Energies of the Organic World 71 



vital phenomena. From all these facts the existence of a force 

 which is often rapid in its action, and which moves through 

 space, or of an imponderable matter, is evident; nevertheless, 

 we are by no means justified in regarding it as identical with 

 the known imponderable matters, or general physical forces, 

 caloric, Hght, and electricity, a comparison which is refuted 



by a close examination Life, therefore, is not 



simply the result of the harmony and reciprocal action of these 

 parts, but is first manifested in a principle or imponderable 

 matter which is in action in the substance of the germ, enters 

 into the composition of the matter of this germ, and imparts to 

 organic combinations properties which cease at death." 



But Verworn, in commenting on the above (General Physiol., 

 Eng. Tr., 1899, p. 23) says: "In the year 1828, Wohler gave 

 the theory of vital force its death wound by his epoch-making 

 synthesis, out of purely inorganic substances, of urea, a body 

 produced only in nature by organisms." Now, as a matter 

 even of logical continuity, the view may well be advanced 

 that if it is produced only in nature by organisms, or artificially 

 by the organism man, the energy ordinarily needed or used 

 to produce it can not be an inorganic one, but such as is typical 

 of organisms. Further the very means which Wohler used 

 to obtain it are such as no organism could exist under. 



The substance, moreover, being a crystalloid one, and so 

 not most typical of the organic or higher colloid bodies, it 

 is of minor import in any fundamental consideration regarding 

 the life-role of organisms. And exactly the same argument 

 applies to all of the synthesized organic products hitherto 

 obtained by man. 



Maudsley in "Body and Mind" (p. 172 app. "On vitahty") 

 expresses himself thus: "It is certainly extremely unphilosoph- 

 ical, in the present condition of knowledge, to refuse to accept 

 vitality as a special mode of manifestation of force; the special 

 character of its phenomena demands that, whatever its real 

 nature may be, vital force should for the present be received 

 as a distinct force, on the same terms as chemical force or 

 electrical force. The facts of observation as well as a priori 

 considerations unquestionably demand also that it should be 

 regarded as subject to the laws of the correlation and con- 

 servation of force." 



