152 THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 



all; just as attraction and repulsion are manifestations of 

 electrical energy under certain conditions, but are not by 

 any means the only manifestations." Dr. Assheton went 

 on to suggest that in nerve impulses we may experience 

 " manifestations in another way of the same form of energy 

 which under other conditions produces the attractions and 

 repulsions and the figures of strain in the dividing cells, 

 and the actual cell division ". " Driesch's Entelechy," he 

 concludes, " although not supplying the essential qualities of 

 a driving force, may perhaps be a complex system of a sim- 

 pler vitalistic force with other forces which has within cer- 

 tain limits a balancing or compensatory influence upon the 

 course of development like that which a gyroscope has in 

 compensating (within certain limits) for disturbances to 

 the course of a monorail vehicle " (p. 76). 



The disadvantages of this position are the following: 

 first, it is difficult to prove the independence of the alleged 

 new force or energy; second, to attach much theoretical im- 

 portance to it reminds us warningly of the old mistake of 

 making much of organic compounds, which it was alleged, 

 could not be formed without the aid of the l vital force ' 

 resident in organism; third, the inadequacy of the physico- 

 chemical formula? to describe animal behaviour or the like, 

 does not appear to be of a kind which would be affected by 

 the discovery of a new form of physical energy either within 

 or without the organism. Yet the theory that there may be 

 a special kind of power or energy operative in living crea- 

 tures is on the lines of sound science, and must be impartial- 

 ly tested by biologists. There seems nothing very unlikely 

 in the idea that living matter may be able to effect an or- 

 ganisation of movement in some way which we do not under- 

 stand. The theory has nothing to do with Ostwald's sug- 



