126 LIFE IN NATURE. 



of false persuasions. One of the greatest intellects 

 has left on record the maxim it is part of the rich 

 legacy bequeathed by the author of the Novum 

 Organon that " a wise seeking is the half of know- 

 ing." According to our first impression, a wide gulf 

 separates that which has life from that which has 

 not. We naturally, therefore, prejudge the very 

 point at issue, and assume in living things the pos- 

 session of a peculiar endowment, which is the cause 

 of all that is distinctive in them. And then, with 

 this idea in our minds, we strive in vain to untie the 

 knot. The more we seek to understand life, consi- 

 dered as a power capable in itself of effecting the 

 various results which are exhibited in organic bodies 

 their growth, development and repair, their form 

 and structure, their continued existence in spite of 

 opposing agencies, their power of assimilating extra- 

 neous substances and making them part of them- 

 selves the more convinced we become that it can 

 never be understood. 



And the difficulty is immensely increased by the 

 connection which exists between life and consciousness. 

 The union of mind and body is in our experience so 



