Part 2

That the instinct of animals and the mind of man are the results of nothing but material organization is an obvious corollary from this doctrine. "The difference," says this writer, "between mind in the lower animals and in man is a difference in degree only; it is not a specific difference." Mental phenomena, apparently so various and unstable in the individual, are reduced at once to regularity, and become subject to calculation, if considered in the mass. This shows, that, like the phenomena of the weather, they are under the presidency of natural laws. The phrenologists are the only persons who have followed the order of nature in the study of mind; they have even determined the functions of the different parts of the brain. An experiment is mentioned with a newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion, that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is sufficiently well known. To borrow an illustration from Sidney Smith, it would seem, that, if we only knew to what organs of the brain to direct an electric current, an automaton, or a dead man, might be made to hold an argument, "at least as well as most country parsons."

A person who should hear for the first time this naked exposition of the writer's theory would be tempted at once to reject the whole, as too extravagant and absurd to deserve further notice. But he would be much mistaken in this conclusion. The theory is a very plausible one; it is one of the best cosmogonies that the wit of man has ever framed. It is a revival of the old atheistic hypothesis,--the Epicurean doctrine of the formation of the universe by a fortuitous concourse of atoms,--with all the modifications and improvements that were rendered necessary by the discoveries of modern science. We call it an atheistic theory, because, though the writer supposes that primitive matter was first endowed by divine power with its mysterious qualities and capacities, this supposition is gratuitous and arbitrary, and only mars the simplicity of the scheme, and injures the consistency and coherence of the parts with each other. We can more easily believe that these qualities are necessarily inherent in the constitution of matter, forming a part of its very essence, just like the properties of impenetrability and extension, than that they subsequently developed themselves by forming myriads of intricate organizations, without further aid from the divine architect. If we can credit the hypothesis, that bricks and mortar came together of their own accord, and arranged themselves into the first house meet for the habitation of man, we can very readily admit, also, that the bricks first assumed the proper shape, and mortar the proper tenacity and hardness, without the intervention of human labor and skill. If there is no need of a bricklayer, we may discard also the brick-maker.

Putting aside, therefore, this gratuitous addition to the theory, we come to examine the plausibility of the doctrine which assumes, that material atoms, constituted as they now are, are capable, without oversight or direction, of forming a universe like our own, and producing all the animated tribes which tenant it. In all the atheistic reasoning upon this subject, and especially in the work now before us, there is a constant confusion between what may be, for aught we know to the contrary, and what is, so far as we are able positively to determine it from our present means of observation and experiment; between the possibility that is measured only by human ignorance, and the probability that is fairly inferred by the legitimate exercise of the understanding. Effects have unquestionably been produced, such as the formation of a solar system, and the production of new and perfectly distinct orders of being, which we are wholly unable to account for by the present and ordinary operation of what are called secondary causes. If a theorist chooses to assume, that these secondary causes, under certain conditions, which we never have seen, and never can see, realized, might produce very extraordinary results, might even fully account for the wonderful effects in question, we have a right to say, in reply, that he is dealing in pure speculation and hypothesis; that, having had no experience under the conditions or postulates of his theory, he is necessarily speaking from ignorance and appealing to ignorance; that, even if we could not point out a single difficulty, a single false assumption, in his whole scheme and argument, it would still remain a mere hypothesis, alike incapable of proof or disproof; and that, at the best, the arguments brought against it must be of nearly the same wiredrawn, speculative, and far-fetched character with those adduced in its support. On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the entire absence of all considerations against their theory constitutes a positive argument in its support. No such thing; it affords only a fair presumption of the baseless character of the whole fabric.

