The Message of Science. loi 



never yet spoken, perhaps never will, never can ; since to 

 define it is to rob it of its most sublime attribute. 



Whence it came, or whitherward it moves, none can 

 answer. It is the unknown. We feel, see and study cer- 

 tain of its phases, but of its origin, or destiny, we know 

 nothing as yet. 



Even our present scanty knowledge of matter enables 

 us to perceive that such are its attributes ; and ever as 

 the horizon of our science broadens and the clouds of our 

 ignorance lift, we are led to regard matter with hew awe 

 and greater reverence. Fresh from the mutations and 

 destructive catastrophes of a thousand world-deaths, it 

 emerges ever new, with the same omnipotent power to 

 create afresh. Yesterday, to-day, forever, it is the same 

 exhaustless well-spring of motion, beauty, feeling and 

 life. 



One of the attributes of matter as observed in nature — 

 its primal attribute, probably — is a sentient property by 

 virtue of which it displays the phenomena which we term 

 life. Matter lives. 



The first manifestation of life of w'hich we have knowl- 

 edge is in the cell, as observed in unicellular life. Be- 

 yond doubt chemism everywhere is attended and, indeed, 

 initiated by a low degree of elemental feeling, yet this 

 property is at a great depth below what we designate as 

 life in the cell. Cell life is the result and product of an 

 extended organization of the lowly-sentient atoms, ions, 



