44 CROONIAN LECTURES 



Let us, then, proceed to the primitive stage 

 of ideas regarding the union of matter and 

 vital force. 



In the earliest Jewish record, the same se- 

 paration may be traced between vegetable and 

 animal matter and life as between earthy and 

 watery matter and light. 



The separation between matter and force is 

 most distinctly stated in the highest of all 

 organised beings. We read that man was 

 formed of the dust of the ground; and, after 

 he was formed, the breath of life was breathed 

 into his nostrils. This is probably the oldest 

 idea in existence regarding the nature of the 

 vital force. It was a something added to the 

 matter of the full-formed man. The body was 

 without force until the life was given. The 

 idea of the force is distinctly separable from 

 the idea of the body, just as the idea of light 

 was distinctly separable from the idea of the 

 sun. This, then, is the earliest statement of 

 the first stage of ideas regarding the union of 

 matter and force. In it, perfect separation is 

 supposed to be possible between matter and 

 living force. 



If the Book of Genesis be a revelation of 



