THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 237 



of certain conditions, new modes of collocation amongst 

 the molecules of the matter in solution, whereby the 

 transition may take place from the not-living to the 

 living. When these molecules aggregate so as to form 

 the smallest conceivable specks of protoplasm, then 

 does nascent or potential pass into actual Life. But, 

 it may well be asked, must not the process be essentially 

 similar, whether we have to do with the phenomena 

 of growth or the phenomena of evolution ? In each act 

 of growth not-living matter must be converted Into matter 

 ivkich lives ; just as we now suppose such a process 

 to occur when the minutest specks of living matter 

 arise in homogeneous organizable fluids. We are as 

 powerless to explain the one process, of which no one 

 doubts the reality, as we are the other, which in part, 

 because it is less familiar so many seem to think 

 an impossible one. That living matter is capable of 

 growing and increasing in bulk is an obvious and 

 undeniable fact. Physiologists and others can, how- 

 ever, if they choose, doubt the reality of the occur- 

 rence of that to which we have been alluding, since 

 Arckebiosis^ far from being obvious, is even extremely 

 difficult to establish with certainty. And accordingly, 

 whilst many physiologists readily grant that during the 

 growth of organisms the not-living does continually 

 pass into the living under the influence of physi- 

 cal forces alone 1 , they, influenced by old theoretical 



1 It cannot of course be expected that those physiologists who still 

 believe in the existence of a special 'vital principle' should so easily 



