R. W. Wright.

West Cheshier, Conn., _Oct_. 12, 1883.




Prefatory.



The office of a preface is twofold; first, to introduce the author to the
public; second, to introduce his work. As the writer seeks no personal
introduction, beyond what a favorable or unfavorable reception of his work
may give him, he leaves the more formal, if not formidable branch of
salutation untouched.

The work has cost him some labor, as the reader will see. The field he has
traversed is vast and varied, and the facts he has gathered are numerous
and from many and diversified sources--all bearing more or less
conclusively on the one vital point he seeks to establish, viz: _That the
primordial germs (meaning germinal principles of life) of all living
things, man alone excepted, are in themselves upon the earth, and that
they severally make their appearance, each after its kind, whenever and
wherever the necessary environing conditions exist_.

The foundation of this emphatic formula we find in the Bible Genesis, in
the words given on our title-page, which are more accurately translated in
the Septuagint, than in our common English version of the Old Testament.
The words are to be found in the 11th verse of the first chapter of