Editor's Preface 



PROFESSOR FELIX LE DANTEC, of the University of Paris, 

 stands as perhaps the foremost champion of the mechanical 

 theory of life, and in this book, written especially for the 

 people of our speech, he has given us, in the simplicity of 

 its expression, the clarity of its statement, and the keen 

 logic of it, perhaps the best exposition of this subject extant. 

 The conclusions that he arrives at seem coercive. The body 

 is a mechanism, which in substance, energy, form and 

 movements, proceeds absolutely in accordance with the laws 

 of substance. In the demonstrations contained within this 

 book, Professor Le Dantec has done great service in hastening 

 what will be the inevitable conclusion of science. 



But there is a certain demonstration that the book does 

 not contain, and that is, that because the living organism is a 

 mechanism it is necessarily an automaton. 



In beginning his exposition of the phenomena of living 

 matter by first casting out all consideration of phenomena 

 " like that which I feel passing in myself " Professor Le 

 Dantec permits himself to assume that the body is not only 

 a mechanism (as he demonstrates so clearly) but that it is a 

 fatally determined mechanism, a wholly different matter. 



But the fact is that there are other things existing, per- 

 ceptions, ideas, volitions and feelings, and while they do not 

 necessarily enter into consideration in the proof that the 



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