THE PHANTOMS BEHIND US 
Mars. It must be and must have always been po- 
tential in matter, but this fact leaves the mystery 
as profound as ever. 
Yet if the artificial production of life were to 
happen to-day — if in some of our laboratories liv- 
ing matter were produced from non-living, should 
we not still have to credit the event to some mysteri- 
ous potency residing in matter itself? If by a lucky 
stroke man were to evoke the organic from the inor- 
ganic, be assured he would not evoke something 
from nothing, or add anything to the latent possi- 
bilities of the elements with which he works. Does 
not the question still remain who or what made this 
feat possible? One dare affirm that man cannot cre- 
ate life de novo any more than he can create matter. 
He may yet evoke life as he evokes the spark from 
the flint and the flame from the match or as he 
evokes force from the food heeats. In this latter case 
he does not create the force; he liberates it through 
the vital forces of his body. The spark from the flint 
and the flame from the match were called forth by a 
mechanical process, but the process was set going 
by the will which waits upon the vital process. The 
body with all its many functions is a complicated 
system of mechanical devices and chemical pro- 
cesses, but that which is back of all and governs all 
is not mechanical; the body is a machine plus some- 
thing else. 
The chemist or biologist who shall produce a 
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