V311 BY .1. 



The Earth then was sterile, and sterile it must have remained, 

 until by its physical conditions it could sustain life, and then 

 life came, but how ? 



Of the theories presented to us, four may be referred to. 



1st. " Life originated under conditions beyond the sphere 

 of scientific inquiry — A spiritual influx." 



2nd. "Organisms or germs of organisms were brought to 

 the earth by meteorites from elsewhere." And, as " it has been 

 estimated that as much as a hundred tons weight of .then) 

 (meteorites) are encountered by the earth every day and fall 

 upon its surface," Lord Kelvin, who supported this theory, 

 certainly had something to go upon. 



8rd. '• Life, like matter and energy, had no origin but is 

 eternal, else it and they must have arisen out of nothing." If 

 this be true, the life referred to must have been utterly different 

 from any we now know or can possibly imagine. 



4th. " Living matter evolved itself from matter which was 

 not living as the outcome of unexplained processes of up- 

 building or synthesis." This somewhat harmonises with ihe 

 theory of evolution. 



But of a surety, knowledge lingers. An unknown but very 

 matter of fact writer declares, " Definitions of Life are useless 

 from our utter ignorance of the nature and the conditions we 

 attempt to define." 



Assuming that the Earth was inoculated with life, was that 

 primeval, primordial, pat of protoplasm responsible for all life as 

 we know it? Through the countless ages, and by processes of 

 selection, survival, and evolution, have the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms and the dry land, the sea and the air, found their 

 denizens '? Or do fresh inoculations occur '? Do new forms of 

 life spring into existence ? Is there such a thing as spontaneous 

 generation '? 



" For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog," so said 

 Hamlet, and this expressed the theory of his day. Bacon 

 believed that mites in cheese and maggots in flesh were the 

 results of putrefaction ; in fact, that the lower forms of animal 

 life were due to putridity — a mors janua vitse — a life for a death 

 — a phoenix arising from tbe ashes of its past. 



In 1660 Francesco Redi published his " Experiences," and 

 demonstrated that maggots were the larvae of the common blow- 

 fly. He practically taught what is now called Biogenesis, and 

 came under the bann of the Church for so doing, for it was held 



