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