中文摘要：

阶梯式发展的哲学思想最早来源于1992年朱谢l对矿产勘查实践的总结．并用于指导矿产勘查中的实践和认识。后来发现，阶梯式发展规律还普遍存在于我们人类社会活动和客观物质世界运动乃至日常生活之中。本文从化学进化、多细胞生命起源、寒武纪生命大爆发、人类起源这四个里程碑式的重大生命演化事件来论述地球生命进化的历程，从一个大的角度印证了所提出的阶梯式发展规律，并有力地证明阶梯式发展是地球生命进化的重要形式。因此，阶梯式发展论对于我们认识客观物质世界的发展规律有着重要的理论意义和实践意义。

英文摘要：

The philosophical thought of ＂Stepwise development＂ was originally advanced to serve for the cognitional and practical orientation in min- eral exploration （Zhu, 1992）. Lately, this developmental pattern has been recognized ubiquitously existed in both the everyday life of human society and the motion of the objective physical world. Upon probing into four evolutionary milestones （i.e., the prebiotic chemical evolution, the origin of metazoans, the Cambrian explosion, and the evolution of human beings） during the past -3.5 billion years, we demonstrate that the evolution of life on Earth also fits in with the framework of ＂Stepwise development＂, and that this developmental pattern characterizes the biological evolution in our planet. From the perspective of biological macroevolution, the thought of ＂Stepwise development＂ provides theoretical and practical insights into our understanding of the physical world.