396 THE LIFE OF MATTER. 



throughout the world, und life, together with organization, also exists 

 everywhere. Nothing is dead; life is universal." It results from 

 this that there is no interruption or hreak in the sueeession of natural 

 phenomena; that ever3^thing develops gradually, and, tinallv, that the 

 origin of the organic being must be sought in the inorganic. Life, 

 properly so called, has not in fact always existed on the surface of the 

 globe. It appeared there at a certain geologic epoch, in a purely 

 inorganic medium, ))y reason of favoral)le conditions. The doctrine 

 of continuity ol)liges us, however, to admit that it preexisted there 

 under some rudimentar}' form. 



The modern philosophers who are imbued with the same principles, 

 MM. Fouillee, L. Bourdeau, and A. 8al)atier, expre; s themselves in 

 terms like those of Leibnitz. ""Dead matter and living matter are not 

 two absolutely different entities, luit represent two forms of the same 

 matter, differing only in degree, sometimes Init ver}" little." When 

 there is only a question of degree it can not be held that there is an 

 opposition. We ought not to take inequalities for contrary attributes, 

 renewing here the error that leads the vulgar mind to consider heat 

 and cold as objective states qualitatively opposed to each other. 



Contlntilfii hij ii'dnsition. — The reasoning which induces us to remove 

 the barrier between the two kingdoms and to consider that minerals 

 are ejidowed with a sort of rudimentary life is the same as that which 

 obliges us to admit that there is no fundamental difference between 

 other natural phenomena. There are transitions between that which 

 lives and that which does not, between the animate being and the 

 brute body. There are even such transitions between that which 

 thinks and that which does not think, between thought and no thought, 

 between the conscious and the unconscious. This idea of insensible 

 transition, of continuous passage between apparent opposites, raises, 

 at first, insurmountable resistance in minds not prepared for it by a 

 long comparison of facts. It is slowly realized and at last accepted 

 by those who, in the world of things, follow the infinity of gradations 

 which natural phenomena present. The principle of continuity comes 

 at last to constitute, as one may say, a sort of mental attitude. The 

 man of science may, then, be led, like the philosopher, to entertain the 

 idea of a rudimiMitary form of life that animates matter. He may, 

 like the philosophei', l)e guided by this idea; h(» may attribute a i)riori 

 to l)i-ute matter all the really essential (jualities of living beings. liut 

 this must )>e on the condition that he must afterwards dcMuonstrate 

 these attributed ((ualities by ukmuis of ()})servation and experimenta- 

 tion. He UHist show that molecules and atoms, far from being inert 

 and dead masses, ai'e in reality active elements, endowed with a sort 

 of int'erioi- life, which is manif(>sted ))v all tlie nmtations that are 

 oltserN'cd in brute matter: by attractions and repulsions, by move- 



