i82 DESIGN IN NATURE 



pierce — but we have not got rid of life." ..." Life can be produced from life only, and this law would seem to 

 give an indication that the solution of the mystery is not to be found by considering life as merely a species of 

 energy." 



Darwin, Wallace, and others have endeavoured to account for life in all its forms as the outcome of 

 evolution, and as apart from separate creations. They assume the existence of a primordial germ, but in so doing 

 they take for granted what requires to be proved, as the primordial germ itself has to be accounted for. " Darwin 

 especially imagines that all the present organisms, including man, may have been derived by the process of natural 

 selection from a single primordial germ. When, however, the backward process has reached this germ, an insuperable 

 difficulty presents itself. How was this germ produced ? All really scientific experience tells us that Ufe can be 

 produced from a living antecedent only ; what, then, was the antecedent of this germ ? Hypotheses have no doubt 

 been started, but we cannot regard them in any other light than as an acknowledgment of a difficulty which cannot 

 be overcome. . If, then, the matter of this present visible universe be not capable of itself, that is to say, in 

 virtue of the forces and qualities with which it has been endowed, of generating life, but if we must look to the 

 Unseen Universe for the origin of life, this would appear to show that the peculiar collocation of matter which 

 accompanies the operations of life is not a mere grouping of particles of the visible universe, but implies likewise 

 some peculiarity in the connection of these with the Unseen Universe. May it not denote, in fact, some peculiarity 

 of structure extending to the Unseen ? 



" In fine, to go a step further, may not Ufe denote a pecuUarity of structure which is handed over not merely 

 from one stage to another — from the Invisible to the visible — but which rises upwards from the very lowest 

 structural depths of the material of the universe, this material being regarded as possessed of an iniinitely complex 

 structure ? " 



The infinitely complex structure here referred to would, if accepted, go far to explain the extraordinary 

 changes which occur in spores, seeds, and eggs when impregnated, whereby each produces only its own land. 

 These changes are most numerous and most marked in the development of the higher animals, and while the 

 microscope, chemistry, and physics are whoUy inadequate to deal with them, there is no room for doubt that living 

 matter, as represented by the union of the male and female elements of plants and animals in reproduction and 

 development, varies infinitely. I directed attention to this point as far back as 1873, when I attempted to refute 

 the then prevailing idea that protoplasm and spores, seeds and eggs, were simple, homogeneous substances and 

 fundamentally identical.^ 



Great strides have been made in physiology and in physics since 187.3, and some have gone the length of 

 asserting that the universe as a whole participates in every motion which occurs in even the smallest of atoms. 



" The law of gravitation assures us that any displacement which takes place in the very heart of the earth 

 will be felt throughout the universe, and we may even imagine that the same thing will hold true of those molecular 

 motions which accompany thought. For every thought we think is accompanied by a displacement and motion of 

 the particles of the brain, and we may imagine that somehow these motions are propagated throughout the 

 universe. . . . ' Mr. Babbage has pointed out ^ that if we had power to follow and detect the minutest effects of any 

 disturbance, each particle of existing matter must be a register of all that has happened.' . . 



" We must resort to the Unseen not only for the origin of the molecules of the visible universe, but also for 

 an explanation of the forces which animate these molecules, and not only so, but we are always carried back from 

 one order of the Unseen to another. Now if this be the case— if The Universe be constructed with successive 

 orders of this description connected with one another — it is manifest that no event whatever, whether we regard 

 its antecedent or its consequent, can possibly be confined to one order only, but must spread throughout The 

 Entire Universe." 



This intimate blending of matter and force, which includes the molecular operations of the brain and thought, 

 implies a much more intimate union between the organic and inorganic kingdoms, and between mind and matter, 

 than was considered possible a few years ago. The view, however extravagant it may at first sight appear, is 

 corroborated in several particulars. The recent developments in wireless telegraphy conclusively prove that the 

 atoms with their corpuscles or electrons play a leading role in everything that pertains to the physical universe, 

 and that they can be made the servants of intelligent, modern man. 



The advances recently made in the production and employment of electricity unequivocally point to similar 

 conclusions. While electricity has played and is destined to play a leading part in physics and physiology, its 

 nature and properties are no more understood than are those of the atoms. It is not yet laiown whether electricity 



' "Oii tlii^ Relatioii uf I'laiits and Aninials to Inorganic jMatter and on the Interaction of the Vital and I'hysical Forces ' {Lancet 15th 

 ^ Nintli Bridj^ewatei' Treatise. 



