DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 61 



dismiss these orthodox thinkers with 

 the assumption "that the first elements 

 endowed with the idea of the race have 

 been present in space from all eter- 

 nity in formless chaos out of which the 

 universe slowly consolidated, and acci- 

 dentally developed after the formation 

 and cooling of the planet wherever con- 

 ditions were favorable." But such fic- 

 titious reasonings or pretexts, Btichner 

 assures us, are not necessary. Scien- 

 tific facts, he says, indicate with great 

 distinctness that the organic beings on 

 our earth owe their generation and 

 propagation to the co-operation of 

 physical substances and forces alone. 



After such an introduction we pro- 

 ceed with interest to learn about these 

 scientific facts, but how great is our 

 disappointment when we find that 

 Btichner here takes up an entirely dif- 

 ferent subject, which, if it has any con- 

 nection with the question at issue, goes 

 to prove just the reverse of what he 

 intended. The whole long series of 

 facts to which he now points is, in a 



