II 



THE LIVING WAVE 



rone attempts to reach any rational conclusion 

 on the question of the nature and origin of life 

 on this planet, he soon finds himself in close quarters 

 with two difficulties. He must either admit of a 

 break in the course of nature and the introduction 

 of a new principle, the vital principle, which, if he 

 is a man of science, he finds it hard to do; or he must 

 accept the theory of the physico-chemical origin of 

 life, which, as a being with a soul, he finds it equally 

 hard to do. In other words, he must either draw an 

 arbitrary line between the inorganic and the organic 

 when he knows that drawing arbitrary lines in na- 

 ture, and fencing off one part from another, is an 

 unscientific procedure, and one that often leads to 

 bewildering contradictions; or he must look upon 

 himself with all his high thoughts and aspirations, 

 and upon all other manifestations of life, as merely 

 a chance product of the blind mechanical and 

 chemical action and interaction of the inorganic 

 forces. 



Either conclusion is distasteful. One does not like 

 to think of himself as a chance hit of the irrational 

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