In nature as a whole we see results and not processes. We see the
rock strata bent and folded, we see the whole mountain-chains flexed
and shortened by the flexure; but had we been present, we should not
have suspected what was going on. Our little span of life does not
give us the parallax necessary. The rock strata, miles thick, may be
being flexed now under our feet, and we know it not. The earth is
shrinking, but so slowly! When, under the slow strain, the strata
suddenly give way or sink, and an earthquake results, then we know
something has happened.

A recent biologist and physicist thinks, and doubtless thinks
wisely, that the reason why we have never been able to produce
living from non-living matter in our laboratories, is that we cannot
take time enough. Even if we could bring about the conditions of the
early geologic ages in which life had its dawn, which of course we
cannot, we could not produce life because we have not geologic time
at our disposal.

The reaction which we call life was probably as much a cosmic or
geologic event as were the reactions which produced the different
elements and compounds, and demanded the same slow gestation in the
womb of time. During what cycles upon cycles the great mother-forces
of the universe must have brooded over the inorganic before the
organic was brought forth! The archean age, during which the
brooding seems to have gone on, was probably as long as all the ages
since.

How we are baffled when we talk about the beginning of anything in
nature or in our own lives! In our experience there must be a first,