LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 61 



so bounteously distributed over it. In the words of Laniartine, " We 

 know what produces life, but we know not what it is ;" and this igno- 

 rance is perhaps the powerful attraction which provokes our curiosity 

 and excites us to study. 



Every living being is animated by two principles, between which a 

 silent but incessant combat is being carried on life, which assimilates, 

 and death, which disintegrates. At first, life is all powerful it lords it 

 over matter ; but its reign is limited. Beyond a certain point its vigour 

 is gradually impaired ; with old age it decays ; and is finally extinguished 

 with time, when the chemical and physical laws seize upon it, and its 

 organization is destroyed. But the elements, though inert at first, 

 are soon reanimated and occupied with a new life. Every plant, every 

 animal is bound up with the past, and is part of the future, for every 

 generation which starts into life is only the corollary upon that which 

 expires, and the prelude of another which is about to be born. Life 

 is the school of death ; death is the foster-mother of life. 



Life, however, does not always exhibit itself at the moment of its 

 formation. It is visible later, and only after other phenomena. In 

 order to develope itself, a suitable soil or other medium must be pre- 

 pared, and other determinate physical and chemical conditions provided. 

 The presence and diffusion of living beings are no chance products ; they 

 follow rigorously an order of law. Speaking of the higher forms of 

 animal life, the Duke of Argyll says, in his able and satisfactory work, 

 " The Reign of Law," " In all these there is an observed order in the 

 most rigid scientific sense, that is, phenomena in uniform connexion 

 and mutual relations which can be made, and are made, the basis of 

 systematic classification. These classifications are imperfect, not 

 because they are founded on ideal connexions where none exist, but 

 only because they fail in representing adequately the subtle and per- 

 vading order which binds together all living things." 



The knowledge of fossils has thrown great light upon the regular 

 and progressive development of organization. The evolution of living 

 beings seems to have commenced with the more rudimentary forms ; the 

 more ancient rocks, until very recently, had revealed no traces of life, 

 and what has been revealed tends to confirm this view. In the Cam- 

 brian rocks of Bray Head, county Wicklow, the Oldhamia is a zoophyte 

 of the simplest organization, and the Rhizapods found near the bottom 

 of the Azoic rocks of Canada are the lowest form of living types; 



