182 THE BIOCOSMOS CELLULAR. 



itself and suggests life a piece of matter 

 decomposing and recomposing itself. But 

 there is an interval of time between these 

 two acts, and so radium, taken piecemeal, 

 drops back to, or rather stays in Chemism. 

 But if the sun be largely composed of radium, 

 the self-emanating and the self-restoring ele- 

 ment, our central luminary would appear to 

 be in no danger of extinction or even of dimi- 

 nution, for while some parts are indeed 

 spending, others are recovering, so that the 

 loss may be always balanced by the gain. 

 Thus within the past few years radium has 

 given new hope to the universe, and specially 

 to our own solar system, and much more spe- 

 cially to our little Biocosmos which is now 

 exulting in the prospect of an eternal lease 

 of Life, in contrast with its former brief lot 

 of a hundred millions of years (according to 

 the Last Judgment of famous geologists). 

 Still our Earth-life may cease, while the Bio- 

 cosmos perchance lives on, not being depend- 

 ent upon a single planet. But such knowledge 

 belongs to the future. 



And so, at this point, with some feeling of 

 relief we may return to our little Biocosmos, 

 whose second stage is before us and can fully 

 employ us with its vast variety of organs and 

 organized shapes, which we seek to put into 

 some kind of order within itself, as well as in 

 relation to the rest of the universe. 



