240 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE, 



also ask whether it is localised or diffused ? Does it 

 move about as a lonely builder, putting the bits of 

 solid water in their places as soon as the proper tem- 

 perature has set in ? or is it distributed through the 

 entire mass of the crystal? If the latter, then the 

 soul has the shape of the crystal ; but if the former, 

 then I should enquire after its shape. Has it legs or 

 arms? If not, I would ask it to be made clear to 

 me how a thing without these appliances can act so 

 perfectly the part of a builder? (I insist on definition, 

 and ask unusual questions, if haply I might thereby 

 banish unmeaning words.) What were the condition 

 and residence of the soul before it joined the crystal ? 

 What becomes of it when the crystal is dissolved ? 

 Why should a particular temperature be needed before 

 it can exercise its vocation ? Finally, is the problem 

 before us in any way simplified by the assumption of 

 its existence ? I think it probable that, after a full 

 discussion of the question, Mr. Martineau would agree 

 with me in ascribing the building power displayed in 

 the crystal to the bits of water themselves. At all 

 events, I should count upon his sympathy so far as to 

 believe that he would consider any one unmannerly 

 who would denounce me for rejecting this notion of a 

 separate soul, and for holding the snow-crystal to be 

 4 matter.' 



But then what an astonishing addition is here 

 made to the powers of matter I Who would have 

 dreamt, without actually seeing its work, that such a 

 power was locked up in a drop of water ? All that we 

 needed to make the action of the liquid intelligible 

 was the assumption of Mr. Martineau's ' homogeneous 

 extended atomic solids,' smoothly gliding over one 

 another. But had we supposed the water to be 

 nothing more than this, we should have ignorantly 



