THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 169 



organism is a psycho-physical individuality. That they 

 probably have their infra-conscious and implicit analogues 

 in the domain of the inorganic is our metaphysical hypothe- 

 sis, which is but little different from the Aristotelian dictum 

 that there is nothing in the end which was not also in kind 

 in the beginning; — but little different from the doctrine that 

 in the beginning was Mind. 



- § 9. Why Cannot the Controversy between Mechanistic 

 and Vitalistic Theory he Ended? 



The persistence of the controversy between mechanism 

 and vitalism has often been the subject of remark. Aristotle 

 was a vitalist and his biology was in conscious opposition 

 to the dogmatic mechanism of the school of Democritus. 

 Yet we are facing the same antithesis to-day. Whence this 

 terrible longevity ? 



Part of the answer is probably to be found in the intrinsic 

 difficulty of the problem of vital activity, which seems to 

 be midway between mechanical uniformity and our own con- 

 scious purposing. The secret of life is baffling, receding 

 as we approach. Perhaps when it seems almost within the 

 physiologist's reach, it is farthest away. Perhaps, as Berg- 

 son says, our intelligence is not suited for this quest, and 

 we get nearest life in sympathy. 



But apart from the unanswered question: What is the 

 essential difference between the Amceba and the crystal, 

 between the bird and the boomerang, is there not something 

 strange in the historical oscillations of opinion between 

 mechanistic and vitalistic interpretation of the living or- 

 ganism? ISTow it is a machine and again it is a spirit, 

 now an automaton and again a free agent, now an engine 

 and again an entelechy. Why does the pendulum of reflcc- 



