CELL-LIFE. 95 



And when Earth-life has run its course, all 

 other kinds of Life will pass away with it, as 

 it embraces them all. Great as it is compared 

 to our organisms, it is very small compared 

 to the universe a little living cell of the All, 

 we may deem it, yet genetic of our micro- 

 scopic cells. 



VI. We have touched here the conception 

 of the cell, looking in the other direction, that 

 is, from the large to the small, and not from 

 the small to the large. Cell-life with its mi- 

 nuteness is in striking contrast to Earth-life 

 with its magnitude, at least for us; for we 

 naturally place ourselves between the two. 

 gazing both ways in wonder. The individual 

 man is ever pushing toward the infinite, or 

 rather toward the two infinites, as we may 

 call them for the nonce, the infinitely large 

 and the infinitely little-^he being a kind of 

 mean between the two extremes. In the Cos- 

 mos we have seen how he has traveled from 

 sun to star, from the visible to the remote 

 invisible nebula; while in the Diacosmos we 

 have observed him moving in the reverse way. 

 toward the small and smallest of the material 

 world toward the molecule, atom, electron, 

 perchance the etherion. But now in the Bio- 

 cosmos we have come upon its minutest in- 

 dividuation, the cell, which bears within itself 

 the pivotal principle of life. It is seen with 



