THE BREATH OF LIFE 



when Nature imitates man, and we are pleased 

 when man imitates Nature, and yet we recoil from 

 the thought that life is only applied mechanics and 

 chemistry. But the thought that it is mechanics 

 and chemistry applied by something of which they 

 as such, form no part, some agent or principle which 

 we call vitality, is welcome to us. No machine we 

 have ever made or seen can wind itself up, or has 

 life, no chemical compound from the laboratories 

 ever develops a bit of organic matter, and therefore 

 we are disbelievers in the powers of these things. 



Is gravity or chemical affinity any more real to 

 the mind than vitality? Both are names for mys- 

 teries. Something which we call life lifts matter 

 up, in opposition to gravity, into thousands of liv- 

 ing forms. The tree lifts potash, silica, and lime 

 up one or two hundred feet into the air; it elbows 

 the soil away from its bole where it enters the 

 ground; its roots split rocks. A giant sequoia lifts 

 tons of solid matter and water up hundreds of feet. 

 So will an explosion of powder or dynamite, but 

 the tree does it slowly and silently by the organiz- 

 ing power of life. The vital is as inscrutably identi- 

 fied with the mechanical and chemical as the soul 

 is identified with the body. They are one while yet 

 they are two. 



For purely mechanical things we can find equiv- 



