CELL-LIFE. 105 



disintegration. Still they are very different, 

 utterly dissociated from each other; between 

 them yawns again that chasm dividing the In- 

 organic and the Organic; the atomic limit is 

 drawn- impassable, as yet, on one side of this 

 deepest rift of Nature, the vital limit stands 

 immovable on the other. Science has long at- 

 tempted to fly across, through the air, on the 

 wings of some cunningly constructed hypoth- 

 esis, but her aeroplane usually capsizes dur- 

 ing the flight and drops into the abyss, like 

 that ancient craft of ambitious Icarus soar- 

 ing sunward. Still just that achievement re- 

 mains the ideal end of the science. 



Finally there remains to be emphasized 

 that marvelous power of the cell which is 

 sometimes called its architectural impulse, 

 but which we prefer to think of under the 

 name of association. The cell combines with 

 its fellow-cells and produces the different or- 

 gans of the body, changing itself in accord 

 with its new organic function. Thus all the 

 diversities of our organism unfold out of the 

 cell, which seems to possess this inner power 

 of organizing itself into associated wholes of 

 many sorts. Again and again one is remind- 

 ed of the higher institutional association of 

 man. But of this more will be said later. 

 Here we may add that such associative power 

 in the cell can onlv be ascribed to the unseen 



