LIFE 151 



believing that atomic and vital energies are akin — 

 there is little difficulty in believing that the func- 

 tions of life may be produced by the energies of 

 the common or garden atom. 



Archimedes, more than two thousand years ago, 

 said, " Give me matter and I will build the world." 



Newton, with true prophetic prescience, wrote 

 in his Principia : " Would that the rest of the 

 phenomena of nature could be deduced by a like 

 kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for 

 many circumstances lead me to suspect that all 

 these phenomena may depend upon certain forces, 

 in virtue of which the particles of bodies, by causes 

 not yet known, are mutually impelled against one 

 another, and cohere into regular figures, and repel 

 and recede from each other." 



So thought Archimedes and Newton, and shall 

 we who have seen the beating heart of the atom 

 have less faith .? 



Let us look into the matter. What is life "^ No 

 definition is entirely satisfactory. Herbert Spencer's 

 definition "Life is the continuous adjustment of 

 internal relations to external relations " is one of 

 the best. Taking this definition, it may be said 

 that the molecules of dead matter, so called, do 

 not react to external stimuli, and that there is thus 

 a great gulf between living and dead matter. 



But the molecules of dead matter do react to 



