852 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 857 



expressed by a hypothetical test. Assume any 

 healthy organic cell or organism to be instan- 

 taneously resolved into its constitutent par- 

 ticles so that they are suddenly reduced to 

 inorganic substances. Then assume that it 

 were possible to instantaneously reassemble 

 each of these particles in precisely the phys- 

 ical relations in which they before stood to 

 each other with the same temperature condi- 

 tions and let each particle be instantaneously 

 impressed with motions the same in direction 

 and amount which they possessed at the in- 

 stant of dissolution. If then the reassembled 

 body goes on as an organism as before, it will 

 be proof that life is but the operation of what 

 are known as the ordinary mechanical and 

 chemical forces. If not, it will be proof that 

 a certain tertium quid no matter what is 

 lacking to convert the body into an organism. 

 This tertium quid constitutes the element of 

 vitalism as it is generally understood. It does 

 not necessarily imply the imposition of some 

 new and foreign principle or substance on the 

 materials constituting the body. It may be 

 nothing more than the bringing into activity 

 of forces or affections previously latent in the 

 materials themselves. The former seems to 

 be the theory of the extreme vitalists who look 

 on the soul as something distinct from the 

 body, while the latter seems to correspond 

 with the views of those vitalists who regard 

 matter as in the language of Tyndal im- 

 pressed with the potency of all life. 



In a last analysis, however, no sharp line of 

 distinction can be drawn between the vitalists 

 of the latter type and the non-vitalists. For 

 it seems clear that if this tertium quid be in 

 any manner latent in the inorganic particles, 

 it may be looked on as undisclosed chemical 

 attributes of the matter itself. It becomes 

 rather a question of definition, what are chem- 

 ical or mechanical attributes? These terms 

 in their popular significance are confined to 

 forces subject to comparatively simple mathe- 

 matical laws. I think few mathematicians 

 would concede that such laws, however nu- 

 merous, could furnish an equation which 

 would satisfy the complicated movements in- 

 volved in the life history of an organism. 



The forces at work must be something more 

 than those ordinarily understood as mechan- 

 ical or chemical. 



When to this is added the element of self- 

 direction or self-selection, which in its higher 

 forms assumes the aspect of self-conscious- 

 ness, we have crossed a barrier which appar- 

 ently can never be bridged in terms of 

 mechanical or chemical forces and which must 

 seemingly forever remain a mystery, whose 

 solution we are no nearer than were the old 

 Greek philosophers. The weight of such evi- 

 dence as we have seems to favor a modified 

 vitalist or it might be called mechanical vital- 

 istie view. All vital activity is measurable in 

 terms of energy expended. An infinite chain 

 of physical causation determines every vital 

 movement. No power of seK-determination 

 beyond such causation could exist without the 

 power to create energy. The activity of the 

 organic mechanism may be suspended indefi- 

 nitely and again revived if no disarrangement 

 of its constituent particles occur. On the 

 other hand, no mathematical laws can be con- 

 ceived of which could express the operation of 

 the forces which direct the life history of tbe^ 

 individual. Are we not brought back to the- 

 old theistic or deistic conception of an in- 

 scrutable power pervading all nature in whorm 

 we live and move and have our being? 



Walter S. Nichols 

 New York 



a plea for the use of references, and 

 accuracy therein 



To THE Editor of Science: It has been the- 

 writer's duty, during the past two or three 

 years, to compile, or to assist in the compiling 

 of, a number of extensive bibliographies and 

 lists of references to the literature of various- 

 chemical subjects, and during this work it has 

 been often impressed upon him with what 

 laxity and apparent disregard of consequences 

 some authors handled — or failed to handle — 

 their references to prior work. The same diffi- 

 culty is all too often experienced when looking 

 up some apparently simple subject. 



For instance, an article was recently desired 

 by a chemist employed in certain synthetic- 



