THE BREATH OF LIFE 



The scientific explanation of life phenomena is 

 analogous to reducing a living body to its ashes and 

 pointing to them — the lime, the iron, the phos- 

 phorus, the hydrogen, the oxygen, the carbon, the 

 nitrogen — as the whole secret. 



Professor Czapek is not entirely consistent. He 

 says that it is his conviction that there is some- 

 thing in physiology that transcends the chemistry 

 and the physics of inorganic nature. At the same 

 time he affirms, "It becomes more and more im- 

 probable that Life develops forces which are un- 

 known in inanimate Nature." But psychic forces 

 are a product of life, and they certainly are not 

 found in inanimate nature. But without laying 

 stress upon this fact, may we not say that if no new 

 force is developed by, or is characteristic of, life, 

 certainly new effects, new processes, new compounds 

 of matter are produced by life? Matter undergoes 

 some change that chemical analysis does not re- 

 veal. The mystery of isomeric substances appears, 

 a vast number of new compounds of carbon appear, 

 the face of the earth changes. The appearance of 

 life in inert matter is a change analogous to the ap- 

 pearance of the mind of man in animate nature. 

 The old elements and forces are turned to new and 

 higher uses. Man does not add to the list of forces 

 or elements in the earth, but he develops them, and 

 turns them to new purposes; they now obey and 

 serve him, just as the old chemistry and physics 



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