228 ANIMAL BIOLOGY 



commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of any means of 

 forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance. 

 Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and 

 needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted ab- 

 sence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which 

 existing forms of life have originated, would be using words in a 

 wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where belief is not; 

 and if it were given to me to look beyond the abyss of geologically 

 recorded time to the still more remote period when the Earth was 

 passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can 

 no more see again than a man can recall his infancy, I should ex- 

 pect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not 

 living matter. . . . That is the expectation to which analogical 

 reasoning leads me; but I beg you once more to recollect that I 

 have no right to call my opinion anything but an act of philo- 

 sophical faith." (Fig. 298.) 



