The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences Part 16

Still more heteroc.l.i.tic and unlike existing nature was the pterodactyle, a small lizard, contemporary with the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus. At one time anatomists regarded it as a bird, at another as a bat, and finally as a reptile, having the head and neck of a bird, the body and tail of a quadruped, the wings of a bat, and the teeth of a saurian reptile. With its wings it could fly or swim; it could walk on two feet or four; with its claws it could climb or creep. "Thus," says Dr. Buckland, "like Milton's fiend, all qualified for all services, and all elements, the pterodactyle was a fit companion for the kindred reptiles that swarmed in the seas, or crawled on the sh.o.r.es of a turbulent planet."

"The fiend, O'er bog, or steep, through straight, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

Now, when the details of such facts are brought before us, it is very natural to feel that it is the history of monsters, and that the Centaurs, the Gorgons, and Chimeras of the ancients, are no more unlike existing animals than these resurrections from the rocks. But further examination rectifies our mistake, and we recognize them as parts of one great system. All the peculiarities of size, and structure, and form, which we meet, we find to be only wise and benevolent adaptations to the different circ.u.mstances in which animals have been placed. The gigantic size of many of them, compared with existing races, may be explained by the tropical, or even ultra tropical character of the climate; and not a single anomaly of structure and form can be pointed out, which did not contribute to the convenience and happiness of the species, in the circ.u.mstances in which they were placed. It is our ignorance and narrow views alone that give any of them the aspect of monsters. Listen to the opinion of Sir Charles Bell, one of the ablest of modern anatomists. "The animals of the antediluvian world," says he, "were not monsters; there is no _lusus_, or extravagance. Hideous as they appear to us, and like the phantoms of a dream, they were adapted to the condition of the earth when they existed." "Judging by these indications of the habits of the animals, we acquire a knowledge of the condition of the earth during their period of existence; that it was suited at one time to the scaly tribe of the lacert, with languid motion; at another, to animals of higher organization, with more varied and lively habits; and, finally, we learn that, at any period previous to man's creation, the surface of the earth would have been unsuitable to him."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, pp. 35 and 31.

A similar view is given of this subject by England's geological poet, (Rev. Mr. Wilks,) in whose playful verses we find more of true science and just inference than in many a ponderous tome of grave prose. In one of his poems he says,--

"Seamy coal, Limestone, or olite, and other sections, Give us strange tidings of our old connections; Our arborescent ferns, of climate torrid, With unknown shapes of names and natures horrid; Strange ichthyosaurus, or iguanodon, With many more I cannot verse upon,-- Lost species and lost genera; some whose bias Is chalk, marl, sandstone, gravel, or blue lias; Birds, beasts, fish, insects, reptiles; fresh, marine, Perfect as yesterday among us seen In rock or cave; 'tis pa.s.sing strange to me How such incongruous mixture e'er could be.

And yet no medley was it: each its station Once occupied in wise and meet location.

G.o.d is a G.o.d of order, though to scan His works may pose the feeble powers of man."

The facts and reasonings which have now been presented will sustain the following important inferences:--

_In the first place, we learn that the notions which have so widely prevailed, in ancient and modern times, respecting a chaos, are without foundation._

Among all heathen nations of antiquity, the belief in a primeval chaos was almost universal; and from the heathen philosophers it was transmitted to the Christian world, and incorporated with the Mosaic cosmogony. It is not, indeed, easy to ascertain what is the precise idea which has been attached to a chaos. It is generally described, however, as "a confused a.s.semblage of elements," "an unformed and undigested ma.s.s of heterogeneous matter;" not, of course, subject to those laws which now govern it, and which have arranged it all in beautiful order, even if we leave out of the account vegetable and animal organization. Now, I have attempted to show that there never was a period on the globe when these laws, with the exception of the organic, did not operate as they now do. Nay, the geologist, when he examines the oldest rocks, finds the results of these laws at the supposed period when chaos reigned; that is, in the earliest times of our planet. And what are these results? The most splendid crystallizations which nature furnishes. The emerald, the topaz, the sapphire, and other kindred gems, were elaborated during the supposed chaotic state of the globe; for no earlier products have yet been discovered than these most perfect ill.u.s.trations of crystallographical, chemical, and electrical laws. If, indeed, any should say, that by a chaos they mean only that state of the world when no animals or plants existed,--in other words, when no organic laws had been established,--to such a chaos I have no objection. And this is the chaos described in the Bible, where it is said that, before the creation of animals and plants, the earth was _without form and void_. The _tohu vau bohu_ of Moses, which is thus translated in our English Bible, means, simply and literally, _invisible and unfurnished_--_invisible_, both because the ocean covered the present land, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and _unfurnished_, because as yet no organic natures had been called into existence. This is the meaning which the old Jewish writers, as Philo and Josephus, attached to these words; and they have been followed by some of the ablest modern commentators. "It is wonderful," says Rosenmuller the elder, "that so many interpreters could have persuaded themselves that it was possible to detect a chaos in the words [Hebrew]. That notion unquestionably derived its origin from the fictions of the Greek and Latin poets, which were transferred by those interpreters to Moses. If we follow the practice of the language, the Hebrew phrase has this signification: _The earth was waste and desert_, or, as others prefer, _empty and vacuous_; that is, _uncultured and unfurnished_ with those things with which the Creator afterwards adorned it."--_Antiquiss. Tell.

