Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chapter 13)
by Robert Chambers
Particular Considerations respecting the Origin of
the Animated Tribes
he general likelihood of an organic creation by law having
been shewn, we are next to inquire if science has any facts tending to
bring the assumption more nearly home to nature. Such facts there certainly
are; but it cannot be surprising that they are comparatively few and
scattered, when we consider that the inquiry is into one of nature's
profoundest mysteries, and one which has hitherto engaged no direct
attention in almost any quarter.
Crystallization is confessedly a phenomenon of inorganic
matter ; yet the simplest rustic observer is struck by the resemblance
which the examples of it left upon a window by frost bear to vegetable
forms. In some crystallizations the mimicry is beautiful and complete; for
example, in the well-known one called the Arbor Dianæ. An
amalgam of four parts of silver and two of mercury being dissolved in
nitric acid, and water equal to thirty weights of the metals being added,
a small piece of soft amalgam of silver suspended in the solution, quickly
gathers to itself the particles of the silver of the amalgam, which form
upon it a crystallization precisely resembling shrub. The experiment
may be varied in a way which serves better to detect the influence of
electricity in such operations, as noted below.[1]
Vegetable figures are also presented in some of the most ordinary
appearances of the electric fluid. In the marks caused by positive
electricity, or which it leaves in its passage, we see the ramifications of
a tree, as well as of its individual leaves; those of the negative, recal
the bulbous or the spreading root, according as they are clumped or
divergent. These phenomena seem to say that the electric energies have had
something to do in determining the forms of plants. That they are
intimately connected with vegetable life is indubitable, for germination
will not proceed in water charged with negative electricity, while water
charged positively greatly favours it; and a garden sensibly increases in
luxuriance, when a number of conducting rods are made to terminate in
branches over its beds. With regard to the resemblance of the
ramifications of the branches and leaves of plants to the traces of the
positive electricity, and that of the roots to the negative, it is a
circumstance calling for especial remark, that the atmosphere,
particularly its lower strata, is generally charged positively, while the
earth is always charged negatively. The correspondence here is curious. A
plant thus appears as a thing formed on the basis of a natural electrical
operation—the brush realized. We can thus suppose the various
forms of plants as, immediately, the result of a law in electricity
variously affecting them according to their organic character, or
respective germinal constituents. In the poplar, the brush is unusually
vertical, and little divergent; the reverse in the beech: in the palm, a
pencil has proceeded straight up for a certain distance, radiates there,
and turns outwards and downwards; and so on. We can here see at least
traces of secondary means by which the Almighty Deviser might establish all
the vegetable forms with which the earth is overspread.
Vegetable and animal bodies are mainly composed of the
same four simple substances or elements—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and
nitrogen. The first combinations of these in animals are into what are
called proximate principles, as albumen, fibrin, urea, alantoin, &c., out
of which the structure of the animal body is composed. Now the chemist, by
the association of two parts oxygen, four hydrogen, two carbon, and two
nitrogen, can make urea. Alantoin has also been produced
artificially. Two of the proximate principles being realizable by human
care, the possibility of realizing or forming all is established. Thus the
chemist may be said to have it in his power to realize the first step in
organization.[2] Indeed, it is fully acknowledged by
Dr. Daubeny, that in the combinations forming the proximate principles
there is no chemical peculiarity. "It is now certain," he says, "that the
same simple laws of composition pervade the whole creation; and that, if
the organic chemist only takes the requisite precautions to avoid resolving
into their ultimate elements the proximate principles upon which he
operates, the results of his analysis will shew that they are combined
precisely according to the same plan as the elements of mineral bodies are
known to be."[3] A particular fact is here worthy of
attention. "The conversion of fecula into sugar, as one of the ordinary
processes of vegetable economy, is effected by the production of a
secretion termed diastose, which occasions both the rupture of the
starch vesicles, and the change of their contained gum into sugar. This
diastose may be separately obtained by the chemist, and it acts as
effectually in his laboratory as in the vegetable organization. He can also
imitate its effects by other chemical agents."[4] The
writer quoted below adds, "No reasonable ground has yet been adduced for
supposing that, if we had the power of bringing together the elements of
any organic compound, in their requisite states and proportions, the
result would be any other than that which is found in the living body."
