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ing ascended to it from the plain, the other having de- 

 scended to it from a higher elevation, will be differently 

 affected by the scene around them. To the one nature 

 is expanding, to the other it is contracting, and feelings 

 are sure to differ which have two such different antece- 

 dent states. 



In our scientific judgments the law of relativity may 

 also play an important part. To two men, one educated 

 in the school of the senses, who has mainly occupied 

 himself with observation, and the other educated in the 

 school of imagination as well, and exercised in the con- 

 ception of atoms and molecules to which we have so 

 frequently referred, a bit of matter, say ^T> O^TF f an mcn 

 in diameter, will present itself differently. The one de- 

 scends to it from his molar hights, the other climbs to 

 it from his molecular lowlands. To the one it appears 

 small, to the other large. So also as regards the appre- 

 ciation of the most minute forms of life revealed by the 

 microscope. To one of these men they naturally ap- 

 pear conterminous with the ultimate particles of matter, 

 and he readily figures the molecules from which they di- 

 rectly spring } with him there is but a step from the 

 atom to the organism. The other discerns numberless 

 organic gradations between both. Compared with his 

 atoms, the smallest vibrios and bacteria of the micro- 

 scopic field are as behemoth and leviathan. 



The law of relativity may to some extent explain the 

 different attitudes of these two men with regard to the 

 question of spontaneous generation. An amount of 

 evidence which satisfies the one entirely fails to satisfy 

 the other; and while to the one the last bold defense 

 and startling expansion of the doctrine will appear per- 

 fectly conclusive, to the other it will present itself as im- 



