LIFE 351 



concept by aid of which the physicist constructs his 

 symbols for phenomenal bodies, but he does not assert 

 that these bodies have been evolved from prime-atoms. 

 Bodies, he considers, may at any time be formed by 

 aggregates of atoms, or again dissolved, but he does not 

 postulate that the whole physical universe was ever in 

 such a condition that it would have to be conceived of as 

 resolved into simple disaggregated prime-atoms. Indeed 

 it is clear, if he did so, that the primordial life-germ, if 

 anything akin to protoplasm, would be non-extant, and 

 the perpetuity of life be contrary to physical theory. In 

 order to compare at all the primordial germ with the 

 atom, we ought to take the former as the basis of the 

 most complex extant organisms and suppose that on 

 their dissolution they were resolved again into germs. 

 But this would practically involve the indestructibility of 

 the unit of life — an hypothesis which appears to be at 

 once confuted by our perceptual experience. The 

 physical history of the universe does not lead us back 

 to an evolution from a prime-atom and then stop at that 

 point. The hypothesis of the perpetuity of life does lead 

 us back to a primordial germ and then stop there. What 

 is more, this germ appears placed in surroundings where 

 it is destructible, while no environment, as far as our 

 experience goes, need be conceived to have this effect on 

 the atom. The two hypotheses, of the perpetuity of life 

 and of the indestructibility of the atom, are therefore, if 

 superficially alike, in reality far from comparable. It is 

 an inference from the like to the unlike when we assert 

 an evolution up to the primordial germ, and then a 

 cessation of that evolution. On the other hand, it is no 

 argument against spontaneous generation to assert that 

 it, in its turn, leads us back to the prime-atom, at which 

 we must again stop. For this is not the fact. It only 

 leads us back to bodies conceptually constituted of prime- 

 atoms, but which in physical evolution may be continually 

 passing from one condition of aggregation to another. 

 On the hypothesis of spontaneous generation we must 

 conceive life as reappearing and again disappearing when 



