Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/105

 in which creation took place upon the earth, the activity in matter verges little by little until it becomes what is called vegetable life, and lastly it assumes that complexity of action called vital. All the discussions of life that are accredited a scientific standing regard it as a form of activity. Holmes says, "Life is the state of an organized being in which it maintains, or is capable of maintaining, its structural integrity by the constant interchange of elements with the surrounding media." Spencer defines life as "The definite combination of heterogeneous changes both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences." These are sufficiently correct definitions of the effects of life, or the manifestation of life in matter; but as definitions of life itself the first is erroneous in making life merely a state of organized matter by which it maintains itself, and the second is defective in regarding life as changes that take place in correspondence with external things alone. How these and similar definitions fall short of comprehending what life is, may be further suggested by asking what it is that produces the "state" and the "changes" that are defined as