Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

The numerous species of the genus Coccus, to which we are indebted for cochineal, lac, and other products valuable in commerce, afford me an illustration of my argument, more striking than any of the above. In the case of the lac insect (C. lacca), for example, the female resembles a little hemispherical scale on the twig of a tree. At a certain period of her life, a pellucid, glutinous substance begins to exude from the margins of her body, which by and by completely covers it, cementing her firmly to the branch, from which she never afterwards moves. She now proceeds to lay her eggs, which one by one as they are extruded are thrust under her, between her abdomen and the surface of the branch. The result of this is, that when the whole are laid, they occupy pretty nearly the same position in relation to the mother as they did before, with this exception, that the abdominal integuments, which before were beneath them, are now above them, and are in close contact with those of the back, so that both together make a double, but still a thin, arched roof over the heap of eggs, which are thus protected till the hatching of the young, when they eat their way out of their long dead mother.

Let me now make my usual application. You say the Coccus was created not an adult insect, which would involve the prochronic stages of its metamorphosis, but as a germ, that is an egg (for the germ of an insect is an egg, and nothing else): well, here is a batch of Coccus-eggs just created, covered with the scaly roof which is necessary to their existence. But this scale is not a record of the mother, but the mother herself, a prochronic mother, of course!

Other genera of this wonderful class of animals yield us evidences of a somewhat different character, in the structures which the parents form for the reception of their eggs.

One of the most complex and elaborate pieces of mechanism found in any animal organ is the ovipositor of the Sawflies (Tenthredinidæ). I cannot here describe it at length; it may suffice to say that it consists of two saw-plates, working separately and in opposite directions, the teeth of which are cut into finer teeth; and two supporting plates, very similar to the saws in shape and appearance. The whole flat side of the saw is, moreover, covered with minute sharp points, which give the action of a rasp to the instrument, in addition to that of saw.

By means of this complicated apparatus the parent fly cuts a groove in the twig of the proper shrub, say, a rose-bush. When it is made, the plates are slightly separated, and an egg is laid in the groove. The saw is now withdrawn, and a frothy secretion is deposited, which appears to be intended, by its hardening, to prevent the growth of the wood from closing upon the egg, before the time of hatching arrives.

If, then, any of the species of Tenthredo had been called into primal existence as an egg, it must have been within such a groove as this; and the groove, if carefully examined, would have presented evidences of having been formed and filled by the curious implement of the parent fly.

Those obscure and obscene Insects, the Cockroach tribe (Blattadæ), secrete an extraordinary covering for the protection of their eggs. "Instead of being laid separately, the eggs are, when deposited, enclosed in a horny case, or capsule, variable in its form in different species but generally of a more or less compressed oval shape, resembling a small bean. There is a longitudinal slit in the margin of the capsule, each side of which is defended by a narrow serrated plate, fitting closely to its fellow. The inside of this egg-case is divided into two spaces, in each of which is a row of separate compartments, every one enclosing an egg, so that the whole resembles the pod of some leguminous vegetable. This capsule, with its precious contents, is constantly carried about by the female for a week or a fortnight, and is then fastened, by means of a glutinous fluid, in some safe locality. The slit of the capsule is strongly coated with cement, so as to be even stronger than the other parts. In this capsule the young larvæ are hatched, and immediately discharge a fluid which softens the cement, and enables them to push open the slit, through which they escape; after their exit the slit shuts again so closely, that it appears as entire as before. In some species it would seem that the females themselves liberate their offspring by seizing the capsule when the larvæ are fit for escape, and tearing it with the aid of their forelegs from end to end, by which means the enclosed larvæ are set at liberty."95

It is impossible to read this description without being reminded of the manner in which the bean or other leguminous seed links itself with a former generation by means of the dehiscent legume, itself a production of the parent plant. And the same reasoning applies to this case, as to the other; – the egg, if the Blatta was created in that stage, would triumphantly show in the pod with which it was covered, a record of past processes.

So, once more, with the immense tribes of solitary Bees, Wasps, and Spheges. I shall mention but one example, from my own experience. It is the Dirt Dauber (Pelopœus flavipes) of North America. The female of this elegant fly, when about to lay her eggs, builds up a tubular nest of cells with fine mud, which she makes by mingling and kneading road-dust with her saliva. Each tube consists of several cells, separated by transverse partitions of the mortar; and in each, before she closes it up, she lays a single egg, which she then covers with spiders which are to constitute the food of the grub when hatched, and to last it during the whole period of its larval growth. Dead spiders would not do, for their bodies would either dry up, or become putrescent long before the young grub could devour them. On the other hand, if a number of these fierce and carnivorous creatures were immured, in health, they would soon destroy one another. To obviate this, the parent-fly ingeniously stings every spider just sufficiently to paralyse, without killing it. Thus nearly a score of living spiders are packed away in a cell scarcely larger than a lady's thimble; and thus they remain fresh and succulent food for the larva, not only till it is ready to begin its eating task, but even to the close of its repast.

