DXSEEN LIFE OF OCE WORLD AND OF LIVING GROWTH. 113 



Whenever and wherever the temperature is uniformly much 

 below the freezing point of water, or much above its boiling 

 point, it is certain that there can be no human life, or life of 

 the higher warm-blooded animals ; and, say, one or two hundred 

 degrees below or above the points indicated, that there could 

 certainly be no life of any kind whatever. The idea therefore 

 that any kind or form of living thing, or living matter of which 

 we have any knowledge or experience, could have found its way 

 on a fragment detached from some remote member of the 

 cosmos, which after having been whirled millions of millions of 

 miles through space, at a velocity which would have destroyed 

 life of any kind, and at last deposited here as the first living 

 organism or particle — must I fear be regarded as a conjecture 

 inadmissible under the conditions which probably ruled at the 

 remote period of time suggested. This being so, is it unreason- 

 able to ask whether it would not be wiser for us to postpone 

 the further consideration of the nature and origin of species, 

 and perhaps some other supposed evolutionary processes, and 

 all discussion thereon, until we shall be able to claim a little 

 more definite knowledge than we have, on the nature of the life 

 and growth of some of the simplest living things around us, 

 and perhaps also something more definite concerning the nature 

 and origin of our own powers — vital, intellectual, moral and 

 religious ? And may we not hope that, as believers in science 

 and truth, we may be permitted by physical authority to retain 

 provisionally our belief in the creation of all life by the living 

 God, and refrain from immediately accepting as true, purely 

 physical doctrines of life, as well as the dictum that *' the living 

 and non-living are one," which cannot in any sense be true ? 



The remark that during the past century the tendency of 

 scientific thought has been towards a purely physical explana- 

 tion of all life and vital action, is no exaggeration. Thought, 

 and the action of the human mind have been included in the 

 physical category, and have been held to be mec/iamcal in their 

 nature. Sucli conclusions are, however, contrary to the obvious 

 distinction that exists between matter which is alive and 

 matter which does not live — a distinction admitted by most 

 people who think, and in some instances to be demonstrated by 

 microscopical observation. A few modern teachers of physical 

 science susgest tliat life has arisen in non-living matter in 

 obedience to unchanging resistless physical laws ; and that life, 

 like energy, material forces and properties, is in the domain of 

 Physics, although no one has been able to point out a single 

 particular in which any physical or chemical action resembles 



