THEORIES EXAMINED. 151 



themselves, arrangement as to the places they shall 

 occupy, contrivance as to their modification for 

 certain predetermined offices, and all proceeding 

 from a "purely dynamic process!" Such beings, as 

 Dr. Drummond well observes, " of the contrivance 

 which they display, are themselves the contrivers, of 

 the design the designers." The same able writer 

 says, it is to ignorance " that we are, I believe, to 

 attribute this theory, whether it be applied to a 

 fungus, or an animalcule, or an entozoa. We know 

 not how a mucor originates on a decaying vegetable 

 or animal matter, nor how millions of animalcules 

 appear in a vegetable infusion, nor how an entozoon 

 grows in the intestines or the brain of an animal ; 

 but because we do not in our present state of know- 

 ledge understand these things, are we to fall into 

 the error of the ancients, and attempt to explain, 

 by what seems next to an impossibility, their 

 appearance on the supposition of a spontaneous 

 generation ? - Some of these obscure animals have 

 an organization so perfect and admirable, that it 

 would seem to me almost as consonant to reason 

 and sense to attribute the formation and economy 

 of an elephant, or, I might say, man himself, to 

 equivocal generation as theirs." 



The thing contrived, we may add, can never be 

 its own contriver ; that which is not, cannot be, but 

 by a pre-existing power, exerting wisdom and skill. 

 The laws of life, and the continuance of species, 

 are fixed and pre-appointed ; nothing vital in the 



