THE BREATH OF LIFE 



According to the latest scientific views held on 

 the question by such men as Professor Loeb, the 

 appearance of life on the globe was a purely acci- 

 dental circumstance. The proper elements just hap- 

 pened to come together at the right time in the 

 right proportions and under the right conditions, 

 and life was the result. It was an accident in the 

 thermal history of the globe. Professor Loeb has 

 lately published a volume of essays and addresses 

 called "The Mechanistic Conception of Life," en- 

 forcing and illustrating this view. He makes war 

 on what he terms the metaphysical conception of a 

 "life-principle" as the key to the problem, and 

 urges the scientific conception of the adequacy of 

 mechanico-chemical forces. In his view, we are only 

 chemical mechanisms; and all our activities, mental 

 and physical alike, are only automatic responses to 

 the play of the blind, material forces of external na- 

 ture. All forms of life, with all their wonderful adap- 

 tations, are only the chance happenings of the blind 

 gropings and clashings of dead matter: "We eat, 

 drink, and reproduce [and, of course, think and 

 speculate and write books on the problems of life], 

 not because mankind has reached an agreement 

 that this is desirable, but because, machine-like, we 

 are compelled to do so!" 



He reaches the conclusion that all our inner sub- 

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