BOOK IV. 



OF generation: 



CHAPTEK I. 



OF THE ORIGIN OF ORGANISED BEINGS. 



Without remoanting to the oosmogonies' so fascinating and so 

 probable o£ Kant and of Laplace, we nmst admit, with con- 

 temporary geology, that; the earth was formerly in the. state of 

 incandescent globe ; that daring numerous cycles it was absolutely 

 uninhabitable for the organised world we now know. We are 

 compelled therefore to admit. that the first living beings spon- 

 taneously organised themselresat the expense of mineral matter. 

 The first inhabitants of the earth were, we know, of an extremely 

 simple structure. The monera of Haeckel, some types, of in- 

 fusoria, the rhizopods perhaps — such are the existing organised 

 beings which best recall to us those primitive ancestors of the 

 organic world. But the Darwinian doctrine, which, results with 

 such evidence from palaeontology, from, embryology, from the 

 well hierarchised classification of the organisms, demands as its 

 indispensable complement spontaneous formation, without germs, 

 without parents, of the first examples of the living world; 



In the scientificidomain any logical and necessary deduction or 

 induction ought to be admitted' without contest; though it. may 

 shock-old ideas andj shatter- old dogmaisw This is far, however, 



