34 
distance from those we can make, as the distinction between 
living and dead. If we could even do this, how are we to 
perfect the work by infusing the vital principle ? 
When the electric force is brought to bear on chemistry, 
may there not be better hope of success in the attempt to 
make life ? Admitted that electrical action and chemical 
action bear direct relation to each other — that during the 
decomposition of each equivalent of a compound, a constant 
quantity of electricity is evolved — any speculation on the 
chemical and electrical action on each other is immaterial. It 
suffices that the electric force works in conjunction with the 
chemical elements. To my mind, the experiments of M. 
Pasteur most conclusively negatived those of Mr. Crosse and 
Mr. Weeks, who found a species of acarus appear in solutions 
of nitrate of copper, silicate of potash, and ferro-cyanate of 
potassium — on which a powerful battery was brought to bear. 
A pretence of creative power was thereupon sought to be 
established. May there not be an attempt to prove rather too 
much here ? Three distinct solutions, acted upon by electri- 
city, each disengaged the same form of life. If the forces em- 
ployed, the solutions used, and the surrounding conditions, are 
all precisely the same, to the greatest possible exactitude, it is 
quite comprehensible how the same creature should appear, 
supposing that any could. But it is surely incredible that by 
the employment of various media, the same animal appeared, 
unless on the supposition of the introduction of germs from 
outside. 
Mr. Milton, speaking of the relation between electricity 
and the vital power in connection with the human frame, 
says, he thinks it possible, “ that under certain circumstances, 
the one becomes the other.” I do not understand how this 
can be. We cannot argue from any abnormal condition of 
the frame ; but taking the whole to be instinct with life, the 
nervous system will interfere with that theory; for the ar- 
rangement of the nerves is such that there does not appear 
to be any perfect circuit; wherefore, as electricity has no 
means of circulating, it cannot, under any concurrence of 
events, ever become life where the nervous system is part of 
the organization. 
Let us turn for a few minutes to geology ; for though it 
makes no pretension to account for the origin of life on the 
globe, it yet deals somewhat liberally with successive re- 
introductions of life. 
It can hardly be disputed that the earth's strata are 
volumes of deep learning — studies worthy intellectual man. 
But, for the most part, its expositions go far beyond its real 
