vi PREFACE 



presents many difficulties, and the way of their 

 solution is not yet apparent. Scientific experience 

 has been unable to establish the fact of Abiogenesis 

 or spontaneous generation to the satisfaction of 

 many minds. Some men of note accept Abiogenesis 

 willingly, and claim to have proved it. Many others 

 have sought evidence which would convince them 

 of its possibility and probability, and would gladly 

 be convinced, but they have failed to get the living 

 from the dead, and have said that the doctrine of 

 Biogenesis, or Life can only come from Life, was 

 victorious all along the line. The passage from the 

 inorganic to the organic world, from the dead to the 

 living, appears to be barred. No change of substance, 

 no chemistry, no transformation of energy, has ever 

 yet endowed any single atom with vitality. Such 

 is the argument. Huxley admitted that the present 

 state of our knowledge furnishes us with no link 

 between the living and the not-living. Bastian's 

 experiments on the Beginning of Life have failed to 

 satisfy the minds of most men. Is there any middle 

 course, any other way between the theories of Bioge- 

 nesis and Abiogenesis ? Energy is capable of trans- 

 formation from one form to another ; potential energy 

 becomes kinetic energy. Evolution is evidenced in 

 many things which are not associated with tho 

 development of animals. It is thought that even 

 matter is not constant, but that developmental 

 changes take place in it. We know that a diamond 

 and a piece of charcoal are both composed of carbon ; 

 the diamond must have undergone much transforma- 

 tion if it ever had the characteristics of charcoal. 

 The transmutation of the metals was a desideratum 



