* And we take it for a physical truth which cannot be gainsaid, that the world of such creatures as the primeval geological eras reveal, was a world abounding with suffering. And we have seen, that the eminent geologist, with whom our business lies, assigns that suffering to no cause such as the deterioration of the natures of the animals: he makes the creatures, armed with their stings, to start, not mediately, but immediately-directly, and without any interventionfrom the hands of their Creator. In the same way, in the Heathen Mythology, Minerva sprang full grown, clothed with armour, offensive and defensive, from the head of her parent Jove. The conclusion from the whole is very evident. If all this be If all be as Hugh Miller has represented, Nature may be thought of as vested in her funeral pall. Suffering and death were from the first of created life: Suffering and death shall be to the last. Suffering and death exist independently of sin; i.e., physical evil is independent of moral evil. In short, suffering and death have been for no other cause than the good pleasure of the Creator. really so, would it not be the best of boons to man could he be rendered incapable from henceforth of speculating at all on such subjects? The greatest of blessings would be complete withdrawal from all this phenomenal life. The Nirwâna for which our Buddhist brethren pine and pray would be indeed our highest heaven. The unspeakable happiness would be a condition of absolute torpor as to the world of primæval-ay, and mediæval, and postremæval-suffering and death in the midst of which each man finds himself. If all this be really so-But, thank God, it is not so,-and we breathe again. Such views as those entertained by Hugh Miller must have told on any mind and organism. It is impossible to say what were the effects on a deeply pondering mind which was oppressed by the belief of such fearful secrets touching the moral order of that universe to which man is related. What a deep hold those instruments of torture, so exquisitely constructed, had taken of Hugh Miller's mind is very evident. Nothing can be more so. He recurs to the idea so often: bringing it in frequently when one is little prepared for it: it appears under such emphatic words. You almost see him thrill with horror when he is depicting some of those fishy stings, or reptilian apparatus of torture, so admirably adapted to kill, and, in killing, to cause the severest pain. And he thrills with horror, not once, but again and again. Let us select from the volume at random, a few passages in addition to those already cited,† touching the carnivorous, in some cases, omnivorous, propensities of the creatures, whose likeness is fixed in stone; and let us take the passages in the order in which they occur. "In the Oolitic ages, however, insects become greatly more numerous, so numerous that they seem to have formed almost exclusively * Miller himself calls it "an economy of warfare and suffering."-See above. † See previous No. "In the food of the earliest mammals, and apparently also of some of the flying reptiles of the time. The magnificent dragon flies,* the carnivorous tyrants of their race, were abundant; and we now know, that while they were, as their name indicates, dragons to the weaker insects, they themselves were devoured by dragons as truly such as were ever yet feigned by romancer of the middle ages."-Pp. 53-4. the times of the Oolite it was the reptilian class that possessed itself of all the elements. Its gigantic enaliosaurs, huge reptilian whalest mounted on paddles, were the tyrants of the ocean, and must have reigned supreme over the already reduced class of fishes; its pterodactyles, dragons as strange as were ever feigned by romancer of the middle ages, and that to the jaws and teeth of the crocodile, added the wings of a bat and the body and tail of an ordinary mammal, had the power of the air,' and, pursuing the fleetest insects in their flight, captured and bore them down; its lakes and rivers abounded in crocodiles and fresh-water tortoises of ancient type and fashion; and its woods and plains were the haunts of a strange reptilian fauna of what has been well termed 'fearfully great lizards.' -Pp. 80, 81. "Shapes that more than rival in strangeness the great dragons, and griffins, and laithly worms,' of medieval legend, or, according to Milton, the 'gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire,' of classical fable, frown on the passing visitor, and, though wrapped up their dead and stony sleep of ages, seem not only the most strange, but also the most terrible things on which his eye ever rested.|| Enormous jaws, bristling with pointed teeth, gape horrid in the stone, under staring eye-sockets a full foot in diameter. Necks that halfequal in length the entire body of the boa-constrictor, stretch out from bodies mounted on fins like those of a fish, and furnished with tails somewhat resembling those of the mammals. Here we see a winged dragon, that, armed with sharp teeth and strong claws, had careered through the air on leathern wings like those of a bat; there an enor mous crocodilian whale, that, mounted on many-jointed paddles, had traversed, in quest of prey, the green depths of the sea."-P. 142. "Cromwell, in commissioning a friend to send him a helmet, shrewdly stipulated that it should be a 'fluted pot;' and we find that the Holoptychius had got the principle of the fluted pot exemplified in the outer plate of each of its scales, untold ages before. The spongy in * There is a wood-cut representation of the fossil representation of one of those magnificent tyrants. † Of the Ichthyosaurus communis, a representation is given. Representations are given of the Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus, and of Pterodactylus Crassirostris. This almost reminds one of the terrific description, in the prophet, of the "creeping things, and abominable beasts," which the seer saw "pourtrayed upon the wall round about," "When by the vision led His eye surveyed the dark idolatries See Ezekiel viii. 10, 11, 12, with the preceding verses. middle plate must, like the diploe of the skull, have served to deaden the vibrations of a blow dealt from the outside."