i"?Life: Its True Genesis

By R. W. Wright

[Masoretic Hebrew. ]--xOe squaredxx(C)OeOe1/2x" x-Oe. X"Oe deg. Xcxx"Oe3/4x'Oexoe xcOe. XoeOe3/4x"OexOeOe'x"Oexcxf. --

IYa1/2-- I"a1/2 IfIEuroa1/2 cubedII1/4I+- I+-a1/2I"I?a?| a1/4I1/2 I+-a1/2I"a?. II+-I"a1/2 deg. I cubeda1/2 cubedI1/2I?I, a1/4IEuroa1/2 I"a?I, I cubeda?I, . [Septuagint. ]

"Whose general principle of life, each in itself after its own kind, isupon the earth. " [Correct Translation. ]

Second Edition

1884

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATEDTOARTHUR E. HOTCHKISS, ESQ. OF CHESHIRE, CONN. 

Contents. 

Prefatory

Chapter I. Introductory. Chapter II. Life--Its True Genesis. Chapter III. Alternations of Forest Growths. Chapter IV. The Distribution and Vitality of Seeds. Chapter V. Plant Migration and Interglacial Periods. Chapter VI. Distribution and Permanence of Species. Chapter VII. What Is Life? Its Various Theories. Chapter VIII. Materialistic Theories of Life Refuted. Chapter IX. Force-Correlation, Differentiation and Other Life Theories. Chapter X. Darwinism Considered from a Vitalistic Stand-point. 

Preface to Second Edition. 

Here is the law of life, as laid down by the eagle-eyed prophet Isaiah, inthat remarkable chapter commencing, "Ho, every one thatthirsteth"--whether it be after knowledge, or any other earthly orspiritual good--come unto me and I will give you that which you seek. Thisis the spirit of the text, and these are the words at the commencement ofthe tenth verse:

"As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth notthither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it (_the earth_) bring forthand bud (_not first bud, bear seed, and then bring forth_), that it (_theearth_) may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater (_man being theonly sower of seed and eater of bread_): so shall my Word be (_the Word ofLife_) that goeth forth out of my mouth (_the mouth of the Lord_); itshall not return unto me void (_i. E. , lifeless_), but it shall accomplishthat which I (_the Lord Jehovah_) please, and it (_the living Word_) shallprosper in the thing whereto I sent it. "

This formula of life is as true now as it was over two thousand sixhundred years ago, when it was penned by the divinely inspired prophet, and it is as true now as it was then, that "Instead of the thorn shallcome up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtletree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign thatshall not be cut off. " That is, as the rains descend and the floods comeand change the face of the earth, a law, equivalent to the divine command, "Let the earth bring forth, " is forever operative, changing the face ofnature and causing it to give expression to new forms of life as theconditions thereof are changed, and these forms are spoken into existenceby the divine fiat. 

In all the alternations of forest growths that are taking place to-day, onthis continent or elsewhere, this one vital law is traceable everywhere. In the course of the next year, it will be as palpable in the Island ofJava, recently desolated by the most disastrous earthquake recorded inhistory, as in any other portion of the earth, however free from suchvolcanic action. On the very spot where mountain ranges disappeared in aflaming sea of fire, and other ranges were thrown up in parallel lines buton different bases, and where it was evident that every seed, plant, tree, and thing of life perished in one common vortex of ruin, animal as well asvegetable life will make its appearance in obedience to this law, as soonas the rains shall again descend, cool the basaltic and other rocks, andthe life-giving power referred to by Isaiah once more become operative. There is no more doubt of this in the mind of the learned naturalist, thanin that of the most devout believer of the Bible, from which this mostremarkable formula is taken. 

We have no disposition to arraign the American and European "Agnostics, "as they are pleased to call themselves, for using the term "Nature"instead of God, in their philosophical writings. 

As long as they are evidently earnest seekers after _Truth_ as it is to befound in nature--the work of God--they are most welcome into the temple ofscience, and their theories deserve our thoughtful consideration. It isonly when they become dogmatic, and assert propositions that have nofoundation in truth, as we sincerely believe, that we propose to break alance at their expense, and lay bare their fallacies. We claim nothingmore for ourself, as a scientific writer, than we are willing and ready toaccord to them. Indeed, we would champion their right to be heard soonerthan we would our own, on the principle that it is our duty to be just toothers before we are generous to ourselves, or those of our own following. But our Agnostic friends should remember that when they charge us withbeing "dogmatic in science, " the charge should be made good from ascientific stand-point, and not merely by the bandying of words. 

When they tell us, for instance, that a toad has hibernated for a millionyears in any one of the stratified rocks near the surface of the ground, we interpose the objection that none of these batrachian forms can existfor a period of more than twelve months without air and food. And yet theyhave been blasted out of cavities in the surface rocks of the earth, wherethey have apparently lain for the period named by our scientific friendsreferred to. The fault is not ours, but theirs, that they are in error. Had they determined to study the subject of life, as we have done, fromthe Bible as well as from nature, they would have commenced at thesetoad-producing rocks, and worked their way upward to the source of alllife, and not downward to the vanishing point--that where animal lifeceases in the azoic rocks. The batrachians are low down in the scale ofnature, but they have a determinate period of existence, as do all otherforms of life. Try your experiments with them; see how long they will livewithout light, air, and food. This you can do as well as ourself. Conformto all the conditions required--the absolute exclusion of light, air, andfood--and you will find that the toughest specimen experimented with is adead batrachian inside of one year. 

This experimental test should settle the question of lengthened vitalitybetween us. There is no miracle about this matter at all, and sciencefinds no stumbling-block in the way of a complete explication of thisriddle, if, in the light of nature, there be any such riddle. We claimthere is not, when we interpret nature in the light of nature's God. Letthe earth, or rather its silicious and other decaying rocks, bring forththese batrachian forms. The command is imperative and not dependent uponany "seed" previously scattered or sown in the earth itself. 

The father of the writer was Superintendent of the Green Mountain TurnpikeCompany, extending from Bellows Falls to Rutland, Vt. , from 1812 to 1832, and worked every rod of that road many times over. From our earliestboyhood we accompanied him on these working trips, attended by a largeforce of laboring men, and our attention was early called to thecharacteristics of these toad-producing rocks. The rotting slates, shales, sandstones, shists, and rocks of various kinds, were often ploughed up bythe road-sides, and the _dA(C)bris_ scraped into the centre of the road-beds;the heaviest ploughs of that day being used to cut through these waysiderocks, and often requiring as many as six or eight yoke of oxen to breakthe necessary furrow. In many of these decaying slates, shists, sandstonesetc. , hundreds of young toads, many of them not more than half an inch inlength, were turned out at different seasons of the year, showing thatthey were produced independently of any parent batrachian, there being notrace of a mother toad in connection with them. 

The parent toads bury themselves in the gardens and ploughed fields in theearly autumn, and if they survive the severity of the winter months, maypropagate their kind the second year, and probably for several years. Butthey require remarkably favorable conditions to continue their life forany considerable number of years in open-field propagation, while under nocircumstances whatever can they make their way into these decaying rocksin order to propagate their species. The reason why such fresh specimensappear under these circumstances, and in the cavities of the rocks named, is conclusively that indicated by the prophet Isaiah, in the text quotedby us; and when Professor Agassiz was forced to admit that trout must havemade their appearance in the fresh-water streams emptying into LakeSuperior, instead of originating elsewhere, it is to be regretted, for thesake of science, that he did not boldly enunciate the formula of life astaught by the eagle-eyed prophet of the Bible, and not as proclaimed bythe owl-eyed professors of the London University College. 

What is true of the trout in these Lake Superior streams, is true of themalmost everywhere, even right in the town of Cheshire, Conn. , where we areinditing this preface, the 10th day of October, 1883. We recently visitedthe Rev. David D. Bishop, in the northeastern portion of this township, where that cultured gentleman was constructing an artificial trout-pond. It was at a season of the greatest drought known for years in that portionof the town. 

The point selected for this trout-pond was at the farthest eastern sourceof what is known as "Honey Pot" brook in Cheshire, a famous one for troutin former years. Mr. Bishop proposed to stock his pond with the best spawnhe could procure. We remarked to him that there was no need of thatexpense, as no stream ever produced better trout than the "Honey Pot"; andon closely examining one of the six or eight cold springs developed in hisenclosure, to his surprise, not ours, we discovered several small trout, not more than six weeks old, as lively as they could well be under theblasting operations then going on there; while his children were fishingout from the rocks any number of young frogs (of the common _Rana_family), abounding wherever rocks and water make their appearance insimilar localities. This incident was all the more remarkable for thereason that this small stream, or rather source of one, had beenapparently dry for months, as had been many of the best wells in the town. 

Our well, in the western part of the town, had been dug some six feetinto the solid rock and an inexhaustible supply of the coldest watersecured. We invited our neighbors, those living on both sides of us, aswell as at some distance from us, to come and draw all the water theywanted, remarking that they might now and then draw up a small frog, originating therein, but that, by fishing him out of the pail, he wouldmake his way to the neighboring streams not dry, and would flourish wellenough as one of the _Rana_ family. It was only to our more intelligentneighbors (such as Mr. Bishop) who had read our work on "Life, " that westopped to explain this phenomenal fact. And so of all life, wherever itappears, whether vegetable or animal. Our experiments with mosquitoes areequally conclusive. Three years ago we took two barrels of rain-waterfrom our cistern, tightly covered; one barrel we left open to the warmsun and air, and the other we covered with the finest mosquito netting. The barrel left open was soon thronged with mosquitoes, constructingtheir little rafts of eggs and paving their way for the swarms of youngwigglers that in the course of a week or two made their appearance in theopen barrel in immense numbers. The process by which these wigglers hatchout into mosquitoes is an interesting one, and will bear the closeststudy, as well as scientifically pay for watching the operation. At theproper time they come to the surface of the water, undergo a palpablemodification in their structure, and beautifully burgeon forth into thetormenting little insects that they are during the summer and autumnmonths in our Northern climate. The object of the covered barrel was toascertain whether we could reach the conditions favorable for thedevelopment of this little pest of the _Culex_ family, independently ofthe eggs of the insect itself. This required some patience and not alittle care. We knew that an egg dropped through the interstices of thenetting would sink to the bottom of the water and fail to germinate, asevery scientist understanding the process well knows. It must be floatedon the water at first, or until it reaches the point of development intoa wiggler. The first step in the process of its life is as cunninglydevised as the second, and the second as the third, until thefull-fledged mosquito is reached. 

All precautions must be taken against any mistake or error in theexperiment named. But we persevered and found nature responsive to ourdemands. Wigglers after awhile made their appearance sparsely in thecovered barrel, but the mosquitoes developed from them proved innocuous ofharm, as we kept the barrel covered, and they were soon drowned in thewater, not having sufficient area of flight to answer the conditions oftheir life. We might instance some remarkable discoveries in the vegetableworld, showing conclusively that plants and trees come without seed, andwe feel the more pride in this discovery because we have been assured byProf. Othniel C. Marsh, of Yale College, a gentleman highly distinguishedin his specialties, that if we would show that an oak tree came without anacorn, he would abandon Evolution and accept the exposition given by us ofthe Bible genesis; but we have no special ambition to make so eminent aconvert from Herbert Spencer's ranks. He is a much younger man thanourself, but the great English Evolutionist or Involutionist, whichever hemay ultimately decide to call himself, is about the writer's own age, and, for special reasons, he would prefer to win him to the vital side of thisquestion, that he may act with Professor Beale in the great controversynow waging in England on this subject, and we will assure both Prof. Marsh, and his friend, Herbert Spencer, that if either of them will showthat an acorn comes without an oak tree, we will abandon any position wehave taken on this subject, and accept theirs, however absurdly (to ourmind) it may have been taken in the past. We know that "tall oaks fromlittle acorns grow;" but that is when man becomes the sower of seed, andknows the origin of each specific tree that is brought forth. When we talkabout the squirrel, or the birds becoming the "sowers of seeds, "especially the acorns, we are talking at random, and without any certainknowledge. This we say with all due deference and respect to our learnedAgnostic friends, and wish they would treat their vitalistic brothers withthe same becoming courtesy. 

In a work which we have now in preparation for the press, to be entitled"Biodynamics; or, The Laws of Life, " we shall give this "seed question" amore exhaustive inquiry than we have yet done. 

Our proofs in regard to one form of life are equally applicable to anyother plant, insect, or animal, and there is no greater or less mystery inthe life of a blade of grass than in the cedar of Lebanon figuring soconspicuously in the historic page. 

When the Nile overflowed its banks in ancient times, and caused the youngfrogs to swarm up as a pest upon the Egyptians, the same law of life wasoperative in that land, as when warm thunder-showers pelt the earth withus in the summer season, causing hundreds and thousands of thesebatrachians to come out of the gritty waysides, and swarm along ourhighways and by-ways, leading ignorant and thoughtless people to supposethat they have rained down from the sky. The simple fact is, that theearth was commanded to bring them forth, and that great mother of allvegetable and animal life is obeying the command to-day, just as she didin the beginning. 

One of the greatest errors that science has yet committed, or rather thatscientific men have stumbled upon, is the theory that all living formshave appeared but once in time and place, and that they have thencediffused themselves, in pairs, throughout the globe, as from specificcentres of origin. In the primeval oceans, whenever and wherever theenvironing conditions of matter were the same or identical, the likeliving forms made their appearance and flourished for hundreds andthousands of years, and finally disappeared, in a fossilized state, astheir environing conditions were changed. They came not genetically--as inpairs--but thronged the seas in thousands and millions as the divine edictwent forth. 

As another conclusive proof, to our mind, of the existence of this law oflife, we instance the case of the mango-tree growing in the West IndiaIslands, especially along the sea-shore, where it becomes the natural_habitat_ of the oyster. It is the belief of some ignorant persons thatthe oyster climbs these trees and deposits its spawn or "spat" upon theextreme limbs of the same as they bend down toward the water. This ismanifestly an error, and belongs to the same class of fallacies as thecommon impression that toads rain down from the sky. The smallermango-trees growing about the bays and inlets of these islands, furnish, as we have said, a natural _habitat_ for the oyster, and as the saltsea-spray washes their roots and the bark of their trunks, the longthin-shelled oysters of that region make their appearance thereon withoutthe presence of spawn, just as they do when old oyster-shells are dumpedalong our sand-banks in New England. On these dumped shells oysters willbe produced abundantly, simply because the conditions are favorable, andnot in consequence of the presence of "spat. " Oysters have little, if any, locomotive power, and can no more climb the mango-tree than they can scalethe cliffs of the Azores. The reason why they hang in pendent clustersfrom the extreme boughs of the mango in the West India Islands is, thatthese boughs are sprayed upon by the rippling waters, and the environingconditions being favorable, the indifferent oyster of that region makesits appearance. 

There has been no migration of the oyster from one centre of origin toanother, any more than there has been a transference of the white whalefrom the arctic seas to the fiery equator. Every thing has its place innature, and comes with or without seed as natural laws determine. Duringthe last year I have gathered cedar trees that did not make theirappearance till late in August and September, long after the seed of theprevious year had entirely disappeared, and there was no more life in themthan there is in acorns that have crossed the Atlantic a dozen times inbulk. And the late Henry D. Thoreau, in his "Excursions, " says that theywill not stand one such shipment to Europe, and that every acorn that doesnot sprout by the end of November of the year it matures, is hopelessly adead acorn. This is in harmony with our experience, and we have no doubtof the correctness of his observations. How absurd, then, to suppose thatacorns can retain their vitality so as to germinate after years ofout-door or other exposure. The seeds of forest-trees that mature in Mayand June, or the majority of them at least, have to be planted in thosemonths, as all persons engaged in forest culture well know. This isspecially true of cedars and oaks, as well as of elms and maples. 

Study the paleontological facts as given by Prof. Frederick McCoy, of theUniversity of Melbourne, in Australia, a gentleman highly distinguishedfor his learning and research. He has explored portions of that continentas far down as the azoic rocks, and made many important discoveries as tothe past life of the globe. His researches have been especially rich inthe Cambrian or Lower Silurian epochs, and have led to many modificationsin the classification of the various forms of life pervading those earlierperiods, and we may say that the facts he has brought to light tendstrongly to show the correctness of our theory as taken from the biblicaltext; as, for instance, the _Trilobites_, occurring so abundantly in whatis known as the Utica slates. Wherever the slates make their appearance, whether in Australia, America, or any portion of Europe, this fossil, characteristic of the Silurian and Devonian systems, appeared, not so muchin time and place as in extended localities and conditions--indicating thepresence of a law of life such as we have enunciated. We once inquired ofthe elder Prof. Silliman how long it took for the formation of one ofthese periods or systems? His reply was curt and pertinent: "It took longenough, young man!" That satisfied us at the time, and we have never askedthe question since. It is prying beyond scientific depth, and the ablestscholars in the world will so regard it in the end. 

All fossils follow the same developmental law, and seem to have beengoverned by corresponding conditions everywhere. The doctrine of "_similiasimilibus gignuntur_"--similar conditions producing similar forms--obtainsuniversally. The _Graptolites_, occurring in the bituminous shales of theSilurian sandstone period, afford only another instance of the same law towhich we have called the attention of our readers. In fact, the annals ofnatural history abound in the most conclusive proofs, as well in thefossilized as the living world, of what the paramount text of the Bibleteaches us. 

When Professor Ehrenberg, one of the most distinguished classifiers ofminute forms of life in the world, declared, as he recently did before theRoyal Geographical Society of London, that there was "a great invisiblerock-and earth-forming life in nature, " he came pretty near enunciating agreat truth in science; and had he connected his language with theinduction of "environing conditions" and the sequence of life therefrom, he would have accomplished what we undertook to do in our work begunseveral years ago, but not completed and published until 1880. For it willbe seen that we had been gathering the material for "Life: Its TrueGenesis" for many years before we sat down to the task of writing it. 

When we said to one of our most intimate college friends that we were lessthan six months preparing it for the press, we stated what was literallytrue; but we had no intention of giving him to understand that we hadspent only that time in gathering the vast amount of material at ourcommand--twenty times as much as we could possibly use in the preparationof such a volume for the press. The long months and even years of toil andstudy spent by us in the needful preparation, were a part of the labor, asevery author, writing intelligently on any subject, knows. The immenseamount of care and labor that enabled Hermann von Meyer to prepare hispaper on the _ArchA|opterix_, rescued from the lithographic slate, is acase in point, as showing how small apparently the labor of accomplishinga great work for science. The time devoted to preparing the paper wastrifling as compared with the result of his achievement. And so with everyone who enters the temple of science with a devout wish to attain success. 

It will be apparent to the religious mind of this country and England, ifnot to that of Mr. Tyndall himself, that, if the exegetical rendering wehave extended to the Bible be correct, there is no necessity whatever forthe vast uncomputed periods of time intervening the different geologicalstrata, to which that scientific gentleman refers in his fanciful musingsupon the Matterhorn!

Nor is there any such necessity for it, if what Professor Ehrenberg saysbe true in regard to the basaltic rocks thrown up by volcanic action inthe Island of St. Paul. For if these rocks possess this mysterious powerof life, He who made them manifestly imparted it. One thing is certain, atleast, the rocks did not make themselves; nor did they impart tothemselves any life-originating power after they were made. The same powerthat originated them originated all their characteristic properties, andthe same may be said of Professor Tyndall's "sky-mist" or any othermistier name suggested by scientific men. We have only to take the"Thesaurus" of the Silurian period, and connect it with the induction ofthe biblical text, and we shall see that the forms characteristic of thatperiod appeared not only synchronously in time and space, but also inphysical conditions, and consequently, that no immense epochs wereexpended in the propagation, of species on the "two-pair" theory of ourmaterialistic friends. They simply flourished over vast areas for a while, and were then locked up as fossils where they are now found. How long ittook for this transformation to take place is manifestly beyond any datawe may now have for determining. In the case of some artificial baths inwhich crystalline forms appear, we know that it takes only a few weeks atleast, and why should natural processes be any more delinquent ordefective in their operation than those that are purely artificial?Remember that we are not "musing on the Matterhorn" as was the giftedEnglish naturalist, but upon the text of the equally gifted Isaiah, andpondering the works of God as seen by the devout prophet in his day. WhenMr. Tyndall can tell us how long it took God to lift the toweringMatterhorn from its base, he will be in a frame of mind to answer theother problems involved in the controversy between us. In an instant--thetwinkling of an eye--some of these phenomena have occurred, and recentevents, such as wide volcanic disturbances, show how idle it is for man toplace a limit to the power of the Most High. Even the "red snow, "unmistakably a vegetal formation, appearing at times on the loftier Alps, is as much a proof of God's power as the ragged mountain peaks on which itappears--covering vast areas within a few hours' time. 

When such men as the late Professor Silliman, and Professor Dana, Sen'r, of Yale College, take up the Bible genesis, and speak in high commendationof its value to science, it is idle for the Agnostics of that or any otherinstitution of learning to speak sneeringly of their efforts. They bothknow (for the elder Benjamin Silliman "still lives") that the firstcommand of this genesis was, for the earth to bring forth its vegetation, not from "seed" distinctively so-called, but from the germinal principlesof life therein; what Ehrenberg calls the "rock-and earth-forming life" orpower of life in matter. 

That the second command was, for the waters of the earth to bring forththeir specific forms of life, including the birds; just where science nowasserts they originally came from. 

And that the third command was, for the earth to bring forth the beaststhereof, and every creeping thing thereon. Here the "rock-andearth-forming" power of life ceased, and the language of the genesischanges. It is no longer "Let the earth bring forth, " but let the Divineenergy intervene!

"Let us (the divine Trinity in Unity) make man in our own image"--afterour own conception of what he should be--the being of two worlds, thematerial and spiritual; and man was made accordingly. God breathed intohis nostrils the breath of life, and he became a "living soul. " This isthe record--brief, grand, historic. No "evolution, " no "involution, " noword without sense or meaning. He who was to have dominion, in his limitedsphere, over all the earth, thus came in due time for a wiser and granderpurpose than man has yet seen; but which, in the providence of God and thelight of His word, he will yet come to see, as scientific truth advanceswith the march of religious knowledge. Heaven speed the day when thismillennium of truth shall dawn upon us here!

In this remarkable genesis we have a bridge that spans the chasm betweenthe man and the anthropoid ape as no other bridge spans it. It is a bridgeover which is flung the living garment of God, and angelic hosts may passit to and fro, as well as the master-minds of our own and future ages. Ittakes man out of the category of a "beast of the earth, " and places himwhere all soul-aspiration lifts us--lifts even Robert G. Ingersoll, in hishigher inspirational moods, or will lift him when his extreme materialdogmatisms and false teachings desert him, as we trust they some day will. Let him read the "Student, " by Bulwer, and he will learn how narrowlyVoltaire escaped becoming a "Reformer" in the Church of England, insteadof the violent antagonist he was of the corrupt Church of Rome in France. We do not make ourselves; it is the environing circumstances andconditions in which we are placed which oftentimes determine our careerfor good or for evil. 

We had proposed embodying in this Preface one or two caustic reviews ofour late work, from an Agnostic source, but have been deterred from sodoing, for the reason that we deem it in bad taste as well as irrelevantat this late day. We shall be pardoned, however, in alluding to _TheNational Quarterly Review_, for the captious manner in which it treated usafter we had courteously replied to several inquiries made of us in itstwo- or three-page review. After complaining that we had been "hailed, by aclass of callow religious critics, as a 'Savior' from scientific error andenormities, " it charged us with certain unscrupulous methods ofcriticism, --such as putting language into Mr. Darwin's mouth that he neverthought of uttering, etc. , etc. And as this pretentious Quarterly putseveral questions to us, such as "When and where the great Evolutionisthad taught any such doctrine as this?" we ventured to reply as courteouslyas we knew how. We endeavored to treat our reviewer fairly, as he hadhandsomely accorded to us the credit of "searching the fields of naturalscience, lance in hand, to deal hard thrusts at impious skeptics, materialists, and evolutionists--of which Mr. Darwin and Mr. Bastian farethe most severely. " But we had no thought of using these offensiveadjectives toward either of the distinguished gentlemen named, and did notso use them; however "unscrupulous" our methods may have been in otherrespects. Our reply was unnoticed by the bulky Quarterly, and we werecontent with knowing that it was received by its editor, and shared thefate of all intrusive communications which it is easier to throw into thewaste-basket, especially in hot weather, than to answer in the interestsof science, when such answers are difficult to be made. This was the firstand only discussion we attempted to provoke with our "exhaustiveReviewers, " and it will, in all probability, be the last. Little is gainedby these polemical controversies, when conducted in the spirit ofunfairness, or with greater asperity than the true interests of journalismdemand. The beauty of its kindly advice to us, as a "scientific critic, "was that every word of it came back, as a cruel boomerang, into thewriter's own face. 

But this is enough. For the last three years we have been mostly engagedin writing another book, the character of which is already sufficientlyindicated in this Preface. The reasons why we have been led to adhere toour original purpose of making this a "Bible Genesis, " as _The NationalQuarterly Review_ speaks of it, are best known to our more intimatefriends, and we do not propose to disappoint them in their expectations. 

If we have failed to make our theory understood by others, we regret it;if others fail to understand the inspired text, it is manifestly a matterfor them to regret, and for us to deplore. 

To those who have spoken kindly of "Life: Its True Genesis, " we return ourthanks: to those who have extended to it their sharpest criticisms, inwhat they believe the true interests of science, we also return ourthanks. We have no fear that Truth will be crushed in this contest:

 "Truth crushed to earth shall heavenward rise again, Like wayside flowers that lift their heads, aglow With a far sweeter fragrance when they've been All rudely trampled on by hostile foe, Than when in Flora's gentle arms they've lain The long night through, and wake at early dawn To greet Aurora--jewelled queen of morn!"

R. W. Wright. 

West Cheshier, Conn. , _Oct_. 12, 1883. 

Prefatory. 

The office of a preface is twofold; first, to introduce the author to thepublic; second, to introduce his work. As the writer seeks no personalintroduction, beyond what a favorable or unfavorable reception of his workmay give him, he leaves the more formal, if not formidable branch ofsalutation untouched. 

The work has cost him some labor, as the reader will see. The field he hastraversed is vast and varied, and the facts he has gathered are numerousand from many and diversified sources--all bearing more or lessconclusively on the one vital point he seeks to establish, viz: _That theprimordial germs (meaning germinal principles of life) of all livingthings, man alone excepted, are in themselves upon the earth, and thatthey severally make their appearance, each after its kind, whenever andwherever the necessary environing conditions exist_. 

The foundation of this emphatic formula we find in the Bible Genesis, inthe words given on our title-page, which are more accurately translated inthe Septuagint, than in our common English version of the Old Testament. The words are to be found in the 11th verse of the first chapter ofGenesis, and the writer confidently believes that they contain the trueGenesis of Life, although entirely overlooked, heretofore, by both thebiblical and scientific scholar. 

In the work which he here gives to the public, he will endeavor to showthat all the vital phenomena of our globe, with the single exceptionnamed, find their complete explication in this Genesis of Life; and thatwe have only to take the scientific Genesis out of some of its moreimposing categories, to make the two either entirely harmonize, or fallinto the same lines of incidence in human thought. 

Science has long taught that the _absence_ of necessary physiologicalconditions results everywhere in the _disappearance_ of vital phenomena;by reversing its logical methods, it will also find that the _presence_ ofthese necessary conditions results everywhere in the _appearance_ of vitalphenomena. Take, for instance, the vegetation of Northern Europe, where itis known that the oak succeeded the pine, and the beech the oak, aftereach had held possession of the soil for we know not how many thousandyears. In bringing about the necessary conditions of soil, the pine pavedthe way for the oak, and that in turn paved the way for the beech. Neithersprang from the other, nor did the "selection of the fittest" haveanything to do with the appearance or disappearance of either. Eachyielded fruit "after his kind, " whose "seed" (germinal principle of life)was in itself, i. E. , after its own kind, upon the earth, and made itsappearance spontaneously, --that is, without the presence of naturalseed, --whenever the necessary environing conditions favored. 

And the same law of vegetal propagation is everywhere operative to-day, inthe alternations of forest growths, the spontaneous appearance of oakforests where pine have been cleared away, and _vice versa_, in some partsof the country, where heavy forests of oak timber have been felled. Sowith the new growths of timber springing up in the paths of tornadoes, over large burnt districts, in soils brought up from below the lastglacial drift, and in hundreds of other instances which the reader willfind conclusively verified in these pages, --all making their appearancewithout the possible intervention of natural seeds. 

The great value of the Septuagint, as compared with other versions of theHebrew Bible, will appear from the fact that it is older by many hundredyears than any manuscript copy of the Hebrew text now extant. It wasundoubtedly translated at Alexandria, in Egypt, as early as the thirdcentury before Christ, while the oldest known Hebrew MS. Is a Pentateuchroll dating no further back than A. D. 580. Its translators had beforethem much older and more perfect MSS. Than any that survived to the timeof the masoretic recension, when an attempt was made to give uniformity tothe readings and renderings of the Hebrew text by means of the vowelpoints, diacritical signs, terminal letters, etc. , all of which are nowsubject to rejection by the best Oriental scholarship. 

According to IrenA|us, this Greek version was rendered at the request ofPtolemy Lagi, in order to add to the treasures of the Alexandrian library, and it no doubt derived its name from the number of Hebrew and Hellenisticscholars, --probably the most eminent to be found in that day, --employedupon the work. The version comes, therefore, with paramount authority toour own times; and we accept its Greek rendering as the highest and mostconclusive evidence of the authenticity of the text, and the "new genesisof life" we derive therefrom. 

ILIEuroI-II1/4I+- (as contained in the Septuagint) has almost an identicalsignification with the Hebrew word ZRA. It means the "_germ_ of anything, "or the "germinal principle of life, " as contained in anything that livesor grows. No one will claim that it is used in its literal sense of"seed, " in the text. For, when the divine command was issued, there was noplant or tree, and, presumably, had been none upon the earth from whichseed could have been derived. The word was used in its larger and morecomprehensive (that is, metaphorical) sense, as the "germinal principle oflife in matter, " or precisely in the sense in which the Greek stoics usedit in their philosophy. Both Theophrastus and Diogenes use the termsIfIEuroI muII1/4I+-I"a?1/2II?a1/2 I cubedIOEI cubedI?I expressing "the _laws of generation contained inmatter_"--precisely the meaning we attach to it in its textualconnection. The eleventh verse should read, therefore, as follows: "Letthe earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-treeyielding fruit after his kind, _whose germinal principle of life, each initself after its kind, is upon the earth_"

We accept this rendering of "the seventy, " because they had the mostcomplete and perfect Hebrew MSS. Before them, and were no doubt betterscholars, and far more competent renderers of the original text than theMasorites who came some seven or eight hundred years after them. 

But this is not the most important point of inquiry in this connection. The materialistic objector may say: "Admit all this; grant that the truerendering is here given; grant even that the true law of vegetaldevelopment and growth is here enunciated; what has 'star-eyed science' todo with the '_odium theologicum_?'" We answer, nothing. We would bury boththeological rancor and atheistical pretension in the same barrow, andagree never to "peep and botanize" over their common grave. But if a greatscientific principle--one that fits into all the phenomenal facts ofnature--explains them all, and is, in turn, explained by them--be found inthe Hebrew _Hagiographa_, of what less value is it to science than if ithad been originally enunciated by Aristotle or Plato? Or--to make theinquiry still sharper and more emphatic--of what less value is it toscience than if it had originally come from Professor Tyndall or Mr. Herbert Spencer?

Take the "biblical genesis" as we have enunciated and explained it--withall the facts crowded into these explanatory pages--and science has nolonger any genetic mystery to brood over, further than that everyoperation of nature is a mystery into which it is useless for scientificspeculation to pry. We know what nature _does_, or may know it by theproper scrutiny, but we shall never know the causes of things, any morethan we shall find God at the bottom of Herbert Spencer's crucible, or atthe top of his ladder of synthesis. In the light of the Bible genesis, science can account for the origin of the stalwart oak or the lordly pine, without going back to any mycological or cryptogamic forms, to follow downan ever-changing vital plexus that is as likely to land in a buttonwoodtree as an oak, or in a hemlock as a pine, --in fact, quite as likely toland in a carnivorous animal as in an insectivorous plant. "Let the earthbring forth, " is still the eternal fiat, --just as implicitly obeyed to-dayas it was in the world's primeval history, when an exuberance ofendogenous vegetation laid the foundation of the coal measures. Itrequires no greater effort on the part of nature to produce the pine, theoak, the beech, the hickory--all of which we see springing directly fromprimordial germs to-day--than it did to produce the lowest vegetalorganism, from an invisible, indestructible "vital unit, " or Darwiniangemmule, thousands of years ago. 

He who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and in whose sight athousand years are but as yesterday, knows no such "law of variability" asour materialistic friends have been spinning for us in their unverifiedtheories of evolution, natural selection, selection of the fittest, rejection of the unfit--force-correlations, molecular machinery, transmutation of physical forces, differentiation, dynamical aggregates, _molA(C)cules organiques_, potentiated sky-mist, undifferentiated"life-stuff, " and other hylotheistic and purely hypothetical formulA|, with which the average mind has been well-nigh crazed for the last fifteenor twenty years. 

Believing that the time has come to call for "a halt" in scientificspeculations, and a return to the phenomenal facts of nature as the trueand only basis on which to formulate the immutable laws of life, matter, motion, etc. , the writer submits this volume with trustful confidence tothe public. [1]

R. W. Wright. 

West Cheshire, Conn. 

True Genesis. 

Chapter I. 

Introductory. 

It is undeniably true that the progress of scientific thought andspeculative inquiry, both in this country and in Europe, is rapidlytending towards a purely materialistic view of the universe, or one thatutterly excludes the ancient and long-predominating metaphysicalconceptions of Life, to say nothing of the more regnant and universallyprevailing conception of a God. And it is quite as undeniable that thecurrent of experimental research and investigation is setting, with equalrapidity, in the same direction. According to the views of many of ourmore advanced chemists, physiologists, and other scientific andspeculative writers and thinkers--those whose experimental investigationshave, it is claimed, reached the ultimate implications of all materialsubstance--there are but two immutable, indestructible, and thoroughlypersistent elements in the universe--_Matter_ and _Motion_. Everythingelse, they confidently assert, is either purely phenomenal, or elseessentially mutable, ephemeral, transitory. Force, according to theirtheory, is only another name for motion or its correlates, and, hence, thetwo terms are interchangeably used by them in predicating their ultimateconclusions respecting matter. 

Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, molecular force, and even life itself, are only so many manifestations or expressions, theyclaim, of one and the same force in the universe--_Motion_, With theexception of matter, it is the only self-persistent, permanently enduring, ever active and reactive agency. 

Light, they say, is dependent, heat conditional, electricity and magnetismmore or less phenomenal, chemical affinity and molecular force mere modesor correlated forms of motion, and all-pervading life itself a merepostulate of the schools, or at best only the result of the dynamic forceof molecules. 

Deem not this collocation simply a burlesque on Scientific categories. Professor Bastian, in his great work on the "Beginnings of Life, " hasunhesitatingly said: "The 'vitalists' must give up their laststronghold--we cannot even grant them a right to assume the existence of aspecial 'vital force' whose peculiar office it is to effect thetransformation of physical forces. The notion that such a force doesexist, is based on no evidence; it is a mere postulate. The assumption ofits existence carries with it nothing but confusion and contradiction, because the very supposition that it exists, and does so act, is totallyaverse to the general doctrine of the correlation of forces. "

And this defiant challenger of the "vitalists, " who thus half-sneeringlyspeaks of those who believe that the vital forces of the universe areamong the highest potential factors expressed therein, is one who, for thelast decade and a half, has mostly lived in the ephemeromorphic world, andwho, in diving into the "beginnings of life, " has so far lost his way thatthe all-glorious end of it is as much an inexplicable mystery to him now, as when he was more successfully expounding pathological anatomy andruthlessly hacking away at anatomical subjects over the dissecting-slab ofthe London University College. Had he spent less time over thisdissecting-slab, and more in studying the marvellous manifestations oflife in its outspoken beauty of leaf, bud, flower, fruit--things of notmere guess and fancy--he would undoubtedly have had a higher appreciationof what is most vital in nature, and less of what is simply material in anon-functional sense. With Mr. Herbert Spencer, he gratuitously sneers atthe "old specific-creation hypothesis, " or the divine fiat in thebeginning; but without that fiat, where would he find his ephemeromorphs?or even the dead tissues used in his organic infusions for the vainest ofall human endeavors--that of producing life, or seeking to produce it, _denovo_? He is so immeasurably disgusted with the vitalists that he hardlyallows himself to speak of "life" or even use the term "vital" as appliedto its simplest manifestations, without quotationizing them as terms toprovoke both incredulity and derision. 

The world may, however, overlook much of this in him, in view of his pastprofessional pursuits, as well as in consideration of his eminent servicesas a specialist in science. The dissecting-room of a university is not themost desirable place in the world for profoundly studying the vital forcesof nature. It is too grim and ghastly a repository of dead men's skulls, and "holes where eyes did once inhabit, " in which to regard "life'senchanting cup" as one sparkling to the brim. Detaching a muscle here, andlaying bare another there; taking out a sightless eye in one subject, andputting the dissecting-knife deep into the pulseless heart of another;cutting the fragments of a human body into shreds and tatters over onedissecting-slab, and loading down another with splintered bones andmangled hands and limbs, is not exactly the sort of occupation to enkindlethe highest enthusiasm for "life, " in any of its more manifold phases innature. Too many lifeless notions get crammed into the head--to saynothing of baffled endeavor in the pursuit--to admit of the moreconclusive and satisfactory inductions respecting living organisms. 

But why should an assumption of the existence of life carry with it anygreater "confusion and contradiction, " than a like assumption respectingeither matter or motion? Simply because the materialists insist, in theirlogical inductions, upon so distributing the terms of their syllogism thatonly a negative conclusion shall follow. 

"Matter and motion, " they say, are alone indestructible. 

Life is neither matter nor motion, Therefore: Life is not indestructible. 

This syllogism is manifestly unanswerable, if there be no fallacy in thedistribution of its major and minor terms. But wherein lies theincompatibility of reversing the order of its terms, so as to prove thatneither matter nor motion is indestructible? And would such a judgment, thus derived, be any more spurious, the process of reasoning any moreillicit, or the conclusion any less unanswerable? We might as well saythat neither matter nor motion is an absolute entity in the universe, without some apprehensive intelligence, or rational intuition therein, toembrace them as distinct concepts or objects of thought; nor can eitherhave the least conceivable attribute without some co-existing intelligenceto ascribe it. For to ascribe an attribute, is to conceive or think ofsuch attribute. And as our general conceptions are conceded to berealities, even by the materialists themselves, it necessarily followsthat this conscious _ego_--this thing that conceives, thinks, ascribesattributes--is either co-existent with matter, or else antedates it in theorder of existence. And here--at this identical point in the argument--weare irresistibly forced back, in our inductive processes, to thetheological conception of a God--the one supreme _Ego_ of theuniverse--from whom alone all our intuitions of consciousness, as well asapprehensive intelligence, is derived. 

We can no more get rid of these inductive processes than we can change theorder of nature or reverse the inevitable laws of thought. Hence, we areconstantly driven to formulate the following, or some equivalentinductions:--

1. Cause must exist before effect. 

2. Without some vital principle, therefore, preA"xisting as a cause, therecan be no life-manifestation. 

3. But there can be no life-manifestation without organic structure. 

4. The reverse of this proposition is also true. 

5. Which, therefore, precedes the other as a cause, and which follows asan effect?

6. Nothing can organize itself. To do so, it must contain within itselfboth the operating cause and the resulting effect, which is at once anincongruent and conflictive judgment. 

7. But the thing that organizes must exist before the thing organized, whether it be a vital principle or an intelligent agency. 

8. Hence Life, either as a preA"xisting cause or vital agency, must precedeboth animal and vegetal organism. 

Again:--

9. Cause is that which operates to produce an effect, as effect is thatwhich is produced by an operating cause. 

10. But whatever operates to produce a life-manifestation must precede itas an operating cause. 

11. Life, therefore, whether as a blind or intelligent force or agency, must precede its own manifestation; that is, must exist as an operatingcause before there is any produced effect. 

12. And this is true both as regards physical and moral effects. 

13. Our intuitions, as the final arbiters of judgment, demand this or someequivalent order as the only one embraced in a logical praxis. 

And since there can be no sound without an ear to appreciate it, so therebe can no matter without an existing _ego_, in some state of consciousnessin the universe, to apprehend it--to ascribe to it attributes. [2] On what, therefore, are we to predicate the existence of either matter or motion, except it be these intuitions of consciousness whose validity, so far aswe have any knowledge whatever on the subject, rests exclusively on that"breath of life, " which was breathed into man when he became a livingsoul? But if our intuitions are not realities, then nothing is a reality. All is as unsubstantial, as vague and shadowy, as Coleridge's "image of arock, " or Bishop Berkeley's "ghost of a departed quantity, " as he oncedefined a fluxion. We may, therefore, retort upon Professor Bastian:--The"materialists, " must give up their last stronghold--we cannot even grantthem a right to assume the existence of either matter or motion, sinceboth manifestly depend, for their slightest manifestation, upon the morepotent agency of "vital force, " as expressed in thought, volition, andconsciousness--that triumvirate of the intellectual faculties withoutwhich neither matter nor motion could have so much as a hypotheticalexistence. 

The great trouble with Professor Bastian, as with Mr. Herbert Spencer, isthat he advances a purely materialistic hypothesis, and then goes to work, with his quantitative and conditional restrictions, to eliminate all vitalforce from the universe. As he has been no more successful in findingGod--the Infinite source of all life--at the point of hisdissecting-knife, than has the speculative chemist at the bottom of hiscrucible, or Mr. Spencer at the top of his ladder of synthesis, heresolutely grapples with logic, as a last resort, and as remorselesslysyllogizes God out of the universe as he would a mythological demoninfecting the atmosphere of his dissecting-room. In the same way, hesuccessfully syllogizes all life out of existence: although, in the veryact of constructing his syllogism, he demonstrates its existence asconclusively as that matter and motion are objective realities in theworld of mind and matter which is about him. He fails to see, however, that the thing which demonstrates must necessarily precede the thingdemonstrated, as life must necessarily precede its manifestation. Inadmitting the existence of "vital manifestation, " therefore, he virtuallyadmits an antecedent vital principle, lying back of an effect as a cause, which must exclude anything like a contradictory judgment, so long as thelaws of the human mind, in respect to logical antecedents and consequents, remain as they are. 

Whatever may be the alleged inaccuracies of the Bible Genesis or thedisputes heretofore indulged in respecting the _Hagiographa_, or "sacredwritings" of the Jews, it will hardly be denied by the Biblical scholarthat some of the most important discoveries in modern science, especiallyin the direction of astronomy, as well as in geological research andinquiry, confirm rather than throw doubt upon their more explicitutterances. This has been so marked a feature in the controversy, thatwhenever scientific speculation has thrown down any fresh gage of battle, as against the validity of these "sacred writings, " the advocates of thelatter have only had to take it up to dispel the mists of controversy andachieve a more conclusive triumph than ever. For the truth of thisstatement it is only necessary for us to instance a few of the moreimportant facts contained in the Bible Genesis. And should it be foundthat the writer of this volume has discovered, in a long overlooked, muchneglected, and inaccurately translated passage of this Genesis, a key thatunlocks the whole "mystery of life, " as the great battle is now wagingbetween the materialists and vitalists of this country and Europe, it willmost conclusively establish the point we shall here make--that in noequally limited compass, in ancient or modern manuscript or publishedvolume, since the first dawn of letters to the present time, are there tobe found so many conclusively established facts of genuine scientificvalue as in the first chapter of Genesis. 

In dispelling the mists of prejudice, and possibly of doubtfultranslation, let us look this "genesis" squarely in the face:--

1. Take the statement that "in the beginning" the earth was without formand void, and darkness rested upon the face of the depths. Here is notonly no conflict with science, but the great suggestive fact which ledLaplace to construct his "Nebular Hypothesis, " or that magnificentsystem of world-structures which regards the universe as originallyconsisting of uniformly diffused matter filling all space, and hence"without form and void, " but which subsequently became aggregated bygravitation into an infinite number of sun-systems, occupyinginconceivably vast areas in space. 

2. Nor can science well afford to cavil at that other most importantsuggestive statement that "the spirit of God"--the great formative forceof the universe--moved upon the face of the depths, after which theevening and the morning were the first day, that is, the first distinctiveepoch in the order of creation. When materialistic science shall define"gravitation"--the supposed aggregating force of infinitely diffusedmatter in space--so as to make it a distinct and separate factor in theuniverse from "the spirit of God, "--that spirit which was breathed intoman when he became a living soul, and which, we are told, "upholds theorder of the heavens, " then its devotees may sneer at the Bible Genesis, and the logical deductions to be drawn therefrom. 

3. Again, science can have no conflict with the Bible Genesis, except inthe most hypercritical way, in the affirmative statement that God set twogreat lights in the firmament, the one to rule the day and the other torule the night; and that "he made the stars also. " For it is nowherestated that the "greater light" was not made to perform a similar officefor each of the other planets of our system, or that it was not set in thefirmament to adorn the skies of other and far-distant worlds, as "brightArcturus, fairest of the stars, " adorns our own. 

4. Nor can materialistic science dispute the more explicitly revealedfact, that the order of creation, so far at least as animal and vegetablelife are concerned, is precisely that to be found in geologicaldistribution, or as unerringly recorded in the lithographic pages ofnature. And yet nothing was known of these pages--not a leaf had beenturned back--at the time the Bible Genesis was written. So that, whoeverwas its author, this precise order of distribution could only have been"guessed at, " setting aside its inspirational claims, by the writer ofthis most remarkable genesis. 

5. And again, science can have no successful conflict--certainly none inwhich she will ultimately come off victor--in reference to the equallyexplicit statement that every living thing, and every living creature, either yields seed, bears fruit, or brings forth issue, "after his kind, "and distinctively none other. For this would seem to be the one inflexiblelaw governing all living organisms, from which there can be no divergencein any such sense as the "scientific genesis, " pretentiously so called, would authoritatively indicate. No "increase in variety, " which Mr. Spencer regards as the "essential characteristic of all progress, " willever enable us "to gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles. "

6. Nor will materialistic science ever succeed in overthrowing the Bibletheory herein advanced, that "the germs of all living things, man onlyexcepted, are in themselves (that is, each after its kind) upon theearth, " and that they severally make their appearance whenever thenecessary environing conditions occur. This most remarkable statement ofthe Bible genesis will be found to fit into all the vital phenomenaoccurring upon our globe, explaining the appearance of infusoria, allmycological and cryptogamic forms, as well as all vegetal and animalorganisms. All these come from "the earth wherein there is life, " andhence the divine command for the earth "to bring forth" every living thing(except man) "after his kind. "

But let us embrace, in the proper antithetical summary of statements, someof the more distinctive points of antagonism between the Bible genesis andthat of materialistic science:--

THE BIBLE GENESIS. 

1. The Bible Genesis presents the theological conception of a God, or anInfinite Intelligence in the universe, with whom, as personified, there isno variableness, neither shadow of turning. 

2. The Bible Genesis represents every living thing as _perfect_ of itskind, which the earth was commanded to bring forth from seed or "germs, "declared to be in themselves upon the earth. 

