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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2018
Although the axiom ex nihilo nihil fit may unquestionably in strict logic be pronounced to be a pure assumption, for as much as it is not impossible that an enlarged experience may sometime furnish us with an instantia contradictoria, yet it is plainly necessary within the compass of human knowledge to consider it an established truth. Within human ken there is, indeed, no beginning, no end; the past is developed in the present, and the present in the prediction of the future; cause produces effect, and effect in its turn becomes cause. Dust is man, and to dust he returns; the individual passes away, but that out of which he is created does not pass away. The decomposition of one compound is the production of another, and death is an entrance into a new being. This is no new truth, although modern science is now for the first time making good use of it; the earlier Grecian philosophers distinctly recognised it, and it has many times been plainly enunciated since their time. “All things,” said Empedocles, “are but a mingling and a separation of the mingled, which are called birth and death by ignorant mortals.” Plato expressed himself in like manner; and the plain statement of the truth was one of the heresies of the unfortunate Giordano Bruno. The imagination of Shakspeare, faithful to the scientific fact, traces the noble dust of Alexander till it is found stopping a bung-hole, and follows imperious Caesar till he patches a hole to keep the wind away. The immortality of matter and of force is an evident necessity of human thought.
∗ In confirmation of which it is only necessary to refer to the labours of Dulong and Despretz, Barral, Helmholtz, our own countryman Dr. E. Smith, and to the work of A. Pick, entitled ‘Temperaturtopographie der Thiere.’Google Scholar
Most important of all, as signs of the times, are the recent investigations of Graham on the crystalloidal and colloidal conditions of matter.—‘Philosoph. Transact.,’ 1861.Google Scholar
∗ We say “almost invariably,” because in tbe remarkable case of “alternate generation” the offspring is completely different frum its parents, and yet itself produces offspring which returns to their type.Google Scholar
† The experiments of Pasteur are generally believed to have disproved the notion of “spontaneous generation.” Professor Wyman, of America, has not, however, obtained quite such decisive results from similar experimcuts.Google Scholar
∗ ‘Traité Philosophique et Physiologique de l'Heredité naturelle,‘ par le Dr. Prosper Lucas, vols, ii :—Full of information; for it contains almost everything that has ever been written on the subject.Google Scholar
∗ ‘Physical History of Mankind,’ vol. i, p. 363. It may be well to state here, that in this general paper, devoted mainly to the statement of the difficulties of the subject, no attempt will he made to give every reference.Google Scholar
∗ Quoted by Burdach, in his ‘Physiology,’ also by Lucas. Indeed, the few facts which are known, may be found repeated in every book which treats upon the subject.Google Scholar
∗ ‘Annales d'Hygiène publique et de Méd. Lég.,‘ “Mémoire sur la durée des familles nobles en France.”Google Scholar
∗ In using the term “procreative force” it is obviously not intended to designate a single distinct force; it is but a general term used provisionally to denote the many conditions which are concerned in generation. Science will some time he able to say whether these conditions are physical, chemical, or vital, or result from a combination of the three; but until that time comes, we need some term to express them.Google Scholar
∗ Some, it is true, have explained the fact by supposing that the imagination of the mother was dwelling, at the time of conception, on the former husband; but how could this improbable explanation apply to animals?Google Scholar
∗ The reason for his wish he gives thus :—“Cujus mihi ratio ea videtur esse, quod omnia largè et effusè ex paternis lumbis ac visceribus sunt eonsecuti, nee in furtivo ilio ac clandestino concubitu parcè, jejunè, tenuiter, sed affluenter naturæ numera illis infusa est. Cum enim uterque avidè,“ &c.Google Scholar
∗ Dr. Lucas has most largely discussed this question, but his results in the way of definite knowledge, it will almost be needless to add, are nil.Google Scholar
∗ Bloch, cited both by Burdach and Lucas.Google Scholar
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