226 PROF, G. SIMS WOODHEAD, M.A., M.i)., 



consciousness which carry us beyond the necessary limitations of 

 science (as such) in our relation to the great creative and directive 

 Power of the universe of Being. 



Professor Langhorne Orchard : It gives me pleasure to second 

 the vote of thanks. Not I only, but all of us present, thank the 

 able author for the clear, succinct, and interesting account he has 

 given us of one of the most important controversies which have 

 agitated the scientific world. 



After the investigation which, under his guidance, we have been 

 making, our conclusion will (I think) be that (1) Abiogenesis is not 

 proven, (2) Abiogenesis is disproven. 



In this investigation the author gives a salutary caution against 

 supposing that powerful microscopes are of much use apart 

 from accurate observation and sound reasoning. The advocates 

 of spontaneous generation can certainly not plume themselves 

 upon accuracy of observation. If we turn to a later page in 

 the paper we learn something as to the soundness of their 

 reasoning. It is suggested that " matter, at that time in a 

 condition of exceedingly unstable equilibrium, was moulded by the 

 great cosmic forces into the most elementary forms of life, capable 

 of deriving nutrition from substances not nutrient to the living 

 matter of to-day, of existing at temperatures not nearly approached 

 by those which the heat-resisting organisms now met with could 

 sustain." It is further suggested that from this matter developed 

 all that magical succession of living organisms which, like it, finds 

 origin and home in the fancy of the evolutionist. 



With regard to the reasoning just quoted, the most diligent 

 search would not be successful in discovering anywhere a more 

 flagrant example of the logical fallacy known as " Begging the 

 question." There is no attempt to prove the point at issue. It is 

 unscrupulously assumed in the interests of a hypothesis. Admittedly 

 those conditions which science affirms necessary for the production 

 and maintenance of " living matter " are absent at the hypothetical 

 period postulated. To you and me this fact may appear to settle 

 the question. Not so to the abiogenesist. "Perish conditions ! " he 

 says, " the living matter must have somehow managed without 

 them." But talk of this sort is not science. 



Science admits of hypothesis, but not of every kind of hypothesis. 

 A scientific hypothesis is one which is in accordance with facts, and 



