284 METAMOKPHOSES OF MAN, ETC. 



bones instead of phosphate of lime; and plants and 

 animals, instead of mere inorganic lifeless masses. 



All force is blind, and must necessarily be directed. 

 In order to produce a certain determinate species and 

 not a kindred one, in order to avoid being lost amid 

 the various paths of metamorphosis and geneagenesis, 

 it is requisite that even life itself should be placed 

 beneath the control of something still superior. 



This something is the specific nature of each being, 

 that which each plant and animal has received from 

 its ancestors, through the intermediation of the seed 

 or ovum from which it was produced, and which it 

 will transmit to its descendants by the intermediation 

 of the germs which it gives rise to in its turn. If we 

 could go back for generations and ages, we should 

 still find the same questions presenting themselves, 

 and invariably similar facts would give rise to like 

 replies. In order to explain organic nature, it would 

 be necessary to refer to the very origin of all things. 



But here, observation and experiment, those two 

 guides which human science ought never to lose sight of, 

 are absolutely unavailing. The true philosopher feels 

 compelled to pause, lest he should set his foot in a 

 land of hypotheses and conceptions, where it is so easy 

 to wander from the proper path, and where truth itself 

 — supposing it to be attainable — cannot be distin- 

 guished by any certain test." 



THE END. 



COX AND WYMAN, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 



