12. I have been endeavoring to illustrate the doctrine that man's nature is different from the nature of other animals; as subsidiary to the doctrine that the Human Epoch of the earth's history is different from all the preceding Epochs. But in truth, this subsidiary proposition is not by any means necessaryto my main purpose. Even if barbarous and savage tribes, even if men under unfavorable circumstances, be little better than the brutes, still no one will doubt that the most civilized races of mankind, that man under the most favorable circumstances, is far, is, indeed, immeasurably elevated above the brutes. The history of man includes not only the history of Scythians and Barbarians, Australians and Negroes, but of ancient Greeks and of modern Europeans; and therefore there can be no doubt that the period of the Earth's history, which includes the history of man, is very different indeed from any period which preceded that. To illustrate the peculiarity, the elevation, the dignity, the wonderful endowments of man, we might refer to the achievements, the recorded thoughts and actions, of the most eminent among those nations;—to their arts, their poetry, their eloquence; their philosophers, their mathematicians, their astronomers; to the acts of virtue and devotion, of patriotism, generosity, obedience, truthfulness, love, which took place among them;—to their piety, their reverence for the deity, their resignation to his will, their hope of immortality. Such characteristic traits of man as man, (which all examples of intelligence, virtue, and religion, are,) might serve to show that man is, in a sense quite different from other creatures, "fearfully and wonderfully made;" but I need not go into such details. It is sufficient for my purpose to sum up the result in the expressions which I have already used; that man is an intellectual, moral, religious, and spiritual being.
13. But the existence of man upon the earth being thus an event of an order quite different from any previous part of the earth's history, the question occurs, how long has this state of things endured? What period has elapsed since this creature, with these high powers and faculties, was placed upon theearth? How far must we go backward in time, to find the beginning of his wonderful history?—so utterly wonderful compared with anything which had previously occurred. For as to that point, we cannot feel any doubt. The wildest imagination cannot suggest that corals and madrepores, oysters and sepias, fishes and lizards, may have been rational and moral creatures; nor even those creatures which come nearer to human organization; megatheriums and mastodons, extinct deer and elephants. Undoubtedly the earth, till the existence of man, was a world of mere brute creatures. How long then has it been otherwise? How long has it been the habitation of a rational, reflective, progressive race? Can we by any evidence, geological or other, approximate to the beginning of the Human History?
14. This is a large and curious question, and one on which a precise answer may not be within our reach. But an answer not precise, an approximation, as we have suggested, may suffice for our purpose. If we can determine, in some measure, the order and scale of the period during which man has occupied the earth, the determination may serve to support the analogy which we wish to establish.
15. The geological evidence with regard to the existence of man is altogether negative. Previous to the deposits and changes which we can trace as belonging obviously to the present state of the earth's surface, and the operation of causes now existing, there is no vestige of the existence of man, or of his works. As was long ago observed,[3]we do not find, among the shells and bones which are so abundant in the older strata, any weapons, medals, implements, structures, which speak to us of the hand of man, the workman. If we look forwards ten or twenty thousand years, and suppose the existing worksof man to have been, by that time, ruined and covered up by masses of rubbish, inundations, morasses, lava-streams, earthquakes; still, when the future inhabitant of the earth digs into and explores these coverings, he will discover innumerable monuments that man existed so long ago. The materials of many of his works, and the traces of his own mind, which he stamps upon them, are as indestructible as the shells and bones which give language to the oldest work. Indeed, in many cases the oldest fossil remains are the results of objects of seemingly the most frail and perishable material;—of the most delicate and tender animal and vegetable tissues and filaments. That no such remains of textures and forms, moulded by the hand of man, are anywhere found among these, must be accepted as indisputable evidence that man did not exist, so as to be contemporary with the plants and animals thus commemorated. According to geological evidence, the race of man is a novelty upon the earth;—something which has succeeded to all the great geological changes.
16. And in this, almost all geologists are agreed. Even those who hold that, in other ways, the course of change has been uniform;—that even the introduction of man, as a new species of animal, is only an event of the same kind as myriads of like events which have occurred in the history of the earth;—still allow that the introduction of man, as a moral being, is an event entirely different from any which had taken place before; and that event is, geologically speaking, recent. The changes of which we have spoken, as studied by the geologist in connection with the works of man, the destruction of buildings on sea-coasts by the incursions of the ocean, the removal of the shore many miles away from ancient harbors, the overwhelming of cities by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; however great when compared with the changes whichtake place in one or two generations; are minute and infinitesimal, when put in comparison with the changes by which ranges of mountains and continents have been brought into being, one after another, each of them filled with the remains of different organic creations.
