The Stranger.—On these matters I had facts to communicate; on the geological scheme of the early history of the globe there are only analogies to guide us, which different minds may apply and interpret in different ways; but I will not trifle with a long preliminary discourse. Astronomical deductions and actual measures by triangulation prove that the globe is an oblate spheroid flattened at the poles, and this form we know, by strict mathematical demonstrations, is precisely the one which a fluid body revolving round its axis, and become solid at its surface by the slow dissipation of its heat or other causes, would assume. I suppose, therefore, that the globe, in the first state in which the imagination can venture to consider it, was a fluid mass with an immense atmosphere revolving in space round the sun, and that by its cooling a portion of its atmosphere was condensed in water which occupied a part of the surface. In this state no forms of life such as now belong to our system could have inhabited it; and, I suppose, the crystalline rocks (or, as they are called by geologists, the primary rocks), which contain no vestiges of a former order of things, were the results of the first consolidation on its surface. Upon the further cooling the water which more or less had covered it contracted, depositions took place, shell-fish and coral insects of the first creation began their labours, and islands appeared in the midst of the ocean raised from the deep by the productive energies of millions of zoophytes. Those islands became covered with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, such as palms and various species of plants similar to those which now exist in the hottest parts of the world; and the submarine rocks or shores of these new formations of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, on which various species of shell-fish and common fishes found their nourishment. The fluids of the globe in cooling deposited a large quantity of the materials they held in solution, and these deposits agglutinating together the sand, the immense masses of coral rocks, and some of the remains of the shells and fishes found round the shores of the primitive lands, produced the first order of secondary rocks. As the temperature of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles were created to inhabit it; and the turtle, crocodile, and various gigantic animals of the sauri kind, seem to have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive lands. But in this state of things there was no order of events similar to the present; the crust of the globe was exceedingly slender, and the source of fire a small distance from the surface. In consequence of contraction in one part of the mass, cavities were opened, which caused the entrance of water, and immense volcanic explosions took place, raising one part of the surface, depressing another, producing mountains, and causing new and extensive depositions from the primitive ocean. Changes of this kind must have been extremely frequent in the early epochas of nature, and the only living forms of which the remains are found in the strata that are the monuments of these changes, are those of plants, fishes, birds, and oviparous reptiles, which seem most fitted to exist in such a war of the elements. When these revolutions became less frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and the inequalities of its temperature preserved by the mountain chains, more perfect animals became its inhabitants, many of which, such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium, and gigantic hyena, are now extinct. At this period the temperature of the ocean seems to have been not much higher than it is at present, and the changes produced by occasional eruptions of it have left no consolidated rocks. Yet one of these eruptions appears to have been of great extent and some duration, and seems to have been the cause of those immense quantities of water-worn stones, gravel and sand, which are usually called diluvian remains; and it is probable that this effect was connected with the elevation of a new continent in the southern hemisphere by volcanic fire. When the system of things became so permanent that the tremendous revolutions depending upon the destruction of the equilibrium between the heating and cooling agencies were no longer to be dreaded, the creation of man took place; and since that period there has been little alteration in the physical circumstances of our globe. Volcanoes sometimes occasion the rise of new islands, portions of the old continent are constantly washed by rivers into the sea; but these changes are too insignificant to affect the destinies of man, or the nature of the physical circumstances of things. On the hypothesis that I have adopted, however, it must be remembered that the present surface of the globe is merely a thin crust surrounding a nucleus of fluid ignited matter, and consequently we can hardly be considered as actually safe from the danger of a catastrophe by fire.
Onuphrio said: “From the view you have taken, I conclude that you consider volcanic eruptions as owing to the central fire; indeed, their existence offers, I think, an argument for believing that the interior of the globe is fluid.” The stranger answered: “I beg you to consider the views I have been developing as merely hypothetical, one of the many resting places that may be taken by the imagination in considering this subject. There are, however, distinct facts in favour of the idea that the interior of the globe has a higher temperature than the surface; the heat increasing in mines the deeper we penetrate, and the number of warm sources which rise from great depths in almost all countries, are certainly favourable to the idea. The opinion that volcanoes are owing to this general and simple cause is, I think, likewise more agreeable to the analogies of things than to suppose them dependent upon partial chemical changes, such as the action of air and water upon the combustible bases of the earths and alkalies, though it is extremely probable that these substances may exist beneath the surface, and may occasion some results of volcanic fire; and on this subject my notion may, perhaps, be more trusted, as for a long while I thought volcanic eruptions were owing to chemical agencies of the newly discovered metals of the earths and alkalies, and I made many, and some dangerous, experiments in the hope of confirming this notion, but in vain.”
Amb.—We are very much obliged to you for your geological illustrations; but they remind me a little of some of the ideas of our friend Philalethes in his remarkable vision, and with which we may at some time amuse you in return for your geology should we be honoured with more of your company. You are obliged to have recourse to creations for all the living beings in your philosophical romance. I do not see why you should not suppose creations or arrangements of dead matter by the same laws of infinite wisdom, and why our globe should not rise at once a divine work fitted for all the objects of living and intelligent natures.
The stranger replied: “I have merely attempted a philosophical history founded upon the facts known respecting rocks and strata and the remains they contain. I begin with what may be considered a creation, a fluid globe supplied with an immense atmosphere, and the series of phenomena which I imagine consequent to the creation, I supposed produced by powers impressed upon matter by Omnipotence.”
Ambrosio said: “There is this verisimility in your history, that it is not contradictory to the little we are informed by Revelation as to the origin of the globe, the order produced in the chaotic state, and the succession of living forms generated in the days of creation, which may be what philosophers call the ‘epochas of nature,’ for a day with Omnipotence is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
“I must object,” Onuphrio said, “to your interpretation of the scientific view of our new acquaintance, and to your disposition to blend them with the cosmogony of Moses. Allowing the divine origin of the Book of Genesis, you must admit that it was not intended to teach the Jews systems of philosophy, but the laws of life and morals; and a great man and an exalted Christian raised his voice two centuries ago against this mode of applying and of often wresting the sense of the Scriptures to make them conformable to human fancies; ‘from which,’ says Lord Bacon, ‘arise not only false and fantastical philosophies, but likewise heretical religions.’ If the Scriptures are to be literally interpreted and systems of science found in them, Gallileo Gallilei merited his persecution, and we ought still to believe that the sun turns round the earth.”
Amb.—You mistake my view, Onuphrio, if you imagine I am desirous of raising a system of geology on the Book of Genesis. It cannot be doubted that the first man was created with a great variety of instinctive or inspired knowledge, which must have been likewise enjoyed by his descendants; and some of this knowledge could hardly fail to have related to the globe which he inhabited, and to the objects which surrounded him. It would have been impossible for the human mind to have embraced the mysteries of creation, or to have followed the history of the moving atoms from their chaotic disorder into their arrangement in the visible universe, to have seen dead matter assuming the forms of life and animation, and light and power arising out of death and sleep. The ideas therefore transmitted to or presented by Moses respecting the origin of the world and of man were of the most simple kind, and such as suited the early state of society; but, though general and simple truths, they were divine truths, yet clothed in a language and suited to the ideas of a rude and uninstructed people. And, when I state my satisfaction in finding that they are not contradicted by the refined researches of modern geologists, I do not mean to deduce from them a system of science. I believe that light was the creation of an act of the Divine will; but I do not mean to say that the words, “Let there be light, and there was light,” were orally spoken by the Deity, nor do I mean to imply that the modern discoveries respecting light are at all connected with this sublime and magnificent passage.
