productive of cells and carbon entering into the connection, and the first plants are brought forth; the algæ first, then the lichens and ferns, which are developed into gigantic dimensions. Prior to and simultaneous with the formation of cells went on the production of crystals and the mineral as well as the vegetable kingdoms were further and further developed. Contemporary with the first plant-cells the conditions were plainly offered for the formation of the first life-cells. And now the question arises, What is life? Whence comes it? Although it is certain that in the process of development of the earth after its separation from the sun no life was present.

“It is asserted that life is motion and is an attribute of matter; yet that is something wholly different from what is understood by the term. Thus far science has pointed out no distinction between dead and living protoplasm, and the affirmation that the primordial cells are the source of life is not tenable, since the cell is an organization that presupposes life, and so, at most, the original cell could be designated as but the first expression of life. For a short time it was assumed that life came to the earth through meteors or parts of worlds that had gone to pieces, but this idea was soon given up, because neither the manifold nature of life nor the origin of the same could thereby be explained or determined, and thus the question was only pushed farther back, since what was desired to be known, was, how life originated on the world that was destroyed.

“When, and under what circumstances, life began on the earth can not be accurately fixed, yet it is clear that at the time when the ocean still covered nearly all the earth and was so hot that not a single one of the now existing plants and living beings could then exist, the life in that ocean and on its bottom was so infinitely grand in its proportions that men can now form no adequate conception of the same. The force of growth as well as of decay was immense, and all that was grown or made by its decay only increased the mass of life-producing substance.

“There are three theories as to the origin of living beings:

“1. God made all animals, including man, in pairs and of full size.

“2. The elements of physical nature and the forces dwelling in matter by a lucky arrangement of atoms developing living organs out of matter.

“3. An intelligent, intellectual force permeates matter, and wherever this in its development attains the conditions for the maintenance of life (and so a higher manifestation of force than in the mineral) it brings forth the intellectual life in the protoplasmic germ for the finest organism. Through the laws of inheritance, of change, of the multiplication of progressive development, of natural selection and of the persistence of the most gifted individuals, living beings are developed through all classes and species up to man.

“With the first theory we need not concern ourselves further, as we have already branded it as hostile to reason and knowledge, although theologians have sought to maintain that Almighty God has made the earth with all that is in it and upon it, just as it now exists, and have even gone so far as to affirm in opposition to the effect of geological discoveries, that God himself had created or deposited the fossil remains of animals found under the bed of the Euphrates (the spot where paradise is said to have been) exactly there and in a petrified condition.

“The second theory seems more probable; it assumes that force and matter are one and the same, matter possessing force as a quality; but overlooks the fact that what is called matter first came forth as a product out of the glowing mass of primary gas or world-material, and hence that matter, or world-material, to which the life-producing force is attached, is to be sought away back before the time when began the formations of worlds in their incandescent state, whereby it is, of course, conceded that life in the ordinary sense was destroyed, if it really subsisted before the heating of the particles of matter.

“Another objection to this theory is this, that if organizations spring from the favorable union of atoms, this surrenders the rule to chance and excludes a unitary order of the world, while failing to explain the origin of thinking, moral and reason-gifted beings; since, if thinking, reason and moral sentiment spring from matter, they must be attributes of the same; and since the product is always less than the producer, it follows that intelligence, reason and ethics must be present somewhere in matter in a concentrated form; and this reflection brings us quite naturally to the third theory.

“The intellectual, divine principle penetrates matter as the positive element, which under definite conditions steadily works upon the negative element of the original substance and forces the same under constant changing of form and combining parts, to realize definite, universally similar ideas, and to attain definite aims; and wherever matter in the process of development offers certain conditions, there the intellectual element produces what is called life. And this takes for granted that life may spring up spontaneously there where there was no life before; and this fact has been established beyond all reasonable doubt. The juice of mutton, beef and a mixture of gelatine and sugar have been put in separate vessels, these made air-tight and exposed for a long time to a heat of as much as three hundred degrees of Fahrenheit, so as to be quite sure that all living germs were destroyed. Yet after the lapse of weeks in some cases and of months in others, living beings were developed in the vessels.

“Under the relation of the earth as existing to-day, life would again be developed, if we were in a condition instantaneously to annihilate all life; yet the same results would not be produced as in the original period, because the needed materials are no longer present in the mighty masses, nor in the requisite fluid and gaseous conditions to attain so powerful effects, to which belong also as necessary conditions the far higher temperature and the greater humidity of the atmosphere of that epoch. In the first creative period the force as well as the material were present in colossal measure and then arose those gigantic plants and animals, which laid the foundation for all later organisms. Without the colossal ferns and lichens and palm-like growths of the early ages, the plants of to-day would have been impossible, and without the monstrous giant creatures of old, which became more and more refined through gradual adaptation to altered relations, the modern animal kingdom could not have arisen. This adaptation is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the history of the development of the earth and is found as well in the realm of plants as in that of animals. Originally there were only aquatic animals, but as the relations changed so that it became necessary, partly for the procuring of food and partly for the safety of the offspring, that animals should go on land, their attempts constantly repeated to do so, gradually produced a change in the limbs fitted for motion, and so came about the transformation of fins into wings in the creatures that wanted to rise out of the water into the air, which then had far more carrying power than at the present day.

“Whatever may be said about the qualities of matter and the force united with it (more truly the force manifesting itself therein), it cannot be denied, that the plan of creation is a unitary one, moving on according to definite laws and striving towards definite final results. This presupposes that a conscious idea lies at the basis of the creative plan, and this implies an original consciousness which we call God. God and nature are one, just as intellect and body are one in man. Nature, i. e., substance,