"DIRECTIVITY'' A WITNESS OF MIND 71 



He says of nerves : " The activity of protoplasm in 

 the various cells transforms the various food stuffs into 

 the proper substances needed. 



" The energy is already present ; it is only differently 

 distributed by protoplasm ; and nervous action deter- 

 mines what changes, if any, shall go on at a given place." ^ 



He here recognises a sort of "Directivity" and places it 

 in the nerves, while protoplasm is charged with the power 

 of making assimilable molecules. 



This may be true as far as the results come about. 

 But how can the same kind of protoplasm — for no two 

 sorts are known ^ — make a great variety of different sub- 

 stances, and what sets the nerves into action ? 



There is " something " behind all these curious pro- 

 cesses which is not touched ! Nothing could better 

 display the powerlessness of the attempt to reduce all 

 vital phenomena to physics and chemistry than Prof. 

 Dolbear's description of the germination of a grain of 

 corn and the evolution of a chick from the egg. The 

 grain and the egg, he says, differ from the plantlet and 

 the chick in that the former may remain even years with- 

 out germinating, and " when growth has once really begun 

 it must keep on growing or die, arrest is impossible,^ 

 which seems to show that life is a process rather than 

 a condition, and the grain of corn is simply a combination 

 of materials where, under suitable conditions, life may 

 begin ".* 



The last three words beg the question. If life be only 

 a physical force it cannot begin. It could only appear 



1 Op. cit., p. 290. 



'^Haeckel invents terms such as "neuroplasm" for nerves. 

 ^Arrest in plant-growth often occurs when the temperature in spring 

 falls between 40° and 32° F. 

 * Op. cit., p. 292. 



