LIVING AND DEAD. 1 5 



living are matter only." Everybody knows 

 about the matter, but he wants to know what 

 makes this matter do things while it is alive 

 which it cannot do when it is dead, and which 

 matter cannot be made to do before it begins 

 to live, — before it becomes a part of matter 

 which lives already. 



According to physical force doctrines the 

 living state is not very widely separated from 

 the non-living condition, and Dr. Gull confesses 

 that he cannot draw the line between the living- 

 and the dead. But surely it will not be main- 

 tained that a line cannot be drawn. If, then, one 

 form of philosophy is confessedly incompetent to 

 explain a familiar phenomenon, is it not better 

 to try some other kind of philosophy than to 

 accept, and without enquiry, the conclusion 

 that states so very far removed from one another, 

 so absolutely distinct according to all ordinary 

 V evidence and means of judging, really differ from 

 one another only in degree ? 



It is admitted that the supposed vital corre- 

 late has not yet been obtained from heat, light, 

 electricity, or converted into any one of these 

 or other modes of ordinary energy, but it is 

 said this will be proved to be possible. The 



