LIVING GOD OF LIVING NATURE FKOM THE SCIENCE SIDE. 275 



TJic physical oneness of the Universe. — The enthusiastic 

 advocates of the adequacy, of " Universal Physical Law " to 

 cause and sustain all vital phenomena, do not admit that, 

 during the life of any living growing organism or organ, or of a 

 growing living particle of any structure-forming matter in the 

 life-world, the power at work is distinct and marked off from 

 all matter that is not alive, or that the state of life is absolutely 

 distinct from the state of death, and that of non-life. I hope 

 that ere long some of my contemporaries will consider and 

 discuss this important question. 



Will any one of the advocates of the doctrine of the 

 " Physical Oneness of the Universe " maintain that there is no 

 absolute distinction between living and non-living ? Can any 

 satisfactory evidence be appealed to in support of the supposed 

 existence of a living organism or a living particle of any kind 

 at this time, in any other world than this ? Can the advocates 

 of such purely conjectural ideas support the contention of the 

 existence of any kind of living heiiig, of a sidereal nature in any 

 part of the Cosmos ? Is it not certain that up to this time, the 

 only living beings of which man has, or can have cognizance 

 and knowledge, are those organisms which like man himself, 

 have been created in, and inhabit this world ? Could any 

 ordinary living thing known to us, retain its life for a moment 

 under the conditions now known to exist in any nebula, star, 

 sun, or other celestial body yet discovered ? And yet it is not 

 surprising that the wonderfully successful exploration of an 

 immense part of the intinite Cosmos in recent times, should 

 have strongly appealed to the imagination of well informed 

 persons ; or, that the contemporaneous revelations of the 

 minute structure and growth of the tissues, and the formation 

 and action of our own organs, and the particles of living matter 

 by which they were formed, should have been little noticed. 

 Infinitesimal details of structure, unseen changes durino- 

 development and growth, wonderful as these are, cannot as yet 

 compete with the vast and overwhelming grandeur of the 

 material eternal Universe. Astronomy and physical investiga- 

 tion generally, have advanced during the past century in 

 greater degree than other departments of natural knowledge. 

 The same remark applies to all departments of physics and 

 chemistry — and no wonder people have been led to expect that 

 some great physical generalization concerning all matter — 

 living and not living — was about to enlighten the world, and 

 the discovery of some universal physical law, equally applicable 

 to living and non-living, lead to the revelation of the real cciuse 



