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Aristotle affirms a tendency of nature towards the best, which helps him to a theory of many natural phaenomena. The rise of water in a pump is attributed to Nature's horror of a vacuum. The fall of heavy bodies, and the ascent of flame and smoke, are construed as attempts of each to get to its natural place.
Whatever forms the Living Being may take on, whether simple or complex, production, growth, reproduction, are the phaenomena which distinguish it from that which does not live.
For real opposition, in which A B is = 0, exists everywhere, an opposition, that is, in which one reality united with another in the same subject annihilates the effects of the other a fact which is constantly brought before our eyes by the different antagonistic actions and operations in nature, which, nevertheless, as depending on real forces, must be called realitates phaenomena.
The mode of thought which M. Comte terms Metaphysical, accounts for phaenomena by ascribing them, not to volitions either sublunary or celestial, but to realized abstractions.
Every object which seems to originate power, that is, to act without being first visibly acted upon, to communicate motion without having first received it, they suppose to possess life, consciousness, will. This first rude conception of nature can scarcely, however, have been at any time extended to all phaenomena.
A general proposition inductively obtained is only then proved to be true, when the instances on which it rests are such that if they have been correctly observed, the falsity of the generalization would be inconsistent with the constancy of causation; with the universality of the fact that the phaenomena of nature take place according to invariable laws of succession.
This want of discrimination has led to many strange political speculations. Sir William Temple deduced a theory of government from the properties of the pyramid. Mr. Southey's whole system of finance is grounded on the phaenomena of evaporation and rain. In theology, this perverted ingenuity has made still wilder work. Yet we cannot wish that Bacon's wit had been less luxuriant.
It is obvious, from, these extracts, that Professor Koelliker's hypothesis is based upon the supposed existence of a close analogy between the phaenomena of Agamogenesis and the production of new species from pre-existing ones. But is the analogy a real one? We think that it is not, and, by the hypothesis cannot be. For what are the phaenomena of Agamogenesis, stated generally?
Our conclusions on the first of these heads must depend, of course, upon the nature of the subject-matter of Biology; and I think a few preliminary considerations will place before you in a clear light the vast difference which exists between the living bodies with which Physiological science is concerned, and the remainder of the universe; between the phaenomena of Number and Space, of Physical and of Chemical force, on the one hand, and those of Life on the other.
The concrete sciences, on the contrary, concern themselves only with the particular combinations of phaenomena which are found in existence. For example; the minerals which compose our planet, or are found in it, have been produced and are held together by the laws of mechanical aggregation and by those of chemical union.
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