24 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



do not know how. 1 There is death to the molecule, and 

 birth to the molecule; and indeed chemists can take 

 sugar and resolve it into atoms, and state of how many 



particle of matter has come into existence or passed away. Where a 

 natural body seems to disappear, as for example by burning, decaying, 

 evaporation, etc., it merely changes its form, its physical composition 

 or chemical combination. In like manner the coming into existence 

 of a natural body, for example, of a crystal, a fungus, an infusorium, 

 depends merely upon the different particles, which had before existed 

 in a certain form or combination, assuming a new form or combina- 

 tion in consequence of changed conditions of existence. But never 

 yet has an instance been observed of even the smallest particle of 

 matter having vanished, or even of an atom being added to the 

 already existing mass. Hence a naturalist can no more imagine the 

 coming into existence of matter, than he can imagine its disappear- 

 ance, and he therefore looks upon the existing quantity of matter in 

 the universe as a given fact. If any person feels the necessity of 

 conceiving the coming into existence of this matter as the work of a 

 supernatural creative power, of the creative force of something out- 

 side of matter, we have nothing to say against it. But we must 

 remark, that thereby not even the smallest advantage is gained for a 

 scientific knowledge of nature. Such a conception of an immaterial 

 force, which at the first creates matter, is an article of faith which 

 has nothing whatever to do with human science. Where faith com- 

 mences, science ends. Both these workings of the human mind must 

 be strictly kept apart from each other. Faith ha,s its origin in the 

 poetic imagination ; knowledge, on the other hand, originates in the 

 reasoning intelligence of man. Science has to pluck the blessed 

 fruits from the tree of knowledge, unconcerned whether these con- 

 quests trench upon the poetical imaginings of faith or not." 

 ("The History of Creation," Prof. Ernst Haeckel, vol. i. 1892, 

 p. 8.) 



1 " The present position of structural chemistry may be summed 

 up in the statement that we have gained an enormous insight into 

 the anatomy of molecules, while our knowledge of their physiology is 

 as yet in a rudimentary condition." (Professor R. Meldola, F.R.S., 

 &c., President's Address, Chemical section British Association 

 Ipswich, 1895.) 



