Part 5 (1/2)
The declaration of Paul on this subject is as distinct as language can be.
_By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death pa.s.sed upon all men, for that all have sinned._ This corresponds with the original threatening respecting the forbidden fruit. We know that our first parents ate of it; we know, also, that they died; and the apostle places these two facts in the relation of cause and effect.
In the second place, the Bible does not inform us whether the death of the inferior animals and plants is the consequence of man's transgression.
In order to prove this statement, it is necessary to show that the language of the Bible, which distinctly ascribes the introduction of death into the world, is limited to man. The first part of the sentence from Paul, just quoted, is indeed very general, and may include all organic natures. _By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin._ What terms more general or explicit than these could be used? Yet the remainder of the sentence shows that the apostle had man mainly in his eye; _and so death pa.s.sed upon all men, for that all have sinned_. The death here spoken of is limited expressly to man; and, therefore, it is not necessary to show that the same terms, in the first part of the sentence, had a more extended meaning. Death is spoken of here as the result of sin, and cannot, therefore, embrace animals and plants, which are incapable of sin.
But after all, the first part of the sentence may intend to teach a general truth respecting the origin of every kind of death in the world.
It will be seen in the sequel, that to such a meaning I have no objection, if it can be established.
Another very explicit pa.s.sage on the introduction of death into the world is found in Corinthians: _Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead._ Here, too, the last clause of the sentence limits the meaning to the human family. For no one will doubt that Christ is the man here spoken of, by whom came the resurrection of the dead. Now, unless the inferior animals and plants will share in a resurrection in consequence of what Christ has done, and in the redemption wrought out by him too, they cannot be included in this pa.s.sage. And if neither of the texts now quoted extend in their application beyond the human race, I know of no other pa.s.sage in the Bible that teaches, directly or inferentially, that death among the inferior animals or plants resulted from man's apostasy. I do not deny that there may be a connection between these events; certainly the Scriptures do not teach the contrary. But they appear to me rather to leave the question of such a connection undecided, and open for the examination of philosophers. If so, we may reason concerning the dissolution of animals, except men, without reference to the Scriptures.
_Under the second part of this investigation, I shall endeavor to show that geology proves violent and painful death to have existed in the world long before man's creation._
In the oldest of the sedimentary rocks, the remains of animals occur in vast numbers; nor will any one, I trust, of ordinary intelligence, doubt but these relics once const.i.tuted living beings. Through the whole series of rocks, six miles in thickness, we find similar remains, even increasing in numbers as we ascend; but it is not till we reach the very highest stratum, the mere superficial coat of alluvium, that we find the remains of man. The vast mult.i.tudes, then, of organized beings that lie entombed in rocks below alluvium, must have yielded to death long before man received his sentence, _Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return._ Will any one maintain that none of these animals preceded man in the period of their existence? Then why are the remains of men not found with theirs? for his bony skeleton is as likely to be preserved and petrified as theirs. Moreover, so unlike to man and other existing tenants of the globe are many of these ancient animals, that the sure laws of comparative anatomy show us, that both races could not live and flourish in a world adapted to the one or the other. If the temperature had been warm enough for the fossil tribes, and all the circ.u.mstances of food and climate congenial to their natures, they would have been unsuited to the present races; and if adapted to the latter, the former must have perished. The difference between the animals and plants dug out of the rocks in this lat.i.tude, and those now inhabiting the same region of country, is certainly as great as that between the animals and plants of the torrid and temperate zones; in most cases it is greater. Now, suppose that the animals and plants of the temperate zones were to change places with those between the tropics. A few species might survive, but the greater part would be destroyed. Hence, _a fortiori_, had the living beings now entombed in the rocks been placed in the same climate with those now alive upon the globe, the like result would have followed. I say _a fortiori_; that is, for a stronger reason, the greater number must have perished; and the stronger reason is, the greater difference between fossil and living species, than between the latter in torrid and temperate lat.i.tudes. It is true that man is among the species capable of being acclimated to great extremes. And yet no physiologist will imagine that even his nature could have long survived in such a climate as formerly existed, when probably the atmosphere was loaded with carbonic acid and other mephitic gases, and with moisture and miasms, the result of a rank vegetation, and of a temperature higher than now exists in equatorial countries.
