COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



compounds, such as salts and double salts, were 

 enabled to appear on the scene. At a later 

 date came the still more heterogeneous and un- 

 stable organic acids and ethers. And all this 

 chemical evolution must have taken place be- 

 fore the first appearance of living protoplasm. 

 Upon these statements we may rest with confi- 

 dence, since they are immediate corollaries from 

 known properties of matter. 



When it is asked, then, in what way were 

 brought about the various chemical combina- 

 tions from which have resulted the innumera- 

 ble mineral forms which make up the crust of 

 the globe, the reply is that they were primarily 

 due to the unhindered working of the chemical 

 affinities of their constituent molecules as soon 

 as the requisite coolness was obtained. As soon 

 as it became cool enough for oxygen and hydro- 

 gen to unite into a stable compound, they did 

 unite to form vapour of water. As soon as it 

 became cool enough for double salts to exist, 

 then the mutual affinities of simple binary com- 

 pounds and single salts, variously brought into 

 juxtaposition, sufficed to produce double salts. 

 And so on throughout the inorganic world. 



Here we obtain a hint as to the origin of or- 

 ganic life upon the earth's surface. In accord- 

 ance with the modern dynamic theory of life, 

 we are bound to admit that the higher and less 

 stable aggregations of molecules which consti- 

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