n not-living
objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not
merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of
thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to
now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to
be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn
seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this
matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient
Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others,"
and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the
cosmos as one of "limitless and _ordered_ energy"--we have emphasised
the word "_ordered_" for reasons which will shortly appear--we must
clearly look out for some middle way. "_Ordered_," a purely mechanistic
and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "_Ordered_" conditions
are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as all must
admit, entail a Lawgiver.

The alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the
question, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that
Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern
chemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of
the earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: "There is, in
truth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many
unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of
their stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up
the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three
elements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which
somehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that
these unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable
to the organic mechanism" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).

If neither of the classic points of view is tenable, what then is the
explanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief
glance down that blind-alley marked "Element Way." Does some known
element or some unknown element, to which the name _Bion_ might be
given, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium
has only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no
such thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if
there is such an element and if it is really