MODERN CONCEPTION OF MATTER 31 



gv&^ pari passu with the idea of a spiritual principle 

 of life in organic moving matter ; and this idea, again, 

 must be almost as old as the observation that breath 

 was necessary to maintain the activities of animals. 

 The distinction between animate and inanimate 

 matter must be at least as old as the conception of 

 breath as spirit, or even as the raw material of spirit. 

 Even as the psycho-physiological doctrine of the 

 manufacture of spirit from breath was developed 

 by Plato and by the early physiologists, its corollary, 

 dead matter, must have coincidently established 

 its place in the creed of thinking men ; but it must 

 be recognised that there is nothing inevitable in 

 the distinction between dead and living matter ; 

 and that, except for the doctrine of soul^ there is 

 really not much reason why a star should be con- 

 sidered deader than a tree. Passive and spoliated 

 matter is, as Bacon said, " an invention of the 

 human intellect." A star moves, a star shines : a 

 star acts upon mind by its light. And, in early days, 

 as we have before suggested, no clear distinction 

 between dead and living was drawn ; and the stars, 

 and the seas, and all great aggregates of inorganic 

 nature were considered as living bodies. Hence, 

 no doubt, Tithonus, Ceres, Neptune, and all the 

 mythical personages of the Greek and Latin religions. 

 All along — even in the days of philosophy and 

 physiology — there seems to have been some re- 



