sudden transformation at many points on the earth's surface, we can
never know. But science can see no reason for believing that its
beginning was other than natural; it was inevitable from the
constitution of matter itself. Moreover, since the law of evolution
seems of universal application, and affords the key to more great
problems than any other generalization of the human mind, one would say
on _a priori_ grounds that life is an evolution, that its genesis is to
be sought in the inherent capacities and potentialities of matter
itself. How else could it come? Science cannot go outside of matter and
its laws for an explanation of any phenomena that appear in matter. It
goes inside of matter instead, and in its mysterious molecular
attractions and repulsions, in the whirl and dance of the atoms and
electrons, in their emanations and transformations, in their amazing
potencies and activities, sees, or seems to see, the secret of the
origin of life itself. But this view is distasteful to a large number of
thinking persons. Many would call it frank materialism, and declare
that it is utterly inadequate to supply the spiritual and ideal
background which is the strength and solace of our human life.

IV

The lay mind can hardly appreciate the necessity under which the man of
science feels to account for all the phenomena of life in terms of the
natural order. To the scientist the universe is complete in itself. He
can admit of no break or discontinuity anywhere. Threads of relation,
visible and invisible,--chemical, mechanical, electric, magnetic, solar,
lunar, stellar, geologic, biologic,--forming an intricate web of subtle
forces and influences, bind all things, living and dead, into a cosmic
unity. Creation is one, and that one is symbolized by the sphere which
rests forever on itself, which is whole at every point, which holds all
forms, which reconciles all contradictions, which has no beginning and
no ending, which has no upper and no under, and all of whose lines are
fluid and continuous. The disruptions and antagonisms which we fancy we
see are only the result of our limited vision; nature is not at war with
itself; there is no room or need for miracle; there is no outside to the
universe, because there are no bounds to matter or spirit; all is
inside; deep beneath deep, height above height, and this mystery and
miracle that we call life must arise out of the natural order in the
course of time as inevitably a