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the question as to what it is by the exercise of which molecules 
or men perform their movements? What we call the inorganic 
matter of the world moves only as those forces that affect it 
are brought to bear upon its particles, or molecules if you will. 
The living being, be it plant or animal, is capable of moving 
itself into the current of those forces by which it is affected. 
A hailstone is melted when the sun shines upon it ; but it 
does not move itself into the sun's rays, as even a petal does 
by opening itself up when the sun is shining. It is this self- 
moving that tells us of life. Heat can be so introduced into 
the dying body as apparently (if not really) to pass into what 
may be called life; but it is not such life that is of deepest 
interest. It is that life by which heat may be produced at will 
by the living agent. We want to get at the true explanation 
of the difference between these two movements — that which is 
an effect and that which is a cause. It is no use telling us 
that there is no such thing as a cause in the sense in which we 
use the term. You may just as well tell us there is nothing. 
Even the molecule that moves up to another molecule and 
joins it compels us to think of something, which is not an 
effect in the sense in which the rolling of a stone in the river 
is one. The microscope takes us down to a region where men 
fancy that they see the passing of the organic into the in- 
organic, but they demonstrate rather by what they tell us that 
no such passing is to be seen. Life belongs to a creation of 
its own — a creation which is using the inorganic, as the 
inorganic is constantly taking back, as it were, that which the 
living have used. What is that grand distinction which sepa- 
rates these two creations ? 
17. We must lay aside the microscope and have recourse to 
thinking instead of seeing, in order to our having the reply. 
We must get rid of the fancy of “ contractility," which can be 
seen, and turn to that which contracts and manages the contrac- 
tion so as even to convey thought from man to man. The miser 
may as well tell the robber that there is no money in his house 
because it is not yet to be seen, as philosophers (so-called) 
may tell us that there is nothing but molecules and protoplasm 
in plants and animals because they can see nothing else with 
a magnifying power of 2,000 diameters. There is a spirit 
of the beast that goeth downward, and a spirit of man that 
goeth upward, though neither can be brought under the lens. 
That spirit is living in the beast, and so is the superior 
spirit in the man. In so far as there is true self-movement 
in the plant, there is a spirit there too. There is no satis- 
factory solution of the problem of life, if we exclude this spirit 
or self-moving entity. 
