118 WHAT IS LIFE 



another vigorous opponent of vitalistic views, the 

 very distinguished writer, Professor Weismann. 

 We have already seen how he attempts to deal 

 with the phenomena of regeneration so unaccount- 

 able on the mechanical hypothesis. And we have 

 seen that his method of accounting for them 

 amounts to nothing more than a mere restatement 

 of the problem. Professor Weismann is far too 

 eminent a biologist not to see that all vital pheno- 

 mena require some explanation, and as he refuses 

 to be persuaded by the vitalistic or neo-vitalistic 

 school, he must perforce offer some other explana- 

 tion. What is it ? Let us try to make it plain. 1 

 In the first place he says that " the botanist Reinke," 

 whose views have already been alluded to in these 

 pages, "has recently called attention once again to 

 the fact that machines cannot be directly made up 

 of primary chemico-physical forces or energies, 

 but that, as Lotze said, forces of a superior order 

 are indispensable, which so dispose the fundamental 

 chemico-physical forces that they must act in the 

 way aimed at by the purpose of the machine". 

 Thus in making a watch, gold, steel, jewels, etc., 

 must not only be brought together, but brought 

 into a definite relation with one another. Here it 

 is human intelligence which effects the conjunction. 

 " But organisms also are machines which perform 

 1 Op. cit., i., 402. 



