THE FORCES IN THE ORGANISM 57 



passes all human work in being able to adapt itself suitably 

 to altered conditions of pressure. The necessity for this arises 

 very frequently in those cases of fracture in which the two ends 

 have healed together obliquely. The course of the pillars and 

 arches is now no longer in the direction of the strongest pressure 

 and pull. The parts which previously did most of the work, 

 qualified for it by their stronger formation, have now become 

 inactive and useless. But this state does not last long, for soon 

 the course of the lamellae once more proceeds in what is now 

 the direction of the strongest pressure. But everything has 

 happened quite naturally, and there is no need to assume the 

 existence of a mysterious vital force in order to explain the 

 purposeful construction of the bones or any other organs. 



A different question is : What enables an organic substance 

 to react suitably upon a functional stimulus? How does it 

 happen that the awakened need carries with it its own satis- 

 faction? It seems as if we are here confronted with a fund.i- 

 mental difference between the living, and the dead and inorganic 

 matter. But as we observe hourly that living matter changes 

 into inorganic substance, and as we are forced to assume that in 

 distant earth-periods living matter originated from inorganic, 

 there is no necessity for believing this faculty of the living body to 

 be a new force created mysteriously out of nothing, but we must 

 rather assume that it is an essential quality of matter which is 

 non- apparent in the inorganic. Just as electric energy, slumber 

 ing potentially in bodies, only reveals its presence and effects 

 when a certain combination of matter has taken place, so it is 

 with this assumed force of living matter. 



We cannot escape the conclusion that the inorganic carries 

 within itself the conditions of its organization, nor can we deny 

 the justice of the claims advanced by those inclined to postu- 

 late a specific psychic form of energy besides the chemical, 

 mechanical, electric energy. 



It is true that modern biologists confess to an open distrust 

 of everything psychological ; they regard it as mystic, and 

 many would prefer to exclude it entirely from the field of 

 natural science. But that would at the same time exclude an 

 understanding of most of the physical processes and pheno- 

 mena. "Because," says Wundt, "a superficial observation of the 



