THE OFFSPRING OF SCIENCE 



to supernatural intelligence or animal instinct. 

 Hereditary transmission by means of simple 

 natural processes in connection with use or dis- 

 use, produced the faculty of conscious memory in 

 the higher organisms and led by imperceptible 

 stages of gradation to the superior mind of man. 

 The primitive line of psychic development has 

 been outlined in popular language in France's 

 " Germs of Mind in Plants." 



The quest after the origin of life compelled 

 science to penetrate far beyond so-called living 

 organisms. It led on into the inorganic, and 

 wiped out the line of demarcation between or- 

 ganic and inorganic, living and dead matter. It 

 showed that organic life arose through the me- 

 chanical evolution of inorganic life. It revealed 

 that life and death are but two poles of the 

 same universe, that the distinction can no longer 

 be between life and death, but only between dif- 

 ferent degrees of organization and intensity of 

 life, between positive and negative life. 



Personal immortality now resolves itself into 

 personal evolution. Life and consciousness are 

 now revealed as attributes of all matter, going 

 through as many different stages of evolution as 

 the various material forms in the universe. The 

 personal immortality of any definite form would 



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