VITALITY. 51 



their secret to their comrades that arrive, and thus, 

 while the Non-ego shifts, the Ego remains the same. 

 Constancy of form in the grouping of the molecules, 

 and not constancy of the molecules themselves, is the 

 correlative of this constancy of perception. Life is a 

 ivave which in no two consecutive moments of its 

 existence is composed of the same particles. 



Supposing, then, the molecules of the human body, 

 instead of replacing others, and thus renewing a pre- 

 existing form, to be gathered first hand from nature 

 and put together in the same relative positions as 

 those which they occupy in the body. Supposing them 

 to have the selfsame forces and distribution of forces, 

 the selfsame motions and distribution of motions 

 would this organised concourse of molecules stand 

 before us as a sentient thinking being? There seems 

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

 posing a planet carved from the sun, 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 defined 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 



