THE WAY OF ESCAPE. 171 ■ 



non-living within the body ? If we answer " yes," 

 then, as we have seen, moiety after moiety is filched 

 from us, till we find ourselves left face to face with a 

 tenuous quasi immaterial vital principle or soul as 

 animating an alien body, with which it not only has 

 no essential underlying community of substance, but 

 with which it has no conceivable point in common to 

 render a union between the two possible, or give the 

 one a grip of any kind over the other ; in fact, the 

 doctrine of disembodied spirits, so instinctively rejected 

 by all who need be listened to, comes back as it 

 would seem, with a scientific imprimatur ; if, on the 

 other hand, we exclude the non-living from the body, 

 then what are we to do with nails that want cutting, 

 dying skin, or hair that is ready to fall off? Are they 

 less living than brain ? Answer " yes," and degrees are 

 admitted, which we have already seen prove fatal ; 

 answer " no," and we must deny that one part of the 

 body is more vital than another — and this is refusing 

 to go as far even as common sense does ; answer that 

 these things are not very important, and we quit the 

 ground of equity and high philosophy on which we 

 have given ourselves suqh airs, and go back to common 

 sense as unjust judges that will hear those widows 

 only who importune us. 



As with the non-living so also with the living. 

 Are we to let it pass beyond the limits of the body, 

 and allow a certain temporary overflow of livingness 

 to ordain as it were machines in use ? Then death 

 will fare, if we once let life without the body, as life 

 fares if we once let death within it. It becomes 



