i66 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



word material within these limitations, but all 

 that we wish to emphasise is that beyond the 

 phenomena of nature with which we have been 

 till recently acquainted there exist other pheno- 

 mena, which in turn are subject to laws, but 

 which at first sight at least seem to be independent 

 of the older and more familiar effects. The 

 attempt is therefore an effort to include the 

 so-called immaterial phenomena within the ordinary 

 course of nature ; the two classes of effects being 

 apparently independent of each other, but really 

 closely interwound and capable of being trans- 

 formed one into the other. That must be our 

 earnest endeavour to prove ; for the conviction 

 that Monism in its ultimate form is the correct 

 view of the world is as deeply rooted in our minds 

 at the present day as in that of Haeckel, or for 

 that in the mind of Spinoza. It is only a question 

 as to where the dividing line is to be drawn ; 

 though that line does not really separate the two 

 or destroy the continuity between them wherever 

 it is drawn. 



Life-activity is a phenomenon of matter as 

 much as radio-activity, although really of a more 

 complex kind, and the manner in which the 

 energy is stored up in the ultimate nucleus is 

 probably pretty much the same. Such nuclei may 

 have existed, like the chemical elements them- 

 selves, throughout the universe for an almost 

 indefinite time. To account for their formation 



