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seen, or does ifc reside only in substance which, from its very 
nature, cannot be seen ? That which can be seen is capable 
of those affections which are now resolved into modes of 
motion. All these affections are produced from without the 
substances thus affected — the affections of life are from within, 
and not from without. They stand in the strong contrast of 
direct opposition to all such affections as colour, or any of its 
kindred. Are they, notwithstanding this, affections of a sub- 
stance identical with that which never changes from within at 
all ? The effort of the advocates who plead in favour of 
molecular generation is to prove that they are, — the difficulties 
that stand in their way are such as go to prove that they are 
affections of a substance which has no quality in common with 
matter strictly so called. If any substance in which life had 
never resided, or from which it could be demonstrated that all 
life had been utterly removed, could be seen to become alive 
of its own accord, we might then begin to consider whether 
life is only an affection of matter. But if what are only thought 
to be the ashes of that which has lived, and which is held to 
be now dead, should begin to move with true life, we see no 
reason to imagine that living substance has there been evolved 
from that which had no life. There is ample room among all 
such “ ashes 39 for abundance of living substance so fine as 
even in the material particles connected with it to be invisible 
under the highest microscopical powers. It would be so far 
otherwise if that which had never lived should become truly 
alive. But it never does. 
1 1 . There is a very patent error by which the advocates of 
this evolution notion are strangely misled. They stop at the 
ovum , or seed , in going back to find the origin of life in the 
individual animal or plant ; or, if they go further, they stop 
at the cell. Now it is clear, from the nature of the case, that 
we must go beyond the cell, and the aggregating molecules 
too, if we would go to the true origin. To show what I mean, 
let us take a seed which has just sprung into its first shoot. 
We presume that no one imagines that there is either seed or 
germinating cell yet in that shoot. The formation of such a 
seed or cell is yet distant in the growth and maturing of that 
plant. There will by-and-by be buds, and all things necessary 
to propagation, but these are not yet. At least, no one can 
imagine his seeing them with even the most powerful of micro- 
scopes. What, then, lies between that stage in the history of 
this plant and that further stage at which germ-cells are formed 
and seeds matured ? Clearly, there must be stages at which 
films shall be formed whose molecules shall be aggregated till 
the germs of future individuals are complete. This must be 
