addition to this, the North British Agriculturist not long since gave an account of the clearing away of the debris from an old Roman camp, upon the soil of which, thus made bare, there sprung up no less than seventy-four varieties of oats never seen in that section before. The matter was thoroughly sifted; and the conclusion was that the place was an old cavalry camp, and that the oats now germing had been brought from other climes, and had lain buried 1,500 years under the earth. Yet this seed, when exposed to the action of the sun, and air, and moisture, germed as readily as though it had been the growth of the preceding harvest. The fact is also well known, that the seed entombed for ages in an alluvial soil, when thrown up with the dirt from the bottom of deep excavations, will germ and grow. These facts indicate that no limits in time can be set to durations of life pent up in a kernel of grain. May not the same be true of the germ of life in the ovum of the animal? III. ANTAGONISMS BETWEEN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. In this discussion we have thus far made no distinction between animal and vegetable life. There is that relationship between the embryo condition of each that indicates one original type. There is unity of design. But we can not advance far in our investigations without discovering radical differences; and what is still more striking, these very differences reveal to us a higher and grander harmony. Animal life and vegetable life are the counterpart of each other. This is seen in their different action upon the atmosphere, and the different relations they sustain to the earth. The plant is constantly consuming the carbonic acid in the atmosphere, and at the same time replenishing that atmosphere with oxygen. On the other hand, animal bodies are constantly consuming oxygen and returning carbonic acid. Thus has the equilibrium of the atmosphere been preserved for ages. The French chemists group the differences, or antago nisms, between plants and animals in a very clear and striking manner. They make at least six of them, as follows: THE VEGETABLE, 1. PRODUCES the neutral, nitrogenized substances, fatty substances, sugar, gum, and starch. 2. DECOMPOSES carbonic acid, water, and ammoniacal salts. 3. DISENGAGES Oxygen. 4. ABSORBS heat and electricity. THE ANIMAL, 1. CONSUMES the neutral, nitrogenized substances, fatty substances, sugar, gum, and starch. 2. PRODUCES carbonic acid, water, and ammoniacal salts. 3. ABSORBS oxygen. 4. PRODUCES heat and electricity. 5. Is an apparatus of OXIDATION. 6. IS LOCOMOTIVE. From the above it will be seen that there is, in various and important respects, a distinct antagonism between plants and animals. And yet when taken in their relation to the inorganic world, we see how indispensable they are to each other, and how these very antagonisms minister to the harmony of the universe. These differences, or, to express the fact more correctly, these antagonisms between the physical structure of plants and of animals, and their relations to inorganic matter, suggest a wide difference, if not an entire dissimilarity, between the principle of life in each. But how wide this difference may be, or in what it consists; whether they differ in nature or only in manifestation, are questions that do not concern this discussion. Nor does it seem that human science has yet grasped the elements of knowledge essential to their solution. We are not, however, inclined, with Professor Draper, to regard a plant as being a mere physical operation, origin ating in some antecedent physical impression, and that, therefore, all the phenomena of plants are mechanical and material. We see no reason why He who has created such variety in the substances of the inorganic world, might not also have created different kinds of LIFE. We think there is at least ground for inference that two elements which operate in such direct antagonism in their effects upon the material world must be different in their essential nature. But if in this lowest form of life-so low, indeed, that some philosophers have questioned whether it is any thing more than a physical operation-there are to be found no spontaneous organizations; none without the antecedent germ from which it springs; then how complete the demonstration that organization is produced by LIFE, and not life by organization! IV. HIGHER ELEMENTS OF LIFE IN MAN. The animal creation stands out distinct from and superior to the vegetable-holding, indeed, many things in common with it, but at the same time possessing other qualities which place it at an immeasurable remove from it. So man possesses many qualities in common with the animal, but he has also others which place him at a remove almost infinite. These other qualities are not, as we have already seen, in his physical organization. Take away the higher endowment of a thinking and reasoning spirit, and man would no longer be able to cope with many species of his cotemporary animals. He could not face the lion, the tiger, or the wolf; the buffalo would cease to acknowledge his prowess; the horse would speed away from him, and even the mule would hold him in derision. You may endow him with all Human Physiology, pp. 470, 471. of life that is possessed or implied in mere animal function, and still, from his very physical organization, he would be compelled to yield the dominion to other animals. In animal organization we have observed that its departure from the type and characteristics of the vegetable is specially designed to adapt it to the function and nature of animal life. The element of life effecting the organization and the building up of the living plant, could no more be transferred to the animal body and be made to work a like function there, than it could be to the crystal-quartz or any other mineral. In fact, were the transfer made, the very element that built up the plant into a living body would work death in the animal. So in the organization of man. His peculiarities of body are not designed to secure animal superiority, but to adapt the animal organization to the spirit with which it was to be endowed. If any one shall ask me how a living spirit can dwell in a human body, I will ask him first to solve the problem, How animal life can dwell in the animal body; or how vegetable life is connected with the plant or the tree? When he has solved these two problems, we may be prepared to approach the solution of the higher and more mysterious problem of spiritual life. In the mean time, the fact of man's being endowed with a spirit rests upon the evidence of, and is demonstrated by, the same class of facts that demonstrate life in the vegetable and in the animal. V. THE MODERN THEORY OF FORCE AS CONSTITUTING THE SOUL CONSIDERED. The simple position we have taken in regard to the soul is, that it is an independent substance; that it is something different from a general principle of life infused into all matter, as Professor Taylor Lewis seems to imagine was done when "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters;" in fine, that it is a personality-spiritual in its nature and Divine in its origin. In opposition to this sublime doctrine of soul there is a theory of ancient materialistic philosophers, revived by some modern speculatists, that the essence of matter is force, and also that homogeneous with this is the essence of spirit. According to this, in the final result, the substratum of the universe is FORCE. Leibnitz objected to the theory of Descartes, who made matter consist essentially in extension, that it would produce a world of unalterable existence, but instead of this the world exhibits an innumerable number of ever-varying movements and developments. Hence he attributes to all substances an inherent power by which their phenomena are generated. Masses being infinitely divisible, the process at length eliminates every material property, strictly so called, and all that remains is "the simple and immaterial idea of power, as the essential basis of all existence." This power or force Leibnitz terms a monad. The atomic theory in physical science regarded the material universe as composed of an aggregate of material atoms-each possessing the essential properties of matter; but outside of this, and differing from it, spirit was regarded as a distinct substance. But the monadic theory, in the last analysis, entirely eliminates materiality from the universe, and leaves nothing but a self-working, self-developing force. This is the fundamental axiom of the vaunted dynamics of the present day. Now let us see how Morell, following in the lead of Leibnitz, attempts to establish this fundamental principle. "The monad," says he, "being indivisible, unextended, immaterial, can not be exposed to any influences from without; being insoluble, it can never perish. The cause of the perpetual changing of monads, then, not being |