DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 75 



to a man, in the condemnation of life- 

 force, and the very word is so detested 

 by science that it is always purposely 

 avoided." 



We may now let Btichner present the 

 real, scientific evidence why life-force 

 must be charged to the ignorance of 

 a time when knowledge of nature was 

 but slight. In this way the reader will 

 perhaps obtain a more direct and at 

 the same time an historic view of the 

 materialistic mode of thinking. 



Above all, says Btichner, it is the 

 province of chemistry to show that the 

 elements of matter are everywhere the 

 same in the inorganic as well as in the 

 organic world, and that life substance 

 is unable to present one single atom 

 not found in inorganic nature and there- 

 fore not partaking in the general flux 

 (Stoffwechsel) of matter. Chemistry has 

 decomposed organic bodies into their 

 elements exactly as it did before with 

 the inorganic. 



All known inorganic forces act iden- 

 tically with respect to living as to dead 



