January 9, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



49 



yet I fancy that no psychologist will yet 

 undertake to measure the relative amounts 

 of energy involved in the composition of 

 poetry, the translation from Greek or Ger- 

 man, or the integration of a differential 

 equation. Whether we believe with Mr. 

 Arthur Balfour that "life and beauty and 

 happiness are not measurable" or not, we 

 are still far from having even proposed any 

 units for their measurement. 



The question whether the second law of 

 thermodynamics is applicable to biological 

 processes is an interesting one, and we 

 may hope that it will some time be an- 

 swered, but at present there seems to be 

 great difficulty in defining entropy in con- 

 nection with such processes. Until this at 

 least can be done, we seem to be a long way 

 from what seems to be the hope of many 

 biologists to reduce the explanation of life 

 to physics and chemistry. While I suppose 

 that most of us believe, with Professor E. 

 A. Schafer, as stated in his British Asso- 

 ciation address of last year, that "the 

 problems of life are essentially problems of 

 matter; we can not conceive of life in the 

 scientific sense as existing apart from mat- 

 ter. The phenomena of life are investi- 

 gated, and can only be investigated, by the 

 same methods as all other phenomena of 

 matter, and the general results of such 

 investigations tend to show that living be- 

 ings are governed by laws identical with 

 those which govern inanimate matter," 

 while I say, most of us are willing to go so 

 far, I presume that there are few physicists 

 or chemists who will deny that there is 

 probably some additional element involved 

 in life, or who are willing to follow Pro- 

 fessor Schafer in his statement that "The 

 combination of . . . these elements into a 

 ■colloidal compound represents the chemical 

 basis of life; and when the chemist suc- 

 ceeds in building up this compound it will 

 without doubt be found to exhibit the 



phenomena which we are in the habit of 

 associating with the term 'life.' " For if 

 we can not answer the very direct questions 

 that I have stated above how near are we 

 to the position of certainty indicated by 

 Professor Schafer 's words? 



If the methods of dynamics and thermo- 

 dynamics are not of present application in 

 physiological processes, it is fair to suppose 

 that they are even less so in connection 

 with mental processes. That the statisti- 

 cal method is of value here however may 

 be shown by consulting almost any psy- 

 chological journal. A recent example is 

 to the point. Many persons have the be- 

 lief that they can tell when they are being 

 stared at by a person whom they can not 

 see. In order to test this subjects were 

 placed under identical circumstances and 

 an experimenter stared, or did not stare, 

 as determined by the fall of a die, for a 

 certain length of time, after which the sub- 

 ject reported on the result, without being 

 informed of the true state of affairs. The 

 guesses were then averaged, and the correct 

 result having been arrived at in 50.2 per 

 cent, of the trials, it was concluded that 

 nothing more than pure chance had been in 

 operation, and that the belief in the assumed 

 ability is an error. What could be more 

 like the examination of a physical phe- 

 nomenon, and what more convincing? In 

 the same manner we might examine the 

 question of thought transference in gen- 

 eral. The interest which the general pub- 

 lic has in such investigations, and the de- 

 sire that they be connected with physical 

 phenomena, is illustrated by the incident 

 of the publication, a few years ago, by 

 a distinguished naturalist, of an obviously 

 jocular account of "The Astral Camera 

 Club of Alcalde," in which the formation 

 of an actual image on the retina of a 

 cat by thought transference was described 

 with such particularity as to deceive so 



