PREFACE 



within hailing distance of life and mind, we seem 

 assuredly on the road thither. The mystery of the 

 transformation of the ethereal, imponderable forces 

 into the vital and the mental seems quite beyond 

 the power of the mind to solve. The explanation 

 of it in the bald terms of chemistry and physics 

 can never satisfy a mind with a trace of idealism 

 in it. 



The greater number of the chapters of this volume 

 are variations upon a single theme, what Tyndall 

 called "the mystery and the miracle of vitality," 

 and I can only hope that the variations are of suffi- 

 cient interest to justify the inevitable repetitions 

 which occur. I am no more inclined than Tyndall 

 was to believe in miracles unless we name every- 

 thing a miracle, while at the same time I am deeply 

 impressed with the inadequacy of all known mate- 

 rial forces to account for the phenomena of living 

 things. 



That word of evil repute, materialism, is no 

 longer the black sheep in the flock that it was be- 

 fore the advent of modern transcendental physics. 

 The spiritualized materialism of men like Huxley 

 and Tyndall need not trouble us. It springs from 

 the new conception of matter. It stands on the 

 threshold of idealism or mysticism with the door 

 ajar. After Tyndall had cast out the term "vital 

 force," and reduced all visible phenomena of life to 

 mechanical attraction and repulsion, after he had ex- 

 ix 



