from the bottom, or from the shore of the sea, at the beginning of the world, "And when you have got this substance, you are as far on your way to albumen as a man ascending a hill would be on his way to the moon. And when you have got albumen, you are still as far from living matter as in the moon you would be from the fixed stars." No natural process has been discovered which can explain the origin of living matter; and if such process were discovered, it would only show that God had mysteriously bridged the gulf which separates the dead from the living.

Thus, physical science, reverently waiting on the threshhold of existence, seeks to know the forms of the outer world by means of optical and tactual process, and to bring the how or manner of creation into representation for the perception of our inner man. The process is from without inward, and has a limit which cannot be passed-the Ultimate Cause being utterly unknown, though immanent in all phenomena-but we know that all animals and plants consist, in great measure, of fluid water. The material basis of life is albumenoidal substance; what life is, in itself, no man knoweth. We can only say, 'Its working is a continual adjustment of internal relation to external relations."

Scripture draws another picture, not of the How, but of the Why there is life. By this picture we understand that through creation, redemption, regeneration, we have in time, in nature, in history, a revelation of those great acts by which the Eternal graduates us for everlasting existence. As in matter, the visible garment of the Almighty, there are infinite metamorphoses; as in life, we behold illimitable progression; as in the historic development of thought, we find how the mental habits of bygone generations enter the very spirit of present modes of thinking; so in Revelation we are taught to adore-not a Vastness which oppresses us, not a Power which terrifies us, but a Father who is leading us to complete fulness of life. Every temptation we resist, every generous impulse wisely yielded to, every noble thought that is encouraged, every sacred aspiration realised, adds its own

1 "The Protoplastic Theory of Life:" J. Drysdale, M.D., p. 260.

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energy to the impetus of the great movement which is bearing all true-hearted men towards a higher character and richer existence. Revelation shows that there is a Spirit of infinite perfection in whom we live and move and have our being that all Nature is a Word of God coming from everlasting realms, bringing tidings of the past, and carrying intelligence to the future. Star-domed space is the temple of His Majesty, and our soul His inner spiritual jewelled chamber (Jno. xiv. 23).

We may ask-Have the living particles which are arranged into the shape of an organism an innate tendency to. arrange themselves into the shape of that very organism to which they belong? This is a hard thing to say, and yet the tendency to assume the specific form must be inherent in all parts of the organism. What is the energy which gives this tendency? If we say polarity of the organic units, that is a name ascribed to atoms for something of which we are ignorant; nor does it explain what we want to know-how living particles, or units, possess the property of arranging themselves into the special structures which they construct? The power cannot be in the atoms of albumen, or fibrine, or gelatine, or the hypothetical protein substance, for in that case, how are we to account for the unlikenesses of different organisms? Laying aside these particles, the chemical units, can we find a sort of morphological unit, a microscopic cell, by multiplication of which all developmental changes are effected? No; for the cell is itself a manifestation of this strange power, and though cells are the ultimate visible components of many organisms, they are not universal. We are, then, driven to the conclusion that, complex as are chemical units, physiological or life units are more complex; and that difference of composition in these units themselves, leading to differences in the mutual play of energies, causes the endless variety of existing forms. Evidently, we have here a power, the nature of which is wholly unknown.

Oken said: "Every living thing arose out of slime, and is nothing but slime in various forms. This primitive slime originated in the sea, and from inorganic matter in the course

of planetary evolution." Oken might have stated it more Scripturally in the water, and out of the earth, the Lord God made things to grow. Hæckel tells us: "Life is nothing but a connected chain of very complicated material phenomena of motion. These motions must be considered as changes in the position and combination of the molecules." Now, when a man says life is something that he knows of, and is nothing more, he would have us think that a wonderful amount of knowledge is in his possession: whereas in fact, as to life, no substance even distantly resembling organisable matter has ever been formed by man. The complex combination, when dead, is called "protein," but the living nature no man has determined. To minimise in words the distinction between living and unliving matter, does not alter the fact that the two are as far from one another as the east is from the west. Even supposing, but not admitting, that under certain circumstances we may be able to generate a low order of life by a peculiar grouping of particles, the mystery still remains unsolved. It may be possible to use Divinely given energy, or occulta vis, for the production of organisms, but that reads not the riddle any more than our use of galvanism explains the reason of galvanic powers. We know that the formative energy by which crystallising matter unites together, has its inner power by chemical constitution, and its external power by influence of surrounding matter; so the semi-fluid state of matter may possibly have passed into amorphous organisms, and thus changed form, as these organisms do every moment; but the ultimate causes, whether of physical or of vital phenomena, centre in mystery. "Autogony," or "spontaneous generation," are only dark words which veil ignorance by putting back, not explaining the difficulty.

