34 EVOLUTION AND THE 
into being in pre-Cambrian epochs have (in its succes- 
sive developments) passed through such marvellous 
changes, whilst another portion has continued to grow 
—through all the inconceivably numerous generations 
that must have occurred between that time and the 
present—without undergoing change ?* 
What, then, is the meaning of the existence of 
Bacteria, Torule, Amcebe, and such simplest organ- 
isms at the present day? Mr. Spencer saw the diffi- 
culty above indicated, but apparently did not fully 
realize its force. He attempted (very inconsistently, 
as it appears to me) to meet it by supposing that 
living matter may escape increasing organisation so 
long as it can avoid the influence of gross changes in 
‘external conditions’; and, just as inconsistently, he 
assumed that living matter could actually escape 
these changes in external conditions through that long 
lapse of ages which the lowest estimate regards as a 
period of no less than 100,000,000 of years. Speaking 
* The multiplication of the lowest forms of life takes place so simply 
that, as Prof. Huxley has pointed out, it is nothing more than a process 
of ‘discontinuous growth.’ But that such similarity as is above in- 
dicated should exist between the structureless units of living matter ot 
the present day and those of a remote past, if we have to do merely 
' with direct descent or kinship, is regarded as highly improbable by Mr. 
/ Darwin, who says:—‘‘ Judging from the past, we may safely infer that 
“ not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant 
futurity.”—Origin of Species, (1872) 6th edit. p. 428, 
