CHAPTER III 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE 



This leads me to the second main thesis 

 or central scientific doctrine of Professor 

 Haeckel's treatise, the biological one ; and 

 it is this which I shall now proceed to 

 illustrate by further quotations, viz., the 

 connection as he conceives it between life 

 and matter. 



His view is that life has arisen from 

 inorganic matter without antecedent life. 

 The experimental facts of biogenesis he dis- 

 cards in favour of a hypothetical and at 

 present undiscovered kind of spontaneous 

 generation. He assumes that the chemico- 

 physical properties of carbon confer so 

 peculiar a power on its albuminoid com- 

 pounds that they develop into living proto- 



