58 THE NATURE OF MATTER 



active energy. The latent energy of a keg of powder is 

 real enough to the physicist, though the layman's imagina- 

 tion cannot master it. But I did not even say there was as 

 much energy in the dead body. As well make me say there 

 is as much inorganic energy in the rusting old engine beside 

 the line as in the new engine that flies past it with full 

 p f eam up. And apart from the question of quantity, which 

 I did not introduce, and which could not be determined, it 

 is a mere truism to say that the inorganic energies of the 

 hydrogen, oxygen, etc., that went to make the protoplasm, 

 reappear in the gases and other decaying elements of the 

 body. 



The critic concludes this chapter of his work with strong 

 language about Haeckel's " dogmatism " and " benighted 

 fools and credulous dupes." One may invite him to recon- 

 sider a sentence he has written on the preceding page (134). 

 " I say that, whatever life is or is not, it is certainly this : it 

 is a guiding and controlling entity which interacts with our 

 world according to laws that are so partially known that we 

 have to say they are practically unknown." This has a dog- 

 matic ring. And the most curious feature of it in view of 

 its proximity to the plea for the protection of " the uncul- 

 tured " is that there is hardly a prominent biologist in 

 England who would endorse the substance of the statement, 

 in the misleading terms which I have italicised. 



