34 UNEXPLAINED ORIGINS. 
more, no less. Never is there any variation of the pro- 
portions in the same compound, and a chemist will, merely 
by mathematical calculation, unerringly produce new com- 
binations, relying on the absolute constancy of the rela- 
tions of atoms and molecules. Now, the theory that 
in the beginning of things, out of a mass of atoms diffused 
without form through space, molecules came into being, 
each kind or type composed of atoms. according to a 
proportion peculiarly its own, cannot be accepted unless 
it is shown in what manner the laws came into existence 
according to which these combinations take place. Clerk 
Maxwell concludes a masterly statement of this aspect 
of the hypothesis by asking: “Who can restrain the ul- 
terior question, Whence then these myriad types of the 
same letter imprinted on the earth, the sun, the stars, as 
if the very mould used here had been lent to Sirius, and 
passed on through the constellations? No theory. of 
evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of 
the molecules throughout all time, and throughout the 
whole region of the stellar universe; for evolution nec- 
essarily implies continuous change, and the molecule (as 
known to science) is incapable of growth or decay, of 
generation or destruction.” 
The Origin of Life. 
The origin of life on our globe is not accounted for 
on the basis of the evolutionary hypothesis. At some 
time in the remote past, there must, according to the 
theory, have been a development of living substance from 
a mineral base. But if scientific experiment has shown 
anything it has shown the unreality of what was called 
“spontaneous generation.” This term was very popular 
with the scientists of a century or two ago. It was be- 
lieved that certain animal and vegetable forms gave birth, 
in the process of decay, to insect life. Putrefying meat 
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