72 DOCTRINE OF CORRELATION 



tion, and the former word once representing cause and law 

 now stands only for consequence. 



It has been clearly proved that the forces which were 

 formerly regarded as distinct from one another are really so 

 closely related as to be but forms or modes or moods of one 

 and the same primary energy, from which all may be obtained 

 and into which all may be resolved. (See also page 64.) 

 It is not surprising that physicists should have too hastily 

 assumed that life was but another mode and, like the rest, 

 correlated with energy or motion springing from it and at 

 last to be resolved into it. 



But those who entertain this view concerning life should 

 adduce evidence. It has been asserted over and over 

 again until we are tired of the iteration. All the operations 

 of all living things are to be explained upon physical princi- 

 ples. But as yet no operation characteristic of any living 

 thing has been explained upon any physical principle. It is 

 surely time that facts should be brought forward and 

 reasons stated for this conclusion. Not the shadow of proof 

 in favour of the analogy supposed to exist between life and 

 other forces has yet been adduced. To maintain that 

 because means have been discovered by which heat may be 

 so conditioned as to take the form of motion and mag- 

 netism and electricity and light; means, therefore, will be dis- 

 covered by which one of these modes of energy will be 

 made to take the life mode, mood or form, is a conclusion 

 more prophetic than argumentative or rational. Mr. Huxley 

 believes "we shall arrive at the mechanical equivalent of 

 consciousness, just as we have arrived at the mechanical 

 equivalent of heat." Anyone may, of course, " believe " 

 in the possibility of such a thing, and may feel quite 



