156 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



by self-compression, the magnitude and density of our sun. 

 Tlie earth itself offers evidence of a fiery origin ; and in our 

 day the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace receives the inde- 

 pendent countenance of spectrum analysis, which proves 

 the same substances to be common to the earth and sun. 



Accepting some such view of the construction of our 

 system as probable, a desire immediately arises to connect 

 the present life of our planet with the past. "We wish to 

 know something of our remotest ancestry. On its first de- 

 tachment from the central mass, life, as we understand it, 

 could hardly have been present on the earth. How, then, 

 did it come there ? The thing to be encouraged here is 

 a reverent freedom a freedom preceded by the hard disci- 

 pline which checks licentiousness in speculation while the 

 thing to be repressed, both in science and out of it, is dog- 

 matism. And here I am in the hands of the meeting 

 willing to end, but ready to go on. I have no right to in- 

 trude upon you, unasked, the unformed notions which are 

 floating like clouds, or gathering to more solid consistency 

 in the modern speculative scientific mind. But if you wish 

 me to speak plainly, honestly, and undisputatiously, I am 

 willing to do so. On the present occasion 



" You are ordained to call, and I to come." 



Two views, then, offer themselves to us. Life was pres- 

 ent potentially in matter when in the nebulous form, and 

 was unfolded from it by the way of natural development, 

 or it is a principle inserted into matter at a later date. With 

 regard to the question of time, the views of men have 

 changed remarkably in our day and generation ; and I 

 must say as regards courage also, and a manful willingness 

 to engage in open contest, with fair weapons, a great 



change has also occurred. The clergy of England at all 

 events the clergy of London have nerve enough to listen 

 to the strongest views which any one among us would care 



