Life is that which makes efforts, which pushes upwards and outwards and on; “always and always the procreant urge of the world.” It is the opposite of inertia, and the opposite of accident; there is a direction in the growth to which it is self-impelled. Against it is the undertow of matter, the lag and slack of things toward relaxation and rest and death; at every stage life has had to fight with the inertia of its vehicle; and if it conquers death through reproduction, it does so only by yielding every citadel in turn, and abandoning every individual body at last to inertia and decay. Even
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