DECADENCE AND REVIVAL 33 



expositors to deal with this matter, calls it 

 " biotic energy," and does so, as he says, to 

 " avoid confusion with ancient fallacies." 



His remarks are so important and so 

 illuminating that they will bear fuller quota- 

 tion. "It is unfortunate," he says, " that the 

 rebound from the bondage of the old view of 

 a mysterious vital force or vital energy, pos- 

 sessing no connection or correlation with the 

 forms of energy exhibited by non-living trans- 

 formers of energy, should have led to the 

 equally mischievous view of the present day, 

 that no form of energy whatever is present in 

 living cells save such as are seen in the case 

 of non-living matter." Then he suggests his 

 own term of "biotic energy," to " represent Biotic 

 that form of energy peculiar to living matter, Energy." 

 and exhibited in those energy phenomena which 

 are confined to living matter, and are indeed 

 its intrinsic property, by which it is differen- 

 tiated and known to be alive. lii must be 

 pointed out that this point of view is equally 

 distinct from the ancient one of vital force, 

 which postulated something entirely distinct 

 from the forms of energy of the non-living " 

 world, and on the other from the modern view 

 that there exists in living matter no form of 

 energy which is not identical with the forms of 

 energy exhibited in non-living structures." 



c 



