D.—ZOOLOGY 83 
time to time, but for many years two concepts appear to have influenced 
the discussion to a marked extent. Firstly, the synthesis of organic 
compounds from inorganic material suggests that there is no fundamental 
difference between the type of substances found in or made by living 
organisms and those which are found in or formed by purely inorganic 
systems. Secondly, the inferences drawn from the theories of organic 
and terrestrial evolution suggest that these two processes are funda- 
mentally similar and involve the operation of fundamentally comparable 
forces. Not a few biologists have in fact maintained that living matter 
“ owes its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been 
instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in the Universe ’ 
(Schafer, 1911). This was the view of Ray Lankester, who elaborated a 
series of intermediate steps whereby the first type of living organism was 
evolved from inanimate matter. I imagine that not a few modern 
zoologists would tolerate, if not actually accept, a similar view. From 
this it is often, but not always, implied that there is a fundamental 
continuity in the properties of all matter and that the only properties 
which a living organism can possess are those which can be defined in 
physico-chemical terms. 
Opposition to such a view has not been wanting. In 1912 Sir Oliver 
Lodge replied to the views set forth by Sir Edward Schafer and stressed 
the existence in organisms of a principle, not easy to define, which is 
absent from the world of physics and chemistry. From time to time the 
battle has been renewed, and both biologists and physicists have taken an 
active part. It is a curious but pertinent fact that the most far-reaching 
mechanistic views have been and are being put forward by biologists, the 
more cautious views or the vitalistic views are held by physicists and 
chemists. IT. H. Morgan, the author of so much fundamental work in the 
realm of pure biology, states in a recent book: ‘ When, if ever, the whole 
story can be told, the problem of adaptation of the organism to its 
environment, and the co-ordination of its parts, may appear to be a 
self-contained progressive elaboration of chemical compounds.’ Even 
Dr. Barnes accepts the spontaneous origin of living matter as a natural 
phenomenon : ‘ If we could reproduce in the laboratory the conditions 
which existed upon the earth when life first appeared we should cause it 
to appear again.’ On the other side, we find physiologists (whose experi- 
mental contributions to science are of a severely physico-chemical nature)— 
J.S. Haldane and A. V. Hill—regarding the purely physical outlook with 
distrust. It all seems rather like Alice in Through the Looking-glass. 
The exponents of the mechanistic view have been curiously indefinite 
in the exposition of their opinions. I confess that a study of the more 
popular works on physical science leads me no nearer to an understanding 
of those ‘ causes ’ which, according to Sir E. Schifer, ‘ have been instru- 
mental in producing all other forms of matter in the Universe’; nor 
have such chemists as I have had the good fortune to meet been very 
familiar with the concept of ‘ co-ordinated series of self-regulating and 
self-propagating chemical reactions,’ such as are described by Prof. 
Hogben. According to Prof. Hogben, we may look for a complete 
solution to the nature of life within a mechanistic framework, fortified by 
the conviction that ‘ The mechanist has a cheerful attitude to knowledge 
