NO BREAK IN NATURES CHAIN. 29 



Now, if the foregoing is anything like 

 what really did occur during the long 

 series of Nature's evolutionary operations 

 in the vast ages through which the earth 

 has passed, it does seem quite probable 

 that protoplasm was truly one of the 

 products of evolution : that it was evolved 

 like all the other parts of the world out of 

 the primitive matter of the universe, in 

 the ordinary way of evolution, and was 

 not created specially, as so many biologists 

 maintain ; that there was here no break 

 in Nature's chain ; not a break-down and 

 start afresh in the scheme of evolving the 

 earth and its inhabitants out of chaos ; 

 but that protoplasm first appeared on the 

 earth when some of the matter of the earth 

 had been made sufficiently complex for 

 the purpose. * 8 Indeed, this is what was 

 to be expected : what ought always to have 

 been expected : to expect anything less ; 

 to suppose that protoplasm had to be 



1 8 Some opponents ot this opinion, though they maintain 

 the special creation of protoplasm and of man, object to 

 this being looked upon us a break in the course of evolution. 



" Because life living matter does not now arise directly 

 from that which is not life, does it follow that the creative 

 method was discontinuous ? that the primordial creative 

 laws willed into operation ' in the beginning '- were only 

 competent to evolve the inorganic and not-living ? "- 

 DALLINGER, p, 40. (See p. 27). 



