26 EVOLUTIONS OF ORGANIZATION. 



to account for the first appearance of life in the 

 past. 



Much less shall we feel inclined to such a notion, 

 if we discern in the whole train of life on the face 

 of the earth a series of developments in different 

 directions, as determined as the development of the 

 ovum into an adult individual. 



But, it will be said, what of the law of continuity? 

 It is for the sake of continuity that spontaneous 

 generation has been sought after. If, it is argued, 

 the evolutions of the movements, forms, and condi- 

 tions of the heavenly bodies have happened by the 

 mere laws of matter, is it likely that there has been 

 the intervention of miracle in peopling this world of 

 life ? Well, as I read the series of evolutions, we 

 must begin where Plato began, with the Eternal 

 and Unlimited. Matter, the lowest grade of the 

 evolving cosmos in which we are placed, is an exhi- 

 bition of that divine energy acting from points in 

 only one manner, namely, movement in space ; and 

 those centres of movement only exist as such one 

 for another. In that case, matter is not eternal, 

 but is itself an intrusion into the field which it 

 occupies, followed in the history of this globe by 

 other intrusions in which all the continuity existing 

 is that they occur gradually. We do not know how 

 gradually matter came to its present condition ; but 



