o think that the
material which fed the strings was the _cause_ of the music, since
in that case some measure of the waste would probably be
discoverable in the _debris_ emitted; and we might imagine that the
_debris_ was the measure of the music, while what it really was,
was the measure of the waste of the strings, when they were made
the instrument of the music. If a spade is used in digging, the
spade wastes in proportion to every spadeful of earth it is made to
lift. The more it digs, the more it wastes. If we could arrange
that a stream of fine steel particles flowed into the spade, to
replace the waste caused by each act of digging, we might perhaps
come to think that these fine steel particles were the cause of the
digging, especially as the quantity of them required would always
be exactly proportioned to the amount of work done. Nevertheless,
this would be a very inconsequent assumption. Yet this is the
assumption invariably made by modern scientists."

It will thus be seen that another interpretation might easily be placed
upon the observed facts, and that, while the latter are accepted without
question, it is yet possible to conceive the relationship as quite other
than usually imagined; and consequently of life as an energy independent
of the food supply,[17] and outside the law of conservation--a force
absolutely distinct, separate, _per se_. M. Bergson has gone so far as
to speak of life as a "power," as a "vital impetus"--utilizing matter
for the purposes of its manifestation, etc. I have merely extended this
conception in what appears to me a logical and necessary direction. It
appears to me certain that life is a sentient power--different from any
other mode of energy of which we have any knowledge, and as such no
longer subject to the objections raised earlier in this paper (to other
conceptions of life), which might also be advanced, it seems to me,
against M. Bergson's theory. Were the theory of life here defended true,
it would not only enable us to account for life in a satisfactory
manner, but it would render clear many obscure and sporadic phenomena
which the current theories are quite incapable of explaining (and hence
often ignore!); and it would also practically assure us continuity of
life beyond the grave--after the dissolution of the body--because mind
and consciousness are shown to be independent of physical energy,