KOSMICOS. I have to be perpetually recalling you to the first principles of Mr. Spencer's philosophy. You seem to think it enough to point to the existence of species and the sexual division, as if his philosophy did not afford the means of accounting for them by the operation of natural causes. Let me put to you, then, this question: If natural causes have produced a crystal, by successive new combinations of molecules of matter through gradations rising successively into higher forms, why should not natural causes, acting upon other molecules in a corresponding way, have produced organic life, or animated organisms? If natural causes have evolved out of certain molecules the substance known as organizable protein, why should not the continued operation of the same or similar causes have modified organizable protein into some distinct and recognizable animated organism? If you admit this as a possible or highly probable result, why should not natural causes have produced, in the course of millions of years, the division of the sexes and the methods of procreation and multiplication? SOPHEREUS. I will assign the reasons for not adopting the conclusions to which you expect me to arrive, in a certain order. In the first place, the capacity of certain molecules to result in the formation of a crystal, under the operation of what you call natural causes, requires that the molecules, their capacity, and the natural causes should all have had an origin, call it known or unknown. The cause was of equal potency to produce the crystal directly, or anything else that exists in Nature. The same thing is true of certain other molecules which, under the operation of the so-called natural causes, have resulted in organizable protein. There must have been an origin to the molecules, to their capacity, and to the laws which effect their combinations; and this cause could equally fashion an organism and fashion it in the related forms of male and female by direct intervention, for to such a power there is no assignable limit. In the next place, the distinction between inanimate and animated matter, between beings endowed and beings not endowed with animal life, is a distinction that can not be overlooked; for, although we find this distinction to be a fact that has resulted after the operation of whatever causes may have produced it, we must still note that there is a distinction, and a very important one. It may be that the dividing line is very difficult of detection; that it is impossible to determine in all cases just where organizable matter passes from dead matter into a living organism. But that at some point there has arisen a living organism, however produced, is certain. Now, suppose that what you call natural causes have operated to bring organizable matter up to this dividing line, the question is, whether we can conclude that they have had the potency to pass that line, and to lead of themselves to