530 F1M GMENTS OP SCIENCE. 



before Ddllinger. His Jesuit colleagues, he knew, incul- 

 cated the belief that every human soul is sent into the 

 world from God by a separate and supernatural act of 

 creation. ID. a work entitled the " Origin of the Human 

 Soul," Professor Frohscharnmer, the philosopher here al- 

 luded to, was 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 lookout on all temerities 

 of this kind; and their organ, the " Civilita Cattolica," 

 immediately pounced upon Frohschammer. His book was 

 branded as " pestilent/ 7 placed in the Index, and stamped 

 with the condemnation of the Church.* The Jesuit 

 notion does not err on the score of indefiniteness. Accord- 

 ing to it, the Power whom Goethe does not dare to name, 

 and whom Gassendi and Clerk Maxwell present to us under 

 the guise of a " Manufacturer" of atoms, turns out annually, 

 for England 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 oper- 

 ations. 



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 one hundred and twentieth 

 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 anything 

 besides matter in the egg, or in the infant subsequently 

 slumbering in the womb, what is it? The questions 

 already asked with reference to the stars of snow may be 

 here repeated. Mr. Martineau will complain that I am 

 disenchanting the babe of its wonder; but is this the case? 



* 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 far more damage to the intellectual freedom of his 

 country than his superstitious predecessor Ludvvig I. Priding him- 

 self on being a German prince, Ludwig would not tolerate the inter- 

 ference of the Roman party with the political affairs of Bavaria. 



