“ On the Unity of Nature 
679 
1880.] 
might have no sort of affinity with each other, on the one 
hand ; or organisms on the other, without in the least 
affedting the evidence. 
In the same number of the “ Contemporary there is 
also an article by the Hon. Justice Fry advocating similar 
opinions, and, consistently enough from this point of view, 
deprecating “ that simplicity or unity which partly entices 
men to adopt the purely materialistic theory of things. 
With that bete noire — the materialistic theory— we have 
nothing to do. All I wish to call attention to is the fadt 
that the Hon. Justice Fry finds that a gulf of difference 
between the living and the non-living is opposed to the 
theory of unity. 
But after all may not this gulf of difference be only one 
of ignorance ? Until quite recently birds and reptiles were 
supposed to be isolated by impassable gulfs, and this 
was considered by many to be a strong argument against 
organic evolution, or what may be called the Unity ol 
Organisms. These gulfs have now been bridged oyer.—At 
one time the earth was too hot for any living organism ; but 
when it cooled down sufficiently to allow of these, is it not 
quite possible that they may have been formed out of non- 
living matter, and if so what would become of the anta- 
gonism between them ? There are. some who. think that 
this process of conversion of non-living into living matter 
has been going on ever since and is going on still ; but 
whether that be so or not does not much affeft the argu- 
ment, for the conditions of heat, moisture, atmospheric 
composition, &c., which may have existed when organisms 
first made their appearance, may not be possible now. il 
the Unity of Nature be true, as most assuredly it is, then 
all the phenomena of Nature must hang upon one another, 
and, having got hold of a fundamental, all-embracing fadt, 
which is none the less true because the knowledge of it is 
of recent growth, we must not mar its symmetry and beauty 
either through our ignorance or for the sake of any barren 
speculations about Materialism. 
