s
tremendous complex of physical forces--there appears, at least on this
earth, in the course of its evolution, this something, or this peculiar
manifestation of energy, that we call vital. Apparently it is a
transient phase of activity in matter, which, unlike other chemical and
physical activities, has its beginning and its ending, and out of which
have arisen all the myriad forms of terrestrial life. The merely
material forces, blind and haphazard from the first, did not arise in
matter; they are inseparable from it; they are as eternal as matter
itself; but the activities called vital arose in time and place, and
must eventually disappear as they arose, while the career of the
inorganic elements goes on as if life had never visited the sphere. Was
it, or is it, a visitation--something _ab extra_ that implies
super-mundane, or supernatural, powers?

Added to this wonder is the fact that the vital order has gone on
unfolding through the geologic ages, mounting from form to form, or from
order to order, becoming more and more complex, passing from the
emphasis of size of body, to the emphasis of size of brain, and finally
from instinct and reflex activities to free volition, and the reason and
consciousness of man; while the purely physical and chemical forces
remain where they began. There has been endless change among them,
endless shifting of the balance of power, but always the tendency to a
dead equilibrium, while the genius of the organic forces has been in the
power to disturb the equilibrium and to ride into port on the crest of
the wave it has created, or to hang forever between the stable and the
unstable.

So there we are, confronted by two apparently contrary truths. It is to
me unthinkable that the vital order is not as truly rooted in the
constitution of things as are the mechanical and chemical orders; and
yet, here we are face to face with its limited, fugitive, or
transitional character. It comes and goes like the dews of the morning;
it has all the features of an exceptional, unexpected, extraordinary
occurrence--of miracle, if you will; but if the light which physical
science turns on the universe is not a delusion, if the habit of mind
which it begets is not a false one, then life belongs to the same
category of things as do day and night, rain and sun, rest and motion.
Who shall reconcile these contradictions?

Huxley spoke for physical science when he said that he did not know what
it was that