Unity of Life 125 



evolutions controlled by immutable laws, but within those 

 laws any extent of alteration is possible and is always 

 possible, and change may be, and often is repeated, until 

 the original form is lost. 



This great principle, if recognized, leads easily to the 

 belief in the unity of life. It becomes clear that life in any 

 form may have become the source of life in any other form, 

 and that is to say in all other forms. And the utter absence 

 of life except as derived from previous life, leads to the 

 inevitable conclusion that all life is from one old source, or 

 origin, whether now continuing or closed. The wonderful 

 uniformity of constitution and structures of all life must be 

 held to prove until refuted, that all terrestrial life is related 

 by deriviation from an original form. What that original 

 form was or is does not matter here. The mystery which en- 

 shrouds it is no greater for the human mind than would be 

 any cause which could be put antecedent to it. Even the 

 question whether a cause continues, and whether in form 

 and places beyond human ken the marvel of life's beginning 

 is a daily fact; or whether having once appeared in single 

 materialization, this rests as a feat accomplished ; this is out- 

 side of the present argument. It seems more in harmony 

 with nature's laws as known, to suppose that what has hap- 

 pened once may under similar conditions happen again, and 

 there is nothing in such a supposition repugnant, but it is 

 not necessary. The supposition that the beginning of life 

 was a creative fiat, proceeding from a preceding cause, would 

 make equally acceptable the belief that all thus proceeds 

 from a single source of infinite possibilities. 



What is essential to this study is the certain fact that even 



