THE BREATH OF LIFE 



upon which they were lying, often piercing two or 

 three of them, and forcing their way down into the 

 mingled soil and leaf -mould a couple of inches. 

 Force was certainly expended in doing this, and if 

 the life in the sprouting nut did not exert it or ex- 

 pend it, what did? 



When I drive a peg into the ground with my axe 

 or mallet, is the life in my arm any more strictly the 

 source (the secondary source) of the energy ex- 

 pended than is the nut in this case? Of course, the 

 sun is the primal source of the energy in both cases, 

 and in all cases, but does not life exert the force, use 

 it, bring it to bear, which it receives from the uni- 

 versal fount of energy? 



Life cannot supply energy de novo, cannot create 

 it out of nothing, but it can and must draw upon the 

 store of energy in which the earth floats as in a sea. 

 When this energy or force is manifest through a liv- 

 ing body, we call it vital force; when it is manifest 

 through a mechanical contrivance, we call it me- 

 chanical force; when it is developed by the action 

 and reaction of chemical compounds, we call it 

 chemical force; the same force in each case, but be- 

 having so differently in the one case from what it 

 does in the other that we come to think of it as a 

 new and distinct entity. Now if Sir Oliver or any 

 one else could tell us what force is, this difference 

 between the vitalists and the mechanists might be 

 reconciled. 



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