it the attribute of
indestructibility; for we need only leave the dead animal or plant
containing the protoplasm alone, and it will rot and decay--organs,
tissues, and protoplasm altogether.

To our further perplexity the Esoteric Doctrine tells us that the vital
principle is not only indestructible, but it is a form of force, which,
when disconnected with one set of atoms, becomes attracted immediately
by others. The vital principle to the Esoteric Doctrine would then
appear to be a sort of abstract force, not a force inherent in the
living protoplasm--this is the scientific conception--but a force per
se, independent altogether of the material with which it is connected.

Now I must confess this is a doctrine which puzzles one greatly,
although one may have no difficulty in accepting the spirit of man as an
entity, for the phenomena of ratiocination are altogether so widely
different from all physical phenomena that they can hardly be explained
by any of the physical forces known to us. The materialist, who tells
us that consciousness, sensation, thought, and the spontaneous power of
the will, so peculiar to man and to the higher animals, are altogether
so many outcomes of certain conditions of matter and nothing else, makes
at best merely a subjective statement. He cannot help acknowledging
that spontaneity is not a quality of matter. He is then driven to the
contention that what we believe to be spontaneous in us, is, after all,
an unconscious result of external impulses only. His contention rests
then on the basis of his own inner experience, or what he believes to be
such. This contention of his is, however, disputed by many, who no less
appeal to their own inner experience, or what they believe to be their
experience. It is then a question of inner experience of the one party
versus inner experience of the other. And such being the case, the
scientific materialist is driven to admit that his theory, however
correct it may be, rests, after all, on subjective experience, and can,
as such, not claim the rank of positive knowledge. There is then no
difficulty in accepting the entity of the spirit in man, the
materialistic assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. But the vital
force is exclusively concerned with the construction of matter. Here we
have a right to expect that physical and chemical forces should hold the
whole ground of an explanation, if an explanation is possible at all.
Now, physical an