17. Further than this, geology does not go on this question. She has no chronometer which can tell us when the first buildings were erected, when man first dwelt in cities, first used implements or arms; still less, language and reflection. Geology is compelled to give over the question to History. The external evidences of the antiquity of the species fail us, and we must have recourse to the internal. Nature can tell us so little of the age of man, that we must inquire what he can tell us himself.
18. What man can tell us of his own age—what history can say of the beginning of history—is necessarily very obscure and imperfect. We know how difficult it is to trace to its origin the History of any single Nation: how much more, the History of all Nations! We know that all such particular histories carry us back to periods of the migrations of tribes, confused mixtures of populations, perplexed and contradictory genealogies of races; and as we follow these further and further backwards, they become more and more obscure and uncertain; at least in the histories which remain to us of most nations. Still, the obscurity is not such as to lead us to the conviction that research is useless and unprofitable. It is an obscurity such as naturally arises from the lapse of time, and the complexity of the subject. The aspect of the world, however far we go back, is still historical and human; historical and human, in as high a degree, as it is at the present day. Men, as described in the records of the oldest times, are of the same nature, act with the same views, are governedby the same motives, as at present. At all points, we see thought, purpose, law, religion, progress. If we do not find a beginning, we find at least evidence that, in approaching the beginning, the condition of man does not, in any way, cease to be that of an intellectual, moral, and religious creature.
19. There are, indeed, some histories which speak to us of the beginning of man's existence upon earth; and one such history in particular, which comes to us recommended by indisputable evidence of its own great antiquity, by numerous and striking confirmations from other histories, and from facts still current, and by its connection with that religious view of man's condition, which appears to thoughtful men to be absolutely requisite to give a meaning and purpose to man's faculties and endowments. I speak, of course, of the Hebrew Scriptures. This history professes to inform us how man was placed upon the earth; and how, from one centre, the human family spread itself in various branches into all parts of the world. This genealogy of the human race is accompanied by a chronology, from which it results that the antiquity of the human race does not exceed a few thousand years. Even if we accept this history as true and authoritative, it would not be wise to be rigidly tenacious of the chronology, as to its minute exactness. For, in the first place, of three different forms in which this history appears, the chronology is different in all the three: I mean the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint versions of the Old Testament. And even if this were not so, since this chronology is put in the form of genealogies, of which many of the steps may very probably have a meaning different from the simple succession of generations in a family, (as some of them certainly have,) it would be unwise to consider ourselves bound to the exact number of years stated, in any of the three versions, or evenin all. It makes no difference to our argument, nor to any, purpose in which we can suppose this narrative to have a bearing, whether we accept six thousand or ten thousand years, or even a longer period, as the interval which has now elapsed since the creation of man took place, and the peopling of the earth began.
20. And, in our speculations at least, it will be well for us to take into account the view which is given us of the antiquity of the human race, by other histories as well as by this. A satisfactory result of such an investigation would be attained if, looking at all these histories, weighing their value, interpreting their expressions fairly, discovering their sources of error, and of misrepresentation, we should find them all converge to one point; all give a consistent and harmonious view of the earliest stages of man's history; of the times and places in which he first appeared as man. If all nations of men are branches of the same family, it cannot but interest us, to find all the family traditions tending upwards towards the same quarter; indicating a divergence from the same point; exhibiting a recollection of the original domicile, or of the same original family circle.
21. To a certain extent at least, this appears to be the result of the historical investigations which have been pursued relative to this subject. A certain group of nations is brought before us by these researches which, a few thousands of years ago, were possessed of arts, and manners, and habits, and belief, which make them conspicuous, and which we can easily believe to have been contemporaneous successors of a common, though, it may be even then, remote stock. Such are the Jews, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. The histories of these nations are connected with and confirm each other. Their languages, or most of them, have certain affinities, whichglossologists, on independent grounds, have regarded as affinities implying an original connection. Their chronologies, though in many respects discrepant, are not incapable of being reduced into an harmony by very probable suppositions. Here we have a very early view of the condition of a portion of the earth as the habitation of man, and perhaps a suggestion of a condition earlier still.
