122 ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 



constantly rising from the liquid, for the emission of which there 

 was an aperture so arranged at the top of the glass, that only 

 these fumes could pass. The water was distilled, and the sub- 

 stance of the silicate had been subjected to white heat. Thus 

 every source of fallacy seemed to be shut up. In such cir- 

 cumstances, a candid mind, which sees nothing either impious 

 or unphilosophical in the idea of a new creation, will be dis- 

 posed to think that there is less difficulty in believing in such 

 a creation having actually taken place, than in believing that 

 in two instances, separated in place and time, exactly the same 

 insects should have chanced to arise from concealed ova. 1 



It must nevertheless be kept in mind that we do not pre- 

 sent the Crossian experiment and other alleged cases of primi- 

 tive generation as undoubted facts, or as indispensable parts 

 of the present hypothesis. Looking to the fact that the earth 

 has long ago been planted with a full suite of species, from low 

 to high, it is not likely that it is now in a condition to receive 

 any accession to the number, except in the humblest and 

 obscurest walks of the animated kingdoms, and under circum- 

 stances which do not perhaps often exist. While, therefore, we do 

 not reject the alleged examples, but on the contrary think them 

 favourable to our hypothesis, we do not attach to them a high 

 degree of consequence. We are quite ready to fall back upon 

 the phenomena adverted to at the beginning of this section, 

 which merely go to prove that life and organization are essen- 

 tially physical phenomena. It is, perhaps, quite enough, in 

 the mean time, that we there see traces of the means and 

 method adopted by the Creator in that part of his work. 



1 The writer of the critique upon this work in the British and Foreign 

 Medical Review, after saying that "none of the easy solutions which 

 have been offered of the difficult problem presented by the appearance 

 of this acarus, can be admitted," proceeds to make a few remarks much 

 to the above purpose; and adds "Not the least curious part of its 

 (the acarus' s) history is the series of metamorphoses which it undergoes 

 before quitting the solution ; these being entirely different from the very 

 slight changes which other acari undergo after their emersion from the 

 egg. Further, we believe it may be positively asserted, that in what- 

 ever mode these acari are first generated, it is not from eggs; since, 

 after they have escaped from the solution, they live in the neighbour- 

 hood, and readily breed ; and their eggs, which we have ourselves seen, 

 are quite large enough to have been readily visible in the solution, had 

 they existed there. " 



The metamorphoses here adverted to will perhaps go some way to 

 satisfy those who have objected that the acarus, belonging, as it does, to 

 the articulata, is too high an animal to have been produced otherwise 

 than from ova. 



