250 
Flank Attacks on Evolution. 
[May, 
having no definite vital cycle, which are not born, and 
which do not of necessity die.* It may likewise be. shown 
that in lowly animal forms there occur structures not curvi- 
linear in their outlines, but reminding us of the geometrical 
forms of crystals. It is also indisputable that in the diamond, 
a crystal formed of carbon, — the characteristic organic ele- 
ment, — curvature is at least foreshadowed. Still, granting 
all these approximations, or rather perhaps analogies, there 
is a gap between life and crystallisation not easily to be 
filled up. We can take amorphous, shapeless matter, quite 
devoid of individuality, and by very simple manipulations 
we can cause it to crystallise in forms differing according to 
its chemical nature. But so far, it must be frankly con- 
ceded, we have been unable to start life afresh. We must 
have the ovum, the seed, the spore as an initial-point. We 
cannot take animal or vegetable matter, as obtained from 
dead animals or plants, and from it construct even the 
humblest living organism. Still less can we vivify inorganic 
matter. And unless we can perform this latter exploit, all 
the experiments of a Pouchet or a Bastian, even if free 
from the slightest loophole for error, are, ex hypothesis beside 
the real question. 
But admitting all this, provisionally at least, we have to 
ask whether the contrast between crystallisation and life has 
the signification which Mr. Howard and his friends seem to 
find in it, and whether it can be accepted as an argument of 
any weight against the truth of Evolution ? 
It may well be questioned whether any upholder of the 
doCtrine of Development regards crystals as a stepping-stone 
—much less a bridge — between dead, unindividualised mat- 
ter and the plant or the animal, or assumes organisms as 
having arisen from crystals. Lorenz Oken, more than forty 
years ago, taught that the crystal sprang from the fluid drop 
by a process of contraction, flattening down, whilst the 
organism took its departure by the opposite process of ex- 
pansion. Translated into more modern language this means 
that the crystal and the organism do not stand on the same 
ascending line, and that contrasts between them are hence 
naturally to be expected.' 
As for the origin of life we must seek deeper. It may 
perhaps yet be found, though, considering the vast complex- 
ity of the humblest organism as compared with the 
crystal, it may possibly for ever elude human search. But 
taking the worst case : supposing that life took its rise, as 
Journal of Science, 1882, p. 401. 
