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been planted in the same soil. There is here a mysterious power of combination and manufacture, which surpasses human chemistry, and evades the eye of the most consummate machinist. But this wonderful life, whose effects are everywhere in gracefulness and strength, cannot be found as a distinct entity, either in the human body or in the violet of the hedgerow. Like the atoms it so deftly builds into artistic beauty, it rests on theory for proof, and is only known by its works. But life is there; the world is full of it. As the cells are the work and the channel of the life in the plant, so are they in the animal. From the first living cell in man or monkey, the whole living structure is built up by the life itself, and the germ cell has come from a prior life. The chemist can mingle all the constituents of protoplasm, but he cannot put one cell together, nor give it the incipient power of motion. He may employ light, heat, affinity, electricity, and every force in nature, but life will not begin; and when it has ceased, although substance and structure remain, chemistry cannot renew its strength. In like manner, the brain and nerves may be perfectly formed, but they have no power of

innate motion.

Only the life which made them can use them; and so far as necessary for the life, they continue their functions under its rule. It is not possible, therefore, to conceive of agency in the brain which has been produced and is maintained by the life.

We have seen that in man there is another invisible force, like the life, constantly manifesting itself in all material transformations, which can, on long and broad lines, indirectly rule the life itself, as it uses every power of the life for its own ends. Hence come consciousness and personality, involving the capability of all knowledge, and a sense of individuality as differentiated from all others. Although the life and the intellect are both invisible, and only knowable in their effects, yet their functions are different not only in quality, but also in quantity; in neither are they isometric. A strong body and a weak intellect, and a strong intellect and a weak body, are by no means uncommon combinations. Life and mind (or, if we use its modern equivalent, 'states of consciousness') are different. The quoted phrase is misleading.

It

is used as a neutral term, to evade the ac

knowledgment of any distinct and permanent

entity, beside the material body; but it plainly includes that entity. States of consciousness are necessarily diverse; there must, therefore, be something which is in these varied conditions. We can only think of consciousness as the experience of a permanent subject under different inward and outward conditions. Otherwise there can be no connection between the consciousness of yesterday and to-day. It is always best to use plain terms, which clearly express facts.

Granted that mind is

a word that no more explains its object than the word life does, still it as correctly brings before us the aggregate and the substratum of our consciousness, as life brings the aggregate and substratum of our sensations.

Thus we have two immaterial entities, of which physical science can tell us nothing beyond the mode and measure in which they use matter, but which are so intermingled with all things that every attempt to deny their existence must give a new example of their presence. But we have equal proof of the third invisible force whose existence we have asserted. Our own mind assures us of our individuality, and this third unseen force, taking its origin from one central life, moulds

all the relations of the various individuals with whom we are in any way joined into various and harmonious motives of affection and action, which constitute the authoritative rule of the single but complex self, just as in the plant and animal the life took up its related atoms to produce its stable structure. In the material

structure we are able to watch the process of erection; and in the intellectual development we are conscious that fact after fact is absorbed, that our narrower generalizations enable us to merge one in another, until we can embrace the universe in one, or in a congeries of harmonious plans. There is no material evidence of this growth, or even of the life in which it is, but it comes directly from that side of our nature to which appeal must be made for every material verification. In like manner our consciousness certifies us that one relative fact after another, with respect to God in His various manifestations and to men in their divers relations to us, is taken up by a vital faith, and so assimilated as to come forth in a galaxy of graces and virtues, which employ every material possession, and call forth every intellectual power, to beautify and vitalize the whole nature. As this third entity is essen

tially regal, it cannot be hid, but must appear in action. It cannot rule the intellect and possess the body, and produce no fruit; especially when the design of its birth was its manifestation as pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. The inward and individual evidence of this spiritual growth is the consciousness, quickened to abnormal vigour and enlarged to the full extent of the nature by the operation of faith, which gives a real vitality to all Divine revelation. Its outward evidence is its fruit.

The evidence of reality to a Divine life in man being thus stated and defended, we may look at the reasons for its necessity. One fact stands forth in surpassing prominence through the whole of human history, namely, that man needs regulative control. No community can exist without law; and human law has always been, either directly or indirectly, restraint. It has fenced every man from his neighbour, and said, Thou shalt not overstep this boundary. Yet human nature is capable of self-control, and under it, of virtue which improves itself and raises its fellows. But human law, with no higher vocation than re

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