THE BREATH OF LIFE 



it speculates or theorizes, it must make its specula- 

 tions good. Scientific prophecy is amenable to the 

 same tests as other prophecy. In the absence of 

 proof by experiment — scientific proof — to get the 

 living out of the non-living we have either got to 

 conceive of matter itself as fundamentally creative, 

 as the new materialism assumes, or else we have got 

 to have an external Creator, as the old theology as- 

 sumes. And the difference is more apparent than 

 real. Tyndall is "baffled and bewildered" by the 

 fact that out of its molecular vibrations and activi- 

 ties "things so utterly incongruous with them as 

 sensation, thought, and emotion can be derived." 

 His science is baffled and bewildered because it can- 

 not, bound as it is by the iron law of the conserva- 

 tion and correlation of energy, trace the connection 

 between them. But his philosophy or his theology 

 would experience little difficulty. Henri Bergson 

 shows no hesitation in declaring that the fate of con- 

 sciousness is not involved in the fate of the brain 

 through which it is manifested, but it is his phil- 

 osophy and not his science that inspires this faith. 

 Tyndall deifies matter to get life out of it — makes 

 the creative energy potential in it. Bergson deifies 

 or spiritualizes life as a psychic, creative principle, 

 and makes matter its instrument or vehicle. 



Science is supreme in its own sphere, the sphere, 

 or hemisphere, of the objective world, but it does 

 not embrace the whole of human life, because hu- 



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