This may be made more clear by examples. If a child, who has had little experience of the laws of nature, and has learned nothing from books, is gravely assured by his instructor, that in a distant region of the ocean there is an island where stones fly upward instead of downward, and men walk on their heads instead of their feet, the young philosopher, however acute and ingenious we may suppose him to be, certainly could not offer one valid argument against the alleged fact. He could only stare, and wonder, and say that it might be so for all that he knew to the contrary. Just so, when the atheist tells us, that far off in infinite space is a region, of which we can see nothing, even with our best telescopes, except a faint glimmer of light, floating like a cloudlet in the heavens, where the primitive atoms of matter, directed by gravity alone, are slowly congregating together, and forming suns, and planets, and secondary satellites, and giving birth to such intricate harmonies of mutually dependent and revolving worlds as those which have prevailed for ages in our own system; or that, thousands of years ago, the same unassisted laws of matter, which we now see producing only such comparatively meagre and insufficient results, actually caused animalcules to be produced from pure sand, and fishes to be created out of oysters, and birds to be generated by slimy and grovelling reptiles, and men to be born from monkeys;--if he should tell us all this, certainly we could offer no direct confutation of the wonderful tale. In regard to alleged facts of this character, the wisest of men are, and always must be, mere children. But it would be monstrous to say, that this wild assertion derived any support from their admitted bewilderment and incapacity. This would be to attempt to found knowledge upon ignorance. The dim analogies resting on questionable facts, the bold assumptions and slippery arguments on which such daring hypotheses must be based, can be refuted, for the most part, only by reasoning in kind,--by arguments nearly as uncertain, it may be, as those which they are brought to answer. We cannot prove a negative; we can only show the insufficiency of the ground on which the opposite assumption is made to rest; and enough is done for this end, when it is made to appear, that the whole scheme is a mere hypothesis.

We make these general remarks only to relieve some readers of this volume from the doubt and perplexity which its perusal may have caused, solely because they were unable to detect any one glaring fallacy or inconsistency in the writer's theory. It appears plausible enough; for, though there is very little in its favor, it seems at first sight as if there was little or nothing to say against it. On closer scrutiny, it will be found, perhaps, that it is disproved by a multitude of considerations, any one of which would be fatal to it; as the hypothesis is of such a character, that, when a single breach is made in it, the whole edifice must tumble. If the intervention of an extraneous cause be absolutely necessary at any one stage or process in the creation, it may as well be admitted in all; the principle must be given up, and the whole purpose of the theist is answered. We shall endeavour to show that this hypothetical history of creation is not only faulty in every point, when viewed from the author's own ground, but, when examined in the proper direction, is absolutely unintelligible, or is in fact no history at all.

Let us look first at the nebular hypothesis. Certain spots and tracts in the heavens, of a whitish color, appearing to the naked eye to be nebulae, on being examined through a telescope, instantly resolve themselves into a multitude of distinct and perfectly formed stars. Such is the greatest nebula of all,--the galaxy, or milky way. Other spots of a like character, if viewed through glasses of moderate power, still appear as nebulae; but when seen through more perfect instruments, they immediately seem, like the others, to be a mere crowd of stars. Others, again, are not separated or resolved by the best telescopes; but what is the natural inference from this fact? Surely, we infer that they are merely crowded collections of stars, just like the others, except that they are too distant or too small to be seen as distinct bodies, even with the most powerful instruments that we possess. If telescopes of a greater range should hereafter be constructed, there is every reason to believe that these also will be resolved to the eye into their component parts as stars; and in fact, if newspaper accounts may be credited, when Lord Rosse's new and magnificent telescope was first turned towards some of these spots, which had always preserved their nebulous appearance when examined by inferior instruments, it was immediately apparent, that they were composed of distinct stars. Yet the hypothesis we are now considering assumes, that these remote and faintly seen nebulae are not crowds of stars, but primitive luminous matter, the particles of which are slowly congregating together, and forming one new star, or several. Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory, to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently never can be verified. It must ever remain a mere guess, directly opposed by an obvious induction from those nebulae which are resolvable into perfect stars.