3. The Bible Genesis represents God as causing to grow, out of the ground, every tree that is "pleasant to the sight and good for food, " also everyplant of the field "before it was in the earth, " and every herb of thefield "before it grew. "

4. The Bible Genesis represents God as causing the waters of the earth tobring forth abundantly great whales and every living creature that moveththerein, and every winged fowl that flieth above the earth in the openfirmament of heaven. 

5. The Bible Genesis represents God as causing the earth to bring forthevery living creature "after his kind, " enumerating them in the order inwhich they appear in geological distribution. 

6. The Bible Genesis represents God as making man in his own image, afterhe had commanded the waters and the earth to bring forth abundantly ofevery other living creature. 

7. The Bible Genesis represents God as breathing into man "the breath oflife, " and he became a "living soul, "

8. The Bible Genesis represents God as creating the earth for the abode ofman--giving him dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the beasts of the earth, and of every living thing that creepeth upon theface of the earth. 

9. The Bible genesis represents God as exercising a moral government overman, to the exclusion of every other living creature. 

10. In fine, the Bible Genesis represents man as only "a little lower thanthe angels. "

THE SCIENTIFIC GENESIS. 

1. The Scientific genesis virtually eliminates the idea of a God from theuniverse, by assigning to natural causes all the diversified andmyriad-formed phases and changes that have taken place therein, extendingthrough an infinite duration of past time, and constantly confronted by aninfinite duration of time to come. 

2. The Scientific Genesis represents every living thing as more or less_imperfect_ of its kind, but advancing towards perfection by someunderlying law of variability or selection of the fittest, or by gradualdevelopment from lower into higher organisms. 

3. The Scientific Genesis emphatically repudiates the idea of any divineagency in the growth of plants and trees, and insists that "life, " in allits manifold phases, is only "an undiscovered correlative of motion, " or, at best, only a sort of _tertium quid_ between matter and motion. 

4. The Scientific Genesis represents all fishes, amphibia, reptiles, birds, etc. , as travelling along their respective lines of developmentalprogress and differentiation, from points far back in geologic time, andconstantly working their way up from cold and flabby creatures into thoseof higher cerebral activity, and brighter and more varied life, untilgigantic winged reptiles mounted into the air and became birds. 

5. The Scientific Genesis attributes the appearance of every livingcreature upon the earth to a law of "evolution, " by which one thingconstantly overlaps another, forming a sort of stairway for lowerorganisms to climb into higher, without regard to "kind, " or even orders, genera, or species. 

6. The Scientific Genesis distinctly takes issue with that of the Biblerespecting the divine origin of man, and insists that he has been climbingup from protoplasmic matter, through a thousand other and lower organisms, until he finally leaped from an anthropoid ape into man. 

7. The Scientific Genesis emphatically repudiates the idea of a soul asthus derived, and even insists that "conscience, " the highest knownmoral factor in the universe, is only a modified expression of thesocial instincts of the lower animals--the difference being in degreeonly, not in kind. 

8. The Scientific Genesis promptly takes issue with this creative plan andpurpose--insisting, in the dazzling speculations and fancies of itsadherents, that well known physical and physiological laws have worked outall these phenomenal aspects and changes, and that these laws are whollyindifferent as to whether man shall have dominion over the shark and thetiger, or they dominion over him. 

9. The Scientific Genesis illogically insists that "natural laws, "--thoseexpressing no sovereign will, and having "no seat in the bosom ofGod"--are fully adequate for the government of man, he exercising to thatend all the higher powers with which, by evolutional changes, he hasbecome endowed. 

10. While the Scientific Genesis represents him as only a little higherthan the apes!

And yet no scientific authority has ever been claimed for these sacredHebrew writings. They were simply designed as a rule of human faith andconduct, ostensibly having the divine sanction, and containing historical, devotional, didactic, and prophetical writings, to be read through, atleast once a year, in the Jewish synagogues. 

But the most important of these antithetical statements, so far at leastas modern scientific research and inquiry are concerned, is that whichrepresents the germs of all living things--man alone excepted--as beingimplanted in the earth itself. We take the definition of the Hebrew word_ZRA_, translated "seed" in the 11th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis, from Professor Edward Leigh, of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in his "CriticaSacra, " first published in 1662:--"_Sparsit, asparsit, cum aspersionefudit, diffudit_, " etc, that is, "something sown, scattered, universallydiffused, everywhere implanted, " as a germ in the earth. That the Hebrewword _ZRA_. Does not mean, in this connection, the seed of a plant ortree, is manifest from the fact that the first plant or tree, from which"seed" could have been derived, had not yet appeared upon the earth. 

The exact translation is, "whose primordial germs are in themselves (thatis, each after its kind) upon the earth, " implanted therein, as the"_diversa diversorum viventium primordia_" of Dr. William Harvey, wereoriginally implanted in the earth. This illustrious physician andbiologist, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, not only taughtthe doctrine expressed in his phrase "_omne vivum ex ovo_, " but that of"primordial germs"--living indestructible "principles of life"--existingin the earth itself. For it is evident that he uses the word "egg, " in itsmore general sense, as designating any material substance capable ofreceiving his "primordium" (first principle of life) and developing itselfinto a living organism. 

The whole controversy, as at present conducted by the materialists andvitalists, resolves itself into this one question:--Whether life springsfrom what Dr. Harvey calls a "primordium, "--a pre-existing vital germ orunit--or whether it originates _de novo_, as the materialists assert, frominfusions contained in their experimental flasks, or from plastideparticles contained in protoplasmic matter, or from the still more daringhypothesis of "molecular machinery" as worked by molecular force? It iscertain that the materialistic theory is quite as inexplicable, on thebasis of analogical reasoning and microscopical investigation, as thatindicated in the Bible Genesis; while the vitalistic theory would seem tobe more in harmony with vital phenomena, and hence the more rationalhypothesis of the two. Besides, the Bible Genesis answers to the logicalnecessity of predicating a determinate cause for each and every vitaleffect, or each living organism apparently springing from plasmicconditions or mere structureless matter. Whenever the seeds of plants ortrees are actually planted or sown in the earth, this logical necessityrests on an induction impregnably laid in cause and effect; while thematerialistic dogma, _nihil ex nihilo_, would necessitate a like inductionwherever seed is not sown. In either case the change that ensues ismanifestly due to vital properties, whether the same be inhering in theseed, or in necessary environing conditions. And the vital processes arethe same, with the single difference as to actual environment. 

The germ in the seed is capable of assimilating, by well-determined andthoroughly specialized processes, the nutrient matter contained in itsenvironment, precisely as the "primordial germ" develops under itsenvironing conditions. From the moment they strike their rootlets into theground, the processes of development and growth are the same. The onlypoint, however, necessary to make in this connection, is, that when we goback to the first living organism of a species--its primordially developedform--we necessarily reach environing conditions within which there is nosuch thing as a germ-cell with an exterior environment corresponding tothe testa of seeds, or to any conceivable notion we may have of seedsthemselves. 

At this point--one not merely theoretical, or speculatively possible only, but absolutely fixed and determinable in our backward survey of the vitalforces of nature--we find individual parentage lost in a natural matrix, or in the vital principle implanted as a "primordium, " in the earthitself. To this inevitable induction of Dr. Harvey we are all driven inthe end, by those intuitive processes of reasoning which are hardly lessconclusive than mathematical induction itself. We may call these"primordia viventium" plastide particles, bioplasts, vital units, orwhatsoever we will, --the name is nothing, the working process iseverything. Scientific speculation accomplishes nothing, therefore, by itsnew terminology, except it be to confound the ignorant and astonish thewise. To call the homogeneous basis of an egg "blastima, " and its germinalpoint a "blastid, " is all well enough in its way; but it adds no newknowledge, nor additional wealth of language, wherewith to predicate vitaltheories, whether they relate to the progeny of a hen-coop or the lair ofa tiger in an Indian jungle. 

Teach us to know what nature _does_, not what she _is_; and whatever of"divine revelation" is vouchsafed us, whether it be found in the majestic"Poem of the Dawn, " attributed to the inspired pen of Moses, in the"myriad-minded Shakespeare, " or the irradiated and deeply-prophetic soulof a Shelley, let us accept it with thanks, if not to the inspired authorsthemselves, at least to "the great Giver of life" who imparted theirinspiration. 

We accept the theory of "primordial germs, " not simply because it iscontained in the Bible Genesis, nor because it was conceived by the greatand gifted Harvey as a possible solution of the whole difficulty, butbecause it presents, as we have before said, a satisfactory explanation ofall the phenomenal facts of life with which we are acquainted. If Mr. Herbert Spencer will descend from his stilted theory of "molecularmachinery worked by molecular force, " and tell us what it all means; and, at the same time, turn us out a single plastide particle, or fungus spore, by any generating process referable to "the machinery" in question, wewill as devoutly worship Matter and Motion as ever ancient Egyptian didthe god Osiris. But until he does this, we prefer to accept the positiveassurance of Professor Lionel S. Beale, a far more competent authority tospeak of hypothetical molecules, that none of the "forces possessed by themolecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed"ever produced a vital manifestation, or succeeded in "making life a slaveto force. " We shall consider this question of "molecular force" in itsproper place, and with reference to the different theories of lifeadvanced by the materialists, without pursuing it further in thisconnection. 

The evidence we shall present in reference to the alternations of forestgrowths, and the impossibility of accounting for them on any theory ofseed-distribution--alternations covering, in many instances, independentforests springing up on a vast scale--and the still wider dispersion ofdomestic weeds, grasses, forage plants, etc. In localities where they werenever known before, will be conclusive, we think, of the correctness ofour position, that the Bible Genesis contains _the true key to the mysteryof life_. Bear in mind that the true theory of life, whenever it shall bereached in human conception and formulated into definitely-known processesof action, must satisfactorily explain all life-manifestations, asNewton's theory of gravitation accounts for the movements of all celestialbodies. And the simpler the theory when once formulated--the moreperfectly it falls into the grooves of definitely-expressed thought, andthe more harmoniously it adapts itself to all vital manifestations--themore conclusive must be the induction on which it rests. [3] The emphaticstatement that the "primordial germs" of all living things are in theearth, from the lowest infusorial form to the highest vital organism below"specifically-created" man, when supplemented by the scientific statementthat "vital units" make their appearance whenever environing conditionsfavor, is conclusively a theory which accounts for all thelife-manifestations heretofore occurring upon our globe. 

And this theory falls at once into the necessary categories of humanthought. Life, as generally defined, is a state of organized being whereinthere is functional activity; while a state, or _status_, is an incidencedetermined by environing conditions. But back of each of these--life andits _status_--there must lie some efficient cause, producing, in the firstinstance, the environing conditions, and then the functional activitydependent on organization. To assume that this efficient cause is simplythe effect or result of organization--one of its dependent conditions--isbegging the whole question, and, at the same time, discarding a veryimportant element in the problem--that of conditional environment. Whatthis efficient cause _is_, is a question that awakens no responsiveinquiry. It strikes its roots too deeply into the intuitions ofconsciousness for the soul to give back an intelligible reply. Certain itis that neither metaphysical speculation, nor scientific inquiry, willever enable us to reach the roots of this question, or extract from themthe first quantitive essence of life itself. 

We shall also consider, in their proper place, the various theories oflife which have been advanced from time to time by the materialists, intheir avowed hostility to current religious beliefs, and especially thosefounded on the sacred Hebrew writings, and the supplementary teachings ofthe New Testament. And to show the extent of this hostility, and the real_animus_ of those waging it, it is only necessary to refer to the greatcentral doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures, that Life--natural, spiritual, eternal--is "the gift of God. " And this is the grand corner-stone of allreligious edifices--those erected by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, thePhoenicians, the Greeks, and even the inhabitants of farther India. Materialistic science must, therefore, deal its first and most effectiveblows at "Life, " either as a theory to be resolutely assailed andoverthrown, or else thoroughly ignored and set aside, in the more imposingand august temple of Science. Hence, the reader will find, in none of thegreat encyclopedias prepared under the supervision of scientific men, theslightest mention whatever of "Life" as a subject worthy of considerationat their hands. It finds, of course, its meagre definitional place in thedictionaries, but the bulky and more exhaustive encyclopedias have no roomfor it, except as it may be defined, under some correlate of motion, as"the latent possibility of a nebula, " or of "undifferentiated primevalmist, " originally pervading the interplanetary spaces. 

We have no disposition to charge such materialists as Professors Tyndall, Bastian, Haeckel, Virchow, and Mr. Herbert Spencer, with directing theirexperimental batteries against the phenomenal facts of "life" for thepurpose of overthrowing the foundations of religious faith and belief inthe world. They are all eminent scientists, and apparently earnest seekersafter truth in the several directions in which their respective paths ofinvestigation have been pursued. But they manifestly array their opinionsagainst the vitalists on the assumption that there is no scientific valuewhatever in the many and singularly diversified statements respecting"life" in both the Old and New Testaments. And this, it may be claimed, isnecessitated by the generally accepted dogma, that science and religionare more or less hostile, the former resting on the inexorable logic offacts only, and the latter entirely on _pre_conceived and _pre_judicialnotions respecting faith and belief. To this position of theirs we have noobjection to make, so long as they subject their scientific statements tothe one rigid ordeal of positively ascertained facts. But when they setthemselves to spinning their theories of life on the strength of "nebularpotentialities, " and the possibilities of "undifferentiated sky mist, " wemust insist that they are infinitely wider of the mark than thetheologians who claim that the great formative power of the universe isGod, and that his "spirit, " and not gravitation, "upholds the order of theheavens:"--certainly much wider of the mark than was Pope, when he wroteof the universe:--

 "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul. "

The truth is, that religion is quite as much the handmaid of science asscience can be said to be the handmaid of religion. She breathes far morehousehold laws for her devotees, if she does not veil her "sacred fires"more modestly from the sight of men. She is certainly less dogmatic, lessdictatorial, less abounding in positive assertion, than what now passesfor "science, " in the popular estimation. Perhaps Mr. Herbert Spencerrepresents the scientific side of a greater number of questions agitatingthe public mind to-day, than any other one man, and he is stillindustriously engaged in solving, or endeavoring to solve, a greaternumber of social problems. And yet the most enthusiastic admirer of thisgentleman will be forced to admit, when driven to the wall of actualcontroversy, that one-half, if not two-thirds, of his more formidablestatements, put forth in the name of science, remain undemonstrated asscientific truths. We are thankful enough, however, for the one-third hehas vouchsafed us to let the other two-thirds pass as the dogmaticachievements of his wonderfully gifted pen. 

Professor Beale asks the question, whether "a man who has the gift ofscience must ever be wanting in the gift of faith?" It is certain thatthis inquiry sharply emphasizes the antagonism at present existing betweenmaterialistic science and religious faith. But there is only one reasonwhy this antagonism should be continued, and that is, the persistent claimof science to superior recognition in all cases where there is theslightest apparent conflict between the two. Certainly no man ever didmore to popularize the genuine truths of science in this country thanProfessor Agassiz, or worked more successfully to that end. He was willingto place the decorative wreath on the starry forehead of science, butrefused to pluck from the soul "the starry eyes of faith and hope, " thatman might be dwarfed down to the "nearest of kin" to the anthropoid ape. 

When we come to this assumed relationship in genetic types, we have not somuch as laid the first abutment of the bridge by which these revivers ofLucretian materialism would span the chasm between mind and matter, between the spiritual and physical side of man, between dark brute senseand "a soul as white as heaven. " For going back to undifferentiatedprimeval mist, and following down the whole line of vital phenomena, fromwhatever subtle molecular combinations their first manifestation may havearisen, until we reach the highest differentiated organism below man, weshall find the chasm between the physical and the psychical not athousandth part spanned. And even if man, with the assistance of all themaleficent spirits that "walk the air both when we wake and sleep, " couldspan this chasm, it would be only by another bridge of Mirza across whichno daring mortal could ever pass. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his "Principles, " thinks he has mastered thenecessary psychological, if not mechanical, engineering for the successfulconstruction of this bridge. In that branch of his work entitled the"Principles of Psychology, " he so far abandons the exact scientific methodas to take up psychical phenomena, and deal with them genetically, as hewould with the phenomenal manifestations of organic life, in thecontinuous chain of ideas every where presented as consecutive thoughts inthe universe. He finds, or claims to find, in these psychicalmanifestations, a constant tendency towards differentiation--towardsadvanced and continuously advancing differences, varieties, and new modesof thought--the same as, or similar to, those taking place in livingorganisms. He accordingly assumes, for the science of mind, as complete afoundation on which to base the doctrine of "evolution, " as in the case ofeither physical or physiological science. But he is no less troubled, inthis psychological realm, with divergent varieties, and exceptionalvariations and changes, than when he plants himself on the more solidsubstratum of life in the abounding realm of nature. His psychologicaldifferentiations present too many and constantly-shifting divergencies andre-divergences--exceptional branchings in one direction, and still moreexceptional in another--to admit of any sufficiently potentiatedpotentiality for bridge timber. The arch to such a bridge would have toabut, according to Professor Tyndall, on a vital foundation at one end, and spring from undifferentiated sky-mist at the other. 

The bridge will never be built. 

Chapter II. 

Life--Its True Genesis. 

The profound Newton did not attempt to show what the gravitative force ofthe universe was. He bore himself more modestly, only endeavoring to showthat such a force existed, and that it accounted for all the movements ofcelestial bodies, even to their slightest perturbations. He franklyadmitted his inability to determine what this force was, but byobservations and calculations made with the greatest care, he ascertainedthat its action upon matter was proportional to its mass directly, and tothe square of its distance inversely; and, with the requisite data and theprinciples of pure geometry, he demonstrated that this mysteriousforce--utterly inapproachable by human conception in its mystery--not onlygoverns and controls the movements of all the mighty masses of matterrolling in space, but transmits its influence--not successively, butinstantly and without diminution--to the smallest conceivable molecule onthe outlying boundaries of the universe. In the same calm andcomprehensive spirit, if it be possible for us to reach it, let us lookupon this mysterious force called "life, " not to show that it is simply a"correlate" of this or that motion (a thing utterly impossible ofdemonstration, if it actually exists), but to ascertain how and in whatway it acts, and by what known law, if any, it is governed. 

In all the vast realm of Reality there is no more conclusive and palpablefact than that "life" exists--appearing wherever the bright light flashes, the loving raindrop falls, the dancing brook ripples, the sparklingstreamlet murmurs, and the broad river flows to mingle with the sea. Allalong this bright pathway of sunlight and cool translucent wave, thiswonderful principle of vitality manifests itself in all-gloriouslife--filling the air with balmy odors; making perennial bud, leaf andflower, speeding from sire to son, from heart to heart, from spirit tospirit, from age to age, from time into eternity. [4] For like all livingprinciples, in this realm of Reality, it cannot die. It is immortal in itsprimal source, immortal all along its bright pathway, immortal as it flowsonward to eternity, immortal in its return to the bosom of God. It is nopostulate, no corollary, no mere hypothetical judgment; no "undiscoveredcorrelative of motion, " no "baseless fabric of a vision"--but the onegrand comprehensive _Datum_ on which all the objective, as well assubjective, data of the universe rest. It is the same "spirit that movedupon the face of the depths, " in that majestic Dawn of Creation when the"evening and the morning were the first day;" the same spirit that"upholds the order of the heavens;" that pervades the vast realm ofReality, that flashes in the bright sunlight, descends in the lovingraindrop, ripples in the dancing brook, sparkles in the murmuring stream, and forever flows onward bearing its primal fulness to the sea. 

To deny the existence of this vital principle because we cannot bottle itup in our airless flasks: to reduce it to some unknown correlate of motionbecause it constantly defies our poor mental grasp; to insist upon itsartificial production because elementary substances may be chemicallyhandled in our laboratories--is the same sort of preposterous folly thatNewton would have been guilty of, had he attempted to show that there wasno such thing as "gravity" in the universe; that it was only someundiscovered correlative of a thermal limit, --some unknown molecularcomplexity or entanglement in cosmic ether--some spontaneously occurringaffinity or antagonism of ethereal molecules in the interplanetaryspaces--some "potentiated potentiality" of mere sky-mist, --conditions ofwhich he could have had no experimental knowledge, nor have given theslightest analogical proof. That we are justified in thus partiallytravestying the technical methods of some of our modern scientists, socalled--especially those of the materialistic school--those advocating apurely physical theory of life, we need only quote a sentence or two fromProfessor Lionel S. Beale, of King's College, London. This eminentphysiologist, in his recent work on "The Mystery of Life, " says:"Notwithstanding all that has been asserted to the contrary, not one vitalaction has yet been accounted for by physics and chemistry. The assertionthat life is correlated force rests upon assertion alone, and we are justas far from an explanation of vital phenomena by force-hypotheses as wewere before the discovery of the doctrine of the correlation of forces. "And he further adds that each additional year's labor, in this specialfield of investigation, "only confirms him more strongly than ever in theopinion that the physical doctrine of life cannot be sustained. "

Many able and eminently learned physiologists have been disposed torecognize the presence of pre-existing "germs" in the earth, but not tothe extent of accounting for all life-manifestations therein, as thedoctrine is conclusively taught in the Bible Genesis. The language of thisgenesis is too clear and explicit to be misunderstood, in its properrenderings. It especially emphasizes the remarkable and most extraordinarystatement, at least for the period in which it was written, that all lifecomes primordially from the waters and the earth. Note the order in whichthe command "to bring forth" was issued:--

1. Let the earth bring forth its vegetation. 

2. Let the waters bring forth the fishes, the amphibia, the reptiles, _thefowl of the air_. 

3. Let the earth bring forth the beast, the cattle, every living creature, and everything that creepeth upon the earth--each after his kind. 

4. _Let us make man in our own image_. 

And this is the precise order in which the Scientific genesis proceeds, with all the lithographic pages of nature turned back for its inspection. Before vegetation there could have been no animal life upon the globe. This fact is most conclusively proved, not only by geographic andpaleontologic records, but by legitimate induction. From the highlycrystalline, and, for the most part, non-fossiliferous era, far back inthe Laurentian period, down, in the order of time, to the modern orpost-tertiary period, there is one continuous history oflife-manifestations, written upon the stratified rocks, in the order ofthe Bible Genesis. Was this mere guess and fancy on the part of thewriter, even to the seemingly improbable element wherein is assigned theorigin of the "fowl of the air?" Bear in mind that nothing was known ofgeological distribution at the time this most remarkable genesis waswritten. Had there been, it is certain that the careful and painstakingHesiod, who suffered no important fact of the _Cosmos_ to escape him, would have given us some hint of it in his "Works and Days;" for Greecewas, even in his early day, largely the recipient of Phoenician learningand literature, as she was certainly Phoenicia's foster-child in letters. 

But the more conclusive proofs of the correctness of the order ofcreation, as given in the Bible Genesis, are to be found in the accurateobservations of modern geological science. Before there could haveappeared in the primeval oceans any living organism, even the lowestprimordial forms of crustacea, there must have been marinevegetation--that springing from inorganic matter and laying the foundationof organic life. Plants originate in, and are solely nourished by, inorganic substances; or, to speak more definitely, they originate fromprimordial germs--the first elementary principles of life--wheneverinorganic conditions favor, and, assimilating air, water, and otherinorganic materials, convert them into organic substances, or such asanswer to the conditions of organic life. In doing this, they take up anddecompose carbonic acid, retain the carbon, and give off oxygen--a vitalprocess not known to occur in the case of animal life. That theirprimordial germs, or vital units, are in the earth, as the Bible Genesisdeclares, is conclusively shown by the experimental processes firstsuccessfully entered upon by the AbbA(C) Spallanzani, Charles Bonnet, andothers, and more recently renewed and advocated by M. Pasteur, and hisco-laborers in super-heated flask experimentation, as well as logicallyestablished by inductive methods. 

_Nihil ex nihilo_ is conceded to be as conclusive an induction as _omnevivum ex vivo. _ That is, as without some chemical unit--some primary leastconsidered as a whole--there can be no chemical action, so without somevital unit, in the same primary sense, there can be no vitalmanifestation. The doctrine of "chemical units" is universally conceded, and that of "morphological units" almost as universally claimed. Whatgreater incongruity is there, then, in assuming the presence between thetwo of a physiological or vital unit? [5] At all events, it is asimpossible to demonstrate the non-existence of the one unit as the other. And so long as legitimate induction supports the doctrine of the BibleGenesis, it is useless to indulge in a contrary assumption which is whollywithout verification or proof. 

But to return to land vegetation. This appeared and flourished throughoutthe Devonian period, if not anterior to it, and long before the appearanceof batrachian reptiles and other low air-breathing forms of life. In fact, there could have been no life-breathing atmosphere until the earlier landvegetation had whipped out its more destructive elements, and paved theway, in necessary conditions, for the appearance of air-breathing animals. Hence the command for the earth to bring forth both marine and landvegetation--the vegetation of the earth--before there was any similarcommand respecting either marine or land forms of organic life. But bywhat logical method was this exact order inferred in the Bible Genesis?Neither the Jews, nor their earlier Hebrew ancestors, nor the Phoeniciansbefore or after them, were in any sense of the word metaphysicians; nordid their language admit of those nicer distinctions and speculativeconclusions which would have enabled any writer using it, thousands ofyears ago, to draw the commanding induction contained in this remarkablegenesis. There is nothing in the incomparable methods of M. Comte, or themetaphysical spirit of Herbert Spencer, in his most daring speculations, which gives the world a more legitimate and conclusive induction than iscontained in this simple statement of the order of creation. That itshould have been a mere piece of guess-work on the part of Moses, or anyother writer of his time, --covering, as it does, so many particularitiesof statement, all according with the exact observations of geologicscience, and supported by paleontologic records, --requires quite as muchcredulity of judgment as to accept it for divinely inspired truth. Adisciple of M. Comte might object to this conclusion as susceptible of twointerpretations, the one a legitimate induction, and the other not. Butthe mind of the profounder reasoner would accept the interpretation whichis supported by the higher reason, and validated by the greater number ofconclusively-established facts. In the case of a strongly intuitive mind, it might be possible to guess the exact order of three or four apparentlydisconnected events, but to arbitrarily associate with them other and moredistinctively subordinate occurrences, like the appearance ordisappearance of whole groups and classes of plants and animals, thesupposition that guess-work, and not positive information, governed in theformation of a judgment, is at once rejected because of its utterincredibility. 

It is not our purpose, however, either to affirm or dis-affirm theinspirational claims of the Bible Genesis. We simply take its language aswe find it, stript of its Masoretic renderings and irrationalinterpretations, and unhesitatingly aver that the three Hebrew words, translated in our common version--"whose seed is in itself upon the earth"--contains, when properly rendered, the key that unlocks the whole"mystery of life, " or, as Dr. Gull emphasizes it, "the grand _questiovexata_ of the day. " It expressly declares that "the primordial germs ofall plant-life (and, inferentially of all life) are in themselves (_i. E. _each after its kind) upon the earth, " and we have only to supplement thisphysiological statement with the "necessary incidence of conditions, " asformulated by the physicists, to explain every phenomenal fact of lifehitherto occurring upon our globe. 

Take all the hints as to the spontaneous origin of life to be met with inAristotle; all those subsequently repeated by Lucretius and Ovid; all theexperiments of the renowned AbbA(C) Spallanzani--all the alleged "fantasticassumptions" of M. Bonnet--all the theories of "panspermism, " bywhomsoever advocated--all the fortuitous aggregations of "_moleculesorganiques, _" as put forth by the French school of materialists--all the_primordia viventium_ of the gifted Harvey--all the "molecular machinery"and "undiscovered correlates of motion" formulated by Herbert Spencer andProfessor Bastian--in fine, all the more brilliant theories of life everspun from the recesses of the human brain, --and we shall find that theyall fit into the three simple Hebrew words to be found in the BibleGenesis, _and all are explained by them. _ We say _all_, with one exceptiononly--that of man. And how inconceivably grand and majestic thisexception! The crowning work of creation was MAN. He came from no "muddyvesture of decay;" no mere life-creating fiat spoke him into existence. Hewho was to have "dominion over all the earth"--who was to be created onlya little lower than the angels--"in the image of God created He him. " And, breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, _he became a living soul_!

Here is the "bridge" over which the "evolutionist" may pass, if he will, without wearing either the dunce's cap or the ass's ears. It spans thechasm between the anthropoid ape and man as no other bridge can span it. Across this bridge is flung the living garment of God, and how grandly, yet reverently and humbly, did the profound Newton cross it! Oh, yedefiant iconoclasts of sublime faith in the "old doctrines;" ye who talkso flippantly of the "potentialities of life in a nebula;" who sit on theawe-inspiring Matterhorn, at high noon, and muse in sadness over "theprimordial formless fog, " teeming with all the mighty possibilities ofmyriads of sun-systems like our own; and, musing, sneer, if you can, atthe idea of a "specific creation" in the beginning--of an InfiniteIntelligence that directs and superintends all! Because _you_ cannotannihilate matter, nor conceive of its annihilation in the infinitessimalcompass of _your_ brain, is that any reason why Infinite power andintelligence may not have spoken it into existence at _His_ sovereign andcommanding will? If man would presumptuously press towards the thresholdof the Infinite, let him do it reverently, and with humility of spirit, and not as one "that vaunteth himself of strength, " or "multiplieth wordswithout knowledge. "

But let us examine the Bible Genesis a little further in this direction. It is said in the second verse of the first chapter that "the spirit ofGod moved upon the face of the waters, " that is, upon the face of theabyss--the chaotic mass at creation--the earth "without form and void. "

What is here meant by "the spirit of God, " is that life-giving breath orpower of God which operates (continuously operates) _to impart life toinanimate nature. _[6] From the connection in which it here stands it meansthis, as in other connections it means the power which operates(continuously operates) to produce whatever is noble and good (God-like)in man. There is no implication in the text that this life-givingprinciple or power was suspended in the act of creation. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence in nature to show that it is just as operativenow as it was in the beginning. One of the definitions given by ProfessorGibbs of this spirit is, "that which operates throughout inanimatenature, " not that which once operated, and then forever ceased itsoperations. And Professor Gibbs no doubt meant by "nature, " in thisconnection, not only all the physical phenomena she presents, but theaggregate or sum total of all her phenomena, whether active or passive, animate or inanimate, embracing the world of matter or the world ofmind. [7] "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, "--not a part nature, and a part not nature. 

Again, in the eleventh verse, it is distinctly declared that the _ZRA_. The "germinal principle of life, " is in the earth, producing each livingthing, at least in the vegetable world, after its kind, that is, after itsown class, order, genera, species. Hence, the three distinct and separatecommands given to the earth, or to the earth and its waters, "to bringforth. " No such command would have been given to the earth, had it notfirst received its _baptism of life_ from God--in other words, derived theanimating principle of life from the source of all Life. 

And hence, also, the two separate averments in the second chapter ofGenesis, both entirely meaningless apart from the construction we heregive it, that "out of the ground made the Lord God to grow" thevegetation of the earth, and "out of the ground" produced he (or causedto be produced) every beast of the field, etc. , --all of which has adefinite and comprehensive significance in this one sense only, that theanimating principle of life is in the earth, as the language of this mostremarkable genesis implies. And this seems to have been the patristicidea, namely, that law and regularity, not arbitrary intervention, norany specific act of creation, were what governed in the case of bothvegetal and animal life. 

St. Augustine says: "In prima institutione naturA| non quseriturmiraculum, sed quid natura rerum habeat. " And it is certain that both St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Basil held the same view. And they further heldthat the animating principle of life once implanted in nature, held goodfor all time. But we are not seeking for early and mediA|val authority. What we propose to show is, that nature is still implicitly obeying justsuch a law as that implied in the command given her "to bring forth, "however doubtful may be the authority on which it rests, in the opinion ofour modern scientists. 

And how completely does this genesis of life take man out of thedefinitional formula embracing the "beasts of the earth. " From the lowestvertebrate, in Mr. Darwin's plexus, to the highest quadrumane (his nearestallied type to man), covering almost an infinite variety of distinctliving forms, the distance to be traversed, in order to reach man, ishardly more than one-third the length of the still unlinked anduncompleted chain. In the average capacity of the monkey's brain-chamber, to say nothing of his other characteristic differences, the distance isnot half traversed. As a "beast of the earth, " he remains allied to hisown type, and nothing higher. Both Darwin's vertebral _plexus_, andHerbert Spencer's "line of individuation, " must begin with the lanceletand its disputed head, and end in the Catarrhine or Old World monkey. No_a priori_ induction will ever extend this line _or plexus_ to man. Thedevelopmental chain, if indeed there be one, has no congenital link thatwill either drag man down to the "beast of the earth, " or lift the latterup to the transcendent plane of humanity. Each must remain specifically inhis own type, whatever may be their vertical tendencies, upwards ordownwards. [8] And this word "type" implies a fundamental ground-plan--anarchetype--an original conception of what each should unconditionally be, and what plane each should as unconditionally occupy. Man's place innature can never be changed or modified by materialistic speculations. Whatever theories the materialists may spin into the unsubstantial warpand woof of their scientific formulA| respecting life, will never standbefore the tenacious and stubborn physiological facts which almost anythoroughly-informed and well-read scholar of nature may readily presentagainst them. 

Even the wild Indian of our prairies has a more rational conception oflife and its accountabilities, than some of these learned professorswhose theoretical conclusions we find it imperative to handle. With allhis rude, rough nature, hanging like so many mental clogs about him, this unlettered savage recognizes the fact that the earth is the_genetrix omnium viventium_, or the living _mother_ on whose bosom heshall rest when his spirit has passed to the happy hunting-fieldsbeyond. Unlettered as he is, and unread in any genesis of life, he failsnot to perceive that the earth is forever teeming with the germinalprinciples of life, and that when his prairie fires have invaded theforests in which he had previously hunted the deer, other and differentforest growths are constantly making their appearance, without anyapparent intervention of seeds, but not without the supervisional careand direction of the Great Spirit, --while many of his hardier prairiegrasses have disappeared, only to give place to the more nutritious_gramma_ coveted by his favorite game. 

And here we may as well anticipate an objection which will be raisedagainst the presence of this animating principle of life in the earth, asto meet and answer it further on in the argument. But as the objection towhich we refer is one of those dragon's teeth we do not care to leavebehind us, we will meet it at the very threshold of the controversy. Itwill probably be admitted that the vegetation of the earth may appear inthe way and manner indicated in the biblical genesis, the same asinfusorial forms appear in super-heated and hermetically-sealed flasks. But how about the preA"xisting germs or vital units of the mastodon, themegatherium, and other gigantic mammiferous quadrupeds of the Eoceneperiod? From what experimental flasks, in the great laboratory of nature, did they first make their appearance? The objection is a legitimate one, and we will answer it. 

But first, let us do so from the materialist's own stand-point. Time, theyall agree, is practically infinite--past time, as well as future; whilematter is susceptible of an infinite number of diverse movements, changes, modifications, combinations, etc. , [9] chemically as well as molecularlyconsidered. This, they claim, is not a mere hypothetical judgment, but amathematically demonstrable proposition. Grant it for the sake of theargument, and then see if the mastodon does not promptly emerge from someone of their "experimental flasks, " as they choose to put it. 

For if the number of these diverse movements, changes, modifications, etc. , of matter, have been infinite, in its progress from the loweststatical to the highest dynamical manifestation, then every possible, aswell as conceivable, form of matter, must have existed somewhere, and atsome time, in nature, even to its highest and most potentially endowedplasmic form in which there is life. And if this be true, and thematerialists will not deny but rather affirm it, then the inter-uterineconditions of matter, in the case of all animals (the mastodon included), as well as the inter-cellular conditions in the case of all plant-life, must have existed, with their necessary environments, somewhere and atsome time, in the all-hutched laboratory of nature. Hence, in the infinitenumber of these changes and combinations--in the countless collocations ofmolecules and chemically changed conditions of matter, we have thepossibilities of all terrestrial life-manifestations, as we have, in theinfinite number of cosmical changes, the possibilities of all planetary, cometary, and asteroidal manifestations. For whenever these vital changesoccur, the life-manifestations dependent thereon, must as inevitablyfollow as that infinitely diffused matter should be aggregated by gravity, or by what Humboldt calls, in his "Cosmos, " the "world-arrangingIntelligence" of the universe. 

Who shall say, then, that in that immensely remote and long-protractedera--the Eocene period--in which the gigantic elephantoids first madetheir appearance, there did not exist somewhere, in some one of nature'smore cunning and prolific recesses, the exact plasmic conditions necessaryfor the appearance of the mastodon? If they existed anywhere (which isconcessively possible), with the necessary environment (also concessivelypossible), then the mastodon could no more help wallowing out of hisessential plasma than the earth can help responding to its axial motion. All things are framed in the prodigality of nature, and she never commitsan abortion upon herself. If both the conditions and necessary environmentwere at any time present, as they must have been on the materialistictheory, the mastodon is just as easily accounted for as the first fungus, or the first fungus-spore. [10]

All physicists, as well as physiologists, agree that individual species ofboth plants and animals have _disappeared_ from the earth for the want ofthe "necessary conditions" under which they once lived and flourished. What greater fallacy is there, then, in the assumption that theyoriginally _appeared_ from the presence of these identical conditions, whatever they may have been, and whenever they may have occurred? We putthis question not simply because the Bible Genesis asserts that "_out ofthe ground_ made the Lord God to grow" every plant of the field "before itwas in the earth, " as well as every herb of the field "before it grew;"nor because it declares that their primordial germs are in the earth; norbecause it speaks of the earth as containing within itself the "animatingprinciple of life. " But we put it on the irrefragable logic of thematerialist's own premises and conclusions. They may use other anddifferent physiological terms from what we should care to employ, buttheir "correlates of motion, " their "molecular force, " their "highlydifferentiated life-stuff, " etc. , may possibly mean nothing more than whatwe mean by "vital units, " "vital forces, " "vital conditions, " etc. Theirpreference for the terms they employ, over essential "qualities" or"properties" of matter, is entirely due to the obvious invalidity of theirconclusions, except as their physical theory of life may help them out ofan unpleasant dilemma. "Force" is a more convenient term on which toallege the _de novo_ origin of life--its spontaneous manifestation intheir experimental flasks--than any vital principle primarily inhering inmatter, and manifesting itself whenever conditions favor. It is tovalidate their own reasoning that they construct their fallaciousforce-premises, from which to draw their materialistic inductions. Inother words, theirs is the fallacy of _non causa pro causa, _ or thatvicious process of reasoning which alleges some other than the real causeof vital manifestation, and fastens induction where none is legitimatelyinferable. 

Burdach, Buffon, Pouchet, Needham, and other professed vitalists, agreethat in all life-manifestations there must be some preA"xisting vital forceor principle, without which no living thing, whether plant or animal, cancome into existence. [11] M. Pouchet says: "I have always thought thatorganized beings were animated by forces which are in no way reducible tophysical or chemical forces. " The AbbA(C) Needham is satisfied to formulate a"force vA(C)getative, " so far as plant-life is concerned; Buffon invariablyfalls back on vital force or energy; and Burdach on a "force plastique, "which is essentially inseparable from nature in her vital manifestations. According to the latter, the whole universe is an "_organisme absolu_"constantly endowed with life, and giving expression to it in allconceivable directions. And all that these vitalists need, to give a fullinterpretation to their facts of observation, is to supplement theirtheories with the Bible declaration that the animating principle of lifeis in the earth, from which all living things make their appearance, eachdistinctively after its own kind, whenever environing conditions favor. For they severally recognize these "necessary conditions" as inseparablefrom all vital manifestation. 

An effort has been made to show that Goethe was the great inspired prophetof the doctrine of "Evolution, " as a ceaselessly progressivetransformation of one thing into another, in the metamorphoses of plantsand animals; and Haeckel quotes this passage from him as entirelyconclusive of this point: "Thus much we should have gained (towardssolving the problem of life) that all the more perfect organic beings, among which we include fishes, amphibians, birds, mammals (and at the headof the latter, man), to be formed according to an archetype, [12] whichmerely fluctuates more or less in its ever persistent parts, and moreover, day by day, completes and transforms itself by means of reproduction. " Butthis attempt to give a poetic glorification to Haeckelism in Goethe'sspeculations, and bring his commanding name into support of the evolutiontheory of development, will prove utterly futile in the light of his"archetype, " and the persistency with which he concedes that natureadheres to perfected forms. 

Goethe accepts the doctrine of _vis centripeta_, beyond the influence ofwhich no developmental progress can be made in the way of diversifying orvariegating ideal types. In other words, he virtually fixes limits tovariability, from the outermost circumference of which reversion mustinevitably take place. His whole doctrine may be summed up generally, ifnot specially, in these words: "The animal is fashioned _by_ circumstances_to_ circumstances, " as the eagle to the air and mountain top, the mole tothe loose soil in which it burrows, the seal to the water in which hefrolics, and the bat to the cave, the twilight, and the night air. Weshould rather say that the animal is fashioned, after the GreatArchitect's pattern, _to_ circumstances, and is only varied _by_circumstances, and that within the narrowest limits of variability. Forthe most that Goethe means by his "archetype" is an ideal pattern, afterwhich, or on which, a natural group of plants or animals has beenfashioned within the limits of possible variability. But by whose mind, orrather within whose mind, was this ideal pattern--this essentialarchetype--fashioned? Whence this ideal type, this natural group, this_Archeus_ pervading all nature and fashioning all organic matter? Not fromthe mind of Goethe certainly, nor from that of Aristotle or Lucretius, butfrom the one supreme mind of the universe, in which the groups of allliving things were originally fashioned in the archetypal world--thatworld "which, " according to Bolingbroke, "contains intelligibly all thatis contained sensibly in our world. "

This archetypal doctrine of Goethe, coupled, as he couples it, with theinfluences of environment, or necessary external conditions, with typicalmodifications only, while it entirely harmonizes with the Bible genesis oftypes (everything modeled after its kind), is far from aiding, or in anyway abetting, the materialistic hypothesis of Haeckel, unless we makenature at once the creator and modifier of her own archetype. And eventhen the variability of species remains unaccounted for, except as weattribute to nature a _purpose_ to modify persistent forms under a lawthat is immutable even in its variability. For the assumption of anarchetype carries with it an archetypal plan and purpose, with a degree ofintelligence, either in or above nature, capable at once of conceiving thetype and determining the limits of its variability. The question is not, therefore, as many may seem to think, whether species originate by miracleor by law, but whether laws and causes can exist independently of anypredetermining will or agency in the universe. 

Our language, and that of all civilized peoples on the globe, must bethoroughly recast, not only in its philological and etymologicalcharacter, but in its ideologic, etiologic, and other significations, before we can successfully fall back on an antecedent cause without aneffect, or an effect without an antecedent cause. Besides, the human mindwould have to undergo as complete a subversion of structure as languageitself, before any such attempt at recasting it, on the basis of modernmaterialistic ideas, could possibly prove successful. And then, at leastone-third of our language would have to disappear in this iconoclasticreform. For instance, take any well-tabulated synopsis of our categoriesand their relations, and they would nearly all have to be recast orentirely abandoned. Time, space, matter, motion, intellect, abstractideas, volitions, affections, etc. , with their several correlates orco-relations, would all have to undergo a thorough recasting process. Thepersonal, intersocial, sympathetic, moral, and religious relations andobligations, would have to be summarily set aside for future revision, ifnot for sweeping rejection. All our ideas of life, materiality, spirituality, animality, vegetability, sensibility, etc. , would have tofall into greater or less desuetude, the language disappearing with theideas. All the words expressing our ideas of a superhuman agency, of God, angels, heaven, revelation, religious doctrines, sentiments, acts ofworship, piety, human accountability to divine institutions, rites, ceremonies, etc. , --to say nothing of maleficent spirits, mythological andother fabulous divinities, entering so largely into the spirit andmachinery of all our best poetry--would utterly disappear from ourlanguage. All our churches, minsters, chapels, tabernacles, cathedrals, and temples erected to the "living God, " embracing the finest and mostmajestic architecture of the world, would have to succumb to theiconoclastic zeal of these materialistic reformers. The ten categories ofAristotle would disappear in the one category of Haeckel, or possibly thetwo categories of Bastian--Matter and Motion! Philologically speaking, weshould all be at sea, drifting, like a set of deaf-mutes, on a wide andinaudible ocean--all inarticulate, tongue-tied, voiceless--with only thescreeching of the sea-mew, or some other sepulchral bird of the night, togreet us as in wide-mouthed derision of our speechlessness and folly. 

But let us see how the incontestible facts of nature, and the truths ofscience, fit into the three simple Hebrew words referring to "germs, " orthe germinal principle of life, instead of the natural "seeds" of plantsor trees. We have given what we claim to be the true rendering of thesewords. To show how perfectly they harmonize with all the phenomenalmanifestations of life in nature, we hurriedly pass to our third chapter. 

Chapter III. 

Alternations of Forest Growths. 

No fact has more profoundly puzzled the vegetable physiologist than thealternations of forest growths which are everywhere occurring without theapparent interposition of natural seeds, and which have been considered aswholly inexplicable except as one unsatisfactory theory after another hasbeen suggested to account for the wide dissemination and distribution oftheir seeds. We have had any number of these theories, more or lessingeniously constructed, but it is safe to say that none of themsatisfactorily accounts for more than a very limited number of thephenomena presented. It is only within a comparatively recent period thatthese alternations of timber growth have attracted the attention ofscientific men; consequently little more than crude suggestions andill-digested facts are at the command of the general reader and writer. And yet the facts themselves, such as they are, would fill a dozen volumesof the size of Dr. Hough's recent "Report upon American Forestry. " We canonly give a few of the more important facts we have gathered, and many ofthese are so deficient in necessary detail that their value is greatlylessened for scientific uses. This is especially true of nearly all thosenoticed and collated by Dr. Hough, in his report to the United StatesCommissioner of Agriculture, made in 1877, in which the alternations inquestion are referred to at length, but no new suggestions presented, norany very important new facts given. 

If our construction of the Bible genesis be the correct one, it will, wethink, be unhesitatingly admitted that all the facts collected andcollated by Dr. Hough, together with others more carefully noticed by ourablest writers on vegetable physiology, not only harmonize with thisancient Hebrew text, but so completely fit into it, both in itsimplications and explications, that adverse criticism will be awed intosilence rather than provoked into any new controversy on the subject. Thisremarkable genesis declares that the germs of all living things are inthemselves upon the earth--"upon the face of all the earth. " It is truethat this declaration, as contained in the 11th verse of the first chapterof Genesis, is textually limited to the vegetation of the earth; but thefurther emphatic statement that "the animating principle of life" is inthe earth, coupled with the more substantive fact that God commanded thewaters and the earth to bring forth abundantly of every living creature, with the single exception of man, conclusively extends the language of the11th verse to whatever vegetable and animal life the earth wasspecifically directed to "bring forth. " It is our purpose to consider, inthis connection, not only the various facts noticed and theories suggestedby our ablest writers and thinkers on the subject of seed-distribution, but to ascertain, as far as possible, to what extent their several factsand theories harmonize with natural phenomena, and at the same timedetermine what disposition should be made of them in the light of this newgenesis, herein for the first time disclosed. 

