The living being, by the fact of its being such, has new and hitherto undetermined relations. It has escaped from the hold of the forces in part from the common lot of matter, and a new horizon uplifts before it. New and mysterious forces intrude, the sum of which we call vital energy. Well we know that here the material scientist will smile or sneer, for he has already settled the question in his own mind and that of his confreres, that there is nothing beyond the properties of matter. The animal body is composed of definite quantities of carbon, hydrogen, lime, iron, etc., and the conflict of atoms, the combustion of carbon by the oxygen of the air, the burning of phosphorus in the nerves, is the activity evolved which is called life. In the higher animals, especially in man, this life force derived from burning elements is changed to thought, and the quantity of thought depends on the activity of the process. No one, however, has ever proved that such transformation occurs, or even attempted the task. The most thoughtful and profound acknowledge that at the threshold of life all physical theories utterly fail, and that the problem does not admit of solution. The more persistent declare life to be a resultant of protoplasm; a fragment of protoplasm is the lowest form of a living being. It is a homogeneous mass, scarcely a cell or aggregation of cells. These cells do not feel or know; they are sensitive; that is all. A human being is said by these material scientists to be the sum of an infinite number of moners, as a coral branch is the sum of a great number of polyps. These moners form, under different circumstances, bone, muscle, and nerve. They propagate and die. Their multiplication and destruction is the source and accompaniment of vital changes, and mental states. When the necessity for the destruction of a great number of these moners arises, the end, the destruction of all, or death of the combined organism is the result. According to this view, by the simple addition of moners, we obtain something none of them singly possessed. The single moner has only sensitiveness, their infinite aggregate, in the human being, has feeling, intelligence, will, and God-like aspirations. The time old axiom never before disputed is set aside, and the sum is declared to be not only greater than its parts--it is infinitely greater, and acquires qualities which the parts do not possess. It may be urged that in the acquisition of new qualities the same is true of the chemical union of elements, which yield products entirely different in quality from the combining bodies. These, however, unite in fixed proportions in a manner far from understood, while, with the hypothetical moners, they are aggregated mechanically, as polyps in a cluster, and this union of individuals changes not their functions, but simply increases the mass.