42 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



theories which will predict phenomena that in time 

 can be verified by experiment, biology will have 

 become a branch, not merely of experimental, but of 

 exact science. 



Physiology, no doubt, is at present in the quasi- 

 experimental stage. But its theories are more 

 hypotheses than a consistent system of ideas : and 

 until a dynamical basis can be arrived at for vitality 

 or biological phenomena, even physiology, the most 

 advanced branch of biology, will have no claim to 

 an exact position in the Temple of Science. A 

 place therein it no doubt is entitled to ; but that 

 place is shifty ; now chemistry, now physics, or, 

 forsooth, geology, points to some other corner in the 

 temple where it should have its permanent abode. 



We want to know not merely the facts of life and 

 its laws, but the more general principles which can 

 simplify them, and we want to know, if that know- 

 ledge can be attained, what life is, and what its 

 nature and its origin. 



As the late Professor Max Muller,^ dealing with 

 another science, once remarked, " After the observer 

 has collected his facts, and after the classifier 

 has placed them in order, the student asks 

 what is the origin and what is the meaning 

 of all this ? And he tries to soar, by means 

 of induction, or sometimes even by divination, into 

 regions not accessible to the mere collector. In this 

 attempt the mind of man no doubt has frequently 

 met with the fate of Phaeton ; but undismayed by 

 1 Science of Language, vol. i., pp. 19-21. 



