THE BREATH OF LIFE 



made of one stuff; Jew and Gentile are made of one 

 stuff. Should we be justified, then, in saying that 

 there is no difference between them? There is cer- 

 tainly a moral and an intellectual difference be- 

 tween a man and his dog, if there is no chemical 

 and mechanical difference. And there is as certainly 

 as wide or a wider difference between living and 

 non-living matter, though it be beyond the reach of 

 science to detect. For this difference we have to 

 have a name, and we use the words "vital," "vi- 

 tality," which seem to me to stand for as undeniable 

 realities as the words heat, light, chemical affinity, 

 gravitation. There is not a principle of roundness, 

 though "nature centres into balls," nor of square- 

 ness, though crystallization is in right lines, nor of 

 aquosity, though two thirds of the surface of the 

 earth is covered with water. Can we on any better 

 philosophical grounds say that there is a principle 

 of vitality, though the earth swarms with living 

 beings? Yet the word vitality stands for a reality, 

 it stands for a peculiar activity in matter — for cer- 

 tain movements and characteristics for which we 

 have no other term. I fail to see any analogy be- 

 tween aquosity and that condition of matter we 

 call vital or living. Aquosity is not an activity, it 

 is a property, the property of wetness; viscosity is a 

 term to describe other conditions of matter; solid- 

 ity, to describe still another condition; and opacity 

 and transparency, to describe still others — as they 



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