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    ASPIRATIONS.*

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    rpHIS appears to bo the work < if ft studious and amiable man ; but •*• wo bke the character of tho author , as far as it is reflected in liis volume , far better than the volume itself . It fa a Liber eenfenticfrnnh . scarcely aphoristic , more like the " Guesses nt . Truth , " Mrs , Jameson ' s Bpolc of Sentiments , " and the different Table Talks recently given to the world ; but , y / o should say > far less successful No " class of works require , on the whole ; more rigorous criticism , in default of a rigorous ^^ -oriticbin on the part of their authors tand for this reason ; there is . here no story , no travail of construction * a more effusion of thought . Any man who can write English may

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    162 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Feb . 18 , 1860 .

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    Scripture and derived from theological considerations , is but inconsiderable The differences and difficulties in the first two ichapters of Genesis have sorely perplexed him , until he has arrived at the conclusion , "thatthetrue way of explaining these passages is to refer them to two distinct creations , belonging to periods far removed From one another , and occurring under conditions extremely different . " Well , then , we are to admit the pre-Adamites upon the earth without question , except as to how they came here ; and as to this point we are' assured that" nothing seems to . contradict the probability that the human species ^ like other creatures , were brought fo ^ th abundan tly ( swarmed forth at once ) by the fiat , ' Be fruitful , and multiply ; ' and thus at the earliest possible period overspread the earth , a ruling and a royal race . " Further , ' " There is an entire difference between the pre-Adamite and Adam : the former we have seen starting into being out of . nothing , by a word— - ^ complete at once ina twofold nature ;'' but the second man ( commonly called the first ) is in all respects a contrast to the presumed first in his origin , for . he is not created out of nothing , but formed out of the dust of the ground . " His predecessor had all the world for his possession ; Adam neither enjoyed nor coveted the same wide empire . " So that the first Adam , ¦ who wai 3 made out of nothing , got everything ; and the next Adam , who was made of the dust of the earth , got very little of the earth . We submit that this , steems hardly fair ; but our author must , of course ,. give each Adam what he thinks proper . For ourselves , as we Lave' no connexion with the supposed , first Adam , we do not think we can feel much affection for him ; and we should have dealt far more liberally with the head of our own family . With our author , however , it is according to the : old prdverb : First come , first served—and best served , too ; WhendicKhe first man appear , chronologically ? Our author thinks we may suppose his creation took place about the middle of the sixth age , "that isjthesikth day . ofthe biblical record ; arid that the seventlidaj' age had still to run ere Adam was born andEden planted- —the Sabbatic era of Genesis in 1 , 2 , 3 . The length of the seventh " ¦ day " must have been similar to that of the preceding six . It was apenodVdfiV-hol ^\ resfc , ' during .--whi ! ch ,-.: a $ - -i ' t rolled on , the calm and undisturbed blessedness resulting from God ' s approving smile must have spread itself over all creation . " : It is difficult to know how to dispose of the- pre-Adamites when we have them before us--especially as no hint or indication the faintest or most distant exists to direct our thoughts aright ; yet the most readable pages of the book are the few which attempt to' depict the happy condition of . that earliest race . The pre-Adamite man was fornied for worship . ^ With infantine and holy simplicity he went forth to pluck the flowers strewn in his path , 'and ¦* ? -he gazed upon their beauties or inhaled their odours his child-like spirit would rise with grateful praise to . the . Creator . He gathered harvests which he may never Laboriously haye . spweds and partook of a perpetual feast from trees and plants which gave him an unfailing variety , needing no barns to store it for future use . His fields no winter devastated , no locust devoured ; and his heart , ever prompting to gratitude , found . in , every neW experience new reasons to make it one great object of his child-Uke being toloye and praise . '' I ^ o objection , can be . made to so pretty a picture , and the reader's displeasure can only arise from the necessity pf marring it . Why make the pre-Adamites fall , and divide arid end- ^ -some very brightly and others very badly ? Biblical ground there is none for such _ a supposition , though obscure reference is thought to be made to this in Ezekiel xjeviii . 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 . Abating this presumed hinVwe can see no necessity for debasing the , earliest race , and dividing them into ultimate angels and ultimate fiends , excepting the plain necessity of sweeping ; them awa , y from the face of the earth to make room for the Adam and , life fiunily ; , for it is certain , that while the whole generation , of pre-Adamites has possession of the stage , you cannot expect to witness the Adamites and . tho performance of their parts . . Therefgre they were tempted ; therefore some of them fell , while many remained steadfast and innocent . But there is another difficulty ; get rid of t )> ft e ^ nner ^ , they ought to vanish at once \ but what of the , ungirining P . As tf » ey have done nothing bad , they inay . surely reniajn where they were ,, happy and , holy . So they doubtless , n > igl » t , fcuifor , , % Q qoiyung ? Adam . He must of necessity lie made room , for ; hq . must , be atone at first ; so then there is no help for it , - Good an 4 bad ' : ' , pre-Adamites are at the end of theta world-lease , and quit they n ^ st . Whati , is most ,, singular in the author ' s last , act of this drama is ,, that the bad pre-Adamites are . the more reluctant to go , arid the good ones the njore ready ; the bad dtill' hovering around tU ' e scene , of their former existence , hating their successors , and ready to , come arid delude them under any turning and whirling table , and at any rash m > 4 presumptuous summons of profane spjrit-niediums .. Vine go <) d have gone up to one or more of the stars , where tWey think of old tiroes and old scenes , and occasionally conic- doWi » , again ,. when specially commissioned a » d permitted ; bu $ tliisy scorn to attend to spiritidealers , or table-rappings , or Ameficaii nicdjums . Such . . is the theol 6 gipal and biblical conception and argument . However inuch w ^ , n » ay admire ^ he auth or's reverence for religious truth , his desire for correct biblioal exegesis , and his anxious wish to amend , the current , a ^ gelology , wo are boun 4 ty confers tfintwo cannot filnd . ifyany scriptural'passage , or in any theological dUenVnm , 8 uffiqiept' basis for tliis theory . t ' Its scientific bjisis , as laid down by the author , is no finworov broaden All must admit that there is not a single ronoairrfng 1 record of the entire rnco and rule of the pre-Adamites . Noifchfev bonp wv stone in any part of tho world displays one token of their existence . Tot the vwy animals and organisations \ vhioh are supposed to have been contemporaneous with them have left numerous