It is much to know the elements out of which organic
bodies are composed. It is something more to know their first combinations,
and that these are simply chemical. How these combinations are associated
in the structure of living bodies is the next inquiry, but it is one to
which as yet no satisfactory answer can be given. The investigation of the
minutiae of organic structure by the microscope is of such recent origin,
that its results cannot be expected to be very clear. Some facts, however,
are worthy of attention with regard to the present inquiry. It is
ascertained that the basis of all vegetable and animal substances consists
of nucleated cells, that is, cells having granules within them. Nutriment
is converted into these before being assimilated by the system. The tissues
are formed from them. The ovum destined to become a new creature, is
originally only a cell with a contained granule. We see it acting this
reproductive part in the simplest manner in the cryptogamic plants. "The
parent cell, arrived at maturity by the exercise of its organic functions,
bursts, and liberates its contained granules. These, at once thrown upon
their own resources, and entirely dependent for their nutrition on the
surrounding elements, develop themselves into new cells, which repeat the
life of their original. Amongst the higher tribes of the cryptoganua, the
reproductive cell does not burst, but the first cells of the new structure
are developed within it, and these gradually extend, by a similar process
of multiplication, into that primary leaf-like expansion which is the first
formed structure in all plants."[5] Here the little
cell becomes directly a plant, the full formed living being. It is also
worthy of remark that, in the sponges, (an animal form,) a gemmule detached
from the body of the parent, and trusting for sustentation only to the
fluid into which it has been cast, becomes, without further process, the
new creature. Further, it has been recently discovered by means of the
microscope, that there is, as far as can be judged, a perfect resemblance
between the ovum of the mammal tribes, during that early stage when it is
passing through the oviduct, and the young of the infusory animalcules. One
of the most remarkable of these, the volvox globator, has exactly
the form of the germ which, after passing through a long fœtal
progress, becomes a complete mammifer, an animal of the highest class. It
has even been found that both are alike provided with those cilia,
which, producing a revolving motion, or its appearance, is partly the cause
of the name given to this animalcule. These resemblances are the more
entitled to notice, that they were made by various observers, distant from
each other at the time.[6] It has likewise been noted
that the globules of the blood are reproduced by the expansion of contained
granules; they are, in short, distinct organisms multiplied by the same
fissiparous generation. So that all animated nature may be said to be
based on this mode of origin; the fundamental form of organic being is
a globule, having a new globule forming within itself, by which it is
in time discharged, and which is again followed by another and another, in
endless succession. It is of course obvious that, if these globules could
be produced by any process from inorganic elements, we should be entitled
to say that the fact of a transit from the inorganic into the organic had
been witnessed in that instance; the possibility of the commencement of
animated creation by the ordinary laws of nature might be considered as
established. Now it was given out some years ago by a French physiologist,
that globules could be produced in albumen by electricity. If,
therefore, these globules be identical with the cells which are now held to
be reproductive, it might be said that the production of albumen by
artificial means is the only step in the process wanting. This has not yet
been effected; but it is known to be only a chemical process, the mode of
which may be any day discovered in the laboratory, and two compounds
perfectly co- ordinate, urea and alantoin, have actually been produced.
In such an investigation as the present, it is not
unworthy of notice that the production of shell is a natural operation
which can be precisely imitated artificially. Such an incrustation takes
place on both the outside and inside of the wheel in a bleaching
establishment, in which cotton cloth is rinsed free of the lime employed in
its purification. From the dressing employed by the "weaver, the
cloth obtains the animal matter, gelatin; this and the lime form the
constituents of the incrustation, exactly as in natural shell. In the wheel
employed at Catrine, in Ayrshire, where the phenomenon was first observed
by the eye of science, it had required ten years to produce a coating the
tenth of an inch in thickness. This incrustation has all the characters of
shell, displaying a highly polished surface, beautifully iridescent, and,
when broken, a foliated texture. The examination of it has even thrown some
light on the character and mode of formation of natural shell. "The plates
into which the substance is divisible have been formed in succession, and
certain intervals of time have elapsed between their formation; in general,
every two contiguous laminae are separated by a thin iridescent film,
varying from the three to the fifty millionth part of an inch in thickness,
and producing all the various colours of thin plates which correspond to
intermediate thicknesses: between some of the laminae no such film exists,
probably in consequence of the interval of time between their formation
being too short; and between others the film has been formed of unequal
thickness. There can be no doubt that these iridescent films are formed
when the dash-wheel is at rest during the night, and that when no film
exists between two laminae, an interval too short for its formation,
(arising, perhaps, from the stopping of the work during the day,) has
elapsed during the drying or induration of one lamina and the deposition of
another."[7] From this it has been deduced, by a
patient investigation, that those colours of mother-of-pearl, which are
incommunicable to wax, arise from iridescent films deposited between the
laminae of its structure, and it is hence inferred that the animal,
like the wheel, rests periodically from its labours in forming the
natural substance.
