THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 149 



still incandescent nucleus of an immense condensed nebula, 

 and that this in the process of contraction threw off outer 

 rings which broke up and fused so as to originate the 

 planetary system over which the sun still exercises nuclear 

 control. This theory is perfectly in keeping with that of 

 the universal sway of Attraction and Repulsion, for it 

 involves a condensation due to attraction, a splitting off 

 due to repulsion, and the mutual attraction of parts 

 or quantities repelled. The " nebular " has, however, been 

 discarded for the " meteoric " hypothesis, which attri- 

 butes the earth's formation to the collision and fusion of 

 meteoritic particles ; the Many uniting to form the Con- 

 tinuity of the One. In any case it is universally accepted 

 that this globe was once a plastic molten mass, and that 

 its present comparatively solid state has been due to cooling 

 and contraction ; in other words, there has been a steady 

 intensification of Continuity controlled by central attraction. 



At an early stage of the process the condensation of 

 aqueous vapour would come to form the first seas, their 

 formation being in fact another example of intensification 

 of Continuity. 



The first Life must have appeared as a special condensation 

 phenomenon, or as a special intensification of inorganic 

 Continuity. We may presume this from the high complexity 

 of the living molecule ; from the fact that in an evolving world 

 of inorganic molecules whose atomic constitution was, and 

 is, numerically simple, a certain type was formed whose 

 Continuity was equivalent/ to a multiple of the inorganic 

 molecule's. By some special process equivalent in its 

 results to mutual attraction, atoms with inorganic molecule- 

 forming potentialities were united or brought together to 

 form the " mega-molecule " of primitive living matter ; 

 and as the earliest forms of life of which we have any traces 

 undoubtedly enjoyed a watery environment, and as without 

 water in some form life is impossible, it is certain that Life 

 originated in an aqueous environment. 



On this supposition Life originated as The Great Variation 

 of the Inorganic, and as a stage onwards in the evolution 

 of Continuity. Life evolved into being, as well as evolved 

 in the generally accepted sense after having appeared. What 

 the first form of life was like we can only guess ; possibly 