Onu.—Having resided for a long time in Edinburgh, and having heard a number of discussions on the theory of Dr. Hutton, or the plutonic theory of geology, and having been exceedingly struck both by its simplicity and beauty, its harmony with existing facts, and the proofs afforded to it by some beautiful chemical experiments, I do not feel disposed immediately to renounce it for the views which I have just heard explained; for the principal facts which our new acquaintance has stated are, I think, not inconsistent with the refined philosophical systems of Professor Playfair and Sir James Hall.
The Unknown.—I have no objection to the refined plutonic view, as capable of explaining many existing phenomena; indeed, you must be aware that I have myself had recourse to it. What I contend against is, its application to explain the formations of the secondary rocks, which I think clearly belong to an order of facts not at all embraced by it. In the plutonic system there is one simple and constant order assumed, which may be supposed eternal. The surface is constantly imagined to be disintegrated, destroyed, degraded, and washed into the bosom of the ocean by water, and as constantly consolidated, elevated, and regenerated by fire, and the ruins of the old form the foundations of the new world. It is supposed that there are always the same types, both of dead and living matter; that the remains of rocks, of vegetables, and animals of one age are found embedded in rocks raised from the bottom of the ocean in another. Now, to support this view, not only the remains of living beings which at present people the globe might be expected to be found in the oldest secondary strata, but even those of the arts of man, the most powerful and populous of its inhabitants, which is well known not to be the case. On the contrary, each stratum of the secondary rocks contains remains of peculiar and mostly now unknown species of vegetables and animals. In those strata which are deepest, and which must consequently be supposed to be the earliest deposited, forms even of vegetable life are rare; shells and vegetable remains are found in the next order; the bones of fishes and oviparous reptiles exist in the following class; the remains of birds, with those of the same genera mentioned before, in the next order; those of quadrupeds of extinct species, in a still more recent class; and it is only in the loose and slightly consolidated strata of gravel and sand, and which are usually called diluvian formations, that the remains of animals such as now people the globe are found, with others belonging to extinct species. But in none of these formations, whether called secondary, tertiary, or diluvial, have the remains of man or any of his works been discovered. It is, I think, impossible to consider the organic remains found in any of the earlier secondary strata, the lias-limestone and its congenerous formations for instance, without being convinced that the beings, whose organs they formed, belonged to an order of things entirely different from the present. Gigantic vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of the equatorial countries than to any other plants, can only be imagined to have lived in a very high temperature; and the immense reptiles, the megalosauri with paddles instead of legs and clothed in mail, in size equal or even superior to the whale; and the great amphibia, plethiosauri, with bodies like turtles, but furnished with necks longer than their bodies, probably to enable them to feed on vegetables growing in the shallows of the primitive ocean, seem to show a state in which low lands or extensive shores rose above an immense calm sea, and when there were no great mountain, chains to produce inequalities of temperature, tempests, or storms. Were the surface of the earth now to be carried down into the depths of the ocean, or were some great revolution of the waters to cover the existing land, and it was again to be elevated by fire, covered with consolidated depositions of sand or mud, how entirely different would it be in its characters from any of the secondary strata. Its great features would undoubtedly be the works of man—hewn stones, and statues of bronze and marble, and tools of iron—and human remains would be more common than those of animals on the greatest part of the surface; the columns of Pæstum or of Agrigentum, or the immense iron and granite bridges of the Thames, would offer a striking contrast to the bones of the crocodiles or sauri in the older rocks, or even to those of the mammoth or elephas primogenius in the diluvial strata. And whoever dwells upon this subject must be convinced that the present order of things, and the comparatively recent existence of man as the master of the globe, is as certain as the destruction of a former and a different order and the extinction of a number of living forms which have now no types in being, and which have left their remains wonderful monuments of the revolutions of Nature.
Onu.—I am not quite convinced by your arguments. Supposing the lands of New Holland were to be washed into the depths of the ocean, and to be raised according to the Huttonian view, as a secondary stratum, by subterraneous fire, they would contain the remains of both vegetables and animals entirely different from any found in the strata of the old continents; and may not those peculiar formations to which you have referred be, as it were, accidents of Nature belonging to peculiar parts of the globe? And you speak of a diluvian formation, which I conclude you would identify with that belonging to the catastrophe described in the sacred writings, in which no human remains are found. Now, you surely will not deny that man existed at the time of this catastrophe, and he consequently may have existed at the period of the other revolutions, which are supposed to be produced in the Huttonian views by subterraneous fire.
The Unknown.—I have made use of the term “diluvian,” because it has been adopted by geologists, but without meaning to identify the cause of the formations with the deluge described in the sacred writings. I apply the term merely to signify loose and water-worn strata not at all consolidated, and deposited by an inundation of water, and in these countries which they have covered man certainly did not exist. With respect to your argument derived from New Holland, it appears to me to be without weight. In a variety of climates, and in very distant parts of the globe, secondary strata of the same order are found, and they contain always the same kind of organic remains, which are entirely different from any of those now afforded by beings belonging to the existing order of things. The catastrophes which produced the secondary strata and diluvian depositions could not have been local and partial phenomena, but must have extended over the whole, or a great part of the surface, of the globe. The remains of similar shell-fishes are found in the limestones of the old and new continents; the teeth of the mammoth are not uncommon in various parts of Europe; entire skeletons have been found in America, and even the skin covered with hair and the entire body of one of these enormous extinct animals has been discovered in Siberia preserved in a mass of ice. In the oldest secondary strata there are no remains of such animals as now belong to the surface; and in the rocks which may be regarded as more recently deposited, these remains occur but rarely, and with abundance of extinct species. There seems, as it were, a gradual approach to the present system of things, and a succession of destructions and creations preparatory to the existence of man. It will be useless to push these arguments farther. You must allow that it is impossible to defend the proposition, that the present order of things is the ancient and constant order of Nature, only modified by existing laws, and, consequently, the view which you have supported must be abandoned. The monuments of extinct generations of animals are as perfect as those of extinct nations; and it would be more reasonable to suppose that the pillars and temples of Palmyra were raised by the wandering Arabs of the desert, than to imagine that the vestiges of peculiar animated forms in the strata beneath the surface belonged to the early and infant families of the beings that at present inhabit it.
Onu.—I am convinced. I shall push my arguments no further, for I will not support the sophisms of that school which supposes that living nature has undergone gradual changes by the effects of its irritabilities and appetencies; that the fish has in millions of generations ripened into the quadruped, and the quadruped into the man; and that the system of life by its own inherent powers has fitted itself to the physical changes in the system of the universe. To this absurd, vague, atheistical doctrine, I prefer even the dream of plastic powers, or that other more modern dream, that the secondary strata were created, filled with remains, as it were, of animal life, to confound the speculations of our geological reasoners.