Professor George P. Marsh, in his work on "Man and Nature, " in which hetreats largely of forestry in Europe, says that "when a forest old enoughto have witnessed the mysteries of the Druids is felled, trees of otherspecies spring up in its place; and when they, in their turn, fall beforethe axe, sometimes even as soon as they have spread their protecting shadeover the surface, the germs which their predecessors had shed, perhapscenturies before, sprout up, and in due time, if not choked by other treesbelonging to a later stage in the order of natural succession, restoreagain the original wood. In these cases, the seeds of the new crop mayhave been brought by the wind, by birds, by quadrupeds, or by othercauses; but, in many instances, _this explanation is not probable_. " It ismanifest that Professor Marsh uses the word "germs, " in this connection, in the sense of seeds only; for no seed-bearing trees "shed" any othergerms than the natural seeds they bear. And while he admits that, in manyinstances, the generally accepted theory concerning the dissemination ofseeds is not a probable one, he still clings to the exploded notion thatvegetable physiology furnishes a record of "numerous instances where seedshave grown after lying dormant for ages in the earth. " He further says, inthe same connection, that "their vitality seems almost imperishable whilethey remain in the situations in which nature deposits them;" although heis reluctant to accept the accounts of "the growth of seeds which had lainfor ages in the ashy dryness of the Egyptian catacombs, " believing thatthey should be received with great caution, if not rejected altogether. But why he should scruple about receiving these speculative accounts ofancient Egyptian cereals, which are sometimes hawked about the country fortwo and three dollars a seed, and, in the same breath, accept the absurdertheory that seeds may lie dormant for ages in soils where the hardest andmost enduring woods will utterly perish and disappear in a few briefyears, is wholly inexplicable to us, except as an hypothesis to force aconclusion, or to account for the otherwise unaccountable alternations offorest growths. 

But the idea that nature has any cunning devices by which she may hideseeds away where they will remain "almost imperishable" for ages, is notentirely new with Professor Marsh, nor is it any suggestion that wouldbe protected by copyright. In finding the winds, birds, quadrupeds, andother assumed agencies of distribution improbable, he seeks, with Dr. Dwight, for "the seeds of an ancient vegetation, " and, finding none byactual observation, concludes that nature has some occult, andthoroughly surreptitious, method of hiding them away, even in soilsbelow the last glacial drift, where no microscope can possibly reachthem. As the accounts of seeds taken from the mummy-cases of Egypt mayanswer the purposes of those seeking to palm off some new cereal as anine-days wonder on the ignorant, so these speculations about theindestructibility of seeds, when hidden away by nature, may answer alike purpose in imposing upon the over-credulous; but they will hardlybe accepted by the intelligent, much less the scientific, in the lightof all the facts herein given. The simple truth is that all seeds arespeedily perishable by out-door exposure. We hardly know a single seedthat will survive beyond the second year when subjected to suchexposure. If they do not germinate the first year, their vitality isutterly gone the second year, as hopelessly so as if they had been castinto the fire and consumed to ashes. 

But there is a large class of vegetable phenomena which wholly excludesthe idea of this wonderful vitality of seeds. It is well known that soilbrought up from deep wells and other excavations, often produces plantsentirely unlike the prevailing local flora. This soil has been brought up, in many instances, from beneath the last glacial drift, where it must haveremained for not less than a quarter of a million years at the lowestcalculation, and may have remained for millions of years, if not longer;and yet the same singular phenomenon is presented. Exposed to the sun'srays, and the fructifying influences of showers and dews, the soilburgeons forth into an independent flora, and such as are nowhere to befound in the surrounding locality. The writer, in digging a well inWaukesha, Wis. , --a place now famous for the curative properties of itswaters--in 1847, struck soil at a depth of about thirty-five feet--thatwhich was evidently ante-glacial. The place is some twenty miles back fromMilwaukee, and the whole section, far into the interior of the state fromLake Michigan, is one of drift, covering the primeval soil at variousdepths, from a few feet up to a hundred or more; and the imbedded soilmust have remained in its place for untold ages. And yet, it was no soonerbrought to the surface than it produced several small plants that werewholly unlike the prevailing local flora; although, unfortunately, theydid not sufficiently mature to enable us to determine their genera andspecies. Considerable portions of this soil were dried and subjected byus, and the late Dr. John A. Savage, then president of Carroll College, tomicroscopic examination, but without discovering the slightest trace ofany seed, or anything resembling seed, in the several portions carefullyexamined. The soil, however, contained, in its imbedded place, severallarge Norway spruce logs, in a more or less perfect state of preservation. But there were no cones, nor chits to cones, to be found in it, althoughthe most rigid examination was made at the time to discover them. That theseeds of these delicate little plants should have survived the wreck ofthis ancient Norwegian forest, or the drift from one, and burst forth intonewness of life after hundreds of thousands, not to say millions of years, is decidedly too large a draft upon our credulity to be honored "withoutsight. " But we will return to the alternations of forest growths. 

It is within a comparatively recent period that extensive areas ofhemlock, in Greene and Ulster Counties, N. Y. , were cut off to supply theneighboring tanneries with bark. These clearings were no sooner made thanoak, chestnut, birch, and other trees of deciduous foliage, sprang up andentirely usurped the place of the hemlock; for the reason, no doubt, thatthe soil had become chemically unbalanced for the growth of the latter, while its condition was entirely favorable for the development of the"germs" (not the natural seed) of the former. These changes in timbergrowths have been widely noticed in all parts of this country, as well asin Europe, but the universal supposition has been that they came from thenatural seeds of their respective localities, those either scattered bythe winds, or borne thither by the birds, by quadrupeds, or by some othernatural agency. No one has suggested the theory of "primordial germs" or"vital units, " or come any nearer to it than Dr. Dwight did in suggesting"the seeds of an ancient vegetation. " The great truth of the Bible genesishas been wholly overlooked by reason of a faulty translation in the firstinstance, as taken from the Masoretic renderings of the sixth century, andimplicitly followed since. 

In 1845, a violent tornado swept a wide strip of forest in Northern NewYork, from the more thickly settled portions of Jefferson County to LakeChamplain. The timber that succumbed to the force of the tornado, andgrowing at various points along its track, was mainly beech, maple, birch, ash, hemlock, spruce, etc. ; but it was rarely replaced, at any point, bythe same timber, in the growths that almost immediately followed. Thetrees that are now growing along the track of the tornado are principallypoplar, cherry, birch, and a little beech and ironwood: no ash, maple, spruce, or hemlock, except here and there, at considerable intervals, atree or two which may have been replaced by natural seed. The importantfact noticeable, in this connection, is that the aggressive timber--thatreplacing the old--entirely usurped the place of the evergreen growths, supplanting them with those that were wholly deciduous. Besides, it doesnot appear that the poplar, the cherry, and the ironwood, which werealtogether aggressive, previously grew near enough to the track of thetornado to have possibly supplied the seed necessary for their appearanceand growth. 

The fact was specially noticeable at the time, and has been widelycommunicated since, that the white oak timber cut off at Valley Forge forfuel and other army purposes in the American camp, in the winter of1777-78, was succeeded by black oak, hickory, chestnut, etc. --the whiteoak entirely disappearing, although by far the most favorably situated forpropagation by seed. But the alternations of forest growths had attractedtoo little attention at that time to render the meagre facts given of anyspecial value to scientific men. If the usurping timber had grown in theimmediate neighborhood (a fact not stated), it might have come fromnatural seeds, and not from primordial germs under "favoring conditions. "

In the Ohio Agricultural Report of 1872, an account is given of astorm-track, in that state, which swept for a considerable distance, andwas violent enough to bear down all the timber before it. It is statedthat the path of this tornado (which must have occurred many years ago)"had grown up with black-walnut, another and different growth from thatprostrated by the force of the storm. " In this instance, there were noneighboring trees, except perhaps at distant intervals, from which thenuts of the black-walnut could have been derived, unless they had beenpromiscuously strewn by the tornado along its entire track. But it is, unfortunately, not stated that the tornado occurred at that opportuneseason of the year when the nuts were properly matured for planting. 

In many parts of the United States, particularly in the South and West, the paths of local tornadoes--those sweeping the native forests longbefore the axe of civilization invaded them--may still be traced by thealternations of timber growths, extending for long distances, andthrough forests where there were no neighboring trees from which it waspossible that their seeds could have been derived. One of thesetornadoes the writer traced many years ago (as early as 1837) in SouthAlabama, and he is satisfied, both from observation and reading, thatthe instances are rare, if not altogether exceptional, where the cleanpath of a tornado, through any of our primitive forests, has beensucceeded by the same growth of timber as that borne down by the winds. Where the path of this ancient tornado of Alabama swept through a pineforest, a clean growth of oak was buttressed on either side by pine;and _vice versa_, where it swept an oak forest. And it is certain thatthe tornado, whenever it may have occurred, could have exhibited no suchdiscriminating freak as alternately to distribute acorns in pinegrowths, and pine cones in oak growths, either to make good a scientifictheory or balk an unscientific one. 

Professor Agassiz, in passing through a dense young spruce forest someyears ago, on the south shore of Lake Superior, noticed that the groundwas thickly strewn with fallen birch trunks, showing that their place hadbeen but recently usurped by the spruce; and he supposed that the birchhad first succumbed to the force of the winds, and the spruce promptlytaken its place, since, as a general rule, an evergreen growth succeeds adeciduous, and _vice versa. _ We have any number of well authenticatedfacts similar to this stated by Professor Agassiz, but we cannot giveplace to them, in this connection, without greatly exceeding our limits. 

Dr. Franklin B. Hough, in his recent "Report upon American Forestry, " towhich we have already referred, says: "It is not unusual to observe in theswamps of the northern states, an alternation of growth taking placewithout human agency. Extensive tracts of tamarack (_Larix Americana_) maybe seen in northern Wisconsin that are dying out, and being succeeded bythe balsam fir (_Abies balsamea_), which may be probably caused by thepartial drainage of the swamps, from the decay or removal of a fallen treethat had obstructed the outlet. " The writer of this work resided for aperiod of ten years or more in Wisconsin, and during that time traversedextensive portions of its territory, both before and after it became astate. As early as 1844, the extensive tamarack swamps of that region weremanifestly dying out for the want of the proper nutritious elements in thesoil, and the balsam fir rapidly taking its place, especially where theaccumulations of soil, resulting from decayed vegetation, were favorablefor its appearance. The drainage of the swamps had not been thought of atthat time, nor had the swamps themselves been disposed of, to anyconsiderable extent, by the federal government. They were subsequentlygranted to the state for educational purposes, and afterwards purchased upin the interest of speculative parties. 

But the decay of the tamarack had really commenced long before populationfound its way, in any considerable numbers, into that section of thecountry; and the balsam fir had begun its usurpation, in many of theswamps, long prior to the advent there of the white man. Neitherartificial drainage, nor accidental drainage, had anything to do with theappearance of the balsam fir, or the disappearance of the tamarack. Thelatter was manifestly dying out for the want of the proper nutriment, andthe former coming in for the reason that the soil was chemically balancedfor the development of its "primordial germs"--those everywhere implantedin the earth, to await the necessary conditions for their development andgrowth. The natural seeds of this balsam fir were not present in eitherthe first, second, or third tamarack swamp in which this alternation ofgrowth originally took place. The change commenced as soon as conditionsfavored, and not before. It is safe to say that, in none of these tamarackswamps, was there a single balsam fir cone, or a single chit to a cone, nor had there probably been for thousands of years, before the time whenthe first balsam fir made its appearance in that section. They came, asall primordial forests come, from germs, not from the seeds of trees. Universally, the germ precedes the tree, as the tree precedes the seed, inall vegetal growths, from the lowest cryptogam to the lordliest conifer ofthe Pacific slope. Otherwise, we should be logically driven back to an actof "specific creation, " which the materialist stoutly rejects, and theBible genesis nowhere affirms. 

Mr. George B. Emerson, in his valuable work on the "Trees and Shrubs ofMassachusetts, " suggests as a cause (undoubtedly the true one) for thedying out of old forests, "the exhaustion of the nutritious elements ofthe soil required for their vigorous and successful growth. " But he isevidently at fault in his speculations as to the alternations of forestgrowths. The Cretan labyrinth that everywhere confronts him is the"seed-theory, " which is so inextricable to him that he constantlystumbles, as one scientifically blind, yet eager to lead the blind. Allthe phenomenal facts with which he deals admirably fit into the Biblegenesis, but he fails to see it because the sublime truth (with him) lieslocked up in an unmeaning translation. He is indefatigable, however, inhis hunt after seeds where there are no seeds, and in his jumps atconclusions where there are manifestly no data to justify them. 

He says: "Nature points out in various ways, and the observation ofpractical men has almost uniformly confirmed the conclusion to which thephilosophical botanist has come from theoretical considerations, that arotation of crops is as important in the forests as in the cultivatedfields. " And he supplements this statement (measurably a true one) byadding that "a pine forest is often, without the agency of man, succeededby an oak forest, _where there were a few oaks previously scatteredthrough the woods to furnish seed. _" This is a very cautious, as well ascircumspect, statement; but one that Mr. Emerson would not have made, hadhis experience and observation been that of Professor Agassiz, ProfessorMarsh, and others we might name. His few oaks previously scattered throughthe woods are no doubt among the "theoretical considerations" taken intoaccount by him, as a philosophical botanist rather than a practical one. They were necessary for the extreme caution with which he would state aproposition when its "conditioning facts" were not fully known by him. Hisanxiety to account for the appearance of an oak forest in the place of apine, where the latter had been cut off, was commendable enough to justifyhim in a pretty broad supposition, but not in any such general statementas he here makes. Had he consulted any of the older inhabitants ofWestford, Littleton, and adjoining towns, in his own state, he would havefound that not a few oak forests had succeeded the pine without theintervention of "scattered oaks, " or even scattered acorns, in thelocalities named. Nor would his "squirrel-theory" of distribution havebeen very confidently adhered to, fifty years ago, in localties where theshagbark walnut was almost as abundant as the white oak itself. Nosquirrel will gather acorns where he can possibly get hickory nuts, andfew will gather hickory nuts where the larger and thinner-shelled walnutsare to be had for the picking. The squirrel is provident, but no more sothan he is fastidious in the choice of his food. He never plants acornsexcept for his own gratification, and is never gratified with indifferentfood so long as he can command that which is to his liking. 

In further speaking of the "exhausted elements" of the soil--thosenecessary for the food of trees as well as plants, and without which theyinevitably perish and disappear--Mr. Emerson says; "This is clearlyindicated in what is constantly going on in the forests, particularly thefact which I have already stated, and which is abundantly confirmed by mycorrespondents, that a forest of one kind is frequently succeeded _by aspontaneous growth of trees of another kind. _" In the sense in which hemanifestly uses the term "spontaneous" in this connection, his new forestmight be accounted for on the theory of "primordial germs, " but not onthat of "seeds;" for few trees or shrubs in Massachusetts bear wingedseeds, or possess any other means of dispersion (the _Acer_ familyexcepted) than those common to our general forest growths. Spontaneity, ina strictly scientific sense, is not predicable upon the artificial orchance sowing of either acorns, hickory nuts, or the chits to pine cones. A spontaneous growth implies a process which is neither usual noraccidental--a growth without external cause, but from inherent naturaltendency--and it is questionable whether there is any such process innature. It belongs to the same class of idle speculations as "spontaneousgeneration" in the infusorial world--a subject that will be considered aswe advance in this work. 

Our vegetable physiologists, Mr. Emerson among the number, are simplyunfortunate in their use of terms--those expressing even the commonestoperations of nature. In their genesis of plants and trees they need toadhere a little more closely to the genesis of induction, and use languagein harmony with the phenomenal facts and characteristics which they arecalled upon to explain. But Mr. Emerson was not alone at fault in thisalmost universal slip of the scientific pen. He quotes from a letter ofMr. P. Sanderson, of East Whately, Mass. , in which the writer says: "Thereis an instance on my farm of spruce and hackmatack being succeeded by aspontaneous growth of maple wood;" and he adds that "instances are alsomentioned by him (Mr. Sanderson) of beech and maple succeeding oaks; oaksfollowing pines, and the reverse; hemlock succeeded by white birch in coldplaces, and by hard maple in warm ones; beech succeeded by maple, elm, etc; and, in fact, the occurrence was so common that surprise wasexpressed at the asking of the question. "

These several alternations in timber growths, effectually vouched for byMr. Emerson, occurring "spontaneously" as stated, can hardly be accountedfor on any other theory than the presence of "germs" and "favoringconditions, " such as we have named in connection with the Bible genesis. They might possibly be explained on the theory of "scattered seeds, " ifthe several growths had made their appearance gradually, and not"spontaneously, " as stated. The misfortune with Mr. Emerson, as well aswith his several "reliable correspondents, " was, that his facts are toomeagrely imparted, in the necessary details, to draw any satisfactoryconclusions from them--such as the nearness or distance of surroundingtrees of the same species, and the possible chances of their seeds takinglodgment in the soil from which they grew. But, fortunately, there arefacts, and those abundantly substantiated, which entirely negative thepresence of seeds in the soils where these "spontaneous growths" are saidto have appeared. In some instances, they cover large tracts of land, atdistances of thirty, forty, fifty, and even hundreds of miles, from anynative forest from which seed could have been derived. 

Dr. Dwight, in the second volume of his "Travels, " mentions visiting atown in Vermont (Panton, near Vergennes), in which a piece of land thathad been once cultivated, but was afterwards permitted to lie waste, "yielded a thick and vigorous growth of hickory, _where there was not asingle hickory tree in any original forest within fifty miles of theplace_. " Of this piece of land he says: "The native growth here was whitepine, of which I did not see a single stem in the whole grove of hickory. "He is greatly puzzled to account for this isolated growth of hickory, butreadily concludes that "the fruit was too heavy to be carried fifty milesby birds; besides" he adds, "it is not eaten by any bird indigenous toVermont. " And even if the birds had carried the nuts thither, not one ofthem could have been planted there unless the nut-eating bird had beencaught and destroyed on the spot, and the nut released from its crop. Thismight account for the appearance of a single tree, but not for a "wholegrove of hickory;" and the squirrels certainly could not have beenprovident enough to plant any considerable grove in this particularlocality, and nowhere else within fifty miles of it. The winds could nothave borne them that distance without dropping a single nut by the way, and there is only one supposition left, which is that indicated in theBible genesis. 

While Dr. Dwight emphatically rejects the "transportation theory, " heimagined he had solved the difficulty in his suggestion "that thecultivation of the land had brought up the seeds of a former forest, within the limits of vegetation, and given them an opportunity tovegetate. " But the utter absurdity of this theory may be demonstrated byany one inside of two years, by placing hickory nuts, in different soils, at a depth to which an ordinary plough-point would reach in cultivation;and then, at the end of the second year, examining those that did notgerminate the first year. The commonest observer of a hickory forest knowsthat if the fallen nuts do not germinate the first year, their vitality isutterly and hopelessly gone. It makes no difference whether you leave thenuts on the ground where they fall, or place them one inch or twentyinches beneath the soil, the result will be the same. At the end of twoyears, you can pulverize them between thumb and finger almost as easily asso much dried loam. The idea of deriving a new forest from such nuts, ishardly less absurd than that of emptying the Egyptian catacombs of theirold mummy-cases, in the expectation of seeing a race of Theban kingsstalking the earth as before the foundations of either Carthage or Romewere laid. 

Dr. Dwight was a very close and accurate observer of nature, and sufferedfew of even the minor points of detail to escape him. In the same work, aswell as in the same connection, he gives an account of another forest, which he supposes sprang spontaneously from "the seeds of an ancientvegetation. " He says: "A field about five miles from Northampton (Mass. ), on an eminence called 'Rail Hill, ' was cultivated about a century ago(_circiter_ 1720). The native growth here, and in all the surroundingregion, was wholly oak, chestnut, etc. As the field belonged to mygrandfather, I had the best opportunity of learning its history. Itcontained about five acres, in the form of an irregular parallelogram. Asthe savages rendered the cultivation dangerous, it was given up. On thisground there sprang up a grove of white pines, covering the field andretaining its figure exactly. So far as I remember, there was not in it asingle oak or chestnut tree;" and he adds, "_there was not a single pinewhose seeds were, or, probably, had for ages been, sufficiently near tohave been planted on this spot_. " He supposes, however, that the "seeds"(pine cone chits) had lain dormant for ages before cultivation broughtthem up "within the limits of vegetation. "

As early as 1807, Judge Peters, of Philadelphia, became satisfied that allthat elevated region around the head waters of the Delaware, Alleghany, and Genesee Rivers, then covered with heavy growths of hemlock, or withforests of beech and sugar-maple, was originally an oak forest, probablycovering most of that entire region. And Mr. John Adlum, of Havre deGrace, Md. , who originally surveyed the lands south of the great bend ofthe Susquehanna, between that river and the Delaware, conceived the sameidea as early as 1788. The section surveyed by him was chiefly coveredwith beech and sugar-maple; in fact, it was in what was called, at thetime, "the beech and sugar-maple country. " He drew his inferences from thefact that he found, here and there, at irregular intervals, red and whiteoaks growing to an enormous size, none being less than sixteen feet, andmany measuring twenty-two feet or more, in circumference five feet abovethe ground. He says that "the hemlock in this region seems to havesucceeded the oak, while the beech and maple no doubt succeeded thehemlock. " This last inference would seem to have been made from the factthat clumps of large hemlock trees were, at that time, still growing atintervals among the larger deciduous trees. 

Indeed, there is no better established fact in vegetable physiology thanthat of these alternations of forest growths. They sometimes come ongradually, but, in a majority of instances, they make their appearance atonce on the cutting off of old forests, in the tracks of tornadoes, orwhere fire has devastated extensive regions of timber. From the factswhich have been gathered, it is difficult to determine any regular orderof alternation, except that oaks and other deciduous trees succeed thedifferent varieties of pine and other evergreen growths, and, perhaps, _vice versa_. In Dr. Hough's report upon American Forestry, he makes abrief summary of the order of these alternations in different sections ofthe country, on the authority of persons apparently more or lesswell-informed on the subject, but by no means accurate observers. He saysthat in the region about Green Bay, Wis. , overrun by the fires of 1871, "dense growths of poplars and birches have sprung up, and are growingrapidly;" but he omits the most important fact of all, in his failure tostate the previous growths of timber, or whether there were anyneighboring growths of poplar along the track of the burnt district fromwhich seed might have been derived. 

Here are some of his more important statements:--

"At Clarksville, Ga. , oak and hickory lands, when cleared, invariably grewup with pine. This is true of that region of country generally. "

"At Aiken, S. C. , the long-leaf pine is succeeded by oaks and otherdeciduous trees, and _vice versa_. "

"In Bristol County, Mass. , in some cases, after pines have been cut off, oak, maple, and birch have sprung up abundantly. "

"In Hancock County, Ill. , oaks have been succeeded by hickories. "

"In East Hamburgh, Erie County, N. Y. , a growth of hemlock, elm, and softmaple, was succeeded by beech, soft maple, and hard maple, but a good dealmore of the last named than any other. "

This is the general character of the summary given, and if its object weresimply to show the fact that these alternations actually took place (onethat nobody has disputed in the last half century), his chapter on the"Alternations of Forest Growths, " is a scientific success. The informationreally desired in these cases, was that imparted by Dr. Dwight in hissuggestive work of travel, in which all the incidental facts andsurrounding circumstances are fully given. It does not appear from any ofthe foregoing statements, given as a specimen, that there were anyneighboring trees sufficiently near to have supplied seed for the newforests taking the place of the old, --manifestly the most importantphysiological fact connected with the whole inquiry, whether looking toproper forest-management, or to future "schools of forestry, " certain tobe established in this country, as they have been in most of the leadingcountries of Europe. 

It is, however, stated by Dr. Hough, in his voluminous report, that, "inNew England, the pine (without giving its varieties) is often succeeded bythe white birch, and, in New Jersey, by the oak; the succession of oak bypine, and the reverse, in the southern states. " And it is further stated, without reference to the nature and quality of the different soils, or theabsence or presence of neighboring seed-trees, that "poplars and othersoft woods are very often found coming up in pine districts that have beenravaged by fire. " "We have noticed, " he continues, "in Nebraska, ash, elm, and box-elder following cottonwood. In the natural starting of timber inthe prairie region of Illinois, where the stopping of fires allowed, weoften see a hazel coppice; after a time the cratA|gus, and finally theoaks, black-walnuts, and other timber. These growths are often quiteaggressive on the prairies. In Florida, the black-jack oak usually takesthe place of the long-leaf pine. " In all these cases, the contiguousnessof similar, or dissimilar growths, is not stated. 

He nevertheless cites a most important fact respecting the alternations oftimber growth, noticed by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in his overland journeyfrom Montreal to the Arctic Ocean, in 1789, who found, in the vicinity ofSlave Lake, that the banks were covered with large quantities of burntwood lying on the ground, where young poplar trees had sprung upimmediately after the destruction of the previous growths by fire. Innoticing this fact, the indefatigable English explorer remarks: "It is avery curious and extraordinary circumstance that land covered with spruce, pine, and white birch, when laid waste by fire, should subsequentlyproduce nothing but poplars, _where none of that species of tree waspreviously to be found"_. But facts of a similar character are toonumerous and well-authenticated to be questioned by any intelligentauthority. And they all point to but one solution--that of primordialgerms quickened into life by the necessary environing conditions. Theappearance of a single poplar in the locality named, or even a dozen ofthem for that matter, might be accounted for on the theory that a bird ofpassage had dropped them there after the fire; but, under no conceivablecircumstances, could the dispersion of the requisite amount of seed toplant an extensive burnt district, along the banks of Slave Lake, haveoccurred on any other theory than that emphatically set forth, as aphysiological fact, in the Bible genesis. 

There is manifestly importance enough attaching to this subject to justifya much wider range of observation and inquiry than has yet been made. Pineforests have been cut off in Alabama and Georgia, covering extensiveareas, where there was not a single oak tree in a circuit of miles; andyet the oak has promptly made its appearance, in several varieties, overthe whole cleared district. And it is entirely safe to say that, had theground been thoroughly examined, from the surface to ten feet below it, after the pine had been felled, not the first sign of an acorn could havebeen met with anywhere within the whole area of the clearing, no matterwhether it covered ten acres, twenty, or a hundred. The paths of thetornadoes we have referred to conclusively show this. The new-bornforests, in these cases, do not come from seed, but from the living, indestructible, vital principles implanted in the earth, before it wasspecifically commanded to "bring forth, " in the language of the Biblegenesis. The "materialists, " like Professor Bastian, Herbert Spencer, andothers, may sneer at this declaration, but let them advance some rationaltheory to the contrary, to account for these alternations of forestgrowths, before they lay bare the joints of their scientific armor tooconfidently to the thrusts of the next new-comer in the field ofscientific investigation. Sneers are cheap weapons--the mere side-arms ofpretension and frippery--but they never bear so deadly a gibe as wheneffectually turned on the sneerer. 

Professor Moritz Wagner, in his description of Mount Ararat, mentions "asingular phenomenon, " to which his guide drew his attention, "in theappearance of several plants on soil lately thrown up by an earthquake, which grew nowhere else on the mountain, and had never been observed inthis (that) region before. " This writer, thereupon, goes into adisquisition upon the vitality of long-buried seeds, but only to mar thevalue of his very important observation. The fact that these new plantswere rejected by the other soil of the mountain--that not thrown up by theearthquake--is the only other observation of value made by this writer. And the importance of this one observation lies in the apparent, if notconclusive fact, that the conditions of the other soil of the mountainwere not favorable for the development of the primordial germs, or vitalunits, contained in that which was thrown up by the earthquake, acircumstance that most materially strengthens the view we have taken, asall candid and impartial readers will agree. 

Mr. Darwin inadvertently makes a very material concession in favor of thetheory we have advanced, although unconscious of any such theory, exceptthat so broadly and unqualifiedly put forth by the "panspermists" as tomeet with a ready refutation. He is laboring, of course, to strengthen hisposition that nature eternally works to get rid of her imperfect forms, orto ensure "the survival of the fittest. " But while his facts accomplishlittle in this direction, they establish much in another, as the readerwill see. He says: "In Staffordshire, on an estate of a relative, where Ihad ample means of investigation, there was a large and extremely barrenheath, which had never been touched by the hand of man; but severalhundred acres of exactly the same nature had been enclosed twenty-fiveyears before, and planted with scotch fir. The change in the nativevegetation of the planted part of the heath was most remarkable--more thanis generally seen in passing from one quite different soil to another; notonly the proportional numbers of the heath plants were wholly changed, _but twelve species of plants _ (not including grasses and sedges)flourished in the plantation which could not be found on the heath. "

The attempt is here made, by Mr. Darwin, to convey an altogether differentmeaning to his facts than what they will warrant, even as adroitly handledby him. No heath plants were "wholly changed" in characteristics, but onlyin proportional numbers; nor did the "twelve new species of plants" maketheir appearance by virtue of any law of variability or selection of thefittest. The growth of scotch fir had simply changed the conditions of thesoil, so that certain varieties of heath growth disappeared for the wantof "necessary conditions, " and certain varieties of forest growth madetheir appearance because conditions favored. Similar, if not greaterchanges, are constantly occurring in hundreds of localities in NewEngland, where choked and worn-out pasture lands are left, untouched bythe hand of man, to grow up as best they may into new forests. Theopen-field plants and shrubs entirely disappear, as the stronger and moreaggressive trees, taking root in favoring soils, advance in the strugglefor supremacy, while the less hardy and more modest plants--those quietlyseeking shelter in the woods--make their appearance, because they find, beneath the shade of the usurping forest, the precise conditions necessaryfor their more successful growth. 

No perishable seeds have been awakened from their "sleep of untoldcenturies" by these changed conditions of the soil; but nature, everywhereobeying the divine mandate, brings forth her implanted life in all itsbountiful diversity of stalk, leaf, bud, bough, blossom, fruit, --not inobedience to man's husbandry alone, but because, as the "vicar of God, "she must provide for her benefice. "Let the earth bring forth" is theeternal fiat. Nature forever heeds it, and forever obeys it. "Oh, ye blindguides, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, doubt it if ye will. " Butforget not that nature has her "compunctious visitings, " and will rise upin insurrection against you. Nothing in her breast lies dormant for ages, or even for an hour. Her appointed times and seasons forbid it. If thebutterfly does not sport in her sunshine to-day, it is because it liesdead in its golden-colored shroud, and can never become a butterfly. Inall her profusion and prodigality--flinging her glittering jewels, even inmid-winter, over all her enamored woods, and causing her little fountainsto leap up from their crystal beds in delight, that they may be frozen, mid-air, into more sparkling jets--she exhibits no such munificence as inher unsparing prodigality of life. To be prodigal in this was the firstcommand she received, and her great heart constantly throbs to give itexpression. And in all this she simply obeys a kindly law which has beenimplanted in her bosom, and can never be displanted. She has no need ofseeds in her cunning laboratory to perpetuate plant-life, and only yieldsthem to man for use, and not abuse. He can utilize them if he will, sothat all things of beauty and golden-fruited promise shall be his. In thelanguage of her greatest and most profoundly philosophical poet, --

 "Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor-- _Both thanks and use_. "

Those who think, therefore, to make nature a debtor, by reversing her lawsof propagation and making her dependent on what she bestows in use, willnever find out the smallest scruple of her excellence, nor add to herglory as a creditor. All things are framed in her prodigality, and theseeds of plants and trees are no exception to the quality of herbestowals. We may reason, syllogize, speculate as we will, the first plantand the first tree were not nature's thankless bastards, but herlegitimate and loving offspring. She engendered them in her own fruitfulbreast, and her "copy is eterne. "

Chapter IV. 

The Distribution and Vitality of Seeds. 

Few questions have attracted more attention among vegetable physiologists, of late years, than the dispersion and migration of seeds from place toplace in the earth, and it is safe to say that none has been moreunsatisfactorily answered. In the case of quite a number of plants andtrees, special contrivances would seem to have been provided by nature forinsuring their dispersion, as well as migration. With a small number ofplants, for instance, the seeds are discharged for short distances by theexplosive force of their seed-vessels, when properly matured; an equallysmall number have certain membranous contrivances, called "wings, " bywhich they may be borne still greater distances; others, again, areprovided with light feathery tufts, to which the seed is attached, andthese may be carried by the winds several miles before finding a lodgmentin the soil; while many others are inclosed in prickly and barb-pointedcoverings by which they attach themselves to animals, and even birds, andmay be transported to almost any distance. But with the great majority ofplants and trees, as the seeds fall so they lie, and must continue to lieuntil they either germinate or perish, or are accidentally dispersed orscattered by some extrinsic agency. The anxiety of speculative botaniststo account for the recognized alternations of forest and other growths, have led to the different theories of transportation we have named; andwhen these theories have been supplemented by the alleged wonderfulvitality of seeds, in the cunning recesses in which nature manages toconceal them, they imagine the whole difficulty solved, when, in point offact, it remains wholly unsolved. 

This theory of the "wonderful vitality" of seeds is simply one, as wehave said, to force a conclusion--to get rid of a lion in the scientificpath. Professor Marsh, with other eminent and scholarly writers onvegetable physiology, scouts the idea that the seeds of some of ourcereal crops have been preserved for three or four thousand years in the"ashy dryness" of the Egyptian catacombs. But what better repository inwhich to preserve them? Certainly, none of our modern granaries, with alltheir machinery for keeping the grain dry, or from over-heating. Nor arethe catacombs to be despised, as compared with any out-door means ofstorage yet suggested by the wit of man. The only means nature has ofstorage, or rather of preservation by storage, is to welcome the seedback to her bosom--the earth from which its parent-seed sprang--where itmay be speedily quickened into life, and bear "other grain, " not itself. For "that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die;" and muchmore is that dead which is not quickened. Whenever seed is thus returnedto nature's bosom--all-palpitating as it is with life--whether itquickens or not, it dies; and there is no resurrection for dead seed fromthe earth, any more than there is for the occupants of the exhumedmummy-cases of ancient Thebes. 

The belief in this wonderful vitality of seeds, in the positions in whichnature deposits them, is pretty much on a par with that which assigns athousand years to the life of a crow. As nobody but the scholastic fool inthe fable has ever attempted to verify the correctness of this latterbelief, so it is safe to assume that the experiment of verifying theformer will not be successfully undertaken within the next thousand years, to say the least. It is well known that the vitality of seeds (so far, atleast, as nature handles them) depends, upon her cunning contrivances fortheir preservation, as well as their dispersion. But many seeds, in whichthese contrivances would seem to be the most perfect, will not germinateafter the second year, and few will do so to advantage after the third orfourth year, even when they have been kept under the most favorablecircumstances, or in uniform dryness and temperature. Farmers, who havehad practical experience in this matter, and care little for what ismerely theoretical, will never plant seed that is three or four years oldwhen they can get that of the previous year's growth. It is certain thatno hickory nut will retain its vitality beyond the first year of itsexposure to a New England soil and climate, and few seeds are betterprotected by nature against such exposure; and it is equally questionablewhether the chits to Dr. Dwight's pine cones would have had any betterchance of survival at the time the Indians infested the neighborhood ofNorthampton, and regularly fired the woods every autumn. 

Although Professor Marsh confidently says, in his work on. "Man andNature, " that "the vitality of seeds seems almost imperishable while theyremain in the situations in which nature deposits them, " he will no doubtadmit that this statement rests on no experimental knowledge, but simplyon the hypothesis that the new forests and new species of plants to whichhe refers, originated from seeds, and not from primordial germs everywhereimplanted in the earth. Dr. G. Chaplin Child, who swallows the "Egyptianwheat" story, mummy-cases and all, in speaking of some of the English"dykes" or mound-fences which have existed from time well-nigh immemorial, says: "No sooner are these dykes leveled than the seeds of wild flowers, which must have lain in them for ages, sprout forth vigorously, just as ifthe ground had been recently sown with seed. " He also mentions, as a moreor less remarkable fact, "that a house, which was known to have existedfor two hundred years, was pulled down, and, no sooner was the surface soilexposed to the influence of light and moisture, than it became coveredwith a crop of wild-mustard or charlock. " And he instances these facts toshow that the seeds of this charlock, and these dyke plants, had laindormant in the soil from the time the dykes were built, and the houseerected. But these physiological facts, however well authenticated theymay have been, are no more conclusive of the presence of dormant seed, than the appearance of the common plantain about a recently builtdwelling-house, where none ever grew before, is proof that the seeds ofthis common household plant had lain dormant for ages before the house waserected. We cannot tell why this common plant follows the domestichousehold, any more than we can tell why rats follow civilization. Butthey are both sufficiently annoying at times, to satisfy us that they _do_follow, however inexplicable the reason may be. 

The same writer further says, in connection with the foregoing statements:"Instances (of the vitality of seeds) might easily be multiplied almostindefinitely, but we shall be satisfied with noticing one of a veryextraordinary kind. In the time of the Emperor Hadrian, a man died soonafter he had eaten plentifully of raspberries. He was buried atDorchester. About twenty-eight years ago, the remains of this man, together with coins of the Roman Emperor, were discovered in a coffin (!)at the bottom of a barrow, thirty feet under the surface. The man had thuslain undisturbed for some 1700 years. But the most curious circumstanceconnected with the case was, that _the raspberry seeds were recovered fromthe stomach_ (!) and sown in the garden of the Horticultural Society, where they germinated and grew into healthy bushes, " Here iscircumstantiality enough to satisfy the most unlimited skepticism, provided that the facts were satisfactorily vouched for by the living, andthe record left by the dead were sufficiently explicit in detail, andconclusive in identity of subject. Then to suggest even a reasonable doubtwould, we admit, be equivalent to making truth a circumstantial liar. 

But this most remarkable story will bear repetition, with a few runningcomments. "The man (presumably a Roman soldier) died seventeen hundredyears ago. " This is not unlikely. "He died of eating too plentifully ofraspberries;" a circumstance not altogether improbable. "He was buried atDorchester;" where, of course, there were no records of deaths and burialskept at the time, and hence, we should have to question the record, if onewere presented. "He was also buried in a coffin, or, at least, dug up inone. " This statement must be received _cum grano_. The Romans never usedcoffins, and, under the empire, they burnt most of their dead. After abattle, however, they generally piled them up in heaps, and, where therewas a lack of fuel to burn them, they covered them with the surface soil, taking good care to put a Roman coin in each soldier's mouth, so that hemight pay the ferryman in Hades. "There was thirty-five feet of surfacesoil shoveled on top of this particular Roman, "--showing that he was avery consequential personage in camp. No wonder, then, that all these niceparticularities of statement should have been circumstantially noted inthe commanding general's "order of the day, " and thus been handed down toposterity for the future advancement of science! "He had lain undisturbedfor nearly two thousand years. " Almost any one would have done so, withthat amount of surface soil shoveled on top of him. "The seeds wererecovered from his stomach;" that is, after improvidently snatching awaythe Roman soldier's life, they took good care to preserve their own, aswell as the stomach in which they were deposited. "The seeds were plantedin the Horticultural Society's garden, where they flourished vigorously. "

All these circumstantially narrated facts (?) were gathered (by somebody)about forty years ago. In what authentic and satisfactorily verifiedrecord are they to be found to-day? The writer gives us no clue. Thestomach, the coffin, the Roman coins, some of the wonderfully preservedseeds, as well as the _obolus_ in the mouth of the dead soldier, should befound somewhere. They could not have disappeared in a night. If they hadwithstood the relentless tooth of time for seventeen hundred years, in thesurface soil of Dorchester, the last forty years ought not to haveobliterated all trace of them. The story is simply too incredible forbelief, if printed in forty "Great Architects of Nature. "

From 1847 to 1851, the writer went into any number of Wisconsinmounds--those not essentially dissimilar from the Roman barrows inEngland--in company with the late I. A. Lapham, of Milwaukee; and the ideaof finding any human stomach, with or without seeds in it--with probablynot half the time intervening between burial and exhumation, as in thecase of this Roman soldier--would have been instantly rejected by thedistinguished archaeologist accompanying us. Indeed, had any suchdiscovery been made, he would have unhesitatingly pronounced the moundtampered with for the purposes of imposition. It is possible that surfacesoil, containing some raspberry seeds, may have been taken to the"Horticultural Society's garden" to which Dr. Child refers, and plantedthere as stated; but that they were from a human stomach that had lainburied for seventeen hundred years in the surface soil of England, or anyother country, is simply preposterous. It caps the climax of all thewonderful "seed-stories" yet manufactured for the scientific mind towrestle with. It is easy enough to find soil about old stumps, and fallentrunks and branches of trees, which will produce raspberries, either withor without the presence of seed. And soil might have been taken from thebottom of this Dorchester barrow which produced them. But the appearanceof the bushes must have depended on the conditions of the soil, not onseeds eaten by a Roman soldier nearly two thousand years ago. That versionof the story must be summarily dismissed the attention of scientific men. 

Professor Marsh, in the work to which we have already several timesalluded, says: "When newly cleared ground is burnt over in the UnitedStates, the ashes are hardly cold before they are covered with a crop offire-weed, a tall herbaceous plant, very seldom growing under othercircumstances, and often not to be found for a distance of many miles fromthe clearing. " The botanical name of this plant is _Erechthiteshieracifolia_, and it is well known to the botanists of New England. Itsseeds are almost as destructible by fire as thistle-down itself; and it isnot to be supposed that any of the seeds borne by the winds or by birds, and scattered through the clearing before it was burned, could havesurvived the intense heat to which they must have been subjected in theburning off of a heavy and dense growth of felled timber. The seeds, ifany, must have been scattered after the fire, and not before it. But theseheavy clearings--those in which we have witnessed the most abundant cropsof fire-weed--are generally burnt off in the early spring, when there areno seeds to be scattered, as all those of the previous year's growth findtheir proper lodgment in the soil before the winter fully closes in. Theseeds for which Professor Marsh would have to search, therefore, would bethose _grown in some corresponding latitude, or plant zone, in thesouthern hemisphere_, not within thousands of miles from the clearing inwhich they so promptly make their appearance. 

Professor Marsh suggests, however, that they may have come from "thedeeply buried seeds of a former vegetation, quickened into life by theheat. " But had he examined these plants, in their incipient stages ofgrowth, he would have found that they sprung directly from the surface ofthe burnt soil, their initial rootlets hardly extending to the depth oftwo-thirds of an inch below it, and where they must have utterly perishedfrom the heat. The theory he suggests is the only possible one, he thinks, to account for the mystery, and hence its suggestion by him. But he hasonly to pass one of the delicate seeds of this plant through the flame ofa candle to see that it instantly perishes by fire. His suggested theorymust be abandoned, therefore, and that of the Bible genesis accepted inits place. 

The fact is, and it ought to be well known to the closer student ofnature, that the fire-weed makes its appearance in the "conditions" ofthe burnt soil, just as stramonium does in the conditions of the soilwhere a coal-pit has been recently burned; that is, not from seed, butfrom "vital units, " or germs, everywhere present in the earth--thosetaking advantage of environing conditions, just as _Bacteria_ or_Torultz_ spring from the proper organic infusions. And the young shootsof stramonium, in a recently burned coal-pit, will be found to springdirectly from the surface of the burnt ground, where all seeds and livingorganism must have perished in the heat, and not at any considerabledepth below it. Their first appearance is on the immediate surface of theburnt ground, the same as in the case of fire-weed, and at a time whenthere were no seeds to be distributed, except such as must have come fromthe southern hemisphere, or been casually picked up by birds, and takentheir slim chances of survival after passing through the natural"gristmills" of the birds. And even this supposition, would only accountfor the appearance of a single stramonium plant or two, not for a thickbed of it covering the entire ground. The theory of seed-distribution, inthis and other cases, is wholly out of the question; as much so as whenwhite clover makes its appearance on a closely-grazed prairie, hundredsof miles away from where there has been a single sprig of clover growingin a thousand years. Every closely observant person, living for anylength of time on our western prairies, is familiar with the fact thatwhen the rank and hardier grasses, usually growing thereon, areeffectually fed down by stock, and especially by sheep, the prairiegrasses disappear, and the ground at once comes in with white clover, andthe other nutritious gramma or grasses of our common pasture lands. Noseed has been sown in these localities, and none could have been foundhad every square inch of the surface soil been examined by the mostpowerful microscope. The white clover and these nutritious grasses maketheir appearance on these prairies, just as the first sprig of vegetationdid on the earth, not from seed, but from preA"xisting vital units orprimordial germs, implanted therein from the beginning, and awaiting thenecessary conditions for their development and growth. 

The "bird theory" is the one almost universally relied upon for theexplanation of these phenomena, where the seeds distributed, or supposedto be distributed, are not winged. But we are satisfied that birds performno such important office, in the matter of seed-distribution, as isgenerally attributed to them. We have examined, during the past twoseasons, a large number of bird-droppings, and find our previousimpressions respecting them fully verified. With all the more delicateseeds--those of our common field grasses and weeds--the chances are athousand to one that none of them will ever pass the cloaca of the birdeating them, in any condition to germinate. All seed-eating birds are alsogravel-eaters; and the pebbles and gravel they eat are mostly silex, orthe material from which our best buhrstones are made. These pass into thegizzard, or pyloric division of the bird's stomach, where they areutilized, the same as we utilize our buhrstones. The gizzard has sharplycorrugated interior walls, extremely thick and muscular, whichinvoluntarily contract and expand, giving the bird a tremendous grindingpower over his food, considering the size of his grinding apparatus. Theseeds--all the seeds, in fact, he eats--pass at once into his crop, or thenatural "hopper" to his "gristmill, " where they undergo a moistening ormacerating process previous to being ground into the finest pulp in thegizzard. As a general rule, all the seeds a bird eats are ground into thispulpy state before they pass into the intestinal canal, extending from thegizzard to the cloaca. The hard, semi-translucent, and highly elasticouter coating of most small seeds, may be measurably preserved in itspassage through the gizzard, and, resuming its oval shape in the thinnerpulpy mass contained in the upper portion of the intestine, present theappearance of seed in the cloacal discharges, and thus deceive the casualobserver. But the use of a spatula and a small piece of polished stoneslab will show that the entire discharge is excrementitious matter, withthe single exception of this silicious coating of the seeds. 

The case is different, however, with the fruit-eating birds. The fruitsthey consume are retained but a comparatively short time in the crop, passhurriedly through the gizzard, and no doubt carry along with them some ofthe smaller seeds of berries, and now and then the pit of a cherry orsmall plum. The gizzard, in these cases, is simply gorged with the pulpand juices of the fruit, its muscular action more or less relaxed, andsome of the seeds consequently escape the grinding process they wouldotherwise undergo. And yet we are satisfied that a majority of these seedseven, are more or less thoroughly triturated by a healthy gravel-eatingbird. This would certainly be the case if they were retained for anylength of time in the pyloric division of the bird's stomach. All birdshave gizzards, but their grinding capacity depends very much on thecharacter of the food they eat. Birds of prey, and others subsistingmostly or entirely on animal food, have thin, membranous, andcomparatively flabby gizzards; while those living on hard grains and seedshave extremely thick, powerful, and muscular ones, --those capable ofcrushing up and thoroughly triturating all the food they take into theircrops. These gizzards are nature's gristmills, and they grind exceedinglyfine. If any seed escapes, it is because the mill has been flooded by thebird, and not because of any defect in the grinding apparatus. 

