frequently in heaps of vegetable matter; but no experimenter will expect the same substances to take fire in such quantities as he examines by the microscope. It is only going a step further in our supposition to conceive the first stage of vital precipitation as a simpler process. We may suppose the living precipitate to consist of what we may call indifferent germs, that is, assimilating and self-developing centers, determinable, but not yet determined; bearing the same relation to vegetable growths generally which the seed of an apple or pear bears to the many possible varieties that may spring from it. This hypothesis is by no means identical with that of progressive development. It supposes the existence of permanent types, but conceives each type to represent the plastic diagonal of two forces a general organizing principle and a local determining one. The line of direction once fixed persists indefinitely, self-perpetuating, in the individual and the species, a vital movement parallel to its own axis. It is not our fault if these indifferent germs are the same things as the semina rerum of the old heathen Lucretius and his masters; the question is, whether they do not assist our conception of the mechanism of creation, and remove a part of its seeming difficulty. We might apply this hypothesis of indifferent germs to that singular parallelism without identity observed in the organisms of remote regions. The resemblance between many growths of the Eastern and Western Continents, for instance, would follow as the result of the diffusion of identical germs amid similar, but not identical, general conditions of soil and climate. The same series of resemblances might be expected which we see in distant but correspond ing parts of the body in various affections of the skin. Both arms or both cheeks often present very nearly the same diseased aspect, the blood being the common source of the disturbing element, and certain corresponding parts on the two sides of the body furnishing the conditions for its development. So the two planetary limbs thrust through the folds of the ocean, one on either side, may be supposed to throw out their grasses, or oaks, or elms; like each other, but not the same. "God has been pleased," says Paley, "to prescribe limits to his own power, and to work his ends within these limits." We can conceive of the introduction of vegetable life without any overstepping of the present self-prescribed limits of Divine power, as we understand them. It is not absurd to suppose that new vegetable types may be forming from time to time in the existing order of things. The vulgar belief is in favor of such occurrences. The extraordinary fact of the appearance of oaks after a pine-growth has been removed, and other occurrences of similar nature, have never been thoroughly investigated, so far as we can learn. Scientific men question curiously on the subject; there is a doubt in their minds about the acorns, if they accept the facts about the oaks, as commonly alleged. It is strange that such substantial seeds should be scattered so widely. It is stranger that such perishable matter as they hold should retain its vitality so long. The experiments on equivocal generation have been made too recently, and by men of too much judgment, to allow us to treat the doctrine with contempt. A thousand negative experiments can never settle the question definitively. We do not say that it is probable, but we can not say it is not true, that new types may be in tercalated every century or every year into the existing flora. If the Dix pear was created for the first time in a garden, in Washington Street, who shall say that the same power may not have just given us a new fungus in some corner of its vast nursery? Whatever difficulties we find in attempting to frame a conception of the first evolution of animal life, there are certain facts which we are authorized to take as guides in our reasonings or imaginings upon the matter. Science confirms the statement of revelation, that animal life must have come into being after vegetable life. The plain reason is, that plants are necessary to prepare the food of animals. And since no existing animal organism is ever built up directly from the elements, but only out of materials derived directly or mediately from the vegetable world, we may question whether those first created were put together directly from the elements. The first animals were necessarily placed where their food was abundant. But their food contained the elements of their bodies, and why should not the proximate principles contained in the accumulations of vegetable matter about their birthplace have furnished the materials of the first, as well as of all subsequent organisms? The primordial development of the higher animals presents this peculiar difficulty-that their germs depend for their evolution on their continued connection with the parent. We can conceive of an infusorial seed or ovum as being formed by the "concourse of atoms," guided by that Infinite Wisdom which we see every day grouping the same atoms about their living nuclei. Reasonable men experiment with the hope of observing such a fact. But no one since Paracelsus-unless it be the mother of Frankenstein has thought of getting up an artificial homunculus, or homo, or even a lower mammal, or a bird. Vaucanson's duck was perhaps the nearest approach to such a performance. He could utter the monosyllable abhorred of medical men, and make himself disagreeable in more ways than it is necessary to mention. But he was nothing better than wood, and illustrates the hopeless distance between the best of our paltry toys and the universe of miracles shut up in any one of the more perfect animal organisms. So difficult has the problem of the evolution of the higher animal forms appeared to speculative philosophers, that they have invented the theory of progressive development of the superior from the lower types. The sharp lines which separate species, as shown by observation of every organic form, extinct as well as living, have caused this famous and seductive hypothesis to be very generally rejected as untenable. With all the difficulties, however, that stand in the way of our conceiving of the evolution of a mammal by the aid of the general forces of nature acting on the organic elements, we do not see where to draw the line which shall separate the higher from the lower forms of life, and assign a different origin to the two divisions of the series. Reasoning from below upward, we should come to this frank conclusion, that, as definite form, limited duration, growth and decay, harmony of parts, transmissible qualities, all implying a controlling intelligence, are manifested in the inorganic world, we can not assume that the same forces which produce its phenomena may not show themselves through all forms of organized matter as vital force. And, as the conditions of action of these forces must have varied at different periods of the earth's history, we can not assume that they have always been incompetent to bring together the elements of organized matter. The various organic forms which we observe fossilized in the strata of the earth, without any parent structures in the subjacent layers, may be considered as marking by their appearance the epoch of successive "fits of easy transmission" of the plastic elemental influ ence: " "Sed, quia finem aliquam pariundi debet habere, And here we leave this aspect of the question, to look at it in another point of view. We recognize two, and only two, great divisions in created things. To the first class of his creatures the Deity sustains only active relations. All their qualities, functions, adjustments, harmonies, are immediate expressions of his wisdom and power. Every specific form is a manifestation of the Supreme thought. Every elemental movement is the Sovereign's self in action. The only question is, whether he has at one time been present in our elements with an organizing force, and afterward withdrawn this particular manifestation, or whether under the same conditions these elements would always manifest his ideas in the production of the same forms, just as they now maintain the present forms of life by a perpetual miracle, which we fail to recognize as such only because it is familiar to our daily experience. We have stated, as well as our space permitted, the argument for the presence of an organizing force in the elements around us. To the second class of his creatures the Creator stands in passive as well as active relations. They are no longer simple instruments to do his bidding. They may disobey |