Hist._ p. 19-23.

Upon the whole, there is no evidence whatever, either in nature or revelation, that the earth has ever been in a state corresponding to the common notions of a chaos; while, on the other hand, there is strong proof that the present laws of nature have been in operation from the beginning.

These laws have varied in the intensity of their action, and we have strong reason to believe that organic laws did not always exist; but none of these laws have ever been suspended, to leave the elements to mix in wild disorder in a formless ma.s.s. It is high time that religion was freed from the indescribable incubus of a chaos.

_Finally, the most important conclusion to which the mind is conducted by this subject is, that the present and past conditions of this world are only parts of one and the same great system of infinite wisdom and benevolence._

We have seen that the same wise and benevolent laws, organic and inorganic, have always controlled, as they now control, this lower world.

It is true we find modified conditions of the globe in its past history; but they were always the foreseen result of the same laws, and in harmony with the same great plan. And the modifications of organic structure, which were great in the successive economies, were always in perfect correspondence with the earth's physical changes. Nowhere do we meet with conflicting plans; but throughout all nature, from the earliest zophyte and sea-weed of the silurian rocks to the young animals and plants that came into existence to-day, and from the choice gems that were produced when the earth was without form and void, to the crystals which are now forming in the chemist's laboratory, one golden chain of harmony links all together, and identifies all as the work of the same infinite mind.

"In all the numerous examples of design which we have selected from the various animal and vegetable remains that occur in a fossil state," says Dr. Buckland, "there is such a never-failing ident.i.ty in the fundamental principles of their construction, and such uniform adoption of a.n.a.logous means to produce various ends, with so much only of departure from one common type of mechanism as was requisite to adapt each instrument to its own especial function, and to fit each species to its peculiar place and office in the scale of created beings, that we can scarcely fail to acknowledge in all these facts a demonstration of the unity of the intelligence in which such transcendent harmony originated; and we may almost dare to a.s.sert that neither atheism nor polytheism would ever have found acceptance in the world, had the evidences of high intelligence and unity of design which have been disclosed by modern discoveries in physical science been fully known to the authors or the abetters of systems to which they are so diametrically opposed. It is the same handwriting that we read, the same system and contrivance that we trace, the same unity of object and relation to final causes which we see maintained throughout, and constantly proclaiming the unity of the great divine original."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 584.

"The earth, from her deep foundations, unites with the celestial orbs, that roll throughout boundless s.p.a.ce, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one eternal and dominant intelligence, the almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist; _the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, G.o.d from everlasting and without end_."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 596.

LECTURE IX.

THE HYPOTHESIS OF CREATION BY LAW.

In all ages of the world, where men have been enlightened enough to reason upon the causes of phenomena, a mysterious and a mighty power has been imputed to the laws of nature. A large portion of the most enlightened men have felt as if those laws not only explain, but possess an inherent potency to continue, the ordinary operations of nature. Most men of this description, however, have thought that to originate nature must have demanded the special exercise of an infinite and all-wise Being. But a few, in every age, have endeavored to exalt law into a Creator, as well as Controller, of the world. The hypothesis has a.s.sumed a great variety of forms, and until recently few have attempted to draw it out in all its details, and apply it to all nature. Among the ancient philosophers it was based on the eternity of matter, and made the foundation of a system of rank atheism. Starting with the position, as an axiom, that nothing produces nothing,--in other words, that creation out of nothing is impossible,--Democritus maintained that all existence was the result of two necessary and self-existent principles, viz., s.p.a.ce, infinite in extent, and atoms, infinite in number. The latter have been eternally in motion, in directions varying from right lines; and their necessary collisions have produced the various forms of organic and inorganic nature. To produce animals and plants, it was only necessary that the atoms should be suitably arranged. The only animating principle was the rapid agitation of atoms.

