THE BREATH OF LIFE 



the vital force. There is no life without chemism, 

 but there is chemism without life. 



We have to have a name for the action and reac- 

 tion of the primary elements upon one another and 

 we call it chemical affinity; we have to have a name 

 for their behavior in building up organic bodies, and 

 we call it vitality or vitalism. 



The rigidly scientific man sees no need of the con- 

 ception of a new form or kind of force; the physico- 

 chemical forces as we see them in action all about us 

 are adequate to do the work, so that it seems like a 

 dispute about names. But my mind has to form a 

 new conception of these forces to bridge the chasm 

 between the organic and the inorganic; not a quan- 

 titative but a qualitative change is demanded, like 

 the change in the animal mind to make it the hu- 

 man mind, an unfolding into a higher plane. 



Whether the evolution of the human mind from 

 the animal was by insensible gradations, or by a few 

 sudden leaps, who knows? The animal brain began 

 to increase in size in Tertiary times, and seems to 

 have done so suddenly, but the geologic ages were so 

 long that a change in one hundred thousand years 

 would seem sudden. "The brains of some species 

 increase one hundred per cent." The mammal brain 

 greatly outstripped the reptile brain. Was Nature 

 getting ready for man? 



The air begins at once to act chemically upon the 

 blood in the lungs of the newly born, and the gastric 



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