Flaccus

“ The truth is, as I have said already, the whole business was a deliberate contrivance designed by the cruelty of Flaccus and of the multitude, in which even women were included; for they were dragged away as captives, not only in the market-place, but even in the middle of the theatre, and dragged upon the stage on any false accusation that might be brought against them with the most painful and intolerable insults ”

“ The fact is that all these circumstances are an undeniable evidence that Flaccus was a participator in all this abuse; for he who might have punished it with the most extreme severity, and entirely checked it, and who yet took no steps to restrain it, was clearly convicted of having permitted and encouraged it; but whenever an ungoverned multitude begins a course of evil doing it never desists, but proceeds from one wickedness to another, continually doing some monstrous thing. ”

“ Neither winds, river or ocean currents, casual mountain torrents, birds, quadrupeds, war, or even man himself, could have effected this sudden and wide distribution of the plant in question. It came as did all other plant-life, in the first instance, from geographical conditions--those favoring the development of primordial germs--just as the different organic infusions, experimentally prepared by the physiologist, produce their respective forms of infusorial life; each distinctive form depending on the chemical conditions of the infusion at the time the microscopic examination is made. ”

“ Flaccus Avillius succeeded Sejanus in his hatred of and hostile designs against the Jewish nation. He was not, indeed, able to injure the whole people by open and direct means as he had been, inasmuch as he had less power for such a purpose, but he inflicted the most intolerable evils on all who came within his reach. Moreover, though in appearance he only attacked a portion of the nation, in point of fact he directed his aims against all whom he could find anywhere, proceeding more by art than by force ”

“ And when the men arrived at Andros, who had been commanded to put him to death, Flaccus happened, just at that moment, to be coming from his farm into the city, and they, on their way up from the port, met him, (186) and while yet at a distance they perceived and recognised one another; at which he, perceiving in a moment the object for which they were come (for every man's soul is very prophetic, especially of such as are in misfortune) , burning out of the road, fled and ran away over the rough ground, forgetting, perhaps, that Andros was an island and not the continent. ”

“ And while he admits that, in many instances, the generally accepted theory concerning the dissemination of seeds is not a probable one, he still clings to the exploded notion that vegetable physiology furnishes a record of "numerous instances where seeds have grown after lying dormant for ages in the earth." He further says, in the same connection, that "their vitality seems almost imperishable while they remain in the situations in which nature deposits them;" ”

“ But the specific germ theory advanced in the Bible genesis, is capable of being taken out of the purely speculative region in which "panspermism" landed the great German philosopher. It is a simple averment that the animating principle of life is in the earth; that the germs of all living things, vegetal and animal alike, are implanted therein, and that they make their appearance, in obedience to the divine command, whenever and wherever the necessary environing conditions occur. ”

“ All these men, having devised a most grievous design against the Jews, proceeded to put it in execution, and coming privately to Flaccus said to him, (22) "All your hope from the child of Tiberius Nero has now perished, and that which was your second best prospect, your companion Macro, is gone too, and you have no chance of favour with the emperor, therefore we must find another advocate, by whom Gaius may be made propitious to us, (23) and that advocate is the city of Alexandria, which all the family of Augustus has honoured from the very beginning, and our present master above all the rest ”

“ And when the corpse was dragged into the trench which had been dug, the greater part of the limbs separated from the body, the sinews by which the whole of the body is kept together being all cut through. (191) Such was the end of Flaccus, who suffered thus, being made the most manifest evidence that the nation of the Jews is not left destitute of the providential assistance of God. ”

“ It is hardly necessary to assume that the same law of vital force governs in the appearance and geographical distribution of fungi, as universally obtains in the higher and more complex vegetal growths. And although it may be difficult, in some instances, to draw the precise line between certain low mycological forms and the amoeboid and some other primitive manifestations of animal life, yet all vegetable physiologists agree in assigning a purely vegetable origin to all the primary groups of fungi--their general cellular character determining their proper place in classification. ”

“ Were it possible to restore the exact chemical conditions and constituent particles of the boiled or calcined seed, there is no more doubt that nature would respond to the environing conditions, and give forth the proper expression of plant-life, than there is that crystals of spar would make their appearance in an overcharged bath chemically prepared for that purpose. ”

“ And the troubles man is heir to thus are quell'd,
and only thus.
Who can talk of want or warfare when the wine is
in his head,
Not of thee, good father Bacchus, and of Venus
fair and bright?
But should any dream of licence, there's a lesson
may be read,
How 'twas wine that drove the Centaurs with
the Lapithæ to fights
And the Thracians too may warn us; truth and
falsehood, good and ill,
How they mix them, when the wine-god's hand
is heavy on them laid!
Never, never, gracious Bacchus, may I move thee
'gainst thy will,
Or uncover what is hidden in the verdure of thy
shade! ”

“ Of slaughter'd swine, and spice, and corn,
Ne'er shall Scirocco's bane assail
Your vines, nor mildew blast your wheat,
Ne'er shall your tender younglings fail
In autumn, when the fruits are sweet. ”

“ And they who had been employed in this honourable service, being raised up on the platform, (142) that they might be elevated and conspicuous and be recognised by all men, accused Isidorus as having been the cause of all the tumults and of the accusations which had been brought against Flaccus, and as having given money and bribes to no small number of them by himself. "Since else," said they, "where could we have got such great abundance? ”

“ Continuously damp walls, or wall-paper, will produce them in specific variety, not because their invisible spores are flying about in the atmosphere to find appropriate lodgment, but because the necessary conditions obtain for their manifestation, or for the development of their vital units--those everywhere diffused, and ready to burgeon forth from the proper matrix, or from certain nutrient conditions to be met with in all vegetable substances, after the process of decay has commenced. ”

