110 LIFE PHENOMENA : SOME NOTES ON NITELLA, ETC. 
about. There is a something working for a stated and 
defined purpose, and with a stated and defined object in view, 
or those varied phenomena would never be regulated in the 
precise way that they are, or made to accomplish, without 
any exception, the precise ends which they do accomplish, 
and which, we must bear in mind, must also have been in 
view from the very commencement. If the process is not 
commenced according to a definite plan, if any flaw happen 
during the varied changes, if throughout from beginning to 
end there be any removal from a definite line of action, hour 
after hour, and day after day, all through the tedious com¬ 
plicated and lengthened process—why, the definite object 
in view could never be accomplished. It is accomplished ! 
And I ask intelligent reason if we are still to accept 
with any truthful correctness of conclusion, that all that is 
necessary is but some blind chance circumstance ! or but 
some blind fortuitous acting and interacting of atom upon 
atom! dead, lifeless, inorganic atom upon atom, aided, if you 
like, by some one or other of the ordinary unconscious 
and unintelligent force agencies, and all or any of those in¬ 
tricate life phenomena will be accomplished. 
“ Know ye ! how opens up the seed ! and how the plant up grows ! 
How soft and green in sweet spring tide, ’tis ripe ere summer’s close!— 
How in the downy covert of the swift-winged swallow’s nest, 
Instinct ! to mother love, expands the gentle creature’s breast! 
And how, beneath the shelter of the fragile ovate shell, 
A winged germ takes life ! one day ! and quits its narrow cell! 
Know ye how !”— Deschamp. 
Will the blind acting of molecule upon molecule do this ? 
Can these ordain that this shall occur and it does occur ? 
Can these determine that this precise result is to he ob¬ 
tained and it is obtained ? Or will the assistance of physical 
or chemical force, acting even in unison, bring these things 
about, that such and such results shall occur, in the precise 
way they do occur, and accomplish the precise plan and 
purpose and fulfilment, that we know is always accom¬ 
plished, and which is ever needful for the correct building 
up and maintaining of all vegetable and animal life. We 
say no ! We say that these forces can never do this in 
themselves, because we see that they have never been known 
to be capable of controlling, and guiding, and directing 
their ownselves, or of determining themselves in any manner 
whatever, according to plan, or for any definite purpose, or 
for the accomplishment of any definite object in view. No 
where in the inorganic world do we find such results as these 
accomplished. Life must ever come from pre-existing life ! 
