THE GEKM-PLASM THEORY 403 



But organisms also are machines which perform a particular and 

 purposeful kind of work, and they are only capable of doing so 

 because the energies which perform the work are forced into definite 

 paths by superior forces; these superior forces are thus ' the steersmen 

 of the energies.' There is undoubtedly a kernel of truth in this view, 

 and I shall return to it. Eeinke, however, uses it in a way which 

 I cannot follow ; that is, he infers from it a ' cosmic intelligence ' 

 which puts these superior forces into the organisms, and thus controls 

 these machines to purposeful work, as the watchmaker puts ' superior 

 forces ' into the watch by means of wheels, cylinders, and levers. In 

 one case it is human intelligence which controls the ' superior forces,' 

 in the other ' cosmic ' intelligence. I cannot regard this reasoning 

 from analogy as convincing, because, in the first place, these ' superior 

 forces ' are not ' forces ' at all. They are constellations of energy, 

 co-ordinations of matter and the energies immanent therein under 

 complex and pi-ecisely defined conditions, and it is a matter of 

 indiflTerence whether chance or human intelligence has brought them 

 together. If we take Reinke's own example of carbohydrates it is 

 certain that our coal-gas is due to the intelligence of man, which 

 brings together the carbon and the water in such a way that coal-gas 

 must arise. The ' superior forces ' must here be looked for in the 

 arrangements of the coke-stove, and, in the second place, in the 

 intelhgence of man. But when decaying plants in the marsh form 

 another carbon-compound, marsh-gas, where do the directing ' superior 

 forces ' come in 1 Surely only in the fortuitous concomitance of the 

 necessary materials and the necessary conditions. Or may ' cosmic ' 

 intelhgence have established this laboratory in the marsh ? If not, 

 what can compel us to refer the formation of dextrin or starch in the 

 cells of the green leaves of plants to ' superior forces ' which are placed 

 in them by ' cosmic ' intelligence ? I am far from believing that the 

 great and deep problem here touched upon can be put aside in any 

 ofi'-hand manner, but I feel sure that it will never be solved by word- 

 play about energies and ' superior forces.' 



Let us return to the kernel of truth in Reinke's thesis ; it lies in 

 this, that, while the working of a machine does really depend on the ^ 

 forces or energies which are bound up with the stuffs of which it 

 consists, it also depends on a particular combination of these stufis 

 and forces, on a particular ' constellation ' of them, as Fechner ex- 

 pressed it. In the watch these ' constellations ' are the springs, the 

 wheels, &c., and their position in relation to each other ; but in the 

 organism they are the organs, down to the cells and cell-parts ; for 

 the cell too is a machine, indeed a very complex one, as its functions 



