LIFE AS COMPARES WITH THE PHYSICAL FORCES. 53 



In regard to all these Jind similar exceptions, we can only 

 assume that as life exists in a greater measure in some bodies than 

 in others, the resistance is correspondingly greater; and thai 

 where this is not the case, that some difference of structure 

 exists ; or that some glandular product is formed ; or that some 

 principle exists, possibly, and most probably in the blood itself, 

 constituting a force which neutralises that opposed to life force, 

 and thus leaves it untouched. 



These comments touch not upon the power of the will in 

 connection with force associated with organic matter; but seek 

 to show that force so associated, however divergent, however 

 apparently changed, however different in effect, is still primary 

 force per se ; the expression and manifestation of the will of the 

 Creator, arising at His command, continuing daring His pleasure, 

 pervading all His works, evidencing ifs existence alike in the 

 lowest and highest forms of life. 



(4) From the Rev. H. J. Clarke, M.A. :— 



In endeavouring to show that life has no place among the 

 so-called physical foi'ces, Mr. Slater directs attention at the outset 

 to what appears to me to be a conclusive argument. In light, 

 heat, electricity, chenaical change, and mechanical action, a con- 

 vertible energy, measurable by its manifestations, and capable of 

 representation by definite quantitative values, circulates among 

 these classes of phenomena, discovering itself now in one, now in 

 another. Life then, if it were some development of this, should 

 admit of being measured by its manifestations. But such is not 

 the case, and the difference between the two in this respect is not 

 doubtful, but patent and striking ; therefore we are entitled to 

 regard life as an essentially distinct agency. But what conception 

 are we to form of the modus operandi in the manifestations of 

 the physical energy ? Mr. Slater reminds us that there are 

 persons who hold them to be manifestations of " certain modes of 

 motion." I presume, however, his opinion is that he might grant 

 this assumption without thereby conceding that they are thus 

 accounted for. On the other hand, he would perhaps allow, at 

 any rate his argument does not compel him to deny, that all the 

 changes which constitute the phenomena of purely physical life, 

 admit of being conceived as modes of motion. For its starting 



