DECADENCE AND REVIVAL 27 



be explained in terms of chemical equations 

 and physical experiments. It seems a hard 

 saying, and one thing is clear, namely, that 

 if it is true, there is an end to biology as a 

 science, an end also to psychology, an end to 

 all branches of science dealing with living 

 things, since all these must resolve themselves 

 into branches of the two only sciences of 

 chemistry and physics. 



But there are others who refuse to accept Neo- 

 this explanation of life, and to set forward the 

 arguments hi favour of their point of view is 

 the object of this book. And first it may be 

 pointed out that some of those processes in 

 the human body, which forty or fifty years ago 

 seemed most clearly to be mechanical hi their 

 nature, some of those processes to which Bur- 

 don Sanderson alluded in the quotation above, 

 some of these processes have, in later years, 

 been shown to be wholly inexplicable in terms 

 of a mechanical explanation. One or two ex- 

 amples of what is meant may be included in 

 this general preliminary sketch of the subject 

 though they will be more aptly and fully 

 considered in a later section. 



The food which we take into our stomach is 

 there and elsewhere in the alimentary canal 

 acted upon by various juices and converted 

 into a digested semi-fluid substance capable of 



