The problem of life itself, what it is as a force differing from other forces, how to deduce from the manifestations of vitality what vitality is, remains unsolved. And why so? For a very simple reason. Because those who attempt the problem are unwilling or unable to conform to the conditions which they recognize as necessary in all other departments of scientific research. They do not study life _objectively_. They may think they do. They may think that to study life in other men or in animals is a truly objective method, but this is a fallacy. The theory that life needs to be studied from an outside standpoint in order to be comprehended, is all right, but the man who uses his own life-force in studying that of other men or animals is not outside the subject of his thought at all. The active currents of his own being continually intervene to obscure the processes of thought and render his conclusions valueless. It may be true that no other method which can be called objective is immediately apparent, but it does not follow that there is no other; and if we simply enlarge our ideas of what is possible, we shall find the true method to be just what we ought rationally to expect, and that is this: The student who wishes to solve this problem, either for his own satisfaction or for the enlightenment of others, must eliminate from the problem the one disturbing element, _his personal life-force_. CHAPTER XIII. Does it seem absurd to say that, in order to study life, a man must die? For that is what this method amounts to in the last analysis. Now, I beg of you not to be unnecessarily alarmed. I have said nothing about burial. If death were only another name for annihilation, then death and burial would be inseparably associated, no doubt. But suppose it should be true that it is an error to associate the thought of annihilation with any man, is it not clear that whoever permits that error to have any place in his mind is sure to give a meaning to the word death which does not belong to it? Is it not evident that the thought of death in that case must borrow blackness and mystery of a kind that does not pertain to it? Most surely. But let it be said again, that death is a reality; it is not a fiction, nor a mere seeming. A man cannot possess bodily life and at the same time be dead. The two conditions are incompatible. Otherwise there would be no advantage to be gained toward the study of life by experiencing its opposite. Shall I try to tell you, from the standpoint of experience, what death is? Perhaps it will be best to tell you first what it is not. It is not a snuffing-out like a candle, unless we could suppose one where the spark should remain quietly alive until the candle was relighted.