384 GEOLOGICAL BIOLOGY. 



The reason why each individual pellet stopped exactly 

 where it did is correctly defined as the result of its particular 

 environment, but the reason why it got there is not so 

 explained. So it is not difficult to understand that as long- 

 as we only microscopically examine the perfect adaptation 

 of organic structure to the particular place it occupies in 

 nature, the theory that species were originated by the ac- 

 tion of the conditions of environment through natural selec- 

 tion and the survival of the fittest seems sufficient and apt. 

 But when we consider what an immensely greater demand 

 is made upon causative energy to account for variability, com- 

 pared with that required to adjust to its environment an al- 

 ready living and varying organism, it becomes evident that 

 evolution is a far greater matter than the result of natural 

 selection. 



To use the same illustration, we note that the fact, that 

 the lead pellets are observed in the act of travelling through 

 space, and finally stopping as they strike the resisting 

 bodies, does not remove the necessity of assuming the initial 

 explosion of the powder and the aim of the gun to account 

 for their motions. 



So were we to lengthen out the gyration of organic 

 plastidules, or biophores, a million million years, continuously 

 holding on to their original powers and potencies for all that 

 time, we are not relieved in the least from the logical neces- 

 sity of endowing them at the outset with the real directive 

 energy which phenomenally expresses itself for the first time 

 when the finally adjusted organism appears. And the incre- 

 ment to organic structure expressed by their final bursting 

 into morphological reality, after travelling unobserved but 

 potential through the organic matter of countless generations, 

 is as much a result of creative energy as if a new species were 

 to arise out of the dust of the earth. 



