90 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



Let a crystal, say of quartz, have an end or a corner knocked 

 off. If it now be placed in a solution so that growth can go on, 

 the crystal will mend up its defacement so as to be symmetri- 

 cal before it will be enlarged elsewhere, just as a spider will 

 grow a new leg if the old one be removed. The cases are sim- 

 ilar. There are so many and so great a variety of such activ- 

 ities in matter that, from the physical side, men have been 

 forced to conclude that matter is itself alive, every atom of it, 

 just as the biologists from that side of the study have con- 

 cluded that life is a chemical and physical process simply. 

 There is agreement here. With such a conception of matter, 

 one cannot look at any object whatever without increased 

 respect for it, for not alone the animal or insect which is called 

 living possesses the distinguishing vitality, but the very air we 

 breathe and the dust under our feet. The food we eat endows 

 us with life because it has it, not that it creates it. We eat it 

 and drink it and breathe it, and withal, life in this view is here 

 and always has been. There is no need for a miracle to pop- 

 ulate the world, and every star and satellite is inhabited, — yea, 

 is a living thing itself, the degree of complexity of such life 

 depending solely upon the possible complexity of chemical 

 organization. This is an inference, of course, but it follows 

 from the premises without any circumlocution. 



By body, then, we mean a local habitat for a living thing. We 

 also mean the living thing itself, whether it be large or small ; 

 and seeing there is no special limit to the magnitude of a body 

 which possesses this quality, and that there is good reason for 

 holding that matter is itself alive, it is apparent that it is now 

 of importance to know still more of that thing we call an atom, 

 whether it be of one kind or another. We all know what the 

 text-books say about its properties, as of weight, hardness, 

 density, elasticity, impenetrability, and so on. It will be remem- 

 bered, also, there are known some seventy different kinds of 

 elementary matter. If one will stop an instant to think, he will 

 see that differences in size or shape cannot account for such 

 differences in quality as are presented by the elements. One 

 might make of wood seventy different sizes and shapes, but the 

 density, hardness, elasticity, and so on would be the same in 



