LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 
parative ease, but in more highly developed 
forms of life, the problem is correspondingly 
difficult. The task of passing-on life is then 
consigned to definite units of living matter, 
which are forever passed onward through suc¬ 
ceeding generations, while the great mass of 
bodily matter is cast-off as of no further use, 
at death. 
THE NATURE OF LIFE 
Every animal and vegetable has its own par¬ 
ticular variety of life. The life of a cabbage 
is entirely different from that of a fox-terrier, 
and this, in turn, is very different from the life 
of man. Cabbages tend to reproduce cabbages 
and fox-terriers, fox-terriers. It would appear, 
therefore, that there are as many varieties of 
life-energy, as there are plants, animals, in¬ 
sects, etc., in the entire world, and that these 
varieties of life-energy cannot interchange one 
with another, or vary from their original pat¬ 
tern to any great extent. All life may ultimately 
be one, but in its expression, it assumes many 
forms, aspects, or manifestations. 
The life-energy of the human body was called 
its “vitality” by the older writers. They as¬ 
sumed that life was an energy different from 
all other energies in the world, and in no way 
related to them. This was the doctrine of 
“vitalism,” which is still maintained by certain 
eminent biologists. Hans Driesch, Bergson, 
James, Minot, and others have ably defended 
the vitalistic theory, while the majority of 
physiologists are inclined to accept a mechan¬ 
istic interpretation of life—contending that life 
is merely one of the modes or expressions of 