These, it will be owned, are curious and not irrelevant
facts; but it will be asked what actual experience says respecting the
origination of life. Are there, it will be said, any authentic instances of
either plants or animals, of however humble and simple a kind, having come
into existence otherwise than in the ordinary way of generation, since the
time of which geology forms the record? It may be answered, that the
negative of this question could not be by any means formidable to the
doctrine of law-creation, seeing that the conditions necessary for the
operation of the supposed life- creating laws may not have existed within
record to any great extent. On the other hand, as we see the physical laws
of early times still acting with more or less force, it might not be
unreasonable to expect that we should still see some remnants, or partial
and occasional workings of the life-creating energy amidst a system of
things generally stable and at rest. Are there, then, any such remnants to
be traced in our own day, or during man's existence upon earth? If there
be, it clearly would form a strong evidence in favour of the doctrine, as
what now takes place upon a confined scale and in a comparatively casual
manner may have formerly taken place on a great scale, and as the proper
and eternity-destined means of supplying a vacant globe with suitable
tenanta It will at the same time be observed that, the earth being now
supplied with both kinds of tenants in great abundance, we only could
expect to find the life-originating power at work in some very special and
extraordinary circumstances, and probably only in the inferior and obscurer
departments of the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
Perhaps, if the question were asked of ten men of
approved reputation in science, nine out of the number would answer in the
negative. This is because, in a great number of instances where the
superficial observers of former times assumed a non-generative origin for
life, (as in the celebrated case in Virgil's fourth Georgic,) either the
direct contrary has been ascertained, or exhaustive experiments have left
no alternative from the conclusion that ordinary generation did take place,
albeit in a manner which escapes observation. Finding that an erroneous
assumption has been formed in many cases, modern inquirers have not
hesitated to assume that there can be no case in which generation is not
concerned; an assumption not only unwarranted by, but directly opposed to,
the principles of philosophical investigation. Yet this is truly the point
at which the question now rests in the scientific world.
I have no wish here to enter largely into a subject so
wide and so full of difficulties; but I may remark, that the explanations
usually suggested where life takes its rise without apparent generative
means, always appear to me to partake much of the fallacy of the pettito
principii. When, for instance, lime is laid down upon a piece of waste
moss ground, and a crop of white clover for which no seeds were sown is the
consequence, the explanation that the seeds have been dormant there for an
unknown time, and were stimulated into germination when the lime produced
the appropriate circumstances, appears extremely unsatisfactory, especially
when we know that (as in an authentic case under my notice) the spot is
many miles from where clover is cultivated, and that there is nothing for
six feet below but pure peat moss, clover seeds being, moreover, known to
be too heavy to be transported, as many other seeds are, by the winds.
