118 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [vn. 



various powers and activities of these substances as the properties 

 of the matter of which they are composed. 



When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion, 

 and an electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and 

 a quantity of water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, 

 appears in their place. There is not the slightest parity between 

 the passive and active powers of the waters and those of the 

 oxygen and hydrogen which have given rise to it. At 32 

 Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, oxygen and hydrogen 

 are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to rush away from 

 one another with great force. Water, at the same temperature, 

 is a strong though brittle solid, whose particles tend to cohere 

 into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up frosty 

 imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable foliage. 



Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange phenomena, 

 the properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe 

 that, in some way or another, they result from the properties of 

 the component elements of the water. We do not assume that 

 a something called &quot; aquosity &quot; entered into and took possession 

 of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed, and then 

 guided the aqueous particles to their places in the facets of the 

 crystal, or amongst the leaflets of the hoar-frost. On the contrary, 

 we live in the hope and in the faith that, by the advance of mole 

 cular physics, we shall by and by be able to see our way as clearly 

 from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we 

 are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form 

 of its parts and the manner in which they are put together. 



Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, 

 and ammonia disappear, and in their place, under the influence 

 of pre-existing living protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the 

 matter of life makes its appearance ? 



It is true that there is no sort of parity between the properties 

 of the components and the properties of the resultant, but 

 neither was there in the case of the water. It is also true that 

 what I have spoken of as the influence of pre-existing living 

 matter is something quite unintelligible ; but does anybody 



