he bondage of the mechanistic view
into the freedom of the larger truth of the ceaseless creative view; we
shall see the unity of the creative impulse which is immanent in life
and which, "passing through generations, links individuals with
individuals, species with species, and makes of the whole series of the
living one single immense wave flowing over matter."

I recall that Tyndall, who was as much poet as scientist, speaks of
life as a wave "which at no two consecutive moments of its existence is
composed of the same particles." In his more sober scientific mood
Tyndall would doubtless have rejected M. Bergson's view of life, yet his
image of the wave is very Bergsonian. But what different meanings the
two writers aim to convey: Tyndall is thinking of the fact that a living
body is constantly taking up new material on the one side and dropping
dead or outworn material on the other. M. Bergson's mind is occupied
with the thought of the primal push or impulsion of matter which travels
through it as the force in the wave traverses the water. The wave
embodies a force which lifts the water up in opposition to its tendency
to seek and keep a level, and travels on, leaving the water behind. So
does this something we call life break the deadlock of inert matter and
lift it into a thousand curious and beautiful forms, and then, passing
on, lets it fall back again into a state of dead equilibrium.

Tyndall was one of the most eloquent exponents of the materialistic
theory of the origin of life, and were he living now would probably feel
little or no sympathy with the Bergsonian view of a primordial life
impulse. He found the key to all life phenomena in the hidden world of
molecular attraction and repulsion. He says: "Molecular forces determine
the form which the solar energy will assume. [What a world of mystery
lies in that determinism of the hidden molecular forces!] In the
separation of the carbon and oxygen this energy may be so conditioned as
to result in one case in the formation of a cabbage and in another case
in the formation of an oak. So also as regards the reunion of the carbon
and the oxygen [in the animal organism] the molecular machinery through
which the combining energy acts may in one case weave the texture of a
frog, while in another it may weave the texture of a man."

But is not this molecular force itself a form of solar energy, and can
it differ in kind from any other form of physical force? If mole