Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/19

Rh cooling surface of the globe, but that all types known to us have arisen by a process of gradual evolution from pre-existing types, and that this process of evolution has generally been in an upward direction from the low to the high, from the small to the great, from the simple to the complex. Pushed to its logical conclusion the theory teaches yet more; it teaches, as the only hypothesis scientifically tenable, that life originally arose by a process of evolution from that which was non-living; that under conditions of which we are ignorant, of moisture, or of heat, light, electricity, or other of the protean forms of energy, non-living chemical compounds did in the beginning of life overpass the border space which divides the non-living from the living, and become living beings. The lowest living beings, or rather those highest chemical compounds which first display signs, however slight, of what is called life, if any such now exist on earth, probably exist in masses so minute and so little differentiated from mere chemical compounds, as to be beyond all devisable means of observation. Regarding them therefore there is no evidence to offer, but as regards the evolution of higher life from lower life, the evidence is so vast and so decisive that it is impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion that Darwin, Huxley, and even Haeckel did not over-scrutinize insufficient evidence, but that Dr. Moxon under-scrutinized overwhelming evidence, that, in fact, he adopted the device familiar to theologians and dear to them, of abusing evidence instead of examining it.

But quite apart from all evidence that evolution has occurred, the conditions of life are such that we may