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in one direction only, and in them energy is degraded. Organic 

 processes, that is, the processes carried on in the generalised 

 organism, are irreversible ; or, at least, there is a tendency for 

 them to be carried on without necessary dissipation of energy. 



CHAPTER III 



THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ORGANISM ... 83 



Argument. If the organism is investigated by the methods of 

 physical and chemical science, nothing but physico-chemical 

 activities can be discovered. This is necessarily the case, since 

 methods which yield physico-chemical results only are employed. 

 The physiologist makes an analysis of the activities of the organism, 

 and he reduces these activities to certain categories ; although all 

 attempts completely to describe the functioning of the organism 

 solely in terms of physical and chemical reactions fail. In addition 

 to the reactions which make up the functioning of an organ or 

 organ-system, there is direction and co-ordination of these reactions. 

 The individual physico-chemical reactions which occur in the 

 functioning of the organism are integrated, and life is not merely 

 these reactions, but also their integration. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE VITAL IMPETUS ....... I2O 



Argument. The notion of the organism as a physico-chemical 

 mechanism is a deduction from the methods of physiology, and 

 not from its results. The notion of vitalism is a natural or 

 intuitive one. The historic systems of vitalism assumed the 

 existence of a spiritual agency in the organism, or of a form of 

 energy which was peculiar to the activities of the organism. 

 Modern investigation lends no support to either belief. But the 

 study of the organism as a whole, that is, the study of developmental 

 processes, or that of the organism acting as a whole, afford a 

 logical disproof of pure mechanism. It shows that there cannot 

 be a functionality, in the mathematical sense, between the inorganic 

 agencies that affect the whole organism and the behaviour or 

 functioning of the whole organism. Mechanism is only suggested 

 in the study of isolated parts of the organism. We are compelled 

 toward the belief that there is an agency operative in the activities 

 of the organism which does not operate in purely inorganic becom- 

 ing. This is the Vital Impetus of Bergson, or the Entelechy of 

 Driesch. 



