568 THE PLANT'S PLACE IN NATURE 



carried into the atmospliere of a planet, and without harm come to 

 rest upon its surface there to germinate if the conditions proved to 

 be favorable. It would thus appear that wc have abmidant scientific 

 warrant for supposing that the first living things upon our earth were 

 resting spores which came through vast spaces from some other 

 planet; and that our simplest forms of life are being distributed sim- 

 ilarly throughout the universe, just as similar living germs have been 

 carried from planet to planet during endless ages for which it would 

 be idle to seek a beginning. Life having always existed does not 

 need to be accounted for in terms of phj'sics and chemistry.' 



If not in physical or chemical terms, how then can we 

 define that which distinguishes all living from all lifeless 

 things? Some naturalists have seemed to think that this 

 question could best be answered by trying to interpret the 

 more complex manifestations of life in the higher organisms 

 through a study of the simpler manifestations of the lower 

 forms: but this means trying to explain the life of which we 

 know most by tliat of which we know least. A method 

 just the reverse is surely more promising. When I ask myself 

 what it is that makes me alive, my answer is; Not any par- 

 ticular arrangement or movement of material particles of a 

 certain sort, but rather an immaterial something which to 

 some extent can control the arrangements and movements 

 of such particles in accordance with purposes peculiarly my 

 own. My body is alive only- so long as it affords opportunity 

 for the exercise of my will. It is my power of choice that 

 makes me alive. What I choose gives me my character. My 

 life and my individuality come from my power to choose 

 and the way I use it. 



If you should ask me how I suppose an immaterial existence 

 can exert an influence upon what is material, I must answer 

 that I have no more id(^a than I have how mind can affect 

 mind or matter affect matter. The real nature of either is 

 doubtless very imperfectly expressed by any scientific defini- 

 tions of them that were ever offered; but I do not need to know 

 the ultimate truth about them in order to feel justified in be- 

 lieving that somehow in every living creature the free will of 

 something mental gets expressed through something material, 



' For a fuller ac^'ount of (he theory iif |)anspemiia the student may 

 pnjfitaljly consult Wtirhlt: in tlir Miikiiiii by Svanle Ai'rhenius, I'JOS, 

 from which the calculations given above havt; been taken. 



