Nature not Self-originated.

"None of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact quality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Thus we have been led, along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which Science must stop. Not that science is debarred from studying the external mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing back the history of matter, Science is arrested when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and on the other, that it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural.”

Professor CLERK MAXWELL.

"The question of Spontaneous Generation is, I believe, practically set at rest for the scientific world. Place an old boot in a moist place, or expose common paste, or a pot of jam to the air; it soon becomes coated with a blue-green mould, which is nothing else than the fructification of a little plant called Penicillium glaucum. Do not imagine that the mould has sprung spontaneously from boot, or paste, or jam; its germs, which are abundant in the air, have been sown, and have germinated, in as legal and legitimate a way as thistle-seeds wafted by the wind to a proper soil."

Professor J. TYNDALL.

"I am ready to adopt it as an article of scientific faith, true through all space and through all time, that life proceeds from life. and from nothing but life."

Sir W. THOMSON.

The Evolution of the Individual.

"No exception is, at this time, known to the general law, established upon an immense multitude of direct observations, that every living thing is evolved from a particle of matter in which no trace of the distinctive characters of the adult form of that living thing is discernible. This particle is termed a germ. . . . In all animals and plants, above the lowest, the germ is a nucleated cell, using that term in its broadest sense; and the first step in the process of the evolution of the individual is the division of this cell into two or more portions. The process of division is repeated, until the

organism, from being unicellular becomes multicellular. The single cell becomes a cell-aggregate; and it is to the growth and metamorphosis of the cells of the cell-aggregate thus produced, that all the organs and tissues of the adult owe their origin."

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, LL.D.

Let us never forget that Life, as we know it here below, is the antecedent or the cause of organization, and not its product; that the peculiar combinations of matter which are the homes and abodes of Life are prepared and shaped under the control and guidance of that mysterious power which we know as vitality; and that no discovery of science has ever been able to reduce it to a lower level, or to identify it with any purely material force."

The Duke of ARGYLL.

"When a thought passes through the mind, it is associated, as we have now abundant reason for believing, with some change in the protoplasm of the cerebral cells. Are we, therefore, justified in regarding thought as a property of the protoplasm of these cells, in the sense in which we regard muscular contraction as a property of the protoplasm of muscle? or is it really a property residing in something far different, but which may yet need for its manifestation the activity of cerebral protoplasm ?

"If we could see any analogy between thought and any one of the admitted phenomena of matter, we should be justified in accepting the first of these conclusions as the simplest, and as affording a hypothesis most in accordance with the comprehensiveness of natural laws; but between thought and the physical phenomena of matter there is not only no analogy, but there is no conceivable analogy; and the obvious and continuous path which we have hitherto followed up in our reasonings from the phenomena of lifeless matter through those of living matter here comes suddenly to an end. The chasm between unconscious life and thought is deep and impassable, and no transitional phenomena can be found by which as by a bridge we may span it over; for even from irritability, to which, on a superficial view, consciousness may seem related, it is as absolutely distinct as it is from any of the ordinary phenomena of matter."

Professor G. J. ALLMAN.

"To attempt to reckon up the influence which Mr. Darwin's multifarious work has had upon modern thought and modern life in all its phases seems as difficult a task as it would be to count the number and trace the extent of the sound-waves from a park of artillery. The impetus he has given to science, not only in his own, but in other departments, can only find a parallel in Newton. Mr. Darwin's great theory, in some of its parts, may require modification; he himself latterly, we believe,

did not seek to maintain it in all its original integrity. As has been suggested, some greater law may yet be found which will cover Darwinism and take a wider sweep; but, whatever development science may assume, Mr. Darwin will in all the future stand out as one of the giants in scientific thought and scientific investigation."

"THE TIMES."

"It may be admitted that when Professor Darwin's books on the Origin of Species, and on the Descent of Man, first appeared they were largely regarded by religious men as containing a theory necessarily hostile to fundamental truths of religion. A clearer study has greatly modified any such impression. It is seen that, whether the creative activity of God is manifested through catastrophes, as the phrase goes, or in progressive evolution, it is still His creative activity, and the really great questions beyond remain untouched. The evolutionary process, supposing it to exist, must have had a beginning: who began it? It must have had material to work with who furnished it? It is itself a law or system of laws who enacted them? There are apparently three important gaps in the evolutionary sequence which it is well to bear in mind. There is the great gap between the highest animal instinct and the reflective, self-measuring, self-analyzing thought of man. There is the greater gap between life and the most highly organized There is the greatest gap of all between matter and nothing. At these three points, as far as we can see, the Creative Will must have intervened otherwise than by way of evolution out of existing materials to create mind, to create life, to create matter. But, beyond all question, it is our business to respect in science, as in other things, every clearly ascertained report of the senses, for every such report represents a fact, and a fact is sacred as having its place in the Temple of Universal Truth."

matter.

