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“the smallest organised particle visible under the microscope 
‘contains about a million organic molecules.” This I believe to 
be a mathematical calculation which I could not, and need not, 
enter into here. The question I wish to consider is—Whence 
come these germs? Darwin has stated his belief to be, that all 
the various forms of life we meet with in the world at the 
present day have been evolved, during the lapse of ages, from a 
few primitive germs; but he says nothing about the germs still 
existing as germs everywhere about us. That some of these 
develop into slightly higher forms is almost certain ; for we may 
sometimes trace the changes they undergo by watching them from 
day to day under a powerful microscope. But what of the 
simplest and lowest forms, mere specks of protoplasm, which as 
far as we can see have not as yet undergone any development 
whatever, One of two things must be the case. Either they 
have remained in statu quo from the first creation day—strange 
and hardly imaginable—or they must have been brought into 
existence since. Which, think you, is the most likely? My own 
impression is that the same condition of things, or the same 
surroundings—environment, as sometimes called—that favour 
from time to time the passing of these germs from a lower to 
a higher form may have favoured their start into life in the first 
instance.* I only put this forth as a conjecture. Of course it 
cannot be proved; and many may think there is little or no 
ground for the supposition. But remember, gentlemen, we are 
* Since the above was written, I find a paragraph in Wallace’s 
“Darwinism” bearing on this very subject. It is headed ‘‘ The 
“continued existence of Low Forms of life.” His view of the question 
is that, “probably, these low forms occupy places in nature which 
“cannot be filled by higher forms, and that they have few or no 
“competitors ; they therefore continue to exist.”— Darwinism, p. 114. 
This is plausible, and may explain the difficulty in part. But it 
leaves the question as to the origin of the germs quite untouched. I 
see no occasion, therefore, to alter anything I have said above 
