LIVING THINGS AND MACHINES 117 



planation to the careless no doubt sounds to the 

 full as satisfactory as did the blessed word Meso- 

 potamia, but when we come to examine the mean- 

 ing of the phrase we find that the explanation is 

 not really an explanation at all. 



In the first place we may well ask, what are 

 these " polarities "? They seem to be nothing 

 more or less than our old friends the " adaptations," 

 which in other words mean the powers of the 

 cell. So that the sentence really means, the 

 powers of the cell determine what it shall do under 

 certain circumstances, which is just what we knew 

 all along. This explanation is an excellent ex- 

 ample of what Professor Ward 1 alludes to when 

 he points out that the system of explaining every- 

 thing which is "going" because it is "going" is 

 admirable "once you have got inside the system," 

 but has no claim to be looked upon as a full ex- 

 planation. No doubt the cell does conform itself 

 to circumstances by virtue of the powers which it 

 possesses, but to call these powers "polarities" 

 and then to suppose that you have explained how 

 they came to exist and how they carry on their 

 operations is to be guilty of the merest word- 

 explanation. 



From the dead we will turn to the living phil- 

 osopher and examine the explanation offered by 

 1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, ii., 271. 



