ch. viii.] THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 437 



difficult problem. As the doe, in the old fable, 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 result? 

 obtained by spectrum analysis it has turned out that the 

 heavier difficulty has become the lighter one, and that the 

 direct approach 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 unsuspected 

 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 enumerate the reasons which compel us to 

 accept the doctrine of the derivation of the more complex 

 forms of life from less complex forms; and because of the 

 interest which just now attaches to the question, I shall 

 make more explicit mention of the opposing doctrine of 

 special creations than its own merits would otherwise justify. 



