1869.] DAWSON — IDEAS OP DERIVATION. 131 



still, we may hold that it would be f;iir to assume a gradual 

 progress from lower to higher forms. Assuming this, and that 

 the lower have preceded the higher, wc may limit our inquiry as 

 to the origin of life to the lowest forms, and ask what is involved 

 in the question of their origin. Now, it is easy to affirm that the 

 lowest animals and the lowest plants are but Protoplasm, which is 

 only another name for the chemical compound Albumen, and that 

 if we can conceive this to originate from the inorganic union of 

 its elements, we shall have a low form of life from which we 

 can deduce all the higher forms of vital action. In making such 

 affirmation we must take for granted several things, none of which 

 we can yet prove : — (1) That vital force is merely a modification 

 of some of the forces acting in unorganized matter ; (2) That 

 such force can be spontaneously originated from other forces 

 without the previous existence of organization ; (3) That being 

 originated, it has the power to form Albumen and other organic 

 .compounds. Or, if we prefer another alternative, we may take, 

 instead of the last statement,: — (1) That Albuminous matter 

 can be produced by the union of its chemical elements without 

 life or organization ; (2) That being so produced it can develop 

 vital forces and organization, including such phenomena as 

 sensation, volition, reproduction, &c. To believe either of these 

 doctrines in the present state of science is simply an act of faith, 

 not of that kind which is based on testimony or evidence, 

 however slight, but of that unreasoning kind which we usually 

 stigmatize as mere credulity and superstition. It will not help 

 us here to say that vegetable and animal infusions, destitute of 

 germs, will produce a " mucous layer " or " proligerous pellicle " 

 from which organisms may arise, for in the first place such infusion 

 itself contains organic matter, and, as Tyndall has lately shown 

 incidentally in his experiments with the electric light, we have to 

 operate with air and water and vessels, which it is wholly 

 impossible by any chemical or mechanical process to free 

 completely from the smaller kinds of germinal matter. 



It is rather discouraging thus to find that, on the philosophy of 

 derivation, as our faith advances the demands upon it increase, 

 until, from belief in the derivation of Horses from Hipparia, we 

 are finally obliged to believe that life with all that it involves 

 is nothing but a peculiar manifestation of dead inorganic forces. 

 In order that, if possible, we may relieve ourselves from this 

 burden, let us now turn to our second inquiry, and consider the 



