22 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



elementary attributes of mind, when as a matter of 

 fact we know that matter in its highest and most 

 developed forms manifests complex organisation and 

 that sensibility and thought itself are concomitant and 

 run parallel with its most marvellous combinations. 

 It is consistency that drives us to this conclusion. 

 Most men, indeed, are willing to admit, perhaps only 

 because they cannot possibly deny it, that we our- 

 selves have once been microscopic germs, but they are 

 unwilling to admit that these same germs may have 

 once been merely atoms. There is the unconquerable 

 prejudice no doubt that atoms are utterly devoid of 

 even what might be called potential life, or potential 

 sensibility. The prejudice is probably due to the 

 fact that only those who concerned themselves with 

 inanimate matter so-called ever troubled themselves 

 about the properties of atoms ; and since they were for 

 the most part unfamiliar with the properties of Matter 

 in its highly developed forms, differing largely as 

 they might do from those in its simpler states, they 

 likewise assumed a gulf between these two states. 

 Eather should we pre-suppose that since Matter 

 in its most complex states does reveal Mind, that 

 Mind is an inherent property of Matter even in 

 its most elementary form, and that sensibility in 

 some rudimentary type is a property of the atom 

 as much as motion and attraction or repulsive force. 

 The theory of spontaneous generation, by this we 

 mean the evolution of what we have a right to think 

 is living from that which we have hitherto had a right 

 to think was not, is thus devoid of all such difficulties 



