THE SPECTRE OF VITALISM 439 



injured by his paper : except in so far as the authority of 

 Dr. Haldane's name may injure it. I venture however to 

 criticise a few of his utterances. " We cannot," he says, 

 "express the observed facts by means of physical and chemical 

 conceptions but must and do have recourse to the conception 

 of organic unity." What is that conception? Here is an 

 attempt to shift the required explanation from the ground of 

 science to metaphysics : which is virtually to abandon the 

 problem altogether. Then there follows the stock argument : 

 " Living organisms are distinguished from everything else that 

 we at present know by the fact that they maintain and reproduce 

 themselves with their characteristic structure and activities." 

 Even this argument is disputed by Prof. Schafer and others ; 

 but let us assume it to be the case: what follows? Has not 

 every substance its own peculiar properties which differentiate 

 it from other substances? The fundamental constituents of 

 protoplasm are bodies of immense molecular complexity: it 

 is to be expected therefore that such substances will display 

 properties different from those of inorganic substances. The 

 phenomena of growth occur, in crystals, in the most elementary 

 chemical substances. It may be true that there is small analogy 

 between crystal and organic growth. But there is also small 

 analogy between the substances considered. If such a simple 

 substance as sodium chloride possess the property of growth 

 under certain conditions, we need not be surprised that pro- 

 toplasmic substances possess a corresponding property in 

 immensely greater variety and complexity. The question at 

 issue is not whether growth and reproduction occur in the 

 inorganic realm : it is whether the complexity and variety of 

 these phenomena in the organic realm are such as to be totally 

 out of proportion to the molecular complexity and variety of 

 the substances built up in protoplasm. But these substances 

 are still unknown : and he would be a bold chemist who would 

 assert that their united formulae are too simple in character 

 to serve as foundation for the functional manifestations of 

 protoplasm. I confess I have always been puzzled as to why 

 any one should attach the slightest importance to the argument 

 that living organisms have peculiarities different from those of 

 inorganic matter. That the substances in protoplasm have 

 properties not found in other substances surely bears in no 

 respect upon the question of vitalism and mechanism. 



