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which these lowest organisms obtained their organic matter ? 
Without doubting that there are those who, as the reviewer 
says, ‘ can penetrate deeper than Mr. Spencer has done into 
the idea of universal evolution,’ and who, as he contends, 
prove this by accepting the doctrine of ‘ spontaneous genera- 
tion I nevertheless think that I can penetrate deep enougli 
to see that a tenable hypothesis respecting the origin of 
organic life must be reached by some other clue than that 
furnished by experiments on decoction of hay and extract of 
beef. 
“ From what I do not believe, let me now pass to what I 
do believe. Granting that the formation of organic matter, 
and the evolution of life in its lowest forms, may go on under 
existing cosmical conditions ; but believing it more likely 
that the formation of such matter and such forms took place 
at a time when the heat of the earth’s surface was falling 
through those ranges of temperature at which the higher 
organic compounds are unstable ; I conceive that the mould- 
ing of such organic matter into the simplest types, must have 
commenced with portions of protoplasm more minute, more 
indefinite, and more inconstant in their characters, than the 
lowest Rhizopods — less distinguishable from a mere fragment 
of albumen than even the Protogenes of Professor Haeckel. 
The evolution of specific shapes must, like all other organic 
-evolution, have resulted from the actions and reactions be- 
tween such incipient types and their environments, and the 
continued survival of those which happened to have speci- 
alities best fitted to the specialities of their environments. 
To reach by this process the comparatively well-specialised 
forms of ordinary Infusoria, must, I conceive, have taken an 
enormous period of time. 
To prevent, as far as may be, future misapprehension, let 
me elaborate this conception so as to meet the particular ob- 
jections raised. The reviewer takes for granted that a c first 
organism’ must be assumed by me, as it is by himself. But 
the conception of a ‘ first organism,’ in anything like the 
current sense of the words, is wholly at variance with con- 
ception of evolution ; and scarcely less at variance with the 
facts revealed by the microscope. The lowest living things 
are not, properly speaking, organisms at all ; for they have 
no distinctions of parts — no traces of organization. It is 
almost a misuse of language to call them c forms’ of life : 
not only are their outlines, when distinguishable, too unspe- 
cific for description, but they change from moment to mo- 
ment and are never twice alike, either in two individuals or 
in the same individual. Even the word ‘ type' is applicable 
