form of a bird and fly and sing through the air! It is a weighty consideration that, as an organism, matter is never seen except as a living structure. This one fact proves be must have been awfully intense, and the fact indicates that an indescribable war among the atoms once existed. Oxygen, being one half the matter of the earth, because of its varying affinities for the elements of the other half, genera-yond the possibility of contradiction, that life is the cause ted and long sustained this conflict. These forces of matter have not been destroyed, their active operations have been only partially suspended in a state of equilibrium; and according to both science and revelation the fire is now kept in store for dissolving earth's rocky masses, and by an all-pervading, fervent heat, remanding the matter of the globe back again to its elemental condition. This baptism of fire may be the completion of a cycle of time. This has been, and is, and is yet to be, largely a fiery universe. It is probable that the matter of the globe continued in its condition of fire-mist during a long period of time-say four or five thousand years-and then it gradually became an incandescent mass, enveloped in clouds of hot vapor. I now inquire: In such a furnace of atoms and in such an ocean of fiery billows, could any kind or form of organic life known to us have existed? Could it have existed for a moment, to say nothing of the seethings of thousands of years? If at that time vitality was a part of the globe it must have inhered in the white hot atoms of the fiery spray. Materialists are welcome to their assumption that such was the case. Let us give to this igneous mass of matter some thousands of years more-say five, ten or twenty-and note the effects produced by the operation of its own laws and forces. I find that oxygen has in vast quantities united with silicon, and formed what is now the granite crust of the earth; oxygen has united with hydrogen and oceans appear; oxygen has united with carbon and heavy clouds of carbonic acid, miles deep, envelop the globe like a black swaddling cloth. It is probable that such a cloud envelops Jupiter today, concealing from us the body of that planet. Oxygen mixed with nitrogen, formed the air which rested upon the heavier cloud of carbonic acid gas. Oxygen united with iron, copper, sulphur, calcium, and the accumulation of metals and minerals began. This powerful element king, constituting, I repeat, one half the matter of the globe, is everywhere, and every other atom feels its power. Other elements are also at work. Chlorine unites with sodium and salt is formed: nitrogen and hydrogen give us ammonia; oxygen and sulphur, the oil of vitriol, and thus the action and reaction, and interaction of atoms, molecules and masses sustain among themselves an indescribable conflict. As Pope says: "All subsists by elemental strife." Matter, under the operation of its laws, has given us the waters of the globe, its rocks, its mountains, the earth, the air, with the phenomena of winds, waves, earthquakes, volcanoes, and the numberless chemical changes which are constantly going on. The elemental atoms can never change. Oxygen must be now exactly what it has ever been. The least modification of this substance would destroy the air, the waters of the globe, and so change every other part that earth would be unfit for man's habitation. But matter is absolutely perfect for the purpose of its creation; and the Creator has endowed each atom with such properties and forces, that it cannot be changed. During all the ages of the past, matter has been the matter it is now, and nothing else. We may examine matter in all its myriad forms—in its elemental state, or as molecular aggregations of atoms, or as a combination of molecules, or as a heterogeneous mass, or in the crystalline form, or as a celloid substance, or as a gas, a solid, or a liquid, and not the slightest trace of vitality or organism can be detected in it. Were we not so familiar with the organic world, the sight of matter wrought into a structure would strike the mind as wonderful. How strange that earth should take on the and the basis of organic bodies. Without a pre-existing vital principle, an organism cannot exist. On this rock vitalists may stand and defy opposition. Suppose we should see school-boys take bricks, and try to draw out of them wings that they might fly like birds, or fins that they might swim like fishes, or legs that they might run like squirrels, we would say of the youngsters that they had lively imaginations, but not much practical sense, and that they would not succeed. Supposing also we should see the learned materialists of America, France, England, and Germany, undertake out of a brick, or out of any kind of matter on the globe, to spin a hair, or form a grain of mustard seed, or construct a bone, a muscle, or a nerve, or even a speck of bioplasm, we would say these Huxleys, Tyndalls, Spencers, Hacckles, and Helmholtz's, were men of lively imagination, but that they were engaged in a hopeless undertaking. The boys would be quite as successful with their bricks as the scientists in their attempts to work any kind of matter into a living structure. The boys and their bricks are matters of mere supposition, but volumes would be required to make a record of the serious attempts materialists have put forth, using all the resources of the laboratory, to form of matter living structures—but