22 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



than that which would be obtained by the most perfect 

 grinding-mill known to the mechanic. The sugar 

 might be comminuted by such agency to so great an 

 extent that the little particles into which it had become 

 transformed could only be discerned as the smallest of 

 specks under the most potent of microscopes. We 

 have the best reasons for knowing that even these little 

 specks, which are of such extreme minuteness that the 

 original lump contained many millions of them, are 

 still, neither more nor less than sugar. 



"Up to the present stage the reduction has not 

 transformed, so to speak, the actual nature of the 

 material submitted to the treatment. Though the 

 particles have been crumbled to such an extent that 

 after any further diminution they would cease to be 

 visible, even in the microscope, yet we can, at all events,, 

 conceive that further disintegration could be carried on. 

 In fact, the very smallest of these grains, only just 

 visible under the microscope, might be crushed into a 

 thousand parts, and still each little part would not yet 

 have lost the attributes which belonged to sugar. We 

 have now arrived at the conception of a magnitude too- 

 small to affect any of our senses, no matter how they 

 may be fortified by the aid of instruments. But the 

 trituration may be conceived to be carried on one step 

 further, until, at last, the original lump has been 

 reduced to particles of sugar so small as to admit 

 of no further subdivision without a total trans- 

 formation in character. This is an extremely 

 important point. It may, in fact, be regarded as one 

 of those cardinal doctrines which it has been the glory 

 of modern science to teach. There was a time when 

 it was believed that the subdivision of a particle of 



