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THE SCIENTIFIC POSITION 229

mental life, with principles of its own quite different
from those of the bodily life with which it is inex-
tricably associated. That is to say he must be more
than a physiologist of the nervous system.

So, the biological evolutionist must admit that he
cannot trace the evolution of organisms in terms of
the concepts which suffice for inanimate systems. In
so doing he does not dogmatically say that the activity
of organisms cannot be described in terms of mechanism,
he only says that it has not been done ; he only says
that neither physics nor physiology is at present
within sight of deducing the laws of motion of organic
corpuscles from the laws of motion of other corpuscles.

There is no reason why he should stand aloof from
the theory that inorganic and organic evolution
are continuous, in other words from the theory of
the spontaneous generation of living matter at an
appropriate time in the Earth's history—a theory which
is suggested by many facts. If that is a legitimate
theory it increases our respect for what we call the
inanimate, but it does not make our biological evolu-
tionism any easier, nor are we any nearer explaining
life. The organism remains what it is, a living creature
with a behaviour which we are unable to redescribe
in terms of mechanism. And inanimate matter re-
mains what it is, except that we should be able to say
definitely that it had once given origin to living
matter and might conceivably do so again. There
would be no gain in adding to the properties of
matter a mysterious "capacity-of-sharing-in-the-spon-
taneous-generation-of-life."

Let us state the position once more. When one of
the higher animals, in the course of its development,



	THE SCIENTIFIC POSITION 229 mental life, with principles of its own quite different from those of the bodily life with which it is inex- tricably associated. That is to say he must be more than a physiologist of the nervous system. So, the biological evolutionist must admit that he cannot trace the evolution of organisms in terms of the concepts which suffice for inanimate systems. In so doing he does not dogmatically say that the activity of organisms cannot be described in terms of mechanism, he only says that it has not been done ; he only says that neither physics nor physiology is at present within sight of deducing the laws of motion of organic corpuscles from the laws of motion of other corpuscles. There is no reason why he should stand aloof from the theory that inorganic and organic evolution are continuous, in other words from the theory of the spontaneous generation of living matter at an appropriate time in the Earth's history—a theory which is suggested by many facts. If that is a legitimate theory it increases our respect for what we call the inanimate, but it does not make our biological evolu- tionism any easier, nor are we any nearer explaining life. The organism remains what it is, a living creature with a behaviour which we are unable to redescribe in terms of mechanism. And inanimate matter re- mains what it is, except that we should be able to say definitely that it had once given origin to living matter and might conceivably do so again. There would be no gain in adding to the properties of matter a mysterious "capacity-of-sharing-in-the-spon- taneous-generation-of-life." Let us state the position once more. When one of the higher animals, in the course of its development,