living matter must have arisen from not-living matter; for by the hypothesis the condition of the globe was at one time such, that living matter could not have existed in it, life being entirely incompatible with the gaseous state" (HUXLEY, PROFESSOR T. H., Encyc. Brit., ed. of 1876, art. "Biology," p. 689).

"The properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of things; and the present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living" (p. 679).

"At the present moment there is not a shadow of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis [or spontaneous generation] does take place, or has taken place, within the period during which the existence of the globe is recorded" (p. 689).

Will you put these strategic propositions into contact with each other? Huxley's form of the doctrine of evolution stands or falls with the fate of the doctrine concerning spontaneous generation. Darwin's form of it does not; Dana's not; and Gray's

not.

Huxley, you notice, expressly concedes that all the evidence we now have is against the theory that spontaneous generation is possible, and that the present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link between the not-living and the living.

Häckel concedes, and it is very evident from the nature of the case, that if the primordial cells did not originate spontaneously, or by usual Divine action, they must have been originated supernaturally, or by unusual Divine action. The theory of natural

selection as held by Darwin does not attempt to
bridge the chasm between the living and the not-
living.

To show how incisive the assertion is, "that life
is incompatible with the gaseous state," Professor
Huxley says, in a note following the sentence I have
read, that it makes no difference, if we adopt Sir
William Thomson's theory, that life may have been
inducted into this planet from life in some exterior
physical source. The nebular hypothesis, which is a
part of the great evolution theory, asserts that all the
worlds were once in a gaseous state; and so in that
exterior physical source, which was once a gas, how
could life have arisen? Even Tyndall's famous mat-
ter, so richly endowed as to have in it "the potency
and promise of all life," must itself once have been in
a gaseous state.

When Professor Huxley and Professor Tyndall sit together at the top of the Alps, and Tyndall begins his definition of matter, if Professor Huxley will whisper to him these words, "that life is entirely incompatible with the gaseous state," it will not be logically competent to Professor Tyndall to go on speculating, as he once did on the Matterhorn, whether or not his pensiveness and his thoughtfulness, as well as the gnarled granite peaks, were all potentially existent in the earliest nebula. Let Professor Huxley and Professor Tyndall correct each other, and perhaps there may arise, in that way, contagious life by collision.

"But," continues Professor Huxley, "living matter y ascuns state; σ promise + poles of the med ossist

* see is mompatible with the

Ess. The is post matter, but mind!

once originated, there is no necessity for another origination, since the hypothesis postulates the unlimited, though perhaps not indefinite, modifiability of such matter. Of the causes which have led to the origination of living matter, it may be said that we know absolutely nothing."

Here is determined agnosticism. Of course, if physicists will not look outside of matter, they can have no knowledge of a first cause. "Give me matter," said Kant, "and I will explain the formation of a world; but give me matter only, and I cannot explain the formation of a caterpillar." Professor Huxley likes to quote the first half of that celebrated saying, without the last.

To test the value of these concessions by Huxley as to spontaneous generation, take another theme, and one on which our opinions are not divided the philosopher's stone. We do not now find ourselves able to make a philosopher's stone. We have no reason to believe that Nature ever made a stone that will transmute the baser metals into gold. There is nothing in science to show that such a stone can be found or made. But, unless such a stone has been made at some time in the past, we must give up a pet theory in philosophy. Therefore let us assert, that, in the complex conditions of a cooling planet, perhaps the philosopher's stone may have come into existence by fortuitous concourse of atoms. [Laughter.] You smile, gentlemen, because you are true to the scientific method, and I mean you shall be. But Strauss, in his " Old Faith and New," asks, "Who can

tell what may have occurred in a cooling planet? Virchow says that things were mixed in those early ages and that it must be that somehow life originated spontaneously; at least Strauss would be very glad to have us prove a negative. [Applause.]

Now, gentlemen, there is a famous theory in geology called the Uniformitarian Hypothesis. It assumes that the geological formation of the globe was due to precisely the same physical forces that now exist. We have given up the idea of great catastrophes in geology. But when we reason concerning spontaneous generation, if we take our stand on the further side of the fact-if it ever was a fact, —we are in the field of simple physical forces. Here are just the influences that brought into existence our mountains and seas, and determined events in the inorganic world. According to all established science, these forces have been uniform. The Uniformitarian Hypothesis turns upon the idea that uniformity exists in the forces of the inorganic world. We must, therefore, insist, that, if spontaneous generation does not occur now, it never occurred. We must do this in the name of the uniformity of nature.

The chasm between the not-living and the living forms of matter is the fathomless abyss at the ragged edge of which every traveller on atheistic or agnostic roads at last lifts his foot over thin air.

It is notorious that evolutionists admit,

7. That natural selection cannot have originated species, if the sterility of hybrids is a fact. So the contrary, at least partied sterility of hyrids is pronically necessay to natural selexims to prevent'

racial characteristics

breeking

being

lost by inter

8. That, in the present state of knowledge, the

sterility of hybrids must be accepted as a fact. Not always9. That it is fair to ask, as a proof of evolution, that there be formed by selective breeding two species so different that their intercourse will produce sterile hybrids.

10. That no such species have as yet been formed by selective breeding, and that, until two such have been formed, the strongest proof of the doctrine of evolution is wanting.

Who admits all this? Professor Huxley. Where? In his famous "Lay Sermons and Reviews," where he cites (p. 308, American edition) Professor Kölliker, than whom there is no greater authority in embryology. This German says, "Great weight must be attached to the objection brought forward by Huxley, otherwise a warm supporter of Darwin's hypothesis, that we know of no varieties which are sterile with one another, as is the rule among sharply distinguished animal forms. If Darwin is right, it must be demonstrated that forms may be produced by selection, which, like the present sharply distinguished animal forms, are infertile when coupled with one another; and this has not been done."

What, now, does Professor Huxley himself say, speaking before scholars, and in reply to this passage? "The weight of this objection is obvious," is his answer; "but our ignorance of the conditions of fertility and sterility," which have been witnessed by man six thousand years, at least, "the want of careful experiments extending over a long series of years,