12 ELEVENTH REPORT. 



and of course, since living forms are manufactured out of indestructible 

 matter, he would like to think of indestructible or immortal living matter or 

 bodies, notwithstanding the seeming difficulties. In the beginnings of life 

 at one time, he stopped with multi-cellular organisms, because these he knew, 

 the unicellular organisms, he did not know. With the acquirement of a 

 knowledge of unicellular life, he stopped for a short time; then he began to 

 center upon the nucleus, the nucleolus, and other anatomical structures. 

 Following this stage of development, has come the history of the atom, 

 the molecule, the molecular complexes, with other accompanying elemental 

 physical properties or forces. In this bewildering world, the minds of many 

 scientists are centering. From such studies which enter into the intimate 

 nature of the cell, we shall learn much, but when we look from effect to cause, 

 from absolute effect to absolute cause, our minds stretch out ad infinitum 

 and ask: "What then?" This has been out of our province to discuss, 

 but can any scientist fail to recognize his weakness to cope with such a prol)lem 

 in our present light? Can he still be a scientist and pretend to reach even 

 a tentative conclusion concerning the ultimate cause of life? He cannot 

 do justice to the world, as a scientist, if, with the facts at hand, he attempts 

 to promulgate beliefs which are as ill-founded as those which he would sweep 

 away. He ceases to ])e a scientist when he jumps from the natural to super- 

 natural; when he takes up the cudgels of dogma to fight dogma; when he 

 convinces himself that the only world is his world, which is an atom as 

 compared with the universe; and, when he would measure life by profession- 

 alism, provincialism, and individualism. Let the scientist concern himself 

 with the unrolling of nature to the people who are not so fortunate as he, that 

 it may become more real, and more majestic to him who would appreciate 

 the magnificence of the Handiwork of the Absolute Cause. Nowhere have 

 we a better illustration of such a course as a guide for scientists than in 

 the hfe and work of Darwin: — a man so simple, so unpretentious, so un- 

 selfish, so generous, so very truthful, so diligent in work — all for one pur- 

 pose — to reveal that Handiwork. 