The Unknown.—I am glad you have not retreated into the desert and defenceless wilderness of scepticism, or of false and feeble philosophy. I should not have thought it worth my while to have followed you there; I should as soon think of arguing with the peasant who informs me that the basaltic columns of Antrim or of Staffa were the works of human art and raised by the giant Finmacoul.
At this moment, one of our servants came to inform me that a dinner which had been preparing for us at the farmhouse was ready; we asked the stranger to do us the honour to partake of our repast; he assented, and the following conversation took place at table.
Phil.—In reflecting upon our discussions this morning, I cannot help being a little surprised at their nature; we have been talking only of geological systems, when a more natural subject for our conversation would have been these magnificent temples, and an inquiry into the race by whom they were raised and the gods to whom they wore dedicated. We are now treading on a spot which contains the bones of a highly civilised and powerful people; yet we are almost ignorant of the names they bore, and the period of their greatness is lost in the obscurity of time.
Amb.—There can be no doubt that the early inhabitants of this city were Grecians and a maritime and commercial people; they have been supposed to belong to the Sybarite race, and the roses producing flowers twice a year in the spring and autumn in ancient times here, might sanction the idea that this balmy spot was chosen by a colony who carried luxury and refinement to the highest pitch.
Onu.—To attempt to form any opinion with respect to the people that anciently inhabited these now deserted plains is useless and a vain labour. In the geological conversation which took place before dinner, some series of interesting facts were presented to us; and the monuments of Nature, though they do not speak a distinct language, yet speak an intelligible one; but with respect to Pæstum, there is neither history nor tradition to guide us; and we shall do wisely to resume our philosophical inquiries, if we have not already exhausted the patience of our new guest by doubts or objections to his views.
The Stranger.—One of you referred in our conversation this morning to a vision, which had some relation to the subject of our discussion, and I was promised some information on this matter.
I immediately gave a sketch of my vision, and of the opinions which had been expressed by Ambrosio on the early history of man, and the termination of our discussions on religion.
The Stranger.—I agree with Ambrosio in opinion on the subjects you have just mentioned. In my youth, I was a sceptic; and this I believe is usually the case with young persons given to general and discursive reading, and accustomed to adopt something like a mathematical form in their reasonings; and it was in considering the nature of the intellectual faculties of brutes, as compared with those of man, and in examining the nature of instinctive powers, that I became a believer. After I had formed the idea that Revelation was to man in the place of an instinct, my faith constantly became stronger; and it was exalted by many circumstances I had occasion to witness in a journey that I made through Egypt and a part of Asia Minor, and by no one more than by a very remarkable dream which occurred to me in Palestine, and which, as we are now almost at the hour of the siesta, I will relate to you, though perhaps you will be asleep before I have finished it. I was walking along that deserted shore which contains the ruins of Ptolemais, one of the most ancient ports of Judæa. It was evening; the sun was sinking in the sea; I seated myself on a rock, lost in melancholy contemplations on the destinies of a spot once so famous in the history of man. The calm Mediterranean, bright in the glowing light of the west, was the only object before me. “These waves,” I said to myself, “once bore the ships of the monarch of Jerusalem which were freighted with the riches of the East to adorn and honour the sanctuary of Jehovah; here are now no remains of greatness or of commerce; a few red stones and broken bricks only mark what might have been once a flourishing port, and the citadel above, raised by the Saracens, is filled with Turkish soldiers.” The janissary, who was my guide, and my servant, were preparing some food for me in a tent which had been raised for the purpose, and whilst waiting for their summons to my repast, I continued my reveries, which must gradually have ended in slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me, whom, at first, I took for my janissary, but as he came nearer I found a very different figure. He was a very old man with a beard as white as snow; his countenance was dark but paler than that of an Arab, and his features stern, wild, and with a peculiar savage expression; his form was gigantic, but his arms were withered and there was a large scar on the left side of his face which seemed to have deprived him of an eye. He wore a black turban and black flowing robes, and there was a large chain round his waist which clanked as he moved. It occurred to me that he was one of the santons or sacred madmen so common in the East, and I retired as he approached towards me. He called out: “Fly not, stranger; fear me not, I will not harm you. You shall hear my story, it may be useful to you.” He spoke in Arabic but in a peculiar dialect and to me new, yet I understood every word. “You see before you,” he said, “a man who was educated a Christian, but who renounced the worship of the one supreme God for the superstitions of the pagans. I became an apostate in the reign of the Emperor Julian, and I was employed by that Sovereign to superintend the re-erection of the temple of Jerusalem, by which it was intended to belie the prophecies and give the deathblow to the holy religion. History has informed you of the result: my assistants were most of them destroyed in a tremendous storm, I was blasted by lightning from heaven (he raised his withered hand to his face and eye), but suffered to live and expiate my crime in the flesh. My life has been spent in constant and severe penance, and in that suffering of the spirit produced by guilt, and is to be continued as long as any part of the temple of Jupiter, in which I renounced my faith, remains in this place. I have lived through fifteen tedious centuries, but I trust in the mercies of Omnipotence, and I hope my atonement is completed. I now stand in the dust of the pagan temple. You have just thrown the last fragment of it over the rock. My time is arrived, I come!” As he spake the last words, he rushed towards the sea, threw himself from the rock and disappeared. I heard no struggling, and saw nothing but a gleam of light from the wave that closed above him. I was now roused by the cries of my servant and of the janissary, who were shaking my arm, and who informed me that my sleep was so sound that they were alarmed for me. When I looked on the sea, there was the same light, and I seemed to see the very spot in the wave where the old man had sunk. I was so struck by the vision, that I asked if they had not seen something dash into the wave, and if they had not heard somebody speaking to me as they arrived. Of course their answers were negative. In passing through Jerusalem and in coasting the Dead Sea I had been exceedingly struck by the present state of Judæa and the conformity of the fate of the Jewish nation to the predictions of our Saviour; I had likewise been reading Gibbon’s eulogy of Julian, and his account of the attempts made by that Emperor to rebuild the temple: so that the dream at such a time and in such a place was not an unnatural occurrence. Yet it was so vivid, and the image of the subject of it so peculiar, that it long affected my imagination, and whenever I recurred to it, strengthened my faith.
Onu.—I believe all the narratives of apparitions and ghost stories are founded upon dreams of the same kind as that which occurred to you: an ideal representation of events in the local situation, in which the person is at the moment, and when the imaginary picture of the place in sleep exactly coincides with its reality in waking.
The Stranger.—I agree with you in your opinion. If my servant had not been with me, and my dream had been a little less improbable, it would have been difficult to have persuaded me that I had not been visited by an apparition.
I mentioned the dream of Brutus, and said, “His supposed evil genius appeared in his tent; had the philosophical hero dreamt that his genius had appeared to him in Rome, there could have been no delusion.” I cited the similar vision, recorded of Dion before his death, by Plutarch, of a gigantic female, one of the fates or furies, who was supposed to have been seen by him when reposing in the portico of his palace. I referred likewise to my own vision of the beautiful female, the guardian angel of my recovery, who always seemed to me to be present at my bedside.
