328 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



artificial circumstances of the laboratory, it cannot 

 be denied that archebiosis, or the origination of liv- 

 ing matter in accordance with natural laws, must 

 have occurred at some epoch in the past." ' ; 



With Huxley, as with Fiske, a belief in spon- 

 taneous generation is a necessary corollary to the 

 theory of Evolution. " The fact is," he affirms, " that 

 at the present moment there is not a shadow of 

 trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis does 

 take place, or has taken place, within the period dur- 

 ing which the existence of life on the globe is 

 recorded. But it need hardly be pointed out, that 

 the fact does not in the slightest degree interfere 

 with any conclusion that may be arrived at, deduc- 

 tively from other considerations, that, at some time 

 or other, abiogenesis must have taken place." a Else- 

 where he declares: " If it were given me to look be- 

 yond the abyss of geologically recorded time, to the 

 still more remote period when the earth was passing 

 through physical and chemical conditions, which it 

 can no more see again than a man can recall his 

 infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the Evo- 

 lution of protoplasm from non-living matter. I 

 should expect to see it appear under forms of great 

 simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the 

 power of determining the formation of new pro- 

 toplasm from such matter as ammonium carbonates, 

 oxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phos- 

 phates and water, without the aid of light. That is 



1 " Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," vol. I, p. 430. 



* See his article on Biology, " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 

 vol. III. 



