AGENCIES, HABITAT, AND GROWTH 87 



so in like manner the earth's initial ingredients, and 

 their environments, determine the nature of the earth's 

 issue. The elements which constitute the land, the 

 sea, and the air, and those larger celestial forces which 

 regulate the earth's activities, were established in, and 

 around the earth-egg in fixed proportions; and their 

 distinctive attributes were insured to the germinating 

 earth as life's heritage, long before protoplasmic life 

 could exist thereon, or endure. These agencies deter- 

 mine the nature of terrestrial life today, and they will 

 determine the nature of that life which the earth shall 

 bring forth in the fulness of time. 



The cosmic formula for the evolution of life was, 

 therefore, explicit and imperative. To compound that 

 formula, time and space, materials and power in 

 abundance were demanded, with stability in founda- 

 tions, exactitude in the quantity of ingredients, ever- 

 lasting integrity in their qualities, and unremitting 

 service. 



III. Life's Cosmic Sanctuary 



But life occupies a very small place in the universe. 

 It stands on a meagre franchise of the elements, a frail 

 terrestrial film in an infinite sea of death; a beneficiary 

 of stability and order in a tiny sanctuary. For life 

 could suffer but little deviation in the sun's radiant 

 power, or in the moons tidal pull, and still endure ; but 

 little change in the size, position, and movements of 

 the earth; or in the volume, and composition of the 

 earth's atmosphere; or in the proportion of land to 

 water; or in the upheavals, and circulating movements 

 of its substance. Nor could life suffer any omission 

 of its constituent elements ; nor the substitution of one 



