16 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



a common and indifferent materia prima, it is 

 clear that there is no inherent impossibility in 

 the proposition which asserts that means may 

 yet be found whereby the fundamental arrange- 

 ments of one molecule say of copper may be 

 so altered that it becomes transmuted into 

 another totally different molecule say of gold. 

 It is, of course, true that the views thus 

 briefly outlined are not yet in any way fully 

 established, and that at any moment further 

 facts may come into notice which may utterly 

 upset both this and the earlier hypothesis. 

 But the example will suffice to show how un- 

 certain even the oldest and most respectable 

 scientific theories may really be, and will also 

 serve as an excellent parallel to the changes of 

 opinion which have taken place in connection 

 with the question with which this present book 

 is concerned, that is the nature of life and of 

 living things. 



Those biologists if we may so speak of them 



who flourished at the same time that the 



alchemists were endeavouring to discover the 



philosopher's stone, had no doubt at all as to 



Scholastics ^ ex i stence of some further factor in living 



and things than those which were to be met with 



Vitalism m inorganic objects. Fr. Maher * + 41s us that 



* Psychology, 5th ed., p. 469 