The fact, that one or two bright points, assumed to be centres of aggregation, are seen in some of these nebulae, is of no importance. If a bright star be seen from this earth in the same line of vision with the nebula, it will be projected on the ground of that nebula, and will appear as a part of it, though it may be many millions of miles on this side, and have no more connection with it than the planet Jupiter would have, if it should happen to be in conjunction with the nebula, and thus appear for a short time to be projected upon its disc.

There is one consideration of some weight, though we have never seen it adverted to, which tends directly to confute the nebular hypothesis. That faint radiance called the zodiacal light, which is seen to stream up in the form of a cone from our sun, is assumed by our author to be a residuum of the nebulous matter belonging to our system, which has not yet been drawn into the sun, though it is on its way thither. Others have supposed, with far more probability, that it is the sun's atmosphere, and therefore its present shape and size will never change,--as they never have changed, during the period in which they have been observed by man. But no matter; we are now reasoning upon our author's hypothesis. If the zodiacal light be composed of primitive nebulous matter, it must now be comparatively thick and dense, since the process of aggregation has been going on for countless ages, and, in our system, is considered as nearly completed; just as when a sediment is forming in a tumbler full of turbid water, after the upper portion of the fluid has become entirely clear, there will be a stratum of water next to the sediment more turbid than the whole was before the deposition began. Yet this light is very faint, when seen only from the distance of our earth; and at the boundaries of our system, from the orbit of Uranus, for instance, we cannot believe that it is visible at all. Is it likely, then, that a portion of this nebulous matter, in which the process of deposition has hardly begun, and which is seen from a distance so vast, that in comparison with it the whole diameter of our solar system is but a point, would be visible from this earth? In the case of the other nebulae, a multitude of perfectly formed suns, uniting their respective beams, are seen only as a faint, whitish speck on the blue arch. And yet we are required to believe, that the luminous matter which will ultimately form but one sun, or perhaps two, while still thinly diffused over an immense tract of space, the process of aggregation having hardly commenced, is yet visible to our eyes at this vast distance.

"Credat Judaeus Apella; Non ego."

We pass to the next chapter in the history, which professes to explain the gradual formation of a solar system by a process of cooling and shrinking, to which the central orb is exposed. And here we are met by a difficulty at the outset; for the existence of comets with their very eccentric orbits is wholly irreconcilable with the theory. At their perihelion, many of these bodies pass within the orbit of Mercury, while the aphelion of some lies without the path of Uranus. Where were they, when the body of the sun filled up the whole of the vast sphere circumscribed by the orbit of the remotest planet? If we suppose that they are late comers, after the rest of our system was perfected,--that they were generated by themselves in distant regions of space, and, having strayed about, orphan-like, for a while, they accidentally crossed our track, and were taken as adopted children into our family, another question remains to be answered. Why did they not remain in their first position, absorb their full share of nebulous matter, beget a respectable family of planets, and take rank as chiefs of their own clan? These comparatively anomalous bodies are great stumbling-blocks for the soi-disant historians of creation.

Again, if an immense orb be formed, the parts of which cohere strongly enough for the whole to turn upon its axis as one body, the process of cooling can go on only from the surface. A crust may finally be formed there; but we see not how the refrigeration and shrinking of the interior parts can then go on separately, until the mass in the centre finally becomes detached from its envelope, like a shrivelled nut from its shell. Our earth is cooling down at this moment, unless the warmth which it receives from the sun exactly counterbalances the loss by radiation of internal heat. But the exterior and interior do not cool by different radiations, nor is there, so far as we know, the least tendency in the central mass to shrink separately, so as to detach itself from the surrounding crust. As deep as we can penetrate towards the centre, we find the heat regularly increase,--just as we might expect, if the only absolute loss of heat be from the surface.

