62 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



individual, and ultimately in the multiplication of the species, 

 there are actions associated with vitality which retard the dissi- 

 pation of energy, I proceed to state the dynamical principles 

 involved in these manifestations, which appear characteristic of the 

 organism, as follows : — 



The transfer of energy into any animate material system is 

 attended by ejects conducive to the transfer, and retardative of dis- 

 sipation. 



This statement is, I think, perfectly general ; I cannot say 

 that it is new. It has been, at least in part, advanced before, but 

 from the organic more than the physical point of view. Thus, 

 " hunger is an essential characteristic of living matter ; " and again, 

 " hunger is a dominant characteristic of living matter,"^ are, in 

 part, expressions of the statement. If it be objected against the 

 generality of the statement, that there are periods in the life of 

 individuals when stagnation and decay become inevitable, I 

 answer, that such phenomena arise in phases of life developed 

 under conditions of external constraint, as will be urged more 

 fully further on, and that in fact the special conditions of old age 

 do not and cannot express the true law and tendency of the dyna- 

 mic relations of life in the face of its evident advance upon the 

 earth. The law of the unconstrained cell is growth on an ever 

 increasing scale ; and although we assume the organic configuration, 

 whether somatic or reproductive, to be essentially unstable, so that 

 continual inflow of energy is required merely to keep it in existence, 

 this does not vitiate the fact that, when free of all external con- 

 straint, growth gains on waste. Indeed, even in the case of old age, 

 the statement remains verbally true, for the phenomena then dis- 

 played point to a break down of the functioning power of the cell, 

 an approximation to configurations incapable of assimilation. It is 

 not as if life showed in these phenomena that its conditions could 

 obtain in the midst of abundance, and yet its law be suspended ; 

 but as if they represented a degradation of the very conditions 

 of life, a break up, under the laws of the inanimate, of the ani- 

 mate contrivance ; so that energy is no longer available to it, 

 or the primary condition, " the transfer of energy into the animate 



^ " Evolution of Sex." Geddes and Thomson, chap. XVI. See also a reference 

 to Professor Cope's theory of " Growth Force," in Mr. "Wallace's Darwinism, p. 421. 