These birds are not, therefore "natural sowers of seeds, " as ProfessorMarsh and some others claim; but are, at most, only accidental orchance-sowers. Nature never designed that they should do anything morethan consume the food they eat, or submit it to the proper action of theirdigestive organs. It might as well be claimed that the secretary bird is a"natural sower of serpents, " as that many of the grain-eating birds are"the natural sowers of seeds. " The theory is too foraminated--too full ofloopholes and unsatisfactory conditions--to be accepted as an explanationof the more general phenomena presented. The fruit-eating quadrupeds are, relatively, far better sowers of seeds than the birds, for they eat fruitwithout sending their grists to mill. Dr. Dwight rejected thetransportation theory as early as 1820, and Professor Marsh gives anynumber of cases where it was necessary for him to abandon it. And yet someof our ablest writers, publishing works of quite recent date, adhere to itas the only theory that accounts for all the phenomena presented. 

Professor George Thurber, in speaking of the dissemination of seeds, findsother agencies therefor than winds, birds, quadrupeds, etc. , such as wehave already named. For instance, he claims that rivers, ocean currents, mountain torrents, and even wars, contribute largely towards theirdispersion and dissemination throughout different parts of the earth. Allthis may be true to a limited extent; but none of these enumeratedagencies will account for more than a very few of the manywell-authenticated facts we have given, and many others that might begiven, if our limits permitted. Among the instances where wars have had, or are claimed to have had, an important agency in the distribution ofseeds throughout an invaded country, he mentions the fact that "after ourlate civil war, a little leguminous plant (_Lespedeza striata_) sprangup all over the southern states, " and adds, "that it was not known how itcame, or where from, but its native country is Japan. " In some parts ofthe South it is known as "Japan clover, " and is highly valued as a forageplant. But the war had nothing more to do with the appearance of thisplant "all over the southern states, " than the changes of the moon, or thephenomenal man therein. The plant had been noticed in certain localitiesin the South before the war, but the circumstance of its very generalappearance throughout a large area of that section of country, was notparticularly noticed until the confederate troops began to move from onesouthern state to another, when, finding it a valuable forage plant, theynaturally enough regarded it as a providential dispensation, especially inthose sections where other forage plants and nutritious gramma were notabundant. But this plant would have made its appearance just the same hadthe war never been thought of as a possible remedy for aggressivelegislation, however real or imaginary it may have been. 

It can be easily accounted for, however, on the theory we havesuggested--that of the germinal principle of life implanted in the earth, as the Bible genesis indubitably indicates. The plant in question has longbeen a native of Japan, which lies in the same warm temperate zone as thesouthern states. The same general hygrometric and thermometric conditionsprevail throughout the two countries or sections of country. These, addedto the necessary telluric conditions, give the required moisture, heat, and soil-constituents for the development of the Japan clover in theSouth, the same as it was originally developed in its native country. Andit is just as much native to the South now, as it was hundreds orthousand's of years ago to Japan. It did not come from seeds scattered bywar, or any other imaginable agency of man, but from the indestructible, vital units or germs implanted in the earth itself. Had the plant appearedin any one locality, or even in half a dozen separate localities, in theSouth, it might possibly have been accounted for on the theory ofProfessor Thurber. But its simultaneous appearance over "all the southernstates, " as he puts it, absolutely negatives any such theory. Neitherwinds, river or ocean currents, casual mountain torrents, birds, quadrupeds, war, or even man himself, could have effected this sudden andwide distribution of the plant in question. It came as did all otherplant-life, in the first instance, from geographical conditions--thosefavoring the development of primordial germs--just as the differentorganic infusions, experimentally prepared by the physiologist, producetheir respective forms of infusorial life; each distinctive form dependingon the chemical conditions of the infusion at the time the microscopicexamination is made. Change the conditions, or defer the examination untilthe conditions themselves are changed, and other and different forms oflife will make their appearance, in harmony with the physiological law wehave named. 

This wonderful play of the vital forces of nature is no less dependant on"conditions"--on the necessary pre-existing plasma, chemically balancedsoils, organic solutions, etc. --than the alleged "dynamical aggregates, ""_molecules organiques_, " "plastide particles, " or "highly differentiatedlife-stuff, " insisted upon by the physicists, in their materialistictheories of life. These physicists make even the slightest change indevelopmental phases--whether statical, as in the case of crystals, ordynamical, as in the case of living organisms--to depend on physicalconditions, --those aiding and abetting what they call the "molecular playof physical forces. " But with their theory that matter and motion are theonly self-subsistent, indestructible elements in the universe, what"molecular play" can be attributed to matter but that which is derivedfrom motion, or some one of its alleged correlates? We can only imaginetwo sorts of motion as possible metaphysical conceptions in connectionwith matter--_molar_ motion, or that relating to matter moving in mass, and _molecular_ motion, or that relating to the movements of matter in itsunaggregated form, or as confined to molecules. 

But motion itself is not an absolute entity. It is not so much even as acollocating or placing force of matter itself. It is, at best, only amechanical impulse imparted by one moving body to another; or, moreaccurately speaking, a continuous change of place in a moving body. Inother words, it is simply a _process_ or _mode_ of action, and stands inabout the same relation to matter as _growth_ does to a living plant ortree. Independently of matter it has no existence, either objectively orsubjectively, or even as a metaphysical conception. To allege itsindestructibility, as the physicists do, is simply to predicate anadditional property of indestructible matter. We may call it"force"--something that constantly expends itself in a moving body--butit is utterly incapable of definition, or of conception even, except asit stands related to such moving body. All the marvellous "correlates ofmotion, " therefore, producing such wonderful effects upon matter, inboth its molar and molecular states or conditions, are nothing more norless than vague and inconclusive inductions, derived from premiseshaving, at best, nothing but a relative existence in a universe ofmoving matter. It would be decidedly better to agree with Haeckel, thatmatter is the only actual existence, than to predicate of matter aco-existent and wholly inexplicable "somewhat, " whereon to base a purelyphysical hypothesis of life. 

But let us return from this slight digression. The beautiful and purelylocal fern (_Schizoea pusilla_) growing in the pine barrens of New Jersey, affords quite as conclusive proof of the correctness of the Bible genesisof life as the phenomenal appearance of Japan clover in the South. It wasat one time supposed that this most delicate and beautiful of all ourferns was peculiar to the New Jersey pine barrens. But it has beenascertained that it grows quite as abundantly in similar barrens in NewZealand, which are in the south temperate zone, at about the same latitudesouth, that these pine barrens of New Jersey occupy in the temperate zonenorth. So that, at whatever period this fern originally made itsappearance in either locality, it unquestionably found the exactthermometric, hygrometric, telluric, and other conditions necessary forthe development of its vital germs. Take any accurate, or evenhalf-accurate, chart of plant distribution on the earth's surface, and itwill be found that, everywhere, under the same favoring conditions, plantsof the same genera and species make their appearance independently of anyknown processes of dissemination in the case of seeds. The distribution isnot one of seeds, but rather of geographical conditions--thermometric, hygrometric, telluric, and possibly chemical. And this is true of allvegetation, whether growing in the same plant zones, in high latitudes, athigh altitudes, or under one degree of temperature and moisture oranother. Whenever the telluric conditions are the same or similar, in therespective localities named, and the temperature and moisture correspond, the necessary plant distribution follows in obedience to the divinemandate--"Let the earth bring forth. " This is the one uniform law thatgoverns everywhere, and the only one that accounts for all the diversifiedmanifestations of plant-life, now, as heretofore, taking place upon ourglobe. And the same is measurably true of animal life. It accounts for theappearance of every form of life in organic infusions; for _Bacteria_ inthe blood, _TorulA|_ in the tissues, plastide particles, morphologicalcells, and every other vital manifestation, from the smallest conceivable"unit" of life in protaplasmic matter, to the lordliest and most defiantforest oak that ever bared its arms to the storms and tempests ofcenturies. A purely materialistic science may perk its head with an air ofaffected incredulity, and superciliously turn aside from this hypothesis, because it does not shock our veneration for the Sacred Scriptures, butlet its special advocates advance some more consistent and rationallife-theory than that of "molecular machinery worked by molecular force, "or content themselves, with Dr. Gull, in confessing that they are unableto draw the first line between "living matter" and "dead matter, " as theyabsurdly use these terms. 

It is conceded that much extravagant speculation has been wasted upon thisquestion of the distribution of seeds. The ambition of each new writer hasseemingly been to hit upon some new theory of distribution. The "birdtheory" is a failure, as we have shown; nor do they invariably fly dueeast or west, so as to supply the several climatic zones with theirrespective vegetations. The same is true of the "squirrel theory, " forthis nimble little rodent is as likely to head north or south as to followthe course of the sun; the "wind theory" is subject to too many shifts andchanges to be accounted a reliable agency; the "river-and-ocean-currenttheories" are still less satisfactory, since rivers flow in diversedirections, and ocean currents bear with safety only their own aquaticplants; the "mummy-case theory" is hardly an accredited agency, and the"war theory" is attended with too much destruction of life to be safelyrelied on as conserving the vital forces of nature. The climatic zones, and high and low altitudes, have still to be consulted to get at the realcauses of distribution, or such as conclusively satisfy the scientificmind. For no single plant is really a cosmopolite. They are simply thehabitats of their own separate zones, except as high altitudes arereached, and climatic and other conditions favor the appearance of suchvegetation as belongs to other plant zones. If we would find the morecommon plants and weeds of New England in North Carolina or Tennessee, wemust go into the mountainous regions of those states, at an altitude whichcompensates for the difference in latitude, and where the influencingconditions of plant-life are essentially the same. In such localities, weshall find the same household plants, garden weeds, and generalvegetation, as in higher northern latitudes, not because their seeds havebeen borne thither from New England or elsewhere, but because the sameclimatic, telluric and other conditions prevail as in the more northernlocalities. And these conditions are what determine the development andgrowth of local vegetations. 

And so of the alpine firs, grasses, harebells, lichens, mosses, etc. Theirseeds have not been scattered, by any known agencies, over interveningregions, for thousands of miles or more, in order to find lodgment onthese lofty mountain cones; but, conditions being the same, the samevegetable growths appear. This is nature's method of propagating "vitalunits" and diversifying plant-life--geographical conditions everywheredetermining the proper distribution. But if nature is so prolific of vitalresources, in the propagation of plant-life, what need has she of naturalseeds? We anticipate this inquiry only to answer it; for we recognize itas a legitimate one in this connection. Our answer is that the seeds aregiven for the use of man, that he may control and utilize vegetation, andnot have to depend on more or less uncertain conditions. Agriculturalchemistry must be carried to a much higher degree of perfection than it islikely to reach in the next ten centuries at least, to determine whetherany particular plat of ground has been chemically balanced for the growthof wheat, to the exclusion of other cereal crops. Besides, the process ofsoil-balancing might be altogether too expensive to be indulged in byjudicious husbandry. These chemical conditions admit of too many possiblefailures, in balancing even the smallest patch of ground, to justifyexperiments in the direction named. Seeds also subserve the importantsubsidiary purpose of supplying food for many birds and animals, more orless useful to man. 

But chemistry has its limits as to usefulness in all human laboratories. As man's wisdom is limited, so is his power over the elementary forces ofnature confined to very narrow boundaries. It is given to him to searchout many inventions, and to pry, thus far and no farther, into the secretsof nature, or, more properly speaking, into the secrets of God. There isno doubt that if our chemico-molecular theorists respectinglife-phenomena, could produce, in their laboratories, the exactinter-uterine plasma, or plasmic conditions, of an animal--any animal, infact--and continue these conditions during the proper period of gestation, they _might_ produce life _de novo_. [13] But the most daring physicistwould stand aghast at the bare proposal of such an experiment. Neither hisknowledge of chemistry, nor the present uncertain value attaching to"molecular machinery, " would justify him, for a moment, in entering uponsuch a purely tentative and empirical an undertaking. 

It is hardly necessary to assume that the same law of vital force governsin the appearance and geographical distribution of _fungi_, as universallyobtains in the higher and more complex vegetal growths. And although itmay be difficult, in some instances, to draw the precise line betweencertain low mycological forms and the amoeboid and some other primitivemanifestations of animal life, yet all vegetable physiologists agree inassigning a purely vegetable origin to all the primary groups offungi--their general cellular character determining their proper place inclassification. And in all their extended family groups, pervading natureas widely as animal and vegetable life, we find that uniform chemical andother conditions produce uniform mycological results. Spores are no morenecessary for their appearance, in the first instance, than acorns areessential to the appearance of an oak forest when it succeeds the pine. Wherever the necessary conditions of moisture and heat are found toobtain, in connection with decayed or decaying substances, the particularform of fungus indicated thereby, whether parasitic or non-parasitic, willmake its appearance. Continuously damp walls, or wall-paper, will producethem in specific variety, not because their invisible spores are flyingabout in the atmosphere to find appropriate lodgment, but because thenecessary conditions obtain for their manifestation, or for thedevelopment of their vital units--those everywhere diffused, and ready toburgeon forth from the proper matrix, or from certain nutrient conditionsto be met with in all vegetable substances, after the process of decay hascommenced. Some orders appear only in a single matrix, but the greaterpart of them flourish on different decaying substances. 

Dr. M. C. Cooke, in speaking of non-parasitic fungi, and especially ofmoulds, says: "It would be far more difficult to mention substances onwhich they are never developed than to indicate where they have beenfound. " The parasitic fungi, however, generally confine themselves tocertain special plants, and rarely to any other. It is only the conditionof these special plants, when affected by decay, that seems favorable fortheir development; not because their spores (assuming that all fungi comefrom spores, ) possess the intelligence to fly about and hunt up the propernutrient matter on which to subsist during their developmental progressfrom specific spores into genetic forms of life. The rust or blight ofgrain is not the cause, therefore, but rather the result, of the commondisease known as "blight. " Without some excess or deficiency of absorptionand elaboration in the growth of grain or plants--something essentiallydisturbing their normal and harmonious processes of development--nomycological forms would appear on their stems or roots, nor would theydevelop themselves on their fading leaves or congested and decaying fruit. To say that there is any intelligent preference in these fungi--thedifferent species of _Mucor_, for instance--for disgusting offal overdecaying fruit, bread, paste, preserves, etc. , is to predicate a higherdegree of intelligence of fungus spores than of the average brutecreation, with all its wonderful instincts for guidance. 

We might refer to other classes of fungi developing themselves in thetesta of hard seeds, and in the interior of acorns, sweet chestnuts, etc. , --those in which there is no discoverable external opening by the aidof the microscope--to show the absolute absurdity of the theory that thespores of fungi, including the non-parasitic and other autonomous moulds, go madly foraging about the country in pursuit of decaying cocoanuts, apples, pears, plums, oranges, etc. , and even committing theirdepredations on hermetically canned fruits, the concealed honeycomb ofbeehives, the pupa of moths, and whatever else they may intelligentlyselect as a desirable matrix or habitat. No such theory as this will standthe test of thorough research and investigation, in any mycologicaldirection. Fungi everywhere make their initial appearance in theconditions of decay, as plants and trees originally make theirs in theenvironing conditions of vital manifestation. That our life-givingatmosphere--the "_pater omnipotens Ather_" of Virgil, "descending into thebosom of his joyous spouse (the earth) in fructifying showers, and greathimself, mingling with her great body" for the development of all thingsof life--should be so immeasurably thronged with death-pursuing fungi thatmyriads of their spores might dance without jostling on the point of acambric needle, is infinitely more fanciful than the conceptions of thepoet, in personifying the atmosphere as "father Ather, " and the earth ashis "joyous spouse. " But life, with its "pardlike spirit, beautiful andswift, " has reached its highest conceptions in the mind of the poet, notin the speculations of the scientist. What a "mingled yarn, " spun frommany-colored yet invisible threads, is it in the creative mind of aShakespeare, and how it looms up into "a dome of many-colored glass, staining the white radiance of eternity, " under the magic touch of aShelley! And yet how is it dwarfed down to a contemptible piece of"molecular machinery" by the scientist--one so utterly contemptible in itsmanifestations that it is ordered to take "a back seat" in this universeof all-potential matter and motion!

Dr. Cooke, in his "Handbook of British Fungi, " virtually concedes that thespores of the large puff-ball (_Lycoperdon giganteum_), as well as thoseof mushrooms, truffles, and other edible fungi (those with whose methodsof propagation man is best acquainted), may be produced artificially. Butthe process by which their production is thus effected, is more properly anatural than an artificial one. In speaking of truffle-grounds, he says(quoting from Broome) "that whenever a plantation of beech, or beech andfir, is made in the chalky districts of Salisbury Plain, after the lapseof a few years truffles are produced, and that the plantations continueproductive for a period of from ten to fifteen years, after which theycease to be so. " No truffle spores were planted in these cases, but theconditions of the soil, interlaced by the roots and shaded by the branchesof the young beech trees, or the beech and fir, became favorable for thedevelopment of truffle "germs, " and they made their appearance just asmushrooms do in caves and other places, where artificial beds are made andchemically balanced for their development and growth. And the reason whythey disappeared, after a period of ten or fifteen years, was simplybecause the proper nutriment of the soil was exhausted, and not inconsequence of its being too deeply shaded by the growing trees. Oneuniform rule would seem to govern in the culture of this much-covetedfungus. Wherever the necessary environing conditions obtain, they_appear_, and wherever these conditions fail, they _disappear_, notwithstanding the most persistent efforts to save them by watering thesoil with fresh infusions of the plant. In proof of this, one form oftruffle (_Tuber A|stivum_) appears under beech trees, another form (_Tubermacrosporum_) under oak trees, and still a third form (_Tuber brumale_)under oaks and white poplars; showing that so slight a change in soilconditions as that resulting from the presence of poplars among oaks, produces a very material change in the character of the fungus--oneamounting to a specific difference in variety. 

The process of artificially producing mushroom spores is a very simpleone, and may be easily followed. You have only to collect a quantity ofhorse-droppings, mingle with them some common road sand, place them undercover, see that they are well beaten down in order to preventover-heating--turning them occasionally for the same purpose--and in duetime they will generate sufficient spores for a dozen mushroom beds of theordinary size. The reason for their appearance is the same as thatgoverning truffle spores--they come whenever conditions favor, that is, whenever the soil is chemically balanced for their development and growth. In other words, they come because it is just as impossible for them not tocome, in their proper environing conditions, as it is for the earth, inits present cosmical relations, not to respond to its axial rotation. "Letthe earth bring forth" is just as much an outspoken law of nature, and oneas inexorably obeyed, as that unerring force of gravity which ledLeverrier, in the faith of his inductions, to indicate the precise pointin the heavens where the far-off planet, now bearing his name, might beseen by the required telescope. 

Dr. Cooke, quoting Mr. Cuthill's directions for producing mushroom spores, says: "These little collections of horse-droppings and road sand, if keptdry in shed, hole, or corner, under cover, will, in a short time, generateplenty of spawn, and will be ready to spread on the surface of the bed inearly autumn. " The collections should, of course, be made in the earlysummer. But it is no part of our object to indicate, in this connection, the process of truffle or mushroom culture. We merely refer to the methodsto show that the vital units, or germinal principles of life, in the caseof fungi, are just as dependent on "conditions" for their development, aswere the primordial germs of the gigantic cryptogams of the carboniferousera. These primordial germs, or the _ZRA_ of the Bible genesis, must havepreceded the first fungous growth, as they preceded the firstspore-bearing cryptogam. 

M. Gasparin, in his report on the production of truffles, made to thegreat "Paris Exposition" of 1855, refers to the "natural truffle-groundsat Vaucluse, " where the "common oak produces truffles like the evergreenoak;" although, in other localities, owing no doubt to the differentconditions of the soil, those gathered at the base of the one species ofoak differ very materially from those gathered at the base of the other. All these experimental results, and many others we might give inconnection with the culture of edible fungi, point to the conditions ofthe soil, produced by natural rather than artificial means, asall-essential for the propagation of fungus spores, as well as theirdevelopment into full-sized plants. The cultivation of other and minuterfungi, for scientific purposes, need not be referred to in thisconnection. The same general observations will be found to apply in thecase of all the experiments tried, although some very curious andremarkable modifications occur where pseudospores are to be found in themicelium of different plants. Nearly all these fungi have their ownparasites, originating undoubtedly in the diseased conditions of the plantfrom which they derive their nutriment. Indeed, all fungi, whetherparasitic or non-parasitic, have their origin, more or less definitelyoccurring, in decay. It is no more true that death is a necessity of life, than that life is an equal necessity of death. As out of the dead pastsprings the eternally living present, so from the "muddy vesture of decay"spring all the marvellous powers of reproduction with which nature wasendowed from the beginning. 

But it is unnecessary to dwell longer on the spores of fungi. As with theseeds of plants and trees, these spores never had an existence, and nevercould have had one, before the first independent fungus appeared toproduce them. The fungus before the spore is the inevitable induction. Nodistinction between necessary and contingent truth can ever take astronger hold than this on the human mind. Whence, then, the _first_fungus? or whence, rather, all those colonies, families, orders, divisions, and countless distinct individuals, extant everywhere, in themycological world? The answer we shall give will be anticipated from whatwe have already so confidently affirmed. Life comes from Life, as spiritcomes from God. And when "the spirit of God" moved upon the face of thedepths--upon the face of all the earth--at whatever stage in the progressof our planet, from its original form to its present myriad-throngedcondition of life, that transcendent event occurred, _Nature_, as wehalf-idolatrously worship her, received her first baptism of life, and hersolemn consecration as "the vicar of God. " No wonder, then, that at thatecstatic moment, when the ineffably bright mantle, fringed with "the whiteradiance of eternity, " fell upon her, "the morning stars sang together andall the sons of God shouted for joy. " And nature has been true to both herbaptism and her consecration. She claims no worship, no adoration, noidolatrous homage from man, but continually sends up her eternal chant andchoral anthem of praise to the great Giver of life. Every flower of thefield, every blade of grass, every stream that mirrors the heavens aboveher, every mountain top from which she points an index finger, everybreeze in which she whispers, and every cataract in which she speaks, allproclaim the power, the wisdom, the goodness of God--the source of alllife in the universe, from the minutest spore to all-inventive, soul-endowed man. 

Chapter V. 

Plant Migration and Interglacial Periods. 

Among the leading propositions laid down by Arthur Renfrey, Esq. , F. R. S. Etc. , etc. , in the able article prepared by him for "The Physical Atlas ofNatural Phenomena, " by Alexander Keith Johnston, Edinburg Edition, 1856, on "The Geographical Distribution of the most Important Plants YieldingFood, " are the following:--

1. "The primary condition of the existence of any species of plant, is itsabsolute creation, of which we know nothing. 

2. "But we assume each species to have been _created but once in time andin place_, and that its present diffusion is the result of its own law ofreproduction under the favorable or restrictive influences of lawsexternal to it. [14]

3. "The most important of external laws are those relating to climate, since _any species can flourish only within narrower or wider, but alwaysfixed limits, of temperature, humidity etc_. , 4. "The climate depends primarily on latitude, since this indicatesdistance from the source of heat, and the degree of obliquity of theheating rays. "

There are other governing conditions, of course, such as the averagerain-fall, distance from the equator, the elevation above the sea level inthe various mountain systems of vegetation, etc. , including thehygrometric, thermometric, telluric, and other conditions, of the severallocalities in which the different species of vegetation make theirappearance. 

But why should this distinguished naturalist insist upon the specificcreation of either plants or animals? No scientific work of any paramountvalue confines the creative power of the universe to such narrow andrestricted limits. Nor is there a particle of evidence to be drawn fromthe Bible that either plants or animals primarily originated in pairs. "Let the earth bring forth" is a command without limitation, orrestriction, as to time, place, or number; and there is no reason todoubt that myriads of living forms swarmed everywhere, at first as now, in nature. 

The idea, as expressed by Mr. Renfrey, that they were specifically createdat one time and place only, whether in pairs, tens, twenties, or hundreds, is neither a rational one, nor has it any experience-argument orscientific authority on which to stand. Take, for instance, anexperience-argument directly in point:--When the salt wells were firstbored at Syracuse, N. Y. , and the salt water was suffered to flow in wasteover the low grounds about the salt-works, the small saline plantspeculiar to salt-marshes in the warm temperate zone made their appearance, not in pairs, tens or hundreds, but in thousands rather, and havenourished there ever since. They came because conditions favored; becausea salt-marsh had been artificially produced hundreds of miles away fromthe sea coast. This is only one of a large number of cases--more than wehave room to specify in this connection--showing that wherever man, artificially or otherwise, produces the necessary conditions ofplant-life, nature responds to the germinal law precisely as she didmillions of years ago when the first salt-marsh favored the appearance ofthese saline plants--such as grow under no other conditions orcircumstances. 

But this idea of plants coming primarily from a single pair ofprogenitors, and each primordial pair branching off into diversifiedoffspring, as in the case of the cabbage, assumed to be the originalancestor of all the turnips and ruta-bagas, may be an article of botanicalfaith, but never of experimental proof. "_Entia non sunt multiplicandaprA|ter necessitatem_" is an old and well-approved maxim, applicable aliketo the countless myriads of living organisms, as to the innumerablecrystalline forms to be found everywhere in nature. Nothing is producedwithout the necessary conditions on which its production depends. "Necessity, " in its primitive signification, is a term of the very widestmeaning, and most universal application. It applies as well to the courseof nature as to the course of human events--to the laws of vegetable andanimal growth as to the inevitable march and order of celestial movements. As applied to any form of life-manifestation it implies a law ofdevelopment and growth, as well as the physiological conditions withoutwhich vital manifestations are impossible. For law, in a physiologicalsense, is that mode of vital action by which effects are invariably andinevitably produced. [15] And this law is just as dependent on necessaryvital conditions as vital manifestations are dependent on a physiologicallaw. There must always be this reciprocal dependence and relationshipbetween conditioning causes and effects. Whenever and wherever thenecessary vital conditions exist, the physiological law takes effect, andthe requisite vital manifestation is witnessed. And this is no doubt astrue of animal as of vegetable life. 

The earth's surface has been divided into eight separate zones, each ofwhich is distinguished by its peculiar or characteristic fauna and flora. Their order, measured from the geographical equator, is as follows;

 1. The Equatorial Zone, extending from 0A deg. To 15A deg.. 2. " Tropical " " " 15A deg. " 23A deg.. 3. " Sub-tropical " " " 23A deg. " 34A deg.. 4. " Warm Temperate " " " 34A deg. " 45A deg.. 5. " Cold " " " 45A deg. " 58A deg.. 6. " Sub-arctic " " " 58A deg. " 66A deg.. 7. " Arctic " " " 66A deg. " 72A deg.. 8. " Polar " " " 72A deg. " 82A deg.. 

These several zones become sixteen in number when considered withreference to both the northern and southern hemispheres. And a likedivision of isothermals is made in the case of all our mountain systems, extending in both directions from the equator. In ascending ourequatorial, tropical, and sub-tropical mountains, we find, of course, attheir several bases, the temperature of the zones in which theyrespectively lie; from two thousand to three thousand feet, we reach thenext higher zone, and so on, at about the same ratio of altitude, until weascend to the polar zone or the line of perpetual ice and snow. The peakof Teneriffe, for instance, lies in the sub-tropical zone, but, at theelevation named, we meet with the vegetation which characterizes the warmtemperate zone. And this holds true of all our mountain systems, in alllatitudes, and at all altitudes, in all parts of the globe. 

They all present the same or strikingly similar characteristics in plantlife, with such variations and modifications only as might be accountedfor, were all the influencing conditions and surrounding circumstances, modifying geographical distribution, known to us. From the lowest to thehighest regions in which vegetation flourishes, this rule, with slightexceptions only, will be found to obtain, and it is in this direction thatthe observations of the scientific, as well as practical botanist, shouldhereafter be extended. 

Humboldt noticed this characteristic feature of the earth's vegetationquite early in his explorations, and accordingly divided the tropicalmountains, as the earth's surface was then divided, into three separatezones, the tropical, the temperate, and the frigid. But a closerclassification now distinguishes them into the same number of zones as aremarked, in approximate isotherms, on the earth's surface. Mr. Renfreygives us further statistics of great value respecting these several plantzones of the globe, all of which fit so admirably into our theory ofplant-distribution, that we can hardly see how the most prejudiced mindcan resist the force of its application. Among the most important of thesestatistical facts are tables giving the comparative rain-falls in thedifferent plant zones of the old and new worlds, and the classes ofvegetation peculiar to each of them. 

The Equatorial zone, for instance, is characterized by extreme luxuriancein growth, owing no doubt to the great heat and abundant moisture therein, and exhibits a vegetation which is peculiar to itself, and which couldonly thrive under the hygrometric, thermometric, telluric, and otherconditions of that extensive zone. 

The Tropical zones (those north and south of the equator) arecharacterized by a more abundant and diversified underwood, and, whileretaining some of the equatorial forms, present fewer parasites and lessrapid and luxuriant growths. They contain many plants and trees which arepeculiar to their own limits, and these are generally the hardiest andmost abundant. All equatorial forms disappear in these zones, that is donot pass into the sub-tropical zones. And these characteristics obtain inboth the northern and southern tropical zones, as well as in the mountainsystems within the equatorial regions. 

The Sub-tropical zones, while retaining some of the more marked forms andgeneral features of the tropical zones, such as palms, bananas, etc. , exhibit the most striking characteristics of their own, consisting of agreater abundance of forest trees, especially those having broad, leatheryand shining leaves, like the magnolias, the different species of laurels, and plants of the myrtle family. The tropical forms all disappear in thesezones, as the equatorial do in the tropical zones. 

The Warm Temperate zones exhibit the same disposition to retain some ofthe hardier and more abundant sub-tropical forms that characterize theother zones, in respect to their adjoining isotherms. But the trees andplants peculiar to this zone north, (and the same is no doubt true of thecorresponding zone south), are more numerous, and embrace a wider range ofdeciduous, as well as evergreen growths. Evergreen shrubs, heaths, cistusses, and leguminous plants are everywhere more abundant. The markedcharacteristic of these zones is that the trees, plants, and arborescentgrasses differ more widely in their general character, as well as run moreextensively into varieties. 

The Cold Temperate zones retain many of the deciduous trees of the warmtemperate, but with less conspicuous blossoms, while a stronger tendencyis shown toward social conifers, and the trunks of the deciduous trees aremore profusely overrun with mosses, lichens, etc. These zones are alsoabundant in grasses. 

The Sub-arctic zone north largely retains its hold upon the socialconifers, giving place, northward, on this continent, as well as in Europeand Asia, to birch and alder, alternating with willows where the soil issufficiently moist. Green pastures are still abundant, and showy floweringherbs abound during the brief spring, summer, and autumn months. 

The Arctic zone retains few of the sub-arctic forms and its vegetationgenerally corresponds to what we call alpine shrubs, grasses, etc. 

The North Polar zone shows few signs of vegetation and is thought to beentirely devoid of shrubs. A few small herbacious perennials of the mostextreme dwarf habit, with a few lichens and mosses, constitute its entirevegetation. 

There are some seeming exceptions to these general statements respectingplant-distribution, but they are hardly exceptions when we consider theelevation at which any one species, as the birches for instance, mayappear, as they frequently do, in three several zones. 

From these facts, gathered from the highest authorities, and well-attestedon all hands, what general conclusions, if any, are to be drawn? Beforeanswering this inquiry, let us proceed to state what conclusions _have_been drawn. According to all the authorities we have examined on thedistribution of plant life; on the migration of plants and animals; onclimate and time as affecting the transference of isothermal andisochimenal lines; on glacial and inter-glacial periods (with oneimportant exception only), the assumption maintained is substantially thatof Mr. Renfrey, that "each species of plant and animal was created butonce in time and place, " and that its present diffusion is the result ofits "own law of reproduction under the favorable or restrictive influencesof laws external to it. " In other words, they insist upon originalplant-centres, without definitely stating when or where they occurred, andthat from these centres both plants and animals have migrated to all partsof the globe where they now appear, even crossing the equatorial zoneswhere they could not live for a single day. This migration theory theyattempt to explain in a way that is altogether more ingenious thansatisfactory. 

The important exception to which we refer is that of Professor Agassiz, asreported by his associate professor of Harvard University, Mr. Asa Gray, in his "Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism. " In this workProfessor Gray says of his late distinguished associate, that so far as hewas aware, Professor Agassiz was the only leading naturalist "who did nottake into his very conception of a species, explicitly or by implication, the notion of a material connection resulting from the descent of theindividuals composing it from a common stock, of a local origin. "

And Professor Gray adds this further testimony to the closeness of hisassociate's observations, in considering the very point here underconsideration: "Agassiz wholly eliminates community of descent from hisidea of species, and even conceives a species to have been as numerous inindividuals, and as widely spread over space, or as segregated indiscontinuous spaces, from the first to the later periods. " And this viewis undoubtedly the correct one. At all events, it entirely harmonizes withthe facts of the biblical genesis, and obviates the necessity ofaccounting for the appearance of the same genera and species of plants oranimals in the southern as in the northern hemispheres; in fact, theirappearance in all parts of the globe, in corresponding isotherms, andunder similar conditions of moisture and soil-constituents. 

Wherever the hygrometric, thermometric, telluric, and other conditionsfavor, the class of vegetation indicated by the presence of theseconditions makes its appearance, just as the fire-weed makes itsappearance in our warm temperate zone, not from the presence of seed, butsimply the presence of "conditions"--the _pro_vision of man harmonizingwith the _pre_vision of nature. In the same way the "Japan clover" madeits appearance, as Professor Thurber states, "all over the southernstates" during the late civil war, not from the migration of plants, butthe presence of natural conditions. [16]

The numerous facts we have already given, and many others that might bearrayed in advocacy of our position, taken in connection with the generalfacts here presented in regard to plant-distribution, all point directlyto climatal and soil conditions as the real cause of dissemination, andnot to their migration from continent to continent, and across vastintervening seas and oceans, as the theory of Professor Gray and otherswould require us to believe. Take the case of the _Schizoea pusilla_ ofthe New Jersey pine barrens, to which we have already referred, growing insimilar barrens in New Zealand, and how are we to account for theirantipodal appearance upon the globe? Professor Thurber refers to thisplant as a "purely local fern" of New Jersey, and says it was for a longtime supposed to be peculiar to that state until it was ascertained thatit grew in New Zealand. Whether this plant "travelled" from New Zealand toNew Jersey, or journeyed in the opposite direction, none of these"specific-centre" gentlemen can well inform us. Professor Agassiz wouldhave said that it might have appeared, in numerous individuals, in bothlocalities at the same time, or at different times, as conditions favored;and this would have been an exact scientific statement, no doubt, of thefact. Mr. Arthur Renfrey, and those who accept his scientific formulA|, must insist that this most beautiful of all our ferns was such a "favoritechild of nature" that she condescended to create it _twice_ "in time andplace, " instead of only _once_. It is a poor rule, they may say, that hasno exceptions in phenomenal manifestation. 

Professor Gray may insist that such a phenomenon as this requires beliefin the supernatural, and that migration by ocean-currents is the morerational theory of the two. But M. Alphonse de Candolle--quite as highauthority as we can quote--has come to the conclusion that marinecurrents, and all other suggested means of distant transportation, "haveplayed only a very small part in the actual dispersion of species, " evenacross narrow channels and the near arms of seas. But why should theappearance of this fern at opposite points of the globe, with thousands ofmiles of ocean and continent intervening, be any more supernatural thanthe presence of _Bacteria_ or _TorulA|_[17] in different organicinfusions? If the vital units of these _infusoriA|_, are present inexperimental infusion, as Professor Bastian virtually admits, why may notthe vital germs or units of this _Schizoea pusilla_ have made theirappearance, in developmental forms, both in New Zealand and New Jersey, atthe same or different periods of time? If Professor Gray regards themicroscopical forms in organic infusions, or the statical forms ininorganic solutions, as supernatural, or as above the powers of nature, then we have no exceptions to make to his position. First, prove thatthese vital manifestations of nature are above the powers with which shehas been endowed, or was originally endowed and we will concede thequestion of supernaturalness, and drop all exceptions to his line ofargument. Whenever a dynamic law, or a statical, is found to be uniformlyoperative under a given set of conditions, we had supposed the operationnot to be above the powers of nature, but in entire accord with them, andhence not supernatural. 

But let us see into what an inextricable labyrinth of difficulty we areled by this theory of plant-migration from the equatorial to thesub-arctic zone, and _vice-versa, _ and even beyond the equator to thesub-antarctic zone, and still _vice versa_. Before proceeding to considerthe probable duration of the several geographical epochs, called glacialperiods, on which their theory of plant-migration depends, or consideringthe evidence touching these glacial periods, we will state their positionin regard to these possible migrations as briefly and concisely as we knowhow. Mr. Darwin's solution of this problem is the generally accepted oneof the evolutionists, as well as most of the present scientific world. Asthe truth, or rather the falsity, of his pet theory of evolution dependedon the satisfactory solution of this vexed problem, it became necessaryfor him to give his best and entire mental energies to the gigantic taskwhich was, by universal consent, assigned him. The reader shall see howadmirably the thermal equator is crossed by Mr. Darwin, with his vastswarms of flies, mosquitoes, insectivorous and other plants, forest trees, anthropoid apes, and general menagerie of wild animals, such as wouldgladden the heart of the "great American showman" beyond the mostextravagant comparison. 

The question, bear in mind, which he was specially called upon to solve, was how the temperate forms north--those, for instance, of the warm andcold temperate zones--managed to cross the thermal equator, and invade thecorresponding zones in the southern hemisphere; just as though there wasany more necessity of determining this question than the opposite one, ofhow the southern forms came to invade the northern hemisphere. We willgive his solution of this problem in his own language, that we may not becharged with misrepresentation. 

He says, in speaking of the glacial periods: "As the cold became more andmore intense, we know that arctic forms invaded the temperate regions;and, from the facts just given, there can hardly be a doubt that some ofthe more vigorous, dominant, and widest-spread temperate forms invaded theequatorial lowlands. The inhabitants (flora and fauna) of these hotlowlands would at the same time have migrated to the tropical andsub-tropical regions of the south; for the southern hemisphere was at thisperiod warmer. On the decline of the glacial period, as both hemispheresgradually recovered their former temperatures, the northern forms livingon the lowlands under the equator would have been driven to their formerhomes or have been destroyed, being replaced by the equatorial formsreturning from the south. Some, however, of the northern temperate formswould almost certainly have ascended any adjoining highland, where, ifsufficiently lofty, they would have long survived, like the arctic formson the mountains of Europe. 

"In the regular course of events the southern hemisphere would, in itsturn, be subject to a severe glacial period, with the northern hemisphererendered warmer; and then the southern temperate forms would invade theequatorial lowlands. The northern forms which had before been left on themountains would now descend and mingle with the southern forms. Theselatter, when the warmth returned, would return to their former homes, leaving some few species on the mountains, and carrying southward withthem some of the northern temperate forms, which had descended from theirmountain fastnesses. Thus we should have some few species identically thesame in the northern and southern temperate zones, and on the mountains ofthe intermediate tropical regions. "

We are sorry to spoil so ingenious a theory as this to account forplant-migration from the temperate zones north to the corresponding zonessouth. But in spite of all the great names which will frown down upon usin the attempt, we are obliged to demolish this altitudiness structure, even at the risk of its tumbling about our own ears. 

But first let us lay down a few undeniable propositions, on thestrength of which this ingenious and purely speculative theory of Mr. Darwin must rest:--

1. It is universally conceded by the scientific world that these glacialepochs, however many of them there may have been in the past and howeverfew there may be in the future, depend, for their occurrence, upon themaxima of eccentricity in the earth's orbit about the sun. 

2. The actual amount of heat which the earth annually receives from thesun is in no way affected by the eccentricity of its orbit. It is aconstant quantity, and only unequally distributed on the earth's surface, being neither increased nor diminished, as our winters occur in aphelionor perihelion. 

3. The actual amount of ice-cap accumulated about the two poles of theearth, is also a constant quantity. And to measure the severity of anyglacial epoch, we have only to determine the exact amount of ice (notaltogether an impossible problem) about the two poles at any given time, and then determine the effect of its entire transference from one pole tothe other. 

4. It is not probable that the present ice-cap of the south pole extendscontinuously and permanently much farther north than 80A deg. Or 81A deg.. Mt. Erebus, in Victoria Land, lies in about this latitude, and it was only afew years since that the coast line of that island or continent wastraversed, by English exploring vessels, from Mt. Erebus to a point someten or twelve degrees further north. [18]

5. But if we estimate the southern cap as extending continuously to 75A deg. , what would be the effect of its transference at once to the ice-cap of thenorth pole? Would it extend it, after assuming its proper glacial slope, below 60A deg. , a point falling within the present subarctic zone? The utmostlimit to which Mr. Croll, in his great work on "Climate and Time, "conceives it possible that it should extend, in any glacial epoch, is to55A deg. , or about the northern boundary of England. 

Now unless the astronomers and physicists are all at sea about the causesof glaciation, the warm temperate zone can never be pushed any furthersouth than the tropical zone, nor the cold temperate any further than thesub-tropical. This would be the extreme limit. Mr. Croll says, in speakingof these glacial periods; "It is, of course, absurd to suppose that anice-cap could ever actually reach down to the equator. It is probable thatthe last great ice-cap of the glacial epoch nowhere reached half way tothe equator. Our cap (that of Europe) must therefore, terminate at amoderately high latitude. " And if the gulf stream flows southward duringthe glacial period north, as he supposes probable, the cap on thiscontinent would probably terminate at the same moderately high latitude. Assuming that Mr. Croll's estimate is the more probable one, it would onlypush the cold temperate zone down to the line of the Gulf States; the warmtemperate, to the southern line of Mexico; the sub-tropical, to theCentral American States, and the tropical to the United States ofColumbia, Venezuela, and Guiana. 

Suppose, then, that some seven hundred thousand years ago, more or less, when the North Pole had fully donned the earth's ice-cap, with all theisothermal and isochimenal changes thereby effected, what must have beenthe line of march taken by our northern vegetal and animal forms to escapethe cataclysm of ice and snow then impending? Manifestly, they would haveflocked, first to the Gulf states, then to Mexico, and afterwards to theCentral American states; but none of them could ever have been crowdedthrough the Isthmus of Panama, since at the height of the last glaciation, that portion of the continent must have been the tropical barrier to ournorthern forms, as it is now the equatorial barrier. 

For the sake of the argument, however, we will suppose the northernice-cap to have been even more imperative in its demands than Mr. Crollhas deemed possible, driving some of our warm and cold temperate formsdown into the lowlands of Columbia, Venezuela, etc. , in the extremenorthern portions of South America. But how would these forms havemanaged, even then, to cross the thermal equator and secure a permanenthabitat in the present warm and cold temperate zones of that continent?Manifestly, this question has never been practically solved, nor is itever likely to be in our day or generation. It is nevertheless susceptibleof solution, as Mr. Darwin thinks, by easy mental processes. We have onlyto take a bird's eye view of the situation, and mentally follow theseforms in their long geographical tramp from the northern to the southernhemisphere. 

They must have started, of course, some twenty thousand years or morebefore the earth reached its last superior limit of eccentricity. At thatdistant epoch the sub-arctic breezes must have been blowing pretty stifflyin our present temperate latitudes, and these forms would have beenconstrained, in due time, to seek a more congenial isotherm. They mustaccordingly have set out on their expedition, at about the periodindicated, with the prospect of a long and tedious journey before them. Some twenty thousand years must have transpired before they reached theline of the present Gulf states, and it would have taken as many moreyears for them to deploy to the right and successfully enter the Mexicanstates. In another twenty thousand years or so they might have doubledVera Cruz, and headed, in a southeasterly direction, for the CentralAmerican states. The thermal equator would by this time have reached apoint some thirty degrees south of the geographical equator, while thenorthern ice-cap would have swept down upon the traditional "hub of theuniverse, " or some ten or twelve degrees in excess of Mr. Croll'scalculations. 

To have accomplished this grand glaciatorial feat the North Pole must havedonned some twenty times the amount of ice now about both poles of theearth, and so changed the earth's centre of gravity as to have inundatedevery foot of land on its habitable surface. But if this terriblecatastrophy had been avoided, and some of our extreme northern forms hadforced their way through the Isthmus into the lowlands of Columbia, theymust have done so at their greatest possible peril, even if they hadreached the base of Old Mt. Tolima in advance of the thermal equator, nowfleeing in dismay before the southern Ice-monarch, with all hisisochimenal hosts in mad pursuit of their invaders. And if theseadventurous northern forms had succeeded in ascending Mt. Tolima, theycould never have got down again, with the assistance of forty glaciations. 

But we can imagine Mr. Darwin promptly snatching his pen to show thestupidity of these northern forms in not climbing Popocatepetl or someother lofty mountain in Central America or Mexico, on their retreat beforethe still advancing thermal equator. But how this would have helped themto cross the geographical equator, we fail to see. When Mr. Darwin, andthe eminent corps of geologists and physicists accepting his solution ofthis "vexed question, " can make a "warm term" south _succeed_ a "coldterm" north, we shall have no difficulty in solving the problem ourself. But, unfortunately, the two terms--the cold one north and the warm onesouth--are simultaneous in occurrence, and the same causes which forcedthese northern invaders into the tropics, when they followed _after_ thethermal equator, would have driven them ignominously back again _before_it. The climbing of mountains would only have prolonged their disaster. For after the glaciation north comes the glaciation south, and unless ourcold temperate zone were pushed down beyond the geographical equator, noneof its living forms could ever have reached the corresponding zone in thesouthern hemisphere. 

But as this "migration theory" is one of paramount importance to modernscience, and especially to "Darwinism, " [19] distinctively so called, letus, at the risk of repetition and tediousness, propose a scientificexpedition for the better solution of this problem. To do this, we proposeto cut loose from our stupid predecessors, the plants and animals, andinvite Mr. Darwin and some of his more distinguished Europeancontemporaries, not omitting Professors Gray, Winchell, Yeomans, and somefew other American admirers of his, to accompany us on a fresh expeditionfrom the warm and cold temperate zones north to the corresponding zonessouth, _purely in the interest of science_. To make it certain that thetime fixed upon for this "expedition" to start, will not escape theirattention, we will state what many of them already well know, that thepresent eccentricity of the earth's orbit is very low, being only 0. 0168, and that, in the year of our Lord 851, 800, it will reach its next superiorlimit, with a few intervening oscillations of such minimum value as torender it hardly worth our while to start before that time. 

We shall be obliged, of course to invite our distinguished European partyto join us on this side of the Atlantic, as their own narrow andcontracted continent furnishes no proper field for determining the problemin question. We shall insist upon one condition only: "_That they shallnever leave the warm temperate zone in which we shall set out on ourexpedition, except to pass halfway into an adjoining zone as is the habit, at times, with plants and animals_. " This condition will have to berigidly observed, otherwise our expedition would be of no scientific valueto future generations. As we shall have plenty of time to provide thenecessary outfit, we will appoint Mr. Darwin purveyor-general of theparty, and hold him responsible for any misadventure. 

We will arrange for the expedition to start in the early autumn of theyear of our Lord 831, 800, or about twenty thousand years before the earthshall reach its next superior limit of eccentricity, --all of us eager, ofcourse, to brave the climatic vicissitudes of the journey, and to solvethe "great problem of the ages, " which is, to determine how the giganticelephantoids of the Eocene period managed to cross the thermal equator, and pass into the present arctic regions of our globe. 

