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58. But further: supposing a living being of the lowest 
type could be constructed in the laboratory, does this bring us 
one atom nearer to the point at issue ? The real question is, 
whence comes living matter? and what is the distinction 
between it and non-living matter ? There our opponents, 
being the judges, differ toto coelo from each other. Is there any 
evidence that matter which has never lived, can be made to 
pass into living forms ? Till this can be shown, the mere 
formation of a being in the laboratory, which possesses the lowest 
form of life, proves nothing. The only adequate solution of 
this question on the pantheistic and atheistic side is proof 
positive that life is a mode of motion, and nothing else. This 
proof has certainly not yet been adduced, and even if it could 
be found, there is yet a further question which demands an 
answer ; viz. how, whence, and where has originated this peculiar 
modification of motion which constitutes life; and how has 
it come into existence at the favourable moment for its 
existence ? Had it not been favourable, the feeble germ 
would have been crushed by the mighty powers of nature in 
the struggle for existence. All this and much more must be 
answered before it can be proved, that mechanical or chemical 
forces can become vital ones by any powers which they possess 
of self-transmutation. 
59. Our author endeavours to evade the question by con- 
cealing it behind a mass of scientific jargon. He says: — 
“ Life is only a special, viz. the most complicated, form of 
mechanics. A part of the sum total of matter emerges from 
time to time out of the usual course of its motions into special 
thermico-organic combinations; and after having for a time 
continued therein, it returns again to the general modes of 
motion.” 
60. When we are famishing for scientific bread, it is cruel 
for philosophy to throw us a stone. As an account of the 
matter we are considering, part of the above sentence is unin- 
telligible, and the remainder attempts to answer one difficulty 
by raising others far greater. 
61. The perusal of this work affords a striking proof that the 
philosophers in whose names it is written were far from being 
satisfied with their position, even after they had obtained 
possession of an inorganic cell, from whence they might 
commence the operation of creating the various forms of 
organic life, of which man is the crown. They felt deeply, in the 
words of our author, “that no acorn ever produces a fig; that 
a fish always produces a fish, and never a bird or a reptile; a 
sheep always produces a sheep, and never a bull or a goat.” 
