THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
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living organisms, Is it possible by any application of skill in the 
combination of elements to approximately produce such matter at 
our pleasure ? In other words, Can any animal matter be produced 
out of materials that have never been part of an animal structure, 
and, if so, does not this point to a certain origin of the first 
structured Once more, it may be asked, Is it possible, by any 
observation combined with experiment, to discover and produce 
physical conditions, which, apart from the presence of any living 
organism, shall issue in the appearance of very minute forms of 
Life ? In other terms, Can we artificially create circumstances and 
conditions analogous to those which may be presumed to have 
existed just before Life came into the world's order, and out of 
those circumstances and conditions observe Life now to originate 
de novo ; i.e., apart from parentage or any super mundane power 1 ? 
And finally, should any or all of these methods of research 
combined ultimately fail in solving the question, it may yet be 
asked whether, exercising the right of speculative enquiry, any- 
thing is known to be, or may be reasonably believed to have been, 
inherent in the original constitution of the ultimate units which 
enter into the structure of all things, of such a subtle nature as, 
by development in the course of time, would account for the 
appearance of Life at an early age in the earth's history 1 
By way of anticipation and preparing for details, I may here 
say, that pursuing a course of thought, in whole or in part, like 
that just sketched, many scientific men of considerable authority 
believe that they have been able to arrive at a fairly satisfactory 
conclusion as to the origin of Life in the first instance. On 
reflection it will be found that there are only three conceivable 
means by which a living organism can come into existence : by 
parentage, ovum ex ovo ; by some direct act of the Eternal from 
outside or within the line of Nature ; or by the natural action of 
pre-existing conditions in the inorganic order, or in the ultimate 
constitution of things. Biogenesis, Creation, Abiogenesis, are the 
recognized terms for indicating the possible origin of Life. As to 
the first, Biogenesis — Life from Life— that is, of course, true of 
us and of the organic world as a whole. The smallest microscopic 
speck and the largest elephant owe their existence to a parent ; 
and this law applies to the entire range of organic history covered 
by Palaeontology. But obviously it is ruled out in reference to 
the first Life. There was no father of the first father. The 
