THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 149 



of creative power than the sun, from which all its mechani- 

 cal energy is borrowed. An earth without life, a sun, and 

 countless stars contain less wonder than that grain of mignon- 

 ette." 



With the first grade of vitalism that the problem of the 

 homing of the bird is only a very complicated form of the 

 problem of the return of the boomerang we cannot be sat- 

 isfied. And a sufficient reason for dissatisfaction though 

 not the only one is to be found in the fact that it has not 

 yet been found possible to give a mechanistic answer to 

 any biological question. We know a great deal about the 

 structure of muscle, the chemical, thermal, and electrical 

 changes that go on in muscle, but we cannot give a chemico- 

 physical account of the contraction of a muscle. If ' expla- 

 nation by analysis ' had begun to be successful, we might 

 hesitate before resorting to ' explanation by synthesis ', 

 as we do, for instance, when we say that the bird comes 

 home because it is a creature in whose present the enregis- 

 tered past counts. 



4. Have Organisms a Monopoly of Some Peculiar Energy 

 or Energies? 



According to the second grade of vitalism, there is a 

 peculiar kind of energy operative in living creatures and 

 nowhere else. Organisms have a monopoly of some power 

 in the same (perceptual) series, as, say, electricity. This 

 is a continuation of one form of the old hypothesis of 

 * Vital Force ', and it has not found many supporters in 

 recent years. But it is an honest theory, and may be illus- 

 trated by a reference to the work of a thoughtful biologist, 

 Prof. M. Hartog of Cork. Every one admits that one of 

 the commonest phenomena of life is also one of the most stag- 



