168 EXPLANATIONS. 



it as far as circumstances of soil and climate were 

 found agreeable.* 



There is still the difficulty of accounting for the 

 origination of the first forms of life in the various 

 lines afterwards pursued to a high development. 

 How was the inorganic converted into the first 

 rudiments of the organic ? "Whence, and of what 

 nature, was the impulse that first kindled sensation 

 and intelligence upon this sphere ? A suggestion 

 on these subjects is hazarded in my book; but 

 though we were to consider the matter as an 

 entire mystery, it is, after all, only so in the same 

 degree, and to the same effect, as the commence- 

 ment of a new being from a little germ is a mys- 

 tery to us, although we know that it is one of the 

 most familiar of all natiu-al events. This last 

 marvel we know to be under natural law, though we 

 cannot otherwise explain it. If we can regard the 



* It is, perhaps, hardly necessary here to advert to any expla- 

 nation which might be brought from the diffusion of seeds by 

 ocean currents, because the directness of the opposition of the 

 fields of these floras to each other across the Channel is obviously 

 inconsistent with that idea. In such a case, the constituents of 

 the various floras -would have been confused amongst each other 

 by the diversity of currents in the intermediate seas. Mr. 

 Forbes plainly confesses this explanation to be inadmissible in 

 the present case ; and, of course, it is not the right explanation 

 in any other. 