22. It is true, that there are other nations also, which claim an antiquity for their civilization equal to or greater than that which we can ascribe to these. Such are the Indians and the Chinese. But while we do not question that these nations were at a remote period in possession of arts, knowledge, and regular polity, in a very eminent degree, we are not at all called upon to assent to the immense numbers, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, by which such nations, in their histories, express their antiquity. For, in the first place, such numbers are easily devised and transferred to the obscure early stages of tradition, when the art of numeration is once become familiar. These vast intervals, applied to series of blank genealogies, or idle fables, gratify the popular appetite for numerical wonders, but have little claim on critical conviction.
23. And in the next place, we discover that not enumeration only, but a more recondite art, had a great share in the fabrication of these gigantic numbers of years. Some of the nations of whom we have thus spoken, the Indians, for example, had, at an early period, possessed themselves of a large share of astronomical knowledge. They had observed and examined the motions of the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and the Stars, till they had discovered Cycles, in which, after long and seemingly irregular wanderings in the skies, the heavenly bodies came round again to known and regular positions.They had thus detected the order that reigns in the seeming disorder; and had, by this means, enabled themselves to know beforehand when certain astronomical events would occur; certain configurations of the Planets, for instance, and eclipses; and knowing how such events would occur in future, they were also able to calculate how the like events had occurred in the past. They could thus determine what eclipses and what planetary configurations had occurred, in thousands and tens of thousands of years of past time; and could, if they were disposed to falsify their early histories, and to confirm the falsification by astronomical evidence, do so with a very near approximation to astronomical truth. Such astronomical confirmation of their assertions, so incapable in any common apprehension of being derived from any other source than actual observation of the fact, naturally produced a great effect upon common minds; and still more, on those who examined the astronomical fact, enough only to see that it was, approximately, at least, true. But in recent times the fallacy of this evidence has been shown, and the fabrication detected. For though the astronomical rules which they had devised were approximately true, they were true approximately only. The more exact researches of modern European astronomy discovered that their cycles, though nearly exact, were not quite so. There was in them an error which made the cycle, at every revolution of its period, when it was applied to past ages, more and more wrong; so that the astronomical events which they asserted to have happened, as they had calculated that they would have happened, the better informed astronomer of our day knows would not have happened exactly so, but in a manner differing more and more from their statement, as the event was more and more remote. And thus the fact which they asserted to have been observed,had not really happened; and the confirmation, which it had been supposed to lend to their history, disappeared. And thus, there is not, in the asserted antiquity of Indian civilization and Indian astronomy, anything which has a well-founded claim to disturb our belief that the nations of the more western regions of Asia had a civilization as ancient as theirs. And considerations of nearly the same kind may be applied to the very remote astronomical facts which are recorded as having been observed in the history of some others of the ancient nations above mentioned.
24. Still less need we be disturbed by the long series of dynasties, each occupying a large period of years, which the Egyptians are said to have inserted in their early history, so as to carry their origin beyond the earliest times which I have mentioned. If they spoke of the Greek nations as children compared with their own long-continued age, as Plato says they did, a few thousands of years of previous existence would well entitle them to do so. So far as such a period goes, their monuments and their hieroglyphical inscriptions give a reality to their pretensions, which we may very willingly grant. And even the history of the Jews supposes that the Egyptians had attained a high point in arts, government, knowledge, when Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, was still leading the life of a nomad. But this supposition is not inconsistent with the account which the Jewish Scriptures give, of the origin of nations; especially if, as we have said, we abstain from any rigid and narrow interpretation of the chronology of those scriptures; as on every ground, it is prudent to do.
25. It appears then not unreasonable to believe, that a very few thousands, or even a few hundreds of years before the time of Abraham, the nations of central and western Asia offer to us the oldest aspect of the life of man upon the earth;and that in reasoning concerning the antiquity of the human race, we may suppose that at that period, he was in the earliest stages of his existence. Although, in truth, if we were to accept the antiquity claimed by the Egyptians, the Indians, or the Chinese, the nature of our argument would not be materially altered; for ten thousand, or even twenty thousand years, bears a very small proportion to the periods of time which geology requires for the revolutions which she describes; and, as I have said, we have geological evidence also, to show how brief the human period has been, when compared with the period which preceded the existence of man. And if this be so; if such peoples as those who have left to us the monuments of Egypt and of Assyria, the pyramids and ancient Thebes, the walls of Nineveh and Babylon, were the first nations which lived as nations; or if they were separated from such only by the interval by which the Germans of to-day are separated from the Germans of Tacitus; we may well repeat our remark, that the history of man, in the earliest times, is as truly a history of a wonderful, intellectual, social, political, spiritual creature, as it is at present. We see, in the monuments of those periods, evidences so great and so full of skill, that even now, they amaze us, of arts, government, property, thought, the love of beauty, the recognition of deity; evidences of memory, foresight, power. If London or Berlin were now destroyed, overwhelmed, and, four thousand years hence, disinterred, these cities would not afford stronger testimony of those attributes, as existing in modern Europeans, than we have of such qualities in the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians. The history of man, as that of a creature pre-eminent in the creation, is equally such, however far back we carry our researches.
