THE BREATH OF LIFE 



gray matter of Plato's brain and that of the hum- 

 blest citizen of Athens. All the difference between 

 man, all that makes a man a man, and an ox an ox, 

 is beyond the reach of any of your physico-chemical 

 tests. By the same token the gulf that separates 

 the organic from the inorganic is not within the 

 power of science to disclose. The biochemist is 

 bound to put life in the category of the material 

 forces because his science can deal with no other. 

 To him the word " vital " is a word merely, it stands 

 for no reality, and the secret of life is merely a chem- 

 ical reaction. A living body awakens a train of 

 ideas in our minds that a non-living fails to awaken 

 a train of ideas that belong to another order from 

 that awakened by scientific demonstration. We 

 cannot blame science for ruling out that which it 

 cannot touch with its analysis, or repeat with its 

 synthesis. The phenomena of life are as obvious to 

 us as anything in the world; we know their signs and 

 ways, and witness their power, yet in the alembic of 

 our science they turn out to be only physico-chemi- 

 cal processes; hence that is all there is of them. Vi- 

 tality, says Huxley, has no more reality than the 

 horology of a clock. Yet Huxley sees three equal 

 realities in the universe matter, energy, and con- 

 sciousness. But consciousness is the crown of a 

 vital process. Hence it would seem as if there must 

 be something more real in vitality than Huxley is 

 willing to admit. 



140 



