Towards the end of the 19th century, Lord Kelvin (hen Sir W. Thompson) and H. Von Helmholtz independently raised and discussed the possibility of such an origin of ferrestrial life, laying siress on the presence of hydro-carbons in meteoric slones and on the indications of their presence revealed by the specira of the tails of comes. W. Preyer has criticized such views, grouping them under the phrase “theory of cosmozoa" and has suggested that living małter preceded inorganic ineller. Preyer's view, however, enlarges the conception of life unlilii can be applied lo the phenomena of incandescent gases and has no relation to ideas of life derived from observation of the living mailor we know." “From the point of view of exact science life is associaled with maller, is displayed only by living bodies, by all living bodies, and is what dislinguishes living bodies from bodies that are not alive. Herbert Spencer's formula that life is “the continuous adjustment of internal relations lo external relelions" was ilie resuli of Են profound and suble analysis, but omils lhe fundamental consideralion ihał we know life only as a quality of and in associalion with living moiler.” "Proloplasm, the living malerial, contains only a few elements, all of which are extremely common and none of which is peculiar to it. These elemenis, however, form compounds characteristic of living
