norganic world while the other
identifies them, but that vitalism regards life as a combination of
chemical and physical processes, with the co-operation and under the
regulation of other principles, while the mechanical theory leaves these
other principles out.

Notwithstanding the many noteworthy reactions, we are bound to regard the
present state of the theory of life as on the whole mechanical. The
majority of experts--not to speak of the popular materialists, and
especially those who, sailing under the flag of materialistic
interpretation, have their ships full of vitalistic contraband--regard as
the ideal of their science an ultimate analysis of the phenomena of life
into mechanical processes, into "mechanics of the atom." They believe in
this ideal, and without concealing that it is still very far off, do not
doubt its ultimate attainability, and regard vitalistic assumptions as
obstacles to the progress of investigation. Moreover, this aspect of the
problem seems likely enough to be permanent with the majority, or, at any
rate, with many naturalists, though it is obviously one-sided. For it has
always been the task of this line of investigation to extend the sphere
within which physical and chemical laws can be validly applied in
interpreting vital processes, and the results reached along this line will
always be so numerous and important that even on psychological grounds the
mechanical point of view has the best chance for the future. Furthermore,
the maxim that all the phenomena of nature must be explained by means of
the simplest factors and according to the smallest possible number of
laws, is usually regarded as one of the most legitimate maxims of science
in general, so that the resolute pertinacity with which many investigators
maintain the entire sufficiency of the mechanical interpretation, far from
being condemned as materialistic fanaticism, must be respected as the
expression of scientific conscience. Even when confidence in the one-sided
mechanical interpretation of vital processes sometimes fails in face of
the great and striking riddles of life, it is to be expected that it will
revive again with each new success, great or small.(58)

The mechanical conception of life which now prevails is made up of the
following characteristics and component elements. These also indicate the
lines along which the arguments are worked out--lines which glimmered
faintly through the mechanical theories of ancient