always in vain. They, and their work, in reference to results, deserve to be classed with the boys and their bricks. We are now touching a question of fact; a fact, too, of the first importance. If life is a property of matter, the fact would have been ere now palpably demonstrated. Let us hear Prof. Tyndall on the subject. The following are the closing words of his recent lecture on the "Origin of Life" before the Royal Institution in London. He said: "This discourse is but a summing of eight months of incessant labor. From the beginning to the end of the inquiry there is not, as you have seen, a shadow of evidence in favor of spontaneous generation. There is, on the contrary, overwhelming evidence against it; but do not carry away with you the notion sometimes erroneously ascribed to me, that I deem spontaneous generation 'impossible,' or that I wish to limit the power of matter in relation to life. My views on this subject ought to be well known. But possibility is one thing, and proof is another; and when in our day I seek for experimental evidence of the transformation of the non-living into the living, I am led inexorably to the conclusion that no such evidence exists, and that in the lowest, as in the highest of organized creatures, the method of nature is that life shall be the issue of antecedent life." On this subject Tyndall is an extraordinarily good witness, inasmuch as he earnestly desires that spontaneous generation may be true. It is the missing link in the chain of his philosophy. If that gap were firmly closed with an indisputable fact, materialists would command the field. But to-day all the facts are against them. Prof. Bastian, Haeckel, and others have coaxed and tortured all sorts of matter to induce it to give forth life, but in vain. In the face of a multitude of facts-facts the most favorable to the cause of materialism that the genius of man could combine, Prof. Tyndall is inexorably led to the conclusion that the method of nature "is that life shall be the issue of antecedent life." It as fully accords with observation and experience that fire should flash from a fragment of ice, that a figure should be at the same time a circle and a square, or that a stone should take on wings and fly, and sing like a bird, as that matter should give the least evidence that it possesses vitality as a property, or that it has the power of self-organization. as a piece of optical mechanism, is composed of many distinct pieces, every one of which by itself would be worthless for the purposes of vision, but, put together as they are by some intelligence, they form a perfect optical instrument. In its construction a complex plan, or rather a series of plans, were carried into effect. There was first, a proper formation of each part by itself; second, the formation of each part in reference to all the other parts; third, their adjustment to the luminiferous ether; fourth, their adjustment to external objects; fifth, to the vital or mental part of the organism. A clear conception of the organic world would embrace a perfect knowledge of anatomy, physiology, animal and vegetable chemistry, botany, and natural history. The vastness and variety of facts connected with this subject surpass the knowledge of any man. We can but see in it a bewildering display of the wisdom and the handiwork of the Infinite Mind. An entire globe of mere matter contains nothing so complex and marvelous as a blade of grass, or a worm. The organic world, in every department, impresses the observer that it contains an essence and a something which is wholly distinct from a world of rocks, earth, and water. A tree standing in a desert is no part of that waste; an eagle perched upon a mountain crag is no part of the rock; the Arab is wholly distinct from the tent which shelters him from the storm. From whence came this organic world? A world com That the Creator in the beginning, richly endowed matter with various properties and forces, is fully conceded. That we might be blessed with the air we breathe, oxygen and nitrogen were made to be just what they are; that we might have the waters of the globe in great abundance, an abundance of oxygen and hydrogen were made. Each one of the sixty-four elemental atoms has been thus arrayed in a full complement of forces of its own, and for specific purposes. Each one adds its quota to the energy displayed by a world of matter. Not an element was created without a specific purpose. Our old philosophers and our modern Joseph Cooks made a mistake when they ascribed to matter inertia as a property. If matter were always inert, there would be no chemical changes, no expansion and contraction of bodies in a varying temperature, no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no winds would blow, no waves roll upon the ocean's bosom, and no clouds would float in the sky. Endow the matter of the globe with one common force, and inertia would be its condition. But the number and variety of the forces of matter are incalculable, and they are in constant collision, rendering it impossible that matter thus affected should be inert. Inertia is not a property of matter, but the term describes the state or condition an isolated atom or mass of matter may chance to be in, at a time. A state of war, as we have seen, is the normal condition of the forces of matter, and oxygen is largely the generator of the strife. Having an affinity for all other sub-posed of material bodies, having