Amb.—In confirmation of this opinion of Onuphrio, I can mention many instances. I once dreamt that my door had been forced, that there were robbers in my room, and that one of them was actually putting his hand before my mouth to ascertain if I was sleeping naturally. I awoke at this moment, and was some minutes before I could be sure whether it was a dream or a reality. I felt the pressure of the bedclothes on my lips, and still in the fear of being murdered continued to keep my eyes closed and to breathe slowly, till, hearing nothing and finding no motion, I ventured to open my eyes; but even then, when I saw nothing, I was not sure that my impression was a dream till I had risen from my bed and ascertained that the door was still locked.
Onu.—I am the only one of the party unable to record any dreams of the vivid and peculiar nature you mention from my own experience; I conclude it is owing to the dulness of my imagination. I suppose the more intense power of reverie is a symptom of the poetical temperament; and perhaps, if I possessed more enthusiasm, I should always have possessed more of the religious instinct. To adopt the idea of Philalethes of hereditary character, I fear my forefathers have not been correct in their faith.
Amb.—Your glory will be greater in establishing a new character, and I trust even the conversation of this day has given you an additional reason to adopt our faith.
Ambrosio spoke these words with an earnestness unusual in him, and with something of a tone which marked a zeal for proselytism, and at the same time he cast his eyes on the rosary which was suspended round the neck of the stranger, and said, “I hope I am not indiscreet in saying our faith.”
The Stranger.—I was educated in the ritual of the church of England; I belong to the Church of Christ; the rosary which you see suspended round my neck is a memorial of sympathy and respect for an illustrious man. I will, if you will allow me, give you the history of it, which, I think from the circumstances with which it is connected, you will not find devoid of interest. I was passing through France in the reign of Napoleon, by the peculiar privilege granted to a sçavan, on my road into Italy. I had just returned from the Holy Land, and had in my possession two or three of the rosaries which are sold to pilgrims at Jerusalem as having been suspended in the Holy Sepulchre. Pius VII. was then in imprisonment at Fontainebleau. By a special favour, on the plea of my return from the Holy Land, I obtained permission to see this venerable and illustrious Pontiff. I carried with me one of my rosaries. He received me with great kindness. I tendered my services to execute any commissions, not political ones, he might think fit to entrust me with in Italy, informing him that I was an Englishman. He expressed his thanks, but declined troubling me. I told him I was just returned from the Holy Land, and bowing with great humility, offered to him my rosary from the Holy Sepulchre. He received it with a smile, touched it with his lips, gave his benediction over it, and returned it into my hands, supposing, of course, that I was a Roman Catholic. I had meant to present it to his Holiness, but the blessing he had bestowed upon it and the touch of his lips, made it a precious relic to me and I restored it to my neck, round which it has ever since been suspended. He asked me some unimportant questions respecting the state of the Christians at Jerusalem; and on a sudden, turned the subject, much to my surprise, to the destruction of the French in Russia, and in an exceedingly low tone of voice, as if afraid of being overheard, he said, “The nefas has long been triumphant over the fas, but I do not doubt that the balance of things is even now restoring; that God will vindicate his Church, clear his polluted altars, and establish society upon its permanent basis of justice and faith. We shall meet again. Adieu!” and he gave me his paternal blessing. It was eighteen months after this interview, that I went out with almost the whole population of Rome, to receive and welcome the triumphal entry of this illustrious father of the Church into his capital. He was borne on the shoulders of the most distinguished artists, headed by Canova; and never shall I forget the enthusiasm with which he was received—it is impossible to describe the shouts of triumph and of rapture sent up to heaven by every voice. And when he gave his benediction to the people, there was an universal prostration, a sobbing and marks of emotions of joy almost like the bursting of the heart. I heard, everywhere around me, cries of “The holy Father! The most holy Father! His restoration is the work of God!” I saw tears streaming from the eyes of almost all the women about me, many of them were sobbing hysterically, and old men were weeping as if they had been children. I pressed my rosary to my breast on this occasion, and repeatedly touched with my lips that part of it which had received the kiss of the most venerable Pontiff. I preserve it with a kind of hallowed feeling, as the memorial of a man whose sanctity, firmness, meekness and benevolence are an honour to his Church and to human nature; and it has not only been useful to me, by its influence upon my own mind, but it has enabled me to give pleasure to others, and has, I believe, been sometimes beneficial in insuring my personal safety. I have often gratified the peasants of Apulia and Calabria by presenting them to kiss a rosary from the Holy Sepulchre which had been hallowed by the touch of the lips and benediction of the Pope; and it has been even respected by and procured me a safe passage through a party of brigands who once stopped me in the passes of the Apennines.
Onu.—The use you have made of this relic puts me in mind of a device of a very ingenious geological philosopher now living. He was on Etna and busily employed in making a collection of the lavas formed from the igneous currents of that mountain; the peasants were often troublesome to him, suspecting that he was searching for treasures. It occurred to him to make the following speech to them: “I have been a great sinner in my youth and, as a penance, I have made a vow to carry away with me pieces of every kind of stone found upon the mountain; permit me quietly to perform my pious duty, that I may receive absolution for my sins.” The speech produced the desired effect; the peasants shouted, “The holy man! The saint!” and gave him every assistance in their power to enable him to carry off his burthen, and he made his ample collections with the utmost security and in the most agreeable manner.
The Stranger.—I do not approve of pious frauds even for philosophical purposes; my rosary excited in others the same kind of feeling which it excited in my own bosom, and which I hold to be perfectly justifiable, and of which I shall never be ashamed.
Amb.—You must have travelled in Italy in very dangerous times; have you always been secure?
The Stranger.—Always; I have owed my security, partly, as I have said, to my rosary, but more to my dress and my acquaintance with the dialect of the natives. I have always carried with me a peasant as a guide, who has been intrusted with the small sums of money I wanted for my immediate purposes, and my baggage has been little more than a Cynic philosopher would have carried with him; and when I have been unable to walk, I have trusted myself to the conduct of a vetturino, a native of the province, with his single mule and caratella.
The sun was now setting and the temple of Neptune was glowing with its last purple rays. We were informed that our horses were waiting, and that it was time for us to depart to our lodgings at Eboli. I asked the stranger to be our companion and to do us the honour to accept of a seat in our carriage. He declined the invitation, and said: “My bed is prepared in the casina here for this night, and to-morrow I proceed on a journey connected with scientific objects in the parts of Calabria the scene of the terrible earthquakes of 1783.” I held out my hand to him in parting; he gave it a strong and warm pressure, and said, “Adieu! we shall meet again.”
DIALOGUE THE FOURTH. THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY.
The impression made upon my mind by the stranger with whom we became acquainted at Pæstum was of the strongest and most extraordinary kind. The memory of his person, his dress, his manners, the accents of his voice, and the tone of his philosophy, for a long while haunted my imagination in a most unaccountable manner, and even formed a part of my dreams. It often occurred to me that this was not the first time that I had seen him; and I endeavoured, but in vain, to find some type or image of him in former scenes of my life. I continually made inquiries respecting him amongst my acquaintance, but I could never be sure that any of them knew him, or even had seen him. So great were his peculiarities, that he must have escaped observation altogether; for, had he entered the world at all, he must have made some noise in it. I expressed so much interest on this subject, that at last it became a source of ridicule amongst my acquaintance, who often asked me if I had not yet obtained news of my spirit-friend or ghost-seer.
