No. 552] AUTONOMY OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



719 



Analysis of Neo-Vitalism 

 Plate 4 finds in neo-vitalism four fundamental postu- 

 lates about which discussion must necessarily center. 

 These propositions are as follows: 



I. Neither now nor in the future can the organism be 

 explained by chemistry and physics without a remainder. 



II. There is an absolute distinction between dead and 

 living matter; in the inorganic world the law of causa- 

 tion holds, but in the organic causation holds together 

 with a unique law. 



III. The uniqueness expresses itself in this, that every 

 organic process is final (teleological), that is, governed 

 by immanent purposefulness. 



IV. The cause of this finality, in so far as the vitalists 

 are not agnostic, is {a) a psychical factor; (b) a meta- 

 physical factor. 



Postulate I 



Neither now nor in the future can the organism be 

 explained by chemistry and physics without a remainder. 



Nothing could be more physical and chemical than the 

 analysis of the whole universe into a system of electrons. 

 When such resolution has been accomplished and every 

 known chemical element has been shown to be a special 

 case of corpuscular movement, the organic world and all 

 that characterizes it will be expressible in terms of elec- 

 trons if this mode of expression should appear service- 

 able. Would it not remain true, however, that hydrogen 

 is hydrogen, and oxygen, oxygen? Even if these gases 

 were proved to be configurations of essentially similar 

 corpuscles, thev would nevertheless continue to be indi- 

 vidually different, and those so inclined would find it 

 possible to found separate sciences of hydrogenology 

 and of oxygenology, and these subjects would be auton- 

 omous. Does any one conclude from this that the me- 

 chanist is not fit to deal with these matters? Or that his 

 methods are fundamentally inadequate? Yet the argu- 



* Plate, Ludwig, "Darwmsches Selektionsprincip, " 3d ed. 



