THE BREATH OF LIFE 



sees a low degree of sensation and a little higher de- 

 gree in the plasm. 



Have we not in this rudimentary psychic prin- 

 ciple which Haeckel ascribes to the atom a germ to 

 start with that will ultimately give us the mind of 

 man? With this spark, it seems to me, we can kin- 

 dle a flame that wall consume Haeckel's whole me- 

 chanical theory of creation. Physical science is clear 

 that the non-living or inorganic world was before 

 the living or organic world, but that the latter in 

 some mysterious way lay folded in the former. Sci- 

 ence has for many years been making desperate 

 efforts to awaken this slumbering life in its labora- 

 tories, but has not yet succeeded, and probably 

 never will succeed. Life without antecedent life 

 seems a biological impossibility. The theory of 

 spontaneous generation is rejected by the philo- 

 sophical mind, because our experience tells us that 

 everything has its antecedent, and that there is and 

 can be no end to the causal sequences. 



Spencer believes that the organic and inorganic 

 fade into each other by insensible gradations — that 

 no line can be drawn between them so that one can 

 say, on this side is the organic, on that the inorganic. 

 In other words, he says it is not necessary for us to 

 think of an absolute commencement of organic life, 

 or of a first organism — organic matter was not 

 produced all at once, but was reached through steps 

 or gradations. Yet it puzzles one to see how there 



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