After my return from Naples to Rome, I was almost immediately recalled to England by a melancholy event—the death of a very near and dear relation—and I left my two friends, Ambrosio and Onuphrio, to pursue their travels, which were intended to be of some extent and duration.
In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of pleasure and hope. It was to me as the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field of every species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis of the world of business, thought, and action. There I was sure to find the friends and companions of my youth, to hear the voice of encouragement and praise. There, society of the most refined kind offered daily its banquets to the mind with such variety that satiety had no place in them, and new objects of interest and ambition were constantly exciting attention either in politics, literature, or science.
I now entered this great city in a very different tone of mind—one of settled melancholy; not merely produced by the mournful event which recalled me to my country, but owing, likewise, to an entire change in the condition of my physical, moral, and intellectual being. My health was gone, my ambition was satisfied, I was no longer excited by the desire of distinction; what I regarded most tenderly was in the grave, and, to take a metaphor derived from the change produced by time in the juice of the grape, my cup of life was no longer sparkling, sweet, and effervescent;—it had lost its sweetness without losing its power, and it had become bitter.
After passing a few months in England and enjoying (as much as I could enjoy anything) the society of the few friends who still remained alive, the desire of travel again seized me. I had preserved amidst the wreck of time one feeling strong and unbroken: the love of natural scenery; and this, in advanced life, formed a principal motive for my plans of conduct and action. Of all the climates of Europe, England seems to me most fitted for the activity of the mind, and the least suited to repose. The alterations of a climate so various and rapid continually awake new sensations; and the changes in the sky from dryness to moisture, from the blue ethereal to cloudiness and fogs, seem to keep the nervous system in a constant state of disturbance. In the mild climate of Nice, Naples, or Sicily, where even in winter it is possible to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine in the open air, beneath palm trees or amidst evergreen groves of orange trees covered with odorous fruit and sweet-scented leaves, mere existence is a pleasure, and even the pains of disease are sometimes forgotten amidst the balmy influence of nature, and a series of agreeable and uninterrupted sensations invite to repose and oblivion. But in the changeful and tumultuous atmosphere of England, to be tranquil is a labour, and employment is necessary to ward off the attacks of ennui. The English as a nation is pre-eminently active, and the natives of no other country follow their objects with so much force, fire, and constancy. And, as human powers are limited, there are few examples of very distinguished men living in this country to old age: they usually fail, droop, and die before they have attained the period naturally marked for the end of human existence. The lives of our statesmen, warriors, poets, and even philosophers offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion; whatever burns, consumes—ashes remain. Before the period of youth is passed, grey hairs usually cover those brows which are adorned with the civic oak or the laurel; and in the luxurious and exciting life of the man of pleasure, their tints are not even preserved by the myrtle wreath or the garland of roses from the premature winter of time.
In selecting the scenes for my new journey I was guided by my former experience. I know no country more beautiful than that which may be called the Alpine country of Austria, including the Alps of the southern Tyrol, those of Illyria, the Noric and the Julian Alps, and the Alps of Styria and Salzburg. The variety of the scenery, the verdure of the meadows and trees, the depths of the valleys, the altitude of the mountains, the clearness and grandeur of the rivers and lakes give it, I think, a decided superiority over Switzerland; and the people are far more agreeable. Various in their costumes and manners, Illyrians, Italians, or Germans, they have all the same simplicity of character, and are all distinguished by their love of their country, their devotion to their sovereign, the warmth and purity of their faith, their honesty, and (with very few exceptions) I may say their great civility and courtesy to strangers.
In the prime of life I had visited this region in a society which afforded me the pleasures of intellectual friendship and the delights of refined affection; later I had left the burning summer of Italy and the violence of an unhealthy passion, and had found coolness, shade, repose, and tranquillity there; in a still more advanced period I had sought for and found consolation, and partly recovered my health after a dangerous illness, the consequence of labour and mental agitation; there I had found the spirit of my early vision. I was desirous, therefore, of again passing some time in these scenes in the hope of re-establishing a broken constitution; and though this hope was a feeble one, yet at least I expected to spend a few of the last days of life more tranquilly and more agreeably than in the metropolis of my own country. Nature never deceives us. The rocks, the mountains, the streams always speak the same language. A shower of snow may hide the verdant woods in spring, a thunderstorm may render the blue limpid streams foul and turbulent; but these effects are rare and transient: in a few hours or at least days all the sources of beauty are renovated. And Nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such as depend upon the constitution of humanity; no hopes for ever blighted in the bud; no beings full of life, beauty, and promise taken from us in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and sweet; she affords none of those blighted ones so common in the life of man and so like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea—fresh and beautiful to the sight, but when tasted full of bitterness and ashes. I have already mentioned the strong effect produced on my mind by the stranger whom I had met so accidentally at Pæstum; the hope of seeing him again was another of my motives for wishing to leave England, and (why, I know not) I had a decided presentiment that I was more likely to meet him in the Austrian states than in England, his own country.
For this journey I had one companion, an early friend and medical adviser. He had lived much in the world, had acquired a considerable fortune, had given up his profession, was now retired, and sought, like myself, in this journey repose of mind and the pleasures derived from natural scenery. He was a man of a very powerful and acute understanding, but had less of the poetical temperament than any person whom I had ever known with similar vivacity of mind. He was a severe thinker, with great variety of information, an excellent physiologist, and an accomplished naturalist. In his reasonings he adopted the precision of a geometer, and was always upon his guard against the influence of imagination. He had passed the meridian of life, and his health was weak, like my own, so that we were well suited as travelling companions, moving always slowly from place to place without hurry or fatigue. I shall call this friend Eubathes. I will say nothing of the progress of our journey through France and Germany; I shall dwell only upon that part of it which has still a strong interest for me, and where events occurred that I shall never forget. We passed into the Alpine country of Austria by Lintz, on the Danube, and followed the course of the Traun to Gmünden, on the Traun See or lake of the Traun, where we halted for some days. If I were disposed to indulge in minute picturesque descriptions I might occupy hours with details of the various characters of the enchanting scenery in this neighbourhood. The vales have that pastoral beauty and constant verdure which is so familiar to us in England, with similar enclosures and hedge-rows and fruit and forest trees. Above are noble hills planted with beeches and oaks. Mountains bound the view, here covered with pines and larches, there raising their marble crests capped with eternal snows above the clouds. The lower part of the Traun See is always, even in the most rainy season, perfectly pellucid; and the Traun pours out of it over ledges of rocks a large and magnificent river, beautifully clear and of the purest tint of the beryl. The fall of the Traun, about ten miles below Gmünden, was one of our favourite haunts. It is a cataract which, when the river is full, may be almost compared to that of Schaffhausen for magnitude, and possesses the same peculiar characters of grandeur in the precipitous rush of its awful and overpowering waters, and of beauty in the tints of its streams and foam, and in the forms of the rocks over which it falls, and the cliffs and woods by which it is overhung. In this spot an