220 
being a soft part, is doubtless changed very frequently during 
life. What follows from these facts ? This fact, viz., that after 
several changes — entire disappearances, indeed — of my body, 
my personal identity remains. This being so, it results that 
the maintenance of my personal identity does not depend alto- 
gether (if at all) on the particles of matter which compose my 
body. Something there is which lives on continuously amidst 
all the physical changes and disappearances. Something there 
is which remains. What is it ? The particles of carbon, oxygen, 
hydrogen, iron, and what not, come and go. They are clearly 
particles only — fragmentary, separable, dismissible atoms. They 
have not, in themselves, even the “ promise ” of continuity. If 
they have not its promise, still less have they its potency. And 
yet continuity there is. And there must be something which 
not only possesses it, but guarantees it. That something is not 
one or any number of these wandering atoms. Of that there 
can be no doubt. But if so, then does matter, even when we 
add to it, or put into it, motion and force and law, fail to 
account for that continued identity of the living man, which is 
the most astonishing fact of all. Declaring that, as a piece of 
matter, 7, a living man, disappear every seven or ten years, 
Present-day Materialism fails to account for my continued 
personal identity.* 
Again : Science teaches that there are certain natural or 
physical forces. I suppose they are called such because they 
affect matter. But we are now assured that those various forces 
are all phases or modes of one Master-force. f However this 
may be, I desire you to observe that those forces — separately or 
conjointly — do not account for all kinds and qualities of life, as 
Dr. Tyndall affirms, — I mean, of course, the forces of gravita- 
tion, attraction, repulsion, electricity, and the forces called 
chemical affinity, and so forth. Physiologists declare that when 
they examine organized creatures they are brought face to face 
with a quite independent force : nay, an unknown force. This 
new force they call the life force , and we are assured that with- 
out this force the phenomena of living bodies cannot be ex- 
plained. All organization pre-supposes this special life force. J 
And you will perceive how true this must be when you think 
upon Death. What is a dead body ? A body from which the 
life-force has disappeared. What happens to it ? It becomes 
the subject of the activity of all the physical forces — chemical 
and mechanical — unaffected by the life-force. Heat, light, 
* Note VIII., Appendix. f Note IX., Appendix. 
+ Note X., Appendix. 
