32 METAPHYSICS 



depths and myriad stars, but prove that in variety there is 

 continuity ; the atmosphere, with which the globe is sur- 

 rounded, ending in, and becoming continuous with the 

 sea on the one hand, with which it commingles and to 

 which it delivers up its life-sustaining oxygen, and on the 

 other the dry land, which in like manner it inter-pene- 

 trates and renders productive; the dry land, likewise, 

 allying itself with its aqueous neighbour so intimately, 

 that it takes a temperature of 212 F. to dissolve their 

 union. 



Continuity being thus a universal feature of nature's 

 plans and operations so far as we have been able to see and 

 realise throughout the physical universe, we may be pre- 

 pared, on the extension of our enquiries along the line of 

 human development, to find the same we would say law 

 of continuity used to effect the processes of evolution " all 

 along the line " so to speak. Thus a line of continuity 

 marks and guides the progress of life-forms in their 

 constant advance in complexity of form and ever-recurring 

 and progressing alteration of racial character to fit them 

 for their changing environment until the appearance of 

 man, who, in his own individual organism, evinces the 

 persistency of the same law, and shows a continuity of 

 type in his various phases of embryonic and foetal 

 development which structurally allies him with his neigh- 

 bours and progenitors. Following this law of continuity 

 into the non-physical or immaterial portion or aspect of 

 human nature, we find that certain nervine and mental 

 features are transmitted to him which, by continuity of 

 evolutionary progress, ultimately place him on a platform 

 unapproachable by any other nature than the human, and 

 where his highest destiny begins to be evolved or unfolded, 

 amid environments which necessitate and secure his 

 continued existence, in virtue of this immaterial, inde- 

 structible, and consequently immortal part which till death 

 forms an integral portion of his materio-dynamic whole. 

 At death, by the law of continuity, his dual organism 

 splits up into its component parts, the material portion, 

 which has been inter-penetrated and animated by the 

 immaterial, returning by a process of continuous analysis 

 and retrograde changes into its original elements or "dust," 



