460 NATURE OF THE PLASTIC POWER. 



and the light and heat we derive from them are the same that came from 

 the sun in those ancient days. 



If, then, our earth does not possess in herself the power of sustaining 

 is the plastic tne varied forms of vegetable life, but borrows it from an ex- 

 power a uni- traneous source ; if light, in producing these effects, never 

 fiSagenV undergoes destruction, but only modifies its state for nei- 

 like the ether? her force nor matter can be annihilated, though they may be 

 changed what shall we say of the plastic power which we have thus 

 assumed to reside in the germ, the co-worker with the luminous agent ? 

 Does their partnership in action indicate a resemblance in position or na- 

 ture ? If the one consists of motion arising in an ethereal, intangible, and 

 weightless medium, diffused throughout the universe, may we, suppose 

 that the other is the manifestation of a similarly diffused principle? 

 There is no necessity, as many have thought, to impute to the first-crea- 

 ted germ a formative power for all its successors, as though whatever 

 force or qualities they possess were originally concentrated and included 

 in it. It is possible that countless millions of organic beings may have 

 originated from one primordial germ, just as we see an extensive confla- 

 gration originating from a single spark. 



That such a plastic principle exists has long been admitted by philos- 

 ophers, both speculative and experimental. It is a doctrine which seems 

 to have arisen in the infancy of human knowledge, and is to be met with 

 in almost all the old Asiatic and European systems. The archeus and 

 soul of the world of the alchemists were only the reproduction of a very 

 ancient idea. The term " vital spark" was once something more than 

 a mere metaphorical expression ; and, indeed, there is a classic* noble- 

 ness in the thought which recognizes a universal spirit diffused every 

 where. In different countries and by different authors, the nature and 

 function of this principle are variously represented ; imperfect concep- 

 tions of what is so significantly but briefly set forth in the opening words 

 of the Sacred Scriptures, which plainly recognize the true conditions un- 

 der which all vegetable organisms, arose formless matter, the sunlight, 

 and a brooding spirit. 



I shall continue to speak of this principle under the designation of the 

 plastic power, because that expression points out aptly the function dis- 

 charged, and to assume that all those organisms which possess the qual- 

 ity of converting inorganic bodies into organic structures do so under the 

 double influence of light and of this interior principle. This, of course, 



Principio coelum ac terras camposque liquentes, 



Lucentemque globum Lunaa, Titaniaque astra, 



Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 



Mens agitat molem, et magho se corpore miscet. 



Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitseque volantum, 



Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus. VIRG. JEN., 1 vi , 724. 



