126 ORGANISM AND MECHANISM 



across the waste of seas. This seems to us so different from 

 the return of the boomerang to the thrower's hand that we 

 venture to call it different in kind. 



When we are dealing with higher animals, presumably 

 with conscious processes analogous to our own, the contrast 

 with a mechanism stands out even more clearly. An engine 

 overcomes hindrances, force against force, but it has no 

 resource, no alternatives, no tactics. But an organism with 

 a mind at work, a conscious organism, is different in its 

 relation to hindrances. As Dr. J. S. Haldane says, " It 

 is aware of, and avoids, neutralises, or even takes advantage 

 of them. It adapts its behaviour in such a manner as to 

 maintain itself in the presence of what is outside the mere 

 organic unity of its life. But in so doing the organism 

 shows itself to be more than a mere organism; it includes 

 within the unity of its life what seemed to be independent " 

 (Life and Finite Individuality, p. 23). 



6. Difficulty of Applying Mechanistic Formula to 

 Development. 



Our third test of mechanistic interpretation is with regard 

 to development. When we watch a transparent marine 

 animal, such as one of the Salps, we can see the movements 

 of internal parts the beating of the heart, for instance 

 and though what we see is not like anything in inorganic 

 nature, we are reminded of a smoothly-working machine 

 like a chronometer. On the other hand, when we have the 

 good fortune to observe a development actually going on in 

 perfect translucency, for instance in the egg of the moth 

 Botys hyalinalis, our unprejudiced impression must surely 

 be, that this is very far away from anything mechanical, 

 that it is in fact very unlike anything else in the world. 



