74 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 



tinction to the inorganic forces, gravity, 

 affinity, light, electricity, magnetism, 

 etc. If science were forced to ac- 

 knowledge such an hypothesis, all we 

 have said about the immutability of 

 the natural laws and of the mechanical 

 order of the universe would collapse, 

 and we would be forced to admit that 

 a higher hand interferes in the course 

 of nature, dictating exceptional laws 

 that defy all calculations. A break 

 would be found in the natural structure 

 of the world, science would despair, and 

 all physical and psychical research 

 cease. Fortunately science has not been 

 obliged to yield to the irrational pres- 

 sure of the dynamists, but, on the con- 

 trary, has won everywhere a splendid 

 victory; it has lately gathered such a 

 mass of self-evident facts to its support 

 that life-force nowadays wanders an 

 empty shadow along the boundaries of 

 natural science. All those who have 

 made a closer study of any of the 

 branches of science that deal at all 

 with the organic world, agree, almost 



