THE LIVING WAVE 



order and number that the kindling of the flame of 

 life requires, but it is a disquieting proposition. 

 One atom too much or too little of any of them, — 

 three of oxygen where two were required, or two of 

 nitrogen where only one was wanted, — and the face 

 of the world might have been vastly different. Not 

 only did much depend on their coming together, but 

 upon the order of their coming; they must unite 

 in just such an order. Insinuate an atom or cor- 

 puscle of hydrogen or carbon at the wrong point in 

 the ranks, and the trick is a failure. Is there any 

 chance that they will hit upon a combination of 

 things and forces that will make a machine — a 

 watch, a gun, or even a row of pins? 



When we regard all the phenomena of life and the 

 spell it seems to put upon inert matter, so that it be- 

 haves so differently from the same matter before it 

 is drawn into the life circuit, when we see how it 

 lifts up a world of dead particles out of the soil 

 against gravity into trees and animals; how it 

 changes the face of the earth ; how it comes and goes 

 while matter stays; how it defies chemistry and 

 physics to evoke it from the non-living; how its de- 

 parture, or cessation, lets the matter fall back to the 

 inorganic — when we consider these and others like 

 them, we seem compelled to think of life as some- 

 thing, some force or principle in itself, as M. Berg- 

 son and Sir Oliver Lodge do, existing apart from the 

 matter it animates. 



33 