accident, which had nearly been fatal to me, occasioned the renewal of my acquaintance in an extraordinary manner with the mysterious unknown stranger. Eubathes, who was very fond of fly-fishing, was amusing himself by catching graylings for our dinner in the stream above the fall. I took one of the boats which are used for descending the canal or lock artificially cut in the rock by the side of the fall, on which salt and wood are usually transported from Upper Austria to the Danube; and I desired two of the peasants to assist my servant in permitting the boat to descend by a rope to the level of the river below. My intention was to amuse myself by this rapid species of locomotion along the descending sluice. For some moments the boat glided gently along the smooth current, and I enjoyed the beauty of the moving scene around me, and had my eye fixed upon the bright rainbow seen upon the spray of the cataract above my head; when I was suddenly roused by a shout of alarm from my servant, and, looking round, I saw that the piece of wood to which the rope had been attached had given way, and the boat was floating down the river at the mercy of the stream. I was not at first alarmed, for I saw that my assistants were procuring long poles with which it appeared easy to arrest the boat before it entered the rapidly descending water of the sluice, and I called out to them to use their united force to reach the longest pole across the water that I might be able to catch the end of it in my hand. And at this moment I felt perfect security; but a breeze of wind suddenly came down the valley and blew from the nearest bank, the boat was turned by it out of the side current and thrown nearer to the middle of the river, and I soon saw that I was likely to be precipitated over the cataract. My servant and the boatmen rushed into the water, but it was too deep to enable them to reach the boat; I was soon in the white water of the descending stream, and my danger was inevitable. I had presence of mind enough to consider whether my chance of safety would be greater by throwing myself out of the boat or by remaining in it, and I preferred the latter expedient. I looked from the rainbow upon the bright sun above my head, as if taking leave for ever of that glorious luminary; I raised one pious aspiration to the divine source of light and life; I was immediately stunned by the thunder of the fall, and my eyes were closed in darkness. How long I remained insensible I know not. My first recollections after this accident were of a bright light shining above me, of warmth and pressure in different parts of my body, and of the noise of the rushing cataract sounding in my ears. I seemed awakened by the light from a sound sleep, and endeavoured to recall my scattered thoughts, but in vain; I soon fell again into slumber. From this second sleep I was awakened by a voice which seemed not altogether unknown to me, and looking upwards I saw the bright eye and noble countenance of the Unknown Stranger whom I had met at Pæstum. I faintly articulated: “I am in another world.” “No,” said the stranger, “you are safe in this; you are a little bruised by your fall, but you will soon be well; be tranquil and compose yourself. Your friend is here, and you will want no other assistance than he can easily give you.” He then took one of my hands, and I recognised the same strong and warm pressure which I had felt from his parting salute at Pæstum. Eubathes, whom I now saw with an expression of joy and of warmth unusual to him, gave a hearty shake to the other hand, and they both said, “You must repose a few hours longer.” After a sound sleep till the evening, I was able to take some refreshment, and found little inconvenience from the accident except some bruises on the lower part of the body and a slight swimming in the head. The next day I was able to return to Gmünden, where I learnt from the Unknown the history of my escape, which seemed almost miraculous to me. He said that he was often in the habit of combining pursuits of natural history with the amusements derived from rural sports and was fishing the day that my accident happened below the fall of the Traun for that peculiar species of the large salmo of the Danube which, fortunately for me, is only to be caught by very strong tackle. He saw, to his very great astonishment and alarm, the boat and my body precipitated by the fall, and was so fortunate as to entangle his hooks in a part of my dress when I had been scarcely more than a minute under water, and by the assistance of his servant, who was armed with the gaff or curved hook for landing large fish, I was safely conveyed to the shore, undressed, put into a warm bed, and by the modes of restoring suspended animation, which were familiar to him, I soon recovered my sensibility and consciousness. I was desirous of reasoning with him and Eubathes upon the state of annihilation of power and transient death which I had suffered when in the water; but they both requested me to defer those inquiries, which required too profound an exertion of thought, till the effects of the shock on my weak constitution were over and my strength was somewhat re-established: and I was the more contented to comply with their request as the Unknown said it was his intention to be our companion for at least some days longer, and that his objects of pursuit lay in the very country in which we were making our summer tour. It was some weeks before I was sufficiently strong to proceed on our journey, for my frame was little fitted to bear such a trial as that which it had experienced; and, considering the weak state of my body when I was immerged in the water, I could hardly avoid regarding my recovery as providential, and the presence and assistance of the Stranger as in some way connected with the future destiny and utility of my life. In the middle of August we pursued our plans of travel. We first visited those romantic lakes, Hallsstadt, Aussee, and Töplitz See, which collect the melted snows of the higher mountains of Styria to supply the unfailing sources of the Traun. We visited that elevated region of the Tyrol which forms the crest of the Pusterthal, and where the same chains of glaciers send down streams to the Drave and the Adige, to the Black Sea and to the Adriatic. We remained for many days in those two magnificent valleys which afford the sources of the Save, where that glorious and abundant river rises, as it were, in the very bosom of beauty, leaping from its subterraneous reservoirs in the snowy mountains of Terglou and Manhardt in thundering cataracts amongst cliffs and woods into the pure and deep cerulean lakes of Wochain and Wurzen, and pursuing its course amidst pastoral meadows so ornamented with plants and trees as to look the garden of Nature. The subsoil or strata of this part of Illyria are entirely calcareous and full of subterranean caverns, so that in every declivity large funnel-shaped cavities, like the craters of volcanoes, may be seen, in which the waters that fall from the atmosphere are lost: and almost every lake or rives has a subterraneous source, and often a subterraneous exit. The Laibach river rises twice from the limestone rock, and is twice again swallowed up by the earth before it makes its final appearance and is lost in the Save. The Zirknitz See or Lake is a mass of water entirely filled and emptied by subterraneous sources, and its natural history, though singular, has in it nothing of either prodigy, mystery, or wonder. The Grotto of the Maddalena at Adelsberg occupied more of our attention than the Zirknitz See. I shall give the conversation that took place in that extraordinary cavern entire, as well as I can remember it, in the words used by my companions.
Eub.—We must be many hundred feet below the surface, yet the temperature of this cavern is fresh and agreeable.
The Unknown.—This cavern has the mean temperature of the atmosphere, which is the case with all subterraneous cavities removed from the influence of the solar light and heat; and, in so hot a day in August as this, I know no more agreeable or salutary manner of taking a cold bath than in descending to a part of the atmosphere out of the influence of those causes which occasion its elevated temperature.
Eub.—Have you, sir, been in this country before?
The Unknown.—This is the third summer that I have made it the scene of an annual visit. Independently of the natural beauties found in Illyria, and the various sources of amusement which a traveller fond of natural history may find in this region, it has had a peculiar object of interest for me in the extraordinary animals which are found in the bottom of its subterraneous cavities: I allude to the Proteus anguinus, a far greater wonder of nature than any of those which the Baron Valvasa detailed to the Royal Society a century and half ago as belonging to Carniola, with far too romantic an air for a philosopher.
Phil.—I have seen these animals in passing through this country before; but I should be very glad to be better acquainted with their natural history.
The Unknown.—We shall soon be in that part of the grotto where they are found, and I shall willingly communicate the little that I have been able to learn respecting their natural characters and habits.
