24 EVOLUTION AND THE 
knowledge. He chooses to assume that the unknown 
conditions existing in the past were more favourable 
to Archebiosis than those now in operation. This, 
however, is a mere assumption which may be entirely 
opposed to the facts. It is useless of course to argue 
upon such a subject, but still it might fairly be said, 
in opposition to his view of the impotency of 
present telluric conditions, that the abundance of dead 
organic mattey now existing in a state of solution 
would seem to afford a much more easy starting-point 
for life-evolution than could haveexisted in that remote 
past, when no living matter had previously been formed, 
and consequently when no dead organic matter thence 
derived could have been diffused over the earth’s 
, surface.* 
Professor Huxley is, however, very inconsistent, 
since, in spite of his declared expectation of witnessing 
the evolution of living from lifeless matter, if it were 
given him “to look beyond the abyss of geologically 
recorded time,” he had said scarcely five minutes be- 
fore, in reference to experimental evidence bearing 
upon the present occurrence of a similar process, that 
“Gf, in the present state of Science, the alternative is 
offered us, either germs can stand a greater heat than 
* This is a consideration of great importance; since those who believe 
that Archebiosis occurs in organic solutions at the present day, have not 
yet professed to show that it can occur in saline solutions free from all 
traces of organic matter. 
