LIFE AND SCIENCE 



wages war on disease germs by specific ferments, 

 which renders us immune to this or that disease; in 

 fact, which carries on all the processes of our phys- 

 ical life without asking leave or seeking counsel of 

 us, — all this is on another plane from the mechan- 

 ical or chemical — super-mechanical. 



The human spirit, the brute spirit, the vegetable 

 spirit — all are mere names to fill a void. The spirit 

 of the oak, the beech, the pine, the palm — how 

 different! how different the plan or idea or interior 

 economies of each, though the chemical and me- 

 chanical processes are the same, the same mineral 

 and gaseous elements build them up, the same sun 

 is their architect ! But what physical principle can 

 account for the difference between a pine and an 

 oak, or, for that matter, between a man and his 

 dog, or a bird and a fish, or a crow and a lark? What 

 play and action or interaction and reaction of purely 

 chemical and mechanical forces can throw any light 

 on the course evolution has taken in the animal life 

 of the globe — why the camel is the camel, and the 

 horse the horse? or in the development of the nerv- 

 ous system, or the circulatory system, or the diges- 

 tive system, or of the eye, or of the ear? 



A living body is never in a state of chemical re- 

 pose, but inorganic bodies usually are. Take away 

 the organism and the environment remains essen- 

 tially the same; take away the environment and 

 the organism changes rapidly and perishes — it goes 



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