SCIENTIFIC VITALISM 



Biotic energy is peculiar to living bodies, and 

 "there are precisely the same criteria for its exist- 

 ence," says Professor Moore, "as for the existence 

 of any one of the inorganic energy types, viz., a set 

 of discrete phenomena; and its nature is as mysteri- 

 ous to us as the cause of any one of these inorganic 

 forms about which also we know so little. "It is 

 biotic energy which guides the development of the 

 ovum, which regulates the exchanges of the cell, and 

 causes such phenomena as nerve impulse, muscular 

 contraction, and gland secretion, and it is a form of 

 energy which arises in colloidal structures, just as 

 magnetism appears in iron, or radio-activity in ura- 

 nium or radium, and in its manifestations it un- 

 dergoes exchanges with other forms of energy, in 

 the same manner as these do among one another." 



Like Professor Henderson, Professor Moore con- 

 cedes to the vitalists about all they claim — namely, 

 that there is some form of force or manifestation of 

 energy peculiar to living bodies, and one that can- 

 not be adequately described in terms of physics and 

 chemistry. Professor Moore says this biotic energy 

 "arises in colloidal structures," and so far as bio- 

 chemistry can make out, arises spontaneously and 

 gives rise to that marvelous bit of mechanism, the 

 cell. In the cell appears " a form of energy unknown 

 outside life processes which leads the mazy dance of 

 life from point to point, each new development fur- 

 nishing a starting point for the next one." It not 



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