LIFE AND SCIENCE 



VI 



Professor Soddy, in discussing the relation of life 

 to energy, does not commit himself to the theory of 

 the vitalistic or non-mechanical origin of life, but 

 makes the significant statement that there is a con- 

 sensus of opinion that the life processes are not 

 bound by the second law of thermo-dynamics, 

 namely, the law of the non-availability of the energy 

 latent in low temperatures, or in the chaotic move- 

 ments of molecules everywhere around us. To get 

 energy, one must have a fall or an incline of some 

 sort, as of water from a higher to a lower level, or of 

 temperature from a higher to a lower degree, or of 

 electricity from one condition of high stress to an- 

 other less so. But the living machine seems able to 

 dispense with this break or incline, or else has the 

 secret of creating one for itself. 



In the living body the chemical energy of food is 

 directly transformed into work, without first being 

 converted into heat. Why a horse can do more work 

 than a one-horse-power engine is probably because 

 his living cells can and do draw upon this molecular 

 energy. Molecules of matter outside the living body 

 all obey the law of probability, or the law of chance; 

 but inside the living body they at least seem to 

 obey some other law — the law of design, or of 

 dice that are loaded, as Soddy says. They are more 

 likely always to act in a particular way. Life sup- 



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