life: its nature, origin, and maintenance SCHAFER. 495 



the phenomena common to all livmg bemgs." ^ Both of these 

 definitions are, however, of the same character as Sidney Smith's 

 definition of an archdeacon as "a person who performs archidiaconal 

 functions." I am not myself proposing to take up your time by 

 attempting to grapple with a task which has proved too great for 

 the intellectual giants of philosophy, and I have the less disjiosition 

 to do so, because recent advances in knowledge have suggested the 

 probability that the dividing line between animate and inanimate 

 matter is less sharp than it has hitherto been regarded, so that the dif- 

 ficulty of finding an inclusive definition is correspondingly increased. 

 As a mere word ''life" is interesting in the fact that it is one of 

 those abstract terms which has no direct antithesis, although proba- 

 bly most persons would regard "death" in that light. A little con- 

 sideration will show that this is not the case. "Death" implies 

 the preexistence of "life." There are physiological grounds for 

 regarding death as a phenomenon of life — it is the completion, the 

 last act of life. We can not speak of a nonliving object as possessing 

 death in the sense that we speak of a living object as possessing life. 

 The adjective "dead" is, it is true, applied in a popular sense anti- 

 thetically to objects which have never possessed life, as in the pro- 

 verbial expression "as dead as a doornail." But in the strict sense 

 such aj^plication is not justifiable, since the use of the terms "dead" 

 and "living" implies either in the past or in the 13 resent the posses- 

 sion of the recognized properties of living matter. On the other 

 hand, the expressions living and lifeless, animate and inanimate 

 furnish terms which are undoubtedly antithetical. Strictly and 

 literally the words "animate" and "inanimate" express the presence 

 or absence of "soul," and not infrequently we find the terms "life" 

 and "soul" erroneously employed as if identical. But it is hardly 

 necessary for me to state that the remarks I have to make regarding 

 "life" must not be taken to ap})ly to the conce])tion to which the 

 word "soul" is attached. The fact that the formation of such a 

 conception is only possible in connection with life, and that the 

 growth and elaboration of the conception has only been ])ossible as 

 the result of the most complex processes of life in the most complex 

 of living organisms has doubtless led to a belief in the identity of 

 life with soul. But unless the use of the expression "soul" is 

 extended to a degree which would deprive it of all special signifi- 

 cance, the distinction between these terms must be strictly main- 

 tained. For the problems of life are essentially problems of matter; 

 we can not conceive of life in the scientific sense as existmg apart 

 from matter. The phenomena of life are investigated, and can 

 only be investigated, by the same methods as all other phenomena 

 of matter, and the general results of such investigations tend to 



1 La vie etla mort, English translation by \V. J. Greenstreet, 1911, p. 54. 



