192 
to which I have referred. The President is compelled, with 
apparent reluctance, to admit that “ the evidence from direct 
experiment is such as entirely to shut us out from entertain- 
ing the view that spontaneous generation occurs in the present 
condition of the earth/' Thanks especially to Pasteur and 
Tyndall, this has indeed been triumphantly demonstrated. 
But, having thus surrendered the very key of the whole posi- 
tion, Dr. Thomson devotes his elaborate attention to the 
defence of the outworks. He says, “we are not relieved from 
the difficulty of explaining how living organisms or their 
germs first made their appeai’ance.” Of course, “we” 
(“ evolutionists ,” that is) are not. If spontaneous generation 
is not true, if life can only proceed from life, the whole doc- 
trine of evolution fails at the very commencement. It is a 
very obvious and oft-repeated truth that no chain can be 
stronger than its weakest link, and the chain of reasoning 
above referred to is entirely wanting in the first link. It 
hangs upon nothing ! It has no answer to the inquiry, 
“ Whence is the origin of life ? ” and the speaker is driven in 
his perplexity to adopt the most unscientific of all assumptions 
for the solution of the enigma, the suggestion of tho impossible, 
as follows : — “ It might be held that the conditions affecting 
the combination of the primary elements of matter into organic 
forms may at one time have been different from those which 
now prevail, and that under these different conditions abio- 
genesis may have been possible, and may have operated to lay 
the foundations of organic life in the simple forms in which 
it first appeared, — a state of things which can only be vaguely 
surmised, but in regard to which no exact information can be 
obtained.” 
Science is founded on the observation of fact, but evolu- 
tionism on the hypothesis that the reverse of all known facts 
may have been at some time true ; the whole conditions affect- 
ing the combination of the primary elements of matter are 
rearranged to suit the theory. Tho quiet assumption that 
“ organic life first appeared in simpler forms” is to be noted, 
and then the candid admission that this can only be vaguely 
surmised, and “ no exact information can be obtained.” 
The whole passage is so complete a specimen of evolutionist 
argument, that I have not hesitated to present it entire. It 
is proverbially true that a man convinced against his will 
remains of the same opinion ; and this, evidently, is tho caso 
with the Doctor, who first tells us that abiogenesis is impos- 
sible, then assumes that at some past period it may have been 
possible, then that it must have existed, and then that what 
