THE BREATH OF LIFE 



charged with the bodily waste which it is the func- 

 tion to relieve. But the wonder of it all is how slight 

 a part our wills play in the process, and how our 

 lives are kept going by a mechanical force from with- 

 out, seconded or supplemented by chemical and 

 vital forces from within. 



The one chemical process with which we are fa- 

 miliar all our lives, but which we never think of as 

 such, is fire. Here on our own hearthstones goes on 

 this wonderful spectacular and beneficent trans- 

 formation of matter and energy, and yet we are 

 grown so familiar with it that it moves us not. We 

 can describe combustion in terms of chemistry, just 

 as we can describe the life-processes in similar terms, 

 yet the mystery is no more cleared up in the one 

 case than in the other. Indeed, it seems to me that 

 next to the mystery of life is the mystery of fire. 

 The oxidizing processes are identical, only one is a 

 building up or integrating process, and the other is a 

 pulling down or disintegrating process. More than 

 that, we can evoke fire any time, by both mechani- 

 cal and chemical means, from the combustible mat- 

 ter about us ; but we cannot evoke life. The equiva- 

 lents of life do not slumber in our tools as do the 

 equivalents of fire. Hence life is the deeper mys- 

 tery. The ancients thought of a spirit of fire as they 

 did of a spirit of health and of disease, and of good 

 and bad spirits all about them, and as we think of 

 a spirit of life, or of a creative life principle. Are 



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