16 TIME AND PERIODICITY 



depends upon and presupposes the existence of 

 these cohering masses. 



Thus the operation of Natural Force and the 

 constraint and limitation which are thereby imposed 

 upon our activity appear at once to determine the 

 conditions of life and to furnish the fundamental 

 implements of Knowledge. 



We cannot overleap the barriers by which Life is 

 constrained. These, whilst, on the one hand they 

 seem to create the environment which sustains Life, 

 en the other hand seem to impose upon it the 

 limitations under which it inevitably fails and dies. 

 We cannot even in imagination conceive, either as 

 reality or as fancy, the illimitable puissance of a 

 Life perfectly free and unrestrained. Yet the 

 assurance that Perfect Love could overcome the 

 bonds of Materiality and Death encourages in man- 

 kind the Hope of an existence beyond the impene- 

 trable veil of physical limitation. And this at any 

 rate may be admitted, namely, that that dynamic 

 condition in which materiality arises is also the 

 condition-precedent of Tridimensionality, of Force, 

 of Time, and of Mutation. But we cannot thus 

 account for the elan vital itself. 



