250 SYMBIOGENESIS 



from the persistence of force that no such transformation of organic 

 matter containing this latent energy can take place without the energy 

 being in one shape or other manifested. 



This is all quite true. But, as we have now sufficiently 

 seen, it is but a partial truth, and the principles of Biology 

 can only be very partially understood without the recognition 

 of Bio-Economics. 



D. 

 As regards the 



"PROXIMATE DEFINITION OF LIFE" 



(the subject of his next chapter), Spencer starts by putting us 

 on our guard against the fallacies of classifications which, as 

 he says, are subjective conceptions, " which have no absolute 

 demarcations in Xature corresponding to them." 



Schelling's definition of Life, that it is the tendency to 

 individuation, is rejected on the ground that it includes under 

 the idea of Life much that we usually exclude from it : for 

 instance, crystallisation. This objection, however, appears no 

 longer tenable in the light of recent science. When we con- 

 sider, for instance, such phenomena as Prof. Stephane Leduc's 

 osmotic growths, showing that faculties of nutrition, absorp- 

 tion, elaboration or chemical metamorphosis, assimilation, 

 elimination, growth, development, functional differentiation, 

 organisation, inanition and disease are not absent in the 

 inorganic world, we find that our classification of things into 

 living and non-living is inadequate, and that, in Spencer's 

 own words, it is a case of our definition "leaving out some- 

 thing that should be taken in." 



Schelling's definition, therefore, seems fairly satisfactory 

 and intelligible. It is congruous with Dr. J. S. Haldane's 

 conception of "personality" (or " character," as I would say) 

 as the great central fact of the universe. 



Spencer thinks that a definition supplied by himself, " the 

 co-ordination of actions," answers the facts with " tolerable " 

 precision. 



