'Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer's defi-
nition of "Life"? I read it thirty years ago. He may
have altered it afterward, for anything I know, but
in all that time I have been unable to think of a
single word that could profitably be changed or
added or removed. It seems to me not only the best
definition, but the only possible one.
'"Life," he says, "is a definite combination of
heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and suc-
cessive, in correspondence with external coexistences
and sequences."'
'That defines the phenomenon,' I said, 'but gives
no hint of its cause.'
'That,' he replied, 'is all that any definition can
do. As Mill points out, we know nothing of cause
except as an antecedent--nothing of effect except as
a consequent. Of certain phenomena, one never oc-
curs without another, which is dissimilar: the first in
point of time we call cause, the second, effect. One
who had many times seen a rabbit pursued by a dog,
and had never seen rabbits and dogs otherwise,
would think the rabbit the cause of the dog.
'But I fear,' he added, laughing naturally enough,
'that my rabbit is leading me a long way from the
track of my legitimate quarry: I'm indulging in the
pleasure of the chase for its own sake. What I want
you to observe is that in Herbert Spencer's defini-
tion of "life" the activity of a machine is included
--there is nothing in the definition that is not ap-
plicable to it.
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