530 
Phenomena of Ontogenesis 
[October, 
together , if one be proved invalid, all three are untenable. 
This position cannot be too strongly insisted on. Fully 
realised it would prevent much fruitless discussion. So- 
called Darwinianism is thus assailable on three points of 
great importance. Absolute proof or disproof of any of 
these is perhaps impossible, but probability may be increased 
indefinitely in one direction or the other , so as virtually to amount 
to a certainty. 
Secondly , we may believe in a necessary and predestined 
sequence of molecular operations constituting a develop- 
mental law — assign to selection its legitimate work, modifi- 
cation, and adaptation, and reserve any expression of opinion 
as to the origin of life. 
The question thus narrows itself to this : have organisms 
been developed by the selCtion of purely fortuitous aggre- 
gations of atoms with no other bond of union than re- 
ciprocal attraction and repulsion ; or have they been 
systematically evolved by a pre-existent law? There seems 
to be but one difficulty in the latter suggestion — the origin of 
life ; and this difficulty presents the only reason for accept- 
ing the first. Still it is possible that the power of organic 
development may have lain latent in inorganic matter since 
the universe itself was a germ — a primal haze — until such 
time as existing conditions favoured the beginning of life ; 
but it seems more probable that protoplasm is coeval with 
inorganic matter, and that it primarily existed in what, for 
want of a better term, we may call a dormant condition. 
It has been fancifully and somewhat practically suggested* 
that the germs of life in our world may have sprung from 
some moss-grown fragment hurled from the ruins of another 
planet. This would, of course, be merely transferring the 
difficulty to some far-off world in which the origin of life 
must be as profound a mystery as it is in ours. In striving 
to find the truth we must not accept apparent possibilities, 
or take refuge in illusory speculations as to the past condition 
of the earth. We must divest ourselves of all precon- 
ceived ideas whatsoever, religious or scientific. We must 
not occupy ourselves too much with details, or special 
instances ; but we must check our conclusions by the 
fundamental laws of nature. 
The unfolding through unmeasured ages of the lowliest 
primordial forms, and their expansion to ever new and 
higher structures, resulting in the vast ascending series of 
plants and animals — the one with its interminable succession 
* By Sir William Thomson. 
