The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist contemplate things in a condition of rest; they look upon a state of equilibrium as that to which all bodies normally tend.

The mathematician does not suppose that a quantity will alter, or that a given point in space will change its direction with regard to another point, spontaneously.  And it is the same with the physicist.  When Newton saw the apple fall, he concluded at once that the act of falling was not the result of any power inherent in the apple, but that it was the result of the action of something else on the apple.  In a similar manner, all physical force is regarded as the disturbance of an equilibrium to which things tended before its exertion,—­to which they will tend again after its cessation.

The chemist equally regards chemical change in a as the effect of the action of something external to the body changed.  A chemical compound once formed would persist for ever, if no alteration took place in surrounding conditions.

But to the student of Life the aspect of nature is reversed.  Here, incessant, and, so far as we know, spontaneous change is the rule, rest the exception—­the anomaly to be accounted for.  Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.

Permit me, however, to give more force and clearness to these somewhat abstract considerations, by an illustration or two.

Imagine a vessel full of water, at the ordinary temperature, in an atmosphere saturated with vapour.  The quantity and the figure of that water will not change, so far as we know, for ever.

Suppose a lump of gold be thrown into the vessel—­motion and disturbance of figure exactly proportional to the momentum of the gold will take place.  But after a time the effects of this disturbance will subside—­equilibrium will be restored, and the water will return to its passive state.

Expose the water to cold—­it will solidify—­and in so doing its particles will arrange themselves in definite crystalline shapes.  But once formed, these crystals change no further.

Again, substitute for the lump of gold some substance capable of entering into chemical relations with the water:—­say, a mass of that substance which is called “protein”—­the substance of flesh:—­a very considerable disturbance of equilibrium will take place—­all sorts of chemical compositions and decompositions will occur; but in the end, as before, the result will be the resumption of a condition of rest.

Instead of such a mass of dead protein, however, take a particle of living protein—­one of those minute microscopic living things which throng our pools, and are known as Infusoria—­such a creature, for instance, as an Euglena, and place it in our vessel of water.  It is a round mass provided with a long filament, and except in this peculiarity of shape, presents no appreciable physical or chemical difference whereby it might be distinguished from the particle of dead protein.