Whence, then, came
the first germ? Many of our readers may remember a suggestion by
Sir William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin, made twenty or thirty years
ago, that life may have been brought to our planet by the falling
of a meteor from space. This does not, however, solve the
difficulty--indeed, it would only make it greater. It still
leaves open the question how life began on the meteor; and
granting this, why it was not destroyed by the heat generated as
the meteor passed through the air. The popular view that life
began through a special act of creative power seemed to be almost
forced upon man by the failure of science to discover any other
beginning for it. It cannot be said that even to-day anything
definite has been actually discovered to refute this view. All we
can say about it is that it does not run in with the general views
of modern science as to the beginning of things, and that those
who refuse to accept it must hold that, under certain conditions
which prevail, life begins by a very gradual process, similar to
that by which forms suggesting growth seem to originate even under
conditions so unfavorable as those existing in a bottle of acid.
But it is not at all necessary for our purpose to decide this
question.
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