THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY 135 



In this connection we must remember Kant's 

 dictum 1 that "if we seek the cause of any change 

 of matter whatever, in life, we shall have to seek it 

 at once in another substance, distinct from matter, 

 although bound up with it." 



"It is in meeting this difficulty," says Fr. 

 Maher, 2 " that the Scholastic conception of the re- 

 lation of Soul and Body in the theory of Matter Matter a 

 and Form is most helpful. In that theory the vital 

 principle is the ' form ' or determining principle of 

 the living being. Coalescing with the material or 

 passive factor, it constitutes the living being. It 

 gives it its specific nature, it unifies the material 

 elements into one individual. It makes them, it 

 constitutes them, it holds them a living being of a 

 certain kind. Biology teaches us that the living 

 organism is a mass of chemical compounds, many 

 in very complex and unstable equilibrium. They 

 are, many of them, tending of themselves to dis- 

 solution into simpler and more stable substances, 

 and when life ceases the process of disintegration 

 sets in with great rapidity. The function, then, of 

 this active informing principle is of a unifying, 

 conserving, restraining character, holding back and 

 sustaining the potential energies of the organism 



1 Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft, ed. 

 Hartenstein, vol. iv., s. 440. 



2 Life and the Conservation of Energy in the Lower 

 Animals. 



