THE BREATH OF LIFE 



perience gives rise, through some unknown kind of 

 molecular activity, to something which is analogous 

 to the electric current in a live wire, and which trav- 

 erses the nerves and results in our changing states 

 of consciousness. This is the mechanistic explana- 

 tion of mind, consciousness, etc., but it is the only 

 one, or kind of one, that lends itself to scientific in- 

 terpretation. Life, spirit, consciousness, may be a 

 mode of motion as distinct from all other modes of 

 motion, such as heat, light, electricity, as these are 

 distinct from each other. 



When we speak of force of mind, force of charac- 

 ter, we of course speak in parables, since the force 

 here alluded to is an experience of our own minds 

 entirely and would not suffice to move the finest 

 dust-particle in the air. 



There could be no vegetable or animal life with- 

 out the sunbeam, yet when we have explained or 

 accounted for the growth of a tree in terms of the 

 chemistry and physics of the sunbeam, do we not 

 have to figure to ourselves something in the tree 

 that avails itself of this chemistry, that uses it and 

 profits by it? After this mysterious something has 

 ceased to operate, or play its part, the chemistry of 

 the sunbeam is no longer effective, and the tree is 

 dead. 



Without the vibrations that we call light, there 

 would have been no eye. But, as Bergson happily 

 says, it is not light passively received that makes the 



5 



