THE DESCENT OF PROTOPLASM 189 



And it is possible to regard the atoms of which 

 matter is composed as bearing the same relation 

 to the cells of the physiologists that these cells do 

 to still more complex living organisms. In the 

 sense in which we have used the words we do not 

 see any reason to look beyond the material basis 

 of the inquiry. There are material aggregations 

 as permanent as any of us would wish them to be, 

 and our expectation of the existence of a soul 

 which survives what we ordinarily call death is 

 quite consistent with the monistic view of Nature. 

 It all depends upon what we mean by matter. 

 The fear that human life would lose its sweetness 

 and its strength if this doctrine of monism were 

 true should scarcely apply, for are we not such 

 stuff as ideas are made of and our little selves 

 mere groups of stable or unstable aggregations of 

 units of that stuff? And is it not possible that 

 the most stable of these may persist when we 

 have shuffled off the more unstable portions of this 

 mortal coil ? 



To those who understand the problem it does 

 appear that, whatever atoms may really be, we 

 certainly are merely spirits, units that react and 

 commune with one another. Here, of course, we 

 reach the limits of natural knowledge : the reader 

 who wishes to go beyond the question of our 

 descent from the primordial substance will take 

 counsel of the metaphysician. Length of life is 

 only relative, and even such stable aggregations 

 as the chemical atoms finally break up and go 