organs, and alive, is somestances except fluorine, but for some a much stronger affinity than for others, it is constantly breaking up old alliances and forming new ones, and modifying every other force of material nature. But this war of elements has long been on the wane, the earth is not what it has been; it is growing old and feeble. Its volcanic fires are nearly all extinguished or burning low, its earthquakes are few and faint, and the languishing war of the elements is proof that the forces of nature have largely found rest in a state of equilibrium. But this work is not yet completed, the forces of matter are still working on, and the pendulum of time may swing yet some thousands of years before nature shall strike eternity. Such is matter, such its endowments, and such its achieve ments. Let us now consider the vital and organic world. That facts are still to engage our attention is an important consideration. It is an unquestioned fact that organic bodies, such as seeds, plants and animals, exist, and in great variety, and in vast quantities. It is a conceded fact that the present surface of the earth is largely composed of the matter of ruined organisms, animal and vegetable. The organic world, as it exists, is a world of wonder. That matter should be wrought into a spear of grass, or into any other structure having organs, is marvelous indeed. That the chisel of the artist should bring an angel out of the marble is nothing compared to the sight of a flower or a tree that has sprung out of the ground. What are the waters of the ocean compared to its living finny tribes; the air to the birds that wing their way through it; the desert to the fleet-flooted antelope, and suns and stars compared to a mind that is measuring their magnitude and weighing them in balances! What is the formation of a crystal of quartz compared to the structure of the human form? The crystal, which is the highest achievement of mere matter, is a body of universal sameness of substance and of composition. The body of man embraces many kinds of matter, wrought into a multitude of organs, and all so correlated to each other as to form the unit, man. The heart organ is in itself a marvelous structure; then it is correlated to the veins, the arteries, the lungs, and the blood; the veins are correlated to each other, to the blood, and to every part of the body; the blood is a wonderful fluid which acts complicated and manifold parts. The eye, thing very peculiar. We have seen that life is not a property of matter, and that matter is unable to work itself into an organic structure, but here we are, organisms ourselves, living in the midst of a vast and beautiful organic world. Now, Results so numerous and so great must have a palpable cause. But Professor Tyndall says that the existence of the organic world is an "insoluble mystery." Other learned men, and most of them Christian scientists, universally say the same thing. That ground has been occupied and persistently held, even by Chautauqua lecturers. nothing is easier than for us to doubt and disbelieve, nd surround ourselves with mysteries, ad infinitum. I can deny that the sun is a luminous body, and then say in regard to the light which surrounds us to-day, that its presence is an "insoluble mystery." If, because I can not see the atmosphere, I deny its existence, then the phenomena of clouds floating above our heads will be an "insoluble mystery." Should we deny the reality of our earthly parentage, then our existence in this world would be an "insoluble mystery." Tyndall is a monist, and he denies the existence of life as anything real. Hence, the presence of the organic world is to him an "insoluble mystery." Grant the hypothesis that a vital world exists, and the mystery vanishes. It is a conceded fact that life and organic structures are always found together. Without the life, as Mr. Tyndall admits, an organic structure can not exist, a life "can come only from antecedent life." If life, then, is the cause of organisms, if it is the architect and the builder, then their existence is not a mystery. But materialists reply that the organism is the cause and life the result. That position implies that matter works itself into an organic body, and that life results from the organism. But we have seen that the realm of nature furnishes not an instance of the self-organization of matter. Such a suggestion is highly misleading. Even Herbert Spencer is compelled to admit that life pervades the organism, and that life is the cause of the structure. Surely, the living oyster is the cause of its organic shell; the life of the acorn is the cause of the organic oak, and every plant, every tree, every bird and beast, and everything that lives, has a life that is its, and that life is the builder of the organism. Life is, then, something more than an influence, more than a force; it must be a substance. Many writers speak of the organic world as being composed of matter, power and force, power and force being classed with matter as reals. Nothing can be more absurd or misleading than such a use of these terms. Power and foree are not substances; they express an energy exerted by a substance. Without the substance as the cause they can exist only in idea. This misconception of these terms has rendered worthless most of the philosophy of modern times. We have power and energy only when some substance for the moment gives them birth. It is impossible for us