ing has acquired the morphological and given me to look beyond the abyss of 



physiological characters which distin- geologically recorded time, to the still 



guish it." Development is "the process more remote period when the earth was 



of differentiation by which the primitive- passing through chemical and physical 



ly similar parts of a living body become conditions which it can never see again, 



more and more unlike one another." Both I should expect to be a witness of the 



definitions are Huxley's. evolution of living protoplasm from non- 



The evolution of organic matter now living matter." 



claims attention in detail. Of the origin The first protoplasm must be extreme- 

 of first life, we know absolutely nothing, ly ancient, for the remains of sea-weeds 

 The doctrine of Evolution does not deal are found in the oldest strata, and vege- 

 with that. There are, however, many hy- tation implies the manufacture of proto- 

 potheses upon the subject. Lord Kelvin, plasm from inorganic matter, 

 the eminent physicist, has suggested that When the earth was in the condition to 

 unicellular life may have been transferred which Huxley referred, the constantly 

 to this globe from a wrecked planet. This decreasing heat, and the recurrence of 

 hypothesis obviously aids us very little, the seasons produced, by slow degree-;, 

 for it merely transfers the original scene changes in the congenital character of the 

 of action to some other world. Personal- forms of life. Every individual varied 

 ly, I prefer the idea that the first proto- somewhat from its predecessors, and 

 plasm was produced by the action of the those forms which possessed variations 

 sun upon inorganic matter not unlike the most suitable to the environment were 

 colloids', and that it "fed upon the pre- the ones which eventually survived. The 

 vious steps in its own evolution." In this transition from the protophyta, the lowest 

 connection, I may say that two points are class of vegetable life, to the protozoa, 

 certain viz., that vegetable life preceded the lowest class of animal life, must have 

 animal life, and that the first forms of life been a very simple matter in the condition 

 were mere specks of jelly, without or- in which the earth then was. Indeed, to- 

 gans. Can these primitive specks be day the difference between the lowest mi- 

 created at the present time? Or, in other croscopic animals and the lowest micro- 

 words, can protoplasm be manufactured scopic plants is by no means clearly de- 

 by artificial processes? The answer must fined. 



be No; not by any process now known, Innumerable hosts of life made their 



although a great number of experiments appearance upon our planet while the 



have been made with the object of manu- surface was going through the cooling 



facturing unicellular vegetable life. Dur- process, and they were, at first, of course, 



ing the years between 1870 and 1880, this of the most primitive kind. But the same 



question was thoroughly thrashed out, laws were always at work, viz., no two 



and at first the balance seemed to be very living things were exactly alike when 



evenly held between the supporters and they made their appearance upon this 



the opponents of spontaneous generation. earth, although the differences between 



The investigations of the late Professor several forms might be very slight. Varia- 



Tyndall, however, conclusively proved tion was, and is, the order of the day. 



that biogenesis, that is, all life from pre- The individuals which possessed varia- 



vious life, is the condition at the present tions in accordance with the environment 



day. But I must add Huxley's words of persisted, while those having injurious 



warning, viz,, "that with organic chemis- variations had a tendency to disappear. 



try, molecular physics, and physiology Congenital variations were (and are) 



yet in their infancy, and every day making transmitted with great certainty. This is 



prodigious strides, it would be the height Mr. Darwin's "Process of Natural Se- 



of presumption for any man to say that lection," called by Mr. Spencer "The Sur- 



the conditions under which matter as- vival of the Fittest." 



sumes the qualities called vital, may not The other Darwinian factor in evolu- 



some day be artificially brought togeth-. tion is Sexual Selection. It is that depart- 



er." And further, "that as a matter not ment of Natural Selection in which sex is 



of proof but of probability, if it were especially concerned. Anything which 



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