196 THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



new behavior. In a century we have seen elec- 

 tricity grow from a mere toy into one of the 

 most powerful instruments of civilization; and 

 because we have followed this development 

 through its successive stages we experience only 

 a mild sense of mystery. 



To inquire into the origin of life is like seek- 

 ing the origin of electrical machinery, or the 

 origin of music. Every increase in complexity 

 of arrangement, of form, of substance, leads to 

 new and often incalculable properties. A cabi- 

 netmaker who has never seen a violin may rec- 

 ognize the wood of which it is composed, or 

 admire the nicety of construction; but he can- 

 not guess of the melodies which will be drawn 

 from this instrument by the hand of a master. 

 If some accident breaks the violin to bits it still 

 has the same atoms and molecules attracting 

 and repelling each other in the old way, but the 

 tone of the violin is forever lost. Every complex 

 structure is more than the sum of its component 

 parts, and if a wireless set is demolished, or a 

 living creature dies, something was that is no 

 more. 



Sometime in the latter geological history of 

 the world an observer from another planet 

 might have seen a scum spreading over the 



