LIFE PROTOPLASM 95 



Haeckel says, is "a connected chain of material pheno- 

 mena, of atoms placed together in a most varied manner." 

 Professor Huxley affirmed that a mass of living proto- 

 plasm is simply a molecular machine of great complexity, 

 the total results of the working of which, or its vital 

 phenomena, depend on the one hand on its constitution, 

 and on the other on the energy supplied to it. They 

 maintain that, although abiogenesis be now unknown, 

 protoplasm must have come into existence through the 

 action of natural causes going before. Let us admit their 

 contention and consider the consequences to which it leads. 

 Protoplasm, suppose, has in it only material elements, and 

 was formed in the order of nature in a suitable environ- 

 ment. Making these admissions, we yet maintain that it 

 is wholly the work of mind (1) in its origin, (2) in its 

 constitution, (3) in the environment in which it was 

 formed, and (4) in the elements entering into it. 



(1) In its origin. The first protoplasm was a mo- 

 mentous advance. Its coming into being was fraught 

 with consequences the grandest. What were the world 

 without life? What was it before the vital spark ap- 

 peared 1 It was a wilderness blank and lone. And when 

 the first protoplasm sprang into being with the dew of 

 youth upon it and inexhaustible possibilities stored in it, 

 well might the morning stars sing together and the sons 

 of God shout for joy. It was the beginning of a new 

 era, the dawn of a new and glorious day. It was the 

 appearance on the scene of a worker, still and lowly, but 

 of transcendent power. Was, then, the coming into 

 being of so potent a nature a mere contingency 1 Was it 

 an infinitely happy chance ? Did the good fortune of the 

 earth, which along with the universe in general seems 

 (if so we can believe) to have known the most marvellous 

 good fortune in its countless evolutions, serve it with 



