i88i.j 
Life and its Basis. 
7 
hold good either for animals or vegetables, And he finds 
himself in this dilemma : either these organisms must have 
been created millions of years ago, and propagated them- 
selves unchanged until now, — a conclusion diredtly subver- 
sive of Darwin’s views and his own, — or they must have been, 
and may even now be, produced by spontaneous generation. 
To escape from the former alternative he throws himself 
upon the latter, which, by his own showing, means that 
dead or inert matter can give itself life ! — a manifest ab- 
surdity. But it is no absurdity to suppose that a Supreme 
Mind may, at any time, confer life upon non-living matter, 
seeing that this process is constantly going on both in the 
animal and vegetable worlds. 
I have dwelt at some length upon this part of my subjedt, 
because it is the crucial point of the controversy respecting 
life. It is perfectly true, as Dr. Beale maintains, that there 
is the greatest conceivable difference between living and 
non-living things. But the real efficient cause of these 
different conditions of matter must be one co-extensive with 
the living world around us, — indeed, as we have already 
seen, with the whole inorganic world and the activities 
manifested in it. 
To return now to our living protoplasm, or bioplasm as 
Dr. Beale calls it. If it is to grow into a plant the three 
elements C, O, and H will suffice as components. We have 
supposed it to be the inceptive particle of the nascent germ. 
To this basis are attached from the substance of the seed, 
which is yet soft protoplasm, cells and groups of cells, — and 
the germ grows. But it grows not at random, but in a 
different and yet definite manner for each particular kind of 
plant. What power, then, guides and adjusts these cells 
that they produce specific forms ? But now the seed with 
its enclosed germ is completed ; it is ripe ; i.e., the water it 
contained is either evaporated or decomposed, and the seed 
(let it be a grain of corn) may now remain in what seems a 
lifeless state for years, and even for ages, and may yet at 
last spring into life. Now this involves some theory of 
dormant life ; but how can such dormancy, or the continued 
existence of life, be anything more than an assumption, 
when it is only by active motions that the presence of life is 
proved ? The fadt that the combined adtion of light and 
heat, of air and water, revives the dry germ and restores it 
to life, only proves that the germ has not been disintegrated, 
and that the adtivity of those elements is the means of 
restoring the vital condition to it ; in short, that this dor- 
mancy is the temporary cessation of the adtion which we 
recognise as life . 
