LIVING THINGS AND MACHINES 119 



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 agreement. That there are superior forces 

 or that there is a superior force is precisely what all 

 vitalists 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 ? 

 " Because, in the first place, these superior ' forces ' 

 are not l forces * at all." What, then, one asks, are 

 they ? The reply is ready. " They are constella- 

 tions of energy, co-ordinations of matter, and the 

 energies immanent therein, under complex and pre- 

 cisely defined conditions, and it is a matter of 

 indifference whether chance or human intelligence 

 has brought them together." 



Here again is a fine high-sounding explanation 

 which on analysis turns out to mean just no- 

 thing. In the very centre of it is embedded a word 

 which begs the whole question and that word is 

 " immanent ". 



