154 VESTIGES OP THE 



Wisdom, to take pla(?e, not only upon this sphere, but 

 upon all the others in space under necessary modifica- 

 tions, and as being carried on, from first to last, here and 

 elsewhere, under immediate favour of the creative will or 

 energy.* The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form 

 of all organisation, we must regard as the meeting-point 

 between the inorganic and the organic — the end of the 

 mineral and beginning of the vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms, which thence start in different directions, but 

 in perfect parallelism and analogy. We have already 

 seen that this nucleated vesicle is itself a type of mature 

 and independent being in the infusory animalcules, as 

 well as the starting-point of the foetal progress of every 

 higher individual in creation, both animal and vegetable. 

 We have seen that it is a form of being which there is 

 some reason to believe electric agency will produce — 

 though not perhaps usher into full life — in albumen, one 

 of those compound elements of animal bodies, of which 

 another (urea) has been made by artificial means. Re- 

 membering these things, we are drawn on to the sup- 

 position that the first step in the creation of life upon this 

 planet was a chemico-electric operation^ hy which simjiHe 

 (jerrninal vesicles were ■produced. This is so much, but 

 what were the next steps? Let a common vegetable 

 infusion help us to an answer. There, as we have seen, 

 simple forms are produced at first, but afterwards they 

 become more complicated, until at length the life-pro- 

 ducing powers of the infusion are exhausted. Are we to 



" When I formed this idea, I was not aware of one which seems 

 i'aiutly to forcsliadow it — namely, Socrates' doctrine, afterwards 

 dilated on by Plato, that "previous to the existence of the world, and 

 beyond its present limits, there existed certain archetypes, the 

 embodiment (if we may use such a word) of general ideas; and that 

 these archetypes were models, in imitation of which all particular 

 beings were cr(>ated." 



