158 From Matter to Man. 



ing mineral substances and soft pliable vegetal sub- 

 stances, for their proportion and structure have to be 

 taken into account. 



Something, also, must be attributed to present 

 planetary temperature for producing the normal 

 manifestation of things, for under polar conditions 

 many organic substances would be crystalline ; under 

 torrid, some organic substances might spontaneously 

 (or automatically) evolve vegetals and animals, while 

 under solar conditions all things would be burning. 



Section 2. The Evolution of Vegetal Cells : 

 A plant does not evolve from a mineral, but from 

 the same constituent basis as the minerals — the 

 atoms. In the evolution of a plant therefore from 

 matter by unintentional materialistic laws, the first 

 step is to form a cell, the fundamental unit of the 

 whole organism. 



The vegetal cell, although microscopic, is composed 

 of millions of atoms. As these atoms are both 

 metallic and non-metallic, and all endowed with in- 

 finite possibilities in both form and function through 

 their inevitable combination, the clash of complex 

 affinities, attractions, and repulsions, in solutions 

 particularly, is bound to produce something. Minerals 

 being simplest are easiest and oftenest formed, but 

 nature cannot stop there. The fertility of her womb 

 is illimitable. Hence, under suitable conditions of 

 heat, light, and moisture, a chance flux of suitable 

 atoms combines sexually into vegetal molecules. 



