Life 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



384 



on by a vast army, at the head of which 

 there is a very great commander. Now, this 

 commander knows too well to expose his 

 person ; in truth, he is never seen by any of 

 Ms subordinates. He remains at work in a 

 well-guarded room, from which telegraphic 

 wires lead to the headquarters of the va- 

 rious divisions. He can thus, by means of 

 these wires, transmit his orders to the gen- 

 erals of these divisions, and by the same 

 means receive back information as to the 

 condition of each. Thus his headquarters 

 becomes a center into which all information 

 is poured, and out of which all commands 

 are issued. Now, that mysterious thing 

 called life, about the nature of which we 

 know so little, is probably not unlike such 

 a commander. Life is not a bully, who 

 swaggers out into the open universe, upset- 

 ting the laws of energy in all directions, but 

 rather a consummate strategist, who, sitting 

 in his secret chamber, before his wires, di- 

 rects the movements of a great army. 

 STEWART Conservation of Energy, ch. 6, p. 

 412. (Hum., 1880.) 



1877. LIFE DIFFUSED THROUGH- 

 OUT THE ATMOSPHERE If the unas- 

 sisted eye shows that life is diffused 

 throughout the whole atmosphere, the mi- 

 croscope reveals yet greater wonders. 

 Wheel-animalcules, Irachioni, and a host of 

 microscopic insects are lifted by the winds 

 from the evaporating waters below. Motion- 

 less and to all appearance dead, they float 

 on the breeze, until the dew bears them back 

 to the nourishing earth. . . . The yel- 

 low meteoric sand or mist (dust nebulae) 

 often observed to fall on the Atlantic near 

 the Cape Verde Islands, and not infre- 

 quently borne in an easterly direction as 

 far as Northern Africa, Italy, and Central 

 Europe, consists, according to Ehrenberg's 

 brilliant discovery of agglomerations of 

 silicious - shelled microscopic organisms. . 

 . . Together with these developed crea- 

 tures, the atmosphere contains countless 

 germs of future formations ; eggs of insects, 

 and seeds of plants, which, by means of 

 hairy or feathery crowns, are borne forward 

 on their long autumnal journey. Even the 

 vivifying pollen scattered abroad by the 

 male blossoms is carried by winds and 

 winged insects over sea and land, to the dis- 

 tant and solitary female plant. Thus, 

 wheresoever the naturalist turns his eye, 

 life or the germ of life lies spread before 

 him. HUMBOLDT Views of Nature, p. 211. 

 (Bell, 1896.') 



1878. LIFE, ESTIMATED DURA- 

 TION OF Long or Short, According to Succes- 

 sion of Events Sense of Duration Relative. 

 We have every reason to think that crea- 

 tures may possibly differ enormously in the 

 amounts of duration which they intuitively 

 feel, and in the fineness of the events that 

 may fill it. Von Baer has indulged in some 

 interesting computations of the effect of 

 such differences in changing the aspect of 



Nature. Suppose we were able, within the 

 length of a second, to note 10,000 events 

 distinctly, instead of barely 10, as now; if 

 our life were then destined to hold the same 

 number of impressions, it might be 1,000 

 times as short. We should live less than a 

 month, and personally know nothing of the 

 change of seasons. If born in winter, we 

 should believe in summer as we now believe 

 in the heats of the Carboniferous era. The 

 motions of organic beings would be so slow 

 to our senses as to be inferred, not seen. 

 The sun would stand still in the sky, the 

 moon be almost free from change, and so on. 

 But now reverse the hypothesis and suppose 

 a being to get only one 1,000th part of the 

 sensations that we get in a given time, and 

 consequently to live 1,000 times as long. 

 Winters and summers will be to him like 

 quarters of an hour. Mushrooms and the 

 swifter-growing plants will shoot into being 

 so rapidly as to appear instantaneous crea- 

 tions ; annual shrubs will rise and fall from 

 the earth like restlessly boiling water- 

 springs; the motions of animals will be as 

 invisible as are to us the movements of bul- 

 lets and cannon-balls; the sun will scour 

 through the sky like a meteor, leaving a 

 fiery trail behind him. JAMES Psychology, 

 vol. i, ch. 15, p. 639. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1879. LIFE, ETERNAL Scientific and 

 Christian Definitions of, Compared. The 

 exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's defini- 

 tion of eternal life may now be given. And 

 it will be seen that they include essentially 

 the conditions here laid down. " Perfect 

 correspondence would be perfect life. Were 

 there no changes in the environment but 

 such as the organism had adapted changes 

 to meet, and were it never to fail in the effi- 

 ciency with which it met them, there would 

 be eternal existence and eternal knowledge." 

 Reserving the question as to the possible 

 fulfilment of these conditions, let us turn 

 for a moment to the definition of eternal life 

 laid down by Christ. Let us place it along- 

 side the definition of science, and mark the 

 points of contact. Uninterrupted correspond- 

 ence with a perfect environment is ^ eternal 

 life according to science. " This is life eter- 

 nal," said Christ, "that they may know 

 thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 

 whom thou has sent." Life eternal is to 

 know God. To know God is to " corre- 

 spond " with Gcd. To correspond with God 

 is to correspond with a perfect environment. 

 And the organism which attains to this, in 

 the nature of things must live forever. Here 

 is " eternal existence and eternal knowl- 

 edge." DBUMMOND Natural Law in the 

 Spiritual World, essay 6, p. 193. (H. Al.) 



1880. LIFE EVIDENCED BY 

 CHANGE Actions of Living Things Tend to 

 Self-preservation. We habitually distin- 

 guish between a live object and a dead one 

 by observing whether a change which we 

 make in the surrounding conditions, or one 

 which Nature makes in them, is or is not 



