12 Natural Salvation. 



that the first cell, spore, or perhaps still more rudimentary 

 germ of life, arrived here from some other world. It has 

 been held that the " molecule of protoplasm," so called, 

 could not have originated on the earth. Cell life does 

 not now come into existence spontaneously ; and the 

 inference is easy that the first unicellular life of the globe 

 was from an implantation. 



This conjecture once admitted, the next surmise might 

 be that the earth was life-seeded by design, or from per- 

 sonal motives, on the part of intelligent beings inhabit- 

 ing a more life-fertile globe in space. And it is more 

 reassuring to think that such vital implantation was from 

 beneficent design and to conceive of it as Divine. It is a 

 moral contradiction that beings more intelligent than m'an 

 should be malevolent. On this earth, at least, intellectual 

 development does not tend to, or eventuate in, malevolence 

 and cruelty, but rather in a desire to give happiness. By 

 human standards, an omniscient mind could not be a 

 " Satan " ; yet we do not know what exists afar. To the 

 normal mind there is not much in the present life struggle 

 on the earth that indicates. mercy, kindness, or beneficence. 



There is no biological evidence, pro or con. The atti- 

 tude of the universe toward life on the earth seems to be 

 impersonal and neutral. Animal and vegetable life 

 grows, bears seed and dies, unwatered, uncherished, un- 

 harvested. And while at first, owing to long indoctrina- 

 tion, this thought of uncherished neglect pains many 



