CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF BRUTE MATTER IN LIVING MATTER.
Spontaneous generation: an episode in the history of the
globe—Verification of the identity between brute and
living matter—Slow identification—Rapid identification—Contrary
opinion—Hypothesis of cosmozoa; cosmic
panspermia—Hypothesis of pyrozoa.
There should be two ways of testing the doctrine of the essential identity of brute and living matter—one slow and more laborious, the other more rapid and decisive.
Identification of the Two Matters, Brute and Living.—The laborious method, which we will be obliged to follow, consists in the attentive examination of the various activities by which life is manifested, and in finding more or less crude equivalents for them in all brute beings, or in certain of them.
Rapid Verification. Spontaneous Generation.—The rapid and decisive method, which, unhappily, is beyond our resources, would consist in showing unquestionable, clearly marked life, the superior life, arising from the kind of inferior life that is attributed to matter in general. It would be necessary completely to construct in all its parts, by a suitable combination of inorganic materials, a single living being, even the humblest plant or the most rudi-