26. Nor is there anything to disturb this view, in the factof the existence of the uncultured and barbarous tribes which occupy, and always have occupied, a large portion of the earth's surface. For, in the first place, there is not, in the aspect of the fact, or in the information which history gives us, any reason to believe that such tribes exhibit a form of human existence, which, in the natural order of progress, is earlier than the forms of civilized life, of which we have spoken. The opinion that the most savage kind of human life, least acquainted with arts, and least provided with resources, is the state of nature out of which civilized life has everywhere gradually emerged, is an opinion which, though at one time popular, is unsupported by proof, and contrary to probability.[4]Savage tribes do not so grow into civilization; their condition is, far more probably, a condition of civilization degraded and lost, than of civilization incipient and prospective. Add to this, that if we were to assume that this were otherwise; if man thus originally and naturally savage, did also naturally tend to become civilized; thistendencyis an endowment no less wonderful, than those endowments which civilization exhibits. The capacity is as extraordinary as the developed result; for the capacity involves the result. If savage man be the germ of the most highly civilized man, he differs from all other animal germs, as man differs from brute. And add to this again, that in the tribes which we call savage, and whose condition most differs, in external circumstances, from ours, there are, after all, a vast mass of human attributes: thought, purpose, language, family relations;generally property, law, government, contract, arts, and knowledge, to no small extent; and in almost every case, religion. Even uncivilized man is an intellectual, moral, social, religious creature; nor is there, in his condition, any reason why he may not be a spiritual creature, in the highest sense in which the most civilized man can be so.
27. Here then we are brought to the view which, it would seem, offers a complete reply to the difficulty, which astronomical discoveries appeared to place in the way of religion:—the difficulty of the opinion that man, occupying this speck of earth, which is but as an atom in the Universe, surrounded by millions of other globes, larger, and, to appearance, nobler than that which he inhabits, should be the object of the peculiar care and guardianship, of the favor and government, of the Creator of All, in the way in which Religion teaches us that He is. For we find that man, (the human race, from its first origin till now,) has occupied but an atom of time, as he has occupied but an atom of space:—that as he is surrounded by myriads of globes which may, like this, be the habitations of living things, so he has been preceded, on this earth, by myriads of generations of living things, not possibly or probably only, but certainly; and yet that, comparing his history with theirs, he has been, certainly has been fitted to be, the object of the care and guardianship, of the favor and government, of the Master and Governor of All, in a manner entirely different from anything which it is possible to believe with regard to the countless generations of brute creatures which had gone before him. If we will doubt or overlook the difference between man and brutes, the difficulty of ascribing to man peculiar privileges, is made as great by the revelations of geology, as of astronomy. The scale of man's insignificance is, as we have said, of the same order in reference totime, as to space. There is nothing which at all goes beyond the magnitude which observation and reasoning suggest for geological periods, in supposing that the tertiary strata occupied, in their deposition and elevation, a period as much greater than the period of human history, as the solar system is larger than the earth:—that the secondary strata were as much longer than these in their formation, as the nearest fixed star is more distant than the sun:—that the still earlier masses, call them primary, or protozoic, or what we will, did, in their production, extend through a period of time as vast, compared with the secondary period, as the most distant nebula is remoter than the nearest star. If the earth, as the habitation of man, is a speck in the midst of an infinity of space, the earth, as the habitation of man, is also a speck at the end of an infinity of time. If we are as nothing in the surrounding universe, we are as nothing in the elapsed eternity; or rather, in the elapsed organic antiquity, during which the earth has existed and been the abode of life. If man is but one small family in the midst of innumerable possible households, he is also but one small family, the successor of innumerable tribes of animals, not possible only, but actual. If the planetsmaybe the seats of life, we know that the seas which have given birth to our mountainswerethe seats of life. If the stars may have hundreds of systems of tenanted planets rolling round them, we know that the secondary group of rocks does contain hundreds of tenanted beds, witnessing of as many systems of organic creation. If the nebulæ may be planetary systems in the course of formation, we know that the primary and transition rocks either show us the earth in the course of formation, as the future seat of life, or exhibit such life as already begun.
