LIFE AND SCIENCE 



ing and eating? It was a baby before it did either, 

 and it would seem as if life must in some way ante- 

 date the physical and chemical processes that at- 

 tend it, or at least be bound up in them in a way that 

 no scientific analysis can reveal. 



If life is merely a mode of motion in matter, it is 

 fundamentally unlike any and all other modes of 

 motion, because, while we can institute all the 

 others at will, we are powerless to institute this. 

 The mode of motion we call heat is going on in vary- 

 ing degrees of velocity all about us at all times and 

 seasons, but the vital motion of matter is limited to 

 a comparatively narrow circle. We can end it, but 

 we cannot start it. 



The rigidly scientific type of mind sees no greater 

 mystery in the difference in contour of different 

 animal bodies than a mere difference in the density 

 of the germ cells: "one density results in a sequence 

 of cell-densities to form a horse; another a dog; an- 

 other a cat": and avers that if we "repeat the same 

 complex conditions, the same results are as inevita- 

 ble as the sequences of forces that result in the for- 

 mation of hydrogen monoxide from hydrogen and 

 oxygen." 



Different degrees of density may throw light on 

 the different behavior of gases and fluids and solids, 

 but can it throw any light on the question of why a 

 horse is a horse, and a dog a dog? or why one is an 

 herbivorous feeder, and the other a carnivorous? 



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