ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 231 



can only repeat that some people's jokes may have more in them 

 than other people's solemn statements ; but, jocular or solemn, we 

 are not very much helped by it in our quest. 



I should like to point out in connection with Mr. Rouse's quotation 

 from G. P. Mudge, that contractility is to be looked upon as a 

 function of practically all protoplasm, and that although it is highly 

 developed in muscular tissue, we should not be astonished that it 

 early becomes a prominent feature in the developing heart tissue, for 

 it is a function even of the protoplasm of the embryonic cell from 

 which that muscle has developed. This active contractility forms 

 part of Huxley's "unbridgeable chasm between living matter and 

 dead." 



I agree with Mr. Marchant that the tracing of the origin of life to 

 any one of the many suggested sources should not curtail, in the 

 slightest, our belief in the existence of an Omniscient and 

 Omnipotent God. Would it not tend rather, and has it not tended as 

 knowledge grew, to arouse our wonder at the law and unity pervading 

 the world as we know it 1 It is ever borne in on most of us more and 

 more that our added experience and expanding knowledge have 

 given us proof of no power greater than that which we attribute to 

 God. 



With full conviction that we never need fear the truth, let us face 

 the problems of the origin of life confidently and cheerfully, not 

 neglecting our higher and spiritual needs, needs as real as are our 

 physical wants, at all times reading one in the light of our knowledge 

 of the other. Above all, let us from time to time review our know- 

 ledge and our position, and apply the results of our revision to the 

 difficult problems with which we are constantly faced. Which of us 

 would study man merely as regards his " dead " physical basis — mere 

 matter without soul or intellect ; or which of us would study 

 intellect in terms merely of what we now know of the physical and 

 chemical constitution of brain-matter 1 As to dead matter, have we 

 not to realize that corruption is only part of an endless chain in the 

 transformation of matter 1 Matter is often endowed with life, but it 

 may lose its endowment. As the world keeps on, living matter is 

 always coming to the aid of living matter, lowly developed living 

 forms helping the higher, and ultimately helping to develop the 

 highest. 



I realize, of course, that some of you will be at one with our 



