i82 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



such formations, but rather treated with the same 

 scepticism as positive results would have been had 

 they been obtained. 



It is curious, is it not, how willing people are to 

 acquiesce in negative results, since to prove a 

 negative is not much easier than to prove a posi- 

 tive ? People who are always willing to rest con- 

 tent with negative results seldom come across 

 anything new. The mental processes of perceiving 

 identities and dififerences must work together, lest 

 we should imagine things which are the same to 

 be quite different, or things different to be the 

 same. Now, since there are reasons for supposing 

 that the attainment of positive results is a matter 

 which depends largely upon accidental circumstances 

 in these experiments, and, as we have pointed out, it is 

 only one out of perhaps many million molecules that 

 is successful in producing the necessary aggregation, 

 we can see how it is that the attainment of the positive 

 result should be so difficult. In these circumstances, 

 then, the development, or, if we choose to call it 

 so, the spontaneous generation of that which we 

 regard as living from that which apparently was 

 not, may have taken place in seons past, having 

 had many such opportunities in which to occur ; 

 just as these opportunities are so small when 

 in the short intervals of time the conditions 

 are repeated in the laboratory. It is interesting 

 to note in this connection that Crosse more 

 than fifty years ago thought he had succeeded 

 in producing animal life by sending an electric 



