218 



THE DAWN OF LIFE. 



depths of ocean where the conditions are most unfa- 

 vourable to other forms of life, and in tepid unhealthy 

 pools overstocked with vegetable matter in a state of 

 putridity. They form a most suitable basis for higher 

 forms of life. They have remarkable powers of remov- 

 ing mineral matters from the waters and of fixing 

 them in solid forms. So in the fitness of things 

 Eozoon is just what we need, and after it has spread 

 itself over the mud and rock of the primeval seas, and 

 built up extensive reefs therein, other animals may be 

 introduced capable of feeding on it, or of sheltering 

 themselves in its stony masses, and thus we have the 

 appropriate dawn of animal life. 



Bat what are we to say of the cause of this new 

 series of facts, so wonderfully superimposed upon the 

 merely vegetable and mineral ? Must it remain to us 

 as an act of creation, or was it derived from some pre- 

 existing matter in which it had been potentially 

 present ? Science fails to inform us, but conjectural 

 ^'' phylogeny " steps in and takes its place. Haeckel, 

 the prophet of this new philosophy, waves his magic 

 wand, and simple masses of sarcode spring from inor- 

 ganic matter, and form diffused sheets of sea-slime, 

 from which are in time separated distinct Amoeboid 

 and Foraminiferal forms. Experience, however, gives 

 us no facts whereon to build this supposition, and it 

 remains neither more nor less scientific or certain than 

 that old fancy of the Egyptians, which derived ani- 

 mals from the fertile mud of the Nile. 



If we fail to learn anything of the origin of Eozoon, 



