The Breath of Life

in a recent essay that "life does not exert force-not even the most microscopical force-and certainly does not supply energy." Sir Oliver is thinking of life as a distinct e

g in a beech wood and noted how the sprouting beechnuts had sent their pale radicles down through the dry leaves upon which they were lying, often piercing two or three of them, and forcing t

ce) of the energy expended than is the nut in this case? Of course, the sun is the primal source of the energy in both cases, an

when it is manifest through a mechanical contrivance, we call it mechanical force; when it is developed by the action and reaction of chemical compounds, we call it chemical force; the same force in each case, but behaving so differently in

e know that the roots of trees insert themselves into seams in the rocks, and force the parts asunder. This force is measurable and is often very great. Its seat

till it had bulged up and then split, and let the irrepressible plant through. The force exerted must have been many pounds. I think it doubtful if the strongest man could have pushed his fist through such a resisting medium. If it was not life which exerted this force, what was it? Life activi

we say that any mechanical device or explosive compound exerts force? The steam-engine does not create force, neither does the exploding dynamite, but these things exert force. We have to think of the sum total of the force of the universe, as of matter itself, as a constant factor, that can neither be increased nor diminished. All activity, organic and inorganic, draws upon this force: the plant and tree, as well as the engine and the explosive-

ousand new forms which it would never assume without this something; it lifts lime and iron and silica and potash and car

ses the same; what we call gravity, a name for a mystery, is the form it takes in the case of the rocks, and what we call vitality, another name for

rom one another; bound up with all the rest and inseparable from them and identical with them only in its ultimate source in the Creative Energy that is immanent in the universe? I have to think of the Creative Energy as immanent in all matter, and the final source of all the tr

hing together of hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, we have to conceive of space between the atoms of these elements, and that the force generated comes from the immense velocity with which the infinitesimal ato

and psychic. The change or transformation takes place in those invisible laboratories of the infinitesimal atoms. It helps my mental processes to

long of the difference from generation to generation with but slight variations, may be, so to speak, in the way the molecules and atoms of our bodies take hold

r the influence of the warmth and moisture of spring, and puts out a radicle that pierces the dry leaves like a

ot that process, nor its prime cause. Start the flame of life going, and the rest may be explained in terms of chemistry; start the