LIFE AS MECHANISM 



ite idea. So we do. But, when the biologists or psy- 

 chologists use these words, they should state that they 

 are using them in a different way. On the contrary, 

 they insist that they are expressing life actions in 

 terms of physics, and that force and energy are to be 

 measured as they are by the physicist. In other words, 

 they will treat life and its actions as a physical phe- 

 nomenon, they will use the terms of physics, but they 

 will give to them a different and hidden significance. 

 In physics, a certain amount of heat energy and 

 mechanical energy are mutually convertible one into 

 the other, but the energy of thought is not convert- 

 ible into any form of physical energy, nor is phys- 

 ical energy convertible into thought. That I am not 

 exaggerating this constant and flagrant misuse of 

 terms, let me quote from Professor Osborn, who is 

 trying to prove that the failure to find the causes of 

 the evolution of life arises from the fact that the 

 chief explorers in the subject have been trained in the 

 school of the naturalists, who have studied external 

 forms and have observed the end results of long pro- 

 cesses of evolution and have then attempted to rea- 

 son backwards to their cause. He proposes that we 

 find the cause of evolution in terms of energy and he 

 divides energy into four categories: inorganic en- 

 vironme7it\ the energy content in the sun, the earth, 

 the water, and the air; — organism : the energy of the 

 individual, developing and changing the cells and tis- 

 sues of the body ; — heredity-ger?n : the energies of the 



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