Questions Evolution Does Not Answer 
strong foundations. To say, there¬ 
fore, in the admitted absence of evi¬ 
dence, that I have any belief as to 
the mode in which the existing 
forms of life have originated, would 
be using words in a wrong sense. 
But expectation is permissible 
where belief is not, and if it were 
given to me to look beyond the 
abyss of geologically recorded time, 
to the still more remote period 
when the earth was passing through 
physical and chemical conditions 
which it can no more see again than 
a man can recall his infancy, I 
should expect to be a witness of 
the evolution of living protoplasm 
from non-living matter. I should 
expect to see it appear under forms 
of great simplicity, endowed, like 
existing fungi, with the power of 
determining the formation of new 
protoplasm from such matters as 
ammonium carbonates, oxalates and 
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