57 



to endorse this utterance of "his disciple," 1 he wishes "to 

 oppose the fallacy in the strongest terms." Let me briefly 

 repeat " the fallacy." As, in the current language of physics, 

 energy is associated with all particles of matter (many hold 

 that matter is composed of energy), we must admit that there 

 is a remarkable plexus of inorganic energies in the living 

 protoplasm. Sir Oliver Lodge holds that there is something 

 else, and that this continues to exist after death. Haeckel 

 says (like most of our biologists) that what we call life is 

 only the synthesis of physical and chemical forces in the 

 living matter, and, when the material combination breaks up, 

 this synthesis of energies correspondingly breaks up, and 

 the dissociated inorganic energies appear. The reader will 

 see that this alone is implied in my statement. I was 

 correcting Sir Oliver Lodge's erroneous assertion that 

 Haeckel said the principle of life was "resolved into 

 nothingness." There is not the slightest doubt that 

 Haeckel would endorse my statement. 



Sir Oliver opens his attack upon it by converting it into 

 the statement that " a dead body has more inorganic energy 

 than a live one." A more astounding conversion, or per- 

 version, I never met. My plain statement could not mean 

 more, even if it were pressed to the utmost limit, than that 

 the dead body has as much inorganic energy as the live one. 

 And remember the essential distinction between latent and 



1 To be quite accurate, he says " these utterances." Thus he holds 

 up to the ridicule of his religious readers a series of utterances in which 

 I did absolutely no more than echo the words of Ray-Lankester, 

 Thiselton-Dyer, Ward, Le Conte, and a. dozen other authorities. 



