every ocean of the globe.

This of course is a mere bald statement of possibilities. It may be met
by another statement of possibilities, to the effect that perhaps the
conditions necessary to the evolution of living matter here may have
been fulfilled but once, since which time the entire current of life on
our globe has been a diversified stream from that one source. Observe,
please, that this assumption does not fall within that category which
I mention above as contraband of science in speaking of the origin of
worlds. The existence of life on our globe is only an incident limited
to a relatively insignificant period of time, and whether the exact
conditions necessary to its evolution pertained but one second or a
hundred million years does not in the least matter in a philosophical
analysis. It is merely a question of fact, just as the particular
temperature of the earth's surface at any given epoch is a question of
fact, the one condition, like the other, being temporary and incidental.
But, as I have said, the question of fact as to the exact time of origin
of life on our globe is a question that science as yet cannot answer.

But, in any event, what is vastly more important than this question
as to the duration of time in which living matter was evolved is a
comprehension of the philosophical status of this evolution from the
"non-vital" to the "vital." If one assumes that this evolution was
brought about by an interruption of the play of forces hitherto working
in the universe--that the correlation of forces involved was unique,
acting then and then only--by that assumption he removes the question
of the origin of life utterly from the domain of science--exactly as the
assumption of an initial push would remove the question of the origin
of worlds from the domain of science. But the science of to-day most
emphatically demurs to any such assumption. Every scientist with a wide
grasp of facts, who can think clearly and without prejudice over the
field of what is known of cosmic evolution, must be driven to believe
that the alleged wide gap between vital and non-vital matter is largely
a figment of prejudiced human understanding. In the broader view
there seem no gaps in the scheme of cosmic evolution--no break in the
incessant reciprocity of atomic actions, whether those atoms be floating
as a "fire mist" out in one part of space, or aggregated into the
brain of a man in another part. And it seems well within th