110 ORGANISM AND MECHANISM 



2. Chemical and Physical Laws apply to Organisms. 



The apartness of living creatures was stated by Kant in 

 a famous passage. " It is quite certain that we cannot be- 

 come sufficiently acquainted with organised creatures and 

 their hidden potentialities by aid of purely mechanical 

 natural principles; much less can we explain them; and 

 this is so certain, that we may boldly assert that it is absurd 

 for man even to conceive such an idea, or to hope that a 

 Newton may one day arise able to make the production 

 of a blade of grass comprehensible, according to natural 

 laws ordained by no intention; such an insight we must 

 absolutely deny to man " (Teleological Faculty of Judgment, 

 74). We wonder how much of this he would have 

 written had he known the bio-chemistry and bio-physics of 

 to-day. 



It is now recognised by all vitalists included that 

 chemical and physical laws apply to living creatures to 

 what may be called their inorganic aspect. There is no 

 confusion of ' categories ' in so doing. Chemically regarded, 

 the living creature is of a piece with its surroundings; it 

 contains no peculiar elements. The most essential sub- 

 stances, which are always present, are proteins, but there 

 is nothing rare in their composition, just the carbon, 

 hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on of the surrounding 

 world. The peculiarity of proteins is in the complexity 

 of their molecules, which consist of a large number of 

 atoms, and in their general occurrence in a colloid state, 

 which has very important physical properties. It used to 

 be thought that organic substances could be made only by 

 the direct touch of life, but the synthetic chemist has built 

 up samples of most of the different kinds with the exception 



