f the Kingdoms, it ought to
embrace all that lies beneath and give to the First and Second their
final explanation.

How much more in the under-Kingdoms might be explained or illuminated
upon this principle, however tempting might be the inquiry, we cannot
turn aside to ask. But the rank of the Third Kingdom in the order of
Evolution implies that it holds the key to much that is obscure in the
world around--much that, apart from it, must always remain obscure. A
single obvious instance will serve to illustrate the fertility of the
method. What has this Kingdom to contribute to Science with regard to
the Problem of the origin of Life itself? Taking this as an isolated
phenomenon, neither the Second Kingdom, nor the Third apart from
revelation, has anything to pronounce. But when we observe the
companion-phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the question is simplified.
It will be disputed by none that the source of Life in the Spiritual
World is God. And as the same Law of Biogenesis prevails in both
spheres, we may reason from the higher to the lower and affirm it to be
at least likely that the origin of life there has been the same.

There remains yet one other objection of a somewhat different order, and
which is only referred to because it is certain to be raised by those
who fail to appreciate the distinctions of Biology. Those whose
sympathies are rather with Philosophy than with Science may incline to
dispute the allocation of so high an organism as man to the merely
vegetal and animal Kingdom. Recognizing the immense moral and
intellectual distinctions between him and even the highest animal, they
would introduce a third barrier between man and animal--a barrier even
greater than that between the Inorganic and the Organic. Now, no science
can be blind to these distinctions. The only question is whether they
are of such a kind as to make it necessary to classify man in a separate
Kingdom. And to this the answer of Science is in the negative. Modern
Science knows only two Kingdoms--the Inorganic and the Organic. A
barrier between man and animal there may be, but it is a different
barrier from that which separates Inorganic from Organic. But even were
this to be denied, and in spite of all science it will be denied, it
would make no difference as regards the general question. It would
merely interpose another Kingdom between the Organic and the Spiritual,
the other relations remaining as before. Any one, therefore, with