4 04 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



both cases the notion of law is used to procure a facile satisfac- 

 tion and to bar the way to further inquiry. 



Hence I would venture with all deference to suggest to the 

 disputants here that the case is similar, and that both vitalism 

 and mechanism are scientifically legitimate or the reverse, 

 according to the spirit in which they are held. They are 

 legitimate if, and in so far as, they are meant to further scientific 

 inquiry ; they cease to be so if, and so soon as, they are in- 

 tended to block and to preclude any inquiry that promises 

 scientific gain. Both also are capable of being used and mis- 

 used. If belief in the "mechanical" nature of the world means 

 the intention to employ to the utmost a bold working assump- 

 tion which, after many crudities, blunders, and false starts, from 

 Thales to Descartes, we have at last got to apply to a large 

 proportion of happenings, it is a good thing and legitimate ; if 

 it means a dogmatic refusal to let any other methods of inter- 

 preting nature be tried, a wilful blindness to the differences 

 between the different sorts of happenings, and a stupid ostracism 

 of the inevitable question as to how the mind is to be placed in 

 relation to the mechanical theory it has itself devised, it is a 

 bad thing, because it allies itself with ignorance against the 

 spirit of inquiry. Similarly, if vitalism means that vital pro- 

 cesses are not to be investigated by "mechanical" methods, 

 that their apparent differences are to be accepted as ultimate, 

 that the vital is simply incalculable and " not mechanical," and 

 eludes the methods of physics and chemistry ; or again, that 

 pseudo-explanations are to be given in terms of a " vital force " 

 which we are forbidden to inquire into further, or even that 

 the convenient distinction between "life" and "matter" must 

 be taken as absolute and may not be questioned, then vitalism 

 is essentially negative and merely obstructive, bad in method, 

 and scientifically noxious. But if it merely pleads for per- 

 mission to devise appropriate methods for dealing with the 

 peculiar subject-matter of each science, and asserts the right 

 of biology to pay regard to the peculiarities of" living" matter 

 and to become as " independent " as its work requires, or that 

 in the presence of " living" matter effects are observed which do 

 not occur when matter is " dead," there can be no scientific 

 objection to " vitalism." 



A complication is, however, introduced by the fact that 

 truly disputable extensions of vitalism exist. For example, 



