THE BREATH OF LIFE 



curs in the chemist's laboratory ... it simply gives 

 rise to heat," are questions he cannot answer. In 

 all his inquiries into the parts played by mechanical 

 and chemical laws in the organism, he is compelled 

 to " assume as their foundation the simple vital prop- 

 erties of living phenomena." 



VI 



It should not surprise nor disturb us that the 

 scientific interpretation of life leads to materialism, 

 or to the conviction of the all-sufficiency of the me- 

 chanical and chemical forces of dead matter to ac- 

 count for all living phenomena. It need not surprise 

 us because positive science, as such, can deal only 

 with physical and chemical forces. If there is any- 

 thing in this universe besides physical and chemical 

 force, science does not know it. It does not know it 

 because it is absolutely beyond the reach of its 

 analysis. When we go beyond the sphere of the 

 concrete, the experimental, the verifiable, only our 

 philosophy can help us. The world within us, the 

 world of psychic forces, is beyond the ken of science. 

 It can analyze the living body, trace all its vital 

 processes, resolve them into their mechanical and 

 chemical equivalents, show us the parts played by 

 the primary elements, the part played by the en- 

 zymes, or ferments, and the like, and yet it cannot 

 tell us the secret of life — of that which makes or- 

 ganic chemistry so vastly different from inorganic. 



94 



