THE ORGAXIC AND THE INORGANIC. 197 



must not be forgotten that, in discussing organic 

 life, we pre-suppose the chemical affinities ; and these 

 being taken as our postulates, the phenomena of the 

 organic world are of the kind which we best under- 

 stand. As based on an opposition, by other forces, 

 to those chemical affinities, and as displaying powers 

 due to^he force thus stored up, life presents to us 

 no mystery. Almost we might say that it exhibits 

 to us, under this aspect, the one thing in respect to 

 the natural forces that we may be said to compre- 

 hend : the production of a tension and its results. 

 And remembering the effect exerted by the forces of 

 nature in maintaining and increasing this tension, 

 and by mechanical conditions in moulding the 

 material so produced ; remembering these things, we 

 can hardly call life mysterious at all. It presents to 

 us a lively instance of known, and, in one sense, 

 well-understood phenomena. But there is a mystery 

 in it, doubtless. In making us conscious of the 

 presence of a mystery it has done us good service, 

 though our wonder has been misplaced. The organic 

 life we understand ; but those wider forces and 

 affinities which underlie it, and by virtue of which 



