350 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



to the protoplasm we now know, as from protoplasm to 

 conscious animal life. Let us suppose that all the exist- 

 ing links between protoplasmic life and that of the highest 

 mammals had disappeared, and then let us set the biologist 

 to demonstrate in his laboratory the spontaneous genera- 

 tion of consciousness by experiments on protoplasm ! 

 We cannot assert where consciousness begins or ends, 

 but we can trace back in continuous series the conscious 

 to the unconscious, and it is no argument against the 

 truth of the hypothesis that consciousness is spontaneously 

 generated to say that we cannot repeat the process at our 

 will. In precisely the same manner spontaneous genera- 

 tion of life could only be perceptually demonstrated by 

 filling in the long terms of a series between the complex 

 forms of inorganic and the simplest forms of organic 

 substance. Were this done, it is quite possible that we 

 should be unable to say (especially considering the vague- 

 ness of our definitions of life) where life began or ended. 

 The failure to reproduce the spontaneous generation of 

 life in a laboratory has thrown some discredit on the 

 hypothesis ; but we ought to wonder that any one should 

 have hoped for an experimental demonstration of such an 

 hypothesis rather than be surprised at its absence. At 

 the very best, physicists will have to give us far more 

 definite information than we have at present, both with 

 regard to the physical changes at the close of the azoic 

 period, and with regard not only to the chemical constitu- 

 tion but the physical structure of protoplasm, before it 

 would be advisable even to think of further experiments 

 on the spontaneous generation of life. 



Even in the face of laboratory failure this second 

 hypothesis seems far more satisfactory than that of the 

 perpetuity of life. For in the latter case we carry back 

 life through a continuous evolution to a stage where 

 change seems to cease and we are left with a primordial 

 life-germ and no antecedent state. Yet our whole per- 

 ception of the phenomenal universe is continuous change. 

 It cannot be said that this primordial germ is comparable 

 with the physicist's prime-atom. The latter is a pure 



