Abstract
From the time of the first records of the human race, one subject more than any other appears to have aroused the thought and piqued the curiosity of man-the origin of life. Speculations thereon have ever occupied a prominent place and aroused the keenest interest in the human mind, which has busied itself with theories, crude or profound, according to the age, as to the beginnings of the powers which are associated with living matter, and which collectively are spoken of as LIFE.