70 JOURNAL OF THE 
‘‘while those that inan instant are dispersed, and flee 
away, as smoke, or clouds, or flame,” are formed of 
‘‘sharp and not of atoms hooked since pores they pene- 
bhates,’ 
The dependence of color upon light is well recognized 
‘‘without light no color can exist.”’ Atoms are colorless 
and not subject to the rays of light, 
He has noted that 
The more minutely things divided are 
The more their colors fade. 
He has observed that ight traverses space more rapid- 
ly than sound, ; 
Far quicker comes the impulse to the eye 
Than to the ear: 
Book VI p. 263. 
There is an interesting passage in the works of Van 
Helmont in which he describes the artificial generation 
of mice from a soiled shirt plaged along with some flour 
in a barrel or other vessel. ‘The method sounds plausible 
and doubtless an experiment along that line would result 
in mice :n the barrel. -But too much credit must not be 
ascribed to Van Helmont as the original discoverer for 
after all his ingenious idea was not original. Our poet of 
the last of the old centuries says; 
Facts manifest 
Confute not but confirm and force belief, 
That all the living from the lifeless springs ; 
For see live worms creep from the putrid clod, 
When the warm earth is wet with timely showers. 
Book II p. 106. 
Darwin might have gotten an idea or two from our an- 
cient philesepher for his ‘‘Observations upon EKarth- 
worms’’. 
Lucretius’ ideas as to life, disease and deathare also 
instructive. Men of deeper learning than he have wres- 
tled with this problem of Life and Death with equal 
