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what pretends to be an enormous antiquity for the world, and 
a number of successive appearances of new forms of life. 
This is quite fanciful ; as may be easily conceded when we 
reflect, that geological science is yet unsettled in its own 
principles : it cannot, therefore, be accounted a safe guide 
when it plunges into conjecture. 
The occurrence of all those broken-up patches of living 
things, or successive and multitudinous developments, are 
extraordinary enough. But, as if to exhaust completely and 
effectually the last remnant of our unsuspecting trust, we are 
called upon to believe, that, after all the vast numbers of 
changes at which I have hinted had turned up, there was a 
sudden cessation. It is not denied, that since man was on the 
earth there is other change in the material world than re- 
arrangement of parts. Why should this be so ? Why innu- 
merable combinations to effect such immense works — and 
then no more? We are told, all the life we see, and much 
besides, was furnished by the inorganic. Why did it stop ? 
As the result of mind, we could understand it ; as the result 
of the mindless, I know not by what line of argument it can 
be maintained. It is perfectly explicable by the doctrine of 
one creation, for that implies a continuous act till complete ; 
but under these lingering appearances, reason is at fault. Dr. 
Odling calls vital force a “ fiction ” ; yet, making the assertion 
unreservedly, he fails to give us any insight into the original 
generation of life. He obtains organic compounds from inor- 
ganic substances. The experiments are interesting and useful. 
But every believer in the Bible is as well satisfied of the 
inorganic origin of his body, as the greatest chemist. 
In Animal Chemistry we further read : — 
I have shown you that in the organism of the plant, carbonic acid and 
water are submitted to a constant deoxidising change, whereby they become 
successively converted into more and more complex bodies ; many of which 
we are now able to produce ; all of which we hope some day to produce 
by similar processes in the laboratory; that the change in composition under- 
gone by carbonic acid and water is attended by a storing up of solar force in 
the resulting products ; and that the correlative change in composition under- 
gone by these products into water and carbonic acid is attended by a 
liberation of the force stored up in them ; that in every organ of the animal 
body oxidation is continually taking place to furnish that organ with the 
force necessary for the performance both of its nutritive acts and external 
manifestations. 
In the first part of this paragraph, we have deoxidation pro- 
ducing more and more complex bodies. In the latter part, we 
