532 Reply to Mr. Main, by the Author 



• " Can such things be. 



And overcome us like a summer's cloud. 

 Without our special wonder ? " 



Yet such things are, must be, if that primary atom comprised 

 within the first-formed vesicle of a cherry stone, contain each 

 and every minute iota of the future developements of the full- 

 grown cherry tree, and that, perhaps, for the period of one 

 hundred and fifty successive years. I have adduced the 

 example of the incipient seed of the cherry, in order to prove 

 that a simple drop of bland fluid, which does not afford evi- 

 dence of organisation, even under the most powerful of our 

 microscopic glasses, is the sole discernible rudiment of a 

 future tree. You, Sir, perhaps believe, and may affirm, 

 that, in that minute vesicle, all the future organs of the tree 

 are existent, as completely so as in their future condition of 

 full and complete developement, but in a state of such extreme 

 minuteness as not, by any human power, to be discerned nor 

 detected. Be it so ; I cannot deny the fact, nor do I wish 

 to do so : I only contend that the conversion of nutritive fluids 

 into organic structure does not, to my faculty, tend to impugn 

 the doctrine of rudimental preexistence in the slightest de- 

 gree. That Power, I repeat, which could decree the exist- 

 ence of a nucleus or rudiment, could not only provide for its 

 support and future developements, but for the conversion of 

 the nutritive matter (inhaled from without) into the very sub- 

 stance and organisation of the future plant. Infinite Wisdom 

 could not err, whatever might be the nature or construction 

 of the being acted upon, or of the machinery to be employed. 



One more proof of the convertibility of the vegetable juices 

 into the positive substance of organised being is, I think, of- 

 fered in the vis medicatrix naturae, that healing power of 

 nature by which wounds are closed and covered. Let the 

 limb of a young tree be amputated, let a narrow ring of bark 

 be taken off completely around the stem or branch of a tree, 

 and you need not be informed that, in a certain period of 

 time, the wounded surfaces will, in both cases, be healed and 

 covered. The analogy will hold good with respect to the 

 animal structure : wounds will heal, cavities produced by 

 violence will be filled up by healthy granulations, a new cuti- 

 cle will completely cover the surface ; and the vital fluids will 

 circulate through the parts thus recently produced, with free- 

 dom and precision. Did Nature, when she formed the nucleus, 

 that something which you style "rudimental preexistence," 

 — did she, I enquire, include therein, prospectively, the matter, 

 substance, tubes, cells, or fibres, all and every thing that 

 would be required wherewith to heal adventitious wounds ? 



Do you not perceive, my good Sir, that our enquiries are 



