THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 19 



It cannot be said that biology has formulated any answer 

 to these questions. Indeed, it is ridiculous to suppose that 

 any biologist or paleontologist could use any other than 

 purely conjectural language in attempting to describe the 

 origin of life. The reason is a very simple one. We have 

 no direct knowledge whatever of the first life-forms, or of 

 the species that were evolved from them for millions of years. 

 They had no hard parts that could be preserved in the mud 

 that would one day form our rocks. They were bits of a 

 soft gelatinous matter that melted away as soon as the life- 

 energy ceased to hold it together. We can only conjecture 

 what they were like from the analogy of the lower living 

 organisms, and from the earlier phases of embryonic 

 development. But we do not suppose we have no reason 

 for supposing that even the most primitive organisms now 

 living, even the simplest phase of the individual-germ in the 

 ovary of an infant, tells us what the first living things were 

 like. They may have been far simpler than anything now 

 known to us in the world of life. If the principle of 

 evolution held good in their origin, they must have been. 

 In any case, the question what they were like is one for the 

 constructive imagination, for informed conjecture. Even if 

 the evolutionist omits to say, " It is probable that," at every 

 step in his construction, the conditions of the problem, the 

 complete blank in the earlier chapters of the story of life, 

 are now so generally known that no one is likely to be 

 misled. 



In view of this lack of positive data, most of our biologists 

 hesitate to pen their speculations on the subject at all. 



