354 /JV STARRY REALMS. 



course of millions of years past it has once happened, 

 either on the land or in the depths of the ocean, that a 

 group of atoms, few or many, have been so segregated as 

 to have the power of assimilating outside material, and 

 the power of producing other groups more or less similar 

 to themselves, then we have but little more to demand from 

 the " Theory of Spontaneous Generation." 



The more we study the actual nature of matter 

 the less improbable will it seem that organic beings 

 should have so originated. One of the most obvious 

 contrasts between organic and inorganic bodies seems to 

 be the power of motion often inherent in the organized 

 body, which is not possessed by the inorganic body ; but 

 this is really a superficial view of the question. Take 

 any mass of inorganic matter, a drop of water or a grain 

 of sand. Each of these bodies is composed of a cer- 

 tain number of ultimate atoms. We have no hope 

 that we shall ever have a microscope sufficiently power- 

 ful to detect these atoms ; but we nevertheless know 

 that they exist, and we know several of their properties. 

 We know, for instance, that even in solid bodies these 

 particles are not at rest, that they are in rapid and cease- 

 less motion, even though the body may be as rigid as a 

 diamond. In ultimate analysis we see that the atoms of 

 inorganic matter seem to have that mobility which is fre- 

 quently noticed as a characteristic of vital action. A 

 mere arrangement of the movements of the atoms of a 

 grain of sand could confer on the little object some of 

 the attributes of an organized body. 



The method Darwin adopts is of the most captivating 

 simplicity. When the history of Science in the last 



