THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



So that, dry though you feel, you are none other 

 than a walking aquarium. You must try to think 

 of your white blood - corpuscles, scurrying along 

 in your saline blood, as minute marine creatures 

 whose ancestors were formed from "the deep's un- 

 trampled floor." 



Just as the older theory was framed on the 

 assumption that life is not formed de novo to-day, 

 so we find, again, that when Spencer came to con- 

 sider this question he accepted the current bio- 

 logical teaching not then as firmly held as at 

 present that life is not now evolved from inani- 

 mate matter. But his contributions to the prob- 

 lem of the gradual development of inorganic into 

 organic molecules are of equal importance whether 

 we believe that the process occurred once for all 

 in the past, or that it is occurring everywhere on 

 the surface of the globe to-day. 



Charles Darwin, when he proved the possibility 

 of the origin of species of plants and animals by 

 natural selection, began by assuming the existence 

 of a "few simple forms" of living matter; and 

 never discussed the question of their origin, which 

 was outside his province. 



Professor Haeckel, of Jena, has a carbon-theory 

 of the origin of life which, as far as I know, is sup- 

 ported by no one. He also is content to accept the 

 doctrine that life cannot now originate from inani- 

 mate matter. 1 The supposed occurrence, in the 



1 See The Wonders of Life, 1904. 

 109 



