ansmission. But the theory of Physiological
Development proceeds on a totally different supposition,--a supposition
for the truth of which we have not only no historical evidence, but not
even the slightest _analogical presumption_, since we have no instance
of development anywhere except from a germ or seed, produced by an
organism preexisting in a state of maturity.

But the exigencies of that theory demand a wide departure from all the
familiar lessons of experience; and hence recourse has been had to a
series of the wildest and most extravagant conjectures, such as may well
justify the opinion of those who have held that the creed of certain
philosophers makes a much larger demand on human credulity than that of
almost any section of the Christian Church. For, according to that
theory, the origin of the FLORA is first accounted for by the action of
some element--probably electricity--on a certain _mucus_, which is
supposed to be generated at those points where the ocean comes into
contact with the earth and air; that is, on the shore of the sea at low
water mark. MAILLET had broached the idea of the marine origin of all
our present "herbs, plants, roots, and grains,"[39] at a period when the
Universal Ocean, of which Leibnitz said so much, was still the creed of
some speculative minds; but it has been more recently revived, and
exhibited in greater detail, though not with stronger evidence, by some
writers of our own age. Thus Dr. Oken tells us that "all life is from
the sea;" that "when the sea organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in
attaining into form, there issues forth from it a higher organism;" and
that "the first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from
the shallow parts of the sea." And so the author of "The Vestiges"
attempts to show that new races, both of plants and animals, marine and
terrestrial, may be accounted for, without any act of immediate
creation, by a change or transmutation of species resulting from the
agency of natural causes. "There is," as he tells us, "another set of
phenomena presented in the course of our history; the coming into
existence, namely, of a long suite of living things, vegetable and
animal, terminating in the families which we still see occupying the
surface. The question arises,--In what manner has this set of phenomena
originated? Can we touch at, and rest for a moment on, the possibility
of plants and animals having likewise been produced in the way of
N