THE BREATH OF LIFE 



ing any change in the character of the water. The 

 pull of gravity is the source of the power which is 

 distributed hundreds of miles across the country as 

 electricity. Two hundred and fifty thousand in- 

 visible, immaterial, noiseless horses are streaming 

 along these wires with incredible speed to do the 

 work of men and horses in widely separated parts of 

 the country. A river of sand falling down those 

 tubes, if its particles moved among themselves with 

 the same freedom that those of the water do, would 

 develop the same power. The attraction of gravita- 

 tion is not supposed to be electricity, and yet here 

 out of its pull upon the water comes this enormous 

 voltage! The fact that such a mysterious and ubiq- 

 uitous power as electricity can be developed from 

 the action of matter without any alteration in its 

 particles, suggests the question whether or not this 

 something that we call life, or life-force, may not 

 slumber in matter in the same way; but the secret 

 of its development we have not yet learned, as we 

 have that of electricity. 



Radio-activity is uninfluenced by external condi- 

 tions; hence we are thus far unable to control it. 

 Nothing that is known will effect the transmutation 

 of one element into another. It is spontaneous and 

 uncontrollable. May not life be spontaneous in the 

 same sense? 



The release of the energy associated with the 

 structure of the atoms is not available by any of our 

 68 



