THE BREATH OF LIFE 



to hear it, probably every rock and granite monu- 

 ment would sing, as did Memnon, when the sun 

 shone upon it. This molecular vibration is revealed 

 to us as heat, light, sound, electricity. Heat is only 

 a mode of this invisible motion of the particles of 

 matter. Mass motion is quickly converted into this 

 molecular motion when two bodies strike each other. 

 May not life itself be the outcome of a peculiar 

 whirl of the ultimate atoms of matter? 



Says Professor Gotch, as quoted by J. Arthur 

 Thomson in his " Introduction to Science " : " To the 

 thought of a scientific mind the universe with all its 

 suns and worlds is throughout one seething welter of 

 modes of motion, playing in space, playing in ether, 

 playing in all existing matter, playing in all living 

 things, playing, therefore, in ourselves." Physical 

 science, as Professor Thomson says, leads us from 

 our static way of looking at things to the dynamic 

 way. It teaches us to regard the atom, not as a fixed 

 and motionless structure, like the bricks in a wall, 

 but as a centre of ever-moving energy; it sees the 

 whole universe is in a state of perpetual flux, a 

 flowing stream of creative energy out of which 

 life arises as one of the manifestations of this 

 energy. 



When we have learned all that science can tell us 

 about the earth, is it not more rather than less won- 

 derful ? When we know all it can tell us about the 

 heavens above, or about the sea, or about our own 

 270 



