14 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



study there may be taken the statement that 

 the life-processes contain no problems, save 

 those of chemistry and physics. When this 

 statement is examined rigorously it will soon 

 be seen that it cannot be passed off as a 

 complete expression of all human philosophy. 

 Our thoughts must obviously be something 

 different from chemistry and physics since 

 they can live and re-awaken thought in 

 others centuries after our demise, but in 

 the production and transference of such 

 thoughts between speaker and auditor, or 

 writer and reader the basis all the time is 

 obviously physical and chemical change 

 or reaction in the brain, special senses, and 

 other parts of the body. Each link in the 

 chain may be physico-chemical, but the chain 

 as a whole, and its purpose, is something else. 

 As well, in a concert, might it be said that each 

 musical note was physico-chemical and that 

 the blending in time and pitch were purely 

 physical factors which gave rise to the pleas- 

 ure ; but there is the mind of the composer, 

 the performers and the auditors, and there is 

 something which takes cognizance of the 

 whole effect, and to say the very least of it 

 the physicist and chemist have not yet ex- 

 plained it, and have proven nothing more 

 than that the physico-chemical processes are 



