to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

But as Darwin's spirit of inquiry and speculation could not be stopped by the dogma that species were created at the beginning as they now exist, so subsequent thinkers have speculated as to the origin of the primordial forms of life, notwithstanding that their leader was content to account for the first organisms by the power of the Creator. of the Creator. And here we have a curious anomaly. In other classes of phenomena, and in the transmutation of species, we can point to processes actually going on in the present condition of things as similar to the processes which must have caused the changes of which we find records in former periods of the earth's evolution. Marine fossils of former epochs are now found on hill-tops, and beaches are actually being raised by gradual elevation at the present day above the level of the sea. The phenomena of the glacial period can be illustrated by the effects of the glaciers of Switzerland; the formation of coal can be compared to the modern accumulation of peat, and the origin of many species from one can be seen to be actually going on in the formation of several domestic breeds of pigeons from one. It is thus very tempting to conclude that if living organisms were once formed from unorganized matter, the same process ought to be going on now. And this conclusion has been drawn by more than one writer. Mr. G. H. Lewes, for example, writes:

"I cannot see the evidence which would warrant the belief that Life originated solely in one microscopic lump of protoplasm on one single point of our earth's surface; on the contrary, it is more probable that from innumerable and separate points of this teeming

earth myriads of protoplasts sprang into existence, whenever and wherever the conditions of the formation of organized substance were present. It is probable that this has been incessantly going on, and that every day new protoplasts appear, struggle for existence, and serve as food for more highly organized rivals; but whether an evolution of the lower forms is or is not still going on, there can be no reluctance on the part of every believer in evolution to admit that when organized substance was first evolved, it was evolved at many points."

Unfortunately for the "probability," every attempt to discover an exception to the general rule omne vivum e vivo has hitherto absolutely failed, and it is curious that Lewes should so confidently argue about the probability of the recent origin of organisms from inorganic matter without referring to the celebrated controversy on "spontaneous generation." Up to the present time we have absolutely no analogy to guide us in forming a conception of the origin of living things from inorganic matter, and we have no more reason, scientifically speaking, to talk of the origin of life than of the origin of matter or of energy, however fascinating speculation may be on either point. It is interesting that at first sight it would seem necessary that the first organisms which lived on this planet must have been plants in the physiological sense, must have been able to obtain the energy necessary for their existence by acting on the rays of the sun, and so separating carbon from carbonic acid and forming compounds containing stored potential energy. But this can only be done in the presence of chlorophyll, and a unit of protoplasm possessing chlorophyll is more complex than one without chlorophyll. To get over the difficulty of the earliest living thing on this view, not being the simplest possible, Professor Lankester suggests that the first evolved forms were animals,

and were produced only after a long process of evolution of carbon compounds, which produced first not living albuminoids and then living protoplasm which, in the first period of its life, fed on the antecedent stages of its own evolution. But at present we cannot form any conception of the process by which the first living beings could be evolved. Organic compounds have been produced by synthesis, and it is possible that in the surroundings where life first began albuminoids may have been produced from combinations of the elements. But no synthesis has ever produced living protoplasm, which was able to continue its life by feeding, and reproduce its kind by sub-division or gemmation. The protoplasm of the protozoan, which exhibits no other reproduction but total division, is immortal, although the ultimate elements of which it is composed are continually giving place to others. In compound organisms, although the individual dies, it is derived from a cell which has had through the ages a continuous life of whose beginning we can form no idea. The philosopher who attempts to trace the evolution of the solar system downwards from a diffused nebula, and the naturalist who traces back the history of organic evolution to the simplest forms of living beings, are both finally stopped by the impenetrable mystery of the origin of life. We can form no hypothesis of the beginning of life because we have at present reached no ultimate comprehension of the nature of living processes.

"Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

Hold you here, root and all in my hand.
Little flower-but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is."

J. T. CUNNINGHAM.

HE aim of this Series is to give expression to

THE

the views of a number of writers, who, while representing divers and even antagonistic schools of thought, desire to give temperate and reasoned statements of their beliefs. The earlier numbers will be studies of the teachings of eminent modern authors, and of these the projectors of the scheme hope to be able to issue a fairly comprehensive series.

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matter, too, of these Papers will be not so much the literary form or artistic excellence, as the philosophic and ethic import of the works of which they treat. But, as it is also desirable to give free scope to each writer's individuality, no rigid limits can on this point be laid down.

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