THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 165 



behaviour of an animal is shown to be not deducible from the 

 laws of thermodynamics, though in conformity with them, 

 a greater discontinuity will appear if it should be shown 

 that in some cases (distinctively vital processes) the motion 

 of particles in an organism, say an Amreba, neither follows 

 from nor conforms to the motion of particles in an inorganic 

 system, such as, let us say, a whirlpool. 



It may be justly said that if Biology requires categories 

 of its own, it should be able to give some indication of what 

 they are. They may not be clear as yet, the science is so 

 young, but they should be emerging. And surely some of 

 them are beginning to be discerned. First, there is the fact i 

 of organic retention, the capacity of enregistering experience, 

 garnering the past, capitalising gains. We see this in the 

 results of training and habituation, in the establishment of 

 organic rhythms or periodicities, in the organisation of steps 

 which have proved adaptive, in the organic inertia which 

 the hereditary relation reveals. Second, there is the self- ft 

 maintaining, self-preserving, and purposiveness of the organ- 

 ism. Life has been defined as " effective response ", but it is 

 more; it is effective prospectively as well as immediately, 

 it is effective not only in external action, but in self-preser- 

 vation. We see in the developing organism a remarkable 

 ' conativeness ', especially when what is artificially disar- 

 ranged is put to rights again. We see in the simplest be- 

 haviour, where the meaning of things counts, an element of 

 pre-awareness that is essentially teleological. Third, there is 

 the fact of variability, the capacity and habit of giving origin 

 to the new. 



