and recomposition taking place under certain circumstances. Think of it
as such--no more. But, O learned philosopher! you exclaim, you shall
tell me that you know not what manner of thing life is, and I will
believe you; and if you add that I shall never discover it, I will
believe you; but you cannot prevent me from knowing that it is something
I do not know. Permit me, for I cannot help it, still to wonder what
life is. Upon the dial of a watch the hands are moving, and a child asks
why? Child! I respond, that the hands _do_ move is an ultimate fact--so,
represent it to yourself--and here, moreover, is the law of their
movement--the longer index revolves twelve times while the shorter
revolves once. This is knowledge, and will be of use to you--more you
cannot understand. And the child is silent, but still it keeps its eye
upon the dial, and knows there is something that it does not know.

But while you are looking, in spite of your scientific monitor, at this
beautiful creature that grows fixed and rooted in the earth--what is
this that glides forth from beneath its leaves, with self-determined
motion, not to be expressed by a numerical law, pausing, progressing,
seeking, this way and that, its pasture?--what have we here?
_Irritability and a tissue._ Lo! it shrinks back as the heel of the
philosopher has touched it, coiling and writhing itself--what is this?
_Sensation and a nerve._ Does the nerve _feel_? you inconsiderately ask,
or is there some sentient being, other than the nerve, in which
sensation resides? A smile of derision plays on the lip of the
philosopher. _There is sensation_--you cannot express the fact in
simpler or more general terms. Turn your enquiries, or your microscope,
on the organization with which it is, in order of time, connected. Ask
not me, in phrases without meaning, of the unintelligible mysteries of
ontology. And you, O philosopher! who think and reason thus, is not the
thought within thee, in every way, a most perplexing matter? Not more