A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



then and then only by that assumption he removes 

 the question of the origin of life utterly from the do- 

 main of science exactly as the assumption of an initial 

 push would remove the question of the origin of worlds 

 from the domain of science. But the science of to-day 

 most emphatically demurs to any such assumption. 

 Every scientist with a wide grasp of facts, who can 

 think clearly and without prejudice over the field of 

 what is known of cosmic evolution, must be driven to 

 believe that the alleged wide gap between vital and 

 non-vital matter is largely a figment of prejudiced 

 human understanding. In the broader view there 

 seem no gaps in the scheme of cosmic evolution no 

 break in the incessant reciprocity of atomic actions, 

 whether those atoms be floating as a " fire mist" out in 

 one part of space, or aggregated into the brain of a 

 man in another part. And it seems well within the 

 range of scientific expectation that the laboratory work- 

 er of the future will learn how so to duplicate telluric 

 conditions that the universal forces will build living 

 matter out of the inorganic in the laboratory, as they 

 have done, and perhaps still are doing, in the terres- 

 trial oceans. 



To the timid reasoner that assumption of possibil- 

 ities may seem startling. But assuredly it is no more 

 so than seemed, a century ago, the assumption that 

 man has evolved, through the agency of "natural 

 laws" only, from the lowest organism. Yet the tim- 

 idity of that elder day has been obliged by the progress 

 of the past century to adapt its conceptions to that 

 assured sequence of events. And some day, in all 

 probability, the timidity of to-day will be obliged to 



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