160 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



evolution of wonder upon wonder. Scientific 

 myth and religious myth of past ages are 

 alike to be honoured and preserved as the 

 best attempts of the knowledge, or science, 

 of past ages to look up to this mystery, to 

 understand it, and to worship the highest. 

 It becomes no man to scoff at these things, 

 and the labourer in science who gets so lost 

 in mechanical detail that he has no mind left 

 for the grandeur of the whole design for which 

 detail only forms the substructure, could he 

 but appreciate, would gain in inspiration and 

 incentive from a sympathetic touch of faith 

 in that spirit which breathes through the 

 whole universe, and gives life to his 

 mechanisms. 



Those who are inclined to think that the 

 search after the mystery of life is illusory 

 and leads no whither, or to no practical goal, 

 have not studied the history of scientific 

 advance with clear vision. The problem is 

 not purely a philosophical one ; on the other 

 hand, it is an eminently practical and experi- 

 mental one in itself, and the richest harvest 

 that ever biological study yielded to mankind 

 arose incidentally to an enquiry into the 

 origin of life. 



Just as the search for the philosopher's 

 stone that was to transmute the baser metals 



