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Updated: May 22, 2025
It is simply from the potential energies inherent in its constituent parts that the supply of energy must flow, by means of which the germ is able to make use of inorganic material from without, to assimilate it and increase its own substance, and, by using it up, to maintain and increase its power of work, to break up the carbonic acid of the atmosphere and to gain the carbon which is so important for its vital functions, to institute and organise the innumerable chemico-physical processes by means of which its form is built up.
He is still inside his chemico-physical explanation to begin with; and, even within that, he still leaves us anxious for the explanation of a number of points for example, as to the nature of the chemical process which accompanies, or is the cause of, segmentation. We in no way press these questions; for similar demands could be made in so many cases; we only indicate that they are there.
Of the more general reasons, which, as distinguished from these chemical or chemico-physical ones, may fitly be called cosmical, the following are the chief. The general law of evolution, if it does not actually involve the conclusion that the so-called elements are compounds, yet affords a priori ground for suspecting that they are such.
The pebbles, though they contain the same chemical elements, do not become active and put out a radicle. The chemico-physical explanation of the universe goes but a little way. These are the tools of the creative process, but they are not that process, nor its prime cause.
The extreme claim is that all instincts, in fact all thoughts and operations, are in the last analysis chemical or chemico-physical. Let us examine this claim for a moment. The adrenals are two inconspicuous ductless bodies situated immediately above the kidneys.
Persons who take the extreme view have never yet suggested that there is a characteristic hormone connected with those psychical attributes alluded to in the chapter of the Corinthians recommended to our notice by Butler. In fact they seem to ignore all but the lower or vegetable characters when dealing with psychology from the chemico-physical point of view.
Purely as a consequence of the chemico-physical nature of the germ, of the properties of the substances included in it on the one hand, and of the implicit structure and configuration of its parts, down to the intrinsic specific undulatory rhythm of its molecules, it must follow that its mass grows exactly as it does, and not otherwise, that it behaves as it does and not otherwise, duplicating itself by division after division, and by intricate changes arranging and rearranging the results of division until the embryo or larva, and finally the complete organism, is formed.
What we do press is this that when an authority comes forward to assure us that all the processes of life, including man's highest as well as his lowest attributes, can be explained on chemico-physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more cogent proof of it than the demonstration, however complete, of the germination of an egg, caused by artificial stimulus and not by the ordinary method of syngamy, even though that germination may lead to the production of a perfect adult form.
It is of special significance that the characters of the more advanced sex frequently correspond to those of a related, superior species, and occasionally to those of widely separated species. Eimer endeavors to explain male predominance "by a more delicate and more developed, i.e., more complex, chemico-physical organization of the male organism."
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