Questions Evolution Does Not Answer 
Joseph Le Conte, although not 
affirming his faith in the spontane¬ 
ous generation of life, and denying 
that the truth of evolution and that 
of spontaneous generation must 
stand or fall together, says: “If 
life did once arise spontaneously 
from any lower forces, physical or 
chemical, by natural process, the 
conditions necessary for so ex¬ 
traordinary a change could hardly 
be expected to occur but once in the 
history of the earth. They are, 
therefore, now, not only unrepro- 
ducible, but unimaginable.” (Ev¬ 
olution and Its Relation to Relig¬ 
ious Thought,” p. 14.) Surely one 
might be pardoned for wondering 
why it was that nature, so prodigal 
in the reproduction of the germs of 
life, should have been so frugal as 
to produce only one original living 
cell when so much depended on its 
preservation and propagation. 
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