METEORIC ORIGIN OF MAN.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2710, 24 October 1871, Page 3

METEORIC ORIGIN OF MAN.

The British Association for the Advancement of Science, is now holding its annual meeting at Edinburgh, under the direction of Sir William Thompson, its newly inaufurated President. Although not so well nown in the Colonies as hia predecessor in the chair, Prof. Huxley, he has a high reputation abroad as a physicist, and the exposition of his opening address of the progress and prospects of modern science will attract extensive and respectful attention, from rcien ific men throughout the world. The President of the British Association is expected, on such an occasion, to tell his hearers not only what has been done during the year, but something of the possibilities which science may soon develop into re* alit&a, .. ii William Thompson has done this, and he has done it in words likely to be the subject of much controversial comment. Nor is

it in his own particular field of study that he advances a theory as remarkable as it is new, but rather in one with which Prof. Huxley’s name is indissolubly associated. The evolution hypothesis, as is well known, attributes the origin of all terrestrial life to a primal organic germ. Having gone thus far, the interrogatory, Whence came this primitive seed of life ? is at once suggested ; and in this final question all bilogical investigations ultimately terminate. To answer it, so far as the earth is concerned, is what Sir William Thompson has attempted to do. He first denied the sufficiency of the evidence by which the theory of spontaneous generation is sought to be maintained. “Careful enough scrutiny,” he says, “has in every case up to the present day discovered life as antecedent to life;” and he adds, “I am ready to adopt as an article of scientific faith, true through all space and through all time, that life proceeds from life, and from nothing but life.” Proceeding then to ask how life originated upon the globe—whether in the completeness of full-grown forms, or merely as a seed that is sown—he tells us that every year countless myriads of meteors are being hurled through space, thousands and perhaps millions of which annually fall to the earth’s surface. It is certain that some of these arc fragments broken off from larger solid masses. As there can be no doubt thatif, from any cause, portions of the earth should now he forcibly detached and launched out into space, they would carry with them living seeds, animals and plants, so it is exceeding probable that these meteors are seed-bearers. “If at the present moment,” he says, ‘‘no life existed upon this earth, one such stone falling upon it might, by what we call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered with vegetation. The hypothesis that life originated on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may seem wild and visionary; all that 1 maintain is, that it is not unscientific.” “This interesting theory fails, however,” says a writer in the New York Sun, “to bring us any nearer a solution of the great problem of the origin of life. If it is true, it is well for us to know the organic germs were first brought to earth by meteoric messengers ; but the fact affords no new or additional lipht which will aid our inquiries. The scientific question : V'hence came the primitive seed of life ? is as applicable to any other world whose ruins may be thus continually coming to us as it is to the earth alone.” In connection with Sir William Thompson's hypothesis, it would be interesting to know whether organic matter has ever been discovered in the composition of meteorite. If it has, we do not remember to have seen the fact stated.