174 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



and CM-puscular (electronic and protonic) composition of their 

 respective atoms are identical. It is the vital entelechy or 

 soul, which causes a fragment cut from a Stentor to regen- 

 erate its specific protoplasmic architecture instead of the type 

 which would be regenerated from a similar fragment cut 

 from another ciliate such as Dileptus. 



In all the tridimensional units of nature, both living and 

 non-living, the hylomorphic analysis of Aristotle recognizes 

 an essential dualism of matter and entelechy. Hence it is not 

 in the presence and absence of an entelechy (as Driesch con- 

 tends) that living organisms differ from inorganic units. The 

 sole difference between these two classes of units is one of 

 autonomy and inertia. The inorganic unit is inert, not in the 

 sense that it is destitute of energy, but in the sense that it is 

 incapable of self-regulation and rigidly dependent upon ex- 

 ternal factors for the utilization of its own energy-content. 

 The living unit, on the other hand, is endowed with dynamic 

 autonomy. Though dependent, in a general way, upon en- 

 vironmental factors for the energy which it utilizes, neverthe- 

 less the determinate form and direction of its activity is not 

 imposed in all its specificity by the aforesaid environmental 

 factors. The living being possesses a certain degree of inde- 

 pendence with respect to these external forces. It is autono- 

 mous with a special law of immanent finality or reflexive 

 orientation, by which all the elements and energies of the 

 living unit are made to converge upon one and the same 

 central result, namely, the maintenance and development of 

 the organism both in its capacity as an individual and in its 

 capacity as the generative source of its racial type. 



The entelechies of the inert units of inorganic nature turn 

 the forces of these units in an outward direction, so that they 

 are incapable of operating upon themselves, of modifying them- 

 selves, or of regulating themselves. They are only capable of 

 operating upon other units outside themselves, and in so doing 

 they irreparably externalize their energy-contents. All physi- 

 cochemical action is transitive or communicable in character, 