This argument, furnished by comparative anatomy, to show that man and the fossil animals could not have been contemporaries, will probably seem to have little force to those who are not familiar with the history of organic life on the globe, and the distribution of species. It is not generally known that both animals and plants are usually confined to a particular district, and that a removal beyond its boundaries, or the access of a few more degrees of cold, or heat, than is common in the place a.s.signed them by nature, will destroy them. To him who understands this curious history, the argument under consideration is perfectly satisfactory, to prove the existence and consequent dissolution of myriads of living beings, anterior to man. ”Judging by these indications of the habits of the animals,” says the distinguished anatomist, Sir Charles Bell, ”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. Any other hypothesis than that of a new creation of animals, suited to the successive changes in the inorganic matter of the globe, the condition of the water, atmosphere, and temperature, brings with it only an acc.u.mulation of difficulties.”--_The Hand, its Mech._, &c. pp. 31 and 115.
But when arguing with those who do not feel the force of this argument, I would fall back upon that derived from the fact, that of the ten thousand species of animals dug out of the rocks beneath alluvium, no relic of man has been found; and ask them whether they can explain such a fact, except by the supposition that man was not their contemporary.
In his admirable Bridgewater Treatise, Dr. Buckland has conclusively shown that the same great system of organization and adaptation has always prevailed on the globe. It was the same in those immensely remote ages, when the fossil animals lived, as it now is. And there is one feature of that system which deserves notice in this argument. At present, we know that there exist large tribes of animals, called carnivorous, provided with organs expressly designed to enable them to destroy other animals, and of course to inflict on them violent and painful death. Exactly similar tribes, and in a like proportion, are found among the fossil animals. They were not always the same tribes; but when one cla.s.s of carnivora disappeared, another was created to take their place, in order to keep down the excessive multiplication of other races, which appears to be the grand object accomplished by the carnivorous races. And that animals of such an organization not only lived in the ages preceding man's creation, but actually destroyed contemporary species, we have the evidence in the remains of the one animal enclosed in the body of another, by whom it was devoured for food and both are now converted into rock, and will testify to the most sceptical, that death among animals existed in the world before man's transgression.
_Under the third part of this investigation, I shall attempt to show that physiology teaches us that death is a general law of organic natures._
It is not confined to animals, but embraces also plants. As they correspond in a striking manner to animals in their reproduction and growth, so they do in their decay and dissolution. In short, wherever in nature we find life and organization, death is inevitable. The amount of vital energy varies in different species, and in individuals; but in them all, it at length becomes exhausted, and the functions cease. After a certain period, the vessels which convey the nutritive materials, and elaborate the proximate principles, become choked with excrement.i.tious matter, a.s.similation is performed imperfectly, and gradually the vital energies are overpowered, and yield up their charge to the disorganizing power of chemical agencies. We can hardly see why the delicate machinery cannot hold out longer than it does, or even indefinitely. But experience shows us that an irresistible law of nature has fixed the period of its operations. In the expressive language of Scripture, which applies to plants as well as animals, _there is no discharge in that war_.
A little reflection will convince any one, that in such a system as exists in the world, this universal decay and dissolution are indispensable. For dead organic matter is essential to the support and nourishment of living beings. Admit, for the sake of the argument, (although it is obviously absurd in respect to the carnivorous races,) that animals might be supported by vegetable food. Yet, if plants must furnish nourishment for their successors, as well as for animals, the organic matter must at length be exhausted. And, furthermore, how could animals feed on plants without destroying, as they now do, mult.i.tudes of minute insects and animalcules? It is obvious, also, that, for a variety of reasons, the multiplication of animals must soon be arrested, or famine would be the result, or the world would be more than full. In short, it would require an entirely different system in nature from the present, in order to exclude death from the world. To the existing system it is as essential as gravitation, and apparently just as much a law of nature.
