134 EVOLUTION AND NATUEAL THEOLOGY. 



posing that the conditions necessary for the 

 orderly evolution of life may remain unaltered, 

 still the lowest existing organisms may effec- 

 tually prevent the development of new forms 

 of life by destroying them in the very course 

 of formation, or as soon as formed. But this 

 is mere conjecture, and it is at present im- 

 possible to decide whether life is continually 

 originating on the earth from inorganic matter, 

 or whether it originated only at one parti- 

 cular stage of the earth's development. The 

 probabilities are about equal on both sides, 

 and the experiments by which naturalists have 

 attempted to establish the present origin of 

 living organisms, must be admitted to be ex- 

 tremely inconclusive. 



Wallace has suggested * that if a mass of 

 matter has sufficient coherence to resist de- 

 composition, and has the power of attracting 

 surrounding substances to itself, we have 

 already a rudimentary vegetable organism ; and 

 it is possible that fragments might be broken 

 from the parent mass, and repeat the process. 



Such a body might be said to be alive, and to 



* " Natural Selection," p. 272, B. 



