IThe Beginning and End of Life 413 



All analogy is in favour of this view of nature, and no 

 e fact in nature is in contradiction or out of harmony 

 erewith. Its acceptance throws light on the phenomena 

 of growth, repair, reproduction, development, and specific 

 evolution. The Avords above cited from Professor Burdon 

 Sanderson fully harmonise with the view. As he says, the 



Escovery of cells served for a time to discredit vitalism, 

 cause men jumped to the absurd conclusion that, because 

 other step in the mechanism of nature was discovered, all 

 at was non-mechanical was thereby abolished. It is ever 

 thus when physical science turns on a fresh limelight. Men, 

 who have not sheltered their mental vision by a medium of 

 philosophy, are thereby dazzled and temporarily blinded. 

 Such fresh illuminations are continually recurring, and as 

 soon as the retina of the intellect becomes accustomed to the 

 novelty, the old lines, temporarily invisible, become plainly re- 

 cognisable once more with, as Professor B. Sanderson says, 'the 

 same result.' Without such a dynamical conception as we 

 advocate, merely mechanical h3rpotheses show their insuffici- 

 ency one after the other in an invariable succession ; whereas, 

 being reinforced by this conception, they have just that aid 

 which is needed for their validity. Similarly the conception 

 of dynamic principles of individuation in nature is, taken by 

 itself, unsatisfactory and insufficient. We must, as Professor 

 B. Sanderson says, 'ever have structure and function in 

 harmonious correlation.' The ultimate structural elements 

 of bodies are beyond the range of anatomical microscopic 

 examination, as the ultimate dynamic agencies are beyond 

 the range of detection in the physiological laboratory. 

 Both, though thus beyond the scrutiny of the senses, are 

 alike within the range of the fully instructed student of 

 nature's mental vision. Here, as in so many other instances, 

 it is only what is unpicturable to the imagination which is 

 satisfying to the cultivated intellect. 



