438 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



not spiritual, causes. Yet it is well to remember that the 

 primitive impulse of mankind is to believe in ghosts : that, in 

 the absence of scientific explanations, spiritual "explanations" 

 are commonly put forward and that even in the presence of 

 scientific explanations, a ghost is a shifty sort of character, 

 not easily driven finally out. The " will to believe" is so strong 

 that, even now, those who believe in ghosts of some sort or 

 other greatly exceed in number those who do not. 



Among physiologists, those who believe in ghosts are called 

 vitalists and those who do not believe in ghosts are called 

 mechanists. The latter, who among physiologists are greatly 

 in the majority, affirm that all animal activities are due to 

 physical, chemical and mechanical forces acting in accordance 

 with laws the same as those which hold for the inorganic world. 

 The vitalists on the contrary declare that material forces alone 

 cannot account for all the manifestations of life, though they do 

 account for most of them : they say, however, there is a residue 

 of vital manifestations not so accountable and they throw what 

 they deem to be a flood of light over the whole situation, in 

 affirming that these vital manifestations are caused by a vital 

 force. The uneducated man apparently finds comfort in the 

 explanation. His propensity towards believing in ghosts 

 naturally disposes him to acquiesce in the presence of such 

 forces as ghosts might be expected to exert. It is now many 

 years ago since du Bois Reymond attempted to exorcise what 

 he aptly called the " spectre of vitalism " : but that spectre in 

 an attenuated form still continues to haunt a few who have pre- 

 dispositions towards it. I have already elsewhere attempted 

 to refute the general doctrine of vitalism. 1 My task here is 

 to review a certain number of recent publications which have 

 fallen from the pens of modern believers in ghosts. 



The Views of Dr. Haldane 



And first let me deal with the views of Dr. Haldane, as 

 stated in the October number of this review. There is indeed 

 nothing in it which can very easily be replied to : for Dr. Haldane 

 does not argue but confines himself to setting forth a series of 

 rather odd opinions, without furnishing the clue as to how he 

 came by them. The mechanistic theory therefore is in no way 



1 Bedrock, October 191 2. 



