ll occur. The way the energy is provided is understood, and
its mode of application is fairly understood; what is not understood is
the way its activity is _determined_. Undoubtedly our body is material
and can act on other matter; and the energy of its operations is
derived from food, like any other self-propelled and fuel-fed
mechanism; but mechanism is usually controlled by an attendant. The
question is whether our will or mind or life can direct our body's
energy along certain channels to attain desired ends, or whether--as in
a motor-car with an automaton driver--the end and aim of all activity
is wholly determined by mechanical causes. And a further question
concerns the mode whereby vital control, if any, is achieved.

Answers that might be hazarded are:

(_a_) That life is itself a latent store of energy, and achieves
its results by imparting to matter energy that would not otherwise
be in evidence: in which case life would be a part of the machine,
and as truly mechanical as all the rest.

Experiment lends no support to this view of the relation between life
and energy, and I hold that it is false; because the essential property
of energy is that it can transform itself into other forms, remaining
constant in quantity, whereas life does not add to the stock of any
known form of energy, nor does death affect the sum of energy in any
known way.

(_b_) That life is something outside the scheme of mechanics--outside
the categories of matter and energy; though it can nevertheless
control or direct material forces--timing them and determining
their place of application,--subject always to the laws of energy
and all other mechanical laws; supplementing or accompanying these
laws, therefore, but contradicting or traversing them no whit.

This second answer I hold to be true; but in order to admit its truth
we must recognise that force can be exerted and energy directed, by
suitable adjustment of existing energy, without any introduction of
energy from without; in other words, that the energy of operations
automatically going on in any active region of the universe--any region
where transformation and transference of energy are continuously
occurring whether life be present or not--can be guided along paths
that it would not automatically have taken, and can be directed so as
to produce effects that would not otherwise have occurred; and this
without any breakage or suspensio