As "the king never dies, " so the old southern Ice-monarch will besucceeded by the young northern one, at about the period named. We shallthen have a decided advantage over our predecessors, the plants andanimals, in their journey southward, since we shall know the exact routethey took, and need only follow it. Presumably they had no suchinformation, nor had they either chart or compass to guide them, --acircumstance which Mr. Darwin has not sufficiently taken into account inpredicating intelligence of his favorite pedestrians. Besides, thesevegetal and animal forms had one difficulty to encounter which we shallnot experience. With all the northern forms driven down into the CentralAmerican states, they must have been sadly crowded for room, especiallynear the Isthmus. The social conifers must have monopolized all the morefavored sites on the mountain sides and tops, while the humbler denizensof the forest must have contented themselves with still more limitedquarters. The more impatient animals, for lack of necessary forage, musthave crowded through the Isthmus only to be driven back by the tropicalheats to their proper isotherms. 

But our warm temperate zone is now moving southward, and our scientificexpedition is moving with it. The northern Ice-monarch has resumedabsolute sway, and our aphelion distance from the sun has increased sometens millions of miles. We have, in the mean time, moved down to the lineof the Gulf states, and are deploying to the right in order to make atriumphant entry into Mexico. Mr. Darwin is daily consulting theisochimenals, and is confident that our northern ice-cap will equal Mr. Croll's highest expectations. The news finally reaches us that the Gulfstream has turned its course southward, and is now pouring its immensetreasures of heat into the South Atlantic, if not turning the African"horn" and washing the far-off Australian coast. This fact greatlyincreases the enthusiasm of our European party, and they hasten forwardinto the sub-tropical zone, almost "violating conditions" in their hasteto enter the tropics. 

At length, we crowd the narrow passages of the Isthmus, and the glory of awarm temperate climate bursts upon our view in the Columbian states, ofSouth America. _The expedition promises to be an entire success_. Atleast, Mr. Darwin thinks so, and he is now the Sir Oracle of our party. Wedeliberately enter the lowlands of Columbia, and make ready to ascend thesub-tropical mountains--those formerly equatorial--where the "greatscientific problem of the ages" is to be demonstrated. But we aremeasuring time by almost _Sirius_ distances, and vast geologic periodssweep by without apparent record. The northern ice-cap has been aprodigious one, crowding us nearly down to the geographical equator, withthe advantage we have of appropriating some five and half degrees of thesub-tropical zone. 

But the year Anno Domini 851, 800 finally rolls round, and the maximum ofthe earth's ice-cap is reached. Old Mt. Tolima looms up in the distance, and we soon ascertain that its height is sufficient for all scientificpurposes. Its summit displays a glittering ice-cap, and we are certain tofind the proper isotherm by climbing its umbrageous sides. We accordinglymake haste to reach its base, and get there not a minute too soon; for theyoung southern Ice-monarch has stolen a march on the thermal equator, andis driving it irresistibly back to its old quarters. His march northwardis a continuous triumph and ovation up to 55A deg. , and the heart of Patagoniais made glad by his near approach. True, the white gates of commerce areclosed about the Horn; but that is no concern of these wild Patagonians. The aggressive Britton is driven out of New Zealand, and that is anothersource of joy to the savage breast. Tasmania would extend a gladderwelcome than all to the Ice-crowned monarch, but alas, not a drop ofTasmanian blood runs in human veins! Cape Good Hope has now a sub-arcticclimate, and the heart of the wild Kaffir and Zulu rejoices that thesceptre of "perfidious Albion" is broken. 

The thermal equator at length reaches the base of Mt. Tolima, and hastensnorthward to the Isthmus, and thence to Hondurus and New Guatemala, where, by sheer force of exhaustion, it comes to a halt. 

But, as the equatorial zone extends fifteen degrees both ways from thethermal equator, its southern limit now rests on the geographical equator, and accordingly encircles the base of our "mount of refuge. " We are now upthis mountain some sixteen thousand feet above the equatorial lowlands, with the sub-tropical, tropical, and equatorial zones between us and thepossibility of our further migration southward, without violating theexpress conditions imposed at the outset of our expedition. 

The fact soon stares us in the face that we have been no more successful, in our efforts to cross the thermal equator and pass into high southernlatitudes, than the stupid plants and animals before us; and Mr Darwin'sfaith in high mountains springing from equatorial lowlands, disappears injest and derision as we all good-humoredly agree "to break conditions, "and find our way back to the centres of activity and trade in the Old andNew Worlds, leaving the great scientific problem of the ages to solveitself as best it may. We accordingly descend from our mountain fastness, hasten to the coast, and take passage by steamer to Manhattan, the greatcommercial metropolis of the world. Here we find that the barometer ofexchange was long ago taken down in London and hung up in New York. TheOld Antiquarian Society rooms are the first object of interest sought byus. On making our way thither we look for a copy of the _Herald_, of thedate of our departure, in which we find an account of the scientificexpedition fitted out by us, facetiously termed "_The Great Wild-GooseChase after the Thermal Equator_"--presenting one of the most humorousbits of sensational pleasantry ever given to the American public. 

But an apology is due the staider reader for the seeming levity of thisnarrative adventure. The exposition of Mr. Darwin, though widely acceptedon both sides of the Atlantic by the scientific world, has seemed to ustoo trivial for serious reply. If we have leaped over vast periods oftime, it makes no difference with the argument. So long as the thermalequator, or more properly the equatorial zone, or any part of it, liesbetween the warm or cold temperate forms, whether plants or animals, andtheir point of destination in the southern hemisphere, they can nevermigrate thither, any more than the right whale of the arctic seas can swimthe equatorial oceans. Nothing is gained by going out of the way to climbmountains, except to hopelessly retard the return of both plants andanimals to their native zones. If we have not demonstrated this fact tothe reader's fullest comprehension, it will be useless for him ever towrite a Q. E. D. At the end of any proposition. 

It is true that some eminent astronomers and physicists hesitate toaccept the theory that these glacial epochs are due to the eccentricityof the earth's orbit. But the argument favoring it is well fortified andably advanced, and if we add to the astronomical considerations involved, the physical proofs of a change in the earth's centre of gravity, causedby the excessive accumulation of ice about either pole, and the probableshifting of the Gulf stream to a southerly direction during the glacialperiod north, it is difficult to resist the conviction that the realcause of glaciation has been suggested in this theory. With all the icenow accumulated about the south pole transferred to the north pole, itwould make an ice-cap of over thirty miles in thickness at the pole, andone sloping in all directions southward to about 60A deg.. This accumulation, it is claimed, would so change the earth's centre of gravity as to causeall the equatorial warm waters to flow southward instead of northward, asthey now do. 

This would certainly seem to be a most wonderful provision of nature, aswell as one strongly calculated to impress the human mind with the beliefthat an Infinite _Pre_vision lies behind all possible _pro_vision, whetherwitnessed in the heavens or in the earth, in astronomical or physicalphenomena. Everywhere we see infinite perfection, combined with infinitebeneficence, in the adaptation of means to ends. Nothing runs towaste--all things are conserved for use. 

But in all the outspoken grandeur of the universe, there is nothing sogrand, in exhibition at least, as the simple faith of a child, that "Hewho watereth the hills from his chambers, " and "causeth the day-spring toknow his place, " will watch over the trustful little sleeper during thedarkness and silence of the night. 

Chapter VI. 

The Distribution and Premanence of Species. 

Professor Gray, in his address before the American Association for theadvancement of science, delivered at Dubuque (Ia. ) in 1872, whileremarking upon the wide extent of similar flora in the same plant zones, says: "If we now compare, as to their flora generally, the Atlantic UnitedStates with Japan, Mantchooria and Northern China, --_i. E. _ Eastern NorthAmerica with Eastern North Asia--half the earth's circumference apart, wefind an astonishing similarity. " But why astonishing? Had ourdistinguished botanical professors, in this country and in Europe, thoroughly informed themselves as to the climatic conditions, the generalphysical features, geographical characteristics, soil-constituents, andother conditional incidences of this Asiatic region, in the light of allthe physiological facts before them, the circumstance of this greatsimilarity of flora would have been anything but astonishing. Indeed, theastonishment, if any, would have been expressed at the want of similarity, had it been found to exist. 

Ever since 1862, these distinguished professors have had the greatplant-charts of Mr. Arthur Renfrey before them, with the warm temperatezone north accurately laid down in its proper isotherms, as well as thedifferent classes of vegetation peculiar to the two regions referred to, and some general conclusions of value to science might have been drawntherefrom. Besides, the fact of these similar antipodal flora was wellknown to many of them before this chart was issued. They also knew thatall along the higher mountain ranges of this country, as well as inEurope, the same alpine flora was to be found under the same or similaralpine conditions. From Mt. St. Elias, in Alaska, to the Central AmericanStates, and thence, through the Isthmus, to the southern extremity of theAndes in South Patagonia, there is one unbroken line of alpine vegetationpressing the sides or summits of the loftier mountain ranges, at altitudescorrespondingly varying with the latitudes in which they occur. And thesame is true of the Alps in Europe and the Himalaya ranges in Asia, if notof all the mountain systems of the globe. 

These, and hundreds of other equally suggestive facts, all pointing togeographical, climatic, and other influencing conditions, as the realobjective points of inquiry, have been constantly before our botanicalfriends; and yet they have been content with Mr. Darwin's theory ofclimbing mountains to cross the geographical equator, under the impressionthat an enormous ice-cap, or rather prodigious "ice-ulster, " wouldultimately drift them into the southern hemisphere, or enable them to"coast" their way thither with the greatest imaginable ease. But whyinsist upon the migration of plants growing in the lowlands and about thebases and sides of mountains, and not suggest some means of transport forthe equally beautiful flora, known as "alpine, " on the mountain summits ofthe earth? These are distributed, as we have before shown, over all ourmountain systems, in all latitudes and in all parts of the globe, as wellas in the higher regions of vegetation as we approach the north pole. Surely, the delicate little harebells of these alpine regions shouldattract some interest, if not sympathy, from those who are constantlyhunting up means of transport for the more hardy and robust plants thatseem able to take care of themselves almost anywhere. 

When the next great ice-cap shall sweep down from the north pole uponthese beautiful alpine flowers they will have to travel somewhere. Thereis manifestly as much necessity for them to get out of the way as for therest of the flora. How will they manage to get down the mountains into thelowlands, and traverse uncongenial plains and deserts, to find other andfar-distant alpine homes? They can never, of course, get very far awayfrom the regions skirted by eternal frost, for their cup of joy must bechaliced by the snow-flake, or their beautiful life is soon ended. But ifall our alpine flora have traveled from one evolutional centre, or havebeen "created but once in time and place, " how have they managed to crossthe thermal equator and spread themselves out over all the alpine regionsof the globe? We call upon Mr. Darwin and Professor Gray to rise andexplain. Not that we want any explanation, but that their theory ofplant-migration stands sadly in need of one. 

The theory which the Bible genesis suggests to us is fully adequate to theexplanation wanted. It explains not only _why_ these alpine flora appearwhere they do, but why they cannot appear anywhere else. It also explainsall the physiological facts to which we have referred in the foregoingchapters. Wherever the necessary alpine conditions exist the earthresponds to the divine command, and the beautiful little alpine harebellis cradled into life, and rejoices in the bright embroidery it wears. Andso, wherever streams are turned aside to flow through new meads andsheltered woods, or over broken and swaly places where cowslips never grewbefore, hardly a year will pass before this "wan flower" will hang therein"its pensive head, " while all along the line of the stream the black alderwill make its appearance in the lowlands, no matter how far its currentmay be diverted from its original channel, or how distant the supply ofnatural seeds. For nature's sternest painter can only delineate her as"instinct with music and _the vital spark_. "

If our botanical professors would come forth into the true light ofnature, they should accept the position of pupil to her, and not assertthat of teacher. So long as they continue to peep and botanize upon hergrave, or over ancient mounds and Hadrianic tumuli, they will never findout the cunning of her processes, much less the means she employs toaccomplish her perfected ends. This modern idolatry of "hypotheses, " withour chronic neglect of what nature _does_, is the great scientificstumbling-block of the age in which we live. Our botanists all agree thatcertain plants and trees disappear--hopelessly die out--from the_absence_ of "necessary conditions;" when will they come to recognize thereverse of this undeniable proposition, and agree that the _presence_ ofnecessary conditions may cause the same plants and trees to make theirappearance, that is, spring into life in obedience to some great primallaw, as unerringly obeyed by nature as the attractive force of theuniverse itself?

For nearly half a century the fact has been known that the geographicaldistribution of the European flora, and especially that of the BritishIslands, was referable to latitude, elevation, and climatic conditions. Asearly as 1835, Mr. Hewett Watson, a well-known botanist of that day, inhis published "Remarks on the Geographical Distribution of Plants, inconnection with Latitude, Elevation, and Climate, " drew the attention ofthe botanical world to this remarkable feature of plant distribution;while the late Professor Edward Forbes pursued the same line of thought inhis attempt to show how geographical changes had affected plant areas inGreat Britain as far back as the last glacial drift. And yet all ourbotanical writers have been steadily persisting on immenseplant-migrations to account for their geographical distribution, and havegiven us maps without number to show how the vegetal hosts have traversedvast continents, swam multitudinous seas, braved the fiery equator, andscaled the summits of the loftiest Andes. In the mean time, no botanist ofany distinguished note, except M. De Candolle, has confidently ventured toquestion this migration theory, so imposing and formidable has been thearray of names which have frowned down, like so many gigantic ghauts, uponthe audacious questioner. 

But the present actual state of knowledge on this subject forbids us anylonger to accept theories for facts, premises for conclusions, orfallacious reasoning for legitimate induction. Truth and daylight nevermeet in a corner, and no one, in our day, need go to the bottom of a wellin search of either. We are forever stumbling over the truth withoutknowing it, because our old traditional beliefs, like so manysuperannuated grasshoppers, are constantly springing up in our path anddiverting our attention from her. There are physiological facts enoughdaily obtruding themselves upon our attention, if we would but noticethem, in the case of wayside plants, garden and household weeds, and themore aggressive vegetation of worn out pasture-lands, to satisfy us of thetruth of our theory, were it not for the swarms of these old traditionalgrasshoppers continually rising into the air before us, and shutting outthe truth as it is in nature. And the worst feature about this wholebusiness is, that we have come to regard these multitudinous insects as adelight instead of a burden. 

But it is hardly necessary to pursue this subject further. We have shown, or shall show in the succeeding pages, that all crystalline forms comefrom necessary or favoring statical conditions; that all infusorial formscome in the same way, only their conditions may be said to be dynamicalrather than statical; that all mycological forms (fungi) are dependent, for their primary manifestation, on conditions of moisture and decay; thatall plant-life, from the lowest cryptogam to the lordliest conifer, isdependent on some similar incidence of conditions; that the mastodon, nowonly known by his fossil remains, must have wallowed forth from his"necessary mire" (plasmic conditions) in the Eocene period; and that allanimal life must have come from some underlying law of primordialconditions, as impressed upon matter, in harmony with the "DivineIntendment" from the beginning; and that this law is still operative inthe production of new forms of life whenever and wherever the same mayappear. We shall also show that all living organisms, such as seeds, fungus-spores, morphological cells, etc. , perish at a temperature of about100A deg. C. , and that _Bacteria, TorulA|_, and other infusorial forms, makingtheir appearance in super-heated flasks, originate not from morphologicalcells, plastide particles, bioplasts, or any other vital organism, butfrom indestructible vital units, which are everywhere present in theorganic matter of our globe, and ready to burgeon forth into life wheneverthe necessary vital conditions exist, and the proper incidences ofenvironment occur. 

We have also shown that the earth still obeys the divine command to bringforth, or--if objection be made to this form of statement asunscientific--still obeys some inexorable underlying law tantamount tosuch command, and can no more help "bringing forth, " when the necessarytelluric conditions favor, than the cold can help coming out of the north, or the clouds dropping rain, when the necessary meteorological conditionsoccur. Give the future American botanist the physical geography of acountry--its average rain-fall, temperature, etc. , and the plant zone inwhich it lies, and, whether explored or unexplored, he will give us thegeneral character of its vegetation, and name most of the plants and treespeculiar to its soil. And he will do this, not because he has any faith inthe present theories of plant-migration, nor in the necessary distributionof seeds, but because he will study his favorite science with reference tolatitude, elevation, climate, physical characteristics, rain-fall, soil-constituents, and other influencing conditions of plant-life. 

But we will now proceed to consider the duration of vegetable species, forthe purpose of showing that the evolutional changes they are undergoing, if any, must cover infinitely vaster periods of time than we have any datafor determining, to say nothing of the unverified theories theevolutionists have been spinning for us. 

Our geologic and paleontologic records are becoming richer in materials, more interesting in details, and more authentic in character, every year. We are turning back page after page of these lithographic records, onlyto find the domain of science widened and deepened in interest as weadvance, or as our rocks are being excavated, our mountains tunneled, ourvast mines explored, and the beds of our rivers and arms of seasthoroughfared and traversed by the iron rail. Meanwhile, science exhibitssigns of becoming less devoted to new-fangled theories, more exacting inher demands upon her votaries, and more eager to extend the domain offacts as the only true basis on which to rest her claims for futurerecognition. She is less dogmatic to-day than she was a year ago, and islikely to become less so a year hence than now. And this is largely dueto her methods of research and inquiry. She is now everywhere sending outher hardier and more enthusiastic sons into new fields of exploration, toreturn laden with ampler materials to build, and richer treasures toadorn, a temple worthy of her name. In the field of the fossilized faunaand flora, these treasures are of the highest value and interest, allindicating not only wide areas of distribution, but immense periods oftime, in which species have existed without any greater changes incharacter than the necessary shadings into varieties would seem torequire. For nature everywhere characterizes her methods of productionand reproduction by a loving tendency to diversify and variously adornher species, as if to express the infinite conceptions of that powerabove her, which "spake and it was done, which commanded and it wasbrought forth. "

From the fossilized plants of Atanekerdluk--a flora rich in species andwonderfully preserved in type--and the Miocene flora of Spitzenburg, tothe southernmost limits of vegetation on the globe, science has reachedout her hands for materials, and gathered them with as much success asavidity. And all scientific botanists agree in referring these fossilizedforms from the high northern latitudes, to the Miocene period--one soremote that we can form no adequate conception of it, except as time maybe measured by geologic periods. And these materials show that varietiesof the _Sequoia_, the tulip-tree, oaks, beeches, walnuts, firs, poplars, hazelnuts, etc. , etc. , all flourished in these sub-arctic regions duringthe far-distant period we have named. Many of them must have grown on thespot where their trunks are now to be found, as their roots remainundisturbed in the soil, as well as at a time when these regions enjoyed awarm or cold temperate climate. Many of these fossilized and carbonizedforms are identical with the living species of to-day, conclusivelyshowing that neither natural variation, nor any secondary causes, haveworked out any changes capable of being scientifically expressed ingenetic value. 

There is also abundant evidence to show that many of the present tropicalforms flourished in central and southern Europe as far back as the warminter-glacial epoch in the Eocene period. And if these inter-glacialperiods occurred at the lowest minimum limits of eccentricity in theearth's orbit, as calculated by Leverrier's formulA|, we can have noconception whatever of the length of time actually intervening the periodnamed and our present era. Mr. Croll has given us the limits of highestglaciation covering the last three million years, and shows that therehave been but two periods of superior eccentricity in that time, and canbe only one in the next million years, with but two or three interveningmaxima and minima that may, or may not have been, of any special value. Itis true that he assigns importance to these maxima, as affecting possibleglaciations, but there are other eminent astronomers and physicists whodiffer from him, and really attach little or no importance to these of anyother intervening periods of eccentricity. If Mr. Croll is correct in histheory and estimates, we must separate these superior glacial epochs by aninterval of not less than one million seven hundred thousand years; andnearly three of these periods must have intervened since some of thepresent tropical forms flourished in Europe. And if these forms haveundergone no specific change in all this time, how many years will itrequire to work out even _one_ of Mr. Darwin's many evolutional changes?

The kinship between some of these arctic and sub-arctic fossilized floraand the living forms of to-day, is so near that they cannot bedistinguished by a single difference. This is true of some of thevarieties of the _Sequoia_ family, the oaks, beeches, firs, hazelnuts, etc. , while others are so nearly identical that it would be difficult toclassify them as separate varieties. At all events, if they cannot beplaced in the list of identical species, they cannot be ruled out ofrepresentative types. But why should our speculative botanists insist uponthese "evolutional changes" in plant-life--these "derivative forms" ofwhich they are constantly speaking? Paleontological botany has given usthe very highest antiquity of species, and the most that can be claimed isthat nature was just as prolific of diversified forms millions of yearsago as now. Because we, by forcing nature into unnatural, if notrepugnant, alliances, can produce

 --"Streak'd gillyflowers, Which some call nature's bastards. "

it is no evidence that she commits any such offence against herself. Heralliances are all loving ones. She indulges in no forced methods ofpropagation. If she produced the _Sequoia gigantea_, or the great redwoodtree of our California Sierra, as far back as the Crustaceous period, shehas propagated it ever since according to her own loving methods, and itis idle to talk of the _Sequoia Langsdorfii_ as being the originalancestor of this tree, or any other distinguished branch of the sequoias. How much more rational the suggestion of Professor Agassiz that thesetrees--the entire family of sequoias--were quite as numerous inindividual varieties at first as now, and that the fruit of the one cannever bear the fruit of the other. 

Again, take the still hardier and more numerous branches of the_Quercus_ or oak family. M. De Candolle has expended a vast deal ofingenuity to show that the various members of this old andancestrally-knotty family have all descended from two or three of thehardier varieties. He arrives at this conclusion from a geographicalsurvey of what he would call the "whole field of distribution, " and"the probable historical connection between these congeneric species. "But science should deal with as few probabilities as possible, especially where experience furnishes no guide to certainty, and onlythe remotest clue to likelihood. We should never predicateprobabilities except on some degree of actual evidence, or somelikelihood of occurrence, falling within the limits, analogically orotherwise, of human observation and experience. In no other way can wedetermine whether an event is probable or not. But here we have not somuch as a probable experience to guide us. Geographical distribution inthe past is hardly a safe criterion to go by, because we can never beabsolutely certain that we have the requisite data on which to form adeterminate judgment. The _Quercus robur_ may furnish the maximum testto-day, but a few concealed pockets of nature may bring some othervariety of the congeneric species to the front to-morrow, requiring M. De Candolle to correct his classification. There are no less thantwenty-eight varieties of this one species of oak, all of them concededto be spontaneous in origin, and it has been on the earth quite as longas the more stately tribe of Sequoias. Besides, not more than onetwenty-thousandth part of the earth's surface has been dug over todetermine the extent to which any one of its varieties has flourishedin the past. 

Since these several varieties are only one degree removed from each other, M. De Candolle supposes divergence to be the natural law which hasgoverned their growth, and not hereditary fixity. But here again he hasonly remote probabilities to work upon, no absolute data. We are stillspeaking of his fossilized herbaria, not his modern specimens. These mayshow a large number of genetically-connected individuals, or those claimedto be so connected. And yet no naturalist can be certain that, becausethey exhibit similarly marked characteristics, the one ever descended fromthe other; for the universal experience-rule still holds good that "likeengenders like, " and we search in vain for anything more than a similarityof _idea_, or logical connection, which justifies a recognition of the_individuorum similium_ in Jessieu's definition of species. But similaritymust not be mistaken for absolute likeness, which nowhere exists innature. Infinite diversity is the law, absolute identity the rarestpossible exception. No two oak leaves, for instance, in a million will befound actually alike, although taken from the same tree, or trees of thesame variety; and the same may be said of the segmentation and branchingof their limbs, as well as the striatures of their corticated covering, _Et sic de similibus_ everywhere, and with respect to every thing. Natureis more solicitous of diversity and beauty, than of similarity andtameness of effect, in all her landscape pictures; and the Platonicconception that "contraries spring from contraries, " may be only asupplementary truth to that of _de similibus_. In the eye of the soul allobjective existences are discerned in their logical order, or asconsecutive thoughts of the Divine mind, as outspoken in the materialuniverse. To insist upon cutting down these transcendental forms[20] intothe smallest possible number of similar or identical forms, may be allwell enough to accomplish scientific classification; but the productivepower of nature can never be limited by these mental processes of our own. 

The oak family can be traced back to the Miocene period, and consequentlyenjoys quite as high an antiquity as the sequoias. Professor Gray, inspeaking of the _Quercus robur_ and its probable origin, says that it is"traceable in Europe up to the commencement of the present epoch, lookseastward, and far into the past on far-distant shores. " By "far-distantshores, " he undoubtedly means Northwest America, where its remotestdescendants still flourish. But that these trees should have waded thePacific, or sent their acorns on a voyage of discovery after new habitatson the Asiatic coast, is hardly more probable than Jason's voyage afterthe golden fleece, in any other than a highly figurative sense. Thespontaneous appearance of a forest of oaks on the eastern shores of Asiawas just as probable, under favoring conditions--though occurringsubsequently to the time of their appearance on this continent--as that ofthe miniature forests of "samphire, " or small saline plants, whichspontaneously made their appearance about the salt-works of Syracuse, whenconditions actually favored. The high antiquity of the oak makes nodifference in respect to the principle of dispersion, since geographicalconditions are what govern, and not the theoretical considerations of thespeculative botanist. 

Mr. A. R. Wallace's formula concerning the origin of species, that they"have come into existence coincident both in time and place withpreA"xisting closely-allied species, " may or may not be true so far asindividual localization is concerned. But it proves nothing in the way oforiginal progeny, nor can we, by any actual data before us, satisfactorilydetermine, under this formula, which of the two closely-allied speciespreceded the other. If they came coincidently, both in time and place, their existence must have been concurrent, not separated by preA"xistence. The formula may be true to this extent, that the conditions favoring theappearance of one species may have equally favored what we call aclosely-allied species. But even in this case, the material sequence islost, and we have nothing to express a relationship as from parent toprogeny. For, however restricted as to localization, each speciespreserves its own characteristics, the similarities always being less thanthe dissimilarities. These, and other equally conclusive facts ofobservation, led Professor Agassiz to question any necessary geneticconnection between the different species, or between even the samespecies, in widely-separated localities; his idea being precisely thatadvanced by us in connection with the Bible genesis, that localizationdepended on geographical conditions, not on the migration of plants or thedispersion of seeds. 

The actual geographical distribution of species--any species--does notdepend solely on lines of ancestry, however great their persistence ofspecific characters; nor on any principle of natural selection, nor on thepossibility of fertile monstrosities, but on the simple incidence ofconditions; and M. De Candolle, in his "Geographie Botanique, " virtuallyconcedes this, while treating of geographical considerations in connectionwith distribution. He in fact says, in so many words, that the actualdistribution of species in the past "seems to have been a consequence ofpreceding conditions. " [21] And he is forced to this conclusion by hisvirtual abandonment of plant-migration, and the alleged means ofseed-distribution. 

The question after all, says Professor Gray, is not "how plants andanimals originated, but how they came to exist where they are, and whatthey are. " On only one of these points--that of favoring conditions--canany satisfactory answer be given, except as we defer to the Bible genesis, which explains all. And the reason is, that we can never determine whatforms are specific without tracing them back to their origin, and this isimpossible. Orders, genera, species, etc. , are only so many lines ofthought on which we arrange our classifications, just as the parallelwires of an abacus, with their sliding balls, are the lines on which wemake our mathematical computations. Agassiz would not allow that varietiesexisted in nature, except as man's agency effected them, that is, as theywere brought about by artificial processes. 

These artificial processes are quite numerous, and many of them have beenpractised from remote antiquity. But they seem to have no counterpart innature, except as insects may contribute to modifications by thedistribution of pollen. But all modifications of this character tendtowards infertility, while few plants accept any fertilizing aid fromother and different species. Any break in their hereditary tendencies, resulting in a metamorphosis that involves the integrity of their stamensand pistils, is stoutly resisted by nature. In considering the question ofspecies, therefore, we should confine our observations to those producedby natural, not artificial, methods; to plants as propagated by the lovingtendencies of nature, not by the arbitrary and exacting methods ofman--those looking to his gratification only. All these fall into thecategory, of "nature's bastards, " as Shakespeare happily defines them. Inview of these considerations, and the new methods of classification, suchas grouping genera into families or orders, and these into sub-orders, tribes, sub-tribes, etc. , we can readily understand why the great HarvardProfessor should have wholly eliminated community of descent from his ideaof "species, " or hesitated to regard varieties otherwise than as theresult of man's agency. 

Indeed, the whole question of species, as well as varieties, is likely toundergo material modifications in the future. On some points the botanistsand zoologists differ widely already, many making likeness amongindividuals a secondary consideration, and genealogical succession theabsolute test of species. Others, on the contrary, make resemblance thefundamental rule, and look upon habitual fecundity within hereditarylimits as provisional, or answering to temporary needs only. Thesedifferences of opinion would seem to be the more tenaciously held as thequestion of new varieties presses for solution at the hands of nature, rather than by the agency of man. All these varieties tend less to newraces than to cluster about type-centres, and can go no further thancertain fixed limits of variation, beyond which all oscillations cease. But none of these questions touch the real marrow of the controversy as toorigin, or aid us in determining the duration of species. 

The presence of the two great families of trees--the sequoias and theoaks--as far back as the Miocene period, if not extending through theEocene into the Cretacious, is conclusive of the point we would make, thatno great evolutional changes have taken place in the last two or threemillion years, and none are likely to take place in the next millionyears, except that the _Sequoia gigantea_ may drop out, from the vandalismof man or the next glacial drift. 

M. Ch. Martins, in his "Voyage Botanique A(C)n Norwege, " says "that eachspecies of the vegetable kingdom is a kind of thermometer which has itsown zero. " It may also be said to have its hygrometric and telluricgauges, or instruments to determine the necessary conditions of moistureand soil-constituents. When the temperature is below zero, thephysiological functions of the plant are suspended, either in temporaryhybernation or death. And so when the hygrometric gauge falls below thepoint of actual sustentation, the plant shrinks and dies; while, withoutthe necessary conditions, it would never have made its appearance. Therewas nothing more imperative in the command for the earth to bring forththan the necessary conditions on which plant-life depended in the firstinstance, and still depends, as we have endeavored to show. 

Dr. J. G. Cooper, in an interesting article prepared by him at the expenseof the Smithsonian Institute, on the distribution of the forests and treesof North America, with notes and observations on the physical geography, climate, etc. , of the country, after classifying, arranging, andtabulating the results of the various observations forwarded to thatinstitution, indulges in the following general observations: "We have witha tropical summer a tropical variety of trees, but chiefly of northernforms. Again, with our arctic winters, we have a group of trees, which, though of tropical forms, are so adapted to the climate as to lose theirleaves, like the northern forms, in winter. But, here, it must bedistinctly understood, is no alteration _produced_ by climate. Trees aremade for and not _by_ climate, and they keep their characteristicsthroughout their whole range, which with some extends through a greatvariety of climate. " The italics are the authors, and we suppose he meansby "tropical" and "arctic, " the sub-tropical and sub-arctic. 

In making his general observations, he had before him large collections ofthe leaves, fruits, bark, and wood of trees from all parts of the UnitedStates, including portions of Mexico, the Canadas and Alaska, andextending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But one of the most importantelements--in fact, the _most_ important--is wanting in the tables beforeus, and that is, the elevation at which these thousands of specimens wereobtained. So great an oversight as this should not have occurred, althoughit may not have been entirely Dr. Cooper's fault. He had his materials towork upon, and may have done the best that any one could with them. Andyet it is just as important to know at what _elevation_ a particular treegrows in its own plant zone, as to know whether it comes from a sub-arcticor sub-tropical region. 

But this was not the comment we designed to make. Dr. Cooper labors, withmost professional botanists, under the delusion that all our plants andtrees originated in some one "centre of creation, " at some period or otherin time and place, and have been steadily spreading themselves outwardfrom that centre until they occupy their present areas of distribution. Wehave no objection to his clinging to this superannuated faith and belief, if he derives any pleasure in flushing up these "traditionalgrasshoppers. " But we have a right to insist that he shall be logical. Hewants it distinctly understood that trees are made _for_, and not _by_, climate. Then his "centre of creation" should be everywhere, not alocalized one. For he insists that no alteration can be produced byclimate, but that the characteristics of each specific form are preservedthroughout its entire range of distribution. But if these nomadic andmigratory forms have wandered thus far from their centres of creation, itwould seem that the trees had either adapted themselves to the climate, orthe climate to the trees. But our Smithsonian systematizer will allow usneither horn of this dilemma. He insists that the trees were made for theclimate, and that they have preserved their characteristic features duringtheir entire ambulation upon the earth's surface. 

With the change of a single monosyllabic predicate, this proposition isundoubtedly true. We have never heard that plants or trees were "made. "They were ordered "to grow, " or rather the earth was commanded to bringthem forth, which is an equivalent induction. And the fact that they grownow, renders it absolutely certain that they grew at first, when "out ofthe ground made the Lord God _to grow_" every plant of the field, andevery tree that is pleasant to the sight. We accept this genesis for thewant of a better. And if Dr. Cooper will add to his climatic conditions, the hygrometric and other conditions necessary for the development andgrowth of his plants and trees, we will agree with him to the fullestextent of his novel position--that trees neither adapt themselves to theclimate, nor the climate to the trees; although it is true that treesmodify climate quite as much as they are modified by it. The truephysiological formula is undoubtedly this:--Trees make their appearance_in_ climatic and other environing conditions, and flourish, withoutmaterial change in characteristics, so long as these conditions favor. _Why_ they make their appearance is not a debatable question, except as weassume a preA"xisting vital principle, and apply to its elucidation oursubtlest dialectical methods. We are told that God commanded the earth tobring them forth, after _his_ spirit (the animating soul of life) hadmoved upon the face of the depths--the chaotic and formless mass of theearth in the beginning. Plato has uttered no profounder or morecomprehensive truth than this, with all his conceptions of Deity and theperfect archetypal world after which he conceived our own to be modeled. Our preference for the Bible genesis over the Platonic conception is, thatit is vastly simpler and constitutes a more objective reality to the humansoul. Besides, we find _it true in fact_, since the earth is constantlyteeming with life, as if in obedience to some great primal law impressedupon matter by an infinitely superior intelligence to our own. --

 "If this faith fail, The pillar'd firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble. "

Chapter VII. 

What Is Life? Its Various Theories. 

The question, "What is life?" does not lie within the province of humanreason, the science of logic, or the intuitions of consciousness, todetermine. It furnishes no objective _datum_ on which to predicateattributes that are either congruent or diverse. It can only be defined asthe coordination of the _vis vitae_ in nature, which is an undisguisedform of reasoning in a circle. We can ascribe to it only such attributesas are utterly inconceivable in any other concept or object of thought. Itadmits of but one attribution, and that embracing an identicalproposition. To say of life that it is "a coArdination of action, " mightbe true as a partial judgment, but not as a comprehensive one; otherwise, crystallization would fall under its category, which is manifestly anillicit induction. It allows, therefore, of no possible explication, analysis, or separate logical predicament. It stands absolutely alone andapart by itself--a positive, self-subsistent vital principle, or processof action, which all physiologists agree, for the sake of convenience anduniformity of expression, in designating as a _power, property, force_, etc. , in nature. Whenever questioned as to its origin the subtlest andprofoundest intellects, in all ages of the world, have returned but oneanswer: "I know no possible origin but God"--the great primal source ofall life in the universe. 

Among the ancients we find an almost equivalent induction in the phrases, borrowed by them from the highest antiquity, "_Jupiter est genitor_, ""_Jupiter est quodcunque vivit_, " etc. , which, although uninspiredutterances, strike their roots deeply into the _terra incognita_ ofconsciousness, wherein we ascribe to God the "issues of life" as aparamount theological conception. When the ingenious and learned Frenchmandefined life as "the sum of all the functions by which death is resisted, "he was as conclusively indulging in the _argumentum in circulo_ as if hehad said, "Life is the antithesis of what is not life. " This would be asluminous a definition as that which should make Theism the opposite ofAnti-theism, or the Algebraic statement _x-y_ the antithesis of _x+y_--oneof no definitional value so long as there is no known quantity expressedin the formula. 

To begin with begging the question, and then adroitly whipping theargument about a pivotal point, as a boy would whip a top, may be amusingenough to the childish mind, but is manifestly making no more progress inlogic than to substitute an ingenious paraphrase of a term for its realdefinition. It is a mere verbal feat at best, without the possibility ofreaching any determinate judgment. It is like some of the half-circularphrases we are likely to meet with in the categories of modernmaterialistic science, such as the "correlated correlates of motion, " the"potentiated potentialities of sky-mist, " the "undifferentiateddifferentialities of life-stuff, " called, by special condescension on thepart of the materialists, "life. " All of which is an easy logic, but awhimsical enough way of putting it. 

According to Leibnitz, everything that exists is replete with life, fullof vital activity, if not an actual mass of living individualities. Butthis daring hypothesis has ceased to attract the attention it oncereceived. There are states and conditions of matter in respect to which itis idle to predicate the _vis vitae_. For the great bulk of our globe ismade up of the highly crystallized and non-fossiliferous rocks, whichneither contain any elementary principle of life, nor exhibit theslightest trace of vital organism, even to the minutest living speck orplastid. During all those vast periods of uncomputed time, covering theworld's primeval history, there was an utter absence of life until thechief upheavals of the outer strata of our globe, now constituting theprincipal mountain chains of its well-defined continents, occurred. Inwhatever atomic or molecular theories, therefore, we may indulge, inrespect to the original formation of the earth, the utmost stretch ofempirical science can go no further, in the solution of vital problems, than to touch the threshold of inorganic matter, where, in our backwardsurvey of nature, vegetable life begins and animal life ends. All beyondthis point must be given up to other "correlates of motion" than those towhich the materialists specifically assign the beginnings of life. 

The theory of "panspermism, " originating with the AbbA(C) Spallanzani inmodern times, and still stoutly advocated by M. Pasteur and some fewothers, is manifestly defective in this, --that it goes beyond theinorganic limit in assigning vital units to all matter, even to itselemental principles. It is true that they speak of "pre-existinggerms"--"primordial forms of life"--that are "many million times smallerthan the smallest visible insect. " But their assumptions go far beyondthe construction we give to the Bible genesis, which merely asserts thatthe germinal principle of life--that of every living thing--is in theearth, or in "the waters and the earth, " which were alone commanded "tobring forth. "

Some of the panspermists have gone so far as to assert that everythingwhich exists is referable to the _vis vitA|_--to non-corporeal, yetextended vital units, mere metaphysical points--like Professor Beale'sbioplasts in the finer nerve-reticulations--or living things endowed witha greater or less degree of perceptive power. This was the assumption ofthe great German philosopher, Leibnitz, who carried the panspermic theoryso far as to accept the more fanciful one of "monads"--those invisible, ideal, and purely speculative units of Plato, which go to make up theentire universe, extending even to the ultimate elements, or elements ofelements. Leibnitz says: "As it is with the human soul, which sympathizeswith all the varying states of nature--which mirrors the universe--so itis with the monads universally. Each--and they are infinitelynumerous--is also a mirror, a centre of the universe, a microcosm:everything that is, or happens, is reflected in each, but by its ownspontaneous power, through which it holds ideally in itself, as in agerm, the totality of things. "

But the specific germ theory advanced in the Bible genesis, is capable ofbeing taken out of the purely speculative region in which "panspermism"landed the great German philosopher. It is a simple averment that theanimating principle of life is in the earth; that the germs of all livingthings, vegetal and animal alike, are implanted therein, and that theymake their appearance, in obedience to the divine command, whenever andwherever the necessary environing conditions occur. The fact that naturestill obeys this command is proof that she has the power to do so--thatthis indestructible vital principle still animates her breast. Innumerableexperiments, as well as phenomenal facts, attest the truth of this genesisof life, while the researches of Professor Bastian and other eminentmaterialists, made in infusorial and cryptogamic directions, confirmrather than discredit it. The fact that it appears for the first time inthis ancient Hebrew text can detract nothing from its value as ascientific statement. Granting that panspermism may rest upon a purelyfanciful and unsubstantial basis, it is but fair to concede that its greatadvocates have honestly attempted to explain by it all the vital phenomenaoccurring in nature, as M. Pasteur is conclusively attempting to do now. It is certain that the materialists, who are resolutely antagonizing thepanspermic, as well as all other "vital" theories, have not yet gone sodeeply into elementary substance as to shut off all further investigationin these directions. [22] Neither the lowest primordial cell, nor the leastconceivable molecule, has yet been reached by the aid of the microscope, any more than the outermost circle of the heavens has been penetrated bythe aid of the telescope. We must stop somewhere, and when we find ascientifically formulated statement which embraces all vital phenomena, and satisfactorily accounts for them all, whether it originally came fromAristotle, from Plato, or from Moses, is a matter of comparatively slightmoment, so far as the scientific world is concerned. At least, it wouldseem so to us. But to talk of the _de novo_ origin of "living matter" asthe result of the dynamic force of molecules--themselves concessively"dead matter"--is to indulge in quite as fanciful a speculation as theadvocates of the panspermic hypothesis have ever ventured to suggest. Professor Bastian is forced to go back of his infusorial forms andfungus-germs to a microscopical "pellicle, " from which he admits they are"evolved. " But why evolved? Does not the principle of vitality lie back ofthe pellicle, as well as the fungus-germ? How absolutely certain is hethat the extremest verge of microscopic investigation has been attained, in what he is pleased to designate "primary organic forms?" "Evolution" isa very potential word, and no one may yet know what boundless stores ofabsurd theory and metaphysical nonsense are locked up in it![23] He admitsthat "evolution, " as embracing the idea of "natural selection, " can havenothing to do with the vast assemblage of infusorial and cryptogamicorganisms, until they assume definitely recurring forms, that is, riseinto species and breed true to nature. Then, he agrees with Mr. Darwin, that the law of vital polarity or "heredity, " as he calls it, may come inand play its part towards effecting evolution, or variability, in bothanimal and vegetal organisms, but not before. Why then should he lug in, or attempt to lug in, the diverse potentialities of this word "evolution, "for the purpose of demonstrating the dynamic law governing thedevelopmental stages of his microscopic pellicle? This, he will agree, lies far below the point, in primary organism, where specific identity, orthe law of heredity, asserts its full recognition. All below thisdevelopmental point is inconstancy of specific forms, with no line ofancestry to be traced anywhere. 

This, Professor Bastian readily concedes, notwithstanding it cuts theDarwinian _plexus_ squarely in the middle. He says: "Both Gruithuisen andTrA(C)viranus agree that the infusoria met with have never presented similarcharacters when they have been encountered in different infusions; norhave they been uniform in the same infusion, when different portions of ithave been _exposed to the incidence of different conditions_. Theslightest variations in the quality or quantity of the materials employed, are invariably accompanied by the appearance of different organisms--thesebeing oftentimes strange and peculiar, and unaccompanied by any of thefamiliar forms. " Other writers of equal eminence in this field ofinvestigation have not only observed the same characteristics, butencountered the same difficulties in classification, from the very greatdiversity obtaining even in the nearest allied forms. So great is thisdiversity, and so multitudinous the different forms, that little certaintyor value can be attached to the classifications already made. EvenProfessor O. F. MA1/4ller, after he had convinced himself that he haddiscovered not less than twelve different species belonging to a singlegenus, was subjected to the mortification of seeing Ehrenberg cut them alldown to mere modifications of one and the same species. 

We refer to these several statements of fact for the purpose ofemphasizing the true genesis of life as supplemented by "the incidence ofdifferent conditions, " on which all vital manifestations depend. Thepresence of the germinal principles of life in the earth is emphaticallyaverred in the Bible genesis. And we have only to connect the doctrine of"conditional incidence" with this averment, to account for all the vitalphenomena which so profoundly puzzle these gentlemen while prying into themysteries of the ephemeromorphic world. Whatever may be the character ofany infusion, or to whatever incidence of conditions it may be subjected, it will produce _some_ form of life; not because it contains this or thatmorphological cell, destructible at a temperature of 100A deg. C--that to whichit is experimentally subjected before microscopic examination, --butbecause every organic infusion, whether undergoing the required heat-testor not, contains vital units--those as indestructible by heat as byglacial drift--which burgeon forth into life whenever the properconditions of environment obtain. The slightest variation, in either thequantity or quality of the material employed in the infusion, is, as theseeminent microscopists agree, invariably accompanied by the appearance ofdifferent forms of life, just as the slightest change in soil-conditions, such as that produced by the presence of one species of tree with anotherin natural truffle-grounds, will result in the appearance of another andaltogether different plant, as well as truffle tuber. 

But the theory which the vitalists are more particularly called upon tocombat is that to which the non-vitalists most rigidly adhere; and werefer to it, in this connection, that the reader may compare itscomplexity and involution of statement and idea with the extremesimplicity of the biblical genesis, as heretofore presented. We give it inthe exact phraseology employed by Professor Bastian: "Living matter isformed by, or is the result of, certain combinations and rearrangementsthat take place _in invisible colloidal molecules_--a process which isessentially similar to the mode by which higher organisms are derived fromlower in the pellicle of an organic infusion. " This carefully-wordeddefinition of life, or the origin of "living matter, " presents ahypothetical mode of reasoning which is eminently characteristic of allmaterialists. In the stricter definitional sense of the word, there is nosuch thing as "living matter" or "dead matter, " as we have before claimed. There are "living organisms" in multitudinous abundance--those resulting_from_, not _in_, the _vis vitA|_, or the elementary principle of life innature--as there are also "dead organisms" in abundance. Thismaterialistic definition of life, which is not so much as a generic oneeven, begins in an absurdity and ends in one. It is agreed that the"proligerous pellicle" of M. Pouchet, the "plastide particle" of ProfessorBastian, the "monas" of O. F. MA1/4ller, the "bioplast" of Professor Beale, etc. , are essentially one and the same thing, except in name. They aremere moving specks, or nearly spherical particles, which exhibit the firstactive movements in organic solutions. They vary in size from the onehundred-thousandth to the one twenty-thousandth of a second of an inch indiameter, and appear at first hardly more than moving specks ofsemi-translucent mucus. Indeed, Burdach calls them "primordial mucouslayers. " But they move, pulsate, swarm into colonies, and act as if theywere guided, not by separate intelligence, but by some master-buildersupervising the whole work of organic structure. This master-builder isthe one "elementary unit of life, " which directs the movements of all theplastide particles, constantly adding to their working force, from thefirst primordial mucous layer of the superstructure to the majestic domeof thought (in the case of man) which crowns the temple of God onearth. [24]

But this "pellicle" of Professor Bastian is not mere structureless matter, any more than the "bioplast" of Professor Beale. The fact that they move, pulsate, work in all directions, shows that they have the necessary organswith which to work. These organs may be invisible in the field of themicroscope, but that is no proof that they do not exist. Organs are asessential for locomotion in a plastide particle as in a mastodon ormegatherium, and if the microscope could only give back the properresponse, we should see them, if not be filled with wonder at themarvellous perfection of their structure. But into whatever divisions orclassifications we may distinguish or generalize the properties of matter, we can never predicate _vitality_ of it, any more than we can predicate_intellectuality_. Indeed, "intellectual matter" presents no greaterincongruity or invalidity of conception than "vital matter. " Thesequalifying terms are applied to the known laws and forces of nature, notto insensate matter. To assert that life results _from_ "certaincombinations and rearrangements of matter, " and not _in_ them, is utterlyto confound cause and effect, or so incongruously mingle them togetherthat no logical distinction between the two can exist as an object ofperception. Without the _vis vitA|_, or some germinal principle of life, lying back of these "combinations and rearrangements of matter, " anddetermining the movements of their constituent molecules, there could beno vital manifestation, any more than there could be a correlate of aforce without the actual existence of the force itself. [25]

The materialists give the name of "protoplasm" to that primitivestructureless mass of homogeneous matter in which the lowest livingorganisms make their appearance. They claim that this generic substance isendowed with the property or power of producing life _de novo_, or, asProfessor Bastian puts it, of "unfolding new-born specks of living matter"which subsequently undergo certain evolutional changes; but whether theydie in their experimental flasks, or rise into higher and more potentiallyendowed forms of life, it is difficult for those following their diagnosesto determine. They further claim that the same law of vital manifestationobtains in organic solutions as in the structureless mass they call"protoplasm. " Both are essentially endowed with the same potentiality oforiginating life independently of vital units, or _de novo_, as they morepersistently phrase it. But why speak of _unfolding_ "new-born specks ofliving matter?" "To unfold" means to open the folds of something--to turnthem back, get at the processes of their _infoldment_. It implies apre-existing something, inwrapped as a germ in its environment. If not agerm, what is this pre-existing vital something which their languageimplies? Is our scientific technology so destitute of definitionalaccuracy that they cannot use half a dozen scientific terms withoutcommitting half that number of down-right scientific blunders? "New-bornspecks of living matter" is language that a vitalist might possibly use bysheer inadvertence; but no avowed materialist, like Professor Bastian, should trip in this definitional way. 

