1 26 Protoplasm. 



carbonic acid cannot combine to form proto- 

 plasm unless a principle of life " preside over 

 the operation. Unless under those auspices, the 

 combination never takes place. At present, 

 whenever assuming its presidential functions, 

 this principle of life appears invariably to be 

 embodied in pre-existing protoplasm ; but no 

 one denies that there was a time when the fact 

 was otherwise. Time was as geology leaves 

 no room for doubt when our globe consisted 

 wholly of inorganic matter, and possessed not 

 one single vegetable or animal inhabitant. In 

 that time it was not only possible for life, with- 

 out being previously embodied, to mould and 

 vivify inert matter, but the possible was the 

 actual too. For if matter, inorganic and inani- 

 mate, had not been organized and animated by 

 unembodied life, it would have remained inor- 

 ganic and inanimate to this day. Those who 

 would escape this conclusion have only one 

 possible alternative. They must suppose that 

 death gave birth to life. That matter, absolutely 

 inert and lifeless, did spontaneously exert itself 

 with all the marvellous energy indispensable for 

 its conversion into living matter. That in mak- 

 ing this exertion it wielded powers of which 

 it was not possessed ; powers which, under 

 the conditions of the case, it could not have 



