THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 2^1 



in it guide the physical forces, just as they do in 

 building up phosphate of lime in our bones, or 

 indeed just as the will of the architect does in 

 building a palace. The profound significance which 

 this has, reaches beyond the domain of the physical 

 and vital, even to the spiritual. It clings to all our 

 conceptions of living things : quite as much, for 

 example, to the evolution of an animal, with all its 

 parts from a one-celled germ, or to the connection 

 of brain-cells with the manifestations of intelligence. 

 Viewed in this way, we may share with the author 

 of the sentence I have quoted his feeling of venera- 

 tion in the presence of this great wonder of animal 

 life, " burning, and not consumed," nay, building up, 

 and that in many and beautiful forms. We may 

 realize it most of all in the presence of the organism 

 which was perhaps the first to manifest on our planet 

 these marvellous powers. We must, however, here, 

 also, beware of that credulity which makes too many 

 thinkers limit their conceptions altogether to physical 

 force in matters of this kind. The merely material- 

 istic physiologist is really in no better position than 

 the savage who quails before the thunderstorm, or 

 rejoices in the solar warmth, and seeing no force 

 or power beyond, fancies himself in the immediate 



