TRANSACTION'S OF THE SECTION'S. 115 



shown that the economy of both was nearly identical, although the)' possessed 

 scarcely anything in common except superficial characters ; and this identity of 

 habit was regarded as the explanation of their remarkable similarity of form. 



This paper is published (as read before the Section) in the ' Annals of Natural 

 History,' for August 1860; and still more at length in the volume of ' Proceedings 

 of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society ' for the past Session. 



Dr. Daubeny gave an aecount of some experiments he had performed on tha 

 subject of Equivocal Generation. He described the apparatus he had employed, 

 and stated that, even after vegetable matter had been exposed to a temperature 

 exceeding 300° of Fahr., and had been subsequently brought into contact with 

 nothing but water carefully distilled, and with air that had been passed through 

 sulphuric acid, indications of organic life were discoverable in it. 



Dr. Daubeny stated that Dr. Bowerbank and other gentlemen had examined the 

 flasks in which he had performed his experiments on Equivocal Generation. No 

 animal life was to be found, but a few filaments of fungi were visible. As the 

 latter might possibly have been derived from the cork and linseed-meal, as was 

 suggested by Dr. Bowerbank, he proposed to repeat the experiment under circum- 

 stances which would eliminate these sources of error. 



On the Intellectual Development of Europe, considered with reference to the 

 views of Mr. Darwin and others, that the Progression of Organisms is de- 

 termined by Law. By Professor Draper, M. D., Neiv York. 



The object of this paper was to show that the advancement of Man in civilization 

 does not occur accidentally or in a fortuitous manner, but is determined by im- 

 mutable law. 



The author introduced bis subject by recalling proofs of the dominion of law in 

 the three great lines of the manifestation of life : — first, in the successive stages of 

 development of every individual from the earliest rudiment to maturity ; second, 

 in the numberless organic forms now living contemporaneously with us, and con- 

 stituting the animal series ; third, in the orderly appearance of that grand succes- 

 sion, which in the slow lapse of geological time has emerged, constituting the life 

 of the earth, showing therefore not only the evidences, but also proofs of the domi- 

 nion of law over the world of life. 



In these three lines of life he maintained that the general principle is to differ- 

 entiate instinct from automatism, and then to differentiate intelligence from instinct. 

 In man himself three distinct instrumental nervous mechanisms exist, and three 

 distinct modes of life are perceptible, the automatic, the instinctive, the intelligent. 

 ■ They occur in an epochal order, from infancy through childhood to the more per- 

 fect state. 



Such holding good for the individual, it was then affirmed that it is physiologi- 

 cally impossible to separate the individual from the race, and that what holds good 

 for the one holds good for the other too, and hence that man is the Archetype of 

 Society, and individual development the model of social progress, and that both are 

 under the control of immutable law ; that a parallel exists between individual and 

 natural life in this, that the production, life, and death of an organic particle in the 

 person, answers to the production, life, and death of a person in the nation. 



Turning from these purely physiological considerations to historical proof, and 

 selecting the only European nation which thus far has offered a complete and com- 

 pleted intellectual life, Professor Draper showed that the characteristics of Greek 

 mental development answer perfectly to those of individual life, presenting philo- 

 sophically five well-marked ages or periods, the first being closed by the opening 

 of Egypt to the Ionians ; the second, including the Ionian, Pythagorean, and Eleatic 

 philosophers, was ended by the criticisms of the Sophists ; the third, embracing the 

 Socratic and Platonic, by the doubts of the Sceptics ; the fourth, ushered in by the 

 Macedonian expedition and adorned by the splendid achievements of the Alex- 

 andrian School, degenerated into Neoplatonism ; and imbecility in the fifth, to which 

 the hand of Rome put an end. From the solutions of the four great problems of 

 Greek philosophy, given in each of these five stages of its life, he showed that it ia 



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