DISCUSSION 203 



which he stated is, as I have already remarked, 

 not a matter of vitalism but of mechanics, 

 for the phenomena accompanying psychical 

 processes and the elements in the organic 

 processes, in as far as both are mechanically 

 measurable, do not possess the quality which 

 distinguishes these phenomena as psychical 

 or vital. Life as such, both psychical and 

 organic, is something not quantitatively measur- 

 able, precisely because it is not mechanical. 



The speaker agreed with Father Wasmann in 

 thinking that his theory of a polyphyletic evolution 

 could be defended from a purely scientific point of 

 view. It was absolutely impossible to prove a mono- 

 phyletic origin of all living creatures. 



As opposed to the ' supernatural species,' 

 which Plate had ascribed to me in his speech, 

 this remark of Dr. Thesing's was plainly very 

 opportune. 



There were a few points on which the speaker 

 did not agree with Father Wasmann. The latter, 

 he said, had asserted that matter had not existed 

 from all eternity, and that he assumed a divine 

 act of creation in order to account for its existence. 

 Therefore, argued Dr. Thesing, God created matter, 

 and God is eternal, and the question inevitably 

 presents itself : c What is God ? Is He a point, 

 a nothing, or what is He ? ' We can only say that, 



