192 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



to inspect the register, we should find that each had 

 its own history, different from that of every other 

 in its course and its matrimonial adventures. 



If we were near the surface we should fmd that the 

 outer beings always arranged themselves in a special 

 and coherent layer, apparently to protect themselves 

 against the machinations of the different beings in- 

 habiting the region beyond; for every now and again 

 one would seem to be pulled from the water and be 

 lost among the more scattered inhabitants of the air. 



If we could now revert to our old size, we might 

 remember, as we listened to the scientist enunciating 

 the simple formulas of the gas-laws, or giving numer- 

 ical expression to vapour-pressures and solubilities, 

 that this simplicity and order which he enabled us to 

 fmd in inorganic nature was only simplicity when 

 viewed on a large enough scale, and that it was need- 

 ful to deal in millions and billions before chance 

 aberrations faded into insignificance, needful to ex- 

 perience molecules from the standpoint of a unit 

 almost infinitely bigger before individual behaviour 

 could be neglected and merged in the orderly average. 

 And we might be tempted to wonder how the per- 

 sonal idiosyncrasies of our human units might appear 

 to a being as much larger than we as we are larger 

 than a molecule — whether kings and beggars would 

 not fare alike, and all the separate, striving, feeling, 

 conflicting personalities, with their individual his- 

 tories, their ancestors, successes, marriages, friend- 

 ships, pains, and pleasures, be merged in some homo- 



