VITALITY, 415 



stand before us as a sentient thinking being ? There seems 

 no valid reason to believe that it would not. Or, supposing 

 a planet carved from the sun, and set spinning round an 

 axis, and revolving round the sun at a distance from him 

 equal to that of our earth, would one of the consequences 

 of its refrigeration be the development of organic forms ? 

 I lean to the affirmative. Structural forces are certainly 

 in the mass, whether or not those forces reach to the extent 

 of forming a plant or an animal. In an amorphous drop of 

 water lie latent all the marvels of crystalline force ; and 

 who will set limits to the possible play of molecules in a 

 cooling planet ? If these statements startle, it is because 

 matter has been denned and maligned by philosophers and 

 theologians who were equally unaware that it is, at bottom, 

 essentially mystical and transcendental. 



Questions such as these derive their present interest in 

 great part from their audacity, which is sure, in due time, to 

 disappear. And the sooner the public dread is abolished 

 with reference to such questions the better for the cause of 

 truth. As regards knowledge, physical science is polar. 

 In one sense it knows, or is destined to know, every thing. 

 In another sense it knows nothing. Science knows much 

 of this intermediate phase of things that we call Nature, of 

 which it is the product ; but science knows nothing of the 

 origin or destiny of Nature. Who or what made the sun, 

 and gave his rays their alleged power ? Who or what made 

 and bestowed upon the ultimate particles of matter their 

 wondrous power of varied interaction ? Science does not 

 know : the mystery, though pushed back, remains unaltered. 

 To many of us who feel that there are more things in 

 heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the present phi 

 losophy of science, but who have been also taught, by 

 baffled efforts, how vain is the attempt to grapple with 

 the inscrutable, the ultimate frame of mind is that of 

 Goethe: 



