172 Life and Matter [chap. ix. 



divine agency and yet to deny the 

 possibility of any human power of the 

 same kind, though that would be a 

 nebulous and at least inconclusive pro- 

 cedure ; but if once we are constrained 

 to admit the existence and reality of 

 human guidance and control, superposed 

 upon the physical scheme, we cannot deny 

 the possibility of such power and action to 

 any higher being, nor even to any totality 

 of Mind of which ours is a part. 



I do not see how the function claimed 

 can be resented, except by those who deny 

 " life " to be anything at all. If it exists, if it 

 is not mere illusion, it appears to me to be 

 something whose full significance lies in 

 another scheme of things, but which touches 

 and interacts with this material universe in 

 a certain way, building its particles into 

 notable configurations for a time without 

 confounding any physical laws, and then 

 evaporating whence it came. This language 

 is vague and figurative undoubtedly, but, I 

 contend, appropriately so, for we have not 



