it. When you find in some places that in an enormous thickness of
rocks there are but very scanty traces of life, or absolutely none at
all; and that in other parts of the world rocks of the very same
formation are crowded with the records of living forms, I think it is
impossible to place any reliance on the supposition, or to feel oneself
justified in supposing that these are the forms in which life first
commenced. I have not time here to enter upon the technical grounds
upon which I am led to this conclusion,--that could hardly be done
properly in half a dozen lectures on that part alone;--I must content
myself with saying that I do not at all believe that these are the
oldest forms of life.

I turn to the experimental side to see what evidence we have there. To
enable us to say that we know anything about the experimental
origination of organization and life, the investigator ought to be able
to take inorganic matters, such as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and
salines, in any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to build
them up into Protein matter, and that that Protein matter ought to
begin to live in an organic form. That, nobody has done as yet, and I
suspect it will be a long while before anybody does do it. But the
thing is by no means so impossible as it looks; for the researches of
modern chemistry have shown us--I won't say the road towards it, but,
if I may so say, they have shown the finger-post pointing to the road
that may lead to it.

It is not many years ago--and you must recollect that Organic Chemistry
is a young science, not above a couple of generations old,--you must
not expect too much of it; it is not many years ago since it was said
to be perfectly impossible to fabricate any organic compound; that is
to say, any non-mineral compound which is to be found in an organized