72 THE BIOCOSMOS PRELIMINARY. 



though still incorporate in the Pliysis. Each 

 separate particle of the Universe now is striv- 

 ing to be complete within itself, to have the 

 process of the All as its own, not merely out- 

 side of itself but also inside. It lives as in- 

 dividual, be it the microscopic cell or the 

 total Earth-life, for the latter is but a small 

 vital speck in the entire Cosmos, as we have 

 already seen. The limits of Earth-life make 

 it an individual bounded in Space and Time 

 like the rest of us, moreover it as living indi- 

 vidual is also but a transition between 

 birth and death, a stage of the process of the 

 universe, the third stage, which is finally to 

 return as a whole to its cosmical origin. 

 Geologists tell us that we in our Earth-life 

 are just now passing out of the last glacial 

 epoch of the Pleistocene, into a succeeding 

 epoch of heat or perchance torridity. So the 

 terrestrial individual has its periods, which, 

 like man's, are to be passed through. But 

 the fact which is here impressed on the mind 

 is that the Biocosmos is individuated both as 

 a whole and in its minutest parts, the infinite 

 divisibility of Nature seeking to turn into 

 the living act. 



III. The origin of Life invariably comes 

 to the front in any thorough-going compre- 

 hension of the vital principle. Its beginning 

 in time on our Earth has been quite freely 



