Vestiges of Creation. 959 



be led by a competent instructor ; and prejudiced — deeply prejudiced 

 we confess — against the Lamarckian philosophy, we were yet pre- 

 pared to reap an abundant harvest of facts, whatever might be the 

 fallacy of the inferences. Behold, then, our astonishment, when we 

 found the volume before us to be little better than an assemblage of 

 statements, the greater part of which science has over and over again 

 rejected, as incapable of proof ; a work of shreds and patches ; 

 the philosophy of Lamarck being the thread by which they are united : 

 but the author appears to be no zoologist, botanist, philosopher, nor 

 reasoner, hence his illustrations seem for ever militating against his 

 hypothesis : such, at least, is our impression, but that the reader may 

 form his own opinion on this point, we select those illustrations which 

 the author appears to cherish as most conclusive. 



We first select an instance of "the life-originating power at work" 

 in the Vegetable Kingdom. " When lime is laid down on a piece of 

 waste moss ground, a crop of white clover, for which no seeds were 

 sown, is the consequence, the common explanation is, that the seed 

 have been dormant there for an unknown time, and were stimulated 

 into germination when the lime produced the appropriate circum- 

 stances. How is it possible to be satisfied with this hypothesis, when 

 we know (as in an authentic case under my notice) that the spot is 

 many miles from where clover is cultivated, and that there is nothing 

 for six feet below but pure peat moss, clover seeds being, moreover, 

 known to be too heavy to be transported, as many other seeds are, by 

 the winds?" — p. 181. Now, if the reader is willing to believe the 

 clover was created by some chemical action incident on the laying 

 down of the lime, we have no particular objection ; we do not parti- 

 cipate in the belief, certainly, but that is immaterial. We allow the 

 author the full benefit of the supposition, that Trifolium repens, a 

 phaenogamous papilionaceous plant, standing high in the natural sys- 

 tem, was created by the chemical action ; and then, we ask, is not 

 such an admission directly opposed to the progressive development 

 hypothesis, which w T ould require that the plant should have been 

 called into existence as a simple cell, that it should then become an 

 alga, subsequently a moss, a fern, a grass, and so upwards, until it 

 arrived at its legitimate place in the system ? 



Our next example of " the life- originating power at work " is in 

 the Animal Kingdom, and no less than the notable creation of 

 Acari by Crosse and Weekes. " For the presumption that an act of 

 aboriginal creation did take place, there is this to be said, that, in 

 Mr. Weekes's experiment, every care that ingenuity could devise was 



