REVIEWS. 
215 
makin;; all the world bow in hoinftgc to ourselves, but in v. orking 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 au aijplicatiou of the Bible, but by uieaus of Geology that the reconciliation 
of tliesc so- styled diiferences must be efl'ccted. 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 othei- 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 appressed face to ftice, with a minute plumule between them, the whole 
involved in an unbroken, tightlj' fitting, spotted leathery coat. It was a bean, 
a seed. Was this the oomuicncement of its existence ? — No ! Six months earlier 
still it was snufily 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 
llower ? — It was one of manj' 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 jart of a carpel, 
which was a part of an earlier flower, that extended from an earlier bud 
that grew out of an earlier stem tliat had been — and backward ad in- 
fiiiittim, 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, "■the sudden bursting 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 proces.ses. 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 diffei-ent from per- 
fection. 
