THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 23 



give it more than a mere scientific interest. We take our 

 primitive living things, making their appearance in the 

 primordial ocean, and ask : Were these simple organisms 

 built up entirely out of elements already existing in our 

 planet ? Or are we compelled to think that a third persistent 

 factor (besides matter and energy) now came upon the 

 scene of nature from the obscure recesses of a spirit- 

 world ? 



In approaching such a problem as this we have first to 

 remember two great and established laws. One is a law of 

 things ; the other a law of thought. One is established by 

 science, and is claimed to be one of its very broadest induc- 

 tions ; the other is established by logicians, and is claimed 

 to be one of the essential conditions of all thinking that seeks 

 to attain the truth. The first is the law of evolution ; the 

 second the law of parsimony. 



We have to explain the origin of a number of things, 

 living organisms, that make their appearance for the first 

 time on our planet. How do we usually approach such 

 problems to-day ? In the old days people were quite accus- 

 tomed to imagine things shooting suddenly into existence 

 without any natural preparation. Not only religion and 

 morality, but agriculture, the use of metals, speech, and a 

 hundred other human possessions, were believed to have 

 been suddenly thrust into our sphere from a sphere beyond. 

 People had lost all account of their slow and laborious 

 development, and attributed them to a beneficent revelation 

 from the gods. We have altered all that. We have grown 

 instinctively to look for gradual development, and greatly to 



