ORGANISM AND MECHANISM 115 



of chemical and physical laws to the activities of organisms, 

 there are also in organisms novel circumstances which seem 

 to alter cases. 



In this connection, the Italian physicist and mathema- 

 tician Enriques writes (1914, p. 376) : " Only a few general 

 physical relations, persisting through all varieties of condi- 

 tions, are found to be verified without change in the realm 

 of biology, as, for example, the conservation of matter and of 

 energy. But among the less extended laws that refer to 

 diffusion or osmosis or electric conductivity, etc., we meet 

 at every step with exceptions and apparent contradictions." 

 He refers, for instance, to the fish known as the Torpedo, as 

 " a living Leyden jar ", and says : " While the functioning of 

 an electrical machine is so easily hindered by the moisture 

 of the insulator, here we see a charge which is not lost in 

 the watery fluid with which the tissues of the animal are 

 saturated." The living cells of the bladder hinder the dif- 

 fusion of water : " We can only say that a moist tissue 

 prevents the passage of water by virtue of being alive, for 

 it loses this property as soon as death has taken place." 

 Enriques also refers to the work of Galeotti, who has shown 

 that protoplasm hinders the diffusion of certain substances, 

 and in certain cases offers an especial resistance to the 

 ions moved by electro-motor force. It may be said that these 

 difficulties are due to the particularly complex conditions. 

 But in the meantime it is not unscientific to state that the 

 ' analytical explanation ' is not as yet forthcoming. What 

 is gained by advancing to a ' synthetic explanation ', which 

 starts with the fact of life, is another question to be con- 

 sidered later on. 



So far, then, our conclusions are, (1) that many chemical 

 and physical processes go on in the living body which are 



