THE BREATH OF LIFE 



and idealism know them. We have to turn philoso- 

 phers when we ask any ultimate question. The feel- 

 ing we have that the scientific conception of life is 

 inadequate springs from the philosophical habit of 

 mind. Yet this habit is quite as legitimate as the 

 scientific habit, and is bound to supplement the 

 latter all through life. 



The great men of science, like Darwin and Hux- 

 ley, are philosophers in their theories and conclu- 

 sions, and men of science in their observations and 

 experiments. The limitations of science in dealing 

 with such a problem are seen in the fact that science 

 can take no step till it has life to begin with. When 

 it has got the living body, it can analyze its phenom- 

 ena and reduce them to their chemical and physical 

 equivalents, and thus persuade itself that the secret 

 of life may yet be hit upon in the laboratory. Profes- 

 sor Czapek, of the University of Prague, in his work 

 on "The Chemical Phenomena of Life" speaks for 

 science when he says, " What we call life is nothing 

 else but a complex of innumerable chemical reac- 

 tions in the living substance which we call proto- 

 plasm." The "living substance" is assumed to be- 

 gin with, and then we are told that the secret of its 

 living lies in its chemical and physical processes. 

 This is in one sense true. No doubt at all that if 

 these processes were arrested, life would speedily 

 end, but do they alone account for its origin? Is it 

 not like accounting for a baby in terms of its breath- 

 164 