28. How far that which astronomy thus asserts as possible, is probable:—what is the value of these possibilities of life indistant regions of the universe, we shall hereafter consider. But in what geology asserts, the case is clear. It is no possibility, but a certainty. No one will now doubt that shells and skeletons, trunks and leaves, prove animal and vegetable life to have existed. Even, therefore, if Astronomy could demonstrate all that her most fanciful disciples assume, Geology would still have a complete right to claim an equal hearing;—to insist upon having her analogies regarded. She would have a right to answer the questions of Astronomy, when she says, How can we believe this? and to have her answers accepted.
29. Astronomy claims a sort of dignity over all other sciences, from herantiquity, hercertainty, and thevastnessof her discoveries. But the antiquity of astronomy as a science had no share in such speculations as we are discussing; and if it had had, new truths are better than old conjectures; new discoveries must rectify old errors; new answers must remove old difficulties. The vigorous youth of Geology makes her fearless of the age of Astronomy. And as to the certainty of Astronomy, it has just as little to do with these speculations. The certainty stops, just when these speculations begin. There may, indeed, be some danger of delusion on this subject. Men have been so long accustomed to look upon astronomical science as the mother of certainty, that they may confound astronomical discoveries with cosmological conjectures; though these be slightly and illogically connected with those. And then, as to the vastness of astronomical discoveries,—granting that character, inasmuch as it is to a certain degree, a matter of measurement,—we must observe, that the discoveries of geology are no less vast: they extend through time, as those of astronomy do through space. They carry us through millions of years, that is, of the earth's revolutions, as those ofastronomy do through millions of the earth's diameters, or of diameters of the earth's orbit. Geology fills the regions of duration with events, as astronomy fills the regions of the universe with objects. She carries us backwards by the relation of cause and effect, as astronomy carries us upwards by the relations of geometry. As astronomy steps on from point to point of the universe by a chain of triangles, so geology steps from epoch to epoch of the earth's history by a chain of mechanical and organical laws. If the one depends on the axioms of geometry, the other depends on the axioms of causation.
30. So far then, Geology has no need to regard Astronomy as her superior; and least of all, when they apply themselves together to speculations like these. But in truth, in such speculations, Geology has an immeasurable superiority. She has the command of an implement, in addition to all that Astronomy can use; and one, for the purpose of such speculations, adapted far beyond any astronomical element of discovery. She has, for one of her studies,—one of her means of dealing with her problems,—the knowledge of Life, animal and vegetable. Vital organization is a subject of attention which has, in modern times, been forced upon her. It is now one of the main parts of her discipline. The geologist must study the traces of life in every form; must learn to decypher its faintest indications and its fullest development. On the question, then, whether there be in this or that quarter, evidence of life, he can speak with the confidence derived from familiar knowledge; while the astronomer, to whom such studies are utterly foreign, because he has no facts which bear upon them, can offer, on such questions, only the loosest and most arbitrary conjectures; which, as we have had to remark, have been rebuked by eminent men, as being altogether inconsistent with the acknowledged maxims of his science.
31. When, therefore, Geology tells us that the earth, which has been the seat of human life for a few thousand years only, has been the seat of animal life for myriads, it may be, millions of years, she has a right to offer this, as an answer to any difficulty which Astronomy, or the readers of astronomical books, may suggest, derived from the considerations that the Earth, the seat of human life, is but one globe of a few thousand miles in diameter, among millions of other globes, at distances millions of times as great.
32. Let the difficulty be put in any way the objector pleases. Is it that it is unworthy of the greatness and majesty of God, according to our conceptions of Him, to bestow such peculiar care on so small a part of His creation? But we know, from geology, that He has bestowed upon this small part of His creation, mankind, this special care;—He has made their period, though only a moment in the ages of animal life, the only period of intelligence, morality, religion. If then, to suppose that He has done this, is contrary to our conceptions of His greatness and majesty, it is plain that our conceptions are erroneous; they have taken a wrong direction. God has not judged, as to what is worthy of Him, as we have judged. He has found it worthy of Him to bestow upon man His special care, though he occupies so small a portion of time; and why not, then, although he occupies so small a portion of space?
