THE INTERPRETER I43 



speaking, the fact abides that the animal depends on 

 the vegetable. And, clearly, the vegetable depends, 

 plus the energy of the sun, on the mineral. Each of 

 the four elements of which protoplasm is made up is, 

 by itself, ineffective to produce the organic ; united, 

 they are stirred by complex movements of astounding 

 rapidity which constitute the phenomena of life at its 

 simplest ; life whose " hidden bond connects the 

 flower which a girl wears in her hair with the blood 

 which courses through her youthful veins," and the 

 " brightly coloured lichen, which so nearly resembles 

 a mere mineral incrustation of the bare rock on 

 which it grows, with the painter, to whom it is in- 

 stinct with beauty, and the botanist, whom it feeds 

 with knowledge." l 



The dependence of the highest upon the lowest 

 living things, and, to a certain extent, the close rela- 

 tion between them, is too obvious to be questioned ; 

 but so great is the reluctance to push things to con- 

 clusions involving collision with traditionally-received 

 ideas, that this admission does not affect the common 

 belief in a difference of kind, say, between the stand- 

 ing corn and the man who reaps it for his daily 

 bread. Still stronger is the feeling that life itself, 

 whether in the weed or the philosopher, is an 

 a entity " in matter, but not ofh-, the view which, as 



1 Coll. Essays, i. p. 13 1. 



