5 LIFE AND DEATH. 



tween life and thought, animists identify them. In 

 the opposite camp mechanicians, materiah'sts, or 

 monists make the same mistake as the animists, but 

 to that mistake they add another : they assimilate the 

 forces at play in animals and plants to the general 

 forces of the universe ; they confuse all three — soul, 

 life, inanimate nature. 



These problems belong on many sides to meta- 

 physical speculation. They have been discussed by 

 philosophers ; they have been solved from time im- 

 memorial in different ways, for reasons and by argu- 

 ments which it is not our purpose to examine here, 

 and which, moreover, have not changed. But on 

 some sides they belong to science, and must be tested 

 in the light of its progress. Cuvier and Bichat, for 

 example, considered that the forces in action in 

 living beings were not only different from physico- 

 mechanical forces, but were utterly opposed to them. 

 We now know that this antagonism does not exist. 



The preceding doctrines, therefore, depend up to a 

 certain point on experiment and observation. They 

 are subject to the test of experiment and observation 

 in proportion as the latter can give us information on 

 the degree of difference or analogy presented by 

 psychic, vital, and physico-chemical facts. Now, 

 scientific investigations have thrown light on these 

 points. There is no doubt that the analogies and 

 the resemblances of these three orders of manifesta- 

 tions have appeared more and more numerous and 

 striking as our knowledge has advanced. Hence it is 

 that animism can count to-day but very few advocates 

 in biological science. Vitalism in its different forms 

 counts more supporters, but the great majority have 

 adopted the physico-chemical theory. 



