THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 153 



gestion that the chemical energy of protoplasm may be trans- 

 formed into the mental energy of thinking, which seems to 

 us a contradiction in terms. 



It is stated that the movements of molecules in the domain 

 of the inorganic obey the law of probability ; it is interesting 

 to ask whether that is true of the molecules within organisms 

 (see Soddy, Matter and Energy, p. 101). But we cannot 

 suggest a test case! Is it conceivable that, just as lowering 

 the temperature of a gas makes it into a liquid whose mole- 

 cules below the surface have movements quite different from 

 what they had in the gas state, so complicated molecules 

 in a colloid state have movements which obey some other 

 law than that of probability, and is it conceivable that the 

 reality of which the molecular movements are one expres- 

 sion then begins to show another aspect, perhaps, as some 

 would say, a metakinetic aspect? 



5. Is there a Non-perceptual Vital Agency resident in Or- 

 ganisms and operative in Distinctively Vital Activities? 



The third view is thoroughgoing vitalism, best represented 

 by Driesch, whose ingenuity and consistency command our 

 admiration. Its postulate is a non-perceptual vital agency, 

 which does not occur in not-living things but is confined to 

 organisms, where it operates in certain cases, directing the 

 chemico-physical processes so that their results are different 

 from what they would have been apart from its interven- 

 tion. Three points should be carefully noted: (1) that the 

 postulated vital agency or entelechy is not the outcome of 

 more complex physical conditions, " not a new elemental con- 

 sequence of some constellation " ; (2) that it only inter- 

 venes at certain steps, introducing an occasional indetermin- 

 ism ; and (3) that it is supposed to be a genuine agent, count- 



