
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 23 
their thousands) to form the various chemical 
elements, we are just as ignorant as we are concern- 
ing the formation of those ultimately complex 
material combinations that lead on to the production 
of living matter. 
Yet the spectroscope compels us to believe that 
the processes which lead to the genesis of so-called 
chemical elements are continually occurring through- 
out the universe ; while astronomical and geological 
evidence combined assure us that a genesis of living 
matter must have occurred at some time in the far- 
distant past, when the temperature of the earth’s 
surface had sunk below the boiling point of water. 
Thus, in the formation of electrons; in the 
formation of the eighty or more different chemical 
atoms ; in the formation of more and more complex 
chemical compounds, terminating in those met with 
in living matter; and in the production of all the 
forms of life that have since appeared, we have a 
continuous series of evolutional results, each more 
or less incapable of explanation, yet all dependent 
upon natural processes acting, as it would appear 
equally, throughout all space and all time. 
This seems to be the natural and logical point of 
view from which to approach ‘the all-important 
question, whether the genesis of living matter is or 
is not still taking place on our earth at the present 
day—a process which we shall henceforth spveak of 
under the name of ‘“ Archebiosis.” 
The question that has been so much discussed of 
late years is the strange one, whether such a process 
