366 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xr. 



But, though I cannot express this conviction of 

 mine too strongly, I must carefully guard myself 

 against the supposition that I intend to suggest that 

 no such thing as Abiogenesis ever has taken place in 

 the past, or ever will take place in the future. With 

 organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology, 

 yet in their infancy, and every day making prodigious 

 strides, I think it would be the height of presumption 

 for any man to say that the conditions under which 

 matter assumes the properties we call " vital " may 

 not, some day, be artificially brought together. All I 

 feel justified in affirming is, that I see no reason for be- 

 lieving that the feat has been performed yet. 



And, looking back through the prodigious vista of 

 the past, I find no record of the commencement of life, 

 and therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a 

 definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appear 

 ance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a 

 serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, 

 therefore, in the admitted absence of evidence, that I 

 have any belief as to the mode in which the 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 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 in- 

 fancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution 

 of living protoplasm from not living matter. I should 

 expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, 

 endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of deter- 

 mining the formation of new protoplasm from such 

 matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tar- 

 trates, alkaline and earthy phosjmates, and water, 



