NOTE 0-^ HYBRIDISM IN TEGETABLES. 571 



and finally its transformation into a great tree, which, in its turn, is 

 adorned with flowers and reproduces its race, all these things are neither 

 less marvellous, nor less incomprehensible, nor less divine than the 

 creation of a world ; they are, to speak truly, real creations since 

 they give place to beings which had no previous existence. Never- 

 theless, since we see the phenomena succeeding each other, and 

 following in a logical order it does not come into our mind that they 

 are supernatural matters. "Wliat makes a miracle, is not its incom- 

 prehensibility, but its eixceptionality, which places it apart from the 

 regular chain of facts. Any fact which enters into any physical 

 series, which has antecedents, I might almost say parents, in anterior 

 phenomena, which, in a word, has a material cause and material con- 

 sequences, is a natural fact — a fact amenable to science. But if the 

 same logic, the same sequence of phenomena, tKe same evolution in 

 things, has been the prelude of the appearance of organized beings 

 on this globe, their creation enters purely and simply into the order 

 of physical and natural phenomena, as certainly as the partial crea- 

 tions continued to the present day, which form the very life of these 

 beings. 



It does not follow from the circumstance that the creation of 

 organized beings may be considered as a rigorously dependant 

 series of phenomena, that the torch of life was lighted on this globe 

 by the force of terrestrial nature. We would not willingly admit 

 the spontaneous formation of the monad, and the observation of all 

 time, which has never been seriously contradicted, shows that life, 

 under whatever form it appears, is always and everywhere trans- 

 mitted. This consideration forces me invincibly to think, that the first 

 germ of all organization is strange to our planet ^ and that it has been 

 imported, whence, when and how, it has pleased the Organizer 

 of "Worlds. If the extra-terrestrial influence of the sun is necessary 

 for the mere maintenance of life upon the earth, how much more 

 need was there for the concourse of some foreign agent to originate 

 life. 



One fact strikes me in the contemplation of the organized and 

 living world which surrounds us, and of which we form a part ; viz., 

 that variable as are their forms, organized beings have strong ana- 

 logies with each other. It is in vii'tue of these analogies, that their 

 classification into kingdoms, classes, families, genera, and species 

 becomes possible. Suppress these analogies, suppose as many 

 moulds radically different as there are individualities in nature, and 



9 o O 



