246 From Matter to Man. 



the protoplasmic elements — oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, 

 nitrogen, etc.— would meet in suitable proportions and 

 combinations, and permeated as they were by the all- 

 pervading selective, formative and magnetic laws, the 

 spontaneous production of simple organisms — proto- 

 phyta, protozoa, and the lowest kinds of fungi and 

 algae — would ensue as a matter of course ; while the 

 evolution of higher vegetal and animal germs would 

 naturally follow through the consequent increase of 

 complexity in combination. All sorts of organisms 

 would thus sprout contemporaneously, including not 

 only protozoa, but the cells of future ccelenterata, 

 mollusca, annulosa, vertebrata, fishes, amphibians, 

 reptiles, birds, mammals, and even man. In other 

 words, instead of assuming the creation of only one 

 or a few " primordial germs," at any imaginary begin- 

 nino-, we assume the incessant evolution of thousands 

 of germs, many of which probably never progressed, 

 but gradually became extinct, even as more advanced 

 organisms die out in our own day. 



In this original invasion of life into the planet, the 

 germs of the higher vegetal and animal genera would 

 not be likely to evolve contemporaneously in different 

 localities ; a view confirmed by the endemic nature of 

 much of the world's flora and fauna. Hence, the 

 evolution of the germ of each genus of animal 

 probably occurred in circumscribed areas of earth and 

 nowhere else. Further, it is unlikely that monogenism 

 prevailed — that is, the evolution of solitary primordial 

 germs of each animal genus ; but polygcuism, involving 



