g 



if. 



^. 



pencer thot 

 matter, and tl: 



ly go on 



it ^ more lit 

 Lich forms ti 



earth's suit:; 

 temperature i 



are unsfallt 

 rations 



irface : 



nt 



of «■ 



a 



of heat, 

 queous 



must 



nee 



w 



It; 



^ountless 



) 



thesiSj 

 lutiofl 



in 







fjf- 







,l> 



on 



0^^ 



our f 



hao?^ 



S" 



1. 



iS69^P' 



iH' 



r//^ BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



93 



h + 



the combinations and re*combinations of matter on its 

 surface^ leading to the formation of different kinds of 

 aggregates, the molecules of which were large and com- 

 plex. Such molecules, then, existing in a state of solu- 

 tion, are supposed to have been as prone to undergo 

 changes under the modifying influence of incident forces, 

 as are those of the more or less similar compounds 

 named « organic' in our own day. Before the lowest 

 forms of Life could have been evolved, it is presumed 

 that there must have been gradually going on the pro- 

 gressive elaboration of an ' organizable' material, re- 

 sulting, perchance, in the production of states of matter 

 more or less resembling those named protein.^ states 

 which, under the influence of incident forces, may have 

 been thrown into phases of unstable equilibrium, slowly 

 and gradually resulting in new combinations present- 

 ing such lowest modes of vital manifestation as present 

 themselves in the minute and simple jelly-specks con- 



g the Protamcebce of Professor Haeckel 



Mod 



bodies and their environment, not wholly different from 

 those which a colloid presents, may at last have led, 

 through the most insensible gradations, to those alto- 

 gether indefinite, though successive, changes which con- 

 stitute the vital phenomena of the lowest known forms 



of Life. 'ConstniPrl in t/^rmc nf p\t n^'i^'r\ c^n ' oowc 



Mr 



Spencer, ^ every kind of being is conceived as a product 

 of modifications wrought by insensible gradations on a 

 pre-existing kind of being • and this holds as fully of the 



