TIME AND CHANGE 



and through mechanical principles and forces, and 

 yet it is evidently more than mechanics. It is mani- 

 fested through matter, and yet no analysis of matter 

 can reveal its secret. It comes and goes while mat- 

 ter stays; we destroy life, but cannot destroy mat- 

 ter. It is as fugitive as the wind which fills all sails 

 one minute and is gone the next. It avails itself of 

 fluids and gases and the laws which govern them, 

 but fluids and gases do not explain it. It waits 

 upon the rains and the dews, but it is more than 

 they are; it follows in the footsteps of the decay and 

 disintegration of the inorganic, and yet it is not the 

 gift of these things; it transforms the face of the 

 earth, and yet the earth has been and will be when 

 it was not and when it will not be. Through his 

 knowledge and his science man performs wonders 

 every day; he can reduce mountains to powder and 

 seas to dry land, but he cannot create or start de novo 

 the least throb of life. At least, he has not yet done 

 so. With all his vast resources of mechanics and 

 chemistry, and his insight into the mechanism of 

 the universe, he has not yet made the least particle 

 of inorganic matter thrill with the mysterious some- 

 thing we call life. 



There must have been a time when life was not 

 upon the earth and there must again come a time 

 when it will not be. It has probably vanished from 

 the moon and all inferior planets, and it has not 

 yet come to the superior planets, except maybe to 



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