for our Argument tliat Violence is one of Uis attributes.
Let us then track Violence back from our own Iron
to his Lair, in which he first on Earth lapped his tongue
in blood. It may be objected that many murderous
monsters ensanguined the Primal Deep, crying havoc,
long before the coming of Man, and the revelation of
Mora! Evil in his person. Now, it is impossible to say
that no Race of fallen Intelligences had previously ruled
the Ocean, for whose sake, it had been accursed. Thi;
opinion was held by the most ancient Nations, and ever
embodied in descriptive Colors on their Temples. Tlie
Holy Scriptures Themselves encourage some such ar
hypotliesis, in that Cain says, “ every one that fiiidetb mi
shall slay me,” at a time which it has sorely vexed theologians
to furnish with other men. And Genesis pronouncing
once that Jehovah blessed the Creatures of the
Deep, gives the green herb for food to the beast of the
Eartli, the fowl of heaven, and every creeping thing upon
the earth, and tlien in this final summation leaves the
inhabitants of the Sea entirely out. This expressive
silence, the exclamation of Cain, and the Magian Traditions,
are sufficiently indicative of an hypothesis, the
import of which stands confessed under our notice. So
many Sciences as well as Arts have been wholly lost, or
we may have traced this fact, and all others in Nature
and Ethics, up to its source, and there squared it as certainly
with the Eternal Law, as with the Analc^es of
reason, the induction of Faith, and the belief of Nations.
Passing this, then, we shudder over the old Spectral
World, when, armed with poison, fang, and fury, ten
thousand hideous monsters slipped from leash, shriek to
the Four Winds, and scare peace for ever away. The
Malefactor Adamites, gigantic in the Fail, so were the
grim Brutes giants which battled with them for blood.
These too have their Ancestral bones, in many an Antre
vast, and they both together perish, in the wild exulant
Flood.
Thus, we demonstrate a fugitive but certain Element,
new to our own Creation, if not the very antagonist by
which it shall be at last annihilated ; the Spirit of Evil,
opposed to the existence of all things, not excepting its
own Suicidal-self. lu effects upon the first unguarded
Sons of Man, gifted as they were with incredible moral
and physical energy, must bave been awful. To
find tliemselves deposed from . Authority as gods, and
their falling Empire invaded by frightful Swarms of
Venomous Beings, must have torn their hearts with
h rage
and remorse.
“ Audax omnia pe^ieti
Gens Humana ruit per yetitum nefas."
Old Ammon invented not the sublime Story of tlie
Titanides. The First amongst the post-Diluvian Nations,
amidst silence and desolation, and the .scarcely withdrawn
tokens of God’s Wrath, it was related to him by Osiris in
the Shadow of the Pillars which Seth gravened with now
accomplished Propliecies, and the most precious lore of
the departed Giants.
Fortified on every side, the Sacred Scriptures stand
based upon Everlasting Truth. The personality of Matter,
whatever it be, Elohim created it. Light, whatever it be,
Elohim next created. Life, whatever it be, created He
last. He clothed the World vernally, gave to it fishes,
then beasts, and appointed Man over them all. The heat
which forced Ferns into Forests, and crowded them by
millions, were fatal to any order of living or extinct creature
; under a mitigated Clime, the most nervele.ss animals
would first come forth; they came, and there in the
Transition Rocks, the Mollusc Orthaceratite, Spirifer,
Producta, Trilobites, and Myriad Radiated Creatures
remain. The vertebrata in order followed; at last tbe
Earth was inhabited, and Man appointed Lord over all.
But a change came upon the happy scene. Let the
strife of families, the factions of Empire, an armed conflicting
world confess the dismal Cause.
Our Race was well nigh extinguished, and the primal
Carnivora destroyed quite : behold the wrecks of a Deluge
strown innumerable everywhere “ qu® caret ora cruove
nostro?” and hear the traditions of every People upon
Earth, and the Scriptures. Too long has it been agreed
to postpone these Holy Books, the Fountain of all true
Philosophy. They withdraw the Curtain of Time, and by
the Curse of Eve explain the Ruins of the World, revealing
the sure footsteps of Jehovah. Through all His glo-
: works to the topmost, one ceaseless expression of
unutterable goodness shines. From fallen Adam to the
Flood Satanic fury rules. By this Golden Book of Books
decipher the momentous Fortunes of mankind to
Eternity itself: Through Gulfs of molten blood battling
with Hell and Death, and at last dashing the kraaken
Fiends over tie walls of God’s wailing Creation, down,
1 unto the Abyss Tophet. But the Theme belongs to
another occasion.
Tlie Slough of Matter in which the moderns splash,
subserves a Spectacle of which the world has tired before.
The mechanical propensities of our Age vainly essay
in argument which has no ground, and is opposed to the
immortal instincts and habits of the Soul. The Times
will surely come when all gross Theories of Matter shall
be devoted to the Flames, and a second Othmar decree
for all Nations the everlasting destruction of the instruments
by which the Spirit of our Race has been Carnalized
and so nearly lost. The Grand Scheme of the
latterless illimitable universe shall remain, like an old
and massive Temple, or a vast Cathedral, upreared by
Colossal Genii, continuous and changeless as Jehovah and
•eternal.
C H A P T E R I I.
li-DllAOONS, icuthyosauri.
