ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 439 



It is true that not all parts of a higher organism are 

 subject to this continued change, but those that are not 

 such as the skeleton of an animal or the trunk of a 

 tree are automatically deposited by the living organism 

 for the purpose of external or internal support, protection, 

 or communication. They are the permanent mechanism 

 by which the economy and administration of the society 

 of living units or cells are kept up. These it has been 

 possible, in many instances, to analyse into stable 

 chemical compounds, which have been reproduced in 



which we found cannot be repre- 

 sented as an independent vital 

 principle, we now find cannot be 

 represented as a principle inherent 

 in living matter. If, by assuming 

 its inherence, we think the facts 

 are accounted for, we do but cheat 

 ourselves with pseudo-ideas. . . . 

 It needs but to observe how even 

 simple forms of existence are in 

 their ultimate nature incompre- 

 hensible, to see that this most, 

 complex form of existence is. in a 

 sense doubly incomprehensible. . . . 

 While the phenomena (of life) are 

 accessible to thought, the implied 

 noumenon is inaccessible, .... 

 only the manifestations come within 

 the range of our intelligence, while 

 that which is manifested lies be- 

 yond it" (p. 122). There seems 

 ample evidence that under differ- 

 ent forms of words Claude Bernard 

 and Du Bois-Reymond, in his later 

 writings, arrived at similar con- 

 clusions. See ' La Science Ex- 

 perimentale,' p. 210, and "Die 

 sieben Weltrathsel " ('Reden,' vol. 

 i. p. 381). "The mystery is the 

 more profound the more it is 

 brought into contrast with the 

 exact knowledge we possess of sur- 

 rounding conditions" (Prof. Burdon 

 Sanderson, ' Brit. Assoc. Report,' 

 1889, p. 614). 



logic' (Jena, 1894, neue Aufl.), 

 especially the last chapter. Still 

 more recent is the very careful 

 analysis contained in the new 

 edition of Mr Spencer's 'Biology,' 

 notably vol. i. p. Ill sqq. The 

 final conclusion arrived at by these 

 two latest philosophers has much 

 in common. Both strive after a 

 dynamic conception of life ; both 

 confess that such is at present un- 

 attainable a desideratum, not an 

 achievement. Hauptmann says (p. 

 386) : " The most primitive life, 

 from which alone the living world 

 on this earth can have sprung, can 

 only be assumed to be a species the 

 members of which varied in manifold 

 ways and propagated themselves. 

 Here we have to do already with 

 an eminently complex interaction of 

 elementary processes. . . . We still 

 absolutely lack every conception of 

 such a dynamical system. . . . 

 Likewise the origin of the simplest 

 living substance is mechanically 

 quite unknown and uncompre- 

 hended. . . . The individual forms 

 of life stand in the midst of a 

 yet unintelligible higher order of 

 the material world." Similarly 

 Mr Spencer (loc. cit., p. 120) : 

 "We are obliged to confess that 

 life in its essence cannot be con- 

 ceived in physico-chemical terms. 

 The required principle of activity, 