Mushrooms, we know, can be propagated by their seed; but another mode of
raising them, well known to the gardener, is to mix cow and horse dung
together, and thus form a bed in which they are expected to grow without
any seed being planted. It is assumed that the seeds are carried by the
atmosphere, unperceived by us, and, finding here an appropriate field for
germination, germinate accordingly; but this is only assumption, and though
designed to be on the side of a severe philosophy, in reality makes a
pretty large demand on credulity. There are several persons eminent in
science who profess at least to find great difficulties in accepting the
doctrine of invariable generation. One of these, in the work noted
below,[8] has stated several considerations arising
from analogical reasoning, which appear to him to throw the balance of
evidence in favour of the aboriginal production of infusoria,[9] the vegetation called mould, and the like. One seems
to be of great force; namely, that the animalcules, which are supposed
(altogether hypothetically) to be produced by ova, are afterwards found
increasing their numbers, not by that mode at all, but by division of their
bodies. If it be the nature of these creatures to propagate in this
splitting or fissiparous manner, how could they be communicated to a
vegetable infusion? Another fact of very high importance is presented in
the following terms:—"The nature of the animalcule, or vegetable
production, bears a constant relation to the state of the infusion, so
that, in similar circumstances, the same are always produced without this
being influenced by the atmosphere. There seems to be a certain
progressive advance in the productive powers of the infusion, for at
the first the animalcules are only of the smaller kinds, or monades, and
afterwards they become gradually larger and more complicated in their
structure; after a time, the production ceases, although the materials are
buy no means exhausted. When the quantity of water is very small, and
the organic matter abundant, the production is usually of a vegetable
nature; when there is much water, animalcules are more frequently
produced." It has been shewn by the opponents of this theory, that when a
vegetable infusion is debarred from the contact of the atmosphere, by being
closely sealed up or covered with a layer of oil, no animalcules are
produced; but it has been said, on the other hand, that the exclusion of
the air may prevent some simple condition necessary for the aboriginal
development of life—and nothing is more likely. Perhaps the prevailing
doctrine is in nothing placed in greater difficulties than it is with
regard to the entozoa, or creatures which live within the bodies of others.
These creatures do, and apparently can, live nowhere else than in the
interior of other living bodies, where they generally take up their abode
in the viscera, but also sometimes in the chambers of the eye, the interior
of the brain, the serous sacs, and other places having no communication
from without. Some are viviparous, others oviparous. Of the latter it
cannot reasonably be supposed that the ova ever pass through the medium of
the air, or through the blood-vessels, for they are too heavy for the one
transit, and too large for the other. Of the former, it cannot be conceived
how they pass into young animals—certainly not by communication from
the parent, for it has often been found that entozoa do not appear in
certain generations, and some of peculiar and noted character have only
appeared at rare intervals, and in very extraordinary circumstances. A
candid view of the less popular doctrine, as to the origin of this humble
form of life, is taken by a distinguished living naturalist. "To explain
the beginning of these worms within the human body, on the common doctrine
that all created beings proceed from their likes, or a primordial egg, is
so difficult, that the moderns have been driven to speculate, as our
fathers did, on their spontaneous birth; but they have received the
hypothesis with some modification. Thus it is not from putrefaction or
fermentation that the entozoa are born, for both of these processes are
rather fatal to their existence, but from the aggregation and fit
apposition of matter which is already organized, or has been thrown from
organized surfaces. * * Their origin in this manner
is not more wonderful or more inexplicable than that of many of the
inferior animals from sections of themselves. * *
Particles of matter fitted by digestion, and their transmission through a
living body, for immediate assimilation with it, or flakes of lymph
detached from surfaces already organized, seem neither to exceed nor fall
below that simplicity of structure which favours this wonderful
development; and the supposition that, like morsels of a planaria, they may
also, when retained in contact with living parts, and in other favourable
circumstances, continue to live and be gradually changed into creatures of
analogous conformation, is surely not so absurd as to be brought into
comparison with the Metamorphoses of Ovid. * * We
think the hypothesis is also supported in some degree by the fact, that the
origin of the entozoa is favoured by all causes which tend to disturb the
equality between the secerning and absorbent systems."[10] Here particles of organized matter are suggested as
the germinal origin of distinct and fully organized animals, many of which
have a highly developed reproductive system. How near such particles must
be to the inorganic form of matter may be judged from what has been said
within the last few pages. If, then, this view of the production of
entozoa be received, it must be held as in no small degree favourable to
the general doctrine of an organic creation by law.
