WHAT IS LIFE? 37 



instance, the electric eel takes advantage of it and uses 

 it in his business as a help in giving battle to his enemies, 

 shocking and stinging them, thereby more easily captur- 

 ing animals for food. 



In reference to gravity it affects them in the same man- 

 ner as it does a human being. In order to be able to get 

 up into the sunlight, the cell will defy the law of gravita- 

 tion and build his structure straight upward. The cell 

 is an individual that is in no manner and in no way forced 

 and pushed around by physical and chemical forces re- 

 gardless of any will or opinion he may have in the matter 

 himself. The physical forces are not able to cause him 

 to act in any different manner from what they cause man 

 to act. 



There seem to be two sides only to the question, after 

 looking over the enormous mass of philosophy and ideas 

 written in the past in regard to the cause of life. One side 

 claims that life came to exist sometime in the past history 

 of the earth, out of the elements of the earth, and that it 

 is only a chemical and mechanical phenomenon. The 

 other side claims that a mind is back of matter, either 

 separate from it or in the matter itself. Some call it vital 

 force and some call it the Divine Will in the world or the 

 universe. The plain reason for this difference of opinion 

 arises from the fact that structures in nature show con- 

 clusively that intelligence of a high order or at least sim- 

 ilar to that of man is the cause that forms and molds the 

 different structures of life. We shall not in this chapter 

 stop to discuss what intelligence is, but will leave that 

 to a separate chapter. 



It might be proper, however, at this time to give a short 

 illustration of what is considered to be an intelligent act 

 and one that is not intelligent and purely mechanical. I 

 think the simplest illustration is the following given by 