In modern times, very few philosophers have ventured to solve the whole problem of the universe by any self-acting, self-producing power in nature. La Place limited himself to the mode in which the great bodies of the universe were produced by the vertical movements of nebulous matter; although his object, equally with that of Democritus and Epicurus, was to dispense with an intelligent, personal Deity. Lamarck, Geoffrey St.

Hilaire, and Bory St. Vincent, a.s.suming the existence of matter and its laws, have endeavored to show, by the inherent vitality of some parts of matter, how the first or lowest cla.s.ses of animals and plants may have been produced; and how, from these, by the theory of development and the force of circ.u.mstances, all the higher families, with their instincts and intellects, may have been evolved. A still more recent, but anonymous, writer has had the boldness to unite these nebular hypotheses, with those of spontaneous generation and trans.m.u.tation, into a single system, and to attempt to clothe it with the garb of philosophy; nay, to do this in consistency, not only with Theism, but with a belief in revelation. This theory is what I denominate the _hypothesis of creation by law_. And judging from its wide reception, we should be led to infer that it had strong probabilities in its favor. It should, therefore, at least receive a careful and candid examination. For though many of its statements and conclusions are absurd, and some of them are highly ridiculous, the hypothesis, at least in some of its parts, falls in with certain loose notions that have got possession of the public mind, and which nothing but cogent reasoning can eradicate.

Before entering upon such an examination, however, it seems necessary to go somewhat more into detail in ill.u.s.tration of the nature of this hypothesis. It may conveniently be described under the heads of _cosmogony_, which attempts to account for the origin of the world; _zogony_, which explains the origin of animals; and _zonomy_, which describes the laws of animal life.[17]

The cosmogony of this theory is embraced in what is denominated the nebular hypothesis, propounded by the eminent mathematician La Place. He supposes that, originally, the whole solar system const.i.tuted only one vast ma.s.s of nebulous matter, being expanded into the thinnest vapor and gas by heat, and more than filling the s.p.a.ce at present occupied by the planets. This vapor, he still further supposes, had a revolution from west to east on an axis. As the heat diminished by radiation, the nebulous matter must condense, and consequently the velocity of rotation must increase, and an exterior zone of vapor might be detached; since the central attraction might not be able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. This ring of vapor might sometimes retain its original form, as in the case of Saturn's ring; but the tendency would be, in general, to divide into several ma.s.ses, which, by coalescing again, would form a single ma.s.s, having a revolution about the sun, and on its axis. This would const.i.tute a planet in a state of vapor; and by the detachment of successive rings might all the planets be produced. As they went on contracting, by the same law, satellites might be formed to each; and the ultimate result would be solid planets and satellites, revolving around the sun in nearly the same plane, and in the same direction, and also on their axes.

Although this hypothesis has been regarded with favor by many philosophers, who were Theists, and even Christians, yet the object of La Place in proposing it was to sustain atheism. Sir Isaac Newton had expressed the conviction that "the admirable arrangement of the solar system cannot but be the work of an intelligent and most powerful Being."

La Place declared that, in this statement, Newton "had deviated from the method of true philosophy," and brought forward these views to sustain his declaration. Whether they do sustain it, will be considered in another place. But since it is one of those modes in which men have attempted to account for the universe without a Deity, it is a proper subject of examination in this lecture, in which we are inquiring whether law alone will account for the creation and sustentation of the universe.

