ost beyond the power of words to
describe. "A chemical laboratory"! Yes; and one which performs most
delicate operations. "Well stocked with catalysers"! And what are they?
Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing
any; discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but
little. "Simple" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation
to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence?
In what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be?
Was all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch
found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about
"energy" and "complexes" of energy and "the creative force of energy"?
To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these
operations of _Nitrosomonas_ are determined or they are not; either they
are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in
either case the energy which is involved must act according to the
conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant
factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is "direction,"
then the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in
what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old _entelechy_
or _vital principle_, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the
other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything
happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy
save us from complete surrender to that theory?

From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being
exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object,
that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy
originally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which
seem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of
"explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put
them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of
grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate
cause.

Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this
distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of
actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of
physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its
transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one