To strengthen this argument still further, comparative anatomy testifies that large cla.s.ses of animals have a structure evidently intended to enable them to feed on other tribes. The teeth of the more perfect carnivorous animals are adapted for seizing and tearing their prey, while those which feed on vegetables have cutting and grinding teeth, but not the canine. So the whole digestive apparatus in the carnivora is more simple, and of less extent, than in the herbivorous tribes, while in the former the gastric juice acts more readily upon flesh, and in the latter upon vegetables. The muscular apparatus, also, is developed in greater power in the former than in the latter, especially in the neck and fore paw. Throughout all the cla.s.ses of animals, those which feed on flesh are armed with poisonous fangs, or talons, or beaks, or other formidable weapons, while the vegetable feeders are usually in a great measure defenceless. In short, in the one cla.s.s we find a perfect adaptation, in all the organs, for destroying, digesting, and a.s.similating other animals, and in the other cla.s.s, an arrangement, equally obvious, for procuring and digesting vegetables. Indeed, you need only show the anatomist the skeleton, or even a very small part of the skeleton, of an unknown animal, to enable him, in most cases, to decide, what is the food of that animal, with almost as much certainty as if he had for years observed its habits.
Who can doubt, then, that when a carnivorous animal employs the weapons with which nature has furnished it for the destruction of another animal, in order to satisfy its hunger, that it acts in obedience to a law of its being, originally impressed upon its const.i.tution by the Creator? It is true, that even the flesh-eating animals may be taught for a time to subsist upon vegetable products. But this is unnatural; and such an animal usually pays the price of thus inverting its original instinct, by disease and premature decay. In a state of nature, an animal would starve rather than thus violate its instinctive desires.
I will allude to only one other fact, that shows death to be inseparable from organized beings, without a constant miraculous interference, in such a world as ours. Animal organization, in all conceivable circ.u.mstances, must be liable to accident, from mere mechanical force, by which life would be destroyed. It may be possible, perhaps, to conceive of a material tenement for the soul, which should be unaffected by all forms of mechanical violence and chemical action; if, for instance, its const.i.tution were a.n.a.logous to that supposed medium through which light, heat, and electricity, and perhaps gravitation, act. But, surely, our present bodies are far enough removed from such conditions, being of all terrestrial things the most liable to ruin from the causes above mentioned.
The conclusions from all these facts and reasonings are, that death is an essential feature of the present system of organized nature; that it must have entered into the plan of creation in the divine mind originally, and consequently must have existed in the world before the apostasy of man.
Whether the entire system of death had any connection with that event, or whether there is any thing peculiar in the death endured by the human family, will be questions for examination in a subsequent part of my lecture.
In opposition to these conclusions, however, the common theory of death maintains that, when man transgressed, there was an entire change throughout all organic nature; so that animals and plants, which before contained a principle of immortal life, were smitten with the hereditary contagion of disease and death. Those animals which, before that event, were gentle and herbivorous, or frugivorous, suddenly became ferocious or carnivorous. The climate, too, changed, and the sterile soil sent forth the thorn and the thistle, in the place of the rich flowers and fruits of Eden. The great English poet, in his Paradise Lost, has clothed this hypothesis in a most graphic and philosophical dress; and probably his descriptions have done more than the Bible to give it currency. Indeed, could the truth be known, I fancy that, on many points of secondary importance, the current theology of the day has been shaped quite as much by the ingenious machinery of Paradise Lost as by the Scriptures; the theologians having so mixed up the ideas of Milton with those derived from inspiration, that they find it difficult to distinguish between them.
In the case under consideration, Milton does not limit the change induced by man's apostasy to sublunary things, but, like a sagacious philosopher, perceives, also, that the heavenly bodies must have been diverted from their paths.
”At that tasted fruit, The sun, as from Thyestian banquet, turned His course intended; else-how had the world Inhabited, though sinless, more than now, Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?”
This change of the sun's path, as the poet well knew, could be effected only by some change in the motion of the earth.
”Some say he bid the angels turn askance The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more, From the sun's axle; they with labor pushed Oblique the centric globe.”
Next we have the effect upon the lower orders of animals described.
”Discord first, Daughter of sin, among the irrational Death introduced: through fierce antipathy, Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving, Devoured each other.”
The question arises here, whether such views are sustained by the Bible and by science. Few, I presume, would seriously maintain that the act of our first parents, which produced what Dr. Chalmers calls ”an unhingement”