"Living matter, " _born_ of what? Certainly not of _dead_ matter. Deathquickens nothing into life, not even the autonomous moulds of the grave. It implies the absence of all vitality--a state or condition of matter inwhich all vital functions have been suspended, have utterly ceased, if, indeed, they ever existed. It behooves the materialists to use languagewith more precision and accuracy than this. "Dead matter, " whatever thephrase may imply, can bear nothing, produce nothing, quicken nothing. Thepangs of death once past, the pangs of life cease. Nor is there any birthfrom unquickened matter. Animals _bear_ young, trees _bear_ fruit, butforce _produces_ results. What then quickens protoplasmic matter? Neithervital force, nor vegetative force, if we are to credit the materialists. They would scorn to postulate such a theory, or accept any such absurdremnant of the old vitalistic school. It is rather "molecular force"--aphysical, not a vital unit--that gives us these "new-born specks of livingmatter. " [26] This is what they would all assert at once, in theirenthusiasm to enlighten us on a new terminology. 

But "molecular force" fails to give us any additional enlightenment on thesubject we are investigating. It is even less satisfactory than "atomicforce, " or "elementary force"--that which may be considered as inhering inthe elementary particles from which both atoms and molecules are derived. And since both the ultimate atom and the ultimate molecule lie beyondmicroscopic reach, the assumption that vital phenomena are the result ofeither molecular force or atomic force, rests upon no other basis thanthat of imaginary hypothesis. To postulate any such theory of life, isgoing beyond the limits of experimental research and inquiry, and henceadopting an unscientific method. At what point the smallest livingorganism is launched into existence--started on its life-journey--no oneis confident enough to assert. The materialist is just as dumb on thissubject as the vitalist; and the only advantage he can have over hisantagonist is to stand on this extreme verge of attenuated matter, anddeny the existence of any force beyond it. The postulation by him ofmolecular force at this point, is virtually an abandonment of the wholecontroversy. He ceases to be a materialist the moment he passes thevisible boundaries of matter, in search of anything like "undifferentiatedsky-mist" beyond it. 

All that we definitely know is that certain conditions of protoplasmicmatter, of organic solutions, of soil-constituents, etc. , produce certainforms of life; and, in the case of solutions, certain low forms of life:But whether the lower rise, by any insensible gradations, into the higher, more complex, and definitely expressed forms of life, is altogetherunknown. That any such gradations can be traced from the lowest vitalunit, in the alleged collocations of molecules, is not yet claimed. Theseprimordial collocations, like the lowest living organisms, lie beyond themicroscopic aids to vision, so that the ultimate genesis of life remainsas much a mystery as ever--becomes, in fact, a mere speculativehypothesis. And when it comes to this sort of speculation, the materialistis just as much in the dark as the vitalist, and neither can have anyadvantage over the other, except as the one may adopt the analytic, andthe other the synthetic method. 

This is the materialistic argument covering the _de novo_ origin of livingorganisms:--There is no greater microscopical evidence, they assert, thatthese organisms come from pre-existing invisible germs or vital units, than that crystals are produced in a similar manner--that is, come frompre-existing invisible germs of crystals. But this is overlooking allgeneric distinction in respect to processes or modes of action. Crystalsare inorganic matter which _form_, do not _grow_. They are meresymmetrical arrangements, not organic growths; and are produced by somelaw akin to chemical affinity, acting on the molecules of theirconstituent mass. They possess no vital function. They show no beginningor cessation of life. But, once locked up in their geometric solids, theyremain permanently enduring forms--concessively inorganic, notfunctionally-endowed, matter. To speak, therefore, of the "germs ofcrystals, " is using language that has no appreciable significance to us. Germs are embryonic, and imply a law of growth--a process of assimilation, not of mere aggregation. 

But, at the risk of being tedious, let us extend this argument of thematerialists a little further: The only difference, they will stillinsist, between the preA"xisting germs of crystals and plants--or the onlydifference essentially worth noticing--is that crystalline particles ofmatter are endowed with much less potentiality of undergoing diversifiedforms and structural changes than the more highly favored vital particles, such as the proligerous pellicle, the bioplast, the plastide, etc. The onerepresents mere crystallizable matter, the other the more complexcolloidal or albuminoid substance, or that capable of producing a muchgreater number of aggregates. The analogies, they concede, end here. Butthe difference is world-wide when we come to processes--the trueexperimental test in all classification. Crystallizable substances_crystallize_--that is all. They pass into a fixed and immovable state, and mostly into one as enduring as adamant; while colloidal or albuminoidmatter (laboratory protoplasm) takes on no fixed forms--only those thatare ephemeral, merely transitory. This is so marked a feature, in respectto all the primordial forms of life, that Professor Bastian gives them themore distinctive name of "ephemeromorphs, " in place of _infusoria_. Butall these primordial forms grow--develop into vital activity. Not so witha solitary crystal. Everywhere the statical unit _forms_, the dynamicalunit _grows_; the one aggregates, the other assimilates; the onesolidifies, the other opens up into living tissue; the one rests in theembrace of eternal silence, the other breaks the adamantine doors, andmakes nature resonant with praise. 

Great stress is laid by the materialists on the changeability of certainmicroscopic forms, and the startling metamorphoses they apparently undergoin different infusions, especially those forms having developmentaltendencies towards fungi and certain low forms of algA|. They attributetheir different modes of branching, articulation, segmentation offilaments, etc. , both to intrinsic tendencies and extrinsic causes, thelatter depending, no doubt, in a great measure upon the chemical changesconstantly taking place in their respective infusions. These intrinsictendencies, they would have us believe, depend upon the dynamic force ofmolecules, rather than any vital unit, or even change in elementaryconditions. But "Dynamism" simply implies that force inheres in, orappertains to, all material substance, without specifically designatingeither the quantity or quality of the inhering force. If thesematerialists, therefore, use the terms "dynamic force, " in thisconnection, in the sense in which we use vital force, or in the sense inwhich they use "statical force" as applied to the formation of crystals, in contradistinction from "dynamical force" as applied to livingorganisms, we have no special objection to urge against this particularformula. It presents no such formidable antagonism as the vitalists wouldexpect to encounter from them. 

M. Dutrochet is approvingly quoted by Professor Bastian, as asserting thathe could produce different genera of mouldiness (low mycological forms)_at will_, by simply employing different infusions. This is unquestionablytrue, with certain limitations. And the chief limitation is as to _his_(M. Dutrochet's) will. He might "will, " for instance, to plant one fieldwith corn and another with potatoes, but if the husbandman he employed todo the planting should happen to plant the one crop where he had willed toplant the other, and corn should grow where potatoes were planted, and_vice versa_, then he might be said to have produced corn _at will_. Andso of his infusions. No change in their conditions enabled him to produceone species, much less a genus, of mouldiness in preference to another, byany change in the infusions employed by him. The power which implants lifein the mycological world, implants it in every other world, from thatwithout beginning to that without end. And this implanted life is quite ascomplete in one form as another, --

 "As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns. "

All that the materialists can claim respecting man's agency in theproduction of life is, that he may take advantage of the uniform laws ofnature, so far as they are known to him, planting seeds here, changingchemical conditions there, using different infusions in his experimentalflasks, --organic or inorganic, as he may choose--and then await theaction of these uniform laws. He will find them operative everywhere, andif he studies them deeply enough, he will find that they are not so muchthe laws of nature as they are the laws of nature's God. 

Professor Bastian thinks he has conclusive evidence that what he calls"new-born specks of living matter" are produced _de novo_, that is, independently of any conceivable germ or germinal principle of lifeimplanted in nature. But he confounds this implanted principle of lifewith the living organism it produces. His morphological cells, as well asplastide particles, are among these living organisms, as is conclusivelyshown by his own experiments. These all perish in his super-heated flasks. But the vital principle that produced them--that which becomes germinalunder the proper conditional incidences--he can no more destroy byexperimentation than he can create a new world or annihilate the old one. His flask experiments, therefore, prove nothing; and all this talk about_de novo_ production is the sheerest scientific delusion. For, were itpossible to destroy every plant, tree, shrub, blade of grass, weed, seed, underground root, nut, and tuber to-day, the earth would teem with just asdiversified a vegetation as ever to-morrow. A few trees, like the giganticconifers of the Pacific slope, might not make their appearance again, andsome plants might drop out of the local flora; but the _Pater omnipotensAther_ of Virgil, would descend into the bosom of his joyous spouse (theearth), and, great himself, mingle with her great body, in all theprodigality, profusion, and wealth of vegetation as before. [27]

But these defiant challengers of the vitalists, who refuse us even theright to assume the existence of a special "vital force" in nature, areanything but consistent in their logical deductions. For while theyresolutely deny the invasion of vital germs in their experimental flasks, they talk as flippantly of the "germs of crystals, " and their presence insaline and other solutions, as if there were no scientific formula moresatisfactorily generalized than that establishing their existence. EvenProfessor Bastian speaks of "germs, " in a general sense, as if theythronged the earth, air, water, and even the stratified rocks, incountless and unlimited numbers. But we fail to see that any of hisaccurately obtained results determine their exclusion from theexperimental media employed by him for that purpose. His unit of value isa morphological cell, a derivative organism rather than a primary vitalunit; and all organisms are, as we have before said, destructible by heat. Professor Agassiz is pretty good authority for doubting the existence ofsuch a cell. The difficulty of assigning to it any definitional value is, that it lies too near the ultimate implications of matter--those shadowyand inexplicable confines not yet reached--to admit of any scientificexplication necessarily resting on objective data. If they mean by "germs"primary organic cells, then none exist in their super-heated infusions, and they are logical enough in rejecting the idea of their invasion. Butin assuming the cell to be the ultimate unit of value, is where they tripin attribution, and stumble upon a partial judgment only. 

The only value attaching to their theory of crystalline germs is, that itconclusively establishes the law of uniformity by which all structuralforms are determined, whether they originate in organic infusions orinorganic solutions--in protoplasm or protoprism. The crystalline systempresents no variability in types, but a rigid adherence to specific formsof definitely determined value. Whatever geometrical figure any particularcrystal assumed at first, it has continued to assume ever since, and willforever assume hereafter. As a primary conception of the "DivineIntendment" (to speak after the manner of Leibnitz) it can neither changeitself, nor become subject to any law of change, or variability, frometernally fixed types. And this is as demonstrably true of all livingtypes, after reaching the point of heredity, as of the countlesscrystalline forms that go to make up the principal bulk of our planet. Inthis light, and as affording this conclusive induction, the crystallineargument of the materialists has its value. 

The materialists should not too mincingly chop logic over the validity oftheir own reasoning. If they force upon us their conclusions respectingstatical aggregates, or crystalline forms, let them accept the inductionsthat inevitably follow in the case of dynamical aggregates, or livingorganisms. Beggars of conditions should not be choosers of conditions, nor should they be al lowed to dodge equivalent judgments where thevalidity of one proposition manifestly rests upon that of another. Ifthey insist upon the presence of a chemical unit, or, worse still, acrystalline "germ" or unit, in the case of statical aggregations, theyare effectually estopped from denying the presence of vital units indynamical aggregations. And if they further force upon us the convictionthat the process of aggregation, when once determined, remains in the onecase, eternally fixed and certain, they should not be permitted to turnround and insist that, in the other case, there is nothing fixed andcertain, but all is variability, change, uncertainty of specific forms. If vital units have only a hypothetical existence, then chemical units, statical units, and morphological units, should fall into the samecategories of judgment. 

A great deal of needless ingenuity has been wasted, both by the vitalistsand materialists, in formulating impossible definitions of life--inattempts to tell us what life is. But Mr. Herbert Spencer is believed, byhis many admirers, to have hit upon the precise explanatory phrasesnecessary to convey its true definitional meaning. He defines it as "_thecontinuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations_. " Thisdefinition, when first formulated, was received by all the materialists ofEurope with the wildest enthusiasm. It was absolutely perfect. All thephenomenal facts of life fitted into it, as one box, in a nest of them, fitted into another. The universal world was challenged to show that anyother phenomenal fact than the one of life would fit into this prodigiousformula of Mr. Spencer. The London "Times" tried its hand on it, but onlyin a playful way. It said: "All the world, or at least all living things, are nothing but large boxes containing an infinite number of little boxes, one within the other, and the least and tiniest box of all contains thegerm, "--the elementary principle of life. But this was hardly a legitimatecharacterization. A nest of boxes presents no idea of "continuousadjustment, " nor are the internal relations of one box adjusted to theexternal relations of another. The definition is really that of a piece ofworking machinery--any working machinery--and was designed to cover Mr. Spencer's theory of "molecular machinery" as run by molecular force. 

But the earth presents the most perfect adjustment of internal relationsto those that are external, and it continuously presents them. Even theupheaval of its fire-spitting mountains affords the highest demonstrationof the adjustment of its inner terrestrial forces to those that are purelyexternal; and much more does it show the adjustment of its internal to itsexternal relations. There is a continuous adaptation of means to ends, ofcauses to effects, of adjustments to re-adjustments, in respect to thecharacteristics of the earth's surface--its physical configuration, thedistribution of its fluids and solids, its fauna and flora, itshygrometric and thermometric conditions, its ocean, wind, andelectro-magnetic currents, and even its meteorological manifestations--allshowing a continuous adjustment of interior to exterior conditions orrelations. The earth should, therefore, fall under the category of "life, "according to Herbert Spencer's definitional formula. And so should anautomatic dancing-jack that is made to run by internal adjustments toexternal movements or manifestations. There are any number of ProfessorBastian's "ephemoromorphs" that do not live half as long as one of theseautomatic dancing-jacks will run, and so long as they run, the adjustmentof their internal to their external relations is continuous. 

The success of Mr. Spencer's definition of "life" encouraged ProfessorBastian to try his hand at it, with this definitional result: "Life, " hesays, "is an unstable collocation of Matter (with a big M), capable ofgrowing by selection and interstitial appropriation of new matter (whatnew matter?) which then assumes similar qualities, of continually varyingin composition in response to variations of its Medium (another big M), and which is capable of self-multiplication by the separation of portionsof its own substance. "

It shall not be our fault if the reader fails to understand thisdefinition--to untwist this formidable formula of life. And we can bestaid him by grammatically analyzing its structure. And, 1. "Life is capable of growing. " We are glad to know this. As a vitalistit enables us to take a step towards the front--gets us off the "backseat" to which we were summarily ordered at the outset of this inquiry. Welet its "unstable collocation" pass for what it is worth, and stick to ourgrammatical analysis. 

2. "Life grows--is capable of doing something. " This assurance positivelyencourages us. 

3. "It grows by selection and interstitial appropriation. " This is stillmore encouraging. It emboldens us to take a second step forward. Life, wefeel, is increasing in potentiality. 

4. "By appropriation it enables _new matter to assume similar qualitiesto old matter_. " This makes us more confident than ever; we take anotherstep forward--are half disposed to take two of them. Life is getting tobe almost a "potentiated potentiality, " to adopt the style ofmaterialistic phrases. 

5. "It causes matter _to continually vary in composition. _" Bravo! weunhesitatingly take two steps forward on the strength of this mostcomforting assurance. Life is assuredly getting the upperhand ofMatter (with a big M. ) It is no longer a mere "undiscovered correlateof motion"--a hypothetical slave to matter only. It wrestles withit--throws it into the shade. We involuntarily take several moresteps forward. 

6. "Life is capable of self-multiplication"--has almost a creativefaculty. Here we interject a perfect bravura of "bravoes, " and, stepping boldly up to the front, demand of Professor Bastian to "throwup the sponge, " take a back seat, and there--formulate us a newdefinition of "life. "

But our London University materialist is not entirely satisfied with hisown definition, or at least with the moral effect of it. He thinks thatall these attempts to define life as a non-entity only, tend to keep upthe demoralizing idea that it is an actual entity. We entirely agree withhim in this conclusion. The infelicity and entire inconclusiveness of thedefinition he has vouchsafed us can hardly have any other effect. He seesthis himself, and hence this foot-note to his great work onEphemeromorphs: "Inasmuch as no life can exist without an organism, ofwhich it is the phenomenal manifestation, so it seems comparativelyuseless to attempt to define this phenomenal manifestation alone--and, what is worse, such attempts tend to keep up the idea that life is anindependent entity. "

It may be objected that our grammatical analysis of the professor'sdefinition of life is unfair, since he manifestly intended that it shouldcover a "living thing, " and not "life" as an abstract, term. Our reply tothis is, that he makes no distinction between the two. Life, with him, issimply a phenomenal manifestation. The two are correlative terms; so thathis definition of the one must necessarily be the definition of the other, either as an identical or partial judgment. But let us take his definitionentirely out of its abstract sense, and run it into the concrete. The ablepathological anatomist of the London University college is a "livingthing. " He is, therefore, presumably a phenomenal manifestation. He iscapable of growing, by "selection and interstitial appropriation, " inreputation at least, if not in the direction of "an independent entity. "His work of twelve hundred pages, covering his laborious delvings into theephemeromorphic world, is conclusive on this point. As a phenomenalmanifestation alone, any attempt to define either him or his professionallabors, may be worse than useless, since it would tend to keep up the ideathat he is an actual London entity. We are very confident that he is not aLondon non-entity, but are willing to agree that he is either the one orthe other. The flaw that we are after lies in his interstitial logic, notin the hallucination in which he indulges respecting nonentities. Hisassumption that life cannot exist without an organism, of which it is thephenomenal manifestation, is what we propose to deal with. 

Now, directly the reverse of this proposition is what is true. An organismcannot exist without life or an independent vital principle in nature, anymore than celestial bodies can be held in their place independently ofgravitation. The vital principle that organizes must precede the thingorganized or the living organism, as the great formative principle of theuniverse (call it the will of God, gravitation or what you may) must haveexisted before the first world-aggregation. In logic, we must eitheradvance or fall back--insist upon precedence being given to cause overeffect, or deny their relative connection altogether. The organism is thephenomenal manifestation, not the vital principle which organizes it. Tosay that there can be no _manifestation_ of life without an organism istrue; but to assume that the vital principle which organizes is dependenton its own organism for its manifestation is absurd. It would be thelesser fallacy to deny the phenomenal fact altogether, and insist thatcause and effect are mere intellectual aberrations, or such absurd mentalprocesses as find no correlative expression in nature, as that embodyingthe idea of either an antecedent or a consequent. 

"Plato lived. " He ate, he drank, he talked divinely. He was the occupantof an admirably constructed life-mansion; one that St. Paul would havelooked upon as "the temple of God, " and all the world would haverecognized as a god-like temple. His head was a study for the Greekchisel; none was ever more perfectly modeled, or artistically executed. All agreed in this. And yet it was not the _habitat_ but the _habitant_that attracted the admiration of the Greek mind; enkindled its highestenthusiasm; drew all the schools of philosophy, about him at once. It wasthe lordly occupant of the temple, the indwelling _Archeus_, presidingover all the organic phenomena and directing all the dynamic powerstherein, which was so profoundly present in the living Plato. EvenProfessor Haeckel, of the famous University of Jena, would not deny this, with all that his new terms "ontogeny" and "phylogeny" may imply. Whenpotential life passed over into actual life in the individual Plato, itwas not the pabulum that assimilated the man, but the man the pabulum. Ifthis were not so, then the mere potentiality of growing, as in the caseof plants and animals, would be all there is to distinguish thephenomenal manifestation of a Plato from that of a mole or acabbage-stalk. In other words, if the animating principle of life--or, asthe Bible has it, the "animating soul of life"--is not what manifestsitself in material embodiment, but the reverse, what can ProfessorHaeckel mean by his new term "phylogeny, " which ought to cover the linesof descent in all organic beings?

If it be a question of mere pabulum, it is altogether _mal posA(C)_. Pabulumis nothing without a preA"xisting "something" to dispose of it. It is notso much as a jelly-mass breakfast for one of Professor Haeckel's"protamoebA|;" for if it were served up in advance, there would be none ofhis little non-nucleated jelly-eaters to partake of it, much less any ofhis "protogenes. " As the famous Mrs. Glass would say, in her "hand-book ofcookery, " if you want a delightful "curry, " first catch your hare. But ouringenious professor of Jena dispenses with both the hare and the curry, inserving up his pabulum to the "protamoebA|. " The improvident pabulum"evolves" its own eaters, and then, spider-like, is eviscerated by them, as was Actaeon by his own hounds. As Life, therefore, begins in thetragedy of Mount CithA|ron, it is to be hoped it will end in the delightsof Artemis and her bathing nymphs. 

Chapter VIII. 

Materialistic Theories of Life Refuted. 

The methods by which the advocates of a purely physical origin of lifeseek to establish the correctness of their conclusions, are unfortunatelynot always attended by uniform results in experimentation. They subjecttheir solutions of organic matter to a very high temperature by means ofsuper-heated flasks, the tubes to which are so packed in red-hot materialsthat whatever air may enter them shall encounter a much greater degree ofheat than that indicated by boiling water. At this temperature (100A deg. C--212A deg. F) they assume that all living organisms perish, especially whenthe solutions containing them have been kept, for the space of fifteen ortwenty minutes, at this standard point of heat. But, in the light of allthe experiments which have been made in this direction, there is somedoubt as to the entire correctness of their assumption. That many, if notmost living organisms, perish at a temperature of 100A deg. C, there is littleor no doubt; but that there are some which are much more tenacious oflife, that is, possess greater vital resistance to heat, is equallyunquestionable. 

M. Pasteur, for instance, mentions the spores of certain fungi which arecapable of germinating after an exposure of some minutes to a temperatureof 120A deg. To 125A deg. C. (248-257A deg. F), while the same spores entirely lose theirgerminating power after an exposure for half an hour or more to a slightlyhigher temperature. Dr. Grace-Calvert, in a paper on "The Action of Heaton Protoplasmic Life, " recently published in the proceedings of the RoyalSociety, asserts that certain "black vibrios" are capable of resisting theaction of fluids at a temperature as high as 300A deg. F, although exposedtherein for half an hour or more. But none of these crucial tests, howeverdiverse in experimental results, really touch the all-important questionin controversy. They all relate either to living organisms, or to theseeds and spores of vegetation, not to living indestructible"germs"--invisible vital units--declared to be in the earth itself. 

We use the term "vital unit" in the same restricted sense in which thematerialists speak of "chemical units, " "morphological units, " etc. , whichthey admit are invisible in the microscopic field, and hence they can haveno positive information as to their destructibility or indestructibilityby heat. That this vital unit lies, in its true functional tendencies, between the chemical and morphological units--manifesting itself in theconditions of the one and resulting in the structural development of theother--is no new or startling theory, but one that has been more or lessobscurely hinted at by Leibnitz, and even acknowledged as possible byHerbert Spencer. It is this vital unit that assimilates or aggregatesprotoplasmic matter into the morphological cell, or the initial organismin a vital structure, or an approach towards structural form. Morphological cells are not therefore "units, " considered as the least ofany given whole, nor are they mere structureless matter, or any morehomogeneous in character than in substance. Different chemical solutionsgive rise to different morphological cells, as differently constitutedsoils produce different vegetal growths. Change the chemical conditions inany solution or infusion, and you change the entire morphologicalcharacter of the infusoria appearing therein. [28] The cells are livingorganisms springing from vital units, and can no more manifest themselvesindependently of these units than life can manifest itself independentlyof an actual organism. And they make their appearance in the properenvironing conditions, just as the oak comes from its primordial germ orvital unit in the chemically changed conditions of the soil. Everywherethe vital germ or unit precedes the vital growth as the plant or treeprecedes the natural seeds it bears. 

This is not only the logical order, but the exact scientific method ofvital manifestation and growth. In this truth lies the whole mystery ofvegetal and animal life as hitherto manifested on our globe, with thesingle exception of man whose crowning distinction it was to receive "aliving soul. " This may be rejected as a scientific statement, but itsverification will appear in the very act of its rejection. Pry as deeplyas we may into the _arcana_ of nature in search of exact scientific truth, and we shall ultimately land in one or the other of thesepropositions, --either that nature was originally endowed with some occultand unknown power "to bring forth, " which power is either continuouslyinherent or continuously imparted, or else "specific creation" was thepredetermined plan and purpose, with no higher or more specialized animalor vegetal forms than were specifically created in the beginning. Otherwise, we are inevitably forced back, by our mental processes, whichwe cannot resist, upon an effect without a cause--a physical law of theuniverse without any conceivable law-giver--an all-pervading, all-energizing principle of matter which must have existed as a causeinfinitely anterior to its first effect. And this is forcing language intosuch crazy and paralytic conclusions as to utterly destroy its efficiencyas a vehicle of thought. 

To conceive of the existence of the universe, or of any possible law thatmay be operative therein, without an adequate antecedent cause, is asmetaphysically impossible as to conceive of substance without form, spacewithout extension, or a God who has been superceded in the universe by theoperation of his own laws. For if the world-ordaining and world-arrangingintelligence of the universe has ceased to ordain and arrange, --if allthings therein have been left to the operation of fixed and eternallyunchangeable laws--then no further supervisional direction is required onthe part of either an infinite or a finite intelligence, and our idea of aGod must disappear in the paramount induction of a universe which hassuccessfully risen up in insurrection against its own maker and lawgiver, if it has not remorselessly consigned him to some inconceivable limbooutside of the universe itself. But this Titanic, and worse than satanic, insurrection on the part of a universe of matter and motion, is only theconjectural coinage of the human brain--the wild supposition hazarded bythe materialistic mind--and fortunately has no conceivable counterpartoutside of it. 

But the palpable blunder, in materialistic science, consists in itsoverlooking the necessary outgrowth of theological ideas in the humanmind--as conclusively a phenomenal fact of nature as the invariableuniformity of astronomical movements, the ebb and flow of the tides, orthe electro-magnetic waves of the earth itself. And nature furnishes nogreater clue to the one set of phenomena than the other. For when we saythat bodies act one upon another by the force of gravity, we are no neareran explication of the force itself, than we should be were we to allegeany corresponding manifestation on the part of the human mind. Kant says;"We cannot conceive of the existence of matter without the forces ofattraction and repulsion--the conflict of two elementary forces in theuniverse;" much less can we have any conception of the elementary forcesthemselves. Science can, therefore, assign no more conclusive reason foroverlooking psychical manifestations than physical phenomena. Nor is theone set of phenomena any more marvellous in its manifestations than theother. They may both furnish food for speculative thought and inquiry, andyet the nearer we get to the ultimate implications of either, the morecompletely are we lost in Professor Tyndall's "primordial haze, " fromwhich he assumes that the universe, and all the phenomenal manifestationstherein, originally came. 

But however rapidly these materialistic theories may disappear in thescientific waste-basket of the future, there is one sublime verity thatwill stand the test of all time, and that is, that the moral universe ofGod is no less complete, in the Divine Intendment, than the physicaluniverse, while the latter is so inter-correlated and inter-tissued withthe former, in all its conceivable relations, that it can no more existindependently of its correlative, than matter can exist independently ofspace, or time independently of eternity. [29]

According to this view of Leibnitz, all living organisms have their ownessence, or essential qualities and characteristics. They have been fromall eternity in the "Divine Intendment, " and can undergo no changes ormodifications which shall make them essentially different from what theywere in the beginning, or are now. This is not only true of the "germs"that are "in themselves upon the earth, " but of every living thing, whether lying within or beyond the telescopic or microscopic limits. As alaw of causation, as well as of consecutive thought, there must be in theorder of life (all life) a continuous chain of ideas linking the past tothe present, the present to the future, and the future to eternity. Butthat this continuous chain is dependent on mere physical changes ormanifestations, is a logical induction utterly incapable of beingexhibited in scientific formulA|. The higher and more satisfactoryinduction is that which places cause before effect, the Maker before themade, the Creator before the creature, and so on, in the analogical order, till the smallest conceivable "vital unit" is reached in the universe oforganic matter. To begin, therefore, with microscopic observation, at apoint in the ephemeromorphic world where that optical instrument fails togive back any intelligible answer, and synthetically follow this chain ofcausation upward and outward to Dr. Tyndall's "fiery cloud of mist, " inwhich it is assumed that all the diversified possibilities andpotentialities of the universe once lay latent, may answer the logicalnecessities of the "Evolution" theory, but will never satisfy theinductive processes of a Plato, a Leibnitz, or a Newton. 

Professor Tyndall, in speaking of his "fiery-cloud" theory, says: "Manywho hold the hypothesis of natural evolution would probably assent to theposition (his position) that at the present moment all our philosophy, allour poetry, all our science, all our art, --Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, anda Da Vinci--are potential in the fires of the sun. " But, to be consistentin their inductions, they should proclaim themselves sun-worshippers atonce, and ascribe to that transcendent luminary all the potentialities ofa universe

 "Fresh-teeming from the hand of God. "

But what possible advantage, we would ask, can this physical hypothesis oflife have over that which ascribes to God the issues of all life in theuniverse, from the highest to the lowest living organism? We canpositively conceive of none but that of placing the cosmological cartbefore the horse, and so harnessing "cause and effect" _in tandem_, thatthe latter shall uniformly precede the former in the chain of logicalinduction. As a dialectical feat, in exhibiting the higher possibilitiesof logic, it may have its advantages in subordinating the facts of scienceto the higher illuminations of fancy, and thus resting the basis ofreality on the ever-changing and ever-shifting assumptions of the humanmind. For the materialistic theories of to-day are not those of yesterday, nor is there any certainty that they will be those of to-morrow. They arealmost as fantastic and variable as the forms of the kaleidoscope, although, as a general rule, they lack the symmetrical arrangements andproportions of that scientific toy. 

Professor Bastian, in considering the heterogenetic phenomena of "livingmatter, " is obliged to fall back, near the end of his great work, on "thecountless myriads of living units which have been evolved (?) in thedifferent ages of the world's history. " But by what process a "vitalunit" can be _evolved_, he does not condescend to tell us. He has no"primordial formless fog" to fall back upon as has Professor Tyndall, norcan he imagine anything beyond the least of possible conceptions in achemical, morphological, or vital unit. A "unit" can neither be evolvednor involved; it admits of no square, no multiple, no differentiation; itis simply the ever-potent unit of "organic polarity, " by which itmultiplies effects, but can never be multiplied itself. The chief faultthat we have to find with the London University professor is that heconfounds a morphological cell with a morphological unit, and insistsupon drawing unwarrantable conclusions therefrom. His "countless myriadsof living units" are all well enough in their way. That they exist in theearth, and are constantly developed into innumerable multitudes of livingorganisms, of almost inconceivable variety, in both the animal andvegetal world, is true, as he half-reluctantly admits in almost theidentical language we here use. 

And he also admits that morphological cells, when once formed, continue togrow by their own individual power or inherent tendency. But before theycan manifest any such inherent tendency, they must be developed from thevital units that lie back of them, and on which their manifestationunquestionably depends. The only doubt that can possibly exist on thispoint is, that the process of development cannot be determined bymicroscopic examination. But we may as well assume the presence of vitalunits in the case of dynamical aggregates, as for Professor Bastian toinsist upon crystalline units in the case of statical aggregates orcrystals. Both processes, in their initial stages of development, liebeyond the reach of human scrutiny, and all that we know, or possibly canknow, is, that certain inorganic conditions are favorable for thedevelopment of crystals, as certain organic conditions are favorable forthe development of morphological cells. Beyond this Professor Bastianknows nothing--we know nothing. 

Professor Beale, in his recent work on "the Mystery of Life"--one that isnow justly attracting very wide attention--says: "Between the two sets ofphenomena, physical and vital, not the faintest analogy can be shown toexist. The idea of a particle of muscular or nerve tissue being formed bya process akin to crystallization, appears ridiculous to any one who hasstudied the two classes of phenomena, or is acquainted with the structureof these tissues. " And he quietly, yet effectively, ridicules the ideathat the ultimate molecules of matter--substantially the same matter, infact--have the power to arrange themselves, independently of vitaltendency, alternately into a dog-cell or a man-cell, according to thespecific direction they may take, or the incidence of conditions they mayundergo, in their primary movement. And for the benefit of ProfessorBeale, behind whose "bioplasts, " we place the "vital unit"--not a variablebut a constant unit--we would have him bear in mind (what he so wellknows) that the finest fibres that go to make up these tissues lie quitebeyond the microscopic limit in their interlaced and spirally-coiledreticulations, so that nothing can be predicated of their ultimatecontexture, any more than of the ultimate distribution of matter itself. He has himself traced these wonderfully minute nerve-ramifications underglasses of the highest magnifying power, and knows that their ultimatedistribution cannot be reached. Let him come out then, as the ablestvitalist now living, and boldly assert the presence of the man-_unit_ andthe dog-_unit, _ instead of falling back on his bioplastic spinners andweavers of tissue, which are only the servants and willing workers of theone integral unit, or life-directing force, within. It is far morerational, and, at the same time, more accordant with strict scientificmethods, to attribute these muscular and nerve reticulations to a singledirect cause, than to a multitude of secondary causes. 

There is a world-wide difference between the dog-_ego_ and the man-_ego;_but the physical differences are not by any means the greatest. Thebioplastic spinners and weavers work as obediently for the onemaster-_ego_ as the other. They never stop to inquire how far they shalldifferentiate this vital tissue or that, or in what direction even theyshall work. Not a thread is spun nor a shuttle thrown that is not directedby the one head-webster of vital tissue. These obedient bioplastsdetermine nothing, direct nothing. Each works in his own cell asobediently as a galley-slave. All specific modifications, all determinatemovements, all molecular arrangements, all multiplications of bioplasticforce, are the work of the one vital webster, or principle of life, within--that which shapes all, directs all, determines all. And this istrue from the first or embryological inception of the dog-unit or "germ, "until the real occupant of the dog-tenement dismisses his bioplasticweavers, and lies down to die. And so of all vital units. Each determinesits own structural form, and unchangeably retains it to the end, even tothe slightest impression of a scar inflicted years and years before. Theoccupant of this dog-mansion has dismissed one set of bioplastic weaversafter another; has thrown aside this spun tissue and that warp and woof ofwoven texture, time and time again, so that the dog of to-day is not thesame _physical_ dog of a year ago; and yet he has the same affection forhis master, carries with him the same scar received twenty years before inthe chase, gives the same glad bark of welcome as his owner nears home, exhibits the same characteristic wag in his tail, and, lying down tosleep, dreams of the once happy chase in which he is no longer able toengage. This continuous presence of the same dog, through all these twentyyears of physical change--the old dog reappearing in the new, a dozentimes over--is what we mean by the constantly differentiating yetundifferentiated "dog-unit. "

Those who attempt to bisect this vital unit, divide it up into onefractional part after another, until it shall represent a millionbioplastic workers in as many different cells, are committing the samesort of folly--in principle at least, if not in practice--as that whichled the simple-minded daughters of Pelias to cut up their father, in theexpectation of boiling the old bioplasts into new, and then, by thecunning aid of Medea, who directed the operation, reuniting them into theone Peliastic-unit they so much delighted to honor. But this first andonly recorded attempt at differentiating a vital unit disastrously failed, as the reader of ancient myths well knows, although the experiment wasconducted by the most careful and loving hands. The necessary chemicalre-agents to reproduce life, as well as the necessary processes ofproducing it _de novo_ have not yet been ascertained, nor is it likelythey ever will be. And herein lies the most marked distinction betweencrystallizable matter and living substance. 

And yet there is no evidence that the vital principle perishes in thedestruction of its temporary organism. It is not the material seed thatgerminates, but the vital principle it contains, bursting forth from itsenvironment into newness of life. All that can be alleged of either boiledor calcined seeds is, that the material substances of which they werecomposed are so changed in their chemical constituents, or molecularadjustment, that they are no longer capable of developing, or beingdeveloped, into a living organism. "Principles never die, " and this is astrue of the vital principles in nature, as those obtaining in ethics andmorals. Were it possible to restore the exact chemical conditions andconstituent particles of the boiled or calcined seed, there is no moredoubt that nature would respond to the environing conditions, and giveforth the proper expression of plant-life, than there is that crystals ofspar would make their appearance in an overcharged bath chemicallyprepared for that purpose. It is not the albuminous substance enclosed inthe seed, but the vital principle therein--that continuously imparted tonature from the great vital fountain of the universe--which burgeons forthinto life whenever and wherever the required conditions obtain. 

In proof of this statement, we might instance any number of cases whererecently abandoned brick-yards and other clayey excavations, were situatedat considerable distances from any natural water-courses, or fish-stockedponds, from which spawn could have been derived, and yet these excavationshave no sooner been filled with permanently standing rain water, thancertain small fishes of the _Cyprinidae_ and other families, have madetheir appearance therein. [30] Nobody has thought of stocking thesestanding pools of water with the fish in question, nor has there been anysurface overflow to account for their presence, nor any other apparentmeans of transportation, if we except the fish-catching birds, and theygenerally swallow their food in the water or on the nearest tree to thepoint of capture. Any theory accounting for the presence of spawn is, therefore, out of the question. This spawn must have traversed hard claydeposits for the distance of half a mile or more to make their appearancein these waters. The only possible explanation of this class of phenomena, and they are by no means infrequent, is to be found in "favoringconditions" and the "presence of vital units. " They are primordialmanifestations of life, and such as would have made their appearance inany corresponding latitude of the southern hemisphere, under the samefavoring conditions. 

And this is true of all living organisms from the lowest morphologicalcell, in the ichthyologic world, to the highest and lordliest conifer thatgrows. Their spawn and seeds are perishable by heat, but the vitalprinciple that organizes them is as imperishable in one element asanother. No seven-times heated furnace, much less the experimental flasksof the physicist, will affect a vital principle of nature any more than aMay-morning puff of the east wind would shake Olympus. And all thecountless myriads of vital units in nature are now manifesting themselvesin animal and vegetal forms, under favoring conditions, the same as inthose far-distant epochs of the world's history when a more exuberantvegetation prevailed, if not a more abounding animal life. The samepersistent, ever-acting law of vital development and growth has beenpresent, in all conditions and circumstances of matter, ever since thedetritus of the silicious rocks felt the first influence of the rains, thedews, and the sunlight. Then the earth commenced "to bring forth thegrass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-trees yielding fruit, afterhis kind;" and in their growth was laid the foundation of animal life. Whether there was any audible or inaudible command of God uttered at thetime, is not the question. It is the _fact_ of vital growth that we areafter, and not the command. The geologic records attest the fact, as wellas the ever-acting vital law; and it is enough for us to know, with sturdyold Richard Hooker, that all law--and especially all _vital_ law--"has herseat in the bosom of God, and her voice is the harmony of the world. "

Professor Beale, while resolutely combating the physical hypothesis oflife, is not a little unfortunate in his use of scientific terms. He isconstantly using those of "living matter" and "dead matter, " as if theycontained no fatal concession to the materialists, with which tocompletely overthrow his own ultimate conclusions as to life. For he gainsnothing by merely substituting "bioplasm" and "bioplasts" for "protoplasm"and "plastide particles. " The essential plasma in both cases is the same, and behind each lies the vital unit or principle therein manifested--theinvisible, indestructible germ or ZRA of the Bible genesis. Livingorganisms come, of course, from this essential plasma, but without anelementary principle or vital unit therein, there would be no "bioplasts, "in the sense in which Professor Beale uses this term. These bioplasts areliving organisms which take up nutrient matter and convert it byassimilation into tissues, nerves, fibres, bones, etc. --into the higherand more complex organs that go to make up living structure. Thismysterious transmutation of one thing into another, as organic matter intoliving organisms, is due to a vitally implanted principle, not to theselittle bioplasts, or mere epithelial and other tools with which the vitalprinciple works. To apply the term "living matter" to the tools with whicha living structure is built up, is to lose sight of the master-mechanicusing them for an apparently intelligent purpose. The microscope maydemonstrate that these little bioplasts throb--have life; but there is nointelligent purpose manifested by them except as they are moved by anunseen hand that conclusively directs the whole structural work--builds upthe one complete symmetrical structure, not its thousand independent partshaving no relation to a general plan. The future lord and occupant of themansion is presumably present, and if he uses tools that "throb and havelife, " it is because everything he touches is quickened into life that itmay be the more obedient to his will. If this structure be thesoul-endowed one of man, the vital principle imparted is that whichfashions the epithelial tools, and uses them, as well in laying theembryological foundation, as in crowning its work with that many-colored"dome of thought flashing the white radiance of eternity. "

Mr. Joseph Cook, who enthusiastically follows Professor Beale in histheory of life, in one of his "Boston Monday Lectures, " says; "It isbeyond contradiction that we know that these little points ('bioplasts')of structureless matter spin the threads, and weave the warp and woof, oforganisms. " With all due respect to this distinguished lecturer, we mustexcept to not less than three points in as many lines of hisover-confident statement. In the first place, we know nothing respectingthe "beginnings of life, " which may not be contradicted with some show ofreason. Take his own definition of "bioplasts, " as copied from ProfessorBeale, coupled with what they both term "nutrient matter" and "germinalmatter, " or bioplasm, and this confident assertion of his will land him atonce where the highest powers of the microscope fail to give back anyintelligible answer, or where neither assertion nor contradiction availsanything. A bioplast, they tell us, is a germinal point in germinal matteror bioplasm. It is also assumed that the central portion of every cell inan organic tissue is a bioplast. Here this wonderful little weaver oftissue sits spinning his threads and weaving them into the warp and woofof "formed matter"--that which, according to Professor Beale, becomes"dead matter" as soon as it is woven! But it is admitted that the nervefibres constitute an uninterrupted network which admits of noendings--that is, whose ultimate reticulations lie beyond the microscopiclimit. But there is a cell in every hundredth part of an inch of theseultimate reticulations, in each of which one of these bioplastic weaverssits plying his threads into the warp and woof of nerve tissue, if not ofnerve force. What is known of these little weavers, either by Mr. JosephCook or Professor Lionel S. Beale? Manifestly nothing, unless they havebeen specially favored with microscopes of over 2, 800 diameters--thehighest yet made, --and have fathomed the ultimate implications of nerveforce; an assumption on the part of the Boston lecturer to which we arebound to except. 

Nor are these "bioplasts" mere structureless matter, however minute theymay be as "little points. " They differ only from "morphological cells, " inthe definitional language employed by different theorists, and lack theall-essential accuracy of distinction necessary to scientificclassification. To define a bioplast as a germinal point in germinalmatter, or bioplasm, is to draw no satisfactory line of distinctionbetween the two, except that the one is a mere aggregation of the other. Agerminal mass is only made up of germinal points--those considered as theleast of any given whole--however infinitesimal they may be in theoreticalstatement. If any germinal point in germinal matter, therefore, be abioplast, then every germinal point, to the extent of making up its entiremass, must be a bioplast; and the distinction between the two becomesmerely verbal, and without generic signification. But every morphologicalcell is conceded to be an organism, whether it lie within or beyond themicroscopic limit. And it invariably exhibits a greater or less amount ofcellular activity at its centre. It grows rather than spins; it builds uptissue, rather than weaves it into warp and woof; it assimilates nutritivematter rather than plies a loom in any conceivable sense in which we mayview that industrial machine. No matter what we may call this point ofvital activity in a cell--whether it be a bioplast, a plastid, aphysiological unit, or a granule of "elementary life-stuff"--it simplyperforms the one single function of life to which it is specificallyassigned in the process of "building up" any one identical individual of aspecies, whether it be a man, an ape, a tree, or a parasitic fungus. Thevery admission that the bioplast spins, makes it an organism, and not merestructureless matter. For the first thread it spins is manifestly for itsown covering or the ornamentation of its own cell-walls. And to speak ofthese as "structureless matter" is to confound all scientific sense, aswell as meaning. 

The third objection to Mr. Cook's statement is, that if bioplasts spin, itis as dependent, and not as independent machines or agencies. There aremillions of these bioplasts--taking the word in the sense in whichProfessor Beale uses it--in every living organism considered as abiological whole. In the case of man, there are millions of them within acomparatively small compass; and each has its own cell to which itsspecific work is assigned. Now, these germinal points, or bioplasts, ineach of these myriads of cells, work, not separately and independently, like so many oysters in their respective shells, but harmoniously andtogether, as if under the supervisional direction of one supreme architectand builder. This builder is that one elementary principle of life, appertaining to each specific individual as a species, with which naturewas endowed from the beginning, and which, in the case of man, was adirect emanation from Deity. It is this vital principle manifesting itself_in_ all living organisms, not _from_ them; directing Professor Beale's"bioplastic weavers, " not directed by them; availing itself of necessaryplasmic conditions, if not giving rise to them in the first instance;observing no developmental processes by which one form of life laps overupon another, and following no order but that of universal harmony in theDivine intendment. There is struggle and rivalry for existence, even amongthe same classes, orders, genera, and species, and the smallest andweakest must give place to the largest and strongest everywhere, and _viceversa_, as Time, the greatest of all rodents, gnaws away at the mysticaltree of life. But in every living organism, from the lowest and simplestto the highest and most complex, all bioplastic spinners of filamentoustissue, all plastide weavers of membranous or spun matter, all epithelialbobbin-runners, and other anatomical helpers and workers, perform theirrespective tasks under the special supervision we have named, that is, under the higher unit of life. They all work for the advancement andwell-being of the higher organism of which they form a component andnecessarily subordinate part. 

The fact that Professor Beale has discovered that what he calls bioplasmand germinal points or bioplasts may take on a distinct and separate colorfrom tissue, when subjected to a solution of carmine in ammonia, is noevidence that he has penetrated the adytum of this sacred temple of Life, wherein lies the "mystery of mysteries. " It is an important discovery sofar as tracing tissue is concerned, but it admits him into no highermystery within the temple built by God than another may attain to by theaccidental discovery that the tissues may take on the same color in someother solution--by no means an improbable discovery. Carmine in ammonia isnot the only solution that may aid science in the investigations now beingcarried forward by the vitalists and non-vitalists with so much bitternessand asperity of feeling between them; and now that Professor Beale hasmade _his_ happy discovery, it is by no means certain that some otherequally persistent worker in this interesting field of inquiry may not hitupon quite as happy a discovery in the same or some equivalentdirection--one that shall throw the bioplasmic theory as far into theshade as Mr. Cook thinks the bioplasts have already thrown the cells. 

