THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 185 



investigation of the question to some conveniently inaccessible 

 corner -of the universe and leaves us in the unsatisfactory 

 condition of affirming not only that we have no knowledge 

 as to the mode of origin of life — which is unfortunately true — - 

 but that we never can acquire such knowledge — which it is 

 to be hoped is not true. Knowing what we know, and believ- 

 ing what we believe, ... we are, I think (without denying 

 the possibility of the existence of life in other parts of the 

 universe), justified in regarding these cosmic theories as in- 

 herently improbable." (Dundee Address of 1912, cf. Smith- 

 son. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 503.) 



Dismissing, therefore, all evasions of this sort, we may 

 regard as scientifically established the conclusion that, so far 

 as our knowledge goes, inorganic nature lacks the means of 

 self-vivification, and that no inanimate matter can become 

 living matter without first coming under the influence of mat- 

 ter previously alive. Given, therefore, that the conditions 

 favorable to life did not always prevail in our cosmos, it 

 follows that life had a beginning, for which we are obliged 

 to account by some postulate other than abiogenesis. This 

 conclusion seems inescapable for those who concede the scien- 

 tific absurdity of spontaneous generation, but, by some weird 

 freak of logic, not only is it escaped, but the very opposite 

 conclusion is reached through reasoning, which the exponents 

 are pleased to term philosophical, as distinguished from scien- 

 tific, argumentation. The plight of these "hard-headed wor- 

 shippers of fact," who plume themselves on their contempt 

 for "metaphysics," is sad indeed. Worsted in the experimental 

 field, they appeal the case from the court of facts to that 

 aprioristic philosophy. "Physic of metaphysic begs defence, 

 and metaphysic calls for aid on sense!" 



Life, they contend, either had no beginning or it must have 

 begun in our world as the product of spontaneous generation. 

 But all the scientific theories of cosmogony exclude the former 

 alternative. Consequently, not only is it not absurd to admit 

 spontaneous generation, but, on the contrary, it is absurd not 