There is another series of facts, akin to the above, and
which deserve not less attention. The pig, in its domestic state, is
subject to the attacks of a hydatid, from which the wild animal is free;
hence the disease called measles in pork. The domestication of the pig is
of course an event subsequent to the origin of man; indeed, comparatively
speaking, a recent event. Whence, then, the first progenitor of this
hydatid? So also there is a tinea which attacks dressed wool, but never
touches it in its unwashed state. A particular insect disdains all food but
chocolate, and the larva of the oinopota cellaris lives nowhere but
in wine and beer, all of these being articles manufactured by man. There is
likewise a creature called the pimelodes cyclopum, which is only
found in subterranean cavities connected with certain specimens of the
volcanic formation in South America, dating from a time posterior to the
arrangements of the earth for our species. Whence the first pymelodes
cyclopum? Will it, to a geologist, appear irrational to suppose that, just
as the pterodactyle was added in the era of the new red sandstone, when the
earth had become suited for such a creature, so may these creatures have
been added when media suitable for their existence arose, and that such
phenomena may take place any day, the only cause for their taking place
seldom being the rarity of the rise of new physical conditions on a globe
which seems to have already undergone the principal part of its destined
mutations?
Between such isolated facts and the greater changes
which attended various geological eras, it is not easy to see any
difference, besides simply that of the scale on which the respective
phenomena took place, as the throwing off of one copy from an engraved
plate is exactly the same process as that by which a thousand are thrown
off. Nothing is more easy to conceive than that to Creative Providence, the
numbers of such phenomena, the time when, and the circumstances under which
they take place, are indifferent matters. The Eternal One has arranged for
everything beforehand, and trusted all to the operation of the laws of his
appointment, himself being ever present in all things. We can even conceive
that man, in his many doings upon the surface of the earth, may
occasionally, without his being aware of it, or otherwise, act as an
instrument in preparing the association of conditions under which the
creative laws work; and perhaps some instances of his having acted as such
an instrument have actually occurred in our own time.
I allude, of course, to the experiments conducted a few
years ago by Mr. Crosse, which seemed to result in the production of a
heretofore unknown species of insect in considerable numbers. Various
causes have prevented these experiments and their results from receiving
candid treatment, but they may perhaps be yet found to have opened up a new
and most interesting chapter of nature's mysteries. Mr. Crosse was pursuing
some experiments in crystallization, causing a powerful voltaic battery to
operate upon a saturated solution of silicate of potash, when the insects
unexpectedly made their appearance. He afterwards tried nitrate of copper,
which is a deadly poison, and from that fluid also did live insects emerge.
Discouraged by the reception of his experiments, Mr. Crosse soon
discontinued them; but they were some years after pursued by Mr. Weekes, of
Sandwich, with precisely the same results. This gentleman, besides trying
the first of the above substances, employed ferro-cyanet of potash, on
account of its containing a larger proportion of carbon, the principal
element of organic bodies; and from this substance the insects were
produced in increased numbers. A few weeks sufficed for this
experiment, with the powerful battery of Mr. Crosser but the first attempts
of Mr. Weekes required about eleven months, a ground of presumption in
itself that the electricity was chiefly concerned in the phenomenon. The
changes undergone by the fluid operated upon, were in both cases
remarkable, and nearly alike. In Mr. Weekes' apparatus, the silicate of
potash became first turbid, then of a milky appearance; round the negative
wire of the battery, dipped into the fluid, there gathered a quantity of
gelatinous matter, a part of the process of considerable importance,
considering that gelatin is one of the proximate principles, or
first compounds, of which animal bodies are formed. From this matter Mr.