to solve the problem of the exist ence of an organic world, only on the hypothesis of the existence of a real, substantive, vital world. The vital world, through organic structures, becomes incarnate, and manifest unto us. Though the two worlds-Matter and Life-meet, they do not mingle into one, nor exchange places. have no material life, nor vital matter. Life is life, and can be nothing else; matter is matter, and can be nothing else. The life works the matter into organic bodies. We But materialists say: If the life of the acorn built the oak, and if the life of the egg produced the eagle, and gave it its peculiar characteristics, show us this substance and it sufficeth us. Bring vital substances as fully into the field of observation as matter is there, and we will believe they exist. Well, let us first see how fully matter is before us. Let us see if, in this respect, a parallel can be drawn between the vital and material worlds. Material atoms are unknown to us, yet these atoms are the causes of all material phenomena. On the other hand, unknown vital essences are the causes of all vital phenomena. I say to monists: Show me the essence and the cause of material phenomena-that is, exhibit the primal atoms or their essence-and I will show you the essence and the cause of vital phenomena. We accept with materialists the atomic theory of matter as true. Indeed, the facts of the case compel our assent. But an atom is so very small that its presence can not be detected by a lens that magnifies two thousand diameters. Atoms, matter, primal state things, the materialist believes in, but he can not show them to us. The universe is built of atoms which are as unknown to sense as vital elements. What we see and feel of a stone or a lump of earth is phenomenal, and gives us no idea of the atoms and the essences of which they are composed. Masses of matter are results of aggregated atoms. Matter has its only entity and permanent individuality in atoms. In appearance oxygen and nitrogen gases are very much alike, but in fact they are not at all alike. Why? Because in essence the one is one thing and the other is wholly a different thing. No mortal mind can form an idea of the essence of either. Both the atoms and their essences are wholly unknown to us except in their phenomena. The properties and forces of all molecules and masses of matter have their origin in the unknown essences of their elemental atoms. If you say, show us the vital substance which causes vital phenomena, we confess our inability to do it. We can exhibit only peculiar phenomena, which must have a vital origin. If you interpret our limited knowledge of vitality as implying a weakness of our cause, we demand that you exhibit to us the essence of matter. Or, as you can not do that, we call for a sight of the primal atoms in which the essences reside. But this can not be granted. A great number of atoms must be massed that the senses may recognize anything, and then we do not see the atoms as they are, but a mass which gives us no idea of the atoms; of the form of the atoms we know nothing. Think of atoms less than the one-millionth of an inch in diameter! Have all atoms the same form, or different forms? Are they angular, oval, oblong, or square? We can not form a conception of anything so small. All our ideas of matter are formed from its manifested forces and phenomena. On The phenomena of life are far more marked and conspicuous than the phenomena of matter. Compare the growing, blooming rose with a pebble; the busy bee with a snow. flake, which is matter's highest achievement; the eloquence of Demosthenes with the dull, thoughtless, thunder of Niagara. Which set of phenomena are the highest in the scales of nature? Which the most fully indicates a real substantive cause? Which should hold precedence in nature's order, Niagara's roar or the song of the Iliad? What we know, and what we do not know, and what we may reasonably infer concerning matter and life, may be summed up as follows: First Of the origin of matter and life science teaches us nothing. Second-The atomic theory of matter and the elemental character of life may be accepted as true. Third-Of the essence of material atoms and of life elements we know nothing. Fourth-The atomic elements and vital substances can not be brought within the range of such senses as we now have. 1 Fifth-Each atom of matter and each vital element have properties and forces which are exclusively and respectively their own; and there is nothing in any one atom or element which is in another of a different kind. Sixth-Material atoms and vital elements are known only by their peculiar phenomena; the phenomena of material atoms being aggregations of atoms, and the resulting properties and forces; the phenomena of life being the organization of material atoms into living structures, also thought, will, and feeling. Seventh-An aggregation of elements, forming a mass or a visible body, is a phenomenal exhibition of matter, and only in the mass does matter exhibit itself to us; it is also true that the only exhibition which life makes of itself to us is of a phenomenal character through organisms and by the action of consciousness, thought, will, and feeling. Eighth-If the simple phenomenon of the aggregation of atoms proves the existence of the atoms, the phenomenon of the organization of the atoms into complicated and delicate living structures proves the reality of vital elements. Ninth-Material