-P. 231. It is a positive relief, in reading such a work, to come upon an animal that lies down, and dies in its bed-of gypsum mud. In the gypsum quarries of Velay and Montmartre, in the Paris basin, which represent to us the gypsum once soft, "the smaller animals occur," writes our author, "often in a state of preservation so peculiar and partial as to excite the curiosity of even the untaught workmen. Only half the skeleton is present. The limbs and ribs of the under side are found lying in nearly their proper places; while of the limbs and ribs of the upper side usually not a trace can be detected,- -even the upper side of the skull is often awanting." "The reading of the enigma seems to be, that when the creatures lay down and died, the gypsum in which their remains occur was soft enough to permit their under sides to sink into it, and that then gradually hardening, it kept the bones in their places; while the uncovered upper sides, exposed to the disintegrating influences, either mouldered away piece-meal, or were removed by accident."-Pp. 93-4. The idea of a butcher, and his work, occur to our geologist's mind, as things by which to illustrate the phenomenon. "It would almost seem as if some pre-Adamite butcher had divided the carcasses longitudinally, and carried away with him all the upper halves."—Ibid. This fancy of a butcher, with his knife, dividing the carcass, in the pre-Adamic period, when there were no butchers, nor men to make butchers of, shows how the iron had entered into our palæontologist's soul.* It is remarkable, that Miller makes Lucifer, the fallen son of the morning, considered as an unembodied spirit-spectator,+ stand aghast at the sight of but a fractional part of the economy of warfare and suffering. "With what wild thoughts must that restless and unhappy spirit have wandered amid the tangled mazes of the old carboniferous forests!" [Lucifer wandering in forests, and yet an unembodied spirit: is not this an inconceivable idea?"] "With what bitter mockeries must he have watched THE FIERCE WARS which raged in their sluggish waters, among ravenous creatures horrid with trenchant teeth, BARBED STING, and sharp spine, and enveloped in glittering armour of plate and scale !"-Lecture Sixth, p. 261. "Even at this 66 *That the particular idea of the butcher, and his weapon, was a familiar one, is evident. We had the idea presented in the course of the long citation from our author, whose words are:-"Ever since animal life began upon our planet, there existed, in all the departments of being, carnivorous classes, who could not live but by the death of their neighbours, and who were armed, in consequence, for their destruction, like the butcher with his axe and knife." "Dead matter exists, and in the unembodied spirits vitality exists; but not yet in all the universe of God has the vitality been united to the matter: animal life, to even the profound apprehension of the fallen angel, is an inconceivable idea."-Lect. VI. p. 259. It is passing strange that though Miller brings so significantly together Lucifer, "the sullen lord of the first revolt," and that dire economy of warfare and slaughter, the relation of cause and effect between the two seems never to have shot across the mind of the paleontologist. Surely it might have been 录 the food of the earliest mammals, and apparently also of some of the There is a wood-cut representation of the fossil representation of one of tho magnificent tyrants. Of the Ichthyosaurus communis, a representation is given. Representations are given of the Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus, and of Ptent dactylus Crassirostris. This almost reminds one of the terrific description, in the prophet, of "creeping things, and abominable beasts," which the seer saw "pourtrayed up the wall round about," "When by the vision led His eye surveyed the dark idolatries See Ezekiel viii. 10, 11, 12, with the preceding verses. Hugh Miller's Exposition of the Theology of Geologists. 205 middle plate must, like the diploe of the skull, have served to deaders the vibrations of a blow dealt from the outside.”—P. 231. It is a positive relief, in reading such a work, to come upon an animal that lies down, and dies in its bed-of gypsum mud in the gypsum quarries of Velay and Montmartre, in the Paris basin, which represent to us the gypsum once soft, "the smaller animals occur, writes our author, "often in a state of preservation so peculiar and partial as to excite the curiosity of even the untangl.t workmen. Only half the skeleton is present. The limbs and ribs of the under side are found lying in nearly their proper places; while of the links and rites of the upper side usually not a trace can be detected, even the upper side of the skull is often awanting." "The reading of the enigma seems to be, that when the creatures lay down and died, the gypsin in which their remains occur was soft enough to permit their under sides to sink into it, and that then gradually hardening, it kept the bones in their places; while the uncovered upper sides, exposi the disintegrating influences, either mouldered away piece-meal, or were removed by accident."-Pp. 93-4. The idea of a batcher, and is work, occur to our geologist's mind, as things by which to line "It would almost seem as if some pre-Adamtrate the phenomenon. e butcher had divided the carcasses longitudinally, and carried away with him all the upper halves."—Ibid. This fancy of a butcher, with his knife, dividing the carcass, in the pre-Adamic period, when there were no butchers, nor men to make butchers of, shows how the iron ad entered into our paleontologist's soul.* 66 to It is remarkable, that Miller makes Lucifer, the fallen son of the orning, considered as an unembodied spirit-spectator.† stand aghast the sight of but a fractional part of the economy of warfare and “With what wild thoughts must that resties and unhappy uffering. pirit have wandered amid the tangled mazes of the old carboniferous (Lucifer wandering in forests, and yet an unembolie rests!" pirit: is not this "an inconceivable idea 1"] With what bitter ockeries must he have watched THE FIERCE WARS which raged in eir sluggish waters, among ravenous creatures horrid with trenchant BARBED STING, and sharp spine, and enveloped in glittering our of plate and scale!"-Lecture Sixth, p. 261. Even at this That the particular idea of the butcher, and his weapon, was a familiar one. We had the idea presented in the course of the long citation freca author, whose words are:-"Ever since animal life began spon our pazet re but by the death of their neighbours, and who were armed, in conse, Lez ere existed, in all the departments of being, carnivorous classes, who coulise ↑ Dead matter exists, and in the unembodied spirits vitality exists: bu** their destruction, like the butcher with his are and knife." Z all the universe of God has the vitality been united to the matter. to even the profound apprehension of the fallen angel, is an inconve It is passing strange that though Miller brings so signifes: " the sullen lord of the first revolt," and that dire eert. i slaughter, the relation of cause and effect between the tw across the mind of the paleontologist Surely it : ezident. -Lect. VI. p. 259. |