392 Mr. WiUiam Bate Hardij [April 6, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, April G, 1906. 



The Right Hon. Lord Rayleigh, O.M. P.C. M.A. D.C.L. LL.l). 



8c. D. Pres.R.8., Honorary Professor of Natural 



Philosophy, R.I., in the Chair. 



William Bate Hardy, Esq., M.A. F.R.S., Fellow of 

 Gonville and Cains College, Cambridge. 



The Physiccd Basis of Life* 



In a famous lay sermon on the Physical Basis of Life, written nine 

 years after the publication of The Origin of Species^ Huxley writes as 

 follows : 



" When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion 

 and an electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and a 

 quantity of water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, 

 appears in their place. There is not the slightest parity between the 

 passive and active powers of the water and those of the oxygen and 

 hydrogen which have given rise to it. hi o2°, and far below that 

 temperature, oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies whose 

 particles tend to rush away from one another with great force. 

 Water at the same temperature is a strong though l)rittle solid, 

 whose particles tend to cohere into definite geometrical shapes. . . . 



" Nevertheless, we call these and many other strange phenomena 

 the properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that in 

 some way or another they result from the properties of the conq^onent 

 elements of water. We do not assume that a something called 

 ' aquosity ' entered into and took possession of the oxide of hydro- 

 gen as soon as it was formed, and then guided the aqueous i)articles 

 to their places on the facets of the crystal or amongst the leaflets of 

 the hoar frost. On the conti'ary, we live in the hope and in the 

 faith that by the advance of moleculai- i)liysics we shall l)y-and-by be 

 able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the 

 ])ro})erties of water as we are now able to deduce the ()])erations of a 

 watch from the form of its parts and the manner in which they are 

 put together. . . . 



" If the ])ro])erties of water may be properly said to result from 

 the nature and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no 



Kcprinted from ' Science Progress ' by permibsion. 



