CONTINUITY OF NATURE. 349 
of developing further in a mechanical way. I leave it to 
each one of my readers to choose between this idea and the 
hypothesis of spontaneous generation. To me the idea that 
the Creator should have in this one point arbitrarily inter- 
- fered with the regular process of development of matter, 
which in all other cases proceeds entirely without his inter- 
position, seems to be just as unsatisfactory to a believing 
mind as to a scientific intellect. If, on the other hand, 
we assume the hypothesis of spontaneous generation for the 
origin of the first organisms, which in consequence of 
reasons mentioned above, and especially in consequence of 
the discovery of the Monera, has lost its former difficulty, 
then we arrive at the establishment of an uninterrupted 
natural connection between the development of the earth 
and the organisms produced on it, and, in this last remain- 
ing lurking-place of obscurity, we can proclaim the unity 
of all Nature, and the unity of her laws of Development 
(Gen. Morph. 1. 164). 
