The Relation of Science and Religion.pdf - Online Christian Library

LIFE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. 123a working organism." The suggestions ofRumford and Joule may yet bear results inthis direction, for it is matter of general agreementthat living organism may be regarded as anengine doing a given amount of work, on conditionof being supplied with a given amountof fuel in the form of nourishment. Whentherefore Rumford suggests that the animalis a more economical engine than any of themechanical contrivances which man constructs,and when Joule advances considerably beyondthis to suggest that the animal more resemblesan electro-magnetic engine, than a heat engine,it seems quite within the range of possibilitythat in some such direction discovery may yetbe made of the physical principles involvedin life.This, however, leaves untouched the deeperquestion as to the origin of life. We are entirelyignorant of any beginning of life whichis not traced directly to a preceding livingorganism. Either, as in the case of plants,there is increase of life by fission, or separationfrom an earlier growth, or by means ofseed grown upon the parent plant; or, as inthe cme of animals, by germ or ovum. But the* Tait's Recent Advasces, p. 83.