6 Life and its Basis . [January 
contact of the “ bioplast ” (to use Dr. Beale’s apt phrase) with 
“ formed ” or dead matter is as close as can be imagined ; 
but the transfer of “ life ” has ceased. The initiation, 
therefore, of the living state in the lifeless, whether it has 
formerly been alive or not , must be due to the action of an 
unseen higher power. 
This remark applies to all vegetative growth in earth and 
air and sea, and must have been equally so at every instant 
during countless past ages, since vegetation first appeared 
upon our planet. And the first giving of “ life ” to the 
lifeless, to form it into the simplest vegetable cell, must (I 
conceive) have been the very same in whatever part of the 
terraqueous globe it appeared. It may be, as Darwin and 
others suppose, that a few primordial speciea of plants were 
originally formed, from which all other forms have sprung 
by ordinary propagation. But it is this “ ordinary propaga- 
tion ” itself that involves, at every step, an adtion which 
exadt thought cannot distinguish from the first impartation 
of life to inert matter. The fadt that the same process is 
for ever going on under our eyes must not be allowed to 
blind us to the rational inference, that the adtion and the 
power are virtually the same in both cases ; although the 
original adt is called “creation,” and the perpetual adt “a 
natural process ” : both alike imply the exertion of power 
and will. 
I may be allowed to fortify my argument on this point by 
the remarkable admissions of two eminent scientists of the 
present day. In his famous “ Belfast Address ” (p. 54) Prof. 
Tyndall, referring to Darwin’s idea above alluded to, says 
that “ the anthropomorphism which it seemed his objedt to 
set aside is as firmly associated with the creation of a few 
forms as of a multitude. We need clearness and tho- 
roughness here. Two courses, and two only, are possible. 
Either let us open our doors freely to the conception of 
creative adts, or, abandoning them, let us radically change 
our notions of matter.” This means that the belief that matter 
is, per se, passive , carries with it the belief in creative adts. In 
this I fully concur, for the contrary view virtually turns 
Matter into Mind. 
In discussing the possibility of Spontaneous Generation, 
Prof. Haeckel (“ Hist, of Creation,” vol. i., p. 348) adduces 
the case of the Monera. In his classification of living 
things he makes a third kingdom of the lowest organisms in 
both the ordinary departments of life, and terms them 
“ Protista,” of which the Monera are the simplest and per- 
haps lowest forms. The following remarks will therefore 
