THE SPECTRE OF VITALISM 



By HUGH S. ELLIOT 



I. Article by Dr. J. S. Haldane on "The Relation of Mind and Body," in Science 



Progress, October 1912. 

 2 Presidential Address by Dr. J. S. Haldane to the Physiology Section of the 



British Association, 1908. 



3. Becquerel Memorial Lecture to the Chemical Society, 191 2. By Sir Oliver 



Lodge. 



4. Article by Sir Oliver Lodge on "Life and Professor Schafer" in the Con- 



temporary Review for October 191 2. 



5. Article by Sir Oliver Lodge on "Uncommon Sense as a Substitute for Investi- 



gation," in Bedrock for October 1912. 



6. Science and Philosophy of the Organism. By Hans Driesch. (London : A. & C. 



Black, 1908.) 



7. Involution. By Lord Ernest Hamilton. (London : Mills & Boon, 1912.) 



8. On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters. By Eugenio Rignano. (Chicago : 



Open Court Publishing Co., 191 1.) 



9. Is the Mind a Coherer? By L. G. Sarjant. (London : George Allen & Co., 



1912.) 



Men may be roughly classified into the two divisions of those 

 who believe in ghosts and those who do not. In old days 

 everybody believed in ghosts : everybody had his own private 

 ghost, which he gave up when he died : there were besides a 

 number of ghosts specially connected with departed personages; 

 and in addition to these, there was an army of ghosts on the 

 loose, so to speak, not specially connected with any human 

 individual. In short the ghost population vastly exceeded the 

 population of material human beings. 



In modern times the population of ghosts has undergone 

 a very serious decline. A great many people do not believe 

 in them at all : and those who do no longer credit them with 

 the powers that their ancestors were supposed to possess. This 

 degeneration among ghosts has clearly been brought about 

 by the development of science : for the more we learn how 

 things happen, the more conscious do we become that ghosts 

 do not play the part in the causation of events that they were 

 supposed to play : indeed it is now somewhat widely believed 

 that ghosts play no part at all and that all events have material, 



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