LIVING THINGS AND MACHINES 203 



brought into a definite relation with one another. 

 Here it is human intelligence which effects the 

 conjunction. " But organisms also are machines 

 which perform a particular and purposeful kind 

 of work, and they are only capable of doing so 

 because the energies which perform the work 

 are forced into definite paths by superior forces; 

 these superior forces are thus the steersmen of 

 the energies." So far we may be all in agree- 

 ment. That there are superior forces or that 

 there is a superior force is precisely what all 

 vital ists and neo-vitalists contend, and those 

 who believe in a Creator also believe that it was 

 His Will which conferred those powers on living 

 nature. Reinke, from whom quotation has just 

 been made, thinks that these superior forces 

 have been put into the organism by a " cosmic 

 intelligence " which is a polite periphrase, one 

 must suppose, for the Creator. 



Weismann will have none of that. Why not ? 

 u Because, in the first place, these superior 

 4 forces ' are not ' forces ' at all." What, then, 

 one asks, are they ? The reply is ready. " They 

 are constellations of energy, co-ordinations of 

 matter, and the energies immanent therein, 

 under complex and precisely defined conditions, 

 and it is a matter of indifference whether 

 chance or human intelligence has brought them 

 together." 



