WHAT is LIFE? 19 



in this age, as it has wrecked in every age, the pretense 

 that there is but one substance in the universe.* 



10. The continuance of life in an organism composed 

 of new atoms, after the old atoms have been cast off, 

 proves that the cause of life does not spring from the 

 atoms themselves. An atom of oxygen or hydrogen, 

 endowed with life to-day, as part of an organized mole- 

 cule of a Vorticella, or as part of our own bodies, may 

 be to-morrow released from its vital connections, and be 

 transported, as water or air, to remote parts of the globe. 

 It may form part of the gigantic Sequoias of the Sierras, 

 the Cinchona-trees of the Andes, or the Rhododendrons 

 of the Himalayas. Before the death of the original 

 organism, or the tree it next served, that atom of oxy- 

 gen or hydrogen may be again discarded, and pass into 

 the germ-cell of an animal, or become part of one of the 

 tissues of a man in a distant part of the world. It is 

 evident that that atom did not produce the life with 

 which it was first associated. What may happen to one 

 atom may happen to all the atoms of an organism. In 

 active living beings this actually does happen, so that all 

 the atoms of a living body become disconnected, and 

 return to the inorganic world, or go to serve other or- 

 ganisms, while other atoms take their places, yet the 

 organized body lives on. Its life depends not on the 

 new atoms, for the body was animate before these atoms 

 came ; nor does it depend on the old atoms, for it con- 

 tinues after they have gone. It must, therefore, depend 

 upon something different from the material atoms. As 

 matter and spirit are the only objects of thought pos- 



* Cook's " Biology," p. 227. 



