l6 LIFE AND DEATH. 



human hands. According to the well-known ex- 

 pression, its situation in the human body corresponds 

 to that of a pilot on a vessel, or to that of a sculptor 

 or his assistant before the marble or clay. And, in 

 fact, we have no other clear image of a cause external 

 to the object. We have no other representation of a 

 force external to matter than that which is offered by 

 the craftsman making an object, or in general by the 

 human being with his activity, free, or supposed to be 

 free, and directed towards an end to be realized. 



Personifications of this kind, the mythological 

 entities, the imaginary beings, the ontological fictions, 

 which ever filled the stage in the mind of our pre- 

 decessors, have definitely disappeared ; no longer have 

 they a place in the scientific explanations of our time. 

 The neo-vitalists replace them by the idea of direction^ 

 which is another form of the same idea of finality. 

 The series of second causes in the living being seems 

 to be regulated in conformity with a plan, and directed 

 with a view to carrying it out. The tendency which 

 exists in every being to carry out this plan, — that is to 

 say, the tendency towards its end, — gives the impulse 

 that is necessary to carry it out. Neo-vitalists claim 

 that vital force directs the phenomena which it does not 

 produce, and which are in reality carried out by the 

 general forces of physics and chemistry. 



Thus, the directing impulse, considered as really 

 active, is the last concession of modern vitalism. If 

 we go further, and if we refuse to the directing idea 

 executive power and efficient activity, the vital 

 principle is weakened, and we abandon the doctrine. 

 We can no longer invoke it. We cease to be vitalists 

 if the part played by the vital principle is thus far 

 restricted. At first it was both the author of the 



