This whole method is consequently unsatisfactory. With Harvey’s law proved in the empirical way, the only way hitherto tried, we are still unable to decide how the first organism came into existence, and this is probably after all the most important question. Because, as Büchner rightly points out: “If life has a supernatural beginning, it has also a supernatural subsequent existence.” Even if we were observing with our own eyes the creation of the first organism we would not be able to say whether it were the result of natural or supernatural forces. The moment our study commenced, the mystic act of creation would already have taken place, an act which lies beyond the boundaries of research, and which we never shall be able to penetrate, however minute or comprehensive our observations. An entirely different method is here necessary. Our endeavor must be to find the innermost cause of the whole series of generations evolving throughout the ages. In other words, we must derive Harvey’s law from the inner nature of matter itself, show that this matter has such qualities that it cannot, never could, and never will, be able to produce a single living being. Only then shall we have demonstrated that Harvey’s formula is a universal, natural law, and then it will be not only our right but our duty to draw its logical consequences. Is it possible to show that matter possesses such qualities? In regard to the matter of which our earth is composed we are at least able to closely investigate its qualities. But our earth is only an insignificant point in the universe and we must search the entire cosmos. Is not this impossible? We answer that in many ways, especially through the spectral analysis, we already know that nature’s elements everywhere are the same and that they everywhere have the same qualities. If Harvey’s law can be deduced from the matter we are able to investigate, we have at the same time shown its validity for the whole of the universe without limitations as to time and space; because then we may apply in regard to organic substance Büchner’s true remark as to the products of nature in times past. “The natural forces,” he says, “that governed the universe formerly are the same as those whose results we now witness every day and moment. Earth’s past time is to our thought nothing but an unrolling of its present. The geologists, guided by their knowledge of nature and its present laws, have been able with increasing accuracy to trace back evolution to the most distant ages. Meanwhile it has been established that everywhere and during all time only those elements and forces have been active which surround us today. Nowhere has a point been found where research had to be thrown overboard and an interference of unknown forces substituted; and nowhere and never will this happen. Everywhere the same laws were in force and the same matter was found. Historical research has demonstrated that past and present are subject to the same evolution,