If the matter now concentrated in the sun, and that which forms the several planets with their secondaries, were all moulded into one mass, and then dilated so as to fill the vast sphere of which the orbit of Uranus forms a circumference, the substance would evidently be in a state of extreme tenuity and diffusion. Immense as the mass of the sun now is, it is but a mere nut at the centre of the grand globe which we are now considering. Expanded to such vast dimensions, we cannot conceive of it as a solid spheroid turning upon its axis, but only as a mass of fluid or vapor, in which a circular motion would generate only vortices or whirlwinds. In such an aggregation of subtile matter, no crust could be solidified on the outer ring, and then detached from the mass within; indeed, any separation of the parts under such circumstances is inconceivable. Even a rotary motion could not be established in it, except by an impulse received from without; for there is every reason to believe, that the movement of a homogeneous fluid towards its centre, if it could take place without disturbing causes, would be in radial lines, and not in a spiral.

Our author brings into view all the mathematical proportions and uniform relations which exist between the constituent bodies of the solar system, in order to indicate the probability of their formation from the constant working of one material cause. Thus he remarks, that the primary planets all move nearly in one plane, and "show a progressive increase of bulk and diminution of density, from the one nearest to the sun to that which is most distant." But he passes over other characteristics of these bodies, equally important, which are quite irregular, and cannot be traced to the operation of one law. Compare the periods of rotation on their respective axes, and we find no correspondence, no indication that the revolving motion was imparted to all by one inflexible law. The first four planets, counting from the sun, perform their rotation in nearly the same time, namely, twenty-four hours. But Jupiter's period is a little less, and Saturn's a little more, than ten hours. Again, Jupiter's axis of rotation is nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, while that of Mars is inclined at an angle of fifty-nine degrees forty-two minutes. Another irregularity, still more fatal to the theory, is found in the number of satellites by which the respective planets are attended. Saturn has seven, beside the two rings; Jupiter has four, Mars has none, and the earth has but one. On the single hypothesis, that our system was formed by rings successively thrown off from a central body by a process of refrigeration and contraction, these irregularities are inexplicable. Mars, it seems, did not shrink at all, while Jupiter cast off four separate rings, and the earth produced its single moon. The distances of these bodies from their primaries are also quite irregular; in the case of Jupiter, the outermost of the satellites revolves at a distance which is only twenty-seven times the radius of the primary, and the innermost is distant but six times that radius. This planet, consequently, has shrunk to one twenty-seventh part of its original diameter, and in so doing, has formed four moons; the earth has shrunk to one sixtieth part of its first diameter, and still has produced but one satellite. If the same law had prevailed in the two cases, we ought to have nine or ten moons.

We need not analyze with any great minuteness the geological facts and hypotheses incorporated into this magnificent history of creation. As will be seen hereafter, the violent and sweeping transformations and convulsions that the earth's crust has undergone directly conflict with our author's theory, and afford the strongest presumption, that an extraneous cause has frequently interfered, at different periods, to repair the desolation produced by the unassisted working of natural laws, to bring order out of chaos, and to people the desert earth anew with animated tribes. The only general fact of much moment, which our author has drawn from the discoveries of geologists, for the confirmation of his own hypothesis, is, according to his own account, one of the most questionable doctrines in the whole science,--one of a negative character, on which we can never rely with full assurance, till the researches of man have probed every fold, and examined every thread in the texture, of the earth's garment, and thus shown that no evidence can possibly be discovered to the contrary. The alleged fact is that, in the early formations of rock--the first pages in the history of the earth's surface--are found the remains of animals and vegetables only of the lowest type and most imperfect development; while, in the later strata, forms more and more advanced are discovered; so that there seems to have been a constant progress along the line leading to the higher forms of organization. The testimony which goes to support this assertion is wholly negative. The geologist reasons thus: The more perfect organisms have not been discovered in the earlier strata; therefore, they do not exist in them. When, in a different connection, it suits our author's purpose to throw doubt on the very postulate which is here admitted, he holds the following language.

"These, it must be owned, are less strong traces of the birds than we possess of the reptiles and other tribes; but it must be remembered, that the evidence of fossils, as to the absence of any class of animals from a certain period of the earth's history, can never be considered as more than negative. Animals, of which we find no remains in a particular formation, may, nevertheless, have lived at the time, and it may have only been from unfavorable circumstances that their remains have not been preserved for our inspection. The single circumstance of their being little liable to be carried down into seas might be the cause of their non-appearance in our quarries."--p. 95.

