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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIX 



But does an affirmation of this sort annihilate in any way the 

 specific difference between man and monkey, or diminish the in- 

 terest of science in this specificity ? 



The innumerable attempts of the critics of vitalism to prove 

 by comparison of certain isolated features that the living is 

 nothing more than an extreme complication of the non-living 

 fail, because the analysis in such cases is never exhaustive. One 

 may prove that living and inorganic coincide in many points; 

 he can not prove more. 



I do not see why these points of coincidence are of more im- 

 portance and interest for our conception of the matter than the 

 points of undeniably distinctive difference, even though the latter 

 are as yet unanalyzed. 



The best way to test the validity of an idea or hypothesis is to 

 follow it to its most extreme but logically inevitable consequences, 

 taking these as a statement of the proposition involved. 



If we follow this method in order to obtain an objective and 

 exact formulation of the essence of vitalism (or of its antithesis, 

 mechanism), we can say that what mechanism asserts is this: 

 Whenever a certain configuration of matter occurs or is given, 

 there also what we call "life" is found; or in more popular 

 terms, the artificial production of a living organism from "non- 

 living" matter would theoretically be possible. 



Vitalism, on the other hand, is a standpoint that in last in- 

 stance denies such a possibility. 



It is clear that both the assertion and the negation are un- 

 provable, and as such are matters of faith, not of emprical 

 science. 



If one attempts to give an estimate of the two from the stand- 

 point of science, sympathy must, it appears to me, incline to the 

 vitalistic view, since scepticism is the very palladium of exact 



It is generally overlooked that if one of the two opponents is 

 to be reproved as aggressive, that one is the mechanist rather 

 than the vitalist. The mechanist in asserting that he knows 

 more than can be proved is filled with a scientific optimism of a 

 somewhat frivolous character. 



Yet it is the moderate agnostic standpoint, declaring no belief 



