THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 



of the general conditions under which life origi- 

 nated, such as I have here attempted to offer, 

 but also a statement of the specific combination 

 of circumstances which gave rise to such an 

 event. If Dr. Bastian's theory of archebiosis 

 can be inductively established, it may possibly 

 help us to such a statement. But the consider- 

 ations above adduced make it probable that a 

 wider view of the case is needful than is implied 

 in Dr. Bastian's researches. It seems likely that 

 the genesis of living matter occurred when the 

 general temperature of the earth was very dif- 

 ferent from what it is in the present day ; and 

 in order to engage in a profitable course of ex- 

 perimentation, we must first seek to determine, 

 and then to reproduce if possible, all the requisite 

 conditions associated with that general differ- 

 ence in temperature. Whether this can be done 

 still remains to be seen. That the problem seems 

 hopeless to-day might have been to Comte a 

 sufficient reason for condemning it as vain and 

 profitless. But the history of stellar astronomy 

 may teach us to beware of thus hastily judging 

 the capacity of the future by that of the present. 

 Till within a few years it would have seemed to 

 the wisest man incredible that we should ever be 

 able to determine the direct approach or reces- 

 sion of a star. Yet, from a quarter least expected, 

 a flood of light has been shed upon this most 

 difficult problem. As the doe, in the old fable, 

 vol. n. 369 



