THE Emperial Magazine ; OR, COMPENDIUM OF RELIGIOUS, MORAL, & PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. MAY.] "SOCIAL REFINEMENT HAS NO EXISTENCE WHERE LITERATURE IS UNKNOWN." [1822. Province of the Senses. From the method laid down, of proceeding from the centre towards the extremities, our first object will be to treat of the fourth or central step of the scale, which is the organic vegetable. But here it must be observed, that it is not a minute botanical description that is intended; but only such a description as accords with our plan of approximating towards a general system of things. We have chosen the fourth or central step, as the natural point whence to set out in our examination of the seven-fold scale, which comprehends all science; and from this point or centre, we are to travel, as it were, to a circumference, and proceeding in the course of the circumference, we can never, properly speaking, come to a termination or resting place: but constantly, in all our scales, we have to set out from this point or centre, proceeding towards the circumference, and as constantly to return by way of the circumference, to the centre or point whence we set out. For example: Though we begin with the vegetable kingdom, yet so involved is it with the other parts of the system of this globe, and of the universe in general, that it is impossible to treat of the one without treating of the other. The vegetable kingdom stands not insulated in the scale of existence. It stands connected with the earth by roots and fibres; as also with the heavens in respect of their influence on its vegetating powers. Hence, in treating of vegetables, instead of conNo. 40.-VOL. IV. sidering one subject, we have at the same time to take into view at least three, if not four. If our attention be called, in the first place, to the vegetable kingdom itself; it will, secondly, be attracted to the soil or chemical kingdom, with which it stands connected; it will, thirdly, be drawn to consider the influence of the sun, upon which the growth of vegetables de pends; and, fourthly, their use in serving for the sustenence of animals, which rank next to the vegetable kingdom on the right of the scale. Thus, by investigating one subject, we are necessarily led to extend it to three or four. And, supposing our knowledge were perfect as it respected all the particulars of each, then should we be qualified to form a perfect system; for our systems must always correspond with our knowledge; and for want of perfect knowledge, how upright soever may be our intentions, our systems must partake of imperfections. In the investigation of the subject in hand, therefore, we must begin with the glorious luminary the Sun, the centre of the solar system, and soul or animating principle of the vegetable kingdom. This glorious luminary is to be considered under the various aspects of his diversified operations on the material world. These, we conceive, may be comprehended under three heads. 1. His influence on the organic structure of vegetables, which occupy the centre of the scale, 2. His influence on the chemical kingdom, which ranks next on the left; and, 3. His influence on the animal kingdom, which occupies a similar station on the right. In order to account for the influence of the solar phenomena on the three kingdoms of nature, which evidently differ in their properties, as far as animate differs from inanimate, and organic from inorganic, we must avail ourselves of the now established fact of the three-fold radiance of the Sun, which appears in the following inva 2 C riable order, in the prismatic spec- tion, and if the oxygen is always abtrum. In the centre are the colorific or sorbed or consumed during these proseven-coloured rays of light. To the cesses; is it not agreeable to analogy, left, and answering to the chemical to think that there must be another kingdom, are rays which give neither | substance generated and given out, light nor heat, but possess the pro- possessed of properties the very oppoperty of reducing the metallic oxydes, site of oxygen, or vital air; for in and are thence called rays of deoxida- | each process, is there not as much air tion. To the right, and answering to given out as what is absorbed? Yes, the animal kingdom, are, on the con- this is actually the case; and experitrary, rays which produce neither of ence has proved that this opposite the above effects, but heat only, and principle is carbon in its gaseous are thence called calorific rays. Each state. class of rays thus presides, as it were, over its respective kingdom of nature. By means of the rays of light, combined with the other two kinds of solar radiance, (for they cannot be completely separated, without destroying the whole) we can account for almost all the phenomena of the vegetable kingdom. Its verdure, or beautiful green, so grateful to our organs of vision, depends upon the orb of day; for subterraneous plants, or plants which grow in the dark, put on a weak and sickly appearance; they are abominable and loathsome to the sight. Observe, then, the influence of the Sun over the vegetable kingdom, as it respects the circulation of this vital principle. In animal respiration, there is a conversion of oxygen into that of carbon, at every respiration of the animal. In combustion, also, there is a continual conversion of the one into the other, going on throughout the whole process. Now if matters were