But let us pass from scientific speculations to alleged scientific facts. In a paper read by Dr. Hughes Bennett before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in 1861, its author says: "The first step, in the process of organic formation, is the production of an organic fluid; the second, the precipitation of organic molecules, from which, according to the molecular law of growth, all other textures are derived either directly or indirectly." Here again the molecules, and not the elementary atoms, are advanced to the front, and not a little anxiety is shown, in a definitional way, to identify vital processes of growth with crystalline processes of formation. But Dr. Bennett entirely mistakes, as well as misstates, the process of vital development, if he does not overlook the law governing the formation of crystals. There can be no symmetrically arranged solids in an inorganic fluid without the presence of some law, or principle, definitely determining, not the "precipitation," but the "formation," of crystals. The inorganic particles are not precipitated or thrown downward, any more than they are sublevated or thrown upward. The process is one of formation, not precipitation. Every crystallographer, not hampered by materialistic views and anti-vital theories, admits the presence of a fixed and determinate law governing each crystalline system, whatever may be the homologous parts or the unequal axes it represents. And so of the equally undeviating law of vital growth. Life comes from no mere "precipitation of organic molecules," as Dr. Bennett would have us believe. If so, what is it that precipitates the molecules? They can hardly be said to precipitate themselves. To precipitate, in a chemical sense, is to be thrown down, or caused to be thrown down, as a substance from its solution. What, then, causes the molecules to be thus precipitously thrown down from a fluid to a solid, or a semi-solid, state? It cannot be from any blind or inconsiderate haste on the part of the molecules themselves. There must be some independent principle, or law of nature--one presupposing an intelligent law-giver--to effect the "precipitating process," if any such really exists.