THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



ing silence of the depths never to see it again, 

 but here a line is attached. This is a deed of 

 vigorous life. Burning desire has seized them 

 to know what is in the deepest abyss of the 

 ocean. Natural scientists of a deep sea expedi- 

 tion are on board. A lead with an automatic 

 releasing weight, and with automatic apparatus 

 for measuring temperature and taking up speci- 

 mens of the ooze has been thrown over-board. 



The great deeds of this tool making vertebrate 

 with his giant brain appear in an imposing pic- 

 ture. The noctiluca with a diameter of three 

 hundredths of an inch carries as a feeler a tiny 

 thread on his one-celled body. He feels with 

 it in order to obtain information concerning his 

 immediate environment. Feeling — sensation — 

 here lie, indeed the fundamental and general 

 features of life. Now then — ^the human animal 

 also sends a mechanical feeler into the deep sea. 

 It is not a part of his body, that indeed is the 

 new and practical superiority of "tools" as dis- 

 tinguished from "organs." But of what a 

 length. The individual man Is scarcely six feet 

 high. A feeler that shall reach from the surface 

 to the deepest places of the ocean must be 

 twenty-seven thousand feet long, or more than 

 four miles.* So deep is the greatest sea 

 abyss, deeper than the height of Gaurisankar, 

 the highest mountain on the eaiih. If 



•Eijual' to a German geographical mile 