The zogony of this hypothesis undertakes to show how animals and plants may be produced without any special exercise of creating power on the part of the Deity. It supposes matter to be endowed with certain laws, whose operation alone will determine life in brute matter, or, rather, whose operation const.i.tutes life. Some would have it that a part of matter is essentially vital; that is, endowed with inherent life; and that this matter, like leaven, communicates life to dead matter arranged in a certain order. But the more modern view is, that life is produced by electrical agency. It is found that the fundamental form of organic beings is a globule, having another globule forming within it. It is also found that globules may be produced in alb.u.men by electricity; and if we could discover how nature produces alb.u.men, it is thought that the whole process by which living organisms are produced would be distinctly before us. It seems to be simply the operation of electricity, and requires no intervention of special creating energy. If the question arises, Whence came such marvellous laws to exist in nature? the atheist replies that matter and its laws are eternal, having neither beginning nor end; while the Theist, who maintains this hypothesis, a.s.serts that, when G.o.d created matter, he endowed it with such laws, having an inherent, self-executing power.

Having thus ascertained, as it supposes, how life and organization in the simplest forms may be produced, the next inquiry is, how the more perfect and complicated forms of organic beings may be developed by laws, without divine power. This const.i.tutes the zonomy of the subject. The French zologist, Lamarck, first drew out and formally defended this hypothesis, aided by others, as Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Bory St. Vincent. Their supposition was, that there is a power in nature, which they sometimes denominated the Deity, yet did not allow it to be intelligent and independent, but a mere blind, instrumental force. This power, they supposed, was able to produce what they called _monads_, or rough draughts of animals and plants. These monads were the simplest of all organic beings, mere aggregations of matter, some of them supposed to be inherently vital. And such monads are the only things ever produced directly by this blind deity. But in these monads there was supposed to reside an inherent tendency to progressive improvement. The wants of this living ma.s.s of jelly were supposed to produce such effects as would gradually form new organs, as the hands, the feet, and the mouth. These changes would be aided by another principle, which they called the _force of external circ.u.mstances_, by which they meant the influence upon its development of its peculiar condition; as, for instance, a conatus for flying, produced by the internal principle, would form wings in birds; a conatus for swimming in water would form the fins and tails of fishes; and a conatus for walking would form the feet and legs of quadrupeds. Thus the organs were not formed to meet the wants, but by the wants, of the animal and plant. Of course, new wants would produce new organs; and thus have animals been growing more and more complicated and perfect from the earliest periods of geological history. Man began his course as a monad, but, by the force of Lamarck's two principles, has reached the most elevated rank on the scale of animals. His last condition before his present was that of the monkey tribe, especially that of the orang-outang.

The advocates of this hypothesis generally, however, suppose that there are from three to fifteen species of men, and that the different races are not mere varieties of one species. The most perfect species, the Caucasian, after leaving the monkey state, has gradually risen through the inferior species, and is still making progress; so that we cannot tell where they will stop. In general, the advocates of this hypothesis are materialists; that is, they do not suppose that there is a soul in man, distinct from the body, but that thought is one of the functions of the brain. They usually also regard moral qualities as mainly dependent upon organization, agreeably to the opinions of ultra phrenologists; and hence that they are more to be pitied than blamed for their deviations from rect.i.tude.

Such is the hypothesis. Let us now, in the first place, a.s.sume it to be proved, and see what inferences follow.

_I remark, first, that the occurrence of events according to law does not remove the necessity of a divine contriving, superintending, and sustaining Power._

That every event in the universe takes place according to fixed laws I am ready to admit. For what is a natural law? Nothing more nor less than the uniform mode in which divine power acts. In the case of miracles, it may be that the ordinary laws of nature are suspended or counteracted; at least, they are increased or diminished in their power. Yet from what we know of the divine perfections, we must conclude that G.o.d has certain fixed rules by which he is regulated in the performance of miracles; and, of course, in the same circ.u.mstances we should expect the same miracles.

So that we may reasonably admit that even miracles are regulated and controlled by law, like common events; though, from the infrequency of the former, men cannot understand the laws that regulate them.

Now, if the advocates of this hypothesis mean simply that every event is regulated by law,--in other words, that with like antecedents like consequents will be connected,--I have no controversy with them; and such is the precise statement of a modern anonymous popular writer on the subject.

