hen the intricacy of the subject is considered, are, after all, only
tentative. It is demonstrated that some molecules have their atoms
arranged in perfectly definite and unalterable schemes, but just how
these systems are to be mechanically pictured--whether as miniature
planetary systems or what not--remains for the investigators of the
future to determine.

It appears, then, that whichever way one turns in the realm of the atom
and molecule, one finds it a land of mysteries. In no field of science
have more startling discoveries been made in the past century than here;
yet nowhere else do there seem to lie wider realms yet unfathomed.

LIFE PROBLEMS

In the life history of at least one of the myriad star systems there
has come a time when, on the surface of one of the minor members of the
group, atoms of matter have been aggregated into such associations as
to constitute what is called living matter. A question that at once
suggests itself to any one who conceives even vaguely the relative
uniformity of conditions in the different star groups is as to whether
other worlds than ours have also their complement of living forms.
The question has interested speculative science more perhaps in our
generation than ever before, but it can hardly be said that much
progress has been made towards a definite answer. At first blush the
demonstration that all the worlds known to us are composed of the same
matter, subject to the same general laws, and probably passing through
kindred stages of evolution and decay, would seem to carry with it the
reasonable presumption that to all primary planets, such as ours, a
similar life-bearing stage must come. But a moment's reflection shows
that scientific probabilities do not carry one safely so far as
this. Living matter, as we know it, notwithstanding its capacity for
variation, is conditioned within very narrow limits as to physical
surroundings. Now it is easily to be conceived that these peculiar
conditions have never been duplicated on any other of all the myriad
worlds. If not, then those more complex aggregations of atoms which we
must suppose to have been built up in some degree on all cooling globes
must be of a character so different from what we term living matter that
we should not recognize them as such. Some of them may be infinitely
more complex, more diversified in their capacities, more widely
responsive to the influences about them, than any living thing on earth,
a