LIFE AND SCIENCE 



the mystery any more than the birth of a baby in 

 the household lessens the mystery of generation. 

 It only brings it nearer home. 



What is peculiar to organic nature is the living 

 cell. Inside the cell, doubtless, the same old chem- 

 istry and physics go on — the same universal law 

 of the transformation of energy is operative. In its 

 minute compass the transmutation of the inorganic 

 into the organic, which constitutes what Tyndall 

 called "the miracle and the mystery of vitality," 

 is perpetually enacted. But what is the secret of the 

 cell itself? Science is powerless to tell us. You may 

 point out to your heart's content that only chemical 

 and physical forces are discoverable in living mat- 

 ter; that there is no element or force in a plant 

 that is not in the stone beside which it grew, or in 

 the soil in which it takes root; and yet, until your 

 chemistry and your physics will enable you to pro- 

 duce the living cell, or account for its mysterious 

 self-directed activities, your science avails not. 

 "Living cells," says a late European authority, 

 "possess most effective means to accelerate reac- 

 tions and to cause surprising chemical results." 



Behold the four principal elements forming stones 

 and soils and water and air for whole geologic or 

 astronomic ages, and then behold them forming 

 plants and animals, and finally forming the brains 



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