LIFE FROM A PHYSICAL STANDPOINT. 21 



And if matter be such a form of motion, then the ether must 

 have existed before the atom did, and, as no known form of 

 energy is capable of setting up such a motion in a frictionless 

 medium, it also follows that all this implies some other kind of 

 energy in the universe, different from any in our circle of 

 related energies and outside of them yea, not necessarily 

 related to them as they are to each other ; for ist, the proper- 

 ties of the ether itself are not to be described by the terms 

 appropriate to matter, and 2d, matter is a form of energy and is 

 therefore itself a product of which the ether itself is but one of 

 the factors ; so what else may be involved in it one cannot say 

 further than that something else must be, and I think this 

 "must " may be written large, even though it quite transcends 

 our ability to make out any of its characteristics. At any rate 

 it is evident that if any such theory of matter as is here pre- 

 sented be true, and if the behavior of matter as we see it in 

 test tube and microscopic slide has been interpreted with any 

 approach to the truth, then it is a much more wonderful thing 

 than the old philosophers thought ; its possibilities greatly 

 exceed what could before have been imagined, and if mind 

 itself requires a material habitat then it has in an atom an 

 imperishable living home. 



