EVOLUTION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 723 



similar process, that, " if, in the present state of science, the alternative 

 is offered us — either germs can stand a greater heat than has been sup- 

 posed, or the molecules of dead matter, for no valid or intelligible rea- 

 son that is assigned, are able to rearrange themselves into living 

 bodies, exactly such as can be demonstrated to be frequently produced 

 in another way — I cannot understand how choice can be, even for a 

 moment, doubtful." Having thus expressed himself, it was a little 

 strange that Prof. Huxley forgot to inform his audience, five minutes 

 afterward, what " valid or intelligible reason " he was able to assign 

 for the occurrence of that evolution of non-living matter into living 

 protoplasm in the remote past to which he alluded. A supernatural 

 interposition of Creative Power would explain the presence of living 

 things upon our earth, just as easily as a supernatural preservation of 

 living matter from the destructive effects of heat would account for 

 the presence of living organisms within certain experimental flasks. 

 But Prof. Huxley most inconsistently says that, even in the face of 

 scientific evidence concerning the destructive powers of heat upon 

 living matter, he would rather explain the presence of organisms in 

 certain flasks on the hypothesis of a (supernatural) preservation of 

 germs, than believe in the otherwise proved occurrence of a present 

 life-evolution, similar to that which he assumes to have taken place in 

 the past. He is willing to accept the supernatural in the present, 

 though he declines to interpret the past by its aid. He assumes this 

 attitude because no " valid or intelligible reason " is assigned in ex- 

 planation of life-evolution, a belief in which would render unnecessary 

 any appeal to the supernatural in the present ; though he himself pos- 

 tulates the occurrence of the same unexplained process in the past, 

 solely in order to avoid recourse to the supernatural. Prof. Huxley's 

 position in reference to this question is very puzzling, and one cannot 

 help wondering through what monochromatic glass he had been taking 

 his observations (from his " watch-tower "), in order to come to the 

 conclusion that " the present state of science " gives any sanction to 

 such vacillations, or entitles him to appeal to a supernatural preserva- 

 tion of germs, instead of trusting to the known uniformity of natural 

 phenomena. 



Sir William Thomson was certainly much more consistent. He, 

 too, seemed inclined to explain the experiments of our own day by 

 resorting to the hypothesis of a supernatural preservation of germs, 

 and similarly, he seems not unwilling to explain the original advent 

 of Life upon this globe, by another assumed process of " Contagion." 

 He has resort neither to a creative hypothesis nor to the hypothesis 

 of a natural becoming of living matter, but, shelving the question of 

 " origin " altogether, he suggests that our earth may have become 

 peopled with organic forms, owing to the advent upon it, in the re- 

 mote past, of a "moss-grown fragment from the ruins of another 

 world." Sir William Thomson's hypothesis seems strangely improb- 



