426 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. 11. 



things, by giving us ocular testimony to the beginnings of 

 life, would no doubt enlighten us considerably as to the 

 physical and chemical conditions under which life originates; 

 and it is, therefore, highly desirable that experimenters 

 should be able to construct living protoplasm in the labora- 

 tory, just as it was desirable, a few years ago, that chemists 

 should be able to produce such organic compounds as alcohol, 

 sugar, and urea, — substances which until lately were thought 

 to be, for some mysterious reason, inaccessible to human art, 

 but which are now constructed with ease. But on the other 

 hand, even the demonstrated impossibility of producing 

 living things artificially would not weigh a grain in the scale 

 against the doctrine that archebiosis may now occur, and 

 must at some time have occurred, in the great laboratory of 

 nature. That an evolution of organic existence from in- 

 organic existence must at some time have taken place, is 

 rendered certain by the fact that there was once a time when 

 no life existed upon the earth's surface. That such evolution 

 may even now regularly take place, among such living things, 

 for instance, as the Bailiyhius of Haeckel — a sort of albu- 

 minous jelly growing in irregular patches on the sea-bottom 

 — is perhaps not impossible. But that such evolution has 

 been known to take place in air-tight flasks containing de- 

 coctions of hay, and has moreover resulted in the formation 

 of organisms like vibrios and fungus-spores, is quite another 

 proposition, which the assertor of archebiosis is in no way 

 bound to maintain, and with the fate of which he need not 

 feel himself vitally concerned. 



The question of " spontaneous generation," then, is but a 

 part, and not the most essential part, of the question as to 

 the origin of life ; and we need not be surprised at finding 

 among Dr. Bastian's opponents such an avowed evolutionist 

 as Prof. Huxley. Practically, moreover, the question at issue 

 between the advocates of " spontaneous generation" and theii 

 antagonists is even narrower than appears from the above 



