xii Summary of Contents 



Does this admit of scientific solution? Had life a begin- 

 ning ? May organisms have come from elsewhere ? May 

 organisms have been evolved from not-living matter? 

 "Omne vivum e vivo" an empirical statement of the re- 

 sults of observation, not a dogma The trend of evolu- 

 tionary thinking leads one to favor the idea of abiogenesis 

 The difficulties to be faced We must not exaggerate 

 the apartness of the animate from the inanimate; nor 

 depreciate it Suppose an organism could be made arti- 

 ficially, what then ? 



IV. THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANISMS 



The general idea of evolution (that the present is the 

 child of the past and the parent of the future) was first 

 realized in relation to human affairs It was thence pro- 

 jected on Nature It is a very old idea, perhaps as old as 

 clear thinking Darwin and his fellow-workers made the 

 idea of organic evolution current intellectual coin Why 

 do we accept the evolutionary modal interpretation? It 

 is not demonstrable like the conservation of energy or like 

 the gravitation formula We accept it because it fits the 

 facts, because no facts contradict it, because it is con- 

 gruent with our interpretation of other orders of facts 

 There is no other scientific modal interpretation The 

 validity of the theory of descent We must not mix up 

 scientific with transcendental interpretations The facts of 

 past history as disclosed by the patience of the palaeon- 

 tologists The record in the rocks Impressions: that 

 everything is equally perfect, no prentice work; that the 

 fountain of life is practically inexhaustible, infinite resource; 

 that many fine types and races have wholly passed away 

 without leaving any lineal descendants; that there is in- 

 dubitable progress, throughout the ages life has been 

 slowly creeping upward Factors in Evolution The raw 



