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avoided if the proper object of the evolution theory had 
been regarded. It professes to account for the origin of 
species, but it does not ever profess to account for the origin 
of life. Let us suppose that further investigations have 
been made and have succeeded in discovering what is still 
licking; that adequate causes have been found which fully 
account for all the infinite variety of form; that the missing 
links have been got, and that now there is a continuous 
chain reaching from man to the urschleim, or protoplasm; 
and starting from man let us go back link by link till we 
reach the Bathybius, there we find living albuminous sub¬ 
stance—we find life, and life according to this theory with 
all its vast potentialities. The same question that met us 
at the highest end of the chain meets us at the lowest—how 
did this life originate ?—and to that question evolution 
neither gives, nor professes to give, any answer. It professes 
only at the utmost to explain how life rises from a lower 
to a higher development, but it does not profess to explain 
how life, capable of all these developments, at first origi¬ 
nated. The chasm between matter minus life and matter 
plus life still remains unbridged. How does matter minus 
life become matter plus life ? Here evolution is dumb. 
But though evolution be dumb, some evolutionists speak 
if not lucidly at least vehemently. Darwin himself stands 
in marked contrast to some of his scholars. He says 
plainly—“ Science as yet throws no light on the far higher 
problem of the essence or origin of life.” He for himself 
attributes the origin of life to the direct act of God. 
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several 
powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into 
a few forms or into one.” This attribution of the origin of 
life to the Creator seems to have aroused a feeling of indig¬ 
nation in some of his followers. We take one instance from 
abroad and another from home. Zollner, whose name is 
deservedly great alike in science and philosophy, holds that 
Darwin ought never to have written the words now quoted, 
seeing that “ the hypothesis of an act of creation (for the 
beginning of life) would not be a logical but a merely arbi¬ 
trary imitation of the causal series against which our intellect 
rebels by reason of its inherent craving for causality.” If 
now it should be said that the craving for causality is 
amply satisfied in tracing the origin of life to the Creator, 
Zollner is ready with the answer:—“Whoever does not 
share this craving (for physical cause beyond physical 
cause) is beyond help, and cannot be convinced.” That is, if 
we do not agree with Zollner, he tells us we are blockheads, 
and it is of no use to argue with us. We are consigned to 
the region of helpless imbecility. Dr Johnson once, with 
his accustomed politeness, observed to a man who did not 
see the force of his reasoning—“Sir, I have furnished you 
with an argument; I am not bound to furnish you with an 
understanding;” but the inconclusiveness of the argument 
may be occasionally the fault of the reasoner, and that we 
submit is the case in Zollner’s present reasoning. We take 
our second instance at home. In his Chapters on Evolu¬ 
tion, Dr Andrew Wilson, speaking of the belief that each 
of the various species of animals and plants originated as a 
special creation, says:—“In this way a creative interference, 
capable of originating living beings ex nihilo, and, therefore, 
capable of literally creating matter—itself an inconceiv¬ 
able act—was credited.” Dr Wilson here asserts—it must 
be acknowledged, however, that he asserts it only in a 
parenthesis—that the creating of matter is an inconceivable 
act. Now, first of all, a scientist should never state inci¬ 
dentally, by way only of parenthesis, what he wishes to be 
regarded as an important and fundamental truth. He 
should state it boldly, and show honestly the grounds on 
which it rests. The argument indicated in this parenthesis 
rests on mere assertion. Life is said by some evolutionists 
to be simpiy the outcome of the chemical and physical 
properties of matter. This, again, is mere assertion. The 
chemist can resolve man’s frame into its constituent ele¬ 
ments, but when he has done so he is no nearer the secret 
of the origin of life. He was all the while operating, 
not on living tissue, but on the shell in which life 
had once existed. The house may once have been full 
of life, and love, and happiness, and have rung 
with the shouts and laughter of children; but when the 
dwellers have all gone, when the house is left empty 
and desolate, you will never discover the secret of the 
life and merriment which once were there, even though 
the search from garret to basement should be minute 
and exhaustive. The problem of the origin of life is 
confessedly unsolved on physical principles, but when 
knowledge utterly fails, hypothesis is resorted to, and 
pure hypothesis is stated so boldy as to seem a simple 
narration of ascertained facts. Haeckel describes the 
process of the spontaneous origin of organisms, and their 
power of separating into two or more portions,—that is 
their power of reproduction,—as plainly as he might de¬ 
scribe the process of manufacturing wooden nutmegs. 
Organo-genetic elements coalesce and form an albuminous 
granule. The albuminous granule transforms itself into 
a homogeneous organic individual. This individual grows 
by means of nutrition till the attractive power of the 
centre is too weak to hold the w'hole mass together. 
The mass thereupon separates, and each part becomes an 
albuminous individual, and there the whole mystery is 
solved. The secret of the origin of life is just as plain as 
the art of making clay into bricks. The explanation of 
