PROPHECIES. 6 



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vital force may be another form or mode of heat 

 or motion, unless facts and arguments can be 

 advanced in support of the supposed possibility. 

 The assertion has been repeated hundreds of 

 times, but the arguments which have been ad- 

 duced hitherto, have been shown to rest upon 

 no secure foundation. At the same time I 

 I would say, " By all means let the idea of vital 

 power be upset, for once and for all, if this can 

 be done." I hold it because I cannot escape 

 from it, because the facts I know, cannot be 

 explained without the hypothesis. 



The most sanguine physicists are perfectly sure 

 that thought and life itself will some day (!) be 

 summarily transformed into a new undiscovered 

 correlate by the might of unthinking force. 

 This is to happen as soon as the proper struc- 

 ture of the conditioning machinery, which is to 

 effect the change, shall have been determined, 

 and this is to be effected by force which is at the 

 same time condition, conditioned, and correlate. 

 But so far the transformation of life into force, 

 or force into life, has not been effected. Nor has 

 any one yet succeeded in showing that the ful- 

 filment of this possibility is near at hand, or 

 that it receives support from any newly dis- 



