to bring to light the general laws which govern those transformations, and finally to apply them to the detailed study of phenomena. This programme may be divided into four parts.
In the physical world the specific forms of energy are not numerous. When we have mentioned mechanical, chemical, radiant (thermal and photic) energies, electrical energy, with which is blended magnetic energy, we have exhausted the catalogue of natural agents.
But is this list for ever closed? Are vital energies comprised in this list? These are the first questions which we must ask ourselves.
The iatro-mechanical school, on a priori grounds give an affirmative answer. No doubt there are in the living organism many manifestations which are pure physical manifestations of known energies, mechanical, chemical, thermal, etc. But are all the manifestations of the living being of this order? Are they all, henceforth, reducible to the categories and varieties of energy which are investigated in physics? This is the claim of the mechanical school. But the claim is rash. Our fundamental postulate affirms, in principle, that universal energy is manifested in living beings; but, as a matter of fact, there is no reason for the assertion that it does not assume particular forms, according to the circumstances peculiar to the conditions under which they are produced.
These special forms of energy manifested in the conditions suitable to living beings would swell the list drawn up by the physicists. And it would not be the first instance of an extension of this kind. The history of science records many remarkable cases. Scarcely a century has passed since we first heard of
