EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



with vitality than the mobile bird or beast which, 

 indeed, owe their life entirely and directly to that 

 of the green plant. 



We have, then, an inanimate or inorganic and 

 a living or organic world around us. Now, if we 

 take a crystal or a brick, we can trace its history 

 with ease. It is simply an aggregation of smaller 

 particles arranged in a more or less symmetrical 

 way. No question of parentage arises. But if we 

 consider an oak or a horse, we are assured that 

 it has had very small beginnings; that no human 

 hands have formed it; that the beginnings were 

 invariably and necessarily derived from some for- 

 mer oak or horse no oak, no acorn. Nor do 

 we doubt that every human being on the earth 

 has had parents was not formed directly from 

 mother-earth. Now, this belief of ours may not 

 have been consciously extended by us to lower 

 forms of life; we may never have considered 

 whether every mushroom implies a preceding 

 mushroom, every bacillus a preceding bacillus. 

 We may even be inclined to think that if a cheese 

 be left in a damp cupboard, mould will appear 

 upon it by a spontaneous generation from the sub- 

 stance of the cheese ; that though every man must 

 have had parents, the same is hardly true of a 

 mere mould. 



Now, as a matter of fact, men of science have 

 entered exhaustively into this question; and they 

 most positively assert, without any qualification of 

 the smallest, that what is true of the man is true 



