64 " Scientific Levity" 



going complex chemical changes is a fui<; 

 hiding-place for obscurity of ideas. But let us 

 face the problem boldly. He who believes that 

 organic beings have been produced during each 

 geological period from dead matter, must believe 

 that the first being thus arose. There must 

 have been a time when inorganic elements alone 

 existed in our planet : let any assumptions be 

 made, such as that the reeking atmosphere was 

 charged with carbonic acid, nitrogenized com- 

 pounds, phosphorus, etc. Now is there a fact, 

 or a shadow of a fact, supporting the belief 

 that these elements, without the presence of any 

 organic compounds, and acted on only by known 

 forces, could produce a living creature ? At 

 present, it is to us a result absolutely incon- 

 ceivable." l 



Dr. Carpenter had previously written thus : 

 " If your reviewer prefers to suppose that new 

 types of Foraminifera originate from time to 

 time out of the ' ooze/ under the influence of 

 ' polar forces,' he has, of course, a right to his 

 opinion ; though by most naturalists such 

 ' spontaneous generation ' of rotalines and num- 

 mulites will be regarded as a far more ' astound- 

 ing hypothesis ' than the one for which it is 

 offered as a substitute. But I hold that mine 

 1 The Athenceum for 1863, p. 554. 



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