382 PEOCESSES OF LIFE REVEALED BY THE MICROSCOPE. 



liable to be a dead mass, devoid of the breath of life. It is a well- 

 known fact that the author of the Novum Organuon, the key which 

 Bacon supposed would serve as the open sesame of all difficulties and 

 yield certain knowedge, this potent key did not unlock many of the 

 mysteries of science for its inventor. Every truly scientific man since 

 the world began has recoguized the necessity of accurate observation, 

 aud no scientific principle has ever yet been discovered simply by 

 speculation; but every one who has really unlocked any of the myste- 

 ries of nature has inspired, made alive his observations by the imagi- 

 nation 5 he has, as Tyndall so well put it, made a scientific use of the 

 imagination and created for himself what is known as the " working 

 hypothesis." It must be confessed that for some investigators the 

 "hypothesis" becomes so dear that if the facts of nature do not con- 

 form to the hypothesis, " so much the worse for the facts." But for 

 the truly scientific man the hypothesis is destined solely to enable 

 him to get the facts of nature in some definite order, an order which 

 shall make apparent their connection with the great order and har- 

 mony which is believed to be present in the universe. 



If the working hypothesis fails in any essential particular, he is ready 

 to modify or discard it. For the truly inspired investigator one 

 undoubted fact weighs more in the balance than a thousand theories. 



At the very threshold of any working hypothesis for the biologist, 

 this question as to the nature of the energy we call life must be consid- 

 ered. The great problem must receive some kind of a hypothetical 

 solution. What is its relation to the energies of light, heat, electricity, 

 chemism, and the other forms discussed by the physicist? Are its com- 

 plex manifestations due only to these, or does it have a character and 

 individuality of its own! If we accept the ordinarily received view of 

 the evolution of our solar system, the original fiery nebula, in which 

 heat reigned supreme, slowly dissipated part of its heat, and hurled 

 into space the planets, themselves flaming vapors, only the protons of 

 the solid planets. As the heat became further dissipated there 

 appeared in the cooling mass manifestations of chemical attraction, 

 compounds, at first gases, then liquids, and finally, on the cooling 

 planets, solids appeared. Lastly upon our own planet, the earth, when 

 the solid crust was formed aud the temperature had fallen below the 

 boiling point of water, the seas were formed and then life appeared. 

 Who could see, in the incandescent nebula, the liquids and solids of 

 our planet and the play upon them of chemism, of light, heat, electric- 

 ity, cohesion, tension, and the other manifestations so familiar to all? 

 And yet, who is there that for a moment believes that aught of matter 

 or energy was created in the different stages of the evolution ? They 

 appeared or were manifested just as soon as the conditions made it 

 possible. So it seems to me that the energy called life manifested itself 

 upon this planet when the conditions made it possible, and it will cease 

 to manifest itself just as soon as the conditions become sufficiently 



