WATER 131 



suited to a mechanism which must be complex, 

 durable, and dependent upon a constant 

 metabolism : heat capacity, heat conductiv- 

 ity, expansion on cooling near the freezing 

 point, density of ice, heat of fusion, heat of 

 vaporization, vapor tension, freezing point, 

 solvent power, dielectric constant and ionizing 

 power, and surface tension. 1 



In no case do the advantages which these 

 properties confer seem to be trivial ; com- 

 monly they are of the greatest moment; 

 and I cannot doubt, even after allowances 

 have been made for the probability of occa- 

 sional fallacies in the development of an argu- 

 ment which, though simple, is beset with many 

 pitfalls, that they are decisive. Water, of its 

 very nature, as it occurs automatically in the 

 process of cosmic evolution, is fit, with a fitness 

 no less marvelous and varied than that fitness 

 of the organism which has been won by the 

 process of adaptation in the course of organic 

 evolution. 



If doubts remain, let a search be made for 



1 Contrasting this statement with that of Whewell in his 

 Bridgewater Treatise, it is evident that while the progress 

 of science has provided much novel information, and elim- 

 inated many false views, the present situation differs from the 

 earlier one only in the better definition of the issue, and in 

 our modern freedom from metaphysical and theological 

 associations. 



