140 CONCERNING PRESENT 



unknown regions with the meteorites, any modification of the 

 molecules had taken place, these relations would no longer be pre- 

 served. . . . But we have another, and an entirely different method 

 of comparing the properties of molecules. The molecule, though 

 indestructible, is not a hard rigid body, but is capable of internal 

 movements, and when these are excited it emits rays, the wave- 

 length of which is a measure of the time of vibration of the 

 molecule. ... By means of the spectroscope the wave-lengths of 

 different kinds of light may be compared to within one ten- 

 thousandth part. In this way it has been ascertained, not only 

 that molecules taken from every specimen of hydrogen in our 

 laboratories, have the same set of periods of vibration, but that 

 light having the same set of periods of vibration, is emitted 

 from the sun and from the fixed stars. . . . We are thus assured 

 that molecules of the same nature as those of our hydrogen exist 

 in these distant regions, or at least did exist when the light by 

 which we see them was emitted." 



With evidence such as this before us, which could easily be 

 multiplied to an enormous extent, we should hesitate before need- 

 lessly postulating any infringement of the uniformity of natural 

 phenomena. But to assume, as the great majority of Evolutionists 

 do that Archebiosis, or the natural origin of living matter, took 

 place once only in the remote past and that it has not been repeated, 

 or if repeated in past times, that it no longer goes on, is to look 

 upon this process as a kind of natural miracle, and to postulate a 

 break in continuity which ought only to be possible in the face of 

 overwhelming evidence of its reality. This latter is, however, as I 

 contend, altogether absent to anything like an adequate extent. 



For living matter to have come into being in the remote geologi- 

 cal past, when nothing of the kind had previously existed, must 

 have been a far more difficult thing than for it to arise de novo now, 

 and during past ages, after living things had been plentiful on the 

 face of the earth. Originally there would have been no organic 

 compounds in the waters, diffused from pre-existing living things, 

 such as commonly exist at the present day — matter of this sort 

 would have had itself to come into being by natural agencies before 

 the next step in complication could occur : that is, the formation of 

 living matter itself. 



Two of the most consistent Evolutionists from this point of view 

 have been Haeckel as zoologist, and Carl Nageli as botanist. Both 

 of them, but especially the latter, believe that Archebiosis is a 



