We must first notice that no notion of _chemical evolution_ helps us out. It has been a favourite thought with some that the origin of the first living thing was the result of chemical evolution. As the result of physical forces there was produced, from the original nebulous mass, a more and more complicated system until the world was formed. Then chemical phenomena became more and more complicated until, with the production of more and more complicated compounds, protoplasm was finally produced. A few years ago, under the impulse of the idea that protoplasm was a compound, or at least a simple mixture of compounds, this thought of protoplasm as the result of chemical evolution was quite significant. _Physical forces_, _chemical forces_, and _vital forces_, explain successively the origin of _worlds_, _protoplasm_, and _organisms_. This conception has, however, no longer much significance. We know of no such living chemical compound apart from cell machinery. A new conception of protoplasm has arisen which demands a different explanation of its origin. Since it is a machine rather than a compound, mechanical rather than chemical forces are required for its explanation. Have we then any suggestion as to the method of the origin of this protoplasmic machine? Our answer must, at the present, be certainly in the negative. The complexity of the cell tells us plainly that it can not be the ultimate living substance which may have arisen from chemical evolution. It is made up of parts delicately adapted to act in harmony with each other, and its activity depends upon the relation of these parts. Whatever chemical forces may have accomplished, they never could have combined different bodies into linin, centrosomes, chromosomes, etc., which, as we have seen, are the basis of cell life. To account for this machine, therefore, we are driven to assume either that it was produced by some unknown intelligent power in its present condition of complex adjustment, or to assume that it has had a long history of building by successive steps, just as we have seen to be the case with the higher organisms. The latter assumption is, of course, in harmony with the general trend of thought. To-day protoplasm is produced only from other protoplasm; but, plainly, the first protoplasm on the earth must have had a different origin. We must therefore next look for facts which will enable us to understand its origin. We have seen that the animal and plant machines have been built up from the simple cell as the result of its powers acting under the ordinary conditions of nature. Now, in accordance with this general line of thought, we shall be compelled to assume that previous to the period of building machinery which we have been considering, there was another period of machine building during which this cell machine was built by certain natural forces.