104 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 



producing an appearance of revolving motion, is partly the 

 cause of the name given to this animalcule. These resem- 

 blances are the more entitled to notice, that they were made 

 by various observers, distant from each other at the time. ( 49 ) 

 It has likewise been noticed that the globules of the blood are 

 reproduced by the expansion of contained granules ; they are, 

 in short, distinct organisms multiplied by the same fissiparous 

 generation. So that all animated nature may be said to be 

 based on this mode of origin ; the fundamental form of organic 

 being is a cell, having new cells forming within itself, by which 

 it is in time discharged, and which are again followed by 

 others and others, in endless succession. It is of course obvious 

 that, if these cells could be produced by any process from 

 inorganic elements, we should be entitled to say that the fact 

 of a transit from the inorganic into the organic had been 

 witnessed in that instance ; the possibility of the commence- 

 ment of animated creation by the ordinary laws of nature 

 might be considered as established. Now it was announced 

 some years ago by Prevost and Dumas, that globules could be 

 produced in albumen by electricity. If, therefore, these globules 

 be identical with the cells which are now held to be repro- 

 ductive, it might be said that the production of albumen by 

 artificial means is the only step in the process wanting. This 

 has not yet been effected ; but it is known to be only a che- 

 mical process, the mode of which may be any day discovered 

 in the laboratory. ( 50 ) 



Admitting, however, all these views regarding life and or- 

 ganization, the advocates of interference have still to say that 

 a transition from the inorganic to the organic, such as we 

 must suppose to have taken place in the early geological ages, 

 is no ordinary cognizable fact of the present time upon earth : 

 structure, form, life, are never seen to be imparted to the in- 

 sensate elements ; the production of the humblest plant or 

 animacule, otherwise than as a repetition of some parental 

 form, is not one of the possibilities of science ; if, then, we 

 trace back the generations of organisms to the Silurian or 

 any earlier epoch, and acknowledge the world of that time to 

 have been one in which the present order of natural events 



