REVIEWS, 



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makinw all the ■world bow in homnge to ourselves, but in working steadily in the 

 fields of nature, labouring patiently in searching out how the truths of creation 

 support the truths of revelation, that we are best doing our duty. It is not by 

 such an application of the Bible, but by means of (ieology that the reconciliation 

 of these so- styled differences must be effected. Let us not begin at the wrong end, 

 but let us search patiently and earnestly for the clue. 



Here," says Mr. Gosse, " is in my garden a scarlet runner ; it is a slender 

 twining stem, some three feet long, beset with leaves, with a growing bud at one 

 end, and with the other inserted in the earth. What was it a month ago ? A 

 tiny shoot protruding between two thick, fleshy leaves, scarcely raised above the 

 ground — A month before that ? The thick, fleshy leaves were two oval cotyledons, 

 close apprcssed face to face, with a minute plumule between them, the whole 

 involved in an unbroken, tightly fitting, spotted leathery coat. It was a bean, 

 a seed. "Was this the commencement of its existence ? — No! Six months earlier 

 still it was snugly lying with several others like itself in a green, fleshy pod, to the 

 interior of which it was originally attached. A month before that, this same pod, 

 with its contents, was the centre of a scarlet butterfly-like flower, the bottom of 

 its pistil, within which, if you had split it open, you would have discovered the 

 tiny bean, whose history we are tracing backwards, each imbedded in the soft, 

 green tissue, but no bigger than the eye of a cambric needle. But, where was the 

 flower ? — It was one of many that grew on our garden- wall all through last 

 summer ; each cluster springing as a bud from a slender twining stem, which 

 was the exact counterpart of that with which we commenced this little 

 life -history, — and this earlier stem — what of it ? It, too, had been a shoot, 

 a pair of cotyledons with a plumule, a seed, an integral part of a carpel, 

 which was a part of an earlier flower, that extended from an earlier bud 

 that grew out of an earlier stem that had been — and backward ad in- 

 finitum, for aught that I can perceive. The course of a scarlet runner, then, is a 

 circle without beginning or end, — that is, I mean without a natural or normal 

 beginning or end. For at what point of its history can you put your finger and 

 say, ' Here is the commencement of this organism, before which there is a blank ; 

 here it began to exist ?' There is no such point, no stage which does not look 

 back to a previous stage on which this stage is inevitably and absolutely dependent." 

 Now this argument certainly seems very strong indeed for a progressive develop- 

 ment of created beings ; but Mr. Gosse tells us that the original progenitor of 

 this plant was suddenly created, bearing all the structural characters visible in 

 the now living plant, and yet never having had the existence of which it displayed 

 the evidences. Mr. Gosse gives us this cyclical progression in the shape of a circle, 

 and then he tells us creation solves the dilemma. " Creation, the sovereign fiat 

 of Almighty Power, gives us the commencing point which we in vain seek for in 

 nature. But what is creation ? It is," he replies, "^7ie sudden hursting into a 

 circle.''' Catastrophes and violence are usually terminations, certainly not a part 

 of the ordinary state of things ; nor, as far as we know, at all appropriate to the 

 commencement or origin of either material substances or of life. There is a long 

 series of preparations in the early condition of plants, of animals, and of mineral 

 masses ; even rocks seem to be elaborated by slow processes. One source of Mr. 

 Gosse' s error lies in the assumption that everything was created perfect — or 

 rather adult, for Mr. Gosse does not distinguish, as he ought to do, between 

 perfection and adultness, — which latter is something very different from per- 

 fection. 