Weekes observed one of the insects in the very act of emerging, immediately
after which, it ascended to the surface of the fluid, and sought
concealment in an obscure corner of the apparatus. The insects produced by
both experimentalists seem to have been the same, a species of acarus,
minute and semi-transparent, and furnished with long bristles, which can
only be seen by the aid of the microscope. It is worthy of remark, that
some of these insects, soon after their existence had commenced, were found
to be likely to extend their species. They were sometimes observed to go
back to the fluid to feed, and occasionally they devoured each other.[11]
The reception of novelties in science must ever be
regulated very much by the amount of kindred or relative phenomena which
the public mind already possesses and acknowledges, to which the new can be
assimilated. A novelty, however true, if there be no received truths with
which it can be shewn in harmonious relation, has little chance of a
favourable hearing. In fact, as has been often observed, there is a measure
of incredulity from our ignorance as well as from our knowledge, and if the
most distinguished philosopher three hundred years ago had ventured to
develop any striking new fact which only could harmonize with the as yet
unknown Copernican solar system, we cannot doubt that it would have been
universally scoffed at in the scientific world, such as it then was, or at
the best interpreted in a thousand wrong ways in conformity with ideas
already familiar. The experiments above described, finding a public mind
which had never discovered a fact or conceived an idea at all analogous,
were of course ungraciously received. It was held to be impious, even to
surmise that animals could have been formed through any instrumentality of
an apparatus devised by human skill. The more likely account of the
phenomena was said to be, that the insects were only developed from ova,
resting either in the fluid, or in the wooden frame on which the
experiments took place. On these objections the following remarks may be
made. The supposition of impiety arises from an entire misconception of
what is implied by an aboriginal creation of insects. The experimentalist
could never be considered as the author of the existence of these
creatures, except by the most unreasoning ignorance. The utmost that can be
claimed for, or imputed to him is that he arranged the natural conditions
under which the true creative energy—that of the Divine Author of all
things—has pleased to work in that instance. On the hypothesis here
brought forward, the acarus Crossii was a type of being ordained
from the beginning, and destined to be realized under certain physical
conditions. When a human hand brought these conditions into the proper
arrangement, it did an act akin to hundreds of familiar ones which we
execute every day, and which are followed by natural results; but it did
nothing more. The production of the insect, if it did take place as
assumed, was as clearly an act of the Almighty himself, as if he had
fashioned it with hands. For the presumption that an act of aboriginal
creation did take place, there is this to be said, that, in Mr. Weekes's
experiment, every care that ingenuity could devise was taken to exclude the
possibility of a development of the insects from ova. The wood of the
frame was baked in a powerful heat; a bell-shaped glass covered the
apparatus, and from this the atmosphere was excluded by the constantly
rising fumes from the liquid, for the emission of which there was an
aperture so arranged at the top of the glass, that only these fumes could
pass. The water was distilled, and the substance of the silicate had been
subjected to white heat. Thus every source of fallacy seemed to be shut up.
In such circumstances, a candid mind, which sees nothing either impious or
unphilosophical in the idea of a new creation, will be disposed to think
that there is less difficulty in believing in such a creation having
actually taken place, than in believing that, in two instances, separated
in place and time, exactly the same insects should have chanced to arise
from concealed ova, and these a species heretofore unknown.
Notes
"A glass tube is to be bent
into a syphon, and placed with the curve downwards, and in the bend is to
be placed a small portion of mercury, not sufficient to close the
connexion between the two legs; a solution of nitrate of silver is then to
be introduced until it rises in both limbs of the tube. The precipitation
of the mercury, in the form of an Arbor Dianæ, will then take place,
slowly, only when the syphon is placed in a plane perpendicular to the
magnetic meridian; but if it be placed in a plane coinciding with the
magnetic meridian, the action is rapid, and the crystallization
particularly beautiful, taking place principally in that branch of the
syphon towards the north. If the syphon be placed in a plane perpendicular
to the magnetic meridian, and a strong magnet brought near it, the
precipitation will commence in a short time, and be most copious in the
branch of the syphon nearest to the south pole of the magnet."
Fatty matter has also been formed in the
laboratory. The process in passing a mixture of carbonic acid, pure
hydrogen, and carburetted hydrogen, in the proportion of one measure of
the first, twenty of the second, and ten of the third, through a red-hot
tube.
Supplement to the Atomic Theory.
Carpenter on Life; Todd's Cyclopædia of
Physiology.
Carpenter's Report on the results obtained by
the microscope in the Study of Anatomy and Physiology, 1843.
See Dr. Martin Barry on Fissiparous Generation;
Jameson's Journal, Oct. 1843. Appearances precisely similar have been
detected in the germs of the crustacea.
Mr. Leonard Horner and Sir David Brewster, on a
substance resembling shell.—Philosophical Transactions,
1836.
Dr. Allen Thomson, in the article
Generation, in Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology.
The term aboriginal is here suggested, as more
correct than spontaneous, the one hitherto generally used.
Article "Zoophytes," Encyclopædia
Britannica, 7th edition.
See a pamphlet circulated by Mr. Weekes, in
1842.
| |
[ Robert Chambers,
Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation, 1st edition, 1844; In James Secord,
ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 165-190. ]
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