the tins are exhausted of air, for Vibriones and Bacteria live, as Pasteur has shown, without air or free oxygen. It is not because the boiled meats or vegetables are not putrescible or fermentable, as those who have had the misfortune to be in a ship supplied with unskilfully closed tins well know. What is it, therefore, but the exclusion of germs? I think the Abiogenists are bound to answer this question before they ask us to consider new experiments of precisely the same order." 1

But admitting that life is always derived from life, the question still remains, Whether one kind of life may not give rise to life of a different kind? It was long supposed that parasites derived their life from the plant or animal in which they live. And what is more to the point, it is a matter of familiar experience "that mere pressure on the skin will give rise to a corn " which seems to have a life of its own; and that tumours are often developed in the body which acquire, as in the case of cancer, the power of multiplication and reproduction. In the case of vaccination, also, a minute particle of matter is introduced under the skin. The result is a vesicle distended with vaccine matter, "in quantity a hundred or a thousand-fold that which was originally inserted." Whence did it come? Professor Huxley tells us that it has been proved that "the active element in the vaccine lymph is non-diffusible, and consists of minute particles not exceeding of an inch in diameter, which are made visible in the lymph by the microscope. Similar experiments have proved that two of the most destructive of epizootic diseases, sheep-pox and glanders, are also dependent for their existence and their propagation upon extremely small living solid particles, to which the title of microzymes is applied." The question, he says, arises whether these particles are the result of Homogenesis, or of Xenogenesis, i. e., Are they produced by preexisting living particles of the same kind? or, Are they a modification of the tissues of the bodies in which they are found? The decision of this question has proved to be a matter of vast practical importance. Some years since diseases attacked the grape-vine and the silk-worm in France, which threatened to destroy two of the most productive branches of industry in that country. The direct loss to France from the silk-worm disease alone, in the course of seventeen years, is estimated at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. It was discovered that these diseases of the vine and worm, which were both infectious and contagious, were due to living organisms, by which they were propagated and extended. It 1 Huxley's Address, as reported in the London Athenæum, September 17, 1870, p. 376.

became a matter of the last importance to determine whether these living particles propagated themselves, or whether they were produced by the morbid action of the plant or animal. M. Pasteur, the eminent naturalist, sent by the French government to investigate the matter, after laborious research decided that they were independent organisms propagating themselves and multiplying with astonishing rapidity. "Guided by that theory, he has devised a method of extirpating the disease, which has proved to be completely successful wherever it has been properly carried out."1 Professor Huxley closes his address by saying that he had invited his audience to follow him "in an attempt to trace the path which has been followed by a scientific idea, in its slow progress from the position of a probable hypothesis to that of an established law of nature." Biogenesis, then, according to Huxley, is an established law of nature.2

Professor Tyndall deals with this subject in his lecture delivered in September, 1870, on "The Scientific Uses of the Imagination.' He says that the question concerning the origin of life is, Whether it is due to a creative fiat, Let life be?' or to a process of evolution? Was it potentially in matter from the beginning? or, Was it inserted at a later period? However the convictions here or there may be influenced, he says, "the process must be slow which commends the hypothesis of natural evolution to the public mind. For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the

1 London Athenæum, September 17, 1870, p. 378. In view of the facts stated in the text, Professor Huxley asks, "How can we over-estimate the value of that knowledge of the nature of epidemic and epizootic diseases, and, consequently, of the means of checking or eradicating them, the dawn of which has assuredly commenced? Looking back no further than ten years, it is possible to select three (1863, 1864, and 1869) in which the total number of deaths from scarlet fever alone amounted to ninety thousand. That is the return of killed, the maimed and disabled being left out of sight. . . . . The facts which I have placed before you must leave the least sanguine without a doubt that the nature and causes of this scourge will one day be as well understood as those of the Pébrine (the silk-worm disease) are now; and that the long-suffered massacre of our innocents will come to an end."

2 In quoting Professor Huxley as an authority on both sides of the question of spontaneous generation, no injustice is done that distinguished naturalist. He wishes to believe that doctrine. His principles lead to that conclusion. But, as a question of scientific fact, he is constrained to admit that all the evidence is against it. He, therefore, does not believe it, although he thinks it may be true. Hence Mr. Mivart says that Professors Huxley and Tyndall, while they dissent from Dr. Bastian's conclusions in favour of spontaneous generation, nevertheless " agree with him in principle, though they limit the evolution of the organic world from the inorganic to a very remote period of the world's history." Genesis of Species, p. 266, note.

exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind itself-emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation. I do not think that any holder of the evolution hypothesis would say that I overstate it or overstrain it in any way. I merely strip it of all vagueness, and bring before you, unclothed and unvarnished, the notions by which it must stand or fall. Surely these notions represent an absurdity too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind." Professor Tyndall, however, as well as Professor Huxley, is on both sides of this question. Materialism, with its doctrine of spontaneous generation, is thus monstrous and absurd, only on the assumption that matter is matter. If you only spiritualize matter until it becomes mind, the absurdity disappears. And so do materialism, and spontaneous generation, and the whole array of scientific doctrines. If matter becomes mind, mind is God, and God is everything. Thus the monster Pantheism swallows up science and its votaries. We do not forget that the naturalist, after spending his life in studying matter, comes to the conclusion that "matter is nothing," that the "Supreme Intelligence" is the universe. Thus it is that those who overstep the limits of human knowledge, or reject the control of primary truths, fall into the abyss of outer darkness.

