[4-1 



attempted, and the result has been failure ; therefore, 

 animal life could not have been generated in that manner, 

 but must have been specially created at some particular 

 moment. This argument is absurdly unsound. These 

 persons might just as well say that, to substantiate the 

 assertion that crystals are formed of a combination of 

 elementary molecules, we ought to be able to take the 

 necessary quantity of these elements, and, by uniting 

 them together, form a crystal ; and that, if this cannot 

 be done, then crystals also require a special creation. 

 The same argument for a special creation will apply to 

 every species of the animal, vegetable, and mineral king- 

 doms. Protoplasm is the lowest form of animal life, 

 differing from the highest form of mineral life only in 

 the mode of combination of its elementary particles; 

 but this difference causes the manifestation of fresh 

 phenomena, in this case as in every other modification 

 of a previous state of nature, which gives it the appear- 

 ance of possessing a property that had not been possessed 

 by any substance previously, whereas, in truth, the 

 apparently new property is but a further development of 

 that previously possessed by inorganic bodies. In short, 

 the power of absorption possessed by the Moneron is 

 simply one of the many manifestations of that universal 

 life or energy that is inherent in all matter, and has been 

 so from all time ; but it is a comparatively late develop- 

 ment, occurring at a particular period in the world's 

 history, when the conditions necessary for such a deve- 

 lopment were present. Before this period no such 

 combination of molecular atoms took place with the 

 same result, simply because the necessary conditions of 

 development were absent. In the same manner precisely 

 there was a prior period when no such substance as a 

 crystal existed, the conditions requisite for the peculiar 

 combination of molecular atoms to result in the forma- 

 tion of a crystal having been absent. 



When the world had undergone sufficient evolutionary 

 development there came a time when such atmospheric 

 and other conditions were present as to permit of a 

 modification of the then existing substances and proper- 

 ties, which resulted in the formation of the crystal ; and, 

 precisely in the same manner, and for the same reason, 



