382 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



more clear every day, not for blind laws and forces, but for 

 immanent directive and organising mind, acting on and in 

 every living cell of every living organism, during every moment 

 of its existence. I think 1 have sufficient! v shown that with- 

 ont this, life, as we know it, is altogether unthinkable. Xo 

 ^^ eternal " existence of matter will make this in the remotest 

 defifree imaginable. It is this difficultv which the ^^ monists '' 

 and the " eternalists " of the Llaeckel and Verworu type abso- 

 lutely shirk, putting us off ^vith the wildest and most contra- 

 dictory assertions as to what they have proved ! 



I venture to hope and to believe that such of my readers 

 as have accompanied me so far through the present volume, 

 and have had their memory refreshed as to the countless 

 marvels of the world of life ; culminating in the two great 

 mysteries — that of the human intellect wdth all its powers 

 and capacities as its outcome, that of the organic cell with 

 all its complexity of structure and of hidden powers as its 

 earliest traceable origin — will not accept the loud assertion, 

 that everything exists because it is eternal as a sufficient or a 

 convincing explanation. A critical examination of the sub- 

 ject demonstrates, as the greatest metaphysicians agree, that 

 everything but the Absolute and Unconditioned must have had 

 a beginning. 



