SOME CENKRAL CONCLUSIONS 



283 



an embryo or as an adult. If it had no livin<r 

 ancestcjrs, we are thus face to face with the 

 problem of the ori<,nn of animal life, either by what 

 has been termed " Abio^^enesis " of a merely 

 I^hysical and fortuitous kind, or by creation. This 

 implies the previous production of the complex 

 or^^anic comp(Hind known as " Protoplasm," which 

 can, so far as we know, be produced only through 

 the a^^ency of previously living " Protoplasm " 

 formed by living plants. We have, therefore, to 

 presuppose the " Abiogenesis " or creation of plants 

 as predecessors of the animal ; but here the same 

 difficulty meets us. We have next to imagine the 

 spontaneous origin of the structures of the 

 " Protozoon " — its outer and inner substance, its 

 nucleus, its pulsating vesicle, and its pseudopods, 

 with its i)rotective test, and its endowment with vital 

 powers of locomotion, sensation, assimilation, nutri- 

 tion, and reproduction. Can we suppose that all 

 this could come of the chance interaction of 

 physical causes? 



At present the production of the living from the 

 non-living seems to be an impossibility, and the 

 suggestion that at some vastly distant point of 

 past time physical conditions may have been so 



