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REPLY BY MR. WHEATLEY. 
I beg to be allowed the gratification of returning thanks for the kindness 
with which my paper was received ; and I will be as brief as possible in 
answering such objections as were raised to some of the arguments contained 
in it. 
I can only reply to Mr. Eeddie by saying that he is right in not considering 
Dr. Odling “ denies, or intends to deny, the divine origin of life,” in the 
words quoted. I gave them solely to remark that whatever argument he 
might build upon them would be unreliable, as it seemed to me the definition 
he gave of vital force was not correct ; by which I meant, it was not in 
accordance with my own ideas as a believer in it ; and I think (from what he 
says he can make out of the physiologists’ meaning as to vital force) that he 
misrepresents the notions any believer has of it. 
Mr. Waddy does not think that identically the same acarus was produced 
by the experiments of Mr. Crosse and Mr. Weeks from different solutions. 
My authority for the assertion is not either of those gentlemen, but the 
author of the Vestiges of Creation , who says, “ The insects produced by 
both experimentalists seem to have been the same — a species of acarus, 
minute and semi-transparent, and furnished with long bristles, which can 
only be seen by the aid of the microscope.” A species — each individual 
described alike. If this be true, the deduction from my argument is true 
also : and true I presumed it to be from the circumstantial specification of 
the animals. 
Mr. Warington considers I am in error on several occasions. He observes, 
u Mr. Wheatley has used an argument with regard to new creations which I 
confess I am utterly unable to see the force of. He says that if we can show 
some few creations have existed from the very beginning up to the present 
time unchanged, all necessity for a new creation is therefore done away with.” 
Surely if any genera are proved to exist from the beginning, so far as geology 
has reached, there can be no necessity for new creations ; because, since any 
were, all could have been originally created together. What could have been 
may have been, and subsequent necessity ends. Mr. Warington continues : 
“ How does he account for the extinction of certain animals ? Because, he 
says, circumstances have altered. But on the same evidence we are bound 
to believe that others have come in.” It appears to me a very decided non 
sequitur that, because altered circumstances have destroyed one form, another 
and different form should be built up. I do not see the sequence. “We 
are bound to believe,” again says Mr. Warington, “ that new ones have made 
their appearance in the world in some way or other since the first beginning 
of creation, and that some old ones have passed away. No one who knew 
geology practically would deny that.” I do know some little of geology, 