He declares that his "purpose is, to show that the whole revelation of the works of G.o.d presented to our senses and reason is a system based on what we are compelled, for want of a better term, to call _law_; by which, however, is not meant a system independent or exclusive of the Deity, but one which only proposes _a certain mode of his working_."--_Sequel to the Vestiges of Nat. Hist. of Creation_, p. 2.--But this is by no means all that is meant by this hypothesis. Nay, the grand object of the writer above quoted is, to show that there is no such thing as miraculous interference in the creation or preservation of the universe. He admits only the ordinary laws of nature, but denies all special and extraordinary laws; and says that it does not "appear necessary that G.o.d should exercise an immediately superintending power over the mundane economy."--_Vestiges_, p. 273.--Nay, he denies that the original creation of the universe and of animals and plants required any thing but the operation of natural laws; of such laws as we see and understand. The thought does not seem to have occurred to him, that special and miraculous acts of the Deity may be as truly governed by law as the motions of planets. Every thing of that sort he seems to regard as a violation of law,--a stepping aside from fixed principles,--a sort of afterthought with Jehovah,--a remedy for some defect in his original plans. True, the law of miracles and of special providence is very different from the common course of nature; and, therefore, the one may for a time supersede the others. But this does not prove that the former is not regulated by laws; nor that it did not enter into the original plan of the universe in the divine mind. It must have been a part of that plan; every thing was a part of it, and there can be with him no afterthought, no improvement, no alteration of his eternal designs.

Admitting that every event, miraculous as well as common, is under law, it by no means renders a present directing and energizing Deity unnecessary.

This hypothesis admits that organic life had a beginning, for its grand object is to show how it began by law alone. Now, who gave to matter, in a gaseous state, such wonderful laws that this fair world should be the result of their operation? If it would require infinite wisdom as well as power to create the present universe at once out of nothing, would it demand less of contrivance and skill to impart such powers to brute matter? It was not merely a power to produce organic natures, to form their complicated organs, to give life, and instinct, and intellect; but to adapt each particle, each organ, each animal, and each plant, most exactly and most wonderfully to its place in the vast system, so that every single thing should most beautifully harmonize with every other thing.

Again. What is a natural law without the presence and energizing power of the lawgiver? How easily are men bewildered by words! and none has led more astray than this word _law_. We talk about its power to produce certain effects; but who can point out any inherent power of this sort which it possesses? Who can show how a law operates but through the energizing influence of the lawgiver? How unphilosophical then to separate a law of nature from the Deity, and to imagine him to have withdrawn from his works! For to do this would be to annihilate the law. He must be present every moment, and direct every movement of the universe, just as really as the mind of man must be in the body to produce its movements.

Take away G.o.d from the universe, or let him cease to act mentally upon it, and every movement would as instantly and certainly cease, as would every movement of the human frame, were the mind to be withdrawn, or cease to will. We realize the necessity of the divine presence and energy to produce a miracle. But if miracles are performed according to law, as much as common events,--and we surely cannot prove they are not,--why is a present Deity any more necessary in the one case than in the other? The Bible considers common and miraculous events exactly alike in this respect. And true philosophy teaches the same.

I see not, then, why this law hypothesis does not require an infinite Deity, just as much as the ordinary belief, which supposes that G.o.d originally created the universe by his fiat, and sustains it constantly by his power, and from time to time interferes with the regular sequence of cause and effect by miracles. The only difference seems to be this: While the common view represents G.o.d as always watching over his works, and ready, whenever necessary, to make special interpositions, the law hypothesis introduces him only at the very dawn of the universe, exerting his infinite wisdom and power to devise and endow matter with exquisite laws, capable, by their inherent self-executing power, of originating all organic natures, and producing the infinite variety of nature, and keeping in play her countless and unceasing agencies. It was only necessary that he should impress attenuated matter with these laws, and then put the machine in motion, and it would go on forever, without any need of G.o.d's presence or agency; so that he might henceforward give himself up to undisturbed repose.

I know, indeed, that La Place, and some other advocates of this latter hypothesis, do not admit any necessity for a Deity even to originate matter or its laws; and to prove this was the object of the nebular hypothesis. But how evident that in this he signally failed! For even though he could show how nebulous matter, placed in a certain position, and having a revolution, might be separated into sun and planets, by merely mechanical laws, yet where, save in an infinite Deity, lie the power and the wisdom to originate that matter, and to bring it into such a condition, that, by blind laws alone, it would produce such a universe--so harmonious, so varied, so nicely adjusted in its parts and relations as the one we inhabit? Especially, how does this hypothesis show in what manner these worlds could be peopled by countless myriads of organic natures, most exquisitely contrived, and fitted to their condition? The atheist may say that matter is eternal. But if so, what but an infinite mind could in time begin the work of organic creation? If the matter existed for eternal ages without being brought into order, and into organic structures, why did it not continue in the same state forever?

