Whether we accept this moner hypothesis, or the more generally received theory that life is the product of organization, arising from the chemical actions in the body, it is impossible to say wherein the dead animal differs from the living. Analysis can not reveal this secret, for the living animal can not be subjected to that test. The life principle escapes before the alembic or retort is brought into requisition. The song of the bird can not be found by chemical analysis. We know that the living being is held together, and dominated over by the strongest forces, and the moment these relax their hold, decomposition commences. What are these forces? Whence do they come? Whither do they go? LIFE AND MIND.--Taking vital force in its highest expression, in man, it is self-conscious and has independent will. It arises above the atoms of its physical being, above the influences which environ it, and says, _I will_, and executes that will. I know well that if we here leave physical science for metaphysics, there are philosophers who would not only reason away this force, but the existence of the body itself. They are true intellectual acrobats; amusing jugglers, who throw words instead of painted balls, and confuse by their wonderful dexterity. Yet, after all has been said, _we know_ we exist and have physical bodies. Had we not such bodies the thought of them would never have been fashioned in our minds. As we know the sun will rise, or the night follow, we know we have bodily forms, and are thereby brought in contact with the physical world. It is a fact, and as such can not be reasoned away. In the same manner we are conscious of a mental or spiritual life which arches the physical world as the dome of the sky. IS THE GULF BETWEEN SPIRIT AND MATTER BRIDGED?--Here we come to that vague and uncertain realm where spirit touches matter. We leave the coast line of the tangible and seen for the intangible and unseen. There is no bridge over the gulf, which is said to be impassable. Material and spiritual phenomena are united by no common bond, and each stands by itself. The great thought stream has set toward the materialistic interpretation of all spiritual phenomena, or ruled them out of the pale of the believable. If these phenomena are real, if man--the ego--is superior to the oxygen and carbon of his body; if the manifestations of mind are superior to the combustion of tissue in the lungs, then all these manifestations should be amenable to certain laws and conditions, which ascertained, will harmonize them into a perfect system.