VITALISM 391 



certain that this conflict is a reality ? If we begin at the top of 

 the scale instead of at the bottom, we find in ourselves certain 

 faculties which we call mental or spiritual. Only two possibilities 

 seem open to us ; either these faculties are the product of 

 Verworn's "chemistry of the proteids " or they have a non- 

 material basis. Many biologists and physiologists, accustomed 

 as they are to think in terms of matter and to analyse the 

 behaviour of organisms into a play of chemical and physical 

 forces, incline to the former alternative. To them any form of 

 vitalism adds a new entity to the universe and is therefore 

 condemned. But those whose training has dealt especially with 

 the mind commonly reject this view, which is after all only a 

 restatement of the older assertion that the brain secretes thought 

 as the liver secretes bile. If these are right in their belief that 

 there is in man an entity which is not reducible to terms of 

 matter and energy, again two alternatives are open. Either this 

 non-material principle has been present in living matter from 

 the first and perhaps before what we call "living" came into 

 existence ; or it entered suddenly into living beings when they 

 were ready for it and in fact enters suddenly into each one at 

 some moment of his existence, for it seems absurd to ascribe a 

 " soul" to a human ovum and to deny it to an adult ape or dog. 

 Of these two alternatives again the former seems the only 

 reasonable one, for the day of catastrophism has gone by. If 

 then we agree that mind is not a function of proteid chemistry 

 and if we admit that the relations with matter of mental and 

 instinctive action are characterised by purposive control of 

 energies, the natural form for unification to take is to suppose 

 that the apparently purposeful control of matter and energy seen 

 in organic development is of the same ultimate nature. It has 

 been suggested repeatedly that not only instinct but also the 

 successive steps in the history of a life are to be regarded as 

 governed by something akin to memory. The expressions 

 unconscious or inherited memory, however, are open to grave 

 objection, for it is not certain that they are more than misleading 

 analogies and at best presuppose true memory, the ultimate 

 basis of which is equally obscure. If, however, we admit the 

 existence of something extra-physical in the mental phenomena 

 which we ourselves experience, if we find that some at least 

 of its characteristics are manifested in instincts and growth- 

 processes at present inexplicable on a mechanical scheme, it 



