MECHANISM AND VITALISM 417 



not be taken as an explanation of the universe. If one does not 

 go into his laboratory with the belief that the problem he is study- 

 ing can be solved along the lines of the mechanistic principles 

 with which he is familiar, then he might as well remain outside; 

 he will not advance science by any other method of attack. On 

 the other hand, because he has found that many of the problems 

 of life have responded to his methods, he is equally unscientific 

 (because he is inaccurate) who jumps to the conclusion before it 

 has been proved that all of the problems of life will yield to the 

 same treatment. 



It has been very interesting to see that the extreme mechanists, 

 like Loeb and his followers on the one hand, and the mystic vital- 

 ists, such as Bose on the other, are both working to the same end. 

 Both schools have infinite faith in the unity of things. The mecha- 

 nists say: "The world is one. Rocks, plants, and animals are all 

 the same. They are all subject to the laws of physicochemical 

 machines." The mystics say: "The world is one. Rocks, plants, 

 and animals all are the same. They are all subject to the laws of 

 life." The difference lies in the unifying principle. The end 

 results in these antipodal cases may be the same, but their conno- 

 tations and their applications to the exciting business of living 

 are very different. 



It has been equally interesting to observe that the physicists 

 and chemists, whose work is on a firmer quantitative basis than 

 biology, are much less mechanistic in their conception of the uni- 

 verse than many of the "cocksure" biologists, whose work is only 

 roughly quantitative. 



Conclusion. — The conclusion from this discussion is that the 

 mechanistic method of attack in physiological and general bio- 

 logical problems, based on the assumption that facts are explain- 

 able by known laws, is the only way of discovering new truths. 

 The worker in this case must use the mechanistic method for its 

 pragmatic value, even though it has its limitations. It is appli- 

 cable only to facts in the physical world of material reality and 

 cannot pretend to offer anything in the realm of immaterial reality. 

 The possibility that such a world exists cannot be denied, and until 

 the nonexistence of this realm has been proved, the present ad- 

 vances in science, which have merely scratched the surface of the 

 unknown, do not permit of a categorical answer in support of either 

 side of this most important question. Unfortunately (?) we do 



