CONCLUSION 127 



In writing Finis to this little work I gratefully 

 acknowledge the amount of information derived 

 from the many sources quoted. Especially do I 

 acknowledge the free use I have made of Pauli's 

 valuable " Physical Chemistry in the Service of 

 Medicine," of Hammarsten's " Physiological Chem- 

 istry," Newth's "Inorganic Chemistry," Holler's 

 " Chemistry," Morgan's " Physical Chemistry," and 

 several other works. According to the conception 

 of natural phenomena in these works, transformation 

 of energy forms the kernel of all phenomena in 

 Nature. This principle however has not yet solved 

 the problem of life phenomena and has merely 

 touched the fringe of that subject, great as must be 

 acknowledged is the progress that has been made in 

 many departments. While physicists alone have been 

 unable to exhaust the problem of life, the teaching 

 of a vital force is again to the fore ; and the neo- 

 vitalists, tracing back their theory to the anima of 

 Georg Ernst Stahl, urge that vital force alone can 

 account for the phenomena of vitality. It requires 

 care in the employment of the ionic theory to the 

 explanation of vital phenomena not to mistake " the 

 death-dance of the molecules " for living vitality. 

 The assertion of Ostwald that we react only in pro- 

 portion to differences in energy also requires limita- 

 tion ; for there is little doubt that at different times 

 we react differently to the same degree and kind of 

 stimulus. The quality of the stimulus is as impor- 

 tant as its quantity ; noise is not music necessarily, 

 although the same amount of energy may be ex- 

 hausted in producing the vibration. 



It may be that belief in a vital force will continue. 



