THE THEORY OF ENERGY AND THE LIVING WORLD. 529 



follow from the "idea of continuity" of nature as opposed to "physical 

 discontinuity." The unity in the world, the diversity in the spirit, is 

 the fundamental doctrine of E. Kant. Thus the natural philosophy of 

 our time is personified iu the names of Kant, E. Mayer, and Cai not. 

 It would be derogatory to doctrines so universal and so thoroughly 

 verified in the physical world should they be confined here and remain 

 without value in the science of life. Such a supposition would be con- 

 trary to that spirit of generalization which is essentially the scientific 

 spirit, and which consists in a belief in the existence, the constancy, 

 and the extension of elementary laws. 



Scientists have always proceeded in one way under such circum- 

 stances. They have applied the most general laws of contemporary 

 physics to the phenomena of life, a procedure which has been found 

 legitimate and productive of results abundantly verified by experi- 

 mental data when applied to really fundamental laws, but most unfor- 

 tunate and attended with a still more gross materialism when falsely 

 carried on. For Descartes, the body was a machine functionally sup- 

 plied according to the laws of natural philosophy; but he carried this 

 view too far in descending to particulars, and considering the body 

 solely as a combination of springs, levers, presses, sieves, pipes, retorts, 

 and alembics. Liebnitz, on the other hand, was clearly within reasou- 

 ble bounds when he said "The body develops itself mechanically, and 

 the laws of mechanics are never violated in the natural movements." 

 Claude Bernard was also reasonable in applying the general principles 

 of Galileo on the inertia of matter to living beings when he affirmed 

 that the apparent spontaneity of vital actions was only an appearance 

 and illusion ; that the vital phenomena were always adequately caused ; 

 that they were the response to an exterior stimulation and the result 

 of conflict between living matter and the physical and chemical agents 

 which are incentive to the action, but which are always foreign to it, 

 even though contained within the boundaries of the organism. 



Thus in applying to life the general laws of energetics we follow in 

 the path of science and conform to the traditional method. It can not 

 be doubted that such application is legitimate and that experiment 

 will justify the application a posteriori. Such, indeed, has been the 

 outcome. 



The living, like the inanimate world, offers us then nothing but muta- 

 tions of matter and energy. The varied manifestations of activity in 

 the living being, corresponding to transformations of the species and 

 varieties of energy, conform to the rules of equivalence determined by 

 physicists. In the physical world the specific forms of energy are less 

 numerous. When we have enumerated mechanical, chemical, radiant, 

 thermal, luminous, and electrical energy (the latter with its attendant 

 magnetic energy) we have exhausted the list of actors which occupy 

 the scene in the material world, at least so far as we know. 



Can we, then, say that the lists are closed and that science will never 

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