FOOTNOTES:
[1] All this is, of course, the argument of Bergson’s earlier books, Matière et Mémoire and Données immédiates de la Conscience.
[4] Except that, of course, the reactions that are supposed to occur are very complex ones.
[5] The reader may recognise in this argument that of Driesch’s Three Windows into the Absolute.
[7] The principal reason why we do not believe in phantasms is that these appearances are not conserved.
[8] See appendix, p. [369]. Entropy is a shadowy kind of concept, difficult to grasp. But again we may point out that the reader who would extend the notion of mechanism into life simply must grasp it.
[9] Meteorites, cosmic dust, and other small particles moving in the solar system within influence of the sun’s gravity.
[10] Not entirely, of course, but whatever be the transformation it ends in heat production.
[11] Absolute temperature is Centigrade temperature +273. This is, of course not a full definition, but it is sufficient for our present discussion.
[12] It is really necessary to lay stress on the distinction between available and unavailable energy, as it is one which many biologists appear to ignore. Thus, a popular book on the making of the earth attempts to argue that essential distinctions between living and inorganic matter are non-existent. One of these distinctions is that organisms absorb energy, and this author points to the absorption of “latent heat” by melting ice as an example of the absorption of energy in a purely physical process. Consider a system consisting of a block of ice and a small steam boiler. We can obtain work from this by the melting of the ice—that is, its “absorption of latent heat.” The system, ice at 0° C. + steam at 100° C., possesses available energy, but the system, melted ice + condensed steam, both at the same temperature, contains none. The molecules of water at 0° C. “absorb energy,” that is to say, their kinetic energy becomes greater, but their available energy in the system has disappeared. In saying that the organism absorbs energy, we mean, of course, that it accumulates available energy, that is, the power of producing physical transformations. (See further, appendix, p. [366].)
[13] Bryan, Thermodynamics: Teubner, Leipzig, 1907, p. 40.
[14] Bryan, Thermodynamics, p. 195.
[16] This is, of course, the argument of part of Chapter II. of Bergson’s Creative Evolution. The reader will not find the essential differences between plants and animals stated so clearly anywhere else in biological literature.
[17] It is no use saying that apart from the electric spark the combination would not take place, for we do not know that the O and H of the mixture do not combine very slowly, molecule by molecule, so to speak. At all events there is no functionality between the infinitesimal quantity of energy supplied by the spark, and the energy which becomes kinetic in the explosion.
[18] A statement of interest in view of the enormous number of “ferments” or enzymes discovered by physiologists. It would appear that any tissue in any organism is capable of yielding an enzyme to modern investigation.
[19] We have not referred to “psychical secretion.” If we smell some very savoury substance our “mouth waters,” that is, secretion of saliva occurs. If we even see some such substance the same secretion occurs. All this is clear and can be “explained” mechanistically: the stimulation of the olfactory or visual organs begins a kind of reflex process. But if we even think about some very savoury morsel saliva may be secreted. We must suppose now that our consciousness, something which has nothing to do, it must be noted, with energy-changes in the body, can react on the body. If we show a dog an attractive bone it will secrete saliva; if we show it again and again, the same thing occurs. But after certain such trials the dog will realise that he is being played with, and the exhibition of the bone no longer evokes a flow of secretion. Why is this? The whole process has now become more mysterious than ever.
[20] Impossible, in the sense that while we are unable to “abrogate” a physical law, Maxwell’s finite demon could, although his faculties were similar in nature to ours.
[21] Many of Jacques Loeb’s remarkable investigations point in this direction.
[22] Thus to the ordinary woman the sight of a cow in the middle of a country road produces a certain definite feeling of apprehension, which is always the same although the optical image of the animal differs remarkably in different adventures.
[23] We do not find this explicitly stated in this way in mechanistic biological writings. None the less it is implied, and is the legitimate conclusion from the arguments used.
[24] A visual image may, of course, be something that has never been actually seen. But then its elements have had actual perceptual existence in the past.
[25] Or more generally effector mechanism. This enables us to include reactions, such as secretory ones, which are not motor.
[26] The description is, of course, only a convenient one. The notion of individuality, as it is expressed in the earlier part of this paragraph, is an intuitively felt, or subjective, one. It is best called personality.
[27] Societies and civilisations, the associations of bees and ants, or the Modern State, obviously exhibit this differentiation. It is morphological and functional in the case of the Arthropods, since individuals performing different duties are modified in form. It is functional only in the case of human societies. Integration of the activities of the individuals in both kinds of societies is effected by inter-communication: articulate symbols in the case of the lower animals, language in the case of man. If the concept of “orders of individuality” were anything more than a convenient, though artificial, analysis of naturally integral entities, we might speak of the ideal state or the insect society as a “fourth order of individuality.”
[28] “But,” says Weismann, referring to an objection of this nature, “it should rather be asked whether the size of the atoms and molecules is a fact, and not rather the very questionable result of an uncertain method of investigation.”
[31] We know now that this statement is not quite accurate.
[32] It is assumed that the universe is a finite one. If it were infinite the whole discussion becomes meaningless, and we must give up this and other problems.
[33] Its density would be 1/58 × 108th that of our atmosphere.
[34] This description is largely an expansion of Driesch’s “Analytical definition of the individual living organism.” The reader should note also that it includes the Bergsonian idea of duration, and that of the organism as a typical phase in an evolutionary flux, as parts of the description.
[35] It must be understood that some of the things dealt with in these appendices are very hard to understand by the reader acquainted only with the results of biological science. We urge, however, that they are all relevant if biological results are to be employed speculatively.
[36] If the reader does not understand this, he should read Whitehead’s “Introduction to Mathematics.” He should read this book in any case.
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Spelling corrections:
animo-acids → amino-acids
animo-substances → amino-substances
differen tkinds → different kinds
algae → algæ
organsim → organism (x2)
diffusbility → diffusibility
marjoity → majority
hythothesis → hypothesis
execretory → excretory
conconsidered → considered
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