284 ZOOPHYTES. 



7. Propagation : Reproduction. — Had not the Great Creator provided 

 for the permanence of animated nature, his original works would have 

 long since perished, from decay of their component elements. 



But the same ineffable wisdom which fashioned the universe has 

 blunted the corrosion of time, and defeated the ravages of death, by de- 

 creeing the incessant renewal of the creatures of the earth. 



Thus is the waste of life imperceptible, for the world is always full. 



Under the undeviating laws preserving the harmonies of the universe, 

 I repeat, that no solid basis can be found, whereon to rest the theory of 

 spontaneous generation, or the origin of living beings from accidental 

 combinations. I feel incapable of discovering any physical means where- 

 by unknown indefinite atoms, molecules, or particles of inert matter, shall 

 be attracted, associated, and incorporated as symmetrical forms, and lighted 

 up with the spark of life. 



Is it alike difficult to comprehend how one living being, the offspring, 

 shall be derived from another living being — the parent, — inheriting all its 

 parts, its faculties, and qualities ? 



Still, so long as numerous insoluble phenomena are daily presented 

 before us, let us carefully refrain from presumptuously pretending our 

 ability in interpretations ; — we must be content to admire what we are 

 unable to explain. It has not been the will of heaven yet to have so far 

 enlarged our understanding. 



Ignorance gives birth to conjecture, whence does each individual who 

 would probe the mysteries of Nature, entertain that theory which seems 

 to him the most consistent with reason. 



Thus, many conclude that the origin of animals concentrates in a 

 primordial germ involving others to infinity, of which each is prepared 

 for evolution, as concurring conditions allow. 



Others assume that such principles or elements are derived from one 

 or from both parents, where two, as gradually consolidating and expand- 

 ing, constitute the offspring, and carry on the race. 



Many difficulties are concomitant on every theory. But it does not 

 seem an extravagant conjecture, as long ago intimated, that the original 

 animal, in its earlier intelligible stage, is a vascular speck, with the rudi- 



