Sir Oliver Lodge is, perhaps, the most uncompromising advocate of the newer vitalism in England. The following striking quotations will set forth his views:
Life, he maintains, is no more a function of matter "than the wind is a function of the leaves which dance under its influence."[8]
"If it were true that vital energy turned into, or was anyhow convertible into, inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body had more inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that 'these inorganic energies' always, or ever, 'reappear on the dissolution of life,' then, undoubtedly, _cadit quaestio_, life would immediately be proved to be a form of energy, and would enter into the scheme of physics. But, inasmuch as all this is untrue--the direct contrary of the truth--I maintain that life is not a form of { 83} energy, that it is not included in our present physical categories, that its explanation is still to seek."
"It appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which interacts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts guidance and control on the energy which already exists."[9]
"Life does not add to the stock of any human form of energy, nor does death affect the sum of energy in any known way."[10]
"Life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide its transmutations."[11]
"My contention then is--and in this contention I am practically speaking for my brother physicists--that whereas life or mind can neither generate energy nor directly exert force, yet it can cause matter to exercise force on matter, and so can exercise guidance and control; it can so prepare any scene of activity, by arranging the position of existing material, and timing the liberation of existing energy, as to produce results concordant with an idea or scheme or intention; it can, in short, 'aim' and 'fire.'"[12]
"It is impossible to explain all this fully by the laws of mechanics alone."[13]
"On a stagnant and inactive world life would be { 84} powerless: it could only make dry bones stir in such a world if it were itself a form of energy. It is only potent where inorganic energy is mechanically 'available'--to use Lord Kelvin's term--that is to say, is either potentially or actually in process of transfer and transformation. In other words, life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide its transformation."[14]