THE REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. 83 



pies o>i Science," Mr. Spencer says : "The theory 

 or vital principle fails and the psycho-chemical Spencer, 

 theory also fails to explain the phenomena of life, 

 the corollary being, that in its ultimate nature, 

 life is incomprehensible." Prof. Japp, in a recent Pfof , 

 address before the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, said : "No fortuitous 

 concourse of atoms, even with all eternity for 

 them to clash and combine in, could compass this 

 feat of the formation of the first optically active 

 organic compound. Co-incident is excluded, and 



every purely mechanical explanation of the phe- The Phenomena 



e i'f -i f 'i T of Life, 



nomena of life must necessarily fail. I see no 



escape from the conclusion that at the moment 

 when life first arose a direct force came into 

 play." He might have added that at every im- 

 pulse or expression of life, from the moment the 

 first breath of the Infinite vibrated through chaotic 

 ether and chaos became cosmos, up through all 

 the processes of evolution and reproduction to the 

 present hour, there has ever been present a vital The Vital 

 principle, a dynamic force, a directing intelli- 

 gence, that cannot be analyzed by chemistry, 

 measured by dynamics, or accounted for by any 

 science or system of philosophy that denies the 

 existence of the Immanent God. 



We do not know what God is, for He is Spirit 

 and cannot be analyzed, neither do we know what 

 matter is in its ultimate substance. That both 

 exist and ever have existed is evident to all 

 thoughtful persons. Men may differ in their con- 

 cepts of God, yet the most skeptical must admit The Immanent 

 with Spencer that "We are ever in the presence 

 of an eternal and infinite principle, from which all 



