important element in the problem--that of conditional environment. What
this efficient cause _is_, is a question that awakens no responsive
inquiry. It strikes its roots too deeply into the intuitions of
consciousness for the soul to give back an intelligible reply. Certain it
is that neither metaphysical speculation, nor scientific inquiry, will
ever enable us to reach the roots of this question, or extract from them
the first quantitive essence of life itself.

We shall also consider, in their proper place, the various theories of
life which have been advanced from time to time by the materialists, in
their avowed hostility to current religious beliefs, and especially those
founded on the sacred Hebrew writings, and the supplementary teachings of
the New Testament. And to show the extent of this hostility, and the real
_animus_ of those waging it, it is only necessary to refer to the great
central doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures, that Life--natural, spiritual,
eternal--is "the gift of God." And this is the grand corner-stone of all
religious edifices--those erected by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the
Phoenicians, the Greeks, and even the inhabitants of farther India.
Materialistic science must, therefore, deal its first and most effective
blows at "Life," either as a theory to be resolutely assailed and
overthrown, or else thoroughly ignored and set aside, in the more imposing
and august temple of Science. Hence, the reader will find, in none of the
great encyclopedias prepared under the supervision of scientific men, the
slightest mention whatever of "Life" as a subject worthy of consideration
at their hands. It finds, of course, its meagre definitional place in the
dictionaries, but the bulky and more exhaustive encyclopedias have no room
for it, except as it may be defined, under some correlate of motion, as
"the latent possibility of a nebula," or of "undifferentiated primeval
mist," originally pervading the interplanetary spaces.