THE BREATH OF LIFE 



the changing forms of life and nature, and their final 

 source and cause. 



The mind is satisfied when it finds a word that 

 gives it a hold of a thing or a process, or when it can 

 picture to itself just how the thing occurs. Thus, 

 for instance, to account for the power generated by 

 the rushing together of hydrogen and oxygen to pro- 

 duce water, we have to conceive of space between 

 the atoms of these elements, and that the force gen- 

 erated comes from the immense velocity with which 

 the infinitesimal atoms rush together across this in- 

 finitesimal space. It is quite possible that this is not 

 the true explanation at all, but it satisfies the mind 

 because it is an explanation in terms of mechanical 

 forces that we know. 



The solar energy goes into the atoms or corpuscles 

 one thing, and it comes out another; it goes in as in- 

 organic force, and it comes out as organic and psy- 

 chic. The change or transformation takes place in 

 those invisible laboratories of the infinitesimal 

 atoms. It helps my mental processes to give that 

 change a name — vitality — and to recognize it as 

 a supra-mechanical force. Pasteur wanted a name 

 for it and called it "dissymmetric force." 



We are all made of one stuff undoubtedly, vegeta- 

 ble and animal, man and woman, dog and donkey, 

 and the secret of the difference between us, and of 

 the passing along of the difference from generation to 

 generation with but slight variations, may be, so to 



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