THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 5 
origin of variety in life, and how does it come that this 
variety is based on essential unity? Or, in other words, 
what is the origin of species, and what 
is the origin of homology? Obviously, 
neither of these questions can be an- 
swered without considering the other, 
and obviously both presuppose the existence of life. 
As to the origin of life, we have as yet no basis for 
speculation. We can only say as a matter of fact that 
life exists on the earth, which was once 
lifeless. How the first organism came 
to be we can not even guess. By what 
clashing of elements the vital spark came forth, and 
whether like causes can or do still produce like effects, 
no one can say. The spontaneous generation of organ- 
isms has never been seen, nor with our dull senses 
and clumsy instruments could it ever be seen; for an 
organism without a history, untouched by heredity, un- 
selected by struggle, unaffected by environment, a coin 
fresh from the mint of creation, would be a fragment of 
pristine simplicity as far beyond our grasp as the mole- 
cules of the chemist. It is likely that it is indeed a 
molecule, and a molecule in size compares with a drop 
of water much as an orange compares with the sun. If 
spontaneous generation exists, such creatures as bacilli 
and infusoria, small though they are, are not the prod- 
ucts of it; for these little creatures have their life his- 
tory, their habits, and their heredity as firmly fixed as 
those of the dog or the oak. A life history presupposes 
a long ancestry, and it is absurd to expect such battle- 
scarred organisms as the least we know to spring full 
developed from the combination of any of the compo- 
nent atoms. 
The origin of life is as yet beyond the reach of spec- 
ulation, We can not even bring it under investigation, 
The origin of va- 
riety and the ori- 
gin of homology. 
The origin of life 
unknown. 
