238 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



tlso ask whether it is localised or diffused? Does it 

 move about as a lonely builder, putting the bits of 

 solid water in their places as soon as the proper tem- 

 perature has set in ? or is it distributed through the 

 entire mass of the crystal? If the latter, then the 

 soul has the shape of the crystal ; but if the former, 

 then I should enquire after its shape. Has it legs or 

 arms? If not, I would ask it to be made clear to 

 me how a thing without these appliances can act so 

 perfectly the part of a builder ? (I insist on definition, 

 and ask unusual questions, if haply I might thereby 

 banish unmeaning words.) What were the condition 

 and residence of the soul before it joined the crystal ? 

 What becomes of it when the crystal is dissolved? 

 Why should a particular temperature be needed before 

 it can exercise its vocation ? Finally, is the problem 

 before us in any way simplified by the assumption of 

 its existence ? I think it probable that, after a full 

 discussion of the question, Mr. Martineau would agree 

 with me in ascribing the building power displayed in 

 the crystal to the bits of water themselves. At all 

 events, I should count upon his sympathy so far as to 

 believe that he would consider any one unmannerly 

 who would denounce me for rejecting this notion of a 

 separate soul, and for holding the snow-crystal to be 

 ' matter.' 



But then what an astonishing addition is here 

 made to the powers of matter I Who would have 

 dreamt, without actually seeing its work, that such a 

 power was locked up in a drop of water ? All that we 

 needed to make the action of the liquid intelligible 

 was the assumption of Mr. Martineau's 'homogeneous 

 extended atomic solids,' smoothly gliding over one 

 another. But had we supposed the water to be 

 nothing more than this, we should have ignorantly 



