THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE, 



may produce effects which, in part, manifest them- 

 selves in our consciousness as sensations of heat ; or, 

 acting upon other bodies, organic and inorganic, may 

 in them produce such molecular re-arrangements 

 such modifications of form and nature as will suffice 

 to alter their qualities or attributes. Matter, then, 

 may undergo changes of form it may be now solid, 

 now liquid, and now an invisible gas ; whilst the 

 disguised Force or Motion, owing to such different 

 modes of collocation of the atoms of matter, may 

 manifest itself to us in different ways, but in its 

 essence it remains as the underlying and indestruct- 

 ible cause of the attributes of matter. So that at the 

 same time that force is indestructible, it is moreover 

 incapable of existing alone and independently of 

 matter. We cannot conceive force save as inhering 

 in, and appertaining to some body; we cannot con- 

 ceive a body, or matter, existing, devoid of all at- 

 tributes or force manifestations. Both are mutable, 

 both indestructible, and both, so far as we know, quite 

 incapable of existing alone. 



The growth of modern scientific opinion concerning 

 force has necessarily had much influence in modifying 

 the doctrines concerning Life which were formerly in 

 vogue. During the present century the labours of earnest 

 workers of all kinds have done much towards the over- 

 throw of the ancient and long-predominating meta- 

 physical conceptions of Life. Chemists, physiologists, 

 and others have striven manfully to dispel the mists 