Rev. Canon LIDDON.

"On the whole we must really acknowledge that there is a complete absence of any fossil type of a lower stage in the development of man. Nay, if we gather together the whole sum of the fossil men hitherto known, and put them parallel with those of the present time, we can decidedly pronounce that there are among living men a much greater number of individuals who show a relatively inferior type than there are among the fossils known up to this time. One thing I must say that not a single fossil skull of an ape or of an 'ape-man' has yet been found that could really have belonged to a human being. Every addition to the amount of objects, which we have obtained as materials for discussion, has removed us further from the hypothesis propounded. As a matter of fact, we must positively recognize that there still exists as yet a sharp line of

demarcation between man and the ape.

We cannot teach, we cannot pronounce it to be a conquest of science, that man descends from the ape or from any other animal.”

Professor RUDOLF VIRCHOW.

"We live in an age when young men prattle about Protoplasm and when young ladies in gilded saloons unconsciously talk Atheism." The Earl of BEACONSField.

The Growing Beauty and Fitness of the World.

"The Formation of Vegetable Mould. When we behold a wide turf covered expanse, we should remember that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years, through the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed, the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earth worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures. Some other animals, however, still more lowly organized, namely corals, have done far more conspicuous work, in having constructed innumerable reefs and islands in the great oceans; but these are almost confined to the tropical zones."

CHARLES DARWIN.

"One is constrained to respect the perfection of this world, in which our senses converse. How wide, how rich! What invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man! In its fruitful soils; in its navigable sea; in its mountains of metal and stone; in its forests of all woods; in its animals; in its chemical ingredients; in the powers and path of light, heat, attraction and life, it is well-worth the pith and heart of great men to subdue and enjoy it." R. W. EMERSON.

'There is so much beauty, majesty, and harmony in the order of Nature, so much to fill, satisfy, and tranquillize the mind, that, by those who are accustomed to the contemplation, the notion of an infringement of it will at length be viewed as a sort of profanation and as even shocking--as the mere dream of ignorance, the wild and atrocious absurdity of superstition and enthusiasm.

"DUBLIN REVIEW."

"There is no element of our sensuous nature which yields us greater or more varied pleasure than the perception of colour. Whether we look at the larger physical wholes, the azure heaven above us, the purple sea beneath us, and the green meadows by our side; or at the smaller organic bodies, the brilliant flowers, the crimson foliage of autumn, the gaudily painted butterflies, the beetles clad in burnished gold, the peacock adorned with all the hues of the rainbow, and the humming-birds decked out in ruby, sapphire, and amethyst ;- or again at the transient effects of light in the spectrum, the soap-bubble, the iridescent surface of the opal, the tints of eventide mirrored in the glassy lake ;-in each and every case we feel a thrill of pure and unselfish enjoyment, which no other mere sensuous stimulation is capable of arousing in our breasts. The pleasure of colour is one which raises itself above the common level of monopolist gratification, and attains to the higher plane of æsthetic delight."

"THE COLOUR SENSE."

"The Creator has covered the earth and filled the waters with beauty. Almost every animal and shell, every tree and flower and sea-weed, the mountains, the rivers, the oceans, every phase of day and night, summer and winter-is essentially beautiful. Our sense of Beauty seems to be, not so much a beneficent adaptation to our dwelling-place (like our sense of taste for our food), but rather a filial sympathy with our Great Father's pleasure in His lovely creation; a pleasure which He must have enjoyed millions of years before our race existed, when all the exquisite forms of animal and vegetable life filled the ancient lands and seas of the earliest geologic epochs. Nothing but a preference for beauty, for grace of form, and varied and harmonious colouring, inherent in the Author of the Cosmos, can explain how it comes to pass that Nature is on the whole so refulgent with loveliness."

FRANCES POWER COBBE.

"The world is crowded with beauty. Every air-bell that dances on the water, every crystal that sparkles in a snow-flake, each leaf, flower and fruit, each fish and bird, is a thing of beauty. Not an insect in the air, not a mollusk on the rock, not a creature in pond or ditch, not an animal that browses on the green slopes of the breezy down is destitute of interest, or does not exhibit in its structure the traces of goodness, and the requisite provision for a happy existence. So universal in the world is adaptation, beauty, and benevolence. But, if we look to these for perfection we do not find it. Many improvements are left to the ingenuity of man. earth is ploughed and enriched by him. Our dwellings, no longer mere mud-cabins, are rendered tasteful by his genius, and fitted to human well-being by his wisdom-made perfectly dry, self-ventilating,

The