33. Or is the objection this; that if we suppose the earth only to be occupied by inhabitants, all the other globes of the universe are wasted;—turned to no purpose? Is waste of this kind considered as unsuited to the character of the Creator? But here again, we have the like waste, in the occupation of the earth. All its previous ages, its seas and its continents, have been wasted upon mere brute life; often, so far as we can see, for myriads of years, upon the lowest, the least consciousforms of life; upon shell-fish, corals, sponges. Why then should not the seas and continents of other planets be occupied at present with a life no higher than this, or with no life at all? Will it be said that, so far as material objects are occupied by life, they are not wasted; but that they are wasted, if they are entirely barren and blank of life? This is a very arbitrary saying. Why should the life of a sponge, or a coral, or an oyster, be regarded as a good employment of a spot of land and water, so as to save it from being wasted? No doubt, if the coral or the oyster be there, there is a reason why it is so, consistently with the attributes of God. But then, on the same ground, we may say that if it be not there, there is a reason why it is not so. Such a mode of regarding the parts of the universe can never give us reasons why they should or should not be inhabited, when we have no other grounds for knowing whether they are. If it be a sufficient employment of a spot of rock or water that it is the seat of organization—of organic powers; why may it not be a sufficient employment of the same spot that it is the seat of attraction, of cohesion, of crystalline powers? All the planets, all parts of the universe, we have good reason to believe, are pervaded by attraction, by forces of aggregation and atomic relation, by light and heat. Why may not these be sufficient to prevent the space being wasted, in the eyes of the Creator? as, during a great part of the earth's past history, and over large portions of its present mass, they are actually held by Him sufficient; for they are all that occupy those portions. This notion, then, of the improbability of there being, in the universe, so vast an amount of waste spaces, or waste bodies, as is implied in the opinion that the earth alone is the seat of life, or of intelligence, is confuted by the fact, that there are vast spaces, waste districts, and especially waste times, to an extent as great as such a notiondeems improbable. The avoidance of such waste, according to our notions of waste, is no part of the economy of creation, so far as we can discern that economy, in its most certain exemplifications.
34. Or will the objection be made in this way; that such a peculiar dignity and importance given to the earth is contrary to the analogy of creation;—that since there are so many globes, similar to the earth,—like her, revolving round the sun, like her, revolving on her axes, several of them, like her, accompanied by satellites; it is reasonable to suppose that their destination and office is the same as hers;—that since there are so many stars, each like the sun, a source of light, and probably of heat, it is reasonable to suppose that, like the sun, they are the centres of systems of planets, to which their light and heat are imparted, to uphold life:—is it thought that such a resemblance is a strong ground for believing that the planets of our system, and of other systems, are inhabited as the earth is? If such an astronomical analogy be insisted on, we must again have recourse to geology, to see what such analogy is worth. And then, we are led to reflect, that if we were to follow such analogies, we should be led to suppose that all the successive periods of the earth's history were occupied with life of the same order; that as the earth, in its present condition, is the seat of an intelligent population, so must it have been, in all former conditions. The earth, in its former conditions, was able and fitted to support life; even the life of creatures closely resembling man in their bodily structure. Even of monkeys, fossil remains have been found. But yet, in those former conditions, it did not support human life. Even those geologists who have dwelt most on the discovery of fossil monkeys, and other animals nearest to man, have not dreamt that there existed, before man, a race ofrational, intelligent, and progressive creatures. As we have seen, geology and history alike refute such a fancy. The notion, then, that one period of time in the history of the earth must resemble another, in the character of its population, because it resembles it in physical circumstances, is negatived by the facts which we discover in the history of the earth. And so, the notion that one part of the universe must resemble another in its population, because it resembles it in physical circumstances, is negatived as a law of creation. Analogy, further examined, affords no support to such a notion. The analogy of time, the events of which we know, corrects all such guesses founded on a supposed analogy of space, the furniture of which, so far as this point is concerned, we have no sufficient means of examining.
