tween the dead and the living which cannot be bridged over by mere matter and its laws? The debate on this question is at present so extremely keen that its importance in a religious reference is, it seems to me, in danger of being exaggerated. Materialism must be refuted before we reach this point, if it is ever to be refuted. Were spontaneous generation proved, materialism would remain as far from established as before. Those who are certain that there is a God may with perfect composure leave it to science to ascertain under what conditions He has caused life to appear. In fact, the question as to the mode of the origination of life, although of immense scientific interest, is of very subordinate religious significance. It is, further, a question which is often answered in a dogmatic and anti-scientific spirit. Many assert that it is absolutely impossible that life should originate from the interaction of molecular forces, while materialists in general demand that the contrary should be conceded from the outset. Both parties are in error. We cannot tell what is possible or impossible in such a case, prior to a comprehensive knowledge, such as science seeks to attain, of all that actually is. We have even no right, it seems to me, either to deny or to admit that it is conceivable that under certain conditions life may originate in inorganic matter. Our power of conception is dependent

on our means of conception, our data, our acquaintance with relevant facts. What we cannot conceive to-day science may make conceivable tomorrow; but we must not anticipate to-day what belongs to to-morrow.

Let us appeal, then, merely to facts and science. Do they afford any grounds for the materialistic explanation of the origin of life? Certainly not. So far as our knowledge extends, there is not a single fact to warrant the hypothesis that life has originated from mere matter, from what is inert and inactive. The spontaneous generation of life from the lifeless has often been asserted, and has sometimes been attempted to be proved, but undoubtedly the verdict of science is that organisms arise only from organisms, that life is only produced by that which lives. Endeavours like those of Crosse, and Pouchet, and Bastian, to establish the contrary, have only demonstrated their own futility, and increased the probability that omne vivum ex vivo is a law of nature which has no exceptions. No man has ever changed any inorganic matter into a living vegetable without the help of a pre-existing vegetable germ; nor vegetable matter into animal, without an animal germ. All known facts give their testimony against spontaneous generation.

Further, the phenomena of life are very peculiar and quite unexplained by the mechanics and

chemistry of matter. In every living thing, for example, there is a working as a whole, and a working from within, and a working to an end, to which we see nothing similar in the merely inorganic world. Crystals display geometrical regularity and symmetry and variety of species or type, but, as Müller says, "There is in the crystal no relation between its configuration and the activity of the whole." It has the unity which results from juxtaposition and arrangement, but in no degree the unity of reciprocal action and influence which belongs alike to the simplest and the most complex of living beings. In every plant and animal the whole is not merely composed of the parts, but acts as a whole through and by its parts, each part needing, conditioning, and influencing the whole, and the whole needing, conditioning, and influencing the parts. In the inorganic world forces are never seen acting thus, and nothing that we know of the inorganic powers of nature can reasonably lead us to suppose that they are capable of acting thus. Again, all dead bodies are wholly passive, wholly subject to the physical and chemical forces which act upon them, entirely moved from without; but all living beings, so far as observation extends, are only partially subject to these forces, displaying in addition a certain power of suspending or modifying their operations, of employing them instead of obeying them, of acting

from within as well as of being acted on from without. In this respect every living plant and animal is unlike every dead plant and animal, and every inorganic object. Now, how can this power of acting from within, one to which there is nothing properly analogous in lifeless matter,— come from without, from lifeless matter? How can mechanical and chemical forces result in a force which resists and rules themselves, and which enables that which possesses it to act of and for itself, in a faculty of adaptation to circumstances, of selective assimilation, growth, inherent renewal, and reproduction? Further, all that is living is, what nothing that is dead is, an end unto itself. A living being is no mere mean, but to a large extent an immanent whole-that is, one which has its reason of being, its ends of action, in itself. It is a unity of which all the elements, parts, and energies are co-ordinated by a central power to its self-preservation and self-perfection. But this implies plan and purpose, thought, foresight, and prophecy; and how are these to be accounted for by mere matter and motion?

I might appropriately, if time permitted, confirm and supplement what has just been said, by pointing out in the processes of nutrition and growth, in the healing and repairing of injured parts, and in propagation or reproduction, a number of distinctive characteristics which seem imperatively to

demand for their explanation more than merely mechanical and chemical causes. Enough has been said, however, I hope, to show that when Mr Spencer, or any other person, tells us that the argument against the materialistic hypothesis of the origin of life is one in which ignorance is made to do the part of knowledge, he gives a very unfair and inadequate view of it. The argument is based, first, on the universal and uniform experience which establishes the law omne vivum ex vivo; and secondly, on what observation and science inform us are the properties of inorganic powers on the one hand, and the distinctive features of life on the other. It is, consequently, based wholly on knowledge. And it is an argument of great strength, completely satisfying all the requirements of the methods both of agreement and of difference. Like all other arguments, however, as to the laws of nature, it does not demonstrate the impossibility -does not absolutely exclude the possibility— that the law may in some unknown case or cases not have held good. This bare possibility Mr. Spencer and the materialists eagerly lay hold of, and actually oppose and prefer to the positive argument. Because they can fancy that the powers of inorganic nature may once have acted in a way in which they are never known to have acted, and in which they certainly never act now, they conclude that these powers did really once