54 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 
materialistic explanation which is usually as¬ 
sumed in consequence. 
Summarizing this chapter, it may be said 
that one of the most unique characteristics of 
life, and particularly of the higher forms of 
life, is its ability to express more or less com¬ 
plicated mental activity, resulting in self-con¬ 
sciousness in man. Thoughts do not arise 
from matter or from energy. They represent 
some third form of existence, and activity, dif¬ 
fering from these two. Consciousness is the 
highest manifestation of life, but as to its ori¬ 
gin, destiny, and the nature of its connection 
with the physical body and brain—these are as 
yet unsolved metaphysical questions, the an¬ 
swer to which can only be found by continued 
research in the direction of higher physical 
and psychical science. 
LIFE AND DEATH 
In one sense, it is true that all life has a 
beginning, in another sense, it is not! Each 
individual life apparently begins at the moment 
of conception, and ends at death; yet life itself 
reaches back into the dim past, and of its 
origin nothing certain is known (as we have 
seen in the chapter dealing with the origin of 
life.) We can only think of the ultimate termi¬ 
nation of all life with the end of the world—or 
at least its habitability; yet each individual life, 
as we have said, terminates at death; and if 
any form of life exists after death, that can be 
proved only by psychical research. Paradoxi¬ 
cally, life is infinitely finite—and ceaselessly 
ceasing! 