atoms invariably act in their own peculiar material ways, which are not in any one particular the ways of vitality; and vital elements act in their own peculiar ways, which are not in any respect the ways of matter. Tenth-Matter and life form two kingdoms, separate and distinct in essence, but analagous in their mysteries and manifestations. Eleventh-The essence of life is as fully in the field of observation in the organic world as the essence of matter is in the inorganic. The argument that proves the entity and reality of matter proves also the entity and reality of life. I have called your attention to the substance known as the luminiferous ether. Our scientists teach us that light is a sensation produced upon the retina of the eye by the tremors or undulations of this substance. That is, as far away as the farthest star we can see, and perhaps farther by a thousand or thousands of times, there is no vacant space; a greatly attenuated jelly-like substance exists everywhere, as the medium in which all worlds float; that this substance is set in motion by heat, and that its tremor-like undulations, coming in contact with the eye produce the sensation we call light. If a sun or a star exist outside of this luminiferous ether, it burns and flames away in total darkness. I ask our materialists to show me this luminiferous ether, or show me what it is. Is it oxygen, or carbon, or is it the silk are correlated to each other. Only together do they form complete unity. If left to themselves they are powerless, and probably perish. But the pollen of the tassel, as if guided by a divine hand, is brought into contact with the silk of the stalk; its mysterious nature is waked to action, the two vital principles blend into a vital entity, and as a result, the identical life-entity which was planted in the ground reappears, and is multiplied thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold. The life of the kernel has, without a break, simply performed a cycle. The same life had performed thousands of such cycles before. The matter of the stalk, too, had seen all the years that belong to the age of matter. The organism of the stalk was intended to be only temporary-a material organism has no permanent identity, but a life element continues the same. The identity of matter is found only in the atoms. The matter of all organisms now exist some new kind of matter-something not included in the sixty-four known elements? Is it a single and all-pervading element, or is it a compound? If a compound, of how many elements is it composed? Materialists can answer none of these questions. They can only say: We have no doubt of the existence of this luminiferous ether; without it we can not explain how light can travel 186,000 miles-nearly eight times around the earth-in one second. It must be a jelly-like, incompressible substance, for if touched by a breath of hot air in one place the whole substance feels the tremor. I say to the materialist: Your ether is then an unknown and an undiscoverable substance, as intangible and imponderable as life itself, and its existence is a mere matter of inference. The sole proof you have of its existence is the phenomena of the rapid travel of light. If on such evidence you believe that an unknown kind of matter fills all space, why not step upon ground a thousand times asing may have been a part of thousands of organisms during strong and accept vital phenomena as proof of the existence substances? of vital Were this luminiferous ether composed of one or more of the sixty-four elements with which we are acquainted, an aggregation of its atoms would take place, and then it would be subject to inspection. But the luminiferous ether seems to be peculiar, and not composed of any known matter. Should vitalists adopt the hypothesis that there is still another kind of matter whose presence can not be detected; which in essence is unlike the luminiferous ether, and that this peculiar sort of matter is always germinal matter, and nothing else, our assumptions in boldness would not exceed that of materialists, Our argument does not require us to build on such foundation; yet we may inquire if it is not likely that the spiritual bodies spoken of by Paul are composed of such a substance. Who will dare say that there are not kinds of matter which are unknown to chemistrymatter wholly unlike the sixty-four known elements? Believing that vitality is as fully in the field of observation as matter, I now turn to a more specific consideration of this part of our subject. The value of what may be said will depend wholly upon the correctness of our reading and rendering of nature. Learned opinions about what nature ought to be are of no consequence in this discussion. We should sit humbly at nature's feet and receive instruction from her. A fact of nature has all the force of a revelation from God. The Great Teacher, whilst among men, selected as texts the lily of the field, the sowing of seed in the ground, the vine and its branches, the fig tree, and many other things from different departments of nature. So, if we would understand the vital world, we must study it as it is. If, like Dr. Lionel Beale, Dr. McCosh, and others, we make vitality a question of physiology, we make it a question of matter and of death. We have seen that matter does not possess vitality as a property, and that it can not work itself into an organic body. I now turn away from matter, except as