d chemical forces are no entities; they are invariably
connected with matter. In fact, they are so intimately connected with
matter that they can never be dissevered from it altogether. The energy
of matter may be latent or patent, and, when patent, it may manifest
itself in one form or the other, according to the condition of its
surroundings; it may manifest itself in the shape of light, heat,
electricity, magnetism, or vitality; but in one form or the other
energy constantly inheres in matter. The correlation of forces is now a
well-established, scientific fact, and it is more than plausible that
what is called the vital principle, or the vital force, forms a link in
the chain of the other known physical forces, and is, therefore,
transmutable into any of them; granted even that there is such a thing
as a distinct vital force. The tendency of modern Biology is then to
discard the notion of a vital entity altogether. If vital force is to
be indestructible, then so are also indestructible heat, light,
electricity, &c.; they are indestructible in this sense, that whenever
their respective manifestation is suspended or arrested, they make their
appearance in some other form of force; and in this very same sense
vital force may be looked upon as indestructible: whenever vital
manifestation is arrested, what had been acting as vital force is
transformed into chemical, electrical forces, &c., taking its place.

But the Esoteric Doctrine appears to teach something quite different
from what I have just explained, and what is, as far as I understand, a
fair representation of the scientific conception of the subject. The
Esoteric Doctrine tells us that the vital principle is indestructible,
and, when disconnected with one set of atoms, becomes attracted by
others. He then evidently holds that, what constitutes the vital
principle is a principle or form of force per se, a form of force which
can leave one set of atoms and go over as such to another set, without
leaving any substitute force behind. This, it must be said, is simply
irreconcileable with the scientific view on the subject as hitherto
understood.

By the and of Professor Yaeger's theory this difficulty can be
explained, I am happy to say, in a most satisfactory way.

The seat of the vital principle, according to Professor Yaeger's theory,
is not the protoplasm, but the odorant matter imbedded in it. And such
being the case, the vital principle, as f