LIVING GOD OF LIVING NATURE FROM THE SCIENCE SIDE. 277 



•changes in living matter been rendered possible by great 

 improvements in our means of investigation, by which results 

 of great interest to all intelligent persons, have been obtained, 

 and broad general scientific principles of importance with 

 reference to vital action all through living nature, established, 

 the application of which to our life world is not yet realized by 

 the public. 



To prove the exercise of Infinite Power as contrasted with 

 the operation of physical law, or of physical and chemical 

 properties of matter, one has but to examine under the 

 microscope the living matter of the germ of a living organism, 

 at an early period of its development — the very young leaves of 

 a leaf bud or petals of a fiower bud, or to study the germination of 

 a common nnistard or other seed in a thin layer of water, or 

 the vital movements to be seen in a particle of the living matter 

 of blood, mucu«, or pus. All attempts to show that the 

 wonderful vital movements of living matter can be included in 

 the physical category, have failed, and must ever fail. 



Modern forms of evolution, and evolution by law, as advocated 

 by some, seem to be a progressive experimental process, perhaps 

 never to be completed — inasmuch as some of the evolved soon 

 die, while others having been created " more fit," are supposed 

 to have survived in the so-called struggle for life, and the 

 progeny of the latter, it is concluded, would continue to improve 

 and advance, generation after generation, without ceasing. 



By some, living nature would seem to be looked upon as a 

 vast well-found laboratory, or as an elaborate machine in which 

 experimental creation was always proceeding of its own accord, 

 without any power corresponding to human intelligence, 

 direction, or power. 



The great " laboratory of nature " is supposed to contain 

 abundance of the ingredients entering into the composition of 

 the bodies of the living things about to be formed, or the means 

 of producing them spontaneously; there being in this great 

 natural laboratory no professor or assistants, the substances 

 necessary must have the power of taking up their proper 

 positions, of arranging themselves, and of moving towards one 

 another in the exact proportions ; so that when the atoms come 

 within the spheres of their mutual attraction, they may combine 

 to form the required chemical compounds. The physical forces, 

 or the forces denominated vital, then manifest themselves, and 

 the living properties of the new atomic aggregations develope. 



The Professor of Physics of Tufts College, Massachusetts, does 

 not hesitate to suggest that when " chemists shall be able to 



