DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 63 



propagation proves nothing in regard 

 to the generation of the tirst organisms. 



Other scientists have gone further 

 than Btichner and believed themselves 

 justified in extending Harvey's law to 

 cover not only the present time, but all 

 times. And the problem as to the first 

 organisms has been answered in vari- 

 ous ways. Sir William Thomson be- 

 lieves that such might have come to 

 the earth with some meteoric stone, 

 possibly a moss-clad fragment, from an- 

 other planet in the universe that had 

 met with a cosmic catastrophe, and, 

 further, he has even tried to show that 

 this hypothesis does not involve any 

 physical impossibility. 



Opinions seem to be divided, then, 

 as to the validity of Harvey's law. This 

 again indicates a deficiency in the law 

 itself, and it is true that such a de- 

 ficiency really exists. Harvey^ s formula 

 is not a law ; it is, as yet, only an empiri- 

 cal hypothesis. 



It is true that life presupposes life 

 in all the cases we have been able to 



