service was performed by the Rev. John Magers, of Queen's College, and the Rev. Mr. Burgess.
The grave was stated in the public prints to be next to that of his friend the late Professor M. A. Pictet: this is not the fact. It is far away from it, on the second line of No. 29, the fourth grave from the end of the west side of the Cemetery.
Sir Humphry Davy having died without issue, his baronetcy has become extinct.
At present, the only memorial raised to commemorate the name of this distinguished philosopher is a Tablet placed in Westminster Abbey by his widow. It is thus inscribed:—