THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE, 1-89 



Such are the diverse and marvellously complex pro- 

 cesses from moment to moment taking place vi^ithin 

 us, and which, by their combined effects, contribute to 

 make us such creatures as we are. All organisms are 

 more or less complex wholes made up of multitudinous 

 and independent units, differing in nature and variously 

 combined, though all working harmoniously, and tend- 

 ing to produce the characteristics of the organism of 

 which they form part. But these several independent 

 units are again made up of an aggregation of living 

 molecules ; and the molecules of the cell bear, in fact, 

 to its activity, just the same relationship that the cells 

 bear to the organ which they help to compose, and 

 that the organs bear to the organism of which they 

 form part. This whirl within whirl of activities of all 

 kinds, repeatedly subordinated in the most complex 

 manner, goes to make up the <^Life' of all higher 

 animal organisms ; so that, although the phrase may not 

 be sufficiently exclusive to constitute a definition of 

 Life, this state is very aptly epitomized by speaking 

 of it as a ^coordination of actions'.' So long as all 

 these activities manifest themselves in an appropriate 

 manner, so long as there is a perfect coordination, the 



this takes place is liv'mg — it lives. When it is permanently arrested, the 

 body dies. After death, the elements which compose it, abandoned to 

 the ordinary chemical affinities, are not slow to separate; from which, 

 more or less quickly, results the dissolution of the body that had been 

 living. It was, then, by the vital motion that its dissolution was arrested, and 

 that the elements of the body were temporarily combined.' 

 ^ Herbert Spencer's ' Principles of Biology,' vol. i. p. 60. 



