HIGH FREQUENCY AND HIGH POTENTIAL CURRENTS. 29 !)

verse. It is not necessary tliat evei’y individual, not even thatevery generation or many generations, should have the physicalinstrument of sight, in order to be able to form images and tothink, that is, form ideas or conceptions; but sometime or other,during the process of evolution, the eye certainly must have ex-isted, else thought, as we understand it, would be impossible ;else conceptions, like spirit, intellect, mind, call it as you may,could not exist. It is conceivable, that in some other world, insome other beings, the eye is replaced by a different organ, equallyon more perfect, but these beings cannot be men.

Now what prompts us all to voluntary motions arid actions ofany kind ? Again the eye. If I am conscious of the motion, Imust have an idea or conception, that is, an image, therefore theeye. If I am not precisely conscious of the motion, it is, becausethe images are vague or indistinct, being blurred by the superim-position of many. But when I perform the motion, does theimpulse which prompts me to the action come from within or fromwithout ? The greatest physicists have not disdained to en-deavor to answer this and similar questions and have at timesabandoned themselves to the delights of pure and unrestrainedthought. Such questions are generally considered not to belongto the realm of positive physical science, but will before long beannexed to its domain. Helmholtz has probably thought moreon life than any modern scientist. Lord Kelvin expressed hisbelief that life’s process is electrical and that there is a force in-herent to the organism and determining its, motions. Just asmuch as I am convinced of any physical truth I am convincedthat the motive impulse must come from the outside. For, con-sider the lowest organism we know—and there are probablymany lower ones—an aggregation of a few cells only. If it iscapable of voluntary motion it can perform an infinite numberof motions, all definite and precise. But now a mechanism con-sisting of a finite number of parts and few at that, cannot per-form an infinite number of definite motions, hence the impulseswhich govern its movements must come from the environment.So, the atom, the ulterior element of the Universe’s structure, istossed about in space eternally, a play to external influences, likea boat in a troubled sea. Were it to stop its motion it would die.Matter at rest, if such a thing could exist, would be matter dead.Death of matter! Never has a sentence of deeper philosophicalmeaning been uttered. This is the way in which Prof. Dewar