r; and it
would have been ingeniously explained to you how the angular offspring
of this eight-sided ancestor had developed themselves, by force of
circumstances, into their distinct metallic perfections; how the galena
had become gray and brittle under prolonged subterranean heat, and the
gold yellow and ductile, as it was rolled among the pebbles of
amber-colored streams.

60. By the denial to these structures of any individually reproductive
energy, you are forced to accept the inexplicable (and why expect it to
be otherwise than inexplicable?) fact, of the formation of a series of
bodies having very similar aspects, qualities, and chemical relations
to other substances, which yet have no connection whatever with each
other, and are governed, in their relation with their native rocks, by
entirely arbitrary laws. It has been the pride of modern chemistry to
extricate herself from the vanity of the alchemist, and to admit, with
resignation, the independent, though apparently fraternal, natures, of
silver, of lead, of platinum,--aluminium,--potassium. Hence, a rational
philosophy would deduce the probability that when the arborescence of
dead crystallization rose into the radiation of the living tree, and
sentient plume, the splendor of nature in her more exalted power would
not be restricted to a less variety of design; and the beautiful
caprice in which she gave to the silver its frost and to the opal its
fire, would not be subdued under the slow influences of accident and
time, when she wreathed the swan with snow, and bathed the dove in
iridescence. That the infinitely more exalted powers of life must
exercise more intimate influence over matter than the reckless forces
of cohesion;--and that the loves and hatreds of the now conscious
creatures would modify their forms into parallel beauty and
degradation, we might have anticipated by reason, and we ought long
since to have known by observation. But this law of its spirit over the
substance of the creature involves, necessarily, the indistinctness of
its type, and the existence of inferior and of higher conditions, which
whole eras of heroism and affection--whole eras of misery and
misconduct,--confirm into glory, or confuse into shame. Collecting the
causes of changed form, in lower creatures, by distress, or by
adaptation,--by the disturbance or intensifying of the parental
strength, and the native fortune--the wonder is, not that species
should sometimes be conf