1 82 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



a proper supply of food and water and oxygen, 

 and that all these are churned up in a state proper 

 to assimilation. 



" What is true of the liver seems equally true 

 of all the other glands and organs of the body — 

 the kidneys, the spleen, the pancreas — and for 

 each of them there may be a dozen or more dis- 

 tinct ferments, each with a special and appointed 

 work to do." 



The physical basis of life, therefore, as we know 

 it, is structurally, kinetically, and chemically a very 

 complex thing. But still, be it recognised, its 

 complexity in nowise contradicts its genetic or 

 kinetic relations with the inorganic, since we have 

 seen that even inorganic molecules have an intricate 

 constitution and a complex mechanism. 



Certainly the material of matter, dead or living, 

 organic or inorganic, whether we regard it as 

 electrons or atoms, is the same, and the motion 

 is probably in every case of the same orbital 

 character ; and if we are evolutionists, there is 

 nothing in our analysis of living matter to hinder 

 us from believing " that the whole world, living or 

 not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, 

 according to definite laws, of the forces possessed 

 by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity 

 of the universe was composed." To conceive of 

 forces acting for millions and millions of years. 



