EVOLUTION 19 



'Of these processes — ^whether they were thermosynthetic, 

 electrosynthetic, or photosynthetic, or the result of the 

 interaction of any other form of energy and matter — ^we 

 are at present profoundly ignorant. But it is known that 

 for the display of ' vitality ' in its simplest manifestation 

 certain chemical combinations are essential. It is perhaps 

 unnecessary to raise the question whether ' vitaUty ' is 

 simply the manifestation of the properties pertaining to 

 particular combinations of atoms or the result of some 

 power conferred by extraneous agency upon certain 

 special chemical compounds. Evolution has answered 

 this question over and over again in unequivocal terms — 

 the invocation of extraneous ' powers ' to explain pro- 

 cesses of which we are ignorant is simply the re-introduce 

 tion of long-abandoned unscientific methods. 



The question now raised is the more specific one of 

 evolutionary process. Granting the analogy between 

 chemical compounds and species, it may be asked whether 

 the development of the simplest living form of matter 

 can be conceived in Darwinian terms. The survival of 

 a chemical compound, as such, is made possible by the 

 nature of the internal mechanism of the molecule, whether 

 that molecule contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, &c., 

 in atomic groupings capable of manifesting ' vitality ' or 

 not. So far the principle of survival holds good. The 

 problem that ccaifronts the Evolutionist is the nature of 

 the mechanism which rendered possible the persistence 

 of a certain compound or of certain compounds possessing 



ably be contended that a complex of many atoms, such as exists in the 

 very simplest known or conceivable living germ, is still more unlikely 

 to be possessed of immortality. If the idea of immortality is eliminated 

 from ' panspermia ' we are left in possession of the hj^iothesis that 

 space may be crowded with life germs partly of terrestrial and partly 

 of cosmic origin. Of this conception all that can be said is that it 

 may be true, but that the question of the possible development of 

 living from lifeless carbon compounds is left precisely where it was 

 before. From the point of view of Evolution it is quite as reasonable 

 to postulate the continuous and present development of these ultra- 

 microscopic life germs here or elsewhere throughout the Universe — 

 to erect in fact a new theory of ' Pangenesis ' in a sense quite different 

 to that used by Darwin in his celebrated ' provisional hypothesis '. 



