530 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
before Dollinger. His Jesuit colleagues, he knew, incul- 
cated the belief that every human soul is sent into the 
world from God by a separate and supernatural act of 
creation. In a work entitled the "Origin of the Human 
Soul," Professor Frohschamrner, the philosopher here al- 
luded to, was hardy enough to question this doctrine, and 
to affirm that man, body and soul, comes from his parents, 
the act of creation being, therefore, mediate ami secondary 
only. The Jesuits keep a sharp lookout on all temerities 
of this kind; and their organ, the " Civilita Cattolica," 
immediately pounced upon Frohschamrner. His book was 
branded as " pestilent," placed in the Index, and stamped 
with the condemnation of the Church.* The Jesuit 
notion does not err on the score of indefiniteness. Accord- 
ing to it, the Power whom Goethe does not dare to name, 
and whom Gassendi and Clerk Maxwell present to us under 
the guise of a " Manufacturer " of atoms, turns out annually, 
for England and Wales alone, a quarter of a million of new 
souls. Taken in connection with the dictum of Mr. 
Carlyle, that this annual increment to our population are 
" mostly fools," but little profit to the human heart seems 
derivable from this mode of regarding the divine oper- 
ations. 
But if the Jesuit notion be rejected, what are we to 
accept? Physiologists say that every human being comes 
from an egg not more than the one hundred and twentieth 
of an inch in diameter. Is this egg matter? I hold it to 
be so, as much as the seed of a fern or of an oak. Nine 
months go to the making of it into a man. Are the 
additions made during this period of gestation drawn from 
matter? I think so undoubtedly. If there be anything 
besides matter in the egg, or in the infant subsequently 
slumbering in the womb, what is it? The questions 
already asked with reference to the stars of snow may be 
here repeated. Mr. Martineau will complain that I am 
disenchanting the babe of its wonder; but is this the case? 
* King Maximilian II. brought Liebig to Munich, he helped 
Helmholtz in his researches, and loved to liberate and foster science. 
But through his liberal concession of power to the Jesuits in the 
schools, he did far more damage to the intellectual freedom of his 
country than his superstitious predecessor Ludwig I. Priding him- 
self on being a German prince, Ludwig would not tolerate the inter- 
ference of the Roman party with the political affairs of Bavaria. 
