THE LIVING WAVE 



scientist, speaks of life as a wave "which at no 

 two consecutive moments of its existence is com- 

 posed of the same particles." In his more sober sci- 

 entific mood Tyndall would doubtless have rejected 

 M. Bergson's view of life, yet his image of the wave 

 is very Bergsonian. But what different meanings 

 the two writers aim to convey : Tyndall is thinking 

 of the fact that a living body is constantly taking 

 up new material on the one side and dropping dead 

 or outworn material on the other. M. Bergson's 

 mind is occupied with the thought of the primal 

 push or impulsion of matter which travels through 

 it as the force in the wave traverses the water. The 

 wave embodies a force which lifts the water up in 

 opposition to its tendency to seek and keep a level, 

 and travels on, leaving the water behind. So does 

 this something we call life break the deadlock of in- 

 ert matter and lift it into a thousand curious and 

 beautiful forms, and then, passing on, lets it fall 

 back again into a state of dead equilibrium. 



Tyndall was one of the most eloquent exponents 

 of the materialistic theory of the origin of life, and 

 were he living now would probably feel little or no 

 sympathy with the Bergsonian view of a primordial 

 life impulse. He found the key to all life phenomena 

 in the hidden world of molecular attraction and re- 

 pulsion. He says: "Molecular forces determine the 

 form which the solar energy will assume. [What a 

 world of mystery lies in that determinism of the 



