52 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



retarded the full development of the theory." The 

 fact is, mathematics cannot solve the problem, because 

 the motions of molecules are ever varied infinite. 

 And so the result of the remarkable address of Pro- 

 fessor Hicks is summed up in these words, "These, 

 however, are perhaps rather vague speculations. . . 

 The rapid survey I have attempted to make is no 

 doubt a medley of suppositions and inferences com- 

 bined with some sound deductions." l 



Therefore, the obvious conclusion is, the layman and 

 the mathematician are on equal platforms. 



It does not require a mind educated in the rigid to 

 solve these important problems. Such an education 

 absolutely debars the mind from grasping the elastic 

 and wonderful phenomena in Nat are, and we venture 

 to assert that minds educated by viewing and study- 

 ing the minute by means of the microscope, have 

 an infinitely superior chance to those minds which study 

 mathematical ratios and equations, and especially 

 geometrical formula?, and which minds are mostly 

 ignorant of the progress of microscopical science. 



We are absolutely compelled to treat the case in the 

 way we are doing, because the general public is so 

 indoctrinated with the idea that good can only come 

 from departmental labour, and because physicists will 

 only be guided by the rigid reasoning of their 

 department. While acknowledging the valuable, very 



the (to our minds) innumerable number of water molecules of which 

 the ocean consists, each having an ever- varied motion, the act of 

 mathematically measuring these motions must most certainly fail. 



1 Prof. A. B. Forsyth's address to the same section at Toronto, 

 1897, is of entirely a different character to Prof. Hicks' address. It 

 is quite apologetic for mathematics ! 