an attending incident, and look at the workings and achievements of vitality. As a familiar illustration of the vital structure of the vegetable world I look at the full grown and maturing stalk of corn. The flowing silk and the waving tassel are its most striking features. The facts in regard to them are quickly stated and easily comprehended, but they contain lessons of wisdom which reach to every part of the vital world. That stalk of corn contains in itself volumes of the most important knowledge, and this knowledge will be free from error. It is a book in which not a mistake has been made. A substance which we call pollen-in appearance a fine dust—adheres to the tassel of the stalk, and each particle of that dust contains a vital principle-a principle which is as undiscoverable as the essence of an atom of matter; in that open, exposed, flowing silk is also contained a vital principle, or perhaps I should say, a vital capacity. The tassel and the long past. The life, in passing from one organism to another, experiences no radical change. Its identity ever remains the same. We can trace the vital history of the corn as distinctly as its physical history. The life is endowed by the Creator with the force which coöperates with the forces of matter, and builds up the organic structure. The lowest form of vitality known to us, is the vital principle, and the highest the vital entity. Bioplasm is a vital substance, but it does not contain a vital entity. The vitality of bioplasm has no correlate in nature. It multiplies, not by generations, but by self-division-by breaking up into parts. The law of nature which governs in this case, applies to millions of different living forms in the lower strata of both the vegetable and animal worlds. The presence of a vital entity implies completion to the individual, and a capacity for reproduction by germination. A living thing, actuated only by a vital principle, can multiply only by self-division. A multitude of facts indicate that vital principles and entities differ greatly one from another. As differ the organic structures of the animal and vegetable worlds, so differ the living substances which build them. We know as little why, how, and wherein one kind of life differs from another as we know why, how, and wherein one material element differs from another. The naked fact that there are differences is all that we can hope to understand. Every organic structure and its life sustain to each other the relation of cause and effect-the life the cause, the structure the effect. The elephant is an outward visible expression of one kind of life, the Canary bird of another. Physically man has a life that is his, and solely his. That life is not the mind nor any part of it. Mind is another entity, associated for the time being with the body. Every organic thing that lives, in both the vegetable and animal world, is the product of a life that is its. The egg of a turtle differs but little in its physical structure and composition from the egg of fowls. Let us bury some half a dozen eggs of different kinds in the warm sand on some tropical coast and note the results. At the proper time from one egg emerges a turtle, which creeps into the water, and buries itself in the mud; from another an aquatic fowl, which swims off on the surface of the sea, and from another an eagle, which soon makes it way to mountain crags. In matter the eggs were substantially the same, the difference in results is to be ascribed to the simple fact that each possessed a different vital entity. It must have been the life and not the matter of the eggs which gave character to the results. Let us carry this principle into the vegetable world and see if it holds good there. Are vital elements as tenacious of their individuality among plants as in the higher animal world? On the same day, in the same soil, and only a few yards apart, I plant an acorn and a chestnut. That the ground, the seasons, the dews and rains, the sun and atmosphere will have an influence upon those seeds and upon the trees that grow from them is to be expected. Both will grow in the same medium, both feel the full influence of the same environments. The matter of the acorn is much the same as the matter of the chestnut, and in both cases it merely serves as nourishment for the vital germs. The forces of the sun, and of everything material connected with the two trees tend to make them exactly alike; as in castings, the same moulds give us the same results. But what are the actual facts in the case? In the acorn there was a somewhat which gave us an oak, and in the chestnut there was a different somewhat which gave us a chestnut tree. Each seed produced after its kind. The life of each seed tenaciously maintained its identity, and controlled the forces of the sun, of the air, of the ground, of the rains, and of the seasons, and wrought according to its own nature and plan. Life's forces governed and coördinated the forces of material nature so that in every minute particular its own nature found complete development. As the two trees differ in structure, even down to the smallest fibre, so do the life substances differ which wrought matter into organisms in each case. Everywhere else in the realm of vitality, as well as in these instances, each organism is a product of a life that is its. But, says an objector, this is taking a very plain and common sense view of the most intricate and difficult of all