56 THE NATURE OF MATTER 



courteously says it is " nonsense "; that he nowhere used 

 the phrase " vital force." It is, I believe, literally true that 

 he did not. " Vital force " is a phrase that has suffered so 

 much contempt from both physicists and biologists that it 

 would need the courage of a Haeckel to champion it. But 

 what is the nature of this immaterial something of Sir 

 Oliver's that directs the energies of living things ? It is 

 neither matter, nor force, nor energy, nor substance, he says. 

 In a formal statement in his preface he calls it a " power." 

 What is a " power"? He defines it in a footnote on p. 165. 

 " A force in motion is a power," and, as a former professor 

 of logic, I feel entitled to reverse the definition, and say 

 that " a power is & force in motion" It would appear, then, 

 that when Sir Oliver Lodge does come formally to define 

 his intangible something, he uses a phrase that might 

 have spared the strain on his courtesy had he remem- 

 bered it. 



The second point is more material, and the language of 

 Sir Oliver Lodge even more forcible. Speaking of the 

 inorganic energies that must be associated with the 

 atoms of protoplasm, as they are associated with all 

 atoms, I said that " science always finds these inor- 

 ganic energies to reappear on the dissolution of life." 

 This sentence Sir Oliver Lodge mercilessly italicises 

 and reserves for his grand attack. It draws from him 

 the only positive argument in his book (apart from con- 

 sciousness, which I will deal with later) in favour of his 

 theory. 



Premising that Haeckel " must surely know better " than 



