qually well. Everywhere, in fact, throughout inorganic nature, we
have this formative power, as Fichte would call it--this structural
energy ready to come into play, and build the ultimate particles of
matter into definite shapes. The ice of our winters, and of our polar
regions, is its handiwork, and so also are the quartz, felspar, and
mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds are for the most part composed of
minute shells, which are also the product of structural energy; but
behind the shell, as a whole, lies a more remote and subtle formative
act. These shells are built up of little crystals of talc-spar, and,
to form these crystals, the structural force had to deal with the
intangible molecules of carbonate of lime. This tendency on the part
of matter to organise itself, to grow into shape, to assume definite
forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have
said, all-pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the
water you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were,
manifests itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic
nature.

The forms of the minerals resulting from this play of polar forces are
various, and exhibit different degrees of complexity. Men of science
avail themselves of all possible means of exploring their molecular
architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn, as agents of
exploration, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and sound. Polarised
light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light,
when sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them,
and from this action we infer with more or less clearness the manner
in which the molecules are arranged. That differences, for example,
exist between the inner structure of rocksalt and that of crystallised
sugar or sugar-candy, is thus strikingly revealed. These actions
often display themselves in chromatic phenomena of great splendour,
the play of molecular force being so regulated as to cause the removal
of some of the coloured constituents of white light, while others are
left with increased intensity behind.

And now let us pass from what we are accustomed to regard as a dead
mineral, to a living grain of corn. When this is examined by
polarised light, chromatic phenomena similar to those noticed in
crystals are observed. And why? Because the architecture of the
grain resembles that of the crystal. In the grain also the molecules
are set in definite po