COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



keeping her sound eye landward, was at last 

 shot by archers passing in a boat, so Nature has 

 here been forced to render up her secret in the 

 most unlooked-for way. Through the amazing 

 results obtained by spectrum analysis it has 

 turned out that the heavier difficulty has be- 

 come the lighter one, and that the direct ap- 

 proach or recession of a star, which affords no 

 parallax, is actually easier to measure than its 

 thwart-motion which affords parallax! In like 

 manner the specific solution of the problem of 

 the origin of life need not be despaired of, nor 

 need we wonder if it come from some quite un- 

 suspected quarter. 



Meanwhile the considerations above alleged 

 will enable us to put the grand phenomenon of 

 the genesis of life into its proper place among 

 the phenomena of telluric evolution. The gulf 

 between the geologic phase of the process and 

 the biologic phase is so far bridged for us that 

 we may approach the study of the latter without 

 misgivings. In the following chapter I shall enu- 

 merate the reasons which compel us to accept 

 the doctrine of the derivation of the more com- 

 plex forms of life from less complex forms ; and 

 because of the interest which just now attaches 

 to the question, I shall make more explicit men- 

 tion of the opposing doctrine of special creations 

 than its own merits would otherwise justify. 



37° 