to go on in this manner for any length of time, absorbing all the vital part of the air, and imparting in its room a material of a directly opposite quality, what would become of the world? The three kingdoms of nature, the animal, vegetable, and cheBy means of the solar rays, there ismical, must become extinct, from the a circulation established and main- waste of this sole supporter of their tained among the three above-men-existence. tioned kingdoms. Through the influence of the Sun, the vegetable kingdom receives something from the chemical, to which it is attached by roots and fibres, which causes it to grow till it advances to maturity, and imparts to it the principle of animal nutrition. We know that the nature of this circulation has been in part detected; and that oxygen has been assigned, as bearing a conspicuous share in it. Oxygen, or vital air, as it has been called, is equally essential to the operation of each of the principal processes in the three kingdoms of nature; namely, organic vegetation, chemical combustion, and animal respiration. Without this, vegetables will not grow, combustion ceases, and life becomes extinct. But, is it merely to the want of this vital principle, that such phenomena are owing? Or is it not rather to something of a positive noxious quality, which, in these processes, is generated in its stead? If there is a substance, such as oxygen, which maintains the life of animals and vegetables, and the process of combus As things exist in the present world, this fatal termination must undoubtedly have been the case, had there not been provision made for counteracting the effects, in the Sun, the glorious luminary of day, and the vegetable kingdom over which he presides. The vegetable kingdom, through the influence of that luminary, during the whole period of his shining upon it, is caused to exhale and pour forth from every pore of her immense surface this vital principle. And even during his absence in the dark and silent night, she is not idle; for if she is not pouring forth the principle of vital air, she is diligently absorbing and drinking it in, evidently for her own nourishment; and the deadly impregnation which the atmosphere receives from the processes of respiration and combustion going on in the two kingdoms on her right and left, as well as from her own circulation during the night, she converts into oxygen in the day time, pouring it forth afresh; thus continually preserv ing the equilibrium between the vital and other parts of the atmosphere, all over the globe, by counteracting the deadly pollutions introduced by herself and her sister kingdoms. Such is the important province of the Sun, the soul and centre of the world, over the three kingdoms of nature; and such is the important station the vegetable kingdom holds among the other two, that through the influence of the Sun, her lord and ruler, she not only supports all that has life belonging to the kingdom on her right, by being the medium of nutrition between it and the kingdom | on her left; but continually, by a process which preserves herself in life, she corrects and renovates the deadly pollutions of a substance which is alike essential to the existence of both the other kingdoms. The phenomena of the three central steps of the scale, viz. the chemical, vegetable, and animal, are said, by our author, to be perceived by the Senses; and in this respect to be distinguished from the mechanical and intellectual, the phenomena of which are inferred or deduced by Reason. We are aware that such a distinction is liable to objection, arising from the present vague notions entertained on these subjects. “But do I attach a meaning to these terms, (says our author,) in answering to such objection, somewhat different from that in which they are understood by other writers? Be it so. Has not every author a right to use what terms he pleases, provided he in the first place informs his readers of the sense in which he understands them, and afterwards adheres throughout to what he at first lays down? Instead of Chemical and Mechanical, I might have called these two steps A and B, or P and Q,where then would be the objection? "I dispute not about property or accident, inherent or noninherent in matter. All that I say is, that when we exercise our understanding upon such phenomena of matter, as may be calculated, computed, numbered, valued, or estimated, by a process of reasoning a priori, we survey that predicament which I call Mechanical.But when we exercise our senses upon such phenomena of matter as cannot be thus reasoned out a priori, but are only discovered by actual experience, we survey the predicament which I call Chemical; to these meanings I adhere throughout." Nothing, surely, can be clearer than this. We may, therefore, consider the three middle steps, as our author further remarks, (art. 49,) as including the whole compass of "Natural History," while the two lateral, namely, the Mechanical and Intellectual, compose the sciences of "Natural and Moral Philosophy." Suppose us then to be exercising our senses upon such phenomena of matter as cannot be reasoned out a priori, we shall then be considering matter, according to the distinction of our author, whether this matter belongs to the chemical, vegetable, or animal, steps of the scale, in that predicament which he terms Chemical. Now, if we attend strictly to the great object of chemical research, we shall find