64 THE BIOCOSMOS PRELIMINARY. 



the sum total of vitality. Life- is, therefore, 

 inseparable from its overwhelming negative 

 counterpart, Death, which bounds it on every 

 side. Sad, tragic, quite unendurable would 

 be the outlook for thought, if mere Life were 

 the be-all and end-all of our terrestrial career. 

 But Life is only a stage of Nature, and Na- 

 ture herself is a stage of the larger and larg- 

 est process, in which Man participates 

 through mind. 



Very small is, then, the Biocosmos, a mere 

 point in the physical universe; still we have 

 to think that through this point the bound- 

 less Cosmos as well as the Diacosmos have 

 to pass in order to attain the end of their 

 creation, whose outcome is the conscious Self. 

 This point of Life is a kind of pivot on which 

 the vast separation of Nature begins to turn 

 back toward its source; each living indi- 

 vidual is a little pivot of that sort, and shows 

 in himself and in many organic functions 

 (such as the circulation of the blood and 

 other fluids) the vital round of the totality 

 of which he is a part. 



II. Quite as there is a heat-scale of Life, 

 so there is a heat-scale of chemical affinities, 

 above or below which such affinities grow 

 weak or vanish altogether. You have all seen 

 the avidity of the metal potassium for oxy- 

 gen ; throw a piece of it into water and it will 



