I, on the other hand, have a life of my own; I am a maker, shaper, creator. I am a master-worker and freeman in a world of relative necessity. Yet my wonderful living body, through which I do my work, depends for its support on the green blades of grass and corn and the green leaves of the trees. Further—every cell of the millions and millions in my body is like the amoeba and the cells of the plant in consisting of protoplasm. Further still—I began my own life as a speck of protoplasm, and if I could trace all the steps of my pedigree to the first display of life on earth, from which I am sure I am descended, I should (I dare to say) find another protoplasmic speck with which every one of the cells of the vast cellular republic whereby and wherein I live is in historical continuity. Bodily I am immensely complicated; I am a congeries and a commonwealth of cells. But the first cell was also complicated although it was but one. Nothing that lives is simple, no, not even if we carry the idea of life far beyond the arbitrary boundaries commonly set to it now. There is unplumbed mystery in the conjunction of two atoms of hydrogen with one of oxygen to make a third and different substance, water; there is unplumbed mystery in every element and every happening of the world. But some mysterious things are scientifically more complex than others, and among the most complex is this thing, protoplasm. Yet it seems that before life could be manifest in the world the molecular complexity of protoplasm must have been attained. By storing power in building up the atoms of the chemical elements from electrons, and making that power useful by the union of atoms in molecules; then, by a further delicate union between molecules (much after the fashion of widely branching, but only slightly tenacious, magnets) forming larger and ever larger groups, a condition of such plasticity of matter and ready discharge and restoring of power has been attained as makes it fit for the rank of a recognized life. The grouped and complicated molecules, each charged with power, are set as with a double-acting hair-trigger, so ready are they to let go energy in heat and work as these are wanted; so ready also for their rebuilding in the peculiar power of the life with which they are imbued.