THE ORGANIC AND THE INORGANIC 337 



are all there, and we can, if we like, see them all 

 at once. 



The more we reflect on it the more we see that 

 mathematical time is only a way in which we see things 

 apart from each other. Things become extended in 

 time as they become extended in space. Whether 

 occurrences capable of analysis by the methods of 

 physics are what we call past or future occurrences, they 

 are all given, in that each of them is only a phase of 

 the others. 



Duration belongs to the organism. The past is 

 known because all that has occurred to the organism 

 still persists in its organisation. The future is unknown 

 because it has still to be made. Duration is therefore 

 a vector — something having direction, and the organism 

 progresses out of the past into the future. It grows 

 older but not younger. 



Such appears to be the nature of life. Can we 

 discuss the problem of its origin ? 



Did life originate on our earth ? We must first 

 consider what we mean when we speak of an origin. 

 The organic world of the present moment, with all its 

 environment — that is to say, the totality of organisms 

 on the earth, with all the materials which they can 

 utilise in any way, the energy of radiation from which 

 they ultimately derive their energy, and all the parts 

 of the cosmos which interact with them — constitute a 

 system in the physical sense. The present condition 

 of the organic world, that is, the kinds and numbers of 

 organisms, and their distribution, and the distribution 

 of the materials which they can utilise, and the quantity 

 and nature of the energy which is available to them, 

 are the present phase of this system. All the conditions 

 of life in the past, that is to say, the kinds, and numbers, 



