THE BREATH OF LIFE 



from the heavens above and from the earth below, 

 our daily lives tell us nothing, any more than our 

 eyes tell us of the invisible rays in the sun's spec- 

 trum, or than our ears tell us of the murmurs of the 

 life-currents in growing things. Science alone un- 

 veils the hidden wonders and sleepless activities of 

 the world forces that play through us and about 

 us. It alone brings the heavens near, and reveals 

 the brotherhood or sisterhood of worlds. It alone 

 makes man at home in the universe, and shows us 

 how many friendly powers wait upon him day and 

 night. It alone shows him the glories and the won- 

 ders of the voyage we are making upon this ship in 

 the stellar infinitude, and that, whatever the port, 

 we shall still be on familiar ground we cannot 

 get away from home. 



There is always an activity in inert matter that 

 we little suspect. See the processes going on in the 

 stratified rocks that suggest or parody those of life. 

 See the particles of silica that are diffused through 

 the limestone, hunting out each other and coming 

 together in concretions and forming flint or chert 

 nodules; or see them in the process of petrifaction 

 slowly building up' a tree of chalcedony or onyx in 

 place of a tree of wood, repeating every cell, every 

 knot, every worm-hole dead matter copying ex- 

 actly a form of living matter; or see the phenome- 

 non of crystallization everywhere; see the solution 

 of salt mimicking, as Tyndall says, the architecture 

 276 



