
CrAr TER AV 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION AS A NATURAL SEQUENCE OF 
INORGANIC EVOLUTION 
ROM what has been said it seems perfectly 
clear that the scientific discoveries of recent 
years have been of a kind strongly tending to 
establish the truth of the doctrine of inorganic 
evolution, by which, as Professor Duncan says (doc. 
crt. p. 206), “we mean that the eighty odd elements 
of matter as we know them on earth to-day were not 
specially created, but that, like the plants and 
animals, they have been truly evolved from simpler 
and still simpler types, back to some really simple 
element from which they have all evolved through | 
infinite zons gone by.” We cannot, indeed, ' 
refuse our assent to his view when he adds: 
“Taking it altogether, the evidence for an inorganic 
evolution of the elements seems every whit as con- 
clusive as the evidence for an organic evolution. 
... The geologist from an examination of the 
earth’s strata from lowermost to highest finds an 
ever-increasing complexity in the organic remains 
which the rocks contain. [he astronomer from an 
examination of the stars from hottest to coldest finds 
an ever-increasing complexity in the so-called 
elements which they contain.... They both 
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