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The great trouble with Professor Bastian, as with Mr. Herbert Spencer, is that he advances a purely materialistic hypothesis, and then goes to work, with his quantitative and conditional restrictions, to eliminate all vital force from the universe.
But they move, pulsate, swarm into colonies, and act as if they were guided, not by separate intelligence, but by some master-builder supervising the whole work of organic structure. But this "pellicle" of Professor Bastian is not mere structureless matter, any more than the "bioplast" of Professor Beale.
None may, however, pass beyond the sphere of its own specialty without exposing itself to the risk of being universally proscribed." From the Loango Coast, Bastian tells of a great number of centers for special products of domestic industry. "Loango excels in mats and fishing baskets, while the carving of elephants' tusks is specially followed in Chilungo.
It is agreed that the "proligerous pellicle" of M. Pouchet, the "plastide particle" of Professor Bastian, the "monas" of O.F. MA1/4ller, the "bioplast" of Professor Beale, etc., are essentially one and the same thing, except in name. They are mere moving specks, or nearly spherical particles, which exhibit the first active movements in organic solutions.
A few sailors who had come for a glass were sitting under the arbor of the Buon Pesche smoking, with an occasional stinging word dropped nonchalantly into the dusk. Their hostess was working in the garden patch behind the house. At last the artist moved off with his companion through the grove of laurel between the great well- heads. Bastian loitered suggestively near.
In all life-manifestations, this "force from without," must be a pre-existing vital principle operating to effect the otherwise impossible change in matter. : A favorite set-phrase of Professor Bastian in speaking of morphological cells or "units," as he sometimes calls them.
After three months spent upon the coast, and much suffering from fever, the energetic Dr. Bastian was welcomed home on December 13, 1873. Briefly, everything has been done to lay the foundation for success and to advertise the undertaking. Finally, not satisfied with these steps, the German Society for the Exploration of equatorial Africa organized in September, 1874, a second expedition.
He will find them operative everywhere, and if he studies them deeply enough, he will find that they are not so much the laws of nature as they are the laws of nature's God. Professor Bastian thinks he has conclusive evidence that what he calls "new-born specks of living matter" are produced de novo, that is, independently of any conceivable germ or germinal principle of life implanted in nature.
"Pastoral tribes," says Adolf Bastian, "being sometimes obliged to sell their herds to strangers who may handle the bones disrespectfully, seek to avert the danger which such a sacrilege would entail by consecrating one of the herd as an object of worship, eating it sacramentally in the family circle with closed doors, and afterwards treating the bones with all the ceremonious respect which, strictly speaking, should be accorded to every head of cattle, but which, being punctually paid to the representative animal, is deemed to be paid to all.
Rhoda was intrepid; all the same she reddened as she realized what a mouthpiece she had become for Bastian Cautley's theories and temper. "My dear Rhoda, you're an intellectual monstrosity yourself." "I know. And in another twenty years' time they'll want to get rid of me." "Of me too," thought the Head. Miss Cursiter felt curiously old and worn.
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