436 COSMIO PHILOSOPHY, [w. U 



grade, we encounter differences of property or of functional 

 manifestation which we may broadly classify as differences 

 of kind, the conclusion is nevertheless forced upon us that 

 such differences of kind are ultimately reducible to dif- 

 ferences of degree, and that at bottom there is no break 

 whatever in the continuity of the process of Evolution. 



It is not pretended, however, that these considerations 

 fulfil all the requirements of a scientific explanation of the 

 genesis of life. Essentially sound as I believe them to be, 

 they do but point out the direction in which an explanation 

 is to be sought. A complete explanation of the origin of 

 life must include not only a statement of the general condi- 

 tions under which life originated, such as I have here 

 attempted to offer, but also a statement of the specific com- 

 bination 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 considerations 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 different from what it is in the present day ; 

 and in order to engage in a profitable course of experimenta- 

 tion, we must first seek to determine, and then to reproduce 

 if possible, all the requisite conditions associated with that 

 general difference 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 recession of a star. Yet, from a quarter 

 least expected, a flood of light has been shed upon this most 



