THE BREATH OF LIFE 



whitens the fields and hills of a spring morning com- 

 pared to the miles of rock and soil beneath it; and 

 with reference to geologic time it is about as fleeting. 

 In the vast welter of suns and systems in the heavens 

 above us, we see only dead matter, and most of it is 

 in a condition of glowing metallic vapor. There are 

 doubtless living organisms upon some of the invisi- 

 ble planetary bodies, but they are probably as fugi- 

 tive and temporary as upon our own world. Much 

 of the surface of the earth is clothed in a light vest- 

 ment of life, which, back in geologic time, seems to 

 have more completely enveloped it than at present, 

 as both the arctic and the antarctic regions bear evi- 

 dence in their coal-beds and other fossil remains of 

 luxuriant vegetable growths. 



Strip the earth of its thin pellicle of soil, thinner 

 with reference to the mass than is the peel to the 

 apple, and you have stripped it of its life. Or, rob it 

 of its watery vapor and the carbon dioxide in the air, 

 both stages in its evolution, and you have a dead 

 world. The huge globe swings through space only as 

 a mass of insensate rock. So limited and evanescent 

 is the world of living matter, so vast and enduring is 

 the world of the non-living. Looked at in this way, in 

 the light of physical science, life, I repeat, seems like 

 a mere passing phase of the cosmic evolution, a flit- 

 ting and temporary stage of matter which it passes 

 through in the procession of changes on the surface 

 of a cooling planet. Between the fiery mist of the 

 118 