Eub.—The grotto now becomes really magnificent; I have seen no subterraneous cavity with so many traits of beauty and of grandeur. The irregularity of its surface, the magnitude of the masses broken in pieces which compose its sides, and which seem torn from the bosom of the mountain by some great convulsion of nature, their dark colours and deep shades form a singular contrast with the beauty, uniformity, I may say, order and grace of the white stalactical concretions which hang from the canopy above, and where the light of our torches reflected from the brilliant or transparent calcareous gems create a scene which almost looks like one produced by enchantment.
Phil.—If the awful chasms of dark masses of rock surrounding us appear like the work of demons who might be imagined to have risen from the centre of the earth, the beautiful works of Nature above our heads may be compared to a scenic representation of a temple or banquet hall for fairies or genii, such as those fabled in the Arabian romances.
The Unknown.—A poet might certainly place here the palace of the King of the Gnomes, and might find marks of his creative power in the small lake close by on which the flame of the torch is now falling, for there it is that I expect to find the extraordinary animals which have been so long the objects of my attention.
Eub.—I see three or four creatures, like slender fish, moving on the mud below the water.
The Unknown.—I see them; they are the Protei. Now I have them in my fishing-net, and now they are safe in the pitcher of water. At first view you might suppose this animal to be a lizard, but it has the motions of a fish. Its head and the lower part of its body and its tail bear a strong resemblance to those of the eel; but it has no fins, and its curious bronchial organs are not like the gills of fishes: they form a singular vascular structure, as you see, almost like a crest, round the throat, which may be removed without occasioning the death of the animal, which is likewise furnished with lungs. With this double apparatus for supplying air to the blood, it can live either below or above the surface of the water. Its fore-feet resemble hands, but they have only three claws or fingers, and are too feeble to be of use in grasping or supporting the weight of the animal; the hinder feet have only two claws or toes, and in the larger specimens are found so imperfect as to be almost obliterated. It has small points in place of eyes, as if to preserve the analogy of Nature. It is of a fleshy whiteness and transparency in its natural state; but when exposed to light, its skin gradually becomes darker, and at last gains an olive tint. Its nasal organs appear large, and it is abundantly furnished with teeth: from which it may be concluded that it is an animal of prey; yet in its confined state it has never been known to eat, and it has been kept alive for many years by occasionally changing the water in which it was placed.
Eub.—Is this the only place in Carniola where these animals are found?
The Unknown.—They were first discovered here by the late Baron Zöis; but they have since been found, though rarely, at Sittich, about thirty miles distant, thrown up by water from a subterraneous cavity; and I have lately heard it reported that some individuals of the same species have been recognised in the calcareous strata in Sicily.
Eub.—This lake in which we have seen these animals is a very small one. Do you suppose they are bred here?
The Unknown.—Certainly not. In dry seasons they are seldom found here, but after great rains they are often abundant. I think it cannot be doubted that their natural residence is in an extensile deep subterranean lake, from which in great floods they sometimes are forced through the crevices of the rocks into this place where they are found; and it does not appear to me impossible, when the peculiar nature of the country in which we are is considered, that the same great cavity may furnish the individuals which have been found at Adelsberg and at Sittich.
Eub.—This is a very extraordinary view of the subject. Is it not possible that it may be the larva of some large unknown animal inhabiting these limestone cavities? Its feet are not in harmony with the rest of its organisation; and were they removed, it would have all the characters of a fish.
The Unknown.—I cannot suppose that they are larvæ. There is, I believe, in Nature no instance of a transition by this species of metamorphosis from a more perfect to a less perfect animal. The tadpole has a resemblance to a fish before it becomes a frog; the caterpillar and the maggot gain not only more perfect powers of motion on the earth in their new state, but acquire organs by which they inhabit a new element. This animal, I dare say, is much larger than we now see it when mature in its native place; but its comparative anatomy is exceedingly hostile to the idea that it is an animal in a state of transition. It has been found of various sizes, from that of the thickness of a quill to that of the thumb, but its form of organs has been always the same. It is surely a perfect animal of a peculiar species. And it adds one instance more to the number already known of the wonderful manner in which life is produced and perpetuated in every part of our globe, even in places which seem the least suited to organised existences. And the same infinite power and wisdom which has fitted the camel and the ostrich for the deserts of Africa, the swallow that secretes its own nest for the caves of Java, the whale for the Polar seas, and the morse and white bear for the Arctic ice, has given the proteus to the deep and dark subterraneous lakes of Illyria—an animal to whom the presence of light is not essential, and who can live indifferently in air and in water, on the surface of the rock, or in the depths of the mud.
Phil.—It is now ten years since I first visited this spot. I was exceedingly anxious to see the proteus, and came here with the guide in the evening of the day I arrived at Adelsberg; but though we examined the bottom of the cave with the greatest care, we could find no specimens. We returned the next morning and were more fortunate, for we discovered five close to the bank on the mud covering the bottom of the lake; the mud was smooth and perfectly undisturbed, and the water quite clear. This fact of their appearance during the night seemed to me so extraordinary, that I could hardly avoid the fancy that they were new creations. I saw no cavities through which they could have entered, and the undisturbed state of the lake seemed to give weight to my notion. My reveries became discursive; I was carried in imagination back to the primitive state of the globe, when the great animals of the sauri kind were created under the pressure of a heavy atmosphere; and my notion on this subject was not destroyed when I heard from a celebrated anatomist, to whom I sent the specimens I had collected, that the organisation of the spine of the proteus was analogous to that of one of the sauri, the remains of which are found in the older secondary strata. It was said at this time that no organs of reproduction had been discovered in any of the specimens examined by physiologists, and this lent a weight to my opinion of the possibility of their being actually new creations, which I suppose you will condemn as wholly visionary and unphilosophical.
Eub.—From the tone in which you make your statements, I think you yourself consider them as unworthy of discussion. On such ground eels might be considered new creations, for their mature ovaria have not yet been discovered, and they come from the sea into rivers under circumstances when it is difficult to trace their course.
The Unknown.—The problem of the reproduction of the proteus, like that of the common eel, is not yet solved; but ovaria have been discovered in animals of both species, and in this instance, as in all others belonging to the existing order of things, Harvey’s maxim of “omne vivum ab ovo” will apply.
Eub.—You just now said that this animal has been long an object of attention to you; have you studied it as a comparative anatomist, in search of the solution of the problem of its reproduction?
The Unknown.—No; this inquiry has been pursued by much abler investigators: by Schreiber and Configliachi; my researches were made upon its respiration and the changes occasioned in water by its bronchia.
Eub.—I hope they have been satisfactory.
The Unknown.—They proved to me, at least, that not merely the oxygen dissolved in water, but likewise a part of the azote, was absorbed in the respiration of this animal.
Eub.—So that your researches confirm those of the French savants and Alexander von Humboldt, that in the respiration of animals which separate air from water, both principles of the atmosphere are absorbed.
Phil.—I have heard so many and such various opinions on the nature of the function of respiration during my education and since, that I should like to know what is the modern doctrine on this subject. I can hardly refer to better authority than yourself, and I have an additional reason for wishing for some accurate knowledge on this matter, having, as you well know, been the subject of an experiment in relation to it which, but for your kind and active assistance, must have terminated fatally.