Does the atheist say, All is the result of laws inherent in matter? But how could those laws remain dormant through all past eternity,--that is, through a period literally infinite,--and then at length be aroused into intense action? Besides, to impute the present wise arrangements and organic creations of the world to law, is to endow that law with all the attributes with which the Theist invests the Deity. Nothing short of intelligence, and wisdom, and benevolence, and power, infinitely above what man possesses, will account for the present world. If there is, then, a power inherent in matter adequate to the production of such effects, that power must be the same as the Deity; and, therefore, it is truly the Deity, by whatever name we call it. In short, the fact that La Place did not see that his hypothesis utterly failed to account for the universe without a Deity, strikingly shows us, that a man may be a giant in mathematics, while he is only a pygmy in moral reasoning; or, to make the statement more general, how a man, by an exclusive cultivation of one faculty of the soul, may shrivel all the rest into a nutsh.e.l.l.

From these views and reasonings, it is clear, I think, that the hypothesis of creation by law does not necessarily destroy the theory of religion.

For if we admit that every thing in the world of matter and of mind, not excepting miracles and special providences, is regulated, if not produced, by law, it does not take away the necessity of a contriving, sustaining, and energizing Deity. Even though we admit that G.o.d has communicated to nature's laws, at the beginning, a power to execute themselves, (though the supposition is quite unphilosophical,) no event is any the less G.o.d's work, than if all were miraculous.

In consistency with this conclusion, we find that while some advocates of this hypothesis evidently intended it to sustain atheism, its most plausible advocate, as we have seen, fully admits, not only the divine existence, but the reality of revelation. It may, indeed, be doubted whether this anonymous writer has not virtually taken away the Deity, and even moral accountability, by his materialism and his ultra-phrenology; yet we do not see but he may a.s.sert his law system without denying G.o.d's existence or attributes.

It must be admitted, however, that the influence of this hypothesis upon practical religion is disastrous. It does, apparently, so remove the Deity from all concern in the affairs of the world, and so foists law into his place, that practically there is no G.o.d. If his agency is acknowledged, as having put the vast machine in motion, in some indefinitely remote period of past duration, yet the feeling is, that since then he has given up the reins into the hands of law, so that man has nothing to do with him, but only with nature's laws; that he has only to submit to these, and not expect any interposition for his relief, however earnestly he cry for it.

Now, it is obviously the intention and desire of the advocates of this hypothesis thus to remove G.o.d away from his works, and from their thoughts; else why should they so strenuously resist the notion of miracles? For these may just as properly be referred to law as common events. Yet it is one of the most striking features of the hypothesis, that it opposes strongly the idea of any special oversight and interposition on the part of the Deity. True, when we look at the subject philosophically, we must acknowledge that an event is just as really the work of G.o.d, when brought about by laws which he ordains and energizes, as by miraculous interposition. Still the practical influence of these two views of Providence is quite different.

Whoever the author of the Vestiges may be, he has evidently lived in a religious community, and felt the influence of a religious atmosphere; for he tries to conform his system as much as possible to the principles of Protestant Christianity. In other words, he feels so much the power of practical piety around him, that he does not suffer the influence of the system which he advocates to exhibit itself fully, nor to drive him into those extravagances of belief which naturally result from it. In order to see what is its natural tendency, we need to go to such a country as Germany, or Switzerland, where there is little to restrain the wildest vagaries of belief. In the works of Professor Lorenz Oken, of Zurich, we see fully developed the tendencies and results of this hypothesis of development by law, combined with the unintelligible idealism of Kant, Fichte, Sch.e.l.ling, &c. In his Physio-philosophy, translated by the Ray Society for the edification of sober, matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxons, we find a man, of strong mind and extensive knowledge, taking the most ridiculous positions with the stoutest dogmatism, and the most imperturbable gravity, yet whose blasphemy is equalled only by their absurdity. Let a few quotations ill.u.s.trate and confirm this statement.

"The highest mathematical idea, or the fundamental principle of all mathematics, is the zero == 0.

"Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon nothing, and consequently arises out of nothing.

"Real and ideal are no more different from each other than ice and water: both of these, as is well known, are essentially one and the same, and yet are different, the diversity consisting in the form. Every real is absolutely nothing else than a number.

"The Eternal is the nothing of nature.

"There is no other science than that which treats of nothing.

"There exists nothing but nothing--nothing but the Eternal.