But decidedly the most objectionable statement of Professor Beale, although one confidently re-affirmed by our "Boston Monday Lecturer, " isthat which makes bioplasm and bioplasts the only "living matter. " We havealready referred to the phrases "living matter" and "non-living matter" asaltogether objectionable in biological statement, since they are more thanhalf-way concessions to the materialists, who contemptuously order thevitalists to take a "back seat" in the discussions now going forward as tothe true origin of life. But the objection we here make is less technical, and touches a far more vital point in the inquiry. It is true thatProfessor Beale speaks of "formed matter, " as if it were a peculiarsomething--a sort of _tertium quid_--between living and non-living matter. But he distinctly avers that the substance which turns red in his carminesolutions is the "only living matter, " and hence asserts, inferentially atleast, that all other matter, in any and every living organism, is "deadmatter. " But we may just as confidently aver that no matter is living inany vital organism which has not been assimilated and built up into livingmembranous tissue capable of responding (in the case of man) to his will, as well as performing the autonomous functions of plants and the loweranimals. For all these membranous tissues are innumerably thronged withbioplasts or plastide particles, not for the purposes of obedience toman's will, or of performing any autonomous function, but simply to supplythe tissues with the necessary nutrient matter to make up for the constantwaste that is going on in a healthy living organ. This waste is very muchgreater than has heretofore been supposed, so that the man or animal ofto-day may be an entirely distinct and separate one, consideredmaterially, from that of a year or more ago. And this averment would havea decided advantage over Professor Beale's, since, in meeting a friend, wemight be certain that four-fifths of him at least was alive, while theother one-fifth was industriously at work to keep him alive, instead of astalking corpse, as he would otherwise be, upon the street. Besides, itwould obviate the necessity, on the part of the vitalists, of givingthemselves four-fifths away to the materialists, as Professor Bealevirtually does in the argument. 

The too rude touch of a child's hand will rob the canary bird of itslife--stifle its musical throat, hush its most ecstatic note, still itsexquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But whereare Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not onlyweaving the nerves, tissues, muscles, bones, and even the wonderfulplumage of this canary bird, but plying the invisible threads ofsong--throwing off its chirps, carols, trills, quavers, airs, overturesand brilliant _roulades_, as if the little vocalist had caught itsinspiration from the very skies? Where, we repeat, are these bioplastsnow? They are all quietly and industriously at work as before. Theoccupant of the song-mansion is gone, but not one of these bioplasts hasdropped a clew, thrown down a shuttle, abandoned a loom, or fled in dismayto the core of its cell. They still pulsate, throb, throw off tissue. Nochemical change has yet intervened to break down their cell-walls, orinterfere with the occupations assigned them. The machinery that ran theirlooms is stopped--that is all. The invisible shuttles have ceased toply--the meshes of their tangled webs are broken--the more delicatethreads of song are snapped in sunder, but the bioplastic spinners andweavers are all there. Not one of them has been displaced from its seat, nor in any way disturbed or molested in its work. If they are conscious ofany danger, it is that the occupant of this little song-mansion hassuddenly stepped out--is no longer present to direct their tasks. The icyhand of decay and death will soon be upon them--these poor bioplasticweavers of tissue--but the vocal spark, the "bright gem instinct withmusic, " is beyond the reach of these dusky messengers. _Where_ it is, notman, but the Giver of all life knows. We only know, when our faith isuplifted by inspiration, that--

 "The soul of music never dies, Nor slumbers in its shell; 'Tis sphere-descended from the skies, And thence returns to dwell. "

Chapter IX. 

Force-Correlation, Differentiation and Other Life Theories. 

Among the more startling, if not decidedly brilliant, vital theories whichhave been advanced within the last few years, is that which makes life an"undiscovered correlative of force. " Those who have the reputation ofbeing the profoundest thinkers and delvers in the newly-discovered realmof Force-correlation in Europe, and who have more or less modestlycontributed to that reputation themselves, have evidently thought toeclipse, if not to entirely throw into the shade, the great exploit ofLeverrier, in pointing out the exact place in their empirical heavenswhere the superior optics of some future observer shall behold, in all itsglory, this "undiscovered correlative of force, " which they have indicatedas lying within the higher possibilities and potentialities of matter. Precisely what they mean by this undiscovered correlate, is what puzzlesus quite as much to determine as it does the materialists to explain. Werethey to define life as an "undiscovered force" simply, their definitionwould manifestly lack in brilliancy what it would conclusively make up inprecision and accuracy of definitional statement. But such a poormetaphrastic and half-circular exposition of vital force would neveranswer the necessities of that profounder profundity required for thesuccess of modern scientific treatises. Hence the interpolation of this"correlative" of theirs. Let us ascertain, if we can, what it means, sincethey are so chary of informing us themselves. 

A "correlate" of a thing--any thing--simply implies the reciprocalrelation it bears to some other thing. As a cognate term it expressesnothing, can express nothing, but reciprocity of relationship, such asfather to son, brother to sister, uncle to aunt, nephews to nieces, etc. As applied to vital force, it means nothing more nor less than that thisparticular force stands in some sort of relationship to the other forcesof nature, or, as they would have us believe, the _material_ forces ofnature. And the simple strength or potentiality of this relationship iswhat makes all the difference between the severally related forces of theuniverse, since it would be as impossible to differentiate a fixedrelationship as to change the nature of vital units. But whether vitalforce, as a distinct correlate, is paternal or filial, brotherly orsisterly, avuncular or amital in its relationship, is not stated. Thescientific formula, however, may be stated thus: As A (chemical force) isto B (molecular force) so is C (a third known force) to _x_ (the vital orunknown force); so that, by multiplying the antecedents and consequentstogether, and eliminating the value of _x_, we may mathematically obtainthe value of vital force. 

But to eliminate the value of _x_ is what troubles them. Herbert Spencerhas tried his hand at it, but failed to express life under any highercorrelation than "molecular force;" nor can he definitely inform uswhether either force is third or fourth cousin to the other. But hemanifestly regards their relationship as constituting either a veryattractive or highly repulsive force. In his vexation at not finding thevalue of _x_, he is driven from mathematical to mechanical biology, andgives us this new definitional value of life--that singularlycontumacious quantity which so persistently refuses to be eliminated inscientific equations: "Life is molecular machinery worked by molecularforce. " But as Professor Beale has utterly demoralized, if notdemolished, this machinery, in his recent treatise on "The Mystery ofLife, " we will spare it any further blows, and proceed to theconsideration of "molecular force. "

Before we proceed however, to the consideration of this force, let usdefinitely understand the meaning of the terms we shall be called uponto use. We can have no difficulty in understanding the meaning of"molecular attraction, " or that force acting immediately on theintegrant molecules or particles of a body, as distinguished from theattraction of gravitation which acts at unlimited distances. But when itcomes to ascribing other and higher manifestations of power tomolecules, such as have not been scientifically shown to exist, we mustfeel our way with caution, and demand of these pretentious molecules, orrather of their materialistic backers, a reason for the faith, or ratherforce, that is in them. 

It is agreed by all physicists, as well as chemists, that a "molecule" isthe smallest conceivable quantity of a simple or compound substance, as an"atom" is the smallest conceivable quantity of an element which entersinto combination with other elements to form material substance. Forinstance, the smallest conceivable quantity of water is a molecule, whilethe smallest conceivable quantity of either of the two elements of whichwater is composed, is an atom. In every molecule of water, therefore, there are three elementary atoms, two of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Andsince a molecule, as a general rule, contains two or more atoms, and maycontain many of them, why not predicate dynamic force of the atoms, whichlie one step nearer the elementary forces of nature? For the mightiestforces of nature lie in these elements, when forced into unnaturalalliances, or chained up in durance vile. It is in the elements of matter, and not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man, knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them intounnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and thegeneral inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do onthe innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from theactual force expended, is drawing conclusions from the sheeresthypothetical data. It is the office of "molecular force, " if there is anymeaning to the term beyond what is expressed by "molecular attraction, " toconserve matter--bind rocks together, not rend them in sunder. 

If the dynamic forces of nature lie pent up in the molecules, then manmust array molecular force against molecular force in order to rend rocksand tear mountains in sunder. This theory of molecular force, as extendedto vital physics in the force-doctrine of life, is irreconcilably at warwith the principal phenomena of life, and should be classed with the otherundiscovered correlates of force, which Professor Beale speaks of as "thefictions of a mechanical imagination. " The truth is that these much abusedand much slandered molecules are the most innocent and harmless things innature. They never become destructive unless some other force than thatinhering in themselves drags them into its service and hurls them along adevastating path. Of themselves, they are the very quintessence ofquiessence in the universe, and, when formed in nature's laboratory, atonce seek quiet and loving companionship with kindred molecules, andretain it forever afterwards. The idea that they should break away fromtheir loving molecular embrace, and, by any process of differentiation orconstructive agency of their own, seek an alliance with some livingdog-germ in order to be built up into living dog-tissue, presents about asperverse and wayward an impulse on the part of matter as can well beimagined by the scientific mind. That the dog-germ should seek to get holdof, and differentiate them, we can well understand. The Circean witcheryand enticement is all on the part of the dog-germ, not in the inclinationof the molecules. 

If there is any truth in this molecular-force-theory of life, it is abouttime for us to discard some of the old categories respecting matter, motion, and life, and substitute new ones in their place. In themultiplicity of new scientific terms constantly springing up forrecognition in these days, there ought to be no difficulty in expressingthe true categories, and assigning to them their proper definitionalvalue. To include physical force, chemical force, molecular force, andvital force all under one and the same category, and then interpret theirseveral modes of action on any theory of force-correlation, is notemancipating language from the gross thraldom into which their "molecularmachinery" has driven it. Besides, there is moral force, mental force, theforce of will, the force of reason, the force of honesty, the force offraud, etc. , and any number of other forces, all possessing more or lessimpetus or momentum, and capable of binding or coercing persons andthings, in all their diversified relations, correlations, incidences, coincidences, affinities, antagonisms, and so on through an interminablechapter of interchangeable predications. All these different expressionsof force are to be tethered together--definitionally bound hand andfoot--under the one explanatory head of "force-correlation. " We protestagainst the labor of thus unifying all the natural forces of the universe, even if it were practicable under scientific methods. 

But Professor Tyndall denies that "molecular groupings" and "molecularmotions" explain anything--account for anything--in the way of explicatinglife-manifestations, or determining what life is. [31] And it would bedifficult to cite a stronger and more determined materialist as authorityon the point we are considering. He says: "If love were known to beassociated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of thebrain, and hate with the left-handed, we should remain as ignorant asbefore, as to the cause of motion. " But there is no proof that themolecules of the brain manifest any other motions than those necessary forkeeping up the normal condition of health and vital activity in the brainitself. No one can be certain that he has seen these molecules in a stateof mental activity; for where portions of the human brain have beenexposed to microscopic examination, even in perfect states ofconsciousness on the part of those whose brains have been laid bare, therecan be no certainty that the molecular action, if any, is referable to oneset of movements more than another. And even in the case of animalcules, as seen in the object glass of the microscope, there is no absolutecertainty that their quick, darting or jerking movements are due to anylife-manifestation, as heretofore assumed. Some quite as well definedforms are entirely motionless, and if all were so, it would be idle topredicate vitality of them. [32] These infinitessimal and constantlyvarying forms, many of them not the one hundred-thousandth part of an inchin length, to say nothing of their other dimensions, may owe theiroscillations, wave movements, darting and other manifestations, and eventheir molecular arrangements and rearrangements, to other causes thanthose strictly "vital. " And it should be borne in mind that their actualmovements are just as much exaggerated under the microscope as their realdimensions. But as they make their appearance in organic infusions only, they are presumably vital organisms rather than fomentative or merefilamentous yeast-manifestations. 

Professor Huxley, while conceding that molecular changes may take placeunder environing life-conditions, or in protoplasmic matter, denies thatthe "primordial cells" possesses in any degree the characteristics of a"machine, " nor can they undergo any differentiating process by which thecharacter of their manifestations can be changed. And he even denies tothem the poor right to originate or in any way modify their own plasma. Hesays: "They are no more the producers of vital phenomena, than the shellsscattered in orderly line along the sea-beach are the instruments by whichthe gravitative force of the moon acts upon the ocean. Like these, thecells mark only where the vital tides have been, and how they have acted. "This is undoubtedly true of all cells in which the vital or functionaloffice has ceased, as in the case of Professor Beale's "formed matter. "The cells are the result of the vital principle that lies behind them, andsimply indicate where life exists, or has manifestly ceased to exist. Where the vital currents have ceased to flow, the wreck of primordialcells is quite as wide and disastrous as where millions of sea-shells havebeen strewn along a desolated and storm-swept sea-beach. They all come, both the cells and shells, from the preA"xisting vital units, ordeterminate germs, that fall into their own incidences of movement, without any concurrence of physical conditions beyond their own inherenttendency to development. For "conditions" do not determine life; they onlyfavor its manifestation. 

But some of the materialists claim that what we call "vital units, " orinvisible, indestructible germs, [33] are at best only "physicalrelations;" that they have nothing more than a hypothetical existence, without any independent recognizable quality justifying our conclusionsrespecting them. But may not this identical language be retortivelysuggested in the case of their "correlates of force?" What more than ahypothetical existence have they? Certainly their enthusiasm to get rid ofall vital conditions or manifestations, is quite as marked a feature intheir speculations respecting life as any enthusiasm we have shown in theverification of vital phenomena, on the established law of cause andeffect. They insist upon this law in the case of statical aggregates, andeven assign absolute identity of attributes; but when it comes todynamical aggregates, they fall back on partial identity only, and denythe presence of the law altogether. 

Nor are they any more felicitous in their treatment of other points incontroversy. In speaking of his "plastide particles, " Professor Bastian, the most defiant challenger of vitalistic propositions now living, says:"Certain of these particles, through default of _necessary conditions, _never actually develop into higher modes of being. " Here he makes theabsence of "necessary conditions" the cause of non-development, while hestoutly denies that the presence of such "conditions" give rise to thedevelopment of a pre-existing vital unit. And yet, strange to say, hespeaks of the elemental origin of "living matter" as "having probablytaken place on the surface of our globe since the far-remote period whensuch matter was first engendered. " But how his "sum-total of externalconditions, " acting upon _dead_ matter, can "engender" _living_ matter, isone of those "related heterogenetic phenomena" which he does notcondescend to explain. It is by this sort of scientific verbiage that hegets rid of the pre-existing vital principle, or germinal principle oflife, which the biblical genesis declares to be in the earth itself. 

To be entirely consistent with himself, he should deny the existence ofthis germinal principle in the seeds of plants themselves, and insist uponthe sum-total of external conditions as the cause of alllife-manifestations, in the vegetal as in the animal world. There can beno inherent tendency, he should insist, in the seed itself towardsstructural development, but only external conditions acting upon "deadmatter, " in heterogentic directions. The shooting down of the radicle orundeveloped root, and the springing up of the plumule or undevelopedstalk, is accordingly due to no vital principle in the seed, but to thecomplexity or entanglement of the molecules wrapped up in theirintegumentary environment. And this, or some similar fortuitousentanglement of molecules, should account for all life-manifestations, aswell as all life-tendencies, in nature. These molecular entanglementsshould, therefore, be infinite in number, as well as in fortuitouscomplexity, to account for all the myriad forms of life "engendered fromdead matter" in the material universe. 

For if there is any one thing that the materialists insist upon moreresolutely than another, it is the fortuitousness of nature--thehappening by chance of whatever she does. Formerly it used to be the"fortuitous concourse of atoms;" now it is the "fortuitous aggregate ofmolecules. " By what accidental or fortuitous happening the atoms havedropped out of their scientific categories, and the molecules have beenadvanced to their commanding place in _absolute accidentalness_, is oneof those unassignable causes in which they apparently so much delight. Wecan only account for it on the supposition that they have all becomeworshippers of that blind and accidental Greek goddess, who bore the hornof Amalthea and plentifully endowed her followers with a wealth oflanguage and other much-coveted gifts, but not with the most desirableknack at disposing of them. 

The true cause of vital phenomena manifestly depends on these twoconditions--the presence of the specific vital unit, and the necessaryenvironing plasma, or nutrient matter, for its primary development. Without the presence of both of these conditions, or conditioningincidences, there can be no life-manifestation anywhere. And we do not seethat anything is gained, even in the matter of scientific nomenclature, bymerely substituting "molecular force" for "vital force, " in theexplication of vital phenomena. Even granting that molecular changes dotake place during the development of the vital units in their necessaryplasmic environment; it by no means follows that these changes are notdependent on the vital principle _as it acts_, rather than on themolecules _as they act_, [34] The higher force should always subordinatethe lower in all metamorphic, as well as other processes, of nature. It isthe vital principle that differentiates matter--the aggregate ofmolecules--not matter differentiating the vital principle. No "molA(C)culesorganiques" can ever differentiate an ape-unit into a man-unit, any morethan Professor Tyndall can fetch a Plato out of mere sky-mist. Once anape-unit, always an ape-unit; once a man-unit, eternally a man-unit. 

Let the vitalists stick to this proposition--this eternally fixed _unit_as "_une idA(C)e dans l'entendement de Dieu, " _ (to use a better Frenchexpression than English)--and they can fight the materialists off theirown ground anywhere. The one sublime verity of the universe is that"life exists, " and that it has existed from all eternity _as possible_in the Divine mind, and in the Divine mind alone. If materialisticscience is disposed to butt its head against this impregnableproposition, it can do so. The proposition will stand, whatever mayhappen to the inconsiderate head. 

For science may press her devotees into as many different pursuits asthere are starting-points to an azimuth circle, and command them to searchand find out the ultimate causes of things in the universe, but theforever narrowing circle in one direction, and the forever widening one inthe other, would utterly baffle all their attempted research. Whether theydescended into the microscopic world, with its myriad-thronged conditionsof life, or passed upward and outward, in _Sirius-_distances, to theirresolvable nebulA|, where other and perhaps brighter stars might burstupon their view--gleaming coldly and silently down the still enormousfissures and chasms in the heavens--the result would be the same. Widerand wider fields of observation might open upon their view, as the stellarswarms thickened and the power of human vision failed, but theuranological expedition would return no wiser than when it started, andScience would still be confronted with the same illimitability of space, the same infinitude of matter, and the same incomprehensibility of theworld-arranging intelligence that lies beyond. For He who hath garnishedthe heavens by his spirit--who divideth the sea with his power, andhangeth the earth upon nothing--"_holdeth back the face of his throne andspreadeth his cloud upon it_. "

What if, in one direction, we should find those inconceivably smallspecks, or mere bioplastic points, which we call "living matter, " or, inthe other direction, those inconceivably vast world-forming masses whichwe call "dead matter, " who shall say that "the secret places of the MostHigh" are not hidden from us, or that when the spirit of God first movedthrough these vast fissures and chasms in the heavens upon the face of allmatter, there was not imparted to it that "animating principle of life" ofwhich the biblical genesis speaks, and which we everywhere see manifestingitself in nature? Surely this inquiry is not one to be superciliously setaside by the materialists, after the failure of their uranologicalexpedition, on the ground that it does not furnish food enough forscientific contemplation, without such physiological fancies as theirspecialists have been giving us in the shape of force-correlations andmolecular theories of life. 

But speaking of the higher forces as subordinating the lower, suggeststhat there should be something more definitely explained regarding thehypothesis of "differentiation, " on which Mr. Herbert Spencer hangs somuch of his mathematical faith in the true explication of vitalphenomena. The term "differentiation" is not so formidable as it mightseem to the general reader at first sight. As applied to physiologicalproblems it should have the same determinate value, in expressingfunctional differences, as in the higher operations of mathematics. Nothing can, of course, differentiate itself, nor can any two thingsdifferentiate each other, even when functionally allied. The actualcoA"fficient sought is the difference effected, in functional value, inone of two independent variables. For all formulA| in differentiation areconstructed on the hypothesis that only one of two variables sufferschange. The differential coA"fficient has yet to be determined which shallexpress the developmental changes in two variables at once. When, therefore, we attempt to extend the formulA| of differentiation to plantand animal life, we are confronted by a very formidable difficulty at theoutset--the impossibility of determining an invariable coA"fficient forany two variables. Besides, all attempts at differentiating an ape-unitinto anything else than an ape-unit would be as impossible as to multiplyor divide cabbages by turnips, or sparrows by sparrowhawks. Suchdivisions would give us no quotients, any more than theirdifferentiations would give us a coA"fficient. Physiologicaldifferentiation will, therefore, never help us out of fixed species ornearly allied types. We can bridge no specific differences by it. In thedifferentiation of the horse and the ass for instance, the superior bloodwill predominate in the preservation of types, and even the mule willkick against further differentiation. Nature would so utterly abhor thepractice as resolutely to slam the door in Mr. Spencer's face, if theobstinacy of the mule did not kick it off its hinges. 

And nature would be quite as intractable in the case of"force-correlation, " another of Mr. Spencer's redoubtable phrases. Thisterm is quite recent in its application to animate objects, nor has itbeen long applied to inanimate. It is claimed to be a recently discoveredforce, and is one that the materialists have seized upon as the Herculeanclub with which to smite all vital theories to the earth. Its meaning, sofar as it has any, is not difficult to get at. The simplest way to explainit, however, is the best. The reader is to understand that when he rubstwo flat sticks together, the heat thereby engendered is not the result offriction, as all the world has heretofore supposed, but that the amount offorce expended in rubbing the right-hand stick against the left-handstick, is, by some law of versability, not over-well defined, transferredto the two sticks, and gets so entangled between their surfaces that itcan only reappear in another and altogether different kind of force. Whenit leaves the hands and passes into the two sticks, it is, as thematerialists assert, vital force. But as no force can be annihilated, theconclusive assumption is that it still exists somewhere. All of it, in thefirst place, went into the two flat sticks, and, when there, _ceased to bevital force. _ Some of it disappeared, of course, in overcoming the inertiaof the sticks, but the bulk of it became entangled with the superficialmolecules of the two sticks, and reappeared as _heat_--another name formolecular force. 

This is what is meant by the "differentiation" of vital force intomolecular force, and _vice versa_. But by what process of rubbing, underthis law of versability, molecular force can be reversed, ordifferentiated back into vital force, Mr. Spencer has not condescended toinform us. The simple truth is, and the materialists will be forced toadmit it in the end, that there is no verification of this theory beyondthat of mere force-equivalence. For instance, it has been experimentallydetermined that a certain amount of fuel expended in heat is equivalent toa certain amount of mechanical force, not mechanical _work_, as M. Carnotputs it. For force is not expended in work until it is actually generated, and the amount generated, not that expended in work, is the realequivalence of the heat produced from fuel. 

Another problem is presented when it comes to determining the amount ofgenerated force necessary to run a piece of machinery which shallaccomplish a given amount of mechanical work. 

A far better phrase to express this equivalence of force has beensuggested and used by several writers in what is called the "Transmutationof Force. " For there is no correlation, or reciprocal relation, betweenheat as originally produced by the consumption of fuel and the force asengendered in steam before it is transmuted into work. Nor is there anyreal equivalence as between the two forces after its transmutation. A verylarge per centage of heat is lost in its transmutation from a latent formin fuel to an active or available form in steam, and a still greater lossin its transmission into work by machinery. Theoretically, there may besuch an equivalence as that named, but practically it is impossible torealize it. And a theory that is impossible of realization is of nopractical utility in itself, and of little value as the basis of furthertheory. If, then, the theory of force equivalence is a failure inpractical application, it furnishes a very poor basis on which topredicate force-correlation, or the doctrine of reciprocal forces. It isestimated, for instance, that a pound weight falling seven hundred andseventy-two feet, will, in striking the earth, impart to it a degree ofheat equivalent to raising one pound of water 1A deg. F. But the heat thusimparted can never be so utilized as to raise a pound weight seven hundredand seventy-two feet into the air. 

This shows that there is no actual reciprocity of relationship between theforce as originally engendered and finally expended in work. Nor can it beshown that the original force is transmuted or changed into another anddifferent kind of force by the operation. The force generated and theforce expended are essentially one and the same, as much so as thattransmitted from the power to the weight by means of a rope and pulley. And the quality of the force is not changed, whether the weight be liftedby machinery or the human hand. Force, in its mechanical sense, is thatpower which produces motion, or an alteration in the direction of motion, and is incapable of being specialized, except in a highly figurativesense, into a thousand and one correlates of motion. But thesemiscellaneous and figurative forces are not what we are considering. Thedoctrine of force-correlation takes no such wide and comprehensive sweep. It embraces neither the force of wit, nor the force of folly; butmechanical force and its equivalents. The force exercised by the humanhand in lifting a weight either with or without rope and pulley is, inevery definitional sense of the word, mechanical force. For the arm andhand are only the implements, or mechanical contrivances of nature, bywhich the will-power transmutes itself into work, or, more properlyspeaking, transmits itself from the point of force-generation to that offorce-expenditure. And this is precisely the office performed by allmechanical contrivances for the transmission--not transmutation--of force. And the most perfect machine is that which transmits the engendered force, with the least possible waste or abandonment, to its point of ultimateexpenditure in work. 

All these hypothetical correlates of force, therefore, predicated upon thedoctrine of force-transmutation, have no foundation in fact, since theforce transmitted from the point of generation to the point of expenditureundergoes no change but that of direction, in its passage along rope, wire, belt, pulley, shafting, etc. A man whose limbs have been paralyzed, may still will to remove mountains. The will-power is the same, but themechanical contrivances for its transmission are wanting. Of the actualpoint or centre of this force-generation, in the case of the will-power, we know nothing; but the moment the power is started on its way towardsthe point of force-expenditure, whether it traverses the nerves andtissues of the brain, or the right arm or the left, or a crowbar orpickaxe, it is in no sense distinguishable from the force that traverses arope and pulley. Nor is there any evidence that it undergoes molecularchanges, or becomes modified or conditioned by any nearly or remotelyrelated force, as it darts along the nerves, runs through the contractedtissues, electrifies the crowbar, or flashes into work from the point of apickaxe. Whatever produces, or tends to produce, motion, or an alterationin its direction, is mechanical force, no matter from what force-centre itmay start. When we can definitely determine the centre of vital force, asexercised in building up vital structure, _not in wielding pickaxes_, itis to be hoped we shall be able to distinguish, by the proper correlates, vital force from that which is mechanical. But the task is manifestly ahopeless one with the materialists. 

Professor Beale positively denies that there are any such physicalforce-relations as those claimed by the materialists, and asserts thatvital force bears no relation, or correlation, to either chemical orphysical force; that the one is a distinct and separate factor from theother, and cannot be interpreted in the same force-formulA|. He says: "Theidea of motion, or heat, or light, or electricity _forming_ or _building_up, or _constructing_ any texture capable of fulfilling a definitepurpose, seems absurd, and opposed to all that is known, and yet is thenotion continually forced upon us, that vitality, which does construct, isbut a correlate of ordinary energy or motion. "

But after devoting so much time to "force-correlation, " and"force-differentiation, " the advocates of "molecular-machinery" may feelthemselves neglected if we dismiss their favorite hobby without furthernotice. The precise parentage of this term is disputed, but it has anynumber of _putative_ fathers. We have spoken of the size of the moleculesthemselves, and the numbers of them that might be huddled together on thepoint of a cambric needle without jostling. Let us now consider the sizeof a molecular machine. For each molecule runs its own machine, and isprovident enough to see that they do not jostle. In fact, it is a verynice question in physics, whether the machines do not run the molecules, instead of the prevailing opposite opinion that the molecules run themachines. Unfortunately, the question is one that can never be determined. The requisite scientific data will forever be wanting. 

But Professor James C. Maxwell, now, or quite recently, filling the chairof experimental physics in the University of Cambridge, England, hasfurnished us with _approximate_ calculations. On the strength of hisapproximations we will proceed to consider the dimensions of thesewonderful little machines. And first, it may be axiomatically laid downthat these molecular machines, which either run the molecules or are runby them, can never exceed the size of their respective molecules. Conceding, then, that each one of these machines exactly fits into its ownmolecule, so as to present identically the same dimensions--as well astheir largest possible dimensions--it would require two millions of them, placed in a row, to make one millimetre, or the one three hundred andninety-four thousandths of an inch in length, or seven hundred andeighty-eight billions of them to make one inch! Who will ever be staggeredat _Sirius_-distances, after this? And who will deny that an infiniteworld lies below the point of our microscopic vision, if not an Infinitekingdom and throne beyond our telescopic glance?

But, following the same high authority in experimental physics, let usconsider the aggregate weight of these molecular machines. We will notmarshal their aggregate numbers in a row, for an array of forty billionsof them would make too insignificant a figure for inspection; but simplygive their actual weight as computed under the French or metric system. Take, then, a million million million million of these machines, throwingin molecules and all, and they will weigh, if there is no indiscreetkicking of the beam, just a fraction between four and five grammes, or--todifferentiate the weights--a small fraction over one-tenth of an ounce!

But why not get down to the atoms, of which the molecules are only thetheoretical congeries, and marshal the "atomic forces" into line? Theseembryonic atoms are much the braver warriors, and, when summoned to dobattle, spring, lithe and light-armed, against the elemental foe. They areno cowardly molecules, these atoms, but make war against Titans, as wellas Titanic thrones and powers. The elements recognize them as their bodyguardsmen, their corps of invincible lancers, their bravest and bestsoldiers in fight. And they are wholly indifferent as to the legions ofmolecules arrayed against them, and would as soon hurl a mountain of theminto the sea as to sport with a zephyr or caper with the east wind. Whynot summon these countless myriads of bright and invincible spearmen, tobatter down the walls of this Cretan labyrinth of Life? An army of thesewould be worth all the molecules that Professor Maxwell could array inline, in a thousand years. No life-problem need remain unsolved with theirbright spears to drive the tenebrious mists before them. Even ProfessorTyndall's "fog-banks of primordial haze" would be ignominiously scatteredin flight before these atomic legions. Let our materialistic friendssummon them, then, to their aid. The field of controversy will never bewon by their molecular "Hessians. " The ineffably bright lancers that standguard over the elemental hosts are the light brigade with which to routthe vitalistic enemy. Advance them then to the front, and, beneath theshadowy wing of pestilence or some other appalling ensign of destruction, the abashed vital squadrons will flee in dismay. 

But let us pass from scientific speculations to alleged scientific facts. In a paper read by Dr. Hughes Bennett before the Royal Society ofEdinburgh, in 1861, its author says: "The first step, in the process oforganic formation, is the production of an organic fluid; the second, theprecipitation of organic molecules, from which, according to the molecularlaw of growth, all other textures are derived either directly orindirectly. " Here again the molecules, and not the elementary atoms, areadvanced to the front, and not a little anxiety is shown, in adefinitional way, to identify vital processes of growth with crystallineprocesses of formation. But Dr. Bennett entirely mistakes, as well asmisstates, the process of vital development, if he does not overlook thelaw governing the formation of crystals. There can be no symmetricallyarranged solids in an inorganic fluid without the presence of some law, orprinciple, definitely determining, not the "precipitation, " but the"formation, " of crystals. The inorganic particles are not precipitated orthrown downward, any more than they are sublevated or thrown upward. Theprocess is one of formation, not precipitation. Every crystallographer, not hampered by materialistic views and anti-vital theories, admits thepresence of a fixed and determinate law governing each crystalline system, whatever may be the homologous parts or the unequal axes it represents. 

And so of the equally undeviating law of vital growth. Life comes from nomere "precipitation of organic molecules, " as Dr. Bennett would have usbelieve. If so, what is it that precipitates the molecules? They canhardly be said to precipitate themselves. To precipitate, in a chemicalsense, is to be thrown down, or caused to be thrown down, as a substancefrom its solution. What, then, causes the molecules to be thusprecipitously thrown down from a fluid to a solid, or a semi-solid, state?It cannot be from any blind or inconsiderate haste on the part of themolecules themselves. There must be some independent principle, or law ofnature--one presupposing an intelligent law-giver--to effect the"precipitating process, " if any such really exists. 

But it does not exist. The first step is one of development andgrowth--the manifestation of functional activity--the building up oforganic or cellular tissue. The exact process, in the case of seed-bearingplants and trees, is well known. All those familiar with thecharacteristic differences of seeds, their chemical constituents, theirtegumentary coverings, rudimentary parts, etc. , thoroughly understand theprocess in its outward manifestation. There is no precipitation ofmolecules as in an organic fluid, unless the albumen lying between theembryo and testa of the seeds, and constituting the nutriment on which theplant feeds during its primary stages of growth, can be called a fluid. Itthrows none of its characteristic ingredients downward any more thanupward. Indeed the greater tendency of its molecules is upward rather thandownward, in the "molecular processes" (vital ones) by which the embryoniccell is started upon its career of plant-life. The celebrated Dr. Liebigsays of this albuminous environment: "It is the foundation, thestarting-point, of the whole series of peculiar tissues which constitutethose organs which are the seat of all vital actions. " In the case ofanimal life, this albumen abounds in the serum of the blood, enterslargely into the chyle and lymph, goes to build up the tissues andmuscles, and is the chief ingredient of the nerves, glands, and even thebrain itself. And in all these developmental stages, its tendency is tocoagulate rather than precipitate. In its coagulated condition, it driesto a hard, partially translucent and friable state, and is more or lessinsoluble in water, and entirely so at a temperature from 140A deg. To 160A deg. F. 

When the seed is planted or placed in water, it first commences to swellfrom the absorption of the water or moisture of the ground by the pores ofits external covering, the favorable temperature being from 60A deg. To 80A deg. F. It gradually expands until its outer membranes burst, and its initialrootlets clasp their hold upon the earth. From this point its severalstages of development are well known to the ordinary observer. Here thefirst step is absorption and expansion, not precipitation. There is also achange in chemical conditions, the water at least being decomposed. For itwould seem to be a law of vegetal growth that reproduction should begin indecomposition and decay. The Apostle's description of the "death of thegrain, " as symbolizing the death of man, in his first Epistle to theCorinthians, points conclusively in this direction. It is in thedecomposition and decay of the grain that the implanted germ is quickenedinto life--ascends into the bright light, the warm sunshine, therefreshing presence of showers and dews. In this way it fulfils itsprovidential purpose of yielding to the sower the more munificent lifewhich he is forever seeking to attain. 

Its germination is the springing up of the inner living principle of thegrain, not its outer envelope or dead husk. This disappears in decay, except the small nutrient portion within which the germinal principle oflife would seem to reside, and which undergoes a thorough chemical changein the process of passing from death unto life, or being assimilated andtaken up into the new living structure. The Apostle's comparisondistinctly marks these several changes as the one process of passing fromdeath unto life. He saw in this wonderful provision of nature, the stillmore wonderful prevision of God. To his mind it was over the debris of thedead past that the living present is constantly marching towards a higherand more perfect life--the ultimate fruition and joy of an eternal home inthe skies! And he saw that the two grand instrumentalities andco-accessory agencies to this end, were Life and Death, both equallyconstant and active, like all the other instrumentalities and governingagencies of the universe. Life is forever unlocking the portals of thepresent to youth and vigor; Death is forever closing them to age anddecrepitude. This divine prevision thus becomes the wisest and mostbeneficent provision. Without life there would be no such thing as death, and without death no such thing as this grand succession and march oflife--this passing from out the Shadow into the Day. 

Chapter X. 

Darwinism Considered from a Vitalistic Stand-Point. 

Granting that the assumption of Darwinism rests, as claimed, on the fixedand inflexible adaptation of means to ends, in the diversified yetmeasurably specialized processes of nature, there is no logical deductionto be drawn therefrom but that which traces the representatives of all thegreat types of the animal kingdom to one single source, and that not theSovereign Intelligence of the Universe, but a mere "ovule in protoplasm, "or what may be defined, in its unaggregated form, as an inconceivablysmall whirligig, having motion on a central axis, but whether anindependent motion of its own, or one derived from an InfiniteIntelligence, the Darwinian systematizers are not bold enough to aver. They have too many _a priori_ scruples either to assert the oneproposition or to deny the other. What set this little whirligig in motionis a mystery that lies beyond the purview of science, so called, and intothe depths of this infinitessimal and most mysterious little chamber theyrefuse to go. 

They search not for the evidence of an Infinite Intelligence in theoutermost circle of the heavens where the highest is to be found, andwhere a bound is set that we may not pass, but shutting their eyes to allthe grander evidences of such an Intelligence, they dive down into theinfinitessimal realm of nature and assume to dig out the sublimer secretsof the universe there. And this is their grand discovery: That thisinfinitessimal whirligig of theirs has not only whirled man intoexistence, but the entire circle of the heavens, with the innumerable hostof stars that march therein, and all the boundless systems of worlds thatroll in space. With this subordination of the Infinite to theinfinitessimal, of intelligence to insensate matter, of divine energy, soto speak, to blind molecular force, they are satisfied; and, like the molein the fable, conceive their little molecule to be the only possiblecreator of a stupendous universe. 

Scrutinize my propositions closely, and see if I am guilty of misstatingtheirs. Their new theory is only a slight modification of an old one, orthe old adage, _omne vivum ex ovo_--all life is from an egg. For theyassert that every living thing primordially proceeds from an ovule inprotoplasm, the essential part of the protoplasmic egg, so to speak, beingthis little _ovum_ or cellule, from which have issued all possibleorganisms in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Nor is this theoryessentially confined to organic matter. A scientific coArdination of itsseveral known parts, or alleged functions, extends the operations of thisinfinitessimal whirligig to the plastic or uniformly diffused state of allmatter, from which has been evolved, in an infinite duration of past time, not only life in its highest manifestations, but a universe sostupendously grand that no amount of human intelligence can grasp thefirst conception of it. 

Mr. Emerson--our Ralph Waldo--virtually accepts this theory ofdevelopment, substituting, however, a stomach for an ovule, and thereverse of the Darwinian proposition, in what he is pleased to call "theincessant opposition of nature to everything hurtful. " It is not the"selection of the fittest" but the "rejection of the unfit, " by which "abeneficent necessity (I use his language) is always bringing thingsright. " "It is in the stomach of plants, " he says, "that developmentbegins, and ends in the circles of the universe. " "'Tis a long way, " headmits, "from the gorilla to the gentleman--from the gorilla to Plato, Newton, Shakespeare--to the sanctities of religion, the refinements oflegislation, the summits of science, art, poetry. "

Few persons, I take it, will dispute this proposition. The road is a longone and beset with all sorts of thorns and briars, such as Mr. Emerson'sphilosophy will hardly eradicate from the wayside. Even the most refinedempiricism will find it difficult to stomach his stomachic theory of theuniverse, which lands all atomic or corpuscular philosophy in a digestivesac, such as Jack Falstaff bore about him with its measureless capacityfor potations and Eastcheap fare. It is a road too in which Mr. Emerson'sphilosophy will get many sharp raps from an external world of phenomena, in the futility of both his and the Darwinian hypothesis to explain awaythe independent origination of certain species of plants and animals--newvarieties still springing into existence, under favorable conditions, inobedience to the divine fiat, "Let the earth bring forth. "

In laying the foundations of this new science, if science it shall becalled, we must insist that the course of nature is uniform, and that, however extended our generalizations in any one of her lines ofuniformity, all intermediate, as well as ultimate propositions, must notonly be stated with the utmost scientific accuracy, but the logicaldeductions therefrom must also be uniform, or lie in the path ofuniformity. The earliest and latest inductions must either coincide orapproximate the same end. No links must be broken, no chasms bridged, inthe scientific series. There must be a distinct and separate linkconnecting each preceding and each succeeding one in the chain. The lowestknown mammal must be found in immediate relationship with his highercongener or brother, not in any remote cousinship. There must be nosaltatory progress--no leaping over intermediate steps or degrees. Theheights of science are not to be scaled _per saltum_, except as degreesmay sometimes be conferred by our universities. [35]

There are some fish-like animals, say our Darwinian systematizers, likethe Lepidosirens and their congeners, with the characteristics ofamphibians; and hence they infer that by successive deviations andimprovements the lower order has risen into the higher. But out of whatpage in the volume of nature, in the countless leaves we have turned back, has the immediate congener dropped, that we are obliged to look for therelationship in thirty-fourth cousins? We might as well say that some ofthe _Infusoria_ possess the same or similar characteristics, and predicaterelationship between them and the amphibians; for giants sometimes springfrom dwarfs and dwarfs from giants. At all events, our diagnoses must befreed from these intermediate breaks or failures in the chain ofcontinuity, or the doctrine of descent must tumble with the imaginaryfoundations on which it is built. And bear in mind that the mostenthusiastic Darwinist is forced to admit that there are still rigidpartitions between the lower and higher organisms that have not beenpierced by the light of scientific truth, but they assume that futurediscoveries and investigations will solve the difficulty. But science, inflexible as she is, or ought to be, in her demands, admits of noassumptions, much less sanctions such exceptions and deviations as weconstantly find in the Darwinian path of continuity. The eye ofimagination can supply nothing to her vision. She is eagle-eyed, and soarsinto the bright empyrean--does not dive into quagmires and the slime ofcreation after truth. 

But let us see how Mr. Darwin bridges one of the very first chasms hemeets with in constructing his chain of generation. He goes back to thefirst link, or to what he calls primordial generation. Here the leap isfrom inorganic matter to the lowest form of organic life--from inanimateto animate dust. The chasm is immense, as all will agree. But he bridgesit by falling back on his infinitessimal whirligig--his _primummobile_--or on the motions of elements as yet inaccessible, except to theeye of imagination. For even Plato's monad, or ultimate atom, was notmatter itself, being indivisible, but rather a formal unit or primaryconstituent of matter, which, like Mr. Darwin's whirligig in itsunaggregated form, admits of neither a maximum nor a minimum ofcomprehension; but rests entirely on imaginary hypothesis. And we may hereadd that a system which begins in imaginary hypotheses and ends inthem--as that of bridging the chasmal difference between a gorilla and aPlato--can be dignified into a science only by a still greater stretch ofthe imagination--that of bridging the difference between the Darwinianzero and his ninety degrees of development in a Darwin himself!

Bear in mind, as we proceed, that the function of an argument inphilosophy, as in logic, is to prove that a certain relation existsbetween two concepts or objects of thought, when that relation is notself-evident. In the Darwinian chain we have, as the first link, organiclife springing from inorganic matter, without the slightest relationexisting between the two, except what may be universally predicated ofmatter itself, whether animate or inanimate, organic or inorganic; andthere is no other affirmative premise, expressing their agreement asextremes, that can possibly admit of an affirmative conclusion. The partsare so separated in thought that no metaphysical or ideal distinctionexists to coordinate them in classification. We are simply forced back, inour attempt at classification, upon the intuitions of consciousness, wherereason manifestly ceases to enforce its inductions. 

And here the human mind intuitively springs an objection which is at onceaimed at the very citadel of Darwinism. On what rests the validity ofthese intuitions except it be that "breath of life, " which, as we havebefore said, was breathed into man when he became a living soul? If wefollow the divine record, instead of these blind systematizers leading theblind, we shall have no difficulty in establishing the validity of theseintuitions--the highest potential factors this side of Deity to be foundanywhere in the universe. For if our intuitions are not to be reliedupon--if their objects and perceptions are to be discarded asunreliable--then there can be no agreement or disagreement between any twoideas presented, objectively or subjectively, to the human mind. Noprocesses of mental analysis or ratiocination, like those pursued in theelementary methods of Euclid, can present the basis of an intellectualjudgment, or lay the foundation of the slightest faith or belief in theworld. To deny the primary perception of truth by intuition is as fatal to"Evolution" as to the sublimer teachings of the Bible Genesis. 

But from the very nature of our being, as well as the primary _datum_ ofconsciousness itself, we must rest the validity of these intuitions onsomething, and that, something more than a finite intelligence; and sincescience, with all her knowledge methodically digested and arranged, furnishes no clue to the mystery, we are left to the higher sources ofinspiration to reach it. And this inspiration, however it may be derived, necessarily becomes a part of our intuitions, since it addresses itself tothe strongest possible cravings of the human soul, and is accepted as itsinseparable companion and guest. 

Shall we build our faith then on the Divine Word, --on the Word that was inthe beginning with God, and, when incarnate, _was_ God, --or on Mr. Darwin's little whirligig that originally set everything in motion, andhas only to go on _ad infinitum_ to whirl us out a God, as it has alreadywhirled us out a Darwinian universe without one. For if this ovulisticwhirligig has bridged the chasmal difference between protoplasm and man, since the transition from inorganic matter to organic life, the processhas only to be indefinitely extended to bridge the chasm between man andDeity, or between finite and infinite intelligence. This gives us natureevolving a God, instead of the doctrine of the old Theogonies, of a Godpresiding from all eternity over nature; one "who laid the foundations ofthe earth that it should not be removed forever; who stretchest out theheavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in thewaters; who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire. "

These evolutionists manifestly get the cart before the horse in theircategory of cosmological events. It is not inert matter organizing itselfinto life, nor any mode of physical or chemical action, nor any meremanifestation of motion or of heat, nor any other conceivable correlationof natural forces. None of these has enabled us to penetrate themysterious _inner-chamber_ of life itself. For reasons obviously connectedwith our own welfare, He, from whom alone are "the issues of life, " seemsto have ordained that we should fathom the depths of both physical andchemical force, and beneficently wield and direct them to our own uses. But this vital force; this something that stands apart from and isessentially different from all other kinds of force, is of a nature thatbaffles all our efforts to approach. The power to grasp it, or even topenetrate in the slightest degree its mysteries, is delegated to none. Allattempts to lay bare this principle of vitality, or level the barriersthat separate it from physical or chemical action, have utterly failed. Weknow no more of its essence now than was known a thousand years ago, andknow no less than will be known a thousand years hence. To become mastersof the mystery, we must enter the impenetrable veil within which theInfinite Intelligence of the universe presides, --who, we are told, "sendeth forth his spirit, and we are created, who taketh away our breath, we die and return to our dust. " [36]

We are just as much bewildered in respect to this vital principle in ourclassifications of the myriads of little creatures careering over thefield of the microscope, as when we turn to the most marked formations ofgenera and species in geological distribution. The great trouble with Mr. Darwin's _vinculum_ is, that its weakest links are precisely where thestrongest should be found, and _vice versa_. With a candor rarelydisplayed by a writer who is spinning a theory, he admits this. Thegeological record is not what he would have it to be. Whole chapters aregone where they are most needed, and nature's lithography seems constantlyat fault. Independent species are now and then springing up wherederivatives should be looked for, while derivatives are everywheredisappearing in non-derivatives. Many of the middle Tertiary _molusca_, and a large proportion of the later Tertiary period, are specificallyidentical with the living species, of to-day. What has "natural selection"been doing for this family in the last million years or more? Manifestlynothing, and less than nothing, for some of the species have dropped outaltogether. 

