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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLYII 



Quite a different matter would be the contention that 

 the fact of consciousness in organisms requires us to use 

 in accounting for their activities different principles from 

 those employed in the inorganic ; this comes up at a later 



12. Other descriptive differences are sometimes urged, 

 such as the fact that only among living things exist bod- 

 ies that have both individualized forms and complex 

 structure. Few, however, consider such differences to 

 actually constitute ground for vitalism, though they may 

 be held to serve as indices to other differences, that do 

 constitute such ground. Such essential differences fall 

 in one of the two classes, E and F, set forth in following 

 paragraphs : 



Vitalism Based on the Occurrences in Living Things 



13. The differences in occurrences that are seriously 

 proposed as a basis for distinguishing vitalistic from 

 physical science appear to fall into two general classes: 



E. Vitalism based in some way on the appearance of 

 new laws of action in living things, although these new 

 modes of action depend experimentally on the percep- 

 tual 7 conditions there found. 



F. Vitalism based on the doctrine that the activity of 

 some non-perceptual 7 agent must be considered in ac- 

 counting for what occurs in living things, so that the per- 

 ceptual conditions alone do not furnish unequivocal de 

 termining factors for what occurs (" experimental inde- 

 terminism"). 



14. It may aid in understanding the drift of what fol- 

 lows to state first the conclusion to which the analysis 

 comes. This conclusion is that theories of the sort men- 

 tioned under E do not make any valid distinction between 

 the science of the living and that of the non-living, even 



