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In the solar and stellary systems, as to found a theory of hereditary de¬ 
gradation upon any of the known laws of vegetable, or animal life. The 
hypothesis of gradual development—of progressive improvement from 
lower into higher orders, genera and species, is, not only much more 
rational, but accords far better, and more philosophically, with the ex¬ 
perience argument. 
How is the fact of the new and vigorous fruit of trees, reproduced in 
the way above described, or successively reproduced, as it may be, in 
that way, to be reconciled with, the numerous experiments of Mr. Knight 
and other eminent physiologists, which are said to place the wearing-out 
theory ‘beyond the reach of controversy.’ Have any of these gentlemen 
determined the point of exhausted vitality ? Has any of them kept his 
‘crow a thousand years,’ so as to settle the question to the satisfaction of 
the doubting scholastikoi? The experience argument is certainly an im¬ 
portant one, and ought not to be dispensed with in any case where it is 
.at all practically possible. 
But it is seriously contended that we have been violating the laws of 
nature in the cultivation of the potato ‘ by extension;’ that we have been 
seeking to make an individual plant live for ever, when nature designed 
that it should live only for a determinate period. That from parents in¬ 
variably worse than their ancestors, we have perversely sought to get an 
offspring Avithout the hereditary taint. And human ingenuity has so 
completely exhausted itself in theorizing on this subject, that it has 
finally run into a hypothesis of complete exhaustion, from which it seeks, 
no doubt, the ultimate restoration of itself and the species. It is devoutly 
to be wished that the anticipations of its friends may be realized. 
The most rigid and sober conclusion to be drawn from the whole theory 
is, that nature is turning back into a rudimentary state, and will ulti¬ 
mately vanish away into primitive inanity. Instead of a progressive chain 
of advancement from lower organizations into higher; of matter advanc¬ 
ing, in the first instance, from a state so rare as to be almost inanity, or 
infinite diffusion, into a more solid and permanent condition of things ; 
giving rise to vegetable and animal life ; we have the reversed process ; 
a system of general degradation, or regression from higher organizations, 
or conditions, into lower, until we reach the ultimate point in the de¬ 
scending node. It is to be hoped that a vacuum of some sort may be 
