

THE BAFFLING PROBLEM 



circulation one system in which the heart, the veins, 

 the arteries, the lungs, all work to one common end, 

 coordinating several different organs into a digestive 

 system, and other parts into the nervous system, is 

 a mystery that no objective analysis of the body can 

 disclose. 



To refer vitality to complexity alone, is to dodge 

 the question. Multiplying the complexity of a ma- 

 chine, say of a watch, any conceivable number of 

 times would not make it any the less a machine, or 

 change it from the automatic order to the vital or- 

 der. A motor-car is a vastly more complex mechan- 

 ism than a wheelbarrow, and yet it is not the less a 

 machine. On the other hand, an amoeba is a far 

 simpler animal than a man, and yet it is just as 

 truly living. To refer . life to complexity does not 

 help us; we want to know what lies back of the 

 complexity what makes it a new species of com- 

 plexity. 



We cannot explain the origin of living matter by 

 the properties which living matter possesses. There 

 are three things that mechanics and chemistry can- 

 not explain : the relation of the psychical to the phys- 

 ical through the law of the conservation and corre- 

 lation of forces; the agent or principle that guides 

 the blind chemical and physical forces so as to pro- 

 duce the living body; and the kind of forces that 

 have contributed to the origin of that morphological 

 unit the cell. 



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