358 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



entelechy are connected in such a way that to assert the former 

 is equivalent to asserting the latter, and to deny the latter is 

 to deny the former. In this sense vitalism is the high road 

 to morality : morality would be an absurdity without it. 



How could I feel " morally " towards other individuals, 

 if / knew that they were machines and nothing more ? 

 machines, which some day I myself might be able to con- 

 struct like a steam engine ! To a convinced theoretical 

 materialist, to whom his neighbour is a real mechanical 

 system, morality is an absurdity. This is equally true, 

 whether materialism be held as a doctrine about nature 

 from a point of view which is idealistic and phenomeno- 

 logical at bottom, or professed in the crudest uncritical 

 metaphysical manner. In either case the mechanical 

 theory of life is incompatible with morality. It is of no 

 avail to assume as some have done that there might be 

 a something non-mechanical " appearing >: under the form 

 of a mechanical system ; wholeness can never " appear " in 

 the form of that which is not wholeness but aggregation 

 per deftnitionem. 1 When an author feels morally and con- 

 siders objective human relations morally in spite of his 

 materialistic conviction with regard to life, he unconsciously 

 gives up his materialism. It is very strange to see what an 

 enormous confusion of thought generally prevails in this region. 



There might be vitalism without morality ; but the 

 categorical existence of morality implies vitalism as an 

 axiom, even if it ivere not yet established by other proofs. 



But enough about a problem that does not strictly belong 

 to our subject. The main reason for our discussing morality 

 has yet to be mentioned. 



1 This was also our argument against psycho-physical parallelism, see p. 289. 



