CHAPTER V. 

 THE DAWN OF LIFE 



DO we know the first animal ? Can we name it, explain 

 its structure, and state its relations to its successors ? 

 Can we do this by inference from the succeeding types of 

 being ; and if so, do our anticipations agree with any actual 

 reality disinterred from the earth's crust ? If we could do this, 

 either by inference or actual discovery, how strange it would 

 be to know that we had before us even the remains of the first 

 creature that could feel or will, and could place itself in vital 

 relation with the great powers of inanimate nature. If we 

 believe in a Creator, we shall feel it a solemn thing to have 

 access to the first creature into which He breathed the breath 

 of life. If we hold that all things have been evolved from 

 collision of dead forces, then the first molecules of matter 

 which took upon themselves the responsibility of living, and, 

 aiming at the enjoyment of happiness, subjected themselves to 

 the dread alternatives of pain and mortality, must surely evoke 

 from us that filial reverence which we owe to the authors of 

 our own being ; if they do not involuntarily draw forth even a 

 superstitious adoration. The veneration of the old Egyptian 

 for his sacred animals would be a comparatively reasonable 

 idolatry, if we could imagine any of these animals to have 

 been the first that emerged from the domain of dead matter, 

 and the first link in a reproductive chain of being that produced 

 all the population of the world. Independently of any such 

 hypotheses, all students of nature must regard with surpassing 



