trial and failure through long ages, and of experiment crowned at last 

 by attainment. Has not the invention of the steam-engine alone been 

 a means of extending man's dominion in a marvellous manner ? Think 

 what has been achieved through electricity ! There has, undoubtedly, 

 been a continued struggle from barbarism to civilisation, and the little 

 we know of the early history of man tells us that he lived the life of a 

 wild beast, leaving no impression on the earth save one of the victims- 

 of his well-aimed stone or flint-pointed spear. 



So much for the " missing link." There is one other point to be 

 settled before we have completed the sequence of evolution, which 

 commences with the condensation of the nebulous vapour and 

 terminates with the development of man ; and that is the question of 

 how life originated. We have found that the first dawn of life was in 

 the form of a simple speck of bioplasm, void of any structure ; and 

 that this primordial germ, which we call a Moneron, was developed in 

 the earliest period of deposition of stratified rock at the bottom of the 

 sea, and is now being constantly developed as of old. Now, if the 

 theory of evolution be not mere talk, this primordial germ must have 

 been spontaneously evolved from inanimate matter, for the theory allows 

 of no break, being a gradual unfolding of phenomena. We are told 

 that there is no experience in nature of such a development. Perhaps 

 so; but that is no argument against it. There is no experience in 

 nature of any special creation either; so why fly to this alternative, 

 which is the only one presented to us, instead of adopting the theory 

 which agrees so harmoniously with the whole evolutionary process ?' 

 Why make this abrupt break in the chain of sequence ? Does it not 

 annihilate completely the whole theory of evolution ? It is not more 

 wonderful that life should be evolved from inanimate nature than that 

 man should be evolved from a structureless bioplasm. The continuity 

 of evolution once broken, why may it not be broken again and again ? 



If we are to accept the theory of evolution, we are bound to admit 

 that animate was evolved from inanimate matter. And the difficulty 

 of this admission is not, after all, so great as appears at first sight ; for 

 who is to say whether such a condition really exists as inanimate matter? 

 It is a fact that every particle of matter in nature is in a state of active 

 motion ; every molecule and atom is constantly active. And why is 

 this not life as much as the animal or vegetable, though in a modified 

 degree of development? Evolution, if it mean anything, should admit 

 this ; and I will show you that it does not admit it only, but absolutely 



