LECTURE I 



THE MECHANISTIC THEORY OF LIFE 



THE aim of the first two of these lectures is to 

 examine the hypothesis that living organisms 

 may be regarded as conscious or unconscious 

 physical and chemical mechanisms, and can 

 be satisfactorily investigated from this stand 

 point. In this first lecture I shall endeavour 

 to state, as well as I can, the case for what 

 may be called, in the absence of a better 

 expression, the mechanistic theory of life. 



The researches of countless investigators 

 have established with practical unanimity 

 certain very fundamental facts with regard to 

 living organisms. One of these is that the 

 matter of which the bodies of organisms are 

 found by analysis to be composed consists 

 of the same chemical elements as are 

 found outside the body, and that no new 

 matter is formed in the body, or disappears 



