i8 THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 



that," and then assured his readers that one would " hardly 

 imagine " the theses were hypothetical. He may say that 

 the words are conjectural as regards other planets, but 

 dogmatic as regards our own. But where Haeckel deals 

 with the genesis of life on earth he repeats over and over 

 again that it is a " hypothesis," and the excision of the 

 words, " It is very probable," must be seriously misleading. 



From this perplexing polemic let us return to the 

 constructive problem. The "facts of biogenesis," such as 

 they are, shed no light on the primeval origin of life. As 

 Sir Oliver Lodge himself holds (p. 197) that even a proved 

 fact of abiogenesis (as in Mr. Burke's experiments) would 

 not support Haeckel's theory, it seems a pity he referred 

 at all to the question of actual biogenesis or abiogenesis. 

 His own hypothesis of the origin of life is wholly inde- 

 pendent of such experiments : so, on his reasoning, is the 

 hypothesis of Professor Haeckel. The question is : Whence 

 came the tiny living things that made their appearance in 

 the primeval ocean ? Did they come, in the form of germs, 

 from another planet? Were they suddenly brought into 

 existence by a creative fiat? Were they formed by the 

 wedding of principles or particles from an immaterial 

 universe with material frames ? Did an eternal and distinct 

 vital spirit then introduce itself into an equally eternal but 

 hitherto inanimate matter ? Or were these living things a 

 natural evolution of the matter and energy we are familiar 

 with? 



