FOUR QUESTIONS REGARDING LIFE 9 



eration of any inner law. Natural science, too, has more and 

 more demonstrated its inadequacy." 



A modern chemist also questions the probability of the en- 

 vironmental fitness of the earth for life being a mere chance 

 process, for Henderson remarks: "There is, in truth, not one 

 chance in countless millions of millions that the many unique 

 properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of 

 their stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly 

 make up the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously 

 occur in the three elements otherwise than through the opera- 

 tion of a natural law which somehow connects them together. 

 There is no greater probability that these uniciue properties 

 should be without due cause uniquely favorable to the organic 

 mechanism. These are no mere accidents; an explanation is 

 to seek. It must be admitted, however, that no explanation 

 is at hand."^ 



Unlike our first question as to whether the principle of life 

 introduced something new in the cosmos, a cjuestion which is 

 still in the stage of pure speculation, this fourth question of 

 law versus chance in the evolution of life is no longer a matter 

 of opinion, but of direct observation. So far as law is con- 

 cerned, we observe that the evolution of life forms is like that 

 of the stars: their origin and evolution as revealed through 

 palaeontology go to prove that Aristotle was essentially right 

 when he said that "Nature produces those things which, being 

 continually moved by a certain principle contained in them- 

 selves, arrive at a certain end."- What this internal moving 

 principle is remains to be discovered. We may first exclude 

 the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or teleo- 

 logic interposition through an externally creative power. Al- 

 though its visible results are in a high degree purposeful, we 



1 Henderson, Lawrence J., 1913, p. 276. - Osborn, H. F., 1894, p. 56. 



