hing the primeval matter necessary for world-making;
and till the spectroscopic discoveries of the composite nature of
gaseous nebulae, they were claimed as specimens of worlds in process of
formation. La Place supposed his nebulous matter to be gas in a state of
white-heat combustion, compared with which the heat of the hottest fire
would be a cool bath. In no other way could he dissipate the world's
substance into sufficient thinness for his vortices. But Spencer saw
that this tremendous heat would be fatal to all forms of life, and
especially to sensitive beings; and Tyndall shows us that this original
matter must have had all the potencies of life and sensation, and a
potency of sensation means being able to feel. Now the worst fate
threatened against sinners in the Bible is a place in the lake burning
with fire and brimstone, which burns at 500 deg. Fahrenheit; but the
temperature of the original fire-mist was a thousand times hotter. Some
of these scientists call such a fate as the Bible threatens against the
wicked, cruel. But here is a hell manufactured by the evolutionists
infinitely worse than that of the Bible; for the hell of the Bible is
only for the wicked, but the evolutionists' hell is indiscriminately for
all, saints and sinners, and all sorts of creatures, innocent as babes
unborn of any crime; yet they, or, which is the same thing, the matter
containing all the potency of their sensations, that is their power of
feeling, were born in this hell, and kept in it from all eternity, until
it pleased the evolutionists to begin to cool it down a little. However,
it was rather scientific than benevolent reasons which induced Mr.
Spencer to reverse the order of procedure, and make his star dust cold
to begin with, and to heat it up by condensation and pressure to about
the temperature of molten iron; which was still an uncomfortably warm
lodging for Mr. Tyndall's potencies of sensation for some millions of
years. The division of opinion about the original nebulae, however, still
prevails; some evolutionists of the old-fashioned order still taking
their nebulae hot, while others, with Spencer, prefer it cold, with star
dust.

As to the Spontaneous Generation of life, there has been less progress
of opinion, though great variety has been exhibited. Ovid and Virgil
describe the way in which a carcass produces bees. It was generally
believed that putrid meat produced the maggots, till the blow-flies were
discovere