ctures, thus powerfully set forth.

CHAPTER VIII

HYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE

The view concerning Life which I have endeavoured to express is that it
is neither matter nor energy, nor even a function of matter or of
energy, but is something belonging to a different category; that by
some means at present unknown it is able to interact with the material
world for a time, but that it can also exist in some sense
independently; although in that condition of existence it is by no
means apprehensible by our senses. It is dependent on matter for its
phenomenal appearance--for its manifestation to us here and now, and
for all its terrestrial activities; but otherwise, I conceive that it
is independent, that its essential existence is continuous and
permanent, though its interactions with matter are discontinuous and
temporary; and I conjecture that it is subject to a law of
evolution--that a linear advance is open to it--whether it be in its
phenomenal or in its occult state.

It may be well to indicate what I mean by conceiving of the possibility
that life has an existence apart from its material manifestations as we
know them at present. (Remember note on p. 40.) It is easy to imagine
that such a view is a mere surmise, having no intelligible meaning, and
that it is merely an attempt to clutch at human immortality in an
emotional and unscientific spirit. To this, however, I in no way plead
guilty. My ideas about life may be quite wrong, but they are as
cold-blooded and free from bias as possible; moreover, they apply not
to human life alone, but to all life--to that of all animals, and even
of plants; and they are held by me as a working hypothesis, the only
one which enables me to fit the known facts of ordinary vitality into a
thinkable scheme. Without it, I should be met by all the usual
puzzles:--(1) as to the stage at which existence begins, if it can be
thought of as "beginning" at all;[3] (2) as to the nature of
individuality, in the midst of diversity of particles, and the
determination of form irrespective of variety of food; (3) the
extraordinary rapidity of development, which results in the production
of a fully endowed individual in the course of some fraction of a
century.

[3] I doubt whether _existence_ can be "begun" at all, save as
the result of a juxtaposition of elements, or of a conveyance of
motion. We can put things together, and we can set things in