In truth, the researches of geologists are every day bringing to light new facts, which compel them to modify or abandon many of the positions they formerly held; so that a considerable portion of the science is a mere quicksand of shifting theories. We need only allude to the various suppositions respecting the origin of drift, and to the numerous modifications of the glacial theory. Important discoveries have been made within a short time, showing that certain animal tribes had their origin much farther back than was at first supposed. A few years ago, reptiles were believed to be the highest type of life that existed during the era of the new red sand-stone. But Professor Hitchcock's recent discovery in this stone of the footprints of gigantic birds has added a higher class to the zooelogy of the period; and within a few months, in the same red sand-stone of the Connecticut valley, tracks of two or three species of quadrupeds have been found, some of them being probably mammifers of a lower grade. It is true, no fossil remains of these animals have been brought to light; but this want only renders the discovery more significant for our present purpose. It shows that certain animals must have lived at the period in question, though their remains have not yet been found; and from the greater age of the rocks then formed, and the consequent greater number of convulsions of the earth's surface to which they have been subjected, these remains may have entirely disappeared. It is a curious fact, also, that the animal remains of that period, which have come down to us, belong to genera so constituted, that their bodies might well survive, if we may so speak, the shocks which would have destroyed every trace of some more delicate, or more finely organized, beings. We find remains of the flint-shielded animalcules, the hard-shelled mollusca, and the cartilaginous fishes; but the bodies of mammalia, birds, and even the higher species of fishes, some of which we may suppose to have been more tender and corruptible, have utterly perished. Here and there, an individual of their number left the print of its foot on the sand, which subsequently hardened into rock, and brought down to our times a faint vestige of its past existence.

We are not attempting to impugn the credit of geological science in general, which would be a wholly futile task. The multitude of facts respecting the present constitution of the earth's crust, recently made known by laborers in this department, are among the most curious and most pregnant discoveries of modern times. But when we come to the formation of theories respecting the past history of the earth, in order to account for the phenomena at present visible on its surface, we are evidently afloat on a sea of conjecture, each hypothesis being valid only till a more plausible one is proposed,--which happens very frequently,--or till it is effectually disproved by some new discovery in the rocky strata. A fertile imagination and a bold face are among the most striking traits of our more daring geologists. Grant to one of this character a few modest postulates,--give him certain millions of years, a sufficient number of earthquakes, a whole battery of volcanoes, a few ocean deluges, and the rise and fall of half a dozen continents,--and he will frame a theory off-hand, which will account for the most perplexing phenomena. Our author is certainly entitled to take his place at the very head of this class of speculatists.

In accounting for the work of creation by the natural and unassisted development of the inherent qualities of brute matter, the great difficulty is found at the first link in the chain of animated being. How can we explain the commencement of life? We must have a clear idea of the whole scope of this problem, before we can make any attempt at its solution. Life, then, is not mere organization, though most materialists, philosophers, like our author, willingly confound the two things; to hear them reason, one would almost suppose that there was no difference between a dead man and a living one. Organization is subservient to life, ministers to it, manifests it,--supports it, if you please,--but does not constitute it. He must be a bolder man than we are, who will undertake to say what it is; but we can very safely declare what it is not; and in any particular form or aggregation of matter, whether organic or inorganic, we can give a shrewd guess as to its presence or absence. It may be said, that we beg the question by assuming that organization is not life; it may be so; but it is quite too much to allow the materialist quietly to take the opposite doctrine for granted. He must know the full extent of his task,--that it is necessary for him not only to construct the machine, but actually to set it in motion, so that it shall afterwards run on of its own accord. It is very easy to frame a partial definition of life, by merely describing one or two of its characteristic functions; and then, because some action can be detected between the particles of brute matter, which resembles the exercise of these functions, boldly to declare that the whole mystery is solved. Thus it is said, that life is nothing but the accretion of similar substances, or the addition of like unto like; and as this occurs in crystallization, which is confessedly a phenomenon of inorganic matter, therefore there is no fundamental difference between the properties of living and dead substances. We deny the first proposition; nutrition is not the only characteristic of life, and the nutritive process, whether in vegetables or animals, is not mere accretion, but assimilation. It has been said, though the assertion is by no means fully proved, that assimilation is only a finer kind of chemistry, the constituent principles being brought together only by their natural affinities. Even if this were true, if the stomach and the digestive apparatus were only a well furnished chemical laboratory, fit for conducting the most delicate experiments, the great difficulty would still remain. The question might yet be asked, Where is the chemist? And this is the fundamental question, which the materialists never attempt to answer, but quietly evade.

