[28] 1 Cor., xiii., 13.
[29] Theodicée, or justification of the ways of God in the world. The word originated with Leibnitz, who, in his “Essai de Theodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal,” published in 1710, maintained that the existence of moral evil has its origin in the free will of the creature, while metaphysical evil is nothing but the limitation which is involved in the essence of finite beings, and that out of this both physical and moral evil naturally flow. But these finite beings are designed to attain to the utmost felicity they are capable of enjoying, which each, as a part, contributes to the perfection of the whole, which, of the many worlds that were possible, is the very best. On this account it has been called the theory of Optimism.—Trans.
[30] Does not this appearance of a common character among brutes of the same species arise rather from the imperfection of our observation? Is not every sheep an individual to the shepherd?—Trans.
[31] Schlegel appears to have believed in the theory of equivocal generation. But microscopic research and experiments forbid us any longer to believe that fermentative or putrefactive matter spontaneously gives birth to living creatures. Such matters do but furnish the necessary circumstances for hatching the germs or ova which are present in such immense numbers in the atmosphere. The doctrine of equivocal or spontaneous generation seems conclusively refuted by the experiment of Schulze, detailed in volume 23 of Jameson’s Journal. “I filled a glass flask half full with distilled water, in which I had mixed various vegetable and animal substances. I then closed it with a good cork, through which I passed two glass tubes, bent at right angles, the whole being air-tight. It was next placed in a sand-bath and heated until the water boiled violently, and thus all parts had reached a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit. While the watery vapor was escaping by the glass tubes, I fastened at each end an apparatus which chemists employ for collecting carbonic acid; that to the left was filled with sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of potash. By means of the boiling heat, every thing living and all the germs in the flask or in the tubes were destroyed, and all access was cut off by the sulphuric acid on the one side, and by the potash on the other. I placed this easily-moved apparatus before my window, where it was exposed to the action of light, and also, as I performed my experiments in the summer, to that of heat. At the same time I placed near it an open vessel with the same substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order now to renew the air constantly within the flask, I sucked with my mouth, several times a-day, the open end of the apparatus filled with solution of potash; by which process, the air entered my mouth from the flask, through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the sulphuric acid. The air was, of course, not altered in its composition by passing through the sulphuric acid into the flask; but if sufficient time was allowed for the passage, all the portions of living matter, or of matter capable of becoming animated, were taken up by the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From the 28th of May until the early part of August, I continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the air in the flask, without being able, by the aid of a microscope, to perceive any living animal or vegetable substance, although, during the whole of the time, I made my observations almost daily on the edge of the liquid; and when at last I separated the different parts of the apparatus, I could not find in the whole liquid the slightest trace of Infusoria, Confervæ, or of Mold. But all the three presented themselves in a few days after I left the flask open. And the open vessel too, which I placed near the apparatus, contained on the following day, Vibriones and Monades, to which were soon added larger Polygastric Infusoria, and afterward, Rotatoria.”—Trans.
[32] Although, in the case of the entozoa, the induction is not very large, still, of some of them it is an established fact that they are generated from ova, and it is therefore a fair presumption that such is the general law, and that these parasitical beings are, in every case, hatched from ova, which are every where present, but remain undeveloped until they meet with the necessary nutriment and heat for their development.—Trans.
[33] Isaiah, lxv., 17.
[34] In this and the following paragraph it is necessary to bear in mind that Schlegel, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, held the doctrine of a purgatory, which the catechism of the Council of Trent describes as a fire, “in which the souls of the pious are tortured for a certain time, and expiated, that they may be qualified to enter that eternal country into which nothing enters that is unclean.” “Purgatorius ignis, quo piorum animæ ad definitum tempus cruciatæ expiantur, ut eis in æternam patriam ingressus patere possit, in quam nihil coinquinatum ingreditur.”—Cat. Conc. Trid., pars i., art. v., c. 5.—Trans.
[35] Eph., vi., 12; Col., ii., 15, &c.
[36] Dell’ Inferno, Canto III.
“............ quel cattivo coro
Degli angeli che non furon rebelli,
Nè fur fedeli a Dio, ma per ae foro.
Cacciarli i Ciel, per non esser men belli;
Nè lo profundo Inferno gli riceve,
Ch’ alcuna gloria i rel avrebber d’ elli.”