“ All those familiar with the characteristic differences of seeds, their chemical constituents, their tegumentary coverings, rudimentary parts, etc., thoroughly understand the process in its outward manifestation. There is no precipitation of molecules as in an organic fluid, unless the albumen lying between the embryo and testa of the seeds, and constituting the nutriment on which the plant feeds during its primary stages of growth, can be called a fluid. It throws none of its characteristic ingredients downward any more than upward. ”

“ The germ in the seed is capable of assimilating, by well-determined and thoroughly specialized processes, the nutrient matter contained in its environment, precisely as the "primordial germ" develops under its environing conditions. ”

“ To say that there is any intelligent preference in these fungi--the different species of Mucor, for instance--for disgusting offal over decaying fruit, bread, paste, preserves, etc., is to predicate a higher degree of intelligence of fungus spores than of the average brute creation, with all its wonderful instincts for guidance. ”

“ The chief fault that we have to find with the London University professor is that he confounds a morphological cell with a morphological unit, and insists upon drawing unwarrantable conclusions therefrom. His "countless myriads of living units" are all well enough in their way. That they exist in the earth, and are constantly developed into innumerable multitudes of living organisms, of almost inconceivable variety, in both the animal and vegetal world, is true, as he half-reluctantly admits in almost the identical language we here use. ”

“ It is admitted, even in the case of Bacteria, whose movements are the most uniform, that they are sometimes so inert and languid as to show no movements at all; while, at other times, they exhibit mere Brownian movements or those no more nearly allied to "life" than the minute particles of carbon escaping from the flame of a kerosene lamp. ”

“ To be entirely consistent with himself, he should deny the existence of this germinal principle in the seeds of plants themselves, and insist upon the sum-total of external conditions as the cause of all life-manifestations, in the vegetal as in the animal world. There can be no inherent tendency, he should insist, in the seed itself towards structural development, but only external conditions acting upon "dead matter," in heterogentic directions. ”

“ All these experimental results, and many others we might give in connection with the culture of edible fungi, point to the conditions of the soil, produced by natural rather than artificial means, as all-essential for the propagation of fungus spores, as well as their development into full-sized plants. ”

“ If the vital units of these infusoriæ, are present in experimental infusion, as Professor Bastian virtually admits, why may not the vital germs or units of this Schizoea pusilla have made their appearance, in developmental forms, both in New Zealand and New Jersey, at the same or different periods of time? If Professor Gray regards the microscopical forms in organic infusions, or the statical forms in inorganic solutions, as supernatural, or as above the powers of nature, then we have no exceptions to make to his position. ”

“ This theory of the "wonderful vitality" of seeds is simply one, as we have said, to force a conclusion--to get rid of a lion in the scientific path. Professor Marsh, with other eminent and scholarly writers on vegetable physiology, scouts the idea that the seeds of some of our cereal crops have been preserved for three or four thousand years in the "ashy dryness" of the Egyptian catacombs. ”

“ And in all their extended family groups, pervading nature as widely as animal and vegetable life, we find that uniform chemical and other conditions produce uniform mycological results. Spores are no more necessary for their appearance, in the first instance, than acorns are essential to the appearance of an oak forest when it succeeds the pine. ”

“ But these defiant challengers of the vitalists, who refuse us even the right to assume the existence of a special "vital force" in nature, are anything but consistent in their logical deductions. For while they resolutely deny the invasion of vital germs in their experimental flasks, they talk as flippantly of the "germs of crystals," and their presence in saline and other solutions, as if there were no scientific formula more satisfactorily generalized than that establishing their existence. ”

“ Marsh, and his friend, Herbert Spencer, that if either of them will show that an acorn comes without an oak tree, we will abandon any position we have taken on this subject, and accept theirs, however absurdly (to our mind) it may have been taken in the past. We know that "tall oaks from little acorns grow;" but that is when man becomes the sower of seed, and knows the origin of each specific tree that is brought forth. When we talk about the squirrel, or the birds becoming the "sowers of seeds," especially the acorns, we are talking at random, and without any certain knowledge. ”

“ The parasitic fungi, however, generally confine themselves to certain special plants, and rarely to any other. It is only the condition of these special plants, when affected by decay, that seems favorable for their development; not because their spores (assuming that all fungi come from spores,) possess the intelligence to fly about and hunt up the proper nutrient matter on which to subsist during their developmental progress from specific spores into genetic forms of life. ”

“ But there's a difference between clime and clime;
Baiæ is good, but to the Lucrine yields;
Circeii ranks as best for oyster-fields;
Misenum's cape with urchins is supplied;
Flat bivalve mussels are Tarentum's pride.
Let no man fancy he knows how to dine
Till he has learnt how taste and taste combine. ”

“ Then takes his slippers. Head to head draws near,
And each man's lips are at his neighbour's ear.
H. 'Tis better than a play: but please report
What further things occurred to make you sport.
F. Well, while Vibidius takes the slaves to task,
Enquiring if the tumble broke the flask,
And Balatro keeps starting some pretence
For mirth, that we may laugh without offence,
With altered brow returns our sumptuous friend,
Resolved, what chance has damaged, art shall mend.
More servants follow, staggering 'neath the load
Of a huge dish where limbs of crane were stowed,
Salted and floured ”

“ Germs are embryonic, and imply a law of growth--a process of assimilation, not of mere aggregation.
But, at the risk of being tedious, let us extend this argument of the materialists a little further: The only difference, they will still insist, between the preëxisting germs of crystals and plants--or the only difference essentially worth noticing--is that crystalline particles of matter are endowed with much less potentiality of undergoing diversified forms and structural changes than the more highly favored vital particles, such as the proligerous pellicle, the bioplast, the plastide, etc. ”