These facts, and hundreds of others like them, are constantly obtrudingthemselves upon our attention to show, in harmony with the Bible Genesis, the immutability of species--the absolute fixity of types--rather thantheir variability, as claimed. If nature abhors anything more than a_vacuum_, it is manifestly any marked transition from fixed types, and shethunders her edicts against it in the non-fertility of all hybrids. Thedoctrine of variation lacks the all-essential element of continuity, andis oftener at war with the theory of the "selection of the fittest, " thanit is with the selection of the "unfit. " The leap from Lepidosirens toAmphibians is no greater than the interval between any two species ofanimals or plants yet discovered, either fossil or living. The intervalsare as numerous as the species themselves, and everywhere constitute greatand sudden leaps, or such transitional changes as "natural selection"could not have effected independently of intervening forms--those thatnowhere exist in nature, and never have existed, if we are to creditgeologic and paleontologic records. There is everywhere similarity ofstructure, but not identity; and the nearer we approach to identity ofstructure the wider the divergence in similarity of characteristics. Abird may be taught to talk and sing snatches of music. But no monkey hasever been able to articulate human sounds, much less give them rhythmicalutterance. 

Take the case of the wild pigeon, a subject that especially delights Mr. Darwin. Most of the deviations are confined to the domesticated breeds, and none of these rank in strength, hardiness, capability of flight, orsymmetry of structure, with the wild or typical bird. There arewell-defined deviations, but no sensible improvements, except to the eyeof the bird-fancier. The deviations are simply entailed weaknesses, or thevery reverse of what should appear from the "selection of the fittest. "The fact undeniably is, that these variations are almost whollyabnormal--mere exaggerated characteristics, induced in the first instance, perhaps, by high cultivation and close in-and-in breeding. 

Turn these abnormal varieties loose, let them go back to the aboriginalstock, and these characteristics will rapidly disappear; that is, theywill ultimately lose themselves or melt away in the original type. Mr. Darwin admits that the tendency will be to reversion, but he insists, manifestly without any positive proof therefor, that the greater tendencyis to new centres of attraction, and not necessarily the primitive one. But this is mere assumption--sheer begging the question on hispart, --since all the oscillations are incontestibly about the original ortype centre. 

The same may be said of the typical races of men, like the negro and wildIndian of our prairies. You may lift them out of their primitivecondition--temporarily suspend, if you please so to put it, theirprimordial attraction, --but, left again to themselves, they will go backto the original type; that is, their offspring will again infest thejungles and roam their native hunting-grounds. The process here is thevery reverse of the Darwinian theory. Reversion, as a rule, follows thedegeneracy of types, instead of there being any favorable homogeneousresult, springing from a new centre of attraction. The Indian makes asplendid savage, but a very poor white man. Think of Red Jacket taking thepart of Mercutio in the play or enacting the more valiant _role_ ofFalstaff in King Henry the Fourth. An infusion of white blood does nothelp the matter, but rather makes it worse. Generally, the meanest Indianon the continent is your half-breed, and among the negroes there is noterm so expressive of the contempt of that race, as that applied by themto a mulatto. The present condition of Mexico affords a strikingexemplification of this law of reversion. The inheritable characteristicsor variations, produced from an infusion of Spanish blood, are rapidlydisappearing--the native blood whipping out the European. The potency isin the inferior blood, simply because it is the predominating one. Theresult has been no homogeneous new race, but a reversion, now manifestlyin progress, to the type centre or aboriginal stock. And the cursepronounced by Ezekiel upon mongrel tribes--"woe unto the mingled peoples"may have a significance in this connection worth considering; but itmanifestly falls outside the scope of our present inquiry. 

In considering the embryological structure of man, and the homologies hetherein presents to the lower animals, Mr. Darwin thus conclusively (inhis judgment) remarks: "We thus learn that man is descended from a hairyquadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal inhis habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. "

But Mr. Darwin's pronominal "we, " in this connection, admits ofqualification. He can hardly speak for all the scientific world at once. The philosophical maxim of Sir Isaac Newton--_hypotheses non fingo_--Ibuild no hypotheses, make no suppositions, but adhere to facts--has a fewfollowers still left. But what are Mr. Darwin's facts? Has he yetdiscovered the caudal man, except as the ever-fertile Mr. Stanley heard ofone in Africa? And where is his monkey that first lost the prehensilepower to climb trees? For bear in mind that it was the loss of thisprehensile power that resulted in the caudal atrophy of our monkeyprogenitors, _who became men simply because they were tailless monkeys!_They had lost their power to climb trees, and accordingly had no longerany use for tails to let themselves down from the limbs. A "beneficentnecessity" therefore, according to Mr. Emerson, dropped the tail assomething decidedly "unfit. " For the simplest tyro in Darwinian philosophywill see that the loss of the Catarrhine monkey's tail, if it everoccurred, could not have resulted from the "selection of the fittest. " Thedeeper Emersonian philosophy of the "rejection of the unfit, " affords theonly solution of the difficulty, and then only on the assumption that thetail is an unfit appendage for the monkey. 

With the loss of his tail, in the light of this new genesis, the monkeynecessarily ceased to be arboreal in his habits. He could no longersubsist on the fruits and nuts of trees, or take refuge therein from hisenemies. He had to go to work and make weapons to defend himself--toconstruct tools--make and set traps, live on his wits, and not on hisprehensile power to climb trees. He soon discovered, of course, that thelongest pole knocked the persimmon. This was his first intellectual stridetowards the future Edison. From the simplest sort of Grahamiticphilosopher he passed into the robust, beef-eating Englishman. But thiswas not all. As an arboreal gymnast, he was manifestly on his way to moremasterly feats of agility than ever, --those dependent, not on muscularfunction, but on the nervous action of the brain and spinal marrow. Necessity became with him the "mother of invention, " and how admirably heimproved under this maternal instructor we are left to infer from theparamount conclusion of Mr. Darwin, _that the demoralized monkey becamethe incipient man_!

But this conclusively accounts for only one of the many anatomicaldifferences between man and his caudal progenitor. For why should theloss of his tail have resulted in the changed chemistry of the monkey'sbrain? or in the increased involutions of his brain even? The specificdifferences between the present and ancestral types are very numerousand demand separate classification. Their variability runs through everybone, muscle, tissue, fibre, nerve. Their blood corpuscles are not thesame. The chemistry of their bones essentially differs. The nerves aredifferently bundled and differently strung. In intonations ofvoice--symmetry of arms, legs, chest--hairlessness of body, and aquaticand land habits, the frog is a much nearer approach to man than themonkey, as all caricaturists, delineating aldermanic proportions, willagree. And Mr. Darwin might have immortalized himself by deriving thebuilders of the ancient pile-habitations and other primitive water-ratsand croakers of the Swiss lakes, from this tailless batrachian. Foreverybody knows, or thinks he knows, how the frog lost his tail. If hedidn't wag it off, he certainly absorbed its waggishness as adistinguishing characteristic of the "coming man"--the future ArtemasWards and Mark Twains of the race. This ancestral origin will alsoaccount for the otherwise unaccountable proclivity of all humanjuveniles to play at the game of leap-frog! Besides, it would haverelieved Mr. Darwin from one of the greatest perplexities he has had toencounter. As he derives man from a hairy quadruped, the absence of hairon the human body, is a phenomenal fact that gives him great trouble. Heagrees that it does not result from "natural selection, " as he says "theloss of hair is an inconvenience and probably an injury to man. " Nordoes he suppose it to result from what he calls "correlateddevelopment. " He is more puzzled over this problem of divestiture thanany other, and finds the solution of it only in "sexual selection. " Thatis, he assumes that among our semi-human progenitors, far back in theTertiary or some other period, some female monkeys were less hirsutethan others, and that they naturally preferred males possessing similarcharacteristics. These divergencies were thus commenced, and, bycontinuous "sexual selection, " the infirmity (for such he regards theloss of hair) was propagated until the race was almost entirely denudedor bereft of this covering. In the same way he accounts for nearly allthe differentiations of the race, among the various tribes now orformerly inhabiting the earth. All have sprung from the same semi-humanprogenitors--_apes that lost their capacity to subsist as apes, andhence found it necessary to subsist as men_!

The law of degeneracy has, therefore, had quite as much to do with humanorigins as that of progressive development. In fact, it is the paramountlaw from a Darwinian stand-point. For the loss of hair and of theprehensile power to climb trees are both conceded by Mr. Darwin to beserious defects and drawbacks in the ape family. 

But the law of sexual selection, as treated by the evolutionists, is notscientifically accurate, nor is it true in fact. The loving tendency ofnature is to opposites, not likes. The positive and negative poles arethose that play into each other with most marvellous effect. Each repelsits like and rushes to the embrace of its opposite. Extremes lovingly meeteverywhere. A brunette selects a blonde and a blonde a brunette, as ageneral rule in matrimony. A tall man or woman, with rare exceptions, chooses a short companion for life. Dark eyes delight in those that arelight, and _vice-versa_. Everywhere nature seeks diversity, notsimilitude. The gayest and brightest feathered songster cravescompanionship in modest and unobtrusive colors. Diversity is the law oflife, as equality, or versimilitude, is that of death. Neither naturalselection, nor sexual selection, runs counter to this law. If Mr. Darwin'stheory were true, that likes selected likes, then the two marked extremeswhich should have characterized the race, soon after its emergence fromthe semi-human state, should have been giants and pigmies, Gargantuas andLilliputs. Otherwise "sexual selection, " as treated by its author, playsno intelligible part in the economy of nature, except to counterbalancevariability, not to propagate it. 

But the Darwinian assumption that the primeval man, or his immediateape-like progenitor, came through "natural selection, " that is, throughthe "survival of the fittest, " is subject to one or two other objectionswhich we shall briefly notice. And the first objection is not altogethera technical one. The term "fittest, " as applied to a monkey, has at oncea definite and comprehensive significance to us. It implies the presenceof whatever is most perfect of its kind in the monkey _as_ a monkey, andnot in the monkey _as_ something else than a monkey. They are alladmirably adapted for climbing trees; and it is this adaptation thatsecures them safety, or complete immunity, in shelter from theirenemies. To say that nature selects the fittest for them--for anyspecies of monkey--by converting their forefeet into rudimentary hands, with a loss of prehension and no corresponding advantages in locomotion, is to use language without any appreciable significance to us. We canonly say that what is fittest for the monkey is ill-fitted for man, andthe reverse. This is all we can definitely predicate of them, from whatwe know of their anatomical structure, and the diversified uses to whichit may be put. 

The fact is, as the Bible genesis shows, that every living thing isperfect of its kind, and whatever is perfect admits of no Darwinianvariations or improvements for the better. And the simple statement ofthis undeniable proposition is, we submit, a complete refutation ofDarwinism. When the waters and the earth were commanded to bring forthabundantly of every living creature and every living thing, "it was so, and God saw that it was good, " that is, everything perfect of its kind, and in its kind. With this single limitation as to kind, a rattlesnake isno less perfect than a Plato or a John Howard. 

When we consider man's upright position; the firmness and steadiness withwhich he plants his foot upon the earth; when we examine the mechanism ofhis hand, and the wonderful and almost unlimited range it possesses fordiversified use; when we see how ill-fitted he is for climbing trees, yethow express and admirable for climbing among the stars, even to theoutermost milky-way, the idea that what is fittest for him is fit for thechattering monkey, is too absurd to give us pause. And yet how does Mr. Darwin know that the monkey has been climbing up, all these hundredthousand or million years, into man, as one of the congenital freaks ofnature, and not man shambling down into the monkey as a reversecongenital freak. Children have sometimes been born with a singularresemblance to the ape family, but no ape has ever, to Mr. Darwin'sknowledge, produced issue more manlike than itself. The divergencies runthe wrong way to meet the conditions of the development theory. We havehad nearly five thousand years in which to mark these transitionalchanges, and yet the monkey of to-day is identical with that painted onthe walls of ancient Meroe. In all this time he has made no advance inthe genetic relation; and if we turn back the lithographic pages ofnature for a hundred times five thousand years, we shall find noessential departure from aboriginal types. 

But the Darwinian hypothesis admits of a more conclusive answer than wehave yet given. Past time, it will be conceded, is theoretically if notactually infinite; and in all past time, nature has been tugging away atMr. Darwin's problem of the "survival of the fittest. " It is no twohundred and fifty thousand years, nor two hundred and fifty millions, butan infinite duration of past time that covers the period in which she hasbeen wrestling with this problem. How successfully has she solved it? Inthe Darwinian sense of the term "fittest, " she has not so much as statedher first equation or extracted the root of her first power. She ismanifestly as much puzzled over the problem as Mr. Darwin himself. Hefails to see that the "survival of the fittest, " necessarily implies, orcarries with it, the correlative proposition, --the "non-survival of theunfit. " And when such a law has been operative for an infinite duration ofpast time, the "unfit, " however infinitely distributed at first, shouldhave disappeared altogether, many thousands, if not millions, of yearsago. If the evolutionists are dealing with vast problems, and assigning tonature, unlimited factors to express the totality of her unerringoperations, they must be careful to limit the time in which any one of hergiven labors is to be accomplished. If she makes any progress at all, aninfinite duration of past time should enable her to complete her work justas effectually as an infinite duration of time to come. 

But by what law of "natural selection, " appertaining to a single pair ofold world monkeys, have their offspring advanced to this regal state ofmanhood, while all other pairs have remained stationary, or preciselywhere they were two hundred and fifty thousand years ago or more? Whythis exceptional divergence in the case of a single pair of monkeys? Whythis anomalous, aberrant, and thoroughly eccentric movement on the partof nature? We had supposed that her operations were uniform--conformableto fixed laws of movement. The doctrine of the "survival of the fittest"implies this. Why then, should nature, in her unerring operations, haveselected the fittest in respect to a single pair of Catarrhine monkeys, and at the same time rejected the fittest in the case of a million otherpairs? If she had selected only the fittest in respect to this old worldstock of monkeys, the entire Catarrhine family should have disappearedin the next higher or fitter group--a group nowhere to be found ingeological distribution. The break between man and this Catarrhinemonkey covers quite a series of links in the genetic vinculum;[37] andyet between the two we find no high form of a low type fitting into alow form of a high type, as we manifestly should, to account for all thediversified changes that must have taken place in the interim. And whatis true of the types is measurably true of the classes within the types, as well as of the orders within the classes. Wide deviations in forms, as in characteristics, would seem to be the invariable rule; theblending of type into type, except perhaps in remote relationships, isnowhere visible. 

But if "variation" and "natural selection" have played important parts inthe economy of nature, why may not "specific creation" have played _its_part also? Positive science can hardly flatter itself with the belief thatit is rolling back the mystery of the universe to a point beyond which"specific creation" might not have commenced, or the divine fiat been putforth. To believe in the possibility of a rational synthesis, limited tosensible experience, or phenomenal facts within our reach, that shallclimb from law to law, or from concrete fact to abstract conception, untilit shall reach the _Ultima Thule_ of all law, is to carry the faith of thescientist beyond the most transcendental belief of the theologian, andmake him a greater dupe to his illusions than was ever cloistered in amonastery or affected austerity therein as a balm to the flesh. We maysubstitute new dogmatisms for old ones, but we can never postulate aprinciple that shall make the general laws of nature any less mysteriousthan the partial or exceptional, or that shall in the long run, render"natural selection" any more comprehensible, or acceptable to the rationalintuition, than "specific creation. " For while one class of scientists isclimbing the ladder of synthesis, by assigning a reason for a higher lawthat may be predicated of a lower, we shall find the broader and moreanalytical mind accepting the higher mystery for the lower, and, bydivesting its faith of all metaphysical incumbrance, landing in the beliefof an all-encompassing law, which shall comprehend the entire assemblageof known laws and facts in the universe. And the natural drift of thehuman mind is ever towards this abstract conception--this oneall-encompassing law of the universe. It steadily speculates in thisdirection, and some of the highest triumphs of our age, in physical aswell as metaphysical science, are measurably due to this tendency. Thescientific mind is not confined wholly to experimental research. It isstimulated to higher contemplations, and is constantly disposed to makelarger and more comprehensive groupings of analogous facts. It is fastcoming to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, chemical affinity, molecular force, and even Mr. Darwin's littlewhirligig, as only so many manifestations or expressions of one and thesame force in the universe--that ultimate, all-encompassing, divine force(not to speak unscientifically) that upholds the order of the heavens, "binds the sweet influences of the Pleiades, brings forth Mazzaroth in hisseason, and guides Arcturus with his suns. "

It is the boast of the Darwinian systematizers that their developmenttheory not only harmonizes with, but admirably supplements and out-roundsthe grander speculation of Laplace, termed the "Nebular Hypothesis, " whichregards the universe as having originally consisted of uniformly diffusedmatter, filling all space, which subsequently became aggregated bygravitation, much after the manner of Mr. Darwin's little whirligig, intoan infinite number of sun-systems, occupying inconceivably vast areas inspace. Of the correctness of this hypothesis it is unnecessary to speak. It is to the Darwinian speculation what the infinite is to theinfinitessimal, and we only refer to it to bring out the vastness of theconception as compared to the latter theory, and to predicate thereon themore conclusive induction that an Infinite Intelligence directs andsuperintends all. 

In an area in the Milky-way not exceeding one-tenth of the moon's disc, Mr. Herschel computes the number of stars at not less than twentythousand, with clusters of nebulae lying still beyond. As we know that nobodies shining by reflected light could be visible at such enormousdistances, we are left to conclude that each of these twinkling points isa sun, dispensing light and heat to probably as many planets as hold theircourses about the central orb in our own system. From the superiormagnitude of many of the stars, as compared with the sun, we mayreasonably infer that many of these vast sun-systems occupy a much largerfield in space than our own. This would give an area in space of not lessthan six thousand millions of miles as the field occupied by each of thesesun-systems. And as the distance between each of these systems and itsnearest neighbor is probably not less than that of our sun from thenearest star, we have the enormous and inconceivable distance of not lessthan nineteen billions of miles separating each one of these twentythousand stars or sun-systems, occupying a space in the heavens apparentlyno bigger than a man's hand. And yet Infinity, as we apprehend the term, lies beyond this vast cluster of constellated worlds! Where is Mr. Darwin's little whirligig in the comparison, or Mr. Emerson's vegetalstomach, or Mr. Herbert Spencer's "potential factors, " to express thesum-total of all this totality, --this gigantic assemblage of starsclustered about a single point in the Milky-way? The human mind absolutelyreels--staggers bewildered and amazed--under the load of conceptionsimposed by these few twinkling stars, and is ready to exclaim, --

 "Oh, star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there, To waft us back a message of despair?"

But when we reflect that all this vast aggregation of sun systems, visiblein the telescopic field, is not stationary, but is revolving withinconceivable rapidity about some unknown and infinitely remote centre ofthe universe, how immeasurably vast does the conception become, and howunutterably puerile and fatuous the thought of _Mr. Darwin's littlewhirligig as the author of it all!_ No wonder the inspired Psalmistexclaims; "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showethhis handiwork. " But listen to the Darwinian exclamation: "The heavensdeclare the glory of my little whirligig, and the firmament showeth theimmensity of my little ovules. " With the veil of faith and inspirationlifted, the words of the Psalmist swell into the highest cherubic anthem, while those of Mr. Darwin hardly rise above the squeak of a mole burrowingbeneath the glebe!

And what presumptuous mortal shall say that this infinitely remote centreof the universe, around which revolves this infinite number ofsun-systems, is not the seat and throne of the Infinite One himself--theSovereign Intelligence and Power of the universe, directing and upholdingall? We know that some of the stars are travelling about this centralpoint of the heavens at a pace exceeding 194, 000 miles an hour, or withnearly three times the rapidity of our earth in its orbit. That there mustbe infinite power, not physical, at this unknown centre of the universe, to hold these myriads of sun-systems in their courses, is a logicalinduction as irrefragable as that the sun holds his planets in theirorbits. And if infinite power is predicable upon this central point, whynot infinite intelligence also? Intelligence, we know, controls andutilizes all power in this world; why not all power in the universe? Itcan utilize every drop of water that thunders down Niagara to-day, as ithas already seized upon the lightnings of heaven to make them ourpost-boy. This is what finite intelligence--that insignificant factor thatscience would eliminate from the universe--can do; then what may notInfinite Intelligence accomplish?

But the Darwinian systematizers object that science must limit itself to acoordination of the known relations of things in the universe, or dealonly with phenomenal facts, not dogmatisms; forgetting that they dogmatizequite as extensively, in constructing their chain of generation, as thetheologians do in adhering to the Bible genesis. No theologian objects toa rational synthesis of phenomena, limited to sensible experience; but, inclimbing from law to law, he reasonably enough insists, that, whenconcrete facts rise into abstract conceptions, the highest round in theladder shall not be knocked out for the accommodation of Robert G. Ingersoll or any other boasted descendant of a gorilla. And he alsoinsists that when _a priori_ speculation is lost in abstract conceptions, the highest must necessarily press alone upon the intuitions ofconsciousness, where all generalizations cease, and all synthesis isundeniably at an end. Here, in this mysterious chamber of the soul, westand silent and alone, with only dim and shadowy phantoms about us, as ifin the august presence of Deity itself. 

But how does scientific speculation propose to stifle these intuitions ofconsciousness--reduce them to the least of all potential factors in theuniverse? We will take the very latest of these speculations. Insupplementing both the Darwinian theory and the grander speculation ofLaplace, the scientists, so called, tell us that the process ofaggregation, or the turning out of new worlds in the universe, is stillgoing on; but that the time is coming when all the primeval potency orenergy, originally inhering in diffused matter, will have exhausted itselfin actual energy, and that then all light, life and motion in theuniverse, will cease and be at an end. This dissipation of potentialenergy is to result, they say, in a played-out universe, as it has alreadyresulted, they claim, in a played-out moon, if not countless otherheavenly bodies. [38] All the exterior planets, or a majority of them atleast, are to be placed in this category of dismantled worlds, or those inwhich all life has hopelessly ceased and become extinct. All has utterlydisappeared, or, to paraphrase one of Pope's couplets, "Beast, bird, fish, insect--what no eye can scan, Nor glass can reach--from zoophyte to man. "

All these dismantled planets, and satellites to planets, are only so manyimmense cinders--mere refuse slag--of no conceivable interest to science, except to predicate the ultimate conclusion--"a played-out universe, resulting from a played-out potency within the universe. " The magnificentclockwork of the heavens will then have run down, with no Darwinianwhirligig to wind it up again, and the terrible reality of Byron's dream, which it would seem was not all a dream, be realized in the bright sunextinguished, the stars darkling the eternal space, rayless and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. 

Oh, if this be star-eyed science, give us anything in place of it!Blear-eyed bigotry in his cloistered den, mumbling unintelligible prayers, and believing that man is to be saved, not by what he does, but by a_credo_ only, is far preferable to it. But oh, how unspeakably preferablethe simple faith of the star-led Magi, who

 "Deeming the light that in the east was seen An earnest and a prophecy of rest To weary wanderers, such as they had been, "

came on that bleak December night, 1880 years ago, to pay their homage tothe Christ-child--the long expected Messiah--the Redeemer of the world!

Footnotes

[1]: It may be proper, however, to state that the tenth and concluding chapter was originally written as a lecture, and delivered about a year ago in New Haven, Boston, and at other points. A request for its publication has induced the author to place it in this volume, with the portion referring to the Bible genesis omitted. It will be found germane to the general subject. 

[2]: "Without this latent presence of the 'I am, ' all modes of existence in the external world flit before us as colored shadows, with no greater depth, root, or fixure, than the image of a rock hath in the gliding stream, or the rainbow on the fast-sailing rain storm. "--_Coleridge's_ "_Comments on Essays_. "

[3]: And science that is not purely inductive--i. E. Primarily based on the inviolability of our intuitions--is no science at all, but the sheerest possible speculation. 

[4]: This presence of an active living principle in nature, one originally assigned as the "_divina particula aurA|_" of every living thing, is frequently referred to in the higher inspirational moods of our poets. Wordsworth exquisitely refers to it in the following lines of his "Excursion:"--

 "To every form of being is assigned An _active_ principle: howe'er removed From sense and observation, it subsists In all things, in all nature, in the stars Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds; In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone That paves the brooks. "

[5]: The existence of vital units is conceded by some of the staunchest materialists, such as Herbert Spencer, Professor Bastian and others. Professor Bastian says: "The countless myriads of living units which have been evolved in different ages of the world's history, must, in each period, have given rise to innumerable multitudes of what have been called 'trees of life. '" He insists, however, that they have been "evolved" from something, or by some unknown process. But we shall show further on that a "unit" can neither be _evolved_ nor _involved_, and that this is as true of vital units as of the mathematical or chemical unit. Neither evolution nor involution will ever effect the value of a unit. 

[6]: According to Aristotle, the great world-_ordainer_ is the constant world-_sustainer_. 

[7]: The definition which Professor Robinson, in his Lexicon of the New Testament, gives of the word IfIEuroI-II1/4I+-, as connected with the "divine life, " entirely harmonizes with this view of the subject. He says: Trop. I John 3, 9, IEuroa1/4fI, a1/2 I cubedI muI cubedI muI1/2I. I1/4I-I1/2I?I, a1/4I I"I?I... I'I muI?I... IfIEuroI-II1/4I+- a1/4EuroI... I"I?I1/2 (I'I mua1/2"I1/2) I muI1/2 a3/4I1/2I"a? IEuroI muI1/2I mua1/2 _i. E. _ the germ or principle of divine life through which he is begotten of god, I"I? IEuroI1/2I mua1/2'I1/4I+-. 

[8]: Professor Schmidt, of the University of Strasburg, who insists that species are only relatively stable, admits that they remain persistent as long as they exist under the same external conditions. Time is, therefore, not a factor in the mutation of species. Nor are environing conditions factors, except as a failure of conditions results in the disappearance of species, as the presence of conditions results in their appearance. 

[9]: Says M. Ch. Bonnet, in his "La PalingA(C)uA(C)sie Philosophique;" "Il est de la plus parfaite A(C)vidence que la matiere est susceptible d'une infinitA(C) de mouvemens divers, et de modifications diverses, " and this is the universal claim of the materialists. 

[10]: Professor Burdach (as trad, par Jourdan), in speaking of the productive power of nature, says, "LimitA(C)e quant Ai l' A(C)tendue de ses manifestations, elle continue toujottrs d' agir pour la conservation de ce qui a A(C)tA(C) crA(C)A(C), et, quoiqu' elle ne maintenue les formes organiques supA(C)rieures que par la seule propagation, il ne rA(C)pugne point au bon sens de penser qu' aujourd' hui encore elle a la puissance de produire les formes infA(C)rieures avec des elA(C)ments hA(C)tA(C)rogA(C)nes, comme elle a crA(C)A(C) originairement tout ce qui possA(C)de l' organisation. " This shows that its author believed in the possibility of the "superior organic forms, " like the mastodon, megatherium, etc. From the "heterogenetic elements"--those undergoing every conceivable change--as well as the "inferior forms. " At all events, it is a legitimate induction from materialistic premises. 

[11]: This point is conclusively made by Professor Burdach, who says (we quote from Jourdan); "La tendance interieure Ai la configuration existe avant sa manifestation. " And by his _tendance interieure_ he must mean some vital or other law, equivalent to an _entia_ in matter, which results _in_, not _from_ manifestation. 

[12]: Goethe borrowed his idea of an archetypal world from Plato and the Eleatic school. They held that the world was originated, and not eternal; that it was framed by the Creator after a perfect archetype, one eternally existing in the divine mind, if not an actual soul-world of which our own is but the reflex. 

[13]: In a note to Prof. Bastian's "Beginnings of Life" (vol II. P. 537) an important fact is mentioned as obtained from the writings of Dr. Schneider, to wit, that _Nematoids_ (microscopical forms) may be "obtained at will, " almost as readily as mushrooms, by a process entirely independent of spores. For instance, small pieces of beef were carefully examined to see if they contained any of the ova of Nematoids, and, finding none, they were buried in a small quantity of earth (also carefully examined for the presence of Nematoids or their ova) in a gallipot. "After three weeks, " says Prof. B. "this earth was found to be absolutely swarming with two kinds of Nematoids--quite different from any forms which I had previously, seen, although I had been seeking them for more than two years previously in all sorts of situations. " The reason why he had not found them previously, was because the "necessary conditions" for their appearance had not been obtained by him, or he had not sought for them in their proper environment. They were not produced "at will, " but were the natural outgrowth of conditions, as much so as the spores of fungi, which make their appearance whenever and wherever the necessary environing conditions exist. According to Dr. Gros, it takes about three weeks for these Nematoid forms to develop into a reproductive state. 

[14]: The necessity of turning plants and animals into "tramps" is just as great in the case of "Evolution" as in that of "specific creation in pairs. " In both cases, we must insist upon geneological consanguinity. For the chances of any two highly specialized forms, originally starting on different lines of divergence, and ultimately reaching individual identity, both in form and characteristics, is an impossible problem in the determination of chances. Consequently, Mr. Darwin finds the necessity of accounting for the presence of northern forms in the southern hemisphere, and the reverse, just as great as in the LinnA|an theory, which was fully accepted by Cuvier. 

[15]: Burdach, in his "_TraitA(C) Physiologie" (Trad. Par Jourdan_. 1837) says: "Effectivement nous rencontrons des traces de vie dans toute existence quelconque. " This is as broad a panspermic statement as can be made, and is only true of inorganic matter so far as vegetable life is concerned, including such infusorial, mycologic, and cryptogamic forms as may lie so near to the "force vegetative" of Needham as to be indistinguishable from it. 

[16]: In the case of volcanic islands, the upheavals were undoubtedly accompanied by deposits of mud, sand (ocean detritus), marine vegetation, and more or less animal matter, and these organic substances were washed down by the rains into the broken valleys and plains below, when land vegetation almost immediately made its appearance; not because seeds may have drifted thither by any of the different agencies that have been mentioned, but because organic matter can no more help bringing forth life in some form, when conditions favor, than salt water, when exposed to evaporation, can help crystallizing into its symmetrically-arranged salts. And the same would be true of all the coral islands, bringing up the organic matter of the sea to the influence of the light, the rains, and the dews. The islands thus formed in the Pacific Ocean begin to exhibit vegetable life almost as soon as they make their appearance above the reefs, and a line of sea-beach is formed about them. 

[17]: These, while presenting the most varied and diverse forms of infusorial life, are nevertheless the most constant and abundant type. They abound more or less in all organic infusions. Ehrenberg, however, holds that they are no more animal than vegetal forms. They vary in length from 1/15000 to 1/2000 of an inch, and are consequently too minute to be satisfactorily classified in respect to all their diversified characteristics. 

[18]: The extent of the southern ice-cap may at least be approximately reached from explorations already made. Capt. Weddell, in 1823, extended his explorations southward to within about 15A deg. Of the south pole, where he found an open sea. Capt. Ross, in 1842, approached to within about 13A deg. Of the same pole, without serious obstruction. It is true that, in the following year, he encountered ice barriers near the line of the antarctic circle, but they were floating barriers coming down from Weddell's open sea. Capt. Wilkes, in 1840, explored a considerable portion of the Antarctic Continent, lying almost entirely within the antarctic circle. Other explorations have been made, showing that the southern ice-cap does not probably extend, continuously at least, much farther north than 78A deg. Or 80A deg. , or to within some ten or twelve degrees of the south pole, independently of the packs of drifting ice in the otherwise open seas. 

[19]: The truth or falsity of "Evolution" depends entirely on the successful solution of this problem, for the chances are quintillions to ones that no two identical forms could have originated from different centres, or from the same centre on divergent lines, and ever reached identically the same results. And how any two forms should happen to be sexually paired, on the same or different lines of divergence, is one of those inexplicable mysteries which must puzzle Herbert Spencer in all his labyrinthian searches into "Force-correlation, " "Differentiation, " "the Dynamic Force of Molecules, " etc. , etc. However successful he may be in other directions, he will inevitably fail in this. We must fall back on the grand Old Bible genesis for the solution of this difficulty, where every living thing was commanded to produce seed, or multiply and replenish the waters and the earth with offspring. 

[20]: These transcendental or ideal forms may be said to correspond to the "spiritual essences" of Plato. They are the eternal, immutable principles which are discernible to the eye of the soul, as the sensible objects they represent are discernible to the eye of the body. Modern metaphysics may deem them mere abstractions, but a higher realistic philosophy will treat them as substantive forms, of which the objective reality is but the shadow. 

[21]: Herbert Spencer may be quoted as authority on this point. He says: "There is invariably, and necessarily, a conformity between the vital functions of any organism, and the _conditions_ in which it is placed ... We find that every animal is limited to a certain range of climate; every plant to certain zones of latitude and elevation. " And the same law holds good as to the marine fauna and flora, each specific form being confined to its own sea-depth, or distance north or south from the thermal equator. 

[22]: Speaking of the ultimate principles or elements of matter, Plato is quoted by Humboldt as exclaiming with modest diffidence, "God alone, and those whom he loves among men, know what they are. " It is only those who seek to eliminate God from the universe that speak with confident flippancy on the subject of molecular machinery and force-correlations. 

[23]: As long as the evolutionists cannot agree among themselves as to what constitutes the process of evolution, it can hardly be expected that the public will accept their speculations as conclusive inductions. Professor Bastian, who strongly commits himself to the doctrine, thinks the word "evolution" arbitrary and open to many objections, while Mr. Herbert Spencer says;--"The antithetical word Involution would much more truly express the nature of the process. "

[24]: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 1 Cor. 3. Xvi. 

[25]: Dr. Drysdale, in his work on the "Protoplasmic Theory of Life, " says: "Matter cannot change its state of motion or rest without the influence of some force from without. True spontaneity of movement is, therefore, just as impossible to it as to what we call dead matter.... So we are compelled to admit the existence of an exciting cause in the form of some force from without to give the initial impulse in all vital actions. " In all life-manifestations, this "force from without, " must be a pre-existing vital principle operating to effect the otherwise impossible change in matter. 

[26]: A favorite set-phrase of Professor Bastian in speaking of morphological cells or "units, " as he sometimes calls them. 

[27]: That great and justly celebrated naturalist, Buffon, in speaking of the universal origination of the lower forms of animal life by a process termed, in his time, "spontaneous generation, " says: "There are, perhaps, as many living things, both animal and vegetable, which are produced by the fortuitous aggregations of 'molA(C)cules organiques, ' as there are others which reproduce themselves by a constant succession of generations. " It is said that Buffon was for some time associated with the AbbA(C) Needham in his experiments in vital directions, and was much influenced by them. So that it is by no means certain that he did not accept the AbbA(C)'s "force vA(C)gA(C)tative" in place of his more materialistic views respecting "molA(C)cules organiques. " At all events, his statement that as many living things appear in nature independently of reproducing causes as by successive generation, is no doubt true. 

[28]: M. TrA(C)viranus, who followed Spallanzani and M. Bonnet in these flask experimentations, first noticed the important fact that the animalculA| appearing in different organic infusions, depended on the nature and quality of the infusions themselves, and that the changed conditions of the same infusion produced new and independent forms of life. 

[29]: Leibnitz, as quoted by M. Bonnet, says:--"Que l'Entendement Divin A(C)toit la religion A(C)ternelle des Essences; parce que tout ce qui existe existoit comme de toute A(C)ternitA(C) comme possible ou en idA(C)e dans l'entendement de Dieu. J'exprimerai cette vA(C)ritA(C) sublime en d'autres termes: le plan entier d'univers existoit de toute EternitA(C) dans l'entendement du SuprAme Architecte. Tou tes les parties de l'univers et jusqu' an moindre atome A(C)toient deffinA(C)s dans ce plan. Tous les changemens qui devoient survenir aux diffA(C)rentes pieces de ce Tout immense y avoient aussi leurs reprA(C)sentations. Chaque etre y A(C)toit figurA(C) par ses characteres propres: et l'acte par lequel la Souveraine Puissance a rA(C)alisA(C) ce plan, est ce que nous nommons la CrA(C)ation. "

[30]: Here is a fact given us by Dr. F. Hall, of Wallingford, Conn. : In a peat meadow in that town, owned by him, which was at no time subject to overflow, a large quantity of peat had been removed at different intervals of time, when the excavations naturally filled with water. In these excavations there appeared not only the _Cyprinidae_ in considerable numbers, but fresh water clams which grew to be as large as those in the most favored streams. They made their appearance the very first season after the peat was removed, and have flourished there ever since. In no other portions of the meadow were there any fish or clams ever noticed before, nor was there any other source of water-supply than the rain-falls in that locality. 

[31]: Professor Beale, in one of his very latest works says: "Of the chemical and physical forms of energy something is known, but of the relationship of the so called _vital_ energy, nothing has been proved. We only know that the influence it exerts is altogether different from that which has been traced to physical and chemical energy. "

[32]: It is admitted, even in the case of _Bacteria_, whose movements are the most uniform, that they are sometimes so inert and languid as to show no movements at all; while, at other times, they exhibit mere Brownian movements or those no more nearly allied to "life" than the minute particles of carbon escaping from the flame of a kerosene lamp. And among the most distinguished microscopists, it is a question whether these infusorial forms, those exhibiting the most active oscillations, are really vegetal or animal in origin; in other words, whether they are _Fungus-spores_ or _Torula_-cells, or whether they may not be some intermediate forms. 

[33]: The difficulty of assigning any definitional value to a "primordial germ" is due to the vagueness of idea attached to it in the popular mind, as well as to the diversified theories and speculations of the scientists concerning the origin of life. We can only define it as a "vital unit, " as the chemist defines his smallest conceivable quantity--his "primary least"--of an element, as a "chemical unit. "

[34]: Let two comrades be shot at the same instant in battle, the one through the heart, and the other through the arm, shattering it badly. What is there to prevent the surgeon from taking a piece of bone out of the arm of the man shot through the heart and instantly killed, and using it to make good the arm of the man still living? Apparently nothing but that the dead man's bone will not knit. He may not have been dead five minutes, and Professor Beale's bioplasts might still be at work spinning matter and weaving tissue for the integrity of the displaced bone. Why will it not knit? Simply because the vital principle that differentiates matter is gone--can no longer act. If the integrity of the bone depended on the action of the molecules, and not on the vital principle, there is no reason why this experiment should not be a success. For the molecules are all there, and their action will not be disturbed for hours after the death of the man shot through the heart. 

[35]: It is safe to adhere to the Leibnitzian axiom, _Natura non agit saltatim_. 

[36]: One of the most cultured classes of Christian believers in our day, holds that "all life is from the Lord;" that "He is the fountain, and we only the streams thence. " And this, they claim, is true of all life. To "take away our breath, " therefore, is to cut off this stream perpetually flowing from its invisible source--the fountain of all Life. When scientific methods substitute for a first cause a mere resultant effect, all primary principles disappear in their intermediates. 

[37]: Professor Marsh, of Yale College, has predicted that the "missing link" will be found in Borneo--evidently not crediting Mr. Stanley's statement about its presence in the interior of Africa. But one "missing link" is hardly enough; there ought to be an extensive family of them to complete Mr. Darwin's plexus. From the lowest genetic form to the anthropoid ape is a distance which does not half cover the length of this plexus--the immense gap between the monkey and the man being decidedly the greater length of chain. And yet the first half of the chain is traversed by innumerable forms--millions of links, so to speak. How, then, is the greater length of the plexus to be covered by a single "missing link?" A long line of caudal ancestry must be dug up, therefore, in Borneo, and shipped to the Peabody Museum, before this tremendous stretch in the chain of animated nature is satisfactorily accounted for. Borneo must be exceedingly rich in osteologic remains, even to bridge the chasm between its own ourang-outangs and the Dyaks, or aboriginal inhabitants, of that island. 

[38]: This daring hypothesis of the materialists is so utterly repugnant to all our ideas of a perfected Cosmos, that we have no patience with those advancing it. It is, at best, speculation run mad, and is based on no other assumption than that of the inherent imperfectibility of the universe as it came from the hand of God, or from the dynamic play of molecules extending throughout vast geognostic epochs. 

 From a materialistic stand-point this assumption of imperfectibility inevitably runs into the _reductio ad absurdum_. For if, in the play of the material forces of the universe, an infinite duration of past time has effected nothing but mutually disturbing and re-adjusting movements and relations among cosmical bodies, then an infinite duration of time to come can effect nothing but similarly mutual adjustments and re-adjustments in respect to such bodies. With an infinity of time, space, matter and motion, everywhere presenting a unity of phenomena in the universe, "there can never be anything, " according to the great Stagirite, "unconnected or out of place, as in a bad tragedy. " Conservation must, therefore, be the rule, and desinence the impossible exception. 

 But these adherents of inherent imperfectibility instance the fact of vanished and variable stars, as well as those that have suddenly appeared, and, after brief periods of intense brilliancy, as suddenly disappeared, to show that there are mighty disturbances in the sidereal heavens which entirely negative the idea of "conservation" as a geognostic law. But the phenomena of variable stars, with all their apparent irregularity of motion and fluctuations in luminosity, are now being traced to definite and well-determined laws of motion, if not of light, while the theory of extinguished and disappearing stars belongs exclusive to the age of Tycho Brahe. Where there is one self-luminious body (or sun) in the interstellary spaces, there are probably not less than forty non-luminous or dark cosmical bodies revolving about their respective centres of light and heat, as the attending planets revolve about the common centre of gravity in our own system. And this is especially true of that vast and fathomless star-stratum, called the Milky-way, in which most of these peculiar phenomena occur, with the exception of the variable stars only. 

 That stars should vary in their intensity of light by the probable transits of these dark cosmical bodies across their discs, is no matter of wonder or astonishment: on the contrary, it is surprising that these sidereal phenomena do not occur with much greater frequency. This would inevitably be the case if the planes of revolution, in the case of these non-luminous bodies about their central orbs, were coincident with the lines of vision from our own planet--a circumstance by no means improbable from the vastness of the sidereal heavens and the innumerable hosts of stars marching therein. Besides, these periodical variations may be accounted for in part--especially in the case of double stars--from their apparent rather than real change of place in the heavens. For if our sun-system is travelling towards a point in the constellation Hercules at the rate of 194 thousand miles an hour (the rapidity of Arcturus' flight), it is impossible to determine, in the present state of astronomical knowledge, whether the apparent change of place in any star is real or merely optical. But, in the case of double stars, each is travelling (independently of its other motions) about the common centre of gravity obtaining in its own system, and these relative movements may account for the greater or less intensity of light as the two stars, viewed as one, present a greater or less area of luminosity in their united surfaces. 

 The assumed revolution of one of these stars about the other--thus destroying all the known analogies of the universe, as exemplified in our own system--may be accounted for in the same way. With stupendous planetary systems revolving about each of these apparently double stars, they must respectively have a revolution, real as well as apparent, about their own centres of gravity--not one and the same centre, but different and far distant centres. Lying in nearly the same line of vision, with planes of movement at right angles with it, they would necessarily present the appearance of one star revolving about the other--an _apparent_ motion only. 

 And the writer here ventures an explanation of the phenomena of _temporary_ stars, or those making their appearance in the heavens, flaming up into stars of the first, second and third magnitudes, and then disappearing altogether. The most remarkable of these stars, or _apparent_ stars, was that of Tycho Brahe in 1572, presenting its maximum brilliancy at the very first, but gradually diminishing in size until the end of seventeen months, when it disappeared, without change of place, from the heavens. This temporary star was visible in Cassiopeia, on the verge of the Milky-way, within whose swarm of stellar worlds most of these apparent stars have made their appearance. Tycho Brahe, in seeking to account for this stellar phenomenon, advanced the theory that stars might be "formed and molded out of cosmical vapor, " or "vapory celestial matter, " as the elder Herschel put it, "which becomes luminous as it condenses (conglomerates) into fixed stars. " But any such rapid condensation of "vapory matter, " in the light of Laplace's "nebular theory, " is manifestly too absurd for scientific recognition. A more satisfactory explanation may be here suggested:--Supposing the apparent relative position of any six or seven stars of the sixth magnitude in the Milky-way, should be so changed by the combined motions of our sun-system and of the stars themselves, as to throw them into one and the same line of vision, but so clustered together as to show their several star-discs as one, we should unquestionably have a star of the first magnitude, which would continue as long as this extraordinary stellar conjunction should last. As one after another of these stars should fall out of line, by reason of the combined motions named, the apparent star would be diminished from the first to the second magnitude, and so on until it reached the sixth magnitude, when it would pass beyond the reach of unaided human vision. But as the star of Tycho Brahe suddenly appeared at its fullest brilliancy, it may be objected that this suggested theory fails to meet the required conditions. 

 As 18, 000, 000, out of the 20, 000, 000, of telescopic stars lie in the Milky-way, it is not by any means improbable that such a conjunction of stars may occur therein as often at least as once or twice in a century. We certainly see brilliant patches of closely-crowded stars, in great numbers, in this galactic zone, and the fact that these temporary stars almost uniformly appear in that zone renders the suggestion here made quite as rational, in the way of speculation at least, as that of "vapory celestial matter" suddenly condensed into a star of the first magnitude, as Sir. William Herschel would have us believe was possible, if not probable. 

 Besides, it is a definitely ascertained fact that such clusters of stars, lying in almost the same line of vision, exist in various parts of the heavens, which present to the naked eye the appearance of a star of the fourth or fifth magnitude, and probably would, if more thickly clustered, present that of a star of the first magnitude. But powerful telescopes resolve them into a large number of stars, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth magnitude. One such cluster in Andromeda's girdle has been resolved into not less than fifteen hundred small stars of very low magnitude, and pretty widely scattered in the telescopic field. Alexander Von Humboldt, in speaking of stars that have thus disappeared, says that "their disappearance may be the result of their motion as much as of any diminution of their photometric processes (whether on their surfaces or in their photospheres), as would render the waves of light too weak too excite the organs of sight. " And he adds: "What we no longer see is not necessarily annihilation, " repeating at the same time the question of Pliny--"_StellA| an obirent nascerenturve?_"

 But another, and (to our mind) more satisfactory, explanation of these stellar phenomena, may be hazarded in this connection: There are, for instance, in the Milky-way, among the more brilliant clusters of stars, dark granular spots, of greater or less magnitude, in which the most powerful telescopes show no glints or traces of stars. They are among Humboldt's smaller "fissures or chasms in the heavens, " in which he asserts that there is a great paucity of stars, or none at all. Now, if one of these thick stellar clusters, which show to the naked eye as a single star, should, by the combined cosmical movements of our sun-system and the stellar group in question, pass into the field of one of these small rents or "fissures" in the galactic curtain--that lying in front of the stellar cluster--it would immediately show as a star of possibly the first magnitude, and would continue to shine as a star of that magnitude so long as it remained in the field of the narrow rent or fissure. It would shine out suddenly like a star through a rift in the clouds of a dark night, and disappear as soon as it had traversed, or apparently traversed, the rift in question. This galactic curtain, it should be borne in mind, is made up of 18, 000, 000 of stars, or sun-systems, and not less than 720, 000, 000 dark cosmical bodies revolving about their respective centres of gravity. If the "nebular theory" of the universe be true, this is unquestionably the exact condition of things in the Milky-way. Of the more distant stars in this crowded galaxy, we can only catch, even in the telescopic field, mere glints of light as the intervening swarms of stellar and planetary worlds thicken in the foreground and shut out the more distant view. It is only through these rents and fissures in this great galactic curtain that the brighter stellar clusters beyond can ever be seen; and these glints of far distant light, showing dimly through this curtain, may account for the peculiar _milky_ appearance of the galaxy, arising from the loss of chromatic power in the full beams themselves. It was undoubtedly through one of these rents in the galactic curtain that the condensed starry cluster of Tycho Brahe suddenly made its appearance in the outer fringes of the Milky-way, and remained visible for a period of seventeen months.