A SURVEY OF THE PROBLEM OF VITALISM 417 



observation with the answer to our inquiry. We no longer 

 investigate such questions by abstract logic : and God preserve 

 us from the aid of metaphysics ! 



It is, however, unfortunately the case that we are not yet 

 able to settle the question by immediate observation. Cerebral 

 processes are so immeasurably complex that it may still be 

 some time before physiology can entirely analyse them. We 

 are therefore thrown back upon a number of other considera- 

 tions, by which a solution to our problem may be approached. 



The mechanist begins by pointing out that the whole course 

 of science has led to the adoption of material forces alone, and 

 the regular and uninterrupted substitution of material agencies 

 for the spiritual agencies so copiously invoked by uncivilised 

 races. Whereas in former times every kind of natural event, 

 from the movements of the planets to the blowing of a wind, 

 were attributed to spiritual agency, the progress of science has 

 invariably contradicted that opinion and set up a material 

 agency in its place. Whatever the universe may be in its 

 ultimate character — and that is a question which does not 

 concern us — the isolated events occurring in it hang together 

 on strictly materialistic lines. The universality of cause and 

 effect is broken in not one single instance. 



In so far as the functions of living beings have been brought 

 within the range of observation and experiment, they are found 

 to conform with the most absolute rigour to the uniformity of 

 law which holds good in the inorganic world. The older 

 vitalists used to urge that an organism is a centre of activity, 

 a perpetual fountain of energy, that it creates mechanical power, 

 which outside the organic world can neither be created nor 

 destroyed. They knew this by introspection : we can raise our 

 arm by an effort of will — there is the spiritual cause, followed 

 by the material creation of energy. But the answer was 

 obvious. It is not the will that moves the muscle, but the 

 nerves running to it. It is not even the will that stimulates the 

 nerves. They are stimulated by other nervous processes 

 within the brain, and with these processes the spiritual will 

 has no more to do than an inert and accompanying shadow. 

 The nervous processes are the counterpart of the will, and 

 indistinguishable from it. When we say that the will moves 

 the arm, the true facts are that the cerebral processes associated 

 with the will effect the movement. The organism thus presents 

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