268 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



beeches) ! What will physiologists think of the suggestion that 

 I came forth under the influence of the same divine energy which 

 created the first man ?" 



We leave " J." himself to answer this question. Thus he may 

 save both the physiologists and the " botanists " further trouble. 

 For it is not one whit more preposterous, and in the present age 

 ridiculous, to suppose a man originated without parents, than to 

 suppose an oak originated without an acorn. 



Does " J." believe in laws of nature 1 . If so, does he suppose 

 those laws partial? How can one species of living thing come 

 into existence without parentage, when others cannot, especially 

 so complex and highly organized a thing as an oak? For we find 

 it easier to pardon the popular credulity, which supposes the molds 

 and blights to be necessarily spontaneous, or the philosophic 

 enthusiasm of a Crosse, who believed his electric current called 

 forth living monads from powdered flint, than the cool speculation 

 which finds all the conditions requisite for the growth of an oak 

 in soil, air, heat, sunlight, and " some Divine energy." It is no 

 dogma, nor a priori conclusion, that oaks must have parents, and 

 hence must have acorns as well, but a broad induction, obtained 

 in the truest spirit of a rigid philosophy. The two methods, of 

 spontaneous and parental generation, are incompatible. They 

 cannot exist together. The conditions necessary to either one of 

 them forbid the intervention of the other. We may not be able 

 to say that the law of to-day is the law of all time; but we can 

 say, with abundant safety, that, to-day, the law of any one species 

 or individual, in this respect, is the law of all species and of all 

 individuals. So clearly is the law recognized in respect to our 

 race, that we all accept the processes of impregnation, gestation 

 and birth, as constituting the only way through which Divinity 

 itself could become incarnate. 



The supposition made by "J.," is as old as the dreams of the 

 Egyptian and Grecian philosophers. Why has it not been sub- 

 stantiated, and passed into our stock of positive knowledge before 

 this? 



It has been said, the law of parentage as the condition of being, 

 is not derived from a priori grounds. The writer is free to admit, 



