THE NATURALIST'S VIEW OF LIFE 



be born of cell structure in one form of life and not 

 in another, who shall tell us? Why matter in the 

 brain should think, and in the cabbage only grow, 

 is a question. 



The naturalist has not the slightest doubt that 

 the mind of man was evolved from some order of 

 animals below him that had less mind, and that the 

 mind of this order was evolved from that of a still 

 lower order, and so on down the scale till we reach a 

 point where the animal and vegetable meet and 

 blend, and the vegetable mind, if we may call it 

 such, passed into the animal, and still downward till 

 the vegetable is evolved from the mineral. If to be- 

 lieve this is to be a monist, then science is monistic; 

 it accepts the transformation or metamorphosis of 

 the lower into the higher from the bottom of crea- 

 tion to the top, and without any break of the causal 

 sequence. There has been no miracle, except in the 

 sense that all life is a miracle. Of how the organic rose 

 out of the inorganic, we can form no mental image; 

 the intellect cannot bridge the chasm; but that such 

 is the fact, there can be no doubt. There is no solu- 

 tion except that life is latent or potential in matter, 

 but these again are only words that cover a mystery. 



I do not see why there may not be some force la- 

 tent in matter that we may call the vital force, physi- 

 cal force transformed and heightened, as justifiably 

 as we can postulate a chemical force latent in mat- 

 ter. The chemical force underlies and is the basis of 



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