394 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED, 



Thus the Earth 's development began at a cer- 

 tain time to bifurcate and to run double. 



2. Double Generation of Earth-life. There 

 is a generation of the inorganic element o<f 

 Earth-life going on all the time ; there is like- 

 wise a generation of the organic element of 

 Earth-life going on all the time ; such is what 

 we here conceive as the double generation of 

 Earth-life which is now existent and has long- 

 existed. The one embraces the rocks of the 

 Earth, stratified and unstratified, with soil, 

 air, water; the other embraces all Life from 

 lowest to highest. The rocks are always be- 

 ing displaced and replaced by erosion, up- 

 heaval, subsidence and other causes; that is, 

 the Earth is continually generated anew in- 

 organically; in like manner there is a per- 

 petual displacing and replacing of living indi- 

 viduals, vegetal and animal ; that is, the Earth 

 is continually generated anew organically. 

 These parallel movements, however, are deep- 

 ly interwoven with each other; the inorganic 

 world sustains directly or indirectly the or- 

 ganic, while the latter helps reproduce the 

 inorganic (for instance, the limestone of the 

 Earth is mostly if not wholly the deposit of 

 organisms). Still we hold apart these two 

 separate lines of Generation of Earth-life, 

 especially in the science of Geology, in order 

 to scan their interaction. Here it may be 



