THE BAFFLING PROBLEM 



and parts of the system — a superior dynamic force 

 controlling and guiding all the individual parts. 



A most determined and thorough-going attempt 

 to hunt down the secret of vitality, and to deter- 

 mine how far its phenomena can be interpreted in 

 terms of mechanics and chemistry, is to be found in 

 Professor H. W. Conn's volume entitled "The Liv- 

 ing Machine." Professor Conn justifies his title by 

 defining a machine as "a piece of apparatus so de- 

 signed that it can change one kind of energy into an- 

 other for a definite purpose." Of course the adjec- 

 tive "living" takes it out of the category of all 

 mere mechanical devices and makes it super-me- 

 chanical, just as Haeckel's application of the word 

 "living" to his inorganics ("living inorganics"), 

 takes them out of the category of the inorganic. 

 In every machine, properly so called, all the factors 

 are known; but do we know all the factors in a liv- 

 ing body? Professor Conn applies his searching 

 analysis to most of the functions of the human 

 body, to digestion, to assimilation, to circulation, to 

 respiration, to metabolism, and so on, and he finds 

 in every function something that does not fall within 

 his category — some force not mechanical nor chem- 

 ical, which he names vital. 



In following the processes of digestion, all goes 

 well with his chemistry and his mechanics till he 

 comes to the absorption of food-particles, or their 

 passage through the walls of the intestines into the 



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