COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



other words, the doctrine has become little more 

 than a specialized corollary from the persistence 

 of force. In the case of all save the lowest or- 

 ganisms, the only antecedent phenomenon capa- 

 ble of giving rise to the organism in question 

 has been inductively proved to be some other 

 organism. But in the case of the lowest organ- 

 isms it is theoretically possible that the requi- 

 site antecedent may in some instances be an 

 assemblage of unorganized materials; and it re- 

 mains for induction to show whether this pos- 

 sibility is ever actually realized or not under 

 existing terrestrial conditions. 



Such being the modification which modern 

 discoveries have imposed upon the doctrine 

 omne vivum ex vivo, it need hardly be added 

 that the hypothesis of spontaneous generation 

 has undergone a no less important change. The 

 theory that an organism which is to any extent 

 specialized in structure can arise directly from 

 a union of unorganized elements is ruled out of 

 court. Such a conception, though it might be 

 harmonized with the hypothesis of special cre- 

 ations, is utterly condemned by the Doctrine of 

 Evolution. So long as it was possible to believe 

 that enormously complex birds and mammals 

 were somehow conjured into existence, like 

 Aladdin's palace, in a single night, by a kind 

 of enchantment which philosophers sought to 

 dignify by calling it " creative fiat," it might 

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