116 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 



remarkable of these, the volvox globator, can hardly be distin- 

 guished from the germ which, after passing through a long 

 foetal progress, becomes a complete mammifer, an animal of 

 the highest class. It has even been found that both are alike 

 provided with those cilia, whose action, producing an appear- 

 ance of revolving motion, is partly the cause of the name given 

 to this animalcule. These resemblances are the more entitled 

 to notice, that they were made by various observers, distant 

 from each other at the time. 1 It has likewise been noticed 

 that the globules of the blood are reproduced by the expansion 

 of contained granules ; they are, in short, distinct organisms 

 multiplied by the same fissiparous generation. So that all 

 animated nature may be said to be based on this mode of 

 origin ; the fundamental form of organic being is a cell, having 

 new cells forming within itself, by which it is in time dis- 

 charged, and which are again followed by others and others, in 

 endless succession. It is of course obvious that, if these cells 

 could be produced by any process from inorganic elements, we 

 should be entitled to say that the fact of a transit from the 

 inorganic to the organic had been witnessed in that instance ; 

 the possibility of the commencement of animated creation by 

 the ordinary laws of nature might be considered as estab- 

 lished. It was announced some years ago by Prevost arid 

 Dumas, that globules could be produced in albumen by 

 electricity ; but their experiments do not appear to have been 

 confirmed. Though no such fact may have yet taken place, 

 we see nevertheless how small a space requires to be filled up 

 in order to make the connexion between the inorganic and the 

 organic complete. 



Admitting, however, all these views regarding life and 

 organization, the opponents of the present argument have still 

 to say that a transition from the inorganic to the organic, such 

 as we must suppose to have taken place in the early geological 

 ages, is no ordinary cognizable fact of the present time upon 

 earth : structure, form, life, are never seen to be imparted to 

 the insensate elements ; the production of the humblest plant 

 or animalcule, otherwise than as a repetition of some parental 

 form, is not one of the possibilities of science : if, then, we 

 trace back the generations of organisms to the Silurian or any 

 earlier epoch, and acknowledge the world of that time to have 

 been one in which the present order of natural events was pre- 

 valent, we necessarily can see no natural origin for life and 



1 See Dr. Martin Barry on Fissiparous Generation ; Jameson's Journal, 

 Oct. 1843. 



