en to wish true. We are told that "life in its higher forms is not
an immaterial entity, _nor the result_ of a special form of _force
termed vital_, but, that it is a group of co-ordinated functions." Then
what correllated the force? If it was not vitality what was it? But this
is just equivalent to saying that life does not proceed from life. So,
in the realm of inertia or death, without a God and without life, some
kind of a mechanical operation among dead atoms took place which
produced "a certain chemico-physical constitution of amorphous
matter--on that albuminous substance called sarcode or protoplasm,"
which evolved more than was involved, or brought organic life out of
dead inorganic matter. But life is simply a "mode," or "degree of
motion?" But we are curious to know just here whether the advocates of
this system of things do not believe that there always was a degree of
motion. Perchance they do, but then they certainly can't believe that
this particular degree or mode of motion which they called _life_ was
eternal. So, then, a degree of motion is life, and a degree of motion is
not life. This thing of confounding life with motion I'm thinking leads
to difficulty. I can see how motion may be the result of life, but just
how it is _life itself_ I can't see quite so well. Is cause and effect
the same?

We have a most remarkable, and yet a natural, concession made in the way
in which men who feel the weakness of their cause generally make
concessions. It is a statement said to be made by Baron Liebig; it is
this: "Geological investigations have established the fact of a
beginning of life (?) upon the earth, which leaves no doubt that it can
only have arisen naturally and from inorganic forces, and _it is
perfectly indifferent whether or not we observe such a process now_."
This statement is untrue as respects geological facts. But the
concession is, that spontaneous generation is not to be an observed
fact. "Perfectly indifferent whether or not we observe such a process
now?" Well, it never was observed. Mr. Liebig's statement doubtless
proceeds from the conviction that the system is never to be established
by observation. It is simple imagination. Virchow says: "We can _only
imagine_ that at certain periods of the development of the earth unusual
conditions existed, under which the elements entering into new
combinations acquired in statu nascente vital motions, so that the usual
mechanical conditions were tran