combination and form, in and from matter, is therefore im- 

 possible. How, then, is it possible for matter, which cannot 

 change the form of its own crystal, to produce life ? Matter 

 nowhere acts, but is acted on by forces exterior to itself. 



Life in the simple form of the vegetable sack is totally 

 distinct from and above all chemical force, which operates 

 only by superimposed law. The crystal can only increase by 

 accretion, which, however great, cannot alter the position, 

 shape, or size of the one first deposited; but the plant selects 

 from the atmosphere, the earth, and the light, those things 

 only which it can assimilate, and by taking 'them into itself 

 increases its own bulk, matures its strength, and propagates 

 its kind. Here, therefore, we have powers which are nowhere 

 seen in mere matter, and which are certainly of a higher 

 order ; and what matter has not it cannot give. If this be so 

 with vegetative life, how much more with animal life, where we 

 have in its most minute forms the wonderful power of volition, 

 and in its progressive stages various vital and mental qualities, 

 which are of an entirely different and much higher character 

 than any vegetative force, and therefore much more impossible 

 to mere matter. 



But, supposing life in its simplest forms already to exist, 

 we are taught that it has gone on improving into more 

 complete forms, until the present species have come into 

 being. If this has been so, it is matter of history ; but we 

 find no evidence of the existence of only imperfect and 

 elementary forms of life in the earliest deposits, gradually 

 growing up to perfection in the last. Then, as now, various 

 gradations of complexity in structure, each suited to the con- 

 ditions and purpose of life, existed as contemporaries. But, 

 in all past times, we have no clear example of an animal in 

 the condition of change from one species to another,* nor can we 

 conceive of such change by any vital analogy of the present 

 time. But, if the capability of such progress or development 

 is involved in the very idea of life, as the theory supposes, it 

 would not touch our present argument. For, as we have no 

 example of spontaneous generation and cannot conceive of it, 

 so we must, in this case, suppose this to be the mode by which 

 the Creator chose to work ; as the first life with all its poten- 

 tialities must have been His gift. This is implied in the term 

 evolution, which necessarily supposes involution, as potentially 

 full as the evolution. " What comes out in the web must 

 first have been in the loom, and the warp, and the weft." So 



* Professor Huxley's argument as to the hipparion is very far from a 

 proof. 



