112 president's address SECTION D. 



known facts and withstand rational criticism, there must have been 

 a period in the history of our earth when the existence — or at least 

 the permanence — of life upon it first became possible. Previous to 

 this the elements entering into the complex composition of that 

 which we at present recognise as the sole manifestor of life — pro- 

 toplasm, or more probably of some much simpler forerunner of 

 protoplasm — were not permitted by physical conditions to combine 

 in suitable proportions, or at least to remain in combination — the 

 earth's temperature, for example, continuing higher than that which 

 now forms the limit of life endurance. Whenever by secular 

 change such inhibitory conditions became gradually relaxed, it is 

 conceivable that a critical point would at length be reached at which 

 a form of energy, till then exclud-d from this mundane sphere of 

 action, could begin to operate upon the material placed in readiness 

 by some one of the combinations effected by the chemical experi- 

 ments of that energetic period, and life would commence. It is 

 usual to stigmatise this hypothesis of the origin of terrestrial life 

 as a materialistic extravagance based on a "fortuitous concurrence 

 of atoms." The epigram is good logic to those who believe in — or, 

 at the most, have an unintelligent disbelief in — the supposed fact 

 that the result of a toss of a penny or a throw of the dice is purely 

 a matter of chance, unconscious that it is as much a prescript of 

 law, the outcome of an antecedent combination of conditioned 

 forces, as all things else in nature. The muscular play in the hand 

 that throws, the form in all its parts of the cavity whence the dice 

 are thrown, the shapes, sizes, and specific gravities of the dice 

 themselves, the properties of the resisting bodies on which they 

 fall, the density of the medium through which they are projected — 

 were all these beforehand calculated, and in the act controlled, the 

 expert could throw just what number he pleased. 'J'o speak of 

 the effect of a sequence of causes rationally believed to exist, 

 though imperfectly or not at all known, as gratuitous, merely 

 exemplifies the propensity to throw from under the veil of wit dust 

 into eyes which might perchance see more clearly than we wish. 



It is reasonable to suppose that the beginning of life on the earth 

 could occur but once, since secular change, ceaseless ever after as 

 before initiation, would eventually leave in the rear that state of 

 things which had proved favorable to its occurrence. We have no 

 right to assume that its terrestrial origin was equally possible under 

 two different sets of conditions. It is certain that there is an 

 opportune period for the appearance and career of each living 

 thing, and that this period once passed never returns. No fact in 

 palaeontology is better established than the inability of an extinct 

 organism to re-enter the stage of life ; and as life must have been 

 introduced in some plastic form which is not known to exist now, 

 we may fairly infer that this form never did and never can exist 

 twice. It is therefore allowable to repeat that the reintegration of 

 mundane life, the possibility of which under present conditions is 



