ON PROOF 279 



have been holding and dogmatically asserting the 

 opinion — strange to say, unwarrantedly, without 

 any pertinent experimental data to support it — that 

 "nothing leaves the body at death," However, it is 

 true that never before was there a basis or warrant 

 in science for research such as the new theory of 

 life, based on atomic physics, is under the neces- 

 sity of demanding. 



Evidently, the quantitative measurement of life 

 hat may be expected as the result of this research, 

 will disclose nothing of life-qualities, as a scale in 

 a market only registers pounds without indicating 

 whether it is a man or a barrel of flour that is 

 weighed. 



The question may be raised whether, in the event 

 that the laboratory establishes the fact of death as 

 the separation of a quantity from the body, the 

 quantity that leaves the body really constitutes life. 



Of course, if any one chooses to postulate "vital 

 force" or "life entities" to account for life, nothing 

 will prevent him. But it is a generally accepted 

 principle that it is unscientific to seek a more dif- 

 ficult "explanation" when a simple one sufiices, or 

 to call in unknown factors when known factors 

 answer fully. 



It would seem that the fact of death as the sep- 

 aration of a quantity from the body demonstrated 



