The Beginnings of Life*

Abstract

I. AFTER a careful perusal of this important and sug gestive work, a prominent feeling is one of regret that its value and popularity should be endangered owing to purely technical faults of composition and arrangement. It is so full of curious and novel facts and experiments, it contains so much excellent reasoning and acute criticism, and it opens up such new and astounding views of the nature and origin of life, that one feels it ought to and might have ranked with such standard works as the “Origin of Species” and the “Principles of Biology,” if equal care had been bestowed upon it as a literary composition. But, unfortunately, it altogether lacks their powerful condensation and lucid arrangement. Its vast masses of facts are stated too diffusely, and are often so scattered as to lose the cumulative force that might have been given to them; while the arguments are broken up and weakened by a too minute classification of the subjects treated, leading to repetition and confusion rather than to clearness. Haste of composition is further indicated by the quantity of additional matter given in foot-notes that should have found a place in the text; and we often find it difficult to follow the special argument in hand, or to see the connection and relevance of much of the detailed evidence brought forward. Notwithstanding these defects, which will undoubtedly diminish its popularity, it is a book which will make its mark, and must produce a poweriul sensation.