THE BREATH OF LIFE 



mechanical process, the oxidation of the blood is a 

 chemical process, and the renewal of the corpuscles 

 is a vital process. Growth, assimilation, elimination, 

 reproduction, metabolism, and secretion, are all 

 vital processes which cannot be described in terms 

 of physics and chemistry. All our bodily move- 

 ments — lifting, striking, walking, running — are 

 mechanical, but seeing, hearing, and tasting, are of 

 another order. And that which controls, directs, 

 coordinates, and inhibits our activities belongs to a 

 still higher order, the psychic. The world of thoughts 

 and emotions within us, while dependent upon and 

 interacting with the physical world without us, 

 cannot be accounted for in terms of the physical 

 world. A living thing is more than a machine, 

 more than a chemical laboratory. 



We can analyze the processes of a tree into their 

 mechanical and chemical elements, but there is be- 

 sides a kind of force there which we must call vital. 

 The whole growth and development of the tree, its 

 manner of branching and gripping the soil, its fixity 

 of species, its individuality — all imply something 

 that does not belong to the order of the inorganic, 

 automatic forces. In the living animal how the 

 psychic stands related to the physical or physiologi- 

 cal and arises out of it, science cannot tell us, but 

 the relation must be real; only philosophy can 

 grapple with that question. To resolve the pyschic 

 and the vital into the mechanical and chemical and 



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