But we Christians do not ask them to give us an infinite variety, etc., but to give us the "certain elements" of which "life is a property," and the "special form in which these certain elements were united," and the "special conditions" that existed when life first made its appearance by spontaneous generation. When we do this we are immediately carried away into the infinities. The result is that the solution of the problem of the origin of life by spontaneous generation, as a property of "certain elements of matter, united in a special form, under special conditions," is buried forever out of sight. This same definition of life is found on page 69 of a work entitled, "The System of Nature," published by D. Holbach, a French Atheist, in 1774, in these words: "Experience proves to us that the matter which we regard as inert and dead assumes action, intelligence and life when it is combined in a certain way."
Voltaire answered: "This is precisely the difficulty. How does a germ come to life? Is not this definition very easy—very common? Is not life organization with feeling? But," says Voltaire, "that you have these two properties from the motion of matter alone: it is impossible to give any proof, and if it can not be proved why affirm it? Why say aloud, 'I know,' while you say to yourself, 'I know not?'"
Our Atheistic friends say: "The forms of life vary because of the difference in their molecular construction, resulting from different physical conditions to which the various forms have been subjected."
Wonderful discovery! Does it explain the evidence of design which is presented in pairing off male and female in the same form of life?
Dr. Parvin is often referred to as "frankly admitting that the doctrine of the evolution of species is accepted by three-fourths of the scientific men," and that this doctrine has, in their minds, "rendered nugatory the hypothesis of a vital immaterial principle as a causal factor in the phenomena of life and mind." Allowing this statement its full force, it is still true that none but Atheists can possibly be included in the "three-fourths." So much the worse for them. But it is an Atheistic trick to try to succeed by a misrepresentation of facts. One of their number recently said, "It is now almost universally believed by those who have investigated the subject that life originated from natural agencies without the aid of a creative intelligence. Then those who have investigated the subject are almost universally Atheists?"
It is said that "vital activity, whether of body or mind, is a mode of motion, the correllate of antecedent motion." But what correllated the force? According to this logic life came from the antecedent motion; that is, from the motion of dead atoms. But motion itself is the manifestation of energy, and there must of necessity be something behind it to which it belongs as an attribute. Do you say it was dead atoms, or matter without life? Then dead atoms set dead atoms into motion and produced life! Can you believe this? If you can, you need find no trouble in believing in the most orthodox hell. Can you get more out of a thing than there is in it? We don't think so. But we do think that there is credulity enough, even blind credulity, in the advocates of spontaneous generation to enable them to believe anything they may happen to wish true. We are told that "life in its higher forms is not an immaterial entity, nor the result of a special form of force termed vital, but, that it is a group of co-ordinated functions." Then what correllated the force? If it was not vitality what was it? But this is just equivalent to saying that life does not proceed from life. So, in the realm of inertia or death, without a God and without life, some kind of a mechanical operation among dead atoms took place which produced "a certain chemico-physical constitution of amorphous matter—on that albuminous substance called sarcode or protoplasm," which evolved more than was involved, or brought organic life out of dead inorganic matter. But life is simply a "mode," or "degree of motion?" But we are curious to know just here whether the advocates of this system of things do not believe that there always was a degree of motion. Perchance they do, but then they certainly can't believe that this particular degree or mode of motion which they called life was eternal. So, then, a degree of motion is life, and a degree of motion is not life. This thing of confounding life with motion I'm thinking leads to difficulty. I can see how motion may be the result of life, but just how it is life itself I can't see quite so well. Is cause and effect the same?
We have a most remarkable, and yet a natural, concession made in the way in which men who feel the weakness of their cause generally make concessions. It is a statement said to be made by Baron Liebig; it is this: "Geological investigations have established the fact of a beginning of life (?) upon the earth, which leaves no doubt that it can only have arisen naturally and from inorganic forces, and it is perfectly indifferent whether or not we observe such a process now." This statement is untrue as respects geological facts. But the concession is, that spontaneous generation is not to be an observed fact. "Perfectly indifferent whether or not we observe such a process now?" Well, it never was observed. Mr. Liebig's statement doubtless proceeds from the conviction that the system is never to be established by observation. It is simple imagination. Virchow says: "We can only imagine that at certain periods of the development of the earth unusual conditions existed, under which the elements entering into new combinations acquired in statu nascente vital motions, so that the usual mechanical conditions were transformed into vital conditions." In this statement it is well for us to remember that it is not only simple imagination, but also that vital motions were the cause, bringing about vital conditions, that is to say, life, before life was, transformed mechanical conditions into vital conditions. So, in this very singular imaginary hypothesis touching the origin of life we have the usual circle suicide of the system. "Vital motions transform mechanical conditions into vital conditions," and vital conditions fill the world with "vital motions," and life itself is only a degree "or mode of motion." Such is their travel around the circle.
Can you believe that vital motion transformed mechanical conditions into vital conditions, without life being the cause of those vital motions?