The Unknown.—I shall gladly state what I know, which is very little. In physics and in chemistry, the science of dead matter, we possess many facts and a few principles or laws; but whenever the functions of life are considered, though the facts are numerous, yet there is, as yet, scarcely any approach to general laws, and we must usually end where we begin by confessing our entire ignorance.
Eub.—I will not allow this ignorance to be entire. Something, undoubtedly, has been gained by the knowledge of the circulation of the blood and its aëration in the lungs—these, if not laws, are at least fundamental principles.
The Unknown.—I speak only of the functions in their connection with life. We are still ignorant of the source of animal heat, though half a century ago the chemists thought they had proved it was owing to a sort of combustion of the carbon of the blood.
Phil.—As we return to our inn I hope you will both be so good as give me your views of the nature of this function, so important to all living things; tell me what you know, or what you believe, or what others imagine they know.
The Unknown.—The powers of the organic system depend upon a continued state of change. The waste of the body produced in muscular action, perspiration, and various secretions, is made up for by the constant supply of nutritive matter to the blood by the absorbents, and by the action of the heart the blood is preserved in perpetual motion through every part of the body. In the lungs, or bronchia, the venous blood is exposed to the influence of air and undergoes a remarkable change, being converted into arterial blood. The obvious chemical alteration of the air is sufficiently simple in this process: a certain quantity of carbon only is added to it, and it receives an addition of heat or vapour; the volumes of elastic fluid inspired and expired (making allowance for change of temperature) are the same, and if ponderable agents only were to be regarded it would appear as if the only use of respiration were to free the blood from a certain quantity of carbonaceous matter. But it is probable that this is only a secondary object, and that the change produced by respiration upon the blood is of a much more important kind. Oxygen, in its elastic state, has properties which are very characteristic: it gives out light by compression, which is not certainly known to be the case with any other elastic fluid except those with which oxygen has entered without undergoing combustion; and from the fire it produces in certain processes, and from the manner in which it is separated by positive electricity in the gaseous state from its combinations, it is not easy to avoid the supposition that it contains, besides its ponderable elements, some very subtle matter which is capable of assuming the form of heat and light. My idea is that the common air inspired enters into the venous blood entire, in a state of dissolution, carrying with it its subtle or ethereal part, which in ordinary cases of chemical change is given off; that it expels from the blood carbonic acid gas and azote; and that in the course of the circulation its ethereal part and its ponderable part undergo changes which belong to laws that cannot be considered as chemical—the ethereal part probably producing animal heat and other effects, and the ponderable part contributing to form carbonic acid and other products. The arterial blood is necessary to all the functions of life, and it is no less connected with the irritability of the muscles and the sensibility of the nerves than with the performance of all the secretions.
Eub.—No one can be more convinced than I am of the very limited extent of our knowledge in chemical physiology, and when I say that, having been a disciple and friend of Dr. Black, I am still disposed to prefer his ancient view to your new one, I wish merely to induce you to pause and to hear my reasons; they may appear insufficient to you, but I am anxious to explain them. First, then, in all known chemical changes in which oxygen gas is absorbed and carbonic acid gas formed, heat is produced. I could mention a thousand instances, from the combustion of wood or spirits of wine to the fermentation of fruit or the putrefaction of animal matter. This general fact, which may be almost called a law, is in favour of the view of Dr. Black. Another circumstance in favour of it is, that those animals which possess the highest temperature consume the greatest quantity of air, and, under different circumstances of action and repose, the heat is in great measure proportional to the quantity of oxygen consumed. Then those animals which absorb the smallest quantity of air are cold-blooded. Another argument in favour of Dr. Black’s opinion is the change of colour of blood from black to red, which seems to show that it loses carbon.
The Unknown.—With the highest respect for the memory of Dr. Black, and for the opinion of his disciple, I shall answer the arguments I have just heard. I will not allow any facts or laws from the action of dead matter to apply to living structures; the blood is a living fluid, and of this we are sure that it does not burn in respiration. The terms warmth and cold, as applied to the blood of animals, are improper in the sense in which they have been just used; all animals are, in fact, warm-blooded, and the degrees of their temperature are fitted to the circumstances under which they live, and those animals, the life of which is most active, possess most heat, which may be the result of general actions, and not a particular effect of respiration. Besides, a distinguished physiologist has rendered it probable that the animal heat depends more upon the functions of the nerves than upon any result of respiration. The argument derived from change of colour is perfectly delusive; it would not follow if carbon were liberated from the blood that it must necessarily become brighter; sulphur combining with charcoal becomes a clear fluid, and a black oxide of copper becomes red in uniting with a substance which abounds in carbon. No change in sensible qualities can ever indicate with precision the nature of chemical change. I shall resume my view, which I cannot be said to have fully developed. When I stated that carbonic acid was formed in the venous blood in the processes of life, I meant merely to say that this blood, in consequence of certain changes, became capable of giving off carbon and oxygen in union with each other, for the moment inorganic matter enters into the composition of living organs it obeys new laws. The action of the gastric juice is chemical, and it will only dissolve dead matters, and it dissolves them when they are in tubes of metal as well as in the stomach, but it has no action upon living matter. Respiration is no more a chemical process than the absorption of chyle; and the changes that take place in the lungs, though they appear so simple, may be very complicated; it is as little philosophical to consider them as a mere combustion of carbon as to consider the formation of muscle from the arterial blood as crystallisation. There can be no doubt that all the powers and agencies of matter are employed in the purposes of organisation, but the phenomena of organisation can no more be referred to chemistry than those of chemistry to mechanics. As oxygen stands in that electrical relation to the other elements of animal matter which has been called electropositive, it may be supposed that some electrical function is exercised by oxygen in the blood; but this is a mere hypothesis. An attempt has been made founded on experiments on the decomposition of bodies by electricity to explain secretion by weak electrical powers, and to suppose the glands electrical organs, and even to imagine the action of the nerves dependent upon electricity; these, like all other notions of the same kind, appear to me very little refined. If electrical effects be the exhibition of certain powers belonging to matter, which is a fair supposition, then no change can take place without their being more or less concerned; but to imagine the presence of electricity to solve phenomena the cause of which is unknown is merely to substitute one undefined word for another. In some animals electrical organs are found, but then they furnish the artillery of the animal and means of seizing its prey and of its defence. And speculations of this kind must be ranked with those belonging to some of the more superficial followers of the Newtonian philosophy, who explained the properties of animated nature by mechanical powers, and muscular action by the expansion and contraction of elastic bladders; man, in this state of vague philosophical inquiry, was supposed a species of hydraulic machine. And when the pneumatic chemistry was invented, organic structures were soon imagined to be laboratories in which combinations and decompositions produced all the effects of living actions; then muscular contractions were supposed to depend upon explosions like those of the detonating compounds, and the formation of blood from chyle was considered as a pure chemical solution. And, now that the progress of science has opened new and extraordinary views in electricity, these views are not unnaturally applied by speculative reasoners to solve some of the mysterious and recondite phenomena of organised beings. But the analogy is too remote and incorrect; the sources of life cannot be grasped by such machinery; to look for them in the powers of electro-chemistry is seeking the living among the dead: that which touches will not be felt, that which sees will not be visible, that which commands sensations will not be their subject.