The difference between an inorganic and an organic body has been explained by Coleridge clearly enough for our purpose. In the former,--a sheaf of corn, for instance,--the whole is nothing more than a collection of the individual parts; in the latter,--an animal,--the whole is the effect of, or results from, the parts. In the latter case, the whole is every thing, and the parts are comparatively nothing. One of the great effects of life is to keep the parts in subjection to the whole, making them contribute to its support and growth, and thus maintaining the unity of the system. The stomach digests, the lungs inhale air, the heart beats, and the blood circulates; and as the joint effect, or as the common supporter,--it matters not which,--of these operations, life continues, and the animated being is a unit; it has not merely virtual, but essential unity. The reciprocal action of the respiratory, circulating, and nervous systems is absolutely necessary to life. The animal dies, and this unity, this subservience of the parts to the whole, immediately ceases. In the functions of the living body, it may be that the ordinary laws of chemistry are preserved, and that the elements of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen combine and separate according to their ordinary affinities, and in no unusual proportions. But after death, at any rate, quite a different set of chemical laws come into play, and produce a result which is the very opposite of that before effected. There is no longer any unanimity or cooeperation; instead of sustaining or building up the animal tissues, the affinities now in operation tear down, destroy, and resolve them into their ultimate elements,--each part following out its own law of destruction or resolution, irrespectively of the others.

"There is in living organic matter a principle constantly in action, the operations of which are in accordance with a rational plan, so that the individual parts which it creates in the body are adapted to the design of the whole; and this it is which distinguishes organism. Kant says, 'The cause of the particular mode of existence of each part of a living body resides in the whole, while in dead masses each part contains this cause within itself.' This explains why a mere part separated from an organized whole generally does not continue to live; why, in fact, an organized body appears to be one and indivisible. And since the different parts of an organized body are heterogeneous members of one whole, and essential to its perfect state, the trunk cannot live after the loss of one of these parts."--Mueller's Physiology, Vol. I., p. 19.

The apparent exceptions to this statement--as in the case of the polypes, which multiply by fissiparous generation, or by spontaneous division of their bodies into parts, each part becoming a perfect animal--are only apparent. These creatures, which are low down in the scale of being, exemplify what Mr. Owen calls "the law of vegetative or irrelative repetition," as they have many organs performing the same function, and not related to each other by combination for the performance of a higher function. Thus, a Polygastrian has many assimilative sacs, each performing the office of a stomach irrespective of the rest. In the insect tribe, the respiratory function, instead of being performed by one set of lungs for the whole body, is carried on through a series of minute and highly ramified tubes, which traverse every part of the body, and open to the air by a great number of orifices. In some instances, both respiration and digestion seem to take place over the whole surface of the body; for Trembley found at least one case, in which the animal digested its food equally well, after it had been turned inside out. A number of similar parts being repeated in each segment of the individual, the body can be divided, and the several portions, each still containing some of all the organs essential to the whole, will continue to live separately. The severed parts will even continue to grow, and to develope other organs convenient for individual existence. But most animals, especially the more perfect, do not constitute an aggregate of similar parts united by one trunk, and therefore propagation by division is in them impossible. The ovum, when separated from the parent, is an entire animal only potentially; during its development, the essential parts which constitute the actual whole are produced. In the case of the polyps, we have only to suppose that the ovum remains connected with the parent being, till all, or nearly all, its essential parts are produced. It is then shed not as a mere ovum, but as an animal nearly or wholly complete.

