VITALITY A MYSTERY. 53 



we are told, gradually going out, and, unless 

 more fuel is supplied to compensate for the 

 excess of expenditure over income, there is no 

 hope for life. But after having dilated upon the 

 colossal physical changes which certainly will 

 lead to the extinction of all life, our teachers 

 next admit that we have yet much to learn 

 concerning the data upon which is grounded 

 this definitely stated opinion that life will cease, 

 &c. ; in short, that the portentous conclusions 

 they have themselves deliberately deduced 

 are, after all, but mere conjectures, which are 

 certainly not supported by any facts of science 

 yet discovered. Nor can the physicist adduce 

 reasons for supposing that it is at all likely that 

 within the next century the facts required to 

 justify the expression of these and other recently 

 evolved fancies will be at his command. 



Dr. Gull, like many who disapprove of the 

 vital theory, admits that he cannot fully ex- 

 plain vital phenomena. Vitality is, then, after 

 all, a mystery. But some of us are convinced of 

 the truth of facts which justify us in concluding 

 that the mystery is to be accounted for only by 

 supposing an agency, force, or power of an 

 order different from that in which the forces of 



