tion; a finer eye than this might see the emanations from the
living body; a finer ear might hear the clash of electrons in the air.
Who can doubt, in view of what we already know, that forces and
influences from out the heavens above, and from the earth beneath, that
are beyond our ken, play upon us constantly?

The final mystery of life is no doubt involved in conditions and forces
that are quite outside of or beyond our conscious life activities, in
forces that play about us and upon and through us, that we know not of,
because a knowledge of them is not necessary to our well-being. "Our
eye takes in only an octave of the vibrations we call light," because no
more is necessary for our action or our dealing with things. The
invisible rays of the spectrum are potent, but they are beyond the ken
of our senses. There are sounds or sound vibrations that we do not hear;
our sense of touch cannot recognize a gossamer, or the gentler air
movements.

I began with the contemplation of the beauty and terror of the
thunderbolt--"God's autograph," as one of our poets (Joel Benton) said,
"written upon the sky." Let me end with an allusion to another aspect of
the storm that has no terror in it--the bow in the clouds: a sudden
apparition, a cosmic phenomenon no less wonderful and startling than the
lightning's flash. The storm with terror and threatened destruction on
one side of it, and peace and promise on the other! The bow appears like
a miracle, but it is a commonplace of nature; unstable as life, and
beautiful as youth. The raindrops are not changed, the light is not
changed, the laws of the storms are not changed; and yet, behold this
wonder!

But all these strange and beautiful phenomena springing up in a world of
inert matter are but faint symbols of the mystery and the miracle of the
change of matter from the non-living to the living, from the elements in
the clod to the same elements in the brain and heart of man.

IV

THE BAFFLING PROBLEM

I

Still the problem of living things haunts my mind and, let me warn my
reader, will continue to haunt it throughout the greater part of this
volume. The final truth about it refuses to be spoken. Every effort to
do so but gives one new evidence of how insoluble the problem is.

In this world of change is there any other change to be compared with
that in matter, from the dead to the living?--a change so great that
most minds feel compelled to go outside of matter a