ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE. 325 



period in the past history of our planet, the first 

 germ of organic life made its appearance, and that, 

 too, independent of any antecedent terrestrial germ. 



The Germ of Life. 



Whence this primordial germ, this first electric 

 spark, which effected the combination of inorganic 

 elements and transmuted non-living into living mat- 

 ter ? Is it an " intellectual necessity " that we should, 

 with Tyndall, " cross the boundary of the experi- 

 mental evidence and discover in matter the promise 

 and potency of all terrestrial life?" 1 Must we be- 

 lieve with Lucretius that nature "does all things 

 spontaneously of herself, without the meddling of 

 the gods ;" and are we forced to regard matter and 

 life as indissolubly joined, as entities which cannot 

 be divorced from one another even in imagination ? 

 These are questions which are constantly recurring, 

 and while in nowise sharing the materialistic views 

 of Tyndall and Lucretius, we are, nevertheless, forced 

 to admit that the problems involved are as difficult 

 to solve as those concerning the nature of life itself. 

 In 1871, Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), in 

 an address at Edinburgh, discussed a theory which 

 had been broached by a German speculator, Prof. 

 Richter of Dresden, and involved the careering 

 through space of " seed-bearing meteoric stones," and 

 the possibility of " one such falling on the earth," and 

 causing it, " by what we blindly call natural causes," 

 to become "covered with vegetation." "The hy- 



1 " Fragments of Science," p. 524. 



