LIFE AND MIND 



often recourse is had by biological writers to terms 

 that embody the same idea. Thus the German 

 physiologist Verworn, the determined enemy of the 

 old conception of life, in his great work on " Irrita- 

 bility," has recourse to "the specific energy of living 

 substances." One is forced to believe that without 

 this " specific energy " his " living substances " would 

 never have arisen out of the non-living. 



Professor Moore, of Liverpool University, as I 

 have already pointed out while discussing the term 

 " vital force," invents a new phrase, "biotic energy," 

 to explain the same phenomena. Surely a force by 

 any other name is no more and no less potent. Both 

 Verworn and Moore feel the need, as we all do, of 

 some term, or terms, by which to explain that ac- 

 tivity in matter which we call vital. Other writers 

 have referred to "a peculiar power of synthesis" in 

 plants and animals, which the inanimate forms do 

 not possess. 



Ray Lankester, to whom I have already referred 

 in discussing this subject, helps himself out by in- 

 venting, not a new force, but a new substance in 

 which he fancies "resides the peculiar property of 

 living matter." He calls this hypothetical substance 

 "plasmogen," and thinks of it as an ultimate chem- 

 ical compound hidden in protoplasm. Has this 

 "ultimate molecule of life" any more scientific or 

 philosophical validity than the old conception of a 

 vital force? It looks very much like another name 

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