262 THE MEANING OF 



The word " life," as employed in the first part of the 

 last paragraph, comprises a great number of events and 

 changes so complicated, and so different from one another, 

 that volumes might be written without the subject being 

 exhausted. ' The " life " of a man or of an animal includes 

 phenomena of essentially different kinds, some being me- 

 chanical and chemical, others belonging to a totally different 

 category. The actions which I have termed vital, it has 

 been said by some are really physical and chemical, while 

 by others these vital actions have been completely ignored. 

 Physical and chemical actions may be investigated in many 

 ways, but as far as we can judge, the last actions (vital) 

 seem to be beyond investigation, and have not yet been 

 satisfactorily accounted for. 



If the life of a man be regarded as the sum of all the 

 actions going on in his body, arid many consider this the 

 correct view to take, the sum will be made up of a number 

 of very different and heterogeneous items. To add these 

 together and express the result in a common total would be 

 like an attempt to add ounces to shillings and inches 

 There is not, however, the same difficulty in defining what 

 we mean by the life phenomena of a single bioplast, by 

 the " life " of a white blood corpuscle for example, or other 

 small mass of living matter. Such " life " will be the cause 

 to which the phenomena, characteristic of this and other 

 kinds of matter in the same state, are referable. Whatever 

 views may be entertained concerning the sort of force or 

 power life may be, it must at least be admitted by every one, 

 that in the term life of a man more is included or something 

 very different implied than is included in or implied by the 

 life of each elemental unit of his organism. And it must 



