102 THE CRITERIA OF LIVINGNESS 



our statement any idea of their sparkle and subtlety and 

 surprises. For that requires more than science. We must 

 use our everyday and our red-letter day experience of liv- 

 ingness both in ourselves and in other organisms, wherewith 

 to enliven sympathetically all that biology can give. We 

 need not be in the least afraid of engendering an exaggerated 

 idea of the wonder of life ! 



IN CONCLUSION. 



No one can tell us wherein a living organism essentially 

 differs from a not-living thing. The one is alive, the other is 

 not. Perhaps we err in speaking too much about the un- 

 read riddle of life. For this seems to imply the expectation 

 that we shall be able some day to explain life in terms of 

 something else an expectation which is not likely to meet 

 with anything but disappointment. The materialists look 

 forward to explaining or re-describing the activity we call 

 living in terms of matter and motion. The animists look 

 forward to doing the same in terms of soul. But it is not at 

 all evident why we should be so very desirous to explain 

 life in terms of anything else, or why we should be sanguine 

 in making the attempt. Life is an aspect of reality which 

 found expression when there were evolved those particular 

 collocations of matter and energy which we call organisms, 

 just as Mind is an aspect of reality which found expression 

 when nervous systems of considerable degree of complexity 

 were established. We mean by Life and Mind the capacity 

 for certain kinds of activity and behaviour and internal ex- 

 perimenting with ideas, and it may well be that Life and 

 Mind are alike irreducible, and that they are not very differ- 

 ent from one another. But this is mere speculation. What 

 is practically more important is to appreciate the character- 



