4 THE ORIGIX OF LIFE 



globe are now commonly supposed by men of sci- 

 ence to have been gradually evolved, by processes 

 of " natural selection ' and otherwise, from such 

 primordial types. 



Others consider that the life-originating pro- 

 cesses may have been many times repeated over 

 many parts of the Earth, though not in recent 

 times. 1 While a third comparatively small section, 

 to which the writer belongs, incline to the belief 

 that life-evolving processes are now and have ever 

 been going on, in suitable sites, since the times 

 when thev first commenced. 







In adopting this latter view, we rely upon the 

 known Uniformity of Xatural Phenomena, and 

 believe that just as all ordinary physical and 

 chemical processes that have once occurred in any 

 part of the universe are apt to recur, so we have 

 a right to believe in the strong probability that 

 the physico-chemical processes which originally led 

 to the birth of living matter would similarly and 

 constantly tend to be reproduced. 



1 The consequences of this " Polyphyletic '' doctrine in refer- 

 ence to the course of, and time needed for, organic Evolution, 

 together with the interpretations to be attached to fossil remains 

 from the point of view of genetic relationship or otherwise, are 

 most important, and would naturally often differ much from 

 those favoured by the " Monophyletic " doctrine, to which Dar- 

 win, Huxley, and so many others, have seemed to incline. 