T i e Historian of extinct Races of Animals, in tho
absence of comparison and other ordinary Rules
upon whicli tlie Memoirs of Living Creatures are founded,
not unfrequcntiy confines himself to the merest field of
Anatomy, beyond which lie the Provinces of Doubt, which
we invade and forage at our peril. And tbe cold Philosophy
of the moderns has been always careful to autlien-
ticate only those Works in which the plain Tuscan Style
is observed, to the sacrifice of all ornament rhetorical
and extrinsic; Nevertheless the most genera! favorite
Authors in Natural History, from Aristotle to Buffon
downward, are those of the most enthusiastic disposition,
which enliven their writings and fill them with charms.
These studied Nature with Genius, pencilling her most
beautiful attitudes and colors, changeful and fleeting tliough
they b e ; disdaining to carve and gash her to pieces for
the mean sake of counting them when it was done.
There is no subject, perhaps, within tlie vision of man
about which so many fascinating objects revolve as oure,
the Chronicle of the great Sea-dragons, which ruled the
ridgy Deep, and sunk Empire and Life in tlie Profundity
of pre-Adamic Times. The mere skeleton of a lost Genus,
unsightly and incurious tiiough it be apparently, is the
precious and sole surviving Symbol of the most recondite
Truths, and the Fulcrum of that ponderous Lever by which
only we can upheave them from the Abyss of Ages. The
bony Outline of an extinct Monster is a faded Cartoon of
Nature, by which we study abstractest Beauties, analyze
the most subtle Conceptions, and revivify Matter itself.
It is also the figure of a Moral Quantity, by which, sub-
limizing Time, we descry through his agitated Shadows
tlie Elemental Order of Things in Heaven and in the
Earth. Hence the vital interest which attaches to fossil
Organic remains, and their incalculable value in tiie Scale
of Metaphysics when found. They weigh the World in
a balance, authenticate some of the most obscure passages
of tlie antique Faith, and resuscitate Memories whicli
could have otherwise no Resurrection. By the Egyptian
Monoliths, the Temple Bel, and the consent of old Gr»cia,
and the Papuan Guinea; by the Round Towers of Ireland,
and of India, and the Teuton Creed, we reach the
Stones of Memorial of the Flood, wlicllicr at Stonehenge,
or in Asia, or in America; by the Pyramids of Geezali,
the Cyclopean Abodes, and the Carcasses of annihilated
Carnivora, we ascend the ante-diluvial Stream of years
even to Eden; by these extinct Dragons we navigate the
pre-Adamite Seas to their very Margin, and look over the
Edge of Matter into Chaos. lifting the Veil of Isis, nieia-
morphosed as gods.
The physical relations which subsisted in tlie departed
Sauriaa Nations are no less signal than the abstract ones;
fitted exclusively for the Sea, which iu our time has only
a fabulous Serpent, tliose Tnninim prove that the great
Principle of Unity established throughout all the Creatures
of the Earth, has had other adaptations tlian those of
Modern date. They perpetuate a Design no longer in
use, show a Retractive Power in the Act of blotting out
an Amalekite Race, and furnish data by whicli to estimate
the Figures of tlie most distant Times, through all the
Normal Velocities to which the Almighty destined them.
With such extraordinary Properties, Palsontologists have
been much puzzled to assimilate these fossil Remains with
the Classes of actual Beings. Half lizard, and half fish,
the name Ichthyosauri expresses the words, but not the
Idea which lurks within them. It is therefore only a
conventional term, forced upon us by the rash attempt to
ally Past and Present Races, living under two such alien
Planets.
In our Memoirs it was mete lo honour the distinguished
Pliilosopliers who commenced the History of these enigmatical
Tribes, as far as consisted with the original facts
alone in our possession. We llierefore continued it under
their own Title, and, pursuing the principle upon which
it set forth to its just conclusion, coined names for the
several skeletons we had acquired. The old specific Cognomina,
Tenuirostris, Platyodon, Intcrmedius, and Communis,
were shown to be at variance, and quite inapplicable
to the Species meant by them, and others offered
instead. These new Names were protested on account
of their length: they sinned also against the Greek canon
of one subject and one predicate. But since every known
Saurian Remain fails into its place under our System,
we shall retain it; hoping to obviate all objection by
dropping the prepositional —paddle, leaving that to
be always understood, and translating the Compounds
Oligostinus, Polyostinus, Strongylostinus, and Parame-
costinus of our memoirs from Specific to Generic terms.
My seven perfect Skeletons, and the whole subsidiary
Collection happily resolve themselves under these heads;
and every other Relic that we have seen but help to confirm
the Rule. I appeal to the whole world if it he not
better thus to distinguisli them rather than by Proper
Nouns, which at present mystify and disgrace every liorn-
hook OQ Natural History. It is true that Liiin®us, La-
treillo, and other wortliies named certain Species after the
discoverer, or after eminent Persons; but they did so only
when the character was absolutely unknown. Could they
liave foreseen the flagrant abuses to which tbe example
led, that within a century the exception would actually
depose the Rule, that example would have been so strictly
guarded, that there would be now no occasion to deplore
a practice so injurious to the dignity of Science, and the
Taste of the Age in which we live. I hardly anticipate the
immediate abnegation of the jargon by which these Sauri
have been hitherto recognized, but am content to abide
the ordinary course of events, and even await the Coming
Generation for that ingenuousness wliich may not be found
in this.