problems. Yes, that is so. Our argument implies that truth and not falsehood adorns the face of nature-that she wears no mask, and that facts are laws, and appearances reality. A priori reasoning about what nature ought to be is not worth a moment's consideration. The Duke of Argyle, one of England's best men and profoundest thinkers, has said: "It often happens that the philosophy expressed in some common form of speech, is deep and true, while the objections which are made in the name of science are shallow and fallacious." As I have ventured a definition of matter I will try my hand at a definition of life. Life embraces that part of nature which so acts upon the forces of matter as to work up material elements into organic struc tures. The vital kingdom, which we call vegetable, gives us only vegetable structures. Vegetable organisms constitute the basis of the animal kingdom. Vegetable life works elemental atoms into bioplasm and molecules, and these by animal life are built into animal structures. Man's physical organism is the product of his human life, just as an animal organism is the product of an animal life. Man stands alone in creation, and refuses classification. He is not an animal, he is a Man. His body is an organism occupied by an intelligence. If our reading of the ever open volume of nature is correct, the hypothesis of evolution and natural selection must go to the wall. They cut only skin deep, and the vital substance which controls the organisms they do not pretend to touch. To succeed, Darwin and Spencer must show that one kind of life can become another of a different kind-a task as difficult as to make gold iron, or iron gold. My task is done. Wherein have erred I have not read nature aright. She is infallible, and her voice is the voice of God. This, then, is primarily and really a vital universe, and in this sense it is like its maker, God. Life has wrought more. AH, SUNFLOWER. Ah, Sunflower, weary of time, SOME WONDERS OF THE SEA.* CORALS. Whether dropping "like the gentle dew from heaven upon the world beneath;" whether falling in tropical rain torrents, and tearing its way seawards through solid rock; whether floating gently downwards in feathery snowflakes, or crashing all before it in the form of icy hail, the water which has been suspended in the atmosphere finds its way back to the sea, whence it was evoked by the sunbeams. But it does not return unaccompanied, for the water that has rushed through many regions carries with it samples more or less discernible of the soils through which it has passed. Among others, an enormous amount of calcareous earth is continually poured into the sea by each river that reaches the final destination of its respective watershed. What is to become of all this calcareous earth? If nothing were done with it, the sea would be so constantly receiving fresh supplies of solid matter, that the water would be gradually thickened, and daily become more like mud than water. It cannot be destroyed, because destruction, as we understand the word, does not exist in nature. But it can be modified, and agencies may be imagined by which the calcareous matter is extracted from the water, and built up into fabrics which, though they differ in form from the halky mud, are identical with it in material. There are many such agencies, silently, slowly, but surely in constant work, and one of them I shall briefly describe in the following pages. We know them, or rather the results of their labors, by the very comprehensive word cORAL, under which title are grouped a vast number of forms, all composed of calcareous matter, but differing greatly in the shapes which they assume, and the structure of the living agencies which make them. We have all heard of “Coral Insects” and their work; and scarcely a generation ago the young learner was taught that the Coral Insect was the founder of tropical islands, having raised its edifices from the depths of the ocean, and only being checked in its labors when it reached high-water mark. There is a certain amount of truth in this statement, but more than an equal amount of error is mixed with it. In the first place it is scarcely necessary to mention that the coral formers are not insects, but creatures of an infinitely lower organization; and, in the next place, they can only live within a very limited distance of the surface of the water. Putting aside the systematic division of these wonderful creatures and their productions, we will consider them all as Corals, whether they be true Corals, Madrephylles, Gorgonias, Tubipores, Alcyonidæ, etc., etc., and trace, as far as the limits of these pages will permit, the course of their lives, and the nature of their horny or stony skeletons. Some of these beings are much more simple in structure than the others, and we will therefore begin with them. Supposing that we take a rather coarse sponge, especially if it has been in use for some time, and compare it with the common Mushroom Madrepore, we must at once see that there is a marked analogy between them, even though we are only looking at the dead skeleton. In fact, if we could take a common sponge, and transmute it into stone instead of silex, we should have an object so exactly like a madrepore that it would be very difficult to distinguish the one from the other. If we were able to procure their living investments, we should see an analogy and a resemblance between them, but not an identity. *Good Words. |