CONCERNING TENACITY OF LIFE 83 



sentient and intelligent beings that have passions like 

 our own. We see it even in some vertebrates, especially 

 in serpents, which are most tenacious of life. Thus, 

 there is a recorded case of a pit viper, the head of which 

 was severed from the body by the person who found it. 

 When the head was approached the jaws opened and 

 closed with a vicious snap, and when the headless trunk 

 was touched it instantly recoiled and struck at the 

 touching object. 



Such cases are apt to produce in some minds a 

 sense as of something unfamiliar and uncanny be- 

 hind nature that mocks us. But even those who 

 are entirely free from any such animistic feeling are 

 strangely disturbed at the spectacle, not only because 

 it is opposed to the order of nature (as the mind 

 apprehends it), but also because it contradicts the 

 old fixed eternal idea we all have, that life is com- 

 pounded of two things the material body and the 

 immaterial spirit, which leavens and, in a sense, re- 

 creates and shines in and through the clay it is 

 mixed with; and that you cannot destroy the body 

 without also destroying or driving out that mys- 

 sterious, subtle principle. Life was thus anciently 

 likened to a seal, which is two things in one the 

 wax and the impression on it. You cannot break 

 the seal without also destroying the impression, any 

 more than you can break a pitcher without spilling 

 the liquor in it. In such cases as those of the beetle 

 and the serpent, it would perhaps be better to liken 



