January 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNO\VLEDGE ♦ 



51- 



events, mostly of a much more remarkable nature, were 

 narrated in reference to Jesus Christ, which — either by 

 some still more remarkable coincidence or otherwise — bad 

 bsen related thousands of years before about the sun-god, 

 and afterwards (but still hundreds of years before the time 

 of this great teacher) had been mistakenly attributed to a 

 number of pei-sons who had actually lived, though, as in his 

 case, the accounts only appeared long after such persons had 

 passed away. 



So much I believe. Most of this, indeed, is simply a 

 re-statement of facts. Be the significance of these facts 

 what it may, they must be accepted by all who have any 

 real faith (for only the fearful try to blind their eyes to 

 facts). What I do not believe — it is not necessary for me 

 to say. 



The evidence appears to me decisive that, though the 

 doctrines of C'hristianity reached the present Christian 

 world from a Semitic source, they are of pureh* Aryan 

 origin. But, though those doctrines were originallj- Aryan, 

 they would never have made their way as they did among 

 the races which now accept them had it not been, first, for 

 the specific warmth of colour given them by Jewish teachers, 

 and especially by Jesus and Paul (who were, indeed, the 

 teachers of the Jews) ; and secondly, for the special circum- 

 stances which led to the dispersion of such teachers among 

 non- Jewish races after tlie Fall of Jerusalem. In the spread 

 of the doctrines of love and justice among races then about 

 to take leading positions in the world, but then (as now) 

 most prone to cruelty and wrong-doing, I recognise the 

 greatest event of which human history bears record, and 

 promise of the worthiest fruit. Hut though thefiflls have 

 long been ripening into harvest the full time for reaping has 

 nut yet come ; ire shall not live to see it,jhoujh some even in 

 our day liave discerned its fair fields and phasant homesteads 

 from the Pisgah they sadbj owf p^iinfuUy have climbed. 



THE STORY OF CREATION. 



A PLAIN ACCOrNT OF EVOLCTION. 



Br Edward Clodd. 

 PART U. 



Chapter II.— THE ORIGDJ OF LIFE. 



y jLNJjjJW BSA J HE fascination which the question of the 



■ ^7'a C"v4 origin of life possesses is not lessened by 

 the slow abrasion of the artificial lines 

 which divide the living from the non-living. 

 Bound it, like planet tethered to sun by the 



■ ^j^jB^Uji invisible force of attraction, the mind of 

 -:. — I— 1 man revolves, unable to disentangle itself 



auJ cjcai'e lato a larger orbit, whence the truer proportions 

 of things may be seen ; nor will the undue importance 

 accorded 'to the living vanish until there is deepened within 

 us that sense of the unbroken intenelation of all things to 

 which science brings her " cloud of witnesses." 



It is agreed that there was an '• azoic" or lifeless period 

 in the history of the earth — therefore that life had a begin- 

 ning ; and it is with the evidence as to continuity or gap 

 between the azoic and the zoic epochs that the present 

 chapter is concei-ned. 



The azoic stage is evidenced by the primordial tempera- 

 ture of the globe, which, taking the present temperature of 

 the sun as a fair standard of comparison, is computed to 

 have been 1 -t,lX)0 times hotter than boiling water. Under 

 such highly energetic conditions chemical combinations of 

 the vaporous particles were impossible, and, a fortiori, ^-ital 



combinations. But with the slow cooling consequent upon 

 the continuous passage of the earth's molecular energy into 

 space, the combining forces came into more and more active 

 pLiy, forming first the extremely simple and more stable 

 compounds, as water: then the more complex and less stable, 

 as salts ; and so on in increasing complexity of material and 

 unlikeness of structure. Obviously an enormous fall in the 

 temperature took place before the supei'heated mass became 

 cool enough to permit the formation of an outer crust, into 

 the depressions of which, probably at first at the temperature 

 of a dull red heat, the water fell as it was condensed from 

 the vapours which, charged with vast quantities of unab- 

 sorbed elements, floated over it. 



Thus far, in broad outline, the material foundation for 

 the superstructure of life. 



When and hou- did life have its beginning? The first part 

 of the question can be disposed of briefly. We do not know. 

 But we do know that life must be vastly earlier than any 

 record of it. 



As to the mode, let us approach the problem by treating 

 of what is common to both the lifeless and the living. Now, 

 in brief, there are no elements in the one which do not occur 

 in the other. The most complex plant and animal, and 

 the lowest living germ, so apparently devoid of sti-ucture that 

 it can only by courtesy be called an organism, are made of 

 materials derived, directl}- or indirectly, from earth and air 

 and water. These materials are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, 

 nitrogen, with a little sulphur and phosphorus, and still 

 fainter traces of other elements, combined in extreme and 

 elusive complexity. Of the .several elements entering into 

 this subtle combination, carbon is probabl)' the element t< 

 which the most prominent part is to be assigned. It.\ 

 compounds are more numei-ous and important than 

 those of all the other elements taken together, and it 

 possesses the property of uniting in manifold relations both 

 of number and weight. Combining with the foregoing 

 elements, it gives rise to the stufi" called protoplasm, a pecu- 

 liar feature of which is that it is neither solid, liquid, nor 

 gaseous, but semi-fluid, or of sticky consistence. It is from 

 this " physical basis of life" that, by successive modifica- 

 tions, slow in their operations, the teeming variety of living 

 things has been developed. These, as explained already, are 

 made up of myriads of cells, each of which is a life centre, 

 their combination being the sum total of the life of the 

 organism. But the cell itself is an organisation formed from 

 the formless protoplasm, marking the fii-st stage in .struc- 

 ture ; and therefore the question as to the mode of origin of 

 life narrows itself to the origin, not of complex organisms, 

 nor of cells, but of protophism. Given the matter which 

 composes it, and the play of forces and energies of which 

 that matter is the vehicle, wherein lies the difference which 

 gives as one result non-living substance, and as another 

 result living substance? The answer obviously is that 

 the ingrediiinls being the same, the difference must lie in 

 the mixing. 



We are already familiar in the inorganic world with the 

 existence of the same element in more than one form, but 

 with dilferent characteristics — t.g. of carbon, as diamond, 

 graphite, and charcoal; the difierence being doubtless due 

 to molecular arrangement. Chemistry also reveals intimate 

 likeness of materials in the compounds known as isomeric, 

 in which the physical and chemical properties vary consider- 

 abl}'. It has also manufactured organic compounds, as 

 starch, uvea, and alcohol, the production of which was once 

 thought impossible ; and if the experiments to produce the 

 living out of the not-liviug by decoctions of hay and ex- 

 tracts of beef have failed, as we might expect they would, 

 this failure can have no weight against the argument that 

 we cannot think any limit to the possibilities of Nature's 



