224 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



external applications must be more or less irregular, speculative, and un- 

 certain. It may seem irrational to the savans of this day to assert that the 

 phenomena of spontoneous life is constantly occurring among us. So they 

 have before disputed many things now accepted as truth. For instance, in 

 medicine, the theory of Hahnemann. I respectfully submit that the true 

 explanation and the eflPective remedy for these obnoxious insects and worms 

 can only be found in recognizing ' spontaniety of life;' and if our savans 

 are called upon to explain, satisfactorily to our reason, why pine forests 

 are succeeded by oaks, why lime-quarry ponds so soon are peopled with 

 fishes, new mud-banks covered with wild grapes, and highly cultivated grass 

 lawns exhibit spots of inferior grass, why weeds so suddenly appear in 

 fields from which a luxurious harvest has just been reaped, and similar 

 phenomena, or abandon their dogma — for dogma it is — ' that only from 

 acorns can oaks originate,' then we can be free to point out the error in 

 our science of agriculture and horticulture, which inflicts the penalties re- 

 ferred to. To illustrate how blindly we defer to the authority of science, 

 let me ask who among its honored representatives pretends to explain the 

 law through which the apple and pear, grafted on limbs of a quince tree, 

 organize the special wood character of their genera, and produce their 

 peculiar kindred fruit, in contradistinction to the quince wood, and fruit of 

 the natural engrafted limb of the same stock. This phenomena will cease 

 to be a phenomena when we cease to look at it from the false stand-point 

 that all organic life must originate from eggs or seeds. 



"All experience shows that in the economy of generation and reproduc- 

 tion, through the co-operation of the male and female principals, the pro- 

 duct is limited by the law that like begets like. This is true of both the 

 vegetable and animal kingdoms. We see a 'progression ' in the condition 

 or refinement of a genera or a species of organic life may be attained 

 through the use of favorable external means, but the product is ever 

 restricted to the same genera or species. This proves there must be in the 

 economy of nature, a provision by which, without such union and co-opera- 

 tion of male and female entities, a higher form may be born from a female 

 parentage belonging to a lower form. I say proves so, or the development 

 theory is a humbug. For it implies, in fact teaches, the mineral is the 

 parentage of the vegetable, the vegetable of the animal, and the animal of 

 the human kingdoms. To have been so, it follows either that the law of 

 like begets like is not immutable, or there is a law of progression through 

 which nature acts outside of like begets like. If there ever was such a 

 law, the inference is it exists also to-dayt and is sufficient to affirm the 

 same phenomena among us. 



" Every theory should prove itself when tested by occurring facts. Test 

 this by the varied phenomena referred to, and it will explain them, though 

 it conflicts with popular science and theology. But truth is a unit, and all 

 truth is Grod's truth, and all of us are, in reality, weak, ignorent children. 

 Let me, therefore, ask you to give this a fair consideration. You and I 

 desire to learn the truths of nature, for they are God's truths. The preva- 



