Page images
PDF
EPUB

We find under our astounded gaze nothing but colorless, glue-like, transparent matter; and yet we see it performing all these miracles of as many different sorts as there are different sorts of tissues to be

woven.

In a single nerve there is an unspeakable complexity; but come to something a little more complex. Let us stand with open eyes before this revelation of Almighty God. Here is a nerve wound spirally around another fibre. (See plate II, fig. 5.) How is it made to twine about its trellis-work? Why, when that nerve begins to be formed in a living organism, these bioplasts in it are near each other. They begin to throw off formed material. The object is to weave so as to produce this delicate nerve that is coiled spirally around the other fibre. The bioplasts were shoulder to shoulder, and they begin to separate. They weave, and they carry a spiral nerve around that other fibre with perfect precision.

Adhere to your clear ideas. Materialists say that all this is done by molecular machinery. Do they know what they are talking about when they use that phrase? They say that here are "infinitely complicated chemical properties." They say that all these things occur merely by "a transmutation of physical forces." Do they know what they are saying when they utter propositions of that sort? The tendency of the latest science begins to throw into derision all materialism of this kind. The Germans have a proverb which says, "The clear is the true;" and ascertained truth can be made clear. Will you

make it clear that "molecular machinery," however complicated, can achieve these results? There a tendon, there a muscle, and there a nerve, are woven, and all by the same machinery? The same causes ought to produce the same results. There is an almost measureless difference in your results; but in all ascertainable physical qualities this bioplasm is the same thing in every tissue. [Applause.]

Marvels, however, have but just begun. We might pause long on these earlier stages in the formation of tissues; but there is one word or fact we ought to bow down before, if we have eyes. (See plate III.) It is co-ordination, the adjustment of part to part in a living organism. A vast number of tissues are woven side by side; and their co-ordination is the supreme miracle. It is more than much, my friends, to weave a nerve, a muscle, a vein. But here we have a mass of thin tissues from a tree-frog, and you have here muscles and veins and nerves interlacing with each other intricately. Not only do the mystic bioplasts know enough to coil one fibre around another fibre spirally, but they weave the whole complexity of the tissues together. How? So that there is no clashing among the multitudinous wheels of the living organism. In the naked bioplast we see changes going on; and the question is, What is an adequate cause of these changes? Life, or mechanism which? In the different threads that are woven by the bioplasts we must ask: Life, or mechanism — which? But here, before this transfigured representation of the co-ordination of tissue with tissue, the

question answers itself: Life, or mechanism-which? [Applause.]

6

Here is the last white and mottled bird that flew to us out of the tall Tribune tower; and softly folded under its wing are these words concerning Darwin from Thomas Carlyle at his own fireside in London: "So-called literary and scientific classes in England now proudly give themselves to protoplasm, origin of species, and the like, to prove that God did not build the universe. I have known three generations of the Darwins,-grandfather, father, and son, atheists all." [I do not call Darwin an atheist; but this testimony is very significant.] "The brother of the present famous naturalist, a quiet man, who lives not far from here, told me that among his grandfather's effects he found a seal engraven with this legend, Omnia ex conchis' (every thing from a clam-shell'). I saw the naturalist not many months ago; told him that I had read his Origin of the Species,' and other books; that he had by no means satisfied me that men were descended from monkeys, but had gone far toward persuading me that he and his so-called scientific brethren had brought the present generation of Englishmen very near to monkeys. A good sort of man is this Darwin, and well meaning, but with very little intellect. Ah! it is a sad and terrible thing to see nigh a whole generation of men and women professing to be cultivated, looking around in a purblind fashion, and finding no God in this universe. I suppose it is a re-action from the reign of cant and hollow pre

tence, professing to believe what in fact they do not believe. And this is what we have got: all things from frog-spawn; the gospel of dirt the order of the day. The older I grow, and I now stand upon the brink of eternity, - the more comes back to me the sentence in the catechism, which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes,

[ocr errors]

What is the great end of man? To glorify God, and enjoy him forever.' No gospel of dirt, teaching that men have descended from frogs through monkeys, can ever set that aside" (Daily Tribune, Nov. 4, 1876. Extract from a letter from Carlyle published in Scotland, and quoted in the London Times).

Will haughty Boston, will the colleges of New England, will tender and thoughtful souls everywhere, listen to Thomas Carlyle as he stands upon the brink of eternity? [Applause.]

VII.

DOES DEATH END ALL? INVOLUTION AND

EVOLUTION.

THE FIFTY-SECOND LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT TEMPLE

NOV. 13.

« PreviousContinue »