USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 439 
therein: thence to the rocks which bound the Nile valley, 
and which teem with organic remains. Thus in his own 
clear way he caused the idea of the world's age to expand 
itself indefinitely before tlie minds of his audience, and 
he contrasted this with the age usually assigned to the 
world. During his discourse he seemed to be swimming 
against a stream, he manifestly thought that he was oppos- 
ing a general conviction. He expected resistance in the 
subsequent discussion; so did I. But it was all a mistake; 
there was no adverse current, no opposing conviction, no 
resistance; merely here and there a half-humorous, but 
unsuccessful attempt to entangle him in his talk. The 
meeting agreed with all that had been said regarding the 
antiquity of the earth and of its life. They had, indeed, 
known it all long ago, and they rallied the lecturer for 
coming among them with so stale a story. It was quite 
plain that this large body of clergymen, who were, I should 
say, to be ranked among the finest samples of their class, 
had entirely given up the ancient landmarks, and trans- 
ported the conception of life's origin to an indefinitely 
distant past. 
This leads us to the gist of our present inquiry, which 
is this: Does life belong to what we call matter, or is it 
an independent principle inserted into matter at some 
suitable epoch say when the physical conditions became 
such as to permit of the development of life? Let us put 
the question with the reverence due to a faith and culture 
in which we all were cradled, and which are the undeniable 
historic antecedents of our present enlightenment. I say, 
let us put the question reverently, but let us also put it 
clearly and definitely. There are the strongest grounds 
for believing that during a certain period of its history 
the earth was not, nor was it fit to be, the theater of life. 
Whether this was ever a nebulous period, or merely a mol- 
ten period, does not signify much; and if we revert to the 
nebulous condition, it is because the probabilities are 
really on its side. Our question is this: Did creative 
energy pause until the nebulous matter had condensed, 
until the earth had been detached, until the solar fire had 
sofar withdrawn from the earth's vicinity as to permit a 
crust to gather round the planet? Did it wait until the 
air was isolated; until the seas were formed; until evapora- 
tion, condensation and the descent of rain had be- 
