33 
in which it was first seen for ever interposed an impassable 
gulf between that portion of creation which felt the living 
breath of the Eternal and that which was destined to remain 
inert.* 
If life can be generated by the inorganic — of course, it 
produces the forms of the living. Crystallography has been 
appealed to as evidence that nature does evoke regularity of 
shapes from the shapeless ; and that man can imitate nature 
with her own materials. It is quite true. Nature's only 
regular form is the crystal; and though there are several 
primaries, and a multitude of secondaries, they are all solid 
bodies, having plane and smooth surfaces. In carbonate of 
lime, for instance, these secondary forms are amazingly nume- 
rous. Pseudomorphous forms arise ; but the laws of crystallo- 
graphy are for all practical purposes irrefragable. 
This science does not appear to yield very satisfactory evi- 
dence in favour of what we may call Artificial Life. Crystals 
are made, artificially, through electric agency ; and it is hardly 
possible to conceive anything more distinct from the forms of 
organic bodies. The crystal is a solid with plane surfaces ; — 
and the organized structure, from the lowest and most simple 
examples to the highest and most complicated — whether 
plant or animal — has a more or less membered form, whose 
boundaries are curved lines, and whose surfaces are either 
concave or convex, — as widely different from crystallization 
as arctic from tropic. 
Does it follow that, because we can make one of nature's 
products from nature's materials, we can make the forms of life, 
which we have no right to assume nature itself ever made ? 
Even could we find the most remote trace of such a thing, our 
making the insentient crystals would by no means infer the 
capacity for producing other forms, at such an immeasurable 
* Dr. Odling’s Animal Chemistry has just come under my notice. I 
hope, hereafter, to give a more detailed reply to this, and one or two other 
works of strong materialistic tendencies. The only observation there is now 
time to make, is, that on casually opening the work just named, I came upon 
the following passage. Speaking of vital force, Dr. Odling says, — “ So far 
as I can make out, it seems to be a sort of internal, intransferable, immeasur- 
able, self-originating power.” — I believe it to be internal, not intransferable, 
immeasurable, not self-originating. If this view be correct, any train of 
argument, founded on Dr. Odling’s idea, must be utterly inconclusive ; there 
being no more evidence of self-originating vital power than of self-originat- 
ing matter. — I think before any argument can be raised on self-origination, 
a definite meaning should be given to the phrase. It would avoid much 
misconstruction ; and, if I mistake not, greatly simplify the present question. 
VOL. III. D 
