THE COSMIC ADAPTATION OF THE SEED 457 



brates on other planets or whether mammals culminating in 

 man are formed there as on the earth. It is much more 

 probable that other planets have produced other types of the 

 higher plants and animals unknown on earth. Perhaps from 

 some higher stem, superior to the vertebrate, higher beings 

 far transcending man in intelligence have been formed." 



Thus in The Riddle of the Universe do we find, the scheme 

 of cosmic evolution roughly outlined. It involves the 

 principle established for this planet that the lowest types of 

 organisms have the widest distribution, from which it follows 

 that the planets would resemble each other more in the lower 

 forms and would differ most in the higher forms of life. 

 Further than this it would be unsafe to go. The How and 

 the Why of evolution remain still very much in the clouds of 

 disputation. But, speaking for myself, I do not hold that we 

 have yet even a glimpse either of its real significance or of the 

 forces working behind it. The investigations into the nature 

 and origin of species do not, as I think, aid us at all in the 

 matter. They may help us to understand the differentiation 

 of a type, but not its origin, and still less the progressive steps 

 from lower to higher types. May we not believe that we 

 see the evolutionary scheme of life only in part on this planet, 

 that there is an evolution of the cosmos in which the earth with 

 myriads of other worlds shares, and that much that seems in- 

 explicable on the earth will find its explanation in other 

 worlds } 



We know how much light is thrown on one group of The 

 organisms by studying those related to it, and how much at Scomp^ete- 

 sea we are with an isolated group that is akin to none. May '^^^^ 

 we not extend the principle and consider that many of our evolution 

 difficulties here on the earth will disappear by the extension of a single 

 our knowledge to worlds outside .? However, from the point P'*"^*- 

 of view here adopted any scheme of evolution limited to the 

 earth must in the nature of things be incomplete. It may 

 even be that evolution ha^ been misinterpreted by us, and that 

 the true evolutionist is he who, regarding all types as eternal, 



