EARTH-LIFE. 91 



manifest, is that the living things on our globe 

 -plant and animal, protozoa and metazoa- 

 liave a relatively brief duration, and seem 

 but instruments of a total Life, helping to 

 bring it forth and then vanishing. Still they 

 participate in it, though constituting but a 

 little stream of flickering individualities which 

 flash in existence for a shorter or longer mo- 

 ment. The vital stream is indeed a small one, 

 if we contrast it with the circumambient non- 

 vital matter through which it seems to be 

 trickling down Time. Each wee life of a mi- 

 croscopic amoeba is a petty flash of this gen- 

 eral Earth-life which manifests itself in the 

 vast complex of living individuals, plant and 

 animal, and yet is therein an individual itself. 

 Accordingly it is said that the Earth with 

 all its Life must pass away, like one of its 

 own brief micro-organisms, when its round 

 is completed. Thus it is merely repeating its 

 own history in the small and smallest of its 

 living individuals, each of which foreshadows 

 its fate, for it, too, must vanish. The cycle 

 of our Life from birth to demise is, therefore, 

 the impress of the Earth-life upon us, and 

 upon every object alive. The vital spark 

 which comes from it is endowed with death 

 as well as with birth, both of which are like- 

 wise its own. It reproduces itself in its chil- 

 dren. To be sure this universal individual, 



