DISCO VERED B Y INTELLIGENCE. i o 7 



drawn if the "protoplasm," or, more correctly, the bioplasm 

 or living matter of the primitive forms of living things had 

 been submitted to careful examination by an intelligence 

 soon after its origin from nebulosity. The intelligence 

 however favourably circumstanced that would have at once 

 inferred the ultimate forms which were to be evolved from 

 the primitive " protoplasmic " living particles would have 

 been an intelligence indeed possessing powers of investi- 

 gation and reasoning, and provided with means of enquiring, 

 unknown to us, and not to be conceived by imagination 

 such as ours. Marvellous indeed would be the intelligence 

 that would have been led to conclude, after examination, 

 that those particles of colourless, formless, living stuff had 

 gradually been evolved out of the non-living nebulosity. 

 But what transcendent, imaginative, perfect qualities must 

 be superadded to the highest intellectual powers of the 

 most gifted intellect ere the conviction could have been 

 acquired, that between the living particles present for the 

 first time and non-living matter were uninterrupted grada- 

 tions, through which every particle of matter passes in its 

 journey from its inorganic to its organic and living condi- 

 tion. A very ordinary intelligence only would have been 

 required to discover the striking fact that the structureless 

 living stuff gradually gave rise to structure. But the intelli- 

 gence that would have premised this is not conceivable. 

 Neither is it likely that intelligence, strictly honest but 

 devoid of arrogance, would have considered itself justified 

 in inferring that all the different forms of living beings 

 observed were to be explained by the different properties 

 of the particles of matter constituting the substance of each 

 living thing. 



