7 2 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



definition of the meaning of such a general abstract 

 term. The time is, moreover, well-nigh passed when 

 much importance can be attached to attempts to define 

 c Life.' Such an end might have had more attractions 

 for those who looked upon Life as the manifestation of 

 an independent c principle' or entity, but it is certainly 

 far less important for those who look upon the word 

 c Life' as a mere name connoting a set of attributes 

 which belong to all living things. Believing this to be 

 true, believing that anything which can be called 

 Life, or the 'principle' of Life, has no more a separate 

 and independent existence in the worM than that 

 c blackness' has any real existence apart from a thing 

 possessing this quality, it would seem that the reader 

 would be likely to derive clearer notions of the nature 

 of Life, if in place of the definition of this abstract 

 name, we were to substitute the definition of a Living 

 Thing 1 . This should be done in such general terms 

 that although the definition may be in itself distinctive 

 and only applicable to the objects in question all things 

 manifesting this set of properties connoted by the word 

 c Life' may, nevertheless, be included under it. Such 

 a definition of a Living Thing might stand as follows : 



1 Every abstract name must, in fact, include in its signification the 

 existence of some object to which the quality, of which it is the name, 

 belongs. And inasmuch as no Life can exist without an organism, of 

 which it is the phenomenal manifestation, so it seems comparatively 

 useless to attempt to define this phenomenal manifestation alone and 

 what is worse, such attempts may tend to keep up the" idea that Life is 

 an independent entity. 



