If directly water was called into existence it could take in
nourishment, and divide and go on producing more water--and if some
water could do this, while other water (which no available test could
distinguish from it in any other respect) could not, then we _should_ be
perfectly justified in giving a special name to this power, and calling
it "aquosity" or "vitality" or anything else, it being out of all
analogy to anything else which we call a "property" of matter.
In the introduction of LIFE into the _aeon_ of organic developmental
history, we have a clear and distinct period, as we had when _matter_
came into view, or when _the change_ was ushered in which set the cosmic
gas cooling and liquefying, and turning to solid in various form.
The fact is that every organic form, whether plant or animal, derived
from the protoplasmic compounds of carbon-dixoide, ammonia and water,
is, as Mr. Drummond puts it,[1] "made of materials which have once been
inorganic. An organizing principle, not belonging to their kingdom, lays
hold of them and elaborates them."
[Footnote 1: "Natural Law," p. 233.]
Thus by the introduction of LIFE we have a vastly enlarged horizon.
Before, in the organic world, we had only the "principle" of solidifying
or crystallizing, liquefying, and turning to gas or vapour, ever
stopping when the state was attained.
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