TO INTELLECT AND WILL. 299 



It seems to me that the facts of living beings cannot be 

 accounted for except on the hypothesis of the existence 

 of some force cr power which influences, in a manner we do 

 not yet understand the ultimate elements, or the compound 

 molecules of the bioplasm, and causes them to take up 

 particular relations to one another, so that when they com- 

 bine, compounds possessing special characters shall be 

 formed. For, surely it cannot be maintained that the 

 atoms arrange themselves, and determine what positions 

 each is to take up, and it would be yet more extravagant 

 to attribute to ordinary force or energy, atomic rule and 

 directive agency. We might as well try to make ourselves 

 believe that the laboratory fire made and lighted itself, that 

 the chemical compounds put themselves into the crucible, 

 and the solutions betook themselves to the beakers in the 

 proper order, and in the exact proportions required to form 

 certain definite compounds. But while all will agree that it 

 is absurd to ignore the chemist in the laboratory, many 

 insist upon ignoring the presence of anything representing 

 the chemist in the living matter which they call the " cell- 

 laboratory." In the one case the chemist works and guides, 

 but in the other it is maintained, the lifeless molecules of 

 matter are themselves the active agents in developing vital 

 phenomena. 



Some have taught that mind transcends life, and life 

 transcends chemistry, just as chemical affinity transcends 

 mechanics. But no one has proved, and no one can prove, 

 that mind and life are in any way related to chemistry and 

 mechanics. If the step from mechanics to chemistry is 

 known, has been proved, and is admitted, that from chemis- 

 try to life is assumed, and assumed without the slightest 



