WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



the wondrous and complex phenomena 

 known as life are purely material? Un- 

 usual, indeed, must be the circumstances 

 which will have brought about such a com- 

 bination of atoms as to form the first or- 

 ganic being. But great events are always 

 unusual. It is not necessary to suppose 

 that such an event as the formation of an 

 organized being shall have occurred often. 

 If in the whole course of millions of years 

 past it has once happened, whether on 

 land or in the depths of the ocean, that a 

 group of atoms, few or many, have been 

 so segregated as to have the power of as- 

 similating outside material, and the power 

 of producing other groups more or less 

 similar to themselves, we have but little 

 more to demand of the theory of Spon- 

 taneous Generation. The more we study 

 the nature of matter, the less improbable 

 will it seem that organic beings should 

 have so originated." 

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