204 EVOLUTION 



in which the author, working from his stand- 

 point as an experimental embryologist, ad- 

 vances technical proofs of the "autonomy 

 of life," and of its specific distinctiveness 

 from the not-living. He advances an elabo- 

 rate threefold argument to show how the 

 interpretation of a living creature as a 

 machine breaks down, both in regard to its 

 functioning and its development; and he 

 seeks to show that it is necessary to postulate 

 an immaterial autonomous factor, or "en- 

 telechy" which punctuates the transforma- 

 tions of energy that go on within the body. 

 This "entelechy" is the living creature's 

 innermost secret, in fact its directive soul. 

 Another clear and comprehensive exposi- 

 tion of a theory of Vitalism will be found in 

 Bergson's "Creative Evolution." Bergson 

 dwells on the close resemblance between the 

 life of the organism and our own personal 

 experience. We change without ceasing; the 

 organism is in a state of ceaseless flux which 

 we call metabolism. Both have the mysteri- 

 ous quality of ''duree'' — but duration in more 

 than the merely physical and chronological 

 sense; for what he means by it is "the con- 

 tinuous progress of the past which gnaws 

 into the future and which swells as it advan- 

 ces." "Our personality shoots, grows and 

 ripens without ceasing. Each of its moments 