The vital substance of the whole universe, identical for one and all living creatures, is semi-fluid, transparent, colourless, structureless. This is a window of truth through which the face of the Infinite may be seen: a pregnant and significant fact, proving that there exists beyond all our visual and chemical investigations, a distinct and special endowment of which we know absolutely nothing. It proves, in a

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Divine sense, the doctrine of evolution: from this, which is as nothing, is created man.

This matter of life, one and the same for all, is neither indestructible nor unchangeable: it is formed of ordinary matter, and to ordinary matter returns. Fungus and oak, worm and man die, always are dying, nor can they live unless they die. "In the midst of life we are in death." Does protoplasm, thus living and dying, generate protoplasm, and so of itself, from the one primal substance, form plants and animals and men? No; only when it has been built by life into organism, into form of vegetable and animal, are vegetables and animals produced. Had we been present when living protoplasm was first evolved from not living matter, it is unlikely that the sight would have enabled us scientifically to bring together the physical, chemical, and other conditions of existence. We may speculate about all forms of life commencing as "Monera," or simple particles of protoplasm, and that these monera originated from not living matter; we may theorise as to the monera acquiring tendencies towards the Protista, others towards the Protophyta, and others towards the Protozoa; but, though there are structural analogies, no proof exists of passage from one to another. We may think of dead matter becoming living, and in our own way settle the dispute as to the physical basis of life, for certainly at the beginning, ere life was, something began to live that was dead before; but a looker-on at the primal origin of earthly life might not have seen more of a miracle, nor anything more startling, than there is in the beginning of a new life now; yet it was a marvellous crisis in the world's history, the beginning of a state the results of which no created being can calculate.

"The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains-
Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns.

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet-
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see :
But if we could see and hear, this vision-were it not He?"

TENNYSON." The Higher Pantheism."

We may, however, reverently draw nigh to this wonderful vision, and peer into the ultimate particles of living moving matter. What shall we find? Taking particles of protoplasm, they all possess the same microscopic structure, no physicist can detect any difference, within that apparent identity are those infinite varieties of molecular constitution and arrangement whence proceed all living things. This establishes an essential difference where human. faculties and instruments find sameness; therefore no apparent similarity in the structure of the parrot, the cat, the dog, the monkey, can prove that they are essentially the same. In one anatomical element alone resides the attribute of life, whether it is plant, or animal, or man. The infinite difference and distance contained in this transparent, structureless, colourless, homogeneous fluid, set at nought every argument for Materialism; by proving the existence of things in matter which no physical process enables us to detect.

Now consider a remarkable assertion: "The absolute commencement of organic life on the globe I distinctly deny. The affirmation of universal evolution is itself the negation of an absolute commencement of anything. Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications, wrought by insensible gradations on a pre-existing kind of being." By this theory, life began with portions of protoplasm—not protoplasm; more minute, indefinite, and changeable than those mere fragments of matter called "protogenes." Then by a process of action and reaction between incipient types and their environments, and the survival of those fittest to live, after an enormous period of time, the comparatively well-specialised forms of ordinary Infusoria were reached. We have stated the case clearly, for there must be no mistake. The conception of a first organism, in anything like the common or natural meaning, is wholly at variance with a right view of evolution: life sprang from no life-from nothing! There can be 'no greater condemnation of the system as an attempted explanation of the origin of things. We are virtually told-push back the beginning far enough, 1 "Principles of Biology," vol. i. p. 482. Herbert Spencer.