resent volume he avows that his "main
object" therein was to "enforce the doctrine" of the "absolute dominion
of physical agents over organic forms as the fundamental principle in
all the sciences of organization." This "main object" is no less dear to
him in the work immediately under consideration. He still teaches that
the primitive cell, with which, it is supposed, all organisms begin, is
in all the same, but, being placed in different situations, is developed
here into a man, and there into a mushroom. "The offspring," he says,
not without oracular twang, "is like its parent, not because it includes
an immortal typical form, but because it is exposed in development to
the same conditions as was its parent." Behold a cheap explanation of
the mystery of life! If one inquire how the vast variety of parental
conditions was obtained, Dr. Draper is ready with his answer:--"A
suitableness of external situation called them forth," quoth he. An
explanation nebulous enough to be sage!

Behold, therefore, a whole universe of life constructed by "Situations"!
"Situations" are the new _Elohim_. They say to each other, "Let us make
man"; and they do it! But they cannot say, "Let us make man in our own
image"; for they have no image. No matter: they succeed all the same in
giving one to man! Wonderful "Situations"! Who will set up an altar to
almighty "Situations"?

We have ourselves a somewhat Benjamite tongue for pronouncing the
popular shibboleths, but, verily, we would sooner try the crookedest of
them all than endeavor to persuade ourselves that in a universe wherein
no creative idea lives and acts "external situations" can "call forth"
life and all its forms. We can understand that a divine, creative idea
may develop itself under fixed conditions, as the reproductive element
in opposite sexes may, under fixed conditions, prove its resources; but
how, in a universe devoid of any productive thought, "external
situations" can produce definite and animate forms, is, to our feeble
minds, incomprehensible. Verily, therefore, we will have nothing to do
with these new gods. The materialistic _savans_ may cry _Pagani_ at us,
if they will; but we shall surely continue to kneel at the old altars,
unless something other than the said "Situations" can be offered us in
exchange.

We complain of Dr. Draper that he does not write in the spirit of
science, but in the spirit of dogmatism. We complain of him, that, when
he ostensibly attem