ON BIOGENESIS 61 



and of the increased power for good which such a recog- 

 nition may, and would, effect. 



In thus a little further analysing the steps or stages of 

 human biogenesis, we become aware, first, of the great 

 fundamental truth that the individual life is transmitted 

 by direct descent from two pre-existent or parental 

 organisms, a material basis for its evolution being at the 

 same time provided, whereby the process of biogenetic 

 development is secured and finally perfected, and last, that 

 the materio-dynamic compact, which has so long, or for 

 a full lifetime, existed in the individual being, is undone, 

 when the conditions for further collaboration between the 

 material and dynamic partners thereto no longer yield a 

 profitable return, so to speak, on the invested common 

 capital, and when, therefore, it has become necessary for 

 each partner to claim its own and to re-invest or continue 

 business under altered conditions. Here death steps in 

 and dissolves the partnership, leaving each to become 

 amenable to the re-arranging power and administrative 

 influence of cosmic law and order and " the eternal fitness 

 of things," the material partner, with its organic wealth, 

 returning to the great common storehouse of inorganic 

 nature, while the now untrammelled dynamic partner, 

 with unimpaired energy and the accumulated immaterial 

 capital of a lifetime, is left free to continue the life of 

 eternal evolution, an instrument beyond time in the service 

 of Supreme Intelligence for effecting the discharge of con- 

 genial duty and meeting necessary obligation in the regions 

 of that transcendentalism, the faith in which, however 

 imperfect, has ever been held and expressed, more or 

 less clearly, and more or less strongly, by the leaders of 

 the human race. 



The duplicate volumes of nature and revelation thus 

 lying side by side, from this point of view are found to 

 speak the same language, illustrate the same truths, and 

 become mutually explanatory and helpful. We therefore 

 bespeak for the work of their joint teaching that tolerance 

 and catholicity, and that depth of charity for mutual differ- 

 ence of opinion that the supreme importance of the 

 situation demands from their respective devotees, in the 

 fervent hope and strong confidence that only good can 



