CHAPTER II. 



THE BEGINNING OF LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



THE day must have been when the first living being appeared 

 for the first time on our planet. Was it plant or animal ? 

 or some generalised organism uniting in some mysterious way 

 the properties and powers of two kingdoms of nature, now so 

 distinct, and even contrary to each other in their manifestations ? 

 Did it appear suddenly, or was it slowly evolved from dead 

 matter by some process in which the albuminous or proto- 

 plasmic matter, which we know forms the basal substance of 

 living beings, was first produced and then endowed with life ? 

 Did the first living being appear in a mature state, or was it 

 merely a germ from which the mature individual could be pro- 

 duced ? These are questions which science in its present state 

 has no means of answering. We do not know any process by 

 which the ingredients of protoplasm can be combined so as to 

 produce that substance without a previous living being. We 

 do not know what molecular differences may exist between 

 dead albumen and that which we see growing and moving and 

 instinct with life; still less do we know how to set up or estab- 

 lish these differences. We do not know the precise nature or 

 relation to other forces of the energy which actuates living 

 organisms. In our experience the simplest creatures that have 

 life spring from previous germs, themselves the products of 

 previous generations of living beings. Thus we are in the 



