224 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE 



casionally found outside the circle in the existing state <.f 

 things, never are they found beyond their period among tl.o 

 remains of the past. It was profoundly argued by Cuvier, 

 that life could not possibly have had a chemical origin. " In 

 fact," we find him remarking, " life exercising upon the ele- 

 ments which at every instant fonn part of the living bod}'', 

 and upon those which it attracts to it, an action contrary to 

 that which would be produced without it by the usual che- 

 mical affinities, it is inconsistent to suppose that it can itself 

 be produced by these affinities." And the phenomena of re- 

 striction to circle and period testify to the same effect. No- 

 thing, on the one hand, can be more various in character and 

 aspect than the organized existences of the various circles and 

 periods ; nothing more invariable, on the other, than the re- 

 sults of chemical or electrical experiment. And yet, to use 

 almost the words of Cuvier, " we know of no other power in 

 nature capable of re-uniting previously separated molecules," 

 than the electric and the chemical. To these agents, accord- 

 ingly, all the assertors of the development hypothesis have 

 had recourse for at least the origination of life. Air, water, 

 earth existing as a saline mucus, and an active persistent elec- 

 tricity, are the creative ingredients of Oken. The author of 

 the "Yestiges" is rather less explicit on the subject: he 

 simply refers to the fact, that the " basis of all vegetable and 

 animal substances consists of nucleated cells, — that is, of cells 

 having granules within them ;" and states that globules of a 

 resembling character " can be produced in albumen by elec- 

 tricity ;" and that, though albumen itself has not yet been 

 produced by artificial means, — the only step in tlie process of 

 creation which is wanting,— -it is yet known to be a chemical 

 composition, the mode of whose production may " be any day 

 discovered in the laboratory." Further, he adopts, as part of 

 the foundation of his hypothesis, the pseudo-experiment of Mr 

 Weekes, who holds that out of cert^n saline preparations, 



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