THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 



5 



origin of variety in life, and how does it come that this 

 variety is based on essential unity ? Or, in other words, 

 what is the origin of species, and what 

 The origin of va- j^ ^^^ ^^-^^^^ ^f homology ? Obviously, 

 riety and the ori- . , - , . , 



. ,, , neither of these questions can be an- 



gin of homology. _ ^ 



swered without considering the other, 

 and obviously both presuppose the existence of life. 



As to the origin of life, we have as yet no basis for 

 speculation. We can only say as a matter of fact that 



life exists on the earth, which was once 



The origin of life i-r i tt ..i c 4. 



* lifeless. How the first organism came 



unknown. 



to be we can not even guess. By what 



clashing of elements the vital spark came forth, and 

 whether like causes can or do still produce like effects, 

 no one can say. The spontaneous generation of organ- 

 isms has never been seen, nor with our dull senses 

 and clumsy instruments could it ever be seen ; for an 

 organism without a history, untouched by heredity, un- 

 selected by struggle, unaffected by environment, a coin 

 fresh from the mint of creation, would be a fragment of 

 pristine simplicity as far beyond our grasp as the mole- 

 cules of the chemist. It is likely that it is indeed a 

 molecule, and a molecule in size compares with a drop 

 of water much as an orange compares with the sun. If 

 spontaneous generation exists, such creatures as bacilli 

 and infusoria, small though they are, are not the prod- 

 ucts of it; for these little creatures have their life his- 

 tory, their habits, and their heredity as firmly fixed as 

 those of the dog or the oak. A life history presupposes 

 a long ancestry, and it is absurd to expect such battle- 

 scarred organisms as the least we know to spring full 

 developed from the combination of any of the compo- 

 nent atoms. 



The origin of life is as yet beyond the reach of spec- 

 ulation. We can not even bring it under investigation, 



