Page:Evolution and Natural Selection in the Light of the New Church.djvu/7

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IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH.

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always remain such, the vegetable never developing into the animal, or the animal into the vegetable. Doubtless it is difficult to discover the exact difference between vegetable and animal protoplasm (or bioplasm).^[1] It is also difficult in the lowest forms of life to discern between vegetable and animal organisms; and even the animal consciousness which is called instinct is, in some cases, scarcely distinguishable from the unconscious vitality of the vegetable. But, admitting this difficulty, it only shows our want of further knowledge; and there is no reliable scientiﬁc evidence whatever that vegetable forms ever were or can be developed into animal forms, or vice versâ, merely by a varied arrangement or combination of their component inorganic elements. This, together with the entire absence of scientiﬁc evidence that any vegetable or animal species ever developed into a distinctly higher species, are powerful arguments in favor of the doctrine that each distinct species, from lowest to highest, had a distinct spiritual origin. It is true that chemical and microscopical analyses demonstrate that similar

↑ Protoplasm, otherwise called bioplasm,—living matter,—is the scientiﬁc term given to the ﬁrst extremely minute visible forms of life, in the process whereby inorganic elements become organized into vegetable and animal tissues. Both vegetable and animal bioplasts live, move, grow, multiply, and change dead matter into living matter; but in one case the result is a leaf, a ﬂower, a fruit, a seed, or some vitalized structure having relation to a complete vegetable form, and in the other case the result is a nerve, a muscle, a tendon, a bone, or some animated piece of mechanism having relation to a complete animal form. The cause of all structural organization is the sentient spiritual "life" within; this it is which not only organizes the tiny vegetable and animal bioplasts, but it unceasingly animates and guides their marvellous operations, constructing and sustaining, through their unconscious agency, all the complex living machinery in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, including the material body of man.

[1] Protoplasm, otherwise called bioplasm,—living matter,—is the scientiﬁc term given to the ﬁrst extremely minute visible forms of life, in the process whereby inorganic elements become organized into vegetable and animal tissues. Both vegetable and animal bioplasts live, move, grow, multiply, and change dead matter into living matter; but in one case the result is a leaf, a ﬂower, a fruit, a seed, or some vitalized structure having relation to a complete vegetable form, and in the other case the result is a nerve, a muscle, a tendon, a bone, or some animated piece of mechanism having relation to a complete animal form. The cause of all structural organization is the sentient spiritual "life" within; this it is which not only organizes the tiny vegetable and animal bioplasts, but it unceasingly animates and guides their marvellous operations, constructing and sustaining, through their unconscious agency, all the complex living machinery in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, including the material body of man.

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