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for the "great progression" from the formless; not the first thing that lived, but the "evolution" of "life" from "not living matter."

But to satisfy this demand is, as we have seen, impossible, since the "evolution" required is not only non-existent, but is pronounced by Mr. Darwin himself to be "absolutely inconceivable." What then is to be done? Nothing is more simple. The demand that cannot be met must be evaded; and we are accordingly asked to believe that the nucleated vesicle "is a form of being which there is some reason to believe electric agency will produce-though not perhaps usher into full life-in albumen, one of those component materials of animal bodies, in whose combination it is believed there is no chemical peculiarity forbidding their being any day realized in the laboratory. Remembering these things," proceeds the writer, "we are drawn on to the supposition that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet was a chemicoelectric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles were produced."

Observe here, not the reasoning, but the unreason. The premiss, "There is some reason to believe." The conclusion, a "supposition." There is some reason to believe that "electric agency will produce" something not alive.

Ergo, "a chemico-electric operation" was "the first step in the creation of life!"

But had not Prevost and Dumas previously announced that "globules could be produced in albumen by electricity"? Quite true: but the support which the author's "supposition" was supposed to receive from that announcement fails at once before the remark that, "if his theory had been that the first step in the process of creation was the formation of vesicles by the wind passing over the ocean, then the fact of boys blowing bubbles in soap and water with a tobacco pipe, and the fable of Venus being born of the froth of the sea would have been as much to his purpose."

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From the author of the "Vestiges" we turn to his eulogist, Professor Tyndall:

"If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence to prove that any form of life can be developed out of matter, without demonstrable antecedent life, my reply is that evidence considered perfectly conclusive by many has been adduced; and that were some of us who have pondered this question to follow a very common example, and accept testimony because it falls in with our belief, we also should eagerly close with the evidence referred to. But there is in the true man of science a wish stronger than the wish to have his beliefs upheld; namely, the wish to have them true. And this stronger wish causes him to reject the most plausible support if he has reason to suspect that it is vitiated by error. Those

to whom I refer as having studied this question, believing the evidence offered in favour of spontaneous generation' to be thus vitiated cannot accept it. They know full well that the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a vast array of substances which were some time ago regarded as the sole products of vitality. They are intimately acquainted with the structural power of matter as evidenced in the phenomena of crystallization. They can justify scientifically their belief in its potency, under the proper conditions, to produce organisms. But in reply. to your question they would frankly admit their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be developed save from demonstrable antecedent life. As already indicated, they draw the line from the highest organisms through lower ones down to the lowest, and it is the prolongation of this line by the intellect beyond the range of the senses that leads them to the conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated." 1

Reserving, for the present, all consideration of the other important admissions in this remarkable paragraph, it is sufficient to note here the distinctly decisive answer which it furnishes to the question before us. "The evidence offered in favour of 'spontaneous generation'" is "vitiated by error." There is no "satisfactory experimental proof," nor even does there exist "the least evidence to prove that any form of life can be developed out of matter, without demonstrable antecedent life."

With this avowal of Professor Tyndall as

1 "Belfast Address,” pp. 55, 56.

well as with the preceding passage from the "Vestiges," it is instructive to compare the carefully constructed sentences-so reticent, so politic-of Mr. Herbert Spencer :

"The chasm," he tells us, "between the inorganic and the organic is being filled up. On the one hand, some four or five thousand compounds, once regarded as exclusively organic, have now been produced artificially from inorganic matter; and chemists do not doubt their ability so to produce the highest forms of organic matter. On the other hand, the microscope has traced down organisms to simpler and simpler forms, until in the Protogenes of Professor Haeckel, there has been reached a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its finely granular character."1

On which Dr. Elam pertinently asks, "Does not every candid observer know that this said 'chasm' is not in any way 'being filled up;' and that the chemist could quite as easily construct a full-grown ostrich, as this despised bit of finely granulated albumen?" As for the "four or five thousand compounds," as well might the goldsmith say that he did not "doubt his ability" to make gold out of a

1 "Principles of Psychology" (Stereotyped Edition), vol. i. p. 137.

baser metal, because he had already moulded it and coloured it in four or five thousand different fashions. It is not in any sense true that any substance even distantly resembling organizable matter has been formed. The line of demarcation between the organic and the inorganic is as wide as ever. For what are these "organic" matters said to have been formed from their elements? They are chiefly binary and ternary compounds; certain acids of the compound radical class, some alcohols, ethers, and the like. Not one of them bears the most remote resemblance to anything that can live. Few of them contain nitrogen, and these few, chiefly amides, are only combinations of ammonia or ammonium with other binary or ternary compounds, and can only by courtesy or convention be allowed to be of "organic' nature. Neither chemically nor physically are they in any way allied to matter possessing the capacity of life. "One least particle of albumen, granulated or not granulated, would be an answer a thousandfold more crushing to the opponents of Evolution than myriads of such compounds."

It is now thirty-five years since the author of the "Vestiges," in his "vigorous exposition," enunciated the "belief" that "albumen "

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