156 LIFE IN NATUEE. 



May it not, then, be urged that we have grasped at 

 life, and it has escaped us ? Those processes which 

 we find in its place are not what we sought are 

 not what we can recognize. Life on this view is 

 not explained; it is denied. It is true that it is 

 made imiversal, but in that very universality the 

 thing itself is lost. The passive processes which are 

 substituted for it present not one of the characters 

 which we seem to feel and know in life fulfil not 

 one of our instinctive affirmations respecting it. 

 Have we not analyzed it into nonentity? found 

 the fair seeming fruit to be but ashes? 



In a certain sense I feel that this is true. By 

 life we do not mean, and we cannot accept as its 

 explanation, any mere results of material laws. Our 

 souls may be over-ridden by demonstrations to this 

 effect, silenced by evidence to which we may not 

 deny assent, but they are not satisfied. There is 

 another life than an aggregate of material processes : 

 whatever may be the appearance, that cannot be 

 the truth. Life is a unity, not a group of results ; 

 a power, not a mere effect. 



These thoughts, and others to which I shall refer 



