THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 2/ 



in which Tyndall, Pasteur, and Huxley engaged, 

 is to be heard again. 



For a philosophic, but somewhat abstract and 

 recondite, consideration of the question of the origin 

 of life, the reader may consult Herbert Spencer's 

 i: Principles of Biology," which contains the first 

 serious attempt to grapple with this problem. It 

 did not fall within the province of Darwin, who was 

 a naturalist — to use a term now obsolescent ; but it 

 could not be neglected by one who had taken upon 

 himself the demonstration of evolution as a uni- 

 versal principle. Subsequently to Herbert Spencer's 

 discussion of this problem, Professor Ray Lan- 

 kester has advanced a theory which is based upon 

 his work ; and Professor Haeckel has also advanced 

 an unsupported " carbon-theory " of the origin of 

 life. 



[Since the writing of the foregoing chapter, and 

 my article in the Pall Mall Magazine in criticism of 

 the dogma, omne vivum ex vivo, Mr. J. Butler Burke, 

 of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, has pub- 

 lished a preliminary note of experiments with 

 radium and beef-gelatin, both carefully sterilised, 

 which seem to imply the origin of life in the 

 lifeless. Mr. Burke will discuss his work in a 

 volume to be published by Messrs. Chapman and 

 Hall ; and I myself hope to publish a volume on 

 the subject in about eighteen months.] 