I think this a particularly instructive example. The Pelopœus was indubitably created; for it exists. As indubitably it was created in some stage of its cyclical life-history. If as an imago, then I press the argument from the necessity of its previous metamorphoses. If as a pupa, or a larva, or an egg, each of these conditions of life was entirely passed as an inmate of the mud-walled cottage; which, cottage was built and stocked with food by the industry and skill of the parent-fly. The grub could not have lived without the stored spiders; the spiders could not have been stored (normally) without the agency of the fly.

In some other instances the connexion between germ and parent is patent to the eye. The beautiful Star-fish, Cribella, passes through all its infant metamorphoses, changing from an ovum to an Infusory, thence to a Pluteus (or what is analogous to it), thence to a Star-fish, all in the marsupium provided for the occasion, by the drawing together of the arms of the patient mother. The female Brachionus carries its deposited eggs attached to the hinder part of its body; and thus we can trace, through their transparent coats, the gradual development of the organs of the embryo, – the coloured eye, the rotatory cilia, the complex mastax, – and even detect the vigorous movements of these and other parts, while yet carried hither and thither by the parent.

But further, in the class from which I have taken this last illustration – that of the Rotifera – there are examples of viviparous genera; and these, because of the perfect transparency of all the integuments, are peculiarly instructive and germane to my argument.

In Rotifer macrurus the ovary with its germinal vesicles is distinctly seen occupying one side of the animal. From this one of the vesicles enlarges, until it becomes a long-oval translucent sac, nearly filling the whole left side of the visceral cavity. A kind of spasmodic movement is suddenly observed in this oblong ovum, and instantly we see, in its place, a well-developed living young; as distinctly visible as if it were excluded. It lies in a bent position, with its foot upturned; is nearly half the length of the parent; is furnished with a proboscis, with a pair of crimson eyes, with ciliary wheels, with a mastax whose toothed hemispheres frequently work vigorously, and with all the viscera proper to the species.

In the beautiful, comparatively large, and economically singular genus, Asplanchna, the same process of development can be watched with perfect facility through every stage.

In the body of the female parent, as transparent as the clearest glass, the band-like ovary is seen floating in the visceral cavity, with several ova in various degrees of advancement. We trace one of these till it becomes a manifestly living young in the ovisac, lying along at the bottom of the parental cavity, more than one-third of whose volume is occupied by it: – supposing it to be a female infant. All its organs, – the eyes, the jaws, the stomach, the pancreatic glands, the ovary with its nuclei, the muscles, the rotatory cilia, &c. can be traced with the utmost distinctness long before birth, and its motions are strong and voluntary.

Neither in this case, nor in that of Rotifer, does the young animal pass through any metamorphosis; the unborn young has the full development of the parent, in every respect but size. In each case, the visible life-history of the individual commences not at birth, but at a period long antecedent, if indeed it can be said to commence at all, where we see it gradually developed from a nucleus, which was an integral part of the parental ovary, even before that parent's birth.

In the case of the amusing little Water-fleas (Daphnia), we have another example of viviparous generation, which, owing to the same cause as in the Rotifera, – the transparency of the integument, can be followed through all its stages by the eye of the observer. The eggs of this little Crustacean are deposited in a special chamber within the valves of the parent, where they are hatched. The young remain in their receptacle for a period, which varies according to the temperature, but long enough for them to undergo important changes in structure, and to pass their first moult.96

Here, again, it is impossible to select a condition which does not take hold of a pre-existence; for the youngest independent stage is dependent on earlier stages; and these are passed in visible connexion with the parent.

It is true there is in this genus, another mode of reproduction, by means of eggs which are thrown off enveloped in an organic covering, called the ephippium. If this condition be selected for the argument of my supposed opponent, I reply that it amounts to nearly the same thing; only the case will then come into the category of those animals whose earliest stages are protected by coverings formed from the body of the parent, – like the Hypogymna, and the Cockroach, already alluded to.

Where then, in these species, can we possibly select a stage of life, which is not inseparably and even visibly connected with a previous stage?

If we come to the vertebrate creatures, the argument becomes assuredly not less convincing. The formidable Shark, which we considered as a well-toothed adult ready for slaughter, let us suppose to have been created in the harmlessness of infancy. It is a slender thing, some ten or twelve inches long, bent upon itself, inclosing in the ring thus made, the vitellus or yelk-bag, the contents of which are in process of being absorbed into the abdomen. But the whole, – Shark, yelk-bag, and all – is imprisoned in a brown horny capsule, that looks like a pillow-case, with long tapes appended to the four corners.

