BY THE PEESIDEKT. 



167 



contrary, overwliolming evidence against it." I do not deem 

 spontaneous generation impossible, nor do I wish to limit the 

 power of matter in relation to life ; but possibility is one thing and 

 proof is another. The method of nature is that life shall be the 

 issue of antecedent life. Sir "William Thomson has suggested 

 that life may have arisen on this earth by having been conveyed 

 on a meteoric stone from some other planet. I think this is a 

 very far-fetched explanation ; besides, it only removes the difficulty 

 to another planet. I rather incline to the opinion that the 

 absolute quantity of life in the Universe has for countless aeons 

 been the same, only varied in time and place. If spontaneous 

 generation has ever occurred, we could not, I think, expect to see 

 evidence of the beginning of life. The time man has been on this 

 earth, even if we suppose it to be at least 150 millions of years, is 

 too short, and the conditions of our solar system are, perhaps, not 

 suitable at the present time. When I look at the sky on a starry 

 night, I cannot help remarking two facts. Not only does one star 

 differ from another star in glory, but the stars themselves are very 

 unequally distributed ; some parts of space seem to the naked eye 

 to be free from stars, while in other parts stars are so numerous as 

 to cause the appearance of what is called the " Milky Way." If, 

 then, ponderable matter is unequally distributed through space, it 

 is possible that imponderable matter or force is also unequally 

 distributed. There may be belts or zones of force. Infinite 

 space may be imagined to have a variety of climates, if I may use 

 the expression. I can imagine that in some regions of space the 

 force, and therefore the heat, is so intense that some solar systems 

 may be destroyed, and that amongst them 



" The great globe itself ; 



Yea, all whicli it inherit, shall dissolve ; 

 And," 



become nebulous matter, or what the Germans call cosmic gas. 

 This comet-like matter may, after a few solar years, subside or 

 cool into new solar systems when the climatic conditions of 

 space are suitable thereto. If our minds could grasp the extent 

 and duration of the universe, I conceive it probable that we might 

 be able to predict the reduction of our solar system to nebulous 

 matter, and also its reconstruction, with as much exactness as 

 astronomers predict a solar eclipse on the advent of a comet. It is 

 probably coincident with an Alcyonic year — a year of our sun's 

 sun. Such a change, great as it is, may be considered only a slight 

 momentary incident in the history of creation. Again, our sun, or 



