WATER ESSENTIAL TO ALL LIFE. 221 



matter that is alive, can continue to live in the absence of 

 water; and I think we may go so far, as to say, that 

 throughout the whole world of life water is an absolute 

 necessity. I will not go into tlie question of the origin of 

 water or of life just now, for there is so very much to be 

 said in regard to all living things rt.s- they are — as we see iliem 

 — that it would be a pity to attempt the consideration of the- 

 much larger question of how they came to be, and I shall 

 say nothing in reference to the question of the creation of 

 life or of matter or water. Air and water must have existed 

 at the moment when, or before, any living organisms 

 appeared on this earth. 



Now, think of the driest tissues of the body we can select * 

 for example, the nails, the hair, the teeth, or the oldest part 

 of the enamel or dentine of our teeth, or that of the ivory 

 of an elephant's tusk, or piece of shell fully formed. All 

 these textures are not only not living, although belonging, 

 and of great importance, to the living organism — but they 

 may have been lifeless for many years. They cannot 

 increase or grow. Tliey cannot produce more tissue of the 

 same, or any other kind. Nail will not produce nail, hair 

 develop hair, or the hard tissue of teeth give rise to tooth 

 structure. All these things have c/roivn and have been 

 formed by, and from living matter. Not only so, but the 

 whole of the material of the teeth, the material of the 

 enamel, hard as it is, and the hard matter of the shell, was 

 dissolved before their conversion into dentine or enamel, 

 ivory or shell. Before the enormous tusk of the elephant 

 began to assume the hard state, every particle of the hard 

 matter must have been in solution. The phosphate and 

 carbonate of lime and other inorganic, as ^vell as organic- 

 matters, are selected by the living particles from their 

 solution, and caused to assume definite form. Before the 

 matter became part of the elephant's tusk — before it 

 became part of the matter of the enamel of teeth, which is 

 as hard as shell, and shell itself, it must have been taken up 

 by structureless li^-ing matter which consists principally of 

 water. Even the hard matter of the enamel of our teeth, 

 must have been taken up by the particles of soft living- 

 matter, by which also, the solution was caused to flow 

 towards each living particle, the inorganic matters being 

 then deposited in the organic structure already formed by 

 the living particles, and now ready for calcification. Dry 

 and hard tissues composed of organic matter like horn, hair 



