I50 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



between the living and the dead, and of this instinct, 

 nevertheless, which attributes life to dead matter ? 

 What has the modern atomist to say ? What light 

 have recent discoveries thrown on the question ? 



Certainly no one believes in " that invention of 

 the human intellect, passive and spoliated matter." 

 Certainly, matter is as active as an ant-hill ; but how 

 about life ? But has matter in all its shapes some 

 amount of these particular activities which we have 

 been accustomed to attribute only to its special forms 

 — plants and animals ? And can it from atomic 

 energy produce these functions we have been ac- 

 customed to call vital^ and to consider superadded ? 



In the first place, is there such a gulf between the 

 organic and the inorganic, between the living and 

 the dead, and are any atoms dead ? Can any atoms 

 be considered dead which contain such prodigious, 

 almost infinite, energy ? Can atoms be considered 

 dead when each atom is a solar system, whose 

 members move with almost the velocity of light, 

 and are capable of penetrating some inches of steel ? 

 To call them dead s^tvas a misuse of language. Is 

 not their activity the very essence of life ^ 



When the atoms were considered dense, inert 

 particles, it was difficult to see how even they 

 could originate life ; but now that we know that a 

 door-nail is not altogether dead, but, in a sense at 

 least, very much alive, there is little difficulty in 



