[May, 
258 The Lesson of the Unmicleated Cell. 
There have been many hypotheses of the advent of life 
on the Earth. Take one : If life was borne to the earth on 
the fragment of an external world, from whence was the life 
of the first world acquired ? coagulated from the igneous 
fluid ? ! ! Life is universal throughout the Universe, and its 
first presentment on earth was exactly the same as that 
which occurred when the first inhabited orb was struck into 
bein°\ The only reasonable explanation of the presence of 
life in' this globe is that of vital spontaneity, which may be 
explained as the fittingness of substances colletted by its 
functional power, and then used for the display of the 
life energy ; and this display of energy is exhibited each 
moment in time. Spontaneity, whatever it may mean, was 
doubtless the faCt of phenomenal life, law formulated, and 
that beginning is the continued present. This hypothesis 
points to that beginning of life from which all the faCts of 
Science converge, immensity everywhere, in the minute and 
in the gigantic ; the “ dust of stars and the minute In u- 
soria all point to the same conclusion. We do nonexpert to 
see the rock become a man, but we do find the beginnings of 
life in the organless and unnudeated jelly-spot; and in this 
apparently insignificant beginning we find in that potence 
the cradle of all animate forms, even of its diadem— man. 
If we conceive the cosmic energy to be vitality, the seciet 
of organism would be found in an expansion Irom the centie , 
and if, as held, there be but one rigid law which (however 
diverse in adion) rules all phenomena, it is no assumption 
to say that every particle of substance whose sum consti- 
tutes the Universe is, or was, vitally indued, and the law 
which made the Cosmos a unity is universal ; then the 
diversities we know as inorganic constructions and animate 
organisms are but differentiated sequences arising from 
principles and forces instituted and marshalled by law. 
We speak of natural law : in this consideration “ it is evi- 
dent that our reason does not only test the work of our own 
reason, but we also test the agreement of our reason with a 
work which we are certain our reason did not produce,” and 
“if the laws of our reason did not exist in Nature we 
should vainly attempt to force them on her ; if the laws of 
Nature did not exist in our reason we should not be able to 
comprehend them ” (CErsted). “ Every phenomenon on 
analysis shows dependence and mortality, and the invariable 
in Nature is only discovered by means of conclusions 
founded on reason ” ( Ih .). 
In his work, “ The Unity of Nature,’ the Duke of Argyll 
says “ So we come to understand that the limits which we 