35. But in truth, we may go further. Not only does the analogy of creation not point to any such entire resemblance of similar parts, as is thus assumed, but it points in the opposite direction. Not entire resemblance, but universal difference is what we discover; not the repetition of exactly similar cases, but a series of cases perpetually dissimilar, presents itself; not constancy, but change, perhaps advance; not one permanent and pervading scheme, but preparation and completion of successive schemes; not uniformity and a fixed type of existences, but progression and a climax. This may be said to be the case in the geological aspect of the world; for, without occupying ourselves with the question, how far the monuments of animal life, which we find preserved in the earth's strata, exhibited a gradual progression from ruder and more imperfect forms to the types of the present terrestrial population; from sponges and mollusks, to fish and lizards, from cold-blooded to warm blooded animals, and so on, till we come to the most perfect vertebrates;—a doctrinewhich many eminent geologists have held, and still hold;—without discussing this question, or assuming that the fact is so; this at least cannot be denied or doubted, that man is incomparably the most perfect and highly-endowed creature which ever has existed on the earth. How far previous periods of animal existence were a necessary preparation of the earth, as the habitation of man, or a gradual progression towards the existence of man, we need not now inquire. But this at least we may say; that man, now that he is here, forms a climax to all that has preceded; a term incomparably exceeding in value all the previous parts of the series; a complex and ornate capital to the subjacent column; a personage of vastly greater dignity and importance than all the preceding line of the procession. The analogy of nature, in this case at least, appears to be, that there should be inferior, as well as superior provinces, in the universe; and that the inferior may occupy an immensely larger portion of time than the superior; why not then of space? The intelligent part of creation is thrust into the compass of a few years, in the course of myriads of ages; why not then into the compass of a few miles, in the expanse of systems? The earth was brute and inert, compared with its present condition, dark and chaotic, so far as the light of reason and intelligence are concerned, for countless centuries before man was created. Why then may not other parts of creation be still in this brute and inert and chaotic state, while the earth is under the influence of a higher exercise of creative power? If the earth was, for ages, a turbid abyss of lava and of mud, why may not Mars or Saturn be so still? If the germs of life were, gradually, and at long intervals, inserted in the terrestrial slime, why may they not be just inserted, or not yet inserted, in Jupiter? Or why should we assume that the condition of those planetsresembles ours, even so far as such suppositions imply? Why may they not, some or all of them, be barren masses of stone and metal, slag and scoriæ, dust and cinders? That some of them are composed of such materials, we have better reason to believe, than we have to believe anything else respecting their physical constitution, as we shall hereafter endeavor to show. If then, the earth be the sole inhabited spot in the work of creation, the oasis in the desert of our system, there is nothing in this contrary to the analogy of creation. But if, in some way which perhaps we cannot discover, the earth obtained, for accompaniments, mere chaotic and barren masses, as conditions of coming into its present state; as it may have required, for accompaniments, the brute and imperfect races of former animals, as conditions of coming into its present state, as the habitation of man; the analogy is against, and not in favor of, the belief that they too (the other masses, the planets, &c.) are habitations. I may hereafter dwell more fully on such speculations; but the possibility that the planets are such rude masses, is quite as tenable, on astronomical grounds, as the possibility that the planets resemble the earth, in matters of which astronomy can tell us nothing. We say, therefore, that the example of geology refutes the argument drawn from the supposed analogy of one part of the universe with another; and suggests a strong suspicion that the force of analogy, better known, may tend in the opposite direction.
36. When such possibilities are presented to the reader, he may naturally ask, if we are thus to regard man as the climax of creation, in space, as in time, can we point out any characters belonging to him, which may tend to make it conceivable that the Creator should thus distinguish him, and care for him:—should prepare his habitation if it be so, by ages of chaoticand rudimentary life, and by accompanying orbs of brute and barren matter. If Man be, thus, the head, the crowned head of the creation, is he worthy to be thus elevated? Has he any qualities which make it conceivable that, with such an array of preparation and accompaniment, he should be placed upon the earth, his throne? Or rather, if he be thus the chosen subject of God's care, has he any qualities, which make it conceivable that he should be thus selected; taken under such guardianship; admitted to such a dispensation; graced with such favor. The question with which we began again recurs: What is man that God should be thus mindful of him? After the views which have been presented to us, does any answer now occur to us?
37. The answer which we have to give, is that which we have already repeatedly stated. Man is an intellectual, moral, religious, and spiritual creature. If we consider these attributes, we shall see that they are such as to give him a special relation to God, and as we conceive, and must conceive, God to be; and may therefore be, in God, the occasion of special guardianship, special regard, a special dispensation towards man.
