314 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



found inside meteorites, and if these could stand the 

 heat we may grant that also of the living substance. 

 Nor is the fact that the meteorites provide no food or 

 water a reason for denying that they might contain 

 life. Grains of seed can remain a long time without 

 water or food. 



It has also been said that this "cosmozoic theory" 

 does not answer the question of the origin of life, but 

 only postpones it. If we put life off to another planet, 

 we have to ask how it was born there. 



But this also is wrong. It might be said that life 

 was not born on that other planet, but brought from a 

 third one. In a word, it might be said that the living 

 substance has existed from all eternity, like matter and 

 motion. This theory, that life had no beginning, that 

 it is eternal, gives an answer to the question. 



But there are more effective objections to the 

 cosmozoic theory. In the first place, we see that the 

 plants build up living matter from inorganic matter 

 every day. If the living substance can thus be created 

 daily, it cannot be eternal. Still less will we believe in 

 the eternity of the organic substance if we reflect that 

 organisms can perish. An eternal matter ought to 

 be imperishable. Inorganic matter, which is eternal, 

 cannot be entirely destroyed. It changes we can 

 do what we will with it into another form of inorganic 

 matter, but this also is eternal. It is otherwise with 

 living matter. This can be destroyed as living matter ; 

 it does not then change into another form of living 

 matter, but into inorganic matter. 



As we see every day with our own eyes how living 



