331 
to determine the actual outcome of the action of these energies. 
That depends also on the direction in which each force 
operates or each particle moves ; so that there might be an 
infinite number of different results of the same energies, 
according to the different directions of the motions only. 
But the law of the conservation of energy, of which some 
speak as if it bound up all nature in the iron chains of 
necessity, has nothing whatever to do with direction ; and its 
mathematical expression represents the energies as signless 
quantities, that is, as those the direction of the action of which 
is absolutely indeterminate. Indeed, many illustrations may 
be found of the truth that the direction of motions may be 
altered indefinitely, and the nature of the work done 
changed to any extent, without any expenditure of energy. 
This law, then, of the conservation of energy does not touch 
the very principle that determines the ultimate outcome of the 
energies employed.* 
34. Whether life modifies the result of energies by affecting 
the direction of motion, or, which is possibly the same thing, 
by transforming one kind of energy into another, or in any 
other way, does not signify ; at all events, the fact remains, 
that living organisms introduced into inanimate material affect 
it most extensively, so that the results are totally different 
from those which would be produced if those organisms were 
not there, although not the least change be made in the 
sum of the energies. This, which is sufficiently apparent 
even in regard to the lower forms of organic life, is even more 
evident when we consider the development and action ot 
animal life, to which the same principles apply. The 
ai’gument is not affected by the question whether or not 
animals are altogether the creatures of their own environments. 
Whatever may determine them, they, without doubt, very 
largely affect and modify the operations of physical laws in 
* I am aware that an illustration, somewhat similar to this which I haV6 
given, or rather the inference from it as to the influence of Life and Will in 
the physical universe, is rejected by the authors of the Unseen Universe on 
the strange ground of th§ confusion which it would cause in the minds of 
beings superior to man, who must be supposed to know all the mysteries of 
molecular action, and, it would seem, regard the laws of such action as the 
ultimate realities in the universe. If it were necessary to give any answer 
to an argument which, characteristic as it is of the authors, can hardly be 
considered serious, it would be sufficient to reply that, from all we learn of 
such superior intelligences from trustworthy sources, nothing would confound 
their minds so much as the least apparent deviation from the most fundamental 
of all laws, that the Will of the Lord God Almighty governs all things in 
Heaven and earth. 
