136 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 12,1S7U 
observations, made in India on the occasion of the 
eclipse of August, 1868, were described by Professor 
Stokes in a previous address. Valuable results have, 
through the liberal assistance given by the British and 
American Governments, been obtained also from the 
total eclipse of last December, notwithstanding a gene¬ 
rally unfavourable condition of weather. It seems to 
have been proved that at least some sensible part of the 
light of the “corona” is a terrestrial atmospheric halo | 
or dispersive reflection of the light of the glowing 
hydrogen and “helium”* round the sun. 
The speaker, referring to former hypotheses concern¬ 
ing the solar system, and specially to Mayer’s theory 
that the sun’s heat is supplied dynamically from year to 
year by the influx of meteors, said that now spectrum 
analysis gives proof finally conclusive against it. 
Most important steps have been recently made towards 
the discovery of the nature of comets; establishing with 
nothing short of certainty the truth of a hypothesis which 
had long appeared to me probable,—that they consist of 
groups of meteoric stones; accounting satisfactorily for 
the light of the nucleus ; and giving a simple and rational 
explanation of phenomena presented by the tails of 
comets which had been regarded by the greatest astro- ; 
nomers as almost preternaturally marvellous. The in¬ 
vestigations of Professor Newton, of Yale College, United 
States, followed and completed by those of Adams, 
proved that Temple’s Comet I., 1866, consists of an 
elliptic train of minute planets, of which a few thousands 
or millions fall to the earth annually about the 14th of 
November, when we cross their track. We have pro¬ 
bably not yet passed through the very nucleus or densest 
part; but thirteen times, in Octobers and Novembers, j 
from October 13, a.d. 902, to November 14, 1866, 
inclusive (this last time having been correctly pre¬ 
dicted by Professor Newton), we have passed through 
a part of the belt greatly denser than the average. The 
densest part of the train, when near enough to us, 
is visible as the head of the comet. 
The essence of science, as is well illustrated by astro¬ 
nomy and cosmical physics, consists in inferring*antece¬ 
dent conditions, and anticipating future evolutions, from 
phenomena which have actually come under observation. 
In biology the difficulties of successfully acting up to 
this ideal are prodigious. The earnest naturalists of the 
present day are, however, not appalled or paralysed by 
them, and are struggling boldly and laboriously to pass 
out of the mere “ natural history ” stage of their study, 
and bring zoology within the range of natural philoso¬ 
phy. A very ancient speculation, still clung to by many 
naturalists (so much so that I have a choice of modern 
terms to quote in expressing it), supposes that, under 
meteorological conditions very different from the present, 
dead matter may have run together or crystallized or 
fermented into “ germs of life,” or “ organic cells,” or 
‘‘protoplasm.” But science brings a vast mass of induc¬ 
tive evidence against this hypothesis of spontaneous 
generation, as you have heard from my predecessor in 
the presidential chair. Careful enough scrutiny has, in 
every case up to the present day, discovered life as ante¬ 
cedent to life. Dead matter cannot become living with¬ 
out coming under the influence of matter previously 
alive. This seems to me as sure a teaching of science as 
the law of gravitation. I utterly repudiate, as opposed 
to all philosophical uniformitarianism, the assumption of 
“ different meteorological conditions,”—that is to say, 
somewhat different vicissitudes of temperature, pres¬ 
sure, moisture, gaseous atmosphere,—to produce or to 
permit that to take place by force or motion of dead 
matter alone,, which is a direct contravention of what 
seems to us biological law. I am prepared for the an- 
* Frankland and Lockyer find the yellow prominences to 
give a very decided bright line not far from J), but hitherto 
not identified with any terrestrial flame. It seems to indicate 
a new substance, which they propose to call helium. 
swer, “ our code of biological law is an expression of our 
ignorance as well as of our knowledge.” And I say 
yes: search for spontaneous generation out of inorganic- 
materials ; let any one not satisfied with the purely ne¬ 
gative testimony of which we have now so much against 
it, throw himself into the inquiry. Such investigations 
as those of Pasteur, Pouchet and Bastian are among the 
most interesting and momentous in the whole range of' 
natural history; and their results, whether positive or 
negative, must richly reward the most careful and la¬ 
borious experimenting. I confess to being deeply im¬ 
pressed by the evidence put before us by Professor 
Huxley, and I am ready to adopt, as an article of scien¬ 
tific faith, true through all space and through all time,, 
that life proceeds from life, and from nothing but life. 
How, then, did life originate on the earth P Tracing 
the physical history of the earth backwards, on strict 
dynamical principles, we are brought to a red-hot melted 
globe on which no life could exist. Hence, when the 
earth was first fit for life, there was no living thing on 
it. There were rocks solid and disintegrated, water, air all 
round, warmed and illuminated by a brilliant sun, ready 
to become a garden. Did grass and trees and flowers- 
spring into existence, in all the fulness of ripe beauty, by 
a fiat of Creative Power ? or did vegetation, growing up 
from seed sown, spread and multiply over the whole 
earth P Science is bound, by the everlasting law of 
honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can fairly 
be presented to it. If a probable solution, consistent 
with the ordinary course of nature, can be found, we 
must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power. 
When a lava-stream flows down the sides of Vesuvius; 
or Etna, it quickly cools and becomes solid ; and after a 
few weeks or years it teems with vegetable and animal 
life, which for it originated by the transport of seed and 
ova, and by the migration of individual living creatures^ 
When a volcanic island springs up from the sea, and 
after a few years is found clothed with vegetation, we do- 
not hesitate to assume that seed has been wafted to it 
through the air, or floated, to it on rafts. Is it not pos¬ 
sible, and, if possible, is it not probable, that the begin¬ 
ning of vegetable life on the earth is to be similarly ex¬ 
plained ? Every year thousands, probably millions, of 
fragments of solid matter fall upon the earth: whence- 
j came these fragments ? What is the previous history of 
I any one of them ? Was it created in the beginning of 
time an amorphous mass ? This idea is so unacceptable 
that, tacitly or explicitly, all men discard it. It is often 
assumed that all, and it is certain that some, meteoric 
: stones are fragments which had been broken off’ from 
1 greater masses and launched free into space. It is as. 
sure that collisions must occur between great masses- 
moving through space as it is that ships, steered without 
intelligence directed to prevent collision, could not cross 
and recross the Atlantic for thousands of years with im- 
munitv from collisions. When two great masses come 
into collision in space it is certain that a large part of 
each is melted; but it seem.s also quite certain that in. 
1 many cases a large quantity of debris must be shot forth, 
in all directions, much of which may have experienced 
‘ no greater violence than individual pieces of rock ex¬ 
perience in a land-slip or in blasting by gunpowder. 
Should the time when this earth comes into collision 
with another body, comparable in dimensions to itself,, 
be when it is still clothed as at present with vegetation, 
many great and small fragments carrying seed and living- 
plants and animals would undoubtedly be scattered 
through space. Hence and because we all confidently 
believe that there are at present, and have been from 
time immemorial, many worlds of life besides our own, 
we must regard it as probable in the highest degree that 
there are countless seed-bearing meteoric stones moving 
about through space. If at the present instant no life- 
existed upon this earth, one such stone falling upon it 
might, by what wo blindly call natural causes, lead to its 
, becoming covered with vegetation. I am fully conscious 