38. As an intellectual creature, he has not only an intelligence which he can apply to practical uses, to minister to the needs of animal and social life; but also an intellect by which he can speculate about the relations of things, in their most general form; for instance, the properties of space and time, the relations of finite and infinite. He can discover truths, to which all things, existing in space and time, must conform. These are conditions of existence to which the creation conforms, that is, to which the Creator conforms; and man, capable of seeing that such conditions are true and necessary, is capable, so far, of understanding some of the conditions ofthe Creator's workmanship. In this way, the mind of man has some community with the mind of God; and however remote and imperfect this community may be, it must be real. Since, then, man has thus, in his intellect, an element of community with God, it is so far conceivable that he should be, in a special manner, the object of God's care and favor. The human mind, with its wonderful and perhaps illimitable powers, is something of which we can believe God to be "mindful."
39. Again: man is a moral creature. He recognizes, he cannot help recognizing, a distinction of right and wrong in his actions; and in his internal movements which lead to action. This distinction he recognizes as the reason, the highest and ultimate reason, for doing or for not doing. And this law of his own reason, he is, by reflection, led to recognize as a Law of the Supreme Reason; of the Supreme Mind which has made him what he is. The Moral Law, he owns and feels as God's Law. By the obligation which he feels to obey this Law, he feels himself God's subject; placed under his government; compelled to expect his judgment, his rewards, and punishments. By being a moral creature, then, he is, in a special manner, the subject of God; and not only we can believe that, in this capacity, God cares for him; but we cannot believe that hedoes notcare for him. He cares for him, so as to approve of what he does right, and to condemn what he does wrong. And he has given him, in his own breast, an assurance that he will do this; and thus, God cares for man, in a peculiar and special manner. As a moral creature, we have no difficulty in conceiving that God may think him worthy of his regard and government.
40. The development of man's moral nature, as we have just described it, leads to, and involves the development ofhis religious nature. By looking within himself, and seeing the Moral Law, he learns to look upwards to God, the Author of the Law, and the Awarder of the rewards and penalties which follow moral good and evil. But the belief of such a dispensation carries us, or makes us long to be carried, beyond the manifestations of this dispensation, as they appear in the ordinary course of human life. By thinking on such things, man is led to ascribe a wider range to the moral Government of God:—to believe in methods of reward and punishment, which do not appear in the natural course of events: to accept events, out of the order of nature, which announce that God has provided such methods: to accept them, when duly authenticated, as messages from God; and thus, when God provides the means, to allow himself to be placed in intercourse with God. Since man is capable of this; since, as a religious creature, this is his tendency, his need, the craving of his heart, without which, when his religious nature is fully unfolded, he can feel no comfort nor satisfaction; we cannot be surprised that God should deem him a proper object of a special fatherly care; a fit subject for a special dispensation of his purposes, as to the consequences of human actions. Man being this, we can believe that God is not only "mindful of him," but "visits him."
41. As we have said, the soul of man, regarded as the subject of God's religious government, is especially termed hisSpirit: the course of human being which results from the intercourse with God, which God permits, is aspiritualexistence. Man is capable, in no small degree, of such an existence, of such an intercourse with God; and, as we are authorized to term it, of such a life with God, and in God, even while he continues in his present human existence. I sayauthorized, because such expressions are used, though reverently, by themost religious men; who are, at any rate, authority as to their own sentiments; which are the basis of our reasoning. Whatever, then, may be the imperfection, in this life, of such a union with God, yet since man can, when sufficiently assisted and favored by God, enter upon such a union, we cannot but think it most credible and most natural, that he should be the object of God's special care and regard, even of his love and presence.
42. That men are, only in a comparatively small number of cases, intellectual, moral, religious, and spiritual, in the degree which I have described, does not, by any means, deprive our argument of its force. The capacity of man is, that he may become this; and such a capacity may well make him a special object in the eyes of Him under whose guidance and by whose aid, such a development and elevation of his nature is open to him. However imperfect and degraded, however unintellectual, immoral, irreligious, and unspiritual, a great part of mankind may be, still they all have the germs of such an elevation of their nature; and a large portion of them make, we cannot doubt, no small progress in this career of advancement to a spiritual condition. And with such capacities, and such practical exercise of those capacities, we can have no difficulty in believing, if the evidence directs us to believe, that that part of the creation in which man has his present appointed place, is the special field of God's care and love; by whatever wastes of space, and multitudes of material bodies, it may be surrounded; by whatever races it may have been previously occupied, of brutes that perish, and that, compared with man, can hardly be said to have lived.