290 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Jan. 



observations of Mr. Crosse was strengthened by the failure of subse- 

 quent experimenters to reproduce his results, our belief is further 

 confirmed by the unanimity of all the more modern and intelligent 

 devotees of spontaneous generation in the assertion that life can only 

 originate in its simplest form, that of a unicellular organism. There 

 is no Darwinist who will concede the possibility of an animal as 

 highly organized as an Acarus, with body, head, limbs, digestion, 

 and senses, all more or less complete, being the product of spon- 

 taneous generation and not the result of slow and gradual 

 development. 



Still farther ; it is known that the animal kingdom rests upon 

 the vegetable as a base. Animals being incapable of assimilating 

 inorganic matter could not exist without plants. Plants must 

 therefore have preceded animals, and the fruit of spontaneous 

 generation must be a prototype and not a protozoan. 



Strange as it may seem, there are, however, men, respectable 

 by their numbers and attainments, who are believers in spontaneous 

 generation ; but it is with this proviso — which leaves the mystery 

 as great as ever — that only from organic matter can organisms be 

 produced. So that to the original and primary appearance of life 

 upon the earth modern science has given us not the slightest clue. 



As I have said, the materialists have so far utterly failed to 

 co-ordinate the vital force, with those which we designate as 

 material. The beautiful and important discoveries which have 

 followed researches into the correlation and conservation of forces, 

 by pointing to a unity of all the forces in the material world, have 

 naturally prompted efforts to centralize, with electricity, magnetism, 

 and chemical affinity, that which we know as vital force. But a 

 moment's reflection will show us how far removed is this vital 

 force from all others with which it has been compared. 



The nicest manipulations of chemical science will probably fail 

 to detect a difference in composition between the microscopic 

 germs of two cryptogamous plants. Each consists of the same 

 elements, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, in nearly or 

 quite the same proportions. Both may be planted in a soil which 

 laborious mixture has rendered homogenous, and subsequently 

 supplied with the same pabulum, and yet, in virtue of some in- 

 scrutable, inherent principle, one develops a humble moss, and the 

 other rises into the beauty, symmetry, and even grandeur of a 

 tree fern. The same may be said of the spermatozoa of the 

 mouse and the elephant. Indeed all the phenomena which attend 



