THE BREATH OF LIFE 



another in glory. There are degrees of mystery in the 

 universe. The most mystifying thing in inorganic 

 nature is electricity, that disembodied energy 

 that slumbers in the ultimate particles of matter, 

 unseen, unfelt, unknown, till it suddenly leaps forth 

 with such terrible vividness and power on the face 

 of the storm, or till we summon it through the trans- 

 formation of some other form of energy. A still 

 higher and more inscrutable mystery is life, that 

 something which clothes itself in each infinitely 

 varied and beautiful as well as unbeautiful form of 

 matter. We can evoke electricity at will from many 

 different sources, but we can evoke life only from 

 other life; the biogenetic law is inviolable. 



Professor Soddy says, "Natural philosophy may 

 explain a rainbow but not a rabbit." There is no 

 secret about a rainbow; we can produce it at will 

 out of perfectly colorless beginnings. "But noth- 

 ing but rabbits will or can produce a rabbit, a proof 

 again that we cannot say what a rabbit is, though 

 we may have a perfect knowledge of every anatomi- 

 cal and microscopic detail." 



To regard life as of non-natural origin puts it be- 

 yond the sphere of legitimate inquiry; to look upon 

 it as of natural origin, or as bound in a chain of 

 chemical sequences, as so many late biochemists do, 

 is still to put it where our science cannot unlock the 

 mystery. If we should ever succeed in producing 

 living matter in our laboratories, it would not lessen 

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