enter into every act of our lives. The more we
know matter, the more we know mind; the more we know nature, the more we
know God; the more familiar we are with the earth forces, the more
intimate will be our acquaintance with the celestial forces.

X

When we speak of the gulf that separates the living from the non-living,
are we not thinking of the higher forms of life only? Are we not
thinking of the far cry it is from man to inorganic nature? When we get
down to the lowest organism, is the gulf so impressive? Under the
scrutiny of biologic science the gulf that separates the animal from the
vegetable all but vanishes, and the two seem to run together. The chasm
between the lowest vegetable forms and unorganized matter is evidently a
slight affair. The state of unorganized protoplasm which Haeckel named
the Monera, that precedes the development of that architect of life, the
cell, can hardly be more than one remove from inert matter. By
insensible molecular changes and transformations of energy, the miracle
of living matter takes place. We can conceive of life arising only
through these minute avenues, or in the invisible, molecular
constitution of matter itself. What part the atoms and electrons, and
the energy they bear, play in it we shall never know. Even if we ever
succeed in bringing the elements together in our laboratories so that
there living matter appears, shall we then know the secret of life?

After we have got the spark of life kindled, how are we going to get all
the myriad forms of life that swarm upon the earth? How are we going to
get man with physics and chemistry alone? How are we going to get this
tremendous drama of evolution out of mere protoplasm from the bottom of
the old geologic seas? Of course, only by making protoplasm creative,
only by conceiving as potential in it all that we behold coming out of
it. We imagine it equal to the task we set before it; the task is
accomplished; therefore protoplasm was all-sufficient. I am not
postulating any extra-mundane power or influence; I am only stating the
difficulties which the idealist experiences when he tries to see life in
its nature and origin as the scientific mind sees it. Animal life and
vegetable life have a common physical basis in protoplasm, and all their
different forms are mere aggregations of cells which are constituted
alike and behave alike in each, and yet in the one case they give rise
to trees, and in the other they give ri