148) THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 



are required for the description of the activities of living 

 creatures. The biologist may be allowed a laboratory to 

 himself as a matter of convenience and courtesy, just as 

 there is a laboratory for Electrodynamics quite apart from 

 another for Hydrodynamics. But the idea of biology being 

 an autonomous science must be nipped in the bud. 



It is interesting to notice that many physicists, who are 

 familiar with the capabilities of mechanical formulation, 

 have been very cautious in their statements regarding the 

 extension of this to vital phenomena. Gauss, Cauchy, and 

 Kelvin may be mentioned as investigators of the first rank 

 in mathematics and physics who regarded life as belonging 

 to an entirely different field. Hertz again was very careful : 

 " We can neither maintain that the internal phenomena of 

 animated beings obey the same laws (as in inanimate na- 

 ture) nor that they follow other laws. . . . Our principle, 

 sufficient perhaps to describe the motion of lifeless matter, 

 appears at least prima facie to be too simple and limited to 

 describe the manifoldness of even the lowest vital phe- 

 nomena." 



Lord Kelvin's view was more dogmatic, and assertive 

 rather than reasoned. Yet it is important, for surely he, of 

 all men, must have known how far his physics would carry 

 him. " The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical 

 biology is absolute negation of automatic commencement 

 or automatic maintenance of life. . . . The opening of 

 a bud, the growth of a leaf, the astonishing development 

 of beauty in a flower, involve physical operations which 

 completed chemical science would leave as far beyond our 

 comprehension as the differences between lead and iron, 

 between water and carbonic acid, between gravitation and 

 magnetism, are at present. A tree contains more mystery 



