Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/631

Rh chemical relations of the substance (iodide of silver) pervading it, enabling it to resist that decomposition by light which, but for some unseen modification of the surface of the glass plate, it would have undergone; and no doubt the force of light, being unable to effect its object, was reflected or dispersed, and instead of changing its mode of motion in effecting chemical decomposition, it goes off on other business. The visible effect is in the collodion film alone. I have stripped that off, and the imprint remains on it, the surface of the glass being, so far as I could ascertain, unaffected. Thus, in the film over the protected part, light conquers chemical affinity; in that over the non-protected part, chemical affinity resists and conquers light, which has to make an ignominious retreat. It is a curious chapter in the history of the struggles of molecular forces, and probably similar contests between light and chemical or physical attractions go on in many natural phenomena, some forms of blight and some healthy vegetable changes being probably dependent on the varying effects of light and conditions, electrical or otherwise, of the atmosphere.

Let us now pass on to organic life. A blade of grass, as Burke, I believe, said as a figure of speech, is fighting with its neighbors. It is robbing them, and they are trying to rob it—no agreement or contract, simply force opposed to force. This struggle is good for the grass; if it got too much nutriment it would become diseased. The struggle keeps it in health. The rising of sap in trees, the assimilation of carbon, the process of growth, the strengthening themselves to resist prevalent winds, and many other instances might be given, which afford examples of the internal and external struggles in vegetable life.

I will now proceed to consider animal life, and in this case I will begin with the internal life of animals, which is a continual struggle. That great pump, the heart, is continuously beating—that is, conquering resistance. It is forcing the blood through the arteries, they assisting in squeezing it onward. If they give way, the animal dies; if they become rigid and resist too much, the animal dies. There must be a regulated antagonism, a rhythmical pulsation, the very term involving force and resistance. That the act of breathing is antagonistic scarcely needs argument. The muscular action by which the ribs are made to open out and close alternately, in order to inhale and exhale air, and other physiological changes which I can not here go into, necessitate a continuous fight for life. So with digestion, assimilation, and other functions, mechanical and chemical forces and resistances come into play. Since this lecture was written, I have heard of a discovery made, I am informed, by Prof. Metschnikoff, and which has brought to light a singular instance of internal antagonism. He is said to have proved that the white corpuscles