48 THE LIVING WORLD. 



certain amount of significance. If we are inclined to 

 believe that " nature does not make jumps," it follows 

 that every break which we see in the continuity is not 

 a break in reality, but simply in our knowledge of 

 history. Many breaks which formerly existed in our 

 knowledge have disappeared with advancing dis- 

 covery. It is natural, then, to believe that the 

 present chasm between life and non-life was, at the 

 beginning of the world no chasm, but filled with lost 

 stages which can never be recovered. Speculations 

 as to the nature of these lost stages have, therefore, 

 some meaning in the light of the law of continuity. 

 Scientists do not look upon any of them as neces- 

 sarily or even probably true. They do not consider 

 that we have sufficient knowledge to say anything 

 definite upon the subject. But science does look upon 

 these speculations as indicating that the problem of 

 the origin of life is not an insolvable one. Scientists 

 take them for what they are pure speculations, but 

 think that they tell us that the break at the beginning 

 of life is one of ignorance and not one of fact. 



It is thus only the supposed existence of a philo- 

 sophical necessity which has created a demand for 

 some theory of a natural origin of life, and called 

 into existence the various speculations on the subject. 

 The conclusion has been reached that the general 

 advance of thought and investigation has practically 

 established the truth of the law of continuity. This 

 law, so thoroughly believed in by modern science, 

 demands the destruction of the chasm between the 

 living and the non-living. Science has, therefore, set 

 to work to destroy it. It has shown that the chasm 