This very peculiar protecting capsule points clearly to a peculiar structure in the parent. The embryo was not inclosed in the pillow-case, at its first formation; but, in the course of its descent from the ovary through the oviduct, it had to pass a region of the latter, where was a thick glandular mass, – the nidamental gland, – whose office it was to secrete a dense layer of albumen, with which, the embryo became invested. This substance took the form of the flattened purse, or pillow-case, with produced angles, above described, and on its exclusion from the duct assumed a very tough horny consistence, and a dark mahogany colour.

The comparative anatomist would, therefore, without the least hesitation, refer the origin of the investing capsule to the nidamental glands of the female Shark; but supposing the embryo to be but just created, his physiological science would only lead him to a false conclusion.

If the Tree-frog afforded us evidence of pre-existent time, in the metamorphosis which it must naturally have experienced from the tadpole to the reptilian condition, what shall we say to that strange and uncouth member of the same class, – the Surinam Toad (Pipa)? Little would be gained by selecting the germ-stage, as the presumed epoch of creation in this case; for, according to the extraordinary economy of this genus, the male acts as midwife, and the female as wet-nurse, to the hopeful progeny.

"As fast as the female deposits her eggs, the male who attends her arranges them on her broad back, to the number of fifty or upwards. The contact of these eggs with the skin appears to produce a sort of inflammation; the skin of the back swells, and becomes covered with pits or cells, which enclose each a single egg, the surface of the back resembling the closed cells of a honeycomb. The female now betakes herself to the water; and in these cells the eggs are not only hatched, but the tadpoles undergo their metamorphosis, emerging in a perfect condition, though very small, after a lapse of eighty-two days from the time in which the eggs were placed in their respective pits."

To a tyro in animal physiology it might seem that the smooth rounded egg of a bird or a lizard, presents an example of an organism in the simplest possible condition, and in a stage which, if any can be, is independent of anything that went before.

But is it so? Let us see. Here is the egg of the common Fowl. I take it in my hand, and perceive nothing but an uniform, smooth, hard, white surface. This I break, and find that it is a thin layer of calcareous substance, which, on microscopical examination, proves to be composed of minute polygonal particles, so agglutinated as to leave open spaces in the interstices of their contiguous angles.

Below this calcareous shell I find a membrane (membrana putaminis), which seems, from its thinness in most parts, to be single, but which is separated into two layers at the large end of the egg.

Within this membrane there is another (the chalaza) which, closely enveloping the yelk, passes off from it towards each extremity of the egg in the form of a twisted cord.

Then comes a delicate membrane (memb. vitelli) in close contact with, and enveloping the orange-coloured yelk; which latter carries, on one point of its globular surface, the thin blastoderm, or germinal membrane.

The yelk-globe, fastened by its twisted chalazæ, is suspended in a glairy fluid (albumen), which fills the space between it and the membrana putaminis. This fluid, though apparently homogeneous, is really composed of many layers, and the innermost of these it is which is condensed into the chalaza.

Such, then, is the complex structure of this apparently simple object. What light can it throw on our inquiry?

Each of these component parts bears witness to a succession of past periods. The yelk with its germ was first formed, escaping naked, or clothed only with its own excessively delicate membrane, from its ovisac into the oviduct. Through the course of this tube it now slowly descended, receiving successive investments as it proceeded. The albumen was deposited layer upon layer from the mucous membrane of the upper part of the oviduct; the first depositions condensing into the chalaza. By and by it came down to a region of the oviduct where a tenacious secretion was poured out, which, investing the albumen, soon hardened into a substance resembling thin parchment, and formed the membrana putaminis; two successive layers of this were deposited, between which a bubble of gas, chiefly composed of oxygen generated in the interval, was inclosed. Then it descended still farther, to a part where the lining membrane of the duct was endowed with the power of secreting calcareous matter, which, as above stated, was deposited in a thin layer of polygonal atoms. And now, having received all its components, and having arrived at the orifice of the duct, the egg was laid.

Here, then, there is abundant evidence of successive processes, which must have preceded the existence of this complete and perfect egg. But there is yet one more evidence which I have reserved to the last, because it is peculiarly distinct and palpable, even to the senses.

The chalaza, we see, is twisted at each pole of the yelk-globe, until it resembles a piece of twine: what is the meaning of this? It was, as I observed, deposited as a loosely enveloping membrane in the upper part of the oviduct; the yelk-globe, however, was progressively descending; and, as it descended, it continually revolved upon its axis; by means of which rotation the investing membrane was gathered at each pole into a spirally twisted cord, stretching from the yelk to the ends of the membrana putaminis. Thus it presents us with an unmistakeable record of what took place in the earlier periods of the descent.

We saw distinct traces of the past in the structure of a feather. But the feathers have already begun to develop before the young bird leaves the egg. And the structure of the egg carries us back to the oviduct of the parent-fowl.

At what stage of existence, then, could a bird, by possibility, have been created, which did not present distinct records of prochronic development?

