ii LIFE HAD BEGINNING in 



beginning cannot possibly have been by 

 way of common parentage or ordinary 

 generation. Some other process must 

 have been employed, however little we 

 are able to conceive what that process 

 was. All our desperate attempts, there- 

 fore, to get rid of the idea of creation, as 

 distinguished from mere procreation, are 

 self-condemned as futile. The facts of 

 Nature, and the necessities of thought, 

 compel us to entertain the conception of 

 an absolute beginning of organic life, 

 when as yet there were no parent forms 

 to breed and multiply. 



Darwin, as is well known, recognised 

 this ultimate necessity. He clothed the 

 conception of it in words derived from 

 the old and time-honoured language of 

 Genesis. He spoke of the Creator first 

 breathing the breath of life into a few, 

 perhaps only into one single organic 

 form. His followers generally seem to 



