376 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



complexity and intricacy. A similar 1 attitude has in 

 the course of our century frequently been taken up 

 with regard to the problem of life, but it has always 

 been abandoned again. 2 We are still told that " in 



1 See, for instance, what Huxley, 

 who, in his earlier writings, might 

 be termed a vitalist (cf. his ad- 

 dress " On the Educational Value 

 of the Natural History Sciences," 

 1854, and his own criticism thereof 

 in the preface, dd. 1870, in ' Lay 

 Sermons and Addresses'), says in 

 his article "Biology," 1875, in the 

 'Ency. Brit.,' vol. iii. p. 681: "A 

 mass of living protoplasm is simply 

 a molecular machine of great com- 

 plexity, the total results of the 

 working of which, or its vital 

 phenomena, depend on the one 

 hand, upon its construction, and 

 on the other, upon the energy 

 supplied to it ; and to speak of 

 ' vitality ' as anything but the 

 name of a series of operations, is 

 as if one should talk of the ' hor- 

 ologity' of a clock." Similarly 

 Claude Bernard, in his ' Le?ons sur 

 les phe'nomenes de la vie,' &c., vol. 

 i. p. 379, says: "En un mot, le 

 phe"nomene vital est pre'-e'tabli 

 dans sa forme, non dans son ap- 

 parition. . . . La nature est in- 

 tentionelle dans son but, mais 

 aveugle dans l'e"xecution." Both 

 Huxley's comparison of an organism 

 with a clock and the quotation 

 from Claude Bernard suggest a 

 parallel between the dictum of 

 Archimedes : " 86s /to irov aria KOL\ 

 rbv K6cr/j.ov Kivf)<r<a," and a possible 

 one of a biologist : " Give me an 

 organism, and I will explain its 

 action mechanically." In another 

 place Claude Bernard says (loc. cit. , 

 ii. p. 524) : " L'e'le'ment ultimo du 

 phe"nomene est physique ; 1' arrange- 

 ment est vital." 



2 Examples of this could be 

 multiplied indefinitely. I take 

 one from an entirely different 



field. Prof. Kerner von Marilaun, 

 the celebrated botanist, says ('The 

 Natural History of Plants,' transl. 

 by Dr Oliver, 1894, vol. i. p. 52) : 

 " In former times a special force 

 was assumed the force of life. 

 More recently, when many phen- 

 omena of plant life had been suc- 

 cessfully reduced to simple chemical 

 and mechanical processes, this vital 

 force was derided and effaced from 

 the list of natural agencies. But 

 by what name shall we now desig- 

 nate that force in nature which is 

 liable to perish whilst the proto- 

 plasm suffers no physical alteration, 

 and in the absence of any extrinsic 

 cause ; and which yet, so long as 

 it is not extinct, causes the proto- 

 plasm to move, to inclose itself, to 

 assimilate certain kinds of fresh 

 matter coming within the sphere 

 of its activity and to reject others, 

 and which, when in full action, 

 makes the protoplasm adapt its 

 movements under external stim- 

 ulation to existing conditions in 

 the manner which is most ex- 

 pedient ? This force in nature is 

 not electricity nor magnetism ; it 

 is not identical with any other 

 natural force, for it manifests a 

 series of characteristic effects which 

 differ from those of all other forms 

 of energy. Therefore I do not 

 hesitate again to designate as vital 

 force this natural agency, not to 

 be identified with any other, whose 

 immediate instrument is the proto- 

 plasm, and whose peculiar effect 

 we call life." Another example 

 is that of Prof. Virchow, to whom 

 we are indebted for the great rev- 

 olution which the application of 

 the novel conceptions of the cell- 

 ular theory has worked in the 



