1 873*1 New Facts concerning the Diamond. 437 



mental delusion, a dream which will never be realised. A 

 little consideration might satisfy anyone that chemistry and 

 physics will never explain the mystery of nature. 



It must be obvious that nothing which can be determined 

 by the comparative anatomist, no biological researches, no 

 microscopic investigations, no considerations regarding 

 natural selection or the survival of the fittest, can solve the 

 great problem of nature ; for it lies in the background of all 

 such investigations. The problem is molecular. From the 

 hugest plant and animal on the globe down to the smallest 

 organic speck visible under the microscope, all have been 

 built up molecule by molecule ; and the problem is, to 

 explain this molecular process. If one plant or animal 

 differs from another, or the parent from the child, it is 

 because in the building-up process the determinations of 

 molecular motion were different in the two cases ; and the 

 true and fundamental ground of the difference must be 

 sought for in the cause of the determination of molecular 

 motion. Here in this region the doctrine of natural selec- 

 tion and the struggle for existence can afford no more light 

 on the matter than the fortuitous concourse of atoms and 

 the atomical philosophy of the ancients. 



The next part of Mr. CrolPs paper, the publication 

 of which has been unavoidably delayed, will consist of 

 an examination of the arguments which have been advanced 

 by evolutionists in support of their fundamental hypothesis, 

 " that the whole world, living and not living, is the result 

 of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the 

 forces possessed by the molecules of which the primitive 

 nebulosity of the universe was composed." 



II. SOME NEW FACTS CONCERNING THE 

 DIAMOND. 



^&L HILST our knowledge of the modes of formation 

 of other gems is so rapidly advancing that the 

 time does not seem to be very distant when the 

 chemist in his laboratory will be able to produce them 

 artificially — if not in large, at all events in microscopic 

 crystals, — the origin and mode of formation of the diamond 

 is shrouded in apparently inexplicable mystery. It is 

 vol. in. (n.s.) 3 l 



