THE ACABUS CROSSII. 119 



from which it was said to have sprung, objections 

 of this nature can be of no force. The reader will 

 understand that I only adduce the instances of the 

 sivatherium and hare for the sake of illustration, and 

 without undertaking to show that those animals 

 have actually had such modified descendants as 

 may have been attributed to them. I would intreat 

 the candid opponent of the transmutation theory 

 to review the subject in the improved light in 

 which it appears, vdth this most gratuitous assump- 

 tion set aside. 



With regard to the origination of new life 

 from inorganic elements, the Broomfield experi- 

 ment would be quite decisive, if any evidence 

 could be admitted for what men are imwilling to 

 believe. The Edinburgh reviewer writes two 

 pages which appear to put the alleged fact much 

 OUT of countenance ; and yet it is true that ridicule, 

 which always proceeds upon assumption, forms 

 their entire composition. He states that specimens 

 of the insect were sent to Paris, where they set a 

 whole conclave of philosophers a-laughing, be- 

 cause they were found to contain ova. It did not 

 occur to him that independent generation is what 

 the development theory presumes of every animal 

 family which may have ever had an origin other- 



