INVOLUTION. 337 



has emerged has the qualities it has, that even the 

 Mammalia should have emerged, that that class should 

 stand related to the life of Man in the way it does, 

 that Man has lived because he loved, and that he lives 

 to love — these, on any theory but one, are insoluble 

 problems. 



Forbidden to follow the Evolution of Love into the 

 higher fields of history and society, we take courage to 

 make a momentary exploration in a still lower field — 

 a field so far beneath the plant and animal level that 

 hitherto we have not dared to enter it. Is it conceiv- 

 able that in inorganic Nature, among the very mate- 

 rial bases of the world, there should be anything to re- 

 mind us of the coming of this Tree of Life ? To ex- 

 pect even foreshadowings of ethical characters there 

 were an anachronism too great for expression. Yet 

 there is something there, something which is at least 

 worth recalling in the present connection. 



The earliest condition in which Science allows us to 

 picture this globe is that of a fiery mass of nebulous 

 matter. At the second stage it consists of countless 

 myriads of similar atoms, roughly outlined into a rag- 

 ged cloud-ball, glowing with heat, and rotating in 

 space with inconceivable velocity. By what means 

 can this mass be broken up, or broken down, or made 

 into a solid world ? By two things — mutual attrac- 

 tion and chemical affinity. The moment when within 

 this cloud-ball the conditions of cooling temperature 

 are such that two atoms could combine together 

 the cause of the Evolution of the Earth is won. For 

 this pair of atoms are chemically " stronger " than any 

 of the atoms immediately surrounding them. Gradu- 

 ally, by attraction or affinity, the primitive pair of 



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