CONTINUITY OF NATURE. 349 



of developing further in a mechanical way. I leave it to 

 each one of my readers to choose between this idea and the 

 hypothesis of spontaneous generation. To me the idea that 

 the Creator should have in this one point arbitrarily inter- 

 fered with the regular process of development of matter, 

 which in all other cases proceeds entirely without his inter- 

 position, seems to be just as unsatisfactory to a believing 

 mind as to a scientific intellect. If, on the other hand, 

 we assume the hypothesis of spontaneous generation for the 

 origin of the first organisms, which in consequence of 

 reasons mentioned above, and especially in consequence of 

 the discovery of the Monera, has lost its former difficulty, 

 then we arrive at the establishment of an uninterrupted 

 natural connection between the development of the earth 

 and the organisms produced on it, and, in this last remain- 

 ing lurking-place of obscurity, we can proclaim the unity 

 of all Nature, and the unity of her laws of Develo'jpment 

 (Gen. Morph. 1 164). 