Now, all the instances adduced by our author, to show similarity of action in the organic and the inorganic world, are irrelevant. The analogies are not merely imperfect; they are no analogies at all. Crystals increase by the aggregation of new particles on the external surfaces of the parts already formed; there is no consentaneous operation of the parts on the whole. The molecules of crystals are homogeneous throughout, and the several aggregates of these molecules are independent of each other; while organized bodies are composed of parts perfectly dissimilar from each other, but all of which conspire to one end. "The growth of organized bodies," says Mueller, "takes place in all particles of their substance at the same time, while the increase of the mass in inorganic bodies is produced by external apposition." Frostwork on the windows may resemble vegetable forms; but it has no resemblance whatever to vegetable life. Electricity may counterfeit the action of life, for a moment, on a particular limb, by causing the muscles to twitch; but it does not counterfeit life itself, by causing all the parts again to contribute to the sustentation of the whole. A French chemist, by electric action, may have produced globules in albumen; there is nothing very wonderful in that; any one may blow bubbles in a viscid fluid. The resemblance between these globules and proper germinal vesicles amounts to nothing more than similarity of outward shape; there is no more real resemblance between them than between the oval lump of chalk which farmers sometimes put into a hen's nest, in order to deceive poor Dame Partlet, and the real egg which the hen deposits by the side of it. Certainly, the imponderable agents, heat, light, and electricity, are in some mysterious way connected with life, so as to contribute to its support; there is nothing more in this assertion than in the familiar proposition, that a seed will germinate only under the proper conditions of soil and climate; but that these agents, acting on inorganic matter, ever create or commence life is a pure hypothesis, not supported even by the shadow of a fact.

Having thus shown how weak are the general considerations in favor of the theory, that animated beings may be created out of inorganic matter by mere natural laws, we should proceed to consider the direct evidence adduced to prove that life has actually been produced in this way. Here the whole question is opened respecting the alleged instances of equivocal generation, and we have neither space nor ability to discuss them at length. Those who are curious respecting the question may find a brief summary of the evidence on both sides in a former number of this Journal. We can mention only a few facts and arguments, which show the extreme improbability of the doctrine supported by our author and a few other theorists.

In the first place, it is remarkable, that all the races of animated beings, which are entirely within the range of our powers of observation,--which have such a size and locality that we can study and accurately determine their organization and habits,--are unquestionably produced from parents of their own kind. Only the minute microscopic animals are now supposed to be generated spontaneously; and this alleged fact rests not on direct proof, but only on our inability in certain cases to trace the process of their production in the ordinary way. As many of these animals, in their perfect state, are not more than the twelve thousandth part of an inch in diameter, it is not much to be wondered at, that we should not be able in all cases to discover their ova, or to follow these ova through all their stages of development into the complete being. It is farther remarkable, that these animalcules, when once produced, whether by spontaneous or natural generation, are all found to be provided with the organs or requisite means for continuing their species, and, in fact, for multiplying their number from themselves with astonishing rapidity. As they certainly have children, it seems reasonable to suppose, according to the analogy of all the higher animated tribes, that they also had parents. The ancients supposed, that the worms and insects which appear in decaying organic matter were generated there by the decomposition of the substance, without the previous agency of individuals of the same stock. Every schoolboy is acquainted with Virgil's mode of obtaining a new swarm of bees from the decaying carcass of a heifer. Subsequent researches, made with more care, and perhaps with better instruments of observation, have entirely disproved the hypothesis, and show that the maggots were produced in every case from eggs deposited by flies or other insects, and were afterwards themselves developed into the state of perfect insects. Then it seems reasonable to believe, that the improved observations of future times will clear up the only remaining difficulty, and show how the infusory animalcules also are generated from beings of their own kind.