3

The way Professor Tyndall puts the matter is this: "These evolution notions are absurd, monstrous, and fit only for the intellectual gibbet in relation to the ideas concerning matter which were drilled into us when young. Spirit and matter have ever been presented to us in the rudest contrast; the one as all-noble, the other as all-vile." If instead of these perverted ideas of matter and spirit, we come "to regard them as equally worthy and equally wonderful; to consider them, in fact, as two opposite faces of the same great mystery," as different elements, of "what

1 Athenæum, September 24, 1870, p. 409.

2 Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, pp. 363-368. Mr. Wallace thinks that "the highest fact of science, the noblest truth of philosophy," may be found expressed in the following words of an American poetess :

"God of the Granite and the Rose !

Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee !

The mighty tide of Being flows

Through countless channels, Lord, from thee.

It leaps to life in grass and flowers,
Through every grade of being runs,
While from Creation's radiant towers
Its glory flames in Stars and Suns."

2 Athenæum, September 24, 1870, p. 409.

our mightiest spiritual teacher would call the Eternal Fact of the Universe," then the case would be different. It would no longer be absurd, as Professor Tyndall seems to think, for mind to become matter or matter mind, or for the phenomena of the one to be produced by the forces of the other. The real distinction, in fact, between them would be done away. "Without this total revolution," he says, "of the notions now prevalent, the evolution hypothesis must stand condemned; but in many profoundly thoughtful minds such a revolution has already occurred." We have, then, the judgment of Professor Tyndall, one of the highest authorities in the scientific world, that if matter be what all the world believes it to be, materialism, spontaneous generation, and evolution, or development, are absurdities "too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind."

We can cite his high authority as to another point. Suppose we give up everything; admit that there is no real distinction between matter and mind; that all the phenomena of the universe, vital and mental included, may be referred to physical causes; that a free or spontaneous act is an absurdity; that there can be no intervention of a controlling mind or will in the affairs of men, no personal existence of man after death,-suppose we thus give up our morals and religion, all that ennobles man and dignifies his existence, what do we gain? According to Professor Tyndall, nothing. "The evolution hypothesis," he tells us, "does not solve it does not profess to solve the ultimate mystery of this universe. It leaves that mystery untouched. At bottom, it does nothing more than 'transpose the conception of life's origin to an indefinitely distant past.' Even granting the nebula and its potential life, the question, Whence came they?' would still remain to baffle and bewilder us." If we must admit the agency of will, "caprice," as Professor Tyndall calls it, billions of ages in the past, why should it be unphilosophical to admit it now?

It is very evident, therefore, that the admission of the primary truths of the reason truths which, in point of fact, all men do admit- truths which concern even our sense perceptions, and involve the objective existence of the material world, necessitates the admission of mind, of God, of providence, and of immortality. Professor Tyndall being judge, materialism, spontaneous generation, the evolution of life, thought, feeling, and conscience out of matter, are absurdities "too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind," unless matter be spiritualized into mind, — and then everything is God, and God is everything.

1 The London Athenæum, September 24, 1870, pp. 407-403.

Theories of Development.

Lamarck.

Lamarck, a distinguished French naturalist, was the first of modern scientific men who adopted the theory that all vegetables and animals living on the earth, including man, are developed from certain original, simple germs. This doctrine was expounded in his "Zoologie Philosophique," published in 1809. Lamarck admitted the existence of God, to whom he referred the existence of the matter of which the universe is composed. But God having created matter with its properties, does nothing more. Life, organisms, and mind are all the product of unintelligent matter and its forces. All living matter is composed of cellular tissue, consisting of the aggregation of minute cells. These cells are not living in themselves, but are quickened into life by some ethereal fluid pervading space, such as heat and electricity. Life, therefore, according to this theory, originates in spontaneous generation.

Life, living cells or tissues, having thus originated, all the diversified forms of the vegetable and animal kingdoms have been produced by the operation of natural causes; the higher, even the highest, being formed from the lowest by a long-continued process of development.

The principles of Lamarck's theory "are involved in the three following propositions:

"1. That any considerable and permanent change in the circumstances in which a race of animals is placed, superinduces in them a real change in their wants and requirements.

"2. That this change in their wants necessitates new actions on their part to satisfy those wants, and that finally new habits are thus engendered.

"3. That these new actions and habits necessitate a greater and more frequent use of particular organs already existing, which thus become strengthened and improved; or the development of new organs when new wants require them; or the neglect of the use of old organs, which may thus gradually decrease and finally disappear." i

Vestiges of Creation.

Some thirty years since a work appeared anonymously, entitled "The Vestiges of Creation," in which the theory of Lamarck in its essential features was reproduced. The writer agreed with his 1 William Hopkins, F. R. S. Fraser's Magazine, June, 1860, p. 751.