3o8 The Morality of Nature 



have been sufficient in duration and extent, since life first 

 appeared, to develop every form in existence, by different 

 lines of succession; from the simplest possible microscopic 

 unit — some invisible molecule of carbon and hydrogen and 

 nitrogen and oxygen and some other things unknown — 

 v^hich became colloid and cell and polyp, and fungus and 

 plant, and worm and vetebrate, and man, by simple growth 

 in evolution, and we of proud vain humanity are merely 

 one of the products of that process. An understanding of 

 our life and own right to live can then be sought in this 

 conception of what we are. 



