238 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



considerations which they are unable thoroughly to cast 

 aside, cannot bring themselves to believe think it, in 

 fact, a stupendous step to have to imagine that the 

 same matter and the same forces, should be able of them- 

 selves to collocate into independent centres of growth. 

 Whilst teaching, as they implicitly or explicitly do, that 

 the growth of organisms is a process akin to crystal- 

 lization (a process which has to do only with ordinary 

 matter of a certain kind acted upon by ordinary forces) 

 they nevertheless persist in believing that whilst 

 the crystal can and does originate de novo by virtue 

 of the action of those molecular affinities which are 

 potential in its growth the organism is quite unable 

 similarly to originate by the play of those very same 

 affinities which are afterwards alone admitted to be 

 necessary for its increase. Whilst the first particle of 

 a crystal owes its origin to the same causes as those 

 which subsequently determine its growth, the first par- 

 ticle of a living organism, though also substantially 

 similar to those which are subsequently formed, is 

 arbitrarily assumed to be incapable of arising under the 

 influence of the causes which are believed to determine 

 their existence. This assumption is obviously opposed 

 to what we might expect a priori. The real point of 

 view, therefore, for the emancipated scientific enquirer 

 of the present day, in looking into the evidence 



become converts to a doctrine of evolution by which the not-living is, 

 through a series of successive changes, supposed to be converted into 

 the living. 



