COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



colloids, as contrasted with crystalloids, not to 

 have any specific form. It is therefore hard 

 to believe that, during the decomposition of 

 some saline liquid, the freed elements not only 

 recombine into a colloid, but even go so far as 

 to take on the specific shape of a bacterium or 

 vibrio. When any such succession of pheno- 

 mena appears to occur, it clearly points to the 

 ill-understood but imperative fact of heredity 

 through a long past. 



Until this difficulty is either cleared away by 

 trustworthy deduction, or overridden by some 

 crucial experiment, I do not think that the ad- 

 vocates of " spontaneous generation " can be 

 said to have made out their case ; and such an 

 abstruse question is here opened that it is not 

 likely soon to be settled. 



For the present, in representing to ourselves 

 how life may have originated upon the earth, 

 we are reduced to a few most general considera- 

 tions. However the question may eventually 

 be decided as to the possibility of archebiosis 

 occurring at the present day amid the artificial 

 circumstances of the laboratory, it cannot be 

 denied that archebiosis, or the origination of 

 living matter in accordance with natural laws, 

 must have occurred at some epoch in the past. 

 That life has hot always existed upon the earth's 

 surface is certain ; and the following considera- 

 tions will show that in its first appearance there 

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