e so distorted that the
case must first be clearly stated before we can get further with the
discussion.

The Law of the Conservation of Energy.

Helmholtz's proof established mathematically what Kant had already, by
direct insight, advanced as an _a priori_ fundamental axiom: that in any
given system the sum of energy can neither increase (impossibility of a
_perpetuum mobile_) nor diminish (there is no disappearance of energy, but
only transformation into another form). But even the vitalist had no need
to deny this proposition. The "energy" which is required for the work of
directing, setting agoing, changing and rearranging the chemico-physical
processes in the body, and bringing about the effective reactions to
stimuli which result in "development," "transmission," "regeneration," and
so on--if indeed any energy is required--of course could not come "from
within" as a spontaneous increase of the existing sum of energy--that
would, indeed, be a magical becoming out of nothing!--but must naturally be
thought of as coming "from without." The appeal to the law of the
conservation of energy is therefore in itself irrelevant; but it conceals
behind it an assertion of a totally different kind, namely, that in
relation to physico-chemical sequences there can be no "without," nothing
transcending them--an assertion which Helmholtz's arguments cannot and were
never intended to establish. But before any definite attitude to this
newly imported assertion could be taken up, it would require to be
distinctly defined, and that would lead us at once into all the depths of
epistemological discussion. Here, therefore, we can only say so much: If
this assertion is accepted it is well to see where it carries us; namely,
back to the first-described naive standpoint, which, without critical
scruples, quite seriously accepts the world as it appears to it for the
reality, and quite seriously speaks of an infinity lying in time behind
us--and therefore come to an end--and is not in the least disturbed from its
"dogmatic slumber" by this or any of the other great antinomies of our
conception of the universe. And it remains, too, for this standpoint to
come to terms with the fact that, in voluntary actions, of which we have
the most direct knowledge, we have through our will the power of
intervention in the physico-chemical nexus of our bodily energies--a fact
which implies the existence of a "without," from which interpolations or