1 7 6 THE ' ' SA TURD A Y" ON CREA TURES. 



while to extract one or two paragraphs, for the purpose of 

 showing the sort of article, deemed by those who conduct 

 a journal of the highest literary repute, likely to influence 

 the judgment of intelligent educated Englishmen. 



" A crystal originates and increases in bulk in a crystal- 

 loid solution, just as living creatures originate (!) and in- 

 crease in bulk in an organic solution. A fragment broken 

 from the original crystal sets up an independent growth if 

 placed in its appropriate mother-lye, just as (!) a fragment 

 of a living organism (!) placed in a solution capable of sus- 

 taining it (!) may become (!) the origin of a new individual." 



" A still more striking approximation to organic growth 

 has been observed in certain substances of the colloid class 

 to which no one has as yet, at any rate, ascribed the attri- 

 butes of life. Myeline is a compound which forms itself 'in 

 the course of putrefaction from egg-albumen, muscular 

 tissue, and other organic products. If closely watched, it 

 may be seen to mimic the process of reproduction by fusion, 

 and has even been thought to show a tendency to something 

 like (!) the assimilation of surrounding matter as food." (!) 



" Life we are taught to conceive as springing up at all 

 times and in all places from matter potentially living, and 

 capable of evolving actual life, whenever the environing 

 conditions are adequate to excite the unknown mysterious 

 molecular actions and properties to which the outward 

 manifestation of vitality is due. Thus we have an unceasing 

 fount of new primordial forms of life replenishing the earth 

 in the place of those which have developed into higher 

 existences. These primordial forms, we are told, exhibit a 

 capacity for rapid, various, and complex evolution, more 

 startling, even than the de novo origin of torulae and bac- 



