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PASSAGES FROM POPULAR LECTURES. 
PASSAGES FROM POPULAR LECTURES. 
BY F. T. MOTT, F.R.G.S. 
V.—THE AIM OF LIFE. 
FROM A LECTURE DELIVERED IN JUNE, 1879. 
To what end is that vast machinery of Life, which covers 
everywhere, as with a delicate network, the outer surface of 
this flying globe ? It is the puzzle of the ages, the riddle 
of the Spliynx, the insoluble problem. We may find out the 
curious processes by which a tree sucks food from the air, the 
rain, and the soil. We may count the bones in a human 
body, or calculate the leverage of muscles, or trace the fine 
threads by which sensation is communicated from the skin to 
the brain. We may roughly imitate the organic machinery, 
as in a watch or a phonograph, or a locomotive engine, but we 
cannot catch the Vital Energy itself. We cannot put that 
into our artificial apparatus. We may burn fuel under the 
boiler, but we cannot make our engine feed. We cannot make 
a dead stick grow, nor put a soul into a waxwork figure. 
Hitherto the element of life has proved too subtle for us. It 
may be, as some suppose, that it is no more than gravitation, 
or magnetism, or chemical affinity acting under more complex 
conditions ; but to explain it thus, is only to say that the 
earth stands upon an elephant, and the elephant upon a 
tortoise, and the tortoise upon—what ? If life is gravitation, 
what then is gravitation ? Why do all the particles of matter 
attract one another ? Why, when a ball is set in motion, will 
it fly on for ever until something stops it ? What is this Force, 
this Energy, which is at the bottom of all the actions and 
processes of matter whether dead or alive ? In the presence 
of this question our philosophers stand silent. In all our 
researches we are met at last by this omnipresent and 
unexplainable Energy, and we can go no further. As far as 
we can see its conduct is always uniform, and may be foreseen 
and predicted with a certainty exactly in proportion to our 
knowledge of the conditions. We have learnt to trust 
absolutely to the uniformity of its conduct under uniform 
conditions, and we call its modes of action “ laws of nature.” 
But we can only watch its workings with wonder and 
admiration. We know of its existence only because in the 
human personality or soul it takes on the form of self- 
consciousness, and so looks back upon itself, and feels its own 
