204 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



Here again is a fine high-sounding explana- 

 tion which on analysis turns out to mean just 

 nothing. In the very centre of it is embedded 

 a word which begs the whole question and that 

 word is "immanent." 



'Inherent" In this country we generally find that inherent 

 is the term used, but as one means that some- 

 thing is sticking in something else and the other 

 that something is remaining in something else 

 it matters but little which of them we use. 

 Neither of them explains anything, for neither 

 of them tells us the least little bit how the 

 something came to stick or to remain in the 

 other something or what it is which sticks or 

 remains there, and this is precisely what we 

 want to know and what the explanation pro- 

 fessed to be about to tell us. 



Let us, however, pursue our inquiry into this 

 explanation a little farther. Let us ask whether 

 the phrase " constellations of energy " is only 

 a rhetorical effort or whether it has any real 

 significance in the world of facts. Does its 

 author in any way define it or explain what it 

 means ? Yes, we find that these " constella- 

 tions " are defined as being " the biophors, the 

 determinants, and the ' groups of determinants ' 

 which we may think of as disposed in a manifold 

 overlapping series." 



We may think, of course, of any subject which 



