Then, if he consults a musician friend, he will be informed that tuning-forks also become tired, and lose their vibrating quality, until they are given a rest. Then his machinist friend will tell him that machinery in factories must be given a rest, occasionally, else it will begin to disintegrate and "die." Machinery will go on a strike for a rest, if it is overworked.
Then metals contract disease. Science informs us that zinc and tin have been infected, and the infection has spread from sheet to sheet crumbling the metal into powder—the spread of the infection resembling the spread of a plague among animals or plant-life. Science has experimented with copper and iron, and has found that these metals may be poisoned with chemicals, and will remain in a weakened condition until antidotes are administered. Window-glass workers declare that there is such a thing as "glass-disease," that will ruin fine stained glass windows unless the infected panes are removed. The "glass-disease" starts with one pane, and spreads gradually to the entire window, and from there to other windows.
Metallurgists have found that when metallic ores are put under certain forms of pressure, they seem to lose strength, and become weak until the pressure is removed.
Do these things mean anything to the "Man of the Street?"
Another step in the consideration of Life in the Inorganic world, is the realization of the fact that, after all, there is but the very finest line separating the higher forms of Mineral "life," from the lower forms of vegetable life, or the life of those "Things" which we may call either plants or animals. The "Life-line" is being pushed further back every day, by scientific investigation, and the "living" thing of today was the "inanimate" thing of yesterday. We hear much talk in the newspapers about some scientist, or another, "discovering life," or "creating life," in some "inanimate substance." Bless your hearts, you who are alarmed by these reports—no one can "create" life in anything, for it already exists there. The "discovery" is simply the realization of this fact.
Science, by means of the microscope, has brought to light forms of "living things," resembling in appearance the fine dust of inorganic minerals. These low forms of life exhibit but the simplest vital processes, the same very closely resembling chemical processes, although just a shade higher in the scale. Living creatures have been found which could be dried and laid aside like dust for several years, and then revived by being immersed in water, when they would resume their vital process as if they had been awakened from a sleep. Forms of life, called "Baccilli" have been discovered that can pass through degrees of heat and cold that can be expressed only by vague symbols or figures, the heat and cold being so intense that the unscientific mind cannot imagine it.
In appearance the "Diatoms" resemble the chemical crystals. These "Diatoms" are minute one-celled living "Things," having a hard but thin siliceous covering or shell, of extreme delicacy. They are what are known as "microscopic" creatures—that is, visible only through the microscope. Some of them are so small that it would take a thousand or more to cover the head of a pin. But, remember this—the microscope reveals them as "living creatures" performing vital functions. They are found in the deep waters of the ocean. To the naked eye they appear like fine sand or "dirt," but under the most powerful microscope, they are seen to comprise many species and varieties, exhibiting many peculiar shapes and forms—in fact, they have been called "living geometrical forms," their shapes and appearances almost exactly resembling those of the chemical and mineral crystals.
Science informs us that these and similar microscopic creatures, number thousands of families or species,—and it is thought that the varieties of microscopic creatures outnumber the varieties of creatures visible to the unaided sight. And, remember, that there is probably a still greater world of "sub-microscopic" creatures, that is a world invisible even when the most powerful microscope is used. Who knows what wonders are to be found there—what forms of creatures live, and move and have their being there.
In passing by the subject of the resemblance between the outward forms of living things and the crystals, it is interesting to note how the crystals of frost and ice resemble the forms of leaves, branches, flowers, foliage, etc.—the pane of glass covered with these frosty forms, resembles a garden. The disk of saltpeter, under the effect of polarized light, very closely resembles the form of the orchid.
Recent scientific experiments have shown that certain metallic salts, when subjected to a galvanic current, group themselves around one of the poles of the battery, and assume a mushroom-like shape and appearance. At first, they seem to be transparent, but gradually they assume color, the top becoming a bright red, with the under-side showing a pale rose color, the stem being of a pale straw color. The discoverers of these peculiar forms, called them by the German equivalent for "inorganic mushrooms," but even this term seems scarcely worthy of them, for they even show a trace of something like organs. Under the microscope they are seen to have fine canals or vein-like channels running through their stems, from top to base. And through these "veins" the "thing" absorbed fresh material and actually "grew" like low forms of fungus-life. Were these things merely minerals or chemical-substances, or were they low forms of organic life? The lines between the Inorganic and the Organic are being wiped out rapidly. The Supreme Power that caused Life to Be, caused it to All, and did not divide Its manifestations into Dead-Things and Live-Things, but breathed into all the Breath of Life. And the more clearly we see the actual evidence of this, the greater does that Supreme Power seem to us.
A very low form of living creatures called the Monera, is held by Science to be the one of the strands of the connecting link between the organic and inorganic worlds. The Monera are the lowest and simplest form (at least so far known) of organic life. They may be said to be "organic" creatures without organs—being but little more than simple cells—tiny globules of plasm, surrounded by a thin membrane—their sole vital function being the absorption of nourishment through the pores of their covering (just as a piece of chalk would absorb water) and the consequent conversion of the nourishment into material for growth, the whole process resembling chemical action. The Monera reproduce their kind simply by cleavage or separation of the substance of the mother cell into two, and so on, being little more than the "growth" of crystals. The Monera are everywhere recognized, without question, as "living creatures," but they exhibit merely a trace more of life than do certain forms of crystals.
The difficulty in considering crystals as "living things" is partially due to the outward form and substance, so different from the form and substance of the higher "living things." But we have seen that the Diatoms took on shapes of crystals, and that the outer shell or covering was similar to silicia, a mineral, the inner substance being but a tiny speck of plasm, similar to that of the substance of a plant cell. And then we may look to the tiny bit of chalk dust which was once the skeleton-form of a living creature. The same is true of coral. In the very low forms of life, the skeleton, or form, is the thing most apparent, the plasm of "living substance" being still smaller, and less apparent. And yet, the skeleton, or shell, was formed by the vital processes of the creature, and was a part of its "body," just as is the skeleton or bony structure of the higher animals. And, in the same sense it is "living substance." And, remember, that there is but little difference between these "bodies" of the low forms of life, and the bodies of crystals. And the chemical constituents of its plasmic inner body is but slightly different from that of the crystals. And its nature and vital process are by a shade higher in the scale than those of the crystals.
You may ask why we have said so much of Crystals. The reason is just this—Science has begun to think of Crystals as semi-living things, and its most advanced investigators and thinkers go further and assert that "the Crystals are alive—Crystallization is an evidence of life process."
Crystals arrange themselves in well-known and well-defined shapes, direction and order of formation being observed implicitly. Each crystal follows the laws and habits of its kind, just as do plants and animals. Its lines of crystallization are mathematically perfect, and according to the laws of its being. Not only this, but some substances have a range of six or seven different forms of crystal-forms possible to them. In some cases a chemical element assumes one form of crystallization when it manifests as one mineral, and a second form when it manifests in another form—in each case however, it manifests along well-known and recognized courses of action, movement, and shapes.