228 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE 



ship, in even the primary stage, the author of the " Yestigea" 

 virtually repudiates, by adopting, as one of the foundations 

 of his hypothesis, with, of course, all the legitimate conse- 

 quences, the experiments of Mr Weekes. The animalculae- 

 raaking process is instanced as representative of the first stage 

 of being, — that in which dead inorganic matter assumes 

 vitality ; and it corresponds, in the zoological branch, to the 

 production of a low marine vegetation in the phytological one. 

 A certain semi-chemical, semi-electrical process originates, 

 time after time, certain numerous low forms of life, identical 

 in species, but connected by no tie of relationship : such is 

 the presumed result of the Weekes experiment. A certain 

 further process of development matures low forms of life, 

 thus originated, into higher species, also identical, and also 

 wholly unconnected by the family tie : such are the conse- 

 quences legitimately involved in that island-vegetation theory 

 promulgated by the author of the " Vestiges." And be it 

 remembered, that Mr Weekes' process, so far as it is simply 

 electrical and chemical, is a process which is as capable of 

 having been gone through in all times and all places, as that 

 other process of strewing marl upon a moor, through which 

 certain rustic experimenters have held that they produced 

 white clover. It could have been gone through during the 

 Carboniferous or the Silurian period ; for all truly chemical 

 and electrical experiments would have resulted in manifesta- 

 tions of the same phenomena then as now : an acid would 

 have effervesced as freely with an alkali ; and each fibre of 

 an electrified feather, — had feathers then existed, — would 

 have stood out as decidedly apart from all its neighbours. 

 We must therefore hold, if we believe with the author of the 

 *' Vestiges," first, from the Weekes experiment, that in all 

 times, and in all places, every centre of a certain chemical 

 and electric action would have become a new centre of crea- 

 tion to certain recent scecies of low. but not vem low, organi- 



