1. : It may be proper, however, to state that the tenth and concluding chapter was originally written as a lecture, and delivered about a year ago in New Haven, Boston, and at other points. A request for its publication has induced the author to place it in this volume, with the portion referring to the Bible genesis omitted. It will be found germane to the general subject.
2. : "Without this latent presence of the 'I am,' all modes of existence in the external world flit before us as colored shadows, with no greater depth, root, or fixure, than the image of a rock hath in the gliding stream, or the rainbow on the fast-sailing rain storm."--Coleridge's "Comments on Essays."
3. : And science that is not purely inductive--i.e. primarily based on the inviolability of our intuitions--is no science at all, but the sheerest possible speculation.
4. : This presence of an active living principle in nature, one originally assigned as the "divina particula auræ" of every living thing, is frequently referred to in the higher inspirational moods of our poets. Wordsworth exquisitely refers to it in the following lines of his "Excursion:"--
"To every form of being is assigned
An active principle: howe'er removed
From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in all nature, in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds;
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks."
5. : The existence of vital units is conceded by some of the staunchest materialists, such as Herbert Spencer, Professor Bastian and others. Professor Bastian says: "The countless myriads of living units which have been evolved in different ages of the world's history, must, in each period, have given rise to innumerable multitudes of what have been called 'trees of life.'" He insists, however, that they have been "evolved" from something, or by some unknown process. But we shall show further on that a "unit" can neither be evolved nor involved, and that this is as true of vital units as of the mathematical or chemical unit. Neither evolution nor involution will ever effect the value of a unit.
6. : According to Aristotle, the great world-ordainer is the constant world-sustainer.
7. : The definition which Professor Robinson, in his Lexicon of the New Testament, gives of the word σπερμα, as connected with the "divine life," entirely harmonizes with this view of the subject. He says: Trop. I John 3, 9, πἃς ό γεγενημένος ἐκ του ϑεου σπέρμα ἀυτον (ϑεὄν) εν ᾶντῶ πενεὶ i.e. the germ or principle of divine life through which he is begotten of god, το πνεὒμα.
8. : Professor Schmidt, of the University of Strasburg, who insists that species are only relatively stable, admits that they remain persistent as long as they exist under the same external conditions. Time is, therefore, not a factor in the mutation of species. Nor are environing conditions factors, except as a failure of conditions results in the disappearance of species, as the presence of conditions results in their appearance.
9. : Says M. Ch. Bonnet, in his "La Palingéuésie Philosophique;" "Il est de la plus parfaite évidence que la matiere est susceptible d'une infinité de mouvemens divers, et de modifications diverses," and this is the universal claim of the materialists.