A SURVEY OF THE PROBLEM OF VITALISM 421 



billiard balls we may visualise the process. Each ball passes 

 on its motion to its next neighbour as described. All at once, 

 in the midst of the series, one of the balls, instead of travelling 

 forwards in the direction conferred upon it, moves off at a 

 totally new angle — at a right angle to the line, for instance — and 

 carries off the impulse perhaps to some other series of balls in 

 the neighbourhood. Or we may suppose that a ball, before it 

 has been struck, moves off of its own accord and begins hitting 

 other balls, thus conferring upon them a motion which had no 

 material origin. 



Were such an event to occur on a billiard table, we should 

 at once assume some peculiarity in the table or in the make of 

 the ball, to account for the phenomenon. But by hypothesis 

 all physical explanations are ruled out. We are in the presence 

 of a miracle : ghosts are at work — genuine ghosts which no 

 investigation can ever convert into rats — good, honest ghosts 

 which cannot be precipitated by any known chemical reagent, 

 with the possible exception of holy water! 



Now this is the event which the vitalists allege to occur. 

 They ascribe it, no doubt, not to billiard balls, but to processes 

 in the brain which cannot be seen, but that makes no difference. 

 Their main contention is that the physical sequences are hung 

 up and diverted ; and that events pursue a course which is 

 contrary to the material nature of the particles concerned. 



I do not for a moment suggest that the mechanists regard 

 such an analogy as destructive to vitalism. It is indeed only 

 cited in order that we may have a clear idea of the implications 

 of the vitalistic theory : to see vitalism at work, in short. The 

 mechanist very often has no a priori objection to the possibility 

 that such things may happen. He will perhaps not even ask 

 for proof: but he does ask, with some insistence, for evidence 

 pointing in that direction ; and at the moment of writing no 

 evidence of any kind whatsoever has been produced. I pro- 

 ceed therefore to detail the main character of the arguments 

 by which he is met. 



In the first place there are arguments of an ethical character, 

 //"the mechanistic theory is true, then (it is said) there can be 

 no such thing as moral responsibility, and we are landed in a 

 doctrine of fatalism. To this it is replied, firstly, that moral 

 responsibility is not in the slightest degree affected by the 

 theory ; secondly, that fatalism is not found by experience to 



