463 
1884.] On Electricity and its Present Applications. 
In connection with this subject, it is only a few years 
since theie laged a long and vehement controversy on what 
was called spontaneous generation, one party affirming and 
the other denying that the forces of Nature alone, more 
especially Electricity, can originate life and organisation in 
dead matter. But, after years of laborious and well-direCted 
experiment and investigation, the conclusion acquiesced in 
by all but a few of the most prejudiced partizans is that not 
e\ en the minutest monad can be produced, except from a 
parent or previously existing individual of the same kind. 
Crod s method, however, and His ordained laws in the never- 
ceasing and exuberant creation and evolution — to use the 
new term— of all living things, are beyond the reach of our 
penetiation, notwithstanding the gradual advances that are 
appaiently being made in this direction by savants and theo- 
logians. Such are “ the depths of the riches both of the 
wisdom and the knowledge of God ; how unsearchable are 
His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! ” — Rom 
xi., 33 - 
As a fair specimen of the reasoning and drift of those who 
support the idea of spontaneous generation, I shall quote 
the words of an article on the “ Relation of Darwinism to 
other Branches of Science,” by Mr. Ball, the Astronomer 
Royal for Ireland, in the November number (p. 83) of 
“ Longman’s Magazine ” “ At the outset of Darwin’s 
theory,” he says, “we encounter a very celebrated difficulty. 
His theory requires life to begin with, but how did that life 
originate ? I need hardly remind you of the celebrated 
controversy which has taken place on this subject. It has 
been contended that life can never be produced except from 
life, but just as stoutly has the opposite view been main- 
tained. Can it be possible that the wondrous and complex 
phenomena known as life are purely material ? Can a par- 
ticle of matter, which consists only of a definite number of 
atoms of definite chemical composition, manifest any of 
those characters which characterise life ?”.... 
“ Unusual, indeed, must be the circumstances which will 
have brought about such a combination of atoms as to form 
the first organic being. But great events are always uni- 
versal. Because we cannot repeatedly make an organised 
being from inert matter in our test-tubes, are we to say that 
such an event can never once have occurred with the infinite 
opportunities of Nature ? We have in Nature the most 
varied conditions of temperature, of pressure, and of che- 
mical composition. Every corner of the earth and of the 
ocean has been the laboratory in which these experiments 
