ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m 



endures while nations and empires come and go 

 around its vast circumference. Or, turning to the 

 other half of the world of life, picture to yourselves 

 the great Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live, 

 or have lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet 

 of bone, muscle, and blubber, with easy roll, 

 among waves in which the stoutest ship that ever 

 left dockyard would flounder hopelessly; and 

 contrast him with the invisible animalcules 

 mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could, 

 in fact, dance upon the point of a needle with the 

 same ease as the angels of the Schoolmen could, 

 in imagination. With these images before your 

 minds, you may well ask, what community of 

 form, or structure, is there between the animalcule 

 and the whale ; or between the fungus and the 

 fig-tree ? And, a fortiori, between all four ? 



Finally, if we regard substance, or material 

 composition, what hidden bond can connect the 

 flower which a girl wears in her hair and the 

 blood which courses through her youthful veins; 

 or, what is there in common between the dense 

 .mil resisting mass of the oak, or the strong fabric 

 of the tortoise, and those broad disks of glassy 

 jelly which may be seen pulsating through the 

 waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to 

 mere films in the hand which raises them out of 

 their element ? 



Such objections as these must, I think, arise in 

 the mind of every one who ponders, for the fust 



