LECTURE II 



CRITICISM OF THE MECHANISTIC THEORY 



IN the last lecture it was shown that the 

 position of the vitalists is wholly unsatisfac 

 tory ; but it does not follow from this that the 

 mechanists are right ; and those engaged in the 

 observation of living organisms can hardly 

 escape feeling an instinctive distrust of the 

 mechanistic theory, in spite of the confidence 

 with which it has been urged upon the world 

 during the last fifty years. Somehow or other 

 a living organism never seems to be a mechan 

 ism, however often it may be called one. The 

 closer the examination, the more confirmed 

 does this impression become, always provided 

 that we are studying living organisms them 

 selves, and not merely their dead bodies, or 

 material which has been removed from their 

 bodies. 



Apart from arguments of a general or philo- 



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