Life theories, their influence upon religious thought / by Lionel S. Beale.

  • Lionel Smith Beale
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life theories, their influence upon religious thought / by Lionel S. Beale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    PHYSICAL THEORY OF LIFE master. Creative power is as far removed as ever from non-constructing force ; and the great life- mystery, in spite of the efforts and consummate skill of physicists and chemists, remains a mystery as great as when in childhood the longing first arose to inquire into the why and how. If life is force, the idea of a Power higher than force seems indeed superfluous. If life is but a form or mode of ordinary force—if the phenomena of living beings are the same in essential nature as the pheno- mena of lifeless matter—if the laws which govern matter alive are the same as those which the non- living and the dead must obey, all thought which carries us beyond the experience of the organs of our senses must be void, profitless, and waste. For if by the investigation of matter and its pro- perties a sufficient explanation of the phenomena of life can be obtained, is it not clear that we shall not, in order to explain the facts of life, call in the aid of an hypothesis which involves the existence of power, agency, force, or property altogether distinct from the matter and the ordinary properties of material particles} But if, on the other hand, the phenomena of living beings cannot be fully accounted for by physics and chemistry, then it is a question still open for discussion whether or not life is due to the working of some agency or power distinct from matter, and the idea of a much higher Power capable of influencing all matter may not only be entertained
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