THE MATERIAL VIEW OF LIFE. 533 



rest of the army passes. When a stream is too rapid for such a 

 bridge, they form a suspension bridge by hanging from a friendly 

 branch, and when wafted across by a breeze, they firmly anchor 

 on the opposite shore, thus allowing the rest to cross in safety, 

 and swing over themselves when the others have all crossed. 



-+++- 



THE MATERIAL VIEW OF LIFE AXD ITS RELATION 



TO THE SPIRITUAL. 



Br Prof. GRAHAM LUSK, 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, YALE MEDICAL SCHOOL. 



TTJ'E live in a material age. Old beliefs are being supplanted 

 V V by what seem to be new truths. The student finds on every 

 hand vast volumes of learning bequeathed to him by those 

 who have labored before him ; and he who plunges deeply into 

 this onward-rushing tide of material truths is often startled to 

 find there an undertow sucking away the spiritual foundation. 

 Skeptics, in scorn of latter-day religion, refer to the middle ages 

 as the ages of faith. Christians, half dismayed, ask themselves, 

 Is mankind to be swallowed up in the abyss of materialism ? 



It is the purpose of this paper to discuss life from a strictly 

 material standpoint, and afterward to show that belief in the 

 material interpretation does not cut one off from belief in the 

 spiritual. 



My own ideas have been largely influenced by German 

 thought. Those who have had the privilege of listening to the 

 lectures of Prof. Carl Voit in Munich will recognize in this paper 

 many traces of his teaching. Through him I received instruction 

 in the material view of life. 



The idea of the world held by Aristotle was that all things 

 were made up of certain elementary matter, qualified by four 

 properties — hot, cold, wet, and dry. Matter, with the properties 

 cold and dry, was earth ; with cold and wet, water ; with hot and 

 wet, air; and with hot and dry, fire. Different bodies varied 

 from each other as they contained different proportions of the 

 properties. These properties could be driven off from matter — 

 that is to say, were separable from matter. Thus, the alchemists 

 of the middle ages thought if they could drive a certain property 

 out of mercury, or put a new one into it, clearly they would pro- 

 duce gold. 



In like manner these same principles came into use for the ex- 

 planation of life. During life there was a property present which 

 departed at death — a living principle, a " vital force." 



Galen, who was born at Troy, and who died at Rome a. d. 200, 



