230 
By putting into the soil the appropriate seeds. That is to say, the matter 
of the field and the matter of the air, by which it is surrounded, would not 
of themselves form any plant. In order to determine the inherent powers of 
the matter itself to form any particular plant, it requires the presence of a 
seed, that is to say of a certain germ — a certain organism derived from a 
previous plant of the same species, the result of which is, that the presence of 
that germ, by some inscrutable power residing in it, determines the action o 
those forces by which the various elements of which the earth and air are 
composed, unite together, so as to form that particular plant. A great deal 
has been said about protoplasm as the physical basis of life, and it is per- 
fectly true that in order to form an organized being, protoplasm is neces- 
sary ; but the protoplasm itself is not able to produce the organized being, 
except under such an influence as arises from the presence of an ele- 
ment derived from a plant or animal of the same species. The presence 
of such an element is necessary to call into action the organic forces— the 
merely material forces — of the matter itself, so as to produce the plant or animal 
in question. Now there is not a particle of reliable evidence that the most 
simple monad — the simplest organic plant or animal — was ever produced by 
the mere concurrence of inorganic particles. All the reliable evidence goes 
entirely the other way. If only sufficient means are taken to exclude the 
possibility of the presence of a germ derived from a similar organism, no 
organism will be formed, although the materials to produce it may be 
present in close proximity to each other, and so apt to run into those 
combinations which will produce the organization in question that the mere 
presence of a germ is alone necessary to cause that production to go on with 
the greatest rapidity. Therefore, so far as evidence goes, there is no evi- 
dence whatever that the inorganic matter possesses the property of combina- 
tion of itself, of its own accord, to form even the most simple and lowly 
organized being in existence ; and as we go higher in the scale of organization 
the difficulties are greater still. It appears to me that there is no sufficient 
ground for assuming the possibility of matter itself producing any organized 
being without an influence derived from a previous organization of the same 
kind : if this be the case, we must go back ad infinitum, and we cannot come 
to any logical conclusion except that the first organism, or the first element, 
which was capable of producing the formation of a. given organism, must have 
been originally the subject of creation. With regard to the doctrine of evolu- 
tion, the only thing that needs to be said is, that no one can deny that the 
Divine Will, with regard to the successive formation of organisms, may have 
worked in that way or in any other way ; we cannot limit the Divine power, 
and we must admit that it is quite possible that successive developments 
from a lower to a higher form of organization have been made. The exist- 
ence of such a slate of things is quite compatible with Divine power, but we 
have no evidence that Divine power worked in that way : it is quite possible 
that it might have done so, but evidence that it has is absolutely wanting. 
Rev. A. Black. — I seems to me that one argument which Mr. McDougall 