    and unquestionable tokens of theiv existence . Every year amongst the three last decades has brought many or fewer of these to light . Geological collections have been shelved and labelled and arranged ; how is it that in- nO museum , no private-cabinet in Europe , have we any one pre-Adamite human , petrifaction ? 1 \ Iost ' geologists would say , simply because we cannot expect to find , what never existed except in imagination . The author can say nothing more than that we » z « y . yet ; -find them . But at this rate we should never arrive at any conclusion . The possibilities of the future would weaken or overthrow half tine ' admitted ' theories ' of science , if possibilities ' , alone were permitted to invalidate" probabilities , and fair and almost inevitable inferences . When , however , bur anonyrnous theorist ideals with the geological part of his subject , he so plainly displays his imperfect acquaintance with that science ^ that we are pained to think'he has not . submitted his pages to some competent geologist before publication . Any geological friend would have spared him the discredit and us the pain of pointing out his gross darkness in geological chronology . Here is one proof : " The Isle of Slieppey , Dr . Mantell assures us , is entirely composed of the London clay—a formation recogrdsed as belonging . to the later tertiary , ' or ^ pre-Adami te age . " That the Isle of Sheppey is composed of London clay is notorious . enough , hut tq say that tliis formation belongs to the later tertiary age is as notoriously wrong . It belongs to the earlier tertiaries , and is itself the very formation which suggested Lyell ' s name of JEoceine ^ - —indicating the dawn of tertiary life . To place prerAdam there , would be to intercalate man amidst geological impossibilities , and to destroy the author ' s own arguments in other pages . But from other pages it appears that the writer Would place his pi'e-Adam in the pleistocene age , and it is evident that this is his meaning' throughout- —although he has unconsciously inade a geological anachronism of some , hundreds of thousands of 3 ears , which ., must have . intervened between the London clay and the pleistocene beds . All his reasonings , however , are so tainted with Kis geological incompetence , that we find it impossible to make him consistent with himself and his own theory- His remarks about the fossil plants , fruits , and seeds of Sheppey , in connection with his observations on the " but one creation" of terrestrial plants and his prerAdamite , nien , are below geological criticism altogether . It would be easy , and is tempting " ' *<> place these in a ludicrous aspect , but we have no wish to do more than passingly point out the writer ' s ignorance of that science which so many good and religious men think they understand , andean even prpnounce upon , when they have glanced over one or two popular books . Gentlemen may read as little or as much as may please them on ihis science , but they should neither write nor theorise about it until they have really mastered its details . Our author has much to acquire in this direction before any geologist would condescend to argue with him . His notions on botanical science are equally crude . " I cannot believe , " says he , " that any discoveries hitherto made justify the inference drawn by several authorities , that there were from time to time successive , creations of certain species of plants at different ages of the world . The ample provision of . the third day is all that was needed for the formation of the carboniferous strata , " &c , &c . But there were plants before the carboniferous era—rSilurian and Devonian plants ^—anid whence came they ? Then , as to a . 11 tl » e succeeding fossil plants having been created inclusively in the carboniferous era , but not developed until later ages , the idea is so remote from all the . common beliefs of the fossil-plant student that it can scarcely be reasoned upon , and is simply absurd . Think of the fifty-six thousand species of plants , reckoning by De Candolle ( and there are many more ) , wrapped up in the one thousand species or more of the coal-producing age ! Yet auch is the author ' s exegesis of Genesis i . 29 . Whence then came the plants of the li « s and the oolites , those of the London clay and the plastic clay P And as to recent plants , whence came they P Moreover , the third creative day of Genesis , according to any well-considered and consistent geological synchronism , must , by wliole cycles , have preceded ** the carboniferous era ; and it is most philosophical to consider it si corresponding with the emergence of dry land , and the Azoic period of geology . On the whole , this author ' s " Story of our Old Planet " is neither that told by Science nor Scripture . We have not dwelt upon the question of the possibility and probability of the . existence of Tertiary races of men , or of » u anthropoid race , which might have fashioned the flint arrow-heads ( or Kelts ) eo much discussed at this timo ; because , although the author ' s theory is associated to some extent with these Kelts , yet he is , not tho man to pronpunce ecientifically upon this very interesting point of inquiry . Wo liope to be able to take it up on a future occasion .

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    * 4 « jplratiotw from tho Inner , the GplrltUftl X < lft > . Py HBNRV M'Cob-KAOK . M . D . Longman ,

    Aspirations.*

    ASPIRATrO ^ S . *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 18, 1860, page 162, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2334/page/14/