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Show tt /,O(, I 106 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF seen that it is a form of being wliich electric agency will produce-though not, pm·haps~ ushe1· into full .life-in alhumen, one of those compol.lnd elements of an1m~l ~odies, of which another (u1·ea) has been made by arufic1al means. Rememberino- these things, we a1·e drawn on to the supposition, that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet was a clum,ico-elutric operatio'l~, by which simple germinal vesicles were produced. This IS so much, but what were the next steps? Let a common vegetable infusion help us to answer. There, as we have seen simple forms are produced at first_, but afterwards they'become more complicate(1, until at length the lifeproducing powers of the infusivn are exhausted. Are we to presun1e that, in this case, the simple engende1· the complicated? Undoubtedly, this would not be more wonderful as a natural process than one which we never think of wondering at, because familiar to us-namely, that in the gestation of the mammals, the animalcule-like ovum of a few days is the parent, in a sense, of the chick-like form of a few weeks, and that in all the subsequent stages -fish, reptile, &c.-the one may, with scarcely a metaphor be said to be the progenitor of the other. I suggest, then, as an hypothesis already countenanced by much that is ascertained, and likely to be further sanctioned by m~h that remains to be known, that the first step was an advance under favor of peculiar conditions, from the simplest forms of being, to the next rnore complicated, and this through the mcdiurn of the ordinary p'rocess of generation. Unquestionably, what we ordinarily see of nature is calculated to impress a conviction that each specie~ invariably produces its like. But I would here call attention to a remarkable illustr!tion of natural law which has been brought forward by Mr. Babbage,in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. The reader is requested to suppose himself seated before the calculating machine, and observing it. It is moved by a weight, and there is a wheel which revolves through a small angle round its axis, at short intervals, presenting to his eye successively, a.series of numbers engraved on its divided circumference. Let the figures thus seen be the series, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. of natural numbers, each of which succeeds its immediate ~ntecedcnt 'Y unity. '~Now, . eader," says Mr. Babbage, "let me ask you I 1'ltE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 107 bow .ll)ng you will have. counted before yeo are firmly co.n VInce~ that tl~e ~ng1ne. has. bee1:_1 so. adj usteJ that it w1ll cont1nu~, wh1le 1ls motion 1s mamta1ned, to produce the same senes of natural numbers? Some minds are so constituted that, after passing the fir:;t hundred terms tbey will be satisfied that they are acquainted with th; law. After seeing five hundred terms few will doubt, and after the fifty-thousandth term the propensity to believe that the succeeding term will be fifty thousand and one, 'vill be almost irresistible. That the term will be fifty thousand and one; and the same regular succession will continue; the five millionth and the fifty millionth term will still appear in their expected order, and one unbroken chain of natural numbers will pass before your eyes, from one up to one hundred million. "True to the vast induction which has been made, the next succeeding te1·m "'~ill be one hundred million and one; but the next number presented by the rim of the wheel, instead of being one hundred million and two, js one hundred million ten thousand and two. The wh~~ series, from the commencement, being thus,- 1 2 3 4 5 99,999,999 100,000,000 regularly as far as 100,000,0(J1 100,010,002 the law changes. 100,030,003 100,060,004 . .100,100,005 100,150,006 100,210,007 100,280,008 ((The la\v which seemed at first to govern this series failed at the hundred million and second term. This |
