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is undoubtedly held by a large class of naturalists at the 
present time. Professor Huxley has thrown over the theory 
the sanction of his name,, though unable to admit its truth 
as a scientific fact. If it were possible to look back far 
enough, he would expect to see the evolution of living 
protoplasm from not living matter. Though declaring that 
spontaneous generation has never been proved, he adds, “ I 
must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I in- 
tend to suggest that no such thing as abiogenesis has ever 
taken place in the past or ever will take place in the future 
with organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology, 
vet in their infancy and every day making prodigious strides. 
I think it would be the height of presumption for any man to 
say that the conditions under which matter assumes the 
properties we call f vital 3 may not some day be artificially brought 
together.” Strauss suggests that man originated as — according 
to his idea — the tapeworm, which is often some 20 feet long, 
does, by independent origination from mere matter without 
the intervention of a liviug being. To all this it must be 
replied that science knows nothing of such origination, but 
that, on the other hand, omne vivum ex vivo is an established 
law. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that these theorists 
have to beg the existence of matter. If matter be not eternal, 
it must have had a Creator. Whence, then, these atoms in- 
visible and indivisible ? Whence the law by which they gather 
in harmonious forms ? Whence the motion by which they are 
constrained ? It was for lack of a lever that Archimedes 
failed to overturn the world, and we too must give the 
materialists the physical basis with which they would over- 
throw the revelations of the Word of Truth. If ever it were 
possible to summon these atoms to proclaim the secret of 
their origin, their reply would be, “It is He that hath 
made us and not we ourselves;” for, as Sir John Herschel 
has said, they would have u all the appearances of manu- 
factured articles.” 
The great point of difference between these views and 
those of which Darwin may be taken as the exponent is, 
that whereas they have to assume the existence of dead 
matter, he goes further, and asks for some living cell or 
germ into which the principle of life has been infused by 
some creative act, but at this stage he would dispense with 
Divine intervention, leaving to God the part, if I may adopt 
a political phrase, of “ masterly inactivity,” whilst by the 
operation of two principles, called natural and sexual selection, 
there came into existence the world of animals and plants — 
“ all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth 
