Vegetable physiology furnishes another fact, which seems to me to look still more favorable to this law hypothesis than the preceding, although it has not been noticed, so far as I know, by the advocates of that hypothesis. Speaking of the matter of which certain flowerless plants are composed, Dr. Lindlay says, "It is even uncertain whether this matter will produce its like, and whether it is not a mere representation of the vital principle of vegetation, capable of being called into action, either as a fungus, or algæ, or lichen, according to the particular conditions of heat, light, and moisture, and the medium in which it is placed; producing fungi upon dead or putrid organic beings, lichens upon living vegetables, earth, or stones, and algæ where water is the medium in which it is developed." Again, in speaking of that green slime which often covers the soil, rocks, walls, and glass in damp places, he says, "The slime resembles a layer of albumen, spread with a brush; it exfoliates in drying, and finally becomes visible by the manner in which it colors green or deep brown. One might call it a provisional creation, waiting to be organized, and then assuming different forms according to the nature of the corpuscles which penetrate it, or develop among it. It may further be said to be the origin of two very distinct existences, the one certainly animal, the other purely vegetable."--_Natural System_, pp. 326, 328, 334.
Now, admitting all the facts that have been detailed respecting the production of infusoria, entozoa, acari, and cryptogamian plants to be true, although most of them are far from being proved, it seems to me that they do not show us how vitality is produced by mere law, without the special agency of the Deity. Writers on the subject seem to overlook the distinction between organization and life. The first may be present in its highest perfection without the latter, as it is in animals and plants recently killed. The organization is merely a preparation to receive the mysterious principles which we call _life_ and _intellect_. Light, heat, and electricity may be the essential agents in producing the organization, but they do not explain the nature, or account for the presence, of life. That must, so far as we know, come from some other and a higher source. Galvanism may bring gelatinous matter into the form of an insect, or infusoria, or entozoa; but there is no evidence that it can impart life, however exquisite the organization. It may be, and we have reason to suppose it is, the divine will to bestow life whenever a certain organization exists; but this does not show that his special agency is not concerned in it. He may will that the peculiar life of a lichen shall be given to the same elementary matter which, in another situation, he constitutes an alga, or a fungus, or even an animal. But this would not prove that natural law alone could produce life. There is nowhere any evidence that sensibility, contractility, and especially intellect and volition, are the result of any natural operations. In their properties they are so entirely diverse from all known physical effects, that we must impute them to some other than a natural cause. We must call in the power of a supreme intelligent Being. The laws of affinity, light, heat, and electricity, of endosmose and exosmose, may prepare the organization, but their power ends there; and hence true philosophy requires us to impute the phenomena of life and intellect to an extraneous and infinitely higher cause.