EARTH-LIFE IN GENERAL. 



and traced back to its origin. But at present 

 we seek to keep before the mind this three- 

 fold process of the Biocosmos in its ultimate 

 Life-forms, of which Earth-life is the third 

 stage returning to the first, the Plant, and 

 embracing the whole round of terrestrial 

 Life. Moreover this differentiation arose 

 and still keeps arising with all its diversity 

 from a common primordial vital protoplasm ; 

 that is, Plant-life, Animal-life and Earth- 

 life were originally ' one undifferenced Life, 

 to which every living shape has to go back 

 for renewal. We may say metaphorically 

 that the sphere of the Earth-life keeps turn- 

 ing on its own axis quite as decidedly as the 

 sphere of the Earth, though the one is biocos- 

 mical and the other cosmical; or the one has 

 an inner vital determination while the other 

 has an outer mechanical or gravitative deter- 

 mination. 



Here the reflection comes up that the en- 

 tire physical Universe (the Pancosmos), so 

 far as we know, lives through our Earth-life 

 alone. Ours is the sole living point of the 

 All as Nature, whose creative purpose would 

 seem to be just this living point. The sun 

 and even the stars contribute to life on the 

 Earth; that is, their energy, cosmical and 

 diacosmical, is transmuted into the small dot 

 of vital energy of the globe, in which each liv- 



