284 ON SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



enquiry : our object is simply to ascertain, as far as we pos- 

 sibly can, whence life originates as we see it in operation in 

 a living organism as to its primary origin. I believe there 

 are but very few persons who object to ascribing it to a 

 Supreme Being, and as one of the works that bears the im- 

 press of an Almighty Creator, the most visibly to the mate- 

 rial eye of man. Our question is, do living organisms always 

 receive their vital or living principle from a typical predeces- 

 sor, or do they ever receive it from a universal dynamic 

 power acting upon matter, without typical predecessors ? 



Spontaneous generation, when divested of all circumlocu- 

 tion and long array of words, amounts simply to one of the 

 two following theorems, if I may be permitted to adopt a 

 mathematical expression. 



1st. That life is an inseparable attendant upon matter. 



2nd. That a principal attribute of matter is life ; for firstly, 

 matter has only to be exhibited under different modifications 

 to the influence of the unknown dynamic power to produce 

 all the different modifications of organisms (living or extinct), 

 the less variation causing the difference of species, and con- 

 sequently the greater ones, the genera, families, orders, and 

 classes ; or secondly, all organisms are created by sponta- 

 neous generation " from the reaction of different kinds of 

 matter upon each other, in consequence of the inherent 

 qualities and power with which they were invested through 

 the omnipresence of the Creator." In the foregoing quota- 

 tion. Dr. W. either has alluded to a different attribute of the 

 Supreme Being from what he intended by the tenor of his 

 essay, or otherwise, he controverts his own arguments re- 

 specting God as the acting Creator. I should suppose he 

 meant to allude to the omniscience and omnipotence of God 

 in investing matter with the qualities he speaks of; if he 

 really alludes to the omnipresence of the Creator, at the 

 arrangement of matter previously to the commencement of 

 the life of every organism, this is bringing a direct interfer- 

 ence of the Creator in every individual instance of the pro- 

 duction of an organism, which is a more " uncouth idea " of 

 the working Creator than the commonly received opinion of 

 the Deity calling every typical form of organic being into 

 existence at the creation, by his own word alone. 



If we admit, for argument's sake, the possibility of a univer- 

 sally distributed dynamic power that has the power of giving 

 life and individuality to organisms, we shall be driven to 

 adopt the hypothesis of the Archeus, or Spiritus mundi of 

 former ages, to direct and controul its operations. If we view 

 it as a principle or power incident to matter, something 



