THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 155 



bring forward fact after fact which contradicts the possi- 

 bility of such a machine accounting for the result observed. 

 Thus by an argument by exclusion he seeks to prove that 

 the development must be determined by a non-spatial, non- 

 perceptual agent or Entelechy. 



(a) One of the objections to thoroughgoing vitalism is 

 that it implies a definite breach in the fundamental law 

 of the conservation of energy. If a non-perceptual agency 

 occasionally directs the chemico-physical operations of the 

 body, there must be some exertion of power which does not 

 figure in the chemical and physical accounts. The calo- 

 rimeter experiments seem to show that for a man in a closed 

 system the expenditure is equal to the income over a term 

 of days. There is no gap for the intervention of a physical 

 agency; no, not for a moment. This is a serious objection, 

 yet apt to pierce the hand of those who rely on it. For it 

 is a rash procedure to use a physical generalisation as a 

 dogma in the realm of organisms. It is begging the question. 

 Boyle's Law did duty for a couple of centuries before physi- 

 cists discovered that it is accurate only between certain limits. 

 The Law of Gravitation does not hold below certain sizes and 

 distances. Perhaps the Law of the Conservation of Energy 

 does not quite hold for living creatures. The calorimeter ex- 

 periments are not so absolutely exact that it can be asserted 

 that the balance at the end of the day is precisely what it 

 should have been if the organism were a mechanism and noth- 

 ing more, and that therefore an Entelechy does not exist. 

 One remembers that a very minute expenditure of energy 

 may effect a great deal, just as cutting a tape or pressing 

 a button launches a vessel. Driesch's Entelechy is supposed 

 to act by inhibiting for a time the transformation of one kind 

 of energy into another. 



