THE LIVING WAVE 



order and number that the kindling of the flame of 

 life requires, but it is a disquieting proposition. 

 One atom too much or too little of any of them, 

 three of oxygen where two were required, or two of 

 nitrogen where only one was wanted, and the face 

 of the world might have been vastly different. Not 

 only did much depend on their coming together, but 

 upon the order of their coming; they must unite 

 in just such an order. Insinuate an atom or cor- 

 puscle of hydrogen or carbon at the wrong point in 

 the ranks, and the trick is a failure. Is there any 

 chance that they will hit upon a combination of 

 things and forces that will make a machine a 

 watch, a gun, or even a row of pins? 



When we regard all the phenomena of life and the 

 spell it seems to put upon inert matter, so that it be- 

 haves so differently from the same matter before it 

 is drawn into the life circuit, when we see how; it 

 lifts up a world of dead particles out of the soil 

 against gravity into trees and animals; how it 

 changes the face of the earth; how it comes and goes 

 while matter stays; how it defies chemistry and 

 physics to evoke it from the non-living; how its de- 

 parture, or cessation, lets the matter fall back to the 

 inorganic when we consider these and others like 

 them, we seem compelled to think of life as some- 

 thing, some force or principle in itself, as M. Berg- 

 son and Sir Oliver Lodge do, existing apart from the 

 matter it animates. 



33 



