The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1854-07-12

Without life, what are they all What
were Creator himself, without life,
intelligence, understanding, to know and
adore Him, and to trace His fingers In
the work that He hath made s.ni,.i.
| Boundless variety and perpetual
change are exhibited IN the living beings
around us. Take the class of insects
alone; of these. not fewer than 100, 900
distinct species are already known and
described; and every day is adding to
the catalogue. Wherever you penetrate,
that life can be sustained, you find liv-
ing beings to exist; in the depths of the
ocean, in the arid desert, or at the icy
polar regions. The air teens with life.
The soil which clothes the earth all
round, is warming with life, vegetable
and ANNA, ,,...f.,... =. -.,t,,,iqf.,i f..i,.=
Take drop of water; and examine
| it with a microscope; lol it is swarmi e
with living creatures. Within life, ex-
lists other life, until it recedes before the
powers of human vision. The parasitic
animalcules, which prey upon or within
the body o larger animal is itself
preyed upon by parasites peculiar to it
self. So minute are living animalcules,
that Ehrenberg has computed that not
fewer than five hundred millions can
subsist- in a single drop of water, and
each of these cmonads is endowed with
its appropriate organs, possesses spon-
tanecus power of motion, and enjoys an
Independent vitality. lrd ISL
In the very ocean deep, insects, by
the labor of ages, are enabled to con-
struct islands, and lay the foundations of
future continents. The coral insect is
the great architect of the >uthern ocean.
FIRST reef is formed; seeds are waited
to it, vegetation sorings up, a verdant
island exists; then man takes posses
sion, and colony is formed. 'Hi {
Dig down into the earth, and from a
hundred yards deep, throw up portion
of soil, cover it so that no communica-
tion can take place between that earth
and the surrounding air. Soon you will
observe vegetation springing upper
haps new plants, altogether unlike any
heretofore grown in that neighborhood.
During how many thousands of years has
the vitality of these seeds been preserved
deep in the earth's bosom! Not less
wonderful is the fact stated by Lord
Lindsay, who took from the hand of an
Egyptian mummy a tuber, which must
have been wrapped up there more than
1000 years before 1t was planted, was
rained and dewed upon, theosun shone
on it again, and the root grew, bursting
forth and blooming into beauteous Dab
lial s---i 7"7
At the North Pole, where yeu would
expect life to become extinct, the snow
is found of a bright red color. Exam
inc it by the microscope, and, 10 it is
covered with mushrooms, growing on the
surface of the snow as their natural
abode s--. -.a -n-
A philosopher distils portion of
pure water, secludes it from the air, and
then places it under the influence of a
powerful electric current. Living be
ings are stimulated into existence, the
accari Or sir appear in numbers -
Here we touch on the borders of great
mystery hut it is not at all more mys-
tcrious than the fact of life itself Phi
losophers know nothing about it, further
than it as. The attempt to discover its
cause, inevitably throws them back upon
the Great. FIRST Cause Philosophy
takes refuge in religion. Irg -.- -.r..
. Yet man is never at rest in his specu-
lations as to causes; and he contrives
all manner of theories to satisfy his. de-
mand for them. A favorite theory now
a-days is what is called the developement
theory, which proceeds on the assump-
tion, that one germ of being was origin
ally planted on the earth, and that from
this germ, by the wondrous power Of
life, all forms of vegetable and animal
life have progressively been developed.
Unquestionably, all living beings are or
ganized on one grand plan, and the high
er forms of living beings, in the process
of their growth, successfully pass through
the lower organized forms. Thus, the
hrman being is successfully a monad,
and vertebrated animal, an osseous
fish, turtle, a bird, ruminant, man.
NAL, and lastly an infant man. Through
all these types of organization, Tiede-
mann has shown that the brain of man
passes. .alp.a-- a-.t lo 5.5is - r5i s'+
This theory, however, does nothing to
explain the causes of life, or the stri-
kingly diversified and yet determinate
characters of living beings; why some
SO far transcend others in the stages of
development to which they ascend, and
how is it that they stop there-how is it
that animals succeed each other in right
lines, the offspring inheriting the physif
cal structure and the moral disposition
of their parents, and never, by any
chance, stopping short at any other
stage of being-man, for instance, never
issuing in lion, a fish, or polypus.-
We can scarcely conceive it possible that
had merely the germ of being been plant
ed on the earth, and Htset a. -going,n any
thing like the beautiful harmony and
extraordinary adoption which is every
where observable throughout the ami
mated Kingdoms of nature, would have
been secured. That there has been a
grand plan of organization on which all
living beings have b II formed, seems
obvious enough; but to account for the
diversity of being, by the theory that
plants and animals have gradually ad-
yanced from lower to higher stages of
being by an inherent power of self-de-
velopment, is at variance with known
facts, and is only an attempt to get rid
of one difficulty by creating another far
greater. M. S., s. asE
Chemists are equally at fault, in en-
deavoring to unveil the mysterious pro-
cesses of life, Before its power they
stand-abashed, For life controls mat
ter, and to great extent overrules Its
combinations. An organized being is
not held together by ordinary chemical
affinity. nor can chemistry do anything
toward compounding organized tissues