that our author's notion is not so very distant from the truth. One principal object of chemical investigation, is to discover the composition of bodies. Now this applies. equally to the matter of which all bodies are composed, whether they belong to the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms. The whole taken together, can be subjected to the same chemical analysis of their component parts. Again, it is a principal object of chemistry to observe what is the nature of the results arising from the chemical union of two or more bodies; but this can never be determined before-hand, nor be reasoned out a priori, nor deduced by arguments from any premises. Nay, without actually perceiving them by sense and experience, we can never know them: which is very different in regard to many of the phenomena of mechanical philosophy. In all our systems of chemistry, so far as they go, we perceive that this sort of experiment is made upon all bodies, without regarding the classes or kingdoms to which they belong. From the constituent principles of air and water, on the one hand, to the most minute parts of organized animal substance, on the other, all have either been, or may be, subjected to the trials of chemical analysis and synthesis. Nay, further, whether man makes the experiments or not, the substances comprehended in these three steps of the scale, go on and act upon each other spontaneously; forming compositions and decompositions, in every possible variety; for there is nothing in a state of absolute rest or quiescence in nature; though the motions between the integrant particles of matter, in the compounds they form, cannot be ascertained in the same manner that we can ascertain and demonstrate the phenomena of mechanical and intellectual philosophy. There appears, therefore, the best of reasons for the distinction of our author. And, in our opinion, by tracing the boundaries, and distinguishing between things that differ, what he has advanced, tends to dissipate much of the mist with which the subject has been involved. Fuller, in his "Gospel its own witness," ably refutes the infidel objection against the gospel, drawn from the comparative insignificance of this globe, by a similar mode of reasoning. "Let creation be as extensive as it may, (he observes,) and the number of worlds be multiplied to the utmost boundary to which imagination can reach, there is no proof that any of them, except men and angels, have apostatized from God." Hence, no other part of his vast empire stood in need of the same, or of a similar interposition, that was vouchsafed to man. The earth being the only part of his dominions which cast off its aliegiance, and the only spot on which redemption was wrought, it served as a theatre to exhibit transactions by which the whole universe might learn obedience. Hence the whole creation is called upon to rejoice on account of the redemption of man: and all the works of the Lord, in all places of his dominions, to bless his name*. He goes on with the extension of the analogy in these three middle steps of the scale, to the visible uni- | verse; and observes, that in our own world, our senses inform us that the three kingdoms of nature are tainted with evil:-That this disagreeable truth is only forced upon us by experience, when we philosophically investigate the three kingdoms belonging to the centre of the scale. He alludes Very different, however, is the docto the chemical changes which take trine of a celebrated philosophical place in these three kingdoms in our Theologician† of these times. Admitworld, as, for instance, the rapid oxidating the infidel objection in its fullest tion or rusting of metals, and a stop-latitude, contrary to the doctrine of page of the circulation of oxygen and respiration; which phenomena, he thinks, convey a striking analogy of corruption and death, being a kind of victory or preponderance of the physical over the spiritual side of the scale. But as in the other worlds of the system, we see not the condition of their three kingdoms of nature; but only things incorruptible, viz. light and mechanism, he reckons them to be untainted with evil; and as light and mechanism belong to the first and second steps of the scale, he infers the corresponding seventh and sixth, i. e. moral and rational creatures; but which is of a nature to us utterly unknown." scripture, he reasons in the following manner: "Is it likely, says the infidel, that God would send his Son to die for the puny occupiers of so insignificant a province in the mighty field of creation? Are we befitting of so great and so signal an interposition? Does not the largeness of that field which astronomy lays open to the view of modern science, throw a suspicion over the truth of gospel history? And how shall we reconcile the greatness of that wonderful movement which was made in heaven for the redemption of fallen men, with the comparative meanness and obscurity of our species?"-Yes, perfectly can we reconcile it."Eren so Father,” said the divinely Anointed himself, “for so it seemed good in thy sight." But such an answer, though it be preposterous in man at least to spurn it, is too plain and homely to be received. It is thought better to say, in the highsounding language of this celebrated author-"For any thing he can tell, sin has found its way into these other worlds-For any thing he can tell, * Psalm ciii. + Dr. Chalmers' Discourses on Astronomy. |