This is getting very near to the old teleological conception, as it is also near to that of Henri Bergson and Sir Oliver Lodge. Our minds easily slide into the groove of supernaturalism and spiritualism because they have long moved therein. We have the words and they mould our thoughts. But science is fast teaching us that the universe is complete in itself; that whatever takes place in matter is by virtue of the force of matter; that it does not defer to or borrow from some other universe; that there is deep beneath deep in it; that gross matter has its interior in the molecule, and the molecule has its interior in the atom, and the atom has its interior in the electron, and that the electron is matter in its fourth or non-material state--the point where it touches the super-material. The transformation of physical energy into vital, and of vital into mental, doubtless takes place in this invisible inner world of atoms and electrons. The electric constitution of matter is a deduction of physics. It seems in some degree to bridge over the chasm between what we call the material and the spiritual. If we are not within hailing distance of life and mind, we seem assuredly on the road thither. The mystery of the transformation of the ethereal, imponderable forces into the vital and the mental seems quite beyond the power of the mind to solve. The explanation of it in the bald terms of chemistry and physics can never satisfy a mind with a trace of idealism in it. The greater number of the chapters of this volume are variations upon a single theme,--what Tyndall called "the mystery and the miracle of vitality,"--and I can only hope that the variations are of sufficient interest to justify the inevitable repetitions which occur. I am no more inclined than Tyndall was to believe in miracles unless we name everything a miracle, while at the same time I am deeply impressed with the inadequacy of all known material forces to account for the phenomena of living things. That word of evil repute, materialism, is no longer the black sheep in the flock that it was before the advent of modern transcendental physics. The spiritualized materialism of men like Huxley and Tyndall need not trouble us. It springs from the new conception of matter. It stands on the threshold of idealism or mysticism with the door ajar. After Tyndall had cast out the term "vital force," and reduced all visible phenomena of life to mechanical attraction and repulsion, after he had exhausted physics, and reached its very rim, a mighty mystery still hovered beyond him. He recognized that he had made no step toward its solution, and was forced to confess with the philosophers of all ages that "We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." CONTENTS I. THE BREATH OF LIFE 1 II. THE LIVING WAVE 24 III. A WONDERFUL WORLD 46