248 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



entitled the ' Origin of the Human Soul,' Professoi 

 Frohschammer, the philosopher here alluded to, waa 

 hardy enough to question this doctrine, and to affirm 

 that man, body and soul, comes from his parents, the 

 act of creation being, therefore, mediate and secondary 

 only. The Jesuits keep a sharp look out on all 

 temerities of this kina ; and their organ, the ' Civilita 

 Cattolica,' immediately pounced upon Frohschammer. 

 His book was branded as 'pestilent,' placed in the 

 Index, and stamped with the condemnation of the 

 Church. 1 The Jesuit notion does not err on the score 

 of inde6niteness. According to it, the Power whom 

 Goethe does not dare to name, and whom Grassendi 

 and Clerk Maxwell present to us under the guise of a 

 * Manufacturer ' of atoms, turns out annually, for Eng- 

 land and Wales alone, a quarter of a million of new 

 souls. Taken in connection with the dictum of Mr. 

 Carlyle, that this annual increment to our population 

 are ' mostly fools,' but little profit to the human heart 

 seems derivable from this mode of regarding the Divine 

 operations. 



But if the Jesuit notion be rejected, what are we to 

 accept? Physiologists say that every human being 

 comes from an egg not more than the y^-th of an 

 inch in diameter. Is this egg matter ? I hold it to be 

 so, as much as the seed of a fern or of an oak. Nine 

 months go to the making of it into a man. Are the 

 additions made during this period of gestation drawn 

 from matter ? I think so undoubtedly. If there be 



1 King Maximilian II. brought Liebig to Munich, he helped 

 Helmholtz in his researches, and loved to liberate and foster science. 

 But through his liberal concession of power to the Jesuits in the 

 schools, he did tar more damage to the intellectual freedom of his 

 country than his superstitious predecessor Ludwig I. Priding 

 himself on being a German Prince, Ludwig would not tolerate the 

 interference of the Roman party with the political affairs of Bavaria- 



