WHAT IS DARWINISM? 165 



bridge. " Dead matter," he says, " cannot 

 become living matter without coming under 

 the influence of matter previously alive. This 

 seems to me as sure a teaching of science as 



the law of gravitation I am ready to 



adopt, as an article of scientific faith, true 

 through all space and through all time, that 

 life proceeds from life, and nothing but life." 1 

 He refers the origin of life on this earth to 

 falling meteors, which bring with them from 

 other planets the germs of living organisms ; 

 and from those germs all the plants and ani- 

 mals with which our world is now covered 

 have been derived. Principal Dawson thinks 

 that this was intended as irony. But the 

 whole tone of the address, and specially of the 

 closing portion of it, in which this idea is ad- 

 vanced, is far too serious to admit of such an 

 explanation. 



No one can read the address referred to with- 

 out being impressed, and even awed, by the 

 immensity and grandeur of the field of knowl- 

 edge which falls legitimately within the domain 

 of science. The perusal of that discourse pro- 

 duces a feeling of humility analogous to the 



1 The address delivered by Sir William Thomson, as Presi- 

 dent of the British Association at its meeting in Edinburgh, 1871. 



