THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 177 



the effect or change of which the action is a production. In 

 this action, the effect is produced not in the cause or agent, 

 but in a patient outside of, and distinct from, the agent, and 

 the otherness of cause and effect is consequently complete. 

 Such an action is termed transitive, which is the charac- 

 teristic type of physicochemical action. In another class of 

 actions, however, (those, namely, that are peculiar to living 

 beings) the otherness of cause and effect is only partial and 

 relative. When the agent becomes ultimately the recipient 

 of the effect or modification wrought by its own activity, that 

 is, when the positive change produced by the action remains 

 within the agent itself, the action is called immanent or re- 

 flexive action. Since, however, action and passion are opposites, 

 they can coexist in the same subject only upon condition that 

 said subject is differentiated into partial otherness, that is, 

 organized into a plurality of distinct and dissimilar parts or 

 components, one of which may act upon another. Hence only 

 the organized unit or organism, which combines unity or con- 

 tinuity of substance with multiplicity and dissimilarity of 

 parts is capable of immanent action. The inorganic unit is 

 capable only of transitive action, whose effect is produced in 

 an exterior subject really distinct from the agent. The living 

 unit or organism, however, is capable of both transitive ac- 

 tion and immanent (reflexive) action. In such functions as 

 thought and sensation, the living agent modifies itself and not 

 an exterior patient. In the nutritive or metabolic function 

 the living being perfects itself by assimilating external sub- 

 stances to itself. It develops, organizes, repairs, and multi- 

 plies itself, holding its own and. perpetuating its type from 

 generation to generation. 



Life, accordingly, is the capacity of tending through any 

 form of reflexive action to an ulterior perfection of the agent 

 itself. This capacity of an agent to operate of, and upon, 

 itself for the acquisition of some perfection exceeding its 

 natural equilibrial state is the distinctive attribute of the 

 living being. Left to itself, the inorganic unit tends ex- 



