166 A THEORY OF LIFE 



living objects. In other words, that there is a 

 difference of kind, and not merely of degree, 

 between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the 

 schools of thought called vitalisticand mechanistic. 

 To most persons it has up to now seemed im- 

 possible that there could be a third school ; we 

 appeared to be confronted with what the logicians 

 call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn seems to us 

 to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear 

 on this matter. If we are to " reject the vitalistic 

 hypotheses of the ancient Greeks, and the modern 

 vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others," 

 and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he 

 thinks we must, the cosmos as one of " limitless 

 and ordered energy " we have emphasised the 

 word " ordered " for reasons which will shortly 

 appear we must clearly look out for some middle 

 way. " Ordered" a purely mechanistic and 

 materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. 

 " Ordered " conditions are determined by what 

 we agree to call " Laws " ; and these, as all must 

 admit, entail a Lawgiver. 



The alternative is Blind Chance ; and the 

 author, after considering the question, agrees, 

 as again most reasonable persons will agree, that 

 Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they 

 are. He quotes a modern chemist who, discuss- 

 ing the probability of the environmental fitness 

 of the earth for life being a mere chance process, 

 remarks : " There is, in truth, not one chance 

 in countless millions of millions that the many 

 unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and 

 oxygen, and especially of their stable compounds, 



