We know this much about it, and not the wisest man that ever lived knows much more.
For though the wise men know just what things go to make up this material, and though they themselves can put together these same things, they can no more make life, or understand the making of it, than can you or I.
But when we get a good hold of the idea that this material is contained in all living things, then we begin to feel this; we begin to feel that men and women, boys and girls, big animals and little insects, trees and flowers, wayside weeds and grasses, the ferns and rushes of the forest, the gray lichens of the cliffs and fences, the seaweeds that sway in the green rock pools, and living things so tiny that our eyes must fail to see them,—that all these are bound into one by the tie of that strange and wonderful thing called life; that they are all different expressions of one mysterious, magnificent idea.
While writing that last sentence, I almost forgot that I was writing for boys and girls, or indeed for any one but myself; and I am afraid that perhaps you have very little idea of what I am talking about.
But I will not cross it out. Why not, do you suppose?
Because I feel almost sure that here and there among you is a girl or boy who will get just a little glimmering idea of what I mean; and perhaps as the years go by, that glimmer will change into a light so bright and clear as to become a help in dark places.
But the thought that I hope each one of you will carry home is this,—that because this strange something found in your body is also found in every other living thing, you may learn to feel that you are in a way a sister or brother, not only to all other boys and girls, but to all the animals and to every plant about you.
HOW A PLANT IS BUILT
Now we know that the plant, like yourself, began life as a single cell; and we know that the perfect plant was built up by the power which this cell had of giving birth to other cells with like power.