l6 Natural Salvation. 



The point of interest concerning this is that, given 

 favorable conditions, with no checks to its growth, the 

 tiniest dot of protoplasm might convert all the available 

 matter of the universe into protoplasm ! or, in other words, 

 when once a modicum of matter, ever so small, has 

 entered the living condition, it has the power to draw 

 an infin,ite quantity of contiguous matter into the same 

 life-expressing combination, and continue the process in- 

 definitely. It is as if the universe of matter were com- 

 bustible and the dot of protoplasm, introduced into iti 

 were a spark of fire, — with this important difference, 

 however, that growth of living matter implies the raising 

 up of matter to higher degrees of complexity, or the 

 storing up of potential energy in matter, the reverse of 

 igneous combustion. While we cannot affirm that growth 

 of protoplasm is creative of energy, it is certainly con- 

 servative of energy in a manner elsewhere and otherwise 

 unknown. 



In protoplasm, a higher or more jJrimary attribute 

 of matter, to wit, sentience, appears to make heat, light, 

 and kindred modes of energy its servants and to success- 

 fully stem the ordinary effects of katabolism. 



In past ages of the world, noticeably the carboniferous, 

 a far greater quantity of matter has been in the living 

 condition at one and the same time than at present ; the 

 indications are that there have been periods when the 

 continents sustained twenty times more vegetable proto- 



