THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



to. imagine that certain spores of the simplest liv- 

 ing matter are distributed throughout space from 

 all "eternity," the same as the dust of iron and 

 other elementary substances. These germs, held 

 in a sleeping state so long as they are drifting in 

 the cold atmosphere far away from air and water, 

 would wake to genuine life and develop to a 

 higher form as soon as a sufficiently cooled world 

 body should offer them air and water. But who 

 is going to determine by means of our limited in- 

 struments and the present imperfect state of our 

 knowledge of bacilli, the origin of every one of 

 the myriad spores which are floating round us 

 everywhere? However, we are not at all com- 

 pelled to accept this one hypothesis in order to 

 rescue our idea of causality. There is a second 

 and better explanation which has always had 

 some champions, but would have had still many 

 more if it had always been put in such a form as 

 is required in order to meet all crude objec- 

 tions. 



It has been said that life developed at a cer- 

 tain period, when the conditions for its rise 

 existed, and developed out of the so-called in- 

 organic dead matter in the same way in which a 

 certain chemical combination, say water out of 

 oxygen and hydrogen, or crystals, arise under 



141 



