226 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



characteristic of life is one of peculiar absurdity 

 even for the pure mechanician, which can 

 only be explained as a natural reaction from 

 the entirely different mediaeval conception 

 of a vital force which worked impossible 

 miracles. As well because of the errors 

 connected with the idea of " phlogiston " 

 might the present ideas regarding " energy " 

 as a whole be scouted. 



It is biotic energy which guides the develop- 

 ment of the ovum, which regulates the ex- 

 changes of the cell, and causes such phenomena 

 as nerve impulse, muscular contraction, and 

 gland secretion, and it is a form of energy 

 which arises in colloidal structures, just as 

 magnetism appears in iron, or radio-activity 

 in uranium or radium, and in its manifesta- 

 tions it undergoes exchanges with other 

 forms of energy, in the same manner as these 

 do amongst one another. There are precisely 

 the same criteria for its existence as for the 

 existence of any one of the inorganic energy 

 types, viz., a set of discrete phenomena; and 

 its nature is as mysterious to us as the cause 

 of any one of these inorganic forms about 

 which also we know so little. When we know 

 why hydrogen and oxygen unite to form 

 water, then we shall be near to understanding 

 the balance of organic colloids. In fact, the 