If we come to the Mammalia, the impossibility of finding such a stage becomes only more and more obvious. For it is a law in physiology, that the higher the grade of organization assigned to any being, the more it is assisted in infancy by the parent.

"This law is remarkably exemplified in the class Mammalia, which unquestionably ranks at the head of the animal kingdom, in respect to degree of intelligence and general elevation of structure. It is the universal and most prominent characteristic of this class, that the young are retained within the body of the female parent, until they have made considerable progress in their development; that, whilst there, they derive their support almost immediately from her blood; and that they are afterwards nourished for some time by a secretion which she affords."97

The fœtus of the Kangaroo, when expelled from the womb, is scarcely more than an inch in length. Its limbs and its tail are indeed formed, but the imperfect creature has been compared to an earthworm, for the colour and semi-transparency of the integument. In this condition it is unable to find and seize the nipple, and equally unable to draw sustenance therefrom, by its own unaided efforts. The milk is ejected, by the muscular action of the mother, into the throat of the fœtus, and there is a peculiar and beautiful contrivance to obviate the danger of the injected fluid's passing into the trachea instead of the œsophagus.

Yet, from this helpless naked condition to that of the active, well-clothed, experienced young, able to quit the maternal pouch at will, and flee to it for protection, there is a well-understood and perfectly appreciable concatenation of stages, each of which looks back to, and depends on, those previously existing. And, during the whole of these, the mother's presence is necessary to the comfort, and, for the greater part of them, to the very existence of the infant.

Thus, once more, there is no condition of the animal, on which we may fix, as being so simple, as to have no retrospective history.

The umbilical cicatrix I have already alluded to; but I may be permitted to mention it again; because, in all the higher Mammalia, at least, it exists, throughout life, an eloquent witness to the organic connexion of the individual with a mother, and therefore to her pre-existence. If it were legitimate to suppose that the first individual of the species Man was created in the condition answering to that of a new-born infant, there would still be the need of maternal milk for its sustenance, and maternal care for its protection, for a considerable period; while, if we carry on the suggested stage to the period when this provision is no longer indispensable, the development of hair, nails, bones, &c., will have proceeded through many stages. And, in either condition, the navel cord or its cicatrix remains, to testify to something anterior to both.

XII

THE CONCLUSION

"We have no experience in the creation of worlds."

Chalmers.

We have passed, in review before us the whole organic world: and the result is uniform; that no example can be selected from the vast vegetable kingdom, none from the vast animal kingdom, which did not at the instant of its creation present indubitable evidences of a previous history. This is not put forth as a hypothesis, but as a necessity; I do not say that it was probably so, but that it was certainly so; not that it may have been thus, but that it could not have been otherwise.

I do not touch the inorganic world: my acquaintance with chemistry is inadequate for this: perhaps the same law does not extend to the inorganic elements: perhaps their developments, and combinations are not, like the economy of plants and animals, essentially and exclusively cyclical: perhaps carbon and oxygen and hydrogen could be created in conditions, which obviously did not depend on any previously existing conditions. This I do not know: I neither affirm nor deny it. But I think I have demonstrated in these pages, that such a cyclical character does attach to, and is inseparable from, the history of all organic essences; and that creation can be nothing else than a series of irruptions into circles: that, supposing the irruption to have been made at what part of the circle we please, and varying this condition indefinitely at will, – we cannot avoid the conclusion that each organism was from the first marked with the records of a previous being. But since creation and previous history are inconsistent with each other; as the very idea of the creation of an organism excludes the idea of pre-existence of that organism, or of any part of it; it follows, that such records are false, so far as they testify to time; that the developments and processes thus recorded have been produced without time, or are what I have called prochronic.

Nor is this conclusion in the least degree affected by the actual chronology of creation. The phenomena were equally eloquent, and equally false, whether any individual organism were created six thousand years ago, or innumerable ages; whether primitively, or after the successive creations and annihilations of former organisms.

The law of creation supersedes the law of nature; so far, at least, as the organic world is concerned. The law of nature, established by universal experience, is, that its phenomena depend upon certain natural antecedents: the law of creation is, that the same phenomena depend upon no antecedents. The philosopher who should infer the antecedents from the phenomena alone, without having considered the law of creation, would be liable to form totally false conclusions. In order to be secure from error, he must first assure himself that creation is eliminated from the category of facts which he is investigating; and this he could do only when the facts come within the sphere of personal observation, or of historic testimony. Up to such a period of antiquity as is covered by credible history, and within such a field of observation as history may be considered fairly cognisant of, – the inference of physical antecedents from physical phenomena, in the animal or vegetable world, is legitimate and true. But, beyond that period, I cannot safely deduce the same conclusion; because I cannot tell but that at any given moment included in my inquiry, creation may have occurred, and have been the absolute beginning of the circular series.