14 
CHAPTER “It. 
THE TAPE IN THE "SEA. 
AT the sight of the boundless, shoreless sea, he who loves to create 
for himself a world in which his spirit may roam without let or 
hindrance, is filled with sublime thoughts of the Infinite. He looks 
out on the distant horizon where the sky and the waters mingle in 
the hazy distance; where the stars rise and set, appear and dis- 
appear in turn. But soon this ever-changing scene awakes in his 
heart that feeling of sadness which is ever mingled with our 
deepest joys. Feelings of another kind, though quite as serious, 
are evoked by the contemplation and by the study of the innu- 
merable organisms which people the world of waters. In truth, 
that immense mass of water which we call the sea is no dreary 
liquid waste. Its depths are as pregnant with life as the land. In 
it life reigns in sovereign grandeur, with all its vigour, its profuse- 
ness, and its changes! The Almighty delights in life. It is the 
most beautiful, the most glorious, the most noble, the most incom- 
prehensible of his works. 
Long ago it was said that life was everywhere, and that life was 
essential to the existence of the world. Beings who enjoy life 
faithfully transmit it to others, their children and their successors, 
who become in their turn its guardians and progenitors. This 
most marvellous inheritance is thus handed down through years 
and ages, without degeneration or perversion. The globe always 
possesses the same amount of life with which it was at the begin- 
ning so liberally endowed. We know what produces life, but we 
are ignorant as to what life is, and this very ignorance is the 
powerful stimulus which excites our curiosity and provokes our 
research. 
In every living thing there is an incessant and silent struggle 
between life which builds up and death which destroys. The first 
is the most powerful: it controls matter, but its reign is limited ; it 
