BIONOMICS 221 



the implied noumenon is inaccessible ! Still, certain specific character- 

 istics of living organisms are explicitly recognised as among the acces- 

 sible phenomena, and these cannot be conceived in physico-chemical 

 terms. But did Spencer fully realise how big a hole this knocks in 

 the bottom of the purely mechanical interpretation of nature he had 

 for so long championed ? 



It is now sufficiently evident that even without any lifting 

 of the veil concerning the great Unknowable, we have in 

 symbiotic phenomena accessible phenomena of the utmost 

 importance, the study of which must no longer be delayed. 



A consideration of those incident forces calling forth the 

 reaction known as heat, leads Spencer on to phenomena that 

 come under the head of nutrition. 



Though inanimate bodies admit of being greatly heated by pressure 

 and by the electric current, yet the evolutions of heat thus induced are 

 neither so common, nor in most cases so conspicuous, as those resulting 

 from chemical combination. And though in inanimate bodies there 

 are doubtless certain amounts of heat generated by other actions, yet 

 these are all secondary to the heat generated by the action of oxygen 

 on the substances composing the tissues and the substances contained in 

 them. Here, however, we see one of the characteristic distinctions- 

 between inanimate and animate bodies. Among the first there are but 

 few which ordinarily exist in a condition to evolve the heat caused by 

 chemical combination, and such as are in this condition soon cease to- 

 be so when chemical combination and genesis of heat once begin in 

 them. Whereas among the second there universally exists the ability, 

 more or less decided, thus to evolve heat, and the evolution of heat, in 

 some cases very slight and in no cases very great, continues as long 

 as they remain animate bodies. 



We thus see once again the great superiority of animate 

 over inanimate bodies, in virtue of their character and con- 

 stitution ; themselves the outcome of their evolution. So long 

 as they remain " animate " bodies, they possess a quality of 

 chemical heat-production, not commonly possessed to a similar 

 degree by the inanimate world. They can and must rely upon 

 this quality, which is part and parcel of their endowment, their 

 symbiotics. With any exhaustion of the latter, how- 

 ever, this quality also must needs suffer; and a loss in this 

 direction must become a contributive factor of retrogression 

 and of extinction. 



