activity which we term motion or life. The whole universe is a huge manifestation of phenomena, which make up the sum-total of life or activity. The sun rotating on its axis is one form of life; the moon silently wandering round our planet is another form of life; the trees and animals growing and multiplying on the land are other forms; and every lump of ore taken out of the ground and every paving stone in our streets are other forms of life. Every particle of every substance whatever is in a state of continual motion, and therefore full of life. In fact, it is this very motion or life that sustains matter; for matter could not exist—that is, its particles could not hold together, and thus form substance—without the life, motion, activity, or whatever we like to term the property which operates upon them and produces mutual cohesion. Life has always, therefore, been active in matter, and always will be, for life or motion cannot be separated from matter; and, just as matter has passed from a condition of homogeneity to one of heterogeneity, so has life done likewise. Life possesses infinite potentiality, and manifests itself in an infinite variety of ways by means of different combinations, which it brings about in the molecular atoms of universal matter. It acts, for instance, upon a planet by causing its particles to hold together in one mass apart from other bodies of a similar or dissimilar character; it also acts upon what we unscientifically call inanimate nature by causing its particles to hold together, forming in one case a stone, in another a metal, etc.; and it acts upon what we term animated nature by causing its molecules to combine and procreate. This power of attraction and cohesion of particles of universal matter is life, and it depends entirely upon what particular combination of the molecular atoms of universal matter takes place whether a sun, a moon, a planet, a stone, a crystal, a sponge, a tree, or a man be the result. This much is certain, however, that not one of these bodies can ever be produced except by an evolutionary process subject to the universal and unchangeable law which fixes the sequence. Animal life, as distinct from all other life, is a comparatively late development or manifestation in the sequence of universal phenomena. This world on which we live had existed as a compact body for millions of ages before life assumed the character of animal life; and so gradual was the process of evolution from the primal condition of homogeneity, through all the manifold stages of life, until the condition of animal life was reached, that it is impossible to fix a particular moment when such life became manifest. So it is with every stage of the evolutionary process; there are no starting-places for particular species, the whole being one continuous unfolding of phenomena, without arrest of any kind.