Mast, Loeb's Mechanistic Conception of Life. 



dition that human beings are willing to sacrifice their lives for an 

 idea is comprehensible neither from the utilitarian standpoint nor 

 from that of the categorical imperative. It might be possible that 

 under the influence of certain ideas chemical changes, for instance, 

 internal secretions within the body, are produced which increase 

 the sensitiveness to certain stimuli to such an unusual degree that 

 such people become slaves to certain stimuli just as the copepods 

 become slaves to the light when carbon dioxide is added to the 

 water." And he concludes after referring to Pawlow's work, "it 

 no longer seems strange to us that what the philosophers term an 

 'idea' is a process which can cause chemical changes in the body." 



Thus he begins with an attempt to found ethics on instincts, 

 which are assumed to be purely mechanical, and ends with the 

 surprising statement, apparently diametrically opposed to this, that 

 chemical reactions in the body are "caused" by ideas. The whole 

 argument intended to reduce ethics to mechanical principles seems 

 to amount to but little more than would a statement that ethical 

 phenomena are mechanical because they are. It certainly must be 

 classified as speculation of the vaguest sort. 



Finally our author maintains that all natural phenomena, in- 

 cluding our existence, are "only a matter of chance . . . based on 

 the blind play of forces". Precisely what is here implied by this 

 expression I am unable to ascertain, but I assume the author in- 

 tends it to be synonymous with the phrase "fortuitous concourse 

 of atoms" so much used some fifty years ago. Now, whatever else 

 this phrase may mean it seems clear that it has ordinarily been 

 used with the intention to convey an idea in direct opposition to 

 the fundamental principle of mechanism which is undoubtedly deter- 

 minism. How can anything that is definitely determined (mechanical) 

 be a mere matter of chance dependent upon the play of blind 

 forces! How can a mechanist maintain that our existence is purely 

 fortuitous! Our author scornfully rejects all metaphysical speculation 

 with the statement that it is a mere play on words and yet he 

 implies in the phrase just quoted that force is a causal agent, a 

 purely metaphysical concept, Even "stereotropism" is clothed with 

 mysterious power to regulate the movement of organisms. "Nega- 

 tive stereotropism," says Loeb (p. 92), "forces the polyps to grow 

 away from the ground into the water, and hence parts surrounded 

 by water form polyps only. Positive stereotropism forces roots in 

 contact with the ground to hold to it, hence parts in contact with 

 the ground give rise to roots only." 



It probably is true that all biological phenomena, including 

 ethics, are mechanical in the very loose sense in which our author 

 appears to have used this term, meaning merely orderly, and it may 

 possibly be true that they are mechanical in the strict sense of 