These minute creatures are prolific to a degree that transcends all calculation; and they exist, either in the egg or maturely developed, in inconceivable numbers. A single wheel-animalcule, Hydatina senta, which was watched for more than eighteen days, and which lives still longer, is capable of a fourfold increase in twenty-four or thirty hours; a rate of propagation which would afford in ten days a million of beings. From their tenacity of life, extraordinary powers of reproduction, and incalculable numbers, their united influence may be said to be far more important, in all the great operations of nature, than that of the larger and more perfectly developed organisms. They swarm in all the seas, and play an important part in choking up harbours and forming great deposits at the mouths of rivers. The remains of those which have perished form great beds and strata in the crust of the earth. The silicious stone, called Tripoli, is entirely composed of such remains; at Bilin, in Bohemia, there is one stratum of this substance, fourteen feet thick, one cubic inch of which is estimated to contain forty-one thousand millions of individuals. Their extreme tenacity of life is evinced by the fact, that many of them may be entirely desiccated, and preserved in pure sand for several years, after which, on the application of a drop of water, they may be restored to life. In this dried state, M. Doyere exposed some of them to a heat equal to that of boiling water, and afterwards revived them; though, in an active state, if subjected to a much lower temperature, they perish. If, then, the fully developed and mature can resist such powerful extraneous causes of destruction, how much more must the ova possess the power of enduring them without losing their latent life! The following extract from Professor Owen's Lectures shows the bearing of these facts upon the question of equivocal generation.

"The act of oviparous generation, that sending forth of countless ova through the fatal laceration or dissolution of the parent's body, is most commonly observed in the well-fed Polygastria, which crowd together as their little ocean evaporates; and thus each leaves, by the last act of its life, the means of perpetuating and diffusing its species by thousands of fertile germs. When the once thickly tenanted pool is dried up, and its bottom converted into a layer of dust, these inconceivably minute and light ova will be raised with the dust by the first puff of wind, diffused through the atmosphere, and may there remain long suspended; forming, perhaps, their share of the particles which we see flickering in the sunbeam, ready to fall into any collection of water, beaten down by every summer shower into the streams or pools which receive or may be formed by such showers, and, by virtue of their tenacity of life, ready to develope themselves wherever they may find the requisite conditions for their existence.

"The possibility, or, rather, the high probability, that such is the design of the oviparous generation of the Infusoria, and such the common mode of the diffusion of their ova, renders the hypothesis of equivocal generation, which has been so frequently invoked to explain their origin in new-formed natural or artificial infusions, quite gratuitous. If organs of generation might, at first sight, seem superfluous in creatures propagating their kind by gemmation and spontaneous fission, equivocal generation is surely still less required to explain the origin of beings so richly provided with the ordinary and recognized modes of propagation."--pp. 31, 32.

Recent accounts show, that the dust collected from the atmosphere at sea, many miles from land, generally contains some of these dried animalcules and their ova. Many of these germs can be developed only in particular localities, or under certain conditions which are rarely fulfilled. Consequently, if there were but few of them, the species might perish, because those few might not find their appropriate home. But such an accident is guarded against by the vast multiplication of these germs and their wide dispersion; for, unlike all the higher tribes of beings except man, the same species is often found in all regions of the globe. Very few, in comparison with the whole number, may find a proper nidus; but these few then propagate with such marvellous rapidity, as fully to replenish, if not to increase, the original stock. Thus they have been enabled, as species, to survive even those destroying causes which exterminated all the higher forms of animals. Several species still exist, which were in being at the time of the cretaceous formation, though all the other animated races belonging to that period have perished. "These animalcules," says Ehrenberg, "constitute a chain, which, though in the individual it be microscopic, yet in the mass is a mighty one, connecting the organic life of distant ages of the earth."