EARTH-LIFE FORMATION. 373 



the three Life-forms of the Biocosmos will 

 show a certain unity of order, revealing a 

 common process which belongs to every liv- 

 ing individual, and whose stages have been 

 already often designated as Formation, As- 

 similation, Generation. But the Earth, as the 

 sole telluric individual alive in the Universe, 

 will have its own peculiar ways of manifest- 

 ing the basic process of Life just mentioned. 



I. THE FORMATIVE PROCESS OF EARTH-LIFE. 

 The Form of the Earth in general includes 

 both the inorganic and the organic elements 

 taken as not yet separated. The external 

 shape or body of Earth-life is its most imme- 

 diate manifestation and is first to be consid- 

 ered. This is by no means accidental, but 

 has its significance which is to be pondered. 

 The sphericity of the Earth may well be 

 deemed its primal characteristic, it shows 

 matter centered in itself, individualized we 

 may say; with good reason some educators 

 have taken the sphere as the first geometric 

 form, from which all other such forms are 

 to be derived. 



The spherical Form would seem to be com- 

 mon to most of the free-moving heavenly 

 bodies, and may be taken as the earliest com- 

 bination of cosmical Motion and Matter. 

 That is, Matter primordially united with Mo- 

 tion becomes spherical. So the sun, the plan- 



