20 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



life is to be considered as an attribute of matter in the same 

 sense as is gravitation or elasticity. To take it there is to go 

 behind even Butschli's work and conclusions, for such evi- 

 dently assume that life as manifested in such masses as have 

 been studied is a resultant of the physical and chemical action 

 present in the mass, while the other view sees in such struc- 

 tures degrees of complexity depending simply upon complexity 

 of combinations, and that the beginnings of it are to be looked 

 for nowhere else but in the atoms of matter themselves, which 

 view, by the way, would settle the question of what is called 

 spontaneous generation, for matter has always been alive and 

 wherever there is matter there is life, that is, ability to com- 

 bine, to grow, to reproduce, and these processes go on when- 

 ever the environment is suitable for it. With such kind of 

 matter there is neither creation nor destruction of life, only 

 changes in the degree of complexity of it. 



But I have before remarked on the fast-accumulating evidence 

 that atoms of matter are vortex rings of ether in the ether, and 

 I would here again like to emphasize this statement, not that 

 it has been proved beyond a peradventure, but ist, because 

 there is no other theory at all, and 2d, because there is much 

 in favor of it and little or nothing serious against it. I take it 

 that some of you arc already adjusting your ideas to such a 

 contingency as is indicated by Dr. Ryder's paper here last 

 summer. He was making vortex rings out of vortex rings, 

 but the ones I mean are fundamental. Now the motions 

 which constitute a vortex ring are known, and some of the 

 qualities that flow from such motions are known. In a friction- 

 less medium like the ether they are persistent, indestructible 

 existences, abiding through all changes, and apparently never 

 changing their physical qualities. The hydrogen that has been 

 combined in rock laid millions of years ago has the same quali- 

 ties as that derived this instant from disintegrated water ; but, 

 whatever those properties are, they are derived from the ether 

 itself by some process we are in absolute ignorance of. It 

 will not do to call ether matter, meaning by it what we mean 

 when we speak of oxygen or carbon, for there is no evidence 

 that such qualities as gravitation or magnetism belong to it. 



