THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 59 



chance, it implies also an intelligent selecting power 

 or agency. Farther, though put forward by Darwin 

 as an efficient cause, it is now admitted by many of 

 the ablest of his followers l to be merely a mode, and 

 only one of several modes by which species may be&quot; 

 modified. 



(/This error in statement proceeds from a funda 

 mental confusion in the mind of the author, who, 

 though of transcendent gifts as an observer, was very 

 defective as a reasonerj He does not clearly dis-. 

 criminate between the origin, beginning, or develop 

 ment of living beings and the nature of the forms 

 under which they present themselves in our more or 

 less arbitrary systems of classification. This con 

 fusion pervades the whole work, and is accompanied 

 by a like confusion between causation and develop 

 ment ideas which are variously combined under the* 

 complex notion of evolution so that such factors as 

 struggle for existence and natural selection may be 

 viewed sometimes as true, efficient powers and some 

 times as mere modes or processes. 



The initial question before us in this matter is : 

 How did that which possesses organisation and life 

 originate from that which is destitute of these 

 properties ? If we can answer this question, that of i 

 modification may follow in due course. If we cannot i 

 solve the problem of the origin of the life, the other, 

 question as to specific forms becomes of secondary* 



1 Spencer, Romanes, Packard, Cope, &c. 



