34 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



elements, and then disconnected, to remain without the 

 necessity of a renewal of its parts from the inorganic. 

 Its birth in its first state, its growth of matter taken 

 from the earth, ocean and air, and its elements, return- 

 ing to the inorganic environment at death, all indicate 

 very clearly a transformation from the inorganic, and 

 back again to the same. This connection, during the 

 whole career of a living body, is of great significance to 

 the principle of materialistic monism. 



Probably life began in the water. Certainly the low- 

 est forms of life are marine. From these, by gradual 

 hereditary variation in form, and the integration of mat- 

 ter from the immediate environment, all species were 

 developed. As said by Robert Kennedy Duncan, ' ' Some 

 instant, it may be, between the time when the geologist 

 knows that living matter was not, and that, at which 

 the paleontologist knows that living matter was, living 



matter began." 



* * # * 



"The elements contained in sea water are sodium, cal- 

 cium, magnesium, potassium, chlorine, sulphur, carbon, 

 hydrogen, oxygen, and iron. The elements contained 

 in living matter are these identical things." 



Professor Macallum, of the University of Toronto, 

 has shown that the relative proportions of the inorganic 

 elements of blood-plasma and sea water are as follows : 

 Sea-water 100 parts sodium, 3.84 calcium, 3.66 potas- 

 sium. Serum of mammals 100 of sodium, 2.58 calcium, 

 6.69 potassium. Duncan asserts that the earliest seas 

 were still nearer the composition of the organic 

 elements of the mammalian tissue. These facts are very 

 significant as to the origin of life in those early seas. 

 The facts go toward proving that when the nebula of our 

 solar system began to evolve, as we now see other 



